Obama is a longtime supporter of “regionalism,” the idea that the suburbs should be folded into the cities, merging schools, housing, transportation, and above all taxation. To this end, the president has already put programs in place designed to push the country toward a sweeping social transformation in a possible second term. The goal: income equalization via a massive redistribution of suburban tax money to the cities.
[…]
The community organizers who trained him in the mid-1980s blamed the plight of cities on taxpayer “flight” to suburbia. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Obama’s mentors at the Gamaliel Foundation (a community-organizing network Obama helped found) formally dedicated their efforts to the budding fight against suburban “sprawl.” From his positions on the boards of a couple of left-leaning Chicago foundations, Obama channeled substantial financial support to these efforts. On entering politics, he served as a dedicated ally of his mentors’ anti-suburban activism.
One of Obama’s original trainers, Mike Kruglik, has hived off a new organization called Building One America, which continues Gamaliel’s anti-suburban crusade under another name. Kruglik and his close allies, David Rusk and Myron Orfield, intellectual leaders of the “anti-sprawl” movement, have been quietly working with the Obama administration for years on an ambitious program of social reform.
In July of 2011, Kruglik’s Building One America held a conference at the White House. Orfield and Rusk made presentations, and afterwards Kruglik personally met with the president in the Oval Office. The ultimate goal of the movement led by Kruglik, Rusk, and Orfield is quite literally to abolish the suburbs. Knowing that this could never happen through outright annexation by nearby cities, they’ve developed ways to coax suburbs to slowly forfeit their independence.
Nice to see the White House outsourcing their Obamacare propaganda efforts.
WASHINGTON — With precious time remaining before the health care exchanges established by the president’s health care law are up and running, the Obama administration is rolling out new initiatives to encourage enrollment.
The latest of these is set to be unveiled on Monday, when the Department of Health and Human Services will debut a video contest — complete with cash prizes — designed to persuade younger consumers to get insurance.
The administration will partner with Young Invincibles, a non-profit youth issues organization, to run the contest, with the goal of reaching those younger Americans who are skeptical of the need for health coverage.
Participants will be encouraged to submit three different types of videos advertising the benefits of the exchanges: a song, an animated short, or a video designed to convince viewers that they aren’t invincible. Using funds from the Affordable Care Act’s education and outreach budget, HHS will award $3,000 each to the creators of the three most popular and persuasive videos, while second and third place winners will get $2,500 each.
A liberal organization tapped Monday to manage a new federal government-sponsored video contest aimed at encouraging young Americans to embrace Obamacare is run by ACORN’s former top lobbyist, MailOnline can reveal.
ACORN, the once-mighty Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, crumbled in 2010 just months after a video sting operation showed its employees advising activists posing as a pimp and prostitute on how to evade federal taxes and hide crimes including human trafficking and prostitution.
Congress voted officially to defund it shortly thereafter.
The far-left ACORN was also dogged for years by allegations – some proven, others not – that its street-level organizers engaged in widespread voter registration fraud.
In its heyday, ACORN’s legislative agenda was managed by Deepak Bhargava, an Indian-born community organizer. Bhargava left ACORN in 2002 after holding the top government affairs position there for 10 years. He is now executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Community Change.
In 2013 that organization sponsored a new youth outreach arm called Young Invincibles, which announced a partnership on Monday with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Their joint effort will award cash prizes to the creators of online videos that convince millennials to sign up for Obamacare health insurance exchanges, which open for enrollment on October 1.
[A]lso receive a small percentage of our funding as sub-recipients of state health care outreach grants in New York and the Washington, DC.
YI is fiscally sponsored by the Center for Community Change, a longstanding organization committed to building the power and capacity of low-income people across the country.
Click link above to see partners you recognize and some you don’t.
For those unacquainted with Communism’s 45 Steps, I strongly advise that you study them. Many have already been accomplished. America has just elected a president who has more in common with communism than he does with America. If you love this country, fight to make sure Obama and his bots do not fulfill these steps. It is a fight too many of us are too late engaging in, but it ain’t over yet.
Congressional Record
Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.
At Mrs. Nordman’s request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following “Current Communist Goals,” which she identifies as an excerpt from “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen:
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“]united force[“] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
**Pay attention to the EMPHASIZED numbers***
===========================
==============================================
And now a word from Samantha Power, Obama’s new Ambassador to the U.N. who is married to Cass Sunstein, Obama’s former Regulatory Czar…..
******************************
“When dictators feel their support slipping among adults, it is not unusual for them to alter school textbooks in the hope of enlisting impressionable youths in their cause.”
***Common core now being pushed in schools in America***
According to Common Core 4 x 3 = 11 is given credit because the student at least attempted to answer…..and we wonder WHY our children are failing in the Global Education system?
We, black American citizens, in order to free ourselves and our fellow citizens from governmental tyranny, do herewith submit these Articles of Impeachment to Congress for the removal of President Barack H. Obama, aka, Barry Soetoro, from office for his attack on liberty and commission of egregious acts of despotism that constitute high crimes and misdemeanors.
On July 4, 1776, the founders of our nation declared their independence from governmental tyranny and reaffirmed their faith in independence with the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791. Asserting their right to break free from the tyranny of a nation that denied them the civil liberties that are our birthright, the founders declared:
“When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” – Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
THE IMPEACHMENT POWER
Article II, Section IV of the United States Constitution provides: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
THE ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT
In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Barack H. Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that:
ARTICLE 1
He has covered up, delayed, impeded and obstructed the investigation of the Benghazi Battle.
Specific conduct includes: (1) failing to adequately secure the US Consulate and the CIA annex in Benghazi; (2) failing to send a response team to rescue embattled US citizens in Benghazi; (3) lying to the American people about why the US Consulate and the CIA annex were attacked in Benghazi; and (3) hiding from the media and congressional investigators the Central Intelligence Agency personnel and other wounded US citizens who were on the ground in Benghazi by scattering them throughout the United States, forcing them to adopt new identities and subjecting them to monthly polygraph tests.
Benghazi Battle elements that are under investigation:
On September 11, 2012, the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, the US Consulate and the CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya was targeted in a premeditated, preplanned attack launched without warning by Islamist militants.
Footage of the attack broadcast in real time showed armed men attacking the consulate with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, assault rifles, 14.5 mm anti-aircraft machine guns, truck mounted artillery, diesel canisters, and mortars. It was not an act of savage mob violence, nor a spontaneous protest in response to an anti-Islamic video on YouTube.
In that attack, four American citizens were killed: US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens; Information Officer Sean Smith; and two embassy security personnel, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, both former Navy SEALs. Ambassador Stevens is the first U.S. ambassador killed in an attack since Adolph Dubs was killed in 1979.
ARTICLE 2
He has disclosed secret grand jury material by exposing the existence of a sealed indictment of one of the Benghazi attackers in violation of Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that clearly states: “… no person may disclose the indictment’s existence except as necessary to issue or execute a warrant or summons.’’
ARTICLE 3
He has authorized and permitted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a division of the Justice Department, to conduct Operation Fast and Furious, wherein guns were sold to Mexican drug trafficking organizations that were used to kill innocent Mexican civilians and two rifles sold to a smuggler in January 2010 ended up at the scene of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.
ARTICLE 4
He has authorized and permitted confidential income tax returns information from the Internal Revenue Service to be provided to unauthorized individuals, organizations and agencies.
ARTICLE 5
He has caused investigations and audits to be initiated or conducted by the Internal Revenue Service in a discriminatory manner, including harassment and intimidation of conservative, evangelical and Tea Party groups applying for non-profit status between 2010 and 2012.
Elements of this illegal conduct include the facts that: (1) the head of the Internal Revenue Service tax-exempt organization division, Lois Lerner, admitted during a telephonic press event that illegal targeting occurred, then invoked her Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer questions before Congress about the targeting out of fear of self-incrimination; (2) two other career Internal Revenue Service employees stated that they acted at the behest of superiors in Washington — Carter Hull, a retired Internal Revenue Service Attorney and Elizabeth Hofacre, an employee of the Cincinnati IRS office which oversaw tax-exempt applications; and (3) Carter Hull stated that he was directed to forward the targeted applications to, among others, one of only two political appointees in the Internal Revenue Service Chief Counsel William Wilkins.
ARTICLE 6
He has (1) authorized and permitted the National Security Agency to conduct or continue electronic surveillance of over 300 million average Americans; (2) given access to National Security Agency surveillance data to other intelligence units within the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security in violation of the law; and (3) conducted the surveillance of average Americans unconstrained by Congress, the United Supreme Court or the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court which has, to this date, functioned as a rubber stamp, having approved every request made of it in 2012 and rejecting only two of the 8,591 requests submitted between 2008 and 2012.
ARTICLE 7
He has authorized and permitted the Department of Justice to wiretap and secretly obtain two months of telephone and e-mail records of Fox News Reporter James Rosen and over one hundred Associated Press journalists.
ARTICLE 8
He has thwarted Congress by (1) failing to enforce all or parts of laws duly enacted by Congress, including the Defense of Marriage Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the Affordable Care Act; and (2) after Congress refused to pass his Dream Act, unilaterally issuing an executive order directing immigration officers to no longer deport an entire class of illegal immigrants who came here as children, regardless of individual circumstances, and to give them work-authorization permits.
ARTICLE 9
He has violated the Constitution when, on January 4, 2012, (1) he bypassed the U. S. Senate to appoint three members of the National Labor Relations Board, actions that were ruled unconstitutional by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit which affirmed previous decisions by the Court of Appeal for the D.C. Circuit and the Third Circuit; and (2) he bypassed the U. S. Senate to appoint Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
ARTICLE 10
He has intimidated whistleblowers and brought twice as many prosecutions against whistleblowers as all prior presidents combined. Egregiously, while refusing to prosecute anyone for actual torture, he prosecuted former Central Intelligence Agency employee John Kiriakou for disclosing the torture program.
Wherefore Barack H. Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
The Articles of Impeachment have been sent to President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Boehner, House Minority Leader Pelosi and the full Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives for action.
Our vision is that black Americans will become power players in the political arena so that they can seize control over their own destiny and move into our ownership society through small business and home ownership.
MISSION: The mission of the National Black Republican Association (NBRA) is to be a resource for the black community on Republican ideals and promote the traditional values of the black community which are the core values of the Republican Party: strong families, faith in God, personal responsibility, quality education, and equal opportunities for all.
By Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, the president must swear: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”He is bound by this oath in all matters until he leaves office.No additional oath is needed to bind him to tell the truth in anything he says, as telling the truth is pursuant to all matters except perhaps those relating to national security. Any public statement is perjury if it is a lie, and not necessary to deceive an enemy.
When a person takes an oath (or affirmation) before giving testimony, he is assuming the role of an official, that of “witness under oath”, for the duration of his testimony. That official position entails a special obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and in that capacity, one is punishable in a way he would not be as an ordinary person not under oath. Therefore, perjury is a high crime.
An official such as the president does not need to take a special oath to become subject to the penalties of perjury. He took an oath, by Art. II Sec. 1 Cl. 8, to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” to the best of his ability. While he holds that office, he is always under oath, and lying at any time constitutes perjury if it is not justified for national security.
Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.
When dictators feel their support slipping among adults, it is not unusual for them to alter school textbooks in the hope of enlisting impressionable youths in their cause.
Was Paul Harvey actually calling the “Devil” …….Communism?
****************
Communism’s 45 Steps: Read into Congressional Record in 1963.
Congressional Record
Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
For those unacquainted with Communism’s 45 Steps, I strongly advise that you study them. Many have already been accomplished. America has just elected a president who has more in common with communism than he does with America. If you love this country, fight to make sure Obama and his bots do not fulfill these steps. It is a fight too many of us are too late engaging in, but it ain’t over yet.
Congressional Record
Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.
At Mrs. Nordman’s request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following “Current Communist Goals,” which she identifies as an excerpt from “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen:
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“]united force[“] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.
Politically, it is heads-I-win when things go right, and tails-you-lose when things go wrong. This is far preferable, from Obama’s point of view, since it gives him a variety of scapegoats for all his failed policies, without having to use President Bush as a scapegoat all the time.
Government ownership of the means of production means that politicians also own the consequences of their policies, and have to face responsibility when those consequences are disastrous — something that Barack Obama avoids like the plague.
Thus the Obama administration can arbitrarily force insurance companies to cover the children of their customers until the children are 26 years old. Obviously, this creates favorable publicity for President Obama. But if this and other government edicts cause insurance premiums to rise, then that is something that can be blamed on the “greed” of the insurance companies.
The same principle, or lack of principle, applies to many other privately owned businesses. It is a very successful political ploy that can be adapted to all sorts of situations.
*******************
“America grows best when everybody plays by the same rules,” Obama said. “We will finish what we started.”
FINISH WHAT? THE OBAMA MARCH TO SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM?
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”
The Progressive (Communist/Leninist) masks are now OFF.
The Progressives can “morph” into different names/shapes like an Amoeba.
First Democrats, then Liberals, then Progressives……now want to be Communitarians or the “Collective”.
There is NO Individual Salvation unless there is a “Collective” Salvation ~~Barack Obama.
Make NO MISTAKE, the Progressives have ursurped the Republican Party AND the Democrat Party. BOTH of them have been attacking the Tea Party with furvor ……WHY? Could it be that Tea Party members are GOD fearing, people accepting, religion accepting people… that LIVE with Conservative life styles?
In a bid to make Americans do “what’s good for them,” Obama administration social engineers have come up with a “Nudge” program to manipulate public choices. This won’t end well.
According to a report by Fox News, the federal government is hiring a “behavioral insights team” to study ways to subtly influence citizen behavior through “choice architecture.”
The idea is the brainchild of former White House adviser Cass Sunstein and led by a 26-year-old White House aide who’s recruiting like-minded academics.
On paper, the intentions might sound good to some. The claim is that by mastering the nudge, government can get the public to stop eating fatty food, lose weight, quit smoking and, who knows, maybe save the whales.
But it’s bound to go bad fast, in at least three directions.
First, the government hasn’t a clue as to what’s good for the public. To take one example, take a look at the food pyramid still promoted by the Agriculture Department — a high-carbohydrate recipe that claims to offer a healthy diet. Studies show that carbs cause obesity, but the government still pushes its old message — which is a guaranteed way to gain weight.
Second, it’s doubtful this plan will remain just about heathy diet choices. If the public can be manipulated into buying certain food, how soon before the nudge expertise gets transferred to voting choices?
It’s relevant because the Obama administration has shown a propensity for turning the organs of state into electoral instruments, starting with using the IRS to target political opponents.
Team Obama has a mastery of social media, and the White House already has a vast government surveillance apparatus.
We ARE at a Precipice America. There has been a line drawn in the sand.
YOUR CHOICES ARE:
Progressives that believe in the “Collective” ; that you live the SAME lifestyle as our ENTIRE population under the RULE of an Elitist group of people. (Loss of Individualism and choice)
OR
Conservatives that believe that everyone has the RIGHT to be an Individual, make our OWN choices and be Proud once again of American prosperity?
=========================================
What a LOT of current Democratic Leadership that have adoration of Barack Obama DO NOT REALIZE is this:
A Former Russian KGB agent tells what the END GAME goals are:
Despite mounting evidence of the federal government’s abuse of power, Politico’s analysts have decided that the cure for Obama’s second-term “doldrums” are that he must use “fear” to exert his will on Washington.
“Obama does not instill fear–one of the customary instruments of presidential power,” write John F. Harris, Jake Sherman, and Elizabeth Titus. The president should make clear “that people have good reason to be afraid of him,” they quote another analyst as saying. They add that Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) believes Obama should be “more forceful,” and seem to lament, along with one Democratic strategist, that “there’s not a single member of either party who fears paying a political price” for disagreeing with Obama.
Though they acknowledge a few realities–such as that Obama “is not buoyed by the power of ideas” and that he has few political skills other than making speeches–the authors mistake incompetence for cowardice. In fact, on issue after issue–from the stimulus to Obamacare to the debt ceiling–Obama has done little except try to strong-arm his opponents. Lately he has resorted to using his Organizing for Action campaigns to do just that, pressuring members of the opposition–even those inclined to cross the aisle on common issues.
The idea that Obama might simply not have the skills, experience or interest to govern the nation seems not to have occurred to Politico’s writers. The possibility that he might be responsible for his own fate–instead of the hapless victim of external circumstances–likewise is one they are barely prepared to consider.
So they give him the same bad advice partisan Democrats have been giving him since 2009: make everyone afraid. Consolidate power. Punish your enemies.
The liberal Center for American Progress doesn’t believe significant GOP gains in the House and Senate should stop the president from implementing more of his polices. The group released a report Tuesday suggesting ways Obama can bypass Congress to accomplish a progressive agenda, and it cites the president’s power as commander-in-chief to make its point.
“I think most of the conversation since the election has been about how President Obama adjusts to the new situation on Capitol Hill,” Center for American Progress head and former Bill Clinton Chief of Staff John Podestatoldthe Daily Caller. “While that’s an important conversation, it simply ignores the president’s ability to use all levels of his power and authority to move the country forward.”
How does one “move the country forward”? In the center’s report, Podesta explains that Obama can use executive orders, rule-making, and even the armed forces “to accomplish important change” and that such means “should not be underestimated.”
What exactly does Podesta think the president should use such powers to “accomplish”? Among others, the report suggests “job creation,“ ”quality affordable health care,“ ”sustainable security,“ and ”a clean energy future.”
The report cites specific goals such as mitigating the effects of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, supporting a Palestinian state, and reducing greenhouse gasses by 17 percent by 2020.
“The U.S. Constitution and the laws of our nation grant the president significant authority to make and implement policy,” Podesta writes. ”Congressional gridlock does not mean the federal government stands still.”
The Center for American Progress is funded by liberal billionaire financier George Soros.
AT&T has begun rolling out wireless emergency alert updates for the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5. Now, if the in the past couple of days you had a blue alert message on your phone that said, “Carrier upgrades are now available on your phone,” they didn’t tell you what the carrier upgrades were. A carrier upgrade is an update or an upgrade sent out by AT&T or Verizon or T-Mobile, whoever the carrier, not Apple, it’s not a software upgrade. I got this blue alert on Saturday. Well, one of them on Sunday. I happen to know what it was because I read the tech blogs. But if you got one of those blue alerts, the alert didn’t tell you what was happening, and when you click okay to release the alert, you are not taken to what has been upgraded or added.
So here’s where you find out. If you have an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 go into settings and then notifications and scroll all the way to the bottom. And if your phone has received the carrier update, what you will see are two on-off switches that are related to government alerts. One is Amber Alerts, the other is emergency alerts, and you can either leave them on or you can turn them off. There is a third alert that was part of the carrier update that you can’t turn off, and it’s called the presidential update. Any warnings, notifications, will come as a text message. That’s how they will appear.
So the next time the Feds issue an Amber Alert you’re gonna hear about it on your telephone, on your iPhone 4S or your iPhone 5 if you’re AT&T, and Verizon, too, my Verizon phone got it. If there is a weather alert. For example, the Feds issue some emergency tornado warning for X area, you will get that on your phone. It will look like a text alert. It will look like a text. By the way, you have no choice, this happens. You can turn the two alerts off, but you can’t keep them off the phone. Are you scrolling in there, Snerdley, to see if your phone has the alerts? You’re not doing it yet? You don’t have it yet? Well, you will. And it’ll just happen. You’ll get that blue alert box that says you now have a carrier update, it’s been installed and you click “okay” and it goes away. You find whether or not you’ve had it in notifications.
The presidential alert is any time Obama wants to talk to you. I remember when the federal law was passed, and it was not that long ago. But if Obama ever wants, or any president now, ever wants to issue a presidential alert, it’s thought of as very, very rare, and only in the most dire emergencies. But that ability now exists for the president of the United States to send out emergency text messages essentially to every telephone. Yeah, that’s how they come. You can turn those two off if you want, you have that ability. On Dawn’s phone, too. You didn’t even know it, right, didn’t even know it happened? It happened, they started rolling it out on Friday. And you might have seen that blue alert, thought it was something, you see ’em all the time, just released it, didn’t even read what it was, but that’s what it is.
Again, if you have an iPhone 4S or an iPhone 5. And this goes for Verizon, too, by the way. Just go to settings, notifications, scroll all the way to the bottom, and you’ll see if they’ve been installed on your phone. Amber Alerts and Emergency Alerts, you can turn those two off. The Presidential Alert doesn’t display. You can’t turn that off.
Participating carriers may allow subscribers to block alerts involving imminent threats to safety of life and/or Amber Alerts, but not presidential alerts. Presidential alerts are required of cellphone users and cannot be turned off.
MacDailyNews Take: We get “text-like messages” all day long; no “special chip” required. What else, if anything, does this “special chip” do? Is it just us or did the slope just get slipperier?
Yeah, yeah, we know: This is for our protection. It’s only for public safety. The government chip is “special.” Take off the tinfoil hats. This is a “Good Thing™. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
We have to wonder, though. What’s next? Maybe we’d all be “safer” if the government could use their federally-mandated “special chip” to turn on your cellphone cameras in “an emergency” in order to get a look at what’s going on around you? And your phones’ microphones, so the government can hear, too? How else could government-mandated special chips be used to make us “safer?”
You know what? The world is a dangerous place and you can’t protect everyone from everything. We’d rather retain what freedoms we have left and take our chances than to be forced to carry special government-mandated chips and receive presidential “text-like messages” that we can’t turn off, if we simply want to carry our cellphones.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin
We now know that the NSA uses something called PRISM to monitor private Web data. Sounds like “1984.” What does it really mean?
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has released a statement saying, “PRISM is not an undisclosed collection or data mining program.” Instead, the name PRISM appears to refer to the actual computer program used to collect and analyze data legally requested by the NSA and divulged by Internet companies. This matches reports from CNET and The New York Times.
However, as the New York Times reported late Friday evening, it has come to light that the nine large tech companies first reported to be working with the NSA to divulge information have, in fact, made it easier for the government to access data from their servers.
Which companies are involved?
Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, Google, Apple, PalTalk, YouTube, and Skype. Dropbox is allegedly “coming soon.” However, 98 percent of PRISM production is based on just Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft.
All nine of them have explicitly deniedthat the government has “direct access” to their servers. Reliable sources have confirmed to CNET that PRISM works on a request-by-request basis, rather than unfettered access, as was originally reported by the Washington Post. Here is a direct quote from our in-depth article on this issue:
Those reports are incorrect and appear to be based on a misreading of a leaked Powerpoint document, according to a former government official who is intimately familiar with this process of data acquisition and spoke today on condition of anonymity.
Still, it appears that though they may have withheld direct access to their servers, many did in fact agree to collaborate with the government on “developing technical methods to more efficiently and securely share the personal data of foreign users in response to lawful government requests.”
How?
It’s not entirely clear, but according to the New York Times, in at least two cases the companies discussed creating secure digital dropboxes where information sought by the NSA could be electronically deposited.Facebook reportedly actually built such a system.
On Tuesday, June 11, Google published a letter to the Justice Department, asking for permission to disclose the mechanism by which FISA requests are completed. A Facebook spokesperson joined the call, announcing that Facebook would “welcome the opportunity to provide a transparency report that allows us to share with those who use Facebook around the world a complete picture of the government requests we receive, and how we respond.” After writing the letter to the Justice Department, Google discussed with Wired Magazine the waysit gets legal information to the government, insisting throughout that reports of “direct access” to Google servers have been erroneous. Jump to our How does it work?section for more details.
It now appears as though the answer is: Twitter simply said no.
Companies are legally obligated to comply with any legitimate government request for user data, but they are under no legal obligation to make that process easier. Twitter apparentlyrefused to join the other nine in steam rolling the process.
On Friday, June 7, the New York Times wrote:
Twitter declined to make it easier for the government. But other companies were more compliant, according to people briefed on the negotiations. They opened discussions with national security officials about developing technical methods to more efficiently and securely share the personal data of foreign users in response to lawful government requests. And in some cases, they changed their computer systems to do so.
What type of data is monitored?
According to “slides and other supporting materials” given to the The Guardian and The Washington Post by Snowden: “e-mail, chat, videos, photos, stored data, VoIP, file transfers, video conferencing, notifications of target activity…log-ins, etc., online social networking details” — so, everything.
For instance, Google data includes ”Gmail, voice and video chat, Google Drive files, photo libraries, and live surveillance of search terms.”
The original report suggests that “NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM” as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly one in seven intelligence reports.
Theoretically, yes. That is the kind of data the program has access to.
So someone has read my e-mail?
Aside from the fact that Google’s algorithms crawl your e-mail all the time to target ads at you, “someone” within the NSA may have read your e-mails.
Is it even legal?
Yes, under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 2008 and the Protect America Act of 2007. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a statementThursday night saying that “Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.” FISA was renewed last year by Congress.
[…]
Is this the same as the data Verizon is giving to the NSA?
No. This is separate. The data Verizon gives to the NSA is only metadata, so although the government can see who you call and how long you talk to them, they are not listening in on your voice mails and phone calls. But again, that’s a separate NSA program. For more information on it, read this.
What’s the fallout?
Well, so far respected human rights watchdog Freedom House has downgraded America’s freedom ranking. Last time their survey was released, the United States was the second most free country on Earth in terms of Internet freedoms. That position is about to change.
How can I avoid this?
You can’t.
Should I be outraged?
Probably! But maybe not. President Obama addressed PRISM on Friday and essentially said, “Don’t worry. You can trust us.”
THIS is NOT a Democrat, Independent or Republican issue; it IS becoming a Civil Rights issue!
The right to privacy.
The right to not have government intrude in our daily lives. The freedom to eat or drink what we want, what vehicles to drive, light bulbs (gov’t. won’t tell you the CFL light bulbs are toxic; contain MERCURY), etc.
The right to make decisions for ourselves; in 2014 the government will be able to dictate what they feel is acceptable health insurance. The government will dictate what treatments we/our family receives for illnesses. The IRS will become the “policing” force for Obamacare.
The right to keep what we earn and to decide how our money is spent.
The government has become the “parent” of U.S. citizens. The government feels We the People cannot make wise decisions for ourselves. And it you get out of line and divert from their “Plan”; PRISM will monitor your every move.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) report on the Senate’s immigration bill predicts that the legislation would drive down the wages of American workers and make it difficult for Americans to find jobs in an already-damaged economy.
On page seven of the analysis, the CBO and JCT conclude that the “Gang of Eight” bill would drive down American workers’ wages. “Taking into account all of those flows of new immigrants, CBO and JCT expect that a greater number of immigrants with lower skills than with higher skills would be added to the workforce, slightly pushing down the average wage for the labor force as a whole, other things being equal,” the report reads.
On the same page, the CBO and JCT analysis found that illegal immigrants who would receive amnesty, or legalized status, would see a spike in their income while Americans’ incomes dropped. “However, CBO and JCT expect that currently unauthorized workers who would obtain legal status under S. 744 would see an increase in their average wages,” it reads.
Similarly, a bullet point on page nine shows that CBO and JCT believe that demand for workers would “dampen,” meaning it would be harder for Americans to find jobs if the bill passed. “Although the average wage would be lower than under current law over the first dozen years, the minimum wage would keep the wages of some less skilled workers from falling, dampening businesses’ demand for those workers,” the analysis states.
These revelations in the report contradict a statement Gang of Eight member Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) made celebrating the analysis’s top-line numbers. “The CBO has further confirmed what most conservative economists have found: reforming our immigration system is a net benefit for our economy, American workers and taxpayers,” Rubio said in that statement.
In contrast, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, has argued the bill would depress American wages, as have several members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
“In light of recent debates on comprehensive immigration reform, we are writing to address a rarely-discussed effect of granting legal status or effective amnesty to illegal immigrants,” three Civil Rights Commission members wrote to members of Congress in April, arguing that the Gang of Eight bill would negatively impact America’s black communities. “Such grant of legal status will likely disproportionately harm lower-skilled African-Americans by making it more difficult for them to obtain employment and depressing their wages when they do obtain employment.”
1. WHY haven’t the unions been screaming about this? Hoping to unionize low level workers? What about current union members that are having difficulty getting/keeping jobs while those made legal will take any available jobs?
2. WHY won’t Legislators/Senators refuse to pass bill and just work to ENFORCE immigration laws already on the books?
3. WHY has the immigration bill ballooned so largesse? WHAT is actually IN THIS BILL?
4. WHY is the immigration bill ONLY focused on Mexicans? It is known that there are “other than Mexicans” already here illegally. Snuck across Mexico’s lax border (Chinese, Vietnamese, Hezbollah, etc.) and those that have simply just overstayed their Visa’s. Besides the OTM’s there are drug cartels, gangs such as MS13 that have infiltrated our country. What will become of them; will they become legal US citizens?
5. With our economy already strapped with a 7.6% unemployment rate (probably higher since some have just given up looking for work) and those that are working are being cut hours due to the regulations in Obamacare, HOW will our economy be able to handle those that will be granted amnesty style entitlements?
Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would “the rest of society” accept their demands.
The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1971 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one.
The authors noted that the number of Americans subsisting on welfare — about 8 million, at the time — probably represented less than half the number who were technically eligible for full benefits. They proposed a “massive drive to recruit the pooronto the welfare rolls.” Cloward and Piven calculated that persuading even a fraction of potential welfare recipients to demand their entitlements would bankrupt the system. The result, they predicted, would be “a profound financial and political crisis” that would unleash “powerful forces for major economic reform at the national level.”
Their article called for “cadres of aggressive organizers” to use “demonstrations to create a climate of militancy.” Intimidated by threats of black violence, politicians would appeal to the federal government for help. Carefully orchestrated media campaigns, carried out by friendly, leftwing journalists, would float the idea of “a federal program of income redistribution,” in the form of a guaranteed living income for all — working and non-working people alike. Local officials would clutch at this idea like drowning men to a lifeline. They would apply pressure on Washington to implement it. With every major city erupting into chaos, Washington would have to act. This was an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse movements — mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet. The flood of demands was calculated to break the budget, jam the bureaucratic gears into gridlock, and bring the system crashing down. Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown — providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change. That was the theory.
When, not if, our economy collapses and the government is rendered BROKE…..HOW will those currently on US government entitlement programs (free phones, EBT, SNAP, etc.) provide for themselves and their families?
The Stasi was one of the most hated and feared institutions of the East German communist government.
The Stasi developed out of the internal security and police apparatus established in the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany after World War II. The law establishing the ministry, whose forerunner was the Kommissariat 5 (modeled along the lines of the Soviet KGB), was passed by the East German legislature on February 8, 1950, four months after the establishment of the German Democratic Republic. The Stasi, whose formal role was not defined in the legislation, was responsible for both domestic political surveillance and foreign espionage, and it was overseen by the ruling Socialist Unity Party. Its staff was at first quite small, and its chief responsibilities were counterintelligence against Western agents and the suppression of the last vestiges of Nazism. Soon, however, the Stasi became known for kidnapping former East German officials who had fled the country; many of those who were forcibly returned were executed.
Under Erich Mielke, its director from 1957 to 1989, the Stasi became a highly effective secret police organization. Within East Germany it sought to infiltrate every institution of society and every aspect of daily life, including even intimate personal and familial relationships. It accomplished this goal both through its official apparatus and through a vast network of informants and unofficial collaborators (inoffizielle Mitarbeiter), who spied on and denounced colleagues, friends, neighbours, and even family members. By 1989 the Stasi relied on 500,000 to 2,000,000 collaborators as well as 100,000 regular employees, and it maintained files on approximately 6,000,000 East German citizens—more than one-third of the population.
In addition to domestic surveillance, the Stasi was also responsible for foreign surveillance andintelligence gathering through its Main Administration for Foreign Intelligence (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung). Its foreign espionage activities were largely directed against the West German government and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Under Markus Wolf, its chief of foreign operations from 1958 to 1987, the Stasi extensively penetrated West Germany’s government and military and intelligence services, including the inner circle of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt (1969–74); indeed, the discovery in April 1974 that a top aid to Brandt, Günter Guillaume, was an East German spy led to Brandt’s resignation two weeks later.
We, The People have always recognized that our government monitors foreign governments and terrorist/communist threats to our country.
The NSA was started in 1949 under President Herbert Hoover. Originally it was called the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA).
This organization was originally established within the U.S. Department of Defense under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The AFSA was to direct the communications and electronic intelligence activities of the U.S. military intelligence units: the Army Security Agency, the Naval Security Group, and the Air Force Security Service. However, that agency had little power and lacked a centralized coordination mechanism. The creation of NSA resulted from a December 10, 1951, memo sent by Central IntelligenceAgency (CIA) Director Walter Bedell Smith to James S. Lay, Executive Secretary of the National Security Council.[6] The memo observed that “control over, and coordination of, the collection and processing of Communications Intelligence had proved ineffective” and recommended a survey of communications intelligence activities. The proposal was approved on December 13, 1951, and the study authorized on December 28, 1951. The report was completed by June 13, 1952. Generally known as the “Brownell Committee Report,” after committee chairman Herbert Brownell, it surveyed the history of U.S. communications intelligence activities and suggested the need for a much greater degree of coordination and direction at the national level. As the change in the security agency’s name indicated, the role of NSA was extended beyond the armed forces.
The creation of NSA was authorized in a letter written by President Harry S. Truman in June 1952. The agency was formally established through a revision of National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 9 on October 24, 1952,[6] and officially came into existence on November 4, 1952. President Truman’s letter was itself classified and remained unknown to the public for more than a generation[vague]. A brief but vague reference to the NSA first appeared in the United States Government Organization Manualfrom 1957, which described it as “a separately organized agency within the Department of Defense under the direction, authority, and control of the Secretary of Defense […] for the performance of highly specialized technical functions in support of the intelligence activities of the United States.”[7]
[…]
On January 6, 2011 a groundbreaking ceremony was held to begin construction on the NSA’s first Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative (CNCI) Data Center, known as the “Utah Data Center“ for short. The US $2 billion data center is being built at Camp Williams, Utah, located 25 miles (40 km) miles south of Salt Lake City. The data center will help support the agency’s National Cyber-security Initiative.[37] It is expected to be operational by September 2013.[33]
In 2009, to protect its assets and to access more electricity, NSA sought to decentralize and expand its existing facilities in Ft. Meade and Menwith Hill,[38] the latter expansion expected to be completed by 2015.[32]
Greenwald’s blog was picked up by Salon in 2005 and quickly became a haven for civil libertarians shocked by the news of the administration’s warrantless phone surveillance. His book attacking this policy by Bush, How Would a Patriot Act?, became a best-seller. After calling attention to the surveillance policy of the Obama administration in a series of articles this month, Greenwaldtells Business Insider that he is not surprised that many liberals have not joined him as they did during Bush.
Greenwald told Business Insider late Tuesday night that he thinks some left-leaning members of the media — such as Time magazine’s Joe Klein and The New Yorker’sJeffrey Toobin — have shifted stances on surveillance and civil liberties for “principle-free, hackish, and opportunistic” reasons.
“I’m not surprised,” Greenwald said in an email. “I’ve been amazed and disappointed for a long time at how the most slavishly partisan media Democrats who pretended to care so much about these issues when doing so helped undermine George Bush are now the loudest apologists and cheerleaders for these very same policies.
“If they started a club called Liberal Pundits to Defend the National Security State, no auditorium in the country would be large enough to accommodate them.
“To call them principle-free, hackish, and opportunistic is to be overly generous.”
”The difference between this program and the Bush program [is that] the Bush program was not sanctioned by law; this is pursuant to law,” Hoyer told reporters in the Capitol. “I think that’s a very important distinction that some people don’t draw, but they ought to draw.”
Former NSA Analyst J. Kirk Wiebe joined “Wilkow!” Wednesday to discuss the NSA’s secret domestic spying program, leaker Edward Snowden’s motivations, and the growing surveillance state from Bush to Obama.
We now know that the NSA uses something called PRISM to monitor private Web data. Sounds like “1984.” What does it really mean?
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has released a statement saying, “PRISM is not an undisclosed collection or data mining program.” Instead, the name PRISM appears to refer to the actual computer program used to collect and analyze data legally requested by the NSA and divulged by Internet companies. This matches reports from CNET and The New York Times.
However, as the New York Times reported late Friday evening, it has come to light that the nine large tech companies first reported to be working with the NSA to divulge information have, in fact, made it easier for the government to access data from their servers.
Which companies are involved?
Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, Google, Apple, PalTalk, YouTube, and Skype. Dropbox is allegedly “coming soon.” However, 98 percent of PRISM production is based on just Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft.
All nine of them have explicitly denied that the government has “direct access” to their servers. Reliable sources have confirmed to CNET that PRISM works on a request-by-request basis, rather than unfettered access, as was originally reported by the Washington Post. Here is a direct quote from our in-depth article on this issue:
Those reports are incorrect and appear to be based on a misreading of a leaked Powerpoint document, according to a former government official who is intimately familiar with this process of data acquisition and spoke today on condition of anonymity.
Still, it appears that though they may have withheld direct access to their servers, many did in fact agree to collaborate with the government on “developing technical methods to more efficiently and securely share the personal data of foreign users in response to lawful government requests.”
How?
It’s not entirely clear, but according to the New York Times, in at least two cases the companies discussed creating secure digital dropboxes where information sought by the NSA could be electronically deposited. Facebook reportedly actually built such a system.
On Tuesday, June 11, Google published a letter to the Justice Department, asking for permission to disclose the mechanism by which FISA requests are completed. A Facebook spokesperson joined the call, announcing that Facebook would “welcome the opportunity to provide a transparency report that allows us to share with those who use Facebook around the world a complete picture of the government requests we receive, and how we respond.” After writing the letter to the Justice Department, Google discussed with Wired Magazine the waysit gets legal information to the government, insisting throughout that reports of “direct access” to Google servers have been erroneous. Jump to our How does it work?section for more details.
It now appears as though the answer is: Twitter simply said no.
Companies are legally obligated to comply with any legitimate government request for user data, but they are under no legal obligation to make that process easier. Twitter apparentlyrefused to join the other nine in steam rolling the process.
On Friday, June 7, the New York Times wrote:
Twitter declined to make it easier for the government. But other companies were more compliant, according to people briefed on the negotiations. They opened discussions with national security officials about developing technical methods to more efficiently and securely share the personal data of foreign users in response to lawful government requests. And in some cases, they changed their computer systems to do so.
What type of data is monitored?
According to “slides and other supporting materials” given to the The Guardian and The Washington Post by Snowden: “e-mail, chat, videos, photos, stored data, VoIP, file transfers, video conferencing, notifications of target activity…log-ins, etc., online social networking details” — so, everything.
For instance, Google data includes “Gmail, voice and video chat, Google Drive files, photo libraries, and live surveillance of search terms.”
The original report suggests that “NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM” as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly one in seven intelligence reports.
Theoretically, yes. That is the kind of data the program has access to.
So someone has read my e-mail?
Aside from the fact that Google’s algorithms crawl your e-mail all the time to target ads at you, “someone” within the NSA may have read your e-mails.
Is it even legal?
Yes, under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 2008 and the Protect America Act of 2007. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a statementThursday night saying that “Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.” FISA was renewed last year by Congress.
[…]
Is this the same as the data Verizon is giving to the NSA?
No. This is separate. The data Verizon gives to the NSA is only metadata, so although the government can see who you call and how long you talk to them, they are not listening in on your voice mails and phone calls. But again, that’s a separate NSA program. For more information on it, read this.
What’s the fallout?
Well, so far respected human rights watchdog Freedom House has downgraded America’s freedom ranking. Last time their survey was released, the United States was the second most free country on Earth in terms of Internet freedoms. That position is about to change.
How can I avoid this?
You can’t.
Should I be outraged?
Probably! But maybe not. President Obamaaddressed PRISM on Friday and essentially said, “Don’t worry. You can trust us.”
*****************************************
Interjected here are President Ronald Reagan’s quote about government:
Well, let’s let Anthony Romero of the American Civil Liberties Union sum it up. He is quoted by The New York Times as saying, “A pox on all the three houses of government. On Congress, for legislating such powers, on the FISA court for being such a paper tiger and rubber stamp, and on the Obama administration for not being true to its values.”
The White House announced the opening of a new government supercomputing center in northern Maryland this week. Patricia Falcone of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) attended a ceremony to mark the occasion along with Maryland Senator Ben Cardin and various army officials:
OSTP’s Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs Dr. Patricia Falcone provided keynote remarks yesterday at a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the opening of the US Army Research Laboratory’s (ARL) new supercomputing center at Aberdeen Proving Ground in northern Maryland…
The new ARL Supercomputing Center—containing two new IBM iDataPlex computers with the capacity to perform 50,000 trillion floating point operations per second, or 50 petaflops—will provide state-of-the art high performance computing capabilities as well as extraordinary capacities in advanced high-speed networking and data analysis, providing unprecedented benefits to the Army, the Department of Defense, and the Nation as a whole.
=================================
For Whistleblowers and Patriots that are standing up against this soft form of tyranny:
David Axelrod is a long-time friend of President Barack Obama. He successfully managed Obama’s 2008 and 2012 Election campaigns and currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the President.
Like the President himself, Axelrod came out of the orbit of the Communist Party USA.
Axelrod was born in New York in 1955 to leftist parents Joseph Axelrod and Myril Bennett Axelrod.
In the 1940s, Myril Axelrodwrote for a left leaning New York magazine, PM. Though not officially a communist publication, several Marxists (including Labor Editor Leo Huberman) and Communist Party USA members worked on the paper.
Former Communist Eugene Lyons, writing in The Red Decade:
The Stalinist Penetration of America, noted that PM’s staff included a former editor of the Daily Worker, former editor of The Communist, a leader of the Young Communist League USA, a Soviet government official and a former staff cartoonist for the Daily Worker, the official newspaper of the Communist Party USA.
PM’s Washington, D.C. correspondent I.F. Stone was later identified as a Communist Party USAmember and a Soviet intelligence agent.
David Axelrod’s own mentors were two well known Chicago journalists/political activists named Don Rose and David Canter.
In his early years as a political consultant, Axelrod, following in the footsteps of his mentor, the political strategist Don Rose, carved out a reputation for himself as a skillful specialist working for local progressive candidates…says Rose. “I think he’s a principled, generally progressive guy…”
Axelrod first met Rose in the early 1970s while studying political science at the University of Chicago and working as a reporter on the Hyde Park Herald.
Canter and Don Rose took the young David Axelrod under their wing. They took it upon themselves to “mentor” and “educate…politically,” the young journalist. Don Rose later wrote a reference letter for Axelrod that helped win him the internship at the Chicago Tribune which launched his career.
“David Axelrod did not work for the Voices at any point. He was a reporter for the HP Herald while attending U of C, appearing on the scene first in 1975, just after the Voices folded–but he was familiar with our paper as a student before he got the Herald job. Your dad and i “mentored” and helped educate him politically in that capacity, which is perhaps why you may recall seeing him hanging around the house. I later wrote a reference letter for him that helped him win an internship at the Tribune, which was the next step in his journalism career.”
David Canterwas the son of Harry Canter, a secretary of the Boston Communist Party USA. In the mid-1930s, Harry Canter moved his family, including his son David to the Soviet Union, where he worked translating Lenin’s works into English.
By the 1940s, they were living in Chicago, both active members of the Communist Party.
By 1960, David Canter had teamed up with well known Chicago Communist Party member, LeRoy Wolins.
The pair owned a company called Translation World Publishers, which specialized in publications from and about the Soviet Union. The company soon attracted the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which suspected Canter and Wolins of being conduits for Soviet propaganda. In a report prepared by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in May and July 1962, entitled “Communist Outlets for the Distribution of Soviet propaganda in the United States,” David Canter was heavily quizzed about payments his company received from the Soviet Union.
After the U.S. Government demanded that Translation World Publishers register as the agent of a foreign power, Canter de-registerd the company.
The Committee went on to find that:
Translation World Publishers was an outlet for the distribution of Soviet propaganda…this publishing house was subsidized by Soviet funds and was created by known Communists to serve the propaganda interests of the U.S.S.R.
So David Axelrod learned his trade at the hands of a Communist front activist and a bona fide Communist Party member who was paid by the Soviets to distribute communist propaganda in the United States.
Valerie Jarrett: Alter writes that Jarrett, a big sister figure to the Obamas, is “so close to the family [met Barack and Michelle in 1991 before they were married when she interviewed Michelle for a job in City Hall] that she went on vacation with them.” Others, envious of her access, called her the “Keeper of the Essence.” Alter describes her as “the defender, protector, and avenger for the first family.” She was also called the “Night Stalker” because she “could and often did wander up to the family quarters after hours.” She regularly accompanied Obama on travels abroad and, although foreign policy was not a particular interest or responsibility of hers, “she would frequently take one of the half-dozen seats alongside the president in bilateral meetings, which meant one less seat for a policy expert.” [Emphasis added]
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“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Russia to send nuclear submarines to southern seas
June 1, 2013
By Alexei Anishchuk
A Russian submarine is anchored on the Neva River in central part of the city of St. Petersburg, July 27, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Alexander Demianchuk
(Reuters) – Russia plans to resume nuclear submarine patrols in the southern seas after a hiatus of more than 20 years following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Saturday, in another example of efforts to revive Moscow’s military.
The plan to send Borei-class submarines, designed to carry 16 long-range nuclear missiles, to the southern hemisphere follows President Vladimir Putin’s decision in March to deploy a naval unit in the Mediterranean Sea on a permanent basis starting this year.
“The revival of nuclear submarine patrols will allow us to fulfill the tasks of strategic deterrence not only across the North Pole but also the South Pole,” state-run Itar-Tass cited an unnamed official in the military General Staff as saying.
The official said the patrols would be phased in over several years. The Yuri Dolgoruky, the first of eight Borei-class submarines that Russia hopes to launch by 2020, entered service this year.
Putin has stressed the importance of a strong and agile military since returning to the presidency last May. In 13 years in power, he has often cited external threats when talking of the need for a reliable armed forces and Russian political unity.
Fears of a nuclear confrontation between Russia and the United States has eased in recent years, and the Cold War-era foes signed a landmark treaty in 2010 setting lower limits on the size of their long-range nuclear arsenals.
But the limited numbers of warheads and delivery vehicles such as submarines that they committed to under the New START treaty are still enough to devastate the world. Putin has made clear Russia will continue to upgrade its arsenal.
Russia’s land-launched Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) would fly over the northern part of the globe, as would those fired from submarines in the northern hemisphere.
AllenWest During his keynote speech at The King’s College 2013 commencement ceremony, urged graduates to “Be the leader that can cling to courage and duty through an unforgiving minute of hell.
![During his keynote speech at @[12792440932:274:The King's College] 2013 commencement ceremony, @[22067606728:274:Allen West] urged graduates to "Be the leader that can cling to courage and duty through an unforgiving minute of hell. Be the leader who puts duty above personal gain. Be the leader that never compromises their honor or integrity."</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <p>Watch his full speech here, and be sure to "SHARE" this with other recent graduates: http://www.NextGeneration.TV/s/GEZDMMZS](https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/s480x480/9759_320831951380765_1784409652_n.png)
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