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Pro-Palestinian students heckle Cal-Davis opponents with cries of 'Allahu Akbar!'

I thought that the University of California was located in America, guess I was mistaken!

Anti-Israel activists at the University of California, Davis heckled Jewish students and shouted “Allahu Akbar” at them during a vote last week on a resolution endorsing a boycott of the Jewish state, according to video of the event obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The commotion erupted late Thursday evening as pro-Israel students attempted to counter a student government resolution to divest from Israel as part of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Activists waving Palestinian flags shouted at the Jewish and pro-Israel students as they left the meeting room ahead of an eight to two vote in favor of the divestment resolution, which is part of a larger movement by anti-Israel groups to attack Israel and pro-Israel students on campus.
“Allahu Akhbar!” a large group of activists shouted in unison as the pro-Israel students filed out of U.C. Davis’ meeting room, according to video provided by a member of Aggies for Israel, a pro-Israel student group at Davis.
Following the vote, which was championed by the pro-Hamas group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), unknown vandals spray-painted swastikas on a fraternity house belonging to the Jewish AEPi organization.
Additionally, Azka Fayyaz, a member of the U.C. Davis student senate, posted on her Facebook page a triumphant message following the vote: “Hamas & Sharia law have taken over UC Davis.”

GOP-led House votes to repeal ObamaCare

WASHINGTON –  The House voted Tuesday to repeal the Affordable Care Act, getting Republicans on record in favor of overturning the law for the first time since the party took control of Congress.
The bill passed on a 239-186 vote. 
President Obama already has threatened to veto the legislation -- and like past bills to repeal ObamaCare, it is unlikely to go far under the current administration, despite Republicans now controlling the Senate and having a bigger majority in the House.
But the vote serves as an opening shot in the 114^th Congress’ efforts to chip away at the law. Several lawmakers have introduced bills to change or undo parts of the Affordable Care Act, and some could garner bipartisan support. 
"We need health care reform that makes the system more responsive to patients, families and doctors -- reforms that preserve and protect the doctor-patient relationship. Right now, ObamaCare is moving our health care system in the exact opposite direction where the American people are paying more and getting less," Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., said in a statement after the vote. "In the House of Representatives, we are saying we need to get rid of this law that's not working and focus on solutions that will embrace the principles of affordability, accessibility, quality, innovation, choices, and responsiveness." 
Prior to the vote, Obama questioned the logic behind it.
“So my understanding is the House scheduled yet another vote today to take health care away from folks around this table,” Obama said during a meeting with 10 people who have written him letters about how the ACA has helped them.
He added, “I’ve asked this question before. Why is it that this would be at the top of their agenda? It was maybe plausible to be against the Affordable Care Act before it was implemented. But now it has been implemented and it is working.”
The House has voted more than 50 times in the past two years to repeal all or parts of the law.
The legislation would go next to the Republican-controlled Senate.
While some say the vote is a symbolic gesture, the push to repeal ObamaCare comes as the Supreme Court weighs the King v. Burwell case, which challenges the legality of some subsidies offered through the president’s signature health care law. If the Supreme Court upholds a lower court’s verdict, it could severely undermine the law and fuel GOP efforts to at least change it. 
Republicans, as their next major step, are planning to draft legislation offering an alternative to the ACA. The bill approved Tuesday also directs House committees to begin work on an alternative plan, in case the Supreme Court rules against the law.

Secretary of Defense nominee Ashton Carter says he'll focus on ISIS, may expand counterterror operations

Ashton Carter, President Obama's nominee to replace Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, will tell Senators at his confirmation hearing Wednesday that counterterror operations may need to be expanded to stem the tide of foreign fighters joining up with the ISIS terror group. 
"I believe foreign fighters pose a threat to the U.S., and that this threat is exacerbated by the ongoing political and security instability in Libya," Carter says in remarks prepared for testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee and obtained by The Washington Times. "If confirmed, I will focus attention on the foreign fighter flow as the department works with regional partners in North Africa to address the challenge posed by the terrorist safe haven in Libya and broader counterterrorism issues."
Carter will face the panel one day after the terror group released a grisly video showing a captured Jordanian Air Force pilot being burned alive. In response to written questions from the committee, Carter said that he is aware of reports that ISIS may try to expand into Afghanistan, and that he will work with NATO coalition partners to ensure that does not happen. 
Carter also said he would consider changing plans for withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016 if security conditions worsen. About 10,600 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan.
Wednesday's hearing is likely to focus as much on Obama's foreign policy as on Carter's own vision for the Defense Department, with the 60-year-old likely to face questions on Russian actions in Ukraine, Iran's nuclear ambitions, and Obama's push to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, among other issues.
Another thorny issue Carter faces is an uncertain outlook for the defense budget. In his remarks, Carter is expected to acknowledge that the Pentagon must end wasteful practices that undermine public confidence even as he criticizes the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration.
  "I cannot suggest support and stability for the defense budget without at the same time frankly noting that not every defense dollar is spent as well as it should be," Carter says in his remarks. "The taxpayer cannot comprehend, let alone support, the defense budget when they read of cost overruns, lack of accounting and accountability, needless overhead and the like."
If confirmed, Carter would be the fourth Secretary of Defense to serve under Obama, after Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, and Hagel. The relationship between the White House and the Pentagon has often been strained, with some officials in the department saying Obama views the military skeptically and centralizes decision making in the West Wing. Hagel, in particular, is said to to have grown particularly frustrated with the policymaking process overseen by national security adviser Susan Rice. Gates and Panetta have publicly aired their grievances with what they saw as White House micromanagement.
Carter served twice previously in Obama's Pentagon, most recently as deputy defense secretary from 2011 to 2013. He was assistant secretary of defense for international security policy during the administration of President Bill Clinton.
Carter would be the first defense secretary who has not served in the military or Congress since Harold Brown, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter and led the Pentagon from 1977 to 1981.

Jordan hangs 2 Al Qaeda prisoners after ISIS video shows Jordanian pilot burned alive

Jordan executed two Al Qaeda prisoners early Wednesday in response to a graphic video released by the ISIS terror group that showed a captured Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage. 
The release of the video sparked outrage and anti-ISIS demonstrations in Jordan, while Syrian activists reported that the terrorists gleefully played the grisly footage on big-screen televisions in their de facto capital, Raqqa.
Government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani confirmed to the Associated Press that Jordan had executed Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouly, two Iraqis linked to Al Qaeda. Another official told the AP that both prisoners had been hanged. The executions took place at Swaqa prison about 50 miles south of the Jordanian capital of Amman. At sunrise, two ambulances carrying the bodies of al-Rishawi and al-Karbouly drove away from the prison with security escorts.
Jordan had previously expressed willingness to trade al Rishawi for the pilot, Lt. Muath Al-Kaseasbeh, but froze the swap after failing to receive any proof that he was still alive. Jordanian TV reported that al-Kaseasbeh was killed as early as Jan. 3, though that could not be immediately confirmed. 
Al-Rishawi had been sentenced to death after her 2005 role in a triple hotel bombing that killed 60 people in Amman orchestrated by Al Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor of the Islamic State group. Al-Karbouly, a former aide to top Al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was sent to death row in 2008 for plotting terror attacks on Jordanians in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006. 
In the video, viewed by Fox News, al-Kaseasbeh, showing signs of having been beaten and clad in an orange jumpsuit, speaks under clear duress. A narrator speaking in Arabic blasts Arab nations, including Jordan, for taking part in U.S.-led airstrikes against ISIS. The final five minutes of the video show the caged pilot, his clothing apparently doused in gasoline as the fuel is lit. His screams are audible as he collapses to his knees. After being killed, the burned man and the cage are buried by a bulldozer. The video ends with ISIS offering "100 golden Dinars" for any Muslims in Jordan who kill other Jordanian pilots, whose names, pictures and hometowns are shown.
Sources told Fox News it demonstrated the highest production values of any tape to date, suggesting it took considerable time to shoot and produce.
In Washington, President Obama spoke with Jordan's King Abdullah II in a hastily arranged meeting at the White House. Jordan is a member of the U.S.-led coalition that has been striking ISIS in Syria since this past September. 
"It's just one more indication of the viciousness and barbarity of this organization," Obama said. "And I think it will redouble the vigilance and determination on the part of the global coalition to make sure that they are degraded and ultimately defeated.”
In a statement before his meeting with Abdullah, Obama vowed the pilot's death would "redouble the vigilance and determination on the part of our global coalition to make sure they are degraded and ultimately defeated."
"Lieutenant al-Kaseasbeh's dedication, courage and service to his country and family represent universal human values that stand in opposition to the cowardice and depravity of ISIL, which has been so broadly rejected around the globe," Obama said, using another acronym for the terror group.
Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr., R-Ca., said after a meeting with congressional lawmakers and King Abdullah that the Jordanian monarch had been visibly angry and promised swift and certain retaliation against Islamic State group militants.
"They're starting more sorties tomorrow than they've ever had. They're starting tomorrow," Hunter told the Washington Examiner in an interview published online Tuesday night.
Hunter added the king also said: "The only problem we're going to have is running out of fuel and bullets." 
Jordan faces increasing threats from the militants. Jordan borders areas of the group's self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq, while there are have been signs of greater support for the group's militant ideas among Jordan's young and poor.
After word spread that the pilot had been killed, dozens of people chanting slogans against the Islamic State group marched toward the royal palace to express their anger. Waving a Jordanian flag, they chanted, "Damn you, Daesh!"  -- using the Arabic acronym of the group -- and "We will avenge, we will avenge our son's blood."
"There is no religion [that] accepts such act," Amman resident Hassan Abu Ali said. "Islam is a religion of tolerance. (ISIS) have nothing to do with Islam. This is [a] criminal act."
Jordanian Army spokesman Mamdouh al-Ameri said the country would strike back hard. "Our punishment and revenge will be as huge as the loss of the Jordanians," he said.
Protesters marched in the pilot's home village of Ai and set a local government office on fire. Witnesses said the atmosphere was tense and that riot police patrolled the streets.
The pilot's father, Safi Yousef al-Kaseasbeh, was attending a tribal meeting in Amman when news of the video surfaced, and he was seen being led from the session. Other men were seen outside, overcome with emotion.
The Islamic State group has released a series of gruesome videos showing the beheading of captives, including two American journalists, an American aid worker and two British aid workers. Tuesday's was the first to show a captive being burned alive.
David L. Phillips, a former State Department adviser on the Middle East, said he believes the pilot's killing could backfire, antagonizing Sunnis against the extremists, including Sunni tribes in Iraq.
"They need to have a welcome from Sunni Arabs in Anbar Province (in Iraq) to maintain their operations," said Phillips, director of the Program on Peace-building and Human Rights at Columbia University.
He said the extremist group's recent military setbacks may have fueled the killings. "They need to compensate for that with increasingly gruesome killings of prisoners," he said.
The latest video was released three days after another video showed the purported beheading of a Japanese journalist, Kenji Goto, who was captured by the Islamic State group in October.
The militants had linked the fates of the pilot and the journalist. A second Japanese hostage was apparently killed earlier last month.
The U.N. Security Council in a statement condemned the "brutality of ISIL, which is responsible for thousands of crimes and abuses against people from all faiths, ethnicities and nationalities, and without regard to any basic value of humanity."

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GAS PAINS? Union strike could spell end of $2 gas

Just when gas prices began slipping below $2 a gallon, a new issue is threatening to bring back pain at the pump.
Members of the United Steelworkers Union at refineries that produce nearly 10 percent of U.S. gasoline, diesel and other fuels, were on strike for a second day on Monday as they pushed for a new national contract with oil companies covering laborers at 63 plants, The Wall Street Journal reported. If a new deal isn't reached and the strikes continue, drivers at the pump could take a hard hit.
"You can forget about $2 gasoline," Carl Larry, director of oil and gas at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, told the newspaper. "It’s going to be a big deal. People are going to be freaked out."

"You can forget about $2 gasoline."- Carl Larry, director of oil and gas at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan

After contract negotiations broke down over salaries and safety, USW told its members at nine refineries and chemical plants to walk out until a new deal is settled, according to the newspaper. The strike, which affects 3,800 workers, began on Sunday.
Reuters reported that the walkouts were the first in support of a nationwide pact since 1980 and targeted plants with a combined 10 percent of U.S. refining capacity. 
Companies affected by the strike, including Royal Dutch Shell, Tesoro, Marathon and LyondellBasell Industries, vowed to keep plants operating under contingency plans such as using nonunion labor, according to The Journal.
One refinery, however, was being shut down. Tesoro's Martinez, Calif., refinery, was being closed during the strikes because of planned maintenance work, Reuters reported.
Gas prices had been falling for more than six months, as the price of a barrel of oil plunged from more than $100 to about $40. A variety of factors were credited for the price drop, including a huge rise in U.S. production and Saudi Arabia's refusal to lower production to boost prices.
Bloomberg reported that oil was poised to rise again Monday, after surging more than 8 percent on Friday. It had previously fallen to its lowest point in almost six years.

Obama budget includes $2T in tax hikes

President Obama has packed more than 20 new tax increases into his proposed 2016 budget, which Republicans roundly blasted Monday as a tax-and-spend agenda that won't get their support. 
Together, the tax increases total more than $2 trillion over the next decade. The president plans to use much of that to fund new middle-class tax cuts, as well as ambitious spending programs for highway construction, education benefits and more. 
The biggest money-maker for the federal government would be a change allowing top earners to take tax deductions at the 28 percent rate, even if their income is taxed at the top 39.6 percent rate. This is projected to bring in $603.2 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. 
In addition, top earners would see an increase in capital gains rates -- to 28 percent, up from the current 24.2 percent rate. The change would raise nearly $208 billion. 
Some of the biggest tax hikes in the budget also include a 14 percent, one-time tax on previously untaxed foreign income (raising $268.1 billion); a 19 percent minimum tax on foreign income (raising $206 billion); and a fraction-of-a-percent fee on the 100 financial firms with assets of over $50 billion (raising $111.8 billion). 
The budget plan, while gearing tax hikes toward the wealthy and tax benefits toward the middle class, wouldn't exclusively hit the top tier. It would also hit smokers of all kinds, who under the president's plan would see the per-pack tax rise from $1.01 to $1.95, bringing in an additional $95 billion in revenue. 
In a message accompanying the massive budget books, Obama said his proposals are "practical, not partisan." But even before the books were delivered, Republicans found plenty to criticize. 
"The president is advocating more spending, more taxes and more debt," said House Speaker John Boehner. "A proposal that never balances is not a serious plan for America's fiscal future." 
Boehner and other GOP leaders said that the budget they produce this spring will achieve balance within 10 years, curb the explosive growth of government benefit programs and reform the loophole-cluttered tax code. 
Of Obama's $4 trillion proposal, Boehner said: "Like the president's previous budgets, this plan never balances -- ever." 
The budget shows a $474 billion deficit for fiscal 2016. Obama's budget plan never reaches balance over the next decade and projects the deficit would rise to $687 billion in 2025. Administration officials say their goal is to hold the deficit to a small percentage of the total U.S. economy -- but not necessarily to eliminate it. 
"President Obama promised in the State of the Union to deliver a budget filled with 'ideas that are practical, not partisan.' Unfortunately, what we saw this morning was another top-down, backward-looking document that caters to powerful political bosses on the Left and never balances-ever," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. "We're asking the President to abandon the tax-and-spend ways of yesterday and join us in this practical and future-oriented approach." 
As part of his budget, Obama is proposing a six-year, $478 billion public-works program for highway, bridge and transit upgrades, with half of it to be financed with the one-time, 14 percent tax on U.S. companies' overseas profits. 
The tax would be due immediately. Under current law, those profits are subject only to federal taxes if they are returned, or repatriated, to the U.S., where they face a top rate of 35 percent. Many companies avoid U.S. taxes on those earnings by simply leaving them overseas. 
The tax is part of a broader administration plan to cut corporate tax breaks and increase taxes on the country's highest wage-earners to pay for projects to help the middle class. 
Members of the GOP-controlled Congress and other fiscal conservatives have dismissed the overall plan since elements of it were announced several weeks ago. 
The administration contends that various spending cuts and tax increases would trim the deficits by about $1.8 trillion over the next decade, leaving the red ink at manageable levels. Congressional Republicans say the budgets they produce will achieve balance and will attack costly benefit program like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. 
Obama's budget emphasizes the same themes as his State of the Union address last month, when he challenged Congress to work with him on narrowing the income gap between the very wealthy and everyone else. 
Higher taxes on top earners and on fees paid by the largest financial institutions would help raise $320 billion over 10 years which Obama would use to provide low- and middle-class tax breaks. 
His proposals: a credit of up to $500 for two-income families, a boost in the child care tax credit to up to $3,000 per child under age 5, and overhauling breaks that help pay for college. Obama also is calling for a $60 billion program for free community college for an estimated 9 million students if all states participate. It also proposes expanding child care to more than 1.1 million additional children under the age of 4 by 2025 and seeks to implement universal pre-school. 
Obama's budget also proposes easing painful, automatic "sequester" cuts to the Pentagon and domestic agencies with a 7 percent increase in annual appropriations, providing an additional $74 billion in 2016, divided between the military and domestic programs. 
Many Republicans support the extra military spending but oppose increased domestic spending.