Boehner: Lawmakers briefed on Bergdahl trade 2 years ago, had 'serious' concerns

Fox News
House Speaker John Boehner and others provided new details Tuesday about the prior deliberations, and voiced grave concern that the administration charged ahead with the prisoner swap over the weekend without Congress' approval.
Boehner, who called for hearings on the decision, said the administration "never satisfactorily answered" lawmakers' questions and concerns that surfaced from the beginning about the proposed trade. Further, Boehner alleged that the only reason the administration failed to notify Congress is "the administration knew it faced serious and sober bipartisan concern and opposition."
"The administration has invited serious questions into how this exchange went down," Boehner said in a statement.
The details emerge as the Obama administration tries to cool a growing bipartisan storm on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers from both parties are voicing frustration that the White House and Pentagon did not adhere to a 2013 law requiring a 30-day notice for any transfer of Guantanamo inmates, before freeing five senior Taliban leaders. "

The trade that turned toxic for Obama: Taliban twist the knife with propaganda video of moment fighters waving white-flag-on-a-stick handed 'deserter' Bowe Bergdahl over to Black Hawk special forces

Daily Mail

• Video shows Bergdahl clean shaven in a white pickup truck and surrounded by armed guards before handover to Navy Seals
• In the video he appears well and is able to walk unaided - despite U.S. officials' claims that his health was a major concern that led to the trade
• Fellow soldiers have spoken of their surprise at the POW's healthy appearance
• A former Navy SEAL and hostage expert told MailOnline: 'He appears as healthy was when he was captured'
• US government was sent videos around Christmas showing Bergdahl to be in a bad state
• But analysts have now questioned whether Washington was duped into making the trade by lies over Bergdahl's health
• Video also shows footage of five detainees arriving in Qatar after release
• Fellow soldiers have claimed Bergdahl deserted his post in 2009
• Top military officer has said Army might still investigate Bergdahl, the results of which could lead to desertion or other charges

My Theory About Obama’s Terrorist Release

Steven Goddard
Obama is always looking for ways to further weaken the other branches of government, so he seeks out sympathetic causes which he can use as an excuse to break the law. He got very sloppy this time, and didn’t realize that this particular breach of the law isn’t popular with anyone.
Now he is apologizing in hopes of avoiding impeachment.

Obama swaps five dangerous Talibani for a soldier who wouldn’t fight

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (Australia)

“These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid,” he wrote in an email to his parents on June 27, 2009.
Three days later, according to Rolling Stone, the 23-year-old soldier simply walked off his base in Patika province, carrying a knife, his diary and a small camera.
He was captured almost immediately… A Pakistani militant commander told AFP that Sgt Bergdahl ... helped with the cooking and became fluent in the Afghan languages of Pashto and Dari…
The Taliban’s demands were high: they would exchange one low-ranking US soldier for five senior Afghan fighters being held at Guantánamo Bay.
This week, Mr Obama agreed....
Republicans, meanwhile, have erupted in anger over the White House’s decision to release the Guantánamo detainees in secret and without informing Congress…
Senator John McCain, himself a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, also raised concerns over whether the tiny state of Qatar could prevent the former prisoners from again threatening the US.

“These are the hardest of the hardcore, these are the highest of the high risk people,” Mr McCain said.

The rank hypocrisy of Tony Blair: He threw open Britain to millions of immigrants, but now sneers at Ukip

Daily Mail

There is a particular tone of voice that BBC presenters use when announcing that the airwaves are to be cleared for an interview with Tony Blair.

A solemn preamble conveys the sense that after that morning’s tawdry squabbling of contemporary pygmy politicians such as Nigel Farage, this is the main act.

In truth, very few of us outside BBC headquarters want to hear anything more from Mr Blair, apart, that is, from him uttering one single word. Which is why I stay tuned, in the forlorn hope that I might one day hear Blair say: ‘Sorry.’ 

That is, sorry for leading us into ill-judged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with thousands of casualties on all sides; sorry for permanently damaging our country’s diplomatic standing by fatuously endorsing President George W. Bush’s cack-handed statecraft; sorry for changing, through a purposeful policy of mass immigration, the cultural fabric of our country without first asking if there was a consensus to do so.

Inevitably, Mr Blair was not actually in the BBC studio. On this occasion he was ‘joining us from Berlin’ - a change from Ramallah or Dubai or the other places between which he flits on private jets, and from which he tends to broadcast when taking a break from his crowded schedule of lectures delivered for a vast fee.

The most striking aspect of Blair’s performance yesterday was his assumption that the spectacular progress made by Ukip in last week’s local and European elections came out of the blue sky and had nothing - absolutely nothing - to do with him or the policies of the government he led.

‘I’ve always said you have to have proper controls in place on immigration,’ Mr Blair intoned, unchallenged.

This peculiar assertion is punctured by the research of Migration Watch, which estimates that immigration during the New Labour years added three million to our population.

It also ignores the account of a former Blairite speechwriter, Andrew Neather, that from late 2000 onwards the deliberate policy ‘was to open up the UK to mass immigration’.

More than that, New Labour’s open-door immigration policy was designed, Mr Neather said, to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date’.

Well, the consequences of that shamefully irresponsible politicking are now to be seen, both in the eastern European migrants crammed six to a room in East London, and in Ukip’s electoral progress.

Nigel Farage would not be grinning at us from the pages of our newspapers with an empty pint glass on his head were it not for Mr Blair’s policies."

A kick in the pants that Westminster so richly deserved

Daily Mail
The public’s deep concerns over mass immigration, with its devastating impact on housing, hospital services and schools, and the loss of sovereignty to a corrupt, unaccountable Brussels, were dismissed as the ravings of bigots and fanatics.
Yesterday, as Ukip claimed 150 council seats across the country, the three established parties  paid a very heavy price for treating ordinary people with such contempt.   .......
Why can’t the Prime Minister understand that, by labelling Ukip as ‘scaremongers’ and ‘closet racists’, he is insulting millions of small ‘c’ conservatives who have deserted his party over his commitment to windfarms, gay marriage and foreign aid?

Who's your mob?

The Black Steam Train
If you’ve read any ‘Aboriginal’ media interviews, or watched NITV for longer than an hour, you’ve probably come across the question ‘Who’s Your Mob?’, and for those who never heard it, let me explain it to you, and for those who have – I want to tell you why I despise the term.   .......

Can anyone please explain to me how it is racist to say “All Aboriginal people are (insert derogatory stereotype of your choice)”, but not racist to think all Aboriginal people use poor grammar and are capable of speaking or understanding in only the most basic of English, or have only one way to ask one another where they are from, or who their family are.  I’m told only the first one is racist, the other, simply ‘cultural awareness’.  

If that is what passes as ‘cultural awareness’, you can take it and shove the whole idea.  I speak, read and understand English at a level you would hardly call remedial.  This is not a skill unheard of for an Aboriginal person to possess, in any location."

Dave and Ed just don't get it: by branding Ukip racist they're damning millions of decent Britons

Daily Mail

Much of the media has obediently been doing the work of the three main parties. The BBC's normally admirable political editor, Nick Robinson, interviewed Mr Farage in  the tones one might employ for a convicted international war criminal.

Most newspapers of Left and Right (though not the Mail) have depicted Ukip as an extremist party inhabited by fruitcakes, crooks or dangerous lunatics.

The normally Eurosceptic Times and Sun have been among Mr Farage's most unforgiving critics. Of course, Ukip harbours some undesirable characters, and the media would be failing in their duty if they did not expose them.

But I suspect that the majority of Ukip members are solid types who are not racist, and I am sure the same can be said for most people who will vote for the party today.

But here is the extraordinary thing. Despite this barrage of insults from the political class and much of the media class - surely unprecedented in scale in modern times - Ukip still rides high in most opinion polls, and it seems likely that it will outdo the Tories in today's vote, and very possibly Labour, too."

Google admits it's reading your emails

theinquirer
"Our automated systems analyse your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customised search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection," it added. "This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored."

U.S. is Going Bankrupt One City at a Time

Heartland Institute
"Time to start watching U.S. cities go bankrupt. Prior to Detroit, there was Stockton, California, and, according to Stephen Moore, now the chief economist with the Heritage Foundation, there are more than sixty of the largest cities that “are plagued with the same kinds of retirement legacy costs that sent Detroit in Ch apter 9 bankruptcy” last year. “Keep an eye on ‘too big to fail’ cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York,” he warned. Among the twenty cities he listed in an August 2013 Newsm ax article, he cited Compton and Oakland, CA, Harrisburg, PA, and Providence, RI. What these and other cities have in common is that “the vast majority are located in states with forced unions, non-right-to-work states.”

Chinese minx v Scouse tigress: So what drives the brazen social mountaineer whose infatuation with Tony Blair destroyed her marriage to Rupert Murdoch

Daily Mail
"The couple’s split, it has emerged, was prompted by Murdoch’s discovery that his then wife had secretly spent two nights under the property’s terracotta roof with the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. According to an extraordinary account of the divorce, published by Vanity Fair this week, the press baron became convinced that his wife was conducting an extra-marital affair after ranch staff disclosed details of Blair’s visits. Employees told him of Blair and Deng ‘feeding each other during dinner, which made the staff uncomfortable’, the magazine claims. On one occasion, they allegedly ‘caught Mr Blair walking into the master bedroom and closing the door behind him’.

Wendi Deng's 'love note for Tony Blair' published

Vanity Fair
"Mark Seal uncovers the truth about the close relationship between Wendi Deng, third wife to media titan Rupert Murdoch, and married former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In an excerpt from the story, available on stands today, Seal reveals how the secrecy surrounding their intimacy quickly unraveled—first with the help of Murdoch’s loyal, observant staff, and later through a steamy, lovelorn missive."
----------------------------
" Mr Murdoch’s discovery of his wife’s crush on Mr Blair was said to be the “final straw” that prompted him to file for divorce after 14 years of marriage. The News Corp executive chairman felt “betrayed” as he considered Mr Blair to be a close ally. According to Vanity Fair, a besotted Miss Deng invited Mr Blair to spend a weekend at the Murdoch family ranch in Carmel, California in October 2012 – omitting to tell him that her husband would not be there." (Telegraph)