Where Are My Keys?

"Nothing"? Really?

Nancy Pelosi is either deluded or a liar.  Perhaps both.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Republican-led efforts to rein in government spending are pointless because there is nothing left to cut in the almost $4 trillion-a-year federal budget.

“The cupboard is bare. There’s no more cuts to make. It’s really important that people understand that,” Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

 

Willfully contributing to the confusion..

It's no wonder why some folks aren't able to accept the Zimmerman verdict, where there are outlets like The New Republic being so willing to spread information they know to be false:

Recently, I wrote about the Zimmerman trial and my disappointment (if not complete surprise) at how irresponsible many journalists, scholars and lawyers have been in reporting, discussing, and drawing conclusions from that case. As I noted there, one of the most serious, and most obviously incorrect, of the many widespread errors about the case is that Zimmerman racially profiled a seven-year-old black child. Now, the original police log of Zimmerman's calls has been available to everyone with an Internet connection and two minutes to spare since March of 2012. Nevertheless, on July 16, 2013, The New Republic published an essay in which a distinguished law professor wrote the following (emphasis in original):

. . . Zimmerman was an edgy basket case with a gun who had called 911 46 times in 15 months, once to report the suspicious activities of a seven year old black boy.

That sentence contains three factual errors (the broader article contains others), two of which I noted in my prior post. First, and probably of least importance, many of Zimmerman's 46 calls (reporting 43 incidents) were made to the non-emergency police number (not just to 911). Second, and of more import, Zimmerman made 46 calls over 7.5 years (not over 15 months). Third, and most egregiously, Zimmerman's call (to the non-emergency police number) regarding a seven-to-nine-year-old black boy was placed because Zimmerman was "concerned for [the] well being" of that child, who was walking unaccompanied on a busy street (see page 37).

After being alerted to at least some of these errors, TNR eventually edited the sentence. Two changes were made — one acknowledged at the bottom of the TNR article, and one unacknowledged — while a third error was left unaddressed. The acknowledged change addresses the least damaging of the three errors: TNR replaced "called 911" with "called the polics [sic]," thus implicitly acknowledging that many of GZ's calls were to the non-emergency number rather than to 911. A more damaging error remains: that GZ made 46 calls within "15 months," instead of over a period of 7.5 years, as the call log readily shows.

But it's TNR's unacknowledged change in response to the third, most serious, error that really chafes. Here's how the sentence now reads (once again, italics in the original):

. . . Zimmerman was an edgy basket case with a gun who had called the polics 46 times in 15 months, once to report on a seven year old black boy.

Seriously?

TNR replaced "report the suspicious activities of a seven year old black boy" with "report on a seven year old black boy." The charitable characterization of this edit is that it is very, very lawyerly. Yes, the TNR piece no longer explicitly falsely claims that GZ called the police about a black boy because GZ found the child suspicious. But in the context of a paragraph meant to demonstrate that "[v]igilante justice . . . is especially menacing to minority racial groups who are often sterotyped as criminals," and in the absence of disclosing the benign (indeed, laudatory) reason why GZ did call police, the reporting of GZ's call about "a seven year old black boy" — complete with incredulity italics — strongly implies what the article only technically no longer says: that Zimmerman "reported on" a young black child because Zimmerman stereotyped that child as a criminal.

Either the author or TNR's editors honestly believe that Zimmerman racially profiled the child and that his comments to police about being concerned for the child's welfare walking along a busy street were pretext (and that readers shouldn't be given all the facts and allowed to make up their own minds), or they intentionally misled readers about the truth in order to make a point. (In this regard, it's also worth reflecting on the choice to describe as "a seven-year-old" a boy that Zimmerman described to police as "appr[oximately] 7-9" years old. It would have been equally accurate to have described the child as eight or nine.)

Sadly, many will blindly follow the narrative set by The New Republic (and others), and choose not to learn the facts themselves.

I think she likes boating..

 

Then & Now..

Then:

 

Now:

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

You guys on the Left keep telling us how different he is though, ok?  I recall you being pissed when Bush did this on a much smaller scale.  I'm interested to see your reactions to this by Obama.

I feel sorry for the production staff at Turner Sports..

Looks like Keith Olbermann may have a new job:

After a messy public breakup with his last employer resulted in a $50 million lawsuit, Keith Olbermann will return to television in October as a studio host for Turner’s coverage of the Major League Baseball postseason.

The deal will have Olbermann leading TBS' Atlanta-based studio show with Dennis Eckersley and possibly a second analyst. TBS this season has both Wild Card Playoff games, 18 of the 20 League Division Series games and exclusive rights to the National League Championship Series. Sources say the deal has an option for the 2014 postseason as well.

“It’s well known that Keith is a fan of the game and when you combine that with his studio experience, keen insight and passion for baseball and its history, he’ll add a new dimension to our MLB postseason studio shows," David Levy, president of sales, distribution and sports at Turner Broadcasting, said in a statement. "We're excited to have him join Dennis in studio, and look forward to Keith sharing his in-depth knowledge of the game, MLB teams and players with our viewers for three great weeks in October."

Nothing to see here, move along..

You probably won't hear about this from the MSM:

ABC News visited the IRS Determinations office in Cincinnati, OH, the office that determines eligibility for 501(c)(3) and (4) groups. It has become a security state.

On Thursday morning, after news that Miller was sacked, two ABC News journalists walked into the Peck Federal Building in Cincinnati looking for answers. The newsmen were screened at the door by security. They emptied their pockets as instructed, removed their belts, then went through the metal detectors.We wanted to ask who about made the decisions in the unit and when the profiling started. And whether those decision makers been identified yet.

But the answers – like the people involved – remained elusive.

As we traveled the public hallways of the building – watched over by security cameras – an armed uniformed police officer with the Federal Protective Service followed us. We were looking for a particular office—of someone who would not want to be seen talking to reporters–but chose to bypass it because of our official babysitter.

Asked why we were being escorted in a public building, the officer identified himself as Insp. Mike Finkelstein and said he was only trying to make sure that the newsmen were not a “nuisance.” He brushed aside further questions. The cop said a supervisor would call to explain.

One of the reporters wanted to know if the act of following the journalists was an effort intended to scare off any federal employee who might have considered speaking to the press. That’s sure what it looked like; and, even if that wasn’t the goal, it was the effect.

The supervisor never called to explain. After repeated calls to Washington to obtain an explanation, the Department of Homeland Security eventually called back to tell the ABC reporters that the security guard following them around was proper.

So, the reporters’ calls of inquiry about a Department of the Treasury office were eventually referred over to the Department of Homeland Security. For what?

Is this America anymore, or have we truly been fundamentally transformed into something else?

Much more here.

Nice Government you run there..

I like how Obama revealed the AP wiretaps to distract from the IRS scandal, to distract from the Benghazi cover-up, to distract from Fast and Furious gunrunning..

Nice "leadership".

And yet after all this, he'll still have people blindly believing whatever he tells them.

Cops are the only folks we should trust with guns, right?

Because they are so responsible with guns, and would never use them improperly, right?

A Beaver County blogger who keeps tabs on local government testified through tears Monday that Beaver County Sheriff George David drew his service revolver and threatened to kill him during a profane rant at his office last April.

"I was witness to the ravings of a madman," said John Paul Vranesevich, who runs the Beaver Countian website. "He was not in control of himself."

After a marathon preliminary hearing, retired District Judge Michael Gerheim, brought in from Armstrong County to hear the case, ordered the sheriff held on the majority of the 11 misdemeanor counts brought by state police in connection with that incident and an earlier one involving a campaign volunteer, Daniel Fleischman.

...

Mr. Fleischman, a county jail guard, said that when he went to shake the sheriff's hand at a campaign event, the sheriff called him a profane name and threatened to cut off his hands and eat them, apparently believing that Mr. Fleischman had been talking negatively about him behind his back. He said he didn't report the incident because he feared for his job and the sheriff is president of the county prison board.

Under cross-examination, he said the sheriff called him on Election Day to apologize and said he had received "bad information" that Mr. Fleischman had been talking badly about him.

During his testimony, Mr. Vranesevich said the sheriff launched into a tirade, pulling his pistol and waving it around during a meeting he had with the sheriff in the presence of two deputies, Thomas Ochs and Michael Tibolet.

"I can't explain his behavior," he said. "I don't know what is wrong with him."

Mr. Vranesevich was researching a story for his blog about a uniform contract for the sheriff's office after he said several deputies had tipped him that the sheriff was circumventing the low-bid process. He said Sheriff David, upset at the reporting on his office by J.D. Prose of the Beaver County Times, drew the gun in rage and warned that Mr. Vranesevich had better not report negatively on his office as he said Mr. Prose had done.

At one point, he said, the sheriff threatened to use the gun to blow Mr. Prose's brains out.

"If you start reporting [expletive] like this, I'm going to blow your [expletive] brains out, too," Mr. Vranesevich said the sheriff screamed at him.

Inside the mind of an "Egghead creative type"..

It's not like this is the first time Daniel Krause of iPrint Technologies in Los Angeles has entertained masterbatory thoughts of the deaths of people who share opposing views from his.

 

Yet another reason my daughter will never go to public school..

Good to see our teachers are keepoing their personal political beliefs out of the classrooms.