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New twist in Bergdahl defense case

In the latest twist to the saga of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, his military attorney quietly reached out to the same former CIA officer who earlier this year told Fox News Bergdahl was stoned after he walked off his Afghanistan post in 2009 --but this time in an effort to help Bergdahl’s case.
Not only that, the lawyer had tried to discredit the same source in a public filing.
According to military documents, Bergdahl's defense team took aim at former CIA case officer, Duane "Dewey" Clarridge, who at the time of the 29-year-old's disappearance was running a private intelligence gathering network in Afghanistan to help locate and free Western hostages.
"Fox spared its many viewers the fact that that retiree had been indicted on seven counts of perjury and making false statements in connection with the notorious Iran-Contra scandal but was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush before his scheduled trial in federal district court," the filing states.
It neglects to mention that Bergdahl's military lawyer, LTC Franklin D. Rosenblatt, contacted Clarridge after the Fox story in June, seeking more information about the timeline of events that could be beneficial to Bergdahl.
Clarridge told Fox that according to his network of informants on the ground in Afghanistan, Bergdahl was apparently “high” with a small group of Afghan soldiers when they were picked up by nomads in 2009, and within four days, Bergdahl was sold by the nomads to the Haqqani network in Pakistan.
That information was passed through the proper military and intelligence channels. Retired Lt. Gen. David Fridovich, a former senior special operations commander who watched events unfold in 2009, said in June the information was deemed "credible" and "highly useful."
"[Operatives on the ground] had an opinion that the nomads would try and sell the soldiers probably to the Haqqanis. ... I can't say precisely, but I think it was certainly within four days and maybe less," Clarridge said, though he added the opinion was not shared by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies, and the dangerous village-to-village search continued
Clarridge's account that Bergdahl was allegedly high could be used by the defense to argue he  did not intend to leave base permanently, but was unable to return after his capture by the nomads.
Credible evidence that the US military suspected Bergdahl was out of reach in Pakistan within 96 hours of his disappearance could be used to argue against the most serious charge of misbehavior before the enemy, since it has been claimed U.S. soldiers were killed or injured searching for Bergdahl.
Fox News first contacted Eugene Fidell, a civilian who is Bergdahl's lead attorney, in April about the investigation and again in June about the specific allegations his client was high after leaving base – a state the Afghans call "diwana” - and his capture by nomads. Fidell declined to comment.
Asked now about criticizing the former CIA officer, while at the same time seeking information from him about the timeline of events, and what was known by the military, Fidell did not immediately respond.
Clarridge said he stood by his original statements, which have not been publicly disputed.

Obama NLRB pushes pro-labor agenda as administration winds down

The Democrat-leaning National Labor Relations Board is pushing a pro-union agenda with a flurry of rulings ahead of the 2016 elections and a possible swing to the right, say critics.
In recent months, the board charged with conducting union elections and enforcing fair labor practices has ruled that companies must hand employee contact information over to organizers, allow workers to use company e-mail systems for union business and compressed the amount of time between initial efforts and votes on representation. It has also ruled that existing unions can organize their employers' subcontractors.
“They [NLRB] have been active in recent months,” said Trey Kovacs, a labor policy expert with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “And the unions have been organizing much quicker than they ever have before. It gives employees less time to make an informed decision and gives them no opportunity to opt out.”
The five-member board includes three Democrats, one Republican and one vacancy. Terms end on a staggered basis, with openings coming in each of the next two years. Appointments have been so contentious that only two slots were filled for much of President Obama's first term. After that, confirmation battles in the Republican-controlled Senate and a failed attempt by Obama to make recess appointments have left the board with a tenuous Democrat majority.
But while the seemingly pro-union rulings from the board have given Big Labor a boost, the trend among states is toward right-to-work, where employees of a unionized company do not have to join. The result has been a labor-management stalemate, with a continuing and gradual decline in overall union membership.
Rule changes the NLRB has recently enacted, including those allowing for "quick-snap" elections that can take place within days of a petition being submitted, and the mandate that companies hand over employees’ personal contact information – names, home addresses, email addresses -- have angered anti-union activists.
“Giving this information out is an open invitation for union organizers to bully, harass, and intimidate employees until they agree to support unionization,” Will Collins of the National Right to Work Foundation said.
Collins also says that the NLRB has generally made it very difficult for employees to get rid of an unwanted union once it takes root. One recent example occurred this past April, when the United Auto Workers refused to relinquish power at an NTN-Bower ball-bearing plant in Alabama. Employees had to vote five times to get rid of the UAW because the union kept taking advantage of the NLRB’s election rules to keep from getting ousted, he said.
“The NLRB has created aggressive procedures to speed up certification elections and help unions get into power, but ignores blocking charges and election bars that hinder or completely deny employees’ ability to decertify the union,” Glenn Taubman, an NRTW attorney said during his recent testimony before congress regarding these procedures.
Union membership among employed workers in the U.S. has been on a steady decline since the 1950s, when more than a quarter of the workforce was unionized. As of 2010, just over 12 percent of American workers were in a union.
Last month, the NLRB issued a new ruling that has large implications for employment arrangements that broaden the definition of employer. In what has become known as the “Browning-Ferris” ruling, theboard held that unions can organize all employees at a facility even if it employs workers from different companies. The case involved hundreds of sorters and other workers at a landfill and recycling center in Milpitas, Calif. by outsourcing firm Leadpoint. Only 60 employees were under a union contact with the facility's operator and owner Republic, but the ruling allowed the local union to organize all workers, including those outsourced—despite Republic officials maintaining that they had no authority over workers from Leadpoint.
Collins points out that the NLRB has also spent the past two years trying to implement biased notice posting rules that would have required businesses to post information with emphasis on employees’ rights to join or organize a union while downplaying their rights to refrain from union membership and opt out of paying dues for union politics.
“Although these rules were eventually struck down in court, the fact that they were promulgated in the first place points to the NLRB’s pro-organizing agenda,” Collins said.
Officials for the NLRB did not immediately return requests for comment.
And it seems as if the state politicians on the left are helping to bolster the NLRB’s efforts.
As recently as Wednesday, lawmakers in Missouri voted not to override Gov. Jay Nixon’s June veto of right-to-work legislation, which the Democrat governor called “a threat to unionized workers and wages.” The bill would have made Missouri the 26th state to enact the legislation.
Kovacs maintains that if Missouri were granted right-to-work status, employee income and the state economy would have benefited greatly, adding that from 1977 to 2012, Missouri’s estimated per capita income loss linked to not having RTW laws was $3,040, altogether making the total of estimated income loss in the state over $18.3 billion.
“In failing to override the governor’s veto, Missouri lawmakers lost a chance to make history and dealt a devastating blow to worker freedom in favor of special interests and Big Labor,” Kovacs told FoxNews.com.

More than 20 students at Virginia high school suspended for wearing Confederate flag on clothing

More than 20 western Virginia high school students were suspended Thursday after holding a rally to protest a new policy banning vehicles with Confederate flag symbols from the school parking lot and refusing to take off clothing displaying the symbol.
Christiansburg High School Senior Houston Miller, who organized the rally, said he doesn't believe the administration should be able to tell students what they can wear or put on their vehicle. He said he doesn't intend to back down and is encouraging more students to show their support for the flag Friday.
"I feel like I should have the right to wear whatever I want, and I'm standing up for this," Miller said.
The dress code at the school in Christiansburg — south of Blacksburg along Interstate 81 — prohibits students from wearing articles that reflect adversely on people because of race, gender, or other factors. A new policy this fall bans students from having Confederate symbols on their vehicles in the parking lot.
Confederate symbols have come under increased public scrutiny since the June 17 massacre of nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, the white man charged in the slayings, had been photographed holding the Confederate battle flag.
The 21 students who refused to remove their Confederate flag clothing were initially given in-school suspensions, said Brenda Drake, a spokeswoman for Montgomery County Public Schools. But 15 of them were sent home for the day after being loud and disruptive. Another two students were suspended for additional days.
Drake said the school values the students' First Amendment rights but has to maintain a safe and orderly environment. She said "incidents of racial tension" at the school have made the ban necessary but did not specify what the incidents were and didn't immediately respond to further requests for comment.
Of the school's 1,100 students, 83 percent are white and 8 percent are black, state data show.
"We are not issuing a judgment on the flag, but know that not allowing it at CHS supports a peaceful educational environment in the building," Drake said in a statement. "Continued racial friction suggests that lifting the ban of this particular symbol would cause significant disruption at the school."
Senior Morgan Willis attended the rally but decided to comply with the rules because she feared a suspension would prevent her from representing the school at an event this weekend. She had a Confederate flag draped across the top of her car until she was told on the first day of class to remove it, she said.
Willis said that for her and for other students, the flag is central to their Southern heritage.
"I understand some people take it as hate, but none of us out there were racist or anything," Willis said. "I don't see it as hate. If I did, I wouldn't own it. I see it as this is your Southern heritage, and if you can't have that, then what can you have?"
The new policy regarding Confederate flags on cars has also angered some parents, including Josh Akers, whose child attends the grade school in the school district. He started an online petition that has more than 1,200 supporters urging the school board to reverse the policy.
Richmond-based Attorney Jonathan Arthur said he has been talking to some of the students about potentially filing a lawsuit against the school, arguing that they have a Constitutionally-protected right to wear clothing emblazoned the flag.
Douglas Mertz, an attorney in Juneau, Alaska, who works on civil rights cases, said the courts have been divided over the issue. It often comes down to whether the school can point to concrete and specific problems that the symbol has caused, like a fight that broke out between students.
"The Supreme Court has said that you don't speculate that there might be a substantial impact on the education process. It has got to be really clear," Mertz said. "School officials can't simply go in with the belief that symbols are trouble and therefore can be banned," he said.

Marines reportedly will ask to keep some combat jobs closed to women

The Marine Corps reportedly will ask to keep several front-line combat jobs closed to women, bucking the trend being followed by the other three military services.
The Associated Press, citing U.S. officials, reported Friday that the Corps' tentative decision has ignited tension between Navy and Marine leaders and raised a debate over whether Navy Secretary Ray Mabus can veto any Marine Corps proposal to prohibit women from serving in certain infantry and reconnaissance positions.
The AP reported that no final decision had been made or presented to Marine leaders, but officials say Defense Secretary Ash Carter is aware of the dispute and intends to review the Marine plan.
The report comes nine days after the Marines released a study that found that all-male infantry units performed at a higher-level than units with women in them. Specifically, the study found that the all-male units moved faster, shot more accurately, could carry more weight and suffered fewer injuries than gender-integrated units. The injuries suffered by female Marines included stress fractures that likely resulted from carrying heavy loads.
The report did acknowledge that "female Marines have performed superbly in the combat environments of Iraq and Afghanistan and are fully part of the fabric of a combat-hardened Marine Corps after the longest period of continuous combat operations in the Corps' history."
But the report also pointed to the 25-year-old report by a presidential commission on women in the armed forces that concluded: "Risking the lives of a military unit in combat to provide career opportunities or accommodate the personal desires or interests of an individual, or group of individuals, is more than bad military judgment. It is morally wrong."
The ongoing divide has put Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford in the spotlight as he prepares to take over as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff next week. And it puts him in a somewhat awkward position of eventually having to review and pass judgment -- as chairman -- on a waiver request that he submitted himself while serving as Marine commandant.
Officials say the Army, Navy and Air Force are expected to allow women to serve in all combat jobs and will not ask Carter for any exceptions. They say that Special Operations Command is also likely to allow women to compete for the most demanding military commando jobs -- including the Navy SEALs -- though with the knowledge that it may be years before women even try to enter those fields.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Mabus on Monday made his position clear.
"I'm not going to ask for an exemption for the Marines, and it's not going to make them any less fighting effective," he said, adding that the Navy SEALs also will not seek any waivers. "I think they will be a stronger force because a more diverse force is a stronger force. And it will not make them any less lethal."
Mabus' comments angered Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who has asked Carter in a letter to demand Mabus' resignation because he "openly disrespected the Marine Corps as an institution, and he insulted the competency of Marines by disregarding their professional judgment, their combat experience and their quality of leadership."
Hunter, who served as a Marine in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Mabus' comments raise questions about whether he can be objective and continue to lead the Marine Corps. And he said Mabus should have no role in any decisions about women in the Marine Corps.
Mabus, however, told the City Club of Cleveland that the Marine study relied on averages -- such as the average woman can't carry as much or perform as quickly as a man.
"The other way to look at it is we're not looking for average," said Mabus. "There were women that met this standard, and a lot of the things there that women fell a little short in can be remedied by two things: training and leadership."
Under the current plan, the service chiefs will present their plans to the service secretaries, who will then forward recommendations to Carter. He will make the final decisions by the end of the year.
If Dunford does seek the exception, it puts the new Joint Chiefs chairman at odds with public statements by Carter asserting that anyone, regardless of gender, who meets the standards and requirements for a job should be allowed to do it.
Women make up less than 8 percent of the Marine Corps, the smallest percentage across the four active-duty services.
The services have been slowly integrating women into previously male-only roles, including as Army artillery officers and sailors on Navy submarines. Adding to the debate was the groundbreaking graduation last month of two women in the Army's grueling Ranger course.
In January 2013, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey signed an order wiping away generations of limits on women fighting for their country, ordering a quarter-million positions open regardless of gender. They called for sweeping reviews of the physical requirements for combat jobs and gave the military services until January 2016 to argue if any positions should remain closed to women.