Biden: Brain Surgeon Told Him He Had Less Than 50% Chance of ‘Being Completely Normal’

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Photo Credit: AP

Speaking at the White House National Conference on Mental Health on Monday, Vice President Joe Biden told a sometimes serious and sometimes jocular story about the two brain surgeries he needed in 1988 to deal with cranial aneurysms.

Biden told the White House audience “they take a saw and they cut your head off” and “they literally had to take the top of my head off.” He also recounted that as he was being wheeled into surgery he asked the neurosurgeon, “What are my chances of getting off this table completely normal?” The surgeon told Biden he had a better chance of living—and that that chance was in the 35 to 50 percent range.

“The only totally un-chartered portion of the universe is the brain,” Biden said in his White House speech. “You know, as we used to say in the Senate, excuse the point of personal privilege here: I had two cranial aneurysms, and they literally had to take the top of my head off. I mean, they take a saw and they cut your head off, and go in to find the artery that is–one was leaking, the other that hadn’t, before it burst.

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Lawless Aristocracy for a Dominated People

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A few weeks ago, as the Senate Judiciary Committee was debating immigration reform, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) told everyone the story of Candida Gutierrez, a Houston schoolteacher whose identity was stolen by an illegal alien named Bentia Cardona-Gonzalez. This was a big-time identity heist, as Cardona-Gonzalez opened bank accounts and secured credit cards, a drivers’ license, employment, a mortgage, and health care with her stolen identity over the course of 12 years. Gutierrez’ stolen name even wound up on the birth certificates of the illegal alien’s U.S.-born children. The authorities didn’t catch her; Gutierrez’ husband (the one thing Cardona-Gonzalez didn’t steal!) tracked down the thief and turned her over to the feds.

With this story in mind, Grassley proposed an amendment to immigration reform that would require amnesty-seeking illegals to hand over every name and Social Security number they had used to gain employment in the United States. Grassley’s amendment didn’t explicitly bar identity thieves from receiving amnesty, or mandate their arrest, but would have authorized federal agencies to notify the rightful owners of stolen identities. He called it “the first step to helping clean up the mess that’s been created for the victim of identity theft.”

That was too much for Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who took immigration reform from the youthful hands of Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and turned it into the usual Democrat nightmare of vote-buying giveaways. As chronicled by CNS News, Schumer explained that identity theft is perfectly normal and understandable behavior for those who cross the border illegally. It would be unfair to expect them to comply with any other American laws they find inconvenient, in addition to the one about not violating our border…

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TSA Drops Plan to Allow Small Knives on Planes

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The Transportation Security Administration has abandoned a plan to let passengers carry small knives on planes, following a steady outcry from lawmakers and industry advocates.

The TSA announced on Wednesday that it would stick with its current policy on carry-on baggage. The agency said it “appreciates the varying points of view shared throughout the review process.”

Those points of view were largely negative.

Skeptical lawmakers, airlines, labor unions and some law enforcement groups complained that the knives and other items in the hands of the wrong passengers could be used to injure or even kill passengers and crew.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., praised the decision to back off the policy change.

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Ghost Student: Obama’s Columbia 30th Reunion and NO Classmate Remembers Seeing Him

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7811068144_dd61720aec_b (1)I just returned from New York, where I attended my 30th Columbia University reunion. I celebrated with my esteemed classmates. Everyone except Barack Obama. As usual – he wasn’t there. Not even a video greeting. Not a personalized letter to his classmates. Nothing. But worse, no one at our 30th reunion ever met him. The President of the United States is the ghost of Columbia University…

I am a graduate of Columbia University, Class of 1983. That’s the same class Barack Obama claims to have graduated from. We shared the same exact major- Political Science. We were both Pre-Law. It was a small class – about 700 students. The Political Science department was even smaller and closer-knit (maybe 150 students). I thought I knew, or met at least once, (or certainly saw in classes) every fellow Poly Sci classmate in my four years at Columbia.

But not Obama. No one ever met him. Even worse, no one even remembers seeing that unique memorable face. Think about this for a minute. Our classmate is President of the United States. Shouldn’t someone remember him? Or at least claim to remember him?

…Now you might argue this is all strange, but it’s possible. After all Columbia says he graduated. And I take my college’s word for it. Would one of the world’s greatest Ivy League institutions participate in a cover-up, thereby risking their billion dollar reputation? And there is one single article written for the Columbia newspaper with Obama’s name on it. A single photo also exists of Obama in his Manhattan apartment with the man he claims was his college roommate – a Pakistani foreign student. And one single radical leftist Columbia professor who hates Israel also claims he remembers Obama.

That’s the sum total of Obama’s existence at Columbia University, Class of ’83.

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FBI Expert: Quran is ‘Revealed Word of God’

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Photo Credit: WND

The FBI has censored and modified hundreds of pages of materials to satisfy Muslim critics, including a change that was made because an agency “expert” insisted the Quran “is the revealed word of God.”

The details come from Judicial Watch, which obtained documentation of the hundreds of pages of FBI memos, training documents and other paperwork that the agency purged on the demands of Muslims.

“The FBI is rewriting history in order to help al-Qaida,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “This shows that the law enforcement agency is in need of serious top-to-bottom reform.”

Fitton said a lesson learned from the Boston Marathon terrorist attack is that the country is less safe when it allows radical Muslim organizations to tell the FBI how to train its agents and do its job.

“The FBI’s purge of so-called ‘offensive’ material is political correctness run amok, and it puts the nation at risk,” he said. “The Obama administration needs to stop putting the tender sensibilities of radical Islamists above the safety of the American people.”

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Michelle Obama Loses Her Cool, Threatens to Leave Fundraiser After Lesbian Interrupts Her; White House Censors Exchange from Official Transcript

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First lady Michelle Obama’s speech at a Washington, D.C. political fundraiser was interrupted by a lesbian protester on Tuesday night, and she threatened to leave the event if the gay rights activist wasn’t forced to leave. But the official White House transcript doesn’t indicate anything about the heckler or Mrs. Obama’s audible reaction.

While the first lady was speaking to approximately 200 Democratic Party loyalists who paid up to $10,000 to attend the event at the swanky Washington home of a wealthy lesbian couple, the protester interrupted with demands that the president issue an executive order forcing federal contractors to stop discriminating against gay and transgendered job applicants.

Amanda Terkel, a Huffington Post scribe who served as the night’s ‘pool’ ‘reporter, wrote that the ‘[m]ost notable part of the event was an interruption from a protester about 12 minutes into the 20-minute speech. A pro-LGBT rights individual standing at the front began shouting for an executive order on gay rights.’

‘”One of the things I don’t do well is this,” replied FLOTUS to loud applause,’ according to Terkel. ‘She left the lectern and moved over to the protester, saying they could “listen to me or you can take the mic, but I’m leaving. You all decide. You have one choice.”‘

The crowd, the pool report continued, ‘started shouting that they wanted FLOTUS to stay.’

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Obama Threatens ‘Nuclear Option’ if Senate Doesn’t Confirm His Leftist Judicial Nominees

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President Obama supports many things he opposed as Senator Obama—such as unlimited terrorist detention—but for flip-flopping with a high degree of artistic difficulty nothing beats his judicial filibuster ultimatum on Tuesday. If Republicans don’t confirm his three, yes, three, new nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, he’ll unleash Democrats to gut the Senate’s filibuster rules.

Mr. Obama didn’t explicitly state the threat portion of that ultimatum—he’s leaving that dirty work to the reliable Harry Reid. But everyone knows that’s the subtext of Tuesday’s announcement, which is a political attempt to realign the balance of power on an appeals court that has frustrated the Administration’s regulatory overreach.

The Senate has “a constitutional duty to promptly consider judicial nominees for confirmation,” Mr. Obama averred in the Rose Garden. “Throughout my first term as President, the Senate too often failed to do that.”

He might have added, but somehow didn’t, that the Senate also too often failed to do that “duty” when George W. Bush was President. You could even say that Senate Democrats invented the filibuster against D.C. Circuit nominees. Who can forget the successful Joe Biden-John Kerry effort to defeat the distinguished appellate lawyer Miguel Estrada mainly because he is Hispanic and might make it to the Supreme Court someday?

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John Bolton: Christie Decision to Hold Special Election ‘Mind-boggling’

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Former Ambassador John Bolton says he’s perplexed at New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s surprise decision to hold a special election to replace late Sen. Frank Lautenberg instead of appointing a Republican.

“I’m mystified by this decision,” Bolton told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.

“It is just mind-boggling and it will expose him to criticism from nearly everybody — and that’s what happens when you make a decision that’s too cute by half.”

Christie on Tuesday set a special election for October to fill the seat of Lautenberg, a move that could cost taxpayers as much as $20 million. He will appoint someone to temporarily fill in, but hasn’t said who yet.

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Most Uninsured Don’t Know if they’ll use Obamacare, Most in US Think Healthcare Will Suffer

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There’s no assurance folks will be buying insurance under Obamacare, and that could spell trouble for the Affordable Care Act.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans who currently lack health insurance don’t know yet if they will purchase that coverage by the Jan. 1 deadline set by the ACA, a new survey revealed Monday.

And less than half of those in the survey released by InsuranceQuotes.com think they’ll get better health care after Obamacare takes full effect. Nearly 50 percent believe the ACA will make it more difficult for them to get tests and procedures done in a timely manner, according to the phone survey of 1,001 adult Americans conducted in early May.

And a whopping 68 percent of low-income Americans aren’t sure they qualify for tax credits that would subsidize their purchase of health insurance—despite they fact that they almost invariably will qualify, the survey found. That population is most likely to benefit from government subsidies under the health-care reform law.

Laura Adams, senior insurance analyst at InsuranceQuotes.com, said public uncertainty about Obamacare—particularly a lack of commitment to signing up—could end up driving up health-insurance costs under the program because not enough healthy people will participate to offset benefits payouts.

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Campaign Manager Indicted in Growing Email Scandal in New Mexico

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A former campaign manager for New Mexico governor Susana Martinez was indicted in federal court Thursday on 12 counts of illegally intercepting emails intended for members of Martinez’s 2010 campaign, including some sent to Martinez herself. Now, some are questioning whether the current Democratic attorney general (and a potential opponent for Martinez in the Republican’s reelection bid next year) and a liberal activist connected to Bill Richardson, Martinez’s Democratic predecessor, were involved in the distribution of some of those illegally obtained emails.

Jamie Estrada, who first joined the Martinez’s campaign staff in July 2009, was fired in December of that same year for, among other reasons, accessing Martinez’s personal email, a New Mexico Republican tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Estrada later failed to win an appointment in the new Martinez administration in 2011. According to the indictment, Estrada was contacted in July 2011 by a member of the Martinez campaign requesting a username and password to the campaign’s Internet domain, susana2010.com, for the purposes of renewing the domain contract. Estrada reportedly refused to provide the information and, as a federal investigation later found, used the information to renew the domain himself under a false name, even while the Martinez campaign had exclusive rights to renew the contract.

After renewing the domain, Estrada altered the settings so that incoming emails sent to susana2010.com addresses (that is, to former Martinez campaign staffers) were redirected to a Gmail account Estrada had created. The intended recipients of those emails, which included Martinez, never received those emails. Many of these contained private, sometimes sensitive information: receipts from Martinez’s purchases of songs on iTunes, a staffer’s bank statement, and confirmation of an online purchase by Martinez of several pairs of underwear.

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