House Dems Plan To Use Rare Tactic to Try to Force Vote on Immigration, Minimum Wage

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House Democrats are vowing to try a rarely used tactic to force votes in the GOP-led chamber on the minimum wage and immigration reform, a strategy that will likely fail but might hurt Republicans with voters in this year’s elections.

The tactic is known as a “discharge petition.” It would require the minority party, in this case Democrats, to persuade roughly two dozen Republicans to defy their leadership and join Democrats in forcing a vote on setting the federal minimum wage at $10.10 an hour.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said fellow chamber Democrats will push the issue when Congress returns from its break Feb. 24.

The attempt to force a vote on a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws could occur in a few months.

Democrats think that a majority of Americans support both issues and that attempting to use the discharge petition will at least portray House Republicans as the obstacle to their success.

Freedom of the Press? FCC Plan to Place ‘Researchers’ in Newsrooms

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Photo Credit: victoriapeckhamFirst Amendment: The FCC has cooked up a plan to place “researchers” in U.S. newsrooms, supposedly to learn all about how editorial decisions are made. Any questions as to why the U.S. is falling in the free press rankings?

As if illegal seizures of Associated Press phone records and the shadowy tailing of the mother of a Fox News reporter weren’t menacing enough, the Obama administration is going out of its way to institute a new intrusive surveillance of the press, as if the press wasn’t supine enough.

Ajit Pai, a commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission, warned this week in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that a plan to dispatch researchers into radio, television and even newspaper newsrooms called the “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs” is still going forward, despite the grave danger it presented to the First Amendment.

Pai warned that under the rationale of increasing minority representation in newsrooms, the FCC, which has the power to issue or not issue broadcasting licenses, would dispatch its “researchers” to newsrooms across America to seek their “voluntary” compliance about how news stories are decided, as well as “wade into office politics” looking for angry reporters whose story ideas were rejected as evidence of a shutout of minority views.

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Who is the American Al Qaeda Facing A U.S. Drone?

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Photo Credit: LT. COL.. LESLIE PRATT / US AIR FORCE VIA AP The American al Qaeda member who the Obama administration is considering killing through a drone strike is likely a bombmaker with little public profile who has been linked to the deaths of fellow citizens in Afghanistan, experts say.

A former U.S. security official told NBC News that the suspect is based in lawless western Pakistan, where missiles fired by American drones have slain dozens of suspected al Qaeda members since 2004.

According to one current and another former U.S. intelligence official, the potential target is considered a member of “al Qaeda Central,” the core organization led by Osama bin Laden’s successor Ayman al Zawahiri.

Officials told The Associated Press earlier this week that the White House was weighing a drone strike aimed at a U.S. citizen plotting attacks on Americans abroad using improvised explosives devices.

“I can’t comment on who this individual is, but as an American, who would [know] a lot more about his country, which would make him very dangerous,” said Talata Masood, a retired lieutenant general in the Pakistan army.

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Secretary of State Kerry Lashes Out at Climate Change Skeptics

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Photo Credit: Fox News U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday called climate change perhaps the world’s “most fearsome” destructive weapon and mocked those who deny its existence or question its causes, comparing them to people who insist the Earth is flat.

In a speech to Indonesian students, civic leaders and government officials, Kerry tore into climate change skeptics. He accused them of using shoddy science and scientists to delay steps needed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases at the risk of imperiling the planet.

A day earlier, the U.S. and China announced an agreement to cooperate more closely on combating climate change. American officials hope that will help encourage others, including developing countries like Indonesia and India, to follow suit.

China and the United States are the biggest sources of emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that cause the atmosphere to trap solar heat and alter the climate. Scientists say such changes are leading to drought, wildfires, rising sea levels, melting polar ice, plant and animal extinctions and other extreme conditions.

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Accused Craigslist Killer Claims More Slayings, Including Several Murders in Alaska

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Photo Credit: Mike Staugaitis, The News-Item, APA Pennsylvania teen accused of killing a man she met on Craigslist told a local newspaper she and her husband did kill Troy LaFerrara — and dozens of other men.

The Daily Item in Sunbury reports that Miranda Barbour, 19, said in a jailhouse interview that she considered sparing LaFerrara’s life.

“I remember everything,” Barbour told the paper, adding that the November murder was the couple’s first. “It is like watching a movie.”

In a statement issued Sunday, the FBI’s Philadelphia division said it had been in contact with Sunbury police and “will offer any assistance requested in the case…”

Miranda Barbour told the newspaper they participated in several slayings in Alaska and others in Texas, North Carolina and California. She said she “stopped counting” at 22 victims.

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Former Clinton Aid: Hillary Conducted ‘War On Women’ Sexually Harassed by Her Husband (+audio)

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Photo Credit: WNDKathleen Willey, the former volunteer aide to Bill Clinton who says she was sexually harassed by the president in the 1990s, is now sounding the alarm about the potential danger of Hillary Clinton becoming president.

“Hillary Clinton is the war on women, and that’s what needs to be exposed here,” Willey said Sunday night on Aaron Klein’s WABC Radio show.

“The point is what this woman is capable of doing to other women while she’s running a campaign basically on women’s issues. It just doesn’t make any sense. She singlehandedly orchestrated every one of the investigations of all these women [who accused her husband of sexual crimes]. They’re the people reminding us of how sordid this all is.”

Click below to listen to Part 1 of Klein’s interview with Kathleen Willey:

Willey continued to rail against both Bill and Hillary Clinton, saying, “They take up all the oxygen in the room, and everybody is depressed. We’re gonna go back to all the sordid details [if Hillary runs for president]. They need to just go away because they’re forcing themselves on us is the way I feel. Just pack your bags. You’ve had your 15 minutes. … Stop forcing us to have to look at this stuff again. We’re sick of it!”

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Romney: Bill Clinton ‘Embarrassed the Nation, Breached his Responsibilities as an Adult’

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Photo Credit: APBy Brendan Bordelon.

Mitt Romney revisited Bill Clinton’s White House escapades during an interview with NBC’s David Gregory on Sunday, saying the former Democratic president “embarrassed the nation” and “breached his responsibility as an adult and a leader.”

The 2012 Republican nominee for president made the remarks while discussing the resurgence of talk surrounding Bill Clinton’s sexual dalliances with many women, including White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Led largely by Republican senator and 2016 presidential hopeful Rand Paul, Republicans have tried to put Hillary and other Democrats on the defensive, calling Bill Clinton a sexual predator who disrespects women.

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Photo Credit: YahooMitt Romney: Bill Clinton ’embarrassed the nation’

By Dylan Stableford.

Mitt Romney believes former President Bill Clinton “embarrassed the nation” with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but doesn’t think it will be a factor in 2016 if Hillary Clinton runs for president.

“I think Hillary Clinton, if she becomes a nominee, will have plenty to discuss about her own record,” Romney said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday. “I don’t imagine that Bill Clinton is going to be a big part of it.”

But the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican nominee was asked to comment on the 42nd president in light of the GOP’s recent “resurrection” of the Clinton White House.

“He embarrassed the nation,” Romney said of Clinton. “He breached his responsibility, I think, as an adult and as a leader in his relationship. And I think that’s very unfortunate. But I don’t think that’s Hillary Clinton’s to explain. She has her own record, her own vision for where she would take the country. And I think that’s something which will be debated extensively during the 2016 campaign.”

Bill Clinton’s sexual relationship with Lewinsky, then a 22-year-old White House intern, led to his impeachment in 1998 and subsequent trial. Clinton was eventually acquitted of the impeachment charges.

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Small-Firm Lawyer Takes on Wall Street and Wins, Twice

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/SARAH CONARDBefore attorney David Wasinger decided to take on two of the biggest global banks in federal court in New York, he had visited the city just twice: once when he was 6, and the second time on a tour bus with his children.

As the sole partner at a five-attorney firm in St. Louis, Missouri, Wasinger was mostly focused on local business litigation and had never represented a whistleblower.

But in January 2012 an old business acquaintance was ready to go public with accusations of widespread mortgage fraud at Bank of America’s Countrywide unit, and he turned to Wasinger.

That touched off a series of events that put Wasinger at the center of two of the biggest legal cases to emerge from the 2007-2009 financial crisis, against Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase & Co, respectively.

In January, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan said it is seeking up to $2.1 billion in penalties from Bank of America after a jury in October found the firm liable for fraud over defective mortgages sold by Countrywide. Wasinger’s client, former Countrywide Executive Vice President Edward O’Donnell, was the star witness for the prosecution.

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Grassroots Leader: GOP Establishment Failed to Defend the Tea Party

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“The tea party has been pushed into a corner and labeled as the greatest threat to the United States of America, which is the most ridiculous thing on earth.”

That’s the view of Allen Roth, president of the foreign policy advocacy group Secure America Now, which was targeted by the IRS in 2012. Roth’s group seeks to unify Democrats, Republicans and independents through shared ideals about American values and foreign policy positions.

“This labeling of the tea party as terrorist is not only outrageous, but it really shows where this administration is coming from,” Roth told The Daily Caller in an exclusive interview.

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Excessive Radiation Levels Detected at New Mexico Waste Site

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Photo Credit: DougtoneUnderground sensors have detected excessive radiation levels inside a nuclear waste storage site deep below New Mexico’s desert, but no workers have been exposed and there was no risk to public health, U.S. Department of Energy officials said on Sunday.

An air-monitoring alarm went off at 11:30 p.m. local time Friday indicating unsafe concentrations of radiation inside the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in what DOE officials said appeared to be the first such mishap since the facility opened in 1999.

As of Sunday, the source of the high radiation readings had yet to be determined, and a plan to send inspection teams below ground to investigate was put on hold as a precaution.

“They will not go in today. It’s a safety thing more than anything. We’re waiting until we get other assessments done before we authorize re-entry,” DOE spokesman Bill Mackie said.

The facility, located in southeastern New Mexico near Carlsbad, is designed as a repository for so-called transuranic waste, which includes discarded machinery, clothing and other materials contaminated with plutonium or other radioisotopes heavier than uranium.

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