Photo Credit: breitbartSince taking over as head of the Roman Catholic Church in March, Pope Francis has made several stark comments on world economic issues: He’s cited the pitfalls of capitalism, decried global income inequality and equated low-wage labor to a form of “slavery.”
He’s even described the financial corruption in the church he leads as a “spiritual sickness.”
Analysts say Pope Francis—leader of some 1.2 billion Catholics—is not necessarily calling for the demise of free market theory. Instead, he’s issuing a very strong warning to economic leaders over its future.
“Like many people he thinks capitalism won’t survive unless it decreases income disparity,” said George Haley, professor of marketing and international business at the University of New Haven.
“I think it’s fair to say he’s arguing for a more European version of capitalism going forward, especially after the Great Recession, so there’s more of a safety net for people when they need it,” Haley added.
Photo Credit: APThe judge at US soldier Bradley Manning’s sentencing hearing rejected some government evidence Wednesday that the classified information he disclosed through the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks had a “chilling effect” on US foreign relations.
The judge ruled that such testimony is admissible only if the effect came directly after the information was published.
She threw out State Department undersecretary Patrick Kennedy’s testimony that leaked information published more than two years ago continues to hurt US foreign relations and policymaking.
The judge also has rejected acting assistant secretary Michael Kozak’s testimony that the leaks had made some foreign citizens, including human rights activists, less willing to speak privately with US diplomats.
Photo Credit: West Midlands PoliceAn anonymous Republican senator has delayed a vote on legislation that would require police to obtain a warrant before accessing emails and other online messages.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) pushed for a vote on the bill before Congress left for its August recess. He secured unanimous support from Democrats, but at least one Republican objected to the bill, according to a Democratic Senate aide.
Leahy had hoped to fast-track the bill to passage with unanimous support, but the opposition means a vote will be delayed until at least September.
A Leahy aide said the senator will continue to work with Republicans to address their concerns. The Senate could pass the legislation without unanimous support, but it would take up valuable floor time to override a filibuster.
It is unclear which Republican or Republicans objected to the bill, S. 607.
Making his sixth appearance on Leno — his fourth as president — Obama and his host stuck to serious subjects as the president promoted his economic and heath care policies, discussed terrorist threats in the Middle East, and defended National Security Agency surveillance programs.
“We don’t have a domestic spying program,” Obama said, describing the NSA efforts as “mechanisms that can track a phone number or an e-mail address that is connected to a terrorist attack … That information is useful.”
Obama also told Leno he’s disappointed that Russia granted temporary asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, but said the two nations can still work together on other issues.
“There are times when they slip back into Cold War thinking and Cold War mentality,” Obama said. “What I continually say to them and to President (Vladmir) Putin, that’s the past.”
Photo Credit: YouTube Those who were moved by Louisiana State Senator Elbert Guillory’s powerful YouTube video explaining why he left the “government plantation” in favor of the Republican Party recently may be happy to know that he is back not just with another compelling video — but with an influential new position.
It was recently announced that Guillory will be serving as honorary chairman of the Free at Last PAC, which describes itself as being “formed by several leaders as an effort to support Black Republicans who run for federal office and also to educate Blacks about the values of the Republican Party.”
“Liberalism has nearly destroyed black America, and now it’s time for black America to return the favor,” Guillory says with a smile in his new video.
Throughout the video, the state senator argues that the Republican Party is more in line with the values of the black community than the Democrat Party, asking: “After all, what was God’s plan for our people? Is this why God delivered us from the wilderness of slavery, so that able-bodied men could sit on the porch all day sipping liquor? Was it God’s plan that we would trade one plantation for another?”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-08-07 03:26:052016-04-11 11:17:34Video: State Senator who Slammed ‘Government Plantation’ is Back – and You’ll Want to Hear About His New Role
The trial of the Fort Hood gunman, who is acting as his own attorney, took a surreal turn as the former Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 in the November 2009 attack grilled witnesses — including his former boss in the military and a fellow Muslim who spoke to him the day of the shooting.
After a short opening statement in which ex-Army Maj. Nidal Hasan called himself a “mujahedeen,” admitted to the rampage and said “the dead bodies will show that war is an ugly thing,” Hasan cross-examined prosecution witnesses, including retired Lt. Col Ben Kirk Phillips, his former boss. When pressed by the defendant, Phillips acknowledged that his officer evaluation report had graded Hasan as “outstanding.”
But he declined to cross-examine one of his shooting victims, Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, who provided the day’s most damning testimony.
Lunsford – who was shot seven times during the incident – described what happened that day, saying he first saw Hasan sitting in a chair, with his arms on his knees while looking at the floor.
He said Hasan then jumped up and ordered the one civilian in the room to leave before shouting, “Allahu akbar” and opening fire. Panic set in among the soldiers, who crowded toward a rear door, which was jammed.
Three Forgotten Facts About the Fort Hood Massacre
By Michelle Malkin
Finally. Four years after Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan walked into the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, Texas, and perpetrated the bloodiest massacre ever on an American military base, the self-confessed jihadist’s court martial proceedings began this week. Have you forgotten?
Americans obsessed over the O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony and Jodi Arias trials. Gun-control lobbyists turned Newtown, Aurora and Tucson into national awareness-raising, fundraising and legislation-promoting campaigns. But where are the celebrity lobbyists and high-profile advocates for the victims of bloodthirsty Muslim vigilante Nidal Hasan?
The White House, which downplayed the terrorist mass murder as “workplace violence,” exacerbated national apathy for his evil acts. Our soldiers deserve better. Here are three facts you’ve probably forgotten — or never knew — about the Fort Hood terror spree.
–Fourteen victims fell on Nov. 5, 2009, not 13. Thirteen of our U.S. military personnel died in cold blood at the deployment center. But the death toll was actually 14. Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, was pregnant when Hasan shot her during the first round of gunfire. At a military Article 32 hearing in 2010 (analogous to a civilian grand jury hearing), a survivor of the Fort Hood shootings testified that Velez cried out, “My baby! My baby!”
In his opening statement on Tuesday, Hasan (acting as his own lawyer) apologized to his fellow jihadists for not destroying more innocent life.
Photo Credit: Getty Images Troop cuts and civilian layoffs are imminent unless Congress and the White House reach a deal to avert another round of automatic budget cuts this fall, according to the Pentagon’s No. 2 official.
Ashton Carter, the deputy Defense secretary, told USA TODAY on Monday that unless Congress and the White House reach a deal to avert the cuts, the Pentagon will have to make a series of tough and dangerous cuts in military and civilian personnel. The cuts, known as the sequester, call for about $500 billion in defense cuts through the end of the decade.
“We can’t rule out reductions in the civilian workforce and involuntary separations of military personnel,” Carter said. “That’s something none of us wants to do. But again if you have to have reductions this fast and this steep you have to go where it is possible to get money that fast. Those are not the most strategically and managerially sound places.”
The Pentagon recently completed a review of military-spending alternatives directed by Carter that forecast an austere future complete with troop levels not seen since 1940.
Last week, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that the Strategic Choices and Management Review indicated a smaller force with modern weapons or a bigger one with older gear.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-08-07 03:16:282016-04-11 11:17:35Obama Admin. to Gut the Military Because of Sequestration
The U.S. government on Tuesday filed two civil lawsuits against Bank of America for what the Justice Department and securities regulators said was a fraud on investors involving $850 million of residential mortgage-backed securities.
The Justice Department and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed the parallel suits in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, according to the court filings.
The securities date to about January 2008, the government said, putting them just at the beginning of the global financial crisis.
Bank of America responded to the lawsuits with a statement: “These were prime mortgages sold to sophisticated investors who had ample access to the underlying data, and we will demonstrate that.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-08-07 03:09:352016-04-11 11:17:35DOJ Files Civil Suit Against Bank of America (+video)
Photo Credit: NHTSAConcerned about a rise in pedestrian fatalities at a time when walking is strongly encouraged (“Let’s Move!”), the Obama administration is spending $2 million to give local communities the “resources and the tools they need” to prevent pedestrian deaths.
The effort — dubbed “Everyone Is a Pedestrian” — goes beyond public awareness campaigns that tell you to look both ways before crossing the street.
The new safety grants “will allow communities to take actions to make their city safer and better places to walk,” said David Strickland, director of the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA), who spoke at a news conference on Monday.
Some of the “resources to increase walkability” mentioned at Monday’s news conference include “better infrastructure for pedestrians,” such as highway medians, pavement markings and new traffic signals.
And NHTSA’s “Everyone Is a Pedestrian” website offers a “Walkability Checklist,” which reads like a “how-to” guide for budding community activists.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-08-07 03:05:072016-04-11 11:17:35‘Everyone Is a Pedestrian’: Gov’t Spending $2M to Increase Communities’ ‘Walkability’
On a day when terror threats continued to dominate the U.S. headlines, the Secret Service — a division of the Homeland Security Department since 2003 — tweeted the following message:
“Contact your nearest field office with time-sensitive or critical info or to report a tweet,” said one message.
That tweet from the Secret Service links to telephone numbers for every Secret Service office in the U.S. or its territories (there are 117 of them) and all 20 Secret Service offices overseas.
In a separate tweet on Tuesday morning, the Secret Service asked, “Have you seen any of our Most Wanted?” This tweet links to a list of suspects, most wanted for theft or fraud. None are listed as suspected terrorists.
Photo Credit: APSecret Service Will Use ‘Social Media Monitoring’ Software for Intelligence
By Elizabeth Harrington
The Secret Service is looking to monitor social media for intelligence purposes, according to a solicitation posted by the Department of Homeland Security.
“This solicitation is primarily for social media monitoring/open source portal software licenses,” the document stated.
“The Government is seeking licenses for software solutions involving, but not limited to, real-time open source intelligence monitoring.”
Details of the solicitation have not been revealed as the full Statement of Work (SOW) is only being made available to contractors that respond to the notice.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-08-07 03:03:082016-04-11 11:17:35Secret Service: Contact Us to ‘Report a Tweet’
