Land Of The Flea

Who voted for the Reed Amendment in 1995 and 1996?

"The Reed Amendment — which bans people determined by the Attorney-General to have 'renounced citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxation' — was an amendment to the Immigration in the National Interest Act of 1995. I was aware in a general sense that Republicans had taken back the House and the Senate in 1994, but I’d never really put two and two together until reading this list: Republicans formed a majority among the supporters of the Reed Amendment. Indeed, every single one of the Republican freshmen on the committee who joined the House as a result of the 1994 'Revolution' voted for Reed’s amendment." Continue reading →

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What the Libertarian Candidate for NYC Comptroller Would Like to Ask Eliot Spitzer

"'I'll ask his position on prostitution. And if he thinks johns should be arrested and charged just like madams and prostitutes. If he thought it was fair that he was never charged as a john under his new felony law but that I spent four months in Rikers Island from which I returned penniless, homeless, and forced to take sex offender classes for five months with pedophiles and perverts while he returned to his wife in his 5th Ave. high rise without ever being fingerprinted, mug shot, remanded, or charged with a crime under the very law he signed.' 'But my guess is that he will use his vast money he used to pay high-priced prostitutes to try to knock me off the ballot.'" Continue reading →

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Private paramilitaries guard Wisconsin mining site from protesters

The company brought in the paramilitary forces after being confronted by a group of about 15 protesters in June. At least one of the demonstrators, a young woman, was hit with misdemeanor charges for trying to take a camera away from one of the company’s geologists. Gogebic claims they’ve since caught several people illegally camping on their property and did not want to take any chances. The company hired by Gogebic is Arizona-based Bulletproof Securities, which boasts that many of their employees are ex-military. A spokesperson for Gogebic told The Cap Times on Tuesday that they’re considering restricting their drilling sites from public access." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPrivate paramilitaries guard Wisconsin mining site from protesters

Over 700 arrested so far in North Carolina ‘Moral Monday’ protests

"Demonstrators rallied outside the Legislative Building in the first 'Moral Monday' protest since the state Senate approved an unexpected bill last week increasing restrictions on abortion providers. Janet Colm, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, was among 64 protesters who were arrested when the demonstration moved inside the building. Over the past two months, more than 700 people have been arrested in the weekly protests against the actions of the Republican-led General Assembly. In anticipation for Monday evening's arrests, the Wake County Magistrate's Office more than doubled its staff to help handle the influx of arrests." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingOver 700 arrested so far in North Carolina ‘Moral Monday’ protests

Federal judge orders Secret Service to release files on Internet activist Aaron Swartz

"U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued her ruling in response to a lawsuit filed by Wired reporter Kevin Poulsen, who is investigating the reasons for the heavy-handed prosecution that spurred Swartz to commit suicide. Swartz, who helped create the first RSS protocol at age 14 and co-founded the popular websites Reddit and Demand Progress, was charged in 2011 of stealing data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after he accessed a secure database of academic papers. Prosecutors threatened him with up to 30 years in prison, and Swartz committed suicide by hanging in January, at just 26 years old." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFederal judge orders Secret Service to release files on Internet activist Aaron Swartz

Police videos draw disparate opinions in Oklahoma

"A court ruled in May that a dash-cam video made by Claremore police of a DUI arrest in 2011 contains facts concerning the arrest and is public under the state Open Records Act. The city of Claremore has petitioned the Oklahoma Supreme Court, asking it to review the decision. 'I'm not trying to be coy or provide a lack of transparency,' Claremore Police Chief Stan Brown said in a telephone interview. 'I base my administration on my mission statement, which includes accountability. I want us to be accountable. But I'm not just accountable to the people that request the information. I'm accountable to the people that I'm supposed to be protecting, too.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPolice videos draw disparate opinions in Oklahoma

Violence Rages in Baltimore Despite Governor O’Malley’s New Gun Control Laws

"It is important to note that before O'Malley signed new gun control laws in May, Maryland already had some of the strictest gun laws in the country and also some of the worst violence in its big cities. Baltimore was bad and now, it's getting worse. New laws require that anyone who wants to buy a firearm must be finger printed. Maryland turned law abiding citizens who simply want to exercise their Second Amendment rights, into crime suspects before they had done anything wrong. But guess what? That didn't work to reduce crime, either." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingViolence Rages in Baltimore Despite Governor O’Malley’s New Gun Control Laws

Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Not Talk to the Police

"REASON #1: Talking to the police CANNOT help you. If the police are talking to you, it’s because they suspect you have committed a crime. If they have detained you, it’s because they already have enough evidence to arrest you and they want to see if you will admit it and thus, give them an even stronger case against you. If they have evidence to arrest you for a crime, they will. If they don’t, they won’t. It’s as simple as that. Talking to them or not talking to them won’t make a difference! No one has ever 'talked his way out of' an arrest. If the police have enough evidence to arrest, they will." Continue reading →

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Obama (Scut Farkus), Europe (Grover Dill), and Snowden (Ralphie)

"It is obvious that nobody in the highest levels of government thought through the implications of the bonehead decision of the advisor who decided that the government was going to get Edward Snowden off that plane. It never occurred to him that Snowden was not on the plane. It never occurred to him that toadies in Western Europe would resent the fact that they were exposed as toadies. Finally, he never figured out that this would enable two near-communists and the anti-American President of the number-four oil-exporting nation to the United States the opportunity to offer asylum to Snowden, when they had not had the courage to do this prior." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama (Scut Farkus), Europe (Grover Dill), and Snowden (Ralphie)

Bill Bonner: A New American Century?

"Let's talk about heroes. For thousands of years, people have sat around campfires and told the stories of their heroes. Leonidas at Thermopylae... Horatius at the bridge... Stout Cortez on a hill in Darien. But a real hero gets little notice, few poems and no statues. If he is lucky, someone lights a candle in his memory and he feels the brush of angel wings on his face. Real heroes do not don their armor to protect the realm; instead, they take up pens to criticize it. They are not defenders of the law, but lawbreakers and iconoclasts. They are not True Believers, but heretics, dissidents and corruptors of the youth. Like Sophocles. And Edward Snowden." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBill Bonner: A New American Century?