Land Of The Flea

Ohio Attorney General rejects ballot measure to legalize marijuana

"A ballot measure that would legalize marijuana in Ohio was rejected on Monday by the state’s attorney general, who said the petition was not ' fair and truthful.' The group Responsible Ohioans for Cannabis collected enough signatures to submit the ballot measure to Ohio Attorney General Mike Dewine’s office for approval. The ballot measure would have allowed voters in Ohio to approve or reject the End Ohio Cannabis Prohibition Act in the next election." Continue reading →

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Every Important Person In Bitcoin Just Got Subpoenaed By New York

"Declaring Bitcoin 'a virtual Wild West for narcotraffickers and other criminals,' the New York State Department of Financial Services is stepping into the sheriff’s boots. 'We believe that – for a number of reasons – putting in place appropriate regulatory safeguards for virtual currencies will be beneficial to the long-term strength of the virtual currency industry,' said NYSDFS superintendent Benjamin Lawsky in a statement. They sent letters to the major Bitcoin players asking them to hand over information regarding their money laundering controls, consumer protection practices, source of funding, pitch books, and investment strategies." Continue reading →

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New York’s Crony Motivated Swipe Against the Sharing Economy

"Nigel Warren, an East Village resident, was fined $2,400 for running an illegal hotel because he rented his bedroom out to a visitor for three days. He wasn’t operating a sleazy flophouse, and the entire transaction was markedly casual, but he was prosecuted nonetheless. Warren’s offending transaction took place through Airbnb, an online hostelling website. Airbnb works on a peer-to-peer structure, connecting people with extra space to people who can’t (or don’t want to) shell out for a regular hotel. One can’t help but suspect big hotel powers might be lurking behind a law that forbids short stays anywhere but in hotels." Continue reading →

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U.S. Expats Balk at Tax Law, Reconsider Citizenship

"Withers, in Hong Kong, says that many of its clients are giving up their green cards and U.S. citizenship after filing their taxes, deeming the tax liability to be too onerous. Among them are American expatriates who see their Singaporean and Hong Kong peers paying a far-lower income tax and aren't subject to capital-gains taxes, Mr. Krause said. The foreign grantor trust is becoming a favored method for passing on wealth, said Mr. Krause of Withers. Such trusts are 'highly advantageous' to families living abroad, he said." Continue reading →

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The Missiles That Brought Down TWA Flight 800

"If the U.S. public began to raise a fuss about U.S. missile strikes that blow up large numbers of civilians at wedding parties abroad, it’s not beyond the realm of the imaginable that the U.S. government would begin blaming the explosions on faulty candles in the wedding cakes. A similarly implausible excuse was used to explain the 1996 explosion of TWA flight 800 off Long Island, New York, and the U.S. public has thus far either swallowed the story whole or ignored the matter. If you watch Kristina Borjesson’s new film, TWA Flight 800, you’ll see a highly persuasive case that this passenger jet full of passengers was brought down by missiles, killing all on board." Continue reading →

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Not Speedy + Not Public = Not Legal

"Colonel Denise Lind, 'judge' of the court martial of PFC Bradley Manning, infamously and illegally ruled that the US government could proceed with its show trial despite the fact that it had held Manning for more than four times the absolute legal maximum time prior to arraigning him. Then she infamously and illegally ruled that the government could change the charges and introduce new witnesses after both prosecution and defense had rested. Now, she has infamously and illegally overruled the defense’s objections to the use of illegal secret testimony against Manning. Question: If Manning isn’t allowed to violate the law, why is Lind?" Continue reading →

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CIA stops denials and admits it had file on Noam Chomsky

"After issuing years of denials, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has revealed that it kept a file on MIT professor Noam Chomsky dating back to his days as an anti-war activist in the 1970s. According to John Hudson of Foreign Policy magazine’s The Cable blog, a public records request by FOIA attorney Ken McClanahan turned up a memo referring to the file, leading to the realization that a file must have existed although it had since been purged from the record. By whom, when and at whose orders the file was destroyed is still a mystery. Chomsky told the Cable that he isn’t surprised by the revelations." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCIA stops denials and admits it had file on Noam Chomsky

CIA Director John Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings Next Target

"A University professor told San Diego 6 News that calculating the speed of Hastings car follows a simple mathematic equation. By using the video and the distance traveled (195 feet) as well as the seconds that lapsed prior to the explosion – the car was traveling roughly 35 mph. That revelation is important because Jose, an employee of ALSCO a nearby business, and a witness to the accident told KTLA/Loud Labs (Scott Lane) the car was traveling at a high rate of speed and he saw sparks coming from the car and saw it explode BEFORE hitting the tree." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCIA Director John Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings Next Target

How Edward Snowden and others can avoid $450 U.S. citizenship renunciation fee

"Snowden would only have to demonstrate with a preponderance of evidence that he has committed an act of treason. Sufficient bi-partisan accusations from notable political figures have accused him of treason that he should be able to make such a claim. The downside would of course be that an attempt to relinquish in this manner would be tantamount to a confession to the alleged crime. I wrote a blog post in February, 2011, explaining that those who relinquish citizenship should be able to avoid the new $450 renunciation fee that the State Department had begun to assess to renunciants by making a claim to have already relinquished their US citizenship." Continue reading →

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Stormy Weather in U.S. Cloud Computing

"A report from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) estimated that if U.S. cloud providers were to lose 10-20% of foreign business, it would cost them anywhere from $21.5-35 billion over the next three years. But their losses present a big opportunity for European and Asian companies to pick up the slack from the growing global cloud market. A market that’s forecast to be worth $148.8 billion in 2014… $160 billion in 2015… and $207 billion in 2016. Artmotion, Switzerland’s largest offshore hosting company, has already scooped up a big portion of the leftovers. Since the Snowden leaks, its revenue has bounced 45% higher." Continue reading →

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