Marine Banned From Daughter’s School Because He Spoke Out About Islam

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A father and military veteran says he has been banned from a Charles County high school because he got into an argument with faculty over his child’s homework assignment.

Kevin Wood received his no trespassing order on Tuesday. This all stems from a run-in between Wood and the vice principal at his daughter’s school.

He says he challenged a history class assignment that had students list the benefits of Islam . . .

Melissa says her husband Kevin, a United States Marine and Iraq veteran, is the most patriotic person she has met. But now, he is banned from even stepping foot near their daughter’s high school . . .

This started when their eleventh grader came home from La Plata High School with a three-page assignment. It asked for explanations of Islam’s Five Pillars, Mecca and Muhammad. (Read more from “Marine Banned From High School” HERE)

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Staples Slams Obama’s ‘Attack’ on Health Care Policy

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In a rare instance of corporate criticism of a president, Staples Inc. on Wednesday said that President Barack Obama “appears not to have all the facts” when he criticized the company’s policy of limiting worker hours.

The news website BuzzFeed had reported earlier this week that Staples had toughened up enforcement of a rule limiting part-time employees to 25 hours. The story reported that the company’s stance was seen by many workers as an effort to avoid paying benefits.

Under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, companies with more than 50 employees must pay for health insurance for people who work 30 hours a week or more.

In an interview on Tuesday, BuzzFeed asked Obama to comment on its Staples story.

Obama responded: “I haven’t looked at Staples stock lately or what the compensation of the CEO is, but I suspect that they could well afford to treat their workers favorably and give them some basic financial security, and if they can’t, then they should be willing to allow those workers to get the Affordable Care Act without cutting wages. (Read more from “Staples Slams Obamacare Policy” HERE)

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Lawless Obama Admin. Now Granting Visas to Illegal Aliens’ Relatives, Sets Up Complaint Hotlines for Unhappy Illegals

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By Stephen Dinan. The Homeland Security Department has set up hotlines for illegal immigrants who believe their rights under President Obama’s amnesty policy have been violated.

In a memo announcing the customer complaint line, U.S. Customs and Border Protection asked illegal immigrants to “please tell us about your experience” if they believe they were treated “contrary to the new DHS enforcement priorities.”

The department alerted “stakeholders” last week of three complaint hotlines: one for CBP, which oversees the Border Patrol; one for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles immigration laws in the nation’s interior; and one for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is poised to handle the millions of amnesty applications expected to be filed. (Read more about the complaint lines HERE)

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By Numbers USA. United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced a new program that will allow for the extended families of illegal aliens from certain countries to enter the United States legally.

The “In-Country Refugee/Parole Processing for Minors in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala,” or the “Central American Minors (CAM)” was originally announced in November as a solution to last summer’s surge of unaccompanied alien children into the U.S. The expansion announced yesterday is “primarily targeted at” children of a qualifying parent from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras. However, the expansion will also allow include spouses, grandchildren, and adult children of illegal aliens to be eligible for residency, citizenship, and government benefits.

According to the Daily Caller, the announcement is also open to the estimated 5 million beneficiaries of President Obama’s disputed 2012 and 2014 amnesties and would give them legal means to win permanent residency. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Bobby Jindal Slams Republican Party Changes to Primary System

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By Jon Ward. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Monday morning dismissed the Republican National Committee’s efforts to reduce the number of debates in the Republican presidential primary, and to shorten the primary process, calling the RNC’s changes “futile.”

Jindal also made clear he has no plans – if he runs for the nomination – to abide by the RNC’s attempt to keep candidates from participating in debates that are not sanctioned by the party committee.

“I know there is a lot of concern, especially in this town among Republican party leaders,” Jindal said. “There’s this ideal of theirs, this idealistic belief, that if we could just have fewer debates, if we could have a gentler, kinder nominating process, that would be good for the party and good for the nominee. Well you know what? Democracy is messy.”

“And the donors, the political leaders, the establishment, the pundits, they don’t get to pick our nominee,” Jindal said at a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has made clear over the past two years that he believes the 2012 Republican primary was a mess, which dragged on for too long and allowed for too many debates, leading to constant intraparty fighting and exhausting the candidates. The RNC currently says it will sanction nine Republican debates, with an option to add three more. (Read more from “Bobby Jindal Slams Republican Party” HERE)

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Bobby Jindal Hammers Common Core in DC

By Eric Pianin. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was in Washington on Monday to promote his new education initiatives and to lash out at the Common Core national education standards that have been warmly embraced by former Florida governor Jeb Bush, one of Jindal’s potential rivals for the 2016 GOP presidential campaign. . .

Jindal yesterday sought to focus attention on his “K-12 Education Reform: A Roadmap,” which he reportedly believes will set him apart from Bush and other potential rivals should he enter the 2016 presidential field. “America is stuck in a rut on education, and has been for half a century,” Jindal’s document declares. He promotes the ideas of parental choice, limited government and educator freedom as the key to success, while dismissing Common Core as a monopoly government-provided education system.

But it was a rocky visit for Jindal who was repeatedly asked by reporters about Louisiana’s dire financial straits, including a $1.6 billion budget deficit, the deepest per-student cuts in higher education of any state in the country and negative credit ratings by Moody’s. (Read more from this story HERE)

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New Jeb Bush Hire Couldn’t Remove ‘Slut’ Tweets Fast Enough, but Bush Still Wanted Him as Staff

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Photo Credit: TelegraphBy Breitbart News. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Monday decried messages posted to Twitter by a top technology aide as “inappropriate,” but a spokeswoman said the recent hire would remain with Bush’s nascent presidential campaign.

The distraction came on the same day Bush told supporters and former aides he is “singularly focused” on weighing a presidential bid, and as he prepared to release thousands of emails from his time as Florida’s chief executive and the first chapter of a related e-book to highlight what he called a compassionate leadership style with deep conservative credentials.

A Bush spokeswoman said he was disappointed to learn that Ethan Czahor – hired in January as chief technology officer of Bush’s Right to Rise political action committee – had posted messages on his personal Twitter account that referred to women as “sluts” and made remarks about gay men.

Within an hour, Czahor posted a new tweet, his first in months: “i deleted some old jokes i made years ago that i no longer find funny or appropriate. (hash)learning (hash)maturing”

Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said Czahor, 31, the founder of Hipster.com, will stay in the role. (Read more about the new Jeb Bush hire’s tweets HERE)

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Despite Recent Comments Saying Jeb Bush’s New Hire Would Stay on Staff After ‘Slut’ Tweets, the New Hire Was Forced to Resign

By Rob Crilly. The tech whizz hired by Jeb Bush to oversee the digital side of an expected run for the White House has been forced to resign – for a series of offensive online posts.

The appointment of Ethan Czahor, who co-founded Hipster.com, as chief technology officer was only announced on Monday . . .

“While Ethan has apologised for regrettable and insensitive comments, they do not reflect the views of Governor Bush or his organisation, and it is appropriate for him to step aside,” said Kristy Campbell, a spokeswoman for Mr Bush.

American media reported that Mr Bush knew about the comments before his organising team hired Mr Czahor. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Three Admirals Forced Out Amid Massive Navy Bribery Investigation

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Photo Credit: Stripes By Erik Slavin. The commander of naval forces in Japan and two other admirals are retiring following letters of censure issued by the secretary of the Navy in connection with a wide-ranging bribery scandal in the Asia-Pacific region.

Naval Forces Japan commander Rear Adm. Terry Kraft, along with rear admirals Michael Miller and David Pimpo, were censured by Secretary Ray Mabus to “document their failure of leadership” related to dealings with Glenn Defense Marine Asia between 2006 and 2007, according to a Navy statement.

Navy officials spanning the ranks from enlisted to commanding officers, as well as high-placed civilians, have pleaded guilty since December 2013 to trading classified information in exchange for luxury travel, cash and prostitutes with ship support contractor GDMA and its owner, Leonard Glenn “Fat Leonard” Francis.

Francis, 50, pleaded guilty to bribery charges in San Diego federal court in January. (Read more about the Navy bribery investigation HERE)

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Navy Contractor at Center of Navy Bribery Scandal Helping Investigators

By Craig Whitlock and Matt Zapotosky. The Navy’s sex-for-secrets corruption scandal may be about to get worse: Investigators’ prized catch has started to squawk.

Leonard Glenn Francis, the Malaysian defense contractor who made a fortune by supplying Navy ships throughout Asia, has begun cooperating with federal investigators and pointing the finger at new suspects, court records indicate.

According to an affidavit filed this week by federal investigators, a confidential witness who matches Francis’s description detailed how a former senior U.S. contracting official accepted several hundred thousand dollars in bribes in exchange for driving Navy business to Francis’s company.

The witness was not identified by name but was described in the affidavit as a person who has already pleaded guilty in the corruption investigation and who was separately convicted of firearms charges in a foreign country about 30 years ago. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Chinese Suggest Arming Hawaiian Independence Activists Due to US-Taiwan Arms Sales

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Photo Credit: Free Beacon China has suggested arming Hawaii’s independence activists in retaliation for U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and recently threatened to challenge American sovereignty by making legal claims to the Pacific islands as its territory.

Chinese threats to back several groups of Hawaiian independence activists who want to restore the islands’ constitutional monarchy, ousted in a U.S.-backed coup over a century ago, has raised concerns that military facilities on the strategic central Pacific archipelago are threatened at a time when the Obama administration is engaged in a major shift toward Asia as part of its military and diplomatic rebalance.

Michael Pillsbury, a Pentagon consultant and author of the recent book 100 Year Marathon, said Chinese military hawks, known as “ying pai,” told him they are ready to provide arms to Hawaiian independence activists in retaliation for U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

“Beijing’s extraordinary sensitivity to American arms sales to Taiwan—even one bullet or a spare tire for a jeep—often provokes angry words,” said Pillsbury who has held talks with 35 Chinese generals in recent years.

“A favorite comparison the ying pai has made to me is ‘How would the Pentagon like it if we provide arms to our friends in Hawaiian independence movement?’” he said. “I was incredulous because I had never heard of such a movement in Hawaii, but, after checking I met a few of them.” (Read more about the Hawaiian Independence Movement attracting Chinese interest HERE)

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How This New Obamacare Regulation Will Drive Up Your Health Care Costs Significantly

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Photo Credit: The Daily Signal America’s doctors, already struggling with the Affordable Care Act’s regulatory burdens, could face another round of red tape—which means higher costs for ordinary Americans.

The new round of red tape is the government-mandated implementation of the International Classification of Diseases tenth revision (ICD-10). The new system, delayed last year, goes into effect Oct. 1, 2015.

The ICD-10, created and maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO), is the latest version of the medical coding system doctors use to file claims for reimbursement with Medicare and insurance. (When you see a doctor, a code associated with your diagnosis determines how much your insurance will be billed.) The ICD-10 will replace the existing coding system (ICD-9), for medical diagnoses and inpatient procedure coding.

The new version of the ICD will increase the number of codes from 18,000 to 155,000. There is also a lot of unnecessary (not clinically relevant) data doctors must document to remain compliant.

While most Americans have probably never even heard of the ICD-10, if you go to the doctor or hospital you will be affected by it, in one way or another. For instance, the reimbursement your doctor receives is based on the code of the disease you were diagnosed with. (Read more about the increasing health care costs HERE)

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Jeb Bush Releases Emails Including Social Security Numbers of Florida Residents

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By T.C. Sottek. Jeb Bush, a rumored 2016 Republican presidential candidate, just decided to publish hundreds of thousands of emails sent to him during his time as governor of Florida. On its face it seems like a great idea in the name of transparency, but there’s one huge problem: neither Bush nor those who facilitated the publication of the records, including the state government, decided to redact potentially sensitive personal information from them.

“In the spirit of transparency, I am posting the emails of my governorship here,” a note on Bush’s website says. “Some are funny; some are serious; some I wrote in frustration.” Some also contain the email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, and social security numbers of Florida residents. The emails are available in Outlook format, and can be searched on the web at Bush’s website.

The Verge did not receive a response from Mr. Bush or his Political Action Committee’s office at the time of publication. (Read more from “Jeb Bush Releases Emails” HERE)

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Will Jeb Bush’s Foreign Policy Lean More Towards His Brother’s or Father’s?

By Patrick O’ Connor. Jeb Bush faces a unique dilemma as he builds a Republican presidential campaign—whether to follow in the foreign-policy footsteps of his father or his brother.

One early indication suggests he is leaning toward his father’s more pragmatic and restrained philosophy. The former Florida governor is considering naming Meghan O’Sullivan as his top foreign-policy aide; several people familiar with the deliberations describe her as the front-runner for the post.

In many ways, the 45-year-old Ms. O’Sullivan, who now teaches at Harvard, bridges the two Bush worlds. She served as deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan for much of George W. Bush ’s second term and was heavily involved in carrying out his Iraq policies. But she wasn’t among the neoconservative advisers who drove the initial decision to invade Iraq, and she is more closely aligned with—and is being promoted by—the kind of pragmatists who dominated George H.W. Bush ’s presidency.

All candidates running for president in 2016 will be asked to articulate what factors would drive them to send U.S. troops into battle. The question would be more delicate for Mr. Bush, should he run, because he would have to navigate the legacies of his father and his brother, whose public image was marred by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Jon Stewart Leaves “The Daily Show” For Unknown Reasons

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Jon Stewart, whose wit defined “The Daily Show” for more than 15 years, will sign off the iconic Comedy Central program later this year.

“In my heart I know it is time for someone else to have that opportunity,” he said on Tuesday night’s show as his studio audience gasped.

Members of the audience yelled “we love you Jon” as he expressed his appreciation for the show’s staff and called hosting it “the honor of my professional life.”

It isn’t clear when Stewart will sign off; his contract expires in September, but he may leave as soon as July, or as late as December, he said.

In a farewell statement, Michelle Ganeless, the president of the channel, called Stewart “a comic genius, generous with his time and talent,” and said the host “will always be a part of the Comedy Central family.” (Read more from “Jon Stewart leaves ‘The Daily Show'” HERE)

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