Father of Shot Man Linked to Boston Suspects Wants FBI Tried

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Photo Credit: Abdulbaki Todashev

The father of a Chechen immigrant shot dead during FBI questioning over his links with the Boston bombing suspects said on Thursday that the U.S. agents responsible should face trial.

The FBI has said that Ibragim Todashev, 27, was being interrogated at his apartment in Florida on May 22 when he suddenly attacked an agent and was shot and killed.

Abdulbaki Todashev questioned that account at a news conference in Moscow, saying his son was unarmed when he was shot seven times.

“I want justice and I want there to be an investigation, so that these people are tried under American law,” said Todashev. “These are not FBI agents but bandits – I cannot call them anything else and they must be tried.”

Todashev showed reporters photographs of his son’s shirtless corpse on a medical table with several stitched-up wounds on his torso and arm and one on his head. He said his son had been shot after eight hours of questioning.

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Self-Funded Candidates Almost Always Lose

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Photo Credit: AP

With the cost of campaigns ballooning, political parties, and Republicans in particular, are increasingly turning to wealthy candidates who can fund their own bids. The only problem is that those self-funders generally lose.

The number of self-funded candidates rose from 78 in 1990 to highs of 223 in 2010 and 193 in 2012, according to an analysis by The Washington Times of candidates who financed the majority of their campaign costs. In previous decades, the partisan split was equal, but the recent rise has been fueled almost entirely by wealthy Republicans.

Yet the results aren’t encouraging.

Of 1,752 self-funded candidates in federal elections since 1990, only 42 have been elected — a success rate of just 2.4 percent.

“There are always some people that think they’ll beat those odds, and some will. But very, very few do,” said Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics.

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Empire State DA: I Won’t Prosecute Cuomo’s New Gun Law

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Photo Credit: Human Events

An upstate New York prosecutor told Human Events he will not go after an individual for a misdemeanor violation of the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act, signed into law on Jan. 15, in a extraordinary two-minute-drill session of the state’s legislature.

“As I do in all cases, I considered all of the circumstances surrounding the summons,” said Columbia County District Attorney Paul Czajka.

“I declined to prosecute one particular offense,” he said. If the DA had moved forward, it would be one of the first attempts to bring a violator of the new law to trial.

The incident in question took place May 12 at 9:45 p.m., two New York State police officers stopped 31-year-old Gregory Dean from Dutchess County on Route 22 in the town of New Lebanon after noticing that the license plate light on Dean’s car was broken, the DA said.

Thereafter, three summonses were issued, said the former Columbia County judge. “Dean was charged with driving with a suspended license; an inadequate license plate; and for unlawful possession of ammunition device, which is a Class B misdemeanor.”

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Activist Cancels Plans for Armed March on Washington

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Photo Credit: Washington Times

An activist has canceled a planned armed march into the District on July Fourth that drew a confrontational response from the city’s police chief.

“Please don’t come to Washington, D.C.,” Adam Kokesh said during an interview on the online “Pete Santilli Show,” saying he could not be certain he would be present for an event in the District and instead urging supporters to march in the 50 state capitals in favor of dissolving the federal government.

News of the cancellation was first reported by the website Media Matters.

The idea of the armed march, which would start at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia and proceed across the bridge into the District — where it is illegal to carry guns on the street — was proposed earlier this month and immediately met resistance from city officials.

“If you’re coming here to break the law, then we’re going to take action,” Chief Cathy L. Lanier said in an interview on News Channel 8. “There is a pretty good chance we’ll meet them on the D.C. side of the bridge.”

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Even After Boy Scouts Allow In Homosexuals, California Votes to Strip BSA of Nonprofit Status

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Photo Credit: Rich Pedroncelli

The California Senate on Wednesday passed a bill that would revoke the Boy Scouts’ nonprofit status because the group does not allow openly gay adults to join.

The Boy Scouts of America voted last week to allow gay youths to join the organization, but it reaffirmed its ban on gay adults serving as Scout leaders.

“They are out of line with the values of California and should be ineligible for a tax benefit paid for by all Californians,” state Sen. Ricardo Lara, a Democrat, said as he introduced his bill, The Sacramento Bee reports. “SB 323 brings our laws into line with our values.”

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Waters Continue to Rise in Galena Flooding

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State emergency officials say more than 300 people have been evacuated out of Galena, or left on their own after Yukon River flooding hit the community hard.

Wednesday afternoon, river forecasters with the National Weather Service said chunks of ice along a small portion of the ice jam — which spans about 30 miles — broke free and released some floodwaters.

Pre-Flood:

Photo Credit: NASA


Post-Flood:

Photo Credit: NASA

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Ann Romney: Government Breach of Trust ‘Deeply Troubling’

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

In her first solo interview since the 2012 presidential election, Ann Romney says the recent scandals have created a “breach of trust” in the country right now that is “deeply troubling.”

“There’s this breach of trust that we as all Americans feel right now with our government,” Romney said Thursday on “CBS This Morning.” “If we look at the three scandals that are going on right now — in particular I saw the polling numbers with how people are upset with the IRS scandal — we have to trust in our government. … When we feel like they’re breaking our trust, it’s deeply troubling.

“It’s hard for the American people to sort through [the negativity],” she said. “How do they know who’s telling the truth? And that’s what I’m talking about, this breach of trust that’s going on. Who do we trust?”

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Unprecedented: FBI Dealt Child Porn to Nab Criminals

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

The FBI seized and ran a child pornography service late last year as investigators worked to identify its customers, one Western Washington man allegedly among them.

Following a lengthy investigation, Nebraska-based agents raided the large child pornography service in November hoping to catch users who shared thousands of images showing children being raped, displayed and abused.

The Bureau ran the service for two weeks while attempting to identify more than 5,000 customers, according to a Seattle FBI agent’s statements to the court. Court records indicate the site continued to distribute child pornography online while under FBI control; the Seattle-based special agent, a specialist in online crimes against children, detailed the investigation earlier this month in a statement to the court.

The investigation appears to mark a departure for the Bureau and other federal law enforcement agencies aiming to root out child porn purveyors.

Historically, child pornography investigations stem from tips made to law enforcement, interactions with undercover officers posing as customers or reviews of documentation seized during searches of child porn clearinghouses like the one recently raided in Nebraska. While investigators are known to have posed as child porn dealers – a 2011 effort involved targeted emails to suspected pedophiles – it is not apparent that the FBI previously dealt child porn as part of a sting.

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Twelve Minutes’ Exercise Per Week ‘Enough to Stay Fit’

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Photo Credit: Alamy

Four-minute bursts of high-intensity exercise such as running on a treadmill, three times a week are enough to increase fitness, researchers found.

Overweight volunteers who undertook the regime for 10 weeks increased their body’s oxygen uptake – a measure of fitness – by 10 per cent and saw small decreases in their blood pressure and glucose levels.

Health guidelines generally state that we should undertake at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise per week in order to stay healthy.

But the new study suggests that just 12 minutes of high-intensity exercise, spread out across three sessions, could be enough to keep us fit and healthy, researchers said.

The team from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim studied the effects of different exercise regimes on 24 men who were overweight but otherwise healthy.

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Syria’s Assad ‘Confident in Victory’ in Civil War

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Photo Credit: AP

Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview broadcast Thursday that he is “confident in victory” in his country’s civil war, and he warned that Damascus would retaliate for any future Israeli airstrike on his territory.

Assad also told the Lebanese TV station Al-Manar that Russia has fulfilled some of its weapons contracts recently, but he was vague on whether this included advanced S-300 air defense systems.

The comments were in line with a forceful and confident message the regime has been sending in recent days, even as the international community attempts to launch a peace conference in Geneva, possibly next month. The strong tone coincided with recent military victories in battles with armed rebels trying to topple him.

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