D’Souza: I Was ‘Stupid’ but Prosecution Was Selective

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By Greg Richter.

Conservative scholar and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza says it was “wrong” and “stupid” of him to use friends to contribute more to a political campaign than allowed by law. But he still insists selective prosecution was involved.

D’Souza pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal election fraud charges, and could face prison time. He admitted to reimbursing two associates $10,000 each for money they gave to the campaign of New York U.S. Senate candidate Wendy Long, a Republican running for the seat once held by Hillary Clinton.

D’Souza told Fox News Channel’s “The Kelly File” on Tuesday night that he had no intent to defraud and never denied making the reimbursements.

“That was wrong,” D’Souza said. “It’s an end-around campaign finance law. I acknowledge responsibility, and I did admit doing that from the beginning.”

Long’s campaign was flailing and he wanted to help her, D’Souza said. “I just chose the wrong and stupid way to do it. I shouldn’t have done it.”

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Photo Credit: TownHall Dinesh D’Souza Pleads Guilty to Violating Campaign Finance Law

By Katie Pavlich.

Author and conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza plead guilty this morning to one count on federal charges detailed in an indictment accusing him of violating campaign finance laws and making false statements. D’Souza admitted in front of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, that he did in fact ask two people to make contributions in their name and later reimbursed them, knowing it was not proper under the law. D’Souza submitted a plea deal on May 19 and the charge of making false statements was dropped. Judge Richard Berman accepted his guilty plea today and set a sentencing date for September 23, 2014. The government argued attorneys would be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant, D’Souza, is guilty. There will be no trial by jury in this case.

“Guilty your honor,” D’Souza said, adding that he deeply regrets his actions.

“The plea is now accepted and Mr. D’Souza is now guilty under the indictment,” Berman replied.

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Espionage in a Post-Privacy Society

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Photo Credit: ShutterstockWe will soon have to live in a world with no such thing as privacy and no such thing as secrecy, says Richard Aldrich, speaking at PINC 15 in Amsterdam. “We will be living in a transparent society, it will be a bit like living in a nudist colony.”

Aldrich is a historian specialising in espionage and has recently published a book about GCHQ, but it is the future of espionage that he is interested in right now. We’re used to the idea that secret intelligence agencies spy on us, but over the last ten years the big intelligence gatherers have become airlines, banks, internet providers and Tesco — all of which have more information about us than GCHQ and the NSA put together.

“These organisations are becoming cleverer and cleverer. Cleverer than the CIA; cleverer than the KGB.” By studying everything he has bought over the last five years, a company could predict with about 90 percent accuracy how Aldrich will vote in the upcoming European elections — something he claims he doesn’t even know himself. He claims he has about 11 percent of his supposedly secret vote left.

Citizens too though are increasingly becoming intelligence gatherers. By studying the reaction of the blogosphere to the Boston Marathon bombings — which led to a mob forming outside the house of someone wrongly identified as the bomber from crowdsourced photos posted on Reddit– we can understand how dangerous this can be. “Espionage is even scarier when it’s controlled by you guys,” Aldrich tells the audience.

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U.S. Utility’s Control System Was Hacked, Says Homeland Security

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Photo Credit: Donkey HoteyA sophisticated hacking group recently attacked a U.S. public utility and compromised its control system network, but there was no evidence that the utility’s operations were affected, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS did not identify the utility in a report that was issued this week by the agency’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, or ICS-CERT.

“While unauthorized access was identified, ICS-CERT was able to work with the affected entity to put in place mitigation strategies and ensure the security of their control systems before there was any impact to operations,” a DHS official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Such cyber attacks are rarely disclosed by ICS-CERT, which typically keeps details about its investigations secret to encourage businesses to share information with the government. Companies are often reluctant to go public about attacks to avoid potentially negative publicity.

ICS-CERT said in the report posted on its website that investigators had determined the utility had likely been the victim of previous intrusions. It did not elaborate.

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Wild Wyoming Cloud Wows Weatherwatchers

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Photo Credit: BasehuntersA phenomenal shot of a massive cloud Sunday near Clareton, Wyo., has been making the rounds on social media today.

The photo was taken by the Basehunters storm chasers group, who are “committed to capturing the most unique and close-up tornado footage on the market,” according to their Facebook page. It shows the rotating updraft of a supercell thunderstorm over eastern Wyoming, according to Weather Channel meteorologist Jon Erdman.

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Shocking Security Footage Exposes Cops Smacking Handcuffed Woman, Hurling Racial Slurs

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Photo Credit: YouTubeBad scene: A Chicago policeman hits a handcuffed, kneeling woman in the head, while another one shouts racially-charged comments at her. And threatens she’ll be murdered, no less.

Even worse – for the cops – the whole thing was caught on surveillance camera video, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court:

Filmed by a security camera during a Chicago Police vice raid at the Copper Tan and Spa last summer, the video appears to show one cop smack 32-year-old salon manager Jianqing “Jessica” Klyzek in the head with an open hand as she is on her knees, handcuffed.

Another large officer yelled at the 110 pound, 5-foot-2 Klyzek — a naturalized U.S. citizen who emigrated from China — “You’re not f—— American!”

Pretty bad, huh? It gets worse. The second cop continued to scream at the terrified woman, threatening that she and her family would be murdered…


(WARNING: Explicit Language)

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New Chris Matthews Promo: American Revolution Proof That ‘Liberalism Always Wins . . . Eventually’

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Photo Credit: Downtrend A new promotional segment for MSNBC’s “Hardball” program took the network’s “Lean Forward” advertisement campaign to new heights of progressivism, with host Chris Matthews citing the American Revolution as proof that “liberalism always wins — eventually.”

The commercial, which appears to have first aired Tuesday on MSNBC, shows a thoughtful-looking Matthews strolling through Philadelphia’s Independence Hall.

“It took 22 months of men debating in this room to achieve the Declaration of Independence,” he intoned. “Progressive change takes time.”

“Abolition would take a great civil war, but it came,” Matthews continued. “Women’s suffrage would take a crusade, but it became part and parcel of our democracy. Voting rights have taken a brutal fight, as will the case for marriage equality and equal pay for men and women.”

“Liberalism always wins EVENTUALLY,” he declared, “just as it did in the sweltering summer of 1776.”

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Lessons of the VA Scandal

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Photo Credit: National Review If our government has any obligation to fulfill its many promises on health care, it should be first and foremost to the men and women who served in our armed forces. But the scandal over hidden waiting lists at a growing number of veterans’ hospitals (seven so far) — wherein dozens of veterans died while waiting months for vital treatment, and the VA covered up the lengthy wait times — should make everyone wonder whether we can place our trust in a government-managed health-care system. The Dayton Daily News reported on Sunday that its investigation of a database of claims paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that the words “delay in treatment” were used 167 times. The VA paid out a total of $36.4 million to settle the claims. There could well be many more cases of “death by delay” at the VA that never came to light.

Are there lessons in the VA scandal for the rest of us if Obamacare survives and even expands?

You betcha. The first lesson is that as government expands taxpayer subsidies for health care, the demand will always outstrip supply. Here is President Obama in a speech to disabled veterans in August 2013:

The last time I was with you, I pledged to cut the backlog, slash those wait times, deliver your benefits sooner. And I’m going to be honest with you; it has not moved as fast as I wanted. Part of it is all these new veterans in the system who came in — Agent Orange, PTSD. It means a lot more claims, and despite additional resources, it’s resulted in longer waits. And that’s been unacceptable — unacceptable to me, unacceptable to [Department of Veterans Affairs] Secretary [Eric] Shinseki.

A few weeks later, President Obama had to admit that he found the fiasco of the HealthCare.gov website also “unacceptable.” Last week, his aides told reporters he was “madder than hell” over the veteran waiting-list scandal.

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Cruz, Lee Hit HHS Nominee Burwell Over Obamacare Transparency

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Photo Credit: Drew Angerer / Getty Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee sent a letter Friday asking Health and Human Services secretary nominee Sylvia Burwell to come clean about how she would implement Obamacare if confirmed.

“So far, Ms. Burwell’s testimony has been less than forthcoming and suggests she plans to follow the lead of her predecessor in blocking Congress’s ability to do proper oversight for the America people,” the senators wrote in a statement. “The questions we propose in the letter have not only been asked repeatedly, but deal with issues she should have been prepared to answer at her hearings but did not.”

Cruz and Lee asked the current Office of Management and Budget director a host of questions about the status of the health care law, asking for her commitment to provide data about the health care exchanges to Congress and the public before confirmed by the full Senate.

The duo asked that Burwell promise to reveal information on the final enrollment tally, taking into account duplicate enrollments reported by insurance officials; percentages of paid premiums, broken down by age; the number of previously uninsured exchange customers; and a list of insurers who offer elective abortion in their coverage, which current HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius reportedly promised to provide but did not.

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Chipotle: Don’t Bring Guns in Our Stores

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Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk / Creative CommonsChipotle is asking customers not to bring firearms into its stores after it says gun rights advocates brought military-style assault rifles into one of its restaurants in Texas.

The Denver-based company notes that it has traditionally complied with local laws regarding open and concealed firearms.

But in a statement Monday, the company said that “the display of firearms in our restaurants has now created an environment that is potentially intimidating or uncomfortable for many of our customers.”

The announcement came after a petition by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which has called on other companies to ban firearms in their stores as well. The group said its petition was in reaction to open-carry gun activists appearing at a Dallas-area Chipotle restaurant over the weekend.

Erika Soto Lamb, a spokeswoman for the group, said she thought the move by Chipotle was a “bold statement,” especially considering its previous stance of complying with local laws.

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DOJ Brings First-Ever Cyber-Espionage Case Against Chinese Officials

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Photo Credit: APAttorney General Eric Holder on Monday announced a first-of-its-kind criminal cyber-espionage case against Chinese military officials the Justice Department charges hacked into major U.S. companies to steal trade secrets — though Holder could not say whether the five defendants stand a chance of ever seeing the inside of a U.S. courtroom.

Holder, in announcing the indictment against five Shanghai-based officials, acknowledged that the defendants have never set foot in the United States.

Pressed on whether there’s any hope the Chinese government would hand over the officials, Holder said only the “intention” is for the defendants to face the charges in a U.S. court, and he hopes to have Chinese government cooperation.

But the Chinese government immediately signaled it would not cooperate, claiming the accusations were made up and warning the case would damage U.S.-China relations.

According to Reuters, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang urged “immediate rectification.”

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