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MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — The U.S. Navy is putting underwater drones through wartime-style drills as part of international mine-clearing exercises in the Persian Gulf following similar maneuvers by Iran. The U.S.-led exercises, which began last week, include operations by the unmanned SeaFox devices, which are equipped with sonar and an explosive charge designed to shoot and destroy mines. It is part of the Navy's plans to increasingly deploy automated surveillance and protection systems, including aerial drones. Navy commanders insist the exercises, comprising more than 41 nations, are not intended solely against possible Iranian threats. But Iran has previously warned it...

The D.C. Council is considering requiring people to purchase liability insurance before they can get a license to own a gun. The bill would mandate that prospective gun owners maintain at least a $250,000 policy. The policy would cover damages from negligent acts or intentional acts that aren’t undertaken in self-defense. A handful of states are considering similar measures, but none has passed such a law....

WINEP told the Washington Free Beacon multiple officials are trying to trying track him down currently. It remains unclear where in D.C. he may have gone, or if he is even still in the city.

Before we get started on this story, I would like to take a moment to point out that you’d be hard pressed to find any point where I’ve been anything but a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, as I would hope most regular readers know. I’ve taken flack for it from a lot of people this year, ranging from family members to folks in the media. But even approaching it from that sort of position, I’ve got to say that this is a really bad idea. A march on Washington with loaded rifles "Libertarian activist and radio host Adam...

I seldom post more than once per day, but I believe this warrants the occasion. I was doing my morning rounds of reading the news and blog posts I read almost every day and came across something that troubles me greatly. It has to do with the push for more gun control, restrictions on the 2nd Amendment and how gun owners are portrayed in the media. If you have read Political Realities for any length of time, you should be aware of my stance on gun control. I do not believe it is a good thing, much less constitutional. I...

WASHINGTON (AP) — An Idaho man charged with attempting to assassinate President Barack Obama by shooting at the White House practiced with his weapon for six months and may have been upset about the country’s marijuana policy, prosecutors said in a newly filed court document. Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez is currently awaiting trial for the 2011 shooting, which didn’t injure anyone but left more than five bullet marks on the executive mansion. Prosecutors filed a 14-page court document Tuesday that adds additional detail about Ortega-Hernandez, who allegedly shot at the White House the night of Nov. 11 while the president and...

Last night in Washington, Joe Biden stated that abused women fear getting "raped again by the system." He also made the push that Washington, D.C. should be its own state, with two U.S. senators. Via the pool report: Piles of Bidens are here. In addition to Kathleen [Biden's daughter], VP Biden's wife Jill, his sons Beau and Hunter, and his granddaughters Maisy and Finnegan are also here. VP Biden began his remarks by praising Kathleen for the passion she brings to the cause. He described his initial push for VAWA in the early 90s, when "nobody thought very much of...

Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate. The two-pronged effort has prompted Republicans to accuse the Senate Democratic leadership of hypocrisy, but Democrats say it is simply smart politics. The question is whether two of the Democrats’ most promising potential candidates in Montana and South Dakota will pay a price for the leadership’s political maneuverings in Washington. Or will recruiting candidates who do not support President Obama’s gun control agenda have any effect on Democratic fundraising...

April 23, 2013 New Congressional Quest: End Prison Phone Call Price Gouging Bridget Johnson The Congressional Black Caucus Working Group on Prison Telecomm Reform is protesting high call costs for phone-homers behind bars. The CBC group will hold a press conference with former inmates and family members “to expose the often exorbitant rates that prisoners and their families are being charged for telephone calls and to announce the CBC response to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to resolve the issue after more than a decade of delay,” according to D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D)...

Video warns military, too – D.C. lawmakers about to commit 'treason' “This is a message to every member of law enforcement and the military,” a sizzling new YouTube video begins. “You know you have a choice to make.” The video, produced by a man identified on Facebook as Aaron Hawkins, is a challenge to those who enforce America’s laws, warning them the day is coming when gun-control legislation will undermine the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment and police forces will be asked to restrict or even confiscate American citizens’ firearms. On that day, the video warns, America’s lawmakers will have committed...

Is N.Y.'s Gun Confiscation Scheme Tied to Larger Federal Plan? Written by Dave Bohon A report from TheBlaze.com alleges that the state of New York is using its recently enacted NY SAFE Act as justification to confiscate firearms from law-abiding citizens — specifically individuals who have been prescribed anti-anxiety medication. But some Second Amendment advocates allege the scheme is part of a larger federal gun control plot. According to the Blaze, on April 1 a legal gun owner in upstate New York, later identified by a Buffalo newspaper as 35-year-old David Lewis, “received an official notice from the state ordering...

Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the life sentence of a Washington area man named Antoine Jones, saying the government violated Jones’ privacy rights in clandestinely tracking his movement for a month in a drug trafficking investigation.

WASHINGTON – Citizens traveling public highways should have no expectation of privacy just because police are tracking their movements through GPS rather than in person, the U.S. government argued Tuesday in a case before the Supreme Court that pits the interest of law enforcement against individual privacy rights. The dispute springs from a situation in which police affixed a GPS tracking device to a suspect's car without a proper warrant. It monitored the suspect's movements for several weeks, noting where his vehicle went and how long it stayed at each location. While much of the data was ultimately excluded as...

In a case that stemmed from an investigation by D.C. police and the FBI of a local drug dealer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that police across the country need a warrant if they want to track suspects using GPS monitors. In the ruling, which was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court found that even though the case involved a GPS unit that was attached to a car that was out in the open, it still constituted a "search" under the language of the Fourth Amendment: It is important to be clear about what occurred in this...

WASHINGTON,- A group hoping to prove existence of extraterrestrials plans hearings in Washington led by former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, it announced. The gathering, called "The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure" and hosted by the Paradigm Research Group, based in Bethesda, Md., will offer more than 30 hours of congressional-style hearings, April 29 to May 3, at the National Press Club in Washington, The Detroit News reported Thursday. Cheeks Kilpatrick, a member of Congress from 1997 to 2010 and mother of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, will join five other former members of Congress to interview witnesses who claim a...

Elizabeth Warren has gained notoriety recently for complaining that the minimum wage would be $22 per hour if it kept up with worker productivity gains over the past several decades.Warren’s analysis was fundamentally flawed because it did not measure increased productivity of minimum wage unskilled workers or justify paying $45,000 per year as a minimum regardless of worker skills. Moreover, Warren cherry-picked the $22 number, ignoring other much lower numbers in the study on which she relied based on other measurements.But it was a YouTube and media hit, and has solidified Warren’s role as progressive champion, particularly when Warren...

'We'll have to see what the Howard students thought,' Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul shouted from an elevator Wednesday afternoon, answering MailOnline's question about whether his foray into winning the hearts and minds of black youths was successful. Paul, a Republican darling who is already laying the groundwork for a 2016 presidential run with a coming appearance in New Hampshire, had just wrapped up a two-hour appearance at the Howard University School of Business. Howard is among the U.S. colleges classified as 'historically black,' and the audience of approximately 300 included few white faces apart from those belonging to reporters. (VIDEO...

"Plain and simple, The Obama Administration does not want us to be in Washington on May 25th to honor all of the brave veterans who died for the Bill Of Rights and is now violating our First Amendment Rights to assemble in a place of our choosing."

NASA administrator Charles Bolden has dismissed the idea that the space agency will attempt another manned Moon mission. Speaking with contemporaries, Bolden said "NASA will not take the lead on a human lunar mission... probably in my lifetime." Bolden added that if the next administration reverses NASA's decision it would set back the manned space program in its entirety. He warned that, should we divert resources towards a manned moon mission in the future, we would probably never "see Americans on the Moon, on Mars, near an asteroid, or anywhere" in our lifetimes, explaining that "we cannot continue to change...

NASA administrator Charles Bolden has dismissed the idea that the space agency will attempt another manned Moon mission. Speaking with contemporaries, Bolden said "NASA will not take the lead on a human lunar mission... probably in my lifetime." Bolden added that if the next administration reverses NASA's decision it would set back the manned space program in its entirety. He warned that, should we divert resources towards a manned moon mission in the future, we would probably never "see Americans on the Moon, on Mars, near an asteroid, or anywhere" in our lifetimes, explaining that "we cannot continue to change...

Rep. John Barrows (D-Ga.) said Friday that legislation was necessary to rein in the regulatory power of the Food and Drug Administration over food served from take-out outlets and convenience stores as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. “That’s why it’s essential that we be able to come together in this manner to provide this kind of relief from legislation that wasn’t fairly vetted enough and regulations that are coming down the pike that are way too onerous,” Barrows said at a press conference in support of the Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act of 2013....

When the state-imposed manager of Detroit, Kevyn Orr, starts the job on Monday he will wade into a city of crumbling neighborhoods where police fail to respond to some calls, arson fires burn out of control and residents scour charred buildings for scrap metal to sell. Except for the business district and a cultural area including a university, museum and some theaters, the city of Detroit, population 700,000, is in bad shape. Orr, a Washington, D.C.-based bankruptcy lawyer, will have the official title of "Emergency Financial Manager." But his remit as an unelected administrator will range far beyond money. His...

Last year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney attacked the Democratic convention platform for its “shameful” decision to omit a reference to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. But in a sign of how U.S. politics have changed in 40 years, President Richard Nixon complained in 1972 of the Democrats’ “dishonest” platform language declaring the city Israel’s capital. Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, agreed with his condemnation during a previously unreported taped conversation from June 29, 1972. “To make Jerusalem the capital of Israel is not the platform of a major American national party,” Henry Kissinger told Nixon. “That is...

LAKELAND | Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin was fired up about God and country when she spoke Friday at Southeastern University in Lakeland. And she was dressed for the part. The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate visited the Sunshine State at the request of the organizers of the school's seventh annual leadership forum. She was quite a presence on the stage, in a lipstick-red suit and fierce high heels. Her passionate talk was peppered with such vibrant cries as "Cling to your God, your guns, your Constitution!" and pleas for the next generation to change the country's moral fiber. "That...

The Defense Department on Wednesday officially notified Congress that it plans to begin furloughing its 800,000 civilian employees across the country if automatic spending cuts begin March 1, estimating the states would lose a total of $4.86 billion in workers’ wages this year. According to Pentagon estimates, among the hardest-hit states would be Virginia, which would have about 88,000 affected workers and salary losses of $660.9 million; California, with 62,600 workers and $419.7 million in lost wages; and Maryland, with 45,700 workers and $359.3 million in lost earnings. “This is not a Beltway phenomenon,” Jessica L. Wright, the acting undersecretary...

MAHER: Based on every statement I’ve heard out of any Republican in the last two years, the Israelis are controlling our government. (Daily Caller’s James) WEINSTEIN: Not the State Department, that’s for sure. (HBO’s Real Time, February 15, 2013) …

Buying a ski mask isn’t illegal, but could restricting their sale help prevent crime? The notion is stirring debate among some Northwest Washington residents after reports of robberies committed by men wearing ski masks. The frequency of the robberies also has caught attention of police, who say one neighborhood crew is frequently purchasing masks at a local sports store for the express purpose of committing robberies. “They clearly are a problem. Otherwise, we wouldn’t see it being mentioned in all the reports,” said Faith Wheeler, an Advisory Neighborhood Commission member from the Takoma neighborhood in Northwest. And while police from...

The coverage of two recent events in the District of Columbia shows how the old media in this country has dropped all pretence of impartiality. The first image is from yesterday, 25 January, in Washington, D.C. Please consider how much media coverage you have heard about it. It was a pro-life protest. The second image is from the next day, today, the 26th of January. It was from a protest against the the people's right to keep and bear arms: Consider how much media coverage that you have heard of this event. The camera shots are completely different. The first...

Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee in the last election, was booed at President Barack Obama's Second Inauguration today in Washington, D.C. "If things had gone differently in November, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) might have departed the Capitol on Monday as the vice president of the United States. Instead, he faced a chorus of boos as he left the building to attend President Barack Obama's second inauguration ceremony," reports the Huffington Post. The left-leaning website reports that Ryan attended the Inauguration out of duty. "Ryan announced last week that he would be present for Obama's public swearing in at...

On Jan. 7, exactly two weeks before we are to simultaneously celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and inaugurate Barack Obama to his second term as President of the United States, sinister advertisements went up in dozens of subway stations around New York City, making evident that despite the undoubted strides our nation has made toward achieving justice and equality, bigotry and fear-mongering remain alive and well in America. The American Freedom Defense Initiative, headed by Pamela Geller, an inflammatory demagogue with a long history of anti-Muslim incitement, purchased space in 39 stations for ads with an...

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Last month, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals declared Illinois’s ban on carrying a weapon in public unconstitutional, leaving the District of Columbia as the only place in the country that does not allow the concealed carry of firearms by civilians (and D.C. is being sued to allow this). The morally purblind pro-gun lobbyists have been so successful in saturating our society with firearms—from national parks to Amtrak trains—that public libraries across the country are also finding themselves having to grapple with Second Amendment radicals. For example, the Boulder Public Library, until November, had a policy that read: “No...

At the inaugural celebration, Obama actually seems somewhat cordial to John Boehner, House Speaker. But Michelle is much too busy shoveling food into her mouth, and when Boehner tries to get her attention, she manages an eyeroll at him...

An inaugural official told reporters that "at least" 1 million people were on the National Mall for President Obama's swearing-in ceremony. If the figure is accurate, a crowd of around 1 million would put attendance at about 55 percent of the 2009 crowd. The city of Washington, D.C., estimated that 1.8 million people packed the Mall last time to watch Obama get sworn in for his first term.

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - NBC journalist David Gregory won't face charges for displaying a high-capacity ammunition magazine on his "Meet the Press" news program last month, District of Columbia prosecutors announced Friday.

District of Columbia Attorney General Irvin Nathan issued a lengthy letter today explaining the decision not to prosecute David Gregory despite “despite the clarity of the violation of this important law,” despite rejecting NBC’s claims of a subjective misunderstanding of the law, and despite vowing vigorous enforcement of gun laws. -snip- t further undermines public confidence in such decisions to find out that Nathan knew Gregory and his wife, high-powered attorney Beth Wilkinson. Anne dug up the connection in which in 2011 Nathan and Wilkinson participated together in a charity mock trial for the Washington, D.C. Shakespeare Theatre Company (emphasis...

There must be something in the Potomac— According to a popular adult site, Washington D.C. has won the dubious title of America’s porn capital. D.C. residents reportedly watch almost twice as much online porn per capita as people living in the 50 states. It is a highly charged city, so who are we to judge how people relax? ******.com says D.C. residents watch 14.18 videos per person per year, followed by Hawaiians at 7.5.7 videos per person annually in the No. 2. spot. Other notables include Massachusetts (7.52) and New York (7.5). The Washington Post tries to take a crack...

Washington, D.C., residents watch more porn than the rest of America: study • Research from PornHub.com says residents of the nation’s capital watch 14.18 online videos per person in a year. Hawaii is second, with 7.57 per year. Politics has always been dirty, but a new study takes the expression to a level so stimulating that it’s hard to believe. Residents of Washington, D.C., watch nearly twice as much online pornography as people in any of the 50 states, according to a study published by XXX site PornHub.com. Horndogs in the nation’s capital consumed online pornography at a rate of...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The mayor of Washington, DC, picked up on Courtland Milloy's piece in the Washington Post yesterday. The Redskins are gonna have to get rid of that nickname 'cause it's racist and it's bigoted. BREAK TRANSCRIPT Here's Vincent Gray. Vincent Gray is the mayor of Washington, DC, said this last night. GRAY: I think it has become a lightning rod, and I would love to be able to sit down with the team -- and I'm happy to do that, to sit down with the team -- and others who are concerned with this and see if a...

Metro says that Metrobuses traveling in parts of Southeast Washington are being pelted with rocks. As part of a campaign to discourage this, police are distributing a flier reminding people not to throw rocks at buses or cars. Flier here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr-gridlock/files/2013/01/Dont-Throw-Rocks-Flier.pdf The Metro Transit Police and Metropolitan Police Department have been distributing the flier, which features a reminder that throwing rocks at vehicles is a crime. It also includes 911 as well as numbers for D.C. police (202-727-9099) and the transit police (202-962-2121, which riders may or may not recognize as the number repeated in system-wide announcements). The transit agency...

In an interview with Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, newly re-elected House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) opened up about President Obama’s utter unwillingness to cut a single dollar from federal spending. In a stunning admission, Obama reportedly told Boehner, “We don’t have a spending problem.” Boehner added that President Obama continues to maintain that America’s federal deficit is caused not by governmental overspending but by “a health-care problem.” Said Boehner, “They blame all of the fiscal woes on our health-care system.” Boehner told Obama, “Clearly we have a health-care problem, which is about to get worse with Obamacare....

Hotel rooms remain unbooked ahead of January 21 inauguration ceremony Organizers expecting much lower turnout than 2009 ceremony, when nearly 2 million people flocked to the National Mall Crowds may have flocked to the National Mall to see President Obama make history in 2009, but the team behind the president's 2013 inauguration bash later this month are bracing themselves for a ton of empty seats. The ceremony that Washington will stage in a few weeks won't be the historic affair it was in 2009, when nearly 2 million people flocked to the Capitol to watch Obama take the oath of...

Demographics buffs get a special Christmas present every year courtesy of the Census Bureau: its annual estimates of the populations of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This gives demographers a chance to see where the nation is growing and where it is not, and to get an idea of the destination of immigrants and of the flow of people into one set of states and out of another. Nationally the Census Bureau estimates that the United States has grown from 308 million people when the census was conducted in April 2010 and to almost 313 million in...

I have confirmed with a group of Congressmen that House Speaker John Boehner will not be reelected Speaker tomorrow. He will either resign or be forced out tomorrow. Only 17 members are needed to block Speaker Boehner's election tomorrow. A Speaker needs an absolute majority of all votes cast for a specific person. If no one has a majority, the House is speakerless. I've confirmed these rules with the House Parliamentarian.

Georgetown University constitutional law professor Louis Michael Seidman has just about had it with the focus of his 40 years of academic study. As he writes in the New York Times on Monday, it is the Constitution itself which has allowed for the series of legislative follies that finally resulted in the “fiscal cliff.” Seidman says that it is time for Americans to realize what lawmakers have known since the constitution’s inception – it is okay to ignore it. “As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government...

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison. The editorial staff of the Washington Post, surely meant well. They wanted readers to think that Sen. John Kerry’s vast experience in foreign policy over four decades equips him to serve as Secretary of State in the second Obama administration. The editorial, titled “John Kerry: Well-suited to be Secretary of State,” gets that part right. The natty Mr. Kerry certainly looks the part of a globe-trotting senior U.S. diplomat. As to his qualifications for that role, we’re reminded of Frederick the Great’s response when he was urged to make a less...

The Huffington Post reports that a bill to move the District of Colombia toward statehood has been introduced in the Senate. Buzzfeed says “the 51st state would be called New Columbia” and be granted full voting representation in the Senate and House. A group called DC Vote has launched a White House petition to call on President Obama for support. It is indeed time that D.C. voters become fully enfranchised as the 51st state. But it is also high time that the nation’s capital be moved from its quaint antiquarian, Eastern enclave to the center of our country. Louisville would...

A New York federal judge may rule imminently on a case that could reverse the General Motors (GM) bailout and send the company back into bankruptcy, according to sources close to the case. At issue is a backroom deal hatched by GM to fulfill the Obama administration’s demand for a quick bankruptcy, draining the automaker of nearly all of its cash on hand and leaving it in worse shape than it was when it collapsed in 2009. One condition of GM’s bailout was to shore up its overseas subsidiaries. On the eve of entering bankruptcy, the company cut a $367...

The University of the District of Columbia is asking the city for $4 million as it prepares to lay off dozens of professors and staffers whose union protections entitle them to big payouts, school officials told The Washington Examiner. But Mayor Vincent Gray isn't immediately ponying up, saying he has issues with the university's "right-sizing plan" and wants UDC to put more effort into its request for more city funds. "We've got to see a lot more than what we've seen," Gray said. "We've gotten a two-page letter from them." The District's only public university released a plan in October...

Some District of Columbia leaders are disappointed that President Barack Obama hasn't been more of an advocate for local autonomy. Obama carried Washington in 2008 with 92 percent of the vote, a high percentage even in the overwhelmingly Democratic city. But four years later, the district's 618,000 residents still lack representation in Congress. And the city's budget and laws remain subject to congressional review.