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The Treasury Department paid $220,000 in a previously undisclosed agreement to settle a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment that involved Florida Democrat Alcee L. Hastings, according to documents obtained by Roll Call. Winsome Packer, a former staff member of a congressional commission that promotes international human rights, said in documents that the congressman touched her, made unwanted sexual advances, and threatened her job. At the time, Hastings was the chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, where Packer worked. Hastings has called Packer’s charges “ludicrous” and in documents said he never sexually harassed her. “Until this evening, I...

Link only per publisher request. https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/alcee-hastings-sexual-harassment

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings in 1066, in which William the Conqueror initiated the Norman conquest of England by defeating the forces of the Anglo-Saxon King Harold, who was killed in the conflict (although there's been recent speculation that Harold survived). William, Duke of Normandy, had been promised the English throne by his cousin, Edward the Confessor (reigned 1042-1066), and Harold, earl of Wessex, had sworn agreement to that succession. However, with the death of Edward, Harold crowned himself king, leading William to mount a sea-borne invasion to assert his own right. Landing his army on...

As details about journalist Michael Hastings’ death remain unanswered following the release of a coroner’s report, a neighbor says the late reporter was afraid to get in his own car hours before he died in high-speed crash June 18 in Hollywood. Hastings, 33, was killed when his Mercedes coupe crashed into a tree just before 5 a.m. that morning, and details about the collision have been contested in the months since. A friend of Hastings said days later that the reporter believed he was being investigated by the government, and the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks said one of their attorneys was...

The CIA has been investigating ways to manipulate the control systems of modern cars and trucks that could be used for covert assassinations, WikiLeaks said on Tuesday as part of its dump of more than 8,700 documents that it claims are from the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence. "As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks," WikiLeaks said in a statement. "The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations." Most cars are now equipped with...

Wikileaks hints CIA may have had a role in the death of Michael Hastings

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings in 1066, in which William the Conqueror initiated the Norman conquest of England by defeating the forces of the Anglo-Saxon King Harold, who was killed in the conflict (although there's been recent speculation that Harold survived). William, Duke of Normandy, had been promised the English throne by his cousin, Edward the Confessor (reigned 1042-1066), and Harold, earl of Wessex, had sworn agreement to that succession. However, with the death of Edward, Harold crowned himself king, leading William to mount a sea-borne invasion to assert his own right. Landing his army on...

SIERRA VISTA — Five weeks after filing for bankruptcy, all Hastings locations are set to close by the end of October. The Amarillo, Texas-based entertainment retail chain operates more than 120 stores across the country, including a Sierra Vista location that has been in business for more than 20 years. As of July 13, all stores stopped accepting gift cards and store credit, and following the June 13 Chapter 11 filing in a Delaware federal court, the customer buy-back program was suspended and the video game rental program ended.

Two officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations will be attending the State of the Union address Tuesday as guests of Democratic lawmakers. Reps. Zoe Lofgren (Calif.) and Alcee Hastings (Fla.) will both be hosting representatives from CAIR chapters in their respective states, the group announced Monday. Lofgren will be bringing Sameena Usman, a government relations coordinator in the San Francisco office, while Hastings will host Nezar Hamze, the chief operating officer of the nonprofit's Florida branch.

King Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, has long been thought to have been killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. But British archaeologists are to test a theory he survived on the anniversary of the famous battle this Tuesday. The battle, on Oct. 14, 1066, marked a turning point in British history as the Normans conquered medieval England. There are different accounts of how he was killed, one of them pictured in the Bayeux Tapestry, which appears to have him gripping an arrow that had pierced his eye. Another account has Harold being killed by knights...

A teenaged girl who reportedly went missing on her way to church was found slain near her crashed minivan in a Dallas creek, officials said. The body of Zoe Hastings, 18, was discovered Monday by police responding to calls about a vehicle in the creek near East Lake Highlands Drive and Easton Road. She had died from "obvious homicidal violence," Deputy Chief Rob Sherwin said during a press conference.

Reflexively distrustful, eager to make powerful enemies, the young journalist whose Mercedes exploded in Los Angeles one night couldn’t possibly have died accidentally, could he? A t the end of his life, Michael Hastings, like many of the progressive journalists he counted among his friends, felt besieged by an overreaching government. Hastings was living in Los Angeles, and at a Beverly Hills theater in April, he took part in a panel discussion about the documentary War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State. Interviewed in May on The Young Turks, a talk show on Current TV, Hastings railed...

Sorry to go so deep on a weekend, but seeing Brennan broadcast in a 22 minute interview is enough to blow the blood pressure cuff: I have never been more certain of something, yet simultaneously never able to prove it, as I am about two events. The first is that Jack Lew and the White House in 2010/2011 coordinated the DOJ attack, with Eric Holder, against political opposition using the IRS. The second event is that journalist Michael Hastings was killed by the dispatch of CIA Director John Brennan. Director John Brennan spent almost his entire formative career inside the CIA and...

.... Di-Natale provided coverage of the [Osama bin Laden] raid's aftermath, including an exclusive interview with Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped U.S. agents verify Bin Laden's presence, and who remains imprisoned in Pakistan to this day. Di-Natale notably reported from Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound in the aftermath of the US raid, and is known for chiseling out a brick from the compound: Call me a conspiracy theorist, but when I heard about Di-Natale's death, the first thing that popped into my mind was this: Who killed him? It isn't that far-fetched to suspect foul play when a journalist...

“Commentary By Adina Kutnicki by Adina Kutnicki AS patriots await the official (Allah-wash) report regarding Bergdahl's (military-related) status, there are certain facts which are indisputable. We will get to that. BUT intertwined with the upcoming Pentagon's evaluation - re the aforementioned deserter and traitor - underlies the "logic" behind trading him for top Taliban leaders. IN this regard, it begs the question: why would the leader of the free world trade any soldier, let alone one with "questionable" loyalty, for high value, prized terror leaders? Well, if one's leanings are Islamist-infused, the question becomes the logical inverse: why not? Not...

WASHINGTON Crazy is in the eye of the beholder. Texas singer-songwriter Willie Nelson wrote the signature love ballad “Crazy,” but it’s a loaded word in Congress, especially when used to describe the Lone Star State. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., found that out when he said Monday night at a Rules Committee hearing that Texas was a “crazy state” and Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, took it personally. The Texan demanded an apology, and not only didn’t he get it from the Floridian, but Hastings said Burgess could wait “until hell freezes over for me to say anything in an apology.” On...

WASHINGTON – During the weeks before he was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles, reporter Michael Hastings was researching a story about a privacy lawsuit brought by Florida socialite Jill Kelley against the Department of Defense and the FBI. Hastings, 33, was scheduled to meet with a representative of Kelley next week in Los Angeles to discuss the case, according to a person close to Kelley. Hastings wrote for Rolling Stone and the website BuzzFeed. Kelley alleges that military officials and the FBI leaked her name to the media to discredit her after she reported receiving a stream...

TODAY IN HISTORY Bayeux Tapestry – Battle of Hastings The Death of King Harold From British Battles.com: "The Battle of Hastings – 14 October 1066 Account: William, Duke of Normandy, launched his bloody and decisive invasion of Saxon England in 1066. In that year Edward the Confessor, King of England, died without heir, appointing by his will Harold Godwinsson, son of England’s most powerful nobleman, the Earl of Wessex, as his successor. Across the Channel, William of Normandy considered himself rightfully the next King of England, basing his claim on a promise by Edward the Confessor in the early...

Matt Boyle has this fascinating piece about the inner workings of the legislative battle this week over the border crisis. The bill pushed by the Republican leadership had a number of serious defects. The story recounted by Boyle is how a small group of activists and congressmen drove the immigration narrative, and ultimately the legislative outcome. Buried toward the end of Boyle’s piece is a disgraceful statement from Florida Representative Alcee Hastings (D): Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) decried the House GOP lawsuit as he addressed “all the white people in here” during the Rules Committee hearing — which was filled...

The mother and father sit at the kitchen table in their Idaho farmhouse, watching their son on YouTube plead for his life. The Taliban captured 26-year-old Bowe Bergdahl almost three years ago, on June 30th, 2009, and since that day, his parents, Jani and Bob, have had no contact with him. Like the rest of the world, their lone glimpses of Bowe – the only American prisoner of war left in either Iraq or Afghanistan – have come through a series of propaganda videos, filmed while he's been in captivity. Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/americas-last-prisoner-of-war-20120607#ixzz34APXclT2 Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone...