BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin is the other whom Yoda spoke about.

calendar   Thursday - June 28, 2012

Watching and Waiting: ObamaCare Upheld

The SCOTUS decision on ObamaCare is due out within minutes.

I’m watching the TV just as close as I did when Eagle first descended to the lunar surface.

I’m rather upset by the whole thing ... and what really upsets me is that I have NO FAITH that the Supreme Court of the United States is going to rule this horrible thing unconstitutional. No faith at all.

UPDATE: IT’S A TAX? THEREFORE IT’S LEGAL? INDIVIDUAL MANDATE UPHELD??? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK???

Oh whoopty fucking do, the punitive measures are unconstitutional. So the cocksucking cowards of the Supreme Court made their decision as “a little of this, a little of that” instead of standing up for what America is all about. This is wrong, wrong, wrong.

I think my nation just died.

“Congress’s ability to tax and spend is unlimited.” Boy howdy, they got that one right.

This is a very confusing decision. How in God’s name can they accept this as a tax, when our Glorious President told us over and over and over and over - several times a day for 18 mother fucking months - that this was NOT a tax?

Scalia/Kennedy/Thomas/Alito dissent calls decision “a vast judicial overreaching.” Yeah, no shit. I think the camel’s back is broken.

Update: One small ray of hope? One weak, guttering candle stub barely holding a flame in a hurricane? Ann Althouse post, stolen in it’s entirety (sorry Ann, but I had to.)

Obama imposes huge tax on the American middle class.
That’s the story, right? That’s the spin for Romney. What’s the spin for Obama?

UPDATE: Drudge points to Obama’s assertion, back in September 2009 that the mandate is not a tax.

STEPHANOPOULOS: [I]t’s still a tax increase.

OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.

I have said repeatedly that Obama would be worse off if Obamacare were upheld, but what I’m really seeing is how bad it is for him with the mandate declared a tax.

Remember the Democrats got the statute passed by insisting it was not a tax. Now, we learn it is only constitutional because it is a tax. That’s got to hurt politically.

ADDED: Romney has at least 3 big arguments:

1. Obama imposed a huge new tax on working people.

2. Obama deceived the American people by saying it was not a tax, when it was.

3. The law made it look like money would go to insurance companies — in the form of new premiums — that would keep premiums low as the companies were required to take on people with pre-existing conditions, but now we find out that the money is really going to go to the federal government. [ADDED: So get ready for your premiums to spiral up and/or for insurance companies to be ruined.]

I am out of my mind depressed right now. I want to start a revolution and burn and kill. I can’t discuss this, I can’t debate this. For my own sanity, right now I can’t even think about this. I have to walk away for a bit. So let me give you John Goodman’s character Walter Sobchak’s quote from The Big Lebowski:

Ah, fuck it Dude. Let’s go bowling.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/28/2012 at 09:12 AM   
Filed Under: • GovernmentHealth-Medicine •  
Comments (27) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

french bodyguards forget their guns … oh dear, oh dear

H/T Irish Independent
who apparently got it from one of my usual sources, which I missed. How’s that happen?
Asleep at the wheel!

This wasn’t seen as funny by those involved but darn, it sure tickled my funny bone.

Just a very short article. That saying about good things in small packages seems to apply.

Take a look.  And cry for France. After you stop laffing.

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Hollande’s agents forgot to pack guns
By Henry Samuel in Paris

FRENCH secret service agents protecting President Francois Hollande forgot to pack their guns on a foreign visit, it was reported yesterday.

In a blunder befitting Inspector Clouseau, the presidential guards from the elite GSPR unit only realised the guns were absent when they arrived at Rio de Janeiro airport for the UN climate conference this month.

The officers usually travel with a secured briefcase containing an array of firearms, and it later transpired that the guns had been left at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

“They searched the (presidential) Airbus with a fine tooth comb, to no avail,” the French satirical weekly ‘Le Canard Enchaine’ reported. This meant that, for the duration of the trip, the bodyguards’ only means of protecting Mr Hollande were their bare hands.

“In police memory, it’s a first,” said one elite officer.

Blame

The guard in charge of the weapons was soon identified and sacked because he reportedly tried to blame the neglect on somebody else.

Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, a government spokesman, said: “A bag of guns did indeed remain at the Elysee. It’s true it was left behind, it’s true it was considered a serious fault on the part of the officer in charge, and so his division commander fired him upon his return.”

She denied that the president’s entire protection unit was unarmed during the trip, saying the bodyguards carried “replacement guns”.

Before the incident, Mr Hollande’s bodyguards had complained to French media that the new president was making their lives difficult by wanting to remain, at all costs, a “normal” figure, even if that meant compromising his security. (© Daily Telegraph, London)

- Henry Samuel in Paris

SOURCE


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/28/2012 at 06:53 AM   
Filed Under: • FRANCEwork and the workplace •  
Comments (1) Trackbacks(1)  Permalink •  

is it rape if a woman is drunk? are the rapists a danger to the public? 3 judges say NO to the last

Another bizarre article I just could not let pass.
I have spent the better part of 20 minutes looking for a funny story with a French connection that I saw yesterday, but got distracted, posted something else and by the time the day was over, I forgot to go back and bookmark.  But I will find the darn thing and post it momentarily.
Anyway, while looking for that story I found this and so once again, distraction is the cause for another post.  And what a distraction this is.

I think we need to be fair to the Judges here because I can see where they thought the vermin are not dangerous.
They laughed while they raped thus showing they possessed a sense of humor. And anyone with a sense of humor no matter how perverted, can not be a danger. Right?

A reader at the mail under comments has asked if there are any rapists or killers here in the UK that are thought to be dangerous.
Good question.

Are there any murderers or rapists that are actually deemed ‘dangerous’ in Britain? I am constantly reading about murderers and rapists that have their time in prison reduced (if they even managed to get more than 2, 3 years in the first place) because they are not dangerous. How does that logic work out?
- Angie, Australia, 28/6/2012 08:49

And here is what she is referring to.

Pair who laughed as they raped woman they ‘came across’ in town centre have sentences CUT because they are not ‘dangerous’

* Rezgar Nouri, 27, and Mohammed Ibrahim, 24, repeatedly raped the woman, 24, in Preston

* But judges rule there was ‘insufficient evidence’ that they should be defined as ‘dangerous’

* They allowed the men’s appeal against original indeterminate sentence and instead handed each a 12-year term

By MATT BLAKE

Two men who laughed during a horrific ‘gang rape’ of a drunken woman have had their sentences slashed after three senior judges ruled they were not ‘dangerous’.

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Rezgar Nouri, 27, of Preston, and Mohammed Ibrahim, 24, of London, were jailed indeterminately after being convicted of assaulting the 24-year-old in Preston last June.

Sitting at the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Hooper, Mr Justice Silber and Mr Justice Hamblen heard how the men ‘came across’ the woman before taking her to a flat where Ibrahim pinned her down while another man raped her.

After that, Ibrahim raped her before Nouri ‘grabbed’ her and ‘dragged’ her into a bedroom where he raped her, judges were told.

But today, despite the evidence, they ruled at the Royal Courts of Justice there was ‘insufficient evidence’ that Nouri and Ibrahim should be defined as ‘dangerous’

They said Judge Anthony Russell QC had been wrong to decide that ‘imprisonment for public protection’ was necessary and hand down a jail sentence which gave the men no automatic right of release.

They allowed the men’s appeal against the imposition of an indeterminate sentence and instead handed each a 12-year term.

The court earlier heard how the woman had become separated from friends - when she was ‘quite drunk’ - in the early hours after visiting a number of bars and clubs, the court heard.

I think you get the picture but if you want to read the rest of the article, which is worth it for the comments alone, go HERE


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/28/2012 at 06:04 AM   
Filed Under: • CrimeCULTURE IN DECLINEDaily LifeJudges-Courts-LawyersJustice - LACK OFOutrageousUK •  
Comments (4) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

calendar   Wednesday - June 27, 2012

those magnificent men in their flying machines

This is really more a photo essay then a news story.

Love this kind of thing and hope readers enjoy the old pix along with me.

There is nothing for me to say except, catch the link and the story and enjoy.

How trainee pilots got into a few unfortunate scrapes as they took to the skies (and sometimes rooftops) at one of Britain’s first aviation schools
By AMY OLIVER

This is the moment a post master was disturbed in the bath - by a plane crash-landing onto his roof.

But far from being a rare incident, the pilots at one of Britain’s first aviation schools in Hampshire seemed prone to accidents.

As these astonishing pictures show, prangs, bumps and complete nose-dives into ditches were almost a daily occurrence at New Forest Flying School, which opened in 1910.

The hapless trainee pilot in this shot ended up on the post office roof after overshooting the landing strip at the school near East Boldre. Miraculously no one was hurt.

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This plane flown by a trainee pilot from nearby New Forest Flying School ‘undershot’ the strip to land on the Post office roof. The postmaster, in the bath at the time, was not amused but amazingly nobody was seriously hurt

Drexel and McArdle chose the unlikely site as the location for the school because it was flat and empty. The planes were taken to the nearby Brockenhurst station by train and were towed from there by horse and cart to the aerodrome.

Lord Montague of Beaulieu - now the home of a motor museum - encouraged the opening of the school. He also tried to persuade the War Office that flying would become an important part of the military and they should invest more in it.

Nothing happened, but in World War One it was realised that flying was important and the aerodrome re-opened.

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THERE’S MORE TO SEE AND READ HERE


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/27/2012 at 01:08 PM   
Filed Under: • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobilesUK •  
Comments (1) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

BENEFITS ARE A RIGHT

Did something on this subject and this girl some months ago.
She is now in litigation and claiming the govt. is making a slave out of her by making her work someplace for no salary.
BUT .... she is drawing benefits of $83.20 a week.  I put it in American dollars but in pounds it’s, £53.45.
Her argument is also that she was working as a volunteer at a museum which is serving the public.  So working at the equivalent of our American Dollar stores
where she doesn’t even get the minimum wage, is unlawful. It’s forced labor since if she doesn’t work there, she will lose her benefits. Yikes.
I don’t get her at all.  She is drawing benefits and had to work for two weeks. That’s 2, as in two weeks. Out of the whole damn year. That leaves 50 weeks of benefits while she is “looking” for work she wants to do. 

Was reading a novel not too long ago, takes place in late 1800s, and the description of the kinds of life that even children had is unimaginable.
How about no benefits, no social security and a bowl porridge around 5 or 6am and then work til 10 at night when you might get another bowl of porridge.
Those were the days my friend, your luck they’re at an end. 

The case continues and it’ll be interesting to learn how the court will act on this.  She is not the only one to complain.

Being made to work for Poundland ‘was like forced labour’ says jobless graduate in human rights claim

Cait Reilly’s lawyers say programme breached Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, prohibiting slavery and forced labour
The 22-year-old said she spent by five hours a day sweeping up and stacking and cleaning shelves at Poundland in Birmingham
Another claimant, Mechanic Jamieson Wilson, refused to do 30 hours’ unpaid labour a week cleaning furniture for six months
Lawyer compares taking away jobseekers’ benefits to putting asylum seekers in detention centres

By NICK MCDERMOTT

A graduate made to work for her jobless benefits as a shelf stacker in Poundland yesterday claimed the scheme amounted to ‘forced labour’ which breached her human rights.

Cait Reilly yesterday asked the High Court to declare the Government’s back-to-work programme unlawful after she was required to work in the budget store or risk losing her £53.45-a-week jobseeker’s allowance.

The 23-year-old said she had to give up a voluntary post in a museum to take the placement but was promised a job interview if she completed two weeks training at Poundland. However, she says, that never materialised.

The Government is fighting her claim and strongly denies that its flagship work programme, which has placed thousands of jobseekers on unpaid placements since its launch last year, is equivalent to ‘slave labour’.

Unemployed mechanic Jamieson Wilson, 41, is also challenging the legality of another Government work scheme that compels the jobless to take unpaid work.

Lawyers for the pair are seeking a judicial review into the Department for Work and Pensions programme, saying it violates Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits forced labour and slavery.

The schemes, championed by Employment Minister Chris Grayling, aim to help 250,000 young people over the next two years through training and unpaid experience in the public, private and charity sectors. Placement-providers include chains such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Argos and Asda.

Miss Reilly, who graduated in geology from Birmingham University in 2010, was placed on the scheme after attending a retail jobs ‘open day’ in October last year at the suggestion of her Jobcentre Plus adviser.

Miss Reilly had undertaken the work under ‘menace of penalty’ in breach of her human rights, she added.

The court was told Poundland is a successful firm with a net turnover of £500million, and her placement did not contribute to the public interest.

READ MORE


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/27/2012 at 12:13 PM   
Filed Under: • work and the workplace •  
Comments (1) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

while i’m out trimming more damn hedges, you get to leer at these. eye candy

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See More Below The Fold

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/27/2012 at 08:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
Comments (2) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

‘guilty until proven innocent’

I don’t know if this is just my own knee jerk reaction or not.  Of course I can’t know about you readers out there but, personally I’m against this.
I think there could be times when someone may download something and not be aware.  I can’t offhand think of any examples, but the idea that you’re automatically guilty and must then pay to prove otherwise seems to me to be unfair in the extreme.

The recording and movie industry constantly make the claim of losses in gazillions, okay maybe only millions, but I am not sympathetic to them.
It isn’t that I approve of theft.  But I can tell you with certainty because I have worked in one and been close to another, the entertainment industry and most especially the motion picture industry, probably lose more to union jobs that do not exist, then they do to this piracy thing. 

I realize they lose much in the piracy committed by criminal gangs and people in places like China and I understand India as well. Or so I’ve heard.
I have heard figures in the millions they say, by ordinary folks who simply download something from YouTube and other sources.

Well, when they find a way to curb the waste I know went on in the past and so think it still does, and when they quite literally can no longer afford the multi,multi millions they pay the “stars” which all result in overblown ticket prices, maybe then I’d feel like saying awe. Poor you. I feel your pain. 

I no longer go to movies.  If we had a TV I am sure we’d be happy to buy DVDs or rent movies we want to see.  So this more then likely would not have any affect
on us.  I am quite happy with You Tube and on the odd occasion, BBC catch up service via computer.  But I still see this as wrong and unfair, unless someone can point out the error in my thinking and point me in another direction.


Guilty until proven innocent: Families will have to pay £20 to show they DIDN’T illegally download music under new law

* Regime designed to stamp out internet piracy will treat individuals as ‘guilty until proven innocent’

* People wrongly accused of making illegal downloads will have to pay £20 fee to appeal and prove their innocence

* Move has angered consumer groups

By SEAN POULTER

Internet users who illegally download music, movies and e-books will be sent warning letters in a crackdown that could lead to court action for copyright theft.

A new regime to tackle online piracy will in effect treat individuals as ‘guilty until proven innocent’.

Those wrongly accused of illegal downloading will have to pay a £20 fee to appeal in a move that has angered consumer groups.

The same Act includes punishments that could, in future, see accused families having their internet service slowed down, capped or even cut off.

An industry code will require large internet service providers (ISPs) such as BT, Virgin, Sky and TalkTalk to send warning letters to families suspected by entertainment firms of illegally downloading or uploading copyright material.

If a customer gets three letters or more within a year, copyright holders such as movie and music companies will have a right to ask for details of the material involved.

These companies will then be able to apply for a court order requiring the ISP to reveal the customer’s name and address.

The information would be used to pursue the person involved through the civil courts for damages.

However, there are concerns that innocent internet users, for example those whose wireless connections are hijacked by a neighbour or criminal, will be caught up in the new regime.

Those sent a warning letter will be assumed guilty unless they can prove their innocence after paying a £20 fee to appeal to an Ofcom body.

MOST PIRATED MOVIES OF 2011
Fast Five – 9.2million downloads
The Hangover II – 8.8million downloads
Thor – 8.3million downloads
Source Code – 7.9million downloads
I Am Number Four – 7.6million downloads
Sucker Punch – 7.2million downloads
127 Hours – 6.9million downloads
Rango – 6.4million downloads
The King’s Speech – 6.2million downloads
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – 6million downloads

Mike O’Connor, of the customer body Consumer Focus, said: ‘Copyright infringement is not to be condoned, but people who are innocent should not have to pay a fee to challenge accusations. It could deter those living on low incomes from challenging unfair allegations.’

If the new system does not stop piracy, ministers will be able to go back to Parliament to enact rules in the Digital Economy Act that could see households having their internet service cut off.

‘The ability to appeal is therefore critical to ensure consumers who have done nothing wrong are not deprived of internet access further down the line,’ said Mr O’Connor.

Creative industries minister Ed Vaizey said entertainment firms had to be able to ‘protect their investment’, adding: ‘The Digital Economy Act is an important part of protecting our creative industries against unlawful activity.’

Ofcom’s Claudio Pollack said: ‘Ofcom will oversee a fair appeals process, and also ensure that rights holders’ investigations under the code are rigorous and transparent.’

source


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/27/2012 at 06:12 AM   
Filed Under: • HollywoodInflation and High PricesJudges-Courts-LawyersMOVIESMusic •  
Comments (3) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

new age nursing? not my job says nurse while patient on the floor.

Why after three years is this now coming to light? Papers don’t say. They just run with the story. 
This might be an odd one off event but sadly, it isn’t.  I just don’t post all the horror stories I read.

My two encounters with hospitals here, were happily non events. The staff couldn’t have been more caring or professional. But that could be our location. I don’t know.  What I do know is that there are so darn many stories like this one, even more then travellers and gypsy stories, that after awhile you just either skip or are aware only as something you see out of the corner of your mind’s eye.
I once saw something like this in an American hospital btw.

When I first saw this article under news briefs in the Telegraph hard copy, I Googled the headline and came up with a slightly different story altogether.
Not that the person described here comes out pure as driven snow. Far from it.

Truro nurse accused of leaving patient lying on the floor

Source: This is Cornwall
Western Morning News

A nurse left a patient lying on a hospital ward floor for 40 minutes and said she was not paid to look after people like him, a hearing was told.

Gugu Shabalala refused to help a colleague move the man into a more comfortable position or review his condition, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.

Shabalala was working at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro at the time of the incident in January 2009.

Angela Barron, a health care assistant who worked alongside Shabalala on the shift in question, said she had walked into the patient’s bay to find him in a “very strange position”.

“He was kneeling between the bed and chair with his head resting on the chair,” she said. “I asked him if he wanted to go back to bed, but he did not answer. I tried to help him up into bed but could not move him at all.”

Realising it was a job for two, she went to find Shabalala, who was the nurse in charge for that part of the ward.

When they returned, she saw him roll himself on to the floor and curl up, the panel heard.

Unable to move the man, referred to only as patient B, Mrs Barron said Shabalala then asked her to fetch a blanket to cover him and a pillow for his head.

She added: “He was lying on the floor without any bedding or mattress.

“While he was lying there, Ms Shabalala’s only comment was ‘he obviously wants to be on the floor’.

“I’m not sure how long he remained on the floor, but at about 12pm I went back in to find him back in bed.”

She said she could not recall the exact time of the alleged incident, only that it definitely took place after 9.30am.

Shabalala is not attending the proceedings and is not represented.

She has made no formal admissions to any of the charges, although sent a letter to the NMC in which she claims she was not responsible for patient B on January 29.

But Mrs Barron said as far as she was concerned, Shabalala was the nurse in charge.

Shabalala also claims it was a particularly busy shift.

Shabalala also faces allegations of attempting to catheterise another patient, Patient A, on January 14, 2009, when it was not in her best interests.

In addition, she failed to stop when the patient indicated she was in pain, the NMC claims.

After the alleged incident involving patient B, Shabalala is said to have told a colleague: “I am not paid to look after people like patient B”, or words to that effect.

If found guilty of misconduct, Shabalala could be struck off the nursing register.

The hearing continues.

MORNING NEWS

Gugu Shabalala ??????

I have seen worse, and always think that anyone with a name that doesn’t fit the norm in the host country, should not be allowed to remain unless they adopt a western name. Don’t like it? Tuff. Then go home where they all speak and spell like you do.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/27/2012 at 04:49 AM   
Filed Under: • Health and SafetyHealth-Medicine •  
Comments (1) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

calendar   Tuesday - June 26, 2012

Have A Nice Flight

TSA Bungle Screws Up NYC Airport For Half A Day

Agent “didn’t notice” his scanner was unplugged

Here’s a brilliant idea: one way to get terrorists onto airliners is to have someone working on the inside!

Unplugged metal detector triggers JFK chaos

NY Post:
These fools are keeping us safe?!?

The TSA’s bungling reached a new low yesterday when a JFK Airport terminal had to be evacuated and hundreds of passengers marched back through security screening all because one dimwitted agent failed to realize his metal detector had been unplugged, sources told The Post.

The stunning error led to hours of delays, two planes called back from the runway and infinite frustration for furious passengers.

“The truth is, this is the failure of the most basic level of diligence,” a law-enforcement source said. “How can you expect the public to feel confident of the mission of the TSA if they don’t even know if the lights are turned on?”

The chaos at Terminal 7 was caused by screener Alija Abdul Majed, who had manned Lane No. 1 during the morning shift with no idea his metal detector had no juice, sources said.

Amazingly, he failed to realize that alert lights never flashed once as streams of passengers filed through the dead detector, the sources said.

Majed was so clueless that he couldn’t even tell police how long the machine had been shut off or how it happened, the sources said.

“It was simply an unplugged machine — the TSA doing its best,” another source said.

Higher-ups at the Transportation Security Administration finally discovered the security boondoggle at 9:44 a.m. — leaving the Port Authority with no choice but to call for a complete evacuation of the international terminal that is home to British Airways, Cathay Pacific, United Airlines and others.

The extraordinary measure meant that two jumbo jets — including a San Francisco-bound United flight — had to return to the gate so passengers could be rescreened at a metal detector that was actually turned on.

The TSA would not confirm or deny that its detector had been unplugged, releasing a statement saying only that a metal detector suffered a “malfunction.”

Eight to 10 flights were delayed as a result of the power-cord bungle, sources said.
...
In scary twist, the source couldn’t be certain that every passenger who went through the powerless detector had been accounted for and hadn’t gotten on a flight.

The incident is just the latest in a long line of TSA fiascoes.

Test run? Inside man? Or was it just (ahem) “terminal stupidity”? And every person - each “possible terrorist” - who went through the dead scanner and got onto an airplane probably had close to half an hour to hide anything naughty they could have snuck in.

I’m so glad our beneficent government put the Patriot Act into place to strip us of all our unnecessary rights, and built the TSA to keep us all safe when we fly. Every last one of them is hired based only on their security skills, experience, honesty, spotless criminal past, and never-flagging attention to the smallest details; political correctness doesn’t come into play at all.

Alija Abdu Majed. Are you effing kidding me?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/26/2012 at 03:11 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
Comments (4) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

school children to be recruited for unions? if they have their way the answer is yes.

I have had my say on unions so many times here I think I might be out of words.
The only other things I can think to say would only get me arrested.  So best not to mention what my solution might be tho you can guess. 

I will never quite understand how, in the face of history and the damage done to this country, how folks like this disgusting lump can continue to thrive.

Is anyone surprised at the suggestion of union indoctrination of youngsters?  Oh sure. They don’t use that word but you know. A rose by any other name.

Look at this.


Union threatens companies with ‘guerilla tactics’ in campaign criticised as ‘economic sabotage’

AND IT TARGETS KIDS

By BECKY BARROW
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Britain’s biggest union is threatening a wave of guerilla tactics against companies in a campaign criticised yesterday as ‘economic sabotage’.

Len McCluskey, the hardline leader of Unite, said he was plotting ‘a leverage strategy’ which will target firms, their suppliers and customers who do not accept its demands.

Unite’s general secretary, nicknamed ‘Red Len’ for his militant background, hailed the strategy as ‘the future of our movement’ and declared: ‘You will hear a lot more about this as the months roll out.’

There are fears the strategy could mirror the long-running campaign against the controversial animal testing lab, Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Extremists waged a wide-ranging international conspiracy of intimidation against a host of companies which supplied HLS.

Mr McCluskey spoke out at Unite’s conference in Brighton in a rambling 44-page speech which quoted Karl Marx and Bob Dylan and hailed last November’s teachers’ strike as ‘magnificent’.

Unite, which has 1.5million members, is the Labour Party’s biggest donor – having given more than £5million to the party since Ed Miliband became leader in 2010. 

Mr McCluskey, 61, who is paid an annual salary of £97,000, said the strategy is aimed at ‘bringing to the table bosses who would have shrugged us off just a few years ago’.

Unite will target ‘bad employers all the way up and down their supply chain and their customer chain’, warning it has a ‘nationwide team of organisers’ ready to start the campaign.

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The union, which also plans to target shareholders and enlist the support of foreign unions, has already put its new proposals into action.

Activists picketed cereal giant Kellogg’s Manchester headquarters in a bid to put pressure on packaging supplier MMP during a dispute over sacked staff.

Tory MP Dominic Raab rounded on Unite’s call for militancy at a time when Britain has been plunged into the first double-dip recession since the 1970s.

He said: ‘Having scented weakness, Red Len has the bit between his teeth and has laid out a plan for economic sabotage when Britain is at its most vulnerable.

‘We have a militant minority of union leaders who are hell-bent on damaging the economy and hurting the hard-working majority. They should be faced down, not appeased.’

Last night sources at business lobby group the CBI, said it had been advising its members for some time on how to deal with Unite’s ‘leverage strategy’.

At the same time, Mr McCluskey has said he will take ‘whatever steps are necessary to support members come what may’, believed to be a reference to attempts to water down unions’ powers and rights.

source


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/26/2012 at 01:48 PM   
Filed Under: • Unions-Labor •  
Comments (1) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Bring It

George Bush to the world: “You’re either with us, or with the terrorists.” And he was right.

Issa to Obama: “You’re either part of the Fast & Furious scheme and playing CYA, or you’re flexing muscles you don’t have, to obstruct justice.” And he is right as well.

Contempt of Congress Charges For Obama?

“[Y]our privilege assertion means one of two things,” Issa wrote to the president in a letter dated June 25. “Either you or your most senior advisors were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it, including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the attorney general to the committee, or, you are asserting a presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation.”

Issa said Obama’s assertion of executive privilege “raised the question” about the veracity of how the “White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the department with respect to the congressional investigation.”

Issa revealed in the letter to Obama that Attorney General Eric Holder had requested the president assert the privilege in a letter last Tuesday evening — shortly after Holder, Issa and other congressional leaders involved in Fast and Furious met to try to come a resolution before last Wednesday’s contempt vote in Issa’s oversight committee. The president’s decision to assert the privilege came via a letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole to Issa minutes before Issa began the proceedings against Holder.

The California congressman told Obama that Cole’s letter stating that Obama has “’asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-February 4, 2011 documents’ raised concerns that there was greater White House involvement in Operation Fast and Furious than previously thought.”

Issa laid out that this is because the “Justice Department has steadfastly maintained that the documents sought by the committee do not implicate the White House whatsoever.”

“If true, they are at best deliberative documents between and among department personnel who lack the requisite ‘operational proximity’ to the president,” as legal precedent Issa cites requires. “As such, they cannot be withheld pursuant to the constitutionally-based executive privilege.”

Read the rest at The Daily Caller

Hot Air has more.

Misconduct occurred on two levels.  Issa’s reference is to the false information submitted by DoJ officials in Congressional testimony, which is the specific subject of the subpoenas on which the contempt charge is based.  However, the overall investigation into OF&F also probes official misconduct in deliberately allowing thousands of weapons to be carried over the border with no way to track them, which violates regulations at the ATF — which is why ATF insiders blew the whistle on the operation in the first place.  Either way, Issa is entirely correct under US v Espy that deliberative process executive privilege does not survive in these circumstances.

“Last week’s proceeding would not have occurred had the attorney general actually produced the subpoenaed documents he said he could provide.” [Issa wrote.]

The full U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on Thursday to hold Holder in contempt of Congress. He would be the first attorney general to be held in contempt in the history of the United States.

Looks like Odipshit pulled off an acrobatic miracle with this: he stepped in shit at the same time he put his foot in his mouth. Mad skillz, baby.

And now the fight is on, and it’s pretty much proof positive that Fast & Furious goes all the way to the top. Which is what we all figured out in about 4 minutes a year and a half ago. Just you wait until the next whistle blower spills the beans that F&F was only one of a dozen or more parallel ops. I’ll betcha it was.

Meanwhile, Darrel Issa continues to show himself as one of the perhaps three or four honorable members of our government. Scalia, Bolton, Issa. That’s all I can spot from here. Anyone else? Bueller? Bueller? 


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/26/2012 at 12:48 PM   
Filed Under: • GovernmentCorruption and GreedGuns and Gun ControlObama, The One •  
Comments (3) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Nothing To See Here, Move Along

Saleha Mahmood Abedin, the mother of Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, reportedly served in the women’s division of the Muslim Brotherhood alongside the wife of Egypt’s new president, the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi.

WND previously exposed Abedin represented a Muslim charity known to have spawned terror groups, including one declared by the U.S. government to be an official al-Qaida front.

WND also reported Clinton spoke at Abedin’s Saudi women’s college, where she was introduced by Abedin alongside the Islamic activist’s daughter, Huma, who serves as Clinton’s chief of staff. At the speech, Clinton praised Saleha’s “pioneering work.”

Saleha Abedin is also the mother-in-law of disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.

Now, author Walid Shoebat is reporting that while she acted as one of 63 leaders of the Muslim Sisterhood, the de facto female version of the Muslim Brotherhood, Saleha Abedin served alongside Najla Ali Mahmoud, the wife of Mursi. Both were members of the Sisterhood’s Guidance Bureau, found Shoebat.

Saleha Mahmood Abedin is an associate professor of sociology at Dar Al-Hekma College in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which she helped to create. She formerly directed the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs in the U.K. and served as a delegate for the Muslim World League, an Islamic fundamentalist group Osama bin Laden reportedly told an associate was one of his most important charity fronts.

Connect the dots? What dots? I don’t see any dots. There are no dots.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/26/2012 at 12:09 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
Comments (1) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

ashes,ashes all fall down while tsa agent laughs

This has to be a new low for the TSA.  I think she should be fired or at least demoted to nothing more then coffee and tea runs.

The only excuse I can think of for opening that container, would be if she was suspicious of something inside. 

Have just had afternoon stomach meds 3 hours late.  Stories on the supreme court and the tsa do not help matters.

Take a look at this.


TSA agent opens jar of man’s ashes, spills them on the floor, then ‘stands and laughs’ as grandson scrambles to gather them up

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

A man suffered humiliation and distress at the hands of an airport security agent when she insisted on opening a jar containing his grandfather’s remains and then dropped them on the floor.

John Gross, of Indianapolis, was trying to bring Mario Mark Marcaletti’s ashes home from Florida and had them in his bag in a tightly sealed jar clearly marked ‘Human Remains’.

The 91-year-old’s remains had been divided up among family members after he died in 2002 and Gross had been given a share by his uncle during his trip.

He was confronted by the TSA officer and explained what was in the container.

‘They opened up my bag, and I told them, “Please, be careful. These are my grandpa’s ashes,”’ he told theindychannel.com.

‘She picked up the jar. She opened it up.

‘She used her finger and was sifting through it. And then she accidentally spilled it.’

As a third of the jar’s contents fell out onto the floor Gross frantically tried to gather it back up, a line of passengers waiting behind him.

‘She didn’t apologize. She started laughing. I was on my hands and knees picking up bone fragments.

‘I couldn’t pick up all, everything that was lost. I mean, there was a long line behind me.’

Gross later found out that TSA rules state that staff should not tamper with human remain containers under any circumstance.

Instead they are supposed to put them through an X-ray machine.

Nothing can be done to regain the ashes. But Gross said he wants an apology from the TSA and from the individual agent ‘who opened the jar and laughed at me’.

‘I want them to help me understand where they get off treating people like this,’ he said.

source


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 06/26/2012 at 10:40 AM   
Filed Under: • Jack Booted Thugs •  
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Inbox Funnies

image





It’s called a barka, naturally.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/26/2012 at 10:14 AM   
Filed Under: • AnimalsRoPMA •  
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