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| Special report is a collection of news stories which have not been included in the daily Gazette but deserve propagation in order to fully understand the global ramifications of actions from around the World. If you wish to contribute to the information database or provide Opinion and Editorial on world events please Email VOCR2012@Gmail.com |
North American Edition
Obama family 'costs taxpayers $1.4BILLION per year' (that's 20 times more expensive than British Royal Family)
Politicians looking for savings to deal with the national debt crisis should perhaps start by abolishing the President.Barack Obama and his family cost the taxpayer $1.4billion per year, according to a recently published book.
By contrast, the British Royal Family costs less than $60million each year.
Out-of-control gas well burning in Gulf of Mexico
An out-of-control natural gas well off the Louisiana coast caught fire late Tuesday, hours after 44 workers were safely evacuated from the drilling rig following a mid-morning blowout, a U.S. federal agency confirmed.No injuries were reported as a result of the fire, Eileen Angelico, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, told The Associated Press.
She said it wasn't known what caused the gas to ignite. It also wasn't clear early Wednesday how and when crews would attempt to extinguish the blaze. BSEE said earlier Tuesday that a firefighting vessel with water and foam capabilities had been dispatched to the scene.
The BP oil spill, by the numbers
Wild Well Control Inc. was hired to try to bring the well under control. Angelico said Wild Well personnel approached the well earlier Tuesday night, before the fire, but they determined it was unsafe to get closer when they were about 60 metres away from it.
The gas blowout was reported Tuesday morning.
Shutdown Looms Over ObamaCare
ObamaCare is at the center of a rapidly escalating fight that threatens to shut the government down this fall. [WATCH VIDEO]Senate Republicans, including two members of the leadership, are coalescing around a proposal to block any government funding resolution that includes money for the implementation of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
But such a move is a nonstarter for President Obama and congressional Democrats. Republicans have tried this maneuver in Obama’s first term, only to back off later to the chagrin of Tea Party leaders.
This time, GOP lawmakers are emboldened by problems plaguing the administration’s ObamaCare implementation. But that zeal could put Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a tough spot. Both leaders have downplayed previous talk of shuttering the government.
In the House, 64 Republicans have signed onto a letter pressing Boehner not to bring any legislation funding ObamaCare to the floor.
1,646 days in, Obama says the economy remains his top concern again
One way to look at President Obama's latest speech tour beginning today:President Obama takes his firm commitment to grow the American economy on the road today, stopping in Illinois and Missouri to urge creation of thousands of new jobs to continue expansion of the middle-class within the heartland and across this great nation.
"The President will deliver remarks at Knox College," the White House announced with excitement, "to kick off a series of speeches that will lay out his vision for rebuilding an economy that puts the middle class and those fighting to join it front and center."
Another way to look at Obama's latest speech tour:
Lord spare us, the nation's most addicted campaigner heads out for -- what? -- the 84th time today to call on somebody to do something about the country's stubbornly stagnant economy to finally create the hundreds of thousands of new jobs he and Joe promised more than four years ago when he started spending trillions of our dollars.
Obama has pivoted to the jobs meme so often since Jan. 20, 2009, that he needs new soles on his shoes. Remember when Scott Brown became the first Republican to win a Massachusetts Senate seat in four decades? Obama, who'd been pushing financial reform and ObamaCare, said he got that message loud and clear. He'd turn to j-o-b-s.
According to Obama's White House, which hosted the Louisville Cardinals NCAA champion basketball team Tuesday and will welcome the World Series San Francisco Giants next Monday, Republicans have taken their eye off the ball by not focusing on the country's top challenge: Jobs.
Joe Biden, by the way, the three-letter J-O-B-S man appointed to oversee stimulus effectiveness, is off in India and Singapore these days doing something.
Canadian accused of terror links released from Mauritanian prison
Aaron Yoon, the 24-year-old Canadian who has been held in a Mauritanian prison since December 2011 on terror-related charges, has been released.Yoon was sentenced to two years in prison last July after being convicted of having ties to an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group that operates in the North African region and of posing a danger to Mauritanian national security.
A Mauritanian court decided earlier this month to release Yoon for time served, roughly 18 months, and rejected prosecutors' requests to have his sentence extended to 10 years.
The Korean-Canadian was released at dawn Tuesday and turned over to Mauritanian intelligence officials for questioning, CBC's Adrienne Arsenault reported. He is expected to be deported to Canada soon, travelling on a temporary passport he was given by authorities.
"He's now free," Arsenault said. "The plan, it seems, is to get him back to Canada in the next two days.
"He has said all along that he has wanted to come back to Canada."
Yoon's release was facilitated by Canadian diplomats in Morocco, Arsenault said.
Neither the RCMP nor the Canadian government have commented on Yoon's release, but Canadian security officials "might want to have a conversation" with him when he arrives in Canada, Arsenault said.
President Obama’s Stunning Admission: ‘White Part of Me is Racist’
NEW YORK – During his appearance on ‘The View’ this morning, President Obama joked about the size of his ears (“My wife says she can hear the ocean in them!”), spoke earnestly about tackling global warming and showed heartfelt concern about violence in the Middle East. But when the conversation turned to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, President Obama’s remarks caught the show’s hosts by surprise. Following is a transcript of that segment of the interview.BARBARA WALTERS: Mr. President, what went through your mind when you heard that George Zimmerman was found not guilty in the death of little Trayvon Martin?
OBAMA: When the verdict came in, half of me was very disappointed. That part of me grieved for the Martin family. That part of me wanted justice, no matter what we had to do to get it. That part of me yelled out, I am Trayvon Martin.
JOY BEHAR: Is there another half of you, Mr. President?
OBAMA: Yes there is, Joy. There’s the white part of me.
SHERRI SHEPHERD: And how did the white part of you react to the verdict, Mr. President?
OBAMA: Well, Sherri, the white part of me was overjoyed, giddy even. The news of Zimmerman’s acquittal had the same effect Jeremiah Wright sermons have on the black part of me.
BARBARA WALTERS: Did the white part of you rejoice because the life of a black person just isn’t as important as the life of a white person, Mr. President?
OBAMA: Unfortunately, yes.
(Joy Behar gasped)
The family rescued by George Zimmerman after a rollover crash in Florida are terrified they will become targets for hate mobs
The family rescued by George Zimmerman after a rollover crash in Florida are terrified they will become targets for hate mobs who have made death threats to the neighborhood vigilante.Mark and Dana Michelle Gerstle told friends they do not want to talk publicly about Zimmerman for fear they will be accused of portraying him as a hero - and face a backlash from those who consider he got away with murder.
'They are very grateful to Zimmerman for what he did, but they do not want to get involved,' said a friend, who asked not to be named.
While In India, Joe Biden Claims He’s Part-Indian
Homeland Security Approves Seizure of Cell Phones and Laptops within 100 Miles of Border; Report Remains Secret
Americans have no Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures if they happen to be within 100 miles of the border, according to the “Executive Summary” of a still-secret report by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As the ACLU-created map above shows, nearly 2/3 of Americans (197 million people)—including the entire populations of Florida, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, DC, and Michigan—live in this “Constitution free” zone, as do the residents of the nation’s five most populous cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia.
The secret report is DHS’s response (two years late) to critics of its policy,
in place since at least 2008, of allowing border control agents,
without a warrant or even a suspicion of wrongdoing, to search any
travelers’ electronic devices (laptops, cell phones, tablets, cameras, etc.) and seize data they find. According to a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA)
filed three years ago by the ACLU, DHS subjected more than 6,500
travelers—nearly half of them U.S. citizens—to searches under this
policy between October 2008 and June 2010.
The Executive Summary of the secret report, which DHS is allowing the public to see, sets forth its conclusions without even summarizing the reasoning underlying them. Thus it asserts that “imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” but is silent on how DHS defines “civil rights/civil liberties benefits” or how it balances these against its institutional needs.
The Executive Summary of the secret report, which DHS is allowing the public to see, sets forth its conclusions without even summarizing the reasoning underlying them. Thus it asserts that “imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” but is silent on how DHS defines “civil rights/civil liberties benefits” or how it balances these against its institutional needs.
Records of snooping in Republican candidate’s tax records disappear
Back in January, 2010 Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell discovered a voice mail message on her cell phone from Special Agent Dennis Martel of the U.S. Treasury Department. “We received information that your personal federal tax info may have been compromised and may have been misused by an individual.”O’Donnell suspected this had something to do with an orchestrated hit job pulled on her by local media. A tax lien was mysteriously placed on a property she used to own. Stories were then written that she still owned the property, and was trying to hide the sort of financial problems that Delaware voters really ought to consider. This all happened on the same day she formally announced her campaign. The IRS later mumbled something about the tax lien being a “computer glitch” and withdrew it.
Someone in Delaware state government improperly accessed O’Donnell’s tax data during all of this. She complained to Senator Chuck Grassley, who sits on the Judiciary and Finance committees. On Tuesday, the Inspector General for the Treasury Department announced it would renew its investigation, and is looking into at least three other instances where the tax information of a political candidate or donor was improperly accessed. Special Agent Martel conducted a new interview with O’Donnell.
But then Delaware state officials got in touch with Senator Grassley’s office and said, hey, you know what? Funny story: all the records of access into O’Donnell’s confidential tax data by state officials probably got deleted. They only keep that stuff for 90 days, because why should they bother to keep perpetual records of state officials rooting around in people’s private information? It’s not as if that sort of thing has ever led to trouble before. Just ask Joe the Plumber.
Obama blames 'phony scandals' for bad economy, threatens unilateral action (Video)
Duffy-Wright investigation leads RCMP to Harper's office
The RCMP's investigation into Senator Mike Duffy's expenses and the cheque Nigel Wright wrote to cover them has led to the Prime Minister's Office.A senior government source confirmed Wednesday that the RCMP has contacted the PMO and said it is assisting with the investigation.
"We encouraged all current and former staff to assist RCMP," the source added.
Wright was Harper's chief of staff who resigned after the secret $90,000 payment was revealed. He's not the only one who has left the PMO in recent weeks. Chris Woodcock, one of the people who knew about the cheque according to an affiadavit filed by the RCMP, left his job as director of issues management last week. He now works for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.
Benjamin Perrin, who worked as a legal adviser in the PMO and is also named in the affidavit, is also gone. He left his job a few months ago and teaches law at the University of British Columbia.
The RCMP met with Wright's lawyers on June 19 and details of their discussion are contained in court documents. They indicate that the Conservative Party of Canada was initially going to pay for living and travel expenses that Duffy had improperly claimed but then backed off when it learned the amount was going to be as high as $90,000.
Wright's lawyers told the RCMP that Wright informed Woodcock and Perrin about his intention to pay the money personally and that Conservative Senator Irving Gerstein and Wright's assistant David van Hemmen also knew.
The RCMP believes Duffy may have committed breach of trust and fraud on the government because of the living and travel expenses he claimed and for accepting the money from Wright.
Harper has always said he did not know about Wright paying for Duffy's expenses and wouldn't have approved of it if he knew.
Muslims sects Salafi / Wahabi, Deobandi rule terror world
NATIONAL: (By Yasir Habib Khan)– Two Muslim Sects—Salafi / Wahabi and Deobandi— are the kingpins of the world of terror as both are root cause of terrorism and extremism around the globe, EU revealed in a recent reportSalafi / Wahabi are based in Arab, an origin of Al-Queda and Deobandi originates from Sub-continent especially Pakistan and Afghanistan, birthplace of Taliban.
It is not merely the faith or oil that flows out of Saudi Arabia. The oil-rich Arab state and its neighbours are busy financing Wahabi and Salafi militants across the globe, said a report issue by European Parliament.
According to the 2010 German domestic intelligence service annual report, Salafism is the fastest growing Islamic movement in the world
Taliban surfaced after 9 / 11 after they were forced to fight for their freedom against US who pounded Afghanistan to disband Al-Queda network. Salafi have been notable following insurrections in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.
A recent report by the European Parliament reveals how Wahabi and Salafi groups based out of the Middle East are involved in the “support and supply of arms to rebel groups around the world.” The report, released in June 2013, was commissioned by European Parliament’s Directorate General for External Policies. The report warns about the Wahabi/Salafi organisations and claims that “no country in the Muslim world is safe from their operations … as they always aim to terrorise their opponents and arouse the admiration of their supporters.”
Huma Abedin's Ties to Muslim Brotherhood Deeper Than Rep. Bachmann Suspected
Rep. Michele Bachmann's concerns about Sec. of State Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin have been openly criticized by many, yet disproved by none. Far from it in fact, as the alleged ties between Huma's family and the Muslim Brotherhood have been broadly substantiated. And now Walid Shoebat claims he is about to release the most damning news about Huma Abedin and Islamists to date.
That news concerns Huma's alleged ties to Abdullah Omar Nasseef, a "financier" of terrorism with whom Huma was associated when she was part of his organization, the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), until taking her position with Sec. of State Clinton.Shoebat is also prepared to show the alleged ties between the Abedin family and Yusuf Qaradawi, "the spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood." Shoebat's focus on Qaradawi is critical, because many that have dismissed Bachmann's concerns about Huma have done so based on the fact that Huma's husband, former Rep. Anthony Wiener, is Jewish.
How could someone with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood marry a Jew, they ask?
This is where Shoebat is prepared to show that Qaradawi has set forth teaching that allowed Huma and others to marry people who were "evil," just as it allows them to work at businesses that are "evil" if so doing serves the greater purposes of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Shoebat claims he will release details in the next few days.
15 7-Elevens in two States, New York and Virginia raided by Homeland Security.
Store owners and managers charged with wire fraud and harboring and hiring undocumented illegals.
The business section of the New York Times was the first newspaper on Monday, June 17, to report that agents from the Department of Homeland Security raided ten 7-Eleven stores in Islip, Long Island, New York and four stores in Virginia around 6 a.m. that morning. Three 7-Eleven franchise owners and six mid-level managers were charged in the fourteen stores. Farrakhan and Bushra Baig, husband and wife, owned or controlled 12 of the 14 stores. ICS was still executing search warrants on about 30 other stores across the country suspected of similar activities. Another individual, as yet unidentified, owned the other two stores. The Baig’s were arrested at their St. James home.The operation was part of an ongoing national investigation centered around 7-Eleven, and the exploitation of illegal aliens at franchise 7-Eleven stores. The owners will be charged with aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, using fake social security cards, money laundering, harboring and concealing illegal aliens, and not paying the minimum wage to their employees. The stolen Social Security numbers came from using the cards of children, at least three deceased adults and a US Coast Guard cadet. The new employees submitted the fraudulent information supplied to them to their 7-Eleven employers. The Baigs and, according to ICE, the other franchise holders involved in the scheme, also forced the illegal workers employed by them, to live in houses they owned and made them pay blackmail “rooming-house rent” from their wages—in cash.
The agents who staged the raids are from the Immigration Customs Enforcement [ICE], which is a division of Homeland Security. Thus far, approximately two dozen illegal aliens from Pakistan and the Philippines have been arrested. The Long Island Newsday reported the probe is “…part of a nationwide sweep involving hundreds of agents.” The Baigs are also charged with defrauding undocumented workers out of what the federal government said was more than $150 million since they began their scam.
Detroit Has No Horses But Pays $56K for Horseshoer — Union Boss Says It’s ‘Not Possible’ to Eliminate Positions
The Detroit Water and Sewerage
Department (DWSD) pays a “horseshoer” $29,245 in salary and roughly
$27,000 in benefits. There’s only one problem — Detroit has no horses
for the horseshoer to shoe.
Some critics argue that the department
has been turned into some sort of a government jobs program. Meanwhile,
the local union president says it is “not possible” to eliminate
positions, the Michigan Capitol Confidential reports.
The horseshoer’s job description, which
was last updated in 1967 (Lyndon B. Johnson was president), is “to shoe
horses and to do general blacksmith work… and to preform related work
as required,” according to the department’s website.
With a large amount of debt, DWSD has
struggled with rising water prices and inefficient services. They use
roughly twice the number of employees per gallon as comparable cities
like Chicago.
The Michigan Capitol Confidential has more details:
-
Detroit Reporters Criticize Right-Wing Media's Anti-Obama Bankruptcy Coverage
Detroit news reporters who've covered the city's fiscal problems for years say claims from conservative commentators that the recent bankruptcy is due to liberal agendas, federal policies, or even President Obama are wildly inaccurate.
Journalists, some with decades in the Motor City, contend such national coverage has missed the true cause of the financial debacle, which includes decades of population decline, mismanagement of city debt, and recent individual corruption.By contrast, right-wing commentator and Detroit native Ted Nugent recently claimed that "Liberal democrats took hold of the greatest, most productive city on earth and turned it into a bloodsucker excuse-making hell," adding, "If allowed to continue, our President will do the same to the whole country. Heartbreaking and tragic."
Similar coverage from Fox News -- which misleadingly claimed other cities could fall into Detroit's bankruptcy path - and National Review's Rich Lowry, who tried to blame it on "a toxic combination of Great Society big spenders, race hustlers, crooks, public-sector unions, and ineffectual reformers," is misleading, local reporters say.
They contend that Detroit's problems are unique and driven by demography and decades-long trends, not ideology.
"I don't agree with that thesis," Jim Kiertzner, a reporter at ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV who has covered Detroit news since 1983, said about some of the conservative claims. "This was a city, like the auto industry, [where] in the heyday the money rolled in. When the decline started, nobody kept ahead of it and made the cuts necessary."
He added that the decline has "been in the making for decades. Detroit has been on a long steady decline."
Geraldo Rivera tries to explain nearly nude selfie: ‘I just pushed the trigger’
He was drunk, lonely and into himself.
Geraldo Rivera, who tweeted a nearly naked photo of himself early Sunday morning to the shock and horror of thousands, if not millions, offered an explanation for his actions on his syndicated daily radio show on Monday. To summarize: he was drunk, lonely and into himself.Television personality Eric Bolling and former governor Eliot Spitzer were Rivera’s call-in guests, and Bolling quickly set about finding out what happened.
“Of all the people that should know better, it should be you,” Bolling said. “What were you thinking?”
“There I was, 2:30 in the morning on Sunday morning. You know, I do the show Saturday night, I did a great show on black-on-black crime and race relations and the Trayvon Martin fallout and federal charges ... and I get home and there’s no one to talk to, everyone’s asleep. And you just sit around, I had a drink and, you know, I had taken that picture Saturday morning and I was looking at it, just going through and I said ’you know, I gotta tweet this thing. I look pretty good for a 70-year-old.’ And I think because I’m so old people will cut me some slack, they won’t take it took seriously. And I just pushed the trigger.”
Obama Administration Sues Companies For Running Background Checks, Calling them Racist
The Obama Administration filed a lawsuit against Dollar General and a BMW facility for using background checks on job applications because it’s racist. It’s now unlawful to discriminate against applicants who have committed a crime.
According to FOX News:The Obama administration is suing Dollar General and a BMW facility in South Carolina for the alleged unfair use of criminal background checks for job applicants, months after warning companies about how such screenings can discriminate against African Americas.
The suits were filed June 11 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which last year issued new guidelines that cautioned against rejecting minority applicants who have committed a crime and recommended businesses eliminate policies that “exclude people from employment based on a criminal record.”
The suits have re-ignited concerns over such issues as potential federal overreach, the overlap of state and federal law and companies losing their rights to protect customers, workers and assets while trying to adhere to fair hiring practices.
Judicial Watch Sues to Obtain Susan Rice's Benghazi Talking Points
Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit against the State Department seeking talking points and updates given to Susan Rice regarding the September 11, 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was originally announced on June 21, and through it Judicial Watch seeks:Copies of any updates and/or talking points given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency concerning, regarding, or related to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.The State Department confirmed receiving Judicial Watch's original request for this information on October 26, 2012, but they did not turn over the requested materials. As a result, Judicial Watch is suing to get the information it seeks.
Any and all records or communications concerning, regarding, or related to the talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any other federal agency.
According to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, "This new FOIA lawsuit further highlight's the Obama administration's utter contempt for transparency."
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