Beet L. Jooz
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Breaking Down #FBI and #DOJ Corruption w/ Emmy Award Winning Journalist Sharyl Attkisson
Copyright Infringement of 'Sexier' Statue of Liberty Costs Postal Service $3.5 Million
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is on the hook for $3.5 million because it put the wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp.
In late 2010, the Post Office released a "Forever" stamp that featured a photograph of the Statue of Liberty. But the stamp didn't depict the famous landmark in New York City. The image came from a photo of a Statue of Liberty replica outside New York-New York, a casino-resort in Las Vegas.
The USPS didn't find out about the mix-up until three months after it issued the stamp—and because the stamp was popular, the agency didn't withdraw it even then. The government kept printing the stamps until 2014, by which point 4.9 billion of them had been sold.
But in 2013, the sculptor who created the replica, Robert Davidson, sued the Postal Service for copyright infringement. Last week, Judge Eric Bruggink of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled in Davidson's favor, awarding him $3.5 million in damages.
Davidson's lawsuit argued that his replica was different enough from New York's Statue of Liberty that it should be considered an original work. The replica "brought a new face to the iconic statue—a face which audiences found appeared more 'fresh-faced,' 'sultry' and even 'sexier' than the original located in New York," the suit said.
Bruggink agreed. "The portion used was entirely of what we consider to have been the original work contributed by Mr. Davidson," the judge wrote. "The government's only real defense is that its use did not particularly harm plaintiff's business as an industrial sculptor. That may be true, but we also note that it certainly did not benefit him. The Postal Service offered neither public attribution nor apology."
Not only did the Postal Service not apologize to Davidson, but it actively attempted to sell stamps off the error. "We really like the image and are thrilled that people have noticed in a sense," a USPS spokesperson told CNN in 2011. "It's something that people really like. If you ask people in Vegas, they're saying, 'Hey, That's great. That's wonderful.' It's certainly injected some excitement into our stamp program." In 2013 a USPS spokesperson told The Washington Post that the Post Office "would have selected this photograph anyway," even had it been aware of the error from the start.
The agency couldn't have it both ways. The USPS stated in public that the stamp's originality made it special, while the agency's lawyers argued that the Vegas replica was no different than the original. It's no surprise that Davidson won his suit.
Richard Spencer stopped by authorities while traveling in Europe: report
#AwanBrothers Trial – What the Mainstream Media is Trying to Hide From You
#DNC Corruption Rages as the #AwanBrothers Skate… | Guest: Elizabeth Beck
Today Is The Deadline For The FBI To "Come Clean"
The Wall Street Journal continues to counter the liberal mainstream media's anti-Trump-ness, dropping uncomfortable truth-bombs, exposing the real 'constitutional crisis', and refusing to back off its intense pressure to get to the truth and hold those responsible, accountable; in a forum that is hard for the establishment to shrug off as 'Alt-Right' or 'Nazi' or be 'punished' by search- and social-media-giants.
And once again Kimberley Strassel - who by now has become the focus of social media attacks for her truth-seeking reporting - does it again this morning, as she asks - rhetorically, we assume - will the FBI come clean?
In the trench war between congressional Republicans and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we have arrived at a crucial battle. A House resolution sets Friday as the deadline for the Justice Department to come clean on the beginning of its investigation into the Trump campaign. We’ll find out if the FBI has been lying to the public.
That is, if the department complies. It has flouted so many subpoenas, and played so many games with redactions and deadlines, that the entire House GOP united last week to vote for the resolution demanding submission to Congress’s requests for documents. The vote was an order but also a warning—that this is the last chance to comply, and the next step will be to hold officials in contempt. It is a measure of the stakes that even that threat doesn’t guarantee cooperation.
At issue is the FBI’s “origin story,” in which it claims its full-fledged investigation into a presidential campaign was conducted, as it were, by the book. According to this narrative, the FBI did not launch its probe until July 31, 2016, only after Australia tipped it to a conversation junior Trump aide George Papadopoulos had with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer in the spring of 2016 in London. Only after this formal commencement of a counterintelligence probe—Crossfire Hurricane—did the FBI begin to target U.S. citizens with spying, wiretapping and other tools usually reserved for foreign infiltrators. Or so the story goes.
This account, relayed by the New York Times in December 2017, has proved highly convenient for the FBI. The Australian “government” connection allowed the bureau to infuse the meaningless Papadopoulos conversation with significance, justifying the probe. The origin story suggested the FBI had followed procedure. Mostly, it countered the growing suspicion that the bureau had been snooping on a presidential campaign on the basis of truly disreputable info—a dossier of salacious information compiled by an opposition research firm working for the rival campaign.
The story is full of holes, and they are widening. No one has explained why two months passed between the Papadopoulos-Downer conversation and the July 31 probe. We’ve learned that it wasn’t Australian intelligence that passed along the info, but Mr. Downer personally, to State Department personnel in violation of procedure. And a growing list of Trump officials now relate moments when they were approached by suspicious figures before July 31.
That’s why congressional investigators have come to suspect the real origin story is very different. They believe the FBI was investigating Trump officials well before July 31, on the basis of the dossier and dubious information from State Department officials. They think the bureau was employing a variety of counterintelligence tools before there was an official counterintelligence probe—and that this included deploying spies against political actors. They suspect that only when the FBI decided that it wanted to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Trump aide Carter Page (which requires an official investigation) did it surface the Downer information (collected back in May) and make it the official pretext in July.
This theory is at the heart of the standoff with the Justice Department, which focuses on FBI actions prior to July 31. I’m told that multiple senior congressional members have repeatedly asked Justice Department leadership to affirm that the department had provided Congress everything relevant with regard to the Trump investigation. The department has said yes. Yet investigators have credible evidence pointing to the use of FBI informants against the Trump campaign earlier than July 31, and last week’s resolution requires the department to answer whether that is true, and if so, on what basis they were used.
The FBI and its media allies have waged a ceaseless campaign to lower the bar on what counts as appropriate.
We are told it is OK that the government opened a counterintelligence probe into a presidential campaign. OK that it obtained a warrant to spy on a U.S. citizen. OK that it based that warrant on an unverified dossier from the Democratic campaign, and then hid that true origin from the FISA court. OK that it paid a spy to target domestic political actors.
It’s not OK. Not so long ago, the FBI would have quailed at the idea of running an informant into any U.S. political operation—even into, say, a congressman under criminal investigation for bribery or corruption. These are the most sensitive of lines. But Mr. Trump’s opponents, in government and media, have a boundless capacity to justify any measures against the president.
And finally, Strassel has some advice on how to resolve this... Mr. Trump has an even quicker way to bring the hostility to an end.
If it turns out that the Justice Department and FBI lied about how and when this all started, that is scandalous. Worse if it comes out that senior officials lied to Congress about whether they had complied with its demands for information. And once again, it is a reason for Mr. Trump to step in and declassify everything.
Just what will the deep state do to avoid this eventuality? Do they have anything left to throw at Trump?
Man Punched, Dragged 30 Feet by Car For Having Trump Flag in His Yard
CNN Profile of Female Supreme Court Finalist Leads with How Many Children She Has
Gowdy Cuts Adam Schiff Down To Size [VIDEO]
Trump says he will 'reject judicial activism' in Supreme Court pick
Facebook Blocks Gospel Group’s ‘What Would Heaven Look Like’ Music Video
Bicyclist killed in Slidell hit and run; State Police seek driver
President Trump Calls New NFL Anthem Policy 'Worse,' Blasts Commissioner
Why Silicon Valley Doesn't Mind Rising Gas Prices...
DEMS BLAST 'RECKLESS' JOBS BOOM...
How to Survive a Nuclear War, '70s Style
If I said I was about to show you a government film about how to survive a nuclear war, you'd probably guess that it came from the 1950s, that golden age of absurdly optimistic civil defense films. But Protection in the Nuclear Age was released in 1978, and it was made with an aesthetic that those of us who were in school in that era will recognize quickly. Some moments in these animations of pre- and post-apocalyptic life aren't that different, in form if not content, from a 1970s guidance counselor's collection of posters about emotions.
Like that guidance counselor, the movie strains hard to stay positive. "Defense Department studies show that even under the heaviest possible attack, less than 5 percent of our entire land mass would be affected by blast and heat from nuclear weapons," the narrator claims at one point. "Of course," he adds mildly, "that 5 percent contains a large percentage of our population." But those people just might have time to flee to the rest of the country, which "would escape untouched—except possibly by radioactive fallout." Oh, you and your little caveats.
The movie may also be the only official government document to ask the eternal question, "Why not just give up, lie down, and die?" Existentialists have pondered that problem for years, but only the Pentagon has produced this pithy answer: because "protection is possible." Suck it up, Sartre.
(For past installments of the Friday A/V Club, go here. For another edition involving nuclear survival, go here. For another edition involving nuclear explosions, go here.)
U.S. trade deficit falls to $43.1B; lowest of Trump presidency
The U.S. trade deficit fell to $43 billion in May, shedding 6.6 percent from April and marking its lowest level of President Donald Trump's 18 months in office.
Japan Hangs Terrorist Cult Leader And Six Of His Followers
Dershowitz Doubles Down Against Liberal Hate: ‘I Will Not Be Shut Down’
North Korea building new submarine capable of launching ballistic missiles, South Korean lawmaker says
Europeans leaders worry Trump wants to fulfill promise to bring American troops home...
Europeans leaders worry Trump wants to fulfill promise to bring American troops home...
(Second column, 13th story, link)
Town suspends entire fire department over racial slurs, bullying...
Town suspends entire fire department over racial slurs, bullying...
(Second column, 10th story, link)
PAPER: Free speech means a free internet -- even if Democrats don't like it...
PAPER: Free speech means a free internet -- even if Democrats don't like it...
(Second column, 13th story, link)