Last Call For News Corp

Following up on last weekend's post about what News Corp knew about the James Rosen case and when it knew it (the DoJ says it informed News Corp three years ago and News Corp is damned if they can find the memo) we find Eric Wemple of the NY Times asking some pretty hard questions like "How the hell do you misplace a DoJ memo informing you of an investigation of one of your own employees?"

Astonishing. The legal world is downright freakish about the handling of documents — everything gets sent through various channels, sign-offs are required and so on. Indeed, the Times quotes a government official as saying that notification of the subpoenas in this case was made by “certified mail, facsimile and e-mail.” It being the 2010s, perhaps no one was standing by the fax machine.

Whatever the notification protocols, it’s not hard to believe that Fox News passed ignorant of the deep governmental snooping in the case. Had it known, after all, it could have gotten a jump start on all the story lines that it has been pushing since last week: That the Obama administration is overreaching, that it targeted Fox News and that Fox News does serious national-security reporting.

But that's exactly what News Corp is claiming:  it never got this information.  Worse, the proof of this is that FOX News would have immediately attacked the Obama administration the second this came to light.

So either this is a crazy long con here, waiting to be played at a moment after Barack Obama had been reelected, or News Corp has the most inept legal department in history.

Which one is it, FOX?

Say What You Really Mean, Steve Rose

I count use of the word "arrogance" or "arrogant" six times including the title of this piece on President Obama's "scandals" by Kansas City Star columnist Steve Rose this weekend.  It's no accident, Rose's pining for the Clinton presidency again, he's backed Hillary over Obama at every turn and basically his hatred of the guy has blown up into a full meltdown.

Barack Obama just had his worst week in a deeply flawed presidency.

It’s not as bad as Jimmy Carter’s presidency, but it’s still one that can make even the most right-wing conservative long for Democrat Bill Clinton.

What Barack Obama has lacked from the beginning is humility, and what he has displayed consistently is arrogance.

He could have nipped the Benghazi fiasco in the bud, but Obama apparently decided that since only Fox News was beating the drums for the truth, he could finesse the ugly matter. Instead of coming clean from the get-go, that this was an act of terrorism, Obama stone-walled. Now, he has a bonafide scandal on his hands.

This guy is supposedly a left-of-center moderate, but here he's buying into the FOX narrative 100%.  It's a dead giveaway which side he's really on when he saves his most vicious hatred for Obamacare:

It was obvious almost from day one, when Obama rammed through Obamacare — a 2,000-page law with now 20,000 pages of regulations — that he would ignore anyone who disagreed with him, whether non-partisan experts or partisan critics. Only he knew the truth, and everyone else was either on board or misguided.

Already, we are starting to see the predictably bloated effects. Take a few examples: St Luke’s Health System and Liberty Hospital have already announced they are laying off hundreds of employees as a result of Obamacare. And that is just the beginning of the bad news.

Just getting an appointment with your doctor is bound to become more challenging when Obamacare takes full effect in 2014, and, meanwhile, the cost of health care will skyrocket, not decline, as Obama predicted.

Had Bill Clinton been president (never mind his total lack of character) and succeeded in passing “Hillarycare,” we might have had broad-based health care reform but never would have ended up with the Obamacare monster. I’ll bet it even makes Bill shiver a little in private.

Yeah, no "liberal" buys the FOX narrative on Benghazi, calls Barack Obama arrogant a half a dozen times, and wishes for the Clintons back in power without a serious problem with the nation's first black President.  Replace "arrogant" with "uppity" and everything becomes crystal clear:  how dare one of them does this?

Go to hell, Steve.  That's code for "go to hell".

RECLAIMing North Carolina's Sanity

And you though Arizona's "Papers, please" law was bad?  It's got nothing on NC House Bill 786, a bill so blatantly racist it's actually called the Reasonable Enactment of Comprehensive Legislation Addressing Immigration Matters in North Carolina Act...or RECLAIM NC for short. Reclaim from whom?  Why, the Unwashed Brown Horde, of course.  Here's what the bill would do:

Undocumented immigrants who drive would be required to obtain a vertical, status-identifying driver’s licenses, which requires them to admit their unlawful status. Immigrant applicants would also be required to submit fingerprints and to pass a criminal background check. As a result of a requirement in which immigrants must prove that they have lived in North Carolina for a year, seasonal workers would likely not qualify. 

Don't believe me?



How about now?   It's pink with NO LAWFUL STATUS printed on the damn thing.  So any cop that pulls you over for any reason and asks for your license doesn't have to "inquire about your status".  It's printed on the goddamn license in pink letters. 

And after that happens, guess what the cops can do?

The measure also allows for law enforcement officials to have the ability to “securely transport an alien… to a federal facility” potentially without ever having seen a lawyer. It specifies, “a law enforcement agency shall obtain judicial or executive authorization from the Governor before securely transporting an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States to a point of transfer that is outside this State.” 

Straight to ICE you go, because with this license that's a tacit admission of your guilt, you get deported pretty much automatically.  Now who in their right mind is going to get one of these licenses which guarantees deportation?  Nobody.  So under the law, not having a pink license (or any license) gives the cops all the "reasonable suspicion" they need to immediately check your immigration status basically every single time.

Any way you slice it, it turns every traffic stop, license checkpoint, every roadblock into a deportation arrest, and every mile driven into a mile of fear.  That's the point:  to scare undocumented immigrants out of the state with a law that turns every cop in North Carolina into an ICE officer, and it goes much further than Arizona's law, turning it into a lose-lose situation every time you step into a car.

Keep in mind what Arizona immediately did with their law:

The RECLAIM NC Act comes in the wake of a lawsuit against Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio in which his office has been accused of aggressively targeting and detaining Hispanic drivers. In numerous cases, Arpaio’s office was found to have stopped or harassed Hispanic drivers over minor speeding infractions when other drivers of a different national origin were let go. Along with Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, and Nebraska, North Carolina legislators had initially prohibited the issuance of driver’s licenses to immigrants who qualified under the Obama Administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which granted a two-year work authorization for individuals who had graduated from high school. 

It's nothing less than turning cops into actual fascist thugs.  Funny how Republicans are always screaming about Obama's abuses of power, when given a chance to make legislation, Republicans immediately legalize rounding up tens of thousands of people to be dragged away.

Hey NC, ready to vote for Democrats yet?

StupidiNews!

• European Union countries have voted to relax the arms embargo on shipping weapons to Syrian rebels opposing the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
• Benton County, Oregon police say an anonymous tip led them to the home of a high school student who allegedly had pipe bombs, napalm, and other explosives ready to attack his school.
• South African rhino preserves are getting help from American commercial drone technology as eyes in the sky to spot and stop rhino poachers.
• New figures show the big 4 British banks have cut nearly 200,000 jobs since the financial crisis began, and more cuts are on the way.
• Google is reportedly working on plans to bring wireless broadband to developing nations in Africa and Asia, possibly even using blimps.