In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are - The Washington Post

In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are - The Washington Post:
"Many other files, described as useless by the analysts but nonetheless retained, have a startlingly intimate, even voyeuristic quality. They tell stories of love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes. The daily lives of more than 10,000 account holders who were not targeted are catalogued and recorded nevertheless."

Millions of tax dollars in 'sordid' bonuses paid to top Veterans Affairs administrators despite phony wait lists, patient deaths

Millions of tax dollars in 'sordid' bonuses paid to top Veterans Affairs administrators despite phony wait lists, patient deaths | WashingtonExaminer.com:
"Hefty performance bonuses were paid last year to 64 Department of Veterans Affairs medical directors who oversaw hospitals, including some where patient wait lists were falsified and preventable patient deaths occurred, according to data obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Also collecting a merit bonus of $12,579 last year was John Pierce, the head of the agency's medical inspection unit, who retired this month after being slammed by the independent Office of Special Counsel for downplaying whistleblower complaints about inadequate patient care.
Almost 300 top managers, members of the Senior Executive Service, collected merit bonuses totaling more than $2.7 million last year, according to the database obtained through the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs."

History for July 9

History for July 9 - On-This-Day.com

Highest tsunami (1,700 feet) in recorded history on this date in 1958 at Lituya Bay, AK.

Happy Birthday! Lindsey Graham, Tom Hanks, Kelly McGillis, Fred Savage, O.J. Simpson, Jimmy Smits

1808 - The leather-splitting machine was patented by Samuel Parker. 


1847 - A 10-hour work day was established for workers in the state of New Hampshire. 


1868 - The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 


1872 - The doughnut cutter was patented by John F. Blondel. 


1877 - Alexander Graham Bell, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Thomas Sanders and Thomas Watson formed the Bell Telephone Company. 


1878 - The corncob pipe was patented by Henry Tibbe. 


1893 - Anniversary of the first open-heart surgery.


1900 - The Commonwealth of Australia was established by an act of the British Parliament, uniting the separate colonies under a federal government.
 

1922 - Johnny Weissmuller became the first person to swim the 100 meters freestyle in less than a minute. 


1951 - U.S. President Truman asked Congress to formally end the state of war between the United States and Germany. 


2005 - Danny Way, a daredevil skateboarder, rolled down a large ramp and jumped across the Great Wall of China. He was the first person to clear the wall without motorized aid.

King of Propaganda: Obama Attacks Supreme Court Decision with Lies

King of Propaganda: Obama Attacks Supreme Court Decision with Lies:
"Case in point is the Supreme Court decision in regards to the Hobby Lobby case. Although Hobby Lobby pays for 16 out of the 20 forms of birth control mandated as part of Obamacare by the Obama regime after Obamacare was passed, they refused to pay for 4 forms that actually abort the fetus, i.e. kills the baby.
Barack Obama and the Left have attempted to spin this as an employer attempting to dictate to a woman matters concerning her sexual life and a denial of access. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth."

Report: Costco Is Removing Conservative Author’s Bestselling Book From Its Stores Nationwide | TheBlaze.com

Report: Costco Is Removing Conservative Author’s Bestselling Book From Its Stores Nationwide | TheBlaze.com:
“It is the Progressive view that is taught in our schools, that is preached by Hollywood, and that shapes the policies of the Obama administration. If America is a force for inequality and injustice in the world, its power deserves to be diminished; if traditional America is based on oppression and theft, then traditional America must be reformed—and the federal government can do the reforming,” the book’s description reads."

Obama HHS Dumped 1,300 New Pages of Regulations in Advance of Independence Day Holiday

Obama HHS Dumped 1,300 New Pages of Regulations in Advance of Independence Day Holiday: "As most citizens and reporters were preparing to celebrate America’s Independence Day, the 4th of July, the Obama bureaucrats were busy inflicting 1,296 pages of new health care regulations on an already highly over-regulated industry.  At 4:15 PM on July 3, when many were checking out for the three-day weekend, the Obama HHS delivered a massive stack of new regulations."

Dictatorship In America May Not Be Far Off After What Obama Just Did

Dictatorship In America May Not Be Far Off After What Obama Just Did:
"Citing a Congress that has stubbornly refused to submit to his will, Barack Obama Monday announced his plan to yet again use executive power to implement his preferred immigration policies.
“I take executive action only when we have a serious problem,” he alleged, “a serious issue, and Congress chooses to do nothing.”
He went on to complain that “the failure of House Republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security, it’s bad for our economy, and it’s bad for our future.”

What could possibly go wrong?-------Self-serve beer stations make debut

Self-serve beer stations make debut | abc7.com:
"Self-serve beer stations are up and running in Target Field, so Minnesota Twins fans and those who attend the Major League Baseball All-Star festivities next week can decide what they want and even how much they want of it.
The machines, called DraftServ, are a partnership between concessionaire Delaware North and Anheuser-Busch.
"It's a way to engage with the customer and allows the fan to have greater control of what they're drinking," said Jerry Jacobs Jr., principal of Delaware North, whose Sportservice controls the concessions at 10 baseball stadiums, seven arenas that host NBA and NHL fans and seven NFL stadiums.
.....The machine allows a customer to use the card to pour up to 48 ounces of beer every 15 minutes."

Fighting pot with water

Fighting pot with water: Column:
"When voters in Washington state and Colorado legalized possession and sale of recreational marijuana in 2012, federal officials were not happy.
They will be less happy Tuesday when pot officially goes on sale in Washington.
Though the Obama administration has pledged to respect state laws, it is quietly going in the opposite direction by cutting off water to the growers. 
The idea seems to be that if the administration cannot dry up the public support for legalization, it will just dry up the plants themselves.

....The use of water as a weapon is not new in the West, where "water wars" were once common among ranches and even states.
The federal government began in 1902 to take control over such waters with programs to build dams and waterways.
What began as a few dozen projects grew into a massive system, in which the federal government controlled a significant portion of the water in 17 states with the construction of more than 600 dams and reservoirs.
It is now the nation's largest water wholesale operation, supplying to more than 31 million people and one out of five farmers in the West.
It is not just water.
The government's 53 power plants annually provide more than 40 billion kilowatt hours that support millions of homes.

BBC Told to Cut Back and Not Give ‘Undue Attention’ to Climate Skeptic Perspective | TheBlaze.com

BBC Told to Cut Back and Not Give ‘Undue Attention’ to Climate Skeptic Perspective | TheBlaze.com:
"In response to at least one complaint, the Independent reported that Fraser Steel, the BBC’s head of editorial complaints, said ”minority opinions and skeptical views should not be treated as if it were on an equal footing with the scientific consensus.”

Obama 'would welcome’ visit with Perry to talk about the border

Obama 'would welcome’ visit with Perry to talk about the border | www.statesman.com:
"Gov. Rick Perry Monday turned down what he characterized as President Barack Obama’s offer for a “quick handshake on the Tarmac” when the president arrives in Austin on Wednesday.
But Perry said he would juggle his schedule to accommodate a “substantive meeting” with Obama on border security any time during his two-day visit to Texas.
Late Monday, Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Obama, replied to Perry affirmatively, saying, “The president would welcome a meeting with you while he is in Texas.”
In the two-page letter obtained first by the American-Statesman, Jarrett also invited Perry to join faith leaders and local elected officials for a round table discussion on the border that has been added to the president’s schedule while he is in Dallas on Wednesday.
It wasn’t immediately clear how Perry would respond.
The president is spending two days in Texas, raising money for national Democratic coffers in Dallas on Wednesday and in Austin on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. 
His only public event in Austin will be a discussion of the economy at the Paramount Theater on Congress Avenue on mid-day Thursday.
There was no plan to visit the southern border while in Texas, but the newly-added Dallas round table means that he will be addressing the issue of illegal immigration head-on while in the state."

This Day in History: Sliced Bread Made its Debut. Americans Loved It! The Government Banned It.

This Day in History: Sliced Bread Made its Debut. Americans Loved It! The Government Banned It. - Hit & Run : Reason.com:
"On this day 86 years ago, the best thing since—well, since ever—hit store shelves: sliced bread.
.....Announcing: The Greatest Forward Step in the Baking Industry Since Bread was Wrapped—Sliced Kleen Maid Bread.
The ad slogan is possibly where the phrase "best thing since sliced bread" originated.

......Then, on January 18, 1943, the modern marvel disappeared from store shelves.
The reason?
Government officials had initiated the first-ever war on carbs—a ban on pre-sliced bread, deemed necessary to help conserve resources for World War II."

Government screws up marijuana stores. Who'd of thunk?-----Pot shortages could be dire at Washington's stores

Pot shortages could be dire at Washington's stores - Yahoo News:

SEATTLE (AP) — Randy Oliver has a pressing question as legal marijuana sales are about to begin in Washington state:
Where's all the weed?
Oliver is the chief scientist at Analytical 360 in Yakima, the only lab that has been certified to test the heavily taxed marijuana that will wind up on store shelves next month.
.....The state's Liquor Control Board has been warning of shortages when the first stores open.
The board plans to issue the first 15 to 20 retail licenses July 7, with shops allowed to open the next day if they're ready.
It's not clear how many that will be.
Board staff said at a meeting last week that only one store in Seattle is ready for its final inspection.

Bled dry by the New Class

Bled dry by the New Class: Column:
"Life is hard.
It's harder still when an entire class of people with their hands out stands between you and success.

...Dissident Soviet-era thinker Milovan Djilas coined the term "the New Class" to describe the people who actually ran the Soviet Union:
....Not workers or capitalists or proletarians, but managers, bureaucrats, technocrats, and assorted hangers-on. 
This group, Djilas wrote, had assumed the power that mattered in the "workers' paradise," and transformed itself into a new kind of aristocracy, even while pretending, ever less convincingly, to do so in the name of the workers.
Capitalists own capital, workers own their labor, but what the New Class owned was political control over other people's capital and labor.


...Here in the United States, a lot of programs officially aimed at the poor look suspiciously like subsidies to the New Class, too.
Among "means-tested" programs, Food Stamps, now officially called SNAP, cover about 46 million people up to 125% of the poverty line (set at about $16,000 for a single mother and child).
Other programs, such as the Earned Income Tax credit, cover people at slightly higher incomes, up to 200% of the poverty line.
When federal spending on the dozens of programs are added up and state and local contributions included, the budget for assistance is about $1 trillion.

If we simply handed those people, perhaps 60 million of them, their share of the cash, that would be more than $16,500 each. 
A single mom and her baby would get over $33,000, twice as much as a poverty wage.
A family of four would land more than $66,000, $15,000 more than the average family income.

So where's the money going? 
To people who aren't poor, such as doctors paid through Medicaid or landlords paid through Section 8. And to tens of thousands of members of the New Class, people like social workers, administrators and lawyers who run more than 120 different means tested federal programs.

It's not just poverty spending, of course.
Higher education spending goes more and more to administrators, not to faculties, and, for that matter, NASA seems more interested in feeding its bureaucracy than in going to Mars, or even back to the Moon.
Read it all

Muzzled Media: Reporters at Immigrant Shelter Told No Recording, No Pictures, No Questions | TheBlaze.com

Muzzled Media: Reporters at Immigrant Shelter Told No Recording, No Pictures, No Questions | TheBlaze.com:
"The Department of Health and Human Services has told reporters they can tour a shelter for unaccompanied immigrant children, but can’t use any recording devices, can’t take pictures, and can’t ask any questions of children or staff."

Is this what we want from our leaders?-------Appeals court rules immigrant 'dreamers' can get driver's licenses

Appeals court rules immigrant 'dreamers' can get driver's licenses - Washington Times:

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that young adult illegal immigrants whom President Obama has given tentative permission to be in the country — so-called “dreamers” — are also entitled to driver’s licenses and ordered Arizona to issue them.

The ruling comes while the government is debating policy about a new wave of illegal immigrant children who are surging across the border in Texas, overwhelming federal authorities’ ability to handle them.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer blasted the court’s ruling, saying it could end up meaning her state would have to grant driver’s licenses to some of those in the latest wave of illegal immigrants if Mr. Obama finds ways to avoid deporting them too.

Ooops! Data from government agency shows US cooling trend

Blog: Ooops! Data from government agency shows US cooling trend:
"Because the network, known as the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN), is so uniformly and pristinely situated, the temperature data require no adjustments to provide an accurate nationwide temperature record. USCRN began compiling temperature data in January 2005.
Now, nearly a decade later, NOAA has finally made the USCRN temperature readings available.
According to the USCRN temperature readings, U.S. temperatures are not rising at all – at least not since the network became operational 10 years ago. 
Instead, the United States has cooled by approximately 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is more than half of the claimed global warming of the twentieth century.
The decline in the US matches what we know about the temperature stagnation occurring all over the planet for the last 17 years:
Second, for those who may point out U.S. temperatures do not equate to global temperatures, the USCRN data are entirely consistent with – and indeed lend additional evidentiary support for – the global warming stagnation of the past 17-plus years.
While objective temperature data show there has been no global warming since sometime last century, the USCRN data confirm this ongoing stagnation in the United States, also."

"The US Economy's Phantom Jobs Gains Are A Fraud"

Paul Craig Roberts: "The US Economy's Phantom Jobs Gains Are A Fraud" | Zero Hedge:

Washington can’t stop lying. 

Don’t be convinced by last Thursday’s job report that it is your fault if you don’t have a job. Those 288,000 jobs and 6.1% unemployment rate are more fiction than reality.

In his analysis of the June Labor Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, John Williams (www.ShadowStats.com) wrote that the 288,000 June jobs and 6.1% unemployment rate are “far removed from common experience and underlying reality.” Payrolls were overstated by “massive, hidden shifts in seasonal adjustments,” and the Birth-Death model added the usual phantom jobs.

Williams reports that “the seasonal factors are changed each and every month as part of the concurrent seasonal-adjustment process, which is tantamount to a fraud,” as the changes in the seasonal factors can inflate the jobs number. While the headline numbers always are on a new basis, the prior reporting is not revised so as to be consistent.

The monthly unemployment rates are not comparable, so one doesn’t know whether the official U.3 rate (the headline rate that the financial press reports) went up or down. Moreover, the rate does not count discouraged workers who, unable to find a job, cease looking. To be counted among the U.3 unemployed, the person must have actively looked for work during the four weeks prior to the survey. The U.3 rate automatically declines as people who have been unable to find jobs cease trying to find one and thereby cease to be counted as unemployed.

There is a second official measure of unemployment that includes people who have been discouraged for less than one year. That rate, known as U.6, is seldom reported and is double the 6.1% rate.

Since 1994 there has been no official measure than includes discouraged people who have not looked for a job for more than a year. Including all discouraged workers produces an unemployment rate that currently stands at 23.1%, almost four times the rate that the financial press reports.

What you can take away from this is the opposite of what the presstitute media would have you believe. 

Sleeping Yankees Fan Sues ESPN For Defamation

Sleeping Yankees Fan Sues ESPN For Defamation | The Smoking Gun
JULY 7--A fan who was shown sleeping during an ESPN broadcast of a recent New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox game is suing the TV network and two of its announcers for allegedly disparaging him during the telecast, according to a lawsuit seeking $10 million in damages.
Andrew Rector, 26, nodded off during the fourth inning of an April 13 contest at Yankee Stadium, and was shown on TV with his head slumped to the side as he snoozed in his second-row seat in the ballpark’s lower level.

This GOP Member Is About to Test Whether Obama Has the ‘Most Transparent Administration in History’ | TheBlaze.com

This GOP Member Is About to Test Whether Obama Has the ‘Most Transparent Administration in History’ | TheBlaze.com:
"Bridenstine and other Republicans have said the administration’s failure to enforce the border, and its support for a pathway to legal status for illegal immigrants, is the cause of the flood.
“Congress, the media, and indeed HHS itself should be shining a bright light on the human tragedy that is continuing to grow day by day and week by week as a consequence of our open border,” he wrote."

Alabama quadchopper hits THREE THOUSAND FEET next to AIRPORT

Alabama quadchopper hits THREE THOUSAND FEET next to AIRPORT • The Register:
"What you probably can't do is fly through a fireworks display.
Here's a vid also captured by a DJI Phantom 2 as it braved the action recently in West Palm Beach, Florida:

History for July 8

History for July 8 - On-This-Day.com:

100th birth anniversary of bandleader/singer Billy Eckstine (1914-93).

Birth anniversaries of US statesman Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (1908-79) and airship innovator Ferdinand Zeppelin (1838-1917).

Happy Birthday! Kevin Bacon, Anjelica Huston, Toby Keith

1099 - Christian soldiers on the First Crusade march around Jerusalem. 


1693 - Uniforms for police in New York City were authorized. 

1709 - Peter the Great defeated Charles XII at Poltava, in the Ukraine, The Swedish empire was effectively ended. 


1865 - C.E. Barnes patented the machine gun. 


1881 - Edward Berner, druggist in Two Rivers, WI, poured chocolate syrup on ice cream in a dish. To this time chocolate syrup had only been used for making ice-cream sodas. 


1889 - The Wall Street Journal was first published. 


1969 - The U.S. Patent Office issued a patent for the game "Twister."