Assange Not Afraid Of Convictions; Remains Committed To Exposing More Truth

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WikiLeaks' Assange: Convictions "Unfaltering"


WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke from his prison cell in London to defend himself and attack the financial companies that suspended payments to his controversial website, Australian television reported Tuesday.

Assange told his mother that he remained committed to publishing some 250,000 pages of secret U.S. diplomatic cables, despite condemnation from Washington and elsewhere.

Australia's Network Seven asked Christine Assange to ask her son one question during a visit to his London jail: Was it worth it?

"My convictions are unfaltering. I remain true to the ideals I have expressed. This circumstance shall not shake them," said Assange, according to his mother who supplied the network with a written statement of her son's answer.

"If anything this process has increased my determination that they are true and correct."

Assange was scheduled to appear in a London court Tuesday seeking to fight his extradition to Sweden in a sex-crimes investigation and trying to secure bail after being held a week in a British prison cell.

The 39-year-old Australian was ordered held in prison custody by a judge at a hearing Dec. 7 after surrendering himself to Scotland Yard to answer a Swedish arrest warrant.

Assange is wanted for questioning after two women accused him of sexual misconduct in separate encounters in Sweden over the summer. Lawyers for Assange say he denies the allegations and will contest the attempt to extradite him for questioning.

The disclosures, which have continued unaffected since Assange was detained in prison, have offended some U.S. allies and angered its rivals. Officials in Washington claim some other countries have already curtailed their dealings with the U.S. government as a result.


'Illegal and immoral attacks'

In his statement from jail, Assange was also critical of the major finance companies who suspended payments to his WikiLeaks site, saying "We now know that Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and others are instruments of U.S. foreign policy. It's not something we knew before."

"I am calling for the world to protect my work and my people from these illegal and immoral attacks," he said.

At his Tuesday hearing, Assange will be represented in court by Geoffrey Robertson, a former appeals judge at the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone who has specialized in freedom of speech cases. Robertson's former clients include author Salman Rushdie.

Supporters were planning to protest Assange's detention outside the court, following a small rally on Monday outside Sweden's embassy in London.

Some of Assange's supporters suspect the extradition request has been motivated by WikiLeaks' decision last month to begin publishing its trove of the secret U.S. diplomatic cables, something Swedish officials have denied.

The U.S. Justice Department has been looking into a range of criminal charges, including violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, that could be filed in the WikiLeaks case.

Assange and his lawyers have voiced fears that U.S. prosecutors may be preparing to indict him for espionage after WikiLeaks' publication of the cables.


Swedish charges

At an hour-long court hearing last week, lawyer Gemma Lindfield — acting for Swedish police — said Assange is accused of rape, molestation and unlawful coercion.

She told the court one woman had accused Assange of pinning her down and refusing to use a condom during an encounter on Aug. 14 in Stockholm. That woman also accused of Assange of molesting her in a way "designed to violate her sexual integrity" several days later.

A second woman has accused Assange of having sex with her without a condom while he was a guest at her Stockholm home and she was asleep.

In Sweden, a person who has sex with an unconscious, drunk or sleeping person can be convicted of rape and sentenced to up to six years in prison.

Assange's Swedish lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, claims the courts are stacked against defendants in sex cases in Sweden.

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However, a 2009 European Commission-funded study found only 10 percent of sex offenses reported in Sweden result in a conviction.

Lawyers for Assange said they will make a new application Tuesday to have him freed on bail, and will offer to post a hefty bond with the court.


Extradition proceedings

At last week's court hearing in London, Senior District Judge Howard Riddle said there were "substantial grounds" to believe Assange could abscond if granted bail.

Australian journalist John Pilger, British film director Ken Loach and Jemima Khan, former wife of Pakistani cricketer and politician Imran Khan, all offered to put up sureties to persuade the court Assange would not flee.

A decision on whether to extradite Assange is expected to take several weeks. Both Assange and the Swedish government are entitled to appeal against the ruling if the judge rules against them.

Britain's government said Monday that the country's national security adviser believes government websites could be attacked in retribution if Assange is not released.

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Government departments have been told they could be targeted by online "hacktivists," following attacks on companies including MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc. and PayPal Inc., which cut ties to the WikiLeaks site.

Internet activists launched "Operation Payback" to avenge WikiLeaks against those perceived to have obstructed its operations. They temporarily brought down the websites of credit card firms Visa and MasterCard, as well as that of the Swedish government, last week.

Christine Assange told her son there was worldwide support for him.

"I told him how people from all over the world, all sorts of countries were standing up with placards and screaming out for his freedom and justice and he was very heartened by that," she said. "As a mother I am asking the world to stand up for my brave son."


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Sources: Guardian.co.uk, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

Assange's Supporters Wage Cyberwar For Web 2.0 Freedom Of Speech: Wikileaks "Hacktivists"

Hackers Wage Global Cyberwar In Defense Of WikiLeaks


They're calling it a global "cyberwar." Among the victims: Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Swiss bank PostFinance, and now the Swedish government. Among the attackers: Hackers from Chile to Norway to New Zealand.

"The fact that it’s so global is just a sign of the times. This type of operation has no borders," says Gregg Housh, an unofficial spokesman for the loosely knit "hactivist" group Anonymous, which is organizing the cyberattacks.

Hackers worldwide have launched what they call “Operation Payback” targeting companies that have cut off support for WikiLeaks or its beleaguered founder Julian Assange. On the Twitter feed for "Operation Payback," the hackers today announced their next target: Amazon.com.

“The war is on,” said one person on the Anonymous chat forum WhyWeProtest.net, which Mr. Housh helped create in 2008. In return, Anonops.net, a site that Anonymous has used to announce its attack plans, has come under cyberattacks from those apparently opposed to WikiLeaks.



Their efforts so far have disrupted the websites of the targeted companies for brief periods of time, though it isn't clear how much money – if any – it's costing the companies.

While the Anonymous hackers have called this a "cyberwar" over Internet freedom and support for WikiLeaks, Internet security specialist Bruce Schneier says this is not a "war" in any sense of the word. "It’s kids playing politics."

Indeed, while Mr. Housh is in his 30s, many of the Anonymous participants are said to be teenagers.

The Swedish government’s official website, regeringen.se, was the latest to come under distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which is when a mass of individual computers simultaneously attempt to access the same website, overloading and collapsing the website. A DDoS barrage overnight on Dec. 8 disabled the government website for several hours.

It came under attack because the government last month issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Assange on allegations of sexual assault, which he denies. He was arrested Dec. 7 in London and now faces possible extradition to Sweden. Assange's lawyer has called the arrest a "political stunt."

"In a lot of respects this has become a war. Assange is definitely thought of as a political prisoner," says Housh in a telephone interview from Boston, where he works by day for a computer repair company. While intimately aware of Anonymous activities, Housh himself says he is only an observer at this time.

As pressure has come from the US government for WikiLeaks to cease operations, US companies have also dropped support for the site, which on Nov. 28 began publishing more than 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables.

On Dec. 1, Amazon.com refused to allow its web servers to host WikiLeaks any longer. (Ironically, Amazon's UK website is now selling the WikiLeaks cables for the Kindle.) A day later, New Hampshire-based company EveryDNS.net refused to continue supporting the domain name WikiLeaks.org. On Dec. 3, the online payment service provider PayPal stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks. On Dec. 6, the Swiss bank PostFinance said it had frozen Assange’s account.

Some of those companies, in turn, have faced the wrath of hactivists who also call themselves "Anons" – short for Anonymous. PostFinance was disabled by DDoS attacks on Dec. 6. PayPal has reported slower services because of DDoS attacks. The websites for MasterCard and Visa were down for several hours Dec. 8.

“Anons have been organizing attacks on various sites,” confirms Mr. Housh.

But who is Anonymous? Housh says the loose-knit group is composed of anyone who joins an Anonymous online message board, shows up for an Anonymous event, or joins in Anonymous projects. The Guardian, attempting to describe the group, writes that "the membership of Anonymous is impossible to pin down; it has been described as being like a flock of birds – the only way you can identify members is by what they're doing together."

A spokesman for Anonymous in London who goes by the name "Coldblood" – and whom Housh knows – told the BBC today that "more and more people are joining and helping in" Operation Payback.

"I see this as becoming a war but not your conventional war. This is a war of data, we are trying to keep the Internet open and free for everyone, just the way the Internet has been and always was," he said.

And in a now widely circulated open letter to the world, Anonymous has spoken:

“We are not a terrorist organization as governments, demagogues, and the media would have you believe. At this time Anonymous is a consciousness focused on campaigning peacefully for Freedom of Speech. We ask the world to support us, not for our sake, but for your own.

“… Pay attention citizens, governments, and the world. Anonymous' peaceful campaign will focus on any organization, corporation, government, or entity until the Internet is truly free.”

Suspicions are in the air over what site might be the next to come under attack.

"If the big companies weren't locking down their information before, they're definitely doing it now,” Carole Theriault, a senior security consultant at a computer security firm Sophos told the Telegraph: "This is really unprecedented and Amazon could be next."

Whether the hackers succeed in downing Amazon, says security expert Mr. Schneier, depends on the volume of traffic that Amazon.com is able to handle and the volume of DDoS attacks that Anonymous delivers.

"If the attacker has a bigger pipe than the defender, then the attacker wins," he says. "It all depends on the size of the pipe."


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Sources: Christian Science Monitor, Mastercard, Paypal, RT, Youtube, Google Maps

Online Sales Tax Revenue & State Governments (Amazon vs North Carolina)

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Amazon Wins Fight To Keep Customer Records Private



In a Victory for the Free Speech and Privacy Rights of Amazon.com customers, a federal judge ruled today that the company would not have to turn over detailed records on nearly 50 million purchases to North Carolina tax collectors.

The state had demanded sensitive information including names and addresses of North Carolina customers--and information about exactly what they had purchased between 2003 and 2010.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman in Washington state said that request went too far and "runs afoul of the First Amendment." She granted Amazon summary judgment.

The Tar Heel State's tax collectors have "no legitimate need" for details about the literary, musical, and cinematic habits of so many Amazon customers, Pechman wrote. "In spite of this, [North Carolina] refuses to give up the detailed information about Amazon's customers' purchases, while at the same time requesting the identities of the customers and, arguably, detailed records of their purchases, including the expressive content."

Amazon has provided the state tax collectors with anonymized information about which items were shipped to which ZIP codes. But North Carolina threatened to sue if the retailer did not agree to divulge the names and addresses linked to each order--in other words, by providing personally identifiable information that could be used to collect additional use taxes that might be owed by state residents.

Pechman's opinion did leave open the possibility of North Carolina tax collectors deleting the data they currently have and firing off a narrower request to the online retailer: "Issuing the declaratory relief as phrased does not prohibit [N.C. tax collectors] from issuing a new request for information as to only the names and addresses of Amazon's customers and general product information, assuming that [the state] destroys any detailed information that it currently possesses."

Because Amazon has no offices or warehouses in North Carolina, it's not required to collect the customary 5.75 percent sales tax on shipments, although tax collectors have reminded residents that what's known as a use tax applies on anything "purchased or received" through the mail. The dispute arose out of what had otherwise been a routine sales and use tax audit of Amazon by North Carolina's tax agency.

As CNET previously reported, Amazon filed a lawsuit in April after negotiations with the state tax collectors broke down. Neither side could be reached for comment this evening.

In addition, the ACLU intervened in the lawsuit asking for an even broader injunction against the tax collectors. They wanted Amazon to be prohibited from disclosing customer purchases without a subpoena, which the court did not grant.

In general, as Amazon stressed in its lawsuit, purchases of books, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and other media enjoy special privacy protections.

In a 2002 decision, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects "an individual's fundamental right to purchase books anonymously, free from governmental interference." The justices tossed out a subpoena from police to the Tattered Cover Bookstore asking for information about what books a certain customer had purchased.

And in a 2007 case, federal prosecutors tried unsuccessfully to force Amazon to identify thousands of customers who bought books online, but abandoned the idea after a judge rebuked them. Judge Stephen Crocker in Wisconsin ruled that "the subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their prior knowledge or permission."

In addition, a federal law called the Video Privacy Protection Act makes it illegal for anyone selling movies to disclose customer information to anyone, including state tax collectors. The 1988 law specifically covers "prerecorded video cassette tapes," and also sweeps in "similar audio visual material" such as DVDs and Blu-ray discs.

North Carolina's legal setback comes as other states experiment with new ways to collect taxes from online retailers. California may require retailers to report the total dollar value of purchases made by each state resident. A decision is expected at any time in a related case that Amazon filed against New York state.

Update October 26 at 7:06 a.m. PT:

Last night I asked the North Carolina Department of Revenue what its plans were, including: "Will you destroy that information and issue a new request?" I just received a partial response via e-mail, which doesn't answer that particular question. All it says is: "Attorneys with our office are currently reviewing the ruling, and no decision has been made yet about whether or not the State will seek an appeal."

Update October 26 at 10:40 a.m. PT:

The ACLU sent over this response from staff attorney Aden Fine (it's also put the opinion online): "Disclosing the purchase records of Internet users to the government would violate their constitutional rights to read and purchase the lawful materials of their choice, free from government intrusion, and undermine the very basis of American democracy and our cherished freedoms. With this ruling, the court emphatically reemphasized what other courts have found before - that government entities cannot watch over our shoulders to see what we are buying and reading."



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Sources: Amazon.com, CNBC, CNET, MSNBC, Google Maps

Kelly Cutrone Doesn't "Cry Outside" Over Fashion World Success

Kelly Cutrone’s Self-Help Book Encourages Young Women To "Celebrate The Magic" Inside Themselves


"It didn’t take much convincing" to get Kelly Cutrone to write a book, according to WWD.

The sometime talking head only has reality shows on both Bravo ("Kell on Earth" premieres February 1) and MTV, and a team of top agents behind her.

Cutrone polled her People's Revolution staff to find out what kind of book they'd want to read by her.

The girls said they wanted advice on making it and dealing with sexism.

So Cutrone set out, along with co-author Meredith Bryan, to write a book about what it means to be feminine. Apparently being feminine does not boil down to wearing all black and barking from across the office at annoying new hires from L.A. who wear inappropriate leggings to work, and only brushing your hair when you feel like it.

"If You Have to Cry, Go Outside ... And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You", Cutrone tells her disciples to "gather up your courage like an armful of free clothes at a McQueen sample sale" and "celebrate the magic inside of yourself."

But Cutrone is not one of those self-help gurus who sells you a ThighMaster and then runs off for liposuction. A practitioner of her preachings, she's currently celebrating the magic inside herself:

“P.r. is what I know how to do to make money and it’s what I’m really good at,” she said. “I think it’s a natural thing to say, ‘Oh, OK. Well, now Kelly Cutrone has to leave p.r., but that would be an old model and I’m not really interested in old models ... Do I want to stick around when I’m making a fortune writing books and producing television, taking s—t from a designer who pays $6,000 a month who doesn’t want to pay their bills for three months? No.

Does being on TV and writing books give me the freedom to kick their asses out of my office before they f—k me over? Yeah. That’s the reality.”

Although if she left PR, Bravo and MTV wouldn't have shows to make of her. And Whitney Port, without her mentor, would wind up living on the sidewalk in a fort fashioned from a stolen clothing rack and all the tight dresses she designed that Bergdorf refused to buy because they made models look fat, begging passersby for celery sticks and sequins.

Also, where would Kelly get her best stories? Like that time she was fired by Yigal Azrouël for seating Ashley Dupré in the front row of his fall 2009 fashion show?

“[The night I was fired,] I called another one of my clients, Jeremy Scott, and told him to please make me a T-shirt that said, ‘What Would Madonna Do?’” Cutrone said, reading from a manuscript.

“‘Oh please, I don’t need to make you a T-shirt,’ Jeremy replied. ‘Madonna would have grabbed that girl by her ponytail, made out with her and said, ‘Why are you talking about my girlfriend like that?’ And suddenly I realized that I hadn’t maximized my moment.”

Oh, so being feminine is all about making a scene. So if you see a chick wearing a Snuggie to Fashion Week next month, she's not crazy. She's just celebrating the womanly magic inside herself.


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Sources: Amazon.com, Bravo, NY Mag, WWD, Youtube, Google Maps

Oprah & John Tesh Had "Jungle Fever"? Tesh Confirms

Kitty Kelley the "Queen" of Celebrity Biographies has done it again people!

Kelley has finally completed her new book about Oprah Winfrey, "Queen" of Talk Show Hosts.

According to Amazon.com, Kelley's book is now no.19 for Pre-Orders.

Wait a minute!

Isn't Oprah the Host who always proclaims to be "so open" with her fans?

Well...

Looks like girlfriend didn't share everything!

Oprah sure didn't tell us about her "jungle fever" thing with John Tesh.

OMG!

Its alright girl I won't hate.

Oprah is still on top with me.

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John Tesh Confirms He Once Dated Oprah Winfrey


John Tesh acknowledged Monday that he and Oprah Winfrey were once an item - one of the juicy tidbits in a new tell-all biography about the talk show queen.

"Oprah and I were cub reporters in Nashville nearly 40 years ago and we dated for a short time," Tesh told the News, which first reported the story on Sunday.

The odd pairing is revealed in Kitty Kelley's "Oprah," which hits bookshelves Tuesday.

Exclusive excerpts obtained by the News said Winfrey and the New Age musician were live-in-lovers during the 1970s when they both lived in Nashville.

The book claims Tesh bolted in the middle of the night because of the "social pressure" of being half of an interracial couple.

Neither Tesh, 57, nor Winfrey, 56, would comment on Kelley's claim.

The much-anticipated book says that Winfrey mentioned Tesh during a 1996 taping of her show - but copped only to a platonic dinner date.

"We remain friends to this day," Tesh told the News.




Kitty Kelley's Tell-All Book Reveals John Tesh Bolted On Lover Oprah Winfrey


Before Oprah loved Stedman, there was John Tesh.

An exclusive excerpt from Kitty Kelley's upcoming tell-all Oprah Winfrey biography claims the talk-show queen enjoyed a 1970s romance with an unlikely live-in lover: John Tesh.

The towering 6-foot-6 Tesh and a barely out-of-her-teens Winfrey shared her Nashville apartment until he bolted in the middle of the night, according to the first-ever look inside the book, obtained by the Daily News.

According to Kelley, the "social pressure" on an interracial couple in Tennessee at that time proved too much for Tesh to handle.

"He said one night he looked down and saw his white body next to her black body and couldn't take it anymore," another Tesh ex-paramour told Kelley.

"He walked out in the middle of the night. ... He told me he later felt very guilty about it."

Winfrey spokeswoman Angela DePaul said Saturday that Oprah was not commenting on the highly anticipated book. A phone call and an e-mail to Tesh's spokespeople were not returned.

The book, due out Tuesday, already ranks No. 19 on the Amazon.com best sellers list based on pre-orders.

Tesh worked in Nashville at the same time as Winfrey during the mid-'70s.

Future media mogul Winfrey was just 20 when she joined the staff at WTVF-TV in Nashville. Tesh was a news anchor and future "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak was a weatherman at rival WSM.

Kelley - best known for her withering biographies of Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan and Elizabeth Taylor, among others - said the pair lived together "for a short time" before Tesh's midnight moveout.

By 1976, both had moved on - Winfrey to Baltimore, and Tesh to WCBS-TV in New York.

Both went on to bigger and better things: Tesh hosted "Entertainment Tonight" from 1986-1996 before leaving the show to become a full-time New Age musician.

The six-time Emmy winner now hosts his own nationally syndicated radio show, has written a number of books and continues to tour.

Kelley mentions that Tesh appeared with Winfrey on the 10th anniversary of her show in 1996, with Oprah claiming the pair shared one platonic dinner date.

Tesh is married to actress Connie Sellecca, while Winfrey remains connected to longtime beau Stedman Graham.

The excerpt also references Winfrey's mid-'70s fondness for junk food - especially chocolate Ding Dongs - and a local restaurant called The Chicken Shack.

Winfrey and co-anchor Harry Chapman would dine on the spicy chicken, seasoned with cayenne pepper and Tabasco sauce, between weekend newscasts, according to Kelley.


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Sources: Amazon.com. Fox News, MSNBC, NY Daily News, NY Times, Today Show, Wikipedia, Google Maps

"Cyber Monday" Sales Top 2008 By 20%...Winners & Losers

Key-stroked Christmas. On the biggest online shopping day of the year, CNBC's Jane Wells gets a glimpse inside an Amazon warehouse.

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"Cyber Monday" Winners and Losers. CNBC analysts discuss who will be the winners on "Cyber Monday" and this holiday season.

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"Cyber Monday" sales rise 20 percent over 2008


Retail Web sites kept amping up the deals Monday, the first day after Thanksgiving weekend's strong online sales, to try to maintain the momentum.

Meanwhile, a research firm that tracks business at stores reported tepid sales and customer traffic for Friday and Saturday that confirmed a so-so start to the season for the bricks-and-mortar world.

Though the Web is only about 10 percent of the holiday shopping pie, it's seen most of the growth so far this year — an encouraging sign after last year's first online sales decline.

Coremetrics, a Web analytics company in San Mateo, Calif., said that as of 1 p.m. Monday, sales for the day that the industry still pitches as "Cyber Monday" were up 19.6 percent over a year ago.

The bright spot offers hope after traditional retail sales came in just above flat for Black Friday, with shoppers packing stores but sticking to their lists, going for deep discounts and practical items.

Investors voted with their dollars, rewarding online sellers. Amazon.com shares rose $4.17, or 3.2 percent, to $135.91 on a day when stocks of most traditional retailers fell as Wall Street analyzed the sea of data and anecdotal reports from the weekend.

ShopperTrak, which is based in Chicago and tracks sales and traffic at more than 50,000 outlets, said late Monday that retail sales for Friday and Saturday edged up 0.9 percent to $16.77 billion, while customer traffic fell 2.7 percent compared with last year. According to ShopperTrak, U.S. traffic slipped 2.5 percent on Friday, compared with an 18 percent drop in the year-ago period. Traffic fell 3.2 percent Saturday, compared with a 17 percent drop a year ago.

ShopperTrak derives its data from crowd-counting sensors in stores, combined with data from the retailers themselves on spending and how it relates to customer traffic.

Practical items popular with shoppers

Deeply discounted electronics such as flat-screen TVs, game systems and netbooks were popular, but more practical items such as appliances and home decor were also big sellers, as consumers took advantage of sales to buy things for themselves.

Many shoppers started looking for online deals ahead of what the industry still pitches as "Cyber Monday," as retailers stretched their online deals over several days.

Target, Walmart, Amazon.com and other retailers started offering the online equivalent of Black Friday specials on Thanksgiving or even earlier.

They stepped it up Monday. Amazon.com was discounting the Apple iPod Touch 8GB for $158, $20 less than Sunday and $40 off the retail price of about $200. Target.com offered a deal Monday for a Garmin GPS system for $186.99, down from $249.99. Free shipping was also prevalent.


New Thanksgiving tradition: Shopping?

Marshall Cohen, chief industry analyst at market research firm NPD Group, said this year saw the "graying of Black Friday," because deals that typically occurred only on the Friday after Thanksgiving have been spread out over two weeks.

"The holiday spread itself out," he said. "On Thanksgiving Day, there's a new tradition, shopping online before you stuff the turkey, putting the turkey in oven and going out shopping."

The Monday after Thanksgiving is usually far from the busiest online shopping day of the year, but it is typically one of the 10 busiest. It was dubbed "Cyber Monday" by the National Retail Federation trade group in 2005 to describe the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday.

The thinking was that shoppers who lacked broadband Internet access at home would wait until returning to work to look online. Now that most homes have broadband, that rationale has faded.


Finding a once-in-a-lifetime deal

Analysts expect Dec. 14, the last day consumers can order goods and have them arrive before Christmas, will be the busiest online shopping day.

Keith Harris, 36, an IT consultant for Hewlett-Packard, went out Friday for in-store sales, but he waited until Monday to buy a Playstation 3 because Walmart.com offered it at the best price on Monday — in a bundle with two games and a movie, for $369.

"You're looking for that once-in-a-lifetime deal," he said.

Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru predicts online holiday sales will rise 8 percent to $44.7 billion. So far, the weekend results are "strong reinforcement of how Web sales continue to outpace store sales," she said. Online sales account for about 7 percent of retailers' total sales, though that increases to about 10 percent during the holidays.

Scott Savitz, CEO of Shoebuy.com, one of the largest online shoe retailers, reported that traffic has been robust since Thanksgiving. He expects that Black Friday, not the Monday after Thanksgiving as it had in past years, will mark the first big surge in sales and traffic for his site.

"There is definitely a behavioral shift," said Savitz. "Clearly, people are seeing that Black Friday will be the start of the holiday season, no matter whether you are online or offline."


Sources: MSNBC, CNBC, Amazon.com

Sue Myrick's "Muslim Mafia" (CAIR) Book Climbs Amazon's Bestseller List...Fact, Fiction Or Fear Mongering?

(The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, has long been accused of having ties to terrorists. Now the group may be facing its most serious charges yet.

Four Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, are calling for a federal investigation into CAIR. At a press conference on Capitol Hill, they cited explosive new documents contained in a new book about CAIR called "Muslim Mafia.")






Myrick: "Muslim Mafia" infiltrating U.S.


U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, has penned the foreword for a new book, "Muslim Mafia," warning of a Muslim conspiracy to support Islamic terrorism in the United States.

The authors, former Air Force investigator P. David Gaubatz and journalist Paul Sperry, lay out their investigation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Observer's Mark Johnson reports.

They charge that the group portrays itself as a civil rights advocate for Muslims but in reality has planted spies inside law enforcement agencies, placed staffers on Capitol Hill, arranged for its executives to meet with presidents, conspired with terrorists and placed jihadists in American mosques to preach hate.

Myrick, who has consulted with Sperry before on terrorism issues, writes that the authors provide proof through documents they uncovered and others recently declassified that radical Muslim agents of terror live among us and are "carrying out their subversive plan."

"America is asleep to the danger that confronts us," writes Myrick, a Charlotte Republican, "Since the 1960s there has been a concerted effort on the part of radical Islamists to infiltrate our major institutions. Front groups of terror now operate openly in our country, comprising a network of support for jihadists."

She concludes: "We Americans must wake up before it is too late!"

Click here for the books' link at amazon.com, where it is climbing the bestseller chart.




White House Says President Hasn't Talked About Intern "Spy" Accusations On Capitol Hill

TPM asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs during his briefing today about the Republicans who claim the Council on American Islamic Relations planted Muslim spies on Capitol Hill.

When we asked if President Obama was aware of the Republican charges, which have not moved an inch since they first announced the claims last week, Gibbs demurred.


"I have -- I have not heard the -- the president talked about this, nor have -- have I discussed it," Gibbs said.

Pressed further, Gibbs added: "I have not heard anybody here talking about it."

We've also been after Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) for a comment, since he was the first Muslim elected to Congress (in 2006) and he's faced scrutiny from people questioning his intentions because of his religion. No response yet.




GOP Lawmakers Dawdle While Muslim "Intern Spies" May Be Conspiring Further

Four Republican lawmakers have not submitted a request to the House sergeant at arms to investigate a threat that one of the four described as a terrorist-linked group possibly "running influence operations or planting spies in key national security-related offices."

A spokesperson for the sergeant at arms told TPMmuckraker this morning that the office was aware of the charge by GOP members at a press conference Wednesday that the Council on American-Islamic Relations planted Muslim intern spies on the Hill for purposes of subversion. But, says spokesperson Kerri Hanley, the office hasn't received a request for an investigation, and it wouldn't launch any probe until such a request is made.

"We don't have any information to form any kind of opinion to decide whether an investigation is warranted," Hanley says.

The charges made by Reps. Paul Broun (R-GA), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Sue Myrick (R-NC), and Trent Franks (R-AZ), are based on the new book Muslim Mafia, which is co-authored by a man who has labeled President Obama "Muslim."

They demanded that the sergeant at arms investigate the possibility of a security breach by Muslim intern spies.

As Franks put it at the press conference five days ago:

"We live in a post-9/11 world where the coincidence of nuclear proliferation and Islamic terrorism pose a very dangerous combination and real threat to America's national security. ... . I take the charges levied against CAIR and laid out in this book very seriously because they affect our national security."

Myrick's office told TPMmuckraker Friday it would be submitting requests for investigations in the next few days, but did not explain the delay.

The offices of three of the four Republicans did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the national security risk of waiting to launch an investigation.

Sara Mueller, deputy press secretary for Shadegg, told us: "Unfortunately, the congressman can't comment on that at this time. "

Meanwhile, the (supposed) cabal of Muslim intern spies can continue to ply their trade in still more sinister (but as yet undefined) ways.



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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Carolina Politics Online, Amazon.com, TPMMuckraker, CBN News, CAIR, Youtube, Google Maps