FBI Claims it Couldn’t Have Prevented Boston Marathon Bombing, Needed Even MORE Surveillance Tools

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThe F.B.I. has concluded that there was little its agents could have done to prevent the Boston Marathon bombings, according to law enforcement officials, rejecting criticism that it could have better monitored one of the suspects before the attack.

That conclusion is based on several internal reviews that examined how the bureau handled a request from a Russian intelligence agency in 2011 to investigate whether one of the suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, had been radicalized during his time in the United States.

Mr. Tsarnaev, who along with his brother, Dzhokhar, came to the United States about a decade ago from the Russian republic of Dagestan, was killed during a shootout with the police four days after he and his brother detonated two bombs at the finish line of the marathon, killing 3 people and injuring more than 200, the authorities say.

Members of Congress have contended that the F.B.I. should have done a more extensive investigation of Mr. Tsarnaev in response to the Russian request. And they have said the bureau should have followed up with Mr. Tsarnaev after he returned from a trip to Russia in 2012.

But F.B.I. officials have concluded that the agents who conducted the investigation and ultimately told the Russians that there was no evidence that Mr. Tsarnaev had become radicalized were constrained from conducting a more extensive investigation because of federal laws and Justice Department protocols. Agents cannot use surveillance tools like wiretapping for the type of investigation they were conducting.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Promises to Help Congressional Staffers Avoid Obamacare

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: ReutersWashington has been abuzz for months over the fear and loathing that Congressional staffers have for Obamacare. Many staffers and employees on Capitol Hill have been saying they’ll have to quit Washington if they are forced into Obamacare. Now the President is promising to fix it all for them.

At the very beginning of his closed-door meeting with Senate Democrats, the President addressed staffers’ worries that Obamacare will force them to quit working in Washington, promising “I’m on it.”

Currently congressional staffers have 75 percent of their healthcare insurance paid by taxpayers, but if their Cadillac Congressional healthcare plan is ended and staffers are pushed into Obamacare, many Congressional employees fear that their insurance costs will increase by thousands of dollars a year. This cost, many say, will force them to quit working in Washington.

The Republican-sponsored amendment to Obamacare introduced by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) would require that lawmakers and their staffers must be covered by the same insurance exchanges that the rest of America will be forced into as mandated by Obama’s healthcare law. It is this amendment that staffers are protesting.

Read more from this story HERE.

Brent Bozell to GOP on Obamacare: “You Fund It, You Own It”

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: CNSNewsAt the launch of a campaign to deny any further funding for implementation of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, dubbed “You Fund it, You Own It,” Brent Bozell, chairman of ForAmerica, a non-profit 501(c) organization, said Republicans in Congress will be held accountable for their upcoming budget votes.

“This is a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment for Republicans,” Bozell said at a press conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday co-hosted by the Tea Party Patriots. “They better get religion soon.”

“The voters out there are unequivocally fed up with inaction from those who promised action,” Bozell said.

“It’s a very simple proposition,” Bozell said. “If you fund it, you own it.”

Bozell and Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, were joined by members of Congress and other grassroots groups at the event.

Read more from this story HERE.

Newspaper Editor Who Wrote, “Take Your Jobs Plan and Shove it, Mr. President,” Fired

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Twitter The Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial page editor who criticized President Obama’s jobs plan courtesy of a Johnny Paycheck song is now out of a job.

Drew Johnson’s editorial, titled “Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough,” went viral and drew national attention earlier this week when President Obama visited the city.The newspaper released a statement Thursday saying Johnson had been fired for “placing a headline on an editorial outside of normal editing procedures.”

“The headline was inappropriate for this newspaper,” the statement read. “It was not the original headline approved for publication, and Johnson violated the normal editing process when he changed the headline.”

Johnson, who had been with the newspaper for just over a year, addressed his firing on Twitter.

“I just became the first person in the history of newspapers to be fired for writing a paper’s most-read article,” he tweeted.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hacker Publishes “Very Personal” Emails, Bikini Photos, Forces Colin Powell To Deny Affair with Foreign Diplomat

/12 Comments/in , /by

As a notorious hacker seeks to distribute “very personal” e-mails sent to Colin Powell by a female Romanian diplomat, the retired general is denying that he engaged in an extramarital affair with the woman while he served as Secretary of State, though he recently advised her to delete all their online exchanges, The Smoking Gun has learned.

In a statement addressing his relationship with Corina Cretu, a member of the European Parliament who previously held a series of senior posts in the Romanian government, Powell, 76, wrote that he has known Cretu for about 10 years, having first met her “when I was the Secretary of State and she was an assistant to the President of Romania. We occasionally attended the same diplomatic and international meetings.”

Powell, who served in President George W. Bush’s cabinet for four years, said that he kept in touch with Cretu, 45, by e-mail after leaving the State Department in January 2005. “Over time the emails became of a very personal nature, but did not result in an affair. Those type of emails ended a few years ago. There was no affair then and there is not one now,” Powell added…

In the “very personal” correspondence cited by Powell, Cretu calls him the love of her life and describes a relationship that spanned more than a decade. The 2010-2011 e-mails would leave most readers with the clear impression that the forlorn Cretu is writing about the twilight of a lengthy romance…

Early this morning, “Guccifer” added a second update to the general’s Facebook page. It contained a new Google Drive link that led to e-mails and photos–some dating back eight years–that were lifted from Cretu’s newly hacked Yahoo e-mail account.

Read more from this story HERE.

Almost One-Third of Recent Vets Consider Suicide; Felons, Illegals “Treated Better than Our Military Heroes”

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Masterfile/Radius ImagesAn astonishing survey from a veterans group found that 30 per cent of recent military vets have considered committing suicide since returning from active duty.

The Iraq Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) surveyed more than 4,000 of its members, 37 per cent of whom said they personally knew a recent vet who took his or her own life. Overall, 45 per cent reported knowing a fellow soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who has tried to commit suicide…

Fully 63 per cent – nearly two-thirds – said they have veteran friends whom they believe need medical help dealing with a mental health issue brought on by combat. And more than half polled in the survey admitted that someone close to them has suggested that they need mental health care.

[Veteran’s Activist] Ken Wahl, a former Hollywood actor and star of the 1980s hit TV show ‘Wiseguy,’ [said], “Convicted felons and illegal immigrants are treated better and with greater regard than our military heroes.”

In the IAVA survey, 80 per cent of the group’s members said the VA and the Pentagon don’t provide sufficient care for veterans who need mental health treatment.

Read more from this story HERE.

Christie Turns Down Sen. Paul’s Beer Summit Offer (+video)

/8 Comments/in , /by

Ouch. By Fox News. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie turned down an offer by Sen. Rand Paul to join him for a beer and bury the hatchet in their ongoing — and very public — feud.

“I’m running for re-election in New Jersey. I don’t really have time for that at the moment,” Christie said in an interview on a local radio station.

The New Jersey governor said if he finds himself in Washington, “I’ll certainly look him up.” But he added: “I don’t suspect I’ll be there anytime soon. I’ve got work to do here.”

Christie gave Paul the brush-off after the Kentucky senator, in an interview with Fox News, offered Wednesday to make nice with the Garden State guv.

“I think with Governor Christie it’s gotten a little too personal, so we’re ready to kiss and make up,” Paul told Fox News. He said “anytime he would like to come down and sit at a pub right around the corner from the Senate — we’ll have a beer.”

Read more from this story HERE.

_____________________________________________________________

No time for beer, Christie heads to Vegas for fundraising with casino billionaire

By Alexandra Jaffe. For Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), raising money trumps drinking beer.

Christie, who on Wednesday snubbed Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) offer to settle their feud over some suds, is fundraising Thursday at a private event held by billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

News of Christie’s Vegas jaunt comes after the New Jersey governor said he didn’t have time to travel to Washington to share a drink with Paul because he was too busy. Read more from this story HERE.

Hasan Renounces Citizenship, Military Oath in Handwritten Documents Provided to Fox (+video)

/2 Comments/in , /by

On the eve of his military trial, accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan released seven pages of handwritten and typed documents to Fox News in which he appears to renounce his U.S. citizenship, abandons his military oath as a commissioned officer, and explains his relationship with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki — the first American targeted for death by the CIA.

Most of the documents also include the acronym “SoA,” which is considered shorthand for “Soldier of Allah.” Hasan’s business card, also bearing “SoA,” was found in his Texas apartment after the shooting…

The documents may help illuminate Hasan’s state of mind and could challenge the Defense Department’s attempt to deal with the attack in the context of “workplace violence.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Saudi Arabia Confirms More Deadly MERS Cases

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThree more confirmed cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus infections in the Kingdom have been recorded, the Ministry of Health said on Thursday…

The new cases bring to 92 the total number of people who have contracted the virus worldwide, including 71 in Saudi Arabia.

Of the 92 cases registered with the World Health Organization since last year, 46 have died, including 39 in Saudi Arabia…

Saudi and UK scientists studying MERS said the coronavirus is more deadly, unpredictable and has significant differences from severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died.

Ziad Memish, Saudi deputy minister for public health, earlier said: “MERS coronavirus appears to be more deadly, with 60 percent of patients with co-existing chronic illnesses dying, compared with the one-percent toll of SARS.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Kerry Screws Up, Mistakenly Promises Pakistan to End Drone Strikes

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Center for American Progress Action FundThe Obama administration was forced into damage control on Thursday as officials attempted to walk back Secretary of State John Kerry’s pledge to end armed drone operations in Pakistan.

During a diplomatic visit to Pakistan on Thursday, Kerry told Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that Washington plans to severely curtail and eventually end armed drone operations in the country.

The move was geared toward an overall effort by the Obama administration to forge “a real partnership” between the White House and Islamabad, Kerry told reporters after his meeting with Sharif.

“I think the [drone] program will end as we have eliminated most of the threat and continue to eliminate it,” Kerry said in an interview with Pakistani television…

The Obama administration reacted quickly to Kerry’s comments, saying his statements did not reflect a coming change in the use of armed drones against terrorist targets or overall U.S. counterterrorism policy.

Read more from this story HERE.