Following the successful (at least temporarily) Wikiprotest against the SOPA/PIPA legislations in the United States Congress, others are trying to form protests against the equally disturbing National Defense Authorization Act.
Opponents of the NDAA have pointed to Section 1301 of the bill as giving the government power to send the military to arrest American citizens who are deemed to have materially supported Al-Qaeda. The question is who deems that a person has done so since the judge and jury is the military. George Mason worried about just such types of legislation. At the ratifying convention in June of 1788, he said, “I humbly conceive there is extreme danger of establishing cruel martial regulations. If at any time our rulers should have unjust and iniquitous designs against our liberties, and should wish to establish a standing army, the first attempt would be to render the service and use of militia odious to the people themselves; subjecting them to unnecessary severity of discipline in time of peace, confining them under martial law, and disgusting them so much, as to make them cry out, give us a standing army. I would wish to have some check to exclude this danger; as, that the militia should never be subject to martial law, but in time of war.”
The public event was started on Facebook By Suzanne Noel and is planned for February 3rd. Her event description reads, “Americans across the country will gather outside congressional offices Feb. 3rd from noon to 7 p.m. to protest NDAA 2012 (H.R. 1540). You will find your protest location by looking to see how your congressmen voted.” She adds links to the offices and votes of your senators and representatives.
The recent passage of NDAA has caused suspicion for liberty groups as to the intent of the bill with Section 1301 not specifically exempting American citizens from possible incarceration by the military and prosecution by court-martial. A handful of Republicans and Democrats attempted amendments to the bill to correct the language. All of them failed to pass the Senate. Montana has recently launched recall efforts against their representatives who voted for the bill.
Opponents of the legislation are jumping on the recently announced plans by the Los Angeles police department for a “routine training” exercise conducted by military personnel similar to on held in Boston last year (See video below). The brief press release reads:
Los Angeles: Multi-agency tactical exercises are to be conducted during evening hours around the downtown area January 22-26, 2012.
The Los Angeles Police Department will be providing support for a joint military training exercise in and around the great Los Angeles area. This will be routine training conducted by military personnel, designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirements.
This training has been coordinated with local authorities and owners of the training sites. The training sites have been carefully selected to ensure the event does not negatively impact the citizens of Los Angeles and their daily routines.
Lastly, safety precautions have been taken to prevent risk to the general public and the military personnel involved.
As such, this training is not open to the public.
Liberty proponents contend that the NDAA makes void the nearly 134-year old Posse Comitatus act passed by Congress on June 18, 1878. Major Craig T. Trebilcock claims that it should not present a significant barrier to utilizing the military in “law enforcement” anyway. He notes, “In the past five years, the erosion of the Posse Comitatus Act has continued with the increasingly common use of military forces as security for essentially civilian events. During the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, over ten thousand U.S. troops were deployed under the partial rationale that they were present to deter terrorism.”
The training exercises in Boston, of course, occurred before NDAA passed and shows that exercises of this sort has been going on for some time.
Even if the exercises have nothing to do with the passage of NDAA with the controversial Section 1301, it certainly should evoke Orwellian images of police looking inside your apartment. This concept was used in the movie Blue Thunder. In the 1983 movie about a high-tech helicopter, the officers were upset when an official call interrupted their viewing of a woman undressing. Ironically, over LA.
Four “Arab-American” teens are being charged with felony assault charges for attacking the quarterback of the opposing Lutheran team because “After the snap, however, the four arrested Star players burst through the line and allegedly manhandled Lutheran’s quarterback.” Their lawyer was quick to point out that they were being persecuted because they are “Arab-American.”
After being told by the referee to make no contact with the quarterback because he intended to take a knee, the four persecuted “Arab-Americans” allegedly attacked the quarterback knocking him to the ground hard enough to cause a concussion.
The Lutherans were beating the Star International Academy team 47-6.
In the House, Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., who originally co-sponsored SOPA, withdrew his name from the list of sponsors on Tuesday, reported Politico.
The Internet community’s rally cry against anti-piracy legislation is triggering its intended effect, though the final outcome remains far from settled.
American lawmakers were flooded with calls Wednesday in response to an online blackout by technology companies, including Wikipedia, Moveon.org, Reddit and thousands of other sites protesting two related bills that would crack down on websites that use copyrighted materials and sell counterfeit goods. Some key lawmakers who’ve supported or co-sponsored the legislation are also backing off.
Many of the sites that went dark Wednesday explained the legislation and entreated users to call their representatives by listing their phone numbers and email addresses.
“It’s busy,” says Patrick Chiarelli, a staffer for Representative Jay Inslee, D-Wash. Staffers at other lawmakers’ offices also say their call volumes spiked.
The legislation — the Stop Online Piracy Act (a House bill commonly called SOPA) and the Protect IP Act in the Senate (called PIPA) ? allows U.S. attorneys general and copyright holders to crack down on websites that display or link to copyrighted intellectual property or counterfeit goods.
A Navy construction crew passing by the scene of a horrific wreck joined forces with emergency rescue workers to keep a mangled BMW carrying a California mother, her 10-year-old daughter and 10-week baby from slipping off a bridge and plunging into a 100-foot deep ravine.
The vehicle dangled off the bridge Thursday after being rear-ended by a tractor-trailer, which broke through the concrete barriers and fell into the creek bed. The truck driver was killed.
Santa Barbara County, Calif., Fire Department rescue workers had been trying to pry Kelli Lynne Groves and her children out the car when the Navy Seabees were driving by with their equipment.
Citing Article I, Section 5 (sic)[This should probably be Section 8], Clauses 4 and 18 of the United States Constitution, Representative Darrell Issa of the 49th district of California submitted HR-45 entitled the Criminal Alien Accountability Act. The act would change 8 U.S.C. 1326 to provide stiffer penalties for aliens reentering the U.S. or committing crimes while in the U.S. The only cosponsor of the bill is Representative Brooks of Missouri. No Arizona representative cosponsored the legislation.
This title applies to aliens who:
(1) has been denied admission, excluded, deported, or removed or has departed the United States while an order of exclusion, deportation, or removal is outstanding, and thereafter
(2) enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in, the United States, unless
(A) prior to his reembarkation at a place outside the United States or his application for admission from foreign contiguous territory, the Attorney General has expressly consented to such alien’s reapplying for admission; or
(B) with respect to an alien previously denied admission and removed, unless such alien shall establish that he was not required to obtain such advance consent under this chapter or any prior Act,
The bill would add stiffer mandatory sentencing for these aliens. Changes in Subsection B are:
Paragraph 1 would read: “whose removal was subsequent to a conviction for commission of three or more misdemeanors involving drugs, crimes against the person, or both, or a felony (other than an aggravated felony), such alien shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 10 years, imprisoned for a term of not less than 5 years and not more than 10 years or both;”
Paragraph 2 would read, “whose removal was subsequent to a conviction for commission of an aggravated felony, such alien shall be fined under such title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, imprisoned for a term of not less than 10 years and not more than 20 years or both;
(4) who was removed from the United States pursuant to section 1231 (a)(4)(B) of this title who thereafter, without the permission of the Attorney General, enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in, the United States (unless the Attorney General has expressly consented to such alien’s reentry) shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned for not more than 10 years, imprisoned for a term of not less than 5 years and not more than 10 years or both.
The last change would probably be moot since the Attorney General has opened the way for drug traffikking and human smuggling by attacking Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa county stopping the efforts of the Sheriff to enforce these laws. The report of the justice department complains of the Sheriff’s Office “profiling,” yet they have not investigated the profiling done in their own office or that of the DHS concerning “domestic terrorists” that carry a copy of the Constitution or have a Ron Paul sticker on their car.
The bill would add a provision for persons who knowingly assist an alien to reenter:
Any person who knowingly aids or assists any alien violating section 276(b) to reenter the United States, or who connives or conspires with any person or persons to allow, procure, or permit any such alien to reenter the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned for a term imposed under paragraph (2), or both
The bill was introduced in January of 2011 and referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement in February where it languishes. The bill would probably have to be resubmitted in the next session of Congress if is to ever see the light of day.
LEESBURG—It may have looked like they were ready for war or some deranged person looking for his late Social Security benefits.
But it was only Federal Protective Service officers with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who were conducting a random training operation early Tuesday morning when they surprisingly showed up at the Social Security Administration office in downtown Leesburg.
With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building.
There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring of political fanaticism. Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests? What reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the particular States are to have the SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS? If it were possible seriously to indulge a jealousy of the militia upon any conceivable establishment under the federal government, the circumstance of the officers being in the appointment of the States ought at once to extinguish it. There can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia.—Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper No. 29, Concerning the Militia
In a 2008 article at the RAW Story web site, Craig Johnson, an associate professor at Point Loma Nazarene University, took place in a demonstration against expanding the border fence. He alleged that the border patrol was taking license plate numbers more than a mile away from the border.
Johnson said that he traveled to Mexico about a week after the protest and when he returned, he was handcuffed when his name came up as armed and dangerous.
The ACLU web site has an interactive map display the 100-mile border area which they call “Constitution-Free” zones in which the Department of Homeland Security, apparently, reserves the right to stop and search any vehicles for any reason. They are apparently taking intelligence on American citizens, as well.
Gun deaths have declined in New York City, while killings involving knives have increased 50 percent. The issue isn’t guns or knives but people who use guns and knives.
I live just a few miles from the most pro-gun city in the United States – Kennesaw Georgia – where gun ownership is mandatory. It’s not the “Wild West” like some people predicted when it passed a mandatory gun ownership law. “The city of Kennesaw was selected by Family Circle magazine as one of the nation’s ‘10 best towns for families.’ The award was aimed at identifying the best communities nationally that combine big-city opportunities with suburban charm, a blend of affordable housing, good jobs, top-rated public schools, wide-open spaces, and less stress.”[1]
In 1982 the city passed the following ordinance [Sec 34-21] which was a response to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill.
(a) In order to provide for the emergency management of the city, and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition therefore.
(b) Exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who suffer a physical or mental disability which would prohibit them from using such a firearm. Further exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who are paupers or who conscientiously oppose maintaining firearms as a result of beliefs or religious doctrine, or persons convicted of a felony.
The city’s website states that Kennesaw “has the lowest crime rate in Cobb County,” one of the most populace counties in Georgia. In fact, from 1982 through 2009, Kennesaw had been nearly murder free with one murder occurring in 2007.
By introducing moral imagination to the foreign-policy conversation, the Republican candidate is doing the nation an important service.
A dispute has broken out among fans of Ron Paul’s non-interventionist foreign policy about whether he’s a strategic liability. Paul, says Kevin Drum, is such a “toxic, far-right, crackpot messenger” that “the only thing he’s accomplishing is to make non-interventionism even more of a fringe view in American politics than it already is.”
It’s certainly true that Paul’s hawkish critics are using his weirder ideas and checkered past to try and make non-interventionism synonymous with creepiness. But, whatever their success, Paul is making one contribution to the foreign policy debate that could have enduring value.
It doesn’t lie in the substance of his foreign policy views (which I’m largely but not wholly in sympathy with) but in the way he explains them. Paul routinely performs a simple thought experiment: He tries to imagine how the world looks to people other than Americans.
Posted on December 25, 2011
by Glen C. Davis
Pennsylvania Bureau
TRENTON, N.J.—Official loyalist sources released news, today, that United Nations Peacekeepers stationed in Trenton, New Jersey were slaughtered in an attack by Tea Party terrorists who apparently crossed the Delaware river by night. Early reports indicate 22 of the Peacekeepers were killed and 98 wounded. The brave Colonel Johann Rall may have been wounded in the attack. It is said that the terrorist group was led by George Washington who calls himself a “General.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency has warned local constables against this wanted terrorist, as well as Thomas Jefferson and Paul Revere.
Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-7th, Tennessee) has submitted a bill, “To direct the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security (Transportation Security Administration) to prohibit certain employees of the Transportation Security Administration from using the title of `officer’ and from wearing uniforms and carrying badges resembling those of law enforcement officers.”
The short H.R. 3608, the ‘Stop TSA’s Reach In Policy Act’ or the ‘STRIP Act’ would direct the Assistant Director of Homeland Security to prohibit Transportation Security Administration personnel from wearing metal badges resembling police badges and uniforms that make them appear to be federal officers. They would not even be allowed to use the term “officer.”
She voted forH.R. 1540—the House version of S. 1867, NDAA—which many allege would allow the military to round up American citizens against any of the many wars the government is involving us in and place them in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba or a number of foreign prisons. In the Senate version, Sections 1301 and 1302—which have become known as the “indefinite detention articles”—do not exempt U.S. citizens from imprisonment without trial while most of the other provisions do. Continue reading “Congresswoman wants to stop TSA from calling themselves “officers.”” »
This is not a civil-rights issue, it’s ensuring that everyone’s vote counts.
If you want to buy over-the-counter cold medicine at your local drugstore, chances are you have to show a photo ID to do it. Same if you want to get on a plane, rent a car or open a bank account. So why not to vote?
But to Attorney General Eric Holder, the idea is an outrage. In the name of “civil rights,” he’s declared war on a nationwide movement to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.
Just this year, eight states have passed new photo-ID laws; more than half now have some form of ID requirement for voting. But Holder has already sicced Justice’s Civil Rights Division on new voter-ID laws in South Carolina and Texas to see if there’s any “disproportionate impact” on minorities. He’s also objecting to reforms in “early voting” in places like Florida, which recently tightened its electoral window.
Edinburg, Texas – On Monday, Hidalgo County sheriff’s deputies arrested an illegal alien after a shooting at Betty Harwell Middle School left two students injured.
According to Sheriff Lupe Treviño, stray bullets hit two teenage boys who were attending tryouts for the school’s basketball team. The suspect was discovered in the woods just north of the school, reportedly armed with an AR-15 assault rifle.
The man is alleged to have been illegally hunting on private lands.
The web site of Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has a section that is raising eyebrows. The YouCut pages allow you to vote on what program you believe should be cut.
Dead trees litter the forests providing fuel wood for fires.
One of the programs would terminate “environmental literacy” programs run by the Forest Service. These include “Green Schools” which “empowers students to lead the movement of sustainability and environmental responsibility at school, at home and in their community.” This means, of course, indoctrinating kids that wildlife killing windmills will save the polar bears from global warming. The savings of cutting this program would be and estimated $50 million over ten years.
Another cut in this area that might be suggested is cutting the locks that close forest roads so people can cut fuel wood that lays on the ground in the form of dead trees. The Constitution does not allow the federal government to keep citizens of a State out of their forests and off of their roads.
Some are concerned within the forest service that cutting this program might cause Smokey the Bear and Woodsy Owl to get the pink slip. It seems that these two legendary logos will serve to represent America more than ever.
Another program under fire that could save $18 million over ten years is a program that gives bonuses to States to recruit people into the food stamp program. The Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as the Food Stamp program) pays state governments bonuses for recruiting additional people to sign up for food stamps. Each year, states with the highest percentage of eligible participants enrolled in the program split $12 million in bonus funds. Additionally, the Department awards another $6 million in bonus money to states that are the fastest at signing up new program applicants. As of August, 2011, nearly 46 million Americans were on food stamps, or 15 percent of the population. Benefit costs were over $71 billion between September of 2010 and August of 2011. Program participation has grown steadily since the economic downturn began, and increased by 8 percent in 2011. There is no need to pay states for increasing the number of food stamp recipients they enroll in the program. This could be why Arizona gives food stamps based on race with the lowest rates going to elderly white women who only qualify for about $16 a month after spending their whole life paying the taxes for this program.
Another section of the web site gives you the status on various cutting legislation in Congress.
February 5, 2012 1906 John Carradine 1920 Frank Muir CBE 1946 Charlotte Rampling 1948 Barbara Hershey 1948 Lord Haden Guest 1948 Sven-Goran Eriksson 1952 Russell Grant 1962 Jennifer Jason Leigh 1966 Jose Maria Olazabal
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