March 15, 2017

Sen. Shaheen Introduces Bill to Investigate RT News

Senator Jeanne Shaheen has introduced legislation to give the Justice Department more authority to investigate RT America.

Shaheen cites a recent intel report titled Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections that focuses a lot on RT and its propaganda as well as “anti-US messaging.”

One section of the intel report that Shaheen picks up on in particular reads “RT America formally disassociates itself from the Russian Government by using a Moscow based autonomous nonprofit organization to finance its US operations. According to RT’s leadership, this structure was set up to avoid the Foreign Agents Registration Act and to facilitate licensing abroad.”

http://www.mediaite.com/online/democratic-sen-shaheen-introduces-bill-to-investigate-rt-news/

March 15, 2017

Gettin' Real: Texans Receive First Notices of Land Condemnation for Trumps Border Wall

The government offered $2,900 for 1.2 acres near the Rio Grande. If Flores chooses not to accept the offer, the land could be seized through eminent domain.

The week before Donald Trump’s inauguration, Yvette Salinas received a letter she had been dreading for years: legal notice that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wants to build a border wall on her family’s land near Los Ebanos. The 21-page document, entitled a “Declaration of Taking,” is addressed to her ailing mother, Maria Flores, who owns the property with her siblings. The letter offers Flores $2,900 for 1.2 acres near the Rio Grande. If she chooses not to accept the offer, the land could be seized through eminent domain. “It’s scary when you read it,” Salinas says. “You feel like you have to sign.”

The 16-acre property has been in the family for so long that none of them can remember the year it was acquired. Salinas only knows they’ve had it for five generations. Her uncle runs a few head of cattle on the property, which lies not far from Los Ebanos’ most famous attraction, a hand-drawn ferry that shuttles cars and their passengers across the river to Mexico.

This is not the first time the federal government has wanted to seize the land for a border wall. In the wake of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, the Bush administration put up 110 miles of border fencing, much of it on private land in Texas. In 2008, Salinas’ family received a condemnation notice offering them the same low, low price of $2,900. Others in Los Ebanos were mailed similar notices.

https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-border-wall-mexico-condemnation-letter/

March 14, 2017

Troubling.......Preinstalled Malware Targeting Mobile Users

The Check Point Mobile Threat Prevention has recently detected a severe infection in 36 Android devices, belonging to a large telecommunications company and a multinational technology company. While this is not unusual, one detail of the attacks stands out. In all instances, the malware was not downloaded to the device as a result of the users’ use, it arrived with it.

According to the findings, the malware were already present on the devices even before the users received them. The malicious apps were not part of the official ROM supplied by the vendor, and were added somewhere along the supply chain. Six of the malware instances were added by a malicious actor to the device’s ROM using system privileges, meaning they couldn’t be removed by the user and the device had to be re-flashed.

http://blog.checkpoint.com/2017/03/10/preinstalled-malware-targeting-mobile-users/

March 14, 2017

Spike In New Zealand Citizenship Applications

Americans applying for New Zealand citizenship spiked by 70 percent in the 84 days that followed the election of President Donald Trump, the Associated Press said on Tuesday citing official government data.

The number of Americans who successfully received work visas from the authorities also increased by about 18 percent compared to the same corresponding period last year. The number of Americans visiting the country has also reportedly increased.

AP reported that the number of Americans visiting the New Zealand government's websites to gather more information about getting a citizenship, recorded a increase of over ten times, compared to the same two weeks a month before the results of the American elections were declared. It went from 305 in October to 4,146 in November.

“(It’s about) getting a bit more security or really making a longer-term decision that New Zealand is the place they want to call home… It’s been more of a flurry of excitement initially than anything that’s translated into a huge avalanche of numbers,” Cameron Pritchard, an immigration consultant at Malcolm Pacific Immigration in Wellington told AP. He also said that his company received a spike in inquiries during the American Presidential elections.

http://www.ibtimes.com/where-are-americans-moving-2017-spike-new-zealand-citizenship-applications-2507816

March 14, 2017

Poor Pat McCrory Cant Find A Job

Because Of His Controversial ‘Bathroom Law’

Bwwwwwwwa!

Former Gov. Pat McCrory says the backlash against House Bill 2 is making some employers reluctant to hire him but he’s currently doing consulting and advisory board work.

McCrory has been appearing frequently in interviews with national media outlets to defend the controversial LGBT law, but he hasn’t announced what’s next for his career. In a podcast interview recently with WORLD, an Asheville-based evangelical Christian news website, McCrory talked about his challenges on the job market.

The former Republican governor says HB2 “has impacted me to this day, even after I left office. People are reluctant to hire me, because, ‘oh my gosh, he’s a bigot’ – which is the last thing I am.”

McCrory explained more about his current situation in an interview Monday evening with The News & Observer.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article138266443.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article138266443.html

March 14, 2017

Pam Bondi, Jeanuuuuuuuuuus

Under radar, Florida spent $240 million on lawyers

$237 million on private lawyers

Attorney General Pam Bondi oversees a legal budget of nearly $309 million a year that helps pay for 450 state lawyers, but all that in-house legal firepower hasn't stopped state leaders from hiring private attorneys, and no one in state government is closely tracking what their hourly rates add up to.

"We do not have that information and are unaware of a way to capture expenditures for the purchase of outside legal services that would not entail an exhaustive search of documents," said Whitney Ray, a spokesman for Bondi.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/ap-exclusive-under-radar-florida-spent-240-million-on-lawyers/2316394



Republicans cannot govern.

March 12, 2017

Legislators propose allowing FPL to charges customers so it can invest in fracking

After losing a major battle in court last year, Florida Power & Light is now turning to the Florida Legislature to change the state law and give it the authority to charge customers, and profit off, speculative natural gas fracking.

The bill, HB 1043 by Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, is titled "Prudent Utility Investments in Natural Gas Reserves," and the Senate companion is SB 1248 by Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach.

"Natural gas is a proven commodity that brings rates down and so we are going to allow FPL to go forward with a proven technology to have these reserves so that we pay down the road,'' Bean said in an interview.

The bill would essentially overturn a Florida Supreme Court ruling last year that said that Florida regulators exceeded their authority when they allowed FPL to become the first utility in the nation to be allowed to charge its customers, not its shareholders, for its speculative investment in fracking operations.

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/legislators-propose-allowing-fpl-to-charges-customers-so-it-can-invest-in/2315707

March 11, 2017

If You Get a Call From a 473 Area Code, Its Probably a Scam

http://mentalfloss.com/article/93175/if-you-get-call-473-area-code-its-probably-scam

There’s a good reason not to pick up the phone when a number from an unfamiliar area code calls: It might be a scammer, and it could cost you a chunk of money.

Some relatively common phone scams can be identified by the area code they come from, Joseph Steinberg writes for Inc. Unless you know someone from the Caribbean who would be calling you, numbers that start with 473 or other area codes from Caribbean islands are likely to have a scam artist on the other end of the line. That’s because Caribbean phone numbers use the same country code (+1) as the U.S., so the numbers look domestic even though they’re international calls.

snip

242: Bahamas
441: Bermuda
784: St. Vincent and Grenadines
246: Barbados
473: Grenada, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique
809, 829, and 849: Dominican Republic
264: Anguilla
649: Turks and Caicos
868: Trinidad and Tobago
268: Antigua
664: Montserrat
876: Jamaica
284: British Virgin Islands
721: Sint Maarten
758: St. Lucia
869: St. Kitts and Nevis
345: Cayman Islands
767: Dominica

March 10, 2017

Judge denies 'stand your ground' defense in movie theater shooting

Source: CNN

(CNN)A retired Tampa police captain who shot and killed a man in a movie theater will face a second-degree murder charge after a judge ruled that Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law does not apply in this case.

After two weeks of pretrial testimony, Judge Susan Barthle cast doubt on Curtis Reeves' assertions that he was acting in self-defense when he drew and fired his gun.

"Because the defendant's testimony was significantly at odds with the physical evidence and other witness testimony, this court has considerable doubts about his credibility, and is not willing to come to the conclusion that these circumstances are those envisioned by the Legislature when the 'stand your ground' law was enacted," Barthle ruled.

A trial date has not been set, CNN affiliate WFTS in Tampa reported.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/10/us/stand-your-ground-movie-trial/index.html?sr=twCNN031017stand-your-ground-movie-trial0530PMStoryLink&linkId=35331965

March 10, 2017

Dead Sharks Are Popping Up In Florida Parking Lots and Driveways

Two dead sharks were found in a parking lot and on a driveway in St. Augustine, Florida, in the last week.

Workers at a Walmart found a 5-foot dead shark in a shopping cart in the store's driveway Friday, the St. Augustine Record reported Wednesday. Sheriff's deputies responded to a call from one of the store's assistant managers and found the shark near an RV parked in the lot. The RV's owner told deputies he heard noises outside his vehicle early in the morning, but assumed they came from Walmart employees moving carts. When he woke up, he found the shark on the hood of his RV. Not sure what to do with the dead animal, he moved it to a cart.

http://www.ibtimes.com/dead-sharks-are-popping-florida-parking-lots-driveways-2505695