NSA Paid Millions to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft for Surveillance

Breitbart reported: Top-secret documents obtained by The Guardian reveal the National Security Agency (NSA) paid millions of dollars to Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft to cover costs associated with the agency’s PRISM surveillance program.

The revelation is the the first evidence of a financial relationship between the government and Silicon Valley, the newspaper claims.

The government is required to cover compliance costs. Critics say Silicon Valley and the federal government’s increasing coziness creates opportunities for collusion and costly cronyism at the expense of taxpayers.

“The line you have to watch for… is the difference between reimbursement for complying with a lawful order and actually a profit-making enterprise that would incentivize the companies to support government surveillance,” American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel Michelle Richardson told The Hill.

The Washington Post revealed last week that the NSA violated privacy rules thousands of times by vacuuming up thousands of Americans’ emails, despite promises from President Barack Obama that innocent Americans were not being surveilled.

According to The Telegraph, NSA employees have also used their surveillance powers to spy on lovers and romantic interests. NSA workers even have a code name for the practice–“Love-int”–to denote eavesdropping on lovers or love interests.

In June, Obama promised Americans that “When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls… and with respect to the Internet and emails, this does not apply to U.S. citizens, and it does not apply to people living in the United States.”

Obama’s critics say the revelations further undermine the president’s promises that his would be “the most transparent Administration.”

Montana Judge Defends Decision to Send Dead Teen’s Rapist to Jail for 31 Days: ‘It Wasn’t This Forcible Beat-Up Rape’

Yesterday, CA ran an article of the 14-year old that was raped by a teacher in Montana, that outraged almost every human being in the country… well, except maybe the judge that tried the case.  This decision is inexcusable and indefensible.

The Blaze reported: BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A Montana judge on Wednesday stood by his decision to send a former teacher to prison for 30 days for raping a 14-year-old girl who later killed herself, but said he “deserved to be chastised” for his comments about the young victim.

District Judge G. Todd Baugh sentenced former Billings Senior High School teacher Stacey Rambold to 15 years, then suspended all but 31 days and gave him credit for one day already served.

“Obviously, a 14-year-old can’t consent. I think that people have in mind that this was some violent, forcible, horrible rape,” Baugh told the Billings Gazette. “It was horrible enough as it is just given her age, but it wasn’t this forcible beat-up rape.”

In handing down the sentence Monday, Baugh said the teenage victim was “older than her chronological age” and had as much control of the situation as the teacher who raped her.

Faced with a backlash over the comments and calls for his resignation, Baugh, 71, wrote an apology in a letter to the editor of The Billings Gazette. He said his comments were demeaning of all women and not reflective of his beliefs.

Later Wednesday, the judge spoke to reporters in his office. He said he was “fumbling around” in court trying to explain his sentence and “made some really stupid remarks.”

“I don’t know how to pass that off. I’m saying I’m sorry and it’s not who I am,” Baugh said. “I deserve to be chastised. I apologize for that.”

However, Rambold’s sentence was appropriate, he said.

Rambold was charged in October 2008 with three counts of sexual intercourse without consent after authorities alleged he had an ongoing sexual relationship with Cherice Moralez, starting the previous year when she was 14. Moralez killed herself in 2010 at age 16 while the case was pending, and the girl’s mother, Auleia Hanlon, said her daughter’s relationship with Rambold was a “major factor.”

Hanlon said in a statement to the Gazette that she no longer believes in justice after Baugh’s sentence and remarks about her daughter.

“She wasn’t even old enough to get a driver’s license. But Judge Baugh, who never met our daughter, justified the paltry sentence saying she was older than her chronological age,” Hanlon said. “I guess somehow it makes a rape more acceptable if you blame the victim, even if she was only 14.”

Under state law, children younger than 16 cannot consent to sexual intercourse.

Yellowstone County officials previously agreed to defer Rambold’s prosecution for three years and dismiss the charges if he completed a sexual offender treatment program. The case was revived in December after prosecutors learned Rambold, 54, was kicked out of the program for having unsupervised visits with minors who were family members and not telling counselors he was having a sexual relationship with a woman.

Defense attorney Jay Lansing said Rambold has continued his treatment with a different program and an evaluation found him at low risk to re-offend. Prosecutors had recommended a 10-year prison term.

“My thought was, given the relatively minor violations in the sex offender treatment program, it didn’t seem appropriate to put him in jail, put him in prison” for a longer time, Baugh said. “It didn’t seem to me that the violations were such that the state should be able to back out of their agreement.”

A protest scheduled for Thursday outside Yellowstone County Courthouse will go on despite Baugh’s apology, said organizer Sheena Rice.

“I’m glad he apologized, but he should have known better as a judge,” Rice said. “The fact that he said it makes me think he still believes it.”

A petition will be circulated at the protest calling for Baugh’s resignation. An online version of the petition had more than 17,500 signatures by late Wednesday afternoon.

If the petition and protest aren’t enough to force Baugh’s resignation, protesters will shift to defeating him in the 2014 election, Rice said.

Baugh was first elected to the bench in 1984 and has been re-elected every six years since then without an opponent.

He said he has no plans to resign and he has not decided whether to run again in 2014.

Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito previously said he disagreed with the judge’s ruling but would not appeal it.

“The judge’s reasons are his reasons and his reasons alone. He has broad authority under state law,” Twito said Tuesday.

On Wednesday, he told the Gazette his office was reviewing the sentence to make sure it conforms to the facts of the case and the law.

Twito also said he has consulted with the appellate division of the Attorney General’s Office about the case.

Glenn Beck: Syria is About Destroying Sovereignty, ‘Remember the Guy Who Cut His Enemy’s Heart Out and Ate It? We’re On His Side Now’

Glenn Beck examines the ramifications of attacking Syria.  This my conservative friends, is for real.  We are about to be swept under the globalism bus, and unfortunately, there’s not much we can about this one.

The Blaze reported: Many have been alarmed by the rapid escalation in Syria this week after years of horrific violence.  With the reported use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, U.S. officials say America could begin missile strikes within the week.

But why now? What exactly do we hope to achieve?

Glenn Beck tackled the issue on his television program Wednesday evening, arguing that the focus of the administration may not be on the war itself — but on the subsequent layout of the world.

“This administration knows that we are on the brink of World War III. The global economy is fragile, global stability is weak, the west is on the edge, it’s only a matter of time before it crumbles,” he said. “Iran will eventually lose any remaining restraint and go after Israel, Syria starts spilling across the border…  When it all falls apart and the west is so weakened, who puts it all back together again?”

“War is — after a long period of just running things into the ground — war makes the people of the world forget what the world was like before the war,” Beck continued.  “Beyond that, history shows us that war also changes all the players.  It changes borders, it changes everything…”

He speculated that after a period of violence, we will “gather at the U.N. because we have to stop an international crisis, and everything is teetering on the edge, and people will cry out, ‘stop the madness!’ And so we do, the international way.”

If we’re not listening to China now, Beck said he guarantees we’ll listen to them at the bargaining table, and we’ll concede.  If they say, for instance, we’ll forgive your debts if you just sign the U.N. Arms Treaty, we will.

“This is about destroying sovereignty,” Beck asserted.  “The United Nations will, in the end, broker the deal, making them the new superpower and making us just one of the guys.  That’s what everybody wants, for the United States just to be average, just like everybody else…”

Considering alternate explanations, Beck said he can think of “a million reasons” why we shouldn’t intervene, “and not one why we should.”

Intervention, he said, will further destabilize Syria, further destabilize the region, and will likely impact our gas prices and the stock market.

If we are intervening purely for humanitarian purposes, why didn’t we intervene sooner?  Why don’t we intervene in other cases of mass slaughter?  And if the tipping point is truly chemical weapons, Beck asked if you trust the intelligence community more or less than the last time they claimed there were weapons of mass destruction?

Remember the guy who cut his enemy’s heart out and ate it, Beck added?  “We’re on his side now.”

The list goes on, Beck said, including the financial cost of the endeavor and the possibility of dragging us into another war we don’t have the energy or resources for.

“Syria is not about teaching Assad a lesson.  Two days of bombing probably won’t even seem out of place in Syria today, unfortunately,” he concluded.  “Syria is not a response to the shock and horror of murder — hundreds of thousands have died… Syria is this  — it is a sick opportunity for the globalist progressive revolutionaries in our own administration and all around the globe to remold the world closer to their heart’s desire.”

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Ft. Hood: Military Panel Unanimously Sentences Hasan to Death for Fort Hood Attack

Breitbart reported: A U.S. military panel sentenced Major Nidal Hasan to death after only two hours of deliberation. It was a unanimous decision.

Hasan was found guilty on all charges of murder and attempted murder in his trial for the shooting of 13 people, including an unborn child, on November 5, 2009 at the Fort Hood military base. Over 30 people were injured.

The prosecution rested on Wednesday after two weeks of presenting evidence. They suffered a slight setback earlier in the case when Judge Col. Tara Osborn threw out evidence that would prove Hasan’s motive, which matched Hasan’s defense and showed he believed he had a “jihad duty” to murder his fellow soldiers. Despite the setback, the prosecution called over 80 witnesses and presented hundreds of pieces of evidence. They gave their closing arguments last Thursday.

Hasan represented himself, but Osborn threw out his original defense. Hasan wanted to tell the jury he murdered the soldiers to prevent them from murdering al-Qaeda and Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan. Hasan remained quiet when the prosecution presented their case over the past two weeks. He only spoke up to challenge the definition of jihad and cross-examine Staff Sgt. Juan Alvarado. Hasan declined to give a closing argument.

The panel listened to survivors and victims’ families talk about their lives after the attack on Monday and Tuesday. The father of Francheska Valez, who was pregnant at the time, said Hasan killed him as well as his daughter and grandson. Hasan did not present any witnesses on his behalf and did not speak. He only said, “The defense rests.”

The families of the victims and survivors have sued the federal government and Pentagon officials because they believe the attack could have been prevented. They did not approve of Osborn dismissing evidence, which included emails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki. The New York Times received two emails from Hasan, sent prior to the attack, and provided more evidence the Army could have prevented the attack; Mother Jones also revealed evidence suggesting the FBI knew the risk Hasan presented. One victim challenged President Obama to call Fort Hood a terrorist attack.

Glenn Beck Shocking Video: This Is Who We Are Helping In Syria! SHARE WITH EVERYONE!

WARNING: Parts of this video are very graphic.

This is a few weeks old now, but nevertheless a timely video since we are about to start World War III.

Folks, this is what these savages are taught from birth. And they have infiltrated our own government, with the help of our Jellyfish lawmakers and our illegal, Muslim commander-in-chief.

Obama Claims New Health Care Law Will Be ‘Cheaper’ For Some Than a Cell Phone Bill

TheBlaze reported: President Barack Obama in a radio interview Tuesday morning boasted that the cost of enrolling in the Affordable Care Act will, “for a lot of people,” be “cheaper” than a cell phone bill.

“We were just talking with some folks earlier about the fact that, for a lot of people, it will be cheaper than your cell phone bill,” the president said during an interview on the Tom Joyner Morning Show.

He continued, explaining that it’s important everyone sign up for the new health care law:

The president was asked at one point by the show’s hosts what he thinks civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. would have said about Obamacare.

“Oh he’d like that,” the president said. “Well, because he understood that health care, health security is not a privilege, it’s something in a county as wealthy as ours, everybody should have access to.”

Kathleen Sebelius Ties MLK’s March to Obamacare

TheBlaze reported: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sought to tie the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with President Barack Obama’s health care law using the White House website on Monday.

King, who led the March on Washington 50 years ago, used the phrase “fierce urgency of now” when talking about the civil rights struggle. Sebelius said the term applies to the implementation of Obamacare, as the new health exchanges with government-approved insurance plans prepare to open on Oct. 1.

“A half century later, Dr. King’s words have renewed meaning,” Sebelius said in a White House blog post.

“Without the opportunity to live a healthy life, there is no opportunity to live the American dream or participate fully in our communities,” Sebelius added later. “Without the freedom which comes from having access to quality health care, there is no freedom to reach our full potential in the workforce or watch our kids or grandkids grow up. Without the security of health insurance, there is no economic security for middle-class families, and so many other families working their way into the middle class.”

Sebelius then quoted a speech from King to the Medical Committee for Human Rights, when he said, “Of all forms of injustice, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”

The secretary went on to write about her father Jack Gilligan, a Democratic politician who represented Ohio in the House of Representatives before he was elected governor of the state, and his votes for both civil rights and Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s.

“My dad strongly supported the Voting Rights Act, and he helped write the Medicare and Medicaid laws,” Sebelius said. “He saw all these struggles as connected to the broader goal of a more perfect union.”

She continued, “Today, this legacy continues. The Affordable Care Act is the most powerful law for reducing health disparities since Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965.”

White House: Syria Response ‘Not About Regime Change’

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Breitbart reported: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Tuesday that the response to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons was focused on that singular event and not meant to alter the power structure of the country.

Obama, Hillary, Reid, Pelosi: President May Not Attack Without Congressional Authorization, Except When It’s Obama

Breitbart reported: Back in 2007 Democrats were very certain about one thing. A President needs congressional authorization to authorize military force against a nation in the Middle East. Here’s Sen. Hillary Clinton saying “President Bush must not be allowed to act without the authority and oversight of Congress.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the National Press Club in January 2007, “The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization.”
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Nancy Pelosi, his counterpart in the House, was equally certain that President Bush needed congressional authorization to attack.

And of course we’ve already seen that Sen. Biden threatened to help impeach Bush if he dared to act without congressional approval.

And via Andrew Kaczynski, President Obama gave a response to a Q&A with the Boston Globe in Dec. 2007 in which he said “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

Obama also gave a speech in Clinton, Iowa in Sep. 2007 in which CNN headlined“Obama to Bush: Don’t Invade Iran.” Here again Obama tells the President he does not have congressional authorization to attack.

Where are all of these Democrats on the President’s pending decision to attack Syria?

 

ObamaCare: A Boon To Insiders-Turned-Lobbyists

Breitbart reported: Obamacare is bagging Washington lobbyists big bucks as corporate clients line up to hire K Street lobbying firms made up of former government officials with high-powered connections.

“After passage of major legislation, those who have networks on Capitol Hill take exceedingly lucrative jobs with the same industries subject to the legislation,” Public Citizen lobbyist Craig Holman told The Hill. “It raises questions about the [bill’s] integrity.”

Former lawmakers and White House officials have signed on with lucrative lobbying firms who benefit from Obamacare’s complexity and long implementation timeline.

Over 30 former staffers, members of Congress, and White House officials with Obamacare experience are now working on K Street, reports The Hill.

A few of those cashing in on “Boomtown’s” revolving door are:

• Former Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND), who served on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee where he oversaw healthcare and tax policies, signed up with Alston & Bird in 2011
• Yvette Fontenot, former legislative adviser to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), who joined Avenue Solutions, a four-woman Democratic lobbying firm that bags nearly $3 million a year
• Dora Hughes, former senior counsel to Obama Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who signed up last year with Sidley Austin law firm to provide “strategic policy advice”
• Chris Jennings, formerly of the Clinton Administration, was picked up by the Obama White House last month to help with Obamacare implementation

McCormick Group headhunter Ivan Adler says Obamacare’s high stakes and complicated provisions have been a boon to Washington insiders.

“Healthcare lobbying on K Street is as strong as it ever was, and it’s due to the fact that the Affordable Care Act seems to be ever-changing,” said Adler.

He added: “When [Vice President] Biden leaned over [during healthcare signing] and said to [President] Obama, ‘This is a big f__ing deal,’ he was right.”