Saturday, January 22, 2011

"It is a big takeover by the federal government !" Phyllis Schafly knows, I know...now we all know!

The story that follows is nothing new to most of us who knew of Obama's takeover objectives long before...the plans have been implemented for years and years albeit somewhat different than those laid out by the New World Order crowd (Carter, Clinton, Bush, Kissinger, and lets not forget Gordon Brown former Prime Minster of Great Britain [see video here] and that scoundrel of all scoundrels  Zbigniew Brzezinski ← link to YouTube video).  Obama is at odds with the Clintons, et al., because when the political winds blow in the direction of Islam its Allahu Akbar for Obama and those he bows to link to YouTube video and Dhimmitude for the rest of us.  Bill Clinton's World View may just have to wait...but he's proud of Obama's efforts non the less!  ~ Norman E. Hooben
ps: The picture incorporated into the story is not associated with the author...I take credit for the collage.
Gov't takeover Obama's objective?
Becky Yeh - OneNewsNow California correspondent
A pro-family group working to repeal ObamaCare believes President Obama's ultimate goal is to bring the American people under government control.


As Republicans began their challenge to repeal the healthcare overhaul, the Obama administration released a report detailing how repeal would hurt millions by making it more difficult for Americans to obtain healthcare coverage. However, Eagle Forum president Phyllis Schafly argues that ObamaCare is a disaster and is way too costly for America.

"It is a big takeover of an entire industry by the federal government, and unfortunately, I think that is one of the goals of Barack Obama," she contends.
Schlafly, who commented on ObamaCare during a recent tele-training conference hosted by PreserveLiberty.com (
see earlier story), believes President Obama wants to take the country into a "type of European-style socialism, where the government controls everything."
"President Obama meant what he said when he said he wanted to fundamentally transform America," she assures. "And I do believe he's trying to take us into a socialist country while he's bowing to foreign dictators all over the world."

The Eagle Forum president adds that America has always had a unique system of government that attracted the world, and for that reason should continue to be an "oasis of freedom and prosperity."

Thursday, January 20, 2011

The American Form Of Government...do you want to keep it?

Video courtesy of Vidder.com


We still have time...



At First Glance...

Another amusing musing...

Lost and Found... Did you lose a roll of film in Brooklyn's Prospect Park?

Lets help this guy out...

Rahm Emanuel Gets Support From New World Order CEO

Photo courtesy of Edward Cropper

Former President Bill Clinton is coming to Chicago Tuesday to campaign for mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel, but his visit is the cause of some controversy.

While the former White House chief of staff hopes Clinton can persuade voters to cast their ballots for him Feb. 22, a former mayoral contender has warned that Clinton is risking his popular standing with the African American community by backing Emanuel rather than a black candidate.
Clinton is scheduled to appear with Emanuel at the Chicago Cultural Center Tuesday morning. The candidate touted the visit in his campaign mailings over the weekend, mixed with an appeal for campaign donations.
"I'm honored to have President Clinton's support," Emanuel told supporters in the e-mail on Sunday. "I'm excited to show President Clinton the great Chicagoans who've made this campaign possible." ...Story continues here.

U.S. House repeals health care reform... Mike Adams spiels off his view (I kinda like that!)


"Of course it would create jobs: When the system doesn't help anybody get healthy, the number of patients needing disease management services skyrockets, and that translates into job creation in the sick-care industry"
"Both war and disease create plenty of jobs. But those aren't the kind of jobs that improve the quality of life for the American people."
U.S. House repeals Obama health care reform
Thursday, January 20, 2011 by Mike Adams
(NaturalNews) The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a repeal of Obama's health care reform, voting largely along party lines at 245 to 189 (three Democrats supported the vote). The bill now moves to the U.S. Senate where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promises to block it from ever coming to a vote there.

Congressional Republicans characterized Obamacare as "job-killing" and called it a "trillion-dollar tragedy." In response, one Democrat compared Republican rhetoric to World War II Nazi propaganda.

Democrats, predictably, attempted to emphasize how
Obamacare would "create jobs." Of course it would create jobs: When the system doesn't help anybody get healthy, the number of patients needing disease management services skyrockets, and that translates into job creation in the sick-care industry.

A person could similarly "create jobs" by unleashing an infectious virus in a major U.S. city and seeing how many people line up for emergency care at the hospitals. But that's moronic. "Creating jobs" shouldn't be done on the backs of sick people -- especially when that
sickness could be prevented through the application of commonsense nutrition.

Then again, one should never expect the rhetoric of lawmakers to follow any economic logic in the first place. Both war and disease create plenty of jobs. But those aren't the kind of jobs that improve the quality of life for the
American people.

The real story behind health care reform

The bitter debate that took place in the House of Representatives today is little more than elaborate cover, of course, for the underlying truth that neither political party supports real health care. Both parties are so strongly influenced by Big Pharma financial interests that passing meaningful health care reform which would serve the best interests of the American people is a political impossibility.

Sadly, the U.S.
Congress has long passed the stage where legislative votes are conducted in the best interests of the American people. Instead, votes are cast as political ballast, to appease campaign contributors and gain favor with party officials. The very structure of Congress -- with its corporate-funded campaign contributions and lobbyists -- is no more able to meet the real needs of the American people than a disturbed mental patient is to spontaneously achieve cognitive clarity.

Pleasing the corporations

What's wrong with Congress and health care is not that members of Congress don't want to improve the health of Americans, it's that they exist in a system of corporate political influence that makes such action impossible.

There's simply too much
money to be made from sickness and degenerative disease. The idea of keeping the American people healthy is far too threatening to the profits of the drug companies and cancer industry (not to mention the diabetes industry and heart disease industry) to allow realistic health solutions to become law.

This isn't being cynical; it's being realistic about the underlying motivations and influences of the U.S. Congress. When you have a nation whose lawmakers are funded by powerful corporations, it should be no surprise that you end up with laws and regulations which strongly favor those corporations.

Revoke the personhood of corporations

The real problem in all this is that corporations continue to have legal standing as individuals. This long-established precedent has allowed corporations to claim protections under the Bill of Rights as if they were individuals. This is how the corporate funding of politicians has become "protected" by the U.S. Supreme Court as a Free Speech issue.

But Free Speech was never intended to apply to corporations. The Bill of Rights enumerated rights of the People, not rights of multinational, multi-billion dollar corporate giants.

As a result, the U.S. has become a corporatocracy rather than a
democracy. Your puny little vote at the polls, in other words, counts for naught against the never-ending flood of dollars from corporations into the campaign reelection funds of congressmen and Senators. You can't out-vote a suitcase full of $100 bills exchanged under the table.

Vote all you want. The corporations still run Congress and set the legislative agenda.

Elaborate theater

That's why all this activity you see on Capitol Hill right now with the repeal of Obamacare is really just elaborate theater designed to create the appearance that members of Congress are somehow standing up for the American people. And it's all being done under the much larger illusion that you need a government to take care of you in the first place. Why do we need representatives in Washington at all? That structure is a carryover from the horse-and-buggy days when Morse code telegraphs were considered cutting-edge technology. It wasn't dot-com. It was dot-dot-dash.

Today, we could all vote on laws via the internet, without the need for Washington bureaucrats to vote for us (or so they claim). How about a Direct Democracy?

Of course, the other side of that argument is that the average U.S. citizen is incapable of grasping the ramifications of important legislation and would be easily swayed by national television advertising. That's probably true to some extent. But it's difficult to see how theoretically ignorant voters could produce worse results than Congressional sellouts who actively vote against the interests of the American people time after time.

You can be sure, by the way, that Congress will never vote itself out of
power. Its members want to maintain power over you, your health care, your money and your actions for as long as the American people will continue to allow them to do so.

The real theater, you see, is not that Congress allows itself to be ruled by corporations, but rather than the People allow themselves to be ruled by Congress!

Where’s the beef…aah, make that "Where’s the blueberries?" ...and the pomegranates? ~ General Mills is losing it's integrity

Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal from General Mills contains no blueberries and no pomegranates

(NaturalNews) A cereal offered by General Mills called "Total Blueberry Pomegranate" cereal has been characterized as a "total fraud" by investigative journalist Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as part of a non-profit Food Investigations documentary being shown at www.FoodInvestigations.com

Volunteering his research efforts under the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center, the Health Ranger found that Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal contained neither blueberries nor pomegranates.

Source:
General Mills website nutrition facts label, downloaded January 19, 2011: http://www.naturalnews.com/images/T...

Yet it is called "Total Blueberry Pomegranate Cereal" and positioned as a highly nutritious cereal with the words "100% nutrition," "Blueberry" and "Pomegranate" appearing prominently on the front of the box, in a very large font size.

While the cereal contains no actual blueberries or
pomegranates, it does contain eight different sweeteners: Sugar, Corn Syrup, Barley Malt Extract, Brown Sugar Syrup, Malt Syrup, Sucralose, Molasses and Honey.

The blueberry-like appearance of small bits in the cereal are accomplished through the use of artificial colors like Red #40 and Blue #2, combined with various
oils and sweeteners such as soybean oil and sugar.

"When consumers buy Total Blueberry Pomegranate Cereal, they fully expect it to contain at least some amount of real
blueberries and pomegranates," explained award-winning investigative journalist Mike Adams, who narrates the Food Investigations video. "For General Mills to use these words on the front of the box and then fail to deliver any actual blueberries or pomegranates in the product is extremely deceptive."

"By choosing to pursue this deception, General Mills has tarnished its reputation among consumers worldwide who are now learning they cannot trust General Mills
products to be honestly labeled," Adams added.  ...Story continues here

The reproduction below came from the General Mills website

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Member of the Passeriformes* gang gets busted for transporting drugs

Source: Sky News

Excess Baggage Grounds 'Drugs' Pigeon

Police in Colombia say it's a new case of criminal ingenuity - drug smugglers using messenger pigeons*.   Watch the bird being captured by police.
Update: The original video is no longer available so I found the next best thing...

Did Jesus have a permit to feed the loaves and fishes to the hungry? Good thing He did not live in Houston!

Irregardless of what the government gives you for a reason to enforce an ordinance does not make it right.  In the case of feeding the homeless (see story below) this is just another example of big government wanting total control over our daily lives.  Feeding the homeless (and the hungry) has been going on for thousands of years without a permit and more importantly, without a complaint!  It is no business of the government whether or not homeless people are fed or what the homeless people choose to eat.  I've seen homeless people eating from trash dumpsters and garbage cans...are we now going to need a permit for placing out our garbage perchance some homeless person stops by for a noon-day snack on that left-over sandwhich I tossed out this morning.  There's a picture I still have in my mind of the day I was driving behind a trash collection truck and the employee (on the back of the truck) found a hot-dog in the drek...using a piece of paper (also found in the waste) he wiped the debris off the hot-dog and immediately consumed it.  Where was the government control for this incident?  There weren't any!  It's a good thing this government was not around in Jesus' time, else Jesus would need a permit to feed the loaves and fishes to all of His hungry followers.  ~  Norman E. Hooben


City puts a stop to homeless outreach   
Couple must have proper permit to continue feeding dozens each day
By BRADLEY OLSON HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day. They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.
That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their "Feed a Friend" effort for lack of a permit. And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one.
"We don't really know what they want, we just think that they don't want us down there feeding people," said Bobby Herring, a Christian rapper who goes by the stage name Tre9.
Anyone serving food for public consumption, whether for the homeless or for sale, must have a permit, said Kathy Barton, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department. To get that permit, the food must be prepared in a certified kitchen with a certified food manager.
The regulations are all the more essential in the case of the homeless, Barton said, because "poor people are the most vulnerable to foodborne illness and also are the least likely to have access to health care."
Bobby Herring said those rules would preclude them from continuing to feed the 60 to 120 people they assisted nightly for more than a year. The food had been donated from area businesses and prepared in various kitchens by volunteers or by his wife.
He and his wife became involved in the effort several years ago, when she would take leftover food from work to the homeless downtown. From there, it expanded into a full-time effort for her working through Eyes on Me, the Herrings' nonprofit organization that focuses on Christian-themed youth outreach efforts.
Nearly every day last year, they distributed food prepared or donated by volunteers or local stores at 6 p.m. at the corner of Commerce and San Jacinto, near the Harris County Jail, Bobby Herring said. ...Story contnues here.
________________________________


Perhaps you have a drug problem...perhaps you want to know what its doing to your brain...let spiderman explain

Effects Of Drugs And Alcohol On Spider Webs - Watch more Funny Videos

Some days don't you wish you could start the day over...

Fork Lift Accident Brings Down The Warehouse - Watch more Funny Videos

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Written in stone...

I am a soccor mom, a writer, and a small business owner...I'm also a killer!

Source: American Thinker

My Name is Betsy. I'm a Killer.
By Betsy M. Galliher

My name is Betsy.  I'm a wife and proud soccer mom, a writer, and  a small business owner.  I'm also a killer.


On the morning of January 8, 2011, I intentionally entered a gathering held by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and shot her at near-point-blank range.  I injured fourteen others, killing six -- among them a beautiful, curious, doe-eyed, nine-year-old girl.  I didn't actually pull the trigger, but I'm as guilty as the psychopath who did.

Here are just a few of the charges against me:

I am a conservative.
On occasion, I listen to Beck, Limbaugh, and Fox News.   
I've been known to pick up a book or two by conservative authors: Thomas Sowell, Andrew McCarthy, or the Founding Fathers, for example!
I believe that the federal government is too large, far too intrusive, and dangerously powerful.
I believe in personal responsibility and the amazing generosity of Americans to aid those in need rather than permanent entitlements.
I believe that the private, not the public, sector is the backbone of our economy.
I believe that our progressive tax system is punitive.  We are over-taxed, over-regulated, and over-lectured.
I believe in the power of the free market to correct itself, without government (taxpayer) intervention.
I believe that the Constitution is intended to limit government and empower the individual.
I believe in holding our elected officials' feet to the fire, be they Republican or Democrat (incendiary pun intended).
I believe that our sovereignty is at risk via unsecured borders, out-of-control spending, our crippling deficit, reckless abuses of the Constitution, and the moral decay of Washington.
In short, I'm a madman.  Guilty as charged, and armed with the belief in my 1st-Amendment right to peaceably question those we elect to serve.
The only person who actually pulled the trigger on that terrible, fateful day was Jared Loughner -- by every account, a deeply troubled young man.  But the real guilty walk among us: senior citizens in red, white, and blue, armed with signs saying "Taxed Enough Already"; flag-wavers clinging to guns and religion; doctors; the wealthy; business owners; talk radio; and any citizen -- particularly a conservative -- who dares exercise his or her right to free speech.


We're called greedy, stupid, and racist.  We're ridiculed with snide "slurpee" innuendos and called lewd and malicious names, such as "teabaggers."  Ordinary citizens are maligned by their own government while the pious, liberal elite get a free pass on reason and truth, while Islamists invoke their religious cloak, while the ideologue professes his moral superiority, while the media uses the power of spin, and while leftists, including Robert Gibbs and Barack Obama, employ their bully pulpit.   


We defend conservatism by our very way of life: as self-reliant, taxpaying, moral citizens, and as faithful defenders of limited government and the power of the individual.  We are violent inciters only insomuch as we threaten the current leftist, agenda-driven stranglehold on government.  So alarming is our threat that the real inciters wasted no time in politicizing the tragic deaths of six innocent citizens, not to mention one revered congresswoman still fighting for her life.  And they will waste no time in shamelessly exploiting a "crisis" at the hand of a lone psychopath to further enact gun control and squelch freedom of speech under cries of "civility." 


Does the left really believe that the "rhetoric" of Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, and Fox is incendiary?  Do they fail to understand that the language of conservative "talk" is the echo of ordinary citizens calling for limited government and individual freedoms?  Or do they silence us because we know our current leaders don't actually believe in their own limited power?  Truth be told, even Jared Loughner undermines their agenda.  And they know it.  They know that their "transformation" of America is failing and that people like me are not afraid to say so.


My name is Betsy, and I'm a killer.  They are determined to stop me before I kill again.
____________________________

___________________________

_____________________

Watch the following video and towards the end read the comments by "Communist Card Carrier"  ...by the way, Zbigniew Brzezinski is a top advisor to Obama.  Did it ever occur to you why Obama picked him?

Just in case you are wondering about the comment in the last photo regarding Henry Kissinger...
Kissinger was the architect of Project 2000 a once top secret document on population control supported by President Jimmy Carter.

Monday, January 17, 2011

We Are Not Yet Tunisia...but we're headed for the same demise

We are not yet Tunisia but we're getting close.  Besides the eye catching headline the line that follows should be in the forefront of every American's thoughts.
Tunisia appears to be replacing 23 years of authoritarian and repressive rule with a future of uncertainty and violence.
At the rate this (this,meaning the U.S. of A.) nation is falling, or as one government official stated, "This government is hanging by a thread.", it will not take 23 years of authoritarian and repressive rule for the anarchy and violence to spread throughout the land.  Most of us who are of sound mind and are fervent believers in the United States Constitution (as it was written) can easily see behind Obama's mask...we are not fooled by his Alinskyisms.
We know there's truth in the findings of December 1, 1982 whereas the Islamist Agenda calls for the takeover of America by 2020 and that is only 9 years away.  So will you continue to let Obama rule with an iron fist or do you enjoy the authoritarian and repressive rule.  If you favor the latter then you must be somewhat masochistic and therfor not of sound mind. If you favor the former then it is your patriotic duty to remove the usurper from his throne...the sooner the better for America! ~ Norman E. Hooben
ps: Don't forget rule #8

The following from: The Independent (UK)  How long before similar headlines are plasted all over America?

President's family hunted down as anarchy replaces years of repressive rule

By Kim Sengupta in Tunis
Monday, 17 January 2011

Gunshots began to pour out from a window, followed by returning fire from below. A helicopter gunship came swooping down from above and muffled explosions followed. The few people who had ventured out scurried for cover in doorways or cowered behind cars.
This was a sunny Sunday afternoon in a capital city on the jagged edge of anarchy. Tunisia appears to be replacing 23 years of authoritarian and repressive rule with a future of uncertainty and violence. The flight of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali seems to have done little to salve the wounds of a fractured society, with bitter enemies determined on settling scores.
The dictator may have gone, but no one is really in charge. The firefight, near his former palace was said to have started by Ben Ali's former Praetorian guards, the presidential protection force, aided by members of the Mukhabarat, the secret police and assorted militia.
Meanwhile security forces and the mob battle for the streets at night and, increasingly, openly during the day. The erosion of civil order is evident in the myriad checkpoints set up on largely empty thoroughfares.
Some are manned by the army and police, others by unidentified men in jeans and leather jackets carrying Kalashnikovs. In the past two days, youthful vigilantes have appeared, some in their early teens, carrying wooden sticks, stopping cars, and sometime carrying out "arrests" within yards of official posts.
None of this has stopped the looting and burning of homes, offices, and public buildings: Tunis's main rail station was ransacked and set alight by a crowd which had been stopped from marching into an affluent area.
Most of those who had cause to fear the collapse of the old order had followed Ben Ali out of the country. Not all have received the honoured welcome he got in Saudi Arabia, a kingdom with a tradition of hosting Muslim leaders falling on hard times, such as Uganda's Idi Amin. Some members of the Ben Ali family arrived at Disneyland, Paris, asking for asylum while others moved their cash, cars and servants to Dubai.
But some have failed to get away and paid the price. Imed Trabelsi, a nephew of Leila – the president's wife accused of enriching herself and her family from the public coffers – died yesterday after a group tracked him down and repeatedly stabbed him.
Ali Seriati, who was the head of the presidential guard, is said to have handed himself over because he feared assassination. He will appear in court charged with "creating divisions among the people, threatening national security, and provoking armed violence".
Chronicling what is taking place is proving dangerous. The Tunisian media are enjoying a burst of fearlessness and freedom after years of censorship but members of the international media have, at times, faced intimidation and violence from both sides.
Yesterday morning, Lucas Dolega, a 32-year-old French-German photojournalist was reported by police to have died from head injuries received when hit by a tear-gas grenade during a riot. Two of his colleagues claimed a policeman came to within five feet of Mr Dolega and aimed before pulling the trigger. His family later issued a statement saying that while he was in a critical condition, he was still alive.
There are tensions too between the army and the police. Many believe the police were too subservient to Ben Ali, himself a policeman trained in the US. Areas where the police were chased out have welcomed the soldiers. Sahar Ben Younes, a 20-year-old student who took part in the demonstrations, cooked, along with her friends, meals for the soldiers.
"We like them, we think they are fair and neutral," she said. "The police were always brutal, on behalf of Ben Ali and when we took part in things like the protests for the Palestinians. They were very quick to attack and use tear gas."
None of the law agencies, however, was doing anything to stop the looting, which continued yesterday to target the properties of relatives and cronies of the presidential family.
An opulent villa belonging to Belhassan Trabelsi, another nephew of Leila Trabelsi's, at La Marsa, near Carthage was being systematically stripped. On the arched doorway to the property, the millionaire businessman had inscribed: "This home is a gift to me from Allah."
Mohammed Jawad Qasi, a 33-year-old carpenter, smiled. "And now Allah has taken it away from him," he said. "If I had tried to enter here before, his men would have chased me away like a dog. I could not believe what I saw inside, the furniture, the swimming pool. The bastard had been living like he was our lord while the poor people were starving."
At a nearby house belonging to Moise Ben Ali, a nephew of the former president, possessions were thrown into the carved swimming pool. A Jeep sat burned out under a car porch. The BMWs, Porsches and Humvees which lined the driveway were among the first things to be "liberated".
Back in central Tunis, police showed off something else foreign: two Swedish passports recovered from gunmen who started the firefight. They appeared to be of Arab or North African origin. What were they doing here? "They are here to cause trouble, they are here to fight," said Lieutenant Mohammed Raida. "They know there are big problems here, they can smell blood."
____________

Issa Investigates DHS...weakly (yes, I spelled it right; Issa is too w-e-a-k for the job)

If you ask me I would say that Representative Issa is too weak for the job.  In here it says that Issa wants the documents from Homeland Security by January 29.   Huh?  Why not wait another year or so...then they would have all the time necessary to redact the information they don't want you to know.  Issa, let me tell you something you probably don't know, the guys you are dealing with are the bad guys...they don't like you! So wake the hell up.  Stop what your doing and go right over to Homeland Security and take whatever documents you feel are necessary to do the job.  They don't need any prep time to get you these documents, they're available for scrutiny at any time. If they don't have what you want or there is evidence of tampering, fire the whole bunch by not funding their payroll...  You need to get tough with the communists in charge! ~
Norman E. Hooben


Source: Yahoo News

House panel wants Homeland Security documents



WASHINGTON – A House committee has asked the Homeland Security Department to provide documents about an agency policy that required political appointees to review many Freedom of Information Act requests, according to a letter obtained Sunday by The Associated Press.
The letter to Homeland Security was sent late Friday by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. It represents an early move by House Republicans who have vowed to launch numerous probes of President Barack Obama's administration, ranging from its implementation of the new health care law to rules curbing air pollution to spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Associated Press reported in July that for at least a year, Homeland Security had sidetracked hundreds of requests for federal records to top political advisers to the department's secretary, Janet Napolitano. The political appointees wanted information about those requesting the materials, and in some cases the release of documents considered politically sensitive was delayed, according to numerous e-mails that were obtained by the AP.
The Freedom of Information Act is supposed to ensure the quick public release of requested government documents without political consideration. Obama has said his administration would emphasize openness in providing requested federal records.
According to Issa's letter, Homeland Security's chief privacy officer and FOIA official told committee staff in September that political appointees were simply made aware of "significant and potentially controversial requests."
Mary Ellen Callahan told them that political appointees reviewed the agency's FOIA response letters for grammatical and other errors and did not edit or delay their release, the letter states. She also told the committee that Homeland Security abandoned the practice in response to the AP's article, according to Issa's letter.
On Sunday, Oversight panel spokesman Frederick Hill said Issa sent the letter "because the committee has received documents that raise questions about the veracity of DHS officials" on the matter. He did not elaborate.
Issa asked the agency to provide the documents by Jan. 29.
Homeland Security officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last summer, officials said fewer than 500 requests were vetted by political officials. The department received about 103,000 requests for information in a recent 12-month period.
The agency's directive said political appointees wanted to see FOIA requests for "awareness purposes," regardless of who had filed them. The AP reported that the agency's career employees were told to provide political appointees with information about who requested documents, where they lived, whether they were reporters and where they worked.
According to the directive, political aides were to review requests related to Obama policy priorities, or anything related to controversial or sensitive subjects. Requests from journalists, lawmakers and activist groups were to also to be examined.
Under a new policy last summer, documents are given to agency political advisers three days before they are released, but they can be distributed without those officials' approval.

Sad news from the old neighborhood...



Back in the early nineties I was once an auxiliary member of the Edgewood Yacht Club and later a regular member of the Rhode Island Yacht Club located just south of Edgewood.  Even when I wasn't sailing we would ride our bicycles down to the area just to enjoy the ambiance of the waterfront. 

This is how I remember the area...fond memories indeed!