For The First Time Ever, More Than Half The Members Of Congress Are Millionaires
By Michael Snyder
Wealthy members of Congress are living the high life at taxpayer expense, while most of the rest of the country continues to suffer through one of the worst economic periods in our lifetimes. According to an analysis conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics earlier this year, more than half of the members of Congress are millionaires. This is the first time that this has ever happened in U.S. history. In addition, the same study found that a hundred members of Congress are actually worth at least five million dollars. We have a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy, but as you will see below, that isn’t stopping members of Congress from wasting taxpayer money in some incredibly bizarre ways. Millions of dollars are being spent on “office expenses” and on the hair care needs of Senators, but very little is being done to stop this abuse. It is almost as if the American people have just accepted that this is how “big government” is supposed to operate.
No matter what your political affiliation is, it should bother you that we are overwhelmingly being represented by the very wealthy. We are supposed to be a government “of the people”, but instead Congress is rapidly becoming a millionaire’s club…
For the first time in history, most members of Congress are millionaires, according to a new analysis of personal financial disclosure data by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Of 534 current members of Congress, at least 268 had an average net worth of $1 million or more in 2012, according to disclosures filed last year by all members of Congress and candidates. The median net worth for the 530 current lawmakers who were in Congress as of the May filing deadline was $1,008,767 — an increase from the previous year when it was $966,000.
And this is true on both sides of the aisle. In fact, when you break the numbers down by political party, they come out almost exactly the same…
Breaking the numbers down further, congressional Democrats had a median net worth of $1.04 million, while congressional Republicans had a median net worth of almost exactly $1 million. In both cases, the figures are up from last year, when the numbers were $990,000 and $907,000, respectively.
Of course wealthy people should not be prevented from serving in Congress.
All Americans should have that opportunity.
But when it gets to the point that only wealthy people are being elected, then we have a major problem on our hands.
Yes, a million dollars does not go as far as it used to. But it still puts you in the upper stratosphere of American society.
And these days, there are nearly 200 members of Congress that are multimillionaires…
Nearly 200 are multimillionaires. One hundred are worth more than $5 million; the top-10 deal in nine digits. The annual congressional salary alone—$174,000 a year—qualifies every member as the top 6 percent of earners. None of them are close to experiencing the poverty-reduction programs—affordable housing, food assistance, Medicaid—that they help control. Though some came from poverty, a recent analysis by Nicholas Carnes, in his book White Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policymaking, found that only 13 out of 783 members of Congress from 1999 to 2008 came from a “blue-collar” upbringing.
Wow.
Shouldn’t we actually want to have some representatives that come from “blue collar” backgrounds?
So why do we have so few?
Has our political system failed?
Those are some important questions that we should be asking.
And then when all of these wealthy individuals get to Congress, they see absolutely no problem with spending U.S. taxpayer money like it is going out of style. For example, according to the Weekly Standard, more than five million dollars has been spent on the hair care needs of U.S. Senators alone over the past 15 years…
Senate Hair Care Services has cost taxpayers about $5.25 million over 15 years. They foot the bill of more than $40,000 for the shoeshine attendant last fiscal year. Six barbers took in more than $40,000 each, including nearly $80,000 for the head barber.
All of this is just for 100 U.S. Senators?
Many of them don’t even have much hair left anymore.
But of course the waste doesn’t stop there.
In one recent year, an average of $4,005,900 was spent on “personal” and “office” expenses per U.S. Senator.
So the grand total would have been over 400 million dollars.
Nearly half a billion dollars should be able to buy quite a bit of paper for the copier, eh?
And even when they leave Washington D.C., members of Congress will continue to collect huge chunks of U.S. taxpayer money for the rest of their lives…
In 2011, 280 former lawmakers who retired under a former government pension system received average annual pensions of $70,620, according to a Congressional Research Service report. They averaged around 20 years of service. At the same time, another 215 retirees (elected in 1984 or later with an average of 15 years of service) received average annual checks of roughly $40,000 a year.
I sure wish that I could collect a pension like that after working for only a few years.
Yes, members of Congress sure are living the high life at our expense.
Meanwhile, much of the rest of the country is really suffering right now…
-20 percent of all American families do not have a single member that is employed.
-One out of every eight men in their prime working years are not employed and are not looking for a job either.
-Due to a lack of economic opportunities, close to a third of all Americans 18 to 34 years old live with their parents.
-More Americans than ever before have been forced to turn to the government for assistance. The following numbers come from my recent article entitled “18 Stats That Prove That Government Dependence Has Reached Epidemic Levels“…
#1 According to an analysis of U.S. government numbers conducted by Terrence P. Jeffrey, there are 86 million full-time private sector workers in the United States paying taxes to support the government, and nearly 148 million Americans that are receiving benefits from the government each month. How long can such a lopsided system possibly continue?
#2 Ten years ago, the number of women in the U.S. that had jobs outnumbered the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps by more than a 2 to 1 margin. But now the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps actually exceeds the number of women that have jobs.
#3 The U.S. government has spent an astounding 3.7 trillion dollars on welfare programs over the past five years.
You can read the rest of that article right here.
As for the rest of us, the fatcats in Washington D.C. see absolutely nothing wrong with taxing us into oblivion in order to keep the big government that they have created running smoothly.
Once upon a time, members of Congress were actually considered to be “public servants”.
If you tried to make that claim today, people would laugh at you.
Congress has become a club for the wealthy elite. They don’t care about the rest of us, and unless you are able to donate large amounts of money to their campaigns, you will probably be treated with contempt by them. They do pretty much whatever they want, and they have little fear of ever being held accountable because they know that incumbents have a re-election rate that is absolutely overwhelming.
Perhaps all of this helps to explain why the approval rating for Congress is sitting at just 13 percent at this point.
So what do you think about all of this?
Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…
Link:
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/for-the-first-time-ever-more-than-half-the-members-of-congress-are-millionaires
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
"If these rules are allowed to go into effect, we can be certain that energy prices will skyrocket just like the costs of medical care under ObamaCare — and energy from all sources will become as scarce as quality healthcare."
Obama’s EPA Coal Plant Regulations: “Obamacare for the Atmosphere”
Written by William F. Jasper
The Obama administration has thrown down its latest gauntlet in its “War on Coal.” On Monday, June 2, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced unprecedented restrictions on power plants, the alleged purpose of which is to combat global warming by drastically cutting carbon dioxide emissions.
The Daily Beast, a left-wing site that views global warming as a top threat to the planet, enthusiastically endorsed the move in an article by Jason Mark entitled “EPA’s New Regulations to Cut Carbon Emissions Are Obamacare for the Air.”
“Just like health care,” wrote Mr. Mark, “the plan to change the energy industry relies on a complex set of rules that harnesses the power of the marketplace — and it will be as controversial.” This is cause for cheer, he says. “Environmentally concerned voters will finally get what they paid for by giving their political support to President Obama when, Monday morning in Washington, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy unveils the draft of sweeping new regulations on existing power plants.”
Jason Mark’s Daily Beast article continued: “You can think of the power plant rules as Obamacare for the atmosphere: numbingly complex in an effort to ensure flexibility and fairness, based on a market system, and likely to transform a key sector of the economy for decades to come.”
Numbingly complex like ObamaCare, yes; But “based on a market system”? Perhaps a fascist, corporate-state market system, in which politically connected companies reap huge cap-and-trade profits, but certainly not a “free market” system.
Administrator McCarthy’s draconian proposals are turning out to be even worse than many critics expected. In a May 30 commentary, the Cato Institute’s Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, who is past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and a research professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia for 30 years, speculated that the new regulations would most likely require a 20-percent reduction in allowable carbon dioxide emissions. “The only way this will be possible,” he said, “will be by upgrading almost all combustion units, and the ultimate cost of the upgrades will make coal noncompetitive with much-less-expensive natural gas–fired facilities.”
But, lo and behold, when McCarthy released the new regulatory proposal it was far worse, mandating a 30-percent reduction in CO2 emissions.
“Climate change, fueled by carbon pollution, supercharges risks to our health, our economy and our way of life,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said, in announcing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. “This plan will clean the air we breathe while helping slow climate change so we can leave a safe and healthy future for our kids.”
The EPA’s webpage “Learn About Carbon Pollution From Power Plants” provides these scary “facts” to justify the painful (and impossible, say critics) new regulations:
Unchecked carbon pollution leads to long-lasting changes in our climate, such as:
• Rising global temperatures
• Rising sea level
• Changes in weather and precipitation patterns
• Changes in ecosystems, habitats and species diversity
These changes threaten America's health and welfare for current and future generations. Public health risks include:
• More heat waves and drought
• Worsening smog (also called ground-level ozone pollution)
• Increasing the intensity of extreme events, like hurricanes, extreme precipitation and flooding
• Increasing the range of ticks and mosquitoes, which can spread disease such as Lyme disease and West Nile virus.
All of these dire predictions have been shown repeatedly to be without scientific foundation. (See here, here, here, and here.)
However, the EPA regulations will, if Congress allows them to stand, make good on Obama’s campaign promise in 2008 to make restrictions on coal so extreme that they would “necessarily bankrupt” anyone who attempted to build a new coal-fired power plant.
“If these rules are allowed to go into effect, the administration for all intents and purposes is creating America’s next energy crisis,” said Mike Duncan, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. “As we predicted, the administration chose political expediency over practical reality as it unveiled energy standards devoid of common sense and flexibility. These guidelines represent a complete disregard for our country’s most vital fuel sources, like American coal.”
If these rules are allowed to go into effect, we can be certain that energy prices will skyrocket just like the costs of medical care under ObamaCare — and energy from all sources will become as scarce as quality healthcare.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/18396-obama-s-new-epa-coal-plant-regulations-obamacare-for-the-atmosphere
Written by William F. Jasper
The Obama administration has thrown down its latest gauntlet in its “War on Coal.” On Monday, June 2, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced unprecedented restrictions on power plants, the alleged purpose of which is to combat global warming by drastically cutting carbon dioxide emissions.
The Daily Beast, a left-wing site that views global warming as a top threat to the planet, enthusiastically endorsed the move in an article by Jason Mark entitled “EPA’s New Regulations to Cut Carbon Emissions Are Obamacare for the Air.”
“Just like health care,” wrote Mr. Mark, “the plan to change the energy industry relies on a complex set of rules that harnesses the power of the marketplace — and it will be as controversial.” This is cause for cheer, he says. “Environmentally concerned voters will finally get what they paid for by giving their political support to President Obama when, Monday morning in Washington, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy unveils the draft of sweeping new regulations on existing power plants.”
Jason Mark’s Daily Beast article continued: “You can think of the power plant rules as Obamacare for the atmosphere: numbingly complex in an effort to ensure flexibility and fairness, based on a market system, and likely to transform a key sector of the economy for decades to come.”
Numbingly complex like ObamaCare, yes; But “based on a market system”? Perhaps a fascist, corporate-state market system, in which politically connected companies reap huge cap-and-trade profits, but certainly not a “free market” system.
Administrator McCarthy’s draconian proposals are turning out to be even worse than many critics expected. In a May 30 commentary, the Cato Institute’s Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, who is past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and a research professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia for 30 years, speculated that the new regulations would most likely require a 20-percent reduction in allowable carbon dioxide emissions. “The only way this will be possible,” he said, “will be by upgrading almost all combustion units, and the ultimate cost of the upgrades will make coal noncompetitive with much-less-expensive natural gas–fired facilities.”
But, lo and behold, when McCarthy released the new regulatory proposal it was far worse, mandating a 30-percent reduction in CO2 emissions.
“Climate change, fueled by carbon pollution, supercharges risks to our health, our economy and our way of life,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said, in announcing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. “This plan will clean the air we breathe while helping slow climate change so we can leave a safe and healthy future for our kids.”
The EPA’s webpage “Learn About Carbon Pollution From Power Plants” provides these scary “facts” to justify the painful (and impossible, say critics) new regulations:
Unchecked carbon pollution leads to long-lasting changes in our climate, such as:
• Rising global temperatures
• Rising sea level
• Changes in weather and precipitation patterns
• Changes in ecosystems, habitats and species diversity
These changes threaten America's health and welfare for current and future generations. Public health risks include:
• More heat waves and drought
• Worsening smog (also called ground-level ozone pollution)
• Increasing the intensity of extreme events, like hurricanes, extreme precipitation and flooding
• Increasing the range of ticks and mosquitoes, which can spread disease such as Lyme disease and West Nile virus.
All of these dire predictions have been shown repeatedly to be without scientific foundation. (See here, here, here, and here.)
However, the EPA regulations will, if Congress allows them to stand, make good on Obama’s campaign promise in 2008 to make restrictions on coal so extreme that they would “necessarily bankrupt” anyone who attempted to build a new coal-fired power plant.
“If these rules are allowed to go into effect, the administration for all intents and purposes is creating America’s next energy crisis,” said Mike Duncan, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. “As we predicted, the administration chose political expediency over practical reality as it unveiled energy standards devoid of common sense and flexibility. These guidelines represent a complete disregard for our country’s most vital fuel sources, like American coal.”
If these rules are allowed to go into effect, we can be certain that energy prices will skyrocket just like the costs of medical care under ObamaCare — and energy from all sources will become as scarce as quality healthcare.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/18396-obama-s-new-epa-coal-plant-regulations-obamacare-for-the-atmosphere
History Channel distortions, fabrications and lies...
The History Channel’s Mendacious Propaganda Concerning the World Wars
Charles Burris
I finally found time to view the History Channel’s multipart series, The World Wars, which aired last week and I was absolutely appalled.
Perhaps the less said about this egregious travesty of historical falsehoods and distortions of facts the better.
It is simply neocon agit-prop featuring “the usual suspects” (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, McCain, McChrystal, Panetta, etc.) from the unconstitutional, preemptive wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq as “expert commentators” and their court historian Amen corner echo chamber. This is not objective history but advocacy for the unrestrained warfare state in which these war criminals were key participants characterized by their attempts to portray a historical continuity from WWI to WWII to the failed wars in which they presided over.
Such a continuity exists but not the one they sought to convey.
This disaster suffers from many of the same flaws in the earlier History Channel production, The Men Who Built America.
The programs were characterized by cartoonish docudrama recreations and clichéd observation by the spurious commentators discussed above. Recognizable faces from failed neocon wars under Bush and Obama do not ensure authoritative historical observations of the First and Second World Wars.
Episode one’s introductory treatments of Hitler in the trenches, Churchill and the bloody fiasco at Gallipoli, and Patton and Pancho Villa, were fairly well done. My grandfather was in the Army with General Pershing going in pursuit of Villa and later in France with Pershing in the Argonne Forest campaign in 1918.
Yet within the first 30 minutes of this first episode there is one of the most profound distortions of actual historical truth I have seen, making the film absolutely useless in a classroom setting.
It is the manufactured account of Stalin and the Russian Revolution. There were two Russian Revolutions in 1917. The first in February was led by disgruntled workers, soldiers and deserters back from the front, and housewives angry at the food situation in the cities because of the war. Lenin was still in exile in Switzerland. The Bolsheviks played almost no role in this people’s uprising.
This Revolution forced the Czar to abdicate and be placed under arrest. A Provisional Government led by Menshevik Social Democrat Alexander Kerensky was established. Russia remained in the war.
Lenin and his Bolshevik entourage arrived in the famous sealed train at the Finland Station in Petrograd in April. He denounced the February Revolution as “bourgeois,” and called for opposition to Kerensky’s Provisional Government. (Kerensky had been a student of Lenin’s father in Simbirsk.) Stalin, who had returned from exile in Siberia in mid-March and had taken control of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, had been campaigning for support for the Provisional Government. Lenin soon issued his famous April Theses, calling for Land (for the peasants, Bread (for the starving masses), and Peace (an end to Russian participation in WWI).
Later that year Lenin and the Bolsheviks were denounced as German agents provocateurs and traitors. Lenin shaved his beard and again went into hiding and exile in Finland.
In October Lenin returned from Finland. From the Smolny Institute for girls, Lenin directed the Bolshevik coup d’état against the Provisional Government, and the so-called “storming of the Winter Palace” to establish the Bolshevik’s government in Russia. The October Revolution had actually been relatively peaceful. The revolutionary forces already had de facto control of the capital thanks to the defection of the city garrison. Few troops had stayed to defend the Provisional Government in the Winter Palace. Most citizens had simply continued about their daily business while the Provisional Government was actually overthrown.
Contrary to what was depicted in the series, Stalin played almost no major role in these events. The repeated images of Lenin and Stalin together are reminiscent of the duplicitous and doctored propaganda photos later created by Stalinists to elevate and mythologize Stalin’s role in the Revolution.
The Bolsheviks did not “storm the Winter Palace.”
Read the rest here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/historys-mendacious-propaganda-lies-concerning-the-world-wars/#more-493207
Charles Burris
I finally found time to view the History Channel’s multipart series, The World Wars, which aired last week and I was absolutely appalled.
Perhaps the less said about this egregious travesty of historical falsehoods and distortions of facts the better.
It is simply neocon agit-prop featuring “the usual suspects” (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, McCain, McChrystal, Panetta, etc.) from the unconstitutional, preemptive wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq as “expert commentators” and their court historian Amen corner echo chamber. This is not objective history but advocacy for the unrestrained warfare state in which these war criminals were key participants characterized by their attempts to portray a historical continuity from WWI to WWII to the failed wars in which they presided over.
Such a continuity exists but not the one they sought to convey.
This disaster suffers from many of the same flaws in the earlier History Channel production, The Men Who Built America.
The programs were characterized by cartoonish docudrama recreations and clichéd observation by the spurious commentators discussed above. Recognizable faces from failed neocon wars under Bush and Obama do not ensure authoritative historical observations of the First and Second World Wars.
Episode one’s introductory treatments of Hitler in the trenches, Churchill and the bloody fiasco at Gallipoli, and Patton and Pancho Villa, were fairly well done. My grandfather was in the Army with General Pershing going in pursuit of Villa and later in France with Pershing in the Argonne Forest campaign in 1918.
Yet within the first 30 minutes of this first episode there is one of the most profound distortions of actual historical truth I have seen, making the film absolutely useless in a classroom setting.
It is the manufactured account of Stalin and the Russian Revolution. There were two Russian Revolutions in 1917. The first in February was led by disgruntled workers, soldiers and deserters back from the front, and housewives angry at the food situation in the cities because of the war. Lenin was still in exile in Switzerland. The Bolsheviks played almost no role in this people’s uprising.
This Revolution forced the Czar to abdicate and be placed under arrest. A Provisional Government led by Menshevik Social Democrat Alexander Kerensky was established. Russia remained in the war.
Lenin and his Bolshevik entourage arrived in the famous sealed train at the Finland Station in Petrograd in April. He denounced the February Revolution as “bourgeois,” and called for opposition to Kerensky’s Provisional Government. (Kerensky had been a student of Lenin’s father in Simbirsk.) Stalin, who had returned from exile in Siberia in mid-March and had taken control of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, had been campaigning for support for the Provisional Government. Lenin soon issued his famous April Theses, calling for Land (for the peasants, Bread (for the starving masses), and Peace (an end to Russian participation in WWI).
Later that year Lenin and the Bolsheviks were denounced as German agents provocateurs and traitors. Lenin shaved his beard and again went into hiding and exile in Finland.
In October Lenin returned from Finland. From the Smolny Institute for girls, Lenin directed the Bolshevik coup d’état against the Provisional Government, and the so-called “storming of the Winter Palace” to establish the Bolshevik’s government in Russia. The October Revolution had actually been relatively peaceful. The revolutionary forces already had de facto control of the capital thanks to the defection of the city garrison. Few troops had stayed to defend the Provisional Government in the Winter Palace. Most citizens had simply continued about their daily business while the Provisional Government was actually overthrown.
Contrary to what was depicted in the series, Stalin played almost no major role in these events. The repeated images of Lenin and Stalin together are reminiscent of the duplicitous and doctored propaganda photos later created by Stalinists to elevate and mythologize Stalin’s role in the Revolution.
The Bolsheviks did not “storm the Winter Palace.”
Read the rest here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/historys-mendacious-propaganda-lies-concerning-the-world-wars/#more-493207
"Police have been insulated from accusations of wrongdoing for too long and allowed to operate in an environment in which whatever a cop says, goes. Meanwhile, the epidemic of police violence continues to escalate while fear of the police increases and the police state, with all its surveillance gear and military weaponry, expands around us."
Just Shoot: The Mindset Responsible for Turning Search Warrants into Death Warrants, and SWAT Teams into Death Squads
By John W. Whitehead
How many children, old people, and law-abiding citizens have to be injured, terrorized or killed before we call a halt to the growing rash of police violence that is wracking the country? How many family pets have to be gunned down in cold blood by marauding SWAT teams before we declare such tactics off limits? And how many communities have to be transformed into military outposts, complete with heavily armed police, military tanks, and “safety” checkpoints before we draw that line in the sand that says “not in our town”?
The latest incident comes out of Atlanta, Georgia, where a SWAT team, attempting to execute a no-knock drug warrant in the middle of the night, launched a flash bang grenade into the targeted home, only to have it land in a crib where a 19-month-old baby lay sleeping. The grenade exploded in the baby’s face, burning his face, lacerating his chest, and leaving him paralyzed. He is currently in the hospital in a medically induced coma.
Where too was the outrage when a Minnesota SWAT team raided the wrong house in the middle of the night, handcuffed the three young children, held the mother on the floor at gunpoint, shot the family dog, and then “forced the handcuffed children to sit next to the carcass of their dead pet and bloody pet for more than an hour” while they searched the home?
If this were the first instance of police overkill, if it were even the fifth, there might be hope of reforming our system of law enforcement. But what happened to these families, whose lives will never be the same, has become par for the course in a society that glorifies violence, turns a blind eye to government wrongdoing, and sanctions any act by law enforcement, no matter how misguided or wrong. Indeed, as I detail in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, this state-sponsored violence is a necessary ingredient in any totalitarian regime to ensure a compliant, cowed and fearful populace.
The problem with these incidents, as one reporter rightly concluded, is “not that life has gotten that much more dangerous, it’s that authorities have chosen to respond to even innocent situations as if they were in a warzone.”
This battlefield mindset has so corrupted our law enforcement agencies that the most routine tasks, such as serving a search warrant—intended to uncover evidence of a suspected crime—becomes a death warrant for the alleged “suspect,” his family members and his pets once a SWAT team, trained to kill, is involved.
Unfortunately, SWAT teams are no longer reserved exclusively for deadly situations. Owing to the militarization of the nation’s police forces, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for relatively routine police matters, with some SWAT teams being sent out as much as five times a day.
Yet the tension inherent in most civilian-police encounter these days can’t be blamed exclusively on law enforcement’s growing reliance on SWAT teams. It goes far deeper, to a transformation in the way police view themselves and their line of duty. Specifically, what we’re dealing with today is a skewed shoot-to-kill mindset in which police, trained to view themselves as warriors or soldiers in a war, whether against drugs, or terror, or crime, must “get” the bad guys—i.e., anyone who is a potential target—before the bad guys get them. The result is a spike in the number of incidents in which police shoot first, and ask questions later.
Who could forget what happened to 13-year-old Andy Lopez? The teenager was shot seven times and killed after two sheriff’s deputies, a mere 20 feet away, saw him carrying a toy BB gun in public.
Then there was the time two Cleveland police officers mistook the sounds of a backfiring car for gunfire and immediately began pursuing the car and its two occupants. Within 20 minutes, more than 60 police cars, some unmarked, and 115 officers had joined the pursuit, which ended in a middle school parking lot with more than 140 bullets fired by police in less than 30 seconds. The “suspects”—dead from countless bullet wounds—were unarmed.
Just as troubling as this “shoot first, ask questions later” mindset is what investigative journalist Katie Rucke uncovered about how police are being trained to use force without hesitation and report their shootings in such a way as to legally justify a shot. Rucke reports the findings of one concerned citizen, “Jack,” who went undercover in order to attend 24 hours of law enforcement training classes organized by the private, for-profit law enforcement training organization Calibre Press.
“Jack says it was troubling to witness hundreds of SWAT team officers and supervisors who seemed unfazed by being instructed to not hesitate when it comes to using excessive, and even deadly, force,” writes Rucke. “‘From my personal experience, these trainers consistently promote more aggression and criticize hesitation to use force,’ Jack said. ‘They argue that the risk of making a mistake is worth it to absolutely minimize risk to the officer. And they teach officers how to use the law to minimize legal repercussions in almost any scenario. All this is, of course, done behind the scenes, with no oversight from police administrators, much less the public.’”
If ever there were a time to de-militarize and de-weaponize police forces, it’s now, starting at the local level, with local governments and citizens reining in local police. The same goes for scaling back on the mindset adopted by cops that they are the law and should be revered, feared and obeyed.
Police have been insulated from accusations of wrongdoing for too long and allowed to operate in an environment in which whatever a cop says, goes. Meanwhile, the epidemic of police violence continues to escalate while fear of the police increases and the police state, with all its surveillance gear and military weaponry, expands around us.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/06/john-w-whitehead/search-warrant%e2%80%a8/
By John W. Whitehead
How many children, old people, and law-abiding citizens have to be injured, terrorized or killed before we call a halt to the growing rash of police violence that is wracking the country? How many family pets have to be gunned down in cold blood by marauding SWAT teams before we declare such tactics off limits? And how many communities have to be transformed into military outposts, complete with heavily armed police, military tanks, and “safety” checkpoints before we draw that line in the sand that says “not in our town”?
The latest incident comes out of Atlanta, Georgia, where a SWAT team, attempting to execute a no-knock drug warrant in the middle of the night, launched a flash bang grenade into the targeted home, only to have it land in a crib where a 19-month-old baby lay sleeping. The grenade exploded in the baby’s face, burning his face, lacerating his chest, and leaving him paralyzed. He is currently in the hospital in a medically induced coma.
Where too was the outrage when a Minnesota SWAT team raided the wrong house in the middle of the night, handcuffed the three young children, held the mother on the floor at gunpoint, shot the family dog, and then “forced the handcuffed children to sit next to the carcass of their dead pet and bloody pet for more than an hour” while they searched the home?
If this were the first instance of police overkill, if it were even the fifth, there might be hope of reforming our system of law enforcement. But what happened to these families, whose lives will never be the same, has become par for the course in a society that glorifies violence, turns a blind eye to government wrongdoing, and sanctions any act by law enforcement, no matter how misguided or wrong. Indeed, as I detail in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, this state-sponsored violence is a necessary ingredient in any totalitarian regime to ensure a compliant, cowed and fearful populace.
The problem with these incidents, as one reporter rightly concluded, is “not that life has gotten that much more dangerous, it’s that authorities have chosen to respond to even innocent situations as if they were in a warzone.”
This battlefield mindset has so corrupted our law enforcement agencies that the most routine tasks, such as serving a search warrant—intended to uncover evidence of a suspected crime—becomes a death warrant for the alleged “suspect,” his family members and his pets once a SWAT team, trained to kill, is involved.
Unfortunately, SWAT teams are no longer reserved exclusively for deadly situations. Owing to the militarization of the nation’s police forces, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for relatively routine police matters, with some SWAT teams being sent out as much as five times a day.
Yet the tension inherent in most civilian-police encounter these days can’t be blamed exclusively on law enforcement’s growing reliance on SWAT teams. It goes far deeper, to a transformation in the way police view themselves and their line of duty. Specifically, what we’re dealing with today is a skewed shoot-to-kill mindset in which police, trained to view themselves as warriors or soldiers in a war, whether against drugs, or terror, or crime, must “get” the bad guys—i.e., anyone who is a potential target—before the bad guys get them. The result is a spike in the number of incidents in which police shoot first, and ask questions later.
Who could forget what happened to 13-year-old Andy Lopez? The teenager was shot seven times and killed after two sheriff’s deputies, a mere 20 feet away, saw him carrying a toy BB gun in public.
Then there was the time two Cleveland police officers mistook the sounds of a backfiring car for gunfire and immediately began pursuing the car and its two occupants. Within 20 minutes, more than 60 police cars, some unmarked, and 115 officers had joined the pursuit, which ended in a middle school parking lot with more than 140 bullets fired by police in less than 30 seconds. The “suspects”—dead from countless bullet wounds—were unarmed.
Just as troubling as this “shoot first, ask questions later” mindset is what investigative journalist Katie Rucke uncovered about how police are being trained to use force without hesitation and report their shootings in such a way as to legally justify a shot. Rucke reports the findings of one concerned citizen, “Jack,” who went undercover in order to attend 24 hours of law enforcement training classes organized by the private, for-profit law enforcement training organization Calibre Press.
“Jack says it was troubling to witness hundreds of SWAT team officers and supervisors who seemed unfazed by being instructed to not hesitate when it comes to using excessive, and even deadly, force,” writes Rucke. “‘From my personal experience, these trainers consistently promote more aggression and criticize hesitation to use force,’ Jack said. ‘They argue that the risk of making a mistake is worth it to absolutely minimize risk to the officer. And they teach officers how to use the law to minimize legal repercussions in almost any scenario. All this is, of course, done behind the scenes, with no oversight from police administrators, much less the public.’”
If ever there were a time to de-militarize and de-weaponize police forces, it’s now, starting at the local level, with local governments and citizens reining in local police. The same goes for scaling back on the mindset adopted by cops that they are the law and should be revered, feared and obeyed.
Police have been insulated from accusations of wrongdoing for too long and allowed to operate in an environment in which whatever a cop says, goes. Meanwhile, the epidemic of police violence continues to escalate while fear of the police increases and the police state, with all its surveillance gear and military weaponry, expands around us.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/06/john-w-whitehead/search-warrant%e2%80%a8/
"One effective way to limit mass shootings may be to repeal gun control laws that, by disarming the law-abiding, turn the innocent into victims."
Mental Health Screening a Good Way to Decrease Liberty, Poor Way to Increase Security
By Ron Paul
Last week Americans were shocked and saddened by another mass killing, this one near a college campus in California. We all feel deep sympathy for the families of the victims.
As usual, many people responded to this shooting by calling for new federal gun control laws, including the mental health screening of anyone attempting to purchase a firearm. There are a number of problems with this proposal. Federally-mandated mental health screenings would require storing mental health records in a government database. This obviously raises concerns about patient privacy and doctor-patient confidentiality, as well as the threat of identity theft. Anyone who doubts that these are legitimate concerns should consider the enormous privacy problems with the Obamacare website; some have even suggested that healthcare.gov be renamed indentifytheft.gov.
Giving government the power to bar some Americans from owning guns by labeling them as “mentally ill” could easily lead to serious abuses. Even authors of mental health manuals admit that mental health diagnoses are subjective and can be based on “social constructions.” Thus, anyone whose behavior deviates from some “norm” could find himself deprived of his second amendment, and possibly other, rights.
People could be even be labeled “mentally ill” because they are outspoken critics of the government. Currently, as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s “Operation Vigilant Eagle” program, veterans who express dissatisfaction with government polices run the risk of being labeled mentally-unstable terrorist threats. There has also been at least one federally-funded violence prevention program that determined that holding certain political and social views indicates a propensity for violence. So there is precedent for labeling those with unpopular political beliefs as being “mentally ill.”
We have also seen how US presidents from both parties have used the IRS to target political opponents. Imagine the potential for abuse if those same politicians had access to the mental health records of their political opponents, or the power to label opponents mentally ill because those opponents were “dissatisfied” with the government?
People who say that the threat to liberty posed by mental health screenings is outweighed by the enhanced security they provide should consider that expanding background checks and mental health screening is unlikely to make us safer. Professor Richard Alan Friedman, director of the Psychopharmacology Clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College, has written that it is imposable to predict whether an individual will act in a violent manner.
One effective way to limit mass shootings may be to repeal gun control laws that, by disarming the law-abiding, turn the innocent into victims. Like most recent shootings, this one took place in a location where the attacker could be confident his intended targets could not defend themselves. It is interesting that even though the attacker used hammers and knives on some of the victims, no one is calling for background checks on those wishing to purchase hammers.
Instead of focusing on passing more laws, our focus should be replacing the entitlement culture with a culture of self-responsibility and respect for the rights of others. Government can help this process by ending its routine violation of our rights and the use of violence as a means to achieve domestic and foreign policy goals. This is not to suggest that government policies are directly responsible for the shootings, but it is not unreasonable to suggest that growing up in a time of preemptive war may feed a deranged person’s delusion that violence is a proper way to deal with personal frustrations. Fixing the culture is much more difficult than passing new laws but is the only way to guarantee our liberty and our security.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/06/ron-paul/more-mental-health-screening-for-gun-buyers/
By Ron Paul
Last week Americans were shocked and saddened by another mass killing, this one near a college campus in California. We all feel deep sympathy for the families of the victims.
As usual, many people responded to this shooting by calling for new federal gun control laws, including the mental health screening of anyone attempting to purchase a firearm. There are a number of problems with this proposal. Federally-mandated mental health screenings would require storing mental health records in a government database. This obviously raises concerns about patient privacy and doctor-patient confidentiality, as well as the threat of identity theft. Anyone who doubts that these are legitimate concerns should consider the enormous privacy problems with the Obamacare website; some have even suggested that healthcare.gov be renamed indentifytheft.gov.
Giving government the power to bar some Americans from owning guns by labeling them as “mentally ill” could easily lead to serious abuses. Even authors of mental health manuals admit that mental health diagnoses are subjective and can be based on “social constructions.” Thus, anyone whose behavior deviates from some “norm” could find himself deprived of his second amendment, and possibly other, rights.
People could be even be labeled “mentally ill” because they are outspoken critics of the government. Currently, as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s “Operation Vigilant Eagle” program, veterans who express dissatisfaction with government polices run the risk of being labeled mentally-unstable terrorist threats. There has also been at least one federally-funded violence prevention program that determined that holding certain political and social views indicates a propensity for violence. So there is precedent for labeling those with unpopular political beliefs as being “mentally ill.”
We have also seen how US presidents from both parties have used the IRS to target political opponents. Imagine the potential for abuse if those same politicians had access to the mental health records of their political opponents, or the power to label opponents mentally ill because those opponents were “dissatisfied” with the government?
People who say that the threat to liberty posed by mental health screenings is outweighed by the enhanced security they provide should consider that expanding background checks and mental health screening is unlikely to make us safer. Professor Richard Alan Friedman, director of the Psychopharmacology Clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College, has written that it is imposable to predict whether an individual will act in a violent manner.
One effective way to limit mass shootings may be to repeal gun control laws that, by disarming the law-abiding, turn the innocent into victims. Like most recent shootings, this one took place in a location where the attacker could be confident his intended targets could not defend themselves. It is interesting that even though the attacker used hammers and knives on some of the victims, no one is calling for background checks on those wishing to purchase hammers.
Instead of focusing on passing more laws, our focus should be replacing the entitlement culture with a culture of self-responsibility and respect for the rights of others. Government can help this process by ending its routine violation of our rights and the use of violence as a means to achieve domestic and foreign policy goals. This is not to suggest that government policies are directly responsible for the shootings, but it is not unreasonable to suggest that growing up in a time of preemptive war may feed a deranged person’s delusion that violence is a proper way to deal with personal frustrations. Fixing the culture is much more difficult than passing new laws but is the only way to guarantee our liberty and our security.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/06/ron-paul/more-mental-health-screening-for-gun-buyers/
Monday, June 2, 2014
"... the alternative media will have to continue doing the job that the propagandists in the pseudo-mainstream press refuse to touch: Real journalism."
Bilderberg Summit Virtually Ignored by Media Propagandists
Written by Alex Newman
If 120 to 150 celebrities were gathered at a hotel for a private three-day meeting, there would be no end to the media coverage, analysis, pictures, manufactured scandals, and ridiculous hype. Supposed “journalists” would have a field day. Just this weekend, about that many top globalists, whose decisions collectively affect the lives of virtually every person on the planet, gathered for the Bilderberg summit in the Danish capital. Establishment media outfits such as CNN, BBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and others, however, were nowhere to be found.
The deafening lack of press coverage surrounding what many analysts say is perhaps one of the most important meetings of the year was not due to a lack of information about Bilderberg. This magazine and numerous reporters for alternative media outlets in the United States and Europe were there covering the summit. The Danish press was there, too, as were a handful of reporters for major European newspapers. A few government-funded media outlets from Russia, China, Iran, and other nations also reported on the summit. In the increasingly discredited and wildly mischaracterized American “mainstream” media, though, scarcely a word appeared about Bilderberg.
Incredibly, in attendance at the secrecy-obsessed gathering of globalists were numerous high-powered media executives and supposed “journalists” — from editors and publishers of major publications to influential columnists and corporate media magnates. All of them were mingling with over 100 figures representing the upper echelons of banking, politics, the Internet, business, war, government, foreign policy, the EU, NATO, military, spying, royalty, the Chinese Communist Party, and more. Naïve readers and viewers, though — for reasons that remain unclear, one in five Americans still trust the establishment media to keep them informed — were none the wiser.
Journalists, of course, are supposed to seek truth and do their best to share it with the public — at least that is how members of the profession like to view themselves. Among the “media” bosses in attendance at this year’s Bilderberg summit, however, traditional journalistic ethics and motivations were apparently in short supply. As of Monday, the day after the Bilderberg summit’s conclusion, it did not seem like any of the establishment media bigwigs in attendance, or their “news” outlets, had reported anything about the gathering.
Media attendees at the 2014 summit included the Economist magazine's editor-in-chief John Micklethwait, chief economics commentator Martin Wolf with The Financial Times, political editor-in-chief Tove Lifvendahl for one of Sweden’s top newspapers, senior columnist Cengiz Çandar with Al Monitor and Radika, Austrian newspaper Der Standard publisher Oscar Bronner, editor-in-chief Monica Maggioni with Italy’s Rainews24 and RAI TV, French paper Le Monde executive editor Natalie Nougayrède, and more. Their audiences may never learn what was discussed or even that the summit took place.
In fairness to the press, though, at least compared to just a few years ago, there was quite a bit of Bilderberg coverage. As usual, the alternative media was there in force, dominating the narrative. Infowars had a team of veteran reporters on the ground and filed regular video updates and articles offering insight and news about the meetings. The American Free Press also had a reporter in Copenhagen to cover the summit, taking over from the late Jim Tucker, who for decades followed the annual gatherings closely. Many smaller alternative outlets were also present. CNBC ran a brief piece on Bilderberg prior to the summit, too, as did the taxpayer-funded National Public Radio and Al Jazeera America. None of the major U.S. “news” networks said a word, however.
The only U.S. market where the establishment press offered a decent amount of Bilderberg coverage was Atlanta. The mayor of the Southern city, Kasim Reed, was among the lesser-known attendees at the summit, sparking a wide range of speculation as to whether he was being groomed for higher office. Both Bill Clinton and Obama attended a Bilderberg summit before becoming president, as have more than a few leading European politicians and globalists prior to their meteoric rises to power. Still, outside of Atlanta, American newspapers were suspiciously silent on the globalist confab.
In the foreign media, at least two major British newspapers, The Guardian and the Independent, provided some coverage of Bilderberg’s 2014 summit, as well. As in previous years, Charlie Skelton of The Guardian offered some of the most high-profile insights into the meetings — much of it written in a humoristic style. Numerous major outlets in other European countries — Hungary, Portugal, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Italy, and more — provided at least minor reports. Still, for the vast majority of Europeans, the gathering of high-level globalists in Copenhagen was not in their newspaper, much less on the front page — where it undoubtedly would have been if 125 actors or singers had converged on the hotel instead of politicians and CEOs whose actions will profoundly affect the world.
One reporter for a leading newspaper in a small European nation, who like other uninvited journalists remained in a pen for protesters across the street from the meetings, spoke with The New American off the record about the media scene. “Probably almost nobody in my country knows about these meetings, because the guys who own the two big private TV channels are inside, and the public channel never talks about it,” he said. “My reports will be the first time the major media talks about Bilderberg. We’ll see what happens.” Due to the infamous lack of transparency, though, he was unsure exactly what to write about.
Outside of the West, there was a fair amount of coverage as well. A Communist Chinese newspaper mentioned the summit, and the Kremlin-funded RT network probably had more Bilderberg news than any other media outlet in the world. Much of its coverage, though, centered on summit attendees' alleged agenda to maintain a Western-dominated “unipolar” world order — a dubious theory, to put it mildly. Iran’s state-controlled Press TV promoted a similar narrative, claiming, for instance, that “the nations resisting the Bilderbergers' world takeover attempt, led by Iran, Russia and China, are gaining ground.”
Of course, numerous senior Bilderberg and pro-“New World Order” bigwigs — Henry Kissinger, George Soros, David Rockefeller, and more — have all touted the ruthless Communist Chinese dictatorship as a leading player in what they call the “New World Order.” Looking back at history and examining the key role of globalist operatives at the Council on Foreign Relations and similar outfits in bringing the mass-murdering regime in Beijing to power also casts serious doubts on the narrative.
Like Bilderberg regulars, top EU and Russian officials regularly promote “integration” between the ruling classes in Moscow and Brussels. Innumerable links between the former communist regimes in the East and the ruling class in the West could also be cited. All of the BRICS regimes (those ruling Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), meanwhile, have been fervent supporters of the openly touted Western globalist goals of empowering the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the Fund’s proto-global currency known as Special Drawing Rights. Recently, the IMF, via Ukraine, funneled billions of bailout dollars to Russia’s Putin.
IMF boss Christine Lagarde was among the 2014 Bilderberg attendees. As The New American reported based on the official list of attendees released ahead of the 2014 gathering, a leading member of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee was also in attendance at this year’s summit. So, the Kremlin-pushed narrative of Bilderberg bigwigs trying to hold back the BRICS due to their alleged opposition to the “New World Order” strains the limits of credulity. Beijing recently called for a global currency and a United Nations-dominated "New World Order" by name, echoing the public pronouncements of countless Western globalists.
Much of the theorizing surrounding the Bilderberg’s alleged efforts and agenda to “contain” the mostly socialist and communist BRICS regimes was attributed to alleged leaks. The supposed agenda was reportedly obtained from unidentified summit insiders by journalist Daniel Estulin, who regularly covers Bilderberg and is often cited as an expert on the summit. It was not possible to independently verify or disprove the claims.
The New American reached out to Bilderberg via its official media e-mail address requesting comment and on-camera interviews. “As ever, in order to encourage the highest level of openness and dialogue among the participants during the conference, the Bilderberg meeting is closed to reporting journalists,” the self-described “Bilderberg media team” responded in an e-mail. “While we would have liked to help you with your request, we regret to inform you that we cannot provide any interviews this week.”
Despite the surge in Bilderberg coverage seen in recent years, critics and media analysts continued to lambaste the establishment press for failing to cover this year’s summit. There is no serious argument to be made that it is not newsworthy, yet most “journalists” remain asleep at the wheel. Last year’s summit in the United Kingdom appears to have set the record in terms of Bilderberg coverage. Much of it, though, was focused on demonizing protesters rather than figuring out what taxpayer-funded public “servants” were doing behind closed doors with Big Business, Big Oil, leaders of bailed out mega-banks, and other would-be world rulers.
Of course, if the “mainstream” media would put one thousandth of the effort it expends covering useless celebrity gossip into uncovering what the world’s top politicians, CEOs, and bureaucrats are doing behind closed doors, Bilderberg’s obsessive secrecy (bordering on paranoia) would be quickly shattered. Their agenda would suffer, too. However, even as the establishment’s self-styled “news” operations suffer from plunging revenues and shattered credibility, the prospect of serious reporting emerging any time soon remains slim. Until then, the alternative media will have to continue doing the job that the propagandists in the pseudo-mainstream press refuse to touch: Real journalism.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/item/18393-bilderberg-summit-virtually-ignored-by-media-propagandists
Written by Alex Newman
If 120 to 150 celebrities were gathered at a hotel for a private three-day meeting, there would be no end to the media coverage, analysis, pictures, manufactured scandals, and ridiculous hype. Supposed “journalists” would have a field day. Just this weekend, about that many top globalists, whose decisions collectively affect the lives of virtually every person on the planet, gathered for the Bilderberg summit in the Danish capital. Establishment media outfits such as CNN, BBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and others, however, were nowhere to be found.
The deafening lack of press coverage surrounding what many analysts say is perhaps one of the most important meetings of the year was not due to a lack of information about Bilderberg. This magazine and numerous reporters for alternative media outlets in the United States and Europe were there covering the summit. The Danish press was there, too, as were a handful of reporters for major European newspapers. A few government-funded media outlets from Russia, China, Iran, and other nations also reported on the summit. In the increasingly discredited and wildly mischaracterized American “mainstream” media, though, scarcely a word appeared about Bilderberg.
Incredibly, in attendance at the secrecy-obsessed gathering of globalists were numerous high-powered media executives and supposed “journalists” — from editors and publishers of major publications to influential columnists and corporate media magnates. All of them were mingling with over 100 figures representing the upper echelons of banking, politics, the Internet, business, war, government, foreign policy, the EU, NATO, military, spying, royalty, the Chinese Communist Party, and more. Naïve readers and viewers, though — for reasons that remain unclear, one in five Americans still trust the establishment media to keep them informed — were none the wiser.
Journalists, of course, are supposed to seek truth and do their best to share it with the public — at least that is how members of the profession like to view themselves. Among the “media” bosses in attendance at this year’s Bilderberg summit, however, traditional journalistic ethics and motivations were apparently in short supply. As of Monday, the day after the Bilderberg summit’s conclusion, it did not seem like any of the establishment media bigwigs in attendance, or their “news” outlets, had reported anything about the gathering.
Media attendees at the 2014 summit included the Economist magazine's editor-in-chief John Micklethwait, chief economics commentator Martin Wolf with The Financial Times, political editor-in-chief Tove Lifvendahl for one of Sweden’s top newspapers, senior columnist Cengiz Çandar with Al Monitor and Radika, Austrian newspaper Der Standard publisher Oscar Bronner, editor-in-chief Monica Maggioni with Italy’s Rainews24 and RAI TV, French paper Le Monde executive editor Natalie Nougayrède, and more. Their audiences may never learn what was discussed or even that the summit took place.
In fairness to the press, though, at least compared to just a few years ago, there was quite a bit of Bilderberg coverage. As usual, the alternative media was there in force, dominating the narrative. Infowars had a team of veteran reporters on the ground and filed regular video updates and articles offering insight and news about the meetings. The American Free Press also had a reporter in Copenhagen to cover the summit, taking over from the late Jim Tucker, who for decades followed the annual gatherings closely. Many smaller alternative outlets were also present. CNBC ran a brief piece on Bilderberg prior to the summit, too, as did the taxpayer-funded National Public Radio and Al Jazeera America. None of the major U.S. “news” networks said a word, however.
The only U.S. market where the establishment press offered a decent amount of Bilderberg coverage was Atlanta. The mayor of the Southern city, Kasim Reed, was among the lesser-known attendees at the summit, sparking a wide range of speculation as to whether he was being groomed for higher office. Both Bill Clinton and Obama attended a Bilderberg summit before becoming president, as have more than a few leading European politicians and globalists prior to their meteoric rises to power. Still, outside of Atlanta, American newspapers were suspiciously silent on the globalist confab.
In the foreign media, at least two major British newspapers, The Guardian and the Independent, provided some coverage of Bilderberg’s 2014 summit, as well. As in previous years, Charlie Skelton of The Guardian offered some of the most high-profile insights into the meetings — much of it written in a humoristic style. Numerous major outlets in other European countries — Hungary, Portugal, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Italy, and more — provided at least minor reports. Still, for the vast majority of Europeans, the gathering of high-level globalists in Copenhagen was not in their newspaper, much less on the front page — where it undoubtedly would have been if 125 actors or singers had converged on the hotel instead of politicians and CEOs whose actions will profoundly affect the world.
One reporter for a leading newspaper in a small European nation, who like other uninvited journalists remained in a pen for protesters across the street from the meetings, spoke with The New American off the record about the media scene. “Probably almost nobody in my country knows about these meetings, because the guys who own the two big private TV channels are inside, and the public channel never talks about it,” he said. “My reports will be the first time the major media talks about Bilderberg. We’ll see what happens.” Due to the infamous lack of transparency, though, he was unsure exactly what to write about.
Outside of the West, there was a fair amount of coverage as well. A Communist Chinese newspaper mentioned the summit, and the Kremlin-funded RT network probably had more Bilderberg news than any other media outlet in the world. Much of its coverage, though, centered on summit attendees' alleged agenda to maintain a Western-dominated “unipolar” world order — a dubious theory, to put it mildly. Iran’s state-controlled Press TV promoted a similar narrative, claiming, for instance, that “the nations resisting the Bilderbergers' world takeover attempt, led by Iran, Russia and China, are gaining ground.”
Of course, numerous senior Bilderberg and pro-“New World Order” bigwigs — Henry Kissinger, George Soros, David Rockefeller, and more — have all touted the ruthless Communist Chinese dictatorship as a leading player in what they call the “New World Order.” Looking back at history and examining the key role of globalist operatives at the Council on Foreign Relations and similar outfits in bringing the mass-murdering regime in Beijing to power also casts serious doubts on the narrative.
Like Bilderberg regulars, top EU and Russian officials regularly promote “integration” between the ruling classes in Moscow and Brussels. Innumerable links between the former communist regimes in the East and the ruling class in the West could also be cited. All of the BRICS regimes (those ruling Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), meanwhile, have been fervent supporters of the openly touted Western globalist goals of empowering the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the Fund’s proto-global currency known as Special Drawing Rights. Recently, the IMF, via Ukraine, funneled billions of bailout dollars to Russia’s Putin.
IMF boss Christine Lagarde was among the 2014 Bilderberg attendees. As The New American reported based on the official list of attendees released ahead of the 2014 gathering, a leading member of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee was also in attendance at this year’s summit. So, the Kremlin-pushed narrative of Bilderberg bigwigs trying to hold back the BRICS due to their alleged opposition to the “New World Order” strains the limits of credulity. Beijing recently called for a global currency and a United Nations-dominated "New World Order" by name, echoing the public pronouncements of countless Western globalists.
Much of the theorizing surrounding the Bilderberg’s alleged efforts and agenda to “contain” the mostly socialist and communist BRICS regimes was attributed to alleged leaks. The supposed agenda was reportedly obtained from unidentified summit insiders by journalist Daniel Estulin, who regularly covers Bilderberg and is often cited as an expert on the summit. It was not possible to independently verify or disprove the claims.
The New American reached out to Bilderberg via its official media e-mail address requesting comment and on-camera interviews. “As ever, in order to encourage the highest level of openness and dialogue among the participants during the conference, the Bilderberg meeting is closed to reporting journalists,” the self-described “Bilderberg media team” responded in an e-mail. “While we would have liked to help you with your request, we regret to inform you that we cannot provide any interviews this week.”
Despite the surge in Bilderberg coverage seen in recent years, critics and media analysts continued to lambaste the establishment press for failing to cover this year’s summit. There is no serious argument to be made that it is not newsworthy, yet most “journalists” remain asleep at the wheel. Last year’s summit in the United Kingdom appears to have set the record in terms of Bilderberg coverage. Much of it, though, was focused on demonizing protesters rather than figuring out what taxpayer-funded public “servants” were doing behind closed doors with Big Business, Big Oil, leaders of bailed out mega-banks, and other would-be world rulers.
Of course, if the “mainstream” media would put one thousandth of the effort it expends covering useless celebrity gossip into uncovering what the world’s top politicians, CEOs, and bureaucrats are doing behind closed doors, Bilderberg’s obsessive secrecy (bordering on paranoia) would be quickly shattered. Their agenda would suffer, too. However, even as the establishment’s self-styled “news” operations suffer from plunging revenues and shattered credibility, the prospect of serious reporting emerging any time soon remains slim. Until then, the alternative media will have to continue doing the job that the propagandists in the pseudo-mainstream press refuse to touch: Real journalism.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/item/18393-bilderberg-summit-virtually-ignored-by-media-propagandists
"The world should take note that the most militarily aggressive American president in history is considered a wimp by the neoconized American media. The media drives wars, and the American media, firmly allied with the military/security complex, is driving the world to the final war."
What Obama Told Us At West Point
Paul Craig Roberts
At West Point Obama told us, to the applause of West Point cadets, that “American exceptionalism” is a doctrine that justifies whatever Washington does. If Washington violates domestic and international law by torturing “detainees” or violates the Nuremberg standard by invading countries that have undertaken no hostile action against the US or its allies, “exceptionalism” is the priest’s blessing that absolves Washington’s sins against law and international norms. Washington’s crimes are transformed into Washington’s affirmation of the rule of law. Here is Obama in his own words:
“I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.”
Actions indeed. In the 21st century “American exceptionalism” has destroyed seven countries in whole or in part. Millions of people are dead, maimed, and displaced, and all of this criminal destruction is evidence of Washington’s reaffirmation of international norms and the rule of law. Destruction and murder are merely collateral damage from Washington’s affirmation of international norms.
“American exceptionalism” also means that US presidents can lie through their teeth and misrepresent those they choose to demonize. Listen to Obama’s misrepresentations of the Putin and Assad governments:
“Russia’s aggression towards former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe . . . In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe .” Obama misrepresents Assad as “a dictator who bombs and starves his own people.”
Did any of the cadets in Obama’s West Point audience wonder why, if Assad is a brutal dictator who bombs and starves his own people, the Syrian people are supporting Assad instead of the American-backed “liberation forces,” the combination of imported jihadists and al Qaeda fighters who object to Assad’s government because it is secular? The US military is taught to respect its civilian commander-in-chief, but if West Point cadets actually do obtain an education, it is remarkable that Obama’s audience did not break out in laughter.
The reference to Soviet tanks rolling into Eastern Europe is a reference to the Hungarian (1956) and Czech (1968) “revolutions” when the Hungarian and Czech communist leaders attempted to assert independence from Moscow. It is doubtful that Washington’s response to countries attempting to exit NATO would be any different. A few months ago Washington responded to political talk in Germany and England about leaving the EU by informing both governments that it was not in Washington’s interest for them to depart from the European Union.
Obama used the image of Soviet tanks in order to color Russia with the Soviet Threat, to mischaracterize Russia’s response to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia, and to misrepresent Crimea’s vote in favor of reunification with Russia as “Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea.” These lies are still a mainstay in the US media and in Washington’s official propaganda.
Obama’s speech is probably the most disingenuous ever given by a Western politician. We could have fun for hours with all the crimes that Washington commits but buries in rhetoric directed at others. Perhaps my favorite is Obama evoking a world in which “individuals aren’t slaughtered because of political belief.” I am sure Obama was thinking of this just world when he murdered without due process of law four American citizens “outside of areas of active hostilities.”
Another favorite is the way Obama flushed the US Constitution of its meaning. Obama said, with reference to bringing the Guantanamo prisoners to the US, that “American values and legal traditions don’t permit the indefinite detention of people beyond our borders.” No, Obama, the US Constitution prevents the indefinite detention of US citizens by the US government anywhere on earth, especially within our borders.
By detaining and by murdering US citizens without due process of law, Obama has violated his oath of office and should be impeached. It was only a short time ago that President Bill Clinton was impeached by the US House of Representatives (the Senate saved him from conviction) for lying about his sexual affair with a White House intern. How times change. Today a president who violates his oath of office to protect the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic gets a free ride. The Constitution has lost its power to protect citizens from the arbitrary power of government. The US is the Constitution. Without the Constitution the US ceases to exist, and the country becomes a tyranny, both at home and abroad.Today the US is a tyranny cloaked in the garb of “freedom and democracy.”
Instead of laughing our way through Obama’s ridiculous speech to what apparently was a dumbed-down West Point graduating class, lets pay attention to Obama’s bottom line: “America must always lead on the world stage. . . . The military is, and always will be, the backbone of that leadership.”
In other words, Washington doesn’t use diplomacy. Washington uses coercion. The favorite threat is: “Do as you are told or we will bomb you into the Stone Age.” Obama’s speech is a justification of Washington’s criminal actions on the grounds that Washington acts for the exceptional Americans whose exceptionalism places them and, thereby, their government above law and international norms. In this way of thinking, only the failure to prevail constitutes failure.
Americans are the new ubermensch, the new master race. Inferior humans can be bombed, invaded, and sanctioned. Obama’s West Point speech asserts American superiority over all others and Washington’s determination to continue this superiority by preventing the rise of other powers. This arrogant hubris was not enough for the Washington Post editorial board. The newspaper’s editorial damned Obama for binding US power and limiting its use to “a narrow set of core interest,” such as direct threats to America.
The American “liberal media” object that Obama’s claim of exceptionalism is not broad enough for Washington’s purposes. Obama’s address, the Washington Post wrote, bound “US power” and “offered scant comfort” to those militarists who want to overthrow Syria, Iran, Russia, and China.
The world should take note that the most militarily aggressive American president in history is considered a wimp by the neoconized American media. The media drives wars, and the American media, firmly allied with the military/security complex, is driving the world to the final war.
Link:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/06/02/obama-told-us-west-point-paul-craig-roberts/
Paul Craig Roberts
At West Point Obama told us, to the applause of West Point cadets, that “American exceptionalism” is a doctrine that justifies whatever Washington does. If Washington violates domestic and international law by torturing “detainees” or violates the Nuremberg standard by invading countries that have undertaken no hostile action against the US or its allies, “exceptionalism” is the priest’s blessing that absolves Washington’s sins against law and international norms. Washington’s crimes are transformed into Washington’s affirmation of the rule of law. Here is Obama in his own words:
“I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.”
Actions indeed. In the 21st century “American exceptionalism” has destroyed seven countries in whole or in part. Millions of people are dead, maimed, and displaced, and all of this criminal destruction is evidence of Washington’s reaffirmation of international norms and the rule of law. Destruction and murder are merely collateral damage from Washington’s affirmation of international norms.
“American exceptionalism” also means that US presidents can lie through their teeth and misrepresent those they choose to demonize. Listen to Obama’s misrepresentations of the Putin and Assad governments:
“Russia’s aggression towards former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe . . . In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe .” Obama misrepresents Assad as “a dictator who bombs and starves his own people.”
Did any of the cadets in Obama’s West Point audience wonder why, if Assad is a brutal dictator who bombs and starves his own people, the Syrian people are supporting Assad instead of the American-backed “liberation forces,” the combination of imported jihadists and al Qaeda fighters who object to Assad’s government because it is secular? The US military is taught to respect its civilian commander-in-chief, but if West Point cadets actually do obtain an education, it is remarkable that Obama’s audience did not break out in laughter.
The reference to Soviet tanks rolling into Eastern Europe is a reference to the Hungarian (1956) and Czech (1968) “revolutions” when the Hungarian and Czech communist leaders attempted to assert independence from Moscow. It is doubtful that Washington’s response to countries attempting to exit NATO would be any different. A few months ago Washington responded to political talk in Germany and England about leaving the EU by informing both governments that it was not in Washington’s interest for them to depart from the European Union.
Obama used the image of Soviet tanks in order to color Russia with the Soviet Threat, to mischaracterize Russia’s response to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia, and to misrepresent Crimea’s vote in favor of reunification with Russia as “Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea.” These lies are still a mainstay in the US media and in Washington’s official propaganda.
Obama’s speech is probably the most disingenuous ever given by a Western politician. We could have fun for hours with all the crimes that Washington commits but buries in rhetoric directed at others. Perhaps my favorite is Obama evoking a world in which “individuals aren’t slaughtered because of political belief.” I am sure Obama was thinking of this just world when he murdered without due process of law four American citizens “outside of areas of active hostilities.”
Another favorite is the way Obama flushed the US Constitution of its meaning. Obama said, with reference to bringing the Guantanamo prisoners to the US, that “American values and legal traditions don’t permit the indefinite detention of people beyond our borders.” No, Obama, the US Constitution prevents the indefinite detention of US citizens by the US government anywhere on earth, especially within our borders.
By detaining and by murdering US citizens without due process of law, Obama has violated his oath of office and should be impeached. It was only a short time ago that President Bill Clinton was impeached by the US House of Representatives (the Senate saved him from conviction) for lying about his sexual affair with a White House intern. How times change. Today a president who violates his oath of office to protect the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic gets a free ride. The Constitution has lost its power to protect citizens from the arbitrary power of government. The US is the Constitution. Without the Constitution the US ceases to exist, and the country becomes a tyranny, both at home and abroad.Today the US is a tyranny cloaked in the garb of “freedom and democracy.”
Instead of laughing our way through Obama’s ridiculous speech to what apparently was a dumbed-down West Point graduating class, lets pay attention to Obama’s bottom line: “America must always lead on the world stage. . . . The military is, and always will be, the backbone of that leadership.”
In other words, Washington doesn’t use diplomacy. Washington uses coercion. The favorite threat is: “Do as you are told or we will bomb you into the Stone Age.” Obama’s speech is a justification of Washington’s criminal actions on the grounds that Washington acts for the exceptional Americans whose exceptionalism places them and, thereby, their government above law and international norms. In this way of thinking, only the failure to prevail constitutes failure.
Americans are the new ubermensch, the new master race. Inferior humans can be bombed, invaded, and sanctioned. Obama’s West Point speech asserts American superiority over all others and Washington’s determination to continue this superiority by preventing the rise of other powers. This arrogant hubris was not enough for the Washington Post editorial board. The newspaper’s editorial damned Obama for binding US power and limiting its use to “a narrow set of core interest,” such as direct threats to America.
The American “liberal media” object that Obama’s claim of exceptionalism is not broad enough for Washington’s purposes. Obama’s address, the Washington Post wrote, bound “US power” and “offered scant comfort” to those militarists who want to overthrow Syria, Iran, Russia, and China.
The world should take note that the most militarily aggressive American president in history is considered a wimp by the neoconized American media. The media drives wars, and the American media, firmly allied with the military/security complex, is driving the world to the final war.
Link:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/06/02/obama-told-us-west-point-paul-craig-roberts/
Bringing back the electric chair in Tennessee...
Tennessee Electric Chair Law Reignites Capital Punishment Debate
Written by Dave Bohon
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam has signed a bill allowing for the use of the electric chair in executions in that state when the appropriate drugs are not available for lethal injection. Botched executions over the past months and an increasing refusal by some foreign manufacturers to make the necessary drugs available has prompted a number of states to look for alternative ways to carry out executions, including a return of such archaic but effective methods as the firing squad.
Haslam's signature followed passage of the bill in April, with the State Senate voting 23-3 and the House 68-13 to reintroduce the electric chair as an alternative to lethal injection. The bill's main sponsor, Republican State Senator Ken Yager, explained that he introduced the bill because of “concern that we could find ourselves in a position that if the chemicals were unavailable to us that we would not be able to carry out the sentence.”
Tennessee has 74 inmates on death row, and since 1999, condemned prisoners have had the option of choosing the electric chair over lethal injection. The last one to do so was Daryl Holton, a Gulf War veteran who was electrocuted in 2007 for the murders of his three sons and stepdaughter with a rifle 10 years earlier.
The new law will put the decision in the hands of prison officials, who will decide the means of execution based on the availability of lethal drugs such as pentobarbital, which some European drug makers have refused to sell to state governments for the use of lethal injection, reportedly because of the increasing number of botched executions. In 2009, the U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental, another commonly used execution drug, stopped making the drug.
The latest execution gone awry was in April in Oklahoma, where convicted murderer Clayton Lockett, 38, began writhing, clenching his teeth, and lifting his head off the pillow of the death gurney after he was supposed to have been rendered unconscious by the first of three drugs in the state's death machine. Lockett reportedly finally succumbed to a heart attack 10 minutes after the execution procedure began.
Earlier in the year, convicted murderer and rapist Dennis McGuire gasped and convulsed for some 10 minutes during his lethal-injection execution in Ohio before finally expiring. In 2009, Ohio stopped the lethal injection of convicted murderer Romell Broom after the executioners tried nearly 20 times to get a needle in his veins. Broom remains on death row, but is challenging the state’s right to try to kill him again.
Currently 32 states allow for the death penalty, and while most rely on lethal injection and a handful have the electric chair as a prisoner-preferred option, according to the Washington Post three states also allow the gas chamber (Arizona, Missouri, and Wyoming), three have an option for hanging (Delaware, New Hampshire, and Washington) and two states keep a firing squad on reserve (Oklahoma and Utah).
Richard Dieter of the anti-electric chair Death Penalty Information Center predicted that Tennessee would face legal challenges if it attempts to move ahead with using the device for an execution. “This is unusual and might be both cruel and unusual punishment,” Dieter said in a statement. He charged that making electrocution mandatory in some situations would be “forcing the inmate to use electrocution,” in which case “the inmate would have an automatic Eighth Amendment challenge.” That amendment protects Americans against cruel and unusual punishment.
The day that Haslam signed the electric chair bill, May 20, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a rarely used last-minute stay of execution for a Missouri death-row inmate, Russell Bucklew, telling a lower court to take another look at his case. While the Supreme Court did not offer a reason for its ruling, some observers wonder if the decision of the justices was in some way impacted by the controversy over lethal injection. According to news report, Bucklew suffers from a medical condition that affects his veins.
Meanwhile various groups in Tennessee have come out in force to protest the state's revised electric chair policy. A United Methodist group opposed to the death penalty in general conducted a prayer vigil May 27 in an attempt to persuade Haslam and the state legislature to stop the new law, slated to go into effect July 1. Nashville's United Methodist bishop, William T. McAlilly, penned a letter to the governor pointing out that “in only a handful of states is the electric chair still used as a means of capital punishment, because its use constitutes 'cruel and unusual punishment' as prohibited by the Constitution of the United States.”
The bishop noted that the “United Methodist Church believes that all human life is sacred and created by God and therefore, we must see all human life as significant and valuable, and that the death penalty denies the power of Christ to redeem, restore, and transform all human beings.”
Proponents of the use of capital punishment as a deterrent to, as well as retribution for, certain heinous crimes note that there is nothing “unusual” about the death penalty in its various present forms. After all, it has been practiced by just men and societies since the beginning of this nation — and throughout history.
As for its cruelty among supposedly Christian peoples, while it is true that Christ came to “redeem, restore, and transform” humanity, executing a person for the killing of another person presents no hindrance to the condemned being redeemed by Christ and restored to God for all eternity if the condemned individual so chooses — even though his body may be killed as punishment for his crime.
One might wonder if Bishop McAlilly and his followers would consider God's damnation of the unredeemed, for sins and crimes far less repugnant than murder, to constitute “cruel and unusual,” as well as unjust, punishment.
In a 1994 article in The New American, Notre Dame law professor Dr. Charles Rice noted the belief by Church Father St. Thomas Aquinas that the common good requires some individuals to be removed from society through execution. Wrote Aquinas: “The life of certain pestiferous men is an impediment to the common good which is the concord of human society.... Therefore, certain men must be removed by death from the society of men.... Therefore, the ruler of a state executes pestiferous men justly and sinlessly in order that the peace of the state may not be disrupted.”
As for the value of the death penalty as a deterrent, Dr. Rice pointed out that when a “would-be murderer comes at his victim, the victim can rightfully kill him if necessary to save his own life since the murderer by his aggression has forfeited his right to life. Having forfeited his right to live for purposes of immediate self-defense, it is not unreasonable for the murderer to be held to forfeit his life to save the lives of future victims of other would-be murderers.”
Dr. Rice added that the death penalty as a retributive force “involves the rightful use of that penalty to restore [the balance of justice] and thereby to promote the common good. Murder should be stigmatized as the crime of crimes. To punish it by imprisonment — a penalty qualitatively no different from that inflicted for embezzlement — is to devalue innocent life. Seen in this light, the death penalty promotes respect for innocent life.”
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/18382-tn-electric-chair-law-reignites-capital-punishment-debate
Written by Dave Bohon
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam has signed a bill allowing for the use of the electric chair in executions in that state when the appropriate drugs are not available for lethal injection. Botched executions over the past months and an increasing refusal by some foreign manufacturers to make the necessary drugs available has prompted a number of states to look for alternative ways to carry out executions, including a return of such archaic but effective methods as the firing squad.
Haslam's signature followed passage of the bill in April, with the State Senate voting 23-3 and the House 68-13 to reintroduce the electric chair as an alternative to lethal injection. The bill's main sponsor, Republican State Senator Ken Yager, explained that he introduced the bill because of “concern that we could find ourselves in a position that if the chemicals were unavailable to us that we would not be able to carry out the sentence.”
Tennessee has 74 inmates on death row, and since 1999, condemned prisoners have had the option of choosing the electric chair over lethal injection. The last one to do so was Daryl Holton, a Gulf War veteran who was electrocuted in 2007 for the murders of his three sons and stepdaughter with a rifle 10 years earlier.
The new law will put the decision in the hands of prison officials, who will decide the means of execution based on the availability of lethal drugs such as pentobarbital, which some European drug makers have refused to sell to state governments for the use of lethal injection, reportedly because of the increasing number of botched executions. In 2009, the U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental, another commonly used execution drug, stopped making the drug.
The latest execution gone awry was in April in Oklahoma, where convicted murderer Clayton Lockett, 38, began writhing, clenching his teeth, and lifting his head off the pillow of the death gurney after he was supposed to have been rendered unconscious by the first of three drugs in the state's death machine. Lockett reportedly finally succumbed to a heart attack 10 minutes after the execution procedure began.
Earlier in the year, convicted murderer and rapist Dennis McGuire gasped and convulsed for some 10 minutes during his lethal-injection execution in Ohio before finally expiring. In 2009, Ohio stopped the lethal injection of convicted murderer Romell Broom after the executioners tried nearly 20 times to get a needle in his veins. Broom remains on death row, but is challenging the state’s right to try to kill him again.
Currently 32 states allow for the death penalty, and while most rely on lethal injection and a handful have the electric chair as a prisoner-preferred option, according to the Washington Post three states also allow the gas chamber (Arizona, Missouri, and Wyoming), three have an option for hanging (Delaware, New Hampshire, and Washington) and two states keep a firing squad on reserve (Oklahoma and Utah).
Richard Dieter of the anti-electric chair Death Penalty Information Center predicted that Tennessee would face legal challenges if it attempts to move ahead with using the device for an execution. “This is unusual and might be both cruel and unusual punishment,” Dieter said in a statement. He charged that making electrocution mandatory in some situations would be “forcing the inmate to use electrocution,” in which case “the inmate would have an automatic Eighth Amendment challenge.” That amendment protects Americans against cruel and unusual punishment.
The day that Haslam signed the electric chair bill, May 20, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a rarely used last-minute stay of execution for a Missouri death-row inmate, Russell Bucklew, telling a lower court to take another look at his case. While the Supreme Court did not offer a reason for its ruling, some observers wonder if the decision of the justices was in some way impacted by the controversy over lethal injection. According to news report, Bucklew suffers from a medical condition that affects his veins.
Meanwhile various groups in Tennessee have come out in force to protest the state's revised electric chair policy. A United Methodist group opposed to the death penalty in general conducted a prayer vigil May 27 in an attempt to persuade Haslam and the state legislature to stop the new law, slated to go into effect July 1. Nashville's United Methodist bishop, William T. McAlilly, penned a letter to the governor pointing out that “in only a handful of states is the electric chair still used as a means of capital punishment, because its use constitutes 'cruel and unusual punishment' as prohibited by the Constitution of the United States.”
The bishop noted that the “United Methodist Church believes that all human life is sacred and created by God and therefore, we must see all human life as significant and valuable, and that the death penalty denies the power of Christ to redeem, restore, and transform all human beings.”
Proponents of the use of capital punishment as a deterrent to, as well as retribution for, certain heinous crimes note that there is nothing “unusual” about the death penalty in its various present forms. After all, it has been practiced by just men and societies since the beginning of this nation — and throughout history.
As for its cruelty among supposedly Christian peoples, while it is true that Christ came to “redeem, restore, and transform” humanity, executing a person for the killing of another person presents no hindrance to the condemned being redeemed by Christ and restored to God for all eternity if the condemned individual so chooses — even though his body may be killed as punishment for his crime.
One might wonder if Bishop McAlilly and his followers would consider God's damnation of the unredeemed, for sins and crimes far less repugnant than murder, to constitute “cruel and unusual,” as well as unjust, punishment.
In a 1994 article in The New American, Notre Dame law professor Dr. Charles Rice noted the belief by Church Father St. Thomas Aquinas that the common good requires some individuals to be removed from society through execution. Wrote Aquinas: “The life of certain pestiferous men is an impediment to the common good which is the concord of human society.... Therefore, certain men must be removed by death from the society of men.... Therefore, the ruler of a state executes pestiferous men justly and sinlessly in order that the peace of the state may not be disrupted.”
As for the value of the death penalty as a deterrent, Dr. Rice pointed out that when a “would-be murderer comes at his victim, the victim can rightfully kill him if necessary to save his own life since the murderer by his aggression has forfeited his right to life. Having forfeited his right to live for purposes of immediate self-defense, it is not unreasonable for the murderer to be held to forfeit his life to save the lives of future victims of other would-be murderers.”
Dr. Rice added that the death penalty as a retributive force “involves the rightful use of that penalty to restore [the balance of justice] and thereby to promote the common good. Murder should be stigmatized as the crime of crimes. To punish it by imprisonment — a penalty qualitatively no different from that inflicted for embezzlement — is to devalue innocent life. Seen in this light, the death penalty promotes respect for innocent life.”
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/18382-tn-electric-chair-law-reignites-capital-punishment-debate
"There is nothing lawmakers love more than making laws, even when they know their laws won’t accomplish their stated purpose. This is particularly true of those laws that take more authority for the state, or if they enrich the fascist system. For lawmakers, the “unintended consequences” of their laws are just like gravy, because then they get to pass more laws to correct the unintended consequences. This, of course, leads to more “unintended consequences” and the passage of more laws."
The Magical World Of Political Speech
by Bob Livingston
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” – George Orwell
I keep the above George Orwell quote near me at all times. It serves as a reminder to me to decipher political speech whenever I see or hear it.
Political speech contains magical properties. It mesmerizes the masses because it is more illusory than a David Copperfield grand finale.
But political speech is dangerous. While it sounds innocuous, it is as deadly as a bear trap hidden beneath the leaves or a siren singing her song. It can grab you suddenly, or it can ensnare you subtly. Either way, you learn too late that you have been conned and there is no escape.
The magic of political speech is not happenstance. There are change agents at work in the inner sanctums of power whose job it is to create special words and phrases that are used in political speech. Those words and phrases are repeated over and over by the elites in order to dumb us down and create a conditioned response.
The process of dumbing down and the conditioning of the mind to create a nation of good, obedient subjects loyal and subservient to political authority and to the legitimacy of the political order begins early on. We are now several generations into the plan by the elites to create a Nation of state-worshiping ignoramuses taught pseudo-history and inculcated with a loyalty to and dependence upon big government. For many — if not most — of the Nation’s young people below the age of 25, government provided them with most of their meals while the majority of their days were spent submitting to government authority figures (teachers/principals/school officers) in rigid, structured environments that dissuade original thought.
Also aiding the elites and politicians in this effort is an army of “journalists” who never stray far from the official line of the State apparatus. They are eager to spread their lies and half-truths because that ensures them their seats near (or even inside, in the case of the Barack Obama Administration) the halls of power. On that rare occasion one of them strays too far from the party line, retribution is swift and harsh (see Helen Thomas and Sharyl Attkisson). This discourages dissent.
Politicians have learned that the more lies they tell, the more lies we believe. And the more lies we believe, the more dependent we become. Conversely, the fewer myths, lies and deceptions we succumb to, the less dependent we are and, therefore, the more liberty we enjoy.
I long ago learned the power of propaganda. I have watched as otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people have had their minds so manipulated by political speech that they acted contrary to their own best interests without a second thought. It seems that organized and sophisticated propaganda is able to operate outside the threshold of intelligence. In other words, without some imperative to trigger inquiry, very intelligent people buy into lies and myths the same as the general population. The lies and myths then become conventional wisdom. The human mind rarely accepts a challenge to conventional wisdom.
When confronted with a challenge to the established belief system, the mind closes off. When this happens, the individual employs avoidance behavior, writes off the new knowledge as conspiracy theory and labels it as kooky, insane or stupid. The information is then dismissed, never to be considered again, even when the facts support the new knowledge. Psychologists call this quirk of human nature cognitive dissonance. It means the rejection of information not in harmony with previous beliefs.
The esoteric purpose of propaganda is to extract wealth and labor illegally as concealed involuntary servitude or to steal the people’s liberty right out from under them, and even have the populace to thank the thieves for doing so, especially if it is done under the guise of keeping the people “safe” or to “save the children” from some danger, real or imagined. Those who use propaganda to persuade the populace against their best interests create myths and sell them as benefits.
The elites also use distractions for this purpose. These distractions serve to draw the people’s attention away from the important issues and focus it on the mundane and the trivial, much as the illusionist uses sleight of hand. These distractions can be events that occur naturally or by chance, which are then seized upon by the elites. But sometimes the distractions are artificial creations — also called “false flag events” — designed and triggered for the specific purpose of refocusing the attention of the populace. (Bill Clinton’s bombing of a Sudanese aspirin factory at the time of his deposition in the Paula Jones case and at the peak of the Monica Lewinsky scandal is a prime example.)
Often, these distractions serve a dual purpose. For instance, the callous and senseless murder of six people by the mentally depraved Elliot Rodger on May 23 has mesmerized the populace. It has created some distraction away from the burgeoning Veterans Affairs scandal, the Internal Revenue Service scandal, the Benghazi scandal and the ongoing collapse of the economy and Obamacare. But more sinister is its use by the gun controllers and hoplophobes to once again attempt to advance their assault on the 2nd Amendment.
Congressman Steny Hoyer employed classic political speech (or doublethink) in announcing that Democrats will try to steal more 2nd Amendment liberties by expanding background checks on weapons purchases through an amendment to an upcoming bill. While acknowledging that expanded background checks would have made no difference in the Rodger case, Hoyer said Congress must do something. (By the way, half of Rodger’s victims were killed with knives and five of the 13 injured were struck with his car. Curiously, Hoyer did not call for background checks on knife and car purchases.)
There is nothing lawmakers love more than making laws, even when they know their laws won’t accomplish their stated purpose. This is particularly true of those laws that take more authority for the state, or if they enrich the fascist system. For lawmakers, the “unintended consequences” of their laws are just like gravy, because then they get to pass more laws to correct the unintended consequences. This, of course, leads to more “unintended consequences” and the passage of more laws.
Obama is a master of classic political speech. In a political fundraiser in Chicago last week, he moved from blaming George W. Bush for his problems and put the onus on the Founding Fathers.
According to Obama, he is unable to move his agenda forward because the Constitution requires each State be represented by two Senators. “Obviously, the nature of the Senate means that California has the same number of seats as Wyoming. That puts us at a disadvantage.”
This, of course, is nonsensical on its face and is pure argle-bargle. Democrats control the Senate 53-45 with one socialist and one independent, both of whom vote with Democrats. However, it reveals something of Obama’s true nature. That is, he wishes to be a dictator and he detests the republican system of government our Founders gave us, but which we have almost totally lost to fascism.
But of course, in the world of political speech, such tommyrot as this is accepted as great political philosophy and applauded by the sychophants and toadies.
Certainly, the current regime has not cornered the market on magical political speech and propaganda; but it has more weapons in its arsenal than any before it.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/magical-world-political-speech/
by Bob Livingston
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” – George Orwell
I keep the above George Orwell quote near me at all times. It serves as a reminder to me to decipher political speech whenever I see or hear it.
Political speech contains magical properties. It mesmerizes the masses because it is more illusory than a David Copperfield grand finale.
But political speech is dangerous. While it sounds innocuous, it is as deadly as a bear trap hidden beneath the leaves or a siren singing her song. It can grab you suddenly, or it can ensnare you subtly. Either way, you learn too late that you have been conned and there is no escape.
The magic of political speech is not happenstance. There are change agents at work in the inner sanctums of power whose job it is to create special words and phrases that are used in political speech. Those words and phrases are repeated over and over by the elites in order to dumb us down and create a conditioned response.
The process of dumbing down and the conditioning of the mind to create a nation of good, obedient subjects loyal and subservient to political authority and to the legitimacy of the political order begins early on. We are now several generations into the plan by the elites to create a Nation of state-worshiping ignoramuses taught pseudo-history and inculcated with a loyalty to and dependence upon big government. For many — if not most — of the Nation’s young people below the age of 25, government provided them with most of their meals while the majority of their days were spent submitting to government authority figures (teachers/principals/school officers) in rigid, structured environments that dissuade original thought.
Also aiding the elites and politicians in this effort is an army of “journalists” who never stray far from the official line of the State apparatus. They are eager to spread their lies and half-truths because that ensures them their seats near (or even inside, in the case of the Barack Obama Administration) the halls of power. On that rare occasion one of them strays too far from the party line, retribution is swift and harsh (see Helen Thomas and Sharyl Attkisson). This discourages dissent.
Politicians have learned that the more lies they tell, the more lies we believe. And the more lies we believe, the more dependent we become. Conversely, the fewer myths, lies and deceptions we succumb to, the less dependent we are and, therefore, the more liberty we enjoy.
I long ago learned the power of propaganda. I have watched as otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people have had their minds so manipulated by political speech that they acted contrary to their own best interests without a second thought. It seems that organized and sophisticated propaganda is able to operate outside the threshold of intelligence. In other words, without some imperative to trigger inquiry, very intelligent people buy into lies and myths the same as the general population. The lies and myths then become conventional wisdom. The human mind rarely accepts a challenge to conventional wisdom.
When confronted with a challenge to the established belief system, the mind closes off. When this happens, the individual employs avoidance behavior, writes off the new knowledge as conspiracy theory and labels it as kooky, insane or stupid. The information is then dismissed, never to be considered again, even when the facts support the new knowledge. Psychologists call this quirk of human nature cognitive dissonance. It means the rejection of information not in harmony with previous beliefs.
The esoteric purpose of propaganda is to extract wealth and labor illegally as concealed involuntary servitude or to steal the people’s liberty right out from under them, and even have the populace to thank the thieves for doing so, especially if it is done under the guise of keeping the people “safe” or to “save the children” from some danger, real or imagined. Those who use propaganda to persuade the populace against their best interests create myths and sell them as benefits.
The elites also use distractions for this purpose. These distractions serve to draw the people’s attention away from the important issues and focus it on the mundane and the trivial, much as the illusionist uses sleight of hand. These distractions can be events that occur naturally or by chance, which are then seized upon by the elites. But sometimes the distractions are artificial creations — also called “false flag events” — designed and triggered for the specific purpose of refocusing the attention of the populace. (Bill Clinton’s bombing of a Sudanese aspirin factory at the time of his deposition in the Paula Jones case and at the peak of the Monica Lewinsky scandal is a prime example.)
Often, these distractions serve a dual purpose. For instance, the callous and senseless murder of six people by the mentally depraved Elliot Rodger on May 23 has mesmerized the populace. It has created some distraction away from the burgeoning Veterans Affairs scandal, the Internal Revenue Service scandal, the Benghazi scandal and the ongoing collapse of the economy and Obamacare. But more sinister is its use by the gun controllers and hoplophobes to once again attempt to advance their assault on the 2nd Amendment.
Congressman Steny Hoyer employed classic political speech (or doublethink) in announcing that Democrats will try to steal more 2nd Amendment liberties by expanding background checks on weapons purchases through an amendment to an upcoming bill. While acknowledging that expanded background checks would have made no difference in the Rodger case, Hoyer said Congress must do something. (By the way, half of Rodger’s victims were killed with knives and five of the 13 injured were struck with his car. Curiously, Hoyer did not call for background checks on knife and car purchases.)
There is nothing lawmakers love more than making laws, even when they know their laws won’t accomplish their stated purpose. This is particularly true of those laws that take more authority for the state, or if they enrich the fascist system. For lawmakers, the “unintended consequences” of their laws are just like gravy, because then they get to pass more laws to correct the unintended consequences. This, of course, leads to more “unintended consequences” and the passage of more laws.
Obama is a master of classic political speech. In a political fundraiser in Chicago last week, he moved from blaming George W. Bush for his problems and put the onus on the Founding Fathers.
According to Obama, he is unable to move his agenda forward because the Constitution requires each State be represented by two Senators. “Obviously, the nature of the Senate means that California has the same number of seats as Wyoming. That puts us at a disadvantage.”
This, of course, is nonsensical on its face and is pure argle-bargle. Democrats control the Senate 53-45 with one socialist and one independent, both of whom vote with Democrats. However, it reveals something of Obama’s true nature. That is, he wishes to be a dictator and he detests the republican system of government our Founders gave us, but which we have almost totally lost to fascism.
But of course, in the world of political speech, such tommyrot as this is accepted as great political philosophy and applauded by the sychophants and toadies.
Certainly, the current regime has not cornered the market on magical political speech and propaganda; but it has more weapons in its arsenal than any before it.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/magical-world-political-speech/
Insanity...
Medical insanity: Over 10,000 American toddlers now on mind-altering medications for ADHD
by: PF Louis
The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) expressed alarm upon realizing that at least 10,000 toddlers aged two to three years are medicated for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) nationwide.
The mainstream reports on the CDC's finding focused on how many toddlers were reportedly on methylphenidate drugs, such as Ritalin, Concerta, Daytrana and Metadate CD. They never mention adverse side effects, short- or long-term, or that there is no proof of "chemical imbalances" that can be corrected by pharmaceuticals.
Ritalin was tested over a decade ago by the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The BNL study determined that Ritalin is pharmacologically similar to cocaine, with perhaps even worse brain-damaging potential. Even the DEA classifies methylphenidate (Ritalin) as a Class II controlled substance with "a high potential for abuse which may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence." [1]
The Boston CBS affiliate WBZ-TV interviewed a local psychiatrist who called prescribing drugs for toddlers "irresponsible." Dr. Nancy Rappaport, a child psychiatrist at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, commented, "Developmentally, you're supposed to be scattered and disorganized as a toddler." She went on to say that ADHD exists but is overdiagnosed, and children under six may be harmed developmentally by using drugs for ADHD. [2]
The New York Times reported that only an amphetamine class of drugs, brand name Adderall, was approved by the FDA for kids under six. Pushing methylphenidate drugs for children under six had become an off-label practice with such apparent success that the American Academy of Pediatrics' guidelines authorized its use for children aged five and four if formal training for parents and teachers to improve the child's environment were unsuccessful.
Dr. Lawrence H. Diller, a behavioral pediatrician in Walnut Creek, California, told the NY Times, "People prescribing to 2-year-olds are just winging it. It is outside the standard of care, and they should be subject to malpractice if something goes wrong with a kid." [3]
Let's go beyond mainstream's surface skimming
The issues around environment and diet are usually ignored. Kids get hooked on sugar and junk foods with artificial flavorings and colorings that are excitoxins, which cause neurological damage. Diet, TV and a lack of friendly, firm order in the toddler's environment will affect a child's behavior.
Medical madness? What about all those vaccinations that the CDC recommends and pediatricians demand. Up to 35 before the age of six! Even without the toxic preservatives and adjuvants in vaccines that directly affect the brain and nervous system, repeated injections of antigen-producing substances have been discovered to create autoimmune disorders.
Other factors toward neurological disorders may include pesticide and herbicide residues in non-organic foods that have been found in pregnant mothers' blood and even their breast milk. Omnipresent processed acidity-producing dead foods, stress and antibiotics also lower gut probiotic levels, and the gut is being realized as the second brain as well as part of the immune system.
Why isn't anyone interviewing Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, who created the GAPS (gut and psychology syndrome) dietary approach that actually cures kids in many areas of behavioral and autism spectrum disorders? She bases her practice on GAPS after successfully bailing her own son out of autism. Her book Gut and Psychology Syndrome has been out for some time, but her name doesn't make it to the mainstream. [4]
What if someone approached these mainstream media outlets and the CDC with an article from Peter R. Breggin, MD? He cites several authorities who share his viewpoint that psychiatric drugs are bad medicine for behavioral solutions with no proven biological chemical imbalance basis and no proof that the drugs make a difference. [5]
Then there's the near-death confession of Dr. Leon Isenberg, who stated, "ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease." He was one of the 1968 DSM II's committee members who created what the symptoms of ADHD are, which was placed into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).
The DSM is the bible that marries Big Pharma with psychiatry -- create and name a disorder, and they'll come up with a drug for it.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/045399_ADHD_toddlers_psychiatric_medication.html#ixzz33TlNGE5P
by: PF Louis
The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) expressed alarm upon realizing that at least 10,000 toddlers aged two to three years are medicated for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) nationwide.
The mainstream reports on the CDC's finding focused on how many toddlers were reportedly on methylphenidate drugs, such as Ritalin, Concerta, Daytrana and Metadate CD. They never mention adverse side effects, short- or long-term, or that there is no proof of "chemical imbalances" that can be corrected by pharmaceuticals.
Ritalin was tested over a decade ago by the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The BNL study determined that Ritalin is pharmacologically similar to cocaine, with perhaps even worse brain-damaging potential. Even the DEA classifies methylphenidate (Ritalin) as a Class II controlled substance with "a high potential for abuse which may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence." [1]
The Boston CBS affiliate WBZ-TV interviewed a local psychiatrist who called prescribing drugs for toddlers "irresponsible." Dr. Nancy Rappaport, a child psychiatrist at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, commented, "Developmentally, you're supposed to be scattered and disorganized as a toddler." She went on to say that ADHD exists but is overdiagnosed, and children under six may be harmed developmentally by using drugs for ADHD. [2]
The New York Times reported that only an amphetamine class of drugs, brand name Adderall, was approved by the FDA for kids under six. Pushing methylphenidate drugs for children under six had become an off-label practice with such apparent success that the American Academy of Pediatrics' guidelines authorized its use for children aged five and four if formal training for parents and teachers to improve the child's environment were unsuccessful.
Dr. Lawrence H. Diller, a behavioral pediatrician in Walnut Creek, California, told the NY Times, "People prescribing to 2-year-olds are just winging it. It is outside the standard of care, and they should be subject to malpractice if something goes wrong with a kid." [3]
Let's go beyond mainstream's surface skimming
The issues around environment and diet are usually ignored. Kids get hooked on sugar and junk foods with artificial flavorings and colorings that are excitoxins, which cause neurological damage. Diet, TV and a lack of friendly, firm order in the toddler's environment will affect a child's behavior.
Medical madness? What about all those vaccinations that the CDC recommends and pediatricians demand. Up to 35 before the age of six! Even without the toxic preservatives and adjuvants in vaccines that directly affect the brain and nervous system, repeated injections of antigen-producing substances have been discovered to create autoimmune disorders.
Other factors toward neurological disorders may include pesticide and herbicide residues in non-organic foods that have been found in pregnant mothers' blood and even their breast milk. Omnipresent processed acidity-producing dead foods, stress and antibiotics also lower gut probiotic levels, and the gut is being realized as the second brain as well as part of the immune system.
Why isn't anyone interviewing Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, who created the GAPS (gut and psychology syndrome) dietary approach that actually cures kids in many areas of behavioral and autism spectrum disorders? She bases her practice on GAPS after successfully bailing her own son out of autism. Her book Gut and Psychology Syndrome has been out for some time, but her name doesn't make it to the mainstream. [4]
What if someone approached these mainstream media outlets and the CDC with an article from Peter R. Breggin, MD? He cites several authorities who share his viewpoint that psychiatric drugs are bad medicine for behavioral solutions with no proven biological chemical imbalance basis and no proof that the drugs make a difference. [5]
Then there's the near-death confession of Dr. Leon Isenberg, who stated, "ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease." He was one of the 1968 DSM II's committee members who created what the symptoms of ADHD are, which was placed into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).
The DSM is the bible that marries Big Pharma with psychiatry -- create and name a disorder, and they'll come up with a drug for it.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/045399_ADHD_toddlers_psychiatric_medication.html#ixzz33TlNGE5P
Police State High...
Police State High: School Bans Backpacks, Seals Lockers, Forces Bathroom Registrations
Mac Slavo
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
-President Ronald Reagan
If drones over America, heavily armed law enforcement agencies, and a massive government surveillance web hasn’t yet convinced you that the United States is rapidly moving towards a police state then maybe the following report out of New York will be an eye opener.
Indoctrination centers abound across the land of the free, with high schools now taking a queue from the TSA:
A New York high school is the latest in the nation to ban backpacks following several bomb threats, and has even taken extra steps, including sealing up students’ lockers.
For the last two weeks of the school year, students at Wantagh High School — located about 34 miles east of New York City — are being forced to carry their books and belongings in plastic bags, sign in and out to use the bathroom and submit to searches when entering the building. But the sealing up of lockers took school security to a new level.
Today’s pedagogic institutions are redefining what the word freedom actually means and students are falling right into line:
“It is an inconvenience, but it’s like an airport really,” Erik Beuttenmuller, an 11th-grader at the school told Fox 5 New York.
Karl Denninger of The Market Ticker weighs in:
What are we teaching our kids when we send them to prisons for 13 years out of their lives?
Yeah, bad things happen once in a while. But the key here is “once in a while.” They don’t happen often, statistically-speaking, and if we actually gave a damn about what was going on in these schools and excluded the abusive “kids” who are not there to learn but rather want to raise hell and abuse others we wouldn’t be having these problems.
Instead what we do is teach our kids that mass guilt is the response to one person who does an evil thing. Rather than punish bad acts we exercise prior restraint. We teach our kids from the first day that there are no individual consequences and rewards, only collective ones.
And the fact is that none of this actually makes anyone safer.
What it does do is condition our kids to living in a police state.
Congratulations America, because it will be you that gets shoved in the oven.
Link:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/police-state-high-schools-bans-backpacks-seals-lockers-forces-bathroom-registrations_05302014
Mac Slavo
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
-President Ronald Reagan
If drones over America, heavily armed law enforcement agencies, and a massive government surveillance web hasn’t yet convinced you that the United States is rapidly moving towards a police state then maybe the following report out of New York will be an eye opener.
Indoctrination centers abound across the land of the free, with high schools now taking a queue from the TSA:
A New York high school is the latest in the nation to ban backpacks following several bomb threats, and has even taken extra steps, including sealing up students’ lockers.
For the last two weeks of the school year, students at Wantagh High School — located about 34 miles east of New York City — are being forced to carry their books and belongings in plastic bags, sign in and out to use the bathroom and submit to searches when entering the building. But the sealing up of lockers took school security to a new level.
Today’s pedagogic institutions are redefining what the word freedom actually means and students are falling right into line:
“It is an inconvenience, but it’s like an airport really,” Erik Beuttenmuller, an 11th-grader at the school told Fox 5 New York.
Karl Denninger of The Market Ticker weighs in:
What are we teaching our kids when we send them to prisons for 13 years out of their lives?
Yeah, bad things happen once in a while. But the key here is “once in a while.” They don’t happen often, statistically-speaking, and if we actually gave a damn about what was going on in these schools and excluded the abusive “kids” who are not there to learn but rather want to raise hell and abuse others we wouldn’t be having these problems.
Instead what we do is teach our kids that mass guilt is the response to one person who does an evil thing. Rather than punish bad acts we exercise prior restraint. We teach our kids from the first day that there are no individual consequences and rewards, only collective ones.
And the fact is that none of this actually makes anyone safer.
What it does do is condition our kids to living in a police state.
Congratulations America, because it will be you that gets shoved in the oven.
Link:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/police-state-high-schools-bans-backpacks-seals-lockers-forces-bathroom-registrations_05302014
Bilderberg: Zero coverage in USA...
Adan Salazar
With the exception of 24-hour cable news providers, Americans rely on 4 major television networks to deliver them information regarding important world events: ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox.
It is with predictable disappointment to announce all four networks failed to inform the public of a secretive and extremely exclusive meeting of central bankers, CEOs, public officials and world dignitaries taking place this weekend.
From May 29 through today, June 1, esteemed academicians, hand picked journalists, intelligence officials, world banking oligarchs and the CEOs and bosses of Royal Dutch Shell, Google and Microsoft, to name just a few, slinked behind closed doors at the Marriott hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark, to do God knows what.
But watching the major news networks and monitoring the domestic news wires, you’d never guess this meeting happened.
With the conference now into its fourth and final day, one would expect at least a trickle of articles from the mainstream press regarding Bilderberg 2014, if at the least to perform the routine mock, shame and ridicule of “tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists” claiming participants are working towards a “new world order.”
Read the rest here:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/in-the-us-4-major-news-networks-zero-bilderberg-2014-coverage.html
How to teach free markets to teens...
Help For Teens Who Have Been Gobbled Up By The State
By Chris Rossini
Let's break it down:
A "teen" who never heard of the free market?
Think about that...Only in a world where The State dominates education, the media, and entertainment can you reach "teenage" years and never hear about the free market.
Compare this tragic human occurrence to what takes place in the wild. When a baby wildebeest is born, he must immediately learn how to walk and run. Why? Because if he doesn't, he can be gobbled up by the lions!
Well, humans who do not understand the free market are gobbled up by The State!
What is the free market?
The free market is nothing more than a series of voluntary exchanges. No one has the privilege (or the legal authority) to use aggressive force against another person to get what he wants. Everyone is free to exchange and trade without a third party (i.e., The State) sticking its nose in to dictate the terms.
Is that so complex? How long would you give an average human to understand something so simple?
Here's the challenge. Just as the lions do not care if the wildebeest is a youngling, The State doesn't care either. It gobbles up the kids early. It's now setting up "universal pre-K"!!
So there isn't much time!
You surely can't wait until teenage years. By that point, The State will have your kid calling for an increase in the minimum wage, and asking you to take him to the Lincoln Memorial.
Should teens learn from "pictures or a game"?
Are the words "voluntary exchange, without aggressive force" too much for a teenager to handle?
C-SPAN? Really?
Ron Paul is no longer in Congress, which means there is no good reason to watch C-SPAN anymore.
For teenagers who want to free their minds from the nonsense they've been fed all their lives, here are the resources that will lift them out of the abyss:
Economics In One Lesson - by Henry Hazlitt
The Mises Institute
LewRockwell.com
The Ron Paul Channel
The Ron Paul Institute For Peace & Prosperity
...and of course, EconomicPolicyJournal.com
Article and hyperlinks:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/06/help-for-teens-who-have-been-gobbled-up.html
By Chris Rossini
Let's break it down:
A "teen" who never heard of the free market?
Think about that...Only in a world where The State dominates education, the media, and entertainment can you reach "teenage" years and never hear about the free market.
Compare this tragic human occurrence to what takes place in the wild. When a baby wildebeest is born, he must immediately learn how to walk and run. Why? Because if he doesn't, he can be gobbled up by the lions!
Well, humans who do not understand the free market are gobbled up by The State!
What is the free market?
The free market is nothing more than a series of voluntary exchanges. No one has the privilege (or the legal authority) to use aggressive force against another person to get what he wants. Everyone is free to exchange and trade without a third party (i.e., The State) sticking its nose in to dictate the terms.
Is that so complex? How long would you give an average human to understand something so simple?
Here's the challenge. Just as the lions do not care if the wildebeest is a youngling, The State doesn't care either. It gobbles up the kids early. It's now setting up "universal pre-K"!!
So there isn't much time!
You surely can't wait until teenage years. By that point, The State will have your kid calling for an increase in the minimum wage, and asking you to take him to the Lincoln Memorial.
Should teens learn from "pictures or a game"?
Are the words "voluntary exchange, without aggressive force" too much for a teenager to handle?
C-SPAN? Really?
Ron Paul is no longer in Congress, which means there is no good reason to watch C-SPAN anymore.
For teenagers who want to free their minds from the nonsense they've been fed all their lives, here are the resources that will lift them out of the abyss:
Economics In One Lesson - by Henry Hazlitt
The Mises Institute
LewRockwell.com
The Ron Paul Channel
The Ron Paul Institute For Peace & Prosperity
...and of course, EconomicPolicyJournal.com
Article and hyperlinks:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/06/help-for-teens-who-have-been-gobbled-up.html
"The reason more Americans are waking up to these controversies about health and nutrition – as opposed, say, to those involving climate change, or foreign policy, or market economics – is that issues of diet and disease are vitally personal."
Justified Anger from America’s Unhealthy
By Rich Wilcke
An unexpected consequence of the fall of the U.S.S.R. was the number of ordinary citizens who poured out of Russian apartments to topple statues of Lenin, the most visible symbols of 70 years of oppression by the Soviet state. In spite of my years, my fantasy is someday to see angry American citizens emerging to destroy whichever of the countless symbols of the oppressive U.S. government they deem to be most objectionable.
Based on the narrative in an engaging new book by Nina Teicholz, among such future hordes of angry and resentful Americans may well be those afflicted with an array of health problems that have come to be known in the past few decades as ‘metabolic syndrome.’ The disorders associated with this pattern are persistent belly fat, high blood pressure, raised triglyceride levels, low HDL (‘good’) cholesterol, and increased blood sugar – all of which indicate above-average risks of coronary heart disease, stroke, and type-2 diabetes.
Recognition of these afflictions as a related group has paralleled soaring epidemics of obesity and diabetes in this country since about 1980, essentially when it was decided that yet another appropriate function of the federal government was to offer dietary advice. A 1977 Congressional hearing chaired by Sen. George McGovern resulted in an official report linking heart disease to cholesterol raised by eating saturated fats. While scientific evidence for this link was extremely weak and controversial, the report was approved on the dubious grounds that it couldn’t hurt to ingest less fat and, who knows, it might save lives.
In February 1980, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA published its first-ever Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Mark Hegsted, a Harvard academic who had served as the main advisor to the McGovern Report, was by then ‘nutrition director’ for the USDA. While admitting the science behind the fat-heart link was flimsy, Hegsted’s view was that people could “hedge their bets” against heart disease by reducing dietary fat until results of research became stronger. These initial guidelines led to the USDA’s famous ‘food pyramid.’
Soon the alleged link between dietary fat and heart disease became “conventional wisdom” in America, and countless food products, from ready-to-eat cereals to candy bars, which happened not to contain much fat, were suddenly and proudly labeled ‘low fat.’ And the American Heart Association began allowing food companies, for a (ahem!) fee, to add special labels certifying that their products, such as Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, were ‘Heart Healthy.’ In short order, millions of Americans altered their eating habits in hopes of living healthier lives, and most of those who didn’t change likely thought that they should.
The problem, of course, was not merely that the purported link between dietary fat and heart disease had never been satisfactorily proven, but that removing fats from human diets required some other source of energy (calories). Almost overnight, with the powerful encouragement of physicians, dieticians and the media, carbohydrates became the food that replaced dietary fat. Americans were advised to cut back on meat, eggs and dairy products, and to eat instead multiple daily servings of carbohydrates, including not just whole-wheat breads but also pastas, potatoes, fruit juices, and “non-fat” cookies (by the boxful!).
The result of this massive campaign – sponsored, marketed, and heavily financed by the federal government – has been virtually the precise opposite of what those reassuring advocates promised it would be. The incidence of obesity, heart disease and type-2 diabetes has skyrocketed in this country and, tragically, those most affected appear to have been the very people – more women than men – who seemingly tried the hardest to heed the advice of those they trusted. Instead of the trim health promised, they got obese and sickly.
What is the response of those still advocating low-fat diets? The most recent USDA report suggested that Americans haven’t followed its guidelines well enough, but data about consumption over the last few decades completely contradict that theory. Many advocates of vegetarian diets, for whom there will never be sufficient research to warrant advising more meat or fat in diets, have tended to blame the growth of obesity on the fast-food restaurants. Famously, the former mayor of New York City blamed large servings of soft drinks.
Over nine years, Teicholz interviewed seemingly everyone still alive who was deeply involved over the last half-century in the science and the politics of the diet-health link. The lengths to which certain scientists and politicians went to perpetuate the dogma that animal fat was to blame for obesity and heart disease is astounding, until one recalls what has been occurring over roughly the same period of time in the debate over climate-change or what has taken place in economics, history and foreign policy for a duration twice as long.
There is a ray of sunshine in the story Teicholz relates. In spite of huge amounts of government support for the low-fat/healthy heart theory, there is a broad and accelerating interest in, and awareness of, the alternative premise; namely, that the link is not proven scientifically and that it now appears far more likely that it is excessive carbohydrates, not fat, that threaten heart health. Of late, Americans increasingly have increasingly turned to best-selling books and websites that directly contradict the link and the “pyramid.”
The truth is, every time the government attempts to force-feed the American people theories that turn out to be either untrue or severely distorted – from nutrition to climate to economics to foreign policy to private property to education to economics – another extra-intelligent segment of the citizenry loses its faith in the institution of the State. And, while hoodwinking the masses was once fairly easy, the Internet’s ‘social media’ has undermined that process. One need not be an intellectual to learn what others now believe.
The reason more Americans are waking up to these controversies about health and nutrition – as opposed, say, to those involving climate change, or foreign policy, or market economics – is that issues of diet and disease are vitally personal. No matter which way the average person feels about warfare or inflation or the environment, whether those beliefs are true or false is still a detached and abstract issue, just something to argue about with friends and relatives. But health, especially one’s own, is something that matters.
Of course, it was never a majority of Russians who toppled those Lenin statues, only an alert and angry minority. And if one heeds only the mainstream media, such as CNN or USA Today, the most common nutrition stories still warn about animal fat. But great social and political changes are always the work of alert minorities. And when wars, regulations over environment, and economic collapse become as personal to average Americans as diet and health, the alert minorities related to those controversies will change society.
The content and the writing in this book are both first-rate; a real page-turner, and I can scarcely recommend it any higher…for the facts and for the hopeful lesson.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/06/rich-wilcke/americans-are-unhealthy/
By Rich Wilcke
An unexpected consequence of the fall of the U.S.S.R. was the number of ordinary citizens who poured out of Russian apartments to topple statues of Lenin, the most visible symbols of 70 years of oppression by the Soviet state. In spite of my years, my fantasy is someday to see angry American citizens emerging to destroy whichever of the countless symbols of the oppressive U.S. government they deem to be most objectionable.
Based on the narrative in an engaging new book by Nina Teicholz, among such future hordes of angry and resentful Americans may well be those afflicted with an array of health problems that have come to be known in the past few decades as ‘metabolic syndrome.’ The disorders associated with this pattern are persistent belly fat, high blood pressure, raised triglyceride levels, low HDL (‘good’) cholesterol, and increased blood sugar – all of which indicate above-average risks of coronary heart disease, stroke, and type-2 diabetes.
Recognition of these afflictions as a related group has paralleled soaring epidemics of obesity and diabetes in this country since about 1980, essentially when it was decided that yet another appropriate function of the federal government was to offer dietary advice. A 1977 Congressional hearing chaired by Sen. George McGovern resulted in an official report linking heart disease to cholesterol raised by eating saturated fats. While scientific evidence for this link was extremely weak and controversial, the report was approved on the dubious grounds that it couldn’t hurt to ingest less fat and, who knows, it might save lives.
In February 1980, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA published its first-ever Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Mark Hegsted, a Harvard academic who had served as the main advisor to the McGovern Report, was by then ‘nutrition director’ for the USDA. While admitting the science behind the fat-heart link was flimsy, Hegsted’s view was that people could “hedge their bets” against heart disease by reducing dietary fat until results of research became stronger. These initial guidelines led to the USDA’s famous ‘food pyramid.’
Soon the alleged link between dietary fat and heart disease became “conventional wisdom” in America, and countless food products, from ready-to-eat cereals to candy bars, which happened not to contain much fat, were suddenly and proudly labeled ‘low fat.’ And the American Heart Association began allowing food companies, for a (ahem!) fee, to add special labels certifying that their products, such as Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, were ‘Heart Healthy.’ In short order, millions of Americans altered their eating habits in hopes of living healthier lives, and most of those who didn’t change likely thought that they should.
The problem, of course, was not merely that the purported link between dietary fat and heart disease had never been satisfactorily proven, but that removing fats from human diets required some other source of energy (calories). Almost overnight, with the powerful encouragement of physicians, dieticians and the media, carbohydrates became the food that replaced dietary fat. Americans were advised to cut back on meat, eggs and dairy products, and to eat instead multiple daily servings of carbohydrates, including not just whole-wheat breads but also pastas, potatoes, fruit juices, and “non-fat” cookies (by the boxful!).
The result of this massive campaign – sponsored, marketed, and heavily financed by the federal government – has been virtually the precise opposite of what those reassuring advocates promised it would be. The incidence of obesity, heart disease and type-2 diabetes has skyrocketed in this country and, tragically, those most affected appear to have been the very people – more women than men – who seemingly tried the hardest to heed the advice of those they trusted. Instead of the trim health promised, they got obese and sickly.
What is the response of those still advocating low-fat diets? The most recent USDA report suggested that Americans haven’t followed its guidelines well enough, but data about consumption over the last few decades completely contradict that theory. Many advocates of vegetarian diets, for whom there will never be sufficient research to warrant advising more meat or fat in diets, have tended to blame the growth of obesity on the fast-food restaurants. Famously, the former mayor of New York City blamed large servings of soft drinks.
Over nine years, Teicholz interviewed seemingly everyone still alive who was deeply involved over the last half-century in the science and the politics of the diet-health link. The lengths to which certain scientists and politicians went to perpetuate the dogma that animal fat was to blame for obesity and heart disease is astounding, until one recalls what has been occurring over roughly the same period of time in the debate over climate-change or what has taken place in economics, history and foreign policy for a duration twice as long.
There is a ray of sunshine in the story Teicholz relates. In spite of huge amounts of government support for the low-fat/healthy heart theory, there is a broad and accelerating interest in, and awareness of, the alternative premise; namely, that the link is not proven scientifically and that it now appears far more likely that it is excessive carbohydrates, not fat, that threaten heart health. Of late, Americans increasingly have increasingly turned to best-selling books and websites that directly contradict the link and the “pyramid.”
The truth is, every time the government attempts to force-feed the American people theories that turn out to be either untrue or severely distorted – from nutrition to climate to economics to foreign policy to private property to education to economics – another extra-intelligent segment of the citizenry loses its faith in the institution of the State. And, while hoodwinking the masses was once fairly easy, the Internet’s ‘social media’ has undermined that process. One need not be an intellectual to learn what others now believe.
The reason more Americans are waking up to these controversies about health and nutrition – as opposed, say, to those involving climate change, or foreign policy, or market economics – is that issues of diet and disease are vitally personal. No matter which way the average person feels about warfare or inflation or the environment, whether those beliefs are true or false is still a detached and abstract issue, just something to argue about with friends and relatives. But health, especially one’s own, is something that matters.
Of course, it was never a majority of Russians who toppled those Lenin statues, only an alert and angry minority. And if one heeds only the mainstream media, such as CNN or USA Today, the most common nutrition stories still warn about animal fat. But great social and political changes are always the work of alert minorities. And when wars, regulations over environment, and economic collapse become as personal to average Americans as diet and health, the alert minorities related to those controversies will change society.
The content and the writing in this book are both first-rate; a real page-turner, and I can scarcely recommend it any higher…for the facts and for the hopeful lesson.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/06/rich-wilcke/americans-are-unhealthy/
Sunday, June 1, 2014
"Ever wonder why severe depression, anxiety (attacks) and feelings of suicide are listed as the side effects of depression medication and anti-anxiety prescriptions?"
10% of Americans are depressed and taking dangerous medications for it
by: S. D. Wells
What if you couldn't metabolize a drug you were prescribed? How would your body react to a psychotropic drug stuck in "overdrive"? Would you become psychotic because you were hooked on a drug your body can't even process? And if so, should you be out on the streets of society, mixing with all the other "animals"? Should you be allowed to go to bars or even drive a car? What about carrying a concealed weapon?
Everyone's brain functions in a similar way, where neurons (nerve cells) fire impulses to other neurons over tiny gaps called synapses. Basically, your brain is communicating via "electronic transmissions" that jump over pathways. The synapse is the "junction" between two neurons or between a neuron and a muscle. SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, can "control" (block) that pathway, so even the positive impulses and "transmissions" get blocked.
Ever wonder why severe depression, anxiety (attacks) and feelings of suicide are listed as the side effects of depression medication and anti-anxiety prescriptions? If your brain can't get a clean message, or any message at all, sent throughout the nervous system, then you can't work out any problems at all, and that is why terrible nightmares are also a common side effect.
Misdiagnosis galore
SSRIs are like "sports cars that can pick up pace incredibly quickly." Simply "down shifting" may or may not be safe. Some people try to come off them cold turkey, and this can be dangerous too. Plus, unplanned pregnancies can become scary fast, as SSRIs are now clearly linked to an increased frequency of miscarriages and birth defects. Realize this: Every mass shooting in the USA over the past 20 years has one thing in common, and it's not guns! (http://www.naturalnews.com)
What most people do not realize is that withdrawal from SSRIs can last for years. Treatments that are "tapered off" can still brew recurrent "mood disorders" where doctors are prone to misdiagnose these mood swings as depression and run the prescription back up to high doses. Little do most Americans realize is that organic food and exercise at this point serves as an excellent "exit strategy." Since we're mainly talking about mood disturbances anyway, "the natural history of such disorders is that they will resolve on average within 12 to 16 weeks." (http://vaccineliberationarmy.com)
It's sad, but over the past 20 years, the use of antidepressants has skyrocketed. One in four women between 40 and 60 years of age medicates this way. So-called experts will say depression is common, but it is not normal for humans to be depressed. Western Medicine tries its best to con everyone into believing that we are born weak and deficient and that we need vaccines for immunity and antidepressants to work out every mood swing. The DSM-5 psychology manual is a joke -- categorizing every single emotion as a psychological problem or mental disorder that needs some chemical treatment. New research reveals that there is a massive overdiagnosis going on, and it's happening on an ENORMOUS scale.
(http://www.naturalnews.com)
New research shows promise for people trying to get off SSRIs safely
According to The New York Times, the study, published in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, found that "nearly two-thirds of a sample of more than 5,000 patients who had been given a diagnosis of depression within the previous 12 months did not meet the criteria for major depressive episode as described by the psychiatrists' bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (D.S.M.)."
(http://well.blogs.nytimes.com)
Elderly folks seem to be the prime targets of quack SSRI-prescribing doctors. Six out of seven elderly patients in the study had been given a diagnosis of depression that did not fit the criteria. That's about an 85% misdiagnosis ratio. Prescriptions are being written for people dealing with the stresses of daily life and relationship problems -- can you imagine? Hey, too much traffic on the way home from work every day -- and it's completely stressing you out -- so take some dangerous psychotropic drugs! Hey, Johnny and Jenny can't pay attention at school and memorize dates all day for history class -- let's put them on some ADHD meds that also block serotonin uptake! Great idea. Now they won't be happy about anything at all or be able to concentrate.
If you suddenly feel no interest in activities for two weeks, or gain some "unintentional weight," be sure NOT to blame the processed food you eat, or the fluoridated water that you drink. Be sure not to blame your sleeping "agitation" on MSG, gluten or aspartame. Remember that Western Medicine (prescription medications) is a leading cause of death in America. So too is consuming heavy metal toxins in foods can lead to depression and Alzheimer's disease, especially lead and aluminum. Check your protein powders and your baby's formula for heavy metal toxins. Check those flu shots too! Check that secondhand smoke and those diet drinks at the door, and remember, you are what you eat.
Mucuna, also known as "velvet bean" or "DopaBean," is a natural remedy that is capturing the interest of thousands of people suffering from mood swings. The L-Dopa content of the unprocessed mucuna bean powder is so powerful that doctors are also using it help Parkinson's patients restore mental clarity and as a mood elevator.
(http://www.naturalnews.com)
Also check out superfoods that can treat depression! (http://www.naturalnews.com)
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/045384_depression_SSRIs_psychotropic_medication.html#ixzz33Pr72Wx0
by: S. D. Wells
What if you couldn't metabolize a drug you were prescribed? How would your body react to a psychotropic drug stuck in "overdrive"? Would you become psychotic because you were hooked on a drug your body can't even process? And if so, should you be out on the streets of society, mixing with all the other "animals"? Should you be allowed to go to bars or even drive a car? What about carrying a concealed weapon?
Everyone's brain functions in a similar way, where neurons (nerve cells) fire impulses to other neurons over tiny gaps called synapses. Basically, your brain is communicating via "electronic transmissions" that jump over pathways. The synapse is the "junction" between two neurons or between a neuron and a muscle. SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, can "control" (block) that pathway, so even the positive impulses and "transmissions" get blocked.
Ever wonder why severe depression, anxiety (attacks) and feelings of suicide are listed as the side effects of depression medication and anti-anxiety prescriptions? If your brain can't get a clean message, or any message at all, sent throughout the nervous system, then you can't work out any problems at all, and that is why terrible nightmares are also a common side effect.
Misdiagnosis galore
SSRIs are like "sports cars that can pick up pace incredibly quickly." Simply "down shifting" may or may not be safe. Some people try to come off them cold turkey, and this can be dangerous too. Plus, unplanned pregnancies can become scary fast, as SSRIs are now clearly linked to an increased frequency of miscarriages and birth defects. Realize this: Every mass shooting in the USA over the past 20 years has one thing in common, and it's not guns! (http://www.naturalnews.com)
What most people do not realize is that withdrawal from SSRIs can last for years. Treatments that are "tapered off" can still brew recurrent "mood disorders" where doctors are prone to misdiagnose these mood swings as depression and run the prescription back up to high doses. Little do most Americans realize is that organic food and exercise at this point serves as an excellent "exit strategy." Since we're mainly talking about mood disturbances anyway, "the natural history of such disorders is that they will resolve on average within 12 to 16 weeks." (http://vaccineliberationarmy.com)
It's sad, but over the past 20 years, the use of antidepressants has skyrocketed. One in four women between 40 and 60 years of age medicates this way. So-called experts will say depression is common, but it is not normal for humans to be depressed. Western Medicine tries its best to con everyone into believing that we are born weak and deficient and that we need vaccines for immunity and antidepressants to work out every mood swing. The DSM-5 psychology manual is a joke -- categorizing every single emotion as a psychological problem or mental disorder that needs some chemical treatment. New research reveals that there is a massive overdiagnosis going on, and it's happening on an ENORMOUS scale.
(http://www.naturalnews.com)
New research shows promise for people trying to get off SSRIs safely
According to The New York Times, the study, published in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, found that "nearly two-thirds of a sample of more than 5,000 patients who had been given a diagnosis of depression within the previous 12 months did not meet the criteria for major depressive episode as described by the psychiatrists' bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (D.S.M.)."
(http://well.blogs.nytimes.com)
Elderly folks seem to be the prime targets of quack SSRI-prescribing doctors. Six out of seven elderly patients in the study had been given a diagnosis of depression that did not fit the criteria. That's about an 85% misdiagnosis ratio. Prescriptions are being written for people dealing with the stresses of daily life and relationship problems -- can you imagine? Hey, too much traffic on the way home from work every day -- and it's completely stressing you out -- so take some dangerous psychotropic drugs! Hey, Johnny and Jenny can't pay attention at school and memorize dates all day for history class -- let's put them on some ADHD meds that also block serotonin uptake! Great idea. Now they won't be happy about anything at all or be able to concentrate.
If you suddenly feel no interest in activities for two weeks, or gain some "unintentional weight," be sure NOT to blame the processed food you eat, or the fluoridated water that you drink. Be sure not to blame your sleeping "agitation" on MSG, gluten or aspartame. Remember that Western Medicine (prescription medications) is a leading cause of death in America. So too is consuming heavy metal toxins in foods can lead to depression and Alzheimer's disease, especially lead and aluminum. Check your protein powders and your baby's formula for heavy metal toxins. Check those flu shots too! Check that secondhand smoke and those diet drinks at the door, and remember, you are what you eat.
Mucuna, also known as "velvet bean" or "DopaBean," is a natural remedy that is capturing the interest of thousands of people suffering from mood swings. The L-Dopa content of the unprocessed mucuna bean powder is so powerful that doctors are also using it help Parkinson's patients restore mental clarity and as a mood elevator.
(http://www.naturalnews.com)
Also check out superfoods that can treat depression! (http://www.naturalnews.com)
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/045384_depression_SSRIs_psychotropic_medication.html#ixzz33Pr72Wx0
"By preventing employers from employing those willing to work for less than the state’s new minimum wage, those willing workers won’t be employed. It’s the iron law of economics: When the price of something goes up, less of it will be demanded."
Michigan Joins Other States in Raising Minimum Wage
Written by Bob Adelmann
Seemingly determined to keep the state of Michigan near the bottom in employment rates among the 50 states, Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed into law Tuesday a bill to raise the state’s minimum wage by 25 percent. Snyder rejoiced that this was a good thing:
This is something that is good for Michigan. It’s good for the hard-working people of Michigan and I believe it is economically sound….
I commend my [Republican] partners in the legislature for finding common ground on a bill that will help Michigan workers and protect our state’s growing economy.
At present Michigan ranks 46th among the 50 states with an unemployment rate of nearly nine percent. By preventing employers from employing those willing to work for less than the state’s new minimum wage, those willing workers won’t be employed. It’s the iron law of economics: When the price of something goes up, less of it will be demanded. No legislative body, including that located in Lansing, Michigan, can repeal it, despite their best efforts to do so.
At present Michigan’s minimum wage is $7.40 an hour for “non-tipped” workers and $2.65 per hour for tipped workers. Over the next four years, the minimum wage will rise to $9.25 an hour and $3.52 an hour for those individuals respectively.
Michigan is not the only state to attempt to vote against that iron law: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, and West Virginia have already raised their minimum wages, and Vermont is about to.
It was all about political expediency. An anti-economic group called Raise Michigan obtained more than 300,000 signatures on a petition to put raising the state’s minimum wage onto the ballot in November. The petition pushes for raising the minimum wage even higher, to $10.10 an hour.
Seeking the lesser of two evils, Republican Representative Peter Pettalia from Presque Isle decided to hold his nose and vote “yes” on a bill he abhorred:
I’m going to [vote for] this with a heavy heart because I don’t believe government has a place adjusting wages in our society.
I step up and support this bill [however] because the alternative is terrible.
Business owners, especially those in the food service industry, will adjust in various non-monetary ways to the new interventionist reality. They will reduce hiring low-paid people, expect more from those they do hire, cut the hours of workers, and reduce non-monetary fringe benefits, such as time off and on-the-job training. Where possible, business owners will do what they can to replace workers altogether with automation. In the meantime, many will be forced to raise menu prices in order to stay in business.
For instance, the owner of two pretzel stores in San Jose, California, was forced to raise her pretzel prices by a nickel to maintain profitability. She gives her employees 20 percent of her stores’ profits each year but predicts that those bonuses this year will shrink significantly.
Woody DeMayo, the owner of 16 Carl’s Jr. restaurants in northern California, charges $6.19 for a burger, fries, and a drink, but in order to maintain profitability he would have to charge $6.75, but “that would chase off a large percentage of my customers,” he said. Instead, he has reduced the hours worked by some of his employees, has cut back on some daily maintenance, and is closing two of his stores altogether. That will put about 30 employees who did have jobs into the unemployment line.
White Castle operates two restaurants just 16 miles apart, but in separate states. Because the minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25 an hour, a dollar higher than in Indiana, the company just eliminated two positions in its Illinois store. This is a trend that has been in place at least since 2006 when the average fast food establishment employed more than 17 people. The most current data shows that number at 15 and declining.
And then there’s the damage that freedom will suffer in raising the minimum wage: Every minimum wage law is, according to economist Mark Perry, “a coercive government-mandated price control which prevents private citizens from engaging in mutually-beneficial exchanges [of their labor for money], enforced by the threat of fines or jail.” Because of minimum wage laws, he adds, “we’re all a little bit less free.”
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/sectors/item/18373-michigan-joins-other-states-in-raising-minimum-wage
Written by Bob Adelmann
Seemingly determined to keep the state of Michigan near the bottom in employment rates among the 50 states, Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed into law Tuesday a bill to raise the state’s minimum wage by 25 percent. Snyder rejoiced that this was a good thing:
This is something that is good for Michigan. It’s good for the hard-working people of Michigan and I believe it is economically sound….
I commend my [Republican] partners in the legislature for finding common ground on a bill that will help Michigan workers and protect our state’s growing economy.
At present Michigan ranks 46th among the 50 states with an unemployment rate of nearly nine percent. By preventing employers from employing those willing to work for less than the state’s new minimum wage, those willing workers won’t be employed. It’s the iron law of economics: When the price of something goes up, less of it will be demanded. No legislative body, including that located in Lansing, Michigan, can repeal it, despite their best efforts to do so.
At present Michigan’s minimum wage is $7.40 an hour for “non-tipped” workers and $2.65 per hour for tipped workers. Over the next four years, the minimum wage will rise to $9.25 an hour and $3.52 an hour for those individuals respectively.
Michigan is not the only state to attempt to vote against that iron law: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, and West Virginia have already raised their minimum wages, and Vermont is about to.
It was all about political expediency. An anti-economic group called Raise Michigan obtained more than 300,000 signatures on a petition to put raising the state’s minimum wage onto the ballot in November. The petition pushes for raising the minimum wage even higher, to $10.10 an hour.
Seeking the lesser of two evils, Republican Representative Peter Pettalia from Presque Isle decided to hold his nose and vote “yes” on a bill he abhorred:
I’m going to [vote for] this with a heavy heart because I don’t believe government has a place adjusting wages in our society.
I step up and support this bill [however] because the alternative is terrible.
Business owners, especially those in the food service industry, will adjust in various non-monetary ways to the new interventionist reality. They will reduce hiring low-paid people, expect more from those they do hire, cut the hours of workers, and reduce non-monetary fringe benefits, such as time off and on-the-job training. Where possible, business owners will do what they can to replace workers altogether with automation. In the meantime, many will be forced to raise menu prices in order to stay in business.
For instance, the owner of two pretzel stores in San Jose, California, was forced to raise her pretzel prices by a nickel to maintain profitability. She gives her employees 20 percent of her stores’ profits each year but predicts that those bonuses this year will shrink significantly.
Woody DeMayo, the owner of 16 Carl’s Jr. restaurants in northern California, charges $6.19 for a burger, fries, and a drink, but in order to maintain profitability he would have to charge $6.75, but “that would chase off a large percentage of my customers,” he said. Instead, he has reduced the hours worked by some of his employees, has cut back on some daily maintenance, and is closing two of his stores altogether. That will put about 30 employees who did have jobs into the unemployment line.
White Castle operates two restaurants just 16 miles apart, but in separate states. Because the minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25 an hour, a dollar higher than in Indiana, the company just eliminated two positions in its Illinois store. This is a trend that has been in place at least since 2006 when the average fast food establishment employed more than 17 people. The most current data shows that number at 15 and declining.
And then there’s the damage that freedom will suffer in raising the minimum wage: Every minimum wage law is, according to economist Mark Perry, “a coercive government-mandated price control which prevents private citizens from engaging in mutually-beneficial exchanges [of their labor for money], enforced by the threat of fines or jail.” Because of minimum wage laws, he adds, “we’re all a little bit less free.”
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/sectors/item/18373-michigan-joins-other-states-in-raising-minimum-wage
NSA stealing your Facebook images...
Facecrook: NSA storing your facial web images, millions intercepted daily
RT
The National Security Agency is collecting millions of images of people through its international surveillance network to be implemented in a number of other facial recognition programs, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
Read Snowden’s comments on 9/11 that NBC didn’t broadcast
Thanks to rapid advances being made in the field of facial recognition technology, the NSA is much better equipped to “exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, video conferences and other communications,” according to an article in the New York Times, co-written by Laura Poitras, who, together with Glen Greenwald, are the only two journalists to have received the leaked NSA documents.
The NSA has the capacity to intercept “millions of images per day,” as well as some 55,000 “facial recognition quality images.” This latest milestone in US intelligence gathering, which goes a long way to putting the final touches on the much-feared Orwellian nightmare, gives the US spy agency“tremendous untapped potential,” according to the 2011 documents.
“It’s not just the traditional communications we’re after: It’s taking a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information” that can help “implement precision targeting,” noted a document dated 2010.
Such comments are bound to spark fears that the harvesting of facial images, much like the collection of oral and written communications, will snag innocent Americans in the vast intelligence net.
The latest revelations to be gleaned from Snowden’s stash of top-secret documents prove the NSA is not just interested in collecting the meta-data from global communications, but also the images that put a face on potential terrorists and other would-be adversaries of the American government.
The NSA is unique in its ability to match images with huge troves of private communications.
“We would not be doing our job if we didn’t seek ways to continuously improve the precision of signals intelligence activities — aiming to counteract the efforts of valid foreign intelligence targets to disguise themselves or conceal plans to harm the United States and its allies,” said Vanee M. Vines, the agency spokeswoman.
ID databases out of the game?
Since most people have a number of photographs taken of themselves for identification purposes, the question arises as to how much reach the NSA has in acquiring peoples’ facial images.
According to Vines, the NSA does not access driver’s licenses or passport photos of Americans, but refused to say whether the agency had access to the State Department’s photo archive of foreign visa applicants. She also declined to say whether the spy agency collected photographs of Americans from social media sources, like Facebook and Instagram, which would not be a difficult task considering that millions of people willingly post ‘selfies’ to the web.
Moreover, the report claimed that one of the agency’s most intense efforts to acquire facial images is through a program dubbed Wellspring, which “strips out images from emails and other communications, and displays those that might contain passport images.”
Because images are considered a form of communicational content, the NSA is required to get court approval for collecting facial images of Americans, just as it is required to read emails or listen in on phone conversations, an NSA spokeswoman was quoted in the Times article as saying.
However, exceptions may be made in the event “an American might be emailing or texting an image to someone targeted by the agency overseas,” it said.
Human rights and civil liberty groups are expressing concern that the power of the technology, in the hands of government and corporate officials, could have a disastrous impact on privacy.
“Facial recognition can be very invasive,” Alessandro Acquisti, a researcher on facial recognition technology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, told the paper. “There are still technical limitations on it, but the computational power keeps growing, and the databases keep growing, and the algorithms keep improving.”
Harvesting on video conferences
The NSA facial recognition program made tremendous headway in 2010 when it successfully matched images from two separate databases, one in the NSA database code-named Pinwale, and another in the government’s primary terrorist watch database, known as Tide, the NSA files revealed.
That technical breakthrough led to an “explosion of analytical uses” for the agency.
The NSA has since brought on board “identity intelligence” analysts whose job it is to match the facial images with other records about individuals to build broad portfolios of intelligence targets.
The full depth of the image-collection program is daunting in that it has developed sophisticated methods of integrating facial recognition programs with numerous other databases.
“It intercepts video teleconferences to obtain facial imagery, gathers airline passenger data and collects photographs from national identity card databases created by foreign countries, the documents show,” the files revealed.
They also show that the NSA was attempting to infiltrate such databases in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Aside from its own programs, the NSA partially relies on commercially available facial recognition technology, including from PittPatt, a company owned by Google, the leaked files show.
Geo-positioning does matter
But the power of facial recognition technology apparently goes beyond the collection of faces, and includes geographic points photographed from satellites.
One leaked file shows photographs of several men standing near a waterfront dock in 2011. Through the use of the recognition technology, the NSA was able to match their surroundings to a satellite image of the same dock taken about the same time.
The document said the photograph showed a militant training facility in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, US law remains surprisingly flimsy in terms of the protections it offers Americans when it comes to their images.
“Unfortunately, our privacy laws provide no express protections for facial recognition data,” said Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, in a letter in December to the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
News of the NSA’s ‘facial-mining’ techniques echo earlier leaked information, reported in February, that Britain’s spy agency GCHQ, in direct cooperation with the NSA, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of terrorism or other criminal behavior.
GCHQ records between 2008 and 2010 reveal a surveillance program, codenamed Optic Nerve, harvested still images of Yahoo webcam chats and stored them on databases, the Guardian reported.
“In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency collected webcam imagery – including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications – from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally,” the paper reported.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/facecrook-nsa-storing-your-facial-web-images-millions-intercepted-daily.html
RT
The National Security Agency is collecting millions of images of people through its international surveillance network to be implemented in a number of other facial recognition programs, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
Read Snowden’s comments on 9/11 that NBC didn’t broadcast
Thanks to rapid advances being made in the field of facial recognition technology, the NSA is much better equipped to “exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, video conferences and other communications,” according to an article in the New York Times, co-written by Laura Poitras, who, together with Glen Greenwald, are the only two journalists to have received the leaked NSA documents.
The NSA has the capacity to intercept “millions of images per day,” as well as some 55,000 “facial recognition quality images.” This latest milestone in US intelligence gathering, which goes a long way to putting the final touches on the much-feared Orwellian nightmare, gives the US spy agency“tremendous untapped potential,” according to the 2011 documents.
“It’s not just the traditional communications we’re after: It’s taking a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information” that can help “implement precision targeting,” noted a document dated 2010.
Such comments are bound to spark fears that the harvesting of facial images, much like the collection of oral and written communications, will snag innocent Americans in the vast intelligence net.
The latest revelations to be gleaned from Snowden’s stash of top-secret documents prove the NSA is not just interested in collecting the meta-data from global communications, but also the images that put a face on potential terrorists and other would-be adversaries of the American government.
The NSA is unique in its ability to match images with huge troves of private communications.
“We would not be doing our job if we didn’t seek ways to continuously improve the precision of signals intelligence activities — aiming to counteract the efforts of valid foreign intelligence targets to disguise themselves or conceal plans to harm the United States and its allies,” said Vanee M. Vines, the agency spokeswoman.
ID databases out of the game?
Since most people have a number of photographs taken of themselves for identification purposes, the question arises as to how much reach the NSA has in acquiring peoples’ facial images.
According to Vines, the NSA does not access driver’s licenses or passport photos of Americans, but refused to say whether the agency had access to the State Department’s photo archive of foreign visa applicants. She also declined to say whether the spy agency collected photographs of Americans from social media sources, like Facebook and Instagram, which would not be a difficult task considering that millions of people willingly post ‘selfies’ to the web.
Moreover, the report claimed that one of the agency’s most intense efforts to acquire facial images is through a program dubbed Wellspring, which “strips out images from emails and other communications, and displays those that might contain passport images.”
Because images are considered a form of communicational content, the NSA is required to get court approval for collecting facial images of Americans, just as it is required to read emails or listen in on phone conversations, an NSA spokeswoman was quoted in the Times article as saying.
However, exceptions may be made in the event “an American might be emailing or texting an image to someone targeted by the agency overseas,” it said.
Human rights and civil liberty groups are expressing concern that the power of the technology, in the hands of government and corporate officials, could have a disastrous impact on privacy.
“Facial recognition can be very invasive,” Alessandro Acquisti, a researcher on facial recognition technology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, told the paper. “There are still technical limitations on it, but the computational power keeps growing, and the databases keep growing, and the algorithms keep improving.”
Harvesting on video conferences
The NSA facial recognition program made tremendous headway in 2010 when it successfully matched images from two separate databases, one in the NSA database code-named Pinwale, and another in the government’s primary terrorist watch database, known as Tide, the NSA files revealed.
That technical breakthrough led to an “explosion of analytical uses” for the agency.
The NSA has since brought on board “identity intelligence” analysts whose job it is to match the facial images with other records about individuals to build broad portfolios of intelligence targets.
The full depth of the image-collection program is daunting in that it has developed sophisticated methods of integrating facial recognition programs with numerous other databases.
“It intercepts video teleconferences to obtain facial imagery, gathers airline passenger data and collects photographs from national identity card databases created by foreign countries, the documents show,” the files revealed.
They also show that the NSA was attempting to infiltrate such databases in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Aside from its own programs, the NSA partially relies on commercially available facial recognition technology, including from PittPatt, a company owned by Google, the leaked files show.
Geo-positioning does matter
But the power of facial recognition technology apparently goes beyond the collection of faces, and includes geographic points photographed from satellites.
One leaked file shows photographs of several men standing near a waterfront dock in 2011. Through the use of the recognition technology, the NSA was able to match their surroundings to a satellite image of the same dock taken about the same time.
The document said the photograph showed a militant training facility in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, US law remains surprisingly flimsy in terms of the protections it offers Americans when it comes to their images.
“Unfortunately, our privacy laws provide no express protections for facial recognition data,” said Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, in a letter in December to the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
News of the NSA’s ‘facial-mining’ techniques echo earlier leaked information, reported in February, that Britain’s spy agency GCHQ, in direct cooperation with the NSA, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of terrorism or other criminal behavior.
GCHQ records between 2008 and 2010 reveal a surveillance program, codenamed Optic Nerve, harvested still images of Yahoo webcam chats and stored them on databases, the Guardian reported.
“In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency collected webcam imagery – including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications – from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally,” the paper reported.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/facecrook-nsa-storing-your-facial-web-images-millions-intercepted-daily.html
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