College apologizes for serving Mexican food at space alien-themed party

Idiots for Apologizing.

A California college has apologized for its “insensitivity” after serving Mexican food at an official school night party whose theme, “Intergalactic,” included decorations featuring aliens from outer space.
In a letter addressed to its student body, Stevenson College - which is part of the University of California, Santa Cruz - said it received complaints from students and others within the university who were offended by the decision to serve Mexican food at the Sci-Fi party because of its perceived connection to the immigration debate.
The term “illegal aliens” is sometimes used to describe people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border without documentation, but many Latinos and immigration advocates consider it pejorative.
“We would never want to make a connection between individuals of Latino heritage or undocumented students and ‘aliens,’ and I am so sorry that our College Night appeared to do exactly that,” reads the letter, which was written by Carolyn Golz, a student life administrator.
Golz said the incident “demonstrated a cultural insensitivity on the part of the program planners,” but called it an “unintentional mistake.”
Now, as a result of this “poor decision,” the university is requiring cultural competence training for all students interested in putting together on-campus programs as well as other safe guards that “will ensure college programs are culturally sensitive and inclusive.”
College Night is a special monthly event designed to bring students together, according to the college’s website, which includes photos from former themed parties, including “Midnight in Paris,” at which French food was served, and “Harry Potter,” which featured turkey, potatoes and stew.
“For [the sci-fi] event, students landed on Mexican food because they weren't sure what food would work with the intergalactic theme,” a college spokesman told Fox News. “It sounds like an honest mistake - choosing a food for college night without thinking about how it could be perceived by others. The students decided on Mexican food as they hadn't had it yet this year. “
Some believe Stevenson College is overreacting with its decision to not only apologize, but to now require cultural competence training of program staff.
“This seems a bit of a stretch,” said Geraldo Rivera on the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends on Friday morning.  “This seems like political correctness gone way too far, and now they are going to get much more inferior food at their next gala for fear of offending.”

ISIS continues deadly assault on western Iraq as thousands flee

Iraqi special forces maintained control of the provincial capital, Ramadi, in Iraq's western Anbar province Friday, after Islamic State militants continued to pound the western city with bombings, causing fearful residents to flee their homes.
Anbar provincial council member Athal al-Fahdawi said Thursday the city was "in great danger," the BBC reported. Nine people were killed by militants in the village of Albu Ghanim— four of the victims were police officers, the Kurdish website Rudaw said- and thousands of people fled Ramadi and surrounding areas in recent days.
Sabah al-Karhout, head of Anbar's provincial council, said there were no major attacks on the city Friday but that the militants still maintained control of three villages to the east of Ramadi, which they captured Wednesday.
Suicide bombers attacked government buildings and checkpoints in Ramadi earlier in the week and Friday a series of bombings ripped through Baghdad, mainly targeting public places and killing at least 40 people, Iraqi officials said.
A car bomb went off at a car dealership in the Shiite neighborhood of Habibya in eastern Baghdad, killing 15 people and wounding 26, police said. Several cars were burned in the attack. A half-hour earlier, a car bomb detonated near an outdoor market, killing 13 people and wounding 24.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks but violence has escalated both in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq in the wake of Islamic State group's capture of large parts of the country last year. The Islamic State has taken credit for similar attacks in the past, especially those targeting Shiites, as well as Iraqi security forces and government buildings.
The attacks come as Iraqi government forces and allied Shiite and Sunni fighters-- backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led international coalition-- are battling ISIS militants to retake key cities and territory in northern and western Iraq.
Sabah Nuaman, a special forces commander in Anbar, said the situation had improved early Friday after airstrikes hit key militant targets on the city's fringes.
Also Friday, Iraqi security forces gained full control over a contested area south of the Beiji refinery, as part of their push to secure the rest of Salahuddin province.
General Ayad al-Lahabi, a commander with the Salahuddin Command Center, said the military, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and Shiite and Sunni militias dubbed the Popular Mobilization Forces, gained control of the towns of al-Malha and al-Mazraah, located 1.9 miles south of the Beiji oil refinery, killing at least 160 militants with the Islamic State group.
Al-Lahabi said security forces are trying to secure two corridors around the refinery itself after the Sunni militants launched a large-scale attack on the complex earlier this week, hitting the refinery walls with explosive-laced Humvees.
Extremists from the Islamic State group seized much of Salahuddin province last summer during their advance across northern and western Iraq.
The battle for Tikrit was seen as a key step toward eventually driving the militants out of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the capital of Nineveh province. In November, Iraqi security forces said they had recaptured the town of Beiji from the militant group. The refinery had never been captured by the militants but has been subjected to frequent attacks by the group.

Obama immigration order back in federal court

How many Demonstrators  are Illegal?

Demonstrators gathered outside a New Orleans federal courthouse on Friday as President Obama’s efforts to overhaul the country’s immigration system dangled in legal limbo.
Justice Department lawyers urged a federal appeals court to lift an injunction on a plan that would let up to 5 million illegal immigrants live in the country, obtain work permits and receive other benefits.
In February, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen granted a preliminary injunction at the request of 26 states that oppose Obama's action. Hanen's rulings have temporarily blocked the Obama administration from implementing the policies that would shield illegal immigrants from deportation.
“We have health costs,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose state is leading the lawsuit, said. “We have law enforcement costs. Then there’s additional costs to the federal government, because basically this is a benefits program for people who are not actually supposed to be here.”
Victor Ibarra, a 43-year-old protester from Houston, was with a group of restaurant workers. He said it's time to change immigration policy.
"We are human. We want family to be together. We just want to be OK in this country, cause no trouble and have the opportunity to be in the U.S. all our life,” Ibarra said.
Obama announced the executive orders after the November midterm elections, saying inaction by Congress forced him to make sweeping changes to immigration rules on his own.
A coalition of 26 states, led by Texas, sued to overturn Obama's executive action, arguing that it is unconstitutional and would force them to invest more in law enforcement, health care and education.
Justice Department attorneys  have argued that maintaining the temporary hold harms "the interests of the public and of third parties who will be deprived of significant law enforcement and humanitarian benefits of prompt implementation" of the president's immigration action.
The appellate court is taking up the case at a special hearing. It was uncertain how quickly the panel might rule following the hearing. Each side was to get an hour to argue their case.
The first of Obama's orders — to expand a program that protects young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as children — had been set to take effect Feb. 18.
The other major part would extend deportation protections to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the country for several years. That provision was slated to begin on May 19.

New VA scandals call into question agency's ability to clean house

Nearly a year after a scandal rocked the Department of Veterans Affairs, revealing that the agency's centers nationwide were manipulating records to hide dangerously long patient wait times, the bad news just keeps on coming -- calling into question the agency’s promise to clean house.
Ignored claims, manipulated records, cost overruns and even one facility infested with insects and rodents are among the latest issues uncovered by a blistering VA Inspector General’s report. The auditor's probe found that more than 31,000 inquiries placed by veterans to the Philadelphia Regional VA office call center went ignored for more than 312 days, even though they were supposed to be answered in five. Perhaps even worse, claim dates were manipulated to hide delays, $2.2 million in improper payments were made because of duplicate records, 22,000 pieces of returned mail went ignored and some 16,600 documents involving patient records and dating back to 2011 were never scanned into the system.

“This report is as bleak as it gets, full of systemic malfeasance and deliberate data manipulation.”- Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla.

“This report is as bleak as it gets, full of systemic malfeasance and deliberate data manipulation,” charged Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, in a statement after the story broke April 15. “The Philadelphia VA Regional Office is in crisis, brought on by years of mismanagement and encouraged by VA’s longstanding refusal to hold employees accountable.”
The report also found that more than 150 employees were forced to work in a dilapidated, leaky warehouse infested with insects and rodents.
It wasn’t the only black eye for the VA, which has been trying to pursue system-wide reforms since Robert McDonald took over for VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who resigned during last spring’s VA scandal. After reports in April 2014 that some vets may have died waiting for appointments with the Phoenix VA facility, the IG found that wait times for thousands had been electronically manipulated while some 1,700 vets were put on a secret list to cover up their long waits. It was later revealed that 18 of those on the secret ledger died before getting their appointments.

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The damning Inspector General's report found widespread problems at the Philadelphia facility. (Va.gov)

The scandal led to more whistleblowers and investigations, which found that VAs nationwide either sidetracked or manipulated the wait times for more than 57,000 veterans.
This week, lawmakers grilled VA officials on another front: reports that the construction of a new VA facility in Denver, which has been in the works for years, has so far cost a budget-busting $1.7 billion, and is still incomplete. Officials have run out of money to pay for it.
Miller’s committee held a hearing this week at which members asked VA officials why contract specialist Adelino Gorospe, who said he was fired after warning department executives in 2011 that the hospital would cost more than estimated, was fired, but Glenn Haggstrom, the VA’s top construction executive, was able to retire with full pension benefits amid the investigation.
“What’s most disappointing about this situation, however, is that Haggstrom left on his own terms – with a lifetime pension – even though any reasonable person would conclude that he should have been fired years ago,” said Miller, calling the VA’s construction program, “a disaster.”
The VA did not respond to an inquiry by Foxnews.com on Friday.
In response to the Philadelphia IG report, the VA said the findings “reflect conditions a year ago.” Once issues were brought to their attention by whistleblowers, reforms were already in high gear during the IG’s inspection, first and foremost with a new director Diana Rubens, who was brought in to tackle the reforms in July 2014.
"This is not a new thing, this is a last-year thing," Allison Hickey, the VA's official in charge of benefits, told The Associated Press.
But the IG’s report rejects that notion, saying it was getting complaints as recently as last month.
Meanwhile, tensions also mounted over whether VA officials who retaliated against whistleblowers have been held accountable during a subcommittee on oversight hearing this week.
“If you want to send a message that wrong-doers are going to be held accountable, you have to hold at least one person accountable,” charged Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y.
Meghan Flanz, director of the VA’s Accountability Review, responded by saying the agency had myriad investigations open and would take measures when the evidence required it. However, she did not feel that a new whistleblower protection bill mulled in the House would be necessary.

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Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald has vowed to turn the agency around.

“We will, whenever the evidence shows retaliation is engaged in, hold them accountable,” Flanz said.
Garry Augustine, executive director of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), agreed that VA’s continued bad press as each scandal is exposed paints a grim picture. But he thinks much of this shows how much more proactive the national office has been since last year.
“For too long, the VA has depended on reports coming into the central office saying everything is fine, with no one taking a closer look,” he told Foxnews.com. “This team is actually sifting through the garbage and finding the nasty stuff… what’s rotten, and what needs to be fixed.”
One success story was reported by the Tribune-Review earlier this month, citing VA data that showed the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare system has all but eliminated its secret waiting list, and cut the number of vets waiting for more than 30 days for an appointment to half.
Hal Donahue, an Air Force veteran who writes about veterans issues and works with the American Veterans Committee, agreed that McDonald – who was confirmed last July -- is on the spot to clean up a huge mess that has put thousands of veterans at risk of missing out on benefits and getting timely health care.
“I’m seeing progress but it's like unraveling a big ball of knots,” he told Foxnews.com. “The VA is so vast it’s going to take a while.”

NFL Cartoon

House passes bill to repeal death tax

WASHINGTON –  The House voted Thursday to repeal the federal tax on estates, a politically volatile issue that affects few inheritances.
Republicans refer to it as the "death tax." They say it prevents small business owners and family farmers from passing businesses on to their heirs.
"Can you imagine working your whole life to build up a family-owned business and then upon your death Uncle Sam swoops in and takes nearly half of what you spent a lifetime building up for your children and grandchildren?" asked Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who sponsored the bill.
"It is at its heart an immoral tax," he said.
Democrats say repealing the tax is a giveaway to the rich, since the only families that pay it have many millions in assets. The bill now goes to the Senate where Democrats appear to have enough votes to block it.
The White House has threatened to veto the bill in part because it would add $269 billion to the budget deficit over the next decade.
"This proposed repeal of the estate tax is nothing more than a massive unfunded tax break for a small sliver of America's wealthiest families," said Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash. "What are they doing? Shoveling a quarter of a trillion dollars out the door to the richest."
The vote was 240-179.
The House also passed a bill to make permanent a deduction for state and local sales taxes that expired at the beginning of the year. The White House threatened to veto that bill in part because it would have added $42 billion to the budget deficit over the next decade.
The federal tax rate on estates is 40 percent, but big exemptions limit the share of estates that pay it to fewer than 1 percent.
This year, the exemption is $5.43 million for a single person. Married couples can exempt up to $10.9 million. Larger estates pay taxes only on the amounts above these thresholds.
A total of 5,400 estates are expected to pay the tax this year — out of about 2.6 million deaths, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, which provides official estimates for Congress. That's 0.2 percent of all deaths in the U.S.
Republicans say that some business owners get hit with the tax because they have valuable assets that don't necessarily generate a lot of cash. They cite family farms, which may sit on valuable land but don't generate enough money to pay hefty estate taxes unless heirs sell some or all the land.
"The super rich? They don't pay this tax. They have a legion of lawyers and tax planners. They have charitable trusts and foundations," Brady said. "These are family-owned, hard-working, risk-taking, determined Americans who are building their business, their farm, their ranch. These are not, as we will hear today, the Paris Hiltons and robber barons of the Teddy Roosevelt days."
The deduction for state and local sales taxes helps people who live in the nine states without a state income tax on wages.
House Republicans say the measure is about fairness because people in states that have incomes taxes can deduct those taxes on their federal returns.
The vote was 272-152.
These seven states have no state income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Also, New Hampshire and Tennessee tax income from interest and dividends, but not wages.
The deduction is one of dozens of temporary tax breaks that are routinely extended every year or two. House Republicans are working to make selected ones permanent.

US Marine imprisoned in Iran a victim of torture, cruelty, family says

The family of a U.S. Marine imprisoned in Iran for nearly four years says the American has been drugged, whipped and told a heartbreaking lie that his mother died in a car accident while he awaits a retrial.
The sister and brother-in-law of Amir Hekmati appeared on Fox News Channel's "On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren," where they described in chilling detail the torture that the veteran has endured since his arrest in August 2011. Hekmati, they said, has suffered stun-gun assaults, has been whipped, dosed with lithium and hung by his arms while held in the Islamic Republic.
But the worst abuse of all may have been the emotional torture of being told by cruel guards that his mother had died, according to his sister, Sarah Hekmati.
“He was put in stressful positions for long periods of time,” said Sarah Hekmati. “He had to endure the news that they had told him that his mother was killed in a car accident; just the emotional torture of being told that and not having a way to contact our family.

“He was drugged with lithium for a long period of time and then forcibly it was removed so that he would have to endure painful withdrawal symptoms and then he was whipped on his feet.”- Sarah Hekmati

More on this...

• Marine's torture in Iranian prison revealed

“To be told that and not know if that’s true or not,” she also said. “He was drugged with lithium for a long period of time and then forcibly it was removed so that he would have to endure painful withdrawal symptoms and then he was whipped on his feet.”
Sarah’s husband, Dr. Rami Kurdi, also detailed some the other horrific torture that Hekmati has endured.
“The torture we heard of as described by Amir himself was cold water, dirty cold water poured on the ground whenever he’d fall asleep to kind of keep him awake,” he said. “Lights on day and night, just to interrupt his sleep pattern. And these were just the smaller things. He was hung by his arms, Tasered – hung by his arms for an indefinite amount of time.”

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This undated file photo released by his family via FreeAmir.org shows Amir Hekmati. (AP)

Hekmati was arrested in August 2011 on allegations of spying for the CIA while visiting his grandmother and other relatives in Iran. In December of that same year, Iranian state television aired a videotaped confession from the leatherneck in which he had stated that he had sneaked into Iran to establish a CIA presence. His family said at the time that he was coerced into making the statement.
In January 2012, Hekmati was sentenced to death, but the ruling was overturned two months later, after the Iranian Supreme Court ordered a retrial. Two years later, Hekmati is still awaiting a new day in court. His family told FoxNews.com earlier this month that they believe the recent “framework” nuclear agreement between the West and Iran will help to free the Marine.
“Now that Iran has sat at the table next to the United States, working diligently to come to an agreement for a nuclear program, we ask Iran if they still consider the United States a hostile country and if they do not, perhaps it is time they open the prison gates and allow the Red Cross to visit Amir without guard and report on the status of his well-being,” the family said in a written statement to FoxNews.com. “We call on them to show the international community that they are serious about their intentions and as an act of good faith, return Amir to his dying father, his worried mother, and the family that badly needs him.”

Hillary hypocrisy? Why her fundraising reform pitch Is drawing flak

The hypocrisy police are jumping all over Hillary Clinton now that she is vowing to drive “unaccountable money” out of politics.
Her critics scoff at the notion that this wealthy one-percenter, who will probably obliterate the record for presidential fundraising in the 2016 cycle, is positioning herself as a champion of campaign finance reform.
But is that fair?
Well, it’s hard to argue against the dark shadow of unregulated money when your family’s foundation is taking in all kinds of cash from foreign governments and other outfits that want to cozy up to a potential president and first spouse.
The Clinton Foundation has now agreed to limit its contribution from foreign regimes in a compromise that satisfies no one. It’s now okay to take the big bucks from Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia, Norway and the Netherlands, but not from more “controversial” countries such as Saudi Arabia and Oman. This sort of backdoor financial channel clearly undercuts any financial reform message from Hillary, who has now resigned from the board. This issue is not going away.
But there’s another level on which I think Hillary is getting a bit of a bum rap. And that is the notion that she shouldn’t call for campaign finance reform while on track to raise well over than $2 billion—with hundreds of millions coming from super PACs.
No candidate can engage in unilateral disarmament. If you’re running under a system that amounts to a financial arms race, you have to play to win. You can talk about your ideas for reform, but you can’t allow the other candidates to bury you on the fundraising front.
The press gave President Obama an utter pass on this issue when he ran as an advocate of public financing, only to renege on the idea when he realized that he could raise massive amounts of money and not have to abide by any spending limits. It was this president who escalated the arms race, and the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision—aimed at a film about Hillary—let corporations and anonymous donors in on the action.
But here’s why I’m skeptical about Clinton’s professed interest in the issue. She declared the other day that she wants to “fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if it takes a constitutional amendment.”
Whenever you hear a politician talking about a constitutional amendment, it’s a punt. They are extraordinarily difficult to pass, requiring two-thirds approval in Congress and then three-quarters of the state legislatures. The process takes years.
When Republican candidates talk about a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, it’s a punt. When George W. Bush campaigned on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, he never pushed it after the election. And for Hillary Clinton to invoke that specter means it’s more of an issue to appeal to good-government liberals than a serious attempt to change the system.
So she’s better start raising truckloads full of dough, because the “dysfunctional” system isn’t changing any time soon.