News Articles
Week of September 15, 2012
AR in the National News:
What Are You Afraid Of if You Have Nothing to Hide? (BOOK REVIEW)
“The Rights of the People: How Our Search for Safety Invades our Liberties by David K. shipler (New York: Knopf 2011), 384 pages.
Late this past spring, two U.S. senators finally had the courage to look Big Brother in its inhuman, electronic eye and try to come clean on the USA PATRIOT Act. According to Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Org.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), two PATRIOT Acts operate inside the United States: the first is the actual law passed immediately after the shock of 9/11, giving the government unprecedented powers to counter terrorism. The second is how the government interprets the legislation.
Why does the government’s interpretation send shivers down the spines of these liberals? It’s a simple and straightforward question, but Wyden, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, can’t say, because in a perfect Monty Pythonesque punchline, it’s classified.
He can, however, vaguely outline what troubles him so. “It is fair to say that the business-records provision is a part of the PATRIOT Act that I am extremely interested in reforming,” he told Wired.com’s Spencer Ackerman. “I know a fair amount about how it’s interpreted, and I am going to keep pushing, as I have, to get more information about how the PATRIOT Act is being interpreted declassified. I think the public has a right to public debate about it.” That, however, has not happened. Instead, this past August the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted to keep the American public in the dark.
What’s distressing about this dog whistle isn’t that only a few can even hear it; it’s that the PATRIOT Act and other post– 9/11 intelligence and security policies have already cast a creeping authoritarian shadow over America. It’s this darkening landscape on which Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Shipler shines the floodlights in The Rights of the People, the first of twin volumes on the decline of American civil liberties since that grotesquely beautiful morning a decade ago. “
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd1201f.asp
Portland, Oregon votes to poison its citizens with toxic fluoride chemicals
“We here at Natural Newshave reported regularly on the dangers of adding fluoride to our drinking water, always citing the latest research on the issue to make our point that, quite simply, ingesting even small amounts of the chemical over time can cause medical problems such as brain damage, memory loss and other decreases in mental capacity.
So it boggles our collective mind here to see Americans actually vote to put more of this harmful chemical into their bodies. But that’s just what the members of the Portland, Ore., city council just did recently, over the objections of protestors who showed up to try and educate the elected officials before some were removed from the proceedings.
According to local reports the council voted unanimously – 5-0 – during a sometimes rancorous, raucous public meeting recently to add the chemical to the city’s drinking water, thereby ending Portland’s status as the only major U.S. city that had not yet approved fluoridation.
Despite the approval, opponents vowed immediately to try to block the effort; they promised to gather enough signatures within 30 days to block the city’s plans and force the issue to a vote of all residents”
http://www.naturalnews.com/037259_Portland_fluoride_poison.html
Economic Collapse & the Federal Debt:
100 Days Until Taxmageddon
“Sunday will mark the start of the 100-day countdown to “Taxmageddon” – the date the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect. They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2013:
First Wave: Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief
In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for small business owners, families, and investors (later re-upped by President Obama and Democrat Congress in 2010). The following tax hikes will occur on January 1, 2013:
Personal income tax rates will rise on January 1, 2013. The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which the majority of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:
-The 10% bracket rises to a new and expanded 15%
-The 25% bracket rises to 28%
-The 28% bracket rises to 31%
-The 33% bracket rises to 36%
-The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%
… And [highlights only]
Higher taxes on marriage and family coming on January 1, 2013
Middle Class Death Tax returns on January 1, 2013
Higher tax rates on savers and investors on January 1, 2013
Second Wave: Obamacare Tax Hikes
The Obamacare Medical Device Tax begins to be assessed on January 1, 2013
The Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Hike takes effect on January 1, 2013.
The Obamacare “Special Needs Kids Tax” comes online on January 1, 2013
The Obamacare “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deductions goes into force on January 1, 2013
Third Wave: The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes
The AMT will ensnare over 31 million families, up from 4 million last year
Full business expensing will disappear
Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses
Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced
Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed
RELATED:
https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=3646
http://atr.org/full-list-obamacare-tax-hikes-a6996
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=2702
China And Russia Are Ruthlessly Cutting The Legs Out From Under The U.S. Dollar
“The mainstream media in the United States is almost totally ignoring one of the most important trends in global economics. This trend is going to cause the value of the U.S. dollar to fall dramatically and it is going to cause the cost of living in the United States to go way up. Right now, the U.S. dollar is the primary reserve currency of the world. Even though that status has been chipped away at in recent years, U.S. dollars still make up more than 60 percent of all foreign currency reserves in the world. Most international trade (including the buying and selling of oil) is conducted in U.S. dollars, and this gives the United States a tremendous economic advantage. Since so much trade is done in dollars, there is a constant demand for more dollars all over the globe from countries that need them for trading purposes. So the Federal Reserve is able to flood our financial system with dollars without it causing a tremendous amount of inflation because the rest of the world ends up soaking up a lot of those dollars. But now that is changing. China and Russia have been spearheading a movement to shift away from using the U.S. dollar in international trade. At the moment, the shift is happening gradually, but at some point a tipping point will come (for example if Saudi Arabia were to declare that it will no longer take U.S. dollars for oil) and the entire global financial system is going to change. When that tipping point comes the global demand for U.S. dollars is going to absolutely plummet and nightmarish inflation will come to the United States. If such a scenario sounds far out to you, then you have not been paying attention. In fact, China and Russia have been working very hard to move us toward exactly such a scenario”
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/china-and-russia-are-ruthlessly-cutting-the-legs-out-from-under-the-u-s-dollar
RELATED:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-is-putin-stockpiling-gold-2012-09-05?pagenumber=1
Germany Says ‘Great Uncertainty’ About US Debt
“German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble questioned on Tuesday how the U.S. could deal with its high levels of government debt after November’s presidential election.
In a speech to the Bundestag lower house of parliament to open a debate on the 2013 German budget, Schaeuble said worries about U.S. debt were a burden for the global economy, hitting back at Washington which has criticized Europe for failing to get a grip on its own debt crisis.
In private, German officials often express concern about U.S. debt levels and the inability of politicians there to reach a consensus on how to reduce it, but Schaeuble’s public remarks underscore the extent of the worries in Germany.
“Ahead of the election in the United States there is great uncertainty about the course American politics will take in dealing the U.S. government’s debts, which are much too high,” Schaeuble said. “We need to remind ourselves of that sometimes and the global economy knows that and is burdened by it.”
A weak economy and political gridlock in Washington have prevented meaningful debt reduction in the U.S., which has run budget deficits topping $1 trillion for three straight years.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48982485
Complicit Media:
Obama’s Security Breach In Libya Is Ignored By American Media
“As the liberal American press and ultra-liberal bloggers inundate the Internet and newsprints with criticisms of what Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential challenger to President Barack Obama, said about Obama during the Libyan attacks and murders, throngs of foreign press and few American outlets tell the real story involved with the White House’s role in the incidents that we now know could have been prevented.
After the American media grabbed and held the pro-Obama headlines against Romney’s comments and took Obama’s “Romney shoots first and aims second” quote to iconic proportions, the rest of the world is reporting that the Obama administration knew about the planned-attack on the Benghazi, Libya Embassy where four Americans, including United States Ambassador Christopher Steven was murdered.
That strong allegation needs to be “the story”, not the political-trouncing of Mitt Romney, a man who has nothing to do with the White House, the U.S. Embassy, or the deadly and non-deadly attacks on our United States Embassy’s around the world. “The story” obviously involves the White House and the president within – Barack Obama – not the Massachusetts challenger.”
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/09/17/obamas-security-breach-in-libya-is-ignored-by-american-media/
Millions in taxpayer money used to place Obamacare propaganda in TV shows
“Before the Democrat-led Congress voted to approve President Obama’s healthcare “reform” law, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California declared, “…We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.”
Never before in recent memory has a sitting House speaker demonstrated such disregard for the public’s right to know regarding a massive new entitlement, what it meant to them, what it would eventually cost and, most importantly, its impact on American society.
Now, some two-and-a-half years later, with most public opinion polls still showing that a majority of voters dislike Obamacare, Americans are going to be spoon-fed propaganda regarding the law’s “benefits,” while of course the law’s negative effects (on employment, on business expansion, on the ability of the healthcare system to even handle the coming tsunami of new patients) will be ignored or downplayed.
What’s more, you’re going to be paying for this propaganda.”
http://www.naturalnews.com/037248_Obamacare_propaganda_TV_shows.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/15/health/policy/california-tries-to-lead-way-on-health-law.html?pagewanted=all
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2012/09/15/propaganda-update-tv-networks-will-be-asked-boost-obamacare-plots-their-
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/10/video-of-the-week-we-have-to-pass-the-bill-so-you-can-find-out-what-is-in-it/
RELATED:
U.S. Distrust in Media Hits New High
“Americans’ distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004.
The record distrust in the media, based on a survey conducted Sept. 6-9, 2012, also means that negativity toward the media is at an all-time high for a presidential election year. This reflects the continuation of a pattern in which negativity increases every election year compared with the year prior. The current gap between negative and positive views — 20 percentage points — is by far the highest Gallup has recorded since it began regularly asking the question in the 1990s. Trust in the media was much higher, and more positive than negative, in the years prior to 2004 — as high as 72% when Gallup asked this question three times in the 1970s.
This year’s decline in media trust is driven by independents and Republicans. The 31% and 26%, respectively, who express a great deal or fair amount of trust are record lows and are down significantly from last year. Republicans’ level of trust this year is similar to what they expressed in the fall of 2008, implying that they are especially critical of election coverage.
Independents are sharply more negative compared with 2008, suggesting the group that is most closely divided between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney is quite dissatisfied with its ability to get fair and accurate news coverage of this election.”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/u-s-distrust-in-media-hits-new-high.html
http://www.gallup.com/poll/157589/distrust-media-hits-new-high.aspx
http://www.gallup.com/poll/154559/US-Presidential-Election-Center.aspx
Food and Finance:
Dawn of a new depression – Half of U.S. counties now designated disaster areas, financial fallout undeniable
“Persistent and unrelenting drought conditions across much of the nation have all but destroyed about half of the entire corn crop for this year. And according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA), a whopping 50 percent of the nation’s counties are now considered to be disaster areas as a result of extreme weather conditions, which has prompted the federal government to make some significant policy changes in order to help prevent many farmers and ranchers from going under.
After compiling the latest available data from the official U.S. Drought Monitor, the USDA decided it was best to add another 218 counties to its official list of counties considered to be disaster areas. The new total, as a result of this addition, comes to a shocking 1,584 counties in 32 states that are now essentially unfit to grow crops this year due to lack of water. And if existing conditions persist, much of this year’s crop of corn, soy, and other staple foods will likely completely wither and die.”
http://www.naturalnews.com/037253_drought_disaster_areas_extreme_weather.html
http://news.yahoo.com/half-us-counties-now-considered-disaster-areas-210826921.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/usda-alert-half-of-u-s-counties-designated-primary-disaster-areas-financial-fallout-%E2%80%9Cintensifying%E2%80%9D.html
Agenda 21:
U.N.-Backed Agenda 21 Angers Many in Texas
“A Lubbock County judge’s comments last week that President Obama might cede U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations and spark a civil war have been widely ridiculed. But concerns about U.N. overreach are gaining ground, with the attacks mostly focused on a 20-year-old nonbinding U.N. resolution called Agenda 21.
Texas critics of the resolution have seen their fears echoed by activists at city council meetings around the state and adopted by some of the state’s Republican leaders.
Agenda 21 was signed by more than 170 countries, including the U.S., in 1992 and aims to encourage governments to promote environmentally friendly development such as preserving open spaces and discouraging urban sprawl. A variety of organizations around the world promote similar principles.
Such issues have become of particular concern in fast-growing Texas. Many regions are struggling to integrate a steady stream of new residents while avoiding gridlocked roads and retaining communities’ character.
Critics of Agenda 21 view it as a sinister effort by an international organization to tell communities what to do and a blatant infringement on private property rights.”
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-environmental-news/environmental-problems-and-policies/fears-un-backed-agenda-21-spark-anger-across-texas/
Lubbock Judge: Obama Re-election Could Prompt Civil War
“A Lubbock County judge is making headlines after suggesting that President Obama might hand over sovereignty of the United States to the United Nations, possibly igniting in a civil war.
In an interview with Fox 34 News in Lubbock, County Judge Tom Head said that if re-elected, Obama was “going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the U.N. Okay, what’s going to happen when that happens? I’m thinking worst case scenario here. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. We’re not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations. We’re talking Lexington-Concord take up arms and get rid of the guy.”
Head suggested that the region needed to establish a contingency plan.
Obama’s “going to send in U.N. troops, with the little blue beanies,” Head added. “I don’t want them in Lubbock County, so I’m going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say ‘You’re not coming in here.’ And the sheriff, I’ve already asked him, I said ‘You gonna back me?’ he said, ‘Yeah, I’ll back you.’”
Head later clarified his comments to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, saying he was taken out of context, but that as the county’s emergency management director, “I have to think of the worst-case scenario, and I used that as an example yesterday.””
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-courts/texas-judicial-system/county-judge-civil-war-could-ensue-obama-re-electe/
Agenda 21: A Sustained Attack On Property Rights
“In a video produced by Infowars Nightly News journalists Aaron Dykes and Melissa Melton, University of Texas professor Dean Almy attempts to downplay one of the central tenets of the United Nations’ Agenda 21 – property confiscation.
Almy argues that the word “collective” used by the Agenda 21 crowd is not some sort of Soviet buzzword. It’s simply people getting together to make decisions about their communities.
But despite his attempt to soften the blow of collectivism and make it more palatable and less threatening, Almy told the Texas Tribune in August that the “collective good” should rule over the rights of the individual.
“It’s changing the status quo of how we operate as a country that is developing, and so it’s threatening to some people,” Almy said. “Urban design by its nature is about the collective good, and it isn’t necessarily about the freedom of any one person to do whatever the hell they want.”
Almy’s remark and the entire philosophy of Agenda 21 represent a frontal assault on the very cornerstone of our republic – property rights and the natural right of free individuals to “do whatever the hell they want” so long as they do not infringe on the rights of other individuals.
For the men who framed the Constitution, the right to property was paramount. It was the foundation of all other rights. Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier write in Decision in Philadelphia that the founders had “an almost religious respect” for property, declared “the rights of property were inviolable” and regarded the Constitution as the embodiment of property rights.
So important was the ideal of property rights to the founders, they addressed it in the Federalist Papers nine times as often as they did voting rights, speech rights, privacy rights, religious rights, and press rights combined.”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/agenda-21-a-sustained-attack-on-property-rights.html
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-environmental-news/environmental-problems-and-policies/fears-un-backed-agenda-21-spark-anger-across-texas/
RELATED:
Property Rights, Freedom, and the Constitution
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0811e.asp
Police State:
Society now criminalizing parents that allow children to play in the yard – What is the world coming to?
“A Virginia mother was recently interrogated four times by police, and visited twice by social services, after neighbors spotted the mother’s children playing in their own yard unsupervised, and decided to report the non-incident to local authorities. According to Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids, such hysteria and Stasi-style paranoia are becoming the norm in America, where children are being excessively coddled, overprotected, and treated as though they are always in grave danger of being kidnapped or harmed
… “What’s happening … is parents who let their children play outside, walk to school, or go to the grocery (store) for them often have neighbors who turn them in, supposedly out of concern … and what happens is Child Protective Services (CPS) is obligated to come and check out whether or not these parents are being negligent, or worse abusive,” says Skenazy, who receives calls all the time from parents that are being persecuted by law enforcement for allowing their kids to play outside.
“What has happened is that the parents are found wrong by the police or CPS for leaving their children in what CPS calls ‘a dangerous situation,’ which I would call a ‘normal, nice situation.’ In fact, less dangerous than just letting your kids sit inside all day getting fat and diabetic, you let your kids run outside or have some independent adventures, that’s considered bad parenting now.”
… Just a few days ago, for instance, Tammy Cooper of La Porte, Texas, was actually handcuffed and arrested for allowing her children to play outside on their motorized scooters in the family’s cul-de-sac. Cooper was forced to spend the night in jail for this non-crime, despite the fact that she had been outside with her two children watching them the entire time. (http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/143276/mom_arrested_sent_to_jail)”
http://www.naturalnews.com/037209_children_at_play_parents_criminalization.html
http://www.freerangekids.com/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/mother-harassed-by-cps-for-having-free-range-children.html
Drones:
Cyborg cockroaches under development as spy weapons; media pushes them as ‘safety’ cyborgs
“Few of us tolerate the presence of roaches in our homes and places of business, but researchers and the media are now telling us that, in certain circumstances, roaches might be our best friends because they’ll keep us “safe.”
A new video produced by North Carolina State University’s iBionics Laboratory shows how the bugs can be “surgically transformed into remote-controlled ‘biobots’ that could help locate earthquake survivors in hard-to-access areas,” according to National Geographic News.
No doubt then that these creatures can be transformed into loathsome little spybots as well, but more on that in a moment.
In the video, researchers demonstrate how their transformed roaches can be “steered” very precisely”
http://www.naturalnews.com/037250_cockroaches_spy_weapons_cyborgs.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/09/120907-cyborg-cockroaches-video-science-remote-control-robots-bugs/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/remote-control-cockroaches-biobots-search-rescue_n_1865084.html
http://web.ncsu.edu/abstract/science/wms-cockroach-steering/
TSA Again:
Congress confirms TSA is lawless, rogue agency that endangers the health and dignity of Americans
“(NaturalNews) A new report by House Republican members of the Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on Transportation Security essentially confirms what many Americans have known for years: The Transportation Security Administration is inept, overly burdensome to the transportation industry and largely ineffective in terms of identifying future threats.
In classic understatement fashion the report, titled, “Rebuilding TSA into a Smarter, Leaner Organization,” concluded that “despite the reality that we have not endured another successful terrorist attack since 2001, TSA is failing to meet taxpayers’ expectations.”
The panel went on to to concede that bloated, all-powerful agency’s insensitivity and obsession with defending grossly unpopular screening procedures is actually acting as an impediment to security – procedures and policies that also do not match current threat levels.
“The agency has gone down a troubling path of overspending, limiting private-sector engagement, and failing to sufficiently protect passenger privacy,” said Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the subcommittee chairman, in announcing the report last week.
… “Eleven years after 9/11, the American people expect to see tangible progress in transportation security, with effective operations that respect both their privacy and their wallets,” the committee report says. “The private sector is best suited to this challenge, not the federal government.”
… The report also said the TSA has not made clear why it decided to switch to a policy of invasive “enhanced” pat-downs, for example, or what kind of threat that procedure is designed to address.
“Pat-downs have hit a nerve with the general public, and TSA has failed to adequately explain why it continues to use this procedure two years after its initial roll-out,” the committee’s report says
…
“From the field to headquarters, TSA has held on strongly to its ‘government knows best’
mentality. In part, this approach is supported by those who try to argue that TSA was created to do the job the private sector failed to do on 9/11,” said the report.
“However, there is a crucial fact missing from that argument, which is that the layered security measures and government oversight that exists today did not exist in the airport environment before 9/11 when contractors performed screening functions. More importantly, even though the government quickly federalized aviation security and the screening workforce after 9/11, it does not mean it is the best approach for us today,” it added.”
No Comment