Friday, January 24, 2014

The Republican National Committee Gets Back To America

The White House of the NSA Stalinists
Now, if only Queen FineStain of The Queens of Stalingrad would wise up and stop yelling "Off With Their Heads."

And if only President Obama could see through the Stalinists that are advising him ... wrongfully.

Well, except for the members whom he appointed on the Privacy and Civil Rights Oversight Board who have ever so recently informed him that the military NSA is batshit crazy, and so is he for supporting their over-the-top, traitorous, unAmerican, and totally Orwellian madness on steroids.

The RNC overwhelmingly voted against these vile military NSA practices:
At it’s annual winter meeting on Friday, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution calling for an investigation into the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance practices. Calling the practice a violation of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, the RNC passed the resolution by an “overwhelming majority.”

According to a report from TIME Magazine’s Zeke Miller, the “Resolution to Renounce the National Security Agency’s Surveillance Program” easily passed by just a voice vote.

The resolution “encourages Republican lawmakers to call for a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying.”

It further declares that “the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
(RNC Passes Resolution Calling NSA Surveillance a Violation of 4th Amendment). They are on the correct side of this issue, and if the democrats don't figure that out, and figure it out quite quickly, then, here comes another ass kicking election a la 2010 this coming November.

And the democrats will take the ass-kicking.

I trust neither party, I am just sayin' ... if you know what I mean.

Have a good weekend.

OffNow!


Thursday, January 23, 2014

The Queens of Stalingrad - 5

America Strikes Back At The Coup
In this series we are taking a look at the domestic invasion of America by the military NSA.

We are also noting the subsequent domestic insurgency against the military NSA's traitorous invasion of the American people.

In the first post we took a look at the Queen Jane Approximately syndrome; in the second post we took a look at one of the founders of oppression in America, and at the soul of the ideology behind the invasion being conducted from within by the military NSA which he, J. Edgar Hoover, inspired by his traitorous examples; in the third post we looked at some of the voyeurism of the NSA invaders; and in the fourth post we began to detail some of the domestic insurgency, the push-back against the insubordinate invaders and the foreign ideology they seek to infect America with permanently.

Today, we will continue to detail the domestic insurgency that is fighting back against the coup which is in progress.

First off, there are movements in state legislative bodies that are designed to put a stop to the invasion by the military NSA, one state at a time:
The state-level effort to turn off water and electricity to the National Security Agency (NSA) got a major boost today as legislators in Tennessee introduced a bill to ban the state from providing material support to the federal agency.

A long-standing secretive NSA computing facility calls Oak Ridge home. According to NSA researcher James Bamford, the NSA runs most data it gathers “from code breaking to word captures,” through computers at Oak Ridge and NSA headquarters in Ft. Meade, Md.

The Tennessee Fourth Amendment Protection Act was introduced by State Sen. Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) late Tuesday evening. Rep. Andy Holt (R-Dresden) will file the companion bill in the House. [Tennessee bill takes on NSA encryption-breaking facility at Oak Ridge]
...
The state level campaign to turn off power and electricity to the NSA got a big boost Wednesday.

In a bipartisan effort, Washington became first state with a physical NSA location to consider the Fourth Amendment Protection Act,
NSA Headquarters
designed to make life extremely difficult for the massive spy agency.

Rep. David Taylor (R-Moxee) and Rep Rep. Luis Moscoso (D- Mountlake Terrace) introduced HB2272 late Tuesday night. Based on model language drafted by the OffNow coalition, it would make it the policy of Washington “to refuse material support, participation, or assistance to any federal agency which claims the power, or with any federal law, rule, regulation, or order which purports to authorize, the collection of electronic data or metadata of any person pursuant to any action not based on a warrant.”

Practically speaking, the bill prohibits state and local agencies from providing any material support to the NSA within their jurisdiction. This includes barring government-owned utilities from providing water and electricity. It makes information gathered without a warrant by the NSA and shared with law enforcement inadmissible in state court. It blocks public universities from serving as NSA research facilities or recruiting grounds. And it disincentivizes corporations attempting to fill needs not met in the absence of state cooperation. [Washington State Bill Proposes Criminalizing Help to NSA, Turning Off Resources to Yakima Facility]
In addition to these states, various bills in the U.S. Congress are also making their way around, bills that are designed to stop the coup in its tracks.

Likewise, one federal agency has called the invasion by the military NSA illegal:
The National Security Agency's practice of collecting and storing data on all phone calls is illegal and should be shut down – that's the conclusion of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent executive branch agency. Its board members are empowered to investigate and analyze classified material. They're the latest independent voice to cast doubt on various NSA claims.

"In its report, the board lays out what may be the most detailed critique of the government’s once-secret legal theory behind the program," reports Charlie Savage of the New York Times, who obtained an advance copy.
(The Atlantic, emphasis added; cf. Guardian, Report, or Report PDF). This is not a partisan issue, it is an invasion-of-the-American-People issue.

For more information on the board see: Official Privacy and Civil Rights Oversight Board Website, ACLU: Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, Federal Register: Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and Wikipedia: Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

Other example Dredd Blog series related to this issue: On The Origin of Security, ACLU vs. Clapper, Alexander, Hagel, Holder, and Mueller - 3, A Tale of Coup Cities - 7, Whistleblowers According To The Early Americans.

The five states which I think are likely to continue resisting the military NSA invasion with legislation, like that in Tennessee and Washington, are Oregon, California, Alaska, New Hampshire, and Maine (assuming they have NSA facilities in their state).

Support bills in your state which are designed to stop the invasion of the American people by the traitorous military NSA, or ask your state legislator to introduce one.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

OffNow!


Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Epigovernment: The New Model - 8

Money talks, government listens
A new report by Oxfam, which I will quote from and link to later in today's post, supports various Dredd Blog Series posts, including the series today's post is part of.

For a few examples, see The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy - 3, American Feudalism - 6, MOMCOM - A Mean Welfare Queen, MOMCOM: The Private Parts, When Accountability Is A Plague, The Common Good - 8, A Tale of Coup Cities - 7, Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money - 10, and Follow The Immunity.

The gist of the information in these series is that control of, or excessive influence upon, government is business as usual in nations that on the surface appear to be democracies, but under the covers are actually plutocracies.

Let's look at the Oxfam Report before tying it in to the story flow of series posts here:

Wealth of half the world’s population now the same as that of tiny elite


Wealthy elites have co-opted political power to rig the rules of the economic game, undermining democracy and creating a world where the 85 richest people own the wealth of half of the world’s population, worldwide development organization Oxfam warns in a report published today.
(Oxfam Report Preface, emphasis in original). What that means is alluded to in the report:
Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population, and seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years. The World Economic Forum has identified economic inequality as a major risk to human progress, impacting social stability within countries and threatening security on a global scale.

This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents a real threat to inclusive political and economic systems, and compounds other inequalities – such as those between women and men. Left unchecked, political institutions are undermined and governments overwhelmingly serve the interests of economic elites – to the detriment of ordinary people.
(Oxfam Report, Working For The Few, emphasis added). This dove tails with the dangers Dredd Blog has been incessantly pointing out:
The data may be a further sign that the U.S. is becoming a Plutonomy – an economy dependent on the spending and investing of the wealthy. And Plutonomies are far less stable than economies built on more evenly distributed income and mass consumption. “I don’t think it’s healthy for the economy to be so dependent on the top 2% of the income distribution,” Mr. Zandi said. He added that, “In the near term it highlights the fragility of the recovery.”
(The Graphs of Wrath, 8/9/2010, quoting WSJ, emphasis added). In this series we have pointed out that an Epigovernment is one that rules from the shadows, faking a democracy, while invoking plutocratic rule by the few.

But further than that, the members of the Epigovernment think that not only is this good, but the propaganda that covers it up is also good:
THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons — a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty [now 320] million — who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.
...
It is the purpose of this book to explain the structure of the mechanism which controls the public mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity. It will attempt at the same time to find the due place in the modern democratic scheme for this new propaganda and to suggest its gradually evolving code of ethics and practice. [quoting Edward L. Bernays]
...
A University of Zurich study 'proves' that a small group of companies - mainly banks - wields huge power over the global economy.

The study is the first to look at all 43,060 transnational corporations and the web of ownership between them - and created a 'map' of 1,318 companies at the heart of the global economy.

The study found that 147 companies formed a 'super entity' within this, controlling 40 per cent of its wealth. All own part or all of one another. Most are banks - the top 20 includes Barclays and Goldman Sachs. [Bank of America is in the top 25]
(Epigovernment: The New Model). Edward L. Bernays is called the Father of Spin and/or The Father of Public Relations, and is now dead, however, those who are alive now to "catapult the propaganda" and whom you watch on your TV in the present time, learned their lessons from him:
''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
(NY Times, Suskind). That is how Karl Christian Rove sees it, and that is how the premier American Propagandists Bernays saw it.

They were and are wrong, dangerously wrong.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Money, Pink Floyd


Tuesday, January 21, 2014

White House & Capitol Built By Slaves ! - 2

Dancing in the dark
Regular readers know that Dredd Blog reviews history every once in awhile so we can repeat it.

What?

Yes, if we don't repeat history once in awhile everyone will forget it and it will not be remembered, so we will just repeat it again as if that madness had not happened way back, way, way back, way, way, way back, and also not so far back in the chapters of US history we deny ever existed (Blind Willie McTell News).

Right?

So let's go over this history again so we don't repeat it too many times.

Here is the post from Dredd Blog on this date in the year 2009:

The White House was built by slave labour. But now a daughter, yes a descendant of one of those slaves lives in the White House. Amazing!

We still have the records with the names of the slaves and the owners who were paid for the work their slaves did. The First Lady is a descendant of those slaves:
Did you know that slaves helped build the White House and the U.S. Capitol? Or that right in front of where Barack Obama is going to take his oath of office used to be a tent city for slaves and workers?
(Slaves Built White House and U.S. Capitol). America has moved on ... so ...

Imagine blogging on The People's Blog ...

Imagine the government allowing your input ...

Imagine change in action in your country and your world so that you can watch executive orders as they unfold ...

It is enough to inspire Americans to hold out hope over fear.


But, also don't forget the Dredd Blog post about a larger than life percentage of U.S. presidents owning slaves (The Germ Theory - of Government - 7).

Everybody's Gotta Live, by Arthur Lee


Monday, January 20, 2014

The Citizen Journalist In America - 3

The Citizen Journalist
On the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is appropriate to review the role of the citizen blogger in the context of journalism.

I say that because some news will not make it to the people if the people have to rely on the main stream media alone (Blind Willie McTell News).

To tie this together, note that the main stream media does not inform the public about certain things concerning Dr. King; for example, the main stream media did not attend the trial which established that the conspiracy to murder him was proven in a court of law.

Nor was the earth-shaking news spread across the land so that the people could become aware of it -- no, it was and still is used as just another "conspiracy theory."

But the citizen journalist blog Dredd Blog did:
THE COURT: In answer to the question did Loyd Jowers participate in a conspiracy to do harm to Dr. Martin Luther King, your answer is yes. Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? Your answer to that one is also yes ... Is that your verdict?

THE JURY: Yes (In unison).
(Dr. King Is Remembered). The value of the citizen journalist to the public is also emphasized in a recent federal case where a blogger was sued for defamation.

In that very recent case where a bankruptcy trustee sued a blogger for defamation, the court held that bloggers are equal to journalists who have First Amendment protections:
This case requires us to address a question of first impression: What First Amendment protections are afforded a blogger sued for defamation? We hold that liability for a defamatory blog post involving a matter of public concern cannot be imposed without proof of fault and actual damages.
...
We agree with our sister circuits. The protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities, engaged in conflict-of-interest disclosure, went beyond just assembling others’ writings, or tried to get both sides of a story. As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable: “With the advent of the Internet and the decline of print and broadcast media . . . the line between the media and others who wish to comment on political and social issues becomes far more blurred.” Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 352. In defamation cases, the public-figure status of a plaintiff and the public importance of the statement at issue—not the identity of the speaker—provide the First Amendment touchstones.

We therefore hold that the Gertz negligence requirement for private defamation actions is not limited to cases with institutional media defendants.
(Obsidian v Cox, Federal Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, PDF). The court reversed a jury verdict against a blogger who had said some things about the bankruptcy trustee in various blog posts.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.