Marine Facing Discharge for Sending Unsecured Threat Warning Email To Fellow Marines Garners Capitol Hill Defenders

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Photo Credit: BREZLER FAMILY

Photo Credit: BREZLER FAMILY

A Marine facing military discharge for mistakenly sending a threat warning from an unclassified email account garnered high-level support ahead of a military hearing that began Tuesday, with several members of Congress leaping to his defense.

Maj. Jason Brezler, a Marine Corps reservist and New York City fire fighter was facing a board of inquiry — the equivalent of an administrative hearing in the military — for warning his fellow Marines of an insider threat in August 2012.

He had tried to warn about an Afghan police chief — known to be linked to the Taliban, and also a child predator. Brezler’s warning was ultimately ignored, and three Marines were killed by one of the Afghan police chief’s alleged child victims.

The Marine reservist, though, now stands accused of passing classified information through unclassified channels because he allegedly used an improper email account to pass on the warning.

“It really does seem to be a witch hunt,” said Kevin Carroll, an attorney working on Brezler’s case.

Read more from this story HERE.

Tom Coburn ‘Wastebook’: $125K 3D Pizza

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Republican Sen. Tom Coburn released his annual “Wastebook” on Tuesday, outlining 100 examples of what he calls egregious federal spending totaling $30 billion. From defense equipment to the downright bizarre, the Oklahoma senator highlights it all in his latest report. He started the reports in 2010. Here is a list of the top 10 most eyebrow-raising expenditures:

1. $125,000 3-D pizza: NASA gave a $124,955 grant to Arjun Contractor, a mechanical engineer with a small company hoping to build a 3-D pizza printer as part of space-exploration mission supplies. However, NASA scientists say the research will take time, and it could be years before the technology becomes feasible.

2. $914,000 to research Team Edward: The Popular Romance Project has received $914,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities since 2010, Coburn says. The project is expanding its website, which provides research into the origins of romance and its depiction in popular culture, including novels, Internet fan fiction and advice books. Coburn notes that the website currently provides analysis into the pop hit “Call Me Maybe” and the debate over fictional characters from “Twilight,” the young-adult series.

3. $17.5 million in brothel tax exemptions: Coburn says that through the tax code, $17.5 million has gone to brothels in Nevada that have claimed tax exemptions for everything from breast implants to “free passes” that were deemed part of promotional costs and eligible for deductions by the IRS.

4. $50 million “Google searches”: Coburn attributes $50 million to National Technical Information Services, an agency that charges for reports that often can be found for free through a Google search. Coburn calls NTIS, which is part of the Department of Commerce, antiquated, as it was created at a time when information wasn’t as readily available. He noted that about 74 percent of its reports had information available in public sources. Additionally, a CD-ROM for which the agency charges $79 contains information that is also available for free on the Internet.

Read more from this story HERE.

5 Things You CAN’T Keep Under Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Thinkstock

Photo Credit: Thinkstock

By Ashe Schowe.

President Obama’s pledge that those who liked their health care plans could keep them wasn’t the only broken promise made when selling the health care law. The troubled rollout of Obamacare has produced a growing list of things that Americans like about their current health care experience that they may not be able to keep. Below are five examples.

1. Health insurance plans

Millions of Americans have received notices canceling their existing health plans because they did not meet the requirements of the health care law, which forced insurers to include one-size-fits-all benefit packages in all plans.

In theory, Obamacare was supposed to allow Americans to keep their plans so long as those plans weren’t acquired after March 2010, when the law’s requirements took effect. These were the “grandfathered” plans of which Obama spoke.

But on June 17, 2010, three months after Obamacare was signed into law, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation detailing a number of modest alterations that would cause plans to lose their grandfathered status, thus subjecting them to the new rules.

This is what led to many of the more than 4 million cancellation letters Americans have received across the country.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Why Signing Up For Obamacare With Healthcare.gov is Still a Security Risk

By Terence Grado.

As if the fumbled rollout of healthcare.gov wasn’t enough, it turns out that the site is also extremely susceptible to security breaches. At a recent congressional hearing over the health care law’s rollout, we found out that it could take a year to properly secure users’ personal information from potential theft.

David Kennedy, head of computer-security consulting company TrustedSec LLC, testified to Congress, saying, “There are actual, live vulnerabilities on the site now,” and that “when you develop a website, you develop it with security in mind. And it doesn’t appear to have happened this time.” In fact, the concern is so prevalent that when Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) asked Kennedy and two other cyber security experts if the site should be shut down until these issues were fixed, each replied “yes.”

These testimonies were provided just before the Department of Health and Human Services released a progress report highlighting the fixing of over 400 bugs and software improvements. However, the report never addressed any of the website’s security flaws.

Kennedy, who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon after the report was released, was still frustrated with their lack of focus on cyber security.

Read more from this story HERE.

Fed Judge Finds NSA Phone Surveillance Program Likely Unconstitutional Violation of 4th Amendment

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency program which collects information on nearly all telephone calls made to, from or within the United States is likely unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found that the program appears to violate the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. He also said the Justice Department had failed to demonstrate that collecting the information had helped to head off terrorist attacks.

Acting on a lawsuit brought by conservative legal activist Larry Klayman, Leon issued a preliminary injunction barring the NSA from collecting so-called metadata pertaining to the Verizon accounts of Klayman and one of his clients. However, the judge stayed the order to allow for an appeal.

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,” wrote Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush.

The preliminary injunction Leon granted Monday does not require him to make a definitive ruling on the constitutional questions in the case, but does take account of which side he believes is more likely to prevail.

Read more from this story HERE.

Global Warming Climate Alarmists’ Search for Proof Growing Cold

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Photo Credit: MCT ILLUSTRATION

Photo Credit: MCT ILLUSTRATION

Recall global warming hysteria’s halcyon days? Just 13 years ago, Dr. David Viner, senior scientist at Britain’s University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit, confidently predicted that, within a few years, winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event.”

“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.

Of course, that doesn’t mesh with what happened. This past October, the UK Express headlined, “Worst winter for decades: Record-breaking snow predicted for November.”

By the end of November, Brits were shivering, “as Britain faces snow, ice and plummeting temperatures,” reported the Mirror newspaper. “Most of Scotland has been issued severe weather warnings for ice, and temperatures are expected to remain low, causing problems with snow and ice across the country.” Winter yet lay ahead.

We shouldn’t pick on Great Britain. There is plenty of global warming foolishness here at home. Recall James Hansen, global warming guru whose alarmist campaign was underwritten by his NASA paycheck. By the 2020s, Hansen predicted in 1986, the U.S. average annual temperature would rise 9 degrees Fahrenheit, or more, and up to 3 degrees by the 2010s.

Read more from this story HERE.

Keystone Contractor’s Ties to Energy Groups Draw New Scrutiny

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A contractor that worked on the State Department’s environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline is a member of several energy industry groups that have urged the government to support the project — news that is sure to further opponents’ accusations of bias.

Climate activists have already complained about alleged conflicts of interest by the London-based firm Environmental Resources Management, a company that worked on a State Department draft study concluding that TransCanada’s Alberta-to-Texas pipeline would pose little risk to the environment. The department’s inspector general is also conducting a probe into possible conflicts of interest in the pipeline review process.

While a previous State Department investigation found no conflicts of interest, the latest information could further roil a debate that has already turned Keystone into a political headache for the Obama administration, a campaign issue for Republicans in 2014 and a source of tension between the U.S. and Canada.

Websites or promotional material of the Western Energy Alliance, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association all list ERM as a members. In addition, two top ERM staffers are listed on the boards of the Western States Petroleum Association — another coalition of energy interests that supports the Keystone pipeline network.

Greens had already seized on ERM’s membership in the powerful American Petroleum Institute, another supporter of the pipeline.

Read more from this story HERE.

GM CEO Rejects Repaying Feds for Bailout Losses

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Photo Credit: ERIC SEALS Detroit Free Press

Photo Credit: ERIC SEALS Detroit Free Press

The General Motors bailout may have cost the government $10 billion, but GM CEO Dan Akerson rejects any suggestion that the company should compensate for the losses.

He says Treasury officials took the same risk assumed by anyone who purchases stock.

“I would not accept the premise that this was a bad deal,” Akerson said during a question-and-answer session at the National Press Club in Washington. He also said the government’s $49.5-billion aid to GM helped save billions of dollars in tax revenue and government social services.

Akerson spoke in the wake of Treasury announcement last week that it sold its last shares in GM and Akerson’s decision to retire in January. The automaker’s board of directors named Mary Barra, the company’s first CEO, to succeed Akerson.

The speech also came as GM announced it is investing $1.2-billion in five U.S. plants, which Akerson said is a recognition that after 15 straight profitable quarters the automaker can’t rest on its success.

Read more from this story HERE.

Small Businesses Claim U.S. Government Stealing their Ideas

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

“They stole all my stuff and used taxpayer money to do it,” John Hnatio, a Maryland small business owner, says of the U.S. government.

Hnatio claims the government has put his company, FoodquestTQ, nearly out of business by stealing his firm’s software that was designed to be licensed to the Food and Drug Administration to monitor food safety.

The FDA “took our ideas, plagiarized my doctoral dissertation on which a patent was based, and then they infringed on our patent. The result was that it decimated our business,” he adds.

Hnatio says his company has been left hanging by a thread. He has had to fire employees and says that the remaining three, including himself, are receiving no salary and have been forced to go on unemployment insurance.

“I have never seen anything like it,” says Hnatio, who is a retired federal government official.

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: Ted Cruz 3rd ‘Most Influential’ World Leader, Behind Pope, Obama

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has had the best year of any Republican and virtually anyone in the world, ranking third in Rasmussen Report’s new poll of the of the “most influential” people in the world, behind Pope Francis and President Obama.

In the new poll, Cruz, who made headlines for trying to dismantle Obamacare, was the pick for the most influential of 11 percent. The pope was tops at 23 percent, Obama second at 21 percent.

Read more from this story HERE.

What You Don’t Know About Obamacare Could Cost You Your Identity

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

By Kurt Bardella.

Addressing questions regarding the millions of Americans struggling to access and navigate healthcare.gov, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney makes it sound so simple, telling a national audience that “you are better served by using a navigator…”

These “navigators” are on the front line of the implementation of the President’s health care plan.

You would expect that people placed in such an important position would have to undergo rigorous training to ensure the most comprehensive understanding of the Affordable Care Act, since they are the gateway to attaining care.

Unfortunately, a new report released by a Congressional Oversight Committee reveals a shocking level of mismanagement and incompetence that “induces fraudulent behavior and poses real threats to the safety of consumers’ personally identifiable information…”

In Dallas, “navigators” were caught on tape “encouraging applicants to lie on their health insurance application so the applicants could qualify for tax subsidies.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

House Report Ill Trained Obamacare Navigators Encouraging Fraud Jeopardizing Private Info

By Tony Lee.

The Obama administration decided that Obamacare Navigators, tasked with helping Americans enroll in a health insurance plan, would not undergo mandatory background checks. Now, in the ten weeks since the launch of Healthcare.gov, the ill-trained Navigators have put Americans’ sensitive health and tax information at risk.

Breitbart News has obtained a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report on the Obamacare Navigators that will be released Monday. It has found that Obamacare Navigators have been giving Americans misinformation and, in some cases, actively encouraging enrollees to commit fraud in order to raise their subsidies. To complicate matters further, there is no way for Americans to find out whether their Navigators are properly certified.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a Congressional hearing that it was “possible” for convicted felons to become Navigators. The report, titled Risks of Fraud and Misinformation with ObamaCare Outreach Campaign: How Navigator and Assister Program Mismanagement Endangers Consumers, concludes that is only one of many worries Americans should have about Navigators.

The Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), and HHS actually learned that “poorly-trained Navigators gave consumers incorrect information about the health care exchanges, violated HHS rules and procedures, and even encouraged applicants to commit tax fraud in some instances.” Moreover, this was learned from various news reports due to the complete lack of any internal oversight.

On November 21, the Obama administration briefed the Committee. Those in attendance included Gary Cohen, the Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO), and Mandy Cohen, Director of the Consumer Support Group at CCIIO.

Read more from this story HERE.