OBM: I guess the chocking, headaches, and other side effects that the people have been experiencing all this time isn't really important. Really there just refugees...remember.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
1 Media Outlet is Just Now Reporting on the Poisoned Katrina Trailers Issue
Friday, January 25, 2008
Big Brother (NSA) is Copying Everything on the Internet
Is the NSA copying everything on the internet -... (more)
Added: November 23, 2007
Is the NSA copying everything on the internet - your emails, web traffic, VOIP phone calls? Yep - check out this story:
"AT&T whistleblower: I was forced to connect 'big brother machine'"
Reported by David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
Published: Wednesday November 7, 2007
A former technician at AT&T, who alleges that the telecom forwards virtually all of its internet traffic into a "secret room" to facilitate government spying, says the whole operation reminds him of something out of Orwell's 1984.
Appearing on MSNBC's Countdown program, whistleblower Mark Klein told Keith Olbermann that a copy of all internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office -- to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access -- via a cable splitting device.
"My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard-wired to the secret room," said Klein. "And effectively, the splitter copied the entire data stream of those internet cables into the secret room -- and we're talking about phone conversations, email web browsing, everything that goes across the internet."
Asked by Olbermann how he knew what was being sent along those particular lines, Klein said it was all part of his former job:
"As a technician, I had the engineering wiring documents, which told me how the splitter was wired to the secret room," Klein continued. "And so I know that whatever went across those cables was copied and the entire data stream was copied..."
According to Klein, that information included internet activity about Americans.
"We're talking about domestic traffic as well as international traffic," Klein said. " And that's what got me upset to begin with."
Previous Bush administration claims that only international communications were being intercepted aren't accurate, Klein says.
"I know the physical equipment, and I know that statement is not true," he added. "It involves millions of communications, a lot of it domestic communications that they're copying wholesale, sweeping up into that secret room."
When Olbermann asked Klein if being involved in the process reminded him of a scene in the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the former technician said he had another movie in mind.
"Actually, I'm a little older so my thought was George Orwell's 1984 and here I am forced to connect the big brother machine," he said. "And I felt I was in a funny position, but I needed my job, so I didn't want to make a fuss a the time. But after I retired, I thought about it some more." According to ABC News, Klein believes AT&T has similar operations in place in as many as 20 other sites.
He is in Washington to lobby Congress not to pass a proposed telecom immunity bill, which would provide legal immunity to companies who secretly participated in NSA warrantless eavesdropping programs. Some of the nation's largest telecommunications companies are currently facing an array of class-action lawsuits related to the matter.
Friday, January 18, 2008
High School Track Star Disqualified from Meet Because of Muslim Clothing
By Adam Howard, AlterNet
Posted on January 17, 2008, Printed on January 18, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/74165/
This is ridiculous, bigoted insanity. When is it ever going to stop?
A Muslim DC high school track star competed with no trouble Wednesday, despite a speed suit that covers her head, neck and ankles, in deference to her faith.
On Saturday, Juashaunna Kelly was disqualified at a Montgomery County meet because she declined to change it. That's created a nationwide controversy on the internet, some of it vicious and filled with hate.
The 17 year old Gatorade Athlete of the Year took to the track this time with a huge smile instead of tears. The head of the DC Interscholastic Athletic Association told her it was fine to run in the multi-colored speed suit that serves as her Muslim headcovering when she competes.
"I'm not going to let no one stop me from competing," says the Roosevelt High School senior. "I'm just going to use what I have and go out there and do my best."
On Saturday, officials at the prestigious Montgomery Invitational told Kelly that the custom made outfit in her school colors violates the rules of the national athletic federation.
But DC officials said at the DC Invitational Wednesday that the national rules are just guidelines.
You can tell from this story and from this video that Ms. Kelly is a strong, proud and decent young person and I applaud her for sticking by her principles but it still saddens me that she has to and that she's been abused in this way. Apparently now both Juashaunna's family and the track meet director have been the subjects of hate and threat filled emails. The situation as of right now has not been resolved. Check out the video to your right for more.
McDonald's ads hit new low
McDonald's, the clever folks behind the living billboard in Chicago that spelled out "Fresh Salads" with 16 different kinds of live, growing lettuce, has launched a different kind of advertising campaign.
This one can be seen on children's report cards.
If I couldn't see the image (left), I wouldn't believe it. But last week, students in Seminole County, Florida apparently received their report cards in envelopes adorned with Ronald McDonald promising a free Happy Meal to students with good grades, behavior or attendance, according to The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a consumer advocacy group that works to protect children from the harmful effects of marketing.
The advertisement appears on report card envelopes for students in kindergarten through 5th grade. The envelopes are used to transport report cards to and from home throughout the school year, says the CCFC.
McDonald's picked up the $1,600 for printing costs associated with producing the report cards for the 27,000 students according to Adweek. But promoting Happy Meals flies in the face of McDonald's promise to only advertise its healthier options to children younger than 12 and to stop advertising all food or beverage products in elementary schools.
Yes, Happy Meals now might include milk and apple slices, but kids really want the cheeseburgers, French fries, and soft drinks. "Happy Meals featured on the report card can contain as many 710 calories, 28 grams of fat, or 35 grams of sugar," according to the CCFC.
I'm not sure who has hit a new low: McDonald's or the school district, which has said it will continue to run the McDonald's ads on report cards for the rest of the year and take the ONE COMPLAINT by a parent into consideration for next year.
Just one complaint? What are these parents thinking? It's fine if you want to reward your kid's good grades with fast food. This is America, after all. But whether it's Pizza Hut or McDonald's, advertisements for junk food have no place on a report card or its envelope in the same way that fast food has no business inside a school cafeteria.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Conservative Shelby Steele on Bill Moyers Journal
WATCH SHELBY STEELE INTERVIEW
With the wildly vacillating predictions about the viability of the Obama candidacy in the news, Shelby Steele's most recent book is getting a lot of attention. In A BOUND MAN: WHY WE ARE EXCITED ABOUT OBAMA AND WHY HE CAN'T WIN, Steele assesses the potential impact of Obama's campaign in terms of white and black America's presumptions about race and politics.
OBM: While I do not have much problem with Steele's description of bargainers but, challengers can only challenge things that are historically true or currently factual.
Monday, January 14, 2008
PayPal to begin giving the IRS PayPal users account information
COPY OF PAYPAL EMAIL
Notice of IRS Summons
Dear *My Name*,
PayPal has received a summons from the United States Internal Revenue Service requiring us to produce various account records, including data related to your PayPal account. PayPal understands the summons relates to the IRS' offshore compliance program in which the IRS has sought information about offshore credit card accounts from a number of companies. Your privacy is extremely important to PayPal. PayPal is obligated, however, to turn over the requested data. PayPal has been ordered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to provide the information to the IRS, and PayPal expects to begin providing this information to the IRS on January 10, 2008. The summons and court order both issue from the United States District Court in an action entitled: In The Matters of the Tax Liabilities of John Does, Case No. CV-05-04176-JW.
If you have any concerns about the disclosure of this information, you should consult with your tax or legal advisor. You may have rights in connection with the summons, including the right to seek to prevent the IRS from obtaining some or all of the information. The statute of limitations that limits the time in which the IRS may assert tax liabilities against you may be suspended beginning on the date which is six months after the IRS served the summons upon PayPal and continuing until PayPal finally resolves its response to the IRS. See 26 U.S.C. § 7609(e)(2). PayPal cannot provide you with legal advice. If you have questions concerning the summons and court order, we encourage you to contact the IRS, your tax advisor and/or your attorney. If you wish to contact the Internal Revenue Service regarding this matter, they can be reached at (215) 516-4777.
Thank You,
The PayPal Legal Team
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
SWAT Goons Dispatched On Homeschoolers in Colorado
Kurt Nimmo
Truth News
January 7, 2008
In Garfield County, Colorado, not only will the state determine if you should take your child to a doctor after a mishap, but if you don’t comply with their on-high directives, they will dispatch a SWAT team to ensure compliance.
According to Tom Shiflett, a Vietnam vet, his son was injured during horseplay, WorldNetDaily reports. Shiflett’s son, John, “was grabbing the door handle of a car as his sister was starting to drive away slowly. He slipped, fell to the ground and hit his head…. There were no broken bones, no dilated eyes, or any other noticeable problems.”
After a neighbor called an ambulance, paramedics “were allowed to see the boy, and found no significant impairment, but wanted to take him to the hospital for an evaluation anyway. Fearing the hospital’s bills, the family refused to allow that.”
According to friends of the family, Tom Shiflett, who has 10 children including six still at home, and served with paramedics in Vietnam, was monitoring his son’s condition himself.
The paramedic and magistrate, however, ruled that that wasn’t adequate, and dispatched the officers to take the boy, John, to a hospital, where a doctor evaluated him and released him immediately.
But this was not sufficient for the sheriff’s office and social services. “Nearly a dozen members of a police SWAT team” were subsequently unleashed in response, “punched a hole in the front door and invaded a family’s home with guns drawn, demanding that an 11-year-old boy… accompany them to the hospital, on the order of Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak.”
It appears Shiflett and his family were made an example, as in part they “live by faith and homeschool,” social behavior anathema to the NWO and its minions in Colorado government and so-called social services and various control commissariats, conversely known as child kidnapping services.
“While people can debate whether or not the father should have brought his son to the ER — it seems like this was not the kind of emergency that warrants this kind of outrageous conduct by government officials,” a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association told WND.
During the SWAT raid for non-compliance, the “boy’s parents and siblings were thrown to the floor at gunpoint and the parents were handcuffed… all because a paramedic was upset the family preferred to care for their son themselves.”
Of course, caring for your own is unacceptable, same as it was in the Soviet Union. Mr. Shiflett and his family learned first-hand that all of us are serfs and when the state barks “jump,” our only response should be “how high, sir?” Our children are property of the state and we will not be allowed to care for them — or for that matter, school them at home — and government intervention will be mandatory, otherwise SWAT goons will be dispatched to kick in the door and act like what they are, Gestapo goons revisited.
Friday, January 04, 2008
How to Lose Your Job on Your Own Time
The New York Times
December 30, 2007
By RANDALL STROSS
WERE Henry Ford brought back to life today, he would most likely be delighted by the Internet: the uninhibited way many people express themselves on the Web makes it easy to supervise the private lives of employees.
In his day, the Ford Motor Company maintained a “Sociological Department” staffed with investigators who visited the homes of all but the highest-level managers. Their job was to dig for information about the employee’s religion, spending and savings patterns, drinking habits and how the worker “amused himself.”
Home inspections are no longer needed; many companies are using the Internet to snoop on their employees. If you fail to maintain amorphous “professional” standards of conduct in your free time, you could lose your job.
Employment law in most states provides little protection to workers who are punished for their online postings, said George Lenard, an employment lawyer at Harris Dowell Fisher & Harris in St. Louis. The main exceptions are workers who are covered by collective bargaining agreements or by special protections for public-sector employees; members of these groups can be dismissed only “for cause.” The rest of us are “at will” employees, holding on to our jobs only at the whim of our employers, and thus vulnerable.
A line needs to be drawn — Day-Glo bright — that demarcates the boundary between work and private life. When a worker is on the job, companies have every right to supervise activities closely. But what an employee does after hours, as long as no laws are broken, is none of the company’s business. Of course, what we used to call “off hours” are fewer now, and employees may connect to the office nightly from home. But when they do go off the clock and off the corporate network, how they spend their private time should be of no concern to their employer, even if the Internet, by its nature, makes some off-the-job activities more visible to more people than was previously possible.
In the absence of strong protections for employees, poorly chosen words or even a single photograph posted online in one’s off-hours can have career-altering consequences. Stacy Snyder, 25, who was a senior at Millersville University in Millersville, Pa., offers an instructive example. Last year, she was dismissed from the student teaching program at a nearby high school and denied her teaching credential after the school staff came across her photograph on her MySpace profile. She filed a lawsuit in April this year in federal court in Philadelphia contending that her rights to free expression under the First Amendment had been violated. No trial date has been set.
Her photo, preserved at the “Wired Campus” blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education, turns out to be surprisingly innocuous. In a head shot snapped at a costume party, Ms. Snyder, with a pirate’s hat perched atop her head, sips from a large plastic cup whose contents cannot be seen. When posting the photo, she fatefully captioned her self-portrait “drunken pirate,” though whether she was serious can’t be determined by looking at the photo.
Millersville University, in a motion asking the court to dismiss the case, contends that Ms. Snyder’s student teaching had been unsatisfactory for many reasons. But it affirms that she was dismissed and barred from re-entering the school shortly after the high school staff discovered her MySpace photograph. The university backed the school authorities’ contentions that her posting was “unprofessional” and might “promote under-age drinking.” It also cited a passage in the teacher’s handbook that said staff members are “to be well-groomed and appropriately dressed.”
MR. LENARD said last week that protections for employees for off-duty behavior varied widely from state to state. Colorado and Minnesota have laws explicitly protecting all employees from discrimination for engaging in any lawful activity off premises during nonworking hours. In other states, like Pennsylvania, where Ms. Snyder lives, such protection doesn’t exist.
What some employers regard as imprudent disclosure online may seem commonplace to the rest of us. On Dec. 16, the Pew Internet and American Life Project released the results of a study, “Digital Footprints,” showing that 60 percent of Internet users surveyed are not worried about how much information is available about them online.
The findings reflect a significant change within just a few years in public attitudes about privacy and disclosure. In an earlier Pew study, “Trust and Privacy Online,” published in 2000, some 84 percent of respondents expressed concern about “businesses and people you don’t know getting personal information about you and your family.”
Susannah Fox, associate director of the Pew project and an author of both the 2000 and 2007 surveys, told me that she was surprised by the reduced concern about online publication of personal information. Internet users are not just passively allowing personal information to slip from their control and end up online, where it is searchable; they are also actively putting the information online themselves. The “Digital Footprints” study coined a new phrase, “active digital footprint,” to refer to the personal information that individuals increasingly place online voluntarily.
Personal disclosure is the norm on social networking sites. But the Pew study included an unexpected finding: Teenagers have the most sophisticated understanding of privacy controls on these sites, and they are far less likely than adults to permit their profiles to be visible to anyone and everyone.
Tight privacy settings won’t always keep personal information placed on social networking sites safe from an employers’ prying eyes. A manager could literally look over your shoulder or afterward check a history of sites you visited.
Ms. Snyder had not adjusted her MySpace privacy settings to restrict public access, but why should she have done so? She anticipated that her profile page would be seen by school authorities. On it she declared that as an adult, over the age of 21, she believed that “I have nothing to hide.”
The day may come when nothing that is said online will be treated as embarrassing because we will have become accustomed to everyone disclosing everything. The Pew study phrases this possibility as a question: “Will we come to be more forgiving of embarrassing or unflattering information trails as more of us have our own experiences with personal data leftovers gone bad?”
In the interim, some people will be more cautious than Ms. Snyder. Ms. Fox of the Pew project recently paid a visit to New Orleans for a bachelorette party with female friends — husbands not included. She wanted to make sure that details of the festivities did not find their way to the Internet. She instructed her friends: “If you’re going to upload the pictures, don’t tag with real names.” The photos went up, without traceable digital fingerprints.
Calif. School Targets Mexican Students
Dec 31 03:39 PM US/Eastern
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press Writer
CALEXICO, Calif. (AP) - Children are more likely to shield their faces than to smile when Daniel Santillan points his camera.
Santillan's photos aren't for any picture album or yearbook—they help prove that Mexican youngsters are illegally attending public schools in this California border community.
With too many students and too few classrooms, Calexico school officials took the unusual step of hiring someone to photograph children and document the offenders. Santillan snaps pictures at the city's downtown border crossing and shares the images with school principals, who use them as evidence to kick out those living in Mexico.
Since he started the job two years ago, the number of students in the Calexico school system has fallen 5 percent, from 9,600 to 9,100, while the city's population grew about 3 percent.
"The community asked us to do this, and we responded," school board President Enrique Alvarado said. "Once it starts to affect you personally, when your daughter gets bumped to another school, then our residents start complaining."
Every day along the 1,952-mile border, children from Mexico cross into the United States and attend public schools. No one keeps statistics on how many.
Citizenship isn't the issue for school officials; district residency is.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled illegal immigrants have a right to an education, so schools don't ask about immigration status. But citizens and illegal immigrants alike can't falsely claim residency in a school district.
OBM: This is sickening...How about these cowards go to the employers of the parrents of these so-called illegal children and take pictures of them. Then take those pictures to so-called american law enforcement and ask for them to be arrested. Then futher, post the pictures of these american law breakers all over the internet. I wounder...if american criminals would stop being alloud to extort hispanics for cheep/slave labor, would this issue resolve itself. I sorry...I forgot....wealthy and mostly white americans are neveramnd have never been guilty of anything.
Enforcement of residency requirements varies widely along the border. Some schools do little to verify where children live beyond checking leases or utility bills, while others dispatch officials to homes when suspicions are raised.
Jesus Gandara, superintendent of the Sweetwater district, with 44,000 students along San Diego's border with Mexico, said tracking children at the border goes too far. "If you do that, you're playing immigration agent," he said.
The El Paso Independent School District in Texas sends employees to homes when suspicions are raised. But spokesman Luis Villalobos said photographing students at the border would be a monumental, unproductive effort.
That's not the thinking in Calexico, a city 120 miles east of San Diego that has seen its population double to 38,000 since 1990. A steel fence along the border separates Calexico from Mexicali, an industrial city of about 750,000 that sends shoppers and farm laborers to California.
Calexico's rapid growth outstripped school resources, resulting in overcrowding and prompting demands that Mexican interlopers be ousted. Taxpayers complained their children were bused across town because neighborhood schools were full, even after Calexico voters approved a $30 million construction measure in 2004. Portable classrooms proliferated.
The 62-year-old Santillan (pronounced sahn-tee-YAHN) was hired in He is an unlikely enforcer. Posters of Cesar Chavez and Che Guevara adorn the walls of his ranch-style home. The Vietnam War veteran and labor activist is an outspoken advocate of amnesty for illegal immigrants and fills water jugs in the desert for Mexicans who trek across the border illegally.
He parks his old Toyota Echo at the border two or three mornings a week, often in a handicapped spot that his bad knees allow him to occupy. He photographs some of the hundreds of students who exit the inspection building and walk to class.
Some hide their faces when they see his 6-foot-5, 310-pound frame. Sometimes he follows students to school.
Many of the students know him. Others in town are not always sure what he is up to. A new police officer once ran his name through a database of sex offenders. A talk-radio host warned listeners that an odd- looking man at the border might be looking for children to kidnap.
Some students taunt him. Friends have called him a hypocrite. Santillan reminds them that he is only enforcing school residency rules, not immigration laws. Still, he says, "You've got to have hell of a tough skin."
The California native also visits addresses listed on student enrollment forms, knocking on doors as late as 9 p.m. and introducing himself in Spanish.
One crisp December morning, he went to three homes before dawn, carrying a clipboard with several pages of students suspected of living in Mexico. A woman who opened her door at 6:30 a.m. said her niece no longer lives with her. At another home, a woman said her niece moved last month.
Many Calexico residents support the crackdown.
Fernando Torres, a former mayor, was upset when the district said his grandchildren would have to transfer because there was no room in their neighborhood school. "It's not right" for U.S. taxpayers to build classrooms for Mexican residents, he said. The district eventually relented.
School board member Eduardo Rivera estimates there are still 250 to 400 students from Mexico attending Calexico's schools.
"It's a continual struggle," Rivera said. "You have people who are determined to continue sending their kids over here."
FLASHBACK: One Reason to Check Out My Archives
New 9/11 Truth Film Preview
OBM: Why isn't Israeli involvement mentioned ABOUT 9/11? Here is something to consider.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Health Professionals Call for End to Water Fluoridation
As detailed in this ABC News Story, over 600 (now over 1,200) professionals are urging Congress to stop water fluoridation until ... all » Congressional hearings are conducted. They cite new scientific evidence that fluoridation, long promoted to fight tooth decay, is ineffective and has serious health risks.
Signers include a Nobel Prize winner, three members of the prestigious 2006 National Research Council (NRC) panel that reported on fluoride’s toxicology, two officers in the Union representing professionals at EPA headquarters, the President of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, and hundreds of medical, dental, academic, scientific and environmental professionals, worldwide. (First aired: August 9, 2007). «
Thursday, December 27, 2007
What is Ron Paul's View of Blacks and Issues Important to Blacks
OBM: I found it....I knew if I kept digging I'd find the real scoop on Ron Paul. This post will only include clips of an artical series by The DAILY KOS. Click "read more" to see more clips. To read the full artical with all links click on the headline of this story.
Thanks DAILY KOS for this great research.
by phenry
Tue May 15, 2007 at 06:57:29 PM PST
RON PAIL HIGHLIGHTS:
Content from the Ron Political/Survival Report today:
1992 "LOS ANGELES RACIAL TERRORISM," on the subject of the so-called Rodney King riots in South Central Los Angeles in 1991:
"Regardless of what the media tell us, most white Americans are not going to believe that they are at fault for what blacks have done to cities across America. The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots. Many more are going to have difficultly avoiding the belief that our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists -- and they can be identified by the color of their skin. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.
Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action.... Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the "criminal justice system," I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.
If similar in-depth studies were conducted in other major cities, who doubts that similar results would be produced? We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.
Perhaps the L.A. experience should not be surprising. The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics.The looting in L.A. was the welfare state without the voting booth. The elite have sent one message to black America for 30 years: you are entitled to something for nothing. That's what blacks got on the streets of L.A. for three days in April. Only they didn't ask their Congressmen to arrange the transfer."
DAILY KOS: The entire artical is a 3700-word racist tirade that is frankly stomach-turning in its depiction of African-Americans as violent, unevolved savages and even rapists."
During Paul's 1996 Congressional run, the Houston Chronicle:
Texas congressional candidate Ron Paul's 1992 political newsletter highlighted portrayals of blacks as inclined toward crime and lacking sense about top political issues.
Under the headline of "Terrorist Update," for instance, Paul reported on gang crime in Los Angeles and commented, "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."
Paul, a Republican obstetrician from Surfside, said Wednesday he opposes racism and that his written commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time."
... [I]n the same 1992 edition ... [Paul wrote], "We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."
Paul also asserted that "complex embezzling" is conducted exclusively by non-blacks.
"What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?" he wrote.
Civil Rights:
Paul doesn't much care for ensuring your right to vote. Like when he voted with just 32 other members of Congress against reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Or when he voted for the bogus "Federal Election Integrity Act" voter suppression bill.
But at least Ron Paul knows who's responsible for racism in America: you are. "By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality," he writes, "the advocates of so-called 'diversity' actually perpetuate racism. Their intense focus on race is inherently racist, because it views individuals only as members of racial groups."
THE STRANGE CASE OF LARRY PRATT
In 1996, presidential candidate Pat Buchanan got in hot water when the Center for Public Integrity revealed connections between Buchanan's campaign co-chairman Larry Pratt and Pastor Pete Peters, a leader of the white supremacist Christian Identity movement. Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, had been a frequent guest at meetings and on radio and television programs hosted by Peters, who inveighed against "Talmudic filth" as Pratt looked on. On February 15, 1996, Pratt took a leave of absence from the Buchanan campaign, so as to avoid causing a "distraction."
The very next day, reported the San Antonio Express-News on February 18, Ron Paul distributed a press release touting Pratt's endorsement of Paul's candidacy for the U.S. Congress. Pratt's endorsement of Paul was anything but pro forma; the February 22, 1996 issue of Roll Call noted that Paul and Mike Gunn, a Republican candidate for Congress in Mississippi who had done some work for David Duke in the latter's 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial campaign, were the only two candidates formally endorsed for office that year by Pratt's organization. Paul's opponent in the Republican primary, Rep. Greg Laughlin, called upon Paul to repudiate Pratt; Paul declined to do so, with his spokesman saying that Paul opposed racism but that "nothing has been proven against Mr. Pratt. He has denied it." (Pratt's enthusiasm for Paul continues to this day, as this quasi-endorsement of Paul's 2008 presidential campaign makes clear.)
THE COMPANY RON PAUL KEEPS:
Paul's disinclination to separate himself from the Larry Pratts of the world is part of a pattern that over the last 20 years has seen him snuggling up to some extremely questionable characters on the far right fringe. Like, for example, secessionists, who gathered at a conference in April of 1995 to hear Paul speak about the "once and future Republic of Texas." Or the beady-eyed listeners of The Political Cesspool. It's the unofficial radio program of the Council of Conservative Citizens--you know, the repainted White Citizens Council that got Trent Lott into a bit of trouble a few years ago. (Tune in tonight for their special program on "the disastrous Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education decision, one which ushered in an era of radical leftist ideology upon the American citizenry.") Paul has been a guest on the program; you'll find him listed under P, right above Prussian Blue, the white supremacist teenage singing duo.
Or the crazy-as-fuck John Birch Society, to which Paul is more than happy to grant the occasional interview and even speak at their dinners (the podcast, I am sorry to report, no longer seems to be available). In fact, Paul is the only member of Congress to receive a perfect 100 from the John Birch Society in its most recent member ratings.
THE KLAN'S MAN IN WASHINGTON:
Like many members of Congress, the prolific Paul posts his speeches, columns, and statements on his House Web site. He allows anyone to republish and distribute them, and many do. For example, our old friends the Council of Conservative Citizens occasionally publish Paul in its newsletter, the Citizens Informer (warning: PDF). And then there's David Duke, who can't get enough of Ron Paul; you can find his columns on davidduke.com here and here and here and here and here. If you're more of a dead-tree fan, you can find Paul's thoughts on foreign policy reprinted in the January 2007 issue of the National Times, a white supremacist newspaper that apparently gets distributed through the time-honored neo-Nazi method of throwing the thing onto unsuspecting people's porches in the middle of the night and scurrying away.
For a real look inside the tiny, demented mind of the neo-Nazi, though, we need to go to Stormfront. Stormfront is the oldest and largest white supremacist site on the World Wide Web; its discussion boards provide an unequaled opportunity for eavesdropping on the thoughts and plans of the racist underground in America and around the world. And you don't have to visit for very long before one thing jumps out at you: they positively adore Ron Paul. (Please note that links in this paragraph go to a hate site and should probably be considered NSFW.) An "Is Ron Paul the One?" topic is currently stickied in Stormfront's Newslinks & Articles forum; another active topic on Paul's candidacy has received 446 posts and 12,040 pageviews since late March. A topic called "Ron Paul's Race Problem" (hey, Wonkette musta read my diary!) was just started today and already has 17 replies. They're busy little racists over there.
Green Bay Police Begin Fingerprinting on Traffic Stops
By Sarah Thomsen
If you're ticketed by Green Bay police, you'll get more than a fine. You'll get fingerprinted, too. It's a new way police are cracking down on crime.
If you're caught speeding or playing your music too loud, or other crimes for which you might receive a citation, Green Bay police officers will ask for your drivers license and your finger. You'll be fingerprinted right there on the spot. The fingerprint appears right next to the amount of the fine.
Police say it's meant to protect you -- in case the person they're citing isn't who they claim to be. But not everyone is sold on that explanation.
"What we've seen happen for the last couple of years [is] increasing use of false or fraudulent identification documents," Captain Greg Urban said.
Police say they want to prevent the identity theft problem that Milwaukee has, where 13 percent of all violators give a false name.
But in Green Bay, where police say they only average about five cases in a year, drivers we talked with think the new policy is extreme.
"That's going too far," Ken Scherer from Oconto said. "You look at the ID, that's what they're there for. Either it's you or it's not. I don't think that's a valid excuse."
"I would feel uncomfortable but I would do it," Carol Pilgrim of Green Bay said.
Citizens do have the right to say no. "They could say no and not have to worry about getting arrested," defense attorney Jackson Main said. "On the other hand, I'm like everybody else. When a police officer tells me to do something, I'm going to do it whether I have the right to say no or not."
That's exactly why many drivers are uneasy about the fine print in this fingerprinting policy.
Police stress that the prints are just to make sure you are who you claim to be and do not go into any kind of database; they simply stay on the ticket for future reference if the identity is challenged.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Proposed Congressional bill creates new copyright cops that can seize your home computer
A bipartisan group of Congressmen (and one woman) yesterday introduced a major bill aimed at boosting US intellectual property laws and the penalties that go along with them. While much of the legislation targets industrial counterfeiting and knockoff drugs, it also allows the government to seize people's computers.
The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP... groan) Act of 2007 has the backing of many of the most powerful politicians on the House Judiciary Committee, including John Conyers (D-MI), Lamar Smith (R-TX), and "Hollywood" Howard Berman (D-CA).
In addition to strengthening both civil and criminal penalties for copyright and trademark infringement, the big development here is the proposed creation of the Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative (USIPER). This is a new executive branch office tasked with coordinating IP enforcement at the national and international level. To do this work internationally, the bill also authorizes US intellectual property officers to be sent to other countries in order to assist with crackdowns there. In addition, the Department of Justice gets additional funding and a new unit to help prosecute IP crimes.
A proposed bill now gives the government the ability to seize personal property, like the home computer, on suspicion of copyright infringement, and also proposes a new copyright police force to enforce existing laws.
GNN: As if the the government needs another excuse to seize personal property, these seizures have nothing to do with protecting national security but they do protect the bottom line for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The RIAA is no stranger to pressuring Congress to pass legislation criminalizing end users. The RIAA has advocated the denial of federal funding to colleges and college students who do not sign up to subscription-based downloading services
The bill, which will have a committee hearing soon, is supposed to kick-start the copyright reform process talked about for so long. But copyright reform means one thing to the PRO IP sponsors and another to the consumer groups that have been advocating for it.
Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, said in a statement, "seizing expensive manufacturing equipment used for large-scale infringement from a commercial pirate may be appropriate. Seizing a family's general-purpose computer in a download case, as this bill would allow, is not appropriate."
In addition, she protests the increase in "already extraordinary copyright damages" and calls for damages to be linked more closely to actual harm suffered by copyright holders.
The Digital Freedom Campaign, backed by the EFF, Public Knowledge, and the Consumer Electronics Association, was more muted in its criticism, instead choosing to praise the legislation for launching a "conversation" about copyright reform. The Digital Freedom Campaign's Maura Corbett said that meaningful copyright reform "must include limits on statutory damages and the codification of the vital principles of fair use," and she hopes that PRO IP "will serve as a catalyst to larger, more meaningful reform."
Fortunately, at least some members of the Judiciary Committee are at least aware that the consumer groups have legitimate points to make. Berman, who chairs the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, announced that his subcommittee would hold a hearing next week on the issue.
"As a cosponsor, I obviously feel very strongly that we must strengthen enforcement efforts to fight piracy and counterfeiting," Berman said. "At the hearing, we will be hearing testimony from both industry experts and from labor and consumer advocates to make sure that in doing so, we don't deny appropriate access to America's intellectual property."
Who is thrilled with the bill? The MPAA, for one. MPAA head Dan Glickman, in a statement praising the new bill, said that "films left costs foreign and domestic distributors, retailers and others $18 billion a year," a significant increase from the $6 billion it allegedly costs the studios.
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