Grand Jury Considering the Ferguson Shooting is Being Investigated for Misconduct

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The St. Louis County prosecutor’s office is investigating an accusation of misconduct on the grand jury that is hearing the case against the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Ed Magee, the spokesman for county prosecutor Robert McCulloch, said they received the information from a “Twitter user” Wednesday morning.

“We are looking into the matter,” he said.

An account of possible jury misconduct surfaced Wednesday morning on Twitter, when several users sent messages about one juror who may have discussed evidence in the case with a friend.

In one of those messages, a person tweeted that they are friends with a member of the jury who doesn’t believe there is enough evidence to warrant an arrest of the officer, Darren Wilson.

The same person who tweeted about being friends with a member of the jury has also tweeted messages of support for Wilson…

Read more from this story HERE.

First Amendment Now Allows Boobies Bracelets But Not American Flag Shirts In Public Schools

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Rest easy, America, because all is right with the First Amendment thanks to the wisdom of our federal judges: American public schools can ban American flag T-shirts in high schools but must allow “I (heart) Boobies!” bracelets in middle schools.

Photo Credit: YouTube

Makes total sense, right?

The “I (heart) Boobies!” case ended this week after the school district in Easton, Pa. agreed to pay $385,000 in attorneys’ fees to the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. The district lost an appeal involving students who wore colorful breast cancer awareness bracelets bearing the “I (heart) Boobies!” slogan.

The settlement between the school district and the ACLU ended almost four years of litigation, notes The Morning Call, Easton’s main newspaper.

The case began in 2010 when a couple of middle school students defied a previously-imposed ban and wore the rubber bracelets — distributed by the Keep A Breast Foundation — on school premises.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ebola Victim was Originally SENT HOME from Hospital with Antibiotics Before the Deadly Virus was Diagnosed

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Photo Credit: APBy AP and Zoe Szathmary.

A Dallas hospital gave a man antibiotics and sent him home – only for him to be admitted two days later, it has been reported. Federal health officials later confirmed he has the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the US.

The unidentified patient has been in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital since Sunday, officials said.

‘#Dallas patient diagnosed with #Ebola was initially dismissed with prescription for antibiotics,’ CBS DFW tweeted.

Medical officials said the patient would not be given the experimental treatment ZMapp because there is none of it left.

The man recently traveled from Liberia to Dallas.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: ReutersCDC Confirms First Case of Ebola in US

By Jessica Mulvihill.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed on Tuesday that a patient being treated at a Dallas hospital has tested positive for Ebola, the first case diagnosed in the United States.

The patient left Liberia on September 19 and arrived in the United States on September 20, CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden told reporters at a press conference Tuesday. It’s the first patient to be diagnosed with this particular strain of Ebola outside of Africa.

“[The patient] had no symptoms when departing Liberia or entering this country. But four or five days later on the 24th of September, he began to develop symptoms,” said Frieden.

The patient, who was in the U.S. visiting family in Texas, initially sought care on September 26, but was sent home and was not admitted until two days later. He was placed in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, where he remains critically ill, according to Frieden.

“The next steps are basically threefold,” said Frieden. “First, to care for the patient … to provide the most effective care possible as safely as possible to keep to an absolute minimum the likelihood or possibility that anyone would become affected, and second, to maximize the chances that the patient might recover,” said Frieden.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Chris Matthews vs. Ezekiel Emanuel on Ebola: “Obama Said It Was Unlikely. It Has Happened. It’s Here”

By Ian Schwartz.

On MSNBC’s Hardball tonight, host Chris Matthews tussled with Obamacare architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel over the how serious a threat Ebola is to Americans. Matthews and Emanuel also spar over President Obama saying it was “unlikely” that an Ebola case would strike the U.S.

“Obama said it was unlikely. It has happened. It’s here,” Matthews said.

Dr. Emanuel said there is some “fear mongering” going on here, but Matthews said he was just quoting the president and stating facts. Here’s a bit of the argument that lasted nearly ten minutes:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I’m just trying to follow the logic here. Everybody’s being told, don’t worry unless they have the infectious symptoms, you can see them, that you don’t have to worry about catching them. Yet, this guy picked up the disease apparently from somebody who did not have the infectious symptoms.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: CELLOU BINANI / AFP / Getty American Ebola Survivor: Outbreak is ‘A Fire Straight From the Pit of Hell’

By Sophie Novack.

Ebola survivor Kent Brantly said it’s “time to think outside the box” for ways to combat the virus’s worst outbreak in history, which continues to ravage West Africa.

The physician was treating Ebola patients in Liberia when he tested positive for the disease on July 26. He is one of four American aid workers flown back to the United States for treatment.

In a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Tuesday, Brantly implored the international community to ramp up relief efforts, calling on the U.S. to lead the efforts. His testimony came on the same day President Obama announced a new stepped-up strategy for U.S. efforts to combat the epidemic.

Obama said Tuesday that 3,000 U.S. military personnel will be dispatched to help battle the Ebola crisis that is raging in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. The president explained his plan from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Obama and Brantly met in the Oval Office ahead of the announcement Tuesday.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obamacare Will Cancel 50,000 More Plans Before November

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Photo Credit: GettyBy Sarah Hurtubise.

Tens of thousands more Obamacare cancellations are going to pile up over the next month, potentially putting pressure back on the health-care law in the weeks before the election.

Insurance companies across the country are slated to send close to 50,000 people cancellation notices before November, according to the Morning Consult. That includes at least 30,000 New Mexicans who will be kicked off their plans, the Albuquerque Journal reported Tuesday.

“We got together and said, ‘This would be the right time to make sure all the citizens in the state who had a plan that wasn’t ACA-compliant would have the opportunity to convert to one,” said New Mexico insurance superintendent John Franchini, apparently without any irony. The state decided in May not to extend plans not compliant with Obamacare past the end of 2014.

Another 14,000 people in Kentucky (mostly Humana customers) and 800 Moda customers in Alaska will receive cancellation letters by Oct. 1. Both states accepted three-year extensions of plans not compliant with Obamacare regulations, but top insurers are ending their plans early. It’s a financial boost for Obamacare exchange insurers (both Humana in Kentucky and Moda in Alaska offer exchange plans) to terminate their noncompliant plans.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Barely a Third of Democrat Congressional Candidates Support Obamacare

By Christine Rousselle.

As we rapidly approach the one year anniversary of Obamacare’s implementation and the horrendous launch of HealthCare.gov, a new report from the Brookings Institution shows that Democrat candidates for Congress aren’t exactly embracing the law—in fact, most are avoiding it entirely.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: Obama Has Missed Over Half His Second-Term Daily Intel Briefings

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Photo Credit: BreitbartA new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1% of his daily intelligence briefings (known officially as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB) in the 2,079 days of his presidency through September 29, 2014.

The GAI report also included a breakdown of Obama’s PDB attendance record between terms; he attended 42.4% of his PDBs in his first term and 41.3% in his second.

The GAI’s alarming findings come on the heels of Obama’s 60 Minutes comments on Sunday, wherein the president laid the blame for the Islamic State’s (ISIS) rapid rise squarely at the feet of his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

“I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” said Obama.

According to Daily Beast reporter Eli Lake, members of the Defense establishment were “flabbergasted” by Obama’s attempt to shift blame.

Read more from this story HERE.

Refugee Plan Set Up for Central American Minors

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / JOSE LUIS GONZALEZThe Obama administration is initiating a program to give refugee status to some young people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in response to the influx of unaccompanied minors arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Under the program, immigrants from those countries who are lawfully in the United States will be able to request that child relatives still in those three countries be resettled in the United States as refugees. The program would establish in-country processing to screen the young people to determine if they qualify to join relatives in the U.S.

In a memorandum to the State Department Tuesday, President Barack Obama allocated 4,000 slots for refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean for next year. The number is a fraction of the number of children who have already crossed the border into the United States and are awaiting deportation proceedings.

The program would not provide a path for minors to join relatives illegally in the United States, and would not apply to minors who have entered the country illegally.

Instead, it aims to set up an orderly alternative for dealing with young people who otherwise might embark on a dangerous journey to join their families in the United States.

Read more from this story HERE.

Reporter 'Creeped Out' by Obama Aide

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Photo Credit: TownHallBy Ky Sisson.

The White House was recently accused of changing press pool reports and pressuring journalists to modify their stories. And now, another journalist has been told what to do by an Obama aide.

Read more on the White House’s paranoid control over the press.

Meg Kissinger, a reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for 35 years, was covering Michelle Obama’s campaign visit for Wisconsin gubernatorial Democratic candidate, Mary Burke. She was told by aides for the first lady that she could not talk to people in the crowd.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Daily Signal Reporter Forbidden to Speak to Crowd at Michelle Obama Event

By Kate Scanlon.

Meg Kissinger, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, covered first lady Michelle Obama’s Milwaukee campaign stop Monday for Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke. But, Kissinger says, she was barred from speaking to members of the crowd.

Kissinger, a veteran of covering political events, said of the request that she’s “never seen anything like it in 35 years as a reporter.”

At the event, Kissinger noticed that members of the media were “cordoned off” from the crowd at the event.

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

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Photo Credit: Politico U.S. law enforcement officials are urging Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG) to give authorities access to smartphone data that the companies have decided to block, and are weighing whether to appeal to executives or seek congressional legislation.

The new privacy features, announced two weeks ago by the California-based companies, will stymie investigations into crimes ranging from drug dealing to terrorism, law enforcement officials said.

“This is a very bad idea,” said Cathy Lanier, chief of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, in an interview. Smartphone communication is “going to be the preferred method of the pedophile and the criminal. We are going to lose a lot of investigative opportunities.”

The dispute is the latest flare-up that pits the federal government against the nation’s leading technology companies since National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden disclosed last year the extent of U.S. snooping on phone and Internet communications — and how companies cooperated.

U.S. Justice Department and FBI officials are trying to understand how the new Apple and Google Android systems work and how the companies could change the encryption to make it accessible when court ordered. Their requests to the companies may include letters, personal appeals or congressional legislation, said a federal law official who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

Read more from this story HERE.

New Jersey Man Accused Of Shooting Down Neighbor’s Remote Control Drone

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Photo Credit: ThinkstockA New Jersey man was arrested after police say he shot down a neighbor’s remote control drone.

According to investigators, officers with the Lower Township Police Department were called to a home in the 1000 block of Seashore Road on September 26th to investigate the report by a resident that his remote control helicopter (drone) was shot down.

Investigators say the resident was taking aerial photographs of his friend’s home, which is under construction.

While doing so, the resident told police he heard several gunshots as he simultaneously lost control of the drone.

Read more from this story HERE.

Feds Place Illegals in Every State

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Photo Credit: AP / Emily VariscoSchools scramble to help teens who crossed border

By Kimberly Hefling.

American schools are scrambling to provide services to the large number of children and teenagers who crossed the border alone in recent months.

Unaccompanied minors who made up the summer spike at the border have moved to communities of all sizes, in nearly every state, Federal data indicates, to live with a relative and await immigration decisions. The Supreme Court has ruled that schools have an obligation to educate all students regardless of their immigration status, so schools have become a safe haven for many of the tens of thousands of these young people mostly from central America living in limbo.

Delaware’s rural Sussex County has long attracted immigrants, partly because of work in chicken factories, and soybean and corn fields. The district’s population is more than one-quarter Hispanic, and for years has offered an early learning program for non-English speakers.

Still, officials were caught off guard by about 70 new students mostly from Guatemala – part of the wave crossing the border – enrolling last year, mostly at Sussex Central High School. The Indian River School District over the summer break quickly put together special classes for those needing extra English help.

On a recent school day, a group of these mostly Spanish-speaking teenage boys with styled spiky hair and high-top sneakers enthusiastically pecked away on hand-held tablets at the G.W. Carver Education Center, pausing to alert the teacher when stumped.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsMexican Consulate brings ID services to Wisconsin

By The Associated Press.

Wisconsin officials are working to better serve the rapidly growing Hispanic community in the state, with a little help from the Mexican Consulate in Chicago.

A mobile version of the Chicago-based office issued passports and consular identification cards to hundreds of Mexican nationals at an Appleton church last week, Post-Crescent Media reported. About 800 people took advantage of the services at First English Lutheran Church from last Wednesday to Saturday, according to Alfredo Gomez Sepulveda, a coordinator of the consulate’s mobile program.

About once a month, the mobile office visits a Wisconsin city to renew Mexican passports and consular identification cards, saving thousands of people from having to take a trip to Chicago. The consulate has served more than 9,900 Mexican nationals so far in 2014 by offering services in Appleton, Beloit, Green Bay, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Racine and Waukesha, according to Sepulveda.

“It’s more than a three-hour trip to Chicago and the passport is the primary form of ID. So it’s a service that the Chicago consulate provides … to attend to Mexican nationals over here,” Sepulveda said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Obama will ‘make good’ on immigration reform promise, aide says

By Justin Sink.

President Obama will “make good” on his promise to implement executive actions on immigration by the end of the year, press secretary Josh Earnest said Sunday.

The president had initially pledged to take unilateral action on immigration by the end of the summer, but the White House announced earlier this month that he would hold off until after the midterm elections.

White House officials have said Obama was concerned that moving before the midterm elections would make reform a partisan issue and polarize support against it, although the move was widely seen as a concession to Senate Democrats who were locked in tough reelection battles and begged Obama to hold off.

The delay has bred new concerns among immigration activists that the president will not ever take the executive action, but Earnest insisted that was not the case.

Read more from this story HERE.