By Congressman David Brat (R-VA)
(The man who "took out" RINO Eric Cantor!)
* * *
* *
Whoever runs for the Republican leadership of the U.S.
House on Tuesday must communicate on paper how Congress is going to lead on the
big issues.
The American people elected us to solve trillion-dollar
problems, not to kick the can down the road with only symbolic votes. My
district expects any leader to clearly outline bold solutions on the major
issues of our day, such as:
How he (or she) will defend the Constitution and
challenge President Obama’s repeated illegal overreach into areas of
congressional authority, particularly his unconstitutional amnesty by
presidential decree;
How he will end Washington’s out-of-control spending and
debt addiction that is mortgaging our children’s future and promises to cripple
our economy within the next decade;
How he will defund ObamaCare to stop skyrocketing
insurance premiums on struggling families as well as the destruction of jobs
it’s causing;
How he will stop excessive regulations like the EPA’s
over-regulation of farms and small businesses – regulations that have made it
prohibitively expensive to run a business and create jobs.
These are not just my priorities. These are the
priorities that the American people expressed loudly and clearly on November
4th. And these need to be the priorities of the leaders of this next Congress.
These are reasonable positions. So when reason is losing
the argument, it’s clear that something else is taking its place – personal
interests over what’s in the best interest of the country. The American people
know they are being short-changed, and they want action, not talking points.
Our current leadership was recently tested when Mr. Obama
attempted to circumvent Congress and the law by unilaterally granting amnesty
to illegal immigrants by "presidential decree." His "decree"
provides illegal immigrants with work permits, legal status, and free federal
entitlements. But on a much more significant front, his action shows a complete
disregard for our constitutional system where Congress makes the laws and the
president’s duty is to enforce them.
The House leadership and every member of Congress took an
oath to defend the Constitution, and we have a duty to stop the president when
he ignores it. The most powerful remedy the Congress has in these situations is
the power to defund his illegal action.
We had an opportunity to do that last month when
Representatives Mick Mulvaney, Matt Salmon, and I led in co-sponsoring an
amendment to the CRomnibus spending bill that would have stripped it of funding
for executive amnesty. We were joined by 64 other House members, but were told
that there was no time to amend the bill before the vote. That meant the
CRomnibus bill passed and provided the president with the funds for his scheme.
* IT'S ACTUALLY WORSE THAN THAT, FOLKS; REPUBLICAN
LEADERS ACTUALLY LIED TO CERTAIN MEMBERS, PROMISING THEM THAT IF THEY SWITCHED
THEIR VOTE AND WENT ALONG WITH BOEHNER THAT BOEHNER WOULD THEN "PULL"
THE BILL HIMSELF - THUS "SAVING A MEASURE OF FACE." INSTEAD, THE
MOMENT HE HAD HIS ILL-GOTTEN VOTES, BOEHNER RAMMED THE CROMNIBUS BILL THROUGH.
Why was there no time to amend the bill? Because the
leadership hid the 1,774-page CRomnibus from members of Congress and the public
until the last minute, giving us just 48 hours to try to read through it before
voting on it.
* "THE LEADERSHIP" WAS/IS EFFECTIVELY JOHN
BOEHNER.
Further, why did the leadership allow funding for illegal
amnesty to be included in the bill in the first place? And why was the
leadership willing to whip votes with the president and the House Democrats to
pass the bill, but not willing to work with House Republicans to stop the
funding of an illegal act?
* TO ANSWER THE QUESTION: BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT BOEHNER
ORDERED.
But the CRomnibus didn’t just fund illegal amnesty. It
was a $1.1 trillion spending bill that did nothing to reduce spending or work
toward balancing the budget. It also funded ObamaCare when the House had
pledged to repeal it. And it funded the economy-killing over-regulation of
agencies like the EPA, which are destroying American jobs when we have millions
looking for work.
* TRUE... TRUE... TRUE... ALL TRUE!
In recent days and weeks, I have given careful
consideration as to how I would cast my vote for Speaker of the House. I do not
cast this vote as an individual, but on behalf of the citizens of Virginia’s
Seventh District who sent me to Washington to act as their representative.
While I like Speaker Boehner personally, he will not have my support for
Speaker.
* JUST AS A SIDE-NOTE... IT DISGUSTS ME WHEN POLITICIANS
FEEL THE NEED TO THROW OUT STATEMENTS SUCH AS "I LIKE THE SPEAKER
PERSONALLY." WHY? HOW? THE SPEAKERS IS A SCUMBAG. (HOW MANY OF YOU
"LIKE" SCUMBAGS?)
Washington is broken in part because our party’s
leadership has strayed from its own principles of free market, limited
government, constitutional conservatism. We are at a crucial turning point in
our country’s history – do we truly want free markets, or does cronyism remain
in place? Do we want the rule of law, or will amnesty for cheap illegal labor
win the day?
In my campaign, I heard over and over from my
constituents that they don’t feel Washington is working for them. They feel
like they are always on the losing end of most every deal struck inside the
beltway – that somehow the ordinary working man and woman keep drawing the
short straw. And year after year, government gets bigger, the debt swells, and
the bureaucracy engulfs the citizen a little bit more.
* THEY FEEL THIS WAY BECAUSE IT'S TRUE!
The scope of the problem is in the trillions, but the
solutions offered so far have only been in the billions – not even scratching
the surface of what needs to be done to get this country back on track.
10 comments:
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/4/loretta-lynchs-office-cheated-stock-fraud-victims-/
More than a year before President Obama nominated federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch to be attorney general, a former federal judge quietly called on Congress to investigate Lynch's office for trampling on victims’ rights.
Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah, said Ms. Lynch’s office, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, never told victims in a major stock fraud case that a culprit had been sentenced — denying them a chance to seek restitution of some $40 million in losses.
Mr. Cassell, in written remarks to a House Judiciary Committee panel in 2013, said if prosecutors were using secretive sentencing procedures to reward criminals for cooperating with them, it could violate the Crime Victims Restitution Act.
“Every day that the office withholds notice from the victims in this case about the continuing proceedings that are occurring in this case is a day in which the office is violating the CVRA,” he wrote, urging the subcommittee to conduct its own inquiry into Ms. Lynch’s office.
The Judiciary Committee acknowledged in an email to The Washington Times that it never followed up to contact Ms. Lynch’s office, but added the panel “has not ruled out sending an inquiry to the U.S. attorney’s office regarding its handling of victims’ rights.”
* GEEZUS...
* TALK ABOUT THE OLIGARCHY STANDING TOGETHER...
* THE PRESIDENT... HIS APPOINTEE... AND JOHN BOEHNER... NICE... REAL NICE...
Ms. Lynch’s nomination to be attorney general will soon come before the Senate Judiciary Committee, now controlled by Republicans, and the case could surface as a topic of inquiry.
“I do think it’s something that the Senate should be investigating as part of the confirmation process,” Mr. Cassell said in an interview.
Meanwhile, a lawyer has filed a Supreme Court petition to force more records in the criminal case to be unsealed, charging that Ms. Lynch’s office has failed to explain secret deals it gives cooperators.
“These deals, indisputably in defiance of mandatory federal forfeiture and restitution laws, allow cooperators to keep the proceeds of their crimes in exchange for their cooperation and keep their reputation intact, hidden behind secret dockets,” said attorney Frederick Oberlander, who has sued the businessman on behalf of fraud victims.
* THIS... IS... OBAMA'S... AMERIKA...
* OBAMA'S... AND BOEHNER'S...
The petition isn’t the first time that Mr. Oberlander and his attorney, Richard Lerner, have sought to pry loose sealed records in the long and complicated case of Felix Sater, the businessman at the center of the stock fraud.
Sater pleaded guilty in 1998 in a racketeering stock “pump and dump” fraud scheme, but his case remained on a secret docket in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, as he cooperated with the government in other investigations, court records show.
* SECRET DOCKET... IN AMERICA... CLINTON'S AMERICA AT THE TIME... WITH REPUBLICANS THEN IN CONTROL OF BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
The secrecy surrounding the 1998 criminal case allowed Sater to resume “his old tricks” and defraud new victims of hundreds of millions of dollars, Mr. Oberlander charged in a civil racketeering lawsuit he filed against Sater in recent years.
When he sued, Mr. Oberlander included leaked copies of Sater’s pre-sentencing report and a copy cooperation deal for the 1998 case, which were under seal. The disclosure set off a fierce and contentious legal battle between federal prosecutors and Mr. Oberlander and his attorney, Richard Lerner, who both have faced a contempt investigation after the disclosure. Eventually, more than a decade after his guilty plea, Sater was sentenced and fined $25,000 in a hearing that took place without notice to victims shortly before Ms. Lynch took over the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, according to records.
* DOES THIS SOUND LIKE YOUR AMERICA, FOLKS?
In court papers, Mr. Oberlander and Mr. Lerner noted that Sater faced nearly 20 years in prison and a mandatory $40 million in restitution and $80 million forfeiture, but the sentencing judge imposed no restitution or confinement.
(*SILENCE*)
And victims weren’t at the hearing to object because they were never told about the sentencing in the first place, according to the attorneys’ Supreme Court petition.
* WHERE IS THE NEW YORK TIMES ON THIS? WHERE IS 60 MINUTES?
Ms. Lynch wasn’t U.S. attorney during the sentencing hearing, but her office has since fought efforts to unseal records in the case.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Mr. Fallon also said many of the key developments in the case “occurred outside of Ms. Lynch’s stints as U.S. attorney,” first in 1999 and again in 2010. (Still, court records show numerous examples of Ms. Lynch’s office pushing to keep details about the case from becoming public.)
(*SMIRK*)
The government’s arguments for keeping records sealed — many of them redacted or under seal — have been upheld in rulings by the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn and by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit despite arguments pushing for more transparency from victims’ rights and press groups.
* AND THAT PROVES...? WHAT...? THAT THE OLIGARCHY EXTENDS INTO THE JUDICIARY...?!?!
(*CHUCKLE*)
Robert Wolf, an attorney for Sater, said his client provided “extraordinary cooperation” after his 1998 guilty plea, including working on “the most serious matters of national security, battling our greatest enemies at tremendous risk to his own life and for the benefits of all citizens of our country.”
* BUT... WE'RE NOT ALLOWED TO HEAR THE DETAILS...
(*SMIRK*)
In an email, Mr. Wolf called the $25,000 fine Sater was ordered to pay “more than merited” and a “measure of gratitude” for unspecified cooperation that saved “potentially tens of thousands, if not millions, of our citizens’ lives.”
(*RAISING ONE EYEBROW*)
Neither Sater’s lawyer nor the Justice Department would discuss the nature of his cooperation.
(*SIGH*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
The Supreme Court petition filed by Mr. Lerner of behalf of Mr. Oberlander also details the involvement in the Sater case of two other Justice Department officials — Marshall Miller, principal deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division, and Leslie Caldwell, assistant attorney general in the criminal division.
Mr. Miller was the victims’ rights coordinator for the federal prosecutor’s office in Brooklyn, while Ms. Caldwell, a former prosecutor in the office, later represented Sater at his sentencing.
At the sentencing hearing, Ms. Caldwell said Sater was “really deserving of the full measure of leniency” given the “extraordinary circumstances of his cooperation,” according to transcripts.
* HIS COOPERATION... AFTER GETTING CAUGHT - RIGHT?
While attorneys debate Sater’s sentencing deal, two outside groups — the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press and the National Organization for Victim Assistance — have filed briefs in recent years pushing for more transparency in Sater’s case and questioning whether the secrecy has limited public oversight and stifled the voice of victims.
In a May letter to judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, attorneys for the Reporters Committee said they first challenged the “super sealing” of the Sater case in 2012.
* HEY, FOLKS... CHECK OUT THE CONSTITUTION... WHERE EXACTLY IS THAT PART ABOUT "SUPER SEALING?"
(*SNICKER*)
Some records were later unsealed in March 2013, but the district court left about a quarter of the records under seal after secret “ex parte” meetings closed to the press, public and the attorneys who were seeking to unseal the documents, according to the committee.
(*SNORT*)
Ms. Lynch’s office argued that Sater’s safety was one consideration for sealing, but the Reporters Committee said the information about his case already was available and the subject of media reports, which undercut that argument.
“When the press and public have no way of holding courts accountable for giving informants special treatment, secret defendants can abuse the system and endanger the public,” Bruce D. Brown, the committee’s executive director, wrote in a letter in May.
In 2012, two years into Ms. Lynch’s tenure at U.S. attorney, Mr. Cassell filed a separate brief on behalf of the National Organization for Victim Assistance. They argued that Ms. Lynch’s office appeared intent on preventing the public from learning anything about how prosecutors treated crime victims in the case.
The victims’ rights group said it had asked Ms. Lynch’s office whether it followed through on restitution for crime victims as the law requires in the case. The group received no explanation other than a brief email to Mr. Cassell saying the office “complied in all aspects of the law.”
“At this point,” the attorneys argued, “the government is using the alleged sealing orders it may (or may not) have obtained in this case not as a legitimate law enforcement tool but rather as an excuse for obscuring what happened.”
Mr. Cassell a year later asked the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution to inquire into the matter. But that didn’t happen.
* BOEHNER'S HOUSE AGAIN?
In a statement, the Judiciary Committee said it incorporated Mr. Cassell’s concerns into legislation improving services for crime victims at all federal prosecutors’ offices. But the House panel never contacted Ms. Lynch’s office directly.
“The committee takes such requests seriously, and the precedent is often to use alternate strategies other than a formal congressional inquiry,” the committee said in an email statement — though the committee said it “is also open to examining this issue further and has not ruled out sending an inquiry to the U.S. attorney’s office regarding its handling of victims’ rights.”
* THERE ARE VERY FEW PEOPLE WE CAN TRUST, FOLKS; VERY FEW.
* TWO CLOSING WORDS: 1) JON; 2) CORZINE. (THE OLIGARCHY PROTECTS ITS OWN.)
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/bill-clinton/bill-clinton-and-jeffrey-epstein-908671
Now that Prince Andrew has found himself ensnared in the sleazy sex slave story of wealthy degenerate Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton can’t be too far behind.
Epstein, who paid teenage girls for naked massages at his Palm Beach, Florida mansion, is a convicted sex offender whose circle of powerful friends has included financiers, celebrities, politicians, and scientists.
In fact, Epstein, 61, has maintained many of these relationships even after pleading guilty in 2008 to a felony charge stemming from a lengthy probe of his lewd interaction with scores of underage girls, many of whom were recruited while they were students at a Palm Beach high school.
* A PALM BEACH H*I*G*H S*C*H*O*O*L...
* THESE ARE THE DEMOCRATS...
But while Prince Andrew and other public figures resumed meeting with a post-prison Epstein, Clinton appears to have avoided the billionaire, who owns a private Caribbean island, a Manhattan mansion, a New Mexico ranch, and a Paris apartment in addition to his waterfront Palm Beach residence.
* SO BILL CLINTON IS SMARTER THAN "PRICE ANDREW." BIG DEAL.
According to court records, Clinton “frequently flew” with Epstein aboard the investor’s private jet from 2002 to 2005, the year news of the police investigation of Epstein was first reported.
During the early stages of that probe, cops surreptitiously collected the trash from in front of Epstein’s Palm Beach home. The refuse included documents with the names of some of his many underage masseuses, as well as an Amazon.com invoice for the purchase of sex slave books like “SlaveCraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude - Principles, Skills and Tools,” “Training with Miss Abernathy: A Workbook for Erotic Slaves and Their Owners,” and “SM 101: A Realistic Introduction.”
* NICE...
As part of a civil suit filed against Epstein by several of his victims, lawyers for the women floated the possibility of subpoenaing Clinton since he “might well be a source of relevant information” about Epstein’s activities.
While Clinton was never deposed, lawyers obtained Epstein’s computerized phone directory, which included “e-mail addresses for Clinton along with 21 phone numbers for him, including those for his assistant (Doug Band),” according to a court filing.
* ANY OF YOU HAVE FRIENDS LIKE EPSTEIN, FOLKS? I DON'T.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.wsj.com/articles/michael-saltsman-a-nonprofit-restaurant-falls-to-the-minimum-wage-1420412563
More than two dozen states and cities raised their minimum wages on Jan. 1.
It’s well-established in the economic literature, if not in the minds of proponents of these laws, that the result will be job losses.
Yet this empirical reality fails to capture the emotional reality of the employees who are let go, or of the business owners who had no choice but to let them go. I learned this on a snowy November day in Hillsdale, a college town in rural south-central Michigan.
Michigan’s minimum wage rose in September to $8.15 an hour from $7.40 (the minimum wage for tipped employees rose 17%, to $3.10 an hour). The wage will rise to $9.25 by January 2018. The law was enacted by a Republican legislature, and signed by a Republican governor to head off a more draconian proposal that left-wing activists were attempting to place on the November ballot.
(*SIGH*)
But the good intentions behind these political machinations didn’t make a difference to Jack Mosley, a pastor who until this fall operated a restaurant in Hillsdale called Tastes of Life. The increased minimum wage, he told me, was “the straw that broke that camel’s back,” forcing him to close his doors and lay off his 12-person staff.
Mr. Mosley’s popular restaurant was a non-profit and served as a training tool for participants in Life Challenge of Michigan, a non-denominational, faith-based organization he directs. Life Challenge, Mr. Mosley told me, is a refuge for people who have “bottomed out,” often due to alcohol and substance abuse. After a six-month period of detox and spiritual education, the program shifts to focus on practical skills, like building a budget, finding a job, and keeping a daily routine.
That’s what the restaurant helped provide.
* "HELPED." PAST TENSE.
The staff at Tastes of Life was made up of recovering addicts, recently incarcerated individuals and others who would have a hard time landing a job elsewhere. Mr. Mosley explained that on-the-job offenses for which an employee would have been “gone that day” in a traditional work setting were instead used as training opportunities at Tastes of Life.
One former employee, Makenzie Wirick, had serious balance problems following an auto accident. She eventually gained the confidence to wait tables and carry trays — first a “small tray of drinks,” she told me, and later full trays of food. This was thanks to a work environment where spills and accidents were tolerated and even expected.
Mr. Mosley’s financial goal was to break even and use any excess funds to subsidize Life Challenge participants.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
After more than two years of operation on Beck Road, 2½ miles from the center of town, Tastes of Life had a steady flow of loyal customers, but rising food costs presented a challenge. Terri Tucker, who handled the restaurant’s finances, said the price of beef was up 40% in 2014. Mr. Mosley and Ms. Tucker had planned to print new menus with higher prices to cover the food costs, but the September wage hike complicated those plans, in particular because the increase covered both tipped and non-tipped employees.
Handling this one-two punch of new costs presented Mr. Mosley with conflicting goals: raising prices and boosting customer traffic. “If we had a $10 menu item, it would have to be $14,” Mr. Mosley said. The restaurant’s customer base of seniors on a fixed income and Hillsdale locals made this option a non-starter. The restaurant also had to find roughly 250 new customers a month, unrealistic in a small town of about 8,300.
The restaurant had lost money in the past, and Mr. Mosley subsidized the operation through Life Challenge. But with the higher wage costs, the arrangement was no longer feasible, and Tastes of Life closed on Sept. 28. (The news was first reported in the Hillsdale Collegian.)
Four former employees have been able to leverage their restaurant experience to find new employment, but Mr. Mosley told me that eight are still out of work. One of the still unemployed told me that Tastes of Life was his first job out of prison, and he wasn’t sure he’d have a job at all if Mr. Mosley hadn’t given him a chance.
Tim Ritchey, a former program participant who is now the men’s director for Life Challenge, said this was a reality for many participants. “Working in the restaurant gave them a sense of belonging to something again,” he told me. Today that’s mostly gone: “Without the restaurant here, they don’t really have a place they can go to every single day.”
Life Challenge continues; Mr. Mosley and Terri Tucker are planning to use the now-empty restaurant space as a recovery home for women. Mr. Mosley isn’t harboring an anti-government grudge and embraces the substantial benefit that participants in Life Challenge will receive from the state’s Medicaid expansion through the Affordable Care Act.
Still, the loss of Tastes of Life cuts deep, because the benefit for Life Challenge participants was both valuable and is not easily attained elsewhere. These unintended consequences of a minimum wage hike aren’t unique to small towns in south-central Michigan. Tragically, they repeat themselves in locales small and large each time legislators heed the populist call to “raise the wage.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/05/steve-king-john-boehner_n_6416552.html
U.S. Representative Steve King said he would not vote to give John Boehner another term as speaker of the House, becoming the latest conservative Republican to speak out against him.
(*MAD APPLAUSE*)
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/395738/harvard-faculty-revolts-over-obamacare-cost-increases-brendan-bordelon
* HALARIOUS STUFF, FOLKS...!
Harvard faculty members are apoplectic over changes to their university-provided healthcare plans related to ObamaCare — after Harvard researchers spent years promoting the Affordable Care Act.
The New York Times reports that faculty members voted unanimously in November to oppose a slight increase in out-of-pocket costs Harvard proposed for the plans. The university administration cited the need to confront the “added costs” caused by ObamaCare provisions.
(Despite the protests, the university enacted the increase in January.)
That hasn’t stopped faculty from waxing apocalyptic about the change. “Deplorable, deeply regressive, a sign of the corporatization of the university” is how classics professor Richard Thomas described it. “It’s equivalent to taxing the sick,” said economics professor Jerry Green. “I don’t think there’s any government in the world that would tax the sick.”
* I'D TAX THE SICK. (FAIRLY OF COURSE...)
* INDEED... IN ALL SERIOUSNESS... WHERE ARE SICK PEOPLE ABSOLVED OF THE DUTY TO PAY TAXES...???
(*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)
“It seems that Harvard is trying to save money shifting costs to sick people,” said sociology professor Mary Waters. “I don’t understand why a university with Harvard’s incredible resources would do this. What is the crisis?”
The relatively minor changes to the plan would see Harvard faculty paying a slightly larger, but still small deductible, along with around 10% of service costs, up to an out-of-pocket limit of $1,500 per individual and $4,500 for family.
Paying both a deductible and a small amount in what’s called co-insurance is quite common across employer-provided health plans, but the idea was vilified by in an op-ed penned by eleven Harvard professors for the school paper.
* YEEESSS... (*BILL SAYS DROOLEY*)... I'M SURE THEY DID...
Administrators cited a famous health-insurance study to defend increasing out-of-pocket contributions, but the eleven professors contend the evidence is outdated and not applicable to the lifestyle choices of Harvard faculty.
(*GUFFAW*)
Not only is cost-sharing a common and growing part of most employer plans, it’s also a key part of plans offered on the ObamaCare exchanges. So-called “bronze” health-care plans provided through the exchanges see co-insurance costs of 20% or more, along with deductibles reaching into the thousands of dollars. The deductible for a Harvard professor’s family will still be no more than $750.
* HMM... THAT'S WHAT MY INSURANCE (FOR WHICH I PAY $1,327 A MONTH OUT OF POCKET IN BASIC PREMIUMS ALONE) WANTED TO CHARGE ME FOR AN OVERNIGHT SLEEP STUDY AT A HOSPITAL THAT MY DOCTORS INSIST I SHOULD HAVE.
* SOMETHING TELLS ME A HARVARD PROFESSOR MAKES QUITE A BIT MORE PER YEAR THAN I DO... AND PAYS OUT QUITE A LOT LESS IN HEALTHCARE INSURANCE PREMIUMS THAN I DO.
To their credit, Harvard’s health-care researchers, some of whom were involved in the design of various health-care reforms, aren’t buying their colleagues’ complaints. “Harvard is a microcosm of what’s happening in health care in the country,” Harvard health economist David Cutler told the times, noting that the university’s professors have long avoided the cost increases plaguing most other American workers. “Harvard was and remains a very generous employer.”
https://twitter.com/repcurtclawson/status/552274763230760963
After caucusing with my colleagues tonight, I will be voting for a change in House Leadership tomorrow. Now is a good time for change.
* REP. CURT CLAWSON (R-FL)
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/fbi-says-search-warrants-not-needed-to-use-stringrays-in-public-places/
The Federal Bureau of Investigation...
* OBAMA'S FBI...
...is taking the position that court warrants are not required when deploying cell-site simulators in public places. Nicknamed "stingrays," the devices are decoy cell towers that capture locations and identities of mobile phone users and can intercept calls and texts.
The bureau's position on Americans' privacy isn't surprising. The Obama Administration has repeatedly maintained that the public has no privacy in public places.
* THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION...
It began making that argument as early as 2010, when it told a federal appeals court that the authorities should be allowed to affix GPS devices on vehicles and track a suspect's every move without court authorization.
* "IT." MEANING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION.
The Supreme Court, however, eventually ruled that warrants are required.
* WOW... SOMEONE READ THE CONSTITUTION!
(*STANDING OVATION*)
What's more, the administration has argued that placing a webcam with pan-and-zoom capabilities on a utility pole to spy on a suspect at his or her residence was no different from a police officer's observation from the public right-of-way.
* OBAMA'S AMERIKA...
A federal judge last month disagreed with the government's position, tossing evidence gathered by the webcam that was operated from afar.
* AMEN.
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