Obama: Republicans’ Message is Like “Groundhog Day,” But Not Funny (+video)

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

It was officially billed as a speech to promote raising the minimum wage, but President Obama’s trip to the University of Michigan Wednesday had all the hallmarks of a campaign pitch – one that the nation will likely hear several more times as the midterm elections approach.

There was a laundry list of achievements (economic recovery, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, signing 7.1 million people up for health care), a recitation of the rest of the Democratic agenda (paycheck fairness, expanding college affordability) and a nod to the local restaurant (Zingerman’s Deli, an Ann Arbor institution) where the president enjoyed a Reuben that he regretted splitting with his adviser, Valerie Jarrett.

Most importantly for any campaign speech, it included a takedown of his opponent’s agenda. Democrats began to distill that message when Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., released a GOP budget this week full of spending cuts to help balance the budget in 10 years.

“Just yesterday Republicans in Congress put forward a budget for the country that I believe would shrink opportunity for your generation,” Mr. Obama said, arguing that their plan would start with a huge tax cut for the wealthy at the expense of less fortunate members of society. In particular, he highlighted cuts to the Pell Grant program and a repeal of the health care law, which would jeopardize the ability of young people to stay on their parents’ insurance.

Read more from this story HERE.

Coulter: MILLIONAIRES NEED YOUR HELP!

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Last Sunday, The New York Times published a front-page article about the heartfelt need of California farmers for more illegal aliens.

The first tip-off that heinous public policy ideas were coming was that the Times introduced farmer Chuck Herrin, owner of a farm-labor contracting company, as a “lifelong Republican.” That’s Times-speak for “liberal.”

Herrin admitted that he employs a lot of illegal aliens and bitterly complained that they lived in fear of “Border Patrol and deportations.” (But, apparently, he doesn’t live in fear of admitting he’s violating our immigration laws.)

Sorry that running a country inconveniences you, Chuck.

He said his illegal alien employees deserved amnesty because if “we keep them here and not do anything for them once they get old, that’s really extortion.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Ex-CIA Boss Morell Gives Unorthodox Reasons for Omitting Key Benghazi Details

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

In his opening statement during highly anticipated testimony Wednesday on Benghazi, former CIA deputy director Michael Morell claimed to be an intelligence professional who was willing to lay out the facts — no matter how damaging.

“I take very seriously the allegations about how the CIA in general and about how I in particular handled the analysis and the talking points,” Morell told the House Intelligence Committee, in his first public testimony on the Benghazi attacks. “The ethical code under which intelligence officers carry out their responsibilities calls for total objectivity.”

But Morell’s own testimony would appear to undercut that statement.

Early on, Morell made a startling claim about the so-called “talking points,” the faulty narrative that initially blamed a protest for the attack.

On the talking points, Morell said he dropped information about CIA security warnings — which were factual and accurate — because he thought it would be unprofessional to embarrass then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Read more from this story HERE.

Bill Clinton Says We May Not Be Alone

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Trev vG / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Trev vG / Creative Commons

During an appearance on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Wednesday, the 42nd president was pressed by host Jimmy Kimmel about whether he saw any classified information while in office proving the existence of aliens.

While Clinton said he had “all the Roswell papers reviewed” and found no clear evidence that aliens exist, he also said he wouldn’t be shocked if intelligent life exists outside our planet or even if extraterrestrials one day visit Earth.

“We know now we live in an ever-expanding universe,” Clinton said. “We know that there are billions of stars and planets literally out there — and the universe is getting bigger. We know from our fancy telescopes that just in the last two years more than 20 planets have been identified outside our solar system that seem to be far enough away from their suns — and dense enough — that they might be able to support some form of life.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Senate Committee Votes to Declassify Parts of CIA Torture Report

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: J Scott Applewhite/AP

Photo Credit: J Scott Applewhite/AP

After years of inquiry, $40m in expenses and an unprecedented clash with the Central Intelligence Agency, the Senate intelligence committee voted on Thursday to declassify portions of a study into the agency’s use of torture on detainees suspected of being involved in terrorism.

The landmark 11-3 vote now places the Obama administration back at the center of an inherited controversy that it has sought for over five years to escape.

That controversy has immediate implications for the military tribunals of the 9/11 defendants at Guantánamo Bay, several of whom were subjected to the abuse.

Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein of California, a public champion of the investigation, called its findings “shocking” and the CIA’s behavior “in stark contrast to our values as a nation”.

“This nation admits its errors, as painful as they may be,” Feinstein said in a short statement following the vote, which took place in a secret session.

Read more from this story HERE.

Most Illegals Have ‘Close to Zero’ Chance of Being Deported…

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: John Moore / Getty Images

Photo Credit: John Moore / Getty Images

Immigration activists have sharply criticized President Obama for a rising volume of deportations, labeling him the “deporter in chief” and staging large protests that have harmed his standing with some Latinos, a key group of voters for Democrats.

But the portrait of a steadily increasing number of deportations rests on statistics that conceal almost as much as they disclose. A closer examination shows that immigrants living illegally in most of the continental U.S. are less likely to be deported today than before Obama came to office, according to immigration data.

Expulsions of people who are settled and working in the United States have fallen steadily since his first year in office, and are down more than 40% since 2009.

On the other side of the ledger, the number of people deported at or near the border has gone up — primarily as a result of changing who gets counted in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s deportation statistics.

The vast majority of those border crossers would not have been treated as formal deportations under most previous administrations. If all removals were tallied, the total sent back to Mexico each year would have been far higher under those previous administrations than it is now.

Read more from this story HERE.

FDA Approves ‘Easy-to-Use’ Heroin Overdose Antidote

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration approved a device on Thursday that reverses the effects of overdoses from opioids, including heroin and prescription painkillers.

Called Evzio, the injection-style device administers the drug naloxone.

Naloxone has long been used in ambulances and emergency rooms to treat opioid overdoses. Now Evzio allows caregivers, family members and non-medical personnel to keep naloxone on hand, according to the FDA. The device requires a prescription.

Evzio is injected into the muscle or under the skin. When the device is turned on, verbal instructions tell the user how to deliver the medication.

Naloxone is effective because it reverses the slowed-down breathing that leads to death during an overdose, writes Douglas Throckmorton, deputy director for regulatory programs with the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a blog post.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s NSA Overhaul Requires Phone Carriers to Store More Data

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERS / JIM URQUHART

Photo Credit: REUTERS / JIM URQUHART

President Barack Obama’s plan for overhauling the National Security Agency’s phone surveillance program could force carriers to collect and store customer data that they are not now legally obliged to keep, according to U.S. officials.

One complication arises from the popularity of flat-rate or unlimited calling plans, which are used by the vast majority of Americans.

While the Federal Communications Commission requires phone companies to retain for 18 months records on “toll” or long-distance calls, the rule’s application is vague for subscribers of unlimited phone plans because they do not get billed for individual calls.

That could change if the Obama administration pushes through with a proposal to require carriers – instead of the NSA – to collect and store phone metadata, which includes dialed numbers and call lengths but not the content of conversations. Under the administration’s proposal, the phone companies would be required to turn over the data to the NSA in response to a court-approved government request.

U.S. officials said the carriers might be forced to create new mechanisms to ensure that metadata from flat-rate subscribers could be monitored. They said these issues will require further discussion between the White House, Congress and industry.

Read more from this story HERE.

What a 91-Year-Old Man Has Been Keeping in His Basement Got Him a Visit From the FBI

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WISH-TV

Photo Credit: WISH-TV

When Andi Essex got an eyeful of Don Miller’s gigantic basement collection of artifacts he’s acquired from his travels around the world, she was enthralled.

“It’s unreal,” Essex told WISH-TV in Indianapolis, adding that the “full skeleton is what blew my mind” and that her “favorite” was Miller’s piece of Hitler’s bunker.

The 91-year-old is a veteran, former teacher, and was part of the Manhattan Project which created the atomic bomb — and over eight decades has traveled to more than 200 countries, collecting and bartering for artifacts along the way.

“He’s just a very interesting, interesting guy,” Essex told WISH.

Apparently the FBI agrees.

Federal agents took over Miller’s home in Waldron, Ind., about 35 miles southeast of Indianapolis, on Wednesday because they believe some of his artifacts may violate several treaties and could have been “acquired improperly.”

Read more from this story HERE.

WATCH: Female Campus Reform Reporter Bullied at ‘Inclusive’ Feminist Conference for Being ‘Conservative’

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Campus Reform

Photo Credit: Campus Reform

Campus Reform’s Katherine Timpf attended the National Young Feminist Leadership Conference (NYFLC) — an event which promised to be about “inclusivity” and welcoming everyone — only to be told that “conservative” women were not welcome.

Timpf attempted to ask students’ their opinions on feminism, but conference organizers made an announcement advising participants not to talk to Campus Reform because it was a “conservative” outlet.

The organizers also followed Timpf around the conference to interrupt her conversations with students to tell them the same thing.

“They’re a group that’s conservative, so what we are fighting for is not something…” one organizer told a student who was talking with Timpf, prompting the student to walk away.

Read more from this story HERE.