Yes, Amtrak Train Was Sabotaged – by Congress

Photo Credit: Quartz Ever since privately owned freight railroads were freed by Congress in 1970 from their public service obligation to operate unprofitable intercity passenger trains—a law that created publicly owned Amtrak—a debate has raged in the US over how much passenger rail service is enough, how fast passenger trains should travel, why passenger trains aren’t profitable, and who should provide the subsidy that keeps them afloat.

Amtrak loses money, as do all rail passenger systems across the globe. . .

While government subsidies keep Amtrak trains running, those sums perennially fall short of fully satisfying Amtrak’s capital-investment needs—like the purchase of new locomotives and passenger cars, plus renewal of track, signals, bridges, and stations.

Among some 500 bridges that along Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) between Washington, DC, and Boston—each a century or more old, and requiring extensive rehabilitation—is one spanning New Jersey’s Hackensack River. It needs a $1.5 billion replacement. New tunnels under the Hudson River to replace 115-year-old twin bores come with a $13.5 billion price tag. Another $1.2 billion is required to replace a 142-year-old tunnel under Baltimore. Overhead catenary delivering electricity to trains dates to the 1930s. New safety systems, which might have prevented the Philadelphia fatal derailment and which are nearing completion along the NEC’s entire length, have siphoned substantial, scarce, dollars. . .

The reason money-losing long-distance trains continue to operate is that the economic arguments for eliminating them fails the political test. Once the good folks of a given state or city lose their once-daily, long-distance train, the congressional lawmakers representing those souls are less likely to allocate tax dollars to the NEC, which still needs those subsidies for capital expenditures. (Read more from “Yes, Amtrak Train Was Sabotaged–by Congress” HERE)

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FBI Admits No Major Cases Cracked With Patriot Act Snooping Powers

Photo Credit: Cliff Owen FBI agents can’t point to any major terrorism cases they’ve cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a report Thursday that could complicate efforts to keep key parts of the law operating.

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said that between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents, and increasingly scooped up records of Americans who had no ties to official terrorism investigations.

The FBI did finally come up with procedures to try to minimize the information it was gathering on nontargets, but it took far too long, Mr. Horowitz said in the 77-page report, which comes just as Congress is trying to decide whether to extend, rewrite or entirely nix Section 215.

Backers say the Patriot Act powers are critical and must be kept intact, particularly with the spread of the threat from terrorists. But opponents have doubted the efficacy of Section 215, particularly when it’s used to justify bulk data collection such as in the case of the National Security Agency’s phone metadata program, revealed in leaks from former government contractor Edward Snowden.

The new report adds ammunition to those opponents, with the inspector general concluding that no major cases have been broken by use of the Patriot Act’s records-snooping provisions. (Read more from “FBI Admits No Major Cases Cracked With Patriot Act Snooping Powers” HERE)

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Donald Trump: “This Country Is a Hell Hole”

Billionaire Donald Trump continues to tease a potential presidential run.

Appearing on Fox News Wednesday evening, Trump reiterated he will announce in June what his intentions are in regards to 2016.

“I’m gearing up and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said on “The Kelly File.”

The “Apprentice” star said he wants to make America “great again.”

“I want to make the country great again,” he said. “This country is a hellhole. We are going down fast.” (Read more from “Donald Trump: This Country Is a Hell Hole” HERE)

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Heroic K-9 Saves Officer From Brutal Roadside Ambush

A manhunt is under way after a Hancock County [Mississippi] Sheriff’s Department deputy was saved by his dog from an ambush attack by three men.

The deputy, Todd Frazier, was beaten and cut with a box cutter in Pearlington on Monday, Sheriff Ricky Adam said. If it wasn’t for his K9 partner, a black Belgian Malinois named Lucas, they might have succeeded.

[Deputy Frazier had stopped to check on a car that was parked at a rest stop and was ambushed by three people]

“They told him they were going to slit his throat, and they were dragging him toward the woods,” Chief Deputy Don Bass said, adding that authorities believe the attackers meant to drag Frazier into the woods, kill him, and dump his body. . .

“The three of them were dragging him toward the wooded area, and he was able to break one hand free to activate the [remote control] button that opens the door and it released Lucas,” Bass said.

The dog bit at least one, probably two of the suspects, potentially saving the officer’s life. . .”We don’t know how many he got, we just know he had blood all over him,” Adam said. (Read more from “Heroic K-9 Saves Officer From Brutal Roadside Ambush” HERE)

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The Mystery Behind the Air Force’s Classified Space Plane

The last time the Air Force’s super secretive X-37B space plane launched, it didn’t come down until almost two years later–674 days to be exact. On Wednesday, it launched again, and was scheduled to stay in orbit for 270 days. Or maybe more.

No one knows for sure because the largely classified project is shrouded in mystery. The Air Force will only say that it will test a new, experimental thruster. The rocket carrying the space craft will also deliver a small satellite that would fly using a “solar sail.” But the broader mission of the Boeing-made X-37B, which looks like a miniature version of a the space shuttle, is not publicly known.

Space has become an increasingly important part of national security, a realm the Pentagon and the intelligence community is keenly focused on. And the ability to keep an unmanned space craft that could circle the Earth for months at a time and then land on an airstrip so that it could be used again could have all kinds of potential, from keeping an eye on the weather as well as the enemy.

“Space is so vitally important to everything we do,” Maj. Gen. Tom Masiello, the commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Space and Missile Systems Center, said in a recent statement. “Secure comms, ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance], missile warning, weather prediction, precision navigation and timing all rely on it, and the domain is increasingly contested.”

In Congressional testimony last month, Air Force Lt. Gen John Raymond said that space has become a “warfighting domain,” and he warned that other countries, particularly, China and Russia, “remain concerns for us as we assess threats in the space domain.” Officials have said the countries have the ability to blind satellites with lasers or blow them up with missiles. (Read more from “The Mystery Behind the Air Force’s Classified Space Plane” HERE)

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Feds Spent $100 Billion on Food Assistance Last Year

Photo Credit: AP ImagesThe federal government spent $100 billion providing food assistance to Americans last year, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The lion’s share of spending comes from the food stamp program, which gave benefits to an average 46 million Americans in 2014, at a cost of $74.6 billion, according to a testimony from the GAO’s Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security Kay E. Brown before the House Subcommittee on Nutrition Wednesday.

The national school lunch program was second, costing $11.3 billion, followed by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) at $7.1 billion . . .

Brown said there is a potential for overlap and “inefficient use of federal funds” due to the government’s “complex network of 18 food assistance programs, administered by three federal agencies,” which are unsure how effective the programs are.

“In 2010, research GAO reviewed suggested that participation in seven of these programs was associated with positive outcomes, such as improving nutrition among low-income households,” Brown said. “Little was known about the effectiveness of the remaining 11.” (Read more from “Feds Spent $100 Billion on Food Assistance Last Year” HERE)

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Investigators Check Amtrak Engineer’s Cellphone Records

Photo Credit: FlickrThe National Transportation Safety Board is combing through the cellphone records of the engineer at the controls of the crashed Amtrak train, and said he was using it the day of the deadly derailment, the agency said in a statement Wednesday.

“Although the records appear to indicate that calls were made, text messages sent, and data used on the day of the accident, investigators have not yet made a determination if there was any phone activity during the time the train was being operated,” the NTSB said.

The board will be checking the time stamps on Brandon Bostian’s phone to see if he was using it just before the crash that killed eight people and injured over 200 more.

There were no issues with the train’s signals systems at the time, the NTSB also said.

Investigators have also interviewed the engineer of the SEPTA train that came to an emergency stop when it was struck by an object. That motorman said Bostian announced on the radio, “hot track rail two” to warn him that he was about to pass the train. (Read more from “Investigators Check Amtrak Engineer’s Cellphone Records” HERE)

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A Quote That May Come Back to Haunt Rand Paul

When Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) induced an abortion-related gaffe from Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, pro-life activists hailed him as one of their most effective messengers in presidential politics — but he doesn’t intend to build his 2016 campaign around such fights.

“I didn’t run for office because of the social issues,” Paul said Monday during a question-and-answer session with conservative-radio host Dom Giordano at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. “It wasn’t what got me to leave my practice. I ran for office mainly because I became concerned that we were going to destroy the country with debt. That we would borrow so much money that we would just destroy the currency . . . There’s also a chance that we get so far overdrawn that we have a calamity. In 2008, we were very close to a calamity.”

The exchange began when Giordano asked if, in light of the House passage of the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, abortion should be “handled” at the state level or at the federal level under the Fourteenth Amendment. (Read more from “A Quote That May Come Back to Haunt Rand Paul” HERE)

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Rand Paul Filibusters NSA Surveillance in Congress

United States Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) vows to filibuster any attempt in Congress to extend the eavesdropping powers provided to the government through the US Patriot Act before they expire at the end of the month.

Sen. Paul began speaking out against government surveillance on the floor of the Senate at around 1:18 pm ET on Wednesday, saying “I will not let the Patriot Act, the most unpatriotic of acts, go unchallenged.”

Provisions in the anti-terrorism law, passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, are set to sunset on June 1 unless Congress extends them before then. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the Senate majority leader, has advocated for extending the National Security Agency’s ability to conduct such surveillance in certain cases while an alternative solution is sought.

As the end-of-month deadline nears, Senator Paul on Wednesday said he would launch a filibuster to ensure the spy powers are not reauthorized . . .

Earlier in the day, the Department of Justice circulated a memo on Capitol Hill warning lawmakers to act swiftly and be prepared to pull the plug on Sec. 215 of the Patriot Act this week. The memo said this was necessary in order to avoid complications that could arise in the event the program is not renewed before the end of the month. A federal appeals court ruled two weeks ago that Sec. 215 does not authorize the National Security Agency to collect phone records in bulk, contrary to the government’s current interpretation, dealing the biggest blow yet to the previously secret surveillance program first exposed to the public in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. (Read more from “Rand Paul Filibusters NSA Surveillance in Congress” HERE)

Editor’s note: RT News is Russian government affiliated site that is not immune from propagandizing issues.

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Largest Automobile Recall in History Just Announced – “1 of 7 U.S. Vehicles” – Brands Named

Photo Credit: ShutterstockDepartment of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced today the largest and “most complex” auto recall in United States history.

The recall involves the Takata Corporation, which is the manufacturer of air bags for Honda and Toyota automobiles. The number affected by the recall has nearly doubled from 18 million to 34 million vehicles . . .

The defect that has been identified by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) involves the propellant canister used to inflate front and side airbags. Rather than simply releasing gas into the airbags, in some instances the canister has exploded, sending metal shrapnel into the passenger compartment.

Police responding to accident scenes have described those who have sustained injuries as appearing to have been shot or stabbed. At least five fatalities and 100 injuries have been tied to the faulty airbags, according to CNN Money and Fox News.

“From the very beginning, our goal has been simple: a safe air bag in every vehicle,” said NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind. “The steps we’re taking today represent significant progress toward that goal. We all know that there is more work to do, for NHTSA, for the auto makers, for parts suppliers, and for consumers. But we are determined to get to our goal as rapidly as possible.” (Read more from “Largest Automobile Recall in History Just Announced, Brands Named” HERE)

Editor’s note: Click HERE to check whether your vehicle is covered in the airbag recall.

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