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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Hillary Clinton’s Legacy: Defending Rapists and Sexual Predators

Hillary Clinton's Legacy: Defending Rapists and Sexual Predators

Katie Pavlich | Jun 19, 2014

 

Earlier this week, audio of Hillary Clinton gleefully defending a child rapist was published by the Washington Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman.

In 1975 during her time as an attorney, Clinton took on the case of Thomas Alfred Taylor, a man who brutally raped a 12-year-old girl at the age of 41. Clinton said she thought Taylor was guilty.
The issue isn’t her defense of the accused rapist; after all, this is America and even the worst and most evil villains in our society are entitled to an attorney. Instead, the issue is Clinton’s behavior after getting Taylor out of a lengthy sentence for his crime when she thought he was guilty. He served less than one year in prison.
“Describing the events almost a decade after they had occurred, Clinton’s struck a casual and complacent attitude toward her client and the trial for rape of a minor," Goodman reported about the audio. "‘I had him take a polygraph, which he passed – which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs,’ she added with a laugh. Clinton can also be heard laughing at several points when discussing the crime lab’s accidental destruction of DNA evidence that tied Taylor to the crime.”

Apparently accidental destruction of DNA evidence wasn't enough for Clinton to go on, so she attacked the 12-year-old victim as possibly emotionally unstable and someone who may be exaggerating or romanticizing a sexual experience.
Shocking? Sure, but this newly uncovered audio is just one piece of Hillary Clinton’s long legacy, career and life of defending sexual predators. Clinton’s history of brushing sexual assault and abuse of young women under the rug for her own personal and political gain is fully documented in my new book Assault and Flattery: The Truth About the Left and Their War on Women, which will be published on July 8.
Fast forward a few years after a giddy Clinton relieved a child rapist of any real consequence or justice and you'll find that for decades she willfully helped destroy the women who her husband, former President Bill Clinton, was accused of sexually assaulting or raping. Time and again instead of holding her husband accountable, she defamed his female accusers as mentally unstable loons looking for money. Clinton repeatedly allowed women to be lied about, smeared and manipulated so her philandering husband could hold onto power, which eventually led to her own as a Senator from New York, a presidential candidate, and President Obama's Secretary of State.
But speaking of her record at the State Department, what exactly did Clinton do during her tenure there? She ignored alleged rampant sexual abuse of minor girls by high ranking State Department employees.
Under her watch, U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman was accused of routinely ditching his “protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children,” in a nearby park according to an internal memo written by a chief inspector general investigator. A State Department security official stationed in Beirut was accused of engaging in multiple sexual assaults. Further, a U.S. Embassy official was removed for allegedly trading visas for sexual favors.
As CBS News first reported last year, at least seven of Clinton’s security agents routinely hired prostitutes on official trips overseas. Their behavior was described as “endemic.” Although the agents were eventually reassigned, they weren’t seriously punished. When investigations were launched into misconduct, they were immediately shut down by Clinton’s former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills.
The female whistleblowers who spoke out against and exposed the abuse were retaliated against for doing so. Whistleblower Kerry Howard was “run out of the foreign service,” stripped of her job and was bullied after exposing U.S. Consul General Donald Moore allegedly engaged in sexual activities with women inside his government office and with call girls in Naples.
This is just a snap shot of Clinton’s legacy of defending rapists and sexual predators. She’s done it for decades yet somehow has been portrayed as a women’s rights champion. Her record proves the opposite. Hillary Clinton is America’s most famous enabler of abusive and powerful men.

Hillary Clinton's Legacy: Defending Rapists and Sexual Predators
Katie Pavlich
Thu, 19 Jun 2014 04:01:00 GMT

Central Banks in Other Countries to Require Biometrics to Bank

Central Banks in Other Countries to Require Biometrics to Bank

By Melissa Melton on June 24, 2014

biometricfingerprints

You think the big brother surveillance state is getting creepy here in America, check out what central banks are doing in other countries.

Via All Africa:

In line with the ongoing initiative of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Bankers’ Committee (comprising Chief Executives of the nation’s deposit money banks), banks across the country are to begin capturing of customer biometric data as part of Bank Verification Numbers (BVN).

The rollout of the BVN solution for the identification and verification of bank customers is expected to begin in 1,000 selected bank branches across Lagos, as a prelude to a nationwide rollout.

This is in alignment with the phased approach adopted in executing the three-tiered Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and cashless policy of the CBN.

That’s right. In addition to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s new cashless policy — which aims at “reducing” the amount of paper money and coins circulating in the economy and encouraging more electronic transactions by adding a ‘cash handling charge’ — a new biometric program will require customers to sign up for a Bank Verification Number and present themselves at any branch for fingerprinting (all 10 fingers), facial image capture, and more.

No customer will be able to do any banking whatsoever without those fingerprints.

Some articles have also tossed around voice recognition and retina scans as well.

All to “revolutionize” banking…for people’s safety and security, of course.

CBN Governor Lamido Sanusi launched the new biometric registration at the head office on behalf of the Bankers’ Committee in February. Punch quoted Sanusi as saying, “We have launched the Bank Verification Number today, the timetable suggests that within 18 months, every customer would have been registered. This is a day that we would remember for many reasons, not for where we are but where we are likely to get from here. Nobody can steal this identity except he or she steals my fingers…”

Apparently this guy hasn’t seen a whole lot of science fiction films.

The nation of India has instituted similar measures, recently rolling out a massive biometric identity system which aims to collect the iris and fingerprints of every single one of its over a billion citizens, linked to a 12-digit identity number.

Never mind that iris scanners and fingerprint IDs have all been easily fooled. Someone has been reading a lot of the Bible lately, specifically Revelations.

These types of measures are being rolled out in developing nations first, but don’t worry, they’ll make their way here soon enough.

Eventually, no one will be able to buy or sell anything without giving up their biometrics to big brother and his database.

U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo are already piloting voice recognition biometrics as I type this.

Central Banks in Other Countries to Require Biometrics to Bank
Melissa Melton
Tue, 24 Jun 2014 08:00:54 GMT

Monsanto Security Tries to Block Reporters at Headquarters

Monsanto Security Tries to Block Reporters at Headquarters

By Aaron Dykes on June 24, 2014

monsanto-security

(TruthstreamMedia.com)

Despite preaching “transparency” in its corporate policy, Monsanto is so secretive it has worked overtime behind the scenes to block GMO labeling, influence politicians and intimidate free speech – even outside its own headquarters.

Monsanto – often dubbed “The World’s Most Evil Corporation” is a $15 billion U.S.-based multinational agrochemical and genetically modified seed company. Despite the fact that millions all over the world consume Monsanto’s GM seeds hidden in unlabeled food products every day – primarily in the form of GMO corn, soy, oil and beet sugar – the people of the United States and other parts of the globe are not allowed to know what they are eating. This is to the outrageous point that the company’s lobbying firm is suing the State of Vermont for trying to mandate GMO labeling (after voters demanded it).

Yet, one of Monsanto’s own official tenets in its company “pledge” is transparency.

But Truthstream Media.com reporters found out the hard way that the company is very protective of its image, of public information about its operations and of its political clout.

THIS VIDEO shows what happens when you try to film on a public sidewalk outside Monsanto’s world headquarters in Creve Couer, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis) – where no parking signs and restrictive city ordinances have already attempted to intimidate and shutter public demonstrations and news reporters.

RELATED: City passes ordinance to protect Monsanto world headquarters from protesters
http://truthstreammedia.com/city-passes-ordinance-to-protect-monsanto-world-headquarters-from-protesters/

Monsanto Security Tries to Block Reporters at Headquarters
Aaron Dykes
Tue, 24 Jun 2014 09:42:53 GMT

Sarah Palin: Don’t Vote for ANYONE Who Ignores the Constitution [READ]

Sarah Palin: Don’t Vote for ANYONE Who Ignores the Constitution [READ]

“We wholeheartedly agree with Palin in this instance, the American people need to vote out of office any member of Congress that ignores their duty under the Constitution to provide a check and balance to the out-of-control President, or else our country is lost.”

Sarah Palin Joins Senate Candidate Joe Miller At Campaign Rally In Anchorage

Something must be done soon to address the humanitarian crisis developing along our southern border, as President Obama’s lax enforcement of immigration policies has resulted in a flood of illegal immigrants coming across the border, many of them unaccompanied children.

Texas has stepped up and announced a “border surge” to shut down the border by themselves, since the feds won’t do it, and several militia groups are mobilizingto give them assistance.

Sarah Palin has been all over this issue, telling Congress they have no guts for not stopping Obama from allowing this, and saying Obama is “un-American” for giving better treatment to illegal immigrants than to our nation’s veterans.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter right now:

Palin continues in a Facebook post with a warning to the American people to look closely at their elected representatives in Congress, and to vote out anyone that continues to ignore the Constitution.

Hang on to your hat, because here’s the issue: Barack Obama has orchestrated this newest “crisis” in order to overload the system with the intention of “fixing” the problems his own policies create – by fiat, and that infamous phone and pen; screw the rule of law. He’s warned you by proudly claiming his executive orders can bypass the peoples’representatives and obviously ignore the will of the people.

This exploitation of foreigners’ children is an inhumane ploy to enticefamilies to break laws by literally shoving kids across one of Obama’s infamous and irrelevant lines, with assurance that parents, aunties, step-uncles and third cousins twice removed will get to cut in line too – that sacred line that previously led law abiding, hardworking immigrants to build this great nation. Barack Obama will keep phoningin and penning the message that he will NOT secure borders, so, hey, extended undocumented relatives, you’re free to join the kids being used and abused to snag that golden ticket. Obama surely knows a nation is not a nation without borders, while we must surely know this is the “fundamental transformation of America” that he promised and some of us warned about.

Congress and American voters, how long will you let Team Obama get away with this? The recent avalanche of devastating crises caused by a president believing he is above the law has set the most dangerous precedent a once-free people can imagine. To encourage and reward lawlessness by refusing to enforce the will of the people as proven by laws passed by our political representatives is the signature of a tyrant. In this case, Obama’s refusal to enforce immigration laws and his blatant suggestion that his chosen illegal activity will be rewarded are proof of his tyrannical tactics. The recent numerous manipulated “crises” have the media pinging and ponging trying to keep up with what is the scandal of the day, which one overshadows another, and how will they distract next, and who’s on first?! Purposeful decisions causing these crises are meant to overload the system, justify abuse of executive power to “fix” it all, and ultimately tighten control of the people.

So, how much more will you take, Congress and We the People? I sense not enough guts in D.C. to file impeachment charges against Team Obama for their countless documented illegalities, so the way to stop this is at the ballot box. To fundamentally restore America to her destined exceptionalism you must get involved and then get to that box. Use YOUR phone and pen to support conservative candidates who will fight for what is right: Constitutionally protected freedom, respected military, free markets to create jobs, and secured borders to protect jobs! We need your help to do this; it takes more than a village to fortify the homeland. ANYONE associated with support for Obama’s deceptive ploys that would stoop to using and abusing innocent children must be voted out of office. ANYONE who has shined the boot that Obama’s put on the neck of our economy and security must be held accountable by those with the legal power to do so – Congress. And then We the People hold Congress accountable. Do not vote for any politician who has gone wobbly on their commitment to respect the will of the people and to fight to defend our Constitution. This wishy-washy status quo has got to go.

As usual, Sarah Palin is right.  Members of Congress need to remember their oath of office, which is to uphold and defend the Constitution.  The American people need to hold their feet to the fire, reminding them of their oath and duty.

President Obama has ignored, disregarded, and outright violated the Constitution on so many different occasions, that it is getting difficult to remember them all.  Congress’ responsibility is to keep the Executive in check, and the Constitution provides them with ways to do so.

We wholeheartedly agree with Palin in this instance, the American people need to vote out of office any member of Congress that ignores their duty under the Constitution to provide a check and balance to the out-of-control President, or else our country is lost.

 

Related posts:

  1. Sarah Palin: If Congress Had “Guts”, They’d Impeach Obama
  2. Sarah Palin: The Way Obama Treats Vets is “Un-American”
  3. Sarah Palin: If Obama Defaults, It’s an “Impeachable Offense” (Video)

Sarah Palin: Don’t Vote for ANYONE Who Ignores the Constitution [READ]
Ben Marquis
Tue, 24 Jun 2014 20:35:34 GMT

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Israel Helps ISIS with Airstrikes Against the Syrian Government

Ironic - Israel Helps ISIS with Airstrikes Against the Syrian Government

23.Jun.2014 | SCGSCG

Ironic - Israel Helps ISIS with Airstrikes Against the Syrian Government

By providing free air support for the Syrian rebels, Israel is actually helping ISIS approach its goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Not too smart.

Yesterday Israel launched airstrikes against Syria yet again, hitting at least military targets and killing several Syrian soldiers. These strikes were supposedly in response to a cross border rocket attack that left an Israeli teenager dead at the Golan Heights border. The reality of the matter however, is that there is no evidence that the Syrian government had any involvement in the initial rocket attack, and it is far more likely to be the work of the Syrian rebels.

Israel doesn't care. It's response was in keeping with their long standing policy which holds the Syrian government responsible for any attacks emanating from its territory, regardless of who actually carries them out. Kind of hard to control everything that happens inside your territory when you have the U.S. government and its allies arming and funding insurgents in an attempt to overthrow you don't you think?

The Syrian Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the Israeli air strikes, referring to them as a "flagrant violation" of its sovereignty and a sign of the "direct and continuous support" that Israel is giving to rebels fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The irony here, is that by launching airstrikes against the Syrian government in response to an attack that was most likely carried out by the Syrian rebels, Israel is actually encouraging future attacks like this. It's easy for the rebels to launch missiles across into Israel, and Israel's response is essentially free air support. So clearly it is in the rebel's interest to shoot over into the Israeli side as often as possible.

Israel's continued attacks on the Syrian government are particularly bizarre considering the current context. With ISIS rapidly gaining influence in both Iraq and Syria (they just took 4 new towns in Iraq over the weekend), it would behoove Israel to consider what would actually happen if Assad fell. Do they actually want a rabid extremist group to establish an Islamic caliphate on their border?

Sunday's attack wasn't the first time Israel has attacked Syrian forces during this conflict. In 2013 Israel launched airstrikes in May, July and October.

As of yet the U.N. and the rest of what the U.S. likes to call the "international community" have refrained from issuing any condemnation for the airstrikes.

Israel Helps ISIS with Airstrikes Against the Syrian Government
Mon, 23 Jun 2014 05:00:00 GMT

Rand Paul: Where’s the ‘Clear-cut American Interest’ in Fighting ISIS?

Rand Paul: Where’s the ‘Clear-cut American Interest’ in Fighting ISIS?

By: Joshua Cook Jun 23, 2014

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told Meet the Press’ David Gregory Sunday morning that he didn’t see the U.S.’s interest in engaging in military operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Here are some excerpts from the interview on Sunday:

Gregory: ISIS is a terrorist organization, has been build by many as a clear and present danger to the United States as a terrorist actor, do you see that?

Paul: I look at it on a personal basis, I ask, do I want to send one of my sons or your son to fight to regain Mosul? And I think, well, these are nasty terrorists which we should wanna kill them, but who should want to stop them more? Maybe the people who live there. Should not the Shiites the Maliki government? Should they not stand up? And if they’re ripping their uniforms off inflating, if they don’t think Mosul is worth saving how am I going to convince my son or your son to die for Mosul? I know they are bad terrorist and yes, we should prevent them from exporting terror, but I’m not so sure where the clear-cut American interest is.

Gregory: Well, is the clear-cut American interest to protect America if these are terrorist who designed to hit America?

Paul: Well, I think if they are, then maybe we shouldn’t be funding their allies and supporting them in Syria. You see they are emboldened because we’ve been supporting them; it could be that Assad could have wiped these people out months ago. So what we do is we get in a confusing situation and I personally believe that this group would not be in Iraq and would not be as powerful, had we not been supplying their allies in the war as well as our allies are funding these people. They probably have weapons that were bought with Saudi Money or Kuwait money or Qatar money. A lot of the radicals have been getting arms and money from these countries.

Gregory: So do you support the President who says like you do look, the Iraqi should stand up and fight them but he also wants to send 300 advisers there to help out?

Paul: I don’t question the 300 advisers for this reason. I’m not sure exactly where they’re going and what they’re doing. I do think that we have an embassy there and we’ve got a thousand, two thousand people there, that yes, we have to defend our embassy. So I’m not going to nitpick the president and say “Oh, you shouldn’t send in a certain amount of advisers” and the military decisions are protect the embassy. It to me is very important. I’ve been talking a lot about Benghazi and how we didn’t protect them. So I’m not going to get involved to criticize the president for trying to protect our embassy there.

Rand Paul: Where’s the ‘Clear-cut American Interest’ in Fighting ISIS?
Joshua Cook
Tue, 24 Jun 2014 01:48:19 GMT

Secret drone kill memo released

Secret drone kill memo released

By: Zach McAuliffe Jun 23, 2014

Obama Drone Kill List

The memo used to justify the legal killing of American citizens on foreign soil by drone strikes has finally been released Monday by the Department of Justice after months of legal wrangling and pressure from the ACLU and New York Times.

The legal request for the memo came about after the 2011 deaths of three U.S. citizens in Yemen by drone strikes.

Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were killed in September 2011 while al-Awlaki’s son, Abdulrahman, was killed in October of the same year.  All three of those killed were naturalized U.S. citizens or born as such, as stated by the memo, but were also suspected of aiding al-Qaeda.

The Authorization to Use Military Force law, signed days after Sept. 11, 2001, is used largely in defense of the killing of the three without a trial.

The memo states, “the [2001 AUMF] authorizes the military detention of a U.S. citizen captured abroad who is part of an armed force within the scope of the AUMF, it also authorizes the use of ‘necessary and appropriate’ lethal force against a U.S. citizen who has joined such an armed force.”

Therefore, the government seems to believe the status of a person as an enemy combatant supersedes any previously held status by the individual as an American citizen, according to the precedents set within the memo.

Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, told the Washington Post, “The release of this memo represents an overdue but nonetheless crucial step towards transparency.”

The most outspoken members of Congress with regards to civil liberties, Democratic senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Mark Udall of Colorado, and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, have come out in support of the killing of the three however.

“The decision to use lethal force against Anwar al-Alwaki,” wrote the three in a letter according to MSNBC, “was a legitimate use of authority granted to the president.”

Secret drone kill memo released
Zach McAuliffe
Mon, 23 Jun 2014 22:05:40 GMT

California: 39 Women Prisoners Were Sterilized Without Consent

Many of the rights violations initially exposed by the Center for Investigate Reporting are true, according to state audit

- Max Ocean, editorial intern

The California Institution for Women in Corona, CA. (Credit: CDCR)Physicians in California prisons illegally sterilized at least 39 women during an eight-year period, with cases recorded as late as 2011, according to a report put out last week by the state's own auditing office.

Cynthia Chandler, co-founder of the Oakland-based group Justice Now, which has been raising concerns about prison sterilization processes for years, said that the report's release "feels like an incredible step and vindication for people who work toward challenging human rights abuses.”

The audit found problems in 39 cases, which account for more than a quarter of the 144 women who underwent the sterilization procedure between fiscal years 2005-6 and 2012-13. In 27 of the cases, inmates' physicians had failed to sign the necessary consent form detailing that the patients were mentally competent, had understood the lasting effects of the procedure, and that the required 30-day waiting period after initial inmate consent was given had passed. Eighteen cases potentially violated that required waiting period, which is intended to give female prisoners time to think about their decisions before their surgeries take place. In some cases there is even evidence that doctors falsified records, claiming that the waiting period had elapsed when it actually had not.

According to the report, the federal receiver’s office, which has overseen medical care in the state’s prisons since 2006, argues it has no legal obligation of ensuring prison physicians or other employees obey the consent procedures, a claim which state Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Redondo Beach) said was "ludicrous."

State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), one of the legislators who called for the report, said its revelations show the problem to be "systemic" in nature and that there is now “clear proof that the prison environment is an environment where consent simply cannot be obtained in a responsible, reliable manner for these procedures.”

While prison medical officials have denied any intentional wrongdoing, the Center for Investigative Reporting's initial investigation into California's prison sterilization procedures last July, which prompted state legislators to demand the audit, quoted some women who said they were coerced into the procedure after their physician discovered how many children they'd given birth to, or that they'd been in prison multiple times.

The CIR report quoted one of physicians involved, Dr. James Heinrich, as saying that the $147,460 payed to doctors by the state for the surgeries was very little “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children – as they procreated more.”

The auditor's report wasn't conclusive about the intent of the physicians involved in the cases, but it did find that the women sterilized in the eight-year period had typically been pregnant five or more times before being sterilized, tested for reading proficiency levels below high school, and had all been incarcerated at least once before.

A bill introduced by state Sen. Jackson that passed the Senate last month would ban all sterilizations of incarcerated women for birth control purposes, making them allowable only in life-threatening situations or to cure medical conditions, and would legally protect anyone trying to report such abuses.

_____________________

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California: 39 Women Prisoners Were Sterilized Without Consent
Mon, 23 Jun 2014 05:00:00 GMT

Obama 'risking lives' of U.S. border agents

 

U.S. Border Agent wounded by rock-throwing illegal immigrants, PHOTO: Homeland Security Today

U.S. Border Agent wounded by rock-throwing illegal immigrants, PHOTO: Homeland Security Today

In the middle of the night on May 29, a U.S. Border Patrol agent identified by court records only as “S.H.” was patrolling on his bicycle near the Los Olmos Arroyo in Texas, when he spotted a group of people who appeared to have just crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico into the U.S.

According to a report in the McAllen Monitor, the agent radioed for backup before advancing toward the group, when suddenly, the illegal immigrants hiding in the darkness took off, running in all directions.

The agent gave chase through the brush, but in the darkness he was pitched from his bicycle, and his flashlight was sent flying.

As “S.H.” tried to regain his feet, court records state, 18-year-old Arnold Cruz Rivera, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, landed his first punch on the agent, then darted for a nearby stream. The agent got up and resumed the chase.

FBI agents say Rivera punched the agent in the face and chest several more times, but “S.H.” began to swing back, “not knowing where he was striking due to little to no light conditions,” until he was able to hold the fleeing suspect down until help arrived.

Today, Rivera has been formally charged with assaulting a federal officer and immigration violation, but the story is just one of many tales of peril faced by U.S. Border Patrol agents who are withstanding a marked uptick in violent assaults as they try to hold back the tide of illegal immigrants surging across the U.S. border.

In early April, for example, a Border Patrol agent in Abram, Texas, The Monitor reports, fought a Guatemalan national who rammed the agent’s head into a tree and then pushed the butt of the agent’s rifle into his face.

In early March, another Border Patrol agent in Brooks County, Texas, fought with a Salvadoran national who managed to take the agent’s handgun and fire off two shots before he was subdued.

And in November of last year, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency reports, a group of 100 Mexican nationals illegally crossed into the United States and attacked U.S. Border Patrol Agents with rocks and bottles.

After the U.S. agents chased the mob back over the border, Mexican authorities allowed the suspects to disperse without being arrested or otherwise suffering any consequences for their brutal attacks on U.S. law enforcement.

“Our agents are doing the best they can with the resources they have,” Shawn Moran, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, explained on Fox News’ “The Kelly File” earlier this month. “The Border Patrol is under siege.”

“This is something that’s been going on for over a year and is just getting worse,” he continued. “The American public needs to see what is going on. They need to see how hard our agents are working and how helpless they are to stop this and to make this situation better.”

Illegal immigration has exploded in recent months along the U.S. Mexican border, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley Sector. Border Patrol agents told Breitbart Texas that more than 1,000 illegal immigrants are apprehended each day in the RGV area.

Brandy Darby, Breitbart Texas’ managing director, has kept a chronicle of more than 40 reported assaults and drug-gang activities among the illegal aliens streaming across the border.

To make matters worse, the National Border Patrol Council, a union of U.S. Border Patrol agents, is reporting federal authorities are turning a blind eye to assaults on its members.

“The men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol are routinely attacked in remote areas along the U.S.-Mexico border, sometimes resulting in agents losing their lives for their service,” Darby wrote in November of last year. “The NBPC recently spoke out against the U.S. Border Patrol’s parent agency, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), alleging that both the CBP and the U.S. Attorney’s Office were routinely refusing to prosecute illegal immigrants who had assaulted Border Patrol agents.”

“The physical assaults on Border Patrol agents are increasing in numbers and in frequency,” added Stu Harris, vice president of Local 1929 of the NBPC. “Our Border Patrol agents are less safe now, and the dangers are increasing as they are more often working alone in isolated areas.”

Despite the increased risk, activist groups and scathing reports in mainstream media outlets have pressured the U.S. Border Patrol to put into place new restrictions on the use of force by its agents.

“Examples include refraining from blocking moving vehicles’ paths or firing at rock-throwers unless in imminent danger,” the Huffington Post reported. “Additionally, agents will be trained on how to carry and use lighter weapons, while also facing restrictions on taser use.”

Moran, however, says the additional restrictions could hinder agents’ ability to protect both the border and their own lives.

“The lives of Border Patrol agents should not be pawns in the political games of Washington, D.C.,” Moran told Breitbart Texas, “and this administration is literally risking our lives.”

“Instead of introducing … potentially restrictive policy changes, NBPC called upon CBP to open its books and provide the real story regarding the actual number of use of force incidents involving Border Patrol agents and whether force was justified,” the NBPC wrote in a released statement last year. “NBPC believes CBP should provide transparency around the criminal histories of those who allege use of force by Border Patrol agents, statistics regarding the number of assaults on Border Patrol agents, and the blatant lack of prosecutions against those who assault them.”

Zack Taylor, Chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, says that despite news stories painting border agents as armed aggressors against desert peasants toting only rocks, agents must have a way to defend themselves. Rocks, he pointed out, can be lethal as well.

“If you don’t throw rocks at the border patrol agent, they’re not going to shoot you,” Taylor told Breitbart Texas. “If you threaten the life of the officer, you then put the officer in a position where he has to protect his life. What do people not understand about that?”

Obama 'risking lives' of U.S. border agents
Drew Zahn
Mon, 23 Jun 2014 23:32:30 GMT

Contractor: Easy to find Lerner's 'lost' emails

 

lois-lerner

Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner

WASHINGTON – The CEO of a major a federal contractor, which has several contracts with the Treasury Department, says it should be relatively easy for IRS contractors to retrieve the “lost” emails of Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the tea party-targeting scandal.

Ron Gula is CEO and chief technical officer of Tenable Network Security, an information technology services company nestled in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., that has major contracts with many federal agencies, including the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service and United States Mint.

“It is very unlikely that the emails in question are not stored on a backup machine someplace else,” Gula told WND.

Gula also said questions about the lost emails from Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa, R-Calif., for Monday evening’s hearing are spot on.

Over the weekend, Issa called IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to testify Monday evening about the IRS’ “email systems, data retention policies, and document production processes.”

“Because the IRS has refused to provide basic information about these matters to the committee in advance of the hearing, and in the interest of promoting a frank and thorough discussion at the hearing, I ask that you provide answers to the factual questions posed below,” Issa said in a letter to Koskinen.

In his letter, Issa asked Koskinen to provide further details about the “failure of the hard drive,” identify employees involved in examining the hard drive, explain steps taken by the IRS to recover the information and give dates of those attempts. He also asked for the identities of all IRS employees who had any role or responsibility in maintaining or servicing IRS email servers since 2009 and for other details on the IRS archival systems.

After reviewing the letter, Gula said, “Many of the questions outlined for [Monday's] session are on the right track.” He said the emails in question could also be stored on any number of laptops and systems such as spam filters, which process email throughout the IRS.

Gula noted that because IRS contractors have the same access as employees to email systems, there shouldn’t be any issue retrieving lost data.

“In my experience, contractors who were authorized to do work for organizations like the IRS have full access to email and corporate resources,” he said.

To make email work for an organization the size of the IRS, Gula said, “there must be a great deal of redundancy and separate systems to deliver email reliably.”

WND found that several large corporations hold the IRS’ Total Information Processing Services, or TIPSS-4, contract to handle the IRS’ email servers and provide staff to work, in many cases, on site at IRS offices.

Those companies include: Accenture, Unisys, AT&T Government Solutions, Avaya Government Solutions, Booz Allen Hamilton, CGI Federal, Computer Sciences Corp., Deloitte Consulting, General Dynamics, HP Enterprises, IBM, Leidos, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman Systems and Pragmatics.

Issa called an archivist from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and invited White House counsel Jennifer O’Connell to testify Monday in a continuation of the investigation.

Contractor: Easy to find Lerner's 'lost' emails
Alana Cook
Mon, 23 Jun 2014 23:34:46 GMT