Sharpton again

Well Al Sharpton is at it again. This time he wants to censor talk radio and the Internet, specifically bloggers on the internet. I wonder if he was thinking of yours truly when he came up with this scheme. He really has it in for Rush Limbaugh in particular and really wants to censor him. Sharpton has even go so far as to ask the FCC to regulate what is said over the airwaves. First of all the FCC cannot regulate political speech as it is prohibited from doing so by the first amendment to the constitution. Second even if they were Sharpton also has a talk show and then someone can threaten Sharpton with the removal of his show. If that were to happen Sharpton would cry like a baby saying they cancelled his show. It's amazing how little these liberal think things through.

Bogyman

America has always needed the presence of an enemy to unite the people in one way or divide them in others. With the republicans it's been the presence of the Soviet Union and terrorists and with democrats it has been males particularly white males but recently I've noticed a new enemy emerge and that new enemy is the Mexican drug cartel. I've been watching FOX and they had a sheriff from Pinas county Arizona on and he stated there have been threats on his life by the cartels. If someone were to charge forth emotionally in this they would think this is an outrage and demand action. However if one were to objectively analyze this they would see that this is the government wanting more power (less liberties) in the name of "protection". The government wants more power with intrusive laws: The Know Your Customer Act and the Patriot Act are a couple of examples and has tried to censor the internet so I'm a little suspicious when a politician asks us to give up more of our rights. This current government is very socialist and trying to take more of our rights. Let's hope this November results in different people in congress.

Dept. of Justice excuses black racism part 2

In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.

J. Christian Adams, testifying Tuesday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said that "over and over and over again," the department showed "hostility" toward those cases. He described the Black Panther case as one example of that -- he defended the legitimacy of the suit and said his "blood boiled" when he heard a Justice official claim the case wasn't solid.

"It is false," Adams said of the claim.

"We abetted wrongdoing and abandoned law-abiding citizens," he later testified.

The department abandoned the New Black Panther case last year. It stemmed from an incident on Election Day in 2008 in Philadelphia, where members of the party were videotaped in front of a polling place, dressed in military-style uniforms and allegedly hurling racial slurs while one brandished a night stick.

The Bush Justice Department brought the first case against three members of the group,accusing them in a civil complaint of violating the Voter Rights Act. The Obama administration initially pursued the case, winning a default judgment in federal court in April 2009 when the Black Panther members did not appear in court. But then the administration moved to dismiss the charges the following month after getting one of the New Black Panther members to agree to not carry a "deadly weapon" near a polling place until 2012.

In a statement Tuesday, a Justice spokesman said the civil rights division determined "the facts and the law did not support pursuing claims" against the two other defendants and denied Adams' allegations.

"The department makes enforcement decisions based on the merits, not the race, gender or ethnicity of any party involved. We are committed to comprehensive and vigorous enforcement of both the civil and criminal provisions of the federal laws that prohibit voter intimidation," the spokesman said.

The Civil Rights Commission, which subpoenaed Adams, has been probing the incident since last year. Adams said he ignored department directives not to testify and eventually quit after he heard Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez testify that there were concerns the Black Panther case was not supported by the facts.

Adams has described the case as open-and-shut and said Tuesday that it was a "very low moment" to hear Perez make that claim.

But he described the department's hostility toward that and other cases involving black defendants as "pervasive." Adams cited hostility in the department toward a 2007 voting rights case against a black official in Mississippi who was accused of trying to intimidate voters. Adams said that when the Black Panther case came up, he heard officials in the department say it was "no big deal" and "media-generated" and point to "Fox News" as the source.

But as the investigation unfolded, he said he discovered "indications" that the Black Panther Party was doing the "same thing" to supporters of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary season in early 2008. He urged the commission to pursue testimony from other Justice officials to corroborate his story.

It's unclear how far the commission will get. The commissioners want to hear from
Christopher Coates, the former chief of the Justice Department's voting section, but the commission claims the Justice Department is blocking Coates from testifying about why the case was dropped.

In a written statement last week, the department questioned the motives of Adams, now an attorney in Virginia and a blogger for Pajamas Media.

"It is not uncommon for attorneys with the department to have good faith disagreements about the appropriate course of action in a particular case, although it is regrettable when a former department attorney distorts the facts and makes baseless allegations to promote his or her agenda," the statement said.

Adams said Tuesday that his personal views played no part in his handling of the case. He also said he did not fight to testify before the commission but resigned after the department would not take action to quash the subpoena.


Source:click here

Justice Dept. excuses black racism

A former Justice Department attorney who resigned last month in protest of the Obama administration's handling of a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party accused a top Justice official of lying under oath about the circumstances surrounding the decision to drop the case.

J. Christian Adams, now an attorney in Virginia and a blogger for Pajamas Media, told Fox News in an exclusive interview that aired Wednesday that Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez provided false testimony in May to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, which is investigating the department's decision to drop charges against three members of the radical group in a case that the government won.

Perez told the commission that the facts and the law didn't support the case against the group.

"I know about the truth…and I know what the truth is and I know to say the facts and law don't support the Black Panther case is not true," Adams said, adding that Perez ignored his warnings not to provide false testimony.

"We made it very clear that continuing to say that the facts and the law don't support this case would not be consistent with the truth," he said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler called Adams' allegations "baseless."

"It is not uncommon for attorneys within the department to have good faith disagreements about the appropriate course of action in a particular case, although it is regrettable when a former department attorney distorts the facts and makes baseless allegations to promote his or her agenda," she said in a written statement provided Wednesday.

In the final days of the Bush administration, three Black Panthers -- Minister King Samir Shabazz, Malik Zulu Shabazz and Jerry Jackson -- were charged in a civil complaint with violating the Voter Rights Act in November 2008 by using coercion, threats and intimidation at a Philadelphia polling station -- with Shabazz brandishing what prosecutors called a deadly weapon.

The Obama administration won a default judgment in federal court in April 2009 when the Black Panthers didn't appear in court to fight the charges. But the administration moved to dismiss the charges in May 2009. Justice attorneys said a criminal complaint against one of the Panthers, which resulted in the injunction, proceeded successfully.

The department "is committed to comprehensive and vigorous enforcement of both the civil and criminal provisions of federal law that prohibit voter intimidation. We continue to work with voters, communities, and local law enforcement to ensure that every American can vote free from intimidation, coercion or threats," Schmaler said.

But Adams told Fox News that the department's decision to dismiss the case reeked of racial politics and corruption.

"I don't think the department or the fine people who work there are corrupt, but in this particular instance, to abandon law-abiding citizens and abet wrongdoers constitutes corruption," he said.

Adams said he quit last month after the department ordered attorneys to ignore a subpoena from the commission.

"After being ordered not to comply with the lawful subpoena, after hearing the lies that are being said about the case, after the corruption that we had witnessed in the case, I just said that's it, that I resign and now I'm no longer there," he said.

Adams also said the department has been caught lying about the case, including the assertion that the decision to dismiss the charges was made only by Loretta King, acting head of the civil rights division, and Steve Rosenbaum, an attorney with the division.

Citing a Washington Times article, Adams said Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli, the No. 3 official in the department, was responsible for the decision. He also said a written response from the department to the commission revealed that Attorney General Eric Holder was also briefed on the case.

"The initial statements of the department are being proved in hindsight to be false," he said.

When asked whether Holder signed off on the decision to dismiss the case, Adams said, "I can't answer that. We were just doing our job. We didn't even know these things. We thought we had a good case. We thought it's all going to be over with soon and we're going to win. And then it wasn't."

But Adams noted that a former Justice Department official testified to the commission that it would be "unheard of" for a decision like this to be made without the attorney general's blessing.

Source:click here

Determined pilot delievers message to IRS

Man angry at IRS crashes plane into Texas building

AP – Firefighters work on putting out a fire at a seven-story building after a small private plane crashed …
By JIM VERTUNO, Associated Press Writer Jim Vertuno, Associated Press Writer – 1 min ago
AUSTIN, Texas – A software engineer furious with the Internal Revenue Service launched a suicide attack on the agency Thursday by crashing his small plane into an office building containing nearly 200 IRS employees, setting off a raging fire that sent workers fleeing for their lives. At least one person in the building was missing.

The FBI tentatively identified the pilot as Joseph Stack. A federal law official said investigators were looking at a long anti-government screed and farewell note that he apparently posted on the Web earlier in the day as an explanation for what he was about to do.

In it, the author cited run-ins he had with the IRS and ranted about the tax agency, government bailouts and corporate America's "thugs and plunderers."

"I have had all I can stand," he wrote in the note, dated Thursday, adding: "I choose not to keep looking over my shoulder at `big brother' while he strips my carcass."

Stack, 53, also apparently set fire to his house about six miles from the crash site before embarking on the suicide flight, said two law enforcement officials, who like other authorities spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still going on.

The pilot took off in a single-engine Piper Cherokee from an airport in Georgetown, about 30 miles from Austin, without filing a flight plan. He flew low over the Austin skyline before plowing into the side of the hulking, seven-story, black-glass building just before 10 a.m. with a thunderous explosion that instantly stirred memories of Sept. 11.

Flames shot from the building, windows exploded, a huge pillar of black smoke rose over the city, and terrified workers rushed to get out.

The Pentagon scrambled two F-16 fighter jets from Houston to patrol the skies over the burning building before it became clear that it was the act of a lone pilot, and President Barack Obama was briefed on the crash.

"It felt like a bomb blew off," said Peggy Walker, an IRS revenue officer who was sitting at her desk. "The ceiling caved in and windows blew in. We got up and ran."

Stack was presumed dead, and police said they had not recovered his body. Thirteen people were treated after the crash and two remained in critical condition Thursday evening, authorities said. About 190 IRS employees work in the building.

Gerry Cullen was eating breakfast at a restaurant across the street when the plane struck the building and "vanished in a fireball."

Matt Farney, who was in the parking lot of a nearby Home Depot, said he saw a low-flying plane near some apartments and the office building just before it crashed.

"I figured he was going to buzz the apartments or he was showing off," Farney said. "It was insane. It didn't look like he was out of control or anything."

Sitting at her desk in another building a half-mile from the crash, Michelle Santibanez said she felt vibrations from the crash. She and her co-workers ran to the windows, where they witnessed a scene that reminded them of 9/11, she said.

"It was the same kind of scenario, with window panels falling out and desks falling out and paperwork flying," said Santibanez, an accountant.

The building, situated in a heavily congested section of Austin, was still smoldering six hours after the crash, with much of the damage on the second and third floors.

The entire outside of the second floor was gone on the side of the building where the plane hit. Support beams were bent inward. Venetian blinds dangled from blown-out windows, and large sections of the exterior were blackened with soot.

Andrew Jacobson, an IRS revenue officer who was on the second floor when the plane hit with a "big whoomp" and then a second explosion, said about six people couldn't use the stairwell because of smoke and debris. He found a metal bar to break a window so the group could crawl out onto a concrete ledge, where they were rescued by firefighters. His bloody hands were bandaged.

The FBI was investigating. The National Transportation Safety Board sent an investigator as well.

In the long, rambling, self-described "rant" that Stack apparently posted on the Internet, he began: "If you're reading this, you're no doubt asking yourself, `Why did this have to happen?'"

He recounted his financial reverses, his difficulty finding work in Austin, and at least two clashes with the IRS, one of them after he filed no return because, he said, he had no income, the other after he failed to report his wife Sheryl's income.

He railed against politicians, the Catholic Church, the "unthinkable atrocities" committed by big business, and the government bailouts that followed. He said he slowly came to the conclusion that "violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer."

"I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well," he wrote.

According to California state records, Stack had a troubled business history, twice starting software companies in California that ultimately were suspended by the state's tax board, one in 2000, the other in 2004. Also, his first wife filed for bankruptcy in 1999, listing a debt to the IRS of nearly $126,000.

The blaze at Stack's home, a red-brick house on a tree-lined street in a middle-class neighborhood, caved in the roof and blew out the windows. Elbert Hutchins, who lives one house away, said the house caught fire about 9:15 a.m. He said a woman and her teenage daughter drove up to the house before firefighters arrived.

"They both were very, very distraught," said Hutchins, a retiree who said he didn't know the family well. "'That's our house!' they cried. `That's our house!'"

Red Cross spokeswoman Marty McKellips said the agency was treating two people who live in the house.

___

Associated Press writers April Castro and Jay Root in Austin; Devlin Barrett, Lolita C. Baldor and Joan Lowy in Washington; and Melanie Coffee in Chicago contributed to this report, along with the AP News Research Center.

Source:click here

Politician's confession

Disillusioned Bayh advocates electoral “shock” to broken system

In an interview on MSNBC this morning, newly retiring Sen. Evan Bayh declared the American political system "dysfunctional," riddled with "brain-dead partisanship" and permanent campaigning. Flatly denying any possibility that he'd seek the presidency or any other higher office, Bayh argued that the American people needed to deliver a "shock" to Congress by voting incumbents out en masse and replacing them with people interested in reforming the process and governing for the good of the people, rather than deep-pocketed special-interest groups.

Bayh's announcement stunned the American political world, as up until just last week he looked to be well on his way to an easy reelection for a third term in the Senate, and his senior staff was aggressively pursuing that goal.

But Bayh had apparently become increasingly frustrated in the Senate. In this morning's interview he noted that just two weeks ago, Republicans who had co-sponsored a bill with him to rein in the deficit turned around and voted against it for purely political reasons. He also stated repeatedly that members of his own party should be more willing to settle for a compromise rather than holding out for perfection.

"Sometimes half a loaf is better than none," Bayh insisted.

It's no secret that the Senate has struggled to take action this year. With the two major parties unusually far apart in their substantive proposals for the direction of the country, even finding half a loaf to agree on has been difficult. Though the Democrats have had a substantial majority in the Senate for the last year, Republicans have escalated their threats to use filibusters (by forcing a cloture vote, see the graph below) to force Democrats to come up with 60 votes to pass any major legislation. And after Scott Brown's election to the Senate last month gave Republicans a 41st seat, health-care reform and other Democratic goals were stopped dead in their tracks.

Bayh blamed the current atmosphere of intense partisanship on the need for senators to constantly campaign to be reelected to another six-year term. Citing his father, a popular liberal senator in the '60s and '70s, he noted that "back in the day they used to have the saying: 'You campaign for 2 years and you legislate for 4.' Now you campaign for 6!" He noted that the need for constant fundraising made it nearly impossible to focus on passing legislation.

Frustration over the increasing amount of money being spent on political campaigns isn't exactly a new thing, as spending by candidates in the 2008 presidential election nearly quadrupled the amount of money spent by candidates in the 2000 election. Additionally, winners of House races in 2000 spent an average of $849,158 to do so, while House winners in 2008 spent an average of $1,372,591. Enhancing the concerns of many on the left and the right has been a recent Supreme Court decision to strike down the country's existing campaign finance laws. Put simply, the ruling opens the door for an even greater influence of money by allowing corporations spend money directly on campaigns.

Meanwhile, voter frustration is high, making the fight for campaign cash all the more crucial to politicians hoping to remain in office. A recent poll found that 44% of Americans believe incumbents should be voted out of office.

However, reforms of Congress appear unlikely. There doesn't appear to be any significant momentum at this time behind efforts to change the rules that govern passing legislation or Congress's need to constantly campaign and fundraise. With an election year beginning, it's also unlikely that congressional leaders will begin to see eye to eye more often on major legislation.

Perhaps a "shock" is indeed called for in order to change that.

-- Andrew Golis is the Editor of and Brett Michael Dykes is a contributor to the Yahoo! News blog

Source:click here

Honesty from a politician,very refreshing.

FBI invades privacy

FBI director Robert Mueller

FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited

WASHINGTON--The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of child pornography and other serious crimes.

FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users' "origin and destination information," a bureau attorney said at a federal task force meeting on Thursday.

As far back as a 2006 speech, Mueller had called for data retention on the part of Internet providers, and emphasized the point two years later when explicitly asking Congress to enact a law making it mandatory. But it had not been clear before that the FBI was asking companies to begin to keep logs of what Web sites are visited, which few if any currently do.

The FBI is not alone in renewing its push for data retention. As CNET reported earlier this week, a survey of state computer crime investigators found them to be nearly unanimous in supporting the idea. Matt Dunn, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the Department of Homeland Security, also expressed support for the idea during the task force meeting.

Greg Motta, the chief of the FBI's digital evidence section, said that the bureau was trying to preserve its existing ability to conduct criminal investigations. Federal regulations in place since at least 1986 require phone companies that offer toll service to "retain for a period of 18 months" records including "the name, address, and telephone number of the caller, telephone number called, date, time and length of the call."

At Thursday's meeting (PDF) of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, which was created by Congress and organized by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Motta stressed that the bureau was not asking that content data, such as the text of e-mail messages, be retained.

"The question at least for the bureau has been about non-content transactional data to be preserved: transmission records, non-content records...addressing, routing, signaling of the communication," Motta said. Director Mueller recognizes, he added "there's going to be a balance of what industry can bear...He recommends origin and destination information for non-content data."

Motta pointed to a 2006 resolution from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which called for the "retention of customer subscriber information, and source and destination information for a minimum specified reasonable period of time so that it will be available to the law enforcement community."

Recording what Web sites are visited, though, is likely to draw both practical and privacy objections.

"We're not set up to keep URL information anywhere in the network," said Drew Arena, Verizon's vice president and associate general counsel for law enforcement compliance.

And, Arena added, "if you were do to deep packet inspection to see all the URLs, you would arguably violate the Wiretap Act."

Another industry representative with knowledge of how Internet service providers work was unaware of any company keeping logs of what Web sites its customers visit.

If logs of Web sites visited began to be kept, they would be available only to local, state, and federal police with legal authorization such as a subpoena or search warrant.

What remains unclear are the details of what the FBI is proposing. The possibilities include requiring an Internet provider to log the Internet protocol (IP) address of a Web site visited, or the domain name such as cnet.com, a host name such as news.cnet.com, or the actual URL such as http://reviews.cnet.com/Music/2001-6450_7-0.html.

While the first three categories could be logged without doing deep packet inspection, the fourth category would require it. That could run up against opposition in Congress, which lambasted the concept in a series of hearings in 2008, causing the demise of a company, NebuAd, which pioneered it inside the United States.

The technical challenges also may be formidable. John Seiver, an attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine who represents cable providers, said one of his clients had experience with a law enforcement request that required the logging of outbound URLs.

"Eighteen million hits an hour would have to have been logged," a staggering amount of data to sort through, Seiver said. The purpose of the FBI's request was to identify visitors to two URLs, "to try to find out...who's going to them."

A Justice Department representative said the department does not have an official position on data retention.

Disclosure: The author of this story participated in the meeting of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, though after the law enforcement representatives spoke.

Source:click here

This is an invasion of privacy and very a slippery slope but with that son of a bitch in the White House nothing is off limits. Look for this law to be used for unconstitutional political purposes.

Global warming? Where? Where?

Millions Pray for Global Warming as Cold Spell Grips the Planet
Thursday, January 7, 2010
By Carey Roberts
For global warming protesters, the week was a total downer.

A University of Utah “scream-in” for the failed Copenhagen climate conference had to be iced, thanks to an errant December blizzard. Then faced with historic snowfalls in Europe, bicyclist Thaneite Khandekar cut short his global awareness trek. “There were times when my feet would be frozen,” a dejected Khandekar had to admit.

Meanwhile, newspapers in North America, Europe, and Asia warned readers of the deep freeze that lay ahead. In the United States, over 1,200 new records for cold and snow were set in a single week.

In Europe, the UK Telegraph warned readers of “one of the coldest winters in 100 years.” A jet careened off a snow-covered airport runway in Germany. And avalanches rumbled down the Swiss Alps.

The India Meteorological Department announced, “It could turn out to be the coldest Calcutta winter ever.” Traffic bedlam reined as Seoul, Korea struggled to cope with a foot of snow.

Meanwhile a dwindling number of climate alarmists struggled to keep the faith. “In the context of global warming, extreme atmospheric flows are causing extreme climate incidents to appear more frequently,” explained Mr. Guo, head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, as the Chinese capital dug out from its biggest snow dump since 1951.

While temperatures took a nosedive, the Climategate scandal continued to surge out of control like an El Niño-driven tidal wave.

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Control, reverted to damage-control mode. “It is a well-known fact that powerful vested interests and those opposed to action on climate change are working overtime to see that they can stall action for as long as possible,” he blustered.

And what of pesky rumors that Pachauri stood to take in millions if proposed fossil fuel surcharges took effect? “As for pecuniary benefits from advice that I may be rendering to profit making organisations, these payments are all made directly to my institute, without a single penny being received by me,” Pachauri explained with a straight face.

Former Director of the National Hurricane Center Neil Frank declaimed how Climategate “reveals how predetermined political agendas shaped science.”

Canadian climatologist Tim Ball laid much of the blame for the Climategate fiasco on a “Blind and Biased Mainstream Media.” And in the Canadian arctic, Inuit hunters report the polar bears are doing fine. Harry Flaherty, chairman of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, says the bear population has become so, well, unbearable, that its numbers need to be trimmed.

No surprise, laws based on the fraudulent climate research came under fire as well.

In the U.S. Senate, President Obama’s signature “cap-and-trade” bill was shunted to the back burner. Six Georgia Congressmen charged the EPA’s emission regulations were based on “questionable and potentially fraudulent data.” In France the Constitutional Council KOed an impending national carbon tax as unconstitutional.

And come to think of it, where is Al Gore these days?

Following a disastrous Copenhagen speech where he predicted a polar melt-down within 5-7 years, the Guru of Global Apocalypse has been keeping a low profile. Nothing on his personal blog: http://blog.algore.com/ And at his ClimateProject.org, eco-speech requests for 2010 have petered off. At $100,000 a pop, corporations hit by a weak economy are having doubts about inviting the high-priced Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Meanwhile back in India, New Delhi remained under the grip of an intense cold wave. In the northern territories, 154 are reported dead from weather-related causes.

But hopefully the cold snap will end by next week.

Beginning January 14, millions of Hindus will congregate for the holy Kumbha Mela, the largest gathering of Hindus in the world. In attendance will be the renowned Naga Sadhus, members of a Hindu sect who parade through the streets unclothed.

Any guesses what the naked men’s mantra will be? Stop Global Warming.


Source:here

An interesting question: where is Al Gore? Nowhere to be found. I've never really bought into these end of the world theories. I remember back in the '80's Christians were saying that the world will end and the antichrist will reign in the '90's. If you consider Clinton to be the antichrist then you are right otherwise it didn't happen. They said that the year 2000 will usher in the second coming of Christ and that is certainly not the case. In the '90's they said the year 2000 will result in computer crashes,money being lost from bank records and that the nuclear missles will fire on their own thus bring an end to the world. Guess what? Y2K was accompanied by a whisper not a thunderbolt because nothing happened. Now they are saying that 2012 the world will end,according to the Mayan calender and the Mayan calander goes up to 2012 and ends. What does that say? Maybe they had no concept of 2013. Is the Mayan calendar in sync with the Georgarian calender that we use? Is the 2012 in the Mayan calender the same as 2012 in the Geogarian calender. Then there is the Hebrew calendar and that too invites discussion. I'm a skeptic but after all that I've heard I have become one. What am I saying? See you on Jan. 1st 2013.