FAA Risks Losing Drone War

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Photo Credit: APThe Washington Nationals used a drone to photograph spring training. Real estate agents use them to show off sprawling properties. Martin Scorsese hired one to film a scene in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

So where does this leave the Federal Aviation Administration, which insists that commercial drone use is illegal?

Way behind — and facing turbulence as drone use explodes.

Thanks to falling prices, spotty enforcement and the fact that it’s almost impossible to spot the devices being used, the FAA is often powerless to halt the growing drone swarm. Retailers freely sell the tiny planes, quadcopters and hexacopters for as little as a few hundred dollars, and entrepreneurs continually come up with creative uses like wedding photography and crop monitoring — along with delivering beer and dropping off dry-cleaning.

The result, observers and drone users warn, could be a Wild, Wild West in the nation’s skies. As small drone operators grow used to flying them without the FAA’s permission, they could become less inclined to obey any rules the agency puts in place. And with the cost of the technology continuing to drop, the drones could eventually become far too ubiquitous for the agency to police.

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Obama Presidency Spurs Record Gun Production

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Photo Credit: Tim Boyle/BloombergU.S. gun makers led by Sturm Ruger & Co. and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. (SWHC) churned out a record number of firearms in 2012, government data show, continuing a trend of robust production during Democratic presidencies.

More than 8.57 million guns were produced in 2012, up 31 percent from 6.54 million in 2011, according to data released this week by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which has been tracking the statistics since 1986.

Almost as many guns — 26.1 million — were produced during Democrat Barack Obama’s first term as president as during the entire eight-year presidency of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, the ATF data show.

Advocates on both sides of the gun-control debate said manufacturers were meeting demand fueled by concerns among gun owners that Democratic presidents are more willing to limit firearms sales than Republicans. After years of steering clear of the issue, Obama pressed unsuccessfully last year for stricter gun measures in the wake of the 2012 massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

The production boom has resulted in strong sales and profits for gun companies, including Sturm & Ruger and Smith & Wesson.

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FCC Scraps Media Survey Amid Allegations of Trying to Regulate News

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller By Giuseppe Macri.

The Federal Communications Commission cancelled a plan to evaluate the coverage of major media outlets Friday after a tidal wave of media criticism alleged the agency was attempting to influence and regulate the news media industry.

“In the course of FCC review and public comment, concerns were raised that some of the questions may not have been appropriate,” the agency said in a statement Friday. “Chairman Wheeler agreed that survey questions in the study directed toward media outlet managers, news directors, and reporters overstepped the bounds of what is required.”

The FCC came under sharp criticism from congressional Republicans and a fellow agency commissioner over its proposed Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs, or “CIN” study, which aimed to assess how the news media covered “critical information” by sending FCC regulators into the offices of major television, newspaper, and internet media outlets across the country.

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Photo Credit: WNDFCC Blinks – Drops Newsroom ‘Monitor’ Plan

By WND.

The Federal Communications Commission, under intense fire this week for proposing to install government agents in radio, television and even newspaper newsrooms to look at how editorial decisions are made, abruptly backed away from the plan today.

The confirmation was from Shannon Gilson, a spokeswoman for the federal agency. She said the plan was part of the FCC’s overall look at access to the media marketplace.

“Last summer, the proposed study was put out for public comment and one pilot to test the study design in a single marketplace – Columbia, S.C. – was planned. However, in the course of FCC review and public comment, concerns were raised that some of the questions may not have been appropriate. Chairman Wheeler agreed that survey questions in the study directed toward media outlet managers, news directors, and reporters overstepped the bounds of what is required. Last week, Chairman Wheeler informed lawmakers that that commission has no intention of regulating political or other speech of journalists or broadcasters and would be modifying the draft study. Yesterday, the chairman directed that those questions be removed entirely,” she said.

“Any suggestion that the FCC intends to regulate the speech of news media or plans to put monitors in America’s newsrooms is false. The FCC looks forward to fulfilling its obligation to Congress to report on barriers to entry into the communications marketplace, and is currently revising its proposed study to achieve that goal,” Gilson said.

Chairman Tom Wheeler said in an earlier statement that the agency “has no intention of regulating political or other speech of journalists or broadcasters by way of this research design, any resulting study, or through any other means.”

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New Chrome App Tells Contacts Where You are When You Open Their Emails

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Stephen LamA new Google Chrome browser extension lets Gmail users see when and where users open their email messages.

San Francisco-based tech startup Streak created the app, which opens up a Google Maps-style display and shows the real-time location of message recipients when they open emails.

The message recipient does not need to have the Streak extension installed themselves for it to work. When a recipient receives a message from a Streak user, an “eye” icon on the user’s display will turn green to indicate the recipient opened the email.

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Democrat Lawmakers Laugh at Pain ObamaCare Causing Families (+video)

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Let’s all go “Off The Record” for just a minute. Do you know what I find absolutely disgraceful? People laughing at other people’s fears and misfortunes, or even potential misfortunes.

But there’s something even worse than that — something more disgraceful. That’s when the ones laughing are also the very ones who caused the fears and misfortune. Case-in-point: Three politicians from Minnesota, all Democrats – two congressmen, Collin Peterson and Tim Walz, and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar. Congressman Walz and Senator Klobuchar voted yes for ObamaCare. And now, well, they are laughing at what it’s doing to so many Americans. Listen to this exchange at a recent forum.

Read more this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Thinkstock Study: ObamaCare Taxes on Insurance Companies Will Be Pass On to Consumers

By Philip Klein.

A multibillion-dollar tax that President Obama’s health care law imposes on the insurance industry will be passed onto consumers, according to a new study by American Action Forum, costing individuals and families hundreds of dollars annually starting this year.

As one way of financing the $2 trillion cost of expanding insurance coverage, Obamacare imposes a tax on the health insurance industry, which is assessed to each insurer based on their share of annual premiums collected by the industry.

But according to the study by Robert Book of the center-right policy group American Action Forum, “insurers will have to pass most of this tax along to policyholders in the form of higher premiums, or possibly higher average out-of-pocket costs or reduced benefits.”

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IRS is Overwhelmed by Identity Theft Fraud

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Photo Credit: DREW ANGERER FOR THE GLOBERashia Wilson bought a $92,000 Audi, proclaimed herself a millionaire, and announced on her Facebook page that she was “the queen of IRS tax fraud,” as prosecutors told the story.

But even more than her flamboyance, it was the seeming ease of her crime that was most stunning: She and an accomplice were alleged to have hijacked the identities of other taxpayers to get fraudulent refunds. They used stolen Social Security numbers, a computer, and basic knowledge of how to file a tax return, according to the government.

After the Florida mother of three was caught and pleaded guilty last year to crimes totaling at least $3 million, her defense attorney, Mark O’Brien, made his own plea. He said in court that he hoped the “IRS will figure out a way to prevent this from happening in the future, so someone with a sixth-grade education can’t defraud them so easily.”

Across the country, the theft of taxpayer identities has taken off, while receiving far less attention than the loss of credit card information. Even some drug dealers, always with an eye out for easy profits, have turned to taxpayer identity theft after hearing how uncomplicated it was to scam the IRS. A medical assistant at a nursing home stole the identities of hundreds of patients. A prison guard stole the identities of inmates and filed false returns under their names.

All told, in just the first six months of last year, 1.6 million taxpayers were affected by identity theft, compared with 271,000 for all of 2010, according to a recent audit by the Treasury Department’s inspector general. While the IRS said it discovered many of the incidents, the cumulative thefts have resulted in billions of dollars in potentially fraudulent refunds, according to an array of government reports.

Read more this story HERE.

Court: No Reprieve for Notre Dame on Contraception Coverage Rule

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Photo Credit: APA federal appeals court has turned down the University of Notre Dame’s request for immediate relief from complying with Obamacare provisions relating to contraceptive coverage.

In a 2-1 decision issued late Friday afternoon, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit rejected Notre Dame’s appeal of a district judge’s order denying a preliminary injunction the Catholic school requested to avoid having to complete a form stating that Notre Dame had a religious objection to providing the contraceptive coverage normally required under the Affordable Care Act.

Judge Richard Posner, one of the country’s best known jurists aside from the Supreme Court, largely dismissed Notre Dame’s objection to filling out the government-issued form.

“If the government is entitled to require that female contraceptives be provided to women free of charge, we have trouble understanding how signing the form that declares Notre Dame’s authorized refusal to pay for contraceptives for its students or staff, and mailing the authorization document to those companies, which under federal law are obligated to pick up the tab, could be thought to ‘trigger’ the provision of female contraceptives,” Posner wrote in an opinion joined by Judge David Hamilton.

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New York McDonald’s Manager Buys Food for Firefighters; Terminated Next Day

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Photo Credit: Raw StoryKindness and consideration is something to be admired especially when helping firefighters who have spent hours in subzero weather battling a local fire. So when McDonald’s Manager Heather Levia saw a way to help them by donating food and paying for it out of her own pocket for them, being fired never occurred to her. But that is exactly what followed for the New York former manager at an Olean, NY t McDonalds, according to Fox 44.

Total disbelief is one of the motions that had to have come across the young woman’s face when her immediate bosses at the fast food restaurant sent her packing for her kind gesture. All she did was take their order of 25 breakfast sandwiches and hash browns, and then promptly took $83 out and pay for their order herself.

This selfless act was not welcomed by management and instead she was treated with utter contempt and even claimed that that was not the policy of the restaurant or of the corporation. This of course seemed a bit odd to Levia, since, “she claims they regularly give free meals to police officers who stop by,” reported Fox 44.

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Senior UK Defense Advisor: Obama Is “Chronically Incapable” Of Military Strategy

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Photo Credit: The Right News On the heels of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates stinging assessment of Barack Obama’s leadership ability when it comes to our military, a Senior UK defense advisor has said that President Obama is “chronically incapable” of being a military leader and he, “has no sense of what he wants to do in the world…”

Read more below from The Daily Beast:

Sir Hew Strachan, an expert on the history of war, says that the president’s strategic failures in Afghanistan and Syria have crippled America’s position in the world.

President Obama is “chronically incapable” of military strategy and falls far short of his predecessor George W. Bush, according to one of Britain’s most senior military advisors.

Sir Hew Strachan, an advisor to the Chief of the Defense Staff, told The Daily Beast that the United States and Britain were guilty of total strategic failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Obama’s attempts to intervene on behalf of the Syrian rebels “has left them in a far worse position than they were before.”

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Snowball Thrown at Officer Draws Felony for Boy, 13, Outrage From Residents

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Photo Credit: DNA Info A day after a boy was arrested and charged with a felony for throwing a snowball at a police officer, students outside George Leland Elementary continued to build snowmen and throw snowballs at each other after school.

According to police, a 13-year-old boy was charged as a juvenile with felony aggravated battery against a police officer Wednesday after he hit the officer in the arm with a snowball while the officer was parked in his vehicle in the 4900 block of West Congress Parkway about 3:20 p.m.

Residents sounded off on the crime and punishment the next day, many describing the charge as police “going overboard.”

“It’s not fair,” said Mary Grant, a longtime resident of the block. The boy “was being hardheaded, but that’s very harsh. The officer should’ve tried something different than arrest.”

The boy is believed to be a student at Leland Elementary School, formerly May Elementary, which sits at the southeast corner of the intersection near where the snowball was thrown. Officials at the school acknowledged that the incident occurred but declined to comment.

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