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Cuban Activist Freed in Obama Deal, Then Arrested Again, Now in Grave Condition By Bridget Johnson

Posted By on December 30th, 2015

The Obama administration is calling on the Cuban government to free a political prisoner — one of the dozens released from prison a year ago as a rapprochement gesture, only to be re-arrested a few months later.

Vladimir Morera Bacallao, 53, is reportedly near death due to the hunger strike he started behind bars in October.

Morera Bacallao, a labor activist, was arrested in April in the run-up to the regime’s sham municipal elections for posting a sign outside his home stating: “I vote for my freedom and not in an election where I cannot choose my president.”

A month ago, he was sentenced to four and a half years behind bars.

Around the same time, another one of the political prisoners whose release was hailed by the Obama administration as a grand gesture of the Castro regime toward human rights was sentenced to another prison term. Jorge Ramirez Calderon received two and a half years behind bars for “joining a peaceful protest asking for improved sanitary conditions and water in his community,” the State Department acknowledged at the time.

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Sex, Lies, Clinton, and Trump By Roger L Simon

Posted By on December 30th, 2015

Consider this: when more women than men attend college and graduate school by increasingly sizable amounts (Latina females over white males by 14%!) and the American male breadwinner looks to be going the way of the dodo bird, Hillary Clinton is basing her campaign for the presidency largely on breaking the glass ceiling.

Not only that, she is accusing her putative opponent Donald Trump of sexism. This is the woman who blamed her husband’s affair with Monica Lewinsky on the “vast rightwing conspiracy,” apparently imputing magical-mystical aphrodisiac powers to conservatives.

The Donald — you’ll be surprised to hear if you’ve been living on Pluto — has been firing back, sweeping Mr. Hillary, now supposedly about to stump for his wife, into the fray.

“You look at whether it’s Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones or many of them,” Trump said on NBC’s TODAY. “That certainly will be fair game. Certainly if they play the woman’s card with respect to me, that will be fair game.”

In recent days, the GOP front-runner has been highlighting the former president’s affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, saying that Bill Clinton has a pattern of “abuse of women.”

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EPA sends 185 Americans to jail while not disciplining anyone for toxic mine spill By Rick Moran

Posted By on December 30th, 2015

The Environmental Protection Agency opened 213 criminal cases last year, resulting in the conviction of 185 Americans and jail terms averaging 8 months plus fines. Violations ranged from fraud to illegally removing asbestos.

But the EPA has fired no one, nor even disciplined any of its employees for the massive toxic spill at a gold mine in Colorado last summer.

Daily Caller:

EPA enforcement data for 2015 shows the agency opened 213 environmental cases which resulted in 185 people convicted and sentenced to 129 years in prison. EPA has been opening fewer cases in recent years to focus more on “high impact” cases.

“The focus on high impact more complex cases results in fewer investigations overall,” EPA notes in its presentation showing agency enforcement activities for the year. EPA says its criminal enforcement focuses “on complex cases that involve a serious threat to human health and the environment or that undermine program integrity.”

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Putin’s Rationality By James Lewis

Posted By on December 30th, 2015

Vladimir Putin seems to catch the West by surprise every single time he invades another country — starting with Georgia, then Crimea, Ukraine, and now Syria. He hasn’t yet reconquered the old Soviet Empire, but Eastern Europe and the Baltics are feeling an icy wind blowing from the East.

By now even the New York Times has noticed Putin’s huge arms buildup, with a fivefold increase in the last decade. When Putin made his latest aggressive move into Syria, he made very sure that the world would take notice — using everything from ballistic and cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea to the guided missile cruiser Moskva in the Eastern Mediterranean. Under Putin, the Russian Empire is on the move, expanding north into the Arctic, west into Europe, south into the Middle East, and east with the new Russo-Chinese alliance.

To be sure, Putin has an Bamster-sized ego. But he also thinks strategically, unlike our political class, which apparently decided that with the election of Obama, peace and love were here to stay. The Norwegians embarrassed themselves by giving the Bam their most prestigious bauble, the Nobel Peace Prize, without even waiting for him to serve his first term. In a permanently peaceful world, why bother to spend money on defense?

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At Last, Some Campus Sanity: ROTC Gains The renaissance of the Reserve Officer Training Corps at leading universities picked up steam in 2015. By Jonathan E. Hillman And Cheryl Miller

Posted By on December 30th, 2015

In a year marred by campus strife, at least one bright spot emerged in American higher education: the comeback of the Reserve Officer Training Corps, known as ROTC, at leading universities.

This year, Columbia University commissioned its first Marine officer, Patrick Poorbaugh, since 1970. Yale graduated two Naval ROTC officers— Sam Cohen and Andrew Heymann—for the first time since Richard Nixon was in the White House. Yale, with 41 midshipmen, boasts the largest NROTC unit in the Ivy League. Harvard senior Charlotte Falletta was recognized as one of the top 10 Army cadets in the nation.

Even Brown University, the last Ivy League school to move beyond the Vietnam-era politics that yanked ROTC programs from campus, is changing. In 2012 Brown established a center for students interested in military careers, and this year the school signed deals allowing students to participate in Naval and Air Force ROTC programs off campus.

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The March of Genetic Food Progress ‘Farmaceuticals’ and other GM products are slowly being approved, despite political scare campaigns. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on December 30th, 2015

Despite what you may hear from the culinary elite, genetic engineering is winning the day and gradually overcoming their “Frankenfood” fear-mongering. A flurry of good news this year ought to convince the public, more than ever, of the safety and the tremendous promise of this technology.

On Dec. 8 the Food and Drug Administration approved a new chicken that has been genetically modified to treat a rare and potentially fatal disorder called lysosomal acid lipase deficiency. The chicken, which won’t be available as meat, produces eggs with an enzyme that replaces a faulty human enzyme, addressing the underlying cause of the disease. Add it to the small but growing class of “farmaceuticals,” including drugs made by transgenic goats and rabbits.

In November the FDA approved, for the first time, a genetically engineered animal intended for human consumption. After a 20-year review, the agency gave the green light to the AquAdvantage salmon. The fish is an Atlantic salmon with a gene added from a Chinook salmon that allows it to grow faster with less feed. It makes aquaculture more appealing and could ease pressure on overfished salmon stocks in the wild.

In February the Agriculture Department approved the Arctic Apple, a new variety developed by silencing the genes that cause the fruit to bruise and brown when sliced. Two versions of the apple, the Granny Smith and Golden Delicious, could be in stores by the end of next year.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders also swept up the content of private conversations with U.S. lawmakers By Adam Entous and Danny Yadron

Posted By on December 30th, 2015

President Barack Obama announced two years ago he would curtail eavesdropping on friendly heads of state after the world learned the reach of long-secret U.S. surveillance programs.

But behind the scenes, the White House decided to keep certain allies under close watch, current and former U.S. officials said. Topping the list was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The U.S., pursuing a nuclear arms agreement with Iran at the time, captured communications between Mr. Netanyahu and his aides that inflamed mistrust between the two countries and planted a political minefield at home when Mr. Netanyahu later took his campaign against the deal to Capitol Hill.

The National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups. That raised fears—an “Oh-s— moment,” one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.

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Belgian Police Arrest Two on Terrorism Charges Prosecutors say the arrest potentially broke up a planned terror attack in Brussels during the holiday seasonBy Natalia Drozdiak and Julian E. Barnes

Posted By on December 30th, 2015

BRUSSELS—Belgian authorities said Tuesday they arrested two people on terrorism charges and broke up a plan for attacks during the holiday period, underlining fears of further mayhem in a Europe still unsettled over Islamic State’s deadly attacks in Paris last month.

Police seized Islamic State propaganda and military-style clothing but no explosives or arms in a series of raids Sunday and Monday in Brussels, Liège and the Flanders region of Belgium, prosecutors said.

The arrests were made amid stepped-up antiterrorism operations by Belgian authorities in the aftermath of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, which were planned by a Belgian national and carried out by a team that included several others with ties to Belgium, including the fugitive Salah Abdeslam, a French citizen who was born and lived in Brussels.

POLITICS Comments turned off

The Clinton War on Women If Hillary plays the sexism card, then Bill’s behavior is fair game.

Posted By on December 30th, 2015

Donald Trump last week used some typically coarse language to describe Hillary Clinton, who responded by accusing Mr. Trump of sexism while announcing that she is unleashing Bill Clinton to campaign for her. This was too ripe an opening for Mr. Trump, who is now attacking Hillary for acquiescing in Bill’s predations against women.

Mr. Trump is rude and crude, but in this case he is raising an issue that rightly bears on the 2016 election campaign and the prospect of a third Clinton term. Mrs. Clinton wants to use her gender both as a political sword and shield to win the White House. The purpose is to make male politicians less willing to take her on, while reinforcing her main and not-so-subtle campaign theme that it’s time to elect the first woman President.

So she and her allies will try to spin any criticism as sexist. Even politically correct Bernie Sanders got this treatment after he said during a debate this autumn that “all the shouting in the world” wouldn’t keep guns out of the wrong hands. Mrs. Clinton later said that “I haven’t been shouting, but sometimes when a woman speaks out, some people think it’s shouting.” Against Republicans, she’ll play the “war on women” theme non-stop.

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How Language Shapes Freedom and Tyranny — on The Glazov Gang

Posted By on December 30th, 2015

http://jamieglazov.com/2015/12/29/how-language-shapes-freedom-and-tyranny-on-the-glazov-gang-3/

In this special edition of The Glazov Gang we are running two of our blockbuster episodes that featured two freedom fighters from totalitarian environments who unveiled the fascinating links between linguistics and liberty/slavery.

In the first episode, Kai Chen, China’s Basketball Superstar and the author of One In A Billion: Journey Toward Freedom, discussed How Language Shapes Freedom and Tyranny.

In the second episode, Nonie Darwish, the author of The Devil We Don’t Know: The Dark Side of Revolutions in the Middle East, revealed How Arabic Stifles Individualism and Freedom, shedding light on how the Arabic language impedes psychological growth and sabotages the path to democracy.

Don’t miss these two episodes!