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House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Sunday that the Senate should change its rules in order to pass a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). "I think they should change the rule," McCarthy said on NBC's "Meet the Press," suggesting the Senate invoke the so-called "nuclear option" to allow spending bills to only require a simple majority to advance instead of 60 votes.

EVELETH, Minn. – Workers in a call center on Minnesota’s Iron Range don headsets each day knowing their employer’s core business: Get Democrats elected. For years, prominent Democratic candidates and political groups have used the obscure center tucked among hills and pines to canvass and raise money from small donors. DFL organizations, state and national, have paid the phone bank’s current and former owners about $80 million over the last decade, campaign records show. The call center relocated to Eveleth in 2006 thanks in part to a $625,000 loan from a unique state agency called the Iron Range Resources and...

BEN GURION AIRPORT, Israel: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to Washington on Sunday on what he said was a “historic” mission to try and stop a nuclear deal with Iran, an AFP correspondent said. The controversial 48-hour visit will see the Israeli leader addressing a joint session of the US Congress in a bid to garner last-minute support to halt an emerging world deal with Iran over its nuclear program, in a move which has infuriated the White House. But Netanyahu, who will also address the annual policy conference of the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby, has refused to back down....

WASHINGTON—The U.S. is providing spy-satellite imagery to Ukraine to help in its fight against Russia-backed rebels, but with a catch: the images are significantly degraded to avoid provoking Russia or compromising U.S. secrets. The White House agreed last year to Ukraine’s request to provide the photos and other intelligence. But before delivering them, U.S. officials black out military staging areas on Russian territory and reduce the resolution so that enemy formations can’t be clearly made out, making them less useful to Ukrainian military commanders. Those steps, which delay the delivery of the images by at least 24 hours, are designed...

The powers behind the FCC’s muscling of the Internet Today’s vote by a bitterly divided Federal Communications Commission that the Internet should be regulated as a public utility is the culmination of a decade-long battle by the Left. Using money from George Soros and liberal foundations that totaled at least $196 million, radical activists finally succeeded in ramming through “net neutrality,” or the idea that all data should be transmitted equally over the Internet. The final push involved unprecedented political pressure exerted by the Obama White House on FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, head of an ostensibly independent regulatory body. “Net...

No Senate Democrats block measure backing Bibi’s speechThe Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution welcoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to America and endorsing his speech before a joint session of Congress. Critics of the Obama administration view the unanimous approval as a rebuke to the White House and Democrats, who have vowed to boycott Netanyahu’s address and work to counter his warnings about the dangers of a nuclear Iran. No Senate Democrats sponsored the measure, which attracted 50 Republican cosponsors. However, none attempted to block its passage, signaling that support for Israel and Netanyahu’s message has outweighed a pressure...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — In a surprise speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) unloaded on former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—systematically dismantling Bush’s push for amnesty and a massive increase in guest workers from around the world. “Right now, there are two conferences—one of them in public where candidates are out there having to speak and defend and answer questions on their views and on their positions on important issues facing America,” Sessions said to open up his remarks to the Breitbart News-sponsored meet-and-greet with CPAC activists. “Many people at this conference here and watching...

Washington (CNN)The Department of Homeland Security moved closer to running out of money Friday after the House rejected a bill that would have kept the agency open for three more weeks. Unless another deal is reached by midnight, DHS will fall into a partial shutdown, leaving thousands of workers furloughed while forcing others to show up on the job without being paid. The House vote was a shocking twist to a dramatic day on Capitol Hill. For most of the day, lawmakers seemed poised to avoid a partial shutdown. The House cleared a procedural hurdle earlier in the day, indicating...

This week, prosecutors in New York introduced eight documents recovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan as evidence in the trial of a terrorism suspect. The U.S. government accuses Abid Naseer of taking part in al Qaeda’s scheme to attack targets in Europe and New York City. And prosecutors say the documents are essential for understanding the scope of al Qaeda’s plotting. More than 1 million documents and files were captured by the Navy Seals who raided bin Laden’s safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011. One year later, in May 2012, the Obama administration released just 17...

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83. His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed his death, saying the cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced on Thursday night that hundreds of former IRS official Lois Lerner’s previously “lost” backup tapes have been recovered, which could result in the recovery of a new trove of her emails. IRS Deputy Inspector General Timothy P. Camus told Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) on Thursday that it took investigators just two weeks to recover 424 backup tapes that were previously said to be unretrievable. “To date, we have found 32,744 unique emails that were backed up from Lois Lerner’s email box. We are in the process of comparing these emails to what...

It’s starting. As promised, President Obama is using executive actions to impose gun control on the nation, targeting the top-selling rifle in the country, the AR-15 style semi-automatic, with a ban on one of the most-used AR bullets by sportsmen and target shooters. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this month revealed that it is proposing to put the ban on 5.56mm ammo on a fast track, immediately driving up the price of the bullets and prompting retailers, including the huge outdoors company Cabela’s, to urge sportsmen to urge Congress to stop the president.

The US Department of Justice and embattled mayor Rahm Emanuel are under mounting pressure to investigate allegations of what one politician called “CIA or Gestapo tactics” at a secretive Chicago police facility exposed by the Guardian.Politicians and civil-rights groups across the US expressed shock upon hearing descriptions of off-the-books interrogation at Homan Square, the Chicago warehouse that multiple lawyers and one shackled-up protester likened to a US counter-terrorist black site in a Guardian investigation published this week. As three more people came forward detailing their stories of being “held hostage” and “strapped” inside Homan Square without access to an attorney...

(Reuters) - U.S. regulators are poised to impose the toughest rules yet on Internet service providers, aiming to ensure fair treatment of all web traffic through their networks. The Federal Communications Commission is expected Thursday to approve Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed "net neutrality" rules, regulating broadband providers more heavily than in the past and restricting their power to control download speeds on the web, for instance by potentially giving preference to companies that can afford to pay more. The vote, expected along party lines with Democrats in favor, comes after a year of jostling between cable and telecom companies and...

Investigators said Thursday they have recovered 32,000 emails related to a former IRS official at the heart of the agency’s tea party scandal. But they don’t know how many of them are new. The emails were to and from Lois Lerner, who used to head the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. Last June, the IRS told Congress it had lost an unknown number of Lerner’s emails when her computer hard drive crashed in 2011. At the time, IRS officials said the emails could not be recovered. But at a congressional hearing Thursday evening, investigators said they recovered...

February 26, 2015 Scott Walker found his stride in a rowdy Conservative Polical Action Conference crowd Thursday during a speech aggressively touting his record as Wisconsin governor to offer evidence for why he's ready to take on the White House in 2016. "If we can do it in Wisconsin, we can do it across America," Walker said. After refusing to answer questions about whether President Obama was Christian and declining to clearly outline his position on evolution in recent weeks, Walker did not shy away from some contentious social issues, such as abortion, that have become stumbling blocks for him....

Because the GOP has a majority in the Senate, it also has a majority on all Senate committees — 12 to 9 in the case of the Judiciary Committee. But since Lynch’s confirmation has become a referendum on executive amnesty and the GOP is riddled with amnesty shills, there was no doubt that a few would cross over and vote with Democrats today to send her through to a floor vote of the entire Senate.The three defectors: Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham, both members of the Senate’s Gang of Eight on immigration, and Orrin Hatch, who sold himself as...

It’s started. As promised, President Obama is using executive actions to impose gun control on the nation, targeting the top-selling rifle in the country, the AR-15 style semi-automatic, with a ban on one of the most-used AR bullets by sportsmen and target shooters. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this month revealed that it is putting the ban on 5.56mm ammo on a fast track, immediately driving up the price of the bullets and prompting retailers, including the huge outdoors company Cabela’s, to urge sportsmen to urge Congress to stop the president.

Kansas appears on the verge of becoming among the most welcoming states to people who want to pack heat. A bill promising Kansans the ability to carry concealed firearms — without taking safety training or weathering the background checks required in most of the country — won initial approval in the state Senate on Wednesday. The change, expected to pass Thursday to a likely receptive House, would make Kansas a “constitutional carry” state. That would mean citizens would not need a permit to carry a hidden gun. The bill would maintain the current permit process for people who want to...

(Reuters) - Ukraine announced on Thursday that it would begin withdrawing artillery from the front line with separatist rebels in the east, a move that amounts to recognition that a ceasefire meant to take effect on Feb. 15 is holding at last. The pro-Russian rebels have already been pulling back heavy weapons for two days, but Kiev had held back, arguing that fighting had not yet ceased. However, the army reported no combat fatalities at the front for a second straight day on Thursday, the first time no troops have been killed since long before the French- and German-brokered truce...

Some bureaucrats could end up in prison for implementing President Obama’s amnesty plan for illegal aliens. Even if they don’t violate the brand-new court injunction, they are accountable under a special federal statute. It’s illegal to spend federal money on purposes never approved by Congress. Yet Mr. Obama has bureaucrats going full-speed ahead to create the mechanism that would process amnesty for millions, even while a court injunction requires that actual processing cannot yet begin. Preparations are proceeding “full-throttle,” according to Judicial Watch, which works to make government accountable. The group has uncovered details about some of the tens of...

The Wisconsin Senate narrowly approved a "right-to-work" bill on Wednesday that would bar private-sector employees who work under union-negotiated contracts from being required to join their unions or pay them dues. The bill, which would make Wisconsin the 25th U.S. state with a right-to-work law on the books, cleared the Republican-led Senate on a 17-15 vote following hours of debate marked by periodic angry shouts from opponents in the Senate gallery. Supporters of organized labor chanted "Shame!" as the legislation was passed and sent for further consideration to the state Assembly, where Republicans also hold a majority. One Republican senator,...

A confident President Obama said Wednesday he won’t be stopped by “one federal judge,” telling a Miami crowd he’ll move ahead with his controversial executive action on immigration and vowing his administration will become even more aggressive in the weeks and months to come. At a town hall meeting hosted by Telemundo and MSNBC, the president also threatened to veto GOP-backed legislation that would undo his immigration action. That measure is expected to come up for a vote later this week. Mr. Obama took executive steps last year to halt deportations for millions of illegal immigrants, but a federal judge...

Washington, DC (February 25, 2015) – This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Yates v. United States. This case highlights the problem of overcriminalization and specifically the dangerous consequences stemming from prosecutorial expansion of the laws passed by Congress. In Yates v. United States, the Court today rejected the government's use of an overly broad interpretation of a post-Enron anti-shredding statute (18 U.S.C. §1519), a statute that provides for up to a 20-year prison sentence, to prosecute a fisherman for the disappearance of some undersized fish from his shipping vessel. While the dissent differed in its interpretation...

By Rabbi Shmuley BoteachJerusalem, Israel — February 25, 2015 … Is there any dirty job for the Obama Administration that Susan Rice is not prepared to do? Need someone to fraudulently blame the murder of an American Ambassador in Libya on a stupid film? Send Susan to the Sunday talk shows. Need someone to savage the leader of the only democracy in the Middle East as damaging the “fabric” of Israel’s relationship with the United States? Put Susan in the makeup chair of Charlie Rose. Yes, it seems there is nothing Susan isn’t prepared to do. And why should that...

[T]he Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is set to roll out something called the Critical Information Needs study, which will embed government “researchers” into media organizations around the nation to make sure they are doing their job properly. The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” along with “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has made some last-minute revisions to his net neutrality plan after Google and public interest groups pressed for the changes, according to sources at the commission. Google, Free Press and New America’s Open Technology Institute last week asked the commission to revise language they said could unintentionally allow Internet service providers to charge websites for sending content to consumers. Such a scenario could open the door to an avalanche of new fees for Web companies and threaten their business models. Google executives on Feb. 19 called aides to Wheeler and staffers for the FCC’s two other...

Just weeks before Secretary of State John Kerry held new nuclear talks with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva, Iranians were hanging Kerry's boss in effigy at a huge Tehran-sponsored rally marking the Islamic Revolution’s 36th anniversary, an event that critics say underscores the absurdity of the ongoing diplomatic effort. The U.S. and Iran are trying to reach a final nuclear agreement by a March 31 deadline against a backdrop of ongoing anti-American hatred in the Islamic republic. Photos posted by the Middle East Media Research Institute this week show Iranians marching in front of a display depicting President Obama hanging...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — For two straight days this week, 2,000 union members converged on Wisconsin's Capitol to rally against a new right-to-work bill, chanting, marching and hurling profanities at GOP lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker. The tone of the rallies has been bitter and angry but hasn't come close to matching the energy that coursed through the building four years ago during massive protests against Walker's proposal to strip public workers of most of their union rights. This time around, union members said Republicans are moving too fast to organize large crowds. Some have even conceded it's a lost...

Reports are beginning to pop that Ted Cruz is on the brink of hiring the men who will run his campaign in Iowa, a state the Texas senator believes he very much has the chance to win come January 2016. A well-sourced Republican operative in the state tells me Cruz is hiring 2002 Senate candidate Bill Salier, who run Tom Tancredo’s 2008 presidential campaign, and Bryan England, who has served as aide to both Iowa congressman Steve King and Bob Vander Plaats, the three-time Republican gubernatorial candidate and political activist. A spokesman for Cruz did not immediately respond to a...

ISIS is holding many more Assyrian Christians hostage than previously thought -- and it is reportedly planning to release a message Wednesday threatening to kill them. Osama Edward, founder of the Assyrian Human Rights Network, told CNN that the extremist group is now believed to have 150 hostages, citing the latest information from the network's team on the ground. Initial estimates put the number seized at between 70 and 100 people, among them women, children and the elderly. The video message will be directed to President Barack Obama and other members of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, Edward said from...

China has dropped some of the world's leading technology brands from its approved state purchase lists, while approving thousands more locally made products, in what some say is a response to revelations of widespread Western cybersurveillance. Others put the shift down to a protectionist impulse to shield China's domestic technology industry from competition. Chief casualty is U.S. network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O), which in 2012 counted 60 products on the Central Government Procurement Center's (CGPC) list, but by late 2014 had none, a Reuters analysis of official data shows. Smartphone and PC maker Apple Inc (AAPL.O) has also...

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears before both houses of Congress next week, Secretary of State John F. Kerry won’t be there — he’ll be in Geneva trying to hammer out the final details of a nuclear deal with Iran that the Israeli leader in coming to Washington to argue against. Mr. Netanyahu will use the speech to warn U.S. lawmakers of the danger associated with cutting a nuclear deal with Iran that allows the Islamic republic to continue enriching uranium at any level — even for producing electricity. But when Mr. Netanyahu appears before Congress on March 3,...

Two prominent House committee chairs are “deeply disappointed” in Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler for refusing to testify before Congress as “the future of the Internet is at stake.” Wheeler’s refusal to go before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday comes on the eve of the FCC’s vote on new Internet regulations pertaining to net neutrality. The committee’s chairman, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), and Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R., Mich.) criticized Wheeler and the administration for lacking transparency on the issue.

Saudi Arabia is prepared to let Israeli fighter jets use its airspace if it proves necessary to attack Iran’s nuclear program, an Israeli TV station reported Tuesday, highlighting growing ties in the shadow of Tehran’s nuclear drive. Riyadh’s only condition is that Israel make some kind of progress in peace talks with the Palestinians, Channel 2 reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed senior European source. “The Saudi authorities are completely coordinated with Israel on all matters related to Iran,” the European official in Brussels said. Jerusalem and Riyadh do not have diplomatic ties, but unconfirmed reports have swirled for years of...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined on Tuesday an invitation to meet with US Senate Democrats during his trip to Washington next week. "Though I greatly appreciate your kind invitation to meet with Democratic Senators, I believe that doing so at this time could compound the misperception of partisanship regarding my upcoming visit," Netanyahu wrote in a letter to Senators Richard Durbin and Dianne Feinstein obtained by Reuters. Durbin and Feinstein had invited Netanyahu to a closed-door meeting with Democratic senators in a letter on Monday.

WASHINGTON — Last April, a dozen New York-based Internet companies gathered in the Flatiron Building boardroom of the social media website Tumblr to hear dire warnings that broadband providers were about to get the right to charge for the fastest speeds on the web. The implication: If they didn’t pay up, they would be stuck in the slow lane. What followed has been the longest, most sustained campaign of Internet activism in history, one that the little guys appear to have won. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote to regulate the Internet as a public good....

An Iranian dissident group known for exposing key aspects of Iran’s secret nuclear work claims it now has evidence of “an active and secret parallel nuclear program” operated by Tehran. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), also known as the MEK, said in a report released Tuesday it has found concrete evidence of an “underground top-secret site currently used by the Iranian regime for research and development with advanced centrifuges for uranium enrichment,” according to a copy of the findings. The NCRI, an Iranian opposition group, is known for making big reveals about clandestine nuclear work in Tehran,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative Republicans urged House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner not to capitulate in a fight with Democrats over President Barack Obama's immigration policy that threatens a partial Homeland Security shutdown later this week. The conservative lawmakers, led by Representative Jeff Duncan, circulated a letter to Boehner and other House leaders telling them to hold the line in opposing Obama's executive actions shielding millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation, a Duncan aide said on Tuesday. "Now is the time to stand firm against these unlawful executive actions," said the letter, signed by about 20 conservative Republicans so far.

Islamic State militants have abducted at least 90 people from Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria, a monitoring group tracking violence in Syria said on Tuesday. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they carried out dawn raids on rural villages inhabited by the ancient Christian minority west of Hasaka, a city mainly held by the Kurds. [....] Islamic State did not confirm the kidnappings. Supporters posted photos online of the group's fighters in camouflage attire looking at maps and firing machine guns. The website said the photos were from Tel Tamr, a town near where the Observatory said...

US Secretary of State John Kerry defended the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran on Tuesday in comments that appeared to be directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As Netanyahu accused the P5+1 group of world powers of giving Iran a green light to maintain the ability to make nuclear weapons, Kerry said that those bad-mouthing the deal are doing so prematurely, before the contours of the deal have been determined. During a tour of the IDF's Southern Command, Netanyahu said that "the information I have received in recent days reinforces our fears in regard to the emerging deal between world...

In September 2013, Jeri Wright, daughter of Reverend “God Damn America” Wright, and 12 other Democrats were charged with embezzling $16 million in Federal health grants that should have gone to AIDS charities and other programs for the poor and needy. More than one of the defendants had direct ties to President Barack Obama. In March 2014 Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s daughter Jeri was found guilty on eleven counts that included money laundering and lying to federal agents. This week US District Judge Sue E. Myerscough sent Jeri Wright to prison. The Chicago Sun-Times reported: Jeri L. Wright, the daughter of...

"...Over the past year, China’s Spratly outposts have been systematically undergoing a process known as “land reclamation,” where dedicated dredging vessels dig up sediment from the sea and dump it on top of submerged reefs to make islands. China has already built five islands through reclamation, and at least two additional islands are in the early stages of development. China is not the first claimant to reclaim land – Malaysia’s Swallow Reef and several Vietnamese islands have been artificially built or extended – but China’s reclamation efforts are operating at a larger scale than any previous project. Already, the artificial...

Robert A. McDonald, the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, apologized on Monday for falsely claiming last month that he had served in the United States Special Forces. Mr. McDonald, a 1975 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, where he completed jungle, arctic, desert warfare and Ranger training, according to his official biography. But his assertion to a homeless veteran in Los Angeles that he was in Special Forces — captured on camera for a CBS News report — was false, he acknowledged on Monday. His initial claim was...

The GOP needs a politically defensible alternative if the Supreme Court overturns federal-exchange subsidies. On March 4 the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, with a decision expected in late June. If the court strikes down the payment of government subsidies to those who bought health insurance on the federal exchange, Republicans will at last have a real opportunity to amend ObamaCare. Doing so, however, will be politically perilous. The language of the Affordable Care Act states that subsidies should only be paid through state exchanges. The bill’s authors perhaps believed that pressure from citizens and...

The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization were found liable on Monday by a jury in Manhattan for their role in knowingly supporting six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and 2004 in which Americans were killed and injured. The damages are to be $655.5 million, under a special terrorism law that provides for tripling the $218.5 million awarded by the jury in Federal District Court. The verdict ended a decade-long legal battle to hold the Palestinian organizations responsible for the terrorist acts. While the decision was a huge victory for the dozens of plaintiffs, it could also serve...

A top aide to Gov. Peter Shumlin is defending the administration's handling of a contract with Massachusetts Institute of Technology health economist Jonathan Gruber, after criticisms were lodged by the state auditor. Administration Secretary Justin Johnson made public his reply to Auditor Doug Hoffer, in which Johnson says officials in the state office of health care reform kept a close eye on work done by Gruber. Hoffer says the evidence suggests that Gruber overstated the hours worked by a $100-per-hour research assistant, and that top state health care officials ignored the obvious signs that something was amiss. The state rewrote...

The U.S. government asked a federal judge Monday to lift a temporary hold on President Obama’s executive action to protect millions of immigrants from deportation, Fox News has confirmed. Justice Department lawyers requested a “stay” to delay a federal judge’s decision to block Obama’s immigration order, which legally allows 5 million immigrants to stay in the countRy. More at link. . .

GENEVA (AP) — The United States and Iran are working on a two-phase deal that clamps down on Tehran's nuclear program for at least a decade before providing it leeway over the remainder of the agreement to slowly ramp up activities that could be used to make weapons.

Washington (CNN)They're carrying out sporadic terror attacks on police, have threatened attacks on government buildings and reject government authority. A new intelligence assessment, circulated by the Department of Homeland Security this month and reviewed by CNN, focuses on the domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists and comes as the Obama administration holds a White House conference to focus efforts to fight violent extremism. DHS Secretary: ISIS reaching into U.S. to recruit DHS Secretary: ISIS reaching into U.S. to recruit 03:30 PLAY VIDEO Some federal and local law enforcement groups view the domestic terror threat from sovereign citizen groups...