In seasons past, Grandma only had to worry about getting run over by a reindeer. With “Grandma Got Run Over by TSA,” web sensation Remy gets us in the holiday mood with a song about Christmas, Homeland Security, and the joys of civil rights abuses.

“Grandma Got Run Over by TSA” is one of a series of collaborations between Remy and Reason.tv. To watch Remy’s other videos, go here.

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Bill Ayers speaking to a crowd at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg, PA on December 14, 2011. Occupy Harrisburg invited Ayers to speak. Photograph © Paul Hair, 2011.

This is the second time I have covered Occupy Harrisburg.

Bill Ayers spoke at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg, PA on December 14 at the invitation of the militant Occupy Harrisburg. I estimated between 100 and 200 people attended the event.

Eric Papenfuse owns the Midtown Scholar Bookstore. Papenfuse, a former public school teacher, previously invited Ayers to speak in south-central Pennsylvania in 2010. He wrote an OP-ED explaining why he did so and The Patriot-News published it, revealing his radical, anti-capitalist views.

I summarize the night in a list of bullet points in the following section but I don’t go into extremely thorough commentary because there is a bigger point here than Bill Ayers and Occupy Harrisburg.

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The news of UC Davis police pepper spraying innocent #OccupyUCDavis revolutionaries shocked and outraged the nation. One can only imagine how outraged the nation will be once it learns of a shockingly underreported story that the Digital Video and Imagery Distribution System published last week. “Marines face OC spray” details the following:

One at a time, instructors lined up the augmentees, stood three paces away and sprayed real OC in their faces. The spray ran down their foreheads and into their eyes, causing them to immediately close. The Marines exhibited uncontrollable tearing, coughing, choking plus an extreme burning sensation on any exposed skin from the OC spray.

Outraged yet? If not, you will be soon! And if you are, well you may just want to stop reading now lest the next sentences drive you into uncontrollable hysteria.

After being sprayed, the augmentees had to navigate through an obstacle course of Marines holding pads, representing potential attackers. The SAF Marines fought through the course blindly throwing punches, knee strikes and baton strikes.

So, it wasn’t enough torture just to spray American citizens in the face with pepper spray, the federal government then forced them to run through an obstacle course even as they were incapacitated! Clearly, the legacy of George W. Bush lives on.

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Occupy Wall Street recently came to south-central Pennsylvania by way of Occupy Harrisburg. Occupy Harrisburg began its occupation of the Capitol at 12:01 a.m. on October 15, 2011 and ran through the day. Various media outlets reported that the group would extend its occupation through October 16, 2011, although they would legally be required to move from the Capitol. This report offers a brief reference list of how local media covered Occupy Harrisburg and then provides my firsthand account of what happened along with analysis of the event.

How Local Media Covered Occupy Harrisburg:

Various south-central Pennsylvania media outlets reported on Occupy Harrisburg. Some of the stories are written by the local media outlets and others are AP feeds. I did not do an exhaustive search to see if the media outlets that ran AP feeds did stories of their own. Also, I did not check every single local media outlet, although I tried to choose some of the major ones. I’m linking to some of them so that the reader can compare and contrast how these media outlets reported on Occupy Harrisburg with how my report on it is.

The Patriot-News: Harrisburg, PA:

• October 5: “Occupy Harrisburg holds first organizational meeting, allied with Occupy Wall Street movement”
• October 15: “Occupy Harrisburg comes to Pennsylvania Capitol”
• October 16: “Occupy Harrisburg plans to continue protests against ‘Wall Street greed’ at Capitol”

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From KTVI in St. Louis:

A witness on board a flight from St. Louis to Dulles Airport in Washington says two men who were originally thought to be behaving oddly on a plane at Lambert Airport Sunday night were indeed federal air marshals.

Ron Meyer says he was a passenger on board United flight #3681 Sunday evening. He says, originally, a flight attendant told the passengers the men were claiming to be air marshals but did not have any identification. However, according to Meyer, a pilot later said the men were indeed federal marshals. All passengers were taken off the flight and re-screened at the request of the pilot.

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Judicial Watch continues its aggressive probe of the Obama administration’s scheme to bypass Congress and enact stealth amnesty by hook or by crook.

We recently filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security. And here’s what we’re after:

Any and all correspondence (including, but not limited to, email) between USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) Director Alejandro Mayorkas and David Shahoulian, from December 3, 2010 through February 3, 2011. Fulfillment of this request should include any emails exchanged between Mayorkis and Shahoulian via their respective personal accounts where such personal email mentions or refers in any way to agency regulations or policy issues of any kind, including the planning or scheduling of meetings to discuss agency regulations or policy issues of any kind.

Judicial Watch filed its original FOIA request on February 4, 2011. Homeland Security was required by law to respond by March 23, 2011. However, the agency has failed to respond to the request in any manner.

The name Alejandro Mayorkas may sound familiar to you. Remember the USCIS memo that described “administrative alternatives” to going through Congress to implement blanket amnesty for illegal aliens? Well that document was prepared for the agency’s director, Mayorkas. (Perhaps even at his direction?)

Let’s review a few of the smoking gun memo’s key conclusions.

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By now, you’ve all seen it.  Gawker has reported on it, as has Huffington Post and Jake Tapper, among others.

It was tweeted this afternoon from the official Secret Service Twitter account and subsequently deleted by its author.  But Twitter has no mercy…delete can only delete if no eyes ever saw it in the first place.  Unfortunately for one Secret Service employee, eyes saw it.

I called the Secret Service Office of Public Affairs to ask for a comment.  I asked the question and almost immediately after identifying myself, was transferred to the voice mail of spokesman Robert Novy.  Luckily, Jake Tapper had already reached the office and received an official statement:

“An employee with access to the Secret Service’s Twitter account, who mistakenly believed they were on their personal account, posted an unapproved and inappropriate tweet,” Special Agent in Charge Edwin M. Donovan said in a statement to ABC News. “The tweet did not reflect the views of the U.S. Secret Service and it was immediately removed. We apologize for this mistake, and the user no longer has access to our official account. “

My first question was, ‘why is the Secret Service monitoring FOX News in the first place’?  But then I realized that such agencies monitor news outlets all the time – if they didn’t, they wouldn’t know which person in Congress just said something stupid that might prompt a foreign entity, or perhaps terrorists, to get really pissed at us.  And for other generally harmless reasons, too, of course.  It’s their public affairs staff doing the monitoring.  And besides, it’s Twitter.  We all know, Twitter is a public sandbox – you get in and play, and anyone can see you, and play with you.

I will admit however, I was slightly irked when I saw this in Jake Tapper’s report:

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That’s the question we’re left to ask ourselves after reviewing new documents we obtained from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. These records detail FY 2010 apprehension statistics for illegal alien smugglers and illegal aliens from countries considered a high threat to the United States because of their suspected ties to terrorism.

Here are the highlights from the documents, which we obtained pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request filed on January 26, 2011:

• U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 463,382 individuals smuggled across the border, including 8,905 smugglers. (3,027 of the smugglers apprehended were deemed “deportable.”)
• U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 59,017 “Other Than Mexican” illegal aliens through October 7, 2010.
• Among the nations represented in apprehension statistics are the four countries currently on the State Department’s list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism,” Cuba (712), Iran (14), Syria (5) and Sudan (5), as well as Somalia (9), Afghanistan (9), Pakistan (37), Saudi Arabia (5) and Yemen (11).
• Overall, U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 663 “Aliens from Special Interest Countries.” These countries are deemed “special interest” because of their suspected ties to terrorism.
• The countries yielding the highest “Other Than Mexican” apprehensions include: Guatemala (18,406), El Salvador (13,723), and Honduras (13,580).

The U.S. Border Patrol estimates that three out of every four illegal aliens who cross the border evade apprehension. So while these apprehension statistics are alarming, it’s the ones that got away that should cause us the most concern. And I don’t think there’s any doubt that a significant number of these illegal aliens intend to do us harm. (You should also know that many of those “apprehended” simply cross the border illegally again within moments of being deposited in Mexico by Border Patrol.)

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From the Associated Press:

Two years into its pledge to improve government transparency, the Obama administration took action on fewer requests for federal records from citizens, journalists, companies and others last year even as significantly more people asked for information. The administration disclosed at least some of what people wanted at about the same rate as the previous year.

People requested information 544,360 times last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act from the 35 largest agencies, up nearly 41,000 more than the previous year, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of new federal data. But the government responded to nearly 12,400 fewer requests.

The administration refused to release any sought-after materials in more than 1-in-3 information requests, including cases when it couldn’t find records, a person refused to pay for copies or the request was determined to be improper under the law. It refused more often to quickly consider information requests about subjects described as urgent or especially newsworthy. And nearly half the agencies that AP examined took longer—weeks more, in some cases—to give out records last year than during the previous year.

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While the world focuses its attention on the revolt against the dictator in Egypt, we’ve got an American president exhibiting his own dictatorial tendencies.

Over the past week, Obama’s signature “achievement,” the monstrous ObamaCare, was ruled unconstitutional by a second federal judge. In his opinion, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson stated that his declaratory judgment that the entire law be voided was a de facto injunction. In other words, without an administration request for a stay, Judge Vinson’s ruling stands. The federal and state governments should thus cease and desist. The current status of ObamaCare is that it’s been declared unconstitutional and all implementation must stop.

Obama’s reaction? “What? Did someone say something?”

As The Wall Street Journal reported this week, “The Obama administration said it has no plans to halt implementation of the law.” A senior administration official said, “We will continue to operate as we have previously.”

In other words: Up yours, judicial branch!

In another stunning example of the executive running roughshod over the judiciary, another federal judge, Martin Feldman in New Orleans, ruled this week that the Obama administration was in contempt for blowing off his ruling lifting the deepwater drilling moratorium. After the Deepwater Horizon spill, Obama halted offshore drilling. Feldman struck down the moratorium. Obama’s Interior Department went ahead with another moratorium, which was rescinded in October, but replaced with onerous new drilling safety rules. Feldman struck those down as well.

This week, the judge found that the Interior Department acted with “determined disregard” for his ruling when it deliberately reinstituted policies that restricted offshore drilling. “Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,” Feldman said in the ruling. “Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt,” Feldman said.

“The government’s contempt.” Wow.

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The Hamas-tied Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is viciously going after Congressman Peter King (R-NY), who is planning on holding hearings about the radicalization of Muslims in America.

On Monday, CAIR’s daily “American Muslim News Briefs” mailing contained no fewer than three shots at King:

Rep. King Turns Dispute with Mosque into Personal Vendetta

King Hearing Witness: ‘We Are at War with Islam’

Video: GOP Rep. Bashes Islam, First Muslim in Congress

You might get the idea from this that King’s hearings are actually going to do some good. After all, if the Hamas group CAIR is angry, King must be doing something right. Yet last week I called King’s hearings a “show trial” after King told Politico that he was “not planning to call as witnesses such Muslim community critics as the Investigative Project on Terrorism’s Steve Emerson and Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer.” I wrote that “for King not to avail himself of Emerson’s knowledge and Spencer’s scholarship is an astounding case of willful blindness.” Even worse, King (R-NY) said he was going to call Muslim Brotherhood-linked Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN).

I support increasing awareness of the jihadist threat in our midst. Who more than I? But when Politico reported that King, who is the new chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, plans to take “testimony primarily from Muslims” during his upcoming hearings, I thought, why? The media considers it its mission to take its spin primarily from Muslims. The cultural elites are constantly haranguing us with the Islamic supremacist narrative of calling any candor or criticism of jihad “Islamophobia.”

Islamophobia amounts to the enforcement of blasphemy (sharia) laws. In Muslims countries the punishment for “blasphemy” is death. In the West, the punishment of “blasphemy” (candor aboutIslam) is character assassination. News is edited, rearranged, and altered to deliberately omit the motive behind attacks on nations and non-Muslims, whether it’s Russia, Egypt, Lebanon, Thailand, Nigeria, Somalia, India, Pakistan…or Fort Hood, Texas.

What we need is sunlight, not more obfuscation.

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Hey conservatives, are you there?

No I don’t mean you Republicans…I mean those of you who are lovers of liberty! I mean those of you who defend the Constitution, not just when it protects them but when it protects someone they don’t like. I know you’re out there. You may be a Libertarian or an independent, you may not be affiliated with any party at all. Ok you might be a Republican too, but I know you’re there.

Well listen up!

I am not exactly sure at what moment the theft of the word “conservative” actually occurred, but I know it has happened. Through the rapid expansion of the size and role of government over the last 100 years the progressives not only infiltrated the Democrats but they infiltrated the Republicans too. They took over words like “liberal” and “conservative.” In fact, if you go back far enough “liberal” used to mean “conservative” until they stole that word. Then all the people who loved freedom found a new home as conservatives, and the progressives came to steal that too.

You see, that is what they do. Progressives are wolves in whatever clothes they need to wear to fool everyone about what their actual agenda is. The reason they do this is because their real agenda is so antithetical to the mission statement of America that most Americans would marginalize the people who espouse these ideas if they knew who they were. Unfortunately, America’s awareness has been dulled by years of addiction to the graft of big government.

If we are not only to survive but thrive as a nation we must separate the progressives who hate freedom from the conservatives that love it. Only then will we know who’s who.

How do we do that? Well conservatives love the Constitution, so let’s start there.

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The always interesting Business Insider has this report:

The Department of Homeland Security’s ICE has launched a major crackdown on websites enabling copyright infringement or selling counterfeits of trademarked goods. In just the past few days ICE has seized at least 12 domains, TorrentFreak reports.

All of these domains now display the image shown here.

Okay, so each of the domains seized is probably breaking the law. Knowingly violating someone’s copyright is rightfully against the law. I don’t know anything about these sites, but, for now, I’ll assume they were selling knock-off goods as the real thing and not as some kind of faux Louis Vuitton. Still, this part of the article bothers me:

The owner of an affected site told TorrentFreak that his domain was taken over without any prior complaints or notification from the court.

So, the sites were seized before the site’s owner heard any charges or had the chance to submit any counter evidence in court. The owners of the sites had their property seized without being allowed to defend themselves. I successfully avoided law school, so I don’t know the exact legal term, but this strikes me as an overstep in their enforcement authority.

But, the article begs an even bigger question: What the hell do fake Guccis have to do with homeland security?

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Bad news today for President Obama, his Counterterrorism and Homeland Security Advisor, John Brennan, and other proponents of the idea that the United States can safely reach out to “moderate” elements within terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban.  In a 6-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court found that no distinction can be made between violent and non-violent wings of such groups and that the former will be beneficiaries of whatever “material support” is given them.

As Stephen Landman of the indispensable Investigative Project on Terrorism’s IPT News reported in a post Monday:

“The court roundly rejected the claims that there’s a distinction between aid to a terrorist group’s “social” wing, as opposed to its military wing….:

Material support meant to “promote peaceable, lawful conduct” can further terrorism by foreign groups in multiple ways. Material support is a valuable resource by definition. Such support frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends. It also importantly helps lend legitimacy to foreign terrorist groups – legitimacy that makes it easier for those groups to persist, to recruit members, and to raise funds – all of which facilitate more terrorist attacks.

As a result of this ruling upholding the material support statute, it remains illegal to provide to designated terrorist groups “any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instrument or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (one or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials.”

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Attorney General Eric Holder testified the other day before the House Judiciary Committee.   Republican congressman Lamar Smith asked him what seemed to be a pretty simple question.

Regarding the perpetrators in the last three terror attacks (two, thank God, unsuccessful) on our homeland (Fort Hood, the Christmas day bomber, and the Times Square bomber), Smith asked our Attorney General “Do you feel these individuals…might have been incited to take the actions they did because of radical Islam?”

Holder feigned to not understand.   “ Because of…?”

Smith:  “Because of radical Islam.”

Holder: “There are a variety of reasons people do these things.”

Smith re-worded the same question and re-asked it six times, with Holder refusing to acknowledge what is as obvious as the fact that I am typing these words and you are reading them.  That every major incident of terror of recent years has been performed by Muslims and that all of them associate their particular theology with their acts of terror.

The real question today is who is governing America and what exactly is the agenda of those who sit in the seat of power of our own country?

It is no wonder that most Americans are squirming around with the most profound sense of uneasiness.  When the chief law enforcement officer of the United States refuses to acknowledge what is clear and true – that those perpetrating terror today are uniformly Muslim and motivated by Islamic theology of one form or another – how in the world can we possibly feel safe?

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Earlier this week it was reported that the Obama White House removed confessed terrorist Faisal Shahzad from the Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list sometime after Barack Obama came into office.

Terrorist Faisal Shahzad had substantial connections to the Taliban, reached out to the Taliban, was influenced by Yemeni terror leader Anwar al Awlaki, made at least a dozen return trips to Pakistan since arriving in the United States in 1999, and he bought a one way ticket with cash to Pakistan.

Now we find out that he was “blogging” and asking for jihad as far back as 2006 but that the Obama Administration took him off the terror watch list anyway.

Terror expert Walid Phares weighed in on the confessed Times Square bomber today in an interview on FOX News:

To be clear, Shahzad was actually commenting on terrorist websites and not actually blogging.

Earlier this week it was discovered that Shahzad was posting on terror websites since 2006.

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The Mainstream media (MSM) is currently peddling the Obama Administration myth that patriotic Americans, many of whom have served in our military or who otherwise have an American flag hanging proudly in their front yards, pose a grave threat to our nation’s security. We have seen calls for Republican leaders to denounce Tea-Partiers and other activist groups opposed to Obama’s agenda. We are currently seeing our nation’s Department of Justice being hijacked to score political points for the Far-Left.

Let us remember that it is leftists who support convicted cop-killers, organize to prevent other Americans from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights, consistently threaten violence, and otherwise have a long history of supporting foreign powers who wish our nation and its freedoms harm.

For many years, the anti-American culture of the extreme left has been largely ignored. Like a cancer running through the body politic, the culture of hating America has metasticised. It is now “uncool” to have a flag in the yard, support our troops or believe in American exceptionalism.

To better see how the left works and the threat it poses, let us take a look at the Left and the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC).

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The tragic murder of a Good Samaritan rancher by an illegal immigrant in Arizona has people yelling for an effective response to this outrage. Although most illegal immigrants are just human beings that are desperately seeking to provide for themselves and their families, this murder shines a spotlight on the Obama administration’s utter failure to secure our borders and uphold the rule of law.

A top story on March 30 is that Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was apparently gunned down by an illegal immigrant. Krentz’s family has maintained a ranch in southern Arizona since 1907, and he was known as a compassionate man who gave water and medical care to illegal immigrants crossing his land from Mexico.

Krentz was found shot to death, slumped over his vehicle on his ranch. Police dogs tracked the shooter to the Mexican border 15 miles away, indicating that the shooter was almost certainly someone in this country illegally from Mexico.

The murder of this good man casts in stark relief the outrageous failure of President Barack Obama and Secretary Janet “the system worked” Napolitano to deal with the enormous problem America faces as a result of illegal immigrants. Perhaps if they weren’t so busy taking over the economy (which the Constitution forbids them from doing), they’d actually secure the border (which the Constitution requires them to do).

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Imagine tons of explosives being stolen in Mexico and then transported by truck across the border into the United States. Could it happen? Over the weekend, it did. Almost.

On Friday, according to an article in the Latin American Herald Tribune, 18 tons of industrial explosives were stolen from a cargo container during a robbery along the Monterrey-Saltillo Highway in the northern Mexico state of Nuevo Leon. According to subsequent reports, Mexican officials located and recovered the stolen explosives within hours. The thieves, however, remain at large.

But should Americans rest easy now? Not after this near-miss event.

According to officials with the Mexican industry association, Canacar, thefts from cargo trucks on Mexico’s highways increased 40 percent last year.

North of the border, officials with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are calling upon the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to immediately challenge the legality of the tariffs implemented one year ago by Mexico so that the debate regarding cross-border trucking with Mexico can be shifted from economics to highway safety and security.

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Corrected: The federal enforcement agency involved in the incident with Mr. Yon at Sea-Tac was previously misidentified as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).  The article has been updated to reflect that it was Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who questioned and detained Mr. Yon.

Award winning war correspondent Michael Yon was detained and handcuffed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Yesterday by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel.

Yon was returning to the United States from Hong Kong to visit family when CBP officials stopped him during a routine security checkpoint.  “Officials asked me what was in my bag—nothing wrong with this question,” Yon said in an interview with BigGovernment.com.  “I told them it was normal stuff, clothes and toothbrushes.”

At this point the Customs officials escorted Yon to a designated screening area where they examined the contents of his bag.  “Then they asked me how much money I make,” Yon said.  Yon suggested to the Customs officials that the question was inappropriate and unrelated to transportation security.  The award-winning blogger noted another CBP officer approached Yon: “he asked who do I work for.”  ”I did not answer the question which clearly was upsetting to the [CBP] officers.”

Yon was escorted to a room elsewhere in the airport where he said he remained silent during much of the questioning.   According to Yon, “they handcuffed me for failing to cooperate.  They said I was impeding their ability to do their job.”

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