This appears to stem from a July 2014 incident when Governor Cuomo cancelled a corruption commission that was finding corruption in his own administration.

(New York Times) Federal authorities are expected to arrest Sheldon Silver, the powerful speaker of the New York State Assembly, on corruption charges on Thursday, people with knowledge of the matter said, in a case that is likely to throw Albany into disarray.
The investigation that led to the expected charges against Mr. Silver, a Democrat from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who has served as speaker for more than two decades, began after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in March abruptly shut down an anticorruption commission he had created in 2013.
Details of the specific charges to be brought against Mr. Silver were unclear on Wednesday night, but one of the people with knowledge of the matter said they stemmed from payments that Mr. Silver received from a small law firm that specializes in seeking reductions of New York City real estate taxes. Mr. Silver failed to list the payments from the firm, Goldberg & Iryami, on his annual financial disclosure filings, as required. (read more)

Break out the “Bellbottoms”, dust off the “Earth Shoes”… Similar to establishing ties toward the Palestinian terror network, the Palestinian Authority/HAMAS, President Obama is once again set to complete the unfinished work of Jimmy Carter… this time with Cuba.

HAVANA — Fidel Castro called the building a “nest of spies,” routinely marshaling tens of thousands of people to protest at its doorstep. His government even made a television mini-series with what it called images of American diplomats lurking in a forest nearby, dropping off suspicious bags and marking benches in acts of espionage.

President George W. Bush took swipes of his own, installing a Times Square-style ticker on the building’s side to flash news and political statements. The move so enraged Cuban officials that they erected a thicket of 138 black flags on towering poles to block the sign.
Now the building, the American government’s main outpost in Cuba, for decades a hulking symbol of the tensions between the two countries, is supposed to become something else: a full-fledged embassy operating in the open for the first time in more than five decades. (more…)

There are two large photo gallery files AVAILABLE HERE – of the Dellwood Market looting.  St. Louis County Police 314-889-2341 – CrimeStoppers at 866-371-8477.

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MO (KTVI) – The St. Louis County Police Department released nearly 200 images taken from surveillance video on the night looters ransacked a Dellwood business last November.

The looting occurred on November 24, in the hours following the announcement that a grand jury would not indict a Ferguson police officer in the shooting death of Michael Brown.
The suspects smashed their way into the Dellwood Market on Chambers Road and stole several items before fleeing. (more…)

WASHINGTON DC – The woman whose story of economic recovery was showcased by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address is a former Democratic campaign staffer and has been used by Obama for political events in the past.
Rebekah Erler has been presented by the White House as a woman who was discovered by the president after she wrote to him last March about her economic hardships. She was showcased in the speech as proof that middle class Americans are coming forward to say that Obama’s policies are working.
Unmentioned in the White House bio of Erler is that she is a former Democratic campaign operative, working as a field organizer for Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.). (more…)

This was a no-brainer for anyone who followed the case. As early as August 18th, just a week after the Mike Brown shooting (pictured below), both Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama knew there was no foundation for any charges against officer Wilson. They allowed the fiasco to continue for election benefits.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is taking the final steps toward closing the politically charged investigation into the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., and clearing the white police officer involved of civil rights charges.

Federal prosecutors have begun work on a legal memo recommending no civil rights charges against the officer, Darren Wilson, law enforcement officials said.
That would close the case in the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. An investigation by the F.B.I., which is complete, found no evidence to support the charges against the officer, the officials said. (read more)

This is a weird story without too many details to come to a decision. But on the initial reports it does look like a ridiculous governmental overreach.  The family tried to avoid any contact with government, self-identify as “preppers” and homeschool their kids…
(Via Truth Revolt) group of fully-armed sheriff’s deputies entered an Arkansas family’s home and removed their seven children for 72 hours after an anonymous tip led them to find a mineral supplement used by the father for its alleged health benefits.
On Monday afternoon of last week, a search warrant was issued at the home of Hal Stanley after an anonymous caller tipped off officers to search for a product known as Miracle Mineral Solution. This substance is said to be used to treat serious medical conditions — even by the Red Cross in Africa for malaria — and is used as a water purification agent.

The FDA has issued a warning to users of the product saying it turns into a “potent bleach” when mixed according to the directions and has caused “some users” to experience nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration.
Stanley said that he is the only one in the home that uses the supplement and that he adds it to the water that feeds their vegetable garden.
(more…)

Toward the end of President Obama’s SOU speech you find:

 […] Imagine if we broke out of these tired old patterns. Imagine if we did something different.
Understand — a better politics isn’t one where Democrats abandon their agenda or Republicans simply embrace mine.
A better politics is one where we appeal to each other’s basic decency instead of our basest fears.
A better politics is one where we debate without demonizing each other; where we talk issues, and values, and principles, and facts, rather than “gotcha” moments, or trivial gaffes, or fake controversies that have nothing to do with people’s daily lives.

Immediately followed by this: (more…)

Everyone can rest easy knowing Obama has the priorities in order.

OBAMA: In the Asia Pacific, we are modernizing alliances while making sure that other nations play by the rules — in how they trade, how they resolve maritime disputes, and how they participate in meeting common international challenges like nonproliferation and disaster relief. And no challenge — no challenge — poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.

2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record. Now, one year doesn’t make a trend, but this does — 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century. (more…)

Example: 2013 President Obama announces 41 new legislative proposals.  Two actually came to fruition.

WASHINGTON – Judging by his recent history, it doesn’t really matter what President Obama says in Tuesday’s State of the Union address — Congress is going to ignore him anyway.
Mr. Obama has the second-worst record of getting his State of the Union policy requests enacted into law of any president in the last five decades, according to an analysis by two scholars that puts him only above the unelected two-year presidency of Gerald Ford.
From 2009 through 2014, Mr. Obama issued 209 different calls for action from Congress in his speeches, but only saw lawmakers follow through on 64 of them — good for just 30 percent. That’s only slightly better than Mr. Ford’s 28 percent success rate, and is well below the likes of President Clinton, the previous Democratic president, who won 44 percent of his policies even though he faced a Congress more Republican than Mr. Obama has. (more…)

I’ve spent some time going back through the post election -yet pre-holiday- white house briefings, and comparing them to recent pre-SOU leaks.
What strikes me as odd is how people are discussing the Obama “Legislative Proposals“, ie. “free college” and “tax the rich”, as if he actually means it. I’m sure people reading this understand that: ♦ the legislative branch passes laws; ♦ the executive branch enforces laws; and ♦ the judicial branch interprets laws.
So why is so much attention being paid to President Obama’s “legislative proposals”?
Why doesn’t everyone in congress just ignore him. Elections have consequences, he lost.
Let President Obama banter on listening to his own voice at yet another grand State of The Union speech, filled with so much rhetoric and nonsense, that no-one can ever remember from year to year. And then ignore it. I certainly hope the “GOP response” which customarily follows the SOU doesn’t give the “legislative proposals” any mention, because there is simply no need to.
Republicans control the House and the Senate chambers with majorities in both legislative houses – they don’t need to engage in a futile discussion about legislation they will never bring forward, so why talk about it. (more…)