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Sunday, May 27, 2012

America's path? The bigger the government is the smaller the citizen

30 North Korean officials involved in South talks die 'in traffic accidents'

Thirty officials of the North Korean regime who were involved in talks with South Korea have been executed or died in "staged traffic accidents," according to a human rights report.

Shin Dong-hyuk poses with book Escape from Camp 14

Shin Dong-hyuk poses with book Escape from Camp 14: In 2005, Shin escaped North Korea's Camp 14, a prison holding political enemies of the state Photo: REUTERS

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo

In its annual study, Amnesty International claimed that in addition to the 30 who died in purges last year, a further 200 were rounded up in January this year by the State Security Agency as Pyongyang carried out the transfer of power from Kim Jong-il, who died of an apparent heart attack in December, and his 29-year-old son, Kim Jong-un.

Of those 200, Amnesty said, some were apparently executed and the remainder were sent to political prison camps. The gulag system presently contains an estimated 200,000 people in "horrific conditions," the group said.


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North Korea has a habit of executing bureaucrats who are perceived to have failed the regime, even though they are often merely carrying out the orders of higher-ranking officials or members of the ruling family.

In 2010, Pak Nam-gi, the former head of the finance department of the Workers' Party, was reportedly executed by firing squad for the catastrophic attempt to reform the impoverished nation's currency. The result was rampant inflation and food shortages became even more acute.

The 30 men executed for failing to improve Pyongyang's ties with Seoul are considered scapegoats for the new low point in inter-Korean ties.

HALF U.S. HOMES ON GOV'T DOLE: As the communist buy America

The irony is that they are using our money to do it, we are funding our own demise.

We had a chance to stop them cold with Sen Joe McCarthy’s investigation into communist infiltration but the Luciferian bankster cartel, who created communism, was able to discredit the Senator and the investigation through through deception with their control of the media.

Can they be stopped now? I don’t think so without divine intervention, but we have strayed so far from God it’s hard to see that happening. Maybe He’ll take into consideration the fact that we didn’t just stray away but we were led away by a devious plan from the pit of hell itself.

May God have mercy on us!

Number of the Week: Half of U.S. Lives in Household Getting Benefits

By Phil Izzo

49.1%: Percent of the population that lives in a household where at least one member received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2011.

Cutting government spending is no easy task, and it’s made more complicated by recent Census Bureau data showing that nearly half of the people in the U.S. live in a household that receives at least one government benefit, and many likely received more than one.

The 49.1% of the population in a household that gets benefits is up from 30% in the early 1980s and 44.4% as recently as the third quarter of 2008.

The increase in recent years is likely due in large part to the lingering effects of the recession. As of early 2011, 15% of people lived in a household that received food stamps, 26% had someone enrolled in Medicaid and 2% had a member receiving unemployment benefits. Families doubling up to save money or pool expenses also is likely leading to more multigenerational households. But even without the effects of the recession, there would be a larger reliance on government.

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The Census data show that 16% of the population lives in a household where at least one member receives Social Security and 15% receive or live with someone who gets Medicare. There is likely a lot of overlap, since Social Security and Medicare tend to go hand in hand, but those percentages also are likely to increase as the Baby Boom generation ages.

With increased government spending comes the need to pay for it, and if taxes aren’t going to increase that means deficits. Nearly three-quarters of Americans blame the U.S. budget deficit on spending too much money on federal programs, according to a Gallup poll last year, but when the conversation turns to which programs to cut, the majorities are harder to find. For example, 56% of respondents oppose making significant changes to Social Security or Medicare.

The more people who receive benefits, the harder it’s going to be to make cuts, and it’s never popular to raise taxes. In some respects that argues for letting a combination of tax increases and spending cuts that is set to automatically hit in 2013 take effect. There’s just one problem: the Congressional Budget Office says it would sink the economy into recession.

Letting the 2013 provisions come into force would be like dealing with a weight problem by cutting off your right arm. It may not be popular, but a long-term, well-planned diet is the only solution.

Obama campaign chair partnered with Bain-like firm

Obama’s ties to private equity reshape his campaign pitch

By Neil Munro

President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally at the Paul R. Knapp Animal learning center, Thursday, May 24, 2012 in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

One of President Barack Obama’s 35 campaign “co-chairs” partnered with a private equity firm frequently decried by progressives — Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) — to lay off workers at Del Monte Food Company.

The revelation underscores the difficulty that Obama faces while trying to simultaneously slam Gov. Mitt Romney’s investment career and also spur donations from the many wealthy Democrats in the investment sector.

After complaints from several Democrats, including Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Obama has changed his campaign-trail rhetoric and is now arguing that private equity investors are selfish and can be useful contributors to the economy, but that their skills aren’t useful in the White House.

In private equity business, “investors walk off with big returns, and working folks get stuck holding the bag. … That’s fine,” Obama told cheering donors at a May 24 De Moines, Iowa fundraiser.

“But that’s not the job of a president. That’s not the president’s job. There may be value for that kind of experience, but it’s not in the White House,” he declared.

Obama’s public relations problem is exacerbated by Federico Pena, who is a co-chair of Obama’s campaign, a former mayor of Denver, a cabinet secretary for President Bill Clinton, and a “senior adviser” at Vestar Capital Partners, which allied with Kohlberg Kravis to buy Del Monte in March 2011.

Since then, the new management team has announced plans to lay off at least 135 full-time Del Monte workers in California and Pennsylvania, plus 1,000 seasonal workers in a California fruit-packing plant.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/25/obamas-ties-to-private-equity-reshape-his-campaign-pitch/#ixzz1w1VZWH4K

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Dope-head Obama and His Pot-Smoking ‘Choom Gang’

But who cares, he’s only the president of the United States…and he’s not a conservative.


Obama Pot-Smoking 'Choom Gang'...

ap Barack obama high school nt 120525 wblog Obama and His Pot Smoking Choom Gang

Young Barack Obama

Unlike Bill Clinton, Barack Obama never tried to say he didn’t inhale.

In his 1995 memoir “Dreams of My Father,” Obama writes about smoking pot almost like Dr. Seuss wrote about eating green eggs and ham. As a high school kid, Obama wrote, he would smoke “in a white classmate’s sparkling new van,” he would smoke “in the dorm room of some brother” and he would smoke “on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids.”

He would smoke it here and there. He would smoke it anywhere.

Now a soon-to-be published biography by David Maraniss entitled “Barack Obama: The Story” gives more detail on Obama’s pot-smoking days, complete with testimonials from young Barry Obama’s high school buddies, a group that went by the name “the Choom Gang.” Choom was slang for smoking marijuana.

Maraniss portrays the teenage Obama as not just a pot smoker, but a pot-smoking innovator.

“As a member of the Choom Gang,” Maraniss writes, “Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends.”

The first Obama-inspired trend: “Total Absorption” or “TA”.

“TA was the opposite of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled,” explains Maraniss. Here’s how it worked: If you exhaled prematurely when you were with the Choom Gang, “you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around.”

As one of Obama’s old high school buddies tells Maraniss: “Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated.”

Another Obama innovation: “Roof Hits.”

“When they were chooming in a car all the windows had to be rolled up so no smoke blew out and went to waste; when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.”

Maraniss also says Obama was known for his “Interceptions”: “When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted ‘Intercepted!,’ and took an extra hit.”

Although Obama himself wrote that he and his pot smoking buddies were a “club of disaffection,” Maraniss says that’s not really true.

“In fact, most members of the Choom Gang were decent students and athletes who went on to successful and productive lawyers, writers and businessmen,” Maraniss writes. One notable exception was Ray, the group’s pot dealer who, known for his ability “to score quality bud,” would years later be killed by a scorned gay lover armed with a ball-peen hammer.

Obama himself managed to be a pretty good student despite all the pot smoking and unconventional study habits.

“He told his Choom Gang mates that the trick was if you put the textbook under your pillow the night before you would perform better on an exam,” Maraniss writes. No way, dude!

Back to the pot smoking.

Hawaii of the early 1970s was something of a pot-smoking Mecca.

“It was sold and smoked right there in front of your nose; Maui Wowie, Kauai Electric, Puna Bud, Kona Gold, and other local variations of pakalolo were readily available,” writes Maraniss.

Obama’s pal Mark Bendix had a Volkswagen microbus known as “the Choomwagon.” They would often drive up Honolulu’s Mount Tantalus where they parked “turned up their stereos playing Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult and Stevie Wonder, lit up some ‘sweet-sticky Hawaiian buds’ and washed it down with ‘green bottled beer’ (the Choom Gang preferred Heineken, Becks, and St. Pauli Girl). No shouting, no violence, no fights; they even cleaned up their beer bottles.”

Of course, smoking, drinking and driving on mountain roads could also be a little dangerous. Especially the night they tried drag racing.

The race to the top of Mount Tantalus pitted the “Choomwagon” against another friend’s Toyota. Obama was in the Toyota. The Choomwagon made it to the top first. When the other car didn’t show up, those in the Choomwagon drove back down to find them. Here’s how Maraniss describes what happened next:

“On the way down, they saw a figure who appeared to be staggering up the road. It was Barry Obama. What was going on? As they drew closer, they noticed that he was laughing so hard he could barely stand up.”

His friend had rolled the car. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. And, amazingly, they avoided trouble by leaving the driver alone to deal with the police by claiming it was just an unfortunate “mishap.”

Maraniss concludes his chapter on Obama’s high school years by looking at a note Obama had written in his high school yearbook in a section reserved for students to give a line or two giving thanks to those who helped along the way.

Obama had written this: “Thanks Tut [his grandmother], Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times.”

Maraniss notes: “Ray was the older guy who hung around the Choom Gang, selling them pot. A hippie drug dealer made his acknowledgements; his mother did not.”

The White House told ABC News that it has no comment.

See more photos of Barack Obama as a child and teen HERE.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Will the economy crash next week, next month, or…Stock up on food and save 25%

Dear Friends,

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I didn’t get into it for business purposes but I think it’s such a good idea that I want to offer it to you. Stock up and prepare your family for the worst. If you sign up under me that would be great, you can buy at wholesale prices too, but the important thing is to get prepared. There are other companies but I tried this one and I like it. GoFoods has a special this weekend:

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All you need is to add hot water and enjoy delicious and nutritious emergency food that can last up to 25 years.

Obama hiring foreign students while American teens go jobless this summer

Idle hands are the devils workshop. That’s what Obama is counting on as he ratchets up his class and race wars this summer.

Some believe they are schemes to get him reelected and some believe they are schemes to allow him to declare martial law.

How about you, what do you believe?

DC unemployment rate at 51.7%; CA, 36.2%...
Obama administration hires students -- from other countries!


ANOTHER JOBLESS SUMMER FOR TEENS

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What the blank is this? Trayvon Martin Day?

You can’t make this stuff up:

Every adult would get an Arizona Iced Tea and each student a bag of Skittles…

Trayvon Martin Day declared at DC school

By John Gonzalez May 25, 2012 - 06:56 am

We may never know exactly how or why young Trayvon Martin was killed that dark February night in Sanford, Fla., but the slaying which has provoked nationwide protests has now prompted something even more unique nearly 900 miles away.

In an effort to better educate students and their parents about race relations and social injustice, a D.C. elementary school has declared Friday “Trayvon Martin Day.”

Teachers at Malcolm X Elementary in Southeast are using the unfolding case and the story surrounding Martin as part of their "Let's Keep Our Children Safe" seminar.

Malcolm X Elementary Principal J. Harrison Coleman says that she hopes the lesson will help reduce the needless violence and bullying in the community.

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"The children at Malcolm X know the name Trayvon Martin," Coleman said. "They know the incident. They know because of what they see in the news and what they experience every day."

Coleman said that every adult who attended the seminar would receive an Arizona Iced Tea and each student would get a bag of Skittles.

Race war anyone?

I hope people don’t take the bait. I don’t think most Americans are. I think most blacks are turned off by Obama’s attempt to incite racial division just as most whites are but the loudmouths and the urban youths are the ones I’m worried about.

We’ve seen with the Rodney King incident what can happen when the media devotes 24/7 slanted coverage to an issue.

The same thing on a smaller scale happened with the Trayvon Martin shooting. They would still be playing it up were it not for overwhelming evidence that Mr. Zimmerman’s version of the story is true and that race had nothing to do with it. 

Is Obama Encouraging The Rise Of The New Black Panthers?

May 24, 2012 By Michael J. Nellett
New Black Panther Fundraiser SC Is Obama Encouraging the Rise of The New Black Panthers?

“Field Marshall” Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party comes out and says that we whites are lucky we are not hanging by nooses, and not a peep from Obama’s Justice Department? Do you remember when a white cop was paraded in front of the national news media for having “disrespected” a black college professor? Equal justice under the law? A black teacher in North Carolina threatens a student with arrest for “slandering (disagreeing with) President Obama’s campaign ad attacking Mitt Romney and berates him severely in class. Equal protection under the law? The teacher got suspended….big deal! She should have been fired and never allowed in a classroom again.

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Obama weighed in on the Trayvon Martin case BEFORE all the evidence was even in. Why? The President of the United States has nothing better to do than to involve himself in an alleged criminal case in which no one at the time had been formally charged. What Obama succeeded in doing was inflaming black anger that another black kid had been “savagely gunned down like a dog in the streets.” This comment was uttered by Congresswoman Fredrika Wilson, who was never chastised by either Obama or any Democrat for making that stupid remark. Remember the Republican congressman who called Obama a liar during his State of the Union message a year or two ago? The fury over that would have made you think that he had slapped the President instead of merely chastizing him verbally. Equal justice under the law, Mr. President?

The New Black Panther Party overtly commits voter intimidation by carrying a baton and making verbal threats to those trying to vote. All the SOCIALIST PROGRESSIVE talking heads on the news channels claim there is no voter fraud in the United States? How come Obama’s Justice Department only gave these guys a slap on the wrist that changed nothing? Equal protection under the law, Mr. Obama? I suppose if Holder’s department would have actually talked to the people that were there, things might have been different, but why let the truth get in the way of your agenda?

Two white reporters are attacked by a black mob in Virginia, and their own newspaper doesn’t even report it until 2 weeks later. It only comes out when Bill O’Reilly ( of the hated Fox News Channel) brought it out into the light. Again, where’s the Justice Department? Hate crime anybody? A white man gets beaten severely by a mob of black parents for trying to clear the street in front of his house….yep you guessed it, no Justice Department! Equal protection under the law, Mr. Obama?

It has been reported many times that Obama is just waiting to declare Martial Law just before the elections so that he can suspend them and remain in office indefinitely. I don’t know if I really believe that, but one thing does nag at me. Is Obama stoking racial emotions in order to make the scenario a reality so that he can execute this supposed plan? Black anger is simmering over very slowly, but does Obama really believe that non-blacks are going to sit idly by and refuse to defend themselves or others? I sincerely hope that is NOT the case. This country has enough serious problems without racial tensions being fanned for political reasons. The rhetoric from the New Black Panther Party needs to stop now! The incendiary remarks coming from some black members of Congress needs to stop as well.

Equal protection under the law means that every legal citizen in this country is entitled to be free of intimidation, harassment ,assault, and threats, Mr. President, no matter what color they are. The non-action taken by Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. is just another reason the man either needs to resign or be forced from office. We had all better hope that the long hot summer ahead is because of the weather. Too many good people will suffer if it’s not.

Obama shill at NBC proves birth certificate forged and doesn’t even realize it

NBC Unintentionally Proves Obama Birth Certificate Tampered With

May 24, 2012 By Floyd Brown

The media is so concerned with protecting Obama they can’t even see the evidence they hold in their own hands.

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Read More:

  1. Obama Jokes About His Fake Birth Certificate At WH Event Barack Obama is a brazen criminal. He is so protected...
  2. Sheriff Joe Arpaio: Obama Birth Certificate Fraud Is 10 Times Worse Than Watergate Sheriff Joe Arpaio, in an interview with Mark Gillar of...
  3. Arpaio News Conference Video 4 On Obama Birth Certificate And Optimization To see more videos and the entire conference, use the...
  4. Arpaio News Conference Video 3 On Obama Birth Certificate And OCR Software To see more videos and the entire conference, use the...
  5. Arpaio News Conference Video 1 On Obama Birth Certificate Regular Scan To see more videos and the entire conference, use the...

Texas school district to track students via chips in IDs

Students to be tracked via microchips implanted in IDs

Francisco Var, Express-News By Francisco Vara-Orta

Northside Independent School District plans to track students next year on two of its campuses using technology implanted in their student identification cards in a trial that could eventually include all 112 of its schools and all of its nearly 100,000 students.

District officials said the Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) tags would improve safety by allowing them to locate students — and count them more accurately at the beginning of the school day to help offset cuts in state funding, which is partly based on attendance.

Northside, the largest school district in Bexar County, plans to modify the ID cards next year for all students attending John Jay High School, Anson Jones Middle School and all special education students who ride district buses. That will add up to about 6,290 students.

The school board unanimously approved the program late Tuesday but, in a rarity for Northside trustees, they hotly debated it first, with some questioning it on privacy grounds.

State officials and national school safety experts said the technology was introduced in the past decade but has not been widely adopted. Northside's deputy superintendent of administration, Brian Woods, who will take over as superintendent in July, defended the use of RFID chips at Tuesday's meeting, comparing it to security cameras. He stressed that the program is only a pilot and not permanent.

“We want to harness the power of (the) technology to make schools safer, know where our students are all the time in a school, and increase revenues,” district spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said. “Parents expect that we always know where their children are, and this technology will help us do that.”

Chip readers on campuses and on school buses can detect a student's location but can't track them once they leave school property. Only authorized administrative officials will have access to the information, Gonzalez said.

“This way we can see if a student is at the nurse's office or elsewhere on campus, when they normally are counted for attendance in first period,” he said.

Gonzalez said the district plans to send letters to parents whose students are getting the the RFID-tagged ID cards. He said officials understand that students could leave the card somewhere, throwing off the system. They cost $15 each, and if lost, a student will have to pay for a new one.

Parents interviewed outside Jay and Jones as they picked up their children Thursday were either supportive, skeptical or offended.

Veronica Valdorrinos said she would be OK if the school tracks her daughter, a senior at Jay, as she always fears for her safety. Ricardo and Juanita Roman, who have two daughters there, said they didn't like that Jay was targeted.

Gonzalez said the district picked schools with lower attendance rates and staff willing to pilot the tags.

Some parents said they understood the benefits but had reservations over privacy.

“I would hope teachers can help motivate students to be in their seats instead of the district having to do this,” said Margaret Luna, whose eighth-grade granddaughter at Jones will go to Jay next year. “But I guess this is what happens when you don't have enough money.”

The district plans to spend $525,065 to implement the pilot program and $136,005 per year to run it, but it will more than pay for itself, predicted Steve Bassett, Northside's assistant superintendent for budget and finance. If successful, Northside would get $1.7 million next year from both higher attendance and Medicaid reimbursements for busing special education students, he said.

But the payoff could be a lot bigger if the program goes districtwide, Bassett said.

He said the program was one way the growing district could respond to the Legislature's cuts in state education funding. Northside trimmed its budget last year by $61.4 million.

Two school districts in the Houston area — Spring and Santa Fe ISDs — have used the technology for several years and have reported gains of hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for improved attendance. Spring ISD spokeswoman Karen Garrison said the district, one-third the size of Northside, hasn't had any parent backlash.

In Tuesday's board debate, trustee M'Lissa M. Chumbley said she worried that parents might feel the technology violated their children's privacy rights. She didn't want administrators tracking teachers' every move if they end up outfitted with the tags, she added.

“I think this is overstepping our bounds and is inappropriate,” Chumbley said. “I'm honestly uncomfortable about this.”

Northside has to walk a tightrope in selling the idea to parents, some of whom could be turned off by the revenue incentive, said Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm.

The American Civil Liberties Union fought the use of the technology in 2005 at a rural elementary school in California and helped get the program canceled, said Kirsten Bokenkamp, an ACLU spokeswoman in Texas. She said concerns about the tags include privacy and the risks of identity theft or kidnapping if somebody hacks into the system.

Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said no state law or policy regulates the use of such devices and the decision is up to local districts.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

LOST finds it’s way in the senate again, and again, and again…

The globalists legislation is like vampires, evil beings that just won’t die and it’s just as damning for the land of the free.

Law of the Sea Treaty Is Found on Capitol Hill, Again

By MARK LANDLER Published: May 23, 2012

WASHINGTON — Senator Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican, joked that he was witnessing “sort of a Lazarus moment.” On that score, at least, Mr. Corker got no quarrel from his Democratic colleagues.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

Thirty years after it was signed in Montego Bay, Jamaica, the United Nations treaty that governs the world’s oceans is undergoing one of its periodic resurrections in Congress. A Senate committee on Wednesday summoned three top national security officials to make yet another plea for the agreement, in the face of narrow, but stubborn, opposition.

The Senate has never ratified the treaty, despite the support of Republican and Democratic presidents, the Pentagon, environmental advocates, the oil and gas industry — virtually anyone who deals “with oceans on a daily basis,” in the words of Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the Republican who recently lost a primary, who is a supporter.

So long has the “Law of the Sea” treaty been stalled on Capitol Hill that its opponents — a handful of conservative Republicans who view it as an infringement on American sovereignty — have taken to calling it “LOST, ” an uncharitable, if apt, acronym.

Now, though, Senator John F. Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, sees another chance to push through a treaty last debated in 2007. In the first of a series of hearings, he enlisted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to help make the case — allowing them to argue that the treaty is increasingly important to deal with such issues as fraught relations over the South China Sea.

The treaty, ratified by 162 states and the European Union, codifies rules for the use of the oceans and maritime resources. Among its provisions, it allows countries to exploit the continental shelf, in some cases extending more than 200 miles from shore.

“Whatever arguments may have existed for delaying U.S. accession no longer exist and truly cannot even be taken with a straight face,” Mrs. Clinton said, noting that some critics still seem to believe that because the treaty was negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations, “the black helicopters are on their way.”

By refusing to ratify the treaty, Mrs. Clinton said, the United States could fail to exploit untapped oil and gas deposits buried beneath the offshore seabed. It could lose out to Russia, Norway and other countries in staking claims to the Arctic Ocean, where melting ice is opening up untold mineral riches. And it could lose credibility in reining in China’s maritime ambitions in the South China Sea.

Mr. Panetta and General Dempsey zeroed in on the national security benefits, arguing that by instituting rules and a mechanism for resolving disputes, the treaty reduces the threat of conflict in hot spots like the South China Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has threatened to shut down in retaliation for oil sanctions.

“Frankly, I don’t think this is a close call,” Mr. Panetta said.

Several Republicans agree it is a clear choice: they say the treaty ought to be mothballed for good. Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, complained that under the terms of the agreement, the United States would have to transfer billions of dollars in royalties from oil and gas production on the continental shelf to an international authority, which would redistribute the money to less developed countries.

Senator James Risch of Idaho said it would oblige the United States to adhere to international agreements to stem greenhouse gas emissions. “That’s got Kyoto written all over it,” he said, referring to the climate change treaty rejected by the United States.

Mr. Risch seemed particularly rankled by Mrs. Clinton’s contention that the treaty’s opponents were driven by “ideology and mythology,” not facts. “I hope you weren’t scoffing at us,” he said. “I’m one of those that fall into that category.”

Mr. Corker, while saying he had an open mind, suggested that there was more than a bit of politics in the timing of the treaty’s reappearance. If Republicans win the Senate, Democrats would find it even harder to win approval in the next Congress.

Despite sending a marquee delegation to testify before Congress, the White House has not exactly championed the treaty, certainly not like the New Start arms reduction treaty with Russia, which was pushed ardently by President Obama.

For his part, Mr. Kerry promised to keep the debate away from the “hurly-burly of presidential politics” by delaying a vote until after the election. Still, for Mr. Kerry, whose name is on the shortlist of candidates to succeed Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state in any second Obama term, ratifying the Law of the Sea would be “a huge feather in his cap,” said Steven Groves, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, who has argued against the treaty.

Detroit’s Super Bowl commercials couldn’t save it from the toilet bowl

Detroit’s not back, not even half way as it has 60 percent fewer residents now than in 1950. MoTown is now LessTown!

Half of Detroit’s Streetlights May Go Out as City Shrinks

By Chris Christoff - May 24, 2012 12:06 PM ET

Stay In at Night as Lights Go Out

Detroit, whose 139 square miles contain 60 percent fewer residents than in 1950, will try to nudge them into a smaller living space by eliminating almost half its streetlights.

As it is, 40 percent of the 88,000 streetlights are broken and the city, whose finances are to be overseen by an appointed board, can’t afford to fix them. Mayor Dave Bing’s plan would create an authority to borrow $160 million to upgrade and reduce the number of streetlights to 46,000. Maintenance would be contracted out, saving the city $10 million a year.

Half of Detroit’s Lights Might Go Dark as City Shrinks Itself

Half of Detroit’s Lights Might Go Dark as City Shrinks Itself
Getty Images

Other U.S. cities have gone partially dark to save money, among them Colorado Springs; Santa Rosa, California; and Rockford, Illinois. Detroit’s plan goes further: It would leave sparsely populated swaths unlit in a community of 713,000 that covers more area than Boston, Buffalo and San Franciscocombined. Vacant property and parks account for 37 square miles (96 square kilometers), according to city planners.

“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population,” said Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer. “We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”

Detroit’s dwindling income and property-tax revenue have required residents to endure unreliable buses and strained police services throughout the city. Because streetlights are basic to urban life, deciding what areas to illuminate will reshape the city, said Kirk Cheyfitz, co-founder of a project called Detroit143 -- named for the 139 square miles of land, plus water -- that publicizes neighborhood issues.

Real federal deficit is $5 TRILLION; dwarfs official tally

REAL DEFICIT LAST YEAR: $5 TRILLION

By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

The typical American household would have paid nearly all of its income in taxes last year to balance the budget if the government used standard accounting rules to compute the deficit, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits.

By Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty Images

Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits.

Under those accounting practices, the government ran red ink last year equal to $42,054 per household — nearly four times the official number reported under unique rules set by Congress.

A U.S. household's median income is $49,445, the Census reports.

The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules.

The deficit was $5 trillion last year under those rules. The official number was $1.3 trillion. Liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, according to government actuaries, but the amount was not registered on the government's books.

Contrasting deficits

The federal government calculates the deficit in a way that makes the number smaller than if standard accounting rules were followed (in trillions).

Sources: USA TODAY research; Congressional Budget Office

Deficits are a major issue in this year's presidential campaign, but USA TODAY has calculated federal finances under accounting rules since 2004 and found no correlation between fluctuations in the deficit and which party ran Congress or the White House.

Key findings:

•Social Security had the biggest financial slide. The government would need $22.2 trillion today, set aside and earning interest, to cover benefits promised to current workers and retirees beyond what taxes will cover. That's $9.5 trillion more than was needed in 2004.

•Deficits from 2004 to 2011 would be six times the official total of $5.6 trillion reported.

•Federal debt and retiree commitments equal $561,254 per household. By contrast, an average household owes a combined $116,057 for mortgages, car loans and other debts.

"By law, the federal government can't tell the truth," says accountant Sheila Weinberg of the Chicago-based Institute for Truth in Accounting.

Jim Horney, a former Senate budget staff expert now at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says retirement programs should not count as part of the deficit because, unlike a business, Congress can change what it owes by cutting benefits or lifting taxes.

"It's not easy, but it can be done. Retirement programs are not legal obligations," he says.

The killing of bin Laden fantasy movie by gigolo Bigelow

Do the Hollywood filmmakers have Top Secret security clearances?

Kathryn Bigelow Sells Her Artistic Soul to The State

by John Nolte

Kathryn Bigelow is an exceptionally talented director and until she finally won the Best Director Oscar a couple of years ago (and became the first woman to do so), her obvious talents had gone unappreciated for almost two decades. The shame of this is now that she has the power she deserves -- the muscle to pick and choose her own projects and do them in her own way (something she did even before winning an Oscar) -- everything we're learning about her next project almost perfectly describes an artist selling her artistic soul to The State, which is now represented by Barack Obama.

Bigelow's follow-up to the Oscar-winning "Hurt Locker" would've been an opportunity to enjoy enormous discretion when it came to artistic freedom (every filmmaker's dream), but what she's apparently chosen to do instead is the bidding of our government. Everything we learn about her upcoming bin Laden film screams propaganda; from the original release date, which, quite incredibly, was timed to hit screens just a few weeks prior to the election (after an uproar it has since been bumped to December) to the Maureen Down column to the documents Judicial Watch obtained and released just this week.

Rep. Peter King has already laid out the troubling national security issues involved here, but what I also find appalling is Bigelow's apparent willingness to be led by the artistic nose by the government.

Judicial Watch:

The email went on to say: “For the intelligence case, they are basically using the WH-approved talking points we used the night of the operation.” The talking points called the raid “a ‘Gutsy Decision’ by the POTUS,” adding that “WH involvement was critical.” …

Let me repeat: "they are basically using the WH-approved talking points"

A July 13, 2011, email to Commander Bob Mehal, Public Affairs Officer for Defense Press Operations, indicates that Sarah Zukowski, an associate for The Glover Park Group, arranged the July 14, 2011 visit by Bigelow and Boal to the DOD and the CIA. The Glover Park Group is described by Politico as a “Democratic-leaning advocacy firm.” …

A June 22, 2011, email to Commander Bob Mehal, Public Affairs Officer for Defense Press Operations notes, “The White House does want to engage with Mark but it probably won’t be for a few more weeks. We should provide them a read-out of the session you do with Vickers.” The name of the White House official who forwarded the request is blacked out.

Throughout the entire Bush administration, even as Hollywood was producing over a dozen box-office bombs to aid and abet and encourage al Queda, all we heard were a bunch of Tinseltown crybabies crybabying over some phony "chill wind" restricting Hollywood's creative freedoms when it came to protesting the war. Obviously, this laughable chill wind was fabricated in order to make the most pampered, spoiled, and free population in the history of civilization feel brave and oppressed -- because nothing's braver than undermining the men and women fighting at that very moment for your freedoms from an oppressive air-conditioned trailer -- but the overall point was that Hollywood was not going to do the government's bidding.

But what we're learning now is that this was never a principled stand. Hollywood refusing to do the government's bidding and to question and protest and Speak! Truth! To! Power! comes with a big fat asterisk. Because according to Maureen Dowd, the bin Laden film's original release date, and the Judicial Watch documents -- what we have now is a talented, powerful and celebrated filmmaker engaging in pro-government propaganda that is fully backed by a big studio.

We shouldn’t be surprised though. Over the past year, we've learned that the industry as a whole has sold its artistic soul to the government -- the communist Chinese government:

“U.S. producers are taking an ultra-conservative route, and self-censorship is happening at a very early stage. In concept development there’s already an understanding of what will fly in China, and that gets concentrated by the time it gets to a screenplay.”

And what flies in China today isn’t very much.

Beijing’s thumbscrew restrictions include: No sex, religion, time travel, the occult, or “anything that could threaten public morality or portray criminal behavior.”

All film scripts have to be signed off by a government censor and anything that depicts Tibet, Tiananmen Square, the Dalai Lama, Falun Gong, Uyghur separatists or Taiwan favorably is typically banned.

For Hollywood, however, the proof is still in the numbers. Turnstile revenues in China skyrocketed by 64 percent to $1.5 billion, and have surged nearly tenfold since 2003.

Starting with her stunning 1987 debut, "Near Dark," for two decades Bigelow was a true iconoclast, a woman director making some of the most masculine action films of her time and making them in her own way.

Finally, it all comes together for her with "The Hurt Locker," and … she joins the club.

Maybe she hasn't seen "The Lives of Others." Maybe someone needs to sit her down and explain that as of right now she's the pre-arc playwright shilling for the State in exchange for access, riches, adoration, and acclaim. The only thing worse than those who use others are those willing to be used.

This bin Laden film needs to scrapped. It is now tainted in every imaginable way -- artistically and as it relates to our national security. And if it's not scrapped, we can only hope that the blowback forever taints all those involved.

WH helps Hollywood release movie ‘perfectly timed to give home-stretch boost’ to Obama campaign

Judicial Watch Obtains DOD and CIA Records Detailing Meetings with bin Laden Raid Filmmakers

DOD Officials Disclosed to Filmmakers Identity of SEAL Team Six Operator and Commander; Ask Film Director to Withhold Operator’s Name, ‘because he shouldn’t be talking out of school.’

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that it has obtained records from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) regarding meetings and communications between government agencies and Kathryn Bigelow, Academy Award-winning director of The Hurt Locker, and screenwriter Mark Boal. According to the records, the Obama Defense Department granted Bigelow and Boal access to a “planner, Operator and Commander of SEAL Team Six,” which was responsible for the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, to assist Bigelow prepare her upcoming feature film.

The records, obtained pursuant to court order in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed on January 21, 2012, include 153 pages of records from the DOD and 113 pages of records from the CIA (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:12-cv-00049)). The documents were delivered to Judicial Watch late last Friday (May 18). The following are the highlights from the records, which include internal Defense Department email correspondence as well as a transcript from a key July 14, 2011, meeting between DOD officials, Bigelow and Boal:
  • A transcript of a July 14, 2011, meeting between DOD officials, including Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers, Bigelow and Boal indicates that Boal met directly with White House officials on at least two occasions regarding the film: “I took your guidance and spoke to the WH and had a good meeting with Brennan and McDonough and I plan to follow up with them; and they were forward leaning and interested in sharing their point of view; command and control; so that was great, thank you,” Boal said according to the transcript. Vickers asks if the meeting was a follow-up, to which Boal responds, “Yes correct; this was a follow-up.” The documents seemingly reference John O. Brennan, Chief Counterterrorism Advisor to President Obama and Denis McDonough, who serves as President Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor.
  • The July 14, 2011, meeting transcript also reveals that the DOD provided the filmmakers with the identity of a “planner, SEAL Team 6 Operator and Commander.” (The name is blacked out in the document.) In proposing the arrangement, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers said: “The only thing we ask is that you not reveal his name in any way as a consultant because . . . he shouldn’t be talking out of school.” Vickers went on to say during the meeting at the Pentagon: “This at least, this gives him one step removed and he knows what he can and can’t say, but this way at least he can be as open as he can with you and it ought to meet your needs.” Boal later responds, “You delivered.”
  • A July 13, 2011, internal CIA email indicates that Bigelow and Boal were granted access to “the Vault,” which is described the CIA building where some of the tactical planning for the bin Laden raid took place: “I was given your name as the POC in [redacted] who could determine the feasibility of having a potential walk-through of…the Vault in the [redacted] building that was used for some of the tactical planning in the Bin Laden Raid [sic]. In consultation with the Office of Public Affairs and as part of the larger chronicling of the Bin Laden raid, OPA will be hosting some visitors sanctioned by ODCIA this Friday afternoon.” (The name of the sender is blacked out.) “Of course this is doable,” an official responds.
  • DOD Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Douglas Wilson told colleagues in a June 13, 2011, email to limit media access and that he would follow up with the White House: “I think this looks very good as a way forward, and agree particularly that we need to be careful here so we don’t open the media floodgates on this. I’m going to check with WH to update them on status, and will report back.” A day later, he wrote Department of Defense communications staffers, saying: “Ok to set up the second session with Vickers. I am getting additional guidance from WH.”
  • Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers told Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Douglas Wilson and two other DOD communications staffers in a June 13, 2011, email that “[DOD] would like to shape the story to prevent any gross inaccuracies, but do not want to make it look like the commanders think it’s okay to talk to the media.” The email went on to say: “For the intelligence case, they are basically using the WH-approved talking points we used the night of the operation.” The talking points called the raid “a ‘Gutsy Decision’ by the POTUS,” adding that “WH involvement was critical.”
  • A June 9, 2011, email from Commander Bob Mehal, Public Affairs Officer for Defense Press Operations, to Vickers and other DOD staff summarizes a meeting with Boal and notes the release date for the film: “Release date set for 4th Qtr 2012…”
  • A July 13, 2011, email to Commander Bob Mehal, Public Affairs Officer for Defense Press Operations, indicates that Sarah Zukowski, an associate for The Glover Park Group, arranged the July 14, 2011 visit by Bigelow and Boal to the DOD and the CIA. The Glover Park Group is described by Politico as a Democratic-leaning advocacy firm.”
  • A June 27, 2011, email to an official at the Office of the Secretary of Defense suggests that the request from Bigelow and Boal to meet with Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers came via the White House press office. A June 22, 2011, email to Commander Bob Mehal, Public Affairs Officer for Defense Press Operations notes, “The White House does want to engage with Mark but it probably won’t be for a few more weeks. We should provide them a read-out of the session you do with Vickers.” The name of the White House official who forwarded the request is blacked out.

Judicial Watch launched its investigation of Bigelow’s meetings with the Obama administration following press reports suggesting that the Obama administration may have leaked classified information to the director as source material for Bigelow’s film.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that the information leak was designed to help the Obama 2012 presidential reelection campaign: “The White House is also counting on the Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal big-screen version of the killing of Bin Laden to counter Obama’s growing reputation as ineffectual. The Sony film by the Oscar-winning pair who made ‘The Hurt Locker’ will no doubt reflect the president’s cool, gutsy decision against shaky odds. Just as Obamaland was hoping, the movie is scheduled to open on Oct. 12, 2012 — perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost to a campaign that has grown tougher.”

In addition to Judicial Watch’s pursuit of the bin Laden film records, the organization continues to fight in court for the release of the bin Laden post-mortem photos and video. The Obama administration continues to withhold these records citing national security concerns.

“These documents, which took nine months and a federal lawsuit to disgorge from the Obama administration, show that politically-connected film makers were giving extraordinary and secret access to bin Laden raid information, including the identity of a Seal Team Six leader,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is both ironic and hypocritical that the Obama administration stonewalled Judicial Watch’s pursuit of the bin Laden death photos, citing national security concerns, yet seemed willing to share intimate details regarding the raid to help Hollywood filmmakers release a movie ‘perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost’ to the Obama campaign.”

To view the entire production click here.

Iran claims discovery will collapse Christianity

“Be not deceived”, the Bible warns that ‘strong delusions’ will appear in the last days. Some will be from within such as in books like “The DaVinci Code” because certain men ‘crept in unawares’ and some will come from without such as in books like “Chariots of the Gods” and Project Blue Beam which will deceive people to believe aliens are making contact again.

The bizarre spiral looks almost computer-generated in the dark skies over Norway yesterday

The bizarre spiral looks almost computer-generated in the dark skies over Norway yesterday

Says Turkish 'Bible' has Barnabas forecasting Muhammad's comingBarnabasBible

By Reza Kahlili

Iran’s Basij Press is claiming that a version of the Gospel of Barnabas, found in 2000, will prove that Islam is the final and righteous religion and the revelation will cause the collapse worldwide of Christianity.

Turkey confiscated a leather-bound text, written on animal hide, in an anti-smuggling operation in 2000. Turkish authorities believe the text could be an authentic version of the Gospel of Barnabas, one of Jesus’ apostles and an associate of the apostle Paul.

This version of the Barnabas Gospel was written in the 5th or 6th century and it predicted the coming of the Prophet Mohammad and the religion of Islam, the Basij Press claims.

The Christian world, it says, denies the existence of such a gospel.

However, religious scholars have said another version of the Barnabas Gospel, discovered a century ago, was written less than 500 years ago, which would post-date Mohammad.

In Chapter 41 of the Barnabas Gospel, Basij claims, is this statement: “God has hidden himself as Archangel Michael ran them (Adam and Eve) out of heaven, (and) when Adam turned, he noticed that at top of the gateway to heaven, it was written ‘La elah ela Allah, Mohamad rasool Allah,’” meaning Allah is the only God and Mohammad his prophet.

The Turkish army has taken possession of the Barnabas Gospel because the “Zionists” and the governments of the West are trying to suppress its contents, Basij Press claims.

According to the Barnabas Gospel in Turkey’s hands, Basij Press says, Jesus was never crucified and that not only is He not the son of God, but that He himself predicted the coming of the Prophet Mohammad. The book even predicts the coming of the last Islamic messiah, the report says.

“The discovery of the original Barnabas Bible will now undermine the Christian Church and its authority and will revolutionize the religion in the world,” the Basij report says. “The most significant fact, though, is that this Bible has predicted the coming of Prophet Mohammad and in itself has verified the religion of Islam, and this alone will unbalance the powers of the world and create instability in the Christian world.”

The Basij report concludes that the discovery is so immense that it will affect the world’s politics and that the world powers are aware of the coming effects of this event.

Turkey plans to put the Bible on public display. Though Turkish authorities believe this could be an authentic version of the Gospel of Barnabas, others believe it only goes back to the 16th century and is a fake because it would have been written centuries after Mohammad’s life.

“The Iranian regime is committed to stamping out Christianity by any means necessary, whether that means executing Christian converts, burning Bibles or raiding underground churches,” said Erick Stakelbeck, host of the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “Stakelbeck on Terror” show and a close observer of Iranian affairs. “In promoting the so-called Barnabas Bible – which was likely written sometime in the 16th century and is not accepted by any mainstream Christian denomination – the regime is once again attempting to discredit the Christian faith. Record numbers of young Iranians are leaving Islam and embracing Christ, and the mullahs see Christianity as a growing threat to their authority.”

The Vatican has requested to see the scripture but it is unknown if Turkey has provided it access to the text.

Recently Iranian ayatollahs have been outspoken that Islam is the last and only righteous religion sent by God.

Grand Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, in a recent statement, announced that since the Quran was the last holy book and provides the most complete religion to the world and Mohammad the last prophet as indicated in the Quran, there is no authority to abide by other books. The Quran clearly indicates that only those who have accepted the true religion of Islam are the guided ones, he said.

As reported recently, a former intelligence officer in the Revolutionary Guards revealed that tens of thousands of Bibles were confiscated and burned in Iran, under the order of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said the Bible is not a holy book and its burning is morally acceptable.

As the Islamic regime in Iran continues to suppress its people with violations of human rights and challenges the world over its nuclear program, Khamenei said, “In light of the realization of the divine promise by almighty God, the Zionists and the Great Satan (America) will soon be defeated. Allah’s promise will be delivered, and Islam will be victorious.”

Reza Kahlili translated this Iranian video about Islamic prophecies of a coming messiah and the destruction of Israel:

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Not your grandma’s guardian angel: ‘Armed’ drones hovering above America

Groups Concerned Over Arming Of Domestic Drones

A quadrocopter drone equipped with a camera stands on display at the Zeiss stand on the first day of the CeBIT 2012 technology trade fair on March 6, 2012 in Hanover, Germany. (credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

A quadrocopter drone equipped with a camera stands on display at the Zeiss stand on the first day of the CeBIT 2012 technology trade fair on March 6, 2012 in Hanover, Germany. (credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) – With the use of domestic drones increasing, concern has not just come up over privacy issues, but also over the potential use of lethal force by the unmanned aircraft.

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Drones have been used overseas to target and kill high-level terror leaders and are also being used along the U.S.-Mexico border in the battle against illegal immigration. But now, these drones are starting to be used domestically at an increasing rate.

The Federal Aviation Administration has allowed several police departments to use drones across the U.S. They are controlled from a remote location and use infrared sensors and high-resolution cameras.

Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Texas told The Daily that his department is considering using rubber bullets and tear gas on its drone.

“Those are things that law enforcement utilizes day in and day out and in certain situations it might be advantageous to have this type of system on the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle),” McDaniel told The Daily.

The use of potential force from drones has raised the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“It’s simply not appropriate to use any of force, lethal or non-lethal, on a drone,” Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the ACLU, told CBSDC.

Crump feels one of the biggest problems with the use of drones is the remote location where they are operated from.

“When the officer is on the scene, they have full access to info about what has transpired there,” Crump explained to CBSDC. “An officer at a remote location far away does not have the same level of access.”

The ACLU is also worried about potential drones malfunctioning and falling from the sky, adding that they are keeping a close eye on the use of these unmanned aircraft by police departments.

“We don’t need a situation where Americans feel there is in an invisible eye in the sky,” Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at ACLU, told CBSDC.

Joshua Foust, fellow at the American Security Project, feels domestic drones should not be armed.

“I think from a legal perspective, there is nothing problematic about floating a drone over a city,” Foust told CBSDC. “In terms of getting armed drones, I would be very nervous about that happening right now.”

McDaniel says that his community should not be worried about the department using a drone.

“We’ve never gone into surveillance for sake of surveillance unless there is criminal activity afoot,” McDaniel told The Daily. “Just to see what you’re doing in your backyard pool — we don’t care.”

But the concern for the ACLU is just too great that an American’s constitutional rights will be trampled with the use of drones.

“The prospect of people out in public being Tased or targeted by force by flying drones where no officers is physically present on the scene,” Crump says, “raises the prospect of unconstitutional force being used on individuals.”

666ish: SciFi writer argues for barcode at birth

BBC: 'Barcode Everyone at Birth' with 'implanted chips'

Each week a global thinker from the worlds of philosophy, science, psychology or the arts is given a minute to put forward a radical, inspiring or controversial idea – no matter how improbable – that they believe would change the world.

This week science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon argues that everyone should be given a barcode at birth.

“If I were empress of the Universe I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached - a barcode if you will; an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals.


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It would be imprinted on everyone at birth. Point the scanner at someone and there it is.

Having such a unique barcode would have many advantages. In war soldiers could easily differentiate legitimate targets in a population from non combatants.

This could prevent mistakes in identity, mistakes that result in the deaths of innocent bystanders. Weapons systems would record the code of the use, identifying how fired which shot and leading to more accountability in the field.

Anonymity would be impossible as would mistaken identity making it easier to place responsibility accurately, not only in war but also in non-combat situations far from the war.”

666ish: e-signatures, e-identities and electronic authentication services (eIAS) to track and monitor users

Mark of the Beast: Bilderberg Pushes Mandatory Internet ID for Europe

Aaron Dykes Infowars.com May 23, 2012

While the international ACTA treaty and United States’ CISPA legislation are setting the stage to clamp down on the world wide web, technocrats are working overtime to try to pin down your identity and make sure all your activities are thoroughly monitored and under control.

The European Union is now moving to create a mandatory electronic ID system for all EU citizens that would be implemented across Europe to standardize business both online and in person, authenticating users via a common ‘electronic signature.’ A single authenticating ID would guard access to the Internet, online data and most commerce. It is nothing short of an attempt to phase in a Mark of the Beast system, and a prominent Bilderberg attendee is behind the scheme.

Neelie Kroes is the EU’s Digital Agenda Commissioner, and is introducing legislation she hopes will force “the adoption of harmonised e-signatures, e-identities and electronic authentication services (eIAS) across EU member states.”

The extent of such a system would, of course, expand over time, particularly as many EU nations have resisted the big government encroachment of ID requirements on civil rights grounds, which even now smack of the Nazi regime’s draconian “papers please” policies that empowered their other avenues of tyranny. According to EurActiv.com, Neelie Kroes would later “widen the scope of the current Directive by including also ancillary authentication services that complement e-signatures, like electronic seals, time/date stamps, etc,” as the supra-national body attempts to corral more nations into participation.

This big brother system will be implemented in Europe first and later pushed in North America and the remainder of the globe, as the world is nudged step by step towards a total cashless control grid in the name of ‘safe, verifiable commerce,’ and of course, in the name of “security.” Nevermind that the plan would invite the hacking of identities and fast track forgeries. In the case of Europe, special emphasis is placed in part on “establishing a truly functioning single market” — part of the larger EU goal even now floundering.

Neelie Kroes has been a long term Bilderberg attendee, showing up annually since 2005. She was on the official list for the 2006 meeting in Ottawa, Canada, then the 2007 meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, 2008 in Chantilly, Virginia, 2009 in Vouliagmeni, Greece and 2010 in Sitges, Spain as a delegate from the European Commission.

But in 2011, Kroes came to the table in St. Moritz, Switzerland with a new title: the EU’s Commissioner for Digital Agenda, so obviously now seeing development on that agenda was not unexpected. Kroes latest effort will surely be bolstered during the 2012 meeting now just days away.


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It dovetails with the creation of US CYBERCOM in recent years and the appointment of NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander, who also meets annually at Bilderberg, to wage offensive cyberwar across the globe. Further, technocrats from Silicon Valley and other locales have also converged around the secretive meetings to coordinate their developments with emerging regulations, new Internet laws and treaties, and to further the data mining efforts of the clandestine intelligence.

Obama was tea partier before tea partiers were un-cool to commies

Exclusive - The Vetting - Barack Obama, the First Tea Partier

In 2009, President Barack Obama reportedly called members of the Tea Party "teabaggers." It turns out that our fourth greatest president, first in so many things, may have been the first "teabagger" himself, as seen in the 1997 photograph above. Yes, that really is Barack Obama wearing a regimental coat and carrying a tricorn hat in his hand. And that flag behind him really is a Gadsden flag, with its serpent and its "Don't Tread On Me" slogan. You may want to let all of this sink in a bit, especially if you're a Tea Party-bashing progressive.

Neither Democrats nor the media have been particularly kind to the Tea Party. There is hardly space to go through all the times the Tea Party has been compared to terrorists (including by the Vice President) or fascists, or the many times it has been accused of racism by progressives in supposedly mainstream news outlets. That's a book-length story of its own.

But given the photo above, it is certainly a good time to think back upon some of the ridicule Tea Party members were forced to endure for evoking the Revolutionary War era by their dress and choice of symbols.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow was one of many who saw mockery of the "teabaggers" as the first recourse. (The word was used so often by liberals in 2009 that Oxford made it a Word of the Year finalist.) Liberal sites like Talking Points Memo presented attendees who dressed up the way Obama did above as weirdos. The ever-predictable Bill Maher got hoots from his audience when he donned his own tricorn hat (complete with dangling tea bags) to bash the Tea Party on TV.

President Obama blamed the "teabaggers" for his failures, according to Jonathan Alter's book The Promise: President Obama, Year One, complaining that his own 2009 stimulus "helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans." (Vice President Joe Biden is blaming them still.)

Yet in the dramatic battles over trumped up charges of Tea Party racism and extremism, Obama never mentioned his own "Tea Party" episode--and neither has anyone in the media, even as Obama's allies and friends on the left ridiculed the Tea Party for seeking to make the same symbolic connections to the country's founding.

The media's failure is all the more glaring, given that the forgotten photograph has been in plain view for fifteen years. It appeared on the front page of Chicago's Hyde Park Herald on July 9th, 1997, and was taken by legendary photographer Nancy Campbell Hays. (The larger version of the image is below this article. The original, which was donated to the University of Chicago, is not yet available for public view; the image obtained by Breitbart News was very dark, and so it was lightened in Photoshop).

The Herald's caption below the photograph read:

Hey, look over here! Something catches the attention of Sen. Barack Obama (13th), Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (25th), Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) and Stephanie Franklin as they lead the annual "4th on 53rd" parade.

In 1997, Obama was beginning his first term as a state senator in Illinois. He and his fellow politicians were asked to lead the "4th on 53rd" parade, which is Hyde Park's 4th of July celebration--one not too different from many other places in America, it turns out. All the politicians who attended were expected to dress the part. The Heraldeven published a story the week before, on July 2nd, confirming in advance that Obama would be "wearing colonial attire."

With most politicians, wearing colonial dress for a public celebration like the 4th of July would be considered a bit colorful, but not extraordinary.

In Obama's case, it's more like proof of hypocrisy.

Since 2009, the ridicule of Tea Party signs and costumes has been so constant from Obama, the mainstream media, and the left that Glenn Beck encouraged people to stop dressing up so as not to give them an excuse.

It didn't work, though. The NAACP still saw the costumes as part of a disturbing, nationalist impulse:

The Revolutionary War-era costumes, the yellow “Don’t tread on me” Gadsden flags from the same era, the earnest recitals of the pledge of allegiance, the over-stated veneration of the Constitution, and the defense of “American exceptionalism” in a world turned towards transnational economies and global institutions: all are signs of the over-arching nationalism that helps define the Tea Party movement.

So, by the NAACP's logic, it would appear that Barack Obama is an over-arching nationalist, and perhaps a racist, antisemitic nativist as well.

That, or the left has been engaged in three years of juvenile character assassination to protect a guy who never got the memo about the worrisome deeper meaning of regimental coats and tricorner hats.

If looks could kill!

Maxine Waters 'Mean Spirited' Tea Party Hurting 'People Of Color’