Watchdog: DEA agents attended cartel-funded 'sex parties'

In another major embarrassment for federal law enforcement, a Justice Department watchdog report alleges several Drug Enforcement Administration agents attended "sex parties" with prostitutes paid for by local drug cartels.
The alleged parties took place in an unnamed "host country," which reportedly was Colombia, over a period of several years. According to the Justice Department inspector general report, the parties were even held in agents' U.S. government-leased quarters.
Further, agents received "money, expensive gifts, and weapons from drug cartel members," according to the report, which explored sexual misconduct allegations and how they are handled at the DEA; FBI; Bureau of  Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF); and the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS).
The IG report found such allegations often went unreported or underreported, or were not pursued properly.
The findings were immediately met Thursday with outrage on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers for years have pressured agencies to get tough on misconduct from within -- most notably, following the Secret Service prostitution scandal in 2012, also in Colombia.
"Once again, some federal law enforcement agents are acting like they belong in a college frat house rather than at a taxpayer-funded law enforcement agency tasked with interdicting illegal drugs," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a statement. "It's extremely troubling that federal drug agents lacked the common sense to know that engaging with prostitutes hired by drug cartels was a bad idea."
Extensive interviews with DEA and host country officials from 2009-2010 revealed allegations against 10 agents, including a regional director. Seven admitted to attending the parties with the prostitutes, which allegedly were arranged by a police officer in the host country and took place between 2005 and 2008. A Washington Post story quoted a law enforcement source as confirming the incidents happened in Cartagena, Colombia, the scene of the 2012 sex scandal.
The DOJ inspector general said it initiated the report "in the wake" of that Secret Service scandal, in which 13 agents on a presidential detail were snagged hiring prostitutes and engaging in drunken revelry the night before President Obama arrived for the Summit of the Americas. A dozen U.S. military personnel were also punished for their involvement.

'It's extremely troubling that federal drug agents lacked the common sense to know that engaging with prostitutes hired by drug cartels was a bad idea.'- House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.

In the DEA case, investigators said that the DEA had imposed suspensions on the men ranging from two to 10 days. The DEA inspector told the DOJ IG investigators that "prostitution is considered a part of the local culture and is tolerated in certain areas called 'tolerance zones,'" and that it is common for prostitutes to be "present at business meetings involving cartel members and foreign officers" -- and that all of this "affects the way in which federal law enforcement employees conduct themselves in this particular country."
Reached for comment, a DEA representative referred FoxNews.com to the agency's official response in the report. That response said the investigation of misconduct allegations is "the primary mission" of its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). DEA did a "second review" of all the cases the IG reviewed to see if the OPR did its job and the DEA determined that they were "investigated properly through DEA's disciplinary process for related misconduct."
Separately, a spokesman with the Department of Justice said the DOJ takes the issues in the report "seriously" and "is taking steps to implement policies and procedures to help prevent them from happening in the future." He added: "The Department is already working with the law enforcement components to ensure a zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment and misconduct is enforced and that incidents are properly reported."
Members of Congress were quick to weigh in, saying this was more than a matter of cultural differences, but a danger to Americans.
"Let there be no mistake, this is a national security threat," said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who called for the immediate firing of the agents involved. "The gross misconduct of DEA agents follows a disturbing pattern of risky and improper behavior afflicting Homeland Security and the Department of Justice."
The oversight committee already has scheduled a hearing on the findings, for April 14.
The report detailed other cases as well. This includes that of an ATF director who initiated "sexual play" with multiple anonymous partners in a hotel room; a U.S. marshal who admitted to having sexual relations with prostitutes in Thailand; and numerous allegations of sexual harassment throughout the agency.

School named after war hero forces child to shave off military-style haircut

Adam Stinnett looks up to his older stepbrother – a soldier in the U.S. Army. So when it came time to get a haircut, the seven-year-old told his mother he wanted a basic military-style cut. And that’s exactly what he got – high and tight – just like his stepbrother.
Adam got his haircut on March 8. On March 9, his mother got a letter from the principal of Bobby Ray Memorial Elementary School in McMinnville, Tennessee.
It seems they were not all that thrilled with the second grader’s new hairdo. The principal told Amy Stinnett that her son’s haircut was distracting – and needed to be fixed.

The principal told Amy Stinnett that her son’s haircut was distracting – and needed to be fixed

Amy refused to comply.
The following day, she was summoned to the principal’s office where she was given an ultimatum.
“We were told that we had to either cut his hair or he could not return to school,” she said.
Amy tried to explain to the principal that her son’s haircut was meant to emulate his older brother. But her explanation was dismissed and the principal demanded that the boy’s hair be “in compliance with our rules.”
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“I have the utmost respect for the military and its members,” the principal wrote in an email to Amy. “However, we are not a military school and the boy’s haircut is against our rules.”
She tried to reason with the principal – but it was a lost cause. So Amy complied with the school’s demands.
“In order to fix the high and tight, I had to shave his head – like he has no hair,” she told me.
Apparently the principal at Bobby Ray Elementary School doesn’t seem to think a bald-headed second grader is going to cause a distraction.
But Amy also did something else – she contacted the Southern Standard newspaper. And as it turned out – the pen really is mightier than the clippers.
“Military hair cut deemed distracting by Bobby Ray Elementary” was the headline – and boy did it create some controversy around McMinnville.
“They shamed my son and they shamed a lot of military people – that’s how I feel about it,” Amy said. She also would like the school to apologize to her son.
The Warren County School District responded to the newspaper story with a four-paragraph statement telling folks they could not comment on the incident or the investigation – on the advice of their attorneys.
“This is an internal school matter and the administration of the school district has been advised to address it as such from this point forward,” the statement read.
While the district does not have a policy about hair styles, individual schools are given authority to make such decisions.
“Neither Bobby Ray Memorial Elementary, nor any school in Warren County School District, prohibits military haircuts,” the statement declares.
Well, someone at the district office might want to clue in the principal -- because according to her email – military style haircuts are clearly against the rules.
It’s a pretty sad state of affairs in McMinnville – especially when you take into account that Bobby Ray Memorial Elementary School is named after a local war hero.
Navy Corpsman David Robert “Bobby” Ray was killed in action during the Vietnam War. His final act of heroism was to use his body to shield a Marine from a grenade. The Marine survived. Ray did not. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
“We are extremely proud that Bobby Ray Memorial Elementary was named in honor of a true American hero,” the school district stated.
And yet, they chose to shame a seven-year-old boy who wanted to look like a soldier. That school district doesn’t know the first thing about honor.

House panel asks White House for documents related to Bergdahl swap

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee asked the Obama administration Thursday to turn over all reports and documents, including intelligence information, related to last year's exchange of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five members of the Taliban.
"It is unclear from the information that has been provided to the Committee and from publicly available reports why the decision was made to exchange Sgt. Bergdahl for the five Taliban members," said the letter, which was addressed to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough.
On Wednesday, Bergdahl was charged by the military with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He was released from Taliban captivity last May after being held as a prisoner of war for five years. In the wake of Bergdahl's release and return to the U.S., fellow soldiers accused him of deliberately walking away from his Afghanistan post and putting the lives of soldiers who sought to find him at risk.
News of the charges against Bergdahl has prompted heavy criticism of the administration in Congress, where lawmakers slammed the White House for transferring the five Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the Gulf state of Qatar without prior consultation.
"Today's announcement is the exclamation point on the bad deal the Obama administration cut to free five terrorist killers in its rush to empty the prison at Guantanamo Bay," Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Wednesday.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the charges were sure to "raise doubts in the mind of the average American" about the initial trade for Bergdahl.
Fox News reported Wednesday that at least three of the five have attempted to reconnect with their former comrades since their arrival in Qatar. The men are being monitored by the Qatari government and U.S. intelligence agencies. But the initial terms of the swap deal only extend for one year, meaning they could be free to return to Afghanistan or elsewhere later this spring. It is not clear whether the U.S. will seek to extend the agreement.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki defended the Bergdahl deal in an interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly Wednesday evening.
"Was it worth it? Absolutely," Psaki said. "We have a commitment to our men and women serving in the military, defending our national security every day, that we're going to do everything to bring them home if we can, and that's what we did in this case."

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'Was it worth it? Absolutely': Obama administration official defends Bergdahl trade despite charges

The Obama administration's incoming communications director said Wednesday the decision to trade Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban leaders last year was the right move, hours after he was charged with desertion.
"Was it worth it? Absolutely," Jen Psaki told Megyn Kelly on "The Kelly File." "We have a commitment to our men and women serving in the military, defending our national security every day, that we're going to do everything to bring them home if we can, and that's what we did in this case."
Psaki's comments were the first from an administration official since the charges were announced earlier in the day.
Bergdahl, who was released from Taliban captivity last May after being a prisoner of war for five years, was charged with misbehavior before the enemy, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. He was also charged with desertion, which carries a maximum of five years.
The case now goes to an Article 32 hearing to be held at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, where Bergdahl has been performing administrative duties as he awaits the conclusion of the case. That proceeding is similar to a grand jury. From there, it could be referred to a court-martial and go to trial.

More on this...

• Army: Bergdahl faces maximum punishment of life behind bars

• Bergdahl: From 'honor and distinction' to deserter

• Army lays out charges against Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl

• Army Sgt. Bergdahl to be charged with desertion

• US soldier held captive by Taliban in Afghanistan for nearly five years freed

A date for that hearing has not yet been announced.
Psaki, who is currently a State Department spokeswoman but who is slated to move to the White House next week, wouldn't comment on the merit of the charges against Bergdahl, saying she "won't prejudge those steps" that the Army will be undertaking.
The charges against Bergdahl, 28, come 10 months after his May 2014 release, which initially was a joyous occasion, with his parents joining President Obama in celebrating the news in the Rose Garden. Bob Bergdahl, who had studied Islam during his son's captivity, appeared with a full beard and read a Muslim prayer, while Bergdahl's mother Jani embraced the president.
But that euphoria quickly gave way to controversy in Washington, as Bergdahl was accused of walking away from his post and putting his fellow soldiers in danger. The trade of hardened Taliban fighters for his freedom raised deep concerns on Capitol Hill that the administration struck an unbalanced and possibly illegal deal.
With the newly announced charges, Bergdahl could also face a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank and forfeiture of all his pay if convicted. He is not in pretial confinement at Fort Sam Houston, a spokesman for U.S. Army Forces Command said.
The announcement of the charges marks a sharp turnaround for the administration's narrative of Bergdahl's service and release. After the swap last year, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Bergdahl served with "honor and distinction."
But as Bergdahl faced criticism from fellow servicemembers for his actions, the administration faced heated complaints from Congress over the Taliban trade itself. "This fundamental shift in U.S. policy signals to terrorists around the world a greater incentive to take U.S. hostages," said former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Wednesday's announcement only fueled those concerns.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a member of the Armed Services Committee, was asked by reporters Wednesday whether the charges raised doubts about the initial trade of Bergdahl for the Taliban members.
"I would think that it would raise doubts in the mind of the average American if those doubts weren't raised already," Wicker said.
"This proves once again that the president's political motivations for closing Guantanamo Bay are causing him to make reckless decisions and will put more American lives at risk," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Wednesday in a statement.
Gen. Mark Milley, head of U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, has been reviewing the massive case files and had a broad range of legal options, including various degrees of desertion charges. A major consideration was whether military officials would be able to prove that Bergdahl had no intention of returning to his unit.
Bergdahl disappeared from his base in the eastern Afghanistan province of Paktika on June 30, 2009. A private first class at the time, he had three days earlier emailed his parents expressing disillusionment with the war.

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President Obama stands with Bob Bergdahl (R) and Jami Bergdahl (L) as he delivers a statement about the release of their son, prisoner of war U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington May 31, 2014. (Reuters)

Bergdahl left a note in his tent that said he was leaving to start a new life and intended to renounce his citizenship, Fox News reported last year.
For the next five years, Bergdahl is believed to have been held by the Taliban and Pakistan's infamous Haqqani network. In one of several hostage videos released during his captivity, he said he was captured when he fell behind a patrol, but fellow soldiers, outraged after the trade was made with the Taliban, accused him of deserting. Some asserted that American servicemembers' lives were put at risk in the hunt for Bergdahl.
Bergdahl was freed on May 31, 2014, after the White House agreed to trade five high-value Taliban operatives held at Guantanamo Bay.
The trade was branded as illegal by lawmakers, who said they weren’t advised beforehand, It was also blasted by critics who said it violated America’s longstanding tradition of not negotiating with terrorists. There were also concerns – which would prove well-founded – that the Taliban members would return to the fight against the West.
Of the five -- Mohammad Fazl, the former Taliban army chief of staff; Khairullah Khairkhwa, a Taliban intelligence official; Abdul Haq Wasiq, a former Taliban government official; and Norullah Noori and Mohammad Nabi Omari -- at least three have attempted to reconnect with their old comrades, a source told Fox News.
Bergdhal was promoted to sergeant while in captivity, and had accrued more than $200,000 in back pay by the time he was freed.

GOP-controlled House approves balanced budget plan

  

WASHINGTON –  Normally quarrelsome House Republicans came together Wednesday night and passed a boldly conservative budget that relies on nearly $5 trillion in cuts to eliminate deficits over the next decade, calls for repealing the health care law and envisions transformations of the tax code and Medicare.
Final passage, 228-199, came shortly after Republicans bumped up recommended defense spending to levels proposed by President Barack Obama.
Much of the budget's savings would come from Medicaid, food stamps and welfare, programs that aid the low-income, although details were sketchy.
Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., chairman of the House Budget Committee, called the plan a "balanced budget for a stronger America" -- and one that would "get this economy rolling again."
Democrats rebutted that the GOP numbers didn't add up and called their policies wrong-headed.
"People who are running in place today are not going to be moving forward under the Republican budget, they're going to be falling back," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
The Republican-controlled Senate is likely to approve its version of a budget by week's end.
The plans themselves are non-binding and do not require a presidential signature. Instead, once the House and Senate agree on a common approach, lawmakers will have to draft legislation to carry out the program that Republicans have vowed to follow in the wake of campaign victories last fall that gave them control of both houses of Congress.
Still, House passage of a budget marked a significant victory for Speaker John Boehner and the GOP leadership, which have struggled mightily to overcome differences within a fractious rank and file.
An equally notable second triumph appeared on the horizon. Legislation to stabilize the system of payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients is expected to clear the House Thursday, and Obama's declaration of support enhanced its chances in the Senate.
It includes a requirement for upper-income Medicare beneficiaries to pay more for their coverage, a provision Republicans hailed as a triumph in their drive to curtail the growth of benefit programs.
There was nothing bipartisan about the budget debate, though. Republicans supported it, 228-17, while all 182 Democrats who voted were opposed.
The House plan calls for $5.4 trillion in deficit reduction over a decade, including about $2 trillion from repeal of the law known as Obamacare. Nearly $1 trillion would be saved from from Medicaid and CHIP, health care programs for the low-income, and $1 billion from other unspecified benefit programs. Another $500 billion would come from general government programs that already have been squeezed in recent years by deficit-reduction agreements between Congress and the White House.
The budget outline itself provides few if any details of the cuts envisioned, although once they appear in legislation they are highly likely to spark a veto showdown with Obama.
The president has also vowed to defend the health care law that stands as his signature domestic achievement. The House has already voted more than 60 times to repeal it in part or whole, but for the first time since the law passed, House members have a willing partner in the Senate.
The prospect of sending Obama legislation to repeal the health care law contributed to the unusual degree of unity among House conservatives. Without a budget in place, they noted, the repeal measure would not have special protection against a Senate filibuster -- and would not reach the White House.
As they have in recent years, House Republicans call for the transformation of Medicare into a voucher-like program. Senate Republicans, already worried about defending their majority in 2016, omitted that from their plan.
Both the House and Senate plans call for an overhaul of the tax code.
Defense spending caused a few anxious moments for Boehner and the leadership as the budget moved through the House Budget Committee and across the floor.
As drafted by the panel, it called for $610 billion for the Pentagon for the coming budget year. Of that, $87 billion would come from an account that supports overseas military operations, and $21.5 billion would be dependent on offsetting spending cuts elsewhere.
On a vote of 219-208, Republicans raised the overall level to $612 billion, none of it contingent on offsetting savings.
Obama's budget called for $612 billion in defense spending. Republicans are eager to exceed his recommendation, and may decide to raise their level further in House-Senate compromise talks.
House Republicans said their budget would yield a surplus of $13 billion in 2024 and $33 billion in 2025.
Democrats scoffed at the claim. They pointed out such an outcome would rely in part on allowing $900 billion in popular tax breaks to expire as scheduled, and also assumed that tax hikes would be retained from the health care law that Republicans want to repeal.
By contrast, Obama's budget would fail to eliminate deficits, despite the presence of nearly $2 trillion in higher taxes.
In a years-old ritual, much of the day was consumed by debate and rejection of alternatives. House Democrats, progressives and the Congressional Black Caucus all advanced no-balance budgets that called for more domestic spending and higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. The Democratic alternative drew more votes than the others, but failed 264-160.
The conservative Republican Study Committee proposed far deeper spending cuts than the Budget Committee recommended, a delay in Medicare eligibility to age 67 for younger workers, and a balanced budget in six years. Republicans voted for it 132-112, but all 182 Democrats opposed it, and it went down to defeat.

Business dealings of Hillary Clinton's brother raise new questions

The latest baggage threatening to dog Hillary Clinton’s expected bid for the White House comes in the form of her brother, who allegedly got help from the Department of Homeland Security in smoothing a business deal.
The department’s inspector general found that Tony Rodham was given special treatment by DHS’ No. 2 in securing visas for foreigners connected to a deal.
Rodham was CEO of an electric car company owned by another longtime Clinton pal, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, when he got help from DHS official Alejandro Mayorkas securing the visas for investors in the firm. It is not clear that Clinton played any role. But the determination could, at least, fuel new questions about what was contained in the thousands of emails sent and received on Clinton's private server while she was secretary of state -- many of which she says were deleted.

"What I would say going forward to Hillary is tell your brother to bug out and to find other ways to make a living other than appearing to trade off your name.”- Doug Schoen, Democratic political strategist

This isn't the first time Rodham's past has stirred potential problems for his sister. His business dealings were called into question last month, when the Washington Post reported that a mining company whose board he sits on got a coveted gold mining deal from the government of Haiti after the Clintons' charitable foundation performed relief work there.
One Democratic strategist said Rodham’s wheeling and dealing could become a problem for Clinton if and when she officially mounts another campaign for the White House.
“What I would say going forward to Hillary is tell your brother to bug out and to find other ways to make a living other than appearing to trade off your name,” said Fox News contributor and Democratic strategist Doug Schoen. “It's not a political problem for Hillary. It is an appearance problem.”
The alleged special treatment by Mayorkas, meanwhile, does not appear to have hurt his standing with the White House.
“We certainly value the kind of contribution that he has made to the effective management of that department, and he has played an important role in implementing needed reforms in that department,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.
Republicans, including Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, say the independent audit revealed a disturbing pattern.
"Digging into the report and reading about specific cases, you can see just how questionable Mr. Mayorkas' ethics and judgment were,” Grassley said. “And, just as bad, is the blind eye that the Obama administration turned when elevating this individual to the number two slot at the Department of Homeland Security."
Asked by Fox News how fast-tracking visas for politically connected Democrats was acceptable, Earnest said the recipients may have merited the documents anyway.
“[The inspector general] did not suggest that these individuals weren't deserving of a visa,” Earnest said. “What he suggested is merely that the process didn't work very well."
Administration officials stressed the report noted Mayorkas did not break any rule or law.
For his part, Mayorkas said he disagreed with the findings but “will certainly learn from it.”

Pilot was locked out of cockpit moments before plane crashed in Alps, report says

A pilot on the doomed Germanwings airliner that went down into the Alps Tuesday apparently was locked out the cockpit moments before the plane crashed, killing all 150 on board, the New York Times reported Wednesday afternoon.
An investigator told the paper that evidence from a voice recorder indicated that the pilot had left the cockpit and could not re-enter. He tried knocking lightly on the door, and when there was no immediate answer, he began knocking more loudly.
Finally, the source told the Times, audio on the recorder revealed: “You can hear he is trying to smash the door down.”
The source said investigators did not yet know why the pilot left the cockpit. French aviation investigators said earlier Wednesday that they had not the "slightest explanation" for what happened.
More details about the fatal flight have emerged one day after the crash. The State Department said three Americans were on board: Yvonne Selke, a government contractor from Northern Virginia; her daughter Emily Selke, a 2013 graduate of Drexel University in Philadelphia; and a third American who authorities did not immediately identify.

More on this...

• Plane wreckage could yield key clues to Germanwings crash

• Three US citizens among 150 killed in Germanwings crash

• Investigators search for clues after plane crash in France

• Germanwings crash raises troubling questions

The Germanwings A320 lost radio contact with air traffic controllers over the French Alps on a seemingly routine flight from Spain to Germany.
Remi Jouty, the director of France's aviation investigative agency, said the investigation could take weeks or even months. He said the plane was flying "until the end" -- slamming into the mountain, not breaking up in the air.
He said the final communication from the plane was a routine message about permission to continue on its route.
His briefing came after French President Francois Hollande said the second "black box," the flight data recorder, was found but without any of its contents. The crash apparently dislodged the recorder's memory card which is still missing.
Search teams found the mangled first black box, the cockpit voice recorder, just hours after the crash Tuesday. Jouty said an audio file was recovered with "usable sounds and voices." But he said it was too early to draw any conclusions from the recorder.

“You can hear he is trying to smash the door down."- New York Times source

Investigators need the two black boxes to solve the biggest mystery: what caused the Airbus to descend over an 8-minute period without any pilot indication the aircraft was in trouble. The experienced pilot had the plane at 38,000 feet, but only for a minute. Then suddenly and inexplicably, the jet descended to 6,000 feet apparently still under control and without a single distress call or a request for permission.
French investigators are focused on the final seconds before air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane.
One official, Segolene Royal, France's Minister for Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, said Wednesday that the pilots stopped responding to radio calls after 10:31 a.m. local time, about 30 minutes into the flight. She said that the seconds after 10:30 a.m. are considered vital to the investigation.
The grim task of recovering bodies from the rugged terrain resumed Wednesday as investigators tried to piece together the many puzzles surrounding the crash.
The single-aisle, medium-haul plane operated by a subsidiary of Lufthansa was less than an hour from completing its scheduled flight to Dusseldorf from Barcelona Tuesday morning when it unexpectedly went into a rapid descent, losing contact with air traffic controllers on the ground.
France's civil aviation authority said the pilots had not sent out a distress call before losing radio contact with their control center. The Wall Street Journal reported that air traffic controllers issued an alarm after the plane disappeared from their radar screens. Moments later, the paper reported, the French military ordered a fighter jet to the area where the plane was last tracked.

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Investigators say the cockpit voice recorder recovered from the crash of a Germanwings flight is damaged, but "usable."

The secretary-general of France's air traffic controllers union told the Journal that the plane did not appear to deviate from its flight plan as it went down, which is unusual for an aircraft in distress.
"If there’s a loss of control, pilots usually lose their way too," Roger Rousseau told the Journal. "That didn’t happen in this case."
The wreckage was located at an altitude of about 6,550 feet at Meolans-Revels, near the popular ski resort of Pra Loup. The remote site is 430 miles south-southeast of Paris. French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said the crash site covered several acres, with thousands of pieces of debris, "which leads us to think the impact must have been extremely violent at very high speed."
He said the crash left pieces of wreckage "so small and shiny they appear like patches of snow on the mountainside."
Hollande went to Seynes, the town nearest the crash site with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
"This is a true tragedy, and the visit her has shown us that," Merkel said.
Most of the victims were from Germany and Spain.
Yvonne Selke was assigned to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s secretive satellite mapping office, under a contract with Booz Allen.
“Every death is a tragedy, but seldom does a death affect us all so directly and unexpectedly,” NGA Director Robert Cardillo said.
Booz Allen’s Betty Thompson said Selke had been a dedicated employee for 23 years.
Her husband, Raymond Selke told The Washington Post he was too grief-stricken to give details or discuss the crash.
The family told WUSA-TV that the entire family was deeply saddened. “Two wonderful, caring, amazing people who meant so much to so many,” the statement said. “At this difficult time we respectfully ask for privacy and your prayers."
Emily Selke graduated from Drexel University where she was a member of a sorority, Gamma Sigma Sigma. The sorority posted condolences on its Facebook page.
"She embodied the spirit of Gamma Sigma Sigma," the sorority said. "As a person and friend, Emily always put others before herself and cared deeply for all those in her life."
Drexel said Emily Selke graduated with honors in 2013 and was a music industry major.

Saudi Arabia launches airstrikes in Yemen, ambassador says

Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen early Friday, one day after the U.S.-backed Yemeni president was driven out of the country.
President Obama has authorized the provision of logistical and intelligence support to the military operations, National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said late Wednesday night. She added that while U.S. forces were not taking direct military action in Yemen, Washington was establishing a Joint Planning Cell with Saudi Arabia to coordinate U.S. military and intelligence support.
Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir said the operations began at 7 p.m. Eastern time.
He said the Houthis, widely believed to be backed by Iran, "have always chosen the path of violence." He declined to say whether the Saudi campaign involved U.S. intelligence assistance.
Al-Jubeir made the announcement at a rare news conference by the Sunni kingdom.
He said the Saudis "will do anything necessary" to protect the people of Yemen and "the legitimate government of Yemen."
A Yemeni official earlier Wednesday would not say where Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fled to, but did tell Fox News: “He is safe. That's all I can say at this point.”
Hadi's departure marks a dramatic turn in Yemen's turmoil and means a decisive collapse of what was left of his rule, which the United States and Gulf allies had hoped could stabilize the chronically chaotic nation and fight Al Qaeda's branch here after the 2011 ouster of longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Over the past year, the Shiite rebels known as Houthis, who are believed to be supported by Iran, have battled their way out of their northern strongholds, overwhelmed the capital, Sanaa, seized province after province in the north and worked their way south. Their advance has been boosted by units of the military and security forces that remained loyal to Saleh, who allied with the rebels.
With Hadi gone, there remains resistance to the Houthis scattered around the country, whether from Sunni tribesmen, local militias, pro-Hadi military units or Al Qaeda fighters.
Hadi and his aides left Aden after 3:30 p.m. on two boats, security and port officials told The Associated Press. He is scheduled to attend an Arab summit in Egypt on the weekend, where Arab allies are scheduled to discuss formation of a joint Arab force that could pave the way for military intervention against Houthis.
His flight came after Houthis and Saleh loyalists advanced against Hadi's allies on multiple fronts. Military officials said militias and military units loyal to Hadi had "fragmented," speeding the rebel advance. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters
Earlier in the day, the rebels seized a key air base where U.S. troops and Europeans had advised the country in its fight against Al Qaeda militants. The base is only 60 kilometers (35 miles) away from Aden.
In the province of Lahj, adjoining Aden, the rebels captured Hadi's defense minister, Maj. Gen. Mahmoud al-Subaihi, and his top aide on Wednesday and subsequently transferred them to the capital, Sanaa. Yemen's state TV, controlled by the Houthis, announced a bounty of nearly $100,000 for Hadi's capture.
Hadi then fled his presidential palace, and soon after warplanes targeted presidential forces guarding it. No casualties were reported. By midday, Aden's airport fell into hands of Saleh's forces after intense clashes with pro-Hadi militias.
Aden was tense Wednesday, with schools, government offices, shops and restaurants largely closed. Inside the few remaining opened cafes, men watched the news on television. With the fall of the city appearing imminent, looters went through two abandoned army camps, one in Aden and the other nearby, taking weapons and ammunition.
The takeover of Aden, the country's economic hub, would mark the collapse of what is left of Hadi's grip on power. After the Houthis overran Sanaa in September, he had remained in office, but then was put under house arrest. He fled the capital earlier in March with remnants of his government and declared Aden his temporarty capital.
Yemen's Foreign Minister Riad Yassin told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV satellite news network that he officially made a request to the Arab League on Wednesday to send a military force to intervene against the Houthis. Depicting the Houthis as a proxy of Shiite Iran, a rival to Sunni Gulf countries, he warned of an Iranian "takeover" of Yemen. The Houthis deny they are backed by Iran.
Mohammed Abdel-Salam, a spokesman for the Houthis, said their forces were not aiming to "occupy" the south. "They will be in Aden in few hours," Abdel-Salam told the rebels' satellite Al-Masirah news channel.
Earlier, Al-Masirah reported that the Houthis and allied fighters had "secured" the al-Annad air base, the country's largest. It claimed the base had been looted by both Al Qaeda fighters and troops loyal to Hadi.
The U.S. recently evacuated some 100 soldiers, including Special Forces commandos, from the base after Al Qaeda briefly seized a nearby city. Britain also evacuated soldiers.
The base was crucial in the U.S. drone campaign against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which Washington considers to be the most dangerous offshoot of the terror group. And American and European military advisers there also assisted Hadi's government in its fight against Al Qaeda's branch, which holds territory in eastern Yemen and has claimed the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
U.S. operations against the militants have been scaled back dramatically amid Yemen's chaos. U.S. officials have said CIA drone strikes will continue in the country, though there will be fewer of them. The agency's ability to collect intelligence on the ground in Yemen, while not completely gone, is also much diminished.
The Houthis, in the aftermath of massive suicide bombings in Sanaa last week that killed at least 137 people, ordered a general mobilization and their leader, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, vowed to send his forces to the south to fight Al Qaeda and militant groups.
In Sanaa, dozens of coffins were lined up for a mass funeral of the victims Wednesday. Among the victims was a top Shiite cleric. Yemen's Islamic State-linked militants have claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in September and have since been advancing south along with Saleh's loyalists. On Tuesday, they fired bullets and tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters in the city of Taiz, known as the gateway to southern Yemen. Six demonstrators were killed and scores more were wounded, officials said.
The Houthis also battled militias loyal to Hadi in the city of al-Dhalea, adjacent to Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city. Taiz is also the birthplace of its 2011 Arab Spring-inspired uprising that forced Saleh to hand over power to Hadi in a deal brokered by the U.N. and Gulf countries.
Hadi on Tuesday asked the U.N. Security Council to authorize a military intervention "to protect Yemen and to deter the Houthi aggression" in Aden and the rest of the south. In his letter, Hadi said he also has asked members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League for immediate help.
Saudi Arabia warned that "if the Houthi coup does not end peacefully, we will take the necessary measures for this crisis to protect the region."

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Ben Carson likens Obama to psychopath

Ben Carson has called President Obama a lot of names. In a newly published magazine profile, he adds psychopath to that list.
The comment was published in an article in GQ, which described a conversation the potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate had as he prepared to watch Obama’s State of the Union address in January.
His “image-maker” and adviser, Armstrong Williams, said as the show started: “He looks good. … He looks clean. Shirt’s white. The tie. He looks elegant.”
“Like most psychopaths,” Carson responded, according to the article. “That’s why they’re successful. That’s the way they look. They all look great.”
Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon known for his strident criticism of the Obama administration, is weighing a presidential bid.
But the political newcomer has also found himself in hot water for past off-the-cuff remarks. Earlier this month, he apologized after saying in a CNN interview that inmates’ behavior in prisons proves that homosexuality is a choice.

Navy bans chaplain from ministering to family of dead sailor

It really takes a special kind of lowlife to stop a chaplain from ministering to the family and colleagues of a dead sailor.
But that’s exactly what happened last week at Naval Nuclear Power Training Command in Goose Creek, S.C., according to attorneys representing Chaplain Wes Modder.

It’s become clear to me Navy leadership cannot be trusted to protect religious liberty within the ranks. It’s time for our elected officials to intervene before Chaplain Modder’s commander brings more embarrassment and shame to the Armed Forces.

“For this Navy to bar a chaplain from comforting and ministering to sailors and families is a reprehensible violation of religious freedom and common human decency,” said Kelly Shackelford, the president of Liberty Institute, a law firm that specializes in religious liberty cases.
Some quick background before I explain what happened:
Chaplain Modder is facing the end of a stellar, 19-year-career in the Navy because he expressed his faith-based views on marriage and human sexuality during private counseling sessions with sailors.
Last December, a gay officer took offense at Christian chaplain’s take on homosexuality. Modder, who is endorsed by the Assemblies of God, was accused of discrimination and failing to show tolerance and respect, among other things.
Just a few months earlier, Modder’s commander had called him the “best of the best” and a “consummate professional leader.” But now he’s on the verge of being kicked out of the military.
Modder was relieved of his duties and temporarily reassigned pending the outcome of an investigation. The Navy has since denied the chaplain’s request to be reinstated.  for religious accommodation.
So that brings us to an incident that occurred last week, when a sailor in Modder’s previous unit unexpectedly died.
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Liberty Institute attorney Michael Berry tells me Modder was about to reach out to the sailor’s grieving family when he was stopped by a member of the command.
He was slapped with a “no contact” order – the Navy’s version of a restraining order – banning him from providing counsel or ministering to any members of his unit.
“This Navy official is using the ‘no contact’ order as a weapon to punish and humiliate a decorated military chaplain,” Berry said. “To deny Chaplain Modder of the ability to minister to a grieving family and other sailors is deplorable.”
The Navy went so far as to banish Modder from the base on the day of the sailor’s memorial service. The chaplain said that was adding “insult to injury.”
“One of the most important things chaplains do is to provide comfort and care after a tragic death,” Modder said. “I am heartbroken for the family, and yet the Navy won’t allow me to do my job of helping them grieve and mourn.”
It’s beyond me why the Navy would treat a Marine and highly decorated chaplain with such derision. This is a man who was deployed multiple times during the War on Terror. This is a man who once led chaplains who ministered to Navy SEALs.
Tens of thousands of Americans have petitioned the Pentagon to reinstate Modder, and a number of high profile-political and religious figures – including Mike Huckabee, Sen. Ted Cruz, Franklin Graham and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins – have offered their support.
I reached out to the Chief of Chaplains’ office for comment, but they did not return my call. I can only hope the reason is because they are just as speechless as I am.
It’s become clear to me that Navy leadership cannot be trusted to protect religious liberty within the ranks. It’s time for our elected officials to intervene, before Chaplain Modder’s commander brings more embarrassment and shame to the Armed Forces.

Obama reportedly snubs NATO chief as Russia makes new threats against allies

President Barack Obama reportedly will not meet with NATO's new secretary general when he is in Washington this week, despite requests from the alliance chief's staff for a discussion.
Bloomberg View reported Tuesday that Jens Stoltenberg's office requested a meeting with Obama in advance of his scheduled visit, but did not get any response from the White House. Instead, Bloomberg View reported that Stoltenberg had to settle for a last-minute meeting with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.
Stoltenberg is scheduled to be in Washington through Thursday, primarily so he can attend a strategic brainstorm session involving military officials and experts from the U.S and NATO.
Stoltenberg, who replaced Anders Fogh Rasmussen as head of the world's largest military alliance in October, was able to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Monday, the day before Harper announced that Canada would expand its participation in the U.S.-led military campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
The report of Obama's snub comes amid Russia's growing willingness to test NATO's military readiness. On Tuesday, NATO jets were scrambled after four Russian military planes were spotted flying over the Baltic Sea with their transponders turned off. Over the weekend, a Danish newspaper published remarks by the Russian ambassador to Denmark in which he hinted that Russian missiles could target Danish warships if Copenhagen joins NATO's missile defense system.
But the most far-reaching example of Russian belligerence came Tuesday, when Britain's Daily Telegraph reported that Moscow was preparing to lease 12 long-range bombers to Argentina in exchange for shipments of beef and wheat. The report comes after a new round of rhetoric from Russian officials questioning Britain's claim to the Falkland Islands.
The Telegraph reports that Russian's ambassador to Britain, Alexander Yakovenko, compared a 2013 referendum in which 99.8 percent of the Falklands's inhabitants preferred to stay with Briain, to last year's vote which formalized Crimea's annexation by Russia. The U.K., along with the U.S. and NATO, denounced the Crimea vote as a sham held at gunpoint and directed by Moscow.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond repeated those claims earlier this week, prompting the embassy to respond "In its rhetoric [the] Foreign Office applies one logic to the referendum in the Malvinas/Falklands, and a different one to the case of Crimea."
Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Duma’s committee of international affairs, was even more blunt in a Twitter message that read, in part: "Crimea has immeasurably more reason to be a part of Russia than the Falkland Islands to be part of the UK."
The Russian position echoed remarks made by Argentina president Cristina de Kirchner, who said last year "“The Malvinas [Argentina's name for the archipelago] has always belonged to Argentina, the same way that Crimea also belonged to the Soviet Union until it was given to Ukraine."
On Tuesday, British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said that Britain would send two Chinook troop-carrying helicopters and a new surface-to-air missile system.

French Interior Minister says crashed Germanwings plane's voice recorder damaged, but 'usable'

France's Interior Minister said Wednesday that the recovered cockpit voice recorder from Germanwings Flight 9525 had been damaged when the plane crashed, but added that he believed it to be "usable" in the investigation, while another top French official said authorities were focused on the final seconds before air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane.
Bernard Cazeneuve told RTL radio that investigators were working to pull information for the recorder, which was found hours after the Airbus A320 went down in a remote part of the French Alps Tuesday morning. The cockpit voice recorder could provide vital clues about the condition of the pilots during the plane's final plunge from a cruising height of 38,000 feet to around 6,000 feet just prior to the crash.
Meanwhile, emergency workers continued the grim task of recovering bodies and searching for the flight data recorder, the second of the so-called "black boxes," as investigators tried to piece together the many puzzles surrounding the crash that is believed to have killed all 150 passengers and crew on board.
The single-aisle, medium-haul plane operated by a subsidiary of Lufthansa was less than an hour from completing its scheduled flight to Dusseldorf from Barcelona Tuesday morning when it unexpectedly went into a rapid descent, losing contact with air traffic controllers on the ground.
Segolene Royal, France's Minister for Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, said Wednesday that the pilots stopped responding to radio calls after 10:31 a.m. local time, about 30 minutes into the flight. She said that the seconds after 10:30 a.m. are considered vital to the investigation.
France's civil aviation authority said the pilots had not sent out a distress call before losing radio contact with their control center. Instead, the Wall Street Journal reported that air traffic controllers issued an alarm after the plane disappeared from their radar screens. Moments later, the paper reported, the French military ordered a fighter jet to the area where the plane was last tracked.
In his interview with RTL Wednesday, Cazenueve said that terrorism was not considered likely to have been the cause of the crash, though it has not been formally ruled out. That is in keeping with the stance of governments on both sides of the Atlantic. On Tuesday, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said, "There is no indication of a nexus to terrorism at this time." The Journal reported that the French government had assigned prosecutors based in the nearby city of Marseilles to investigate the crash rather than its anti-terrorism unit, which is headquartered in Paris.
In another twist, the secretary-general of France's air traffic controllers union said that the plane did not appear to deviate from its flight plan as it went down, which is unusual for an aircraft in distress.
"If there’s a loss of control, pilots usually lose their way too," Roger Rousseau told the Journal. "That didn’t happen in this case."
"We cannot say at the moment why our colleague went into the descent, and so quickly, and without previously consulting air traffic control," Germanwings' director of flight operations, Stefan-Kenan Scheib, said Tuesday.
The wreckage was located at an altitude of about 6,550 feet at Meolans-Revels, near the popular ski resort of Pra Loup. The remote site is 430 miles south-southeast of Paris. French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said the crash site covered several acres, with thousands of pieces of debris, "which leads us to think the impact must have been extremely violent at very high speed."
Complicating the recovery and investigation is the inaccessibility of the site by road, forcing emergency workers to choose between hiking up from a base established in a nearby village or rappelling down from helicopters unable to land on the uneven terrain.

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In spirit of Revolutionary War, students win right to hold “American Pride” dance

Patriotic teenagers in the birthplace of the American Revolution held their ground and fought back attempts by school administrators to cancel an “American Pride” dance on April 10 and replace it with a more inclusive event.
Students at Lexington High School in Massachusetts said the administration had canceled their plans for a red, white and blue dance because it excluded other nationalities. Instead, the administration suggested a more inclusive “National Pride” dance.

Heaven forbid the administrators be caught trying to promote American patriotism.

“It was suggested by the advisors that the students come in – maybe (a) National Pride theme so that they could represent their individual nationalities,” Asst. Supt. Carol Pilarski told television station WHDH. “Maybe it should be more inclusive and it should be ‘National Pride.’”
Word of the administration’s objections to an American-themed dance spread across town like the shot heard round the world.
“(It’s) a lot of hypersensitivity to being politically correct,” one student told the television station.
“People consider America to be a melting pot,” said another student. “So the fact that it was even considered offensive is what people are a little surprised about.”
Principal Laura Lasa told me the April 10th dance had never been canceled. They merely wanted to “dialogue” with students about inclusivity.
“We were in a conversation with the kids about how the theme would be presented so that we could make sure that it was inclusive to all students,” Lasa said. “they took that as being told they could not.”
In other words, the grownups in the room tried to talk the kids out of paying homage to the red, white and blue.
“We want to make sure kids do not feel they can’t go to a dance because of whatever the theme is,” she said.
Over the weekend, Lasa said administrators listened carefully to the feedback they received and on Monday, March 23 they decided to let the kids stick with the “American Pride” theme.
“We’re supporting that student decision,” the principal told me.
Notice how she phrased that – the “student” decision?
“We’re going forward with supporting their theme of American Pride,” she added.
Again, notice the emphasis on “their” theme? It’s not the school’s theme. It’s the students’ theme. Heaven forbid the administrators be caught trying to promote American patriotism.
“We’re being mindful of the fact that we want kids to have pride in America, and also the fact we have students from all over the world that move to Lexington,” she said.
First it was the Red Coats – and now the good people of Lexington have to fight off an invading horde of un-American educators.
Where’s Paul Revere when you need him – riding through the countryside shouting “The liberals are coming. The liberals are coming.”

Sen. Ted Cruz announces presidential bid, vows to 'stand for liberty'

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, ticking off a litany of President Obama policies he opposes, promised Monday to return to a government by Constitution and "stand for liberty" as he officially announced his 2016 presidential bid. 
Cruz, speaking to an energetic crowd of students at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., drew from his background to address his faith and what he sees for the future of the country.
As the first major presidential candidate to officially declare, he told the crowd to “imagine a president that finally, finally, finally secures the borders” and drew applause when he promised to “stand up and defeat radical Islamic terrorism.”
READ THE TRANSCRIPT.
Cruz continued his pledge by telling the crowd to “imagine a president who says I will honor the Constitution and under no circumstances will Iran be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.”

More on this...

• Cruz for president: What are his chances?

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He also urged the crowd to imagine a simple flat tax. He added, “imagine abolishing the IRS.”
Cruz spoke on the fifth anniversary of Obama's health care law -- legislation that prompted Cruz to stand for more than 21 hours in the Senate to denounce it in a marathon speech that delighted his Tea Party constituency and other foes of the law. Cheers rose in the hall when Cruz reminded the crowd Monday that Liberty University filed a suit against the law right after its enactment.
"It's time to get in there," Cruz told Fox News' Sean Hannity Monday night. "and it's time to start making the case that we've got to change what we're doing. I think there is an urgency to what we're facing in politics that's unlike anything you or I have ever seen before. I think it's now or never. I don't think we've reached the point of no return yet, but we are close."
"We [Republicans] have to win in November 2016," Cruz added later in the program. "We cannot have four or eight more years of going down this road."
Cruz, a divisive figure in his own party, is not expected to be the sole GOP contender for long.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and two Senate colleagues, Kentucky's Rand Paul and Florida's Marco Rubio, are eyeing campaign launches soon.
Paul, also a first-term senator, told Megyn Kelly Monday on "The Kelly File" that he believes he is more capable of expanding the Republican Party's appeal to independents. He also claimed that, among GOP candidates, he's polling better against Hillary Clinton, a potential Democratic 2016 rival, and hinted that he could announce a presidential bid early next month.
"We'll have some kind of a decision on April 7," he told Kelly.
For his announcement, Cruz bypassed Texas, which he represents in the Senate, as well as early nominating states such as New Hampshire, where Mitt Romney kicked off his own campaign for the GOP nomination in 2012, and Iowa.
By getting in early -- and at Liberty -- Cruz was hoping to claim ownership of the influential and highly vocal corner of the Republican Party for whom cultural issues are supreme. It was a move at crowding out figures such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor, and former Sen. Rick Santorum, who has made his Catholic faith a cornerstone of his political identity.
Cruz earlier declared his candidacy via a Twitter post early Monday, becoming the first major candidate to officially declare.
A 30-second video accompanying the tweet featured Cruz speaking over a montage of farm fields, city skylines and American landmarks and symbols, calling on "a new generation of courageous conservatives to help make America great again."
"I'm ready to stand with you to lead the fight," Cruz says as the video concludes. Shortly after midnight Monday, the campaign had launched its website.
Cruz's father, a pastor, is also expected to help the 44-year-old first-term senator make inroads with these voters.
Cruz is already a familiar figure on the circuit for presidential hopefuls, having made repeated visits to the early voting states, the big conservative activist conferences and more. This month, for example, he met party activists in New Hampshire, which hosts the leadoff primary. It's just that, like other presidential prospects, he's been coy about what he's doing. That coyness ends Monday as he jumps full in.
By announcing what has long been obvious, Cruz triggers a host of accounting and reporting requirements about money he is raising and how he is spending it. To this point, he had operated his political organization through a non-presidential committee that worked under different rules. By officially joining the race, he now operates under a more stringent set of rules, including being able to accept fewer dollars from each supporter.
Following his election to the Senate in 2012, the former Texas solicitor general quickly established himself as an uncompromising conservative willing to take on Democrats and Republicans alike. Criticized by members of his own party at times, he won praise from tea party activists for leading the GOP's push to shut the federal government during an unsuccessful bid to block money for President Barack Obama's health care law.
The son of an American mother and Cuban-born father, Cruz is positioning himself to become potentially the nation's first Hispanic president. While he was born in Canada, two lawyers who represented presidents from both parties at the Supreme Court recently wrote in the Harvard Law Review that they think Cruz meets the constitutional standard to run.
Should he fail to win the nomination or the presidency, Cruz would retain his Senate seat through 2019. He also could elect to run for re-election in 2018, having broadened his national network of allies and donors during this presidential campaign.

Congress launching hearings on complaints businesses targeted by 'Operation Choke Point'

A controversial federal law enforcement program that critics say targeted businesses the Obama administration didn't like is about to face a new wave of congressional scrutiny, with Capitol Hill hearings set to begin Tuesday. 
Under the program, called Operation Choke Point, banks and other financial institutions were reportedly pressured to cut off accounts for targeted businesses. This included gun stores, casinos, tobacco distributors, short-term lenders and other businesses.
Critics claim the program -- overseen by the Justice Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and other agencies -- was used to squeeze legal companies that some politicians considered morally objectionable.
"Our concern is you have agencies in the Obama administration that are using government as a weapon and they going after industries and people that they don't like," said Republican Rep. Sean Duffy, who co-chairs the Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. "This is not the old Soviet Union or Venezuela or Cuba. I think it's important for all Americans to stand up and push back on policies that are an abuse of government."
The subcommittee hearings are expected to begin midday Tuesday. More may be scheduled in the future.
Brennan Appel, owner of Global Hookah Distributors, said he realized he was a victim of Operation Choke Point after he got a letter from Bank of America telling him that after 12 years of working together, it was closing all his business and personal accounts.
"I thought that it had to be a mistake," he said. "How could something like this happen when you've been with a bank since 2002 and you've had such a great relationship? With no explanation as to what you did wrong, you can only make assumptions. I'm running a legal business. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm following the laws so why are my accounts being closed like this for absolutely, in my opinion, no reason?" Appel said.
Appel said a few months later, his payment-processing company also dropped him. "I started this business when I was 18 years old, funded my way through college with it and have continued on growing the company into what it is today. And I feel like, why do you get punished when you are growing a company?"
Appel began recording his conversations with Alex Bacon, the president of EFT which was his payment processor. He wanted to prove he was the target of Operation Choke Point.
An excerpt from one conversation showed the program being specifically mentioned:

Bacon:  "Have you heard of a little thing, you know, called Chokepoint, you know the CFPB?" 

Appel : "Yes ... yes." 

Bacon : "They're taking aim at industries like you and others to eliminate you from business by choking off your payment processing."

Another conversation seems to underscore the fear among the financial industry (financial institutions reportedly were told they would face increased audits and scrutiny if they kept accounts for targeted businesses):

Bacon: "I'm an independent, third-party payment processor, and I, I, I act at the will and directive of my processing bank. If my processing bank says, 'no, you can't do this,' there's nothing I can do." 

Appel: "Yeah." 

Bacon: "There's literally nothing I can do." 

Appel: "And they're the one that's getting forced ..." 

Bacon: "Well, they're the ones that are on the front line, they're the ones that uh, that the Chokepoint people are going after." 

Appel: "Yeah, because they probably tell them, if you don't do this, we're going to make your life ..." 

Bacon: "We're going to make your life miserable. Instead of auditing you once a year, we're going to audit you four times a year, and then we're going to come in and look at all of this and then if we find anything negative, we're going to write it up and then you're going to incur increased costs, increased uh focus with your board of directors, and from other banking regulators. And they all run scared because they're all sheep." 

Appel turned the recordings over to the U.S. Consumer Coalition, which has taken on the Operation Choke Point issue. The coalition, which is not a government entity, began working with members of Congress on it.
Several members of Congress have openly called Operation Choke Point a blatant abuse of power, and an example of government bureaucrats appointing themselves morality police so they could operate around the law.
Duffy and other lawmakers plan to question FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg about Operation Choke Point and its intention.
In response to the controversy, the FDIC put out a statement which said in part: "It is the FDIC's policy that insured institutions that properly manage customer relationships are neither prohibited nor discouraged from providing services to any customer operating in compliance with applicable law ... the FDIC has a responsibility to cooperate with other government agencies and to ensure that the banks we supervise are adhering to laws, including those governing anti-money laundering and terrorist financing."
Initially, the FDIC put out a list of 30 high-risk businesses, but that list has since been rescinded.
The U.S. Consumer Coalition claimed taking down that list only removed a guideline, and without a specific list of businesses, the subjectivity of who gets targeted was increased.
Brian Wise, with the U.S. Consumer Coalition, points out the irony. "By shutting down the bank accounts of these legally operating businesses, what they're actually doing is forcing these businesses to deal solely in cash, which is completely opposite of what they have said their intention is," he said. "It's a whole lot easier to launder money with cash than having to go through a financial institution."
Wise said questioning the chairman of the FDIC is a good start, but the problem doesn't end there. "We know that it doesn't just stop with the FDIC. This is a program that includes the CFPB, FDIC, Department of Justice and may lead all the way up to the president," he said.
Appel has found a new bank to handle his businesses for now, but has opened several backup accounts in case his new bank drops him as well.  

Seattle restaurant industry warns of fallout as $15 minimum wage nears

Seattle restaurants are warning that the looming hike in the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour could soon force them to cut back their staffs and raise prices. 
For an industry with a slim profit margin to start with, the wage hike could have a profound effect, even as supporters say it will benefit the economy in the long run.
The increase, up from $9.32 an hour, is set to be phased in starting April 1. The initial minimum wage will be $11 an hour. Employers with 500 or fewer workers must increase their pay to $15 an hour by January 2019. Larger employers, having 501 or more workers, have just two years to raise their worker compensation to $15.
Many owners are concerned over what the changes will mean for business.
“It will be difficult to staff the front of the house as well as we have before,” Brendan McGill, the chef and owner of the Hitchcock Restaurant Group, told FoxNews.com.
Although McGill supports the minimum wage increase, he noted that, “less people will be fighting over each other to fill up your water.”
The Seattle Restaurant Alliance worked with a mayoral task force from the beginning in an attempt to find a compromise benefiting both restaurants and workers, Anthony Anton, CEO of the Washington Restaurant Association, told FoxNews.com. However, his association did not support the final outcome and is now warning about the impact.
The looming wage hike ensures the model for how local restaurants operate is going to change. It used to be that 36 percent of profits go to labor, with 30 percent for food and 30 percent for any other expenses. This leaves about a 4 percent profit margin for most restaurants. With such a big wage hike, restaurant owners are looking for new ways to keep that profit. This means looking at raising prices, having fewer employees, using automated ordering systems, changing tipping models, and more, Anton said.
“It won’t be one thing. This is too big a change to have a silver bullet,” Anton said.
In a survey conducted in 2014 by the Washington Restaurant Association, the top four responses of what restaurants predict they would have to do were: raise prices, lay off employees, reduce employee hours or close their business entirely.
Anton predicts the Seattle restaurant industry may experiment heavily with the newer automated ordering systems as well, but it is still too early to tell what will ultimately work.
The 15Now movement, however, is in full support of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Ty Moore, the 15Now national organizer, told FoxNews.com that “15Now had a central role in initiating and organizing the grassroots pressure campaign in Seattle.”
The movement really took off in Seattle after the 2013 campaign and election of Kshama Sawant to the Seattle City Council as a “socialist alternative” candidate. 15Now’s prediction, according to Moore, is that any job losses that do happen will be more than compensated for by job gains because they are putting more wages in workers’ pockets. These sorts of changes were seen in San Francisco where they led the way in city-wide wage increases, according to Moore.
When asked if 15Now thinks the new increase could negatively affect small businesses, Moore pointed to the provision where smaller businesses have two extra years to increase their wage to $15 for each employee.
In September, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray proposed a new division of the Seattle Office of Civil Rights -- called the Office of Labor Standards – to focus on educating the community about new requirements including the minimum wage rules, paid sick leave and other worker policies. A senior policy analyst told FoxNews.com that the Seattle Office for Civil Rights has been receiving hundreds of calls from employers in the Seattle area who are eager to comply and learn more about the wage increase ordinance.

Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)

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McCain to Obama: 'Get over your temper tantrum, Mr. President' and focus on ISIS

Sen. John McCain said Sunday that President Obama is letting his personal issues with newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affect his decision-making and shared policy goals.
“It’s time that we work together with our Israeli friends and try to stem the tide of ISIS and Iranian movement throughout the region, which is threatening the very fabric of the region,” McCain, R-Ariz.,  said on CNN's “State of the Union.”
During the interview, McCain called out Obama and told him: “Get over your temper tantrum, Mr. President.”
McCain went on to admonish the administration’s Middle East policies and said Obama’s priorities are “so screwed up that it’s unbelievable.” He added that he was “convinced” Obama was letting his personal feelings get in the way.
McCain added that Israel is the only nation in the region “where there was a free and fair democratic election” and told and said “the least of your problems is what Bibi Netanyahu said during an election campaign.”
McCain added that “Bibi’s rhetoric concerning an election campaign pales in comparison to the direct threat to the United States of America of ISIS.
“But the point is, is the J.V., as the president described them, is just moving over into Yemen.  We see this horrible situation in Libya.  We see ISIS everywhere in the world,” he said.
Democratic Rep. Steve Israel, also a guest on the show, suggested everyone drop the drama and get back to the fundamentals.
“What counts is, are we providing Israel with the critical security equipment technology that they need? And on that, we are,” he said.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said Sunday that the new Israeli government will have to serve "all the citizens of Israel," and called for the country to begin a "healing process" after a stormy election campaign that highlighted deep internal divisions.
In a last-ditch attempt to spur his supporters to the polls last week, Netanyahu warned that Arab citizens were voting "in droves" and endangering years of rule by his right-wing Likud Party. The comments drew accusations of racism from Israeli Arabs and a White House rebuke.
Alluding to the uproar, Rivlin told Likud representatives that the emerging government will have to serve "all the citizens of Israel, Jews and Arabs."