Indian Diplomat Arrested, Strip Searched

[From article]
The row follows the arrest last week in New York of Devyani Khobragade, India’s deputy consul general in the city, who has been accused of visa fraud and of making false statements on an application for her housekeeper to work for her in the US.
Indian officials said she was arrested and handcuffed last Thursday as she dropped off her daughter at school, then strip-searched and kept in a cell with drug addicts before posting $250,000 bail.
[. . .]
A senior member of India’s main opposition party said India should arrest gay partners of US diplomats living in India.
[. . .]
He added: “Now, after the Supreme Court ruling, it is completely illegal in our country. Just as paying less wages was illegal in the US. So, why doesn’t the government of India go ahead and arrest all of them?”

The Indian Government could also argue selective enforcement of laws. Obama and Holder enforce laws capriciously and arbitrarily. Like Harvard University they promote laws as optional. Inconvenient laws may be ignored. These charges should be dismissed.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/indiaus-row-over-arrest-of-diplomat-devyani-khobragade-in-new-york-escalates-9011080.html

India-US row over escalates over arrest of diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York

ANDREW BUNCOMBE

Tuesday 17 December 2013

Dumbed Down Population Clueless

[From article]
Mark Twain and Will Rogers both examined and excoriated politicians of their day in some of the most amusing descriptions imaginable, to the point where their humorous characterizations of politicians have become trite but accurate to this day.
Our decades of cultural laughter over their famous words and routines has unfortunately helped to camouflage the growth and danger of a dominating political class in this nation. This domination, aided and abetted by print, network and movie media enablers, has duped the citizens of this country into thinking our government is the source and dispenser of citizen rights and authority.
Our Constitution has been shape-shifted into a small c word, by virtue of the arrogance of politicians and their powerful bureaucracies controlling an ever-meek citizenry dumbed-downed enough to not know they have the legal authority and control the politicians do not.

http://www.oregonmag.com/anarchy-or-not-for-christmas/

Anarchy (or not) for Christmas
By Art Hyland
December 16, 2013

Obama Stealing Phrases

[From article]
On the occasion of Nelson Mandela’s death, Obama declared in remarks from the White House: “He achieved more than could be expected of any man. Today he’s gone home. He no longer belongs to us. He belongs to the ages.”
Obama’s eloquence was uncharacteristic, but it was of course borrowed without attribution. He took for the occasion the words reportedly spoken by Secretary of War Stanton at the Petersen House on the death of Abraham Lincoln: “Now he belongs to the ages.”

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/12/borrowed-eloquence.php

POSTED ON DECEMBER 17, 2013

BY SCOTT JOHNSON

BORROWED ELOQUENCE

Journalists As Admired As Lawyers

[From article]
In the Gallup survey, TV reporters were barely more popular than advertising salespeople, state-level politicians, car salesmen, members of Congress, and lobbyists with just 20 percent of respondents saying they had a favorable opinion. They were tied with lawyers.
Print newspaper reporters fared slightly better at 21 points. The most respected professions overall were nurses, pharmacists, grade school teachers, medical doctors, and military officers.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sheffield/2013/12/17/journalists-place-near-bottom-poll-ranking-public-respect-profess#ixzz2nmWbXpMN

Journalists Place Near Bottom in Poll Ranking Public Respect for Professions
By Matthew Sheffield

December 17, 2013 | 15:12

EPA Employee Used Fake CIA Employment To Avoid Work While Getting Paid

[From article]
“With the help of his therapist,” wrote attorney John Kern, “Mr. Beale has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior.” Kern also said Beale was driven “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives … that are fueled by his insecurities.”

Here another example of using psychiatry to avoid accountability. At then same time government uses allegations of mental illness to deprive citizens of Second Amendment rights. If anyone with a nexus to psychiatry is arrested, police and prosecutors use the phrase, "a history of mental illness" to describe their suspects. Isn't psychiatry grand? It is the social sciences equivalent of baking soda. It is used for cleaning, for baking, for brushing teeth and to remove rust. The all purpose personal opinion discipline masquerading as science.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/16/21911592-climate-change-experts-fraud-was-crime-of-massive-proportion-say-feds?lite

Climate change expert's fraud was 'crime of massive proportion,' say feds
By Michael Isikoff
NBC News National Investigative Correspondent

Gun Laws Unenforced by Sheriffs in Colorado, Elsewhere

[From article]
Some sheriffs, like Sheriff Cooke, are refusing to enforce the laws, saying that they are too vague and violate Second Amendment rights. Many more say that enforcement will be “a very low priority,” as several sheriffs put it. All but seven of the 62 elected sheriffs in Colorado signed on in May to a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the statutes.
[. . .]
In New York State, where Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed one of the toughest gun law packages in the nation last January, two sheriffs have said publicly they would not enforce the laws — inaction that Mr. Cuomo said would set “a dangerous and frightening precedent.”

If Obama can enforce or not enforce sections of his signature health care law, why is it a problem for Sheriffs to decline to enforce laws they do not like? Law enforcement agencies have legal discretion about what laws to enforce. The president is obligated to enforce the laws by the Constitution. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/us/sheriffs-refuse-to-enforce-laws-on-gun-control.html?_r=0

Sheriffs Refuse to Enforce Laws on Gun Control
By ERICA GOODE
Published: December 15, 2013

Fraud Uncovered in Afghanistan. Surprise That Inspector General Keeps His Job

[From article]
the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan — the group in charge of training and developing the Afghan security forces — couldn't account for $230 million in spare parts it had ordered. Meanwhile, another $130 million parts were ordered without anyone knowing if the parts were on-hand or not. As it turns out, the Afghan National Army isn't keeping accurate records of which parts it has in stock, and because the spigot in Washington blasts money as though it were through a fire hose, whenever they need a new part, they just order it and send you the bill.
In a different release, the SIGAR reported that in at least one case, you were paying $500/gallon for diesel fuel. (The market price cap for diesel in Afghanistan is $5/gallon.) You might be surprised to learn that Sayed Bilal Sadath Construction Company, the contractor who received the $300,000 overpayment, hasn't sent it back. And why would they? They were paid $200,000 for thermostats only worth $2,000, and nobody complained.

http://theweek.com/article/index/253258/how-one-inspector-general-is-fighting-fraud-and-waste-in-afghanistan

How one inspector general is fighting fraud and waste in Afghanistan
John Sopko has done his job so well it's hard to believe he's been allowed to keep it
By D.B. Grady

November 22, 2013

FBI Enables Dirty Work of NSA

[From article]
When the media and members of Congress say the NSA spies on Americans, what they really mean is that the FBI helps the NSA do it, providing a technical and legal infrastructure that permits the NSA, which by law collects foreign intelligence, to operate on U.S. soil. It's the FBI, a domestic U.S. law enforcement agency, that collects digital information from at least nine American technology companies as part of the NSA's Prism system. It was the FBI that petitioned the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to order Verizon Business Network Services, one of the United States' biggest telecom carriers for corporations, to hand over the call records of millions of its customers to the NSA.
[. . .]
One former law enforcement official said the DITU helped build the FBI's Magic Lantern keystroke logging system, a device that could be implanted on a computer and clandestinely record what its user typed. The system was devised to spy on criminals who had encrypted their communications. It was part of a broader surveillance program known as Cyber Knight.
[. . .]
But having the DITU act as a conduit provides a useful public relations benefit: Technology companies can claim -- correctly -- that they do not provide any information about their customers directly to the NSA, because they give it to the DITU, which in turn passes it to the NSA.
But in the government's response to the controversy that has erupted over government surveillance programs, FBI officials have been conspicuously absent. Robert Mueller, who stepped down as the FBI's director in September, testified before Congress about disclosed surveillance only twice, and that was in June, before many of the NSA documents that Snowden leaked had been revealed in the media. On Nov. 14, James Comey gave his first congressional testimony as the FBI's new director, and he was not asked about the FBI's involvement in surveillance operations that have been attributed to the NSA. Attorney General Eric Holder has made few public comments about surveillance.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/11/21/the_obscure_fbi_team_that_does_the_nsa_dirty_work

Meet the Spies Doing the NSA's Dirty Work
This obscure FBI unit does the domestic surveillance that no other intelligence agency can touch.
BY SHANE HARRIS

NOVEMBER 21, 2013

College Professor Charged With Homicide Of Man Accused of Raping His Girfriend

[From article]
Prosecutors are calling the murder of Gonzalo Ramirez a 'revenge killing.'
They allege that on 15 April, 1995, a 20-year-old Esparza was at a bar with a group of friends, including former boyfriend Gianni Van, when she pointed out Ramirez, claiming he had raped her in her dorm room at Pomona College a few months earlier.
According to the prosecution, Esparza, Van, Kody Tran, Diane Tran and Shannon Gries followed Ramirez when he left the bar in the early hours of the following morning.
They intentionally rear-ended his vehicle, say prosecutors, forcing him to get out of the car to inspect the damage.
He was then kidnapped. His body was found on the side of Sand Canyon Road in Santa Ana hours later.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2511834/Professor-Norma-Patricia-Esparza-charged-alleged-rapists-killing-taken-custody.html

Professor charged over 1995 murder of the man who raped her at college after her ex-boyfriend 'stabbed him to death in revenge attack'
Norma Patricia Esparza, 39, has been taken into custody for the murder of Gonzalo Ramirez in 1995
She was offered a plea deal but rejected it, saying it would be 'a lie'
She says Ramirez raped her
Esparza's then ex-boyfriend Gianni Van and others murdered Ramirez in revenge
Ramirez was found on the side of an Orange County road hacked to death with a meat cleaver
Esparza says she was later pressured to marry Van so that she would not have to testify against him
Police reopened the case after the pair divorced and arrested Esparza when she returned to the U.S. for a conference
Esparza is a psychology professor in Geneva, Switzerland
By ALEX GREIG
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 09:15 EST, 22 November 2013 | UPDATED: 13:02 EST, 22 November 2013

Obama Continues Promoting Racist School Policies

[From article]
“What this means is that whites and Asians will get suspended for things that blacks don’t get suspended for,” because school officials will try to level punishments despite groups’ different infraction rates, predicted Hans Bader, a counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Bader is a former official in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, and has sued and represented school districts and colleges in civil-rights cases.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/27/obama-backs-race-based-school-discipline-policies/

Obama backs race-based school discipline policies
1:18 AM 07/27/2012

Senate Rules Changes Won't Prevent Delays

[From article]
Senate rules provide other ways beyond the now-curtailed filibuster to obstruct nominees. Hearings can be boycotted. Routine procedural approvals can be withheld. New Capitol Hill ambushes can be plotted, perhaps with tactics not yet seen. For a truly motivated minority, losing one weapon means it’s time to pick up another.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/22/209495/new-senate-rules-wont-cure-all.html

New Senate rules won’t cure all the delay and disharmony
BY MICHAEL DOYLE
McClatchy Washington Bureau

November 22, 2013

Obama Lies Because He Knows He Can Fool People

[From article]
But there’s a deeper reason he and his people lied: They did it because they could. They did it because nearly five years in the White House had given Obama and his team confidence they would not face the music and they could finesse the problems until they got fixed.

The list of scandals is not all inclusive. Pigford, e.g., is omitted.

http://nypost.com/2013/11/23/why-obama-cant-wave-away-this-scandal/

Why Obama can’t wave away this scandal
By John Podhoretz
November 23, 2013 | 9:30am
New York Post

Man Pretending to Be Policeman, Kidnapped, Raped Woman

[From article]
The suspect asked the woman to get out of her vehicle, handcuffed her, and put her in the back of his car, where the assault took place,
[. . .]
He was wearing a dark blue long-sleeved uniform with no patches, a gold star-shaped badge, a gold name tag with numbers on it, a police belt with a baton and handcuffs, and sunglasses. The victim did not see a handgun or radio on the belt and did not remember any lights on the exterior of the suspect's vehicle, which had vinyl seats but did not have a prisoner cage.
[. . .]
Police have asked the public to be on the lookout for the vehicle and if you believe you are being pulled over by someone who may not be a police officer, call 911 and drive to a well-lit location before stopping.

http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/Man-pretending-to-be-cop-sexually-assaults-woman-on-I-35E-233100101.html

Man pretending to be cop sexually assaults woman on I-35E
WFAA
Posted on November 22, 2013 at 7:58 PM
Updated yesterday at 12:31 AM

One Person Can Thwart Integrity of Entire Criminal Justice System

She was faking drug tests. That is how one person thwarted all legal protections of a state's criminal justice drug testing laboratory. Here's my question. How many other parts of a local, state or U.S. government have similar negligent or criminal employees with degrees and who are paid six figure salaries who also do not do their job? How many police officers or court officers or lawyers write fantasy reports which remain in computer systems forever? How many EPA officials, inspectional services officers, city clerks, etc?

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/11/annie_dookhan_s_guilty_plea_puts_focus_on_system

Annie Dookhan’s guilty plea puts focus on system
Saturday, November 23, 2013
By: O’Ryan Johnson
Boston Herald

Blaming Mental Illness As Irrational As Blaming Guns For Violence

If mental illness causes crime and violence it is an easy matter to incarcerate all persons accused of mental illness. There is no causal connection between violence/crime and mental illness. It is an irrational belief promoted by the psychiatric industry and the human services industrial complex (MA State Rep. Marie Parente's term). Conflating mental illness with crime makes it easy to isolate individuals and to discredit them. It is also good for business. Psychiatry was used extensively by Stalin and Hitler to silence critics and to incarcerate them. In Cambridge persons who disagree with liberals are declared mentally ill. Psychiatry is a media creation promoted for 75 years as a business wasting taxpayer money. It is a means of social control with no due process protections. But since laws are optional in Massachusetts what difference does that make? 

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/11/6/got-it-wrong-shootings/

They’ve Got It All Wrong
By DECLAN P. GARVEY
November 6, 2013
Harvard Crimson

Lincoln Not Opposed to Secession By Southern States

[From article]
Maryland Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel said, "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty." The northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace. Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. New York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861."

http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2002/03/27/the_real_lincoln

The Real Lincoln
Walter E. Williams

Mar 27, 2002
TownHall.com

School Official Charged In Ohio Rape

[From article]
An Ohio school superintendent, two coaches and a principal were charged by a grand jury that investigated whether other laws were broken in the rape of a drunken 16-year-old girl by two football players, the state's attorney general said Monday.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/25/school-superintendent-among-4-charged-in-inquiry-ohio-teen-rape-case/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

School superintendent among 4 charged in inquiry of Ohio teen rape case
Published November 25, 2013
Associated Press

How NYC Buries Its Poor

[From article]
In the last few years the old cemetery filled up, so the burials moved to Hart Island's south side. In 2010, there were 695 adults and 504 babies buried there. Four days a week, prisoners from Riker's Island lay plain pine boxes into two mass graves. In the adult grave, coffins are stacked three high. It will be filled with between 150 and 165 bodies (depending on the number of extra-wide coffins), plus separate coffins for body parts, and covered with 36 inches of dirt. The other grave, for fetuses and stillborn babies, will be loaded with 1,000 miniature coffins buried five deep. Both trenches are already open, dug by a yellow Caterpillar backhoe.
[. . .]
In 2011 she [Melinda Hunt] founded the Hart Island Project, a charity that helps families around the world search for relatives who went missing in New York, and who may be buried in the potter's field.

http://theweek.com/article/index/253289/the-invisible-island-where-new-york-buries-its-poor-and-unidentified

The invisible island where New York buries its poor and unidentified
Nearly one million people are buried in mass graves off of the Bronx. But the city prefers you know nothing about it.
By Christopher Maag, Narratively
November 24, 2013

Thefts From Non Profits Go Unpunished

[From article]

“A lot of organizations that have these problems shy away from prosecuting, because they don’t want the publicity and they don’t want donors to shy away from them,” said Chicago lawyer and charity consultant Jack B. Siegel. “Organizations look for every way possible to minimize the disclosure. It’s in no one’s interest at the charity to make it public.”
Charity fraud specialist Gary Snyder called public disclosure essential. “If people are allowed to walk away, they will just go somewhere else,” he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/nonprofit-groups-often-seek-restitution-not-prosecution-when-money-goes-missing/2013/11/23/d7b7ba18-51f8-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html

Nonprofit groups often seek restitution, not prosecution, when money goes missing
By Joe Stephens and Mary Pat Flaherty
Published: November 23, 2013

U.S. Rep. Rangel Urges Obama To Drop Charade of Democracy

[From article]
Charlie Rangel told NY1 that “President Obama should drop the charade of democracy and rule directly through executive orders.”

http://allenbwest.com/2013/11/charlie-rangel-drop-charade-democracy/

Charlie Rangel: “Drop the charade of democracy”
Written by Allen West
November 25, 2013