HHS: Grantees Sheltering ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children’ Must Provide ‘Family Planning Services’

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Photo Credit: AP A $350 million grant opportunity announced Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services to provide shelter for unaccompanied alien children (UAC) states that recipients providing residential shelter to these children must provide them with “family planning services” and that residential care providers deliver services in a manner that is “sensitive” to sexual orientation and gender identity.

“Residential care providers are required to provide…family planning services,” says an official description of the grant program published by HHS.

“Residential care providers are required to provide or arrange for the program required services in a mannter that is sensitive to the…sexual orientation, gender identity, and other important individual needs of each UAC [unaccompanied alien child],” says the official description.

The grant will be issued by HHS through the Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). The primary function of the Office of Refugee Resettlement/Division of Children’s Services (ORR/DCS) is to provide temporary shelter care and related services to unaccompanied alien children in custody.

Unaccompanied alien children (UAC) are defined as minors who have no lawful immigration status in the U.S., who have not reached the age of 18, and for whom there is no parent or legal guardian in the U.S. or no parent or legal guardian in the U.S. is available to provide care and physical custody.

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Rep. Salmon: Obama ‘Hasn’t Lifted a Finger’ to Help U.S. Marine in Mexico Jail (+video)

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Photo Credit: APRep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) said on Tuesday that President Barack Obama’s claim that no members of the U.S. military are “left behind” does not seem to hold true for Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, the Marine arrested by Mexican authorities on April 1 on weapons charges.

When asked about the exchange of Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban terrorists at a Heritage Foundation event on Capitol Hill, Salmon recalled attending a classified briefing given to House members by Obama administration officials.

“Time and time again the comment was made that we leave no soldier behind and then the other comment was under Article 2 of the Constitution, the president has the responsibility for the troops and a responsibility to protect all Americans abroad,” Salmon said. “And given that, I’m just wondering why the president hasn’t lifted a finger at all to help Sgt. Tahmooressi, who’s in prison in Mexico – has been for two months.”

“And he needs to be home,” said Salmon, who has visited Tahmooressi.

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Charges Filed In ‘One Of The Largest’ Food Stamp Frauds EVER

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Photo Credit: Spencer Platt / Getty ImagesFederal charges have been filed against dozens of people in Georgia who allegedly set up a scheme that funneled $18 million worth of food stamps through grocery stores in what a Department of Justice official is calling “one of the largest federal food program frauds ever.”

Fifty-four people were indicted for their roles in the massive fraud which involved the illegal purchase of WIC and food stamp benefits.

The fraud “allegedly involved the purchase of more than $18 million in WIC vouchers and Food Stamp benefits for cash through a number of purported grocery stores set up throughout Georgia.”

Another 34 defendants were indicted for selling their benefits. Through the WIC program, participants receive 3-month supplies of vouchers which can be exchanged for food at authorized stores. The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) provides food stamp benefits to low-income families.

It is illegal to sell WIC and SNAP benefits for cash, though that did not stop the 88 people involved in the scam.

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No One Was Disciplined After The White House Leaked A CIA Official’s Name To The Press

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Photo Credit: Flickr / nedrichardsThe White House is adopting enhanced security procedures during foreign trips after the name of a CIA official was accidentally leaked to the press during President Barack Obama’s visit to Afghanistan late last month. However, no one was disciplined or fired as a result of the leak.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest announced the results of an investigation into the incident conducted by White House Counsel Neil Eggleston ahead of a fundraiser attended by the president in Massachusetts Wednesday evening. Earnest said Eggleston briefed White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on the results of the investigation Tuesday. The president was also informed of the investigation’s findings Tuesday. Eggleston made three recommendations to prevent similar security breaches from occurring in the future.

The leak occurred when the name of the CIA’s station chief in Kabul was including on a list of officials who participated in a military briefing with Obama during his Afghanistan visit that was subsequently emailed to thousands of reporters on the White House press pool list. Business Insider has withheld the name of the station chief, which has not been widely reported in spite of the leak.

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Rand Paul Throws Weight Behind Immigration Reform Effort

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Photo Credit: Clay JacksonSen. Rand Paul on Wednesday waded deeper into an issue that has proved perilous to some of his GOP colleagues, throwing his political weight behind an establishment lobby effort to get Congress to reform the country’s immigration system this year.

Mr. Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Kentucky and possible 2016 presidential hopeful, participated in a telephone conference call to conservative and business leaders in favor of immigration reform in an effort brokered by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, The Washington Times has learned.

The business group, the Partnership for a New American Economy, immediately blasted an email Wednesday evening to supporters crowing that Mr. Paul had formally joined its pro-reform effort.

The timing of the call only heightened the potential stakes for Mr. Paul just one day after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was shockingly ousted from office in the Virginia Republican primary in favor of a little-known college professor.

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Barack Obama Favorability Hits Low

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Photo Credit: APPresident Barack Obama’s popularity has dipped to a new low with 44 percent saying they have a favorable view of the president.

Fifty-two percent of Americans said that their feelings of the president are “unfavorable,” according to a poll published Tuesday by Bloomberg. Only 43 percent of those asked said that they approve of the job that Obama is doing, with 53 percent disapproving of his work and 4 percent remaining unsure.

Disapproval ratings of Obama’s efforts with the economy, health care, the budget deficit, negotiating with the Republican majority in the House, the prisoner exchange and problems in the Veterans Administration all fall at above 50 percent. The president’s dealings with “the situation in Ukraine” was the only area to receive less than 50 percent disapproval — receiving 46 percent.

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‘That’s Creepy’: Mayor Says LAPD Drones Won’t Be ‘Flying Over The City

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Photo Credit: KNXTwo unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) acquired by the LAPD will remain grounded until lawmakers can establish specific policies governing their use, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Tuesday.

During Wednesday’s “Ask The Mayor” call-in segment on KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO, Garcetti said that UAVs – or drones – could be used in hostage standoffs and other similar law enforcement situations, but that their operation should be strictly limited.

“I’ve asked them to be grounded until we have a policy, until we have community input,” Garcetti said. “I don’t want these things up in the air until we know for sure they’re not going to be used against innocent folks.”

The LAPD obtained the drones from the Seattle Police Department in May at no cost to the city after their use was vetoed by former Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, according to officials.

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Full Crisis Mode: Obama Administration Now Saying the Bergdahl Deal Was Chuck Hagel’s Call

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Photo Credit: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais, PoolWhite House officials on Monday attempted to distance President Obama from the decision to exchange five Taliban officers for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl by claiming that it was Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s call, a likely response to recent polls indicating that most Americans disapprove of the deal.

Members of the House of Representatives, who are still furious that the Obama administration failed to give them 30-day notice of the prisoner swap, were told during a closed-door briefing on Monday that the entire exchange hinged on Hagel’s approval.

Following the conclusion of the private meeting, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, recounted what he learned.

“Now wait a minute, are you saying it was Secretary Hagel that made this decision, or was this the president of the United States?” McKeon told reporters. “It was the president of the United States that came out with the Bergdahls and took all the credit. And now that there’s been a little pushback, he’s moving away from it?”

Indeed, as noted by the Weekly Standard, there’s a major flaw in the White House’s attempt to pin the deal on the defense secretary: Hagel already said during a June 1 interview on “Meet the Press” that the final decision to trade five Taliban officers for Bergdahl came from Obama.

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Fact Check: Hillary Came Up with Benghazi Video Explanation

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Photo Credit: APBy Catherine Herridge.

Hillary Clinton’s newly released memoir leaves little doubt she was the first member of the Obama administration to publicly link an anti-Islam video to the 2012 Benghazi terror attack – though she does not explain what intelligence she relied on to make the faulty connection.

The former secretary of State and potential Democratic presidential candidate discussed the Benghazi attack in her memoir “Hard Choices.” The 33-page Benghazi chapter sheds some light on events, but it leaves plenty of inconvenient details out.

According to the chronology she offers,Clinton issued the statement linking Benghazi to the video before she called President Obama on the night of the attack to provide an update, suggesting she was the originator of the flawed explanation.

The State Department press release, issued in her name, on Sept. 11, 2012 at 10:07 p.m. tied the death of Foreign Service officer Sean Smith to the video. Later that evening, a mortar strike killed former Navy SEALs Ty Woods and Glen Doherty, permanently maimed another CIA contractor and severely injured diplomatic security agent David Ubben – all of whom were defending the CIA annex. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens also died in the Benghazi assault.

The accuracy of the mortar attack, three out of five rounds on target, from more than a half mile away in the dark of night in under a minute, required military training, and premeditation according to multiple military and intelligence professionals.

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ABC News’s Diane Sawyer destroys Hillary Rodham Clinton on Benghazi

By Erik Wemple.

A standard defense for Hillary Rodham Clinton when facing questions about Benghazi, Libya, has been to cite her commissioning of a report from the State Department’s Accountability Review Board (ARB), which took a deep look at the attacks that claimed the lives of four U.S. personnel on Sept. 11, 2012. In testimony before Congress in January 2013, Clinton said: “I hurried to appoint the Accountability Review Board led by Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mullen so we could more fully understand from objective, independent examination, what went wrong and how to fix it. I have accepted every one of their recommendations.”

In an interview with Clinton that aired last night on ABC News, anchor Diane Sawyer threw the ARB right back in the face of the former secretary of state. The two tangled over the preparedness of the U.S. diplomatic installation in Benghazi for a terrorist attack. In defending her work on this front, Clinton stressed that she had delegated the particulars of security to the experts in the field. “I’m not equipped to sit and look at blueprints to determine where the blast walls need to be, where the reinforcements need to be. That’s why we hire people who have that expertise,” said Clinton, who did the interview as part of the tour for her book “Hard Choices.”

Sensing an opening, Sawyer cited the document that Clinton herself has so often cited: “This is the ARB: the mission was far short of standards; weak perimeter; incomplete fence; video surveillance needed repair. They said it’s a systemic failure.”

Clinton replied, “Well, it was with respect to that compound.”


ABC US News | ABC Celebrity News

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Photo Credit: YouTube Hillary Says She Won’t Turn Over Benghazi Notes

By Chuck Ross.

In an interview during a media tour to promote her latest memoir, Hillary Clinton acknowledged that she kept extensive notes during the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi but said that she won’t turn them over to congressional investigators if asked.

“Did you keep a diary during your time?” NBC News’ Cynthia McFadden asked Clinton in an interview on Tuesday.

“I kept a lot of notes,” said Clinton.

McFadden followed up, asking the former secretary of state what she would do with the notes if they were requested by a House Select Committee appointed to investigate the attack — which left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

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Dem Rep Compares Taliban to Soldiers in American Revolution

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Photo Credit: isafmediaA Democratic congressman offered a curious analogy on Monday to explain why the U.S. is dealing with the Taliban — apparently comparing them to soldiers in the American Revolution.

According to sources, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., made the comparison during a House briefing late Monday with administration officials on the trade of Taliban members for American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

Nadler apparently made the point that the Taliban, as non-state actors, have a status similar to that of American soldiers who fought the British during the Revolutionary War.

This comparison, Fox News is told, was met with a lot of groaning by other lawmakers.

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