Wolf Says NASA Prompted Hiring Of Person Linked To Chinese Espionage; May Be Dozens More In Agency

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Photo Credit: APOfficials at NASA’s Langley Research Center permitted a contractor to hire a Chinese national affiliated with an organization designated by U.S. national security agencies as an “entity of concern,” and then allowed the individual access to classified information, according to Rep. Frank Wolf.

The as-yet unidentified individual was permitted to take that information back home to China, according to Wolf, the Virginia Republican who is chairman of a House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA.

Wolf said during a Capitol Hill news conference today that “at least several dozen other Chinese nationals,” are employed at Langley, and he charged that they are employed in a manner to “circumvent” congressional bans on Chinese involvement at NASA facilities.

Wolf said he has talked with FBI Director Robert Mueller and the Neil H. MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia about the alleged national security violations at Langley, which is located in Hampton, Virginia.

He said he first heard the allegations from numerous whistleblowers who were career NASA employes and met with them about two weeks ago. He said he turned over information and documents to the FBI.

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Coburn Offers FAA Easy Alternatives To Closing Towers, Cutting Air Traffic Controllers

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerIn the latest installment of Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn’s letter-writing campaign for administration sanity in implementing the sequester, the Republican is taking on the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) spending cut priorities.

In a letter to Department of Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood, Coburn called on the FAA to cancel upcoming conferences, stop nonessential hiring or reform low-priority programs before cutting elements that could harm flight safety.

“The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced today that it will close 173 air traffic control towers, effective April 7, and could furlough nearly 47,000 employees, ‘including all management and non-management employees working within the Air Traffic Organization,’” Coburn wrote in the letter, dispatched Wednesday. “All of the 173 towers closing April 7 are privately run under contracts. The department’s inspector general, however, reported that these same contract towers are both cheaper and safer than towers operated by the FAA.”

Under sequestration, the FAA is expected to cut $600 million — or just 4 percent of the agency’s nearly $16 billion budget for fiscal year 2012.

According Coburn, if a reduction in conference expenditures can stop “even one day of furlough for one air traffic controller,” then the FAA should be moving forward with it.

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ABC Poll: Americans Are Totally Fine With Spending Cuts

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Photo Credit: Intel PhotosPresident Obama and company have been beating the drum about the supposed coming disasters of sequestration, but Americans aren’t buying it. Proof: a poll out from ABC news today reveals that the vast majority of Americans are just fine with budget cuts. At the same time, most are not in favor of military cuts, indicating they’d like to see the money come from other places. Some of the numbers:

The public by nearly 2-1, 61-33 percent, supports cutting the overall budget along the lines of the sequester that took effect last Friday. But by nearly an identical margin, Americans in this ABC News/Washington Post poll oppose an eight percent across-the-board cut in military spending.

These views come before the $85 billion in cuts this year have taken hold, leaving open the question of how the public will respond once the reductions hit home. Nonetheless, the results suggest that warnings about the nation’s military readiness have resonated, while the public is more skeptical about the damage the sequester poses to federal programs more generally.

Support for a five percent reduction in federal spending crosses party lines in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates; it includes 57 percent of Democrats, six in 10 independents and three-quarters of Republicans. Shaving eight percent off the military budget, on the other hand, is opposed by 73 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of independents, with Democrats split down the middle.

Now, before we all start celebrating, there are a few matters of note. The ABC article also points out that, in a similar poll conducted during the height of fiscal cliff hysteria, Americans were largely opposed to cuts to some of the most expensive programs we run (including Social Security).

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Gay Rights Activists Bully Tebow, Christian University

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photo credit: jeffrey beallGay rights activists are demanding Tim Tebow back out of a speaking engagement at Liberty University just two weeks after pressuring the New York Jets quarterback to cancel a speaking engagement at the First Baptist Church of Dallas.

Tebow is expected to speak this weekend at Wildfire – a men’s conference hosted by the conservative Christian university. His remarks will be closed to the general public. The professional football player is well-known for sharing his faith in Christ – but in recent weeks he’s come under fire from the national media and gay rights activists for speaking in churches that follow biblical teaching.

Huffington Post called Liberty a “notoriously conservative private college with an anti-gay reputation.” And more than 10,000 people have signed a petition launched by Faithful America calling on the quarterback to cancel his speech.

“Liberty University isn’t just another conservative Christian college,” the group stated. “It’s ground-zero for a global assault on the legal rights of gays and lesbians – and a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the religious right.

A Liberty University spokesman refused to comment. Faithful America said Tebow would give his “Christian faith a bad name” by speaking at the university founded by the late Jerry Falwell.

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US Senate Confirms John Brennan As New CIA Director

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThe U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed John Brennan as the Obama administration’s next Central Intelligence Agency director, overcoming concerns expressed by Republicans and some Democrats about the administration’s use of lethal drone strikes.

After the administration clarified its drone policy, Republican Senators allowed the Senate to vote on Brennan’s confirmation, which he won by a vote of 63-34.

Republican Senator Rand Paul spoke for nearly 13 hours on the Senate floor on Wednesday in an attempt to get the administration to declare that “targeted killings” of American citizens on U.S. soil were unconstitutional.

Hours before the final vote, Attorney General Eric Holder sent a brief letter to Paul, saying President Barack Obama does not have the authority to order a drone to kill an American on U.S. soil who was “not engaged in combat.”

Paul, who said his delaying tactic was not a protest against Brennan’s qualifications to lead the CIA, called it a major victory for American civil liberties. He nonetheless voted against Brennan.

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Rand Paul Filibuster Blasted By John McCain, Lindsey Graham (+video)

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore While Republican senators flocked to the floor Wednesday night to support Sen. Rand Paul’s nearly 13-hour filibuster, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) did exactly the opposite on Thursday.

McCain quoted heavily from a Wall Street Journal editorial that slammed Paul’s filibuster on the Obama administration’s drone use, including a line that said “If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids in college dorms.”

McCain called Paul’s concern that the government could kill any American with a drone “totally unfounded.” He referenced Jane Fonda, as Paul did on Wednesday, calling her “not his favorite American” for her support of the Viet Cong, but said the American government would not have killed her.

To somehow say that someone who disagrees with American policy and even may demonstrate against it, is somehow a member of an organization which makes that individual an enemy combatant is simply false,” McCain said.

Graham also chided his fellow Republicans on the floor for joining Paul in his filibuster. “To my Republican colleagues, I don’t remember any of you coming down here suggesting that President Bush was going to kill anybody with a drone, do you?” Graham said. “They had a drone program back then, all of a sudden this drone program has gotten every Republican so spun up. What are we up to here?”

Watch video here:

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RebRANDing: New GOP Emerges

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Photo Credit: Breitbart On Wednesday, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) served notice to both the Republican establishment and to the Democrat-Media Complex: conservatism isn’t gone. It’s not even on vacation. The new wave of conservatives is here, and they know how to play the game.

At approximately 11:47 a.m. EST, Paul took to the floor of the Senate to filibuster the nomination of counterterrorism czar John Brennan for CIA Director. Paul stated his reason specifically and clearly: the Obama administration has refused to answer question as to whether they believe it is acceptable under the Constitution to kill American citizens on US soil using drones if those citizens are not engaged in an immediate terrorist threat. Paul was broader than that, actually – he simply asked the administration for a set of rules that could be used to limit their power to execute American citizens here at home. Over and over again, the administration refused to turn over the legal memos detailing its policies.

And so Paul talked. And boy, did he talk. For nearly 13 hours, he talked, taking breaks only when spelled by Senators including fellow Tea Partiers Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Pat Toomey (R-PA). Even an honest Democrat – apparently the only one in the chamber – got into the act: Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR). Citing everyone from left to right, Paul pointed out the hypocrisy of an administration ripping into waterboarding of terrorists but happy to target them for death from the skies. He asked repeatedly why the administration could not answer his simple question about the boundaries of government power. And the American people listened.

It was an astonishing demonstration of the power of ideas. Paul spoke directly to the American people from the floor of the Senate. No media interrogators. No Obama functionaries. No spin machine. He was not strident, but he was firm. “No American should ever be killed in their house without warrant and some kind of aggressive behavior by them,” said Paul. “To be bombed in your sleep? There’s nothing American about that … [President Obama] says trust him because he hasn’t done it yet. He says he doesn’t intend to do so, but he might. Mr. President, that’s not good enough … so I’ve come here to speak for as long as I can to draw attention to something that I find to really be very disturbing …

“I will not sit quietly and let him shred the Constitution …. The point isn’t that anyone in our country is Hitler. But what I am saying is that in a democracy you could somehow elect someone who is very evil … When a democracy gets it wrong, you want the law to be in place.”

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Cruz: Defund Obamacare Through Spending Bill

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller Texas Republican Sen.Ted Cruz declared Wednesday that he will reject any government spending bill that does not directly cut off funds to the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature piece of legislation.

Cruz said “he will offer an amendment to delay the flow of funds to implement the healthcare law when the Senate takes up a continuing resolution to fund the federal government,” the Hill reports.

“I believe we should continue to delay such funding at least until economic growth returns to historic averages, and I intend to object to consideration of any continuing resolution that does not include a vote to delay funding of Obamacare,” Cruz said in a statement.

Cruz’s comment comes on the heels of a continuing resolution to fund the government, including money set aside for Obamacare.

After the GOP’s hopes of easily repealing the national health care law were lost with the 2012 election, some in Congress have said that they will work to use creative tactics to chip away at the law.

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Paul Ends Senate Filibuster Of CIA Nominee Over Drone Concerns After Nearly 13 Hours (+video)

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreSen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., ended his old-fashioned filibuster to try and hold up the nomination of John Brennan for CIA director after nearly 13 hours early Thursday.

Business in the Senate ground to a halt Wednesday as Paul — aided by colleagues from both parties — launched into the filibuster as he tried to hold up the nomination over concerns about the president’s authority to kill Americans with drones.

Paul’s filibuster was at least two hours longer than most in U.S. history, as most flame out around 10 hours. Paul finished speaking around 12:40 a.m. local time, and his filibuster lasted 12 hours and 52 minutes. “My legs hurt. My feet hurt. Everything hurts right now,” Paul told Fox News shortly after stepping off the Senate floor, saying he believes “we did the best that we could.”

“I would be surprised if we didn’t hear back from the White House,” Paul said. In a show of support, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came to the Senate floor and congratulated Paul for his “tenacity and for his conviction.” McConnell also called Obama’s choice of Brennan a “controversial nominee.”

The late Rep. Strom Thurmond holds the record for the longest filibuster, at more than 24 hours.

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Author Quotes Then-Professor Obama Saying, ‘I Don’t Believe People Should Be Able To Own Guns’

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Photo Credit: paljoakimIn his new book, At the Brink, economist and author John R. Lott Jr., assesses the presidency of Barack Obama and recalls conversations regarding gun laws they had while working at the University of Chicago.

In Chapter Three, Mr. Lott discusses gun-control and takes the reader back to his time at the University of Chicago, where he and then-professor Barack Obama spoke on numerous occasions about guns in America.

“I don’t believe people should be able to own guns,” Obama told Lott one day at the University of Chicago Law School. Lott explains that he first met Obama shortly after completing his research on concealed handgun laws and crime.

“He did not come across as a moderate who wanted to bring people together,” Lott writes.

After he introduced himself to Obama, Lott suggested that they have lunch one day to discuss their views on guns. According to Lott, Obama “grimaced and turned away.” That was the way many conversations with Obama ended, Lott says.

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