News Clips
1) Scavenging Soros: Market Speculator Buys Up $2 Billion of MF Global’s Debt... Soros/Bank Take Over
2) Feds Propose to Open an Unmanned Border Crossing With Mexico to Upgrade Security... Obama/Pro Illegal Immigration
3) Texas Group Sues to Allow Confederate Flag License Plates... Government/Free Speech
4) Rep. Issa asks Obama official why illegal camping of Occupy DC was permitted... Democrats/Pro Crime/Liberal Protesters
5) Is This China’s Secret Weapon? Aircraft Carrier... China/Military Buildup
6) Rise Of The Beast System: 11 Ways That Amerika Is Becoming More Like North Korea... Socialism/USA
7) Is living off the Grid now a crime?... Government Zoning Laws/Private Property Rights
8) These Are the Views From the New World Trade Center... 9-11 Rebuild/Interest
9) Minn. High School Apologizes for ‘Incest’ Prank Involving Blindfolded Kids Kissing Their Parents... Incest/Humor Fail
1) Scavenging Soros: Market Speculator Buys Up $2 Billion of MF Global’s Debt... Soros/Bank Take Over
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/scavenging-soros-market-speculator-buys-up-2-billion-of-mf-globals-debt/
December 11, 2011
Billionaire market speculator and philanthropist George Soros bought about $2 billion worth of European bonds from now-bankrupt MF Global - the same debt that pushed the firm to collapse, according to The Wall Street Journal.
When MF Global filed for bankruptcy, the firm sold part of the bonds but still had about $4.8 billion worth of them on its books, CNBC reports.
They were turned over to KPMG, MF Global’s bankruptcy administrator in London; they were then offered to big investors by MF Global’s London clearing house, LCH Clearnet, the Journal said, quoting a KPMG spokeswoman.
When KPMG offered the bankrupts firm’s European debt to a variety of big investors, most of them passed. However, they were able to find one investor willing to buy the bonds at rock-bottom prices: George Soros.
A spokesman for Soros declined to give details about the company’s positions.
“While our firm is always in the market, we have a policy of not disclosing details of our positions,” the spokesman told the Wall Street Journal.
KPMG told the Journal that the overwhelming majority of the European sovereign debt portfolio was liquidated by LCH before the second week in November, reports CNBC.
Does this signal that Soros is confident that the eurozone will recover from its financial crisis?
If it does, it would seem odd, considering that earlier this week he said that European debt crisis is putting the global financial system in a ”self-reinforcing process of disintegration.”
Furthermore, borrowing costs for Italy and Spain recently hit record highs and interest rates on 10-year bonds of countries such as France and Belgium, which are considered more financially sound, spiked last month, reports the Huffington Post.
So what’s the angle? Why risk $2 billion in these bonds?
Keep in mind that this is not the first risky investment made by Soros. Recall the enormous profit he made by gambling on Britain’s Black Wednesday. Furthermore, Soros, who has an estimated net worth of $14.2 billion, returned an average 30.5 percent per year on his investments between 1969 and 2000, according to Seeking Alpha.
Clearly, he knows what he’s doing.
In fact, his reputation for picking winner and losers is so great, and so many investors watch and mimic his moves, that his investments have the power to adversely or positively effect the markets.
“He dumped almost all of his $800 million stake in gold in the first quarter of this year as some other hedge funds did the same,” reports the HuffPo. Of course, after this happened, “a commodities slump followed later in the year, which some blamed in part on reports that Soros was liquidating his holdings.”
Knowing that he has a tendency to take risks, and that his gambles usually pay off, one has to ask: what’s the angle? Does he really see a eurozone recovery?
Watch Soros discuss the “engine of growth,” how he thinks we can get out the global recession/depression, and how global warming poses a “threat to civilization”:
2) Feds Propose to Open an Unmanned Border Crossing With Mexico to Upgrade Security... Obama/Pro Illegal Immigration
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/feds-propose-to-open-an-unmanned-border-crossing-with-mexico-to-upgrade-security/
December 11, 2011
The bloody drug war in Mexico shows no sign of relenting. Neither do calls for tighter border security amid rising fears of spillover violence.
This hardly seems a time the U.S. would be willing to allow people to cross the border legally from Mexico without a customs officer in sight. But in this rugged, remote West Texas terrain where wading across the shallow Rio Grande undetected is all too easy, federal authorities are touting a proposal to open an unmanned port of entry as a security upgrade.
By the spring, kiosks could open up in Big Bend National Park allowing people from the tiny Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen to scan their identity documents and talk to a customs officer in another location, at least 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.
The crossing, which would be the nation’s first such port of entry with Mexico, has sparked opposition from some who see it as counterintuitive in these days of heightened border security. Supporters say the crossing would give the isolated Mexican town long-awaited access to U.S. commerce, improve conservation efforts and be an unlikely target for criminal operations.
“People that want to be engaged in illegal activities along the border, ones that are engaged in those activities now, they’re still going to do it,” said William Wellman, Big Bend National Park’s superintendent. “But you’d have to be a real idiot to pick the only place with security in 300 miles (480 kilometers) of the border to try to sneak across.”
The proposed crossing from Boquillas del Carmen leads to a vast expanse of rolling scrub, cut by sandy-floored canyons and violent volcanic rock outcroppings. The Chihuahuan desert wilderness is home to mountain lions, black bears and roadrunners, sparsely populated by an occasional camper and others visiting the 800,000-acre (320,000-hectare) national park.
Customs and Border Protection, which would run the port of entry, says the proposal is a safe way to allow access to the town’s residents, who currently must travel 240 road miles (390 road kilometers) to the nearest legal entry point. It also would allow park visitors to visit the town.
If the crossing is approved, the Border Patrol would have eight agents living in the park in addition to the park’s 23 law enforcement rangers.
“I think it’s actually going to end up making security better,” CBP spokesman William Brooks said.
“Once you‘ve crossed you’re still not anywhere. You‘ve got a long ways to go and we’ve got agents who are in the area. We have agents who patrol. We have checkpoints on the paved roads leading away from the park.”
A public comment period runs through Dec. 27 on the estimated $2.3 million project, which has support at the highest levels of government from both countries.
But U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican member of the House Homeland Security committee, questioned the wisdom of using resources to make it easier to cross the border.
“We need to use our resources to secure the border rather than making it easier to enter in locations where we already have problems with illegal crossings,” McCaul said in an email. “There is more to the oversight of legal entry than checking documents. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) needs to be physically present at every point of entry in order to inspect for contraband, detect suspicious behavior and, if necessary, act on what they encounter.”
While CBP will run the port of entry, the National Park Service is the driver behind the project, which it hopes will help conservation efforts on both sides of the border. Even as the National Park Service has increased cooperation with its Mexican counterpart, joint conservation has been limited by the inability of personnel to cross the border without making a circuitous 16-hour drive, Wellman said.
So the National Park Service is building the contact station just above the Rio Grande. It will house CBP kiosks where crossers will scan in their documents and talk to a customs officer in Presidio, the nearest port of entry, or another remote location. Park service employees will staff the station, offering information about the park and guiding people through the process.
Similar ports of entry are already in operation on remote parts of the border with Canada.
“We think we can do this without doing any damage to national security and possibly enhance security along the border by having better intelligence, better communication with people in Mexico,” Wellman said.
The crossing would also restore a long-running relationship between the park, its visitors and the residents of Boquillas del Carmen, the town of adobe dwellings set a short distance from the river in Mexico.
For years, U.S. tourists added an international dimension to their park visit by wading or ferrying in a rowboat across the shallow Rio Grande to the town. There they bought handicrafts and tacos, providing much-needed cash in the isolated community.
But US officials discouraged such informal crossings in 2002 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted calls for tighter border security. Without access to tourists or supplies on the U.S. side, the town of just more than 100 people has seen a 42 percent drop in population from 2000 to 2010.
Gary Martin, who manages the Rio Grande Village store at a nearby park campground, recalls many Mexican residents crossing the river to pick up groceries and other necessities.
“We’re their supply,” Martin said. “They don’t have any electricity over there. So they would come here and buy frozen chicken, cake mixes and things that they couldn’t get over there.”
Martin tried to stock food items Boquillas del Carmen residents wanted, such as eggs and big sacks of beans.
“After the border closed, well, I got rid of most of my food and went back to gifts because I wasn’t making any money,” Martin said. He estimated about 40 percent of the store’s revenue came from Boquillas residents.
Few have risked crossing to the store since. “If they get caught over here they get shipped off,” he said. “They get deported all the way to Ojinaga and then they’ve got to find their way home. It’s not really worth it.”
Still, most days some Boquillas del Carmen residents wade across the river a short distance downstream of the old crossing and scramble up to a paved overlook perched high above the river.
On boulders near the parking spots they lay out painted walking sticks, scorpions and roadrunners crafted from copper wire and colorful beads. Each craftsman’s work occupies a different rock and operates on the honor system with the hope tourists will drop four or five dollars in their jar.
“Sometimes we don’t sell anything,” said Boquillas del Carmen resident Guillermo Gonzalez Diaz. “Sometimes we sell one.” And other times authorities confiscate everything.
Gonzalez, a 34-year-old father of three, described his town as “very sad, very hard” and said there was no work. Without access to the Rio Grande Village store, residents depend on a bus that runs once a week to Melchor Muzquiz, a larger town about 150 miles (240 kilometers) away, for supplies.
A small military presence protects the town from the drug-related violence that has engulfed other Mexican border towns. Now with news of the port of entry, residents are already making plans for restaurants and shops, he said.
“When it closed nobody crossed and everything went downhill. People began to leave,” he said. “Now people are going to return.”
3) Texas Group Sues to Allow Confederate Flag License Plates... Government/Free Speech
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/texas-group-sues-to-allow-confederate-flag-license-plates/
December 12, 2011
If you live in Texas and you want a license plate that says “One State Under God,” you’ll soon be able to get one. But if you want the other proposed license plate that has the Confederate flag on it, you won’t. However, one group is now suing the Texas DMV to try and give residents the option of the latter.
The L.A. Times reports the Texas division of the group called Sons of Confederate Veterans, a 30,000-member group out of Tennessee, is now filing suit saying the state DMV infringed on the group’s right to free speech by rejecting their plate.
“The 1st Amendment clearly protects controversial speech,” the group said in a statement to the Times. It cited the DMV board’s approval of a plate that “is offensive to Native Americans” because it honors the Buffalo Soldiers, the all-black cavalry that fought Native Americans in the 1800s.
“The board seeks to bar the Texas SCV from expressing their viewpoint while allowing all other groups to express their viewpoint. This type of restriction is exactly the type which the 1st Amendment is designed to erase,” the statement said.
The Times reports that old DMV rules didn’t allow politically-themed plate designs. But that law changed two years ago and since then “all 89 proposed specialty designs.”
“Nine other states have approved Sons of Confederate Veterans’ specialty plates, but Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina only did so after the group sued,” the Times notes. “A similar suit is pending in Florida.”
Their suit comes as the DMV just approved a plate with another message some might see as controversial.
The Austin American-Statesman says the DMV, by a 4-3 vote, “approved an application by a Nacogdoches ministry for a plate showing the crosses and the slogan.”
“Private speech, protected by the First Amendment, should not be subjected to second-class treatment,” said Jonathan Saenz, an attorney and director of legislative affairs for the Liberty Institute.
It’s also important to note the Tea Party-backed Gadsen flag plates have also been approved in the state.
The Confederate flag plate has made its way into the presidential election cycle. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has said he would not support the measure, and TX Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee had blasted the Gov. earlier on the matter.
4) Rep. Issa asks Obama official why illegal camping of Occupy DC was permitted... Democrats/Pro Crime/Liberal Protesters
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/199045-issa-seeks-answers-on-illegal-camping-by-occupy-dc-protesters
12/13/11
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Tuesday announced he wants answers on whether “political judgments played a role” in allowing Occupy D.C. protesters to remain camped in Northwest Washington.
Issa, chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter dated Monday to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar requesting any communication between the Department of Interior and the White House regarding the Occupy D.C. protests.
In the letter, Issa also asked Salazar “to explain a series of agency decisions that allowed protesters to stay in tents at the park for extended periods of time despite a ban on ‘camping,’” according to a news release from Issa’s office.
Occupy DC protesters, an outgrowth of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement that began in Manhattan, have been camping in McPherson Square, in Northwest Washington, for more than two months. The National Park Service (NPS), an agency of the DOI, prohibits camping in the square, but allows 24-hour protests. Issa is seeking answers on the apparent discrepancy.
“The protesters camping in McPherson Square appear to be in violation of the law and the NPS could have legally required them to stop and remove their tents,” Issa wrote in the letter. “The NPS has an obligation to the American people to explain the decisions that were made regarding the Occupy D.C. protesters in McPherson Square.”
According to Issa’s letter, much of the square’s $400,000 in stimulus-funded improvements have been “damaged or destroyed” by the protesters. The improvements, concluded this past spring, included new grass, concrete curbs, refurbished benches, new light poles, water fountains, new paint, new chain fencing, 12 new trash cans and new light meters, according to the letter.
“While the merits of this stimulus funding are debatable, we can all agree that once the federal government invested the funds, no government agency should have allowed it to be damaged or destroyed when it legally could have been prevented,” Issa wrote.
U.S. Park Police arrested several protesters who refused to take down a wood structure built in the park earlier in the month. Following the police removal of the illegal structure, Occupy D.C. obtained a court order prohibiting a surprise eviction from the park before Jan. 31. Mayor Vincent Gray has taken a hands-off approach to the protesters, in comparison to other cities nationwide that have evicted protesters from long-term occupations in city squares and in front of city halls.
The political response has been divided. Many Republicans voiced concern over the protests, which have become violent in some cities, while Democrats including President Obama initially seemed to embrace the movement. Politicians on both sides have said the Occupy protesters are voicing a genuine concern over the economy and the greed demonstrated by some on Wall Street.
On Monday, Occupy D.C. protesters were barred from entering the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican national committees to deliver a “declaration.” Last week, more than 60 protesters were arrested for blocking traffic on K Street in Northwest Washington, a street known for housing numerous lobbying firms. Members of Occupy D.C. have previously staged protests in the lobbies of Senate and House office buildings on Capitol Hill.
Occupy D.C. hunger strikers planned to visit Issa’s congressional office Tuesday morning to advocate for D.C. voting rights.
“We support their right, of course, to exercise their First Amendment right. But at the same time we will not tolerate the breaking of the law,” Gray said last weekend, according to NBC Washington. “People are increasingly losing their patience because of the infringement on business, as they see it, here in the city.”
5) Is This China’s Secret Weapon? Aircraft Carrier... China/Military Buildup
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/is-this-chinas-secret-weapon/
December 14, 2011
DENVER (The Blaze/AP) - A commercial U.S. satellite company said it has captured a photo of China’s first aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea off the Chinese coast.
DigitalGlobe Inc. said Wednesday one of its satellites photographed the carrier on Dec. 8. A DigitalGlobe analyst found the image on Tuesday while searching through photos.
Stephen Wood, director of DigitalGlobe’s analysis center, said he’s confident the ship is the Chinese carrier because of the location and date of the photo. The carrier was on its second round of sea trials at the time.
A Pentagon spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
DigitalGlobe, based in Longmont, Colo., sells satellite imagery and analysis to clients that include the U.S. military, emergency response agencies and private companies. DigitalGlobe has three orbiting satellites and a fourth is under construction.
The aircraft carrier has generated intense international interest because of what it might portend about China’s intentions as a military power.
The former Soviet Union started building the carrier, which it called the Varyag, but never finished it. When the Soviet Union collapsed, it ended up in the hands of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic.
China bought the ship from Ukraine in 1998 and spent years refurbishing it. It had no engines, weaponry or navigation systems when China acquired it.
China has said the carrier is intended for research and training, which has led to speculation that it plans to build future copies.
Beijing is believed to be years away from being able to launch and recover aircraft from it as part of a carrier battle group.
6) Rise Of The Beast System: 11 Ways That Amerika Is Becoming More Like North Korea... Socialism/USA
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/rise-of-the-beast-system-11-ways-that-amerika-is-becoming-more-like-north-korea
Should we just get it over with and change the spelling of America to "Amerika"? Every single day, the United States of America is becoming more like North Korea. In North Korea, the citizens are told that everything that they do needs to be monitored, tracked, recorded and very tightly controlled so that everyone can be kept safe. No dissent is allowed at all. If government officials in North Korea even suspect that you are thinking the wrong thing, your entire extended family can be shipped off to a prison camp. And you know what? North Korea is a pretty safe place. There is not much terrorism in North Korea. But why in the world would anyone ever want to live like that? America is supposed to be a bastion of liberty and freedom, but now we are falling for the same totalitarian lies that so many other societies have fallen for throughout human history. We are witnessing the rise of the beast system - a system of control more pervasive than anything that the world has ever seen. We are constantly being told that the emerging "Big Brother" control grid is being put into place for "our safety", but someday we are going to wake up in a dystopian nightmare where government tyrants have absolutely unlimited control over our lives.
Those that approve of the "Big Brother" police state control grids being constructed all over the world should really study North Korea. That country is what the end result looks like.
North Korea is a totalitarian police state hellhole. No rational human being would ever want to live there. You can see an absolutely amazing National Geographic documentary on what life is like inside North Korea on YouTube right here. If you have never seen that documentary before, it is definitely worth the time that it takes to watch it. If we stay on our current path, our country is going to become just like North Korea.
America does not have to go down this road. Right now nearly every nation on earth is implementing "Big Brother" security measures, but we could choose to be different if we wanted to.
Unfortunately, right now we seem to be leading the charge toward a world where liberty and freedom are absolutely dead.
The following are 11 ways that Amerika is becoming more like North Korea....
#1 It has been revealed that Predator drones are now being used inside of the United States to spy on American citizens. These Predator drones are equipped with the latest high-resolution cameras, very sophisticated heat sensors and incredibly advanced surveillance equipment.
Predator drones can sit up in the sky and watch you for 20 hours without stopping. If one was watching you right now you probably wouldn't even know it.
We are accustomed to Predator drones being used in the "war on terror", but now they are being used to watch American citizens. The following comes from a recent article in the Los Angeles Times....
The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.
Congress first authorized Customs and Border Protection to buy unarmed Predators in 2005. Officials in charge of the fleet cite broad authority to work with police from budget requests to Congress that cite "interior law enforcement support" as part of their mission.
In an interview, Michael C. Kostelnik, a retired Air Force general who heads the office that supervises the drones, said Predators are flown "in many areas around the country, not only for federal operators, but also for state and local law enforcement and emergency responders in times of crisis."
You can see mainstream video news reports about how authorities are using Predator drones to spy on American citizens right here and right here.
#2 The Department of Homeland Security says that paying for your hotel room in cash is a sign that you could be a potential terrorist. If you do not believe this, just watch this shocking DHS video.
#3 As I have written about previously, authorities in Tennessee are going door to door conducting "assessments" of how "prepared" residents are. The following comes from a recent news article about this new program....
The Metro Public Health and the Tennessee Department of Health will be using a tool designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go door to door and check to see how disaster ready you are.
The door to door assessment will take place from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday. It will be in 30 neighborhoods in Davidson County that have been randomly selected to be the target of a door to door assessment.
#4 Today, government authorities track nearly everything that we do. For example, one woman in Washington D.C. has been fined $2000 for not properly recycling homemade cat litter made out of old newspapers and junk mail.
#5 Just like in the movie "Minority Report", face tracking technology is now being used in advertising billboards all over the nation. This type of technology is also increasingly being used for law enforcement purposes.
#6 Police are not just using tasers on hardened criminals anymore. Now tasers are even being used on young school girls. The following comes from a report about an incident that recently happened in Pennsylvania....
The mother of a 14-year-old Dieruff High School student has filed a federal lawsuit claiming an Allentown police officer used excessive force when he shot her daughter in the groin with a stun gun during class dismissal in September.
Victoria Geist says her daughter, Keshana Wilson, had her arms raised high to indicate she surrendered when officer Jason Ammary pointed a Taser at her on Sept. 29 outside the high school and fired, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court by attorney Richard J. Orloski.
The suit claims Ammary fired the Taser directly at the teen's groin and he then filed retaliatory charges against the girl to justify using the Taser.
#7 A number of very elderly women have come forward with stories of being strip-searched by TSA agents at U.S. airports. Not even North Korea treats their elderly women like this.
#8 Americans are being watched in hundreds of different ways each day, and most of them have no idea what is happening. For example, in Washington D.C. the movements of every single car are tracked using automated license plate readers (ALPRs). The following comes from a recent Washington Post article....
More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.
With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.
Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the District, which has more than one plate-reader per square mile, the highest concentration in the nation. Police in the Washington suburbs have dozens of them as well, and local agencies plan to add many more in coming months, creating a comprehensive dragnet that will include all the approaches into the District.
#9 The FBI is now admittedly recording Internet talk radio programs all over the United States. The following comes from a recent article by Mark Weaver of WMAL.com....
If you call a radio talk show and get on the air, you might be recorded by the FBI.
The FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record as much radio news and talk programming as it can find on the Internet.
The FBI says it is not playing big brother by policing the airwaves, but rather seeking access to what airs as potential evidence.
#10 As I have mentioned previously, new high-tech street lights that are being funded by the federal government and that are being installed all over the nation can also be used as surveillance cameras, can be used by the DHS to make "security announcements" and can even be used to record personal conversations. The following is from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson for Infowars.com....
Federally-funded high-tech street lights now being installed in American cities are not only set to aid the DHS in making “security announcements” and acting as talking surveillance cameras, they are also capable of “recording conversations,” bringing the potential privacy threat posed by ‘Intellistreets’ to a whole new level.
#11 Congress has been debating a new bill that would officially designate the United States as part of the "battleground" on the "war on terror" and would allow the U.S. military to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial. According to U.S. Senator Carl Levin, it was actually Barack Obama that was pushing for the indefinite detention of American citizens to be included in the National Defense Authorization Act....
Senator Levin told Congress recently that under the original wording of the National Defense Authorization Act, American citizens were excluded from the provision that allowed for detention. Once Obama’s officials saw the text though, says Levin, “the administration asked us to remove the language which says that US citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.”
The Obama administration has been attacking our civil liberties even more than the Bush administration did.
Unless something dramatic happens, at some point all of our liberties and all of our freedoms will be gone.
Thankfully we can still share information like this on the Internet, but that will not last forever. Eventually, "hate crime laws" will be used to greatly restrict what we are able to say on the Internet.
If you don't that that is possible, guess again. Our northern neighbor, Canada, already has a very strict law against "hate speech" on the Internet.
So what is "hate speech"? Well, it turns out that the people almost always targeted for their speech are libertarians, true conservatives and Bible-believing Christians.
In the United States, not too many people are being put into prison for what they say or what they believe yet, but law enforcement authorities all over the nation are being instructed to be on the look out for certain kinds of bumper stickers and certain kinds of literature. If you do not believe that the government is specifically targeting libertarians, true conservatives and Bible-believing Christians just watch this video.
Amerika is not as bad as North Korea yet, but we are well on the way.
In a recent article for News with Views, author Paul McGuire described what the future could be like if we stay on our current path as a nation....
Low flying helicopters flew above us, aiming surveillance devices at us. Everywhere I looked, people stared vacantly like soulless zombies. Very few people could think, most just walked about in a trance. The drugs in the water supply, vaccinations and the endless bombardment of EMF waves, along with hypnotic suggestions through the media kept people in a trance-like state. I, like a few others, managed to retain my mind, by forcing myself to think critically. I discovered early on that you could choose not to enter the trance-like state. But, you had to always maintain that dead and vacant look in your eyes. If somebody thought you were thinking, they would report you and you would disappear.
Please wake up America.
Yes, the rest of the world is steamrolling toward a dystopian nightmare.
But America does not have to join them.
The last chapters of our history can be the most nightmarish or they can be the greatest.
It is all going to depend on the choices that we make.
Please share information like this with your family and friends while there is still time.
7) Is living off the Grid now a crime?... Government Zoning Laws/Private Property Rights
http://offgridsurvival.com/livingoffthegridcrime/?_rdr
January 03, 2012
Apparently living off the grid, off the land and without government assistance is now a crime that can land you in jail and cause you to lose your home.
Government officials across the country are forming so called “nuisance abatement teams” to intimidate people into giving up their land or conforming to the governments demands and hooking back into the grid. Counties across the country are actually jailing people for living the way they want to live.
I was alerted to this video by a reader and was troubled and sickened by what the poor people in the California Desert are being forced to deal with. From being threatened with jail time if they don’t hook back into the grid to being thrown in jail because the county didn’t like the look of their homes, the people in the deserts of Los Angeles County are being terrorized by their government.
It’s a sad day when living off your own land becomes a crime. Please spread the word.
8) These Are the Views From the New World Trade Center... 9-11 Rebuild/Interest
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/these-are-the-views-from-the-new-world-trade-center/
December 16, 2011
Ten years after the Twin Towers crumbled at the hands of terrorists, the Freedom Tower is finally tickling the skies in Lower Manhattan. And now, the Port Authority of NY and NJ has released some stunning pictures (via Business Insider) of the new site.
The pictures were tweeted out from the WTCProgress account and show everything from the ongoing construction to the incredible views. We’ve included some of them below:
1WTC: From the 80th floor looking north (Dec. 14)
80th floor looking east. Hello Brooklyn! (Dec. 14)
Looking south.
Fog shot
WTC construction site. (Sep. 20)
A view of the Freedom Tower. (Dec. 12)
By the way, the building should be finished by 2013. You can see more pictures over at Business Insider.
9) Minn. High School Apologizes for ‘Incest’ Prank Involving Blindfolded Kids Kissing Their Parents... Incest/Humor Fail
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/minn-high-school-apologizes-for-incest-prank-involving-blindfolded-kids-kissing-their-parents/
December 15, 2011
When we watched this video in the Blaze newsroom, several audible gasps rang out and numerous hands covered mouths.
The video shows several Minnesota high school students at a pep rally standing blindfolded. The students are then presented with a kissing partner. What ensues is some passionate lip-locking. It was meant to be a prank. The prank part? The kids didn’t know it, but they were actually kissing their parents.
Yes, you read that right.
Citypages.com explains more about what happened at Rosemount High School:
These poor kids reasonably assumed they were about make out with their classmates. But the assembly organizers had something else in mind: their parents.
Footage of the assembly shows a scene that would make even Sigmund Freud cringe. Dads kissing daughters. Mothers kissing sons.
And these are not just innocent pecks on the lips. The parents are intimately lip-locking their children for several seconds. One even progresses to rolling around on the gym floor. In another instance, a mother moves her son‘s hand south so he’s grasping her butt.
After the make-out session comes to an end, the still-blindfolded kids are asked to guess who kissed them.
Here’s the video, which Gawker has dubbed the “incest” prank, that’s almost unbelievable:
Now, the school is apologizing.
“As principal I am responsible for everything that happens in the school so, ultimately, I am the person that needs to answer for this,” school principal John Wollersheim told KARE-TV on Wednesday.
“I know there are people who are upset about what they have seen and as principal I am responsible for what happens here. For all the people who are offended, they are genuinely offended, and I owe them an apology,” Wollersheim said.
Still, he says the video is only a snippet of what went on and doesn’t tell the whole story.
“A lesson to be learned is that what you see on the internet, sometimes you just see portions of what really happened and it can lead you to think a certain way,” he said:
Despite the apology, Gawker still is a little grossed out:
One YouTube commenter who claims to be a student at Rosemount says that it’s a “tradition that only happens every six years or something,” which makes it sound like an ancient pagan Norse ritual brought to America by sick incestuous vikings.
What do you think? Harmless, funny prank or disgusting joke?
2) Feds Propose to Open an Unmanned Border Crossing With Mexico to Upgrade Security... Obama/Pro Illegal Immigration
3) Texas Group Sues to Allow Confederate Flag License Plates... Government/Free Speech
4) Rep. Issa asks Obama official why illegal camping of Occupy DC was permitted... Democrats/Pro Crime/Liberal Protesters
5) Is This China’s Secret Weapon? Aircraft Carrier... China/Military Buildup
6) Rise Of The Beast System: 11 Ways That Amerika Is Becoming More Like North Korea... Socialism/USA
7) Is living off the Grid now a crime?... Government Zoning Laws/Private Property Rights
8) These Are the Views From the New World Trade Center... 9-11 Rebuild/Interest
9) Minn. High School Apologizes for ‘Incest’ Prank Involving Blindfolded Kids Kissing Their Parents... Incest/Humor Fail
1) Scavenging Soros: Market Speculator Buys Up $2 Billion of MF Global’s Debt... Soros/Bank Take Over
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/scavenging-soros-market-speculator-buys-up-2-billion-of-mf-globals-debt/
December 11, 2011
Billionaire market speculator and philanthropist George Soros bought about $2 billion worth of European bonds from now-bankrupt MF Global - the same debt that pushed the firm to collapse, according to The Wall Street Journal.
When MF Global filed for bankruptcy, the firm sold part of the bonds but still had about $4.8 billion worth of them on its books, CNBC reports.
They were turned over to KPMG, MF Global’s bankruptcy administrator in London; they were then offered to big investors by MF Global’s London clearing house, LCH Clearnet, the Journal said, quoting a KPMG spokeswoman.
When KPMG offered the bankrupts firm’s European debt to a variety of big investors, most of them passed. However, they were able to find one investor willing to buy the bonds at rock-bottom prices: George Soros.
A spokesman for Soros declined to give details about the company’s positions.
“While our firm is always in the market, we have a policy of not disclosing details of our positions,” the spokesman told the Wall Street Journal.
KPMG told the Journal that the overwhelming majority of the European sovereign debt portfolio was liquidated by LCH before the second week in November, reports CNBC.
Does this signal that Soros is confident that the eurozone will recover from its financial crisis?
If it does, it would seem odd, considering that earlier this week he said that European debt crisis is putting the global financial system in a ”self-reinforcing process of disintegration.”
Furthermore, borrowing costs for Italy and Spain recently hit record highs and interest rates on 10-year bonds of countries such as France and Belgium, which are considered more financially sound, spiked last month, reports the Huffington Post.
So what’s the angle? Why risk $2 billion in these bonds?
Keep in mind that this is not the first risky investment made by Soros. Recall the enormous profit he made by gambling on Britain’s Black Wednesday. Furthermore, Soros, who has an estimated net worth of $14.2 billion, returned an average 30.5 percent per year on his investments between 1969 and 2000, according to Seeking Alpha.
Clearly, he knows what he’s doing.
In fact, his reputation for picking winner and losers is so great, and so many investors watch and mimic his moves, that his investments have the power to adversely or positively effect the markets.
“He dumped almost all of his $800 million stake in gold in the first quarter of this year as some other hedge funds did the same,” reports the HuffPo. Of course, after this happened, “a commodities slump followed later in the year, which some blamed in part on reports that Soros was liquidating his holdings.”
Knowing that he has a tendency to take risks, and that his gambles usually pay off, one has to ask: what’s the angle? Does he really see a eurozone recovery?
Watch Soros discuss the “engine of growth,” how he thinks we can get out the global recession/depression, and how global warming poses a “threat to civilization”:
2) Feds Propose to Open an Unmanned Border Crossing With Mexico to Upgrade Security... Obama/Pro Illegal Immigration
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/feds-propose-to-open-an-unmanned-border-crossing-with-mexico-to-upgrade-security/
December 11, 2011
The bloody drug war in Mexico shows no sign of relenting. Neither do calls for tighter border security amid rising fears of spillover violence.
This hardly seems a time the U.S. would be willing to allow people to cross the border legally from Mexico without a customs officer in sight. But in this rugged, remote West Texas terrain where wading across the shallow Rio Grande undetected is all too easy, federal authorities are touting a proposal to open an unmanned port of entry as a security upgrade.
By the spring, kiosks could open up in Big Bend National Park allowing people from the tiny Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen to scan their identity documents and talk to a customs officer in another location, at least 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.
The crossing, which would be the nation’s first such port of entry with Mexico, has sparked opposition from some who see it as counterintuitive in these days of heightened border security. Supporters say the crossing would give the isolated Mexican town long-awaited access to U.S. commerce, improve conservation efforts and be an unlikely target for criminal operations.
“People that want to be engaged in illegal activities along the border, ones that are engaged in those activities now, they’re still going to do it,” said William Wellman, Big Bend National Park’s superintendent. “But you’d have to be a real idiot to pick the only place with security in 300 miles (480 kilometers) of the border to try to sneak across.”
The proposed crossing from Boquillas del Carmen leads to a vast expanse of rolling scrub, cut by sandy-floored canyons and violent volcanic rock outcroppings. The Chihuahuan desert wilderness is home to mountain lions, black bears and roadrunners, sparsely populated by an occasional camper and others visiting the 800,000-acre (320,000-hectare) national park.
Customs and Border Protection, which would run the port of entry, says the proposal is a safe way to allow access to the town’s residents, who currently must travel 240 road miles (390 road kilometers) to the nearest legal entry point. It also would allow park visitors to visit the town.
If the crossing is approved, the Border Patrol would have eight agents living in the park in addition to the park’s 23 law enforcement rangers.
“I think it’s actually going to end up making security better,” CBP spokesman William Brooks said.
“Once you‘ve crossed you’re still not anywhere. You‘ve got a long ways to go and we’ve got agents who are in the area. We have agents who patrol. We have checkpoints on the paved roads leading away from the park.”
A public comment period runs through Dec. 27 on the estimated $2.3 million project, which has support at the highest levels of government from both countries.
But U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican member of the House Homeland Security committee, questioned the wisdom of using resources to make it easier to cross the border.
“We need to use our resources to secure the border rather than making it easier to enter in locations where we already have problems with illegal crossings,” McCaul said in an email. “There is more to the oversight of legal entry than checking documents. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) needs to be physically present at every point of entry in order to inspect for contraband, detect suspicious behavior and, if necessary, act on what they encounter.”
While CBP will run the port of entry, the National Park Service is the driver behind the project, which it hopes will help conservation efforts on both sides of the border. Even as the National Park Service has increased cooperation with its Mexican counterpart, joint conservation has been limited by the inability of personnel to cross the border without making a circuitous 16-hour drive, Wellman said.
So the National Park Service is building the contact station just above the Rio Grande. It will house CBP kiosks where crossers will scan in their documents and talk to a customs officer in Presidio, the nearest port of entry, or another remote location. Park service employees will staff the station, offering information about the park and guiding people through the process.
Similar ports of entry are already in operation on remote parts of the border with Canada.
“We think we can do this without doing any damage to national security and possibly enhance security along the border by having better intelligence, better communication with people in Mexico,” Wellman said.
The crossing would also restore a long-running relationship between the park, its visitors and the residents of Boquillas del Carmen, the town of adobe dwellings set a short distance from the river in Mexico.
For years, U.S. tourists added an international dimension to their park visit by wading or ferrying in a rowboat across the shallow Rio Grande to the town. There they bought handicrafts and tacos, providing much-needed cash in the isolated community.
But US officials discouraged such informal crossings in 2002 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted calls for tighter border security. Without access to tourists or supplies on the U.S. side, the town of just more than 100 people has seen a 42 percent drop in population from 2000 to 2010.
Gary Martin, who manages the Rio Grande Village store at a nearby park campground, recalls many Mexican residents crossing the river to pick up groceries and other necessities.
“We’re their supply,” Martin said. “They don’t have any electricity over there. So they would come here and buy frozen chicken, cake mixes and things that they couldn’t get over there.”
Martin tried to stock food items Boquillas del Carmen residents wanted, such as eggs and big sacks of beans.
“After the border closed, well, I got rid of most of my food and went back to gifts because I wasn’t making any money,” Martin said. He estimated about 40 percent of the store’s revenue came from Boquillas residents.
Few have risked crossing to the store since. “If they get caught over here they get shipped off,” he said. “They get deported all the way to Ojinaga and then they’ve got to find their way home. It’s not really worth it.”
Still, most days some Boquillas del Carmen residents wade across the river a short distance downstream of the old crossing and scramble up to a paved overlook perched high above the river.
On boulders near the parking spots they lay out painted walking sticks, scorpions and roadrunners crafted from copper wire and colorful beads. Each craftsman’s work occupies a different rock and operates on the honor system with the hope tourists will drop four or five dollars in their jar.
“Sometimes we don’t sell anything,” said Boquillas del Carmen resident Guillermo Gonzalez Diaz. “Sometimes we sell one.” And other times authorities confiscate everything.
Gonzalez, a 34-year-old father of three, described his town as “very sad, very hard” and said there was no work. Without access to the Rio Grande Village store, residents depend on a bus that runs once a week to Melchor Muzquiz, a larger town about 150 miles (240 kilometers) away, for supplies.
A small military presence protects the town from the drug-related violence that has engulfed other Mexican border towns. Now with news of the port of entry, residents are already making plans for restaurants and shops, he said.
“When it closed nobody crossed and everything went downhill. People began to leave,” he said. “Now people are going to return.”
3) Texas Group Sues to Allow Confederate Flag License Plates... Government/Free Speech
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/texas-group-sues-to-allow-confederate-flag-license-plates/
December 12, 2011
If you live in Texas and you want a license plate that says “One State Under God,” you’ll soon be able to get one. But if you want the other proposed license plate that has the Confederate flag on it, you won’t. However, one group is now suing the Texas DMV to try and give residents the option of the latter.
The L.A. Times reports the Texas division of the group called Sons of Confederate Veterans, a 30,000-member group out of Tennessee, is now filing suit saying the state DMV infringed on the group’s right to free speech by rejecting their plate.
“The 1st Amendment clearly protects controversial speech,” the group said in a statement to the Times. It cited the DMV board’s approval of a plate that “is offensive to Native Americans” because it honors the Buffalo Soldiers, the all-black cavalry that fought Native Americans in the 1800s.
“The board seeks to bar the Texas SCV from expressing their viewpoint while allowing all other groups to express their viewpoint. This type of restriction is exactly the type which the 1st Amendment is designed to erase,” the statement said.
The Times reports that old DMV rules didn’t allow politically-themed plate designs. But that law changed two years ago and since then “all 89 proposed specialty designs.”
“Nine other states have approved Sons of Confederate Veterans’ specialty plates, but Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina only did so after the group sued,” the Times notes. “A similar suit is pending in Florida.”
Their suit comes as the DMV just approved a plate with another message some might see as controversial.
The Austin American-Statesman says the DMV, by a 4-3 vote, “approved an application by a Nacogdoches ministry for a plate showing the crosses and the slogan.”
“Private speech, protected by the First Amendment, should not be subjected to second-class treatment,” said Jonathan Saenz, an attorney and director of legislative affairs for the Liberty Institute.
It’s also important to note the Tea Party-backed Gadsen flag plates have also been approved in the state.
The Confederate flag plate has made its way into the presidential election cycle. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has said he would not support the measure, and TX Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee had blasted the Gov. earlier on the matter.
4) Rep. Issa asks Obama official why illegal camping of Occupy DC was permitted... Democrats/Pro Crime/Liberal Protesters
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/199045-issa-seeks-answers-on-illegal-camping-by-occupy-dc-protesters
12/13/11
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Tuesday announced he wants answers on whether “political judgments played a role” in allowing Occupy D.C. protesters to remain camped in Northwest Washington.
Issa, chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter dated Monday to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar requesting any communication between the Department of Interior and the White House regarding the Occupy D.C. protests.
In the letter, Issa also asked Salazar “to explain a series of agency decisions that allowed protesters to stay in tents at the park for extended periods of time despite a ban on ‘camping,’” according to a news release from Issa’s office.
Occupy DC protesters, an outgrowth of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement that began in Manhattan, have been camping in McPherson Square, in Northwest Washington, for more than two months. The National Park Service (NPS), an agency of the DOI, prohibits camping in the square, but allows 24-hour protests. Issa is seeking answers on the apparent discrepancy.
“The protesters camping in McPherson Square appear to be in violation of the law and the NPS could have legally required them to stop and remove their tents,” Issa wrote in the letter. “The NPS has an obligation to the American people to explain the decisions that were made regarding the Occupy D.C. protesters in McPherson Square.”
According to Issa’s letter, much of the square’s $400,000 in stimulus-funded improvements have been “damaged or destroyed” by the protesters. The improvements, concluded this past spring, included new grass, concrete curbs, refurbished benches, new light poles, water fountains, new paint, new chain fencing, 12 new trash cans and new light meters, according to the letter.
“While the merits of this stimulus funding are debatable, we can all agree that once the federal government invested the funds, no government agency should have allowed it to be damaged or destroyed when it legally could have been prevented,” Issa wrote.
U.S. Park Police arrested several protesters who refused to take down a wood structure built in the park earlier in the month. Following the police removal of the illegal structure, Occupy D.C. obtained a court order prohibiting a surprise eviction from the park before Jan. 31. Mayor Vincent Gray has taken a hands-off approach to the protesters, in comparison to other cities nationwide that have evicted protesters from long-term occupations in city squares and in front of city halls.
The political response has been divided. Many Republicans voiced concern over the protests, which have become violent in some cities, while Democrats including President Obama initially seemed to embrace the movement. Politicians on both sides have said the Occupy protesters are voicing a genuine concern over the economy and the greed demonstrated by some on Wall Street.
On Monday, Occupy D.C. protesters were barred from entering the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican national committees to deliver a “declaration.” Last week, more than 60 protesters were arrested for blocking traffic on K Street in Northwest Washington, a street known for housing numerous lobbying firms. Members of Occupy D.C. have previously staged protests in the lobbies of Senate and House office buildings on Capitol Hill.
Occupy D.C. hunger strikers planned to visit Issa’s congressional office Tuesday morning to advocate for D.C. voting rights.
“We support their right, of course, to exercise their First Amendment right. But at the same time we will not tolerate the breaking of the law,” Gray said last weekend, according to NBC Washington. “People are increasingly losing their patience because of the infringement on business, as they see it, here in the city.”
5) Is This China’s Secret Weapon? Aircraft Carrier... China/Military Buildup
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/is-this-chinas-secret-weapon/
December 14, 2011
DENVER (The Blaze/AP) - A commercial U.S. satellite company said it has captured a photo of China’s first aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea off the Chinese coast.
DigitalGlobe Inc. said Wednesday one of its satellites photographed the carrier on Dec. 8. A DigitalGlobe analyst found the image on Tuesday while searching through photos.
Stephen Wood, director of DigitalGlobe’s analysis center, said he’s confident the ship is the Chinese carrier because of the location and date of the photo. The carrier was on its second round of sea trials at the time.
A Pentagon spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
DigitalGlobe, based in Longmont, Colo., sells satellite imagery and analysis to clients that include the U.S. military, emergency response agencies and private companies. DigitalGlobe has three orbiting satellites and a fourth is under construction.
The aircraft carrier has generated intense international interest because of what it might portend about China’s intentions as a military power.
The former Soviet Union started building the carrier, which it called the Varyag, but never finished it. When the Soviet Union collapsed, it ended up in the hands of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic.
China bought the ship from Ukraine in 1998 and spent years refurbishing it. It had no engines, weaponry or navigation systems when China acquired it.
China has said the carrier is intended for research and training, which has led to speculation that it plans to build future copies.
Beijing is believed to be years away from being able to launch and recover aircraft from it as part of a carrier battle group.
6) Rise Of The Beast System: 11 Ways That Amerika Is Becoming More Like North Korea... Socialism/USA
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/rise-of-the-beast-system-11-ways-that-amerika-is-becoming-more-like-north-korea
Should we just get it over with and change the spelling of America to "Amerika"? Every single day, the United States of America is becoming more like North Korea. In North Korea, the citizens are told that everything that they do needs to be monitored, tracked, recorded and very tightly controlled so that everyone can be kept safe. No dissent is allowed at all. If government officials in North Korea even suspect that you are thinking the wrong thing, your entire extended family can be shipped off to a prison camp. And you know what? North Korea is a pretty safe place. There is not much terrorism in North Korea. But why in the world would anyone ever want to live like that? America is supposed to be a bastion of liberty and freedom, but now we are falling for the same totalitarian lies that so many other societies have fallen for throughout human history. We are witnessing the rise of the beast system - a system of control more pervasive than anything that the world has ever seen. We are constantly being told that the emerging "Big Brother" control grid is being put into place for "our safety", but someday we are going to wake up in a dystopian nightmare where government tyrants have absolutely unlimited control over our lives.
Those that approve of the "Big Brother" police state control grids being constructed all over the world should really study North Korea. That country is what the end result looks like.
North Korea is a totalitarian police state hellhole. No rational human being would ever want to live there. You can see an absolutely amazing National Geographic documentary on what life is like inside North Korea on YouTube right here. If you have never seen that documentary before, it is definitely worth the time that it takes to watch it. If we stay on our current path, our country is going to become just like North Korea.
America does not have to go down this road. Right now nearly every nation on earth is implementing "Big Brother" security measures, but we could choose to be different if we wanted to.
Unfortunately, right now we seem to be leading the charge toward a world where liberty and freedom are absolutely dead.
The following are 11 ways that Amerika is becoming more like North Korea....
#1 It has been revealed that Predator drones are now being used inside of the United States to spy on American citizens. These Predator drones are equipped with the latest high-resolution cameras, very sophisticated heat sensors and incredibly advanced surveillance equipment.
Predator drones can sit up in the sky and watch you for 20 hours without stopping. If one was watching you right now you probably wouldn't even know it.
We are accustomed to Predator drones being used in the "war on terror", but now they are being used to watch American citizens. The following comes from a recent article in the Los Angeles Times....
The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.
Congress first authorized Customs and Border Protection to buy unarmed Predators in 2005. Officials in charge of the fleet cite broad authority to work with police from budget requests to Congress that cite "interior law enforcement support" as part of their mission.
In an interview, Michael C. Kostelnik, a retired Air Force general who heads the office that supervises the drones, said Predators are flown "in many areas around the country, not only for federal operators, but also for state and local law enforcement and emergency responders in times of crisis."
You can see mainstream video news reports about how authorities are using Predator drones to spy on American citizens right here and right here.
#2 The Department of Homeland Security says that paying for your hotel room in cash is a sign that you could be a potential terrorist. If you do not believe this, just watch this shocking DHS video.
#3 As I have written about previously, authorities in Tennessee are going door to door conducting "assessments" of how "prepared" residents are. The following comes from a recent news article about this new program....
The Metro Public Health and the Tennessee Department of Health will be using a tool designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go door to door and check to see how disaster ready you are.
The door to door assessment will take place from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday. It will be in 30 neighborhoods in Davidson County that have been randomly selected to be the target of a door to door assessment.
#4 Today, government authorities track nearly everything that we do. For example, one woman in Washington D.C. has been fined $2000 for not properly recycling homemade cat litter made out of old newspapers and junk mail.
#5 Just like in the movie "Minority Report", face tracking technology is now being used in advertising billboards all over the nation. This type of technology is also increasingly being used for law enforcement purposes.
#6 Police are not just using tasers on hardened criminals anymore. Now tasers are even being used on young school girls. The following comes from a report about an incident that recently happened in Pennsylvania....
The mother of a 14-year-old Dieruff High School student has filed a federal lawsuit claiming an Allentown police officer used excessive force when he shot her daughter in the groin with a stun gun during class dismissal in September.
Victoria Geist says her daughter, Keshana Wilson, had her arms raised high to indicate she surrendered when officer Jason Ammary pointed a Taser at her on Sept. 29 outside the high school and fired, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court by attorney Richard J. Orloski.
The suit claims Ammary fired the Taser directly at the teen's groin and he then filed retaliatory charges against the girl to justify using the Taser.
#7 A number of very elderly women have come forward with stories of being strip-searched by TSA agents at U.S. airports. Not even North Korea treats their elderly women like this.
#8 Americans are being watched in hundreds of different ways each day, and most of them have no idea what is happening. For example, in Washington D.C. the movements of every single car are tracked using automated license plate readers (ALPRs). The following comes from a recent Washington Post article....
More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.
With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.
Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the District, which has more than one plate-reader per square mile, the highest concentration in the nation. Police in the Washington suburbs have dozens of them as well, and local agencies plan to add many more in coming months, creating a comprehensive dragnet that will include all the approaches into the District.
#9 The FBI is now admittedly recording Internet talk radio programs all over the United States. The following comes from a recent article by Mark Weaver of WMAL.com....
If you call a radio talk show and get on the air, you might be recorded by the FBI.
The FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record as much radio news and talk programming as it can find on the Internet.
The FBI says it is not playing big brother by policing the airwaves, but rather seeking access to what airs as potential evidence.
#10 As I have mentioned previously, new high-tech street lights that are being funded by the federal government and that are being installed all over the nation can also be used as surveillance cameras, can be used by the DHS to make "security announcements" and can even be used to record personal conversations. The following is from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson for Infowars.com....
Federally-funded high-tech street lights now being installed in American cities are not only set to aid the DHS in making “security announcements” and acting as talking surveillance cameras, they are also capable of “recording conversations,” bringing the potential privacy threat posed by ‘Intellistreets’ to a whole new level.
#11 Congress has been debating a new bill that would officially designate the United States as part of the "battleground" on the "war on terror" and would allow the U.S. military to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial. According to U.S. Senator Carl Levin, it was actually Barack Obama that was pushing for the indefinite detention of American citizens to be included in the National Defense Authorization Act....
Senator Levin told Congress recently that under the original wording of the National Defense Authorization Act, American citizens were excluded from the provision that allowed for detention. Once Obama’s officials saw the text though, says Levin, “the administration asked us to remove the language which says that US citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.”
The Obama administration has been attacking our civil liberties even more than the Bush administration did.
Unless something dramatic happens, at some point all of our liberties and all of our freedoms will be gone.
Thankfully we can still share information like this on the Internet, but that will not last forever. Eventually, "hate crime laws" will be used to greatly restrict what we are able to say on the Internet.
If you don't that that is possible, guess again. Our northern neighbor, Canada, already has a very strict law against "hate speech" on the Internet.
So what is "hate speech"? Well, it turns out that the people almost always targeted for their speech are libertarians, true conservatives and Bible-believing Christians.
In the United States, not too many people are being put into prison for what they say or what they believe yet, but law enforcement authorities all over the nation are being instructed to be on the look out for certain kinds of bumper stickers and certain kinds of literature. If you do not believe that the government is specifically targeting libertarians, true conservatives and Bible-believing Christians just watch this video.
Amerika is not as bad as North Korea yet, but we are well on the way.
In a recent article for News with Views, author Paul McGuire described what the future could be like if we stay on our current path as a nation....
Low flying helicopters flew above us, aiming surveillance devices at us. Everywhere I looked, people stared vacantly like soulless zombies. Very few people could think, most just walked about in a trance. The drugs in the water supply, vaccinations and the endless bombardment of EMF waves, along with hypnotic suggestions through the media kept people in a trance-like state. I, like a few others, managed to retain my mind, by forcing myself to think critically. I discovered early on that you could choose not to enter the trance-like state. But, you had to always maintain that dead and vacant look in your eyes. If somebody thought you were thinking, they would report you and you would disappear.
Please wake up America.
Yes, the rest of the world is steamrolling toward a dystopian nightmare.
But America does not have to join them.
The last chapters of our history can be the most nightmarish or they can be the greatest.
It is all going to depend on the choices that we make.
Please share information like this with your family and friends while there is still time.
7) Is living off the Grid now a crime?... Government Zoning Laws/Private Property Rights
http://offgridsurvival.com/livingoffthegridcrime/?_rdr
January 03, 2012
Apparently living off the grid, off the land and without government assistance is now a crime that can land you in jail and cause you to lose your home.
Government officials across the country are forming so called “nuisance abatement teams” to intimidate people into giving up their land or conforming to the governments demands and hooking back into the grid. Counties across the country are actually jailing people for living the way they want to live.
I was alerted to this video by a reader and was troubled and sickened by what the poor people in the California Desert are being forced to deal with. From being threatened with jail time if they don’t hook back into the grid to being thrown in jail because the county didn’t like the look of their homes, the people in the deserts of Los Angeles County are being terrorized by their government.
Click to viewIt’s a sad day when living off your own land becomes a crime. Please spread the word.
8) These Are the Views From the New World Trade Center... 9-11 Rebuild/Interest
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/these-are-the-views-from-the-new-world-trade-center/
December 16, 2011
Ten years after the Twin Towers crumbled at the hands of terrorists, the Freedom Tower is finally tickling the skies in Lower Manhattan. And now, the Port Authority of NY and NJ has released some stunning pictures (via Business Insider) of the new site.
The pictures were tweeted out from the WTCProgress account and show everything from the ongoing construction to the incredible views. We’ve included some of them below:
1WTC: From the 80th floor looking north (Dec. 14)
80th floor looking east. Hello Brooklyn! (Dec. 14)
Looking south.
Fog shot
WTC construction site. (Sep. 20)
A view of the Freedom Tower. (Dec. 12)
By the way, the building should be finished by 2013. You can see more pictures over at Business Insider.
9) Minn. High School Apologizes for ‘Incest’ Prank Involving Blindfolded Kids Kissing Their Parents... Incest/Humor Fail
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/minn-high-school-apologizes-for-incest-prank-involving-blindfolded-kids-kissing-their-parents/
December 15, 2011
When we watched this video in the Blaze newsroom, several audible gasps rang out and numerous hands covered mouths.
The video shows several Minnesota high school students at a pep rally standing blindfolded. The students are then presented with a kissing partner. What ensues is some passionate lip-locking. It was meant to be a prank. The prank part? The kids didn’t know it, but they were actually kissing their parents.
Yes, you read that right.
Citypages.com explains more about what happened at Rosemount High School:
These poor kids reasonably assumed they were about make out with their classmates. But the assembly organizers had something else in mind: their parents.
Footage of the assembly shows a scene that would make even Sigmund Freud cringe. Dads kissing daughters. Mothers kissing sons.
And these are not just innocent pecks on the lips. The parents are intimately lip-locking their children for several seconds. One even progresses to rolling around on the gym floor. In another instance, a mother moves her son‘s hand south so he’s grasping her butt.
After the make-out session comes to an end, the still-blindfolded kids are asked to guess who kissed them.
Here’s the video, which Gawker has dubbed the “incest” prank, that’s almost unbelievable:
Now, the school is apologizing.
“As principal I am responsible for everything that happens in the school so, ultimately, I am the person that needs to answer for this,” school principal John Wollersheim told KARE-TV on Wednesday.
“I know there are people who are upset about what they have seen and as principal I am responsible for what happens here. For all the people who are offended, they are genuinely offended, and I owe them an apology,” Wollersheim said.
Still, he says the video is only a snippet of what went on and doesn’t tell the whole story.
“A lesson to be learned is that what you see on the internet, sometimes you just see portions of what really happened and it can lead you to think a certain way,” he said:
Despite the apology, Gawker still is a little grossed out:
One YouTube commenter who claims to be a student at Rosemount says that it’s a “tradition that only happens every six years or something,” which makes it sound like an ancient pagan Norse ritual brought to America by sick incestuous vikings.
What do you think? Harmless, funny prank or disgusting joke?