Kerry: I Didn’t Call Israel an “Apartheid State” But If I Did I Should Have Chosen Different Words

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Townhall

Photo Credit: Townhall

In case you missed it yesterday, the Daily Beast’s Josh Rogin reported on comments made by Secretary of State John Kerry saying that if Israel doesn’t come to a two-state agreement with the Palestinians, it will become an apartheid state. Kerry also said Israel needed a change in leadership.

The secretary of state said that if Israel doesn’t make peace soon, it could become ‘an apartheid state,’ like the old South Africa. Jewish leaders are fuming over the comparison.

If there’s no two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict soon, Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state,” Secretary of State John Kerry told a room of influential world leaders in a closed-door meeting Friday…

Now Kerry is walking back his comments and even flat out denying he even made the “apartheid” comment in a statement released last night by the State Department. In the same statement denying the comments, Kerry said he should have used different words to describe the situation. He also berated critics for daring to question his support for the Jewish State.

Read more from this story HERE.

Lois Lerner’s Attorney: It Would Be ‘Un-American’ to Hold Her in Contempt

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Townhall

Photo Credit: Townhall

Earlier this month, the House Oversight Committee voted to hold former head of tax exempt groups at the IRS Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress. The full House is set to vote on contempt charges for Lerner in May.

[A] memo from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said the contempt vote would proceed unless Lerner agrees to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the targeting scandal.

“Thorough investigations by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee as well as the Ways and Means Committee have revealed findings that indicate that Ms. Lerner played a central role in the illegal targeting of conservative groups by the IRS,” the memo reads.

Now her attorney, William W. Taylor III, is asking for the opportunity to defend her in front of Congress before the vote is taken. Taylor is arguing it would be unfair and “un-American” to hold Lerner in contempt.

“Holding Ms. Lerner in contempt would not only be unfair and, indeed, un-American, it would be flatly inconsistent with the Fifth Amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court,” Lerner’s lawyer, William W. Taylor III, wrote in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Read more from this story HERE.

Millennials Have ‘Historically Low’ Levels Of Trust In Government

/2 Comments/in , /by

A new poll surveying young Americans’ political attitudes released by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics Tuesday found millennials have less trust in government than ever before.

Harvard’s poll showed millennials, which the pollsters defined as peopled aged 18 to 29, have lost trust in a variety of different major public institutions including the President, the military, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the federal government as a whole. Of all the institutions tracked by the poll, the President and the military lost the most trust among young Americans with a seven point drop. Overall, the pollsters said the level of trust millennials have in “most American institutions tested in our survey” had dropped below even “last year’s historically low numbers.”

This chart created by the pollsters shows the steep declines in their “composite trust index,” which is the level of trust on average in six different public institutions; the President, the U.S. Military, the Supreme Court, the federal government, and the United Nations. The drop is dramatic:

composite trust chart

Read more from this story HERE.

Conservative Lawmaker Predicts Boehner Won’t Run for Speaker Again

/4 Comments/in , , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A House Republican who supported Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in 2013 is predicting Boehner won’t run for the job again and says he would be surprised if he could win reelection by the House.

“I don’t think John Boehner will be Speaker this time next year,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said in an interview. “But I think it’s because, in my judgment, he’s not going to run for reelection as Speaker, but if he does, I’ll be mildly surprised if he can get the 218 votes that the Constitution requires.”

Brooks, a conservative serving his second term, voted for Boehner on the floor of the House in January 2013, but he would not say if he would do so again in 2015.

His prediction came hours after Boehner used a private GOP meeting to walk back comments he made in Ohio last week that were seen as mocking his fellow Republicans for a lack of courage to pursue immigration reform.

“You only tease the ones you love,” Boehner told reporters, repeating a phrase he used inside the meeting. He acknowledged, however, that “sometimes I can rib people just a little too much.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Rhetoric vs. Reality on Obamacare

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AFP / Nicholas KAMM

Photo Credit: AFP / Nicholas KAMM

President Barack Obama once again came out swinging in defense of his signature healthcare law.

Countless times since the rollout, and again last week, he proclaimed that Obamacare is working, called on Democrats to defend it, and chastised conservatives for their opposition that he believes is entirely political. But people should look beyond Obama’s rhetoric and consider reality – Obamacare is bad medicine for America.

The president’s definition of success is a curious one. More than six million cancelled plans, lost doctors, and higher costs aside, Obama is in essence celebrating the expansion of the welfare state. In order to get more people insured, it was not necessary to raise taxes, restrict choice, drive the debt up to $27 trillion, and make millions more people dependent on the government.

But that is precisely what Obamacare is doing. And President Obama insists that it is working as he intended.

But even beyond the negative consequences on the nation’s well-being, claiming victory from a practical sense is a stretch, to say the least. Obama “spiked the football” as he touted seven million enrollees, but there is still no clear estimate of how many of those seven million were previously uninsured and have actually paid a premium signifying they are covered. The president’s vague claim that “a sizeable part of the U.S. population” is enjoying health insurance for the first time remains completely unquantifiable.

Read more from this story HERE.

WATCH: Cruz Calls on Kerry to Resign After ‘Apartheid’ Remark

/12 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) demanded on the Senate floor Monday that Secretary of State John Kerry resign from his post following highly controversial remarks about the state of Israel.

Kerry came under fire from lawmakers and a variety of pro-Israel organizations after he told world leaders in a closed door meeting that Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state” if it fails to reach peace with the Palestinians.

Israel cut off peace talks late last week after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas formed a unity government with the terror group Hamas, which announced that it would not renounce violence or recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Cruz said in a speech on the Senate floor that Kerry should immediately offer his resignation to President Barack Obama.

“John Kerry should offer President Obama his resignation and the president should accept it,” Cruz said.

Read more from this story HERE.

_________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: Brendan Smialowski / Reuters

Photo Credit: Brendan Smialowski / Reuters

Kerry Warns Israel Could Become ‘An Apartheid State’

By Josh Rogin.

If there’s no two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict soon, Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state,” Secretary of State John Kerry told a room of influential world leaders in a closed-door meeting Friday.

Senior American officials have rarely, if ever, used the term “apartheid” in reference to Israel, and President Obama has previously rejected the idea that the word should apply to the Jewish state. Kerry’s use of the loaded term is already rankling Jewish leaders in America—and it could attract unwanted attention in Israel, as well.

It wasn’t the only controversial comment on the Middle East that Kerry made during his remarks to the Trilateral Commission, a recording of which was obtained by The Daily Beast. Kerry also repeated his warning that a failure of Middle East peace talks could lead to a resumption of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens. He suggested that a change in either the Israeli or Palestinian leadership could make achieving a peace deal more feasible. He lashed out against Israeli settlement-building. And Kerry said that both Israeli and Palestinian leaders share the blame for the current impasse in the talks.

Kerry also said that at some point, he might unveil his own peace deal and tell both sides to “take it or leave it.”

“A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state,” Kerry told the group of senior officials and experts from the U.S., Western Europe, Russia, and Japan. “Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two-state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge OKs Decision to Sell Widow’s Home Over $6.30 Debt

/14 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers

Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers

A widow was given ample notice before her $280,000 house was sold at a tax auction three years ago over $6.30 in unpaid interest, a Pennsylvania judge has ruled.

The decision last week turned down Eileen Battisti’s request to reverse the September 2011 sale of her home outside Aliquippa in western Pennsylvania.

“I paid everything, and didn’t know about the $6.30,” Battisti said. “For the house to be sold just because of $6.30 is crazy.”

Battisti, who still lives in the house, said Monday that she plans to appeal to Commonwealth Court. That court earlier ordered an evidentiary hearing, which led to last week’s ruling.

Beaver County Common Pleas Judge Gus Kwidis wrote that the county tax claim bureau complied with notification requirements in state law before the auction. She had previously owed other taxes, but at the time of the sale she owed just $235, including other interest and fees.

Read more from this story HERE.

BLS: In 20% of American Families, No One Works

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons photo

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons photo

In 20 percent of American families in 2013, according to new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), not one member of the family worked.

A family, as defined by the BLS, is a group of two or more people who live together and who are related by birth, adoption or marriage. In 2013, there were 80,445,000 families in the United States and in 16,127,000—or 20 percent–no one had a job.

The BLS designates a person as “employed” if “during the survey reference week” they “(a) did any work at all as paid employees; (b) worked in their own business, profession, or on their own farm; (c) or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in an enterprise operated by a member of the family.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Big Chill: Feds Want to Scour Net, Media for ‘Hate Speech’

/18 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

If two Democratic lawmakers have their way, Barack Obama’s Justice Department will submit a report for action against any Internet sites, broadcast, cable television or radio shows determined to be advocating or encouraging “violent acts.”

This according to the text of a new bill from Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

The Hate Crime Reporting Act of 2014 “would create an updated comprehensive report examining the role of the Internet and other telecommunications in encouraging hate crimes based on gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation and create recommendations to address such crimes,” stated a news release from Markey’s office.

The one-page bill, reviewed by WND, calls for the Justice Department and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to “analyze information on the use of telecommunications, including the Internet, broadcast television and radio, cable television, public access television, commercial mobile services, and other electronic media, to advocate and encourage violent acts and the commission of crimes of hate.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Study: 1 in 25 Death Cases Likely Innocent

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Ken Piorkowski / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Ken Piorkowski / Creative Commons

Science and law have led to the exoneration of hundreds of criminal defendants in recent decades, but big questions remain: How many other innocent defendants are locked up? How many are wrongly executed?

About one in 25 people imprisoned under a death sentence is likely innocent, according to a new statistical study appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And that means it is all but certain that at least several of the 1,320 defendants executed since 1977 were innocent, the study says.

From 1973 to 2004, 1.6 percent of those sentenced to death in the U.S. — 138 prisoners — were exonerated and released because of innocence.

But the great majority of innocent people who are sentenced to death are never identified and freed, says professor Samuel Gross of the University of Michigan Law School, the study’s lead author.

The difficulty in identifying innocent inmates stems from the fact that more than 60 percent of prisoners in death penalty cases ultimately are removed from death row and resentenced to life imprisonment. Once that happens, their cases no longer receive the exhaustive reviews that the legal system provides for those on death row.

Read more from this story HERE.