State Chemist Will Serve Time For Faking Thousands Of Drug Tests

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Photo Credit: Opposing Views Former Massachusetts state chemist Annie Dookhan pleaded guilty Friday to falsifying the results of tens and thousands of drug tests, leading to the false imprisonment — and the unjustified release — of tens of thousands charged with drug-related crimes.

Dookhan initially denied the charges before pleading guilty to 27 charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and tampering with evidence Friday, CS Monitor reported.

Dookhan admitted that she had filed false test results, “dry labbed,” or tested only a few in a batch of samples, and mixed drug samples, as well as lied under oath about her job qualifications.

The story presented to the court Friday was one of an overly ambitious woman and single mother of a disabled child who, despite the mitigating conditions of her sad circumstances, wreaked havoc on the Massachusetts justice system.

Judge Carol S. Ball, who delivered Dookhan’s sentence of three to five years in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston, said that “the consequences of her behavior, which she ought to have foreseen, have been nothing short of catastrophic.”

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State Confirms Security Breach To Health Care Exchange Website

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Photo Credit: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/GettyOfficials overseeing the Vermont Health Connect website confirmed Friday there was a security breach on the system last month in which one user got improper access to another user’s Social Security number and other data.

A report from state to federal officials overseeing the health insurance exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act said a consumer reported the incident with the Vermont Health Connect website on Oct. 17.

The consumer, whom officials would not identify, reported that he received in the mail — from an unnamed sender — a copy of his own application for insurance under the state exchange.

“On the back of the envelope was hand-written ‘VERMONT HEALTH CONNECT IS NOT A SECURE WEBSITE!’ This was also (written) on the back of the last page of the printed out application,” said the incident report.

The report was prepared by Greg Needle, privacy administrator with Vermont Health Connect, and filed with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Associated Press obtained it after a request under the state public records law to the Department of Vermont Health Access.

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An Appalling Betrayal of Imprisoned American Pastor Saeed Abedini

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Photo Credit: ACLJ.orgOn the night of November 23, 2013, the President of the United States left an American pastor, Saeed Abedini, behind.

The “deal” with Iran announced tonight by President Obama, which allegedly halts “part” of Iran’s nuclear program, allows Iran to enrich uranium and allows it to maintain a nuclear program in exchange for an easing of sanctions and humanitarian relief.

It is outrageous that the Obama Administration commenced these negotiations and concluded them without the release of Pastor Saeed – a U.S. citizen. In fact, the Administration has just confirmed that he was not even part of the negotiations, stating that “The P5+1 talks focused exclusively on nuclear issues.”

The Obama Administration did not volunteer this information; it was revealed only after a specific inquiry from Fox News.

For more than a year, Pastor Saeed has undergone torture at the hands of his Iranian captors, most recently being transferred to one of the most deadly prisons in the world. Yet instead of demanding the release of this innocent U.S. citizen as a precondition to any negotiations with Iran, the Obama Administration is relaxing sanctions and providing humanitarian relief, while getting nothing but more meaningless promises in return.

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Severe Winter Weather Slams Much of U.S.: “This is Not Texas Weather…It’s Alaska, or Idaho”

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The wicked wintry weather that pummeled the West Coast is now barreling across the country, threatening to ruin millions of holiday travel plans just before Thanksgiving.

More than 300 flights have already been canceled in the Dallas-Fort Worth area — not exactly a bastion for snow storms. Sleet and freezing rain will keep blanketing parts of the Southern Plains and Southern Rockies on Monday.

“It’s going to be so close to freezing, that’s when we’re anticipating it to be bad,” Sgt. Lonny Haschel of the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

And after the storm deluges parts of the South with rain Monday evening, it’ll start zeroing in on the Northeast, the National Weather Service said. And that could spell more travel nightmares.

It’s not just the bad timing that has travelers riled up. In many of the places, this kind of weather isn’t supposed to happen.”This is not Texas weather, man,” driver Ron Taylor told CNN affiliate KTVT. “This is Alaska, or Idaho.”

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Charlie Rangel Attacks Tea Party, says Obama Should Rule Like Dictator

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Photo Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty ImageAccording to Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., Tea Party Republicans want to destroy people in their districts, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did a good thing when he violated Senate rules to invoke the nuclear option, and Barack Obama should simply rule by decree, issuing executive orders for “everything,” Politicker reported Saturday.

“You know, the DREAM Act for the kids that came over here and didn’t know their home town, the president did that by executive order. What I did is I’ve taken out the language that he used and I’m gonna see why we can’t use executive orders for everything,” Rangel told NY1. “What’s he gonna do? Make the Republicans angry? They’re gonna get annoyed? They’re not gonna cooperate?”

Rangel — who once served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney under Robert F. Kennedy — also praised Harry Reid for violating Senate rules to invoke the nuclear option on filibusters against judicial nominees and wished he could do the same for legislation in the House.

He then slammed Tea Party Republicans for refusing to cooperate with Obama, and compared them to criminals.

“A police officer once told me when I was a kid that the worst criminal to deal with is one that doesn’t mind dying,” he said. “And if you take a look at what these Tea Party people have done–recognizing that there’s more sick and poor white folks then there is–but they still are resisting everything that the president wants to do so they can destroy the people in their district in terms of education and jobs, the Congress, the Republican name. And when we had the debt ceiling crisis, they were really prepared to let the United States of America fiscal policy to go in the tubes. How can you talk with people like this?”

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Obama Makes Room for Fundraisers, Golf in his Schedule Despite Obamacare Troubles

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque The bungled rollout of President Obama’s signature health care law might have kept the president away from Gettysburg, but it has not kept him off the links or away from the fundraising circuit.

Since the launch of the HealthCare.gov on October 1, Obama has gone golfing five times and attended ten fundraisers — with five more scheduled for the beginning of this week — while Obamacare’s favorability has hit all time lows.

And while President Obama’s schedule has been open for golf and fundraisers, he was unable to attend the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address Tuesday due to — as White House advisor Dan Pfeiffer put it – “this whole website thing that someone suggested might destroy the Dem Party.”

The problems affecting HealthCare.gov, however, did not stop Obama from golfing on Oct. 20, Oct. 27, Nov. 2, Nov. 9 or Nov. 17.

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Tea Party to Mitch McConnell: ‘You Cannot Win Without Us’

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Photo Credit: APA major GOP donor who told Breitbart News Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made disparaging remarks about the Tea Party movement and about Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) continues to stand by his original story after claims that the reports were not accurate.

This individual reported that on the Oct. 30 fundraising call American Crossroads’ Karl Rove and Steven J. Law held with McConnell, “McConnell specifically talked about Mike Lee by name, specifically talked about Ted Cruz by name, and he specifically talked about the Tea Party by name,” the donor told Breitbart News in response to a story Rove’s and McConnell’s teams have purported shows otherwise.

That story, published by Charlie Spiering at The Washington Examiner earlier on Friday, confirms that McConnell “criticized conservative groups who supported the plan to defund Obamacare” and that he also criticized those conservatives who “are now actively working to defeat him in Kentucky.” The article adds that McConnell “repeatedly mentioned the Senate Conservatives Fund by name.”

Spiering, who says he was exclusively provided a 27-minute audio file of the call, reports that McConnell did, as Breitbart News’ source said, talk about dealing with conservative “schoolyard bullies” by “punching them in the nose.” While the article states those specific remarks were made “explicitly” about the Senate Conservatives Fund, he also reports that on the call Senator McConnell “criticized” other “conservative groups who supported the plan to defund Obamacare.” However, the Tea Party is certainly the pre-eminent conservative group that spearheaded, along with Senators Cruz and Lee, the plan to defund Obamacare.

In response to the Washington Examiner’s report, Breitbart News’ source also noted that McConnell’s comments at the Senate Conservatives Fund were in a broader context of an attack on the movement.

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States Rejecting Obama’s ‘Fix’ Shows Plan Will Have Little Impact on Improving ObamaCare

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Photo Credit: Fox News Connecticut is the most recent state to reject President Obama’s plan to “fix” his signature health-care law after millions of Americas received policy cancellation notices — a trend that suggests the president’s proposed solution will have little impact on the issue.

At least eight others states — California, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — have rejected the president’s Nov. 14 proposal that insurance companies offer plans that don’t comply with ObamaCare requirements for at least a year. Connecticut decided Friday.

Though ObamaCare is federal law, governors and insurance commissioners must allow providers to make the exceptions because insurance is regulated differently in each state.

Obama in touting his sweeping health-care reform law before signing it in 2010 told Americans they could keep their existing insurance plans if they liked them.

However, many of those plans do not meet the law’s new standards, which has resulted in millions of cancellation notices being mailed out over the past few months and the president announcing his proposed solution.

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Conservative Groups That Backed Wisconsin Gov. Walker Appear Target of Secret Govt. Probe

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Photo Credit: APDozens of conservative groups that support Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker reportedly have been subpoenaed by a special prosecutor demanding donor lists and other documents pertaining to their backing of Walker’s union overhaul and recall fight.

The so-called “John Doe” investigation bars those subpoenaed from talking publicly.

But Eric O’Keefe, director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, told The Wall Street Journal recently that investigators have raided at least three homes and that he “wants the public to know what is going on,” despite the personal risk.

He also suggested the probe is having a chilling effect on conservative groups as Walker approaches a 2014 re-election effort.

He said the subpoenas, including the one he received in early October, “froze my communications and frightened many allies and vendors of the pro-taxpayer political movement in Wisconsin. … The process is the punishment.”

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Turning Off the Next Generation of Politicians

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Photo Credit: itupicturesDuring the 2012 presidential election, we conducted a national survey of more than 4,200 high school and college students. We asked about their attitudes toward politics and current events, their career aspirations and their political ambition. The results are stark. Only 11 percent of our survey respondents reported that, someday, when they were older, they might consider running for political office.

In fact, they’d rather do almost anything else.

In one set of questions, we presented these high school and college students with four career options — business owner, teacher, salesperson or mayor of a city or town — and asked which they would most like to be, assuming that each position paid the same amount of money. Nine out of 10 respondents chose a career other than mayor as their first choice. Nearly 40 percent reported that mayor would be their least-desired job.

We also asked which of the following higher-echelon jobs they found most appealing: business executive, lawyer, school principal or member of Congress. Serving as a member of Congress came in dead last, with just 13 percent of young people choosing it. It placed first on the least-desirable list.

The fact that young Americans do not want to run for office cannot be divorced from their perceptions of the political system, which could not be much worse. Eighty-five percent of our survey respondents did not think that elected officials want to help people; 79 percent did not consider politicians smart or hard-working; nearly 60 percent believed that politicians are dishonest; and fewer than 30 percent said they thought that candidates and elected leaders stand up for their convictions.

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