White House Sidesteps Questions About Releasing Spy Jonathan Pollard

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Photo Credit: AP/Ayala Bar

Photo Credit: AP/Ayala Bar

White House spokesman Jay Carney sidestepped a question about whether the U.S. is weighing the possibility of an early release for Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in exchange for concessions in the Mideast peace talks.

Carney did not respond directly when asked Monday afternoon if he would break with previous administrations, which have emphatically stressed that Pollard not be considered a bargaining chip in any negotiations with the Israelis.

“What I’ll say is that I have nothing new about Jonathan Pollard that I haven’t said in the past, which is that he was convicted of espionage and he is serving his sentence,” Carney told reporters Monday during his daily press briefing.

“When it comes to the Middle East peace process and the work being done with both parties to try to move the process forward, there’s a lot of complicated moving parts,” he added.

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Japan Must Halt Whaling Program In Antarctic, Court Says

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Photo Credit: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP

Photo Credit: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP

The country’s government had argued that hunting whales was part of a research program, but the International Court of Justice ruled Monday that Japan hasn’t generated enough scientific research to justify killing hundreds of whales. Critics said the hunts were instead a way to justify commercial hunting.

Under the whaling program, Japan had set annual “lethal sample size” limits of 50 per species for fin whales and humpback whales, in addition to approximately 850 Antarctic minke whales. But the court said the research program had generated only two peer-reviewed papers that together refer to nine whales.

“In light of the fact that [Japan’s program] has been going on since 2005 and has involved the killing of about 3,600 minke whales, the scientific output to date appears limited,” the court wrote in its judgment.

By a 12-4 vote, the court based in The Hague decided Japan must “revoke any extant authorization, permit or license granted in relation to” its whaling program, “and refrain from granting any further permits” related to it.

The court’s ruling stems from a complaint filed by Australia in May 2010, when it accused Japan of being in breach of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling by operating a system that produced whale meat for sale in Japan, rather than creating scientific data.

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Women Now 33% More Likely Than Men to Earn College Degrees

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

American women born in the early 1980s are 33 percent more likely to have earned a college degree by the time they reach 27 years of age than their male contemporaries, according to the results of a longitudinal study published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The study also showed that women in that age group who started college were more likely to have completed it.

“Thirty-two percent of women had earned a bachelor’s degree, compared with 24 percent of men,” said the BLS. The 32 percent of women with college degrees was 8 points–or 33.3 percent–more than the 24 percent of men.

WOMEN 33 PERCENT MORE LIKELY TO GRADUATE-CHART

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Researchers Claim Holy Grail Found in Spain

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Photo Credit: Eduardo Millo / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Eduardo Millo / Creative Commons

It’s been the focus of theological argument for centuries, but two Spanish historians now claim they’ve found the Holy Grail, the cup from which Christ was said to have drunk during the Last Supper.

The location? A church in Leon, in northern Spain.

Margarita Torres and Jose Ortega del Rio, who have spent three years researching the history of the chalice, co-wrote a book released last week entitled “Los Reyes del Grial,” which translates to “The Kings of the Grail,” the Irish Times reported.

In the book, they detail how they believe the 2,000-year-old vessel is contained within another, antique cup known as the Chalice of Dona Urruca, which sits in Leon’s basilica of Saint Isidore. It has been there since the 11th century, the historians claim.

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Frightened Dem: ‘We Could Lose’ Congress To More Candidates Like Ted Cruz

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

In another sign that Democrats are worried that the 2014 midterm elections may resemble the 2010 midterms in which the Tea Party movement gave the GOP historic gains, Vice President Joe Biden sent out a fundraising email Sunday imploring Democrats to donate to prevent more conservatives like Ted Cruz from getting elected.

Biden and Cruz (R-TX) may be rivals for the presidency in 2016, and Biden’s email on behalf of the Democratic National Committee a day before the end of the fundraising quarter warned supporters, “We could lose.”

“Losing will mean more senators like Ted Cruz, and more Tea Party Republicans in the House,” he writes in the email.

Claiming that he is not engaging in hyperbole, Biden urges supporters to chip in $3 before the fundraising deadline to help Democrats because “the deadline tomorrow is among the most important.”

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Covered California Sends Voter Registration Card Pre-Marked for Democratic Party

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Photo Credit: KGTV/ABC 10 San Diego

Photo Credit: KGTV/ABC 10 San Diego

A couple in the southern California community of La Mesa are not too happy after receiving a voter registration card pre-marked with an “x” next to the Democratic Party from Covered California, the state’s Obamacare exchange website, ABC 10 reported Saturday.

The couple, who wished to remain anonymous, said they have lived in La Mesa for years and have always been registered Republicans.

Now, ABC 10 said, they are wondering why they received the pre-marked registration card.

“I’m an old guy and I never would have noticed it, except I have an accountant that notices every dot and dash on a piece of paper as a wife,” the man said.

ABC explained that Covered California began mailing the cards to some four million people last week after it was threatened with a lawsuit from a voting rights group.

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Report: Obama Admin Released Tens Of Thousands Of Illegal Immigrant Criminals

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

President Obama’s Department of Homeland Security caught then released 68,000 aliens who had previously been convicted of a crime, a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies shows.

The report, provided to Breitbart News ahead of its late Sunday evening release, reviews internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) metrics to conclude that the Obama administration released 35 percent—or 68,000—convicted criminal aliens back into the U.S. general population when they could have been deported. “The criminal alien releases typically occur without formal notice to local law enforcement agencies and victims,” CIS’s Jessica Vaughan, the report’s author, added.

By “criminal,” ICE means people who have been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony that is not a traffic violation. For instance, traffic violations like Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol or even vehicular manslaughter do not count toward this description of “criminal alien.” As for the definition of “alien,” ICE mostly means illegal aliens, though some are legal aliens when they are considered deportable legal aliens—which is possible for legal immigrants who have committed a serious crime, like a felony.

The documents also show ICE only deported a small fraction of the aliens they encountered overall.

“In 2013, ICE targeted only 195,000, or 25 percent, out of 722,000 potentially deportable aliens they encountered,” CIS’s Vaughan wrote. “Most of these aliens came to ICE’s attention after incarceration for a local arrest.”

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Russian Billionaire Backing Sullivan and Other GOP Establishment and Democrat Candidates

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Daily Caller

Photo by Dave M. Benett/Getty Images

A pro-Putin Russian oligarch, billionaire, and proprietor of Access Industries, has taken a keen interest in the 2014 election cycle, contributing hefty donations to establishment Republicans and Democrats vying for congressional seats in 2014, according to OpenSecrets.org….

[Leonard] Blavatnik has teamed up with Paul Singer, a New York hedge fund billionaire who backs increased immigration and homosexual marriage through his federal fundraising committee, Friends for an American Majority. Blavatnik even reportedly attended a “swanky Colorado retreat” that feted establishment GOP candidates in February, according to The Alaskan Dispatch.

Blavatnik contributed $5,200 (the maximum amount allowed by law) to Daniel S. Sullivan, who’s running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Alaska against Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell and Joe Miller. Singer’s Friends for an American Majority also supports Rep. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rep. Steve Daines in Montana. Blavatnik donated $5,200 to each of them as well.

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker also received a total of $13,000 from Blavantik in 2013 — and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee earned $32,400, while the National Republican Congressional Committee got $4,800.

Blavatnik and his wife have each donated $32,400 to the Democratic Congressional Committee. They also supported Ohio Republican Rep. John Boehner ($5,200), New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen ($2,600), Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins ($2,600), Minnesota Democatic Sen. Al Franken ($5,000) and others.

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Senator: ‘There’s No Such Thing as Obamacare’ (+video)

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“Two points if I may, sir,” says Fox host Chris Wallace. “One, then why is Harry Reid saying he’s not going to allow a vote on the fixes? And, two, speak directly and briefly, becase we’re about to run out of time, to Senator Barrasso’s comment that a lot of doctors, a lot of hospitals are being excluded by what Obamacare is offering.”

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WATCH: Christie Defends Appointment of Muslim Judge at RJC Meeting

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus

Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s meeting in Las Vegas on Saturday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie responded calmly, but strongly, to a question about Sharia Law, taking the occasion to address lingering concerns about a Muslim judge he appointed in 2011.

“Sohail Mohammed knows as much about jihad as I do, being an Irish-American kid from Newark, New Jersey,” Christie said of the Indian-American judge who immigrated to America as a child. “It is ridiculous and insulting, that because I nominated Sohail Mohammed — that people some how think that means I’m for Sharia Law. It’s crap,” he said to applause. “And I will not ever apologize for making him a judge — in fact, I’m proud of it.”

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