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Trans-Pacific Partnership: Obama’s Dangerous International Deal Surrendering U.S. Sovereignty

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Photo Credit: WikicommonsWhile the Obama Administration appears to be growing ever-more-limp domestically, the president is still making a vigorous international push that has the potential to shift economic power dynamics, rewrite intellectual property laws, establish new labor and environmental regulations, and reduce the authority of Congress. And, the White House hopes to have all this sorted out by the end of this year.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), considered the “cornerstone of the Obama Administration’s economic policy in the Asia Pacific,” has been quietly negotiated since since the president’s first term began. The U.S. Trade Representative Office (USTR) presents the agreement as a means for the United States and other 11 other Pacific-rim countries to be the leaders of a technology-fueled future by trading with each other free of government tariffs. For all this, it has received a ringing endorsement from the New York Times.

However, as documents from negotiations have been leaked, a growing number of politicians and policy groups across political ideologies have found disconcerting features of the TPP that point not at all toward free trade, but bigger government, stricter laws, and less accountability.

Too Much Secrecy

Perhaps the most widely discussed aspects of the ongoing TPP negotiations is the apparent secrecy. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have spoken out against the lack of transparency for such a massive agreement. Warren even wrote a letter to Obama, goading him that the Bush administration conducted more democratic, transparent trade negotiations.

Read more from this story HERE.

What In the World Is Happening to Our Senior Military Officers?

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Photo Credit: Linas Garsys for The Washington TimesWhat in the world is happening to senior military officers under the Obama administration?

It seems that every week since President Obama took office in 2009, we’ve been hearing that another top leader has been summarily fired, despite his decades of loyal service and valuable experience in protecting the nation. Statistically speaking, it’s actually closer to one every 8.8 days, a staggering 200 military brass shown the door in less than five years.

The Pentagon has offered up a grab bag of reasons for these dismissals — from a simple “loss of confidence,” to more descriptive “insensitive remarks,” “sexual misconduct,” and even “counterfeit poker chips.”

The latest two to fall from grace, Navy Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch, director of naval intelligence, and Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, director of intelligence operations, were stripped of their security clearances last week, effectively ending their careers. They allegedly engaged in “inappropriate conduct” over a Navy contracting scandal related to scheduling port visits in Southeast Asia during the past decade. According to Navy officials, the probe into Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia is expected to widen — meaning, we’ll likely see other senior officers terminated in the weeks ahead.

Though firing senior military leaders was routine in different eras, including World War II and the Civil War, it was mostly related to lack of success on the battlefield. The battlefield has changed considerably since then, though, and those same metrics are harder to measure today.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Camp Views 20-Week Abortion Ban as ‘Pretty Scary’ Pro-Life Tactic

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Photo Credit: AP/Susan WalshPresident Obama’s old campaign operation rallied the troops today, warning of a “pretty scary” ban on abortions in the sixth month of pregnancy that voters in Albuquerque, N.M., might pass.

“Something pretty scary is happening in Albuquerque right now,” Kaili Lambe, who manages women’s issues campaigns for Organizing for Action, wrote in an email to Obama’s 2012 campaign volunteers and grassroots donors.

“This is a serious attack on women — and it’s a deliberate attempt by extreme interest groups to test their latest anti-women strategy,” she said.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance had 54 percent support among the city’s likely voters, even though “Albuquerque generally is a progressive city and New Mexico is generally a progressive state,” as ProgressNow New Mexico spokesman Patrick Davis said.

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Former Obama Admin Official Van Jones: Obama Will ‘Pay Price’ For Healthcare Promise Reversal

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Photo Credit: Yahoo This morning on “This Week,” Crossfire co-host Van Jones, a former Obama administration official, said the president would “pay a price,” for reversing course on his now famous promise that those Americans who like their plans could keep them if them if they wished under Obamacare.

“”And he overpromised. And he will, listen, he will pay a price. ‘Mission accomplished,’ you pay a price. ‘No new taxes,’ you pay a price. ‘You keep your plan,’ you pay a price,” Jones said.

During his appearance on the “This Week,” roundtable Jones also tweaked the Obama administration for being too ambitious with Healthcare.gov, which has been plagued by problems since its launch last month.

“First of all, they tried to do too much on this website, you could just have the website where you allow people to shop and then they could just call in, I mean, they tried to do too much and I think part of it was because it was a central thing they did, they tried to do too much,” he said.

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Lawmakers, Coal Industry Slam EPA Regs at Capitol Hill Rally

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Photo Credit: Graeme Jennings/ExaminerThousands of coal miners swarmed the Capitol’s west lawn Tuesday to protest forthcoming Environmental Protection Agency regulations that they say will kill jobs in coal communities.

The estimated crowd of 3,000 at the industry-sponsored event railed against greenhouse gas emission rules floated by President Obama’s EPA. Attendees, as well as lawmakers who spoke at the event, contended the agency is putting their livelihoods in jeopardy.

“We’re going to push back against these people in every chance we can. We are going to stop this war on coal,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said at the event. “[Obama] has created a depression in eastern Kentucky.”

The EPA’s carbon rule for new power plants is due by June, and the one for existing plants is scheduled for June 2015.

Republicans, centrist Democrats and industry officials say those impending rules, which are the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s plan to address climate change, will drive energy prices higher, stunt the economy and create ghost towns out of coal communities.

Read more from this story HERE.

World’s Anger at Obama Policies Goes Beyond Europe and the NSA

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Photo Credit: CLAUDIA HIMMELREICHWhether miffed over spying revelations or feeling sold out by U.S. moves in the Middle East, some of the United States’ closest allies are so upset that the Obama administration has gone into damage-control mode to ensure the rifts don’t widen and threaten critical partnerships.

The quarrels differ in their causes and degrees of seriousness. As a whole, however, they pose a new foreign policy headache for an administration whose overseas track record is seen in many quarters at home and abroad as reactive and lacking direction.

In Europe and the Middle East, rifts that once would’ve been quietly smoothed over have exploded into headlines and public remonstrations.

The uproar in Europe over revelations from fugitive former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that the United States spied on as many as 35 government leaders, including Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, has become so great that early Friday 28 European leaders said Merkel and French President Francois Hollande would open negotiations with the United States over a “no-spying agreement.”

In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, already fed up with U.S. reluctance to get more deeply involved in the Syrian civil war, has become alarmed by Obama’s overtures to the Saudis’ archenemy, Iran, with which the Saudis are locked in a battle for regional supremacy. Reports indicate it is considering breaking over cooperation with the Obama administration on a range of issues, including training for so-called moderate Syrian rebels.

Read more from this story HERE.

Women in Labor Force Matches 24-Year Low

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Photo Credit: APCNSNews.com reported Tuesday that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ newly released data indicates American women participated in the nation’s labor force in September at a rate that matched the lowest level in 24 years.

Meanwhile, the number of women actually holding jobs decreased by 154,000 from August to September.

The actual unemployment rate for women dropped from 6.8 percent to 6.7 percent, due to the fact that the decline in the number of females in the labor force was greater than the number of females actually holding jobs. These statistics are based on the definition of what it means to be a “participant in the labor force.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Hobby Lobby Appeals to Supreme Court to Stop Obama Admin From Forcing it to Obey HHS Mandate

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesChristian craft store Hobby Lobby today filed papers with the Supreme Court asking it to take it case against the Obama administration, which is attempting to make it comply with the HHS mandate that compels religious companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees.

In July, a federal court granted Hobby Lobby a preliminary injunction against the HHS abortion-drug mandate. The injunction prevented the Obama administration from enforcing the mandate against the Christian company, but the Obama administration appealed that ruling recently. The government’s appeal makes it highly likely that the Supreme Court will decide the issue in the upcoming term.

The Obama administration submitted papers in September and Hobby Lobby filed its own papers today.

Hobby Lobby asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review its case and decide whether the Green family will be required to provide and pay for life-terminating drugs and devices in violation of their religious beliefs, according to an email from its attorneys to LifeNews.

“Hobby Lobby’s case raises important questions about who can enjoy religious freedom,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead lawyer for Hobby Lobby. “Right now, some courts recognize the rights of business owners like the Green family, and others do not. Religious freedom is too important to be left to chance. The Supreme Court should take this case and protect religious freedom for the Green family and Hobby Lobby.”

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Report: Obama Administration Most Secretive Since Nixon

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Photo Credit: Washington TimesThe Obama White House’s war against leaks, and its penchant for secrecy and noted lack of transparency, are the worst “since the Nixon administration,” according to a major new study that relied on interviews from leading Washington reporters and news organization chiefs.

The report, released Thursday by the Committee to Project Journalists, found that reporters from many major media outlets consider the Obama administration the most closed-off in recent memory, and that there is not “any precedent” for its often hostile relationship toward the press.

More than 30 veteran reporters were interviewed for the piece, which was written by CPJ’s Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of The Washington Post and now a professor at Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The massive study goes into great detail in discussing the administration’s battle against leakers such as Edward Snowden; its “Insider Threat Program” that asks government employees to monitor their colleagues’ behavior; and general lack of transparency, despite repeated promises from Mr. Obama that his White House would be the most open in history.

“This is the most closed, control freak administration I’ve ever covered,” wrote New York Times Washington correspondent David Sanger, one of the journalists interviewed for the report.

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Obama Admin will Allow Amnesty Rally on National Mall During Gov’t Shutdown

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Photo Credit: APThe Obama administration will allow a massive rally for comprehensive immigration reform on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall, even though it is supposed to be closed due to the federal government shutdown.

Open-air spaces like the World War II Memorial have been barricaded since the federal government shut down last week, but an organizer for the rally told the Washington Examiner that the National Park Service will allow the rally and march.

As Breitbart News reported, immigration activists have called for volunteers to get themselves arrested at the rally in acts of civil disobedience.

The event will be a culmination of rallies across the country over the weekend in which immigration activists demonstrated in 41 states demanding amnesty.

A variety of immigration activist organizations, along with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO, are organizing the event, which they claim will attract 10,000 people.

Read more from this story HERE.