Former Supreme Court Justice: Amend 2nd Amendment

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP / J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: AP / J. Scott Applewhite

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, in his new book, recommends six rewrites to the U.S. Constitution. He would restrict gun ownership to militia members; ban the death penalty; and allow government to set “reasonable limits” on campaign financing, among other things.

But Stevens says he’s no radical:

“I think every one of my proposals is a moderate proposal,” Stevens told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

One of Steven’s proposals would add five words to the Second Amendment, which would then read: “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, when serving in the militia, shall not be infringed.”

Stevens agreed that adding those five words would allow legislatures and Congress, rather than the courts, to “do what they think is in the best public interest.”

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Intelligence Chief Bars Unauthorized Contacts with Reporters On All Intel-Related Matters

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: OLIVIER DOULIERY — MCT

Photo Credit: OLIVIER DOULIERY — MCT

Employees of U.S. intelligence agencies have been barred from discussing without authorization any intelligence-related matter – even if it isn’t classified – with journalists, under a new directive issued by Director of National Security James Clapper.

Intelligence agency employees who violate the policy could suffer career-ending losses of their security clearances or out-right termination, and those who disclose classified information could face criminal prosecution, according to the directive signed by Clapper on March 20.

Under the order, only the director or deputy head of an intelligence agency, public affairs officials and those authorized by a public affairs official may have contact with journalists on intelligence-related matters.

The order, which was made public on Monday by Steven Aftergood, who runs the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, is sweeping in its definition of intelligence-related matters.

“The directive is limited to contact with the media about intelligence related-information, including intelligence sources, methods, activities and judgments,” says the order, which doesn’t distinguish between classified and unclassified matters.

Read more from this story HERE.

Independents More Likely to Back Anti-ObamaCare Candidates

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Most voters say ObamaCare will play an important role in their vote in this year’s elections, and over half are more inclined to back the candidate who opposes the health care law.

That’s according to a Fox News poll released Monday.

The new poll asks voters what they would do if the only difference between two congressional candidates is that one promises to fight for the health care law and the other promises to fight against it.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS

By a 53-39 percent margin, more voters say they would back the anti-ObamaCare candidate.

Independents, always a key voting bloc, would back that candidate by a 25 percentage-point margin (54-29 percent, with another 14 percent saying it depends).

Read more from this story HERE.

37% of Voters Fear the Federal Government

/3 Comments/in , /by

Secretary Of Defense Leon Panetta Hosts Ceremony At Vietnam Veterans MemorialThirty-seven percent (37%) of Likely U.S. Voters now fear the federal government, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Forty-seven percent (47%) do not, but another 17% are not sure.

Perhaps in part that’s because 54% consider the federal government today a threat to individual liberty rather than a protector. Just 22% see the government as a protector of individual rights, and that’s down from 30% last November. Slightly more (24%) are now undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

As recently as December 2012, voters were evenly divided on this question: 45% said the federal government was a protector of individual rights, while 46% described it as a threat to those rights.

Two-out-of-three voters (67%) view the federal government today as a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Just 17% disagree, while 15% are undecided.

Only 19% now trust the federal government to do the right thing most or nearly all the time, down from 24% in June of last year. Eighty percent (80%) disagree, with 44% who trust the government to do the right thing only some of the time and 36% who say it rarely or never does the right thing.

Read more from this story HERE.

You’re On the Clock: Doctors Rush Patients Out the Door

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Christopher Powers, USA TODAY

Photo Credit: Christopher Powers, USA TODAY

By Roni Caryn Rabin.

Joan Eisenstodt didn’t have a stopwatch when she went to see an ear, nose and throat specialist recently, but she is certain the physician was not in the exam room with her for more than three or four minutes.

“He looked up my nose, said it was inflamed, told me to see the nurse for a prescription and was gone,” said the 66-year-old Washington, D.C., consultant, who was suffering from an acute sinus infection.

When she started protesting the doctor’s choice of medication, “He just cut me off totally,” she said. “I’ve never been in and out from a visit faster.”

These days, stories like Eisenstodt’s are increasingly common. Patients — and physicians — say they feel the time crunch as never before as doctors rush through appointments as if on roller skates to see more patients and perform more procedures to make up for flat or declining reimbursements.

It’s not unusual for primary care doctors’ appointments to be scheduled at 15-minute intervals. Some physicians who work for hospitals say they’ve been asked to see patients every 11 minutes.

Read more from this story HERE.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Latest Obamacare accomplishment: ‘Medical Homelessness’

By Rick Moran.

So, you’ve done your duty as a citizen and faithfully signed up for an Obamacare insurance policy. You’ve even paid your premium, God bless you.You are now eligible (after a $5000 deductible) to enjoy the true benefits of Obamacare.

That is…if you can find a doctor to treat you.

KPIX:

Rotacare, a free clinic for the uninsured in Mountain View, is dealing with the problem firsthand.

Mirella Nguyen works at the clinic said staffers dutifully helped uninsured clients sign up for Obamacare so they would no longer need the free clinic.

But months later, the clinic’s former patients are coming back to the clinic begging for help. “They’re coming back to us now and saying I can’t find a doctor, “said Nguyen.

Read more from this story HERE.

DNC Chairwoman: Politics Didn’t Factor into Obama Keystone Pipeline Delay

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Photo Credit: Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Sunday dismissed the potential political impact of a delayed decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, calling it a “complex” decision that will need to be carefully weighed.

The State Department, which has been reviewing the environmental impact of a proposal to build an oil pipeline from Canada to refineries along the Gulf Coast, announced this week that it would postpone its decision on whether to approve the project.

Some Republicans who support the project accused Democrats and the White House of purposefully pushing back a ruling until after this year’s midterm elections — but Wasserman Schultz attempted Sunday to dismiss such a notion.

“The decision over the Keystone pipeline is complex and it has to be examined very carefully,” Wasserman Schultz said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “It affects multiple states.”

Because of the weight of the issue, Wasserman Schultz said, she wants “to make sure the right decision is arrived at and the president makes that decision carefully and doesn’t put politics in his decision.”

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Asks American Parents to Monitor Their Children for Signs of Terrorism

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: FBI / Getty

Photo Credit: FBI / Getty

In a speech earlier this week, Lisa O. Monaco, President Barack Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, insisted that American parents must be vigilant because their “confrontational” children could be on the verge of becoming terrorists.

Monaco’s full, prepared text is available here. She presented the speech, entitled “Countering Violent Extremism and the Power of Community,” at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government on April 15.

Monaco began her remarks by eloquently describing the lives tragically lost last year during the Boston Marathon bombings. Interestingly, the Harvard grad failed to mention the religion or the motive of brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Muslim terrorists behind the Boston bombings.

In the very next paragraph, Monaco specifically noted racist and disgustingly anti-Semitic beliefs of Frazier Glenn Miller, the 73-year-old former Ku Klux Klan leader accused of gunning down three people at a Jewish Community Center in Kansas last Sunday.

Read more from this story HERE.

Zogby Report Card: Russia’s Winning, and Obama Has Few Options

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Pollster John Zogby reports in our weekly White House report card that President Obama has a real problem on his hands: a lack of options in dealing with issues like Russia, immigration, Syria and the Middle East.

“It seems hard to play the long game in an era of instant news and talking analysis by the nanosecond. The president assures us that President Putin’s gambit in Crimea is doomed and that stronger sanctions can follow. But it is hard to communicate that point while it looks like Russia is winning.

Read more from this story HERE.

Boy Claims Officials Tried to Take His Bible After Banning Him From Reading It During After-School Program

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

A little boy who claims he was told by officials at an after-school program that he couldn’t read his Bible is getting support from the American Civil Liberties Union.

The civil rights group’s Tennessee branch is defending the child, sending a letter to the Cannon County REACH after-school program in an effort to urge officials to better train staff on the proper handling of participants’ religious rights, the Christian Post reported.

Staff at REACH reportedly not only told the boy he couldn’t read the Bible, but they also allegedly tried to take it from him, saying that the program could lose state funding if he continued reading it.

“[The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee] has a long-standing commitment to uphold and defend Tennesseans’ ability to practice religion, or not, as they choose,” Hedy Weinberg, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement. “The goal of our letter is to clarify for the REACH program what seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Constitution protects religious liberty.”

Read more from this story HERE.

US College Students Studying Abroad Prime Targets for Espionage Activity

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: FBI.GOV

Photo Credit: FBI.GOV

The FBI has issued a stern warning to U.S. college students studying abroad: Beware of foreign intelligence officers who are discreetly targeting young, often naive Americans for espionage activities.

Glenn Shriver seemed like any other adventure-seeking college student — embarking on a study abroad program to China in 2004 while majoring in international affairs at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan.

The cash-strapped college junior from Jenison, Mich., soon became an easy target of Chinese intelligence officers, who first paid him to write political papers in what seemed like a benign job. The People’s Republic of China officers then befriended Shriver — sometimes meeting him in swanky hotel penthouses — and asked that he consider applying for U.S. government jobs.

Shriver complied, spending the next few years applying for jobs with the U.S. government — in particular, with the CIA and State Department — and receiving a total of $70,000 in exchange for doing so. When his scheme to provide the Chinese with classified information was uncovered in 2010, Shriver, now 32, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison.

The FBI is highlighting Shriver’s case in a new effort to educate students about the unforeseen dangers of studying abroad. The bureau released a 28-minute video this week, titled, “Game of Pawns,” in which they dramatize Shriver’s experience in Shanghai and the espionage activity that would later lead to his arrest and imprisonment. The FBI is urging all U.S. students to view the video before they leave the country to help them understand when they’re being targeted or recruited for espionage.

Read more from this story HERE.