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Monday, July 11, 2016

Fwd: FW: Abolish the FBI

Subject: Abolish the FBI

Ruby Ridge, WACO & Hillary Clinton.

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FBI

July 11, 2016

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Abolish the FBI

"Earlier this year," Ron Paul said in 1997, speaking on the House floor, "another member severely criticized me on the House floor for declaring on C-SPAN that, indeed, many Americans justifiably feared their own government.

"This fear has come from the Police State mentality which prompted Ruby Ridge, WACO, and many other episodes of an errant federal government.

"Under the Constitution," Paul goes on, "there was never meant to be a federal police force.

"Even an FBI, limited only to investigations, was not accepted until this century. Yet, today, fueled by the federal government's misdirected War on Drugs, radical environmentalism and the aggressive behavior of the Nanny State, we have witnessed the massive build-up of a virtual army of armed regulators, prowling the states where they have no legal authority.

"The sacrifice of individual responsibility and the concept of local government by the majority of the American citizens," Paul says, "has permitted for the army of bureaucrats to thrive."

Indeed. And the FBI's "success" over the years, as we have seen recently, has granted it the ability to pick and choose who is (or isn't) above the law.

The FBI, as you know, has had a lot on its plate.

Ross Ulbricht received life. Aaron Swartz took his own life before they had the chance to throw the book at him for a victimless crime. Mark Cuban and Martha Stewart felt the heat, too.

But, Hillary Clinton? The most heinous abuser of them all?

Clearly too high up on the food chain.

Such is the difference between those who carry the pyramid (those operating in the private sector) and those who relax up near the cap-stone with grapes periodically dropped in their lie-dispensers (AKA The HillBillary Syndicate & Cronies).

McMaken Quote

Given recent events, it's time, for what it's worth, we took a good, hard look at the FBI.

And here's why it's doubly important right now…

Come December, if Congress doesn't do anything to stop it, the FBI will be free to deem anyone who uses TOR software, or its equivalent, as guilty until proven innocent. In fact, anyone who takes steps to anonymize themselves on the Internet will be seen -- and treated -- as criminals.

"Simply having anonymity software installed on a computer," The Last American Vagabond blog reports, "would be reason enough for the FBI to investigate that user to 'combat cyber crime.'"

The agency's unrestrained power -- and clearly biased perch -- is, to put it lightly, unsettling. The official stated goals of the FBI are, to name a couple, catching terrorists and child pornographers in the name of national and individual security. And although virtuous on paper, these stated goals have justified the FBI's ability to track and target any American citizen arbitrarily, and without restraint. Plus, the FBI has been shown to make us less safe from terrorism.

Meanwhile, as usual, the private sector is proving that it can do what the FBI claims to do, without creating terrorists or trampling over the rights of peaceful, law-abiding citizens.

Take, for example, the blockchain start-up Elliptic, which has discovered a way to track blockchain transactions on child pornography and terrorist-linked websites to their sources. Elliptic's technique is superior because there's no need to paint a broad brush against thousands of other law-abiding, harmless Bitcoin users who simply like Bitcoin and use it for peaceful purposes.

Of course, Elliptic's powerful tool could too-easily be perverted when put into the hands of armed agencies on their misguided and reckless mission to save us from ourselves. Which is all the more reason to allow the private sector (the "White Hats") to handle such abuses on and offline.

Think such an idea is unprecedented? Think again.

In order to truly understand the FBI as an agency, it's important we take a look at its origins. As you'll see in today's featured article below, the FBI was created to "compete" with successful and highly-effective private detective agencies.

And, rather than serving the people directly, as the private agencies did (or else their horrid reputations would make sure they wouldn't find work), the agency created a monopoly by force and put privatized security agencies out of business.

The questions we must ask about the FBI, then, are the same ones we should ask about all alphabet agencies as Big Government explodes through its britches:

Should actors of the State have the power to trawl through your personal information without restraint? Should they be "above the law" in the way they deal with criminal investigations? How much power in the hands of "privileged individuals" is too much?

Most pressing of all: Is it time, as Ryan McMaken suggests in today's featured post below, to abolish the FBI and allow the market to fill the void?

You decide.

Read on.

Abolish the FBI

Ryan McMaken

Like all employees of the FBI, James Comey lives off the sweat of the American taxpayer. His large salary, upon retirement, will be converted into a very generous pension. Like most federal employees in a high ranking position like his, Comey continues to look forward to decades of living at a standard of living far above what is experienced by ordinary people in the private sector.

To maintain this life of comfort, all he had to do was agree to look the other way as a powerful politician clearly -- by Comey's own admission -- broke federal law.

Naturally, this same treatment would never be afforded to an ordinary taxpayer, who would likely be looking at years in federal prison for offenses similar to that which Hillary Clinton has apparently committed. Moreover, Comey even went out of his way to do his best to ensure no federal prosecutor would proceed with charges when he claimed that "no reasonable prosecutor" would proceed with charges. It wasn't enough for Comey to simply not recommend charges. He had to pre-emptively condemn any prosecutor who might proceed with charges.

Some have claimed that Comey was forced to cave to Obama administration pressure in order to protect his family. Of course, Comey could have resigned his position rather than take a position he regarded as unethical. Then the task of clearing Clinton would have fallen to Comey's successor. There are precedents for this. When ordered by Nixon to fire the special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal, Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned rather than do what the president mandated. Comey could have done the same, but then he would have had to give up some of his comforts and privileges. To find work, he might have had to move to an unexciting place like Indianapolis or Albuquerque.

Nevertheless, Comey has accidentally done us a great service by publicly exhibiting the true nature of the FBI: it is a political organization that expands the reach and prerogatives of the federal government over citizens and taxpayers, while protecting the powerful.

Of all federal police forces, the FBI is the most romanticized, and every FBI agent is assumed to be the modern embodiment of a fictionalized version of Eliot Ness: incorruptible, professional, and efficient. Decades of pop culture has driven this home with TV series and movies such as The Untouchables, The FBI Story, and This Is Your FBI have long perpetuated the idea that when local police fail, the FBI will step in to be more effective and simply better than every other law enforcement agency. Corruption cannot touch the FBI, we are told, and they apply the law equally to everyone.

A History of Abuse

This was always obviously untrue to anyone not suffering from crippling naïvete, but Comey has helped make the political nature of the Bureau plain for all to see.

The reality and the romance, of course, have always been two totally different things, and it's helpful to remind ourselves that it was the FBI that was in charge of the Waco massacre where 26 children were killed. It was the FBI that led the raid on Randy Weaver's house where an FBI sniper shot a woman dead while she was holding a 10-month old baby. It was the FBI that spied on Martin Luther King, Jr., and targeted peaceful anti-war organizations for political reasons during the 1960s and 70s. It was the FBI that came of age arresting opponents of the First World War.

Naturally, in all of these cases, the FBI has actively covered up the facts and denied wrongdoing.

James Bovard reported in his 2012 article "A Stasi for America":

A ripple of protest swept across the Internet in late March after the disclosure that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was teaching its agents that "the FBI has the ability to bend or suspend the law to impinge on the freedom of others." This maxim was inculcated as part of FBI counterterrorism training.

The exposure of the training material -- sparked by a series of articles by Wired.com's Spencer Ackerman -- spurred the ritual declaration by an FBI spokesman that "mistakes were made, and we are correcting those mistakes."

No FBI officials were sanctioned or fired for teaching lawmen that they were above the law...At least the FBI has been consistent. Since its founding in 1908, the bureau has rarely let either the statute book or the Constitution impede its public service. Tim Weiner, the author of a superb exposé of the CIA (Legacy of Ashes) has delivered a riveting chronology of some of the FBI's biggest crimes with his new book, Enemies.

Violating the rights of ordinary people has been standard policy at the FBI for decades. But, who can be surprised that the FBI now seeks to protect powerful politicians from the same laws that the FBI would enthusiastically use to prosecute and imprison ordinary citizens?

The FBI Is Unconstitutional and Ineffective

Thanks to the enduring view that federal police would tip the balance too far in favor of the federal government, many Americans opposed federal agencies like the FBI throughout the nineteenth century. It was feared that federal police would turn into secret police forces such as those known to be used in imperial Russia. Certainly, the Constitution does not mandate any federal police force. Consequently, it was not until the twentieth century that federal agencies like the FBI gained traction, thanks to a rising tide of pro-federal sentiment brought on by war and hysterical fear of "anarchists."

Thanks to war hysteria during World War I, the FBI rose to prominence as Woodrow Wilson's shock troops against "dissidents" (i.e., peaceful opponents of the war). Indeed, persecuting and prosecuting political enemies of the American state would become something of the forte of the FBI, with the role of the agency being expanded ever more during times of perceived national crisis. The idea of the FBI as a crime-fighting organization — the primary message of fawning treatments of the FBI such as The Untouchables and The FBI Story — for decades served as cover for the FBI's political activities. As Foreign Policy pointed out in 2014, though, the FBI quietly dropped its claims of being a crime fighting organization and began declaring itself a "national security" organization. Down the memory hole goes the FBI's original claimed raison d'etre. In its current Q and A, the FBI now acts as if it had never claimed to be a crime fighting organization at all:

Is the FBI a type of national police force?

No. The FBI is a national security organization that works closely with many partners around the country and across the globe to address the most serious security threats facing the nation.

No longer tied down by the need to waste its valuable time -- as the FBI sees it -- on mundane, real, and concrete crime such as kidnapping, the FBI can now focus on the far-more-amorphous "national security." Never mind the fact, of course, that the FBI's record on preventing terrorist acts such as 9/11 and the Orlando shooting is abysmal, and the terrorist plots it has "prevented" in recent years were actually facilitated by the FBI itself.

Predictably, after the FBI was criticized in the wake of the Orlando shooting, James Comey declared to the press that the FBI did a fine job:

"We are also going to look hard at our own work to see whether there is something we should have done differently," Comey said. "So far, the honest answer is: I don't think so."

The FBI Was Created to Compete with Successful Private Agencies

It should be noted that the FBI was not created to fill a hole in law enforcement needs. On the contrary, it was created to usurp and displace a highly-efficient and effective private police force that already existed: the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

Writing in Private Investigation and Security Science: A Scientific Approach, Frank Machovec notes that "The FBI, founded in 1908, was modeled from Pinkerton's organization and methods," while Marie Gottschalk writes in The Prison and the Gallows that "In its early years, the FBI modeled itself after the Pinkertons and other private police agencies."

In fact, government-run police organizations had long been shown to be inefficient and prone to corruption, which is why the private sector turned to private security instead.

Gottschalk continues: "The unreliability of metropolitan police, with their strong local and partisan ties, prompted major businesses and industrialists to establish the Pinkertons and other private police forces. The Pinkertons ultimately functioned as a de facto national detective and policing service until the 1920s, when the FBI finally came into its own."

By the early twentieth century, the Pinkertons and other private investigative organizations had established themselves as reliable and effective. It's why the Pinkertons repeatedly show up in popular culture as the highly-efficient and dangerous enemies of beloved Old-West outlaws like Butch Cassidy.

As early as 1857, politicians were already noting the public's favorable perceptions of private police over public police, with Chicago mayor John Wentworth noting:

"Our police system has been gradually falling into disrepute; and it is a lamentable fact that, whilst our citizens are heavily taxed to support a large police force, a highly respectable private police is doing a lucrative business. Our citizens have ceased to look to the public police for protection, for the detection of culprits or the recovery of stolen property."

The federal government, however, wanted a similar force that it could directly control, and thus turned to a federal police force instead. The desire to present the new agency as like the Pinkertons can be seen in the decision to call FBI investigators "agents" just as many private sector investigators were addressed (as opposed to "deputy" or "officer").

The Pinkertons were primarily interested in property crime with actual victims (i.e., train robbing). The FBI, however, could be used to go after political enemies, protesters, supposed draft dodgers and others who ran afoul of government regulations created to benefit the government itself. Over time, the FBI would crowd out the Pinkertons as a national police force (although, unfortunately, government organizations were known to contract with the Pinkertons).

This was all to the good according to many critics of the Pinkertons who wanted a government-controlled national police force that could be used against the private sector, rather than be controlled by it.

The FBI Is a Product of Anti-Capitalist Movements

Indeed, the rise of the FBI is very much the product of left-wing and labor unionist movements to curb the power of the Pinkertons in favor of the FBI and similar agencies.

A recent example of this line of thought can be found in Elizabeth Joh's 2006 article "The Forgotten Threat: Private Policing and the State."

As explained by Joh, the left was highly critical of the Pinkertons in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for their role in combating striking workers and for being employed by private organizations. While federal police forces such as the FBI would work only in the "public interest" it was assumed, organizations like the the Pinkertons functioned at the morally base level of seeking "profit."

The Pinkerton's however, never functioned with the sort of firepower, manpower, and legal immunity enjoyed by federal agencies today. Indeed, in some cases, the Pinkertons surrendered to their "victims" as in the case of the Homestead Riot of 1892 where, according to Joh, "[o]utnumbered, the Pinkerton guards surrendered, and were beaten by an angry mob."

Three workers were killed in the melee, making the Homestead Riot a peaceful affair by FBI standards. Under the leadership of the FBI, federal agents killed 17 times as many people at Waco, including children.

However, unlike Waco, which produced no sanctions or sustained public reactions against the FBI, the Homestead Riot became the high tide for anti-Pinkerton scrutiny and a flashpoint for action against private security agencies. For example, following an investigation of private security agencies at the time, the US Senate's investigatory committee declared that private security is illegitimate and that "use of private armed men is an assumption [that is, usurpation] of the State's authority by private citizens." Indeed, the Senate committee declared, the use of private arms to secure private property will lead to "anarchy."

For decades afterward, government committee and pro-labor groups worked together to condemn, investigate, and discredit private security agencies. Government agencies, it was maintained, would be responsive to elected officials and the public at large. If private policing agencies could be done away with, the public was told, no more would police organizations function in their own self-interest.

Such views have always been impressively naïve, although the public has long fallen for these claims. Moreover, one of the primary benefits of private security has been that it is subject to a totally separate and often hostile (to private security) legal system. Unlike the FBI, which enjoys a variety of government-granted immunities from responsibility for abuses and wrongful deaths, private security is legally subject to the same laws as everyone else.

Even worse, agencies like the FBI can directly tap into nearly limitless funds through their taxpayer-funded budgets. Unlike private security firms that are constrained by real-world budgets, government prosecutors and police agencies face no such limitation. Obviously, this places defendants at an even more lopsided economic disadvantage than when dealing with powerful private firms.

Today, federal police organizations, federal courts, and federal prosecutors are all part of a single organization. Naturally, these organizations tend to favor each other in their proceedings. On the other hand, if there is a distrust of private security within the court system (or vice versa) that's all for the best, since as a result of this tension, checks and balances are likely to actually mean something. The same cannot be said for the current system which unifies policing and court proceedings within a single organization and in which a sizable number of government judges are former government prosecutors.

The Triumph of Federal Police in Public Opinion

The war on private security has now been so successful that few Americans would even entertain the idea of doing away with federal police agencies like the FBI in favor of private security organizations. It is now simply accepted that federal police officers may function unimpeded in every community in America, independent of local law enforcement (such as democratically-elected sheriffs), with powers to enforce everything from laws on what we eat, what we grow in our backyards, and whom we can hire. The FBI functions with an immense amount of insulation from the voting public and requires only the approval of the president and the attorney general to function unimpeded. The Hillary Clinton affair has shown how easy it is to choose between serving the White House, or serving the public, which has no power over the FBI.

Nevertheless, the FBI continues to benefit from decades of pop culture and government whitewashing which portrays the FBI and other federal agencies as professional and effective. Always a product of left-wing and Progressive desires for more government intervention and a weakened private sector, the FBI continues to benefit from the perception that it functions in the service of the "public."

With James Comey's recent demonstration of the FBI's political motivations and origins, we have gained yet another insight into how the FBI works, and public service has very little to do with it.

[Ed. note: This article originally appeared on Mises Wire at this link.]

Regards,

Ryan McMaken
Editor, Mises Daily & The Austrian

P.S. Have something to say? Say it! Chris@lfb.org.

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Face computers slowly find their place in business
// TechCrunch

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Delta Plane Mistakenly Lands at South Dakota Ai...
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The Weather Channel Is Using Augmented Reality to Show the True Danger of Storms
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GOP bill would force acknowledgement of Islamic terror in Obama’s America [feedly]

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GOP bill would force acknowledgement of Islamic terror in Obama's America
// Personal Liberty Digest™

Frustrated House Republicans are readying legislation that would force the Department of Homeland Security to prioritize efforts to ferret out Islamic terror threats in spite of the Obama administration's ongoing unwillingness to acknowledge threats from Muslim fundamentalists exist.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican sponsoring the legislation, said the bill will help put an end to what some of his colleagues have described as the federal government's willful blindness to Islamic threats.

"In the wake of the Orlando attack, we must step up our efforts to combat the radicalization and recruitment of citizens by [the Islamic State]," he said. "The bill introduced today will provide more tools and resources to combat the spread of dangerous radical Islamist ideology and help our law enforcement agencies prevent future attacks on our soil."

The legislation includes key points from several other GOP bills offered in recent years to address a growing Islamic terror threat to the homeland.

Language from a bill offered by House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, for instance, would force DHS to implement a dedicated assistant secretary position focused solely on Islamic threats.

News of the GOP efforts come just a day after Sen. Ted Cruz grilled Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson about his agency's "purging" of Islamic-specific language from terror reports.

"The FBI counterterrorism lexicon uses the word 'jihad' zero times. The national intelligence strategy of 2009 uses the word 'jihad' zero times," Cruz said. "The strategic implementation plan to prevent violent extremism of 2011 uses the word zero times. The national intelligence strategy in 2014 uses the word zero times."

Johnson said some of the reports leave out references to Islamic terror in an effort to "build bridges" with the nation's Muslim community.

The post GOP bill would force acknowledgement of Islamic terror in Obama's America appeared first on Personal Liberty®.

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Friday, July 8, 2016

TWO STATES IN THE MIDDLE OF AMERICA!

>
>
> Go Oklahoma!
>
>
>
>
>>>>
>>>> Subject: TWO STATES IN THE MIDDLE OF AMERICA!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>> Illinois & Oklahoma:
>>>>
>>>> I thought these two states, made for an interesting contrast. The first part about Illinois and the second part is about Oklahoma!
>>>>
>>>> PART 1 - Illinois
>>>>
>>>> "A State with No Republicans"!
>>>>
>>>> Some interesting data on the 'state' of, the State of Illinois... There are more people on welfare in Illinois than there are people working. Chicago pays the highest wages to teachers than anywhere else in the U.S. Their average pay is $110,000/year. Their pensions average 80-90% of their income. Wow, are Illinois and Chicago great or what? Be sure to read till the end. I've never heard it explained better. Perhaps the U.S.should pull out of Chicago ?
>>>>
>>>> Body count:
>>>> In the last six months, 292 killed ( murdered ) in Chicago .
>>>> 221   killed in Iraq ; AND Chicago has one of the strictest gun laws in the entire US.
>>>>    Here's the Chicago chain of command :
>>>>
>>>> President: Barack Hussein Obama
>>>> Senator: Dick Durbin
>>>> House Representative: Jesse Jackson Jr.
>>>> Governor: Pat Quinn .
>>>> House leader: Mike Madigan .
>>>> Atty. Gen.: Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike)
>>>> Mayor: Rahm Emanuel .
>>>> The leadership in Illinois - all Democrats. .
>>>>
>>>> Thank you for the combat zone in Chicago . .
>>>> Of course, they're all blaming each other. .
>>>> Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any! .
>>>>
>>>> Let us get ALL   the facts out while we are at it:
>>>>
>>>> Chicago school system rated one of the worst in the country. Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!
>>>>
>>>> State pension fund $78 Billion in debt, worst in country.
>>>> Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!
>>>>
>>>> Cook County ( Chicago ) sales tax 10.25% highest in country. Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!
>>>>
>>>> This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois. And he is going to 'fix' Washington politics for us?
>>>>
>>>> George Ryan is no longer Governor, he is in prison.
>>>>
>>>> He was replaced by Rob Blagojevich who is, by the way, also in prison.
>>>>
>>>> And Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned and, that's right, he and his wife are both in prison.
>>>>
>>>> The Land of Lincoln , where our Governors and Representatives make our license plates. What?
>>>>
>>>> As long as they keep providing entitlements to the population of Chicago, nothing is going to change, except the state will go bankrupt before the country does.
>>>>
>>>> "Anybody who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the Government take care of him better take a closer look at the American Indian."
>>>>
>>>> Don't forget Detroit , another great example of a Democratic empire.
>>>> With all the bad news, there is hope, so let's go to:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> PART 2- Oklahoma
>>>>    OKLAHOMA- may soon have plenty of new residents!
>>>>
>>>> THIS IS REALLY INTERESTING, AND TRUE... PLEASE READ IT!
>>>>
>>>> Oklahoma is the only state that Obama did not win even one county in the last election... While everyone is focusing on Arizona 's new law, look what Oklahoma has been doing!!!
>>>>
>>>> An update from Oklahoma:
>>>> Oklahoma law passed, 37 to 9 an amendment to place the Ten Commandments on the front entrance to the state capitol. The feds in D.C., along with the ACLU, said it would be a mistake. Hey this is a conservative state, based on Christian values... HB 1330
>>>>
>>>> Guess what... Oklahoma did it anyway.
>>>>
>>>> Oklahoma recently passed a law in the state to incarcerate all   illegal immigrants and ship them back to where they came from unless they want to get a green card and become an American citizen. They all scattered. HB1804. This was against the advice of the Federal Government, and the ACLU, they said it would be a mistake.
>>>>
>>>> Guess what... Oklahoma did it anyway.
>>>> Recently we passed a law to include DNA samples from any and all illegal's to the Oklahoma database, for criminal investigative purposes. Pelosi said it was unconstitutional SB1102.
>>>>
>>>> Guess what... Oklahoma did it anyway.
>>>>
>>>> Several weeks ago, Oklahoma passed a law, declaring   Oklahoma as a Sovereign state, not under the Federal Government directives. Joining, Texas , Montana and Utah as the only states to do so.
>>>>    More states are likely to follow: Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, Mississippi and Florida.   Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once
>>>> again. HJR 1003
>>>>
>>>> The federal Government has made bold steps to take away our guns. Oklahoma, a week ago, passed a law confirming people in this state have the right to bear arms and transport them in their vehicles. I'm sure that was a setback for the criminals The Liberals didn't like it- -
>>>>
>>>> But...
>>>>
>>>> Guess what... Oklahoma did it anyway.
>>>>
>>>> Just this month, the state has voted and passed a law that ALL drivers' license exams will be printed in English and only English and no other language. They have been called racist for doing this, but the fact is that ALL of the road signs are in English only. If you want to drive in Oklahoma , you must read and write English. Really simple.
>>>>
>>>> By the way, the Liberals don't like any of this either.
>>>>
>>>> Guess what... who cares... Oklahoma is doing it anyway.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>> --
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> God Bless and have a great day.
>>> Don Coleman

Dallas' bomb robot sparks debate around police militarization [feedly]

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Dallas' bomb robot sparks debate around police militarization
// Engadget Mobile

"We saw no other option than to use our bomb robot." Cameras shutters clacked as Dallas Police Chief David Brown told a crowd of reporters how his department killed a suspect after a shooting spree that left five officers dead and seven more wounded...
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Thursday, July 7, 2016

State Department reopens Clinton email probe that paused for FBI investigation [feedly]

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State Department reopens Clinton email probe that paused for FBI investigation
// The Verge

Just one day after US Attorney General Loretta Lynch closed an investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices without bringing criminal charges, the State Department says it is reopening a separate inquiry, accorded to The Associated Press. The internal investigation is only now restarting because the Justice Department has closed its federal case, says Spokesman John Kirby. The goal is to determine whether Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, and her aides violated State Department email policy by maintaining a series of private email servers containing classified information.

Although the inquiry will not result in criminal charges for Clinton, it does reignite a debate that, just yesterday, was thought to have been laid to rest. The State Department originally suspended the internal probe back in April, so as to let the FBI's investigation conclude without any third-party influence. There is no deadline set for the State Department's inquiry, according to Kirby.

Administrative sanctions could result in a loss of security clearances

Clinton left her role as Secretary of State in 2013, as did many of her aides. Yet the investigation could result in administrative sanctions, which include a potential loss of security clearances for those involved. That may present issues for Clinton in the event she becomes president and must name members to a national security unit in her administration. Among the other members of Clinton's team most likely to be examined include Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan, and Huma Abedin, according to the AP.

In concluding the FBI's investigation, Director James Comey said Clinton and her aides were "extremely careless," but there was no evidence suggesting they acted with criminal intent. That distinction is how the FBI justified recommending Lynch not bring charges. However, in follow-up testimony delivered today at the House Oversight Committee, Comey did say Clinton could still face consequences in line with the State Department's sanctions.

"I didn't say there's no consequences."

"I didn't say there's no consequence for someone who violates the rules," he said. "Just because someone's not prosecuted for mishandling classified information that doesn't mean if you work in the FBI there aren't consequences for it." Comey laid out some of those consequences himself, saying a staff member of his own might face everything "from termination to reprimand and in between, suspensions, loss of clearance" for similar mishandling of classified info. However, he reiterated how the law has almost never been used to prosecute those who hadn't intentionally broken the law, like with cases of espionage or whistleblowing.

Update July 7th, 7:47PM ET: Added information from FBI Director James Comey's testimony at the House Oversight Committee today.

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Walmart Counters Amazon Prime Day 2016 With $179 Laptop and $79 2DS Deal [feedly]

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Walmart Counters Amazon Prime Day 2016 With $179 Laptop and $79 2DS Deal
// I4U News

Walmart has launched a wave of new deals today designed to counter Amazon's Prime Day activities. Earlier this month, Walmart announced to offer the ShoppingPass free delivery subscription 30-days...
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Darrell Issa Calls For Government Shutdown If Hillary Clinton Is Not Charged | ThinkProgress

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/07/06/3795983/darrell-issa-shutdown-government-because-hillary-clinton/

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Washington Has Been Obsessed With Punishing Secrecy Violations — until Hillary Clinton

https://theintercept.com/2016/07/05/washington-has-been-obsessed-with-punishing-secrecy-violations-until-hillary-clinton/

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Want A Baby Boy? Take Aspirin Before Sex [feedly]

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Want A Baby Boy? Take Aspirin Before Sex
// I4U News

Women who pop a pill of the ordinary painkiller aspirin before sex, may be more likely to give birth to male babies. This is what the researchers have found out so far.Women who had many miscarriages...
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Federal corruption at its finest [feedly]

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Federal corruption at its finest
// Personal Liberty Digest™

With the FBI admitting that Hillary Clinton is avoiding criminal charges related to her email use due to political privilege and President Barack Obama essentially joining her campaign, we've entered a new era of Washington corruption.

FBI Director James Comey revealed Tuesday that Clinton did indeed put sensitive government data at risk.

"It is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account," he said.

But despite there being "evidence of potential violations" that put American lives at risk, Comey said the agency is letting Clinton off the hook.

Why?

"Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," he told reporters.

But, again, it isn't because it would be an unreasonable case to try to prosecute.

"To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences," Comey added. "To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions.

"But that is not what we are deciding now."

Cinton's campaign thanked the "career officials" who handled the case and declared the matter "resolved" following the FBI announcement.

Other observers disagree.

Judicial President Tom Fitton, who helped keick off the Clinton email investigation, said in a statement: "FBI Director James Comey detailed Hillary Clinton's massive destruction of government records and grossly negligent handling of classified information. Frankly, there's a disconnect between Comey's devastating findings and his weak recommendation not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. Federal prosecutors, independent of politics, need to consider whether to pursue the potential violations of law confirmed by the FBI."

And GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump said the FBI decision is clear proof that the "system is rigged."

"FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security," Trump tweeted. "No charges. Wow!"

House Speaker Paul Ryan also weighed in on the FBI announcement, saying that the move "defies explanation."

"Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent," Ryan said. "The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions."

It's pretty fitting that President Obama decided to make his debut as the Clinton campaign's highest profile cheerleader Tuesday following the FBI announcement. After all, his administration—the most transparent in history— laid the groundwork for a candidate who embodies political corruption.

Pundits are saying Americans can expect to see Obama play up his own achievements in the White House as he stumps for Clinton with the insinuation that only she can carry on his legacy.

If that's the case, he should laud Clinton's ability to thwart the press and keep information from the American public and praise her ability to blame her mistakes on everyone other than herself. He should also talk about how, like himself, Clinton will allow her top officials to trounce all over the rule of law and the American public with impunity.

Most of all, though, Obama should talk about the biggest achievement he and Clinton will end up sharing if she's elected: Duping a majority of the American people into believing they're supporting a transformative candidate simply because they look different than the presidents we've had in the past.

The post Federal corruption at its finest appeared first on Personal Liberty®.

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FBI: Hillary Clinton shouldn't be charged over private emails-- Is anyone surprised?

https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/05/fbi-concludes-investigation-clinton-emails/

Never Give Up [feedly]

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Never Give Up
// Neatorama

Once in a lifetime image captured shows lizard attacking snake whilst being eatenhttps://t.co/BxGIt2DEDd pic.twitter.com/fnalt5wqJ4

— Express Pictures (@Express_Pics) July 4, 2016

This lizard didn't, even though the snake had swallowed him whole. Bryan Snyder, a naturalist, spotted this savage battle while walking in Santa Ynez, California. I'm rooting for the lizard. He has spirit.

-via TYWKIWDBI

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