Judge Andrew Napolitano: If the GOP memo is as advertised…

…we’ll see the deep state at its most frightening.

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano | Fox News

I have argued for a few weeks now that House Intelligence Committee members have committed misconduct in office by concealing evidence of spying abuses by the National Security Agency and the FBI. They did this by sitting on a four-page memo that summarizes the abuse of raw intelligence data while Congress was debating a massive expansion of FISA.

FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which was written to enable the federal government to spy on foreign agents here and abroad. Using absurd and paranoid logic, the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which only hears the government’s lawyers, has morphed “foreign intelligence surveillance” into undifferentiated bulk surveillance of all Americans.

Undifferentiated bulk surveillance is the governmental acquisition of fiber-optic data stored and transmitted by nearly everyone in America. This includes all telephone conversations, text messages and emails, as well as all medical, legal and financial records.

Ignorant of the hot potato on which the House Intelligence Committee had been sitting, Congress recently passed and President Donald Trump signed a vast expansion of spying authorities — an expansion that authorizes legislatively the domestic spying that judges were authorizing on everyone in the U.S. without individual suspicion of wrongdoing or probable cause of crime; an expansion that passed in the Senate with no votes to spare; an expansion that evades and avoids the Fourth Amendment; an expansion that the president signed into law the day before we all learned of the House Intelligence Committee memo.

The FISA expansion would never have passed the Senate had the House Intelligence Committee memo and the data on which it is based come to light seven days sooner than it did. Why should 22 members of a House committee keep their 500-plus congressional colleagues in the dark about domestic spying abuses while those colleagues were debating the very subject matter of domestic spying and voting to expand the power of those who have abused it?

Read more at FOX NEWS

 

 

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Citizen Militia Experiences Explosive Growth Following the Last Election

Until the 1990’s, civilian run volunteer militias weren’t all that common in the United States. They were the fringe of the fringe in our culture. But after Waco and Ruby Ridge, their ranks swelled and they became a common subject in the news and in pop culture. Their numbers fell again under President Bush, and then grew to new heights under President Obama.

It’s an obvious pattern. Conservative militias multiply like crazy under Democratic presidents, and for good reason. When Democrats take the reigns of government, they always threaten to restrict gun ownership. They then decline under Republican administrations, when conservatives don’t feel as threatened.

However, there may be a new trend emerging. CBS Atlanta recently did a piece on a militia called the Three Percenter Security Force (which obviously showed them in slightly negative light, given the source). The organization is run by Marine Corps veteran Chris Hill, who says that their membership has grown from a few dozen, to roughly 400 members since November. The Marine told CBS that the militia would protect the Second Amendment under any administration, and that “The government or law enforcement agencies, disarming people, it’s a constant threat.”

That doesn’t sound very different from the stated objectives of any conservative militia that has emerged since the 90s. So why is this militia’s membership growing so drastically during the early stages of a Republican administration? What’s different this time? The answer may lie in how the Left has responded to Trump being elected. According to Hill:

“The level of violence I see coming from these protests is alarming, I think that creates more of a need for people like us to be there,” Hill said.

Hill says, just as anti-Trump supporters have a right to organize and protest, his group wants to show their presence.

“We have a duty to protect, our freedom, our liberty, our constitutional Republic.” Hill said. “That responsibility can’t be deferred to you know Congress.”

So radical leftists and conservative militias are experiencing explosive growth at the same time, and neither of them are afraid to present themselves in the streets of America. While I do support the rights of militias, I have to say that this probably won’t end well.

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Author: Daniel Lang
Views: Read by 21 people
Date: February 25th, 2017
Website: http://www.SHTFplan.com

Copyright Information: This content has been contributed to SHTFplan by a third-party or has been republished with permission from the author. Please contact the author directly for republishing information.

Nestle Seeks More Groundwater to Expand Michigan Plant

The state of Michigan has given a preliminary go-ahead for food and beverage maker Nestle to nearly triple the amount of groundwater it will pump from beneath the state, to be bottled and sold at its Ice Mountain plant, approximately 120 miles from Flint. [1]

Source: mlive.com

Nestle Waters North America asked the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to allow the company to increase pumping from 150 to 400 gallons-per-minute at 1 of its production wells north of Evart.

The company already increased the well’s pumping rate last year and earlier this year, but needs the DEQ’s approval to max out the withdrawal capacity under the Section 17 of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). [1] [2]

The DEQ already issued a draft proposal for the request in January, and ended a public comment period on the subject on November 3. Carrie Monosmith, environmental health chief in the drinking water office, said the DEQ hadn’t received any comments. [1] [2]

Many Michigan residents feel Nestle has a lot of nerve asking for the increase, in light of Flint’s years-long nightmare over lead contamination in their drinking water. Many people in Flint still rely on bottled water for cooking, cleaning, and bathing as the government continues to drag its feet in replacing the corroded pipes. [1]

Nestle representatives defended the company’s efforts to pump more groundwater, saying the “U.S. market for bottled water in general is driving the bid for more Michigan groundwater.” [2]

That’s right, America. Nestle says it’s your fault.

If that’s not infuriating enough, Nestle gets to pump that water for free. Under state law, private property owners may withdraw from the aquifer under their property for free. The only cost is $200 in annual paperwork. [1]

The interstate Great Lakes compact prohibits water diversions outside of the Great Lakes basin, but a loophole in the law allows water to be sold outside the region, so long as it is shipped in bottles smaller than 5.7 gallons. [2]

Jeff Ostahowski, vice president of the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC), asks:

“The issue is the privatization of a critical resource. How much is too much?”

For years, MCWC has battled against Nestle to prevent it from expanding in the state.

According to Nestle and the DEQ, an environmental review shows the aquifer can withstand the proposed increase in pumping, and that it won’t hurt its flow, levels, or temperature of nearby surface waters.

But MCWC is looking for more assurances. Ostahowski said:

“It needs to be studied by all the best environmentalists, hydrologists and people acquainted with the science of where this water is actually coming from.

There are many different hydrologists who can look at the same data and come up with different conclusions.”

Ostahowski expressed frustration that the group wasn’t aware of Nestle’s plan until a Michigan news outlet contacted them for comment. He said:

“The DEQ should have sent us this information.”

Nestle will do whatever it takes to get its water wishes met, even if it means screwing people over to do it. The company was sued for stealing more than 1.8 billion gallons of water from California’s San Bernardino National Forest during the state’s worst drought and selling it back to the people at inflated costs.

Nestle’s then-CEO Tim Brown said he would increase the amount of water his company was stealing from the forest, if it could.

This past summer, Nestle bought a drought-stricken Canadian community’s water supply, sparking international outrage.

Nestle Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe is even worse. He has said that water is not a human right, and should be privatized.

Keep all of this in mind the next time you’re tempted to buy food or water made by Nestle, because someone likely sacrificed something important for its production.

Sources:

[1] Common Dreams

[2] mlive.com

mlive.com

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.