Amid rumblings that old grudges are resurfacing in Iowa, Rand Paul says he just wants to play nice with all the GOP factions here.

"Our goal is to bring people together," Paul, a U.S. senator from Kentucky and likely presidential candidate, told The Des Moines Register in a telephone interview Thursday. "That's been my goal as I've traveled around the country. I've supported candidates from all sorts of segments of the party."

It's no secret that there was bad blood in the past between the so-called liberty movement (activists loyal to Paul's father, 2012 presidential candidate Ron Paul) and other factions in Iowa, especially the GOP establishment.

Now that a new Iowa Poll shows Rand Paul's growing strength here, there seems to be an orchestrated effort to rekindle some of that animosity toward the liberty movement — a faction that the younger Paul needs to keep close if he wants to do well in the Iowa caucuses a year from now.

The MACD is turning itself upon a downtrend again, I think we will be at under 200 for long period of time.

That grilled cheese tho 

I just bought 400 LBS of industrial grade ducktape to hodl myself on the seat while i watch bitcoinwisdom.com

There are tons of people that sold their home and got in debt, i cant believe these idiots.

While there are no real winners, I feel for the 17 year old whose life is ruined because this scumbag filmed her having sex and it's on the internet now. She certainly made her point.

Pope Francis believes it is fine for parents to smack their children as punishment for bad behaviour.
He made the remarks, which were condemned by campaigners for child protection, in front of thousands of people at his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square during a homily about the responsibilities of fatherhood.

The Pope recalled a conversation he had had with a father, who told him that on occasion he hits his children if they have been naughty.

The Pope, smiling and miming the action of slapping a child on the bottom, said: “One time, I heard a father say, 'At times I have to hit my children a bit, but never in the face so as not to humiliate them.’

“That’s great. He had a sense of dignity. He should punish, do the right thing, and then move on,” he told around 7,000 people gathered in the Pope Paul VI Hall on Wednesday.

The endorsement of corporal punishment was condemned by campaign groups.
“It is disappointing that anyone with that sort of influence would make such a comment,” said Peter Newell, the coordinator of the Global Alliance to End Corporal Punishment of Children.

Peter Saunders, the founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, told The Telegraph: “I think that is a very misguided thing to have said and I’m surprised he said it, although he does come up with some howlers sometimes.”

Federal regulators will follow President Obama’s call and reclassify Internet service so that it can be regulated like a utility, the head of the Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday.

Chairman Tom Wheeler announced he will embrace the controversial approach to the regulations, ending months of speculation about the FCC’s plans.

The new rules that he will circulate to his four fellow commissioners this week are the “strongest open Internet protections ever proposed by the FCC,” Wheeler said in an op-ed in Wired.

The “enforceable, bright-line rules” will ban Internet service providers such as Comcast or Verizon from blocking or slowing people’s access to content online. They will also ban “fast lane” deals that the companies could make with websites to speed up particular services, and extend the rules to Internet accessed through people’s cellphones and tablets for the first time.

“My proposal assures the rights of Internet users to go where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone’s permission,” Wheeler wrote.

Broadband Internet service is now classified as an “information” service under the FCC’s rules, which allows it to escape some types of regulation that are applied to “telecommunications” services such as wired phone lines. But Web activists have for years questioned that categorization, and said that people’s increasing dependence on an open and free Internet should prompt the FCC to change course.

Those calls were amplified after a federal appeals court tossed out previous net neutrality rules last year, and in the wake of an initial FCC proposal that opponents said would have allowed companies to negotiate to create “fast lanes” on the Internet.

Nearly 4 million public comments came in to the FCC after those initial rules last spring, many of them urging the commission to act more aggressively.

The strongest push for tougher rules came from Obama, who shortly after the midterm elections issued a video statement calling for the FCC to apply utility-style rules under Title II of the Communications Act.

Critics blasted Obama’s move, saying the White House was exerting improper pressure on an independent agency.

Though Wheeler has said he had already been examining the legal authority before Obama’s statement, the White House’s move seems to have ratcheted up the pressure for him to act.

“The Internet must be fast, fair and open,” Wheeler wrote on Wednesday, while harkening back to his past as a venture capitalist and head of a tech startup. “That is the message I’ve heard from consumers and innovators across this nation.”

“The proposal I present to the commission will ensure the Internet remains open, now and in the future, for all Americans,” he added.

The move faces opposition from Republicans, both on Capitol Hill and within the FCC.


While Wheeler should be able to pass the rules with the backing of his two fellow Democrats on the five-member commission, the two GOP members are assured to vote against any proposal that reclassifies the Web.

In Congress, Republicans have raced to write new legislation that would enshrine in law some net neutrality protections — such as a ban on blocking, slowing or speeding up people’s access to particular websites – but would ban the FCC from treating the Web like a utility, among other new restrictions. Democrats have so far balked at the measure, and a deal seems unlikely until at least until after the FCC votes on the rules on Feb. 26.

Many Republicans have worried about any government oversight of the Web, and have raised especially vocal concerns that it would be reclassified, which they say would enact outdated regulatory tools to the Internet of the 21st Century.

[Federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, as well as members of his administration, a man at the center of the investigation told ABC News.

The U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey has interviewed former Hunterdon County Assistant Prosecutor Bennett Barlyn, who claims he was fired because he objected to Christie officials dismissing indictments against political allies of the governor. Barlyn confirmed the investigation to ABC News. It was first reported by the International Business Times.

“It is true,” Barlyn told ABC News, saying he was interviewed by federal authorities at his Pennsylvania home this week. “I also provided the investigators with names of people I thought could furnish firsthand information.”

Barlyn said he was not sure whether others have been questioned for the investigation.

Barlyn was dismissed from the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office in September 2010 and later brought a whistleblower case against the Christie administration that currently is in the discovery phase. He has consistently said he was fired for objecting to the quashing of indictments against the county’s sheriff and two subordinates -- all political supporters of Christie’s.

The governor’s office previously has dismissed the accusations as being “conspiratorial nonsense.”

State officials have repeatedly denied Barlyn’s accusations and, in court filings, they said that the decision to dismiss the indictment was within the discretion of New Jersey’s top law-enforcement officials. They have argued Barlyn has no case and doesn’t even have the right to sue under state law.

The federal prosecutor's probe centers on why Christie’s then-attorney general, Paula Dow, dismissed the indictments.

Dow has rejected Barlyn's accusations, saying the indictment was flawed and Barlyn was fired for “legitimate business reasons,” according to NJ.com.

In a February 2014 interview, Barlyn outlined some of his grievances. He told ABC News' Jim Avila that all the evidence his former office obtained during its “two-year investigation was suddenly shipped back to [the state capital] Trenton. ... physically taken out of our office and taken to the attorney general's office.”

He called it “highly unusual,” adding, “The head of our special investigations unit who was heading the investigation was very abruptly taken off the case two weeks before the dismissal.”

Barlyn called the relationships between those being investigated and Christie “compelling,” adding “there’s simply photographic evidence” showing Christie “associating with these individuals.”

In the interview, Barlyn claimed he was fired for “political reasons.” He said the state attorney general gave him no explanation for his dismissal.

“I asked for one and was told that I wasn't entitled to an explanation,” Barlyn said. “I gave up my access to the building. I returned home again completely in the dark although I had a feeling of what precipitated the dismissal. My Internet connection to the office was cut off. And three weeks later I received a one-page faxed dismissal letter from the director of the Division of Criminal Justice. Again, no reason was given of why I was terminated after 18 years of being ... a state and county prosecutor with a pretty good rep.”/quote]

More...http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jersey-gov-chris-christie-criminal-investigation/story?id=28753740

NBC News anchor Brian Williams conceded on Wednesday that a story he had told about being under fire while covering the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was false.

Williams said he was not aboard a helicopter that was hit by enemy fire and forced down — a story he retold as recently as last week during a televised tribute to a retired soldier during a New York Rangers hockey game.

On “NBC Nightly News” Wednesday evening, Williams read a 50-second statement apologizing for his characterization of the episode.

“After a groundfire incident in the desert during the Iraq war invasion, I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” he said. “It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in that desert. I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. I was instead in a following aircraft. . . . This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and, by extension, our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served while I did not.”[/quote

More...http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/brian-williams-admits-that-his-story-of-coming-under-fire-while-in-iraq-was-false/2015/02/04/d7fe32d0-acc0-11e4-9c91-e9d2f9fde644_story.html

Main Stream Media Journalism 101 

CONCORD - New Hampshire may have a new front-runner in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

The first survey conducted in the first-in-the-nation primary state since Mitt Romney's exit from the 2016 White House race indicates that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker leads the pack of potential Republican presidential contenders.

According to an NH1 Pulse Poll released Wednesday, Walker has the backing of 21.2% of those who say they're likely to vote in next year's GOP presidential primary. The automated survey indicates Jeb Bush in second place, with 14.4% saying they'd support the former two-term Florida governor if the Feb. 9, 2016 primary was held now.

The poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday, after Romney's announcement last Friday that he wouldn't make a third run for the White House. The 2012 GOP nominee and former Massachusetts governor, who owns a vacation home along Lake Winnipesaukee, is very well known in New Hampshire and would have been the front-runner in the primary if he had launched a campaign.

A NH1 Pulse Poll conducted two weeks ago put Romney at 29% support, far ahead of the rest of the field. Bush was at 11% and Walker was at 8% in that same survey.

In his announcement, Romney said "I believe that one of our next generation of Republican leaders, one who may not be as well-known as I am today, one who has not yet taken their message across the country, one who is just getting started, may well emerge as being better able to defeat the Democrat nominee. In fact, I expect and hope that to be the case."

The poll suggests that Walker may possibly be that Republican leader. First elected governor in 2010 in a state that leans towards the Democrats, Walker became a national hero to many conservatives thanks to his high profile 2011-2012 battle against state public sector unions over collective bargaining rights.

The U.S. Army’s preparatory course for the next Ranger School cycle ended with 5 out of 26 women completing the course. All were officers.

Out of 122 soldiers to start the course, 48 percent passed. There were 43 male dropouts in addition to the 21 women, Army Times reported Wednesday.

The army considers its two-week Army National Guard Ranger Training and Assessment Course to be a reliable litmus test for which soldiers are likely to have a chance at passing Ranger School. The army hopes that 40 women will pass the preparatory course between now and April.

“This first iteration of an integrated RTAC has provided significant lessons learned as we conduct a deliberate and professional way forward to the integrated assessment in April,” Maj. Gen. Scott Miller, commanding general of the Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Benning, said in a statement, Army Times reported.

Any female soldiers who attend Ranger School in April will be tested on a variety of skills, including land navigation, a Combat Water Survival Assessment, the Ranger Physical Assessment and a 12-mile road march. There is also a 62-day course comprised of jungle, mountain and swamp phases.

Sen. Rand Paul will oppose—very publicly—the nomination of U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General of the United States.

The Kentucky Republican is unveiling his opposition to Lynch on Greta Van Susteren’s On The Record program on Fox News.

Earlier Wednesday, in his office in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill, Breitbart News watched as the senator’s legal and press team briefed him final time before the interview. Sergio Gor, Paul’s communications director, his press secretary Eleanor May and attorney Brian Darling were all present.

Paul asked the team about Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) question during Lynch’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing about whether she’d oppose using a drone to kill an American citizen on American soil.

When Paul heard about her non-answer—she wouldn’t commit that the federal government does not have such authority—he was incredulous. Furthermore, Paul was appalled that Lynch came out in favor of President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty and the use of asset forfeiture—where the federal government seizes people’s property sometimes with flimsy reasoning, something even the Obama administration has offered slight opposition to—and then told his office staff he’s going to oppose her and aim to derail her nomination chances. “Oh, she’s going down,” Paul said to the room.

“I think ideally you want an attorney general who, if there were a problem, would be independent and objective looking at the executive branch,” Paul said in a previous interview with Breitbart News this past weekend aboard a flight to Dallas, Texas, where he had several speaking engagements and publicly welcomed Texas GOP chairman Steve Munisteri to his likely 2016 presidential campaign.

That’s kind of what you want an attorney general to do. I’m concerned that a big part of her fame as a federal prosecutor was through civil forfeiture. She was asked specifically about this by Sen. Lee, and her response was ‘oh, everything is fine, it’s done with a court order.’ She seems to not quite understand that innocent people are having their stuff taken by government–their cars, their money, their hotels, their stuff is being confiscated by government even if they’re never charged or even if they’re never convicted. She didn’t seem to grasp that point and this is a week after parts of the administration said they were not going to enforce some of the civil forfeiture..."

Forget legalizing pot: Two of the most powerful Republicans in the Senate believe there’s a much stronger chance to legalize growing hemp in the U.S., opening up an entirely new market for crops, health food, oil, shirts, towels and even dog toys.

Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie are pushing legislation in both chambers of Congress that would remove the less-potent member of the cannabis family from the federal list of controlled substances, allowing its return to America’s farmland after more than 40 years.

It’s a states’ rights and economic growth issue, the Republican lawmakers argue. Legalizing hemp would create jobs.

“People used to downplay the number of jobs industrial hemp might create and say, ‘Well it’s a few thousand jobs and a couple million in commerce,’” Massie said. But all told, legalizing the crop has the potential to create 10 times as many jobs “as the Keystone XL pipeline will create 10 years from now.”

Hemp legalization legislation has been considered in Congress since 2005, when then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) pushed the issue. But the current bills have champions in positions of power, including the Senate majority leader and a potential White House contender.

...

The Federal Reserve is lashing out at Sen. Rand Paul’s plan to give Congress more oversight over the central bank, a proposal that could gain traction in the new Republican-led Congress.

The Kentucky Republican reintroduced his “Audit the Fed” legislation last month with 30 co-sponsors, including other potential 2016 GOP hopefuls, Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Marco Rubio (Fla.).

The proposal — once championed by his father, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) —would subject the central bank to an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Regional bank presidents from around the country are decrying the plan, which they argue could damage the economy.

“Who in their right mind would ask the Congress of the United States — who can’t cobble together a fiscal policy — to assume control of monetary policy?” Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said during an interview with The Hill.

Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen has already vowed to fight the legislation, and President Obama would likely veto it.

Still, Fed watchers note that Paul has become emboldened by the new Republican majority in Congress. And he possesses an ever louder national microphone, as he moves closer to a 2016 presidential run.

Together, those factors could elevate the issue in the coming months, a prospect that has spurred strong words from bank officials.

Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser told The Hill that financial auditing “already exists” for the Fed, and warned that Paul’s plan would empower Congress “to audit and question monetary policy decisions in real time.”

“This runs the risk of monetary policy decisions being based on short-term political considerations instead of the longer-term health of the economy,” Plosser said.

Paul pushed back against the criticism, saying Fed officials “will say and do anything to keep their business hidden from the American people.”

For Paul, the legislation allows him to burnish his Republican-libertarian credentials.

And he appears to want to make it part of his early presidential campaigning. On Friday, Paul will hold an Audit the Fed rally in Des Moines, Iowa, as part of a weekend trip to the early presidential caucus state.

The issue could give Paul an opening to tap into the public’s mistrust of the government, more than six years after the federal bailouts that followed the 2008 economic crisis.

“This secretive government-run bureaucracy promotes policies that have impacted the lives of all Americans,” Paul said. “Citizens have the right to know why the Fed’s policies have resulted in a stagnant economy and record numbers of people dropping out of the workforce.”