90 Miles From Tyranny

Monday, June 8, 2015

A couple of steaks shoplifted at a Gardendale Walmart three months ago led to the biggest food stamp fraud investigation in Jefferson County's history, and launched 11 simultaneous raids this morning at convenience stores countywide.

Led by the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office, teams of law enforcement officers met at 5 a.m. for a briefing and then fanned out across the county beginning at 6:50 a.m. The officers and agents were armed with 242 arrest warrants and plans to arrest 17 suspects.

All 17 suspects were in custody by mid-morning, and investigators already today have filed for forfeiture and condemnation of those 11 stores, which totals more than $1 million in assets.

"This is huge for us,'' said Jefferson County District Attorney Brandon Falls.

The massive probe, dubbed Operation T-bone, targeted those they say have been cheating the food stamp system to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars and sending at least some of the profits via wire transfer to Yemen.

District Attorney Brandon Falls announces that 257 arrest warrants have been issued for 20 people accused of fraud and theft of property in Birmingham, Ala., Wednesday, June 3, 2015.
The District Attorney's Office, the FBI, the ...

Dennis Hastert has not been indicted on a charge of sexual abuse, nor has he been indicted on a charge of paying money he was not legally allowed to pay. The indictment of Mr. Hastert, a former House speaker, released last week, lays out two counts: taking money out of the bank the wrong way, and then lying to the F.B.I. about what he did with the money.

Does that make sense? Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic, for example, is worried that the indictment constitutes government overreach, punishing Mr. Hastert for concealing payments whose disclosure he may have thought would be damaging to his reputation, but which were not illegal.

Federal prosecutors allege Mr. Hastert was paying hush money in exchange for wrongdoing that happened long ago. But Mr. Hastert is charged with structuring: making repeated four-figure cash withdrawals from his bank in order to avoid the generation of cash transaction reports, which banks are required to send the government about every transaction over $10,000. These reports have been required since 1970, with the intention of helping the federal government identify organized criminals and tax evaders.

To be clear: It’s not illegal simply to take $8,000 out of the bank repeatedly.

“The criminal provisions there do have strong mens rea (criminal intent) requirements: The government has the burden to prove that...

Girls With Guns

Now that it has come to light that Boston jihadis Usaama Rahim and Dawud Sharif Abdul Khaliq were plotting to behead me, the mainstream media is in full panic mode, trying to deny the plot against me and downplay its significance.

The media wants to make it all about Pamela Geller – “controversial,” “provocative,” “inciteful” – as if they think that if they get rid of me, they are rid of the problem. The media has been avoiding reality since 9/11, and now we are suffering the consequences of their avoiding reality. There is a problem in Islam with or without Pamela Geller. By virtue of this jihadist murder plot against me, I have become the proxy for every freedom-loving American who refuses to submit to violent intimidation.

I am the Islamic State’s target because I am, unlike most of the mainstream media, refusing to bow down to them and submit to their dictates. They want to make an example out of me in order to frighten the rest of the US into silence and submission — that is, to frighten those who have not already submitted.

I am often asked, “Aren’t you afraid?” Of course, but it is far scarier to do nothing.

This is not about me. This is about whether the US will stand for freedom or submit and cower before violent intimidation. They targeted me for violating sharia blasphemy laws. They mean to kill everyone who doesn’t do their bidding and abide by them voluntarily.

This is a showdown for American freedom. Will we stand against this savagery, or bow down to them and silence ourselves?

This won’t end with me or with the police whom Rahim and Abdul Khaliq ultimately decided to target, because the Islamic State has vowed nothing less than to destroy America. They have detailed manuals plotting full-scale insurrection and blood in the ...

Kelly Parker was thrilled when she landed her dream job in 2012 providing tech support for Harley-Davidson's Tomahawk, Wisc., plants. The divorced mother of three hoped it was the beginning of a new career with the motorcycle company.

The dream didn't last long. Parker claims she was laid off one year later after she trained her replacement, a newly arrived worker from India. Now she has joined a federal lawsuit alleging the global staffing firm that ran Harley-Davidson's tech support discriminated against American workers — in part by replacing them with temporary workers from South Asia.

The firm, India-based Infosys, denies wrongdoing and contends, as many companies do, that it has faced a shortage of talent and specialized skill sets in the U.S. Like other firms, Infosys wants Congress to allow even more of these temporary workers.

But amid calls for expanding the nation's so-called H-1B visa program, there is growing pushback from Americans who argue the program has been hijacked by staffing companies that import cheaper, lower-level workers to replace more expensive U.S. employees — or keep them from getting hired in the first place.

"It's getting pretty frustrating when you can't compete on salary for a skilled job," said Rich Hajinlian, a veteran computer programmer from the Boston area. "You hear references all the time that these big companies ... can't find skilled workers. I am a skilled worker."

Hajinlian, 56, who develops his own web applications on the side, said he applied for a job in April through a headhunter and that the potential client appeared interested, scheduling a longer interview. Then, said Hajinlian, the headhunter called back and said the client had gone with an H-1B worker whose...