Tag: Crime

QOTD: Obama loses the NYT

WOW….just Wow… 😯

Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.

Poop, meet fan.

Others: Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, Politico, BuzzFeed, Yahoo! News, Washington Post, Hit & Run, The Monkey Cage, Washington Wire, The World’s Greatest …, The Daily Caller, Law Blog,VentureBeat, Business Insider, Mediaite, The PJ Tatler, Washington Free Beacon, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, The Huffington Post, Salon, ComPost, The Week, Guardian, NO QUARTER USA NET, First Read, Mashable, American Spectator, New Republic, msnbc.com, Washington Monthly, Daily Kos,The Atlantic Wire, Firedoglake, TechCrunch, The Maddow Blog and Library of Law & Liberty – Via Memeorandum

The US continues spying on phones under Obama

There are a ton of opinions on this subject and we’ll get to those in a moment.

But first the story:

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

via NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily | World news | The Guardian.

But, there is a big difference this time:

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

Which sounds about right for the Democrats, because they are perfectly fine with Government of a massive scale.

Now there are two very important opinions on this subject that I want you to see. They are same political slant; however, the opinions are very different. Please go check out Michelle Malkin’s take and Ed Morrissey’s take on this subject. While I agree on Michelle Malkin’s assessment, I really do not agree with her narrative at all. If you are smart and read her a good deal, you will know what I am talking about.

Now there is one thing that Ed Morrissey wrote that I, as an Independent, and someone who believes that the war on terror is a very real thing and that we should at least try to keep America safe, without trampling on our constitutional rights. I believe this to be very true and  very profound statement coming from someone like Mr. Morrissey:

Hypocrisy is an unfortunately ubiquitous condition in politics, but in the case of NSA seizing Verizon’s phone records, it’s particularly widespread.  Some of the people expressing outrage for the Obama administration’s efforts at data mining had a different attitude toward it when Bush was in office.  Conversely, we’ll see some people defending Obama who considered Bush evil incarnate for the same thing.

Either way, we’re left with the situation of having the federal government seizing private records without any meaningful civil due process that engages the citizens affected, whether that includes actual wiretaps or just cataloguing our calls and movements.  Perhaps this will move this issue out of the partisan sphere and into a common ground in which we can all work to define exactly how far we’re willing to go in trading privacy for security.  In order to get there, we’d all better recognize the hypocrisy that has abounded on this issue for far too long, and start thinking about higher principles than party affiliation when it comes to national security and constitutional protections.

Now that last part that I underlined, is something I wholeheartedly agree with. When the story broke about Bush and Co. came about the wiretaps, I remember Keith Olbermann doing a special comment on it and I admired him for standing up. Now, where’s Keith? Where are the liberals who thought that this was much too intrusive? Where are they now? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

My hat tip goes to Glenn Greenwald for putting principles over partisanship and getting this story to the masses. Glenn has been about the only liberal who has stood up and pointed out that Obama Administration has continued the policies of the George W. Bush Administration and in some cases; like this one here — has expanded them to an alarming degree. Yes, this is overreach and it is alarming and I do hope the Congress does something about it.

Others: Hullabaloo, Yahoo! News, Washington Wire, Washington Monthly, New York Times,ThinkProgress, Politico, Firedoglake, BuzzFeed, CNN, Forbes, Joshua Foust, The World’s Greatest …, msnbc.com, The Atlantic Wire, JustOneMinute, American Spectator, Democracy in America,WorldViews, TIME, Business Insider, Examiner, The Fix, News Desk, Associated Press, New Republic, Daily Kos, The Maddow Blog, Mashable, Wake up America, Wonkblog, The Huffington Post, Taylor Marsh, The Volokh Conspiracy, Mediaite, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Library of Law & Liberty, Moon of Alabama, The Daily Caller, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, Engadget, Betsy’s Page, Patterico’s Pontifications, AllThingsD, Outside the Beltway, Post Politics, Informed Comment,Nice Deb, Real Clear Politics, Wired, The Gateway Pundit, The Week, Illinois Review,AMERICAblog, Pirate’s Cove, CANNONFIRE, VentureBeat, No More Mister Nice Blog, First Read,Prairie Weather, The PJ Tatler, Telegraph, The Hinterland Gazette, Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, Weasel Zippers, Jammie Wearing Fools, GigaOM, Corrente, The Spectacle Blog, Gawker, Boing Boing, The Raw Story, Shakesville, Secrecy News, The Verge, Conservatives4Palin, susiemadrak.com, Sense of Events, Taegan Goddard’s …, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The BLT, emptywheel and Overlawyered  Via Memeorandum 

UPDATED – It’s official: The Obama Administration is in deep trouble and I am done defending them

My friends, I was very, very wrong and for that, I am terribly sorry. 🙁

I said that I believed that the entire Benghazi, Libya debacle was over-hyped by the Republicans; and I still believe that, to a point.

However, there are many things that have come up since then, which I simply cannot defend.

They are:

  1. The IRS targeting Jewish groups.  – I mean, honestly, what the hell were the IRS and Obama’s people thinking when they let this one happen?
  2. IRS targeting Conservative groups in Washington and Elsewhere. — Did they not know that this would be exposed?
  3. DOJ going after the AP – This is borderline Watergate, so says a watergate player. — Again, what the hell were these people thinking?

My friends, the “Giving the benefit of the doubt” of the President and his Administration by this writer and blogger are over. There is no doubt in my mind that the Obama administration; much like the Administration of George W. Bush, became consumed with a lust for power and abused and exploited the office of President of the United States and the instruments of Governmental office for political purposes.

I leave you with two videos:

Update: Better clip via The American Spectator:

The Democrats have screwed themselves out of ever winning an election; for like oh, maybe the next 2 major election cycles. This is the sad part, Obama and his Administration promised Americans that he would be a clean break from the policies and practices of President George W. Bush and his Administration and sadly, it turns out that Obama and his Administration are just as bad; if not even worse.   As I wrote before, it is sad ending to a Presidency that offered so much to give; but ended up delivering little or nothing at all, in the realm of change.

It is going to be a long, hot, nasty, political summer for America, Americans, Black Liberal Americans and for Washington D.C.. I just hope that cool heads prevail. But, I really do fear the worst in yet to come.

Blogger Round Up #1: (via) Yahoo! News, JustOneMinute, Michelle Malkin, New York Times, Sunlight Foundation Blog, BBC, Wall Street Journal, Right Turn, waysandmeans.house.gov, Hot Air, The Week, The Daily Caller, The Hill, Daily Kos, First Read, The Maddow Blog, PostPartisan, The Fix, White House Dossier, The Other McCain, Betsy’s Page, Da Tech Guy On DaRadio Blog, Scared Monkeys,msnbc.com, Obsidian Wings, Weasel Zippers, Jammie Wearing Fools, Twitchy, National Review,The Lonely Conservative, Power Line, Conservatives4Palin and CBS DC

Blogger Round Up #2: (via) Yahoo! News, Washington Monthly, BuzzFeed, The Week, Associated Press, Hit & Run,News Desk, Fox News, Open Channel, msnbc.com, emptywheel, Guardian, WorldViews, Patterico’s Pontifications, The Huffington Post, No More Mister Nice Blog, USA Today, The Hill, Weekly Standard, Poynter, The Daily Caller, The Volokh Conspiracy, Erik Wemple, ThinkProgress, Right Wing News, Taylor Marsh, Scared Monkeys, Addicting Info, americanthinker.com, CNN,CANNONFIRE, The BLT, PJ Media, NO QUARTER USA NET, The Moderate Voice, The Hinterland Gazette, NationalJournal.com, Hot Air, Washington Free Beacon, Washington Examiner, Wired,Politico, Weasel Zippers, Gawker, THE DEFINITIVE SOURCE, Hullabaloo, Ed Driscoll, The Verge,The Gateway Pundit, SPJ News, The PJ Tatler, National Review, National Republican …, Philly.com,Mother Jones, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Sister Toldjah, Outside the Beltway, Wonkette, TalkLeft andLawfare, more at Mediagazer »

Update #1: Franklin Graham says they were targeted. Those rat bastards have no shame at all. 😡

 Update #2:  Obama Admin’s IRS targeted reporter who gave hard interview.

Update #3: I am just going to say this and get it off my chest:

IMPEACH THE FUCKER AND GET IT OVER WITH!

Roundup #3: The Gateway Pundit, Sister Toldjah, Weasel Zippers, Washington Free Beacon, Rule of Law, BuzzFeed, ViralRead, Jammie Wearing Fools,The PJ Tatler, VodkaPundit and Hot Air

Local Story: Nazi sympathizer gets popped with 18 weapons, 40,000 rounds of ammo and a hit list

I touched on this in my last posting and I am glad to see that they got this turkey:

The Video:

The Story:

Detroit (WXYZ) – In December the FBI arrested a man named Richard Schmidt.  Investigators say he is a Neo-Nazi supporter and  a convicted felon.

Now we are learning the Ohio man may have been planning to target some metro-Detroit leaders.

The FBI recently notified Detroit NAACP President Wendell Anthony and Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit Executive Director Scott Kaufman that their names were on a hit list found in Schmidt’s belongings.

“We get threats all the time in terms of the work that we do…NAACP, Social Justice, Civil Rights…but this was different,” said Anthony.

The FBI says it appears that Schmidt, 47, planned to attack soon.

He should not have had any guns under the law, but when they raided his home and business they found he was heavily armed.

“We owe the FBI and our other law enforcement partners our thanks that they caught this man with 18 firearms- some of them assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, more than 40,000 rounds of ammunition and a bulletproof vest stored in a locked room in a mall, before anyone was hurt,” said Steven M Dettelbach, United States Attorney in a press release.

via FBI: Armed Neo-Nazi supporter put metro-Detroit Jewish and civil rights leaders on a hit list.

I have seen a few comments here and there about this story. I am going to say this about it; it is one thing to have a opinion about Neoconservatives, Wilsonian foreign policy and such. But it is another entirely to be armed to the tooth and have a hit list. Whoever this guy is, it is obvious that he had criminal intentions and did intend to carry them out on these people.

As you all know, I am a right-of-center blogger and I do not usually have much good to say about the United States Government and its various agencies. However, in this instance, the United States Government and the Federal Bureau of Investigation did very well catching this guy before anything bad happened. Again, as I said, it is one thing to dislike a group of people and dislike identity politics and those who traffic in it. It is another entirely to plan out and carry criminal actions of this sort.

I happen to believe in “Rule of Law.” and I happen to believe that this upholding of the law, is a very good thing.

However, I will say this: How is it, that this man was jailed. But, this little Neo-Nazi Here remains a free man, even after scamming as many people as he did? Just asking questions.

 

Emails show that BP knew more than they told people

This is crazy….

Emails that attorneys representing a defendant in the BP oil spill case plan to introduce in February show for the first time that the oil company knew the massive scale of the 2010 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico weeks earlier than previously disclosed.

BP has long maintained that it provided full disclosure to the public and the federal government about its knowledge of the spill’s extent and did so promptly. The emails suggest otherwise.

BP has said in the past that it learned of the spill’s full extent months after the April 2010 blowout. But the emails indicate that the company knew almost immediately after the drilling rig exploded, killing 11 workers and injuring 17, that the spill may be extraordinarily large.

BP pleaded guilty in mid-November to more than a dozen felony charges related to the spill, including lying to Congress about the size of the leak, as part of a wide-ranging deal settling the company’s corporate criminal liability. Justice Department officials said a probe of individual criminal activity related to the spill is ongoing and may result in more indictments.

via HuffPo: BP Oil Spill Flow Rate Vastly Understated For Weeks, Emails Show.

At first, I thought this was nothing more than a witch hunt. Turns out I was wrong about that. This was pure evil. BP should be put out of business.

 

It Begins: Obama’s brown shirts vandalize cars

Including one, of an unemployed Obama supporter!

Check the video:

The Story via CBS 2 in LA:

ALTA LOMA (CBS) — A case of campaign vandalism is under investigation Friday in Alta Loma. Someone keyed the word “Obama” into two cars and slashed seats in another outside a residence that had Mitt Romney campaign signs. CBS2 and KCAL9 reporter Rob Schmitt spoke to Ken Slown, owner of one of the keyed vehicles. Slown actually supports President Obama! He explained to Schmitt that he and his wife — both currently unemployed — are staying with her parents and it’s her parents who support Romney. “I don’t know if they were trying to get a point across, to vote for Obama,” said Slown, “but to do something like this is not going to get the point across.” He estimates the damage to both of his vehicles at about $3,400. In addition to both cars being keyed, his wife’s vehicle had her seats slashed, as well. Said Slown, “They pretty much cut the backs of all of the seats.” A neighbor, who also has a Romney/Ryan sign in their front yard, were also hit. “Obama” keyed in the hood and on the black gate of an SUV. A GPS unit was stolen from a Dodge Ram nearby. The truck, however, was not vandalized.

I reported this sort of stuff happening back in 2008, on my old blog; it happened then, and now it is happening again. These thugs will stop at nothing to support thier hero and that includes beating people up. They know no limits, nothing is off-limits; we must remember this come election day and vote different.

This also might explain why Romney is now leading Obama Nationally and in most states. Because of stuff like this. Here is hoping that now Ken Slown will support Romney, seeing that Obama’s Brownshirts targeted his car. It is an absolute pity that the once honorable Democratic Party, has become the communist-light party and has stooped to carrying out such tactics. Sigh Frustrated

Best Bus Driver Ever!

I do believe this bus driver ought to get the driver of the year award!

The first video comes via the Smoking Gun:

Here is an alternative view:

Now, there is the woman, who got socked in the jaw, playing the victim card!

Now, let me get this straight, this crazy woman, gets on a bus, acts like a total idiot; (for lack of a better work or at least one I want to print here!) and then when she gets socked in the mouth —- she is the victim? Confused

Here is what this moron woman did, before she got socked in the jaw:

OCTOBER 12–The Cleveland bus driver who delivered an uppercut to an unruly female passenger told cops that he struck the woman after she grabbed his throat and spit in his face as he was driving, according to police reports.

Artis Hughes, 59, was interviewed by officers shortly after the September 18 confrontation with Shi’dea Lane, 25, on a Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) bus.

Video of the fight (see below) went viral online this week, prompting RTA officials to suspend Hughes, a 22-year veteran, and characterize his behavior as “absolutely unacceptable.”

When cops responded to the stopped bus around 4 PM, Hughes and three passengers described Lane (pictured at right) as the incident’s aggressor. Hughes told cops that Lane initially boarded the bus without paying, claiming, “I left my bookbag.”

Hughes said that after Lane, a restaurant employee, eventually paid her fare, she told him, “You a Bitch and Your Momma’s a Bitch Too!” She also reportedly stated, “Keep talking about me and I will spit on you!”

In a written statement, Hughes recalled that Lane “grabbed me in the throat and spit on me in the face.” In response, the driver said he stopped the bus, “and I protected myself.” The Hughes statement does not reveal that he hit Lane squarely in the jaw with a bolo punch that knocked her to the ground.

One witness told cops that a “drunk” Lane “got on the bus fliping out” and “started talking crazy” to Hughes. After spitting on Hughes, the witness wrote in a statement, the driver “did what he had to do.”

A second witness wrote that Lane was “loud and obnoxious” from the start, and spit on Hughes and “started hitting him.” The witness added, “That’s when he hit her back.” A third witness described Lane as “drunk” and reported that “she hit him and he jumped out of his seat and started fighting her.”

But yet, she is the victim. I bet this feckless, um, what’s a word I can use without being obvious? Thinking Wookie? WorriedDont tell anyone Anyhow, I bet this feckless Wookie voted for Obama too. It would not surprise me at all. Rolling Eyes She should be grateful that the driver was not carrying a handgun; because in some states city drivers like this here, can carry and she is lucky she was not shot. I know if I was driving a bus like that and some dumbass wookie started acting like that and attacked me and I was packing heat; she’d be a dead wookie when I got done with her! CowboyDevil

Oh, and by the way, for those who object to me using the term “Wookie,” go to tell those at Fox Nation to stop using it too, okay? Otherwise, get lost. In this case, and to this racial realist, it is totally appropriate.

Either way, she got what was coming to her and in a big way too. Feeling beat up

Others: Scared Monkeys, The Gateway Pundit and Riehl World News

Video: Police State: NYC’s Stop and Frisk Program Exposed

This one has my blood boiling.

The Video:

youtube placeholder image

The Absolutely mind-numbing story via the Progressive Magazine, The Nation:

Exclusive audio obtained by The Nation of a stop-and-frisk carried out by the New York Police Department freshly reveals the discriminatory and unprofessional way in which this controversial policy is being implemented on the city’s streets.

On June 3, 2011, three plainclothes New York City Police officers stopped a Harlem teenager named Alvin and two of the officers questioned and frisked him while the third remained in their unmarked car. Alvin secretly captured the interaction on his cell phone, and the resulting audio is one of the only known recordings of stop-and-frisk in action.

In the course of the two-minute recording, the officers give no legally valid reason for the stop, use racially charged language and threaten Alvin with violence. Early in the stop, one of the officers asks, “You want me to smack you?” When Alvin asks why he is being threatened with arrest, the other officer responds, “For being a fucking mutt.” Later in the stop, while holding Alvin’s arm behind his back, the first officer says, “Dude, I’m gonna break your fuckin’ arm, then I’m gonna punch you in the fuckin’ face.”

“He grabbed me by my bookbag and he started pushing me down. So I’m going backwards like down the hill and he just kept pushing me, pushing me, it looked like he we was going to hit me,” Alvin recounts. “I felt like they was trying to make me resist or fight back.”

Alvin’s treatment at the hands of the officers may be disturbing but it is not uncommon. According to their own stop-and-frisk data, the NYPD stops more than 1,800 New Yorkers a day. A New York Times analysis recently determined that more than 20 percent of those stops involve the use of force. And these are only the numbers that the Department records.  Anecdotal evidence suggests both figures are much higher.

This ought to be, but will not be, because it does not fit the narrative of the so-called “right”; on every front page of every last darned Conservative blog out there. Before anyone even remotely says it; I might be a racial realist, but I do not support this sort of idiotic nonsense. This is nothing more than thug and racist tactics by the New York City police department.  I have condemned racism on this blog and I will continue to do so.  However, this goes well beyond racism, this is also police state thug tactics. Law enforcement is supposed to serve and protect, not intimidate and threaten its citizens. Furthermore, it is not supposed to stop and frisk people, for the sole purpose of checking to see if they are criminals or not. This is unconstitutional.

You see, the difference between this Conservative blog and the rest is this here: I happen to know that America is trending towards a police state and has been for many years. I also happen to know that this slide towards a police state is not based on partisan leadership in Washington D.C. The Police State in trend in America has been in place under Republicans and Democrats both. I give major kudos to The Nation magazine for having the brass balls to bring this issue to light and I hope as a Constitutional Conservative that some sort of investigation into this activity is started.

Again, this is not about partisanship at all —- this is about that which happens to be morally right and morally wrong; and this little story here is just morally wrong. I just hope something is done about it, and quickly, before someone out there, police or civilian; gets hurt really bad or worse, ends up dead.

We can do better than this, as Americans — we can do better.

Update: I thought of this after I hit publish. This right here is nothing more than what the Detroit Police Department had back in the 1960’s and early 1970’s; which was the S.T.R.E.S.S. program. It was racist, it was thug tactics and it was ended by Mayor Coleman Young, when he took office. This is the same thing and it is unconstitutional. If there is any sort of morality in New York City, this little operation will be stopped and quickly.

Others: New York Magazine, Gawker, The Raw Story, Colorlines and The Agitator