Maine Liberty Journal

The Majlis (via What Really Happened):

Matt Duss flagged this video of Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana), a senior member of the Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives, talking to the Christian Broadcasting Network about why he unquestioningly supports Israel.

Pence is literally saying, Israeli officials should tell us what they want us to do, and we’ll support it. That’s an insane premise, and if you replace “Israel” with any other country, no U.S. politician would accept it.

I’m pretty pessimistic about Obama’s Middle East policies — but it’s worth remembering that Obama has to work within the confines of the U.S. political system, and there’s broad bipartisan consensus for Pence’s views on Israel (as he notes in the video).

Tags: Israel, Mike Pence, Zionism // Add Comment »

Via DetNews.com (January 27, 2010):

The State Department didn’t revoke the visa of foiled terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab because federal counterterrorism officials had begged off revocation, a top State Department official revealed Wednesday.

Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab’s visa wasn’t taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would’ve foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States.

“Revocation action would’ve disclosed what they were doing,” Kennedy said in testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Allowing Adbulmutallab to keep the visa increased chances federal investigators would be able to get closer to apprehending the terror network he is accused of working with, “rather than simply knocking out one solider in that effort.”

Tags: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Underwear bomber // Add Comment »

Via WXII12.com – King, N.C. (February 8, 2010):

Residents in King were fumed over the weekend after a state of emergency declaration restricted the sale of alcohol and the carrying of firearms in vehicles.

King Police Chief Paula May said she’s received hundreds of threats related to the restrictions, which banned driving from 12 a.m. Sunday to 5 a.m.

The state of emergency for King was declared by members of the City Council after Stokes County authorities also declared a state of emergency.

Under North Carolina law, May said, when a state of emergency is put into place that includes a ban on driving, the sale of alcohol and carrying of firearms in vehicles is also banned.

Tags: King N.C. // Add Comment »

Via UK Telegraph (January 29, 2010):

It was bad enough that President Barack Obama lost his US Senate super majority to a Republican. Now it turns out that Scott Brown, the newly elected senator from Massachusetts, is Mr Obama’s cousin.

Running tally of Barack Obama’s “coincidental” family ties: Dick Cheney, Warren Buffett, Scott Brown.

According to the New York Post, “Obama is related to Vice President Dick Cheney through a 17th-century descendant, as well as President Bush” which of course means Bush and Cheney are also related, odd in and of itself. “In addition to John Kerry, Marilyn Monroe and Princess Di and half a dozen ex-presidents, Bush is related to Pocahontas’ living relatives.”

Tags: Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Oligarchy, Scott Brown // Add Comment »

Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?

Yes 23
No 58
Not Sure 19

The GOP makes me sick overall, but I am happy to see that 42% are at least open to the idea of secession.

Tags: Daily Kos, Secession // Add Comment »

Via Bangor Daily News (February 6, 2010):

Despite gallons of newspaper ink, hours of air time and untold clicks in the blogosphere, the effect of the tea party movement in local and national politics remains to be seen.

Even as supporters gathered Friday in Nashville, Tenn., for a National Tea Party Convention, some question whether it’s a movement at all, or rather a collection of isolated protests, just like similar events for any of a million other causes. Tea party organizers in Maine, though, say the influence of the events is not only enduring. It’s building.

“I have seen more people at political functions than have ever been there before,” said Lois Bloomer of Hermon, who ran two tea parties in Maine last year and has organized today’s Penobscot County Republican Caucus.

“There’s something definitely in the wind,” she said on Thursday. “People are stirred up.”

The establishment is trying hard to convince the masses that this “movement” is some fringe element of one far wing of the political spectrum. Certainly the last thing they want is for the “moderates” and the “mainstream” to get the impression that they have good reasons to be angry about the lies and fraud they’ve been getting from the Democans and Republicrats all these years. The harder the corporate media organs try to marginalize the disaffected segment of the population, the more I’m convinced that a genuine revolution might just be taking place.

Tags: Andrew Ian Dodge, Pete Harring, Tea party // Add Comment »

Via Portland Press Herald (February 5, 2010): Dion says he won’t run again this year

Tags: Cumberland County, Mark Dion // Add Comment »

“Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010”

Tags: Byron Dorgan, Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010, John McCain // Add Comment »

Via CNET News (February 3, 2010):

Anyone with an e-mail account likely knows that police can peek inside it if they have a paper search warrant.

But cybercrime investigators are frustrated by the speed of traditional methods of faxing, mailing, or e-mailing companies these documents. They’re pushing for the creation of a national Web interface linking police computers with those of Internet and e-mail providers so requests can be sent and received electronically.

CNET has reviewed a survey scheduled to be released at a federal task force meeting on Thursday, which says that law enforcement agencies are virtually unanimous in calling for such an interface to be created. Eighty-nine percent of police surveyed, it says, want to be able to “exchange legal process requests and responses to legal process” through an encrypted, police-only “nationwide computer network.” (See one excerpt and another.)

The survey, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, is part of a broader push from law enforcement agencies to alter the ground rules of online investigations. Other components include renewed calls for laws requiring Internet companies to store data about their users for up to five years and increased pressure on companies to respond to police inquiries in hours instead of days.

But the most controversial element is probably the private Web interface, which raises novel security and privacy concerns, especially in the wake of a recent inspector general’s report (PDF) from the Justice Department. The 289-page report detailed how the FBI obtained Americans’ telephone records by citing nonexistent emergencies and simply asking for the data or writing phone numbers on a sticky note rather than following procedures required by law.

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Via Washington Post (February 4, 2010):

The world’s largest Internet search company and the world’s most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity.

Related link for the privacy conscious individuals out there: Panpopticlick – a new site from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Tags: EFF, Google NSA, Surveillance // Add Comment »

Via Dallas News (January 20, 2010):

Unlike his neighbors’ homes, Craig Cunningham’s house in Northeast Dallas looks abandoned. The grass is dried out. The concrete slab under the front door is lopsided and cracked. The green exterior has faded to a toxic-looking shade. Yellow Pages pile up near the front door, and the black mailbox is stuffed full. Maybe the home has been foreclosed on. That wouldn’t be a surprise in this economy.

But no, that’s not the case. Inside, the 29-year-old Cunningham hunkers his 6-foot-2-inch frame on a dumpy couch. His heavy arms extend from his sides, palms up, so two Chihuahuas, Angel and Chuay, can curl under them. Although it’s 10 a.m. on a weekday, he’s wearing slippers.

He leans forward to lift some paperwork out of a plastic tub on the coffee table. The phone rings, and he answers with a soft voice. It’s just a friend, and soon he hangs up. He’s waiting for a particular type of phone call—one from a representative of a debt collection agency or a credit card company, whom he’ll try to ensnare like a Venus fly trap. It’s not unlikely that Cunningham’s next call will be from a bill collector, since he’s between jobs—except for being in the Army Reserve—and owes $100,000 in debts.

While most Americans with unpaid bills dread the collector’s call, Cunningham sees them as lucrative opportunities. Many collection and credit card companies, intentionally or not, violate little-known consumer rights laws, and Cunningham’s favorite pastime is catching them doing so and then suing them. In fact, it’s a profitable side job.

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Via Washington Times (February 2, 2010):

The era of big government has returned with a vengeance, in the form of the largest federal work force in modern history.

The Obama administration says the government will grow to 2.15 million employees this year, topping 2 million for the first time since President Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over” and joined forces with a Republican-led Congress in the 1990s to pare back the federal work force.

Most of the increases are on the civilian side, which will grow by 153,000 workers, to 1.43 million people, in fiscal 2010.

The expansion could provide more ammunition to those arguing that the government is trying to do too much under President Obama.

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“Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.”

Received via email, thought I’d share it just as food for thought…

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Via Newsweek (January 29, 2010):

For weeks, the right has heckled Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. for his plans to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City and his handling of the Christmas bombing plot suspect. Now the left is going to be upset: an upcoming Justice Department report from its ethics-watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), clears the Bush administration lawyers who authored the “torture” memos of professional-misconduct allegations.

While the probe is sharply critical of the legal reasoning used to justify waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques, NEWSWEEK has learned that a senior Justice official who did the final review of the report softened an earlier OPR finding. Previously, the report concluded that two key authors—Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professor—violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted a crucial 2002 memo approving the use of harsh tactics, say two Justice sources who asked for anonymity discussing an internal matter. But the reviewer, career veteran David Margolis, downgraded that assessment to say they showed “poor judgment,” say the sources. (Under department rules, poor judgment does not constitute professional misconduct.) The shift is significant: the original finding would have triggered a referral to state bar associations for potential disciplinary action—which, in Bybee’s case, could have led to an impeachment inquiry.

Update: here’s a little more information about “career veteran” David Margolis.

Tags: John Yoo, torture // Add Comment »

“You know what, the Bavarian Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, Goldman Sachs, & The Queen of England are not all bad!”

Tags: Bavarian Illuminati, Goldman Sachs, Jim Cramer, Trilateral Commission // Add Comment »