Issa didn't mention that he voted against a measure that would have protected the AP from the DOJ's subpoena in 2007. Issa was one of 21 House members who opposed the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, a measure that would have forbidden federal investigators from compelling journalists to give evidence without first obtaining a court order. The bill included a section that specifically forbid subpoenaing journalists' phone records from "communication service providers" to the same extent that the law protected the journalists themselves.
Despite Issa's "No" vote, the bill overwhelmingly passed the House 398-21. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, another California Republican who criticized the DOJ and the President in the wake of today's news, voted for the bill. It was defeated, however, by a Republican filibuster in the Senate the following year.
For months now, the Obama administration has chosen to maintain silence on the Basilisk Project, evidently relying on the complacency of the nation's so-called journalistic authorities to allow its machinations to remain out of both sight and mind.
The time has come for President Obama to explain the nature and purpose of the Basilisk Project, and to do so fully and without delay. Read more
You sit here today, $30,000 or $40,000 in debt, as the latest victims of what may well be the biggest conspiracy in U.S. history. It is a conspiracy so big and powerful that Dan Brown won't even touch it. It's a conspiracy so insidious that you will rarely hear its name.
The biggest conspiracy of all? The College-Industrial Complex.
Consider this: You have just paid about three times as much for your degree as did someone graduating 30 years ago. That's in constant dollars -- in other words, after accounting for inflation. There is no evidence that you have received a degree three times as good. Some would wonder if you have received a degree even one times as good.
t is, as a result, no surprise that total student loans are now approaching $1 trillion. They have easily overtaken credit-card debts and car loans. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, total student loans have basically tripled since 2004.
.... Adopts Chinese "Compass" satellite navigation system instead, which will be more accurate.
According military experts, Pakistan cannot place its trust in the United States.
"Pakistan's armed forces cannot rely on US GPS because of its questionable availability during a conflict that has overtones of nuclear escalation," former Pakistan Air Force pilot Kaiser Tufail told the site. Read more
David Bromwich, in his HuffPo column "Secrecy, Surveillance and Public Safety," lists 3 scandals decimating the Obama Administration: Benghazi, the I.R.S., and "the revelation of the justice department's seizure of two months of phone calls by 100 AP reporters." He opines that the last poses the greatest danger to democracy, and calls these latest outrages the result of government "paternalism." Read more
Foes of the conglomerate have produced a video shining light on the supposed dangers of genetically modified crops. Bill Maher, Danny Devito and Dave Matthews have all spoken out against the company's efforts to kill labeling requirements...
"We have protests planned in 36 countries around the world," Tami Canal, the international coordinator and founder of March Against Monsanto, told the Daily News. Read more
Former New York Times general counsel James Goodale – who represented the paper during its Pentagon Papers fight with the Nixon administration – said in an interview yesterday that Obama is worse than Nixon when it comes to press freedoms. And see this.
Former constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald noted last year:
We supposedly learned important lessons from the abuses of power of the Nixon administration, and then of the Bush administration: namely, that we don't trust government officials to exercise power in the dark, with no judicial oversight, with no obligation to prove their accusations. Yet now we hear exactly this same mentality issuing from Obama, his officials and defenders to justify a far more extreme power than either Nixon or Bush dreamed of asserting: he's only killing The Bad Citizens, so there's no reason to object!
Jonathan Turley – perhaps the top constitutional law expert in the United States (and a liberal) – writes:
...
US authorities seized the accounts of a Bitcoin digital currency exchange operator, claiming it was functioning as an "unlicensed money service business," court documents showed Friday.
A warrant revealed by the Department of Homeland Security showed a judge signed the seizure order Tuesday for the accounts of Mutum Sigillum LCC, a subsidiary of Japan-based Mt. Gox, the world's biggest Bitcoin exchange.
The warrant said the account based on the electronic payments platform Dwolla and held at Veridian Credit Union "was used to move money" as "part of an unlicensed money service" in violation of US law. Read more
One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history is that 39% of them don't actually know where it is. 10% think it's in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess
If you've seen the video we posted earlier today, then you definitely want to check this one out. There was some question that when Second Amendment activist, James Kaleda, was removed from the hearing if the audience was clapping for him or for his removal. I think this video, which took place immediately following that, should clear things up.
After a Second Amendment activist was forcefully removed from a hearing on upcoming gun legislation in NJ, the audience wasn't too happy.
Several members of the audience yelled at the state senator in charge from the audience, several called him out of order, and at least one more was escorted from the room.
Then in one of the best displays of civil disobedience I've ever seen, the entire audience recited the pledge of allegiance, while most of the lawmakers remained seated.
The IRS will soon face more than controversy and Congressional hearings over its discrimination of pro-life and conservative groups. The federal agency will soon find itself in court.
Next week, the ACLJ will directly confront the IRS with a lawsuit representing dozens of victims of its discriminatory actions. Read more
There is that lasting image of Dick Trickle in the Winston 500 lighting up a cigarette while driving his stock car with his knees during a caution lap.
He places the cigarette through a hole he carved in his helmet for a quick toke and exhales.
The green flag hits and out the window goes the cigarette butt and back to racing goes Trickle.
"Dick always had a cigarette lighter in his car," said fellow NASCAR driver Geoff Bodine.
Soldiers' portraits before, during and after war
Photographer Lalage Snow's powerful series of triptychs titled We Are The Not Dead depict the faces of British servicemen before, during and after (left to right) their deployment to Afghanistan, spanning a period of seven months. The images are as striking as they are revealing, highlighting not only the physical transformations but the emotional ones, as well.
Lalage Snow is a photographer, journalist and filmmaker currently based in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Stocks bounced back from Thursday's loss to put the S&P 500 (^INX) back up to yet a new record at 1667.
While the major indices were only up modestly throughout the day, we saw a big acceleration in the last hour of trading, with the star of the day being the the small-cap Russell 2000 (INDEXRUSSELL:RUT), which nearly pierced the widely watched 1000 level. Additionally, US Treasuries pulled back following yesterday's pop, implying that there is still a possible rotation trade from bonds to stocks, which may be contributing to the market's astounding momentum in 2013.
This week, the national media has focused on the three different scandals surrounding the White House, devoting hours of coverage to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) improperly targeting conservative groups applying for tax exempt status, the talking points Susan Rice used in the aftermath of the attacks in Benghazi, and the Justice Department's subpoena of phone records from the Associated Press as part of an investigation into a national security leak. The around-the-clock coverage comes even as a new Gallup poll finds that interest in the ongoing controversies is "lower comparable to major news stores in the past."
And while these stories raise serious concerns about money in politics, embassy security, and freedom of the press, they aren't the only problems impacting the American people. Here are five big stories the media isn't obsessing about:
Where do the anti-sequester, federal government workers-turned-protestors work? They work at the Internal Revenue Service–and they are unionized.
As the scandal involving the IRS' targeting of Conservatives and Tea Party groups consumes the news cycle for the moment and Barack Obama (who, so far, has claimed ignorance of the targeting) has thrown a sacrificial lamb out to appease journalists, that IRS agents targeted certain small-government, anti-tax groups should really not come as a surprise.
Beginning in 2009, Democrats and unions, including government unions, have spent the last several years demonizing Tea Party groups as well as other small government groups.
