"Ben Swann takes a look at the more than 30 petitions on the White House blog We The People asking that their state be allowed to peacefully secede from the United States." Continue reading →
"The territory question had two parts. The first part asked voters if they favored their current status as a U.S. territory. About 54 percent of voters said no. From there, everyone could answer a second question that gave three options: statehood, sovereign free association or independence. Sovereign free association is not the same as the current status. Only about 1.3 million voters answered the second question. Of those, 61 percent chose statehood, 33 percent chose the semi-autonomous choice and 6 percent chose independence. Nearly 500,000 people left the question blank. The population of Puerto Rico is nearly 4 million people." Continue reading →
"Paul's comments resurfaced as a petition for Texas secession on the White House's website received over 81,000 signatures, far surpassing the threshold for the Obama administration to respond. Petitions for other states, including Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, have racked upwards of 20,000 supporters. Texas Governor Rick Perry, whose 2009 comment on secession was the impetus for Paul's video, clarified Tuesday that he does not stand behind the petition." Continue reading →
"Government surveillance of their citizens’ online lives is rising sharply around the world, according to Google’s latest report. The US accounted for the most requests, as it has consistently since the report was launched. US authorities asked for private details of Google users on 7,969 occasions, up from 6,321 in the last reporting period. The number is more than a third of the 20,938 requests for users’ details worldwide. Google fully or partially complied with 90% of those requests. Over the six months, Google was asked to remove seven YouTube videos criticising local and state agencies, police and other public officials." Continue reading →
"To justify the additional payment method, the company noted that PayPal alone blocks access from over 60 countries, and many credit card companies have similar restrictions, for political reasons, financial reasons, and/or due to higher fraud rates. If you’re already using Bitcoin, Automattic says you’ll find this payment method even easier than paying by credit card. You’ll see the amount due in BTC and the address of a wallet created just for your transaction. As soon as the company receives notification of the transaction, your purchase is complete." Continue reading →
"Rhode Island Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence, said Thursday that the passage of legalization referendums in the two Western states are the latest indication that American attitudes toward marijuana are softening. She said the regulated sale of marijuana would eliminate the black market while raising an estimated $10 million in revenue for government coffers. Maine Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, said she also will propose legislation to legalize marijuana in her state, and estimated that sales taxes on its purchase there would raise $8 million." Continue reading →
"The latest secession petition phenomenon sure has a lot of people talking about secession, which shows that the idea of it remains an important part of the American political consciousness. But, in response, most of the comments coming from political hacks display a deep, deep ignorance of the history of secession and the Constitutional realities behind it. In response, I thought I'd list some retorts to the basic myths which most of the anti-secession screeds are intent on perpetuating." Continue reading →
"According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the group — Reps. Chris Kapenga (R), Don Pridemore (R), Erik Severson (R), Tom Larson (R) Rog Hutton (R), and Mark Born (R) and Sen. Mary Lazich (R) — stated their intentions as part of a questionnaire handed to state assembly candidates by the right-wing group Campaign for Liberty. House Republicans at the federal level have passed a horde of bills calling for it to be repealed, but more recently, House speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) suggested those efforts would cease following Obama’s re-election." Continue reading →
"Most of you have probably heard of the different State petitions on the White House website to secede from the United States. I wanted to remind you that Allegiance to the United States is one of the 13 adjudicative guidelines that DISCO uses to grant you access to classified/sensitive information. A personnel security investigation (security clearance investigation) is an inquiry into an individual’s loyalty, character, trustworthiness, and reliability to ensure that he or she is eligible to access classified information or occupy a position of trust." Continue reading →
"The FOIA was filed in response to an article that appeared in The Washington Post this week, claiming that Obama issued a secret directive shortly before the elections that empowers the military to 'vet any operations outside government and defense networks' for cyber security purposes. However, because the exact text of the directive remains a secret, nobody can really say exactly what it does. That was somewhat disconcerting to American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel Michelle Richardson, who told Raw Story on Wednesday that without the text, 'it’s hard to see what they mean.'" Continue reading →