Get your glasses…
Six years after their Guantanamo Bay adventure, stoner buds Harold Lee and Kumar Patel cause a holiday fracas by inadvertently burning down Harold’s father-in-law’s prize Christmas tree.
Plagued by allegations of sexual harassment and marriage infidelity, businessman Herman Cain announced Saturday that he is officially suspending his campaign for president of the United States.
“As of today, with a lot of prayer and soul searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign,” Cain said at what was supposed to be new campaign headquarters in his hometown of Atlanta. “I am disappointed that it came to this point that we had to make this decision.”
But he added, “Before you get discouraged, today I want to describe Plan B. . . . I am not going away. I will continue to be a voice for the people.” With that, he unveiled the headquarters of his new website, TheCainSolutions.com.
Standing with his wife Gloria by his side, Cain vowed that he would make an endorsement before the primaries were over and said that he “will not be silenced.”
Cain, one of the first Republican candidates to launch his campaign for the White House last spring, spent most of his run as an obscure, low-polling candidate that was a hit at tea party rallies. But as the Republican field took shape, and it became clear that high-profile party hopefuls like Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would not enter the race, Republicans seemed willing to give any of the candidates a fair shake.
Cain’s big break came in Florida in September during a presidential debate that preceded a major straw poll of party insiders in the state. Texas Gov. Rick Perry was the front runner at that time, but after he flubbed the debate and told a crowd of Republicans that they didn’t “have a heart” if they disagreed with him on immigration policy, Cain’s clearly-articulated conservative message earned him a fresh look and victory at the straw poll.
Over the next few weeks, Cain would rise to the top of national and state public opinion polls. He published a book, This is Herman Cain! My Road to the White House, was placed center-stage at the upcoming debates and his economic policy proposal, the very marketable “999 Plan,” became the focus of national discussion.
Of course, with national prominence came heightened scrutiny from his opponents and the media and, for a while, Cain coasted through without most of the new attacks sticking to him. That is, until Politico published a report alleging that several anonymous women had accused him of sexual harassment while he was president of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.
For the most part, Republicans came to his defense. Cain’s campaign raised millions of dollars sent to him from supporters who felt he was the victim of unfair and unsubstantiated attacks.
But over the next several weeks, the number of allegations increased. Women began to come forward publicly, with details of the accusations. Slowly, Cain’s base of support began to fade, as conservatives still not content with supporting former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney looked for a new candidate to back.
The final death warrant for Cain’s hopes for a campaign that stretched into 2012 came when Ginger White, a longtime friend of Cain’s, came forward to say that she had sustained a sexual relationship with Cain for several years. She provided cell phone records to prove that they had, in fact, known each other over the years.
Unlike the prior allegations, the response from Cain’s lawyer did not issue a denial, but rather a defense that said that the media should not inquire about his “private sexual life.”
Cain responded, saying that he was reassessing his campaign.
On Saturday, Cain concluded his announcement that his run was over by reciting a poem:
“Life can be a challenge, life can seem impossible, but it’s never easy when there’s so much on the line.”
The Associated Press this morning reports an exclusive, explaining how the White House can receive real-time updates on a situation on the ground, leading up to a revolution, predicting crime and disorder, or the ‘mood in the air’ shortly after the death of Osama bin Laden.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency on a daily basis, out of an “anonymous industrial park in Virginia”, follows over 5 million tweets by users on the ground.
The ‘Open Source Center’, manned by a team the agency affectionately dubs the “vengeful librarians”, also trawls other social networking sites like Facebook, along with Internet chat rooms; all the way down to newspapers and anything that anyone can contribute to openly.
Along with the vast resources of the agency, the real-time information from an angry blog post to a tweet sent from a BlackBerry, location-based data is gathered and tied to a made phone call to collect as much information as possible. This gives those in the highest offices of the U.S. government a specific picture of a certain place, at a certain time, to predict when an event that may cause national instability, diplomatic harm or suchlike could occur.
The report goes on to suggest that the White House, courtesy of the intelligence gathered from the vast array of resources at their disposal, from the publicly-available content provided by citizens and journalists alike, “saw the uprising in Egypt coming”, but they did not know exactly when it would strike.
The facility was set up as a recommended action based on the report by the 9/11 Commission, with many working from the ‘industrial unit’ to U.S. embassies around the world, in a bid to get closer to the action on the ground.
Intelligence services rely on those speaking the specific dialects of difficult-to-understand languages, often those who grew up in the area and emigrated, or those with family still in the region, along with those with a vast array of degrees in specific subjects to formulate guidance based on the intelligence presented to them.
While many have suspected for some time, with the rare utterance of admittance, that the most clandestine intelligence services around the world monitor Facebook and Twitter, blogs and other content on the web, the report explains how “Facebook and Twitter… have become a key resource for following a fast moving crisis”.
By following messages, Facebook status updates and tweets from Bangkok during the recent uprising, journalists were hampered by the rioting and the army moving in, with traditional media slowing to a trickle. Citizen journalism, therefore, was the prime target for the agency, allowing dozens of ‘reporters’ to be honed in on to provide valuable, real-time information on the ground.
Fathers Incorporated (FI), a national not-for-profit has engaged in responsible fatherhood work on a national and international level since 2004. Recently the organization began a multi-year cause marketing campaign entitled “TIES NEVER BROKEN” to raise the visibility of both Responsible Fatherhood and Mentoring. We are proud to announce that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has awarded Fathers Incorporated $7.4 million (over a 3-year period; contingent on continued funding) to manage the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse (NRFC).
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been in discussions with the White House about leaving her job next year to become head of the World Bank, sources familiar with the discussions said on Thursday.
The former first lady and onetime political rival to President Barack Obama quickly became one of the most influential members of his Cabinet after she began her tenure at State in early 2009.
She has said publicly she did not plan to stay on at the State Department for more than four years. Associates say Clinton has expressed interest in having the World Bank job should the bank’s current president, Robert Zoellick, leave at the end of his term, in the middle of 2012.
“Hillary Clinton wants the job,” said one source who knows the secretary well.
A second source also said Clinton wants the position.
A third source said Obama had already expressed support for the change in her role. It is unclear whether Obama has formally agreed to nominate her for the post, which would require approval by the 187 member countries of the World Bank.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney denied the discussions. “It’s totally wrong,” he told Reuters.
A spokesman for Clinton, Philippe Reines, denied Clinton wanted the job, had conversations with the White House (more…)
Things to Know:It is blatantly obvious that Sean Hannity has no idea who Common Sense is, nor does he have any Common Sense in his ipod (or his head). Its situations like this that make me wish Khalid Muhammad was still alive to deal with this dude.
Under a White House plan, the Homeland Security Department will have far-reaching oversight over all civilian agency computer networks.
The proposal would codify much of the administration’s memo from July 2010 expanding DHS’s cyber responsibilities for civilian networks.
The White House, however, is taking those responsibilities further, according to a source familiar with the document. The administration drafted a legislative proposal to give DHS many, if not all, of the same authorities for the .gov networks that the Defense Department has for the .mil networks.
Federal News Radio recently viewed a draft copy of the legislative proposal.
“I have to question why the Executive branch is writing legislation,” said the source, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it. “This is not a proposal or white paper like the White House usually sends to Capitol Hill. This is the actual legislation.”
The source said the 100-page document is going through interagency review. DHS sent the document around to agencies late last Friday and asked for comments by Monday. The source said few agencies (more…)
A most strange report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Russian Federal Space Agency (FKA/RKA) states that this Sunday past (April 10th) an ФКА Satellite operating in space over North America detected a massive “infrared-magnetic anomaly” emanating under the highly secretive Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) in the western US.
The NTTR is the largest military base of its kind in the US covering an area greater than 12,140 km (4,687 square miles) and includes the Tonopah Test Range (TTR), known as Area 52, the Hawthorne Army Depot (HWAD), which is the largest ammunition depot in the world, and the recently named Homey Airport, otherwise known as Area 51.
Coinciding with the emergence of this “anomaly” on April 10th, this report says, were violent near-surface earthquakes that have as yet not subsided and have led to earthquake expert Graham Kent, the Director of Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada Reno, to state his “growing concern” as hundreds of quakes continue to shake the region.
Kent further warned today that the next big earthquake could happen in Reno (the 4th largest city in Nevada) “in a couple hours” due to this mysterious “anomaly,” a warning going unheeded by President Obama who this morning announced (more…)
A U.S. contractor accused by Cuba of plotting to “destroy the revolution” was convicted of crimes against the state Saturday and sentenced to 15 years in prison, prompting protests from the White House and fury in Miami.
The Associated Press reported from Havana that a Cuban court said that prosecutors had proven that Alan Gross was working on a “subversive” program paid for the United States that aimed to bring down the Cuban government. Prosecutors had sought a 20-year jail term during the two-day trial that ended last Saturday.
The White House, which has called on Cuba to release Gross since he was arrested in December 2009, called Saturday for his “immediate release,” saying the sentence “adds another injustice to Alan Gross’s ordeal.
“He has already spent too many days in detention and should not spend one more,” said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council. “We urge (more…)
Video below…
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From his throne in hell, Richard Nixon commands our attention once again with newly released White House tapes from February and March 1973 that drop another tanker load of piss and bile on Jews.
“The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality,” he told an aide.
“Most Jewish people are insecure. And that’s why they have to prove things,” he said.
“I didn’t notice many Jewish names coming back from Vietnam on any of those lists; I don’t know how the hell they avoid it,” he remarked.
When then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said, “If [the Soviets] put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern,” Nixon concurred. “I know,” he responded. “We can’t blow up the world because of it.” (See the Dec. 11 New York Times story for more background.)
For reporters of a certain age, the recent release of 265 hours of Nixon tapes gives new life to dormant hatreds and lapsed interests. For them, it’s a little like hearing “River Deep, Mountain High” on the radio for the first time in a decade. You haven’t thought much about it since the last time you heard it, but the totality of the experience stuns you for a few moments. Then you return to whatever you were doing before and forget it until the next time.
Thanksgiving Day had barely begun when Kevin Hofman’s BlackBerry buzzed. It was one of the technical operators of OnSmash.com, Mr. Hofman’s popular hip-hop blog, telling him that the site had gone mysteriously blank just after midnight.
“At first I thought it was hackers,” Mr. Hofman said. But within hours a notice went up on the site saying that its domain name had been seized by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit of the Department of Homeland Security; it was one of dozens of sites shut down, accused of copyright infringement and selling counterfeit goods.
But Mr. Hofman, a brawny Long Islander in his early 30s who formerly worked for a major record label, does not think of himself as a pirate.
OnSmash.com and the handful of other music blogs shut down by the government post brand-new songs and videos without licenses, but much of that material is often leaked to them by managers, music labels and even the artists themselves.
As a result, these sites have a complex symbiosis with the music business. While the Recording Industry Association of America wants to shut them down, the rank and file of the record labels — particularly in hip-hop circles — uses them as marketing tools and publicity outlets. (more…)
Don’t want to hear this?
Tough. Grow up.
9/11 Commissioners:
• The 9/11 Commission’s co-chairs said that the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements (free subscription required)
• 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says “I don’t believe for a minute we got everything right”, that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, and that the 9/11 debate should continue
• 9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said “We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting”
• 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: “It is a national scandal”; “This investigation is now compromised”; and “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But thiswants to cover it up”
• 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that “There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn’t have access . . . .” He also said that the investigation depended too heavily on the accounts of Al Qaeda detainees who were physically coerced into talking
• And the Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) – who led the 9/11 staff’s inquiry – recently said “At some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened”. He also said “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years…. This is not spin. This is not true.” And he said: “It’s almost a culture of concealment, for lack of a better word. There were interviews made at the FAA’s New York center the night of 9/11 and those tapes were destroyed. The CIA tapes of the interrogations were destroyed. The story of 9/11 itself, to put it mildly, was distorted and was completely different from the way things happened”
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