The Secret Government Rulebook For Labeling You a Terrorist

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Photo Credit: First Look

Photo Credit: First Look

The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence” to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by The Intercept.

The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place “entire categories” of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to “nominate” people to the watchlists based on what is vaguely described as “fragmentary information.” It also allows for dead people to be watchlisted.

Over the years, the Obama and Bush Administrations have fiercely resisted disclosing the criteria for placing names on the databases—though the guidelines are officially labeled as unclassified. In May, Attorney General Eric Holder even invoked the state secrets privilege to prevent watchlisting guidelines from being disclosed in litigation launched by an American who was on the no fly list. In an affidavit, Holder called them a “clear roadmap” to the government’s terrorist-tracking apparatus, adding: “The Watchlisting Guidance, although unclassified, contains national security information that, if disclosed … could cause significant harm to national security.”

The rulebook, which The Intercept is publishing in full, was developed behind closed doors by representatives of the nation’s intelligence, military, and law-enforcement establishment, including the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, and FBI. Emblazoned with the crests of 19 agencies, it offers the most complete and revealing look into the secret history of the government’s terror list policies to date. It reveals a confounding and convoluted system filled with exceptions to its own rules, and it relies on the elastic concept of “reasonable suspicion” as a standard for determining whether someone is a possible threat. Because the government tracks “suspected terrorists” as well as “known terrorists,” individuals can be watchlisted if they are suspected of being a suspected terrorist, or if they are suspected of associating with people who are suspected of terrorism activity.

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White House Giving Up Fight Over Obamacare’s Contraception Mandate?

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

The Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case was met with incandescent outrage from progressives. The overturning of a mandate never passed by Congress which had not existed prior to 2010 signaled, those who consider themselves members of a class of deliberative and reasoned thinkers said, evidence of a theocratic judiciary in the United States. Recognizing the indignation on their side of the aisle, the White House responded by reassuring their base supporters that this offense would not go unanswered.

“Today’s decision jeopardizes the health of women who are employed by these companies,” White House Press Sec. Josh Earnest said…

After that ol’ college try, it seems the White House may be giving up on the fight over the contraception mandate entirely. In a move sure to dispirit their supporters, the administration is reportedly developing a compromise proposal which The Hill reports would let “nonprofits opt out of ObamaCare’s contraception mandate without filing a form they say violates their religious belief.”

On Tuesday, a senior administration official said they are working on an alternative option for religious nonprofits that do not want to fill out the document and will issue a federal regulation in the next month.

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Ted Cruz Questions Whether Obama 'Launched An Economic Boycott Of Israel'

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Photo Credit: Business Insider

Photo Credit: Business Insider

Freshman firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) questioned on Wednesday whether President Barack Obama has effectively “launched an economic boycott of Israel,” after the Federal Aviation Agency’s decision to bar all flights into and out of Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport for the past two days.

The Obama administration forcefully shot back at the charge, with State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf calling it “ridiculous and offensive.” She rejected any assertion the FAA’s move was at all politically motivated, saying it was only done to protect American citizens and carriers.

For its part, Cruz’s office released a lengthy statement on his behalf, blasting it out to reporters with the subject line, “Did President Obama Just Launch an Economic Boycott of Israel?” He claimed, as some in the Israeli government have over the past two days, that it effectively hands the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas a victory.

“Aiding Hamas while simultaneously isolating Israel does two things. One, it helps our enemy. Two, it hurts our ally,” Cruz said in the statement.

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FEC Chair Warns of Chilling Regulations, Book Ban On Conservative Publishers

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The chairman of the Federal Election Commission today blasted Democratic colleagues opposed to his effort to protect conservative media after they imposed rules on the publisher of Rep. Paul Ryan’s new book, opening the door to future book regulations — or even a ban.

“By failing to affirm this publisher’s constitutional right, statutory right, to disseminate a political book free from FEC conditions and regulations, we have effectively asserted regulatory jurisdiction over a book publisher,” warned Chairman Lee E. Goodman, one of three Republicans on the six-person FEC.

“That failure reveals a festering legal uncertainty and chill for the free press rights of books and book publishers to publish and disseminate political books free from government regulation,” he added.

His comments after the FEC OK’d Republican Ryan’s request to promote his new book, The Way Forward, were immediately and sharply rebuked by Democratic Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub. “No one is banning books,” she said.

Weintraub also hit Goodman for suggesting “that we are motivated by partisan bias, which is really not appreciated and untrue. I want to categorically deny that.”

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Brandeis Professors Manifest Rampant Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism

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Photo Credit: btrandolph / Flickr

Photo Credit: btrandolph / Flickr

Paul Miller, writing for Algemeiner.com, reveals that Brandeis University has professors on its staff who are overtly anti-American and anti-Semitic. Examining writings gleaned from a faculty listserv and reported by Daniel Mael, a student at the university, Miller notes that not only were there offensive posts on the listserv, but the university itself has stifled free speech.

The listserv, called “Concerned,” was created in 2002 “out of concern about possible war with Iraq.” The political stance it took was intransigent; co-creator Gordon Fellman wrote in a 2009 email, “It is rude to post a recipe for pork roast on a vegetarian listserv or an orthodox Jewish one, or right wing harangues on the concerned list.”

In a Breitbart News exclusive, Mael wrote, “It contains 92 subscribers, including professors from outside of the university. Participants express their fear and disdain on issues ranging from United States foreign and domestic policy, the ‘American system’ and ‘the Israelists,’ to ‘President Obomber,’ and ‘Hillary Obliterate Iran! Clinton.’ ”

East Asian Studies Professor Donald Hindley is the most obvious case of rampant anti-Semitism; in 2007 he compared Israel to Nazi Germany in a 2007 listserv email with the subject line, “Plant a Tree, Bury a Palestinian,” commenting in the email, “Zionist olive trees grow wondrously on Palestinian corpses. In that way, we combine great trees with our own holocaustic ethnic cleansing.”

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Kaufman County: No Illegal Immigrant Children Here

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Photo Credit: Ross D. Franklin-Pool / Getty

Photo Credit: Ross D. Franklin-Pool / Getty

Kaufman County Commissioners approved a resolution on Monday telling the federal government that they don’t want to house any illegal immigrants in their communities.

It came about after Kaufman County Tea Party Chairman Ray Myers and others appealed to the commissioners court.

“It basically says that we are opposed to the dropping of the illegals in Kaufman county, regardless of if they’re kids or whatever they are,” said Myers. “We’re just opposed to those people coming in because of the possibility of disease, the possibility of drug cartels or things of that nature. There’s already indications of disease; there’s already indications that they’re covering up disease at Lackland Air Force Base… and we know that the government is covering up those things at Lackland and other places.”

Myers goes onto say that they’re opposed to how the federal government is handling the crisis on the border. “We’re not interested in having illegal immigration in Kaufman County; we don’t believe that it’s constitutional.”

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White House To Ignore Court Ruling, Keep Handing Out Obamacare Subsidies

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Kevin Lamarque

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Kevin Lamarque

The Obama administration will continue handing out Obamacare subsidies to federal exchange customers despite a federal court’s ruling Tuesday that the subsidies are illegal.

A D.C. Court of Appeals panel ruled Tuesday morning that customers in the 36 states that didn’t establish their own exchange and use HealthCare.gov instead cannot be given premium tax credits, according to the text of the Affordable Care Act itself.

But the White House said in response that it will continue handing out the billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies…

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House Investigators: IRS Tech Experts Say Lerner’s Hard Drive Only 'Scratched,' Not Destroyed

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Fox News.

House investigators said Tuesday that the computer hard drive of ex-agency official Lois Lerner — a key figure in the IRS targeting scandal — was only “scratched,” not irreparably damaged, as Americans have been led to believe.

GOP-led Ways and Means Committee investigators, in their quest to recover missing Lerner emails, learned her hard drive was damaged but recoverable by talking to IRS information-technology experts, after the government originally refused to make them available, according to the committee.

“It is unbelievable that we cannot get a simple, straight answer from the IRS about this hard drive,” said committee Chairman Dave Camp.

The Michigan Republican said the new information also raises more questions about potential criminal wrongdoing at the IRS because the committee was told no data was recoverable and the physical hard drive was recycled and potentially shredded.

In addition, learning that the hard drive was only scratched also raises questions about why the IRS refused to use outside experts to recover the data.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst

Lois Lerner’s Hard Drive Was ‘Scratched’ Then ‘Shredded’

By Patrick Howley.

Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer hard drive was “scratched” and the data on it was still recoverable. But the IRS did not try to recover the data from Lerner’s hard drive, despite recommendations from in-house IRS IT experts to outsource the recovery project.

The hard drive was then “shredded,” according to a court filing the IRS made to House Ways and Means Committee investigators.

The IRS claims that it lost Lerner’s emails from 2009 to 2011 including emails to and from the White House, when her computer crashed in the midst of the agency’s conservative targeting program. The IRS also claimed in a transcribed interview that many other IRS employees who worked under Lerner in her Washington, D.C. department and its Cincinnati-based affiliate also experienced computer crashes that deleted their emails, bringing the total number of crash victims to “less than 20.”

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Voters See A More Divided Nation; GOPers More Enthusiastic to Vote

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Voters strongly believe the United States is a more divided nation these days, and they think both sides are to blame. Most are also ready to do something about it at the ballot box in November.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Likely U.S. Voters say America is a more divided nation than it was four years ago. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just seven percent (7%) think the country is less divided now, while 21% rate the level of division as about the same.(To see survey question wording, click here.)

Among voters who see more division or about the same level of it, 35% believe President Obama is to blame. But 34% point the finger at Republicans in Congress instead. Twenty-three percent (23%) say they’re both to blame. Just five percent (5%) attribute the division to something else.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of all voters say they are more likely to vote this year than they have been in past elections. Only four percent (4%) say they are less likely to do so, while 38% rate their intention to vote as about the same as in past years.

Perhaps problematic for Democrats is that 65% of GOP voters and 55% of voters not affiliated with either major party are more likely to vote this year, compared to 53% of those in the president’s party. But that could change as the election gets nearer.

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Obama Sets Out On Dem Fundraising Sprint Amid Mounting Crises

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / KEVIN LAMARQUE

Photo Credit: REUTERS / KEVIN LAMARQUE

President Obama began his three-day West Coast fundraising tour in Seattle with an admission that mushrooming global crises were adding anxiety to an American public already concerned about the economy.

“Part of people’s concern is just the sense that around the world the old order isn’t holding and we’re not quite yet where we need to be based on the new order,” said Obama, who later cautioned against letting those anxieties lead to cynicism and a lack of interest in democracy.

“People who really need government to work for them on their behalf, they withdraw, they opt out, and that makes government even more dysfunctional,” he said.

The president already has taken heat for making time for a burger stop and fundraisers last week shortly after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed over Ukraine, killing hundreds. While the president repeatedly has addressed the tragedy in public, he also spent his Sunday playing golf at Fort Belvoir.

Later Tuesday, Obama will attend a Democratic Party fundraiser in Seattle, before catching Air Force One to San Francisco. He’ll end the three-day swing later this week in Los Angeles.

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