EPA Chief: Keystone Wouldn’t Be a ‘Disaster’ for Climate

epaBy Timothy Cama. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said the Keystone XL pipeline would not be disastrous for the climate.

Gina McCarthy’s comments on Monday came despite her agency’s position that low oil prices could mean that Keystone will have more of an impact on the climate than previously thought.

Politico’s Mike Allen asked McCarthy if Keystone would be a “disaster” for the climate.

“No,” McCarthy responded at an event Politico hosted, “I don’t think that any one issue is a disaster for the climate.”

Keystone’s climate impact was the focus of a letter the EPA sent in February to the State Department, which is evaluating whether to approve the Canada-to-Gulf Coast oil pipeline, which would carry oil sands from Alberta. (Read more from “EPA Chief: Keystone Wouldn’t Be a ‘Disaster’ for Climate” HERE)

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Canada Pushes Ahead With Alternatives to Keystone XL

By Bobby Magill. A decision on whether to allow the Keystone XL Pipeline to be built in the U.S. could come at any time, but there are myriad other projects on the table designed to do exactly what Keystone XL was designed to do: transport Canadian tar sands oil to refineries.

Those pipelines, both in the U.S. and Canada, are being designed to move the oily bitumen produced from the tar sands to refineries in Texas and eastern Canada, and to ports on the Pacific Coast where the oil could be shipped to Asia.

Combined, the pipelines would be able to carry more than 3 million barrels of oil per day, far in excess of the 800,000 barrels per day that TransCanada’s Keystone XL is designed to carry. (Read more from this story HERE)

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3D Printed 10/22 Rifles Are a Reality

Photo Credit: Guns Save Lives

Photo Credit: Guns Save Lives

The world of 3D printing is evolving at a breakneck pace. What started out a couple of years with basic, single shot firearms that were not very practical has turned into technology would could revolutionize the gun industry.

In this case, a 3D printed 10/22 (based on Ruger’s popular rifle) has been printed and fired with factory parts/accessories. The folks over at PrintedFirearm.com have documented the whole process for the world to see. In fact, this project was actually started back in 2013, but there is now renewed interest in the project . . .

These early prints were done in 2013 but with all the recent hype about 3d printed Ruger 10/22 Rifles being printed we wanted to confirm that yes its possible and we’ve done it before.

(Read more from this story HERE)

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Russian Analyst Urging Attacks on Major U.S. Landmarks

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Su-Lin Tan. A Russian geopolitical analyst says the best way to attack the United States is to detonate nuclear weapons to trigger a supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park or along the San Andreas fault line on California’s coast.

The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov said in an article for a Russian trade newspaper on Wednesday, VPK News, that Russia needed to increase its military weapons and strategies against the “West” which was “moving to the borders or Russia”.

He has a conspiracy theory that NATO – a political and military alliance which counts the US, UK, Canada and many countries in western Europe as members – was amassing strength against Russia and the only way to combat that problem was to attack America’s vulnerabilities to ensure a “complete destruction of the enemy”.

“Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States – a country just disappears,” he said.

“Another vulnerable area of ​​the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas fault – 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates … a detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States.” (Read more from “Russian Analyst Urging Attacks on Major U.S. Landmarks” HERE)

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Russian Tanks and Fighters Enter Eastern Ukraine, Says Kiev

By Damien Sharkov. 22 Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine’s separatist-held eastern territories over the weekend, as pro-Moscow forces continue to seep into Ukraine’s war-stricken Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Donetsk’s local pro-government officials reported yesterday.

In a statement published on Donetsk’s regional government website, the deputy head of Ukraine’s anti-separatist military operations in Donetsk and Luhansk Valentin Fechev, condemned the “cynical lies” of pro-Russian fighters who have accused Ukraine of violating the ceasefire between the two sides, and instead gave a recent recap of Russian violations.

Fechev told the regional government website that 22 tanks had crossed from Russia via the border town of Gukovo, into Ukraine’s Luhansk region, heading toward the city of Sverdlovsk for maintenance. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Spokesman for Missouri State Auditor Found Dead 1 Month After Boss Killed Himself

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The spokesman for the Missouri auditor was found dead Sunday from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, just a month after the suicide of his former boss, GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Tom Schweich.

Jefferson City police said Monday that Robert “Spence” Jackson was found dead Sunday evening at his home in the capital city. A police statement said Jackson’s death is being investigated as a suicide.

Jackson had been the spokesman for Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich, who shot himself to death on Feb. 26 at his home in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton. Jackson had remained as the office spokesman after Schweich’s death.

The 44-year-old Jackson also had previously served as the spokesman for former Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt.

Jackson was a strong critic of Schweich’s political adversaries, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Schweich killed himself Feb. 26 at his home in Clayton minutes after telling a reporter that Republican state Chairman John Hancock had started an anti-Semitic “whispering campaign” against him. (Read more from “Spokesman for Missouri State Auditor Found Dead 1 Month After Boss Killed Himself” HERE)

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U.S. Signed Agreement with Mexico to Teach Immigrants to Unionize

Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

The federal government has signed agreements with three foreign countries — Mexico, Ecuador and the Philippines — to establish outreach programs to teach immigrants their rights to engage in labor organizing in the U.S.

The agreements do not distinguish between those who entered legally or illegally. They are part of a broader effort by the National Labor Relations Board to get immigrants involved in union activism.

The five-member board is the agency that enforces the National Labor Relations Act, the main federal law covering unions. In 2013, Lafe Solomon, the board’s then-acting general counsel, signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Mexico’s U.S. ambassador. The current general counsel, Richard Griffin, signed additional agreements with the ambassadors of Ecuador and the Philippines last year.

“Those are the only countries that the NLRB has MOUs with,” said spokeswoman Jessica Kahanek.

The agreements are substantially similar, with several sections repeated verbatim in each one. All three documents state that the No. 1 outreach goal is “to educate those who may not be aware of the Act, including those employees just entering the work force, by providing information designed to clearly inform [that nation’s] workers in the United States of America their rights under the Act and to develop ways of communicating such information (e.g., via print and electronic media, electronic assistance tools, mobile device applications, and links to the NLRB’s web site from the [country’s] web sites) to the … workers residing in the United States of America and their employers.” (Read more from “U.S. Signed Agreement with Mexico to Teach Immigrants to Unionize” HERE)

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You’ll Never Guess What a Reporter Says John Kerry’s Response to a Nuke Deal Was

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry testifies at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while on Capitol Hill in WashingtonSecretary of State John Kerry allegedly responded in a most unusual way to a reporter’s question Friday whether a nuclear arms deal could be reached with Iran before the March 31 deadline.

“Allah willing,” Kerry replied — in Arabic, according to Laura Rozen, a reporter covering the Iran nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the Washington, D.C.-based online publication, Al-Monitor.

As news reached the public Friday that a deal may be forthcoming, Rozen tweeted:

Friend of colleague ran into @JohnKerry at chocolate shop tdy. She said friends in #Iran are looking forward to deal. He said ‘inshallah’

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) March 27, 2015

“Inshallah” is Arabic for “Allah willing,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. (Read more from “You’ll Never Guess What a Reporter Says John Kerry’s Response to a Nuke Deal Was” HERE)

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Disgusting: New Spa-Like Abortion Clinic Is Part of a Trend to De-Stigmatize the Procedure

Photo Credit: Life News

Photo Credit: Life News

With its natural wood floors and plush upholstery, Carafem aims to feel more like a spa than a medical clinic. But the slick ads set to go up in Metro stations across the Washington region leave nothing to doubt: “Abortion. Yeah, we do that.”

The Maryland clinic, opening this week in Montgomery County’s tony Friendship Heights area, specializes in the abortion pill. The advertising reflects its unabashed approach — and a new push to de-stigmatize the nation’s most controversial medical procedure by talking about it openly and unapologetically.

Plagued by political setbacks in recent years, abortion rights activists are seeking to normalize abortion, to put a human face on the women getting the procedure and, in some cases, even putting a positive spin on it.

In Los Angeles County, groups recently sent women door-to-door in conservative neighborhoods to talk about their abortion experiences in the hope of changing minds. A number of Democratic lawmakers have publicly acknowledged having undergone the procedure. And new online projects solicit personal testimonials, including from women who have no regrets about terminating their pregnancies.

At Carafem, staff members plan to greet clients with warm teas, comfortable robes and a matter-of-fact attitude. (Read more from “New Spa-Like Abortion Clinic Is Part of a Trend to De-Stigmatize the Procedure” HERE)

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Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria from American Cattle Become Airborne, but Is It Life-Threatening?

cattle-yardAirborne particulate matter wafting off American cattle yards contains antibiotics, bacteria, and antibiotic-resistant DNA, a new study finds. Environmental tests on the spread of antibiotics have been performed in the past, but this is the first time researchers have examined aerial dispersion. The work suggests airborne transmission may be contributing to an emerging global health problem, where doctors find it increasingly difficult to treat life-threatening infections.

For some time now, scientists have worried that we may be entering a “post-antibiotic era,” when the drugs that once defeated potentially fatal infections are no longer effective. Simply put, the bacteria causing infections in many cases are now immune to (or “resisting”) the drugs. Since antibiotic-resistant bacterial DNA, if imbibed in water or consumed in meat, can be transferred to humans, many researchers say misuse and overuse of veterinary pharmaceuticals may be responsible, in part, for this global health threat. Large, commercial food operations rely on veterinary drugs, including antibiotics, to promote bigger growth of the animals. However, after the animals excrete the drugs, these antibiotics enter the environment via runoff, leaching, and the spread of manure.

For this new study, then, environmental toxicology researchers at Texas Tech University decided to look at whether these drugs become airborne. Over a period of six months, they gathered airborne particulate matter from 10 commercial cattle yards each with a capacity of 20,000 to 50,000 head of cattle, within 200 miles of Lubbock, Texas.

“Mass of [particulate matter] collected immediately downwind of feedyards was significantly different than that collected immediately upwind of each feedyard,” the authors wrote in the study. (Read more from “Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria from American Cattle Become Airborne, but Is It Life-Threatening?” HERE)

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Access Denied: Reporters Say Federal Officials, Data Increasingly off Limits

Photo Credit: Washington Post

Photo Credit: Washington Post

Stacey Singer, a health reporter for the Palm Beach Post in Florida, was perusing a medical journal in 2012 when she came across something startling: a federal epidemiologist’s report about a tuberculosis outbreak in the Jacksonville area. Singer promptly began pursuing the story.

But when she started seeking official comment about the little-reported outbreak, the doors began closing. County health officials referred her to the state health department. State officials referred her to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even though the CDC’s own expert had written the investigative report, the agency’s press office declined to let Singer speak with him. A spokesman told her it was a local matter and sent her back to the state office in Tallahassee.

Through public records requests, Singer eventually was able to piece together the story of a contagion that had caused 13 deaths and 99 illnesses — the worst the CDC had found in 20 years.

“It’s really expensive to fight this hard” for public information, said Singer, now an editorial writer at the newspaper. She suspects that officials were slow to respond because news of the TB outbreak might have harmed Florida’s tourism industry. “They know that to delay is to deny. . . . They know we have to move on to other stories.”

The stories aren’t always as consequential or as dramatic as a TB outbreak, but Singer’s experience is shared by virtually every journalist on the government beat, from the White House on down. They can recite tales with similar outlines: An agency spokesman — frequently a political appointee — rejects the reporter’s request for interviews, offers partial or nonresponsive replies, or delays responding at all until after the journalist’s deadline has passed. (Read more from “Access Denied: Reporters Say Federal Officials, Data Increasingly off Limits” HERE)

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Obama Trying to Stop the US Army From Prosecuting Bergdahl?

Obama and BergBy Conservative Tribune. President Barack Obama has certainly staked a lot on the fate of likely deserter Bowe Bergdahl. He sacrificed the lives of several of our men in uniform in a vain attempt to rescue him, then traded five Taliban terrorists from Guantanamo Bay for his release.

Now, it appears the president is even willing to obstruct justice for Bergdahl. Recent reports indicate that senior Department of Defense officials are doing their best to poison the well for those prosecuting Bergdahl.

During the week, two DOD sources spoke to CNN to confirm that Bergdahl had left his post to “report what he believed to be problems with ‘order and discipline’ in his unit.”

While the way this was reported indicated that they were speaking on background about DOD investigations to CNN, it turns out that they were just repeating what Bergdahl had told authorities.

“This was a kid who had leadership concerns on his mind,” CNN reported that one of the officials said. “He wasn’t fed up; he wasn’t planning to desert.” (Read more from “Obama Trying to Stop the US Army From Prosecuting Bergdahl” HERE)
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Bergdahl’s ex-Platoon Members Already Undercutting the New “Whistleblower” Defense

By Jake Tapper. U.S. troops who served alongside Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl on the day he disappeared told CNN that the emerging “whistleblower” defense being prepared for him makes no sense.

Bergdahl’s lawyer is making the case that Bergdahl left his post on foot to report his unit for troubling behavior, but his fellow troops say the platoon was already scheduled to drive back to their Forward Operating Base, or FOB, just hours after his disappearance.

“We were literally going back to the FOB Sharana the next day,” then-Sgt. Evan Buetow, Bergdahl’s team leader, told CNN. “If for whatever reason Bergdahl had complaints, he could have brought them to the attention of senior officers before our five-day mission, or easily could have waited a few more hours till we returned to the FOB.”

Then-Specialist Josh Cornelison, the platoon medic, said the base was “a lengthy drive away from” Observation Post Mest, where Bergdahl was last seen by his fellow troops.

“And he wanted to walk back? Knowing full well how many times we’d been blown up on the way there and back? Everyone knew bad dudes were around and watching us move to and from OP Mest,” Cornelison said. (Read more from this story about prosecuting Bergdahl HERE)

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GOP Puts Obama’s Bergdahl Swap on Trial

By Kristina Wong. Republicans intend to highlight the controversial trade for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl to mount an attack on President Obama’s foreign policy.

The Army’s moves to charge the solider with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy have given Republicans a new opportunity to challenge Obama’s decision last year to secure his freedom by releasing five senior Taliban commanders from Guantánamo Bay.

Republicans say the president paid too high a price for Bergdahl’s return, especially since the five former detainees will be released from house arrest in Qatar in a few months. At least one of the former detainees is reportedly already suspected of returning to the fight.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee turned up the heat on Friday by sending a letter to White House chief of staff Denis McDonough that requests documents and information related to the swap.

The letter also requests documents and information related to comments by National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who days after the trade was announced said Bergdahl had served with “honor and distinction.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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