TSA Spent $160 Million on Failed Body Scanners, ‘Naked’ X-Rays

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Airport SecurityThe Transportation Security Administration spent $160 million on body scanners that have largely failed to detect airport security threats.

Politico reported that the government agency paid $120 million for the body scanners currently in place at airport checkpoints across the country in addition to another $40 million on the “naked” X-ray scanners removed from airports two years ago amid health and privacy concerns.

The TSA, which recently disclosed the costs to members of Congress probing the agency, on average spent over $150,000 per unit of body imaging technology since it first began purchasing the scanners in 2008.

The acting TSA head was reassigned in June after a security audit revealed that the agency’s devices failed to detect fake weapons and explosives 96 percent of the time in secret tests . . .

Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) said that the scanners are so unsuccessful–“These things weren’t even catching metal,” he warned–that they should be preceded by metal detectors. (Read more from “TSA Spent $160 Million on Failed Body Scanners, ‘Naked’ X-Rays” HERE)

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California Plans to Take Land for Huge Water Tunnels

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640x0 (1)State contractors have readied plans to acquire as many as 300 farms in the California delta by eminent domain to make room for a pair of massive, still-unapproved water tunnels proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown, according to documents obtained by opponents of the tunnels.

Farmers whose parcels were listed and mapped in the 160-page property-acquisition plan expressed dismay at the advanced planning for the project, which would build 30-mile-long tunnels in the delta formed by the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers.

“What really shocks is we’re fighting this and we’re hoping to win,” said Richard Elliot, who grows cherries, pears and other crops on delta land farmed by his family since the 1860s. “To find out they’re sitting in a room figuring out this eminent domain makes it sound like they’re going to bully us … and take what they want.” (Read more from “California Plans to Take Land for Huge Water Tunnels” HERE)

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Hillary Skips Public Forum to Tell Reporters That Regular Voters Don’t Care About Email Scandal

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clinton-e1439584814871Hillary Clinton asserted at the Iowa State Fair Saturday that average voters don’t care about her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

But the Democrat avoided testing out her theory, opting to answer questions from reporters rather than attending The Des Moines Register Presidential Soapbox, a forum nearly all of the other candidates for president will have attended by the time the fair ends next week.

“We’ll see how this all plays out, but it’s not anything people talk to me about as I travel around the country. It is never raised in my town halls. It’s never raised in my other meetings with people,” Clinton told reporters at the fair when asked about the FBI’s investigation into her home-brew email server . . .

Clinton’s qualification that she did not receive any emails that were “marked classified” is a relatively new wrinkle in her explanation of the use of a private email account.

The FBI seized Clinton’s home-brew email server from a New Jersey data center earlier this week. That’s after I. Charles McCullough, the Intelligence Community inspector general, found two emails he believes contained “top secret” information at the time they were sent. Clinton did not send the emails, but they traversed her server, which was housed at the time in the basement of her Chappaqua, N.Y. home. (Read more from “Hillary Skips Public Forum to Tell Reporters That Regular Voters Don’t Care About Email Scandal” HERE)

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Retiring Army General: ‘She Sacrificed Her Entire Life for Me. I Can Never Repay Her’ [+video]

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odiernoAfter 39 years of service to this country, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno retired on Friday, thanking all military spouses — and especially his wife Linda — for helping to “make us a better Army.”

In addition to praising Linda’s “selfless service,” Odierno noted that she’s attended more than 500 memorial services for fallen soldiers over the years.

We’ll let the general speak for himself:

“She sacrificed her entire life for me. I can never repay her for that.

“It’s often hard for me to stand up here and make other people understand how much our spouses sacrifice.” (Read more from “Retiring Army General: ‘She Sacrificed Her Entire Life for Me. I Can Never Repay Her'” HERE)

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Former Pentagon Official: Obama Is Working Against the U.S.

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scary obamaA former Pentagon official is slamming Obama administration policies on ISIS and Cuba as the terrorists reportedly deploy chemical weapons against Kurdish enemies and the United States re-opens its embassy in Cuba, saying the president and his team are deliberately working against the best interests of the country.

“They’re eager to do this because no one else believes that it is in the United States’ best interest. They want to go against the United States’ best interests,” said Jed Babbin, who served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration. He is now an author and columnist.

When pressed to explain that comment, Babbin doubled down.

“I mean what I said. These people, this administration, has a track record of doing a lot of things that are not in the United States’ best interests,” he said, asserting that American policy on ISIS and Cuba are two prime examples.

Late in the week, reports suggest ISIS used chemical weapons, mustard gas in particular, against Kurds in northern Iraq. Babbin believes the weapons could have been obtained in several different ways. (Read more from “Former Pentagon Official: Obama Is Working Against the U.S.” HERE)

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Watch: National Security Analyst Unloads on Hillary Over Email Scandal

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Clinton_c0-259-4930-3132_s561x327By Jamie Weinstein. Hillary Clinton’s email scandal should disqualify her from the Oval Office.

At least so says former CIA operative and CNN national security analyst Bob Baer, who is not known for being a political partisan.

“If this was on her server and it got into her smart phone, there’s a big problem there,” Baer said during an appearance on CNN International Saturday, noting that the sensitivity of the information reportedly found on Clinton’s private server was likely more secret than what Edward Snowden pilfered.

“Seriously, if I had sent a document like this over the open Internet I’d get fired the same day, escorted to the door and gone for good — and probably charged with mishandling classified information,” Baer said. (Read more from “National Security Analyst Unloads on Hillary Over Email Scandal” HERE)

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Number of Hillary Clinton’s Emails Flagged for Classified Data Has Grown to This Number

By John Solomon. While media coverage has focused on a half-dozen of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal emails containing sensitive intelligence, the total number of her private emails identified by an ongoing State Department review as having contained classified data has ballooned to 60, officials told The Washington Times.

That figure is current through the end of July and is likely to grow as officials wade through a total of 30,000 work-related emails that passed through her personal email server, officials said. The process is expected to take months.

The 60 emails are among those that have been reviewed and cleared for release under the Freedom of Information Act as part of a open-records lawsuit. Some of the emails have multiple redactions for classified information.

Among the first 60 flagged emails, nearly all contained classified secrets at the lowest level of “confidential” and one contained information at the intermediate level of “secret,” officials told the Times.

Those 60 emails do not include two emails identified in recent days by Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III as containing “top-secret” information possibly derived from Pentagon satellites, drones or intercepts, which is some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets. (Read more from “Number of Hillary Clinton’s Emails Flagged for Classified Data Has Grown to This Number” HERE)

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Despite White House Lobbying, Senator Flake Opposes Iran Nuclear Deal

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Flake speaks to reporters as Udall listens during a news conference in HavanaU.S. Senator Jeff Flake announced his opposition on Saturday to the nuclear deal with Iran despite White House lobbying to try to convince the Arizona Republican to break from others in his party and back the accord when U.S. lawmakers vote on it.

The agreement that Iran reached with the United States and other world powers on July 14 “does contain benefits in terms of limiting Iran’s ability to produce sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon for a period of time, particularly at its known nuclear facilities,” Flake said in a statement.

“But these benefits are outweighed by severe limitations the (agreement) places on Congress and future administrations in responding to Iran’s non-nuclear behavior in the region,” Flake added.

The White House had held out some hope that Flake, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member, would buck his party and possibly bring some other Republicans with him in support of the agreement.

Flake was the only Republican lawmaker who traveled with President Barack Obama to Africa in July. White House officials lobbied him during that trip to support the deal. Flake had backed Obama’s moves on another important foreign policy initiative, establishing warmer relations with Cuba. (Read more from “Despite White House Lobbying, Senator Flake Opposes Iran Nuclear Deal” HERE)

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Army Skydivers Returning to Base After Members Tragic Death

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article-2530713-1A536AB900000578-386_634x526Members of a U.S. Army skydiving team will return to their base where they will have access to counseling after a parachutist from their unit died from injuries suffered during a stunt at the Chicago Air & Water Show, a spokeswoman for the group said.

The Golden Knights demonstration team has been put on a “safety stand down” after the death of Sgt. 1st Class Corey Hood, spokeswoman Donna Dixon said Sunday. The group will head to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where they can meet with chaplains as the Army works to ensure everyone is mentally and physically fit to continue with the show season, she said. The team’s performance schedule could be affected.

Hood, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was pronounced dead Sunday afternoon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. A day earlier, he collided in midair with a member of the Navy’s precision skydiving team during the event along Chicago’s Lake Michigan shoreline. (Read more from “Army Skydivers Returning to Base After Members Tragic Death” HERE)

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CLINTON CRIME FAMILY COMICS: Hillary’s 5 Funniest Email Lies

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New York, Hillary Rodham ClintonAnother instant classic by our long-suffering summer intern @BiffSpackle, based upon an editorial by The New York Post:

150816-clinton-crime-comix-5-funniest-lies

On Fox News the other day, blogger and counterterror analyst John Schindler explained the ramifications of Clinton’s actions.

And if Vegas had a line on it, my guess is that longtime aides Huma Abedin and/or Cheryl Mills illegally removed the classification markings from the emails destined for Hillary, so she could always claim she didn’t know they contained TOP SECRET information. And each such action is a felony, too. (Re-posted with permission, “CLINTON CRIME FAMILY COMICS: Hillary’s 5 Funniest Email Lies”, originally appeared HERE)

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We Must Stop Corporate Donations to Planned Parenthood

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Pro-Choice Supporters Rally In DC Against Restrictive Abortion LawsSeveral dozen major corporations are responsible for funding Planned Parenthood with hundreds of millions of dollars. Those donations fund 100% of over one-quarter of Planned Parenthood’s operations, operations that include killing over 300,000 pre-born babies per year.

Horrendously, parts from these babies are then fed into a multibillion dollar American industry that directly profits from the murder of the unborn. Read more about this HERE.

We encourage you to stop purchasing goods and services from any corporation that is helping fund Planned Parenthood. We also encourage you to write a letter or email to, or even call, the corporate office of each of these corporations and explain why you will no longer spend money their way.

For your convenience, we have included a list of the offending corporations HERE – along with their contact information – that are helping to directly fund Planned Parenthood’s operations.

Finally, we have created a form letter HERE that you are free to use in lodging your complaint against Planned Parenthood-supporting companies.

Thank you for your fight for life. And may God Bless your efforts.

Restoring Liberty