Have You Heard About the Quietly-Released Obama Memo on ‘Insider Threat Policy’?

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In what some might consider an increasingly growing trend of releasing information just before holidays or the late on Friday afternoon, the White House has yet again quietly published a memo from President Barack Obama, laying out guidelines for executive agencies to establish “effective insider threat programs.”

The presidential memorandum issued on Nov. 21 — the day before Thanksgiving — is called “National Insider Threat Policy and Minimum Standards for Executive Branch Insider Threat Programs.” Here’s what the relatively short memo said (Note: Emphasis added):

“This Presidential Memorandum transmits the National Insider Threat Policy and Minimum Standards for Executive Branch Insider Threat Programs (Minimum Standards) to provide direction and guidance to promote the development of effective insider threat programs within departments and agencies to deter, detect, and mitigate actions by employees who may represent a threat to national security. These threats encompass potential espionage, violent acts against the Government or the Nation, and unauthorized disclosure of classified information, including the vast amounts of classified data available on interconnected United States Government computer networks and systems.

The Minimum Standards provide departments and agencies with the minimum elements necessary to establish effective insider threat programs. These elements include the capability to gather, integrate, and centrally analyze and respond to key threat-related information; monitor employee use of classified networks; provide the workforce with insider threat awareness training; and protect the civil liberties and privacy of all personnel.

The resulting insider threat capabilities will strengthen the protection of classified information across the executive branch and reinforce our defenses against both adversaries and insiders who misuse their access and endanger our national security.”

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Study: American Households Hit 43-Year Low In Net Worth

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Washington – The median net worth of American households has dropped to a 43-year low as the lower and middle classes appear poorer and less stable than they have been since 1969.

According to a recent study by New York University economics professor Edward N. Wolff, median net worth is at the decades-low figure of $57,000 (in 2010 dollars). And as the numbers in his study reflect, the situation only appears worse when all the statistics are taken as a whole.

According to Wolff, between 1983 and 2010, the percentage of households with less than $10,000 in assets (using constant 1995 dollars) rose from 29.7 percent to 37.1 percent. The “less than $10,000″ figure includes the numerous households that have no assets at all, or “negative assets,” which is otherwise known as “debt.”

Over that same period of time, the wealthiest 1 percent of American households increased their average wealth by 71 percent.

As noted by Daily Finance, from 1983 to 2010 the share of total wealth held by the richest 10 percent of American households increased from 68.2 percent to 76.7 percent. Meanwhile, all the rest of Americans lost financial ground.

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Opposed New Iran Sanctions

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photo credit: adam jones

The White House announced its opposition to a new round of Iran sanctions that the Senate unanimously approved Friday, in the latest instance of Congress pushing for more aggressive punitive measures on Iran than the administration deems prudent.

On Thursday, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) introduced the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which the Senate passed 94-0. The new legislative language would blacklist Iran’s energy, port, shipping, and shipbuilding sectors, while also placing new restrictions on Iran’s ability to get insurance for all these industries. The legislation would also vastly expand U.S. support for human rights inside Iran and impose new sanctions on Iranians who divert humanitarian assistance from its intended purpose.

“The window is closing. The time for the waiting game is over,” Menendez said on the Senate floor Thursday night. “Yes, our sanctions are having a demonstrable effect on the Iranian economy, but Iran is still working just as hard to develop nuclear weapons.”

But the White House told several Senate offices Thursday evening that the administration was opposed to the amendment. National Security Spokesman Tommy Vietor sent The Cable the administration’s official position, explaining the White House’s view the sanctions aren’t needed and aren’t helpful at this time.

“As we focus with our partners on effectively implementing these efforts, we believe additional authorities now threaten to undercut these efforts,” he said. “We also have concerns with some of the formulations as currently drafted in the text and want to work through them with our congressional partners to make the law more effective and consistent with the current sanctions law to ensure we don’t undercut our success to date.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Midwife in California Arrested by Armed Thugs, Cash Taken From Home

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A 60-year old midwife who has delivered hundreds of healthy babies in California was arrested by armed agents in her home earlier this month. A local TV station reported that

Brenda Capps was booked for violation of Business and Professions Code section 2052, which is unlicensed practice of medicine.

Investigators with the Medical Board’s Operation Safe Medicine conducted an undercover investigation that led to Capp’s arrest.

The Medical Board first became aware of Capps during another investigation and successful criminal prosecution of an unlicensed person for practicing midwifery and medicine. During the initial investigation of Capps, Medical Board investigators confirmed that she was unlicensed and warned her not to practice midwifery without being properly licensed.

Following her arrest, Ms. Capps was booked in the county jail on felony charges.

Unlike other recent midwifery prosecution cases, Ms. Capps’ case did not involve any allegations of medical malpractice. Rather, the heavy hand of California’s Medical Board police (yes, they have guns) was brought to bear against Ms. Capps, apparently to send a message to other liberty-minded practitioners that unlicensed birthing will not be tolerated on the left-Coast.

Here’s what Ms. Capps’ husband, an itinerant pastor, had to say about the jack-booted arrest of his wife:

[A]fter 22 years of faithful midwifery ministry the [California] Medical Board came into our home and arrested Brenda Capps on Thursday Nov. 15th 2012 around 11 a.m. Brenda works under The Religious Exemption Clause and has every client sign the form for her care. We have obtained an outstanding attorney (David Faulkner of Bakersfield) and the Midwives all over [California] and USA and even out of the country are calling and in support. We seek your prayers. My wife is fearful. We are staying with her at all times. We will fight this to victory. All babies due are being delivered by other midwives in support of midwifery. Brenda Capps works as a Christian Domiciliary Midwife and within her rights of the law. The MB people who were all over our home with guns took $500.00 cash money from Brenda’s desk that was her birthday money.

Read more concerning this story HERE.

Conservative Activist Threatens to Steer Donors From RNC if GOP Raises Taxes

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photo credit: gage skidmore

Brent Bozell, a prominent conservative activist and fundraiser, is threatening to steer donors away from the Republican Party if GOP lawmakers sign a deal to raise taxes.

Bozell sent a letter to Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus on Wednesday pledging to make it his mission to counsel conservative donors to shun the party if its leaders in Congress agree to raise taxes.

Bozell, the chairman of ForAmerica Inc., has been active in conservative political circles for three decades and estimates he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for “an alphabet soup of conservative causes.”

“Reince, it pains me to say this, but if the Republican Party breaks its word to the American people and goes along with President Obama with tax increases, it will have betrayed conservatives for the final time,” Bozell wrote.

“I will make it my mission to ensure that every conservative donor to the Republican Party that I have worked with for the last three decades — and there are many and they have given tens of millions to Republican causes — gives not one penny more to the Republican Party or any member of Congress that votes for tax increases,” he warned.

Read more from this story HERE.

No Answers in Death of Technician Linked to Andrew Breitbart

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In the early afternoon of April 18, 2012, Michael Cormier, an autopsy technician at the Los Angeles coroner’s office, drove himself to Kaiser Permanente Hospital complaining of heart and stomach pain and diarrhea. The doctors suspected a heart issue or an ulcer and recommended he follow up with his regular physician. Two days later, Cormier asked his wife to call 911. An ambulance took him Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, where he died several hours later from massive organ failure.

While he was at Providence St. Joseph, an unidentified family member called and recommended that the hospital check Cormier for poison. A screen test found a significant amount of arsenic in Cormier’s system, and the hospital contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. In the early stages of the investigation into Cormier’s death, the police wouldn’t rule out an accident, suicide, or something more nefarious, and the coroner deferred the cause of death pending further toxicology results.

In all, it was not a remarkable set of circumstances, but Cormier’s death made national news when numerous right-wing blogs linked it to the death of Andrew Breitbart, the conservative media juggernaut and Tea Party hero who had died on March 1 at the age of 43.

“According to early reports, Michael Cormier was ‘seemingly healthy,’ yet ‘suddenly stricken’ with a fatal condition—just like Andrew Breitbart,” read a post on Infowars.com.

The blogs were already speculating that Breitbart—who had announced shortly before his death that he had acquired deeply damaging video footage of President Obama—had been assassinated by the president or his supporters. When Cormier died on the day the coroner’s office announced Breitbart’s cause of death as a heart attack, the right-wing conspiracy theories became more heated. Infowars asked, “Was Cormier targeted because he knew something” about Breitbart’s death which contradicted the official findings?

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U.S. Birth Rate Hits Record Low

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The U.S. birth rate dropped to its lowest level since the beginning of the Great Depression, led by a drop among immigrants, according to a report data released Thursday by the Pew Research Center.

In 2011, the overall birth rate was 63.2 per 1,000 women of childbearing age, the lowest since at least 1920, Pew reported, citing numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics. The birth rate reached 122.7 in 1957, the peak of the Baby Boom. After the mid-1970s, the birth rate stabilized at about 65 to 70 births per 1,000 women annually, until the beginning of the Great Recession.

Since 2007, both the U.S. birth rate (the number of live births per 1,000 women ages 15-44) and the number of births have dropped significantly, according to the report.

Overall, the birth rate declined 8 percent from 2007 to 2010. Among U.S.-born women, the birth rate dropped 6 percent. The decline among foreign-born women was 14 percent. Among Mexican women, the birth rate fell even more, to 23 percent.

Despite the recent decline, foreign-born moms continue to give birth to a disproportionate share of the country’s babies, the report said. In 2010, immigrants represented about 13 percent of the U.S. population while foreign-born mothers accounted for 23 percent of all births.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gallup: Americans Turn on Government-guaranteed Health Care

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A new Gallup poll shows that 54 percent of Americans think it is not the federal government’s responsibility to ensure all citizens have health care coverage. This is the first time Gallup trends have shown a majority of Americans holding this opinion since 2000, according to Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones.

From 2000 until around the time President Barack Obama was elected, polls showed an easy majority of Americans supported government-ensured health care. In most years during that time frame, more than 60 percent of Americans thought the government should make sure everyone had health care.

“The shift away from the view that the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all began shortly after President Barack Obama’s election and has continued the past several years during the discussions and ultimate passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010,” Jones wrote, adding that 48 percent of Americans support Obamacare while 45 percent oppose it.

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McConnell ‘Burst Into Laughter’ as Geithner Outlined Obama’s Plan

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Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, says he “burst into laughter” Thursday when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner outlined the administration proposal for averting the fiscal cliff. He wasn’t trying to embarrass Geithner, McConnell says, only responding candidly to his one-sided plan, explicit on tax increases, vague on spending cuts.

Geithner’s visit to his office left McConnell discouraged about reaching a “balanced” deal on tax hikes and spending reductions designed to prevent a shock to the economy in January. “Nothing good is happening” in the negotiations, McConnell says, because of Obama’s insistence on tax rate hikes for the wealthy but unwillingness to embrace serious spending cuts.

Geithner suggested $1.6 trillion in tax increases, McConnell says, but showed “minimal or no interest” in spending cuts. When congressional leaders went to the White House three days after the election, Obama talked of possible curbs on the explosive growth of food stamps and Social Security disability payments. But since Geithner didn’t mention them, those reductions appear to be off the table now, McConnell says.

Obama is pushing to raise the tax rates on couples earning more than $250,000 and individuals earning more than $200,000. But those wouldn’t produce revenues anywhere near $1.6 trillion over a decade.

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CATO: $100 Billion of Corporate Welfare in the Federal Budget

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Rising federal spending and huge deficits are pushing the nation toward a financial and economic crisis. Policymakers should find and eliminate wasteful, damaging, and unneeded programs in the federal budget. One good way to save money would be to cut subsidies to businesses. Corporate welfare in the federal budget costs taxpayers almost $100 billion a year.

Policymakers claim that business subsidies are needed to fix alleged market failures or to help American companies better compete in the global economy. However, corporate welfare often subsidizes failing and mismanaged businesses and induces firms to spend more time on lobbying rather than on making better products. Instead of correcting market failures, federal subsidies misallocate resources and introduce government failures into the marketplace.

While corporate welfare may be popular with policymakers who want to aid home-state businesses, it undermines the broader economy and transfers wealth from average taxpaying households to favored firms. Corporate welfare also creates strong ties between politicians and business leaders, and these ties are often the source of corruption scandals in Washington. Americans are sick and tired of “crony capitalism,” and the way to solve the problem is to eliminate business subsidy programs.

Corporate welfare doesn’t aid economic growth and it is an affront to America’s constitutional principles of limited government and equality under the law. Policymakers should therefore scour the budget for business subsidies to eliminate. Budget experts and policymakers may differ on exactly which programs represent unjustified corporate welfare, but this study provides a menu of about $100 billion in programs to terminate.

Read more from this report HERE.