‘Freedom lover’ behind ‘Obama Joker’ posters

Danielle Wong
Toronto Star
Sunday, August 30, 2009

If you’re offended by the startling images of U.S. President Barack Obama smeared with clown makeup posted around Toronto, American libertarian radio talk show host and “alternative news” blogger Alex Jones says brace yourself.

“People are getting more aggressive because they realize being nice isn’t getting them anywhere,” said Jones, 35. “This is just the beginning.”

The self-proclaimed “freedom lover” from Austin, Tex., who runs American website infowars.com, launched a viral “Obama Joker” poster campaign last month, calling for people to put up as many posters of Obama as Heath Ledger’s villainous character from the Batman epic The Dark Knight as possible and to post videos on YouTube.

While Canadians have been known to be more moderate in critiquing their political leaders, the in-your-face poster campaign appears to have caught on around the city, with the placards plastered along University Ave.

Read Full Article Here

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet

This should alarm those Americans who love liberty and freedom, which should be all of us.

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

"I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness," said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. "It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill."

Representatives of other large Internet and telecommunications companies expressed concerns about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller's aides this week, but were not immediately available for interviews on Thursday.

Read all article here

Federal Reserve Says Disclosing Loans Will Hurt Banks

It seems as if the Fed is fighting the law; it seems that the fed feels as though they are above the law. If such was not true, then why are they making demands as they are, and refusing to show "WE THE PEOPLE" where the money is going, and for what purpose. What do they have to hide, what don't they want us to find out? Their entire goal of a new world order is largely based upon bankers remaining aloof; this begins to chip away at that aloofness.

Mark Pittman
Bloomberg
Thursday, August 27, 2009

The Federal Reserve argued yesterday that identifying the financial institutions that benefited from its emergency loans would harm the companies and render the central bank’s planned appeal of a court ruling moot.

The Fed’s board of governors asked Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska to delay enforcement of her Aug. 24 decision that the identities of borrowers in 11 lending programs must be made public by Aug. 31. The central bank wants Preska to stay her order until the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York can hear the case.

“The immediate release of these documents will destroy the board’s claims of exemption and right of appellate review,” the motion said. “The institutions whose names and information would be disclosed will also suffer irreparable harm.”

The Fed’s “ability to effectively manage the current, and any future, financial crisis” would be impaired, according to the motion. It said “significant harms” could befall the U.S. economy as well.

The central bank didn’t say when it would file its appeal

Full Article Here

Fall Of The Republic Exposes How Brand Obama Is Destroying America

Alex Jones’ highly anticipated upcoming documentary Fall of the Republic: The Presidency of Barack Obama boldly lifts the lid and unveils the fraud behind Brand Obama and how the globalists are using their newest, and slickest ever puppet to destroy the last vestiges of America’s freedom, Constitution and economy, all while helping the bankers loot the country clean.

The film exposes the agenda that Obama was put in place to accomplish, a world government allied with a bank of the world run by globalist eugenicists hell-bent on destroying America’s first world status and replacing it with a hollow shell of tyranny.

The mind control, the television programming, and all the media talking points that serve to reinforce the image of Brand Obama are laid bare, unveiling the naked ruth, as legendary author and documentary film maker John Pilger recently discussed, that Obama is nothing more than a corporate marketing creation, a skilled hypnotist using seductive tools of propaganda – race, gender and class – to hoodwink the masses into accepting his rhetoric while ignoring the contradiction of his actions.

The film exposes how Brand Obama says one thing – to make people buy into the brand – and then the real Obama does another.

The burgeoning police state, warrantless wiretapping, secret arrests, indefinite detention of citizens, torture, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Pakistan, have all been expanded under Brand Obama despite his promises to reverse them all.

The real question to ask is not which class Obama claims to represent or fight for, but which class Obama serves. Fall of the Republic leaves no room for doubt that the class Obama serves is the elite and it is their agenda he is diligently following

Judge Orders Fed To Disclose Who Received Bailout Trillions

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A New York District Judge has ordered the Federal Reserve to disclose the destination of around $2 trillion dollars in bailout funds after the Fed failed to convince the Judge that the records should be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

“Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska rejected the central bank’s argument that the records aren’t covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers’ competitive positions. The collateral lists “are central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression,” according to the lawsuit that led to yesterday’s ruling,” reports Bloomberg, the news outlet that originally filed the lawsuit.

Citing the fact that the US taxpayer is an “involuntary investor” in the nation’s banks, Bloomberg argued that the risks behind the $2 trillion in lending needed to be made public.

“When an unprecedented amount of taxpayer dollars were lent to financial institutions in unprecedented ways and the Federal Reserve refused to make public any of the details of its extraordinary lending, Bloomberg News asked the court why U.S. citizens don’t have the right to know,” said Matthew Winkler, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News. “We’re gratified the court is defending the public’s right to know what is being done in the public interest.”

The Federal Reserve and Ben Bernanke in particular have attempted to hide the destination of the bailout funds at every step of the way since Bloomberg first filed the lawsuit over nine months

During a hearing on Capitol Hill last month, Congressman Alan Grayson confronted Bernanke on which foreign banks had received around half a trillion dollars in credit swaps.

Bernanke responded, “I don’t know.”

“Half a trillion dollars and you don’t know who got the money?” asked Grayson.

It’s no surprise that the Fed is reticent to disclose who got the bailout funds, since the man appointed by Henry Paulson to dole out the ill-gotten gains was none other than his fellow ex-Goldman Sachs executive Neel Kashkari. This level of cronyism undoubtedly ensured that Bernanke and Paulson’s bankster gangster friends were well looked after.

“President elect Barack Obama, who in a September 22 campaign speech promised to “Make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people’s business,” refused to comment on the story when contacted by Bloomberg, which is no surprise considering the fact that the man who guaranteed “change” has indicated he will not only follow the Bush administration policy of a socialized financial system, but radically expand it,” we wrote in our original story on the lawsuit back in November.

That foresight has now manifested itself again today, with Obama set to nominate Ben Bernanke, one of the main architects of the bailout under Bush, as Fed chief for a second term

Power Elite: Influence v Reality

Szandor Blestman
The American Chronicle

The power elite are also in the business of creating illusions. They use their politicians and the mass media to try to create a perception of reality they would like us to see.


I’m getting very upset by what I’ve been seeing since this health care issue has come to the fore. I’m becoming really angry by how much my intelligence has been insulted. I’m beginning to feel like the man who has to explain to his friends that Criss Angel is not really defying the laws of physics. He’s in the business of creating illusions. He does not really float above buildings, pull ladies in half, climb through closed, solid windows without breaking the glass, walk on water, or do any of the things one might see him do. These are illusions. They are parlor tricks. They are elaborate, complicated, well designed, well executed, likely expensive illusions, but they are nothing but illusions nonetheless.

The power elite are also in the business of creating illusions. They use their politicians and the mass media to try to create a perception of reality they would like us to see. The illusions they create are elaborate, complicated, well designed, well executed and likely expensive, but they are illusions nonetheless. The difference between the illusions the power elite create and those of Criss Angel is that Mr. Angel creates his illusions strictly for entertainment purposes, the power elite are creating theirs so that they can control mass consciousness and hence make it easier to control the population in general. The problem for them is that many people are beginning to realize exactly what’s been happening.

One of the ways to create a good illusion is to get the audience to look over there while something is happening over here. Another is to keep things hidden and produce them when you want them seen. Still another way is to make the audience believe something isn’t what it appears to be, or that something is what it doesn’t appear to be. Or any combination of these things can help produce a good illusion. Of course, if the audience looks where the action is and detects the slight of hand, or if they see the hidden element before it is produced, or if they are not convinced that something is or is not something else, then the illusion is ruined.

A Thought of My Own: Liberty V Tyranny

I know that this story is a few days old, but I think it, and the response of Hardball, is one which need not die.

The fundamental question here is do we, under the 2nd amendment, have a right to bear arms, even at a presidential event? My own position on this issue is yes! I understand the counter argument here, and it is a legitimate one, but where do we begin to draw the line where our rights begin and where they end. If I have a right to bear arms, as it says in the Constitution, then don't I have that right wherever I am, or do my rights have boundary lines? If so, where must I stop practicing my religion, where do I no longer have the right to due process, and is there a court somewhere where I can be held for double jeopardy or forced to incriminate myself?

Obviously the answer to these questions is no; there are no lines which exist where I must stop practising my right to free religion or to due process. If this is true for these rights, then why are there restriction upon other rights, not just the 2nd amendment, but even my right to peacefully protest, which is what this man was doing. Owning and carrying a gun does not make a person a terrorist; if such is true then there are many rednecks and hunters who, by that shere logic, are terrorists.

I am not saying we all bring semi-automatic weapons to presidential events, but the shere fact that he was carrying a gun, and if legally registers, is protected by the Constitution, and to remove that right only opens up opportunities to remove other rights. We might say that it is unsafe to bring a loaded weapon to an event like this, but isn't it much more unsafe to stand by and allow the rights we have to be stripped away. If we do that long enough this discussion will be moot, for there will be no right to bear arms, no right to free speech or the like.

Details of Clinton's visit to North Korea begin to emerge

By Mark Landler and Mark Mazzetti
New York Times

WASHINGTON — When former President Bill Clinton landed in Pyongyang on Aug. 4 to win the release of two imprisoned American journalists, senior officials said, he met an unexpectedly spry North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, who feted him over a long dinner that night, even proposing to stay up afterward.

Kim was flanked by two longtime aides — a surprise to Americans who had suspected that both men had been pushed aside — and he gave no hint that North Korea was in the throes of a succession struggle, despite the widespread questions over how long he might live.

Clinton was determined not to extend a public relations coup to Kim, who expressed a desire for better relations with the United States. Clinton did not ask to see the North Korean leader, requesting instead a meeting with "an appropriate official."

To ensure he would not leave empty-handed, Clinton asked that a member of his entourage meet with the journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, shortly after he landed to make sure they were safe, said a senior administration official.

For all the billions of dollars a year that the United States spends on intelligence gathering about mysterious and unpredictable countries like North Korea, it took just 20 hours in Pyongyang by an ex-president to give the Obama administration its first detailed look into a nuclear-armed regime that looms as one of its greatest foreign threats.

Tuesday, Clinton went to the White House to brief Obama and his top aides about the trip. Even before the 40-minute session in the Situation Room, Clinton had spoken to the president by phone and briefed his national security adviser, Gen. James Jones. But the meeting was rich in symbolism, and the president invited Clinton to the Oval Office to talk further.

Joseph DeTrani, the government's senior officer responsible for collecting and analyzing intelligence on North Korea, played a key role in arranging the visit.

Officials said Clinton's visit cleared up some of the shadows surrounding Kim's health. After a stroke last year, he looked frail in photos and missed important meetings, spurring questions about who might replace him — and when. Those questions have not gone away, officials said, but they may recede a bit in the wake of Clinton's visit.

Clinton did not engage in a wide-ranging discussion about North Korea's nuclear program. Nor did Kim give Clinton any indication that Pyongyang would relinquish its nuclear ambitions — a condition the United States has set for resuming negotiations, officials said.

"We didn't hear things that altered our perception on the North Korean attitude," one official said.

Clinton's visit was valuable, analysts said, largely because North Korea is so opaque.

It is perhaps the hardest spying target, more difficult even than Iran, according to current and former officials. Its political and military structure is nearly impenetrable, and Western intelligence services have had to rely on information from defectors who cross the border into South Korea.

"The Clinton trip has got a lot of people rethinking and reassessing," said Victor Cha, a top North Korea adviser in the Bush administration.

Former Gov. Dean calls public option indispensable

WASHINGTON – Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, a leading figure in the liberal wing of his party, said Monday he doubts there can be meaningful health care reform without a direct government role.

Dean urged the Obama administration to stand by statements made early on in the debate in which it steadfastly insisted that such a public option was indispensable to genuine change, saying that Medicare and the Veterans Administration are "two very good programs that have been around for a long time."

Dean appeared on morning news shows Monday amid increasing indications the Obama White House is retreating from the public option in the face of vocal opposition from Republicans and some vocal participants at a town-hall-style meetings around the country.

The former Vermont governor was asked on NBC's "Today" show about President Barack Obama's statement over the weekend that the public option for insurance coverage was "just a sliver" of the overall proposal. Obama's health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, advanced that line, telling CNN Sunday that a direct government role in a system intended to provide virtually universal coverage was "not the essential element."

Dean, a physician, argued that a public option is fair and said there must be such a choice in any genuine shake up of the existing system.

"You can't really do health reform without it," he said. Dean maintained that the health insurance industry has "put enormous pressure on patients and doctors" in recent years.

He called a direct government role "the entirety of health care reform. It isn't the entirety of insurance reform ... We shouldn't spend $60 billion a year subsidizing the insurance industry."

Dean also said he doesn't foresee any Republican support for a public option. "I don't think the Republicans are interested and in order to have a bipartisan bill, you've got to have both sides interested," he said.

The shift in the administration's stance on a government-run insurance program leaves open a chance for compromise with Republicans that probably would enrage Obama's liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., who is co-chairman of the Middle Class Caucus, said that "leaving private insurance companies the job of controlling the costs of health care is like making a pyromaniac the fire chief."

But Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., told reporters in Philadelphia on Monday that the success of health care overhaul doesn't hinge on any one element and co-ops might provide the same results under a different name.

"I believe that the president has to make the evaluation as a matter of leadership as to what the administration wants to do. There is an alternative to the so-called public option by having co-ops. I think these matters are subject to exploration," Specter said.

Officials from both political parties are looking for concessions while Congress is on an August recess. Facing tough audiences, lawmakers and the White House are looking for a way to cover the nation's almost 50 million uninsured while maintaining political standing.

Emanuel Wields Power Freely, and Faces the Risks

I appologize to my readers for not posting in a while. This is the result of LIFE, and it has been LIFE that has kept me from doing my job as an informed American. That said, I have time today, for LIFE has slowed down, and I find that this rticle does much to explain, on some level, the problems with the current administration.

By PETER BAKER

As White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel was the one to bring the hammer down on Sidney Blumenthal.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wanted to hire Mr. Blumenthal, a loyal confidant who had helped her promote the idea of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” more than a decade ago. But President Obama’s campaign veterans still blamed him for spreading harsh attacks against their candidate in the primary showdown with Mrs. Clinton last year.

So Mr. Emanuel talked with Mrs. Clinton, said Democrats informed about the situation, and explained that bringing Mr. Blumenthal on board was a no-go. The bad blood among his colleagues was too deep, and the last thing the administration needed, he concluded, was dissension and drama in the ranks. In short, Mr. Blumenthal was out.

Perhaps nothing illustrates how far Mr. Emanuel has come than that conversation last month. Sixteen years ago, it was Mrs. Clinton, then first lady, who helped have Mr. Emanuel demoted as a senior official in Bill Clinton’s White House after he ruffled feathers with his aggressive style. Now all these years later, it is Mr. Emanuel telling Mrs. Clinton what she cannot do as a member of the cabinet.

Seven months after moving into his office in the West Wing, Mr. Emanuel is emerging as perhaps the most influential White House chief of staff in a generation. But with his prominence in almost everything important going on in Washington comes a high degree of risk.

As the principal author of Mr. Obama’s do-everything-at-once strategy, he stands to become a figure of consequence in his own right if the administration stabilizes the economy and financial markets, overhauls the health care system and winds down one war while successfully prosecuting another.

If things do not go well — and right now Mr. Obama’s political popularity is declining, his health care legislation is under conservative assault, the budget deficit is at an eye-popping level and Afghanistan remains volatile — it is Mr. Emanuel whose job will be on the line before Mr. Obama’s.

Obama’s Embrace of a Bush Tactic Riles Congress

CHARLIE SAVAGE
NY Times
Sunday, August 9, 2009

President Obama has issued signing statements claiming the authority to bypass dozens of provisions of bills enacted into law since he took office, provoking mounting criticism by lawmakers from both parties.

President George W. Bush, citing expansive theories about his constitutional powers, set off a national debate in 2006 over the propriety of signing statements — instructions to executive officials about how to interpret and put in place new laws — after he used them to assert that he could authorize officials to bypass laws like a torture ban and oversight provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

In the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama called Mr. Bush’s use of signing statements an “abuse,” and said he would issue them with greater restraint. The Obama administration says the signing statements the president has signed so far, challenging portions of five bills, have been based on mainstream interpretations of the Constitution and echo reservations routinely expressed by presidents of both parties.

Still, since taking office, Mr. Obama has relaxed his criteria for what kinds of signing statements are appropriate. And last month several leading Democrats — including Representatives Barney Frank of Massachusetts and David R. Obey of Wisconsin — sent a letter to Mr. Obama complaining about one of his signing statements.

What does a Christian look like?

This is not written by me, but by a friend of mine who runs another news blog entitled civicsnews.blogspot.com. I hope you enjoy both this article, and his web page.


For the 2,000th post since the inception of CIVICS NEWS in early 2008 (when it functioned as a current events log for my high school classes!), it is fitting that the honor go to...drum roll...Greg Boyd.

Boyd's book The Myth of a Christian Nation is a MUST-read, and this audio file that I just finished listening to should not be missed by anybody who wants to take seriously what it means to be a Christian.

The title of his message is, "What Does a Christian Look Like?" Download the audio here and enjoy on your iPod or your lap top. Boyd wrestles with issues such as nationalism & the kingdom of God, how to look at every human being as loved by God (and how this impacts our politics and militarism), and much, much more. Boyd confronts the issue of the relation of Christians to human governments in an up-front and Christ-centered manner. His message is unquestionably biblical. He will make us uncomfortable (as I'm sure his articles previously posted did), but that's a good thing.

CIVICS NEWS has by and large been devoted to chronicling the evils of the state in order to wake people up to the fact that we should not put our trust in princes (politicians), but instead in Christ. I want to make an effort beginning with this post, the 2,000th post, to bring in more material that points us to Christ and his Kingdom, in addition to pointing us away from Satan and his kingdoms.

What does "Christ and his Kingdom" mean, exactly? Perhaps you are not particularly religious and you don't look forward to a bunch of religious jargon and Christian cliches. Well, start by listening to Boyd's "What does a Christian Look Like?" Much more will come, but the simple principle is love. We believe not only that there is a Creator God, but that this God IS LOVE, a concept that I'm sure most Christians don't grasp, as I myself have not actually understood it until recently, and even now, dimly so. If you're typically offended or annoyed by religion, this will be one message that I'm confident you can buy into and agree with. Stick around and see what you think.

The news coverage will continue in the same libertarian, watch-dog posture, since governments will continue to oppress and steal and kill, and we Christians should be out front calling it what it is, disassociating Christ from those evils, and even being non-violently politically active to help to roll back the violent oppression of the state. These aims will still remain, but I hope to bring in more material about the Kingdom of Love and the character of our Lord in addition to the news coverage. Enjoy Boyd's audio message.

House votes to clamp limits on Wall Street bonuses

By ANNE FLAHERTY
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Bowing to populist anger, the House voted Friday to prohibit pay and bonus packages that encourage bankers and traders to take risks so big they could bring down the entire economy.

Passage of the bill on a 237-185 vote followed the disclosure a day earlier that nine of the nation's biggest banks, which are receiving billions of dollars in federal bailout aid, paid individual bonuses of $1 million or more to nearly 5,000 employees.

"This is not the government taking over the corporate sector," Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C, said of the House action. "It is a statement by the American people that it is time for us to straighten up the ship."

Aware of voter outrage about the bonuses, Republicans were reluctant in Friday's debate to push back, even though they voted overwhelmingly against the bill. They said severe restrictions should apply only to banks that accept government aid. The legislation's ban on risky compensation would apply to any firm with more than $1 billion in assets, including bank holding companies, broker-dealers, credit unions, investment advisers and mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The White House and Senate Democrats haven't endorsed the measure, leaving its prospects uncertain. The Senate Banking Committee planned to take up the proposal in the fall as part of a broader bill overhauling financial regulations.

"Obviously it has some important things that we think need to become law, and we'll take a look at the full bill," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday.

The legislation includes President Barack Obama's suggestion that shareholders get a nonbinding vote on compensation packages. It also would prohibit members of compensation committees from having financial ties to the company and its executives, as Obama wanted.

But House Democrats added a provision that would require regulators to issue new guidelines prohibiting pay packages that encourage "inappropriate risks" that could "threaten the safety and soundness" of the institution or "have serious adverse effects on economic conditions or financial stability."

Read full article here