Senator Says Obama Administration Secretly Suspended Military Aid to Egypt

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. government has decided privately to act as if the military takeover of Egypt was a coup, temporarily suspending most forms of military aid, despite deciding not to announce publicly a coup determination one way or the other, according to a leading U.S. senator.

In the latest example of its poorly understood Egypt policy, the Obama administration has decided to temporarily suspend the disbursement of most direct military aid, the delivery of weapons to the Egyptian military, and some forms of economic aid to the Egyptian government while it conducts a broad review of the relationship. The administration won’t publicly acknowledge all aspects of the aid suspension and maintains its rhetorical line that no official coup determination has been made, but behind the scenes, extensive measures to treat the military takeover of Egypt last month as a coup are being implemented on a temporary basis.

The office of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the head of the Appropriations State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, told The Daily Beast on Monday that military aid to Egypt has been temporarily cut off.

“[Senator Leahy’s] understanding is that aid to the Egyptian military has been halted, as required by law,” said David Carle, a spokesman for Leahy.

The administration’s public message is that $585 million of promised aid to the Egyptian military in fiscal 2013 is not officially on hold, as technically it is not due until Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, and no final decisions have been made.

Read more from this story HERE.

$2,001,093,000,000: Fed’s Ownership of U.S. Debt Breaks $2T for First Time

BEN BERNANKE(CNSNews.com) – The Federal Reserve’s holdings of publicly traded U.S. Treasury securities—federal government debt—pushed above $2 trillion for the first time last week, hitting approximately $2,001,093,000,000 as of Aug. 14, according to the Fed’s latest weekly accounting.

The Fed’s accounting for the previous week showed that it had owned approximately $1,993,375,000,000 in U.S. Treasury securities as of Aug. 7.

Back on Dec. 31, 2008, before the Fed began its strategy of “Quantitative Easing,” the Fed owned only $475.9 billion in U.S. Treasury securities. Since then, the Fed’s holdings of U.S. government debt have more than quadrupled.

Launched in 2009, the Fed’s Quantitative Easing (QE) efforts have attempted to stimulate the economy.

“Under QE,” explains a February 2013 Congressional Research Service report, “the Fed attempts to lower long-term Treasury and MBS [mortgage-backed security] yields directly through purchases that drive down their yields, in the hope that lower Treasury and MBS yields will indirectly filter through to reductions in other private long-term yields. (Lower Treasury yields do not directly stimulate economic activity—they are only stimulative if other yields fall as a result.) This could occur because Treasury securities are considered a ‘benchmark’ against which other private securities are priced, so that other securities are automatically repriced when Treasuries are repriced (although the change is unlikely to be one-to-one).”

Read more from this story HERE.

Al Jazeera America Promises a More Sober Look at the News

Photo Credit: Suzanne DeChillo

Photo Credit: Suzanne DeChillo

Fourteen hours of straight news every day. Hard-hitting documentaries. Correspondents in oft-overlooked corners of the country. And fewer commercials than any other news channel.

It sounds like something a journalism professor would imagine. In actuality, it is Al Jazeera America, the culmination of a long-held dream among the leaders of Qatar, the Middle Eastern emirate that already reaches most of the rest of the world with its Arabic- and English-language news channels. The new channel, created specifically for consumers in the United States, will join cable and satellite lineups on Tuesday afternoon.

Al Jazeera America is the most ambitious American television news venture since Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes started the Fox News Channel in 1996. It faces some of the same obstacles that Fox eventually glided over — including blanket skepticism about whether distributors, advertisers and viewers will give it a chance. But that is where the parallels to other channels end, because Al Jazeera America is going against the grain of seemingly every trend in television news.

“Viewers will see a news channel unlike the others, as our programming proves Al Jazeera America will air fact-based, unbiased and in-depth news,” said Ehab Al Shihabi, the channel’s acting chief executive, on a news conference call last week. He was explicit about what will be different, saying, “There will be less opinion, less yelling and fewer celebrity sightings.”

Mr. Al Shihabi and other Al Jazeera representatives say proprietary research supports their assertions that American viewers want a PBS-like news channel 24 hours a day. Originally the new channel was going to have an international bent; now its overseers emphasize how much American news it will cover and how many domestic bureaus it will have, which some see as an effort to appease skeptics.

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Study: NY Welfare Recipients Eligible for More in Benefits than Teachers Earn

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

A new study finds that a New York mother of two is eligible for $38,004 in welfare benefits–a sum more than the annual salary of a New York entry-level school teacher.

The study, conducted by the CATO Institute, says in many states welfare pays better than work. Topping the list of wage-equivalent benefits for a mother and two children was Hawaii at $60,590. Idaho came in last with $11,150.

The study found that 33 states and the District of Columbia offer welfare benefits that pay recipients more than an $8-an-hour job would. Twelve states and the District of Columbia offer welfare packages that pay better than a $15-an-hour job does.

Read more from this story HERE.

Unpublished CRS Memo: Obama Administration Has Missed Half Of Obamacare’s Legally Imposed Implementation Deadlines

Cong Library - Main Reading RoomIn recent months, President Obama and his subordinates have waived or delayed a number of Obamacare’s notable features, such as the law’s employer mandate, and its procedures for protecting taxpayers from fraud and identity theft.

Earlier this month, in that context, I obtained a heretofore-unpublished memorandum from the Congressional Research Service. The CRS, Congress’ non-partisan in-house think tank, compiled 82 deadlines that the Affordable Care Act mandates upon the first three years of its own implementation. Remarkably, it turns out that the White House has missed half of the deadlines legally required by the ACA. And some of those deadlines remain unmet to this day.

The new CRS memo, dated June 5, 2013, is an addendum to a series of previous reports in which the agency examined missed deadlines during the law’s first two years. The CRS excluded from its analysis deadlines that don’t reflect on the administration’s competence; for example, as states expand Medicaid, the federal spending associated with those expansions occurs more or less automatically. Deadlines that the law imposes on non-federal government actors, like state governments and private companies, were also excluded.

41 out of 82 deadlines missed by the administration.

Read more from this story HERE.

Regulation Nation: Obama Expands Regulatory State

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

President Obama has overseen a dramatic expansion of the regulatory state that will outlast his time in the White House.

The reach of the executive branch has advanced steadily on his watch, further solidifying the power of bureaucrats who churn out regulations that touch nearly every aspect of American life and business.

Experts debate whether federal rule-making has accelerated under Obama, but few dispute that Washington, for better or worse, is reaching deeper than ever before into the workings of society.

“It would be difficult for anyone to pretend that this isn’t a high-water mark in terms of regulation,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office who now heads the American Action Forum.

Obama famously signaled his intent to use the machinery of government to further his policy goals after the 2010 elections, declaring: “Where Congress won’t act, I will.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Staggering: Mich. Family Violently Targeted after Standing Against Teacher who Molested their 8th Grade Son

Photo Credit: WNEM-TV

Photo Credit: WNEM-TV

The Janczewski family is fighting the local school district in Rose, Michigan after it emerged that a male teacher molested their 8th grade son and then — unbelievably — six other teachers spoke out against the 15-30 year sentence the man received.

“Neal has plead (sic) guilty for his one criminal offense but he is not a predator,” Harriet Coe reportedly wrote. “This was an isolated incident. He understands the severity of his action and is sincere in his desire to make amends…”

John Janczewski, the father of the victim, spoke on the Glenn Beck radio program Monday about all that has happened to his family since the horrific molestation by now-former Rose City Middle School teacher Neal Erickson came to light. He said he and his wife have been threatened and attacked for speaking out against the teachers.

“At one thirty in the morning on a Saturday, I was awoken to a bomb sound going off,” Janczewski said, choking back emotion. “I went to the window to find my garage was on fire and engulfed in flames, my camper and the side of my house…If I wouldn’t have woken up, we could’ve all died.”

“Whoever’s done this has no remorse,” he told the Ogemaw County Herald earlier. “They have no soul.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Police Reportedly Say Teen Shot Australian Student in Oklahoma for the ‘Fun Of It’ (+video)

Photo Credit: Sky News

Photo Credit: Sky News

By Fox News

One of three teen suspects accused of gunning down an Australian student in Oklahoma who was visiting the US on a baseball scholarship said the killing was done for the “fun of it,” police reportedly said.

Chris Lane, 23, was jogging along a road in Duncan, Okla., after visiting his girlfriend on Friday when he was shot in the back, Sky News reports.
A woman tried CPR and paramedics arrived on scene, but Lane was pronounced dead an hour later.

“He apparently was jogging. He went by a residence where these three boys were, they picked him as a target, they went out and got in a vehicle and followed him,” Duncan Police Department Chief Danny Ford told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, according to AFP.

“[They] came up from behind and basically shot him in the back with a small caliber weapon, then sped away,” Ford added.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Australian Student ‘Shot For Fun’ By US Teens

Chris Lane, 23, was jogging in the small town of Duncan in Oklahoma last Friday, after visiting his girlfriend Sarah Harper, when he was shot in the back and left to die.

“He went by a residence where these three boys were, they picked him as a target, they went out and got in a vehicle and followed him,” said Danny Ford, chief of Duncan Police Department.

“(They) came up from behind and basically shot him in the back with a small calibre weapon, then sped away.”

Witnesses saw him stumble across the road and collapse in the gutter.

A woman tried CPR, and paramedics were quickly on the scene, but the student was pronounced dead an hour later.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Administration Asks Supreme Court to Allow Warrantless Cellphone Searches

obama_shreds_constitutionIf the police arrest you, do they need a warrant to rifle through your cellphone? Courts have been split on the question. Last week the Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to resolve the issue and rule that the Fourth Amendment allows warrantless cellphone searches.

In 2007, the police arrested a Massachusetts man who appeared to be selling crack cocaine from his car. The cops seized his cellphone and noticed that it was receiving calls from “My House.” They opened the phone to determine the number for “My House.” That led them to the man’s home, where the police found drugs, cash and guns.

The defendant was convicted, but on appeal he argued that accessing the information on his cellphone without a warrant violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Earlier this year, the First Circuit Court of Appeals accepted the man’s argument, ruling that the police should have gotten a warrant before accessing any information on the man’s phone.

The Obama Administration disagrees…

Read more from this story HERE.

Hillary Throws out the Tattered Race Card to Scare Up Support for her Tattered Record

Photo Credit: Irish Central

Photo Credit: Irish Central

With no real accomplishments as Secretary of State and much to defend while she occupied that position, Hillary Clinton signaled her upcoming presidential campaign strategy in a grand opening speech in San Francisco last week.

She threw down the dog eared and quite worn out Democrat hole card of racist scare tactics…..again.

If Hillary actually had something to offer besides being a woman with a burning ambition to be president, she would have featured it in her first unofficial campaign speech….

I asked Richard Grenell, Fox News foreign policy expert, for a professional opinion on Hilary Clintons’ four year tenure as Secretary of State:

“As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton avoided dealing with all of the primary U.S. national security issues. Her four year tenure was unimpressive and disappointing. She failed to lead the U.S. in confronting the Syria crisis, the Iranian nuclear issue, the North Korean nuclear advancements and every other difficult foreign policy issue the U.S. was dealing with. It was as if Hillary calculated that doing nothing as Secretary of State would allow her to build her resume and avoid controversy. It was a selfish political move designed for personal gain.”

As it turned out, Hillary’s first speech was designed to inflame paranoia in the black community by criticizing the recent Supreme Court decision that struck down key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. As if somehow, this decision would open the door for states to take the right to vote away from black voters…As if it is something these states have been licking their chops to do.

But of course Hillary knows this decision has nothing to do with taking voting rights away from black voters, but has everything to do with ensuring there is integrity at the American ballot box, by requiring valid identification when voting or registering to vote.

But when did Hillary ever let truth get in the way of her agenda?

Black voter participation has risen dramatically since 1996, in spite of increasing amount of states tightening up their voter ID laws and there is NO evidence of black voter suppression….. If there was it would have been front page news.

No one is trying to suppress the black vote, the pure reason behind requiring voter ID that every civilized democratic nation in the world has, is to ensure the integrity of the system.

If the past is any predictor of future events, look for Hillary’s campaign to be negative and divisive, it’s not pretty and it is not good for the country, but it is effective. If your record is one of disastrous foreign policy, full of scandal and obfuscation, then you take the focus off of you and throw out the red herrings.

Look for Hillary to exploit the race card and create fear in her base of special interests. We will even watch her slowly morph into different dialects as she exploits old fears. See Hillarys Selma speech

But Hillary’s going to have a slugfest ahead as old scandals erupt and new ones emerge. You can say a lot about the Clintons, but they have always been scandal plagued. Where there’s smoke there is going to be fire.

Even left leaning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a scathing article on the unfettered greed exposed by the revelations in the Clinton Foundation. See article.

This just might signal the first crack in the coronation plan Hillary/Bill have on the White House.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.