Category Archives: National Government

Angry viewers flood FCC with complaints over ’2 Broke Girls’

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And The Big HoleMany viewers of the hit CBS show “2 Broke Girls” refuse to turn the other cheek — or the channel.

Instead, at least 91 “fans” of the show have made informal complaints to federal regulators over the last two years about the crude sexual double entendres and outright crassness of the show.

Among the complaints of dialogue containing such words and phrases as “shoot on my chest,” “penis alerts,” “bitches,” “girl-on-girl porn,” and “giving head,” according to the complaints sent to the FCC.

The bawdy show, created by Michael Patrick King, whose credits include “Sex and the City,” follows two young women — one rich, one poor — who work as waitresses and try to fulfill dreams of running their own cupcake business.

Read more at New York Post

Marine Corps delays pull-up requirement for women

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marines_femalesThe Marine Corps has delayed the requirement for female Marines to do three pullups because most women have so far been unable to pass the test.

For 40 years, male recruits were required to perform three pullups to prove their upper body strength for combat, where they would need to carry heavy equipment and potentially lift themselves out of mud walls. Starting Jan. 1, female recruits would have been required to do the same.

Read more at FOX News.

Does God Love Online Poker? Texas Congressman Has Shocking Answer

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Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas) at the Congressional hearing regarding the Internet Poker Freedom Act

Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas) at the Congressional hearing regarding the Internet Poker Freedom Act

By Katherine Weber, Christian Post Reporter
December 12, 2013|8:56 am

During a Congressional hearing earlier this week concerning the new Internet Poker Freedom Act, Texas Rep. Joe Barton, a staunch supporter of online poker, argued that God enabled him to travel to the congressional hearing in Washington D.C., and therefore the Almighty must be in support of online poker and the passing of the online gaming bill.

Barton, speaking during the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing Tuesday in D.C., said that “God must be for this bill because I got up this morning at four o’clock in Texas, outside Dallas, and braved icy roads and 20 degree temperatures to get to DFW airport where my good friends at American Airlines left exactly on time. God put a 200 mile tail wind behind our plane, and I got here an hour early. So that tells me that God is for this bill,” Barton, a Republican, said jokingly, garnering laughter from those attending the subcommittee hearing.

The Internet Poker Freedom Act, also known as House Bill 2666, would allow more people to play internet poker by setting certain regulations to the online game, including establishing a program for states and federally recognized Indian tribes to license the game. The legality of online poker in the U.S. folded in 2011 after the Department of Justice ended many online gaming operations, and earlier in 2006 Congress passed a law banning the use of credit cards for illegal internet gaming.

Barton, who is backing the Internet Poker Freedom Act , went on to argue at Tuesday’s congressional hearing that he believes fans of poker should be able to play online, saying the game is superior to other games such as slots or roulette, because it requires skill and not just luck. “Now we have the Internet and iPhones and iPads and apps and all these things,” he said. “Just about the only thing you can’t do [online] anymore is play poker. And that is changing.”

Read more at The Christian Post

USS Freedom Departs U.S. 7th Fleet on Asia-Pacific Deployment

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SOUTH CHINA SEA (Sept. 7, 2013) - Members of USS Freedom's (LCS 1) visit, board, search and seizure team prepare to board a Royal Brunei Navy ship during a compliant boarding exercise as part of Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT).

SOUTH CHINA SEA (Sept. 7, 2013) – Members of USS Freedom’s (LCS 1) visit, board, search and seizure team prepare to board a Royal Brunei Navy ship during a compliant boarding exercise as part of Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT).

YOKOSUKA, Japan – (U.S. Navy Press Release) The littoral combat ship, USS Freedom (LCS 1), crossed the international date line while transiting the Pacific Ocean, Dec. 10, marking her departure from the U.S. 7th Fleet Area of Responsibility (AOR).

The 7th Fleet AOR covers more than 48 million square miles and spans from west of the international date line to the western coast of India.

Operating primarily in Southeast Asia as part of a maiden overseas deployment, Freedom joined about 100 ships and submarines deployed throughout this vast maritime region and assigned to 7th Fleet on any given day.

Since arriving in the AOR March 20, Freedom worked with many regional navies and other 7th Fleet units during a series of port visits, exercises, and exchanges. These engagements directly supported the Asia-Pacific rebalance and further reinforced cooperation and interoperability among the Navy’s partners and allies.

“We put Freedom to the test over the past several months and learned a great deal about how to operate littoral combat ships forward alongside our regional partners and allies in a challenging operational environment,” said Vice Adm. Robert Thomas, commander, U.S. 7th Fleet.

In the weeks prior to departing 7th Fleet, Freedom conducted separate passing exercises (PASSEX) with the Bangladesh navy ship BNS Somudro Joy (F 28) and the Brunei navy ships KDB Darulaman (PV 08) and KDB Ijhtihad (PV 17), supported humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) efforts in the Philippines, and conducted port calls in Brunei and Guam.

As many senior Navy officials noted recently, the maritime crossroads and vital waterways that connect Southeast Asia to the global economy are exactly where the Navy needs to be present, now and well into the future. Rotational deployments of littoral combat ships will help the Navy sustain presence, expand access to vital waterways and interact with littoral regions in unprecedented ways.

“Freedom’s deployment is just the beginning of littoral combat ship rotations to 7th Fleet,” said Thomas. “Increased numbers of these ships will become a regular fixture in this region as a tangible demonstration of our commitment to the rebalance. Their forward presence over the long term supports our Navy’s enduring commitment to security, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific.”

USS Freedom’s first rotational deployment to Southeast Asia began March 1, when the ship departed San Diego and commenced a Pacific Ocean transit that included port visits in Hawaii, Guam and Manila. Freedom used Singapore as a logistics and maintenance hub between April 18 and Nov. 16, during which she participated in the International Maritime Defence Exhibition, three phases of the bilateral naval exercise Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training with Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, and the multinational exercise Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training. During port visits, Freedom hosted thousands visitors from throughout Southeast Asia.

Freedom remained homeported in San Diego throughout this rotational deployment to Southeast Asia. Crew 101, which has operated the ship since a planned swap with Crew 102 in August, will take the ship home to San Diego by the end of the year.

Fast, agile and mission-focused, littoral combat ships are designed to operate in near-shore environments and employ modular mission packages that can be configured for surface warfare, mine countermeasures, or anti-submarine warfare.

Chinese naval vessel tries to force U.S. warship to stop in international waters

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Handout photo taken September 20, 2012 and released to Reuters on September 25, 2012 of the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Cowpens (CG 63) in the Pacific Ocean.(Reuters)

A Chinese naval vessel tried to force a U.S. guided missile warship to stop in international waters recently, causing a tense military standoff in the latest case of Chinese maritime harassment, according to defense officials.

The guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens, which recently took part in disaster relief operations in the Philippines, was confronted by Chinese warships in the South China Sea near Beijing’s new aircraft carrier Liaoning, according to officials familiar with the incident.

“On December 5th, while lawfully operating in international waters in the South China Sea, USS Cowpens and a PLA Navy vessel had an encounter that required maneuvering to avoid a collision,” a Navy official said.

Read more at FOX News

How the US gave guns to Mexican cartels

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The Border Gun ScandalBy John Dodson

In September 2009, John Dodson, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was assigned to the ATF’s Phoenix office. What he found there shocked him. The bureau was encouraging gun dealers to sell weapons in bulk to known straw buyers, who would funnel those guns to Mexican drug cartels. Known as Operation Fast and Furious, it ended with the death of at least one American law enforcement officer. Dodson became a congressional whistleblower, and the investigation into the operation is ongoing. In this exclusive excerpt from his new book, “The Unarmed Truth,” Dodson explains how tragically inept Fast and Furious was.

‘It’s like the underwear gnomes,” my ATF colleague Lee Casa told me one time as we recounted the latest bizarre goings-on in Phoenix.

“What?” I asked.

“You ever watch ‘South Park’? There’s this episode where all the boys get their underwear stolen by these underwear gnomes. They track them down to get it back and one of them asks why they are stealing everyone’s underwear. The gnomes break out this PowerPoint and reveal their master plan: Phase One: Collect underpants . . . Phase Two: ? . . . Phase Three: Profit.”

“We’re doing the same thing,” he explained. “We know Phase One is ‘Walk guns’ and Phase Three is ‘Take down a big cartel!’ ”

Both of us were laughing now; a more fitting and appropriate allegory could never be found. Casa concluded, “Just nobody can figure out what the f–k Phase Two is!”

What was happening did at times almost seem like a spoof. Letting guns “walk” was a tactic that I had never before seen or even contemplated. It simply wasn’t done.

I couldn’t understand how anyone could argue that allowing guns that ought to have been in law-enforcement custody to go to known or suspected criminals — people who shouldn’t have been near a gun, people who almost certainly would be passing them on to Mexico’s most brutal drug cartels — wasn’t madness.

Read more at the New York Post

CIA reveals it turned Gitmo prisoners into double agents in exchange for millions of dollars cash, the promise of safety for their families and PORN

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At the same time the government used the risk of terrorism to justify imprisoning people indefinitely, it was releasing dangerous people from prison to work for the CIA.

It was a nod to the classic Beatles song and a riff on the CIA’s other secret facility at Guantanamo Bay, a prison known as Strawberry Fields.

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Penny Lane: Officials have revealed that the CIA trained terrorist prisoners as double agents at a top secret Guantanamo facility codenamed Penny Lane in the early days after 9/11. The facility, now abandoned, is the white rows of buildings at the center of this satellite image

The CIA turned some Guantanamo Bay prisoners into double agents then sent them home to help the U.S. kill terrorists in the early years after 9/11, officials have revealed.

The CIA promised the prisoners freedom, safety for their families and millions of dollars from the agency’s secret accounts.

It was a risky gamble. Officials knew there was a chance that some prisoners might quickly spurn their deal and kill Americans.

For the CIA, that was an acceptable risk in a dangerous business. For the American public, which was never told, the program was one of the many secret trade-offs the government made on its behalf. At the same time the government used the risk of terrorism to justify imprisoning people indefinitely, it was releasing dangerous people from prison to work for the CIA.

The program was carried out in a secret facility built a few hundred yards from the administrative offices of the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The eight small cottages were hidden behind a ridge covered in thick scrub and cactus.

The program and the handful of men who passed through these cottages had various official CIA code names.

But those who were aware of the cluster of cottages knew it best by its sobriquet: Penny Lane.

More at Mail Online

Walnuts Are Drugs, Says FDA

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The real dangerous nuts come in JC Penny three-piece suits.

This is an example of an agency completely out of control abusing their unconstitutional authority, if true. Do you feel safe now?

by MICHAEL TENNANT

Shelled_walnutsSeen any walnuts in your medicine cabinet lately? According to the Food and Drug Administration, that is precisely where you should find them. Because Diamond Foods made truthful claims about the health benefits of consuming walnuts that the FDA didn’t approve, it sent the company a letter declaring, “Your walnut products are drugs” — and “new drugs” at that — and, therefore, “they may not legally be marketed … in the United States without an approved new drug application.” The agency even threatened Diamond with “seizure” if it failed to comply.

Diamond’s transgression was to make “financial investments to educate the public and supply them with walnuts,” as William Faloon of Life Extension magazine put it. On its website and packaging, the company stated that the omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts have been shown to have certain health benefits, including reduced risk of heart disease and some types of cancer. These claims, Faloon notes, are well supported by scientific research: “Life Extension has published 57 articles that describe the health benefits of walnuts”; and “The US National Library of Medicine database contains no fewer than 35 peer-reviewed published papers supporting a claim that ingesting walnuts improves vascular health and may reduce heart attack risk.”

This evidence was apparently not good enough for the FDA, which told Diamond that its walnuts were “misbranded” because the “product bears health claims that are not authorized by the FDA.”

More at Realfarmacy.com

Pentagon requests plan to close stateside commissaries

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commissaryTasked by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to find ways to preserve force readiness amid sharply falling budgets, his comptroller and the Joint Staff have asked the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) for a plan to close all stateside base grocery stores, say military resale community sources.

Time will tell if this is just the loudest warning shot yet fired by a department desperate for budget relief, or if stateside commissaries, still enormously popular with military families and retirees, are viewed by current military leaders as a costly relic burdening a financially stressed force.

Under Secretary of Defense Robert Hale, the department’s top financial adviser, and Air Force Lt. Gen. Mark F. Ramsay, director of force structure, resources and assessment for the Joint Staff, reportedly requested the plan in a meeting with military personnel policy and commissary officials.

More details at Stars and Stripes.

The last original Navajo Code Talker awarded Audie Murphy award.

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Chester Nez, the last of the original 29 Marine Navajo Code Talkers was given the Audie Murphy award on November 9. The risk of torture and death for these warriors was an everyday reality.

The Native Americans used the Navajo language to transmit coded messages concerning Japanese military operations.

“I was very proud to say that the Japanese did everything in their power to break that code but they never did,” Nez said in an interview with Stars and Stripes the day before the award ceremony.

The service of these brave men saved the lives of many Marines.