Female White House Staffers Got Smaller Raises Than Men

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Photo Credit: Alex Wong / Getty ImagesSalary data released last week revealed average male staffers at the White House earn about 13% more than their female counterparts. The White House responded by pointing out six female staffers received high profile promotions in the past year. However, according to data collected by the conservative consulting firm Target Point, the women who were promoted at the White House received smaller raises than men.

While the average man promoted at the White House received a 24.4% raise, Target Point found the average raise for a promoted woman was 18.5%. Target Point also found 46 men were promoted at the White House between 2013 and 2014 compared to 41 women. Additionally, the firm noted 88 women left White House jobs in the past year while only 77 men departed.

Target Point Senior Vice President and Chief Data Scientist Alex Lundry said this data shows “the White House’s hypocrisy on this issue is stunning” as President Barack Obama has made equal pay for women a major part of his agenda this year.

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Open for Business: Legal Marijuana Sales Underway in Washington

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Photo Credit: APWashington state’s marijuana industry is now open for business.

Twenty months after voters legalized recreational marijuana, the first pot stores are licensed and selling the drug. And business was already booming.

Amber McGowan, a manager at Cannabis City in Seattle, said she’s expecting to sell all 10 pounds in the store this first historic day.

“There’s definitely a market out there that would rather go the safe route, because a lot of people don’t like going to their dealer,” McGowan said. “The dealer is usually pretty shady.”

Washington state follows Colorado, which was the first to open pot retail stores on Jan. 1. Voters in both states legalized possession of up to an once of marijuana for recreational use in November 2012. Colorado was able to approve sales earlier because it licensed only medical marijuana shops that were already tightly regulated. Washington’s medical marijuana industry operates with very little government oversight.

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California Removes 'Husband' and 'Wife' from California Marriage Law

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Photo Credit: TownHall One word can make all the difference when it comes to definitions. Exhibit A: exchange the words “husband and wife” for a more inclusive term, and you have the phrase “I now pronounce you spouses.” In the state of California, they are paying special attention to keep their vernacular as progressive as possible.

Governor Jerry Brown (D) signed a bill Monday to formally make marriage gender-neutral to reflect the state’s allowance of same-sex unions. According to Senate Bill 1306:

Under existing law, a reference to “husband” and “wife,” “spouses,” or “married persons,” or a comparable term, includes persons who are lawfully married to each other and persons who were previously lawfully married to each other, as is appropriate under the circumstances of the particular case.

The bill would delete references to “husband” or “wife” in the Family Code and would instead refer to a “spouse,” and would make other related changes.

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Nurse: VA Medical Staff Stole Morphine From Dying Patients

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Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force / Senior Airman Daniel HughesVials of morphine were systemically stolen from a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center and replaced with water and saline so that dying veterans got the wrong treatments, a longtime VA nurse told The Daily Caller.

“A nurse taking care of hospice patients over the past year had been diverting vials of morphine,” said Valerie Riviello, a 28-year veteran nurse at the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany, New York. “Those patients that were dying in hospice were not getting their intended pain medication.”

Management became aware of the recurring theft without reporting it to higher levels of governance within the VA system, said Riviello, a Florence Nightingale Award winner for nursing.

The nurse detailed visible abuse of a machine that dispenses medication. Hospital staff need to punch in a code to get medicine from the machine. Vials of morphine were being replaced with other ingredients, including saline and water. Records continued to show the accurate number of withdrawals from the machine, but morphine was not getting to the patients. The abuse was not noticed by management for about a year, according to Riviello.

Albany Stratton VA Medical Center did not return a request for comment for this report.

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Border Patrol Union Claims Scabies ‘Outbreak’ Threatens Agents

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Photo Credit: APBy Judson Berger.

A Border Patrol union claims that illegal immigrant minors are coming into the U.S. with “active scabies and other illnesses,” claiming one of its agents already has contracted the mite-borne skin infection and warning it could spread into surrounding communities if precautions are not taken.

The union’s warning comes amid claims of tuberculosis at one camp in San Antonio and Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s testimony last week of a confirmed case of H1N1, or swine flu.

The medical issues pertain to illegal immigrant minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and being detained in Texas and other states. The most detailed information so far has come out of the San Diego Local 1613 chapter of the National Border Patrol Council.

“Border Patrol management is aware of the scabies outbreak but continue to ignore recommendations,” Ronald Zermeno, health and safety director for the San Diego chapter, wrote to a top California Border Patrol official in a July 4 letter.

The chapter revealed Friday that one of its agents had contracted scabies, “sometime during routine processing of the first group of 140 illegal immigrants from Texas.”

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Photo Credit: TownHallPoll: Obama is Encouraging Illegal Immigrants to Cross the Border

By Sarah Jean Seman.

An estimated 50,000 immigrant children illegally entered the United States within the past few months and Americans believe president Obama encouraged the infiltration, according to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll.

Nearly half of U.S. voters believe the Obama administration has prompted the flood of illegal immigrant children at the border, and most want them sent back home right away.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters think that the administration, through its statements and policies, has encouraged this wave of illegal immigration. Thirty-one percent (31%) disagree, but 23% more are not sure.

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Biden: ‘Tea Baggers’ Preventing New Gun-Control Laws

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Photo Credit: marcn Vice president Joe Biden has disparaged gun-rights advocates as “tea baggers,” CNN host John Walsh told reporters today. Walsh, the former host of America’s Most Wanted, recounted that he bonded with Biden over the need for more gun control and their distaste for the National Rifle Association..

“I said to Joe Biden, ‘90 percent of Americans are for a responsible background check for a gun, and you know what this Congress has done? Not voted on it, not brought it to the floor, not introduced a bill,’” he recalled to reporters during an event for his upcoming program, a crime show called The Hunt. “I said, ‘They’re all scared shitless of the NRA, aren’t they?’”

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KISS’ Gene Simmons: ‘I Don’t Remember The Last Poor Person Who Gave Me A Job’

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Photo Credit: Anirudh KoulShout it out loud: Kiss frontman Gene Simmons isn’t burdened with the phony altruism of rich-guy guilt.

Simmons told an interviewer for a California newspaper late last week that it’s ridiculous to resent those who create wealth, because they provide the foundation on which America’s economy – both private and public – is based.

“I have been part of the 1 percent for the past 30 years,” Simmons told U-T San Diego. Asked how it feels to be a part of the Nation’s wealthiest demographic, Simmons replied:

It’s fantastic! …The 1 percent pays 80 percent of all taxes. Fifty percent of the population of the U.S. pays no taxes. The 1 percent provides all the jobs for everybody else. If the 1 percent didn’t exist, there would be chaos and the American economy would drop dead. Try being nice to rich people. I don’t remember the last poor person who gave me a job.

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Harry Reid May Prevent Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul from Offering Meaningful, Pro-Gun Amendments to Do-Nothing Bill

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Photo Credit: United Liberty The Senate is expected to, perhaps as early as today, take up the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act (S. 2363), a measure that would expand recreational hunting on federal lands. While the bill is being touted by supporters as pro-Second Amendment, it’s basically an election year gimmick to help vulnerable Red State Democrats.

While the Sportsmen’s Act has strong Republican support, the measure was introduced in May by Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) and its cosponsored by several Democrats up for reelection this year, including Sens. Mark Begich (D-AK), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Mark Udall (D-CO), and John Walsh (D-MT).

“In North Carolina, hunting, fishing and shooting are a way of life,” Hagan said, according to The Hill. “Many of these traditions have been handed down through my own family, and I’m proud that our bill protects these activities for future generations while ensuring that outdoor recreation can continue to support jobs and local economies across the country.”

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DOJ Files Lawsuit Against North Carolina’s 'Discriminatory' Voter ID Law (+video)

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Photo Credit: TownHallAre voter ID laws inherently racist? Do they curtail voting rights? Those are questions a North Carolina judge will ultimately determine sometime next July.

To recap, the North Carolina state legislature passed a law in 2013 that, among other things, abolished same-day voter registration and instituted a voter ID provision. Naturally, it has been pilloried by both civil rights groups and activists as discriminatory.

Such provisions limit access to the right to vote, they argue, and therefore must be struck down to preserve the integrity of elections held in the state:

A North Carolina law passed last year that requires voters to present photo identification and eliminates same-day voter registration has been called one of the farthest-reaching overhauls to election rules in the country. Now a judge will decide whether it will stay that way.

Lawyers from the U.S. Department of Justice, the North Carolina NAACP, the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union will argue the case against state lawyers over the law in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem on Monday. U.S. attorneys and civil rights groups are asking a judge for a preliminary injunction to temporarily delay implementation of parts of the law. The hearing is a prelude to a trial scheduled for July 2015 where a judge will determine whether to uphold or strike down the law.

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Arizona Lawmaker Aims to Send Border-Crossing Children Home Faster

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Photo Credit: Will Seberger / ZumaPress / Newscom By Josh Siegel.

Legislation proposed by an Arizona congressman would give federal officials authority to quickly screen and deport unaccompanied children from Central America who have crossed the Mexican border into the United States.

The bill from Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., would change a provision in a 2008 human-trafficking law that requires U.S. Border Patrol agents to turn over the children to the federal Department of Health and Human Services and guarantees those minors hearings in immigration court — a process that can take years.

Salmon, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, is part of a group assembled by Speaker John Boehner to address the border crisis.

“This is an issue he has been working to address for awhile,” said Tristan Daedalus, Salmon’s communications director, adding:

Basically, the crux of the bill is a small legal change that would give CBP [Customs and Border Patrol] agents the authority to immediately repatriate them back to their countries.

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Photo Credit: CBS 8Third group of migrants sent to San Diego

By Gene Kang, Shannon Handy and CNS.

Another group of undocumented Central American migrants arrived Monday in San Diego, continuing a process that has prompted intense opposition as well as widespread compassion for the plight of the exiles.

The group of about 140 immigrants, who entered the United States illegally in Texas, were flown into Lindbergh Field late this morning and then bused to a U.S. Border Patrol facility in San Ysidro for processing.

On Tuesday, an initial group of the same size arrived in San Diego and were driven to Murrieta, where crowds of angry protesters blocked their entrance to a USBP facility, prompting authorities to take them instead to San Ysidro.

The departure of the migrants from the Riverside area marked a victory for the roughly two dozen protesters who had gathered to decry the foreigners’ arrival there, many waving flags and others carrying signs reading “Stop Illegal Immigration” and “Return to Sender.”

Protesters have continued gathering at the Border Patrol facility in Murrieta. Some clashed with police on Friday while waiting to see if more migrants would be arriving.

San Diego, California News Station – KFMB Channel 8 – cbs8.com

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