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.

Read more from this story HERE.

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.

Read more from this story HERE.

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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.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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.

Read more from this story HERE.

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.

Read more from this story HERE.

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.

Read more from this story HERE.

IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000 Per Family

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By Matt Cover. In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.

Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.

The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.

The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.

“The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000,” the regulation says. Read more from this story HERE.

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Two-Thirds of Americans Don’t Know If They Will Insure Under Obamacare

By Dan Mangan. 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. Read more from this story HERE.

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ObamaCare Bait and Switch: The truth about those rate increases in Oregon and California

By The Wall Street Journal. Liberals have spent years claiming that “rate shock” under the Affordable Care Act—the 20% to 30% average spike in insurance premiums that every independent analyst projects—is merely the political imagination of Republicans and the insurance industry. So they immediately claimed victory when California reported last month that the plans that will be available on the state’s new insurance exchange next year would be cheaper than they are today.

Except now it emerges that California goosed the data to make it appear as if ObamaCare won’t send costs aloft as the law’s regulations and mandates kick in. It will, by a lot. And now liberals have suddenly switched to arguing that, sure, insurance will be more expensive but the new costs are justified. Needless to say that was not how Democrats sold health-care reform.

California reported that the rates would range from 2% above to 29% below the current market. “This is a home run for consumers in every region of California,” said Peter Lee, the director of the state exchange. “These rates are way below the worst-case gloom-and-doom scenarios we have heard.”

But Mr. Lee and his fellow regulators were making a false comparison. They weren’t looking at California’s lightly regulated individual insurance market that functions surprisingly well. They were comparing ObamaCare insurance to the state’s current small-business market where regulations similar to ObamaCare have already been imposed.

In other words, California wasn’t comparing apples to apples. It wasn’t even comparing apples to oranges. It was comparing apples to ostriches. Read more from this story HERE.

All IRS Agents Still Covering for DC Bigwig Who Directed Persecution of Conservative, Tea Party Groups (+video)

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The watchdog who exposed the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups testified Monday that nobody in the Ohio office being blamed for the scandal would tell his investigators who directed the program, as the new IRS chief vowed to “get to the bottom” of that growing question.

Nearly a month after the scandal broke, the issue of who directed agents in Cincinnati to single out Tea Party and other groups is perhaps the most glaring unanswered question. Inspector General J. Russell George, at a House appropriations subcommittee hearing, revealed Monday that his audit of the agency tried — unsuccessfully — to get to the root of the targeting.

“We did pose that question and no one would acknowledge who, if anyone, provided that direction,” he said…

George later testified that the scandal itself is “unprecedented.” He cited past attempts by the Nixon administration to use the IRS for inappropriate purposes, but said this program was unprecedented.

Read more from this story HERE.