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Today US authorities charged former United Nations General Assembly President John Ashe with accepting over a million dollars in bribes from Chinese real estate mogul Ng Lap Seng in exchange for lucrative government contracts. More via Fox News: In exchange for the money, federal prosecutors say Ashe used his position as Permanent Resident to the United Nations for Antigua and Barbuda and General Assembly head to introduce a U.N. document in support of a real estate project being developed by Chinese billionaire Ng Lap Seng.Prosecutors say some of the bribe money was used to pay for Ashe’s family vacation and...

Long-time Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin offered her first-ever tweet on Monday -- and it's a shot at Republican presidential contender Ben Carson. Carson is under fire for his Sunday comment on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he "would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation." Abedin, who is Muslim, tweeted: "You can be a proud American, a proud Muslim, and proudly serve this great country. Pride versus prejudice."(continued)

Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s most trusted confidante, is increasingly becoming a central figure in the email scandal that’s haunting her boss on the campaign trail, as Republicans and federal judges seek information about Clinton’s communications while she was running the State Department. The 2016 Democratic front-runner on Monday told a federal judge that Abedin — long considered her boss’s keeper and even dubbed her “shadow” — had her own email account on Clinton’s now infamous home-brewed server, “which was used at times for government business,” Clinton acknowledged. That’s an unusual arrangement, even for top brass at the State Department. Abedin...

Editor’s Note: This excerpt, from a book by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, first appeared on the left-wing site Salon. We reprint in part here.  Hillary tapped Kris Balderston, the hit list author, to keep the Clinton political network humming at State. A longtime lieutenant to both Clintons, Balderston, who called everyone “buddy,” liked to talk in salesman’s terms about Hillary’s “power to convene” and her commitment to making sure her partners could “do well by doing good.” What he meant was that Hillary could use the Clinton Rolodex to focus private-sector money, government power, and the expertise at colleges and...

Not so much respect that the state should recognize their commitment as a legal marriage, he stresses, but respect nonetheless. “We live in a democracy, and regardless of our disagreements, we have to respect the rule of law,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. “I hope that we can show respect for the good people on all sides of the gay and lesbian marriage issue – including couples making lifetime commitments to each other who are seeking greater legal protections and those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty.”… Gay rights leaders said...

Only a madman would gamble with our lives…our children’s lives…and the entire American economy. Why would President Obama play “Russian Roulette” with the future of our country? It’s a gamble no sane leader would take. The life and death issue is Ebola. The President is more concerned with political correctness (and golf) than taking common sense precautions to prevent a deadly pandemic. Why does this President not see his responsibility is to keep the odds as low as possible? There are three simple, common sense actions any President who cared about American citizens would take:

U.S. Senator Harry Reid recognized nine years ago that connections between his official duties and the lobbying activities of his relatives could lead to ethical questions. In 2003, the Nevada Democrat publicly banned relatives from lobbying him or his staff after newspaper reports showed that Nevada industries and institutions routinely turned to Reid's sons or son-in-law for representation. Now, questions surrounding family ties are flaring again in Nevada around the Senate majority leader. He and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm...

A House committee voted Thursday to hold Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress, as Republicans escalated their bid to "get to the bottom" of the former IRS official's role in the political targeting scandal. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted 21-12 to hold Lerner in contempt. The party-line vote followed hours of heated debate on the committee. The contempt measure heads next to the House floor. House Speaker John Boehner predicted earlier this week that unless Lerner agrees to cooperate, the full House will support contempt -- from there, the case would likely head to the courts. "This...

Ted Cruz questions Eric Holder regarding the investigation into the IRS targeting of conservatives. At the end of the video, Cruz talks about special prosecutor to investigate.

John Dodson, the federal agent who blew the lid off the Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal, claims the FBI had ties to the men who killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010 near Nogales, Ariz. In fact, Dodson says the Mexican bandits who gunned down Terry were working for FBI operatives and had been sent to the border to do a “drug rip-off” using intelligence gathered by the DEA. Dodson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said he doesn’t think the FBI was part of the rip-off crew, but the...

Border: A federal judge finds that the Department of Homeland Security, instead of arresting cartel members and the clients who pay them to smuggle children into the U.S., helps the drug lords complete the transactions. Former DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano once proclaimed the U.S. border to be as secure as it has ever been. Yet her department has been found by Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Texas to have actively undermined that security by enabling drug cartels engaged in the lucrative smuggling of children. The case before Judge Hanen — United...

As the nation learns more about the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program, such as recent revelations that the NSA most likely tapped into the communications of Google and Yahoo users, not through cooperation with the companies themselves, but via collusion with the companies’ Internet backbone providers, questions on how the federal government approached its surveillance are increasingly becoming more difficult to answer. One such question — if the Justice Department knowingly lied to the Supreme Court regarding the NSA’s procedures about the notification of targets — presents a potential minefield for the Obama administration. In the 2012 Clapper v. Amnesty...

Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden on Sunday criticized the Obama administration's deal with Iran saying it will only delay, not derail the country's nuclear program. Hayden told CNN's "State of the Union" that Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry "hit the pause button, rather than delete button." "Practically the worst of all possible outcomes, because now what you have here is a nuclear capable state," Hayden said. Urgent: Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll "I think frankly that is Iran's bottom line, so what we're negotiating on is...

James O'Keefe ‏@JamesOKeefeIII 5h Might want to cancel your plans tomorrow, @Sebelius. It's going to be a busy day. @Project_Veritas __________________________________ .@SenTedCruz praises @Project_Veritas... more to come soon... ___________________________________ James O'Keefe ‏@JamesOKeefeIII MSM: please do ignore it. That won't bode well for you. This screenplay's already written. My favorite part is still coming up.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday said the Justice Department has not decided whether to file federal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman in the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman, a volunteer neighborhood watchman who shot and killed Martin in an incident that captured national interest, was acquitted of murder charges in July. But the Justice Department could still pursue a federal civil rights case. Holder said the agency’s investigation is under way. “I'm not sure exactly how much longer that will take, but we will get to a point where we are able to make a...

We are going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us. –President Barack Obama, October 2010 The Obama Justice Department has increased Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement actions over 65% compared to the prior administration, a dramatic shift that stands to benefit Attorney General Eric Holder’s former law firm Covington & Burling—the firm that helped write the law and describes itself as “a leading voice” on FCPA enforcement and compliance. Several FCPA investigations by the Obama Justice Department have included companies headed by top Republican donors...

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the kingpin of the Sinaloa Cartel, owns the Chicago-area drug game. Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the Sinaloa cartel’s “logistics coordinator” and son of a principal Sinaloa leader, asserted in court documents that Guzman is a U.S. informant and Sinaloa was "given carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago.Niebla also alleged that Operation Fast and Furious was part of an agreement to finance and arm the cartel in exchange for information used to take down its rivals.

WASHINGTON – Government agents acting without authorization conducted dozens of undercover investigations of illegal tobacco sales, misused some of $162 million in profits from the stings and lost track of at least 420 million cigarettes, the Justice Department's inspector general said Wednesday. In one case, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sold $15 million in cigarettes and later turned over $4.9 million in profits from the sales to a confidential informant — even though the agency did not properly account for the transaction. The audit described widespread lack of ATF oversight and inadequate paperwork in the...

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded US$7 billion of contracts to 22 companies for the right to develop and sell solar energy to the US Army. The winning companies include Gehrlicher US, Siemens and Sunpower. Once projects are developed it is understood winning companies will bid against eachother to supply solar power with the remainder of the ring-fenced US$7 billion available for purchasing. The “multiple-vendor, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, firm-fixed-price, non-option, non-multi-year contracts” are specifically to be used for solar power. The projects will be developed on land owned or under the jurisdiction of the DoD.

"I'm not aware of any doubt," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters in response if there was a question if the Assad regime used chemical weapons last week in a heinous attack on Syrian civilians. "Suggestions that there is any doubt about who is responsible about this are as preposterous as suggestions that the attack itself didn't occur," Carney said.