Guard Shoots Boy, 15, At FDA Office

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A security guard opened fire and wounded a 15-year-old boy at a FDA’s Food and Drug Administration regional facility in Bothell early Friday, according to police.

It was around 7 a.m. when two security officers approached a teen acting suspiciously in the building’s parking lot, said Shari Ireton with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.

The teen ran away, but then came back a short time later and got into a car in the parking lot. As the security officers approached the car, the teen backed out and struck one of the security officers, who in turn fired at the car, Ireton said.

Bothell Police Sgt. Cedric Collins said earlier the teen crashed into another vehicle about a mile away on the Bothell-Everett Highway, but Ireton said officers found the teen at a home.

The teen had a gunshot wound to his foot and minor cuts to his face, Ireton said. He was taken to a a local hospital for treatment and was later released into police custody.

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Levin to Rove: ‘Bring It On, Doughboy. Bring On Your Little Whiteboard!’ (+audio)

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerThe back-and-forth verbal jabs between former Bush White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, his deputies at American Crossroads and some of the conservative movement’s so-called “critically important figures” took another intense turn on Mark Levin’s radio show on Thursday, with Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King entering the fray.

“[L]et me put something to you folks about Karl Rove — what a propagandist this man is,” Levin said at the end of his program. “He keeps bringing up Christine O’Donnell. Karl Rove has lost more races that he’s been involved in than Christine O’Donnell. She has lost one. Rove has lost scores. And as soon as she was nominated, he went on TV on the ‘Hannity’ show and started smearing her.”

“And he put out emails to all the pseudo-conservatives inside the beltway trashing her. He wanted her defeated,” Levin continued. “He wanted Mike Castle to win — Mike Castle, anti-conservative, pro-abortion, pro-big spending, on and on and on. He’s also up there with that stupid little third-grade whiteboard of his, with his fourth-grade writing style, talking about how they committed $30 million to tea party candidates. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve had to fight through these primaries to get the tea party conservatives nominated. And then his group has put money into the race.”

Levin, the author of “Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America,” urged American Crossroads’ donor to put their money elsewhere in the future if they are indeed interested in promoting conservative candidates.

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Fox News Poll: Voters Back Spending Cuts To Boost Economy By Huge Margins

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Photo Credit: J Pat CarterBy massive margins, voters say they would rather see the government cut spending than increase it as a way to boost the nation’s economy, according to a Fox News poll that showed, in hindsight, voters largely saying the 2009 stimulus did not work.

The poll showed that, by a 60-34 percent margin, voters say President Obama’s $800 billion strategy for pulling the American economy out of its one-and-a-half year long recession did not deliver on its promise. While more than half of Democrats said they thought the stimulus worked, 87 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of Independents said they thought it did not.

Opposition to another round of stimulus runs two-to-one, according to the poll. This could be because 73 percent of voters polled say cutting government spending would be more likely to help strengthen the nation’s economy — as opposed to just 15 percent who believe increasing spending would do the trick.

While Obama reportedly has said he doesn’t believe the government has a spending problem, the poll showed that out of 13 issues tested, more voters are “extremely” concerned about government spending than any other issue.

Even a majority of Democrats — 55 percent — agreed that cutting spending is the way to help the economy. Ninety-one percent of Republicans held that view.

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Report: White House Set To Cut Nuclear Arsenal By One-Third

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Photo Credit: Glyn Lowe PhotoworksPresident Obama is poised to sign off on a new internal review of U.S. nuclear weapons strategy that would reduce the arsenal by one-third, resulting in billions in savings to the Pentagon and Energy Department.

The recommended reductions were included in a draft version of a classified decision directive compiled by top defense and national security officials inside the White House, according to a report by the Center for Public Integrity issued Friday.

While the president has yet to officially approve the directive, including the recommended one-third cut to the nuclear arsenal, sources tell CPI Obama has voiced no objection to the directive’s findings.

Representatives from State Department, Strategic Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the office of Vice President Biden also played a part in drafting the directive.

White House officials had pushed to get the new directive finalized late last year, according to the CPI report. However, the administration pushed back against that plan.

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Massachusetts Governor Declares State Of Emergency, Institutes Travel Ban (+video)

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Photo Credit: Paul and Linda MorrisGov. Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency in Massachusetts Friday afternoon for the blizzard that could bring up to 3 feet of snow.

He also announced he has signed an executive order to ban all travel on all roads in the state starting at 4 p.m. Friday.

There are some exceptions to the ban, including emergency workers, those who work in hospitals and media, and others required to be at their jobs.

The governor said rapid snowfall of 2-3 inches per hour will make for, “extremely dangerous conditions,” and will “make safe travel nearly impossible.”

This is the first time that a Massachusetts governor has issued an executive order like this since the Blizzard of 1978.

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Panetta: Sequestration Would Make U.S. ‘Second-Rate Power’

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Photo Credit: U.S. Army AfricaSecretary of Defense Leon Panetta used a hearing on the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack on Benghazi to plead with Congress for a budget agreement that would prevent sequestration cuts to the Department of Defense.

During his testimony before the Senate Armed Forces Committee on Thursday, Panetta said his greatest concern as defense secretary is the fiscal uncertainty hanging over Washington.

“I cannot imagine that people would stand by and deliberately hurt this country, in terms of our national defense, by letting this happen,” he said.

Ultimately, sequestration cuts would erode the military’s capabilities and threaten its world standing, Panetta asserted.

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Oregon Man Claims IRS Agent Coerced Sex By Threatening Tax Penalty (+video)

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Photo Credit: KVALEUGENE, Ore. — A Fall Creek resident filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Government and an IRS agent that he alledges pressured him into sex by threatening a tax penalty.

The law firm representing Vincent Burroughs filed the suit with the U.S. District Court in Eugene on Jan. 25 “as a result to coersive conduct by Defendant (Dora) Abrahamson,” an Internal Revenue Service agent from Cottage Grove.

Burroughs claims that in August of 2011 Abrahamson called him and said he would be audited by the IRS. He claims that at the time he didn’t know her.

Burroughs says that he had not met Abrahamson before those calls, nor had he heard that he was being audited by the IRS.

“She was sending me texts that she wanted to come out, give me massages because she needed to help me relax,” Burroughs said in a phone interview with KVAL News.

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Catholic Bishops Oppose Revisions To Contraception Mandate

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Photo Credit: DougtoneThe U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said Thursday that it remains opposed to the Obama administration’s contraception mandate, arguing Catholic institutions will have “second-class status” under the policy despite recent tweaks to its rules.

The USCCB said the policy will require Catholic institutions to have a hand in healthcare coverage they find immoral.

“Because the stakes are so high, we will not cease from our effort to assure that healthcare for all does not mean freedom for few,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the USCCB, said in a statement.

The group was initially noncommittal last week after the Obama administration released new regulations on the contraception mandate and its “accommodations” for religious-affiliated institutions, such as Catholic hospitals and universities.

But on Thursday, the bishops said last week’s rules ensure that employees of a religious institution would automatically receive contraception coverage through their insurance companies.

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The GOP, Fox Political Purge (+video)

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Photo Credit: Mike LichtRepublicans and Fox News are moving to purge the controversial political creatures they created.
Both were damaged badly in 2012 by loud, partisan voices that stoked the base — but that scared the hell out of many voters.

Now, the GOP, with its dismal image, and Fox News, with its depressed ratings in January, are scrambling to dim those voices. To wit:

Fox ousted contributors Sarah Palin and Dick Morris, two of the most obnoxiously partisan figures on the network’s air.
Karl Rove, himself sidelined by Fox after the election, has helped start a new super PAC, the Conservative Victory Fund, designed to keep controversial conservatives like Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) from winning Senate primaries.

Senate GOP leaders created what amounts to a buddy system with their caucus’s most popular tea party members, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, to get their help in taming anti-establishment conservatives.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has been running around the country warning anyone who will listen that Republicans must quit being the “stupid party” that nominates nutty candidates.

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Donald Trump: ‘Karl Rove Is A Total Loser’

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Photo Credit: APDonald Trump has tweeted his way into the war between the Tea Party and Karl Rove, taking aim at the former adviser to President George W. Bush.

Trump bashed the veteran Republican consultant in a series of messages Thursday, calling him a “total loser” and encouraging people not to donate to Rove-controlled groups.

“Why are people giving money to Karl Rove when he just wasted $400M without any victories?” Trump wrote. “Use your head. Karl Rove is a total loser. Money given to him might as well be thrown down the drain. Karl Rove’s strategy and commercials were the worst I have ever seen.”

Trump’s messages came amid escalating tensions between Rove, who created a group to back establishment candidates in Republican primaries, and Tea Party groups who backed losing candidates like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Todd Akin in Missouri. Rove’s group, the Conservative Victory Fund, has drawn fire from Tea Party backers like FreedomWorks and the Senate Conservatives Fund.

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