Obama: If I Could Do It Again, ‘I Think I Would Have Closed Guantanamo on the First Day’ [+video]

President Barack Obama slammed Republicans’ latest budget proposals on Wednesday, saying funding for research, education and infrastructure would be better for economic growth than tax cuts.

In a speech at the City Club of Cleveland, Obama mocked Republicans for turning to tax cuts in a budget that “doubles down on trickle-down” economics..

“Republicans in Congress have put forward the same proposals year after year after year regardless of the realities of the economy,” Obama said. “When the economy’s in a slump? We needed tax cuts. When the economy’s doing well? You know what – let’s try some tax cuts,” he said.

In another issue that has divided Washington, Obama said he wished he had closed the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on his first day in office. His efforts to close the controversial facility have since been thwarted largely because of Republican opposition.

Obama said the budget plan put forward this week by Republicans in the House of Representatives would cut funding to centers that help manufacturing, a sector critical to the economy of northeast Ohio, home to plants owned by Ford, GM, Goodyear and Sherwin-Williams Co. (Read more from “Obama: If I Could Do It Again, ‘I Think I Would Have Closed Guantanamo on the First Day’ [+video]” HERE)

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Republican Lawmaker: Sodomy Law Needed for Public Health

[Editor’s note: This excerpt is biased but is included for its news content] Texas Republican state Rep. James White has said that the state’s unconstitutional ban on same-sex sodomy should not be repealed for “public health” reasons and to stop bestiality.

The San Antonio-Express News recently asked White if he would support repealing the ban since he had filed a bill to rollback regulations on hair braiding.

Even though the Supreme Court struck down the sodomy law in its 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision, White insisted that it should be kept on the books. The law specifically bans “deviant sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex.”

“Absolutely, there is a difference,” White said, arguing that hair braiding regulations were “a way of disenfranchising them out of the marketplace. I don’t necessarily think this was the case with sodomy.”

According to the Republican lawmaker, the anti-gay law represented “a community coming together and having a moral standard, per se, as opposed to using the regulatory environment to disenfranchise people.” (Read more from “Republican Lawmaker: Anti-Gay Sodomy Law Needed for ‘Public Health’” HERE)

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Jeb Bush’s Tie to Fugitive Goes Against Business-Savvy Image He Promotes

Jeb Bush was a young man building a real estate business in Miami in 1985 when health-care entrepreneur Miguel Recarey Jr. hired him to help locate office space in South Florida.

Bush, then the son of the vice president, later provided another service: opening doors in Washington, where Recarey had mounted an aggressive lobbying effort for a waiver from Medicare rules that would allow his fast-growing company to continue to expand.

Recarey got what he wanted. But two years later, the firm, International Medical Centers, was shut down as regulators searched for millions in missing federal funds. Facing charges of bribery and bilking Medicare, Recarey fled the country to avoid prosecution. He remains a fugitive in Spain, where a court denied U.S. requests for extradition.

The Recarey case illustrates aspects of Bush’s business record that are likely to resurface as he moves closer to a campaign for president. Time and again, he benefited from his family name and connections to land a consulting deal or board membership, sometimes doing business with people and companies that would later run afoul of the law.

In the case of Recarey, Bush has said over the years that he “made one call” to a mid-level official to seek a fair deal for a Florida businessman. (Read more from “Jeb Bush’s Tie to Fugitive Goes Against Business-Savvy Image He Promotes” HERE)

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ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith: Every Black Person Should Vote Republican for One Election

ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith has offered an opinion that’s sure to cause some controversy . . .

While giving a speech at the Impact Symposium at Vanderbilt University in Nashville Tennessee, Smith said:

“What I dream is that for one election, just one, every black person in America vote Republican,” he said. “Because from what I’ve read, and I’m open to correction, but from what I’ve read, Barry Goldwater is going against Lyndon B. Johnson. He’s your Republican candidate. He is completely against the Civil Rights Movement. Lyndon B. Johnson was in favor of it. What happens is, he wins office, Barry Goldwater loses office, but there was a senate, a Republican senate, that pushed the votes to the president’s desk. It was the Democrats who were against Civil Rights legislation. So because President Lyndon B. Johnson was a Democrat, black America assumed the Democrats were for it” . . .

He went on to say that if blacks did vote for the GOP would force both parties to make black concerns seriously.

“Black folks in America are telling one party, ‘We don’t give a damn about you.’ They’re telling the other party ‘You’ve got our vote.’ Therefore, you have labeled yourself ‘disenfranchised’ because one party knows they’ve got you under their thumb. The other party knows they’ll never get you and nobody comes to address your interest.” (Read more from “ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith: Every Black Person Should Vote Republican for One Election” HERE)

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Starbucks Stands Behind Race Together Campaign Despite Backlash

Starbucks is sticking with an initiative it launched on Monday aimed at sparking discussion about race relations in America even though the effort is being widely criticized in the media and on social networks.

The backlash even caused the brand’s comms leader to quit Twitter early Tuesday.

Starbucks created the campaign “to stimulate conversation, compassion, and action around race in America with the goal of encouraging greater understanding and empathy,” according to an email from Corey duBrowa, SVP of global communications and international public affairs.

Though seemingly well-intentioned, Starbucks bit off more than it could chew with the Race Together initiative, according to some critics in the media, who questioned whether the chain’s employees are qualified or patient enough to have such a sensitive conversation with customers. Others have commented that Starbucks could be trying to capitalize on racial tension in the US.

Despite opposition to the effort, duBrowa, who shut down his Twitter account on Tuesday after being flooded with negative comments, said the brand knew the campaign would be challenging. (Read more from “Starbucks Stands Behind Race Together Campaign Despite Backlash” HERE)

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California Drought: State OKs Sweeping Restrictions on Water Use

California officials approved a package of far-reaching water restrictions Tuesday, limiting homes and businesses in much of the Bay Area and elsewhere to just two days of outdoor watering per week while cracking down on the way restaurants and hotels use water.

The rules mark unprecedented territory for the state, which has historically let local water agencies, with their unique supplies and demands, manage how customers use water. But with California poised for a fourth year of drought and conservation lagging, officials opted for statewide action.

The regulations, carrying fines up to $500, add to restrictions put in place last year that rein in outdoor water use — for example, barring people from hosing down driveways. The new terms tread deeper into homes, businesses and the lives of most Californians, and are indicative of the state’s worsening water woes.

“We are not seeing the stepping up and the ringing of alarm bells that the situation warrants,” said Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, which voted unanimously for Tuesday’s conservation mandates.

The regulations require local water agencies that don’t already limit outdoor watering to certain days of the week to adopt a two-day-a-week policy. Among the Bay Area agencies that would have to impose the two-day limit are the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, serving the city’s more than 800,000 residents, as well as the Marin Municipal Water District and Contra Costa Water District. Agencies outside San Francisco that buy water from the SFPUC — including on the Peninsula and in parts of the East Bay — are affected only if they do not already impose watering limits. (Read more from “California Drought: State OKs Sweeping Restrictions on Water Use” HERE)

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The Betrayal Papers: The Muslim Brotherhood Colonizes America and the Press Says Nothing

The first four parts of The Betrayal Papers have presented a nearly unfathomable scenario: a takeover of the country by a foreign, hostile party. (See Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.) This supplemental article addresses the problem of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the nation’s capital and throughout the American establishment.

The United States of America, primarily through the political left and Democrat Party, has been virtually colonized by the Muslim Brotherhood. Also known by their Arabic name, Ikhwan, they are a totalitarian, terrorist Islamic group that seeks our destruction because we are a free people.

We witness the Muslim Brotherhood’s planned destruction of America in many areas of contemporary life. A purposefully weak economy fails to produce the capitalist dynamism that has defined America for generations, and many millions remain unemployed. Abroad, the Muslim Brotherhood’s domination of American foreign policy instigated and backed the failed “Arab Spring,” which may ultimately result in Iranian domination of the Middle East. We feel their suffocating effects on our democracy every day, as our freedoms, traditions, opportunities, and rule of law slip away. The people suffer as prices continue to rise and the public sinks into a bottomless pit of debt.

The hostile, conquered government in Washington strangles our liberty each time Obama, like a self-crowned emperor, passes new regulatory laws without Congress.

Each of these trends is related to the predominant problem in America today: the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to a place of eminence in American government – the Executive, the Presidency. The People’s office, established by Article II of the Constitution, is now either occupied by a Muslim Brother in Barack Hussein Obama, or a man who happens to go along with their every policy at every turn.

To understand the nature and evil of the Muslim Brotherhood, recall their intimate involvement with Hitler’s Nazi war machine and Holocaust. This genocidal syndicate has birthed virtually all major Islamic terrorist groups and their various offshoots. Financially, they have the backing of the Qatar, whose ruling Al-Thani family is likely the world’s richest family.

Within the United States, Muslim Brotherhood finger prints are on the administration’s biggest scandals: IRS targeting of conservative groups, eavesdropping on the press, the scrubbing of counterterrorism material of the words “Islam” and “Muslim,” NYC police murders in December 2014, Benghazi, and more.

In Syria and Iraq, to the extent that these countries still distinctly exist and are not viewed as part of an emerging Islamic caliphate, the Muslim Brotherhood is directly responsible for the rise of ISIS and the entire Arab Spring. The Obama-backed project to replace strongmen in the region (e.g. Mubarak, Gaddafi, Assad) is such a failure that Libya today is in a state of anarchy, occupied by ISIS’s bloodthirsty armies, who are training to invade Europe.

Paralyzed by Inaction and Complicity

The U.S. Congress refuses to act. They are in denial, and paid well to be so. Lobbyists and government perks keep them fat, happy, and stupid. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has a regional headquarters in Doha, Qatar, home of the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Indeed, some of America’s most respected companies do business with Al-Thani family, who last year pledged $1 billion to the terrorist government, including Hamas, in Gaza. Georgetown University and the Brookings Institution are also in this sand-swept desert oasis of revolutionary Islam, along with many other top-tier universities and think tanks.

So far has the establishment, in particular the Obama administration and the progressive left, merged with the global Muslim Brotherhood, that Harvard University and Northwestern University are actually helping build an Islamic sharia law school in Qatar – a country which has been aptly nicknamed an “ATM for Terrorists.”

There are enough hard, verifiable facts available on Muslim Brotherhood’s infiltration of Washington, D.C. that there is no need to stretch the truth. Qatar’s associations with the nation’s capital and the players who run it are alone enough to fill a volume, or two.

So why doesn’t the Press report just the facts?

What is the reason for such an incredible failure by the press to inform the American people of the dire state of their government under Barack Obama? There are several.

Many advisors to Obama are married into the media, or have worked in media themselves prior to joining the administration. Both Ben Rhodes and Susan Rice have familial connections with powerful executive in (what was once known as) the free press. Four times more journalists identify as liberal compared to conservative. Evidently, with the case of Brian Williams coming to light, some in the media don’t care about the truth and would rather make up bald-faced lies.


Yet the biases above don’t fully explain the conspicuous silence of the mainstream press on the Muslim Brotherhood.

For it is no longer bias or loyalty that sway the press, but fear. The Obama administration has proved that it will stonewall, punish, illegally wiretap, and in general make life difficult for inquisitive members of the press. Case in point, Sharyl Attkisson, who refused go along with the official lies regarding Benghazi. Her documented harassment by the administration sends the intended message, and most spineless editors and producers listen: shut up and report what we say, or else!

Overseas, an aggressive Russia is looking to reassert the power it had under the Czars and the Soviets. Civil unrest in Ukraine has resulted in a war that threatens Russia’s economic security. Simultaneously, Russian-allied Syria, on the Mediterranean, is under attack by U.S.-backed terrorists, who are referred to by the administration and parroting media as “moderates” (that, according to Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper).

When it comes to the genocide and cultural annihilation of Middle Eastern Christians and other minorities, the word is in Washington is mum.

Today’s parallels with the 1930s are hard to miss. In an ominous signal of what may come, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called all European Jews to Israel. All signs point to the conclusion that a much broader war is on the horizon unless something big changes, and fast. And because our allies have very little trust in us, as we continue to back a genocidal Islamic movement, the country finds itself with few international friends and in considerable danger.

If we want to change our future, it behooves us to face reality, no matter what it is. The Muslim Brotherhood is not going to disappear on its own – they are too entrenched. One potential first step would be to formally designate that the Muslim Brotherhood and all affiliated groups are terrorist entities. This has already been done in Egypt, Russia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. It is most definitely not “Islamophobic.”

Following the designation, patriotic law enforcement must conduct a thorough investigation of all levels of government, and prosecute all guilty parties according to the Constitution.

Most urgently, the people must demand action! Before too much more time passes, before it is too late.

The Betrayal Papers is a collaborative effort by the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, which includes: Andrea Shea King, Dr. Ashraf Ramelah, Benjamin Smith, Bethany Blankley, Brent Parrish, Charles Ortel, Chris Nethery, Denise Simon, Dick Manasseri, Gary Kubiak, Gates of Vienna, Hannah Szenes, IQ al Rassooli, Jeff Bayard, Leslie Burt, Marcus Kohan, Mary Fanning, General Paul E. Vallely, Regina Thomson, Scott Smith, Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, Colonel Thomas Snodgrass, Trever Loudon, Wallace Bruschweiler, and William Palumbo.

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Starbucks’ Push to Make Baristas Talk About Race is a Disaster Waiting to Happen

By Jenée Desmond-Harris. Starbucks has launched an initiative to encourage its employees and customers to have conversations about race.

CEO Howard Schultz has given baristas at 12,000 Starbucks locations the option to write the words “Race Together” on customers’ cups and begin discussions about race relations.

The initiative is a partnership with USA Today. Full-page ads in the New York Times and USA Today this week have advertisements supporting the Race Together initiative, and USA Today will include an insert with materials on race designed to spark the desired discussions and a hashtag — #RaceTogether — to publicly share results. According to Starbucks, the plan will be further detailed during Starbucks’ 2015 annual shareholders meeting in Seattle on Wednesday.

According to Starbucks, the Race Together initiative is an outgrowth of the discussion forums the company held in response to the outcry over racially biased policing after Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner’s in Staten Island, New York.

It appears to be a reflection of Schultz’s sincere distress over the pain and hostility that often underlies national headlines and controversies related to race and racism. While there is no shortage of tweets making light of the potential pitfalls of the effort, it would be unfair not to note that Race Together is probably an honest attempt on his part to make America better. (Read more from “Starbucks’ Push to Make Baristas Talk About Race Sounds Like It Could Be Disastrous” HERE)

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Starbucks Strikes Up Hot Debate with Two Words They are Serving Up on Their Coffee Cups

By Kyle Becker. Starbucks has hit the next stage of business activism by encouraging baristas to strike up a conversation about race.


How are they going about broaching this delicate subject? By writing “race together” on their coffee cups.

Racial matters are certainly part of a national conversation that Americans should be having with one another.

The issue lies in this case whether or not it’s appropriate for a business to drop a charged conversation about race on customers without being solicited to do so. People go to Starbucks presumably for the coffee – not to be accosted with political issues. (Read more from this story HERE)

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“Everyone is Scared of Fox”: Reporter Quits Daily Caller After Column on Fox News’ Support for Amnesty was Yanked

By Daniel Byers. The blogger Mickey Kaus has quit his job at The Daily Caller after the conservative site’s editor-in-chief, Tucker Carlson, pulled a critical column about Fox News from the site, Kaus told the On Media blog on Tuesday.

“It’s pretty simple,” Kaus said in an interview, “I wrote a piece attacking Fox for not being the opposition on immigration and amnesty — for filling up the airwaves with reports on ISIS and terrorism, and not fulfilling their responsibility of being the opposition on amnesty and immigration…. I posted it at 6:30 in the morning. When I got up, Tucker had taken it down. He said, ‘We can’t trash Fox on the site. I work there.'”

Carlson, who co-founded The Daily Caller in 2010, is a conservative contributor to Fox News and the host of its weekend edition of “Fox & Friends.”

Kaus says when he told Carlson he needed to be able to write about Fox, Carlson told him it was a hard-and-fast rule, and non-negotiable. (Read more from “Mickey Kaus Quits Daily Caller After Tucker Carlson Pulls Critical Fox News Column” HERE)


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“Everyone Is Scared of Fox”: Why Mickey Kaus Quit the Daily Caller


By Andrew Prokop. A well-known blogger has quit his job at the conservative website the Daily Caller — because his employer wouldn’t let him criticize Fox News . . .

Kaus argued that this was a symptom of a larger dynamic in the conservative movement, telling Byers, “Everybody is scared of Fox. … Fox is their route to a high-profile public image and in some cases stardom. Just to be on a Fox show is a big deal. And I think that’s a problem on the right, Fox’s monopoly on star-making power.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Air Force Veteran Charged with Attempting to Join ISIS [+video]

A former avionics specialist with the U.S. Air Force is accused of attempting to join the Islamic State.

Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, 47, was charged in federal court in Brooklyn on Monday.

Pugh, who worked for several companies as an airplane mechanic, had been living overseas for one year before he was arrested in January while in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

New York News

“Born and raised in the United States, Pugh allegedly turned his back on his country and attempted to travel to Syria in order to join a terrorist organization,” U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement. “We will continue to vigorously prosecute extremists, whether based here or abroad, to stop them before they are able to threaten the United States and its allies.”

On January 10, Pugh traveled from Egypt to Turkey in an effort to cross the border into Syria to join ISIL, according to the federal complaint. (Read more from “Air Force Veteran Charged with Attempting to Join ISIS” HERE)

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