Gun Rights Groups Throwing their Weight Behind Efforts to Rein In NSA

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThe National Rifle Association (NRA) is among a number of groups that have signed on to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit against the secretive government agency.

The NRA has also endorsed bipartisan legislation proposed by House and Senate Judiciary committees that would end the NSA’s collection of bulk phone records.

Another Second Amendment advocate, the Gun Owners of America, expects to back NSA legislation as well.

“There are issues that, maybe at first blush, wouldn’t seem like a gun issue, but once you start looking closely at the issues, they really do affect our gun rights,” said Erich Pratt, the director of communications for Gun Owners of America.

Gun groups fear the NSA could have the authority under a section of the PATRIOT Act to collect information that could be used to create a federal gun database. They also fear the government could be spying on, or eventually targeting, gun owners.

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Senate Republicans Pushing for Federal Ban on 20-Week Abortions

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Photo Credit: APSenate Republicans, led by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, are pushing for a federal ban on abortions after the end of the 20th week of pregnancy.

Graham is expected to introduce the bill this upcoming week, reports The Washington Examiner, and the legislation will be a companion bill for the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, passed in the House earlier this year.

The planned legislation, though, will face many challenges, not only from the Democratic-controlled Senate, but from some Republicans like Sen. Mike Lee, Utah, who has concerns about Congress’ authority to regulate commerce as the law’s basis.

Back in 2003, a partial-birth abortion plan based on the Commerce Clause was upheld by the Supreme Court, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia emphasising that the “court’s abortion jurisprudence has no basis in the Constitution.”

Graham is up for re-election in South Carolina next year, so his push on the late-term abortion ban may help him fight challengers in the Republican primary. He holds the lead by 51 percent, according to current surveys, but several conservative groups, including the Senate Conservatives Fund, for one, have in an effort to oust the veteran senator.

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Scuba Divers to Monitor NYC Marathon

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Photo Credit: Richard Drew/APSunday’s New York City Marathon will be the best-protected race that runners can enter as a result of enhanced security measures and police presence on land and by sea, according to New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Helicopters, scuba divers, police boats, K-9 dogs with explosive-detection capabilities and hundreds of cameras are among the precautionary measures that will be deployed along the marathon route and throughout the city’s five boroughs.

Kelly said that while security planning for the event typically takes several months, the New York Police Department began preparing for this year’s marathon the day after the Boston Marathon bombing in April, which killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.

“Planning for the marathon is always a major undertaking and I can assure you this year was no exception,” Kelly said Friday at a security briefing on the marathon, which is expected to draw more than 45,000 runners.

Hundreds of cameras will be monitored in real-time by the NYPD’s Domain Awareness System, he said. The department has also located more than 1, 400 privately owned cameras along the 26.2-mile route that can be tapped for additional security footage if necessary.

NYPD scuba divers began sweeping the shoreline and surrounding infrastructure on Thursday “to safeguard all five bridges that the runners will cross on their way ultimately to Manhattan,” Kelly said.

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Pro-Amnesty Organizations Campaigning Heavily for Democrat Terry McAuliffe

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Photo Credit: APPro-amnesty organizations are campaigning heavily for Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and a close ally of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Virginia’s gubernatorial election on Tuesday.

“Latino groups are intensifying get-out-the-vote efforts in the Virginia governor’s race against a national backdrop of a congressional struggle over immigration reform,” NBC News Latino reports. “The groups said Thursday immigration reform is a critical issue on which candidates will be measured by Latino voters in the race.

As the groups work to have a strong showing of Latino turnout in Tuesday’s race, pressure has intensified on House Republicans to move immigration reform legislation in the waning days of this congressional year. That has helped keep the issue in the forefront as the Virginia candidates head to Election Day and groups try to turn out Latino voters in the state, home to the 16th largest population of Hispanic-eligible voters.”

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West Point Hosts First Marriage Ceremony for Homosexual Men

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Photo Credit: Mike Groll, APTwo West Point graduates were married Saturday in the military academy’s first wedding between two men.

Larry Choate III, class of 2009, married Daniel Lennox, class of 2007, before about 20 guests.

Choate, 27, taught Sunday school at the U.S. Military Academy’s Cadet Chapel and said he always thought of it as the place he would get married if he could.

West Point hosted two same-sex weddings of women in late 2012, more than a year after New York state legalized gay marriage. But Saturday’s wedding was the first time two men wed at West Point.

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Obama Adds Climate Change Initiatives to List of Executive Branch Power Grabs

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Photo Credit: NOAAThrough the stroke of a pen, President Obama on Friday used his executive powers to elevate and take control of climate change policies in an attempt to streamline sustainability initiatives – and potentially skirt legislative oversight and push a federal agenda on states.

The executive order establishes a task force of state and local officials to advise the administration on how to respond to severe storms, wildfires, droughts and other potential impacts of climate change. The task force includes governors of seven states — all Democrats — and the Republican governor of Guam, a U.S. territory. Fourteen mayors and two other local leaders also will serve on the task force.

All but three of those appointed are Democrats. The task force will look at federal money spent on roads, bridges, flood control and other projects. It ultimately will recommend how structures can be made more resilient to the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and warming temperatures.

“We’re going to need to get prepared. And that’s why this plan will also protect critical sectors of our economy and prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change that we cannot avoid,” Obama said last June, when he first launched a Climate Action Plan.

“States and cities across the country are already taking it upon themselves to get ready… And we’ll partner with communities seeking help to prepare for droughts and floods, reduce the risk of wildfires, protect the dunes and wetlands that pull double duty as green space and as natural storm barriers.”

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MI Gem Merchant Says he Should Get $25M Reward for bin Laden’s Death

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Photo Credit: APA Michigan gem merchant who claims he tipped the FBI on the location of Osama bin Laden’s secret compound in Pakistan eight years before his killing has hired a high-powered Chicago law firm to help him go after the $25 million reward offered for the terrorist’s capture.

Tom Lee, 63, of Grand Rapids, “accurately reported” to an FBI special agent in 2003 that bin Laden was hiding in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, according to a letter sent in August to FBI Director James Comey by an attorney for the Loevy & Loevy firm.

Lee, a U.S. citizen of Egyptian descent, said he learned of the complex’s location from a Pakistani intelligence agent who told him he had personally escorted bin Laden and his family from Peshawar to Abbottabad. The agent was a member of an anti-Al Qaeda family who had done business with Lee for decades, according to the letter.

Lee claimed he relayed the information to a U.S. customs agent who had previously worked with Lee on investigations into corruption in the international gem trade. Lee and the customs agent later met with an FBI agent who wrote a report of the interview, the letter stated.

Bin Laden was killed in May 2011 during a raid by U.S. special forces on a heavily fortified compound in Abbottabad.

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Snowden Asks Washington to Stop Treating Him Like a Traitor: “Speaking the Truth is Not a Crime”

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Photo Credit: The Guardian Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive American security contractor granted temporary asylum by Russia, has appealed to Washington to stop treating him like a traitor for revealing that the United States has been eavesdropping on its allies, a German politician who met with Mr. Snowden said on Friday.

Mr. Snowden made his appeal in a letter that was carried to Berlin by Hans-Christian Ströbele, a veteran member of the Green Party in the German Parliament. Mr. Ströbele said he and two journalists for German news outlets met with Mr. Snowden and a person described as his assistant — probably his British aide, Sarah Harrison — at an undisclosed location in or near Moscow on Thursday for almost three hours.

Mr. Ströbele had gone to Moscow to explore whether Mr. Snowden could or would testify before a planned parliamentary inquiry into the eavesdropping. Any arrangements for Mr. Snowden to testify would require significant legal maneuvering, as it seemed unlikely that he would travel to Germany for fear of extradition to the United States.

In his letter, Mr. Snowden, 30, also appealed for clemency. He said his disclosures about American intelligence activity at home and abroad, which he called “systematic violations of law by my government that created a moral duty to act,” have had positive effects.

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Food Stamp Funding Drops $5 Billion

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Photo Credit: Jay Pickthorn/The Argus Leader/APMillions of Americans will be expected to make do with less as of Friday, as $5 billion in cuts to the US food stamp program takes effect. The cuts to the program, formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), will pinch almost 48 million people and could be followed by an even bigger slash.

The cuts come as a four-year increase in funding to the food stamp program reaches its expiration date. Government support for the program had been increased in 2009, as part of the broad stimulus package designed to help strapped Americans piece back together what had been lost during the recession.

The food stamp cuts, scheduled to take effect on Nov. 1, are distinct from possible additional slashes to the program included in the farm bill – broad legislation covering America’s agriculture and nutrition policies, including the food stamp program. The House version of the bill calls for a reduction in spending on food stamps by $40 billion over the next decade. The Senate is proposing less-significant cuts of about $4 billion.

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US Auto Sales Extend Gains Despite Government Shutdown

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Photo Credit: AFP/Justin Sullivan The US auto industry extended its steady gains in October despite economic uncertainty caused by a government shutdown.

General Motors, Ford and Chrysler posted double digit rises from October 2012 sales while Japanese rival Toyota’s sales grew more modestly.

Automotive website Edmunds.com forecasts that total monthly industry sales will rise 12.7 percent over a year ago and reach an adjusted, annualized pace of 15.5 million vehicles once all automakers have reported.

Weekly data suggested that consumers “started to get jittery” towards the end of the 16-day political showdown, which saw hundreds of thousands of federal employees laid off with no certainty of being paid, said Edmunds analyst Jessica Caldwell.

But sales soon recovered when the government got back to work on October 17 and back pay was assured.

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