Remember the Declaration of Independence? Apparently not.

The Bush administration has arrogated powers to itself that the British people even refused to grant King George III at the time of the Revolutionary War, an eminent political scientist says. “No executive in the history of the Anglo-American world since the Civil War in England in the 17th century has laid claim to such broad power,” said David Adler, a prolific author of articles on the U.S. Constitution. “George Bush has exceeded the claims of Oliver Cromwell who anointed himself Lord Protector of England.” Adler, a professor of political science at Idaho State University at Pocatello, is the author of “The Constitution and the Termination of Treaties”(Taylor & Francis), among other books, and some 100 scholarly articles in his field. Adler made his comments comparing the powers of President Bush and King George III at a conference on “Presidential Power in America” at the Massachusetts School of Law, Andover, April 26th. Adler said, Bush has “claimed the authority to suspend the Geneva Convention, to terminate treaties, to seize American citizens from the streets to detain them indefinitely without benefit of legal counseling, without benefit of judicial review. He has ordered a domestic surveillance program which violates the statutory law of the United States as well as the Fourth Amendment.” Adler said the authors of the U.S. Constitution wrote that the president “shall take care to faithfully execute the laws of the land” because “the king of England possessed a suspending power” to set aside laws with which he disagreed, “the very same kind of power that the Bush Administration has claimed.” Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Adler said, repeatedly referred to the President’s “override” authority, “which effectively meant that the Bush Administration was claiming on behalf of President Bush a power that the English people themselves had rejected by the time of the framing of the Constitution.” Adler said the Framers sought an “Administrator in Chief” that would execute the will of Congress and the Framers understood that the President, as Commander-in-Chief “was subordinate to Congress.” The very C-in-C concept, the historian said, derived from the British, who conferred it on one of their battlefield commanders in a war on Scotland in 1639 and it “did not carry with it the power over war and peace” or “authority to conduct foreign policy or to formulate foreign policy.” That the C-in-C was subordinate to the will of Congress was demonstrated in the Revolutionary War when George Washington, granted that title by Congress, “was ordered punctually to respond to instructions and directions by Congress and the dutiful Washington did that,” Adler said. Adler said that John Yoo, formerly of the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in 2003 that the President as C-in-C could authorize the CIA or other intelligence agencies to resort to torture to extract information from suspects based on his authority. However, Adler said, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1804 in Little vs. Barreme affirmed the President is duty-bound to obey statutory instructions and reaffirmed opinion two years later in United States vs. Smith. “In these last eight years,” Adler said, “we have seen presidential powers soar beyond the confines of the Constitution. We have understood that his presidency bears no resemblance to the Office created by the Framers… This is the time for us to demand a return to the constitutional presidency. If we don’t, we will have only ourselves to blame as we go marching into the next war as we witness even greater claims of presidential power.”

Back door gun control taking on a life of its own.

Can't take our guns outright, yet. So what are they doing? Attempting to tax, ban, encode, and pretty much any frigging thing possible in order for it to be impossible to own ammunition. Sneaky fuckers, eh? Jerry the Geek is tracking this epidemic that is sweeping the nation. I've pulled Jerry's article from his above linked site, in case you guys don't click the link. I would however urge you to click the link and see everything that he's got going on over there. Given the plethora of "Encoded Ammunition" bills introduced into various State legislatures in January, 2008 (five so far; there may be more, I'm still researching), it occurred to me that it would be handy to have some kind of 'tracking document'. Accordingly, I spent a couple of hours building an Excel Spreadsheet listing the salient characteristics of all the bills I have so far discovered. You can download the "2008 Geek Guide ..."( etc.) here. Note that the file, 2008_Encoded_Ammunition.xls, will require that you have Microsoft EXCEL loaded on your computer. You can download it, but you can't read it without the software. Here's a list of the states reported to date: Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Hawaii, Tennessee. And here is a list of the data items found there, along with a short (?) description of the data points: * State: The name of the state in which the bill is introduced. * Bill #: The designation of the bill(s). Note that in at least one state (Tennessee), the identical bill was simultaneously introduced in both houses. * Link to Text: A "Tiny URL" code. Copy and past it into your web browser, and the original URL will be generated to take you to the document which contains the full text of the bill. Note that I neglected to include this link in at least one of my original articles. I hope I've corrected those articles, but ALL are referenced here. * Sponsor: The name of the state legislature(s) who sponsored and/or introduced the bill. This allows you, if you are a resident of that state, to follow him/her back to his/her personal website and send him/her emails appropriate to the amount of outrage you feel about his/her disenfranchisement of honest shooters. * Justification for bill?: A simple YES/NO, if the text of the bill includes verbiage which attempts to justify the introduction of this disgusting piece of .... legislation. (Sorry, I can't help editorializing, even when I know I shouldn't. I'm just that irritated.) * Date Bill Introduced: The date the bill was first read into the record in the state house, assembly or senate. * Bill Status: The current status of the bill, usually, "referred to Committee" or similar verbiage. Bills so designated sometimes STAY in committee until the end of the legislative session (January 1 of the following year), after which they will die. At least one bill has a "bill expiration date" built into it, which I presume refers to the legislative guidelines for that state. * Type of Ammo: The limitations on the kind of ammunition which is subject to these restrictions. ALWAYS "Handgun", but may also include "Assault Weapon" or "Assault Pistol". Some states include a list of "Designated Weapons" in the bill, which usually refer to what is essentially an "Assault Weapons" list established by existing state laws. * Sell Only By Date: The date upon which vendors (retailers, etc.) may offer for sale 'only' ammunition ... or bullets (some states mention both) which has been "encoded". * Own Only By Date: The date upon which all vendors and private citizens may not possess ammunition (or bullets? .. not always clear) which has not been "encoded". Possession may or may not involve specific penalties; see below. * Per-Round Tax/Fee?: ALL states have, as far as I know and of this date, imposed some kind of tax or fee per bullet; this is most commonly five cents, although one state sets the fee at ".005 cents" which works out at five cents per thousand rounds or bullets. As noted, this last may be a typographical error. It's difficult to imagine politicians setting the fee so low, as long as the bill is obviously designed as an ipso facto impediment to free exercise of the second amendment. (There I go again!) Mississippi politicians aren't even honest enough to set the fee as part of the bill. They merely stipulate that a "End User Fee" will be established. Don't expect a "five cents per thousand rounds" fee from these boys. They ALL have to finance a database system, enforcement, and undefined other expenses needed to administer this bogus bill. (Oops! Sorry.) * Fee Retained by Retailer: A couple of states provide that the vendor may retain a portion of the fees they collect, presumably to encourage the vendors to support the bill. Fat chance, ammunition sales will be so undercut by this oinker that the resulting market won't support any retail sales of ammunition or other firearms-related business in these states. (Dammit! Stop that, Geek!) * Owner Penalties: This identifies the fines or penalties which may be imposed on 'anyone' who attempts to defile, obscure or obliterate the serial numbers on a bullet or round of ammunition. Usually a misdemeanor ... but we're usually talking about a year in the pokey and/or a fine of $1,000. * Merchant Tax Penalty: One state (Illinois) imposes a penalty on a vendor who fails to accurately report tax revenues (the "per-round tax/fee"). This is a Class 4 Felony in Illinois. As may be presumed, the bureaucrats don't like it if you file the serial numbers off bullets but they take it seriously when you don't pay them their Dane Geld, hence the Felony vs the Misdemeanor. (That was okay, wasn't it? Not 'editorializing'?) The rest don't mention it ... to date. Apparently, that is covered in another section of the Code. * Merchants Adherence Fine: I THINK this is the fine for selling non-encoded ammunition after the cutoff date. Your guess is as good as mine. Universally, it's $1,000. * Buyer Data Collected: The information that the vendor is required to collect to define the retail buyer. Always Name, Date of Birth, Driver's License Number, and "any other information which the (governing agency) may define/require". More weasel words; they can ask for the serial number of the firearm in which you choose to shoot the ammunition, if they want to, and if there are not state laws forbidding this ... it's okay! * Retailer Reporting: The vendor must report the information recorded on each ammunition sale periodically. This is either Monthly or Quarterly, if it is included in the Bill. Presumably, when you report the information, you must also remit the 'End User Fee' collected at the time of sale. * Enforcement: For the Average Joe, this is one of the most important facets of the bills. In Illinois, the 'administrative authority' (usually the DOJ) can make it up as they go. Excuse, I mean the "any reasonable rules" may be imposed. That's an administrative decision, not subject to normal Congressional Oversight. Not encouraging. In Tennessee, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is the administrative authority. Isn't it nice when the police get to make the rules? * Exceptions: Who do these bills, if they become laws, NOT apply to? In those states in which the legislators actually spent more than ten minutes writing the bill, the "Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement Organizations" are exempt. No word yet on whether the National Guard and the U.S. Military are exempt; but since they are not LEOs, and they are not specifically exempt ... hey, they might grab a few bucks from the Feds! (Must ... Control ... The ... Fist ... Of ... Death!) * Bill Expiration Date: As mentioned above, one state included and expiration date for the bill if it is not enacted into law. Probably an administrative requirement, but I include it just for ... well, actually, no reason at all. * Notes: Miscellaneous notes included only to show that not all states just stuck to boilerplate. The general text is obviously taken from a template ... source not yet identified ... but some states legislatures seemed to feel that they needed to assert their individuality. Indiana declared an emergency; Hawaii and Mississippi granted an 'income tax credit' for in-state bullet/ammunition manufacturers to purchase, install and use bullet-encoding machinery; Tennessee included a really onerous records-keeping requirement for both vendors and manufacturers. * Text for Justification of Bill, if present: For states which included a justification of this bill (a minority, only Hawaii and Tennessee), the full text of their 'justification' is included just so you don't have to read the actual bills. I found it interesting that (so far) the majority of states which accepted this bill-template didn't feel it necessary to explain WHY this bill was necessary. I interpret this to mean that they don't care enough about the citizens who have to live under these egregious rules; they just entered the bill because they can. I'm guessing that they're Liberal Democrats who are just looking for a real good rating from The Brady Campaign, and don't expect the bills to get out of committee, let alone actually pass, so why bother? This may be "a good sign" that the authors aren't serious about the bill(s). I'll be updating this document, if and as more states are found to have proposed similar bills. (What am I saying? These are all the same bill, with minor variations.) If you find an error in the document .. and I do strongly encourage you to view this document critically with the goal of correcting errors and providing more information ... please let me know. I'm tempted to dismiss these bills as bogus, not likely to pass; nothing to see here folks, move along. But since the Microstamping Bill (not the same thing) was passed in California last year, it is demonstrably NOT SAFE to expect that any gun-control bill, no matter how unreasonable or how irresponsibly enacted or how badly worded, cannot be passed by any given legislature. EVERY TIME a bogus gun-control bill is passed by a state, it sets a precedent for other states which are controlled by liberal gun-grabber politicians who just want to get their names on the roster of 'people who are trying to accomplish something about crime!' No more editorializing. Every time I write one of these articles, it makes my guts ache for the rest of the night. I find it hard to believe that these weasels are stomping on the rights of their constituents for their own career advancement. But then, if they weren't rats and weasels, they would find honest work. Oh, and just as an aside, the Supreme Court is about to start ruling on the wording of the 2nd Amendment and comparing every other state's legislation to D.C.'s. There's a serious problem with that however... D.C. is not a state of the union of the United States of America; it doesn't fall under the same laws as we do. Also, don't you find it funny that while we're in a war against terrorism, the largest supposed target would decrease the budget for emergency planning and security cost in the District of Columbia from $14 million in 2006 to $3 million in 2008? Just remember... "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." I'd advise you to get ready to rally against your government and take our country back, but you'd just ignore me and go back to watching whateverthefuck it is that you watch.

Are you a fellon who can't vote? Don't worry, there's a job for you... Controlling everyone's vote.

I knew this was coming. I've been fighting the urge to even discuss Iowa and New Hampshire. I've had to sit back and check my facts and cross reference my sources. Further down on this page, I used to have an embedded version of "Hacking Democracy", a very important documentary that illustrates how easy it is to build an empire using the simplest code and electronic voting machines. Diebold are at the forefront of the criminal vote changing/stealing/nullifying. If you've seen "Hacking Democracy" then you are familiar with Bev Harris of Blackboxvoting.org, and yesterday she once again thrust Diebold directly into the spotlight. Ken Hajjar, the Marketing and Sales Director at LHS Associates was arrested, indicted, and pleaded guilty to "sale / CND" (sale of controlled narcotic drugs) and sentenced to 12 months in the Rockingham County Correctional facility, and fined $2000. As things go for the politically connected, he was then given a deferred sentence and $1000 of his fine was suspended. LHS Associates is a private company that counted over four fifths of the New Hampshire vote with no oversight whatsoever and also holds Diebold contracts for Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Follow this link for a copy of Ken Hajjar's criminal record. In case you're not sure about what you saw with the criminal record sheet. He's a convicted Narcotics Trafficer. "They program every single voting machine in New Hampshire, Connecticut, almost all of Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine." Harris comments. "But did state officials in five New England states ever do a criminal background check on this company's executives? Do the laws of these five states even ALLOW them to hire convicted criminals for services paid for by the state? What about over 500 local towns and municipalities?" What's even more disconcerting is the information provided in a Ken Hajjar interview. While I'm not going to get into who got cheated and how many discrepancies are gushing from the wound of the New Hampshire primary, but for a bit of illustration on how completely rigged this system is, all you have to do is look at the suspicious percentages that Rudy "The Steaming Pile" Giuliani received: Campton, Hampton, and Sandwich are townships in New Hampshire. Campton - 604 votes VOTE COUNT METHOD: Hand Counted Paper Ballots - Giuliani = 55 votes = 9.11% Hampton - 3,141 votes VOTE COUNT METHOD: Diebold Accuvote optical scan ; contractor: LHS Associates/John Silvestro - Giuliani = 286 votes = 9.11% Sandwich - 395 votes VOTE COUNT METHOD: Hand Counted Paper Ballots - Giuliani = 36 votes = 9.11% How fucking sick is it that in three townships, Giuliani gets 9.11% of the vote? There's so much corruption connected to all of this that in order for it all to be exposed, a person would have to devote their lives to it an create a website to supply the information to you. Luckily, that person is not me. You want more information and fact? Visit Blackboxvoting.org. Be prepared, however, to be shaken to the very foundation of your liberties. It is your responsibility to make sure that your vote counts. I don't really care who you vote for, but don't you want your vote to count?

Chalk one up for the 2nd Amendment!

A grocery store customer in Indianapolis is being credited with halting an armed robbery by pulling his own weapon and pointing it at the assailant until police arrived. According to a report in the Indianapolis Star, Charlie Merrell, 51, was in a checkout line at a grocery store called Bucks IGA on the city's south side when a "masked man jumped a nearby counter and held a gun on a store employee." The police report cited by the newspaper said the incident happened at 5:17 in the afternoon Monday as Merrell was doing some year-end shopping. "While the suspect was demanding cash from the workers," according to the police report, "Merrell pulled his own handgun, pointed it at the robber and ordered him to put down his weapon." The newspaper noted that Officer Jason Bockting, in his documentation of the incident, said when the suspect seemed to hesitate, "Merrell racked the slide on his gun to load a round in the chamber." At that point, the report said, "the suspect placed his gun and a bag of cash on the counter, dropping some of the money … the suspect removed his mask and lay on the floor." Merrill, meanwhile, held the suspect at gunpoint until officers arrived and took him away in handcuffs. Police reported Merrell had a valid permit to carry the handgun, and they recovered an unloaded .380-caliber handgun and $779 cash from the suspect. Police records show Dwain Smith, 19, was being held in the Marion County Jail on a bond of $30,000 on initial charges of robbery, criminal confinement, pointing a firearm, battery and carrying a handgun without a license.

Obama sounds what should be the death knell of his public/political career.

Remember that "Thought Crime" legislation that I wrote about not too long ago? If not, scroll down and educate yourself. Barack Obama supports this legislation, and this fact alone should end his political aspirations. We have had enough fascist legislation foisted upon us in the last eight years; we do not need any more. This truly sickens me, and I hope that you will take up the torch of liberty and engage in this battle as well. Obama to Support Homegrown Terrorism Bill By Jessica Lee, The Indypendent Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama says that he will support the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (S. 1959). According to the automatic email responses constituents are receiving from his office, Obama appears to be straddling the fence between preserving civil liberties and being tough on terrorism. “The American people understand that new threats require flexible responses to keep them safe. They also insist that our responses to threats respect the constitution and do not violate the basic tenets of our democracy,” Obama’s email said. Several people who have written to Obama have posted his response on various blogs, including “Justin” who’s personal blog was picked up on diggs.com. “I wrote Senator Obama (my senator from Illinois) about this act, which is now in a committee of his (the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs). I asked that he read the bill (not to insult his intelligence, but after the Patriot Act it appears this is a necessary request for most senators), and that he recognize the dire consequences that could result from its vague language,” Justin wrote Dec. 6 below the post of Obama’s email. “He’s quite eloquent, you’ve got to give him that. This act ‘includes provisions prohibiting the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts from violating civil rights and civil liberties of U.S. citizens.’ Didn’t we used to have something like that? What was it called? Oh right… The Constitution.” The House version of the bill, H.R. 1955, passed Oct. 23 by a vote of 404-6 under the “suspension of the rules,” a provision that is available to quickly pass bills considered “non-controversial.” Obama is on the 17-member Senate Committee for Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where S. 1959 was introduced by Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) Aug. 2. “I will keep your important comments in mind as I work with my colleagues on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. I will work to ensure that this legislation helps to achieve our domestic security objectives while protecting civil liberties and constitutional rights,” Obama stated in his email to Justin. Many scholars, historians and civil liberties experts say they fear that the proposed bill will set the stage for future criminal legislation that be used against U.S.-based groups engaged in legal but unpopular political activism, ranging from political Islamists to animal-rights and environmental campaigners to radical right-wing organizations. “This bill fits the pattern we are seeing coming out of Congress – both Republican and Democratic – of a continued campaign of fear, which gets into heads of Americans that we now need to start criminalizing ideology,” said Alejandro Queral, executive director of the Northwest Constitutional Rights Center. He said he is very concerned about the bill’s vague definitions of “violent radicalization,” “homegrown terrorism,” and the terms within the definitions including “extremist belief system,” “violence” and “force.” “What is an extremist belief system? Who defines this?” Queral questioned. “Planes flying into the World Trade Center is an extremist belief, but are anti-abortion activists extremists? Are individuals who liberate mink extremists? These are broad definitions that encompass so much, which need to rather be very narrowly tailored. It is criminalizing thought and ideology, rather than criminal activity.” Jules Boykoff, an assistant professor of politics and government at Pacific University and author of Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States, told The Indypendent said he is concerned about how the government is broadening the definition of terrorism. “Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act is a law that created a new brand of terrorists, the ‘domestic terrorist.’ Under this definition, the civil rights work Martin Luther King, Jr. did could have been construed as an act of ‘domestic terrorism,” Boykoff said. In a Nov. 30 Common Dreams article, ‘Homegrown’ Suppression of Dissent,’ Boykoff provided a historical-based critique of who could be included under the umbrella definition of terrorism. “Even a cursory look backward through U.S. history reveals heroic figures who could be dubbed ‘violent radicals’ or ‘homegrown terrorists’ under the proposed bill, from U.S. revolutionaries like Sam Adams to gun-toting slavery abolitionists like John Brown to militant civil-rights organizers like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.” Kamau Franklin, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), also expressed concern that H.R. 1955/S. 1959 will foster a legislative momentum on criminalizing a broad range of dissident voices. “The Commission’s broad mandate can lead to the ability to turn civil disobedience, a form of protest that is centuries old, into a terrorist act,” he said. “My biggest fear is that they [the commission] will call for some new criminal penalties and federal crimes,” says Franklin. “Activists are nervous about how the broad definitions could be used for criminalizing civil disobedience and squashing the momentum of the left.” “It’s possible that someone who would have been charged with disorderly conduct or obstruction of governmental administration may soon be charged with a federal terrorist statute,” Franklin said. Many activists and civil liberties advocates have expressed concern across the nation on blogs and radio shows about how the bill’s use of vaguely defined terms can be seen within a historical pattern of sweeping government repression of dissenting voices throughout the history of the United States where citizens have been targeted for their political beliefs. Two generations of Americans experienced first hand the two “Red Scares” (1917-1920 and 1940-50s) and the FBI’s secret Counter Intelligence Program, nicknamed COINTELPRO, which enabled the FBI to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” domestic protest groups for “subversive activities” and “potential crimes.” To many, the similarities between COINTELPRO and the bill are unsettling. The proposed legislation calls for the National Commission to “examine and report upon the facts and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism and ideologically based violence in the United States” in order to develop policy for “prevention, disruption and mitigation.” This investigation is needed, according to stated Congressional findings, due to possible threats to national security. The secret program continued until it was discovered COINTELPRO was investigated by a U.S. Senate select committee on intelligence activities (commonly known as the Church Committee) which convened in 1975. The Church Committee found that from 1956 to 1971, “the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.” In the last 30 years, significant evidence has surfaced about how the FBI and local law enforcement disrupted non-violent social and political movements, even “neutralizing” individuals through target assassinations. The secret program was vast, with agents monitoring and agitating people involved in the “New Left,” including anti-Vietnam War efforts, the civil rights movement, the Black Panthers, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the American Indian Movement, Puerto Rican independence groups, popular musicians and counter-cultural and revolutionary independent newspapers. OTHER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE VIEWS ON THE BILL Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) said that he believes the proposed bill is unconstitutional. Speaking to a crowd of supporters in New York City Nov. 29, Kucinich took several questions from the audience, including my question asking why he voted against the bill. Kucinich was one of only six representatives to oppose the bill on Oct. 23. “If you understand what his bill does, it really sets the stage for further criminalization of protest,” Kucinich said. “This is the way our democracy little, by little, by little, is being stripped away from us. This bill, I believe, is a clear violation of the first amendment.” Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul was one of the 22 House members not present for the vote. A small demonstration against S. 1959 took place outside Senator Hillary Clinton’s office in New York City Dec. 10. Her office did not return an Indypendent’s call for comment. – Read Jessica Lee’s Nov. 16 article on HR 1955: “Bringing the War on Terrorism Home: Congress Considers How to ‘Disrupt’ Radical Movements in the United States.” Blog Update Dec. 2 — Kucinich Opposes H.R. 1955 Blog Update Nov. 27 — Opposition to the Bill and how the Legislation would Target the Internet Read the proposed Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act: H.R. 1955 S. 1959 This article was taken from The Indypendent

Ladies and Gentlemen... My friend and yours,

Henry Rollins. And people ask me why I have a Black Flag tattoo on my right shoulder. HA!

Why you should pay more attention to Judge Andrew Napolitano.

The following Thomas J. DiLorenzo piece can be found at Lew Rockwell.com After 9/11 the neocons who dominate the Republican Party commenced three separate wars: One in Afghanistan, another in Iraq, and the third against the civil liberties of the American people. As Judge Andrew Napolitano writes in his brilliant new book, A Nation of Sheep (p. xi): [T]he Bush Administration has systematically attacked and diminished virtually every freedom and right guaranteed by the Constitution: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of association, the right to privacy, the right not to self incriminate, the right to counsel, the right to speedy trials, the right to fair trials, the right to avoid cruel and unusual punishment, even the right to be set free after acquittal! . . . . President Bush has broken laws he swore to uphold, and declined to enforce laws that he has himself signed into existence . . . While the Republican Party (with the help of many Democrats) was waging this war on American freedom, its propagandists in the media endlessly repeated the nonsensical notion that the people who attacked America did so because "they hate our freedoms." In reality it is the neoconservatives who hate American freedom, as the above-mentioned "accomplishments" of theirs proves. In A Nation of Sheep Napolitano gives us chapter and verse of how Americans have been neo-conned into acquiescing in such an attack on their own liberties. The book is the third in a trilogy, following Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks its Own Laws, and The Constitution in Exile. All three are required reading for Ron Paul Revolutionaries – and for anyone who wants to understand the meaning and significance of constitutional liberty in America, who its enemies are, and why they must be stopped. All neocons play the Orwellian game of making pronouncements about the Constitution, pretending to be supportive of it, while actively supporting its destruction. They are especially fond of cloaking themselves in a few selected words of the founding fathers to give the impression that Washington, Jefferson, and Madison would somehow approve of their foreign policy imperialism. But consider this: At the heart of their phony constitutionalism lies the notion that, before the American Revolution, the founders said something like this to the King of England: "Your Majesty, all we ask is that you provide us with security and protect us from the French, the Spaniards, and any other hostile force. In return, we will gladly give up all of our personal liberties and the rights of Englishmen." Of course, no such conversation ever took place. But this is exactly the philosophy of the neocon regime that rules America (and much of the rest of the world) today. As Judge Napolitano correctly points out, the slogan of the American Revolutionaries was "Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death," not "Give Me Security and I Will Gladly Give UP My Liberty." To make things even creepier, the administration claims that its war on American liberty has as its purpose the protection of "the Homeland," a phrase that was never used by anyone else to describe America, and which is much more commonly associated with Nazi Germany than any other society. There is no tradeoff between liberty and security, as Napolitano says. The notion that there is, is "a one-way trip into slavery." The only legitimate purpose of governmental provision of "security" is to secure our liberty, period. And this can only happen if there are enough "wolves" in society, defined as those who "challenge government regulations, reject government assistance, and demand that the government recognize and protect their natural [God-given] rights." Unfortunately, writes Napolitano, "the majority of Americans are sheep" who "stay in the herd and follow their shepherd without questioning where he is leading them." If we look around the world, we find no precedents for the abolition of liberty leading to more security. It hasn’t worked for Israel in its struggles, nor did it work for England in its battles with the Irish Republican Army, says Napolitano. In A Nation of Sheep Napolitano presents a long litany of the destruction of liberty that has occurred in just the past few years. The following is a sampling: * Police departments routinely conduct random bag searches on buses and subways, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. * Government bureaucrats can now write their own search warrants, called "National Security Letters." * If you want to go to say, Disneyworld, you are required to be fingerprinted, and your prints may end up in the files of the FBI * Government now has the ability to acquire all financial information about your life, without your permission or knowledge. * Peaceful protesters have been mass arrested. * Artists have been arrested for writing such things as "Giuliani = Police State" and "God Bless America" on sidewalks (with erasable chalk). * Government schools crack down on speech the state does not like, suspending students who utter it. * Government officials can now search your home or office without notifying you. * Persons served with "National Security Letters" are prohibited from telling anyone about it. * Government is tracing email conversations through its "Carnivore" technology. * The president has been given the authority to essentially declare himself dictator after declaring "a state of emergency" as a result of the "National Continuity Policy." * The president has been given the ability to station military troops anywhere in America to "restore public order," reversing hundreds of years of constitutional restrictions on the use of the military on American citizens. * The president believes he is allowed to simply ignore the Geneva Conventions. * The government now has a "domestic surveillance program" that enables it to spy on Americans’ phone calls, e-mails, and all other electronic communications without a search warrant. * Government surveillance cameras are everywhere (including 142 of them in the Greenwich Village and Soho neighborhoods of New York City alone). * "Red light cameras have been placed in thousands of intersections, causing thousands of accidents as motorists speed up to avoid having the camera snap a picture of their license plates should they pass under a red light. If your license is photographed by one of these cameras, you have no right to confront your accuser since the "accuser" is a camera, and, you must prove your innocence and are not presumed innocent until proven guilty. * Airport "security" has become a Gestapo-like nightmare that does nothing to make traveling any safer. * The government can deny anyone the right to due process by declaring him an "enemy combatant." * The Bush administration is guilty of torturing prisoners in violation of U.S. and international law. * News about the Iraq War has been vigorously censored. All reporters must be "embedded" with the military, which then takes them on Potemkin Village tours. * Some reporters who have had the courage to report on some of the items on this list have had their phones and emails wiretapped. * Government scientists can turn on your cell phone remotely and without your knowledge and track your location. To make matters worse, other countries have begun to copy some of these policies. This is bound to create even more resentment of Americans around the world. The Great Perverter of the Constitution A Nation of Sheep also gives the reader an historical perspective on governmental attacks on personal liberties. It started almost at the very beginning of the republic, as the Adams Administration used the Sedition Act to arrest numerous critics of the government. When Thomas Jefferson succeeded Adams he pardoned everyone who had been unjustly imprisoned by the Federalists. But, writes Napolitano, "the progress made by Jefferson receded once President Lincoln took office." He mentions Lincoln’s shutting down of the opposition press in the North, his illegal suspension of habeas corpus, and his censoring of telegraph communication. He also focuses on Lincoln’s deportation of Ohio Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham for speaking up against the Lincoln regime’s abuses of constitutional liberty. Napolitano quotes the speech that Vallandigham made back home in Dayton, Ohio, on August 2, 1862, that eventually led to his arrest and imprisonment (without due process). "No matter how distasteful constitutions and laws may be, they must be obeyed," said Vallandigham. "I am opposed to all mobs, and opposed also . . . to violations of [the C]onstitution and law[s] by men in authority – public servants. The danger from usurpations and violations by them is fifty-fold greater than from any other quarter, because these violations and usurpations become clothed with [a] false semblance of authority." Vallandigham "hit the nail on the head here," Napolitano correctly states. Lincoln, who is described by Napolitano as "The Great Perverter of the Constitution," responded with slick and deceiving language to say: "Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, and not touch a hair of the wily agitator who induces him to desert?" Lincoln’s clever catch phrase led many to accept this particular act of tyranny (deporting Vallandigham), but the truth is, as Napolitano states, the "Constitution which is the sole source of all presidential power, gave him neither the right to ‘shoot a simple-minded soldier boy’ nor the right to impair in any way ‘the wily agitator’ using his First Amendment protected rights," as Vallandigham was doing. Lincoln’s actions in the Vallandigham affair, writes Napolitano, were "a classic formulation of the argument against freedom, the argument that security and stability come at the expense of the laws and the freedoms that our Constitution was intended to guarantee. Those frightened by war and conflict . . . are, like Lincoln, dead wrong. When all our liberties are gone, there will be nothing left to protect." In his concluding chapter Napolitano notes that, as of his writing, there were sixteen politicians competing nationally to replace President Bush. Sadly, "With the exception of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), in terms of fidelity to the Constitution, it does not matter which one of them wins. Except for Congressman Paul, they all love power for its own sake, believe that Big Government should redistribute wealth, regard the Constitution as a quaint obstacle, and would enforce or disregard laws as they saw fit . . ." Judge Andrew Napolitano is an alpha male wolf in a nation of sheep. We can only hope that books such as this one will awaken enough sheep to assist in the defense of liberty before it is too late.

Support Ron Paul? You're a terrorist in cahoots with Al Qaeda.

Have a candidate that scares the shit out of both sides of the aisle? Have a candidate that vows to uphold the Constitution and all it stands for? Well, CBS, FOX, and pretty much the rest of the MSM have labeled you and Dr. Paul an enemy of the state. Glenn Beck and his Marxist-talking-head-assclown, David Horowitz, say that Ron Paul supporters are all terrorists. In the light of HR 1955, which nullifies the 1st Amendment and makes anyone who would speak out against the government on any issue, a domestic terrorist. Remember the quote, "The terrorists attacked us because of our freedoms."? Do you now find it pretty damned ironic/sad that the government of the United States of America is doing everything within its power to remove our freedoms? Need some insight into what I'm talking about? Just scroll down and read until you get sick, and then come back and read some more. Being your Pepto® with you. I know that this post is short and all, and I apologize, but there are so many things going on at this time, I am having to categorize it all in order to get my head around it and publish a full-on rant.

Comcast begins attacks on Net Neutrality.

Maybe if the chairman of the FCC gets his way, Comcast can change their name to Fascicast. Comcast has been caught deciding what people can and cannot do while on the Internet. This is a direct affront to Net Neutrality. Remember Net Neutrality? Remember me telling you complacent fucks that you had better avail yourselves of every single bit of information that you can gather on why you need to be be very aware of what Net Neutrality is? Click me to see Comcast's most recent actions. Click me to see how the chairman of the FCC is about to make Rupert Murdoch the most powerful and biased media monopolist the world has ever seen. I would also recommend that you attempt to peruse my archives to find the articles on Net Neutrality. After all, it's only our freedom that we're talking about.

Fascist America, In 10 Easy Steps

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all. Tuesday April 24, 2007 The Guardian Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody. Article continues They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps. As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration. Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have. It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise. Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US. 1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy After we were hit on September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. We were told we were now on a "war footing"; we were in a "global war" against a "global caliphate" intending to "wipe out civilisation". There have been other times of crisis in which the US accepted limits on civil liberties, such as during the civil war, when Lincoln declared martial law, and the second world war, when thousands of Japanese-American citizens were interned. But this situation, as Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda notes, is unprecedented: all our other wars had an endpoint, so the pendulum was able to swing back toward freedom; this war is defined as open-ended in time and without national boundaries in space - the globe itself is the battlefield. "This time," Fein says, "there will be no defined end." Creating a terrifying threat - hydra-like, secretive, evil - is an old trick. It can, like Hitler's invocation of a communist threat to the nation's security, be based on actual events (one Wisconsin academic has faced calls for his dismissal because he noted, among other things, that the alleged communist arson, the Reichstag fire of February 1933, was swiftly followed in Nazi Germany by passage of the Enabling Act, which replaced constitutional law with an open-ended state of emergency). Or the terrifying threat can be based, like the National Socialist evocation of the "global conspiracy of world Jewry", on myth. It is not that global Islamist terrorism is not a severe danger; of course it is. I am arguing rather that the language used to convey the nature of the threat is different in a country such as Spain - which has also suffered violent terrorist attacks - than it is in America. Spanish citizens know that they face a grave security threat; what we as American citizens believe is that we are potentially threatened with the end of civilisation as we know it. Of course, this makes us more willing to accept restrictions on our freedoms. 2. Create a gulag Once you have got everyone scared, the next step is to create a prison system outside the rule of law (as Bush put it, he wanted the American detention centre at Guantánamo Bay to be situated in legal "outer space") - where torture takes place. At first, the people who are sent there are seen by citizens as outsiders: troublemakers, spies, "enemies of the people" or "criminals". Initially, citizens tend to support the secret prison system; it makes them feel safer and they do not identify with the prisoners. But soon enough, civil society leaders - opposition members, labour activists, clergy and journalists - are arrested and sent there as well. This process took place in fascist shifts or anti-democracy crackdowns ranging from Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s to the Latin American coups of the 1970s and beyond. It is standard practice for closing down an open society or crushing a pro-democracy uprising. With its jails in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, of course, Guantánamo in Cuba, where detainees are abused, and kept indefinitely without trial and without access to the due process of the law, America certainly has its gulag now. Bush and his allies in Congress recently announced they would issue no information about the secret CIA "black site" prisons throughout the world, which are used to incarcerate people who have been seized off the street. Gulags in history tend to metastasise, becoming ever larger and more secretive, ever more deadly and formalised. We know from first-hand accounts, photographs, videos and government documents that people, innocent and guilty, have been tortured in the US-run prisons we are aware of and those we can't investigate adequately. But Americans still assume this system and detainee abuses involve only scary brown people with whom they don't generally identify. It was brave of the conservative pundit William Safire to quote the anti-Nazi pastor Martin Niemöller, who had been seized as a political prisoner: "First they came for the Jews." Most Americans don't understand yet that the destruction of the rule of law at Guantánamo set a dangerous precedent for them, too. By the way, the establishment of military tribunals that deny prisoners due process tends to come early on in a fascist shift. Mussolini and Stalin set up such tribunals. On April 24 1934, the Nazis, too, set up the People's Court, which also bypassed the judicial system: prisoners were held indefinitely, often in isolation, and tortured, without being charged with offences, and were subjected to show trials. Eventually, the Special Courts became a parallel system that put pressure on the regular courts to abandon the rule of law in favour of Nazi ideology when making decisions. 3. Develop a thug caste When leaders who seek what I call a "fascist shift" want to close down an open society, they send paramilitary groups of scary young men out to terrorise citizens. The Blackshirts roamed the Italian countryside beating up communists; the Brownshirts staged violent rallies throughout Germany. This paramilitary force is especially important in a democracy: you need citizens to fear thug violence and so you need thugs who are free from prosecution. The years following 9/11 have proved a bonanza for America's security contractors, with the Bush administration outsourcing areas of work that traditionally fell to the US military. In the process, contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been issued for security work by mercenaries at home and abroad. In Iraq, some of these contract operatives have been accused of involvement in torturing prisoners, harassing journalists and firing on Iraqi civilians. Under Order 17, issued to regulate contractors in Iraq by the one-time US administrator in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, these contractors are immune from prosecution Yes, but that is in Iraq, you could argue; however, after Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security hired and deployed hundreds of armed private security guards in New Orleans. The investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill interviewed one unnamed guard who reported having fired on unarmed civilians in the city. It was a natural disaster that underlay that episode - but the administration's endless war on terror means ongoing scope for what are in effect privately contracted armies to take on crisis and emergency management at home in US cities. Thugs in America? Groups of angry young Republican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers, menaced poll workers counting the votes in Florida in 2000. If you are reading history, you can imagine that there can be a need for "public order" on the next election day. Say there are protests, or a threat, on the day of an election; history would not rule out the presence of a private security firm at a polling station "to restore public order". 4. Set up an internal surveillance system In Mussolini's Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China - in every closed society - secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbours to spy on neighbours. The Stasi needed to keep only a minority of East Germans under surveillance to convince a majority that they themselves were being watched. In 2005 and 2006, when James Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote in the New York Times about a secret state programme to wiretap citizens' phones, read their emails and follow international financial transactions, it became clear to ordinary Americans that they, too, could be under state scrutiny. In closed societies, this surveillance is cast as being about "national security"; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their activism and dissent. 5. Harass citizens' groups The fifth thing you do is related to step four - you infiltrate and harass citizens' groups. It can be trivial: a church in Pasadena, whose minister preached that Jesus was in favour of peace, found itself being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, while churches that got Republicans out to vote, which is equally illegal under US tax law, have been left alone. Other harassment is more serious: the American Civil Liberties Union reports that thousands of ordinary American anti-war, environmental and other groups have been infiltrated by agents: a secret Pentagon database includes more than four dozen peaceful anti-war meetings, rallies or marches by American citizens in its category of 1,500 "suspicious incidents". The equally secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (Cifa) agency of the Department of Defense has been gathering information about domestic organisations engaged in peaceful political activities: Cifa is supposed to track "potential terrorist threats" as it watches ordinary US citizen activists. A little-noticed new law has redefined activism such as animal rights protests as "terrorism". So the definition of "terrorist" slowly expands to include the opposition. 6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release This scares people. It is a kind of cat-and-mouse game. Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, the investigative reporters who wrote China Wakes: the Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power, describe pro-democracy activists in China, such as Wei Jingsheng, being arrested and released many times. In a closing or closed society there is a "list" of dissidents and opposition leaders: you are targeted in this way once you are on the list, and it is hard to get off the list. In 2004, America's Transportation Security Administration confirmed that it had a list of passengers who were targeted for security searches or worse if they tried to fly. People who have found themselves on the list? Two middle-aged women peace activists in San Francisco; liberal Senator Edward Kennedy; a member of Venezuela's government - after Venezuela's president had criticised Bush; and thousands of ordinary US citizens. Professor Walter F Murphy is emeritus of Princeton University; he is one of the foremost constitutional scholars in the nation and author of the classic Constitutional Democracy. Murphy is also a decorated former marine, and he is not even especially politically liberal. But on March 1 this year, he was denied a boarding pass at Newark, "because I was on the Terrorist Watch list". "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that," asked the airline employee. "I explained," said Murphy, "that I had not so marched but had, in September 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the constitution." "That'll do it," the man said. Anti-war marcher? Potential terrorist. Support the constitution? Potential terrorist. History shows that the categories of "enemy of the people" tend to expand ever deeper into civil life. James Yee, a US citizen, was the Muslim chaplain at Guantánamo who was accused of mishandling classified documents. He was harassed by the US military before the charges against him were dropped. Yee has been detained and released several times. He is still of interest. Brandon Mayfield, a US citizen and lawyer in Oregon, was mistakenly identified as a possible terrorist. His house was secretly broken into and his computer seized. Though he is innocent of the accusation against him, he is still on the list. It is a standard practice of fascist societies that once you are on the list, you can't get off. 7. Target key individuals Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don't toe the line. Mussolini went after the rectors of state universities who did not conform to the fascist line; so did Joseph Goebbels, who purged academics who were not pro-Nazi; so did Chile's Augusto Pinochet; so does the Chinese communist Politburo in punishing pro-democracy students and professors. Academe is a tinderbox of activism, so those seeking a fascist shift punish academics and students with professional loss if they do not "coordinate", in Goebbels' term, ideologically. Since civil servants are the sector of society most vulnerable to being fired by a given regime, they are also a group that fascists typically "coordinate" early on: the Reich Law for the Re-establishment of a Professional Civil Service was passed on April 7 1933. Bush supporters in state legislatures in several states put pressure on regents at state universities to penalise or fire academics who have been critical of the administration. As for civil servants, the Bush administration has derailed the career of one military lawyer who spoke up for fair trials for detainees, while an administration official publicly intimidated the law firms that represent detainees pro bono by threatening to call for their major corporate clients to boycott them. Elsewhere, a CIA contract worker who said in a closed blog that "waterboarding is torture" was stripped of the security clearance she needed in order to do her job. Most recently, the administration purged eight US attorneys for what looks like insufficient political loyalty. When Goebbels purged the civil service in April 1933, attorneys were "coordinated" too, a step that eased the way of the increasingly brutal laws to follow. 8. Control the press Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the 30s, East Germany in the 50s, Czechoslovakia in the 60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the 70s, China in the 80s and 90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists. They threaten and harass them in more open societies that they are seeking to close, and they arrest them and worse in societies that have been closed already. The Committee to Protect Journalists says arrests of US journalists are at an all-time high: Josh Wolf (no relation), a blogger in