"Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald has admitted that he lied about serving in the special operations forces in a conversation with a homeless veteran that was caught on camera earlier this year.

"McDonald made the claim in January while he was in Los Angeles as part of the VA's effort to locate and house homeless veterans. During the tour, a homeless man told McDonald that he had served in the special operations forces.

"'Special forces? What years?' McDonald responded. 'I was in special forces.' The exchange was broadcast on 'The CBS Evening News' Jan. 30. McDonald's misstatement was first reported by The Huffington Post.

"McDonald graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1975 and completed Army Ranger training before being assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division until his retirement in 1980. According to the Huffington Post, while McDonald was formally recognized as a graduate of Ranger School, he never actually served in a Ranger battalion or other special operations unit.

"'I have no excuse,' the website quoted McDonald as saying in its report. 'I was not in special forces.'"

"Critics of President Obama's 'net neutrality' plan call it ObamaCare for the Internet.

"That's unfair to ObamaCare.

"Both ObamaCare and 'Obamanet' submit huge industries to complex regulations. Their supporters say the new rules had to be passed before anyone could read them. But at least ObamaCare claimed it would solve long-standing problems. Obamanet promises to fix an Internet that isn't broken.

"The permissionless Internet, which allows anyone to introduce a website, app or device without government review, ends this week. On Thursday the three Democrats among the five commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission will vote to regulate the Internet under rules written for monopoly utilities. ...

"This week Mr. Obama's bureaucrats will give him the regulated Internet he demands. Unless Congress or the courts block Obamanet, it will be the end of the Internet as we know it."

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Britain's electronic spying agency, in cooperation with the U.S. National Security Agency, hacked into the networks of a Dutch company to steal codes that allow both governments to seamlessly eavesdrop on mobile phones worldwide, according to the documents given to journalists by Edward Snowden.

"A story about the documents posted Thursday on the website The Intercept offered no details on how the intelligence agencies employed the eavesdropping capability - providing no evidence, for example, that they misused it to spy on people who weren't valid intelligence targets. But the surreptitious operation against the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phone data chips is bound to stoke anger around the world. It fuels an impression that the NSA and its British counterpart will do whatever they deem necessary to further their surveillance prowess, even if it means stealing information from law-abiding Western companies."

"Opponents have thrown pretty much every stereotypical trope in the leftist playbook Walker's way, and to little avail. He has been attacked as a racist (for talking about the American Dream) and a sexist (for, well, being a Republican). Walker even inspired a recent loopy New York Times hit piece blaming him for spending cuts that occurred before he even took office. Walker's detractors also embrace the fact that he dropped out of Marquette University before graduating, arguing that his shortage of college credits equals a lack of the sophistication and knowledge needed to be president of the United States.

"This gets amusing, of course, when we see what passes as 'sophistication' on the left. This week, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf -- who not only has a bachelor's degree, but a master's in foreign relations -- postulated to Chris Matthews that the Islamic State’s beheading factory stemmed from members' lack of access to good jobs. Later, she defended her comments -- which, by the way, contradict much of what we know about modern terrorism -- as being too 'nuanced' for regular people to understand. Meanwhile, this week, President Obama spent a lot of time talking about a rather vague outbreak of 'violent extremism.' His focus? 'Empowering local communities.'

Scott Walker, meanwhile, cut to the chase. 'We should call it what it is: radical Islamic terrorism.' Whatever becomes of Walker's presidential bid -- and a lot could happen in the next few months -- one thing is clear: The Wisconsin governor seems to offer a fairly trenchant foil to the modern left. 'Scott Walker knows his enemies,' Jamelle Bouie wrote this week at Slate. 'And so far, they haven't figured it out.' In the meantime, he's certainly bringing out their worst characteristics."

"Judge Hanen's stay is no guarantee the president will lose the lawsuit the states have brought against him, or even that the stay won't be lifted.

"Still, it's nice to see a judge remind this former teacher of constitutional law that when he says he issued his executive orders 'to change the law,' he'€™s just undermined his own case."

"This Court, for the reasons discussed above, hereby grants the Plaintiff States' request for a preliminary injunction. It hereby finds that at least Texas has satisfied the necessary standing requirements that the Defendants have clearly legislated a substantive rule without complying with the procedural requirements under the Administration Procedure Act. The Injunction is contained in a separate order. Nonetheless, for the sake of clarity, this temporary injunction enjoins the implementation of the DAPA program that awards legal presence and additional benefits to the four million or more individuals potentially covered by the DAPA Memorandum and to the three extensions/additions to the DACA program also contained in the same DAPA Memorandum. It does not enjoin or impair the Secretary's ability to marshal his assets or deploy the resources of the DHS. It does not enjoin the Secretary's ability to set priorities for the DHS. It does not enjoin the previously instituted 2012 DACA program except for the expansions created in the November 20, 2014 DAPA Memorandum."

"The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

"Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, 'the Prophetic methodology,' which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn't actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We'll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State's intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal."

Read full article here

"WASHINGTON -- Ever since President Obama ordered American warplanes to begin bombing terrorist targets in Iraq and Syria last year, members of Congress have insisted on having a say in the matter. The president, they declared, could not, or at least should not, take the country back to war without the input of the nation's elected representatives.

"Now, six months after he sent the military back into combat to take on the terror group calling itself the Islamic State, Mr. Obama has acquiesced and sent a measure to Congress asking it to formally authorize what he has been doing all along. And now that they have gotten what they asked for, few in Congress seem all that enthusiastic about the prospect.

"One side thinks the president'€™s request for war-making powers is too brazen and even reckless. The other side thinks it is too spineless and probably ineffectual. 'It does not seem to have resonated with anyone,' said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a member of the Intelligence Committee. 'I haven't found any colleague who'€™s been enthusiastic about it.'"

"It started with a groundswell of support and an appeal to 'Bring Back Our Girls.' Ten months later, with most of those Nigerian schoolgirls no closer to being home, the White House rarely invokes the mounting atrocities committed by Boko Haram.

"As President Obama devotes more time to confronting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria --” he requested formal war powers on Wednesday --€” and as his administration increasingly focuses on the bloodshed in Ukraine, the rising body count in Nigeria has become just a passing reference.

"Unlike the recent Paris terrorist attacks, Boko Haram wasn'€™t mentioned in Obama's State of the Union address last month. ...

"The terrorist group's grip on power has only strengthened since more than 270 girls were kidnapped in April from a Chibok boarding school in Nigeria. Similar kidnappings have multiplied, and an estimated 10,000 people have died during the past year alone, including 2,000 civilians during a single massacre in January."

"I know you'll be stunned to hear this, but even though Islamic terrorists have nothing to do with Islam, they appear to think Islamic scripture means what it says. So if you were randomly to peruse, say, the charter of Hamas --€” an Islamic terrorist group that has nothing to do with Islam and that is randomly the Palestinian branch of the 'largely secular' Muslim Brotherhood -- look what you find in Article 7:

"'Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah'€™s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!'

"Random? You'€™d almost think we were dealing with an identifiable enemy motivated by a distinct ideology that is drawn verbatim from a particular belief system'€™s scriptures. Nah . . . "