At Least 33 Dead and 130 Injured After Gang of Knife-Wielding Men Attack a Train Station in China

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Photo Credit: Reuters At least 33 people are dead and 130 injured after a group of knife-wielding men hacked their way through innocent people at one of China’s busiest railway stations.

Distressing photos circulating online showed bodies, pools of blood and abandoned luggage scattered across the terminal floor at Kunming Railway Station in Yunnan province.

Authorities described the incident at about 9.20pm local time (1.20pm GMT) as an ‘organised, premeditated, violent terrorist attack’ in which at least 10 people stabbed commuters outside the station terminal before moving inside.

The death toll stands at 29 bystanders and four attackers who were shot dead by police.

Nothing is yet known of the motivation behind the attack, but the Chinese government has blamed militants from the remote far western region of Xinjiang, which is home to tensions between the government and Muslim separatists.

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Student Loans Are Ruining Your Life. Now They’re Ruining the Economy, Too

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Photo Credit: Daniel Acker / Bloomberg / Getty ImagesRong did everything right. A 23-year-old dentistry student in New York, Chris excelled at one of the country’s top high schools, breezed through college, and is now studying dentistry at one of the best dental schools in the nation.

But it may be a long time before he sees any rewards. He’s moved back home with his parents in Bayside, Queens—an hour-and-a-half commute each way to class at the New York University’s College of Dentistry—and by the time he graduates in 2016, he’ll face $400,000 in student loans. “If the money weren’t a problem I would live on my own,” says Rong. “My debt is hanging over my mind. I’m taking that all on myself.”

Rong isn’t alone. Across the country, students are taking on increasingly large amounts of debt to pay for heftier education tuitions. Figures released last week by the Federal Reserve of New York show that aggregate student loans nationwide have continued to rise. At the end of 2003, American students and graduates owed just $253 billion in aggregate debt; by the end of 2013, American students’ debt had ballooned to a total of $1.08 trillion, an increase of over 300%. In the past year alone, aggregate student debt grew 10%. By comparison, overall debt grew just 43% in the last decade and 1.6% over the past year.

According to a December study by the Institute for College Access & Success, seven out of 10 students in the class of 2012 graduated with student loans, and the average amount of debt among students who owed was $29,400. There’s no clear end in sight. ”The total amount of student debt is growing basically at a constant rate,” Wilbert van der Klaauw, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York tells TIME. “The inflow is much higher than the outflow, which is likely to continue in the future as reliance on student loans for college is expected to remain high.”

Debt is painful for many students, and an increasing number of graduates are unable to pay back their loans on time. Delinquencies on student loans have risen dramatically over the past decade: 11.5 percent of graduates were at least 90 days late on paying back their loans at the end of 2013, compared with 6.2 percent delinquencies on student loans in 2003. Moreover, the Fed’s figures on delinquencies hide more stark data: nearly half of all students with debt aren’t currently in repayment thanks to deferments and forbearances and the fact that students are not expected to pay while they’re in school, according to van der Klaauw. What that means is that for the graduates who are actually expected to pay their loans now, the delinquency rate is roughly double the 11.5% figure.

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Guess Who’s Been Proven Right Again? Sarah Palin Mocked in 2008 for Suggesting Russia Could Invade Ukraine (+video)

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By Greg Campbell.

Sarah Palin, the vanguard of the right, oft-mocked by the left, has been proven right on innumerable issues and yet the left refuses to give credit where credit is due. Whether Obamacare or IRS intimidation, Palin has been right and the left still refuses to listen.

Now, it appears Mrs. Palin was right once again. Though Palin was mocked in 2008 for her assertion that Russia could invade Ukraine, Russian forces have done exactly that.

We shouldn’t expect any admissions of “I was wrong, you were right” from the left, however; admitting fault is an impossibility for Democrats who rely on steadfastness at all costs in the face of political realities.

In 2008, then-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin warned Republicans that if Barack Obama were elected, we should expect poor foreign policies that could lead to instability on the world stage- including a possibility that Russia could invade Ukraine.

Calling this argument “strange” and an “extremely far-fetched scenario,” Foreignpolicy.com mocked Palin’s assertion…

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Palin Mocked in 2008 for Warning Putin May Invade Ukraine If Obama is Elected. By Tony Lee.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin warned that if Senator Barack Obama were elected president, his “indecision” and “moral equivalence” may encourage Russia’s Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.

Palin said then:
After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.

For those comments, she was mocked by the high-brow Foreign Policy magazine and its editor Blake Hounshell, who now is one of the editors of Politico magazine.

Read more from this story HERE.

Congress Recalling Former IRS Official Lois Lerner, Who Took the Fifth: ‘If We Have to Hold Her in Contempt, So Be It’

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Photo Credit: APCongress has recalled a former Internal Revenue Service official at the heart of the agency’s targeting scandal even after she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) this week ordered Lois Lerner, the former head of the IRS’ tax-exempt division, to return before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee he chairs to testify on the alleged targeting of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Lerner revealed the scandal last year when she admitted that the IRS had singled out dozens of conservative groups for additional review.

The former IRS official is being represented by William Taylor III of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP., who has asked that Congress reconsider its decision to recall Lerner, saying she fears for her life.

Taylor claims Lerner has received “numerous death threats,” according to Politico.

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Self-Identified Obama Supporter Delivers a Must-See Critique of the President

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Photo Credit: YouTubeThere was a remarkable moment during a congressional hearing on Wednesday when constitutional law expert and self-proclaimed Obama supporter, Jonathan Turley, explained the legislative branch of the U.S. government is in danger of becoming irrelevant because of persistant executive overreach. Turley, who is a professor of public interest law at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., believes America has reached a “constitutional tipping point” under President Obama’s watch.

“This is, I think, the most important… moment of audio… in the last I don’t even know how many years. This is the American crisis… This is beyond the constitutional crisis. This is a constitutional tipping point,” Glenn said on radio this morning. “This happened yesterday in the House Judiciary Committee… Jonathan Turley is a liberal… He’s a guy who’s on the left, is a support of the President, says in his testimony, ‘Look, I agree with what [the President is] trying to do. Just not how he is doing it.’ And I want you to listen because what he’s saying is: If we don’t wake up right now, we will be very sorry.”

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FCC Quietly Kills Controversial Newsroom Study

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Photo Credit: victoriapeckhamThe Federal Communications Commission on Friday quietly canned its controversial study of American newsrooms, a week after putting the project on hold.

“The FCC will not move forward with the Critical Information Needs study,” an FCC spokesperson said in a statement. “The Commission will reassess the best way to fulfill its obligation to Congress to identify barriers to entry into the communications marketplace faced by entrepreneurs and other small businesses.”

The brief statement was put out late Friday afternoon. But it indicated the study in its current form was being killed off for good, amid threats by Republican lawmakers to eliminate it.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, a vocal critic of the plan, said Friday he was “pleased” by the decision.

“In our country, the government does not tell the people what information they need. Instead, news outlets and the American public decide that for themselves,” he said.

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Levin: Obama Has No ‘Constitutional Authority To Do Half of What He’s Doing’ (+video)

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At a meeting of Tea Party conservatives in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin said President Barack Obama “doesn’t have the constitutional authority to do half of what he’s doing,” and added that the “Republican leadership” has not taken any steps to stop Obama’s unconstitutional actions.

CNSNews.com asked Levin, “Do you believe Obama has the constitutional authority to address climate change or minimum wage without congressional approval?”

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Clinton Files: Advisers Pushed to ‘Humanize’ Hillary, Soften ‘Stern’ Image

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Photo Credit: APEven in the early days of the Clinton White House, consultants and political advisers were scrambling to soften Hillary Clinton’s hard-edged image, looking for ways to “humanize her” for the press and public.

In the latter years, as the media turned, the advice was far more blunt. “Be real,” media consultant Mandy Grunwald told her in a 1999 memo. Grunwald told the first lady the public tends to see her only in “very stern situations,” and warned her not to let the press see her “uncomfortable or testy.”

The advice was contained in roughly 4,000 pages of previously confidential documents from the Clinton administration years, released Friday by the National Archives. The document dump is just the first batch of Clinton papers that will trickle into the public domain in the coming weeks.

The materials will be closely combed by political operatives on both sides of the aisle, as Hillary Clinton weighs a presidential bid in 2016. What the documents reveal about former President Bill Clinton may be less important, politically, than what they reveal about his wife.

The 1999 memo was a particularly frank example of advisers looking to style Clinton for the public. At the time, Grunwald was with the Grunwald Communications firm she founded and was trying to smooth relations between retiring New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Clinton — who would later win Moynihan’s seat. The memo referred to an upcoming “Moynihan event.” Grunwald urged Clinton to stay “conversational” and not raise her voice.

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Biden to Democrats: Don’t Apologize in 2014

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Photo Credit: AP/Susan WalshVice President Joe Biden on Thursday told Democrats to stop apologizing for their policies and go on offense as party leaders try to overcome pessimism about prospects for the November election.

At a Democratic National Committee gathering, Biden said he and President Barack Obama have an obligation to raise money and campaign for the party’s candidates. He said he has signed up to participate in more than 120 races and that Obama has given him permission to participate in every campaign where he can be helpful.

“I am so tired about hearing about the demise of the Democratic Party. Give me a break,” Biden said. “My central message to you is look: I think we should not apologize for a single thing.”

In his pep talk to state chairmen, the vice president tried to portray the party as starting on solid ground as campaigning gears up.

“There is no Republican Party,” Biden said, accusing the GOP of masquerading as conservative while actually espousing anti-government views that he said Americans reject.

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Federal Appeals Court: Schools Can Ban Students from Wearing American Flag T-Shirts in order to prevent violence

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Photo Credit: calaggieHow would wearing an American flag t-shirt possibly incite violence in an American high school? From the opinion:

The court’s ruling: School administrators can force you to remove your American-flag tee if the alternative is a classmate punching you in the face. That’s because, per the Supreme Court, students don’t have the same free speech rights at school that adults do on other public grounds. At school, the name of the game is order and instruction; you’re entitled to free expression to the extent you don’t interfere with those goals, but once you do, the school’s entitled to limit your expression accordingly.

In other words, a bully can get the principal’s office to silence you by promising to beat your ass if they don’t.

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