BluegrassBulletin.com

Big Brother Update: Confusing Story Is Scary Nonetheless

You will probably need to read this story more than once in order to understand it, and even then it may be confusing.  Here's my attempt at making it more digestible.  Adobe software has a new idea.  Instead of buying their software and using it as long as you like, you will be required to rent it on a monthly basis.

And just how will this be accomplished?  Are you familiar with "cloud" computing?  Instead of your software being installed on your computer, you will access it in "the cloud" that is, you will sign on and use it in a virtual setting rather than pulling it up from your hard drive.

But here's where the story gets very weird.  Apparently the Immigration bill under consideration has some hidden provision which requires the collection of "bio-metric" data on all people.  What is bio-metric data?  It is the collection of things like fingerprints, facial recognition, personal data such as social security numbers, passwords, birth date and other identifying data including that which can make sure who your are by creating a stockpile of information about you physically.  The Adobe "cloud" will be able to collect such things and here is how.

Since you will no longer be using Photoshop from your own hard drive, photos of you, your wife, your kids etc. will all be fed into the "cloud" where facial recognition, height, weight, hair color, eye color and body identifying marks will belong to a super computer, not limited to your own.  And you will no longer own these things.  Under the license agreement, all content you create becomes the property of Adobe.

Sound weird?  It should. But it gets worse.  Adobe is very closely tied to the Obama administration.  In fact Obama is paying a criminal with tax dollars who has been pushing "cloud computing" and has the CEO of Adobe working as head of his Management Advisory Board.

So, in a nutshell, it looks like Big Brother is getting bigger and could soon know everything about you, and I mean everything.

Now are you starting to get the picture?

Kentucky's Mike Duncan Chairs New RNC Data Company

Mike Duncan of Martin County Kentucky, former treasurer and chair of the RNC will be chairing Data Trust a company which will assist the RNC in managing the processes being developed by another company called Liberty Works which has been chosen to help the RNC compete in the digital arena.

Karl Rove had been working with Liberty Works in talking with potential donors for the $15 million project though Rove is not directly affiliated with Liberty Works, Data Trust or the RNC as POLITICO reports.

Competition for this arrangement has focused on organizing voter data in a more useable manner and developing interfaces between raw data from many sources and creating a platform for communicating with the RNC's known base.

It would be my hope that the project not get pigeon holed into such a structured and limited mindset, though substantial improvement in this area is sorely needed. The bigger opportunity for the GOP lies outside of this project and dovetails with it.

Mike Duncan brings perhaps the highest level of integrity and professionalism to the project of anyone in the nation and his determination to succeed should be a huge positive for the republican cause going forward.

This is another plus for Kentucky.

Posted from my I-Pad with Blogsy

Here Comes Hillary

Hillary Clinton is beginning her run for the presidency, as if you didn't already know.  And a new superPAC has been formed to line her pockets fund the campaign.

“Ready for Hillary” on Friday filed with the Federal Election Commission, following on the heels of another group called “HILLARYCLINTONSUPERPAC.”

“Our purpose is simple: we are ready to work for Hillary to be president when she is ready to run,” Black, a George Washington University professor and historian, as well as a longtime Clinton backer, said to the Center for Public Integrity in an email. “When our website launches in a few weeks, we plan to reach out to our grassroots networks and contributors to mobilize them to support her.” [POLITICO]

The only good news in this development is that as the media begins to focus more and more on who is lining up for the 2016 run, Obama will begin to fade from the top stories and his lame duck term of office will limp off into irrelevancy.

Meanwhile the GOP is gearing up too. [NOT!]

They are still trying to get a bunch of old white guys to tighten the knot in their neckties and cozy up to corporate America.  The most dazzle the GOP can muster seems to be some how or another trying to hype Marco Rubio, give Bobby Jindal a speaking gig or two and let John McCain run point on the immigration debate.

Maybe Rand Paul is right.  Maybe he's the only guy who can get enough attention to be viable since geting attention is key in politics these days.

On another front, Ambassador Chris Stevens is still dead, the arms for Syria scandal is going nowhere, Hillary is up to her neck in some sort of scandal that kept her under wraps for weeks and nobody seems to think that giving those stories any attention matters.

Maybe it's time for an expanded conservative media presence.  Otherwise a topless movie star in a Wildcat jersey might look like senatorial material before too long.

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Limbaugh Nails It: Conservatives Have Given Up

Rush Limbaugh nails it.  He has told us precisely why the left has such clout with what he calls "low information voters".

Tina Fey, the last year that I was on the list of Barbara Walters’ top Ten Most Fascinating Americans, the last time was two or three years ago, Tina Fey was in it for impersonating Sarah Palin, one of the Ten Most Fascinating People. She didn’t make it as Tina Fey, she made it as Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. She ended up being one of Barbara Walters’ Ten Most Fascinating because of her impersonation of Palin. Meanwhile, Palin is not in the list, and yet an impersonator is. So it’s clear as a bell to me why it’s tough to find a conservative in the media with any credibility with low-information voters. Every one of them has been taken out. There are other reasons why conservatives aren’t defended. The conservative movement is in a constant battle for people in it who want to be seen as the leader, who want to be seen as the smartest person in the room, who want to be seen as the go-to person.

And so somebody getting a lot of media attention is a threat, just in a high school jealousy sense, is a threat. So you take ‘em out, you help take ‘em out. It keeps the pathway cleared for you, whoever you are, if you want to be the go-to conservative for the media or the leader of the conservative movement or what have you, if you want to be perceived as such.

All right, that’s that. I wanted to get that out there because everybody calls here, and they have ever since I’ve been doing the show, “Rush, what can Republicans do?” The first thing they can do is unite. The first thing they can do is unite and start defending each other and not letting this character assassination succeed every time the left tries it. [Rush Limbaugh]

Can't Say It Any Better: "Join Or Die"

In keeping with the theme of today's blog postings I would direct you to another from a few days ago.  It is worth reading.  Here's a tease:

Fact No. 1 is to realize a political party isn't a church nor a cult but a mechanism to get diverse people who share some things in common to work toward a common position of power that none could achieve on their own. Fact No. 2 is that unless you can convert your principles into actual policies, standing upon them does no one a favor. If you believe in your principles but can't convert others, you are not an asset. If you antagonize them, you and your principles are a real liability, and perhaps you should shut the hell up.

The Tea Party loves the Gadsden flag symbol, with its poised-to-strike rattler and "Don't Tread on Me" message, but there is another illustration of that era that it ought to note: Benjamin Franklin's cartoon of a snake, chopped into 13 small pieces, unable to make any threatening noises. Beneath it was Franklin's exhortation for unity among the 13 Colonies: "Join, or Die."

READ FULL STORY HERE

Feds Say "Disable Java" On Your Browser

For what it's worth here is a warning from the Department of Homeland Security:

The Department of Homeland Security is urging computer users to disable or uninstall the Java programming language because of a serious security vulnerability.

The flaw in Java 7 "can allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system," according to a warning posted Thursday by the U.S. Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT).

Hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses may be affected.

Hackers could exploit the flaw to install malicious software or malware that could make users vulnerable to identity theft or allow their computers to be exploited by "botnets" that could crash networks or be used to attack web sites.

"Note that applications that use the Internet Explorer web content rendering components, such as Microsoft Office or Windows Desktop Search, may also be used as an attack vector for this vulnerability," the warning adds.

DHS said it is "currently unaware of a practical solution to this problem." [USA Today]

Of course if you do disable it or delete it, you may not be able to use many websites nor engage in chat.  You better call your computer folks before taking any drastic action, but at least now you have been warned.

Providing You A Blank Chalk Board To Cut Spending

I am going to offer you, the informed reader, the chance to fix the nation.  In your comments I invite you to be specific and outline where cuts from federal spending should occur.  But I remind you, be specific.  Generalities such as "we need entitlement reform" are cliches.  Dig down, find the programs, make the cuts.

The federal spending can be found here: FEDERAL BUDGET PROPOSALS

I continue to hear people say that we need a citizen legislature, well, I presume you are a citizen, so show us how you would legislate.  How would YOU solve the problems we face, not just with speeches or general statements of wide spread appeal, but specifically, agency by agency, line by line, program by program, how and where would you cut?

Like Ross Perot said, I'm all ears.

And It Begins In Earnest

Do you remember when the George Soros funded "Media Matters" announced that they were moving from a strategy of monitoring and containment to an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel and a handful of conservative websites, which its leaders view as political organizations and the “nerve center” of the conservative movement"? [Politico]

Well, it has begun in earnest.

Rupert Murdoch, owner of NewsCorp and parent of Fox has been on the hot seat over a phone hacking scandal in London. Why?  Because some of his low level employees are accused of violating the law.  So how will this give Soros and Media Matters any help?  Get a load of this:

A Washington-based ethics watchdog is calling on federal regulators to revoke News Corporation's 27 Fox broadcast licences in the wake of the highly critical report on phone hacking from the UK parliament.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) has written to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, calling on the regulator to pull the plug on Rupert Murdoch's lucrative television licences on grounds of character. [Guardian]

And just who is this group calling for the license of FoxNews to be revoked?  It is a George Soros funded group which attacks republicans and conservatives with ethics charges and frivolous lawsuits.

A reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the above facts is that Soros is now beginning his assault on FoxNews in earnest.

Why?  Well Obama's Communications diversity Czar Mark Lloyd told us in his own words.

President Obama’s diversity czar at the Federal Communications Commission has spoken publicly of getting white media executives to “step down” in favor of minorities, prescribed policies to make liberal talk radio more successful, and described Hugo Chavez’s rise to power in Venezuela “an incredible revolution.”

In a video clip of the conference that has been aired by Fox News personality Glenn Beck and others, Mr. Lloyd seems be siding with the anti-American leader against independent media outlets in his own country, some of which supported a short-lived coup against Mr. Chavez in 2002.

“The property owners and the folks who then controlled the media in Venezuela rebelled - worked, frankly, with folks here in the U.S. government - worked to oust him,” Mr. Lloyd said. “But he came back with another revolution, and then Chavez began to take very seriously the media in his country.”

Mr. Chavez in fact forced the nation’s oldest television network, RCTV, off the air in 2007 by refusing to renew its license, [Washington Times]

And you still don't know why I'm running for Congress?  Do you hear anybody else talking about these threats to liberty in such bold terms?  I thought not.

Curiosity Or Un-Holy Alliance?

Time and again the Associated Press and a number of other "mainstream media" sources give marquee attention to the TEA party and those who jump up and claim to be the "TEA party candidate".  Sometimes it helps them get elected, other times it just helps them get a guest host spot on the Today Show.

But as time goes by and the press continues to report virtually every wiggle of TEA party toes, my cynicism about the motivations of the press kick in.

Yes, I have been a big fan of the conservative values of the TEA party.  I have joined the chorus of voices against TARP and others similar programs, I have called for cutting federal spending, and in fact I did a video series on the dangers of the Federal Reserve when it wasn't really on anybody's radar screen other than Jim Bunning and Ron Paul.

I've represented the TEA party and defended its First Amendment rights and fully believe that it began as a movement of strong fiscal conservatives which fit well with my personal philosophy within the republican party.

But lately the TEA party has been getting news for some other things.  For example, it was big news when Rand Paul and Mike Lee were the only two "TEA party caucus" senators to join with 21 Senate democrats calling for a faster withdrawal from Afghanistan.  I get it, we need to pull out because we have no mission there which is supported by the American people, nor can we afford to be there.  But I wonder if the agenda of the democrats is founded in such intellectual purity?

In 2010 the TEA party tended to be mostly older, angry republicans and was built around opposition to runaway government spending.  But now in 2012 it seems as if the TEA party is being used by democrats to help keep Obama in the White House.

The tea party movement, now nearly three years old, has fallen out of favor with Americans. And Democrats are prepared to use it against Republicans in the 2012 election.

A recent Fox News poll showed just 30 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the tea party, compared to 51 percent who viewed it unfavorably.

A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll may be more illustrative, though. It showed Americans were more evenly split on the tea party, with 44 percent supporting it and 43 percent opposing it. But just 15 percent of Americans supported the tea party “strongly,” while many more – 26 percent – were “strongly” opposed to it.

That suggests opposition to the tea party is more strident than the tea party itself, which means the movement may be doing the GOP more harm than good.

In addition, the fervor and enthusiasm spurred by the tea party in 2010 appears to have dissipated, with no major tea party rallies taking place this year and fewer Republican candidates latching on to the label. On the presidential campaign trail, the tea party is rarely mentioned.

In contrast, Democrats are actually starting to wield the tea party label as a tool in their campaigns.

Democrats say the issue works for them as they continue to define a Republican Party whose brand is already struggling.

“It’s no longer viewed as a populist, grassroots organization, but a dangerous group with extremist views that don’t reflect the mainstream values of America’s middle class,” said Democratic media strategist John Lapp. “The Republican establishment allowed the inmates to run the asylum in 2010. And now they’re paying the price electorally.” [Washington Post]

If the above observations are true, then maybe that is why the mainstream press is so willing to push any story about the TEA party or its candidates which comes down the pike.  Afterall, how anxious do you think the MSM is to help defeat Obama?

Add to the mix the number of people who have hitched their wagons to the TEA party movement who come from the Ron Paul camp and you begin to discern an odd alliance which could also add some bits of evidence to the picture of what is going on when the press gives the new TEA party attention.

Some liberals are so enamored with Paul’s foreign policy—namely, his opposition to practically any form of overseas military engagement—that they are willing to overlook all of Paul’s other heresies (not to mention lunacies). In certain parts of the left-wing imagination, America’s aggressive imperial overreach is so acute that it must be stopped at all costs. Left-wing blogger Philip Weiss has even suggested that liberals think of supporting Paul as an ugly, but necessary, progressive compromise, likening it to nothing less than “seculars joining with the Muslim Brothers to get rid of Mubarak. You needed a broad coalition to push Hosni out.” [New Republic]

There are still certainly many very good reasons to call for an immediate curtailment of deficit spending, to demand that Congress pass and operate only under a balanced budget and for there to be an immediate audit of the Federal Reserve Bank. But many of these original concerns of the conservative republicans who rushed to the TEA party a couple of years ago formed a wake up call for republicans which has been heard. 

Now it seems the TEA party movement is being ballyhooed by the press not because it is a curiosity on the American political landscape, but  because it can be used as a divisive force within the republican party, providing by way of press attention more steam to the movement than it is producing on its own, thus weakening the GOP, helping elect liberal democrats in the process and training those TEA party novices who become addicted to the limelight what liberal ideologies they need to espouse if they want to keep getting attention.

There is also an important lesson from history that shouldn't be forgotten.  When the MSM starts helping, the left has picked its man.

Campaign 2012: Fear And Loathing Redux?

Journalist Hunter S. Thompson covered the 1972 presidential campaign of George McGovern more closely than the rest, but in his book "Fear and Loathing On The Campaign Trail" he took journalism to a new level.  His book of collected articles was described as "the least factual, most accurate account" of the election.

To give you a glimpse of just how far news coverage has come in the last 40 years it is amusing to recall that Thompson's employer obtained at "great expense" a first generation fax machine so he could send in his reports from around the country, by deadline.

Today we not only have 24 hour news coverage on radio and television, but we have an army of citizen journalists blogging every detail and varied opinion about the campaigns, every step of the way.

This past weekend Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary.  The circus now moves on to Florida with thousands of eyes and ears looking and listening for anything newsworthy at all to write about which makes the job of bloggers like me all that much easier.

Because of the Internet we are able to read and cross reference every report in a matter of minutes.  We are able to direct you, the reader, right to that source as confirmation for the things we are saying.  We can cull out of the thousands of words being written about the contest those we feel are most important and condense them for your consumption.

We live in a wonderful era where the freedom of expression, speech and the press are mere extensions of the freedom of thought.

As this campaign progresses, keep a sharp eye out for any candidate who seems the least bit mushy on keeping these freedoms alive.  Those are the ones you need to fear, and loathe and ultimately defeat.