Conspiracy News Now: May 2014

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Call the Cops at Your Peril

By Paul Craig Roberts

"Live free or die" is the motto of the state of New Hampshire. I hope the residents are prepared to die, because living free is not what they do. NH is merely a cog within the Amerikan Stasi State, but I am referring to what goes on within NH itself, not the police state existence imposed by Washington. On May 5, attorney William Baer was arrested at a school board meeting at which he went over a two-minute speaking rule while trying to get some explanation from the Gilford, NH, school board for assigning sexually explicit reading material to his 14-year old daughter's English class. The evasiveness of the school board angered Mr. Baer, and he spoke out again in support of another parent's protests, and was promptly arrested by a goon thug cop.

The school board chairman, Sue Allen, who has no legislative power, nevertheless managed to create a law backed by police violence. After all if Bush and Obama can create laws by edict, why not a school board chairman? Under Allen's edict, if a parent violates the two-minute rule that Allen imposed, she has the parent arrested. The goon thug cop wasn't embarrassed to arrest a parent for making a legitimate complaint during the public comment period of a school board meeting.

Remember, we "freedom and democracy" 'mericans have free speech and protest rights. Actually, don't remember that, because you no longer have any such rights. These rights are dangerous. They enable terrorists and extremists such as those dangerous people who don't believe The Government.

This is Amerika today. Mr Baer offered no resistance, but nevertheless was lucky that the goon thug cop did not taser him, pepper spray him, and call for a backup SWAT team to beat him senseless or even murder him.

Last month wedding guests at at the San Luis Hotel in Galveston, Texas, were set upon without reason by 34 crazed goon thug cops. The guests, including the father of the bride and the bride's brother were brutally beaten and maced along with many guests, including 13 who were arrested for asking, "what is going on?" The brother was so badly injured by the goon thugs that he had to be rushed via helicopter to a hospital.

The mayhem resulted from an off-duty goon thug witnessing a guest walk outside with an alcoholic beverage, thus violating the city's "open container" law. Instead of advising the guest of the open container law and recommending that he step back inside, the goon thug called the cops who arrived on the scene en mass and enjoyed themselves by beating up the wedding party.

No charges have been filed against the goon thugs for gratuitously beating up wedding guests. The right of cops to beat and murder the citizens who pay their salaries is now a perk of the job. It is necessary in order to keep us safe from criminals and terrorists, descriptions that are ever expanding.

Don't expect courts to put any restraint on police and prosecutors. Dave Lindorff and Molly Knefel have given accurate accounts of the frame-up of Cecily McMillan by a corrupt prosecutor and a corrupt goon thug. McMillan was convicted on the false charge of assaulting a police office when the goon thug seized her breasts from behind. The judge, Ronald Zwiebel, enabled the conviction by preventing the defense from showing the evidence. The gullible and very stupid jurors made certain that injustice was perpetrated. Now a young woman who was sexually assaulted faces a seven-year prison sentence for "assaulting" a goon thug.

This is Stasi Amerika today. And it gets worse. In Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, Eileen Battisti, a 53-year old widow, had her $280,000 home seized by Beaver County officials and sold at auction for $116,000 because of an unpaid $6.30 interest fee on the late payment of her school district taxes. A corrupt judge did not insist upon justice for the widow but instead upheld the robbery that benefitted both the county and the purchaser, S.P. Lewis, at the auction of her home. Lewis offered to sell the widow her home back for $250,000.

To see what cops are really like, read this.

Whatever you do, never call the cops. However bad you might think the situation is, it will be much worse once the goon thugs arrive.

And do not show any compassion for animals. Showing compassion for animals is proof that you are an animal-rights extremist which lumps you in with terrorists. In Albion, Michigan, extremists who feed a stray cat are fined and locked away for three months. Mary Musselman, an 81-year old Alzheimer sufferer was locked away for 90 days for feeding stray cats on her own property. When you see a starving animal, turn your back and walk away. Your inhumanity will be rewarded but your humanity will be severely punished.

Just keep in mind that "we have freedom and democracy" and we are "the exceptional and indispensable people." Our president told us so. This designation removes you from any responsibility to other humans, much less animals. Don't lose sight of the fact that Amerikans are so exceptional and indispensable that we have murdered seven entire countries in the new 21st century, and we are just getting started. As it is perfectly acceptable for Amerika to murder countries, how can it possibly matter if a goon thug cop murders you, your pet or your wife or husband or daughter or son?

What is so discouraging is that this article could be hundreds of thousands of pages long. I could sit here writing this article for the rest of my life, adding one incident after another, and not get beyond the tip of the iceberg.

The inhumanity of which Americans are capable and indulge in every day must scare Satan himself.

Parents arrested for protesting the assignment of pornographic reading material to 14-year olds by school boards, elderly and ill people imprisoned for feeding starving animals, pets murdered by police who are supposed to protect the citizens but instead mace them, beat them, body slam them, and shoot them and their pets gratuitously for the thrill of committing violence against life are the reason the public sector is in disrepute.

The worst people in the country are in our public institutions. This is why there is so little sympathy for the public sector unions now under attack by the Republicans. Americans look at their county commissions, their city councils, their criminal justice (sic) system, their governors, state legislatures, Congress, and the White House, and all that they see is evil and corruption.

There is nothing else there.

Americans who trust the criminal justice (sic) system are completely stupid. A case of mass wrongful conviction that I wrote about years ago finally came to trial last November. Annie Dookham, a Massachusetts state chemist who falsified drug tests, thus sentencing thousands of innocent people to years in prison, destroying their lives and the lives of their families, was sentenced to three to five years in prison. Dookhan sent thousands of innocents to prison in order to aid prosecutors in attaining high conviction rates and in order to achieve her own rise as a highly productive state employee. The judge noted that Dookham had cost the state millions of dollars in settling wrongful convictions and had shaken to the core the integrity of the criminal justice (sic) system.

State officials say that Dookhan's fake evidence could have tainted 40,000 cases. Ask yourself, what kind of person would destroy so many people in order to advance herself? And progressives think that the public sector is the answer.

You can ask the same question about the New York State Police and the Texas police who dropped little bags of ground up wallboard in cars stopped at random, conducted illegal searches, and arrested the occupants for drugs. Hundreds of innocents were convicted until finally one brave public defender demanded presentation of the alleged drugs and had the evidence tested. It came back: wallboard. All other public defenders had accommodated the conviction scheme and arranged plea bargains for their clients. You can read about these and other atrocities in my book, coauthored with Larry Stratton: The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

It only gets worse.

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Re. William Baer, this is not what I see in the video. No goon thug cop, in fact the cop was very polite and even patient, taking into account how many times he had to repeat his request to stand up and be arrested, only met with "really?". The arrest was fully justified, in my view, because Mr Baer very obviously decided to block the meeting from going forward by immediately interrupting every word said by the chair, by his own. After multiple requests to stop, yes, it looks like the arrest was the only way to silence him. He definitely was not arrested for speaking his mind, but for trying to block others from speaking theirs. Watch the video, it's all there.

Very good observation about "The worst people in the country are in our public institutions." however. Indeed, recently it came to that pretty much anything that comes from any government, is yet another assault on the citizens.

Re.It doesn't matter if he was being an obstinate pain in the butt or if he was monopolizing the meeting...last I checked neither of those things is an arrest-able offence. I can think of about half dozen ways offhand to have handled this situation without having to resort to the unreasonable use of making police force. That was ludicrous! Its irrelevant even had the cop been sweet as punch. You forget that these people work for us and we have a duty and a right to take them to task. As an attorney I hope he tears them a new one. You are nothing but a cop communist sympathizer 75145. > last I checked neither of those things is an arrest-able offence

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/lxii/644/644-2.htm

CHAPTER 644
BREACHES OF THE PEACE AND RELATED OFFENSES

644:2 Disorderly Conduct. ? A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if:
(...)
He purposely causes a breach of the peace, public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creates a risk thereof, by:
(...)
(c) Disrupting any lawful assembly or meeting of persons without lawful authority.
==========

re. dozen ways to handle the situation - yes, it's about how may times he was asked to stop. Didn't work.

its an open board meeting..... 2 minutes don't mean shit....
the meeting is FOR THE PARENTS to participate in their childs
education. Shutting people up is NOT freedom of speech, OR an open meeting for parents to participate.

when you want to prevent people from speaking their minds, just cut them short....stop the release of information and speech by stopping the people from talking, participating, making their point.

calling a cop over this should put HER in jail for wasting the officers time!!

He should be out catching criminals, not sitting around schools

AND PARENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE WHERE THEIR CHILDREN ARE CONCERNED BE IT 2 minutes or
TWENTY MINUTES!!!!!

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Friday, May 30, 2014

This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

by Phillip Smith

More jail guards gone bad, a Florida cop slinging steroids heads for prison, a California cop stealing pain pills from the elderly does, too, and so does a TSA agent who took bribes to look the other way. Let's get to it:

In Chaparral, New Mexico, an Otero County jail guard was arrested last Wednesday on charges he was smuggling drugs into the jail. Luis Delgadillo, 37, went down after he was caught on surveillance cameras handing a package to a prisoner and another prisoner was overheard on a jail phone call saying Delgadillo had brought the dope in. The inmates tested positive for opiates, and Delgadillo was found in possession of meth, heroin, and Suboxone when the FBI subsequently searched his vehicle. He is charged with federal drug trafficking conspiracy. He's looking at up to 40 years.

In Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, a York County Prison guard was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly selling drugs, although no sales are alleged to have taken place at his workplace. Marino Magaro, 24, was arrested following an undercover drug investigation and is charged with delivery of a controlled substance, three counts of possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He's out on bail now.

In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a former West Palm Beach police officer pleaded guilty last Friday to selling drugs illegally while in uniform and carrying his service weapon. Dewitt McDonald pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally selling steroids and other prescription drugs. McDonald also admitted in March that he delivered drugs to another police officer while carrying his weapon and on duty. He faces a sentence of between five years and life in prison. A Fort Lauderdale federal judge is scheduled to sentence him on July 18.

In Martinez, California, a former Concord police officer was sentenced last Friday to six months in jail for stealing prescription drugs from the elderly at a senior housing complex. Matthew Switzer, who had been a drug dog handler, copped to two counts of first-degree burglary, one count of second-degree burglary, one count of fraudulently obtaining prescription drugs and one count of elder abuse. He was actually sentenced to 2 ? years in prison, but had two years suspended.

In Los Angeles, a former TSA officer was sentenced Monday to nearly six years in federal prison Monday for taking bribes to allow drugs to be smuggled through her screening station at the Los Angeles International Airport. Joy White, 29, is one of seven screeners arrested in April 2012 in the scheme to smuggle drugs, including kilos of cocaine, through X-ray checkpoints and onto planes. Screeners made up to $2,400 each time they looked the other way as suitcases filled with drugs passed through their X-ray machines. White is the fourth of the seven sent to prison; three others await sentencing.

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Thursday, May 29, 2014

Obama Supporters: Not Liking Mexican Food is Racist

Video illustrates intellectual bankruptcy of playing the race card
Paul Joseph Watson

A new video by media analyst Mark Dice shows Obama supporters in San Diego expressing their view that it?s racist to not like Mexican food.

Dice invented the narrative that Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner had remarked that he didn?t like Mexican food and that Barack Obama had asked him to resign.

?I think people in his district should consider voting for somebody else,? said one woman.

Another individual is asked if such ?bigotry? should be tolerated in Congress and whether or not Boehner should resign, to which he responds, ?I think he should resign, enough of him?.

Another woman called for Boehner to be ?made an example of,? so that other people don?t repeat such comments in the future.

Another man repeated the call for Boehner to resign before stating, ?hail Obama!?.

Dice was eventually able to find one individual at the end of the clip who remarked that it was ?absurd to think that it?s racist to not like Mexican food?.

The video again illustrates how many on the left are prepared to play the race card under any circumstances whatsoever, thereby denigrating the seriousness of actual racism, because huge numbers of unthinking Americans will blithely accept such rhetoric.

A recent example is MSNBC?s Ed Schultz, who last week argued that a bill to raise the minimum wage was being blocked due to racism. ?I think not raising the minimum wage is a racist policy,? stated Schultz.

In a related story, students in a California school district have been banned from wearing American flag t-shirts on Cinco de Mayo because expressions of ?patriotism? may offend Mexicans, a decision that was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals despite the fact that it is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
_
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Deja Vu in Ukraine

by Jacob G. Hornberger

Pardon me, but I?m experiencing d?j? vu with respect to Ukraine, specifically relating to the CIA.

As everyone knows, the CIA's business involves regime change, operations in which the CIA oftentimes secretly and surreptitiously ousts democratically elected regimes that are independent of or unfriendly to the U.S. government and replaces them with regimes that will do the bidding of the U.S. government.

Both during and after the CIA's regime-change operations, innocent people are killed. But that never seems to matter to the CIA. What matters is the mission -- regime change. If innocent people have to die in the process of fulfilling the mission, well, that's just way life is sometimes.

What we also know is that when these regime-change operations are taking place, Congress never schedules hearings to determine whether the CIA is involved in the operation. The mainstream press also goes silent on the issue. The mindset becomes: There is no evidence that the CIA is involved in the process and so there is no need to ask the CIA whether it is, in fact, behind the operation.

Several years later, when evidence surfaces showing that the CIA secretly engineered the regime change, the attitude becomes: "That's history. Let's move on."

We saw this phenomenon during the CIA's secret regime-change operation in Iran in 1953. During that operation, the CIA hired violent street thugs to foment anti-government demonstrations in the streets. Hundreds of innocent people were killed. Those deaths didn't matter. They were a cost of doing business. What mattered was the ouster of Iran's democratically appointed prime minister, who was independent of the U.S. Empire, and his replacement by an unelected brutal tyrant, the Shah of Iran, who did the bidding of the U.S. government.

Those Iranian demonstrations bear a remarkable resemblance to the recent demonstrations in Ukraine that succeeded in ousting the democratically elected president of the country, a president who was not complying with the dictates of the U.S. government.

Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that the CIA was involved. It's just to say that the pattern -- ousting a democratically elected, independent ruler and replacing him with a pro-U.S. stooge is entirely consistent with CIA regime-change practices.

Moreover, it does seem a bit coincidental that after the regime change took place in Ukraine, CIA Director John Brennan flies into Kiev to meet and consult with the new rulers.

What was the director of the CIA doing in Ukraine? We don't really know for sure. Maybe he was just making the arrangements for the CIA to train the new regime's military-police-intelligence force, just like the CIA did with the Shah's SAVAK's forces, which tyrannized the Iranian people for some 25 years.

What would be wrong with Congress' subpoenaing Brennan to a formal hearing, putting him under oath, and asking him directly: Did the CIA have any role in the recent regime change in Ukraine? One gets the sense that maybe Congress just doesn't want to know and doesn't want to intrude on the jurisdiction of the national-security branch of the federal government. The same goes, of course, for the mainstream press, which prefers to focus on the Russia response to the crisis, not what the U.S. government did to precipitate the crisis.

As Ukraine devolves into civil war, we shouldn't forget that this wouldn't be the first time that a CIA regime-change operation has done that. Recall Guatemala in 1954, where the CIA secretly and surreptitiously engineered the ouster of the democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, another ruler independent of the U.S. Empire, and replaced him with an unelected military brute who was pro-U.S.

That produced a 30-year civil war in Guatemala that succeeded in killing more than a million people. In the minds of the CIA, however, those deaths, while perhaps unfortunate, were, in fact, worth it because the mission -- regime change -- was fulfilled.

Why would it surprise anyone that a civil war would be the outcome of a CIA regime-change operation in which a democratically elected ruler is replaced by an unelected pro-U.S. stooge? If foreign citizens are prevented from electing the person of their choosing, then what recourse do they have to oust a tyrannical regime that the CIA has installed in their country except through violent revolution? That?s, in fact, what happened in Iran in 1979, when the Iranian people finally revolted against their CIA-installed tyrant. The U.S. government is still dealing with the effects of that revolution, which, of course, was rooted in the CIA?s 1953 regime-change operation in Iran.

And let's not forget another big advantage of CIA regime-change operations. They produce crises and chaos that can then be used to justify the existence of the U.S. national-security state and ever-increasing budgets.

Consider the ongoing events in Ukraine. Aren't U.S. officials and the mainstream press using the crisis to say that NATO, Pentagon, and the CIA are more necessary than ever, notwithstanding the fact that it was NATO's expansion eastward toward Russia's borders that give rise to the crisis in the first place? Of course, I'd be remiss if I failed to point out that one of NATO's members is Germany, the nation that invaded Russia in both world wars.

Of course, died-in-the wool warfare statists would say, "Jacob, our government would never intentionally precipitate an international crisis and certainly not with Russia, which has nuclear weapons."

Oh, really? Then, Mr. Died in the Wool Warfare Statist, how about explaining the following exchange with national-security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski relating to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Notice particularly the part about how Brzezinski addresses the risk of Islamic terrorists engendered by what the U.S. government has done to induce the Soviets to invade Afghanistan.

*****

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
B: It isn?t quite that. We didn?t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn?t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don?t regret anything today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn?t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.

***

Is it really unusual that I?ve got that d?j? vu feeling with Ukraine?
_
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Faber: The Most Underappreciated Asset is Cash

Dr.?Marc Faber?is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions and memory of the stock and futures markets around the world. Dr. Doom also trades currencies and commodity futures like Gold and Oil. He is the publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report. He is also fond of schooling the Wall Street media talking heads on economics and financial systems.

In the following video he discusses why cash is the most underappreciated asset -- certainly for the next 6 months.? He says: 'The most underappreciated asset is cash. Nobody likes cash. Cash for the next 10 years you earn precisely zero. But, Ms. Yellen is a money printer like all the others, and she will make sure that the dollar continues to depreciate in real terms. For the next six months it is the most attractive.I don't want to be in cash either, but opportunities will come along."

When asked why we?re not seeing? inflation, Faber launches into some examples in the global market and says ?to say there is no inflation is an error?. Case closed. (2:18)

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Monday, May 26, 2014

Martial Law, Detention Camps and Kangaroo Courts: Are We Recreating the Third Reich?

By John W. Whitehead

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me."--Martin Niemoller

Despite what some may think, the Constitution is no magical incantation against government wrongdoing. Indeed, it's only as effective as those who abide by it. However, without courts willing to uphold the Constitution's provisions when government officials disregard it and a citizenry knowledgeable enough to be outraged when those provisions are undermined, it provides little to no protection against SWAT team raids, domestic surveillance, police shootings of unarmed citizens, indefinite detentions, and the like.

Unfortunately, the courts and the police have meshed in their thinking to such an extent that anything goes when it's done in the name of national security, crime fighting and terrorism. Consequently, America no longer operates under a system of justice characterized by due process, an assumption of innocence, probable cause and clear prohibitions on government overreach and police abuse. Instead, our courts of justice have been transformed into courts of order, advocating for the government's interests, rather than championing the rights of the citizenry, as enshrined in the Constitution.

Just recently, for example, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in?U.S. v. Westhoven?that driving too carefully, with a rigid posture, taking a scenic route, and having acne are sufficient reasons for a police officer to suspect you of doing something illegal, detain you, search your car, and arrest you--even if you've done nothing illegal to warrant the stop in the first place.

In that same vein, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in a 5-4 ruling in?Navarette v. California?that police officers can, under the guise of "reasonable suspicion," stop cars and question drivers based solely on anonymous tips, no matter how dubious, and whether or not they themselves witnessed any troubling behavior.

And then you have the Supreme Court's refusal to hear?Hedges v. Obama, a legal challenge to the indefinite detention provision of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA), thereby affirming that the President and the U.S. military can arrest and indefinitely detain individuals, including American citizens, based on a?suspicion?that they might be associated with or aiding terrorist organizations.

All three cases reflect a mindset in which the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, once the map by which we navigated sometimes hostile terrain, has been unceremoniously booted out of the runaway car that is our government, driven over and left for road kill on the side of the road. All that can be seen in the rear view mirror are the tire marks on its ragged frame.

What we are dealing with, as I document in my book?A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, is a run-away government hyped up on its own power, whose policies are dictated more by paranoia than need. Making matters worse, "we the people" have become so gullible, so easily distracted, and so out-of-touch that we are ignoring the warning signs all around us and failing to demand that government officials of all stripes--the White House, Congress, the courts, the military, law enforcement, the endless parade of bureaucrats, etc.--respect our rights and abide by the rule of law.

The Supreme Court's refusal to hear the NDAA indefinite detention case--which challenged whether the government can lawfully lock up American citizens who might be deemed extremists or terrorists (the government likes to use these words interchangeably) for criticizing the government--is one such warning sign that we would do well to heed.

The building blocks are already in place for such an eventuality: the surveillance networks, fusion centers and government contractors already monitor what is being said by whom; government databases track who poses a potential threat to the government's power; the militarized police, working in conjunction with federal agencies, coordinate with the federal government when it's time to round up the troublemakers; the courts sanction the government's methods, no matter how unlawful; and the detention facilities, whether private prisons or FEMA internment camps, to lock up the troublemakers.

For those who can read the writing on the wall, it's all starting to make sense: the military drills carried out in major American cities, the VIPR inspections at train depots and bus stations, the SWAT team raids on unsuspecting homeowners, the Black Hawk helicopters patrolling American skies, the massive ammunition purchases by various federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education, the IRS and the Social Security Administration.

Viewed in conjunction with the government's increasing use of involuntary commitment laws to declare individuals mentally ill and lock them up in psychiatric wards for extended periods of time, the NDAA's provision allowing the military to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone, including American citizens, only codifies this unraveling of our constitutional framework.

Throw in the profit-driven corporate incentive to jail Americans in private prisons, as well as the criminalizing of such relatively innocent activities as holding Bible studies in one's home or sharing unpasteurized goat cheese with members of one's community, and it becomes clear that "we the people" have become enemies of the state. Thus, it's no longer a question of?whether?the government will lock up Americans for First Amendment activity but?when. (It's particularly telling that the government's lawyers, when pressed for an assurance that those exercising their First Amendment rights in order to criticize the government would?not?be targeted under the NDAA, refused to provide one.)

History shows that the U.S. government is not averse to locking up its own citizens for its own purposes. One need only go back to the 1940s, when the federal government proclaimed that Japanese-Americans, labeled potential dissidents, could be put in concentration (a.k.a. internment) camps based only upon their ethnic origin, to see the lengths the federal government will go to in order to maintain "order" in the homeland. The U.S. Supreme Court validated the detention program in?Korematsu v. US?(1944), concluding that the government's need to ensure the safety of the country trumped personal liberties. That decision has never been overturned.

In fact, the creation of detention camps domestically has long been part of the government's budget and operations, falling under the jurisdiction of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA's murky history dates back to the 1970s, when President Carter created it by way of an executive order merging many of the government's disaster relief agencies into one large agency. During the 1980s, however, reports began to surface of secret military-type training exercises carried out by FEMA and the Department of Defense. Code named Rex-84, 34 federal agencies, including the CIA and the Secret Service, were trained on how to deal with domestic civil unrest.

FEMA's role in creating top-secret American internment camps is well-documented. But be careful who you share this information with: it turns out that voicing concerns about the existence of FEMA detention camps is among the growing list of opinions and activities which may make a federal agent or government official think you're an extremist (a.k.a. terrorist), or sympathetic to terrorist activities, and thus qualify you for indefinite detention under the NDAA. Also included in that list of "dangerous" viewpoints are advocating states' rights, believing the state to be unnecessary or undesirable, "conspiracy theorizing," concern about alleged FEMA camps, opposition to war, organizing for "economic justice," frustration with "mainstream ideologies," opposition to abortion, opposition to globalization, and ammunition stockpiling.

Now if you're going to have internment camps on American soil, someone has to build them. Thus, in 2006, it was announced that Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, had been awarded a $385 million contract to build American detention facilities. Although the government and Halliburton were not forthcoming about where or when these domestic detention centers would be built, they rationalized the need for them in case of "an emergency influx of immigrants,?or to support the rapid development of new programs" in the event of other emergencies such as "natural disasters."

Of course, these detention camps will have to be used for anyone viewed as a threat to the government, and that includes political dissidents. So it's no coincidence that the U.S. government has, since the 1980s, acquired and maintained, without warrant or court order, a database of names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation. As?Salon?reports, this database, reportedly dubbed "Main Core," is to be used by the Army and FEMA in times of national emergency or under martial law to locate and round up Americans seen as threats to national security. As of 2008, there were some 8 million Americans in the Main Core database.

Fast forward to 2009, when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released two reports, one on "Rightwing Extremism," which broadly defines rightwing extremists as individuals and groups "that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely," and one on "Leftwing Extremism," which labeled environmental and animal rights activist groups as extremists. Both reports use the words terrorist and extremist interchangeably. That same year, the DHS launched Operation Vigilant Eagle, which calls for surveillance of military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, characterizing them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be "disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war."

These reports indicate that for the government, so-called extremism is not a partisan matter. Anyone seen as opposing the government--whether they're Left, Right or somewhere in between--is a target, which brings us back, full circle, to where we started, with the NDAA's indefinite detention provision, whose language is so broad and vague as to implicate anyone critical of the government.

Unfortunately, we seem to be coming full circle on many fronts. Consider that a decade ago we were debating whether non-citizens--for example, so-called enemy combatants being held at Guantanamo Bay and Muslim-Americans rounded up in the wake of 9/11--were entitled to protections under the Constitution, specifically as they relate to indefinite detention. Americans weren't overly concerned about the rights of non-citizens then, and now we're the ones in the unenviable position of being targeted for indefinite detention by our own government.

Similarly, most Americans weren't unduly concerned when the U.S. Supreme Court gave Arizona police officers the green light to stop, search and question anyone--ostensibly those fitting a particular racial profile--they suspect might be an illegal immigrant. Two years later, the cops have carte blanche authority to stop any individual, citizen and non-citizen alike, they?suspect?might be doing something illegal (mind you, in this age of overcriminalization, that could be anything from feeding the birds to growing exotic orchids).

Likewise, you still have a sizeable portion of the population today unconcerned about the government's practice of spying on Americans, having been brainwashed into believing that if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. It will only be a matter of time before they learn the hard way that in a police state, it doesn't matter who you are or how righteous you claim to be--eventually, you will be lumped in with everyone else and everything you do will be "wrong" and suspect.

Martin Niemoller learned that particular lesson the hard way. A German military officer turned theologian, Niemoller was an early supporter of Hitler's rise to power. It was only when Hitler threatened to attack the churches that Niemoller openly opposed the regime. For his efforts, Neimoller was arrested, charged with activities against the government, fined, detained, and eventually interned in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945.

As Niemoller reportedly replied when asked by his cellmate why he ever supported the Nazi party:

I find myself wondering about that too. I wonder about it as much as I regret it. Still, it is true that Hitler betrayed me... Hitler promised me on his word of honor, to protect the Church, and not to issue any anti-Church laws. He also agreed not to allow pogroms against the Jews... Hitler?s assurance satisfied me at the time...I am paying for that mistake now; and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me.

_
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead [send him mail] is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He is the author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State and The Change Manifesto (Sourcebooks).

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A little ways down the main page for informationliberation you see even a story about a high court upholding "driving correctly with hands at 10 and 2" as "probable cause" because it is "stiff driving" (i.e. meticulously following not only the law, but best practices for driving an automobile) and therefore suspicious. You can't make this crap up. If THAT is PC (probable cause) then NOTHING ISN'T and the legal term has no meaning. I guess Sherlock Holmes wouldn't have a chance with his nontirivial abilities of observations.

You may argue whatever you want, but in the end those observations have proven to be valid, haven't they. So is there much point to discuss if they were valid or not? it was not only stiff posture but also some other factors, and if the officer was so attentive and experienced that it was enough for him to make valid, and I repeat - valid conclusion that the drugs are there, then he only deserves a praise to his professionalism.

Of course it would be so much better if that experience and skills were applied to solving a real crime rather than this boring drug-related bullshit over and over again. I find it funny that practically all Supreme Court cases that are cited by libertarians related to police powers to arrest and search, all without a single exception were about admitting or not the evidence of the drugs. I don't recall a single case about violating human rights per se, such as illegal arrest by itself - no, it's always an attempt to suppress finding of the drugs as evidence. But in the end they were found, weren't they, so is there much point to waive the fists after the fight is over?

No, that's really wrong. Seizure of money with no court finding, no arrest happen all the time. Finding non-criminal amount of marihuana is not a drug smuggling operation. Look, it all comes down to, do you believe it is ok to be stopped, of all things, for driving correctly? Do you want to b stopped, inconvenienced, bullied, cowed, at any moment in time?

There are more people getting stopped and searched illegally who have no drugs. It happens all the time. It's wrong. Police are supposed to do police work, not take every oppurtunity to go through citizens papers, personal belongings, vehicles, be searched, all the while suppressing ANY and all attempts to record them doing this.

Because that was not the intent of the constitution at all. In fact it is exactly what the USA was supposed to remedy, the kings minions stopping anyone anytime for any reason, searching through private possessions (which being private are personal).

Sure, of you watch "cops" they edit out the times someone gets pressured, coerced, lied to in order to gain access to search them or their vehicles, and not find anything.

If you think that is a "free country" you are delusional.

By the way, as much as I love the original (and even the new series) Sherlock Holmes, it should be pointed out that that is a literary construct. Take virtually ANY of his conclusions from observation and deduction, and there are countless other just as likely and possible explanations, some which are even more plausible than his conclusions. That is one of the problems....belief in fairy stories like that as if it were real. The people doing the surveillance of all, guaranteed say to each other things like "well, that can't be coincidence" when in fact, statistically it is well within the bounds of coincidence. First time I visited Vancouver, BC, a huge city, in a weeks time I, totally by chance, rank to the same couple who were strangers to me three times in three different parts of the he city. The last time, I was following my girlfriends brother into an apartment complex to pick up a friend of his, and the guy of the couple is walking down the stairs going to do laundry.

I mean what are the chances? What if he was a terrorist? How many times does this happen (answer, all the time) where you miss the person by a minute and never even realize? What are the odds that third time he'd be going down the stairs at the exact moment I was walking up them to go to a different apartment? Hell, I could have lived next door and taken six months to run into the person, but I ws only there for about three minutes, but there he was. Any surveillance folk watching him would have tagged me ("you can't tell me THAT is a coincidence. This guy meets the other guy three times in a week, once in a stairwell!") and been absolutely sure I knew this person.

That kind of stuff scares the hell out of me. Morons with hunches, Sherlock Holmes wannabes.
Sure they are right and dumb as rocks.

View the original article here

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Federal Court Rules Stiff Driving Posture Is Suspicious Behavior

A panel of judges unanimously ruled that having hands at "ten-and-two" is suspicious enough to stop drivers inside the USA.

NEW MEXICO ? A federal appeals court has ruled that driving one?s hands at the ?ten-and-two position? is reason enough to pull someone over for further investigation.? No traffic laws have to actually be broken? Additionally, the court ruled that facial acne is reason enough to suspect the driver is a drug smuggler.

The incident took place on April 18, 2012, at roughly 7:45 p.m.? A border patrol agent driving down Highway 80 saw a white Ford F-150 heading the opposite direction.? This took place roughly 40 miles north of the U.S./Mexico border ? well inside the United States.

Although the truck was witnessed breaking no traffic laws,?Border Patrol Agent Joshua Semmerling claimed he noticed several things that drew his suspicions ? while passing the truck at 60 miles per hour.

First was the driver?s upright posture.? The female driver was sitting up straight with her hands properly located on the upper part of the steering wheel.? This was viewed as suspicious activity.

Secondly, the agent claimed that the truck?s tinted windows were suspicious.? It remains unclear how the agent saw driver?s posture through the ?suspicious? tint.

Lastly was the truck?s rear license plate ? which the agent claims to have observed in his rear-view mirror while traveling at a high rate of speed in the opposite direction.? He claimed that he noticed it was from out-of-state, another suspicious characteristic.

The agent decided to make a U-turn and stop the truck.

The driver identified herself as Cindy Lee Westhoven of Tucson, Arizona.? Agent Semmerling then used his keen crime-detecting skills to justify a search of her truck.?? He saw that Mrs. Westhoven had ?acne? on her face and claimed that it was grounds for suspecting her to be a methamphetamine user.

Mrs. Westhoven had already proven she was a U.S. citizen.? She had no warrants and had broken no laws, yet Agent Semmerling claimed that he believed she might be smuggling illegal aliens and/or drugs.?? When she refused to consent to a search, the agent used a drug K9 to sniff her truck.? The dog turned up a small amount of cannabis.? Westhoven was arrested.

Later in court, Westhoven?s defense tried to overturn the arrest due to the shaky ground which the stop was performed upon.? Her attorney argued that the evidence was obtained illegally.?? She was unsuccessful.

?Driving stiffly, having tinted windows, slowing down when seeing law enforcement, and driving in an out-of-the-way area may be innocent conduct by themselves,? Judge Scott M. Matheson, Jr., wrote for the appellate panel. ?But when taken together along with driving a vehicle with out-of-state plates in a mountainous smuggling corridor 40-45 miles away from the border, we conclude Agent Semmerling had reasonable suspicion Ms. Westhoven was involved in smuggling activity.?

The 3-judge panel on the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the search, and rejected Westhoven?s motion to suppress the evidence.

The acceptance of such flimsy suspicions in court is the practical acceptance of zero need for any real indication of a crime occurring before any American can be stopped and searched by federal agents.

Source: US v. Westhoven (US Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit, 4/24/2014)

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Judges are not weighing up the probability that a law has been broken , they are RULING the citizen & DICTATING what rights you do or do not have REGARDLESS OF THE CONSTITUTION.
This is modern America today , the most DISFUNCTIONAL democracy on the planet. this is not a democracy. it is a constitutional republic. This is PURE comedy.

Boarder patrol checkstops as far up as the middle of the boarder states.

So the only thing you do is stop citizens while the Hispanic Officers allow Hispanic illegals to sneak right in.

AND if we pushed all these agents down to the boarder, illegals wouldn't be getting in to need those checkpoints.

It's intentional misuse of manpower to pretend we're doing boarder patrol while keeping them as far from the boarder as plausibly believable.

Currently the paranoid drug users and smugglers are now buying pimple cream, keeping the window tint off, learning how to drive like a slacker, and using the main roads. The only suspicious thing was probably that he knows all the local junkies, and they didn't use his friendly neighborhood drug plantation gang to acquire their junk. And with all due respect, are we sure it wasn't something thrown in there, or planted evidence? No we don't. If we quit arresting people for cannabis the police could focus on serious crime.

View the original article here

Saturday, May 24, 2014

US Government Begins Rollout Of Its 'Driver's License For The Internet'

by Tim Cushing

An idea the government has been kicking around since 2011 is finally making its debut. Calling this move ill-timed would be the most gracious way of putting it.

A few years back, the White House had a brilliant idea: Why not create a single, secure online ID that Americans could use to verify their identity across multiple websites, starting with local government services. The New York Times described it at the time as a "driver's license for the internet."
Sound convenient? It is. Sound scary? It is.
Next month, a pilot program of the "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" will begin in government agencies in two US states, to test out whether the pros of a federally verified cyber ID outweigh the cons.

The NSTIC program has been in (slow) motion for nearly three years, but now, at a time when the public's trust in government is at an all time low, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST -- itself still reeling a bit from NSA-related blowback) is testing the program in Michigan and Pennsylvania. The first tests appear to be exclusively aimed at accessing public programs, like government assistance. The government believes this ID system will help reduce fraud and overhead, by eliminating duplicated ID efforts across multiple agencies.

But the program isn't strictly limited to government use. The ultimate goal is a replacement of many logins and passwords people maintain to access content and participate in comment threads and forums. This "solution," while somewhat practical, also raises considerable privacy concerns.

[T]he Electronic Frontier Foundation immediately pointed out the red flags, arguing that the right to anonymous speech in the digital realm is protected under the First Amendment. It called the program "radical," "concerning," and pointed out that the plan "makes scant mention of the unprecedented threat such a scheme would pose to privacy and free speech online."
And the keepers of the identity credentials wouldn't be the government itself, but a third party organization. When the program was introduced in 2011, banks, technology companies or cellphone service providers were suggested for the role, so theoretically Google or Verizon could have access to a comprehensive profile of who you are that's shared with every site you visit, as mandated by the government.

Beyond the privacy issues (and the hints of government being unduly interested in your online activities), there are the security issues. This collected information would be housed centrally, possibly by corporate third parties. When hackers can find a wealth of information at one location, it presents a very enticing target. The government's track record on protecting confidential information is hardly encouraging.

The problem is, ultimately, that this is the government rolling this out. Unlike corporations, citizens won't be allowed the luxury of opting out. This "internet driver's license" may be the only option the public has to do things like renew actual driver's licenses or file taxes or complete paperwork that keeps them on the right side of federal law. Whether or not you believe the government's assurances that it will keep your data safe from hackers, keep it out of the hands of law enforcement (without a warrant), or simply not look at it just because it's there, matters very little. If the government decides the positives outweigh the negatives, you'll have no choice but to participate.

National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (PDF)

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I bet this was one of the TPP items and the reason they don't want to tell us about TPP. What's the saying in the U.S., You have to pass it to find out what's in it. In a police state this is to be expected, sadly.

View the original article here

Friday, May 23, 2014

NEVER Let Your Kids Talk to the Police

William Norman Grigg

Pictured: Don Joughin comforts his eleven-month-old son after the infant was doused in pepper spray by one of Portland?s ?Finest.?

?When they put the handcuffs on I thought, `Wait a minute, this has got to be a joke,?? recalled Latoya Harris, describing the arrest of her 9-year-old daughter last May. ?The look on my daughter?s face went from humiliation and fear, to a look of sheer panic.?

At the time, the girl was wearing a bathing suit and a towel, still damp from running through a neighborhood sprinkler. She was taken away in handcuffs by officers David McCarthy and Matthew Huspek, fingerprinted, photographed, but never charged with a crime. She was held at police headquarters for an hour before her frantic mother ? who didn?t have a car ? could retrieve the girl from her captors.

The stated purpose of the visit was to investigate a playground fight that had taken place a few days earlier. The actual purpose of the arrest was probably to serve some depraved impulse on the part of the officers to assert their supposed authority over an intimidated but uncooperative child.

According to the Oregonian newspaper, Officer McCarthy ? who, like others in his disreputable profession, fancies himself a mentalist of sorts ? believed that the child wasn?t telling the truth in her account of the scuffle. His report characterized her statements as ?vague,? and recalled that he observed her ?breathing speed up,? an entirely appropriate response to the unwelcome presence of an armed and bellicose stranger.

?They repeatedly asked her, `Why don?t you tell me what really happened?? recalls the mother. The officers hauled her away on suspicion of fourth-degree assault. They refused to allow the mother to accompany the daughter in the back of the police car.

?In my opinion, they were trying to scare and humiliate her,? Harris said in testimony before the independent Citizens Review Committee. ?All they had to do was give her a talking to. We?re talking about two grown men in uniform with guns.?

This act of gratuitous official sadism was ? let?s recite it together ? done in accordance with policy, according to department spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson. Handcuffing a nine-year-old is ?justified? as a ?safeguard,? Simpson asserted.

The Portland PD, which is under scrutiny by the Justice Department (for whatever good that would do), is notable for the tender solicitude its officers display toward vulnerable children. During a presidential visit by George W. Bush in 2002, police assigned to keep protesters caged in ?free speech zones? unleashed a pepper spray fusillade against demonstrators who wandered beyond their pens. Among the victims was Don Joughin, who had brought his wife and three children to the event.

After the Jackboots had subjected the protesters to a caustic shower, Joughin turned to a Portland PD officer obstructing an exit and asked how he and his family could leave.

?He pointed and said to exit to the [northeast], into the spraying police opposite him,? Joughin recalled. Trapped between a panicked crowd and pepper spray-wielding assailants, Joughin pleaded with the officer to allow his family to pass.

?He looked at me, and drew out his can from his hip and sprayed directly at me,? testifies Joughin. His three-year-old son caught most of the blast. The Berserker then turned on Joughin?s wife and newborn son ?and doused both of their heads entirely from a distance of less than three feet,? he recounts.

Reeling from the fumes and frantic to get help for his screaming child, Joughin tried to leave ? only to find his family?s escape blocked at every turn by armored bullies who closed ranks and cut them off. The victims weren?t allowed to leave until someone in ?authority? issued an order.

As Joughin and his family fled, one of the cops hurled a ?Collateral Murder?-style taunt at their back: ?That?s why you shouldn?t bring kids to protests.?

Actually, that episode, like the vicious abduction of Latoya Harris?s daughter, demonstrates why parents should cultivate within their children an incurable distrust of the state?s Punitive Priesthood ? and must never, under any circumstances, allow such people to have access to their children.

View the original article here

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Student Punished for Refusing to Pledge Allegiance to the State

Student Punished for Refusing to Pledge Allegiance to the State - informationliberationinformationliberation
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The New American Century: The Untold History of The Project for the New American Century(more)Article posted May 09 2014, 8:41 AMCategory: Tyranny/Police StateSource: InformationLiberation

PrintStudent Punished for Refusing to Pledge Allegiance to the StateChris | InformationLiberation

From KHOU:

NEEDVILLE, Texas -- Mason Michalec says he loves his country but just not the government.

?I?m really tired of our government taking advantage of us,? said Michalec. ?I don?t agree with the NSA spying on us. And I don?t agree with any of those Internet laws.?

That's why he's taken a pledge of sorts to not say the Pledge of Allegiance with classmates.

?I?ve basically said it from the time I was in kindergarten to earlier this year and that?s when I decided I was done saying it.?

For the most this year, his silent protest has gone unnoticed. But on Wednesday, when a different teacher observed it for the very first time, the Needville High School sophomore ran into trouble.

?And she told me this is my classroom," said Michalec. "This is the principal?s request. You?re going to stand. And I still didn?t stand and she said she was going to write me up.?

Michalec says the principal sentenced him to two days of in school suspension, and warned that he could face more ISS if his protest continued.

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Comments 1 - 5 of 5Add CommentPage 1 of 1AnonymousPosted: May 09 2014, 2:26 PM

Link 19255Tell me again how we're the land of the free?PeterPosted: May 09 2014, 3:26 PM

Link 193180What's next, people refusing to heil the flag with a Bellamy-salute ?
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=bellamy+salute&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10&start=0&tbo=1&tbm=ischMichael EllisPosted: May 09 2014, 8:47 PM

Link 68189This kid should leave the public school system and do home school. He is obviously too smart to waste any more time on the group think re-education camp he is currently attending.Bill WPosted: May 11 2014, 9:03 AM

Link 96250Good for you, Mason & shame on the school system. Free speech belongs to all. AnonymousPosted: May 11 2014, 10:29 PM

Link 6645Remember this one from the '80s?
I pledge allegiance to the flag
Michael Jackson is a fag
Pepsi Cola burned him up
Now he's drinking 7-Up.Comments 1 - 5 of 5Page 1 of 1

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Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Gun Control in Nazi Germany

by Audrey D. Kline

There is no shortage of theories or writings related to the rise of the Third Reich and the subsequent Holocaust. Stephen Halbrook's 2013 book, Gun Control in the Third Reich offers a compelling and important account of the role of gun prohibition in aiding Hitler's goals of exterminating the Jews and other "enemies of the state." While much of the early gun prohibition was created with supposedly good intent, Halbrook carefully and meticulously details how a change in political regime facilitated manipulating some well-intentioned gun registration laws and other gun prohibition to be used in inconceivable ways.

Students of history as well as Second Amendment enthusiasts will find this a fascinating book and will find parallels between gun prohibition in pre-Nazi and Nazi Germany, and attempts to prohibit types of gun ownership and implement other forms of gun prohibition in the United States today. The current climate in the United States surrounding gun prohibition combined with a president who uses his office to impose executive order in ways not historically common gives many citizens pause, especially when looking at the era of the Third Reich. While certain states have imposed gun registration laws recently, enforcement of the laws remains unclear.

While Halbrook is careful to point out that a combination of factors led to the events of the Holocaust, there is no denying that many of the pre-war activities contributed to Hitler's ability to disarm targeted groups, particularly the Jews. The rapid pace with which Hitler disarmed the populace in Germany is startling. Halbrook's account is gripping, thorough, and full of legal documentation, leading the reader through the sometimes-daily changes in gun prohibitions that furthered Hitler's agenda. Ultimately, the prohibitions enacted by the Nazi regime led to monopoly control of firearms by the Nazis and eliminated the ability of many groups in society to defend themselves. A similar progression in contemporary society related to government control of firearms and the firearms industry is a concern of many gun owners in the United States today.

In Part I of the book, a chaotic post-WWI Germany is the backdrop, a time when there were no established policies or laws pertaining to firearm ownership. Concern about firearms not being turned in after the war and conflict between extremist groups and the government led to the implementation of gun control laws. However, well-meaning clauses in the laws were subsequently used to provide the government with complete control over gun ownership, creating registries of gun and ammunition ownership, which ultimately fell into the hands of the Nazis. These lists were methodically used to disarm citizens. Through the first three chapters of the book, Halbrook does a masterful job of detailing the ever-changing gun control policies, ranging from the most extreme (execution on the spot) to the postured 'relaxation' of gun control laws that allowed possession of very expensive long arms that would not be affordable for the majority of the population.

Part II of the book opens with the naming of Hitler as chancellor of Germany at the end of January 1933, and the immediate utilization of the Weimar gun control policies to begin the Nazi campaign to seize arms and eradicate the so-called "enemies of the state" (all of whom were tagged as Communists). As a result, less than a month later, Hitler and Göring convinced President Hindenburg that an emergency decree was needed, which ultimately gave the Nazis the ability to eliminate constitutional assurances of liberty and free speech, a free press, the ability to assemble, and the right to privacy in personal communications. Furthermore, search and seizure of homes was authorized. This carte blanche for search and seizure essentially became the modus operandi of the Third Reich.

By the end of March, Hitler had succeeded in passing the "Enabling Law" which gave him the ability to create laws as he wished, with no requirement for consultation. Following this, the confiscation of weapons escalated. Municipal governments were informed that military weapons and ammunition had to be surrendered by the end of March. The Jews were targeted next, with a large raid in East Berlin on April 4, 1933. Jews were not forbidden to own firearms until 1938, but the raid led to confiscations and arrests. The 1928 Firearms Law was utilized to identify the so-called enemies of the state, locate them, interview them, and subsequently confiscate their weapons, thereby increasing Nazi control and eliminating private ownership of firearms from the majority of society.

Part III of the book details episodes of enforcement and expansion of gun prohibition by Hitler's regime. To mark the one-year anniversary of Hitler's power, the Law for the Reconstruction of the Reich was passed in January 1934, which centralized control over police and led to the replacement of the SA (Sturm Abteilung or Brownshirts) with the SS. Upon President Hindenburg's death, Hitler assumed the presidency as well, allowing him the ability to rule by decree. Hitler could now declare laws at will and there was no right of appeal for those arrested. The military pledged allegiance to Hitler and the citizenry was instructed to follow Hitler's decrees.

Confiscated firearms were redistributed to the police and concentration camp guards. The number of searches and arrests continued to escalate, and with the adoption of the Nürnberg Laws in September 1935, Germans or those with 'kindred blood' were decreed as citizens, leaving the Jews without citizenship and consequently, without civil rights. A new weapons law was drafted in November that would also forbid Jews from operating in the firearms industry. Though not yet enacted, the draft opened the door for the stealing of the gun manufacturing company, Simson & Co., by Hitler, who claimed that the Jewish owners were guilty of fraud. Additional accounts are given of exploitation of various incidents to further the Nazi campaign against the Jews.

Nazi Party control of the use and ownership of firearms was quickly implemented and far-reaching, with refinements to the Weapons Law continuing over the next few years. Eventually, in April 1938, Jews were required to register their personal assets if valued at over 5,000 marks. Just a few months later, Jews were required to register at local police stations to receive identification cards. Jews began to flee Berlin and other parts of Germany, as they were able.

In the concluding section of the book,Reichskristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) is detailed. Jews had been systematically disarmed, and their identity and locations were now on file with local police. It was simply a matter of time before the full shift into deportation and extermination of the Jews would begin. Records support that a campaign to arrest legally registered Jewish owners of firearms was now underway, along with the push by the Nazis to pressure Jews to flee Germany.

The complete confiscation of weapons held by Jews at this point was sparked by the November 7, 1938 assassination attempt of a German diplomat, supposedly by a Polish-Jewish teenager at the embassy in Paris. The Night of the Broken Glass came in the following few days. All Jewish weapons (including such things as letter openers) were confiscated, and all Jewish organizations were deemed illegal. With the Jews disarmed, Hitler's plans could proceed with a defenseless populace. The majority of the non-Jewish German population was stunned by what had transpired but too afraid to protest. Isolated cases of resistance remained, such as the now well-known case of Oskar Schindler. When deportations commenced in October 1941, the possessions of the Jews were searched by the Gestapo for anything of value, and completed the disarming of the Jews. The dangers of silent witness are now well known.

As has been well documented, Jews were methodically attacked, their homes, businesses, and synagogues ransacked and burned. Upward of 30,000 Jews were arrested. Any Jews resisting arrest were ordered shot on the spot. Attacks on the Jews were to be carried out by the SA, with no interference by police. Jews arrested were to be sent to concentration camps for up to 20 years. The pogrom was so thorough that nearly all age appropriate, Jewish adult males in Stuttgart had been arrested. With the population afraid and disarmed, Hitler could proceed with little worry about resistance. The Court reinforced that there was no judicial review needed for activities of the Gestapo.

Halbrook concludes by noting that less government regulation and a tradition of rejecting tyranny could have led to a different outcome in Germany. Instead, systematic creation and manipulation of firearms registration and regulations, coupled with the decimation of individual citizen's rights, enabled Hitler's dictatorship and the slaughter of millions of innocent Jews and citizens of Nazi-occupied countries, as well as tens of thousands of Germans. It remains for all of us to wonder what might have been had people refused to register their firearms. Indeed, we should all take note and never forget.
_
Audrey D. Kline, Ph.D., is associate professor of economics at the University of Louisville, College of Business. You can email her at audrey.kline@louisville.edu See Audrey D. Kline's article archives.

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Tuesday, May 20, 2014

And the Band Played On

By Peter Schiff

After three months of consistently disappointing jobs numbers, the markets were as keyed up for a good jobs report as a long suffering sailor awaiting shore leave in a tropical port. The just released April jobs report, which claimed that 288,000 jobs were created in the U.S. during the month, provided the apparent good news. However, you don't have to go too far beneath the surface to find some troubling trends within the data. But even this minor excavation was too much for the media cheerleaders and Wall Street pitchmen to handle.

The dominant narrative held that the prior reports had been so weak because the unusually cold weather (the 10th snowiest in the past 50 years) had prevented consumers from venturing outside to make purchases or employers from hiring workers. Time and again the winter was blamed for the disappointing jobs reports that came in over the 1st quarter. As a result, the consensus of economists predicted a rebound in April with 215,000 net new non-farm jobs. The 288,000 figure that greeted the markets last week - which helped bring down the unemployment rate to a post-crash low of just 6.3% - confirmed the weather hypothesis.

In reality, the desperation in which these tenuous data straws were grasped is a testament to our chronic economic weakness. Far more significant than the number of jobs that were created in April were the far greater number of jobs that were lost (806,000) because chronically unemployed Americans gave up on their fruitless quests to find work. This trend has been ongoing for years. The latest exodus of workers pushed the labor force participation rate down from 63.2% to 62.8%, an unusually sharp monthly drop. Apart from October and December 2013, also at 62.8%, the rate now is at the lowest level since March 1978. Each individual who drops out of the job market creates another lost taxpayer and another individual who is more likely to receive government support. But the media coverage of the jobs data treated this stunning development as a mere afterthought.

What should have been of particular concern, but was not even mentioned, was that more than 80% of the 288,000 jobs came from birth/death assumptions the government makes about the net number of new companies that formed during the month and the number of people those companies would have been expected to hire. For some reason the statisticians always assign a disproportionally high number of these assumed jobs to April and May. The rationale for this is likely buried deep within bureaucratic small print, so we have to take that number with a grain of salt. But what if only 100,000 new jobs were added as a result of birth/death assumptions, as was averaged in February and March? The Labor Department may have been just as convinced as everyone else that the cold weather had restrained hiring during the winter. As a result they may have been inspired to make this year's April assumption the biggest in the last six years.

The story even gets worse when you consider the types of jobs that are being added. As has been the case for years, the new hires are heavily weighted to the lower end of the spectrum, particularly in low-paying service sector and retail jobs. The drop in the labor participation rate would not be so alarming if those who remained working were finding jobs that could support families. But that is not what is happening. We are replacing good jobs with bad jobs and getting poorer with each passing month.

This trend was confirmed on May 1 when the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its March Personal Income and Outlays report. As is typical, the pundits reacted positively to the .9% increase in consumer spending. But they couldn't be bothered to look at the other side of the coin to determine how that increase was achieved. With personal income up only .5% for the same period, Americans financed their extra spending with a drop in savings, which dropped to 3.8%, the lowest level since just before the 2008 crisis (with the exception of January 2013 at 3.6%). Contrary to the rhetoric coming from spending-obsessed economists and politicians, savings constitute the foundation upon which economic health rests.

More bad news arrived recently with the release of first quarter GDP numbers, which showed the economy "growing" at a glacial .1% annualized over the first quarter. The results stand in stark contrast to the optimistic forecasts that continue to hold sway on Wall Street. According to Bloomberg's April Survey, a consensus of economists expect the US GDP to expand 2.7% in 2014. But so far the horse has stumbled badly from the gate. Just to reach the consensus estimate for the year, the economy would have to average 3.5% annualized growth over the remaining three quarters of the year. The odds of that are slim to none, and Slim has just dropped out of the workforce.

However, as we have seen in recent years, GDP estimates are more likely to be revised downward than upward in subsequent data releases. So there is a very good chance that the first quarter estimates will be revised into negative territory. This means that we may be already half way to a recession (which is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth).

As they have done with the recent jobs reports, most economists pin the bad GDP number on the hard winter. This is a dangerous game to play. If GDP now fails to respond strongly to the return of warmer weather, the truth of a fundamentally weakening economy will become that much easier for everyone to see. But with asset bubbles forming across many sectors of the economy, the truth can be a serious hazard. Nothing pricks a bubble quicker than a loss of confidence.

After last year's stunning 29% rally in U.S. stocks, Wall Street virtually assured investors at the end of last year that the good times would continue. Instead, stocks are virtually flat for the year, and the dollar is drifting lower against many major currencies. If not for the super-charged mergers and acquisitions market, which according to the Wall Street Journal accounted for $638 billion of transactions thus far in 2014 (the highest level of activity in almost 20 years), and the rock bottom long term interest rates provided by the Federal Reserve, markets could be tanking. What's worse is the fact that the first five months of the calendar are usually the best for market performance (hence the Wall Street adage "sell in May and go away.") If this is how we have fared in the Spring, beware the Summer doldrums and the time this Autumn when the Fed is scheduled to end its QE program.

While the darkening skies may not be visible to Americans, the foreign exchange markets have taken notice. Today the U.S. dollar hit a five-year low against the British pound, a nearly three-year low against the Swiss franc (notwithstanding three days in March that traded slightly lower). The weakness in the dollar portends a weaker U.S. economy and a strong likelihood for more Quantitative Easing from the Federal Reserve. It also confirms that Europe's strategy of limited "austerity" did not deliver the catastrophe that many on the left, including Paul Krugman, had predicted.

And so while there are plenty of reasons to be cautious about America's economic future (the growing geo-political tensions in Ukraine for instance - explored in detail in my latest newsletter), Wall Street has found ways to ignore all of them. My advice to investors is to ignore the swelling crescendo coming from the paid musicians. Take a look at the sheet music instead. They may play it like a fanfare but it is written like a dirge.

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