Hagel Misstates Administration Policy on Iran Nukes (Again)

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Photo Credit: APDefense Department officials acknowledged to Fox News that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, while speaking to a Jewish congregation at a Maryland synagogue on Tuesday, appeared to have misstated the administration’s policy on Iran — by saying the country should not be allowed the “capacity” to develop a nuclear weapon.

“So that’s the position of this administration; it was the position of the Bush administration — that’s unequivocal. That’s stated — it’s clear,” Hagel said at the Beth El synagogue in Bethesda, Md.

But Hagel was mistaken, and it’s not the first time he has misspoken about the United States’ nuclear policy on Iran. What he described on Tuesday would be a much firmer stance than either administration has taken. The current policy is that Iran should be prevented from obtaining a nuclear weapon, rather than preventing its capacity to make a weapon.

Just last month the Director of National Intelligence released “The Worldwide Threat Assessment” to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Page five states clearly that Iran already has the capacity to build and deliver a nuclear weapon should it decide to do so.

“Tehran has made technical progress in a number of areas — including uranium enrichment, nuclear reactors, and ballistic missiles — from which it could draw if it decided to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons,” DNI James Clapper wrote. “These technical advancements strengthen our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons. This makes the central issue its political will to do so.”

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‘McCarthyite’: Cruz Applauds Hollywood’s Secret Conservative Group’s Refusal to Give IRS Names of Its Members

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Photo Credit: Hollywood Reporter The group rightly refused a request from the IRS to reveal the names of its members, says the Republican senator from Texas; “FOA should respond to the IRS as it would to any McCarthyite request for information.”

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz will visit Hollywood’s not-so-secret group of conservatives called Friends of Abe next month, and he tells The Hollywood Reporter he will address what he considers is a government effort to intimidate artists who criticize President Barack Obama and his policies.

FOA, a group of about 2,000 entertainment industry workers, likes to remain under the radar. But The New York Times on Jan. 22 revealed the group’s two-year-long effort to be recognized as a tax-free charity organization. One thing the IRS has wanted from FOA is its membership list, and Cruz says the group has been right to refuse such a request, which he says stems from “an abuse of power.”

“FOA should respond to the IRS as it would to any McCarthyite request for information,” Cruz says in an interview. “The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that Americans have freedom of association and that groups should not be forced to reveal the names of members, because that information could be abused for political gain. There has already been an incident where the IRS leaked that kind of information about a group.”

Cruz says the IRS’ treatment of FOA is part of a pattern that includes the arrests of Dinesh D’Souza, who made 2016: Obama’s America, and Nakoula Nakoula, whose video, Innocence of Muslims, was blamed for causing the riots in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead. After the Benghazi attack, Nakoula spent several months in prison on charges unrelated to the video. And D’Souza, who is expected to release his next film, America, on July 4, is accused of violating campaign finance laws by raising more money than he should have for a friend who sought a U.S. Senate seat in New York.

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Former CIA Official Accused of Misleading Lawmakers on Benghazi

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsFormer CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell is facing accusations from Republicans that he misled lawmakers about the Obama administration’s role in crafting the bogus storyline that a protest gone awry was to blame for the deadly Benghazi attack.

Among other discrepancies, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee allege Morell insisted the talking points were sent to the White House for informational purposes, and not for their input — but emails, later released by the administration, showed otherwise.

“We found that there was actual coordination which could influence then — and did influence — what CIA conveyed to the committees about what happened [in Benghazi],” Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., told Fox News.

Burr was one of six Republicans who leveled the allegations against Morell, who also served as acting director, in an addendum to a recently released Senate Intelligence Committee report. According to the claims, in late 2012, Morell testified the so-called Benghazi talking points were sent to the White House “for their awareness, not for their coordination.”

The 16-page addendum continues, “No effort was made to correct the record … the Acting Director’s (Morell) testimony perpetuated the myth that the White House played no part in the drafting or editing of the talking points.”

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Obama on Keystone Pipeline: ‘We Only Have One Planet’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn MartinPresident Obama conceded Wednesday that the lengthy process of evaluating whether to move ahead with the Keystone XL oil pipeline was probably viewed by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as “a little too laborious” but added that economic growth had to be balanced against environmental concerns, as “we only have one planet.”

In a speech last June Obama said that he would not approve the pipeline from Canada if the project would “significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

During a joint press conference with Harper – a strong supporter of Keystone – and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, a Canadian reporter recalled those words and noted that a State Department environmental review has found that the pipeline would not have a significant effect on climate change.

What more needed to be done, the reporter asked.

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North Dakota No. 1 in Well-Being, West Virginia Still Last

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North Dakota residents had the highest well-being in the nation in 2013, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. South Dakota trailed its northern neighbor in second place, with its highest score in six years of measurement. Hawaii held the top spot for the previous four years, but fell slightly last year. West Virginia and Kentucky had the two lowest well-being scores, for the fifth year in a row.

North Dakota rejoined the top 10 well-being states in 2013 after being among that group from 2009 to 2011. South Dakota was among the top 10 in well-being for the first time since 2010, while Washington last appeared in 2008.

hese state-level data are based on more than 178,000 interviews with American adults across all 50 states, conducted from January-December 2013. Gallup and Healthways started tracking state-level well-being in 2008. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index score for the nation and for each state is an average of six sub-indexes, which individually examine life evaluation, emotional health, work environment, physical health, healthy behaviors, and access to basic necessities.

The Well-Being Index is calculated on a scale of 0 to 100, where a score of 100 represents ideal well-being. Well-Being Index scores among states varied within a nine-point range in 2013. The Well-Being Index score for the nation in 2013 dipped to 66.2 from 66.7 in 2012, and matches the previous low, measured in 2011.

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HillaryWatch: Last Week Cable News Spent More Than 400 Minutes on Hillary Clinton

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Photo Credit: MediaiteHave we aleady reached peak Hillary Clinton?

Mediaite’s weekly study of the three major news networks’ Clinton coverage, this week spanning Monday, February 10 to Sunday, February 16, found that cable news devoted 94 segments on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—who currently holds no office and has not announced a candidacy for one—for a whopping total of 410 minutes worth of coverage.

Le charts:

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4 Teens Accused Of Carving Swastika Into Classmate’s Forehead

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Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesFour teenagers are accused of carving a swastika into the forehead of a 16-year-old boy.

The Oregonian reports that Jenna Montgomery, 15, Jess Taylor, 17, Blue Kalmbach, 15, and a 14-year-old boy attacked the boy in a shed, shooting him with a BB gun and hitting him with a crow bar, on top of carving a swastika into his forehead.

The victim, 16-year-old Dustin Murrain, said he was lured by his David Douglas High School classmate Jenna Montgomery into the shed where the alleged assault took place.

According to The Oregonian, Murrain was hit in the back of the head with a crowbar and was shot with a BB gun in the chest, groin and index finger.

A Multnomah County prosecutor’s affidavit states that Kalmbach then used a box cutter to carve the swastika into Murrain.

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Plan To Split California Into Six States Gets OK To Gather Signatures

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Photo Credit: Six CaliforniasSupporters of a plan to divide California into six states can begin collecting signatures to get the proposal on the ballot.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced that the proposed ballot initiative – known as Six Californias – could move forward Tuesday.

Under the plan, from venture capitalist Tim Draper, most of the Bay Area would be considered “Silicon Valley.” Napa, Sonoma and Marin Counties would become part of “North California.”

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U-Md. Database Containing Thousands of Student, Staff Records Hacked

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University of Maryland officials have released a statement a day after the university’s president announced a database containing sensitive information about faculty, staff, students and affiliated personnel had been hacked.

Records including the names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and University identification numbers of more than 300,000 people from the College Park and Shady Grove campuses who have been issued a University ID since 1998 have been compromised.

University System of Maryland Chancellor William “Brit” Kirwan released a statement in the wake of the breach.

“Our campus information security officers meet regularly, and I am confident we will all learn from this development and make our security defense mechanisms even stronger. The objective of managing information security at each USM campus has been a priority objective for each president, and this incident only means that we must continue to increase our vigilance in attending to Internet theft and personal information security.”

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Police: Homeless Seeking Shelter from Cold in Subways to Be Kicked Out

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Photo Credit: DNA/Stephanie Keith
The NYPD and the MTA plan to clear homeless men and women out of the subway system after a skyrocketing number of people have sought shelter there from the brutally cold winter, police officials said.

The plan, which is set to begin before dawn on Monday, comes amid an upswing in homeless people in the subway system during the exceptionally cold winter. There were more than 1,800 people living on the subways in 2013, up from 1,000 in 2009, according to the city’s annual HopeNYC street survey.

Starting Monday at 3 a.m., teams of transit workers, NYPD officers and emergency medical technicians will go to the E train stations at Jamaica Center and at the World Trade Center, officials said.

Each time a train pulls into one of the two stations, teams will check each car, and take all the homeless people inside to either a shelter or hospitals, officials said.

The trains will then be cleaned for the morning rush hour.

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