Death Penalty for Boston Bomber a Complicated Question

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Photo Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta, APWhen gang members Richard Tipton, Cory Johnson and James Roane were sentenced to death in 1993 for their roles in multiple murders, they took their places on federal death row, where they have remained for two decades.

A series of appeals and a more recent challenge to the lethal injection protocol used in federal executions have helped prolonged their lives in a place where — despite its designation — executions are rarely carried out.

The high-security wing at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., now represents an increasingly complicated backdrop for a decision Attorney General Eric Holder is set to make in the next several weeks on whether to pursue the death penalty in the federal government’s prosecution of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

There is little argument about the strength of the case against Tsarnaev, charged with 30 criminal counts in connection with the blasts that killed three and wounded more than 260 others. There are photographs of Tsarnaev allegedly planting explosives at the site of one of the bombings. Yet the government’s record in carrying out the death penalty is mixed at best, and there are conflicting views about whether the often-delayed penalty is an appropriate punishment if the 20-year-old defendant is convicted in the bombing case.

Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, only three offenders have been executed and none in the past 10 years.

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Obama’s Pick for Fed Chair Raises Brand-New Fears for U.S. Dollar

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Photo Credit: WNDRepublican lawmakers are balking at President Obama’s choice of Federal Reserve chairman, Janet Yellen, worried she will favor enhanced government intervention in the economy, including flooding the market with more dollars.

A review of her previous work finds she divined a theory that was a precursor to the current progressive campaign for the government to ensure “fair” pay to employees.

Yellen’s confirmation in the Democrat-controlled senate is all but a certainty after she was approved by the Senate Banking Committee 11 days ago.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., announced he plans to vote against Yellen, citing fears she will enact policies to the detriment of long-term economic growth.

“While Dr. Yellen is an accomplished individual, I will be voting against her nomination to chair the Fed because of her role as a lead architect in authoring monetary policies that threaten the short and long-term prospects of strong economic growth and job creation,” Rubio said in a statement.

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Report: How the US Gave Guns to Mexican Cartels

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Matt York

In September 2009, John Dodson, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was assigned to the ATF’s Phoenix office. What he found there shocked him. The bureau was encouraging gun dealers to sell weapons in bulk to known straw buyers, who would funnel those guns to Mexican drug cartels. Known as Operation Fast and Furious, it ended with the death of at least one American law enforcement officer. Dodson became a congressional whistleblower, and the investigation into the operation is ongoing. In this exclusive excerpt from his new book, “The Unarmed Truth,” Dodson explains how tragically inept Fast and Furious was.

‘It’s like the underwear gnomes,” my ATF colleague Lee Casa told me one time as we recounted the latest bizarre goings-on in Phoenix.

“What?” I asked.

“You ever watch ‘South Park’? There’s this episode where all the boys get their underwear stolen by these underwear gnomes. They track them down to get it back and one of them asks why they are stealing everyone’s underwear. The gnomes break out this PowerPoint and reveal their master plan: Phase One: Collect underpants . . . Phase Two: ? . . . Phase Three: Profit.”

“We’re doing the same thing,” he explained. “We know Phase One is ‘Walk guns’ and Phase Three is ‘Take down a big cartel!’ ” Both of us were laughing now; a more fitting and appropriate allegory could never be found. Casa concluded, “Just nobody can figure out what the f–k Phase Two is!”

What was happening did at times almost seem like a spoof. Letting guns “walk” was a tactic that I had never before seen or even contemplated. It simply wasn’t done.

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Sandy Hook Spurs States’ Mental Health Push

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Photo Credit: APIn the anguished days following the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, President Barack Obama called for a renewed national focus on mental health.

His plea went nowhere in Congress. But states from South Carolina to Oregon have taken up the challenge.

At least 37 states have increased spending on mental health in the year since Adam Lanza shot dead 20 children, six school employees and his mother in Newtown, Conn. It’s not just about money, either. States are experimenting with new — and sometimes controversial — ways to raise awareness about psychological distress, to make treatment more accessible for children and adults and to keep firearms away from those struggling with mental illness.

Nevada, for instance, is launching a pilot program to screen children in secondary schools for mental health concerns. Texas not only boosted mental health funding by a record $300 million over two years, but required public school teachers and students to be trained in recognizing mental illness. Utah will require school districts to offer parents an annual seminar on mental health, including depression and suicide. Colorado established a 24-hour crisis hotline.

The new initiatives don’t make up for the more than $4 billion cut from state mental health budgets during the lean years of the recent recession. And they weren’t universal: A half-dozen states cut funding on mental health this year, including Louisiana, Maine and North Carolina.

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Obamacare Website-Maker Runs Failed Army Human Terrain System Program

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Larry DowningThe company that earned the no-bid contract to build the failed Obamacare website also runs the Army’s disastrous Human Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has been accused of fraud, sexual harassment and racism.

The much-maligned Human Terrain System (HTS), launched in 2007, sends academics from social science fields like anthropology and linguistics into war zones to help soldiers understand the local population. The Army spent $58 million on the program in 2013, down from $114 million in 2011.

CGI Federal, the U.S. arm of the Canadian CGI Group and the designer of the failed Obamacare website, attempted a failed turnaround in HTS during the Obama administration. The young company, which employs Michelle Obama’s former Princeton classmate and Christmas guest Toni Townes-Whitley as a top executive, received eight figures from the Army in 2013 for the project, records reveal.

Oberon Associates, a CGI Federal subsidiary that joined the CGI portfolio in 2010, earned the $227 million contract to run HTS in 2011 in a deal that insiders said reeked of cronyism due to former HTS director Colonel Sharon Hamilton’s rumored friendship with an Oberon co-founder.

The HTS contract was one of CGI’s first big gets in the United States, as CGI Federal was only formed to bring the CGI Group into the federal contracting business in 2009.

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NYC Train Derailment Kills 4, Hurts More Than 60

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Photo Credit: AP/Craig RuttleBy Associated Press.

A New York City commuter train rounding a riverside curve derailed Sunday, killing four people and injuring more than 60 in a crash that threw some riders from toppling cars and swiftly raised questions about whether excessive speed, mechanical problems or human error could have played a role.

Some of the roughly 150 passengers on the early morning Metro-North train from Poughkeepsie to Manhattan were jolted from sleep around 7:20 a.m. to screams and the frightening sensation of their compartment rolling over on a bend in the Bronx where the Hudson and Harlem rivers meet. When the motion stopped, all seven cars and the locomotive had lurched off the rails, and the lead car was only inches from the water. It was the latest accident in a troubled year for the nation’s second-biggest commuter railroad, which had never experienced passenger death in an accident in its 31-year history.

Joel Zaritsky was dozing as he traveled to a dental convention aboard the train. He woke up to feel his car overturning several times.

“Then I saw the gravel coming at me, and I heard people screaming,” he told The Associated Press, holding his bloody right hand. “There was smoke everywhere and debris. People were thrown to the other side of the train.”

In their efforts to find passengers, rescuers shattered windows, searched nearby woods and waters and used pneumatic jacks and air bags to peer under wreckage. Crews planned to bring in cranes during the night to right the overturned cars on the slight chance anyone might still be underneath, National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener said.

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Photo Credit: Fox News Victims of deadly NY train derailment identified as NTSB seeks cause of accident

By Fox News.

Authorities on Sunday night identified the four people killed in an early morning train derailment as federal authorities say they are just beginning to search into what caused the accident.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department identified the deceased as Ahn Kisook, 35, of Queens, N.Y., Donna L. Smith, 54, of Newburgh, N.Y., James G. Lovell, 58, of Cold Spring, N.Y. and James M. Ferrari, 59, of Montrose, N.Y. More than 60 others were injured in the derailment, at least 11 critically.

Federal authorities said in an afternoon press conference they will examine factors ranging from the track condition to the crew’s performance. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the track did not appear to be faulty, leaving speed as a possible culprit for the crash.

The speed limit on the curve is 30 mph, compared with 70 mph in the area approaching it, National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener said. Weener said investigators had not yet spoken to the train conductor, who was among the injured.

Authorities did not yet know how fast the train was traveling but had found a data recorder, he said. One passenger, Frank Tatulli, told WABC-TV that the train appeared to be going “a lot faster” than usual as it approached the sharp curve near the Spuyten Duyvil station.

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Wage Strikes Planned at Fast-Food Outlets

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Photo Credit: Fabrizio Costantini for NYTSeeking to increase pressure on McDonald’s, Wendy’s and other fast-food restaurants, organizers of a movement demanding a $15-an-hour wage for fast-food workers say they will sponsor one-day strikes in 100 cities on Thursday and protest activities in 100 additional cities.

As the movement struggles to find pressure points in its quest for substantially higher wages for workers, organizers said strikes were planned for the first time in cities like Charleston, S.C.; Providence, R.I.; and Pittsburgh.

The protests have expanded greatly since November 2012, when 200 fast-food workers engaged in a one-day strike at more than 20 restaurants in New York City, the first such walkout in the history of the nation’s fast-food industry.

“There’s been pretty huge growth in one year,” said Kendall Fells, one of the movement’s main organizers. “People understand that a one-day strike is not going to get them there. They understand that this needs to continue to grow.”

The movement, which includes the groups Fast Food Forward and Fight for 15, is part of a growing union-backed effort by low-paid workers — including many Walmart workers and workers for federal contractors — that seeks to focus attention on what the groups say are inadequate wages.

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New Low for Congress: Just 6 Percent Approve, Finally Lower than Car Salespeople

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner The public’s approval rating for Congress has finally hit rock bottom: For the first time, America has a higher opinion of car salespeople.

A new Economist/YouGov.com poll put the approval rating of Congress at a historic low of 6 percent. A December 2012 Gallup poll comparing Congress’ approval ratings to other occupations had car salespeople at the bottom at 8 percent and Congress at 10 percent. Now Congress is the cellar dweller.

The nation’s bad opinion of Congress, impacted by inaction, budget fights and the battle over the filibuster, has also spread to Senate leaders…

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Lesbian Granted Same-Sex Marriage in Calif. Wants to Force Miss. to Grant Her Divorce

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Photo Credit: Lost Albatross/flickrLauren Beth Czekala-Chatham wants to force Mississippi, one of the America’s most conservative states, to recognize her same-sex marriage. She hopes to do so by getting a divorce.

She and Dana Ann Melancon traveled from Mississippi to San Francisco to get married in 2008. The wedding was all Czekala-Chatham hoped it would be, the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, dreams for a promising future. She wrote the vows herself.

The couple bought a house together in Walls, a town of about 1,100 in northern Mississippi’s DeSoto County in June 2009. But the marriage was tumultuous and, like so many others, it didn’t last.

Czekala-Chatham, a 51-year-old credit analyst and mother of two teenage sons from an earlier straight marriage, filed for divorce in chancery court in September. She wants to force Mississippi to recognize the same-sex marriage for the purpose of granting the divorce.

“It’s humiliating to know that you spend that money, that time to be in a committed relationship and for it to end. I mean, that hurts. But then to be in a state that doesn’t recognize you as a human being, or recognize you for who you are, for who you love, it’s hard,” Czekala-Chatham said during an interview at her current home in Hernando. “I’m not treated like the neighbors next door. I’m treated like a second-class citizen.”

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Man Dies After Parking lot Altercation Following Chiefs-Broncos Game

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Photo Credit: APAuthorities say three people have been taken into custody for questioning after a man died in the parking lot of Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City after the Chiefs lost to the Denver Broncos Sunday night.

Kansas City police spokesman Darin Snapp told The Associated Press that the incident was being treated as a homicide but that no arrests had been made.

Kansas City Police Chief Darryl Forte said the incident did not involve any “fan rivalry.”

Police tell Fox4KC.com a man allegedly found a stranger in his car outside of the stadium after the game, and a struggle ensued. The person found in the car, described as a white man in his mid-20s, collapsed during the struggle and was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His identity has not been released.

Snapp told the AP the man had his son with him when he returned to his vehicle and that the boy — whose age was not immediately known — had run for help when the struggle began.

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