Showing posts with label OPINION. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OPINION. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Release the memo – investigate Uranium One

The utter farce of the Mueller investigation into Trump collusion with Russia demonstrates the most obscene and overwhelming pattern of government deceit and deflection in decades. Enough has been written on this trolling probe to convince sincere and honest people that the protection racket thugs are running a confidence game against the populace and has abandoned any prospect of justice. Still, the fake news gatekeepers that select what is suitable for the apathetic public to hear see or read keeps the fairy tale narrative going to prevent looking into the true crimes committed by the cabal of establishment globalists.


The Gateway Pundit reports that Rep. Jim Jordan Reveals Context To “Shocking” FISA Memo Proving Corruption At “Highest Levels” of FBI & DOJ. Also the Washington Examiner publishes that 65 lawmakers urge Devin Nunes to allow release of memo on FISA abuses Finally, Breitbart writes the account, ‘Worse Than Watergate’: ‘Shocking’ House Intel Memo Allegedly Reveals FISA Abuse by Senior DOJ and FBI Officials.


Now why is this not the prime news story across the nation? The significance of the cooperation and coordination among the guardians for the establishment has one consuming object; destroy the Donald Trump Presidency. The organized cover-up strikes deep into the fabric of whatever weak claim can be made that the deep state government can be trusted or maintains any legitimacy.


Proof positive starts and begins with the lack of objectivity when most ‘Democrats Wouldn’t Even Look At FISA Memo’… Even The Intercept, left leaning investigative source, while remaining skeptical about the content within the memorandum, calls for Four Easy Ways to Release The Memo. Because of Republican outrage, Glenn Greenwald and Jon Schwarz offer a method for disclosure.


“This has led to a ferocious outcry on the right to “release the memo” – and presumably thereby prove that the Obama administration conducted unlawful surveillance on the Trump campaign and transition. On Thursday night, Fox News host and stalwart Trump ally Sean Hannity claimed that the memo described “the systematic abuse of power, the weaponizing of those powerful tools of intelligence and the shredding of our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights.”


Given the significance of this issue, it is absolutely true that the memo should be declassified and released to the public — and not just the memo itself.”



  1. Trump can declassify anything he wants.

  2. The House (and Senate) intelligence committees can declassify any material they possess.

  3. The Constitution protects members of Congress from prosecution for “any speech or debate in either House.”

  4. Republicans can leak everything to the news media.


Regretfully, the fourth option does not provide an effective voice for mass exposé because the concealment starts with the “Yellow Journalists”, better described as presstitutes, who work overtime pushing their lies and duplicity.


In order to place the evidence that the Obama/Clinton machine commits serial crimes into context, examine the connection of Uranium One! The Real Reason Manafort Was Arrested, with the concealment noise and babble.


“Put simply, Robert Mueller is the fox guarding the hen-house. With the real scandal – Uranium One – suddenly breaking out into the open, Robert Mueller was forced to act. These spurious charges being made against Paul Manafort are nothing but a diversion.


The real crime here is the Uranium One scandal. Tony Podesta and Hillary Clinton’s other sycophants are in deep kaka!”


Now that the First Indictment Related to Uranium One Deal Players Unsealed is available, the radioactive half-life of the Clinton contamination deserves to be disposed of under a zeolite layer for waste removal.


“The Justice Department unsealed the indictment only weeks after confirmed receiving multiple referrals for criminal investigations over the past year related to Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation. The U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI in Little Rock, Arkansas, have recently launched a new investigation into “pay to play” allegations at the Clinton Foundation.


Multiple sources told People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) the probe is building upon the progress and evidence of previous investigations.


Federal agents from Little Rock, where the Clinton Foundation was started, have interviewed at least one witness in the last month, though they are expecting to ramp up activities in the coming weeks. In addition to looking into pay-for-play allegations, the probe is examining potential tax law violations.


The Trump DOJ also cleared a confidential informant — who allegedly made tapes of players speaking about offering bribes to the Clinton Foundation — to testify before Congress on Uranium One. The decision lifted an unprecedented non-disclosure agreement put in place by the Obama Justice Department, allowing him to testify about what he witnessed undercover.


It could also prove damning to Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, who ran the FBI during what numerous experts say appears to be a scheme to cover-up potential crimes resulting from the deal.”


One of the most disturbing elements that puzzle even the most hardened political spectator is why has DOJ top cop Jeff Sessions acted in such a bizarre way when it comes to investigating the Clinton crime syndicate? The Daily Mail announces that a New probe into Hillary’s role in ‘Uranium One’ deal as Jeff Sessions orders Justice Department to investigate claims of Clinton sleaze. Somehow the lack of urgency smacks of just another link in the smoke and mirrors pattern of not bucking the power elite structure.


William F. Jasper writes in the New American, Media Smother Indictment in Clinton-Obama Uranium One Russia Deal and adds valuable information to this topic.


“The DOJ statement notes that Lambert is the “former co-president of a Maryland-based transportation company that provides services for the transportation of nuclear materials to customers in the United States and abroad.” Among important facts not  mentioned in the DOJ statement are Lambert-Mikerin-Putin connections to Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, Robert Mueller, Barack Obama, former Attorney General Eric Holder, and other top Obama administration officials involved in facilitating or covering up the Uranium One treason scandal.”


The ample sources cited in this article shines light into the dark corners of the Clintonista press reporting ban. For this reason and the subterfuge of criminality goes all the way to the White House. “We now know that a silent Coup d’Etat was launched by Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, John Brennan, James Clapper and the senior officials of the FBI. That coup has been unfolding over the last two years. Its target is President Trump.”


The FISA Memo will prove to be indefensible and all the spin, shift to a different topic for the next media cycle or a blanket blackout void in response to the charges, will deepen the distrust in the swamp rats. If the treason of William Jefferson Clinton with his transfer of secret military nuclear technology to Red Communist China in the 1990’s did not demand a firing squad, what are the prospects that the wicked witch will drown in the stew of her own poison?


Blaming Trump for everything is the only cottage industry that the power gentry has to sell through their manic celebrity minions. The entire Obama administrative structure approved the treachery or ignored the payoffs to the Clinton Foundation. Just maybe the linkage between the FISA disclosures and the atomic pile of payoffs might start a chain reaction that nukes the establishment.


As the Schumer Shutdown drags on, Trump should just close the doors on as many federal agencies as possible. Of course, if he followed this path, the impeachment madness back-stabbers would just use this approach as grounds for removal from office.


Compare this stretch of spuriousness to the actual high treason committed by the Clinton clan. It is long overdue for the Department of Justice to act as a responsible accuser. DOJ needs to indict and prosecute these co-conspirators for their crimes that honest juries would convict upon and any honorable jurists would sentence to the full extent of the law.


Focusing upon the culpability correctly for a failed political and crooked system is the duty of every citizen. No more excuses. Follow the news on alternative resources which have become the Real News.


Blocking out the mainstream media from your search response sources is a practical method to use. Avoid the brain drain that perpetuates the lies and deceptive disinformation upon your psyche. Engage the social progressive warriors by refuting the delusions they promote about their Totalitarian Collectivism.


Demand from your Congressional representatives the disbanding of the Mueller witch hunt. The Watergate inquisition was driven by the Washington Post. The Trump fishing expedition is in search of a crime that does not exist. It is long overdue to end this massive concealment of protecting Robert Mueller and his cronies from their own crimes.


President Trump needs to act decisively. Demand the resignation of DOJ career obstructionists, fire those who will not leave and replace AG Sessions if he refuses to gear up for a comprehensive investigation into Hillary and the Clinton Foundation, which includes both Bill and Chelsea. Lastly, the entire Obama junto of perjurers deserves a long and secure holiday at Gitmo.


Via BATR




Featured Image: Michael Cory/Flickr

The post Release the memo – investigate Uranium One appeared first on Intellihub.

America as a System

Are you perturbed by what’s happening in America? Are you shocked by inequality, disappearing middle class, declining quality of health, police brutality, gun violence, ever-growing national debt, government’s Orwellian monitoring, etc.? You are not alone, but all these are confusing only if you think in terms of an “American government” or “American corporations” or “American banks” that have, or should have, unique loyalty or consideration towards the people who happen to live here.


Instead, everything becomes obvious if you think of it as a “System.”


Why would we be surprised that there are millions of Americans who work full time and yet live in poverty, when the System exploits people in other countries for much, much lower wages? In the cost-savings Excel sheet of the System, a Walmart worker is still 10x more expensive than the worker from that ‘other’ country.


You wouldn’t be surprised by Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase defrauding American homeowners if you realize how the System brought down whole countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal using the same financial engineering schemes, lies and manipulations.  Most of these countries are now being devastated by the austerity programs demanded by the same System.


How can we be shocked by gun violence in America when the System is the #1 exporter of guns and weapons in the world? The System thrives on violence. The System loves perpetual wars – Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Niger … just to name a few countries the System has bombed in the last decade. The System is also planning for bigger wars with North Korea, Russia and China.


If police brutality and militarization of police is disturbing, we have to realize how the System supports and has supported, dictators all over the world when it is/was profitable to do so. Many ruthless dictators in Latin American countries, Africa, Middle East and Asia were handpicked and put in power by the System. Some were even trained in a special school in the U.S. The system gladly funds and arms terrorists in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. All that valuable experience can’t be wasted.


When it comes to child poverty, you can’t be surprised that America ranks at the bottom among developed nations. From Apple to Calvin Klein to Hershey’s, many corporations depend on child labor for their stocks to outperform the expectations of Wall Street analysts. When the System profits from ten-year-olds working in toxic mines in third-world countries, American kids on food stamps look quite spoiled.


If you are enraged by our exploding national debt, don’t be. Debt is the ultimate tool for the System to enslave nations. The economic hit men of the World Bank and the IMF have mastered this art of drowning nations in debt over the last 75 years. Oh, do you think it’s a coincidence that Russia’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 17%? Compare that to America’s 105% or Japan’s 250%. The System doesn’t like countries with low debt, just like it doesn’t appreciate people trying to go off-grid in America. This is also the same reason that Americans save only 2.4% of their income while the households have a record debt of over $13 trillion. Credit cards, student loans, auto loans and mortgages are all different tools with the same purpose.


Once you understand the System, you wouldn’t be surprised that wages are stagnant while the cost of living keeps going up. With all the advancement in science, one would think that healthcare cost would go down every year, but that would be naive. Healthcare (“sickcare”) is the best extraction tool, since people will pay anything when they are sick. The only things that are cheap are processed food and mass entertainment that are toxic to your body and mind respectively.


This is why America’s education ranks at the bottom of developed nations. As a WikiLeaks email revealed, the elites “conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry.” Translation: Dumb and Subservient.


Do you wonder why fracking and GMOs are allowed to destroy America’s environment? The System couldn’t care less about the environment. It has destroyed an unimaginable amount of rainforests all over the world and doesn’t care about the thousands of species that are going extinct every year. The System hates sustainability and freedom. Just like how the older version of the System destroyed the Native American culture, the current System despises tradition, culture, religion, spirituality, consciousness, holistic medicine and anything that’s linked to nature.


By now, hopefully, you are not stressed out over how lobbyists have taken over the American government and how we really don’t have a functional democracy. The System is not a fan of democracy. You really don’t think that powerful billionaires would enjoy running their lives and planning their grand strategies based on the needs and feelings of millions of pesky little people, do you? Democracy and elections are just nice illusions so that we feel content, be passive, go to work, watch lots of TV, get into debt, and spend our money on things we don’t need.


Are you mad? Hope so. The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.


Via Activist Post





Featured Image: Cristian Ramírez/Flickr

The post America as a System appeared first on Intellihub.

States’ rights confronts federal supremacy

Look around. The country is inverted and upside down. As any follower of BREAKING ALL THE RULES knows, States’ Rights are a central position of our paleo-conservative populism. A sincere review of the U.S. Constitution clearly identifies that the Tenth Amendment specifies that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Cornell Law School explains.



“Federal immigration law determines whether a person is an alien, the rights, duties, and obligations associated with being an alien in the United States, and how aliens gain residence or citizenship within the United States. It also provides the means by which certain aliens can become legally naturalized citizens with full rights of citizenship. Immigration law serves as a gatekeeper for the nation’s border, determining who may enter, how long they may stay, and when they must leave.


Congress has complete authority over immigration. Presidential power does not extend beyond refugee policy. Except for questions regarding aliens’ constitutional rights, the courts have generally found the immigration issue as nonjusticiable.


States have limited legislative authority regarding immigration, and 28 U.S.C. § 1251 details the full extent of state jurisdiction. Generally, 28 U.S.C. § 994 details the federal sentencing guidelines for illegal entry into the country.”



Our position and judgments are presented in a Dueling Twin segment on States’ Rights that has our counterpart from the Left contending The Myth of State Sovereignty does not supersede the authority of the Federal Government. Note the irony that such a contention argues that DC power is supreme. Of course this applies if the loony left controls the reins of government and does not apply to the Trump administration that represents the real majority of Americans.



“Myths like state sovereignty are simply grist for the mill of ideological minorities.  Finding themselves deeply out in cold, they warm themselves by burning the Constitution and would love to declare a sovereign republic out of some flyover piece of land whose politics faintly resembles their own.  But their arguments are no more credible now than they were in 1861.”



The difference between our populist advocacies is that BATR supports a representative Republic based upon the rule of law, limited in scope and the consent of sovereign individual states. Read The Philosophy of BREAKING ALL THE RULES. The position of the deranged left is that Democracy supplants a Republic with a centralized authority. Let the words of the collectivist twin speak for itself.



“Historically Americans have chosen a stronger federal government, one capable of looking after the general welfare of its citizens, of maintaining a standing professional army in their defense, one with the power to intervene against states who oppress the civil rights of their citizens, a nation vigorous enough to withstand the competition from other nation states abroad.  The people are quite capable of deciding if this kind of strong national government suits them–and they have answered with a vigorous “Yes.” Anti-federalists like SARTRE can cringe at this choice, but the people, the only legitimate sovereigns in this debate, have spoken.”



Once again, where is the support and advocacy for Federal rule now that the Electoral College has followed the Constitution and President Trump is applying legal compliance to bring rogue States who are violating laws they do not like? Just look to California’s authoritarian commissars for proof that they are adopting the Red Chinese model of totalitarianism and have already seceded from an American union.


Welcome to Chinafornia: The Future of U.S.-China Relations is changing California for the worse. Applying Maoist communism with state centralized fascism is pushing the Golden State into the arms of greater cultural and economic monocracy.



“Under normal conditions, a boom in investment is considered a win for local citizens. But when that money comes from far away investors — especially from a country with a vastly different culture and an authoritarian government — the influx creates thorny tradeoffs. Every benefit California derives from these interactions comes with a potential dark side, one that threatens to spark a nativist backlash against the new arrivals.


Chinese tech and film investors are also pouring into California. They’re seeking out unicorn startups and filmmaking know-how. China’s tech juggernauts have all established research facilities or investment beachheads in Silicon Valley and Chinese filmmakers are looking to work with — or outright acquire — their American peers.


But when Silicon Valley and Hollywood execs return the visit, they are rebuffed. Many of Silicon Valley’s flagship companies — Facebook, Google and Twitter, to name a few — are outright blocked in China. Hollywood studios face sharp limits on the number of films that can enter China and they are often forced to sanitize scripts for fear of offending Chinese government censors.”



These negative impacts have not gone unnoticed in Washington DC. Congress during a session of the Commission on China examines The Long Arm of China: Exporting Authoritarianism With Chinese Characteristics.



“This hearing will examine the Chinese government’s foreign influence operations intended to censor critical discussion of its history and human rights record and to intimidate critics of its repressive policies.  Attempts by the Chinese government to guide, buy, or coerce political influence and control discussion of “sensitive” topics are pervasive, and pose serious challenges in the United States and globally, particularly as China uses technology and the lure of the Chinese market to impose authoritarian practices abroad.”



Some of the areas brought up include:



  • The academic whose scholarly paper provides background on the banned Chinese Democracy Party or

  • Other politically sensitive issues refused a visa to conduct research in China; or,

  • The Hollywood studio that shelves the film script with a storyline involving China’s abuse of the Tibetan people; or,

  • The Washington “think tank” that puts out policy papers critical of legislative initiatives that would negatively impact the Chinese government, all the while never revealing their financial ties with senior Chinese officials; or

  • The American Internet company willing to censor content globally in order to obtain access to the Chinese market.


If the Marxists limousine liberals get their way, they would apply the very nature of China’s authoritarian model, by basing its power on controlling their multicultural comrades, governed by sprawling bolshevik elites, who wants to impose their rule on the rest of our country.


Who dares to claim this is a valid application of States’ Rights? A California secession should reflect and be divided among dissenting factions of current state citizens. However, this approach would never be allowed since the radicals became the Sacramento establishment. Take this theme to its logical conclusion. If California would actually separate from the rest of the union, would China move in with their system of top down compliance? No doubt a surfer beach version of Tiananmen Square would not be allowed to ride the curl.


Like in the example of the Dueling Twin episode, the indoctrinated left has been so programmed that they are now promoting the desirability of despotic rule. This is a far cry when protesting activists would push back for personal freedom and defend individual civil liberties. Dissenters back in the 1960’s would view the central government as the enemy of the people. Those days are long gone.


Today the most obscene dictators and thugs are leftist psychopaths. This cult reads from their venerate Red Book. “Communists must never separate themselves from the majority of the people or neglect them by leading only a few progressive contingents in an isolated and rash advance, but must take care to forge close links between the progressive elements and the broad masses. This is what thinking in terms of the majority means.”


Just ponder this precept. Encourage the self-proclaimed enlightened inteligencia to embed the doctrine – tyranny of the majority – in the minds and culture of the masses. In plain English this defines the failure in any DEMOCRACY.  Apply this standard to the anti-Christian California secular society and your end result produces a war against Federal authority.


Well, avoiding a war against the Washington District of Criminals could have merit. However, a revolt out of the Hollywood/BayArea progressive axis certainly would not be an improvement. Could the final response be a military enforcement of Federal law? Will Governor Jerry Brown Be Arrested, Prosecuted and Imprisoned…is a scenario that cannot be ignored.


President George Washington set the precedent. “The Whiskey Rebellion also occupies a distinguished place in American jurisprudence. Serving as the backdrop to the first treason trials in the United States, the Whiskey Rebellion helped delineate the parameters of this constitutional crime. Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution defines treason as “levying War” against the United States. During the trials of the two men convicted of treason, Circuit Court Judge William Paterson instructed the jury that “levying war” includes armed opposition to the enforcement of a federal law.”


States such as California are actually precipitating a civil war. What’s next, a mutual defense treaty between La La Land and Beijing? Is there any doubt what the response of Federal authorities would be?


Via BATR




Featured Image: Randy Robertson/Flickr

The post States’ rights confronts federal supremacy appeared first on Intellihub.

Trump must investigate Mueller: Roger Stone

Rogue subordinate Mueller is is brazenly casting his fishing net for anything


President Trump’s lawyers are giving their client terrible legal advice, while dangerously raising the president’s expectations that a letter will be issued clearing him from any Russian collusion matters, as several people have relayed to me that the president told them.


The indictments of Paul Manafort and General Michael Flynn, for charges unrelated to the mythical Russian collusion, along with the shocking news that Mueller had subpoenaed Trump’s Deutsche Bank records relating to his real estate developments are likely to have made the president’s asshole pucker.


With no special counsel law in place to restrain him and no constitutional officer to whom he must account, Mueller is brazenly casting his fishing net far afield of any supposed Russian collusion in order to justify himself and his quixotic jihad.



Trump lawyer Ty Cobb appears to be confident with a legal ‘strategy’ of dropping all assertions of executive privilege, handing over reams of documents and relying on a misguided faith in the innate fairness of Robert Mueller.


This view reflects a hopeless naivete that plays right into the hands of the beltway’s duopoly establishment and serves only to abet their single-minded determination to nullify the results of the 2016 presidential election.


Mr. Mueller will likely attempt to bring some sort of loosely-defined after-the-fact process charge against the president, such as obstruction of justice for what is said to be the president’s ‘direction’ of Comey.


Considering Mueller’s bully boy tactics such as the ridiculously-excessive and unnecessary FBI raids of Paul Manafort’s apartment and General Michael Flynn’s office, as well as the incestuous working relationships of Mueller with Comey, Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, the stench of corruption and nefarious ulterior motivations around Mueller’s crypto-partisan lynch mob is really beginning to fill the air.


The revelations about FBI “investigator” Peter Strzok and his patently-lopsided actions taken against anyone in Donald Trump’s team, while going out of his way not only to excuse but in fact cover over, if not cover up, the serious national security crimes of the Clinton apparatchiks with whom he so clearly is aligned, adds an even more sinister dimension to just how deeply and firmly Mueller’s partisan hit team is irretrievably-compromised and inexcusably-tainted.


Only one stunning move by the president will firmly squash this lawless, rogue, unconstitutional cabal which has been cynically operating under his auspices. To make this move the president must understand and embrace the extent of his power as the duly-elected chief executive of our national government.


Based on his tweets and comments the president’s lawyers have clearly, yet very wrongly, advised him that it is somehow improper for the president to communicate with or give direction to the Department of Justice or to the Attorney General on any matters, whether or not they pertain to him.


The president must order the U.S Attorney General Jeff Sessions to name a special prosecutor to look into, among other things, the Uranium One scam that was run on the American people by the Clinton crime syndicate, with the involvement of all of the key figures who so coincidentally happen to also be at the center of this illegitimate ad hoc Trump-takedown hit squad, now headed by counterfeit boy scout Robert Swan Mueller III.


If Sessions fails to carry out this order, he should be and must be removed as attorney general (the honorable thing for Sessions would be to resign if he parts ways with the president on this). The departure of Sessions would then leave the clearly-compromised Rod Rosenstein, once again, in the position of appointing a special prosecutor, as was the case with Mueller’s appointment. Rosenstein’s implication in Uranium One makes this patently untenable, so the next Justice officer in line to effectuate the president’s command would be the Solicitor General.


Only Donald Trump can save his presidency from this outrageous partisan lynch mob illegitimately operating under his nose and under his very authority as president, intent on undermining his election and thereby the office of president itself.


Lest the leftist screechers draw their predictable false equivalencies, this would be no “Saturday night massacre”. It would be a Saturday night rescue…of our constitution, of the rule of law and of the integrity of our Republic itself.


Via Infowars




Featured Image: Medill DC/Flickr

The post Trump must investigate Mueller: Roger Stone appeared first on Intellihub.

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Good news: Young Americans want a new political party

Do we need a third major political party? I often joke that I’d be happy if we actually had a second party, as when it comes to the big issues – war, monetary policy, civil liberties – the Republicans and Democrats are more alike than different. Perhaps that’s why a recent NBC News poll has found that nearly two-thirds of young people surveyed do not believe either the Republicans or Democrats are doing a good job and that a third major political party is needed.


I think this is an encouraging sign. I suspect the NBC News poll result reflects the fact that young people are not as easily hoodwinked by the mainstream media and by the two-party duopoly charade in Washington. This generation has grown up with the Internet and the abundance of alternative media that challenges what really is a one-party system in the United States. They have been exposed to many new ideas, including good ones like libertarianism and non-interventionism.


Currently, mainstream politics in the US is all about power – how to get it and how to keep it – and not at all about philosophy or ideology. It is about selling out principles at every turn in order to chalk up another point in the “win” column. On issues like war and spending, it’s incredible how easily the two major parties are able to “compromise.”


A serious effort to create a new political party could be very exciting, but only if that new party is based on real ideas rather than simply the desire for power. Creating a viable third party will not be easy. While there is plenty written in the media about foreign collusion in US elections, the real collusion is between the Republican and Democratic Parties to prevent new parties from joining them on the national stage and the ballot.


Unfortunately the Libertarian Party has failed to live up to what should have been its role as an ideological alternative to Washington’s one-party system. As was quite obvious in the 2016 presidential election, the Libertarians yielded to prevailing attitudes on war, welfare, the Federal Reserve, and more. In believing that winning was more important than standing for something, they ended up achieving neither.


I would still like to have some hope for the Libertarian Party, but to really fill its role as a challenger to our two party system (that is actually a one party system) it would need a major overhaul. It would need to actually embrace the core libertarian principles of non-aggression and non-intervention in the affairs of others.


At the end of my 2008 presidential campaign, I brought together the candidates of the “minor” political parties and proposed that we agree on some basic principles regardless of whether we are libertarians, conservatives, progressives, or greens. Among those was the idea that we should never go to war unless we were directly attacked or threatened, that the Federal Reserve should not be allowed to benefit the rich by creating money out of thin air, and that we should not endorse deficit spending.


If a new party could come together and agree on these basic principles while agreeing to disagree on other, less important priorities, we could begin a formidable movement toward peace and prosperity.


Let us hope that this NBC News survey provides the inspiration to a real pro-peace, pro-prosperity movement in the United States. I have much confidence in the youth of our country!


Via The Ron Paul Institute



Featured image: maf04/Flickr

The post Good news: Young Americans want a new political party appeared first on Intellihub.

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a threat to national security


Computer security at the DNC was so lax on Wasserman Schultz’s watch that hackers burrowed deep into the network





Many voters rejected Hillary Clinton because they thought she couldn’t be trusted with national secrets after her reckless handling of sensitive State Department emails. Florida voters ought to dispatch Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz for the same reason.


When it comes to security matters, the incumbent Democrat and former DNC chair makes Hillary look like a diligent TSA agent. And the news about her staffer trying to flee to Pakistan to avoid data-fraud charges is only the latest proof.


Via NY Post


Featured Image: Inter-American Dialogue/Flickr



Sunday, August 6, 2017

There’s something profoundly wrong with Jeff Sessions – and it’s time to talk about it

There will be moments in political life when people who incessantly profess stalwart principles in public—never, ever letting you forget their self-proclaimed moral righteousness— tell you: ‘Now is not the time to do the right thing, my friend. Now is the time to do the right thing for the cause! Sacrifice your silly ideals for the greater good of the nation! Didn’t you know already, growing up into a mature political adult means shedding one’s ideals and rebranding one’s disappointments as first principles?


This is the pickle Jeff Sessions finds himself in today. Unfortunately, it seems Sessions never received tutelage in an old American adage that “In politics, man must learn to rise above principle.”


No, Sessions, a literal boy scout, fancies himself a moral and principled man for many reasons, but especially because of his adherence to American “rule of law” and law enforcement. A indefatigable defender of some of United States’ most immoral and heinous laws, Sessions is an apt representative of two mistaken yet quite common political beliefs — (1) that the laws on the books are the embodiment of justice simply because they are the laws on the books and (2) that morality can and should be imposed on society through the violent means the law provides at the expense of individual freedom.


Yet, as it has been said for over a thousand years, “an unjust law is no law at all,” and to conflate law with justice is to presume that the state is not the servant of moral thought but the authority in matters of deciding what is good and evil. This puts the state beyond good and evil. This makes morality a set of marching orders rather than a matter of individual choice. This perverts morality, transforming social and political life into a horrid, involuntary game of sadomasochism dressed up in moral pronouncements.


To hell with this way of thinking! Morality is not merely whatever some authority says; morality is not simply a case of following this or that command (no matter how appealing that may sound to some masochists). To the thinking person, authority does not define what is good and proper. No, as it should be, what is good and proper defines who or what has authority.


But, instead of encouraging each of us to use our reason and persuasion to reflect upon our desires and choose a sound course of action, Sessions and many statists like him from both parties would have us blindly submit to authority and law. They would have us subject our moral wits to ‘the will of the people’ or ‘the experts’ or ‘the silent moral majority’ or the ‘forgotten men and women’ on the Trump train or else, suffer the legal and violent consequences.


But at least, if we follow the law, we should be just fine, right Jeff?


Well, no. We must also not look suspicious.


For example, betraying his supposed fealty to the 10th amendment, the 4th amendment, and limited government, Sessions has continued to doggedly defend efforts such as the federal drug war and, in particular, the practice of civil asset forfeiture, through which the DEA has seized $4 billion in cash over the last decade with 81% of the seizure cases having no accompanying criminal charges. Put simply, 81% of the time the DEA robbed people blind over their mere suspicion they were involved in illegal activities that shouldn’t be illegal in the first place. Jeff Sessions is just fine with that because, well, it’s legal and serves his cause to make us a nation of “good people” who just say no to drugs.


That said, Jeff Sessions is getting a taste of his own medicine. I do not believe in karma, but I do believe in cause and effect—in particular, that those who live by authority may very well die by authority.


Sessions hasn’t broken any laws, protocols, or procedures. He hasn’t outright betrayed anyone (with the exception of the liberty of those people he wishes to save from their vices). Nevertheless, Sessions is now threatened by the prospect of having two of his most beloved assets seized from him — his title as AG and his standing in national politics — because he has fallen under the suspicious eye of the new authority: the hip cause in town, Donald J. Trump.


Good riddance.


Jeff Sessions went by the book when he recused himself from having anything to do with the Russian-Trump collusion investigation. Under normal circumstances, he would be lauded for behaving on the up-and-up and preserving the largely mythical independence of the Justice Department from politics. But his moody boss, President Trump, is no boy scout. And ever since Sessions made his by the book decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, Trump has been stewing and is now spewing like a portly, orange Mt. St Helens for the all the world to see.


Though some people may sympathize with the “beleaguered” Attorney General and find Trump’s public tongue-lashing of Sessions shocking and unseemly, I am not surprised one iota to see Donald Trump lambasting one of the earliest supporters of his presidency. Now that water is reaching the upper deck, the presidential rat has no patience for his followers doing something as silly as following established rules and procedures. No, Trump demands they must follow him and his orders. This is an emergency!


So, what will it be, Jeff? How does it feel to have some authority tell you to give up your convictions and change your behavior or else suffer the consequences for having done nothing wrong?


Jeff, you went to work for a man who allows you to continue policies that trample on individual moral lights and rights, policies that scapegoat vast swaths of people based on mere fear and suspicion, policies such as civil forfeiture, mandatory minimums, the larger drug war, stringent immigration enforcement, and mass surveillance. When you went to work for such a man, you should have been prepared for the possibility that you would be treated the same way as those poor souls he has allowed you to torment and scapegoat in the name of the law and your pet moral causes.


So, it’s time, Attorney General Sessions, for you to come to heel or leave town. It is time for you to give up your sense of propriety and serve your president’s wishes and whims or step down. In my opinion, you deserve to be fired for your terrible policy positions rather than your recusal, but I am not the president of the United States, thank the gods. I am also not foolish enough to believe your resignation or firing would mean the end of all the unjust laws you support.


No, even without you, they would continue, unfortunately. You are merely an example of a much bigger vermin problem in D.C. swamp, an infestation Donald Trump has no intention of eradicating. No, he is the king of vermin, yet another presidential Grand Poobah who believes and leads the hordes who claim we must sacrifice liberty to the state in almost every aspect of our lives for us to have a functioning and prosperous society.


Nonetheless, Jeff, if Trump punishes you for doing nothing wrong other than being “unfair” to him and his cause, I will not shed a tear. You have advocated and directed the same towards the American populace in regards to you and your cause.  What a beautiful irony that even presidents with unjust intentions can deliver up poetic justice at times, as unwitting as it may be.


Hell, if you are fired and your greatest asset — your dream job — is stripped away from you, Jeff, have hope. Take heed: I hear whispers here in Alabama that if you were to come back to your native soil, even so downgraded and downtrodden, the governor’s office would be yours for the taking. Whether that is because the people of Alabama are incredibly forgiving, pitying, and merciful or simply prone to nincompoopery, I have no clue and do not care.


Just know, Jeff, whether you stay on as AG or fall from your high perch only to rise again in the Heart of Dixie, your political career will be ignominious as long as you continue to confuse the law with what is right and treat your personal notions of morality as a justification to sap the freedom of your fellow Americans who disagree with you and your cause.


Via ANTIMEDIA


Featured Image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Yes, Bill Clinton ASKED Russia to interfere in a US presidential election


We had a US president, Bill Clinton, specifying HOW the Russian president could help him win a second term as US president






Russia election that brought Boris Yeltsin to power for a second term.


This is by way of saying, “Well, if Putin helped Trump win the 2017 election, so what? The US did the same thing in Russia.”


That’s an interesting but not terribly strong argument. However, there is another piece to the 1996 Clinton op, and it is explosive and quite relevant.


Let’s start here, with the 1996 leak of a document detailing a meeting between Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin. Sean Guillory, writing at jacobinmag.com, states:


“According to a White House memo leaked to the Washington Times in March 1996, Clinton and Yeltsin had agreed to support each other in their respective reelection bids.”


We are talking about mutual interference. President Clinton helps President Yeltsin win, and President Yeltsin helps President Clinton win.


Bill Clinton asked the president of Russia to interfere in a US presidential election.


Digest that.


Via Jon Rappoport



Featured Image: Veni/Flickr



Sunday, May 7, 2017

US Foreign Policy is About to Kill 500,000 Children in Yemen — Media Silent

yemen



As previously reported, civilians in Yemen are suffering from an intense and widespread humanitarian crisis. Staggering numbers include 7 million civilians in starvation, and 19 million out of the country’s 27 million population “in need of some form of aid,” according to the Guardian and the UN. “The poorest country in the Middle East, Yemen is now the largest food security emergency in the world,” stated a Unicef report that focused on the war’s effect on Yemeni children.


At least 9.6 million children, which amounts to 80% of all Yemeni children, are in need of humanitarian assistance. “Nearly 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished and require urgent care. Close to half a million children suffer from severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition that has seen a drastic increase of 200 percent since 2014,” the report also stated, adding that health care, education, and social systems have deteriorated during the war.


Alongside this starvation crisis, is the high number of civilian casualties during the continuing conflict in Yemen. At least 4,773 civilians have been killed over the last two years and an additional 8,272 have been injured.


US foreign policy is playing a direct role in the starvation and murder of thousands of innocent civilians.


In an effort to ensure power to Yemeni President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, a Saudi-led coalition has been relentlessly attacking Yemen, targeting heavy military action toward Houthi rebels resistant of a Hadi government which has effectively accelerated the country’s humanitarian crisis.


A critical element to this war, which has been ongoing for over two years, is assistance from the United States government. The United States has been a longstanding ally of Saudi Arabia and has been providing weapons deals for the Saudi government for a great number of years.




READ MORE:  Saudi Attacks on Schools & Hospitals So Bad, US FINALLY Condemns Them -- Still Gives them Bombs



A 2016 report showed that the Obama administration offered at least $115 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia over eight years, “more than any previous US administration,” which included deals that provided weapons sales to “replenish the Saudi arsenal, depleted in the war in Yemen.”


Donald Trump is on the same path.


Historian and investigative journalist Gareth Porter recently published an extensive writeup explaining the United States’ involvement in Saudi Arabia’s military interventions. Porter laid out the Saudi coalition’s “war strategy of maximizing pressure on the Houthi resistance by destroying agricultural, health and transportation infrastructure and by choking off access to food and fuel for most of Yemen’s population.”


“Equally important, however, the US has provided the political-diplomatic cover that the Saudis need to carry out this ruthless endeavor without massive international blowback,” Porter noted.


Human Rights Watch researcher Kristine Beckerle recently pointed out that the organization has found evidence of U.S.-supplied weapons at “apparently unlawful coalition attack” sites in Yemen, including weapons made by Raytheon.


“The United States, which became a party to the Yemen conflict during the first months of fighting by providing direct support to the coalition, including refueling planes during bombing raids, has provided substantial assistance to Saudi Arabia, including “intelligence, airborne fuel tankers and thousands of advanced munitions.”


International legal scholars and U.S. lawmakers have warned that continued U.S. support—including through weapons sales—to Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen may not only make the U.S. government complicit in coalition violations of the laws of war, but also expose U.S. officials to legal liability for war crimes,” wrote Beckerle.



READ MORE:  Brother of Clinton"s Campaign Chair is an Active Foreign Agent on the Saudi Arabian Payroll



While the Obama administration provided plenty of weaponry for the Saudi coalition to engage in military conflict that has devastated the civilian population in Yemen, the Trump administration is broadly continuing assisting Saudis by selling their coalition more weapons.


The U.S. government is “working to push through contracts for tens of billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, some new, others in the pipeline, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to the kingdom this month,” Reuters reported.


Reuters also noted that “The United States has been the main supplier for most Saudi military needs, from F-15 fighter jets to command and control systems worth tens of billions of dollars in recent years.”


In addition, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis reportedly doubled down on American-Saudi companionship and pointed to Iran as a factor in assisting Saudi Arabia during the war. As the United States prepares to provide more weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, Mattis said that the government would “reinforce Saudi Arabia’s resistance to Iran’s mischief” and declared that “we are not leaving this region.”



Blueprint for Dystopia

John W Whitehead’s “Is the U.S. Military Planning to Take Over America?” is based on the information produced by the Pentagon – more than likely by the CIA at Langley. If you have seen the movies, The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner, Matrix or TV shows Colony, The Walking Dead, The Leftovers or Mr. Robot you have seen glimpses of the future as planned for by the military/surveillance industrial complex. Within each of these movies and TV programs there is a theme of haves and have nots. There is also an overarching dystopian nightmare that most of the citizens freely accept with the exception of, literally, a handful of patriots working night and day to take their country back from the thieving banking and ruling classes that own the citizens like another pet or farm animal.


The websites that we all know and love that made the “prop or not” hall of fame are now on the frontline of the “domestic terrorist”, “dissident”, “enemy of the state” war. These websites represent the biggest targets, however, they are not alone. Websites like the Daily Coin will also be targets and may be hit first since The Daily Coin has a smaller footprint than these other websites and can be more easily disappeared without causing too much fuss. No one would really notice if The Daily Coin disappeared, that would not be the case with a site the size of ZeroHedge.


Pay close attention to this video and please keep in mind as you hear words like “non-combatant”, “advisories”, “hybrid threat” and the like, these are not foreign nationals, these are your neighbors, friends, and family. These are American citizens who still believe in the rule of law and the Constitution. These are citizens that believe their freedom, liberty, voice and life matter.


One of the most interesting phrases in the entire video is “drain the swamp“. It is amazing how small glimpses behind the curtain reveal so much. If you still think that “we the people” have any form of representation by this criminal regime occupying Washington DC, be sure and watch this video multiple times until the chains on the mind are broken. This video was produced by the government and while the images and some of the language would have a person believe this is for “foreign countries” it is more specifically for domestic use.



As most of you know we spend our day documenting the derivatives implosion that began in 2008. If we go back to the false flag event that occurred on 911 and connect all the points since we can very clearly see the unfolding of dystopia. We can see how the books “1984” and “Brave New World” have been used as a blueprint to enslave the masses. We can see the power and corruption afforded to the Federal Reserve banking system and it’s owners the “too big to jail” banks.


This five-minute clip deserves your undivided attention and needs to be shared far and wide. Knowing your enemy is a key aspect of engaging and defeating your enemy. We — you and I — are the enemy of the state, which in turn makes the state our enemy. We need to utilize this information to the best of our ability and ensure that as many people as possible are made aware and given an opportunity to understand what is being planned for our future by these power hungry, bloated oligarchs that currently own our country. The time to awaken and prepare is now. This plan, according to the Pentagon, sees 2030 as the next date on the horizon — a mere 13 years from now.


John W Whitehead uses the lens of recent history to prove beyond question this video was made to train the military to enslave America. If you have any notion that your children or grandchildren are going to grow up in a “leave it to beaver” world or even one as we live today, unfortunately, the owners are planning for the exact opposite and we are disposal ATM’s, “useless eaters”.



Via Daily Coin


Featured Image: Erik Mauer/Flickr

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

How to not be a big digital slave to the deep state

Catherine Austin Fitts, former US Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (under both Bush Sr. and Clinton), has some interesting insights about the possible futures which face us as a world population. Among her warnings are that the deep state would like to make us slaves via advanced digital technology. Some might call this artificial or augmented intelligence (AI).


It starts with the current war scenario. We can be certain that the war drums being pounded now are an orchestration by the deep state’s usual players.


Fitts says that the powers that be are “composting the United States” to save the Empire, by squeezing the middle class and sending their resources elsewhere. The global elite will always try to save themselves. The U.S. is expendable, as is any other country. The good news though, is that Fitts says that they are in complete delusion.


As Fitts explains, the elite keep “extracting equity” from the “deplorable class,” while they are “harvesting” them and destroying them. As most anyone with two bits of intelligence understands, if you keep taking equity out of an investment, and never replenish it, it will eventually become worthless.


While people are never without worth, as they become more and more downtrodden and frustrated by being used, they will eventually have no choice but to rise up against their oppressors. The people’s use for the elite simply becomes worth nothing, and yet the elite seem dumbfounded by this phenomenon.


Meanwhile, the elite keep running toward a transhumanist future where people, as such, are not even needed. They plan to keep wearing Hermes scarfs and taking private jets while using human beings as slaves, pedophile-bait, or cyborgs that polish their boots and do the dirty work that none of these elites are willing to do themselves.


Only, this isn’t going to play out. Entrainment and subliminal programming only works while people are asleep. Too many are waking up to what is being done to them, and the future that is planned for them.


The elite are trying to weaponize the population against the people. This plan will fail. The central banking-warfare model is now common knowledge. As Fitts explains in an interview,



“Think of this as a parasite. Every time we have war, the tapeworm gets a huge injection of food, so they’re feeling satiated and happy. . .their cash flows are rising, and of course that’s bad news for freedom and everything else, but everyone is on the dole. If you want some historical examples, watch two documentaries. Sputnik Fever, and Eisenhower.”



There is a tsunami in Washington pushing for war, just like what happened with Iraq. Remember what happened to the Dixie Chicks? They were told to “shut up and sing” when they came out and said “NO WAR,” but what happened? The Dixie Chicks pushed even harder against the war-making rhetoric. This same phenomenon is going to go even bigger as the war-makers push for war again against Russia, China, Korea, etc. War is their paycheck. This is what they do.


But here’s where this all comes to a head – the elite can’t control an awakened population, and their false flags, political lies, financing of inter-community and inter-religious, inter-racial, and gender wars, etc. are failing. What to do? Micro-chip the population and control them remotely like robots. That’s the plan, folks.


Fitts says she hasn’t described this scenario in her previous writings because she thought the idea was too abstract, but she says,



 “The real issue here is are we going to be a human or inhuman civilization, and if we’re going to be in an inhuman civilization then you can kiss financial liquidity goodbye because you are going to destroy the entrepreneurial and innovation impulse of most of the population. Now if you think you can do this with 100 million people globally, as they might think they can do. . . so two scenarios are massive depopulation and digital slavery.



As Fitts succinctly puts it, “you cannot run a planet this big with fake news, fake science, fake intel, and rule,” so what do we do?


Small steps make a big difference:


  1. Break the tech habit whenever you can. Go face to face when you can and stop Facebooking people when you can meet them for coffee.

  2. Refuse vaccinations. This is one plan to insert the “mark of the beast” in everyone.

  3. Refuse to be micro-chipped. One Nevada senator already felt compelled to introduce legislation to prohibit forced microchipping of human beings. I don’t think he was being paranoid.

  4. Make it harder for them to track you. Don’t allow your cell phone to track where you are and what you are doing, even though it is likely doing so anyhow. At least resist your freedoms being taken from you. This site explains how to turn off your cell phone tracker.

  5. Refuse to let them cull the masses. Tell everyone you know about chemtrails, GMOs, vaccines, etc. These are all methods of depopulation to help create a digital slave race.

Moreover, know the signs of the transhumanist agenda. These include but are not limited to:


  1. Medical modifications that permanently alters or replaces a function of the human body – this includes microchips that “remind people when to take their pharmaceutical meds.”

  2. Aging will begin to lose the “virtue of necessity” and society begins to treat it as a disease. Being healthy is one thing, erasing all forms of age with technological components is something else.

  3. Rights discourse would shift from who we include among humans to a system flexible enough to easily bring in sentient non-humans. I.E. a robot gets as many rights (if not more) than you do.

  4. Great promises are made that you don’t have to stay “human.” Why would you give up truth, beauty, and fairness when you can sell your soul to an AI overlord (Satan?) that will grant you eternal youth, fake beauty, and the ability to not have to think or reason? Transhumanists promise to eliminate your suffering, but will also take your desires.

If you sense that you are being sold a religion for some kind of transhumanistic, technocratic reality – you likely are. Choose to be the best human you can be, instead.



“There is neither spirit nor matter in the world; the stuff of the universe is spirit-matter. No other substance but this could produce the human molecule.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin



Via Waking Times


Featured Image: garann/Flickr

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Canada’s Pot Legalization Comes With a Hefty Dose of Police State – 10 Years in Prison for Driving High

legalization



Canada’s recently unveiled cannabis legalization effort is generating plenty of discussion, largely due to the fact that it would be the second country in the world to allow “full” recreational use of the substance nationwide. While legalization will require approval from the Parliament, its passage is quite feasible because of a Liberal majority in the House of Commons. The overhaul appears as a monumental step forward in cannabis freedom, but there is no shortage of limitations, restrictions and penalties for those not in full compliance of the law.


The bill would allow adults 18 years of age and older to possess up to 30 grams, or a little over an ounce, of cannabis. Adults would also be allowed to grow up to four plants on their property for personal use. Most regulations regarding retail sales would be decided upon by individual provinces.



One positive aspect of this bill is that cannabis would be legalized throughout the entire country, unlike the United States with its varying state laws under continuous threat of the government which still deems cannabis illegal at the federal level. Canada would join Uruguay as the only other country in the world to broadly legalize the substance.


However, there are some hefty stipulations attached to this bill serving as a clear indication that the Canadian government’s war on drugs will remain in effect, as the bill would be “imposing serious criminal penalties for those operating outside the legal framework.” In their commitment to keep cannabis away from minors, cripple the black market and deter impaired driving, the Canadian government has plenty of penalties within this bill for users who sell to youth, drive under the influence of cannabis or attempt to distribute and sell marijuana without a license.




READ MORE:  DEA Just Admitted It Lets Drugs Into Communities & Pushes Them on Citizens



The penalty for selling cannabis to a minor ranges from a $15,000 fine and 18-month prison sentence to up to 14 years in jail, dependent upon the seriousness of the charge. Selling cannabis without a license also carries a prison sentence, ranging from 6 months to 14 years depending on the allegation. The government has gone a step further by aiming to prosecute people who have too much on their person or in their garden. Possession surpassing the allowed 30 grams, possession of flowering or budding plants in public, possession of “illicit” cannabis, and possession of more than four plants carry possible jail time as well: between six months and five years in prison and fines of up to $5,000 depending on the circumstances of the charges.


In addition to the prohibited actions in the bill itself, a synchronous bill was introduced that would expand police powers to order saliva samples from drivers suspected of operating under the influence of drugs and greatly increase penalties on drivers under the influence of drugs including cannabis. According to CBC:


Three new drug-related offences will be also be created for drivers who have consumed drugs within two hours of driving. A driver who is found to have two nanograms but less than five nanograms of THC per millilitre of blood could face a maximum fine of up to $1,000 (THC is the primary psychoactive found in cannabis).


A driver who has a blood level of more than five nanograms of THC, or has been drinking alcohol and smoking pot at the same time, will face a fine and the possibility of jail time. In more serious cases, a drug-impaired driver could face up to 10 years if convicted.



READ MORE:  19 Year Old Faces Life Sentence for Weed Brownies



The government did not specify which drug testing device it would recommend police use for enforcement, but other jurisdictions use the DrugWipe system, which can detect traces of cannabis, opiates, cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamines (MDMA, ecstasy), benzodiazepines and ketamine.


While Canada’s law is a step forward in effectively allowing more people to access cannabis, the strings attached do little to increase overall freedom for users, and there will be a plethora of ways to imprison and fine users who stray from using cannabis within the provided authorizations; while some penalties are described as part of the goal to reduce impaired driving and protect youth, the Canadian government will essentially continue to put people in jail for cannabis offenses including “over-possession.”


The bill is aiming for implementation in the middle of 2018; while details will likely continue to be crafted, legalization in Canada will carry hefty restrictions unless significant changes are made to the proposed law.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

It’s Official, Pentagon Will Now Keep Troop Count in Iraq & Syria Secret

pentagon



The U.S. Central Command recently announced that troop numbers in Iraq and Syria will no longer be reported to the public. In its announcement, CENTCOM spokesman Army Col. John Thomas declared that “capabilities, not numbers,” should be the area of focus, and the public will be given general estimates of troop sizes in the future.


Jason Ditz of antiwar.com points out that the Obama administration was already less than forthcoming about the number of soldiers sent to these areas by utilizing a variety of tactics, including “deliberately omitting large numbers of troops from the official count by labeling them ‘temporary."”




The Pentagon’s announcement comes during a time in which the U.S. military’s recent use of airstrikes is under fresh scrutiny and stands accused of causing deaths of hundreds of civilians in recent weeks, including strikes in Mosul last week that killed an unconfirmed, but reportedly numerous, number of noncombatants.



According to Reuters regarding the strike in Mosul, “Eyewitnesses from Mosul and Iraqi officials have said last week’s strike on Islamic State targets may have collapsed homes where rescue officials say as many as 200 people were buried in the rubble.” Reuters described this event as “one of the deadliest single incidents for civilians in recent memory in any major conflict involving the U.S. military.”


In the Pentagon’s acknowledgment of the Mosul strike and announcement of its investigation into the incident, Army Col. Joseph Scrocca admitted that “we believe a coalition strike contributed in at least some way to the civilian casualties.”



In addition, reports have surfaced alleging that recent U.S. airstrikes in Syria have led to significant civilian deaths. One strike that was launched in northern Syria in mid-March, reportedly targeted at a building “that local officials said was a mosque filled with worshippers at evening prayer” and also resulted in civilian casualties. Another strike by a U.S.-led coalition at a school in Raqqa that was being “used as refugee centre,” according to The Guardian. The Guardian’s report notes that “Over the past eight months, there have been four cases in which US planes or drones have been blamed for mass civilian casualties in Syria.”



READ MORE:  Obama Extends "Emergency" War on Terror Powers as US Says Al Qaeda No Longer Target



The new U.S. presidential administration has unsurprisingly provided little change in its approach to foreign policy and the war on terror; in fact, President Trump is currently considering sending at least 1,000 more troops to Syria. As Ditz noted, the government has long lacked transparency regarding troop numbers in Iraq and Syria, and it appears that while CENTCOM may be seeking to avoid further criticism over specific deployment numbers by simply eliminating these reports. However, this increase in secrecy that further places civilians in the dark will undoubtedly exacerbate tensions across the globe in regards to American accountability.



Another troubling revelation from Thomas is the military’s dismissal of making changes to airstrike policy. Thomas stated that General Joseph Votel, the head of CENTCOM, “is not looking into changing the way we operate other than to say our processes are good and we want to make sure we live by those processes.”

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Jeff Sessions goes full Reefer Madness




Attorney General Jeff Sessions is terribly confused and wildly uninformed.


That, or he’s a liar.


Trump’s pick to head the Department of Justice has long opposed cannabis and enthusiastically supported the war on drugs. Though he reportedly recently assured congressional lawmakers he would not be instituting a crackdown on weed in states where it’s legal, his rhetoric against the increasingly accepted plant is concerning.


Sessions attracted headlines last week when he claimed “there is more violence” surrounding marijuana use than many people imagine. Of course, this is demonstrably false according to crime statistics from states where it is legal. As the Denver Post has noted, “there is one thing that legalization supporters, opponents and neutrals within Colorado agree on: It’s unlikely marijuana has much to do with Denver’s recent uptick in crime.”


As one meme quipped, the violence Sessions should have been referring to is caused by the war on drugs, which is now widely known to cause widespread, institutional violence.


Nevertheless, Sessions remains steadfast in his opposition to weed. In another false statement, Sessions claimed this week that marijuana is almost as dangerous as heroin. Speaking to law enforcement agents at the federal, state, and local level on Wednesday, Sessions boldly asserted:



…I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana – so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful.  Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.



First, let’s examine the claim that legalizing cannabis will not help the heroin — and by extension, the opiate painkiller — crisis. One recent study indicated that in states that allow access to cannabis, overdoses from opiate drugs drop. That 2014 study concluded such deaths had decreased by as much as 25% in states with medical marijuana programs. Further, according to some reports — and in an apparent nightmare scenario for Sessions — some opiate addicts are switching to cannabis rather than continuing to use the deadly drug.


“They felt a lot better when their pain was being controlled by cannabis rather [than] opioids because opioids have a lot of side effects,” said Dan Clauw, a researcher investigating this trend.


It is unclear what exactly Sessions considers so “awful” about cannabis. In various forms, it is increasingly proving to help treat epilepsy, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, anxiety, pain, and the side effects of chemotherapy, to name a few indications. As the government-run National Cancer Institute has acknowledged, preliminary research shows cannabis may help inhibit the growth of tumor cells by causing cell death.


Heroin and opiates do none of these things, except treat pain — a benefit clearly outweighed by the extreme risk of addiction and death these drugs pose (in contrast, even former Attorney General Loretta Lynch has admitted marijuana is not a gateway drug). From 1999 to 2015, 183,000 people in the United States died just from prescription opioids, and many painkiller addicts graduate to heroin out of desperation.


In contrast, research supports the medical potential of cannabis. This is particularly impressive considering the weed the government provides for academic research hardly even resembles healthy cannabis and is often covered in mold. Imagine what researchers might discover if they were studying cannabis similar to what individual users are actually consuming.


Nevertheless, Sessions correctly asserts preventative measures are vital to tackling drug abuse. But his other solutions, namely, criminal enforcement, are less viable. Even police officers are increasingly skeptical of the government’s ongoing war on marijuana. While many officers recognize the serious threat of heroin and painkillers, a recent survey of law enforcement showed marijuana is a top concern for fewer than 5% of those questioned.


Sessions is not only out of touch with research regarding cannabis, but also the priorities of the law enforcement agents he presides over.


Though he claims he will not aggressively pursue the plant, at least one U.S. attorney has already tried. Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden issued a warning to the organizers of High Times’ Cannabis Cup in Las Vegas, asserting they had incorrectly interpreted an Obama-era memorandum commanding the Department of Justice to respect state’s rights on marijuana. Though it’s doubtful Sessions had anything to do with this specific action, it’s possible his stance is already permeating the culture of the Department of Justice.


Whether Sessions is simply grossly uninformed about cannabis or is actually misrepresenting it to bolster his drug warrior approach, one thing is clear: his focus on “enforcement” ensures the failed policy will be in full swing for some time to come.


Via Anti-Media


Featured Image: Anti-Media






Comment Policy: Threats of violence, foul language, bullying, and spam will not be tolerated.