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An Oregon gun owner went viral for having his AR-15 rifle and a handgun “destroyed” by police in the wake of the Uvalde school massacre. Ben Beers delivered a passionate speech about changing the nation’s gun laws in a video posted on TikTok before delivering his firearms to a local police station. “I no longer want them,” Ben Beers said in the video clip viewed by almost 200,000 users. “I know this will not change legislation or anything to do with gun culture in America but hopefully it’ll be a form of symbolism and hopefully America can wake up because...

Suffering a crisis of confidence over his leadership on Ebola a week before the midterm elections, President Barack Obama assembled a massive staff meeting on the issue at the White House Sunday.Including the president, there were 24 people in physical attendance at the meeting CBS News said was convened “to discuss a nationwide policy for health care workers returning from West Africa.” Vice President Joe Biden joined via telephone, and Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thomas Frieden and US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power joining via video teleconference.Sunday, the New York Times reported President...

<p>WASHINGTON — Charlotte Beers, the Bush administration's point person for improving the U.S. image in the Muslim world, is resigning because of health reasons, a State Department official said Monday.</p> <p>The official, asking not be identified, said Beers' resignation will become effective in about two weeks.</p>

By now it’s become a disturbingly familiar pattern for conservatives: A candidate who seems promising at first glance wins a Republican primary, and then suddenly the press — often fed by a Democratic rival’s opposition-research team — begins looking in-depth at every controversial and regrettable statement and act that candidate ever made. Just days after it’s too late to change the nominee, the choice of GOP primary voters appears to be an egregious mistake. The most recent, and perhaps most extreme, example of this phenomenon is Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul. Overnight, Paul changed from a soft-spoken, genially libertarian version...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1239207536374.shtm President Obama Announces His Intent to Nominate Rand Beers as Homeland Security Under Secretary for National Protection and Programs Directorate President Barack Obama announced today his intent to nominate Rand Beers as U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), the Department’s primary risk-reducing division. Beers will oversee five major offices in this role, including Cybersecurity and Communications (CS&C), Infrastructure Protection (IP), Intergovernmental Programs (IGP), Risk Management and Analysis (RMA) and US-VISIT. “More than anyone I know, Rand Beers can be trusted with protecting...

Secret diner in Washington Holbrooke and Thaqui planned terror Less than a week before the clashes in Kosovo and Metohija occurred, a group of Albanian lobbyists from USA held a meeting at which they decided to help Kosovo Albanians to force international community to give independence to Kosovo. 'Blic' got this information from well-informed sources in the US. As 'Blic' further finds out this informal meeting was held at the initiative of David Philips, deputy director of the Center for preventive action within Council for international relations in New York. The meeting was held at his home with light diner....

Secrets of the CIA A former colleague says the fired Mary McCarthy ‘categorically denies’ being the source of the leak on agency renditions. WEB EXCLUSIVE By Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff Updated: 7:07 p.m. ET April 24, 2006 April 24, 2006 - A former CIA officer who was sacked last week after allegedly confessing to leaking secrets has denied she was the source of a controversial Washington Post story about alleged CIA secret detention operations in Eastern Europe, a friend of the operative told NEWSWEEK. The fired official, Mary O. McCarthy, “categorically denies being the source of the leak,” one...

Excerpt:"She did not leak any classified information, and she did not have access to the information apparently attributed to her by some government officials," said Washington lawyer Ty Cobb, who is representing veteran CIA analyst Mary McCarthy. Government officials have linked her to the Post's story about the CIA's covert sites in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, used to hold terror suspects. The disclosure of the facilities caused an international clamor last fall because of the legal and ethical issues they raised. McCarthy was fired on Thursday for knowingly disclosing classified information. But Cobb said she hopes to find a way...

<p>No details, but the agent was caught dead to rights leaking....</p>

Proving that he’s just as adept at stuffing an election candidate’s coffers as he is at stuffing his own socks, Sandy Berger hosted an "almost secret" Washington fund-raiser for a recently retired three-star vice admiral last night. Vice Adm. Joseph Sestak Jr, as the Village People would say, is "In the Navy". And when you want to take an Able Danger Congressman Curt Weldon down, what better way than to send in the Navy? Berger, dubbed "Sandy Burglar" by radio meister Rush Limbaugh, gained notoriety for trying to stuff classified documents into his socks and other attire. The man, who...

Several members of President Bill Clinton’s national security team are hosting a Washington fund-raiser tonight for retired Vice Adm. Joseph Sestak Jr., the Democrat running against U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon in November. Officials at Sestak’s campaign headquarters in Media will not comment on the event, though an invitation sent out to potential donors and obtained by the Daily Times lists Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger as a host. "As a general rule, campaigns don’t comment on fund-raisers or people who hold them," said Sestak’s campaign chairman, Myles Duffy. Berger, who served as Clinton’s second-term national security adviser, pleaded guilty last year...

Fourteen indicted in Appalachia election fraud probeFriday, March 03, 2006 By STEPHEN IGO Times-News WISE - Fourteen individuals, including the mayor/town manager of Appalachia, a town councilman, and two law enforcement officials, were indicted by a Wise County grand jury on multiple counts stemming from an alleged conspiracy to conduct election fraud during the 2004 town elections. The indictments show the investigation hasn't been just about pork rinds, Special Prosecutor Tim McAfee said during a press conference at the Wise County Courthouse. The investigation into allegations of voter fraud evolved from early reports of attempted vote buying before town elections...

Nov. 7) — "Mmmm … beer." This oft-repeated sentiment of Homer Simpson is a mantra for the millions of beer drinkers in the United States. As popular as beer is, however, it often has gotten a bad rap as a calorie-loaded beverage that only serves to create paunchy beer bellies and alcohol-fueled lapses in judgment. But that negative image may begin to fade: Research is showing that beer could join the ranks of other guilt-inducing but wildly popular foods -- chocolate, coffee and red wine -- as a possible disease-fighter. It turns out that beer hops contain a unique micronutrient...

Aaron Brown of CNN fame had Randy Beers, the key Kerry foreign policy advisor, on his show tonight to discuss the future of Iraq. Well, all he talked about was doom & gloom. Beers mentality was that the US was an occupier, not a liberator. The US was evil (my words). It was pure defeatism. Aaron asked him when should US troops leave Iraq. He said at the end of this YEAR or after UN sponsored elections which would be early 2006(my guess). So, Comrade Kerry’s policy in Iraq would have been cut and run. A Kerry Presidency would have...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 - The Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee said Sunday that he would propose legislation to break up the Central Intelligence Agency and divide its responsibilities among three new spy agencies. The plan would eliminate the Pentagon's direct control over the National Security Agency and create a post of national intelligence director with virtually complete control over the government's $40 billion annual intelligence budget. The sweeping proposal, by Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, which would also provide the national intelligence director with budget authority over counterterrorism and counterintelligence programs of the F.B.I., goes far beyond the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former White House anti-terrorism adviser has accused President Bush of ignoring terrorism threats before the Sept. 11 attacks and of making America less safe. Richard Clarke, Bush's top official on counter-terrorism who headed a cybersecurity board, told CBS "60 minutes" in an interview to be aired on Sunday he thought Bush had "done a terrible job on the war against terrorism." "I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could...

ELIZABETH, N.J. (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) countered those questioning his justification for the invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) on Monday, dismissing "revisionist historians" and saying Washington acted to counter a persistent threat. "Now there are some who would like to rewrite history; revisionist historians is what I like to call them," Bush said in a speech to New Jersey business leaders. Referring to the ousted Iraqi president, Bush said, "Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was a threat to America and the free world in '91, in '98, in 2003. He continually ignored the...

Five days before the war began in Iraq, as President Bush prepared to raise the terrorism threat level to orange, a top White House counterterrorism adviser unlocked the steel door to his office, an intelligence vault secured by an electronic keypad, a combination lock and an alarm. He sat down and turned to his inbox. "Things were dicey," said Rand Beers, recalling the stack of classified reports about plots to shoot, bomb, burn and poison Americans. He stared at the color-coded threats for five minutes. Then he called his wife: I'm quitting.

WASHINGTON, June 16 — Five days before the war began in Iraq, as President Bush prepared to raise the terrorism threat level to orange, a top White House counterterrorism adviser unlocked the steel door to his office, an intelligence vault secured by an electronic keypad, a combination lock and an alarm. He sat down and turned to his inbox.

The State Department's answer to Osama bin Laden is to "redefine America." SHORTLY AFTER her confirmation as the State Department's top communications whiz last October, Charlotte Beers said she hoped to create among the world's one billion Muslims an "understanding that they don't need to kill us to get our attention." To accomplish that patronizing goal, Beers and her State Department colleagues have undertaken a "public diplomacy" campaign in the Muslim world. The effort will naturally require unceasing "dialogue" and involve lots of "listening." There will be pamphlets, CD-ROMs, public service announcements, a State Department magazine for young Muslim males....