Greenwald: NSA Can Store One Billion Phone Calls Per Day, Intent is to “Destroy All Privacy” (+video)

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald hasn’t published the story yet, but he gave the Socialism Conference in Chicago a big taste of his next reveal:

The National Security Agency can store one billion phone calls each day.

Speaking to a raucous audience via Skype on Friday, Greenwald said the NSA’s “brand-new technology” gives it the power to “redirect into its own repositories one billion cell phone calls every single day.”

“But what we’re really talking about here is a globalized system that prevents any form of electronic communication from taking place without its being stored and monitored by the National Security Agency,” Greenwald said. “It doesn’t mean that they’re listening to every call; it means they’re storing every call and have the capability to listen to them at any time, and it does mean that they’re collecting millions upon millions upon millions of our phone and email records.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Nation’s First Monument to Atheism on Government Property Erected: “It’s Only the Beginning” (+video)

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

A monument to atheism now sits near a granite slab that lists the Ten Commandments outside a courthouse in a conservative north Florida town.

The New Jersey-based group American Atheists unveiled the 1,500-bound granite bench Saturday as a counter to the religious monument in what’s called a free speech zone.

Read more from this story HERE.

After Obama Says He Won’t Talk to World’s Leaders about Snowden, He Has Biden Contact Ecuador’s President (+video)

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Vice President Biden personally intervened in the case of Edward Snowden, calling Ecuador’s president to urge him to reject the NSA leaker’s asylum request.

The move comes after President Obama on Thursday said he had not phoned world leaders on the matter because he “shouldn’t have to” — and because he doesn’t want to start “wheeling and dealing” with other nations to extradite a “hacker.”

But as the stalemate dragged on, Biden on Friday phoned Ecuador’s Rafael Correa. It marked the highest-level conversation between the U.S. and Ecuador that has been publicly disclosed since Snowden began seeking asylum from that country.

Read more from this story HERE.

Veteran Congresswoman Hammers IRS Contractor’s Questionable Veteran’s Disability Claim (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

At a House oversight hearing Wednesday on “questionable contracting practices at IRS,” Illinois Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth hammered an IRS contractor for claiming a suspect veterans disability to get a competitive advantage for his business.

Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran and double amputee eviscerated Braulio Castillo, the CEO of Strong Castle, Inc., who used an injury he sustained at a military prep school to qualify for a veterans disability, 27 years after the fact.

“I’m sorry that twisting your ankle in [prep] school has now come back to hurt you in such a painful way — if not also opportune for you to gain the status for your business as you were trying to compete for contracts,” Duckworth said.

According to a report on the matter House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa released Tuesday, Braulio Castillo was able to get a designation under the VA’s Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business program for his business — as a result of the injury he sustained at U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School, which he attended for one year.

Castillo went on to play football as a quarterback at San Diego City College and later played at the University of San Diego.

Read more from this story HERE.

Homosexuals Flock to California City Halls for Marriages; Last Minute Appeal Filed to Stop Ceremonies (+video)

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Same-sex couples dressed in jeans, shorts, white dresses, and the occasional military uniform filled San Francisco City Hall on Saturday as clerks resumed issuing marriage licenses one day after a federal appeals court removed the last obstacle to making gay marriage legal again in California.

But lawyers for the sponsors of California’s same-sex marriage ban have filed an emergency motion asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the federal appeals court.

Attorneys with the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom said they submitted the petition on Saturday to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who handles motions dealing with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Senior Counsel Austin Nimocks says a three-judge 9th Circuit panel acted prematurely and unfairly when it lifted the hold on same-sex marriages it had put in place while a challenge to the ban made its way through the courts.

Nimocks says the Supreme Court’s consideration of the case is not done yet because his clients still have 22 days to ask the justices to reconsider their decision holding that Proposition 8′s backers did not have legal authority to defend the ban.

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Read more from this story HERE.

Doctors Perform Thousands of Unnecessary Surgeries (+video)

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Kevin Moloney

Photo Credit: Kevin Moloney

Tens of thousands of times each year, patients are wheeled into the nation’s operating rooms for surgery that isn’t necessary, a USA TODAY review of government records and medical databases finds. Some … fall victim to predators who enrich themselves by bilking insurers for operations that are not medically justified. Even more turn to doctors who simply lack the competence or training to recognize when a surgical procedure can be avoided, either because the medical facts don’t warrant it or because there are non-surgical treatments that would better serve the patient.

The scope and toll of the problem are enormous, yet it remains largely hidden. Public attention has been limited to a few sensational cases, typically involving doctors who put cardiac stents in patients who didn’t need them.

In fact, unnecessary surgeries might account for 10% to 20% of all operations in some specialties, including a wide range of cardiac procedures — not only stents, but also angioplasty and pacemaker implants — as well as many spinal surgeries. Knee replacements, hysterectomies, and cesarean sections are among the other surgical procedures performed more often than needed, according to a review of in-depth studies and data generated by both government and academic sources.

Since 2005, more than 1,000 doctors have made payments to settle or close malpractice claims in surgical cases that involved allegations of unnecessary or inappropriate procedures, according to a USA TODAY analysis of the U.S. government’s National Practitioner Data Bank public use file, which tracks the suits. About half the doctors’ payments involved allegations of serious permanent injury or death, and many of the cases involved multiple plaintiffs, suggesting many hundreds, if not thousands, of victims.

Read more from this story HERE.

Blackout: Defense Department Blocks All Articles About NSA Leaks From ‘Millions’ of Computers (+video)

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: US News

Photo Credit: US News

By Steven Nelson. The Department of Defense is blocking online access to news reports about classified National Security Agency documents made public by Edward Snowden. The blackout affects all of the department’s computers and is part of a department-wide directive.

“Any website that runs information that the Department of Defense still considers classified” is affected, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Damien Pickart told U.S. News in a phone interview.

According to Pickart, news websites that re-report information first published by The Guardian or other primary sources are also affected.

“If that particular website runs an article that our filters determine has classified information… the particular content on that website will remain inaccessible,” he said.

Pickart said the blackout affects “millions” of computers on “all Department of Defense networks and systems.” Read more from this story HERE.

________________________________________________________________

Snowden’s father attempts to broker deal for son with Justice Dept.

By Ralph Z. Hallow. The father of suspected National Security Agency leaker Edward J. Snowden is seeking a deal with the Justice Department that would allow his son to remain free prior to a trial in exchange for his surrender to face espionage charges.

It also requests that the younger Mr. Snowden would not be subject to a gag order and that he be allowed to pick the venue of his trial, and says that if any of the agreements were violated the case would be dropped.

Mr. Snowden’s father, Lon, made the proposal in a letter sent to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The Justice Department said it has received the letter, written by well-known Washington attorney Bruce Fein, and is still considering its response.

“Mr. Snowden is reasonably confident that his son would voluntarily return to the United States if there were ironclad assurances that his constitutional rights would be honored, and he were provided a fair opportunity to explain his motivations and actions to an impartial judge and jury in the above-referenced prosecution,” according to the letter, obtained by The Washington Times. Read more from this story HERE.

Rush Limbaugh: ‘Wait Until the Republican Party Hears About This’ (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

daily rushA caller from Lubbock, Texas, on Friday told conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that some illegal immigrants in his area don’t want amnesty because it means federal income tax and fiercer competition for cheap labor.

“Today I went out and was doing some ag’ work on some of the farms out here and got to talking to some of these guys, asking them about what they think about this. And they’re very, very concerned,” the caller said. “A lot of them were telling me, ‘Well, we really don’t want to become United States citizens.’”

He went on: “There’s two things that they brought up that really scared me. They do not want to become United States citizens. I said, ‘Why not?’ They’re afraid that the United States government is going to take so much taxes out of their paychecks once they have to pay into the federal income tax.”

“Are you kidding me on this?” Limbaugh replied.

“I am dead serious. They do not want to become American citizens,” the caller said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Witness Describes Zimmerman’s Injuries, Phone Call to Wife (+video)

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

A resident of the Florida community where George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin last year told jurors Friday afternoon how he encountered a bloodied Zimmerman immediately after the confrontation and took pictures of the murder defendant’s injuries.

State witness Joe Manalo testified that he took the photos with his cell phone that showed blood on Zimmerman’s lip and scalp.

“He had blood running down his nose from both nostrils and over his lips,” Manalo told Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda.

Manalo said Zimmerman asked him to call his wife, Shellie, and tell her that he just shot someone as cops arrived on the scene.

“He had a cell phone in his hand and he tossed it on the ground asking if I could call his wife,” Manalo testified. “He gave me her number. I had a connection right away and said, ‘Your husband has been involved in a shooting. He’s detained by Sanford police.'”

Read more from this story HERE.

Bert and Ernie Come Out in New Yorker Magazine (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

In the hotly contested debate over whether “Sesame Street” characters Bert and Ernie are homosexual, the iconic puppets have apparently come out of the closet on the latest cover of the New Yorker magazine.

The famous characters are depicted snuggling up together in front of a TV while looking at an image of the Supreme Court justices in their black robes.

“It’s amazing to witness how attitudes on gay rights have evolved in my lifetime,” said Jack Hunter, the artist behind the cover. “This is great for our kids, a moment we can all celebrate.” Hunter calls the image, “Moment of Joy.”

There have long been rumors about the nature of Bert and Ernie’s relationship.

Read more from this story HERE.