CLibertyC

Former LA County GOP chief arrested for sexting after mocking Weiner’s candidacy

"The former executive director of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County was arrested last Friday for allegedly sexting with a 16-year-old girl. The girl told officers that Scott Hounsell, 30, had engaged in sexually explicit chats with her via a social media website. Police did not say what social media website was used. Hounsell was arrested by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. He was released on $40,000 bail Friday afternoon. Firedoglake noted that Hounsell had mocked New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner on his personal Twitter account." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFormer LA County GOP chief arrested for sexting after mocking Weiner’s candidacy

Creepy: The State of California Pokes My Cell Phone

"Some cellphones received only a text message, others buzzed and beeped. Some people got more than one alert. It’s the Wireless Emergency Alert program, a cellphone version of the Emergency Alert System on your television. Cellphone owners receive messages automatically, based on their proximity to the emergency, not based on their phone number. 'If you’re from Texas and that’s where your phone number is based and you’re traveling in California at the time of the Amber Alert, you’ll receive the text message about the Amber Alert in California on your Texas-based phone,' said CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCreepy: The State of California Pokes My Cell Phone

The Best Mob Story Ever

"The best mob story ever told does not involve Al Capone or Bugsy Segal or John Gotti. It involves a mobster few American have ever heard of, Greg Scarpa by name, and his not quite as lethal son, Greg Scarpa Jr., 'Junior' going forward. One reason few people ever heard of Scarpa is that until his arrest in September 1992, he worked as a 'Top Echelon Confidential Informant' under the protection of the FBI for the most of the thirty years prior. During that time, Scarpa murdered at least fifty people. Understandably, this is not a story not that the FBI wants told, but author Peter Lance has told it anyhow in his stunningly comprehensive new book, Deal With The Devil." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Best Mob Story Ever

Monday Morning Skeptic: Questioning Authority in the Sprawling Boston Bombing Case

"Mistakes were made. Lots of them—and on more than a few significant aspects of the story. But do such details really matter? If you believe in the infallibility of the FBI, probably not. But the Boston Marathon bombing investigation has bloomed into a complex filigree of related inquiries—from the unsolved triple murder in 2011 in drowsy Waltham, Mass., to the rare 'shelter-in-place' order and live-TV posse search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on April 19, to the puzzling FBI-agent shooting death in Florida of an unarmed friend of the Tsarnaevs who might have been able to answer crucial questions–had he lived." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMonday Morning Skeptic: Questioning Authority in the Sprawling Boston Bombing Case

Feds Visited Michael Hastings’ House Day Before His Death: Close Friend

"Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings, who was killed in a suspicious car crash after complaining that he was being harassed by the FBI, had his home visited by agents from an unnamed federal agency the day before his death, a close friend of Hastings told Infowars. The fact that feds visited the home of the controversial journalist almost immediately prior to his untimely death is yet another facet to a story which has thrown up numerous questions about the circumstances surrounding the car crash that killed Hastings in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles on June 18." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFeds Visited Michael Hastings’ House Day Before His Death: Close Friend

Just, You Know, Mexico: A Sort Of Photo Essay

"People seeming to have an interest in Mexico and the desperate, blood-soaked lives we live here, Average beach, Micnoacàn, at sundown. Fred, dissolute as a matter of principle, supervises waves with a cold Tecate. To get here, you drive north from Ajijic to Guadalajara, turn left until you hit the Pacific coast at Manzanillo, turn left again, and find hundreds, perhaps thousands or millions, of miles of deserted beaches. We stay in a little town with one hotel of four rooms, one of them a suite, of about two stars, with chickens cackling in the yard and no gringos, cackling or otherwise." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJust, You Know, Mexico: A Sort Of Photo Essay

Chesapeake Energy drops legal fight over natural gas leases in New York state

"Landowners in Broome and Tioga counties, who had leased acreage to Chesapeake over the past decade, had battled the pioneering oil driller in court to prevent it from extending the leases under their original terms, many of which were agreed to long before a boom in hydraulic fracturing swept the United States. 'I can renegotiate with other companies now,' said Frank Laskowski, who owns land in Broome County. 'Before that we were tied up with Chesapeake at $3 an acre and 12.5 percent. Most people are getting much more than that.' One landowner in Broome County said he now hoped to secure up to $3,000 an acre." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingChesapeake Energy drops legal fight over natural gas leases in New York state

Swiss bank UBS pays $50 million to settle SEC charges from 2007 financial meltdown

"UBS agreed to pay nearly $50 million to settle charges over its disclosures related to a money-losing 2007 investment vehicle linked to sub-prime loans, a US agency announced Tuesday. UBS presented inaccurate or incomplete information about upfront payments in marketing literature to investors and in submissions to the CDO’s directors, the SEC said. When the CDO was liquidated in 2007, outside investors lost approximately $130 million in the CDO, according to an SEC administrative order. In the settlement, UBS agreed to pay about $50 million in disgorgement, interest and penalties. The bank did not admit or deny the SEC’s findings." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSwiss bank UBS pays $50 million to settle SEC charges from 2007 financial meltdown

Austrian Detroit?

"As Detroit begins to sort through the ill-begotten public liabilities that have driven it to bankruptcy, an important opportunity is at hand to revitalize the city that was once the epicenter of American entrepreneurship and manufacturing, while setting an example for other municipal governments that appear to be headed toward a similar fate. Here is an 'Austrian moment' in the making, a potential libertarian awakening guided by the market-oriented, non-interventionist principles of the Austrian school of economics. The time has come to free Detroit’s entrepreneurial spirit from the legacy of government mismanagement." Continue reading →

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Rahm’s Chicago: $1 Billion Financial Shortfall Forecast by 2015

"Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel released the city’s second Annual Financial Forecast on Wednesday. Not only does the report predict a $369 million financial shortfall for the city's operating 'budget' in 2014, but it also predicts a shortfall of more than $1 billion by the year 2015. On Thursday, Breitbart News reported the city’s payroll is more than $2.4 billion, with over 2400 city employees (not including school employees) making over $100,000 a year. The payroll is by far the highest expense for the city, yet in the Financial Forecast report, it is expected to increase by $100 million in 2014." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRahm’s Chicago: $1 Billion Financial Shortfall Forecast by 2015