First Amendment

Today at 1pm the real circus starts. From the House Committee on the Judiciary: "On Wednesday, May 15 at 1:00 p.m., Attorney General Eric Holder will testify before the House Judiciary Committee for an oversight hearing on the U.S. Department of Justice.  The hearing will focus on the Justice Department obtaining two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press, the unwarranted targeting of conservative groups by the IRS, the recent bombings in Boston, wasteful spending at the Justice Department, and troubling allegations of the politicization of the Justice Department under Attorney General Holder’s leadership."

And so the final curtain falls on the myth of what was supposed to be, in its own words, the "most transparent administration" in history. As it turns out, the big Friday story of Bloomberg journalists snooping on clients was just amateur hour compared to what the AP was about to serve. In fact, the Watergate affair may soon appear like a walk in the park compared to the First Amendment shitstorm that is about to be unleashed following the just reported news that the US Department of Justice had "secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news." First amendment? Freedom of speech and press? Surely not when it comes to the Nobel-peace prize winning President and those who dare to expose his secret ways. And what's worst, is that the AP breach has all the makings of a spiteful hack driven by personal vengeance against one of America's premier news outlets.

In America, our cultural method of debate tends to divide individual issues into carefully separated spheres of discussion. This hyperfocus on single issues, from gun rights to illegal wars to invasion of privacy, draws us away from looking at the bigger interconnected picture, otherwise known as the “macro.” Each social or political conflict is compartmentalized by the mainstream, the dots are left isolated and the overwhelming overall threat to our foundational principles is marginalized. The problem with this civic philosophy is that the general public is left without peripheral vision and unequipped to comprehend that there is a process in motion, an overarching plan that is eating away at the edges of our liberty from every angle, one small piece at a time. That is to say, we have been conditioned to obsess over the pieces and ignore the plan.

What does it take for the Spanish "first amendment" journalistic override to kick in? Apparently, in the case of local media leader El Pais, putting up the following in print: "Merkel, como Hitler, ha declarado la guerra al resto del continente, ahora para garantizarse su espacio vital económico." For the Spanish-challeneged this translates as follows: "Merkel, like Hitler, has declared war on the rest of the continent now to secure their economic living space." Ah yes, the touchy verboten topic of German "Lebensraum" - its invocation, and ostensibly the unflattering Merkel comparison (seen so often in Greece) were enough to get the article by Juan Torres López in the Andalusia version of El Pais titled simply enough "Alemania contra Europa" taken down.

The developed world has now become a fully operational Something-for-Nothing society. Once a Something-for-Nothing psychology has been fully implemented the majority of its citizens have become the functional equivalent of LOCUSTS! 

Unable and unwilling (they no longer have the skills to make the wages they believe they are entitled to) to produce more than they consume and support themselves they set off the consume those that do to FEED on and SUPPORT themselves. The TAKERS or WEALTH EAT the MAKERS of WEALTH, Cannibalism of the worst sort.

How Many Constitutional Freedoms Do We Still Have?

Governments Move to Destroy Online Anonymity ... Google Helps

This New York Times Op Ed by Louis Michael Seidman, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University, is one of the most absurd and dangerous articles I have read in a very long time. This guy’s incredible conclusion is that it is the Constitution of the United States itself that is causing all that ails the nation at this time.  Not once did I read about the Federal Reserve, or the “war on terror,” or the banker bailouts, or the complete destruction of the rule of law in recent years.  Nope, none of that.  Instead, this scholar’s conclusion is that the founding document, which created the fertile breeding ground for freedom and free markets and led to tens of millions of people to flee to from all corners of the globe, is the problem.

This is not junk mail...

While the US is caught in a rancorous debate over allowing the government to define just what was and wasn't meant by the Second amendment, and how best to limit it and give the government even more powers, China is more focused on its version of the First. Because on Wednesday we reported that in its attempt to make the Internet "healthier, more cultured and safer" and to curb what Chinese regulators dub "rumors and vulgarity" it would pass a law making internet anonymity impossible. Sure enough, said proposal has now been enacted into law, which just happens to also ensure that the First amendment is never an issue China has to worry about. Per Reuters: "China unveiled tighter Internet controls on Friday, legalizing the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain "illegal" information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment. The rules signal that the new leadership headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will continue muzzling the often scathing, raucous online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for debate." So much for reform. And so much for a democratic definition of what constitutes "illegal" information. But fear not: like in China, once the various US amendments start seeing encroaching government "redefinition" ultimately they it will be the First's turn. Alas, by then it will be too late: any complaints will by then be deemed "illegal" too.

Just over a week ago, we wrote of the challenge to Obama's NDAA totalitarian bill. Hope remained that Chris Hedges' view of the indefinite detention as "unforgivable, unconstitutional, and exceedingly dangerous" would bolster judgment. However, as Russia Today reports, a lone appeals judge bowed down to the Obama administration late Monday and reauthorized the White House's ability to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or due process. On Monday, the US Justice Department asked for an emergency stay on the previous Chris Hedges'-driven order, and hours later US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Judge Raymond Lohier agreed to intervene and place a hold on the injunction. The stay will remain in effect until at least September 28, when a three-judge appeals court panel is expected to begin addressing the issue. It would appear the total fascist takeover of Amerika is drawing nearer by the day.

Back in January, Pulitzer winning journalist Chris Hedges sued President Obama and the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act, specifically challenging the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force or, the provision that authorizes military detention for people deemed to have "substantially supported" al Qaeda, the Taliban or "associated forces." Hedges called the president's action allowing indefinite detention, which was signed into law with little opposition from either party "unforgivable, unconstitutional and exceedingly dangerous." He attacked point blank the civil rights farce that is the neverending "war on terror" conducted by both parties, targetting whom exactly is unclear, but certainly attaining ever more intense retaliation from foreigners such as the furious attacks against the US consulates in Egypt and Libya. He asked  "why do U.S. citizens now need to be specifically singled out for military detention and denial of due process when under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force the president can apparently find the legal cover to serve as judge, jury and executioner to assassinate U.S. citizens." A few months later, in May, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest ruled in favor of a temporary injunction blocking the enforcement of the authorization for military detention. Today, the war againt the true totalitarian terror won a decisive battle, when in a 112-opinion, Judge Forrest turned the temporary injunction, following an appeal by the totalitarian government from August 6, into a permanent one.

What Do Mental Health Professionals Say About Those Who Question 9/11?

We already know that the National Security Agency will soon capture all communications — phone calls, search histories, web history, e-mails, passwords, etc — in their Utah data centre. In Britain, a dangerous precedent is being set. "A teenager arrested over a malicious tweet sent to Team GB diver Tom Daley has been issued with a warning. Dorset Police said the 17-year-old boy was held at a guest house in the Weymouth area on suspicion of malicious communications and later bailed. After coming fourth in the men’s synchronised 10m platform diving event on Monday, Daley, 18, from Plymouth received a message on Twitter. It told him he had let down his father Rob, who died in 2011 from cancer." Arrested and cautioned for expressing an opinion. Not for threatening violence. Not even for racial or sexual abuse — as happened in March when a student was convicted of incitement to racial hatred after he tweeted a series of racial slurs. Just for expressing an opinion that the authorities found to be distasteful.  I admit, it was a distasteful comment. But the idea that the government should arrest the person who made it is far, far, far more distasteful still. Meanwhile, the number of bankers arrested for rigging LIBOR remains at zero.

Another attempt by the Fraudclosure industry to steal a home in the name of the wrong "bank"