The Department of Justice is concentrating on “far-right” groups in a new study of social media usage aimed at combatting violent extremism.
The Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded Michigan State University $585,719 for the study, which was praised by Eric Holder, the former attorney general, earlier this year.
“There is currently limited knowledge of the role of technology and computer mediated communications (CMCs), such as Facebook and Twitter, in the dissemination of messages that promote extremist agendas and radicalize individuals to violence,” according to the NIJ grant. “The proposed study will address this gap through a series of qualitative and quantitative analyses of posts from various forms of CMC used by members of both the far-right and Islamic extremist movements.”
The study draws more upon right-wing forums than upon the corners of the web inhabited by Islamist extremists.
“We will collect posts made in four active forums used by members of the far-right and three from the Islamic Extremist community, as well as posts made in Facebook, LiveJournal, Twitter, YouTube, and Pastebin accounts used by members of each movement,” the grant said. (Read more from “Justice Department Studying ‘Far-Right’ Social Media Use” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-02 02:59:422016-04-11 11:00:29Justice Department Studying ‘Far-Right’ Social Media Use
World famous comedian and movie star Vince Vaughn came out with a double barrel defense of gun rights during a recent interview, calling for guns in schools and arguing the Second Amendment is intended to defend against “the supreme power of a corrupt and abusive government.”
The star of the new season of the hit HBO series “True Detective,” outlined his pro-gun views during an interview with British GQ, which released excerpts of the sit down June 1. Vaughn — who has outlined his distinctly libertarian views in recent press sit-downs — stands in sharp contrast to many of his Hollywood colleagues who call for bans on firearm ownership.
“We have the right to bear arms to resist the supreme power of a corrupt and abusive government,” Vaughn told British GQ. “It’s not about duck hunting; it’s about the ability of the individual. It’s the same reason we have freedom of speech. It’s well known that the greatest defense against an intruder is the sound of a gun hammer being pulled back” . . .
“Take mass shootings. They’ve only happened in places that don’t allow guns,” Vaughn explained, mirroring arguments from noted gun crime researcher Dr. John Lott. “In all of our schools it is illegal to have guns on campus, so again and again these guys go and shoot up these f***ing schools because they know there are no guns there.” (Read more from “Huge Hollywood Actor Is as pro Gun as It Gets” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-02 02:53:272016-04-11 11:00:30Huge Hollywood Actor Is as Pro Gun as It Gets
Even for a president whose term will be defined by demonstrable lies, Monday’s whopper stood out for sheer brazenness.
In a nearly three-minute video released by the White House, President Obama declared that “one of my core principles is that I will never engage in politics in which I’m trying to divide people.”
“That’s not something I will violate,” he vowed.
Not something he will violate? Does the president — or his speechwriters — think someone other than the American public has been watching the news for the past six years? Reading the papers or cruising the Internet?
“One of my core principles is that I will never engage in a politics in which I’m trying to divide people” —@POTUShttps://t.co/eKYB5zdKnE
Or does he think that that those repeated party line votes in the battle for Obamacare during the disastrous two years that Democrats controlled both houses of Congress meant nothing? Does he forget — or does he think we forgot — the incident involving Harvard Professor Louis Gates (the one where the police “acted stupidly”) or how he and his attorney general deliberately fanned the flames of racial hatred in the country over the death of a thug named Trayvon Martin (the one who looked like the president’s imaginary son) who died committing a violent crime. (Read more from “Obama Beats His Own Lie of the Year – YES, It’s That Big of a Whopper” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-02 02:52:542016-04-11 11:00:31Watch: Obama Beats His Own Lie of the Year – YES, It’s That Big of a Whopper
Bill Clinton, no stranger to controversy, raised eyebrows again with a Clinton Global Initiative gathering last month, as ABC News put it, “at a five-star luxury hotel in Morocco [hosted] by one of the world’s most controversial mining companies, criticized for ‘serious human rights violations’ by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice.” And as is the case with every trip a former president takes (and President Clinton takes a lot of trips), the U.S. taxpayer is on the hook for security expenses.
For the Morocco trip, the hotel costs alone for the Secret Service came to $21,165:
(Read more from “Clinton Foundation Meeting in Morocco Last Month Cost Taxpayers $21K, at Least” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-02 02:52:152016-04-11 11:00:31Clinton Foundation Meeting in Morocco Last Month Cost Taxpayers Tens of Thousands
Here’s what happens now that the Patriot Act provisions expired
By Erin Kelly. The Senate voted Sunday to move forward with consideration of the USA Freedom Act, a measure that would end the controversial bulk collection of phone metadata. However, Senate leaders were unable to reach a deal to avoid the expiration of key provisions of the Patriot Act before the midnight deadline. Here are some of the immediate impacts:
• The “lone wolf” provision of the law has expired. This allows U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies to target surveillance at suspected terrorists who are acting alone without any direct ties to terrorist groups or rogue nations. It specifically says that it does not apply to U.S. citizens. It has never actually been used, White House officials said.
• The “roving wiretap” provision has expired. This allows federal agencies to monitor a person rather than a specific phone or electronic device. The government can keep track of suspected terrorists regardless of how many cell phones they use and throw away. Approval for the surveillance must be obtained from a federal court.
• Section 215 of the Patriot Act had expired. (Read more on the Patriot Act showdown HERE)
By Associated Press. The National Security Agency will lose its authority at midnight to collect Americans’ phone records in bulk, after an extraordinary Sunday Senate session failed to produce an 11th-hour deal to extend the fiercely contested program.
Intelligence officials warned that the outcome amounts to a win for terrorists. But civil liberties groups applauded the demise, at least temporarily, of the once-secret post-Sept. 11 program made public by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, which critics say is an unconstitutional intrusion into Americans’ privacy.
The program is all but certain to be revived in a matter of days, although it also looks certain to be completely overhauled under House-passed legislation that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reluctantly blessed in an about-face Sunday evening. With most senators opposed to extending current law unchanged, even for a short time, McConnell said the House bill was the only option left other than letting the program die off entirely. The Senate voted 77-17 to move ahead on the House-passed bill.
But no final action was expected before Sunday’s midnight deadline after McConnell’s fellow Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul served notice that he would assert his prerogatives under Senate rules to delay a final vote for several days.
“This is what we fought the revolution over, are we going to so blithely give up our freedom? … I’m not going to take it anymore,” Paul declared on the Senate floor, as supporters wearing red “Stand With Rand” T-shirts packed the spectator gallery. (Read more from “Patriot Act Showdown: Surveillance Powers Lapse With No Deal in Senate” HERE)
Pressure on US Senate to Act Before NSA Spy Programs Expire
By Michael Mathes. CIA chief John Brennan warned Sunday that allowing vital surveillance programs to lapse could increase terror threats, as the US Senate scrambled to renew the controversial provisions hours before their expiration.
With key counterterrorism programs under threat of suspension at midnight Sunday, the top intelligence official made a final pitch for Senate action, arguing that the bulk data collection of telephone records of millions of Americans unconnected to terrorism has not abused civil liberties and only serves to safeguard citizens.
“This is something that we can’t afford to do right now,” Brennan said of allowing the counterterrorism provisions to expire at midnight Sunday.
“Because if you look at the horrific terrorist attacks and violence being perpetrated around the globe, we need to keep our country safe, and our oceans are not keeping us safe the way they did century ago,” he said on CBS talk show “Face the Nation.”
Brennan added that groups like Islamic State have followed the developments “very carefully” and are “looking for the seams to operate.” (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-01 02:31:352016-04-11 11:00:31Patriot Act Showdown: Surveillance Powers Lapse With No Deal in Senate [+video]
It’s another day and Americans are waking up to another nightmare of executive overreach by President Obama and the inability of the GOP-led Congress to stop his assault on our liberty.
This week, it was the turn of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expand government reach by jointly issuing a new clean water regulation.
Known as the “Waters of the U.S. United States,” the new regulation aims to protect drinking water by expanding regulatory control to upstream waterways, such streams and wetlands that drain into larger bodies of water like lakes and rivers.
The larger water bodies serve as a source for drinking water.
According to the EPA, the new rule targets 60% of the smaller bodies of water such as streams that were previously unregulated.
Similar to EPA’s attack on coal-fired power plants where the agency created its Clean Power Plant Rule from manipulation of the Clean Air Act, the EPA has finalized the new water rule by its regulatory twisting of the Clean Water Act.
In both cases, the new regulations are not based on new laws from Congress to address the underlying environmental issues.
In classic style, the EPA adopted the progressive strategy of “you never let a serious crisis go to waste” and seized on Supreme Court decisions regarding the Clean Water Act, including vague language in a 2006 ruling by the Supreme Court that failed to limit agency power allowing the EPA to regulate waters close proximity to navigable water on a case by case basis.
President Obama issued a statement supporting the new rule saying it will remove uncertainty surrounding the water regulation, “This rule will provide the clarity and certainty businesses and industry need about which waters are protected by the Clean Water Act, and it will ensure polluters who knowingly threaten our waters can be held accountable.”
Despite claims about clarity made by Obama and the EPA, the reality is the administration is significantly expanding its power to control “just about anything that’s wet,” as The Wall Street Journal concluded.
In typical fashion, the EPA engaged in propaganda to manipulate the public opinion about the new water regulation.
The New York Times reported that the EPA engaged in a significant public relations campaign that uses social media vehicles including Facebook and Twitter to boost public support for the new regulation.
In a likely violation of federal lobbying laws, the agency led an effort with left-wing environmental and grassroots groups such as the Sierra Club and Organizing for Action to generate supportive comments about the EPA’s proposed regulation during the agency’s public comment period.
The campaign orchestrated by the agency was successfully allowing EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to smugly tout the overwhelming support of the water regulation during Congressional testimony.
McCarthy said, “We have received over one million comments, and 87.1 percent of those comments we have counted so far — we are only missing 4,000 — are supportive of this rule. Then she added, “Let me repeat: 87.1 percent of those one-plus million are supportive of this rule.”
McCarthy’s use of astroturf to promote the EPA’s agenda undermines the integrity of the public comment period which is intended to measure feedback on regulations by the people that are going to be impacted by the rule.
It’s also clearly outrageous for the EPA to use taxpayer money to sell its own agenda to the American people.
Farmers, developers, and mining groups among others fear the new regulation will give the EPA control of extremely small bodies of water on their land including ditches and puddles.
The regulation is also unpopular in Congress and it was blasted by Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH). Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Senate Environment and Public Works chairman vowed to stop EPA’s land grab saying, “I will not allow it.”
Inhofe is particularly upset because he is working on a bipartisan bill, the Federal Water Quality Protection Act, to prevent the EPA from using water regulations to control land.
EPA’s latest end-run around Congress serves as another example of government bureaucracy gone wild.
The EPA is making a mockery of representative government and Congress must go beyond using words to protest this lawlessness. It must use its power to defund the agency’s arrogant and radical agenda. (See “EPA Using Taxpayer Funds to Cheer Harmful Water Regs”, originally posted HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-01 02:30:482016-04-11 11:00:32EPA Using Taxpayer Funds to Cheer Horrendous New Water Regs
The organizer of a free-speech rally held outside a Phoenix mosque Friday said he and his family are going into hiding after threats on his life.
Friday’s protest, organized by former Marine Jon Ritzheimer, was held outside the Islamic Community Center, a mosque attended by the two men who were killed by police after they attacked the Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas. The protest was peaceful, thanks in part to a heavy police presence, although it attracted a vocal counter-protest . . .
“They’re mad at us for exercising our First Amendment rights,” he said. “This is further proof that our First Amendment is under attack. This is tyranny right here. This is tyranny at its finest” . . .
“I’m having to sell my house. My family is in hiding right now,” he said. “I’m having to go into hiding after this because they’re calling for a ‘lone wolf’ to come and behead me. That’s following their book as it’s written … and that’s tyranny . . .
When asked if the event was worth the trouble, Ritzheimer paused for a moment before saying, “Let’s ask our Founding Fathers if it was worth it for them to sign the Declaration of Independence.” (Read more from “Phoenix Organizer Final Words: ‘I’m Going Into Hiding . . . This Is Tyranny, Terrorism Right Here in America'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-01 02:30:402016-04-11 11:00:32Phoenix Organizer Final Words: ‘I’m Going Into Hiding . . . This Is Tyranny, Terrorism Right Here in America’
Photo Credit: NY Post Controversial firebrand Ann Coulter’s new book, “Adios, America” argues that fettered immigration is destroying the country by driving down the salaries of the middle class while increasing their tax burden. And it’s the elites on both sides — right and left — who are making it happen. An excerpt:
This is “Goodbye,” America. Adios. Paalam Na. No further warning will be issued.
For 40 years, the people have tried to tell politicians they want less immigration, but the politicians won’t listen.
Every single elite group in America is aligned against the public — the5 media, ethnic activists, big campaign donors, Wall Street, multimillionaire farmers and liberal “churches.”
They all want mass immigration from the Third World to continue. Both political parties connive to grant illegal aliens citizenship and bring in millions more legally, and the media hide the evidence.
Their game plan is: Never allow an honest debate on immigration.
Only in the case of immigration is the public systematically lied to from every major news outlet. They tell us, for example:
Polls show the public overwhelmingly supports “comprehensive immigration reform.”
No poll shows this. The Left uses polls to manipulate public opinion, rather than quantify it. Typical is a Brookings Institution Poll that asked respondents to chose between two ways to solve the illegal immigration problem: “Arrest and deport all those who are here illegally” or “provide an earned path to citizenship.” Absolutely no one has proposed that we deport all those here illegally — much less “arrest” them. But can’t I be against amnesty without voting for rounding up illegals at gunpoint? No! Look at the menu — no substitutions!
(Read more from “Ann Coulter: With Amnesty, Elites Conspire Against the Middle Class” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-01 02:30:222016-04-11 11:00:32Ann Coulter: With Amnesty, Elites Conspire Against the Middle Class
A new report from the National Low-income Housing Coalition has made a startling discovery, at least to anyone who has not tried to survive at a minimum wage job.
This map shows how many hours per week a person would have to work in order to rent a one-bedroom apartment without spending more than 30 percent of his or her take-home pay.
Photo Credit: National Low Income Housing Coalition
In the states with the lowest apartment cost, West Virginia, Arkansas, and Montana, a person would still have to work 54 hours per week to afford rent. In places like Washington D.C., Hawaii, or Maryland, a person would have to work more than 100 hours per week . . .
Photo Credit: National Low Income Housing Coalition
The report also showed that in expensive states, like Maryland or California, the renting wage can be exponentially higher than the current minimum wage. In California the minimum wage varies from $9.00-per-hour to more than $12-per-hour, but the renting wage is anywhere from $24- to $31-per-hour. (Read more from “A Full-Time Minimum Wage Job Can’t Pay Rent for an Apartment Anywhere in the U.S.” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-01 02:29:022016-04-11 11:00:32A Full-Time Minimum Wage Job Can’t Pay Rent for an Apartment Anywhere in the U.S.
Tragedy has not just afflicted Joe Biden, it has shaped his political soul.
In the latest personal devastation, the Vice President must now endure the torment of burying a second child, after his beloved son Beau died from brain cancer Saturday night.
It’s particularly heartrending because Beau, 46, was also a victim of an earlier incident that shattered Biden’s life, a car crash at Christmas in 1972 that killed his first wife and an infant daughter and badly injured another son as well as Beau.
Stricken with grief back then, Biden contemplated vacating the Delaware Senate seat he had just won as a young rising star of the Democratic Party, but his decision to endure became the foundation on which he built his political creed and public service. In a famous photo at the time, Biden was seen being sworn into the chamber in his sons’ hospital room . . .
But in a deeper sense, his personal tribulations cemented in Biden an almost mystical reverence for family. It pulsates through his politics and is at the root of his love affair with the U.S. Senate, which sustained him when his home life was torn apart and where he served for nearly four decades. (Read more from “Tragedy Haunts Joe Biden Once Again” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-06-01 02:28:162016-04-11 11:00:33Tragedy Haunts Joe Biden Once Again
