Sen. Paul Threatens Hold On Brennan Over Armed Drone Strikes

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday threatened to hold John Brennan’s nomination for CIA director unless he receives more answers on the administration’s drone program.

“I have asked Mr. Brennan if he believed that the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and my question remains unanswered,” Paul said in a statement. “I will not allow a vote on this nomination until Mr. Brennan openly responds to the questions and concerns my colleagues and I share.

“These issues must be discussed openly so that the American people can understand what constraints exist on the government’s power to use lethal force against its citizens,” Paul continued. “Before confirming Mr. Brennan as the head of the CIA, it must be apparent that he understands and will honor the protections provided to every American by the Constitution.”

Brennan, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, faced a contentious confirmation hearing last week, as lawmakers pressed him on the legality of using armed drone strikes against suspected terrorists, in particular American citizens.

The increased congressional scrutiny followed the leak of a Justice Department (DOJ) memo laying out the circumstances in which the administration would authorize a deadly drone strike on a U.S. citizen.

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John Kerry Commanding Respect – Russian Foreign Minister Won’t Return His Call

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Photo Credit: Foreign PolicySecretary of State John Kerry called all the foreign ministers of countries that deal with North Korea following Monday’s nuclear test and all but one of them picked up the phone — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Kerry made his first remarks about the new nuclear test, which the North Koreans warned the State Department about in advance.

“With respect to the DPRK, President Obama made it crystal clear last night and previously in all comments, as have other countries, that North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program are a threat now to the United States of America, because of what they are pursuing specifically, as well as to global security and peace,” Kerry said.

“Following their latest provocation, which we have termed and believe is reckless and provocative, needlessly, I called Foreign Minister Kim of South Korea, I talked to Foreign Minister Kishida of Japan, I talked to Foreign Minister Yang of China, and we have placed a phone call to Foreign Minister Lavrov, and consulted with all of them with respect to the steps that we need to take,” Kerry went on. “The international community now needs to come together with a swift and clear, strong, credible response, as pledged in the U.N. Security Council Resolution 2087.”

The now-defunct six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program included the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and Russia. But Russia’s leaders are the only members of that group with whom Kerry hasn’t spoken this week.

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A Bill of Goods : Napolitano Says US Borders Have ‘Never Been Stronger’

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Photo Credit: The National GuardHomeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano insisted Wednesday that U.S. borders have “never been stronger” during a Senate hearing on immigration reform.

Facing calls from the GOP to crack down on the flow of illegal border crossers, Napolitano said Congress should pass a comprehensive immigration overhaul that strengthens security while also addressing the factors that entice people into the country.

“I often hear the argument that before reform can move forward, we must first secure our borders,” Napolitano said at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s first hearing on immigration reform.

“But too often, the ‘border security first’ refrain simply serves as an excuse for failing to address the underlying problems. It also ignores the significant progress and efforts that we have undertaken over the past four years. Our borders have, in fact, never been stronger.”

Republican Sens. Jeff Sessions (Ala.) and John Cornyn (Texas) objected, saying that while border security has improved in recent years, the Obama administration has not done enough.

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Video: CNN Absurdly Asks If Rubio’s Sip of Water Was ‘Career-Ender’

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore“So can a drink of water make or break a political career?” Blitzer asked. “A U.S. Senator, possible presidential candidate. We’re going to find out, whether he likes it or not.”

The fact that a major media outlet could even pose such a question does more to expose the utter vacuous nature of the modern world than anything.

The lines have been blurred between make-believe and reality to such an extent that petulant children in the press demand showbiz at it’s best, while completely ignoring substantive public discourse.

No wonder the media cheerleads a “leader of the free world” whose persona can be summed up by a teleprompter and fist bump.

Serious public discourse, and a real record of accomplishment be damned. Lies, incompetency, and scandal. Never mind. He’s “cool” (whatever that means), and he can read a teleprompter like no other.

Meanwhile, the middle class guy who believes in free markets and seeks to engage in adult conversation is finished. And what did him in? “Watergate,” of course. The guy had an awkward moment on TV, and gasp, took a drink of water in the middle of his speech. So unpresidential!

See the media’s manufactured scandal below:

Visit Media Research Center HERE.

Is BP Cutting Production To Blackmail Alaska?

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Photo Credit: Minale Tattersfield Roadside Retail BP’s tankers occasionally return to Valdez with millions of gallons of Alaskan oil on board, reports The San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, and the Fairbanks News Miner. With Valdez holding tanks 90 percent full, tankers top-off and return again to West Coast refineries that are still too full to receive their loads, because BP’s refining and retail capacity is maxed. Clearly BP is prioritizing just-in-time delivery to meet the maximum market share and profitability of BP’s West Coast refined products.

Alaska’s oil has been BP’s cash cow since their subsidiary Sohio Petroleum became their face in Alaska, in 1970. Before acquiring ARCO in 2000, BP successfully asked Congress to lift the ban on the export of North Slope crude. If BP were truly interested in exporting crude today, tankers wouldn’t be returning to Valdez with oil on board. However, after acquiring ARCO’s West Coast refineries and retail stations, BP’s incentives changed to the more profitable business of refining and retailing.

In 1981, I was in the Legislature when the biggest tax break giveaway ever was voted on; — a tax system nicknamed ELF. Prior to voting, an oil lobbyist told me they were losing so much money on their Alaskan investments, they were considering shutting down and leaving. Sound familiar? Shortly after voting for ELF, I uncovered a well hidden letter to stockholders from Sohio’s president. He explained that Sohio was practically drowning in cash. The letter was written before we gave them their 1981 tax break. –– I copied the letter and distributed it to all legislators, and soon became the first political target of BP’s surrogate, VECO.

In the mid 1980’s it became obvious that other countries were getting far more for their oil than Alaska. Even countries with expensive deep water platforms were making more. Between 1980 and 2000, BP went from the 13th largest oil company in the world to the 3rd largest. They did it with profits that rightfully belonged to Alaska. Profits that would have built roads and fattened dividend checks had it not been for VECO’s bribery and fraudulent representations by oil lobbyists. Given the chance, a jury might find the oil companies owe Alaska a few billion dollars.

BP controls Alaskan crude from the well head to the gas pump. They take Alaska’s oil for the cost of production and transportation, plus local, state and federal taxes. BP’s crude costs add up to about 28 percent less than independent nonproducing refiners pay. The life of BP’s cash cow is extended by trickling Prudhoe’s production; and Governor Parnell’s tax cuts won’t change BP’s incentives.

Read more from this story HERE.

Are China And Japan Moving Closer To War? Japan Proposes Military Hotline With China (+video)

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Photo Credit: extinctionprotocal.comTanks, one by one, moving along a main road in China’s coastal Fujian province. Driving up speculations that the Chinese military may be warming up for war. Local residents took these pictures between February 3 to February 6. At times, the line of tanks and artillery blocked traffic for several miles. And it wasn’t just in Fujian province.

These military vehicles were spotted further up the coast, in neighboring Zhejiang province. According to dissident website, molihua.org, these tanks in Hubei province are being transported from a military base to the coast. The troop movements come after months of escalating tensions between China and Japan over the disputed territory of the Diaoyun, or Senkaku islands and they’re known in Japan. It’s caused international worries that the two countries may be on the cusp of war.

Both sides have scrambled jets and warships in the region. In January, during naval exercise near the disputed waters, Chinese warships reportedly directed their targeting radar at a Japanese vessel. On February 7, State-run Global Times published this article saying there is a “serious possibility” a military conflict may flare up between China and Japan. It continues to say that fewer and fewer people are hopeful for a peaceful resolution to the Diaoyu Island crisis. Are we in a countdown to war between China and Japan? NTD will continue to keep you posted as the situation develops.

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State of The Union Viewership Drops 11% From 2012

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Photo Credit: deadline.comUPDATE, 3:10 PM: The first State of the Union of President Obama’s second term last night was watched by 33.5 million viewers. That’s down 11.3% from the 37.75 million who tuned in for last year’s address across 14 broadcast and cable networks. It’s also a State of the Union low for Obama, who has seen a decline every year since his first official SOTU in 2010 was watched by 48 million.

It is not an all-time low since Nielsen started tracking SOTUs in 1993; that goes to Bill Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union when the he was in the last year of his administration — that speech got just 31.478 million. This year’s speech was live from around 9-10:15 PM ET on 15 networks and tape-delayed on Univision. NBC was tops among broadcast networks with 6.469 million total viewers, just ahead of the 6.4 million CBS pulled in.

With 3.683 million watching, Fox News Channel was No. 1 among cable news’ coverage of last night’s speech. However, CNN won in the key adults 25-54 demographic with 1.436 million. Fox News’ total viewership dipped 3% from last year. Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Azteca, Univision, MundoFox, CNBC, CNN, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Current, Centric and Galavision all carried the speech live last night.

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Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown Signs On With Fox News

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerThe Fox News Channel confirmed Wednesday that it would be enlisting former Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown as an on-air contributor.

“Sen. Brown’s dedication to out-of-the box thinking on key issues makes him an important voice in the country and we are looking forward to his contributions across all Fox News platforms,” Bill Shine, Executive Vice President of Programming for Fox News, said.

Brown, known for defeating Democratic Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley to fill the seat held by long-time Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2010, declined to make another run at the Senate seat vacated by recently confirmed Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this month.

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The Broke, Retreating State of Our Union

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Photo Credit: National Review It is terribly appropriate that President Obama gave his halting and graceless State of the Union address on Mardi Gras: He spent the evening shouting “Laissez les bons temps rouler!” at every liberal constituency in sight, promising new spending for public-sector unions (“Fix-It-First”), demanding (yet again) that banks renegotiate mortgages on politically driven terms, offering handouts to Al Gore–style enviropreneurs (reviving cap-and-trade, offering yet more subsidies to politically connected energy firms), and promising a $9-an-hour minimum wage.

In the real world, Fat Tuesday is followed by Ash Wednesday and a season of fasting and penance. For the free-spending Barack Obama, Fat Tuesday is followed by Fat Wednesday, Fat Thursday, Fat Friday, fat federal spending the whole way through. (Don’t tell the first lady.) Austerity is reserved for the taxpayer, the so-called rich on whom the president just secured tax increases before demanding, two minutes later, yet more tax increases. That includes new taxes on Medicare recipients (“ask more from the wealthiest seniors”).

Exhibiting the new liberal vogue for jingoism, the president blamed our economic straits on China three times in the first part of the speech, turned up his nose at imported cars, and abominated the always-popular scourge of “foreign oil.” (Blast you, Canada!) But a $9-an-hour minimum wage is a boon to a Chinese manufacturing sector still dependent upon cheap labor, and expensive emission controls make overseas industries relatively competitive, while one of the biggest threats to U.S.-made cars and U.S.-produced oil is the raft of new environmental regulations the president says he wishes to see enacted.

The high-income may sigh at the tax proposals, but the president’s proposals weigh particularly heavily upon the low-income young. They will have to pay his debt. They will also be the ones most affected by the proposal to raise the minimum wage: The result of artificial wages increases, as economists have documented over and over, is fewer jobs. The president proposes to cut the bottom rung off the economic ladder, which is of much more concern to those born at the bottom.

The president has a strange sense of language. The word “economy” used to be a synonym for “thrift.” Barack Obama has managed to turn that on its head. His speech gave every indication that he remains a hostage to the superstition that we can spend our way to national prosperity — or that we can pass laws that will force employers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and other businesses to spend our way to prosperity for us. That has failed for four years because it is bad economics and wishful thinking.

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Rubio: More Government Breeds More Problems (+video)

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore Responding to President Obama’s State of the Union address on behalf of the Republican Party, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tonight made the case that the president’s calls for government investments are misguided and potentially destructive.

While agreeing with the president on some issues and taking an optimistic tone for the future, Rubio sought to offer a conservative alternative to the president’s agenda, one which takes decision-making out of Washington.

Opportunity, Rubio said, “it isn’t bestowed on us from Washington. It comes from a vibrant free economy where people can risk their own money to open a business.”

In his address before a joint session of Congress, Mr. Obama told lawmakers, “We need to build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class for all who are willing to climb them.” The president laid out a series of actions Washington can take to revive the economy, including investments in the private sector. Rubio, however, charged tonight that Mr. Obama considers a free enterprise economy as “the cause of our problems.”

“His solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more,” Rubio said of the president. “And the idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers – that’s an old idea that’s failed every time it’s been tried. More government isn’t going to help you get ahead. It’s going to hold you back. More government isn’t going to create more opportunities. It’s going to limit them.”

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