Yesterday, a reporter for the Troy Record was on the scene of an FBI raid involving an abandoned small town autobody shop. Charles Sweeney described a scene in which State Police and FBI agents had surrounded, and eventually impounded, a Saturn coupe.
Today that investigation has led to two arrests in a bizarre terror plot that allegedly involves local Jewish organizations, and a portable X-Ray weapon that could be used to deliver lethal doses of radiation to what the accused perceived as “enemies of Israel”.
Via Fox News:
Federal authorities have accused two upstate New York men of assembling a portable X-ray weapon they intended to use against opponents of Israel.
Prosecutors say 49-year-old Glendon Scott Crawford, of Galway, and 54-year-old Eric J. Feight, of Hudson, have been charged with conspiracy to provide support to terrorists following a yearlong undercover investigation.
Investigators say Crawford approached local Jewish organizations looking for people to help him with technology that could be used to secretly deliver damaging and even lethal doses of radiation against those he considered enemies of Israel.
The weapon was designed to remotely poison and kill targeted individuals.
Both men face up to 15 years in prison.
State Senator Jeff Klein (D-Brooklyn) has raised the ire of leftists who believe that he and a group of other Democrats who broke rank to form the Independent Democratic Conference, and allowed a sharing of power with Republicans, has been a thorn in the side of Governor Cuomo and the progressive agenda ever since.
Today, those leftists had all they could stands, and they couldn’t stands no more.
Via the Times Union:
State Police arrested 21 people on disorderly conduct charges after they protested Tuesday outside the Capitol office of state Sen. Jeff Klein, the leader of the Independent Democratic Conference.
The rally began at 1 p.m. at the top of the Western Staircase, where about 200 progressive activists decried the blockade of GENDA, the Dream Act, a hydrofracking moratorium, campaign finance reform and the full 10-point Women’s Equality Act. The four-member IDC has been criticized for allowing Republicans to block action on many of those items through a power-sharing deal.
After hearing from representatives of each issue, the activists — including representatives of Citizen Action, Occupy Albany and more — headed up to Klein’s fourth-floor offices. Activists locked arms and sat down, blocking two doors into Klein’s suite. Many speeches ensued, as well as chants on the theme of IDC perfidy (“Klein got more clout/We got sold out”) and and Civil Rights songs reworked with an Albany twist (“Ain’t gonna let let Senator Klein turn me around … walking on to freedom land”).
As per usual, the protesters sole accomplishment was a series of chants which showed off their epic rhyming skills - because basic chanting at a 3rd grade level is oh so impressive.
Fortunately, we here at the Mental Recession have located exclusive footage of the protest outside of Senator Klein’s office, seen below.
Whoa… Not sure how that slipped in there. Remind me to fire the video production manager later.
Anyway, here’s the actual clip (via Capitol Confidential) of the progressive activists protest, which pretty much amounts to the same thing – a group of losers pretending their message trumps all.
Ah, the return of the ever-effective “Mic Check” followed by a series of Mother Goose rhymes.
Wait, wait … I can do this too. Here’s one for you liberals…
It’s hard to hold on to a job – when you keep acting like a knob!
Your movement IS stoppable, shampoo and soap is possible!
See how easy that chanting business is? Consider that one free for the sharing.
On a serious note, one of those arrested was Citizen Action’s Karen Scharff, a former co-Chair of the Capital District WFP at a time when Democrats were being allowed to commit voter fraud on their ballot line. Scharff is also a stalwart of the now defunct corrupt organization known as ACORN.
In the end, not everyone was impressed with the activists efforts.
Staten Island Sen. Diane Savino, an IDC member, said the protesters should “grow up.”
Guess who pays for this program? Legitimate cell phone customers. In other words, you and I.
The federal ‘free’ cell phone scheme for low-income individuals cost $2.2 billion last year, all of which came from fees added to the phone bills of paying customers.
And while there are some people who legitimately make good use of this program – emergency contacts for children and parents, or to receive job interview responses – there is a whole hell of a lot of this going on…
Via the Daily Mail:
Undercover video shot in May by a conservative activist shows two corporate distributors of free cell phones handing out the mobile devices to people who have promised to sell them for drug money, to buy shoes and handbags, to pay off their bills, or just for extra spending cash.
The ‘Obama phone,’ which made its ignominious YouTube debut outside a Cleveland, Ohio presidential campaign event last September, is a project of the Federal Communications Commission’s ‘Lifeline’ program, which makes land line and mobile phones available to Americans who meet low-income requirements.
Lifeline was a $2.19 billion program in 2012.
One exchange saw a man specifically tell an employee he was going to sell his taxpayer funded phone to buy heroin. To which the employee states, ‘Hey, I don’t judge’.
Every one of the individuals who claimed they would sell the phone as opposed to actually using it for legitimate purposes, was given a phone.
Nobody was turned down.
In fact, some were instructed to visit pawn shops to determine the phone’s value, or they are instructed to go home and deactivate the phone, sell it, and return to get another.
Watch below and read the rest of the report…
Upstate Republican Assemblyman, Steve McLaughlin, has announced that he is considering a run against Governor Cuomo in 2014. McLaughlin has been perhaps the most vocal critic of the governor, a staunch supporter of the constitutional right to bear arms, and has spearheaded efforts to, as he says, “drain the swamp” in New York, fighting to weed out corruption in Albany politics.
Via Fred Dicker:
An AGGRESSIVE upstate lawmaker who backs gun rights and Texas-style low taxes and calls Gov. Cuomo a “bully” has emerged as a likely — some say certain — Republican candidate against Cuomo next year, The Post has learned.
Rensselaer County Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin, 49, a former commercial pilot who in February compared Cuomo to Hitler over the way the governor rammed through the anti-gun SAFE Act, has privately told legislative colleagues he’s planning to run.
McLaughlin, who works part-time as a salesman for a solar-energy firm, was introduced last week at an anti-SAFE Act rally in Albany “as the next governor of the state of New York.” State GOP Chairman Ed Cox recently described him to an associate as being on his “short list” of gubernatorial candidates.
“I am considering running for governor,” McLaughlin told The Post.
“It took 12 years for people to get sick of Mario Cuomo, but upstate and, I think, on Long Island, people are already sick of Andrew Cuomo.”
McLaughlin added that the disdain for Cuomo is bipartisan, stating that Assembly Democrats have even told him “he’s a pain in the ass and is always trying to follow a path of dictating and bullying people”.
And that is why Dicker used the word ‘aggressive’ in all CAPs.
While being an aggressive supporter of conservative ideals, McLaughlin should not be confused with Cuomo’s last conservative opponent, Carl Paladino. There is a distinct difference in styles, and a distinct difference between being aggressive and being over the top.
While McLaughlin would be a big underdog in a matchup with Cuomo (the governor already has $22 million in his war chest), the current political climate may give the challenger an opening.
There is strong upstate distrust for Cuomo after his embarrassing unconstitutional gun grab via the SAFE Act, and with politicians being arrested for corruption on a seemingly weekly basis, the governor’s approval rating has been in a consistent downward trend recently.
A new poll released today shows his approval, while still in relatively good shape, has hit a personal low at 58%. It should be noted that the polls sample was skewed 47% Democrat, 23% Republican.
Will McLaughlin simply be a Republican sacrificial lamb, or does he have a real shot at unseating Governor Cuomo?
Only time will tell…
Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat Congressman from New York, has claimed that in a closed-door meeting with the NSA, he learned that analysts could listen to specific phone calls and retrieve the contents of said call based solely on an analysts decision.
Warrantless wiretaps. Remember that phrase during the Bush years, liberals?
Via CNET (h/t Weasel Zippers):
The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed “simply based on an analyst deciding that.”
If the NSA wants “to listen to the phone,” an analyst’s decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. “I was rather startled,” said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.
Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSA’s formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically, it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls.
Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadler’s disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.
Of course, Democrats have made it clear that all of this is okay … as long as it’s Obama infringing on our freedoms, what could possibly go wrong?
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