FBI Has ‘Encircled’ Remaining Occupiers at Oregon Wildlife Refuge, Agents in Armored Vehicles Demanding Surrender

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The FBI has encircled remaining occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon, which armed protesters took over in early January.

Les Zaitz, senior investigative reporter for the Oregonian, posted the following tweet: . . .

Refuge occupier Sean Anderson adds additional confirmation that FBI will not advance tonight, but will allow occupiers to meet at checkpoint with Fiore and Graham later Thursday morning.

Anderson says occupiers will put their weapons in their vehicles when they turn themselves in as they march toward the checkpoint with American flags.

Anderson added that turning themselves in to the FBI is “going against everything we believe in,” but said they will “proceed with our surrender” once Fiore and Graham arrive at the refuge.

(Read more from “FBI Has ‘Encircled’ Remaining Occupiers at Oregon Wildlife Refuge, Agents in Armored Vehicles Demanding Surrender” HERE)

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Scandal Grows: This Is Who Handled the ‘Top Secret’ Intel on Hillary Server

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By Catherine Herridge and Pamela K. Browne. At least a dozen email accounts handled the “top secret” intelligence that was found on Hillary Clinton’s server and recently deemed too damaging for national security to release, a U.S. government official close to the review told Fox News.

The official said the accounts include not only Clinton’s but those of top aides – including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines – as well as State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy and others. There is no public evidence they were authorized to receive the intelligence some of which was beyond Top Secret.

A second source not authorized to speak on the record said the number of accounts involved could be as high as 30 and reflects how the intelligence was broadly shared, replied to, and copied to individuals using the unsecured server.

“My contacts with former colleagues and current active duty personnel involved in sensitive programs reveal a universal feeling that the HRC issue is more serious than the general public realizes,” Dan Maguire, a former strategic planner with Africom, and with 46 years combined service, told Fox. “Most opine they would already be behind bars if they had apparently compromised sensitive information as reported.” (Read more from “Scandal Grows: This Is Who Handled the ‘Top Secret’ Intel on Hillary Server” HERE)

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Judge Chides State Department for Delay in Clinton Email Release

By Laura Koran. A federal judge expressed dismay over the State Department’s continued delays releasing Hillary Clinton’s emails.

“The government has put me between a rock and a hard place,” Judge Rudolph Contreras said at a hearing Tuesday, noting his displeasure over the State Department’s explanations about the delays.

Contreras said he felt he was being forced to choose between accepting the State Department’s proposed timeline without question, or else risk the accidental release of sensitive information by hurrying the process.

The State Department’s proposed production schedule would result in all the remaining emails being released the day before “Super Tuesday” and after early contests in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. (Read more from “Judge Chides State Department for Delay in Clinton Email Release” HERE)

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Two Republican Presidential Candidates Just Suspended Their Campaigns

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By Cheryl Chumley. Gov. Chris Christie has decided to suspend his presidential campaign, according to two Republicans briefed on his deliberations.

Christie held a meeting and conference call with campaign staff at 4 p.m. to inform them of his decision, the Republicans said.

Christie headed home to New Jersey after his New Hampshire primary loss, telling supporters his message apparently didn’t have enough steam to push him to a top-place finish with voters.

Later Wednesday, talk was swirling that he was suspending his presidential campaign, according to CBS News and the New York Times.

“We bet the ranch on New Hampshire and no one ever anticipated the Trump phenomenon,” one source said to ABC News, citing Christie’s looming announcement. “He’s a realist.” (Read more from “Two Republican Presidential Candidates Just Suspended Their Campaigns” HERE)

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Carly Fiorina Drops out of Republican Presidential Race

By Scott Bixby. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination on Wednesday, over a disappointing finish in the New Hampshire primaries and her ineligibility to participate in upcoming presidential debates.

“This campaign was always about citizenship,” Fiorina wrote in a Facebook post on her official campaign account. “I’ve said throughout this campaign that I will not sit down and be quiet. I’m not going to start now. While I suspend my candidacy today, I will continue to travel this country and fight for those Americans who refuse to settle for the way things are and a status quo that no longer works for them.”

Issued by the sole female candidate in the Republican field, Fiorina’s statement singled out women who looked up to her as someone who could go toe-to-toe with the male-dominated political establishment, urging them not to be bound to ideology because of their gender.

“Do not let others define you,” Fiorina wrote, addressing women and girls. “Do not listen to anyone who says you have to vote a certain way or for a certain candidate because you’re a woman. That is not feminism. Feminism doesn’t shut down conversations or threaten women. It is not about ideology. It is not a weapon to wield against your political opponent. A feminist is a woman who lives the life she chooses and uses all her God-given gifts.” (Read more from “Carly Fiorina Drops out of Republican Presidential Race” HERE)

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Gun Store Owner Breaks Silence, Reveals ATF Raided His Business in 2014 and Why He ‘Quit Fighting’ Them [+video]

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Photo Credit: KERO-TVA gun shop owner in Southern California was subjected to a raid by the federal government in 2014, but he has just now decided to voluntarily forfeit the more than 3,000 parts the agents took two years ago.

Christopher Cook, the owner of The Armory in Southwest Bakersfield, California, told KERO-TV that it was simply a clerical error and wrong information given to officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by a former lawyer that led to a raid of his business in 2014, during which officials took 3,804 parts . . .

Cook contended that his former lawyer gave ATF officials the wrong information regarding how the pieces were made that led to the raid as well as his eventual forfeiting of the more than 3,000 parts taken from him.

“The reason that I quit fighting is because it’s a battle that I don’t believe that the U.S state attorney, the DOJ or the ATF office would be able to say they were going to give our stuff back,” he said.

According to KERO-TV, the Department of Justice said in an agreement with Cook that the agency will ensure that the receivers stay out of the hands of criminals. The agreement also states that Cook will never be criminally prosecuted for this incident; he is also not allowed to sue the ATF for wrongfully taking his property. (Read more from “Gun Store Owner Breaks Silence, Reveals ATF Raided His Business in 2014 and Why He ‘Quit Fighting’ Them” HERE)

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Top U.S. Intelligence Official Calls Gene Editing a WMD Threat

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Genome editing is a weapon of mass destruction.

That’s according to James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence, who on Tuesday, in the annual worldwide threat assessment report of the U.S. intelligence community, added gene editing to a list of threats posed by “weapons of mass destruction and proliferation.”

Gene editing refers to several novel ways to alter the DNA inside living cells. The most popular method, CRISPR, has been revolutionizing scientific research, leading to novel animals and crops, and is likely to power a new generation of gene treatments for serious diseases.

It is gene editing’s relative ease of use that worries the U.S. intelligence community, according to the assessment. “Given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated pace of development of this dual-use technology, its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications,” the report said.

The choice by the U.S. spy chief to call out gene editing as a potential weapon of mass destruction, or WMD, surprised some experts. It was the only biotechnology appearing in a tally of six more conventional threats, like North Korea’s suspected nuclear detonation on January 6, Syria’s undeclared chemical weapons, and new Russian cruise missiles that might violate an international treaty. (Read more from “Top U.S. Intelligence Official Calls Gene Editing a WMD Threat” HERE)

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Despite Carbon Ruling, White House Says U.S. Can Meet Climate Deal Goals

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The White House promised on Wednesday that it would be able to uphold U.S. commitments to an international climate change agreement, as a court ruling heightened concerns about the stability of the global carbon reduction pact reached last year.

Shares of coal companies reflected the uncertainty the day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. After jumping nearly 7 percent early in the session, the Thomson Reuters U.S. coal index was down 3 percent in afternoon trading.

The court dealt a serious blow to the Obama administration’s climate change agenda on Tuesday when it took the unusual step to delay implementation of the Clean Power Plan until legal challenges to the regulation are completed.

A centerpiece of the Obama administration’s climate change policy, the Clean Power Plan was designed to lower carbon emissions from U.S. power plants by 2030 to 32 percent below 2005 levels.

The decision to temporarily block the rule came after the United States entered into a landmark agreement in December with countries around the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Read more from “Despite Carbon Ruling, White House Says U.S. Can Meet Climate Deal Goals” HERE)

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Huffington Post Goes off on Trump, Calls Him a ‘Racist, Sexist Demagogue’

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By Dylan Byers. Huffington Post took a visceral and aggressive approach to Donald Trump’s victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, blasting the GOP front-runner as a “racist, sexist demagogue.”

The headline on the homepage, in bold, red, 72-point font, reads: “NH GOES RACIST SEXIST XENOPHOBIC.” The headline on the story: “A Racist, Sexist Demagogue Just Won The New Hampshire Primary” . . .

In late January, Huffington Post announced that all of its Trump-related articles would include an editor’s note reading, “Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.” (Read more from “Huffington Post Goes off on Trump, Calls Him a ‘Racist, Sexist Demagogue'” HERE)

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Trump Echoes Supporter’s Vulgar Insult of Ted Cruz

By Sopan Deb. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made cursing a campaign staple for him on the stump. Most speeches will sprinkle in a “damn,” or a “crap.”

At a September speech in New Hampshire, Trump called Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s friendship “political bulls***.”

But at Monday night’s rally in Manchester, Trump ratcheted up his practice of keeping television censors (and reporters) on their toes with what might be his most off-color profanity yet: He repeated a woman calling Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, “a p****.”

Trump was in the middle of a riff about his answer on waterboarding at Saturday’s GOP debate, when he made light of Cruz’s answer on the same question.

“They asked Ted Cruz, serious question, ‘Well what do you think of waterboarding?’ Is it okay?” Trump said. “And honestly I thought he’d say absolutely. And he didn’t.” (Read more from “Trump Echoes Supporter’s Vulgar Insult of Ted Cruz” HERE)

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The Winners of the New Hampshire Primaries

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By Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin. Donald J. Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont harnessed working-class fury on Tuesday to surge to commanding victories in a New Hampshire primary that drew a huge turnout across the state.

The success by two outsider candidates dealt a remarkable rebuke to the political establishment, and all but guaranteed protracted, bruising races for each party’s presidential nomination.

Mr. Trump, the wealthy businessman whose blunt language and outsider image have electrified many Republicans and horrified others, benefited from an unusually large field of candidates that split the vote among traditional politicians like Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who finished second, and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida.

But Mr. Trump also tapped into a deep well of anxiety among Republicans and independents in New Hampshire, according to exit polling data, and he ran strongest among voters who were worried about illegal immigrants, incipient economic turmoil and the threat of a terrorist attack in the United States. (Read more from “The Winners of the New Hampshire Primaries” HERE)

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Christie Heading Home to Evaluate Campaign’s Future

By Ben Kamisar. Chris Christie said he is taking a pause from the campaign trail to “take a deep breath” and evaluate his presidential campaign’s future after a poor showing in New Hampshire.

“We are going to go home to New Jersey tomorrow, and we are going to take a deep breath, see what the final results are tonight, because that matters,” Christie said at a speech Tuesday night as the New Hampshire primary results poured in.

“We will make our next step forward based on the complete results in New Hampshire.”
Christie had banked his presidential hopes on New Hampshire. With about half of the votes counted, he is in sixth place.

If he fails to finish in the top five, he’ll likely miss the cut for Saturday’s GOP debate. (Read more from “Christie Heading Home to Evaluate Campaign’s Future” HERE)

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Ben Carson Just Made a Major Announcement About VP

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Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson left the door open on Tuesday to serving as vice president in a Trump administration.

Fox Business host Neil Cavuto, interviewing Carson from New Hampshire, pressed him on this issue as primary voters began casting ballots. The Republican hopeful recently settled for a fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucus and has polled at the bottom of the pack in the Granite State.

“Would you ever be open to a VP spot [with Trump]?” asked Cavuto, Mediaite reported.

“I would have to have major philosophical alignment with whoever it was. I would have to have guarantees that I could do some substantial things,” replied Carson. “I certainly would sit down and discuss it” . . .

“Rather than get into that, let’s say as long as there is significant philosophical alignment, I wouldn’t have any problem. … I’m aiming to really change this country in the same way that I came up with new ways to do very complex things that people have been trying to do for a long period of time. That’s what I want to do with this country,” said Carson. (Read more from “Ben Carson Just Made a Major Announcement About VP” HERE)

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Supreme Court Just Brought Obama’s Big Plan to a Halt, He’s Going to Be Livid…

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President Barack Obama’s plan to impose strict new regulations on U.S. power plants hit a significant legal snag on Tuesday with a split decision by the nation’s highest court. According to news reports, the 5 to 4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling put up an immediate roadblock, blocking the implementation of carbon emission caps favored by the Obama administration.

As Fox News reported this week, Obama has defended his plan to slash power plant emissions by insisting it would help stave off the effects of global warming. Under his proposal, each state would be required to submit a proposal by this September to the Environmental Protection Agency, detailing how power plants located within its borders would cut carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 33 percent before 2030. (Read more from “Supreme Court Just Brought Obama’s Big Plan to a Halt, He’s Going to Be Livid…” HERE)

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