To jazz hand or not to jazz hand?...
Senator Harry Reid, the tough tactician who has led Senate Democrats since 2005, will not seek re-election next year, bringing an end to a three-decade congressional career that culminated with his push of President Obama’s ambitious agenda against fierce Republican resistance. Mr. Reid, 75, who suffered serious eye and facial injuries in a Jan. 1 exercise accident at his Las Vegas home, said he had been contemplating retiring from the Senate for months. He said his decision was not attributable either to the accident or to his demotion to minority leader after Democrats lost the majority in November’s midterm elections. “I understand this place,” Mr. Reid said. “I have quite a bit of power as minority leader.”
Walker in 2013 said a plan in which illegal immigrants can become United States citizens by first paying penalties and enduring a waiting period “makes sense.” However, he is now saying such a plan is tantamount to amnesty, amid criticism that he has flip-flopped on that issue and others — including right-to-work legislation in his home state. “I don’t believe in amnesty,” said Walker, who finished second Saturday in the Conservative Political Action Conference’s straw poll for potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates. “We need to secure the border. We ultimately need to put in place a system that works — a legal immigration system that works.”Just weeks later, the Wall Street Journal reports that in a private dinner, away from the eyes of the press, Governor Walker is back to his old amnesty lovin' ways. The reporter relied on attendee reports; providing no indication he attended the dinner personally.
With shrewd strategic perspective, the Iranian leadership has weighed the long term implications of an agreement with the major powers that constitutes international recognition of Iran’s “right” to be a “nuclear threshold state,” and gives it the ability to break out to a nuclear bomb when it so chooses. Consequently, it seeks an agreement (even if its validity is limited to 10-15 years) that in addition to leaving it with access to its nuclear technology also rewards it with both removal of the sanctions and international recognition of its special status in the Middle East. The status of a threshold state will leave Iran with the possibility of arming itself with nuclear weapons within a short time span, when it decides that conditions enable (or in its view, require) it to break out to military nuclear capability.Who will act against it at that time when Iran decides the time is right for the breakout?
"The State has been established and it is our duty to heed the call," he allegedly wrote. "I look forward to the training. I am already in the american kafir [infidel] army ...and now I wish only to serve in the army of Allah alongside my true brothers." In another message, he allegedly wrote, either he and his cousin would make it overseas, "or bring the flames of war to the heart od [sic] this land with Allah's permission." Jonas Edmonds allegedly told the undercover employee that they would use uniforms and information from Hasan Edmonds to access the facility and target officers.The FBI released some information today about what the official charges look like:
As many as 30 people were hurt in the partial collapse of an East Village building Thursday afternoon, law-enforcement sources told The Post. The destruction near the corner of Second Avenue and East Seventh Street was reported shortly before 3:30 p.m. The FDNY quickly declared a three-alarm emergency at the scene, which it said was a mixed-occupancy building at 125 Second Ave.Authorities told DNA Info the explosion was consistent with a gas explosion, though this has yet to be confirmed:
"It was like a bomb," Aleksandr Srdi, 32, who lives around the corner, said. "Everyone was like what's going on? People from Starbucks were yelling to get back inside and they were trying to lock the doors." The explosion was consistant with a gas explosion, authorities said. About 4 p.m. the building at 125 Second Avenue which was engulfed in flames collasped completely. ...A fire caused by the blast spread to two other buildings, a fire department spokesman said. The building was landmarked and had a stop work order on it since 2005, according to the Department of Buildings website.
Manhattan NYC building collapse @ 125 2nd Ave believed 2 be secondary to a gas explosion. Multiple injuries reported. pic.twitter.com/UzI7VnbtLr
— Silver Surfer (@RobPulseNews) March 26, 2015
"We are shaken. This is our worst nightmare, that such a tragedy could happen in our group," CEO Carsten Spohr told reporters in Cologne. The company carefully vetted its crews and did not only test them on technical abilities but also made psychological checks. He said the co-pilot had taken an 11-month break, during which he worked as a flight attendant but that he passed all the relevant checks upon restarting. Spohr said the break was not unusual and declined to give details of the reasons behind the pause in training. "No matter your safety regulations, no matter how high you set the bar, and we have incredibly high standards, there is no way to rule out such an event," Spohr said. "This is an awful one-off event."Officials are slowly ruling out the possibility that this was an act of terrorism---Lubitz had no known affiliations with any terror organizations---but the evidence that has been reviewed so far is no less horrifying for it.
Half of the households that received federal subsidies to help pay for their health insurance in 2014 will have to repay some money back to the government when they file their tax returns, a new analysis released Tuesday estimates. The average repayment owed by those people will be $794, the Kaiser Family Foundation study found. The repayments will be owed because those households' actual incomes ended up being higher for the year than what they had estimated when they applied for the subsidies.But it gets worse for some families:
But the Kaiser study also found that a relatively small group of households will owe back a lot more than the average when it comes to refunds, after their actual incomes ended up being too high to qualify for the subsidies they got. That group of people will have an average repayment of between $2,306 and $3,837—and some could owe much more. Unlike people who earn below 400 percent of the federal poverty line, higher earners have no limit on the subsidies they must pay back if they were not entitled to them.This is one of those nasty secrets of Obamacare that Nancy Pelosi and company must not have read about even after passing it.
Since Politico, a politics-focused website and newspaper, launched its subscription-based news service Politico Pro in 2011, government agencies have increasingly turned to the service to keep abreast of the latest developments in their spheres of policy. Government records show fiscal year 2011 contracts with the owner of Politico, Capitol News Company, totaling $41,900. By fiscal year 2014, there were no fewer than twenty-eight contracts with sixteen different departments and agencies, including the Executive Office of the President, totaling $431,800. A chart from the USASpending.gov website illustrates the trend (including the first five and a half months of fiscal year 2015)Who knew such riches awaited!
