LDS Freedom Forum

Still, at about the same time that Holder was (again) insisting that no journalists would go to jail under his watch and that they were close to a resolution with Risen, the DOJ was exploring the possibility of issuing yet another subpoena on Risen to try (again) to force him to reveal his sources:

Federal prosecutors obtained 100 blank subpoenas last week for use in the upcoming trial of a CIA officer accused of leaking top-secret information to New York Times reporter James Risen.

The move clears the way for the Justice Department to proceed with a new review of whether Risen should be subpoenaed to testify at the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, the CIA employee accused of disclosing details of a CIA effort to set back Iran's nuclear program.
Some of this is procedural. The DOJ put some new rules in place since the last subpoena, and so there's an argument that in order to review the possibility of a new Risen subpoena, the DOJ basically has to do all the initial legwork, and then the DOJ (and Holder in particular) will "review" under the new rules before determining whether to try this silly process again or to back down. Of course, that seems silly. It seems much more viable to just come out and say that they won't subpoena reporters like this and make that a clear and stated rule. But the DOJ seems unwilling to give up this harassment and intimidation tool.

But Venezuela is a violent mess. Nearly four kidnappings per week are reported, according to the government, 65 people a day die violent deaths, according to NGOs, and the obsession with survival is spreading everywhere.

“Our research shows that children as young as two years of age conform to others, while chimpanzees and orangutans instead prefer to stick with what they know.”

In previous research, the researchers discovered that both human children and chimpanzees rely on the majority opinion when they are trying to learn something new. This makes sense when the group has knowledge that the individual doesn’t.

But other research has found that human adults sometimes follow the majority even when they already have the relevant knowledge, just so that they don’t stand out from the crowd.

For the current study, the researchers presented 18 two-year-old children, 12 chimpanzees and 12 orangutans with a similar reward-based task.

Each participant was given a box that contained three separate sections, each of which had a hole in the top. By playing with the box, the participants found out that although the ball could be dropped in any of the three sections, only one of the sections would deliver a treat (peanuts for the apes and chocolate drops for the children).

Next the participants watched while three familiar peers, who had been trained to all strongly prefer the same colored section of the box (different from the participants’ preference), drop the ball into the box. The participants then had to decide which section to drop the ball into while their peers watched.

The findings showed that human children were more likely to adjust their behavior to match that of their peers than were the apes. The apes and orangutans almost always ignored their peers, sticking to their original strategy, whereas the human children conformed more than half of the time.

A former Southern California state senator convicted of perjury and voter fraud served half an hour of a 90-day sentence behind bars.
Democrat Rod Wright appeared Friday at a Los Angeles County jail to begin serving his sentence. But the 62-year-old former lawmaker was released almost immediately after the paperwork was completed -- just 34 minutes after he was booked.

A rare deer with fangs that would make Dracula do a double take was recently spotted in Afghanistan for the first time in 66 years, proving that the elusive and bizarre species has survived decades of poaching and habitat loss. The last time the Kashmir musk deer was seen in the wild in Afghanistan was in 1948, according to a study published Friday by the Wildlife Conservation Society.

"Musk deer are one of Afghanistan's living treasures," study co-author Peter Zahler said in a statement. He said the rare species, once widely distributed across the mountains of Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, was the “natural heritage” of the region, much like the endangered snow leopard. “We hope that conditions will stabilize soon to allow [the society ] and local partners to better evaluate conservation needs of this species,” Zahler said. Scientists doing surveys in the Afghanistan’s rugged northeastern terrain recently spotted five Kashmir musk deer.

Boys exposed in the womb to high levels of a chemical found in vinyl products are born with slightly altered genital development, according to research published today.

The study of nearly 200 Swedish babies is the first to link the chemical di-isononyl phthalate (DiNP) to changes in the development of the human male reproductive tract.

Previous studies of baby boys in three countries found that a similar plastics chemical, DEHP, was associated with the same type of changes in their genitalia.

Less is known about the reproductive risks of DiNP, a chemical which scientists say may be replacing DEHP in many products such as vinyl toys, flooring and packaging. In mice, high levels block testosterone and alter testicular development.

“Our data suggest that this substitute phthalate may not be safer than the chemical it is replacing,” wrote the researchers, led by Carl-Gustaf Bornehag at Sweden’s Karlstad University, in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Rulers seek to rule. Well, that seems a bit obvious, doesn’t it? And yet, time after time, we elect new leaders, imagining that, “This new group will be better—they’ll represent us as they promised.”

Unfortunately, the democratic system doesn’t really work very well at all. The idea is supposed to be that if old leaders overstep their bounds, new candidates may come forth who promise a reversal of the autocracy of the previous group, and we elect them. They will then proceed to implement that reversal.

Of course, we all know that it’s this last bit that consistently fails to happen. The new group does not fulfil its promises to the electorate—in fact, it almost invariably seeks to increase its power over them. And as each group assumes greater power than the previous one, the country slowly declines, until ultimately, it reaches the state of tyranny.

But what is at the heart of this process? Why on earth does it never seem to happen that the new leaders actually diminish their power and become true representatives of those who elected them? Surely, we must get a few good leaders once in a while.

To answer this question, let’s have another look at that title, at the top of the page…

Rulers seek to rule. Ruling is not a side issue; it is not a by-product. It is their very purpose. It is the reason they ran for elected office.

(NaturalNews) Regardless of the outcome of today's U.S. mid-term elections, there are some things that won't change one iota. While most of America has finally come to realize what a disaster Obama's presidency has really been in real-world terms, there are at least five other disasters looming in America's near future. And neither Republicans nor Democrats have any real plan to deal with these issues... especially when it's so much easier to get elected by slandering your opponent rather than proposing practical solutions.

. . .

Crisis #1) Out of control growth of government and related debt spending
Crisis #2) The explosion of global viral pandemics and superbugs
Crisis #3) The collapse of abundant underground water aquifers
Crisis #4) The collapse of a failed medical system that no one can afford
Crisis #5) The chemical destruction of croplands and the coming food collapse

Justice Department officials provided House investigators with thousands of documents related to Operation Fast and Furious that President Obama had previously claimed were exempt from congressional review.

In an “election eve dump,” as House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) put it, DOJ handed over 64,280 pages of documents, a release that is still only a partial fulfillment of the committee’s request.

“This production is nonetheless a victory for the legislative branch, a victory for transparency, and a victory for efforts to check Executive Branch power,” Issa said of the release.

DOJ handed over the documents pursuant to a court order. “When Eric Holder wants to know why he was the first Attorney General held in criminal contempt of Congress, he can read the judge’s order that compelled the production of 64,280 pages that he and President Obama illegitimately and illegally withheld from Congress,” Issa said. “Since these pages still do not represent the entire universe of the documents the House of Representatives is seeking related to the Justice Department’s cover-up of the botched gun-walking scandal that contributed to the death of a Border Patrol agent, our court case will continue.”

MPs have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a motion declaring that sex-selection abortion is illegal.
They voted 181 to 1 for a motion brought forward by a cross-party alliance of MPs in an effort to end uncertainty over whether doctors can be prosecuted for the practice. It will now have a second reading in January.
Confusion over the law was exposed last year by the decision of the then Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Keir Starmer, not to bring charges against two doctors caught on camera agreeing to arrange abortions of baby girls purely because of their sex, in a Telegraph investigation.
The case was investigated by Scotland Yard and passed on to the Crown Prosecution Service which said that although there was enough evidence, it was not in the “public interest” to bring charges.
But Sir Keir later issued a detailed explanation pointing out that the law “does not, in terms, expressly prohibit gender-specific abortions”. He said doctors have “wide discretion” in assessing whether continuing the pregnancy could threaten the physical or mental health of the mother or her existing children.

Jillian McCabe, mother of a six-year-old autistic boy, called the police in Oregon Monday night, saying she threw her son, London, from the Yaquina Bay Bridge near the Oregon coast.

Oct. 31, 2014: The City of New York has agreed to pay $7,500 to a falsely arrested knife owner in a Knife Rights supported case. The embarrassing settlement shows that the city would rather pay than try to justify its illegal conduct after police declared his knife an illegal “gravity knife” even though the blade did not lock open. The knife owner (a sculptor who uses a knife for his work) was arrested, handcuffed, booked, and placed in a holding cell like a common criminal.

“New York City’s outrageous persecution of those with common pocket knives must end. This is just one of thousands of similar outrageous excesses by the City and DA. Knife Rights will continue to fight these unconstitutional abuses by the City until we win” said Doug Ritter, Chairman of Knife Rights.

Abarca took a leave of absence from the mayor’s office after the students -- last seen being led away by local police -- went missing on Sept. 26 and just ahead of the discovery by federal authorities of about a dozen hidden mass graves on the outskirts of Iguala. He and his wife, who has close ties to known drug traffickers, quickly vanished and have been sought by federal authorities ever since.

What's behind the trend? Competition with cable, of course, and a desire by low-rated shows such as Mindy and New Girl to cause a stir (for the most part it hasn't worked). Some say network censors have pushed back less often now that FCC fines are few and far between, though one top exec downplays the hoopla. "As lines blur between broadcast, basic cable and premium cable, there may be a concentration of pushing sexual boundaries in certain shows," he says. "But it is hardly a mandate or a trend."

Immigration was a losing issue in the 2014 election, with Republicans who announced their opposition to President Obama’s legalization plans earning victories across the country and voters in Oregon swatting down a referendum that would have granted driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

Republicans said the results should serve as a warning to President Obama, who has said he plans to take unilateral action to grant legal status to illegal immigrants some time this year.

As the election returns came in on November 4 one thing was evident—the Second Amendment crushed gun control candidates in Senate and gubernatorial races around the country.

In so doing, the Second Amendment annihilated the left's relentless claim that 90 percent of Americans support more gun control.
On the gubernatorial level, in Arizona, pro-Second Amendment candidate Doug Ducey (R) beat gun control candidate Fred DuVaul (D). And in Florida, pro-Second Amendment incumbent Rick Scott (R) beat gun control candidate Charlie Crist. These victories were enhanced by the fact that Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly endorsed DuVal and Giffords' gun control PAC gave $100,000 to Crist's campaign.

San Francisco voters rejected a tax on soda and other sugary beverages Tuesday, but voters in Berkeley approved their own version, making the famously liberal bastion the first city in the country to adopt a controversial soda tax.
With 98 percent of the vote counted, 55 percent of San Francisco voters approved Proposition E, but it needed two-thirds to pass. With 23 percent of the Berkeley vote counted, 73 percent of voters approved Measure D. It needed a simple majority.
Proponents of both measures said sugar is fueling a worldwide obesity epidemic and contributing to a host of diseases, including diabetes, and that a tax on soda would make people think twice about drinking so much of it.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen warned that close to half the people trying to reach the IRS by phone might not get through during the upcoming 2015 tax filing season. “Phone service could plummet to 53%,” he told an audience of tax practitioners at the AICPA National Tax Conference in Washington, D.C. today. That would be down from an already unacceptable 72% during the 2014 filing season. The average hold time projection: 34 minutes! What’s to blame? Budget woes. “All we can do is try to maximize our services as well as we can; as well as we can is still going to be miserable. You really do get what you pay for,” he said.

SEATTLE -
Voters have passed a measure to expand background checks on gun sales and transfers in Washington state.

Initiative 594 was one of two rival gun measures on Tuesday's ballot. It requires background checks on all sales and transfers, including private transactions and many loans and gifts. It had especially strong support in King County.

The rival measure, Initiative 591, would prevent the state from expanding checks beyond the national standard. It was trailing statewide.

Like federal law, Washington law currently requires checks for sales or transfers by licensed dealers but not for purchases from private sellers, like those who sell at gun shows or to friends.

Facebook is reporting a significant increase in the number of government requests for user data this week, which have risen more than 20 percent since the same time last year.

“Since our first report, we’ve seen an increase in government requests for data and for content restrictions,” Facebook deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby wrote in a Facebook blog post. “ In the first six months of 2014, governments around the world made 34,946 requests for data — an increase of about 24% since the last half of 2013.”

The alleged incident happened Oct. 15. The woman had been left stranded in Boynton after the driver of a car she was riding in was arrested on a DUI charge. The driver’s car was towed.

And at some point, Maiorino drove to where she was stranded to take her to the police station, where she expected to be picked up by relatives, according to a police affidavit.

Once at the department, she tried to get out of the car, but Maiorino grabbed her by the wrist and demanded she perform oral sex on him, she told investigators. He told that if she didn’t comply, she would face a DUI arrest herself, the affidavit said.

She told investigators she complied out of fear. But it didn’t end there, according to the affidavit.

. . .

There, she was forced to strip down and was held face down on the hood of a police-marked vehicle, the affidavit said. His right hand held her down during the sexual assault, the report said.

She told investigators she could see the gun in his left hand. Later, when the woman got dressed, Maiorino pointed a gun at her and told her he would kill her and her family if she told anyone, the police report said.