Families of Newtown Shooting Victims to Receive $281,000 Each

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Photo Credit: APFamilies of the 26 children and educators killed in the Connecticut school shooting last year will receive $281,000 each under a final plan, released Wednesday, for dividing up $7.7 million in donations.

The families of 12 surviving children who witnessed the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School will each get $20,000. Two staff members who were injured will get $75,000 each.

The Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation released the final plan after the draft proposal by a distribution committee of the foundation was recommended last week. The foundation’s board approved the plan Monday.

“The board wishes to express its appreciation for the thorough and thoughtful efforts of the distribution committee,” foundation Chairman Charles Herrick said.

Retired U.S. District Court Judge Alan Nevas, the committee chairman, thanked Kenneth Feinberg for his advice on how to allocate the $7.7 million to the 40 families.

Read more from this story HERE.

FBI Orders the State of Florida Medical Examiner to Keep Boston Bombing Friend’s Autopsy Secret

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Photo Credit: APA Florida medical examiner’s office said Tuesday that the FBI has ordered the office not to release its autopsy report of a Chechen man fatally shot by a Boston FBI agent in May because of the federal agency’s active internal investigation into his death.

The medical examiner’s office said it completed the autopsy report on Ibragim Todashev, a friend of suspected Boston Marathon bomber c, on July 8 and that the report was “ready for release.” The agent shot and killed Todashev on May 22 in his Orlando apartment during an interrogation related to the Boston Marathon bombings.

“The FBI has informed this office that the case is still under active investigation and thus not to release the document,” Tony Miranda, forensic records coordinator for Orange and Osceola counties in Orlando, said in a letter to the media today. Miranda said state law bars his office from releasing the report if an criminal investigation is ongoing.

The FBI and the Justice Department are conducting an internal inquiry into the shooting, but critics have called for an independent inquiry, questioning the blanket of secrecy surrounding the case.

The FBI and the Massachusetts State Police sought out Todashev after the Marathon bombings, but have refused to release details of the shooting. Media reports have provided conflicting accounts: Some said Todashev attacked the agent with a blade during an interrogation, while others said Todashev was unarmed. Another said he lunged at the agent with a metal pole or a broomstick.

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Broad Coalition of Gun, Drug, Privacy Groups Sue NSA, FBI Over Surveillance while Snowden Files for Asylum

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Photo Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPAPrivacy groups led by EFF sue to stop NSA and FBI electronic surveillance

By Associated Press. Rights activists, church leaders and drug and gun rights advocates found common ground and filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the federal government to halt a vast National Security Agency electronic surveillance program.

The lawsuit was filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represents the unusually broad coalition of plaintiffs, and seeks an injunction against the NSA, Justice Department, FBI and directors of the agencies.

Filed in federal court in San Francisco, it challenges what the plaintiffs describe as an “illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance.”

The suit came after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked details about NSA surveillance programs last month, revealing a broad US intelligence program to monitor Internet and telephone activity to ferret out terror plots.

Snowden, who has been charged with spying and theft of government property, has spent the past three weeks in the Moscow airport transit zone. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AFPSnowden to stay in Moscow airport for now: lawyer

By Maria Antonova. US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden will stay in the transit zone of the Moscow airport where he has been holed up for three weeks while Russian authorities process his asylum request, a lawyer helping him said Tuesday.

Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer who helped Snowden file an application for asylum in Russia earlier Tuesday, told AFP the fugitive former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor was happy with his treatment at the airport.

“While all procedural questions are being decided, he will remain in the transit zone of the airport,” Kucherena told AFP in central Moscow when asked if Snowden would remain at Sheremetyevo airport until the asylum request was approved.

He confirmed that the asylum procedure could take up to three months, although a shorter period is theoretically possible.

Kucherena said he met Snowden at the airport on Tuesday to file the asylum request, with a translator the only other person present. Read more from this story HERE.

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Sen. Graham suggests US boycott Winter Olympics in Russia over Snowden

By Jeremy Herb, Julian Pecquet and Justin Sink. President Obama should consider boycotting the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia if the Cold War-era foe gives asylum to Edward Snowden, Sen. Lindsey Graham told The Hill on Tuesday.

“I would. I would just send the Russians the most unequivocal signal I could send them,” Graham (R-S.C.) said when asked about the possibility of a boycott.

“It might help, because what they’re doing is outrageous,” he said. “We certainly haven’t reset our relationship with Russia in a positive way. At the end of the day, if they grant this guy asylum it’s a breach of the rule of law as we know it and is a slap in the face to the United States.”

nowden, who has been charged with espionage for leaking details about two National Security Agency programs that collected information about U.S. telephone calls and international Internet usage, officially filed a request for temporary asylum in Russia on Tuesday. He pledged to abide by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands that he stop leaking information that could damage the United States.


Graham is the first senator to suggest a link between the Olympics and Snowden, who has been holed up in a Moscow airport for weeks. Read more from this story HERE.

Gang of 8 Senators Join With Multinational Corporations to Target Tea Party House Members Opposing Amnesty

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Photo Credit: APBy John Bresnahan, Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer. Big Business, Senate Republicans and Democrats backing immigration reform have a target in their crosshairs: House Republicans.

Senators like John McCain (R-Ariz), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) met with tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Intel, and pro reform groups like FWD.us to discuss a coordinated campaign to target more than 100 House Republicans on reforming the nation’s immigration laws when they are at home in their districts over the next month, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

Graham suggested getting people to target Republicans at town hall meetings. Schumer said he wanted pastors giving sermons about the need for immigration reform.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), his former House colleague, should bring a negotiated immigration compromise to the floor even if it doesn’t have the support of the majority of Republicans, according to sources present.

McCain urged the group to push for the Senate bill by discussing its component parts — but not mentioning the overall bill. Read more from this story HERE.

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Amnesty Bill Will Put Citizens in Direct Competition With Illegal Aliens for Student Loans, Other Federal Benefits

By Aaron Klein. American citizens may soon find themselves competing with illegal aliens to secure government student loans and federal work-study assistance.

A WND review of the Senate’s immigration reform bill finds the legislation allows illegal aliens who are granted provisional status and who initially entered the United States before reaching 16 years of age to secure both federal student loans and federal work-study programs.

The provisional citizens would still need to meet the academic requirements necessary to obtain the aid.

The discovery is contrary to claims by proponents of the immigration reform bill who have repeatedly insisted the newly legalized residents will not be eligible for public funds.

The student financial assistance is not the only public benefits allowable under the legislation. Read more from this story HERE.

Bradley Manning Trial: Defense Counsel Ask How Passing Info to Journalist is “Aiding and Abetting the Enemy”?

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Photo Credit: APThe defence team representing Bradley Manning, the US soldier who leaked reams of state secrets to WikiLeaks, has made one last attempt to persuade the judge presiding over his court martial to dismiss the most serious charge against him: that he “aided the enemy”.

Manning’s civilian lawyer David Coombs said that to convict the army private of such a severe offence would set an “extremely bad precedent”. It would place US society on a “very slippery slope, of basically punishing people for getting information out to the press.”

Addressing the judge in a military court in Fort Meade, Coombs said that “no case has ever been prosecuted under this type of theory: that an individual, by the nature of giving information to a journalistic organisation, would then be subject to” a charge of “aiding the enemy”. Conviction of such an office would bring “a hammer down on any whistleblower or anybody who wants to put information out”.

The lawyer’s comments were recorded by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which is employing court stenographers during the Manning trial as a way of overcoming the high level of official secrecy that surrounds the case.

The “aiding the enemy” charge has become the seminal battle in Manning’s prosecution, with the US government, in its determination to come down hard on official leakers, ranged against advocates of freedom of information. Under the terms of the charge, Manning is accused of having given valuable intelligence to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and its affiliate groups simply by dint of having leaked documents that were then posted by WikiLeaks on the internet.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hispanic Networks Granted Exclusive Interviews With Obama But Fail to Ask Even One Question About Zimmerman

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Photo Credit: qnrLeading Hispanic television networks Univision and Telemundo were granted two interviews apiece with President Obama today, but not one interviewer asked the president a question about the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, according to transcripts and sources familiar with the interviews.

The four interviews were intended to focus on immigration reform, but the absence of any inquiry related to the high-profile court case surprised even the White House…

Television industry executives also expressed surprise: “It’s unbelievable that any journalist with access to the President this week wouldn’t ask the first African-American president about his reaction to the verdict,” said one D.C.-based executive.

Instead, the interviewers focused on immigration reform, giving President Obama the opportunity to tout the economic benefits of reform and to criticize House Republicans for opposing the immigration bill on political grounds.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul, Ted Cruz Set Off GOP Scramble on Military Sex Assault

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Photo Credit: APSenate Republicans scrambled for cover Tuesday after Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz partnered with a budding bipartisan coalition pushing the Pentagon to overhaul how it handles military sexual assault cases.

GOP lawmakers said they planned to quickly schedule a closed-door conference meeting to hear out the two tea party firebrands on their decision to cosponsor legislation removing the chain of command from military prosecutions, a measure the Pentagon opposes.

Republican leaders also will give Sen. Kelly Ayotte the floor at the meeting to explain an alternative approach adopted last month by the Armed Services Committee. The alternative also aims to reduce the number of unreported sexual assault cases – estimated around 23,000 last year – without stripping commanders of their authority to convene a court martial.

Several Republican lawmakers, including the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee Sen. Jim Inhofe and the panel’s former chairman, Sen. John McCain, are supporting the bill that passed out of committee…

Paul and Cruz are no strangers in pushing their Republican colleagues into uncomfortable terrain. Just look at what the Kentucky freshman did in March in staging a 13-hour filibuster over drone strikes on U.S. soil.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mark Levin Proposes Article V Constitutional Convention, Intended as End-Run Around Federal Tyranny

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[On his radio show this week, Mark] Levin previewed an argument under Article Five of the United States Constitution which expresses how the Constitution can be changed through the amendment process by using the traditional passage of a proposed amendment by two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate; then on to the several states for ratification. Once three-fourths of the states have ratified the proposed amendment, the approved Amendment becomes part of our United States Constitution.

What Levin also said was that the States could also propose a convention to add a specific amendment or reject a current amendment by calling an Amendment Convention. This convention would have no bearing on the existing framework of the Constitution, but would only affect the addition or subtraction of an amendment at hand.

Levin reported that under Article V of the Constitution, two-thirds of the several states could form a convention on their own through actions initiated through their own state legislatures. Once an amendment is successfully proposed, it could be ratified by approval of three-fourths of the legislatures of the several states, and then imparted into the Constitution.

The Founders placed this alternative method of amending the Constitution as an end-around the possible tyranny of an all-powerful federal government. The Founders knew the federal leviathan could never be completely trusted with policing itself and therefore gave ultimate authority to the states to make changes when they deemed it necessary.

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World Trade Center Owners in Court Trying to Collect Billions from Airline Companies

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Photo Credit: cliff1066™One of the last lawsuits tied to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks kicks off in a Manhattan courtroom tomorrow where Massport faces “billions” in potential damages.

The anticipated three-day federal bench trial is being held to decide whether World Trade Center Properties, owner of the World Trade Center towers brought down by terrorists, can seek more compensation from airlines and the Massachusetts Port Authority than the $4.9 billion insurance payouts they’ve already received. The attack destroyed a third building as well.

“You’re talking about billions (of dollars) in this lawsuit,” said retired Federal Aviation Administration Special Agent Brian Sullivan, who pointed out security holes at Logan International Airport prior to the attacks. The two planes that brought down the twin towers left from Logan.

The suit alleges the airlines and other aviation-related companies were negligent, allowing terrorists to board airplanes and overtake their crews before plunging the planes into the trade center complex.

Read more from this story HERE.

Feds Admit that IRS Targeted Political Candidates for Audit

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Photo Credit: Evan VucciThe Treasury Department has admitted for the first time that confidential tax records of several political candidates and campaign donors were improperly scrutinized by government officials, but the Justice Department has declined to prosecute any of the cases.

Its investigators also are probing two allegations that the Internal Revenue Service “targeted for audit candidates for public office,” the Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George, has privately told Sen. Chuck Grassley.

In a written response to a request by Mr. Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Mr. George said a review turned up four cases since 2006 in which unidentified government officials took part in “unauthorized access or disclosure of tax records of political donors or candidates,” including one case he described as “willful.” In four additional cases, Mr. George said, allegations of improper access of IRS records were not substantiated by the evidence.

Mr. Grassley has asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to explain why the Justice Department chose not to prosecute any of the cases. The Iowa Republican told The Washington Times that the IRS “is required to act with neutrality and professionalism, not political bias.”

The investigation did not name the government officials who obtained the IRS records improperly, nor did it reveal the identities or political parties of the people whose tax records were compromised. By law, taxpayer records at the IRS are supposed to be confidential.

Read more from this story HERE.