Conservative Scholar Denied New Trial In Lawsuit Against Law School

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A conservative scholar who sued a University of Iowa law school dean, saying she was denied promotions because of her political orientation, will not get a new trial.

Teresa Wagner, 48, had sought another trial after a federal jury found in October that the university did not discriminate against her. A mistrial was declared on a second count alleging the school had violated Wagner’s equal protection rights. A third count charging that Wagner’s due process rights had been violated was dismissed before the trial.

Wagner sought retrial on all counts.

Her lawyers asserted that the judge accepted the verdict without allowing attorneys to be present. That, they said, denied them the right to poll the jury, a process that helps determine if jurors were unduly pressured to render a verdict after lengthy deliberations.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt issued a ruling rejecting Wagner’s arguments and denying a new trial, The Des Moines Register reported. The judge also granted the law school defendants’ motion to dismiss the count that the school had violated Wagner’s equal protection rights.

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Video: Sportsman Channel TV Host Shot Dead

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Photo Credit: The Sportsman Channel

A Sportsman Channel TV host was shot and killed in Montana Thursday by the husband of a woman he was visiting, according to the Associated Press.

Police said 41-year-old Montana man Wayne Bengston shot host Gregory G. Rodriguez in an apparent jealous rage, beat his wife, took his 2-year-old son to a relative and then committed suicide.

Rodriguez, a 43-year-old Texas resident, was the host of the Sportsman Channel show “A Rifleman’s Journal,” in which he traveled the world in pursuit of big game.

According to the AP, Bengston’s wife told police Rodriguez was in town on business and visited her at her mother’s home. Wayne Bengston showed up around 10:30 p.m. and shot Rodriguez as the pair sat at the kitchen table. Bengston then proceeded to beat his wife on the face and head, likely with his pistol. She was treated and released from the hospital.

Watch video here:

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Bid To Defund Obamacare Gains Momentum In Senate GOP

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

This week it appeared Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee would wage a lonely war over their threat to hold up a continuing resolution to fund the U.S. government if they are not given a vote on a budget amendment to defund Obamacare. Now, it’s not quite so lonely. Sens. Marco Rubio and James Inhofe have joined Cruz and Lee, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday that he “looks forward to supporting” the amendment.

It’s a significant step forward for Cruz and Lee. But the Senate Republican caucus remains deeply divided about defunding Obamacare. Sources say that at a Republican caucus lunch a few days ago, several GOP senators expressed opposition to Cruz and Lee’s proposal. And of course, the 55-member Democratic majority will not give it the time of day. But Cruz and Lee are determined to keep up opposition to Obamacare, even though it has flagged in some other quarters of the Republican Party.

And in Rubio, the two have an ally sure to bring a higher profile to the cause. The continuing resolution fight is “a perfect opportunity for us to have a debate once again on Obamacare,” Rubio told radio host Hugh Hewitt Friday. “I don’t think there’s been enough attention paid to it. It’s been awhile, we’ve moved onto these other issues, but there is, right now out there, probably nothing more damaging to our economy in the short term than this implementation of Obamacare.”

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CH2M Hill Confesses to Widespread Fraud, Settles with Feds for $18.5 Million; Received $1.3B Stimulus Contract

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Photo Credit: AP

A politically connected engineering company that received massive stimulus contracts has admitted that workers committed widespread fraud under the encouragement of its executives while working on a major taxpayer-funded nuclear cleanup effort.

Employees of CH2M Hill routinely inflated hours worked on the cleanup effort at the Hanford nuclear waste site in Washington state between 1999 and 2008. Company executives sanctioned those violations in order to obtain bonuses that required certain performance benchmarks, according to an agreement between the company and the Justice Department filed in federal court on Friday.

Subsidiary CH2M Hanford Group Inc. (CHG) agreed to pay $18.5 million to resolve civil and criminal allegations brought by the federal government. The civil charges were initially filed by a company whistleblower.

According to a DOJ press release, CHG “routinely overstated the number of hours they worked, and CHG management condoned the practice and submitted inflated claims to the Department of Energy that included the fraudulently claimed hours.”

Members of CHG’s “upper management” facilitated and encouraged that fraud in order to preserve corporate bonuses that required the company meet certain performance measures, according to the court agreement. The timecard fraud took place between 1999 and 2008 when CH2M was servicing a Department of Energy contract worth $2.2 billion. A different CH2M subsidiary was awarded an additional $1.3 billion in 2009 for the Hanford cleanup.

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The Obama Admin, NY Times, And The Islamist

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Not only is The New York Times editorial page known for often being thin on facts, it is known for its cheerleading of the Obama administration—especially the administration’s shortsightedness regarding the Middle East.

To prove that point, they recently published their March 4 editorial: Egypt Needs to Act. In the course of attempting to make their argument, the Times not only butchered the facts, they praised the terrible decision by the Obama administration to hand Egypt wads of US money. Go figure.

They hailed Obama’s decision to send $250 million of hard-earned, taxpayer money to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt as “a vote of confidence in a country that is critical to stability in the region . . .”

That quarter of billion dollars would have produced better results if it had been reduced to ashes in the treasury department’s incinerator. You may think that is an exaggeration, but think about it: The money will be handed out to the brotherhoods cronies and to enable them to continue buying tear gas to blind true freedom-loving young people who have been peacefully demonstrating against Egypt’s new dictatorship. The dictatorship is Islamist and not secular, which pleases President Obama, so the money gets forwarded without restraint.

The US government has given money to foreign countries in the past for various reasons. But when previous seasoned politicians and diplomats did that, it was usually tied to concrete demands that were consistent with American values and interests. In Egypt’s case, there are no demands, no required results.

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Sessions: Government Spends Trillions On Poverty Programs, But Poverty Continues To Grow

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions delivered the Weekly Republican Address Saturday, highlighting the fact that both poverty and spending on government assistance continues to grow in America.

“We spend a trillion dollars each year on federal poverty programs. That’s more than the budget for Social Security or Defense,” he said. “But poverty seems only to increase.”

Sessions, the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, highlighted the low-income troubles in the nation’s capitol, where 1 in 3 children in Washington D.C. live in poverty and 2 in 3 live in single parent homes. Just northward in Baltimore, Sessions added, 1 in 3 are living on food stamps and 1 in 3 children are living in poverty.

“Americans are committed to helping our sisters and brothers who are struggling, but we are seeing the damaging human consequences of our broken welfare state,” he said.

The Alabama senator slammed the Agriculture Department for its aggressive outreach efforts to enroll more people on food stamps, including strategies to overcome “mountain pride,” and the USDA’s contention that “each $5 in new [food stamp] benefits generates almost twice that amount in economic activity for the community.”

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Nine Southeast Communities Oppose Revised Sealaska Bill

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photo credit: roy.luck

Ketchikan, Alaska – Nine communities in southeast Alaska said they oppose a bill by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to allow an Alaska Native-owned corporation to acquire some 70,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest, arguing the bill could threaten their livelihoods. A February letter from the nine communities have asked the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy Committee, Ron Wyden, to kill “special interest legislation” for Sealaska Corporation.

Calling the bill introduced by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski “unfair and morally repugnant,” the towns pointed out that the bill would “create a new injustice against us” in the name of righting a wrong against them that was settled in 1971 when ANCSA passed. The towns pointed out to Wyden in a letter two weeks ago, that the best solution is for BLM to finalize Sealaska?s designation of land in 2008 which was put on ice.

History shows federal cases dating to the 1940s holding that compensation for aboriginal land could only be for lands actually occupied and courts and judges who conducted extensive testimony finding that actually occupied lands only existed “around Native villages as they were in 1907, according to the letter.

“Instead of taking land around their villages, Sealaska wants to take land around our villages. Where is the fairness or justice in that said Myla Poelstra, the postmistress of Edna Bay.

“We relied on law that was 77 years in the making . Now Sealaska wants Congress to rewrite the law. Our towns are having none of that, “Poelstra said.

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Republicans: Postal Service Has Green Light To End Saturday Mail Delivery

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Photo Credit: MoneyBlogNewz

The GOP’s interpretation of language in a bill funding the government could set up a showdown with Senate Democrats. House Republican leaders believe the Postal Service has a green light to implement its reduction in Saturday service, even though a House-passed spending bill contains a provision requiring six-day delivery.

The interpretation by the House GOP could set up a showdown with Senate Democratic leaders, who have argued that the legislative language prohibits the cash-strapped agency from limiting letter delivery to five days a week.

The Postal Service (USPS), which lost nearly $16 billion in 2012, announced in February that it would end Saturday delivery of first-class mail starting in August, a move that it says would save $2 billion annually. Package delivery on Saturdays would continue.

Postal officials have for years pushed to limit Saturday delivery, but had previously insisted they would need congressional approval to do so.

But last month, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the agency would move forward with its modified six-day plan and urged Congress not to try to tie the agency’s hands via legislative directive. In crafting the latest stopgap spending measure, House appropriators kept in place a 30-year-old provision that states, “6-day delivery and rural delivery of mail shall continue, at not less than the 1983 level.”

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UPDATE: Number Of U.S. Gun Makers Refusing Sales To Gov’t In ‘Firearms Equality Movement’ Triples In Two Weeks

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“caveman chuck” coker

On February 22, “Right Views” reported that a growing number of firearm companies have suspended the sale of guns to states, counties, cities and municipalities that restrict their citizens’ rights to own them.

In just two weeks, the number of companies participating in what has been named the “Firearms Equality Movement,” has more than tripled from 34 companies to 118.

The Police Loophole lists every company and links to the statements that each has released regarding their new policies.

Wilson Combat, a custom pistol manufacturer located in Berryville, Arkansas, joined the movement on February 28 stating the following:

“Wilson Combat will no longer provide any products or services to any State Government imposing legislation that infringes on the second amendment rights of its law abiding citizens. This includes any Law Enforcement Department, Law Enforcement Officers, or any State Government Entity or Employee of such an entity. This also applies to any local municipality imposing such infringements.”

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Establishment GOP Wages War On Newcomers

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Photo Credit: WND

Old guard Senate Republicans are using the term “wacko” to describe new members promoting the tea party call for smaller government and accountability, and a congressional source for WND says it’s a sign of an emerging inter-party clash.

Referring to the fallout from the filibuster this week by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a top Republican aide said there “could not have been a starker contrast in terms of the new reformers of the Senate, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, all fighting the overreach of this executive, versus on the handful of senators having dinner in one of the most expensive hotels in the country.”

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who both criticized Paul for his nearly 13-hour filibuster of the vote on John Brennan for CIA director, were among the Republican leaders who dined with Obama. According to the Huffington Post, McCain referred to tea party Republicans, including Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., as “wacko birds.”

“I don’t think you could get a clearer and starker vision of what one side thinks Washington should be doing versus the other,” the source said. The energy generated by Paul’s filibuster and the stances taken by Sens. McCain and Graham show why “they don’t have the backing and support of the American people,” the source said.

In the hours after Paul’s filibuster, both McCain and Graham launched deeply critical attacks against Paul, claiming that, fundamentally, the American people have nothing to fear from their government. Paul, Cruz and Lee raised alarm when the Obama administration wouldn’t immediately assure the public it would not kill an American citizen on home soil with a drone.

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