'This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.'
Neither left nor right nor center: this an alternative to mainstream hyper partisan politics that rejects ideological tribalism and purity tests in favor of common goals and moral principles. The main areas of concern here are our constitutional rights and economic freedom, but other political and philosophical topics are explored.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Amerindian Tribe voice grievances over the construction of a pipeline that crosses their main water source
'This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.'
Monday, August 29, 2016
Concerning National ID cards
originally posted on Experience project
Source: DMV
There are already national Id laws on the books that will go into effect in a couple of years. This is yet another police state initiative that is being passed of as a measure to combat 'terrorism' and 'illegal aliens.' While a National ID card is not immoral in theory, the implications of these laws are far more reaching than what proponents are willing to admit. First off, people will be prohibited from traveling, even within the country, without having this card; this much is admitted right off the bat, and with the addition of interior check points and the FBI's Biometric database you should have a vivid idea of what this legislation entails.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Preserving the Gray Zone
Pages 54 - 66 give us a glimpse of why making generalized attacks against muslims is an ineffective tactic in the war against the Islamic state; in fact, marginalizing non-millitant muslims in western nations plays right into their stratagem. You see, the islamic state wants to eliminate what they consider 'the gray zone', which is the aggregate of muslims that are independent of the self-proclaimed caliphate (in their own words). They want to restructure the world in to two camps: the islamic (iman) and the kufr. They directly admit this thrice: twice on page 62 and once on page 66.
'The muslims in the west will quickly find themselves between one of two choices, they either apostatize and adopt the kufri religion propagated by Bush, Obama, Blair, Cameron, Sarkozy, and Hollande in the name of islam so as to live amongst the kuffar without hardship, or they perform the hijrah to the islamic state and thereby escape persecution from the crusader government and citizens (62).'
'Muslims in the crusader countries will find themselves driven to abandon their homes for a place to live in the khilafah, as the crusaders increase persecution against muslims living in western lands so as to force them into a tolerable sect of apostasy in the name of islam before forcing them into blatant Christianity and democracy (66).'
Doing stuff like this will only hurt our cause and strengthen the islamic state. I'm not saying that islam is a peaceful religion or that jihadists aren't true muslims. All I am saying is that we should drop the generalized anti- muslim rhetoric and align with muslims who are against the islamic state until the islamic state is obliterated.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Obozo's blunder: the FBI has warrantless access to your browsing data
During a PBS town hall segment in June of this year, the empty suit admitted, in response to a question posed by a concerned gun shop owner, that the FBI has warrantless access to your browsing history and most likely your email data as well. For those who are unaware, the FBI has the power to issue subpoenas to service providers, called National Security Letters (NSLs), demanding that they turn over basic information about a certain customer, like their name, address, length of service, IP address and/or phone records depending on which communications company was issued the NSL. That's right, any FBI field office can issue an NSL, because in the era of terrorism mass hysteria expediency takes precedence over principle. NSLs often come with a gag order, prohibiting a service provider from disclosing the fact that they received an NSL. What Obozo revealed in his response, perhaps unwittingly, is that the FBI also has subpoena power for browsing history and more than likely email data.
"[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The terrorist watch list or the no-fly list, which Obozo expects us to accept as commonplace so he can introduce a no-buy list without resistance, is a clear violation of the 5th amendment and moral law.
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
No person should be deprived of their right to travel or their right to buy a gun without a criminal or civil proceeding, especially if they are a U.S. citizen protected by the Bill of Rights. And last time I checked, Barrack, visiting an ISIS website is still legal, and it doesn't necessarily mean one sympathizes with them. Someone could read Das Kapital without being a marxist, Mein Kampf without being a neo-nazi, and by the same logic, DABIQ without being an ISIS sympathizer because people can and often do read opinions they don't agree with (it's called intellectual curiosity). I have a free pdf copy of the 7th issue of DABIQ, and guess what? Not an ISIS sympathizer. Just think of how many academics and journalists Barrack would prohibit from flying because he's a dumbass that thinks people only read stuff they agree with.
While he might not have done much to the second amendment, which he shouldn't be praised for because it should be expected from someone in his office, he certainly obliterated the first, fourth, and fifth amendment without hesitation. The fact that no one in the audience was shocked by his response or challenged him indicates the sheer extent to which peoples' minds have been paralyzed by fear and the mass hysteria (not much different than the red scare or Salem witch trials) that has been conditioned by war on terrorism propaganda from MSM talking heads.
Obama Admin Expands Warrantless Surveillance in the American Police State
Here is a sobering illustration of how far we have slipped into the dystopia that is the American Police state. Under new rules drafted by the Obama administration, the NSA is allowed to share the raw data they 'incidentally' gather from American citizens with domestic law enforcement agencies. Domestic law enforcement agencies can take fruit of the poisonous tree and use parallel construction to prosecute ordinary criminals. And who are these ordinary criminals? Why it's you, and every other American citizen. There are 27,000 pages of federal criminal statutes and 10,000 pages of federal administrative regulations (keep in mind that this doesn't even include state and local laws). Even if you consider yourself a 'law abiding citizen', the chances are you have violated some of them. For instance, connecting to an unsecured Wi-Fi network is a felony (according to the vague language of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act). Add to this the fact that the JTTF and FBI target specific political groups (e.g. Animal rights activists, anti-war protesters, anarchists etc), and we find us caught in the perfect storm.
This is nothing new of course. President Truman established the NSA in the early 1950's. They conducted a domestic surveillance program known as Operation Shamrock, a continuation of what the defunct Armed Forces Security Agency had stared after World War II, until 1975 when it was exposed by the Church Committee, and they worked in tandem with the FBI in project MINAERT, during the 1960's and 70's, which bears an eerie resemblance to todays 'terrorist watch lists.' We are not on the verge becoming a police state, we've been living in one for quite some time now; history is simply repeating itself under new guises.
"In PRISM collection, the government identifies the user accounts it wants to monitor and sends a ‘selector’—a specific communications facility, such as a target’s email address or telephone number—to the relevant communications service provider. A government directive then compels the communications service provider to give it communications sent to or from that selector. This type of surveillance, which intercepts ‘to/from’ communications, can result in the interception of communications with U.S. persons if the target happens to communicate with such a person."
- Former U.S. District (Eastern district of New York) Judge John Gleeson On February 18th 2016
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Four Dictatorships And Despotic Regimes Supported By Washington
While the hawks we're screaming Assad must go
The House of Saud
This is by far the easiest one to spot. Riyadh beheads twice as many people as ISIS, and usually for imaginary crimes like sorcery and homosexuality. Add to this the fact that Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that imposes sharia on its subjects, at sword point, and that they are in the process of murdering Yemeni civilians, its not hard to see how Saudi Arabia is ripe for a color revolution. Of course, as long as they prop up the petrodollar system setting oil prices in dollars and recycling those dollars through treasury bonds (some 750,000,000,000 USD worth) and U.S. defense contractors like Textron Systems, General Dynamics and Boeing, they will remain in good standing with the
leviathan.
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
After seizing power in a 2013 coup, al-Sisi has never restrained his security forces and army, both under his command, from silencing opposition through brute force. His goons have crushed freedom of speech, expression, assembly and the press through mass murder, indefinite detentions, military trials of civilians, and the false arrests of protestors or anyone who dares criticize him, even high school students. Some 124 Egyptians died in detention, from August 2013 to 2015, as a result of medical negligence and torture perpetrated by his security forces. And as a result of his edict expanding military court jurisdiction over all public facilities, some 2300 civilians have been sentenced in military tribunals. Of course none of his atrocities have discouraged Washington from providing his regime with billions in military aid (about 1.3 billion annually) and crowd control weapons.
The Vietnamese Communist Party
Yet another repressive government that receives Obozo's flattering support, in more ways than one; not only has he lifted the arms embargo against and promoted a TTP partnership with Vietnam, they also receive $122,000,000 in foreign aid from Washington. The Vietnamese Communist Party, which control a political monopoly with an iron fist, like their ideological brethren in North Korea, meet the slightest dissent with indefinite detention, imprisonment and sometimes death. The Communist state enslaves its own people through labor camps, where drug offenders, who are not even given a jury trial, are forced to work without compensation, and are often beaten and starved if they fail to meet daily quotas.
Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa
Conclusion
Out of all the despots and dictators Washington supports, they wouldn't have to invade even one of them to make them embrace greater 'freedom and democracy' in their own countries; they could use economic coercion to make them comply with the UN Declaration of Human Rights, so there's really no excuse.
Monday, August 22, 2016
The Red Tape Times (article 6)
Source
Let's keep this in perspective. This 20 cent head tax will be added on top of the federal income tax, the state income tax, the FICA tax, the sales tax, and the cost (both opportunity cost and real cost) of getting a state sales tax certificate. It is plainly obvious that the taxi lobby is behind this, which is one of the many problems with having a private campaign finance system, but I digress. This particular head tax is not an isolated incident, but part of a much larger systemic problem that permeates every level of government; one of the several failures of current capitalism is governments propping up failed and outdated business models by undercutting their more efficient and innovative, though less politically savvy, competitors. The fallout of such policies is several fold: it creates artificial market entry barriers for smaller startups, reduces the number of employers in the market, and raises the price of the good or service in question. These effects are common to all forms of rent-seeking behavior, whether it is supply-side subsidies, regulatory capture, patent royalties, or tariffs. There is no doubt that the 20 cent head tax will be passed on to customers in the form of higher fares, but more importantly, it will actually have the unintended effect of stifling innovation by discouraging the use of app platforms and peer-to-peer networking that ride sharing companies are built around.
The proponents of this subsidy argue that it's not fair that ride sharing contractors don't have to comply with the same regulatory requirements that the taxi cab industry has to, and so a head tax on ride sharing services makes the competition more fair. What they fail to realize is that even if the taxi industry was to forgo these requirements, the ride sharing companies would still enjoy certain natural advantages over traditional taxi companies like less overhead costs and greater availability. If the taxi cab industry was actually interested in making the competition 'fair' they would lobby their city councils to lift the moratorium on new cab companies (which most cities have) and eliminate occupational licensing requirements, you know, all the things that make them cartels in the first place; of course, they wouldn't do that because it would reduce their profits, which are quasi-rents.
Imagine if congress had levied a head tax on every Netflix subscription and used the revenue to subsidize Blockbuster under the pretense of innovating video rental stores. It would have only been fair since Netflix doesn't have to comply with building codes and occupancy permits. Preposterous, you say? Well its no different than subsidizing taxi cab companies at the expense of ride sharing users, and it is about time the taxi cab cartels went the way of Blockbuster.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
How Washington is funding genocide in Yemen
as well as business. Just recently, on August 11th, the coalition bombed a Potato chip factory killing 14 workers.
The Saudis have purchased $641,000,000 worth of cluster munitions from U.S. defense contractors, particularly Textron Systems, since the beginning of the war.
http://harpers.org/archive/2016/09/acceptable-losses/?single=1
In the first year of the war, 91% of cluster bomb casualties were civilians of whom 22% were children.
http://aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/-28-bln-invested-in-cluster-weapon-producers-in-4-years/590785
The Pentagon currently has an agreement to sell $60,000,000,000 worth of aircraft and naval ships to Riyadh, which was negotiated in part by then secretary of state Hillary Clinton in 2010.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8000747/US-secures-record-60-billion-arms-sale-to-Saudi-Arabia.html
In the latest sale of military equipment to the Riyadh, on August 9th, the State Department and Pentagon approved a $1,150,000,000 purchase of 130 tanks and armored vehicles, manufactured mostly by General Dynamics.
http://www.independent.co.uk/us/saudi-arabia-us-arms-deal-weapons-sale-tanks-guns-barack-obama-a7182186.html
The USG not only provides billions in weapons, munitions, aircraft, tanks and ships to the Wahhabi Terrorist State, they also provide logistical support, military training and weapon servicing: tasks carried out by thousands of U.S. civilian and military personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia.
https://shadowproof.com/2016/08/15/us-defense-firms-profit-by-saudi-arabias-slaughter-of-yemen/
The true motive for the war should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention for the past few months. For the U.S., this is a proxy war against Iran who sides with the Houthi rebels and former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. For Saudi Arabia, it is an attempt to access to Yemen oil reserves by overthrowing the Supreme Political Council, which is supported by the Yemen Parliament, and reinstall Hadi's puppet regime.
Side Note: remember that when you vote in the up coming presidential election, you are voting for the figure head of a criminal syndicate who will ultimately be a corporate puppet swaying to the pull of her (I highly doubt Trump will win) financial strings.
Friday, August 19, 2016
The Red Tape Times (article 5)
The victims of flooding in South Bend are re-victimized by parasitic paper pushers
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
In the U.S., like in China, there is no freedom, no protesting, and no due process.
Monday, August 15, 2016
The Red Tape Times (article 4)
The President of 'Peace'
The Red Tape Times (article 3)
Sugar Creek Zoning
This is not just an assault on property rights; this is also an assault on the father's ingenuity (the man who is growing the produce) and ordinary people like him who would rather rely on their own green thumb than consume Monsanto's insecticide laced GMO crap that is being pumped into supermarkets.