The students who marched in support of gun rights carried "Blue Lives Matter" flags to signal the fact that they also don"t realize that the real problem is with an increasing police state that continues to infringe upon Americans" liberties in the name of "safety."
The post Students Rally For Gun Rights, While Praising The Very People Who Will Take Their Guns appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Is it a coincidence?
In recent history, from the Vietnam war to the present, the month of March has been chosen by Pentagon and NATO military planners as the “best month” to go to war.
With the exception of the War on Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO and allied led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by US ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.
The Ides of March (Idus Martiae) is a day in the Roman calendar which broadly corresponds to March 15. The Ides of March is also known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.
Lest we forget, the month of March (in the Roman Calendar) is dedicated to Mars (Martius), the Roman God of War.
For the Romans, the month of March (Martius) marked “the time to start new military campaigns.”
As in the heyday of the Roman Empire, the US Department of Defense has a mandate to plan and implement a precise “timeline” of military operations.
Does the month of March –identified by the Romans as a “good time” to initiate new military undertakings–, have a bearing on contemporary military doctrine?
Throughout history, seasons including the transition from Winter to Spring have played a strategic role in the timing of military operations.
Do Pentagon military planners favor the month of March?
Do they also –in some mysterious fashion– “idolize” Mars, the Roman God of War?
March 23 (which coincides with the beginning of Spring) was the day “Romans celebrated the start of the military campaign and war fighting season.”
“Homage was paid to Mars the god of war with festivals and feasting. … For the Romans March 23 was a huge celebration known as Tubilustrium”.
Under these festivities which celebrated the Roman god of war, a large part of the month of March “was dedicated to military celebration and preparedness.”
Timeline of March Military Interventions (1965- 2017)
Recent history confirms that with the exception of Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO led military operations over a period of almost half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by US ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.
The Vietnam War
The US Congress adopted the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to dispatch ground forces to Vietnam on March 8, 1965.
On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam marking the beginning of “America’s ground war”.
NATO’s War on Yugoslavia
NATO’s war on Yugoslavia was launched on March 24, 1999.
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia code-named by the US Operation “Noble Anvil”. started on March 24, 1999 and lasted until June 10, 1999.
The Iraq War
The War on Iraq was launched on March 20, 2003. (Baghdad time)
The US-NATO led invasion of Iraq started on 20 March 2003 on the pretext that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
(The 1991 Gulf War on Iraq began on 17th January. However, after the 28th February ceasefire was agreed and signed – following the Basra Road massacre of withdrawing soldiers and fleeing civilians on 26th/27th February – the US 24th Mechanised Infantry Division slaughtered thousands on 2nd March.“)
The Covert War on Syria
The US-NATO Covert War on Syria was initiated on March 15, 2011 with the incursion of Islamist mercenaries and death squads in the southern city of Daraa on the border with Jordan. The terrorists were involved in acts of arson as well as the killings of civilians. This incursion of terrorists was from the very outset supported covertly by the US, NATO and its Persian Gulf allies: Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
NATO’s “Humanitarian” R2P War on Libya
NATO commenced its bombing of Libya on March 19, 2011. The United Nations Security Council passed an initial resolution on 26 February 2011 (UNSC Resolution 1970), (adopted unanimously).
A subsequent United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 was adopted on 17 March 2011. It authorized the establishment of “a no-fly zone” over Libya, and the use “all necessary measures” “to protect the lives of civilians”.
Libya was bombed relentlessly by NATO warplanes starting on March 19, 2011 for a period of approximately seven months.
Yemen
On 25 March 2015, an international coalition led by Saudi Arabia and supported by the US launched air strikes against the Huthi armed group in Yemen.
**
March 2018
The US and its NATO allies, not to mention Israel, are on a war footing.
Several military scenarios in March 2018 are on the drawing board of the Pentagon includingLebanon, Syria (military escalation scenario), North Korea and Iran.
Russia is threatened and so is China.
We cannot speculate, however, regarding US-NATO war plans pertaining to the Ides of March 2018.
A vast media propaganda campaign has been launched to provide legitimacy to the US-led military adventure, upholding acts of war as humanitarian peace-making initiatives. In the course of the month of March, fake news has reached a new threshold: US mini nukes are heralded as peacemaking bombs.
Here is the latest New York Times (Feb 27) “authoritative” analysis of how North Korea is helping the Syrian government to wage a chemical war against the Syrian people. Nice and not fake, timely (Ides of March) and of course “carefully documented” by the Newspaper of Record.
[image: Screenshot, NYT, Feb 27, 2018]
Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research. He has taught as visiting professor in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Latin America. He has served as economic adviser to governments of developing countries and has acted as a consultant for several international organizations. He is the author of eleven books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005), The Global Economic Crisis, The Great Depression of the Twenty-first Century (2009) (Editor), Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011), The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015). He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at crgeditor@yahoo.com
The post The Pentagon’s “Ides of March”: Best Month to Go to War appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
A top Chinese general has warned that a war with North Korea could break out anytime. Because of the possibility of another world war by March, the general is suggesting the Chinese military mobilized their troops on the border with North Korea.
To prepare for a conflict that could break out anytime between now and March, Lieutenant General Wang Gongguang claims that China should mobilize their military might sooner rather than later. The Global Times, the English-language outlet of the Beijing government’s state-run mouthpiece People’s Daily China, reports the official is warning of the need to be “mentally prepared for [war] anytime”.
“China should be psychologically prepared for a potential Korean War, and the Northeast China regions should be mobilized for that,” said General Wang. He is also urging the deployment of antimissile systems and troops in the border area with North Korea in anticipation of conflict between North and South Korea, and others such as Japan and the United States.
Should a war break out, South Korea and China will be the two countries most destroyed by the devastation. Both countries would be exposed to harsh nuclear contamination and earthquakes. “Such mobilization is not to launch a war, but for defensive purposes,” he said. According to The Sun UK, the Chinese military expert and TV commentator Song Zhongping said that China need to be prepared for refugees who will surge over the border in the event of a conflict. But Song also said the US could react impulsively over the Chinese military decision and spark a war when all the communist nation wants is preparation.
“Defensive action could lead to engagement if US action on the Korean Peninsula threatens China’s core interests,” Song said. This warning comes as China’s air force carried out another round of long-range drills on Monday, flying into the Sea of Japan, prompting South Korean jets to scramble, and again around self-ruled Taiwan amid growing tension over China’s assertiveness in the region.
The Chinese air force said in a statement that fighter and bomber aircraft flew through the Tsushima Strait that separates South Korea from Japan and into international waters in the Sea of Japan. “The Sea of Japan is not Japan’s,” Air Force spokesman Shen Jinke said, adding that the drills were lawful and reasonable.
Patriot organizations including Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys joined with Boston free speech advocates, Kyle Chapman and many others to promote liberty, freedom and inclusiveness.
The local North Shore Antifa, Refuse Fascism and an organization named “Stand Against Hate Boston” tried desperately to spoil the event and celebration but were unsuccessful.
Final Score:
#Antifa – ZERO
PATRIOTS – WON
Image source: Pixabay.com
Is it spring yet?! As the days stretch out longer, and temperatures become increasingly mild, we start to feel the tug of the garden.
Many areas are still experiencing frost in March, but most of us can start planting seeds. Whether or not you can go ahead and start seeds depends on a number of factors, including your hardiness zone, your last frost date, which seeds you aim to plant, and whether you intend to start your seeds indoors or out.
Determine Your Last Frost Date
Your last frost date is important. It will help determine when to plant your various seeds. While information specific to our hardiness zones gives us a rough idea of our last frost date, it’s best to use an interactive calculator, like this one at The Old Farmer’s Almanac for a more exact date.
Sort Your Seeds
There are basically three types of seeds: 1) those best sowed directly into your garden; 2) those that can be sowed directly or started indoors; and, 3) those that most people should start indoors. Start by sorting your seeds into these three groups.
Seeds to Sow Directly
For a variety of reasons, some seeds do best when sowed directly into the ground. Some don’t transplant well. Others are cool-weather crops that can handle light frost and flourish in cooler temperatures.
Need Non-GMO Seeds? Get Them From A Company You Can Trust!
If you have any of the seeds listed below, pull them out and put them aside:
15 Seeds That Should Be Started In March
Some seeds must be started indoors in most parts of the country — otherwise their fruit may not come to maturity before fall frosts. If you have any of the seeds listed below, pull them out and make a second pile:
1. Basil
2. Broccoli
3. Cauliflower
4. Celery
5. Eggplant
6. Kohlrabi
7. Mint
8. Oregano
9. Peppers
10. Tomatoes
Seeds That Can Be Started Indoors or Out
While some seeds do perfectly fine when sowed directly into your garden, you also can start them indoors in order to get a jump on the growing season. It’s great to be able to enjoy some vegetables earlier in the summer. Plus, you also can stagger your planting by putting out transplants at the same time as directly sowing seeds of the same variety, so that your harvest lasts for several weeks.
The All-Natural Fertilizer That Doubles Your Garden Yield!
On the flip side, it can get daunting to find enough space, lighting, and time to look after large numbers of seedlings. Plus, don’t forget that you’ll need to haul your seed flats in and out for a little while, too, to harden off your seedlings before transplanting. Consider how many seedlings you must start indoors, plus the pros and cons listed, in order to decide whether to start any of these seeds indoors, too:
11. Cabbage
12. Cucumbers
13. Melons
14. Parsley
15. Squash – summer and winter, including zucchini
Determine Planting Dates for Indoor Seeds
Now that you know which seeds to start indoors, the next step is figuring out when to do it. Using the information on the seed packages, count backward from your last frost date to determine when to start your seeds. For example, some vegetables, such as broccoli, should be started 10 weeks prior to the last frost date. Cherry tomatoes should be started nine weeks prior, and full-size tomatoes eight weeks prior.
Have you started seeds indoors yet? When do you start them? Share your gardening and growing tips in the section below:
Bust Inflation With A Low-Cost, High-Production Garden. Read More Here.
(COMMONDREAMS) The Trump-Pence administration’s war on facts may have galvanized the next major demonstration in the nation’s capital—the Scientists’ March on Washington, which is as yet unscheduled but is garnering significant enthusiasm online.
Spurred by the new administration’s stance on climate change, muzzling of scientists, and slashing of environmental regulations, the idea grew out of a Reddit thread started in the wake of Saturday’s inspirational Women’s March on Washington and global solidarity events.
As the Washington Post reports:
“[S]omeone wrote, ‘There needs to be a Scientists’ March on Washington.’
“‘100%,’ someone replied. Dozens of others agreed.
“One participant in the exchange, University of Texas Health Science Center postdoctoral fellow Jonathan Berman, took the conversation to heart. In short order, the march had a Facebook page (whose membership swelled from 200 people on Tuesday night to more than 150,000 by Wednesday at noon), a Twitter handle, a website, two co-chairs, Berman and science writer and public health researcher Caroline Weinberg, and a Google form through which interested researchers could sign up to help.”
Indeed, the Facebook group had swelled to nearly 300,000 members as of later Wednesday, and @ScienceMarchDC now has more than 50,000 followers.
Passed 50K followers on Twitter. We started with a 100 yesterday! Thanks to everyone who wants to be involved! #ScienceMarch
— March for Science (@ScienceMarchDC) January 25, 2017
Organizers said Wednesday they would “soon be releasing our formal vision” (as well as a date for the march), but for now they summarized their mission thusly:
“Although this will start with a march, we hope to use this as a starting point to take a stand for science in politics. Slashing funding and restricting scientists from communicating their findings (from tax-funded research!) with the public is absurd and cannot be allowed to stand as policy. This is a non-partisan issue that reaches far beyond people in the STEM fields and should concern anyone who values empirical research and science.
“There are certain things that we accept as facts with no alternatives. The Earth is becoming warmer due to human action. The diversity of life arose by evolution. Politicians who devalue expertise risk making decisions that do not reflect reality and must be held accountable. An American government that ignores science to pursue ideological agendas endangers the world.”
Indeed, Union of Concerned Scientists president Ken Kimmell said Wednesday in response to the latest crackdown on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in particular: “Demands to shut down informational websites and prevent the release of scientific findings are straight out of Orwell. We don’t live in a world of ‘alternative facts’ — you can’t delete climate change and you can’t overrule the laws of physics by preventing scientists from talking about them.”
“President Trump and his representatives in the EPA and other agencies are accountable to the public interest,” Kimmell said, “and the scientific community will continue to expose and resist abuses like these.”
“This is not a partisan issue,” the March for Science team told Mashable by email. “Scientific research moves us forward.”
On other pro-science fronts, the climate movement is planning a redux of the People’s Climate March for April 29, and The Atlantic reported Wednesday that a newly formed group called 314 Action has been “created to support scientists in running for office.”
As 350.org noted in its call to action for the April 29 march, “Now more than ever, it will take everyone to change everything.”
This article (Scientists Are About to March on Washington DC to Make Facts Great Again) by Deirdre Fulton originally appeared on CommonDreams.org and is licensed Creative Commons 3.0. The Anti-Media radio show airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: L May. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org
(ANTIMEDIA) Indiana passed a bill on Wednesday that authorizes police officers to shut down highway protesting “by any means necessary.” S.B. 285, as it is known, obliges a public official to dispatch all available officers within 15 minutes of discovering any assembly of 10 or more people who are obstructing vehicle traffic.
The bill then authorizes the responding officers to clear roads “by any means necessary.”
Critics are calling it the “Block Traffic and You Die” bill, an apt name for a bill that has co-opted the phrase “any means necessary,” used famously in speech delivered by Malcolm X during the Civil Rights movement, turning it into a threat against government dissent (with no apparent awareness of the irony).
S.B. 285 is among a collection of increasingly hostile ‘anti-obstruction’ laws that have been quietly submitted in states around the nation over the past few months. A report by The Intercept published Wednesday tracked five such anti-protest laws introduced by Republican lawmakers in different states, four of which are currently pending.
One of the most disturbing among them is House Bill N. 1203, a bill introduced earlier this month by North Dakota lawmaker Keith Kempenich in response to the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests. The bill would exempt motorists who hit demonstrators with their cars from any liability in cases where the victims were “obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway.” This twisted take on protest criminalization comes short of condoning manslaughter as a viable means of crowd control.
Also this month, Minnesota State Representative Kathy Lohmer led the effort on submitting H.F. 322, a bill that would re-classify obstructing highway traffic from a misdemeanor to a “gross misdemeanor” and would authorize government units to sue protesters for “public safety response costs related to unlawful assemblies.”
The proposed legislation is strikingly reminiscent of Washington State Senator Eric Ericksen’s proposal to punish protesters as ‘economic terrorists,’ which Anti-Media first reported on in November.
All of the proposed laws share a common trait in that they were all adopted in response to a major protest event in that state. H.F. 322 was submitted shortly after a judge dismissed the riot charges against protesters who took to the St. Paul Interstate last July in a demonstration against the police shooting of Philando Castille. Ericksen’s “economic terrorism” bill announcement came just days after anti-fracking protesters blocked railroad tracks in Olympia, Washington. DAPL protests inspired both the Indiana and North Dakota bills.
These retroactive responses on behalf of Republican state lawmakers are also seen as preemptive strikes against the threat of increased protests during the Trump presidency.
As ACLU staff attorney Lee Rowland expressed in an interview with The Intercept, these so-called ‘obstruction bills’ are but thinly disguised efforts to squash any government dissent.
“A law that would allow the state to charge a protester $10,000 for stepping in the wrong place, or encourage a driver to get away with manslaughter because the victim was protesting, is about one thing: chilling protest,” Rowland said.
Growing tension between government officials and protesters is expected to come to a culmination on Inauguration Day in D.C., where there will already be many barriers in place to limit demonstrations.
First and foremost is the Federal Grounds and Buildings Improvement Act of 2011, known as H.R 347.
H.R.-347 is a revision of a 1971 federal trespassing law that made it a crime to “willfully and knowingly” remain in an area under Secret Security protection. H.R. 347 removes the word “willingly,” a legal technicality that effectively lowers the bar on the mental state required to be found guilty under the law.
As explained by the American Civil Liberties Union:
“Under the original language of the law, you had to act ‘willfully and knowingly’ when committing the crime. In short, you had to know your conduct was illegal. Under H.R. 347, you will simply need to act ‘knowingly,’ which here would mean that you know you’re in a restricted area, but not necessarily that you’re committing a crime.”
Under current federal law, protesting in proximity to an elected official under the protection of the Secret Service, which includes President Trump, is a crime punishable by fine and up to ten years in jail.
Protesting during Trump’s inauguration comes with additional complications as the National Park Service reserves a large portion of the inaugural parade route along Pennsylvania Ave and in Freedom Plaza for ticket sales under the exclusive discretion of Trump’s Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC). This means the PIC can refuse to allow protesters along the route.
An activist group called Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (Answer) has been engaged in a legal battle with the National Park Service since 2005, arguing the privatization of the Inauguration is an attempt to “sanitize” the streets of dissent.
While the National Park Service has been controversially setting aside tickets for the PIC since 1980, the issue garnered more attention this year when it was discovered that the sidewalk in front of the Trump International Hotel, a significant site for protesters, would be a part of PIC’s ticket-only area.
Adding another level of bureaucracy, the Washington Post reported the hotel and plaza in front are actually under the control of Trump’s real estate agency, meaning protesters would have to literally ‘ask permission’ to remain in the space.
As the week comes to an end, it becomes apparent that dissent is being criminalized not only nationwide but on multiple fronts. Increased regulations are appearing that limit the public spaces that can be lawfully occupied in protest. Meanwhile, legislation is also being introduced to increase the negative consequences for newly unlawful protests. Should more states follow suit with Indiana, demonstrators will soon find themselves paradoxically protesting for their right to protest at all.
This article (As Trump Takes Power, Politicians Around the US Move to Make Protesting Illegal) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Sarah Cronin and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.
