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Showing posts with label Another. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Another. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Another Obama Inauguration as Amerika's Fascism Continues To Escalate

by Scott Lazarowitz

The Amerikan people have spoken: "We love and adore our Dear Leader. We want more fascism, more government control over our private lives, more theft of the workers and producers, more spying, more war, more drones, less freedom, more destruction and more death." I wonder if Barack Obama invited his half-brother George Obama to the inauguration ? remember George Obama? He?s the president?s half-brother who apparently lives in a shanty in Nairobi, the one President Obama doesn?t seem to have helped out very much. However, George defends Barack?s lack of being his "brother?s keeper," so I guess it doesn?t matter very much. (But it?s just more important that Barack Obama spend $50 million on his inauguration, that?s all.)

As all this is going on, Barack Obama?s comrade, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick says he wants to raise taxes even higher on the workers and producers of the Bay State, on top of their federal taxes that have just gone up (thanks to the selfish degenerates in Washington).

This new tax-theft scheme is intended to fund Patrick?s education and public transportation agendas and expanding of rail service. (Rail service hardly anyone will use, that is.)

In other words, Patrick might as well be saying, "Please let me siphon off more of your hard labor so that I can pay my union buddies in the state-construction racket to thank them for reelecting me and to further my own selfish political ambitions."

Nothing new here. "Good for you," as Elizabeth Warren might say.

Governor Patrick ? a genuine Michael Dukakis on steroids if there ever was one ? is surrounded on Beacon Hill by other self-centered degenerates, as top legislators give their non-productive staff members raises to add to their salaries they don?t deserve, some of which apparently in the 6-figures, and this on top of the state auditor?s staff who had been given a 16% raise. (The state auditor?s office is in charge of getting rid of "waste, fraud, and abuse.")

Gov. Patrick the fascist also just signed the bill to fingerprint "teachers, workers at child care centers, school bus drivers ?" and "everyone seeking to adopt children or become foster parents as well as employees of school departments who may have direct, unmonitored contact with children," with that information placed into a state police database and "forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Obviously, Patrick is no friend of civil liberties, due process or civil rights. He is a "liberal," after all.

And attempting to fill the shoes of his fellow anti-due process governor from New York, Patrick has filed a bill to further restrict gun ownership in Massachusetts, and to "require the state to send all relevant mental health records to a federal gun license registry," as well as "training teachers to recognize symptoms of mental illness in students."

But how about training students to recognize symptoms of mental illness in teachers? Hmmm? There?s a lot of that going around these days.

Too bad Muffy Healey, Patrick?s 2006 Republican opponent, lost that election.

Like Connecticut, Massachusetts already has the strictest gun control laws in the country. Connecticut?s strict gun laws did nothing to save those 27 victims at Sandy Hook. Neither will Gov. Patrick?s proposals or Obama?s proposals ? they will in fact cost lives, if history is any indication.

There are very few murders per year by use of those "military-style" assault rifles, as compared to pistols, shotguns, knives, hands and feet. But what the fascists want to do is further disarm the population and make people even more defenseless against murderers, wife-beaters, and rapists who use pistols, shotguns, knives, hands and feet.

Previous to Patrick?s newly introduced anti-private gun ownership proposals, the governor of New York had exemplified the purely irrational emotionalism of the gun control crowd, as he screamed and wailed to "end the madness" in his recent State of the State address. His emotionally-charged bill to make people defenseless was rushed through the legislature, just as was George W. Bush?s reactionary Patriot Act in 2001 and Obama?s Affordable Care Act in 2010.

That act of legislation ? now the law in New York ? requires mental health practitioners to report to the government those patients that the doctor thinks may be a danger to others. And Obama?s new proposed Executive Orders includes this: "Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes."

However, many of today?s physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors, especially the younger ones, were brought up in the modern, government-controlled schools, which have dumbed down the people and discourage critical thinking skills. The schools now label kids who act normally with an abundance of energy as "hyperactive," or label kids who question their authorities? dictates as "defiant" or suffering from "ADHD."

Or, some of the teachers and parents are afraid to discipline misbehaved kids or to give them a failing grade when they deserve one, in an attempt to avoid "hurting their feelings." So, many of the secondary schools and colleges are accepting or giving passing grades to total incompetents.

Therefore, I am not completely confident in the judgments of our modern and future doctors and mental health practitioners, quite frankly.

And after the school authorities label kids as "defiant," "autistic," or "psychotic," the authorities dish out the psychopharmaceutical drugs, such as Ritalin and SSRI anti-depressants, like candy.

I have heard several of the people being interviewed or speaking on panels regarding the Sandy Hook shootings who have stated that alleged shooter Adam Lanza "should have been medicated," given Lanza?s problems. However, it appears that Lanza may have been on some form of psychopharmaceutical drugs, and for many years, as asserted by the Lanzas? hairdresser and a former babysitter.

As has been the case in many mass shootings now, it?s the opposite of that ? they were medicated, but shouldn?t have been. Alleged Aurora theater shooter James Holmes is now thought to have been on medication, but the documents filed by police, who supposedly had seized pill bottles from Holmes?s home, had been heavily redacted and no specific name of drugs was disclosed.

Many of the school shootings in more recent years were committed by people on anti-depressant or anti-psychotic medication. Some may have been suffering from withdrawal symptoms after stopping their medication.

It is already known that some anti-depressant prescription drugs such as SSRIs and anti-psychotics can cause severely aggressive behavior. But, rather than addressing these prescription drugs, the chicken littles instead want to disarm innocent people and make them even more vulnerable, especially women. And the fascists want to seek out "mentally ill" people and either disarm them as well or perhaps even put them on psychiatric drugs. But who is to decide who is "mentally ill," and is there really "mental illness"?

But given the lack of good judgment of many health practitioners these days, requiring doctors and counselors to report possibly dangerous people to the government could itself be dangerous.

In fact, already in the U.K. the Cameron Regime has been having doctors report on patients who may be "vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism." The U.K. has also engaged in the disarming of the civilian population and thus causing a rise in violent crime there (contrary to the assertions of one CNN nudnik who shall remain nameless here).

Also in the U.K., cameras being placed in private homes, government-sponsored "parenting classes," the government monitoring all emails and website visits in the U.K.?

Yes, I know, that?s England and not America, but government-controlled education has dumbed down a lot of people in a lot of countries.

So why not have doctors reporting on patients, based on the doctors? own subjective biases, lack of critical thinking abilities and their ignorance as well?

As I have noted before, already in the U.S. we have a DHS and FBI wanting people and businesses to report on others as "suspicious" for what are really normal behaviors. But today, thanks to years of government-controlled education, behaviors that are really harmless are now viewed as "suspicious."

According to the FBI and DHS, some of those "suspicious" behaviors include: buying food in bulk amounts, believing in "individual liberty," distrusting "centralized federal authority," and "supporting political movements for autonomy."

For many ignoramuses now, "autonomy" and "independence" = "criminality" and "terrorism."

Being critical of the government is now being seen as "treasonous" or dangerous by some, even though it is our very own incompetent and corrupt government bureaucrats who have been acting criminally and treasonously in many ways, in my view. Just ask Bradley Manning, Brandon Raub, Susan Lindauer and William Binney.

But the psychiatric police state is here, and it won?t involve just mental health professionals but all health care practitioners whose treatment includes their asking patients for very personal information. Because of how our society has declined culturally, intellectually and socially, I am not surprised to have personally already seen doctors of an emotionally and intellectually immature character. Obviously, with Obama?s Soviet medicine, worse is yet to come. There just don?t seem to be very many Dr. Georges around anymore.

If you are not very familiar with your doctors or counselor, it would be wise not to share information with them about your political views, especially "anti-government" views, which many readers here happen to have, or whether or not you own a gun.

You see, thanks to the government-controlled schools and modern Amerikans? lack of critical thinking skills, we have historically-ignorant people who really have no idea what the real purpose of the 2nd Amendment is. A lot of anti-gun rights people (and some pro-gun rights ones as well) actually scoff at the idea that our own government could turn against us.

The cognitive dissonance is amazing! "Liberals" want the civilian population to be disarmed, but they want only government police and government military to be armed, and heavily armed at that! And this despite all the police brutality, the S.W.A.T team raids at the wrong addresses, and criminal behaviors committed by police and prosecutors all over Amerika, as we have seen on a daily basis in the news, on websites such as LRC and on YouTube. Many police are drugging up on steroids, and the military doctors are screwing up the soldiers with prescription drugs including those SSRI anti-depressants and stimulants.

As I have noted here, and in my articles about America?s descent and the coming civil unrest, yes, there have been moments in history in which the U.S. government has turned the guns against the people. And you think that all the atrocities committed by our military, the murdering of innocent civilians overseas, can?t happen here on the Rulers? command? All you have to do is see one article after another on our police state in Amerika, and see exactly what the people in charge are doing to our society.

So Obama is being inaugurated into a second term, and one can reasonably expect it to not be as wonderful as his first term was.
_
Scott Lazarowitz [send him mail] is a writer and cartoonist, visit his blog.


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Sunday, February 17, 2013

Another Case Of Prosecutorial Bullying Against A 'Hacker'


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As the tragic death of Aaron Swartz resides fresh in our memories, there has been a renewed interest by the public in the way prosecutors use the threat of more jail time as a carrot (edit: should have said "stick"; thanks comments section!) to secure plea bargains. The way the system is set up allows for an arena in which justice is no longer the objective. Instead, an injustice can be used in some kind of strange "ends justify the means" game that would make Lady Justice weep openly. With the odds firmly stacked against anyone that falls in the crosshairs of a federal prosecutor, this is a horrifyingly unjust method for achieving justice, and it appears to be a method favored for use against so-called hackers and hacktivists.

Now, lest you think that the Swartz case was an isolated event, or in case you thought perhaps there would be some sort of ripple effect as a result of it, you should note that prosecutors in the Barrett Brown case appear to be pursuing similar tactics. For those of you not familiar with Brown, he is the self-proclaimed spokesperson for Anonymous recently arrested for allegedly threatening an FBI agent.

Brown was arrested and taken into custody in September after allegedly threatening an FBI agent. In December 2012, he was indicted by a federal grand jury for trafficking ?stolen authentication features,? as well as "access device fraud" and ?aggravated identity theft.?
On Wednesday, Brown was hit with one count of ?concealment of evidence,? and one count of ?corrupting concealing evidence.?
And what did Brown do to "conceal evidence"? Apparently he "hid" his laptop with his mother's dishes. Apparently putting a laptop where the Feds don't obviously look is now "concealing evidence."

I won't sit here and compare Brown and Swartz in terms of character. Not because I know or don't know enough about either of them to do so, but rather because that would miss the point entirely. I'll leave it to others to erect the false justification of character assassination. Instead, I'd rather focus on how prosecutors appeared to think that the original charges, which could lead to 90 years of imprisonment for Brown, were apparently not enough and decided to lump this last charge on top of the others. Brown's former attorney, Jay Leiderman, appears to be similarly flabbergasted.

?I would not have seen a third indictment coming,? Leiderman told Ars. ?You would think the 90 years of prison exposure that they had on him was enough. Are we at a point in society where we think that 90 years is no longer enough??

Leiderman speculated that the new indictment was a legal pressure tactic against Brown.

As Ledierman goes on to say, at some point we departed the realm of prosecuting hacktivists and instead entered the realm of persecuting them. If there are crimes committed, let Brown or whoever else stand trial. If the law is behind the times, or written in a way that is ridiculous (as in the Swartz case), we can change the law. There's nothing wrong with the argument that that's a responsibility that falls on the public via whom we elect to government. All that said, for hacktivist crimes, or even those that Brown is accused of, to result in 90 years of jail time -- and for that to not be good enough for prosecutors -- is an absolute joke. Lumping on yet another, more minor, charge to pressure the accused is a downright travesty.

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Sunday, January 27, 2013

Ron Paul: Government Security Is Just Another Kind of Violence


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The senseless and horrific killings last week in Newtown, Connecticut reminded us that a determined individual or group of individuals can cause great harm no matter what laws are in place. Connecticut already has restrictive gun laws relative to other states, including restrictions on fully automatic, so-called ?assault? rifles and gun-free zones.

Predictably, the political left responded to the tragedy with emotional calls for increased gun control. This is understandable, but misguided. The impulse to have government ?do something? to protect us in the wake national tragedies is reflexive and often well intentioned. Many Americans believe that if we simply pass the right laws, future horrors like the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting can be prevented. But this impulse ignores the self evident truth that criminals don't obey laws.

The political right, unfortunately, has fallen into the same trap in its calls for quick legislative solutions to gun violence. If only we put armed police or armed teachers in schools, we?re told, would-be school shooters will be dissuaded or stopped.

While I certainly agree that more guns equals less crime and that private gun ownership prevents many shootings, I don?t agree that conservatives and libertarians should view government legislation, especially at the federal level, as the solution to violence. Real change can happen only when we commit ourselves to rebuilding civil society in America, meaning a society based on family, religion, civic and social institutions, and peaceful cooperation through markets. We cannot reverse decades of moral and intellectual decline by snapping our fingers and passing laws.

Let?s not forget that our own government policies often undermine civil society, cheapen life, and encourage immorality. The president and other government officials denounce school violence, yet still advocate for endless undeclared wars abroad and easy abortion at home. U.S. drone strikes kill thousands, but nobody in America holds vigils or devotes much news coverage to those victims, many of which are children, albeit, of a different color.

Obviously I don?t want to conflate complex issues of foreign policy and war with the Sandy Hook shooting, but it is important to make the broader point that our federal government has zero moral authority to legislate against violence.

Furthermore, do we really want to live in a world of police checkpoints, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, X-ray scanners, and warrantless physical searches? We see this culture in our airports: witness the shabby spectacle of once proud, happy Americans shuffling through long lines while uniformed TSA agents bark orders. This is the world of government provided "security," a world far too many Americans now seem to accept or even endorse. School shootings, no matter how horrific, do not justify creating an Orwellian surveillance state in America.

Do we really believe government can provide total security? Do we want to involuntarily commit every disaffected, disturbed, or alienated person who fantasizes about violence? Or can we accept that liberty is more important than the illusion of state-provided security? Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens? lives. We shouldn?t settle for substituting one type of violence for another. Government role is to protect liberty, not to pursue unobtainable safety.

Our freedoms as Americans preceded gun control laws, the TSA, or the Department of Homeland Security. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference, not by safety. It is easy to clamor for government security when terrible things happen; but liberty is given true meaning when we support it without exception, and we will be safer for it.


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Sunday, September 2, 2012

The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia (Another Smashing Success Of U.S. Interventionism)



Chris | InformationLiberation

"The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia" is a pretty insane film by VICE. It's a journey through war-torn Liberia, showing the extreme poverty the people suffer under in this one time proxy colonialist U.S. state.

All I could think watching this documentary is look at how the U.S. government "helped" these people. Of course, the same goes for the U.N. who are portrayed somewhat as good guys in this film, as the U.N. is pretty much just another U.S. proxy. It's amazing to witness the destructive effects of the U.N./U.S.'s welfare, everyone in this film is begging for handouts, they have the capacity for seemingly zero capital accumulation and they all think the government or the U.N. "needs to help them." Drugs are illegal in Liberia, yet they're everywhere and children are smoking heroin in plain sight. If you take one boy in this film's account for it, he paid for his heroin by robbing a pregnant woman, whom he also raped. The place is a socialist hell hole, yet it's not a "failed state," it's the state in all it's glory, they modeled their government off the U.S. and our constitution, a lot of good that did them!


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I hope the best for this place. I wonder what it would be like if no European ever set foot in Africa. Probably a let fewer animals would be on the endangerd list, and it would be a HELL of a lot cleaner. All Europe ever did after Rome, is mess up everything it touched. How is Liberia socialist in any way? Come on man.

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Saturday, May 12, 2012

Paying Off One Handout With Another



By Douglas French

A year ago the Treasury Department bragged about an analysis that claimed the government's massive bank bailout in response to the 2008 financial crisis (TARP) would actually end up turning a $24 million profit.

At the time, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that while the government's overriding objective was to "break the back of the financial crisis and save American jobs," it didn't hurt that the TARP investments in U.S. banks "delivered a significant profit for taxpayers."

But TARP watchdogs disagree. ??A report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) estimates TARP's losses at $60 billion. ?"Taxpayers are still owed $118.5 billion (including $14 billion written off or otherwise lost)," and the SIG makes the point that nothing has really changed, no lessons have been learned, and this poses the possibility "of rushing out another massive bailout of the financial industry, i.e., TARP 2.0."

The focus of the Wall Street Journal's story on the TARP report is that 351 small banks still owe a total of $15 billion in TARP funds and these banks' prospects for raising the money to payoff the government is dim. ??This is significant because the cost of TARP money increases from 5% to 9% after five years.

However, many of the small banks that did manage to pay back the TARP capital, did so with funds from the Small Business Lending Fund, a pool of $4 billion made available by the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010. ?Of course this Department of Treasury program was created to stimulate small business lending. ?But the pricing of funds, looks like just an opportunity for the banks to buy time with the hopes that the capital markets will eventually be friendlier. ?In other words another bail out. ?According to the Treasury website,

The initial rate payable on SBLF capital is, at most, five percent, and the rate falls to one percent if a bank's small business lending increases by ten percent or more. Banks that increase their lending by less than ten percent pay rates between two percent and four percent. If a bank's lending does not increase in the first two years, however, the rate increases to seven percent, and after 4.5 years total, the rate for all banks increases to nine percent (if the bank has not already repaid the SBLF funding).

Treasury received 935 applications for SBLF money and funded 332 institutions. ?Of those 332 institutions, 137 banks used the SBLF funds to pay back the TARP money they owed. ?There were a few relatively large institutions that used the SBLF exit strategy. ?For instance, Western Alliance Bancorporation, a nearly $7 billion bank holding company traded on the NYSE, paid off $140 million in TARP plus a little more for warrants with complete funding from SBLF.

The SBLF program was closed on September 27 of last year and at that time 390 banks still owed TARP. ?Of those 390, 178 had applied for SBLF but were turned down. ?Many of these banks were turned down because they were delinquent on their TARP payments.

The report concluded that SBLF "culled a large number of the healthier community banks from TARP, leaving less-healthy banks in TARP that had less capital, had missed dividends, or, in many cases, were subject to enforcement actions by their regulators."

Of the remaining 351 banks in TARP, a full 46% or 163 of them were delinquent on their payments to the Treasury. ?Of the 163, the vast majority, 116, had missed five or more payments.

So the "healthy" banks were able to secure a new bail out from Uncle Sam, to pay off the old bail out money, while the unhealthy banks, many that can't pay the 5% coupons, will be expected to pay 9%.

SIGTARP knows these banks can't make it without more government help and has recommended that possibly Treasury should renegotiate the TARP terms or that a clear TARP exit path be developed (presumably like SBLF).

Only a Treasury Secretary could call this a successful, profitable operation.


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Thursday, February 23, 2012

Another Fed-Backed Solar Company Goes Bankrupt

BY BRIAN KOENIG

Adding to the growing list of failed "green" energy companies, another solar firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday in hopes of selling off its solar power subsidiaries and other assets. Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (ECD), a Michigan-based manufacturer of thin-film solar laminates (product shown at left), said it will continue to operate through the bankruptcy and sale process.

Through its subsidiaries Uni-Solar (USO) and Solar Integrated Technologies, the firm develops solar projects and manufactures solar laminates for rooftops and buildings. "We firmly believe there is a strong and sustainable commercial market for Uni-Solar products," ECD CEO and President Julian Hawkins affirmed in a statement. "However our current capital structure and legacy costs are preventing USO from making the investments necessary for the future of the business without restructuring through the bankruptcy process."

[...]ECD?s financial collapse will be tallied as the fourth major bankruptcy in the solar industry in the past year, behind Solyndra, Evergreen Solar, and SpectraWatt, which have also sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

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China is just subsidizing more than we are. They are buying the market and we have made big, tho short lived, attempts to do the same thing. So we failed again in the China/US matchup, what to do? TARIFFS.

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"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened..." - Winston Churchill


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Sunday, February 12, 2012

The State of the Union: Just Another Reality Show

by Charles Goyette

It looks just like a reality show that?s not going to be renewed for another season. President Obama?s State of the Union ratings are headed in the same direction as American Idol?s so far this season ? down.

Let me make a secret confession right here. For years, the producer of my radio talk show and I would draw straws each January to see who would "have the high privilege and distinct honor" of watching the president?s State of the Union address.

Do I have to clarify that the loser had to watch?

In case the president said something important ? which almost never happened ? I felt an obligation to play some audio clips and talk about it on the show the next morning. But, personally, watching Republican and Democrat presidents recite their laundry list of promised giveaways for the year ahead was more than I could bear.

I learned early on that I could avoid all of the ovations and applause, save time, and still capture what substance there might have been in a written paragraph or two. Soon, I?ll give you such a written account, a perennial synopsis that will allow you to watch something else ? like American Idol ? and still have a handle on what the president says.

And you might even have time left over to keep an eye on the real news.

While We Were Watching?

The State of the Union is treated with utmost seriousness by the dominant news media. All four major TV networks and the cable news channels carry the event. My local newspaper devoted most of the front page and big chunks of the inside pages to its coverage: photos, accounts, sidebars, response, and analysis.

But it?s actually a spectacle that crowds out the real news. News about the impact American diplomacy is having on our future standard of living. News about the U.S. dollar?s reserve status winding down.

On the day of the State of the Union address, news flashed around the world ? but not on your favorite network or in your morning paper ? that India and Iran have agreed to end-run the U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iran.

They will use gold to do so.

Those sanctions, which have now been agreed to by the European Union as well, will ratchet up in July. Their enforcement means that banks and financial institutions involved in oil transactions with Iran will be barred from doing any business with financial institutions in the United States and Europe.

According DEBKAfile, a news source based in Israel, Iran has taken steps to bypass American and European banks and their currency desks altogether, agreeing instead to sell its oil to India for gold. China is expected to soon agree to use gold in buying oil from Iran as well. It?s a move that would leave the long-standing global dollar pricing of petroleum in tatters.

The gold-for-oil agreement means three things:

It hastens the unwinding of the U.S. dollar?s global reserve currency status. The rest of the world is actively developing alternatives to the U.S. dollar. Although it will mean a falling standard of living for the American people, U.S. policies and secretaries of state, like Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, have spurred what will become a stampede away from the dollar. DEBKAfile also reports that both China and Russia have secret mechanisms already in place to pay Iran in non-dollar currencies for its oil. And only a month ago, China and Japan, the world?s second- and third-largest economies, agreed to develop direct yen/yuan trading, forgoing the dollar as the reserve currency intermediary. It accelerates the global monetization of gold. Both China and India have been aggressively adding to their gold reserves. Other countries are following suit. The Keynesians, who have been in charge of American monetary policy, having destroyed the value of the dollar and enabled our ruinous debt, may actually believe that gold is a "barbarous relic." But it is clear that their opinions have little functional value in the real world. The world is turning to gold more and more as U.S. debt continues to mount. Indeed, is there a better alternative monetary unit to be found? Certainly, it?s not the euro. Jim Grant of Grant?s Interest Rate Observer says gold is the only answer to the question, "if not the dollar, then what?" It reveals the growing global impotence of the U.S. Long able to enforce reluctant countries to adhere in its missions and embargoes around the world, the U.S. is finding its will frustrated. Nations that once had to weigh the favor of the U.S. against their own commercial and domestic political interests are increasingly ignoring the global dictates of the U.S. State Department. In 2003, Turkey, where the prospect of a U.S. invasion of Iraq was wildly unpopular, refused even bribes to allow the U.S. to stage the invasion from its soil. Today, the threat of a U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran is meeting with growing disapproval, especially from countries like China and India rely heavily on Iranian oil.

Routine. Tired. Repetitive.

It may be that the State of the Union?s falling ratings ? Obama?s speech the other night was down 12 percent from the year before, and was down 21 percent from 2010 ? are a sign that people in large numbers have discovered there are better sources of important news than network television and Washington?s lapdog press.

Or, even better, maybe they?ve had about enough of the Washington party.

Or, maybe it?s simply because it?s all so routine, so tired, so repetitive. Even American Idol, entering its 11th season, has more surprises than the State of the Union. Consider:

Obama, who clearly doesn?t understand anything about markets, offered to have the government interfere with the real estate market in brand new ways in 2012. What could be more predictable than some president announcing a scheme to screw up the real estate market again in the new year?

It?s so routine. So tired. So repetitive.

And while the contestants on American Idol are fresh every year, the promises that make up the State of the Union are just reruns, season after season.

Now, if you?d like to be free to pay attention to the real news that actually affects your freedom and prosperity, let me provide you the following short, beginning-to-end account of this year?s State of the Union. You?ll be able to refer to it year after year, so that while you?ll still be informed about the president?s address, you can skip the show and save yourself time.

Time to follow the real news. Or to watch American Idol.

"Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you."

The president agreed to do something for (to?) homeowners. He also has decided to help teachers. And students. And women. Workers, too. The president wants to help workers, for sure. And jobs galore. The president is all about creating jobs in 2012. And more jobs in energy. Oh, they?ll be clean ones for sure!

Plus, he?s going to reform regulations so that regulators will be able to regulate better. And he wants to get a handle on the bureaucracy. And he wants to reform education. And both make government more effective and still grow the economy. Did he forget men and women in uniform? The president most certainly did not!

"Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America."
_
Charles Goyette [send him mail] is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Dollar Meltdown: Surviving the Impending Currency Crisis with Gold, Oil, and Other Unconventional Investments, now available in paperback. And coming in February 2012, Charles Goyette's Freedom & Prosperity Letter. His new book Red and Blue and Broke All Over: Restoring America?s Free Economy will be released March 15.

Copyright ? 2012 Charles Goyette


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Monday, October 10, 2011

Another 29 Airports Will Irradiate Passengers

by Becky Akers, LRC Blog

The TSA has long threatened to install its porno-scanners in those airports yet innocent of them; here's a list of 29 more places where these deviant devices will strip you of your modesty and Constitutional rights. Yes, the TSA ballyhoos its new "automated target recognition software" and the "chalk outline" that supposedly replaces the picture of our naked body (remember: the TSA lies about everything, all the time. And so far we have no independent confirmation that this "software" does what the agency claims).

In addition to the assault on privacy that millimeter-waves mount, they also threaten our health. Again, the TSA's liars stress that these gizmos are "safe for all travelers" and "[meet] all known national and international health and safety standards."

But the fact is that no one actually knows how this relatively new technology affects human flesh. Preliminary findings indicate that terahertz waves, which are similar to millimeter ones, may "unravel" DNA, "creating bubbles in the double strand?that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. That's a jaw dropping conclusion." Which is jaw-dropping passion given that this article, "How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA," appeared in MIT's Technology Review.

Meanwhile, all that's certain at this point is the necessity for much more research before anyone, let alone a litter of inept wingdings at a fundamentally mendacious bureaucracy, pronounces millimeter-waves "safe."

Readers occasionally tell me that they continue patronizing aviation's gulag because smaller, regional airports don't yet irradiate passengers. If you're among that number, and your airport is on this list, I strongly urge you for your own safety and well-being: stop flying.


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This site contains copyrighted material the use of which in some cases has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for the purposes of news reporting, education, research, comment, and criticism, which constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (found at the U.S. Copyright Office) and other applicable intellectual property laws. It is our policy to remove material from public view that we believe in good faith to be copyrighted material that has been illegally copied and distributed by any of our members or users.
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Monday, July 4, 2011

Senator Leahy Praises US Gov't Censorship Of Websites As ICE Takes Another Victory Lap

from the they-live-in-an-alternate-reality dept
by Mike Masnick, Techdirt


It really would be kind of funny to watch the US government congratulate itself for censorship of websites if it wasn't just kind of sad. At a Senate Judiciary committee hearing on intellectual property issues, Senator Patrick Leahy (top 3 campaign contribution sources: lawyers, entertainment industry, lobbyists -- you can't make this stuff up) praised administration officials for censoring websites based on questionable accusations from an entertainment industry who seems to think that their own content creators are running "pirate" websites.

Of course, Leahy apparently doesn't recognize the irony of condemning internet censorship in other countries while praising it at home when it benefits his biggest campaign contributors.

The same hearing gave ICE assistant director Erik Barnett one more chance to declare victory, though I note with some amusement that the text of Barnett's speech this time leaves out the bogus claim that no sites are challenging the seizures. Apparently he's realized that some people might call him on it when he blatantly misrepresents reality.

Either way, none of this dog and pony show is much of a surprise. You certainly wouldn't expect Senator Leahy to call one of the people who had their sites illegally seized to hear their side of the story. I mean, that might be embarrassing to actually hear that there's more than one side to this. He might have to hear about how the content creators themselves sent the content in question to these sites, and how the ICE affidavit to seize them misstated the facts of whether or not the content was infringing. He might have to hear how ICE didn't even ask the actual copyright holders, in most cases. He might have to hear how ICE doesn't seem to understand the technology, and doesn't seem to understand the difference between linking and distribution. He doesn't have to hear about how hardworking people who helped promote new artists and build their careers now live in fear of their own government. He doesn't have to hear about how these people are afraid to speak out, because the Justice Department has told them that if they do, they may face criminal charges.

No, it's easier to put on a show and pat yourself on the back for censoring those people and pretend that you've done something productive.


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American Senators...The best money can buy

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which in some cases has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for the purposes of news reporting, education, research, comment, and criticism, which constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (found at the U.S. Copyright Office) and other applicable intellectual property laws. It is our policy to remove material from public view that we believe in good faith to be copyrighted material that has been illegally copied and distributed by any of our members or users.
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"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened..." - Winston Churchill


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