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:

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?
IRS targeting Conservative groups in Washington and Elsewhere. — Did they not know that this would be exposed?
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

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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

The Public School System is going to hell in a hand-basket, as always.

I have no words for this one folks, not one:

Video:

The Story:

Parents of children attending a Red Hook, New York, middle school are outraged after a recent anti-bullying presentation at Linden Avenue Middle School.

The workshop for 13 and 14-year-old girls focused on homosexuality and gender identity. They were also taught words such as “pansexual” and “genderqueer.”

Parents say their daughters were told to ask one another for a kiss and they say two girls were told to stand in front of the class and pretend they were lesbians on a date.

“She told me, ‘Mom we all get teased and picked on enough. Now I’m going to be called a lesbian because I had to ask another girl if I could kiss her,'” parent, Mandy Coon, told reporters.

Coon says parents were given no warning about the presentation and there was no opportunity to opt-out. Both the school principal and the district superintendent are defending the workshops and advising they will schedule more.

“The school is overstepping its bounds in not notifying parents first and giving us the choice,” another parent said. “I thought it was very inappropriate. That kind of instruction is best left up to the parents.”

“I was absolutely furious — really furious,” a parent who asked to remain anonymous told reporter Todd Starnes, “These are just kids. I’m dumbfounded that they found this class was appropriate.”

Superintendent Paul Finch told The Poughkeepsie Journal the presentation was “focused on improving culture, relationships, communication and self-perceptions.”

“We may require more notification to parents in the future,” Finch said

via Girls Told to Ask for Lesbian Kiss at School – US – CBN News – Christian News 24-7 – CBN.com.

One simply word comes to mind: Unbelievable. One word folks: Home-School. I did it, and so should every parent today. Because the public school system has just become too evil to send your children to it anymore.

Others: The Gateway Pundit, The PJ Tatler, Weasel Zippers and The Jawa Report

It Begins: Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church listed in Army training slide as extremists

This is something to put everyone on alert:

A U.S. Army training instructor listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism along with Al Qaeda and Hamas during a briefing with an Army Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania, Fox News has learned.

“We find this offensive to have Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church to be listed among known terrorist groups,” said Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty. “It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization.”

Material presented to soldiers at training session.

The incident occurred during an Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief on extremism. Topping the list is Evangelical Christianity. Other organizations listed included Catholicism, Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Ku Klux Klan, Sunni Muslims, and Nation of Islam.

The military also listed “Islamophobia” as a form of religious extremism.

via Army Labeled Evangelicals as Religious Extremists | FOX News & Commentary: Todd Starnes.

Of course, when caught, the Army quickly raced to cover its butt:

Army spokesman George Wright told Fox News that this was an “isolated incident not condoned by the Dept. of the Army.”

“This slide was not produced by the Army and certainly does not reflect our policy or doctrine,” he said. “It was produced by an individual without anyone in the chain of command’s knowledge or permission.”

Wright said after the complaint was lodged, the presenter deleted the slide, and apologized.

“We consider the matter closed,” he said.

The incident was made public by a soldier who attended the briefing. He asked for copies of the presentation and sent them to the Chaplain Alliance.

“He considers himself an evangelical Christian and did not appreciate being classified with terrorists,” Crews told Fox News. “There was a pervasive attitude in the presentation that anything associated with religion is an extremist.”

Which is the story they always tell the public, when they do something and get caught doing it. I just wonder how long it will be, if the Lord tarries; before the United States Government will begin rounding up those who dare to read from the King James Version of the Bible and start imprisoning those Pastors who dare to preach that homosexuality is a sin and that abortion is murder. I think it will happen, before the Lord’s return myself. Why with the Anti-Defamation League — a leftist Jew-run organization; doing the bidding of the Obama Administration, it is a wonder now that Fundamentalists like myself are not in prison.

It goes without saying that we are in the last days. Things like this, are going to become more and more prevalent and will the norm eventually. As Jesus said, “Watch ye and Pray.” and that my friends, is all that we can really do. Watch and pray and be about our Father’s business; and wait for his blessed return.

Others: Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch and Weasel Zippers

Good Question….

This is why I love the gun-grabbing left; because their hypocrisy stinks to the high heavens. Just like the Republicans and their big-government statist policies.

Anyhow, sellout blogger, Glenn Reynolds, himself quite the statist hypocrite; notes the following:

HYPOCRISY: Hey, why does Piers Morgan have photo with gun-loving, violence-glorifying Snoop Dogg as Twitter profile?

via Instapundit » Blog Archive » HYPOCRISY: Hey, why does Piers Morgan have photo with gun-loving, violence-glorifying Snoop Dogg as….

The photo: (Via Twitchy)

Again, this is why I love being an independent politically, (Who does lean to the right slightly, but I digress.) and being a bit of a free-thinker; I see the hypocrisy of both sides. This is a perfect example of that very thing.

Let’s hope that Donald Kaul’s next heart attack is fatal

This way there would be one less liberal progressive Democrat idiot walking around and drawing excess air. I say this, because of Donald Kaul wrote this stupidity right here:

Donald Kaul in the Des Moines Register:

Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. Hey! We did it to the Communist Party, and the NRA has led to the deaths of more of us than American Commies ever did. (I would also raze the organization’s headquarters, clear the rubble and salt the earth, but that’s optional.) Make ownership of unlicensed assault rifles a felony. If some people refused to give up their guns, that “prying the guns from their cold, dead hands” thing works for me.

via PJ Media » Modern Democratic ‘Fire-Eaters’.

…and we that disagree with the idea that guns should be outlawed are the violent ones. 🙄

I hope the idiot strokes out and dies, quickly. 😡

Just saying all, just saying….

I figure if he can be an ass, so can I. 😛

Is the murdering of the unborn the new normal in America?

I really dislike having to write things like this; but I cannot be silent on this issue. It, to me, is that important. As I have written in my blog’s long bio; my feelings about pro-life versus pro-choice are basically inline with this organization here.

Having said all of that; I happen to see this on Memeorandum and even as a pro-life independent, who tends to disagree with the far-left and the far-right, I was quite shocked to read it.

Check out this quote from liberal progressive website, Salon.com:

I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice. . . .

Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.

I was speechless; actually, I did utter a few choice words, none of which I wish to publish here! Angry Surprise

Well, luckily for me, National Review, which is a solidly Republican publication, has a blog called “The Corner” and a writer there by the name of Katrina Trinko sums it up quite nicely, as to how I feel:

By this same logic, isn’t infanticide also fine and dandy? After all, if we’re talking about autonomy, kids aren’t exactly independent as soon as they are born. No infant can take care of themselves. And even later on in childhood, children rely heavily on the adults in their life to provide shelter, food, and emotional support. What about kids and adults who become disabled in life? What about quadriplegics? They’re not going to be able to take care of themselves. Is it okay if we just off the lot of them? Heck, what about needy friends who seem to be falling apart unless we talk to them regularly and console them? Okay to just shoot a couple of them so that we don’t have the burden? Should we ship the grandparents that spent all their money and are now financially dependent on us to the local executioner?

Yes, if the fetus is a life — and a human being — and not a clump of cells, that makes a huge difference. No one would ask a woman to respect the rights of a clump of cells. But it is valid to ask her, difficult as it is to have an unwanted pregnancy, to realize that the death of the child — the child who was totally innocent and has done nothing except be conceived — is not an appropriate way to handle this.

I have one word: Amen.

I have news for Democrats, especially the progressive part of that party. You are not doing a darned thing for your party or your cause. Because as much as I am for Unions, the middle class and seeing that our poor are taken care of, and not allowed to starve or like here in Michigan; not to freeze…. Nailbiting I just cannot and will not, ever, agree with this sort of inhuman philosophy. I am a Christian of 30 year vintage and my Bible says, “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Now, I realize that people like Ed Brayton will not like this at all. However, this is just one issue that is not up for debate at all, at least not with me.

Everything else, politics, economics — everything — is up for debate. However, the wholesale slaughter of the unborn is not something that I am willing to concede on, not one iota.

It must be nice….

Looks like David Gregory of MSNBC will not be charged with a crime for displaying a high-capacity magazine on TV. William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has the scoop:

Just released by D.C. Attorney General there will be no prosecution of David Gregory despite a finding that there was a clear violation of the law (emphasis mine):

Having carefully reviewed all of the facts and circumstances of this matter, as it does in every case involving firearms-related offenses or any other potential violation of D.C. law within our criminal jurisdiction, OAG has determined to exercise its prosecutorial discretion to decline to bring criminal charges against Mr. Gregory, who has no criminal record, or any other NBC employee based on the events associated with the December 23,2012 broadcast. OAG has made this determination, despite the clarity of the violation of this important law, because under all of the circumstances here a prosecution would not promote public safety in the District of Columbia nor serve the best interests of the people of the District to whom this office owes its trust. Influencing our judgment in this case, among other things, is our recognition that the intent of the temporary possession and short display of the magazine was to promote the First Amendment purpose of informing an ongoing public debate about firearms policy in the United States, especially while this subject was foremost in the minds of the public following the previously mentioned events in Connecticut and the President’s speech to the nation about them. There were, however, other legal means available to demonstrate the point and to pursue this line of questioning with the guest that were suggested to NBC and that could have and should have been pursued.

OAG also appreciates that the magazine was immediately returned to the source that NBC understood to be its lawful owner outside of the District and that the magazine in question, with NBC’s assistance, has been surrendered to MPD. OAG also recognizes the cooperation NBC has provided in the investigation of this matter.

Proving that if you rich, white, liberal and you happen to be friends with the DC attorney general; you can pretty much do what you darned well please.

Unbelievable. 🙄 Whatever happened to rule of law? Whatever happened to the justice system in this Country? …and they wonder why people go on these shooting sprees because they are simply pissed off at the Government?

Others: Outside the Beltway, Erik Wemple, American Power, NewsBusters.org, The Gateway Pundit,Mediaite, Power Line, Washington Times and The Daily Caller (Via Memeorandum)

Special Comment: Why I am not removing my ads for Guns, Ammo, Gold or Knives

Update – March 17, 2013: I felt the need to update this, because I noticed someone looked for it or something. Gun, Knife, and Ammo ads are great; but when they are not paying. They are, in fact, a good waste of time and space. I did have, at the point of being annoying, a ton of gun, gold and ammo ads on here at one time. I still have an ammo ad. But the gold ads and the ads for the gun store, were not paying. My ad for goldsilver.com paid me one time. After that, I never did get anymore buys on that ad. So, I pulled everything for a time. I put the ammo ad back up, because I figured someone would buy something, maybe. To be quite honest, it never has paid anything at all. So, again, what I wrote below was written right after Sandy Hook and I still agree with it; but I did remove those ads, because of a lack of revenue.

—–

This is one of those special comments, which I really did not ever think that I would actually have to write. However, seeing that common sense is a scarce commodity today, I feel the need to inform those who come here.

The shooting in Newtown CT happened; and I told the Republican Party and the Conservative movement, “When you all come back to reality, call me!”

Well, one would expect that I would shed my right-wing nut job image, and remove the ads for guns, knives, gold and silver; and become some sort of Prius driving, latte sipping, wire-rim glasses liberal Democrat who curses all forms of capitalism and bemoans the virtues of communism and the fact that America has not implemented them.

One would also expect that I would put ads for green energy, global trade and other such tripe that the Liberal left makes to be their pet cause.

One would be in grave disappointment, but that said person has not a damned clue what I am truly about. The truth is folks, I am somewhere in a very happy place, between a moderate Conservative and a blue-dog Democrat. I remember the old Democratic Party that I admire to this day, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This was when the Democratic Party was honestly worth a damn in my book.

It was that Democratic Party of old, which took the United States of America to war in 1941, after the empire of Japan, struck us at Pearl Harbor. In addition, the Democratic Party of 1945 was victorious in Germany with the defeat of the Nazis, and with the empire of Japan. America was a great Nation then. We build everything here, men were men, and boys were boys — women did not rule their men. People went to Church on Sunday and respected the Word of God. It was a different era and one that I greatly miss.

The reason why I am not removing those ads is quite simply this: Those ads of mine have not a damned thing to do with that shooting up in Newtown, CT. The only persons that have anything remotely to do with those shooting, is the shooter himself and the shooter’s mother, who had zero business having any sort of firepower near her mentally ill son.

I hate to disappoint my liberal friends, who do read here, but I am an unrepentant capitalist, and I shall be until the day that I take my last breath. Blaming me or anyone else who has gun ads on their blog is a simple-minded exercise in idiocy. Furthermore, blaming people like NRA and other gun advocacy groups is also idiotic at best.

Blaming groups like that, would be blaming food manufactures and farmers for obesity! Do the farmers put the food in your mouth? Do the food makers put the food in your mouth? No! You do, it is called personal responsibility! How idiotic is it for someone to blame a gun, which is quite honestly a tool of self-defense; for the actions of a mentally deranged person, whose Mother was too irresponsible to put away her guns and keep them away from her son. Anyone with any sort of semblance of common sense would know this. My question is, what is the modern-day liberal Democrat’s problem them?

This is my entire problem with the Democratic Party of today. They steadfastly refuse to embrace the idea of personal responsibility. They want to blame everyone and everything else, but the people who commit crimes; tot to mention that they want to involve everyone else to raise their idiotic bratty children! It does not take village people it takes responsible parents. This is also something that is also lacking today as well, not only in the Democratic Party and in its base — But also in America in general.

To be fair the Republicans are not much better, they are sitting around idly and allowing America to drive over a fiscal cliff, something that America was honestly talking about, before this deranged nut-ball killed these people. Not to mention that John Boehner is selling Conservative fiscal values up the river. They do not mind selling organized labor up the river, but they will allow America to be in debt to China for the rest of eternity. Funny how those politicos work, is it not?

In closing: I am not removing my ads for guns and removing the chance that I might just make a bit of money on my blog. All so some tree-hugging far leftist can feel about the fact that I am contributing to the death of someone, because some deranged idiot happened to have bought a gun from the dealers, of which I have an affiliation.

Furthermore, I am not removing my ads for Gold and Silver, and other such metals, so that some idiotic far leftist liberal happens to be under the delusion that President Obama’s and the current Republican leadership’s form of economics is perfectly fine can feel good about himself.

I might not be very happy with the current state of the Conservative movement as a whole, and I might not be happen with the current Governor of Michigan, and I might not be too pleased with the Republican Party of Michigan and the national party —- but I am not a fool — not now, not ever. Just because I question actions, does not mean I have lost my mind — unlike the Democratic Party since about the time of President Johnson.

Horse-hockey!

More stupid from the left:

When Congress picks a fight with the President, no matter who the President or who leads the Congress, the President usually wins in the public eye.

Prediction: if the President plays chicken on this tax and spending issue and doesn’t flinch, he wins one way or the other politically.

via Congress & President Playing Chicken | The Moderate Voice.

Bullcrap. The President, nor the Republicans are going to look good in the eyes of the people; whose taxes are going to go through the roof!

Morons, I swear.