Probe of Silencers Leads to Web of Pentagon Secrets

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Photo Credit: WNDThe mysterious workings of a Pentagon office that oversees clandestine operations are unraveling in federal court, where a criminal investigation has exposed a secret weapons program entwined with allegations of a sweetheart contract, fake badges and trails of destroyed evidence.

Capping an investigation that began almost two years ago, separate trials are scheduled this month in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., for a civilian Navy intelligence official and a hot-rod auto mechanic from California who prosecutors allege conspired to manufacture an untraceable batch of automatic-rifle silencers.

The exact purpose of the silencers remains hazy, but court filings and pretrial testimony suggest they were part of a top-secret operation that would help arm guerrillas or commandos overseas.

The silencers — 349 of them — were ordered by a little-known Navy intelligence office at the Pentagon known as the Directorate for Plans, Policy, Oversight and Integration, according to charging documents. The directorate is composed of fewer than 10 civilian employees, most of them retired military personnel.

Court records filed by prosecutors allege that the Navy paid the auto mechanic — the brother of the directorate’s boss — $1.6 million for the silencers, even though they cost only $10,000 in parts and labor to manufacture.

Read more from this story HERE.

Former Leftist: America Is ‘Approaching The Horrors Of World War II’

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Photo Credit: APGeorganne Burke, a former radical leftist who is now a conservative, has dual citizenship in Canada and the U.S. At 65, a grandmother of 11 and mother of 6, Burke has seen both sides of the ideological spectrum and has insights needing to be heard.

Burke, a 45 year veteran of grassroots campaigning, was in Washington, D.C. on September 3 to help train conservatives on effective efforts to expand the reach for their ideas. Her credentials include being part of the team that eventually brought about a conservative majority government in Canada by effective outreach to minorities, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Her political worldview started shifting away from the far left in 1997, in what she calls a “eureka moment.” When she was affiliated with the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in college, she married a Fabian Socialist, who remained committed to revolutionary socialist ends that justified using harsh and deceptive means.

On President Obama’s governance, she says she doesn’t scare easily, but feels “we are approaching the horrors of World War II.” She says the beheading of two American citizens used to be an considered an act of war — and there’s no reason it still shouldn’t be.

Burke’s 26 minute, exclusive video interview covers her perspective on America under President Obama, her honest assessment of the authoritarian leaders on the left she observed and tips to conservatives for uniting the country, rather than allowing the left to further divide us.

Read more from this story HERE.

Cops Seized $17,550 from Driver, Never Charged Him with a Crime

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Photo Credit: Shawn StoutMandrel Stuart used to own the Smoking Roosters, a barbecue restaurant in Staunton, Va. But one night in August 2012, police pulled him over and seized $17,550, without even bothering to charge Stuart with a crime. Unable to pay his bills and rent, Stuart had to close down his small business.

On the night of the seizure, Stuart and his girlfriend were headed to Washington, D.C. for a date and to buy supplies for his restaurant, when Fairfax County Officer Kevin Palizzi pulled them over on I-66. Palizzi stopped Stuart initially for having tinted windows. During the stop, Palizzi saw the movie Flashdance was also playing in Stuart’s car, which led to a $20 infraction.

A K-9 unit arrived and the dog alerted to the presence of drugs in Stuart’s car. Police then searched the car and found $17,550 in cash. A more thorough investigation of the car uncovered a minuscule amount of marijuana: just 0.01 gram. Police later gave Stuart a scrap of paper as a receipt. He was never charged with any crime.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Official Praises Mosque Of Oklahoma Beheader Alton Nolen

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerAn Obama administration official traveled to Oklahoma City Saturday to offer words of praise to congregants at the mosque attended by Alton Nolen, the recent Muslim convert who beheaded a co-worker last month.

David Myers, the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Faith-based & Neighborhood Partnerships, spoke at the Greater Islamic Society of Oklahoma City’s Eid al-Adha celebration, according to KFOR.

“Your service is a powerful example of the shared roots of the Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together in shared peace with dignity and a sense of justice,” said Myers, reading from a letter penned by President Obama.

At the DHS center, which falls under the control of FEMA, Myers’ job is to “build, sustain and improve effective partnerships between DHS and faith-based and voluntary organizations.”

According to KFOR, in the letter Obama thanked the congregation for their community service in the aftermath of a devastating tornado that wrecked havoc in Moore last year.

Read more from this story HERE.

WHO Admits Sneezing Could Transmit Ebola

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Photo Credit: WNDIn a largely overlooked media advisory email, the World Health Organization admitted there are some circumstances in which the current strain of Ebola in West Africa can be transmitted through coughing or sneezing.

“Theoretically, wet and bigger droplets from a heavily infected individual, who has respiratory symptoms caused by other conditions or who vomits violently, could transmit the virus – over a short distance – to another nearby person,” the United Nations agency said Monday.

“This could happen when virus-laden heavy droplets are directly propelled, by coughing or sneezing (which does not mean airborne transmission) onto the mucus membranes or skin with cuts or abrasions of another person.”

The WHO advisory said saliva and tears “may also carry some risk.”

“However, the studies implicating these additional bodily fluids were extremely limited in sample size and the science is inconclusive. In studies of saliva, the virus was found most frequently in patients at a severe stage of illness.”

Read more from this story HERE.

'Isis is Coming': At LEAST 10 ISIS Fighters Have Been Apprehended At US Border

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Photo Credit: Reuters By Chuck Ross.

California U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter made the alarming claim Tuesday that at least ten fighters for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have been apprehended trying to enter the U.S. at the southern border.

“ISIS is coming across the southern border,” Hunter told Fox News host Greta Van Susteren.

“You say that they’re coming in the southern border which changes all the dynamics. Do you have any information or any evidence that they are actually coming in the southern border now?” asked the host.

“Yes,” said Hunter.

“Tell me what you know,” said Van Susteren.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: TownHallWow: Ex-US Soldier Speaks Out About Joining Kurdish Forces to Fight ISIS

By Daniel Doherty.

It’s no secret that a dozen or so Americans have already left the United States to join ISIS, presumably to help them butcher civilians, exterminate infidels, and expand their caliphate. In fact, a US teenager was recently apprehended trying to join the terrorist organization, but was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport shortly before attempting to flee the country.

But apparently there aren’t just traitors and turncoats fighting overseas anymore, either. Right now, there are at least two Americans, frustrated by the current administration’s foreign policy approach to the rise of ISIS, who are actually fighting alongside our allies in Iraq.

One recently sat down with USA Today (after being wounded by shrapnel, as it happens) to explain why he felt compelled to serve…

Read more from this story HERE.

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Reports: ISIS is Winning

By Guy Benson.

The United States and our international partners are conducting airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, while stepping up efforts to train and equip “moderate” forces on the ground. Our stated goal is to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the terrorist fighting force, which numbers in the tens of thousands. According to multiple reports, our aerial campaign, coupled with a boots on the ground-by-proxy approach, is not working. Top military officials, a former Obama Defense Secertary, and the American people all predicted that the administration’s ‘light footprint’ approach wouldn’t be sufficient to defeat this determined and resourceful enemy. Which brings us to this chilling dispatch from The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg:

The theme of the week in the Syria conflict—that airstrikes are of only limited use in the struggle to degrade and destroy the Islamic State terror group—is about to be underscored in terrible fashion in the besieged border town of Kobani, which is under sustained, and mainly unanswered, assault by as many as 9,000 ISIS terrorists armed with tanks and rocket launchers. I just got off the phone with a desperate-sounding Kurdish intelligence official, Rooz Bahjat, who said he fears that Kobani could fall to ISIS within the next 24 hours. If it does, he predicts that ISIS will murder thousands in the city, which is crammed with refugees—Kurdish, Turkmen, Christian, and Arab—from other parts of the Syrian charnel house. As many as 50,000 civilians remain in the town, Bahjat said. “A terrible slaughter is coming. If they take the city, we should expect to have 5,000 dead within 24 or 36 hours,” he told me. “It will be worse than Sinjar,” the site of a recent ISIS massacre that helped prompt President Obama to fight ISIS. There have been reports of airstrikes on ISIS vehicles, but so far, Bahjat said that these strikes have been modest in scope and notably ineffective. Kobani is located on the Turkish border, but Bahjat said he is receiving reports that Turkey is pulling its troops back, rather than risk armed confrontation with ISIS. “It’s unbelievable—Turkey is in NATO, so you literally have NATO watching what is happening in this town. Everyone can see it—the TV cameras are there, watching. It’s terrible.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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ISIS Graffiti Is Cropping Up in Washington, D.C.

By Marin Cogan.

Photo Credit: Marin Cogan

On Friday, I noticed something I don’t remember seeing before: ISIS-related graffiti around my Northwest Washington neighborhood.

Here are two examples (at left and below), which appear to say Allahu Akbar, from Connecticut Avenue between Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan:

Photo Credit: Marin Cogan

Read more from this story HERE.

Communicable Diseases Plague Illegal Immigrants

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Photo Credit: AP / Ross D. Franklin, PoolCommunicable diseases continue to be a problem at the New Mexico facility built to house illegal immigrant families surging across the U.S.-Mexico border, and the immigrants themselves aren’t taking their own health care very seriously, according to an audit released Monday.

While the Border Patrol is doing a good job of handling the surge of illegal immigrant children traveling alone without their parents, the families who are being housed at a special facility continue to have health problems and trouble using the bathroom, the Homeland Security inspector general said.

“Family unit illnesses and unfamiliarity with bathroom facilities continued to result in unsanitary conditions,” Inspector General John Roth wrote in a memo to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

Mr. Roth said the illnesses — which put the facility in Artesia, New Mexico, on lockdown earlier this year, preventing any immigrants from being transferred in or out — have proved to be a continuing problem.

Part of the issue is the immigrants themselves, some of whom have never seen a doctor before, don’t follow up afterward, either for themselves or their children.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mexican Gov't Paying to Help Shield Illegals in USA from Deportation…

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Photo Credit: BreitbartMexican Gov’t Paying to Help Shield Illegal Immigrants in the U.S. from Deportation

By Caroline May.

The government of Mexico is paying to help its citizens who are living illegally in the United States avoid deportation.

According to a report from National Public Radio, the Mexican government through its 50 consulates around the United States has been helping to fund low-income illegal immigrants to apply for President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA — which shields illegal immigrants from deportation and allows them to work in the U.S.

NPR’s report details the story of Tania Guzman, an illegal immigrant who said the cost of applying for DACA worried her, but she was able to afford it after her pro-bono lawyer from Public Counsel told her she could access financial help from the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles.

Mexico paid for all Guzman’s attorney fees and application fees, according to NPR. In the end Guzman told NPR she paid just $50.

The report explains that since 2012, the year DACA began, the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles has assisted more then 260 Mexican illegal immigrants apply for protections under DACA.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP10 Unaccompanied Illegal Alien Minors Diagnosed With TB

By Melanie Hunter.

From January through September, 10 of the unaccompanied minors detained while attempting to illegally enter the United States across the Mexican border were diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB), according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

The children were ultimately allowed to stay in the United States.

“The children were isolated and treated; after being rendered non-infectious, all ten were released to verified sponsors in the U.S.,” said ORR spokesman Kenneth Wolfe in an emailed response when CNSNews.com asked if any – and if so, how many – of the unaccompanied minors were tested for TB or enterovirus 68.

“The respective local health department connects with the health department in the city in which the child is released through the inter-jurisdictional TB notification system, and our Office of Refugee Resettlement also notifies the state. Then, the local TB control program follows up with the child and family,” said Wolfe.

No minors with active TB are currently in the UAC program, according to Wolfe.

Read more from this story HERE.

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NM MAYOR: ‘ALL OF A SUDDEN’ FED GOV RELEASING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AT 4-TO-1 RATIO

By BREITBART TV.

Wednesday on Newsmax TV’s “America’s Forum,” Mayor Phillip Burch Mayor of Artesia, NM, a isolated town that houses a federal immigration detention center, said there has been a sudden large increase in the number of illegal immigrants being released from the center into the United States.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Terrible Truth about Marijuana: Expert's Devastating 20-Year Study Finally Demolishes Claims that Smoking Pot is Harmless

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Photo Credit: AlamyBy Ben Spencer.

A definitive 20-year study into the effects of long-term cannabis use has demolished the argument that the drug is safe.

Cannabis is highly addictive, causes mental health problems and opens the door to hard drugs, the study found.

The paper by Professor Wayne Hall, a drugs advisor to the World Health Organisation, builds a compelling case against those who deny the devastation cannabis wreaks on the brain. Professor Hall found:

Last night Professor Hall, a professor of addiction policy at King’s College London, dismissed the views of those who say that cannabis is harmless.

‘If cannabis is not addictive then neither is heroin or alcohol,’ he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Marijuana-smoking Mountie found dead

By Yahoo News. A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer [Corporal Ronald Francis] with a medical marijuana prescription for job-related stress has died of an apparent suicide after provoking a nationwide debate over his smoking in uniform…

Francis had smoked medical-grade marijuana to relieve post-traumatic stress related to 21 years on the job…

Francis’s struggles came to light in video footage of him smoking cannabis in his RCMP red serge uniform.

“I get up in the morning, have my coffee and the marijuana. I go at lunchtime, have a marijuana joint, and then again in the evening. That would be my medical regime,” he had told public broadcaster CBC…

Later he was charged with [and pled guilty to] assaulting two fellow officers and breaching an undertaking to not possess or consume alcohol and non-prescription drugs.

Read more from this story HERE.
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More people hospitalized by bad batch of synthetic marijuana

By Ryan Hughes.

A bad batch of synthetic marijuana continues to put people in Berks County in the hospital. The emergency department at Reading Hospital is still flooded with patients overdosing and getting sick on a bad batch of K2.

Hospital officials told 69 News they have seen 25 additional cases related to K2 in the last seven days. That’s now 55 total emergency department visits over the last three weeks.

“I’d like to see it gone and I’ll do anything in my power to help get rid of it,” said Felicia Harrell, who has several friends who overdosed on K2 and landed in the hospital.

The drug is cheap and easily accessible. Harrell said a big source is coming from Reading.

Read more from this story HERE.

General: If Ebola Reaches Central America, 'There Will Be Mass Migration into the U.S.'

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By Jeryl Bier.

Those looking for good news on the fight against Ebola will not find much encouragement from Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly, the commander of the U.S. Southern Command. As Jim Garamone of Department of Defense News reports, Kelly told an audience at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday that, if the disease reaches Central America, “it’s literally, ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States.” He also said with certainty that “there is no way we can keep Ebola [contained] in West Africa.”

“By the end of the year, there’s supposed to be 1.4 million people infected with Ebola and 62 percent of them dying, according to the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]…”

“So, much like West Africa, it will rage for a period of time,” Kelly said.

This is particularly possible scenario if the disease gets to Haiti or Central America, he said. If the disease gets to countries like Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador, it will cause a panic and people will flee the region, the general said.

“If it breaks out, it’s literally, ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States,” Kelly said. “They will run away from Ebola, or if they suspect they are infected, they will try to get to the United States for treatment.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP / Wilmot ChayeeEBOLA PATIENT’S DEATH RENEWS QUESTIONS ABOUT CARE

BY NOMAAN MERCHANT AND JOSH FUNK.

The death of the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States renewed questions about his medical care and whether Thomas Eric Duncan’s life could have been extended or saved if the Texas hospital where he first sought help had taken him in sooner.

Duncan died in Dallas on Wednesday, a little more than a week after his illness exposed gaps in the nation’s defenses against the disease and set off a scramble to track down anyone exposed to him.

The 42-year-old Liberian man had been kept in isolation since Sept. 28 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where a fevered Duncan first showed up days earlier and told the staff he had been in West Africa. Doctors initially sent him home. He returned after his condition worsened.

Dr. Phil Smith is the director of the biocontainment center at the Nebraska Medical Center, where an NBC News freelance cameraman is being treated for Ebola. He said getting early treatment is key to survival.

When a patient reaches the point of needing dialysis and respiratory help, as Duncan did this week, there may be little doctors can do.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Hospital bill for Ebola grows at $1,000 an hour in Dallas case

By Alex Wayne.

Caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Dallas Ebola patient, may cost as much as $500,000, a bill that his hospital is unlikely to ever collect.

Duncan is in critical condition at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, where he has been isolated since Sept. 28. He’s on a ventilator, has been given an experimental medicine and is receiving kidney dialysis, a hospital spokeswoman said Tuesday. His treatment probably includes fluids replacement, blood transfusions and drugs to maintain blood pressure. There’s also the cost of security, disposing of Ebola-contaminated trash and equipment to protect caregivers.

The bill may eventually total $500,000 including indirect costs such as the disruption to other areas of hospital care, said Dan Mendelson, chief executive officer of Avalere Health, a Washington consulting firm. Duncan’s care probably costs $18,000 to $24,000 a day, said Gerard Anderson, a health policy professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Duncan has been in isolation in the hospital for nine days so far. “If they recognize that he has no money they will clearly just write it off as charity care,” Anderson said in a telephone interview.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Vaccine may be only way to bring Ebola under control in West Africa

By Helen Branswell.

As West Africa’s Ebola outbreak continues to rage, some experts are coming to the conclusion that it may take large amounts of vaccines and maybe even drugs – all still experimental and in short supply – to bring the outbreak under control.

Embedded in that notion is the reality that the catastrophic epidemic may remain unchecked for months, given that these products haven’t yet been proven to be safe or effective in people, and won’t be available in significant amounts any time soon. Experimental Ebola drugs in particular will remain in scarce supply for a considerable time.

“It is conceivable that this epidemic will not turn around even if we pour resources into it. It may just keep going and going and it might require a vaccine,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The Canadian Press in an interview.

“As the epidemic gets more and more formidable and in some cases out of control it is quite conceivable, if not likely, that we may need to deploy the vaccine to the entire country to be able to shut the epidemic down. That is clearly a possibility.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Reuters / Fabian BimmerEbola spread ‘unavoidable’ in Europe due to extensive travel – WHO

By RT.

The spread of Ebola in Europe is “unavoidable”, the World Health Organization said shortly after the contraction of four new cases was announced in Spain.

“Such imported cases and similar events as have happened in Spain will happen also in the future, most likely,” the WHO European director Zsuzsanna Jakab told Reuters.

On Monday scientists predicted that there was a 75 percent chance that Ebola would reach France by the end October and a 50 percent chance for the UK.

The most dangerous contributor to the spread is the behavior of the virus. Its symptoms catch people unawares and normally follow a 21-day incubation period, during which there’s literally no visible sign the person has contracted Ebola.

Read more from this story HERE.