FBI Director Comey Obliterated These Hillary Talking Points

By Chuck Ross |The Daily Caller | July 5, 2016

While FBI Director James Comey announced in a surprise press conference on Tuesday that he will recommend that charges not be filed against Hillary Clinton and her aides for mishandling classified information, the Obama appointee torched talking points that the former secretary of state has used in defense of her email practices.

Clinton talking point No. 1: Her emails were not classified

Clinton has in the past said that her emails were not classified when they were sent and received. Her campaign has also questioned the integrity of the Intelligence Community’s inspector general, which assessed last year that some of Clinton’s emails were classified at the “Top Secret” level when they were originated.

But Comey settled the question in decisive fashion on Tuesday, demolishing Clinton’s claims.

“From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received,” Comey said.

“Top Secret” information was contained in eight of those email chains. “Secret” information was in 36 chains, and eight held “confidential” information.

Clinton talking point No. 2: She returned all work-related emails

Comey said that Clinton failed to turn over “several thousand” work-related emails to the State Department in December 2014.

[dcquiz] The undermines the former secretary of state’s repeated assertion that she did turn over all such records.

“The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014,” Comey said, adding that the additional emails were recovered “in a variety of ways.”

Clinton has claimed that she was over-inclusive in deciding which emails to return to the State Department.

“In providing these emails to the Department, Clinton included all she had that were even potentially work-related—including emails about using a fax machine or asking for iced tea during a meeting — erring on the side of over-inclusion,” her campaign website reads.

Comey said that some of Clinton’s missing work emails had been deleted. Traces of those records were found on devices that Clinton used over the years. Others were recovered from archived records of other government employees’ email accounts. Still more were found in the form of email fragments dumped into what Comey called the “slack space” of the server that Clinton decommissioned after she left office in 2013.

Three of the work-related emails that Clinton failed to turn over to State contained classified information, according to Comey.

One contained “Secret” information and two held confidential information.

Comey did say that investigators found no evidence that those additional emails were “intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them.”

“Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed,” he said.

FBI Director Comey's Remarks on Hillary Clinton Email Probe

Dixon - My emphasis denoted by yellow highlights.

By U.S. News Staff | U.S, News & World Report | July 5, 2016

FBI Director James B. Comey announced Tuesday that, while the bureau determined Hillary Clinton and her staff were "extremely careless" in their handling emails while she was secretary of state, the bureau would not recommend criminal charges against the presumptive Democratic nominee. Here are Comey's prepared remarks, as released by the FBI:
Good morning. I'm here to give you an update on the FBI's investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of a personal e-mail system during her time as Secretary of State.

After a tremendous amount of work over the last year, the FBI is completing its investigation and referring the case to the Department of Justice for a prosecutive decision. What I would like to do today is tell you three things: what we did; what we found; and what we are recommending to the Department of Justice.

This will be an unusual statement in at least a couple ways. First, I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest. Second, I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say.

I want to start by thanking the FBI employees who did remarkable work in this case. Once you have a better sense of how much we have done, you will understand why I am so grateful and proud of their efforts.

So, first, what we have done:

The investigation began as a referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General in connection with Secretary Clinton's use of a personal e-mail server during her time as Secretary of State. The referral focused on whether classified information was transmitted on that personal system.

Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.

Forced diversity training backfires, claims Harvard study

By Michelle Leibowitz | FoxNews.com | June 30, 2016

Diversity might be a good thing, but forced training in tolerance not only fails in the business world, it backfires, according to a new Harvard study.

Managers sent to mandatory diversity training sessions often come away resenting the very groups they are being encouraged to accept, according to the study, entitled “Why Diversity Programs Fail,” and published in the latest edition of Harvard Business Review. It gets even worse when threats and punishments are imposed to ensure participation, the study found.

“People often respond to compulsory courses with anger and resistance,” wrote authors Frank Dobbin, a professor of sociology at Harvard and Alexandra Kalev, a professor of social sciences at Tel Aviv University. “Your organization will become less diverse, not more.”

The study looked at financial institutions, where in mandatory initiatives aimed at increasing diversity have not increased the number of white women and black men in managerial positions, the study claims. Five years after implementation of involuntary training, the proportion of minority managers either remained stagnant or declined — as much as 9 percent for black women.

“Mandatory diversity training sends exactly the message of control - and psychological research shows us time and time again [that] people resist control,” Kalev told FoxNews.com in an email.

On the other hand, the option to undergo voluntary training invoked the opposite effect- minority representation in management increased, around 4 percent for black men. The study found that when training is not forced on employees, as many as 80 percent take part – and the benefits are measurable.

Large banks and other big companies shell out millions of dollars every year for diversity training programs, in part to guard against discrimination lawsuits. Morgan Stanley budgeted an additional $7.5 million toward diversity programs in 2007 after getting hit hard with multiple discrimination lawsuits, Bloomberg News reported, in settlements that cost the company more than $100 million in the past few decades.

But ineffective training will not protect companies from legal exposure, said attorney Suzanne Bish, who litigated a discrimination suit against an investment bank.

‘The game is never over’: A letter from Pat Summitt to a young basketball player

By Sally Jenkins | The Washington Post | June 28, 2016

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — For more than two decades, I’ve been asked what Pat Summitt is really like, and failed to answer the question, for the simple reason that most words aren’t large enough to capture her. Paltry one-dimensional terms can’t describe the roiling, sparkling ocean of a person that Pat was. I know of just a few words that really summarize her, and it turns out they are deceptively simple, and they are her own. They follow below.

Pat’s loved ones, friends, colleagues, players, family members stood vigil in recent days as she fought on against Alzheimer’s disease, and they passed the time telling innumerable stories, punctuated alternately by wracking breakdowns and explosive shouts of laughter, attempting to parse just what it was about her that inspired such devotion. As loved as Pat was by the public, she was even more so privately. Her nearest ones will swear that her reputation hardly does justice to her — partly because Pat didn’t rest easy on the pedestal. She was a lot more interesting than that.

Behind all that statuesque eminence was a woman of high mischief and a love of cocktails, who once agreed that the best word to describe her was “subversive.” Pat married so many contradictory qualities in one slenderized figure. She had majesty and humility. Baffling naivete and genius. She was demanding and gentle. She never stayed still, and as a basketball coach was the single most discontented creature after a win that you ever saw. Winning wasn’t good enough: As soon as things were going well, Pat had to change it all up, create a new edge. Her former player Kara Lawson said, “She’s a kaleidoscope. She changes everything. If not for her, you’d still be looking at the same damn boring old picture.”

You will pardon me if I allow Pat to take over the rest of this space. I’ve prized her friendship for 20 years and co-written three books with her, but never managed to explain her as well as she explains herself below. It’s a simple document: a letter to a young University of Tennessee freshman named Shelia Collins, on the occasion of starting her first game. It illustrates exactly why more than 50 of her players, young and old, rushed to her bedside, drove all night, flew across the country, slept on floors, and sat in the hallways of a retirement home, where they passed the time playing bean bag games with seniors, just to see her and whisper a few words in her ear.

Obama Invites 18.7 Million Immigrants to Avoid Oath of Allegiance, Pledge to Defend America

By Tom Tancredo | Breitbart News | June 25, 2016

Under the Obama administration’s expansive interpretation of executive authority, legal immigrants seeking citizenship through the nation’s Naturalization process are now exempt from a key part of the Oath of Allegiance.

Immigrants seeking to become citizens no longer have to pledge to “bear arms on behalf of the United States.” They can opt out of that part of the Oath. Nor do they have to cite any specific religious belief that forbids them to perform military service.

According to the Naturalization Fact Sheet on the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) website, In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015, the nation welcomed 729,995 Legal Permanent Residents into full citizenship.

• Over the past decade 6.6 million have been naturalized through a process that ends with the Oath of Allegiance.
• In the decade 1980-1990, the average number completing Naturalization was only 220,000 annually, but from 1990 to 2000 that number jumped to over 500,000 annually.
• 1,050,399 new citizens were welcomed in the year 2008.
• 18.7 million immigrants are eligible to eventually become citizens, and 8.8 million already meet the 5-year residency requirement.

The pledge to help defend America was good enough for the 6.6 million immigrants naturalized since 2005 and good enough for the over 15 million naturalized since 1980, but Obama’s appointees at the USCIS think that is too much to ask of the 18.7 million estimated legal immigrants eligible today for eventual naturalization or the 750,000 who will be naturalized in the coming year.

This radical change was announced a year ago, in July of 2015. Congress did not enact the change in new legislation. There was no congressional debate, no filibuster in the US Senate, and no sit-in in the House to demand that a bill to repeal the USCIS action be brought to a vote.

No, this radical change was implemented while Congress slept. Like other Obama actions to undermine our immigration laws, the Republican-controlled Congress has not used its constitutional powers to reverse the administrative action. Thank God many states are stepping up to fill that void.

This week, the US Supreme Court let stand a federal district court ruling invalidating Obama’s unconstitutional “DAPA” amnesty.

Deadlocked Supreme Court blocks Obama on immigration

By Richard Wolf | USA Today | June 23, 2016

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court dealt a likely fatal blow Thursday to President Obama's effort to protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and allow them to seek work permits, deadlocking 4-4 over a plan that had divided the nation as well as the justices.

The tie vote leaves intact a preliminary injunction that stopped the program in its tracks more than a year ago, after Texas and 25 other states claimed Obama lacked the authority to circumvent Congress. While the case now will return to Texas for further review, it's unlikely the lower federal courts that blocked the program will reverse themselves.

In practical terms, then, the 4-4 vote dooms for the remainder of Obama's presidency his goal of providing protection to more than 4 million undocumented parents whose children already have such protection. The justices likely split along ideological lines, though the vote was not revealed; the ruling carries no national precedent.

It was a sudden, crushing defeat for millions of parents who came to the country illegally and have lived in the shadows, often for decades. The administration had hoped that at least one of the more conservative justices — possibly Chief Justice John Roberts — would rule that the plan posed no financial threat to the states and therefore could not be challenged in court.

"Today’s decision is frustrating to those who seek to grow our economy and bring a rationality to our immigration system, and to allow people to come out of the shadows and lift this perpetual cloud on them," Obama said shortly after the ruling was announced by Chief Justice John Roberts. "It is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who’ve made their lives here, who’ve raised families here, who hoped for the opportunity to work, pay taxes, serve in our military, and more fully contribute to this country we all love in an open way."

But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the ruling shows that "even a president cannot unilaterally change the law." He called it "a major setback to President Obama’s attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law.”

Like three other tie rulings since Justice Antonin Scalia's death in February left the court with only eight justices, the one-sentence opinion simply announced that the court was "equally divided" and unable to muster a majority for either side.

Remarks by President Obama in Address to the Parliament of Canada

Dixon - My emphasis denoted by yellow highlights.

By White House Press Release | whitehouse.gov | June 29, 2016

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you so much. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, everybody. (Applause.) Thank you so much. Thank you. Please, everyone have a seat. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you so much.

Good evening. Bonjour. Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker, members of the House, members of the Senate, distinguished guests, people of Canada -- thank you for this extraordinary welcome, which temps me to just shut up and leave. (Laughter.) Because it can't get any better than this. (Laughter.) Obviously I'm grateful for the warm welcome. I'm extraordinarily grateful for the close working relationship and friendship with your outstanding Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and his extraordinary wife, Sophie.

But I think it's fair to say that much of this greeting is simply a reflection of the extraordinary alliance and deep friendship between Canadians and Americans.

Justin, thank you for your very kind words, and for the new energy and hope that your leadership has brought to your nation as well as to the alliance. My time in office may be nearing an end, but I know that Canada -- and the world -- will benefit from your leadership for years to come. (Applause.)

So Canada was the very first country that I visited as President. It was in February. (Laughter.) It was colder. (Laughter.) I was younger. (Laughter.) Michelle now refers to my hair as the Great White North. (Laughter.) And on that visit, I strolled around the ByWard Market, tried a “beaver tail” -- (laughter) -- which is better than it sounds. (Laughter.) And I was struck then, as I am again today, by the warmth of the Canadians. I could not be more honored to be joining you in this historic hall -- this cathedral of freedom. And we Americans can never say it enough -- we could not ask for a better friend or ally than Canada. (Applause.) We could not. It’s true. It is true. And we do not take it for granted.

That does not mean we don't have our differences. As I understand it, one of the reasons the Queen chose this site for Parliament was that it was a safe distance from America’s border. (Laughter.) And I admit, in the War of 1812, American troops did some damage to Toronto. I suspect that there were some people up here who didn’t mind when the British returned the favor and burned down the White House. (Laughter.)

In more recent times, however, the only forces crossing our borders are the armies of tourists and businesspeople and families who are shopping and doing business and visiting loved ones. Our only battles take place inside the hockey rink. Even there, there’s an uneasy peace that is maintained. As Americans, we, too, celebrate the life of Mr. Hockey himself, the late, great Gordie Howe. (Applause.) Just as Canadians can salute American teams for winning more Stanley Cups in the NHL. (Laughter.)

AUDIENCE: Ooooh --

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I told you I should have stopped after the applause. (Laughter.)

State Department seeks 27-month delay for release of Clinton Foundation emails

By FoxNews.com | July 1, 2016

The State Department has sought to delay the court-ordered release of emails between four of Hillary Clinton's top aides and officials at the Clinton Foundation and a closely associated public relations firm.

The motion, filed in federal court by the Justice Department late Wednesday, seeks to put off the release of the emails by 27 months. It was first reported on by The Daily Caller.

In the filing, the State Department says it originally estimated that approximately 6,000 emails and other documents were exchanged between the aides — identified as former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Michael Fuchs, former Ambassador-At-Large Melanne Verveer, Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, and Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin — and the Clinton Foundation and Teneo Holdings, a communications shop that former President Bill Clinton helped launch.

However, the State Department said that due to errors in the initial document search, the number of "potentially responsive documents" was in fact more than 34,000. The department estimated that it had more than 13,000 pages still left to review.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras had previously ordered the State Department to release the requested documents by July 21.

If the State Department request is granted, the emails would not be released until October 2018, nearly halfway through the first term of a potential Hillary Clinton presidency. The documents are being sought by the conservative nonprofit group Citizens United.

"The American people have a right to see these emails before the election," Citizens United President David Bossie told The Daily Caller, adding that the delay was "totally unacceptable."

The motion was filed two days after Attorney General Loretta Lynch met Bill Clinton at the Phoenix airport. Lynch denied the meeting was anything other than a chance encounter, but Republicans and Democrats have criticized her for at least creating the appearance of a conflict of interest in the midst of a federal investigation into Hillary Clinton's time as America's top diplomat.

On Thursday, State Department spokesman John Kirby cited a surge in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in explaining the State Department extension request.

"The Department handles FOIA in an entirely nonpartisan manner," Kirby said.

The former secretary of state has come under scrutiny over whether she used her position to aid corporate and foreign government donors to the Clinton Foundation.

In addition, Abedin worked as an employee at Teneo while simultaneously working at the State Department while Mills held a position at the Clinton Foundation while also serving in the State Department. Both matters have been flagged by Congress as possible conflicts of interest.

Fox News' Jennifer Griffin and Matt Dean contributed to this report.

Cafe told to remove 'God Bless America' banner

By Todd Starnes | FoxNews.com | June 30, 2016

Whenever folks in Penfield, New York get a hankering for pancakes for lunch – they head over to the 5 Mile Café.

The family-owned restaurant is known in those parts for serving breakfast any time of the day (order their homemade corned beef hash).

They are also known for their patriotism.

“We are very patriotic here at the café – all year round –not just this time of year,” owner Jennifer Aquino told me. “We have American flags and patriotic things around the café.”

So Jennifer decided to ask the town for a permit so she could post a “God Bless America” banner on the front of her restaurant. She wanted to display the banner from Memorial Day through Independence Day.

There was just one significant problem.

Penfield has a strict banner allotment policy. Businesses are only allowed to post banners for a total of three weeks out of the year. And Jennifer had used up her allotment.

“At one point we had banners all over the town and the town just looked trashy and our residents said enough’s enough,” town supervisor Tony LaFountain told WHEC.

Jennifer’s request was denied.

Instead of posting the banner outside the restaurant, she posted it inside. And that was that – until the Orlando terrorist attack.

“I decided on my way to work that I was going to put it up regardless of the town telling me I couldn’t,” she said. “So I put it up.”

A bit later that day she received an email from the town telling her to remove the banner. They warned her that she could face a possible fine for violating the ordinance.

Woman verbally attacked for breastfeeding in Conn. Target store

By FoxNews.com | June 16, 2016

A man verbally attacked a mother for publicly breastfeeding her baby inside a Connecticut Target store, and video of the encounter went viral, Fox-61 reported Tuesday.

Video of the Monday outburst was posted online by Jessie Maher, who was sitting in the café section of the Torrington, Conn. store, feeding her young child around 11:30 a.m.

Before she began filming, a man stared at Maher and called the public breastfeeding “[expletive] disgusting,” Maher wrote on Facebook.

“Can’t you do that somewhere else?” the unidentified man angrily asked Maher, she wrote.

Maher, of Canton, Conn., said she told the man she had the right to breastfeed her child and that he should walk away.

In the video, the man asks a Target employee for a refund after witnessing Maher’s breastfeeding, later accusing the mother of being disrespectful.

“Because I’m feeding my baby, this man is going crazy—and I’m shaking,” Maher can be heard saying quietly.

Another customer soon comes to Maher’s aid, telling her that feeding her baby is a “beautiful moment.”

A line of Target employees later separate Maher from the man. One employee gestures toward the man, apparently asking him to leave.

Connecticut law protects women who choose to breastfeed in public. Target corporate policy also allows for breastfeeding in their stores.

The video recorded 2.5 million hits as of Tuesday morning.

Torrington is located 30 miles west of Hartford.

“Islamic Refugee” With Gas Pipeline Plans Arrested in New Mexico Border County

By Judicial Watch | judicialwatch.org | June 15, 2016

UPDATE 7/1/16—Despite official denials from authorities Judicial Watch stands by its reporting, which was subsequently corroborated by National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers Chairman Zack Taylor.

Police in a U.S. town bordering Mexico have apprehended an undocumented, Middle Eastern woman in possession of the region’s gas pipeline plans, law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch. Authorities describe the woman as an “Islamic refugee” pulled over during a traffic stop by a deputy sheriff in Luna County, New Mexico which shares a 54-mile border with Mexico. County authorities alerted the U.S. Border Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) has been deployed to the area to investigate, sources with firsthand knowledge of the probe confirm.

The gas pipeline plans in the woman’s possession include the Deming region, law enforcement sources say. Deming is a Luna County city situated about 35 miles north of the Mexican border and 60 miles west of Las Cruces. It has a population of about 15,000. Last year one local publication listed Deming No. 1 on a list of the “ten worst places” to live in New Mexico due to high unemployment, poverty, crime and a horrible public education system. The entire region is a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), according to the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center due to the large amounts of methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine and marijuana smuggled through the state by Mexican traffickers. Specifically, the renowned Juárez and Sinaloa cartels operate in the area, the feds affirm in a report.

Judicial Watch has broken a number of stories in the last few years about Mexican drug traffickers smuggling Islamic terrorists into the United States through the porous southern border. Last summer high-level sources on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border offered alarming details about an operation in which cartels smuggle foreigners from countries with terrorist links into a small Texas rural town near El Paso. Classified as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) by the U.S. government, the foreigners get transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road – Highway 20. Once in the U.S., the SIAs wait for pick-up in the area’s sand hills just across Highway 20.

The Orlando Terrorist Attack Is The Price We Pay For Not Destroying ISIS

By John Daniel Davidson | thefederalist.com | June 13, 2016

President Obama thinks terror attacks like the Orlando nightclub massacre are an acceptable price to pay for American nonintervention in the Middle East.

In the wake of the Orlando terrorist attack, which left 50 dead and for which ISIS claimed responsibility on Sunday, there’s one question we probably will not debate seriously: whether we should return to the Bush doctrine and shut down terrorist safe havens overseas, and specifically whether we should deploy troops to the Middle East to destroy ISIS.

Instead, gun control and anti-gay bigotry will be the going concerns, especially among our liberal and media elite in the days ahead, just as they were in the hours after the attack. Partisans on the Left believe they can bend those aspects to their advantage in domestic political battles, and that’s what they’ll talk about.

Indeed, it only took President Barack Obama a few minutes in his remarks Sunday afternoon to suggest that one of the proper responses to Orlando would be to pass stricter gun-control measures. This is one of the president’s favorite talking points after a “mass shooting,” regardless of who does the shooting or why. It matters little that the shooter, Omar Mateen, was armed with firearms he appears to have acquired legally, or that he was a licensed security guard and thus wasn’t the type of person who would be denied a firearm even under a far stricter gun control regime.

Obama Doesn’t Think Terrorism Is A Big Deal

No matter. We will hear more about gun control. But we won’t hear the president announce a new foreign policy to defeat ISIS because on a fundamental level Obama think these kinds of terrorist attacks are an acceptable price to pay for American nonintervention in the Middle East.

A passage from Jeffery Goldberg’s lengthy piece in the April edition of The Atlantic, “The Obama Doctrine,” captures the essence of Obama’s thinking about ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism generally. In the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks last November, Obama, who had been on a globe-spanning presidential trip when the attacks occurred, was lambasted for failing to understand the fear among many Americans that something like that might happen here. But there was a reason Obama appeared to be unmoved, and it wasn’t just jet lag. Goldberg goes on to note that Obama

has never believed that terrorism poses a threat to America commensurate with the fear it generates. Even during the period in 2014 when ISIS was executing its American captives in Syria, his emotions were in check. Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s closest adviser, told him people were worried that the group would soon take its beheading campaign to the U.S. ‘They’re not coming here to chop our heads off,’ he reassured her. Obama frequently reminds his staff that terrorism takes far fewer lives in America than handguns, car accidents, and falls in bathtubs do.

Obama administration backs plan to relinquish Internet control

By FoxNews.com | June 9, 2016

The Obama administration is getting behind a plan that would have the U.S. government relinquish its last bit of control over the Internet – a move Republican lawmakers are fighting tooth-and-nail.

The transfer was set in motion two years ago when a Commerce Department agency said it would cede oversight over an obscure, but powerful, Los Angeles-based nonprofit called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The agency, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, announced Thursday that the game plan they got back from ICANN – which would hand over the reins to a “multi-stakeholder” group, and not a single government – is now in line with what they want.

“The Internet’s multistakeholder community has risen to the challenge we gave them to develop a transition proposal that would ensure the Internet’s domain name system will continue to operate as seamlessly as it currently does,” NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling said in a statement. AFP first reported on the decision.

ICANN manages some of the most important elements of the Internet, including the domain name system and IP addressing. Domains include those tiny suffixes at the end of Internet addresses, like .com and .org; Internet Protocol addresses are the numerical sequences assigned to devices in a network.

Foreign governments had complained about the U.S. oversight, maintained through contracts with ICANN.

Yet the Obama administration has faced stiff resistance to a hand-off for months from vocal critics on Capitol Hill and in the tech community. One concern is that, in the void left by America's transfer of oversight, other nations that don't share the United States' commitment to free speech and expression could make a grab at Internet influence.

On Wednesday, Republican Texas Sen. Cruz and Republican Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy introduced legislation to prevent the transfer of functions related to the Internet Domain Name System unless specifically authorized by Congress.

The Protecting Internet Freedom Act also aims to ensure that the U.S. maintains sole ownership of the .gov and .mil top-level domains.

Commissioner says fraud from Obamaphone program approaching $500 million

By Rudy Takala | Washington Examiner | June 8, 2016

The federal subsidy known as the "Obamaphone" or "Obamanet" program could be losing nearly $500 million to fraud annually, according to a top Republican on the Federal Communications Commission.

Commissioner Ajit Pai made the accusation Wednesday in letter to the Universal Service Administrative Company, referring to the FCC's Universal Service Fund, which provides a monthly $9.95 subsidy for telecom service to low-income consumers.

The subsidy is limited to one per "independent economic household," or IEH, but telecom companies have the ability to override that restriction if applicants check a box stating they represent a separate household, even if they have the same address.

The Universal Service Administrative Company is a nonprofit organization designated by the FCC to administer the fund.

Pai wrote that data obtained by the FCC last month revealed carriers had enrolled nearly 4.3 million subscribers using the IEH override process between October 2014-April 2016, or 35.5 percent of total subscribers for the period. "It is alarming that over one-third of subscribers — costing taxpayers almost half a billion dollars a year — were registered through an IEH override.

"Just one year of service for these apparent duplicates costs taxpayers $476 million," added Pai, who now is asking the Universal Service Administrative Corporation for answers to several questions.

They include a list of any investigations or audits into the apparent fraud that USAC has conducted, and details about any process the company has in place to ensure that consumers who self-describe as being part of a separate household are being truthful.

"Given the hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds apparently lost to unscrupulous behavior in the Lifeline program, I hope you will agree that USAC's paramount task must be to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse from the Lifeline program," Pai wrote.

The program was originally established to help low-income consumers in rural areas obtain access to 911 services. It was expanded to include cellular devices in more recent years, and expanded in March to include Internet service.

Americans and Money

By Bill O'Reilly | billoreilly.com | May 24, 2016

Americans and money - That is the subject of this evening's Talking Points Memo.

There is no question that economic issues will be foremost in the upcoming presidential election. That's why Hillary Clinton's decision not to debate Bernie Sanders on Fox News is a major mistake for her. Sanders, as you know, wants to blow up capitalism because he says it's a corrupt system. The Vermont senator admires socialism whereby the government calls the shots in the private marketplace.

A debate with Sanders on Fox News would give Secretary Clinton a major opportunity to smash that theory to stick up for capitalism and perhaps persuade some voters she is not an ardent leftist. But again, Mrs. Clinton has refused the debate even though she said this back in 2008:

CLINTON: Honestly, I just believe this is the most important job in the world. It’s the toughest job in the world. You should be willing to campaign for every vote. You should be willing to debate anytime, anywhere.

Now on to you. A new poll by the Associated Press says that two thirds of American adults would have difficulty coming up with money to cover a one thousand dollar emergency expense.

75% of Americans making less than $50,000 dollars a year say they would have trouble with that.

67% of those making between $50-100,000 say the same thing.

Even for the country's wealthiest citizens households making more than $100,000 a year, 38% say they would have difficulty coming up with a thousand bucks to pay an emergency expense. Stunning.

And it all goes back to the change in how Americans view money.

In 1965 the poverty rate was 17% in America. In 2014, nearly 50 years later, the poverty rate was 15%. Obviously not a big improvement.

But here's the key - 50 years ago, personal disposable income, money you have on hand to spend, was just $14,000 dollars. In 2015 it was $38,000 dollars. A vast improvement in spending power.

The problem is that we spend it all. We don't save. We're not frugal. We want immediate gratification.

Alleged war criminal worked for TSA at Dulles Airport

By Andrea McCarren | USA Today | June 3, 2016

DULLES, Va. — An alleged Somali war criminal is on leave from his job at Dulles International Airport in Virginia after a CNN investigation discovered him working for the Transportation Security Administration there.

Yusuf Abdi Ali was dubbed Colonel Tukeh in the Somalian army, known for his violent acts during that country’s civil war.

Ali has been the subject of an investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation since 1992, when journalists discovered him working in Toronto as a security guard.

During the Somali Civil War, which began in 1991, Ali was commander of a region of Somalia where unspeakable violence unfolded. Tens of thousands of men, women and children were killed there by government forces.

The name Colonel Tukeh, which means crow, was a reference to his sharp features.

According to CNN, Ali is accused of terrorizing the Isaaq people. The actions included mass executions and burning villages, CNN reported.

Canada deported Ali, who eventually made it to the United States. After a series of security jobs, he ended up working for TSA as an unarmed security guard at Dulles International Airport.

Government contractor Master Security hired Ali and confirmed this week he’s now on administrative leave. His access to the airport has been withdrawn.

Master Security confirmed Ali passed a criminal background check by the FBI and a security threat assessment by the TSA.

According to ABC News, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which runs Dulles airport, said in a statement: "We have verified that all of these processes were followed and approved in this instance."

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Ali was trained in the United States in 1986, as part of a Pentagon program for foreign military officers.

Feds spend nearly $20,000 to settle every refugee

By Paul Bedard | Washington Examiner | June 8, 2016

Federal taxpayers are on the hook for nearly $20,000 just to settle each refugee and asylum seeker, who are then immediately eligible for cash welfare, food stamps, housing and medical aid, according to a new report on the "refugee industry."

The report provided federal budget figures showing that the government spends $19,884 on each refugee the U.S. takes in.

And that number is set to jump if President Obama gets his way and brings in an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees in this year.

The report from the Negative Population Growth Inc. said that the U.S. is currently accepting about 95,000 refugees and asylees. That is in addition to the over 500,000 legal and illegal immigrants coming to the U.S.

It focused on the industry created to accept the $1.8 billion in federal support to help refugees settle and sign up for further cash awards from Uncle Sam. The refugee agencies get a small portion, or about $1,875 per refugee they help. The rest goes to the United Nations, which helps to determine eligible refugees, and state agencies.

The State Department spends about $1.28 billion, and Health and Human Services another $609 million.

3rd time a charm? San Francisco to try yet again to give illegal immigrants voting rights

By Malia Zimmerman | FoxNews.com | June 13, 2016

After two failed bids to grant voting rights to illegal immigrants, some San Francisco officials believe they have found the man who can make it happen: Donald Trump.

A proposed charter amendment drafted by Board of Supervisors member Eric Mar would give illegal immigrants with kids in the public school system the right to vote in school elections. Voters have rejected two previous ballot proposals, but Mar is betting on anti-Trump sentiment to carry the pro-illegal immigrant proposal if he can get it on the November ballot.

“With Donald Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant sentiments, there is a reaction from many of us who are disgusted by those politics," Mar said. "I think that’s going to ensure there is strong Latino turnout as well as other immigrant turnout.”

A key promise in Trump's campaign for the Republican nomination for president has been to build a wall on the Mexican border. This week, Trump claimed a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University wouldn’t be impartial because he is of Mexican heritage.

Mar staffers confirmed the measure will go before the rules committee within weeks, and could then be presented to the full board of supervisors. If a majority support it, the charter amendment will be on the ballot Nov. 8 when the city and nation votes for president.

“The time is right for San Francisco to make history, to pave the way for immigrant parents to have a say in the policy decisions that impact their child’s education and who gets to sit on the Board of Education,” Mar said in a written statement.

In 2004, voters narrowly rejected the same proposal. A similar measure, introduced by California Assemblymember David Chiu, D-San Francisco, failed in 2010 with just 46 percent of the vote.

Chiu believes Trump's presence on the ballot, and the fact that one of every three children in the system is now the child of an immigrant parent could make the third time a charm.

Hillary Clinton wavers on Second Amendment right to bear arms

By Callum Borchers | The Washington Post | June 5, 2016

Hillary Clinton declined to say Sunday whether she believes in a constitutional right to bear arms, possibly opening the door to a fresh round of attacks from Donald Trump, who has already accused the likely Democratic presidential nominee of wanting to "abolish" the Second Amendment.

In an interview on ABC's "This Week," Clinton deflected twice when asked whether she agrees with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Second Amendment. The court ruled in 2008 that the Constitution affords private citizens the right to keep firearms in their homes and that such possession need not be connected to military service.

The wording of the Second Amendment has long made the extent of gun ownership rights a point of contention:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Questioned by George Stephanopoulos about her view of the amendment, Clinton talked about a "nuanced reading" and emphasized her belief in the rights of local, state and federal governments to regulate gun ownership. Stephanopoulos, formerly a top aide to President Bill Clinton, wasn't satisfied by the response.

"That's not what I asked," he replied.

Clinton then discussed the right to own a gun as a hypothetical. "If it is a constitutional right," she began her next answer, "then it - like every other constitutional right - is subject to reasonable regulations."

Socialism for the Uninformed

By Thomas Sewell  |  National Review  |  May 31, 2016

Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster.

While throngs of young people are cheering loudly for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, socialism has turned oil-rich Venezuela into a place where there are shortages of everything from toilet paper to beer, where electricity keeps shutting down, and where there are long lines of people hoping to get food, people complaining that they cannot feed their families.

With national income going down, and prices going up under triple-digit inflation in Venezuela, these complaints are by no means frivolous. But it is doubtful if the young people cheering for Bernie Sanders have even heard of such things, whether in Venezuela or in other countries around the world that have turned their economies over to politicians and bureaucrats to run.

The anti-capitalist policies in Venezuela have worked so well that the number of companies in Venezuela is now a fraction of what it once was. That should certainly reduce capitalist “exploitation,” shouldn’t it?

But people who attribute income inequality to capitalists’ exploiting workers, as Karl Marx claimed, never seem to get around to testing that belief against facts — such as the fact that none of the Marxist regimes around the world has ever had as high a standard of living for working people as there is in many capitalist countries.

Facts are seldom allowed to contaminate the beautiful vision of the Left. What matters to the true believers are the ringing slogans, endlessly repeated.

When Senator Sanders cries, “The system is rigged!” no one asks, “Just what specifically does that mean?” or “What facts do you have to back that up?”

In 2015, the 400 richest people in the world had net losses of $19 billion. If they had rigged the system, surely they could have rigged it better than that.

But the very idea of subjecting their pet notions to the test of hard facts will probably not even occur to those who are cheering for socialism and for other bright ideas of the political Left.

Secret Text in Senate Bill Would Give FBI Warrantless Access to Email Records

By Jenna McLaughlin | theintercept.com | May 26, 2016

A provision snuck into the still-secret text of the Senate’s annual intelligence authorization would give the FBI the ability to demand individuals’ email data and possibly web-surfing history from their service providers without a warrant and in complete secrecy.

If passed, the change would expand the reach of the FBI’s already highly controversial national security letters. The FBI is currently allowed to get certain types of information with NSLs — most commonly, information about the name, address, and call data associated with a phone number or details about a bank account.

Since a 2008 Justice Department legal opinion, the FBI has not been allowed to use NSLs to demand “electronic communication transactional records,” such as email subject lines and other metadata, or URLs visited.

The spy bill passed the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, with the provision in it. The lone no vote came from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who wrote in a statement that one of the bill’s provisions “would allow any FBI field office to demand email records without a court order, a major expansion of federal surveillance powers.”

Wyden did not disclose exactly what the provision would allow, but his spokesperson suggested it might go beyond email records to things like web-surfing histories and other information about online behavior. “Senator Wyden is concerned it could be read that way,” Keith Chu said.

It’s unclear how or when the provision was added, although Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., — the committee’s chairman — and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., have both offered bills in the past that would address what the FBI calls a gap and privacy advocates consider a serious threat to civil liberties.

“At this point, it should go without saying that the information the FBI wants to include in the statue is extremely revealing — URLs, for example, may reveal the content of a website that users have visited, their location, and so on,” Andrew Crocker, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote in an email to The Intercept.

“And it’s particularly sneaky because this bill is debated behind closed doors,” Robyn Greene, policy counsel at the Open Technology Institute, said in an interview.