Your Vote And Why It Doesn’t Matter

Posted on February 12, 2016 by AE44

Well the voting season is upon us. Of course right now it is only the primaries, but after hearing radio commentary and being a witness to the countless illogical and naive social media posts, along with countless articles by the lamestream media, I have decided I would do my own commentary. I do not have all day and night to be on Facebook or Twitter, and frankly I cannot understand how people have THAT much time on their hands. With that being said, I don’t even know where to start since there’s so much to all of this but I’m going to share my account with you in the shortest way possible. Continue reading →

10 Things The US Government Doesn’t Want You To Know

Posted on October 28, 2015 by AE44

When it comes to governance, especially in the case of a democratic government, the voters get to choose trusted leaders to deal with all the affairs involved in running the country. This means that the population entrusts the country to a few people, who are supposed to be accountable to them, responsible in all their actions, innovative in problem solving and selfless when it comes to executing their duties in office. During the campaign period, the leaders in question always promise the voters heaven on earth, only for them to get to office and fall short on all their promises. This is the situation in all parts of the world, and it begs the question “what changes in an individual when he or she ascends to power?”
Continue reading →

Virginia Shooting Hoax: Crisis Actors “Mission In Life” Is Gun Control

Posted on August 28, 2015 by AE44

YouTube reporter Redsilverj exposes the same ole’ crisis actor script in latest Virginia shooting. Alleged family members appear on TV the same day their loved one is brutally murdered. They show very little emotion except fake anger to promote gun control legislation.

Continue reading →

What Has Congress Done This Year?

Posted on August 15, 2013 by AE44

Congress What Has Congress Done This Year?

August marks the month that Congress has their annual five-weeklong recess. So what has Congress done to better the state of the country over the past seven months? Well, to put it simply, not that much. Continue reading →

Eric Holder: “widespread incarceration…is both ineffective and unsustainable”

Posted on August 12, 2013 by AE44

In news that is no less stunning for beingtelegraphed, the attorney general of the United States today is declaring America’s drug war-led over-incarceration a moral failure, and announcing new federal rules to deliberately evade mandatory minimum laws for drug offenses. Here’s The New York Times:

In a major shift in criminal justice policy, the Obama administration will move on Monday to ease overcrowding in federal prisons by ordering prosecutors to omit listing quantities of illegal substances in indictments for low-level drug cases, sidestepping federal laws that impose strict mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related offenses. Continue reading →

Criminal Enterprise Operations of the Police

Posted on July 18, 2013 by AE44

After moving to the border state of Arizona, I learned quickly that it isn’t prudent to drive a car into Mexico because the Federal Police like to pull over “American-looking” tourists and shake them down for cash (yes, Virginia, the Mexican national police force does profile).

The practice of Mexican police harassing traveling Americans for their cash is so prevalent, most insurance companies require a special rider on one’s insurance policy before covering a car trip into Mexico. Continue reading →

Maine Enacts Pioneering Law Prohibiting Warrantless Cellphone Tracking

Posted on July 11, 2013 by AE44

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On Tuesday, Maine became the second state in recent weeks to enact a law that will force authorities to get a judge to authorize a warrant before obtaining either historic or real-time location data about a person’s movements. Maine’s legislature voted to pass the tracking law after it sailed through both houses in the state in May. According to the ACLU of Maine, the legislature took the decisive step of overriding veto by Gov. Paul LePage, who had declined to sign off on the bill.* Continue reading →

ACLU Files Lawsuit Challenging Constitutionality of NSA Phone Spying Program

Posted on June 11, 2013 by AE44

The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union today filed a constitutional challenge to a surveillance program under which the National Security Agency vacuums up information about every phone call placed within, from, or to the United States. The lawsuit argues that the program violates the First Amendment rights of free speech and association as well as the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment. The complaint also charges that the dragnet program exceeds the authority that Congress provided through the Patriot Act.
“This dragnet program is surely one of the largest surveillance efforts ever launched by a democratic government against its own citizens,” said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director. “It is the equivalent of requiring every American to file a daily report with the government of every location they visited, every person they talked to on the phone, the time of each call, and the length of every conversation. The program goes far beyond even the permissive limits set by the Patriot Act and represents a gross infringement of the freedom of association and the right to privacy.”

The ACLU is a customer of Verizon Business Network Services, which was the recipient of a secret FISA Court order published by The Guardian last week. The order required the company to “turn over on ‘an ongoing daily basis’ phone call details” such as who calls are placed to and from, and when those calls are made. The lawsuit argues that the government’s blanket seizure of and ability to search the ACLU’s phone records compromises sensitive information about its work, undermining the organization’s ability to engage in legitimate communications with clients, journalists, advocacy partners, and others.

“The crux of the government’s justification for the program is the chilling logic that it can collect everyone’s data now and ask questions later,” said Alex Abdo, a staff attorney for the ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Constitution does not permit the suspicionless surveillance of every person in the country.”

The ACLU’s 2008 lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act, which authorized the so-called “warrantless wiretapping program,” was dismissed 5–4 by the Supreme Court in February on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not prove that they had been monitored. ACLU attorneys working on today’s complaint said they do not expect the issue of standing to be a problem in this case because of the FISA Court order revealed last week.

Yesterday, the ACLU and Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic filed a motion with the FISA Court, requesting that it to publish its opinions on the meaning, scope, and constitutionality of Patriot Act Section 215. The ACLU is also currently litigating a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, filed in October 2011, demanding that the Justice Department release information about the government’s use and interpretation of Section 215.

“There needs to be a bright line on where intelligence gathering stops,” said NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman. “If we don’t say this is too far, when is too far?”

Attorneys on the case are Jaffer and Abdo along with Brett Max Kaufman and Patrick Toomey of the ACLU, and Arthur N. Eisenberg and Christopher T. Dunn of the NYCLU.

An interactive graphic examining the secret FISA Court order revealed last week is available here.

Today’s complaint is at: aclu.org/national-security/aclu-v-clapper-complaint

CONTACT: 212-549-2666, [email protected]

http://www.activistpost.com/2013/06/aclu-files-lawsuit-challenging.html

Gun control advocates now admit: IRS intimidation scandal proves Second Amendment needed to stop government tyranny

Posted on May 19, 2013 by AE44

In the face of the outrageous IRS intimidation scandal now sweeping across America, gun control advocates are changing their tune. All of a sudden, the idea that the federal government could engage in tyranny against the People of America is no longer a “conspiracy theory.” It’s historical fact right in your face thanks to all the recent scandals now bursting onto the scene: IRS intimidation, secret targeting of non-profit groups for possible “thought crimes,” the Department of Justice seizing AP phone records and so on.

Just which liberals are changing their minds on all this? Piers Morgan, for starters. The man who once called Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America a “very stupid man” on live national television is suddenly reversing course. Here’s what Morgan now says in the wake of the IRS intimidation scandal:

“I’ve had some of the pro-gun lobbyists on here saying to me, well the reason we need to be armed is because of tyranny from our own government, and I’ve always laughed at them. I’ve always said don’t be so ridiculous. Your government won’t turn itself on you. But actually when you look at this [IRS scandal]… actually this is vaguely tyrannical behavior by the American government. I think what the IRS did is bordering on tyrannical behavior, I think what the Department of Justice has done to the Associated Press is bordering on tyrannical behavior.”

Here’s the video: (until YouTube bans it)

InfoWars.com, by the way, is now publicly challenging Piers Morgan to admit the U.S. government has become “fully tyrannical,” not just “bordering on tyrannical.” It begs the question: If using the IRS as a political weapon to intimidate people over thought crimes, books, Facebook posts and prayers isn’t full-on tyranny, what exactly will it take for Morgan to admit a full tyranny is now upon us? The government knocking on his door?

Joe Scarborough also admits gun owners were right all along

Going even further than Piers Morgan, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough also admits gun owners were right all along, saying:

“I have been saying for months now… that I believe in background checks. After Newton, after Chicago, we need background checks. And my argument has been, don’t worry,background checks aren’t going to lead to a national registry. The government’s never going to create a national registry, right? … I don’t have to even complete my sentence, do I? My argument is less persuasive today because of these scandals. Because people say hey, if they do that with the IRS, asking people what books you read, then how can I trust them with information about my Second Amendment rights? This is DEVASTATING! This IRS scandal is devastating all across the board…”

Well yeah, Joe. This is what we’ve been warning you about all along, you see?

See the video here:

The core philosophy of liberals has just been shattered… government is not trustworthy and compassionate

To be a progressive / liberal person, you have to hold to the belief (i.e. have “faith”) that governments can never go rogue. Governments can never become tyrannies. Governments are always and forever trustworthy and compassionate.

Every progressive government policy logically follows from those core beliefs: government should regulate what people eat, control how businesses run themselves, monopolize national health care, grant amnesty to undocumented illegal immigrants, take all the guns away from the citizens and concentrate power into its own hands. This is all justified because you can trust the government, right? … RIGHT?

Enter exhibit A: The IRS intimidation scandal. The targeting of political enemies. Thought crimes. The IRS demands to know all your Facebook posts, the titles of the books you’ve recently read and even the contents of your PRAYER! The IRS then uses this information to selectively delay only the applications of non-profits that teach the Constitution, or patriotism, or are opposed to Obama. Can you say criminal corruption and total abuse of power? This is anti-American and traitorous!

Enter exhibit B: The Department of Justice, run by the nation’s top criminal Eric Holder,runs a vicious surveillance and secret police campaign against none other than theAssociated Press. When the outrageous behavior of the DoJ comes to light, Eric Holder claims, “I know nothing! Nothing!” (Same story for Obama… they knew nothing!)

Exhibit C: The Benghazi narrative pushed by the White House is now obviously a total lie, and this lie strongly influenced the presidential debates and 2012 election. The Benghazi attack was actually a terrorist attack — and the White House knew it! But they covered it up, lied to the public, and even stood down U.S. forces to make sure the ambassador was killed so that he couldn’t spill the beans on the U.S. weapons transfers being made to terror groups in Syria.

What do exhibits A, B and C prove? That you can’t trust the government!

The illusion of trustworthy government has been destroyed

Now the illusion of trustworthy government has been completely shattered. If the IRS would selectively intimidate and threaten Constitutional groups it didn’t like, what else is the government capable of?

All of a sudden those of us who warned everybody about gun confiscation, FEMA camps and false flags don’t seem so outlandish anymore. Now almost everyone realizes the government is capable of ANYTHING. Especially the Obama administration, which respects no laws and no limits to its power. (Drone strikes, secret kill lists, the continuedrunning of secret military prisons, bypassing Congress with executive orders, and so on.)

Now the Second Amendment makes total sense. Why do we even have a Second Amendment? The honest, blatant answer is so that as a last-ditch firewall against a tyrannical takeover, the American people can march on Washington with rifles in hand and shoot all the criminals dead. That is the essence of the Second Amendment — a last-ditch failsafe for liberty. The only real way to keep government in line, after all, is to make sure those who hold office know that if they become outright traitors to America and refuse to abide by the limits of government described in the Constitution, they might be shot dead by citizens who take their country back by force. (I’m not calling for such an action, by the way. I’m only explaining the historical context of the Second Amendment and what it really means.)

When citizens are well armed and have the power to do such a thing, that power should never actually be needed because the government fears the people and thus stays within the limits of power. But when the people are disarmed, the government fears nothing and so expands out of control, functioning as a rogue, tyrannical cabal of mobsters and criminals. Read your history books if you don’t believe me. This is the repeated story of government’s rise and fall throughout history.

Ultimately, this is why the Obama administration wants to take your guns away: Not to make the children safer but to make the citizens defenseless against government tyranny. And yes, that tyranny exists right now. The debate is over. The gun grabbers lost and the Second Amendment won.

Now, the Obama administration is permanently discredited, and the strength of the Second Amendment movement is stronger than ever. Just as it should be.

So I want to thank Piers Morgan, Joe Scarborough and all the other gun control advocates who are now rethinking the logic of their positions and concluding the government can’t be trusted after all. And if the government can’t be trusted, then it only follows that the citizens are the final defense against government tyranny. Furthermore, that role of citizen defense is only viable if the citizens are well-armed with rifles and hi-capacity magazines.

The more the government knows there are millions of law-abiding citizens who are armed and trained in rifle skills, the less that government is likely to overstep its limited powers and try to concentrate power in its own hands.

http://www.naturalnews.com/040398_gun_control_trust_in_government_tyranny.html#ixzz2TjwqKO00

Porn Stars Are Enraged That They’re Being Denied Loans And Bank Accounts

Posted on May 18, 2013 by AE44

Chanel Preston

Chanel Preston knows not everyone approves of her chosen profession.

That’s one of the risks that go with being one of the biggest stars in porn.

But she never thought it would affect her ability to open a bank account.

Preston recently opened a business account with City National Bank in Los Angeles.

When she went to deposit checks into the account days later, however, she was told it had been shut down, due to “compliance issues”.

She found the manager she had originally worked with and asked what had happened. The bank, she was told, was worried about the Webcam shows she had on her site and had revoked the account.

(City National declined to comment on Preston’s accusations and on whether it had any policy regarding accounts tied to the porn industry.)

Preston is hardly the only porn star who has had trouble with the banking industry. Several performers and porn insiders (who were afraid to go on the record due to possible repercussions from their banks) said they have been denied accounts from a variety of financial institutions.

“The people within my [local] bank have urged me to downplay the nature of my business because corporate frowns on it,” said one long-time industry veteran.

The issue seems to be reaching a boiling point, though. Earlier this week, Marc Greenberg, founder of the soft porn studio MRG Entertainment, filed suit against JPMorgan Chase in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging the bank violated fair lending laws and its own policy for refusing to underwrite a loan for “moral reasons”.

Greenberg says he was approached by a representative of the bank about refinancing an existing loan. But once he started the process, he says he saw repeated delays for four months. That’s when he said he reached out to a JPMorgan vice president for an explanation.

The vice president “was evasive in his response to plaintiff’s application status requests and finally informed plaintiff during a telephone conversation that plaintiff’s loan application was refused due to ‘moral reasons,’ because of JPMorgan’s disapproval of plaintiff’s former source of income and occupation as an owner of a television production company that produced television programs that dealt with the subject of human sexuality,” the complaint reads.

(MRG was sold to New Frontier Media in 2006 for $22 million.)

Greenberg’s attorneys claim they were told by the vice president that the application was denied because of the potential “reputational risk” to the firm.

The rejection, noted the suit, was confounding since Chase had long held the original deed of trust on the home, without any comment on Greenberg’s career.

“JPMorgan purports to be so ashamed of nudity and human sexuality that it cannot process a refinance of a home loan of plaintiff, secured by plaintiff’s house, because plaintiff’s source of income six years ago included production of television programs that contained nudity and human sexuality,” the suit reads.

JPMorgan Chase declined to comment on the accusations due to the pending litigation.

Preston noted she, too, has been denied a loan because of her profession—though at a different bank.

“[The loan officer] asked me ‘are you affiliated with the adult entertainment industry?’ When I said yes, she said ‘We will not give you a loan.’,” she said.

Whether the decision to deny Preston’s business account or Greenberg’s refinance application is discriminatory lending is a matter of debate—and, in Greenberg’s case, something the courts will have to decide.

David Barr, a spokesperson for the FDIC, however, said institutions are permitted to make their own calls on who they work with to a certain degree.

“The decision to open or maintain an account is up to the individual institution,” he said. “The rules are not prescriptive, which means that the bank must make its own assessment to determine the risks associated with an account and whether that account should be terminated or not opened in the first place.”

And it is not uncommon for many businesses to take a moral stand about who they do business with. Indeed, some investment firms make it a point to avoid getting involved with tobacco producers or gun manufacturers because of the social issues tied to those industries.

Porn stars and adult entertainment industry insiders do note that the troubles they’ve experienced are tied to business—not personal—accounts. That may be because personal accounts are opened under their real names, which typically don’t raise an eyebrow, while business is done under more well-known pseudonyms, which is when people take notice.

“It’s kind of obvious about what I do when a young girl goes into a Valley bank with a different female name than the one on [their] driver’s license,” said Preston.

But such friction between people involved in the adult entertainment industry and banking institutions are likely to become more common. With the advent of the Internet, the $14 billion adult entertainment industry is undergoing a transformation.

Film and video distribution is giving way to Internet sites and Web cams. As a result, barriers to entry in the industry are being lowered and more of the industry is being based out of homes and being run through small business arrangements and partnerships, necessitating banking services.

Rasmussen Poll Reports Majority of U.S. Support Nullification

Posted on May 13, 2013 by AE44

In what must be bad news to Attorney General Eric Holder (and his boss in the Oval Office), results of a new Rasmussen poll indicate that 49 percent of respondents believe that the regulation of gun ownership is a state or local issue.

On May 3-4, 2013, Rasmussen Reports polled the opinions of 1,000 likely voters. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points.

What is even less favorable to the administration’s program to exalt the federal government above the states is the poll’s finding that 44 percent of those who participated in the survey believe states retain the right to nullify any act of the federal government they deem constitutionally invalid.

Simply stated, nullification is the exercise by a state or states of the right to hold as null, void, and of no legal effect any act of the federal government that exceeds the boundaries of the powers given to it by the states in the Constitution.

The issue, while not new, has regained prominence recently as the federal government has enacted ObamaCare and various gun control restrictions. Opponents of these efforts point to the fact that the authority to do neither of these things is granted to the federal government in the Constitution. Therefore, states are flexing their sovereign muscles, nullifying these and other attempts by the federal government to constrict the scope of liberty.

Of more particular interest to those in the liberty movement (especially elected officials looking to communicate with likely supporters) is the Rasmussen report that of “mainstream voters” who participated in the survey, 52 percent say that state governments have the right to refuse to enforce any federal act with which they disagree “on legal grounds.”

Read that again: A majority of Americans who vote believe that the federal government does not have the exclusive or the ultimate right to impose its rule on states that regard its acts as unconstitutional or illegal.

And it must be pointed out that nullification is not the right of states to nullify any federal act. Rather, it is the right of states to choose to not enforce any federal act that fails to conform to the constitutionally established limits on the authority of the federal government.

Nullification presupposes that there are myriad (albeit limited) areas over which the Constitution has given purview to the federal government: defense, naturalization, foreign relations, interstate commerce, etc.

When Washington decides to go walkabout, however, and start legislating (or issuing edicts, in the case of President Obama) in areas not within its constitutional boundaries (healthcare, education, gun ownership), the states reserve the right to check that usurpation by refusing to afford such acts the power of law. Conversely, it would be a usurpation on the part of the states should they attempt to disregard federal laws that are constitutionally sound.

Americans, it seems, are getting the message that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison sent out over 200 years ago in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.

As Madison wrote in the Virginia Resolution of 1798,

In case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.

And:

that a spirit has in sundry instances, been manifested by the federal government, to enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the constitutional charter which defines them; and that implications have appeared of a design to expound certain general phrases… so as to destroy the meaning and effect, of the particular enumeration which necessarily explains and limits the general phrases; and so as to consolidate the states by degrees, into one sovereignty, the obvious tendency and inevitable consequence of which would be, to transform the present republican system of the United States, into an absolute, or at best a mixed monarchy.

If they are an accurate measure of public opinion, then, these Rasmussen poll numbers are surely music to the ears of the scores of state lawmakers who have boldly put themselves on record as opposing federal overreach by voting in favor of numerous nullification bills currently wending their way through the legislative process in state capitals nationwide.

Lately, federal wrath has been turned on Topeka as the state legislature passed and the governor signed a law prohibiting the enforcement of federal gun control regulations on guns manufactured and maintained within the state of Kansas.

As The New American has reported, Attorney General Eric Holder recently “reminded” Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas that his state’s attempt to nullify federal gun control statutes was “unconstitutional” and that the Obama administration would “take all appropriate actions” to make sure Kansas toed the federal line.

To his credit, Brownback wrote back to Holder, informing him that he would not bow to federal pressure and would continue to support his state’s constitutional prerogative to nullify unconstitutional federal acts.

In fairness, regardless of the swelling support for nullification in the homes of “mainstream voters,” there remains in academia an almost apoplectic revulsion to the concept.

Earlier this year, several articles and op-ed pieces were published on blogs and in newspapers where the authors labeled nullification as “nuts” and a “bizarre fad.”

To the contrary, the Rasmussen poll results suggest that it is the notion of an all-powerful, always-supreme federal government that is being pushed further and further into the hinterlands of the political landscape.

Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American and travels frequently nationwide speaking on topics of nullification, the NDAA, and the surveillance state. He can be reached at [email protected]

http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/item/15333-rasmussen-poll-reports-majority-of-u-s-support-nullification

NJ Senators Caught Scheming To Confiscate, Confiscate, Confiscate Guns

Posted on May 12, 2013 by AE44

Several NJ Senators were unknowingly recorded on a hot microphone mocking gun owners and scheming for “a bill to… confiscate, confiscate, confiscate”

It seems that our State Senators in New Jersey look at the Second Amendment as a joke, and mock gun owners who took the time to testify at their committee meeting. Remember New Jersey may have the second most strict gun laws now!
The following link is to a You Tube video:

Video Description:

Audio captured and brought to attention by NJ2AS members

Loretta Weinberg (D-37), Sandra Cunningham (D-31), and Linda Greenstein (D-14), Nellie Pou (D-35)

What’s that you say?! They aren’t coming for our guns you say?!

This is INCREDIBLE!

We’ve narrowed down to who we believe was speaking in this video.

From waypasthadenough

The Second Amendment, as the rest of the Bill of Rights, is an acknowledgement of our natural-born rights, not a granting. The entire Bill of Rights is about keeping the governments in their place. The Second Amendment is about the common person’s right to own weapons of war so that we can keep the governments in their place by keeping the ‘monopoly on force’ in the hands of the people where it belongs, as in ‘We the people.’ Remember that? It will not be infringed any further and the ‘gun laws’ in existence will be repealed. End of discussion.

Guns don’t kill, governments do. Gun free zones are the problem, they allow armed criminals to kill. Arm the teachers, the administrators and the parents. Don’t allow the “Liberal”(commie) trash who control the so-called educational system to teach mindless pacifism that is ensconced in their arrogance of false civility.

If we have violent criminals in prison who have been convicted of a crime and can’t be trusted with weapons why is the govt. turning them back out on the street? So they can point at them and say “See, the sheeple can’t be trusted with guns.” The ‘crime’ argument is a red herring.

Time to repeal all of the ‘gun laws’ including GCA ’68 and the NFA; Shut down the evil BATF Nazis and try them for treason, and murder where appropriate and distribute their retirement funds among their victims; Then enforce the Bill of Rights on places such as Commiefornia and New Yawk and Chigawgo and if necessary bring the troops home and have them restore Liberty here and remove Amerika’s natural born traitors in the process.

Millions will dig the ditch they are told to dig then wet their pants when the machine gun bolts slam home and die stupidly wondering “How did this happen to me?” The tiny minority will have to do what will be required.
It’s time to stop arguing over the culture war. It’s time to stop hunkering down for the apocalypse. It’s time to stop waiting to get beamed up. It’s time to start thinking Normandy.
If you sit home waiting your turn you deserve to have your gun taken from your cold dead hands.
The Founders didn’t wait for the Brits to knock down their doors. They gathered at the green and stood up like men and they killed government employees all the way back to Boston.
What will you do when it’s time to hunt NWO hacks, republicrats and commies(“Liberals” and ‘progressives’)?
Don’t understand? Go to willowtowndotcom and read the quotes page first. Then read my column “Prepping for Slavery.”

Dallas Store Manager Fends Off Armed Robbers with .38 Revolver, Wounding One; Police Arrive 74 Minutes Later

Posted on May 12, 2013 by AE44

Dallas News | myFOXdfw.com

Freedom’s Lighthouse

Here is a video report on a Dallas store manager using his handgun to fend off an attempted robbery by five armed robbers. There’s also audio of the 911 call from the Dallas store manager asking for police help because of the robbery. Reports indicate he asked for police to come because the armed men had tried to rob his store. The storemanager shot at the men with a .38 Caliber revolver, sending the robbers scurrying away, and wounding one of them twice. But his call was misclassified because the operator did not understand he was saying in his frantic call that he had shot one of therobbers, and it took police an hour to arrive. In fact, it was so long, the manager went home and was called back by police when the did arrive.

It takes a “good guy with a gun” to ward off five armed robbers.

http://freedomslighthouse.net/2013/05/11/dallas-store-owner-fends-off-armed-robbers-with-38-revolver-wounding-one-police-arrive-74-minutes-later-video-5713/

Lauryn Hill Jailed Over Taxes, References Slavery in Court Statement

Posted on May 8, 2013 by AE44

Lauryn Hill was kidnapped by agents of the state and placed in a cage for failing to hand over a significant amount of her income to the government.

Intellihub.com
May 7, 2013

Musician Lauryn hill has been sent to jail for failing to pay her taxes on time, and was very vocal about the injustice of her situation in the court room, rightfully identifying her situation as an example of modern slavery.

USA Today Reported that:

Grammy award-winning singer Lauryn Hill was sentenced Monday to three months in federal prison for failing to pay taxes on more than $2 million in earnings during a five-year period. U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo in Newark, N.J. federal court also sentenced the famed rapper and actress to three months of home confinement with electronic monitoring after the prison term. Hill must also serve a year of supervised release and pay a $60,000 fine in addition to paying her tax debt to the IRS.

Very articulately she told the judge:

“I am a child of former slaves who had a system imposed on them. I had an economic system imposed on me.”

“Someone did the math, and it came to around $600 million,” she said. “And I sit here before you trying to figure out how to pay a tax debt? If that’s not like enough to slavery, I don’t know.”

“This wasn’t a life of jet-setting glamour,” she said. “This was a life of sacrifice with very little time for myself and my children.”

“I didn’t make music for celebrity status,” she told the court. “I made music for artistic and existential catharsis, which was not just necessary for myself but it was also necessary for the generations of oppressed people who hadn’t had their voices expressed like I was able to do it. Music is not something I do from 9 to 5. It’s a state of being, and like a doctor who delivers babies, I’m on call all the time because that’s the kind of work this is.”

Hill revealed in a message posted to her Tumblr account last month that she’s been working on new music.

“It has been reported that I signed a new record deal, and that I did this to pay taxes. Yes, I have recently entered into an agreement with Sony Worldwide Entertainment, to launch a new label, on which my new music will be released,” Hill wrote. “And yes, I am working on new music. I have been working towards this for a long time, not just because of my current legal situation, but because I am an artist, I love to create, and I need the proper platform to do so.”

Some people would point out that Lauryn Hill had plenty of money, and that she could have easily handed over her extortion fee and still be able to eat. However, if a wealthy woman was walking down the street and was attacked by a mugger, would people still carry that same perception? Would everyone condemn this person for attempting to stand up against her mugger or hide some money in her sock? Because Lauryn Hill, and every other person who is forced to fill out a tax form, is by principle a victim of theft.

Thanks to a lifetime of propaganda, people will argue relentlessly that taxation is not an act of violence, they will deny that it perpetuates a complicated form of slavery, and many times get deeply offended when you point out the fact that it is theft.

Yet, peaceful people are taken against their will and thrown in cages every day for not paying taxes. If this action was not carried by the state, everyone would recognize it as a violent kidnapping. Whats worse is the fact that if any of these people made any attempts to defend themselves on their own property as they would against any other intruder, they would have been killed and treated as if they were the aggressor.

Just months ago we reported that Wesley Snipes was finally released after spending over 3 years in jail for the same reason.

Michigan House Unanimously Passes NDAA Nullification Bill

Posted on April 25, 2013 by AE44

On Thursday, April 18, the Michigan House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill prohibiting state agents and law enforcement from participating with the federal government in the indefinite detention of its citizens.

By a vote of 109-0, state representatives joined their colleagues in the state senate in protecting citizens of the Wolverine State from being apprehended and detained in federal prisons without trial. The state senate unanimously approved an identical measure in March.

Representative Tom McMillin (R-Rochester Hills), the primary sponsor of HB 4138, spoke out in favor of his bill. “We’re standing up for the rights of people in Michigan,” McMillin said. “Due process should be a no-brainer.”

It should be, but it isn’t. Not anymore.

The Michigan bill is a direct nullification of provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that purport to authorize the president to deploy the U.S. military to apprehend and detain American citizens inside the United States suspected by the president of aiding enemies of the homeland.

Sections 1021 and 1022 of the 2012 NDAA purport to grant to the president the power to deploy the U.S. armed forces to apprehend and detain any person he suspects of aiding al-Qaeda or “associated forces.” Anyone imprisoned under these provisions will be denied their rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, including the right to due process and the right to assistance of counsel.

With regard to the latter, in 2011, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) infamously told anyone who may be detained indefinitely, “Shut up! You don’t get a lawyer!”

If states are to perform their obligation to stand as bulwarks of liberty, lawmakers must stand and refuse to allow Senator Graham, President Obama, or any other agent of the federal government to deprive citizens of those rights given to them by God and protected by the Constitution.

The most potent weapon in the state arsenal against federal tyranny is nullification. Nullification occurs when a state holds as null, void, and of no legal effect any act of the federal government that exceeds the boundaries of its power as drawn in the Constitution.

States retain the right to act as arbiters of the constitutionality of federal acts because they formed the union, and as creators of the compact, they hold ultimate authority as to the limits of the power of the central government to enact laws that are applicable to the states and the citizens thereof.

As Congress continues to surrender to the president all legislative, executive, and judicial power, the need for nullification is urgent, and liberty-minded citizens are encouraged to see state legislators boldly asserting their right to restrain the federal government through application of that very powerful and very constitutional principle.

Michigan becomes just the second state — Virginia was first — to pass an act nullifying the unconstitutional provisions of the NDAA. There are several states and local governments considering similar measures.

Local and state lawmakers opposing the tyranny of the NDAA and indefinite detention stand on very sound constitutional ground in their battle against federal overreaching. Any unconstitutional act of the federal government is prima facie void and must not be given the respect or force of law. In fact, such measures are not law at all.

As Alexander Hamilton explained in The Federalist, No. 33:

If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted [sic] to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies and the individuals of whom they are composed…. But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the larger society which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such. [Emphasis in original.]

The pair of bills in Michigan specifically forbid state and local law enforcement, including the state national guard, from aiding “an agency of the armed forces of the United States in any investigation, prosecution, or detention of any person pursuant to section 1021 of the national defense authorization act….”

For his part, in a signing statement attached to the NDAA, President Obama assured Americans that he would never use this power to deny them of their due process rights.

Representative McMillin doesn’t buy it. Speaking to MLive, he said, “I think more and more people are realizing that indefinite detention without due process is something we’ve got to push back on. It’s not every day that we do something to push back on what the federal government does, but this is a good example of an area where we should.”

It is the obligation of all state legislatures to oppose any and all federal acts that exceed the narrow scope of the powers granted to the federal government by the states in the Constitution.

Executive Action: Obama To Ban Importation of Ammo, Magazines and Gun Accessories Without Congressional Approval

Posted on April 23, 2013 by AE44

Over the course of the last month, while Americans were distracted with the threat of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula and the devastation wrought by the Boston bombings, President Obama was quietly working behind the scenes to craft laws and regulations that will further erode the Second Amendment.

Congress, and thus We the People, may have unequivocally rejected federal legislation in March which aimed to outlaw most semi-automatic rifles, restrict magazine capacity, and force national registration, but that didn’t stop the President from ceding regulatory control over firearms importation to the United Nations just two weeks later. What the UN Arms Trade Treaty, passed without media fanfare by 154 counties, would do is to restrict the global trade of, among other things, small arms and light weapons. Opponents of the treaty argue that loopholes within the new international framework for global gun control may make it illegal for Americans to purchase and import firearms manufactured outside of the United States.

To further his gun-grabbing agenda, however, President Obama and his administration didn’t stop there.

Now they’re taking another significant step against Americans’ right to bear arms – and they’re doing it through Presidential Executive Action, a strategy that, once again, bypasses Congressional oversight and the legislative process.

…it appears that the BHO Administration is taking executive action on firearms importation. Take a few minutes to read this: After Senate setback, Obama quietly moving forward with gun regulation. Here is the key portion of the article:

“The Importation of Defense Articles and Defense Services — U.S. Munitions Import List references executive orders, amends ATF regulations and clarifies Attorney General authority “to designate defense articles and defense services as part of the statutory USML for purposes of permanent import controls,” among other clauses specified in heavy legalese requiring commensurate analysis to identify just what the administration’s intentions are. Among the speculations of what this could enable are concerns that importing and International Traffic in Arms Regulations [ITAR] may go forward to reflect key elements within the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.”[Emphasis added.]

Depending on how it is implemented, the implications of this change could be huge. With the stroke a of a pen and without the consent of Congress, ATF bureaucrats could make ANY gun part or accessory (including magazines) or ammunition that were originally manufactured or perhaps even those designed for military use no longer legal for importation for civilian use. That might mean no more milsurp parts sets. No more milsurp magazines. No more milsurp ammo. No more milsurp optics. Perhaps not even spare firing pins. This could be ugly.

I strongly recommend that you stock up on magazines, ammunition and spare parts for any of your imported military pattern guns, as soon as possible! Once an import ban is implemented, prices will skyrocket.

Source: James Rawles’ Survival Blog via The Prepper Website

Just five days ago the President vowed to push forward on gun control without Congress and Nancy Pelosi argued that no matter what Congress says, gun control is inevitable.

This latest round of Executive Actions is what they meant.

A direct on attack on the second amendment is difficult if not impossible, so they are trying to slither their way in through the backdoor by restricting international trade so we can’t import new firearms, by restricting access to accessories and gun parts, by heavily taxing ammunition and gun purchases, by mandating policies like forcing gun owners to have liability insurance, and of course, by identifying potentially dangerous gun owners and simply taking their firearms because of public safety concerns.

The President recently suggested that the American people have spoken, and that they want guns to be restricted, banned and heavily regulated.

If that’s so, then how is that a bipartisan Congress overwhelmingly rejected the President’s bid to restrict and outlaw private ownership of millions of weapons and gun accessories?

Going through the United Nations and now implementing Executive Actions to bypass America’s Constitutionally mandated system of checks and balances is an act of desperation.

Those who would take our rights have been left with no choice but to try and force their agenda upon us through dictatorial means.

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/executive-action-obama-to-ban-importation-of-ammo-magazines-and-gun-accessories-without-congressional-approval_04232013

New Law Protects 2nd Amendment from Feds

Posted on April 23, 2013 by AE44

WND – by Garth Kant

It was called the strongest pro-gun bill in the country, and now it’s the law in Kansas.

The law is designed to counter the push by liberal federal lawmakers for increased restrictions on gun rights. It nullifies any new limits on firearms, magazines and ammunition – whether enacted by Congress, presidential executive order or any agency.

If Congress would have passed the Senate amendment expanding federal background checks, for example, the Kansas law would nullify it in the state.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, signed Senate Bill 102 into law yesterday, which exempts Kansas from any laws the federal government might pass that would infringe on Second Amendment rights.

Specifically, the Kansas law prevents federal law enforcement officials from enforcing any laws restricting Second Amendment rights.

To ease concerns by some lawmakers over showdowns, federal officers would not be handcuffed or jailed, but they would be prosecuted.

The law is significant not just because of its intent, but because of who signed it. Brownback is a major political figure in the Republican Party who served as a congressman and a senator for the state until election as governor in 2010. Throwing his weight behind a “nullification” law lends credibility to a growing trend.

An impressive 32 state legislatures have now introduced pro-Second Amendment “nullification” bills. The progress of the bills can be tracked at the Tenth Amendment Center’s website.

Montana began the trend with its Firearms Freedom Act. The law is currently tied up in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard arguments last month. The Cato and Goldwater Institutes have filed a friend-of-the-court brief, “arguing that federal law doesn’t preempt Montana’s ability to exercise its sovereign police powers to facilitate the exercise of individual rights protected by the Second and Ninth Amendments.”

As WND reported, several more states have now passed laws modeled after Montana’s Firearms Freedom Act. Earlier this month, Arizona joined Wyoming, South Dakota, Utah, Tennessee and Montana.

The laws are generally justified by references to the Second, Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution. The Second Amendment guarantees the right to firearms. The Ninth Amendment makes it clear that citizens have rights not specifically listed in the Constitution. And the Tenth Amendment says states have powers not specifically given to the federal government or specifically denied to states.

Supporters of states’ rights have said the Tenth Amendment can nullify federal laws that are unconstitutional or beyond the federal government’s powers.

“Nullification” has been used as a legal argument to try to overturn everything from pro-slavery laws to Obamacare, always unsuccessfully. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, federal law is superior to state law and that federal courts have the final say on interpreting the Constitution.

But with the momentum of 32 states having introduced pro-Second Amendment nullification bills, that may change.

Michael Boldin, founder of the Tenth Amendment Center, said there are many ways to nullify a law.

“The courts can strike a law down. The executive branch could refuse to enforce it. People in large numbers might refuse to comply. A number of states could pass a law making its enforcement illegal. Or a number a states could refuse to cooperate in any way with its enforcement.”

Before it became law, Boldin called the Kansas measure the strongest nullification bill in modern American history.

A key provision of the Kansas’ Second Amendment Protection Act reads:

(a) Any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the state of Kansas.

Boldin wrote yesterday that another key part of the law is that Kansas “would not be allowed to participate in any federal gun control measures that restrict the individual right to keep and bear arms as understood in 1861.”

That’s because any federal laws undermining the Second Amendment would not be part of what Kansas agreed to when it joined the U.S.

According to Boldin, there is another key factor that may swing power in the favor of states seeking to enforce nullification laws.

He wrote, “The federal government does not have the manpower to enforce all its laws. State and local law enforcement often times carry the water during investigations and actual arrests.

“If states pass laws banning both state and local participation – in any way – with the enforcement of a federal law – that federal law would never be enforced.”

As WND reported earlier this month, a key supporter of Montana’s Firearms Freedom Act says nullification laws are needed to break a near-monopoly on guns by the federal government.

According to Gary Marbut of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, the “current federal scheme of regulating the supply system for new firearms in the U.S. is so complete it might actually constitute a government monopoly on the supply of firearms.”

“Under current federal regulation, no firearm may be made and sold to another person without federal government permission – not one firearm,” he said.

To submit to a government gun monopoly, he said, would be to believe “that the Constitution is an old, dead, obsolete and meaningless piece of paper, the Ninth Amendment is as worthless as the rest, and has no relevance to the [Montana Firearms Freedom Act].”

Derek Sheriff reported at the Arizona Tenth Amendment Center that Arizona’s bill asserts the state’s “sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment and the people’s unenumerated rights under the Ninth Amendment.”

“They also emphasize the fact that when Arizona entered the union in 1912, its people did so as part of a contract between the state and the people of Arizona and the United States,” he said.

Kurt Hofmann of the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner said the surging movement across the states is “a challenge to the federal government’s grotesquely expansive use of the interstate commerce to regulate – well … everything, whether it has anything to do with interstate commerce or not.”

“Liberty doesn’t just happen – it needs to be worked for,” he said. “Getting that work done can make the difference between having to work for liberty, and having to fight for it.”

Marbut, who has described himself as the godfather of the Firearms Freedom Act movement, has reported previously that while the Constitution’s Commerce Clause can be viewed as regulating interstate commerce, it also can be viewed as having been modified when the later Second Amendment assuring citizens of the right to own weapons was adopted.

No less significant, he suggests, is the Ninth Amendment, which states, “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Boldin said Washington likely is looking for a way out of the dispute.

“I think they’re going to let it ride, hoping some judge throws out the case,” he told WND. “When they really start paying attention is when people actually start following the [state] firearms laws.”

WND reported that when Wyoming joined the states with self-declared exemptions from federal gun regulation, officials there took the unusual step of including penalties for any agent of the U.S. who “enforces or attempts to enforce” federal gun rules on a “personal firearm.”

The penalties could be up to two years in prison and $2,000 in fines for an offender.

But the bellwether likely is to be the lawsuit agaisnt the Montana law, which was the first to go into effect.

As WND reported, the action was filed by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Montana Shooting Sports Association in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont., to validate the principles and terms of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act, which took effect Oct. 3, 2009.

Marbut argues that the federal government was created by the states to serve the states and the people, and it is time for the states to begin drawing boundaries for the federal government and its agencies.

Government hurries debate on anti-terrorism bill

Posted on April 23, 2013 by AE44

MPs are debating a controversial anti-terrorism bill that would reinstate provisions for preventive arrest and investigative hearings, measures that were part of a 2001 bill but were “sunsetted” in 2007.

The bill was introduced in the Senate last year, and it’s suddenly in third reading in the House, with government members debating it with a sense of urgency.

The bill will bring back two central provisions that were originally instituted by the Chrétien government after the 9/11 attacks in New York but were “sunsetted” after a five-year period.

One provision allowed for “preventative detention,” meaning someone can be held in custody for up to three days just on suspicion of being involved in terrorism but without a charge being laid. The person can then be bound by certain probationary conditions for up to a year, and if he or she refuses, can be jailed for 12 months.

The second is an “investigative hearing” in which someone suspected of having knowledge of a terrorist act can be forced to answer questions, and if he or she refuses, can be imprisoned for up to 12 months. The objective of this clause is not to prosecute the person for a criminal offence, but merely to gather information.

These two provisions from the 2001 act expired after five years, but in 2007 when the government wanted to extend them for a further three years, the Liberal opposition led by then-leader Stéphane Dion refused approval. Another attempt to restore the provisions died on the order paper when an election was called.

Now the Conservative government has a majority and can reinstate the measures on its own, but the Liberals say they will support the bill. The NDP opposes the bill and is questioning the timing of the government suddenly moving the bill into an emergency-like debate, accusing it of “being asleep since December.”

A crime to leave Canada to plan for terrorism

The bill, entitled the Combating Terrorism Act, also introduces a new provision, making it illegal to leave the country with the intention of committing an act of terrorism which could apply, for instance, to anyone planning on attending an al-Qaeda training camp, or plotting an act with others overseas. The new provision seems designed for arrests and charges in the early planning stages before the person even leaves Canada.

The bill also stiffens penalties for certain acts. Anyone who facilitates an act of terrorism by the communication of false information, such as the loan of a cellphone to be used for a false bomb threat, can be imprisoned for up to 14 years. The same 14-year maximum is in place for anyone who harbours or conceals someone who is contemplating or has committed a terrorist act.

There are also changes that recognize that some of the secrecy enshrined in the original act has been challenged by the courts. The old bill allowed an investigative hearing or a sealing order for court documents to happen without any public notice if the government claimed that national security was at risk.

In the new act, there’s a recognition that a federal court can make documents public. In the past, even an application for a ban on information by the government was secret. Now a court can order the application be made public.

The same five-year sunset clause is in the new bill.

NDP argues bill threatens civil liberties

In debate Monday, the NDP argued that the bill threatens the civil liberties of Canadians and that there was no evidence offered by the Conservatives that the bill is necessary. More than one NDP MP pointed out that two individuals accused of plotting terrorism were apprehended Monday without the assistance of the provisions of the anti-terror legislation.

Conservative MP Joan Crockett pointed out that a new provision proposed in the bill targets those who are planning “to receive terrorist training.”

Crockett said that clause could have applied to the two men from London, Ont., who are alleged to have participated in an attack on a gas plant in Algeria. Many people in her riding of Calgary Centre, she said, worry about danger at gas plants when they travel overseas to work in them.

Traffic on social media Monday speculated about the coincidence of the government rushing debate on the anti-terrorism bill on the same day the RCMP announced a major terrorism arrest involving an alleged attack planned on a Via Rail train in the Greater Toronto Area.

Asked by reporters about the timing of the hastily rescheduled debate, NDP defence critic Jack Harris said, “It is a little bit odd that we’re having it the same day we’re dealing with new legislation in the House of Commons, legislation that was put into effect ten years ago and frankly never used, and sunsetted five years ago and now being brought back again today, that’s certainly suspicious.”

“Whether the timing of the Mounties is predicated by that, that I don’t know. I would certainly hope that the Minister of Public Safety wouldn’t seek an announcement of this kind but I wouldn’t want to impugn the motives of the RCMP in this,” Harris said.

In a brief statement Monday afternoon in the foyer of the House of Commons Monday afternoon, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said, “Preventing, countering and prosecuting terrorism is a priority for our government. Canada will not tolerate terrorist activity and we will not be used as a safe haven for terrorists or those who support terrorist activity.”

Debate continues on the bill on Tuesday and will last until the speaker’s list of MPs is exhausted, unless the government gives notice of its intention to move time allocation to bring the third reading stage to a close as early as Wednesday.

The legislation’s last vote will follow the conclusion of this final debate and is expected before the end of this week.

The Losers Who Want C.I.S.P.A Are Cheaters Who Can’t Win Playing by the Rules.

Posted on April 22, 2013 by AE44

The House of representatives passing C.I.S.P.A when the Boston Marathon Bombing took place shows if this incident has not happened. It would lose big time from opposition. The needed a distraction to pass this bill with Democrats and RINO republicans.

I do not trust government to handle cyber security. It is more of securing their power because the Internet is cleaning the government clock. The internet has been the stumbling block for the authoritarians. The internet has exposed the real tyrannical agenda of the establishment.

I figured out the establishment cannot play fair in the arena of ideas. The have to find a way to cheat because they are losing because their idea are rejected. When they censor people because of their content harms the other side with the truth. It shows their hand and what they really are about.

I say congress hands off the internet. I do not trust you to keep the web safe. I will take my chances to do my own security. I know you want to spy on my emails and my online activity. I know you all want to take down websites that are a menace to your agenda under the guise of copyright infringement.

Let just face it. Those who want C.I.S.P.A are cowards with an agenda the people reject. You cannot win in a fair fight in the arena of ideas. You have to resort to suppressing your opposition. You all want to give the US government personal information bypassing the Fourth Amendment and not be liable for violating a person’s personal privacy. You are scum who can’t win fair playing by the rules.

So be like me and hammer the US Senate with phone calls saying hands off the internet. It does not belong to government. it belongs to the people. Our privacy is none of the Government’s business. The only people who think we have no privacy are people who have something to hide with secrecy to carry out draconian measure to silence their opposition.

The corporation and politicians who own stock and who receive lobbying money. These corporation depend on government contract and do not want earn business the old-fashioned way by building a clientele. Like Eisenhower said beware of the Military industrial complex. Well now beware of the Security Industrial Complex pushing doe C.I.S.P.A.

The people who want C.I.S.P.A are cheaters and cowards with no honor or respect for other people’s privacy. They cannot win in a fair debate nor win playing by the rules. They need to legalize cheating by an act of congress. We must not let this happen.

http://www.thelonestarwatchdog.com/people-who-want-c-i-s-p-a-is-the-politcal-and-corporate-factions-that-cant-win-playing-by-the-rules.html

Joe Biden: We Won’t Allow Congress To Get In Our Way On Guns

Posted on April 20, 2013 by AE44

According to Vice President Biden, “President Obama literally has a buttload of executive actions coming down the pike” on gun control, the phrasing of which stirs disturbing surrealist images in my mind.

Okay, I paraphrased him. His actual words were, “[T]he president is already lining up some additional executive actions he’s going to be taking later this week.” I still can’t tell, Biden–are you speaking literally or figuratively? You haven’t specified!

You know what? On second thought, I think a ”literal buttload of executive actions” would be less disturbing than “additional executive actions.” This is of course doublespeak for “executive orders,” a term this administration has been cautious to avoid, despite running the government on these orders. Liberals don’t like executive orders—or at least they pretend not to—so this administration uses the term “executive action.”

Obama spent his first term trying to get Congress to pass the most unpopular legislation of modern times, socialized health insurance, in the form of Obamacare. That was at a time when healthcare was at the bottom of Americans’ list of priorities for our benevolent leaders to work on.

Obama won that battle as only a corrupt politician can: unfairly, with bribes.

The President has chosen the battle to waste his second term on, and that is gun control, yet another issue near the bottom of Americans’ list of priorities. Fortunately for them (us), it appears as though Obama has lost, with the Senate voting down the Manchin-Toomey background-check bill.

Obama was visibly angry the other day, pouting at the podium to publicly shame those who voted against the bill, which would have expanded background checks to personal and gun-show sales, but only for law-abiding citizens–those who don’t commit mass-shootings–and not to those who would commit mass-shootings since those people don’t submit to background checks.

“No matter,” says Biden, as paraphrased by me again. “We don’t like the way the vote turned out, so Obama’s going to ignore the vote, bypass the rules, and just write his own laws from the Oval Office. What do you think this is, a constitutional republic? You think it matters whether your representatives represent you or not? We in the executive branch make the rules, not your representatives.”

You have to wonder at some point if this administration really does believe that congressional voting procedures are a mere formality they must go through, the hoops through which they must jump in order to keep up the illusion that the will of the American people is represented. They are either knowingly being tyrannical, dictatorial, or else they do not understand that voting in Congress is not just for show. As in so many other areas of this administration, it comes down to those two possibilities: either Obama’s failures stem from a place of malice and ill will, or from a cavity in his brain that renders him incompetent and ignorant.

Whatever it is, neither possibility bodes well for us.

House “wouldn’t even allow debate” on CISPA amendment requiring warrant before database search

Posted on April 18, 2013 by AE44

Madison Ruppert
Activist Post

The U.S. House of Representatives passed CISPA todaywith the majority of the major problems intact. When Rep. Alan Grayson proposed an amendment that would require the National Security Agency, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and others to obtain a warrant before searching a database, it was shot down without debate.

Grayson, a Florida Democrat, proposed a simple amendment only a sentence long that would require “a warrant obtained in accordance with the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States” when a government agency sought to search a database of private information obtained from e-mail and internet service providers for evidence of criminal activity.

Grayson complained earlier today on Twitter saying, “The Rules Committee wouldn’t even allow debate on requiring a warrant before a search.”

As CNET points out, “That’s a reference to a vote this week by the House Rules committee that rejected a series of privacy-protective amendments, meaning they could not be proposed and debated during today’s floor proceedings.”

Without that amendment, a wide range of agencies within the federal government can be searched without a warrant so long as it is supposedly related to any crime related to protecting someone from “serious bodily harm.”

While some of the crimes are quite serious, like child pornography, kidnapping and “serious threats to the physical safety of minors,” the database can also be searched for “cybersecurity purposes” and for the “investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crimes.” Obviously that leaves a lot of leeway.
According to Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and former Internet entrepreneur, the “serious bodily harm” is dangerous because it is ambiguous enough to allow federal agencies to “go on fishing expeditions for electronic evidence,” according to CNET.

“The government could use this information to investigate gun shows” and even football games, simply because there is a threat of serious bodily harm if an accident were to occur, Polis said.

“What do these things even have to do with cybersecurity? … From football to gun show organizing, you’re really far afield,” he said.

To make matters even worse, there is nothing under CISPA requiring the anonymization of records as incredibly sensitive and personal as health records or banking information before they are shared and searched by the government according to ZDNet.

Another amendment similarly shot down was proposed by Rep. Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican. This would have ensured the privacy policies and terms of use of companies remained both valid and legally enforceable in the future.

As CNET rightly notes, one of the most controversial aspects of CISPA is that it “overrules all existing federal and state laws by saying ‘notwithstanding any other provision of law,’ including privacy policies and wiretap laws, companies may share cybersecurity-related information ‘with any other entity, including the federal government.’”

While CISPA would not require companies to share the information, it is hard to think of a large corporation these days that wouldn’t play ball if pressured by the federal government.

The problems with CISPA are so glaring that 34 advocacy groupsas diverse as the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Reporters Without Borders and many more, wrote a letter in opposition to the legislation.

“CISPA’s information sharing regime allows the transfer of vast amounts of data, including sensitive information like Internet records or the content of emails to any agency in the government including military and intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency or the Department of Defense Cyber Command,” the groups pointed out in their letter.

The ACLU opposes the bill because, “there’s a disconnect here between what they say is going to happen and what the legislation says,” thanks to the amendments that were blocked, according to legislative counsel Michelle Richardson.

Unfortunately, this time around CISPA is not receiving the widespread opposition legislation like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) received, which eventually led to SOPA’s failure.

CNET chalks this up to the lack of alliances between ordinary Internet users, civil liberties groups and technology companies this time around.

While no broad-based coalition exists fighting CISPA, massive corporations have gathered together to support it.

“Companies including AT&T, Comcast, EMC, IBM, Intel, McAfee, Oracle, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon have instead signed on as CISPA supporters,” Declan McCullagh writes.

Some, including Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, are calling on Internet companies to take a stand in opposing CISPA.

In the below video, Ohanian calls on Google, Facebook and Twitter to stand up for the privacy rights of the American people:

There is still time to fight CISPA in the Senate.

“We’re committed to taking this fight to the Senate and fighting to ensure no law which would be so detrimental to online privacy is passed on our watch,” said Rainey Reitman, EFF Activism Director.

Contacting your senators is incredibly easy. If you care about the principles of the Constitution and your privacy, you will be doing yourself and others a favor by taking a few moments to contact your senators to instruct them to uphold their oath of office by defending the Constitution and the rights of the American people.

Did I forget anything or miss any errors? Would you like to make me aware of a story or subject to cover? Or perhaps you want to bring your writing to a wider audience? Feel free to contact me at[email protected] with your concerns, tips, questions, original writings, insults or just about anything that may strike your fancy.

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This article first appeared at End the Lie.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on UCYTV Monday nights 7 PM - 9 PM PT/10 PM - 12 AM ET. Show page link here: http://UCY.TV/EndtheLie. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at [email protected]

Amnesty To Include A 50 Percent Increase of legal immigrants if S744 passes

Posted on April 17, 2013 by AE44

Not only will 12 to 20 million illegal aliens enjoy new found legality and freedom to roam and work within America if the senate amnesty S744 bill passes, the senators added a whopping 50 percent additional legal immigration number to the bill.

They added those numbers in light of the fact that 47 million Americans exist on food stamps because they cannot secure jobs. Nearly 40 percent of African-Americans cannot secure jobs. Our working poor stand in welfare lines, food kitchens and food banks.

We import over one million legal immigrants annually more than all other countries combined. Our country cannot handle those numbers, but Congress expects to pass yet another amnesty and add even more millions of people to America.

Since 1965, the Immigration Reform Act started the flood of humanity into America at 1.1 million year after year and decade after decade. However, this new bill piles insult onto injury.

Washington Bureau journalist Brian Bennett said, “The U.S. admits about 1 million legal immigrants per year, more than any other country. That number could jump by more than 50% over the next decade under the terms of the immigration reform bill that a bipartisan group of senators expects to unveil as early as Tuesday. The impact would be felt nationwide, but areas that already have large immigrant communities would probably see much of the increase.”

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), one of the few rational voices in the senate said, “New workers would depress wages and crowd out Americans looking for work during a time of persistently high unemployment. The masters of the universe in glass towers and suites, they may not be impacted by this, but millions of struggling American families will. We do need to be sure we aren’t exacerbating unemployment and wage erosion in America.”

The human Katrina-like surge would arrive in chain-migration known as family reunification, work permits, anchor baby amnesty and 50,000 lottery visas.

Bennett said, “In addition to family unification, which allows people into the country permanently, the bill also aims to increase temporary visas for both high-wage and low-wage workers. The number of visas for high-tech workers could nearly double to more than 120,000 per year. At the other end of the wage scale, a new visa system would allow businesses to bring in workers for jobs including janitors, housekeepers and meatpackers. The numbers would start small, but as the unemployment rate declined, it could reach 200,000 a year by the end of the decade. And growers could bring a total of about 330,000 new farm workers into the country during the decade. Those low-wage temporary workers eventually would be allowed to seek permanent residency.”

Most Americans lack any understanding of the long term consequences of the numbers that will swamp America’s cities, communities, schools and hospitals.

What does it mean to import 1 million immigrants legally into America annually? Answer: if you take a 747 Jumbo jet that carries about 500 passengers, it means 2,000 flights fly into America from all over the world every year and dumping their passengers onto America to feed, house, water, educate, medicate, incarcerate and provide jobs.

That added one million people creates endless need for water, energy and resources. Their numbers impact our environment, quality of life and standard of living. Their numbers degrade and diminish every aspect of American life.

Those senators expect to add 50 percent more immigrants to that one million number to make it 1.5 to 1.6 million newcomers every year. The consequences scream off the charts.

http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion/2013/04/amnesty-to-include-a-50-percent-increase-of-legal-immigrants-if-s744-passes-2443758.html

OBAMA THROWS TANTRUM OVER GUN CONTROL DEFEAT

Posted on April 17, 2013 by AE44

President Barack Obama lashed out defiantly and viciously at political opponents who defeated his efforts to expand federal gun regulations today. Standing with families of victims of the Newtown school shooting at the White House, the president claimed that opponents of expanded federal background checks had “no coherent arguments” for their position, and that the “gun lobby” had “willfully lied” in the course of the debate.

Ironically, while accusing others of lying, President Obama resorted to false claims and statistics about current laws, including the repeatedly debunked argument that 40% of gun sales are private, and that guns can be bought over the Internet without background checks. It was partly the dishonesty of those very arguments that had led potential supporters of new bipartisan legislation to doubt the administration’s motives in supporting the bill.

The administration’s defeat came earlier Wednesday, when the Senate failed to pass a cloture motion to end debate on a bipartisan proposal introduced by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA). Only 54 votes of the necessary 60 votes could be found to support an expanded federal background check system (among other changes), partly because of fears that extending such checks would require the creation of a federal gun registry that could lead to confiscation.

The failure brought an end to four months of fervent campaigning by the president during which he used the Newtown disaster-or, in the eyes of many critics, exploited it-to make an argument about the urgent need for new laws, even if such laws would not have prevented the Newtown atrocity itself. Many Democrats rallied behind him, hoping at first to pass a new assault weapons ban, then abandoning that effort for more modest regulations.

Along the way, the administration lost the support of Democratic Senators in conservative states, many of whom will face re-election in 2014. President Obama made clear his intention to use Wednesday’s defeat to rally supporters against Republicans, whom he blamed directly and angrily, suggesting that they had defied the will of the American people and attempted to silence the families of Newtown victims who had a “right” to be heard in the debate.

Forced to cover a rare political defeat for the president, the mainstream media largely echoed his emotions. Virtually all of CNN’s correspondents agreed that the Manchin-Toomey bill had been defeated because of the power of the National Rifle Association and the fear of politicians afraid to take on Second Amendment activists. None considered that support for gun control has been declining, or that the legislation itself was deeply flawed.

Again and again, President Obama noted that 90% of Americans, and a majority of National Rifle Association members, supported expanded background checks. The former constitutional law lecturer seemed to expect that that majority’s will should be self-executing, ignoring the fact that constitutional rights like the Second Amendment exist precisely to protect minorities against majoritarian passions and presidential demagoguery.

Indeed, while the president described the failure of the legislation as a failure of “Washington,” it was also-and primarily-a failure of his administration. A White House operation and Obama campaign apparatus that is regarded as brutally effective ought to have been able to sell a proposal allegedly supported by 90% of the voting public. Yet persistent troubles in execution and failures of policy raise questions about whether Obama secretly preferred failure to success.

His opponents, the president insisted, refused to make it more difficult for “dangerous criminals” to buy weapons-ignoring one of the core arguments of the other side, namely that dangerous criminals frequently ignore the law to obtain weapons, while law-abiding citizens bear the burden of new rules and restrictions. He reduced his opponents’ motives to pure politics, accusing them of being afraid of being punished by an organized, determined minority.

Rarely have Americans ever seen a president attack his opponents so viciously, expressing and evoking such visceral emotions-especially at a time of mourning. President Obama’s tirade contrasted with his reserved, measured response to the Boston Marathon bombings, in which he urged Americans to speak and act with restraint. If this has been, as he claimed, “a pretty shameful day in Washington,” the president’s tantrum was the most shameful moment of all.

Congress Quietly Repeals Congressional Insider Trading Ban

Posted on April 17, 2013 by AE44

While Congress might be stuck in a deadlock on just about every issue imaginable, there’s one piece of legislation that both Democrats and Republicans hate unanimously: the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a law passed last year designed to prevent insider trading among lawmakers and government officials by requiring them to post disclosures of their financial transactions online.

Both parties and both houses of Congress hated the disclosure portion of the law so much that it was repealed on Friday without debate—the measure was sent to the president by unanimous consent. The ordeal took about 10 seconds in the Senate and 14 seconds in the House, according to official records.

The STOCK Act would have required members of Congress, their aides, and other federal employees making more than $119,554 a year to disclose their financial dealings in an online database. It was supposed to prevent government officials from using insider knowledge about policy-making to profit from stock trades and other investments.

Upon the signing of the bill into law last year (pictured above), President Barack Obama said, “The idea that everybody plays by the same rules is one of our most cherished American values. It’s the notion that the powerful shouldn’t get to create one set of rules for themselves and another set of rules for everybody else, and if we expect that to apply to our biggest corporations and to our most successful citizens, it certainly should apply to our elected officials—especially at a time when there is a deficit of trust between this city and the rest of the country.” The White House has not said whether the president will sign the repeal.

Despite the repeal, government officials will still have to file disclosures of securities trades over $1,000 within 45 days, but they no longer have to file them in a searchable database that was to be easily accessible to the public.

Congress and the President had delayed the online posting portion of the act from going into effect 3 times already, but the ultimate repeal came after the National Academy of Public Administration, a nonprofit group, found that publishing the information would create an “unwarranted risk to national security and law enforcement, as well as threaten agency missions, individual safety and privacy,” in a report delivered last month. The group suggested that the online posting requirements should be suspended indefinitely.

Lisa Rosenberg of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit group advocating for government transparency, said that the repeal “sets an extraordinarily dangerous precedent suggesting that any risks stem not from information being public but from public information being online.”

Rosenberg raises an interesting point: Since these financial disclosures are still considered public information, how does not posting them on the Internet mitigate their potential risks to national security? How does obfuscating information about the financial activities of government officials help anyone, other than those officials? Does the potential danger come from foreign terrorists knowing this information or from those citizens who just to know if their government officials are behaving responsibly?

UPDATE: White House spokesperson Jay Carney announced that Obama has signed the repeal of the internet disclosure portion of the STOCK Act.

Homeland Security’s New $3.9 Billion Headquarters

Posted on April 15, 2013 by AE44

The construction site of the Department of Homeland Security's new headquarters, Feb. 15, 2012, in Washington, DC

President Barack Obama is trying to solve big problems in his proposed 2014 budget. His efforts to curtail entitlement spending have gotten most of the headlines. But he also seems determined to complete the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s new headquarters, the largest federal construction project since the Pentagon rose in the 1940s. The cost: $3.9 billion.

The project would unite at a single location nearly all DHS’s 22 divisions devoted to thwarting terrorists and safeguarding the populace from natural and manmade disasters. The site is the campus of St. Elizabeth Hospital, a former federal asylum that was once the home of poet Ezra Pound and John Hinckley, Ronald Reagan’s would-be assassin. There would be 4.5 million square feet of workspace in the new facility and ample employee parking.

The project’s supporters say the price tag is justified. They say it’s not easy to get the various DHS divisions to operate in concert with each other if they are scattered throughout the capital area. At the 2009 groundbreaking, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano herself made the casefor the agency’s costly new digs: “It will help us have meetings. It will help us create a culture of ‘one DHS.’”

It didn’t take long for the project to become mired in politics. House Republicans, a number of whom see the DHS as an inefficient and fiscally profligate bureaucracy, were loath to fund the new headquarters fully. A new headquarters for the U.S. Coast Guard, which involved more excavation than any real estate development in the District of Columbia’s history, moved forward. The rest of the endeavor languished, becoming a symbol of Washington dysfunction. The tighter integration that Napolitano promised also remained a work in progress. The DHS is on the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s “high risk” list, a distinction it shares with such troubled federal agencies as the U.S. Postal Service.

Now Obama is trying to ensure that the DHS headquarters eventually rises. On Wednesday, the president included $367 million in his budget to continue construction.

Getting the money won’t be easy. In February, one of the DHS’s more persistent naysayers, U.S. Representative John Mica, a Florida Republican, boasted about how he and his fellow party members had curtailed the project.He said he would also like to dismantle much of the DHS.

He’d better act swiftly. If the White House ever gets all the DHS’s divisions on one campus, nobody will want to move them again.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-12/the-department-of-homeland-securitys-new-3-dot-9b-headquarters

Remington Sells Out To NY For $80 Million “Sniper” Rifles Government Contract

Posted on April 15, 2013 by AE44

remington

Back in February, several gun manufacturers decided to boycott law enforcement in states that are hostile to the Second Amendment, states like New York for instance. They would not be providing weapons or ammunition. Within a week that number had grown by over 700%. In the first article I provided information for several gun manufacturers that could be contacted to come on board with this boycott, including Glock, Sig Sauer, Smith & Wesson and Remington. Well, now we know where Remington stands. They stand on the side of government as they have let it be known that they will be staying in New York and they have now acquired a government contract worth $80 million.

Remington informed New York state lawmakers that they were planning to spend $20 million to upgrade their manufacturing facility in Mohawk Valley. The word was that they were considering moving if New York implemented stricter gun control laws as they have in the NY SAFE Act. Remington had been approached by several states to move.

Lawmakers spoke with Remington about their expansion. The company has received $5.5 million in state incentives over the past five years.

While that is in the past, news has come out from New York Congressman Richard Hanna regarding an $80 million contract. According to his website:

UTICA, N.Y. – U.S. Representative Richard Hanna today announced that Remington Arms has been awarded a nearly $80 million contract to produce more than 5,000 sniper rifles for the U.S. military. The work will be done in Ilion by Mohawk Valley employees.

The federal contract comes from the Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), a division of the U.S. Department of Defense. The contract will be awarded over the course of 10 years.

“The award of this contract to Remington Defense further shows that they are the premier manufacturer of sniper rifles for our Armed Forces,” Rep. Hanna said. “I have full confidence that this contract will be fulfilled with the high quality and standards that define our Ilion workforce. I fully support Remington Arms and will continue working to ensure that the company and its dedicated employees can thrive in Herkimer County for generations to come.”

Sniper rifles for the military, eh? At $80 million, that comes out to $16,000 per rifle over the next ten years. This comes on the heels of Serbu firearms saying they would not be providing their .50 caliber sniper rifles to the New York Police Department.

While these rifles are being manufactured for the U.S. military, one does wonder if this would also keep channels open to provide firearms to New York Police as well.

The irony in all of this is that New York, which has a clearly anti-gun government, will profit tens of millions of dollars from the production of guns through employee’s taxes, sales tax and more.

While I own at least one Remington firearm, I will not be purchasing further products by Remington, including ammunition.

Freedom Group owns Remington, along with several other gun manufacturers, including Marlin, DPMS, Para, and Bushmaster.

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/04/remington-sells-out-to-ny-for-80-million-sniper-rifles-government-contract/#ixzz2QVLJIW4G

California Liberty Preservation Act Passes Committee 6-0 to Nullify the NDAA

Posted on April 13, 2013 by AE44

Dozens of states and local jurisdictions continue to move toward nullifying the unconstitutional National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Yesterday we announced that Montana has taken the next step with Senate approval by a margin of 43-7 to protect its citizens from indefinite detention, and the measure is only awaiting signature from Governor Steve Bullock.

Now California has taken a much-needed step toward rebuking federal overreach. And, once again, the protections afforded by the Liberty Preservation Act are seeing support from a wide spectrum of political interest.

The 2012 NDAA applies broad detention power, using terms such as “associated forces” and “substantially supported,” allowing the federal government to detain and even execute any person, including an American citizen, on U.S. soil without due process. Sections 1021 and 1022 are particularly onerous.
The author of the California bill, Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly stated:

The NDAA gives the executive branch—under not only President Obama, but also every future president — unprecedented power to detain US citizens without due process . . .

This runs counter to the very principles that make America great, and violates our nation’s commitment to the rule of law. . .

The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution authorizes the United States federal government to exercise only those powers specifically delegated to it in the United States Constitution.”

The Daily Caller notes that even though the bill was introduced by a Republican, it received a unanimous vote across party lines

The bill passed the Democrat-controlled committee 6-0 with the support of a wide-ranging coalition that included the American Civil Liberties Union, Tenth Amendment Center, San Francisco 99% Coalition, San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the Libertarian Party of California.

Grassroots movements everywhere should be commended for the surge toward liberty, as well large activist centers such as People Against the National Defense Authorization Act, the Tenth Amendment Center, and the People’s Blog For the Constitution. Please lend your support by clicking the links above and donating if possible. Is your community or state taking action? Please use the model legislation linked to beneath the image above to help restore liberty to where you live.

Article Source:
http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/12/california-bill-to-nullify-ndaa-unanimously-passes-committee/

Bailed-Out Banks Using Government Aid To Pay Back Government Loans

Posted on April 13, 2013 by AE44

The Great Global Tax Grab is Already Underway

Posted on April 12, 2013 by AE44

The world will soon be facing a tsunami of defaults on bad debts. This will include municipal or local government defaults such as the one now occurring in Stockton California, governments “defaulting” on promises they’ve made to the people (Social Security, Medicaid), a default on the social contract between society and politicians such as the one in Cyprus (a default on the notions of private property and Democracy), stealth defaults on debts in the form of inflation and finally, of course, outright sovereign defaults.

However, the last option will be sovereign defaults; all other options will be tried first. The reason for this is that sovereign bonds are the senior most collateral posted by the banks for their hundreds of trillions of Dollars worth of derivatives bets.

The minute an actual sovereign default occurs in Europe, Asia or the US, then the large global banks will all be vaporized. End of story. As is now clear, the Central banks do not care about ordinary citizens. They only care about propping up the big banks.

This is why Cyprus decided to default on the social contract with its people and steal their funds rather than simply instigating a formal default. And it’s why in general we’re going to see Governments implementing more and more theft in the form of “taxes” (Cyprus called its theft a tax) in the future.

This will be sold to the public as either an attempt to tax those with a lot of money because it’s only fair that they put in more to bailout the nation OR as a form of financial terrorism e.g. “either you take a 7% cut on your deposits and the bank stays afloat or the bank crashes and you lose everything.”

This will be spreading throughout the world, GUARANTEED.

Spain, Canada (which allegedly has the safest banks in the world), and New Zealand have already begun discussing confiscation schemes for depositors in the event of a banking crisis.

As Cyprus has shown us, when push comes to shove, rule of law goes out the window. I fully expect that when things get really bad in the financial system the money grabs will come fast and furious. Foreign accounts, including possibly even Gold held aboard, will come under attack. Heck, the US got Switzerland to throw its 300-year-old banking secrecy out the window…

The Swiss bank Wegelin is to close, after admitting that it helped about 100 US clients evade paying taxes.

The news that Switzerland’s oldest private bank will cease to operate has potentially huge implications for Switzerland’s entire banking sector, and for the long tradition of Swiss banking secrecy.

Thirteen other Swiss banks are under investigation by US authorities, among them Credit Suisse, a bank now termed “too big to fail” by the Swiss government.

When Wegelin’s managers pleaded guilty in a New York court, the case was watched with mounting horror by the financial communities in Zurich and Geneva.

Many had expected Wegelin to continue to try to fight the case. For months, the bank had failed to turn up in court, saying the summons had not been delivered correctly.

Instead, Wegelin’s guilty plea included the admission that it intentionally opened accounts for US citizens to help them avoid tax.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20909168

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-04-12/great-global-tax-grab-already-underway

Guns verboten for pot users

Posted on April 12, 2013 by AE44

Rocky Mountain Pawn & Gun is confident about its own cultural identity. Before entering the shop – a palace of weaponry and camouflage gear – customers must pass a sign indicating that hippies should use the back door.

“Until they change that question, there’s no way,” said Chris Burnett, manager of Rocky Mountain Pawn & Gun, who said the federal form all firearms purchasers are required to fill out effectively prohibits the sale of firearms to medical marijuana card holders.

Then, in a glass display case inside the shop, another sign reads, “Federal Law Prohibits the sale of firearms to medical marijuana card holders.”

According to Chris Burnett, the store’s manager, the second sign isn’t a “hippies can’t have guns” joke, but an edict handed down from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a federal agency.

Burnett said the shop put up the sign after an ATF agent called Rocky Mountain Pawn & Gun and said “anyone who has a medical marijuana card will not pass a background check.”

The ATF did not respond to requests for comment.

Nearly 100,000 Coloradoans are licensed to use medical marijuana, which treats a range of ailments, including pain, insomnia, nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite and muscle spasms.

Colorado law is in conflict with federal law, which criminalizes marijuana in all circumstances and by definition applies to the whole country.

Burnett said on the application to own a firearm, which is submitted to the federal government, the applicant is asked whether he or she has ever used illegal drugs, and because marijuana is illegal according to federal law, medical marijuana users must answer “yes” or commit a crime – meaning they are categorically disqualified from gun ownership.

While the gun lobby and the grass lobby are not intuitive political allies, this is the too-rare legal determination that has both in uproar.

“It’s difficult to explain it to people who we have to turn away, because they say, ‘I did this the right way, I got a permit,’ meanwhile, people who are buying it from their neighbors can still go out and by a gun,” Burnett said.

Though Burnett feared the federal government had amassed a database of medical marijuana users, against which the federal government would cross-check firearm applications as it putatively does felony convictions, Mark Sally, spokesman with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said that was impossible.

Only the state has that list, he said, and like all matters between doctors and patients, it is confidential.

Stuart Prall, a lawyer and marijuana advocate, said Rocky Mountain Pawn’s dilemma was indicative of the confusing state of the law regarding cannabis.

“I don’t think anybody should be denied rights, because people are taking one medicine as opposed to another medicine, and that’s true for parental rights, gun rights, any rights,” he said.

He said the unresolved and increasing contradictions in state law and federal law regarding marijuana meant that “it’s completely confusing to everybody.”

http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20130410/NEWS01/130419961/0/News/Guns-verboten-for-pot-users

Austin Texas: Council Member Mike Martinez Admits Gun Ban Is In Work

Posted on April 12, 2013 by AE44

Dad Furious After Finding This Crayon-Written Paper in Florida 4th-Grader’s Backpack: ‘I Am Willing.

Posted on April 12, 2013 by AE44

The words are written in crayon, in the haphazard bumpiness of a child’s scrawl.

“I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure.”

They’re the words that Florida father Aaron Harvey was stunned to find his fourth-grade son had written, after a lesson in school about the Constitution.

Florida 4th Grader Brings Home Paper That Says, I Am Willing to Give Up Some of My Constitutional Rights in Order to Be Safer...

Harvey’s son attends Cedar Hills Elementary in Jacksonville, Fla. Back in January, a local attorney came in to teach the students about the Bill of Rights. But after the attorney left, fourth-grade teacher Cheryl Sabb dictated the sentence to part of the class and had them copy it down, he said.

The paper sat unnoticed in Harvey’s son’s backpack for several months until last week, when his son’s mother almost threw it away. The words caught her eye in the trash, and she showed it to Harvey, who said he was at a loss for words. He asked his son, who said Sabb had spoken the sentence out loud and told them to write it down. Harvey said he asked some of his son’s classmates and got a similar answer.

“Everybody has their opinions,” Harvey told TheBlaze. “I am strongly for proper education, for the freedom of thought so you can form your own opinion and have your own free speech in the future… [but] the education is, ‘when was the Constitution drafted, when was it ratified, why did this happen, why did we choose to do this…all these things, why did they particular choose those specific rights to be in our Bill of Rights.’”

Kandra Albury, a spokeswoman for Duvall County Public Schools, which includes Cedar Hills, told TheBlaze she didn’t know what prompted Sabb to have students write the sentence.

She said the principal had fielded one parent’s concern about the lesson in January, but it wasn’t Harvey. She said Thursday the district and principal were “checking into” what had happened.

Harvey, rather than asking the school for answers when he found the paper, wrote his concerns in an email, which was then forwarded to TheBlaze. He said he did it that way because he wasn’t sure he would have gotten a straightforward answer if he asked the school directly.

He said he just wants to see a “proper, unbiased education” system and doesn’t want any kind of religion or politics brought into the classroom.

“I believe in our Constitution. I am a veteran, I served for six-and-a-half years proudly and I served to protect our rights,” he said. “Now whenever I have someone coming in and trying to pollute my child’s mind with biased opinions…there’s no education in that.”

Update, 11:36 a.m.: Harvey told TheBlaze he received a call from the school Friday morning that featured the principal, guidance counselor and Sabb. He was told the sentence came during the lesson with the lawyer, that Sabb had nothing to do with it, and that Harvey’s son “wrote it on his own free will.”

Harvey said he had spoken to a girl in the class who specifically said Sabb handpicked students to write the sentence.

“All the children are pointing at the teacher,” Harvey said Friday. “They [the school] told me that my son wrote that on his own free will — there’s now way he knew how to write that on his own free will. He likes to use some big words to flourish — [but] if he was going to put together a sentence that political I’m sure it would be more jumbled than a nice sentence like that.”

Editor’s note: TheBlaze has withheld the name of the child at the father’s request.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/12/dad-furious-after-finding-this-crayon-written-paper-in-florida-4th-graders-backpack-i-am-willing-to-give-up-some-of-my-constitutional-rights/

Guantanamo Bay hearing delayed after mysterious disappearance of legal files

Posted on April 11, 2013 by AE44

courtroom sketch by Janet Hamlin, shows terror suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, 46, who was arraigned at Wednesday's hearing on charges related to the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.(AFP Photo / Janet Hamlin)

Pre-trial hearings in the Guantanamo Bay war crimes tribunals have been delayed to address the disappearance of defense legal documents from Pentagon computers, military officials said on Thursday.

A weeklong hearing was scheduled to start on Monday for Abd al Rahim al Nashiri – a Saudi Arabian citizen alleged to be the mastermind of the bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000. The attack killed 17 US soldiers aboard the ship and wounded 37 others.

But the trial has now been pushed back to June 11, the US naval base said in an order on Thursday.

It comes just one day after Nashiri’s lawyer, Ricard Kammen, urged Army Colonel James Pohl – who oversees the war crimes court – to cancel this week’s hearing.

He said that officials mishandled more than 500,000 defense lawyer emails and appear to be monitoring their internet searches as they prepare their cases. Kammen also addressed the disappearance of documents, which he blamed on a Pentagon server failure.

“We want to put the case on hold…to find the scope of the intrusions,” Kammen said in a Wednesday statement quoted by Reuters. “Was this the product of negligence or something worse? Also, we need to have the problem fixed.”

Kammen said he was uncertain when the server failure occurred, but said it involved around seven gigabytes of data, or many thousands of pages or documents. He added that information pertaining to his case and others was recovered, but defense teams still need time to review files to make sure nothing was lost or changed.

Forty-eight year old Nashhiri has been held at Guantanamo for six years and seven months. In February 2008, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confirmed that waterboarding was used on Nashiri and two other prisoners.

Meanwhile, defense lawyers plan to ask Pohl to delay a week of pre-trial hearings for five detainees charged with plotting the September 11 attacks. The hearings are scheduled to begin on April 22.

The attorneys said their confidential documents began vanishing from Pentagon computers in February, and that there was evidence their internal emails had been searched by third parties.

“Three to four weeks’ worth of work is gone, vanished,” Navy Commander Walter Ruiz, who represents 9/11 defendant Mustafa al Hawsawi, said.

He added that what appeared to be a computer folder of prosecution files had turned up on the defense lawyer’s system, though none of them had opened the files.

“I’ll be filing a hand-written motion very shortly to ask for an abatement of the proceedings,” in the 9/11 case, said defense attorney James Connell, who represents defendant Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.

The mysterious situation prompted Colonel Karen Mayberry, defense counsel for the tribunals, to order military and civilian defense lawyers to stop using their government computers for sensitive information and drafts of their work.

In a separate incident, system administrators were searching files at prosecutors’ request and were able to access more than half a million defense files, including confidential attorney-client communications, the lawyers said.

A spokesperson for Human Rights First – a long-term critic of the Guantanamo tribunals – has called the latest situations

“absolutely outrageous.” “This is just further evidence that the military commission system is a sham and that all terrorism trials should be held in real US federal courts on US soil, where the rules are clear, defendants’ rights are respected, and the verdicts will have credibility,” Daphne Eviatar said.

AFP Photo / Mandel Ngan

In January 2009, US President Barack Obama ordered the facility to be closed within a year, and banned certain interrogation methods.

However, in May of that year, the US Senate refused to allow the prison to be closed until the president provided more detail as to what would be done with the prisoners.

The news of the missing documents comes as dozens of Guantanamo detainees take part in a hunger strike to protest against their conditions, which UN human rights chief Navi Pillay calls a “clear breach of international law.”

Thursday marks the 65th day of the hunger strike. For more on the strike, follow RT’s day-by-day timeline.

http://rt.com/usa/guantanamo-hearing-delayed-documents-710/

The More FEDS Spend, The More They Tax: Gov’t Spends $50,074 Per Household, EXCEEDS Median Income. FEDS To Collect RECORD TAXES In 2013!

Posted on April 11, 2013 by AE44

Government Spending Per Household Exceeds Median Household Income

As reported in my new book, “Completely Predictable,” the combined spending of federal, state and local governments per American household actually exceeded the median household income for 2010, which is the latest year for which all relevant government data are available.

In fiscal 2010, according to numbers published by the Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), net spending by all levels of government in the United States was $5,942,988,401,000. That equaled $50,074 for each one of the 118,682,000 households in the country.

In that same year, according to the Census Bureau, the median household income was $49,445.

http://www.sumnerbooks.com/books/view/completely-predictable

Revealed: Obama to collect record taxes in 2013

The federal Treasury expects to collect a record $2.712 trillion in taxes on Americans and U.S. business this year, shattering the 2007 high of $2.5 trillion in taxes.

Despite the sputtering economy and sustained high unemployment, the fine print in President Obama’s budget belatedly presented Wednesday revealed that the administration expects to take more in taxes than the Congressional Budget Officeprojects. CBO put the 2013 estimate at $2.708 trillion.

Republicans have seized on the number to bolster their fight against Obama’s goal of raising taxes, especially on the wealthy.
http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-more-feds-spend-the-more-they-tax-govt-spends-50074-per-household-exceeds-median-income-feds-to-collect-record-taxes-in-2013/#8x3KKjsztTKAahIz.99

Amended CISPA moves to House after closed-door vote

Posted on April 11, 2013 by AE44

CISPA

Members of the House Intelligence Committee accepted amendments to the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act Wednesday, voting to include the new provisions by an 18-2 margin after a closed door meeting.

The proposed CISPA legislation has been criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and major Internet companies including Reddit andCraigslist, who say the bill all but eliminates privacy online. Facebook withdrew its support for the bill in March, joining 30,000 other websites in their opposition.

CISPA critics have decried the language in the bill, which grants private companies and the federal government unprecedented power to share an individual’s personal information for purported national security reasons. The House Intelligence Committee has repeatedly warned of the risk presented by potential cyber-attacks, threats that some experts say are unfounded.

CISPA is expected to be reintroduced to Congress as soon as next week after failing to gain enough momentum to summon a vote last year. US President Barack Obama has stated in the past that he would veto CISPA because of security concerns.

Evidently attempting to address those misgivings, the House Intelligence Committee’s closed-door session was expected to introduce amendments that would give privacy advocates and civil liberties officers more oversight on how personal information isshared and used.

Including language to deny companies legal immunity if they use cyber-threat disclosures to hack other companies and dropping language that allows the government to use cyber-threat information for national-security purposes were also reportedly on the docket, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

“We have seen the language of these amendments – and what we’ve been hearing is that they still don’t tackle the core concerns including tailoring so that information that’sshared by private industry can’t be used for purposes other than cyber-security,” said Mark Jaycox, an analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Before the secret meeting Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) said he planned to propose an amendment that would require companies to at least attempt to remove personally identifiable information from data before sharing it with the federal government.

“I think the other amendments are definitely a step in the right direction, but we still need the private sector to take efforts on its own to remove personally identifiable information,” Schiff told The Hill. “I still believe that the House, Senate and White House can come to a common agreement on these outstanding issues. It just shouldn’t be that difficult.”

“I think we can maintain the proper balance of protecting the country from cyber-attacks and also ensuring the privacy rights of the American people are respected.”

FBI Conducting 32 Gun Purchase Background Checks Per Minute Under Obama

Posted on April 10, 2013 by AE44

CNS News – by Gregory Gwyn-Williams, Jr.

During Barack Obama’s presidency there have been 32 background checks for gun purchases every minute.

Since February of 2009, the first full month of Obama’s presidency, there have been 70,291,049 background checks for gun purchases, according to data released by the FBI.

Using February 1, 2009 as our starting date, and March 31, 2013 as our end date, (the latest data from the FBI) Obama has been president for 1,520 days.

That equates to 36,480 hours, or 2,188,800 minutes.

Divide the 70,291,049 background checks by 2,188,800 minutes and you get approximately 32 checks for gun purchases every minute!

http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/fbi-conducting-32-gun-purchase-background-checks-minute-under-obama

Jon Stewart Highlights Monsanto Protection Absurdity

Posted on April 10, 2013 by AE44

(Activist Post) Even though Monsanto’s biotech rider slipped through Congress in a matter of days and was signed into law by Obama as the Continuing Resolution spending bill - it didn’t take long for a vast majority to catch on and become outraged. Soon, it was a major part of the collective consciousness, making all kinds of rounds in the corporate-run media.

It is section 735 of HR933 that keeps courts from halting illegally or hazardous genetically modified crops in progress. Media clowns are often there to defuse serious ire in the public. But, they can also teach and out the absurdity in Congress and corporate ploys.

In a recent clip seen below, Jon Stewart focuses on how strange it is for the rider to be in a spending bill, the lameness of Congress claiming they did not know about the bill that they passed, and if only one Senator had stood up against the bill…oh wait, one did. See for yourself….

Not only did Senator Jon Tester stand up and out this rider on the Senate floor, but probably close to a million people called the Congressional and White House lines after having only a few days to find out about it.
Congress really had to be bought and sold to run over public outcry like this. And, of course, our president is cozy with biotech moguls - even placing them in leadership positions in the USDA and FDA. That outcry, my friends, is why Jon Stewart knows about it and had to poke fun on The Daily Show. Your activism brought this debacle into the public eye. Thank you.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

This is the second time that a rider was slipped into an unrelated bill; this time going all the way. Supposedly it’s only good for six months, but the six-month expiration date is for government spending. So will this rider that’s been heavily pushed by Monsanto for over a year suddenly evaporate in September? My magic 8-Ball says, “Outlook not so good…”

Food critic Jesse Hirsch wrote up a great Monsanto Protection Act timeline to follow the rider on its suspicious ride.

Again, let’s go back to what we did before - stop giving Monsanto our dollars and vote with our forks.

Big Pharma made $711 billion overcharging seniors and disabled

Posted on April 9, 2013 by AE44

AFP Photo / Justin Sullivan

(RT) The 11 largest drug companies have made $711 billion in profits in just a decade, largely due to overcharging Medicare, which does not seek out competitive prices and uses taxpayer funds to support Big Pharma.

Since Medicare is prohibited from purchasing drugs based on their cost, its prescription drug program has been making large payouts to drug companies that have overcharged the program for years, according to an analysis by Health Care for America Now (HCAN).

“There is nothing wrong with a company making profits – that’s what their supposed to do. But the drug industry’s profits are excessive as a result of overcharging American consumers and taxpayers,” writes Ethan Rome, executive director of HCAN, for the Huffington Post. “We pay significantly more than any other country for the exact same drugs.”

Rome notes that per capita drug spending in the US is 40 percent higher than in Canada, 75 percent greater than in Japan, and nearly 300 percent greater than Denmark.

The 11 largest global prescription drug companies have skyrocketed since the MedicarePart D prescription drug program was launched in 2006. The government health program enables seniors and the disabled to buy taxpayer-subsidized coverage for many of the most widely disseminated medicines. But Medicare is prohibited from negotiatingprices with pharmaceutical companies or seeking out more cost-effective drugs, thereby costing seniors, the disabled and American taxpayers billions of dollars more than some argue the drugs are worth.

Some lawmakers have recently urged Congress to consider changing the law, for the sake of cutting unnecessarily high costs. Wisconsin Democratic State Senator Jon Erpenbach told Wisconsin Public Radio that his state could save $1.2 billion over ten years if Congress were to allow Medicare to partake in prescription drug negotiations.

“I understand that pharmaceutical companies are for-profit companies,” he told the station last week. “I understand there’s a lot of research and development that goes into the products that they produce. All of that being said, it shouldn’t cost us more to get that kind of pharmaceuticals we need to have.”

But according to the HCAN analysis, Big Pharma spends very little on research and development. Even though pharmaceuticals cite research as a costly part of its operations, the money spent on this is exaggerated, Rome claims. Drug companies spend 19 times more on marketing than on research and development – another reason why the industry reaps so much in profits each year, he adds.

US President Barack Obama has long promised to repeal the prohibition on Medicarenegotiations with drug companies, but has so far failed to do so. The Veterans Administration currently negotiates drug prices, and manufacturers argue that lettingMedicare take over the negotiations would make no difference to the industry. Supporters of drug manufacturers also continue to emphasize the high costs of research and development.

But the Congressional Budget Office found that if Medicare were to receive the same bulk-purchasing discounts on prescription drugs that state Medicaid programs receive, the federal government would cut its spending by $137 billion over 10 years.

“Our politicians give all kinds of tax breaks and subsidies to big corporations that don’t need them: Big Oil. Wall Street. Companies that ship our jobs overseas,” Rome writes. “Every gift to a special interest, including allowing Big Pharma to overchargeMedicare, is an expenditure of scarce tax dollars. That’s called wasteful spending.”

The Tunnel People That Live Under The Streets Of America

Posted on April 9, 2013 by AE44

The Tunnel People That Live Under The Streets Of America - Photo by Claude Le Berre

Did you know that there are thousands upon thousands of homeless people that are living underground beneath the streets of major U.S. cities? It is happening in Las Vegas, it is happening in New York City and it is even happening in Kansas City. As the economy crumbles, poverty in the United States is absolutely exploding and so is homelessness. In addition to the thousands of “tunnel people” living under the streets of America, there are also thousands that are living in tent cities, there are tens of thousands that are living in their vehicles and there are more than a million public school children that do not have a home to go back to at night. The federal government tells us that the recession “is over” and that “things are getting better”, and yet poverty and homelessness in this country continue to rise with no end in sight. So what in the world are things going to look like when the next economic crisis hits?

When I heard that there were homeless people living in a network of underground tunnels beneath the streets of Kansas City, I was absolutely stunned. I have relatives that live in that area. I never thought of Kansas City as one of the more troubled cities in the United States.

But according to the Daily Mail, police recently discovered a huge network of tunnels under the city that people had been living in…

Below the streets of Kansas City, there are deep underground tunnels where a group of vagrant homeless people lived in camps.

These so-called homeless camps have now been uncovered by the Kansas City Police, who then evicted the residents because of the unsafe environment.

Authorities said these people were living in squalor, with piles of garbage and dirty diapers left around wooded areas.

The saddest part is the fact that authorities found dirty diapers in the areas near these tunnels. That must mean that babies were being raised in that kind of an environment.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing is happening all over the nation. In recent years, the tunnel people of Las Vegas have received quite a bit of publicity all over the world. It has been estimated that more than 1,000 people live in the massive network of flood tunnels under the city…

Deep beneath Vegas’s glittering lights lies a sinister labyrinth inhabited by poisonous spiders and a man nicknamed The Troll who wields an iron bar.

But astonishingly, the 200 miles of flood tunnels are also home to 1,000 people who eke out a living in the strip’s dark underbelly.

Some, like Steven and his girlfriend Kathryn, have furnished their home with considerable care – their 400sq ft ‘bungalow’ boasts a double bed, a wardrobe and even a bookshelf.

Could you imagine living like that? Sadly, for an increasing number of Americans a “normal lifestyle” is no longer an option. Either they have to go to the homeless shelters or they have to try to eke out an existence on their own any way that they can.

In New York City, authorities are constantly trying to root out the people that live in the tunnels under the city and yet they never seem to be able to find them all. The following is from a New York Post article about the “Mole People” that live underneath New York City…

The homeless people who live down here are called Mole People. They do not, as many believe, exist in a separate, organized underground society. It’s more of a solitary existence and loose-knit community of secretive, hard-luck individuals.

The New York Post followed one homeless man known as “John Travolta” on a tour through the underground world. What they discovered was a world that is very much different from what most New Yorkers experience…

In the tunnels, their world is one of malt liquor, tight spaces, schizophrenic neighbors, hunger and spells of heat and cold. Travolta and the others eat fairly well, living on a regimented schedule of restaurant leftovers, dumped each night at different times around the neighborhood above his foreboding home.

Even as the Dow hits record high after record high, poverty in New York City continues to rise at a very frightening pace. Incredibly, the number of homeless people sleeping in the homeless shelters of New York City has increased by a whopping 19 percent over the past year.

In many of our major cities, the homeless shelters are already at maximum capacity and are absolutely packed night after night. Large numbers of homeless people are often left to fend for themselves.

That is one reason why we have seen the rise of so many tent cities.

Yes, the tent cities are still there, they just aren’t getting as much attention these days because they do not fit in with the “economic recovery” narrative that the mainstream media is currently pushing.

In fact, many of the tent cities are larger than ever. For example, you can check out a Reuters video about a growing tent city in New Jersey that was posted on YouTube at the end of March right here. A lot of these tent cities have now become permanent fixtures, and unfortunately they will probably become much larger when the next major economic crisis strikes.

But perhaps the saddest part of all of this is the massive number of children that are suffering night after night.

For the first time ever, more than a million public school children in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percentsince the 2006-2007 school year.

So if things are really “getting better”, then why in the world do we have more than a million public school children without homes?

These days a lot of families that have lost their homes have ended up living in their vehicles. The following is an excerpt from a 60 Minutes interview with one family that is living in their truck…

This is the home of the Metzger family. Arielle,15. Her brother Austin, 13. Their mother died when they were very young. Their dad, Tom, is a carpenter. And, he’s been looking for work ever since Florida’s construction industry collapsed. When foreclosure took their house, he bought the truck on Craigslist with his last thousand dollars. Tom’s a little camera shy – thought we ought to talk to the kids – and it didn’t take long to see why.

Pelley: How long have you been living in this truck?

Arielle Metzger: About five months.

Pelley: What’s that like?

Arielle Metzger: It’s an adventure.

Austin Metzger: That’s how we see it.

Pelley: When kids at school ask you where you live, what do you tell ‘em?

Austin Metzger: When they see the truck they ask me if I live in it, and when I hesitate they kinda realize. And they say they won’t tell anybody.

Arielle Metzger: Yeah it’s not really that much an embarrassment. I mean, it’s only life. You do what you need to do, right?

But after watching a news report or reading something on the Internet about these people we rapidly forget about them because they are not a part of “our world”.

Another place where a lot of poor people end up is in prison. In a previous article, I detailed how the prison population in the United States has been booming in recent years. If you can believe it, the United States now has approximately 25 percent of the entire global prison population even though it only has about 5 percent of the total global population.

And these days it is not just violent criminals that get thrown into prison. If you lose your job and get behind on your bills, you could be thrown into prison as well. The following is from a recent CBS News article…

Roughly a third of U.S. states today jail people for not paying off their debts, from court-related fines and fees to credit card and car loans, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Such practices contravene a 1983 United States Supreme Court ruling that they violate the Constitutions’s Equal Protection Clause.

Some states apply “poverty penalties,” such as late fees, payment plan fees and interest, when people are unable to pay all their debts at once. Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee, for instance, while Florida allows private debt collectors to add a 40 percent surcharge on the original debt. Some Florida counties also use so-called collection courts, where debtors can be jailed but have no right to a public defender. In North Carolina, people are charged for using a public defender, so poor defendants who can’t afford such costs may be forced to forgo legal counsel.

The high rates of unemployment and government fiscal shortfalls that followed the housing crash have increased the use of debtors’ prisons, as states look for ways to replenish their coffers. Said Chettiar, “It’s like drawing blood from a stone. States are trying to increase their revenue on the backs of the poor.”

If you are poor, the United States can be an incredibly cold and cruel place. Mercy and compassion are in very short supply.

The middle class continues to shrink and poverty continues to grow with each passing year. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty. And if you throw in those that are considered to be “near poverty”, that number becomes much larger. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either “poor” or “low income”.

For many more facts about the rapid increase of poverty in this country, please see my previous article entitled “21 Statistics About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Everyone Should Know“.

But even as poverty grows, it seems like the hearts of those that still do have money are getting colder. Just check out what happened recently at a grocery store that was in the process of closing down in Augusta, Georgia…

Residents filled the parking lot with bags and baskets hoping to get some of the baby food, canned goods, noodles and other non-perishables. But a local church never came to pick up the food, as the storeowner prior to the eviction said they had arranged. By the time the people showed up for the food, what was left inside the premises—as with any eviction—came into the ownership of the property holder, SunTrust Bank.

The bank ordered the food to be loaded into dumpsters and hauled to a landfill instead of distributed. The people that gathered had to be restrained by police as they saw perfectly good food destroyed. Local Sheriff Richard Roundtree told the news “a potential for a riot was extremely high.”

Can you imagine watching that happen?

But of course handouts and charity are only temporary solutions. What the poor in this country really need are jobs, and unfortunately there has not been a jobs recovery in the United States since the recession ended.

In fact, the employment crisis looks like it is starting to take another turn for the worse. The number of layoffs in the month of March was 30 percent higher than the same time a year ago.

Meanwhile, small businesses are indicating that hiring is about to slow down significantly. According to a recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, small businesses in the United States are extremely pessimistic right now. The following is what Goldman Sachs had to say about this survey…

Components of the survey were consistent with the decline in headline optimism, as the net percent of respondents planning to hire fell to 0% (from +4%), those expecting higher sales fell to -4% (from +1%), and those reporting that it is a good time to expand ticked down to +4% (from +5%). The net percent of respondents expecting the economy to improve was unchanged at -28%, a very depressed level. However, on the positive side, +25% of respondents plan increased capital spending [ZH: With Alcoa CapEx spending at a 2 year low]. Small business owners continue to place poor sales, taxes, and red tape at the top of their list of business problems, as they have for the past several years.

So why aren’t our politicians doing anything to fix this?

For example, why in the world don’t they stop millions of our jobs from being sent out of the country?

Well, the truth is that they don’t think we have a problem. In fact, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson recently said that U.S. trade deficits “don’t matter”.

He apparently does not seem alarmed that more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities have been shut down in the United States since 2001.

And since the last election, the White House has seemed to have gone into permanent party mode.

On Tuesday, another extravagant party will be held at the White House. It is being called “In Performance at the White House: Memphis Soul”, and it is going to include some of the biggest names in the music industry…

As the White House has previously announced, Justin Timberlake (who will be making his White House debut), Al Green, Ben Harper, Queen Latifah, Cyndi Lauper, Joshua Ledet, Sam Moore, Charlie Musselwhite, Mavis Staples, and others will be performing at the exclusive event.

And so who will be paying for all of this?

You and I will be. Even as the Obamas cry about all of the other “spending cuts” that are happening, they continue to blow millions of taxpayer dollars on wildly extravagant parties and vacations.

Overall, U.S. taxpayers will spend well over a billion dollars on the Obamas this year.

I wonder what the tunnel people that live under the streets of America think about that.

Rabidly Anti Gun Doctor Manages To Insult Millions Of Americans In One Interview

Posted on April 9, 2013 by AE44

(Ammoland.com)- Vociferous Pro-Victimhood Advocate David Hemenway, PhD, Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center managed to insult 10′s of millions of Americans in a recent interview by declaring that anyone who chooses to defend their lives or the lives of their loved ones is a “wuss“. ( http://tiny.cc/o1b8uw )

“The gun is a great equalizer because it makes wimps as dangerous as people who really have skill and bravery and so I’d like to have this notion that anyone using a gun is a wuss. They aren’t anybody to be looked up to. They’re somebody to look down at because they couldn’t defend themselves or couldn’t protect others without using a gun.”

So the good doctor deigns to look down from his ivory perch and hurl invective at anyone that is handicapped, injured, weak (or weaker, such as women vs man, elderly vs criminal), outnumbered or simply not a martial arts expert as “wusses“.

David Hemenway, PhD Dr Hemenway has a long and “illustrious” history of doing anything necessary to advance the Citizen Disarmament agenda of the elites. He also admits his desire, parroting that of Eric Holder and Dr. Mark Rosenberg, Director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Control and Prevention (NCIPC) who in 1994 told The Washington Post:

“We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes. Now it [sic] is dirty, deadly, and banned. That it is imperative to “change the social norms”

“This is not acceptable behavior anymore. Another area we talk about where social norms have changed is smoking. What a magnificent change we’ve had in smoking in the United States. We need to see a social norm change on gun violence. “

According to Hemenway, and far to many others, we are supposed to simply accept the notion that only a “wuss” would insist on armed self defense, that a 110lb woman must be able to defeat her potential attacker(s) or submit to rape or anything else that happens to her, or she is not worthy of respect. That a senior citizen (such asMary Sheppard, who was savagely beaten by a recently released violent felon) , that can not cold cock their significantly younger and stronger attacker should be viewed with contempt, or that even a mixed martial arts expert that cannot win out when set upon by multiple attackers such as those found in repeated cases of rampaging flash mobs around the Country is some kind of “lessor” being.

Of course this is also presuming that the potential attackers are all also unarmed, which is never the case.

Give the Dr this much, he’s at least open and public with his contempt, disdain and bigoted views, something that many Anti Gun advocates try desperately to hide from public view. The thing is, his public remarks are a huge, arrogant mistake.

Generally speaking its considered a good idea to not insult millions of people you are trying to persuade to come around to your view point.

Then again, Anti’s like the Dr make these same arrogant mistakes all the time, and as a rather famous General and Political Leader once said ” Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake” - Napolean Bonaparte.

In that light, I would strongly encourage the good doctor to keep opening his mouth at every opportunity.

Joe Scarborough also admits gun owners were right all along

The core philosophy of liberals has just been shattered… government is not trustworthy and compassionate

The illusion of trustworthy government has been destroyed

NJ State Senator’s Hot Mic On Guns: “Confiscate, Confiscate, Confiscate”

Lauryn Hill was kidnapped by agents of the state and placed in a cage for failing to hand over a significant amount of her income to the government.

A crime to leave Canada to plan for terrorism

NDP argues bill threatens civil liberties

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