kpete
kpete's JournalTelecom customers may sue government over wiretapping, court says
Telecom customers may sue government over wiretapping, court says
An appellate panel reinstates a lawsuit against the federal government over post-9/11 warrantless wiretapping and sends the case back to U.S. district court for trial.
Residential telephone customers can sue the government for allegedly eavesdropping on their private communications in a warrantless "dragnet of ordinary Americans," a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
Lawyers for customers of AT&T and other telecommunications providers hailed the ruling for allowing the courts to decide whether widespread warrantless wiretapping violated their constitutional rights.
"It's huge. It means six years after we started trying, the American people may get a judicial ruling on whether the massive spying done on them since 9/11 is legal or not," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was among those fighting for a day in court.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-telecom-court-20111230,0,4883137.story
An open letter to Newt Gingrich from the child of a janitor
An open letter to Newt Gingrich from the child of a janitor
.............
On more than one occasion my father, a janitor, had to take up a collection for a student to send home to their family, to help them buy a ticket if there was an emergency, or to subsidize the funeral expenses for one of his crew, or the part-timers, who didn’t have his years of seniority, and pay.
No child could do that job.
My father only wanted me to get a job where my hands would be clean, and I would not have to pick up other people’s messes. I have, fingers crossed, more or less gotten that far. It has taken some years, and a bit of growth. But now, I am finally proud to be the child of a janitor. Those millions of us who were taken care of, provided for, and raised by working class folks such as maids, home health care workers, and janitors, have much to hold our heads high about.
These people are the real “job creators” in this country: they pay bills, provide for their families, and donate to churches, mosques, synagogues, and charitable organizations.
Working class people like my father help to sustain communities and neighborhoods.
Whenever Newt Gingrich and his brand of 1% percent plutocrat conservatives besmirch the working people of this country, people like us and our kin, we need to speak up. There is no shame in our lineage. And all of us need to say thanks, to acknowledge those janitors, maintenance people, and the like who work in our schools, office buildings, apartment complexes, and take care of our aged and sick parents and relatives. They deserve our respect; unfortunately, they rarely receive it from the American people.
Once more, I am proud to be a child of the working class. Are you?
the rest:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/29/1049773/-Compassionate-conservatism-An-open-letter-to-Newt-Gingrich-from-the-child-of-a-janitor?via=siderec
Fox News Ratings Fall Off A Cliff In 2011
In another example of the declining fortunes of the right-wing extremism propagated by conservative media and displayed so prominently by the GOP family of clowns competing for the Republican nomination for president, Nielsen has reported that the ratings for Fox News have taken a steep dive in 2011.
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn-2011-a-year-of-big-news-events-drives-rebound_b104218
Of the three main cable news networks, Fox News is the only one that went down compared to their ratings in 2010. And a double-digit decline at that. FoxPods will, as usual, point out that Fox is still the top cable news network, but that is beside the point. Its audience is peeling away at a rapid rate and over time they will be unable to sustain their leading position. It is also important to put those numbers in context. While Fox is the #1 cable news network, they lag far behind the broadcast nets. In fact, the highest rated program on Fox (O'Reilly Factor) has about half the viewers of the lowest rated broadcast news program (CBS Evening news).
All three cable networks were impacted by extraordinary events that affected their ratings performance. CNN was helped by breaking news stories like the death of Osama Bin Laden and the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis. Because CNN has the best developed network of international bureaus, viewers frequently turn to CNN for major breaking news events.
MSNBC was hurt by the loss of Keith Olbermann and numerous schedule shakeups, but still managed to land in positive territory. Fox, of course, lost a notorious personality in Glenn Beck, but that likely kept Fox from declining even more than they did. Beck's ratings were in free fall and dropped 37% between January and his sign-off in June. His replacement, "The Five," has held pretty steady since its debut.
The fall of Fox News is striking evidence of the shift in the nation's attitudes toward the ultra-conservative philosophy advanced by Fox and their brazenly biased facilitators. For Fox to be alone in decline in a year that includes a Republican-only primary campaign is a devastating indictment of the network and the propaganda tactics they employ.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/29/1049781/-Fox-News-Ratings-Fall-Off-A-Cliff-In-2011?via=siderec
Iowa GOP moving vote-count to 'undisclosed location'
Iowa GOP moving vote-count to 'undisclosed location'
Comments (100) By JONATHAN MARTIN | 12/27/11 7:15 PM EST
Threats to disrupt the Iowa Republican caucuses next week have prompted state GOP officials to move the vote tabulation to an "undisclosed location," POLITICO has learned.
The state party has not yet told the campaigns exactly where the returns will be added up, only that it will be off-site from the Iowa GOP's Des Moines headquarters. The 2008 caucus results were tabulated at the state party offices, which sit just a few blocks from the state capitol.
Activist groups including the Occupy movement have indicated that they'll attempt to interrupt rallies in the closing days before next Tuesday's caucuses.
The AP reported today that Occupy is making plans to even attend some caucuses and vote "no preference," but not disturb the voting process.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2011/12/iowa-gop-moving-votecount-to-undisclosed-location-108812.html
US First Criminal Charges Prepared in BP Oil Spill
U.S. prosecutors are preparing what would be the first criminal charges against BP PLC employees stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, said people familiar with the matter.
Prosecutors are focused on several Houston-based engineers and at least one of their supervisors at the British oil company, though the breadth of the investigation isn't known. The prosecutors assert the employees may have provided false information to regulators about the risks associated with the Gulf of Mexico well while its drilling was in progress, these people said.
The felony charges-which might be disclosed early in 2012, if they are brought-could involve providing false information in federal documents, these people said. A conviction on such a charge carries a penalty of up to five years in prison as well as a fine.
The Department of Justice still could decide not to bring charges against the individuals, people familiar with the situation said. It's not unusual for prosecutors to use the threat of charges to pressure people to cooperate in investigations.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/28/first-criminal-charges-are-prepared-in-bp-oil-spill/?ref_dom=freerepublic.com&ref_url=/focus/f-news/2826311/posts
Tin Foil Hits Fan: Michele Bachmann claims Ron Paul bribed co-chair for endorsement
The tinfoil is coming out!
Bachmann on radio now claiming Kent Sorensen "said it was a great deal of money" Paul offered him to switch.
https://twitter.com/#!/daveweigel/status/152407631779209218
7:42 AM PT: And now another Bachmann adviser—Wes Enos, her Iowa political director—is defending Sorenson from Bachmann's allegations:
Wes Enos, Bachmann’s Iowa political director, released a statement Thursday defending Sorenson from Bachmann’s accusation that Paul offered him money to switch allegiances.
In a statement distributed by Sorenson, Enos stated “unequivocally” that Sorenson’s decision was “in no way financially motivated.”
“His decision had more to do with the fact that the Ron Paul supporters have been something of a family to him since he was first elected in 2008 and here in the end, as it becomes more and more apparent that the caucus cycle is coming to an end, Kent believed that he needed to be with them as they stand on the cusp of a potential caucus upset,” Enos said in the statement.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/29/1049667/-Michele-Bachmann-claims-Ron-Paul-bribed-co-chair-for-endorsement?via=blog_1
That's white Christian American oil right there.
“Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from a foreign source,” Mr. Perry said in Clarinda, earning a loud round of enthusiastic applause.Later, the audience reacted again to Mr. Perry’s assertion that buying so much energy from foreign countries is “not good policy, it’s not good politics and frankly it’s un-American.”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/what-moves-republican-crowds-in-iowa/?smid=tw-thecaucus&seid=auto
In Republican land, "foreign" doesn't mean what it does to you and me. It means "vaguely brown, Mooslim countries with names likes Ooz-beki-beki-beki-stan."
By Republican definitions, Canada isn't a foreign country. That's white Christian American oil right there.
Unless the subject is healthcare. Then Canada's as foreign as can be.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/definition-of-foreign-by-davidoatkins_29.html
Scott Walker Getting Nearly Half His Donations from Out-of-State While Decrying Out-of-State Money
Nearly half of the $5.1 million raised by the embattled Republican governor since July 1 came from outside of Wisconsin. In all of 2010, when Walker won a hotly contested election that included a primary, just 8 percent of the more than $8 million he raised came from out of state.
Out-of-state donors accounted for $2.4 million of the amount in Walker’s most recent report, or 47 percent of the total.
In all, Walker has raised $7.6 million in donations since he took office on Jan 3. Of these, $3.2 million, or about 42 percent, came from out of state.
“I’ve never seen any candidate — ever — get close to half their money from out of state,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan watchdog. “I used to always be stunned when I saw a candidate for state office with 10 percent coming from out of state.”
http://www.ashlandcurrent.com/article/11/12/24/walkers-out-state-supporters-opponents
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/29/1049450/-Scott-Walker-Getting-Nearly-Half-His-Donations-from-Out-of-State-While-Decrying-Out-of-State-Money?via=siderecent
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