Feds Now Trying to Force Employers Nationwide to Allow Transgender People to Use Opposite-Sex Bathrooms [+video]

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The federal government is strongly urging employers to give transgender employees access to bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity, marking a new policy front in the fast-moving campaign for transgender equality.

“… It is essential for employees to be able to work in a manner consistent with how they live the rest of their daily lives, based on their gender identity,” the Occupational Safety and Health Administration wrote in a four-page Guide to Restroom Access for Transgender Workers posted last week on the agency’s Web site.

[Listen to this interview with an ex-transgender man who went through surgery and has strong views on the transgender debate]

The guide is explicit that restroom access for transgender workers is both a civil rights issue and a health and safety one.

“Restricting employees to using only restrooms that are not consistent with their gender identity, or segregating them from other workers by requiring them to use gender-neutral or other specific restrooms, singles those employees out and may make them fear for their physical safety,” OSHA, an arm of the Labor Department wrote, calling its guidance “Best Practices” for employers throughout the country.

In some workplaces, “questions can arise… about which facilities certain employees can use,” OSHA said, then explained that someone’s “internal gender identity” may be different from the sex they were assigned at birth. “A person who identifies as a man should be permitted to use men’s bathrooms, and a person who identifies as a woman should be permitted to use women’s restrooms.” (Read more from “Feds: Transgender People Should Use Bathroom of Gender They Identify As” HERE)

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Pastor Calls Sharpton out When He Asks for Money in Church: ‘You’re Nothing but a PIMP!’

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A black pastor fed up with charlatan Al Sharpton called out the race hustler as a “pimp” during anti-violence rally Saturday in Connecticut.

And oily Al promptly proved the man’s point by acting just like one, according to news reports.

According to CT News Junkie and Fox CT, the scene unfolded at Shiloh Baptist Church in Hartford where an overwhelmingly black crowd had marched in an anti-violence rally following the deaths of four people in a spate of shootings since mid-May . . .

In the church, Sharpton was challenged from the pews by the Rev. Marcus Mosiah Jarvis, pastor of Christ the Cornerstone Praise and Western Tabernacle church, CT News Junkie reported.

“How dare you ask the people of Hartford to give you their money?” Jarvis shouted. “You’re nothing but a pimp!” (Read more from “Pastor Calls Sharpton out When He Asks for Money in Church: ‘You’re Nothing but a PIMP!'” HERE)

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TSA Whistleblowers Describe Security Concerns, Culture of ‘Fear and Distrust’ [+video]

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Whistleblowers on Tuesday portrayed the beleaguered Transportation Security Administration as an agency mired in a culture of “fear and distrust” while raising security concerns over several programs — including TSA PreCheck, in which passes for expedited screening allegedly are passed out “like Halloween candy.”

The TSA employees leveled their criticism during a Senate hearing that follows recent bombshell inspector general reports. One showed undercover agents were able to sneak fake explosives and banned weapons through airport checkpoints about 96 percent of the time; the findings led to the acting TSA secretary being reassigned last week. A second report released Monday showed the agency failed to flag 73 commercial airport workers “linked to terrorism.”

The hearing was cut short by a bomb threat, though investigators did not find anything hazardous.

Before the hearing was broken up, Rebecca Roering, an assistant TSA federal security director at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the agency suffers from low morale. She said this is in part the result of agency leadership, composed of too many former commercial airline executives “placing more emphasis on customer service and passenger wait times than on security and detection rates.”

As part of this, she argued, TSA significantly expanded its PreCheck program. It now boasts more than 1 million enrollees who enjoy expedited security screening at airports. However, roughly 7 million are allowed to use it, according to whistleblowers. (Read more from “TSA Whistleblowers Describe Security Concerns, Culture of ‘Fear and Distrust'” HERE)

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Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert Emerges From Seclusion at Wisconsin Property

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With his initial court appearance set for tomorrow, former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert emerged today from his sprawling vacation home in Wisconsin, where he has been secluded from public view, returning to his estate in Plano, Ill.

Hastert left his Wisconsin property early this morning, driving with his wife in a black SUV on the four-hour journey to his Plano home where he did not slow down as he was met by reporters at the gate.

Hastert is scheduled to appear in a Chicago federal court Tuesday for arraignment on federal bank fraud charges relating to payments he allegedly made to an unnamed individual to conceal “prior misconduct,” according to the Department of Justice. According to the indictment returned 10 days ago, Hastert was paying an unnamed individual hundreds of thousands of dollars to hide past “misconduct,” which federal officials told ABC News involves the alleged sexual abuse of a male student while Hastert was serving as a high school teacher and wrestling coach decades ago.


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The sister of a second alleged sexual abuse victim told ABC News last week that her late brother, Steve Reinboldt, was also molested by Hastert while serving as the wrestling team’s student equipment manager. (Read more from “Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert Emerges From Seclusion at Wisconsin Property” HERE)

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Patient With Extreme Form of Tuberculosis Sent to National Institutes of Health [+video]

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By Maggie Fox. A female patient with an extremely hard-to-treat form of tuberculosis is being treated at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington D.C., and federal and state officials are now tracking down hundreds of people who may have been in contact with her.

The woman traveled to at least three states before she sought treatment from a U.S. doctor. While TB is not easily caught by casual contact, extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB is so dangerous that health officials will have to make a concerted effort to warn anyone who may be at risk.

“The patient is staying in an isolation room in the NIH Clinical Center specifically designed for handling patients with respiratory infections, including XDR-TB. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, is providing care and treatment for the patient in connection with an existing NIH clinical protocol for treating TB, including XDR forms. NIAID has treated other XDR-TB patients in the past under this protocol,” the NIH said.

These special isolation rooms usually control air flow to prevent germs from escaping into the rest of the hospital or outside.

The patient, who isn’t being identified in any way, may face months or even years of treatment. Ordinary TB is hard to treat and requires, at a minimum, weeks of antibiotics. XDR-TB resists the effects of almost all the known TB drugs. Sometimes patients have to have pockets of infection surgically removed. (Read more from “Patient With Extreme Form of Tuberculosis Sent to National Institutes of Health” HERE)

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Tuberculosis Outbreak Brewing in Texas

By Merrill Hope. Initially, officials called it an isolated incident of tuberculosis (TB) in East Texas. One case of the contagious bacterial lung infection originated at a local community college. It since has multiplied into four new cases, the direct result of contact with “patient zero” and now, 60 more people are being screened as a precaution.

On May 29, the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) announced that the four new cases were being treated after individuals came into contact with patient zero, who was said to be a student at Kilgore College in Gregg County, by the Kilgore News Herald.

Officials also advised that an additional 60 people were being screened for TB who had possible contact with one of the infected individuals. Earlier in the month, the TDSHS began investigating that first TB case on campus.

“Many contacts who are currently being evaluated for TB will need to be re-evaluated in 8-10 weeks, depending on the last date of contact with the index (first) case,” said TDSHS spokeswoman Christine Mann, according to KTLV-TV.

Mann stated that if a contact is diagnosed with active TB disease, they will begin treatment immediately. However, if a contact is diagnosed with latent TB infection, which is not contagious, they will be offered treatment depending on their medical history and other risk factors. (Read more from this story HERE)

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UPDATE: Scholars Continue to Attack New History Standards for ‘Pervasive Anti-Patriotism, Focus on America’s Shortcomings’ [+video]

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College professors from across the country are taking a stand against what they call bias in history standards of a new Advanced Placement exam. . .

Part of their letter [to the College Board] reads:

The new framework is organized around such abstractions as “identity,” “peopling,” “work, exchange, and technology,” and “human geography” while downplaying essential subjects, such as the sources, meaning, and development of America’s ideals and political institutions, notably the Constitution. Elections, wars, diplomacy, inventions, discoveries—all these formerly central subjects tend to dissolve into the vagaries of identity-group conflict.

Susan Hanssen, University of Dallas history professor, said on “Fox and Friends” that “there’s kind of a pervasive anti-patriotism that’s being taught in schools”. . .

“There’s no discussion of limited government, checks and balances, the idea of natural rights, the idea of the laws of nature and nature’s God. There’s a real gap in the teaching of American history,” she said. (Read more from “Scholars Reject New History Standards for ‘Pervasive Anti-Patriotism, Focus on America’s Shortcomings'” HERE)

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How 2 Murderers Escaped From a New York Maximum-Security Prison

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Two inmates made a daring and cinematic escape over the weekend from Clinton Correctional Facility, the upstate prison known as “Little Siberia,” somehow obtaining the power tools necessary to carve their way out of their steel cells and into a large pipe leading to a street outside. The account below is based on statements from the New York State governor’s office and police officials.

First, the inmates cut neat rectangular holes in the steel at the backs of their cells. They fashioned dummies from sweatshirts and stuffed their beds to thwart discovery during regular cell checks by guards.


The inmates, both serving long terms for vicious murders, had adjoining cells. There were rectangular holes that could be seen in both walls from the catwalk behind the cells . . .


[They] crawled through pipes and tunnels to a manhole about 400 feet outside the walls of the prison, cutting through a steel lock and chain to open it. (Read more from “How 2 Murderers Escaped From a New York Maximum-Security Prison” HERE)

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Journalist Calls for the “Overthrow” of American System at Socialist Fundraiser [+video]

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It has become all too apparent that the battle for America’s soul is being waged by basically two types of people. Those who wish to return the nation to its former glory as a beacon of liberty for the American people and the world; and those who wish to see the Constitution and all it stands for burn in the fires of collective tyranny.

An example of the latter was recently demonstrated during a New York fundraiser for Seattle Socialist Councilwoman Kshama Sawat. FDL reports that during a speech given at [a New York fundraiser for Seattle Socialist Councilwoman Kshama Sawat,] Progressive author and journalist Chris Hedges called for the overthrow of the American system:

The only response, if we are going to recover a country that does not slip into a corporate, oligarchy tyranny…is if we overthrow the system,” Hedges said. “Let me repeat that word in case anyone from Homeland Security is here and that’s overthrow.

(Read more from “Journalist Calls for An “Overthrow” of the American System at Socialist Fundraiser” HERE)

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Poll: Liberals Making Huge Comeback This Year

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Photo Credit: AP There are signs that liberals are making a comeback — and not just because a socialist is running for president, gay marriage is spreading like wildfire and pot legalization is gaining acceptance.

A new analysis of Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll data finds a marked increase in the share of registered voters identifying themselves as liberals, and an even bigger drop in the share saying they are conservatives.

In three national polls conducted so far in 2015, the analysis found that 26% of registered voters identified themselves as liberals — up from 23% in 2014. At the same time, the share of voters identifying as conservatives dropped to 33% from 37% in 2014 . . .

Photo Credit: WSJ/NBC

From 2010 through 2014, there was little overall variation in the share of people identifying themselves as conservative, moderate and liberal, with conservatives either a plurality or tied with moderates. But that stability seems to be ending this year. For the first time since 2010, conservatives are no longer are a plurality: 38% identify as moderates, compared with the 33% who identify as conservative and 26% as liberal.

Bill McInturff said it wasn’t immediately clear what accounts for the shift. Another poll analysis by Gallup also suggests there has been a leftward movement on social issues: 31% of adults in a May 6-10 poll identified themselves as liberal on social issues — the largest share since Gallup started asking the question in 1999, and the first time social liberals matched the share who said they were socially conservative. On economic issues, by contrast, conservatives continued to dominate by a 39%-19% margin. (Read more from “Poll: Liberals Making Huge Comeback This Year” HERE)

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Perry to Hillary: Fix Your Own State Before You Attack Texas

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By Pam Key. Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” former Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) reacted to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton accusing Republicans of intentionally attempting to disenfranchise voters based on race, age and poverty level and said she insulted the people of Texas who overwhelmingly supported the law.

Perry said, “Well, I think it’s way outside the norm of ridiculous, if you want to know the truth of the matter, to call out the people of the state of Texas, that’s what she did, I just happened to be the governor that signed that legislation and support it, and the vast majority of the people of Texas support it, and what Secretary Clinton did was saying the state of Texas didn’t.” (Read more from “Perry to Hillary: Fix Your Own State Before You Attack Texas” HERE)

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Rick Perry Promises to Take on Wall Street in 2016

By Rebecca Kaplan. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry has a message for Wall Street during his second campaign that could just as easily come from a progressive candidate on the left: No special treatment from Washington.

“There is nothing too big to fail from my perspective when it comes to banks, or when it comes to big corporate entities. And I think Americans are fed up. I am,” Perry said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. ” We’re fed up by seeing Wall Street get treated specially. And you can’t even get a loan from your community bank because of Dodd-Frank banking regulations. All that has to change.”

In practice, he said that means regulations for Wall Street banks – something that is not always popular among the GOP.

“If they make bad decisions, let them live with those bad decisions. Don’t bail them out,” he said.

That doesn’t mean he supports the Dodd-Frank financial regulation legislation signed into law in 2010. That law, he said, “is killing the community banks” because they can’t make loans to small businesses. (Read more from this story HERE)

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