DOE Awarding More Than $1.2 Billion in Energy Subsidies Despite Sequester

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More than $1.2 billion in cash payments has been awarded to renewable energy projects by the Department of Energy and the Treasury Department since the beginning of the year, with the majority of them going to solar electricity.

While other agencies grapple with furloughs and service cuts, the DOE continues to hand out 30 percent of the cost basis for renewable projects under its 1603 program, part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Between January 1 and February 14,$1,254,769,726 was awarded to 435 renewable energy projects, 381 of which were to solar, according to the Heritage Foundation.

The 1603 program had awarded more than $9.2 billion to 748 wind projects and $2.7 billion to more than 44,000 solar projects through July 2012, according to a separate Heritage report.

The program won’t escape the sequester completely unscathed. Projects awarded between March 1 and September 30 will be reduced by 8.7 percent.

But the DOE is pressing ahead with awards to green technology. The department also announced last month it will award $150 million left over from a separate stimulus program, 48C manufacture tax credits.

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'Fast and Furious' Called False Flag Op Against Gun Dealers

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Photo Credit: WND

The U.S. government running guns to Mexican cartels is “comparable to the United States funding al-Qaida to make someone in the United States look bad,” according to the author of a new best-seller.

Katie Pavlich is the author of “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up,” news editor of Townhall.com and an expert on the Fast and Furious scandal.

In an interview with WND, she asserted that the Obama administration intentionally orchestrated a “false flag” against lawful gun dealers, the U.S. Border Patrol and Mexican citizens to give cause for more gun regulation.

“This is a situation where the government was creating a situation where they could blame law-abiding citizens, turn them into criminals and creat[e] this false problem that they could solve through gun regulation,” Pavlich said.

Pavlich compares drug cartels to terrorist groups like Hezbollah, and new reports say the groups actually are linked. “This is a situation where [the Obama administration was] willing to put public safety in danger, get thousands of people killed south of the border. The only reason we know about this is because (Border Patrol agent) Brian Terry was killed,” she said.

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FBI Documents Connect Aryan Brotherhood With Mexican Cartels

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

News coverage of the assassinations of Kaufman County, TX Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse, District Attorney Mike McLelland, and McLelland’s wife Cynthia has turned to the alleged involvement of a group named the Aryan Brotherhood (AB).

Considering McLelland was part of a task force that investigated the Aryan Brotherhood, and in light of the recent killing of Colorado prison chief Tom Clements allegedly by a member of a white supremacist prison gang, this theory that the AB may have been involved in the murders clearly has some merit.

Yet in that coverage, the mainstream media has gone to great lengths to label ad-infinitum the Aryan Brotherhood as a “white supremacist” group, implying a racial motivation. The AB, even if involved at all, however, may have been motivated not by a “white supremacist” philosophy, but rather by something more mundane. Evidence suggests that the Aryan Brotherhood has morphed into what is primarily a drug-trafficking gang, and there is a more frightening possibility: that the Aryan Brotherhood is acting as a conduit, doing the dirty work for a Mexican drug cartel criminal insurgency into the United States.

In November of last year, for example, an Aryan Brotherhood member went on the record stating that he had helped smuggle hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine across the border from Mexico. According to the Mexican newswire Notimex, the AB member “stated that he had some important connections with Mexican drug cartels.” On Tuesday of this week, a federal task force apprehended an Aryan Brotherhood “general” who “had ounces of crystal methamphetamine” on him at the time of his arrest.

Moreover, since many Republicans and Democrats seek a compromise on immigration reform in short order, it is not surprising that politicians are themselves ignoring the possible connection between the murders and the Mexican cartels, with the notable exception of Governor Rick Perry. After all, if Americans were to find out that the Mexican cartels are operating on U.S. soil, it would likely change the immigration debate and could potentially delay a deal indefinitely.

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Gov. Perry Says Mexican Drug Cartels Active in Texas, Possibly Responsible for DA's Murders (+video)

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday raised the issue of border security in regard to the recent murders of two state prosecutors.

When asked about the possible involvement of the Aryan Brotherhood in the killings, the Republican governor said it is too early to speculate about who was behind the killings, but added that it also wouldn’t be wise to overlook any angle.

We know the drug cartels are very, very active in our country now. It goes back … to the whole issue of border security and the failure of the federal government . . .

Watch video here:

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Even the ACLU Says Reid’s Gun Legislation Threatens Privacy Rights, Civil Liberties

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

As Senate Democrats struggle to build support for new gun control legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union now says it’s among those who have “serious concerns” about the bill.

Those concerns have the capacity to prove a major setback to Sen. Harry Reid’s current gun bill, which includes language from earlier bills introduced by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, a top lobbyist for the ACLU announced that the group thinks Reid’s current gun bill could threaten both privacy rights and civil liberties.

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Secret House Intelligence Meetings: Internet Freedom Under Attack Again?

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Members of the media and the public will not be able to watch the House Intelligence Committee’s markup next week of a controversial cybersecurity bill, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).

Lawmakers will be allowed to discuss what happened in the meeting afterward, and the committee plans to release information about what amendments were offered and how lawmakers voted. But the public will not be allowed in the room, and the meeting will not be streamed online.

Susan Phalen, a spokeswoman for the committee, explained that the Intelligence Committee often restricts access to hearings and that it is possible that lawmakers will need to discuss classified information.

“Sometimes they’ll need to bounce into classified information and go closed for a period of time to talk,” she said. “In order to keep the flow of the mark-up continuing forward, you can’t stop in the middle of an open hearing, move everyone to another location for a portion of it, and then move back.”

She noted that the committee used the same procedure when it marked up CISPA last year. The committee has yet to formally schedule the markup, but it is expected to happen next Wednesday.

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Video: 'Pretty Stupid' Lead Sponsor of House Gun Legislation Has No Idea How They Work

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Photo Credit: RJ Sangosti

Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette has been the lead sponsor on a federal ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines in two Congresses, saying it’s one of her top priorities.

But Tuesday at a Denver Post forum on the gun control debate, the senior congresswoman from Denver appeared to not understand how guns work. [She also mocked a senior citizen. See that video HERE]

Asked how a ban on magazines holding more than 15 rounds would be effective in reducing gun violence, DeGette said:

“I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now they’re going to shoot them, so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available.”

What she didn’t appear to understand is that a magazine can be reloaded with more bullets. According to the Shooter’s Log, only early on were magazines for AR-15s designed to be disposable, but the military changed that and now magazines are used several times. In handguns, a magazine is designed to be reused hundreds of times.

Watch the video here:

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Media Covers up Democrat-Backed Planned Parenthood’s Support for Infanticide

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

For almost as long as there have been two parties, there have been accusations of mainstream media bias. Conservatives know it’s real. Liberals insist it’s imagined. Bias is evident not only in how events are covered but also in what is covered—and more importantly what is not covered.

Consider two events from last week. First, in North Dakota the governor signed into law bills that would ban abortions when a fetal heartbeat is present and when the procedure is sought solely because of the baby’s genetics. The media, including most major outlets, went into a frenzy to stir up controversy, often casting pro-life conservatives in a negative light.

Then later in the week in Florida, lawmakers held a hearing about a bill to protect the lives of babies born during an attempted abortion procedure. The bill requires the abortionist to provide medical care to the newborn. It might seem obvious that a newborn should be cared for—but not to Planned Parenthood.

They sent a lobbyist to the Florida legislature to testify in opposition to the bill. Here are some excerpts between the legislators and the lobbyist, Alisa LaPolt Snow, published earlier in the Weekly Standard. They pretty much speak for themselves.

Rep. Jim Boyd: “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”

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Poll: Support Rising for Hillary Clinton in 2016

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Hillary Clinton has hit a new high in support for a potential presidential run.

Sixty-four percent of Democratic voters surveyed by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) support the former secretary of State as the party’s nominee for president in 2016, with every other potential candidate trailing by huge margins. Vice President Biden, in second, got only 18 percent support.

Clinton has majority support among every age group polled, nearly every ethnic group and both men and women, as well as a majority of support from liberals and moderates.

But a Clinton run isn’t a sure thing, and if she decides against it, Biden’s a shoe-in for the nomination, taking 49 percent support to Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) 11 percent support. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo takes 10 percent support, and every other candidate is in single digits.

Clinton fares better than Biden against every potential GOP contender tested, leading all of them by margins ranging from four percentage points to seven. Among the top four GOP contenders, Biden leads Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), but by slighter margins than Clinton, and he trails New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie by nine percentage points.

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Two Female Marines Fail to Pass All-Male Infantry Course

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Photo Credit: Lance Cpl. Vincent White

Two female Marine lieutenants have failed in their bid to complete the Corps’ grueling, all-male Infantry Officer Course (IOC). The women’s recent washout after only a few days in the course follows the failure of two other female officers attempting to complete the same program in October.

The Corps now stands 0-4 in its search to find female Marines who have the physical strength and endurance to complete one of the most rigorous infantry schools in the military, located at the Quantico, Va., base.

Of 110 lieutenants in the first phase of the course, called the Combat Entrance Test, 14 failed, including the only two women, according to the Marine Corps Times.

“We will continue to solicit women to take part in the IOC program,” Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Richard Ulsh told The Washington Times. “I don’t know how [the failures] could stretch to mean something broader than what you’ve got.”

In January, then-Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, announced that the Pentagon had lifted a longtime ban on women serving in direct land combat jobs in infantry, armor and special operations units.

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