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Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime. ~ snip ~ The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them. That is a departure from past practice, which barred the agency from storing information about ordinary Americans unless a person was a terror suspect or related to an...

A House GOP source has confirmed to Breitbart News that House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy was the one who drafted the secret criteria list House Speaker John Boehner used in his purge of conservatives from House committees. The source, someone with inside knowledge of how Boehner conducted the purge, told Breitbart News that McCarthy crafted the list, which included a scorecard of where several conservative members stood on certain votes. According to the source, it’s unclear at this time whether McCarthy made the list of his own accord or if he did so at the request of somebody else in...

A gunman who witnesses say was wearing camouflage and a white plastic mask opened fire in a shopping mall near Portland, Ore., in a rampage that left three dead, including the shooter, and multiple wounded, police said. Authorities say police "neutralized" the gunman but have yet to elaborate on how he died. Witnesses described a harrowing scene, as the gunman appeared to be dressed in body armor while firing off an estimated 60 shots from a semi-automatic rifle. One witness told KPTV that the gunman ran past her and her boyfriend and "had the look of death in his eyes."

ONTARIO, 11 December, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An illustrated graphic released by one of Canada’s leading national newspapers is being welcomed by pro-life activists after it showed life-sized illustrations of unborn children next to statistics about how many babies that age are being aborted. At 9-12 weeks, for instance, where 41.2 percent of babies are aborted, the image shows a small baby with already discernible toes, fingers and eyes. “I was absolutely thrilled to see a secular news source cover this,” Jonathon Van Maren, communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, told LifeSiteNews. The graphic provides a breakdown of...

CHICAGO — A federal appeals court has struck down a ban on carrying concealed weapons in Illinois — the only state where carrying concealed weapons is entirely illegal. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals announced Tuesday that state lawmakers have 180 days to write a new law that legalizes concealed carry.

UPDATE 12:15 pm EST: The Republican controlled legislature has passed the right-to-work legislation 58-51. Michigan Governor Snyder is expected to sign the bill into law later today. The vote to turn Michigan into a right-to-work state will take place today after days of protests in Lansing about the pro-worker legislation that prevents having to pay dues to a union. Not surprisingly, local police are bracing for possible violence today as more protests are planned. Even with the outcome considered a foregone conclusion, the heated battle over right-to-work legislation in the traditional union bastion of Michigan shows no sign of cooling....

Global concerns over Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles grew after U.S. officials this week privately said the regime had begun mixing chemicals that could be used for the lethal nerve agent sarin. On Saturday, Syrian told the United Nations that it would never use chemical weapons against its peoples and warned that opposition fighters are the ones who could use chemical weapons. But videos uploaded on the web by activists proved otherwise. The video showed the destruction caused by what they identified as chemical weapons. They said the fire was caused by a tank dropped from a Syrian warplane and was...

The Talk Shows December 9th, 2012 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Chuck U. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn.; Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, leaders of President Barack Obama's now-defunct deficit commission; Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J.THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Reps. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): hristine Lagarde, managing director of the International...

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) said no progress has been made with the White House in talks to avert the so-called fiscal cliff: across-the-board tax-rate hikes and automatic spending cuts (sequestration) at the beginning of the new year. “This isn’t a progress report because there’s no progress to report,” Boehner said during a Capitol Hill press conference on Friday. “When it comes to the fiscal cliff that is threatening our economy and threatening jobs, the White House has wasted another week.” …

Welcome to Zimbabwe.  This is not a parody -- it is an actual report from the Washington Post:   Some economists and legal scholars have suggested that the “platinum coin option” is one way to defuse a crisis if Congress can’t or won’t lift the debt ceiling soon. At least in theory. The U.S. government is, after all, facing a real problem. The Treasury Department will hit its $16.4 trillion borrowing limit by next February at the latest. Unless Congress reaches an agreement to raise that borrowing limit, the government will no longer be able to borrow enough money...

CAIRO: Struggling to subdue continuing street protests, the government of PresidentMohamed Morsi has approved legislation reimposing martial law by calling on the armed forces to keep order and authorizing soldiers to arrest civilians, Egypt's state media reported on Saturday. Morsi has not yet issued the order, the flagship state newspaper Al Ahram reported. But even if merely a threat, the preparation of the measure suggested an escalation in the political battle between Egypt's new Islamist leaders and their secular opponents over an Islamist-backed draft constitution. The standoff has already threatened to derail the culmination of Egypt's promised transition to a...

President Barack Obama will attend a charity concert where PSY is scheduled to perform after reports that the South Korean rapper participated in anti-American protests several years ago. A spokesman says Friday that the Obama family will attend the Dec. 21 Christmas in Washington concert, as is custom.

The White House Correspondents Association is strongly urging the Obama administration to allow press access to the president’s official swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 20, following indications from inauguration committee officials that the event could potentially be closed to the press. “Mindful of the historic nature of this occasion, we expect the White House will continue the long tradition of opening the President’s official swearing-in to full press access, and we as an organization are looking forward to working with the administration to make that happen,” Ed Henry, the Fox News correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents Association, said...

<p>The Supreme Court will take up California's ban on same-sex marriage, a case that could give the justices the chance to rule on whether gay Americans have the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals.</p>

On 12/07/12, We the People, WhiteHouse.gov wethepeople@whitehouse.gov wrote: Your petition “rescind invite to Gangnam Style rapper PSY to perform for Pres. Obama at Christmas party over troop killing song lyrics” has been removed from the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov because it was in violation of the We the People Terms of Participation. This petition was removed for the following reason: o The petition was outside the scope of We the People. Learn more about the We the People Terms of Participation: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/how-why/terms-participation Learn more about the We the People Moderation Policy: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/how-why/moderation-policy If you would like to request...

The unemployment rate for civilian government workers plunged from 4.2 percent in October to 3.8 percent in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as government added 35,000 to its taxpayer-funded payrolls during the month. In October, federal, state and local governments in the United States employed 20,524,000 people. In November, that climbed to 20,559,000. As recently as July, the unemployment rate for government workers was as high as 5.7 percent, according to the BLS. That month, government employed only 20,015,000. Since July, times have been very good for government in the United States, with governments managing to add...

Looks like Sandy was not an issue at all in the November jobs report which beat in both the number of jobs added, at 146,000 on expectations of 85,000, while the unemployment rate declined to 7.7% from 7.9%, where it was expected to post as well. Watch this space next month for prio revisions: September and October saw 49K downward revisions combined. November will suffer the same fate.

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan House passes right-to-work measure in defiance of angry

South Carolina U.S. Senator Jim DeMint will replace Ed Feulner as president of the Heritage Foundation. Mr. DeMint will leave his post as South Carolina's junior senator in early January to take control of the Washington think tank, which has an annual budget of about $80 million. Sen. DeMint's departure means that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, will name a successor, who will have to run in a special election in 2014. In that year, both Mr. DeMint's replacement and Sen. Lindsey Graham will be running for reelection in South Carolina.