Justice Scalia Shoots Down Idea of Leaving the Union: ‘There Is No Right to Secede’

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photo credit: us mission genevaLast night, TheBlaze reported that residents of 27 states had filed petitions with the White House to be allowed to secede from the union. As of today, that number has swelled to 47.

But could it actually happen? Do states even have a right to secede anymore? The answer, according to arguably the most respected conservative Justice of the United States Supreme Court, is an unequivocal “no.

Over at New York Personal Injury Attorney Blog, author Eric Turkewitz recounts an interesting story of how his brother, a screenwriter, managed to apparently coax an answer out of Scalia on precisely this topic.

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Google Reports Growing Government Surveillance

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photo credit: brionvGoogle received more requests from the U.S. government to hand over user data during the first half of this year than from any other country, according to the search company’s biannual “Transparency Report” released on Tuesday.

From January to June, Google received nearly 8,000 requests for user data from the U.S. government. The search company said it “fully or partially” compiled with roughly 90 percent of them. That’s up from the 5,950 requests for user data that Google received from the U.S. government during the same period a year ago.

More than 16,000 Google accounts were specified in the U.S. government’s user data requests, according to the report.

However, the search company cautioned that the total number of U.S. government requests for user data also tallied requests “issued by U.S. authorities on behalf of other governments pursuant to mutual legal assistance treaties and other diplomatic mechanisms.”

Still, that number dwarfs the requests from other countries: India and Brazil came after the U.S. with 2,319 and 1,566 requests for user data, respectively, during the first half of 2012.

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A Long Line of Nice Losers

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photo credit: donkeyhoteyMitt Romney now joins the long list of the kinds of presidential candidates favored by the Republican establishment– nice, moderate losers, people with no coherently articulated vision, despite how many ad hoc talking points they may have.

The list of Republican presidential candidates like this goes back at least as far as 1948, when Thomas E. Dewey ran against President Harry Truman. Dewey spoke in lofty generalities while Truman spoke in hard-hitting specifics. Since then, there have been many re-runs of this same scenario, featuring losing Republican presidential candidates John McCain, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford and, when he ran for reelection, George H.W. Bush.

Bush 41 first succeeded when he ran for election as if he were another Ronald Reagan (“Read my lips, no new taxes”), but then lost when he ran for reelection as himself– “kinder and gentler,” disdainful of “the vision thing” and looking at his watch during a debate, when he should have been counter-attacking against the foolish things being said.

This year, Barack Obama had the hard-hitting specifics– such as ending “tax cuts for the rich” who should pay “their fair share,” government “investing” in “the industries of the future” and the like. He had a coherent vision, however warped.

Most of Obama’s arguments were rotten, if you bothered to put them under scrutiny. But someone once said that it is amazing how long the rotten can hold together, if you don’t handle it roughly.

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House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rejects Carbon Tax Proposal

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photo credit: caza_no_7House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) threw cold water Tuesday on supporting a carbon tax, hours after a Treasury Department official said the administration could consider the idea if Republicans lead the effort.

A tax on greenhouse gas emissions has won increased attentoin in recent weeks as a way to combat climate change and simultaneously raise revenues.

But Upton (R-Mich.) said Tuesday he is “not a carbon tax guy.”

The administration said last week it would not propose a carbon tax. But Gilbert E. Metcalf, Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary for energy and environment, reiterated that position Tuesday, opened the door to discussing carbon taxes in fiscal talks if Republicans initiated the push.

Upton comments Tuesday underscore how unlikely that scenario is as talks about avoiding the “fiscal cliff” unfold. Asked if he would accept a carbon tax along with a tax cut elsewhere, Upton said, “I don’t like the idea.”

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USA Today: Petraeus and Broadwell Used Common ‘Email Trick’ Used by Terrorists

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Paula Broadwell, ex-mistress of disgraced former CIA chief David Petraeus, could have used several different methods to hide her identity if in fact she sent anonymous, threatening emails to Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, experts say.

But Shawn Henry, who retired in March as the FBI’s executive assistant director in charge of all civil and criminal cyber investigation worldwide, says the FBI had many techniques available to trace the communications.

“Somewhere along the way, her IP address was captured,” Henry said.

Someone trying to remain anonymous can hide emails by routing them through different servers and using public computers that don’t keep activity logs, he said. Broadwell may have thought she had done everything to hide her tracks, but often people make mistakes, leaving their emails traceable by investigators, he said.

The Associated Press, citing a law enforcement source who declined to be identified, reported that Petraeus and Broadwell apparently used a “dropbox” to conceal their email traffic.

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Economic Optimism Plunges In Post-Election IBD/TIPP Poll

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If newly re-elected President Obama was hoping to float into his second term on a cloud of renewed national optimism and bipartisan goodwill, he’s likely to be disappointed.

The latest IBD/TIPP Poll shows that, at least as far as economic optimism is concerned, America very much remains a house divided.

The bellwether Economic Optimism Index for November plunged 10%, from 54 in October to 48.6 in November, as a major part of the electorate took stock of the vote’s outcome and didn’t like what it saw for the economy.

The partisan breakdown for optimism is telling. Not surprisingly, sentiment among Democrats improved — 4.2%, from 70.8 in October to 73.8 in November.

But Republican poll respondents, who for months were below the break-even level of 50 for optimism , expressed an even gloomier outlook over the economy’s future.

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Fox News Anchor Suspended for Calling Rachel Maddow an “Angry Young Man”

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A Fox News anchor in Cincinnati, Ohio has returned to work after a two-day absence from her nightly newscast and an apology for calling MSNBC host Rachel Maddow an ‘angry young man.’

Tricia Macke of WXIX-TV was off the air Sunday and Monday, several days after she issued an apology for referring to the openly gay Maddow as ‘such an angry young man’ on her Facebook page. Maddow is an author, liberal commentator and host of the 9 p.m. nightly ‘Rachel Maddow Show’ on MSNBC. When a viewer reprimanded Macke for her remarks about Maddow, Macke initially didn’t back down.

‘I am sorry. I should have said antagonistic,’ she wrote. When another viewer criticized her, Macke again stood by her statements. ‘I knew what I was saying,’ she responded. Macke is a star anchor for Cincinnati’s Fox 19 News who hosts the 6:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. nightly newscasts. She has been with the station since 1993.

Fox 19 did not address Macke’s remarks, which she made in mid-October, until last week, as the station was facing mounting pressure from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a national advocacy group.

‘Referring to Maddow as a “man” because she is a gay woman is completely unacceptable for someone in the business of journalism,’ said Aaron McQuade, a spokesman for GLAAD.

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Scientists at Stanford University Discover Artificial, Conductive Skin That Heals Itself

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Scientists have invented the first artificial skin that can both sense subtle pressure and heal itself when torn or cut – and could one day be used for the screens on mobile phones.

A team from Stanford University are the first to create a synthetic skin that can not only repair damage to itself but is also able, crucially, to conduct electricity.

It is this crucial latter property that promises to make it useful in the field of consumer electronics.

One of the major bugbears smartphone users have had, particularly the iPhone, was propensity of the screen on the devices to smash when dropped.

A transparent, healable polymer that can sense pressure could be invaluable for making future generations of devices more resilient to breakages.

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Obama’s Interior Secretary Threatens Colorado Springs Reporter: ‘I’ll Punch You Out’

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Last week, during an Election Day event supporting President Barack Obama in Fountain, Colo., U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar threatened a local reporter following a seemingly routine interview.

“If you set me up like this again, I’ll punch you out,” Salazar told Colorado Springs Gazette reporter Dave Phillips.

In an email to TheBlaze, U.S. Department of Interior spokesman Blake Androff confirmed that the altercation occurred. “The secretary regrets the exchange,” he wrote. The official did not provide any additional details.

Salazar had just finished answering questions about his policies for managing America’s wild horse population when the alleged incident occurred. Ginger Kathrens, executive director of the Cloud Foundation, was standing just feet away from Phillips when Salazar lost his temper.

“I was standing 3 feet away from Dave,” Kathrens told TheBlaze. “And when I turned, he kind of spat that at him and I thought, ‘Oh my God’…It was unbelievable.”

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Now What? White House ‘Secede’ Petitions Reach 660,000 Signatures, 50-State Participation

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Less than a week after a New Orleans suburbanite petitioned the White House to allow Louisiana to secede from the United States, petitions from seven states have collected enough signatures to trigger a promised review from the Obama administration.

By midnight Tuesday, more than 660,000 digital signatures appeared on 69 separate secession petitions covering all 50 states, according to a Daily Caller analysis of requests lodged with the White House’s “We the People” online petition system.

A petition from Vermont, where talk of secession is a regular feature of political life, was the final entry.

Petitions from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas residents have accrued at least 25,000 signatures, the number the Obama administration says it will reward with a staff review of online proposals.

The Texas petition leads all others by a wide margin. Shortly before midnight Tuesday, it had attracted more than 92,400 signatures. But a spokesperson for Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday afternoon that he does not support the idea of his state striking out on its own.

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