Hot Air – by Erika Johnsen

California’s state insurance commissioner Dave Jones recently expressed some serious trepidation about the lack of concrete procedures in place for cracking down on the opportunities for fraud and abuse that are almost certain to arise as the large bureaucratic network of their ObamaCare insurance exchange continues to take shape. The is hiring tens of thousands of enrollment counselors who will shortly have access to a lot of consumers’ personal and financial information, and Jones worried that California might “have a real disaster on our hands” with identity theft especially.   Continue reading “GOP: The ObamaCare database is going to be a “honey pot” for identity thieves, fraud”

Information Liberation – by Phillip Smith

An asset forfeiture scheme that utilized a private security contractor to stop vehicles on Interstate 40 in Caddo County, Oklahoma, has been shut down after garnering strong criticism. Caddo County District Attorney Jason Hicks suspended the stops earlier this month after getting a tongue-lashing from a local judge.    Continue reading “In Profit-Sharing Scheme, Oklahoma DA Used Contractor for Highway Drug Stops”

IsraelHuffington Post

(AP) JERUSALEM – Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.

The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel’s Abu Kabir forensic institute, Dr. Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. Israel hotly denied the charge.   Continue reading “Israel Admits Harvesting Organs From Dead Bodies Without Permission”

political-correctness-voltaireThe D.C. Clothesline – by Joshua T Caldwell

So you say that I offended you. I say that is impossible. I cannot offend you. Being offended is something that happens in your head, and I have no control over that. I can push you, I can strike you, I can do all sorts of things that will injure you, but I cannot offend you.

I will go further and state that your declaration that you have been offended is cowardice or at the very least weakness on your part. Cowardice in that you do not have any logical retort to counter whatever statement I made to offend you. You are surrendering your side of a disagreement. You claim to be offended as a shield to hide behind, and I am calling you out as a coward. Continue reading “Political Correctness Is Censorship”

RT News

Al-Qaeda-linked extremists have taken and continue to hold hostage about 200 Kurdish civilians, including women and children, using them as live shields in north-eastern Syria, Russia’s Foreign Ministry has stated.

Civilians remain hostage after Syrian Kurds clashed with Al-Qaeda linked militants in the north-eastern Syrian towns of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain, along the Syrian-Turkish border over the weekend.    Continue reading “Russia: Al-Qaeda-linked extremists hold 200 Kurdish civilians hostage as ‘live shield’ in Syria”

National Security Agency Director General Keith Alexander (AFP Photo / Saul Loeb)RT News

The National Security Agency has invited certain members of Congress to a top secret, invitation only meeting to discuss a proposed amendment that could end the NSA’s ability to conduct dragnet surveillance on millions of Americans.

A letter circulated only to select lawmakers early Tuesday announced that NSA Director General Keith B. Alexander would host a question and answer session with members of Congress in preparation of a Thursday vote on Capitol Hill expected to involve an amendment introduced last month by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan).   Continue reading “NSA holds emergency hearing to fight off anti-surveillance amendment in Congress”

A woman walks past a placard featuring a black-and-white photograph of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and the tagline: "Late but not too late" as a campaign of Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center seeking information on the last perpetrators of the Holocaust still at large nearly 70 years on, is pictured on July 23, 2013 in Berlin. (AFP Photo/Johannes Eisele)RT News

“Operation Last Chance” was launched on Tuesday and offers the German public a grand total of 25,000 euro ($33,000) for any information pertaining to surviving suspects complicit in World War II hate crimes.

Two thousand placards have been plastered across German cities, including Berlin, with the intention of trapping the dregs of Germany’s Nazi war criminals. The Simon Wiesenthal Center is seekinginformation on Holocaust perpetrators still at large.    Continue reading “Nazi-hunting campaign kicks off in Germany”

AFP Photo / Paul J. RichardsRT News

Despite the ability to monitor the Internet and cell phone activities of millions, the National Security Agency says it lacks the technology necessary to sift through its own employees’ personal email accounts, according to a new report.

The claim came in response from a Freedom of Information Act request sent by Justin Elliot, a reporter at Pro Publica seeking to identify to relationship between the NSA and the National Geographic Channel, which has aired what Pro Publica characterized as sympathetic documentaries on the secretive intelligence entity.    Continue reading “NSA claims inability to search agency’s own emails”

Software engineer Mike Caldwell shows the front and back of a physical Bitcoin he minted in his shop in Sandy, Utah. (AFP Photo / George Frey)RT News

Bitcoin, the virtual currency that has been gaining momentum in recent years, now seems to have reached the dubious milestone of its first Ponzi scheme, following charges filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in Texas.

On Tuesday the SEC announced it was charging Trendon Shavers of McKinney, Texas for allegedly defrauding investors he had lured into the Bitcoin market with promises of up to 7% interest per week.    Continue reading “SEC brings charges as first-ever Bitcoin Ponzi scheme unravels”

The White House

Earnest M. Morial Convention Center
New Orleans, Louisiana

11:59 A.M. CDT

MRS. OBAMA:  Buenos dias!  Oh, my goodness.  You all rest yourselves.  You’ve been busy.  I understand you are having a phenomenal conference.  And it is such a pleasure to be here with all of you today for this 2013 Annual Conference.   Continue reading “Remarks by the First Lady to the National Council of La Raza”

Oath Keepers – by Stewart Rhodes

Oath Keepers launches new campaign to place signs and billboards near Washington D.C. area defense and intelligence agencies, praising Edward Snowden for exposing the NSA spying on Americans and urging other government employees to follow Snowden’s example by becoming whistle-blowers.

To launch this new campaign, Oath Keepers has placed three back-lit signs on the subway platform in the D.C. Metro Pentagon Station.   Continue reading “Oath Keepers Places Pro-Snowden Signs in DC Area, Encouraging More Whistle-blowers”

(Image credit: Jemimus/Flickr)End the Lie – by Madison Ruppert

For the first time since Edward Snowden leaked information on the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, the owner of an ISP has publicly discussed how the NSA got him to install equipment to directly spy on one of his customers.

Pete Ashdown, the CEO of XMission, detailed his experience when he received a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant in 2010 which forced him to allow the federal government to monitor a customer of his.   Continue reading “Owner of small Utah ISP describes how the NSA got him to install surveillance equipment”

AFP Photo / Karen BleierRT News

Biotech giant Monsanto has been awarded yet another victory by the federal government thanks to a recent Environmental Protection Agency decision to allow larger traces of the herbicide glyphosate in farm-grown foods.

Despite a number of studies linking exposure to the chemical with diseases including types of cancer, the EPA is increasing the amount of glyphosate allowed in oilseed and food crops.  Continue reading “Another win for Monsanto: US raises allowable levels of company’s pesticide in crops”

Last Resistance – by Michael Minkoff

Used to be that only frequent flyers could enroll in the TSA PreCheck program at the airport. You probably know what the PreCheck line is. It’s that more quickly moving line of shoe-wearing nonpareils that you used to see in the distance while your private parts were being radiated or groped in the snail-paced glacier of plebeians trickling through the “regular” security checkpoint. Continue reading “TSA Adds Extortion to a long List of Abuses”

Monday Morning – by Frank Marchant

Detroit is the largest municipal default in the history of the US.
The city owes $9.2 billion in pensions, $1.9 billion to creditors and is $18.5 billion in debt.

The city’s infrastructure is collapsing. Almost half of its streetlights are not working and aren’t being repaired.

The average time for Detroit police to respond to an emergency is just under an hour. Crime has spiked. Many in the city have resorted to carrying firearms for their personal protection.   Continue reading “8 New Cities On The Verge Of Bankruptcy”

Washington’s Blog

“I mean—hell, I been surprised how sane you guys all are. As near as I can tell you’re not any crazier than the average asshole on the street.” – R.P. McMurphy – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Years ago, it meant something to be crazy. Now everyone’s crazy.” – Charles Manson   Continue reading “Trying to Stay Sane in an Unsane World – Part 1”

Hidden Lake Village condo signWWSB 7 News – by Bobeth Yates

SARASOTA, Fla. –  A Suncoast woman remains shaken up after mistakenly becoming the subject of a police raid.  The woman says U.S. Marshals were acting on a tip that lead them to the wrong home; and the raid left her staring down the barrel of a gun.

“I was washing dishes and out of my peripheral vision I saw movement.  I looked up and there was a Rambo kind of guy with a vest and gun pointed at me with a white light.  I dropped to the floor and I yelled to my boyfriend there is someone with a gun out there,” said 59-year-old Louise Goldsberry.   Continue reading “Sarasota woman caught in a case of mistaken identity by federal marshals”

Liberty Hollow

Just got a comment which touched on the material I am about to cover, and which prompted me to finish this up and get it out there.  In baseball, when a batter comes to the plate, he gets at least three swings at the ball, but once he’s missed three times, he’s out, he cannot bat any longer in that turn at-bat.  Now baseball does not serve as a great analogy for politics, but I submit to you, gentle reader, that we here in these presently united States have had our three strikes, and that while we are not yet out of the game we are certainly in one hell of a mess.  (BTW, those of you who have never seen George Carlin’s comparison between baseball and football are missing a truly timeless comedic routine.  Fairly clean, too!)   Continue reading “Three Strikes, or the Three Roots of American Tyranny.”