Update: Mo. State Fair Bans Rodeo Clown Who Mocked Obama

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Photo Credit: YahooThe Missouri State Fair on Monday imposed a lifetime ban on a rodeo clown whose depiction of President Barack Obama getting charged by a bull was widely criticized by Democratic and Republican officials alike.

The rodeo clown won’t be allowed to participate or perform at the fair again. Fair officials say they’re also reviewing whether to take any action against the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association, the contractor responsible for Saturday’s event.

The entertainment during the bull riding contest featured a clown wearing a mask of Obama with an upside down broomstick attached to his backside. Spectators were asked if they wanted to see “Obama run down by a bull.” Many in the audience responded enthusiastically.

Numerous Missouri officials denounced the act after video and photos were posted online. Some Democratic Missouri lawmakers suggested Monday that there should be financial consequences for the fair.

The fair said in a written statement announcing the clown’s ban that he had engaged in an “unconscionable stunt” that was “inappropriate and not in keeping with the Fair’s standards.” The fair’s press release did not identify the clown.

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: Only 11 Percent Believe Obama’s NSA Promises

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Despite President Obama’s pledge to increase transparency and curb certain aspects of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, a new Rasmussen poll shows the vast majority of Americans still need some convincing.

Only 11 percent of 1,000 likely voters polled believe the “president’s new policy” will make it less likely that the NSA will monitor the private phone calls of ordinary Americans.

Thirty percent actually believe the government is now more likely to spy on domestic phone calls, while a whopping 49 percent feel Friday’s announcement will do little to change the surveillance program.

On Friday Obama outlined a number of new steps designed to ease American fears after the June disclosure of NSA domestic spying programs by disillusioned contractor Edward Snowden.

Among those was a push to revise and clarify Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the controversial provision that the NSA uses to justify the boundless collection of cellphone metadata.

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UNRWA Investigating Jordanian Official Who Quoted Hitler

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The United Nations’ refugee arm has launched an investigation into one of its top Jordanian officials after he posted on his Facebook page a “motivational” poster featuring Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Dr. Fares Haider, reportedly the dean of education at the U.N.’s Relief Works Agency’s (UNRWA) educational facilities in Jordan, posted on his “official” Facebook page a picture of Hitler saluting, along with a quote from the Nazi leader.

UNRWA, which is primarily funded by the United States, is responsible for the education of some 485,000 Palestinian children throughout the Middle East.

“Military rules for success … Assad Allah good morning all,” Haider wrote along with the picture, according to the Israel-based Center for Near East Policy Research.

The text accompanying Hitler’s image reads: “The two most important rules in order to be successful—the first: never give up. The second: remember the first rule,” according to a report and translation performed by pro-Israel blogger Elder of Ziyon.

Read more from this story HERE.

Jihadist Leader to U.S.: ‘Islam is Coming’

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Photo Credit: WNDDuring a radio interview Sunday, a representative of al-Qaida in the Gaza Strip sent a message to the United States: “Islam is coming and there is no other choice.”

That sentiment was expressed by Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadiya Salafiya in the Gaza Strip, speaking on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s WABC Radio.

Jihadiya Salafiya represents al-Qaida in the Gaza Strip.

Saqer further stated that after battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the thousands of foreign jihadists currently in Syria could turn their ire on what he called the many other “enemies of Islam,” including Israel and the United States.

Saqer did not say the spread of Islam in the U.S. will come through violence.

Read more from this story HERE.

The NSA is Turning the Internet into a Total Surveillance System

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Photo Credit: Roger ToothBy Alexander Abdo and Patrick Toomey

Another burst of sunlight permeated the National Security Agency’s black box of domestic surveillance last week.

According to the New York Times, the NSA is searching the content of virtually every email that comes into or goes out of the United States without a warrant. To accomplish this astonishing invasion of Americans’ privacy, the NSA reportedly is making a copy of nearly every international email. It then searches that cloned data, keeping all of the emails containing certain keywords and deleting the rest – all in a matter of seconds.

If you emailed a friend, family member or colleague overseas today (or if, from abroad, you emailed someone in the US), chances are that the NSA made a copy of that email and searched it for suspicious information.

The NSA appears to believe this general monitoring of our electronic communications is justified because the entire process takes, in one official’s words, “a small number of seconds”. Translation: the NSA thinks it can intercept and then read Americans’ emails so long as the intrusion is swift, efficient and silent.

That is not how the fourth amendment works.

Read more from this story HERE.

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N.S.A. Said to Search Content of Messages to and From U.S.

By Charlie Savage

The National Security Agency is searching the contents of vast amounts of Americans’ e-mail and text communications into and out of the country, hunting for people who mention information about foreigners under surveillance, according to intelligence officials.

The N.S.A. is not just intercepting the communications of Americans who are in direct contact with foreigners targeted overseas, a practice that government officials have openly acknowledged. It is also casting a far wider net for people who cite information linked to those foreigners, like a little used e-mail address, according to a senior intelligence official.

While it has long been known that the agency conducts extensive computer searches of data it vacuums up overseas, that it is systematically searching — without warrants — through the contents of Americans’ communications that cross the border reveals more about the scale of its secret operations.

It also adds another element to the unfolding debate, provoked by the disclosures of Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, about whether the agency has infringed on Americans’ privacy as it scoops up e-mails and phone data in its quest to ferret out foreign intelligence.

Government officials say the cross-border surveillance was authorized by a 2008 law, the FISA Amendments Act, in which Congress approved eavesdropping on domestic soil without warrants as long as the “target” was a noncitizen abroad. Voice communications are not included in that surveillance, the senior official said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Tea Party Returns to More Solid Ground, Midterm Challenges to Democrats and Republicans

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Photo Credit: APThe Tea Party is getting back on more solid ground — midterm elections where in 2010 the fledgling, grassroots movement unseated so-called “Washington insiders” and helped Republicans win control of the House.

The loosely-knit coalition of groups has already targeted some of the Republican Party’s most established candidates, accusing them of compromising their conservative principles in negotiating with Democrats.

The Tea Party Express even boasted this winter that promising to mount a primary challenge against Georgia Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss forced him to retire instead of seeking a third term.

“Lest anyone think this decision is about a primary challenge, I have no doubt that had I decided to be a candidate, I would have won re-election,” responded Chambliss, who was part of a bipartisan Senate group that tried to reduce the national debt.

One of the most recent, high-profile Tea Party challenges is in South Carolina, where Nancy Mace, the first female graduate of The Citadel, is trying to unseat two-term Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, whose efforts to pass immigration-reform legislation appears most upsetting to the movement.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Snowden’s Father Urges Son Not to Accept a Deal with US Authorities

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Photo Credit: Reuters By Alexander Bolton

Lon Snowden, the father of accused spy Edward Snowden, is urging his son not to take a deal with U.S. authorities to allow his return from Russia.

Snowden, appearing on ABC’s “This Week” with his attorney, said his son should fight espionage charges at a public trial.

“What I would like is for this to be vetted in open court for the American people to have all the facts,” he said. “What I have seen is much political theater.”

His attorney, Bruce Fein, said Snowden would be traveling to Moscow “very soon” to visit his son.

“We intend to visit with Edward and suggest criminal defense attorneys who have got experience in Espionage Act prosecutions,” Fein said, noting there have been only ten such prosecutions in the past century.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Hayden labels Snowden a ‘defector’

By Caitlin Emma

Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, the former NSA and CIA director, classified Edward Snowden as a “defector” on Sunday, saying “traitor” was too narrowly defined by the Constitution.

“We used to have a word, for somebody who stole our secrets, who got the job to steal our secrets, and then he moved to a foreign country with those secrets and made them public. It wasn’t ‘whistleblower.’ It was ‘defector.’ And I actually think that’s a very good word for him,” Hayden said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Read more from this story HERE.

NSA and DOJ Mum on Investigation into al-Qaida Conference Call Leak

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller Neither the National Security Agency nor the Department of Justice will say whether the government plans to investigate intelligence leaks about al-Qaida’s so-called Legion of Doom conference call.

The NSA declined The Daily Caller’s request for comment about whether an internal investigation into the leaks had been initiated. The DOJ did not respond to the Daily Caller’s multiple requests for comment by the time of publication.

There is currently little indication, however, that the federal government is investigating the three anonymous U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast, or the anonymous U.S. official who spoke to McClatchy, about the intercepted Internet al-Qaida conference call.

The U.S. government ordered the closing of 22 embassies across the Middle East and Africa due to national security threats made during an intercepted Internet conference call between over 20 al-Qaida representatives, including al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Read more from this story HERE.

Head of National Black Chamber of Commerce on Obama’s priorities: ‘This is not America’

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerCommitted to successful black entrepreneurship, Harry C. Alford, Jr. has been president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce since 1993.

During that time, he has spoken out with increasing boldness against the liberal orthodoxy hurting the black community. In 2009, he took on Democratic California Sen. Barbara Boxer at a cap-and-trade hearing, and that video went viral. In this interview with Alford, he continues to boldly confront the politics of government dependency, which he believes stand opposed to the founding principles of capitalism, private property and opportunity.

Alford claims President Barack Obama is hurting black entrepreneurship everyday with entitlements and dependency.

“He’s just after votes,” Alford said of Obama. “And people who don’t know, ‘He gives me a free cell phone, I increase my food stamps.’ That’s not America. That’s not why we fought the British.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Idaho Ground Zero for GOP Proxy Fight

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Photo Credit: APThe tensions dividing Republicans in Congress are now spilling onto the campaign trail.

Ground zero for the proxy fight is Idaho, where the insurgent and establishment factions of the GOP are warring over a congressional seat in the eastern part of the state.

On one side of the divide is GOP Rep. Mike Simpson, a longtime figure of the Washington order who is a powerful Appropriations Committee cardinal and one of House Speaker John Boehner’s best friends. On the other side is Bryan Smith, an attorney who was recruited to run against Simpson by the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group that has sought to push the GOP’s congressional wing further to the right.

Smith is branding the eight-term Simpson as a dusty creature of Washington who has turned wobbly on the spending issues that are near and dear to the conservative cause. Simpson, meanwhile, is stressing that he is, in fact, a conservative while making the case that his experience and seniority are, in fact, plusses.

“Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District is turning into a proxy war for the middle-right of the Republican Party and the right-right of the Republican Party,” said Phil Hardy, an Idaho Republican operative and a political analyst in the state. “It’s already happening.”

Read more from this story HERE.