The fol­low­ing is a state­ment from Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Arnaldo Brown, acknowl­edg­ing the high cost of his tele­phone bill:

I under­stand the pub­lic con­cern over tele­phone expens­es incurred dur­ing the twelve 12 month peri­od July 2013 to June 2014.

During the peri­od, I went on 15 over­seas assign­ments on behalf of the Government and peo­ple of Jamaica. I vis­it­ed sev­er­al coun­tries, includ­ing the United Kingdom, Turkey and Indonesia.

The call and data charges were incurred as I exe­cut­ed my duties as Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade. Whilst on over­seas assign­ment, it is nec­es­sary to be in con­tact with, and be acces­si­ble to the Ministry, key stake­hold­ers and the Diaspora by phone and e‑mail.

The con­cern of Jamaicans is ful­ly under­stood and accept­ed, and with­out more infor­ma­tion, I know the impres­sion that such expen­di­ture may con­vey. I acknowl­edge that the bills are very high, large­ly attrib­uted to data and roam­ing charges. However, it is impor­tant for every­one to know that these bills were incurred gen­uine­ly as I car­ried out my work and because of the high cost of roam­ing for voice and data ser­vices. In going for­ward, I intend to put in place mea­sures to ensure a reduc­tion in the cost of these bills.

Currently, I am on offi­cial busi­ness over­seas and I am more than will­ing to address this issue and to give a more ful­some response upon return. jamaicaob​serv​er​.com

Fair enough…
As I said before this expense may be legit. The prob­lem I have is with the lack of over­sight and mech­a­nisms in place to off­set these expen­di­tures, for exam­ples hav­ing Jamaican Consulates source tem­po­rary num­bers for the use of Ministers when they are abroad so as to min­i­mize costs.

CONFIRMED: Second U.S. Patient With Ebola… First Case Transmitted In U.S…Hospital Claims ‘Following Full CDC Precautions’… CDC: ‘Clearly A Breach In Protocol’ – But We Don’t Know What… Everyone Who Treated First Patient ‘Now Potentially Exposed’… Massachusetts Clinic Quarantined Over Possible New Case… Scare At LAX… Obama Orders Immediate Federal Action…

The Texas health care work­er who con­tract­ed Ebola after pro­vid­ing care for an infect­ed patient like­ly breached safe­ty pro­to­cols, health offi­cials said Sunday. “Certainly there has to have been an inad­ver­tent, inno­cent breach of the pro­to­col of tak­ing care of the patient with­in the per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment — that extreme­ly rarely hap­pens,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “We’ve been tak­ing care of Ebola patients since 1976. Groups like Doctors Without Borders who do that almost nev­er have an infec­tion, because of the expe­ri­ence of doing this.”

During an appear­ance on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Tom Frieden, direc­tor of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told mod­er­a­tor Bob Schieffer that the agency was “deeply con­cerned.” “I think the fact that we don’t know of a breach in pro­to­col is con­cern­ing, because clear­ly there was a breach in pro­to­col. We have the abil­i­ty to pre­vent a spread in Ebola,” said Frieden. He added that the health care work­er, whose iden­ti­ty has not been made pub­lic, may have improp­er­ly tak­en off their pro­tec­tive gear or con­tract­ed the dis­ease while using dial­y­sis and intu­ba­tion to treat the orig­i­nal patient, Thomas Eric Duncan. Duncandied Wednesday. Read more here : http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​1​0​/​1​2​/​e​b​o​l​a​-​p​r​o​t​o​c​o​l​_​n​_​5​9​7​2​7​7​6​.​h​tml

The Trinidad and Tobago gov­ern­ment says the influx of thou­sands of ille­gal Jamaicans into that coun­try is putting a strain on its resources, result­ing in the loss of more than a bil­lion dol­lars annually.

National Security Minister Gary Griffith made the dis­clo­sures this morn­ing in a state­ment defend­ing the actions of Immigration offi­cers in the twin island repub­lic who deport­ed 13 Jamaicans last month.
Griffiths says immi­gra­tion author­i­ties can­not act as a rub­ber stamp when it comes to allow­ing peo­ple into the country.
According to him, there are more than 19,000 Jamaicans in Trinidad and Tobago who entered at legit­i­mate ports of entry, but remains there ille­gal­ly and can­not be account­ed for. Describing the fig­ure as alarm­ing, Griffith point­ed out that those per­sons who are in Trinidad and Tobago ille­gal­ly are depen­dent on State resources such as edu­ca­tion and health care.
In addi­tion, he says while some may be employed, they are not sub­ject to tax­es, which results in a net rev­enue loss of over $1 bil­lion annu­al­ly. The Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) this week urged the Jamaican gov­ern­ment to imme­di­ate­ly address reports that Jamaican nation­als were being harassed when they vis­it Trinidad and Tobago. Read more here :http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​l​a​t​e​s​t​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​.​p​h​p​?​i​d​=​5​5​949

POLICE Commissioner Carl Williams led a team of senior offi­cers and oth­er mem­bers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) in a clean-up of police sta­tions across the island on Wednesday, and has giv­en his com­mit­ment to ensur­ing that sta­tion com­pounds and police facil­i­ties are kept clean and free of mos­qui­to breed­ing sites. The com­mis­sion­er said the ini­tia­tive was rolled out in light of the increas­ing num­ber of chikun­gun­ya cas­es. “We want to ensure that we don’t do this for one day, but we do it on an ongo­ing basis,” said Williams. “We want­ed to ensure that the sta­tion com­pounds and all police facil­i­ties are free of the vec­tor that car­ries the chikun­gun­ya virus,” he con­tin­ued, adding that police sta­tions with major lock­ups were tar­get­ed. He made the com­ment as he led a team at the Half-Way-Tree Police Station, from where he went on to the Mobile Reserve. The police com­mis­sion­er said, men­while, that assess­ments have shown that there were no cas­es of pris­on­ers hav­ing symp­toms of chikun­gun­ya. There are, how­ev­er, cas­es of police­men and women infect­ed with the virus.

“At Half-Way- Tree, out of the 500 offi­cers only 25 were affect­ed,” said Williams. He said the major­i­ty of police per­son­nel affect­ed were based in east­ern parish­es. “Police force, the work­ers, the police offi­cers have been affect­ed but not to the extent where we are clos­ing down our oper­a­tions.” WIlliams said.

Russia is mov­ing tac­ti­cal nuclear weapons sys­tems into recent­ly-annexed Crimea while the Obama admin­is­tra­tion is back­ing infor­mal talks aimed at cut­ting U.S. tac­ti­cal nuclear deploy­ments in Europe.

Three senior House Republican lead­ers wrote to President Obama two weeks ago warn­ing that Moscow will deploy nuclear mis­siles and bombers armed with long-range air launched cruise mis­siles into occu­pied Ukrainian territory.

“Locating nuclear weapons on the sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­ry of anoth­er state with­out its per­mis­sion is a devi­ous and cyn­i­cal action,” states the let­ter signed by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R., Calif.) and two sub­com­mit­tee chairmen.

“It fur­ther posi­tions Russian nuclear weapons clos­er to the heart of NATO, and it allows Russia to gain a mil­i­tary ben­e­fit from its seizure of Crimea, allow­ing Russia to prof­it from its action.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent months “has esca­lat­ed his use of nuclear threats to a lev­el not seen since the Cold War,” they wrote.

In a relat­ed devel­op­ment, the Obama admin­is­tra­tion is fund­ing non-offi­cial arms con­trol talks with Russia through a Washington think-tank that are aimed at curb­ing U.S. tac­ti­cal nuclear arms in Europe.

The first round of talks was held in Vienna Monday and Tuesday.

Critics say Obama admin­is­tra­tion arms con­trol offi­cials at the State Department and Pentagon are using the infor­mal nuclear talks as ground­work for future tac­ti­cal nuclear arms cuts.

Such cuts are like­ly to be opposed by NATO allies, espe­cial­ly in Eastern Europe, wor­ried by grow­ing Russian mil­i­tary threats to the continent.

Regarding the nuclear deploy­ments to Crimea, Senate Armed Services Committee rank­ing mem­ber James Inhofe (R., Okla.) first dis­closed last month that Putin had announced in August his approval of deploy­ing nuclear-capa­ble Iskander‑M short-range mis­siles along with Tu-22 nuclear-capa­ble bombers in Crimea, locat­ed on the Black Sea.

“The sta­tion­ing of new nuclear forces on the Crimean penin­su­la, Ukrainian ter­ri­to­ry Russia annexed in March, is both a new and men­ac­ing threat to the secu­ri­ty of Europe and also a clear mes­sage from Putin that he intends to con­tin­ue to vio­late the ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty of his neigh­bors,” Inhofe stat­ed in a Sept. 8 op-ed in Foreign Policy.

In their Sept. 23 let­ter to the pres­i­dent, McKeon, Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.), chair­man of the sub­com­mit­tee on strate­gic forces, and Rep. Michael Turner (R., Ohio), chair­man of the sub­com­mit­tee on tac­ti­cal air and land forces, not­ed Russia’s vio­la­tion of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty by build­ing a banned cruise mis­sile. The mis­sile has been iden­ti­fied by U.S. offi­cials as the R‑500.

The law­mak­ers said the Russian nuclear deploy­ment in Crimea rep­re­sents the “clear, and per­haps irrev­o­ca­ble tear­ing” of the 1997 agree­ment between NATO and Russia that allowed Russia to main­tain a mil­i­tary pres­ence with­in the alliance.

The Russian nuclear deploy­ment plans and treaty vio­la­tion should have been dis­cussed dur­ing the recent NATO sum­mit in Wales but were not, they said.

As a result, the con­gress­men urged the pres­i­dent to brief Congress on the threat­en­ing Russian nuclear deploy­ments in Crimea. They also called on the pres­i­dent to sus­pend the NATO-Russia accord and demand the removal of all Russian mil­i­tary per­son­nel from NATO facilities.

Additionally, they asked that the United States and its allies halt all arms con­trol sur­veil­lance flights by Russia car­ried out under the Open Skies Treaty.

Significantly, the three House lead­ers called on the admin­is­tra­tion to begin research and devel­op­ment on deploy­ment sites for new U.S. inter­me­di­ate-range ground-launched cruise and bal­lis­tic mis­siles, if Russian refus­es to return to com­pli­ance with the INF accord. Read more here : http://​free​bea​con​.com/​n​a​t​i​o​n​a​l​-​s​e​c​u​r​i​t​y​/​r​u​s​s​i​a​-​d​e​p​l​o​y​i​n​g​-​t​a​c​t​i​c​a​l​-​n​u​c​l​e​a​r​-​a​r​m​s​-​i​n​-​c​r​i​m​ea/

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) -

It’s an announce­ment that con­tin­ues to rock a Montgomery church and the sur­round­ing community.

WSFA 12 News con­firmed with church lead­ers, includ­ing the now for­mer pas­tor of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, Juan Demetrius McFarland him­self, that McFarland con­fessed from the pul­pit a few Sundays ago that he had full blown AIDS and had slept with church mem­bers with­out reveal­ing he had AIDS.

Shocked and stunned, church mem­bers con­tact­ed the 12 NEWS DEFENDERS and reac­tion is com­ing in from the con­gre­ga­tion that is still in disbelief.

McFarland did­n’t hold back when he revealed to wor­shipers at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church on Sept. 14, that he con­tract­ed HIV in 2003 and dis­cov­ered in 2008 he had AIDS.

“The church was very accept­ing of Reverend McFarland and was will­ing to help him in any way pos­si­ble,” a church mem­ber, who want­ed to remain unnamed, explained.

Once the pas­tor, with 23 years of lead­er­ship, start­ed reveal­ing more and more on the fol­low­ing Sundays, mem­bers and lead­ers say they real­ized he had crossed the line.

In a res­o­lu­tion read aloud at the church, lead­ers shared, and Pastor McFarland con­firmed to WSFA 12 News, that he admit­ted to drug use and mis­han­dling of church funds. And there was what mem­bers say was the ulti­mate shock­er, described by church dea­con Nathan Williams Jr.

“He con­cealed from the church that he had know­ing­ly engaged in adul­tery in the church build­ing with female mem­bers of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church while know­ing­ly hav­ing AIDS,” Williams said.

McFarland was removed as church pas­tor on Oct. 5. Still, church mem­bers say some con­gre­ga­tion mem­bers are afraid to come for­ward and many oth­ers are concerned.

“Who does this to peo­ple, and you are the leader? Who does this?” anoth­er unnamed church mem­ber asked.

“I know a young lady who is a mem­ber of the church who says she has slept with him and that she did­n’t want this to go pub­lic, and she run­ning out now try­ing to find out if there is any­thing wrong with her,” the mem­ber explained. “And my heart goes out to her because she’s been a won­der­ful church mem­ber, and then for some­thing like this to hap­pen. The fact that he did­n’t tell them at all. That’s a crime in itself.” read more here :http://​www​.msnews​now​.com/​s​t​o​r​y​/​2​6​7​3​7​9​3​5​/​m​o​n​t​g​o​m​e​r​y​-​p​a​s​t​o​r​-​a​d​m​i​t​s​-​t​o​-​h​a​v​i​n​g​-​a​i​d​s​-​s​l​e​e​p​i​n​g​-​w​i​t​h​-​c​h​u​r​c​h​-​m​e​m​b​ers

By Kenny Bahr

ST LOUIS, Mo. Oct 8 (Reuters) — A white off-duty police­man shot and killed a black teenag­er in St Louis on Wednesday, offi­cers said, trig­ger­ing a night of protests just miles from the site of anoth­er police shoot­ing of anoth­er black youth in the sub­urb of Ferguson. Police said the 18-year-old was armed and fired three shots while he was being chased by the offi­cer, and they had recov­ered a gun at the scene. he youth was killed almost two months to the day since some­times vio­lent protests erupt­ed in Ferguson after a white police offi­cer shot dead unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown.

In Wednesday’s shoot­ing, the dead man was one of three peo­ple who fled after being approached by the offi­cer, a six-year vet­er­an of the depart­ment who was work­ing for a pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson said.

The offi­cer, who was wear­ing his city police uni­form, fired 17 shots at the teenag­er, police added.

A crowd of around 200 gath­ered at the scene in the south St. Louis neigh­bor­hood of Shaw, 11 miles (18 km) south of Ferguson. Many of the pro­test­ers marched to a major thor­ough­fare, par­tial­ly block­ing traf­fic and chant­i­ng “Whose streets? Our streets?” as a police heli­copter hov­ered over­head. Teyonna Myers, 23, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch news­pa­per that she was the cousin of the sus­pect and that he was unarmed when he was killed. “He had a sand­wich in his hand, and they thought it was a gun. It’s like Michael Brown all over again,” she told the paper. Police have not named the teenag­er. More here: http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​1​0​/​0​8​/​s​t​-​l​o​u​i​s​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​s​h​o​o​t​i​n​g​_​n​_​5​9​5​6​5​0​2​.​h​tml

Yesterday, a grand jury in Habersham County, Georgia, decid­ed not to bring charges against the police offi­cers who threw a flash­bang grenade into the crib of Bounkham Phonesavanh, known affec­tion­ate­ly as “Baby Bou Bou.” The explo­sion left a hole in the then-19-month-old’s chest, expos­ing his rib, and almost ripped his nose from his face.

How could this hap­pen? Combine sys­temic police mil­i­ta­riza­tion, the war on drugs, and slop­py police work, and you have the per­fect recipe for dis­as­ter. In May, the Habersham County Special Response Team exe­cut­ed a no-knock drug raid on the home of a fam­i­ly friend where Baby Bou Bou, his par­ents, and sis­ters were stay­ing. It was the mid­dle of the night, and even though the fam­i­ly’s mini­van was parked in the dri­ve­way and chil­dren’s toys were in the yard, a squad of SWAT offi­cers decid­ed to throw a flash­bang grenade into the liv­ing room. Acting and look­ing like an invad­ing army, the cops broke down the door, ter­ror­iz­ing the entire fam­i­ly. When Alecia, Baby Bou Bou’s moth­er, tried to go to him, they screamed at her to shut up. They vio­lent­ly threw and pinned Bou, his father, to the ground, injur­ing his shoul­der so bad­ly he can­not take care of his chil­dren alone any­more. Alecia and Bou did not see their son until they arrived at the hos­pi­tal sev­er­al hours lat­er. When they were able to see him, they were devastated.

The explo­sion from the flash­bang tore a hole in Bou Bou’s chest, sep­a­rat­ed his nose from his face, and cov­ered his body in third degree burns. His injuries were so severe that doc­tors placed Bou Bou in a med­ical­ly induced coma. And for what? The man the SWAT team was look­ing for no longer lived in the house and was lat­er arrest­ed with­out inci­dent. There weren’t any guns or drugs in the home either. To add insult to injury, the coun­ty refus­es to pay the Phonesavanh’s med­ical bills, which now total $1 mil­lion, claim­ing the law does­n’t allow it. Read full Article here: http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​k​a​r​a​-​d​a​n​s​k​y​/​h​o​w​-​m​a​n​y​-​p​e​o​p​l​e​-​m​u​s​t​-​b​e​-​m​_​b​_​5​9​4​8​5​4​2​.​h​tml

ASSISTANT Commissioner of Police Novelette Grant yes­ter­day became only the sec­ond woman in the his­to­ry of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) to be named to the sec­ond high­est posi­tion in the organ­i­sa­tion — deputy com­mis­sion­er of police (DCP).

Grant will be in charge of the admin­is­tra­tion port­fo­lio for­mer­ly held by DCP Clifford Blake, who has been put in charge of oper­a­tions, while DCP Glenmore Hinds who had the oper­a­tions port­fo­lio has been put in charge of crime, which was held by new­ly appoint­ed com­mis­sion­er Carl Williams.

DCP Grant, pri­or to her new appoint­ment, served the JCF as the com­man­der for Police Area 5 which includes the divi­sions of St Andrew North, St Catherine North and South and St Thomas.

Read it here:http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​m​a​g​a​z​i​n​e​s​/​a​l​l​w​o​m​a​n​/​N​o​v​e​l​e​t​t​e​-​G​r​a​n​t​-​n​o​w​-​d​e​p​u​t​y​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​c​o​m​m​i​s​s​i​o​n​e​r​_​1​7​6​6​6​334

A Oregon cou­ple face bank­rupt­cy for refus­ing to bake wed­ding cake for a Lesbian couple.

The ordeal start­ed in February 2013, when Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman asked the bak­ery own­ers to design a wed­ding cake for their same-sex com­mit­ment cer­e­mo­ny. At the time, Oregon defined mar­riage as the union between one man and one woman; vot­ers over­whelm­ing­ly approved the con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment in 2004. Aaron told The Daily Signal he thought he was “well with­in” his legal rights to decline the ser­vice, cit­ing his tra­di­tion­al beliefs that a mar­riage is between a man and a woman.

In January 2014, the Kleins were charged with vio­lat­ing Oregon’s Equality Act of 2007, a law that pro­tects the rights of the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty. It wasn’t until months lat­er, May 19, 2014, that a fed­er­al judge would declare Oregon’s amend­ment uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, paving the way for same-sex mar­riages. “Ironically, the state was in vio­la­tion of its own anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion laws,” said Aaron.

»> Farmers to Lesbian Couple: ‘We’re Not Hateful People’

Melissa and Aaron Klein are in the process of appeal­ing the deci­sion hand­ed down by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. Following threats, vicious protests and boy­cotts, they have also been forced to close their bakery.

Melissa told The Daily Signal the charges have “def­i­nite­ly impact­ed us pret­ty hard financially.”

Read more here. Dailysignal​.com

After fac­ing scathing crit­i­cism on Tuesday for the agency allow­ing an intrud­er with a knife to run into the White House, and allow­ing an armed con­trac­tor ride an ele­va­tor with President Barack Obama, the head of the U.S. Secret Service resigned today.Secret Service Director Julia Pierson acknowl­edged the agency charged with pro­tect­ing Obama had failed on Sept. 19 when it allowed a man to jump the fence at the home of the pres­i­dent, burst through the front door and run about 130 feet (40 meters) into the East Room, which is used for events and recep­tions. “This is unac­cept­able and I take full respon­si­bil­i­ty,” Pierson told a U.S. House of Representatives com­mit­tee. “We are all out­raged with­in the Secret Service at how this inci­dent came to pass. It is self-evi­dent mis­takes were made,” she said, promis­ing law­mak­ers that it would nev­er hap­pen again.

Related: Secret Service Blows Another Security Assignment

As a first step, Pierson said the front door of the White House now has an auto­mat­ed lock when there is a secu­ri­ty breach. It did not have one at the time of the intru­sion. Any dis­ci­pli­nary actions, how­ev­er, would be based on an inter­nal probe by the agency, Pierson said. The inci­dent was anoth­er black mark for the Secret Service, which has suf­fered a series of scan­dals includ­ing a lone gun­man fir­ing shots at the White House in 2011, a pros­ti­tu­tion scan­dal involv­ing agents in Colombia in 2012 and a night of drink­ing in March that led to three agents being sent home from a pres­i­den­tial trip to Amsterdam. Factbox

In anoth­er secu­ri­ty lapse for the agency, a pri­vate secu­ri­ty agent who had a gun shared an ele­va­tor with Obama in Atlanta on Sept. 16, three days before the White House intru­sion, a Secret Service offi­cial said. The man, who was oper­at­ing an ele­va­tor car­ry­ing Obama and his Secret Service detail dur­ing the pres­i­den­t’s vis­it to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aroused sus­pi­cion when he began tak­ing pic­tures and video of Obama on his phone, the offi­cial said. During ques­tion­ing, the man’s super­vi­sor asked for his gun, star­tling Secret Service agents. Under agency rules, peo­ple with access to the pres­i­dent need spe­cial clear­ance to car­ry guns. The Washington Post, which along with the Washington Examiner, first report­ed the inci­dent, said the man had three con­vic­tions for assault and battery.

Related: Secret Service Scandal: It Gets Worse

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, a Republican, said an inter­nal probe was insuf­fi­cient to rebuild trust in the agency. U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, chair­man of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said he would intro­duce leg­is­la­tion to cre­ate an inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion to con­duct a top-to-bot­tom review of the agency.

In a hear­ing last­ing more than three hours, law­mak­ers crit­i­cized Pierson’s ini­tial post-inci­dent state­ment, which made it appear intrud­er Omar Gonzalez was appre­hend­ed just inside the door. But she acknowl­edged on Tuesday that Gonzalez, an Iraq war vet­er­an, strug­gled with an offi­cer inside the door and crossed through a large foy­er into a hall­way and most of the way through the 80-foot (24-meter) East Room. Shortly before the intru­sion, Obama and his fam­i­ly had left for the weekend.

‘HOW ON EARTH DID THIS HAPPEN?’

Gonzalez will return on Wednesday to fed­er­al court, where he has been charged with unlaw­ful entry while car­ry­ing a weapon. A fed­er­al grand jury indict­ed him on Tuesday on that fed­er­al offense, along with District of Columbia charges of car­ry­ing a dan­ger­ous weapon out­side a home or busi­ness and unlaw­ful pos­ses­sion of ammunition.

Related: Issa’s Hearing on Secret Service Lapses Could Bring Fireworks

“The White House is sup­posed to be one of America’s most secure facil­i­ties,” Issa said. “How on Earth did this hap­pen?” Another Republican, U.S. Representative Jason Chaffetz, pressed Pierson on when offi­cers can use lethal force against intrud­ers in a mod­ern era of sui­cide bombers. She said such deci­sions were up to offi­cers, but they first need to deter­mine that they or oth­ers are in immi­nent danger.

Chaffetz told Pierson: “I want it to be crys­tal clear. You make a run and a dash at the White House, we’re gonna take you down. I want over­whelm­ing force. Do you dis­agree with me?” Pierson replied, “I do want offi­cers and agents to exe­cute appro­pri­ate force for any­one intend­ing to chal­lenge and breach the White House.”

Pierson said the Secret Service had appre­hend­ed 16 fence jumpers in the last five years, includ­ing six this year. On Sept. 11, some­one was caught sec­onds after scal­ing the fence. Lawmakers ques­tioned why Gonzalez had escaped more scruti­ny. In July, he was arrest­ed in Virginia for reck­less dri­ving, elud­ing police and pos­sess­ing a sawed-off shot­gun. In August, he was stopped, but not arrest­ed, while walk­ing along the south fence of the White House with a hatch­et in his waistband.

Pierson said the agency was down about 550 employ­ees from its opti­mal lev­el, and there had been staff reduc­tions fol­low­ing auto­mat­ic spend­ing cuts and “oth­er fis­cal constraints.”

Obama appoint­ed Pierson, 55, a 30-year Secret Service vet­er­an, in March 2013. The first female direc­tor in the agen­cy’s 148-his­to­ry, she was giv­en the mis­sion of clean­ing up the agen­cy’s culture.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama had con­fi­dence in Pierson and said she did not offer her res­ig­na­tion. That changed today when Pierson offered her res­ig­na­tion and President Obama accept­ed it.

Read it here : http://​finance​.yahoo​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​s​e​c​r​e​t​-​h​e​a​d​-​r​e​s​i​g​n​s​-​m​u​l​t​i​p​l​e​-​l​a​p​s​e​s​-​2​0​1​0​0​0​0​8​9​.​h​t​m​l​;​_​y​l​t​=​A​w​r​B​T​8​Q​b​c​C​x​U​q​a​4​A​r​U​R​X​N​y​o​A​;​_​y​l​u​=​X​3​o​D​M​T​E​z​Z​j​l​s​Y​j​F​2​B​H​N​l​Y​w​N​z​c​g​R​w​b​3​M​D​M​Q​R​j​b​2​x​vA2

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The man who scaled the White House fence and broke into the exec­u­tive man­sion ear­li­er this month was tack­led by an off-duty Secret Service offi­cer, the Washington Post report­ed Tuesday. According to the Post, an agent who was leav­ing for the night after see­ing President Barack Obama’s fam­i­ly leave the premis­es by heli­copter was walk­ing through the White House when Omar Gonzalez dashed through the front door and into the East Room. Gonzalez, who was armed with a knife, report­ed­ly over­pow­ered anoth­er Secret Service agent near the main foy­er before he was even­tu­al­ly tack­led by the off-duty offi­cer, who had been serv­ing on the Obama daugh­ters’ secu­ri­ty detail. Prosecutors said last week that Gonzales had 800 rounds of ammu­ni­tion in his car, in addi­tion to a machete and two hatch­ets. Read more here: huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​0​9​/​3​0​/​s​e​c​r​e​t​-​s​e​r​v​i​c​e​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​h​o​u​s​e​-​i​n​t​r​u​d​e​r​_​n​_​5​9​0​8​2​6​6​.​h​t​m​l​www

Washington (CNN) — The man who jumped the White House fence ear­li­er this month and breached the man­sion’s doors actu­al­ly made it far­ther than orig­i­nal­ly thought, offi­cials said Monday.

White House fence jumper has PTSD, for­mer step­son says

Omar Gonzalez, a 42-year-old Iraq war vet­er­an who had a knife in his pock­et, over­came one Secret Service offi­cer and ran into the East Room of the White House, where he was then sub­dued, a fed­er­al law enforce­ment said. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who was pro­vid­ed the infor­ma­tion by whistle­blow­ers dur­ing his con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tion into the inci­dent, also con­firmed the details of what now appears to be a wild chase through the main floor of the White House, first report­ed by theWashington Post. The Secret Service had pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed that Gonzalez was stopped after enter­ing the front door of the North Portico.

Gonzalez ran through much of the main floor, past a stair­way that leads up to the first fam­i­ly’s res­i­dence, and was ulti­mate­ly stopped at the far south­ern end of the East Room. He also reached the door­way to the Green Room, an area that looks out on the South Lawn. No shots were fired inside the White House, the fed­er­al law offi­cial said. Official: Secret Service twice inter­viewed, released would-be White House intrud­er The Secret Service has not yet com­ment­ed on the new details. “I could not be more proud of the indi­vid­ual agents, but I wor­ry that Director (Julia) Pierson and the lead­er­ship there at the Secret Service is fail­ing them,” Chaffetz said Monday on “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” Pierson will face tough ques­tions at an already-sched­uled hear­ing on Tuesday before the House Oversight Committee.

A Republican from Utah who sits on the com­mit­tee, said he wants to know why an audi­ble alarm in the White House had been mut­ed after ush­ers said it was mak­ing too many nois­es. And short­ly after the inci­dent ear­li­er this month, the Secret Service issued a state­ment say­ing offi­cers “showed tremen­dous restraint and dis­ci­pline in deal­ing with” Gonzalez. Chaffetz said he has a prob­lem with that, too. “I don’t want tremen­dous restraint,” he said. “I want to see over­whelm­ing force to deter some­body. When you have the sit­u­a­tion where you have the appar­ent lax secu­ri­ty, you’re unfor­tu­nate­ly going to invite more attacks. And that’s the con­cern.” Pierson sent a let­ter to com­mit­tee chair­man Darrell Issa last Friday rais­ing con­cerns about an hold­ing open dis­cus­sion on secu­ri­ty issues and urged the chair­man to allow some of her tes­ti­mo­ny to take place in a clas­si­fied set­ting. “Simply put, pub­licly air­ing the very secu­ri­ty mea­sures employed by the Secret Service and the var­i­ous chal­lenges we con­front at the White House com­plex will arm those who desire to cause injury — or worse — to the President and First Family with crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion, and doing so would be beyond reck­less,” Pierson wrote.

How the Secret Service could beef up White House security

CNN has learned from a Democratic source on the Oversight Committee that Issa has agreed to Pierson’s request, and will hold a sep­a­rate, clas­si­fied ses­sion on Tuesday. The top Democrat on the com­mit­tee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D‑Maryland, praised the deci­sion to pro­tect the agen­cy’s mis­sion. “This is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but an American issue, and the last thing we should do is give peo­ple like Gonzalez a road map for how to attack the President or oth­er offi­cials,” Cummings said in a writ­ten state­ment to CNN. http://​www​.cnn​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​0​9​/​2​9​/​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​s​/​w​h​-​f​e​n​c​e​-​j​u​m​p​e​r​/​i​n​d​e​x​.​h​t​m​l​?​h​p​t​=​h​p​_c3

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg expressed her extreme regret over sev­er­al of the cur­rent Court’s rul­ings in a wide-rang­ing inter­view pub­lished in The New Republic Sunday evening, includ­ing their reject­ing the com­merce clause of President Barack Obama’s health care law, and issu­ing a huge blow to the Voting Rights Act in their Shelby County v. Holder decision.

But the first Supreme Court rul­ing Ginsburg would send to the guil­lo­tine would be the Court’s deci­sion in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, giv­ing cor­po­ra­tions and unions the green light to give and spend unlim­it­ed sums of mon­ey on inde­pen­dent polit­i­cal activ­i­ty. “If there was one deci­sion I would over­rule,” Ginsburg told The New Republic, it would be Citizens United. “I think the notion that we have all the democ­ra­cy that mon­ey can buy strays so far from what our democ­ra­cy is sup­posed to be,” she said. Ginsburg said that the Court, in CItizens United as well as in the case of Shelby County, “should have respect­ed the leg­isla­tive judg­ment.” “Legislators know much more about elec­tions than the Court does. … I think mem­bers of the leg­is­la­ture, peo­ple who have to run for office, know the con­nec­tion between mon­ey and influ­ence on what laws get passed.” According to Ginsburg, things may have played out dif­fer­ent­ly had Justice Sandra Day O’Connor not retired so soon. She told The New Republic that O’Connor would have sided with the minor­i­ty on Citizens United, Shelby County, as well as the Court’s Hobby Lobby rul­ing. “I think she must be con­cerned about some of the court’s rul­ings, those that veer away from opin­ions she wrote,” Ginsburg said. Read it here: http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​0​9​/​2​8​/​r​u​t​h​-​b​a​d​e​r​-​g​i​n​s​b​u​r​g​-​c​i​t​i​z​e​n​s​-​u​n​i​t​e​d​_​n​_​5​8​9​7​7​6​0​.​h​tml

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bureaucrats in Ferguson, Missouri, respond­ing to requests under the state’s Sunshine Act to turn over gov­ern­ment files about the fatal shoot­ing of 18-year-old Michael Brown, are charg­ing near­ly 10 times the cost of some of their own employ­ees’ salaries before they will agree to release any records. The move dis­cour­ages jour­nal­ists and civ­il rights groups from inves­ti­gat­ing the shoot­ing and its after­math. The city has demand­ed high fees to pro­duce copies of records that, under Missouri law, it could give away free if it deter­mined the mate­r­i­al was in the pub­lic’s inter­est to see. Instead, in some cas­es, the city has demand­ed high fees with lit­tle expla­na­tion or cost break­down. It billed The Associated Press $135 an hour — for near­ly a day’s work — mere­ly to retrieve a hand­ful of email accounts since the shooting.

That fee com­pares with an entry-lev­el, hourly salary of $13.90 in the city clerk’s office, and it did­n’t include costs to review the emails or release them. The AP has not paid for the search. Price-goug­ing for gov­ern­ment files is one way that local, state and fed­er­al agen­cies have respond­ed to requests for poten­tial­ly embar­rass­ing infor­ma­tion they may not want released. Open records laws are designed to give the pub­lic access to gov­ern­ment records at lit­tle or no cost, and have his­tor­i­cal­ly exposed waste, wrong­do­ing and cor­rup­tion. “The first line of defense is to make the requester go away,” said Rick Blum, who coor­di­nates the Sunshine in Government Initiative, a coali­tion of media groups that advo­cates for open gov­ern­ment. “Charging exor­bi­tant fees to sim­ply cut and paste is a pop­u­lar tac­tic.” Since Brown’s death and ensu­ing protests, news orga­ni­za­tions, non­prof­it groups and every­day cit­i­zens have sub­mit­ted records requests to Ferguson offi­cials, ask­ing for police reports, records about Brown and the per­son­nel files of Officer Darren Wilson, who shot Brown Aug. 9. Organizations like the web­site Buzzfeed were told they’d have to pay unspec­i­fied thou­sands of dol­lars for emails and mem­os about Ferguson’s traf­fic-cita­tion poli­cies and changes to local elec­tions. The Washington Post said Ferguson want­ed no less than $200 for its requests.

A city spokes­woman referred inquiries about pub­lic records requests to the city’s attor­ney, Stephanie Karr, who declined to respond to repeat­ed inter­view requests from the AP since ear­li­er this month. Some states pro­vide pub­lic records for free or lit­tle cost, while oth­ers like Missouri can require fees that “result in the low­est charges for search, research and dupli­ca­tion.” The AP asked for a fee waiv­er because it argued the records would serve the pub­lic inter­est, as the law allows, but that request was denied. A spokesman for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon referred ques­tions about the high fees to the state’s attor­ney gen­er­al, who han­dles free­dom-of-infor­ma­tion com­plaints. A spokes­woman for his office said none had been filed on the issue. In late August, the AP asked Ferguson offi­cials for copies of sev­er­al police offi­cials’ emails and text mes­sages, includ­ing those belong­ing to Wilson and Chief Thomas Jackson. The AP sought those records to reveal the city’s behind-the-scenes response to the shoot­ing and pub­lic protests. Ferguson told the AP it want­ed near­ly $2,000 to pay a con­sult­ing firm for up to 16 hours of work to retrieve mes­sages on its own email sys­tem, a prac­tice that infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy experts call unnec­es­sary. The firm, St. Louis-based Acumen Consulting, would­n’t com­ment specif­i­cal­ly on Ferguson’s con­tract, but said the search could be more com­pli­cat­ed and require tech­ni­cians to exam­ine tape back­ups. The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filed a pub­lic records law­suit days after the shoot­ing for Brown-relat­ed police reports, but ulti­mate­ly received a cen­sored report that omit­ted offi­cers’ names and oth­er details usu­al­ly released in such doc­u­ments. Jonathan Groves, pres­i­dent of the Missouri Sunshine Coalition and a for­mer dai­ly jour­nal­ist, said that while pub­lic agen­cies can legal­ly charge rea­son­able fees for records, an unfet­tered Sunshine Law is nonethe­less an impor­tant tool “so that we have faith in what the gov­ern­ment is doing.” Read more here : http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​0​9​/​2​9​/​f​e​r​g​u​s​o​n​-​c​i​t​y​-​f​i​l​e​s​_​n​_​5​8​9​9​3​8​8​.​h​tml