Dick Cheney Blasts Obama’s ‘Second-Rate’ National Security Team

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Photo Credit: APFormer Vice President Dick Cheney said Saturday night that President Obama has jeopardized U.S. national security by nominating substandard candidates for key Cabinet posts and by degrading the U.S. military.

“The performance now of Barack Obama as he staffs up the national security team for the second term is dismal,” Mr. Cheney said in comments to about 300 members of the Wyoming Republican Party.

Mr. Cheney, a Wyoming native, said it was vital to the nation’s national security that “good folks” hold the positions of secretary of state, CIA director and secretary of defense.

“Frankly, what he has appointed are second-rate people,” he said.

John F. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, has been confirmed as secretary of state. CIA-designate John Brennan and Defense Secretary-nominee Chuck Hagel are still awaiting U.S. Senate confirmation.

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Iranians On Revolution Day Chant ‘Death To America’

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Photo Credit: AFPHundreds of thousands of people marched on Sunday in Tehran and other cities chanting “Death to America” as Iran marked the 34th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that ousted the U.S.-backed shah.

In the capital, crowds waving Iranian flags and portraits of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini walked toward the landmark Azadi (Freedom) Square, in a government-sponsored rally which is now a cornerstone of the regime.

Marchers also chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” as they headed for the square, some waving posters of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expected to make an address.

Iran is holding similar rallies nationwide, especially in large provincial capitals such as Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz and Kerman.

At the Tehran rally, foreign media were being closely monitored and allowed to cover the event from officially designated areas only.

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U.S. Trains For Mass Migration In Caribbean Security Drill

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Photo Credit: JTF GuantanamoA simulated wave of Caribbean migrants sailed to the Guantanamo naval base this week for a training drill designed to prepare U.S. troops and security agencies who might someday have to handle the real thing.

The exercise is held every two years to prepare for a potential mass migration brought on by political upheaval or natural disaster in the region.

More than 500 U.S. troops and government workers flew to the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in eastern Cuba for the drill, which started on Saturday and runs through Friday.

“It’s not related to any real-world event,” said Colonel Jane Crichton, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army South unit based in San Antonio, Texas, which is participating in the drill.

The drill is taking place on the sparsely populated Leeward side of the base, which is bisected by Guantanamo Bay. Most of the base facilities are on the Windward side, including the detention center that holds 166 prisoners captured in anti-terrorism operations.

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Shocking New Claim: Obama CIA Nominee John Brennan Convert To Islam (+video)

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The man making this claim is former FBI agent John Guandolo. There is no secondary confirmation on this claim. It can’t be confirmed. But here’s what we know so far:

Shoebat.com – John Guandolo is not just some guy with an opinion; he’s a guy with sources who have access to the highest levels of government; he’s a guy who has a resume that is beyond impressive; and he’s a guy who claims to know people with firsthand accounts who say they witnessed John Brennan – Barack Obama’s nominee for CIA Director – convert to Islam while in Saudi Arabia.

Guandolo was also one of the people who worked on the Team B II Report.

See video beginning about 12:40-52:00:

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‘We Have the Right to Defend Ourselves’: Community Rallies Around Utah Man Arrested for Shooting at Burglar

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Photo Credit: APResidents in a northern Utah city are coming to the defense of a man who was arrested and faces charges for shooting at burglars as they drove away from his property.

Layton police arrested Clare Niederhauser, 64, last week after he fired one shot at a car and another at a fleeing burglar, said Layton Police Lt. Shawn Horton. He was arrested on suspicion of two counts of reckless endangerment.

The shots were unlawful because the burglar had dropped a crowbar and was fleeing the property, according to Horton, who added that the shots could have endangered somebody’s life.

“There is a responsibility of owning a gun: you need to know when you can lawfully use your weapon,” Horton said. “You’re not authorized to shoot a firearm at a car just because you don’t want it to get away, or to scare them, or disable a tire.”

Layton police said they also have arrested the man suspected of burglarizing the house, Robert Santos Cruz, 47. Investigators are searching for a woman who drove the car that was leaving the driveway when Niederhauser shot at it.

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Does The Republican Party Have A Future?

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The United States, from day one, was a project about principles and ideals.

The superpower that emerged and grew from the handful of colonists that began settling here was not the product of where those colonists happened to land, but the ideals and principles in their head and heart – applied in how they lived their lives.

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 to address one great blot on the nation’s founding legacy – the existence of slavery in a nation founded under the ideal of freedom under God.

Runaway slave and self-educated abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass said, “I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.”

Douglass called Abraham Lincoln, America’s first Republican president, “emphatically the black man’s president.”

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Southern California School Board Member Convicted Of Running Sex Ring

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Photo Credit: Rios Pimpin’ ain’t easy, man, as Ice-T, The Notorious B.I.G. and a number of other celebrated rappers have incisively counseled for years. However, Moreno Valley school board member Mike Rios had to learn this wisdom the hard way.

On Friday, a jury in Riverside, California found Rios, 42, guilty on almost two dozen felony counts stemming from a prostitution operation, reports KNBC. Rios managed the venture out of his home in neighboring Moreno Valley.

The litany of charges against the school board member included rape, pimping, pandering and insurance fraud. Two of the prostitutes involved were underage girls.

The jury found Rios not guilty on another count of rape. It couldn’t come to an agreement on still another rape count, or an additional pandering charge.

At the trial, the Los Angeles Times reports, the jury heard evidence that Rios, a Democrat, approached one woman on the street and flashed a school district-emblazoned business card when he offered her a job.

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Chuck Hagel Camp: He’s Not Dropping Out

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Photo Credit: John ShinkleChuck Hagel’s camp pushed back forcefully Friday against the notion that he might remove himself from consideration to be secretary of Defense.

“There is absolutely no truth to the notion that Sen. Hagel might consider withdrawing,” a Hagel aide told POLITICO. “He’s continuing his prep work and getting up to speed on the issues he will deal with as secretary of Defense.”

Online commentators began to speculate that Hagel might bow out, as more than a week had passed since his widely panned confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee with no word about when its members might take a vote.

Author Thomas Ricks floated the idea in a post on his blog Friday, arguing that the odds of a withdrawal were 50-50 and would increase two percent for every business day the Senate Armed Services Committee doesn’t schedule a vote. The conservative Weekly Standard — run by Hagel arch-nemesis Bill Kristol — immediately picked up that post.

But among politicians and operatives supportive of Hagel, there is little evidence of a coming withdrawal — and more than a little pique at Republicans for delaying the confirmation process. They insist he should surrender still more information about his income, but Democrats have cried foul.

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Video: Ann Coulter Says Mainstream Media ‘A Threat to Democracy’

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerOn Thursday night’s“The Kudlow Report” on CNBC, conservative commentator Ann Coulter called the media a “threat to democracy” and ripped what she claimed is the blatant hypocrisy of most mainstream outlets.

Host Larry Kudlow focused on the conversation on the Thursday hearing at the Senate Committee on Armed Services, where senators peppered top military officials with questions about the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya.

“I mean, you really wonder if Democrats would win any elections if we had an honest media in this country,” Coulter said. “As Pat Caddell says, the media is becoming a threat to democracy. The things that they went crazy over when Bush was president — I mean, remember that video at the White House Correspondents’ [Association] dinner? …. He had a little video — I don’t know, like the dog looking for weapons of mass destruction under the White House furniture. … You would think someone died.

“Well, here in this case under Obama, four people did die,” Coulter said, referring to the embassy attack, “and this is coming out five months after it happened, four months after the election? What is with our media?”

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Wanted: Good Home for ‘Free’ Alaska Icebreaking Ferry

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(Reuters) – Free to a good home: One high-powered, state-of-the-art icebreaking commuter ferry.

Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the local government for the region north of Anchorage, is seeking takers for a sophisticated vessel bestowed on it three years ago but which has never been put to its intended use.

The M/V Sustina, an $80-million, Navy-funded prototype, is docked 800 miles (1,285 km) southeast of the borough in Ketchikan, the city where it was built and christened.

The ship, obtained with the help of the late Senator Ted Stevens, was intended to be a precursor to the Knik Arm Bridge, a controversial project that would link Port Mackenzie, near Wasilla, to downtown Anchorage.

But dreams of shuttling Matanuska-Susitna commuters to Anchorage via ferry – a scheme that sought to cut a 75-mile (120-km) road trip down to a 2.5-mile (4-km) water crossing – were never realized. Landing facilities for the specialized craft were not built, and local officials said they don’t want to provide money for such a project.

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