Egypt's Islamists, opposition closely eye Turkey

 By MAGGIE MICHAEL 

CAIRO (AP) — Liberal-minded Egyptians and supporters of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood now share one thing: the rival sides are closely following protests in Turkey, a country that has provided the heavily polarized and increasingly impoverished Egyptians with a tantalizing model for marrying Islamist government with a secular establishment and achieving prosperity along the way.

Turkey, a NATO member with a mostly Muslim population has been touted as a democratic model for Egypt and other Arab countries swept up in popular revolts over the past two years.
But scenes of tens of thousands of Turks filling Istanbul's central Taksim Square for more than a week of anti-government protests reminiscent of the mass demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square that led to the 2011 ouster of authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak have alarmed Islamists in both countries.

The rapid unraveling of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's image at home has spilled into Egypt in what experts say is a warning to Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood as they balance the need to meet the demands of both the deeply conservative and the secular communities in the Arab world's most populous nation.
"This is certainly a bad omen for Islamists," said Mohammed Abdel-Kader Khalil, a Cairo-based senior researcher at the East Center for Strategic and Regional Studies. "Their model is violently shaking as the man they say they want to emulate has been dealt a blow."
Experts are more sanguine: Given the vast differences in history and circumstances, Taksim Square, they warn, is no Tahrir.
"Various parties attempt to make a connection between the so-called Turkish model and the Egyptian. They are very mistaken. The two are vastly different," said Amr Ismail Adly, a Turkish affairs scholar in Cairo. "Portraying this as a struggle between secularism and Islam is also oversimplifying a much more complex issue given the diversity of protesters and motives."
For the first time in a decade of power, however, Erdogan appears vulnerable and embattled despite the country's stunning economic performance and heightened international profile.

The demonstrations began May 31 with a violent police crackdown against a small protest over a plan to develop the landmark Taksim Square and spread to dozens of cities amid discontent over what critics see as the prime minister's increasing authoritarianism and efforts to encroach on secular lifestyles.
His critics point to attempts to curtail the selling and promotion of alcohol, his comments on how women should dress and statements that each woman should have at least three children.
A devout Muslim who says he is committed to upholding Turkey's secular tradition, Erdogan vehemently rejects charges of autocracy and points out that he enjoyed 50 percent support in the last elections in 2011.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has been cool to Turkey's secular leaning but gave Erdogan a hero's welcome when he visited Egypt last year, erecting giant billboards with his image on Cairo's main bridges and boulevards.
The Brotherhood's deputy leader Khairat el-Shater depicted himself as "Egypt's Erdogan" during his short-lived presidential campaign last year before he was thrown out of the race over a Mubarak-era conviction.

The opposition and many other Egyptians, meanwhile, have been skeptical about the analogy with the Turkish model, calling it a Brotherhood tactic to assuage fears in the West and at home that it would try to impose strict Islamic rule even as its members dominate the country's power structures.
Khalil, the Cairo-based researcher, said the Brotherhood actually "inverted the model" by trying to monopolize power through the infusion of its members in state institutions under the pretext of battling the "deep state," a term used in Turkey to refer to a network of military and civilian allies accused of trying to destabilize the country during the early years of Erdogan's rule.
The term is repeatedly used by Brotherhood leaders to refer to the legacy of Mubarak's 29-year regime.
"They wanted to consolidate power, take control of state institutions while the streets are boiling and the economy in shambles," said Khalil, the researcher. "They are in a rush and they didn't really benefit from Turkey's experience."

Opposition activists look to the Turkey protests — with a daily stream of pictures of injured Turkish protesters and people acting as human shields against water cannons — as a way to boost their continued movement and demonstrations against Morsi's rule, which they claim has over a very short time reproduced the authoritarian regime ousted in 2011.

"The impact is doubled in Egypt," said prominent activist Hossam el-Hamalawy. "On one hand this is a blow to Islamic project which Islamists held up high as a model they were preaching with and on the other hand, any movement in any country will have a domino effect."

But Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood appeared to be only hardening its stance in the wake of the protests.

A member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, Farid Ismail, said protests in both countries amount to a "war, not against the regime or President Mohammed Morsi, but against the Islamic identity."

"It is a struggle between right and wrong," he added in remarks at a rally this week in a Nile Delta province north of Cairo.

Turkey rules out early polls, thousands defy call to end protest

By Nick Tattersall and Ece Toksabay 

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party on Saturday ruled out early elections as thousands of anti-government demonstrators defied his call for an immediate end to protests.
Huseyin Celik, deputy chairman of the Justice and Development (AK) Party founded by Erdogan just over a decade ago, said local and presidential elections would be held next year as planned, and a general election in 2015.
"The government is running like clockwork. There is nothing that necessitates early elections," he told reporters after a meeting of the party's executive committee in Istanbul.
"The world is dealing with an economic crisis and things are going well in Turkey. Elections are not held because people are marching on the streets."
A few kilometers away, tens of thousands of Turks defied Erdogan's call on Friday for an immediate end to anti-government demonstrations, massing again in the central Taksim Square, where riot police backed by helicopters and armored vehicles first clashed with protesters a week ago.

Tourists and curious locals swelled their numbers around a makeshift protest camp in Gezi Park, a leafy corner of the square where activists have been sleeping in tents and vandalized buses, or wrapped in blankets under plane trees.
What began as a campaign against government plans to build over the park spiraled into an unprecedented display of public anger over the perceived authoritarianism of Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AK Party, leading to the worst riots in decades.
In a rare show of unity, thousands of fans from Istanbul's three main football clubs Besiktas, Galatasaray and Fenerbahce, who have helped organize some of the protests, marched on Taksim roaring "Tayyip resign!" and "Arm in arm against fascism!".
Police fired teargas and water cannon on protesters overnight in the working-class Gazi neighborhood of Istanbul, which saw heavy clashes with police in the 1990s. There was similar unrest night after night earlier in the week in several cities, leaving three dead and close to 5,000 injured.
Hundreds of protesters also gathered in the centre of the capital Ankara on Saturday, which saw violent clashes earlier in the week, chanting and honking car horns.
Erdogan has given no indication of plans to clear out Taksim, around which protesters have built dozens of barricades made of ripped up paving stones, street signs, vandalized vehicles and corrugated iron, clogging part of the city centre.

Police pulled back from the square days ago.
"Let them attack. They can't stop us," a member of the Turkish Communist Party shouted through loudspeakers to a cheering crowd from on top of a white van in the square.
Taksim is lined by luxury hotels that should be doing a roaring trade as the summer season starts in one of the world's most-visited cities. But a forced eviction might trigger a repeat of the clashes seen earlier in the week.
ANGER BOILS OVER
The gatherings mark a challenge to a leader whose authority is built upon three successive election victories. Erdogan takes the protests as a personal affront.
Sources close to the AK Party speak of a sense of siege within the party leadership, with influential if disparate forces loath to break ranks publicly but still worried about the extent of Erdogan's power and his uncompromising response to the protests.
Erdogan has made little secret of his ambition to run for the presidency after his third term as prime minister comes to an end, although the AKP could also change internal rules to allow him to stand for a fourth term.

Celik said the protests had been discussed "in detail" at Saturday's party meeting, but that the question of early elections had never been on the agenda.
"A government that doesn't have people's trust cannot be permanent. We got the message of the protests and we respect that, but there's nothing to respect about people throwing stones," he said.
Erdogan has made clear he has no intention of stepping aside - pointing to the AK Party's 50 percent of the vote in the last election - and has no clear rivals inside the party or out.
He has enacted many democratic reforms, taming a military that toppled four governments in four decades, starting entry talks with the European Union and forging peace talks with Kurdish rebels to end a three-decade-old war.
But in recent years, critics say his style, always forceful and emotional, has become authoritarian.
Media have come under pressure, opponents have been arrested over alleged coup plots, and moves such as restrictions on alcohol sales have unsettled secular middle-class Turks who are sensitive to any encroachment of religion on their daily lives.
"These protests are partly a result of his success in economic and social transformation. There's a new generation who doesn't want to be bullied by the prime minister and who is afraid their lifestyle is in danger," said Joost Lagendijk, a former European parliamentarian and Istanbul-based academic.
(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Ankara and Ece Toksabay in Istanbul; editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

NFL Player No Show At White House Due to Obama’s Pro-Abortion Statement

Former Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Matt Birk declined a White House visit with the rest of his Team

by Dave Jolly 

In the past couple months, we’ve seen some National Football League players get a lot of press coverage for coming out of the closet and admitting they’re gay or that they support same-sex marriage.  But when an NFL player, even one wearing a Super Bowl ring makes a public stand for the sanctity of life, the story isn’t covered by many main stream media outlets.
Matt Birk was an offensive lineman for the Minnesota Vikings and Baltimore Ravens.  He was selected to the Pro-Bowl 6 times and in 2006-7, he was named the Vikings Man of the Year.  After winning the Super Bowl earlier this year, Birk announced that he was retiring after 14 years in the NFL.
When the Ravens visited the White House this week to receive their congratulations from President Obama, Birk was absent from the team.  When asked why he wasn’t at the White House, Birk said:

"I wasn't there.  I would say that I have great respect for the office of the Presidency, but about five or six weeks ago, our President made a comment in a speech and he said, 'God bless Planned Parenthood.'”
"Planned Parenthood performs about 330,000 abortions a year. I am Catholic, I am active in the Pro-Life movement and I just felt like I couldn't deal with that. I couldn't endorse that in any way. I'm very confused by [Obama's] statement. For God to bless a place where they're ending 330,000 lives a year? I just chose not to attend."

I was curious to see what media outlets carried Birk’s story.  It was covered briefly by the Baltimore Sun, NBC Sports and NLF.com.  As for any major news networks?  Well, let’s just say that there was a typical glaring absence of coverage.  Had Birk come out for something like same-sex marriage, pro-abortion, anti-gun, and so on, he would have received all kinds of coverage.  But Birk chose to stand firm on his religious faith and make a statement to that affect by not attending the team’s White House visit.
I applaud Matt Birk for his courage to make a public statement for the sanctity of life.  He gave up the chance to visit the White House and meet the President of the United States.  He may never get that chance again, but to Birk, the lives of the unborn are more precious than the chance to meet a man who thanks God for their murders.

Exposing the Enemy of the People

by Bradlee Dean 

In America, our founders took many hardships and pains to ensure the American people would not be blind in one eye. Their sacrifice, their actions, their writings and our founding documents insure that American citizens may have both eyes wide open to detect tyranny and bring proper justice upon it. At the present time, Obama’s administration is being perpetually exposed in scandal, leading to a snowball effect of denial by the administration and the anticipation of how the American people will respond to its criminal activity.

For example, no one in this administration seems to know what happened during the Benghazi attack last September, and during the Benghazi hearings Obama’s cohorts attempted to play off their irresponsible and criminal behavior.
Obama has admitted, while once again shifting the blame away from himself that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes.
In what is known as Extortion 17, Vice President Biden compromised Navy SEAL Team 6 by announcing that they took down bin Laden. Over 30 of them have been killed since his announcement.
On August 6, 2011 high-ranking military officials “neglected” to follow protocol, leading to the fatal crash of a helicopter carrying 15 members of Navy SEAL Team 6, along with 15 others, none of whom survived. This was the highest single-day loss in the war, and the largest SEAL loss ever.
Obama himself claims he did not know about the IRS targeting conservative and Christian groups seeking tax-exempt status until it broke in the news – despite the fact that the former head of the IRS visited the White House 147 times.

Both Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder refuse to be held accountable for the Department of Justice unlawfully seizing Associated Press emails or hacking into the emails of Fox News’ chief White House correspondent, James Rosen.
America, this is happening with both eyes open.
Instead of invoking impeachment and civil charges, however, the state-run media is forecasting what will be the next scandal by this administration.
How can it be that America’s history was established by those who threw off tyranny, yet citizens today instead throw off their duty?: “Then you will prosper, if you are careful to observe the statutes and the ordinances which the Lord commanded Moses concerning Israel. Be strong and courageous, do not fear nor be dismayed” (1 Chron. 22:13).
Then, I ask, who is the enemy? It is those who through apathy tolerate these crimes against “We the People.”
Albert Einstein rightly stated, “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

For those who do take action – the American people are not the ones violating the republic by throwing off corrupt government; it is this administration that is defying the laws of our constitutional republic.
America needs only to follow the Declaration of Independence to once again secure the liberties she once possessed:

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Let 'Em Starve: GITMO Hunger Strike Escalates

One hundred Guantanamo detainees are on hunger strike ...

by Chris Graham 

The number of prisoners at the enemy-combatant detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who are engaging in the hunger strike that began there in February has now grown to 103. That comes to 62 percent of GITMO's detainees. If 62 percent of them end up starving to death, that's 62 percent that we would save from the GITMO budget allocated to taking care of the detainees.
From The Washington Post:
“The initial catalyst was a decision by the guard force at Guantanamo Bay to search detainees’ Korans. The military said that detainees have used Korans to hide contraband, and that the searches were conducted by Muslim cultural advisers, not ordinary guards. The prisoners objected and said the searches amounted to desecration.”

Islamists are not the brightest people. Their argument makes no logical sense. They are prisoners; searching for contraband, which they have historically hidden in their Korans, is not desecration, but even if it were, what does that matter? They're not American citizens; we can desecrate their Korans if we want.
The Post continues:

“The hunger strike quickly became a wider protest about what the detainees considered the president’s abandonment of his policy to close the facility.”

Hey, don't worry, terrorists; your bro Barack's got your backs. He promised in a speech on March 23 to repatriate more than half of you. Though, why you'd want out is beyond me; your treatment at GITMO is much better than it would be at any other prison. Right now you get culturally sensitive meals, a soccer field, video games, and even the opportunity to continue your education.
Ridiculously, we aren't allowing some of the hunger-strikers to starve themselves; we are force-feeding 41 of them. (This is where the reader bangs his head on the wall.)

We should let them starve! They're doing to themselves exactly what we want to do to them but legally can't. The end game is their execution, is it not? I might be wrong, but they are no longer being interrogated, right? If that’s the case, then they no longer serve any purpose. So why are we force-feeding them? Why are we forcing them to live? If they want to die, let them die. Why should we pay money to keep terrorists alive?
By all means, fellas, starve.

Obama Not Expecting to Serve Out His Term?

President Obama today offered up some unusual phrasing with respect to his future as president, implying he might for some reason leave office before his term is up.
“I will leave this office at some point – sometime in the next three and a half years,” Obama said during remarks today in San Jose, California.

http://youtu.be/A-Gc6tuBCyA

Obama Pulls His ‘Poor, Pitiful Me’ Card…And, Yet Again, His Claims Aren’t True

The issue of judicial nominations causes an outbreak of hypocrisy in both political parties, and President Obama isn’t immune. In fact, he seems to have come down with a particularly bad case lately.
On Tuesday, the president went to the Rose Garden to deliver a peevish and lecturing speech announcing three candidates for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Noting that it is the president’s constitutional duty to nominate judges and the Senate’s duty to provide advice and consent, a clearly frustrated Obama said, “Time and again, congressional Republicans cynically used Senate rules and procedures to delay and even block qualified nominees from coming to a full vote.”
“As a result,” Obama continued, “my judicial nominees have waited three times longer to receive confirmation votes than those of my Republican predecessor. Let me repeat that: My nominees have taken three times longer to receive confirmation votes than those of my Republican predecessor.”

Obama’s claim seemed heartfelt, but it wasn’t anywhere near true. As it happens, the Congressional Research Service has just done a study comparing judicial nominations in the first terms of several recent presidents. Among other things, the study noted how long each president’s nominees waited from the day they were nominated to the day they were confirmed.
When it comes to the circuit courts of appeals, the level just below the Supreme Court, Obama’s nominees have actually moved through the Senate faster than those of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush. The CRS study found that Bush’s first-term nominees waited an average of 277 days for confirmation, while Obama’s waited 240 days. So not only did Obama’s nominees not wait three times longer than Bush’s, they actually made it to the bench faster.
Read More:  http://washingtonexaminer.com/

Chris Christie gives New Jersey Senate seat to Jeffrey Chiesa, a dhimmi who pandered to Islamic supremacists

 New Jersey Republican Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa, 48, has been appointed the state's interim senator

 Posted by Robert Jihad Watch
Chiesa visited a Newark mosque to apologize for a counter-terror program. So it is no wonder that indefatigable Useful Idiot Christie would reward him.
"Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa appointed to U.S. Senate," from MyFoxNY.com, June 6 (thanks to Creeping Sharia):

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has appointed state Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa to be the temporary successor to the late U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Chiesa, who worked with Christie in the U.S. attorney's office before becoming the top lawyer for the state government, will take office on Monday.
Christie has scheduled a special election for October 16 to fill the seat until it expires in January 2015. The winner of that election would have to run again in 2014.
A primary election would be scheduled for August 13.
"Jeff has decided to not run for the job," said Christie during a news conference at the Statehouse.

Well, that's good, at least.

DOJ And FBI Raid News Organization After Releasing Alarming Story On Obama’s Birth Certificate

via: (Before It's News)

Within hours of publishing a scathing story on President Obama (http://wp.me/p3dd01-Yp) the DOJ raided the offices of the National Report claiming the raid was lawful under the USA Patriot Act but refusing to say why the government was taking the action.

 

At about 12:50 this afternoon the National Report released a damning story on the Obama birth certificate scandal providing new evidence which clearly shows the document to be fraudulent. According to Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his Cold Case Posse has the evidence to prove the presidents birth certificate was computer generated using Adobe Illustrator.

 

Cold Case Posse lead investigator Mike Zullo, revealed for the first time that his findings have been confirmed in a 40 page report by Reed Hayes, a Certified Documents Examiner (CDE) from Hawaii. The birth certificate posted to the White House website clearly shows it was forged using cut & paste methods in several layers.

 

Instead of suffocating this story, DOJ has now poured kerosine on this fire.  This is tantamount to admission as far as I’m concerned.  Why raid these offices at all if that birth certificate is real?  Why bother at all to address it period if his birth certificate is real?  Giving it attention, especially this kind of attention is basically saying, “damnit you got me!”.   I like to think I am a rational man so what reason could Obama have to fake something like that other than the nerfarious reasons usually given?  Privacy? No that can’t be it, Obama hates privacy. 

This is an escalation.  The DOJ agents entered the building clad in black clothes and face masks toting machine guns.  POLICE STATE MUCH!  Whywould you need that kind of fiepower to raid a media organization?  You don’t.  National report Editor-in-Chief Nigel Covington said, “This is a gross violation of our Constitutional rights as American citizens and as journalists. All our files relating to President Obama were seized with others including all employee personnel files.”

 

Take this into context, look at what is happening right now.  NSA spying scandal, DOJ/AP scandal, etc.  This is the new trend and sadly one we have seen coming for a long time. -Mort

Michael Savage: ACLU turns on Obama

“Even the ACLU is shocked” by the Obama administration’s secret grab of phone records of millions of Americans, says talk-radio host Michael Savage.
He noted on his nationally syndicated show Friday night that while Obama has characterized the government’s access to the data as a “modest encroachment” on privacy, an ACLU senior policy analyst called it a “gross privacy invasion.” 

Recalling the warnings in his “Beware the Government-Media Complex” speech to the Commonwealth Club of California in 2000, Savage told his listeners the NSA’s snooping is “the biggest scandal of your entire life.”
“I’ve always run my life as if I’m listened in on,” he said.
Savage cited an op-ed for Reuters by the ACLU’s Ben Wizner that pointed out the disturbing privacy implications of the Obama administration’s surveillance program.
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, Wizner wrote, concluded that “reviewing people’s social networking contacts alone was sufficient to determine their sexual orientation.”
He noted that “metadata from email communications was sufficient to identify the mistress of then-CIA Director David Petraeus and then drive him out of office.”
Get Savage’s free weekly insider newsletter five days a week in your email inbox by going to the top of the home page on Savage’s website and clicking the green “SUBSCRIBE” box. 


“The ‘who,’ ‘when’ and ‘how frequently’ of communications are often more revealing than what is said or written,’ he argued. “Calls between a reporter and a government whistleblower, for example, may reveal a relationship that can be incriminating all on its own.”
The ACLU analyst said “repeated calls to Alcoholics Anonymous, hotlines for gay teens, abortion clinics or a gambling bookie may tell you all you need to know about a person’s problems.”
“If a politician were revealed to have repeatedly called a phone sex hotline after 2:00 a.m., no one would need to know what was said on the call before drawing conclusions,” said Wizner. “In addition sophisticated data-mining technologies have compounded the privacy implications by allowing the government to analyze terabytes of metadata and reveal far more details about a person’s life than ever before.”
The London Guardian released a secret order Wednesday from the FISA Court revealing that the U.S. government has been using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to track the calls of every Verizon Business Network Services customer.
In response, the ACLU issued a press release Thursday calling on Congress to investigate.

“The secrecy surrounding the government’s extraordinary surveillance powers has stymied our system of checks and balances,” said Laura Murphy, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office.
Murphy said there’s “a time and a place for government secrecy, but true democracy demands that the governed be informed of the rules of play so as to hold elected officials to account.”
The Obama program appears to be based on the FISA Amendments Act, which authorizes surveillance of communications if one party is believed to be outside the U.S.
In February, the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging the law’s constitutionality was dismissed 5-4 by the Supreme Court on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not prove that they had been monitored.
Get Jerome Corsi’s new and scorching exposé of the American Civil Liberties Union
ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer, who argued the case before the Supreme Court, said the new revelations “make clear that the NSA – part of the military – now has direct access to every corner of Americans’ digital lives.”
“Unchecked government surveillance presents a grave threat to democratic freedoms,” he said. “These revelations are a reminder that Congress has given the executive branch far too much power to invade individual privacy, that existing civil liberties safeguards are grossly inadequate, and that powers exercised entirely in secret, without public accountability of any kind, will certainly be abused.”

Savage is the author of 29 books, including six New York Times bestsellers. He was awarded the coveted Freedom of Speech Award by Talkers Magazine and earned his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.
Get an autographed copy of “A Time for War” exclusively at the WND Superstore now while supplies last.
Savage’s latest novel, “A Time for War” is a sequel to “Abuse of Power,” which spotlighted the threat of radical Islam.
Savage’s Train Tracks: Family Stories for the Holidays,” released in October, takes his readers on an engaging, thought-provoking journey back in time, to the Bronx of the late 1940s and early 1950s, beginning with a vivid portrayal of a train trip from New York City to Pennsylvania to visit relatives at Thanksgiving.
He other bestsellers include “Trickle Down Tyranny: Crushing Obama’s Dream of the Socialist States of America,” “Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama’s Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security,” “The Savage Nation,” “The Enemy Within,” “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder,” “Political Zoo,” “Psychological Nudity: Savage Radio Stories” and “Banned in Britain.”
See the entire Savage collection in the WND Superstore.

How to bypass NSA's data mining

by: Bob Unruh 

Tired of the National Security Agency collecting your personal details? There’s an app for that.
In light of reports that the U.S. government has gained direct access to the systems operating Google, Facebook and Apple, the fact the National Security Agency is mining billions of Verizon telephone records for details, and God only knows what those pesky new drones are doing, advice on how to beat Big Brother is starting to appear.

Political reporter Alex Pappas at the Daily Caller cited a product that has been released by developers in South Africa.
The product called Seecrypt is purportedly able to block the connections that otherwise would allow the NSA to look at your phone records and find out the details of your calls.
“For the app to work, both people wanting to text or call each other must have the application,” the report said. “But when the application is used, the phone company will not know the identity or phone number of the other person on the line. It will only know that the caller used Seecrypt.”
“Creating a scalable encrypted voice-over-data application that can operate with minimal latency anywhere in the world is not easy,” said Normay Walters, co-founder of the company. “Seecrypt met and surpassed this challenge by using a set of proprietary protocols and a carrier grade back-end infrastructure that operates on a privately controlled and globally deployed network.”

The news about the U.S. government’s intrusion into the privacy of citizens just keeps surging. Most recently, there are reports that the NSA and FBI simply are tapping into the central services of nine leading Internet companies to gain access to audio, video, texts, emails and documents.
The Washington Post reported the government was working directly from servers for Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo.
So distressing are the revelations about the massive attack on privacy that left-leaning pundits are abandoning Barack Obama and analysts are saying his second-term agenda is dead in the water because of the developments. But is there anything else that can help besides an app?
The authors at Wired.com have some advice.

“There are ways to keep your correspondence off the grid,” they advise.
It could have been expected. The lawsuits already are appearing over Obama’s snooping program.
For example, for telephone communications, get a throw-away phone, they said.
“Clearly you can’t use your own phone, given that the government already is compiling metadata on who you call and how often. To limit the chance of being spied upon while making calls on the go you need to invest in a ‘burner’ phone (so named because such phones are used for a brief period of time, then tossed away like stale pizza).”
Want to know how and why America has so rapidly come to resemble the totalitarian society described by novelist George Orwell in “1984,” one characterized by universal surveillance? It’s all exposed in a special issue of Whistleblower magazine – titled “ONE NATION UNDER SURVEILLANCE: Big Brother is watching in ways Orwell never dreamed.”
The report by Robert Baldwin said even better, buy a disposable phone with cash.
“Of course, the person you’re calling also needs a burner phone. What’s the point of using an anonymous phone if the person you’re calling is still using their potentially tapped personal phone?”

For email, the report recommends Tor.
This is not the burly guy with the big hammer in the movies; it’s a “free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy.”
Wired reported, “Tor was developed by the U.S. Navy to help protect government communications. The service creates a network of virtual tunnels that ISPs and other more nefarious organizations can’t track. Just download the Tor browser and start emailing.”
Another word of caution, “Don’t open any documents, enable any Flash or Quicktime files, or enable or install any browser plugins while using Tor.”

For instant messaging?
“Google, AIM, Yahoo and Skype may do a good job securing your chats, but when the NSA comes to the door with a warrant, all your communications are available for scrutiny. Instead of letting Big Brother read all your LOLs, OMGs, and WTFs, you need to start using OTR (off the record) messaging. Such messages are encrypted so they can’t actually be read if they’re intercepted or pulled with a subpoena.”
Recommended was the OTR messaging site.
“Yeah, you might need a degree in computer science to get up and running, but if private IMs are important to you, you won’t mind …”
In person confidentiality a concern? The recommendation is to bathe a location in white noise, like from running water.

The Revolution Goes On…

by Bob Livingston 
The body of a nation dies when it gets so congested that it can’t live. It seems that a full measure of corruption must implode a nation before it can begin anew.
Revolution takes time. It’s a gradualism that the population is oblivious to. Most people cannot imagine that the United States is in a state of economic and social collapse, even though the signs and indicators are everywhere.
Where and what is the rot in America? It’s the consistent ongoing devaluation of the U.S. dollar by the U.S. government. This is economic warfare against the American middle class and all producers of wealth and savings. If this were the work of a foreign enemy, all-out military mobilization would be a full national effort.
Devaluation of the currency is a concept of subtle theft. It is stealth transfer of wealth without violent conflict.

The elite moneychangers can take money (purchasing power) right out of your pocket simply by printing new money. New money dilutes old money toward worthlessness. New money in circulation, either digital or printed, is evidence of government theft.
Can anyone imagine how much theft and impoverishment is going on with the trillions of dollars’ worth of new money created under the aegis of quantitative easing? The bank robbers of old were at high risk. Now, it’s the banks and the government that are robbing the people with no risk at all. All the robbing is done with the printing press.
Thanks to Ben Bernanke’s shenanigans, stocks are up and housing prices are up, but so is the price of food and energy. But rising stock and housing prices are good, right? Not in the current climate, because it’s a false hope built on piles newly printed “dollars.” It’s cheap money, but it is an expensive proposition. It’s a bubble of titanic proportions, and its collapse will make the bubbles of the past pale in comparison.
There is a flood of money that is being pushed downstream. As Zerohedge writes, we are in uncharted territory that cannot go on forever.

The creation of money by the Fed, the ECB (European Central Bank) and Japan’s central bank keeps raising the tide but like all tides when it reverses course if will flow back out from the high water mark which has been created and with an equal force.
The reversal will come from an event or from the moment that the central banks reverse position or from the fall in the demand for goods and services as consumers/investors have less money to buy things.

The elite behind the scenes count on the ignorance of the American people, who have been dumbed down with drugs, tobacco, alcohol, debauchery, national sports craze, instant gratification, debt and no rule of law. There is no hope for them unless something wakes them up!
And now, my friends, the government and the bankers have destroyed the ability of seniors in America to live off their life savings. The U.S. government and the banker elite have killed any hope of our seniors getting a decent rate of interest for the next three years on savings accounts.
Now if the suppression of the price of silver is broken and silver breaks out into a strong uptrend, which it is going to do, watch the buying power of the middle class drop into the toilet as the cost of the essentials of life skyrocket.
So the government elite and their symbiotic partners in crime, the bankers, are not satisfied with impoverishing America by debauching the currency, they deny seniors their old age income by suppression of interest rates in favor of the bond holders who hold government “debt.”

What Do I Expect?

Members of the American middle class have lost their interest income. They are starved for income, so here is what I foresee: I believe that money will continue to flow into the stock market for several reasons:

• The American public is abandoning bank accounts and money market funds in search of higher stock dividends.
• Corporate buybacks and mergers.
• Foreign investors buying U.S. stocks.
• Money from bondholders where yield interest income is very low.
• When and if the stock market skyrockets, the public will not be able to resist and will “jump in.”
• The public will see the glitter of capital gains, that is, stocks increasing in nominal value. Remember that Americans are focused on nominal (day-to-day) dollar value. They don’t understand real value like U.S. constant dollars from the 1960s and silver and gold.
• The stock market has the potential to explode from “short covering.” As the market is now overvalued, many investors will short the market expecting a crash. But investors don’t see the new paradigm outlined above; and when and if the stock prices go up (instead of a big correction, as appears imminent), most investors will stay on the sidelines.
• The Cyprus event. This foretells a worldwide bank run! The new paradigm is that bank depositors are considered lenders (not depositors), whereby a percentage of their deposits will be taken in exchange for worthless bank shares. This is the same scheme planned for retirement funds being exchanged for worthless U.S. bonds. Up to now, bank and financial deposits have been guaranteed by Federal bailouts. This will scare cash out of banks into residential real estate and the stock market. 

Conclusion: The stock market is now toppy in thin air. A crash is expected! But remember that the stock market is independent of hard times or world calamity, wars, etc. It can still go up or “climb a wall of worry.”
All of the above suggests to me that there will be an ocean of liquidity (cash) with nowhere to go except real estate and the stock market.
Also remember that the nice government psychopaths love the stock market in which they can feign prosperity and even heaven on Earth. But quietly and constantly, paper money is, and will be, losing purchasing value. Rising stocks makes the public look the other way.
What about gold stocks? They will rise, too.
My bet is that the Federal Reserve is hell-bent on destroying the U.S. dollar, so watch out. All of the millions in cash will be worthless!
We have to escape with farms and resources of real and lasting value before the end of the endgame.

Can You Hear Us Now?

It’s not paranoia if they really are listening. Di doesn’t get it. And, Baghdad Jim is back! All this — plus — Miss America! Presented in 1080 hi-def, FOR FREE! It’s The Great Eight, from the Personal Liberty Digest™!

http://youtu.be/X0IbqAl7kHg

The Terrible Future Of The Syrian War

oped: Being a Vn era veteran I disagree with the writers comparison of Vietnam and Syria conflicts being equal...Apples and Oranges...however the diatribe on the Syria conflict is spot on!

by Brandon Smith
The last war America fought openly through proxy was the Vietnam War. The idea was not necessarily “new”; General Smedley Butler’s exposé on his career as a conqueror-for-hire, titled War is a Racket, uncovered a long history of bloodshed by U.S. government and corporate interests in third world countries designed to destroy sovereign nations and plunder their resources. This was done through the use of mercenaries for hire, military men acting covertly or guerilla forces with a pre-existing agenda supplied through back channels.
The sad and disturbing reality is that most wars fought by our country over the course of the past century have not been fought on principle. Instead, they have been fought for profit and for the consolidation of power and oligarchy.
Vietnam was a break in the tradition of secret puppet conflicts, sending the U.S. into the realm of openly admitted proxy. The establishment wanted the American people to know that we were supplying funding and weapons to the South Vietnamese nationalists, meddling in a civil war which had absolutely no bearing on U.S. international relations or domestic policy. The rationalization then was that America had to stop the spread of communism. Ironically, the communists of North Vietnam were a minimal threat compared to the elitist communists within our own borders sitting in positions of political power.
Ultimately, the Vietnam War had absolutely nothing to do with fighting communism, and everything to do with manipulating the public into accepting the concept of foreign intervention. That is to say, we were being conditioned to think of interventionism as a perfectly normal U.S. policy.

The war in Vietnam was achieved in stages. First, the U.S. aided then abandoned the government of Ngo Dinh Diem, who was assassinated during a military coup inspired partly by Diem’s despotic mistreatment of the Vietnamese populace. Money was then sent to cement the power of the military junta in the name of countering the rise of the communist North. Soon, weapons and heavy ordinance were being shipped to the South. Then, U.S. “advisors” were sent to train South Vietnamese soldiers.
Full intervention was successfully avoided by the John F. Kennedy Administration until his assassination, after which President Lyndon B. Johnson launched into a full-spectrum U.S. invasion which the mainstream referred to as a “police action.” Simultaneously, Chinese and Russian interests began supplying the North, though their involvement never officially led to boots on the ground.

I rehash this history because I think it is important to note that the Vietnam theatre seems to have been recycled in Syria today, though the cast of characters has been rearranged slightly. This time, the U.S. and Europe has supported the insurgency. The government of Bashar al-Assad has been cast as the “villain”. Russia and China are now playing the role of mediators and peacemakers, while the West now sends men like Senator John McCain to throw money and weapons into the hands of a rebellion permeated with members of al-Qaida, who decapitate and eat the hearts of prisoners on video, and who, last time I checked, were supposedly our enemy.

The process and escalation of the conflict has been very similar to our adventures in Southeast Asia. Money has been openly sent to the rebels. Weapons have likely been covertly sent (evidence suggests that this program was perhaps a part of the reason for the Benghazi incident and subsequent cover-up). Now, certain parties within the U.S., Israel, and the EU have suggested open armament of the insurgency, while destabilization of the region is blamed on Assad by the Western media.

In response to the accelerated armament of what many now consider an entirely fabricated revolution, Russia, Iran, and Lebanon have offered aid to Assad. Russia has supplied Syria with weaponry for years, though shipments have increased in recent months, including a new shipment of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles which has infuriated Israel (Israel has claimed it has no intention to escalate, even thought it has twice used airstrikes within Syria’s borders — their anger over S-300 shipments only shows that they intend to continue such aggression).
Iran has a longstanding mutual defense pact with Syria and has stated that any further direct incursions by the West will result in Iranian involvement (though I think it likely that they are already involved sending arms and advisors of their own). Lebanon has supplied actual ground troops to Assad through Hezbollah. They are aiding the Syrian army in what appears to be a successful campaign against the insurgency. Hezbollah was very effective in repelling an invasion by Israel in 2006, causing the United Nations to step in to provide face-saving resolutions and an excuse for Israeli retreat. I believe their involvement in Syria will be a game changer.

I have been writing and warning about Syria’s potential as a catalyst for an expanded global war for years, long before most people had ever hear of Assad, and much of what I have predicted in the past is now coming true. Whether you believe the Assad regime is good or evil, it is important to realize that our government’s involvement in the region has nothing to do with Assad. This conflict is about setting off chain reactions in the Middle East, and, perhaps, even triggering a world war. You can read more about this in my article “Syria And Iran Dominos Lead To World War.”
Using Vietnam and other proxy wars as a reference, here is how I believe the war in Syria is likely to progress over the coming months:

1. Heavy weapons will be supplied to the insurgency, including anti-aircraft weapons, leading to increased casualties, especially civilian casualties.
2. Assad will respond with expanded and deadly airstrikes and ground troops will advance with the aid of Hezbollah.
3. Iran will begin openly supplying arms, and step up covert supplies of advisors and ground troops.
4. Russia will increase arms shipments even further, including anti-ship, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles in order to dissuade U.S. and Israeli interests from sending their own forces into the area.
5. Syrian insurgents will begin losing ground quickly. The UN will offer to “mediate” a ceasefire, but this will only be designed to allow the insurgents time to regroup, and for the U.S., EU and Israel to position themselves for attack.
6. The UN ceasefire talks will be a wash, if they even take place. Israel will begin regular airstrikes in the name of stopping Iran and Hezbollah from interfering in the war, or to stop them from obtaining “chemical weapons.” The strikes will be aimed at Syrian military facilities and Syrian infrastructure. There will be many civilian casualties.
7. Syria will respond with ground to air and ground to ground missiles. Israeli cities will see far more precise targeting than the scud missiles used by Iraq during Gulf I and Gulf II. Civilian deaths will be much higher than expected.
8. A no-fly zone will be announced over Syria, enforced by U.S. and Israeli planes, along with anti-aircraft batteries.
9. A violent attack will take place in Israel, likely against a civilian population center (I would not be surprised if chemical weapons are involved). The attack will be blamed on the Assad government, or affiliated allies. It might be a real attack or it might be a false flag. In either case, the result will be the commitment of Israeli ground troops.
10. I think it highly probable that Israel will be the first Western country to invade Syria. However, their involvement will immediately draw a declaration of war from Iran, and, increased ship movements from Russia, which maintains a strategic naval base off the coast of Tartus.
11. Israel will be swallowed up in a strategic quandary, and will demand U.S. military action. The U.S. will supply that action. Combat will spread into cross-border battles in countries not directly engaged in the fight (as it did in Cambodia during Vietnam).
12. China will respond with economic retaliation, dumping the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. Russia will respond by reducing petro-product exports to Europe and staging a massive naval presence in the region. From this point, all bets are off… 

Now, the temptation here is for one to immediately take sides and to look at this conflict through the lens of “East vs. West.” This would be a mistake. The Syrian government has in the past acted in tyrannical fashion (though much of the latest accusations appear to be propaganda designed to lure the American public into rallying around another war).
Russia is just as restrictive an oligarchy as the U.S. or the EU. China’s society is a communist nightmare state and the average globalist’s aspiration for what they want America to become one day. Iran has many oppressive policies and is certainly not the kind of country I would ever want to live in. The Syrian insurgency is a mixture of immoral and unprincipled death squads and paid covert wet-work agents. The U.S. government is immorally supplying the cash and weapons for them to operate in the name of fighting the same kind of tyranny that is being instituting here at home.
The point is, there are no “good guys” in this story. There are no heroes; only the insiders, the outsiders and the general public. It has been the habit of the public to ignore most past proxy wars and then flip on the patriotism switch during the rare occasions that American troops are actually deployed. Given time for adequate contemplation (as well as significant American losses), the citizenry eventually turns sour against the paradigm and demands a change. This time, however, there may be no time for such contemplation. I believe that any forward ground action in Syria on the part of the U.S. or Israel will result in a very fast moving global war.

Such a war would seem like insanity, but it serves a vital purpose for certain special interests. It would provide perfect cover for a global economic crash which is about to occur anyway, except in the midst of war, international bankers can divert blame away from themselves. It would provide a rationalization for overt domestic security and the reduction of civil liberties in the name of public safety. It would allow an excuse for a government crackdown on activist groups, who can be labeled “traitors” who aid the enemy simply by speaking ill of government policy. It would give credence to the ideology of globalization and centralized governance. The elites could claim that sovereignty must be erased and all nations must come together under a single banner so that such a “terrible catastrophe” will never happen again.
The war in Syria will not be about Syria. It will not be about the freedom of the people. It will not be about dethroning Assad or establishing democracy. It will not be about defusing violence in the region. Syria will not be the target; we will be the target — our society, our rights, our nation.
America is in the middle of the most insidious consolidation of power in history and Syria is merely a stepping stone in the game. If we cannot maintain our vigilance and allow ourselves to be sucked into the proxy war façade, the elites will get their global conflict with little to no home opposition. The globalists will win, and everyone else will lose.

Lawmakers aim to change Obama’s Dragnet

Republican and Democratic lawmakers already are plotting ways to rein in the Obama administration’s mass collection of phone and Internet data, after a rapid-fire series of disclosures about the program set off privacy alarms.

“This is a dragnet,” Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., told Fox News on Friday.
The latest development, as reported by The Guardian newspaper, is that the British government has also been secretly gathering intelligence from U.S. Internet companies via the U.S. National Security Agency data-mining project. That project, along with reports about a secret court order allowing the government to collect phone records for millions of Verizon customers, triggered a renewed debate this week over whether Americans are trading too much privacy for a sense of security.

Continue Reading on www.foxnews.com

Gowdy: IRS Spending on Lavish Conferences a ‘Moral Issue’ That Training Can’t Fix

The scandal surrounding a $4.1 million training conference staged by the Internal Revenue Service in 2010 can’t be fixed by recommendations in a report by the Treasury Inspector General, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Thursday. “Mr. Inspector General, we can adopt all the recommendations you could possibly conceive of,” Gowdy said. “I just tell you it strikes me – and maybe it’s just me – but it strikes me as a cultural, systemic, character, moral issue.”

Continue Reading on cnsnews.com

DHS insider: It’s about to get very ugly

By Doug Hagmann 
Something quite unexpected happened just hours ago, in the dark of night, during a two-day layover in Washington, DC. My son and I are scheduled to take part in a seminar outside of Raleigh, North Carolina this weekend, so we combined our travels to include a side-trip to DC for a business meeting we had previously arranged. It was during this layover that something seemingly ripped from the pages of a spy novel took place.

While I was in the middle of a perfectly good and well needed sleep in the very early hours of this morning, I received a message. I cannot disclose how I received this message, at least not now. The discerning reader will understand why, which, by the way, would make a very interesting story alone. The message was extremely clear and precise. I was to meet my high level DHS insider at a very specific location in Washington, DC, at a time when most ‘normal’ people, except third-shift workers are still asleep. And, I was to come alone and make certain that I was not being followed, and I was to leave any cell phone or electronic device behind.

Seriously? I thought, as I was still trying to make sense of it all. Is all this really necessary? Is this really happening? I considered waking my son to accompany me, but opted to follow the instructions to the letter. Besides, I thought, he’s not the most affable middle-of-the-night person. I left a hastily written but detailed note in my hotel room before my departure in the event something happened. I looked at the digital clock on my rental car (my personal car would never survive our long distance trip). It was 3:20 a.m.

The meeting

I felt like I was part of a spy movie set in our nation’s capital. A chill rose up my spine as I waited in the dark of a chilly, misty and foggy pre-dawn morning. I was to meet with my DHS insider source at a time when most of the nation is asleep, at a place I could swear was featured in the movie All the President’s Men. No one and I mean no one knows I’m here, I thought, as I could see one of the most recognizable national landmarks in the distance.

My source appeared out of nowhere, or so it seemed, and handed me a cup of coffee with the astute observation that I looked like I needed it. So tell me, I asked impatiently, why do we have to meet at this time, at this location, and under such specific circumstances? ‘Because this might be our last meeting,’ he stated.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, the time, the place, or the chill of the misty rain that caused my sense of foreboding. “Explain,” I asked in an almost demanding tone. So he did, without mincing words.

The details

“If anyone thinks that what’s going on right now with all of this surveillance of American citizens is to fight some sort of foreign enemy, they’re delusional. If people think that this ‘scandal’ can’t get any worse, it will, hour by hour, day by day. This has the ability to bring down our national leadership, the administration and other senior elected officials working in collusion with this administration, both Republican and Democrats. People within the NSA, the Department of Justice, and others, they know who they are, need to come forth with the documentation of ‘policy and practice’ in their possession, disclose what they know, fight what’s going on, and just do their job. I have never seen anything like this, ever. The present administration is going after leakers, media sources, anyone and everyone who is even suspected of ‘betrayal.’ That’s what they call it, ‘betrayal.’ Can you believe the size of their cahones? This administration considers anyone telling the truth about Benghazi, the IRS, hell, you name the issue, ‘betrayal,’” he said.
“We know all this already,” I stated. He looked at me, giving me a look like I’ve never seen, and actually pushed his finger into my chest. “You don’t know jack,” he said, “this is bigger than you can imagine, bigger than anyone can imagine. This administration is collecting names of sources, whistle blowers and their families, names of media sources and everybody they talk to and have talked to, and they already have a huge list. If you’re not working for MSNBC or CNN, you’re probably on that list. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you’re on that list. It’s a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list,” he stated.
“What’s that exactly mean, being on that list, that is,” I asked, trying to make sense of it all.
“It means that there will be censorship under the color of authority of anyone in the U.S. who is attempting to expose what’s going on in our name. It’s about controlling any damning information from reaching epidemic proportions. It’s damage control to the extreme. It’s about the upcoming censorship of the internet in the name of national security. The plans are already in place. These latest reports about ‘spying eyes’ have turned this administration and others connected to it into something very, very dangerous. They feel cornered and threatened, and I’m hearing about some plans they have to shut down the flow of information that is implicating them of wrongdoing. Time is short,” he stated.

“How are they going to do this? How is it even possible” I asked.
“First, they intend to use the Justice Department to silence journalists like in the Rosen case, but they won’t stop there. They will use a host of national security policies, laws, letters, whatever to take out the bigger threats,” he stated.
Next, they will use some sort of excuse, an external threat, and I believe it will be a combination of the economic collapse and a Mid-East war that will begin in Syria to throttle the information that is accessible on the Internet. And you know what? People will believe it!”
Based on what I’ve seen, most of which I should not have seen, the DHS is co-ordinating efforts with other federal agencies to begin to threaten American citizens with incarceration for non-compliance. You know the old talk of color coded lists? Well, this is what they will be using. People exposing the truth about Benghazi, killing the U.S. Dollar, even those questioning Obama?s legal status and eligibility to be President are the current targets. And they’ve had five long years to get to this point. The ugly truth is that these policies and practices did not start under Obama, but long before. This is about the killing of our Constitutional Republic. The murder of our country and the stripping of our rights. While many have been preoccupied with one issue, few have seen the bigger issue. This is the ‘end game,’ for all the marbles,” he stated.

More to come

“Please,” pleaded my source, “get this information out while you can. Tell people what I’m saying, that we don’t have much time, that after the latest exposure of spying, Obama, Jarrett, Axelrod, and others, including members of Congress, have put their plans into high gear. This is about the Marxist takeover of America. This is about our country being able to survive another July 4th holiday. This is about a world war about to break out that will kill millions of people, all because of the agenda of this administration.”
“They are very dangerous and will do anything and everything to stop the onslaught of negative information that’s being reported by the main stream media. But only about one quarter of the real information is being reported. The other three quarters will be the game changer. But first, tell people what I’ve said. Let them know that more will follow but get this information out right now while the internet is still relatively free. Do it today.”
My source provided additional information, but I am abiding by his wish to get this much out. I am writing now to let people know that we are in for seriously dangerous times ahead. Deadly times. War, and censorship under the color of authority and under the pretext of of national security. It’s about to get a lot uglier. Stay tuned.

Extreme Political Correctness Hurts Troops and Limits The Freedoms They Swore to Protect!

In another classic case of political correctness gone COMPLETELY out of control, one US Army Master Sergeant says he's been persecuted because of his conservative and religious beliefs. He has been attacked on a number of occasions by superior officers for everything from a bumper sticker on his own car to the books he reads alone.

If you support our troops, their freedom, their right to have a personal life - as long as it does not violate USMJ or the mission at hand - support Move America Forward and our effort to combat Political Correctness.

The mission comes first, and we support any troops that just want to be treated fairly. Please read the article below and think about joining us for Troopathon!

Our mission is not to censor thought, but to just send the largest shipment of care packages ever this summer!

SOLDIER TOLD NOT TO READ LEVIN, LIMBAUGH OR HANNITY IN UNIFORM By Todd Starnes Jun 7, 2013 Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers, a 25-year Army veteran and conservative Christian based at Fort Myer in Washington, ... ...Sommers' troubles began last April when he was told to remove pro-Republican, anti-Obama bumper stickers that were on his privately owned car. The stickers read: "Political Dissent is NOT Racism," "NOBAMA," NOPE2012" and "The Road to Bankruptcy is Paved with Ass-Fault." That sticker included the image of a donkey. His superior officer told the solider that the bumper stickers were creating "unnecessary workplace tension." ...During the summer months, Sommers came under fire for reading the works of Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and David Limbaugh. Sommers was reading Limbaugh's "The Great Destroyer" backstage at a U.S. Army Band concert at the U.S. Capitol. A superior officer told him that he was causing "unit disruption" and was offending other soldiers. "I wasn't reading aloud," he said. "I was just reading privately to myself. I was told they were frowning on that and they warned me that I should not be reading literature like that backstage because it was offensive." In another episode, he had been caught backstage reading a copy of Levin's "Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America." Sommers said he was told to refrain from reading the book "while in uniform or within sight of anyone from the band." "This is the first time since (my superior officer) indicated I had offended others with my choice of reading material, that I was officially counseled about it," he said. "The statement took my breath away. I was speechless." "I was inspired by Gov. Huckabee's appreciation day," Sommers told Fox News. "And since I wasn't able to participate in the event, I decided to serve Chick-fil-A at my promotion party." It's a long-standing tradition within the U.S. Army Band for promoted soldiers to host a party for their fellow troops. So the soldier decided to have Chick-fil-A cater the meal. "My family likes Chick-fil-A and we like what they stand for," he said. "I can make a statement and at least express a religious point of view at my promotion party - theoretically without any fear of reprisal." "I had no idea a Chick-fil-A sandwich would get me in trouble," he said. He was later summoned by a superior officer, who the soldier said is openly gay, and was told that unidentified individuals were offended by the tweets and some considered them to be racist. Sommers was reprimanded, threatened with judicial action and given a bad efficiency report. An investigation was also launched. ...The soldier fears that the military is becoming less tolerant. "Ironically, the liberals are preaching tolerance," he said. "They are saying, 'We can tolerate you.' But if you have a certain belief that doesn't align with what the military wants you to believe - particularly religious beliefs - you're no longer welcome in the U.S. military."

It's absolutely ridiculous his superiors thought they could tell him what he can and can't have on his vehicle just because they personally disagree with it.

The PC in our military needs to stop, Commanders need to be thinking about preventing personal  persecution not limiting the books they read or sandwiches they eat.

The Military is our ultimate line of defense and stuff like this is becoming all too common
Our troops need us more than ever. Most remain silent and don't complain about situations like this, they simply tough it out. But more and more they are being intimidated in evaluations and daily military life. They're discouraged from speaking out and it just isn't right! 

Obama, "thinks he's won on Benghazi."

The Atlantic is reporting that Obama's "defiant tapping of Susan rice" to be the new National Security Adviser means that Obama, "thinks he's won on Benghazi."

On top of Susan Rice's promotion is the fact that Victoria Nuland (Hillary Clinton's spokesperson at the State Department) is also being promoted.  Nuland was the one who ordered changes to the Benghazi talking points so that the American people wouldn't know the truth about the Obama administration's lies and cover ups surrounding the terrorist attack.

     

Above:  Susan Rice with Barack Obama; Victoria Nuland with Hillary Clinton

Please, do not let Barack Obama act defiant and get away with this massive cover up.  Four Americans died and the Obama administration lied about their deaths, then tried to cover it up.  And increasingly evidence suggests that our mission in Benghazi was based on efforts to funnel weapons to rebels in Syria, some of whom are al Qaida operatives - exactly as we provided weapons to rebels in Libya who were aligned with al Qaida.

We are airing a TV ad campaign that demands Obama be held accountable for these scandals - with your help we will not let him get away with this! Please, take just sixty seconds and watch this ad below:

We need your support to buy airtime to put this ad on TV stations across America so that millions of people will see it.  You can contribute anywhere from as little as $5 up to the maximum allowed contribution of $5,000 - CONTRIBUTE HERE.

U.N Says it can't accept Russia's offer of Golan Heights Troops

Austria Warns Against Arming the Terrorists

By Louis Charbonneau and Alissa de Carbonnel 

UNITED NATIONS/MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Friday it could not accept Russia's offer to replace peacekeepers from Austria in the Golan Heights because an agreement between Israel and Syria bars permanent members of the Security Council from the U.N. observer mission.

The United Nations expressed appreciation for the Russian offer, made on Friday by President Vladimir Putin after Austria said it would recall its troops from a U.N. monitoring force due to worsening fighting in Syria.

Austria, whose peacekeepers account for about 380 of the 1,000-member U.N. force monitoring a four-decade-old ceasefire between Syria and Israel, said it would pull out after intense clashes between Syrian government forces and rebels on the border.
Russia is a longtime ally and arms supplier to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces are fighting rebels trying to overthrow him in a civil war.
The fact that Russia has been backing Assad means Russian troops might not be seen as neutral by Syria's rebels, which could invite opposition attacks on the U.N. Golan force, a diplomat said.
U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said it was impossible at the moment for the United Nations to accept the offer from Russia, which along with the United States, Britain, France and China is a permanent, veto-wielding member of the 15-nation Security Council.

"We appreciate the consideration that the Russian Federation has given to provide troops to the Golan," he told reporters.

"However, the Disengagement Agreement and its protocol, which is between Syria and Israel, do not allow for the participation of permanent members of the Security Council in UNDOF," Nesirky added, referring to the peacekeeping contingent known as the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force.

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, president of the Security Council this month, said after a special council session on the UNDOF crisis that the force should remain in place, even if its numbers were temporarily reduced.

The U.N. peacekeeping department is asking the other countries in the force, the Philippines and India, if they would increase their troop contributions and was also looking at the possibility of new countries sending troops, Lyall Grant said.
"At the same time (they are) trying to encourage the Austrians to slow down their departure from the theater and dissuade any other troop contributors from withdrawing troops," he said. U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous had talked about increasing the force back to its mandated figure of 1,250, Lyall Grant said.

'TIMES HAVE CHANGED'
One council diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Ladsous had made clear while briefing the council behind closed doors that allowing Russian peacekeepers might be too complicated legally and he would prefer to find other troop contributors.
Fiji has said that it will send troops to replace a Croatian contingent that has already pulled out. Japanese troops have also been withdrawn because of the violence.
Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said his country was well aware of the limitation in the document signed four decades ago, which is why Putin had said it would depend on whether countries in the region - namely Syria and Israel - and the United Nations, wanted Russian troops there.
"We believe that times have changed," Churkin told reporters, adding that it was theoretically possible to amend the protocol that bars permanent council members from UNDOF.
"The document was signed 39 years ago at the height of (the) Cold War and the whole context of the (Arab-Israeli) war in 1973," he said. "Now the context is completely different and UNDOF seems to be in dire straits. So we are offering essentially to rescue UNDOF."
He said U.N. legal experts had been asked to look at whether a new resolution would be needed if the Russian offer of troops was taken up because the original agreement to create UNDOF did not allow permanent council members to contribute.

The departure of the Austrians is the latest blow to the monitoring force. In addition to the increased fighting in its zone of operation, there have been several recent incidents in which Syrian rebel forces have detained UNDOF monitors.
Since 1974, UNDOF has had the task of monitoring the "area of separation" between Syrian and Israeli forces, a narrow strip of land running 45 miles from Mount Hermon on the Lebanese border to the Yarmouk River frontier with Jordan. The force has helped keep the area relatively stable, U.N. diplomats say.
Russia has been trying along with Western powers to bring the warring sides in Syria together for talks on a solution to a conflict that has lasted more than two years. A planned Geneva peace conference has been delayed until July at least.
(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Will Dunham, David Brunnstrom and Lisa Shumaker)

Obama: Americans should feel comfortable about snooping

by: Chelsea Schilling 

President Obama, in a strong defense of his efforts to monitor Americans’ telephone calls and other communications, argued that additional security certainly is worth the loss of some constitutional privacy rights, and further, he assured the nation that “nobody’s listening to the content of people’s phone calls.”
But he also confirmed that it is the content of telephone calls that is being targeted, and there’s a process available for investigators who want to listen in: just get permission from a court.

While answering questions at an appearance in California, where he promoted his health care takeover, he said, “When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That’s not what this program’s about. As was indicated, what the intelligence community is doing is looking at phone numbers and durations of calls. They are not looking at people’s names, and they’re not looking at content.”

Then he continued, “But by sifting through this so-called metadata, they may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism. If these folks – if the intelligence community then actually wants to listen to a phone call, they’ve got to go back to a federal judge, just like they would in a criminal investigation.
“So I want to be very clear. Some of the hype that we’ve been hearing over the last day or so – nobody’s listening to the content of people’s phone calls.”
But he also admitted, “And so not only does that court authorize the initial gathering of data, but I want to repeat, if anybody in government wanted to go further than just that top-line data and wanted to, for example, listen to Jackie Calmes’ phone call, they’d have to go back to a federal judge and, and, and indicate why, in fact, they were doing further – further probing.”
Expressing frustration with having to answer questions, he said, “I don’t want the whole day to just be a bleeding press conference.”
As he was making the comments, a range of new issues arose.
One report said the U.S. Postal Service has developed a program that photographs the front and back of every letter mailed through its system, and that was how a suspect was identified in the case in which several ricin-laced letters were mailed.

The Financial Times documented how the U.S. spends $80 billion a year on intelligence alone, and “every day, 854,000 U.S. civil servants, military personnel and private contractors are scanned into high-security government offices to do intelligence work.”
This is on top of a report that the Justice Department is trying to keep secret a court decision that ruled the government violated the spirit of federal surveillance laws and engaged in “unconstitutional spying.”
Bloomberg reported that the feds are vacuuming up literally billions of telephone calls in their search for data on Americans.
The Guardian reported the NSA’s Prism program allows agents to search “history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats.”
And The Washington Post said federal agents have direct access to information in systems run by Apple, YouTube, Skype, AOL, PalTalk, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google.
This follows revelations that the government was getting details on those billions of telephone calls by customers of Verizon and other telephone companies.
In a report in the Wall Street Journal, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told people to chill.
“Everyone should just calm down and understand this isn’t anything that is brand new,” he said.
But talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh said with the evidence that is being uncovered, it appears the U.S. is in the middle of a coup.

Obama also said that Congress is fully aware of what’s going on.
“Every member of Congress has been briefed on this program,” he said.
Congress response? Not so.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore, disputed the president’s claim, revealing that only handpicked members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were briefed on the program.
Merkley said he knew of the program because he acquired “special permission” to examine the documentation after learning of it from another person.
“I knew about the program because I specifically sought it out,” Merkley told MSNBC. “It’s not something that’s briefed outside the Intelligence Committee. I had to get special permission to find out about the program. It raised concerns for me. … When I saw what was being done, I felt it was so out of sync with the plain language of the law and that it merited full public examination, and that’s why I called for the declassification.”
Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Ark., took to Twitter to express his frustration with being left out of the loop. He wrote, “False. I have never been briefed on this.”
Rep. Billy Long, R-La., tweeted, “Not quite!”
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told Politico he learned of the program after he asked for a briefing under “classified circumstances” after Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., urged him to do so.

According to the report, Durbin said the “average member” of Congress probably wouldn’t have known about the extent of the phone and Internet surveillance.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told Politico he “hadn’t been briefed on this particular issue.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., explained that he heard about the phone monitoring on the news.
The press office for Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., an author of the Patriot Act, tweeted, “Obama’s claim that ‘every Member of Congress’ was briefed is FALSE.”
Also, After the NSA spied on U.S. customers, it even shared Americans’ calling records with British security agencies, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the program.
The data collected by the NSA could be used to track millions of Americans’ locations through their cell phones at any time.
According to two former U.S. intelligence officials, the NSA has also seized private emails and phone calls of innocent Americans with no ties to terrorism. They claimed the matter was reported to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the private information destroyed.
U.K. Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, who broke several stories on the surveillance programs, told CNN’s Piers Morgan “the Obama administration has been very aggressive about bullying and threatening anybody who thinks about exposing it or writing about it or even doing journalism about it.”

As WND reported, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper may have misled lawmakers when he told a Senate committee hearing three months ago the National Security Agency does not “wittingly” collect data on millions of Americans.
On March 12, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Clapper at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”
Clapper responded: “No, sir.”
Wyden continued by asking, “It does not?”
Clapper stated: “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect –but not wittingly.”
However, Obama was adamant in his defense today.
“I think it’s important for everybody to understand, and I think the American people understand, that there are some trade-offs involved. You know, I came in with a health[y] skepticism about these programs. My team evaluated them. We scrubbed them thoroughly. We actually expanded some of the oversight, increased some of the safeguards. But my assessment and my team’s assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks,” he said.
“And the modest encroachments on privacy that are involved in getting phone numbers or duration without a name attached and not looking at content – that on, you know, net, it was worth us doing.

“I think, on balance, we – you know, we have established a process and a procedure that the American people should feel comfortable about. But again, this – these programs are subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate. And if there are members of Congress who feel differently, then they should speak up.”
He said oversight is in place, from Congress to the federal judiciary.
“That’s not to suggest that, you know, you just say, trust me, we’re doing the right thing, we know who the bad guys are. And the reason that’s not how it works is because we’ve got congressional oversight and judicial oversight,” he said.
“And if people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.”