The U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio sets a new low for the politicization of DOJ.

Neither President Nixon’s Justice Department during the Watergate era nor the Bill Clinton-Janet Reno abuses of DOJ’s power (e.g., summary firing of all U.S. attorneys, the invasion at Waco, Bill Lann Lee’s Civil Rights Division activism) quite compares with the lengths to which Attorney General Eric Holder, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Tom Perez, and President Obama have gone to pursue a political vendetta.

Foremost to keep in mind regarding this misconduct: It’s all about immigration politics.

The administration seems to regard the current immigration laws as unacceptable. So political officials have systematically refused to carry out the laws on the books. Consider the brazen federal lawsuits the Obama administration has brought against Arizona and several other states’ laws dealing with illegal immigrants. They have been granting administrative amnesty to “DREAMers” and other illegal aliens who have committed crimes. They have ordered Border Patrol officers to “stand down” when they see illegals, manipulating the border apprehensions statistics to make it seem as if fewer illegals are entering. They have neutered the 287(g) program that was in such high demand among state and local police agencies when the administration came to office.

Now the administration is trying to make an example of Sheriff Arpaio, one of the toughest local law enforcement officials in the country and wildly popular in one of the country’s toughest localities ­ where illegal immigration and its worst consequences intersect. He is a highly capable law officer with a highly effective department and a refreshing backbone for someone who campaigns for election, plus the courage to stand up to cold-blooded Mexican cartels and cold-blooded Washington-Chicago politicos alike. This is a vendetta because Obama administration officials have made it personal.

The Chicago-style, hardball politics entwined with the anti-Arpaio campaign include a carefully crafted plan of attack. First the administration pulled Maricopa County’s 287(g) authority. Then Tom Perez, formerly on the board of the radical open-borders Casa de Maryland, issued a vicious Civil Rights Division report last December alleging all sorts of charges against Sheriff Arpaio and his department. The not too subtle claim: This white sheriff is mistreating and targeting Hispanics in the county jail. Never mind the overwhelming “political correctness” that the report manifested, making it more of a political screed reeking of racial politics. Not a huge surprise, with ACLU lawyers within DOJ ghostwriting much of the document. The deliberate confusion of law and politics has continued in this week’s filing of the lawsuit.

The legal action comes after months of DOJ’s demands that a federal nanny be given veto power to run the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff Joe declined the unconstitutional demand. Thus, the politicized DOJ stuck a gun to the county sheriff’s head: Our way or else. Sheriff Joe said “no”, so he’s now been slapped with “or else”.

Sheriff Arpaio explained in the Washington Times, what was really going on:

“Every policy decision, every operation, every new program in the jails and in enforcement, virtually everything would have to be approved by the monitor, nullifying the authority of the elected sheriff and eviscerating the will of the citizens of Maricopa County,” he said.

“I am the constitutionally and legitimately elected sheriff and I absolutely refuse to surrender my responsibility to the federal government”, he said. “And so to the Obama administration, who is attempting to strong arm me into submission only for its political gain, I say, ‘This will not happen, not on my watch.’”

Though it has become personal against “America’s toughest sheriff”, the ultimate goal here is to intimidate all other state and local law enforcement offices from vigorously assisting in enforcement of immigration laws. That’s the same motivation for challenging the states’ laws, which the U.S. Supreme Court recently all but laughed out the courtroom during oral arguments.

The other part of the administration’s cynical motives is the desire to signal Latino voting blocs that the president is their political ally and he’d really like their vote in November (and with the administration attacking states’ voter ID laws, unqualified foreigners may very well be able to steal votes). The open-borders radicals have lost heart with the administration for not pushing through an amnesty. The anti-Arpaio charade is a piece of that kiss-and-make-up campaign.

Written by James R. Edwards Jr. and published at Right Side News May 14, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www. law. cornell. edu/uscode/17/107. shtml

“And I will dash them one against each other, the fathers and the sons, says the Lord. I will not pity or spare or have compassion, that I should not destroy them.” – Jeremiah 13:14

In the jagged ignorant minds of a lost people those terminal days will grind by in interminable agony. It will be a hell of a secular humanist making and a just retribution for the evolutionists, atheists, agnostics, sodomites, socialists, communists, and progressives who thumbed their noses at Almighty God and held His name in derision.

One can imagine that these dimwits will have in the last desperate days the boldness and unmitigated effrontery to invoke His name for delivery from the elements of destruction, but it will not be in sack cloth and ashes and with abject repentant humility that they approach, but for self preservation and a hope for a continued irreverent existence. Their arrogance will persist unto the final minute of the final hour of the final day, and then the end. Perhaps they will believe their god Obama and his demonic minions will save them; since by all appearances they revere him above the God of creation.

MAKING READY FOR THE INEVITABLE
It would seem that – if recent reports are to be believed and by all documented evidence they seem to be accurate – this goofy, Godless, perverted and demonic government is preparing for a nation-wide rebellion. They are laying up untold millions of rounds of firearms ammunition, millions of dehydrated meals, preparing shelters for the elite, internment camps for political dissidents, and training the military for posse comitatus status and for a carrying out of a rectifying indoctrination curriculum for political activists.

The ammunition is presumably for the killing of those in active rebellion, the food to keep the elites alive in their cushy shelters, the camps to warehouse and torment dissenters and objectors, and the indoctrination curriculum to inflict physical and mental suffering upon those whom they believe to be contentious heretical foes of the demonic system. It is a chapter straight out of the George Orwell novel “1984”

These idiotic bureaucrats and political potentates are peeing into the wind with all of this so called preparation. When this resurrection gets rolling it will be burn baby burn, and it will not be contained by the crackbrained government that brought it on.

In the Watts riot, which was a spit in the ocean compared to what will come; the police abdicated control to the rioters and were nowhere to be found. They hung around the edges of the conflagration in a cowardly cringe. And in the aftermath of the New Orleans hurricane debacle a major portion of the police force deserted and abandoned their posts and responsibilities. Some even joined in the looting; so much for local law enforcement, what about the military?

When this thing goes nationwide the troops – that are already on the verge of rebellion due to their egregiously ill treatment during and after service, their subjection to stupid leadership, and for being used as cannon fodder in the infernal pits of the world – will desert. Government revenues will dry up completely, the cowardly politicians and bureaucrats will run for the hills and hide in order to keep from being strung up by their heels like Mussolini; and murdering and marauding scum will control the environs nationwide.

One would think that it would be hard, if not impossible, to be prepared for something such as that…however the fact is that Obama has in reality accelerated a movement toward total anarchy to the point that this truly appears to be his ultimate goal. The only explanation seems to be that he has made clandestine deals with the internationalists for the insertion of foreign troops to quell the insurrection in the name of international order and to impose an exercising authority by a world government collective.

We know from his sotto voce conversation with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev before an open mike that he promised to, when re-elected, dismantle U.S. missile defenses and leave the nation vulnerable to the belligerency of foreign enemies. He seems to be smugly counting his chickens in regard to a re-election, what does he know that we don’t? For an imbecile who has royally screwed up everything that he has turned his hand to during his illegitimate presidency he seems to be supremely confident…too confident to my way of thinking. In the words of that old Shakespearean quote: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

ROMNEY WILL SAVE US
Now where have I heard that refrain before…Oh Yeah! It was when a totally stupid electorate rose in a rabid fanatical frenzy and anointed one of the biggest political jackass’s of the Democrat Party as their messiah. I write one of because the Democrat Party is replete with political jackasses. So ecstatic was this interloping fake that he was soon addressing himself in public forums as the savior. It would seem that there is no end of the number of worldly messianic saviors that indwell the two national political parties today.

“Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot even make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by the dozens” – Montaigne

I continue to hear the propagandist media yammering about the importance of the Independent vote and its effect upon the upcoming election. The truth is that there is no such being as a politically non-partisan independent; all who vote are possessed of an ingrained ideology that is an intimate part of their psyche. The fact is that in a pig-sty society such as ours the majority has been indoctrinated to a progressive persuasion.

Presently progressive zealots comprise ninety-nine point nine percent of the Democrat Party, the remaining one tenth of one percent are no less progressive, but possess a smidge less fanaticism.

The Republican Party membership is constituted of a three way division; roughly one third of those under the Republican banner are proximate no principle progressives – of a Mitt Romney variety – who proudly call themselves moderates, one quarter are genuine realistic conservatives, and the remaining forty-odd percent are bomb-throwing neocons. It is these who control the party apparatus and light the torch for a thousand points of light internationalism.

The chief claim to fame of these is that they have kept the United States embroiled in a series of guerilla wars ostensibly to democratize the world. It is a completely nescient belief which maintains that democracy will save the world; as exactly the opposite is the truth.

The promulgated conjecture that a united international composite, making binding decrees upon diverse peoples, will deliver a world-wide utopia is hogwash. If such were the case God would have let Noah’s descendants build that tower instead of confusing their language and scattering them to the winds.

What the bomb-throwers have accomplished is to kill and maim millions of non-combatants, condemn some of our best young people to life-long debilities or a violent premature death, and contributed to a crushing national debt through monumental military expenditures. And all for what; they can point to no absolute victories, no middle-east stability, and no lasting peace. It was all for naught, and a very expensive all for naught.

I have been rather pitiless here in regard to the language I have used to describe a less than illustrious political leadership, but to call a court jester a prince would be to play cavalier with the truth.

Lot Leaves Sodom with His Family (painting circa 1615 by Peter Paul Rubens)

BUILDING SODDOM & GOMORRAH
Many may remember Judge Robert Bork who, as a nominee to the Supreme Court, was pilloried by one of the most egregiously scurrilous personal assaults on an honorable man to ever be recorded; this by a Democrat Senate in 1987 whose integrity deficient members completely abandoned any semblance of decorum and grace with their despicable character assassination.

Subsequent to being politically destroyed by those of infinitely less quality and worth than he Judge Bork wrote a book entitled, “Slouching to Gomorrah”; indeed this scholarly work by the learned constitutionalist highlighted the damage done to the constitutional foundations of the nation by a radical embracement by modern liberals of egalitarianism.

This doctrine – liberals believe – mandates a classless society, in other words an absolute political, economic, and social equality of the masses. In such a desirable environment, according to progressive theology, there must be no constitutional impediments to individual desires; a belief that has led to the long list of vices and social deviancies that have delivered the nation unto an evil wickedness that a righteous and holy God cannot possibly ignore.

OBAMA BLESSES SAME SEX MARRIAGE
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” – Leviticus 20:13

This past week Barack Hussein Obama has gone a long way in giving credence to those whispered rumors in regard to his bathhouse club days in Chicago. We may never know his secret sexual preferences, but we do know that he has given his personal and official stamp of approval on the deviant sexual practice of sodomy. One has to believe that he assumes that the majority of our society approves and condones such a filthy deviant life style or he wouldn’t have been so bold prior to Election Day. And he is I believe correct in his assumption.

THE PEOPLES MOTTO: LIVE AND LET LIVE
“Today we live in an era in which the worst vices are inscribed into law as human rights. Every evil must have its punishment, either in our times or in the afterlife.” – Roberto De Mattei, 63, the deputy head of the country’s National Research Council, Italy

Deputy De Mattei who is a prominent Italian historian went on to say that the Roman Empire collapsed due to a contagion of homosexuality and effeminacy, which made it easy pickings for barbarian hordes. And there was more…

Anyone conversant with the details of the collapse of the Roman Empire knows that the United States is precisely emulating the course that led to that empire’s fall and extinction. Ultra foolish fiscal policies and currency manipulation, abject political corruption, unfettered illegal immigration, and a complete break-down of social morality finished off the Roman Empire, and the same perversions are spelling doom for this once blessed republic. This country is in its late terminal stages and destined for internment in the graveyard of deceased nations and commonwealths. But, you dear reader can live eternally in a new world and an eternal Kingdom.

ETERNAL LIFE
Only those born again of the Spirit are sons of the Most High God.

Not one in a thousand who call themselves Christian understand what it means to be born again of the Spirit, one cannot be born again by a two minute profession of faith, one cannot be born again by regularly attending a denominational church, one cannot be born again by infant baptism, one cannot be born again by an altruistic life, and one cannot be born again by good works or philanthropy.

To be born again one must die to self and submit absolutely to the will of Almighty God. The door to salvation and eternal life is the Lord Jesus Christ; no one comes to the Father except by Him. Walk through that door and enter into the membership of Christ’s Church, the Church against which the gates of hell will not prevail. It is the only church that counts. Do it now and live forever…

And all of God’s people say – Amen!

© 2012 – Jim R. Schwiesow – All Rights Reserved

Written by Sheriff Jim R. Schwiesow, Ret., and published originally at NewsWithViews.com May 16, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www. law. cornell. edu/uscode/17/107. shtml

In covering al-Nakba, sympathetic Arab and other media play sad music and show black and white footage of displaced, frightened refugees. They rightly emphasize the concept of Sumud, steadfastness, as they show Palestinian of all ages holding unto the rusty keys of their homes and insisting on their right of return. Other, less sympathetic media discuss al-Nakba, if at all, as a side note – a nuisance in the Israeli narrative of a nation’s supposedly miraculous birth and its progression to an idyllic oasis of democracy. What such reductionist representations often fail to show is that while al-Nakba started, it never truly finished.

Those who underwent the pain, harm and loss of al-Nakba are yet to receive the justice that was promised to them by the international community. UN Resolution 194 states that “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date” (Article 11). Those who wrought this injustice are also yet to achieve their ultimate objectives in Palestine. After all, Israel doesn’t have defined boundaries by accident.

David Ben Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel, once prophesized that “the old (refugees) will die and the young will forget.” He spoke with the harshness of a conqueror. Ben Gurion carried out his war plans to the furthest extent possible. Every region in Palestine that was meant to be taken was captured, its people were expelled or massacred in their homes and villages. Ben Guiron ‘cleansed’ the land, but he failed to cleanse Israel’s past. Memory persists.

Ben Gurion referenced my own family’s village – Beit Daras – which witnessed three battles and a massacre. In an entry in his diaries on May 12, 1948, he wrote: “Beit Daras was mortared. Fifty Arabs (were killed). The (villages of) Bashit and Sawafir were occupied. There is mass exodus from nearby areas (neighbors in Majdal). We sustained 5 dead and 15 wounded. ” (War Diaries, 1947-1949).

More than fifty people were killed in Beit Daras that day. An old Gaza woman, Um Mohammed – who I discussed in my last book, My Father was a Freedom Fighter – refers to what is likely the same event:

“The town was under bombardment, and it was surrounded from all directions. There was no way out. The armed men (the Beit Daras fighters) said they were going to check on the road to Isdud, to see if it was open. They moved forward and shot few shots to see if someone would return fire. No one did. But they (the Zionist forces) were hiding and waiting to ambush the people. The armed men returned and told the people to evacuate the women and children. The people went out (including) those who were gathered at my huge house, the family house. There were mostly children and kids in the house. The Jewish (soldiers) let the people get out, and then they whipped them with bombs and machine guns. More people fell than those who were able to run. My sister and I…started running through the fields; we’d fall and get up. My sister and I escaped together holding each other’s hands. The people who took the main road were either killed or injured. The firing was falling on the people like sand. The bombs from one side and the machine guns from the other.”

Ben Gurion would not necessarily doubt Um Mohammed’s account. He candidly stated: “Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves…politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves…The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country” (as quoted in Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, pp. 91-2).

It is precisely for this reason that neither the old nor the young have forgotten. Every day is another manifestation of the same protracted al-Nakba that has lasted 64 years now. Young people’s hardships today are inextricably linked to the violent and horrific uprooting decades ago.

Al-Nakba has also remained an ongoing project through generations of Israeli Zionists. When Ben Gurion died in 1973, current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in his mid-twenties. He was then serving his last year in the Israeli army, and today he rules Israel with a coalition that includes almost three quarters of the Israeli parliament. Like most Israeli leaders, he continues to contribute to the very discourse by which Palestine was conquered. He speaks of peace, while his soldiers and armed settlers take over Palestinian homes and farms. He makes repeated offers to Palestinians for ‘unconditional’ talks, as he repeats his violent rejection of every Palestinian aspiration. His lobby in Washington is much stronger than ever before. He reigns supreme, as he continues to fulfill the ‘vision’ of early Zionists.

Old keys and deeds of stolen lands attest to the intergenerational experience that is Al-Nakba. Today Palestinians continue to be herded behind military checkpoints. They are denied the right to proper medical care, and their ancient olive trees are ruthlessly bulldozed. What Israel has not been able to control, however, is the resolve of Palestinians. The prison, the checkpoint and the gun reside in our collective memory in a way that cannot be held captive, controlled, or shot.

In fact, al-Nakba is not a specific date or an estimation of time, but the entirety of those 64 years and counting. The event must not be assigned to the shelves of history, not as long as refugees are still refugees and settlers continue to rob Palestinian land. As long as Netanyahu speaks the language of Ben Gurion, other ‘catastrophic’ episodes will follow. And as long as Palestinians hold on to their keys and deeds, the old may die but the young will never forget.

May 15, 2012

~ The Author ~
Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

All the information will be fed into servers in Spain and it will all be mixed together so that you will not be able to go back precinct by precinct an verify any of the information for its veracity. In the parlance of horse racing from a Damon Runyon character known as the Lemon Drop Kid, it will be “A boat race” (definition of a fixed race).

That being said; why bother?

There are 546 people who need to be rounded up and incarcerated at GITMO.

George Soros tops the list he needs to be found and taken into custody.

Next in line is Obama who also needs to be taken into custody, together with all 544 members of the House and Senate, as well as the members of the Supreme Court.

The Charges:
Felony Treason or Misprision of Felony Treason

Each and every one of these elected officials has abrogated their sworn oath of office and for what, money and just so they can hang on to power and position?

I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that not one of these snakes has made a move to remove this phony from office.

As far as Soros is concerned, he was a collaborator with the NAZIs during the war, and helped ferret out Jews (when he himself is a Jew), and was responsible for helping the Germans confiscate their wealth and their belongings and shipping those lost souls off to the concentration camps, and when interviewed by Steve Kroft on TV, he said he had no regrets and referred to that period as the most exciting time of his life.

There is a word in Yiddish to describe this miserable bum: Shmuts = Slime

What will, in all likelihood happen, is the first little disturbance will be the Reichstag moment that Obama and his goons are looking for as an excuse to declare Martial Law, and to suspend all civil rights, the constitution, and to call off the elections indefinitely.

At some later date he will, like the good little narcissist that he is, try to declare himself “President for Life”. Anyone want to take that bet???

The NDAA bill has already been signed (agreed to by both parties), which gives the military the power to act as law enforcement inside our own country and to arrest and detain indefinitely without charge, American Citizens they deem (there is that coverall word deem that Congress likes so much) a threat or a terrorist, right on our own streets, which is a direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, not to mention violations of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 10th, and 14th Amendments.

That little word LIBERTY means we can move about freely, unrestrained by some idiot wearing BDU,s who will probably answer “I am just following orders”, let me give you people a little history lesson, those jackasses at Nuremberg tried that excuse too and they got hung just the same.

There was just something wrong with the reasoning that My orders were to gas and then cremate 6 million people, my Commanding officer said do it so I did it, a soldier is not supposed to disobey orders. WANNA BET???

If there is any doubt left in any sane persons mind, that we are being dismantled as a nation by a bunch of thugs, goons, lawyers, bankers, and various and sundry other snakes, you need to remove your head from your anal sphincter and wake up to what is happening around you.

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!

May 13, 2012

Submitted to the Federal Observer for publication, by the author, Aaron Cantor USAF (ret).

There was no such outcry, however, when a month later on March 26 a 50-year-old white man was attacked and beaten with a hammer by two black teens, in Midway, Florida, just six miles from Sanford. The Orlando Sentinel published a description of the attackers, but neglected to mention their race. One of them had just finished a seventeen month prison sentence.

On May 9, the Star-Ledger of Newark, NJ published an article, “Group of 10 or 15 ‘thugs’ rob and beat 5 people following Prudential Center concert, cops say.” There was no reference to their race in the article and when I emailed the reporter for clarification, I received no response.

This kind of double standard is rampant in the reporting of black-on-white attacks and Colin Flaherty, a radio host on WDEL, Wilmington, Delaware, and a writer who has won more than forty awards for his work, has recently published White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Race Riots to America that chronicles a trend that is receiving little media attention and one which local police authorities tend to avoid discussing.

The book is not a racist screed. It is the reporting of events.

It is also an appalling record of violence against whites that must be addressed or political correctness will doom any chance of dealing with it. In the introduction to his book, Flaherty writes, “Almost as astonishing as the widespread racial violence is the willingness of people in authority to deny it. Ignore it. Explain it away. Even condone and lie about it.”

The book is a chronicle of black-on-white violence in recent years. “In Chicago,” Flaherty notes, “after weeks of racial violence where the newspapers refused to mention the crime was almost exclusively black gangs on individual whites, the Superintendent of Police said he knew what was causing the violence: Sarah Palin.”

“A member of Congress from Chicago, Bobby Rush, said black violence in Chicago was routine and the only reason anyone was paying any attention to the race riots in downtown Chicago was because it was black on white violence.”

“The riots on the streets of South Philly had ‘no racial component’ and were ‘nothing much’ said the Mayor until events forced him to acknowledge the obvious: black people were taking racial violence to a new level.”

Flaherty says “The deniers fall somewhere in between two points; (on) one hand, they say the racial violence is not happening. On the other, they say it is, but everyone already knows it—and it is happening for a good reason. Sometimes they say both.”

“As I started to unravel the threads of these attacks,” writes Flaherty, “it became clear right away that this was happening all over the country for at least a year or two. And that newspapers were underreporting it—when they reported it at all.”

As the Memorial Day weekend approaches at the end of the month, Flaherty warns about Black Beach Week in Miami Beach and Black Bike Week in Myrtle Beach, Florida, along with Speed Week in Charlotte, North Carolina.

For the past decade the events in Florida “have become the center of the universe of the world’s biggest black beach party. The city doesn’t really host the party. People just show up.” The events are distinguished by “Shootings, assaults on police, mountains of trash, (and) violence against people and property on a scale that can only be called anarchistic.”

These are not isolated events. The pattern was repeated in Indianapolis, Indiana, during its annual Black Expo and in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the several day party that precedes the annual Coca Cola 600, a NASCAR event. In 2011, an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 blacks rioted, resulting in one of the city’s largest mass arrests. Charlotte will be the site of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

In July 2010, in Milwaukee, some ten to twenty white youths were enjoying a Fourth of July fireworks show when they were set upon by a gang of blacks. In Minneapolis in 2011 more than 800 black people “marauded through downtown followed a few days later by an incident when twenty black women beat a white woman after she confronted them about harassing her child.

In city after city throughout America—Akron, Rochester, Atlantic City, Atlanta, St. Louis, Boston, Seattle, Las Vegas, Detroit, Denver, and even the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., Flaherty documents riots and attacks that can no longer be ignored or seen as isolated events.

It is just too easy to pass this off as “black anger.” It is racism and the Zimmerman-Martin killing is just the tip of the iceberg. Despite decades since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 that was passed to redress the wrongs of the past against black Americans, some blacks retain a malignant hatred directed against whites.

“The Return of Race Riots to America” portends that the summer of 2012 could reflect this trend. It is a warning to the leaders in both the black and white communities to condemn it and to the nation’s media to do something other than ignore or exploit it.

The reality is that we are going to be hearing a lot more from Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Louis Farrakhan who thrive on such violence, and the real tragedy is that millions of law-abiding black citizens will be branded by such behavior.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

~ About the Author ~
Federal Observer contributor Alan Caruba writes a doily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

In a speech before a joint session of the U. S. Congress on September 11th, 1990 regarding the military build-up to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, then President George H. W. Bush said this:

“We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective — a new world order — can emerge: a new era — freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak. This is the vision that I shared with President Gorbachev in Helsinki. He and other leaders from Europe, the Gulf, and around the world understand that how we manage this crisis today could shape the future for generations to come.”

All of President Bush’s wish lists in his speech appear to be laudable goals on the surface, but are they and what do they mean for freedom, the Constitution and American sovereignty?

Ever since President Woodrow Wilson (who didn’t like the U. S. Constitution anyway) established the failed League of Nations, there have been a few attempts to bind all nations of the earth under one “all wise and benevolent” organization that will heal all of the ills of the world, but mostly to try and bring an end to violent conflicts between nations of different ideologies, cultures and religions. Finally, in 1945, after the cataclysm that was World War II, the United Nations was born, with much fanfare and great hopes and aspirations.

However, in the intervening 67 years, the United Nations has morphed into a collection of around 195 nations, approximately five to seven of which are western democracies and the rest are either run by dictators, despots, communists, socialists, fascists, or anarchists. The UN’s current goals are to:

1. Equalize all cultures under social justice by wealth redistribution from rich nations (mostly America), and

2. Save the planet from the scourge of human kind by enforcing radical environmental protection across the globe.

Goal number two is the leverage to accomplish goal number one by using “Saving the Environment” as a means to control and micromanage the behavior of all people of all nations. But the UN’s hidden, clandestine method to accomplish its goals is to “rob” the wealth, resources, freedom and sovereignty of the rich nations and spread it around to the poorer nations, under the guise of environmental justice.

Definition: “Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, educational level, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws. Environmental justice seeks to ensure that minority and low-income communities have access to public information relating to human health and environmental planning, regulations and enforcement. Environmental justice ensures that no population, especially the elderly and children, are forced to shoulder a disproportionate burden of the negative human health and environmental impacts of pollution or other environmental hazard.“

Oh, and their original goal to stop all violent conflicts, large and small, has been an abysmal failure. With the rise of radical Islam, violent conflicts around the world will only continue to grow. Seventeen UN resolutions didn’t stop Saddam Hussein, did it? It took America’s military might and the sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform to stop the insane, brutal dictator and neutralize him.

The Middle East is a powder keg, set to explode with the slightest provocation. World domination by radical Islam will be a threat to all civilized countries for perhaps several centuries to come and the United Nations will be powerless to stop it, because only a violent force more powerful than radical Islam can stop it. A bully is only empowered by appeasement and radical Islam is an irrational bully with sharp teeth. Its goal is world domination and its method to achieve that goal is brutality, savagery, intimidation and immobilizing fear through terror attacks. They have obtained their directions for world domination from Mohammed himself and the words he wrote in the Qur’an, since Mohammed used the same tactics to institute “his Sharia law” in Saudia Arabia during the middle of the first millennium. In some parts of the world today, radical Islam’s savage methods are working quite well. As we speak, radical Islam is working on America from within, using our own freedom and cultural tolerance against us.

But we digress. Since the United Nations has failed miserably in its original goal for which it was formed, it has taken on the role of mother, father and nanny to bring all nations under socialist policies, dreamed up in numerous UN committees, staffed by educated idiot/socialists and aided and abetted by the despots who rule the other 188 nations, nations that would like nothing more than to bring America to its knees, economically, financially, or otherwise. The UN gives these despots the chance to kick America where it hurts the most, one resolution at a time.

Here is the policy of the United Nations on land ownership in private hands:

“Land…cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. The provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interests of society as a whole. Public control of land use is therefore indispensable….”

You won’t find this policy statement in the U. S. Constitution. In fact, this UN policy is in direct conflict with the U. S. Constitution where the Founders believed and codified into law ….. without private property rights, no other rights are possible. Private property rights are the pillar of American freedom and liberty. For any American official, president, congressman, senator, or diplomat to sign onto this anti-American policy, should be labeled for what it is, treason. The United States, working hand-in-glove with the United Nations, (that’s collusion folks) has done everything in its power to implement radical environmental law in America and to dilute, if not dissolve private property rights and American sovereignty altogether.

Here is a sample of the United Nations policy on “Social Justice.”

“The pursuit of social justice for all is at the core of our (United Nations) global mission to promote development and human dignity. The adoption by the International Labour Organization of the Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization is just one recent example of the UN system’s commitment to social justice. The Declaration focuses on guaranteeing fair outcomes for all through employment, social protection, social dialogue, and fundamental principles and rights at work.”

“The General Assembly proclaimed 20 February as World Day of Social Justice in 2007, inviting Member States to devote the day to promoting national activities in accordance with the objectives and goals of the World Summit for Social Development and the twenty-fourth session of the General Assembly.”

“As we look to the upcoming Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, we have a chance to rethink development strategies and business practices so that they point us toward a more sustainable and equitable future. Sustainability depends on building markets that do a better job of spreading the benefits of development. It means meeting growing consumer demand for greener products and services. And it means laying the foundations for dignity, stability and opportunity for all. As we strive to make this transformation, we must integrate social inclusion into our policies and other efforts.”

Keep in mind that at the first Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, then president George Herbert Walker Bush signed on to the Agenda 21 policies of sustainable development and smart growth that emerged from the summit. His successor to the “DC throne”, one William Jefferson Clinton, on July 19, 1993 implemented Agenda 21 into American law by establishing the “President’s Council on Sustainable Development” by Executive Order No. 12852. The American Planning Association (APA) has adopted Agenda 21 policies of sustainable development and smart growth in their principal policy manual. The APA policy manual is the blue print for every comprehensive plan being adopted by county and city councils throughout the U. S. To further invoke Agenda 21 policies into American law, the “International Council on Environmental Initiatives” (ICLEI), a United Nations affiliate, is working directly with local jurisdictions to aid and abet this implementation and the American taxpayer is picking up the tab.

One of the most powerful men driving the United Nations is Maurice Strong of Canada. Maurice has a radical vision of planet earth that runs headlong into and in conflict with America’s freedom and sovereignty. He was one of the organizers of the first Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. We encourage the reader to read HERE what Tom DeWeese, President of the American Policy Center, has to say about Maurice and his plans for the planet, as well as for America. Maurice runs contrary to everything we hold near and dear and yet he is extremely powerful and influential on the international stage.

As of 2010, a Director of Sustainable Development in the U. S. Department of Agriculture has a mission of advancing the principles and goals of sustainable development through partnerships, collaboration, and outreach. Agenda 21 (an international United Nations policy) was secretly adopted into American law without a treaty being debated and ratified by the U. S. Congress, as required by the Constitution. It is now fully installed and implemented in all of our institutions, including our schools and colleges.

These anti-American policies are nothing more than doorways to the all-important mission of the United Nations to establish “social justice” for all peoples of the Earth ….. at the expense of the wealthier democratic nations. They suck at the very core of our existence. UN policies rob America of its growing energy needs, usurps the rights of parents, forces un-needed conservation of resources, locks up public lands, eradicates private property rights and plays havoc with our rule of law. Let’s put aside for the moment that the UN may be one of the most corrupt organizations on the planet.

“The Parallax Prophecies” predicts that Rio+20 will generate another policy paper much more onerous than Agenda 21. If America signs on to Agenda 21 + 20, it can only be concluded that the American government is working in collusion with the United Nations and against the people of the United States. If such is the case and it appears to be so, the people of the United States are being enslaved to international, socialist and radical environmental policies by their own representatives who have bought into the supremacy of the United Nations over American sovereignty. How can that be called anything else but treason?

United Nations social and environmental justice policies have been slowly implemented into American law over the last 20 plus years by stealth. The American taxpayer picks up the tab for 22% of the United Nations operating expenses. Why on earth would we fund an organization that intends to rob us of our wealth, steal our freedom, dissolve our sovereignty and bury us in the rubble of mediocrity, criminal negligence and international corruption? Why indeed! On top of all that, the UN is pushing for a world tax imposed on all financial transactions to fund a global model of social services that will provide “needy people” with a basic income, free healthcare, education and housing and to fund their ultimate goal of global government.

On our current course, in the not too distant future, United Nations international law will supplant, if not replace, the U. S. Constitution. This totally avoidable dissolution of American sovereignty could not have been accomplished without the willing participation of our elected representatives, in collusion with the United Nations.

But take heart ladies and gentlemen. Perhaps well before the UN takes over American law permanently, we will succumb to looming national bankruptcy, economic collapse, riots, chaos, anarchy, pandemic hunger and the lights going off permanently and just possibly a civil war or a third-world war, as we continue down the suicidal path of Obama-style social Marxism and radical environmentalism into oblivion, brought to you courtesy of your president and the U. S. Congress who have colluded with the United Nations to implement the one world order and enslave the American people under an umbrella of social justice and radical environmentalism.

All of what we predict is avoidable if Americans will just rise up, en masse and defend economic prosperity, freedom and American sovereignty ….. by whatever means. America’s fate and freedom rests entirely in their hands, but the question is, are there enough Americans that have the determination, commitment and courage to take on the bad guys?

Only a declaration of open resistance by millions of Americans can have any hope of reversing the current trend towards Obama-European-style socialism and restoring a free America. If you are ready to make that declaration of your open resistance against unconstitutional government actions, you can do so HERE.

© Copyright Sunday, May 13, 2012 – All Rights Reserved

~ The Author ~
Ron Ewart is the President of The National Association of Rural Landowners and nationally recognized author on freedom and property rights issues. Ron may reached for comment via email at r.ewart@comcast.net.

Former politicians and intelligence bosses have been challenging the conventional wisdom of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through a series of charged statements and political rhetoric.

A few weeks ago it sounded rather like a political fluke when former chief of the Israeli Mossad, Meir Dagan called an attack on Iran “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” His comment was then widely dismissed, but other voices have since joined the discussion. Yuval Diskin, former head of the Israeli internal intelligence, the Shin Bet, went even further, as he questioned the abilities of both Netanyahu and Barak, accusing them of promoting ‘messianic sentiments’ regarding Iran.

“I saw them up close, they are not Messiahs…These are not people whose hands I would like to have on the steering- wheel,” he said. Dagan, who remains insistent on the ‘stupidity’ of the Israeli government, came to Diskin’s support. He told the New York Times on April 29 that “Diskin is a very serious man, a very talented man, he has a lot of experience in countering terrorism.”

Netanyahu’s exaggeration of the supposed ‘existential danger’ posed by Iran’s nuclear program is clearly political – ultimately aimed at weakening another regional foe and appeasing his hard-line coalition. The invoking of holocaust analogies over a ‘threat’ that various international agencies have disputed, is a clear sign of the government’s political and moral bankruptcy.

Awareness of Netanyahu’s ineptness is not confined to former heads of Israel’s intelligence, but the military itself. In a highly publicized interview in Haaretz in April, Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz disputed the government’s conventional wisdom – both by attesting to the rationality of Iranians leaders and discounting the very claim that Iran is on the road to manufacturing nuclear weapons. “Iran is going step by step to the place where it will be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb. It hasn’t yet decided whether to go the extra mile,” he said.

The timing of this stream of focused criticism, emanating from some of Israel’s most decorated intelligence and army men, is not coincidental. Yes, there may be a major political upheaval underway regarding Iran, but considering the fact that Netanyahu still possesses the upper hand in Israeli politics, one must neither delve too far into optimism nor subsist in perpetual cynicism.

In ‘Changing Course in Israel’ (Gulf News, May 4), Patrick Seale wrote, “The challenge to Netanyahu could have far-reaching consequences. For one thing, it appears to have removed any likelihood of an early Israeli attack on Iran, such as Netanyahu has threatened and trumpeted for a year and more; for another, it has revived the possibility of a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a solution many had thought moribund, if not actually dead.”

It is difficult to ascertain whether the threat of war against Iran has been ‘removed’ based on statements made during an election season in Israel. Israeli politics is particularly known for its underhandedness, and parties vying for power understand that focusing their attack on Netanyahu is the only way to reinforce their candidate’s chances in the upcoming elections. This is not the first time that former heads of Israel’s intelligence and military have adopted such a charged position against a standing prime minister.

Yet, regardless of the motive, the move against Netanyahu may be backfiring. According to a recent Haaretz poll, Netanyahu is ‘the clear favorite heading into Israel’s upcoming elections.’ Yossi Verter wrote on May 5, “Netanyahu can rest easy after reading the results of the latest Haaretz-Dialog poll: Not only does he trounce all his rivals on the question of who is most fit to lead the country, but an absolute majority of Israelis reject the aspersions cast on him last week by former Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin.”

The poll indicates that the clearly coordinated statements regarding Iran are yet to shake Netanyahu’s throne. That said, such criticism could represent the start of political friction around Iran’s war. The friction could either move the next government further to the right or to the center. Until the nature of the next Israeli political formation becomes clearer, German commentator Ludwig Watzal is maybe closest to the right assessment. “The power struggle between Israel’s security establishments should tell the international public that an attack on Iran’s civilian nuclear program would be highly dangerous and politically irresponsible,” he wrote.

Iran aside, what about other major maneuvers in Israeli politics preceding the probable elections few months from now? Tzipi Livni, former head of Israel’s biggest opposition party, Kadima, has left the Knesset with a bang, although her resignation had been anticipated following her major defeat by challenger Shaul Mofaz in primary party elections last March. Once more, Livni assigned herself the role of the visionary, warning that Israel was sitting ‘on a volcano’. “The international clock is ticking and the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state is in danger,” she suggested.

Livni may have left the Knesset, but she has not left ‘political life.’ That declaration was enticing to the media which began speculating on what role Livni now sees for herself. According to the Haaretz poll, Mofaz, who defeated Livni, enjoys a minuscule approval rating of 6 percent.

The frenzy of statements and political realignments preceding Israel’s elections are typical, and should not indicate major shifts in policies. Mistaking all of this to signal the return of the two state options is too hopeful, to say at least.

The fact remains that Israel is unlikely to shift its aggressive policies from within. What is being promoted as the moral awakening, or political sensibility of some influential Israelis might merely be political maneuvers aimed at helping Israel find an exit strategy from delving further into war rhetoric. It could also be an attempt to challenge Netanyahu’s stronghold on Israeli politics. Quarreling within the ruling class in Israel during an election is almost a requirement. It neither ushers a new era of peace, nor does it signal a serious change from the constant saber-rattling against Iran.

May 9, 2012

~ The Author ~
Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

Let’s clear the air and stop dancing around the elephant in the room. Race WILL be a factor in the 2012 election. (Gasp!)

OK. While we are being painfully honest allow me to state the obvious: Race was a huge factor in the 2008 election. To deny that you have to be irrational or delusional — or both.

In 2008, there was a rush in America to elect the first “black: President of the United States of America. That is a historical (even hysterical) fact!

Well, we did. We elected Barack Hussein Obama — and we have paid the price ever since.

Let’s be clear here. It is not the color of Obama’s skin that has caused such problems for America. It is the color of his politics and ideology, which is pure “red.”

Mr. Obama is a socialist — as is much of the current Democratic Party in control of (at least) a third of the US government today. Obama is from the far left of the left wing. His policies have smothered the American economy producing what is now being referred to as “The Great Recession” in America.

Americans of my generation remember when President Herbert Hoover, a Republican, was reviled and blamed, almost entirely, as the man who caused The Great Depression in America. To this day Mr. Hoover’s name is carefully avoided in public political discussions by republicans and is still reviled by democrats at every opportunity. It makes no difference that like the man caught in the elevator when the power went off, Hoover was the man in the Oval Office when the defecation hit the rotary oscillator. Still, to this day, Hoover gets the blame.

From today forward, Obama is the man who will forever be remembered as the Democratic Party’s Herbert Hoover. The difference is — Obama deserves it.

A friend of mine remarked to me the other day: “Jimmy Carter must be tickled to death over Obama. Carter is no longer the worst President the United States has ever had. Obama now holds claim to that title.” And he was/is right!

Yes, there will be some Americans who will never vote for Obama because he is black — or at least HALF black. That is a fact and cannot be overlooked or ignored. But for the most part, Americans despise Mr. Obama’s ideology — socialism. Frankly, many Americans feel Mr. Obama is not only a socialist, but a socialist who leans heavily toward Marxism and/or communism.

If Mr. Obama loses his bid for a second term as US President there is absolutely no doubt that the leftist mainstream media in America — and around the world — will scream racism. They cannot accept that ANYONE could possibly disagree with their elitist political philosophy and socialist/Marxist ideology. So, to them, it must mean that AMERICANS ARE RACISTS!

The fact that there has been much acting out by some elements within the black community in America after the killing of a Florida teenager by a Hispanic man will be of no help to Obama’s election campaign.

Attempts by the leftist mainstream media in America to spike, ignore, and (in some cases) even cover-up cases of black on white crime in the past few weeks will not work. Again, just as in 2008, the leftist mainstream media is “in the tank” for Obama, and they are going to do everything they can to see that he is reelected — even if that means withholding publication of news stories that might, MIGHT, reflect badly on Obama.

However, there are news sources with integrity that will publish those stories and disseminate the news — regardless.

One such news organization is WND — formerly known as World Net Daily. In a story by Chelsea Shilling, a commentary editor and staff writer for WND, Ms. Shilling lays out a list of recent black on white crimes. The report is entitled: “Wave of black mobs brutalizing whites.” Ms Shilling reports the following: “In a wave of black-on-white crime since the February Trayvon Martin slaying, reports are emerging of dozens of brutal assaults by black mobs and assailants against white victims – and some attackers are citing the revenge for the Martin slaying as reason for their aggression.

Martin is the unarmed black teen who died after being shot by a Hispanic community-watch captain, George Zimmerman, in Sanford, Fla., sparking a wave of outrage o violence against whites long after the Feb. 26 incident.”

The report goes on to list a number of incidents of black on white crimes which have received little, if any, coverage by the so-called mainstream media. It is a “must read” report. You will find it HERE

In our opinion, there is deep concern in the political left, which includes a disproportionate number of publications AND journalists in America, that reports of such incidents will have a negative impact on Obama’s campaign for a second term as President of the US. I’d say — they are right.

There will be a backlash from the public when they learn of attempted cover ups of black on white crimes by the MSM. Coverups rarely work and the backlash can, and often does, create more damage than the original offense. There WILL be a price extracted and the Obama Campaign could well pay that price in lack of support at the polls due to sheer disgust by voters in November.

Race will definitely play a part in the Presidential Election in November. Some voter reaction will be rooted in bigotry, as it always is, and others — well, they will simply vote their disgust at the ballot box.

May 7, 2012

~ The Author ~
J. D. Longstreet is a conservative Southern American (A native sandlapper and an adopted Tar Heel) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in “America First”.

He is a thirty-year veteran of the broadcasting business, as an “in the field” and “on-air” news reporter (contributing to radio, TV, and newspapers) and a conservative broadcast commentator.

Longstreet is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserve. He is a member of the American Legion and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A lifelong Christian, Longstreet subscribes to “old Lutheranism” to express and exercise his faith.

Federal Observer contributing columnist, J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom.

Oh yeah – this cover is for real!

Have I read it? Of course not. Have you read her nephew’s best-seller — Dreams from My Ghostwriter, I mean Father? No one has — it’s sold millions of copies, but until two weeks ago, not a single reader got far enough into it to learn that Obama was a dog-eater with “composite” girlfriends.

Anyway, I have the press release on “Tears of Abuse,” which describes Auntie Zeituni’s journey to the United States “where she faces the unthinkable; failing health and quarantined in a hospital while on vacation in a foreign country.”

Vacation? Surely she meant to say “welfare.”

“As her story unfolds she becomes a resident of (a) homeless shelter and a subject of deportation.”

How dare they! Just because she’s an illegal alien, they want to deport her.

Have they forgotten the immortal words of Marsha Coakley: “Technically it is not illegal to be illegal in Massachusetts.”

And if you don’t believe Marsha, just ask Uncle Omar, Auntie Zeituni’s brother, or half-brother, or whatever. Technically, it is also apparently not illegal to be driving drunk illegally in Massachusetts, at least if you’re an illegal alien.

Auntie Zeituni was victimized in Kenya but, believe it or not, “she was later victimized in the U.S.”

"Ahz dun bin so 'bused..."

Talk about victimization — do you realize, you actually have to go down to the welfare office to apply for the dole? The welfare office doesn’t make house calls. Not yet anyway. Her nephew hasn’t been re-elected.

But Auntie Zeituni’s story has a happy ending.

‘Tears of Abuse’ reveals how this remarkable woman turns the unfathomable into triumph.”

Public housing, on the dole — what else would you call it but a triumph? The inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty needs to be rewritten. Forget the huddled masses yearning to “breathe free.” Now the huddled masses demand to “live free.”

Speaking of “the homeless, tempest-tost,” Uncle Omar gets his driver’s license back today. I hope nobody at the registry is even thinking of slapping that $100 license-restoration fee on this proud Kenyan illegal alien assistant manager of Conti’s Liquors in Framingham. That restoration fee is for U.S. citizens only.

And as for you, Auntie Zeituni, I have a tip for you, one author to another. Always seek out your core audience. The state Democratic convention is coming up June 2 in Springfield — thousands of guilt-ridden, trust-funded moonbats, all in one place.

Auntie Zeituni, get yourself a booth at the convention. And above your books, you’ll need a small sign…

“EBT Cards Accepted Here!”

Written by Howie Carr for the Boston Herald, May 11, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www. law. cornell. edu/uscode/17/107. shtml

And that’s fine, really, in the case of gay marriage. His opinion of what to do about it (nearly) matches my own. Gay marriage is a totally new thing whose time may be coming, but let the states — let the people — come to grips with it at their own rates. Thirty years from now everyone, even folks in North Carolina, will wonder what all the fuss was about. And that’s as it should be.

However, this is not a case a progressive Democrat may reasonably make. Progressives believe the crushing power of the state is theirs to wield to get their way on everything from what health insurance people must buy, to which light bulbs they may not. And now we’re supposed to buy, “except for letting the gays marry?” Hell, if the progs thought they could get away with it — and give them four more years on Pennsylvania Avenue and they will — they’d mandate that the Catholic Church perform the ceremonies. And in drag.

So Joe Biden put his boss in a difficult position. Biden said straight out (no pun intended) that he’s all in favor of gay marriage. It wasn’t a big deal when Dick Cheney said the same thing, because he’s known to have respect for federalism, and because his boss was known for at least paying the notion some lip service. But when a progressive Veep says it, prog expectations are raised that his boss will wield the mighty power of state to do something. It’s what they do.

But this is in an election year, with the president losing his grip — has lost his grip? — on the independents who will choose November’s winner. And this election isn’t 30 years from now. It’s six months from now, and gay marriage is still very much a fussy issue, especially in swing states the Democrats need.

The contortions Biden has put this White House through have been a delight to watch.

First, David Axelrod came out (again, no pun intended) to walk it back, and insist that the White House was not, in fact, going to push for gay marriage. But then the next day Arne Duncan walked back the walk back, and said that, yes, he’s in favor. Obama was faced with a Veep and a cabinet officer making an issue out of an issue he’d been happy to “evolve” on, flexibly, until after the election. So then finally on Tuesday Obama settled on a Modified Limited Gitmo: Say some nice things while sitting on his hands.

Needless to say, the progressive Left is all up in arms over Obama’s “bullshit” maneuver. They know and understand the Modified Limited Gitmo, and they don’t like it one bit. Over the course of two days, Obama managed to appear like a vacillating weakling while annoying the middle and seriously pissing off his base.

The word you’re looking for here is “SCoaMF.” But it gets worse. Happily, wonderfully, gigglingly worse.

Everything we’ve seen this week is of a piece with Bill Clinton calling Obama “an amateur.” But even if he never said “amateur” out loud like Edward Klein claims in his new book, you know Clinton thought it. And since Clinton is almost pathologically incapable of not sharing his every thought, I’m certainly inclined to think the story is true.

And now Drudge is red-headlining — redlining? — a new poll showing Mitt Romney with a seven-point lead, 50%-43%. Gallup? Rasmussen? Drudge isn’t saying yet, but Rasmussen usually releases his daily numbers at around 11AM Eastern, so it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody there leaked Drudge a preview. [UPDATE: Yes, it was Rasmussen.]

Which leads us to the stupidest thing I read all week — Mark Halperin’s report about how “confident” the Obama campaign is about their chances this fall. Has he not seen David Axelrod doing the Flop Sweat Tango on national television? Has he not noticed that the DNC chair is witlessly out of touch with voters? Is he unaware of the unprecedented nastiness of the president’s campaign? Obama 2012 makes Bush 2004 look like Reagan 1984. “Mourning in America” would be a step toward the positive for this crew.

Anyway, Halperin is just another cog in the progressive media machine that will stop at nothing to reelect the President. Our job is a much simpler one: Point and laugh at all of it. The contortions, the spins, the lies — they’re all so pathetically and rib-achingly funny. In three-plus decades of watching politics, I’ve never witnessed anything so desperately, hysterically funny.

To take advantage, the Romney campaign needs to function on three levels, shaped like a pyramid. The top level is Romney himself, his staff, and eventually his Veep pick. Their job is to allow Romney to act the part of president. The hardest part of unseating a president is that he already has the job, the jet, the motorcade — he owns it. The new guy has none of that, and appears small if only in contrast. So far, Romney has stayed on-message (the economy) without being nasty about it. That’s presidential. Good.

The next level down is the 527s, the conservative think tanks, and the big money boys. Their job is to go negative. Get mean, get nasty, run all those TV ads they ran against Newt and Rick, but change the names and faces for the general election. Being nasty is usually the Veep’s job, too, and Biden is very, very good at it — the Democrats’ own Spiro Agnew. But I’d advise the Romney camp not to go that route. Stay clean, look professional. Act like everyone on board deserves the jets and the motorcades.

The bottom level is you and me. We’re on the blogs, we’re on the social networking sites, and we’re at the water coolers if we’re lucky enough to have jobs. Our role is to treat them — the White House, the media, the professional left — with all the respect they richly deserve. By “respect,” of course, I mean, “gently mocking disdain.” We know the president is a SCoaMF. Most people are getting the feeling the president just might be a SCoamf, but are loathe to admit it. We need to make it cool to say so out lout. Gently, positively, fun-ly. Remove Obama’s aura of cool, and what’s he got left? 57 states of denial.

That’s the path to victory, and it’s a fun one.

Written by Stephen Green and published on PJ Media May 11, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www. law. cornell. edu/uscode/17/107. shtml

[This law] assures the elderly that America will always keep the promises made in troubled times a half century ago … . [The Social Security Amendments of 1983 are] a monument to the spirit of compassion and commitment that unites us as a people. – President Ronald Reagan, April 20, 1983

So said Presidents Carter and Regan, but that was before 1996, when Congress voted to allow federal agencies to offset portions of Social Security payments to collect debts owed to those agencies. (31 U.S.C. §3716). Now we read of horror stories like this:

I’m a 68 year old grandma of 2 young grandchildren. I went to college to upgrade my employment status in 1998 or 1999. I finished in 2000 and at that time had a student loan balance of about 3500.00.

Could not find a job and had to request forbearance to carry me. Over the years I forgot about the loan, dealt with poor health, had brain surgery in 2006 and the collection agents decided to collect for the loan in 2008.

At no time during the 6-7 year gap did anyone remind me or let me know that I could make a minimum payment on the loan. Now that I am on Social Security (have been since I was 62), they have decided to garnishee my SS check to the tune of 15%.

I have not been employed since 2004 and have the two dependents . … I don’t dispute that I owed them the $3500.00 but am wondering why they let it build up to somewhere around $17,000/20,000 before they attempted to collect.

Her debt went from $3500 to over $17,000 in 10 years?! How could that be?

It seems that Congress has removed nearly every consumer protection from student loans, including not only standard bankruptcy protections, statutes of limitations, and truth in lending requirements, but protection from usury (excessive interest). Lenders can vary the interest rates, and some borrowers are reporting rates as high as 18-20%. At 20%, debt doubles in just 3-1/2 years; and in 7 years, it quadruples. Congress has also given lenders draconian collection powers to extort not just the original principal and interest on student loans but huge sums in penalties, fees, and collection costs.

Scratch 'n' Sniff

The majority of these debts are being imposed on young people, who have a potential 40 years of gainful employment ahead of them to pay the debt off. But a sizeable chunk of U.S. student loan debt is held by senior citizens, many of whom are not only unemployed but unemployable. According to the New York Federal Reserve, two million U.S. seniors age 60 and over have student loan debt, on which they owe a collective $36.5 billion; and 11.2 percent of this debt is in default. Almost a third of all student loan debt is held by people aged 40 and over, and 4.2% is held by people over the age of 60. The total student debt is now over $1 trillion, more even than credit card debt. The sum is unsustainable and threatens to be the next debt tsunami.

Some of this debt is for loans taken out years earlier on their own schooling, and some is from co-signing student loans for children or grandchildren. But much of it has been incurred by middle-aged people going back to school in the hope of finding employment in a bad job market. What they have wound up with is something much worse: no job, an exponentially mounting debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, and the prospect of old age without a social security check adequate to survive on.

Gone is the promise of earlier presidents of a “commitment to the belief that workers should not live in dread that a disability, death, or old age could leave them or their families destitute.” The plight of the indebted elderly is reminiscent of the Irish immigrants who came to America after a potato famine in the 19th century, who were looked upon in some places as actually lower than slaves. Plantation owners kept their slaves fed, clothed and cared for, because they were valuable property. The Irish were expendable, and they were on their own.

It is obviously not a good time to raise interest rates on student debt, but they are set to double on July 1, 2012, to 6.8%. Many lawmakers in both parties agree that the current 3.4% rates should be extended for another year, but they can’t agree on how to find the $6 billion that this would cost. Republicans want to take the money from a health care fund that promotes preventive care; Democrats want to eliminate some tax benefits for small business owners.

Congress cannot agree on $6 billion to save the students, yet they managed to agree in a matter of days in September 2008 to come up with $700 billion to save the banks; and the Federal Reserve found many trillions more. Estimates are that tuition could be provided free to students for a mere $30 billion annually. The government has the power to find $30 billion—or $300 billion or $3 trillion—in the same place the Federal Reserve found it: it can simply issue the money.

Congress is empowered by the Constitution to “coin money” and “regulate the value thereof,” and no limit is set on the face amount of the coins it creates. It could issue a few one-billion dollar coins, deposit them in an account, and start writing checks.

But wouldn’t that be inflationary? No. The Fed’s own figures show that the money supply (M3) has shrunk by $3 trillion since 2008. That sum could be added back into the economy without inflating prices. Gas and food are going up today, but the whole range of prices must be considered in order to determine whether price inflation is occurring. Housing and wages are significantly larger components of the price structure than commodities, and they remain severely depressed.

There is another way the government could find needed funds without raising taxes, slashing services, or going further into debt: Congress could re-finance the federal debt through the Federal Reserve, interest-free. Canada did this from 1939 to 1974, keeping its national debt low and sustainable while funding massive programs including seaways, roadways, pensions, and national health care. The national debt shot up only when the government switched from borrowing from its own central bank to borrowing from private lenders at interest. The rationale was that borrowing bank-created money from the government’s own central bank inflated the money supply, while borrowing existing funds from private banks did not. But even the Federal Reserve acknowledges that private banks create the money they lend on their books, just as central banks do.

U.S. taxpayers now pay nearly half a trillion dollars annually to finance our federal debt. The cumulative figure comes to $8.2 trillion paid in interest just in the last 24 years. By financing the debt itself rather than paying interest to private parties, the government could divert what it would have paid in interest into tuition, jobs, infrastructure and social services, allowing us to keep the social contract while at the same time stimulating the economy.

For students, at the very least the bankruptcy option needs to be reinstated, usury laws restored, predatory practices eliminated, and the cost of education brought back down to earth. One possibility for relieving the burden on students would be to give them interest-free loans. The government of New Zealand now offers 0% loans to New Zealand students, with repayment to be made from their income after they graduate. For the past twenty years, the Australian government has also successfully funded students by giving out what are in effect interest-free loans. The loans in the Australian Higher Education Loan Programme (or HELP) do not bear interest, but the government gets back more than it lends, because the principal is indexed to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which goes up every year.

Predatory lenders are keeping us in debt peonage through misguided economics and bank-captured legislators. We have people who desperately want to work, to the point of going back to school to try to improve their chances; and we have mountains of work that needs to be done. The only thing keeping them apart is that artificial constraint called “money”, which we have allowed to be created by banks and let out at interest when it could have been created by public institutions for public purposes, either by direct issuance or through publicly-owned banks. We just need to recognize our oppressors and throw off their yoke, and the good times can roll again.

Written by Ellen Brown and published on TruthDig.com May 11, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www. law. cornell. edu/uscode/17/107. shtml

I have a great new idea: Let’s use the government to help give giant, unsecured loans to one of the dumbest groups in our society — teenagers.

Oh, we already have a trillion dollars of outstanding student loans?

Never mind.

Now, I don’t like to use the word “crisis” unless people are actually running around the streets on fire and screaming, but this whole student loan mess is becoming a bit of a problem. Student loans top both credit card and auto loan debt, and student loan debt is all held by an increasingly worthless group: college graduates. We give $100,000 loans to teenagers — people you normally wouldn’t trust with $100 loans — and then they party for four years while majoring in art history and graduate to join an Occupy Wall Street protest to complain about all the debt they have and can’t pay back. If the goal is to create annoying, useless hippies, I’m pretty sure it can be done for much cheaper. This student loan nonsense has to end.

Oh, I know many will object to that. “Making these loans is investing in our children’s education.” But objectively, this has been an absolutely horrible investment lately. Taking the same money we’d put into a college education and instead placing it in a mutual fund would get you a much better return on your money. Plus that won’t eventually scream about the 1% and defecate on a cop car. I mean, just look at how few people can get jobs right out of college these days. Rats trained to pull levers to get food pellets have more useful skills than most of today’s college grads. And the cost of training rats doesn’t grow faster than inflation.

"GIMME, GIMME, GIMME!!!"

How did we get here? In a sane world, if a teenager walked into a bank and said, “I would like a $50,000 loan to major in modern dance,” the bank manager would call security, who would then pummel the stupid kid, and everyone would end up smarter for it. But what happens instead is that Uncle Sam walks by and says, “I like his moxy. Give him the loan; I’ll guarantee it. And I’ll make sure he can’t ever get out of his stupid choice through bankruptcy.” So they give this giant amount of money to a dumb kid, and then the colleges are waiting outside, saying, “Hey! They’re giving huge loans to moron teenagers; we need to get some of that money!” So we have colleges preying on these gullible saps, increasing costs while their diplomas plummet in value in a complete mockery of our capitalistic system.

And who is the biggest victim in all this? I’d say me. I’m a taxpayer, and I just know that, as usual, I’m going to be expected to pay for things when the government cleans them up… or, as is more likely, makes them worse. Are we going to have a bailout for people with too much student loan debt? I hope not, because as a conservative, I like for actions to have consequences. If we bail out people with student loans, we should at least randomly select some of them to fight to the death for our amusement in the Debt Games.

But I guess I’m not the only victim here. Other victims are actually the stupid kids being tricked into borrowing huge amounts of debt to get worthless diplomas. It’s hard to see them as victims when, like most people, I hate teenagers and want bad things to happen to them. And when I think about the incoherent, angry young adults in OWS, knowing that their futures have been crushed under giant piles of debt they’ll never be able to repay kind of makes me smile. Even so, this collusion between the government, banks, and colleges to take advantage of stupid people needs to stop.

Now, we have minimum ages for buying tobacco and alcohol; why don’t we have those for taking out a student loan? Debt is way more destructive than Jägermeister — to both the individual and society — so why don’t we actually make sure the people deciding to get into it are mature enough to make that decision? I mean, I’m fine with treating an eighteen year old as an adult for the purposes of putting him on trial and locking him up, but let’s be realistic here. Very few of them have any actual useful common sense at that age. So here’s my proposal: You have to be at least thirty years old to get a student loan. That way, when someone agrees to go into debt to get a college education, they might actually have some idea of what money is and what debt means. And having had to make a living without a college education, by age thirty they’ll hopefully understand what they need higher education for and get a functional degree instead of majoring in something like philosophy (and it’s kind of ironic, because if you major in philosophy, you obviously do need more training in how to think).

If a person doesn’t want to wait until age thirty to go to college, he’ll have to save up money and pay for it himself. The point is, people are going to have to learn to be useful individuals and then go to college. No longer will it be this extension of adolescence you go into right out of high school. And if being a useful individual is too much for someone, he can just go straight to being a useless hippy without the unnecessary college step. He’ll at least be a debt-free hippie. That will give him less need to complain, but hippies are pretty good at finding new things to whine about.

Frank J. Fleming is the author of the ebook “Obama: The Greatest President in the History of Everything” published by HarperCollins, writes columns for PJ Media and the New York Post, blogs at IMAO.us,and can’t wait until he gets his Obama-assigned composite girlfriend.

Written by Frank J. Fleming and published on PJ MEDIA May 11, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www. law. cornell. edu/uscode/17/107. shtml

In response to the Trayvon Martin shooting House Democrats are now attempting to put a clause into a Commerce Department spending bill that would withhold grants from states that have ‘stand your ground’ laws. In all truthfulness I’m surprised it took them this long to get around to pulling a stunt like this.

My personal sentiments aside, the arrest and upcoming prosecution of George Zimmerman should remain a local issue, confined to the criminal justice system having jurisdiction over the parties involved in the case. The federal government should not, unless the outcome of the trial is appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, ever become involved in it.

But of course, being the busybodies they are, and applying what Rahm Emanuel said, the federal government simply couldn’t keep their fingers out of an issue they have absolutely no business, nor authority to involve themselves in.

With the insertion of this clause into that Commerce bill the federal government is attempting to limit an unalienable right because one individual may, or may not, have overstepped his authority and abused that right. What they are attempting to do is to bribe, or bully, states into repealing “stand your ground” laws by withholding funds from them if they do not.

Have you ever heard the term coercion? In most instances it is considered a crime, and is defined as “The intimidation of a victim to compel the individual to do some act against his or her will by the use of psychological pressure, physical force, or threats.” But that is hardly relevant any more as it appears that our government seems to consider itself above the law. So what’s a little intimidation to accomplish its goals? But I digress from the issue at hand.

The goal, or endgame of this clause inserted into the Commerce Bill by House Democrats is to further limit a person’s right, and ability, to legally defend their home. By repealing stand your ground laws the government expects us all to rely solely upon law enforcement for our protection, to dial 911 and cower in the corner until police arrive, or make a mad dash for safety, hoping an intruder does not get off a lucky shot and kill us while we are fleeing.

You know, I could almost, [notice I said almost], agree with that idea if there were a policeman on every street corner, ready to respond at a moment’s notice. But unfortunately there isn’t, and in some instances police response times to burglaries take up to 30 minutes.

It is bad enough that in my home state if I use deadly force to defend my home I must be able to prove that I feared for my life, or that of my family. Am I, upon hearing a noise in my home at 2 a.m., poke my head out the bedroom door and ask, “Do you intend to simply rob me, or do you have plans to kill me” before deciding whether or not to pick up a firearm and discharge it? Sorry, and it’s not that I have no respect for human life, but if that scenario were to happen, that individual would have no right being in my house, and therefore would have forfeited all rights to live.

Have you ever heard the phrase a man’s home is his castle? While simply a phrase, the precept dates back to English common law. The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins states, “You are the boss in your own house and nobody can tell you what to do there. No one can enter your home without your permission. In 1644, English jurist Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) was quoted as saying: ‘For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium’ (‘One’s home is the safest refuge for all’).”

While some may see this as a Second Amendment right, it isn’t, it is much more. It boils down to the basic premise of property rights. Does your home belong to you, or does it belong to the government? If it is yours, then how can the government lay any restrictions upon YOU personally defending it?

Many of our laws have, as their origins, English Common Law, as it existed at the time our founders drafted the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. In the 18th century Sir William Blackstone wrote a treatise entitled Commentaries on the Laws of England, from which I quote, “The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defense . . .” The right of self-defense was, at the time our nation was founded, considered a fundamental, inalienable right or natural law. Our founders would have laughed in the face of anyone who told them they must first retreat to safety before defending what was rightfully theirs.

From his treatise The Law, Frederic Bastiat stated, “Each of us has a natural right—from God—to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two.”

Of all the laws my government passes which infringe upon my rights, the ones they pass which infringe upon my unalienable right to defend my family, my property, and myself, are the ones that bring my blood to a boil.

Have you ever heard the term serf? From Wikipedia I quote, “Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century.

Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work for the Lord of the Manor who owned that land, and in return were entitled to protection, justice and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence. Serfs were often required not only to work on the lord’s fields, but also his mines, forests and roads. The manor formed the basic unit of feudal society and the Lord of the Manor and his serfs were bound legally, economically, and socially. Serfs formed the lowest social class of feudal society.”

I don’t know about you, but I am not a serf, I am a freeman, with all the associated rights that go along with being a freeman. I don’t like it when my government thinks it can tell me what I can, or cannot do, with my land or my property. And I most certainly do not like it when they tell me I cannot defend what I have worked for all my life!

James Madison in writing about property, once said, “In the former sense, a man’s land, or merchandize, or money is called his property…He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person…In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.”

I don’t know if this bill is going to pass Congress and I don’t know if the states will crumble under the pressure and infringe upon our right to defend what is ours. In Thomas Jefferson’s Commonplace Book he quotes Cesare Beccaria, “False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”

Our government was instituted to safeguard our rights, and instead it is guilty of violating them every chance it gets. I, for one, am sick and damn tired of it. To close, I’d like to quote the opening comments from Bastiat’s ‘The Law‘, “The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!

If this is true, it is a serious face, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.” Having said my piece I have called your attention to another attempt by your government to pervert the law. Whether or not you choose to remain silent, or idle about it is entirely up to you. But in this instance, I WILL stand my ground!

May 9, 2012

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com.

If you wish to comment, please go to Neal’s blog so that others may partake of your wit and your wisdom as well… http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal

See, those folks live every day and every night with one eye trained on the sky. They KNOW that somewhere, way up THERE, someone is watching their every move. Plus, they know someone is going to die.

Hellfire missiles rain from their skies like lightening bolts cast by angry gods. They bring death and destruction instantaneously, with no warning, and no chance, whatsoever, to defend oneself.

Added together — civilians and terrorists — there have been literally thousands killed by the deadly bolts from the skies.

The thing is – those bolts emanate from no god. They are fired by a human finger somewhere thousands of miles — or even half a world — away. The finger presses a button, and a robot airplane — so high above earth it is virtually invisible — releases its payload and the missile streaks toward earth bearing it’s cargo of death.

The unseen dealer of death is a drone aircraft. There is no human being aboard. A human, or humans, control the stealthy aircraft from a control booth a very long way away. It is as likely to be the hand of a woman as that of a man dealing death on any given day.

It’s not personal. In fact, it is very impersonal. It’s a TV show. The “pilot” operator watches a small TV screen in real time while someone, way past his or her pay grade, decides who will die today.

It is most certainly killing by remote control. But is it murder by remote control? It is an interesting question for me because many of my generation find killing by drone very similar to killing by sniper in past wars. There’s something just, well, not quite “human” about it. Nevertheless, it is a fact of modern life on planet earth where war rages now and as far as the eye can see into the future.

The use of drones is NOT new. Drone aircraft were used as far back as the Second World War and with great frequency in the Vietnam War. However, the sophistication of the robot aircraft has grown exponentially since — and so has their use.

There has been something of an epiphany for Americans of late and they/we are beginning to ask why should we Americans be concerned that this new technology may be turned on us?

Look. Building a drone is not difficult. Difficulty comes with the degree of sophistication you demand of your drone. A remote controlled model airplane with a remote camera attached and tuned so that your PC or laptop can receive its signal will do the trick as a reconnaissance or surveillance drone. It is devilishly simple.

Unfortunately, we live in a world in which there are many people, organizations, and nations with nefarious agendas. They, too, can build and deploy drones … and they do.

Recently, one of the US’s most sophisticated drones fell into the hands of one of our most dangerous enemies — Iran. Reports tell us they have already shared the Intel they acquired from that drone with another of America’s enemies, China. Even more recent reports inform us that Iran intends to build a drone of its own using the knowledge they gleaned from ours through a process known as “reverse engineering.” The obvious question, therefore, is – how long before Iranian drones will hunt down US troops and civilians just as American drones hunt down terrorists worldwide today?

New military technology always, eventually, falls into the hands of the enemy.

I was an artilleryman in the US Army. There was an old maxim then that said: “If you find the enemy within range of your guns, remember, you, too, are within range of his.”

Then, there is the fact that the US government has cleared the way for local police departments to own and operate drones in America’s skies. Private companies will also be allowed to operate their own drones in US airspace, as well.

I would mention George Orwell’s “1984,” but – we are well past Orwell’s warnings. There is virtually no privacy any longer. We are tracked by cameras and by GPS apps in our cell phones. All our electronic communications are intercepted and read by our government — and Internet search engines know more about us than we know about ourselves. Just days ago we learned the US government has declared that all new motor vehicles in America must have “black boxes” on board to record your every move while operating the vehicle.

All of this makes the term “dropping off the grid” more and more attractive to me.

At least one generation has grown up, and become used to, having no privacy. Those of us who still attempt to hang on to whatever shred of personal privacy we can are frowned upon as some kind of old Neanderthal creep. And that’s putting it mildly.

All of this breeds an indifference to one’s fellow human beings. There is entirely too much familiarity with everyone else today. The “mystery” that lent spice to human relationships has dissipated. The value of another man’s life has all but vanished, as well.

We are assured that all the snooping, all the invasion of our privacy, is for our security. But each incremental invasion of our privacy takes another bit of our freedom. Being a little bit free is akin to being a little bit pregnant. Either one is free – or one is not free.

In ancient times the dwellers within walled cities quickly understood that though the enemy was locked out – THEY were locked in. For freedom, even at the cost of their security, many chose to live outside the city walls.

In the 21st century we still live within walled cities and even nations. The difference is that our walls are electronic and there is no effective way we can choose to relocate outside that wall.

Many of my generation will understand why we sometimes feel as if we are, indeed, residents of a prison planet.

Maybe the drones and electronic surveillance keep us more secure. But they have certainly taken our freedom.

Like the ancient Athenians, we have traded our freedom for security — and we will never be free again.

May 8, 2012

~ The Author ~
J. D. Longstreet is a conservative Southern American (A native sandlapper and an adopted Tar Heel) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in “America First”.

He is a thirty-year veteran of the broadcasting business, as an “in the field” and “on-air” news reporter (contributing to radio, TV, and newspapers) and a conservative broadcast commentator.

Longstreet is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserve. He is a member of the American Legion and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A lifelong Christian, Longstreet subscribes to “old Lutheranism” to express and exercise his faith.

Federal Observer contributing columnist, J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom.

True Christians MUST put on the Full Armor of God and fight this SPIRITUAL WAR with the SPIRITUAL WEAPONS we have – all that is lacking is for those who are already commissioned to fight – take up the battle and put an end to those who fight for Satan. We CAN do it – the question is how many are willing to do so. The FERVENT PRAYERS of a RIGHTEOUS MAN AVAILITH MUCH.

I find it odd how many ‘professing’ Christians will bend over (bow down) to Satan and his minions but will not get on their knees in prayer to God. Why is that? Could it be that the modern day churches refuse to preach the GOSPEL OF CHRIST so that their congregations have the KNOWLEDGE of the POWER they have? My People Perish for a lack of KNOWLEDGE. – Jackie Juntti

Two Liars

In an explosive Newsweek article set to rock official Washington, reporter Peter Boyer and Breitbart contributing editor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer reveal how Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice are operating under a “justice for sale” strategy by forgoing criminal prosecution of Wall Street executives at big financial institutions who just so happen to be clients of the white-shoe law firms where Holder and his top DOJ lieutenants worked.

There’s more.

Even as President Barack Obama and Holder co-opt the Occupy Wall Street rhetoric of getting “tough” on the Big Banks and Big Finance, the Newsweek investigative report reveals that Eric Holder has not criminally charged or prosecuted a single top executive from any of the elite financial institutions thought responsible for the financial crash. And why would they? As Boyer and Schweizer report, “through last fall, Obama had collected more donations from Wall Street than any of the Republican candidates; employees of Bain Capital donated more than twice as much to Obama as they did to Romney, who founded the firm.”

Collecting millions from Wall Street was hardly the plan Obama and Holder telegraphed upon entering office. In 2009, the new Attorney General said boldly:

We face unprecedented challenges in responding to the financial crisis that has gripped our economy for the past year. Mortgage, securities, and corporate fraud schemes have eroded the public’s confidence in the nation’s financial markets and have led to a growing sentiment that Wall Street does not play by the same rules as Main Street. Unscrupulous executives, Ponzi scheme operators, and common criminals alike have targeted the pocketbooks and retirement accounts of middle class Americans, and in many cases, devastated entire families’ futures. We will not allow these actions to go unpunished….This Task Force’s mission is not just to hold accountable those who helped bring about the last financial meltdown, but to prevent another meltdown from happening.

Obama unloaded on Wall Street too. In 2009, Obama created the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force and announced that its purpose was to hold “accountable those who helped bring about the last financial crisis as well as those who would attempt to take advantage of the efforts at economic recovery.”

But Holder and Obama’s anti-Wall Street “law and order” rhetoric has turned out to be a smokescreen that allows the Obama campaign to talk the talk of the 99% while taking money from Wall Street’s 1%. The result is extortion by proxy. As President Obama put it to the Big Finance executives who met with him at the White House just two months into his presidency, “My Administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

Not surprisingly, of the elite bundlers who made up Obama’s 2008 campaign, the second most represented industry after law was the securities and investment industry. It’s a level of hypocrisy that has outraged even committed leftists. Industrial Areas Foundation activist Mike Gecan put it squarely: “I’m from Chicago, I’ve seen this game played my whole life.”

So what have the securities and banking industries received for their political contributions?

Barabbas II

As Boyer and Schweizer report, Department of Justice criminal prosecutions are at 20-year lows for corporate securities and bank fraud. And while large financial institutions have faced civil prosecution, those typically end in settlement fees with the major banks that represent a fraction of their profits, often paid through special taxes on mortgage-backed securities.

It’s the most crass and cynical brand of politics imaginable, the Chicago Way writ large: pay to play justice from the nation’s highest law enforcement official.

Written by Wynton Hall and published on Brietbart May 7, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www. law. cornell. edu/uscode/17/107. shtml

House Democrats said Tuesday they will offer an amendment to push to overturn stand-your-ground self-defense laws in states like Florida.

The amendment, which would withhold some grants from states that have such laws, will come as part of the House’s debate on the Commerce Department spending bill.

“‘Shoot-first’ laws have already cost too many lives. In Florida alone, deaths due to self-defense have tripled since the law was enacted. Federal money shouldn’t be spent supporting states with laws that endanger their own people,” said Reps. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the two Democrats who are offering the legislation. “This is no different than withholding transportation funds from states that don’t enforce seat-belt laws.”

Florida’s law, which allows residents to use force in response to an attack without first having to retreat, has come under scrutiny after the nationally-polarizing death of teenager Trayvon Martin. George Zimmermann, a neighborhood watch volunteer, has been charged with murder in the case.

Published on the Washington Times May 8, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www. law. cornell. edu/uscode/17/107. shtml

Economic Growth:

North Dakota has become a land of prosperity since 2000, when its per-capita income was $25,592, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Last year it hit $45,747.

In energy-rich North Dakota, per-capita income growth of 78.7% is more than twice the national average of 37.4% over the last dozen years, and its per-capita income rank has risen from 38th in the nation to ninth.

North Dakota has the highest per-capita income in the BEA’s Plains region and exceeds the national average by more than $4,000.

While the nation staggers through a sluggish, jobless recovery, North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.3%. The jobless rate in Williston, the core of the state’s oil patch, which is fed by the Bakken Formation, is impossibly low at less than 1%.

The boom is happening across all of the state’s industries, but it’s the oil and gas sectors that are primarily stoking the fortunes. North Dakota is now the fourth-leading oil producer in the country, having passed Louisiana, and is on track to soon pass California for third.

North Dakota, which lies north of the flyover country that elitists look down on, is not a Barack Obama state.

The president, his Cabinet and his party in general are hostile to the fossil fuels driving the Dakota Spring, and they can’t like what an awestruck country is watching take place there.

But what if the Democrats weren’t militantly against fossil fuels? What if they decided to unleash oil, gas and coal development across the country? What if they opened the roadblocks and took down the hurdles they’ve erected over the last 40 years?

Releasing just one project alone, the Keystone XL pipeline expansion, would directly create 20,000 new jobs, according to one estimate, and indirectly create another 100,000 jobs.

We’re not trying to make the case that a drilling and fracking free-for-all would plunge the country’s jobless rate to Williston levels. It wouldn’t.

We’re merely pointing out that an energy boom has lifted one state and calling attention to the potential for wider prosperity if stringent national rules were relaxed in a country bursting with fossil fuels.

SOURCE: Investor’s Business Daily, May 7, 2012.

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