Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party: February 2012

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Numerous Tea Party chapters claim IRS attempts to sabotage nonprofit status
3 doomsaying experts who foresee economic devastation ahead
Forced DNA extraction of suspects, without a warrant, fully approved by federal court
Interpol Arrests 25 Suspected Anonymous Hackers
Vaccination rights attorney Patricia Finn threatened with criminal charges; New York State demands she surrender names of all clients
Olympia Snowe’s Departure from Senate Shakes up Maine Politics
Tea Party groups think about heading to court over Walker recall signatures

Numerous Tea Party chapters claim IRS attempts to sabotage nonprofit status

Posted: 28 Feb 2012 04:12 PM PST

By Perry Chiaramonte, FOXNews.com

Tea Party chapters around the nation are blasting the Internal Revenue Service after the federal agency sent them letters demanding information about their politics, contributors and even family members.

In letters sent from IRS offices in Cincinnati earlier this month, chapters including the Waco (Texas) Tea Party and the Ohio Liberty Council were asked to provide a list of donors, identify volunteers, financial support for and relationships with political candidates and parties, and even printed copies of their Facebook pages.

“Some of what they (the IRS) asked was reasonable, but there were some requests on there that were strange,” Toby Marie Walker, president of the Waco Tea Party told FoxNews.com. “It makes you wonder if they do this to groups like ACORN or other left-leaning groups."

The chapters that received requests were registering for nonprofit status as a 501(c)4 organizations. The classification mainly differs from 501(c)3 groups in that donors cannot deduct their contributions from their taxable income.

The tax code places fewer restrictions on 501(c)4 groups, allowing them to lobby in furtherance of their organizations’ mission. They are also permitted to engage in political activity like endorsing candidates and donating money and time to specific campaigns, though it cannot be their primary activity.

The more tightly controlled, but more heavily subsidized 501(c)3 groups may not participate in specific campaigns at all.

Tea Party leaders say they were particularly offended by demands that they name donors and volunteers, which is required by law, but were also asked to list any political ambitions of board members or their relatives.

3 doomsaying experts who foresee economic devastation ahead

Posted: 28 Feb 2012 04:09 PM PST

By Adam Shell, USA TODAY

Behind the mainstream Wall Street happy talk about more stable financial markets and an improving economy are grim warnings of tough times ahead from a small cadre of doomsayers who warn that the worst of the financial crisis is still to come.

Harry Dent, author of the new book The Great Crash Ahead, says another stock market crash is coming due to a bad ending to the global debt bubble. He has pulled back on his earlier prediction of a crash in 2012, as central banks around the world have been flooding markets with money, giving stocks an artificial short-term boost. But a crash is coming in 2013 or 2014, he warns. “This will be a repeat of 2008-09, only bigger, when it finally hits,” Dent told USA TODAY.

Gerald Celente, a trend forecaster at the Trends Research Institute, says Americans should brace themselves for an “economic 9/11″ due to policymakers’ inability to solve the world’s financial and economic woes. The coming meltdown, he predicts, will lead to growing social unrest and anti-government sentiment, a U.S. dollar with far less purchasing power and more people out of work.

Celente won’t rule out another financial panic that could spark enough fear to cause a run on the nation’s banks by depositors. That risk could cause the government to invoke “economic martial law” and call a “bank holiday” and close banks as it did during the Great Depression.

“We see some kind of threat of that magnitude,” Celente, publisher of The Trends Journal newsletter, warned in an interview.

Robert Prechter, author of Conquer the Crash, first published in 2002 and updated in 2009, is still bearish. He says today’s economy has similarities to the Great Depression and warns that 1930s-style deflation is still poised to cause financial havoc. Prechter predicts that the major U.S. stock indexes, such as the Dow Jones industrials and Standard & Poor’s 500, will plunge below their bear market lows hit in March 2009 during the last financial crisis. The brief recovery will fail as it did in the 1930s, he says.

Forced DNA extraction of suspects, without a warrant, fully approved by federal court

Posted: 28 Feb 2012 04:03 PM PST

By: J. D. Heyes, NaturalNews.com

For a state that claims to be the nation’s most enlightened defender of civil rights, California’s regular dismissal of even the most basic constitutional protections is an exercise in hypocrisy — at a minimum — and in ideology over rule of law in the worst case.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation’s most liberal, ruled recently that California cops can continue collecting DNA samples to put in a national database from everyone they arrest on a felony, even before that suspect has been proven guilty in a court of law and, worse, without a warrant or court order directing them to be collected.

“DNA analysis is an extraordinarily effective tool for law enforcement to identify arrestees, solve past crimes, and exonerate innocent suspects,” U.S. District Judge Milan Smith wrote for the three-judge majority. Moreover, the court said the government had a more compelling interest in collecting the genetic information than yet-to-be-convicted suspects did in protecting their privacy, let alone their right to assert they’re innocent until proven guilty.

Guilty until proven innocent?

The case stems from a 2009 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four California residents — who had been arrested but not convicted — against the officials who operate the state’s DNA collection system, Reuters reported. The suit asked a federal district court to bar the state from collecting the sample on anyone who was not convicted, but the lower court refused. The higher court upheld that ruling.

According to the law, anyone not convicted can request to have their sample removed from the national database, but that’s the same as suspects having to prove they are innocent first, a concept completely at odds with our justice system, which presumes innocence until proven guilty.

“The majority allows the government to treat arrestees, who are presumed innocent, as if they’ve been convicted of some sort of crime,” said Michael Risher, the ACLU attorney who represented the plaintiffs. He said he would seek a review of the ruling by the full nine-member appeals panel.

Interpol Arrests 25 Suspected Anonymous Hackers

Posted: 28 Feb 2012 04:00 PM PST

From: My FOX New York

Interpol has arrested 25 suspected members of the Anonymous hackers group in a swoop covering more than a dozen cities in Europe and Latin America, the global police body said Tuesday.

“Operation Unmask was launched in mid-February following a series of coordinated cyber-attacks originating from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain,” Interpol said.

The statement cited attacks on the websites of the Colombian Ministry of Defense and the presidency, as well as on Chile’s Endesa electricity company and its National Library, among others.

The operation was carried out by police from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain, the statement said, with 250 items of computer equipment and cell phones seized in raids on 40 premises in 15 cities.

Police also seized credit cards and cash from the suspects, aged 17 to 40.

“This operation shows that crime in the virtual world does have real consequences for those involved, and that the Internet cannot be seen as a safe haven for criminal activity,” said Bernd Rossbach, acting director of police services at Interpol, which is in the French city of Lyon.

However, it was not clear what evidence there was to prove those arrested were part of Anonymous, an extremely loose-knit international movement of online activists, or “hacktivists.”

Vaccination rights attorney Patricia Finn threatened with criminal charges; New York State demands she surrender names of all clients

Posted: 28 Feb 2012 03:57 PM PST

By: Mike Adams, NaturalNews.com

Vaccine rights attorney Patricia Finn is being targeted by the Ninth Judicial District of New York State, which has threatened to strip her of her license to practice law and even file criminal charges against her. Finn is one of several “vaccine rights” attorneys across America who helps parents assert their rights to protect their children from potentially deadly vaccines. She’s considered a hero by many, but a villain by the status quo for daring to stand up against the vaccine-pimping medical police state that exists in America today.

I personally interviewed Patricia Finn for InfoWars Nightly News last night (February 27, 2012), and during that interview I saw and read the documents that contain the charges being leveled against her. Watch that full video interview at:

http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=C502580E9AE582072C0E9EBD916E2477

One document described her vaccine rights advocacy as “threatening the public interest,” asserting that her helping parents legally and ethically avoid toxic vaccines somehow puts the public at risk. This accusation makes absolutely no logical sense, of course, given that even the vaccine pushers claim their vaccines offer absolute and total immunity against infectious disease. Therefore, how can an unvaccinated child ever threaten the health of a vaccinated child?

New York demands Patricia Finn surrender her list of clients

Perhaps even more alarmingly, a letter outlining the various charges against Patricia Finn included the demand that she immediately surrender her complete list of clients to the judiciary. When I saw this, it immediately set off alarm bells. This is not merely a gross violation of attorney/client privilege; it’s also a thinly-veiled attempt for the New York judiciary to terrorize the parents who have sought legal help in opting out of dangerous vaccines.

Furthermore, it could serve as the starting point for New York State to dispatch CPS workers to the homes of all of Finn’s clients, where their children might be kidnapped by CPS and sold into sex slavery (this is a common behavior of CPS workers across the country, where low-income children simply “disappear” into the system and suffer ongoing sexual abuse by state workers or even high-paying clients, similar to what happened at Penn State). I don’t have the space to go into all the evidence that CPS functions as a child kidnapping and sex slavery ring, but the organization isn’t called “Communist Pedophile Services” for no reason.

Patricia Finn told me during the InfoWars Nightly News interview that she would absolutely refuse to turn over the list of her clients, and that the judiciary even asking for such a list was a violation of state law. She said she would rather lose her law license than betray the trust of her clients.

Olympia Snowe’s Departure from Senate Shakes up Maine Politics

Posted: 28 Feb 2012 03:53 PM PST

Reported By: Tom Porter, MPBN.net

Three-term Sen. Olympia Snowe has announced that she will not seek relection to the U.S. Senate this year. Snowe made the announcement in a written statement about a half hour ago.

“It’s a shock to me obviously, to everybody,” says state GOP Chair Charlie Webster. Webster says Snowe, who has just turned 65, has indicated that she’s frustrated with the way Washington works. “I think she just decided that things don’t work the way she’d like them to work,” Webster says. “I’ve heard her talk about how frustrating it is, and she just got tired of it and said, ‘Give somebody else a try.’”

In her written statement Snowe says:

“After 33 years in the Congress this was not an easy decision. My husband and I are in good health. We have laid an exceptionally strong foundation for the campaign, and I have no doubt I would have won re-election.”

She goes on to say: “I do find it frustrating, however, that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions. With my Spartan ancestry I am a fighter at heart; and I am well prepared for the electoral battle, so that is not the issue. However, what I have had to consider is how productive an additional term would be. Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term. So at this stage of my tenure in public service, I have concluded that I am not prepared to commit myself to an additional six years in the Senate, which is what a fourth term would entail.”

Snowe says she will look for opportunities to give voice to citizens who believe, as she does, that we must return to an era of civility in government.

Snowe says she will schedule a news conference in Portland on Friday to further discuss her decision.

Tea Party groups think about heading to court over Walker recall signatures

Posted: 28 Feb 2012 03:51 PM PST

From: WTAQ.com

Two Tea Party groups say they're thinking about going to court to force state officials to consider striking the questionable signatures the groups found on the Walker recall petitions. On Monday, Governor Scott Walker's campaign said it would not challenge any of the reported one-million signatures for a recall election.

They said there was no way the campaign could complete its review before Monday’s deadline that was imposed by a judge. Walker asked the Government Accountability Board to keep striking improper signatures on its own, which it will do – and consider the Tea Party groups' findings, which the agency says it cannot do under the law. But Mark Antill of the group "True the Vote" said some in his group believe the Board can accept the Tea Party's challenges.

He also told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel his group could not conclude if the petitions have the required 540,000 valid signatures to order a recall election. Antill said the group reviewed about 90-percent of the petitions – and it found that 534,000 signatures were valid, 229,000 needed more review, and 55-thousand are clearly improper.

He said that between the questionable signatures and those not counted, there are probably enough. GOP consultant Mark Graul said Republicans are preparing for a Walker recall election – and he could not say whether it would be to Walker's advantage to drag the process out.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Is the IRS Attempting to Intimidate Local Tea Parties?
Buffett: Banks Victimized by Evicted Homeowners
NYPD surveillance of students called ‘disgusting’
WikiLeaks publishes security think tank emails
N.D. Tea Party debate skipped by top GOP candidates
Ayn Rand Beats Out Rick Santelli as First Teapartyer
Doctors call for HPV shots for boys

Is the IRS Attempting to Intimidate Local Tea Parties?

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 03:29 PM PST

By: Colleen Owens, BigGovernment.com

In January and February of this year, the Internal Revenue Service began sending out letters to various local Tea Parties across the country. Mailed from the same Cincinnati, Ohio IRS office, these letters have reached Tea Parties in Virginia, Hawaii, Ohio, and Texas (we are hearing of more daily). There are several common threads to these letters: all are requesting more information from these independent Tea Parties in regard to their nonprofit 501(c)(4) applications (for this type of nonprofit, donations are not deductible). While some of the requests are reasonable, much of them are strikingly onerous and, dare I say, Orwellian in nature.

What are local Tea Partiers to think with requests like "Please identify your volunteers" or "are there board members or officers who have run or will run for office (including relatives)"? What possible reason would the IRS have for Tea Parties to "name your donors" when said donations are non-deductible? These are just a few of the questions asked by the IRS in these letters, and one cannot help but suspect an intrinsic threat encompassing all these demands.

The other question is the timing of these IRS letters requesting reams of copies and hundreds of hours of work and potentially thousands of dollars in accounting/legal fees (all due in two weeks). Some of these Tea Party groups have not received anything concerning their nonprofit status since 2010 prior to these letters.

These documents are further undermined by a letter sent to the IRS Commissioner Shulman. Signed by six Senators, it requests that the commissioner investigate 501(c)(4) groups to determine whether they are engaging in substantial campaign activity, including opposition to any candidate. Who signed this letter? Senators Schumer, Franken, Udall, Shaheen, Whitehouse, Merkley and Bennet — all Democrats.

Could it be that these Senators want the IRS to investigate the nonprofit status of Media Matters and its coordinated political activity with the White House? Or perhaps they are concerned with nonprofit ACORN groups' record of voter fraud, and other previous campaign abuses including alleged close ties with President Obama's Project Vote? No, when these Senators sent this letter to the IRS commissioner, the message would be very clear. The 501(c)(4) groups they want investigated are not those with Democratic liberal ties.

But why would a department like the IRS cave to Democrat demands? Could it be because this Democratic administration proposed a budget earlier this month that would result in "$1.1 billion in new funds for the Internal Revenue Service… that would translate to 5,112 new hires, or a 5 percent expansion of enforcement operations"? Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, couldn't contain her glee at the prospect of over 5,000 new union hires, exclaiming in response to the announcement that "the administration's 2012 funding level for the IRS would permit the agency to improve services through increasing response rates to inquiries, deploying enforcement resources to what the White House called high-return integrity activities and by modernizing information technology systems."

The IRS is already focusing on "deploying enforcement resources," as Kelley put it, toward targeting small, local Tea Parties; we're sorry to report that these "high-return integrity activities" are generating a higher fear factor, not necessarily higher returns.

Buffett: Banks Victimized by Evicted Homeowners

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 03:26 PM PST

By Andrew Frye, Bloomberg.com

Warren Buffett, who controls the biggest shareholding of the No. 1 U.S. mortgage lender, said banks were victimized by some homeowners who refinanced their loans before getting evicted.

"Large numbers of people who have 'lost' their house through foreclosure have actually realized a profit because they carried out refinancings earlier that gave them cash in excess of their cost," Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said Feb. 25 in his annual letter. "In these cases, the evicted homeowner was the winner, and the victim was the lender."

Foreclosures have claimed about 5 million homes since the property market began its slide in 2006. That has saddled lenders like Bank of America Corp. with defaults, vacated properties and lawsuits. Berkshire, whose stake in Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), the largest U.S. mortgage lender, is valued at more than $11 billion, invested $5 billion in Bank of America last year.

"It's the mercenary side of Buffett," said Jeff Matthews, a Berkshire shareholder and author of "Secrets in Plain Sight: Business & Investing Secrets of Warren Buffett." "Rationally, it's an interesting observation. But it ignores the huge human- cost side of the equation."

Buffett, who publicly defended Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in 2010 against accusations it misled clients, used the letter to renew his support for banks. The industry is facing criticism from Democrats including President Barack Obama, who in his January State of the Union address said bets by lenders prompted the 2008 credit freeze and "left innocent, hard-working Americans holding the bag."

'Enough With the Lambasting'

Buffett, an ally of Obama's, has won praise from Democratic lawmakers as the billionaire campaigned for higher taxes on the wealthy. Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire owns warrants to purchase $5 billion of stock in New York-based Goldman Sachs.

NYPD surveillance of students called ‘disgusting’

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 03:23 PM PST

By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press

At Columbia University and elsewhere, the fear that the New York Police Department might secretly be infiltrating Muslim students’ lives has spread beyond them to others who find the reported tactics “disgusting,” as one teenager put it.

The NYPD surveillance of Muslims on a dozen college campuses in the Northeast is a surprising and disappointing violation, students said Saturday in reaction to Associated Press reports that revealed the intelligence-gathering at Columbia and elsewhere.

“If this is happening to innocent Muslim students, who’s next?” asked freshman Dina Morris, 18, of Amherst, Mass. “I’m the child of an immigrant, and I was just blown away by the news; it’s disgusting.”

Documents obtained by the AP show that the NYPD used undercover officers and informants to infiltrate Muslim student groups. An officer even went whitewater rafting with students and reported on how many times they prayed and what they discussed. Police also trawled college websites and blogs, compiling daily reports on the activities of Muslim students and academics.

It was all part of the NYPD’s efforts to keep tabs on Muslims throughout the region as part of the department’s anti-terrorism efforts. Police built databases of where Muslims lived and worked, where they prayed, even where they watched sports.

In the past week, Muslims and non-Muslims alike held a town hall meeting on the Manhattan campus of the Ivy League college to discuss the police surveillance. Concerned members of many school groups attended.

WikiLeaks publishes security think tank emails

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 03:19 PM PST

From: Reuters.com

The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks began publishing on Monday more than five million emails from a U.S.-based global security analysis company that has been likened to a shadow CIA.

The emails, snatched by hackers, could unmask sensitive sources and throw light on the murky world of intelligence-gathering by the company known as Stratfor, which counts Fortune 500 companies among its subscribers.

Stratfor in a statement shortly after midnight EST (0500 GMT) said the release of its stolen emails was an attempt to silence and intimidate it.

It said it would not be cowed under the leadership of George Friedman, Stratfor’s founder and chief executive officer. It said Friedman had not resigned as CEO, contrary to a bogus email circulating on the Internet.

Some of the emails being published “may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic,” the company statement said.

“We will not validate either. Nor will we explain the thinking that went into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questioning about them,” the statement said.

WikiLeaks did not say how it had acquired access to the vast haul of internal and external correspondence of the Austin, Texas company, formally known as Strategic Forecasting Inc.

N.D. Tea Party debate skipped by top GOP candidates

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 03:17 PM PST

By: Kristen M. Daum, GrandForksHerald.com

Tonight will be the last scheduled debate for candidates in North Dakota's top races prior to the state nominating conventions in March.

But with several high-profile contenders from both parties not attending, less than half of the invited candidates will face their competition on stage.

At least one participant is calling out his opponent's absence, prompting a campaign issue over candidates' willingness to debate in front of their party's base of support.

Today's event is the second of two debate nights organized by the North Dakota Tea Party Caucus and a coalition of more than a dozen conservative-leaning organizations.

It begins with a half-hour pre-show at 6 p.m. at Fargo's Best Western Doublewood Inn, 3333 13th Ave. S.

As with the first event in Bismarck last month, the caucus aimed to have three one-hour debates for the U.S. House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates.

But two key Republicans and all Democratic candidates have once again declined to participate, forcing a change in the debate format.

Of the 15 candidates invited, nine candidates will attend, but two will address the audience unopposed.

Ayn Rand Beats Out Rick Santelli as First Teapartyer

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 03:13 PM PST

By: Gary Weiss, SFGate.com

The origins of the Tea Party are usually traced to Rick Santelli’s televised rant, which took place on Feb. 19, 2009 — by coincidence exactly 83 years to the day after Ayn Rand first set foot on American soil. A few anti- tax, anti-government rallies preceded the Santelli tirade, but he and his immediate predecessors usually get the nod for originating the movement.

I beg to differ. Ayn Rand was the very first person on the national political stage to enunciate views that mesh precisely with the ones being bandied about by the Tea Party. Rand was channeling the Tea Party decades before there even was a Tea Party.

In 1964, she gave a radio interview that could have been broadcast today, in which she perfectly captured the angst of 21st-century right-leaning populists. It’s doubtful that Rand would have supported the Tea Party movement if she were living today. That wasn’t her style. But it’s important to distinguish between Rand’s ideology and her knee-jerk opposition to any movement whose views might have competed with her own.

‘Little Sympathy’

In a 1971 newsletter article, she expressed disdain for groups — similar to today’s Tea Party, though far smaller — that opposed the United Nations, foreign aid, international treaties, relations with communist countries, federal aid to education, and the income tax. She disparaged them as “primitive patriotic groups,” even while agreeing with most of their ideas. “Personally,” she said, “I have little sympathy with such groups because they do not know how to uphold their ideas intellectually, because they rush unarmed and unprepared into a deadly battle and do more harm than good to the rightist cause.”

She was right. Such groups faded into the mists of history without having much impact. The Tea Party is different. It has latched on to the disdain for government that is common in the heartland, and seems to have an almost psychic connection to the grand old lady of radical capitalism.

The most dramatic evidence of that can be found in an interview that she gave to a small chain of radio stations, probably in October 1964. Tapes of this interview, and another one from 1962, were in the possession of a friend and colleague of mine: the investigative reporter Richard Behar. Behar got them in the 1980s from iconic broadcaster Gordon McLendon — a pioneer of the Top 40 hits format — and they have resided in a succession of closets ever since.

Throughout the 1962 broadcast, Rand expressed contempt for the Kennedy administration. She called it “fascist” for exerting pressure on the steel industry to roll back prices. Five decades later, a U.S. president wouldn’t even think about injecting himself into the affairs of a major industry, except to step in with billions of dollars to keep it afloat, if it’s considered too big to fail. Nothing startling there.

Doctors call for HPV shots for boys

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 12:26 PM PST

By Cheryl Wetzstein-The Washington Times

Despite lackluster acceptance among girls for a vaccine to prevent cancer-causing sexually transmitted viruses, the American Academy of Pediatrics is fully recommending that boys get the shots as well.

Boys 11 and 12 should be immunized routinely, with three doses of a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV), the AAP said Monday in its online issue of Pediatrics. This formally updates the academy's previous policy of "permissive recommendation" for vaccination of males.

The AAP has recommended since 2007 that girls ages 11 and 12 receive the HPV vaccine.

The new policy should end any resistance among health insurers to covering HPV vaccines for boys. Each HPV shot cost about $130 in July; three shots are needed for the vaccine to be fully effective.

Merck & Co.'s Gardasil is the only approved HPV vaccine for males; both Gardasil and Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmithKline, are approved for females.

The HPV vaccine exploded into a presidential political issue last year when Texas Gov. Rick Perry entered the race.

In 2007, when the first HPV vaccine was approved for girls ages 11 and 12, Mr. Perry issued an executive order mandating it for Texas girls. An outcry ensued over the usurping of parental rights and the idea that the vaccine gave tacit permission for children and teens to engage in premarital sex.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

To avoid N.Y. tax, tribes make, and sell, cigarettes
Oil prices are rising, a gallon is now $3.65 nationally
World Bank Wants Control Of The High Seas
Forcing Defendant to Decrypt Hard Drive Is Unconstitutional, Appeals Court Rules
Medscape offers doctors continuing education credits for reading CDC’s latest anti-raw milk propaganda
Rand Paul says tea party and father still a factor
Tea Party Patriots Leader Quits; Florida Leader Says He Sounded Like Obama

To avoid N.Y. tax, tribes make, and sell, cigarettes

Posted: 25 Feb 2012 03:07 AM PST

By Thomas Kaplan / New York Times – BendBulletin.com

ONEIDA, N.Y. — The trucks lumber past cornfields and dilapidated farm houses, pull up to a onetime bingo hall, and unload their cargo: boxes of tobacco imported from the Carolinas.

Inside, employees of the Oneida Indian Nation dump the shredded tobacco leaves into rolling machines and fashion them into cigarettes to be sold at a dozen tribal convenience stores midway between Syracuse and Utica.

The cigarettes, branded with names like Niagara's and Bishop, sell for as little as $39.95 for a 10-pack carton — much cheaper than those at non-Indian retailers — and bring in millions of dollars a year to the tribe, which also has a resort casino, five golf courses and a multimedia production house.

"We tried poverty for 200 years," the Oneidas' leader, Ray Halbritter, said in an interview. "We decided to try something different."

The Oneidas' cigarette manufacturing business is part of a new strategy that is quickly being embraced among New York's eight federally recognized Indian tribes. After years of fighting a losing battle against the state over the taxation of name-brand cigarettes sold on reservations, many are now manufacturing their own cigarettes.

The tribes argue that because they are sovereign nations, the cigarettes they make are exempt from New York state's $4.35-a-pack excise tax, the highest in the United States. But the tobacco industry and owners of other convenience stores say tribal cigarette manufacturing is just an elaborate form of tax evasion.

Oil prices are rising, a gallon is now $3.65 nationally

Posted: 25 Feb 2012 03:04 AM PST

By Chris Kahn, Associated Press – DesertNews.com

NEW YORK — Oil prices are approaching last year’s highs as tensions increase over Iran’s nuclear program. The rise pushed gasoline prices on Friday to a national average of $3.65 per gallon, the highest ever for this time of year.

Western nations fear Iran is building a nuclear weapon and have been trying to force it to open its facilities to inspection. Iran has refused, turning away international inspectors this week for the second time this month. The United Nations said Friday that Iran has responded to the recent scrutiny by speeding up production of higher-grade enriched uranium, feeding concerns that it is developing a bomb.

As both sides dig in for a protracted standoff, investors are snapping up oil contracts in case fighting breaks out in the heart of the one of the world’s biggest oil-producing regions. “Everyone’s pricing in the potential for war now,” said independent analyst Stephen Schork. “Without a concrete resolution, nobody knows how high this can go.”

Israel hasn’t ruled out an attack on Iran, and Iran has said it is ready to strike pre-emptively, possibly targeting the Strait of Hormuz, if it is threatened. The Persian Gulf passageway is a potential choke point for oil supplies. One-fifth of the world’s oil tankers pass through it every day.

World Bank Wants Control Of The High Seas

Posted: 25 Feb 2012 03:01 AM PST

By Brandon Smith, Alt-Market – InfoWars.com

As a proponent of legitimate free markets, I am always up for a little creative entrepreneurship. However, there is a considerable difference between building productive markets, and engaging in monopolistic piracy. Global conglomerates and the elites that operate them have long been familiar with the pirate's life, and not the fun filled adventure-time rope swinging swashbuckling brand. In fact, it was elitists like Sir Francis Drake, commissioned by the English monarchy, who embodied this disturbing covert bedlam. We're talking murder, mayhem, and blood-money, folks! So, it should be of no surprise to anyone that the thieving mercantile swine of our era are returning to the high seas to plunder once again, only in a much more subversive and devious manner.

This past week, World Bank President Robert Zoellick made his organization's intentions for oceanic regimentation known, at least in a candy coated way, at the Economist World Oceans Summit in Singapore:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:23126775~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html

Over the last several years, World Bank has seen fit to insinuate itself into the environmental movement as a "bastion" of green ideology. In reality, World Bank has long used the threats of environmental destabilization (some of them real, some of them fake) as tools for the centralization of resources into the hands of mega-corporations. In fact, if one was to attempt to sum up exactly what it is that World Bank actually does in a single phrase, it would probably be "resource domination". This domination is achieved through the strict lending guidelines that sovereign countries have to commit to in order to attain financing from the supranational entity.

Like a greasy loan shark working for a hardboiled mob cartel, World Bank's M.O. is to lend large capital packages (made with money or credit created out of thin air) which the target country and its government obviously cannot afford to pay back. These loans often stipulate that the country relinquish control of its natural resources, the true wealth of the nation, over to international corporate bodies for "management". Through this process, World Bank removes competition from a market and hands designated companies (globalist front-companies) the keys to the kingdom.

Forcing Defendant to Decrypt Hard Drive Is Unconstitutional, Appeals Court Rules

Posted: 25 Feb 2012 02:58 AM PST

By David Kravets, Wired.com

Forcing a criminal suspect to decrypt hard drives so their contents can be used by prosecutors is a breach of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

It was the nation's first appellate court to issue such a finding. And the outcome comes a day after a different federal appeals court refused to entertain an appeal from another defendant ordered by a lower federal court to decrypt a hard drive by month's end.

Thursday's decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that an encrypted hard drive is akin to a combination to a safe, and is off limits, because compelling the unlocking of either of them is the equivalent of forcing testimony.

The case at hand concerns an unidentified "Doe" defendant believed to be in possession of child pornography on 5 terabytes of data on several drives and laptops seized in a California motel with valid court warrants.

Medscape offers doctors continuing education credits for reading CDC’s latest anti-raw milk propaganda

Posted: 25 Feb 2012 02:56 AM PST

By: Jonathan Benson, Natural News

Demand for raw milk is off the charts all across the country, which is presumably why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conveniently decided to release a new raw milk hit-piece recently, which was carefully designed to scare people away from drinking it. Filled with lies, distortions, and blatant data manipulations, this so-called study is now being used as a propaganda tool to brainwash doctors, as Medscape, a popular information resource for physicians, is offering the medical community continuing education credits (CMEs) for reading the article and taking a short test.

In case you missed it, Adam J. Langer from the CDC and several colleagues recently dredged up some data from between 1993 and 2006 that they used to claim that raw milk, also known as fresh milk, is 150 times more likely to cause a food-borne illness outbreak than pasteurized milk. As usual, the data was selectively cherry-picked, massaged, and deliberately crafted in such a way as to vilify raw milk and make it out to be a type of dangerous poison, all under the guise of science.

But as has been pointed out by David E. Gumpert on his blog The Complete Patient, data from the CDC study when interpreted correctly actually shows that raw milk is responsible for a mere 0.5 percent of all food-borne illness outbreaks on average, the vast majority of which involve raw milk and raw milk products bootlegged from filthy factory farms. In reality, there are only between 25 and 175 reported illnesses every year that may be related to raw milk.

Rand Paul says tea party and father still a factor

Posted: 25 Feb 2012 02:53 AM PST

By Scott Wartman, nky.com

ALEXANDRIA–U.S. Sen. Rand Paul looked out at the 200 people assembled in a gymnasium in Alexandria and said the tea party might play just as big of a role this election as it did two years ago.

"I think you are being effective," Paul said. "The question I got nationally about the tea party is, they say it is not active like it was in 2010. Well I think that is still yet to be determined for 2012. This is a big crowd for the middle of the day to have out here. It is hard because we don't have a nominee on the Republican side yet, so it is hard for the tea party to coalesce."

Paul, R-Bowling Green, on Friday spoke to tea party supporters in Alexandria and business leaders in Covington. While in town, he downplayed recent talk of him being a vice presidential candidate on Mitt Romney's ticket. No one has asked him, Paul said, but he's flattered people would consider him. Paul, however, has not given up hope his father, Ron Paul, will pick up enough delegates.

"I'm still supporting that guy from Texas, Ron Paul. He's my no. 1 pick" Paul said. "Really, I think it has been undereported his number of delegates. We still may win \Iowa, Maine, Minnesota and Colorado, because delegates haven't been counted yet. When I said the other day I would be honored, I mean it in the sense that if you were nominated for an Academy Award, you would be honored to be nominated."

At the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce's Government Forum in Covington, Paul spoke about how to fund the Brent Spence Bridge. Paul has advocated moving money from other areas, such as foreign aid and smaller transportation enhancements. Paul said he wanted to eliminate $2 billion of $30 billion in foreign aid but was voted down. Paul decried the aid spent on Egypt and Afghanistan.

Tea Party Patriots Leader Quits; Florida Leader Says He Sounded Like Obama

Posted: 25 Feb 2012 02:51 AM PST

BY KENRIC WARD’S | Sunshine State News

Mark Meckler, a founder of the national Tea Party Patriots, resigned this week — and some Florida tea partiers are saying good riddance.

Meckler’s resignation as national coordinator was accepted by the TPP board following “months of discussions and good-faith differences on how best TPP can serve the Tea Party movement,” the organization said in a statement Friday.

“He felt it necessary to step aside and pursue other endeavors. We extend our best wishes to him. He has done many good things for the movement,” said TPP, which claims 3,400 locally organized chapters and more than 15 million supporters nationwide.

But some rank-and-file tea activists weren’t so congenial about the parting.

“It’s a shame, but not a shame that Mark resigned,” said Billie Tucker, head of the independent First Coast Tea Party, based in Jacksonville. “I think he should have done it a long time ago.”

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Californians willing to tax wealthy
S&P 500 Rises to Highest Level Since 2008
FBI seeks developer for app to track threats on social media
Obama’s Call for Web Privacy Guidelines Seen Leading to Rules With Teeth
Vaccines for everything: Researchers now on brink of developing salmonella jab
No conspiracy: Ron Paul just dislikes Santorum

Californians willing to tax wealthy

Posted: 24 Feb 2012 09:49 AM PST

By: Marisa Lagos, SFGate.com

After years of austere state budgets and frustration among Democratic lawmakers who have tried unsuccessfully to increase taxes, a new poll shows the majority of voters are ready to raise the wealthiest Californians’ income taxes.

A Field Poll released today contains mostly good news for the various groups that want voters to approve tax increases this fall. The strongest support is for the so-called millionaires tax, which would increase state income taxes for people who make more than $1 million a year.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax plan also had majority support, according to the independent survey, with 58 percent of likely voters inclined to vote for the measure.

The governor’s plan would increase the state sales tax by half a cent and raise income taxes for the state’s highest earners for five years. The measure would raise about $35 billion before the taxes expire.

If the governor’s proposed tax isn’t passed, it would trigger automatic cuts to higher education and K-12 schools under Brown’s proposed 2012-13 budget.

Each of the tax measures aimed at the November ballot needs only a majority vote to pass.

S&P 500 Rises to Highest Level Since 2008

Posted: 24 Feb 2012 09:46 AM PST

By Rita Nazareth, Bloomberg.com

U.S. stocks rose, sending the Standard & Poor's 500 Index above its highest close since 2008, as better-than-estimated consumer sentiment and home sales reports bolstered confidence in the world's largest economy.

American International Group Inc. added 2 percent after profit jumped 77 percent. Salesforce.com (CRM) Inc., the largest seller of online customer-management software, surged 8.9 percent as billings growth beat forecasts. Kroger Co. (KR) gained 2 percent as Citigroup Inc. recommended buying the largest U.S. grocery-store chain. A measure of banks in the S&P 500 decreased 0.7 percent for the biggest decline among 24 groups.

The S&P 500 increased 0.4 percent to 1,368.23 at 12:29 p.m. New York time. The benchmark gauge for American equities exceeded its April 2011 peak of 1,363.61 (SPX), which was the highest level since June 2008. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 20.32 points, or 0.2 percent, to 13,005.01 today.

"We continue to see pretty good growth and that's good for stocks," James McDonald, chief investment strategist at Northern Trust Corp. in Chicago, said in a phone interview. His firm manages about $665 billion. "The Dow is flirting with 13,000. While it makes no difference from a valuation standpoint, it can cause some people to say: we've had a pretty a big run and I'll take a bit off the table. From a valuation standpoint, the stock market is still pretty attractive."

Equities gained today as data showed that purchases of new homes in the U.S. exceeded forecasts in January after climbing a month earlier to a one-year high. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment for February rose to 75.3. Economists projected a reading of 73.

Earnings, Valuations

Better-than-estimated economic and earnings reports helped drive the S&P 500 up 4.3 percent in February. The index is poised for a third straight month of gains, the longest streak in a year. Of the 441 S&P 500 companies that reported results since Jan. 9, 298 posted per-share earnings that beat projections, Bloomberg data show. The index is trading for about 14 times reported earnings, compared with the average since 1954 of 16.4 times, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

FBI seeks developer for app to track threats on social media

Posted: 24 Feb 2012 09:43 AM PST

By: J. D. Heyes, NaturalNews.com

By now it should be painfully obvious that those who mean to rule us will use any method necessary in order to keep the unwashed masses under their control, regardless of whether that quaint historic document known as our Constitution permits it.

But just in case you didn’t know, the FBI sent out another little reminder recently when the agency http://www.myfoxdc.com.

Oh, the bureau says this is all on the up-and-up, and that government law enforcement officials are merely interested in identifying early “emerging threats”, whatever those are. The bureau’s 12-page document, which is titled, “FBI Social Media Application,” and posted online, seeks a developer for a program that has the ability “to rapidly assemble critical open source information and intelligence … to quickly vet, identify and geo-locate breaking events, incidents and emerging threats.”

Data mining like Google?

Frank Ciluffo, who heads up George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute, described the program as a “Google news feed” that was “specifically targeted for law enforcement, focusing on their specific needs.”

The new app would also act as a tracking system, Ciluffo believes. “We’re on our mobile phones and we’re on our various iPhones, BlackBerrys and the like that transmits data that locates individuals,” he said.

Ciluffo, who was a former advisor to George W. Bush, says he believes tracking social media trends is becoming a primary focus in national security instigations, but the app in question, he believes, has huge privacy implications – namely, whether law enforcement officials are permitted to monitor public social media posts without probable cause or a warrant.

The FBI, in a statement to Fox News, said the project was merely in the research phase. The agency says if it does go ahead, however, the app “will not focus on specific persons or protected groups, but on words that relate to ‘events’ and ‘crisis’ and activities constituting violations of federal criminal law or threats to national security.”

Obama’s Call for Web Privacy Guidelines Seen Leading to Rules With Teeth

Posted: 24 Feb 2012 09:40 AM PST

By Sara Forden and Eric Engleman, Bloomberg.com

An Obama administration Internet privacy initiative marks the best chance for setting U.S. standards to shield personal information in the absence of Congressional legislation, consumer groups and lawyers said.

The White House called on companies such as Google Inc. (GOOG) and Facebook Inc. (FB) yesterday to work with privacy advocates to craft voluntary codes of conduct for handling consumer data based on a bill of rights for Web users, an effort that may bring the U.S. closer to European data-protection norms.

By enlisting industry in setting privacy guidelines, the administration is taking a flexible approach that would still create rules with teeth, Chris Wolf, a lawyer with Hogan Lovells LLP in Washington, said in an interview.

"It's a huge step forward for both consumers and business," Wolf said. "Consumers are expecting companies to do better, and companies are seeing some competitive advantage in distinguishing themselves as privacy champions."

Businesses should adhere to principles for the handling of personal information, according to a White House report released yesterday. Those include providing understandable privacy policies; giving consumers control over the data collected on them; and handling that information securely.

"Consumers can't wait any longer for clear rules of the road that ensure their personal information is safe online," President Barack Obama said in a statement announcing the report. "As the Internet evolves, consumer trust is essential for the continued growth of the digital economy."

Vaccines for everything: Researchers now on brink of developing salmonella jab

Posted: 24 Feb 2012 09:37 AM PST

By: Ethan A. Huff, NaturalNews.com

The vaccine industry is currently hard at work trying to churn out a vaccine for salmonella, a typically food borne pathogen that thrives on factory farms and in other unsanitary settings. CBS 13 News in Sacramento reports that researchers from the University of California, Davis, have been tasked with developing a vaccine that supposedly prevents salmonella, which these researchers say they are on the verge of completing in the very near future.

Rather than attempt to address the root causes of salmonella, which include filthy animal living conditions on industrial farms and the overuse of synthetic antibiotics in conventional livestock, just to name a few, mainstream science is busy concocting new ways to jab people with toxic chemical cocktails that could permanently injure them.

Funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Stephen McSorley and his team of international researchers believe that by closely studying the immune response to infection in mice, they will be able to arrive at a solid vaccine protocol for “curing” salmonella. And their findings thus far, which were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, seem to indicate that the project is moving forward as planned.

Not surprisingly, Big Pharma is behind this ludicrous endeavor to develop a vaccine for an illness that is largely preventable through improved hygiene, small-scale agriculture, and naturally-boosted human immunity. Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the Novartis Vaccines Institute for Global Health are both collaborators on the project, which is expected to soon move into human clinical trials (http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/02/a-vaccine-against-salmonella/).

The development of this new salmonella vaccine appears to also align directly with the vision of a group of researchers in the U.K. who last summer called for the development of 20 new vaccines in the next decade. Their paper, which was published in the journal Lancet, seeks funding for the development of vaccines “beyond classic infections,” including for things like diabetes, degenerative diseases, and even cancer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13714224).

So by the looks of it, there could soon be vaccines for virtually everything — a headache, an upset stomach, a paper cut, you name it. Anything mainstream medicine can identify that is a consequence of a underlying condition rather than a cause of it is open game for vaccine development because there is a whole lot of money to be made utilizing this approach to so-called medicine.

No conspiracy: Ron Paul just dislikes Santorum

Posted: 24 Feb 2012 09:32 AM PST

By: Jennifer Rubin, WashingtonPost.com

When your candidate has a really rotten debate, the temptation is great to create a distraction. However, if the distraction is harebrained and unflattering to your candidate, you wind up making things worse.

That is essentially what happened yesterday when Rick Santorum and his team came out with a conspiracy theory that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and Mitt Romney were in cahoots. A source close to the Paul campaign told me last night that the Paul camp sees this as an effort by senior Santorum adviser John Brabender to distract the media from the fact that his candidate was "not ready for primetime." The Romney camp did not return a request for comment. (Romney staffers no doubt believe in the adage that you should never get in the way when your opponent is doing harm to himself.)

Indeed, on one hand, you can say it was foolish for Santorum to cook up an excuse for his dismal outing. Santorum already has a reputation for being thin-skinned and peevish. This tactic certainly made him seem like a poor sport.

To some extent, however, the gambit worked. When you can get major media figures and longtime GOP operatives tweeting away about non-existent deals (A Cabinet position! A VP slot for Rand Paul!) based on nothing but the accusations of a wounded candidate's flack, that is no small feat. But, in fact, the explanations for Ron Paul's very obvious disdain for Santorum, and, to a lesser extent, Newt Gingrich are much simpler than a Roswell-esque theory.

Both campaigns confirm that Paul and Romney are personally friendly, as are their wives. They are both of the same generation, with married kids and grandkids on whom they dote. They've both been happily married for decades. (It is widely known that Ron Paul's wife was friendly with Gingrich's second wife.)

It is human nature to show greater deference and civility to those whom you like. What the press is missing, however, is the degree to which Gingrich, Santorum and their staffs have acted in ways that the Paul camp would justifiably perceive as dismissive and rude. When I asked Brabender for reaction to the accusation that he was practicing the art of distraction, he e-mailed, "It sounds like something the Romney campaign told the Paul campaign to say." It is precisely this sort of denigration — that Paul and his staff are unable to think on their own or advance their own interests — that has fueled Paul's desire to skewer Santorum. The source close to the Paul camp responded, "Once again demonstrates the total lack of respect for Ron Paul, his supporters, and his campaign team held by Santorum and his top advisor. When you build coalitions and treat your fellow Republicans the Santorum-Brabender way you end up losing in the general by double digits in the swing states like Pennsylvania." You get the picture now?

Friday, February 24, 2012

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Tea Party sponsors NASCAR team
To close tax loopholes, Obama would open new ones
Price Shock: Watch Cost of Gas Jump 10 Cents During ABC’s ‘World News’ Broadcast
DOJ Urges Supreme Court to Halt Challenge to Warrantless Eavesdropping
iBattle: Apple May Finally Storm the Pentagon
Pasteurized milk 150 times more contaminated with blood, pus and feces than fresh milk
Santorum campaign suggests Mitt Romney may have done deal to make Ron Paul his running mate

Tea Party sponsors NASCAR team

Posted: 24 Feb 2012 07:14 AM PST

By DEAN McNULTY, QMI Agency

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. – Who would have thought a kid born and raised in small town Canada would grow up to be a player in the 2012 U.S. Presidential election race?

Randy MacDonald grew up in the village of Hampton, near Oshawa, with two goals — to be an NHL hockey player and/or a NASCAR race car driver.

He gave up the former after a stellar Tier II junior career with the Bowmanville Eagles, and pursued the latter to become not only a NASCAR driver, but a NASCAR team owner in both the Camping World Truck Series and the Nationwide Series.

It was as owner of MacDonald Motorsports and his own conservative political philosophy that paved the way for a marriage of American Tea Party politics and stock car racing at Daytona International Speedway.

A small team owner — in comparison to the behemoths like Hendrick, Gibbs and Roush — MacDonald said that after 20 years building his business since moving to North Carolina in the early 1990s he came to embrace any political movement that made it easier for an individual to succeed.

And his No. 81 Nationwide Dodge team's performance in 2011, with Blake Koch finishing second in the rookie-of-the-year race, brought MacDonald some new opportunities.

"Last year was a breakthrough year for our team with Blake running for rookie of the year," MacDonald said Thursday in the Nationwide garage. "That got us some notice from potential sponsors for this season."

To close tax loopholes, Obama would open new ones

Posted: 23 Feb 2012 08:21 AM PST

By Paul Wiseman and Christopher S. Rugaber, Boston.com

WASHINGTON—Cutting corporate tax rates and deleting loopholes is just what most economists prescribe for the tangled U.S. tax code.

So why isn’t everyone cheering the plan President Barack Obama unveiled Tuesday to slash the top corporate tax rate and end breaks that let some companies pay little or nothing in taxes?

Economists note that Obama’s plan would upturn the very playing field the administration says it wants to level. It would give manufacturers preferential treatment: Tax breaks would effectively cap their rate at 25 percent. Other companies would pay up to 28 percent.

The current top corporate tax rate is 35 percent.

Some say such varying rates can distort the economy by diverting investment into some industries and away from others that might pack a bigger economic punch.

“The administration is not making sense,” says Martin Sullivan, contributing editor at publisher Tax Analysts. “The whole idea of corporate tax reform is to get rid of loopholes, and this plan is adding loopholes back in.”

Price Shock: Watch Cost of Gas Jump 10 Cents During ABC’s ‘World News’ Broadcast

Posted: 23 Feb 2012 08:18 AM PST

By Sarah Amos, ABCNews.com

The headlines of major newspapers and TV networks this week have been dominated by rising gas prices.

Drivers across the country have shared their stories on the cost – with many already paying more than $4 a gallon at the pump. There have even been reports of gas prices rising at a rate of 10 to 15 cents in a matter of hours.

The swiftness at which those gas prices continue to climb was crystal clear Wednesday night during the broadcast of ABC News' "World News with Diane Sawyer."

As ABC News' Cecilia Vega introduced her piece on high gas prices, the sign at the downtown Los Angeles gas station behind her showed the price of regular gas at $4.99 a gallon. However when the piece concluded nearly two minutes later the price of regular gas had jumped 10 cents to $5.09 a gallon.

Even Vega seemed truly surprised to see such a drastic change in such a short period of time, telling Sawyer that "it is almost too unbelievable to believe."

"It went up 10 cents?" asked Sawyer, herself shocked at what just had occurred.

"Ten cents during that two minutes while we were on the air," confirmed Vega.

DOJ Urges Supreme Court to Halt Challenge to Warrantless Eavesdropping

Posted: 23 Feb 2012 08:15 AM PST

By David Kravets, Wired.com

The Obama administration is urging the Supreme Court to halt a legal challenge weighing the constitutionality of a once-secret warrantless surveillance program targeting Americans' communications that Congress eventually legalized in 2008.

The FISA Amendments Act (.pdf), the subject of the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others, allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans' phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant so long as one of the parties to the communication is outside the United States. The communications may be intercepted "to acquire foreign intelligence information."

The administration is asking the Supreme Court to review an appellate decision that said the nearly 4-year-old lawsuit could move forward. The government said the ACLU and a host of other groups don't have the legal standing to bring the case because they have no evidence they or their overseas clients are being targeted.

The case arrives at the high court's inbox after having two different outcomes in the lower courts. It marks the first time the Supreme Court has been asked to review the eavesdropping program that was secretly employed in the wake of 9/11 by the George W. Bush administration, and eventually largely codified into law four years ago.

A lower court had ruled the ACLU, Amnesty International, Global Fund for Women, Global Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association, The Nation magazine, PEN American Center, Service Employees International Union and other plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case, because they could not demonstrate that they were subject to the eavesdropping.

The groups appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that they often work with overseas dissidents who might be targets of the National Security Agency program. Instead of speaking with those people on the phone or through e-mails, the groups asserted that they have had to make expensive overseas trips in a bid to maintain attorney-client confidentiality.

iBattle: Apple May Finally Storm the Pentagon

Posted: 23 Feb 2012 08:10 AM PST

By Spencer Ackerman, Wired.com

The Pentagon is, for all intents and purposes, an Apple-free zone. Its desktop computers have long run on Windows, and now its tablets and smartphones are all Android. But there's a chance that might be about to change. The Air Force's Air Mobility Command is considering a monster purchase of iPads — one that might give Apple inroads into a military market that's eluded it so far.

A recent solicitation from Air Mobility Command has the Air Force's cargo and transport division seeking "a maximum of 18,000 iPad 2s" to serve as "Electronic Flight Bags" — essentially, tools to launch apps that digitize the flyboys' weighty manuals. Even that purchase isn't a slam dunk for Cupertino, since the solicitation called for iPads or "equal" devices. (Cue the indignation from Cult of Mac-types.) But if the Air Force even buys half that many iPads, it would still represent the largest tablet or smartphone purchase the military's made thus far.

And it also could represent something of a reversal of Apple's military fortunes. Last week, the Air Force's Special Operations Command canceled an order of over 2,000 iPads, apparently prompted by security concerns about Russian software on the devices for reading PDFs of flight charts that double as encryption agents. As if to twist the knife, a spokeswoman told NextGov that the command "continues" to evaluate "the procurement aspect of providing tablets to the field." In other words, they love tablets — just not Apple's tablet.

That's a familiar story for Apple. While the military is just getting started playing around with smart devices, it's balked at shelling out for Cupertino's mobile products.

In 2010, the military's Special Operations Command wanted a suite of apps to get militarily relevant data out to their dismounted, networked commandos, including a "multi-touch whiteboarding aka John Madden tool." They went with Android phones to host it. The next year, when the app-mad Army started playing around with its first smartphone linked to its new data network, Android powered it.

Later in 2011, the Army bought a bunch of commercial smartphones — as in, officers went to Best Buy and purchased 60 phones — to test out how they worked with the new data network. It also debuted a new quasi-smartphone to replace an old, funky plan to make soldiers wear computers. Yet again, in both cases, Droid did.

Pasteurized milk 150 times more contaminated with blood, pus and feces than fresh milk

Posted: 23 Feb 2012 08:06 AM PST

BY: Mike Adams, NaturalNews.com

The vaccine-pushing, disease scare-mongering agency known as the CDC has put out a stunning piece of propaganda attacking fresh milk (raw dairy), claiming it is “150 times more dangerous” than pasteurized milk. This is all part of their anti-American agenda to crush food freedom and criminalize fundamental farming practices upon which this very nation was founded. (Yes, George Washington and the founding fathers drank raw milk, grew hemp and even smoked a little weed as medicine.)

But what the CDC won’t dare reveal to the public is the far more horrifying truth: Pasteurized dairy is produced in the dirtiest milk factories imaginable, where blood, pus, e.coli and other truly dangerous pathogens are routinely bottled into milk containers and fed to consumers.

That’s the whole point of pasteurization, you see: To kill everything that might be alive in their ultra-dirty milk. The real purpose of pasteurization is not to simply “make milk safe” as is claimed by the CDC, but rather to allow the dairy industry to operate DIRTY. It’s so much easier to just cook the crap out of the milk (yes, there’s fecal matter in it) than to clean up their operations, get it?

Thanks to pasteurization, conventional (non-organic, non-raw) dairy operators have no need to thoroughly wash their milking machines, no need to sterilize any milk containers, no need to wash their hands, and no need to maintain a clean milking environment whatsoever. It’s just total filth with festering diseased animals dying on the floor and being physically abused by the corporate dairy operators (see video links, below).

Dairy cows are routinely abused and left to suffer in total filth

Want to know how conventional (pasteurized) dairy cows are really treated? Here’s something the CDC won’t show you.

Santorum campaign suggests Mitt Romney may have done deal to make Ron Paul his running mate

Posted: 23 Feb 2012 07:58 AM PST

By: Toby Harnden, Daily Mail

After tonight’s debate, in which Ron Paul and Mitt Romney repeatedly attacked Rick Santorum over his 16-year record in Congress, the former US Senator for Pennsylvania hinted that something nefarious was going on.

“You have to ask Congressman Paul and Governor Romney what they’ve got going together,” Santorum told reporters in the spin room in Mesa, Arizona. “Their commercials look a lot alike and so do their attacks.”

Santorum’s top strategist John Brabender went even further, charging that the two men had “joined forces” and were coordinating attacks against his man

“Clearly there’s a tag team strategy between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. For all I know, Mitt Romney might be considering Ron Paul as his running mate. Clearly there is now an alliance between those two and you saw that certainly in the debate.”

The was also coordination in their attack ads, he charged. “Ron Paul for all practical purposes has pulled out of Michigan. Correct? Where’s he running negative ads against Rick Santorum? Michigan.

“It was interesting to me that if you watch Ron Paul when he came into the debate, he wrote negative things about Rick Santorum down because when he started to get questions he would immediately pick up his paper and start mentioning Santorum stuff.”

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Monday, February 27, 2012

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Friday, February 24, 2012

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

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