Media Ignore New Emails Detailing Obama Energy Dept. Corruption

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One week before the presidential election, a Congressional committee released Obama administration emails that showed a pattern of political pressure from President Barack Obama and others in his administration. The emails indicate favoritism toward Democrat politicians and donors in the awarding of federal energy loans.

The mainstream media chose not to report on the emails, even though just days before their release, Obama had flatly stated in an interview that politics played no part in awarding the loans.

In the old days of hard-nosed journalism, i.e., before the Age of Obama, if the president was caught lying about his involvement in a government payola scandal, it would have been front page news and led the evening newscasts of the broadcast networks.

Not anymore. Even with the release of an email in which an official says what, in a different media era, would become a catch phrase for administration corruption: “What’s a billion, anyhow?”

Even with the release of emails showing President Obama personally involved in awarding loans.

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‘Unleashing the Monster’ of Climate Change, or a New Energy Source? You Won’t Believe What Researchers Are Doing With Alaskan ‘Ice’

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(TheBlaze/AP) — A half mile below the ground at Prudhoe Bay, above the vast oil field that helped trigger construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline, a drill rig has tapped what researchers think could be the next big energy source.

The U.S. Department of Energy and industry partners over two winters drilled into a reservoir of methane hydrate, which looks like ice but burns like a candle if a match warms its molecules.

The nearly $29 million science experiment on the North Slope produced 1 million cubic feet of methane, according to the Associated Press. Now, researchers have begun the complex task of analyzing how the reservoir responded to extraction.

“If you wait until you need it, and then you have 20 years of research to do, that’s not a good plan,” Ray Boswell, technology manager for methane hydrates within the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, remarked.

Much is unknown but interest has accelerated over the last decade, Tim Collett, a research geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, added.

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FBI Whistle-Blower Told Eric Cantor About Petraeus Affair in October

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An FBI whistleblower told House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in late October that ex-CIA Director David Petraeus had been involved in an extramarital affair and was potentially putting national security at risk, the New York Times reported Saturday.

Cantor reportedly knew about the affair for at least a week and a half before Petraeus resigned Friday.

“I was contacted by an F.B.I. employee concerned that sensitive, classified information may have been compromised and made certain Director Mueller was aware of these serious allegations and the potential risk to our national security,” Cantor said in a statement to the Times.

According to the Times, Cantor learned through Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) “that a whistle-blower wanted to speak to someone in the Congressional leadership about a national security concern.” Cantor’s chief of staff called the FBI afterward on Oct. 31 to inform them about what Cantor had learned.

A Cantor spokesman confirmed the report to CNN on Sunday.

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Double Life of Top Federal Child Porn Enforcer Who Was a Pornographer Himself

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South Florida’s former chief of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has been sentenced to almost six years in prison on a child pornography charge.

Anthony Mangione, 52, offered sorrow but no explanation of his behavior when speaking to U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra. ‘I’m pretty much a broken guy,’ he told him. ‘I feel like I’m in a hole eight feet deep with six feet of dirt on top.’

Mangione cut a plea deal in October to provide evidence against other child porn collectors he met online. Mangione ran ICE’s South Florida office from 2007 to 2011, a job that included numerous child porn investigations and oversaw 450 federal employees.

He even spoke out against child pornographers. ‘ICE relentlessly pursues predators who sexually abuse children, whether that abuse is physical or whether it is accomplished by exploiting their images,’ he said after the 2009 sentencing of a Wellington man for enticing boys online to take off their clothes.

He was a respected, 27-year veteran of law enforcement when he retired shortly after April 2011, when investigators searched his home and office computers. Up to 150 images of child porn, some depicting ‘extreme abuse of children’, were found in his position, according to federal prosecutors.

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How Do You Kill Obamacare Now?

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WASHINGTON – Things are looking bleak for Republicans and conservatives around the country after the 2012 election.

But there is a Plan B, says Joseph Farah, founder, editor and chief executive officer of WND, who says House Republicans alone have it in their power to kill Obamacare, cut $1 trillion in borrowing and spending and start the nation’s return to constitutionally limited government with one vote.

That vote, he says, is a rejection of raising the debt limit – thereby denying Obama the funds he needs for Obamacare and “a thousand other programs that are wasteful, unconstitutional, immoral and about to take the country off the fiscal cliff.”

Is there a chance Republicans will do it?

“It will happen only if Americans rise up in big numbers and demand it of them,” he says. “Republicans have it in their power. They only need an injection of courage.”

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Veteran’s Day Tribute: The Amazing Story of the Rescue of Pilot Roger Locher

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Brig. Gen Steve Ritchie tells the amazing story of the rescue of downed pilot Roger Locher in Vietnam in 1972.

In that same year Ritchie volunteered for his second tour in Southeast Asia and was assigned to the 432nd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing at Udorn, Thailand. Flying an F-4D with the famous 555th (“Triple Nickel”) Tactical Fighter Squadron, he became the only Air Force jet ace by downing a MiG-21 on May 10, another on May 31, two on July 8 and his last on Aug. 28.

After completing 339 combat missions totaling more than 800 flying hours, Ritchie returned as one of the most highly decorated pilots of the war, having received the Air Force Cross, four Silver Stars, 10 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 25 Air Medals.

His combat expertise brought him the 1972 “Mackay Trophy” for the most significant Air Force mission of the year (along with Capts. Jeff Feinstein and Charles DeBellevue), the Air Force Academy’s 1972 Colonel James Jabara Award for Airmanship, and the 1972 Armed Forces Award, presented by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. In 1973 he was selected as one of the “Outstanding Young Men of America,” and in 1974 he received the Eugene Zuckert Award from the Civil Air Patrol.

GOP Civil War: Karl Rove to be the First Casualty?

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Grassroots Republican operatives and Movement conservatives are quickly turning against the GOP Establishment in the wake of the party’s expensive defeat this election cycle.

Republicans we spoke to this week voiced a near-universal disgust with the national Republican Party leaders and Washington political class, who are seen as having put their personal financial interest above winning the election.

As this internecine struggle gathers steam, the first target appears to be Karl Rove, the former Bush campaign mastermind who has dictated much of the GOP’s strategy over the past decade.

In the wake of the party’s 2012 losses, however, Rove and his well-funded American Crossroads super PAC have become a symbol of misguided Establishment strategy, party cronyism, and Beltway bloat. The fall from grace is perhaps unsurprising, given his group’s disastrous performance this cycle. According to a new report, American Crossroads got a mere 1% return on its $104 million investment in 2012 races.

For social conservatives, Rove’s treason began long before election day, when the Fox News contributor led the party’s tar-and-feathering of Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, who came under fire for his now infamous “legitimate rape” comments. The party’s perceived betrayal of Akin confirmed what many grassroots conservative activists had long suspected: That the Republican Establishment was willing to throw the base under the bus to serve the interests of deep-pocketed donors.

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Obama’s Second Term: More Congress End-Run?

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photo credit: adam glanzmanA big unknown for President Obama’s second term is whether he will find a way to work with Congress or continue to push the limits of executive power.

The clearest signal may come before the year-end fiscal cliff: Obama said Friday he was “open to compromise,” but insisted on tax hikes on the rich. That may hurt chances for cooperation.

Obama’s last two years butting heads with the GOP House led him to increasingly focus on executive branch actions that cut Congress out of the loop.

Some analysts predict another end-run soon with a recess appointment that would open the door to principal write-downs on government-insured mortgages.

Two moves, in particular, this year have stretched executive power and touched off disputes as to whether Obama had exceeded his constitutional authority.

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Time to Throw Social Conservatives Out of the GOP?

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photo credit: wht_wolf9653It is time to throw the social conservatives out of the GOP. Look at what they got us — Barack Obama. It was the social conservatives who did it. They insisted the GOP support real marriage and children. To hell with that.

I’m getting this, in various forms, from lots of tea party activists. The GOP establishment in Washington is whispering it to each other. They look at Todd Aiken and Richard Mourdock and conclude that they, not Tommy Thompson, Heather Wilson, George Allen, Scott Brown, etc. are the problem.

It is time to get rid of the social conservatives.

What’s really going on here is that the people who voted Republican, but who disagree with pro-lifers and defenders of marriage, have decided it must be those issues. They can’t see how what happened actually happened unless it happened because the issues on which they disagree with the base played a role.

This is a psychological avoidance of larger issues and does not stack up to the data.

Mitt Romney won about a quarter of the hispanic vote and a tenth of the black vote.

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Congressman Warns of Greece-Like ‘Day of Reckoning’ to Hit America Without Course Correction

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photo credit: gage skidmoreBoth Republicans and Democrats are going to have to do that [turn the country around],” Fleming said. “What I fear is we’re going to be too late, and we’re going to run into a Greece-like situation,where we have riots and unemployment levels are up around 11 percent. That’s what we’ve been trying to avoid.”

Ultimately, Fleming said he thinks President Obama should be the one who compromises with House Republicans – not the other way around.

“I think that we should not compromise,” he said. “We need to hold to what’s important, because the real danger for this country is our debt and deficit and the impact it’s having on the economy. Just because the president was re-elected – and certainly many of the things that he believes in and wants to do, the private sector and economy doesn’t agree with that. We just had a number of companies announce layoffs as a result of Obama being re-elected. The stock market didn’t take the news very well. I’m getting calls already from private business owners telling me that they are pulling their fins in, they’re reducing their debt, and they’re just going to go on cash flow – they’re not going to grow or invest or hire.”

Fleming is upset with House Speaker John Boehner for promising via an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer that the House GOP will seek a “comprehensive approach” to immigration reform in the wake of Tuesday’s election. (RELATED: Lawmaker rebukes Speaker of the House John Boehner for making promises to the media)

Fleming said he’s upset Boehner made such a promise without talking to House Republicans about it first. Obama raked in the Hispanic vote en masse over Mitt Romney and Republicans on Tuesday.

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