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California Senate contender Loretta Sanchez makes 'shocking' gesture at Dem convention

U.S. Senate candidate Loretta Sanchez started her campaign off on a rough note after a video surfaced showing her making a whooping cry in a reference to Native Americans dancing during an apparent joke during a California Democratic Party convention Saturday.
Sanchez’s rival, Attorney General Kamala Harris, called the gesture “shocking.”
The video was shared on social media Saturday. It shows Sanchez tapping her hand over her open mouth and making a whooping sound while speaking to a group of Indian-American delegates at the convention.
Sanchez made the gesture while talking about her confusion over whether a potential campaign support, who had referred himself as from the “Indian American community,” was Native American or South Asian descent.
Sanchez told reporters afterward that American Indians have a “great presence in our country and many of them are supporting our election.”
Harris, whose mother was an immigrant from India,” said, “There is no place for that in our public disclosure.”
The incident came during a convention in which the 2016 Senate race played out among speeches and partying. The two Democrats are leading contenders for the vacated seat left by retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Earlier, Harris defended her qualifications on foreign affairs and national defense after Sanchez had suggested she doesn't have the skills for the job in Washington.  
Harris told reporters that voters next year will determine who is qualified for the Senate seat, and her experience as a two-term attorney general and a former local prosecutor gave her the background she would need on Capitol Hill.  
"I feel certainly equipped to have a sense of what California needs and wants as it relates to many issues," Harris said. As a career prosecutor, "I know the stuff they do in Washington actually impacts California."
Sanchez entered the race Thursday and spent the day dashing to and from convention meetings, shaking dozens of hands and posing for snapshots. When she entered the race last week, Sanchez said that her long experience in defense and foreign affairs on Capitol Hill was essential in “perilous times,” drawing contrast with Harris.
Harris has targeted what she says is the dysfunction of Capitol Hill in her speeches. She never mentioned Sanchez, but the statements appeared to suggest that the congresswoman was part of the problem. Harris said that everywhere she travels as a candidate she is asked how she can “possibly get anything done” in paralyzed Beltway politics.
Speaking later with reporters, Harris pointed to her work along the U.S.-Mexico border on drug trafficking as state attorney general.  
The contest between the two high-profile Democrats has geographic, racial and political dimensions. Sanchez, 55, is Hispanic with a background in national defense issues and roots in Southern California. Over the years, she has belonged to a faction of moderate Democrats known as the Blue Dog Coalition. Harris, 50, a favorite of the party's left wing, is a career prosecutor from the San Francisco Bay Area whose father is black and mother is Indian.  
Sanchez, speaking to members of the party's Chicano Latino Caucus, said she wanted to appeal across the state's diverse population. "We will win, and we will win with a fabric of everybody," she said.

Son of fallen Colorado deputy gets father's patrol car

The son of a Colorado deputy killed in the line of duty owns his father’s patrol car thanks to rancher with a heart of gold.
Tanner Brownlee was quickly outbid when his father’s beat-up Dodge Charger was put up for auction Wednesday in Greeley, Colo.
“I was sitting there. I had a set amount that I was gonna do,” Brownlee told Fox & Friends Saturday. “As soon as it went past that, I was…I just kind of gave up hope.”
Brownlee watched local rancher Steve Wells purchase the vehicle with a whopping $60,000 bid, five times the car’s book value.
Then Wells did something incredible, Denver ABC reported.
Wells said, “Tanner, here’s your car,” and gave him the keys.
“I couldn’t even find words,” Brownlee said on Fox & Friends. “As soon as he handed me the keys I shut down and I couldn’t believe it.
“I got up. I shook his hand. I hugged him. I was just crying. I couldn’t find words to express it.”
Brownlee was 15 when his father was killed in 2010 after he and other officers pursued a suspected car thief into a subdivision after a high-speed chase. During the struggle the suspect grabbed Brownlee’s gun and shot the deputy three times, the Denver Post reported in 2011. Another deputy shot Brownlee’s killer.
Sam Brownlee was the first member of the Weld County Sheriff’s Office to die on the job in 70 years.
Brownlee and his colleagues put a lot of hard miles on the Charger. It had 147,000 on the odometer when it went up for auction. It was being sold to raise money for C.O.P.S., a fund for widows and orphans of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.
Tanner Brownlee started an online fundraising page to bid on the vehicle. He raised $3,000, hoping that would be enough. It wasn’t even close.
Wells turned out to be a man of few words after his good deed.
As he watched Brownlee get behind the wheel of the car, he declined an interview request saying he didn’t want to take away from the moment.
Brownlee said he and his brother Chase are going to use their father’s vehicle as a “cruising car.”
“I’m so excited,” he said. “I’m going to try to keep up on that car, keep it as long as I can.”

Asian groups file federal complaint against Harvard over admission practices

alliance of Asian American groups

An alliance of Asian American groups filed a federal complaint Friday against Harvard University, claiming that the school and other Ivy League institutions are using racial quotas to admit students other than high-scoring Asians.
More than 60 Chinese, Indian, Korean and Pakistani groups came together for the complaint, which was filed with the civil rights offices at the Justice and Education departments. The groups are calling for an investigation and say these schools need to stop using racial quotas or racial balancing in admission.
"We are seeking equal treatment regardless of race," said Chunyan Li, a professor and civil rights activist, who said they'd rather universities use income rather than race in affirmative action policies.
Harvard says its admissions approach has been found to be “fully compliant federal law.” Officials also say the number of Asian students admitted increased from 17.6 percent to 21 percent in the last decade.
"We will vigorously defend the right of Harvard, and other universities, to continue to seek the educational benefits that come from a class that is diverse on multiple dimensions," said Robert Iuliano, Harvard's general counsel.
Iuliano pointed to the Super Court’s landmark 1978 decision in Regents of University of California vs. Bakke, which upheld affirmative action and specifically cited Harvard’s admissions plan as a “legally sound approach” to admissions.
The federal suits say that Harvard and UNC rely on race-based affirmative action policies that impact admissions of high-achieving white and Asian American students. The Harvard lawsuit also alleges that the institution specifically curbs the number of Asian Americans it admits each year.
Yukong Zhao, who organized the groups for Friday's complaint, challenged Harvard to open its admission books to prove that Asians were not purposefully being put at a disadvantage. "We want to help this country move forward," Zhao said.
Other Asian American groups and officials also released statements supporting affirmative action, including two members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "Neither of us believes that any racial or ethnic group should be subjected to quotas," Commissioners Michael Yaki and Karen Narasaki said. "Nor do we believe that test scores alone entitle anyone to admission at Harvard. Students are more than their test scores and grades."

GOP has waited two years for info on IRS correspondence with Dem senators

Washington Republicans said this week that their requests to the IRS for correspondences between the agency and congressional Democrats remain unfulfilled after two years, raising questions about whether the Obama administration is trying to withhold information for a third-straight election cycle.
“Instead of holding the IRS accountable, Democrats are trying to cover-up their involvement in the IRS targeting scandal,” National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Andrea Bozek said Friday.
The group, which focuses on getting Republicans elected and reelected to the Senate, provided documents earlier this week showing 10 letters in which the IRS has asked for more time to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests since May 21, 2013.
"On January 14, 2015, I asked for more time to obtain the records you requested,” IRS tax law specialist Denise Higley wrote NRSC lawyer Megan Sowards on April 29. “I am still working on your request and need additional time.”
Higley also said she would contact the NRSC by July 6 if she needs more time.
IRS official Lois Lerner made public in early May 2013 that the agency during President Obama’s 2012 re-election bid had targeted Tea Party groups and other organizations with politically conservative sounding names when they applied for tax-exempt status.
Lerner, who ran the agency’s tax-exempt division, asserted her Fifth Amendment rights when called before Congress to testify about the matter.
She has since retired, and additional efforts by congressional Republicans and others to learn whether the upper reaches of the Obama administration ordered the targeting have been slowed because the hard drive on Lerner’s government computer crash, destroying hundreds or perhaps thousands of emails.  
Republicans and others have also speculated about whether the administration is stalling on providing information until Obama retires from office after the November 2016 elections.
Thursday will mark the second anniversary of the requests.
The agency could not be reached Saturday for additional comment.
The NRSC, which last year help Republicans win control of the Senate, historically focuses its manpower and money on defeating incumbent Democrats who appear vulnerable.
The group has specifically asked for records of correspondence between the IRS and Sen. Mike Bennett, a Democrat seeking a second full term next year in the swing state of Colorado.   
The NRSC is also looking for correspondence between the IRS and New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Others including North Carolina’s Kay Hagan and Alaska’s Mark Begich have already lost re-election bids. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry is also on the original list, but the Nevada Democrat is not seeking re-election next year.

Liberals finally get a taste of Obama’s arrogance

These are not good times for the Republic (and if you laughed or scratched your head at me calling America a republic, I rest my case).
But they are amusing times, at least for those of us capable of extracting some measure of mirth from the president’s predicament.
With the sand running out on the Obama presidency, it’s finally dawning on the president’s friends and fans that he can be a real jerk.
Consider The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank. For the last six years, he’s spent much of his time rolling his eyes and sneering at Republicans.
His subspecialty is heaping ridicule on conservative complaints about, well, everything and anything. If it bothers conservatives, it must be irrational, partisan, churchy, fake, hypocritical — or all of the above.
Meanwhile, poor Barack Obama, while not always without fault in Milbank’s eyes, is the grown-up, the good guy trying to do good things amidst a mob of malcontents and ideologues.
That is, until this month. President Obama wants to get a trade deal passed. He needs Democrats to do it. But, Milbank laments, Obama’s blowing it.
“Let’s suppose you are trying to bring a friend around to your point of view,” Milbank writes. “Would you tell her she’s emotional, illogical, outdated and not very smart?
Would you complain that he’s being dishonest, fabricating falsehoods and denying reality?”
“Such a method of a persuasion is likelier to get you a black eye than a convert,” Milbank notes. “Yet this is how President Obama treats his fellow Democrats on trade.”
True enough. But lost on Milbank is that this is precisely how Obama treats everyone who disagrees with him. When Obama — who ran for office touting his ability to work with Republicans and vowing to cure the partisan dysfunction in Washington — treated Republicans in a far ruder and shabbier way, Milbank celebrated.
The president has spent his entire presidency insisting that his political opponents are, to borrow a phrase from Milbank, “emotional, illogical, outdated and not very smart.” Republicans, in Obama’s view, are always dishonest, fabricating falsehoods and denying reality with their knee-jerk responses.
To pick just one of countless examples, there was a White House summit on health care in 2010. The president invited members of Congress to discuss the issue in good faith.
He then proceeded to treat every concern, objection and argument from Republicans as dumb, dishonest or emotional.
They were, according to a column by Milbank, “stepping into Prof. Obama’s classroom.”
Milbank marveled at how the “teacher” treated them all “like his undisciplined pupils.”
When Sen. John McCain, his opponent in the previous election, noted that Obama had broken numerous promises and that the 2,400-page bill was a feeding trough for special interests, Obama eye-rolled. “Let me just make this point, John,” Obama said. “We’re not campaigning anymore. The election’s over.”
He responded to Sen. Lamar Alexander — he called him “Lamar” — “this is an example of where we’ve got to get our facts straight.”
When it was Rep. John Boehner’s turn to speak, Obama reprimanded “John” for trotting out “the standard talking points” and, in the words of a palpably impressed Milbank, forced Boehner to “wear the dunce cap.”
Again, this was all quintessential Obama then, and it’s quintessential Obama now. All that has changed is that he’s doing the exact same thing to Democrats, and it’s making them sad. Specifically, he’s accused Sen. Elizabeth Warren of not having her facts straight. He says she’s just a politician following her partisan self-interest.
But here’s the hilarious part: Liberals can’t take it. The president of NOW, Terry O’Neill, accused Obama of being sexist.
O’Neill sniped that Obama’s “clear subtext is that the little lady just doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Both O’Neill and Sen. Sherrod Brown also sniff sexism in the fact that Obama referred to Warren as “Elizabeth.”
“I think referring to her as first name, when he might not have done that for a male senator, perhaps?” Brown mused with his typical syntactical ineptness.
Of course, in that White House health-care summit and in nearly every other public meeting with Republican senators and congressmen, he referred to them all by their first names.
The great irony is that when Republicans complain about Obama’s haughtiness and arrogance, liberals accuse them of being racist.
I hope I don’t miss that phase of this spat while I’m off making the popcorn.

Stephanopoulos Cartoon

Call it 'gender fluidity': Schools to teach kids there's no such thing as boys or girls

One of the nation’s largest public school systems is preparing to include gender identity to its classroom curriculum, including lessons on sexual fluidity and spectrum – the idea that there’s no such thing as 100 percent boys or 100 percent girls.
Fairfax County Public Schools released a report recommending changes to their family life curriculum for grades 7 through 12. The changes, which critics call radical gender ideology, will be formally introduced next week.
“The larger picture is this is really an attack on nature itself – the created order,” said Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council.
“Human beings are created male and female. But the current transgender ideology goes way beyond that. They’re telling us you can be both genders, you can be no gender, you can be a gender that you make up for yourself. And we’re supposed to affirm all of it.”
The plan calls for teaching seventh graders about transgenderism and tenth graders about the concept that sexuality is a broader spectrum --- but it sure smells like unadulterated sex indoctrination.
Get a load of what the kids are going to be learning in middle school:
“Students will be provided definitions for sexual orientation terms heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality; and the gender identity term transgender,” the district’s recommendations state. “Emphasis will be placed on recognizing that everyone is experiencing changes and the role of respectful, inclusive language in promoting an environment free of bias and discrimination.”
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Eighth graders will be taught that individual identity “occurs over a lifetime and includes the component of sexual orientation and gender identity.”
“Individual identity will also be described as having four parts – biological gender, gender identity (includes transgender), gender role, and sexual orientation (includes heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual).”
The district will also introduce young teenagers to the “concept that sexuality is a broader spectrum.” By tenth grade, they will be taught that one’s sexuality “develops throughout a lifetime.”
“Emphasis will be placed on an understanding that there is a broader, boundless, and fluid spectrum of sexuality that is developed throughout a lifetime,” the document states. “Sexual orientation and gender identity terms will be discussed with focus on appreciation for individual differences.”
As you might imagine – parents are freaking out.
“Parents need to protect their kids from this assault,” said Andrea Lafferty, president of Traditional Values Coalition. “Who could imagine that we are in this place today – but we are.”
Last week, the school board voted to include gender identity in the district’s nondiscrimination policy – a decision that was strongly opposed by parents.
Lafferty, who led the opposition to the nondiscrimination policy, warned that the district is moving towards the deconstruction of gender.
“At the end of this is the deconstruction of gender - absolutely,” she told me. “The majority of people pushing (this) are not saying that – but that clearly is the motivation.”
LISTEN: Todd’s interview with the Family Research Council
School Board spokesman John Torre told the Washington Times the proposed curriculum changes have nothing to do with last week’s vote to allow boys who identity as girls to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.
He would have us believe it was purely coincidental.
To make matters worse, Lafferty contends parents will not be able to opt their children out of the classes because the lessons will be a part of the mandatory health curriculum.
However, Torre told me that parents will indeed be able to opt out of those classes “including the sexual orientation and gender identity lessons.”

I must confess that I’m a bit old school on sex education. I believe that God created male and female. My reading of the Bible does not indicate there were dozens of other options.

“They are not being forthright with the information,” Lafferty said. “They are not telling people the truth.  They are bullying parents. They are intimidating and they are threatening.”
I must confess that I’m a bit old school on sex education. I believe that God created male and female. My reading of the Bible does not indicate there were dozens of other options.
However, I’m always open to learning new things – so I asked the school district to provide me with the textbooks and scientific data they will be using to instruct the children that there are dozens and dozens of possible genders.
Here’s the reply I received from Torre:
“Lessons have not been developed for the proposed lesson objectives,” he stated. “Because of the need to develop lessons, the proposed objectives would not be implemented until fall 2016.”
In other words – they don’t have a clue.
And the Family Research Council’s Sprigg said there’s a pretty good reason why they can’t produce a textbook about fluidity.
“It’s an ideological concept,” he told me. “It’s not a scientific one.”
He warned that Fairfax County’s planned curriculum could be harmful to students.
“It’s only going to create more confusion in the minds of young people who don’t need any further confusion about sexual identity,” he said.
The board will introduce the changes on May 21. Lafferty said she hopes parents will turn out in force to voice their objections.

Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is "God Less America."

Jurors sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for Boston Marathon bombing

A federal jury sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death Friday for his part in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that left three people dead, and for the murder of an MIT police officer as he and his brother attempted their getaway.
Tsarnaev showed no emotion as he learned his fate and stood with his hands clasped in front of him, his head slightly bowed. He faces death by lethal injection.
"My mother and I think think that now he will go away and we will be able to move on," said victtim Sydney Corcoran after the verdict. "Justice. In his own words, 'an eye for an eye.'"
Corcoran nearly bled to death and her mother lost both legs.
The 21-year-old faced the death penalty or life in prison for his role in the April 15, 2013 attack in which two pressure-cooker bombs were detonated near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
It remains to be seen how quickly his execution will take place. It took authorities four years to execute Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh after his appeals were exhausted. A jury sentenced McVeigh to death in 1997. He was executed in 2001.
As a crowd gathered in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Boston, the jury went through its lengthy and complicated verdict form.
The jurors agreed with prosecutors on 11 of the 12 aggravating factors they cited and found the former college student's role in the bombing was "heinous, cruel and depraved" on eight counts.
The jury agreed with the prosecution that the bombing constituted an act of terrorism involving substantial planning and premeditation on Tsarnaev's part.
The panel also ruled as an aggravating factor the death of 8-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest victim of the bombing. The boy had gone to the marathon with his family.
As the jury announced Tsarnaev showed no remorse for what he did, he slowly rocked back and forth between his two lawyers.
The defense asked the jury to weigh more than 20 mitigating factors in pleading that he be spared death.
But only three jurors found that Tsarnaev was under the control of his older brother, Tamerlan.
The jury reached a decision in the penalty phase of the death penalty trial after 14 hours of deliberations over three days.
Tsarnaev was convicted last month of all 30 federal charges against him, 17 of which carried the possibility of the death penalty.
The 2013 bombing killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Tsarnaev was also convicted of killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer days later during a massive police manhunt for him and his brother.
The defense sought to save Tsarnaev's life by pinning most of the blame on his radicalized older brother, who died during their escape attempt.
Prosecutors portrayed Tsarnaev as an equal partner in the attack and so heartless he placed a bomb behind children.
During the trial's first phase, the jurors heard grisly and heartbreaking testimony from numerous bombing survivors who described seeing their legs blown off or watching someone next to them die.
Those killed in the bombing besides Richard were Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier was shot to death in his cruiser days later. Seventeen people lost legs in the bombings.
Tsarnaev did not take the stand at his trial, and he slouched in his seat through most of the case, a seemingly bored look on his face. In his only flash of emotion during the months-long case, he cried when his Russian aunt took the stand.
The only evidence of any remorse on his part in the two years since the attack came from the defense's final witness, Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and staunch death penalty opponent made famous by the movie "Dead Man Walking."
She quoted Tsarnaev as saying of the bombing victims: "No one deserves to suffer like they did."

US military maintains strategy is working against ISIS in Iraq

Despite the recent setbacks in Iraq, the U.S. military command leading the fight against ISIS insists that its strategy is working and that the militants’ takeover of a key oil refinery and a government compound are fleeting gains feeding the militants’ propaganda machine.
"We believe across Iraq and Syria that Daesh is losing and remains on the defensive," said Marine Brig. Gen. Thomas D. Weidley, chief of staff for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, the name of the international campaign fighting the Islamic State. “Daesh” is the Arabic acronym for the group that swept into Iraq from Syria last June and quickly overran much of Iraq’s north and west.
As Weidley spoke to reporters Friday from his headquarters in Kuwait, the terror group had captured the main government compound in Ramadi, Iraqi officials said. Other officials said they had gained substantial control over the Beiji oil refinery, a strategically important prize in the battle for Iraq’s future and potential source of millions of dollars in income for the militants.
The battle to push ISIS out of the largest city in northern Iraq, Mosul, now seems more of a distant goal.
The Pentagon has insisted that it knew when it began a bombing campaign in Iraq in August 2014 that it could take years to force the Islamic State out of the country, and while the militants have conceded some ground in recent months, including the city of Tikrit, have proven remarkably resilient.
More than 3,000 U.S. troops are training and advising Iraqi forces providing protection for U.S. forces and facilities. Weidley said there is no move afoot to either expand U.S. presence or ask the White House for authority to put U.S. troops close to the front lines of combat.
The White House said Vice President Joe Biden called Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi Friday to reaffirm U.S. support in light of the attacks on Ramadi. It said Biden promised expedited security help, including delivery of shoulder-fired rockets and other heavy weaponry to counter militant car bombs.
The State Department offered a similar assessment Friday. "There will be good days and bad days in Iraq," State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said. "ISIL is trying to make today a bad day in Ramadi. We've said all along we see this as a long-term fight."
Weidley said Islamic State fighters had launched a complex attack Friday on Ramadi as part of an effort to "feed their information and propaganda apparatus." He said he could not confirm how much of the city had been lost or what percentage remains in Iraqi control. He said his command had seen social media postings that depict a successful Ramadi offensive.
"This is similar to the (techniques) they've used in the past where they've conducted attacks trying to gain social media gains by taking photos and documenting small-term gains and then using it for propaganda purposes," Weidley said, adding that IS was inflating the importance of its success.
"We've seen similar attacks in Ramadi over the last several months for which the ISF (Iraqi security forces) have been able to repel, and we see this one being similar to those," he said, adding that the U.S. is confident the Iraqi government will be able to take back the terrain it has lost in Ramadi.
Weidley called Ramadi a “critical city,” which appears to stand in contrast to remarks made by Gen. Martin Dempsey last month.
Dempsey said Ramadi was not central to the future of Iraq and said its potential loss “won’t be the end of the campaign” against ISIS. He also said the Beiji oil refinery, the site of fierce battles between militants and Iraqi forces, was a “more strategic” target for the terror group.
In Ramadi, Iraqi troops were forced to withdraw during an attack in which three suicide car bombs killed at least 10 people and wounded dozens more, said Mayor Dalaf al-Kubaisi. The mayor said the militants raised their black flag over the captured government compound, which houses provincial and municipal government offices.
Anbar provincial councilman Taha Abdul-Ghani said the militants killed dozens more captured security forces in the city as well as their families, without providing an exact figure. He said Iraqi and coalition warplanes were bombing the militants inside the compound.
Weidley's command said Friday in its daily summary of U.S.-led bombing in Iraq that coalition planes conducted 12 airstrikes in Iraq overnight Thursday. These included one airstrike near Ramadi that hit an IS headquarters. Four airstrikes near Beiji hit IS fighting units, destroying two fighting positions and a building, the U.S. military said.