Iowa Oil Company Allegedly Tried to Bribe Man With a Teen Prostitute for Access to His Land

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Photo Credit: Latest

Photo Credit: Latest

A southeast Iowa landowner claims he was offered the services of a prostitute in exchange for allowing a crude oil pipeline to go through his property.

Hughie Tweedy of rural Montrose told reporters Monday that a regional representative of Dakota Access LLC on three separate occasions offered “the sexual services of a woman” if Tweedy would allow the pipeline to run through his property . . .

Dakota Access, a subsidiary of Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, wants to construct a 1,134-mile pipeline to carry crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. The $3.8 billion pipeline would span 343 miles and 18 counties in Iowa, from the state’s northwest corner to the southeast corner . . .

Tweedy said he has expressed his position multiple times to Dakota Access officials. Tweedy said the company’s regional representative offered “a $1,200 teenage prostitute” in exchange for his cooperation.

Tweedy also claims the company representative, whom Tweedy would not name, told Tweedy an archaeological survey performed on Tweedy’s property was illegal, fake and, in Tweedy’s words, “nothing more than a hoop Dakota Access was jumping through” for the state utilities board that is considering whether to approve the pipeline project. (Read more from “Iowa Oil Company Bribed a Man With a Prostitute for Access to His Land” HERE)

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Rainwater Collection Being Criminalized in U.S. To Solidify Total Government Dependence

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Photo Credit: Natural News

Photo Credit: Natural News

You might be aware that it is illegal to collect rainwater on your own property in some states, but did you know that doing so could actually land you in jail? That is exactly what is happening to Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Oregon. He is now facing a 30-day jail sentence and fines of more than $1,500.

His crime? Harrington has been collecting rainwater in three reservoirs on his property, and the government doesn’t like it. In Oregon, all water is considered property of the state whether it flows from the tap or falls from the sky.

Collecting, storing and using rainwater is permitted if you obtain a permit from the state, but Harrington’s permits were revoked. The reasons why are not clear.

Harrington has been wrangling with Oregon’s Water Resources Department for more than ten years. In 2002, the state informed him that they had received “complaints” regarding three reservoirs located on his property. The reservoirs were used to collect and store rainwater and snow melt. One of the reservoirs has been on the property for nearly four decades.

When Harrington received notice from the Water Resources Department, he applied for the appropriate permits required to house storm and snow water runoff. In 2003, the permits were granted, but the state later reversed the decision. (Read more from “Rainwater Collection Being Criminalized in U.S. To Solidify Total Government Dependence” HERE)

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America’s Changing Religious Landscape

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cross-211989_640The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing, according to an extensive new survey by the Pew Research Center. Moreover, these changes are taking place across the religious landscape, affecting all regions of the country and many demographic groups. While the drop in Christian affiliation is particularly pronounced among young adults, it is occurring among Americans of all ages. The same trends are seen among whites, blacks and Latinos; among both college graduates and adults with only a high school education; and among women as well as men.

To be sure, the United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world, and a large majority of Americans – roughly seven-in-ten – continue to identify with some branch of the Christian faith.1 But the major new survey of more than 35,000 Americans by the Pew Research Center finds that the percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% in an equally massive Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – has jumped more than six points, from 16.1% to 22.8%. And the share of Americans who identify with non-Christian faiths also has inched up, rising 1.2 percentage points, from 4.7% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2014. Growth has been especially great among Muslims and Hindus, albeit from a very low base.

The drop in the Christian share of the population has been driven mainly by declines among mainline Protestants and Catholics. Each of those large religious traditions has shrunk by approximately three percentage points since 2007. The evangelical Protestant share of the U.S. population also has dipped, but at a slower rate, falling by about one percentage point since 2007.

Even as their numbers decline, American Christians – like the U.S. population as a whole – are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. Non-Hispanic whites now account for smaller shares of evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics than they did seven years earlier, while Hispanics have grown as a share of all three religious groups. Racial and ethnic minorities now make up 41% of Catholics (up from 35% in 2007), 24% of evangelical Protestants (up from 19%) and 14% of mainline Protestants (up from 9%).

Religious intermarriage also appears to be on the rise: Among Americans who have gotten married since 2010, nearly four-in-ten (39%) report that they are in religiously mixed marriages, compared with 19% among those who got married before 1960.3 The rise in intermarriage appears to be linked with the growth of the religiously unaffiliated population. Nearly one-in-five people surveyed who got married since 2010 are either religiously unaffiliated respondents who married a Christian spouse or Christians who married an unaffiliated spouse. By contrast, just 5% of people who got married before 1960 fit this profile. (Read more from “America’s Changing Religious Landscape” HERE)

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Jeb Bush to Skip Iowa Straw Poll, Probably Fears Early Loss

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Photo Credit: The Des Moines Register

Photo Credit: The Des Moines Register

No Iowa Straw Poll for Jeb Bush.

The likely Republican presidential candidate will instead attend a competing event, the RedState Gathering in Atlanta, the day of the Iowa event, GOP sources in Iowa told The Des Moines Register on Tuesday. A spokesman for Bush confirmed the report.

Bush, a former Florida governor, is the first well-known Republican in the 2016 presidential field to officially opt out of the straw poll, a nationally renowned event that has drawn significant criticism over the years.

The Republican Party of Iowa, which hosts the Iowa Straw Poll, has been working to shore up the event’s reputation and lure candidates by addressing some of the most prevalent complaints. Last week, Iowa GOP officials announced they’ll provide free tent space and utilities for the campaigns. The straw poll has been bashed as having outsized importance, even to the point of having losing candidates drop out of the race. Campaigns sometimes spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at the straw poll as a sort of dry run for the Iowa caucuses.

But for the GOP presidential contenders, whether to compete in the straw poll is more of a risk-reward analysis. For those who compete, the aim is to do better than expected. This cycle, some contenders have said, they intend to focus instead on the caucuses, which will take place in precincts across the state on Feb. 1. (Read more from “Jeb Bush to Skip Iowa Straw Poll” HERE)

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Voters Still Worrying Military Exercises May Lead to Federal Control of States

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military_trainingEight weeks of U.S. military exercises this summer in several southwestern states – dubbed Jade Helm 15 – have some wondering if the government is preparing for martial law. Most voters don’t oppose such exercises, but a surprising number worry about what the federal government is up to.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% of Likely U.S. Voters favor the U.S. military conducting training exercises in their state. Just 16% are opposed, but slightly more (19%) are undecided.

Only 21% believe the government’s decision to conduct military training exercises in some states is an infringement on the rights of the citizens in those states. Sixty-two percent (62%) disagree. Sixteen percent (16%) are not sure.

But 45% of voters are concerned that the government will use U.S. military training operations to impose greater control over some states, with 19% who are Very Concerned. Just over half (52%) are not concerned that the government has an ulterior motive for the training exercises, including 26% who are Not At All Concerned.

Among voters who oppose military exercises in their state, 82% are concerned that the federal government has greater control in mind. Just 34% of those who favor the exercises share that concern. (Read more from “Voters Worry Military Exercises May Lead to Federal Control of States” HERE)

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Senate Democrats to the Rescue, Foil Obama on Asia Trade Deal; TPA Defeated

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Photo Credit: NY Times

Photo Credit: NY Times

Senate Democrats, in a rebuke of President Obama, on Tuesday blocked consideration of giving him power to accelerate a broad trade accord with Asia.

After more than six years battling Republicans on everything from his signature health care legislation to simply keeping the government open, Mr. Obama is at odds with his own party as he seeks a legislative capstone to his presidency. In some respects, that reflects the complicated politics of trade, which has always been harder for Democrats, their working-class constituents and backers in organized labor.

But Tuesday’s setback also highlighted a problem that has vexed Mr. Obama for most of his tenure in office: his difficulties with Congress. This time he is criticizing Democrats whose votes he now needs.

The president “has made this more personal than he needed to,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, after the 52-45 vote. Only one Democrat, Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, joined Republicans to support considering legislation that would give Mr. Obama authority to pursue the most sweeping trade accord since the North American Free Trade Agreement more than 20 years ago, and the procedural vote fell eight short of the 60 needed.

“Ultimately, it’s up to the president,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican. “Does the president of the United States have enough clout with members of his own political party?” (Read more from “Senate Democrats Foil Obama on Asia Trade Deal” HERE)

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America is a Food Stamp Nation

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handout050815The gospel according to Wall Street, the White House and propaganda media is that the U.S. economy is recovering just fine.

Last week, happy-faced talking heads told us that unemployment was down to 5.4 percent — the lowest rate since May 2008 — even while the number of Americans not in the labor force climbed [by one estimate] to a record 93,194,000. The Labor Force Participation Rate (the percent of people 16 years old and older eligible to work) stands at 62.8 percent. Still, government men dutifully claim all is well, that the stock market is bullish. Now the Fed is talking about raising interest rates.

Yet as of January 2015, the number of Americans receiving food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, had topped 46 million for 41 straight months, according to data released by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Every month now for more than three years, going back to September 2011, 14.5 percent of the American population received food stamps.

In the Great Depression, long bread lines of hungry people waiting hours to get a meager bite to eat were visible reminders to everyone of the country’s economic pain. This went on while, thanks to FDR’s Agriculture Adjustment Act; farmers were paid to slaughter livestock, burn crops and leave their land fallow in order to prop up farm prices.

Today’s digital bread lines are invisible and easy to ignore. Food stamps are today’s soup kitchens. Most Americans are totally unaware of their magnitude. But they are real. (Read more from “America Is a Food Stamp Nation” HERE)

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Almost Half of US States Are Officially Broke

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download (16)Last month, we documented the case of Louisiana State University, the large, well-known public institution whose 2014 enrollment totaled nearly 31,000 students. LSU, it turns out, is facing funding cuts of as much as 82% which, if realized, would likely force the school into financial exigency, the college equivalent of bankruptcy. The reason for the cuts: the sharp decline in oil prices and fiscal mismanagement have conspired to blow a $1.6 billion hole in the state’s budget.

Bloomberg has more:

With tax revenue from the oil industry falling short of projections, the deficit has swelled to $1.6 billion for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s say they may lower Louisiana’s credit rating if officials don’t come up with sustainable budget solutions . . .

The real problem however is that large budget shortfalls aren’t confined to Louisiana. In fact, a new study from AP shows that big gaps are becoming more the rule than the exception across the US.

Via AP:

An Associated Press analysis of statehouse finances around the country shows that at least 22 states project shortfalls for the coming fiscal year. The deficits recall recession-era anxiety about plunging tax revenue and deep cuts to education, social services and other government-funded programs.

(Read more from “Almost Half of US States Are Officially Broke” HERE)

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White House Denies Obama’s Gulf Overtures Are Unraveling

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download (14)The White House on Monday raced to dispel the notion that President Barack Obama’s efforts to reassure anxious Persian Gulf nations about his overtures to Iran were unraveling ahead of a rare Camp David summit this week.

Officials insisted there was no weakening in ties between the U.S. and the Gulf, despite the fact that just two other heads of state will join Obama for Thursday’s meetings at the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains. The rulers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman are skipping the summit and instead sending lower-ranking, yet highly influential representatives.

“We very much feel we have the right group around the table,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser.

The absence of Saudi Arabia’s newly crowned King Salman in particular has sparked questions about summit’s effectiveness. The Saudis are bitter rivals with Iran and among the most outspoken critics of Obama’s nuclear detente with Tehran.

Adding to the diplomatic intrigue: Saudi Arabia’s announcement Sunday that Salman would not travel to the U.S. came just two days after White House officials said Obama and the king would hold one-on-one talks in Washington ahead of the Camp David meeting. (Read more from “White House Denies Obama’s Gulf Overtures Are Unraveling” HERE)

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Franklin Graham Warns ISIS Sympathizers in United States: ‘Remember, in America, We Shoot Back’

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Franklin Graham, religious leader and son of Billy Graham in Washington, DC.By Leah Marieann Klett. Rev. Franklin Graham has responded to the FBI’s revelation that there are “hundreds, maybe thousands” of people across the country who are receiving recruitment overtures from the Islamic State to attack the U.S., emphasizing that the terror group must “remember that in America, we shoot back.”

On Thursday, FBI Director James Comey revealed that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is leveraging social media in unprecedented ways through Twitter and other social media platforms, sending messages to the smartphones of “disturbed people” who could potentially launch assaults on U.S. targets.

“It’s like the devil sitting on their shoulders, saying ‘kill, kill, kill,”’ Comey said in a meeting with reporters, ABC News reports.

He explained that ISIS recruiters operating from Syria are making contact with U.S. recruits, and then “steering” them into encrypted venues where their subsequent communications are “lost to us.”

“The haystack is the entire country,” Comey said. “We are looking for the needles, but increasingly the needles are unavailable to us. … This is the ‘going dark’ problem in living color. There are [ISIS sympathizers] out there that I have not found and I cannot see.” (Read more from “Franklin Graham Warns ISIS Sympathizers in United States: ‘Remember, in America, We Shoot Back'” HERE)

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Franklin Graham Facebook Post Warning ISIS that Americans “Shoot Back” Has Gone Viral

By News Editor. Franklin Graham posted this on his Facebook page on Friday:

The FBI warned yesterday that there could be hundreds or maybe even thousands of ISIS sympathizers in America, and they are being instructed to carry out deadly attacks on U.S. targets. FBI Director James Comey said, “It’s like the devil sitting on their shoulders, saying ‘kill, kill, kill’ all day long.” I pray this never happens. May God protect our country. I don’t advocate violence, but I do believe in self-defense. ISIS needs to remember that in America, we shoot back.

As of publishing of this article, Franklin Graham’s Facebook post has over 163,000 likes and almost 80,000 shares.

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