U.S. News Lumps LaRouchie in With Tea Partiers at IRS Rally

-By Warner Todd Huston

Lyndon LaRouche and his followers have never been welcomed into the Tea Party movement but his followers shadow nearly every Washington-based protest that occurs, whether left, center, or right. But in its coverage of Wednesday’s D.C.-based IRS rallies, U.S. News featured a follower of LaRouche as if he were a legitimate part of the Tea Party protest.

In its report on the Tea Party rallies, U.S. News noted that the protests “soon became about a lot more than the IRS” as speakers and protest signs began speaking to a list of complaints. But the first person U.S. News went to for a quote was one Mike Reeves, a follower of Lyndon LaRouche.

“Auditing the IRS is not enough,” protester Mike Reeves, a self-proclaimed follower of controversial political activist Lyndon LaRouche, told Whispers while holding an “Impeach Obama” sign. “The president has got to be removed like [President] Nixon was.”

But, U.S. News failed to inform readers that LaRouche followers have never been part of the Tea Party movement and lending a LaRouchie this platform is misleading. Any quote of a LaRouchie is simply not representative of conservatives, Republicans or the Tea Party movement.
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U.S. News Lumps LaRouchie in With Tea Partiers at IRS Rally”


Buzzfeed Sued Over Unauthorized Use of Photo

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is one of the dangers of the Internet age and Buzzfeed is only the latest website to find itself being taken to court, sued for $3.67 million for using a photograph without the permission of the original owner of the image.

While perusing the Internet, photographer Kai Eiselein stumbled across one of Buzzfeed’s ubiquitous photo essay lists, one titled “The 30 Funniest Header Faces.” The entry from 2010 gathered 30 images of soccer players caught by the camera lens making funny faces while butting heads against a soccer ball.

Eiselein was perturbed, though, to find one of his own photographs featured as one of the 30 amusing images Buzzfeed used. The photog was perturbed because he had uploaded the image to his Flickr feed and taken the time to note on all his images that his photos were “All Rights Reserved” in an effort to keep people from stealing them. As it happens, Buzzfeed simply took the image and never contacted Eiselein for permission to use the image.

Eiselein sent Buzzfeed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice and the site quickly acceded to his demand. So, upon visiting the Buzzfeed page in question now, visitors are greeted with “The 29 Funniest Header Faces.”
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Buzzfeed Sued Over Unauthorized Use of Photo”


One American Farm Bureau Federation Official’s Trouble With English

-By Warner Todd Huston

Everyone is talking about the bloated, money-wasting farm bill that failed to pass the House last week. But Dale Moore, one interested party, is all about the discussion being the “penultimate”… something or the other.

Moore is the executive director of public policy at the American Farm Bureau and one must hope he got to that exalted position because he knows farming because he certainly doesn’t seem to know anything about the English language.

In a report in the D.C.-based newspaper The Hill, Moore made to add his oh-so-important contribution to the discussion of the failed farm bill.

Moore was talking to the paper about whether or not the GOP can make another stab at passing the bill. Amusingly, the newspaper quoted this dunce verbatim:

“There’s the penultimate question, and candidly I’m not sure” of the answer, Moore said.

What? “Penultimate”?

Mr. Moore, do you even know what the word “penultimate” means? It means “second to last.” But here Moore uses it like it is the word “ultimate.”

Moron.

Dale Moore is typical of the hapless know-nothings we have in D.C. But Mr. Moore’s ill-educated attempt to sound important aside, this whole debate is proof of exactly what is wrong with the fetid swamp we call Washington DC.

A bill goes down in flames? The people stand against it? Votes are impossible to come by? No worries, just figure out how to “salvage” it and pass it anyway in a different form and when no one is watching. No bad idea ever dies in D.C. It just gets passed under a different name.

This monstrosity parading as a farm bill should not just be retooled. It should be thrown in the trash and not revisited.
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One American Farm Bureau Federation Official’s Trouble With English”


‘Color Purple’ Author’s New Virulently Anti-Semitic Book Draws Criticism

-By Warner Todd Huston

Alice Walker is most well known for authoring The Color Purple, a book on the African American experience that in 1985 became an award-winning film staring Oprah Winfrey among others. But Walker is also well known as a major anti-Semite and in her new book, The Cushion in the Road, Walker “sinks to new lows” of anti-Semitism.

In Walker’s new book 12 essays in a section titled “On Palestine,” a section that forms one quarter of the book, are replete with comparisons of modern-day Israel to Nazi Germany and proclamations that Israel should not be allowed to exist. The book also makes attempts to justify terrorism against Israelis saying Palestinians should not be blamed for terror bombings in Israel.

Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti Defamation League, slams Walker’s new book saying, “Alice Walker has taken her extreme and hostile views to a shocking new level.”

“Alice Walker has sunk to new lows with essays that remove the gloss of her anti-Israel activism to reveal someone who is unabashedly infected with anti-Semitism,” Foxman said in a press release.
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‘Color Purple’ Author’s New Virulently Anti-Semitic Book Draws Criticism”


Beer Salute: Obama Thanks Germans for ‘Very Important German Immigrants, Anheuser-Busch’

-By Warner Todd Huston

During his visit to Germany on Wednesday, President Obama extended the gratitude of the American people unto the citizens of Germany for giving us “Anheuser Busch,” some of our most important German-American citizens.

As the pool reports noted, the President thanked families like “Chrysler, Hershey, Heinz, Einstein, Steinway, Steinbeck, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig for prosperity and inspiration” and noted that young Americans “will always be grateful for Levi Strauss for their blue jeans.”

Obama went on to say, “Americans will also be grateful especially for some very important German immigrants Anheuser Busch.”
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Beer Salute: Obama Thanks Germans for ‘Very Important German Immigrants, Anheuser-Busch’”


Colorado Sen. Who Spearheaded Anti-Gun Laws Close to Recall

-By Warner Todd Huston

In the aftermath of the crime at a Colorado movie theater where 12 people were murdered, the Colorado State legislature quickly moved to adopt stricter gun laws and Senate President John Morse led that effort. But now, after his anti-gun bills were successfully passed into law, Morse faces a recall election that could turn him out of office.

On June 18, Colorado certified that the recall effort had gained enough signatures to move forward making Senator leader Morse the first legislator to ever be recalled in the state’s history.

Morse, a Democrat from Colorado Springs, has been in the legislature for seven years and for a short time was the police chief of Fountain, Colorado. He became Senate majority leader in 2009 after the former occupant of that office resigned to join the Obama administration.

Senator Morse not only supported but championed the new laws that limited ammunition magazines to 15 rounds or less and mandated that background checks be performed even for private transactions on gun sales. Morse also strongly supported several other, even stricter measures but they failed to pass.

Despite the complaints of constituents, the Senator is wholly unapologetic for his strong support of the new gun laws.
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Colorado Sen. Who Spearheaded Anti-Gun Laws Close to Recall”


GAO: IRS Could Tax ‘Virtual Currencies’

-By Warner Todd Huston

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns that the Internal Revenue Service should do more to warn taxpayers that they could have some tax liability over their holdings in Internet-based “virtual currencies” like Linden Dollars or Bitcoins.

On May 15, the GAO released a report ordered by the Senate Committee on Finance entitled, “Virtual Economies and Currencies.”

“Transactions within virtual economies or using virtual currencies could produce taxable income in various ways, depending on the facts and circumstances of each transaction,” the report warns.

The GAO points out that online currencies that exist only within a certain program–like the “cash” used to buy weapons and items in video games–are not taxable if those currencies exist solely within their lone environment. But other online, “virtual currencies” are a bit less “virtual” in that they can be traded offline and used to purchase real things or can even be converted to U.S. dollars using various third party trading systems.

The latter, the GAO report states, could “pose various tax compliance risks.”
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GAO: IRS Could Tax ‘Virtual Currencies’”


National Review Hammers the ‘Gang of Eight’ Immigration Team

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a new editorial, the folks at National Review came out strongly against the immigration plan being sponsored by the so-called “gang of eight” Senators, a group that includes Florida Senator Marco Rubio, calling the bill “Rubio’s Folly.”

NR urges Senator Rubio to vote against the bill he has helped craft, disparaging the proposed legislation as, “an amnesty-first, enforcement-maybe program drawn up mainly to reflect the priorities of 11 million citizens of other countries rather than the concerns of more than 300 million citizens of the United States.”

NR goes on to point out that many of the bill’s “security triggers” are little else but “paper tigers” that are undermined before they even fairly begin. For instance, the requirement that prospective new citizens must have a “clean criminal record” is undermined by the fact that they can actually have two misdemeanors and up to two convictions for drunk driving yet still qualify.
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National Review Hammers the ‘Gang of Eight’ Immigration Team”


Politico Uses Glenn Beck Against GOP On IRS Protest

-By Warner Todd Huston

For Politico, the news about the hundreds of Tea Party protestors in Washington DC on Wednesday, June 19, wasn’t so much about why the protesters were upset, but how it affected the “bipartisan approach” to the House IRS probe. And Politico seemed to blame Glenn Beck for the strain.

Politico reported that hundreds of Tea Party supporters took to the U.S. Capitol lawn Wednesday to protest the IRS in a rally sponsored by conservative activist and radio host Glenn Beck, but the Internet newser quickly turned its attention away from the protests and to the House Ways and Means Committee’s IRS probe.

Politico reported that Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) was one of those invited by Beck to address the protest and this, they worried, would “upend the bipartisan approach” to the IRS probe.
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Politico Uses Glenn Beck Against GOP On IRS Protest”


Public Trust in Newspapers Falls to New Lows

-By Warner Todd Huston

A new poll on newspapers and television news shows that Americans’ confidence in the news industry continues to erode in this era of mass communications, reaching a low not seen since 2007.

The Gallup polling firm finds that trust in newspapers has fallen to 23 percent. This is down from 25 percent in 2012 and 28 percent in 2011.

The previous low was recorded in 2007 when trust in newspapers reached 22 percent.

Trust in newspapers has undergone steady erosion since its 1979 high of 51 percent, Gallup reports.

Television news fares no better in the estimation of those polled by Gallup. Trust in TV news tied that of newspapers with 23 percent saying they trust TV news sources. This is down from a 1993 high of 46 percent–when Gallup first began asking about it.
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Public Trust in Newspapers Falls to New Lows”


Bill Ayers: Obama Should be Tried for War Crimes

-By Warner Todd Huston

Former domestic terrorist and liberal educator Bill Ayers may think Obama is a charming and likable but he still thinks he should be tried for war crimes over his drone program and his military campaigns in Afghanistan and other places.

In a continuing video series called the RCP Morning Commute, where well-known Chicagoans and folks in the news take a “morning commute” drive with the Charlie Stone and Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics, Bill Ayers made his assessment of the Obama presidency. And he wasn’t wholly complimentary.

When asked to grade the President’s term in office, the infamous educator proclaimed Obama’s presidency a failure. “I’d give him a failing grade,” Ayers said.

Ayers went on to say he feels that Obama is a “moderate” and that he campaigned that way so no one should be surprised by the President’s actions in office.
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Bill Ayers: Obama Should be Tried for War Crimes”


IRS To Hire ‘Diversity and Inclusion Specialist’ At $123,758 Salary

-By Warner Todd Huston

After repeated scandals, the IRS is looking to hire a new “Diversity and Inclusion Specialist” and is offering a generous $123,758 annual salary plus benefits.

The opening was announced on June 11 and will be advertised until June 24.

According to the description this “diversity” officer will “serve as a change agent to provide strategies, solutions, training, tools, resources and thought leadership on diversity and foster inclusion” as well as “build internal awareness” in the IRS.

This officer will be tasked with hearing and resolving complaints from employees and to “effect minor disciplinary measures, such as warnings and reprimands.” The new position will also assist in creating employee training programs.
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IRS To Hire ‘Diversity and Inclusion Specialist’ At $123,758 Salary”


Miss Alabama 2013 Proves American Freedom is Dying

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mary Margaret McCord, the dull witted “beauty queen” from Alabama, said during the 2013 Miss USA contest that she’d trade freedom and liberty for safety. This empty-headed twit proves that the liberals have won. We have lost our freedom if people care so little about it that they would trade liberty and freedom for government-sponsored “security.” Our system of mis-education, an edifice so infested with liberals, did this to us all. The liberals are killing America. But conservatives are also at fault here. They are at fault for allowing our educational system to be taken over by the anti-American, hardcore left.

This Ben Franklin axiom is obviously no longer taught in our schools:

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
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Miss Alabama 2013 Proves American Freedom is Dying”


Big Three Networks Have Stopped Reporting on IRS Scandal

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently the Big Three TV networks have decided that the IRS intimidation scandal is over and it seems that reporting on the issue has disappeared from the airwaves.

When the story first broke after IRS official Lois Lerner admitted that the taxing agency had unfairly targeted conservatives and Tea Party groups seeking a tax status, the Big Three jumped into the story with both feet. But now, only a month later, coverage of the matter has slowed to a trickle.

A new review by the Media Research Center of the first month of coverage of the IRS scandal shows that three quarters of the stories hit in the first two weeks after the news broke.

MRC analysts reviewed each of the morning and evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC from May 10 through June 12 (ABC’s World News, Good Morning America, CBS’s Evening News and This Morning, and NBC’s Nightly News and Today show), and found 127 full stories, interviews or anchor briefs that focused on the IRS scandal. Analysts determined that 76 percent of the IRS stories were aired within the first two weeks, while 24 percent of the stories arrived in the latter period, a huge drop-off.

MRC found that CBS hit the story the most (49 stories), while NBC came in second (at 44), with ABC brining up the tail (with 34).

Finally, during the week of June 10, only one mention of the scandal was heard anywhere on network TV.
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Big Three Networks Have Stopped Reporting on IRS Scandal”


White House: Obama’s $100 Million Africa Trip is ‘Great Bang for our Buck’

-By Warner Todd Huston

After questions arose over the $100 million price tag of the President’s trip to Africa, the White House defended the costs claiming that the expenditure offers the nation “great bang for our buck.”

After saying that the White House doesn’t determine the costs of travel and security, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said that the visits to these little noticed parts of the world would be good exposure for the United States.

“Frankly, there will be a great bang for our buck for being in Africa, because when you travel to regions like Africa that don’t get a lot of presidential attention, you can have very long-standing and long-running impact from the visit,” Rhodes said in The Hill newspaper.

Rhodes said that ignoring Africa is ceding leadership to others in the region.
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White House: Obama’s $100 Million Africa Trip is ‘Great Bang for our Buck’”


Sarah Palin Calls Bill Maher Out for Calling Son Trig a ‘Retard’

-By Warner Todd Huston


Don’t poke the Mamma Bear!

Sarah Palin is getting back on track as an outspoken commentator on the news and her first step back in the spotlight is to slam so-called comedian Bill Maher for calling her son, Trig, a “retard” in his “comedy” act.

Palin has recently re-signed as a Fox News commentator after having let her contract lapse in January of 2013, likely with an eye toward having a voice in the upcoming 2014 midterm election cycle.

But elections were far from her mind after she discovered that so-called comedian Bill Maher was going around calling her Down’s Syndrome child a “retard.”

Palin heard about Maher’s calumny from a piece in the Daily Caller by Ron Furtell titled, “Why I Heckled Bill Maher.”

Furtell had gone with friends to see Maher’s stand up routine in Las Vegas last week and took issue with the “comedy” Maher was dishing out.

Furtell noted that he has a special needs son and when Maher started calling Palin’s son, Trig, a “retard,” the writer couldn’t take it in silence. He heckled Maher and was dutifully ushered out the door by security.

After Furtell published his Daily Caller piece, Sarah Palin also had a thing or two to say about Maher’s nonsense.

Palin took to Twitter, as she is wont to do, and slammed Maher twice.

It is always interesting to note that these extremist liberals are always the first ones to chastise people for calling names until it is a conservative they want to attack. Then the name calling runs fast and thick.

That isn’t the first ime he’s attacked a special needs child. Here is another example of this creep’s “work”…
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Sarah Palin Calls Bill Maher Out for Calling Son Trig a ‘Retard’”


Activism, Not Journalism? Radical Filmmaker Laura Poitras Shares Washington Post Byline on NSA Story

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Washington Post recently made waves with a story on the National Security Agency’s domestic data mining project “Prism,” but interestingly one of the co-authors of the article is a radical, left-wing filmmaker who has been a loud critic of U.S. counterterrorism policies.

The article, “U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program,” authored by former Post writer Barton Gellman and filmmaker Laura Poitras, is a bold expose of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program.

While Gellman is certainly to be considered a “journalist,” Poitras is more of an activist who has quite a history of criticizing the United States since the attacks on September 11, 2001. She has, for instance, called the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba an “illegal” prison and has called treatment of suspects “legalized torture.”

It is clear that she is an activist, not a journalist. Yet nonetheless here we see the Post giving her a byline on a straight news story.
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Activism, Not Journalism? Radical Filmmaker Laura Poitras Shares Washington Post Byline on NSA Story”


Obama Claims He Doesn’t Want to ‘Tax All Businesses Out of Business’

-By Warner Todd Huston

During a recent fundraiser, President Obama told an audience that he and the Democrats don’t want to tax all business out of business. He also said he doesn’t believe in “top down” government.

The President made these comments at a private residence in Palo Alto, California during a Democratic Senatorial campaign fundraiser in the first week of June.

“I know that there are a few Republicans here in the audience,” he said to those gathered. “If you talk to us, it turns out, you know, we’re pretty common-sense folks.”

“We don’t think government can do everything. We don’t think that top-down solutions are the right way to go. We believe in the free market. We believe in a light touch when it comes to regulations. We don’t want to tax all businesses out of business. But we do think that there’s a role to play for government.”

Barack Obama has made this claim many times on the hustings, but his actions have often been at odds with this campaign rhetoric.
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Obama Claims He Doesn’t Want to ‘Tax All Businesses Out of Business’”


New Film ‘The Purge’ A Slam on NRA, Tea Party Movement

-By Warner Todd Huston

The new Ethan Hawke thriller The Purge was number one at the box office during its opening weekend, but critics are slamming the film for its thinly veiled commentary against the National Rifle Association, Sarah Palin, and Tea Party groups.

The plot brings moviegoers to the near future where in 2022 a new regime has come to America. The “New Founders” have taken over the country and practically eliminated unemployment, crime, and want.

One of the ways this new political movement has brought on such an idyllic society is to allow one night a year when any and all violence, even murder, is legal. Citizens are allowed to “purge” their basest tendencies during that one lawless night.

The whole premise takes quite a lot of suspension of disbelief. If it were that easy to shut off human nature for 364 days a year, why not shut it off for that last one? But director James DeMonaco was more interested in social commentary than logic. And his hope was to purge the NRA, the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and conservatives.
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New Film ‘The Purge’ A Slam on NRA, Tea Party Movement”


NY Times Talks Up NSA’s Expertise

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a story that reads like a gushing profile article on an exciting new business venture, The New York Times reported on the vast growth and technological advancement of the National Security Agency’s data mining capabilities.

The June 8 piece titled, “How the U.S. Uses Technology to Mine More Data More Quickly,” is filled with seemingly positive comments on the NSA’s new advancements, longer reach, and secret operations. There’s barely a hint of the sort of condemnation the paper was filled with during the Bush years when outcries against “domestic spying” were all the rage.

The Times says NSA’s capabilities are built on a “revolution in software technology,” and is “undergoing rapid expansion in order to exploit the mountains of new data being created each day.”
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NY Times Talks Up NSA’s Expertise”


LA Times Pushes ‘Gun’ Angle Instead of Mental Illness on Santa Monica Shooter Story

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the 24-year-old Santa Monica shooter had a history of mental illness but leads a June 9 story with the claim of an “unnamed source” who said that the killer had a “fascination with guns.”

In the Times report the story about killer John Zawahri leads with two paragraphs detailing the claims of this unnamed source, but the spends many more paragraphs discussing his mental health problems and run-ins with the law.

It is interesting that the paper leads with this claim when there is far more evidence of Zawahri’s run-ins with the police in the past, his reputation as a young man with an explosive temper, and his undefined mental problems.

Yet the paper quotes an unnamed person said to be familiar with the murderer and his family who feels he had “a fascination with guns.” This unnamed person also claims that many people were worried about Zawahri’s gun fixation and also wondered where he got the money for the firearms.

But the Times finds that Zawahri had a history of emotional problems. He was upset over his parents divorce and police had been called to his family home in 2006 over an incident of domestic violence.
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LA Times Pushes ‘Gun’ Angle Instead of Mental Illness on Santa Monica Shooter Story”


Paul Krugman: ‘We Are Kind of an Authoritarian Surveillance State’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Liberal economist and leading modern Keynesian, Paul Krugman of The New York Times, has been one of Barack Obama’s biggest cheerleaders, but suddenly he is a bit down on the Obama administration saying that he is afraid that the country is becoming an “authoritarian surveillance state.”

With a mounting list of scandals from government-sponsored intimidation of the President’s political enemies, to surveillance of reporters, to a growing list of communications companies allowing government intelligence agencies access to all of our personal phone calls, Internet searches, and text messages, this must be a confusing time for the President’s most ardent supporters. Krugman’s reaction here is an example of that turning of the head.

For Krugman, with latest news about the massive collection of data on everyday Americans he sees the United States of America drifting toward authoritarianism.

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Paul Krugman: ‘We Are Kind of an Authoritarian Surveillance State’”


House Defeats Bill to House Terror Detainees in U.S. Prisons

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again Democrats tried to get a bill passed in the House of Representatives to fund an expansion of U.S. prisons in order to house terror suspects in the U.S. heartland instead of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As in years previous, however, the measure was defeated.

On June 4 the House shot down an amendment introduced by Representative Jim Moran (D, Vir.) to the military construction spending bill (H.R. 2216) that would have allowed the move.

Moran’s amendment would have struck out language that prevented the construction funds from going to any U.S. prison in order to house detainees now housed at Guantanamo. Moran insisted that the “best place” for accused terrorists is right here in the United States.

“The best place for them to be housed and then tried is in the United States,” Rep. Moran said. “The continuance of the Guantánamo Bay facility represents an immediate security threat to the United States because it is a rallying cry and a recruitment tool for our enemy.”

Moran’s amendment went down to defeat in a 170-254 vote. Every Republican except one voted against the amendment and the Democrats voted 169-25 in favor.
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House Defeats Bill to House Terror Detainees in U.S. Prisons”


Obama’s Intelligence Agency Looking to Hire ‘Digital Exploitation Specialist’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The National Security Agency (NSA) has been in the spotlight since news broke that the agency has been collecting massive amounts of data from everyday Americans and with some of the worst timing ever, the NSA is now advertising for new employees for positions as “Digital Exploitation Specialists.”

According to the NSA job description, the duties of the job are to “perform discovery and target technology analysis of digital network and mobile communications.”

The job opening was advertised on Twitter on June 6.

Just as the agency is under suspicion of being the biggest domestic spies in American history, the agency posts job openings for even more such people. This only days before an NSA whistleblower came forward to detail what many is proof of the over zealousness of the spy agency.

And as millions of Americans are losing their jobs, their insurance benefits, or finding their career stagnate in paralysis, the NSA seems to have a pretty sweet starting salary range for these Digital Exploitation Specialists. They’ll be making between $42,209 and $81,204 annually.
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Obama’s Intelligence Agency Looking to Hire ‘Digital Exploitation Specialist’”


California’s New Cigarette Tax Plan Would Embolden Dangerous Criminals

-By Warner Todd Huston

Democrat State Senator Kevin De Leon has introduced a plan to hike cigarette taxes (SB 768 ) in order to pay for more state spending. But this idea is nothing new and has been defeated several times before. Even law enforcement has been against these tax hikes because such plans embolden dangerous criminals

States with high tobacco taxes like New York have reported higher levels of black-market smuggling, a big source of money for gangs and organized crime. By one 2011 estimate three of every five cigarettes smoked in the Empire State was purchased illegally.

Increasing tobacco taxes in California–especially at the extreme rate proposed by De Leon–will bring the same type of crime as that experienced in New York.

But this question has been dealt with by law enforcement in California in the past.

Law enforcement has identified trafficking of black market cigarette sales as a growing problem that costs California hundreds of millions a year in lost tax revenues which is one of the reasons why the LA Deputy Sheriffs opposed higher cigarette taxes in the past.
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California’s New Cigarette Tax Plan Would Embolden Dangerous Criminals”


Susan Rice Gets Pass While Media Discounted Condi Rice

-By Warner Todd Huston

Noah Rothman recently did an excellent job detailing what the progressive media said about Condoleeza Rice when George W. Bush appointed her as his Secretary of State in 2005. Rothman noted how the media dismissed Condi Rice as merely a “friend” of Bush and otherwise made it seem as if her appointment was just a payoff for loyalty instead of the appointment of a qualified person. In contrast, Obama’s appointment of Susan Rice as his national security advisor is not being so quickly dismissed by that same media establishment.

Rothman quoted a series of members of the media from 2005 dismissing Condi rather spectacularly as having received her nomination simply because of the “loyalty” factor.

Inter Press Service Washington Bureau Chief Jim Lobe, for instance, said that Condi was appointed “as much for her fierce personal loyalty to Bush as for her own foreign-policy views.”

Christian Science Monitor diplomacy correspondent Howard LaFranchi complained that Condi’s appointment meant that “no fresh new voices will be challenging White House thinking or offering debating points in policy discussions.”

The New York Times ravaged the appointment as an example of “friends of George” being foisted on Washington.
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Susan Rice Gets Pass While Media Discounted Condi Rice”


PC Beauty: Miss World Ditches Bikinis for Less Revealing Sarongs

-By Warner Todd Huston

Bowing to pressure from its Muslim host country, the Miss World beauty pageant has announced that it will axe its famous bikinis and replace them with the traditional Indonesian sarong.

In this year’s contest the more than 130 contestants will be sporting the traditional longer sarongs worn in Bali instead of the revealing, sexy bikinis that have always been part of the competition, pageant officials have decided.

The contest will be held on September 28 on the resort island of Bali and in Sentul, areas near the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslin nation.

“There will no bikini in this year’s Miss World pageant to respect our traditional customs and values,” Adjie S. Soeratmadjie of the RCTI, the official broadcaster and local organizer, told media outlets.
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PC Beauty: Miss World Ditches Bikinis for Less Revealing Sarongs”


NYT Changes Editorial to Soften Its Own Criticism of Obama

-By Warner Todd Huston

On the afternoon of June 6, Breitbart correspondent Ben Shapiro marveled at how harshly President Obama was treated in an editorial by The New York Times, but as the day wore on, the paper went back and altered its editorial to soften its own criticism of the President.

As Shapiro noted,

“Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it,” writes the Times editorial board. “There is every reason to believe the federal government has been collecting every bit of information about every American’s phone calls except the words actually exchanged in those calls …. Essentially, the administration is saying that without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know who Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where.”

The Times editorial board noted, “The administration has now lost all credibility.”

But later, after publication, the Times quietly changed that criticism.
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NYT Changes Editorial to Soften Its Own Criticism of Obama”


Report: Obama Won’t Fire Holder

-By Warner Todd Huston

Calls have been coming from all across the political spectrum for President Obama to fire U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. But some reports now are presuming that Obama simply won’t do it and that AG Holder will weather yet another firestorm of controversy.

On June 5, The Hill noted that “dark skies” are getting brighter for Holder and that Holder will “survive the latest storm threatening his tenure.”

For evidence, the Washington-based paper pointed out the fact that Eric Holder was right there this week when President Obama put forth three new nominations for federal judgeships, a sort of thumb to the eye of Holders detractors. The White House also reiterated its support of the embattled Holder showing that there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to dump the AG.

The Hill’s analysis seems to echo what Politico wrote some weeks ago when they proclaimed Eric Holder to be untouchable.
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Report: Obama Won’t Fire Holder”


Poll: Americans Upset Over Dept. of Justice Snooping on Reporters

-By Warner Todd Huston

Recent polling of likely voters by the Rasmussen polling firm finds that trust in government is at a low ebb with nearly half of voters feeling that the Justice Department’s seizure of reporters’ phone records and the IRS targeting of conservatives are serious scandals. Yet the media is still not widely trusted.

“The United States was founded on a belief that governments are created to protect certain unalienable rights,” Rasmussen reports. “Today, however, more voters than ever view the federal government as a threat to those rights.”

According to Rasmussen, 42 percent of respondents felt that the DOJ was trying to bully the press with its snooping on personal and business phone calls while only 38 percent felt the DOJ was simply trying to stop security leaks.

Meanwhile, 68 percent still feel that freedom of the press is “very important.”
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Poll: Americans Upset Over Dept. of Justice Snooping on Reporters”