I do not care about the sob stories of gun violence on the news anymore. It is a consequence for right to keep and bear arms. I accept people will always use a gun to commit crimes. There was no calls for gun control in the wild west, there was more gun fights in the streets in that period in history then there is today.We hear in the news always about gun laws needed to stop the violence. We never hear about how guns avert crimes before they start. I do not believe the government telling us to turn in our guns in the name of keeping us safe because they care. The truth is the government needs to be disarmed and not the people. The government will abuse its power if the people are disarmed. It always happens. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
All Political power comes from a barrel of a gun as the Chinese dictator told us is so true even though he murdered over 100 million people who could not resist. Why; because he had the power of life and death when he deceived the population into disarming themselves. Joseph Stalin murdered 60 million people. Pol Pot millions and Rwanda hundreds of thousands hacked to death after the people were disarmed of any means self defense. Tyrants do not want people to have arms because they do not want their power to be challenged by the people rising up against them.
I do not care if Obama and Hillery do sign the UN small arms treaty. Many people will not comply with it. People will not register their guns ,nor turn them in. History has proven that no country has never conquered an armed population. We have lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because the people are well armed challenging the occupation of our forces on the ground. People know if they retain their firearms, they have a good chance of keeping their freedom and dignity.
It is government today that is mostly violent, not the people. The TSA commits crimes daily being violent many times in the airport where people have died in the Transportation Security Administration’s custody. This agency does not even follow their own rules. The TSA on purpose is hiring people with criminal backgrounds to screen airline passengers. Tyrannical regimes always use criminal to carry out their thuggery. Government agents raid farms and homes pointing guns at the children’s heads in an early morning raid. They cannot be trusted, nor should we have confidence in them if they promise security if we turn in our firearms.
Government is the one killing people and not always the people. Police are using tazers on old ladies or a gang of police officers beating up a homeless man for no good reason. Police are abusing steroids making them raving nut cases a danger to others. The government does not care about police abusing this performing enhancing drug because it serves their purpose. If someone gets busted for a joint, the system throws the book at them sending them to prison for 10 years. When we have police in Arizona shooting a former marine defending his home that was the wrong house. Who is the violent gang out of control. The veteran the DHS say is the threat defending his family or the SWAT team shooting without any coherent rules of engagement to restrain the police going trigger happy. I do not trust the government cares about the people anymore.
So who is committing the violence besides the repeat offender that gets paroled while the non violent person who is sent to prison for a nonviolent victimless crime never has a chance to get parole. It is the government committing the violence and killing people senselessly? It is the government. The government killed more people than car accidents, heart attacks, cancer and other mishaps combined. Government is the cause of unnatural and untimely deaths through mass murder and famines they caused.
Never feel ashamed owning a firearm. Gun ownership is as American as apple pie. We should never be apologetic or compromising with these people for their favor. The gun grabbers never compromise and always get what they want because we have spineless politicians who are trying to just get along then standing up for our liberty. We do not have to be reasonable with the gun control crowd, what they have planned is not reasonable at all. “The extreme defense of liberty is no vice” as Barry Goldwater said.
We have to make no apologies for standing for our natural right to keep and bear arms to these gun grabbers. We just say government committed more senseless violence in history then what a serial killer or repeat offender ever does. We are at the point in history we have the moral high ground defending our right to keep and bear arms. The gun grabbers is on the run and desperate. We need not be ashamed or say we are sorry for what we believe anymore.
John Roberts– who was appointed by the son of the man who once proudly heralded the coming of the New World Order on the floor of Congress– made a ‘surprising’ run to the left on Thursday, ruling in favor of Obamacare’s insurance mandate, forcing Americans to buy the same insurance they couldn’t afford to begin with and using the power of government to give insurance companies more customers while pretending to punish them. Claiming that the mandate is a tax, despite the fact that Obama once said that it wasn’t, the federal government is forcing Americans to buy a product before voluntarily participating in an activity, drawing a big X over the rest of the U.S. Constitution, and upholding a limitless definition of Congress’s taxing power as the standard by which it can do whatever it wants. Unlike the income tax or auto insurance, which theoretically a person can avoid by not working and not driving, the health insurance mandate is a tax that a citizen pays simply for being alive.
For years America has been divided on this issue, with one side touting Obamacare as an exercise of “democracy” and the majority on the other side rejecting it as “socialism” (which pure democracy leads to). In reality the healthcare law is corporatism on steroids, with insurance companies eager to “enroll America” within days of the law’s passing.
After the ruling on Thursday, “Bilderberg Party” co-candidate Mitt Romney made a bland political statement that essentially said nothing, and several public figures who were in favor of the law, seeking to put the issue to rest, claimed the issue has been settled now that is has gone to nation’s highest court, overlooking the last steps of action justified by the federal government’s violation of the 10th Amendment, and outlined by the Declaration of Independence– which states the right of free people to abolish (or secede from) governments that overstep their bounds. While many claim this last action could never happen in America– given the nature of certain citizens who only embrace ‘rebellion’ when it’s endorsed by some faction of the establishment using them to water down revolutionary inclinations or unknowingly advocate for what the establishment wants– it is an option that still exists, nonetheless, and stands as the true final step of resistance. Such an action, if taken, would need to be proclaimed by state governments in order to have the most teeth. Minus the assistance of state governments, citizens are entitled to practice noncompliance with unconstitutional laws, provided that they are acts of noncompliance, not offensive violence, and that any violent acts that result are those of the federal government showing its hand and cracking down on the rights of its citizens while it pretends to stand for freedom to the rest of the world.
Secession should certainly be the final resort. If a state were to lead the charge, a declaration of secession would have to be the last step behind a reassertion of its 10th Amendment rights and its own declaration on noncompliance with the law through nullification. This would put the ball back in the federal government’s court, with the state essentially stating to it, “ok, make me”, and forcing the federal government give the first shove, if it had to come to that (which it doesn’t need to). Last year, when the state of Texas considered a law that would have prevented TSA agents from groping innocent passengers, the federal government threatened to ban any flight to and from the state…the modern day equivalent of blockading Boston Harbor. Unfortunately Texas backed down, robbing America of what could have been a showdown that would have forced the White House to either show its true face, solidly establishing it as an enemy of its people and an occupying force, or once again wear the leash that our founding fathers made for it.
The Supreme Court shamefully shielding the blatantly unconstitutional insurance mandate should be seen as one of the last breaths gasped by canary in the coal mine by anyone still in doubt that our constitution is being rendered null and void by the big money interests seeking to control the world, and the puppet officials who serve them. The last political solution between chaos or surrender lies within state governments and within individuals in these states who are resolved in their decision to stand their ground and not comply. For anyone to believe that sending establishment Republicans to Congress and rallying behind Mitt Romney in the next presidential (s)election is going reverse the outcome of the Supreme Court’s ruling is naive at best, and intellectually negligent for anyone who knows that both major political parties are really just two sides of the same coin.
Resistance needs to be grassroots, not a controlled opposition that results in the reaffirmation of the status quo.
This morning I was reading that Ben Swann, host of Reality Check, was homeschooled and earned his master’s degree by the age of 17 through BYU (http://cincinnati.com/blogs/tv/2010/12/13/meet-ben-swann-new-fox19-anchor/). As I’ve written before, I think this is the future of education: I was calling for the achievement of bachelor-level degrees by the time people finish high school, but maybe it’s time to start dreaming for Ph.D. levels to be achieved? If this is what one homeschooling family is achieving, what kind of schools could we have if we had properly trained teachers and the freedom for individual students to develop themselves without friction? Clearly, the level of education at our schools must not be very high if homeschoolers like Ben Swann are successful – he is not merely an isolated case.
You’d think that with all the educating we do in the U.S. that we’d have some super-geniuses emerging – plenty of Mozarts and Einsteins. Unfortunately, though, with a $15 Trillion Dollar U.S. Federal Gov’t and whole hosts of problems, the achievements of the public (and private) school system seem to be lacking. The question we should ask ourselves is, “How can I personally make U.S. schooling better?” Is it through attending more Parent-Teacher Conferences and through parents getting more of a direct involvement in the schools as some parents have been literally taking over school districts? Perhaps we need to think more on a philosophy and practicality of education in our modern world.
The hallmark of good education is inculcating a passionate love of learning which is free to inquire and follow thoughts where they lead, as well as providing the tools and role models for answering questions and showing a student how to do things and achieve excellence. I remember seeing Ayn Rand speak about how she dealt with Soviet Russia’s poor education system. When she was in grade school, she said she would put up a couple folders to block the teacher’s view and would write novels behind them! The intelligent mind will always find ways to endure and hopefully triumph over damaging forces around them, yet the more we can do to help that mind soar, the more developed of a world we can create.
“The Closing of the American Mind” by Allan Bloom was a conservative lament for education I read some time ago. While I don’t agree with everything Mr. Bellow said, I do agree that our higher education institutions have “impoverished the souls of today’s students”. Far too much now we have a “political correctness” in schools that goes out of it’s way to read inferior quality work in order to be inclusive of other cultures, rather than support and defend the “Western White European Christian Dead Old Men’s” writing, which is generally what constitutes a lot of what are often universally agreed to be the “classics” of thought. The inequality of cultures and of ideas is certainly not a popular idea today, yet is directly contradicted by the fact that we think some ideas are “better” than others. Are we aiming to be geniuses today above the fools or is everyone of the radical egalitarian breed that “everyone is smart”? Without being snobbish or racist, we should be objective and allow to speak freely and without arbitrary discrimination. We have to remember that many who are considered “classic” today may have been vehemently hated in their day, and we need to have the freedom to love (and hate) again today as well.
Alfie Kohn, while very socialist in his thought, does bring up important considerations for our incessant focus on standardization and competition in his book, “No Contest” as well as other essays. Is the SAT really an accurate measure of intelligence and skills? Tests such as the SAT, barring any claims of cultural bias, do give some kind of accurate assessment of one’s logic and verbal skills. Yet, does it measure how well you can play [or use] a musical (or surgical) instrument? Does it measure your emotional intelligence (E.Q.)? Where is the dissent about the limitations of the SAT to measure intelligence? Maybe this is another conspiracy I have yet to research, about how the College Board (makers of the SAT) gained such prominence and influence in the higher education system…
Another book I recall reading but don’t remember too much about is “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life” by Richard Hofstadter. I personally LOVE to read books more than I love breathing air and don’t know how anyone can live without the things (or the internet)! How many people do you know who call themselves an “intellectual” today? In a non-discriminating, socialized education system, no longer are there the “smart” and the “stupid”. Has being an intellectual become physicalized, become a neuroscience and business, of sorts? What happened to purely intellectual pursuits? What happened to high achievement by the intellect? Has it become too costly, too unfashionable, or are we just too lazy to read?
Another book I remember reading, when trying to figure out this education puzzle while I was stuck in its prison halls was “The Case Against Homework” by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish. This book was excellent about how students should have the freedom to do work at school and to relax at home. Do you go to your job and then bring home work to do? Some people do voluntarily – how about we have students do so voluntarily if they want to get ahead? Regardless: do we really need to make our youth take work home to do? I’m not against the idea, but do think that some students might learn better by having school year round with less hours and by doing more work during school hours rather than school hours AND hours at home. When I look back at my youth, I probably could have benefitted from some kind of arrangement like that – I just remember there being one way of doing things and that was it. I recall reading that the structure of school from Fall to Spring was created to accommodate agricultural society. Well, we’re not exactly that kind of society anymore, so could we find more efficient ways to do things and give kids more freedom?
One book I especially liked was “The Teenage Liberation Handbook” by Grace Llewellyn – but unfortunately I was in college when I was first reading it. This book was about “unschooling” or about autodidactism or self-taught learning. It gave a bunch of book ideas and internship-esque or employment opportunities for young people to look for rather than “traditional” schooling (I don’t like to use the term “traditional” because I believe in “traditional” models, to some extent, but think they have become grossly perverted). Unschooling seemed appealing to me because I taught myself how to do a lot of things that I loved doing and also found refuge in my own research skills rather than working with some incompetent or uncaring teachers. Yet, as every unschooler would have to agree, unschooling is NOT exactly being “self-taught”. It’s more like customized-choice-of-teachers-through-books. Books are the ability for a teacher to teach at a distance; reading a book is like learning from a teacher, only in a visual way.
One thread I gather from all of these readings: legislation like the “No Child Left Behind” Act is extremely short-sighted about the diversity of approaches required for ensuring educational excellence. Can education thrive without moral foundation? How can we use technology to further educational goals (or when should we abstain from using it, like in teaching young people how to garden and grow their own food)? What is a libertarian education system? What does it mean to be “well educated”? How can we work to get the cost of education down? (In other countries, there are riots about the cost of education – perhaps we need more protest and demand for cheap education in the U.S. in order to get it?) What’s the endgame of our education, what do we really want to use it to do?
All comments and thoughts below are appreciated!
This article has been generously contributed by Paul Hakel
While spending on the food stamp program has increased 100 percent under President Barack Obama, the government continues to push more Americans to enroll in the welfare program.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has embraced entire promotional campaigns designed to encourage eligible Americans to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps.
A pamphlet currently posted at the USDA website encourages local SNAP offices to throw parties as one way to get potentially eligible seniors to enroll in the program.
“Throw a Great Party. Host social events where people mix and mingle,” the agency advises. “Make it fun by having activities, games, food, and entertainment, and provide information about SNAP. Putting SNAP information in a game format like BINGO, crossword puzzles, or even a ‘true/false’ quiz is fun and helps get your message across in a memorable way.”
The agency’s most recent outreach effort targets California, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio and the New York metro area with radio ads.
The ads have been running since March and are scheduled to continue through the end of June — at a cost of $2.5 million — $3 million, CNN Money reported Monday.
CNN Money further noted that the USDA began running paid radio ads in 2004, under President George W. Bush, who oversaw a 63 percent increase in average food stamp participation.
In the 1970s, one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today one our of every seven receive the benefit. After the recession, the ratio is expected to hover around one out of every nine, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Despite the high rate of food stamp participation, the USDA has numerous blueprints posted on their website aimed at getting more people to enroll in SNAP. A 2009 State Outreach Plan Guidance explains why the agency believes states should adopt strategies to get more people on the rolls:
Outreach Can Help Increase Participation in SNAP Resulting in Multiple Benefits for Participants, States, and Communities: SNAP is the cornerstone of the nation’s nutrition safety net and an investment in our future. SNAP offers the opportunity for improved nutrition and progress toward economic self-sufficiency for participants who become stronger members of the community. However, too many low income people, especially seniors, working people, and legal immigrants, who are eligible for SNAP do not participate and thus forego assistance that could stretch their food dollars and help improve their nutrition.
According to the USDA, greater food stamp usage can be an economic plus for states and communities.
“Every $5 in new SNAP benefits generates $9.20 in an additional community spending,” the USDA contends in their outreach guidance. “If the national participation rate rose five percentage points, 1.9 million more low-income people would have an additional $1.3 billion in benefits per year to use to purchase healthy food and $2.5 billion total in new economic activity would be generated nationwide.”
During debate on the 2012 farm bill earlier this month, Senate Republicans pushed for amendments aimed at reducing the cost and participation in the food stamp program.
The Democratically controlled Senate voted down Republican efforts — denying amendments targeting the swelling rolls that were introduced by Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, and others from Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions — arguing they could reduce access to those in need.
US authorities have recently called for comment on a rule change that may impact the gold market.
The US Treasury, Federal Reserve and the FDIC have jointly sought comment on changing some capital adequacy rules for when an institution holds gold in its own vaults or in another’s vaults.
According to the draft documents released, when gold is currently held as an asset, it is risk weighted at 15% – that is, a 15% haircut is taken on its current value for capital adequacy calculations. (See page 86 of the attached Federal Reserve document.)
However, in this same document, they are proposing that there be no (zero) discount.
That would then put gold on the same basis as cash.
217.131 Mechanics for Calculating Total Wholesale and Retail Risk-Weighted Assets.
(i) A bank holding company or savings and loan holding company may assign a riskweighted asset amount of zero to cash owned and held in all offices of subsidiary depository institutions or in transit; and for gold bullion held in a subsidiary depository institution’s own vaults, or held in another depository institution’s vaults on an allocated basis, to the extent the gold bullion assets are offset by gold bullion liabilities.
This seems an adventurous move. Over the past five years, the US$ value of gold has moved more than +/-50% from its average over that time, and is currently sitting -20% below its high in that same period. In cash terms, there certainly has been market price risk.
However, as Skyler Greene at Seeking Alpha points out, the break from the current risk weighting of gold could impact the market.
He points out that retail investors have more long positions in gold futures than short ones, while “commercial investors” have far more short positions than long. If the rule change is approved, perhaps US banks will start accumulating more gold as an efficient way to bolster their capital.
It’s important to note two things. First, the rule change is only proposed. Second, gold isn’t going to go sky-high on the news, because banks are unlikely to buy market-distorting amounts of the shiny metal. However, a steady buyer of gold can’t hurt the market, and if the rule change goes through, “it may well set the stage for a long-term gold rally”.
Fans of gold are taking an interest in this potential development. As Greene notes: “It may be one of the most important events in the gold market since the US abandoned the gold standard.”
No matter how we may feel about the U.S. waging war in the Middle East, or how suspect we are about the motives of the people who put us there, one thing most of us will readily acknowledge is this: The vast majority of the people who serve in the armed forces do so for the noblest of reasons. They believe in the American ideals of freedom, fairness and justice.
Antonio Buehler is a 34-year-old Iraqi War veteran who risked his life for those ideals. He is a West Point graduate. Today he faces 10 years behind bars for standing up for them at home. His crime? Photographing two police officers, who he felt were mistreating a young woman being arrested on New Year’s eve, for suspicion of DUI. The two officers of the Austin Police Department arrested Buehler and he’s been charged with harassment of a public servant, a felony that carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Why did Antonio Buehler get involved at all?
“I saw a woman getting assaulted by the police. It looked like police abuse, and I decided to speak up and take pictures. I think that is every person’s right,”
The police report alleges that Buehler “shoved” and “spit on” one of the arresting officers. Unfortunately for the Austin Police Department, there is both eyewitness and video evidence to the contrary. There is a YouTube video, that while admittedly overproduced, effectively disproves the claims made in the official report.
Watch the action unfold in this video:
As you can well imagine, the Austin Police Department has been less than sympathetic to Buehler’s situation. There is an internal affairs investigation being conducted on the two officers involved, but they won’t share any information with him. It would appear that the former soldier’s last hopes of avoiding trial rest with the Austin Citizen Review Panel. They can make a recommendation to the police department after he meets with them, next month.
There is an also an online petition that seeks to defend Buehler and have the police officers charged. It gives you a little insight into the character of the man who risked his life overseas for his country, and risked his freedom when he spoke up at home; he was given a breathalyzer test that NYE, and he passed it because he was the designated driver. Another job that nobody wants, but someone had to take on. Because it’s the right thing to do.
In truth, the longer you look at Antonio Buehler, the more you understand what it is we should all be fighting for; this is a patriot whose ideals have shaped and informed his actions, and continue to do so to this day. The country he fought for isn’t rewarding him very fairly, he’s been accused of assaulting a police officer in his home state of Texas, in nearby Arizona the police can legally detain him based on the color of his skin their suspicions he may not be American.
But he doesn’t stand down and he doesn’t surrender, Buehler has recently created the Peaceful Streets Project, “an all-volunteer, grassroots undertaking uniting Austinites behind the common goal of ending the institutional violence taking place on Austin streets. Through community organizing, training, and direct action tactics, the Peaceful Streets Project seeks to support marginalized communities in understanding, exercising, and standing up for their rights.”
His plan is to arm the citizens of Austin with video cameras, to be used when they see abuses of power. No matter what part of the political spectrum you may fall on, if you can’t get behind Antonio Buehler, you shouldn’t call yourself American. He seems to embody every trait that Americans holds dear, and demands that the America he’s served do the same.
An American Eagle steward confronts angry passengers on-board the plane after they were delayed for some five hours. When passengers got upset about the delay, a fly attendant identifying himself as “Jose” advised them that they could leave the plane:
When JP Morgan made some bad trades last quarter, CEO Jamie Dimon suggested it was just a few hundred million. Then reports emerged that it could be as high as $2 billion.
It turns out that both numbers were grossly underestimated.
Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. tumbled Thursday as a published report said that the bank’s losses on a bad trade may reach as much as $9 billion — far higher than the estimated $2 billion loss disclosed last month.
In May, JPMorgan said the loss came from trading in credit derivatives designed to hedge against financial risk, not to make a profit for the New York bank.
The New York Times, citing sources it did not identify by name, said that the losses have grown recently as JPMorgan has been unwinding its positions. The newspaper said its sources were current and former traders and executives at JPMorgan, which is the largest bank in the U.S. by assets.
The New York Times story cites an internal report that JPMorgan made in April that showed the losses could reach $8 billion to $9 billion, in a worst-case scenario. But the newspaper added that because JPMorgan has already been unwinding its positions, some expect that the losses will not be more than $6 billion to $7 billion.
A JPMorgan representative declined to comment.
…
In a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee last week, Dimon was dismissive when asked if JPMorgan’s losses could total half a trillion or a trillion dollars. He replied bluntly: “Not unless the Earth is hit by the moon.”
How much do you believe of what’s on that “trusted” news broadcast? A recent Florida ruling suggests that your favorite news anchor can say just about anything and pose it as truth, even if it’s a complete fabrication.
A Florida Appeals court ruled that it is legal for press organizations to lie, conceal, or distort information. The decision, which reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of Fox Television journalist Jane Akre, declares that no law is being broken if false information is given in a television broadcast.
In the August 2000 trial, Akre charged she was pressured by management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information in a story about the use of growth hormones in dairy cows. The six-person jury was unanimous in concluding that Akre was fired because she threatened to report the station for pressuring her to report the false information.
Fox’s attorneys’ arguments failed on three separate occasions, in front of three different judges, to have the case dismissed since there is no hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news. The attorneys argued that the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the airwaves.
In a written decision, the Court held that the Federal Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a “policy,” not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation.
Google sent out an email to Google Adwords customers saying that they are going to pull all Google Shopping results for guns, ammunition, gun optics and gun accessories (Shopping results, not general search results).
We’re writing to let you know about some upcoming changes to the product listings you submit to Google. As we recently announced, we are starting to transition our shopping experience to a commercial model that builds on Product Listing Ads. This new shopping experience is called Google Shopping. As part of this transition, we’ll begin to enforce a set of new policies for Google Shopping in the coming weeks. A new list of the allowed, restricted, and prohibited products on Google Shopping is available on our new policy page – http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/ApI7UWRj6OCZpd.
Based on a review of the products you’re currently submitting, it appears that some of the content in your Merchant Center account, HamLund Tactical, will be affected by these policy changes. In particular we found that your products may violate the following policies:
Weapons
When we make this change, Google will disapprove all of the products identified as being in violation of policies. We ask that you make any necessary changes to your feeds and/or site to comply, so that your products can continue to appear on Google Shopping.
To help you through this new set of policies and how to comply with them, we would like to give you some specific suggestions regarding the changes needed to keep your offers running on Google Shopping.
Weapons
As highlighted on our new policy page http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/ApI7UWRj6OCZpd, in order to comply with the Google Shopping policies you need to comply first with the AdWords policies http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/StQ08jAzM4fVtG.We do not allow the promotion or sale of weapons and any related products such as ammunitions or accessory kits on Google Shopping. In order to comply with our new policies, please remove any weapon-related products from your data feed and then re-submit your feed in the Merchant Center. For more information on this policy please visit http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/GbBNIGHOribLzf.
We’re constantly reviewing our policies, and updating them when necessary, to ensure we’re offering the best experience possible to our users. We’ve identified a set of policy principles to govern our policy efforts on Google Shopping in the U.S. These principles are:
1) Google Shopping should provide a positive experience to users. Showing users the right products at the right time can truly enhance a user’s experience. When people trust us to deliver them to a destination that’s relevant, original, and easy to navigate this creates a positive online experience to the benefit of both users and merchants.
2 ) Google Shopping should be safe for all users. User safety is everyone’s business, and we can’t do business with those who don’t agree. Scams, phishing, viruses, and other malicious activities on the Internet damage the value of the Internet for everyone. Trying to get around policies or “game the system” is unfair to our users, and we can’t allow that.
3) Google Shopping should comply with local laws and regulations. Many products and services are regulated by law, which can vary from country to country. All advertising, as well as the products and services being advertised, must clearly comply with all applicable laws and regulations. For the most part, our policies aren’t designed to describe every law in every country. All advertisers bear their own responsibility for understanding the laws applicable to their business. Our policies are often more restrictive than the law, because we need to be sure we can offer services that are legal and safe for all users.
4) Google Shopping should be compatible with Google’s brand decisions. Google Shopping must be compatible with company brand decisions. Our company has a strong culture and values, and we’ve chosen not to allow ads that promote products and services that are incompatible with these values. In addition, like all companies, Google sometimes makes decisions based on technical limitations, resource constraints, or requirements from our business partners. Our policies reflect these realities.
We’ve given much thought to our stance on this content, as well as the potential effect our policy decision could have on our Merchants, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.
Valdimir Zhirinovsky, Russian Liberal Party leader wants US President Barack Obama stripped of his Nobel Peace Prize (NPP). In 2009, Obama was given the prestigious award because of his work on nuclear non-proliferation. Zhirinovsky, in a statement , says that because of “these developments in Libya are another outrageous act of aggression by NATO forces and, in particular, the United States.” He also pointed out that Obama’s strike was a “colonial policy” that intended to usurp control over Libyan oil.
Bolivian President Evo Morales agrees with Zhirinovsky, as he commented : “How is it possible that a Nobel Peace Prize winner leads a gang to attack and invade? This is not a defense of human rights or self-determination.”
Other commentators were more frank: “Obama gives speeches trashing his own country and for that gets a prize, which is now worth as much as whatever prizes they are putting in Cracker Jacks these days.”
Guenther Oettinger, leader of the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, told Bloomberg that the NPP is given “at the end” of a persons’ achievements, not the beginning.
Since Obama’s election in 2008, he has turned from the commander-in-chief to the “ drone warrior-in-chief ” as the shredding of the US Constitution by his administration paved the way for draconian legislation, use of torture and murdering of Americans without due process.
Obama has created a kill list in which he made himself judge, jury and executioner with unmanned drones to carry out his tyrannical orders. John Brennan was promoted from counter-terrorism advisor to “assassination Czar” last month. Between the two of them, they decide who lives and dies by simply placing a name on a target list for the US military and CIA that defines who are terrorists and who are not.
The use of drones within American skies has also increased as Obama incrementally turns our Free Republic into a Police State that were conceived of by Orwell in 1984.
Global leaders have denounced the award of the NPP to Obama; regarding the summation that he has worked toward efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” was a premature assumption of the first few months of his presidency. Since then, Obama’s actions do not reflect that of a peacemaker, but rather a self-proclaimed dictator within the US domestic boarders and violent usurper abroad.
Totalitarian governments, like persistent forms of cancer, have latched onto the long history of man, falling and then reemerging from the deep recesses of our cultural biology to wreak havoc upon one unlucky generation to the next. The assumption by most is that these unfortunate empires are the product of bureaucracies gone awry; overtaken by the chaotic maddening hunger for wealth and power, and usually manipulated by the singular ambitions of a mesmerizing dictator. For those of us in the Liberty Movement who are actually educated on the less acknowledged details of history, oligarchy and globalized centralism is much less random than this, and a far more deliberate and devious process than the general unaware public is willing consider.
Unfortunately, the final truth is very complex, even for us…
One cannot place the blame of despotism entirely on the shoulders of globalists. Sadly, the crimes of elites are only possible with a certain amount of complicity from subsections of the populace. Without our penchant for apathy and fear, there can be no control. That is to say, there is no power over us but that which we give away. We pave the road to our own catastrophes.
In the end, a tyrant’s primary job is not to crush the masses and rule out of malevolence, but to obtain the voluntary consent of the citizenry, usually through trickery and deceit. Without the permission of the people, subconscious or otherwise, no tyranny can survive.
As with the oppressive regimes of the past, America has undergone a dramatic transformation, heavy with fear and ignorance. Our tradition of elections has been corrupted and negated by the false left/right paradigm, and the leaderships of both defunct parties now seek only to elevate a select minority of men bent on globalization. Our Constitutional liberties have been dismantled by legal chicanery. Our principles have been diluted by intellectual games of rationalism and moral relativism. Our country is ripe for conquest.
Americans battle over whose side is most to blame; Democrat or Republican, while ironically being disenchanted with both entities. For some people, the thought of holding each party equally accountable, or accepting that they are essentially the same animal, never crosses their minds.
While this irrelevant farce of a debate rages on, the true culprits plotting the demise of our Republic gain momentum, and implement policy initiatives that the public should and must take note of. In the past year alone, many blatant steps towards the Orwellian gulag have been openly administered. A carnival of peddlers and freaks and greasy popcorn overwhelms our senses, but the stench of this cheap circus still tickles our noses, and if we use our eyes for even a moment, certain dangerous trends reveal themselves. Here are just a few recent events that bear a dire warning; the ultimate assault on freedom in this nation grows near…
Acclimation To Subservience
Every totalitarian state worth its salt has its own goon squad. The Nazi’s had the “Brownshirts”, the Soviets had the “Militsiya” and the “Voluntary People’s Brigade”, the Communist Chinese have the “Chengguan”, etc. In America, however, all tyrannical measures are given innocuous bureaucratic labels to mislead and distract the masses. In this country, we have the Transportation Security Administration…
The TSA has become the most hated alphabet agency in the U.S. in perhaps the fastest time on record. It has violated the personal rights of more people on a daily basis in my view than the IRS, DEA, and the ATF combined. Clearly, this slobbering demon child of the Department of Homeland Security is being molded for something quite terrible and grand.
When confronted by the public on the use of irradiating and intrusive naked body scanner technology, the agency responded by allowing their blue handed ghoul army with to molest our nether-regions. When confronted by state and local governments on their absurd tactics, the TSA threatened economic blockades and airport shutdowns. The organization then began expanding its jurisdiction to bus and train stations and even our highways when it introduced the VIPR program and implemented random roadside checkpoints in Tennessee last year. But, this behavior is nothing compared to what is next on the horizon: a compromise…
Beware of government agencies bearing gifts. The TSA along with the International Air Transport Association has announced a new methodology of “less intrusive” passenger screening measures, in order to address the concerns of the public over pat downs and irradiating naked body scanners. This SOUNDS like a step in the right direction, and a proper response to the grievances of the citizenry. Instead, it turns out to be a refined example of totalitarianism in motion, and a perfect lesson in how the masses can be duped into handing over their inherent freedoms.
Revamped security protocols call for biometric data collection, including fingerprint and retina scans, and a tunnel which combines multiple detection systems into one area (who knows how radioactive this will end up being):
The mainstream article above makes this development sound like a win/win scenario for everyone, painting biometric data collection as a matter of convenience, but it also reveals the true design of the system; to illicit voluntary subservience:
“The key to speeding up checkpoints and making security less intrusive will be to identify and assess travelers according to the risks they pose to safety in the skies. The so-called riskiest or unknown passengers would face the toughest scrutiny, including questioning and more sensitive electronic screening. Those who voluntarily provide more information about themselves to the government would be rewarded with faster passage…”
They enforce destructive anti-personal rights policies then pretend to acquiesce by replacing them with a technocratic nightmare grid which requires the cataloging of our very genetic essence in order to function. The only remaining injustice left would be to apply this grid to the rest of the country outside of the airports and train stations, which I assure you, they plan to do.
Militarization
Last week, I covered the disturbing use of armored vehicles (APC’s or urban tanks) in open training regiments on the streets of St. Louis by the U.S Army, despite the fact that all of their exercises could have easily been accomplished on any number of military bases across the country. The action is an obvious attempt to condition the American populace to the sight of military units operating in a policing capacity:
I received multiple letters from current serving military who stated that in all their years in the armed forces they had never seen such a brash mishandling of public relations or an overstepping of bounds when it came to the restrictions of Posse Comitatus. It was encouraging to hear from military men and women who did not agree with or condone this kind of psyop activity on the part of our government.
Though the St. Louis event is not isolated, I believe it does represent an escalation.
Remember the controversy over the Mayor of Toledo and his refusal to allow 200 Marines to conduct urban combat drills on the public streets of his city in 2008? The media clamored to crucify this public official; one of the few who had any sense whatsoever in his head:
During each one of these events, city officials and local media attempted to inoculate the public with claims that they were “simply exercises”. This argument misses the point entirely. Whether or not these are “exercises” is not the issue. The issue is that this training could be done ON BASE. Using public streets and running drills within cities is absolutely unnecessary given the vast resources already available to the military, unless, of course, the goal is to BE SEEN by the public and to influence them to view the sight of armed troops around them as “normal”.
Add to this the fact that many of these military training exercises are being conducted in tandem with local police department, and you have a recipe for the utter militarization of our society, turning peace officers into combat soldiers, and combat soldiers into law enforcement mechanisms; a juxtaposition that will soon lead to unmitigated disaster.
Arms Race Against the People?
When a country is quietly preparing for war, the first signs are usually revealed by a disclosure of armaments. If stockpiling is taking place without a warranted threat present from a legitimate enemy, there is a considerable likelihood of aggression on the part of that nation. America has gone well beyond the psychological process of militarization and has begun the extensive arming of particular agencies whose primary purpose revolves around the domestic.
The DHS, for instance, placed an order for over 450 million rounds of hollowpoint .40 cal ammunition in April of this year:
While local police through federal programs (like the 1033 Program) are being given millions of dollars in free military equipment, including body armor, night vision equipment, APC’s, aircraft, first aid supplies, weapons, surveillance equipment, Kevlar helmets, gas masks and filters, vehicles, etc.:
All of this equipment, though issued to state agencies, is still heavily tracked and regulated by the federal government, making it clear that these “gifts” come with strings attached:
And finally, new FAA regulations will soon allow the dispersion of tens of thousands of predator drones with armament capability in the skies of the U.S. over the course of the next few years:
Now, anyone with any logic would ask who it is that the government is arming itself and local police to fight against? Al Qaeda? Let’s not be naïve…
The passage of the NDAA and its provisions for the indefinite detainment of ANY person, even an American citizen, under the laws of war has ended the debate over government intent in terms of domestic action. FBI Director Robert Mueller’s admission that he “did not know” if assassination programs would be used against American citizens also heaped evidence on the matter. The bottom line? Our government wishes to label and treat citizens as enemy combatants. Of course they would then organize armaments to follow through on their policy.
Pulling The Trigger
All despotic systems have another distinct similarity; they each began with a series of trigger events which opened the door to tighter controls over the population. The most immediate trigger event for the U.S. is the looming peril of a collapsing economy followed by inevitable civil unrest. With the EU currently in debt shambles, global markets are on the verge of a considerable breakdown. The Federal Reserve response will be predictable; QE3 and massive stimulus all around to mitigate the crisis. This time, though, the go-to Keynesian quick fix will not work in the slightest. In fact, it will make matters more untenable by placing the world reserve status of the dollar at risk.
Everything that has happened so far in the markets this year has been easy to foresee. Alt-Market predicted the economic slowdown around the world and the collapse of overall demand using the Baltic Dry Index as a gauge back in January:
If alternative economic analysts can predict these developments despite the manipulated statistics spewed out by the government every month, then I think the government and our central bank has a tremendously transparent view of what is coming down the road in terms of financial distress. I believe the establishment is very well aware of a potential crisis event, economic or otherwise, that is barreling down upon the U.S. I believe the evidence shows that they are preparing for this eventuality in a command and control fashion, without alerting the public to the coming implosion. I believe they will use the despair that flows forth from the fiscal wreckage as an excuse to institute martial law.
Call it “crazy”. Call it “conspiracy theory”. Call it “coincidence”. Call it “fear mongering”. Whatever you like. I find it far more insane to shrug off the strange and twisted behavior of our power structure, and simply hope that it’s all irrelevant to the future. Whenever I run into starry eyed historical romanticists who look back in astonishment at the tyrannies of the past and wonder out loud, “How could those people have not known where their country was headed?!!”, I think of where we are today…
Brandon Smith is the founder of Alt-Market, an organization designed to help you find like-minded activists and preppers in your local area so that you can network and construct communities for mutual aid and defense.
You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com
Alt-Market is an organization designed to help you find like-minded activists and preppers in your local area so that you can network and construct communities for mutual aid and defense. Join Alt-Market.com today and learn what it means to step away from the system and build something better.
To contribute to the growth of the Safe Haven Project, and to help us help others in relocating, or to support the creation of barter networks across the country, visit our donate page.
Comments in Iowa from President Obama on August 15, 2011 versus comments from Vice President Joe Biden on June 27, 2012. Did we avoid a depression, or are we in the middle of it?
Last night was a night like no other and today much of northwest Colorado Springs wakes up to charred remains. On local news, Stan and I saw a vision of hell descend on the city. No still image, no weak words can convey the destruction that tore at our eyes. “Historic”, unprecedented”, “never before seen”, “catastrophic fury” rolled off stunned news broadcasters lips. House after house exploded into flames. Rooftops wore pointy “fire hats” twisting this way and that in the wind and then tremendous booms sounded as roofs collapsed.
Torrents of flame marched down mountainsides devouring everything in their path. Against the backdrop of dark evergreens, hellish orange-red backdrops of solid fire stretched into the night sky. Apocalyptic plumes of smoke – some rising as high as 30,000 feet – choked the skies darkening visibility to 0 in some areas.
Here are 10 things that you may have never considered when planning for a SHTF survival situation.
Law Enforcement Issues
1. No Law Enforcement
During an extreme SHTF scenario, it is very likely that law enforcement and emergency responders will be nonexistent. Even during small scale disasters, law enforcement officers often leave to take care of their own families first. When things go bad (empty grocery stores, no utilities, mass riots, violence, etc.) you are more than likely going to have to defend yourself.
2. Fake Law Enforcement
In a SHTF Scenario you need to be on the lookout for everything including people impersonating law enforcement and military personnel. During a catastrophic event, you will most likely see criminals preying on the innocent by pretending to be either police or military officers. You have to be able to quickly determine who is who, or stay away from people at all costs.
3. Law Enforcement and the Military Will Try to Take Your Guns.
Think it can’t happen? It already has! In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass ordered all local law enforcement, including the U.S. Marshalls office and the National Guard, to seize all civilian firearms.
Without warrants, armed National Guard troops and New Orleans law enforcement officials forcibly confiscated over 1,000 legal firearms from law abiding citizens. The New Orleans gun confiscation should serve as a warning to how the government and law enforcement officials will react during a large scale national disaster. It is extremely likely that they will come for your guns!
Personal Safety Issues
4. Gangs & Raiders
If things go bad, there will likely be more people who mean to do you harm than there will be people who are prepared. This is something that you must accept and learn to deal with. The fact is, most people have no idea what it really takes to survive and once their safety net is removed they will become increasingly desperate and unpredictable.
During an extreme emergency situation the lunatics of the world are going to be roaming the streets looking for easy victims to target. If you’re serious about survival, you need to train yourself in multiple self-defense styles and techniques. This means arming yourself with not only weapons, but also with the knowledge of how to defend yourself without them.
Sanitation Issues
6. Garbage will become a Killer.
This is a topic that’s not often discussed, but it’s one that will probably become a real problem during a SHTF situation. Often, people who talk about urban survival worry about things like raiders and roaming gangs, but the real danger might actually come from something that you already have in your home -Garbage
7. You have to Stock up on Sanitation Items
When planning to survive in any long-term survival situation, one thing that’s often overlooked is the dangers associated with a lack of adequate sanitation. I know it’s not a pleasant thing to think about, but this one issue has the potential to kill more people than any other survival topic that we can talk about.
Mental & Physical Health Issues
8. Maintaining a Positive Mental Attitude during a Survival Situation
Making it through a survival scenario often comes down to how well you can control your emotions. Keeping a positive frame of mind, even in the face of an unthinkable threat, will help you process what’s happening and will help you respond to the situation without giving into fear.
9. You must be prepared to face a number of physical and mental challenges.
From dealing with a lack of sleep and inadequate hydration, to coping with hunger pains and other stressors, survival can take a huge toll on your body. One of the best things you can do to ensure your survival, in just about any situation, is to make sure your body and your mind are trained to survive. This means motivating yourself to get off your butt and get in shape now, before it’s to late.
Communication Issues
10. You will be cut off from the outside World.
In a survival situation, knowledge is going to be a critical factor in determining the ultimate outcome of your situation. The ability to be able to predict what will happen in a survival situation is an important part of being prepared and often comes down to your ability to send and receive information.
When the power lines go down and the radio stations stop transmitting, there’s one line of communication that will still be alive and well. Having a good Multiband Ham Radio will allow you to send and receive critical emergency information during a disaster. It’s also a great way to find alternative news sources from around the world.
Is the CIA spying and feeding critical intelligence information to Syrian rebels and terrorists in a bid to undermine peace efforts in that country and overthrow the government of President Assad? CIA won’t say and Congress won’t ask apparently?
American spy satellites have been listening in on communications from Syrian government forces and passing the intelligence to rebels through spies on the ground, according to various British media reports.
The reports suggest that the American intelligence agencies has been vacuuming up large amounts of data through satellite eavesdropping, gone through and is then fed to Syrian rebels by agents of the spy agencies, MI6 and CIA, already deployed in Syria.
How extensive is the spying? Well, supposedly “Syrian generals giving orders(on the ground) can be -pinpointed within yards and identified by voice recognition techniques,” the Daily Star quoted a British defense source as saying. The Daily Star Sunday online magazine said the British and US¬satellites pass on photos and plans of regular army movements to the Syrian opposition chiefs through the British foreign security apparatus (MI6) and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers who have infiltrated Syria. They are working hand in hand with the rebels to overthrow the regime.
According to the daily, the information has helped rebels to move and evacuate their agents from hospitals and other targets before the national Syrian army arrived in, including those suspected in horrendous terrorist attacks?
The paper suggests the “CIA and MI6 (military intelligence) controls the Syrian hacking operation through sophisticated satellites that Allied eavesdroppers can identify the commanders and troops on the calls.
“The Syrian hacking operation is a new part of the worldwide “Echelon” system that was created to monitor the communist bloc during the Cold War,” the daily stated.
ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK–USA Security Agreement (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, known as AUSCANNZUKUS or Five Eyes).
It has also been described as the only software system which controls the download and dissemination of the intercept of commercial satellite trunk communications.
It is controlled, the paper says by Britain’s GCHQ listening station at Cheltenham and the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland.
“If that is the case they (NSA) are probably listening to everything including telephone calls, emails and military communications”, said one source inside the Defense Department, who declined to be named in this report.
The CIA didn’t reply to an email requesting confirmation they were engaged in espionage in Syria… and the NSA said “it doesn’t comment on operational capabilities and baseless newspaper accounts…”
A White House press official called the reports “unsubstantiated garbage” and reiterated President Obama’s commitment to a peaceful diplomatic solution in Syria.
The issue of U.S. spying raises speculation that our governments “hidden hand” involvement in that country is much more than just arming and training mercenaries and terrorists linked to al-Qaeda. The spies are proactive to the point of helping the rebels identify key defenses, weapons, ambush Syrian troops, staging attacks, conduct targeted assassinations of high ranking military and government officials and launching terrorist night raids, suicide attacks and smuggling arms and weapons across the Lebanese border…
“It’s clear we are not being told everything”, said one reporter in the UK, who shared information in this case.
Amid these reports are continued calls by many in the U.S. for military intervention in Syria’s bloody civil war.
Currently the U.S. Navy has three aircraft carrier battle groups in the Middle East within striking distance of Syria and Iran.
Another report of genetically modified creations taking the lives of livestock has hit the media, and this time genetically modified grass has been identified as the culprit according to CBS News. Shockingly (and quite disturbingly), the GM grass actually produced toxic cyanide and sent the cattle into a life-ending fit that included painful bellowing and convulsions. The deaths have led to a federal investigation centered in Central Texas, where the cattle had resided.
Just east of Austin, the cows lived on an 80-acre ranch owned by Jerry Abel. Abel says that the fields were used for over 15 years for cattle grazing and hay, and that the genetically modified grass was ‘tested’ previously and should have been ‘perfect’. The GM grass however, known as Tifton 85, appears have been producing toxic cyanide. Used as a genocidal agent in World War 2 by the Germans and considered to be an extremely dangerous substance internationally, it is extremely concerning that cyanide is now being produced by once harmless grass thanks to the modification process.
The 18 cattle went off to enjoy some ‘fresh’ new genetically modified grass, when Abel says they went into a fit of convulsions and shrieks. He explains:
“When our trainer first heard the bellowing, he thought our pregnant heifer may be having a calf or something,” said Abel. “But when he got down here, virtually all of the steers and heifers were on the ground. Some were already dead, and the others were already in convulsions.”
Within 15 hours of this incident, all of the cattle had died as a result of the grass ‘suddenly’ producing cyanide and therefore throwing them into a lethal fit. According to USDA scientists, it may be the result of a mutation — the same kind of mutation that has been seen in many of Monsanto’s Roundup-Ready crops.
What’s more is the fact that many other farmers are now testing their grounds and also finding the presence of cyanide. While there is not yet a large number of reports concerning cattle deaths from cyanide, it was recently revealed that one large biotech company Syngenta had been covering up further animal deaths from genetically modified corn.
Perhaps we have an answer to why 12 million RBS customers have been unable to access their online banking accounts and cash via ATM’s.
According to a report from Silver Doctors and made available at SGT Report, a massive cyber raid is taking place as we speak, with some $2 billion Euros ($2.5 Billion Dollars) being stolen from various banking servers of major financial institutions.
Home
RSS Feed
Newsletter
Bookmark Us
Facebook
Twitter
