Rep. Maxine Waters to face ethics charges

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House investigative panel has decided to charge Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California with ethics violations, raising the possibility of a second high-profile trial with political implications for Democrats this fall.

People familiar with the investigation, who were not authorized to be quoted about unannounced charges, say the allegations could be announced next week. The House ethics committee declined Friday to make any public statement on the matter.

Waters has been under investigation for a possible conflict of interest involving a bank that was seeking federal aid. Her husband owned stock in the bank.

New York Democrat Rep. Charles Rangel also faces an ethics trial this fall on separate charges that included failure to disclose assets and income, nonpayment of taxes and doing legislative favors for donors to a college center named after him.

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Rep. Maxine Waters to face ethics charges

Ya know, this just isn’t looking good for the Dems but I’m fairly certain that if they did ANY serious digging at all, they would find grounds to place at least 75% of the House on trial for ethics violations.

To paraphrase from the Rangel post: “But Waters can’t be unethical, she’s an esteemed, long serving elected official. This is being done strictly because Maxine Waters is Black and the entire U.S. Congress is a bunch of racists.”Ethics Inquiry of Rangel Finds Evidence of Violations

Both Waters and Rangel are prominent members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Dual ethics trials would be a major political liability for Democrats, forcing them to defend their party’s ethical conduct while trying to hold on to their House majority.

Those people on the House ethics committee are obviously racists. How dare they bring charges against Rangel and Waters NOW? Surely they must ALL be members of the Congressional WHITE Caucus.

Wait… There is NO Congressional WHITE Caucus.

Waters came under scrutiny after former Treasury Department officials said she helped arrange a meeting between regulators and executives at Boston-based OneUnited Bank without mentioning her husband’s financial ties to the institution.

Well, you know, you need to give Maxine a break. It just slipped her mind, there was no criminal intent, these guys at Treasury are a bunch of TEA Party racists and are only picking on Waters because she’s BLACK!

The real Maxine Waters. WARNING: LANGUAGE ALERT!

That is an example of Maxine Waters and her supporters. I don’t know what it has to do with this particular charge of ethics violations, but I found it interesting, and thought my readers may too!

FBI access to e-mail and Web records raises fears

WASHINGTON (AP) - Invasion of privacy in the Internet age. Expanding the reach of law enforcement to snoop on e-mail traffic or on Web surfing. Those are among the criticisms being aimed at the FBI as it tries to update a key surveillance law.

With its proposed amendment, is the Obama administration merely clarifying a statute or expanding it? Only time and a suddenly on guard Congress will tell.

Federal law requires communications providers to produce records in counterintelligence investigations to the FBI, which doesn’t need a judge’s approval and court order to get them.

They can be obtained merely with the signature of a special agent in charge of any FBI field office and there is no need even for a suspicion of wrongdoing, merely that the records would be relevant in a counterintelligence or counterterrorism investigation. The person whose records the government wants doesn’t even need to be a suspect.

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FBI access to e-mail and Web records raises fears

Has anyone ever heard of Carnivore? The Carnivore Program?

Carnivore was a system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that was designed to monitor email and electronic communications. It used a customizable packet sniffer that can monitor all of a target user’s Internet traffic. Carnivore was implemented during the Clinton administration with the approval of the Attorney General.

The Carnivore program was canceled, and replaced with improved commercial software such as NarusInsight. Carnivore (software)

Well, it’s a lot like that, only more intrusive and a lot less detectable. New and improved, that’s what it’s all about. Bigger, better, faster, more intrusive information gathering at it’s best.

The bureau’s use of these so-called national security letters to gather information has a checkered history.

The bureau engaged in widespread and serious misuse of its authority to issue the letters, illegally collecting data from Americans and foreigners, the Justice Department’s inspector general concluded in 2007. The bureau issued 192,499 national security letter requests from 2003 to 2006.

If the FBI wants to collect data, if that data is pertinent to an investigation, go for it, but get a warrant and then collect your case information the old fashioned way, get OFF of your dead ass and get out in the field and do some old fashioned *leg work*. That’s a lot of what has to happen in most investigations, but web records are another matter entirely. A letter that states that it’s a matter of national security and voila, some geek at the FBI is in your computer, eating you cookies.

A key Democrat on Capitol Hill, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, wants a timeout.

The administration’s proposal to change the Electronic Communications Privacy Act “raises serious privacy and civil liberties concerns,” Leahy said Thursday in a statement.

“While the government should have the tools that it needs to keep us safe, American citizens should also have protections against improper intrusions into their private electronic communications and online transactions,” said Leahy, who plans hearings in the fall on this and other issues involving the law.

I don’t care if he is a Democrat, Leahy is correct in his every word in this regard. There are 2 key words here that I have to point out though; American Citizens.

We, the American citizen, DO have a right to privacy. It’s not American citizens that are invading this nation, it’s not American citizens that flew the planes on 9-11. We have dangers in this nation that need to be addressed and investigated, but to have a blanket ability to access ALL of ANY Americans files and computer records does, at least in my mind, open the door to a lot of abuse of those privileges by those in a position of authority.

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Ousted USDA employee Sherrod plans to sue blogger

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted a video edited in a way that made her appear racist.

Sherrod was forced to resign last week as director of rural development in Georgia after Andrew Breitbart posted the edited video online. In the full video, Sherrod, who is black, spoke to a local NAACP group about racial reconciliation and overcoming her initial reluctance to help a white farmer.

Speaking Thursday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Sherrod said she would definitely sue over the video that took her remarks out of context. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has since offered Sherrod a new job in the department. She has not decided whether to accept.

Sherrod said she had not received an apology from Breitbart and no longer wanted one. “He had to know that he was targeting me,” she said.

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Ousted USDA employee Sherrod plans to sue blogger

I hate to point this out, but Shirley Sherrod IS a racist and I don’t give a damn if she likes hearing that or not, and it has NOTHING to do with the video that Andrew Breitbart posted.

It has EVERYTHING to do with Shirley Sherrod speaking at the National Association of Black Journalists convention.

What do you suppose I would be called if I spoke at the National Association of WHITE Journalists convention? I suspect I would be called a RACIST and I am of the belief that the National Association of WHITE Journalists convention would be portrayed as a Klan meeting attended by racist TEA Party supporters.

Breitbart did not immediately respond to a call or e-mails seeking comment. He has said he posted the portion of the speech where she expresses reservations about helping the white farmer to prove that racism exists in the NAACP, which had just demanded that the tea party movement renounce any bigoted elements. Some members of the NAACP audience appeared to approve when Sherrod described her reluctance to help the farmer.

And the NAACP… What would the Black community call us if we formed an NAAWP? You know, the National Association for the Advancement of WHITE People? Do you think that there would be some in the Black community that would call that a racist TEA Party group? Aryans and Klan folks? I am thinking they would at least mention it.

Sherrod, 62, responded that members of her generation who were in the civil rights movement “tried too much to shield that hurt and pain from younger people. We have to do a better job of helping those individuals who get these positions, in the media, in educational institutions, in the presidency, we have to make sure they understand the history so they can do a better job.”

In recent years, we’ve all been on equal footing when it comes to job and educational opportunities.

I know it hasn’t always been that way, until recently, after Obama and his band of merry makers finished off the economy and took unemployment to almost 10 per cent, we were all on equal footing, and honestly, we still are. We’re all screwed, it’s just that Obama supporters won’t admit that fact.

Say, you don’t suppose that lack of admission is a sign of racism too do you? Obama being Black and all? Naa… Surely not…

Despite her experience, Sherrod said she believes the country can heal its racial divisions - if people are willing to confront the issue.

I believe that too. It should start with the abolition of the New Black Panthers, the NAACP, the National Association of Black Journalists and any other organization that uses it’s race or skin color as a naming right!

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