FCC Commissioner Threatened, Warns Feds May Come for Drudge [+video]

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Photo Credit: CNS News

Photo Credit: CNS News

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Ajit Pai said over the weekend that he foresees a future in which federal regulators will seek to regulate websites based on political content, using the power of the FCC or Federal Elections Commission (FEC). He also revealed that his opposition to “net neutrality” regulations had resulted in personal harassment and threats to his family.

Speaking on a panel at the annual “Right Online” conference in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Pai told audience members, “I can tell you it has not been an easy couple of months personally. My address has been publicly released. My wife’s name, my kids’ names, my kids’ birthdays, my phone number, all kinds of threats [have come] online.”

Pai, one of two Republicans on the five-member FCC, has been an outspoken critic of net neutrality regulations passed by the agency on Feb. 26. The rules, which are set to take effect on June 12, reclassify Internet providers as utilities and command them not to block or “throttle” online traffic.

However, Pai said it was only the beginning. In the future, he said, “I could easily see this migrating over to the direction of content… What you’re seeing now is an impulse not just to regulate the roads over which traffic goes, but the traffic itself.”

Continuing, he said, “It is conceivable to me to see the government saying, ‘We think the Drudge Report is having a disproportionate effect on our political discourse. He doesn’t have to file anything with the FEC. The FCC doesn’t have the ability to regulate anything he says, and we want to start tamping down on websites like that.’” (Read more from “FCC Commissioner Threatened, Warns Feds May Come for Drudge” HERE)

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‘Exceptional’ NYPD Officer Dies From Gunshot Wound to Head [+video]

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The NYPD officer who was shot in the head while sitting in an unmarked patrol car in Queens over the weekend has died.

Officer Brian Moore, 25, died Monday afternoon after being taken off life support at Jamaica Hospital two days after the shooting in Queens Village. Moore had been put in a medically induced coma and had undergone surgeries for “severe injuries to his skull and brain.”

The son of a cop from a strong NYPD family, Moore proved himself an exceptional officer since joining the force in 2010, making 150 arrests and winning four medals for his police work, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said . . .

The commissioner said it was a particularly rough day for the officers in Moore’s precinct, the 105th, because they had just returned that morning from the funeral of another officer who died suddenly from an illness that may be related to 9/11.

After Bratton delivered the grim news, an NYPD honor guard assembled as Moore’s remains were taken from the hospital. Authorities said more details about the investigation would be given at a press conference later Monday. (Read more from “‘Exceptional’ NYPD Officer Dies From Gunshot Wound to Head” HERE)

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Starbucks-Owned Ethos Water Bottling in Drought-Stricken California [+video]

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Photo Credit: Daily News

Photo Credit: Daily News

Ethos, the Starbucks-owned water company founded on the principle of helping others, is bottling water in the heart of drought-ravaged California.

At least some of Ethos Water’s supply comes from a plant in Merced, a Northern California city currently experiencing “exceptional drought,” according to a new report by Mother Jones.

Ethos Water was founded in 2002 with a promise to donate to charities working to improve worldwide access to clean water. Starbucks bought the company three years later, and since 2005, the coffee giant has donated 5 cents for every bottle sold to the Ethos Water Fund . . .

Starbucks uses the Merced plant — which processes water collected from private springs in Baxter, about 160 miles north — to supply its West Coast stores, according to Mother Jones. A Pennsylvania water source provides bottles for the East Coast.

Both Merced and Baxter are under an “exceptional drought,” the U.S. Drought Monitor reported. Much of California has been ravaged by the dry spell, which has prompted the state to crack down on water-wasters, impose restrictions across the state and pass appliance efficacy mandates. (Read more from “Starbucks’ Ethos Water Bottling in Drought-Stricken California” HERE)

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May Day Crowd Freaks out Over Open Carrier [+videos]

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images (2)Amongst all the chaos in Seattle during Friday’s May Day riot, a man was seen walking through the crowd wearing a tactical vest with an SKS rifle slung over his shoulder.

Identified as Shayne Butts, he tells reporters “I’m here to ensure peoples’ civil rights get respected, just the basics, First Amendment right to peacefully assemble, to free speech… I don’t like communism, but these people have a right to free speech.”

(Read more from “May Day Crowd Freaks out Over Open Carrier” HERE)

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IRS Seizes Rural Convenience Store Owner’s Career Savings in Another Horrible Abuse of Civil Forfeiture [+video]

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Photo Credit: Personal Liberty

Photo Credit: Personal Liberty

Lyndon McLellan, a rural North Carolina convenience store owner, woke up one day to discover the IRS had seized every penny of the $107,000 in his bank account. It was all the money he had put away over the course of 13 years of assiduous, hard work.

“This is all I’ve ever done. I was raised in the store business; I’m here 12-13 hours a day, seven days a week,” he explains. “To make this kind of money selling soft drinks, cigarettes and hot dogs, somebody’s gotta work, okay? It wasn’t just handed to us. It was taken from us – but it wasn’t handed to us.”

McLellan hasn’t been accused of a crime. The IRS just seized his money. And even though the IRS announced it was changing its civil forfeiture policy in October of last year – a result of growing public outcry in opposition to the practice – it didn’t relent in McLellan’s case, which predated the announcement by a few months.

For years, McLellan had been making periodic cash deposits into his account. The federal government requires that bank customers fill out a currency transaction report to document any single deposit in excess of $10,000. But McLellan had been depositing his earnings in increments beneath that threshold – for more than a decade.

The IRS had, until its policy change last year, exercised its own discretion in invoking its power of civil asset forfeiture against these smaller depositors. The spirit of the forfeiture law, as it applies to McLellan’s case, assumes that he was sitting on a stack of currency but elected to deposit it in small increments to avoid the government’s reporting requirements. (Read more from “IRS Seizes Rural Convenience Store Owner’s Career Savings in Another Horrible Abuse of Civil Forfeiture” HERE)

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Watch: Michelle Obama Jokes About Running for President

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ap-michelle-obama_20121204095225_640_480-620x465First Lady Michelle Obama joked with David Letterman about running for president.

“I’m retiring in a few weeks,” Letterman said.

“No kidding,” Obama deadpanned.

“And I know that your time at the White House, in a couple of years, same sort of thing,” Letterman continued after sharing a laugh. “You won’t be retiring though. But do you ever glimpse down that far down the road?”

Obama responded, “What, like when I’m going to be running for president or anything?” (Read more from “Michelle Obama Jokes About Running for President” HERE)

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Scathing Cruz Urges Hispanics: Don’t Let Democrats Do to Latinos What They’ve Done to Blacks [+video]

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cruz-300x195Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz ripped President Obama on Wednesday with scathing remarks about Obama’s role in the epidemic of racial episodes that has gripped the country.

And he urged his Hispanic audience to not allow Democrats to do to Latinos what they’ve done to black Americans – fool them into lockstep support for the party no matter what damage it does to the community.

“He’s made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions, that have divided us, rather than bringing us together,” Cruz said as he addressed a crowd at a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event in Washington.

Obama spoke on Tuesday about the growing – and often violent – rallies that ignited in Baltimore and around the country after the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who died April 19 in police custody. Obama said America has a “slow-rolling” crisis in minority communities, the Hill reported.

Cruz criticized Obama for being a catalyst in growing racial tension that’s pitting Americans against each other. (Read more from “Scathing Cruz Urges Hispanics: Don’t Let Democrats Do to Latinos What They’ve Done to Blacks” HERE)

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New Head of Black Panthers: Like Founding Fathers, We Will Kill for a Black Nation [+video]

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download (2)This Week on the New Black Panther Party’s “Black Power Radio,” national chairman Hashim Nzinga said since America has “declared war on us,” evidenced by “military police in the black neighborhood” protecting the rich, the New Black Panthers should be looked upon as Founding Fathers who declare war and are “willing to die or kill to save our babies and to save a black nation that is dying before our eyes” . . .

“So if we say we are at war, we should be applauded like George Washington,” Nzinga continued. “We should be applauded like Thomas Jefferson. We should be applauded like the Founding Fathers of the country.”

“This is not the hate hour, this is the love hour,”he added. “We have to love ourselves enough to be willing to die or kill to save our babies and to save a black nation that is dying before our eyes.”

(Read more from “New Head of Black Panther: Like Founding Fathers, We Will Kill for a Black Nation” HERE)

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Watch: Al Sharpton Gets In Physical Confrontation With Fox News Reporter

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download (1)Fox News reporter Leland Vittert got into a heated — and eventually physical — confrontation with activist and MSNBC host Al Sharpton, when the latter tried to keep him from questioning Democratic Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

“We can’t ask questions?” Vittert challenged her. “You are a public official and we can’t ask questions?” . . .

At the press conference, we will answer all questions,” Sharpton said. But as Vittert kept tailing them, a second man stepped between the reporter and the mayor and began pushing him away . . .

Ironically, Vittert said later that one question he didn’t get to ask Rawlings-Blake was whether or not she ordered Baltimore police not to respond to Monday’s riots with force. (Read more from “Watch: Al Sharpton Gets In Physical Confrontation With Fox News Reporter” HERE)

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Maryland Lawmaker Suggests Suspending Food Stamps for Parents of Rioting Youth in Baltimore [+video]

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patrickmcdonough_featuredRepublican state Del. Patrick McDonough of Maryland recently suggested that the parents of Baltimore youth involved in riots and looting should lose their food stamps.

McDonough was the guest-host of a radio program on Wednesday when he took a call from a listener who brought up the idea of taking away “benefits” such as “welfare” from the parents, noted The Intercept.

McDonough told the caller in part, “That’s an idea and that could be legislation. I think if you could make the case that there is a failure to do proper parenting and allowing this stuff to happen, is there an opportunity for a month to take away your food stamps?”

McDonough added that such a proposal would not likely pass the legislature “because it seems a little bit harsh,” but added that there should be a way to “connect to the lack of parenting.”

Later on the show, McDonough expressed his desire for a study of the “thug nation” of “young people” who are “violent, they’re brutal, their mindset is dysfunctional to the point of being dangerous.” (Read more from “Maryland Lawmaker Suggests Suspending Food Stamps for Parents of Baltimore Youth” HERE)

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