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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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John Kerry Gets Religion: ‘Climate Change’ ‘a Challenge to Our Responsibilities as the … Safe Guarders of God’s Creation’

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Photo Credit: AP…Kerry was speaking at an event announcing the creation of the State Department’s Office of Faith-Based Community Initiatives.

“I’m convinced that all of you will agree,” said Kerry, “that one of the toughest challenges that we face in terms of global diplomacy and relationships around the world between peoples nowadays, from sectarian strife to the challenges of many intractable, frozen conflicts, to the challenges of simply understanding people–one people to another–or even monumental challenges like the sectarian strife that we see tearing countries and regions apart, as well as the enormous challenges of things like global climate change, which really is a challenge to our responsibilities as the guardians–safe guarders of God’s creation.”

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Edward Snowden A Patriot?

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Photo Credit: APBy Trevor Timm

Does President Barack Obama think we’re stupid?

That’s the only conclusion possible after watching Friday’s bravura performance in which the president announced a set of proposals meant to bring more transparency to the National Security Agency — and claimed he would have done it anyway, even if Edward Snowden had never decided to leak thousands of highly sensitive documents to The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald.

But even as he grudgingly admitted that the timing, at least, of his suggestions was a consequence of Snowden’s actions, the president declared, “I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot.” When you look at what has changed over the past two months, though, it’s hard not to wonder, “What could be more patriotic than what Snowden did?”

First, the results: More than a dozen bills have already been introduced to put a stop to the NSA’s mass phone record collection program and to overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reinterpreted the Fourth Amendment in secret, creating a body of privacy law that the public has never read. A half-dozen new privacy lawsuits have been filed against the NSA. The Pentagon is undergoing an unprecedented secrecy audit. U.S. officials have been caught deceiving or lying to Congress. The list goes on.

These actions have been accompanied by a sea change in public opinion about surveillance. Poll after poll has shown that for the first time ever, Americans think the government has gone too far in violating their privacy, with vast majorities believing the NSA scooping up a record of every phone call made in the United States invades citizens’ privacy.

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McCain: Young Americans admire Snowden, see him as ‘some kind of Jason Bourne’

By Ben Wolfgang.

A deep distrust of government has led young Americans to hold up NSA leaker Edward Snowden as a hero, Sen. John McCain said Sunday.

“There’s a young generation who believes he’s some kind of Jason Bourne,” the Arizona Republican said during on “Fox News Sunday,” referring to the lead character in the Bourne movie trilogy who battled his own government, particularly the CIA.

Mr. Snowden’s revelations — including details of the National Security Agency’s data-collection efforts — have led to a debate on the national security vs. privacy question, and how to balance the two.

President Obama last week laid out a series of proposed reforms to government spying programs in an effort to reassure Americans that their Fourth Amendment rights aren’t being trampled. His proposals include having a privacy advocate argue against the federal government in court, more restrictions on the mass collection of phone records and other steps.

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We Should Not Have to Hold Our Noses

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Cory Gardner was a tea party hero. In the last 48 hours, he’s become a weasel. Gardner bailed on a Tea Party Express event to support Congressman Meadows and Senator Lee’s attempts to defund Obamacare. Cory Gardner caved to pressure from the GOP leadership.

We sent him to Congress as a fighter and instead he’s become a lover of the establishment. It’s a fact and I suspect you’ll now see him try to weasel his words over the next forty-eight hours to claim he’s for full repeal and defunding doesn’t do enough, so he won’t support it — or something like that. It’s what John Cornyn has been saying.

When they can get a pass, these guys will vote for symbolic votes against Obamacare. But when the heat is on, they won’t vote to defund it. How many times have they cast symbolic votes? And now that they have a substantive vote and fight on the issue they fold like cheap suits.

In Kentucky, Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager was caught on tape saying he would have to hold his nose for two years to run McConnell’s campaign. Jesse Benton’s loyalty is with Rand Paul. Rand Paul wants to run for President. So Rand Paul is coddling the establishment and Jesse Benton is working for Mitch McConnell with his nose closed.

Conservatives should not have to hold their noses to vote in primaries.

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Gohmert: President Lied About GOP on Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreRep. Louie Gohmert charged on Sunday that President Barack Obama lied when he said during his White House press conference Friday that Republicans want to stop Americans from getting health care.

“That’s a false narrative. He said that we’re trying to keep people from getting health care. That’s just not true. That is an absolute, blatant lie,” the Texas Republican said. “We’re not trying to keep anybody from getting health care. And whether or not they have insurance under an exchange or not does not prevent people from getting health care.”

Gohmert was appearing on a political roundtable panel on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday with a fellow Texas congressman, Democrat Joaquín Castro, who defended Obama’s remarks and criticized Republicans for “extreme ideology.”

“The fact is you have millions and millions of Americans that can’t afford health insurance. Obamacare is helping people get health insurance. Republicans have offered no other solutions or plans,” Castro said, adding over Gohmert’s objection: “At this point, Louie, it’s just, you know, ideology. It’s just extreme ideology.”

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Destruction of Israel Guaranteed, Ayatollah Says

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Photo Credit: acrollIran’s supreme leader promises in a newly released audiotape the destruction of Israel and Palestinians’ return to that land.

Fars News Agency, an outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards, last week posted an audiotape of excerpts of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speeches to Palestinian officials and others with a title “Palestine will surely become free.”

In the audiotape, which is partly in Arabic, Khamenei gives blessings to those who fight against Israel and says, “Peace be upon the children of our nation, peace be upon the brave jihadists in Palestinian and Lebanese resistance. Today the Islamic world and the whole world are witnesses to great revelations that show change in international affairs.”

The ayatollah promises a restructuring of the Middle East: “Palestine will be free, have no doubt in this. … Palestinians will return there and there will be a Palestinian government … and that is based on the truth revealed by God. A new Middle East will be … an Islamic Middle East.”

Khamenei attacks Israel for defending itself: “They attacked Lebanon – a mistake. They attacked Gaza – a mistake. They attacked those (Turkish) ships – a mistake. These mistakes, one after another, show that the murderous Zionist regime of Israel is reaching the final fall and destruction of its own non-existence.”

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Mark Levin: States Should Call Convention to Propose Amending Constitution and Put Tax Day, Election Day Back to Back

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Photo Credit: CNS NewsMark Levin: States Should Call Convention to Propose Amending Constitution

Mark Levin, the nationally syndicated radio host who served as chief of staff in the Justice Department during the Reagan Administration, argues in his new book—The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic—that state legislatures should use the authority granted them in the Constitution to call a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution.

“It is the only way out,” Levin said in an interview on CNSNews.com’s Online With Terry Jeffrey. “The federal government, Congress, the Supreme Court, the president, the bureaucracy, they are not going to reform themselves, they are not going to limit their activities. Only we can–through our state representatives from the bottom up.”

Levin’s proposal is based on Article 5 of the Constitution, which says constitutional amendments may be proposed in two ways—either by two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress or by a convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. Whichever way an amendment is proposed, however, it cannot become part of the Constitution unless it is ratified by three-quarters of the states.

“It’s time to turn to the Constitution, to save the Constitution, if you love the Constitution, before there is no Constitution,” Levin told CNSNews.com.

Levin says in The Liberty Amendments that he used to oppose the idea of the state legislatures convening a convention to propose constitutional amendments.

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Mark Levin: Amend Constitution to Put Tax Day and Election Day Back to Back

In his new book—The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic—nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin, who served as chief of staff in the Reagan Justice Department, argues that the Constitution should be amended to put tax day and election day back to back.

“I would move tax day to the day before election day,” Levin said in an interview on CNSNews.com’s Online With Terry Jeffrey.

“I think this is very important, because if you’ll notice, election day and tax day are about as far apart as they can get, like seven months apart,” said Levin. “So we’re voting on the promises of politicians rather than the reality of what these politicians have done.”

“In my view,” said Levin, “particularly when it comes to incumbent politicians, those of us who still pay our federal income taxes, we pay our taxes, then the next day we go out and vote, and I think that is crucially important, so we are linking reality to the electoral process.”

Under current law, Americans must file their federal tax returns by April 15 and elections for federal offices are held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

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