Thursday, December 16, 2010

Re: Digest for politicalforum@googlegroups.com - 25 Messages in 21 Topics

Tommy,

On the other string you never did respond to the proof of obvious plagiarism of a story you introduced as your own.... you and EVERYTHING you say has lost ALL credibility.... 






On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 10:26 AM, <politicalforum+noreply@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Group: http://groups.google.com/group/politicalforum/topics

    Travis <baconlard@gmail.com> Dec 15 10:18AM -0600 ^
     
    :
     
     
     
     
     
    ------------------------------
     
     
     
     
    YOU HAVE TO ADMIT IT IS FUNNY!
     
     
    The Coyote Problem
     
    The Sierra Club and the U.S. Forest Service were presenting an alternative
    to the Wyoming ranchers for controlling the coyote population. It seems
    that after years of the ranchers using the tried and true method of shooting
    or trapping the predators, the Sierra Club had a "more humane" solution to
    this issue. What they were proposing was for the animals to be captured
    alive. The males would then be castrated and let loose again. This was
    ACTUALLY proposed by the Sierra Club and by the U.S. Forest Service.
     
    All of the ranchers thought about this amazing idea for a couple of
    minutes. Finally an old fellow in the back of the conference room stood up,
    tipped his hat back and said; "Son, I don't think you understand our
    problem here." "These coyotes ain't fuckin' our sheep - they're eatin'
    'em!"
     
    You should have been there to hear the roar of laughter in that room. The
    meeting never really got back on track.
     
     
     
     
     
    =

     

 Topic: Shotgun
    Travis <baconlard@gmail.com> Dec 15 10:17AM -0600 ^
     
    *You are probably aware of this but is important to review it again!*
     
     
     
     
    * Shotgun*
     
     
     
    *You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom door.
    Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers.
    At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way.
     
    With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your
    shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and
    open it.
    In the darkness, you make out two shadows.. One holds something that looks
    like a crowbar When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise
    the shotgun and fire.*
     
    *The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the
    second
    man crawls to the front door and lurches outside. As you pick up the
    telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble.
     
    In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are
    privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless.
     
    Yours was never registered. Police arrive and inform you that the second
    burglar has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal
    Possession of a Firearm.
     
    When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will
    probably
    plea the case down to manslaughter. "What kind of sentence will I get?" you
    ask.
    "Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave
    yourself, and you'll be out in seven."
     
    The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper.
    Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you
    shot are represented as choirboys. Their friends and relatives can't find an
    unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities
    acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times.*
     
    *But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve
    to Die."
    The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type
    pranksters. As the days wear on, the story takes wings.
     
    The national media picks it up, then the international media. The surviving
    burglar has become a folk hero. Your attorney says the thief is preparing to
    sue you, and he'll probably win.
     
    The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several
    times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their
    lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you
    told your neighbor
    that you would be prepared next time. The District Attorney uses this to
    allege
    that you were lying in wait for the burglars. A few months later, you go to
    trial.
     
    The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently
    predicted.
    When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against
    you.
    Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man. It doesn't take
    long for the jury to convict you of all charges.
     
    The judge sentences you to life in prison.
     
    This case really happened.*
     
    *On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England, killed one
    burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now
    serving a life term. How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in
    the once great British Empire? *
     
    *It started with the Pistols Act of 1903.
    This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons
    and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a
    license. The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only
    handguns but all firearms except shotguns. Later laws passed in 1953 and
    1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated
    the registration of all shotguns.
     
    Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the
    Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed man
    with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw.
     
    When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead. The British public, already
    de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control", demanded even tougher
    restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective
    even though Ryan used a rifle) Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland,
    Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a
    teacher at a public school.
     
    For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable
    or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up
    law-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week, the media gave up
    all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The
    Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few sidearms
    still owned by private citizens.
     
    During the years in which the British government incrementally took away
    most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed
    self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant
    gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was
    no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or
    robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released.
     
    Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying,
    "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands." All of Martin's
    neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and several elderly people were
    severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the
    consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his
    collection trashed or stolen by burglars.
     
    When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given
    three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good British
    subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were visited by
    police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply.
     
    Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private
    citizens. How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been
    registered and licensed. Kind of like cars. Sound familiar?
     
    WAKE UP AMERICA; THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT
    IN OUR CONSTITUTION
     
    "...It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless
    minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds..."
     
    ~ Samuel Adams ~*
     
    *If you think this is important, please forward to everyone you know.*

     

    Travis <baconlard@gmail.com> Dec 15 10:15AM -0600 ^
     
    * *
     
     
     
    *TO PEE OR NOT TO PEE.
    **I have a job. I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes & the government
    distributes my taxes as it sees fit.
    *
    *In order to get that paycheck, in my case, I am required to pass a random
    urine test (with which I have no problem).
    *
    *What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who
    don't have to pass a urine test.
    *
    *So, here is my question: Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a
    welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them?
    *
    *Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their
    feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sitting
    on their BUTT----doing drugs while I work.
    *
    *Can you imagine how much money each state would save if people had to pass
    a urine test to get a public assistance check?
    *
    *I guess we could call the program **"URINE OR YOU'RE OUT"!**
    *
     
    *Pass this along if you agree or simply delete if you don't. Hope you all
    will pass it along, though. Something has to change in this country - AND
    SOON!
    *
     
    *P.S. Just a thought, all politicians should have to pass a urine test too!
    **AMEN!*
     
    *How long would they last???*

     

    MJ <michaelj@america.net> Dec 15 10:02AM -0500 ^
     
    Reagan, the Bushes, and Saddam Hussein
     
    by Russ Baker, Posted December 10, 2010
     
    This article appeared in the August 2010 edition of Freedom Daily
     
    Throughout the Reagan-Poppy Bush years, the White House had been an eager backer of Saddam. The two administrations had provided millions of dollars in aid and had permitted the export of US technology that Iraq used to build a massive arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly nuclear weapons. George W. Bush would repeatedly express outrage over Saddam's 1988 gassing of the Kurds, neglecting to mention that Donald Rumsfeld, now his defense secretary, had visited and talked business deals with Saddam back in the '80s and that the Reagan and Poppy Bush administrations continued to support the Iraqi dictator after the gassing. The larger goal, however, was a so-called balance of terror that would prevent any country from gaining ascendancy in the strategic Gulf region, and so the United States actually provided materiel and intelligence to both sides in the brutal, nearly decade-long Iraq-Iran war, in which over a million people died.
     
    In a paradoxical twist, when W. sought to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he cited those same weapons without mentioning that his own father had helped to provide them. He also failed to mention what many proliferation experts correctly believed: that most or all of those weapons had been destroyed as part of Saddam's scale-down after the imposition of the no-fly zones and President Clinton's own threats to invade.
     
    Surprisingly, the United States's secret relationship with Saddam Hussein goes back even further a remarkable 40 years. This information was published by the wire service UPI in April 2003, shortly after the invasion, while US forces were hunting for the reviled Saddam Hussein, but it was generally ignored. The report noted,
     
    US forces in Baghdad might now be searching high and low for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, but in the past Saddam was seen by US intelligence services as a bulwark of anti-communism and they used him as their instrument for more than 40 years, according to former US intelligence diplomats and intelligence officials.... While many have thought that Saddam first became involved with US intelligence agencies at the start of the September 1980 Iran-Iraq war, his first contacts with US officials date back to 1959, when he was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad tasked with assassinating then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim.
     
    The article noted that Qasim had overthrown the Iraqi monarchy and participated in a US-backed Cold War coalition. But when Qasim decided to withdraw from the alliance and began warming up to the USSR, CIA director Allen Dulles publicly declared that Iraq was "the most dangerous spot in the world."
     
    According to another former senior State Department official, Saddam, while only in his early 20s, became a part of a US plot to get rid of Qasim.... In Beriut, the CIA paid for Sadddam's apartment and put him through a brief training course.... Even then Saddam "was known as having no class. He was a thug a cutthroat."
     
    ... During this time Saddam was making frequent visits to the American Embassy.... In February 1963 Qasim was killed in a Ba'ath party coup.... But the agency quickly moved into action. Noting that the Ba'ath party was hunting down Iraq's communists, the CIA provided the submachine gun-toting Iraqi National Guardsmen with lists of suspected communists who were then jailed, interrogated, and summarily gunned down.
     
    Saddam Hussein is hardly the only dictator whom the United States essentially created, long supported, and then turned on when circumstances changed. Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, a long-time CIA asset, was another. Poppy, as Ford's CIA director and then as Reagan's vice president, had fostered a relationship with the notorious drug trafficker during the '70s and '80s, even keeping him on the US payroll at more than $100,000 a year. But Noriega did not always do as the Americans wanted. While Noriega sold arms and provided intelligence to the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, he refused to supply weapons to the US-backed Contras to help overthrow the Managua government.
     
    According to Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Noriega insisted to him that he had had the best of relations with Bush for years. But Noriega told Birns that at an airport meeting in Panama shortly before the invasion, he had had a spat with Vice President Dan Quayle when he refused to commit Panama to a more confrontational role in fighting against Washington's Central American enemies. Birns, who was in Panama as Noriega's "honorable enemy" guest only hours before the US invasion and was arguably the last American to meet with Noriega before US troops arrived, told me that the Panamanian strongman was bitter because after years of servitude to Washington's various regional crusades, Bush was unceremoniously dumping him.
     
    As former head of French intelligence Count Alexandre de Marenches puts it in his memoirs,
     
    If it's proved that Noriega was on the US payroll, then it was a shameful mistake.... Never use shady characters.... I expressed this philosophy to George Bush.... Now years later, the worst nightmare has come to haunt the Americans a protracted and messy jury trial following a lethal and embarrassing military operation in Panama all designed to get rid of the rat they should never have hired in the first place.... If you do, after all, hire the rat, and are ultimately forced to get rid of him, then by all means do so quickly and permanently.
     
    Though Jimmy Carter had agreed to return the Canal Zone to Panama by 2000, that did not mean Poppy was willing to give up influence in the tropical republic. At the end of 1989, Poppy ordered an invasion of the country, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds and the imposition of a more compliant government.
     
    Twisting arms
     
    For W., one benefit of turning attention toward Iraq and touting Saddam as a major threat was to take the world's eye off more than a few potentially embarrassing balls. What, for example, had led to 9/11? What about the US role during the 1970s and 1980s in creating a global mujahideen force as surrogates in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union? Or the objective of actually fostering the USSR's Afghan invasion in the first place by baiting the Soviets into what Zbigniew Brzezinski hoped would be quicksand for the Communists? These global gambits, acknowledged in memoirs of key decision makers, including Brzezinski, have seldom been widely discussed or generally understood.
     
    Then there was the politicization of intelligence, which began under Poppy Bush's CIA directorship with his creation of the "Team B" that sought to refute the agency analysts who had accurately determined that the USSR was already in decline. Some intelligence analysts had also warned only to be ignored about the risk of creating an extremist Islamic force armed to the teeth.
     
    And there was the simple fact that 15 of 19 hijackers on September 11 were Saudis. What would or should the Saudi government have known about these people? And what about the deep and long personal relationship between the Bushes and the Saudi royal family? All the public ever learned, thanks in good part to the film Fahrenheit 9/11, was how W.'s administration showed remarkable diligence in spiriting Saudi royals out of the United States right after 9/11 an operation about which the administration has maintained silence.
     
    And what of the manner in which the 9/11 attack itself was handled most notably the failure to act on intelligence leads in advance and the competing accounts of the activities of Vice President Cheney in those crucial minutes and hours after the attack? And what of the mystery of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's equally peculiar actions, including his odd decision to "assist" at the scene of the Pentagon attack rather than assume command? There were so many questions, and all they did was undermine the confidence in the competency and candor of the administration.
     
    Absent a distraction, the media and a few public intellectuals were bound to raise such potentially embarrassing topics. Indeed, some did but a war always takes center stage.
     
    Russ Baker is an award-winning investigative journalist who has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, New Yorker, and many other publications. This is an excerpt from his book Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years (Bloomsbury Press, 2009). Copyright 2009 by Russ Baker. Reprinted by permission.
     
    http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd1008e.asp

     

    MJ <michaelj@america.net> Dec 15 09:59AM -0500 ^
     
    "If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves" – Thomas Sowell.

     

    THE ANNOINTED ONE <markmkahle@gmail.com> Dec 14 09:26PM -0800 ^
     
    Mark M Kahle to www.actionprinciples.org rebuttal.....it is posted
    there.
    December 15th, 2010 at 1:22 am
     
    Tommy, Just a little short on fact here. DADT has been found
    unconstitutional. Only an Obama guided DoJ seeking an appeal to this
    ordered end of DADT keeps it alive. If the Dems dropped their case
    (appeal) DADT would be dead and gone. This requires no vote or
    approval by the Congress. If your going to tell a story tell the whole
    story. Leaving out pertinent facts that have been pointed out to you
    literally a hundred or more times makes your story a lie and you a
    liar by omission.
     

     

    Mark <markmkahle@gmail.com> Dec 15 07:51AM -0600 ^
     
    Tommy,
     
    Keith is right. "Your" article would not pass a Lesbian sniff test... it is
    pure plagiarism. On top of being purposefully inaccurate and therefore a lie
    it is a purposefully inaccurate plagiarized lie.
     
     
    --
    Mark M. Kahle H.

     

    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Dec 15 02:00AM -0800 ^
     
    Make Bill of Rights Day America's Anti-Politician Day
    http://www.fff.org/comment/com1012h.asp
    --
    *I reserve the right to do as I please.*
     
    *"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover
    of law, and with the colors of justice ..."
    - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)
     
    "If Americans wish to be free of judicial tyranny, they must at least
    develop basic knowledge of the judicial role in our republican
    government. The present state of affairs is a direct result of our
    collective ignorance."
    - Ron Paul*
     
    *Our courts will never be fair and just again until we force the courts
    to follow their own rules. Do not allow yourself to be ruled by tyrants.
    Learn how to control corrupt judges and crooked lawyers
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004> so you can get
    Justice! Learn to litigate: Buy and Study JURISDICTIONARY
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004>. The best course
    available for Pro Se and Pro Per litigants.*
     
    *I Refuse To Comply With The Unconstitutional Demands Of The Federal
    Government*
    *Read the US Constitution
    <http://amgona.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=7#Amends>*
     
     
    *Government is only as strong as those who allow themselves to be
    governed are weak.*
     
    *"We have plenty of rights in this country, provided you don't get
    caught exercising them."
    - Terry Mitchell
     
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects something that
    cannot be."
    - Thomas Jefferson***

     

    MJ <michaelj@america.net> Dec 15 08:22AM -0500 ^
     
    Make Bill of Rights Day America's Anti-Politician Day
     
    by James Bovard, December 14, 2010
     
    Wednesday, December 15, is the 219th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Bill of Rights Day should be the preeminent Anti-Politician Day on the American calendar. Instead, it has become simply another pretext for rulers to delude the ruled.
     
    Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1787, "A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth ... and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference." Yet, some of the Founding Fathers such as Alexander Hamilton fought tooth-and-nail against codifying any limit on politicians' power. And the second president John Adams did all that he could to destroy any restraints on the feds' power to suppress criticism of the government.
     
    President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed the first Bill of Rights Day, which occurred on December 15, 1941 a few days after FDR's dream came true and the United States was simultaneously at war with Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. FDR called the Bill of Rights "the great American charter of personal liberty and human dignity," but proceeded to label the rights "privileges" and then listed only "privileges" contained in the First Amendment. FDR then asserted that "free schools" could not exist without the Bill of Rights, though there was nothing about education in the first 10 amendments. The Second World War provided a blank check for FDR to seize almost boundless power at home and abroad, and he never let the Constitution stand in his way.
     
    Subsequent politicians have done their best to make Americans view the Bill of Rights as simply another government handout. President Bill Clinton, in an April 19, 1994, television interview, declared, "When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly.... When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it."
     
    The Bill of Rights did not give freedom to Americans; instead, the Bill of Rights expressly prohibited the government from violating pre-existing rights of the people. The Bill of Rights was not "radical" according to the beliefs of Americans of that era; instead, it codified rights both long recognized in English common law or that had been carved out over centuries of resistance to English tyranny. The Founding Fathers had difficulty getting the Constitution approved in many states not because it was "radical" in protecting people's rights from the government but because it was perceived as concentrating too much power within the federal government to violate the rights of the people.
     
    President Obama is upholding the tradition of invoking the Bill of Rights to muddle Americans' political thinking. When he formally proclaimed Bill of Rights Day last December, he declared that "fidelity to our fundamental values is one of America's greatest strengths.... As Americans, we must keep striving to live up to our founding ideals." Obama made this declaration after signaling that all the high-ranking Bush administration officials who authorized torture and other war crimes would face no federal prosecution.
     
    In his Bill of Rights Day proclamation this year, Obama declared: "The United States will always speak for those who are voiceless, defend those who are oppressed, and bear witness to those who want nothing more than to exercise their universal human rights. Our Bill of Rights protects these fundamental values at home, and guides our actions" abroad.
     
    In the same season that Obama is making such declarations, his administration is also insisting that it is entitled to kill Americans without any due process, without any judicial proceedings, simply because some government officials suspect those Americans are "involved" with terrorist groups.
     
    Presidents and members of Congress take an oath to uphold the Constitution and thus to respect the rights recognized and guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Insofar as the feds trample the Bill of Rights, the government is illegitimate. Insofar as the government perennially violates the Bill of Rights, it becomes an aggressor against the American people.
     
    At this point, what we really need is a constitutional amendment to require the federal government obey the Constitution. As long as the rulers are permitted to scorn the rightful limits on their power, our political system consists of little more than elective dictatorship.
     
    Americans need to remember Bill of Rights Day but for the proper reason. Americans must recognize that the government poses the greatest peril to their liberties. December 15 is the day to stop and count the ways that politicians are ravaging your rights and to take action to turn the tide against Leviathan.
     
    http://www.fff.org/comment/com1012h.asp

     

    Keith In Tampa <keithintampa@gmail.com> Dec 15 01:20AM -0500 ^
     
    Good to have ya aboard! From the Political Forum Community, I speak for
    everyone when I say, Happy Birthday!
     
    KeithInTampa

     

    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Dec 15 02:10AM -0800 ^
     
    Does Governmental Secrecy Make Us Safer?
    http://www.strike-the-root.com/does-governmental-secrecy-make-us-safer
    --
    *I reserve the right to do as I please.*
     
    *"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover
    of law, and with the colors of justice ..."
    - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)
     
    "If Americans wish to be free of judicial tyranny, they must at least
    develop basic knowledge of the judicial role in our republican
    government. The present state of affairs is a direct result of our
    collective ignorance."
    - Ron Paul*
     
    *Our courts will never be fair and just again until we force the courts
    to follow their own rules. Do not allow yourself to be ruled by tyrants.
    Learn how to control corrupt judges and crooked lawyers
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004> so you can get
    Justice! Learn to litigate: Buy and Study JURISDICTIONARY
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004>. The best course
    available for Pro Se and Pro Per litigants.*
     
    *I Refuse To Comply With The Unconstitutional Demands Of The Federal
    Government*
    *Read the US Constitution
    <http://amgona.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=7#Amends>*
     
     
    *Government is only as strong as those who allow themselves to be
    governed are weak.*
     
    *"We have plenty of rights in this country, provided you don't get
    caught exercising them."
    - Terry Mitchell
     
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects something that
    cannot be."
    - Thomas Jefferson***

     

    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Dec 15 02:07AM -0800 ^
     
    The Assault On Assange Is An Assault On Liberty
    http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10000/
     
    Quote from article: "Julian Assange is not Wikileaks; in other words,
    whether you regard him as a hero, villain, victim or egotistical
    malcontent, Wikileaks itself remains difficult to characterise. If it
    can be blamed for deterring diplomacy, derided for titillating us with
    diplomatic gossip, or dispensed with faint praise (by activist and
    writer Todd Gitlin) as the 'Facebook of whistleblowing', it can also be
    heralded for providing additional proof (if any were needed) of the
    gross hypocrisies and moral cowardice of the post-9/11 American security
    state."
    --
    *I reserve the right to do as I please.*
     
    *"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover
    of law, and with the colors of justice ..."
    - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)
     
    "If Americans wish to be free of judicial tyranny, they must at least
    develop basic knowledge of the judicial role in our republican
    government. The present state of affairs is a direct result of our
    collective ignorance."
    - Ron Paul*
     
    *Our courts will never be fair and just again until we force the courts
    to follow their own rules. Do not allow yourself to be ruled by tyrants.
    Learn how to control corrupt judges and crooked lawyers
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004> so you can get
    Justice! Learn to litigate: Buy and Study JURISDICTIONARY
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004>. The best course
    available for Pro Se and Pro Per litigants.*
     
    *I Refuse To Comply With The Unconstitutional Demands Of The Federal
    Government*
    *Read the US Constitution
    <http://amgona.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=7#Amends>*
     
     
    *Government is only as strong as those who allow themselves to be
    governed are weak.*
     
    *"We have plenty of rights in this country, provided you don't get
    caught exercising them."
    - Terry Mitchell
     
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects something that
    cannot be."
    - Thomas Jefferson***

     

    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Dec 15 02:02AM -0800 ^
     
    Good Profits And "The Good War"
    http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6750/good_profits_and_the_good_war/
    --
    *I reserve the right to do as I please.*
     
    *"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover
    of law, and with the colors of justice ..."
    - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)
     
    "If Americans wish to be free of judicial tyranny, they must at least
    develop basic knowledge of the judicial role in our republican
    government. The present state of affairs is a direct result of our
    collective ignorance."
    - Ron Paul*
     
    *Our courts will never be fair and just again until we force the courts
    to follow their own rules. Do not allow yourself to be ruled by tyrants.
    Learn how to control corrupt judges and crooked lawyers
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004> so you can get
    Justice! Learn to litigate: Buy and Study JURISDICTIONARY
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004>. The best course
    available for Pro Se and Pro Per litigants.*
     
    *I Refuse To Comply With The Unconstitutional Demands Of The Federal
    Government*
    *Read the US Constitution
    <http://amgona.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=7#Amends>*
     
     
    *Government is only as strong as those who allow themselves to be
    governed are weak.*
     
    *"We have plenty of rights in this country, provided you don't get
    caught exercising them."
    - Terry Mitchell
     
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects something that
    cannot be."
    - Thomas Jefferson***

     

    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Dec 15 01:59AM -0800 ^
     
    Campaign Against Wikileaks Is Lawless
    http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12633
     
    Quote from above linked commentary: "Terrorism ain't what it used to be.
    Apparently, today you can qualify just for embarrassing Secretary of
    State Hillary Clinton."
     
    --
    *I reserve the right to do as I please.*
     
    *"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover
    of law, and with the colors of justice ..."
    - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)
     
    "If Americans wish to be free of judicial tyranny, they must at least
    develop basic knowledge of the judicial role in our republican
    government. The present state of affairs is a direct result of our
    collective ignorance."
    - Ron Paul*
     
    *Our courts will never be fair and just again until we force the courts
    to follow their own rules. Do not allow yourself to be ruled by tyrants.
    Learn how to control corrupt judges and crooked lawyers
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004> so you can get
    Justice! Learn to litigate: Buy and Study JURISDICTIONARY
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004>. The best course
    available for Pro Se and Pro Per litigants.*
     
    *I Refuse To Comply With The Unconstitutional Demands Of The Federal
    Government*
    *Read the US Constitution
    <http://amgona.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=7#Amends>*
     
     
    *Government is only as strong as those who allow themselves to be
    governed are weak.*
     
    *"We have plenty of rights in this country, provided you don't get
    caught exercising them."
    - Terry Mitchell
     
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects something that
    cannot be."
    - Thomas Jefferson***

     

    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Dec 15 01:52AM -0800 ^
     
    Air Force Cutting Off Access To Wikileaks News
    http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/14/us.wikileaks.government/index.html?hpt=C1
    --
    *I reserve the right to do as I please.*
     
    *"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover
    of law, and with the colors of justice ..."
    - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)
     
    "If Americans wish to be free of judicial tyranny, they must at least
    develop basic knowledge of the judicial role in our republican
    government. The present state of affairs is a direct result of our
    collective ignorance."
    - Ron Paul*
     
    *Our courts will never be fair and just again until we force the courts
    to follow their own rules. Do not allow yourself to be ruled by tyrants.
    Learn how to control corrupt judges and crooked lawyers
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004> so you can get
    Justice! Learn to litigate: Buy and Study JURISDICTIONARY
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004>. The best course
    available for Pro Se and Pro Per litigants.*
     
    *I Refuse To Comply With The Unconstitutional Demands Of The Federal
    Government*
    *Read the US Constitution
    <http://amgona.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=7#Amends>*
     
     
    *Government is only as strong as those who allow themselves to be
    governed are weak.*
     
    *"We have plenty of rights in this country, provided you don't get
    caught exercising them."
    - Terry Mitchell
     
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects something that
    cannot be."
    - Thomas Jefferson***

     

    Keith In Tampa <keithintampa@gmail.com> Dec 15 01:11AM -0500 ^
     
    <Grin>!!
     
    Nope, I am outright laughing!!
     
     
     
     

     

    greg dog99 <gregdog99@gmail.com> Dec 14 04:11PM -0700 ^
     
    And yet they are able to own guns? In the ghettos of my city we have the
    obligatory 6th and 7th generation welfare recipients as well, and they never
    seem to miss a meal unless they are too strung out on crack or crank (more
    likely)..
    Greg
     

     

    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Dec 14 09:25PM -0800 ^
     
    December 13, 2010
    What Ike Got Right
    By JAMES LEDBETTER
     
    LAST week the National Archives released a trove of drafts and notes
    that shed new light on President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell
    address, in which he warned America about the "military-industrial complex."
     
    The release comes just in time for the speech's 50th anniversary next
    month. And so while scholars and historians use these documents to
    scrutinize the evolution of the speech's famous phrase, it's worth
    asking a broader question: does America still have a military-industrial
    complex, and should we be as worried about it as Eisenhower was?
     
    By one measure, the answer to the first question is yes. Over the past
    50 years there have been very few years in which the United States has
    spent less on the military than it did the year before.
     
    This has remained true whether the country is actively fighting a war,
    whether it has an obvious and well-armed enemy or whether Democrats or
    Republicans run the White House and Congress. Despite regular
    expectations that the United States will enjoy a peace dividend, we
    continue to spend more on the military than the countries with the next
    15 largest military budgets combined.
     
    Such perpetual growth seems to confirm Eisenhower's concern about the
    size and influence of the military. It used to be, he said, that armies
    should grow and shrink as needed; in the Biblical metaphor of the
    speech, he observed that "American makers of plowshares could, with time
    and as required, make swords as well."
     
    But World War II and the early cold war changed that dynamic, creating
    what Eisenhower called "a permanent armaments industry of vast
    proportions." It is not a stretch to believe that this armaments
    industry - which profits not only from domestic sales but also from tens
    of billions of dollars in annual exports - manipulates public policy to
    perpetuate itself.
     
    But Eisenhower was concerned about more than just the military's size;
    he also worried about its relationship to the American economy and
    society, and that the economy risked becoming a subsidiary of the
    military. His alarm was understandable: at the time the military
    represented over half of all government spending and more than 10
    percent of America's gross domestic product. Today those figures are not
    quite as troubling. While military spending as a percentage of gross
    domestic product has been going up as a result of 9/11 and the wars in
    Iraq and Afghanistan, the overall trend since 1961 is substantially
    down, thanks to the tremendous growth in America's nonmilitary economy
    and the shift in government spending to nonmilitary expenditures.
     
    Yet spending numbers do not tell the whole story. Eisenhower warned that
    the influence of the military-industrial complex was "economic,
    political, even spiritual" and that it was "felt in every city, every
    statehouse, every office of the federal government." He exhorted
    Americans to break away from our reliance on military might as a
    guarantor of liberty and "use our power in the interests of world peace
    and human betterment."
     
    On this score, Eisenhower may well have seen today's America as losing
    the battle against the darker aspects of the military-industrial
    complex. He was no pacifist, but he was a lifelong opponent of what he
    called a "garrison state," in which policy and rights are defined by the
    shadowy needs of an all-powerful military elite.
     
    The United States isn't quite a garrison state today. But Eisenhower
    would likely have been deeply troubled, in the past decade, by the
    torture at Abu Ghraib, the use of martial authority to wiretap Americans
    without warrants and the multiyear detention of suspects at Guantanamo
    Bay without due process.
     
    Finally, even if the economy can bear the immediate costs of the
    military, Eisenhower would be shocked at its mounting long-term costs.
    Most of the Iraq war expenses were paid for by borrowing, and Americans
    will shoulder those costs, plus interest, for many years to come. *
     
    A strong believer in a balanced budget, Eisenhower in his farewell
    address also told Americans to "avoid the impulse to live only for
    today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious
    resources of tomorrow." Too many of today's so-called fiscal
    conservatives conveniently overlook the budgetary consequences of
    military spending.
     
    Eisenhower's worst fears have not yet come to pass. But his warning
    against the "unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
    military-industrial complex" is as urgent today as ever.
     
    James Ledbetter is the author of the forthcoming "Unwarranted Influence:
    Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military-Industrial Complex."
     
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/opinion/14ledbetter.html?_r=1&nl=to
     
    --
    *I reserve the right to do as I please.*
     
    *"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover
    of law, and with the colors of justice ..."
    - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)
     
    "If Americans wish to be free of judicial tyranny, they must at least
    develop basic knowledge of the judicial role in our republican
    government. The present state of affairs is a direct result of our
    collective ignorance."
    - Ron Paul*
     
    *Our courts will never be fair and just again until we force the courts
    to follow their own rules. Do not allow yourself to be ruled by tyrants.
    Learn how to control corrupt judges and crooked lawyers
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004> so you can get
    Justice! Learn to litigate: Buy and Study JURISDICTIONARY
    <http://www.jurisdictionary.com?refercode=CG0004>. The best course
    available for Pro Se and Pro Per litigants.*
     
    *I Refuse To Comply With The Unconstitutional Demands Of The Federal
    Government*
    *Read the US Constitution
    <http://amgona.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=7#Amends>*
     
     
    *Government is only as strong as those who allow themselves to be
    governed are weak.*
     
    *"We have plenty of rights in this country, provided you don't get
    caught exercising them."
    - Terry Mitchell
     
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects something that
    cannot be."
    - Thomas Jefferson***

     

    Tommy News <tommysnews@gmail.com> Dec 14 11:46PM -0500 ^
     
    Call, Fax, Webform, and Send Postal Mail to your Congress member and
    your two Senators All this week. Get Contact info at
    www.congress.org Congress Main Switchboard 202-224-3121
     
     
    House will vote to repeal 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' this Wednesday
     
    Mojority Leader Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Rep. Patrick Murphy
    (D-Pa.) introduced a stand alone bill today in the U.S. House of
    Representatives that would repeal the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' policy.
     
    Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced via twitter that the House would vote
    on the bill tomorrow, Wednesday the 15th. Her message stated, "The
    House will vote on Rep. Patrick Murphy's standalone #DADT repeal bill
    tomorrow – Senate action on #DADT is long overdue."
     
    The new bill is a House version of the one that was offered last week
    in the Senate after the Senate failed to debate the Defense
    Authorization bill for the second time this year. The House is rushing
    to vote on the new bill in hopes that the Senate will be forced to
    vote on it during the lame-duck session.
     
    The lame-duck session is quickly coming to an end, and the Senate will
    need to act quickly or risk missing the only opportunity to end the
    discriminatory law via Congress in the near future. If the Senate
    fails to repeal 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' this year, gay rights activists
    will be turning to Obama yet again. If Obama doesn't sign an Executive
    Order to cease the discharges of LGBT military personnel, the
    community will most likely turn their eyes towards the Federal court
    case, which ruled 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' unconstitutional earlier this
    year.
     
    Do you enjoy reading Eric's articles? Make sure you stay on top of
    LGBT news by having future articles delivered right to your inbox.
    Just click the "Subscribe" link above. Your email will never be shared
    with a third party.
     
    More:
    http://www.examiner.com/fashion-trends-in-san-francisco/house-will-vote-to-repeal-don-t-ask-don-t-tell-this-wednesday-2
     
    --
    Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
    Have a great day,
    Tommy

     

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Mark M. Kahle H.

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