LDS Freedom Forum

The federal government has spent at least $20 billion in taxpayer money this year on items and services that it is permitted to keep secret from the public, according to an investigation by the News4 I-Team.

The purchases, known among federal employees as “micropurchases,” are made by some of the thousands of agency employees who are issued taxpayer-funded purchase cards. The purchases, in most cases, remain confidential and are not publicly disclosed by the agencies. A sampling of those purchases, obtained by the I-Team via the Freedom of Information Act, reveals at least one agency used those cards to buy $30,000 in Starbucks Coffee drinks and products in one year without having to disclose or detail the purchases to the public.

A series of other recent purchases, reviewed by internal government auditors, include wasteful and inappropriate purchases by government employees -- including a gym membership and JC Penney clothing -- that were not detected or stopped until after the purchase was completed.

BENI Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - A crowd stoned to death a young man in northeast Congo on Friday before burning and eating his corpse, witnesses said, in apparent revenge for a series of attacks by Ugandan rebels.

Judge Steven C. Frucci ruled this week that giving police a fingerprint is akin to providing a DNA or handwriting sample or an actual key, which the law permits. A pass code, though, requires the defendant to divulge knowledge, which the law protects against, according to Frucci's written opinion.

FORT KENT, Maine (AP) — Kaci Hickox is free to travel unrestricted after a Maine judge on Friday rejected the state's bid to limit her movements as a medical worker who has treated Ebola patients.
Judge Charles C. LaVerdiere ruled Hickox must continue daily monitoring and coordinate travel with state health officials to ensure continuity of monitoring. The judge said there's no need to restrict her movements because she's not infectious because she's showing no symptoms.
With the judge's ruling, a state police cruiser parked outside her home drove away.

Speaking in Rhode Island, President Barack Obama said that women should not have to choose between leaving the workplace to take care of their child and earning a earning a lower wage when she returns to work.

Sometimes, someone, usually mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. And that’s not a choice we want Americans to make.

The Fort Russ article claims to be based on interviews with family members and friends of people who have been yanked from the general Ukrainian population and been forced to become victims of this new law (though, again, that law isn’t mentioned in their article, which deals solely with accounts from the bewildered and uncomprehending victims of this law) — forced to become slaves working for the Ukrainian Government, exactly in the way which was described in that cryptic press announcement, from an obscure agency in this nazi (or racist-fascist) regime, which the Obama Administration imposed upon Ukraine in a coup by the CIA on 22 February 2014. That newly installed regime promptly made clear that it wanted the residents in the areas of Ukraine that had voted overwhelmingly for the man whom Obama had overthrown, to either die or flee, so that the Ukrainian Government could keep their land while getting rid of its anti-fascist residents, and so continue ruling Ukraine, even those cleared-out areas of it, in future nationwide Ukrainian elections. In other words: so that Obama’s regime wouldn’t be able to be thrown out by Ukraine’s electorate. Thus, the political orientation of that Government is already clear from the record of what they have been doing since they came into power. The enslavement law is part of that process, because the Ukrainian Government is bankrupt and near collapse even with the tens of billions of dollars that it has received in loans from the West after the coup (and which will now clearly never be paid back but will instead devolve upon Western taxpayers after Western arms-makers, and Ukraine’s oligarchs, will have already taken their profits and salted those in tax havens).

MUNCIE, IN — In 1893, an outbreak of smallpox caused public health officials to take drastic, draconian measures to prevent the spread of disease. The unpopular, violent quarantine that followed provides a memorable case study of the failings of forcible mandatory quarantine of a city.

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - There's nothing sweet about the soda tax fight bubbling in San Francisco and Berkeley.
Voters on Tuesday will decide whether either Bay Area city will become the first place in the nation to tax sugary drinks.
The debate over a 2 cent per ounce tax in San Francisco and a 1 cent per ounce in Berkeley has backers decrying the corporate power of Big Soda, and soda defenders claiming a tax would hurt businesses and put an undue burden on the poor.
The beverage industry has poured serious resources into campaign, spending $10.5 million to defeat the Bay Area measures, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The debtors’ prison is an old, decrepit institution that many thought was abolished in the 19th century, something little more than a relic of the past. This is a problematic view for two reasons. One, debtors’ prisons are rarely explored in the classroom or the larger society. And two, these prisons are making a serious comeback in the United States, which is deeply problematic for the poor and working class.

The judge on Friday called for retired Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi (Tah-mor-EE-si) to be freed because of his mental state and did not make a determination on the illegal arms charges against the Afghanistan veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a Mexican official who had knowledge of the ruling but was not authorized to give his name.

NEW YORK (MainStreet) — Procrastination has a price. For Americans who have gone without "minimum essential health coverage" as defined by Obamacare, fines are imminent. But there is a last-minute escape hatch opening in two weeks: the ACA open enrollment period beginning November 15. And even if you did sign up for coverage this year, you will need to renew your current health plan – or choose a new one – before the end of the year in order to continue your coverage in 2015.

DETROIT (WWJ) - Detroit police say a 16-year-old is clinging to life after getting being attacked by a classmate at his private school, apparently over a pair of shoes.
The incident happened Wednesday at Allen Academy on Quincy Street, in a northwest neighborhood off of I-96 near Joy Road.
Police say the student, identified in reports as 16-year-old Willie Wallace, was violently attacked by at least one other student. Investigators believe it all stemmed from a previous altercation over a pair of expensive Nike Air Force shoes Wallace was wearing.

BAY MINETTE, Ala. (AP) — By most accounts, 19-year-old Brittney Wood was with uncle Donnie Holland the night of May 30, 2012, the last time anyone saw her. Holland — who was under investigation for horrific sex crimes at the time — died from a bullet within days in what was ruled a suicide.

The investigation that followed has publicly unraveled what authorities describe as a dark, twisted tale of perversion in the working-class neighborhoods and piney backwoods of coastal Alabama.

Eight of Woods' adult relatives and three family friends have been charged with dozens of felonies in two counties as the alleged members of an incestuous ring that authorities say shared children for group sex. Holland was the leader, prosecutors say, of what has been described as the largest sex ring ever uncovered in Alabama. Wood was a victim and likely key witness.

“The only problem is that I’m now afraid to use it. You would be too — if you read through the 46-page privacy policy,” Price wrote. “The amount of data this thing collects is staggering. It logs where, when, how, and for how long you use the TV. It sets tracking cookies and beacons designed to detect ‘when you have viewed particular content or a particular email message.’ It records ‘the apps you use, the websites you visit, and how you interact with content.’ It ignores ‘do-not-track’ requests as a considered matter of policy.”

. . .

“I do not doubt that this data is important to providing customized content and convenience, but it is also incredibly personal, constitutionally protected information that should not be for sale to advertisers and should require a warrant for law enforcement to access,” Price said, further quoting former CIA chief General David Petraeus who once said the agency will be able to “spy on you through your dishwasher.”

“Indeed, as the ‘Internet of Things’ matures, household appliances and physical objects will become more networked,” Price said. “Your ceiling lights, thermostat, and washing machine — even your socks — may be wired to interact online. The FBI will not have to bug your living room; you will do it yourself.”

Two years ago, the day after Halloween, Joyce Smith had a customer problem that she says haunts her still, and she says it was an arrest that shouldn't have happened

Biggest Border Clashes in Decades a Sign of Growing Friction Between World’s Most-Populous Countries

KORZOK, India—It was dusk when the herdsmen reached their Himalayan village bearing ominous news: They had spotted dozens of camouflage-clad Chinese soldiers inside territory India considers its own.

Indian security forces poured in, beginning a face-off last month that grew to involve more than 1,000 troops on each side at an altitude of roughly 15,000 feet, according to Indian officials, making it the biggest border confrontation between the two nations in decades.

The mountain standoff lasted weeks and at times involved tense shoving-and-shouting matches, according to Indian border-patrol troopers who participated. Both armies called in helicopters. The scale and duration of the clash are signs of mounting friction between the world’s two most-populous countries.

This poor, disillusioned and wretched woman. She shouts out to government, the real daddy of her children. She makes no pains about her love of the state.

She doesn’t know it, but the gravy train is about to come to a screeching halt. Between welfare for the wretches, for corporations, and the burden of the warfare state, the economy will soon implode.

By the time her toddlers are in grade school, the middle class will be greatly diminished and wealth confiscation and redistribution transferred to the above will become increasingly impossible.

Brazil is building a cable across the Atlantic to escape the reach of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The move is one of many ways the Brazilian government is breaking ties with American technology companies -- but it won’t come cheap.

The 3,500-mile fiber-optic cable will stretch from Fortaleza to Portugal, with an estimated cost of $185 million, Bloomberg reported. Of course, none of this will go to American vendors.

As it stands today, Republicans will add seats in the House and recapture the Senate on Tuesday.

However, the near-certainty is that those elections will be swiftly eclipsed by issues of war, peace, immigration and race, all of which will be moved front and center this November.

Consider. If repeated leaks from investigators to reporters covering the Ferguson story are true, there may be no indictment of Officer Darren Wilson, the cop who shot Michael Brown.

Should that happen, militant voices are already threatening, “All hell will break loose.” Police in the city and 90-some municipalities in St. Louis County, as well as the state police, are preparing for major violence.

After flying out to Ferguson to declare, “I am the attorney general of the United States. But I am also a black man.” Eric Holder has once again brought his healing touch to the bleeding wound.

Yesterday, Holder said it is “pretty clear” that there is a “need for wholesale change” in the Ferguson Police Department.

But, Holder notwithstanding, that is not at all “clear.”