Unprecedented: Feds take over New Orleans Police Department. Would the Founders Approve?

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Taking aim at a long history of civil rights abuses, corruption and slipshod oversight within the New Orleans Police Department, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu unfurled a bevy of sweeping reforms Tuesday afternoon in the nation’s most expansive consent decree to date. The long-awaited agreement, to be overseen by an appointed monitor and U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, amounts to a 492-point, court-enforced action plan for overhauling NOPD policies and practices — from when officers can pull their weapons to the kind of data they track. The announcement at Gallier Hall on Tuesday afternoon featured Holder, Landrieu and other federal and city officials, including Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas and City Attorney Richard Cortizas.

It came after several months of detailed and sometimes testy negotiations over hot-button topics such as off-duty police details and the sheer financing of the reforms, all of which will fall to the city.

Landrieu estimated that putting the consent decree in motion will set the city back $11 million a year to start. Holder said the government would offer support by way of available federal grants and advice, but the city is on the hook for the full tab.

Still, Landrieu exuded pride in what amounts to an unprecedented local-federal pact, even though the far-reaching document is a response to a yawning breadth of problems that he said have plagued the NOPD for years.

The consent decree follows what Holder called “one of the most extensive investigations of a law enforcement agency ever conducted by the (Justice) department.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: Kyle Taylor

NSA whistleblowers: Feds spying on every single American

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Testimonies delivered in recent weeks by former employees of the National Security Agency suggest that the US government is granting itself surveillance powers far beyond what most Americans consider the proper role of the federal government.

In an interview broadcast on Current TV’s “Viewpoint” program on Monday, former NSA Technical Director William Binney commented on the government’s policy of blanket surveillance, alongside colleagues Thomas Drake and Kirk Wiebe, the agency’s respective former Senior Official and Senior Analyst.

The interview comes on the heels of a series of speeches given by Binney, who has quickly become better known for his whistleblowing than his work with the NSA. In their latest appearance this week, though, the three former staffers suggested that America’s spy program is much more dangerous than it seems.

In an interview with “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer, Drake said there was a “key decision made shortly after 9/11, which began to rapidly turn the United States of America into the equivalent of a foreign nation for dragnet blanket electronic surveillance.”

These powers have previously defended by claims of national security necessity, but Drake says that it doesn’t stop there. He warns that the government is giving itself the power to gather intel on every American that could be used in future prosecutions unrelated to terrorism.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: DonkeyHotey

Rapper Ice-T: Despite Aurora, gun rights are “the last form of defense against tyranny” (+video)

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While many pundits have been quick to advocate for gun control in the aftermath of the Aurora, Colo., theater rampage that killed 12 and wounded 58, rapper Ice-T took to the airwaves to defend gun rights.

Speaking with Channel 4 London’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy, the rapper and “Law & Order: SVU” actor said: “The right to bear arms is because that’s the last form of defense against tyranny. Not to hunt. It’s to protect yourself from the police.”

Guru-Murthy pushed back against the rapper who penned “Cop Killer” by asking if a link between the Second Amendment and the tragedy in Colorado exists.

“No, not really. You know what I’m sayin,’ if somebody wants to kill people they don’t need a gun to do it,” the rapper responded.

Ice-T’s comments stand in stark contrast to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s remarks immediately following the theater massacre.

Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s the video:

 

Photo credit: Tom Mooring

Video: Anti-gun O’Reilly gets schooled by Rep. Jason Chaffetz on Federal Gun Laws

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If you didn’t see this on O’Reilly the other night, take the three or four minutes to watch this video.  In it, O’Reilly advocates for a massive expansion of federal oversight over the purchase of guns and ammo, erroneously (and repeatedly) citing the Aurora shooter’s “60,000 rounds” of ammo purchased on the Internet.  Watch this video and send a note of thanks to Rep. Chaffetz HERE.

 

Photo credit: Michael.Jolley

House passes Ron Paul’s ‘Audit the Fed’ bill; Bernanke calls it a “nightmare scenario”

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In a move that serves as a capstone to Rep. Ron Paul’s colorful career, the House on Wednesday voted to have Congress‘ chief investigators conduct a full audit of the Federal Reserve’s shrouded decision-making process.

The overwhelming 327-98 vote sends the measure to the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, at one time expressed support for an audit — though he reportedly has changed his mind.

House passage already marks a high-water mark for those who for years have been pushing for an audit, led by Mr. Paul. The Texan rode the slogan “Audit the Fed” to prominence in two Republican presidential primary campaigns, and he said the bill is a chance for Congress to begin to reclaim the money and banking powers it is given in the Constitution, but had delegated to the Fed.

“It is up to us to reassert ourselves,” Mr. Paul said during floor debate Tuesday.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke doesn’t like the prospect of such a broad audit, calling it a “nightmare scenario” last week and saying it would lead to politicians second-guessing his decisions.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit:  Joe Miller, All Rights Reserved.

 

Gun sales explode in wake of Aurora shooting

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The theater shooting in Colorado last week continues to generate discussions about firearms in America, but it is doing more than just getting people to talk. Gun sales in Colorado have skyrocketed in the days since the Aurora, CO massacre.

James Holmes, 24, is being held in connection with the Friday morning outburst that left 12 people dead and injured dozens more. Authorities allege that Holmes opened fire shortly after the midnight screening of Batman: The Dark Knight Rises began at the Century Aurora 16 theater. Only hours later, though, locals were lining up in droves to equip themselves with the same kinds of weaponry.

Jake Meyers tells the Denver Post that he arrived for work at Rocky Mountain Guns and Ammo on early Friday to find a line of 15 to 20 people waiting outside of the store. Three days later, he said surging gun sales yielded “probably the busiest Monday all year” and that, for the first time all year, firearms classes taught by the store’s staff were booked for three weeks straight.

“It’s been insane,” Meyers says.

“A lot of it is people saying, ‘I didn’t think I needed a gun, but now I do,’ ” Meyers adds. “When it happens in your backyard, people start reassessing — ‘Hey, I go to the movies.'”

Read more from this story HERE.

DeMint and Inhofe: U.N. treaties mean LOST U.S. sovereignty, Liberals intent on imposing backdoor globalism

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For years, liberals and misguided State Department officials have pushed for the U.S. Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). This treaty would convey ownership of the oceans to a United Nations agency and give international bureaucrats veto authority over U.S. naval operations and could force the United States to comply with international carbon emissions caps.

Last week, we defeated LOST by securing commitments to ensure it cannot gain the 67 votes needed for ratification.

However, no sooner had the 34th Republican senator signed a letter opposing LOST than the surrender of American sovereignty was put back on the table by foreign diplomats and their internationalist allies in the federal government.

With LOST dead, the new treaties being promoted to take its place include the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Disabled, which calls for government agents to supersede the authority of parents of disabled children and even covers abortion. Also, the Obama administration has begun negotiations on a new U.N. treaty to create international gun control rules that could slowly erode our Second Amendment.

The globalist ideologues behind these treaties are either ignorant of or hostile to the universal human experience that problems are best solved by the people and institutions closest to them. So assured are these masters of their mandate to direct the lives and wealth of other people that they see their routine failures to do so efficiently at the local, state and national level merely as reason to ascend to new heights of international command and control.

Read more from this story HERE.

 

Effort to register your pet to vote for Obama moves to Virginia; Romney complains

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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign is asking Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to launch an investigation into voter-registration forms that are being sent to Virginia residents and addressed to deceased relatives, children, family pets and others ineligible to vote.

The errant mailings from the Washington-based nonprofit group Voter Participation Center have befuddled many Virginia residents, leading to hundreds of complaints.

The organization has been mass-mailing the forms — pre-populated with key information such as names and addresses — to primarily Democratic-leaning voting blocs such as young adults, unmarried women, African-Americans and Latinos.

In a letter to Cuccinelli’s office and the State Board of Elections, Kathryn Bieber, an attorney for the Romney campaign, calls for an investigation into the matter by law-enforcement officials, claiming that the mailings appear to violate “at least one and maybe several Virginia laws aimed at ensuring a fair election.”

Bieber refers to the mailings as “tactics that amount to, or at the very least induce, voter registration fraud,” and says the issue “presents a very significant risk to the proper administration of the upcoming general election.”

Read more from this story HERE.

 

Bulgarian suicide attack on Israelis was exceptionally sophisticated, coordinated

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A sophisticated group of conspirators was involved in the suicide bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver last week, and they spent at least a month in Bulgaria before the attack, the country’s prime minister said Tuesday.

Boiko Borisov’s comments confirm suspicions that the suicide attacker who targeted a bus filled with Israeli vacationers last Wednesday did not act alone. However, the prime minister did not offer any evidence or give many more details. He didn’t say how many people were believed to have been involved in attack on Israeli tourists in Burgas and also declined to back up Israel’s claims that Iran and the militant group Hezbollah played roles.

Those involved used “leased vehicles, they moved in different cities so as not to be seen together, and no two of them can be seen in one place on any security camera,” Borisov said, speaking alongside visiting White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan.

He described the people behind the blast as “exceptionally skilled” and said they operated under “strict conspiracy rules.” He also said DNA samples from the suicide bomber have been shared with all partner security services, but no match has been found in their databases.

“There was absolutely no chance of preventing such an act of violence,” Borisov insisted. “We could have only detected it by chance or if we had been informed by the services that such activities were under way in Bulgaria.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: Alselon

House GOP Leadership intends to fund Obamacare this fall, won’t stop socialism

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When asked whether the House Republicans would permit or not permit funding for Obamacare in whatever legislation is enacted to fund the government after Sept. 30–when the current funding legislation runs out–House Speaker John Boehner responded that “our goal would be to make sure the government is funded,” thus indicating that House Republicans do plan to fund implementation of Obamacare past Sept. 30.

Unless a special provision is put into the bill to fund the government past Sept. 30 that expressly prohibits funding specifically for the Obamacare regulation that requires health-care plans to cover, without cost-sharing, sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortifacients, the House Republicans, by funding implementation of Obamacare, will also be funding implementation of that regulation.

Boehner’s position had been echoed by Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in a press briefing on Monday.

At his press conference on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Boehner, “In whatever legislation funds the government after Sept. 30, will House Republicans permit funding for the Affordable Care Act?”

Boehner said, “I expect that we’ll have an agreement with the Senate on a CR [continuing resolution]. As you all know, CR’s do contain some changes but usually not many changes. And considering that we’ve been fighting–the House has voted now 33 times to defund, to repeal and change Obamacare. Actually, about seven or eight of those votes have become laws, so there have been changes.”

Read more from this story HERE.