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House Panel to Ask for NSA Spying Probe A congressional panel will ask the National Security Agency's internal watchdog to investigate whether the super-secret spy agency eavesdropped without warrants on a Muslim scholar and later hid that evidence in a 2005 terror prosecution that got him a life sentence.The House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel and the judge overseeing the case want the NSA's inspector general to find out if the government failed to disclose evidence that might have cleared the name of a Northern Virginia spiritual leader Ali al-Timimi, Rep. Rush Holt (D- New Jersey) told the New York Times.That...

A jury in a Nashville courtroom Thursday watched surveillance footage that the prosecution says shows a young woman being carried to a Vanderbilt University dorm room moments before she was allegedly sexually assaulted. It’s a situation that the defense argues was fueled by binge drinking and college culture.

President Obama's muscular victories in 2008 and 2012 inflated Democratic egos, giving the party visions of a never-ending string of victories in nationwide presidential races. Just a few years later, such over-confident prognosticating seems extremely ill-advised. The 2014 midterm elections were a disaster for the president's party. Republicans picked up nine Senate seats, claiming a majority for the first time in eight years. And House Republicans bolstered their ranks to the party's highest levels since Herbert Hoover was president. Even worse for Democrats: The apparent loosening of their near-lock on the Electoral College, which actually determines who gets to the...

Phi Psi members, speaking publicly for the first time since the allegations surfaced, told The Washington Post that they went into hiding for weeks after their home was vandalized with spray-painted messages calling them rapists and with bricks thrown through windows. They booked hotel rooms to avoid the swarm of protesters on their front lawn. They watched as their brotherhood was vilified, coming to symbolize the worst episode of collegiate sexual violence against women since the 2006 Duke University lacrosse team scandal — which also turned out to be false. Although the Rolling Stone article was discredited and the student’s...

A Virginia school district has decided to scrap a policy that allowed it to interrogate Christian homeschool teenagers and their parents about their religious beliefs.Last November Douglas Pruiett and his wife received a letter from Goochland County Public Schools about updated procedures to the district’s requests for religious exemptions for homeschool students.Under the updated rules, once a child turns 14-years-old, the district requires that homeschool parents reapply for a religious exemption to public education.The Prueitts have seven children, three of whom were impacted by the revised policy.“Each application must be completed along with a statement of your bona fide religious...

Virginia’s 74th state district reelected Joe Morrissey to the House of Delegates in a special election held on Tuesday. He celebrated his victory from a jail cell. Morrissey resigned from the seat last December after he was convicted for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old employee at his law office.

2014: UMSL student reports being forced into car and raped on campus, police say Police investigating UMSL rape 2015: UMSL says reported rape on campus did not happen She probably just changed her mind 2014: Sexual Assault Claim at Columbia Columbia Student Will Carry a Mattress Everywhere Until Her Alleged Rapist Is Expelled Columbia University Vigilantes Are Naming ‘Rapists on Campus’ in Bathroom Graffiti Frustrated by Columbia’s inaction, student reports sexual assault to police Columbia charges rape protesters $471 to clean the mattresses they carried to shame the university for ‘failing to investigate one student’s sexual assault’ Columbia University Sexual...

Virginia parents are outraged over a new policy that demands homeschooled children justify their religious beliefs to a school board within 30 days of their 14th birthday. The controversial rule passed by the Goochland County School Board states, “Any student who together with his/her parents seeks an exemption from compulsory attendance due to their bona fide religious training or beliefs must submit a written application to the school board, setting forth the reasons for the request.” […] The Home School Legal Defense Association says the school board’s policy violates Virginia state law, which allows children undergoing religious training to be...

Last June in the run up to a primary he was so sure he would win, former Obama water boy Eric Cantor didn’t bother to campaign. He had told his liars about being a warrior against illegal aliens polluting America and decided to merely wait in Washington for word of his victory. That didn’t happen. He was crushed by a TEA party candidate. When he got his head handed to him Cantor was shocked and acted contrite. That was his act then; but now free to be his real self he is taking some very different positions. As a Wall...

As we face the new year, the biggest concern for peace lovers is Republican control of the U.S. Senate. While Republican votes don’t reach the key number 60, members of the GOP will still be in a strong position to push their belligerent global agenda. I don’t mean to overstate the danger. After all, the Democrats were hardly better. But those who abhor war will awaken each day knowing that hawkish Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and their ilk are in control. Peacemongers haven’t had much to cheer about during the Obama years. Barack Obama has gone back...

~~snip~~ Voting against Boehner (10) Gohmert* Yoho* Rep. Steve King (Iowa) Rep. Jim Bridenstine (Okla.)* Rep. Dave Brat (Va.) (freshman) Rep. Walter Jones (N.C.)* Rep. Gary Palmer (Ala.) (freshman) Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.)* Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.) Rep. Marlin Stutzman (Ind.) Said prior to 2014 election that they would vote against Boehner (2) Rep. Jody Hice (Ga.) (freshman) Rep. John Ratfliffe (Tex.) (freshman) Voted against Boehner in 2013/haven't weighed in (2) Rep. Steve Pearce (N.M.) (spokesman says he's "undecided") Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.) Voted against Boehner in 2013/will support him (3) Rep. Mick Mulvaney (S.C.) Rep. Raul Labrador (Idaho) Rep....

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) called GOP challenges to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) “pretty unprofessional and very disappointing” on Monday. Cole, a close ally to Boehner, said the challenges aren’t serious and blasted Republicans trying to unseat the Speaker for not trying to do so when the GOP held its internal discussions late last year. “Well, I don’t think they’re very serious,” he said while appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe" of the bids by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) to challenge Boehner for speakership. “And frankly, they’re pretty disappointing in the sense that anyone who wanted to...

Whoever runs for the Republican leadership of the U.S. House on Tuesday must communicate on paper how Congress is going to lead on the big issues. The American people elected us to solve trillion-dollar problems, not to kick the can down the road with only symbolic votes. My district expects any leader to clearly outline bold solutions on the major issues of our day, such as: · How he or she will defend the Constitution and challenge President Obama’s repeated illegal overreach into areas of congressional authority, particularly his unconstitutional amnesty by presidential decree; · How he will end Washington’s...

It's time to start imagining a society that isn't dominated by police After months of escalating protests and grassroots organizing in response to the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, police reformers have issued many demands. The moderates in this debate typically qualify their rhetoric with "We all know we need police, but..." It's a familiar refrain to those of us who've spent years in the streets and the barrios organizing around police violence, only to be confronted by officers who snarl, "But who'll help you if you get robbed?" We can put a man on the moon,...

Bill Cosby has hired a battalion of private investigators to dig up dirt on his many accusers, The New York Post has learned. The comedian, fighting an onslaught of accusations that he sexually assaulted more than two dozen women over many years, is paying six-figure fees to private investigators for information that might discredit his alleged victims. Multiple sources confirmed that Cosby, through his Hollywood attorney Martin Singer, is implementing a scorched-earth strategy in which anything negative in his accusers’ pasts is fair game. At least one Glendale, Calif.-based firm with a half-dozen former LAPD detectives on staff is muckraking...

Don Lemon is catching a lot of backlash for a comment he made in an interview, implying women can stop unwanted sexual assaults. On Tuesday night, Lemon interviewed Joan Tarshis, a woman who recently went public with her accusation that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1969. During their exchange, Lemon questioned Tarshis on why she didn't bite Cosby and use her teeth "as a weapon" when he forced her to perform oral sex.

Another woman has come forward to claim that she was raped by Bill Cosby. Joan Tarshis told “CBS This Morning” that the actor and comedian drugged and raped her on two separate occasions in 1969 when she was 19. She said that Cosby invited her to help come up with material for his comedy act. Then when she was on the set of “The Bill Cosby Show,” he gave her a cocktail. “I was sitting up writing one second and the next second I was lying down on the couch having my underwear taken off,” Tarshis said. She said Cosby...

Joan Tarshis posted an essay on Hollywood Elsewhere, via the Hollywood Reporter, alleging that Cosby drugged and raped her on two separate occasions in 1969, when she was just 19-years-old. Tarshis, a former actress, music industry publicist, and journalist, wrote that Cosby, whom she met through mutual friends, would routinely invite her to his room on the Universal lot where the taping of The Bill Cosby Show took place. According to her, the comedian would offer her food and drinks, and although Cosby never drank alcohol in front of her, he would often pour her Bloody Marys. In regards to...

CNN anchor Don Lemon has, of late, turned the focus of his frequent conversations on race to the idea of personal responsibility in the African American community. On Saturday night’s edition of CNN Newsroom, Lemon continued that controversial trend with comic legend Bill Cosby, who has also felt the heat of controversy on the subject. Cosby talked to Lemon about young black men raising their kids, over-medication of juvenile inmates, and may have even coined a new word: “No-groes.” For the past few months, Don Lemon has courted controversy with several segments pegged to his general agreement with comments by...

Bill Cosby was a rat who stalked prey in his own pack, a former girlfriend of Sammy Davis Jr. says. Katherine McKee alleges Cosby raped her in a Michigan hotel room in the early 1970s when she was on tour with Davis. She joins more than 20 other women who have accused the comedian known as “America’s Dad” of sexual assault.