Gingrich: GOP Must Stop ‘Stumbling Into Next Crisis’

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreNewt Gingrich urged House Republicans to stop “stumbl[ing] into the next crisis” and instead seize the policy initiative by seeking “breakout” policies in healthcare, education, and other major policy areas.

Although the 2014 midterm elections already look to be fought over raising the debt ceiling or defunding ObamaCare, the former Speaker said Republicans must look in a different, more future-oriented direction.

“Instead of sitting around, passively waiting to stumble into the next crisis, we ought to be out there looking at new ideas,” Gingrich told The Hill in an interview.

These new ideas, said Gingrich, cover everything from promoting regenerative medicine to the potential benefits of online schooling and self-driving cars.

Gingrich’s new book “Breakout,” published Monday, argues that America is on the cusp of major technology-driven innovations in most major policy areas. But such a “breakout” requires overcoming the political and bureaucratic “prison guards of the past” who benefit from stagnation, Gingrich says.

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Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Sets Record for Annual Spending by a Federal Agency

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Photo Credit: APThe Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the federal government’s major health-care programs as well as the Obamacare insurance exchange, spent $1,113,178,000,000 in fiscal 2013, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement for September, which was released last week.

That sets a record for the most money ever spent by a federal agency or department in a single year.

It also means CMS spent more in inflation-adjusted dollars than the entire federal government spent in 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the legislation creating the Medicaid and Medicare programs.

In 1965, the entire federal government spent $118,228,000,000 in 1965 dollars, according to the Office of Management and Budget. That converts to $878,824,380,000 in 2013 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.

In 2010, CMS became the first federal agency to spend more than a trillion dollars, when it spent $1,035,783,000,000. In 2011, CMS spent $1,095,406,000,000; in 2012, it spent $1,052,799,000,000; and, in 2013, it spent a record $1,113,178,000,000.

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Tuesday’s Elections Will Serve as Battleground for the Competing Ideological Groups Struggling for Control of Republican Party

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Photo Credit: Ivan Couronne /AFP/GettyHours before its biggest political test since defeat in the 2012 national election, the Republican party is praying that voters in Virginia’s election for state governor on Tuesday prove more like the enthusiastic crowd gathered recently just outside the town of Norfolk.

Aging, overwhelmingly white – despite being hosted by the local Filipino cultural centre – and surrounded by the world’s largest naval base, the core supporters turning out at last-minute rallies like this for conservative candidate Ken Cuccinelli are as loyal as they come.

The problem is, there aren’t enough of them. Shortly before the opening prayer, organizers patrol the back of a half-empty room, gently prodding the elderly campaigners to stand closer together so they appear a tight throng before the watching television cameras. The stark math is mirrored by multiple opinion polls showing that the once-dominant Cuccinelli has slipped more than six points behind his Democratic rival Terry McAuliffe.

Both sides have spent the final few days preaching to the converted in similar small rallies up and down this swing state. Both camps are increasingly more pre-occupied with ensuring turnout among the political base than persuading any last-minute floating voters.

At recent McAuliffe rallies, even Barack Obama and his Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton have warned that the Democrats’ biggest danger lies in a low turnout, a particular problem in the “off-year” votes that follow presidential elections.

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Radiation from Japan Nuclear Plant Arrives on Alaska Coast

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Photo Credit: CBC News Scientists at the University of Alaska are concerned about radiation leaking from Japan’s damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, and the lack of a monitoring plan.

Some radiation has arrived in northern Alaska and along the west coast. That’s raised concern over contamination of fish and wildlife. More may be heading toward coastal communities like Haines and Skagway.

Douglas Dasher, a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says radiation levels in Alaskan waters could reach Cold War levels.

“The levels they are projecting in some of the models are in the ballpark of what they saw in the North Pacific in the 1960s,” he said.

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New Twist in Benghazi Account: Mystery Man with Slain Ambassador

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Photo Credit: WND A four-page incident report written by a private contractor that provided security to the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, adds yet another layer of intrigue to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack.

The report, for the first time, claims that another American aside from Ambassador Christopher Stevens was being treated at the Libyan hospital reportedly controlled by the Ansar Al-Sharia terrorist group.

The American was described in the report by the private Blue Mountain Group as being “black” and shot in the hand. The report says the man was presumed to be “one of the ambassador’s close protection team as both were black.”

The State Department’s Accountability Review Board report, or ARB, detailed what it claimed was the official version of events during and after the attack. The ARB report does not mention any other American at the hospital with Stevens.

The ARB report states only that Stevens’ body was transported from the hospital to the Benghazi airport. The ARB does not describe how Stevens’ body was released from a hospital said to be under Ansar Al-Sharia’s control.

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CIA Made Govt Doctors Torture Suspected Terrorists After 9/11

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Photo Credit: 9/11 photos/flickrA national task force’s review of post-9/11 actions by medical professionals working with U.S. military and intelligence agencies concluded doctors violated their code of ethics by torturing detainees suspected of terrorism.

The 19-member Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers found medical doctors and psychologists, heeding instruction from the Department of Defense and the CIA, waterboarded and force-fed suspects, as well as deprived them of sleep, The Guardian reports.

“The American public has a right to know that the covenant with its physicians to follow professional, ethical expectations is firm regardless of where they serve,” said Dr. Gerald Thomson, a member of the task force and a professor emeritus at Columbia University in New York City.

The report, “Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the War on Terror,” said government-hired healthcare workers “designed and participated in cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment and torture of detainees” after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. The report further states military and intelligence officials told the workers the “first do no harm” clause in the Hippocratic Oath was to be disregarded because the subjects were not patients.

“It’s clear that in the name of national security, the military trumped that covenant, and physicians were transformed into agents of the military and performed acts that were contrary to medical ethics and practice,” Thomson said. “We have a responsibility to make sure this never happens again.”

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Avista Corp. to Acquire Alaska Energy and Resources Company

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Photo Credit: Arthur ChapmanAvista Corp (NYSE: AVA) today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Alaska Energy and Resources Company (AERC), a privately-held company based in Juneau, Alaska. When the transaction is complete, AERC will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avista Corp.

The purchase price at closing will be $170 million, less the assumption of debt and other customary closing adjustments. The transaction will be funded through the issuance of Avista common stock to the shareholders of AERC. The transaction is expected to close by July 1, 2014, following the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other closing conditions. We expect that the addition of AERC to Avista Corp. will be slightly negative to earnings in 2014, and that it will contribute positively to earnings in 2015.

The primary subsidiary of AERC is Alaska Electric Light and Power Company (AEL&P), the oldest regulated electric utility in Alaska. In 2012, AEL&P had annual revenues of $42 million and a total rate base of $111 million. AEL&P, with 60 fulltime employees, serves approximately 15,900 customers in the city and borough of Juneau. The utility has a firm retail peak load of approximately 80 Megawatts (MW) and serves nearly 100 percent of its load with 102.7 MW of renewable hydroelectric generation capacity. The utility has 93.9 MW of diesel generating capacity to provide back-up service to all firm customers when necessary.

In addition to the regulated utility, AERC owns the AJT Mining subsidiary, which is an inactive mining company holding certain mining properties.

“AEL&P’s 120-year culture of service and community partnership is a great long-term fit with Avista Corp. We have found the company to have similar cultural values and focus on providing safe, reliable service to its customers that Avista has held dear for nearly 125 years. We look forward to working with AEL&P’S highly skilled and dedicated management and employees, and to being part of the Juneau community,” said Avista Corp. Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Scott Morris. “This agreement reflects Avista’s strategy to expand and diversify energy assets and deliver long-term value to the customers, communities and investors we serve.”

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Pastor Saeed Abedini Reportedly Moved to More Dangerous Prison

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Photo Credit: Fox News The Iranian-American pastor being held in Iran has now been transferred to a more dangerous prison where he faces life-threatening conditions, according to his family and attorneys.

When a member of Saeed Abedini’s family went to visit him at Evin Prison, a facility in Tehran where he has been kept for over a year, he was told that the pastor had been moved about an hour and a half away to Rajai Shahr Prison in the town of Karaj.

The family member then travelled to Rajai Shahr Prison and was told that the pastor is being kept there, but is not permitted to have any visitors, according to the American Center for Law and Justice, the pastor’s U.S.-based attorneys.

According to inside sources, this new prison in Karaj is an even more dangerous facility, where violent prisoners, typically imprisoned for murder and rape, are held.

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Obamacare Is Obama Unmasked

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Photo Credit: DonkeyHoteyAren’t some of you tired of making lame excuses for him that only serve to make things worse? He has made a mess of nearly everything his policies have touched, and he’s mostly avoided the blame; but he owns Obamacare, and he has nowhere to hide.

When someone with the influence Obama enjoyed upon first taking office sets out to fundamentally transform the nation — and he has the unqualified support of the entire liberal media apparatus, the Democratic Party in lock step, millions of people purchased with government money and/or indoctrinated in liberal universities, and the cudgels of racial shaming and white guilt — the possibilities are endless.

Constitutionalists have observed for years that America has been on a downward spiral as its ruling class has discarded its founding principles — the very ideas that led to this nation’s uniqueness, power, prosperity and benevolence. We’ve known that we could not forever piggyback, with impunity, on America’s system of limited government and its free market economy. Eventually, statist encroachments on both would destroy our prosperity, liberty and power.

But we were thinking in terms of decades into the future, not a matter of a few years. Who would have ever thought the United States would embark on such an accelerated path of national suicide?

At the beginning, people could argue that Obama would usher in a period of prosperity and bipartisanship and that things would get better in America. But after five years of unconscionably reckless federal spending, a wholesale assault on our domestic energy industries, endless abuses of executive authority and other lawless incursions on the Constitution, unprecedented divisiveness and polarization across economic, racial and gender lines, America’s declining power and prestige in the world, an explosion of the welfare state, and the worst economic recovery in 60 years, how can anyone who cares about this nation’s future and the well-being of our children and grandchildren keep supporting this man’s policies?

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John Kerry Smooths Over US-Saudi Tensions on Riyadh Visit

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Photo Credit: Faisal al-Nasser/ReutersJohn Kerry has sought to ease recent tensions between the US and Saudi Arabia, a key strategic ally in the Arab world, highlighting enduring relations between the two countries and hailing the kingdom’s role as “the senior player” in the Middle East.

On a brief visit to Riyadh, the secretary of state said the US would ensure that its relationship with Saudi Arabia was “on track, moving forward and doing the things that we need to accomplish”.

There was much agreement between the two allies on the civil war in Syria, the Iranian nuclear programme and attempts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, also attempted to smooth over recent diplomatic differences, saying: “The fact of the matter is that the historic relationship between the two countries has always been based on independence, mutual respect and constructive co-operation.”

However, he told his US counterpart that “a true relationship between friends is based on sincerity, candour and frankness, rather than mere courtesy”.

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