Generals Say Women Should Have to Register for Draft

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By Associated Press. The top Army and Marine Corps generals told senators Tuesday that it will take up to three years to fully integrate women into all combat jobs, adding that women also should have to register for the draft.

The military service leaders repeatedly vowed that they will not lower standards to bring women into the more grueling jobs. But they warned that inherent physical differences and different injury rates between men and women will have an impact on how the integration moves ahead.

The selective service question revealed differences between the military chiefs and their political leaders. Army Gen. Mark Milley and Marine Gen. Robert Neller both flatly said that women should be included in the requirement to register for the selective service at age 18. But Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Army Acting Secretary Patrick Murphy would only say that the issue should be discussed. Political leaders overall have so far been reluctant to endorse the draft requirement. (Read more from “Generals Say Women Should Have to Register for Draft” HERE)

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Marine Commandant, Army Chief of Staff Agree: Women Should Register for Draft

By Melanie Hunter. During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday on opening all ground combat units to women, the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Chief of Staff for the Army agreed that it is time to require women to register for the Selective Service.

“Senator, it’s my personal view that based on this lifting of restrictions for assignment to unit MOS that every American who’s physically qualified should register for the draft,” Gen. Robert Neller, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, testified during the hearing, which was titled “Implementation of the Decision to Open All Ground Combat Units to Women.”

As CNSNews.com previously reported, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced in December that all U.S. military positions–including combat positions–will be open to women. When asked if that means women must register for Selective Service like men are required to do, Carter said, “It may.” (Read more from “Marine Commandant, Army Chief of Staff Agree: Women Should Register for Draft” HERE)

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So It Begins Here: U.S. City ‘Overrun’ With Criminal Refugees

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More than 120 people braved the snow and ice Monday to rally in front of the Missoula County Courthouse, protesting an effort by the Obama administration and its army of community organizers to plant foreign “refugees” into small cities in western Montana.

One of the speakers was a woman who moved recently to Montana from Amarillo, Texas, which has been inundated with thousands of refugees over the past 15 years.

“Amarillo is overrun with refugees,” said Karen Sherman, who stood and spoke to the crowd amid blowing wind and falling snowflakes. Sherman just moved to Missoula, a college town that serves as home to the University of Montana . . .

The protesters carried signs that read, “Christian Refugees 2 Christian Nations, Muslim Refugees 2 Muslim Nations, That’s Only Fair,” and “Refugee Resettlement Means Big $$$$$ – No Accountability.”

Sherman said Amarillo, a city of just more than 200,000 people, has gang violence that has surpassed that of much larger Texas cities such as Fort Worth. She fears U.S. cities like Amarillo and Minneapolis, Minnesota, could be in line to become the next Rotherham, England, or Cologne, Germany, or Stockholm, Sweden, where mass rapes by Muslim men have gained much attention in Europe. (Read more from “So It Begins Here: U.S. City ‘Overrun’ With Criminal Refugees” HERE)

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House Fails to Override President’s Veto of Obamacare Repeal

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The House on Tuesday failed to override President Obama’s veto of a bill that would have repealed key provisions of Obamacare and stripped federal funding from Planned Parenthood.

The 241-186 vote to override the veto fell short of the two-thirds needed, ensuring that the Affordable Care Act will remain in place at least through the final year of Obama’s term. Republican leaders, who have been criticized by Democrats for failing to come up with an alternative to Obamacare, said they plan to craft a replacement plan this year as a kind of preview for what they hope to do in the next Congress.

The vote came just hours after the president met with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to talk about issues where the White House and Congress might be able to work together. Those issues include criminal justice and mental health reform, the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, Puerto Rico’s financial crisis, the opioid epidemic, the Zika virus and efforts to cure cancer . . .

The House voted 240-181 on Jan. 6 to gut Obamacare and cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood for a year. The Senate approved the legislation in December by using a special budget procedure that required only a simple majority rather than the 60 votes typically needed to approve major legislation. Obama vetoed the bill on Jan. 8. (Read more from “House Fails to Override President’s Veto of Obamacare Repeal” HERE)

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Hacking Disaster: NSA’s Own Code Blamed for Vulnerability

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The House Oversight Committee has kicked off an investigation into reports the federal government’s official software may have been hit by hackers more than two years ago – and the feds may have gone on using it, unaware of the cyberattack.

The vulnerability is believed to have stemmed from the National Security Agency’s own encryption algorithm that created a “back door” for hackers, one security expert said.

But Americans may never know the full truth of the matter because security officials say the findings may be too sensitive to national security to share.

The breach could have compromised data across all major federal government agencies, from the Defense Department and the State Department to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Personnel Management . . .

Green’s been working on reverse-engineering the encrypted code that’s believed to have been hacked. It’s suspected the defect in the government’s software originated from a “back door” encryption code created by the National Security Agency that was then allegedly repurposed by foreign cybersecurity hackers, the Hill said. (Read more from “Hacking Disaster: NSA’s Own Code Blamed for Vulnerability” HERE)

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2016 Iowa Caucuses Unexpected Results Are in

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By Zeke J. Miller, Alex Altman and Charlotte Alter. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the Iowa Republican caucuses Monday night, cementing his status as the conservative front-runner and top rival to Donald Trump in the first contest of the 2016 presidential election. The Democratic race was locked in “a virtual tie” early Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of Iowans cast the first votes of 2016, with reports of record turnout on the Republican side and high turnout in the Democratic race. The contest was set to winnow a wide and fractured Republican field and provide a key test in the Democratic race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

With about 99% of precincts reporting in the Republican race, Ted Cruz had 28% of the vote, compared to 24% for Trump.

“The Republican nominee and the next President of the United States will not be chosen by the media,” Cruz, who is running as a proud scourge of GOP leaders, told cheering supporters in Des Moines. “Will not be chosen by the Washington establishment. Will not be chosen by the lobbyists.” (Read more from “2016 Iowa Caucuses Unexpected Results Are in” HERE)

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Iowa Caucuses: Ted Cruz Wins; Clinton, Sanders Tied

By Stephen Collinson. One thing is clear after Monday night’s Iowa caucuses: there’s a long, volatile election season ahead before two deeply fractured parties can unite behind a nominee.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are leaving the Hawkeye State in a virtual tie — a vote that underscores the Democratic party’s debate over whether it should solidify behind President Barack Obama’s legacy or move forward with more radical health care and economic reforms.

Republican Ted Cruz bested Donald Trump, raising questions about the billionaire’s reliance on his celebrity instead of traditional political organization. And Marco Rubio’s stronger-than-expected showing could mark him as the establishment’s best hope against a grassroots revolt in next week’s New Hampshire primary and beyond . . .

Claiming victory, Cruz fired immediate shots at both Trump and the party elites he has so infuriated by waging an anti-establishment crusade that has nevertheless endeared him to the GOP’s rank and file. (Read more from “Iowa Caucuses: Ted Cruz Wins; Clinton, Sanders Tied” HERE)

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Former U.S. Spies Are ‘Horrified’ by Clinton’s Email Scandal – Here’s Why

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By Deroy Murdock. Three veterans of American intelligence are horrified by the havoc that they believe former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton caused through her epic abuse of state secrets in the E-Mailgate scandal . . .

In the anonymous words of this one-time American intelligence professional, here is some of the devastation likely caused by Clinton’s exposure of SAP secrets:

1. Intel officers responsible for those programs must be alerted.

2. Once alerted that SAP was mishandled and on a system that has been attacked, it is only prudent to end those programs.

3. What does ending those programs mean? Depending on the SAP involved, it could mean redoing war plans, terminating ongoing covert actions, rethinking how the exposed covert actions must be done and executing on that new plan, or, if it reveals a source, removing that source from his environment.

(Read more from “Former U.S. Spies Are ‘Horrified’ by Clinton’s Email Scandal – Here’s Why” HERE)

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‘I Take Classified Information Seriously,’ Boasts Hillary, Despite Evidence

By John Hayward. “I take classified information seriously,” Hillary Clinton declared on CNN. “People are selectively leaking and making comments that have no basis in anything I’m aware of.”

Doubling down on this is shrewd politics, because Clinton’s guilt has been laid bare by the latest round of email revelations.

Her hope now is for pure political immunity, making herself too big to prosecute by sewing up the Democratic presidential nomination. Her highest priority is to reassure nervous Democrat voters and power brokers that she’ll survive the email scandal.

There is no real question that she violated security protocols, repeatedly, and a strong case to be made that she put lives in danger by doing so. (Read more from “‘I Take Classified Information Seriously,’ Boasts Hillary, Despite Evidence” HERE)

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White House Won’t Say If It’s Behind Facebook Gun Ban

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By Nicole Duran. The White House on Monday refused to say whether Facebook’s recent decision to ban users from facilitating the sale of guns, parts and ammunition was the result of pressure from the Obama administration.

“We welcome this step,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday, just days after Facebook’s Friday announcement. “We talked about how the Internet is a loophole” for people seeking to buy guns without undergoing background checks, he said. It’s a “common-sense effort to prevent guns from easily falling into the hands of criminals or other individuals who shouldn’t be allowed to access guns,” he said.

(Read more from “White House Won’t Say If It’s Behind Facebook Gun Ban” HERE)

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Facebook and Instagram Are Banning Private Gun Sales

By Dave Smith. Facebook has decided to ban the private sales of firearms on its social network.

Instagram, Facebook’s photo-sharing platform, is doing the same.

“Over the last two years, more and more people have been using Facebook to discover products and to buy and sell things to one another,” Facebook’s head of product policy said in a statement to The New York Times . . .

Facebook says it will rely on its 1.6 billion users to report any violations of these new rules — this especially goes for Facebook’s private messaging service Facebook Messenger, since Facebook does not read the content of messages sent on that platform. Facebook already bans the private sales of pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs like marijuana. (Read more from “Facebook and Instagram Are Banning Private Gun Sales” HERE)

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National Debt Hits $19 Trillion

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The national debt hit $19 trillion for the first time ever on Friday, and came in at $19.012 trillion . . .

That’s a slightly stepped-up pace compared to the last few $1 trillion mileposts. It took about 14 months for the debt to climb from $17 trillion to $18 trillion, and about the same amount of time to go from $16 trillion to $17 trillion.

The federal government has been free to borrow as much as needed for the last several years. Years ago, Congress passed legislation to increase the debt ceiling to a certain level of debt, and borrowing had to stop once that limit was hit.

But increasingly, Congress has instead allowed more borrowing by suspending the debt ceiling for long periods of time. That allows the government to borrow any amount it needs until the suspension period ends. (Read more from “National Debt Hits $19 Trillion” HERE)

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‘This Was All Planned’: More Unbelievable Revelations Made About Hillary, State Department

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By Paul Sperry. The State Department is lying when it says it didn’t know until it was too late that Hillary Clinton was improperly using personal e-mails and a private server to conduct official business — because it never set up an agency e-mail address for her in the first place, the department’s former top watchdog says.

“This was all planned in advance” to skirt rules governing federal records management, said Howard J. Krongard, who served as the agency’s inspector general from 2005 to 2008.

The Harvard-educated lawyer points out that, from Day One, Clinton was never assigned and never used a state.gov e-mail address like previous secretaries.

“That’s a change in the standard. It tells me that this was premeditated. And this eliminates claims by the State Department that they were unaware of her private e-mail server until later,” Krongard said in an exclusive interview. “How else was she supposed to do business without e-mail?” (Read more from “‘This Was All Planned’: More Terrifying Revelations Made About Hillary, State Department” HERE)

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State Won’t Release 18 Emails Between Clinton and Obama That Were on Her Private Server—but Says They Are Not Classified

By CNSNews.com Staff. State Department Spokesman John Kirby said at a briefing on Friday afternoon that the State Department will not be releasing 18 emails exchanged between President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state that have been found on Clinton’s private email server.

Kirby, however, said that these emails between the president and secretary of state “have not been determined to be classified.”

The government emails that were on Clinton’s private server have been requested in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

In the same briefing, Kirby said that the State Department also would not be releasing seven email chains including 37 pages because these emails contain what he called “a category of top secret information.” (Read more from “State Won’t Release 18 Emails Between Clinton and Obama That Were on Her Private Server—but Says They Are Not Classified” HERE)

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Something Major Was Just Revealed About Ted Cruz’s Iowa Mailers

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By Ryan Lizza. Ted Cruz’s Presidential campaign prides itself on being data-centric and on integrating insights from political science into its tactics. In 2008, academics at Yale published an influential paper showing that one of the most effective ways to get voters to the polls was “social pressure.” Researchers found that registered voters in a 2006 primary election in Michigan voted at a higher rate if they received mailers indicating that their participation in the election would be publicized. The mailer that had the biggest impact included information about the two previous elections and whether the recipient and his or her neighbors participated or not. “We intend to mail an updated chart,” the mailer warned. “You and your neighbors will all know who voted and who did not” . . .

After looking at several mailers posted online, I was more curious about how the Cruz campaign came up with its scores. On all the mailers I saw, every voter listed had only one of three possible scores: fifty-five per cent, sixty-five per cent, or seventy-five per cent, which translate to F, D, and C grades, respectively. Iowans take voting pretty seriously. Why was it that nobody had a higher grade?

In Iowa, although voter-registration information is free and available to the public, voter history is not. That information is maintained by the secretary of state, who licenses it to campaigns, super PACs, polling firms, and any other entity that might want it. So was the Cruz campaign accurately portraying the voter histories of Iowans? Or did it simply make up the numbers?

It seems to have made them up. Dave Peterson, a political scientist at Iowa State University who is well-acquainted with the research on “social pressure” turnout techniques, received a mailer last week. The Cruz campaign pegged his voting percentage at fifty-five per cent, which seems to be the most common score that the campaign gives out. (All of the neighbors listed on Peterson’s mailer also received a score of fifty-five per cent.) (Read more from “Something Major Was Just Revealed About Ted Cruz’s Iowa Mailers” HERE)

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Donald Trump: ‘Ted Cruz Is a Total Liar’

By Jeremy Diamond. Donald Trump on Sunday repeatedly slammed his chief presidential rival Sen. Ted Cruz as a “total liar” as the Texas senator and his allies have claimed in the final stretch to the Iowa caucuses that Trump favors government-run, universal health care.

Cruz, meanwhile, pressed forward Sunday with the line of attack, proclaiming: “A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for Obamacare.”

“Look, Ted Cruz is a total liar. I am so against Obamacare. I’ve been saying it for two years in my speeches, I’m going to repeal and replace Obamacare,” Trump said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I don’t even know where he gets this.”

The back-and-forth comes as Trump has pulled ahead of Cruz in the final days of campaigning in Iowa, where Cruz had been surging until Trump began lobbing attacks at Cruz, most notably raising the issue of Cruz’s Canadian birthplace. (Read more from “Donald Trump: ‘Ted Cruz Is a Total Liar'” HERE)

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