Year: 2013

The New York Times – by PETER LUDLOW

Around 400 B.C., Socrates was brought to trial on charges of corrupting the youth of Athens and “impiety.” Presumably, however, people believed then as we do now, that Socrates’ real crime was being too clever and, not insignificantly, a royal pain to those in power or, as Plato put it, a gadfly. Just as a gadfly is an insect that could sting a horse and prod it into action, so too could Socrates sting the state. He challenged the moral values of his contemporaries and refused to go along with unjust demands of tyrants, often obstructing their plans when he could. Socrates thought his service to Athens should have earned him free dinners for life. He was given a cup of hemlock instead.   Continue reading “Hacktivists as Gadflies”

The Tenth Amendment Center – by Andrew Napolitano

Does the government work for us, or do we work for the government? How can the president claim the lawful power to kill whomever he wishes and at the same time ask Congress to incapacitate our ability to defend ourselves against those who might seek to kill us?

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul struck a raw nerve in the weak underbelly of the Obama administration last month with his 13-hour filibuster. Paul was furious — as every American should be — that the president refused to admit that he does not possess the lawful authority to kill Americans with drones. The senator used the confirmation hearings of now CIA Director John Brennan as a forum in which to articulate the principled constitutional argument that whenever the government wants the life, liberty or property of anyone, it can only obtain that via due process.   Continue reading “Drones, Guns and the President”

Yahoo News – by Lisa Maria Garza | Reuters

KAUFMAN, Texas (Reuters) – A former justice of the peace inKaufman County, Texas, whose home was searched as part of the probe into the killings of the local district attorney, his wife and a prosecutor, has been arrested on suspicion of threatening violence, officials said on Saturday.

Eric L. Williams, 46, was arrested on Friday on charges of making a “terroristic” threat, which generally involves a threat to commit violence, according to the Kaufman County jail website. Kaufman County is just east of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.   Continue reading “Former Texas official arrested in probe of prosecutors’ slayings”

Huffington Post

NEW ORLEANS — The U.S. Department of Agriculture says a Louisiana-based meat packing company has expanded a recall of meat products because of possible bacterial contamination. No illnesses have been reported

The Manda Packing Company recall announced this past week now includes 468,000 pounds of roast beef, ham, turkey breast, tasso pork, ham shanks, hog headcheese, corned beef, and pastrami.   Continue reading “Manda Packing Company Recalls 468,000 Pounds Of Meat Over Possible Bacterial Contamination”

Fellowship of the Minds – by Dr. Eowyn

The city of Los Angeles is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Unfunded liabilities for L.A.’s three public pension funds approach $27 billion; this for a city that already has a budget deficit and is struggling to pay its bills. In a 2010 Wall Street Journal editorial, former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan predicted that the city would go bankrupt by 2014.   Continue reading “Bankrupt Los Angeles sends 10 sheriffs to escort trash”

The Examiner – ANTHONY MARTIN

The state of New York has been running a series of ads on various television outlets touting its new supposed business-friendly environment. The ad claims that taxes have been lowered to their lowest level in many decades, that new incentives have been approved to attract business to the state, and that all of the ingredients are in place for businesses to flourish.

Aside from the fact that the ad campaign is designed to slow the mass exodus of business and industry from the state, similar to what is occurring in California, Illinois, and Colorado, business owners had best be thinking long and hard before a decision is made to relocate to New York.   Continue reading “New York attacks First Amendment in addition to guns”

Take Part – by Salvatore Cardoni

If Francis Ford Coppola ever came out of semi-retirement and directed a fourth Godfather film (he shouldn’t, since the Corleone saga should have concluded with Michael alone on Lake Tahoe at the end of II) theatergoers might very well be treated to a sit-down scene in Palermo between Don Vincent Mancini, played by an aging Andy Garcia, and some middleman energy pusher begging for a second chance after double-crossing the cappo di tutti cappo.   Continue reading “Leave the Gun, Take the Turbine: Italy Seizes Mafia-Run Wind Companies”

AlterNet – by  Isabel Macdonald, The Nation

The annual Drug & Alcohol Testing Industry Association (DATIA) conference, held in 2012 in San Antonio, Texas, looks like any other industry gathering. The 600 or so attendees sip their complimentary Starbucks coffee, munch on small plates of muffins and fresh fruit, and backslap old acquaintances as they file into a sprawling Marriott hotel conference hall. They will hear a keynote address by Robert DuPont, who served as drug policy director under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Nothing odd about any of this until you consider that the main subject of the conference is urine.   Continue reading ““Send ‘Em To Jail That Day!” The Newest Frontier in the Drug War and the People Who Make Millions from It”

Keystone XL proponents are telling all sorts of lies in order to push this dirty pipeline and we need your help to push back.  They say Keystone would help us achieve so-called “energy independence”…but they’re wrong.

10 days to tell the State Department: #NoKXL

Can you send a message TODAY to the State Department to tell them we don’t want this dirty pipeline?   Continue reading “They’re lying about Keystone XL”

Reuters – by Arshad Mohammed and Ben Blanchard

(Reuters) – The United States and China agreed on Saturday to make a joint effort to push for the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, following weeks of bellicose rhetoric from North Korea and rising tensions in northeast Asia.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met China’s top leaders in a bid to persuade them to exert pressure on North Korea, whose main diplomatic supporter is Beijing, to scale back its belligerence and, eventually, return to nuclear talks.   Continue reading “U.S., China agree on North Korea denuclearization push”

Crockett Lives – February 19, 2013

Why Obama keeps the press away – playing golf with Tiger Woods doesn’t look good with 12 million Americans out of work and a $16 trillion debt – Telegraph

Obama’s latest mini-vacation follows in the wake of his lavish Christmas/ New Year holiday on Kailua Beach in Oahu, Hawaii, which cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $7 million.   Continue reading “The American Idle”

Huffington Post

A picture of an Orthodox Jew encased in a giant plastic bag is causing some debate on the Internet this week, as commenters attempt to explain the man’s unusual traveling garb.

Redditor “FinalSay” posted the picture of the man early Thursday morning to the r/atheism subreddit, with the caption, “An Orthodox Jew in an airplane with women – so he covers himself with a plastic bag…”     Continue reading “Orthodox Jew Flies In Plane Covered In Huge Plastic Bag, Possibly To Avoid Cemetery Flyover”

Information Clearinghouse – by William Greider

President Obama has riled loyal Democrats by tossing Social Security onto the table in his poker game with Republicans. Not to worry. I think I know how this story ends. A year from now, when the 2014 congressional campaigns are hot underway, Republicans will be running against Obama-the-slasher and promising to protect Social Security from the bloodthirsty Democrats.

By then, having lost on his too-cute strategy, the president will be reduced to lamely reassuring old folks. Really, he didn’t actually intend to cut their benefits, really he didn’t. It was just a ploy to get tightwad conservatives to give in a little on tax increases. Republicans can pull out the videotapes in which Obama and team explain their high-minded purpose—sacrificing the Democratic party’s sacred honor in order to get Republicans to play nice.   Continue reading “Will Voters Forgive Obama for Cutting Social Security?”

Reihl World News – by Dan

OK, you can’t make this up. This via AP today:

Laurelville Chief Mike Berkemeier says he fell ill after eating the cake a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He says he drove a few blocks to the police station, where medics took him for medical testing.   Continue reading “OH Drug warrior police chief Mike Berkemeier says he ate entire cake laced with pot by mistake”