Law enforcement authorities said Tuesday that an Iowa couple shot and killed an escaped inmate after being held in their home for four hours.
Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Mitch Mortvedt said Rodney Long forced his way into the couple’s home at 2609 Highland Avenue about 10:15 p.m. and held them for the next four hours.
Jerome and Carolyn Mauderly said Long was armed with a semi automatic handgun. He had also taken their phones.
Jerome, 71, and Carolyn, 66, decided to defend themselves, Mortvedt said. Jerome shot Long with his shotgun. They were not seriously hurt in the incident.
The National Security Agency began improperly collecting Americans’ electronic communications that had no connection to terrorism in 2008, but the government didn’t learn of the problem until 2011, senior administration officials said Wednesday.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper will release three documents that reveal the extent of the error, posting them on a new tumblr page.
The NSA revealed the improper collection of emails to the FISA court in 2011, which demanded a halt to the practice. The officials said the problem was technological and not malicious.
Congress, the administration officials said, knew when it authorized the surveillance programs in 2008 that some Americans would inadvertently have their communications intercepted.
The National Security Agency, the secretive federal department under fire for spying on U.S. citizens, is now accused of crushing the free-speech rights of a businessman clowning around about the NSA.
LibertyManiacs.com, a company that markets “freedom products for liberty lovers,” says the NSA is using a claim of copyright infringement to stop it from selling T-shirts and other products making fun of the Big Brother agency.
“Two months ago the NSA’s lawyers came after our parodies of the rogue agency and forced our host to take them down,” the company said Friday on its Facebook page.
At issue is use of the NSA logo, which was partially altered by LibertyManiacs owner Dan McCall. He kept the name of the agency and most of the artwork intact, but changed the bottom portion from “United States of America” to the laugh-inspiring “Peeping while you’re sleeping.”
Underneath the doctored logo is the phrase “The NSA, the only part of government that actually listens.”
NSA collected thousands of emails from Americans, rebuked by court
By Fox News.
The National Security Agency was rebuked by a secret court in 2011 for collecting thousands of emails and other online details from Americans with no ties to terrorism, according to court opinions which were declassified for the first time on Wednesday.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence took the unusual step of declassifying more than 100 pages of documents, amid the escalating public debate about government surveillance programs. The release comes several days after a report showed that the NSA had violated privacy rules and overstepped its authority thousands of times.
Some of those incidents were minor, but the documents released Wednesday detail major compliance problems.
In 2011, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was notified of a problem involving “upstream collection,” which is the collection of Internet traffic outside of the service providers. The NSA was collecting bundled email communications under a provision which focuses on foreign Internet traffic. The NSA, though, was not effectively segregating all the traffic from Americans.
The soldier on trial for the 2009 Fort Hood shooting rampage rested his case Wednesday without calling any witnesses, but later told the judge that the attack was provoked because “these were deploying soldiers who were going to engage in an illegal war.”
Maj. Nidal Hasan is representing himself but told a military judge Wednesday that he wouldn’t be calling any witnesses in his defense.
The jury was dismissed after the prosecution asked for more time to prepare jury instructions and logistics before closing arguments.
But after jurors were dismissed, Hasan told the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, that the jury shouldn’t have the option of convicting him on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.
“I would like to agree with the prosecution that it wasn’t done under the heat of sudden passion,” Hasan said. “There was adequate provocation — that these were deploying soldiers that were going to engage in an illegal war.”
Behind the beard and camouflage, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson is an incredibly insightful man with a penchant for straight talk. In a video posted on YouTube in January, Robertson is seen giving a speech in Pennsylvania discussing the abortion culture in America, among other things.
Robertson stated what we need more in our day are people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson who understood that our right to life comes from God. “I’m with George Washington. I’m in the same camp as George Washington…That big Washington Monument in DC. You know what the capstone says on top of it? Praise God,” he said. The Bible and our own founding document, the Declaration of Independence, make the right to life emphatically clear.
“We have been endowed by our creator, according to Thomas Jefferson, with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life,” Robertson exhorted, adding, “I’ll tell you, it didn’t take us 150 years, we started ripping babies out of wombs. They should have listened to Thomas Jefferson—you have a God-given right to live inside your mother—come on!…What in the world happened to us?”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-08-20 23:30:002013-08-20 23:30:00Duck Dynasty Star Rails Against Abortion Culture in America: “What in the World Happened to Us?” (+video)
Supporters of Second Amendment rights are motivated by neo-Confederate beliefs, according to MNSBC contributor Joy Reid.
“There’s this sort of neo-Confederate thread that runs through this pro-gun movement and NRA movement,” she said this afternoon while discussing the recall elections for Democratic state lawmakers in Colorado that were spurred by their support for gun-control legislation…
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-08-20 23:10:082013-08-20 23:10:08MSNBC Pundit: Opposition to Gun Control is Neo-Confederate (+video)
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was cornered into admitting that President Barack Obama does indeed have his shortcomings. The TV host, who has previously referred to the president as the “perfect” American, father and husband, was asked by a GOP strategist on Tuesday morning: How does “hope and change” look five years later?
“What people signed up for, what people voted for, was the hope and change,” former John McCain aide Nicolle Wallace said. “How’s it look on the table five years later?”
After being evasive at first and talking about past presidents, Matthews ultimately addressed Obama’s “shortcoming.” He also acknowledged that he had been duped by politicians and been let down in the past.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-08-20 23:09:462013-08-20 23:09:46How Does ‘Hope and Change’ Look Five Years Later? Here’s Chris Matthew’s Surprising Answer (+video)
They say “don’t bring a knife to a gun fight” — so this restaurant owner didn’t. Instead, he armed himself with a pot of scalding hot oil.
On Monday afternoon, the owner of a local corner deli foiled a robbery by hurling a pot of burning oil at an armed robber as the thief attempted to open the cash register, according to NJ.com.
The owner, who reportedly asked not to be identified, said he had often thought of weaponizing cooking oil in such a situation.
“Frankly speaking, I did think, ‘If anything happens, I’ll throw hot oil on somebody,’” he reportedly said, with a laugh. “But I never thought it would really happen.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-08-20 23:08:412013-08-20 23:08:41Fed-Up Restaurant Owner Foils Armed Robbery in One of the Best Ways: ‘I Couldn’t Just Stand Here and Watch Him Take My Money’ (+video)
Small-business investors in California were promised big breaks five years ago, but now they’re being told to pay up, instead after a court ruling.
After following the law, many of them are getting hit with tax bills as high as $250,000.
“When we make a promise, we have to uphold it,” said Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Redondo Beach.
But that is not what the state government appears to be doing. Small-business owners are getting hefty tax breaks for tax credits they already got five years ago.
“They relied on California law as it was written, that they would get a tax break if they invested in certain kinds of businesses,” Lieu said.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-08-20 23:06:502013-08-20 23:06:50California Wants Small-Business Owners To Pay Back $120 Million In Tax Breaks (+video)
Former Florida Congressman Allen West blasts President Obama’s assertion that health insurance is every American’s right. He adds that the President’s selective enforcement of the law not only in implementing the provisions of Obamacare, but other laws according to his whim is a dangerous threat to the existence of America as a constitutional republic.
West points out ultimately our rights come from God and not government, a truth enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. If government is the source of our rights, it can grant and take them away at will.
West also discusses how problematic it is that Obamacare’s “navigators” will have full access to people’s medical background and financial information. He hits on many other interesting issues in this interview with Greta Van Susteren.
Video: Egyptian Military Tanks Shoots Brave Man with Bare Hands Trying to Stop Them
By NY Daily News.
An Egyptian protestor was cut down in hail of gunfire after standing ground in front of enemy tank as body count continues to rise.
Protesters poured out of mosques after traditional mid-day prayers, responding to the Muslim Brotherhood’s call for a ‘Day of Rage’ as armored military vehicles sealed off main squares in the Egyptian capital and troops with machine guns stood at the ready on key junctions.
Saudi Arabia Warns Against Pressing Egypt on Crackdown
By Reuters.
Saudi Arabia on Sunday warned the West against putting pressure on Egypt’s military-backed government to halt a crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
“We will not achieve anything through threats,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, told reporters through an interpreter during a visit to Paris.
The prince spoke after meeting French President Francois Hollande, who on Thursday called for a swift end to a state of emergency imposed by Egypt’s military authorities.
EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels this week to review what steps to take following a bloody crackdown since Wednesday on supporters of Mursi, deposed by the military on July 3. More than 800 people have died in the violence.
“If the situation calms down, very good. If on the contrary violence continues, then we can and we probably must take decisions,” France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France 2 television on Sunday.
Read more from this story HERE.
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American al-Qaeda Member Praises Killers of US Ambassador, Calls for More Attacks on US Diplomats
By Reuters.
An American al-Qaeda terrorist has called for more attacks on Western diplomats in the Arab world, praising the killers of the US ambassador to Libya on Sept. 11 last year, a US-based monitoring group said on Sunday.
Western nations shut embassies across the Middle East and North Africa early this month, after a warning of a possible terror attack. Many have reopened, and Britain said its Yemen embassy would open on Sunday after being closed for 12 days.
Adam Gadahn, a California-born convert to Islam with a $1 million US price on his head, appealed to wealthy Muslims to offer terrorists rewards to kill ambassadors in the region, citing bounty set for killing the US ambassador to Yemen, Washington-based SITE monitoring group said.
“These prizes have a great effect in instilling fear in the hearts of our cowardly enemies,” Gadahn said in the 39-minute video recording in Arabic posted on websites used by Islamist terrorists, according to SITE.
It’s high time for the United States to cut off its $1.3 billion in aid to Egypt as the military regime cracks down violently on protesters, Sen. John McCain argued Sunday.
The Arizona Republican added the U.S. has lost its credibility in the region after failing to follow its own law that requires suspending aid to states overtaken by a military coup–though the U.S. has not officially described the recent regime change in Egypt as a coup.
“We have no credibility. We do have influence, but when you don’t use that influence, then you do not have that influence,” McCain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
McCain, along with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, traveled to Egypt earlier this month at the request of President Barack Obama to implore military leaders to begin holding elections and transition into a democracy.
While McCain voted late last month to maintain aid to Egypt, the longtime senator has since had a change of heart and is now joining others, including Republican Sen. Rand Paul, in calling for the Obama administration to suspend aid.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-08-18 21:39:332013-08-18 21:39:33Videos: Man Trying to Stop Tanks Shot Down in Cold Blood, Muslims Murder Taxi Driver and Other Mayhem in Egypt
Law enforcement authorities said Tuesday that an Iowa couple shot and killed an escaped inmate after being held in their home for four hours.
Behind the beard and camouflage, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson is an incredibly insightful man with a penchant for straight talk. In a video posted on YouTube in January, Robertson is seen giving a speech in Pennsylvania discussing the abortion culture in America, among other things. 
