State Dept. Just Made Massive Announcement About Hillary’s Email Investigation

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The State Department has stopped an internal investigation into former Secretary Clinton, giving way to the FBI’s ongoing investigation of Democratic presidential candidate.

State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said Friday that the FBI suggested last month that the State Department has ceased its review of several highly confidential emails in order to let the broader FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails go forward.

“While the ongoing law enforcement investigation is taking place, our internal review is on hold, pending the completion of that. We do not want our internal review to complicate or impede the progress of their ongoing law enforcement investigation,” Trudeau said, calling the decision “standard procedure.”

The State Department had been reviewing 22 emails that carried the highest level of secrecy and had not been made public in any form. The State Department review was designed to determine whether the emails contained classified information at the time they were sent, or whether the information became classified after the fact. Clinton’s defenders have said any classified information in her emails was made so after she sent them. Her opponents say Clinton would have known the information was sensetive, regardless if the documents were marked as “classified” at the time they were sent or not.

Asked at a press briefing if the State Department’s action should be taken as “a sign that the administration thinks that the laws may have been broken,” Trudeau said. “I wouldn’t read anything into it.” (Read more from “State Dept. Just Made Massive Announcement About Hillary’s Email Investigation” HERE)

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What Trump Just Said About Abortion Will Outrage Many Conservatives

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Two days after GOP presidential contender Donald Trump caused a firestorm after walking back his statement that women who have illegal abortions should receive some form of “punishment,” he said during another interview that abortion “laws are set,” and they should be left that way until changed.

In an interview on CBS’ Face the Nation – the broadcast of which will be aired on Sunday – Trump again attempted to clarify his views to moderator John Dickerson.

When asked by Dickerson – from a pro-abortion perspective — “What would you do to further restrict access to abortion?” Trump responded, “The laws are set now on abortion and that’s the way they’re going to remain until they’re changed.”

“A question was asked to me. And it was asked in a very hypothetical,” Trump explained about his prior MSNBC interview with Chris Matthews. “And it was said, ‘Illegal, illegal.’ I’ve been told by some people that was an older line answer and that was an answer that was given on a, you know, basis of an older line from years ago on a very conservative basis.”

When Dickerson mentioned a prior Bloomberg interview during which Trump reportedly said he believed abortion should be banned after a certain point in pregnancy, Trump replied, “I would’ve preferred states’ rights. I think it would’ve been better if it were up to the states. But right now, the laws are set….At this moment, the laws are set. And I think we have to leave it that way.” (Read more from “What Trump Just Said About Abortion Will Outrage Some Conservatives” HERE)

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This Big Rumor Is Circulating About Rubio’s Next Career–It’s the Last Thing You’d Expect

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When Sen. Marco Rubio chose to run for Republican presidential nomination, one of his campaign promises was that he would not seek another term as a U.S. senator from Florida.

Rubio’s campaign got off to a great start, but when the one-time senator lost the primary in his home state to billionaire Donald Trump, he apparently saw the writing on the wall and suspended his campaign for president.

Some may have wondered in what direction Rubio’s career would take him post-race. According to the New York Post, rumors were circulating he would join the Miami Dolphins in an executive role for the team . . .

Citing insiders within the Rubio campaign, the Post reports Rubio is still considering another White House bid in 2020, all the while lobbying to keep the delegates he won in 21 different states, asking delegates not to release them to the three remaining candidates.

With the possibility of an open GOP convention, Rubio is still active behind the scenes. The Post acquired a letter written to the Alaska Republican Party. In it Rubio reportedly wrote, “It is my desire at this time that the delegates allocated to me by your rules remain bound to vote for me on at least the first nominating ballot at the National Convention.” (Read more from “This Big Rumor Is Circulating About Rubio’s Next Career–It’s the Last Thing You’d Expect” HERE)

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Walker Sees Cruz Victory Over Trump in Wisconsin Resetting Republican Race

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Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said voters in his state are about to shift the dynamic of the Republican presidential race.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is on the verge of a victory in Wisconsin that would propel him to the nomination, Walker told Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in an interview set to air Friday on Bloomberg Television’s With All Due Respect.

“I really believe looking at the momentum in this state—and certainly we’ve tried to help create some of that—Ted Cruz wins on Tuesday,” Walker said. “That’s the momentum shift. I think that starts him down the path toward people seeing, hey, this has really devolved into a two-person race.”

A Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday showed Cruz with a 10-point lead over Donald Trump in Wisconsin, where 42 delegates are up for grabs in Tuesday’s primary. Trump is leading the Republican race with 736 delegates, compared 463 for Cruz, the Associated Press estimates. A candidate needs 1,237 to win the nomination.

Walker, a Republican who has endorsed Cruz, declined to criticize Trump during the interview. Instead, Walker kept his focus on what he sees as Cruz’s positives. (Read more from “Walker Sees Cruz Victory Over Trump in Wisconsin Resetting Republican Race” HERE)

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U.S. Commandos Trained to Stop Terrorists With `Dirty Bombs,’ Nukes

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U.S. commando units have been trained to seize and disable nuclear or radioactive bombs, providing a crucial last line of defense if terrorists get their hands on such weapons, according to the general in charge of the forces.

The U.S. Special Operations Command “has sufficient ‘render-safe’ capacity to respond to the most likely” scenarios involving weapons of mass destruction under the current analysis of threats, Army General Raymond Thomas has told lawmakers.

The Pentagon rarely discusses publicly its plans to use commandos if terrorists obtain a nuclear weapon or build a “dirty bomb” from radioactive material. While U.S. officials say there’s no sign yet that Islamic State has such a capability, the prospect was on Friday’s agenda for the Nuclear Security Summit of world leaders being hosted by President Barack Obama in Washington.

Thomas described the role U.S. commandos might play in written responses to the Senate Armed Services Committee before his confirmation as head of the Special Operations Command, a post he took this week. He moved up a rung from his previous role heading the Joint Special Operations Command, directly overseeing fabled — and secretive — units such as the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s SEAL Team 6. (Read more from “U.S. Commandos Trained to Stop Terrorists With `Dirty Bombs'” HERE)

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Americans Fear the Federal Government More Than Terror

According to a pair of recent polls, for the first time since the 9/11 terrorist hijackings, Americans are more fearful their government will abuse constitutional liberties than fail to keep its citizens safe. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Taxpayers Billed $1.4 Million for Obama’s Argentina Trip

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President Barack Obama’s two-day visit to Argentina, where he tangoed and downplayed the differences between capitalism and communism, cost taxpayers nearly $1.4 million.

The president traveled to Argentina last week after his two-day stop in Cuba. The visit racked up substantial costs for hotels, transportation, and advance bathroom maintenance, according to government contracts signed by the State Department and Department of Homeland Security.

Lodging for the president and White House staff totaled $115,588, while conference rooms cost $35,584. Another contract for hotel rooms cost $31,585.

U.S. Secret Service costs associated with the trip included $120,782 for hotel rooms at the Hyatt Park in Buenos Aires and $707,801 for transportation.

Use of Marine One, the presidential helicopter, during Obama’s trip cost $44,611. Other transportation costs included contracts worth $68,597, $23,304, $4,789, $8,212, and $24,955. (Read more from “Taxpayers Billed $1.4 Million for Obama’s Argentina Trip” HERE)

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Depressing Survey Results Show How Extremely Stupid America Has Become

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Ten years ago, a major Hollywood film entitled “Idiocracy” was released, and it was an excellent metaphor for what would happen to America over the course of the next decade. In the movie, an “average American” wakes up 500 years in the future only to discover that he is the most intelligent person by far in the “dumbed down” society that he suddenly finds himself in. Sadly, I truly believe that if people of average intellect from the 1950s and 1960s were transported to 2016, they would likely be considered mental giants compared to the rest of us. We have a country where criminals are being paid $1000 a month not to shoot people, and the highest paid public employee in more than half the states is a football coach. Hardly anyone takes time to read a book anymore, and yet the average American spends 302 minutes a day watching television. 75 percent of our young adults cannot find Israel on a map of the Middle East, but they sure know how to find smut on the Internet. It may be hard to believe, but there are more than 4 million adult websites on the Internet today, and they get more traffic than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined.

What in the world has happened to us? How is it possible that we have become so stupid? According to a brand new report that was recently released, almost 10 percent of our college graduates believe that Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court…

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni publishes occasional reports on what college students know.

Nearly 10 percent of the college graduates surveyed thought Judith Sheindlin, TV’s “Judge Judy,” is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Less than 20 percent of the college graduates knew the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation. More than a quarter of the college graduates did not know Franklin D. Roosevelt was president during World War II; one-third did not know he was the president who spearheaded the New Deal.

It can be tempting to laugh at numbers like these until you realize that survey after survey has come up with similar results.

Just consider what Newsweek found a few years ago…

When NEWSWEEK recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar.

Even worse were the extremely depressing results of a study conducted a few years ago by Common Core…

*Only 43 percent of all U.S. high school students knew that the Civil War was fought some time between 1850 and 1900.

*More than a quarter of all U.S. high school students thought that Christopher Columbus made his famous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean after the year 1750.

*Approximately a third of all U.S. high school students did not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

*Only 60 percent of all U.S. students knew that World War I was fought some time between 1900 and 1950.

Of course survey results can be skewed, and much hinges on how the questions are asked.

However, even studies that are scientifically conducted confirm how stupid America has become. In fact, a report from the Educational Testing Service found that Americans are falling way behind much of the rest of the industrialized world. The following comes from CBS News…

Americans born after 1980 are lagging their peers in countries ranging from Australia to Estonia, according to a new report from researchers at the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The study looked at scores for literacy and numeracy from a test called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, which tested the abilities of people in 22 countries.

The results are sobering, with dire implications for America. It hints that students may be falling behind not only in their early educational years but at the college level. Even though more Americans between the ages of 20 to 34 are achieving higher levels of education, they’re still falling behind their cohorts in other countries. In Japan, Finland and the Netherlands, young adults with only a high school degree scored on par with American Millennials holding four-year college degrees, the report said.

Out of 22 countries that were part of the study, the Educational Testing Service found that Americans were dead last in tech proficiency, dead last in numeracy and only two countries performed worse than us when it came to literacy proficiency…

Half of American Millennials score below the minimum standard of literacy proficiency. Only two countries scored worse by that measure: Italy (60 percent) and Spain (59 percent). The results were even worse for numeracy, with almost two-thirds of American Millennials failing to meet the minimum standard for understanding and working with numbers. That placed U.S. Millennials dead last for numeracy among the study’s 22 developed countries.

So why has this happened?

Why have we become such an extremely stupid nation?

Well, at least a portion of the blame must be directed at our system of education. The following is an excerpt from an article written by reporter Mark Morford. In this article, he shared how one of his friends which had served for a very long time as a high school teacher in Oakland, California was considering moving out of the country when he retired due to the relentless “dumb-ification of the American brain”…

It’s gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking — and nearly hopeless — dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.

Now, you may think he’s merely a curmudgeon, a tired old teacher who stopped caring long ago. Not true. Teaching is his life. He says he loves his students, loves education and learning and watching young minds awaken. Problem is, he is seeing much less of it.

And of course things don’t get much better when it comes to our college students. In a previous article, I shared some statistics from USA Today about the rapidly declining state of college education in the United States…

-“After two years in college, 45% of students showed no significant gains in learning; after four years, 36% showed little change.”

-“Students also spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago”

-“35% of students report spending five or fewer hours per week studying alone.”

-“50% said they never took a class in a typical semester where they wrote more than 20 pages”

-“32% never took a course in a typical semester where they read more than 40 pages per week.”

I spent eight years studying at some of the finest public universities in the country, and I can tell you from personal experience that even our most challenging college courses have been pathetically dumbed down.

And at our “less than finest” public universities, the level of education can be something of a bad joke. In another previous article, I shared some examples of actual courses that have been taught at U.S. universities in recent years…

-“What If Harry Potter Is Real?”

-“Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame”

-“Philosophy And Star Trek”

-“Learning From YouTube”

-“How To Watch Television”

Could you imagine getting actual college credit for a course entitled “What If Harry Potter Is Real?”

This is why many of our college graduates can barely put two sentences together. They aren’t being challenged, and the quality of the education most of them are receiving is incredibly poor.

But even though they aren’t being challenged, students are taking longer to get through college than ever. Federal statistics reveal that only 36 percent of all full-time students receive a bachelor’s degree within four years, and only 77 percent of all full-time students have earned a bachelor’s degree by the end of six years.

Of course our system of education is not entirely to blame. The truth is that young Americans spend far more time consuming media than they do hitting the books, and what passes for “entertainment” these days is rapidly turning their brains to mush.

According to a report put out by Nielsen, this is how much time the average American spends consuming media on various devices each day…

Watching live television: 4 hours, 32 minutes

Watching time-shifted television: 30 minutes

Listening to the radio: 2 hours, 44 minutes

Using a smartphone: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Using Internet on a computer: 1 hour, 6 minutes

When you add it all up, the average American spends more than 10 hours a day plugged into some form of media.

And if you allow anyone to pump “programming” into your mind for 10 hours a day, it is going to have a dramatic impact.

In the end, I truly believe that we all greatly underestimate the influence that the mainstream media has on all of us. We willingly plug into “the Matrix” for endless hours, but then somehow we still expect “to think for ourselves”.

There are very few of us that can say that we have not been exposed to thousands upon thousands of hours of conditioning. And all of that garbage can make it very, very difficult to think clearly.

It is not because of a lack of input that we have become so stupid as a society. The big problem is what we are putting into our minds.

If we continue to put garbage in, we are going to continue to get garbage out, and that is the cold, hard reality of the matter. (For more from the author of “Depressing Survey Results Show How Extremely Stupid America Has Become” please click HERE)

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Rand Paul Just Revealed He’s Making ‘Major Endorsement’, 1 Thing People Instantly Notice…

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Sen. Rand Paul tweeted on Thursday that he is going to make a “Yuge” endorsement on Friday, April 1.

The former presidential candidate teased out the announcement in series of tweets: . . .

The Kentuckian may be engaging in misdirection in one of two ways. Either he may be backing a candidate other than Trump, or the whole tease is just part of an April Fool’s joke, as one libertarian tweeted.

Lending credence to the notion that Paul is engaging in some sort of April 1 prank, was a report by The Hill that his spokesman had just confirmed on Wednesday that the senator would not be endorsing during the primary.

(Read more from “Rand Paul Just Revealed He’s Making ‘Major Endorsement’, 1 Thing People Instantly Notice…” HERE)

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Obama Commutes Sentences of 61 Felons, Including Violent Gun Criminals

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When Obama delegitimized our immigration laws and implemented executive amnesty back in November 2014, he harnessed the fallout from the lawlessness as a means of blackmailing Congress to pass legislative amnesty. He is now doing the same thing with executive jailbreak in order to allure Congress into passing legislative jailbreak. And much like with the immigration issue, Republican leaders are more than happy to give his jailbreak agenda tailwinds instead of opposing it with full vigor.

Earlier today, Obama announced the commutation of sentences for 61 drug traffickers who will be released from federal prison in July. According to the Associated Press, “The latest tranche of commutations brings to 248 the total number of inmates whose sentences Obama has commuted — more than the past six presidents combined.” As we’ve noted in a series of articles this past year, the federal prison population is actually relatively small, hovering at roughly 160,000. And most of those in federal prison, as opposed to state penitentiaries, are indeed violent criminals who likely committed other crimes but pleaded down to and were sentenced for drug trafficking. Also, up to 30% are non-citizens and should be deported instead of released into our population.

Republicans should have defunded these commutations during last year’s budget battle, but instead they have signaled to Obama that they will drop every other important issue and focus on enshrining his last remaining domestic policy agenda item for the remainder of his term. Paul Ryan has promised to bring to the floor a bill that will retroactively release thousands more from federal prisons, including MS-13 gang members who were convicted to up to 20 years in federal prison for violent crimes.

What is so appalling and ironic about Obama’s clemency program is that in addition to releasing drug dealers, he is commuting the sentences of those who committed crimes with firearms. At the same time, Obama is calling for tougher regulations on law abiding gun owners and dealers, he is releasing violent gun criminals into our communities. Yet, Republicans cannot hold him accountable and message this point to the media because they agree with his underlying policy.

Jailbreak, along with the Puerto Rico bailout, will likely be the biggest legislative battles of Spring 2016. This is something both conservatives and libertarians need to fight. There is nothing libertarian about this effort. It’s not as if Congress is prospectively reforming the drug laws by devolving them to the states. This is all about retroactively reducing prison population and handing more discretion to liberal judges; the same people who exacerbated the crime wave of last generation with their lenient sentences.

This is not rooted in a libertarian agenda and will not result in a libertarian outcome of getting the federal government out of drug enforcement. There is a reason the ACLU, La Raza, and the AFL-CIO are championing this bill with the same vigor as the Gang of Eight. It will result in chaos, more crime, and the ultimate goal of registering more Democrat voters.

Honest people can debate the utility of federal narcotics statutes going forward, but most of those already serving time in federal prison are heavy duty cocaine, meth or heroin dealers and have often committed other violent crimes and will commit violent crimes upon release. Let’s first deal with border security and stop the flow of both illegal immigrants and destructive narcotics and we will see a huge reduction in the federal prison population and proliferation of drugs.

Conservatives should spend the next few months embarrassing Obama on immigration, Cuba, Iran, religious liberty, and homeland security, not peddle the jailbreak agenda of the far left. (For more from the author of “Obama Commutes Sentences of 61 Felons, Including Violent Gun Criminals” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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Rove: Scrap Trump, Cruz and Kasich and Go With a ‘Fresh Face’

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Karl Rove says that instead of nominating Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich “a fresh face might be the thing that could give us a chance to turn this election and win in November against Hillary.”

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Thursday, Rove weighed in on the 2016 election and called on Trump to start “acting in a presidential manner” in order to turn his high unfavorable ratings around.

Hewitt asked Rove, “If Donald Trump is the nominee, how do you recover from a 30 percent favorable/63 percent unfavorable, as you note in your column today?”

Rove replied, “Look, I don’t think it’s possible. You know, he claims that he can be presidential when he needs to be. If he wants to change those numbers, he ought to start acting in a presidential manner, whatever he thinks that is, because right now, his numbers are abysmal. I mean, 30 percent, no one has ever been nominated for president with numbers this bad. And nobody has ever won the presidency with numbers anywhere near this bad by the time of the election. Now maybe the numbers are pliable for him. I doubt it. But he’d better show us some evidence by July 18th that he can change these numbers. He may be popular inside the Republican Party, though he has only gotten an average of 37 percent of the votes. But among general election voters, he’s more than 2-2-1 negative.” (Read more from “Rove: Scrap Trump, Cruz and Kasich and Go With a ‘Fresh Face'” HERE)

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