Numerous nations around the world are pitching in to help earthquake-stricken Haiti, in the face of its worst natural disaster in 200 years. 100,000 are presumed dead, while countless others are injured. My condolences to the family and friends of the deceased.
U.S. President Barack Obama (right)
The wild and reckless spending spree the U.S. government embarked on is not adding up, as the unemployment rate is still skyrocketing and recent reports indicate America is in danger of an additional recession, while the current recession-turned-depression is still going on.
Too much wasteful spending and not enough taxation is a significant part of the problem. If wealthy Americans do not chip in more tax-wise, things will collapse to greater degrees. Spending is still quite unruly as well, with squandered opportunities to create lasting employment hampering national progress.
U.S. Chamber warns of 'double-dip' recession because of Dem policies
01/12/10 09:44 AM ET - U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue warned the U.S. faces a double-dip recession because of the taxes and regulations under consideration by the Democratic Congress and President Barack Obama.
“Congress, the administration and states must recognize that our weak economy simply could not sustain all the new taxes, regulations and mandates now under consideration. It’s a sure-fire recipe for a double-dip recession, or worse,” Donohue said in a speech providing the Chamber's outlook for 2010...
America slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels
December was the worst month for US unemployment since the Great Recession began.
Published: 6:35PM GMT 10 Jan 2010 - History repeating itself? President Obama has been accused by some economists of making the same mistakes policymakers in the US made in the Great Depression, which followed the Wall Street crash of 1929.
The labour force contracted by 661,000. This did not show up in the headline jobless rate because so many Americans dropped out of the system. The broad U6 category of unemployment rose to 17.3pc. That is the one that matters...
Realtytrac says defaults and repossessions have been running at over 300,000 a month since February. One million American families lost their homes in the fourth quarter. Moody's Economy.com expects another 2.4m homes to go this year. Taken together, this looks awfully like Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath...
U.S. President Barack Obama
U.S. President Barack Obama's approval ratings have hit a new low, with more people than ever disapproving of his job performance. What happens to Presidents that some of them get into office and stop listening to the people. Obama is doing the exact opposite of what the People have asked. It's very disappointing.
Poll: Obama’s Ratings on Health Care, Economy Drop Lower
January 12, 2010, 1:50 pm - Fewer Americans now approve of the way that President Barack Obama is handling the economy and health care, pushing his overall job rating below the crucial 50 percent mark, according to the latest CBS News poll.
The poll finds 46 percent approve of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, while 41 percent disapprove. His approval rating is down from 50 percent in a New York Times/CBS News poll last month, and 56 percent from October, to its lowest level in Times or CBS News polls to date...
U.S. President Barack Obama
In a move that is causing international conflict, the U.S. government is arming the island of Taiwan for a possible military showdown with global titan, China. Here's hoping all military action will be avoided.
Article Source: US to provide arms to help Taiwan fend off possible China attack
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller
The FBI recently posted a long-winded, rambling press release to its website, attempting to defend its many failures. None of the excuses for their preventable failures cut it.
For the life of me, I can't understand why anyone would want to join the FBI after all that's been revealed about them. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has such a dirty legacy, from killing Martin Luther King Jr., via a police officer commissioned to murder the famed civil rights leader in cold blood, to modern day atrocities, like stonewalling investigations into suspected terrorists that went on to viciously murder 3,000 people on September 11th. The constant theme regarding the FBI's fatal failures is - "They had the intel, but didn't connect the dots."
Then, there's the 13 preventable murders that occurred at Fort Hood and the many other incidents of impropriety and ignorance that cost innocent people their lives or health. What's there to be proud of.
What's worse is there is so much more they are hiding from the public, regarding the atrocities they've committed, that make no mistake, will become public knowledge. I had never seen such evil in all my life, until I started covering the FBI for the Judiciary Report and the Sound Off Column.
I can only imagine this must have been what the Jews felt like when the SS was going full speed with their madness, doing any treachery that came to their warped minds, without any real government accountability. Let's face it - the FBI has participated in renditions, abusive interrogations, invasiveness and threats, sometimes aimed at innocent people, in conduct that crossed the line into unlawfulness.
But even the SS faced their day of reckoning and were disbanded - so will the FBI. It's only a matter of time. So, you can continue with the corruption (sarcasm)...you will live in infamy forever for it.
Op-Ed on FBI’s Post-9/11 Counterterrorism Efforts
January 12, 2010 - The following op-ed, published on January 11, 2010 in The New York Post, was written by former FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom. Kallstrom, who is currently a member of the FBI Director’s Advisory Group, was also director of the New York Homeland Security Agency.
Ever since 9/11, critics have suggested that the FBI isn't up to its task as our nation's lead counterterrorism agency.
Yet, as the nation focused on the failures of the intelligence community in the Christmas Day bombing attempt over Detroit, last Friday saw two more arrests in the ongoing FBI investigation of a plot to bomb New York City first exposed by the September arrest of Najibullah Zazi.
It's easy to stand on the periphery, without the benefit of real-world experience, and render judgments with the benefit of hindsight. But counterterrorism cases are extremely complex and often require a relatively quick series of judgments, often with incomplete information. Counterterror investigations and intelligence gathering aren't black and white, simple, or easy.
America went on a war footing against terrorism only after 9/11. Before then, our government viewed international terrorism strictly as a law-enforcement matter, giving the FBI the responsibility to address it. In that period, the FBI had significant accomplishments, including the apprehension of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers within six days; preventing attacks on New York's most important landmarks with the arrest and conviction of the "Blind Sheik;" sending agents in 1998 to East Africa, where they quickly solved the two US embassy bombing cases without the assets normally available to investigators in America; and, in 2000, dispatching agents after the USS Cole bombing to Yemen, where they determined that al Qaeda terrorists had carried out the bombing. During this period, the Justice Department severely and unnecessarily restricted the FBI's ability to share intelligence information, and Congress acted haltingly to properly resource, fund and provide the legal framework for the FBI's counterterrorism program, including new technology required to defend the nation.
Post-9/11, as al Qaeda and other Muslim extremist groups have demonstrated their obsession with radicalizing U.S. Muslims, the FBI has disrupted a number of plots.
While some claim that collecting and analyzing intelligence is a new phenomenon in the FBI culture, in fact, the FBI's intelligence and counterintelligence mission began before World War II and predates the creation of the fabled OSS and the CIA. Indeed, the FBI has long honed the skills and techniques necessary for success in protecting against international terrorism—using informants, undercover operations, and court-ordered electronic surveillance. Historically, the FBI has collected and analyzed information, whether the threat was the Soviet Union, domestic terrorist groups like the Klu Klux Klan, or organized crime.
Yet such critics as Gabriel Schoenfeld (in his Dec. 4 Post op-ed, "The FBI Bungles on Terror Again") assert, "It's high time to look at creating a new and separate domestic counterterrorism…agency along the lines of Great Britain's MI5."
In evaluating this naive and discredited suggestion, we need to consider the following:
* Americans have rejected the notion of a national police force for over 200 years. The FBI was not established as a law-enforcement agency until 1933, precisely because the republic wanted to limit the authority of those whom protect our civil liberties.
* The FBI is designed to be as transparent as possible for the purpose of protecting the nation, as well as the rights and liberties enshrined in the Constitution. The oversight provided by Congress, the courts, and others have ensured the FBI did not evolve into a secret police force operating in the "Perpetual Black."
*While England's MI-5 might be viewed as a panacea, it needs to be examined in light of the long, painful history of its operations in Northern Ireland. Moreover, MI-5 didn't protect England from the London Subway bombings and other acts of terrorism.
*It would be difficult, if not impossible, for a myriad of state, local, and federal law-enforcement officials to have effective liaison with a secret domestic police operation.
*A painful lesson learned from 9/11 is that the bifurcation of our intelligence and law-enforcement competencies leads to "stove piping" of information—a formula for disaster. Creating a separate secret-police organization would revive that failed model—weakening and balkanizing the law-enforcement and intelligence communities, rather than creating a united, seamless effort.
*While many terrorism and legal experts have weighed in, the most qualified critics are the Brits themselves. If fact, many senior British law-enforcement officials criticize the MI-5 model and prefer the FBI's dual criminal and intelligence/terrorism roles.
This isn't to say the FBI can't do a better job integrating these disciplines and more broadly coordinating within the larger intelligence and law enforcement communities. Yet the fact these structures don't always perform seamlessly doesn't suggest the current process is dysfunctional.
Having devoted a considerable amount of my life in the "arena," I am confident the dedicated men and women of the FBI will continue to perform at a very high professional level to protect this great nation, while adhering to constitutional principles and the rule of law.
Mark McGuire has now done the right thing by telling the truth
The corrupt FBI knew Mark McGuire was taking steroids, which is unlawful, but hid what they discovered. By law, McGuire should have been prosecuted, but once again, the FBI illustrated to the nation and the world, there is a corrupt, appalling double standard, a two tiered justice system that exempts the rich and famous from legal accountability.
It's the same double standard that allowed criminals such as Bernard Madoff and R. Allen Stanford, among others, to flourish whilst engaging in serious criminal wrong doing defrauding others. The only problem with doing that is it can wreck economies. No one respects such deceit, hypocrisy and treachery. The FBI needs to be shutdown.
FBI knew of McGwire's steroid use
Updated: January 11, 2010, 10:17 PM ET - Greg Stejskal didn't need Mark McGwire coming clean Monday about his nearly decade-long steroid usage to know the real story. Stejskal, a retired FBI agent, uncovered the details of McGwire's doping regimen from informants almost two decades ago and, in retrospect, Big Mac is fortunate he wasn't nabbed back then in the federal investigation.
Stejskal, who helped lead the first major federal investigation into illegal steroid distribution called Operation Equine, confirmed that McGwire and his then-Oakland A's teammate, Jose Canseco, were among those identified as steroid users during the probe. The investigation ran from 1989-1993 and led to more than 70 steroid-related convictions, though authorities targeted only suppliers and not users like pumped-up ballplayers.
Federal authorities never considered bringing charges against McGwire, though Stejskal laments that nabbing a big-name athlete might have brought earlier focus to the issue of illegal steroids...
NBA mistress, Vanessa Lopez, has sued basketball player, Shaquille O'Neal, for harassment and hacking. The 20 page lawsuit filed by famous attorney, Gloria Allred, accuses O'Neal of orchestrating a campaign of harassment against Lopez, when she thought she was pregnant with his child.
She alleges O'Neal arranged for her cell phone to be hacked and spoofed. She also states in her lawsuit, the basketball player arranged for his sisters to call and threaten her, not to tell his wife, Shaunie O'Neal, about his infidelity. That is contradictory, as Lopez claims O'Neal told her he has an open marriage. Therefore, why would his wife be angry at finding out about a mistress. That doesn't make any sense.
Shaquille O'Neal
If he did indeed have her phone hacked and spoofed that would be unlawful. She should release proof of those allegations.
What concerns me is Lopez's credibility issue, as she has had sexual affairs and legal run-ins with four NBA basketball players she slept with during the same, general time period. Each affair ending in police involvement. There are women who've had sexual relationships with more than one athlete and it didn't require police involvement. So, what happened here?
Vanessa Lopez
Lopez was even accused of taking basketball player Kenyon Martin's credit card after a one night stand and charging almost $7,000 in clothes to it from Candy Couture, without his permission, in the manner of a gold digger. Wow, she didn't shop at K-Mart. Get the joke? Kenyon Martin's nickname is K-Mart. So who's Wal-Mart, then? And is there a Target in the NBA too?
The Judiciary Report is interested in reading O'Neal's legal response to these allegations.