FAMILIES OF FALLEN SEALS ALLEGEDLY SENT FORM LETTERS WITH PRESIDENT’S ELECTRONIC SIGNATURE

Thirty U.S. service members were killed on August 6, 2011, when a CH-47 Chinook was shot down in Afghanistan’s Wardak province. As Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft reminds us, it is the deadliest single loss of U.S. forces in the Afghanistan campaign.

Among those killed in the crash were 17 members of the U.S. Navy SEALs. And although the deadly attack was over a year ago, it wasn’t until yesterday that, apparently, parents of fallen SEALs revealed that were sent stock letters with President Obama’s electronic signature.

“Yesterday, Karen and Billy Vaughn, parents of Aaron Carson Vaughn, spoke at the Defending the Defenders forum sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots outside the RNC Convention in Tampa. Karen brought a copy of the form letter they were sent following their son’s death,” Hoft reports.

A form letter?

“Karen Vaughn reached out to the parents of the other SEALs killed in that crash,” Hoft adds. “Their letters were all the same. Form letters — signed by an electric pen.”

RNC ATTENDEES REPORTEDLY EJECTED AFTER THROWING FOOD AT BLACK CNN CAMERAWOMAN: ‘THIS IS HOW WE FEED ANIMALS’

A number of reports out of the Republican National Convention last night indicate that two attendees were kicked out for throwing nuts at a black CNN camerawoman, saying: “this is how we feed animals.”

The left-leaning Talking Points Memo added:

The CNN official declined to confirm specific details of the incident to TPM but generally confirmed an account posted on Twitter by former MSNBC and Current anchor David Shuster: “GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying ‘This is how we feed animals.’”

[...]

In a written statement, CNN addressed the matter but divulged few details: “CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum earlier this afternoon. CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment.”

 GOP convention spokesman Kyle Downey confirmed for Politico: “Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated.”

Politico also adds that while the actions certainly do not speak for the Republican Party, it can’t help the impression among many African-Americans that Republicans are old, white racists.

“A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 94 percent of African Americans surveyed supported President Obama, versus 0 percent — yes, zero percent — who supported Mitt Romney,” Politico recalled.

However, it should be noted that while the inexcusable event was occurring, a new star was born at the Republican National Convention– black Utah mayor Mia Love.

FAMOUS DRILL INSTRUCTOR SAYS GEICO FIRED HIM FOR CRITICIZING OBAMA ADMIN.

Famous drill instructor Lee Ermey — best known for his appearance in the movie “Full Metal Jacket” — says he was fired from his gig as a GEICO insurance personality because he criticized President Obama.

Last December, Ermey — also known as “Gunney” — made headlines by blasting the economy and linking Obama to socialism.

But the plot thickened in January when Ermey came out and apologized, drawing the ire of some of his fans. And now, despite that apology, Ermey says GEICO fired him because of the statements.

Ermey had played a psychiatrist in a GEICO commercial and famously called his “patient” a “jackwagon.” When TMZ recently asked him about it, he said “GEICO fired me because I had– I wasn’t too kind about speaking with the– about the administration, so– the present administration — so they fired me.”

This isn’t the first time GEICO has canned someone for making political statements. GEICO voiceover man Lance Baxter was fired in April 2010 for leaving a nasty message on the voicemail of Freedomworks wondering if the group was “mentally retarded.”

DNC PROCEEDS WITH 2-HOUR ISLAMIC ‘JUMAH’ PRAYERS (AND YOU WON‘T BELIEVE WHO’S INVITED)

The host committee for the Democratic National Convention is raising a number of eyebrows after choosing to proceed with featuring Islamic “Jumah” prayers for two hours on the Friday of its convention, though Democrats earlier denied a Catholic cardinal’s request to say a prayer at the same event.

Up to 20,000 people are expected to attend the Friday prayers and Jibril Hough, a spokesman for the Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs (BIMA), said the purpose of the event is to hold political parties accountable for the issues faced by Muslim-Americans.

In particular, the event will target the Patriot Act, the NYPD, the National Defense Authorization Act, and anti-Shariah sentiment.

A quick Google search by the DNC would have shown them that Hough and Wahhaj are leaders in the separatist American Islamist movement. While they may be able to get a few thousand Muslims to attend the event, they are NOT going to be mainstream Muslims.  Most will likely come from Hough and Wahhaj’s radical networks that have long been entrenched in the Charlotte area. Make no mistake they are part of the Islamist movement.

[...]

Their jummah (group) prayer is…about empowering their Islamist and MB sympathetic groups into the very fabric of the political system so that Americans become anesthetized. We need American Muslims to speak up and marginalize these radicals. The DNC needs to understand and reject them because of their radical history and ideas.

The mosque of Jibril Hough, mentioned by Dr. Jasser, is owned by the North American Islamic Trust, which was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial as one of the entities “who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.”

Siraj Wahhaj, the “Grand Imam” for Jumah at the DNC, is often considered a “moderate” because he was the first Muslim to give an invocation in the U.S. Congress, but as Robert Spencer notes, he has a number of troubling ties to dangerous radicals.  In the early 1990′s the man reportedly sponsored talks by “the Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman in New York and New Jersey mosques, and told his followers that the United States will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.”

Wahhaj elaborated, according to bestselling author Brigitte Gabriel, to say: “If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.”

He continued: “Take my word.  If 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us.”

When an imam like Siraj Wahhaj says “it his duty and our duty as Muslims to replace the US Constitution with the Quran…we need to speak up!” Dr. Jasser reiterated in response, adding that Americans “should be concerned” if this is who the DNC is “consorting with.”

Robert Spencer speculates that the Democrat National Committee is simply so “in thrall to multiculturalism” that “few, if any” are even aware of the radical connections.

“To raise any concerns about such a speaker would be ‘Islamophobic,’ violating every rule of the anti-American, anti-Western ethos that prevails among so many Democrats today,” Spencer writes.

He concluded: “There is about as much chance of that as there is of the Democrats ditching Obama and nominating David Horowitz as their candidate for President of the United States.”

*The “Charlotte in 2012” page was established by the city of Charlotte to help coordinate the DNC. It advertises itself as “the official location for all the latest news, information and ways to get involved.” It is also the official website for the host committee. Additionally, all events listed on the site have to go through an approval process.

A NEW AIRPORT SECURITY PROCEDURE YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT

That answer was not good enough for Mr. Gunn. He made it quite clear to the woman performing the TSA “Chat-Down.”

• He was an American citizen
• He was traveling within his own country
• He was not breaking any laws
• That was all the government needed to know and he was not going to share any information

And that’s when the agent loudly announced to her superiors (and everyone else standing in line): “We have another refusal here!”

By shouting that line, the woman triggered a response from supervisors and other agents in the area.

Another TSA staffer detained Mr. Gunn and took his carry-on bag. When he asked why he was being “detained,” the TSA rep denied detaining Gunn.  Steve Gunn did say that his detention lasted all of two minutes, but it was a detention. He was stopped, held against his will and checked quite differently than all of the other passengers in line.

The manner in which he was treated by TSA agents bothered Mr. Gunn and he told TheBlaze that he felt like a suspect and decided to speak loudly so the people in line could hear him. As his bag was being examined and his hands swabbed by the agent, Gun said, “This is America, not Russia… we shouldn’t have to answer these questions!”

Gunn said that another TSA agent stopped his work and replied: “It’s no different than customs.”

Gunn told the interjecting TSA agent that his Customs comparison is wrong. People coming into the country should be screened in a more serious manner than citizens moving about inside our borders.

After he landed in Grand Rapids and arrived at his home (I did not ask him exactly where he lived), Gunn researched the TSA’s “pilot program” that involves quizzing passengers as they stand in line. He discovered a USA Today opinion piece that details the program. It’s not exactly a new thing and the results are also less than spectacular. Gunn’s article recapped the USA Today story:

TSA officials interviewed about 725,000 travelers at Logan International Airport in Boston over the course of one year, and none of them turned out to be terrorists. A small percentage were arrested on outstanding warrants for other crimes.

Steve Gunn believes that he may have been singled out for the questioning because he suffers from a partial and temporary facial paralysis due to a recent bought with Bell’s palsy. Gunn wonders if all stroke victims and people with facial tics will be pulled aside and quizzed.

During our interview, Gunn stressed that he understands the need to make certain air travel is safe. However, his objection was raised over the curious and invasive search tactics used in this new “chat-down” program.

“They can make us all take off our shoes and our belts and treat us as suspects,” he said. “But at least in that case, they treat everyone equally.”

JUDGE COULD ORDER FORT HOOD SHOOTER TO BE ‘FORCIBLY SHAVED’ BEFORE TRIAL — BUT SHOULD HE?

Hasan has grown a beard to express his Muslim faith. His defense attorneys have said he won‘t shave since he’s had a premonition that his death is imminent, and he doesn’t want to die without a beard because he believes not having one is a sin.

Hasan faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole if convicted in the November 2009 attack on the Texas Army post that killed 13 people and wounded more than two dozen others.

Gross has banned Hasan from courtroom hearings since he first showed up in court in June with a beard, letting him watch the proceedings on a closed-circuit television in a nearby room. But Gross said Hasan will be forcibly shaved before the trial if he doesn’t shave himself. The judge has said he wants Hasan in attendance during the court-martial to prevent a possible appeal on the issue if he is convicted.

Gross‘ response also told the appeals court that his order does not violate Hasan’s religious freedoms. Army rules prohibit beards, and those who join the military have agreed to give up certain personal interests over the needs of the service to maintain good order, discipline and security, according to the document.

In urging the court to deny Hasan’s appeal and to allow the trial to proceed, Gross’ response said that his order to forcibly shave Hasan ensures “that a military trial proceeds without a distracting and disruptive sideshow featuring an officer-accused flagrantly disrespecting the Army, his superiors, and the military judge.”

The trial is expected to last more than two months at Fort Hood, about 125 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

August 2012: Entertainment Litigation Update

Quirk v. Sony Pictures: On July 5, 2012, a federal court in California denied Sony Pictures’s motion to dismiss writer Joe Quirk’s beach of implied contract claim relating to the upcoming film, Premium Rush. Quirk v. Sony Pictures Entm’t Inc., No. C 11-3773 RS (N.D. Cal. July 5, 2012). Quirk alleged that Premium Rush is derived from his 1998 novel, Ultimate Rush, and that Sony breached an implied contract to compensate him for the use of his material. Although the court noted that Quirk’s theory of liability stretches California’s law of idea theft to its “breaking point” (id. at 6), Quirk’s claim was found to meet the low “facially plausible” standard required to survive a motion to dismiss.

Notably, Quirk failed to allege that Sony received a copy of Ultimate Rush directly from him or his agents. Instead, Quirk theorized that a copy of his novel “passed through one or more routes between those to whom his agent directly submitted the novel” and Sony. This distinction is important because, while there is significant precedent for implied contract claims when an author submits a literary work directly to a producer on the implied condition that the producer will pay if it uses the work, see, e.g., Desny v. Wilder, 46 Cal. 2d 715 (1956), there is no previous authority to support such an implied contract without direct contact.

The court explicitly stated that its decision to deny the motion was a “close call” and it applied an extremely fact-specific analysis. Nonetheless, the fact that Quirk’s claims were allowed to proceed may impact the landscape of implied contract and idea theft cases in California.

FCC v. CBS: Eight years after the 2004 Super Bowl’s infamous halftime “wardrobe malfunction,” the legal battle between the FCC and CBS has finally concluded. In response to the musical halftime performance, which included 9/16ths of a second of nudity broadcast to 90 million viewers, the FCC fined CBS $550,000—the largest fine ever levied against a broadcaster. On June 29, 2012, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the Third Circuit’s decision reversing the fine, thereby making the Third Circuit’s ruling the final word.

In CBS Corp. v. FCC, 663 F.3d 122, 151 (3d Cir. 2011), the Third Circuit held that the FCC’s fine was arbitrary and capricious, relying on the FCC’s previous treatment of “fleeting words”:

[T]he balance of the evidence weighs heavily against the FCC’s contention that its restrained enforcement policy for fleeting material extended only to fleeting words and not to fleeting images. As detailed, the Commission’s entire regulatory scheme treated broadcasted images and words interchangeably for purposes of determining indecency. Therefore, it follows that the Commission’s exception for fleeting material under that regulatory scheme likewise treated images and words alike.

Although the Supreme Court denied certiorari, Chief Justice Roberts issued a concurrence indicating that future FCC fines may not be treated in the same way because the FCC has clarified its rules on fleeting images and words since the 2004 Super Bowl:

[T]he FCC no longer adheres to the fleeting expletive policy. It is now clear that the brevity of an indecent broadcast—be it word or image—cannot immunize it from FCC censure. See, e.g., In re Young Broadcasting of San Francisco, Inc., 19 FCC Rcd. 1751 (2004) (censuring a broadcast despite the “fleeting” nature of the nudity involved). Any future “wardrobe malfunctions” will not be protected on the ground relied on by the court below.

Federal Commc’ns Comm’n v. CBS Corp., 567 U.S. __ (2012) (Roberts, C. J., concurring).

Dish Network v. ABC: On July 9, 2012, a federal district court in New York dismissed Dish Network’s copyright and contract claims against Twentieth Century Fox and its copyright claims against CBS and NBC, based on improper venue. Dish Network, LLC v. ABC, No. 12 Civ. 4155 (LTS) (S.D.N.Y. July 9, 2012). Dish’s claims stem from its “Auto Hop” feature, also known as an “ad zapper,” which allows Dish subscribers to skip over commercials on programs saved to their DVRs. Venue had been at issue in the case since Dish filed a lawsuit in New York the same day that Fox and other television networks filed in California.

The court ruled these claims would best be litigated in California. Rejecting Dish’s argument that it had won the race to the courthouse, the court found that Dish’s New York lawsuit “was motivated by a fear of imminent legal action by the networks and was, thus, improperly anticipatory.” Dish had filed suit in New York on May 24, just hours before the television networks filed suit in Los Angeles and less than 24 hours after a Hollywood Reporter article “conveyed the unmistakable impression that a legal showdown was inevitable.”

However, the court allowed Dish’s contract claims against CBS and NBC to remain in New York because those networks have yet to assert contract claims in California. In addition, because ABC has not yet filed suit against Dish, Dish’s claims against ABC will remain in New York for the time being.