Here’s a Quick Recap of What You Need to Know About the Boston Bombings
[TheBlaze.com]
Editor’s note — We’ll be discussing this story and all the day’s news during our live BlazeCast from 12pm to 1pm ET…including your questions, comments & live chat:
BOSTON (TheBlaze/AP) — An explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon Monday killed three people and injured dozens more. TheBlaze brought you intense live coverage of the aftermath. Considering all that has unfolded, here’s an an at-a-glance look at the facts in the case:
THE EXPLOSIONS
Two bombs exploded about 10 seconds and 100 yards apart at about 2:50 p.m. Monday in Boston’s Copley Square, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Three people were killed, including an 8-year-old boy named Martin Richard (TheBlaze has profiled Martin here), and more than 140 were injured. The explosions occurred four hours into the race and two hours after the winners had crossed the finish line, but thousands of runners were still on the course.
Bill Maher: ‘The Second Amendment Is Bulls—t!’
[Newsbusters.org]
By Noel Sheppard | April 13, 2013 | 12:43
HBO’s Bill Maher made a statement Friday that should deeply concern all Americans.
During the panel discussion segment of his Real Time program, he said to loud applause from the audience, “The Second Amendment is bulls—t!” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL MAHER: This is the problem with the gun debate is that it’s a constant center-right debate. There’s no left in this debate. Everyone on the left is so afraid to say what should be said which is the Second Amendment is bulls—t. Why doesn’t anyone go at the core of it?
In reality, the audience applause as well as his panelists – which included sportscaster Bob Costas, former Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, and former Reagan OMB director David Stockman – all appearing to agree with Maher is even more horrifying.
Welcome to the American left, ladies and gentlemen.
It’s so cold; it’s GLOBAL WARMING – No, it’s a HOAX!
[CWNewsONLINE.net]
April 10, 2013
By Justin Waldman
Last week I was listening when this young 13-year-old boy named Alex called Rush Limbaugh. Funny, how the Left Liberals get so pushed out of shape with people who don’t believe in “man-made global warming.” This call is reverberating across the media. And it’s all because of this call to Rush.
Why is the left so worried about a young boy doing his own research come to that conclusion? Just as Alex said, they do not want to believe the lie and the evidence. It’s also because of the AGENDA behind all of the proposed precepts that global warming is caused by carbon released into the air.
FACT: DID YOU KNOW THAT PLANTS DEPEND ON CARBON DIOXIDE TO SURVIVE? AND WE DEPEND ON PLANTS BECAUSE THEY PRODUCE OXYGEN.
Obama’s agenda includes getting into this global lie of climate change and man-made global warming is bad, therefore, we must do something about it. In his first term, the progressive Left tried to pass a law that would enact Cap and Trade, which would be a way to tax industry for carbon (CO2) pollution.
This “science” and it’s proponent politicians have been trying to make carbon units a “commodity” for trading. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Be like Alex and do your own research. This is why the progressive left is so afraid! It’s a hoax to make money.
That’s why there is this global push for “green” energy, carbon reduction, pollution taxes, etc. It’s all based on a lie. The University East Anglia emails have proved it. To me, this is rotten how the progressive Left still wants people to believe this LIE.
Mitch McConnell Joins Filibuster Against Gun Control
[Breitbart.com]
by AWR Hawkins CWN Post: April 09, 2013
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says he will join GOP Senators to filibuster a bill expanding gun control regulations if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) brings it up for a vote this week.
This puts McConnell shoulder-to-shoulder with Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), and eight other Senators who have said they will block a push for gun control in the Senate.
Currently, Reid’s gun control package focuses on instituting universal background checks and new laws against gun trafficking. Reid has made it clear he will allow also amendments establishing an “assault weapons” ban and Sen. Richard Blumentahl (D-CT) has made it clear he will also try to add a “high capacity” magazine ban as an amendment.
McConnell says he now stands with Paul, Cruz, Lee, Rubio, Inhofe, and the other Senators who have vowed to oppose any “motion to proceed to any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for additional gun restrictions.”
Senators work on possible breakthrough on gun background checks
[FoxNews.com]
Published April 08, 2013
Two prominent senators are working toward forging a compromise proposal on expanded background checks, aiming for a breakthrough on the biggest impasse in controversial gun control legislation.Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, an influential moderate, are said to be working on a deal that would allow the checks to apply to purchases at gun shows and Internet sales — but, importantly, exempt some sales between hunters or close relatives.
It’s unclear whether such a proposal would be embraced by pro-gun rights conservatives and the National Rifle Association, which so far has opposed the kind of comprehensive firearms legislation pushed by President Obama and his allies in Congress. But the issue of family members and others being subjected to an expanded background check system for sales between them has become an obstacle.
The NRA and other gun-rights advocates, while arguing the checks would eventually lead to a federal gun registry, also said they would be too cumbersome for the two groups – citing faraway trips to government offices and mandatory record keeping. They also say criminals would find ways to avoid the checks.
Carson: White Liberals the Most Racist
[Newsmax.com]
Posted: April 3, 2013
In an appearance on the Mark Levin radio show, Carson said he represents an existential threat to gay marriage proponents, which is why attacks on his stance against gay marriage have been so vicious. “They need to shut me up, they need to get rid of me. They can’t find anything else to delegitimize me, so they take my words, misinterpret them, and try to make it seem that I’m a bigot,” he said.
After Levin asked him about white liberals, Carson, who is black, said, “They’re the most racist people there are because they put you in a little category, a box. How could you dare come off the plantation?”
Deneen Borelli: America’s New Rosa Parks
[American Spectator]
By Jeffrey Lord on 4.2.13 @ 6:09AM
Blacklash released in paperback as Dr. Ben Carson attacked by Johns Hopkins leftists.
If America were a bus, Deneen Borelli would be the new Rosa Parks.
Borelli is the very model of a human being, an African American and a woman who is just plain tired up to here at all of the back of the bus treatment dished by liberals — black and white alike — to conservatives who happen to be black.
Ms. Borelli has in a figurative sense, as Rosa Parks did in the original and literal sense, sat down in a seat reserved for liberals at the front of the American bus. She won’t get up, she isn’t moving and she most assuredly doesn’t care that liberals don’t like the fact.
And most assuredly, they don’t.
Big Government: An Unnecessary Evil That Should Be Abolished
[Infowars.com]
March 31, 2013
There are two types of people in this world; those who worship the ideal of centralized command authority, and those who do not. Those who value freedom regardless of risk or pain, and those who value slavery in a desperate bid to avoid risk and pain. When I consider the ultimate folly of man, in the end I look to the meek and unquestioning masses who strive to avoid risk, because it is they who always end up feeding the machines of war, despair, and tyranny. The power thirsty halls of elitism surely instigate and manipulate the tides of this wretched ocean of quivering souls, but ultimately, the weak-hearted and weak minded make all terrible conquests possible.
They live by the rule of fear, and their fear drives them to seek control; control of their environment, control of others, and by extension they believe, control of the future. They attempt to mitigate their overwhelming fear by containing the world and sterilizing it of everything wild, untamed, and unknown. They dream of a society of pure predictability, and zero responsibility. They are willing to sacrifice almost anything to attain this position of artificial comfort.
The concept of “big government” appeals to such people for many reasons…
Government in most cases is nothing but an abstraction. It is merely a tool that serves the interests of a particular group of people at any given time. Modern politics is an expression of the foolish cat fight between factions of people to decide who gets to wield the weapon of government and impose their ideology on the rest of us. At least, that’s what it almost always devolves into. The great illusion of the system, though, is that ANY group of average people ever actually wields any power. The truth is, big governments are always operated by very small and exclusive clubs of root beneficiaries out of the sight of the population.
US plan calls for more scanning of private Web traffic, email
[Reuters.com]
Joseph Menn and Deborah Charles
Posted: March 21, 2013
The U.S. government is expanding a cybersecurity program that scans Internet traffic headed into and out of defense contractors to include far more of the country’s private, civilian-run infrastructure.
As a result, more private sector employees than ever before, including those at big banks, utilities and key transportation companies, will have their emails and Web surfing scanned as a precaution against cyber attacks.
Under last month’s White House executive order on cybersecurity, the scans will be driven by classified information provided by U.S. intelligence agencies — including data from the National Security Agency (NSA) — on new or especially serious espionage threats and other hacking attempts. U.S. spy chiefs said on March 12 that cyber attacks have supplanted terrorism as the top threat to the country.
The Department of Homeland Security will gather the secret data and pass it to a small group of telecommunication companies and cyber security providers that have employees holding security clearances, government and industry officials said. Those companies will then offer to process email and other Internet transmissions for critical infrastructure customers that choose to participate in the program.
DHS as the middleman
By using DHS as the middleman, the Obama administration hopes to bring the formidable overseas intelligence-gathering of the NSA closer to ordinary U.S. residents without triggering an outcry from privacy advocates who have long been leery of the spy agency’s eavesdropping.
The telecom companies will not report back to the government on what they see, except in aggregate statistics, a senior DHS official said in an interview granted on condition he not be identified.
“That allows us to provide more sensitive information,” the official said. “We will provide the information to the security service providers that they need to perform this function.” Procedures are to be established within six months of the order.
The administration is separately seeking legislation that would give incentives to private companies, including communications carriers, to disclose more to the government. NSA Director General Keith Alexander said last week that NSA did not want personal data but Internet service providers could inform the government about malicious software they find and the Internet Protocol addresses they were sent to and from.
“There is a way to do this that ensures civil liberties and privacy and does ensure the protection of the country,” Alexander told a congressional hearing.
Fears grow of destructive attack
In the past, Internet traffic-scanning efforts were mainly limited to government networks and Defense Department contractors, which have long been targets of foreign espionage.
But as fears grow of a destructive cyber attack on core, non-military assets, and more sweeping security legislation remained stalled, the Obama administration opted to widen the program.
Last month’s presidential order calls for commercial providers of “enhanced cybersecurity services” to extend their offerings to critical infrastructure companies. What constitutes critical infrastructure is still being refined, but it would include utilities, banks and transportation such as trains and highways.
Under the program, critical infrastructure companies will pay the providers, which will use the classified information to block attacks before they reach the customers. The classified information involves suspect Web addresses, strings of characters, email sender names and the like.
Not all the cybersecurity providers will be telecom companies, though AT&T is one. Raytheon said this month it had agreed with DHS to become a provider, and a spokesman said that customers could route their traffic to Raytheon after receiving it from their communications company.
As the new set-up takes shape, DHS officials and industry executives said some security equipment makers were working on hardware that could take classified rules about blocking traffic and act on them without the operator being able to reverse-engineer the codes. That way, people wouldn’t need a security clearance to use the equipment.
Civil liberties implications
The issue of scanning everything headed to a utility or a bank still has civil liberties implications, even if each company is a voluntary participant.
Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that the executive order did not weaken existing privacy laws, but any time a machine acting on classified information is processing private communications, it raises questions about the possibility of secret extra functions that are unlikely to be answered definitively.
“You have to wonder what else that box does,” Tien said.
One technique for examining email and other electronic packets en route, called deep packet inspection, has stirred controversy for years, and some cybersecurity providers said they would not be using that. In deep packet inspection, communication companies or others with network access can examine all the elements of a transmission, including the content of emails.
“The signatures provided by DHS do not require deep packet inspection,” said Steve Hawkins, vice president at Raytheon’s Intelligence and Information Systems division, referring further questions to DHS.
The DHS official said the government is still in conversations with the telecom operators on the issue.
The official said the government had no plans to roll out any such form of government-guided close examination of Internet traffic into the communications companies serving the general public.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.
Hacker Distibutes Confidential Hillary Clinton Benghazi Emails, Journalists Won’t Release Contents
[IsThatBaloney.com]
An anonymous hacker only going by the name “Guccifer” has supposedly gotten into an associate of Hillary Clinton’s email account and has distributed confidential emails dealing with a range of issues in Libya including the Benghazi terrorist attack that killed 4 Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Although the hacker has distributed stolen memos to politicians and journalists, so far no one has published any of their contents.
The hacker apparently broke into former White House aide, Sidney Blumenthal’s email account and sent four recent memos to congressional aides, politicians and journalists across all over the world. One memo which was sent to Clinton was sent the day after the attack on on consulate in Benghazi on September 12, 2012 and was labeled “Confidential.”
Unfortunately we don’t have access to those emails and no one who has received them yet has been brave enough to come forward and discuss or print them so the world can see their contents.
Rand Paul’s immigration plan: Border security before probationary legal status
[HotAir.com]
posted at 12:01 pm on March 19, 2013 by Allahpundit
The AP claimed this morning that Paul was set to endorse a path to citizenship in his speech today. Not so, countered conservatives on Twitter: Read his prepared remarks and you’ll see that citizenship is never mentioned. Which is true, and also irrelevant.
The whole point of Paul’s speech is GOP rapprochement with Latino voters; he spends nearly two-thirds of it extolling Latinos’ work ethic, reminiscing about his friendships with Latinos growing up in Texas, name-checking Jaime Escalante and Pablo Neruda, and of course citing the ancient canard that Latinos are really just Republicans who don’t know it yet. (He mentions abortion and gay marriage as particular areas of overlap.
In fact, younger Latinos support legal abortion in all or most cases and nearly 60 percent of Latinos overall support state recognition of gay marriage.) There’s no earthly way that Paul, having made a conciliatory pitch that florid, would ultimately turn around and insist that illegals be forever barred from seeking citizenship. In his op-ed on immigration today at the Washington Times, he actually refers to them at one point as “undocumented citizens.”(!) When pressed on the issue in the Q&A after his speech, he said this:
So no, he won’t create a special path to citizenship to help move illegals quickly through the green-card process but there’s a path to citizenship through normal channels in the end. Then again, with the singular exception of Jeb Bush, whom no one believes is serious anyway, every prominent Republican politician I can think of supports a path to citizenship eventually. That’s my whole point: If you’re trying to build goodwill with Latinos, there has to be. But what about the rest of Paul’s plan? Quote:
The first part of my plan – border security – must be certified by Border Patrol and an Investigator General and then voted on by Congress to ensure it has been accomplished…
With this in place, I believe conservatives will accept what needs to come next, an issue that must be addressed: what becomes of the 12 million undocumented workers in the United States?
My plan is very simple and will include work visas for those who are here, who are willing to come forward and work…
Conservatives confident federal gun measures will be scaled back
[FoxNews.com]
Associated Press
Published March 16, 2013
March 15, 2013: National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre gestures as he speaks at the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md. (AP)
OXON HILL, Md. – Conservatives are all but declaring victory on their defense of gun rights, exuding confidence as calls for aggressive controls in the wake of the Newtown elementary school massacre have given way to scaled-back expectations to firearm restrictions in Congress.
“They can call me crazy and whatever else they want, but NRA’s nearly 5 million members and America’s 100 million gun owners will not back down — not now, not ever,” an emboldened Wayne LaPierre, the CEO and executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, told conservatives gathered at an annual conference. He pointedly ignored President Barack Obama’s most restrictive proposals in his speech, using it instead to assail the one that has the potential of getting approved — a near-universal background check for gun owners.
Dianne Feinstein Battles Ted Cruz in Heated Senate Showdown Over Guns: ‘I’m Not a 6th Grader’
[TheBlaze.com]
Mar. 14, 2013 12:23pm Becket Adams
Senators Ted Cruz and Dianne Feinstein during a Senate Judiciary Hearing on Thursday got into heated exchange while discussing the California congresswoman’s proposed ban on so-called “assault” weapons.
“The question that I would pose to the senior senator from California is,” Cruz said, referring to Feinstein, “Would she deem it consistent with the Bill of Rights for Congress to engage in the same endeavor that we are contemplating doing with the Second Amendment in the context of the First or Fourth Amendment, namely, would she consider it constitutional for Congress to specify that the First Amendment shall apply only to the following books and shall not apply to the books that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?”
“Likewise, would she think that the Fourth Amendment’s protection against searches and seizures could properly apply only to the following specified individuals and not to the individuals that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?” he added.
Apparently, Sen. Feinstein was not amused with the Texas senator’s line of questioning.
Six months later, where are Benghazi’s survivors?
[HotAir.com]
posted at 1:21 pm on March 12, 2013 by Ed Morrissey
Yesterday marked six months from the date that four Americans were killed in a terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, the first American ambassador murdered in the line of duty in 33 years. While the Obama administration begrudgingly cooperated with Congressional panels looking into the attack and the White House response by sending officials to testify, one group still has not yet been made available. CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson wonders — where are the survivors?
Today marks six months since the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya in which four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Some watchdog groups, members of the media and Republican members of Congress are asking: Where are the more than two dozen U.S. personnel who survived the attack but haven’t been seen nor heard from in public since? There were also an undisclosed number of witnesses at the U.S. compounds in Tripoli but they also have not spoken publicly.
In a recent press report, Secretary of State John Kerry said he visited one survivor at “Bethesda hospital,” and referred to him a “remarkably courageous person who is doing very, very well.” Kerry added, “I’ve called his wife and talked to her.” But the identities, condition and testimony of the survivors and witnesses have been closely held from the public.
Exclusive–House Majority Whip: All Bills Should Have Support of GOP Majority
[Breitbart.com]
by Ben Shapiro | March 11, 2013
Late Sunday evening, in the aftermath of reports that House Republican leadership was considering passage of bills on major issues like gun control and immigration without a majority of House Republicans in support, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy reached out to Breitbart News to clarify his position: House leadership should not pursue legislation without a majority of House GOP support.
“This morning on CNN I told Candy Crowley that the House should craft our own legislation through regular order,” McCarthy said. “Additionally I believe that legislation should have the support of a majority of the majority. Reports to the contrary do not accurately represent my position.
“We face serious challenges as a country, and the President and Harry Reid have refused to lead. House Republicans have, and we will continue to do so.”
This is a welcome signal from McCarthy that the voices of conservatives will be heard in the legislative process by the House leadership– a matter that remains in controversy since the fiscal cliff negotiations and the failed House rebellion against Rep. John Boehner’s speakership.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).
Citizens, Subjects and The Greatness of Rand Paul’s Filibuster
[RedState.com]
For a Day, Just For a Single Day – It Felt Like We Had An Actual US Senate
By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary) | March 7th, 2013 at 12:00 PM
Keeping The Subjects From Getting Uppity Since 2009
There are two ways you can relate to the entity that governs you. You are either a citizen or you are a subject. There is a significant difference between the two. This difference involves the number of rights you enjoy and the amount of freedom of action and thought you get to exercise. Tupac Shapur sums it succinctly: Real n—– do they wanna do, b—- n—– do what they can.
In a philosophical sense, Senator Rand Paul just asked Attorney General Eric Holder which class we, the average American fit. Can we do what we want or do we what we can? Or more directly; can the people in charge of the government do what they want? Because if the government can do what it wants, then the people are not citizens, they are subjects, they have to do what they can.
Is The U.S. Funding Syrian Revolution Or Future Terror Attacks?
[PersonalLiberty.com]
March 4, 2013 by Sam Rolley
Since 2010, when the upheaval in the Mideast dubbed the Arab Spring began, the United States has been the friend of rebels seeking regime change in countries throughout the region. In some cases, that meant providing weapons to rebels as well as reportedly conducting clandestine U.S. military operations.
In recent months, evidence emerged that al-Qaida has taken advantage of the U.S.-backed chaos in the Mideast and North Africa to gain allegiance in the aftermath of regime changes. When the Arab Spring initially began, al-Qaida was believed to be strongest in Pakistan. But policy analysts point to the rash of violent protests at U.S. embassies in Cairo and in Yemen and the attack that took the life of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya, as evidence of a proliferation of al-Qaida-initiated terror.
Last week, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States was prepared to provide $60 million in aid to opposition groups working to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. That money will be in addition to $50 million already provided to the rebels to help them organize, as well as $385 million distributed to Syria and neighboring countries for humanitarian relief.
U.S. officials are reluctant to arm Syria’s rebels; the influx of monetary aid comes at a time when the United States and other outside nations have lost leverage over the Syrian opposition forces and radical Islamist groups like al-Qaida are gaining support among the rebel fighters. There is concern from some that the aid money could be making its way into the hands of terror groups.
A NATO researcher explained last week why the growing al-Qaida presence is cause for concern, saying Syria’s uncertain future could make it a top al-Qaida stronghold.
“It’s now clear that Syria is not undergoing a violent transition from one regime to another,” noted NATO researcher Jean-Loup Samaan. “In fact, the country is enduring a process of disintegration of its state structures. Planners for a post-Assad Syria are no longer eyeing the potential successors of Assad but [are looking] at the bewildering landscape of non-state actors that fight each other over the conquest of what will be eventually left of the Syrian state.”
Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Massoud Jazayeri urged U.S. officials to rethink support of Syrian opposition forces earlier this month, warning that terror groups have gained heavy control of opposition forces. He warned that the al-Qaida mission, such as it is, will lead to the armed rebels continuing their terrorist activities in the other countries, including the West, in the near future.
“The al-Qaida groups and those services which conduct their operations in line with the U.S. interests will soon change track of their operations to other places and they will cause new troubles for the U.S. and Europe henceforth,” Jazayeri said.
WSJ’s Henninger: Obama Living in ‘Alternative Universe’
[Newsmax.com]
Thursday, 28 Feb 2013 09:50 AM
By Lisa Barron
President Barack Obama is living in an “alternative universe” where crisis looms but all he does is give speeches rather than tackle the problem, The Wall Street Journal said Thursday.With $85 billion in automatic spending cuts due to hit on Friday, Obama has made no effort to speak to Congressional leaders to avert the so-called sequester, writes the paper’s Daniel Henninger.“Barack Obama gives his State of the Union speech, the sequester looms, and the president flies around the country giving speeches. He’s had virtually no contact on the sequester with the legislative branch. Now he’s going to meet with them after the sequester happens. This is unusual. We need to look outside normal politics for explanations,” Henninger, the Journal’s deputy editorial page editor, writes in his weekly “Wonderland” column.“We are in the fifth year of the Obama presidency, and Washington is still dead in the water. Four straight years in which the government of the United States of America fails to enact a budget is, well, amazing,” he says.Henninger posts that Obama is “creating an alternative universe, the Obamaian Universe.”
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!
Discord and Disarray Won’t Help Obama Legacy
[Townhall.com]
February 28, 2013
Barack Obama is said to believe that he can win the political fight over the sequester. That’s certainly the conventional wisdom.
And there is some evidence to support it. When you ask voters who will be to blame if the sequester occurs, Obama or “congressional Republicans,” they’re much more likely to say they’ll blame the latter.
Obama also comes out on top when you ask whether they will blame “Obama and congressional Democrats” or “congressional Republicans.” Voters are not always good predictors of their future attitudes.
13,753 Government Requests for Google E-Mail Data in 2012, Most Without a Warrant
[CNSNews.com]
Posted: February 23, 2013
By Matt Cover
Federal law says that opened email stored remotely – not on a computer’s hard drive – can be accessed without a warrant. (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) – American government agencies – state, local, and federal — made a record 13,753 requests to read emails or gather other information sent through Google’s Gmail and other services in 2012, more than half without warrants, according to statistics released by Google.
The total number of users about whom government agencies wanted information also set a record at 31,072, up from 23,300 in 2011, the first year Google began reporting the data. The discrepancy comes because government agencies request information on multiple users or accounts at the same time.
Most of these 13,753 requests, 6,542 of 8,438 in the latter half of 2012 alone, were done without a search warrant, Google data show. Google did not make available any detailed data prior to June 2012, nor did it make available which requests came from the federal government and which came from state or local law enforcement agencies, when asked by CNSNews.com.
Google spokesman Chris Gaither said the company only started tracking which type of legal authority – subpoena, court order, or search warrant – was used in the latter half of 2012. Google issues biannual reports on the requests for user data it receives from government agencies from around the world, including ones in the U.S.
WH: Obama Called Hillary at 10PM on Night of Benghazi Attack–About Same Time Clinton First Publicly Linked Attack to YouTube Video
[CNSNews.com]
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama called Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at approximately 10 p.m. on the night of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told CNSNews.com.
That was more than six hours after the attacks started, more than an hour before Tryone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed–and about the time that Clinton first released a statement linking the attacks to “inflammatory material posted on the Internet,” a reference to an anti-Muslim video on YouTube.
“Like every president before him, he has a national security adviser and deputy national security adviser,” Carney told CNSNews.com on Tuesday. “He was in regular communication with his national security team directly, through them, and spoke with the secretary of state at approximately 10 p.m. He called her to get an update on the situation.”
Feds admit: Gun laws won’t slow crime
[WND.com] EXCLUSIVE
February 19, 2013
By Garth Kant
Department of Justice report undermines bans
A study by the Department of Justice’s research wing, the National Institute of Justice, has the feds admitting that so-called “assault weapons” are not a major contributor to gun crime.
“The existing stock of assault weapons is large, undercutting the effectiveness of bans with exemptions,” it said. “Therefore a complete elimination of assault weapons would not have a large impact on gun homicides.” The report finds no significant link between “assault weapons” and murders.
Gun dealers report striking ammunition shortages
[DailyCaller.com]
February 18, 2013
Gun owners are stockpiling ammunition in the midst of the ongoing national dialogue about gun-control legislation.
The USA Today reports that ammunition prices have skyrocketed in the last year, with some gun dealers limiting the quantity of ammunition that customers can purchase.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation — which represents ammunition makers, retailers, hunters and sport shooters – attributes the shortages in part to the increased popularity of sport-shooting and hunting. In fact, hunting license sales increased 9 percent from 2006 to 2011, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Participation in skeet shooting is also growing 3-5 percent annually.
However, retailers largely attribute the increased demand for ammunition to expected or threatened policy changes. Owners and sellers of guns say that the run on ammunition began around the time of President Barack Obama’s re-election.
Jon Stewart Grills Susan Rice on Obama Admin’s Alleged Mismanagement of Benghazi Terror Attack
[TheBlaze.com]
Questions continue to swirl surrounding the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead. Among the most confounding factors were inaccurate comments made by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in the wake of the assault. The embattled administration official appeared last night on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” to discuss the government’s handling of the crisis.
During the exchange, the host challenged Rice on some of the confusing and contradictory information that emerged in the wake of the terror attack. The ambassador also issued some tough words for those who still believe the Obama administration is hiding key information.
Stewart wasted no time launching into his questioning. Almost as soon as Rice sat down, he asked the ambassador why she was selected to speak out on Sunday morning shows and pondered why someone else more appropriate (i.e. Hillary Clinton or another official) wasn’t chosen. The ambassador gave this long-winded answer:
“I’ve spent many-a-Sunday doing the Sunday shows. In this case, Secretary Clinton, who had been asked originally to do it, felt that she didn’t want to, couldn’t do it that week, having been through quite an intense week with the loss of our colleagues in Benghazi, the violence against our embassies all over the Arab and Muslim world and then — also that Friday having to join President Obama in greeting the families of our fallen colleagues and bringing their bodies back.”
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