Florida Sends Auditors to Investigate Voting Irregularities; Rep. West Holds Out Hope (+video)

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Florida has sent state election auditors into the state’s 18th Congressional District to investigate early-voting irregularities that have resulted in disputed results in race between Republican Rep. Allen West and Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy.

The unofficial tally shows Murphy winning the race by 1,907 votes, outside the margin that would trigger an automatic recount of all ballots.

Three state officials were ordered to St. Lucie County by Secretary of State Ken Detzner – a defendant in the court case West filed Tuesday.

“We applaud your decision to exercise your authority to send auditors to St. Lucie County to examine election returns and the ballot-counting process,” attorneys at the Washington-area firm Hotlzman Vogel Josefiak told Detzner in a letter.

The 18th District race was among the most hard-hitting and expensive races this election cycle. The two sides raised at least $21 million, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, and Super PACs poured about $6.6 million more into the race.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Has Firm Belief in Man-Caused Global Warming, Says ‘We’ve Got Obligation’ to Act

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President Barack Obama held his first postelection press conference today, Nov. 14, 2012, in the East room at the White House. The president took eight questions from the White House press corps; one of those questions was on the subject of Global Climate Change, and the President’s plan to “tackle the issue of climate change”.

Mark Landler, part of the White House press corps and a journalist for the New York Times, asked the President the following question on Global Climate Change.

“Mr. President. In his endorsement of you a few weeks ago, Mayor Bloomberg said he was motivated by the belief that you would do more to confront the threat of climate change than your opponent. Tomorrow you’re going up to New York City, where you’re going to, I assume, see people who are still suffering the effects of Hurricane Sandy, which many people say is further evidence of how a warming globe is changing our weather. What specifically do you plan to do in a second term to tackle the issue of climate change? And do you think the political will exists in Washington to pass legislation that could include some kind of a tax on carbon?”

The president did not shy away from the question, saying, “I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions.”

“You know, as you know, Mark, we can’t attribute any particular weather event to climate change. What we do know is the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago. We do know that the Arctic ice cap is melting faster than was predicted even five years ago. We do know that there have been extraordinarily — there have been an extraordinarily large number of severe weather events here in North America, but also around the globe. And I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions. And as a consequence, I think we’ve got an obligation to future generations to do something about it.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Federal Housing Administration Running Out of Money, May Need Bailout

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If you thought bailouts were the stuff of 2008 you may want to think again.

A federal housing agency responsible for insuring hundreds of thousands of home loans may be running out of money and could soon be asking for a bailout from the government.

The Federal Housing Administration is so loaded with delinquent mortgages that its reserves are running low, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal the afternoon. The Journal, whose Nick Timiraos cites people familiar with the matter, notes that 9.6% of the FHA’s $1.08 trillion mortgage guarantees are more than 90 days past due or in foreclosure.

Just how bad is the FHA’s reserve problem? Last year the difference between its reserve amount and the money it would need if had to pay all its projected losses was just $1.2 billion , or .12% of its loan guarantees, the Journal reports. To put that in perspective, the agency is required to keep it above 2%.

If the FHA is indeed in need of a bailout then an already fragile housing recovery could be in trouble.

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Petition Frenzy: New Petition to Strip Citizenship of Secession Signers Gains Steam (+video)

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On President Barack Hussein Obama’s WhiteHouse.gov petition website, a new petition has been posted that seeks to strip the citizenship of all citizens who have signed secession petitions. Created on November 12, the petition now has 7,917 signatures.

To meet the White House’s 25,000 signature threshold for consideration, the petition requires – at the time of this posting, an additional 17,083 by December 12, 2012. At the current rate of over 4,000 signatures per day, it seems pretty apparent that this petition will reach its signature goal.

The creator of this most recent petition is “Douglas H.” from Escondido, California.

This new petition – as well as the secession petitions that have been filed since last week’s election – stand little chance of going anywhere despite the Obama administration’s attempt to create false expectations by citing to successful petitions relating to the women’s right to vote, slavery, and civil rights under the link, “History of Petitions.” The White House conveniently leaves out that such “petitions” required constitutional amendments and/or congressional action as well.

Other disappointing features of the WhiteHouse.gov petition site include the “We the People” wording on the headers of each page as well as the shaded “TAX CUTS” phrase immediately above “We the People.” The Obama administration likely got some real humor out of the inclusion of both phrases, given its antipathy to both Tea Party “We the People” ideals as well as tax cuts.

Here’s what the White House itself says about its petition process:

Huckabee Says There’s ‘Absolute Certainty’ of a White House Cover-up on Benghazi

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tells Newsmax it’s an “absolute certainty” there has been a cover-up involving the Benghazi terrorist attack and the White House “flat-out lied” to the American people about it.

He also maintains that Mitt Romney and the Republicans lost the election not because their message was wrong but because the Obama “machinery” was “staggeringly good.”

And Huckabee, who sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, says he won’t rule out another White House run in 2016.

CIA Director David Petraeus resigned his post after acknowledging an extramarital affair, and Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee want to know why, after the FBI had been investigating this for months, they hadn’t been notified earlier.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Huckabee was asked if details of his affair were covered up by the White House to help Obama win re-election. Read more from this story HERE.

[Editor’s Note: Curiously, after posting the video of the Huckabee interview where the Governor makes the “absolute certainty” comment, Newsmax pulled it down. We have contacted Newsmax for an explanation but have not received a response back at the time of this posting].

Report: Obama Asks Holder to Stay On for Second Term

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He’s back. President Barack Obama reportedly asked Eric Holder to stay as attorney general after he’s inaugurated for a second term, and the controversial Cabinet head agreed.

“I don’t know if everyone in the White House wants him [Holder] to stay, but the important guy does, and that’s all that matters,” a source told the New York Post.

Mr. Holder is one of the most controversial attorney generals in history. His Department of Justice is responsible for Fast & Furious, the gun walking operation that placed over 2,000 guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. These guns are connected to the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and over 300 Mexican citizens. Hundreds of guns are still missing. Another gun walking operation out of Dallas, TX is connected to the death of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata.

In July, the House of Representatives voted to hold Mr. Holder in contempt of Congress for not complying with an October 2011 subpoena over documents concerning Fast & Furious.

Read more from this story HERE.

Justice Scalia Shoots Down Idea of Leaving the Union: ‘There Is No Right to Secede’

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photo credit: us mission genevaLast night, TheBlaze reported that residents of 27 states had filed petitions with the White House to be allowed to secede from the union. As of today, that number has swelled to 47.

But could it actually happen? Do states even have a right to secede anymore? The answer, according to arguably the most respected conservative Justice of the United States Supreme Court, is an unequivocal “no.

Over at New York Personal Injury Attorney Blog, author Eric Turkewitz recounts an interesting story of how his brother, a screenwriter, managed to apparently coax an answer out of Scalia on precisely this topic.

Read more from this story HERE.

Google Reports Growing Government Surveillance

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photo credit: brionvGoogle received more requests from the U.S. government to hand over user data during the first half of this year than from any other country, according to the search company’s biannual “Transparency Report” released on Tuesday.

From January to June, Google received nearly 8,000 requests for user data from the U.S. government. The search company said it “fully or partially” compiled with roughly 90 percent of them. That’s up from the 5,950 requests for user data that Google received from the U.S. government during the same period a year ago.

More than 16,000 Google accounts were specified in the U.S. government’s user data requests, according to the report.

However, the search company cautioned that the total number of U.S. government requests for user data also tallied requests “issued by U.S. authorities on behalf of other governments pursuant to mutual legal assistance treaties and other diplomatic mechanisms.”

Still, that number dwarfs the requests from other countries: India and Brazil came after the U.S. with 2,319 and 1,566 requests for user data, respectively, during the first half of 2012.

Read more from this story HERE.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rejects Carbon Tax Proposal

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photo credit: caza_no_7House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) threw cold water Tuesday on supporting a carbon tax, hours after a Treasury Department official said the administration could consider the idea if Republicans lead the effort.

A tax on greenhouse gas emissions has won increased attentoin in recent weeks as a way to combat climate change and simultaneously raise revenues.

But Upton (R-Mich.) said Tuesday he is “not a carbon tax guy.”

The administration said last week it would not propose a carbon tax. But Gilbert E. Metcalf, Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary for energy and environment, reiterated that position Tuesday, opened the door to discussing carbon taxes in fiscal talks if Republicans initiated the push.

Upton comments Tuesday underscore how unlikely that scenario is as talks about avoiding the “fiscal cliff” unfold. Asked if he would accept a carbon tax along with a tax cut elsewhere, Upton said, “I don’t like the idea.”

Read more from this story HERE.

USA Today: Petraeus and Broadwell Used Common ‘Email Trick’ Used by Terrorists

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Paula Broadwell, ex-mistress of disgraced former CIA chief David Petraeus, could have used several different methods to hide her identity if in fact she sent anonymous, threatening emails to Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, experts say.

But Shawn Henry, who retired in March as the FBI’s executive assistant director in charge of all civil and criminal cyber investigation worldwide, says the FBI had many techniques available to trace the communications.

“Somewhere along the way, her IP address was captured,” Henry said.

Someone trying to remain anonymous can hide emails by routing them through different servers and using public computers that don’t keep activity logs, he said. Broadwell may have thought she had done everything to hide her tracks, but often people make mistakes, leaving their emails traceable by investigators, he said.

The Associated Press, citing a law enforcement source who declined to be identified, reported that Petraeus and Broadwell apparently used a “dropbox” to conceal their email traffic.

Read more from this story HERE.