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  • Attorney General Eric Holder: International Law Trumps The Constitution

    12/12/2014 9:32:07 PM PST · by Cheerio · 57 replies
    Christian Political Party ^ | November 29, 2014 | Christian Political Party
    Every now and then, news breaks in the Obama administration that is so stereotypical, it is actually depressing. You might want to sit down for this. Attorney General Eric Holder, made infamous by Operation Fast and Furious, is currently arguing before the Supreme Court that United Nations treaties trump the United States Constitution. That’s right. The sitting Attorney General, charged with upholding and defending the Constitution, is arguing before the highest court that international law is in fact the law of the land. The case in question, Bond v. United States, is actually pretty ridiculous. The defendant is charged with...
  • Russia calls for prosecutions over 'inquisition-style' CIA interrogation methods

    12/13/2014 1:44:27 PM PST · by Tailgunner Joe · 15 replies
    telegraph.co.uk ^ | December 11, 2014 | Tom Parfitt
    Russia has called on the United States to punish those responsible for the use of “inquisition-style” interrogation methods in the “global war on terror”, as revealed in the US Senate report on torture this week. Konstantin Dolgov, the human rights ombudsman of Russia’s foreign ministry, said the results of the “shocking” report were “the latest confirmation of gross, systemic human rights violations by the American authorities”. .... The Senate report showed that “prisoners in secret torture chambers were subjected to inhuman, humiliating treatment” including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and threats against suspects’ families in order to “beat confessions out of often...
  • Scalia Challenges Liberals On CIA Torture Debate: ‘You Think It’s An Easy Question?’ [Feinstein EZ]

    12/13/2014 12:29:51 PM PST · by Steelfish · 11 replies
    The Washington Times ^ | December 12, 2013 | Douglas Ernst
    Scalia Challenges Liberals On CIA Torture Debate: ‘You Think It’s An Easy Question?’ By Douglas Ernst December 12, 2014 Supreme CourtJustice Antonin Scalia has waded into the CIA torture debate after Democrats on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the interrogation techniques used after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Justice Scalia, speaking Wednesday with a Swiss broadcaster on the issue, accused American and European liberals of being unduly self-righteous on the matter given the kind of real-world scenarios that could unfold, The
  • Scalia: Constitution silent on torture

    12/13/2014 12:26:39 PM PST · by shove_it · 60 replies
    GOPUSA ^ | 13 Nov 2014 | AP
    WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is joining the debate over the Senate's torture report by saying it's hard to rule out the use of extreme measures to extract information if millions of lives were threatened. Scalia told a Swiss broadcast network that American and European liberals who say such tactics may never be used are being self-righteous. The 78-year-old justice said he doesn't "think it's so clear at all," especially if interrogators were trying to find a ticking nuclear bomb. Scalia has made similar comments in the past, but he renewed his remarks on Wednesday in an...
  • Greenfield: Leftist Lynch Mobs from Ferguson to Rolling Stone

    12/12/2014 5:35:03 AM PST · by Louis Foxwell · 8 replies
    Sultan Knish blog ^ | Friday, December 12, 2014 | Daniel Greenfield
    Friday, December 12, 2014 Leftist Lynch Mobs from Ferguson to Rolling Stone Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Did you bury a teenage girl alive after shooting her? Are you on death row after a string of crimes too gruesome to describe? Or you just a member of Al Qaeda dedicated to destroying America?  If so progressives will fight for you. Just dial 1-800-IAM-VICTIM and the left waiting to take your call will insist on your presumption of innocence. Its activists, reporters and lawyers will exploit every pretext to get you off the hook and they will...
  • California Drought Linked to Natural Causes, Not Climate Change

    12/12/2014 9:24:13 PM PST · by Olog-hai · 11 replies
    LiveScience ^ | December 08, 2014 06:01pm ET | Becky Oskin
    Natural temperature swings in the ocean, not global warming, are driving California’s extreme drought, according to a new government study. Researchers said sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean set up an atmospheric roadblock off the West Coast that diverted winter storms away from California. The state relies on winter rain and snow for most of its yearly water. The roadblock is a persistent ridge of high pressure that first formed in 2011 during a La Niña event. Even though La Niña broke down after the 2011-2012 winter, the western equatorial Pacific Ocean remained a warm water bull’s-eye, a...
  • Isis: the inside story

    12/11/2014 3:40:37 PM PST · by LeoWindhorse · 3 replies
    The Guardian ^ | Dec 11th , 2014 | Martin Chulov
    One of the Islamic State’s senior commanders reveals exclusive details of the terror group’s origins inside an Iraqi prison – right under the noses of their American jailers. In the summer of 2004, a young jihadist in shackles and chains was walked by his captors slowly into the Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq [snip] “I knew some of them straight away,” he told me last month. “I had feared Bucca all the way down on the plane. But when I got there, it was much better than I thought. In every way.”
  • Obama's Science and Tech Adviser, Holdren, laid foundation for understanding environmental probs

    12/12/2014 11:48:13 AM PST · by Cincinatus' Wife · 2 replies
    Volvo Environment Prize ^ | December 12, 2014
    "In 1993, the [Volvo Environment] Prize went to Professor Paul R. Ehrlich of Stanford University and Professor John P. Holdren of the University of California in Berkeley, whose work laid the foundations of our understanding of how the dynamics of population growth, rising living standards and changing technology, as well as the relationships between them, interact in the context of environmental problems." List of past winners (and their work) from 1990 - 2014 Professor Paul R. Ehrlich, Professor John P. Holdren
  • Dem Rep: America should apologize to suspected terrorists who underwent enhanced interrogation

    12/11/2014 7:44:06 PM PST · by 2ndDivisionVet · 31 replies
    Hot Air ^ | December 11, 2014 | Noah Rothman
    And here we go: Right off the deep end. It’s as predictable as the sunrise. As those who are genuinely and honestly outraged over the revelations contained within the Senate Intelligence Committee’s “torture” report strain themselves in the effort to adopt a posture of unparalleled indignation, they inevitably overreach. So far, the best example of this kind of indulgence in regrettable hyperbole in the pursuit of moral preening is Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA). In an appearance on MSNBC on Wednesday, Speier reacted to the release of the SSCI’s report on the CIA’s Bush-era enhanced interrogation program by saying America’s clandestine...
  • Senator Feinstein tells CIA director to #ReadTheReport

    12/12/2014 12:36:25 AM PST · by Libloather · 15 replies
    MSN ^ | 12/11/14
    As CIA chief John Brennan defended the spy agency's interrogation program for terror suspects Thursday, a senior senator whose committee published a damning report on the practice contested his claims. Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein's staff repeatedly used the hashtag #ReadTheReport on the senator's Twitter feed during Brennan's rare press conference broadcast live from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Brennan said it was "unknowable" whether key information from suspects subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs), which critics have equated to torture, could have been obtained through other methods. But Feinstein's staff responded: "Study shows it IS knowable: CIA...
  • CIA chief challenges Senate torture report

    12/11/2014 8:07:00 PM PST · by Olog-hai · 6 replies
    Associated Press ^ | Dec 11, 2014 10:38 PM EST | Ken Dilanian
    CIA Director John Brennan threaded a rhetorical needle in an unprecedented televised news conference at CIA headquarters Thursday, acknowledging that agency officers did “abhorrent” things to detainees but defending the overall post-9/11 interrogation program for stopping attacks and saving lives. At the heart of Brennan’s case is a finely tuned argument: that while today’s CIA takes no position on whether the brutal interrogation tactics themselves led detainees to cooperate, there is no doubt that detainees subjected to the treatment offered “useful and valuable” information afterward. …
  • The CIA's rebuttal to the Feinstein report

    12/11/2014 7:41:38 PM PST · by Ennis85 · 12 replies
    CIA ^ | 27 June 2013 | CIA
    Just thought if anyone wants a good skewering of the recent senate report heres the CIA's 135 page response released a few days ago. 1. I appreciate the opportunity for the Central Intelligence Agency to comment on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Study of the Agency's long-terminated Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Program (hereafter referred to as the "Study"). As I noted during my confirmation hearing and in subsequent discussions with you and with Committee members, the lengthy Study deserved careful review by the Agency in light of the significance and sensitivity of the subject matter and; of particular concern;...
  • Two Major Gang Stings Rock Southern California Underworld [Video]

    12/12/2014 12:51:06 AM PST · by dignitasnews · 4 replies
    Dignitas News Service ^ | December 12, 2014 | Dignitas News Team
    Two major law enforcement stings targeting Southern California gangs have rocked the Los Angeles and San Diego underworld. The FBI conducted raids against two major gangs this week, arresting more than 50 gangsters and associates involved in numerous rackets, from drug trafficking to underage prostitution. Members of East LA's Big Hazard gang were rounded up Wednesday morning, while Federal officials in San Diego Thursday indicted 22 members of the Tycoons syndicate, involving members from various local street gangs. Big Hazard, aka Hazard Grande, East Los Angeles In a massive undertaking dubbed Operation Resident Evil, more than 800 law enforcement officials from various...
  • No. 2 Senate Dem: 'We've got a problem' if Dodd-Frank rider stays

    12/12/2014 2:00:20 AM PST · by Libloather · 34 replies
    The Hill ^ | 12/11/14 | Rebecca Shabad
    Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Thursday morning slammed a provision in the pending spending bill that would repeal a piece of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and expressed doubt that enough Democrats could support the package if that rider remains. “I just spoke to Nancy Pelosi. The Democrats believe this is an odious provision that should not be included. Many of us feel the same way,” said Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “[Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)] can take it out in the bat of any eye, and I hope he will....
  • Dem: Don't be intimidated by Obama (Mad Maxine goes off)

    12/12/2014 1:44:24 AM PST · by Libloather · 5 replies
    The Hill ^ | 12/11/14 | Mike Lillis
    Liberal House Democrats are fighting tooth and nail against President Obama over the fate of an enormous year-end government spending bill. With just hours to go before a scheduled government shutdown, the Democrats launched a lobbying blitz to counter calls made by Obama and other White House officials urging passage of the bill. Leading the charge was Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, who is up in arms over the face that Obama has agreed to accept a GOP rider to undo parts of the 2010 Wall Street reform law as part of...
  • Pelosi 'enormously disappointed' in Obama

    12/12/2014 1:49:56 AM PST · by Libloather · 21 replies
    The Hill ^ | 12/11/14 | Mike Lillis
    In a rare break from President Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blasted the White House on Thursday for putting its weight behind the $1.1 trillion government funding package. In a speech decrying the “cromnibus” on the House floor, Pelosi, the minority leader, noted that Republican defections have given the Democrats significant leverage in the debate and wondered why the White House wouldn't use that power to fight the conservative policy riders that have sparked the Democrats' outcry. “I'm enormously disappointed that the White House feels that the only way they can get a bill is to go along with this,”...
  • Waters warns House Dems against intimidation as Obama chief of staff arrives

    12/11/2014 4:19:23 PM PST · by JSDude1 · 26 replies
    Hotair ^ | December 11, 2014 | Ed Morrissey
    The fight over the “cromnibus” began as an internecine battle within the Republican Party — which is nothing new for the GOP on Capitol Hill when it comes to budgets. Over the past few hours, though, it’s turned into a civil war among Democrats, especially between progressives in Congress and the White House. Barack Obama spent the afternoon on the phone attempting to whip enough House Democrats to vote for the bill, while Nancy Pelosi declared herself opposed to the bill and whipped her caucus to stand firm. As noted in an update in the earlier post, Obama sent his...
  • This Pastor, Father of Four Adopted Children, is Being Forced to Pay for Abortions

    12/11/2014 8:23:07 PM PST · by Morgana · 4 replies
    LIFE NEWS ^ | 12/11/14 | Kelsey Harkness
    For 36 years, Jim Garlow didn’t know his first adopted child was the result of a rape. But after his wife Carol lost a six-year battle with cancer last year, their daughter, Janie, went in search of her birth mother. In succeeding, Janie also discovered the horrific circumstances of her own conception. The story spurs Jim Garlow, a pastor in California, to fight a state mandate that his church’s employee health plan pay for elective abortions. When Janie’s birth mother was a freshman in high school, two senior boys asked her to go to the movies. Instead, they took her...
  • A WORD OF LOVE AND DIRECTION

    12/09/2014 7:03:33 AM PST · by Jedediah
    My children of light you have arrived for you abide in My presence in Zion yet many remain earthbound in distractions. Therefore throw off these hindrances "yeah" fast the earth for though I am coming I have already arrived in "you" My Zion on earth. You see as you strip your wellspring of earthly desires Heaven arises in you in all the fullness of The Godhead and it is then My will "is" done. Let there be freedom for My Spirit to "speak" to you of new things and allow Me to bless you through your obedience to My Voice...
  • BERKELEY PROTESTS SHUT DOWN PETER THIEL SPEECH

    12/11/2014 11:58:19 AM PST · by MeshugeMikey · 18 replies
    Breitbart ^ | December 11 2104 | by JOEL B. POLLAK
    On Wednesday evening, in the very hall where the University of California at Berkeley had just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, demonstrators shut down a speech by billionaire tech guru--and noted libertarian--Peter Thiel. The activists who broke into Wheeler Hall were protesting the non-indictment of police officers in the deaths of black suspects Michael Brown and Eric Garner in Ferguson, MO and Staten Island, NY for the fifth straight evening.