Land Of The Flea

US blows out $16.7 trillion debt limit

"The US Treasury has already exceeded the federal legal borrowing limit of $16.7 trillion in May. That signals the main structural problems remain unresolved putting at risk the fragile recovery. The country’s outstanding public debt is already $38.82 million above the statuary debt ceiling and now at $16,738,220,000,000.00, according to Treasury data. In the debt ceiling debate two years ago, lawmakers and the White House battled for months before Obama signed an increase into law on Aug. 2, 2011, the day the Treasury Department warned that US borrowing authority would expire, Reuters reports." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUS blows out $16.7 trillion debt limit

Obama, Republicans gear up for bruising U.S. budget fight

"Another dramatic showdown between Republicans and the White House over federal spending looks inevitable this fall, with scary talk of government shutdowns and default on government debt. While Capitol Hill analysts are not predicting catastrophe, they have several reasons to worry that the conflict just weeks away could be even worse than usual. Obama and Congress face two fiscal deadlines in quick succession. They must agree by October 1 on a stop-gap measure to keep the government funded or face a shutdown. And in early November, Congress must raise the legal limit on the country's borrowing authority or risk an unprecedented default." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama, Republicans gear up for bruising U.S. budget fight

A New Batch of One-Liners Provides more Evidence of Jay Leno’s Inner Libertarianism

"I’ve already speculated that Jay Leno is a closet libertarian. If nothing else, the latest batch of jokes, courtesy of News-max, shows that he’s willing to go after Obama. Which is more than can be said for some of his competitors. As you can imagine, the joke about Obamacare and the deficit resonated with me. And the joke about taxing marijuana reminds me of what I wrote about the downside to legalization." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingA New Batch of One-Liners Provides more Evidence of Jay Leno’s Inner Libertarianism

Jay Leno’s at the Top of his Game, so Why Is NBC Replacing Him?

"The irony is that Leno has never been more dominant: the Nielsen ratings for the second week in July have him beating CBS’s David Letterman by a 43 percent margin in the all-important 'viewers 18 to 49' category (on which advertising rates are set) and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel by 75 percent. So why sack him now? 'I don’t get it,' says Ohlmeyer, who as president of NBC’s West Coast operations in the mid-1990s helped guide Leno to victory over Letterman. 'It’s like nobody understands history. Here they take him off the air four years ago, and naturally he loses his impetus, and now he’s come back, and he’s kicking ass again—so let’s take him off.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJay Leno’s at the Top of his Game, so Why Is NBC Replacing Him?

In Utah, it’s your marijuana prescription or your concealed gun

"Utah, complying with the federal Gun Control Act, denies or revokes concealed-carry firearms permits for anyone with a prescription for marijuana. While Utah doesn’t allow marijuana to treat ailments, eight of the 31 states that recognize Utah’s concealed firearms permit do. BCI does not keep records of how many applicants or holders are denied for medical marijuana. BCI, in its regular report on concealed-carry permit violations, lumps those cases into a category labeled 'controlled substance.' Utahns with a prescription for opiates, such as Oxycodone, are not barred from a concealed firearm permit unless they are suspected of abusing the drugs." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIn Utah, it’s your marijuana prescription or your concealed gun

Obama Change.gov Promises Disappear from Web

"It may be that Obama's description of the importance of whistleblowers went from being an artifact of his campaign to a political liability. It wouldn't be the first time administration positions disappear from the internet when they become inconvenient descriptions of their assurances. Obama's vision for lobbying transparency has similarly been discarded along the way, but the timing here suggests that the heat on Obama's whistleblower prosecutions has led the administration to unceremoniously remove their previous positions." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama Change.gov Promises Disappear from Web

Pentagon to deploy huge blimps over Washington, DC for 360-degree surveillance

"A pair of high-tech Army blimps is coming to the greater Washington, DC area, and soon they will be able to provide the military with surveillance powers that spans hundreds of millions of acres from North Carolina to Niagara Falls, Canada. The airships are part of Raytheon’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, and when all is said and done they’ll offer the United States military what the defense contractor calls 'an affordable elevated, persistent over-the-horizon sensor system' that relies on 'a powerful integrated radar system to detect, track and target a variety of threats.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPentagon to deploy huge blimps over Washington, DC for 360-degree surveillance

Snowden Gets Whistleblower Award in Germany

"Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has become the winner of this year’s Whistleblower Award established by German human rights organizations, the German branch of Transparency International said in a statement. The award, established in 1999, is sponsored by the Association of German Scientists (VDW) and the German branch of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA). A VDW spokesperson told RIA Novosti on Monday that the award money, amounting to 3,000 euros, would be passed to Snowden through his representatives – either a lawyer or a 'friendly' organization." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSnowden Gets Whistleblower Award in Germany

Senator Wyden Warns Against the Surveillance State

"There are only two limitations to the growth of the surveillance state: practical and economic. From a practical standpoint, just who is going to sort through the nearly immeasurably large amount of data being collected? At present, as smart as computers are, and as sophisticated as the software that drives them is, it ultimately is going to take a human being to find the dangerous needle in thousands of haystacks. The manpower required to do that is incomprehensibly large and infinitely costly. The second limitation is economic: at some point deficits will become so large that funding them through debt will no longer be an option." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSenator Wyden Warns Against the Surveillance State