By , ,
Published May 19, 2015
Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:
More Warrant-less Monitoring?
It turns out the federal government has been secretly monitoring radiation levels and hundreds of Muslim sites in Washington and other American cities since 2002, all of that without a warrant.
U.S. News & World Report says the FBI began checking mosques and office buildings in suburban Washington for evidence of a nuclear device on a daily basis in 2002. Federal officials deny court orders are necessary since all monitoring is done from publicly accessible locations. But Georgetown professor David Cole tells the magazine, "The issue isn't where they are, but whether they're using a tactic to intrude on privacy. It seems to me that they are."
Return Policy
Senators Conrad Burns, Max Baucus and others have returned more than $250,000 in campaign donations connected with indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff who has also been accused of bilking Indian tribes out of millions of dollars. But Arizona Republican Congressman J.D. Hayworth has received $150,000 from tribes with Abramoff connections, says he sees no reason to give the money back.
One tribal leader tells The Arizona Republic Newspaper he doesn't want Hayworth to return the cash. And the Congressman's chief of staff says the tribes have told us we loved you before we met Jack Abramoff, we love you after Jack Abramoff and think it would be foolish of you to give back the money.
Blaming The Times
The White House has apologized of accusing The Washington Times of breaking the story that Usama bin Laden used a satellite phone.
In a news conference this week, President Bush blamed the media for reporting that U.S. intelligence was tracking bin Laden through his phone leading the Al Qaeda leader to use other methods of communication. But the paper never reported bin Laden was being trapped, only that he used a satellite phone, a fact that was previously reported by Time magazine, CBS, CNN and others.
"Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie"?
And the conservative Young America's Foundation has come up with a list of the 12, "Most bizarre and troubling instances of leftist activism supplanting traditional scholarship at U.S. colleges and universities."
Occidental College outside Los Angeles made the list with a course titled — we're not kidding here — "The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie."
A Princeton class on "Same Sex Eroticism in Renaissance Europe" topped the YAF list, followed closely by a John's Hopkins course on "Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll in Ancient Egypt."
— FOX News' Aaron Bruns contributed to this report
https://www.foxnews.com/story/unbearable-whiteness-of-barbie