Today the Associated Press revealed that the Justice Department illegally obtained two months of phone records from Associated Press reporters and editors across the various agency offices. From the AP story:
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.
During the implementation of the Patriot Act the opponents justified their disapproval for this sweeping government power by citing the future potential of abuse in federal agencies having the ability to obtain information that should remain private; information that the government could still obtain through the proper channels (i.e. warrants, subpoenas, etc.). Since the Patriot Act has been in full swing there has been remarkably little abuse of this power. Or maybe I am just the optimist. I had expected intrusions on a regular basis, especially with news groups attempting to protect confidential sources.
Naturally, the administration that thinks government has the power to take over whole industries would have no problem over-stepping the legal boundaries surrounding the first amendment and the protection it offers everyone. The only part that surprises me is that no matter how friendly you are to this administration they always regard you as a potential enemy. Think of how cooperative the AP has been with this administration. Yet they still regard them as an adversary. Can you imagine having to live like that? You even have to be ready to take down your friends.
AP Letter to Eric Holder
While everyone will write their own report on this story and add in their own two cents (like I did above), most wont publish the letter form the AP to Holder. They would rather just drive traffic to their site and give you the opinion they think you should have. Clicking the image will take you to the full letter via our DocStoc account. Comments are always welcome. (PDF direct download)
From late last night/early this morning. This is the video that captured the shootout between police and the Boston Marathon Bombers. One suspect dead and one is on the run. Thought to be in a green Honda Civic Massachusetts plate 116-GC7
From the Islamists that brought you the Black Widow bombers of the Russian airport on New Years and The Hunafa (whom we’ve written about here a few times); Dagestan an area where there is a daily war with Russian security forces trying tobeat back the radical Islamists…
I have an update coming. Hang tight. If it is what I think it is then it could be significant.
UPDATE AT BOTTOM (May have resolved the whole discrepancy)
Greg, at Your Daddy’s Politics, found an interesting video that I am going to repost here. The Medical Examiner claims that every person that was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was shot with the .223 Bushmaster rifle. However, video evidence shows that that gun was never in the school and was in fact retrieved from the car that the shooter drove to the school.
The media always does a terrible job with these shootings. They havent adapted well to the 24/7 Twitter news demand and the result is they botch all the important details. Remember NPR reporting that Gabby Giffords had died?
The video takes the audience through the discrepancies regarding the reports on the actual guns. First, it was 2 handguns and 1 assault rifle, then it was 4 guns. What is the “official” claim now? But the bombshell is when the Medical Examiner says everyone was killed with the .223 Bushmaster, the weapon that never made it into the school; according to videotape showing the police taking it out of the trunk. Watch below and turn your speakers up. The audio of the Medical Examiner is a little lower than the rest of the video.
At least this time ABC didnt come on air and say they had found someone in the Tea Party with the same name. But that isnt because they learned their lesson from doing that on Aurora, there just wasnt a matching name of any Tea Party member this time.
UPDATE:@tahdeets may have solved it. The gun in the trunk of the car may have been a shotgun. In the video above you see the officer cocking it repeatedly. That could be to unload/cycle the shells
A literary snob will read that headline and think “Ho ho, another blogger attempts to be an intellectual but falls short. I shall L-O-L for the moment”. What that snob fails to realize is that “OUR Walmart” charges money, and those “lending” their money to the organization will be paid back. The reward they promise to deliver is so great that those paying into the cause are in fact “shylocks” themselves. For a small amount of money they get in return something nearly priceless; the oppurtunity to begin the tearing down of almost unparalleled success. Your money buys an alliance with the CPUSA. From there the project is on cruise-control
My colleague at CRO, Mike Madden, (Twitter: here) has done a fantastic job at exposing this group. Nothing I can say here regarding OUR Walmart, unions, the attempt to destroy Walmart from within (by in effect, socializing it) can do it justice. I must in fact refer you to the post. No matter where your political philosophy falls on the scales, an intelellectually honest person should read this and have questions of their own. If you don’t, reread it. Link to the post below
End Note: I actually had a brief conversation on Twitter yesterday with someone who outright said that freedom was a bad thing and would rather have Chinese families not work in factories that make goods for Walmart. I am going to follow up with a detailed post on the difference between the families who have that opportunity and the families that do not. The contrast could not be sharper and the results…well, lets jsut say that anyone that would choose to take that chance away from the family is as cold as toes in Siberia.
How does anyone interview Stephanie Cutter in a serious capacity? She has proven to be one of the most dishonest political operatives in a town full of liars. (Here, Here, Here, and just google “stephanie cutter lie” to have your mind blown) Today’s Cutter incident isn’t really a lie but a rather disgustingly pitiful statement regarding the fate of Americans who were hunted down inside our embassy in Benghazi. According to Cutter, this is only an important issue because it is a “large part” of Romney and Ryan’s stump speeches. The problem with leftists is that because they could care less about the fate of Americans in service to the country, and because they only use those people as political pawns, it leads them to believe any genuine concern from their opponents is done for political gain as well. The story comes to us courtesy of WashingtonFree Beacon (click picture for story)
Outstanding right? Last night on Conservative Report Radio we featured the audio from the House Intelligence Committee, specifically from Trey Gowdy. (Today Rush Limbaugh had featured a piece of that audio as well). His impassioned questioning and statements were not the result of Romney and Ryan’s stump speeches. The administration dropped the ball. Libyan officials as well as Embassy staff had warned of the increasing likelihood of some sort of targeted attack. Obama denied, Americans died.
Take a listen to “Blowout in Benghazi” with Conservative Report Radio from last night that focused almost exclusively on this topic.
Government loves to be involved with everything. And the intellectually honest can sometimes even make a good argument for this. However, I believe that even the best academic may have trouble justifying the need of 18 new twitter accounts that fall under the TSA.
As part of what looks to be a massive information campaign by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), TSA on Thursday announced the launch of 18 new Twitter accounts. If that seems like a lot for one organization, that’s because it is.
The author, Carlton Purvis, goes on to ask 8 questions in regards to this waste of taxpayer’s money. Purvis keeps the questions bland, because, well, how much life can you pump into such a lame topic? The TSA’s overall justification is that people want and need region specific information. Which is fine. But the TSA has turned into an association that produces facepalms more than anything else.
If the TSA had the ability to be honest within their ranks, as well as the rest of the country, they should be focused on posting their own screw-ups region by region. When a TSA employee takes a sex toy out of someones luggage and tapes it to the outside of the suitcase I want to know where that happened. And so do others. That way if we are travelling with a similar device we either know what to expect or may decide to change the packing location to an orifice.
Perhaps you are travelling with a bratty child and want them to experience the wonders of what Mark Levin calls a “soft tyranny”. A regional update from the TSA may provide you with the exact location where child harassment is being conducted. Hopefully you get their before the offending agent takes his union mandated break. But what if your 18 month old child is already well established in the ranks of Al-Qaeda? Obviously she doesn’t have a website that th3j35t3r can take out. Only the TSA can put a stop to that trained militant.
Obviously 18 twitter accounts for the TSA will not be enough. No matter what the agency does or how unpopular it becomes the likelyhood of them adding more twitter accounts (or social media accounts for that matter) is eminent. In Carlton Purvis’s article above the TSA says that people are “understandably interested in the airports that they travel through“. No shit. Air travel can be nerve-racking. Everything from parking to take-off can be pure hell. Since we all know that, and there are more than 18 regions in the country, the TSA will expand its online presence.
The final solution to the growing TSA problem is simple. Compulsory participation with the TSA’s social media accounts and a mandatory minimum activity for each adult in the United States. All cell phones will come preloaded with a TSA app that automatically links to all of your social media accounts. Since the forwarding of messages and updates can be automated, and your cell phone is sort of a gps device anyways, you will automatically broadcast the TSA’s updates on your social media accounts. This way they can reach everyone in the US with minimal effort.
You don’t have a decision in the matter but you wont need to have one. The decision will already be made for you. Because you’re a dumb-ass. Didn’t you know that people are “understandably interested in the airports that they travel through”? Of course you did. So compliance won’t be an issue. If it becomes an issue then we have room for you in the federal prison. Health Care block may be full of people awaiting trial for non-compliance but TSB (Travel Security Block) still has a few vacant cells. And if they fill up too fast they will just put two to a cell and you can share one with the guy who dared to wear an Anti-TSA shirt.
We saw this coming during the 08 election. And I think the defining moment that showed that government was truly confident in taking over the people was when a local government used what was called by residents “full military operation” to shutdown a bonfire on the 4th of July. Hummers, helicopters, bomb squad, and even a command post set up nearby. A local government only gets this type of confidence when their big brother has already gotten away with bullying other kids in the neighborhood.
I wish I could check out the republic and offer a clean bill of health. Instead my recommendation is to find a priest. Fast.
