Tag Archives: National

Eugene Smith, county resident and Tuskegee Airman, passes away

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Eugene Smith, famed member of the Tuskegee Airmen who fought for his proper recognition and honor, passed away on Wednesday, November 21st, at the Harrison County Hospital in Cynthiana, Kentucky.

Eugene Smith had lived in Switzerland County for nearly 20 years, retiring to a houseboat moored at Turtle Creek Marina in Florence. He was very active in the community while residing here, including membership at Patriot Baptist Church and was a regular attendee at the Senior Mealsite in Vevay.

Born in Ohio in 1918, he was a 1939 graduate of Withrow High School in Cincinnati; and then earned his bachelor’s degree from Kentucky State University.

When World War II began, Eugene Smith volunteered to serve his country, enlisting in the Army Air Corps to become a pilot.

That’s where his unusual story of heroism begins.

Because his parents were of mixed origin with Native American ancestry, the doctor who delivered Eugene Smith listed on his birth certificate that he was “colored”, even though he was fair skinned. When he was accepted into the Air Corps and was about to begin his flight training, the Army found that his birth certificate listed his race in that way, so the Army declined to send him to flight school with “white” soldiers.

Read more at the Vevay Reveille Enterprise

Texan of the Year nominations still coming in for Larry Hagman

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They started shortly after Larry Hagman died Thanksgiving weekend. They continued through the next week and into this one. Larry Hagman is a people’s favorite for Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year.

A sampling of the emails, starting with one from yesterday:

– From Dorothy Herrington:

I nominate Larry Hagman as Texan of the Year. Not only was he a great entertainer (who could possibly forget “J.R.”?), but he supported the South Dallas Cultural Center, launched the Larry Hagman Foundation, gave thousands to the Dallas Children’s Center, Big Thought, Artreach, Frazier Revitalization, and also organized a program for Dunbar Elementary. He advocated organ donation especially after his own transplant in 1995. The only Larry Hagman most of us knew was that he had such a zest for life, and had this uncanny ability to play his acting parts like no other.

We shall never forget him, and will miss him greatly. I would wonder what he is orchestrating upstairs right now, but am sure all those present are under his spell at this very moment. Oh, that we could see what kind of mischief he is conjuring up, as he twitches those eyebrows. You can bet it is entertaining.

Read more at The Dallas Morning News

See Also: Hagman knew the end was near, his ‘Dallas’ wife says – Houston Chronicle

Larry Hagman and ‘Dallas’ helped end communism in Romania

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Larry Hagman captivated Americans for 13 years as J.R. Ewing on “Dallas.” But the former “I Dream of Jeanie” star may have had a much more dedicated fan base, way over in Romania.

In Romania, Hagman will be remembered as the man who made capitalism cool, and eventually helped end communism in the region.

“I think we were directly or indirectly responsible for the fall of the [Soviet] empire,” Hagman told the Associated Press a decade ago. “They would see the wealthy Ewings and say, ‘Hey, we don’t have all this stuff.’ I think it was good old-fashioned greed that got them to question their authority.”

Read more at FOX News

Ransomware Pays: FBI Updates Reveton Malware Warning

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Latest malware, trying to trick users into paying a fine, claims the FBI is using audio, video, and other devices to record computer’s “illegal” activity.

Can people pay a fine online, avoid the threat of prosecution by the FBI, and unlock their locked PC all in one go?

That’s the offer made by a “Threat of Prosecution Reminder” that’s been flashing on numerous PC screens, which says that the FBI has locked the PC after finding evidence that the computer has been used to access child pornography or other illegal content. The latest version of this notice says that “all activity on this computer is being recorded using audio, video, and other devices.” But users are offered a way to pay the related fine being levied, immediately unlock their PC, and see the whole matter immediately dismissed.

The warning, however, is just a setup. “This is not a legitimate communication from the IC3, but rather is an attempt to extort money from the victim,” according to an advisory released last week by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which is a joint effort between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. “If you have received this or something similar do not follow payment instruction.”

The extortion part of the scam — now also featured on the FBI’s list of e-scams — is facilitated by a malicious application known as Reveton, which according to antivirus vendor F-Secure “fraudulently claims to be from a legitimate law enforcement authority and prevents users from accessing their infected machine, demanding that a ‘fine’ must be paid to restore normal access.” Machines are typically infected with Reveton via malicious websites — using drive-by download attacks launched by Citadel crimeware — rather than being introduced via phishing attacks or malicious email attachments.

Read more at Information Weekly

Muslim Brotherhood gives training to US agencies to fight them

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Bill Whittle of PJTV spoke with two whistleblowers who alleged that the agencies tasked with protecting our country against terrorism actually receive training from those terrorist groups.

He spoke with a Department of Defense analyst and an FBI agent under conditions of anonymity.

The Defense Department analyst stated that he found much of the information on Sharia law in English. He found that Islamic law supported the position of radical terrorists groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, rather than so-called moderate groups. He claims that upper Defense Department personnel stopped using his reports. Though he said that some used his reports in support of their operations to great success.

The FBI agent remarked that much of the information he gives can be found on the Internet. He mentions the Holy Land Foundation—formerly called the Occupied Land Fund—which was shut down by the Bush Administration because it set up by the Muslim Brotherhood to funnel funds to Hamas. The Supreme Court refused to hear their case in October of this year.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was part of a coalition in support of the Holy Land Foundation. The FBI agent claims that, “…every major Muslim organization in the United States is a Muslim Brotherhood front—specifically the most prominent organization.” The three most prominent organizations, he says, are the Muslim Public Affairs Council, CAIR, Islamic Society of North America.

CAIR is Hamas, the FBI agent alleges, and ISNA is a huge Hamas entity in America. CAIR and ISNA are the two groups that the US government—including the FBI, DOD, State Department and DHS—look to to do their outreach to the Muslim community in the United States.

These groups are not included in the right-wing or left-wing extremist group reports generated by the Department of Homeland Security.

The FBI and DHS allows these groups to sit in on investigative techniques conferences. “For instance, in the FBI, the General Counsel of the FBI, Valerie Caproni, invited these Muslim organizations, as well as the ACLU and other groups in, to make sure that the investigative techniques and Attorney General guidelines and the way the FBI was going to implement the Attorney General guidelines were okay and not offensive to these organizations.”

The FBI offers no such invitations to Americans who support the Constitution.

Bill Whittle said that training in the real threat of terrorism in the United States is not given—not even to local Sheriff’s Deputies in Arizona.

SEE ALSO: FBI will not prosecute bombing of government building bombing with IED as terrorism due to “political sensitivities”-Atlas Shrugs

Would legalizing marijuana actually increase problems?

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With the recent legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington and marijuana dispensaries being all the rage, YouTube video reporter Steven Crowder takes a humorous, but insightful, look into the legalization of the drug.

His report makes some interesting discoveries such as the fact that some people get a prescription for the drug to purchase from dispensaries and sell on the open market. He makes the point, as well, that pro-marijuana organizations claiming the drug is not that harmful may actually cause kids who would otherwise stray from the drug to try it.

While Crowder does not take either side of the cause, he does make some interesting points interviewing people concerned with various sides of the issue.

Marine Corps heroes in need of good home.

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There is a story circulating—with this patriotic picture—that the Marine Corps is searching for homes for 400 improvised explosive device sniffing dogs. According to an email from Brian Miller of the IED Detector Dog program, this is not totally true. The Marine Corps is seeking to transfer these animals to law enforcement agencies in need of them.

The Facts of the Attack in Benghazi Are Far Worse Than Reported

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Matt Bruce, NMJ News

According to highly trusted sources, US Ambassador Christopher Stevens was targeted by al Qaeda of the Magreb, lured to Benghazi by al Qaeda operatives in the Libyan Security Forces, and kidnapped in the course of a diversionary attack on the consulate. He was missing for eight hours, during which time he was beaten and brutalized before he was murdered, not unlike the way that Muammar Ghadhaffi was murdered. Photographs are too graphic to reproduce here.

The Obama Administration was actually warned that “possible” attacks were looming on the 11th anniversary of September 11th as soon as September 4th during a White House Intel briefing run by National Security Advisor, Tom Donilon.

Extremely sensitive documents were taken from the Consulate in Benghazi, including lists of operatives and locations of safe houses in Libya. One of these so-called “safe house” in Benghazi, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar fire during the attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer considered to be “safe,” because of the capture of the documents. It is now assumed that a breach in security led to the attack, which was carried out on the eleventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States.

According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department received credible intelligence of the planned operation 48 hours before the attack on the Consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo.They were warned that American missions might be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on “high alert” and put their facilities and personnel in “lockdown,” under which movement is severely restricted. We now hear our US Marines in Cairo were armed with pepper gas and stun guns but no live ammunition to defend themselves in case of an armed attack per a US State Department directive.

Read more at The New Media Journal

SEE ALSO: WH Won’t Release Photos of Obama Team During Benghazi Attack

Leahy scuttles his warrantless e-mail surveillance bill

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Sen. Patrick Leahy has abandoned his controversial proposal that would grant government agencies more surveillance power — including warrantless access to Americans’ e-mail accounts — than they possess under current law.

The Vermont Democrat said today on Twitter that he would “not support such an exception” for warrantless access. The remarks came a few hours after a CNET article was published this morning that disclosed the existence of the measure.

A vote on the proposal in the Senate Judiciary committee, which Leahy chairs, is scheduled for next Thursday. The amendments were due to be glued onto a substitute (PDF) to H.R. 2471, which the House of Representatives already has approved.

Leahy’s about-face comes in response to a deluge of criticism today, including the American Civil Liberties Union saying that warrants should be required, and the conservative group FreedomWorks launching a petition to Congress — with more than 2,300 messages sent so far — titled: “Tell Congress: Stay Out of My Email!”

Read more at CNET

Families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman enraged by Discovery documentary; O.J. Simpson ‘loves it’

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We’re also told that Simpson, currently serving out a nine to 33 year sentence in Nevada State Prison for with multiple felony counts including kidnapping, assault, robbery, and using a deadly weapon, was sent a preview screener of “My Brother the Serial Killer” about a month ago, but was prohibited from watching it.

LOS ANGELES – The Investigation Discovery documentary “My Brother the Serial Killer,” which examines claims that serial killer Glen Rogers, not O.J. Simpson, brutally stabbed to death Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, has infuriated the families of the the deceased.

“The overwhelming evidence at the criminal trial proved that one and only person murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. That person is O.J. Simpson and not Glen Rogers. The fact that O.J. Simpson was acquitted was a stain on the American criminal justice system. That stain will blemish our court system for a thousand years,” an attorney for the Goldman family told FOX411. “The Discovery Channel can pack a hundred thousand screaming Glen Rogers’s in the Los Angeles Coliseum. They can confess in unison from here until the cow comes home. But nothing, and I mean nothing, would absolve O.J. from the unrequited crimes that he committed when he took the lives these two people.”

In a statement, Ron’s sister Kim Goldman said she was “appalled at the level of irresponsibility demonstrated by the network and the producers of this so-called documentary,” and that they were never notified that the main character had confessed to her brother’s death.

Read more at Fox News