Additionally the FISA court admits today it has to rely on the information presented to it when it determines legal authority. Also, the court has no mechanism to check the claims brought to it by the NSA or Justice Dept. One example is outlined in the Washington Post article.
(WASHINGTON POST)  The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.
Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.
The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (more…)

ROSE CITY, Mich. – When Rose City middle school teacher Neal Erickson pleaded guilty to molesting one of his students a while back, most observers expected an open-and-shut case with the school community rallying around the teenage victim.

And in some ways it was. Erickson was sentenced to 15-30 years in prison for carrying on a sexual relationship with a boy in his young teens between 2006 and 2009. That should have been the end of the horrific tale.
But seven teachers kept the controversy alive by rallying behind the rapist, going so far as to write letters to the sentencing judge, seeking leniency on his behalf. The letters were posted on a local blog, WBRC Teachers.
(more…)

First the FAIL –  TALLAHASSEE,  Fla. —Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature is coming out solidly  against a special session to repeal the state’s “stand your ground” law.
The Department of State on  Wednesday released a list that showed more than half of the state’s 160-member  Legislature has already voted against the idea.
The vote was triggered  earlier after 33 legislators asked for a special session in writing. They were  urged to do so by the Dream Defenders group, which is upset with the July  verdict in the George Zimmerman case.
Under an obscure state  law, the written requests required an official poll. A yes vote by three-fifths  of the Legislature would have resulted in a special session.  (more)
Then the RESULT….. (more…)

The case is a bench trial. The defendant opted to have the judge decide guilt or innocence. The trial is expected to last two weeks. (link)

HOUSTON TEXAS – Angela Davis told a gripping story Wednesday about receiving cryptic phone calls from her 12-year-old son and a strange woman, racing home on her motor scooter that stalled and then breathlessly running the last 100 hundred yards on foot to her north Houston duplex.
But after fumbling with her key, she finally opened the door that Christmas eve in 2010 only to discover that her son Johnathon had vanished seconds earlier.
Ominous phone calls
A half glass of cold milk sat on a table. Cartoons blared from the television and a computer game was loaded and ready to play. But the tin box filled with Tootsie Rolls left behind was what brought tears to Davis’ eyes and made it hard for her to continue testifying in the capital murder trial of Mona Nelson, the woman accused in the killing of her red-headed fifth-grader, Jonathan Foster.
(more…)

Shaknee Golay 19 –  Alicia Wilson 15 –  Keyon Black 16 –  Javontae Wilson 13 –  Demetrius Wilson 12

Four West Pensacola juveniles and a 19-year-old, attacked a 77-year-old man Monday night, according to an Escambia County Sheriff’s Office news release.  […]  The incident happened about 9 p.m. Monday when dispatchers received a report of several teenagers chasing a man with a stick, the news release said.
The victim, John Garland Redick, encountered the teens on a boardwalk near the Big Lots parking lot at the 400 block of North Navy Boulevard and was assaulted, according to an arrest report.  (link)

Yet again – Where’s The Media ?

Applying their unidirectional race-based filter of course.

Houston Texas – Christmas Eve 2010 a 12-year-old boy named Jonathan Foster should have been preparing for presents and family.   Instead, he was tied up with string, and slowly being burned alive by a blowtorch in the hands of Mona Nelson who had kidnapped him from his home hours earlier.
Her trial began this week.

Texas Chron – Prosecutors promised Wednesday they could show how, but not why, accused killer Mona Nelson callously ended the life of a 12-year-old boy after he disappeared on Christmas eve 2010. (more…)

Two weeks ago, drumming up attention toward her movie, Oprah Winfrey made the bizarre claim that millions of African Americans were lynched.   Millions.  The true figure is 4,743 with one in four being white (1882-1968).
Last week Oprah Winfrey claimed she encountered racism in Switzerland while shopping for $30,000+ purses.   [<—we should all be $o unfortunate]
She made these claims while trying to draw attention to her soon-to-be-released movie “The Butler”;  another race-based grievance movie.
The Swiss store, and the hapless victim/clerk she targeted with her accusations, denied the allegations.   Oprah then tried walking back her accusation, well… sort of, but not really, because she’s Oprah, or something.
However, there appears to be a pattern here. (more…)

Interesting and VERY comprehensive construction of the George Zimmerman story by a South African Journalist –  James Myburgh.   A “mere snippet” reflects:

[…]  In the chapter on “national delusions” in his 1852 work Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles MacKay noted how “In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first. “

The Trayvon Martin story is a case study in how, even in the modern day, an advanced industrialised democracy can completely lose its senses; and how difficult it is for it to then recover them. In this particular matter a whole society seemingly fixed its mind on the one object of having George Zimmerman arrested, convicted and sent to jail for life, in reckless disregard of the evidence and the law. The mainstream media, so-called civil rights organisations, the Democrat President of the US, the US Attorney General, the Republican Governor of Florida and his Attorney General, and State Attorney Angela Corey all combined forces in an effort to destroy a single, isolated individual. (more…)

“My son ain’t never been no bad person, he just got mixed [up] with bad people, that’s all He’s sorry.”
– Julian McKnight (link)

(more…)

Just a side note of similar necessity – Last night I happened to catch a segment on the Fox Bill O’Reilly show.   As Mr. O’Reilly and James Carville were discussing the social implications of broken families, Carville stated “teen pregnancies are down” and pontificated all about it.
No.   That is wordsmithing.   Teen pregnancy rates are not down.  Teen pregnancy rates are up;  teen births, as in -a young woman actually giving birth- are down.   The reason for both valid statistics  is the growth of the abortion industry.
(Via Huffington Post)  Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) has not yet decided whether she will run for governor in 2014, but the state’s Democratic Party is doing everything it can to make sure she does.

Texas Democrats kicked off their “I Want Wendy” campaign on Tuesday by asking state residents to sign a petition urging Davis to get into the race. The Fort Worth Democrat made a name for herself earlier this summer when she filibustered a sweeping anti-abortion bill for 11 straight hours. (more…)