Benghazi Scapegoat Remains in Prison for Film

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Photo Credit: APThe man who made the anti-Islam film that Obama administration officials erroneously blamed for the Benghazi, Libya, terror attacks remains in federal prison eight months later, serving a yearlong sentence for probation violations committed as a result of his involvement with the video.

Mark Basseley Youssef, who made the film “Innocence of the Muslims” under the pseudonym Sam Bacile, was sentenced in November after pleading guilty to four violations of a supervised release order, which included lying to his probation officer, using aliases, and using the Internet, according to court records.

“There has been no change in his status that we’re aware of,” an official with the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Central District of California, the office that charged him, said Monday on condition of anonymity. The Federal Bureau of Prisons lists his release date as Sept. 26.

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Indian Point To Become First Nuclear Plant To Operate With Expired License

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Photo Credit: Mario Tama/GettyImagesOne of two reactors at the Indian Point nuclear plant north of New York City will soon be operating with an expired license.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said Monday that the situation resulted in part from a complicated license-renewal process for nuclear reactors, the Journal News reported.

Indian Point 2′s 40-year license expires on Sept. 28. NRC regional administrator Bill Dean said that’s at least a year before any decision will be made on whether to extend it for another 20 years.

Dean said the reactor can keep operating because Entergy Nuclear, its owner, filed for renewal more than five years before the expiration date.

Read more from this story HERE.

George Will Suggests Impeachment Could Follow Obama’s IRS Tea Party Targeting (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller By Jeff Poor. George Will joined the chorus talking about the prospect of impeachment for President Barack Obama after last week’s admission from the Internal Revenue Service that it had targeted groups with the phrases “tea party” or “patriot” in their tax-exempt applications for extra audits.

On Sunday’s broadcast of ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Will proposed a scenario wherein the Bush administration had targeted groups with the word “progressive” in their names and concluded the situation would be much different in terms of expressions of outrage.

“Mr. Hicks, when he was in Libya, said his jaw dropped at the explanation back here,” Will said. “This was a jaw-dropping moment. In response to a question at American Bar Association convention, a second-level IRS person said, ‘Oh by the way, we did target these people.’ Read more from this story HERE.

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By Fox News. Washington Republicans on Sunday characterized the IRS targeting Tea Party groups and other conservative political organizations as “chilling” and intimidating acts that heighten Americans’ mistrust in government.

Their comments follow the IRS acknowledgment Friday that the agency targeted such groups during the 2012 election cycle to see whether they were violating their tax-exempt status — a revelation followed by a report that such activity dated back to the previous year.

“The conclusion that the IRS came to is that they did have agents who were engaged in intimidation of political groups,” Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers told “Fox News Sunday.” “I don’t care if you’re a conservative, a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, this should send a chill up your spine. It needs to have a full investigation.”

Evidence that the IRS was flagging such groups in 2011 was included in a draft inspector general’s report obtained Saturday by Fox News and other news organizations and is expected to be released in full later this week.

That information seemingly contradicts public statements by IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who told congressional investigators in March 2011 that specific groups were not being targeted. Read more from this story HERE.

Smitten Teen Girls Drive Social Media Campaign to Free Boston Marathon Bombings Suspect “Jahar”

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Photo Credit: NY PostThousands of American teen girls are crushing on Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar “Jahar” Tsarnaev, 19 — and leading a social-media movement to exonerate him.

The swooning teens will not accept allegations that the bushy-haired college kid — whom they refer to by his nickname, “Jahar” — and his brother, Tamerlan, 26, killed three and maimed hundreds by setting off bombs at the April 15 race and killed an MIT police officer during the ensuing manhunt.

While some scrawl the hashtag “#FreeJahar” on their hands with markers, an 18-year-old in Topeka, Kansas, is going to the extreme — she wants the Dzhokhar’s words inked on her arm forever.

“Getting one of Jahar’s tweets tattooed on me tomorrow. Guess you could say I’m a #FreeJahar supporter,” “@keepitbluntedd” tweeted on May 7.

The tatted-up teen, Alisha, told The Post she’d soon put Tsarnaev’s April 7 tweet on her upper inside of her arm. It will read, “If you have the knowledge and the inspiration all that’s left is to take action.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Rep. Steve King: ‘I Have No Moral Obligation’ to Help Illegal Aliens Stay in USA

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Photo Credit: APIn an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, straight talking Rep. Steve King (R-IA) makes a seldom heard argument that cuts to the heart of the immigration problem. Congressman King said:

I was talking to someone about immigration reform and I told him what I thought was wrong with the approach on the bill.

He looks at me and he says “What are you going to do? How are you going to solve this problem of eleven million illegal immigrants?”

So, I gave my answer which is not a new idea; seal the border. But as I drove home that night I realized I didn’t give the correct answer.

My real answer is, “Why do I have to do anything to solve a problem that people created willingly for themselves?”

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Apple Deluged by Federal Demands to Decrypt iPhones

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Photo Credit: Getty Images Apple receives so many police demands to decrypt seized iPhones that it has created a “waiting list” to handle the deluge of requests, CNET has learned.

Court documents show that federal agents were so stymied by the encrypted iPhone 4S of a Kentucky man accused of distributing crack cocaine that they turned to Apple for decryption help last year.

An agent at the ATF, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, “contacted Apple to obtain assistance in unlocking the device,” U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell wrote in a recent opinion. But, she wrote, the ATF was “placed on a waiting list by the company.”

A search warrant affidavit prepared by ATF agent Rob Maynard says that, for nearly three months last summer, he “attempted to locate a local, state, or federal law enforcement agency with the forensic capabilities to unlock” an iPhone 4S. But after each police agency responded by saying they “did not have the forensic capability,” Maynard resorted to asking Cupertino.

Because the waiting list had grown so long, there would be at least a 7-week delay, Maynard says he was told by Joann Chang, a legal specialist in Apple’s litigation group. It’s unclear how long the process took, but it appears to have been at least four months.

Read more from this story HERE.

Republicans Call for Depositions in Benghazi Probe, Amid Revelation Clinton Barely Interviewed

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Congressional Republicans on Sunday pressed their investigation into the Benghazi attacks, suggesting depositions for high-ranking officials and more whistle-blowers testifying amid further questions about why then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not thoroughly interviewed about the issue.

Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told “Fox News Sunday” that more potential and self-proclaimed “whistle-blowers” might come forward after three of them – career State Department foreign service employees – testified last week before the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee.

“We have had people come forward because of the (hearing) and say we would also like to talk,” the Michigan Republican told “Fox News Sunday.” “I do think we’re going to see more whistle-blowers. Certainly my committee has been contacted; I think other committees as well.”

Rogers’ remarks came as Thomas Pickering, the former U.S. ambassador who helped write a report on security at a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, defended his assessment but absolved Clinton.

“We knew where the responsibility rested,” Pickering told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “They’ve tried to point a finger at people more senior than where we found the decisions were made.”

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Benghazi Whistle-Blower a Democrat, Voted for Hillary and Obama Twice

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller A key Benghazi whistle-blower who has allegedly been punished for speaking out against the administration is a registered Democrat who voted for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

The lawyer of Gregory Hicks, the former U.S. deputy chief of mission in Libya who testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday, confirmed the information to The Daily Caller on Saturday.

According to the lawyer, Victoria Toensing, Hicks voted for Clinton during the 2008 primary, and for then-Illinois Sen. Obama in the 2008 general election. He again voted for Obama in 2012.

“The fact is he is a registered Democrat in Virginia. The fact is he voted for Hilary in the primary and Obama and then again for Obama,” Toensing said.

Toensing added that she did not know he was a Democrat until the day before the hearing.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democratic Strategist: Party ‘In Decline’

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Photo Credit: APOne of the Democrats’ most veteran strategists warns that the party is “in decline” and “at considerable risk” when President Barack Obama is no longer on the scene.

“Since Obama was elected President, the Democrats have lost nine governorships, 56 members of the House and two Senate seats,” Doug Sosnik, the political director in Bill Clinton’s White House, writes in a new memo.

While Republican branding problems get the lion’s share of attention, the Democratic Party’s favorability rating has declined by 15 points since Obama took power. A Pew Research Center survey this January showed that the Democratic Party was viewed favorably by 47 percent of Americans, down from 62 percent in Jan. 2009.
With the likelihood of gridlock and near-record-low confidence in public institutions, Sosnik expects 2014 to bring the fourth change election in the past eight years.

“This puts Senate Democrats in a vulnerable position, while threatening Republican’s control of the House as well as their sizeable numerical advantage in the governorships across the country,” writes Sosnik, who advised Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential race and now does consulting work for a variety of private-sector clients.

Read more from this story HERE.

Duck Dynasty Stars Threatened to Walk from AE Over Guns and God

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A North Carolina radio station, 93.1 “The Wolf,” reported this past week that the A&E network had supposedly received complaints from people “about how A&E’s show Duck Dynasty shows praying and using guns all the time.” These people had asked A&E “to remove the show from TV.”

Apparently, the network then contacted the family’s patriarch, Phil Robertson, and asked, “can we stop the praying and the guns?” Robertson responded with an ultimatum: “if We Cant Pray to God on the show, we will not do the show.”

He went on to explain, “God and Guns are apart of our everyday lives to remove either of them from the show is unacceptable.”

Looks like the Duck Commander won this battle as A&E has reportedly signed the family up for another season. And why wouldn’t they? The Duck Dynasty’s message has made it one of cable’s top-rated shows.