House Staffer Arrested for Carrying Concealed Weapon at Capitol

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Photo Credit: iStock Image

Photo Credit: iStock Image

A staff member for a Pennsylvania congressman was arrested Friday for carrying a concealed weapon inside the Capitol complex.

A Capitol Police spokeswoman said Ryan Shucard, press secretary for Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., entered the Cannon House Office Building at 9:15 am carrying a Smith & Wesson 9 mm handgun and magazine. The weapon, which wasn’t loaded, was discovered during a routine X-ray security screening required of all congressional staffers.

Shucard was immediately taken into custody and arrested without incident, said police spokeswoman Lt. Kimberly Schneider. He was charged with carrying a pistol without a license, which is a felony.

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Nanny State Targets Grocery Stores

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

After having made her mark on school lunches, you know, replacing mac n’ cheese for quinoa salad thereby leaving kids across the nation hungry and unhappy, first lady Michelle Obama is moving on to bigger and better things, it seems.

Via The Washington Free Beacon:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is suggesting major changes to grocery stores to “nudge” Americans to purchase healthier foods when they shop.

The agency commissioned an “expert panel” to make recommendations on how to guide the more than 47 million Americans on food stamps into spending their benefits on fruits and vegetables.

The group released an 80-pagereportthis month presenting their ideas, which include talking shopping carts and a marketing strategy for grocery chains that would feature better store lighting for healthier items.

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D'Souza: Obama's Retreat From The World Enabled Airliner Tragedy

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

President Barack Obama is remaking the world according to his vision of a less influential America, and one result is chaos abroad that leads to disasters like the apparent shootdown this week of a passenger jet over war-torn Ukraine, conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza told Newsmax TV on Friday.

“This downing of the airplane is a small indication of what happens when American power is subtracted from the world,” D’Souza told “MidPoint” host Ed Berliner.

It’s an argument that coincides with the theme of D’Souza’s new docu-drama movie, “America: Imagine the World Without Her,” and companion book of the same title.

In print and on screen, D’Souza contends that the progressive moment’s relentlessly downbeat portrait of America emphasizes past failings, portrays national strengths as liabilities, and shuns the country’s essential contributions to global peace, prosperity and freedom.

D’Souza said President Obama, in withdrawing from the international stage and conceding management of global affairs to others, is helping to make the movie’s point.

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Biden’s 7-Figure Hotel Bill for One Wild Brazilian Night Brings ‘Cost-Cutting Mission’ to Abrupt End

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Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

Remember last summer, when President Obama appointed Joe Biden to head the Campaign to Cut Waste to root out wasteful government spending?

Like you, we’ve been anxiously awaiting the results of the comprehensive report that’s surely coming any day now. In the meantime, it seems like he’s adding to the list of things to root out.

Last month it was reported that every weekend he gets a lift from D.C. to his home in Wilmington, Delaware, via Air Force Two — the V.P.’s airplane — and Marine Two — the V.P.’s helicopter. And he often gets a mid-weekend lift back to the Andrews Air Force Base for a round of golf with the President.

Based upon the $22,000 an hour cost for the airtime, that works out to about $1 million per year in shuttling costs. That doesn’t count the cost of the 20 condominiums that the Secret Service rents in Wilmington nor the cost of Air Force Two sitting and waiting for him while he plays 18 holes of golf.

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Chougule: Unfathomable Billions in Government Waste

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Photo Credit: Cliff Owen

Photo Credit: Cliff Owen

Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified before Congress that federal agencies made more than $100 billion in improper payments last year. To put that number in perspective, $100 billion is more than the combined total budgets of the Coast Guard, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Border Patrol, Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency — a lot more.

The GAO report is the latest example of why Washington must get serious about eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, and enacting sweeping reforms and spending cuts before any more damage is inflicted on American taxpayers.

Improper payments result when people collect money from government programs for which they are ineligible. For example, paying unemployment insurance to people who are secretly working is an improper payment, and needlessly adds to the already out-of-control deficit.

The GAO thinks it’s likely the amount of improper payments is even higher than the $105.8 billion reported. In its own words, “the federal government’s inability to determine the full extent to which improper payments occur” represents a serious limitation on their estimates. Some programs, such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families welfare program, do not bother reporting estimates of improper payments at all.

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Tea Party Groups' Suit Against IRS Moves Forward

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tea_party_gunsA federal judge has allowed a lawsuit by 10 tea party groups to move forward against the Internal Revenue Service, rejecting a request by the federal government to dismiss all the allegations that the agency subjected conservative groups to additional, often burdensome scrutiny.

In her ruling Thursday, Judge Susan Dlott allowed two of the tea party groups’ claims — including that the IRS discriminated and retaliated against them based on their views in violation of their free speech rights — to survive to trial.

The Cincinnati-based Dlott did dismiss a third claim, ruling the tea party groups could not pursue allegations of privacy violations on behalf of their individual members. The individuals themselves have to do that, she said.

Edward Greim, the lead attorney for the tea party groups, said Friday he is pleased the case will move forward.

“If the government is right in this case, it means that from now on, no matter who the president is, the IRS can pick out a group of people that disagrees with the president and pull those people out, delay them, harass them, target them, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it,” Greim said. “And our position is very simple: That cannot be true and that’s not the republic that we live in.”

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Obama Tries to Connect with Ordinary Americans – Through Junk Food

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Photo Credit: AP / Jacquelyn Martin

Photo Credit: AP / Jacquelyn Martin

By Katie Zezima.

Has food – especially junk food – played as large a role in the messaging of any other presidential administration as it has in that of President Obama?

Obama has long complained about feeling hemmed in by the presidency, and has made a habit lately of escaping the White House by walking down the street, skipping town and meeting with regular Americans who have written him letters or have some connection to an issue he plans to discuss. The common thread in almost all of these excursions? Food or drink. And nothing fancy.

The latest adventure came Thursday, when Obama had a burger and fries at the Charcoal Pit in Wilmington, Del., with Tanei Benjamin, who wrote Obama last year about her struggles as a single mother. Why the Charcoal Pit?

“Biden told me the burgers are pretty good,” Obama said. Biden is, of course, from Delaware.

Obama has said his excursions out of Washington are meant to connect him with regular Americans and their struggles. The cuisine and restaurants chosen by Obama and the White House is yet another reflection that Obama is attempting to bolster his populist bona fides out on the road.

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Photo Credit: EAG News

Photo Credit: EAG News

With nation’s school lunches fundamentally transformed, Michelle O eyes ‘talking shopping carts’

By Ben Velderman.

First, Michelle Obama seized control of your child’s school lunch and made it “healthy.” Now, the First Lady wants to change the way you buy groceries.

A new 80-page report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture explains that federal bureaucrats hope to use a variety of tools to modify the way Americans select food items at the supermarket.

The goal is to steer consumers toward fruits and vegetables – and away from sugar- and fat-laden items. The plan is in line with “Michelle Obama’s stated second term agenda to ‘impact the nature of food in grocery stores,’” reports FreeBeacon.com.

While the feds’ plan deals mostly with the 47 million Americans who participate in the government’s food stamp program, it would indirectly affect all consumers.

According to FreeBeacon.com, the federal busybodies want to provide food-stamp shoppers with “incentives” for making healthy food choices – such as discounts or free movie tickets – and even talking shopping carts that will notify them when they’ve selected enough healthy items.

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NYT Story Prompted Clinton to Question CIA's Info On bin Laden, According to Newly Released Memo

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

When a New York Times article cast doubt on the accusation Usama bin Laden had a hand in the 1998 bombings of African embassies, President Clinton questioned his own CIA, according to a note he scrawled to his national security adviser.

The memo, part of a 1,000-page release of documents Friday afternoon by the National Archives, was written after the president apparently read an article in the self-professed “paper of record” casting doubt on the U.S. Justice Department’s case that the Al Qaeda mastermind was involved in the Aug. 7, 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Some 224 people were killed in the twin attacks, including 12 Americans.

Two months later, a federal grand jury in New York indicted bin Laden and 20 others for participating in a terrorist plot to kill Americans. But the Times article, entitled “U.S. Hard Put to Find Proof bin Laden Directed Attacks,” and written the following April, raised doubts about bin Laden’s involvement, at least with Clinton.

“Sandy, if this article is right, the CIA sure overstated its case to me — What are the facts?” Clinton wrote in pen.

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Obama Administration Hands Oil Industry a Big Win

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Obama administration announced Friday that it would allow exploration for oil and gas off some portions of the Atlantic Coast using sonic testing devices that environmentalists say harm marine life.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management gave the OK for seismic airgun testing, which are boat-towed cannons that shoot sonar blasts off the ocean floor to scan for oil-and-gas deposits, in the mid- and south-Atlantic areas that stretch from the Delaware Bay to just south of Cape Canaveral, Fla. The approval is a prelude to potential offshore drilling there, though that is blocked through 2017 under President Obama’s five-year offshore drilling plan.

“The bureau has identified a path forward that addresses the need to update the nearly four-decade-old data in the region while protecting marine life and cultural sites,” said Acting BOEM Director Walter D. Cruickshank, who noted the agency has several permits on hand to conduct the seismic tests. “The bureau’s decision reflects a carefully analyzed and balanced approach that will allow us to increase our understanding of potential offshore resources while protecting the human, marine and coastal environments.”

It’s a big victory for the oil-and-gas industry, which is nearing its first chance to drill in the Atlantic Ocean in more than 30 years. It comes as BOEM recently raised its estimates for technically recoverable oil in the region to 4.72 billion barrels of oil and 37.51 trillion cubic feet of natural gas — 43 percent and 20 percent higher, respectively, than agency estimates in 2011.

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“Pro-life” Senator Votes to Overturn Hobby Lobby Ruling

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (D) has some explaining to do. Although the senator has proclaimed to be pro-life, his recent support of a Democratic bill to overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling on Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, suggests otherwise. This failed legislation would have reversed a decision that protects the Christian company’s religious freedom and avoid providing employees abortion-inducing drugs.

Manchin explained his support for the bill as such:

“Today, I voted in support of overturning the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision that ruled for-profit companies can opt out of providing contraceptives to their employees because of religious beliefs,” Manchin said. “As Governor and U.S. Senator, I have always fought to protect the sincerely-held religious views of non-profit organizations, like soup kitchens, colleges, hospitals and similar non-profit organizations…

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