White House Insists James Clapper Will Not Lead NSA Surveillance Review

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Photo Credit: EPABy Ewen MacAskill

The White House has moved to dampen controversy over the role of the director of national intelligence James Clapper in a panel reviewing NSA surveillance, insisting that he would neither lead it nor choose the members.

Statements by Barack Obama and Clapper on Monday night were widely interpreted as the director of national intelligence being placed in charge of the inquiry, which the president had announced on Friday would be “independent”.

The apparent involvement of Clapper, who has admitted lying to Congress over NSA surveillance of US citizens, provoked a backlash, with critics accusing the president of putting a fox in charge of the hen house.

But the White House national security council insisted on Tuesday that Clapper’s role would be more limited.

“The panel members are being selected by the White House, in consultation with the intelligence community,” national security council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

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Photo Credit: APIntelligence committee withheld key file before critical NSA vote, Amash claims

By Spencer Ackerman

A leader of the US congressional insurrection against the National Security Agency’s bulk surveillance programs has accused his colleagues of withholding a key document from the House of Representatives before a critical surveillance vote.

Justin Amash, the Michigan Republican whose effort to defund the NSA’s mass phone-records collection exposed deep congressional discomfort with domestic spying, said the House intelligence committee never allowed legislators outside the panel to see a 2011 document that described the surveillance in vague terms.

The document, a classified summary of the bulk phone records collection effort justified under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, was declassified by the Obama administration in late July.

The Justice Department and intelligence agencies prepared it for Congress before a 2011 vote to reauthorize the Patriot Act, and left it for the intelligence committees in Congress to make the document available to their colleagues.

“It is not acceptable for the intelligence committee, or any other committee, to withhold critically important information pertaining to a program prior to the vote,” Amash told the Guardian.

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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Friends Plead Not Guilty to Obstruction of Justice

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Photo Credit: APTwo college friends of the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect pleaded not guilty Tuesday to allegations they conspired to obstruct justice by agreeing to destroy and conceal some of their friend’s belongings as he evaded authorities.

Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, both nationals of Kazakhstan who shared an apartment in New Bedford, Massachusetts, became friends with bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev when they all started school at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in 2011.

Tsarnaev is accused of setting off two bombs near the race’s finish line that killed three and wounded hundreds on 15 April. He has pleaded not guilty. Authorities say he was working with his older brother, who died during the manhunt for the suspects days later.

On April 18, Tsarnaev’s friends took his laptop from his dorm room, along with a backpack that had fireworks with explosive powder and a jar of petroleum jelly, federal authorities alleged in an indictment last week.

They say Kadyrbayev had gotten a text from Tsarnaev suggesting that he could go to his dorm room and “take what’s there.” The indictment also alleged that Kadyrbayev later put the backpack with the fireworks and jelly in a trash bin outside the New Bedford apartment after Tazhayakov agreed.

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Teen Jailed for Plotting a Copycat of the Columbine Massacre is now Running for MAYOR of a Utah City

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Photo Credit: APA Utah teenager arrested last year in a Columbine-inspired plot to blow up his high school will find out Tuesday if voters in the small city of Roy will take his run for mayor seriously.

Joshua Kyler Hoggan, 18, says he recognizes what he did was wrong but insists that he never had any explosives or intent to bomb the school in early 2012 when he and an older classmate were arrested. He says his six months in juvenile detention helped him deal with personal issues that plagued him then and says that he’s rehabilitated and ready to lead the city of about 37,000 people north of Salt Lake City.

‘People should trust me because I have proven one thing: That I am human,’ Hoggan said in an email to The Associated Press. ‘I have made mistakes, just like the rest of us. We’ve all made mistakes in our pasts, and I am no exception.’

He faces off in Tuesday’s primary against the current mayor, Joe Ritchie, and Councilman Willard Cragun. Most consider Hoggan a long shot to get through the nonpartisan primary, in which voters will choose two of the three to advance to the general election. Ritchie has been mayor for eight years and Cragun a councilman for six years.

The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.

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‘Duck Dynasty’ Star Reportedly Eyed by Republicans as Potential House Candidate

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Photo Credit: APDoes “Duck Dynasty” star Willie Robertson have his sights on Congress?

According to a new report, Republican strategists are suddenly interested in recruiting Robertson to run for an open congressional seat in Louisiana. The speculation follows GOP Rep. Rodney Alexander announcing his retirement from Congress last week, as a result of his frustration with Washington gridlock.

A special election to fill the seat is scheduled for Oct. 19.

The bearded, 41-year-old Robertson co-stars in the hit AandE reality show and is a self-described “redneck millionaire.”

“My boys want to run Willie Robertson for the seat,” an outside adviser to House GOP leadership told The Washington Examiner, which reported on the interest in a Robertson bid.

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Union-Free America, Beware: Obama’s NLRB Is Locked, Loaded and Ready To Do Union Bosses’ Bidding

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Photo Credit: Red StateIt is now official. Barack Obama’s union-dominated National Labor Relations Board is now up to its full anti-employer potential with AFL-CIO attorney Nancy Schiffer and union lawyer Kent Hirozawa being sworn in, along with union attorney Mark Pearce resuming his role as chairman.

This is the first time the NLRB has had five sitting members since 2003, when Democrats began crippling George Bush’s NLRB in an effort to diminish its capacity on rulings.

While two Republicans, Harry I. Johnson, III and Philip A. Miscimarra were also sworn in, they are in the minority and, as a result, will only be useful for their dissent (which can sometimes be useful in federal courts).

Although Obama’s NLRB had been stymied for a period of time, thanks to the bi-partisan deal cutting by Senate Republicans, union-free employers are facing a more hostile environment not seen for the last 30 years or more.

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FBI Tapes Indicate at Least 5 Alaska Serial Killer Victims in Washington

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska – An Alaska serial killer buried three victims in the state of Washington and submerged two others in a lake there but refused to provide many more details about their whereabouts, according to interviews released Tuesday by the FBI.

The FBI posted more than six hours of videotaped interviews on the Internet that agents, Anchorage police and federal prosecutors conducted with Israel Keyes in the months before his suicide in an Anchorage jail.

The material shows Keyes’ movements across the country before his arrest in Texas on March 13, 2012. However, investigators have had leads run dry on a number of other victims and are seeking the public’s help.

Keyes lived in Washington state before moving to Anchorage in 2007.

In a Nov. 29 interview, just three days before he was found dead in his jail cell from suicide, Keyes asked if investigators had found any knives at his New York property or on a boat he owned in Washington state. He said there were two knives missing from his girlfriend’s home in Anchorage, and he didn’t know where they were.

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Whistleblowers’ Attorney: 400 Surface-to-Air Missiles Stolen from Benghazi Now ‘in the Hands of Some Very Ugly People’ (+video)

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A former U.S. attorney representing Benghazi whistleblowers is claiming that 400 surface-to-air missiles were “stolen” and “taken from Libya” and are now “in the hands of some very ugly people.” He also said the Obama administration is “deeply concerned” that the weapons may be used to shoot down airliners.

In an interview with WMAL radio, Joe DiGenova explained that the stolen missiles also represent one of the reasons the U.S. State Department shut down 19 embassies across the Middle East last week.

He said the development has the Obama administration “deeply concerned” and on alert.

Even more potentially shocking, DiGenova claimed the missiles are now in the hands of Al Qaeda operatives, according to his sources. His sources include “former intelligence officials who stay in constant contact with people in the Special Ops and intelligence community.”

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DOE Defends $100M Grant to Green Company that Now May File Bankruptcy

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The Energy Department is defending its decision to award nearly $100 million to a major green energy company that has been investigated by two federal agencies and says it may be forced to declare bankruptcy.

ECOtality announced the company’s potential bankruptcy in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week. It also revealed that it is under investigation by the Labor Department. The company was previously subject to an SEC investigation into alleged insider trading.

DOE spokesman Bill Gibbons defended the agency’s decision to award ECOtality $99.8 million to build electric-vehicle charging stations around the country.

“The Energy Department’s grant to ECOtality was used for the installation and data collection of charging stations in cities across America where sales of plug-in electric cars are on the rise,” Gibbons said in an email.

“Meant to establish the seeds of infrastructure needed to support a growing market for advanced vehicles, the company installed more than 12,500 charging stations in 18 U.S. cities — or approximately 97 percent of their goal,” he noted.

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Video Stunner: Boy Prays to Obama

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Photo Credit: YouTubeWhile U.S. presidents may very well be the most powerful individuals on earth, the operative phrase is “on earth,” but a string of incidents has developed in which Barack is credited with much, much more.

The latest is an online video in which a young boy appears to be praying TO Obama.

Not for him. Not about him. TO him.

“Thank you for all the stuff that you helped us with. Thank you for taking the courage and all the responsibility for everything you have done for us. And God has gave you special powers and you are going to handle it just fine,” the boy prays.

“You are good, Barack Obama. You are great,” he concludes, throwing his arms in the air and screaming, “Barack Obama!”

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Health Group’s ObamaCare Enrollment Drive Targets States with GOP Governors

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A leading campaign to promote ObamaCare enrollment is targeting 10 states, mostly with Republican governors hostile to the law.

The window to begin enrolling in the law’s new coverage options opens in just 50 days. Enroll America, a prominent nonprofit with close ties to the White House, said it’s focusing on 10 states as it ramps up a massive education campaign that will ultimately cost tens of millions of dollars.

Enroll America President Anne Filipic emphasized that the group’s mission is not to promote ObamaCare politically but to provide nuts-and-bolts information about how the law works and to encourage people to sign up for new coverage options.

“This is not a conversation about politics,” Filipic said. “This is a conversation about what does this mean to you, to your family, to your pocketbook. And there’s such power in that.”

Of the 10 states Enroll America is targeting — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas — nine have Republican governors.

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