Why are groups like LULAC and the NAACP so concerned with congressional districting in a red state like Texas, but not at all concerned with the lines in blue states? That’s what the Texas-based Conservative Hispanic Society’s executive director Chris Salcedo wants to know. Salcedo, who has frequently written for PJM, recently testified on Texas redistricting. He witnessed the allegedly non-partisan LULAC and NAACP clearly going to bat to carve out racially biased, presumably Democrat-lock seats. Salcedo recounts his experience in a statement to the CHS.

I attended and testified at the Texas redistricting hearing in Dallas.  For our members out of state, some extreme left-wing groups are not happy with the lines that were drawn in 2012 in response to the latest census.  They alleged “racism” in the drawing of the districts, saying they want Hispanic districts and Black districts instead.   A couple of these extreme left-wing groups are LULAC and NAACP.  I derive no pleasure from reporting this.  These groups come from noble beginnings, but have evolved into overtly political operations that only cater to those who share BOTH their ideology and race.   I’m sure many of their members were present at this meeting.   Many of the liberal politicians sucked up the public’s speaking time by bloviating their own positions.  Once the public was allowed to speak, I watched conservatives both African American and Hispanic testify in favor of the 2012 lines.  In turn, I saw the liberal members of the committee doing their best to discredit, malign and confuse those testifying.  This happened when I spoke as well.  I was astonished as the GOP members of the panel just sat there, like bumps on a log.  That’s when it hit me. They were afraid of being seen as racists for opposing the extreme left-wing agenda of LULAC and the NAACP.  I’M DONE!  I’ll not allow these groups, that work to undermine our Constitution, go unchallenged anymore.  They’ll not get a free pass from me.  Even though these groups claim to represent ALL Hispanics and ALL blacks, I know LULAC won’t defend Ted Cruz, Bill Flores, Marco Rubio or me because we’re conservative Hispanics.  I know the NAACP won’t defend Justice Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Herman Cain or Dr. Benjamin Carson, because they don’t share the NAACP’s liberal agenda.  I’LL NOT ALLOW THESE EXTREME LIBERAL GROUPS TO HIDE THEIR IDEOLOGY BEHIND THEIR RACE ANY LONGER!  I know, and you know, there’s nothing left-wing about being black.  And there’s certainly nothing LIBERAL about being LATINO.  The days of kowtowing to these groups, are over.

To its credit, LULAC did once sue the Texas Democratic Party over its biased method of handling its primary-caucus nominating regime. That system handed Barack Obama more delegates despite Hillary Clinton getting more actual votes in 2008. But more recently, LULAC sued Harris County (Houston area) for attempting to clean up its voter rolls. That lawsuit is pretty much a Texas Democratic Party operation, at least in spirit. They sued Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Don Sumners in 2012:

“The actual allegations in the lawsuit, for the most part, cover the same accusations of the Texas Democratic Party suit of 2008,” Sumners said in a statement. “After months of discovery and the taking of multiple depositions, the lawsuit was resolved when the Democratic Party was unable to produce a single person who had been illegally denied the right to register and vote.”

Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton emerged from a closed-door National Security Agency briefing this morning still skeptical about the broad use of surveillance techniques described to lawmakers.

“The limited collection and use of data are authorized by the Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and I supported both of those laws because they establish constraints. However, the National Security Agency violated the spirit of the law when it started collecting data from everyone in the country just because technology now makes that possible,” Barton said.

Barton said that during the briefing, which was called in reaction to the leak scandal, “representatives from the NSA went to great lengths to explain that they are only going after terrorists and they are very conscientious in exercising their authority – and I believe them.”

“They have foiled terror plots by tracking their communications,” the congressman added.

“However, in America, you are considered innocent until proven guilty. You don’t target everyone and violate their 4^th Amendment rights just because of a handful of threats,” Barton continued. “But that is exactly what is happening at the NSA, at the IRS, at the Justice Department and we are just supposed to accept it. Well, it is wrong and it needs to stop now.”

“To fix this, Congress needs to focus on properly balancing national security and the protection of people’s Constitutional rights.”

Gun control advocates should go tell Jan Cooper of Anaheim, CA why she shouldn’t have a handgun. If they’re brave enough to.

Jan Cooper, of Anaheim, fired one shot from her .357-magnum Smith & Wesson revolver around 12:30 a.m. Sunday as a man attempted to break into her home. During a 911 call of the incident, Cooper can be heard begging with the dispatcher to send deputies and warns that she has a gun at the ready as her Rottweiler barks furiously in the background.

Minutes later, a breathless Cooper says the man has come to the back porch and is trying to get in the house through a sliding door. Through the vertical blinds, Cooper saw his silhouette just inches away through the glass as he began to slide open the door.

“I’m firing!” Cooper shouts to the dispatcher as a loud band goes off.

Cooper then curses at the suspect, shouting at him to “back up.”

She fired, narrowly missed, and the perp was picked up later. Firing the shot caused him to apologize, and stop trying to invade her home. If she hadn’t had the gun and known how to operate it, who knows what might have happened to her and her wheelchair-bound WW2 veteran husband?

Turns out that the perp is a repeat offender. Brandon Alexander Perez, 31, was on parole and staying at a halfway house on other burglary and narcotics charges when he made the mistake of taking on Jan Cooper. It’s evidently too much to ask to keep actual criminals in actual jails anymore.

NSA leaker/whistleblower/hero/traitor/dropout/overachiever Edward Snowden has resurfaced, briefly. He gave an interview to the South China Post’s Lana Lam, and in the interview he defends his reason for using Hong Kong as his base after leaving the United States.

“People who think I made a mistake in picking Hong Kong as a location misunderstand my intentions. I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality,” Snowden said in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post.

“I have had many opportunities to flee HK, but I would rather stay and fight the United States government in the courts, because I have faith in Hong Kong’s rule of law,” he added.

Snowden cited Hong Kong’s court system and its “long tradition of protesting in the streets,” a tradition that has been strained since the city-state’s reversion to mainland communist China’s control in 1997.

But that tradition hasn’t been broken entirely. Hong Kong has retained its capitalist spirit and remains a global and regional media hub. Groups have already risen up to defend Snowden and protest in Hong Kong on his behalf.

If Snowden intended to call out both governments for their online tactics and data mining, then Hong Kong may have been an ideal place to run to. He could also have chosen Taiwan, but it’s less a regional media hub and its hostility to Beijing make basing himself there much less of a statement against the mainland than Hong Kong, which is under loose but real Chinese control.

Any protest in Hong Kong on his behalf targets not just the US government, but the mainland Chinese government as well. They would be protesting against both governments’ interests in taking Snowden into custody. They would be protesting against both governments’ violations of free speech and Internet surveillance. Chinese citizens outside Hong Kong may see the pro-Snowden protests and wonder both why they can’t protest about things they care about, and why their own government is so appallingly heavy-handed on Internet surveillance and censorship.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) is continuing his advocacy for punishment of the reporters involved in publishing the stories about NSA surveillance programs.

King told CNN yesterday that Edward Snowden, the contractor with Booz Allen Hamilton who leaked the information to the Guardian and Washington Post, is “a defector or traitor — I guess take your pick.”

“What he’s done is incredible damage to our country. He’s going to put American lives at risk. I don’t know how he can live with himself. A traitor is as good as a term as any. I think he’s violated the Espionage Act. In my mind, yes, that would make him a traitor, yes,” he said.

The former Homeland Security Committee chairman said the “general” harm from the leaks “is that al-Qaeda and its allies now know …what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.”

“They were not aware of all the details that are out there, and they monitor everything we do on a day to day basis. They were not aware — or could not have been aware of the number of details that have come out, and that to me is certainly putting American lives at risk by giving the enemy such detail about what we are doing that enables them to adjust their tactics and strategies, and that is very damaging to America,” he said.

Snowden’s whereabouts are unknown since he checked out of a Hong Kong hotel this week.

King said if the reporters involved “willing knew that this was classified information” they should be subjected to punishment.

“I know the issue of leaks, I think something on this magnitude, there is an obligation both legal, I believe, against a reporter disclosing something, which would so severely compromise national security. As a practical matter, I guess there have been in the past several years, a number of reporters who have been prosecuted. So the answer is yes,” he said.

King said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who told the Senate Intelligence Committee in March that the NSA does “not wittingly” collect data on millions of Americans, should say “we’re not collecting information on individuals. We’re collecting information on phone numbers. I realize that’s a technicality.”

“This has already been discussed in the classified setting,” he said. “When you’re asked something in public about something so classified and so sensitive, it really put the director in an unwinnable position.”

Fresh off the Internal Revenue Service’s confession that it targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, Congress is now looking into a March 2011 IRS search and seizure of as many as 60 million medical records from a California health care provider.

House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders sent a letter to IRS Acting Administrator Daniel Werfel expressing concern that Americans’ health records will be protected as the IRS moves into its ObamaCare role.

Chair emeritus Joe Barton (R-Texas), Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations and Health Subcommittees Michael Burgess (R-Texas), and full committee Vice Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) wrote asked Werfel to outline the IRS’ policies and procedures for requesting and examining protected healthcare information, and keeping it private.

“The Committee on Energy and Commerce is investigating allegations that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in the course of executing a search warrant at a California health care provider’s corporate headquarters in March 2011, improperly seized the personal medical records of millions of American citizens in possible violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” they wrote.

The unnamed health care provider is now suing the IRS and 15 unnamed agents in California Superior Court alleging that the agents stole more than 60 million medical records from more than 10 million American patients during a search conducted March 11, 2011, the lawmakers noted.

“The warrant authorizing that search was apparently limited to the financial records of a former employee of the company and in no way authorized the sweeping confiscation of the personal medical records of millions of Americans who had no connection to the initial IRS investigation,” the letter continues.

“In light of these allegations and in anticipation of the IRS’s increased role in implementing health care under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, we are writing to request information regarding your agency’s ability to both protect the confidential medical information of millions of Americans and respect the safeguards imposed by HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act].”

According to news reports, the lawsuit alleges that the medical records included “information on psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual and drug treatment, and other sensitive medical treatment data.”

Committee leaders requested that Werfel respond by June 25.

The Guardian has the story:

A group of 11 local organisations, many of them human rights NGOs, plans to hold the rally at 3pm on Saturday, according to a press release posted online on Wednesday afternoon. “We call on Hong Kong to respect international legal standards and procedures relating to the protection of Snowden; we condemn the US government for violating our rights and privacy; and we call on the US not to prosecute Snowden,” it said.
…
The rally’s press release said the participants would march past a Hong Kong government office and the city’s US consulate, and suggested that they bring posters reading: “defend free speech, protect Snowden”, “no extradition”, “respect Hong Kong law”, “shame on NSA”, “stop internet surveillance” and “betray Snowden = betray freedom”.

Hong Kong is an odd duck, being a part of Semi-Demi-Communist China but having its own semi-demi-independent political and economic system. Since the British handed Hong Kong back over, Beijing has increased its powers in the region, without ever quite cracking down.

So what I’d like to know is, if any of these 11 groups are fronts for Beijing, or how many of their members might be in cahoots with the mainland. Because Snowden, with a big assist from the NSA and the White House, has handed Beijing an excellent opportunity to embarrass the United States.

For the record, I’m glad Snowden revealed the NSA’s data-mining program — no matter whether his personal motivations were honorable or treasonous. But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be some unpleasant complications.

After the IRS abuse scandal broke, Progress Texas stepped forward to claim that its own application to the IRS had drawn extra scrutiny similar, too. Some liberals used that claim to argue that the IRS abuse wasn’t partisan after all.

Progress Texas took things even a step farther, and stated that two-thirds of the groups that the IRS abused weren’t even conservative. So, no scandal at all.

That, it turns out, was not true, according to PolitiFact.

We asked how Progress Texas concluded that most of the groups were not conservative. Political director Phillip Martin told us by email that the statement was based on a May 12, 2013, Washington Post news story about a leaked report from the U.S. Treasury inspector general that the government released two days later.

The Post story said that according to the report, “Of the 298 groups selected for special scrutiny … 72 had ‘tea party’ in their title, 13 had ‘patriot’ and 11 had ‘9/12.’ ” That equaled 96 groups, Martin said, or 32.2 percent of the declared 298.

Were the other 202 groups nonconservative? Neither the report nor the story described those groups, and Progress Texas did not reply to our follow-up requests for relevant information.

—

Progress Texas has twice said that two-thirds of the groups whose applications for tax-exempt status were scrutinized by the IRS were not conservative.

The group’s fraction appears to be an unsupported assumption tied to a government report saying that 96 of 298 IRS-scrutinized organizations, or about a third, had “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12″ in their names. The report listed other criteria the IRS used, some of which appeared to be aimed at conservatives.

But the report has no information on the political makeup of the other groups, and we see no other indications that their political leanings have been authoritatively summed up or individually revealed, though the IRS has said the scrutinized groups without “tea party” in their names reflected “all political views,” which presumably would fold in liberals to moderates to conservatives.

Progress Texas’ claim shakes out as incorrect and, given the lack of backup documentation, ridiculous. Pants on Fire!

Whether Progress Texas lied, as per PolitiFact’s finding, as part of a larger pushback and distraction campaign or on its own initiative is not clear.

Since our last edition of Hillary Watch 2016  posted in early May, a political tsunami has occurred in our nation’s capital.  And to prove just how much that tsunami has altered the political landscape, remember it was only the Benghazi whistle blower hearings that were front and center at that time.

Now consider how many scandals, revelations, and leaks have befallen the Obama administration since then, with no break in between.

And, at this writing, more scandals and cover-ups are in the process of enfolding and exploding involving Hillary’s State Department as Tatler editor, Bryan Preston, chronicled here.

Sex! Lies! Horny Ambassadors! Fixers! Cover-ups!

It’s all so juicy and easy for the general public to understand (as opposed to those bor-ring Benghazi talking points).

Watch as Hillary’s famous Benghazi hearing question, “What difference does it make?” is sure to be asked again and turned on her as more details are revealed. After all, this was her domain and these were her people so the “I know nothing” defense will not fly.

OK, so we have now established that there will be some rough patches ahead for Hillary 2016. However, 2016 is decades away in political dog years. As noted above, what has happened politically since early May is a fine example of political dog years in action.  One day, one week, one month, is enough time for a 180 degree turnaround in politics.

It is a given that circumstances will change, but there is one question that will not change and that question will have the most impact on Hillary’s 2016 prospects.

That question is, “Can Hillary win Obama’s third term?”

Let’s examine the recent record for some examples.

Daddy Bush won Reagan’s third term in 1988.

Al Gore won the popular vote for Clinton’s third term in 2000.

John McCain did not and could not win George W. Bush’s third term in 2008.

So, that brings us up to The Question of 2016.

As a loyal Republican who will vote for whomever is running against Hillary in 2016, my answer to The Question is “Yes she can.”  Republicans must assume she can and fight all the harder for the following reasons:

Hillary as the “first female president”  is real, appealing, gigantic, important, enormous, and the media will turn it into a mantra.

I have written about this mantra before and I will mention it again and again. For once this huge social movement starts rolling, a heavy-set white man from New Jersey, or two first-term senators from Kentucky or Florida will not stand a chance.

That brings me to the second reason behind, “Yes she can,” which also happens to be a question that I have raised in numerous past Hillary Watch 2016 installments.

How in 2016 does any Republican presidential candidate win 270 electoral votes?

It is a question that must be asked and examined but the facts make the answer difficult with so many demographic groups such as women, youth, Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, unions, government employees, gays, and teachers all aligned against the GOP.

Furthermore, Hillary’s favorable/unfavorable Gallup poll ratings are going down and up, from an early 2013 sky-high favorable of 66% to a still very respectable 58%. Contrast that to her current unfavorable rating, rising from a low of 29% to 39%. Still all VERY ACCEPTABLE for a nationally known and somewhat polarizing figure.

Hillary’s new Twitter account also made a big splash this week indicating she is gearing up and ready for the modern age.

And with the modern age comes Clinton-era nostalgia that will be re-packaged, re-modeled and re-branded as Hillary is positioned to win Bill’s “third term.”

Now this is key to answering the major question I have posed and right out of Mad Men. “If you don’t like the question change the conversation.” And here is how Hillary could do just that; she could win Obama’s third term while running against Obama using this argument:

We, as a nation, were all hoodwinked in 2008.  Obama offered us hope and change and after Bush we were all so desperate for anything new and shiny.

So we made a mistake…twice. The first time  I tried, I cried, and I came pretty close, even warned you about him taking phone calls at 3 AM.  But it was not my time so new and shiny won out, first in 2008 and then again in 2012.  So let’s reset the clock and now in 2016 I will do for this nation what I was going to do in 2008.

Seriously folks, you might hear something like this from Hillary in 2016.

Hillary must run for Obama’s third term, but Team Clinton, along with the media, will make us think that it’s really Bill’s third term for which she is running.

In January 2013, after the president had been re-elected and before the IRS abuse scandal broke, President Obama’s campaign was crowing about two things. It was crowing about its love of all things data, and it was crowing that it had morphed from a presidential campaign into a permanent “social welfare” organization. Its name had to change, from Obama for America, to Organizing for America, to Organizing for Action. But the personnel stayed in place, and the group’s massive database went seamlessly along with them into the new future of permacampaigning.

NBC’s Michael Isikoff reported on OfA’s shapeshifting on January 28, 2013.

Organizing For Action (OFA), the advocacy group set up in recent weeks by the president’s top political aides, has already acquired access to the database under a leasing agreement with the Obama campaign, Katie Hogan, a former Obama campaign aide who is now serving as spokeswoman for the lobbying group, told NBC News. The information will be used to unleash an “army of the door knockers” to back the president’s legislative agenda as well as raise money for “issue ads” – particularly in crucial congressional districts, she said.

—

Dubbed the “nuclear codes” by campaign aides, the Obama campaign database is widely described as one of the most powerful tools ever developed in American politics. According to published reports, it contains the names of at least 4 million Obama donors – as well as millions of others (the campaign has consistently refused to say how many) compiled from voter registration rolls and other public databases. In addition, the campaign used sophisticated computer programs — with code names like “Narwhal” — to collect information through social media: Anybody who contacted the campaign through Facebook had their friends and “likes” downloaded. If they contacted  the campaign website through mobile apps, cellphone numbers and address books were downloaded. Computer “cookies” captured Web browsing and online spending habits.

Obama campaign managers Jim Messina and Stephanie Cutter made the one-inch leap from the presidential campaign to the post-presidential campaign. They dropped a name tag on one end of a table and picked up a new one on the other end. The IRS never questioned them or the group or its purpose at all.

“The way it’s organized, we legally can’t participate in elections,” Stephanie Cutter, a top Obama campaign official who now serves on the board of OFA, said at a recent Politico-sponsored inaugural event. “But that doesn’t mean the issues we’re organizing around won’t mobilize the American people to vote for things — to vote for that economy we’ve been working for, to vote for immigration reform, to vote for common sense gun reforms. I think we can affect elections, we just can’t legally be involved in them — for this particular organization.”

Gun-control advocates will double-team the Hill next week as families of victims in last week’s Santa Monica College shooting join Newtown families for a meeting with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

The Santa Monica gunman who killed five, John Zawahiri, was kicked out of a continuation high school in 2006 for “disturbing behaviors” centering “around his discussion of weapons and violence,” the Los Angeles Times reported today. Police officials said the 23-year-old carried an AR-15 and .44 revolver and had 40 magazines packed with 30 rounds each strapped to his body and in a bag he was carrying.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) laughed talking to reporters yesterday on the Hill when asked if there’s “a snowball’s chance” of gun-control being successfully revived in the House.

“I’m very doubtful what with the House leadership has any intention of bringing a bill to the floor. I think that’s unfortunate. I think background checks — 85 to 90 percent of Americans believe that having a background check for somebody to purchase a weapon makes common sense. The NRA supported it 10 years ago and, opposes it now. I don’t know what their rationalization is. I’m sure they have one,” Hoyer said.

When asked about the meeting with victims’ families, Hoyer said he believes Boehner is “an empathetic person.”

“I mean I think that you know he’s not a hard-hearted person. I think these folks have sustained a loss, they want to meet with the Speaker and I think it shows respect for them that he will listen to them. But I don’t know that they will move him to action,” Hoyer said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said recently that he wants to revive gun control in the upper chamber.

“Every single time something like this happens, I think this does give us wind at our back,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said on MSNBC after the Santa Monica shooting.

“Whether it’s with staunch opponents or senators on the fence, they can be powerfully persuasive, and show that this bill is very much alive and well,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said on the visit by victims’ families. “We’re not standing down. The bill will be brought back. The majority leader has promised that it will be. And I think we’ll have another vote before the end of the year.”

Hoyer said he presumed the Republican appointed to temporarily fill the seat of late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Attorney General Jeff Chiesa, will support gun control.

“Which means that Senator Reed still needs to get five additional votes. I don’t know whether he can do that, I hope he can. I commend him for bringing it back up and, I think it makes sense,” he added. “And I would hope we would move it here, but I don’t see any indication, Republican leadership being that Mr. Boehner or, Mr. Cantor or Mr. Goodlatte — I guess that this committee would be in each committee has any intention of doing so. So we’ll see.”

Appreciate @govchristie‘s thoughtful choice for senator. Gabby and I are hopeful we can work with Sen Chiesa to expand background checks.

— Mark Kelly (@ShuttleCDRKelly) June 6, 2013

As the Obama administration responds to criticism of Guantanamo Bay with fervent vows to close the prison facility in Cuba, the Pentagon announced charges against one of the high-value detainees held there.

Military commissions have been ongoing yet are still very much in the pretrial hearing stage for professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, believed to have masterminded the USS Cole attack.

This week the Defense Department announced that Abd al Hadi al Iraqi, an Iraqi national held by the U.S. since 2006, will face perfidy charges — an offense in which those who are the targets of attack are killed, injured, or captured after the attackers have “invit[ed] the confidence or belief… that [the attackers] were entitled to… protection under the laws of war.”

Abd al Hadi, as a senior member of al-Qaeda, is charged in a series of attacks in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2004.

The government charges that he had joined al-Qaeda by 1996, “that, in furtherance of the group’s hostile and terrorist aims, he served as a high-ranking leader on various senior councils that set al Qaeda’s agenda and policies; that he was a significant al Qaeda liaison to the Taliban, to al Qaeda in Iraq, and to other allied groups; that Abd al Hadi directed his fighters to kill all coalition soldiers encountered during their attacks, thereby denying quarter to potential captive or wounded coalition soldiers.”

“Following his tenure as commander of al Qaeda’s insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the charges allege that Abd al Hadi continued his liaison role with al Qaeda in Iraq and was ultimately assigned by Usama bin Laden to travel to Iraq to assume a position among the leadership of al Qaeda’s insurgency there,” the Pentagon said.

Abd al Hadi faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison.

The convening authority will now weigh the charges to determine if they’ll be referred to a military commission.

The announcement came a day before the White House threatened to veto the House version of the defense reauthorization bill because, in part, because provisions within “would continue unwise funding restrictions that would prohibit the construction or modification of a detention facility in the United States to house Guantanamo detainees, and would constrain our ability to transfer Guantanamo detainees, including those who have already been designated for transfer to other countries.”

“Operating the facility at Guantanamo weakens our national security by wasting resources, damaging our relationships with key allies, and reinforcing propaganda used by al-Qaeda to attack the United States and our values,” OMB said.

Al Gore is beside himself with anguish.  He wants tornados to be linked with global warming.  He has the formula all worked out:  more destruction = more coverage = a national dialogue about climate change – again.  It’s depraved – and a bit hypocritical since he sold his coveted Current TV to the oil-rich owners of the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network.  Yet, it’ll be the same show all over again.  People will become worried, but when they find out that these environmentalists intend to tax and spend their way to a green utopia – they’ll balk at their agenda.

Zack Colman of the Hill wrote on June 11 that:

Former Vice President Al Gore lamented on Tuesday that scientists “won’t let us yet” link tornadoes to climate change.

[...]

ore said there’s a political interest in determining climate change causes extreme weather. He said lawmakers cannot address the root of disasters without first making a connection between emissions, climate change and extreme weather.

Failing to acknowledge that connection will imperil future relief efforts as disasters grow more frequent and expensive, Gore said.

“There are beginning to be big arguments in this building about whether we can afford to clean up these disasters,” noting the congressional battles over providing relief aid following Hurricane Sandy and the Moore tornado.

Insurance agencies and climate activists contend the government will be increasingly on the hook for disaster cleanup as a result of climate change. They say storms are growing fiercer, subjecting more areas to disaster-related damage that private insurers are hesitant to cover.

Gore advocated putting a price on carbon to limit emissions as a way to subdue those incidents.

Granted, carbon taxes are transparent. For example, consumers can calculate how much they’re paying right there at the gas pump, but  it’s part of a dubious green agenda that is dependent on the discredited notion that government will invest the additional revenue wisely.  Plus, it’s a new tax pitched to us during a weak recovery, which will only exacerbate our current economic torpor.

Yet, I can see why Al Gore wants to plunge the nation into global warming monomania, since the New York Times reported on June 10 about the sudden decrease in global temperatures.

The rise in the surface temperature of earth has been markedly slower over the last 15 years than in the 20 years before that. And that lull in warming has occurred even as greenhouse gases have accumulated in the atmosphere at a record pace.

The slowdown is a bit of a mystery to climate scientists. True, the basic theory that predicts a warming of the planet in response to human emissions does not suggest that warming should be smooth and continuous. To the contrary, in a climate system still dominated by natural variability, there is every reason to think the warming will proceed in fits and starts.

But given how much is riding on the scientific forecast, the practitioners of climate science would like to understand exactly what is going on. They admit that they do not, even though some potential mechanisms of the slowdown have been suggested. The situation highlights important gaps in our knowledge of the climate system, some of which cannot be closed until we get better measurements from high in space and from deep in the ocean.

Before the scandals, Obama promised to address this threat to the world.  It seems that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

StrategyPage:

This is a new version with a much improved guidance system. Israel fears that some of these missiles will be sent to Hezbollah, who might use them against Israeli ships or offshore natural gas field platform facilities. Israel is trying to persuade Russia to stop delivering the missiles but Russia is reluctant to halt these shipments. Iran appears to be paying for this, so the loss of income would be felt in Russia.

This sort of thing has been going on for a while. Two years ago Russia delivered 72 Yakhonts and 18 of the mobile ground launchers (each carrying two missiles) to Syria. Also included were five battery command vehicles. Typically a Yakhont battery consists of one of these vehicles, four launchers, and several more trucks carrying security and maintenance personnel and equipment. The 2011 shipment cost $300 million dollars. The missiles can be stored in their launch containers for seven years before they require major component replacements and refurbishment to stay operational. Yakhonts have a range of 300 kilometers and are very hard to stop.

No matter who wins the Syrian Civil War, the Israelis are going to have their hands full dealing with all the new threats, courtesy of Moscow.

The Hangover, Part Infinity

The American Civil Liberties Union sued senior U.S. government officials on Tuesday to strike down the National Security Agency’s broad telephone surveillance, a challenge that may have improved chances of succeeding as a result of recent leaks about the program.

It’s OK to agree with the NSA (not saying I do here) every once in a while. Just take a shower right after you do.

Laser-like nanny.

Three months after a state court judge barred New York City from limiting the sale of large sugary drinks, the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was back in the courtroom on Tuesday, asking an appellate court to approve the rules.

The city is racing against the clock: Mr. Bloomberg’s final term ends in less than six months, and many of the politicians vying to succeed him are lukewarm about the soda plan, suggesting they might drop the case once Mr. Bloomberg leaves City Hall.

Nearing the end of his dictatorship, this is what the idiot has prioritized wasting taxpayer dollars on.

Bloomberg is one of those rich narcissists who doesn’t care about his legacy. He really does view everyone else as being in dire need of his misguided paternal b.s.

And he’s got the money to still be irritating after he leaves office.

We must know different Republicans.

The Senate passed preliminary but key votes Tuesday in its march to approval of sweeping, bipartisan immigration reform, but final passage remained uncertain as Republicans pushed for tighter border-security provisions and tougher rules for those seeking legal status.

The two procedural votes effectively put the bill formally before the Senate and open for amendments. Both drew more than 80 votes, reflecting a bipartisan desire to have the debate that now is expected to last three weeks.

However, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was among the Republicans who pointed out that the 60-vote majority his party is demanding for final passage is hardly assured.

“This bill has serious flaws,” he said.

Yes, we have a few on our side who seem willing to fight lately but they always seem to be in the minority of the minority party in the Senate. I’m all for vigorous debate and I don’t even mind some compromise every now and then if I know I’ve got real fighters representing my interests. Let’s just say that the McConnell version of the Senate Republicans haven’t done anything in…well…ever to make me feel that way.

This ought to be fun.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter Tuesday to acting IRS Administrator Daniel Werfel requesting information about a 2011 agency search and seizure of as many as 60 million medical records from a California health care provider.

Were I to venture into scripting horror films, I would ponder the number of things that could go wrong with the thugs at Internal Revenue having access to all of my health information.

This has GOT to be stopped.

Mmmmkay…

The number of job openings fell in April but more workers quit their jobs during the month, a potential sign of confidence in the nation’s plodding labor market recovery.

Job openings, a measure of labor demand, fell to 3.757 million during the month from 3.875 million in March, the Labor Department said on Tuesday.

At the same time, the number of workers quitting their jobs rose to 2.251 million in April from 2.099 million in March. Economists generally view an increase in the number of quits as a sign workers are confident that they can find work elsewhere.

Yes, in a normal recovering economy this is seen as a positive sign. In an economy where unemployment has been at dangerous highs for years it’s a bit of a reach to pop the champagne open for it.

It would be interesting to see how many of those quitting to look for work elsewhere live near the Beltway jobs boom.

The “tell us more” tweet of the evening from South Carolina Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan, a member of the House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs committees:

A few weeks ago when I toured a DHS facility I saw #IRS agents training with AR-15′s. I’m looking into the issue now #PJNET

— Rep. Jeff Duncan (@RepJeffDuncan) June 11, 2013

He hasn’t elaborated yet.

Michael Isikoff:

The FBI has dramatically increased its use of a controversial provision of the Patriot Act to secretly obtain a vast store of business records of U.S. citizens under President Barack Obama, according to recent Justice Department reports to Congress. The bureau filed 212 requests for such data to a national security court last year – a 1,000-percent increase from the number of such requests four years earlier, the reports show.

The FBI’s increased use of the Patriot Act’s “business records” provision — and the wide ranging scope of its requests — is getting new scrutiny in light of last week’s disclosure that that the provision was used to obtain a top-secret national security order requiring telecommunications companies to turn over records of millions of telephone calls.

Taken together, experts say, those revelations show the government has broadly interpreted the Patriot Act provision as enabling it to collect data not just on specific individuals, but on millions of Americans with no suspected terrorist connections. And it shows that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court accepted that broad interpretation of the law.

Remember when Obama campaigned on repealing the PATRIOT Act?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yeah, me neither.

The lopsided initial vote looks scary, mostly because it is.

In the Senate, Republicans who forced the procedural step that required at least 60 votes to launch debate on the immigration bill joined Democrats to easily surpass the threshold.

The final tally was 82-15, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned that some Republicans had no intention of supporting the measure even though they supported opening the formal debate.

The problem even with opening the debate is that it has been dishonest from the start. Democrats have no intention of securing the border. They and their disingenuous allies already claim that “the border is as secure as ever.” That’s a lie and chances are they know it. Many of the Republicans, like Rubio, McCain and Grahamnesty, have no intention of pointing that out. They’re going to stand by as opponents of the bill are smeared and demagogued.

We’ve seen this movie before starring McCain and Graham. Rubio’s joining their smarmy buddy pic is beyond disappointing.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), a senior member of the House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, said today she’ll introduce legislation to limit the use of civilian contractors in gathering intelligence.

“The disclosure of leaked and highly sensitive classified information to the Washington Post and the Guardian raises several very important and disturbing issues. How is possible that a twenty-something high-school dropout and part-time security guard can be hired by the CIA and the NSA and given, or able to gain, access to some of the government’s most sensitive and secret information?” Jackson Lee said.

“Obviously, something went very wrong in the conduct of this individual’s security clearance background investigation, which is troubling enough in itself but particularly alarming given that more than 3 million persons hold similar top secret security clearances.”

Edward Snowden, like more than 483,000 other contractors, had top secret clearance. Another 582,000 contractors have confidential or secret clearance, according to a 2012 report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The remainder of clearances in the number Jackson Lee cites belong to government employees and others, such as politicians or staff.

“Congress must hold oversight hearings to identify and repair deficiencies in the security clearance system. At the same time, the Department of Defense and the intelligence community should be review its internal processes and procedures to assess vulnerabilities in the current system, which by the way relies too much on the use of outside contractors in intelligence gathering,” Jackson Lee said. “That is why I am offering an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 requiring the Secretary of Defense to report to Congress on the use of private contractors to conduct intelligence gathering and analysis activities.”

About 2,000 private companies do top-secret work for the U.S. government, spread out among contracts with 45 agencies.

Booz Allen Hamilton, where Snowden was employed for less than three months, reaped about $1.3 billion in revenue from intelligence contracts last year.

UPDATE: Jackson Lee said her amendment specifically calls for reducing by 25 percent the number of DoD contractors with top-secret security clearances.

As Republican Gabriel Gomez and Democrat Ed Markey enter the final stretch in the Massachusetts senate race to fill John Kerry’s vacancy, the polls are obviously in limbo.  Some have Markey in the lead, while others show Gomez coming up from behind.  As a result, President Obama and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are being deployed to the Bay State to prevent another Republican upset, and inject a shot of life into Markey’s slothful campaign.  According to pollster John McLaughlin, this race is undeniably a dead heat – and one that could potentially end in embarrassment for the Democratic Party.

Survey Summary:

The results of our survey show the new comer, Republican Gabriel Gomez, has stolen the momentum in the special election to be held on June 25th.   Gomez and long time Democratic Congressman Ed Markey are in a statistical dead heat, with Gomez receiving 44.3%, Markey 45.3%, and 10.5% undecided.

**If the special election were held today, which one of the following best describes how you are likely to vote in the special election for United States Senate between (ROTATE) Gabriel Gomez, the Republican candidate and Ed Markey, the Democratic candidate?

TOTAL
COMBO GABRIEL GOMEZ                    44%
Definitely Vote Gomez                                31%
Probably Vote  Gomez                                 10%
Lean  Gomez                                                  4%

COMBO ED MARKEY                               45%
Definitely Vote Markey                               28%
Probably Vote  Markey                               11%
Lean  Markey                                                6%

UNDECIDED                                                 11%

**Ed Markey’s high unfavorable ratings are clearly impacting his ballot rating.  With a one-to-one favorable to unfavorable rating, Ed Markey will have a difficult time increasing his ballot share.  What’s more, the intensity lies with Markey’s unfavorable rating, as the plurality of voters, 29%, is “very unfavorable” to Markey.

Opinion Ed Markey
TOTAL 

FAVORABLE                                                   42%
Very Favorable                                              18%
Somewhat Favorable                                   25%

UNFAVORABLE                                              42%
Somewhat Unfavorable                               13%
Very Unfavorable                                           29%

NEVER HEARD OF                                        14%
NO OPINION                                                     2%

**Conversely, nearly half of the voters, 48%, are favorable to Gabriel Gomez, and he receives a relatively low unfavorable rating of 27%.  With a high favorable rating and low unfavorable rating, Gabriel Gomez is giving the voters a strong alternative to Ed Markey.

Opinion Gabriel Gomez:

 TOTAL

FAVORABLE                                                     48%
Very Favorable                                                 21%
Somewhat Favorable                                     28%

UNFAVORABLE                                              27%
Somewhat Unfavorable                                12%
Very Unfavorable                                            5%

NEVER HEARD OF                                         22%
NO OPINION                                                       3%

CONCLUSION
With less than 3 weeks to go to Election Day, Gabriel Gomez has the momentum in the race.  Gomez’s high favorable ratings will be a strong asset over Markey’s high unfavorable ratings in this neck-and-neck race.

Interesting exchange during today’s hearing on the nomination of Todd Jones to head up the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It turns out that in 2010 more than 48,000 felons tried to buy guns illegally. The Department of Justice attempted to prosecute just 44 of them. Not 44,000. Forty-four.

Jones throws up a dust cloud of words but basically admits that there haven’t been many prosecutions of obvious gun crimes that ought to be prosecuted. Despite the fact that Jones himself called such prosecutions a “major priority.” Sen. Cruz has successfully argued cases before the US Supreme Court. He easily traps Jones with his own words, and calls Jones out for refusing to answer questions.

Obama et al. want to put more gun laws on the books not to get after felons, but to make it more difficult for law-abiding Americans to obtain firearms. A cynic might conclude that the administration might be interested in allowing violent felons to obtain guns so that when they commit violence with those guns, calls to weaken the Second Amendment might find a receptive populace. After the NSA, IRS, Benghazi, etc etc etc, cynicism is the way to bet.

Cheryl Mills and Patrick Kennedy just keep turning up at the center of State Department fiascos and scandals. The latest is one that broke Monday — a State Department memo details how they stepped in to stifle investigations into several ongoing department scandals.

Now the NY Post has more details. It turns out that the cover-up was carried out to help a major Obama campaign bundler who was appointed US ambassador to Belgium.

A chief investigator for the agency’s inspector general wrote a memo outlining eight cases that were derailed by senior officials, including one instance of interference by Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills.

Any mention of the cases was removed from an IG report about problems within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS), which provides protection and investigates crimes involving any State Department workers overseas.

—

Among the bombshell findings:

* A DS agent was called off a case against US Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman over claims that he solicited prostitutes, including minors.

“The agent began his investigation and had determined that the ambassador routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children,” says the memo.

“The ambassador’s protective detail and the embassy’s surveillance detection team . . . were well aware of the behavior.”

Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy ordered the investigation ceased, and the ambassador remains in place, according to the memo.

Gutman rolled up $500,000 in donations to Obama’s 2008 campaign and helped finance the inauguration. Apparently that makes him untouchable to all but hookers of all ages.

Meanwhile, Mills turned up scuttling an investigation of drug use by State Department officials in Baghdad. Because, really, no one should worry about US diplomatic officials who use illegal and mind-altering drugs in a war zone.

While we were sleeping, President Obama and a federal court changed things quite a bit. The Guardian reports, with a lie in its lead.

The Obama administration will stop trying to limit sales of emergency contraception pills, making the morning-after pill available to women of all ages without a prescription.

“Women of all ages…” Women of age 85 aren’t going to be getting the morning-after pill. They don’t need it. Most females under age 17 are not, in the eyes of the law, women. They’re girls. They have not reached the age of consent in many states. Sexual intercourse with them can constitute statutory rape, at least. It may also constitute pedophilia.

The change that now allows girls to obtain the morning-after pill without a prescription and with no questions asked may declare open season on them by sexual predators. The point of the change was, in fact, to make it possible for girls to get this pill, not “women of all ages,” despite the fact that sexual intercourse with them in most cases is illegal. It can also be a monstrous crime, depending on the circumstances.

A 13-year-old girl who goes to the pharmacy to obtain the morning-after pill is probably the victim of a crime. She may be under threat, and walking into the pharmacy to get the pill because an adult has forced her into sex and is now forcing her to get medication that can help cover up the crime. Her parents have the right to know that their daughter is either wittingly sexually active or has been victimized. But no questions will be asked. The girl — not woman, girl — will not be asked to provide ID or any evidence of age. Her parents will probably never know.

Obama’s own decision-making on this should get no pass. He fought the court mandate in the year leading up to his re-election, only to reverse course once he was safely re-elected. Politics drives everything this president says and does. He has made the pedobear one of his administration’s mascots.

Sexual predators and those who despise the family will cheer Obama’s decision. No one in their right mind should join them.

*****

Cross-posted at PJ Lifestyle

Question: Who in the intel community will be prosecuted for leaking this?

Answer: It makes the Obama government look good and it may distract from other scandals and leaks, so, no one.

U.S. intelligence operatives covertly sabotaged a prominent al-Qaeda online magazine last month in an apparent attempt to sow confusion among the group’s followers, according to officials.

The operation succeeded, at least temporarily, in thwarting publication of the latest issue of Inspire, the English-language magazine distributed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. When it appeared online, the text on the second page was garbled and the following 20 pages were blank. The sabotaged version was quickly removed from the online forum that hosted it, according to independent analysts who track jihadi Web sites.

Cool. But only mildly cool.

“You can make it hard for them to distribute it. Or you can mess with the content. And you can mess with the content in a way that is obvious, or in ways that are not obvious,” said one intelligence official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal debates.

So we hit them with a crappy hack that looked obvious rather than, say, something more subtle and subversive to crack al Qaeda’s morale. Kind of amateurish. Compared to how subversively the Obama government has handled the Ft. Hood terrorist attack, anyway.

This is one of those “read the whole thing” stories. You have to, to get what Ed Bott at ZDNet is saying.

The gist is that the Washington Post has quietly made major edits to its initial story about the NSA’s PRISM program, without acknowledging that any changes have been made at all. Many of the changes are stylistic, but many are factual. Such as the allegation that nine major US tech firms have knowingly cooperated with NSA to the point of giving the agency direct access to their servers.

The original story said:

The quietly changed version now reads:

That’s obviously a significant change. Bott found many others and posted a version of the story that tracks all of the edits made to it since the Post went live with it.

Noting all the changes, Bott leaps to a conclusion that I’m not sure is justified. He says the story shows the “collapse of journalism.” I’m not sure I buy that. Journalism in the mainstream media collapsed years ago, with the collective and deliberate failure to vet one Barack Obama as he ran for president. Every time a so-called mainstream journalist apes without examining a Democrat line on, say, border security or spending policy, it’s a failure that contributes to the collapse of journalism.

The reporters who’ve worked the NSA story evidently failed to vet Snowden too. He claimed to be a “career intelligence specialist” when it turns out he’s an infrastructure analyst. He claimed to be making $200,000 per year, when the actual figure is $120,000. He claims to be championing civil liberties yet he fled to Hong Kong — China, in other words, one of the most paranoid and repressive regimes around — ahead of his disclosure. He may also have exaggerated what PRISM actually does. We’re through the looking glass in many respects here, and it’s all but impossible to know who is writing and saying what on their own behalf, or on behalf of an intelligence community that’s now on the defensive.

Today, contractor Booz Allen Hamilton didn’t issue a new statement on Edward Snowden but updated the old one to reflect two things: his firing and his real salary. (Underlines done by Booz Allen)

Booz Allen can confirm that Edward Snowden, 29, was an employee of our firm for less than 3 months, assigned to a team in Hawaii. Snowden, who had a salary at the rate of $122,000, was terminated June 10, 2013 for violations of the firm’s code of ethics and firm policy. News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm. We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.

That’s a pretty big difference from what he told Guardian reporters in Hong Kong:

He has had “a very comfortable life” that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”

The company fired Snowden one day after he went public as the source of the leaks about the NSA phone surveillance and operation PRISM.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper used to be an executive at McLean, Va.-based Booz Allen.

There aren’t many initiatives in the Senate that would bring Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Al Franken (D-Minn.) together, but that’s just what the NSA surveillance scandal has done.

Lee and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who last week charged the Obama administration with “clearly” not following the law, today introduced a bill co-sponsored by Sens. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Franken to end to the “secret law” governing controversial government surveillance programs.

This bill would require the attorney general to declassify significant Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinions, allowing Americans to know how broad of a legal authority the government is claiming to spy on Americans under the PATRIOT Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, according to Merkley’s office.

“There is plenty of room to have this debate without compromising our surveillance sources or methods or tipping our hand to our enemies,” Merkley said. “We can’t have a serious debate about how much surveillance of Americans’ communications should be permitted without ending secret law.”

“This bipartisan amendment establishes a cautious and reasonable process for declassification consistent with the rule of law,” Lee said. “It will help ensure that the government makes sensitive decisions related to surveillance by applying legal standards that are known to the public. Particularly where our civil liberties are at stake, we must demand no less of our government.”

“Of course, ensuring Americans’ safety is one of our government’s most important responsibilities, but there is a careful balance between protecting Americans and honoring the Fourth Amendment,” Heller said. “This legislation is a measured approach that will bring more transparency to the FISA court and respect the American people’s right to know how and when the government may be accessing their personal information.”

It is impossible for the American people to have an informed public debate about laws that are interpreted, enforced, and adjudicated in complete secrecy,” Wyden said. “When talking about the laws governing Intelligence operations, the process has little to no transparency. Declassifying FISA Court opinions in a form that does not put sources and methods at risk will give the American people insight into what government officials believe the law allows them to do.”

Merkley offered the bill last Congress as an amendment to FISA reauthorization. It got 37 votes.

That amendment would have covered declassification of rulings related to the provisions used to authorize the controversial Verizon telephone records metadata collection and the PRISM program collecting information from tech companies, both of which were disclosed last week, Merkley’s office said.

The Democratic senator who was told by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in a March 12 hearing that the National Security Agency does “not wittingly” collecting data on millions of Americans isn’t satisfied with Clapper’s clarifications.

Clapper told MSNBC that when collection “errors are detected… which in all cases that I’m familiar with, were innocent and unintended, they are immediately corrected. And any of the ill begotten collection is destroyed.”

“There are also, of course, people very, very concerned about civil liberties and privacy, among whom is, for example, Senator Wyden, whom I have great respect for. And he is passionate about civil liberties and privacy, and he is averse to …so-called ‘secret law,’” Clapper added.

This morning, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) responded.

“One of the most important responsibilities a Senator has is oversight of the intelligence community.  This job cannot be done responsibly if Senators aren’t getting straight answers to direct questions,” Wyden said in a statement.

“When NSA Director Alexander failed to clarify previous public statements about domestic surveillance, it was necessary to put the question to the Director of National Intelligence. So that he would be prepared to answer, I sent the question to Director Clapper’s office a day in advance. After the hearing was over my staff and I gave his office a chance to amend his answer.”

He added “now public hearings are needed to address the recent disclosures and the American people have the right to expect straight answers from the intelligence leadership to the questions asked by their representatives.”

President Obama said in a Friday defense of the surveillance programs that they “are secret in the sense that they’re classified, but they’re not secret in the sense that, when it comes to telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program.”

Only congressional leadership and the intelligence committees, though, are traditionally briefed on sensitive intelligence matters. Wyden asked Clapper about the programs at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, and still didn’t get a straight answer.

For some comic relief, read the New York Times’ latest on global warming, or rather, the lack of global warming. Writer Justin Gillis struggles mightily to explain why the data show no warming over the last 15 years even as greenhouse gases have supposedly piled up faster than scandals in the Obama administration.

The one theory not proffered: That the previous years of warming were due to natural cycles and/or were hyped by scientists and flunkies like Al Gore because it served their political agendas.

Gillis even suggests that global warming skeptics are cherry-picking data now. He never considers that proponents ever did that, even though the Climategate emails prove that they did.

It’s a nice, light, quick read on the state of mind within the embattled global warming hype movement. They’re having a major sad because the data just won’t rid them of meddlesome capitalism.

NSA leaker/whistleblower Edward Snowden fled to Hong Kong ahead of disclosing the agency’s massive PRISM data mining operation. And then, he went missing. Numerous countries and transnational organizations could be expected to be interested in speaking with him, voluntarily or otherwise. Russia has publicly expressed interest in granting him “asylum.”

Ace foreign affairs reporter Bill Gertz appeared on the Andrea Tantaros Show today and suggested that China may have kidnapped Snowden to extract information from him.

“My own guess is, he will not leave Hong Kong,” Gertz said. Gertz added that if Snowden falls into Chinese or Russian hands, it would be a major security disaster for the United States.

Listen to the entire interview here.

Bill Gertz is senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon. The Andrea Tantaros Show is produced for Talk Radio Network by the Fox and Rice Experience.

Since our latest Photo Caption Contest posted on June 6th, the Verizon revelation that served as the inspiration behind the contest has gone forth and multiplied into a mega-data-mega-scandal-mega-monster that consumes everything digital in its path.

So while the media and the government go mad trying to sort it all out, think of this winner’s post as a secure oasis where you can reflect upon the timely concept of WWOFFD. (What Would Our Founding Fathers Do?)

Due to the popularity of this contest resulting in an over-abundance of creative captions submitted by our brilliant, witty readers, no one winner could be declared. Therefore, our panel of VIP judges chose groups of winning captions.

Here is the Honorable Mention Group.

From rbj:

Obama is very happy as Chris Christie has asked him for a second date.

From Mike7777777:

You’re fine, I told Holder to grab everyone’s phone records except for my pot dealers

From LeighB:

“What? You voted for me six times? Call me back when you double that.”

From Kimbly:

“I love the sound of treason in the morning”

Born Free submitted three winners:

“Ground control to Major Tom…”

“Your call cannot go through. An armed drone is on its way to your location. You coulda stopped this in 2012, but it’s too late now, suckas!”

Dial in now to our certified 501(c) toll-free phonebank of IRS-deputized OFA comrades, and find out how you too could win a chance for a phone call with ‘O’

From smoothsailing:

Obama: “I’m listening to the Muslim call to prayer, it’s one of the prettiest sounds on Earth.” (Judges note: In case you forgot, President Obama actually made this statement.)

Now for the “Caption King” winner’s circle with a few Grand Prizes tossed out to the best of the best.

From cfbleachers:

Yeah, Vlad. I promised you that in my second term, I would have a little more “flexibility”. I’ve stolen every Constitutional right from the useful idiots that I could. 

Can you fear me now?  (Grand Prize)

For English, press 1. For Arabic, press 2. For tyranny, press “O”.

Vlad, sorry to hear about your divorce, comrade. Yeah, she bought the lipstick on the collar from the Auntie bit…whew! Otherwise, I would have had my reset button pushed, permanently.

Yeah, yeah…I’m Commander in Chief…blah, blah, blah. This is my second term, I’m phoning it in. (Grand Prize)

Does this have a Choom App?

When I first got an “I Phone” I thought they had named it after one of my speeches.

How can I talk to you and make any sense? Where’s the teleprompter on this thing?

So, Samantha Power says let’s attack Israel and Susan Rice chimes in…”and we can blame it on a YouTube video!”

No, Shulman…I didn’t say make a collect call to all Republicans, I said make a COLLECTION call on all Republicans. After 167 visits here you would think you would have this down by now.

Lois Lerner, this is Clark Kent. Let’s do a secret, invitation only conference call with our media at the Daily Plant-it.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. But media conspired power, corrupts…with absolution.

From RockThisTown:

“I still want to spread the wealth . . . of information.” (Grand Prize)

Obama-phone set on Chrissie Matthews leg tingle vibrate.

Obama takes Heat in NBA Finals . . . but takes no heat in USA scandals.

For the first time in her life, Michelle is proud of Barack’s phone. (Grand Prize)

Hello, Apple? I’m signing an Executive Order today changing the name of the iPhone to the O-phone. Don’t worry – there’s a couple billion in it for you.”

“This 900 number Axelrod turned me onto is fantastic!”

A bitter phone clinger.

Obama on his daily conference call with the non-Fox media giving them their marching orders.

From Chris Henderson:

“I’ve got America’s number. It’s 1-9-8-4.”  (Grand Prize)

“Can you impeach me now?” (Grand Prize)

No Mr. Putin, Bill Clinton didn’t leave his little black book in the Oval Office. Why do you ask?” 

Even on the phone Obama drones on and on.

From Allan Crowson: (Who is not yet a Caption King, only a Grand Prize Winner.)

Listen, when I said I wanted an unlimited data plan, I truly meant it: unlimited data, that’s the plan.

Thanks to all who played along making this contest so successful and competitive.

See you all next time a photo is worthy of a PJ Tatler Photo Caption Contest!