Justice Department wins secrecy award for second year in a row

Via NC Renegade

 

Po' thing.

The Justice Department has won the Rosemary Award for the second year in a row, an award that honors the federal agency with the “worst open government performance” of 2012.

The National Security Archive announced Friday it was bestowing the Rosemary Award—named after Nixon secretary Rose Mary Woods, who “accidentally” erased portions of the Watergate tapes—on the Justice Department for continuing to flout congressional and executive orders to improve transparency.

Justice “clinched the intensely competitive award” with the Wednesday appearance by the director of the department’s Office of Information Policy, Melanie Pustay, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a press release announcing DOJ’s win.

Pustay testified that updating agency Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regulations was optional, “‘not required,’ after Congress changed the law in 2007 or when the president and the attorney general changed the policy in 2009.”

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) coauthored the OPEN Government Act of 2007, which ordered federal agencies to update their FOIA regulations and practices.

Pustay said the Justice Department is in the midst of updating its regulations.

“It’s been five years since we changed the law,” Leahy shot back. “It took me less time to get through law school!”

More @ The Washington Free Beacon

The amount of sea ice in Antarctica is breaking all records, even the exceptionally large ice year of 2008.

Via Daily Timewaster

This Global Warming will be the death of us yet.........

Sunshine Hours

UPDATE: 8th record

2013 Day 71 was the 7th daily record for Antarctic Sea Ice Extent. And the 4th in a row.

If you look at the 2008 record setting run ice extent was so far ahead of previous years it was hard to believe any of those records would be broken.

Yet 2013 is doing it.

The Beavers

Via The Feral Irishman

The Miraculous Recovery Of Gabrielle Giffords

 

 

For those who do not yet understand the utter ruthlessness of Team Evil, consider the following.

Here is former Congresswoman Giffords on January 30, 2013:

More @ WRSA

IG Report Shows Viper’s Den at Justice Department

Via Cousin John

The lead two sentences in a Tuesday afternoon Politico story got it right: “A scathing new report exposing bitter divisions and racial hostility at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is certain to complicate the confirmation process for Tom Perez, who currently heads the unit and is expected to be President Barack Obama’s pick as the next Secretary of Labor. The 258-page internal watchdog report out Tuesday resurrects questions about the handling of the controversial New Black Panther Party prosecution and faults Perez for giving misleading public testimony in 2010 when he said political appointees were not involved in decisions about the case.”

The amazing thing is that many more items in the report by the department’s Inspector General are even more explosive than those matters that rightly led the Politico account. While the IG labored mightily to credit almost every excuse offered by Obamite political appointees (and their ideological soul-mates in the career ranks) at Justice, the raw facts unearthed (or confirmed) in the new report make crystal clear the most important aspect of the Black Panther case all along: The dismissal of already-won charges against the Panthers was part and parcel of a long-running hostility within the Civil Rights Division – exacerbated and encouraged by the Obama political team – against race-neutral enforcement of civil rights laws.

Liberals in the division were so hostile, in fact, that they tried to make the workplace a living hell for those career employees of a more conservative bent who merely wanted to apply the law as clearly written, to protect the civil rights of Americans of all races, not just minorities. It wasn’t just the outrageous accusations that the centrist or right-leaning employees were so racist that they yearned for days when “everyone wears a white sheet, the darkies say ‘yes’m’ and equal rights for all are the real ‘land of make believe.’” It wasn’t just the repeated harassment of a junior black staffer for daring to work on cases where the civil rights violators were black, including repeatedly calling him a “token” and accusing him of being a “turncoat.”

More @ CFIF

Rot

 

The Moneychanger

I'll admit I've had a dark cloud hanging over me lately. Just seems that the Rot is progressing faster than I can acclimate to it. Somehow the yankee government refusing to say it won't use drones in the US seems to me the same as saying it WILL use them. Call me old-fashioned, but a government claiming it has power & authority to kill its own citizens seems to contradict all the purposes of government. I won't even mention the signs the yankee government is planning once again to wage war on its own people -- Homeland Security ordering a billion rounds of hollow point ammo (banned in international warfare) and more armored vehicles that the Germans had when they invaded France in 1940. They need those like a fish needs a bicycle -- unless they're up to no good.

Yep, I know some of y'all with call me paranoid, goofy, squirrelly, all of that, but you have never had a SWAT team on your back porch. A day is coming when y'all are going to have to overcome your fear of government & stand up for your neighbors. Otherwise, when they come for you, there'll be nobody to stand up for you.

Criminal to resist? That's what they want you to think, & that it's criminal to insist on your rights. I reckon morality depends on your viewpoint, & what they call good behavior might also be called cowardice & treason to your fathers and your children. Got to choose.

But shoot! What do I know, a natural born fool from Tennessee? We're so backward some of us here still believe in the God of the Bible.

$PLC — 2013 — “The New Hate Map is Here!”

Via avordvet

 

Watching the Watchdogs readers of a certain age may remember actor Steve Martin’s 1979 debut film, The Jerk. In one memorable scene, Martin’s character, the naive country boy, Navin Johnson, is ecstatic to find his name listed in the local telephone directory.

“The new phone book is here! The new phone book is here!!” shouts Navin, as he wildly leaps and prances about. Navin’s boss, played by deadpan comic Jackie Mason, observes, “I wish I could get that excited about nothin’.”

Navin counters breathlessly, “I’m somebody now! Millions of people look at this thing every day! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity… your name in print… that makes people!!”

The parallels between this classic comedy scene and the latest iteration of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s annual “Hate Map” are manifold: Spontaneous publicity. Your name in print. 

Millions of naive people looking at this thing and getting excited about nothin’.

For the benefit of new Watching the Watchdogs readers, let’s take a moment to recap the key facts about the Hate Map that need to be understood before delving into what is, to borrow a phrase from another classic comedy, ” … a show about nothing.”

More @ Watching the Watchdogs

Benghazi survivors 'told to be quiet' by administration

Via avordvet

 

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, in an interview with Fox News, alleged that the injured survivors of the Benghazi terror attack have been "told to be quiet" and feel they can't come forward to tell their stories -- escalating his push for more information about survivors who have never been publicly identified.

The White House is denying any attempt to exert pressure on them.

"I'm sure that the White House is not preventing anyone from speaking," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, when asked about the survivors.

But Graham told Fox News, "the bottom line is they feel that they can't come forth, they've been told to be quiet."

"We cannot let this administration or any other administration get away with hiding from the American people and Congress, people who were there in real time to tell the story," Graham said.

More @ Fox

The Land: This is Europe and it's worth fighting for

NC: The V.A . v. the 2nd Amendment

 

While some in Washington seek to encroach on the Second Amendment rights of law-biding Americans, I will continue to fight to ensure these rights are honored and protected.  Yesterday, I introduced legislation that would end the arbitrary process through which the government strips veterans and other Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) beneficiaries of their Second Amendment rights.

This legislation would protect the rights of veterans and their families by ensuring that only a proper judicial authority is able to determine who is referred to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), a system which prevents them from being able to purchase firearms in the United States.  Our veterans took an oath to uphold the Constitution and they deserve to enjoy the rights they fought so hard to protect. Click here to read more.

Richard Burr