Report: $91 Million Spent On Secret NSA Tests Probing Domestic Computer Systems

/6 Comments/in , /by

The National Security Agency is conducting secret tests on the computer systems of U.S. private sector entities, including public utilities, a CNET report revealed this week.

The secret program, dubbed Perfect Citizen, is part of an effort by the government to improve security systems in the private sector and test offensive operations against enemies’ computer systems.

Targets reportedly include power grids and gas pipelines. The NSA’s operation reportedly probes their computer systems for vulnerabilities as part of a larger cybersecurity and cyberwarfare initiative.

Details about the program were revealed through documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a Washington, D.C.-based research nonprofit.

Of the 190 pages obtained by EPIC about the program, 98 were heavily redacted for a number of reasons, including portions labeled “classified top secret.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: Majority Expect Recession in 2013

/3 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: donkey hotey

A majority of voters believe that a recession is likely next year regardless of whether lawmakers reach a last-minute deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” according to a new poll.

A full 70 percent of voters told the conservative-leaning pollster Rasmussen they expect a recession next year if Congress fails to stop the tax increases and spending cuts that are set to begin in January.

But even if lawmakers take action before the end of the year, 54 percent believe a recession is coming in 2013, with 26 percent rating that outcome “very likely.”

Read more from this story HERE.

The Tea Party Has Not Yet Begun to Fight

/18 Comments/in , , /by

If the Tea Party has been weakened by the November election, why are the mainstream media expending so much effort attacking it?

The latest attempt is today’s front-page article by the New York Times, which alleges that the Tea Party is turning to “narrower” issues and suggests, none too subtly, that Congress should stop paying attention to it.

As proof, the Times offers the fact that Republican leaders “have embraced raising tax revenues in budget negotiations, repudiating a central tenet of the Tea Party.” It ignores the fact that Republican leaders could not muster the votes in the House to pass those proposals.

To the great frustration of the mainstream media and the GOP establishment alike, the Tea Party continues to hold the line against tax hikes and new bailouts. It also won a significant victory with the recent passage of right-to-work legislation in Michigan.

These are not “narrower” issues: they are the most fundamental issues concerning the nation’s fiscal health and economic future. It is the Times and the liberal gentry that it serves who cling to narrow, often contrived issues such as the co-called “war on women” to maintain their political clout. The ailing, indebted Times hates the Tea Party precisely because it is serious about economic realities the left would prefer to deny.

Read more from this article HERE.

Journalists’ Addresses Posted In Revenge For Newspaper’s Google Map Of Gun Permit Owners

/14 Comments/in , /by

A week after the Newtown massacre, The Journal News published an interactive Google Map with the names and addresses of gun permit owners in select New York cities. The bold move has escalated into a transparency arms race, after a Connecticut lawyer posted the phone number and addresses of the Journal‘s staff, including a Google Maps satellite Image of the Publisher’s home. “I don’t know whether the Journal’s publisher Janet Hasson is a permit holder herself, but here’s how to find her to ask,” read Christopher Fountain’s blog post. The double irony here is that open data was heralded as a tool of enlightened civic dialog, and has been co-opted for fierce partisanship, bordering on public endangerment.

The Journal‘s original publication of the map sparked nationwide outrage and thousands of angry comments. Gun permit holding is public information in New York, and can be acquired through a mere request via the Freedom of Information Act. But, coming on the heals of the Newtown shooting, the publication had a clear provocative intent. “New York residents have the right to own guns with a permit and they also have a right to access public information,” said a defiant Hasson.

Given that Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle used in the School shooting was reportedly legally registered with the killer’s mother, the Google Map sparked a debate about whether gun owners should be labeled like other potential menaces to society, “The implications are mind-boggling,” said Marine Scott F. Williams to The Journal News, “It’s as if gun owners are sex offenders (and) to own a handgun risks exposure as if one is a sex offender. It’s, in my mind, crazy.”

Read more from this story HERE.

The Disappearing American Father: 1/3 of US Children Now Born Without a Father at Home

/3 Comments/in , /by

Fathers are fast disappearing from American homes and one in three children, or approximately 15 million live without one according to the U.S. Census. The problem is especially pronounced in black families, where the figure increases to over half or around five million children.

In fact as the census recorded the fact that 160,000 new families with children were added, the number of two-parent households decreased by 1.2 million and nearly five million live without a mother. These astonishing figures can be unfavorably compared with 1960, when just 11 percent of all American children lived in homes without fathers.

Blame for the prevalence of low income families where children fall into crime and drugs has been laid at the door of these damning numbers.

‘People look at a child in need, in poverty or failing in school, and ask, ‘What can we do to help?’ said Vincent DiCaro, vice president of the National Fatherhood Initiative.

‘But what we do is ask, ‘Why does that child need help in the first place?’ And the answer is often it’s because the child lacks a responsible and involved father’…

Men walking away from babies is a problem concentrated to the inner cities, with Baltimore having only 38 percent of families that have two parents and St. Louis has 40 percent of families that have two children. The primary indicator for the problem is income – 12 percent of black families who live below the poverty line boast two parents, while among poor Latino families that figure is 41 percent and 32 percent among white families.

In all but 11 states, most black children do not live with both their parents while across every state, seven out of ten white children do.

Read more from this story HERE.

Plea For Help From Chinese Labor Camp Worker Paid $1.61 per MONTH Found Stuffed in Oregon Woman’s Halloween Decorations from Kmart

/5 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: kent wang

Oregon mother Julie Keith expected to find Styrofoam headstones in the graveyard kit she bought at Kmart for Halloween. What she didn’t expect was a desperate plea for help from one of the Chinese laborers forced to make the holiday decorations in brutal conditions.

The 42-year-old charity worker from Portland discovered the chilling letter hidden between the two novelty headstones when she opened the kit in October.

‘Sir: If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization,’ the unsigned note, that was folded into eighths, read.’Thousands people here who are under the persicution [sic] of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.’

The letter’s author said the Halloween product was made in Masanjia Labor Camp in Shenyang, China, where laborers are forced to work for 15 hours a day without time off on the weekends and holidays.

‘Otherwise, they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark. [sic] Nearly no payment,’ they wrote in choppy English accompanied by Chinese characters. The plea said workers at the labor camp make only 10 yuan per month – the equivalent to $1.61.

The China director at Human Rights Watch, Sophie Richardson, told The Oregonian that the origin or authenticity of the letter couldn’t be confirmed. ‘We’re in no position to confirm the veracity or origin of this,’ she said. ‘I think it is fair to say the conditions described in the letter certainly conform to what we know about conditions in re-education through labor camps.’

China’s re-education through labor is a system of punishment that allows for detention without trial. Masanjia labor camp is located in the industrialized capital of the Liaoning Province in northeast China.

Read more from this story HERE.

State Governments To Share the ‘Death Tax’ Loot If Feds Go Over Fiscal Cliff

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Falling off the “fiscal cliff” is a bad thing, right? Not necessarily for some state governments that could begin collecting more in estate taxes on wealth left to heirs if the United States goes over the “cliff,” allowing sharp tax increases and federal spending cuts to take effect in January.

In an example of federal and state tax law interaction that gets little notice on Capitol Hill, 30 states next year could collect $3 billion more in estate taxes if Congress and President Barack Obama do not act soon, estimated the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

The reason? The federal estate tax would return with a vengeance and so would a federal credit system that shares a portion of it with the 30 states. They had been getting their cut of this tax revenue stream until the early 2000s. That was when the credit system for payment of state estate tax went away due to tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush.

With the return of the credit system next year as part of the “cliff,” states such as Florida, Colorado and Texas — which have not collected estate tax since 2004 — could resume doing so. California Gov. Jerry Brown has already begun to add the anticipated estate tax revenue into his plans, including $45 million of it in his 2012-2013 revised budget.

Read more from this story HERE.

America Has a Brand-New Benedict Arnold

/23 Comments/in , /by

He single-handedly delivered the swing vote to approve Obamacare and perhaps even crushed the American health system that has been the envy of the world.

WND has selected U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. for its first-ever Benedict Arnold Award.

“There are lots of bad guys out there who would qualify as ‘Villain of the Year,’ but precious few candidates for the ‘Benedict Arnold Award,’” explained WND Vice President and Managing Editor David Kupelian. “Benedict Arnold, after all, was a good guy; he was an American general in the Revolutionary War who fought valiantly on behalf of the Continental Army – that is, until, for reasons yet unknown, he defected to the British side and betrayed the cause he had formerly served.”

Kupelian added, “That pretty much describes Justice Roberts, who gained the enthusiastic support of conservatives and other Constitution-lovers by virtue of his earlier rulings and judicial temperament, and yet betrayed that trust in a devastating way. And we still don’t know why he did it.”

On June 28, 2012, Roberts joined the left of the Court in a dramatic 5-4 decision to uphold President Obama’s signature legislation. The Court ruled that Obamacare’s individual mandate is not constitutional under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, but is reasonably considered a tax valid under Congress’ authority to “lay and collect taxes.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Social Security Ran $47.8B Deficit in FY 2012; Disabled Workers Hit New Record in December: 8,827,795

/10 Comments/in , /by

(CNSNews.com) – The Social Security program ran a $47.8 billion deficit in fiscal 2012 as the program brought in $725.429 billion in cash and paid $773.247 for benefits and overhead expenses, according to official data published by Social Security Administration.

The Social Security Administration also released new data revealing that the number of workers collecting disability benefits hit a record 8,827,795 in December–up from 8,805,353 in November.

The overall number of Social Security program beneficiaries—including retired workers, dependent family members and survivors and disabled workers and their dependent family members—also hit a record in December, climbing from 56,658,978 in November to 56,758,185 in December.

In 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there was an average of 112.556 million full-time workers in the United States, of whom 17.806 million worked full-time for local, state or federal government. That left an average of only 94.750 million full-time private sector workers in the country.

That means that for every 1.67 Americans who worked full-time in the private sector in 2011, there is now 1 person collecting benefits from the Social Security administration.

Read more from this story HERE.