Judge receives bribes to put people in jail
FCC’s Copps calls on agency to address decline of ‘real journalism’
Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps made a case for a government hand in media policy in a speech to the FCBA on Tuesday.
“The commission can act now. It should have acted on the media before now. I am disappointed that it has not,” he said.
The decline of “real journalism” justifies federal involvement, according to Copps. “The news is suffering from a bad case of substance abuse,” he said.
The Democratic commissioner pointed to Fox News’ Bernie Goldberg and Bill O’Reilly as examples of the problem with today’s media landscape, saying the pair has taken his own words out of context.
“What you and I are getting these days is too much opinion based on opinion and too little news based on fact,” Copps said.
The key going forward, according to Copps, is “making sure there is media about, and originating from, the local communities a station serves.” […]
The commissioner also reiterated his call for a “Public Value Test” as part of the broadcasting license renewal, a process controlled by the FCC.
We have, as a country, tolerated the multiple infringements on “Congress shall pass no law” for far too long. No government official should ever be in the business of enforcing quality of journalism, and when one tries, he–and the agency he represents–should be run out of Washington on a rail. This is appalling on every level, and the fact that there’s a journalistic constituency for it–read this awful commencement speech last year by Columbia Journalism School Dean and New Yorker essayist Nicholas Lemann for a taste–makes me deeply ashamed of my chosen profession.
(Read more from reason.com)
The Government’s Case Against Julian Assange Is Falling Apart
Surprise, surprise.
If you spend any time at all reading about Bradley Manning, the young U.S. Army private who stands accused of providing WikiLeaks with massive amounts of intelligence pulled from the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network used by the Pentagon and the State Department, the picture that emerges is one of a young man who also felt isolated, one who saw WikiLeaks as a means of ameliorating that feeling. Manning remains in custody — a particularly brutal form of solitary confinement, actually — at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va.
Manning still faces charges of his own, but he’s played a larger role in the tensions between U.S. government officials and WikiLeaks, in that he is seen as the key figure in building a larger criminal case against WikiLeaks founder and figurehead Julian Assange. That Manning willingly provided WikiLeaks with classified information does not appear to be in dispute. The issue, rather, is one of “did Manning jump or was he pushed?”
. . . .
This case against Assange — that he had pursued Manning, with the intention of inducing the soldier into proving WikiLeaks with thousands of classified diplomatic cables — relied heavily on the word of Adrian Lamo, a high-profile hacker-turned-“threat analyst,” to whom Manning reached out in May of 2010, revealing that he had taken classified material and leaked it to Assange. Lamo reported this to authorities, and provided the contents of his chat logs with Manning to Wired Magazine. (Read more from huffingtonpost.com)
Economic Nationalism Is a Philosophy of War | by Ludwig von Mises
Public vs. Private bankruptcy — the turmoil in Wisconsin
When private enterprises are inefficient/losing money/unwanted they go bankrupt. The turmoil is confined to the owners, workers and investors. As a last ditch effort they try to improve efficiency and quality.
When public enterprises are inefficient/losing money/unwanted they attempt to increase/maintain their share of tax dollars. The turmoil is thrust in the face of every citizen. As a last ditch effort, they resort to spectacle and demagoguery.
Obama Pencils In $37 Billion Budget Increase For DHS, Naked Body Scanners
The Obama administration is to propose a $37 billion increase in federal spending for the Department of Homeland Security, earmarking funds for more radiation firing naked body scanners in airports around the country.
The DHS’ budget will grow by almost 3 percent over the 2011 budget level, as Reuters reports, while the overall national security budget will increase by almost 2 percent.
The 2012 budget proposal requests $43.8 billion for homeland security across the entire federal government, excluding the Defense Department, up $800 million from 2011.
The DHS plans to add an additional 275 naked body scanners to the 500 already installed and operated by the TSA at 78 airports nationwide.
The administration has proposed deploying 1,275 body scanners in airports by the end of 2012. (Read more from infowars.com)
The Dumbest Thing Ever Said!…by Hillary Clinton, about the Drug War
Stossel & Ron Paul: opting out of government
FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO IRAQ: A CENTURY OF U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS
This is a very long, troubling list:
Tea Party Anger at Michele Bachmann Explodes over Patriot Act Votes
Four times in just one week Michele Bachmann, a Congresswoman from Minnesota and self-appointed Chair of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, voted in favor of the big-government surveillance, search and seizure powers of the Patriot Act. On February 8, Rep. Bachmann voted in favor of reauthorizing Patriot Act with no amendments or committee consideration allowed. On February 10, Bachmann voted to bring Patriot Act reauthorization back to the House floor, despite the fact that it had just been voted down. On the evening of Valentine’s Day, Michele Bachmann rejected a motion to follow House Rules and send the Patriot Act to the appropriate committees so members could propose sensible reforms. A few minutes after that, Bachmann voted YES to support final passage of the Patriot Act’s renewal in the House. All of these votes operated under conditions that permitted no amendments, no compromise, no reform, and mere minutes of debate. (Read more from irregulartimes.com)
Ha! Fox “News” Apologizes for CPAC anti-Ron Paul deception
I don’t believe it was a mistake.
Here is the video which exposed the deception.
SA@TAC – Conservatives Hijack CPAC
U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’
The US Government has yet again shuttered several domain names this week. The Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE office proudly announced that they had seized domains related to counterfeit goods and child pornography. What they failed to mention, however, is that one of the targeted domains belongs to a free DNS provider, and that 84,000 websites were wrongfully accused of links to child pornography crimes.
As part of “Operation Save Our Children” ICE’s Cyber Crimes Center has again seized several domain names, but not without making a huge error. Last Friday, thousands of site owners were surprised by a rather worrying banner that was placed on their domain. (Read more from torrentfreak.com)
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