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OBAMA’S FREE SPEECH ASSAULT: COMING SOON TO AN INTERNET NEAR YOU!

The Obama administration has proposed another set of regulations that infringe upon Free Speech. DBKP has written about some of them previously.
* Next FCC Target: Hate Speech in the Media
* Obama, Free Speech: U.S. Votes for UN Restrictions on Free Speech
* Free Speech and the Internet Under Assault from Multiple Sources

Mark Hyman, American Spectator, lists a few of the most odious items in the coming FCC Internet Free Speech Assault. They are almost unbelieveable–almost.

From The Plan to Silence Dissent:

More than 150 bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission are in the final stages of planning how to deliver broadband Internet to the estimated 3-6 million people who do not have access. A formal plan will be unveiled in early 2010 but one proposal being discussed is deeply alarming as it threatens First Amendment freedoms.

The FCC is contemplating the notion that some or all of the electromagnetic spectrum occupied by radio and TV broadcasters is the perfect real estate to launch a national wireless broadband service. The price tag is $350 billion. That is as much as nearly $120,000 per person to be connected. Apparently, the FCC has not heard of the “$99 Triple Play.”

Nowhere are both the “heavy hand” and “invisible foot” of government more evident than in the many regulations being proposed for the last frontier of Free Speech: The Internet.

This administration has accepted the task of controlling disagreeable political speech with a zeal. Whether it was Regulation Czar, CASS SUNSTEIN’s ‘timely’ publication of the booklet “Rumors”–a screed that pimped for the necessary regulation of disagreeable “rumors” on the Internet–or these latest proposals from the Obama FCC, this White House doesn’t seem to miss a trick when it comes to stamping out dissent.

Especially, on that unregulated monster, the Internet.

Barack Obama soulmates, Stalin and Mao, would be proud.

Surprise! Small business owners’ confidence is the lowest since February. Only 19% think economic conditions are getting better for their business.

From Rasmussen: Discover Small Business Watch Drops Significantly in November – November 30, 2009

This survey counts business owners that employ 5 or less employees.

And the Obama administration is holding a “Jobs Summit”–that won’t talk about how to create new jobs. Notably, Disney and Intel are invited to the summit and lots of other big company people for photo ops with the prez.

No small business owners have been invited yet–at least according to reports.

That will inspire small business owners, the creators of the majority of new jobs in the U.S. economy.

image: http://www.hoteliermiddleeast.com

FAILED DRUG WAR PRODUCES MORE “ROGUE COPS”

From 4 Chicago ex-cops say they invaded homes, stole:

Four former members of an now-disbanded Chicago police unit admitted Friday to taking part in a brazen scheme in which they barged into homes and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from suspected drug dealers and others—once after withholding insulin from a diabetic man until he told them where to find the cash.

This is only a tiny portion of the corruption made possible by the Failed War on Drugs. It’s good that these cops were busted–but there’s countless others still working the streets.

More on what the press will refer to as “rogue cops”, but are merely cops corrupted by the distorted market prices of the Failed War on Drugs.

The four stood quietly as a prosecutor read a 17-page synopsis of what they admitted to, providing a glimpse into a rogue operation in which officers pulled over motorists without cause, grabbed their keys and stormed into their homes, falsified reports, pocketed huge sums of money and even shook each other down for money.

To these not-yet-apprehended bad cops, “Serve and Protect” refers to their bank accounts.

MORE: Bad Chicago Drug Cops Busted: More Corruption from the War on Drugs

MORE: Bad Boys

HUCKABEE’S FIRST INSTINCT WAS TO SHIFT BLAME
POLICE HAVE SUSPECT HOLED UP, MAY BE DEAD

Updates at End of post–
Updated @ 1300: Suspect in officer killings eludes law in Seattle

Within hours of the news that suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons had been granted clemency by then-Governor Mike Huckabee, a statement was released on the HuckPac website.

[Click image to enlarge]

Should he be found to be responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State. He was recommended for and received a commutation of his original sentence from 1990, this commutation made him parole eligible and he was then paroled by the parole board once they determined he met the conditions at that time. He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him. It appears that he has continued to have a string of criminal and psychotic behavior but was not kept incarcerated by either state.

HuckPac will have to do better than that to keep the taint of Huckabee’s ill-considered clemency grant to a multiple cop killer away from the former Arkansas governor.

The HuckPac statement doesn’t mention the biggest failure in the Arkansas criminal justice system: Huckabee’s own well-documented record of releasing violent offenders back into the community to commit more crimes. The Clemmons case sparked one Arkansas prosecutor to state, “This is the day I’ve been dreading for a long time.”

Larry Jegley is prosecuting attorney for Arkansas’ Pulaski County.

As Michelle Malkin notes, this was not Huckabee’s first “Willie Horton Moment”. [Violent felon granted clemency by Huckabee now sought in Lakewood, WA police ambush; Update: Huck PAC posts statement; Update: SWAT team surrounds Clemmons’ family home]

Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence over the protestations of prosecutors.

“This disaster is just one of Huckabee’s ill-considered clemency legacies.”

Huckabee has stated within the last week that “it’s not likely I’ll run in 2012″.

After the events of the last 24 hours, it’s unlikely a Huckabee candidacy would garner much support in the law enforcement community.

LATEST:

Whether Clemmons remains alive or not is still subject to speculation: Police: Suspect in police deaths hurt, maybe dead.

A suspect in the slaying of four police officers who were gunned down in a suburban coffee shop was holed up at a Seattle house early Monday, wounded and possibly dead, police said.

Negotiators were trying to communicate with Maurice Clemmons, 37, using loudspeakers and explosions to try to prod him from hiding.

MORE: Cop killer suspect dead?

LATEST: Suspect in officer killings eludes law in Seattle

Two days after after “world powers ordered Iran to halt construction of a plant near Qom and to adhere immediately to five United Nations resolutions demanding it stop uranium enrichment” Iran responded by announcing it will add ten new uranium enrichment plants.

“A senior US official said that the plan constituted the boldest public violation of Iran’s international obligations to date, and underlined its unwillingness to reach a peaceful compromise. Western powers have said they will consider new sanctions if Iran has not shown signs of good faith by the end of the year.”

No word yet on whether Obama will issue a new sanction rescinding the sending of an official White House Christmas card to Ahmadinejad, or the more serious sanction of sending the Iranian leader an official White House stocking stuffed with coal.

Iran stokes tensions with huge nuclear expansion

SWISS VOTE TO BAN NEW MINARET BUILDING

Mindless multiculturalism received a setback in the Alps: the Swiss have voted “overwhelmingly” to ban construction of new minarets in their country.

Click images to enlarge.

[ABOVE: Poster urging the Swiss to back the ban on building new minarets in the Alpine country. The ban passed.]

From Swiss ban mosque minarets in surprise vote:

GENEVA (AP) — Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on Sunday, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers in a surprise vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population.

Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad condemned the vote as biased and anti-Islamic. Business groups said the decision hurt Switzerland’s international standing and could damage relations with Muslim nations and wealthy investors who bank, travel and shop there.

[ABOVE: Poster urging the Swiss to back the ban on building new minarets in the Alpine country. The ban passed.]

Opponents of the measure tried to sway the public by saying that the ban would hurt tourism and hinder the all-important “international standing”.

The tactic fell on deaf ears. Perhaps, Swiss voters were aware of just how hard it is to build a Christian church in Islamic countries [Survey: How Easy to Build a Christian Church in Muslim Countries?].

Or maybe the Swiss were trying to head off troubles that have afflicted other European countries where multicultural mush is substituted for national history.

In any event: no new minarets in Switzerland.

images: SwissInfo for more posters

The BBC channels The Onion.

More concern by governments on how to address a faux problem using real money. This time, Australia is studying ways to make sheep burp less.

From Australian aims to breed ‘green’ sheep that burp less :

Australian scientists have said they are hoping to breed sheep that burp less as part of efforts to tackle climate change.

The scientists have been trying to identify a genetic link that causes some sheep to belch less than others. Burping is a far greater cause of emissions in sheep than flatulence, they say.

The report goes on to mention that Australia has a “Department of Climate Change” and that its concern is that agriculture contribute 16% of Australia’s greenhouse gases.

Parody imitates life, which in this case, imitates parody.