Rep. Justin Amash Says Americans Are Becoming More Libertarian—And Congress Will Too.

"Our pro-liberty caucus is growing every year." 

Congressman Justin Amash

(Reason.com)  -  Is the libertarian message winning? Coasting toward a major electoral victory next week, freedom-friendly Congressman Justin Amash certainly thinks so—even if Washington, D.C. isn't listening yet.

The libertarian Republican, who hails from a right-leaning district in western Michigan, is widely expected to win reelection on November 4. He already passed the real test: a significant primary challenge from a well-funded opponent backed by neoconservative and corporatist critics of Amash's views. The challenger, Brian Ellis, stooped as low as he could go, releasing an ad that accused Amash of being "al-Qaida's best friend in Congress" due to the representative's opposition to NSA spying and unauthorized wars.

The ad backfired. District voters preferred Amash's brand of skeptical anti-government conservatism to Ellis's Bush-era demagoguery.

"It felt great to get a big win," Amash told Reason in an interview. "The people of the district came out and said they like what I am offering, which is independent conservative representation, libertarian representation… My challenger was offering run of the mill, establishment big government Republicanism. People are tired of that."

Amash is optimistic that what's true for his district is true for the country at large. A growing cross-partisan swath of the electorate is concerned about issues near and dear to the hearts of libertarians, including police brutality, spying, and drone warfare.

But that doesn't mean Congress is getting on board. Leadership, in particular, remains as hopeless as ever, according to Amash.

"Congress is delayed by five or 10 years," said Amash. "But I'm hopeful some of that will start to change. The public is more libertarian, the public is saying we want people who are going to be independent and not bow to leadership in either of the major parties."

First elected to Congress during the Tea Party wave of 2010, Amash says subsequent elections brought more representatives who are sympathetic to the views of an increasingly libertarian electorate into the fold.

"Our pro-liberty caucus is growing every year," he said.

He credits Sen. Rand Paul for breaking ground as a libertarian-aligned U.S. senator and continuing to draw attention to the cause via his widely-expected presidential run.

"There's no doubt that Rand Paul has a more libertarian perspective than senators from years past and there's no doubt that it's broadly appealing to the public," said Amash. "You're seeing widespread support for Rand Paul and a lot of other presidential candidates or prospective presidential candidates are going to adopt many of his positions with the hopes of expanding their base."

Read the full article . . . .

Libertarianism
Personally I call my self a Constitutional Federalist.  A 10th Amendment man.  Leave most matters up to each state to decide, slash the Federal budget and central controls. If Nevada wants gambling and Montana does not that is fine with me.

FBI's Secret House Meeting to Get Access to Your iPhone

The 100 Yard Dash to 1984

• The GOP and Dems are working together to FORCE private telecom businesses to build products and phones that are easy for Big Brother to spy on. 

The Obama administration is ramping up its campaign to force technology companies to help the government spy on their users.

FBI and Justice Department officials met with House staffers this week for a classified briefing on how encryption is hurting police investigations, according to staffers familiar with the meeting.

 

The briefing included Democratic and Republican aides for the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, the staffers said. The meeting was held in a classified room, and aides are forbidden from revealing what was discussed.

It's unclear whether the FBI is planning a similar briefing for Senate aides reports the National Journal.

Earlier this month, FBI Director James Comey gave a speech arguing that the "post-Snowden pendulum has swung too far," and that police are often now unable to obtain the information they need for an investigation—even after getting a warrant. As a result, child predators, terrorists, and other criminals could go free, he warned.

The speech was prompted by new policies from Apple and Google to provide default encryption on their phones, making it impossible for the companies to give police access to photos, contact lists, and other data stored on devices.

The FBI chief urged Congress to enact legislation to require tech companies to create a way for police to spy on their users.

A 1994 law, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, forces telephone companies to build surveillance technologies into their networks to allow law enforcement to install wiretaps. But the law hasn't been updated and doesn't cover new networks and devices.

 

Comey called for Congress to revise the law to create a "level playing field" so that Google, Apple, and Facebook have the same obligation as AT&T and Verizon to help police.

But the plan faces fierce opposition from tech companies and privacy advocates. They warn that any backdoor for law enforcement could also be exploited by hackers. Forcing U.S. companies to build insecure products will make them less attractive in foreign markets, they claim.

The critics also argue that police often have other ways of legally obtaining information, such as getting warrants for data stored on company servers.

NSA Spying is Far Worse Than You Thought

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"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain."
George Orwell
1984

‘US allies against ISIS are actually ISIS’ main allies’

U.S. Backs Islamists Then Bombs Islamists

• The U.S and our Islamist allies Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar have funded and armed Islamists in Syria.  Now we want to bomb the Islamists we armed.

The way the US is carrying the anti-ISIS war is a total failure because the countries that initially supported, financed and armed ISIS are within the US coalition right now, Talal Atrache, an expert on Jihadist and Islamist mentality, told RT.

RT: Do you think that the idea of anti-IS coalition led by the US is good? Would this policy be successful?

TA: The way that the US is carrying this war is a total failure. Why? Just because the main US allies against ISIS are ISIS’ main allies at the same time. The countries that supported initially and still financed, armed and supported ISIS are within the US coalition right now. And this doesn’t make sense. Turkey, for example, has become a jihadist highway; this is the main place, platform for jihadists. Jihadists are coming all over the world, transited in Turkey and going into Syria with indirect help of the Turkish government – Erdogan has not yet fired a single shot against ISIS. On the contrary, it has even helped, facilitated logistically the ISIS network in order to achieve its goals in Syria which is to topple the Syrian government and to destroy the Kurdish self-administration that has been recently announced.

At the same time Saudi Arabia and Qatar have played a strong role since the beginning of the Syrian war in promoting, helping and financing [jihadists]. The US is allied with these countries to fight ISIS, and the main thing would be, the main policy or attitude, is to fight these countries’ policies that consist of supporting indirectly ISIS or Al-Nusra, which is the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, and other extremist groups.

RT: What are the main problems with this US-led coalition fighting ISIS?

TA: The problem now is that, unfortunately, the US is unable to deviate from their dogmatic policy that consists of boycotting the Syrian government, and the US really needs boots on the ground. The only viable option would be to coordinate with the Syrian army, to promote and to help the Syrian army who is the only force willing to pay the heavy price of fighting tens of thousands of ISIS and other jihadists. They estimated that the Syrian army has lost more than 70,000 soldiers fighting mostly the jihadist groups since 2011. It’s unimaginable that any other army in the world would be willing to pay that same price. This is on one side.

On the other [side], the US has done everything to reduce the influence of Syria during the past few years, it did everything it could to reduce the influence of Syria, Iran, BRICS group, including Russia and China, which happens to be the most qualified potential partners for the US campaign on terror. The main problem is that the US should change its allies if it really wants to fight terrorism, and to join forces with Russia, China, Iran, Syria, that is the principle, the main country concerned in this war. And on the other hand, to implement all the anti-terrorist laws against Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar who are in the US coalition.

There are many UN resolutions that have been passed in 2001, and here I can recall mainly the resolution 1373 that punishes any country that directly or indirectly supports terrorism. In this aspect the countries that should be targeted for supporting terrorism are Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other countries like Kuwait at the same time. So it’s a matter of changing alliances and stopping this dogmatic policy that leads nowhere except [to] failing states all over the Middle East from Syria to Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. American policy in the Middle East has been a total failure, it just created safe haven for terrorists.

Read the full interview . . . .

Heavy Clashes During The Battle For Al-Qahtaniyah

 | Syria War 2014 

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CIA Behind ISIS & other Terrorist Groups says New York Times
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(New York Times)  -  With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders. 

The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports. 

Mitch McConnell widens lead over Grimes

Ripping Obama a New One

• I don't like McConnell, but I would love to be a fly on the wall when Comrade Obama has his first meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has opened up a five-point lead over Democratic opponent Alison Lundergan Grimes and appears well positioned to win a sixth term, according to the final Bluegrass Poll before Tuesday's election.

McConnell leads Grimes 48 percent to 43 percent in Kentucky's U.S. Senate race, with Libertarian candidate David Patterson pulling 3 percent.

In a Bluegrass Poll released early last week, McConnell was clinging to a one-point lead, with 44 percent backing him and 43 percent choosing Grimes reports Kentucky.com

The latest poll of 597 likely voters in Kentucky was conducted by SurveyUSA between Oct. 25 and Oct. 29 on behalf of the Herald-Leader and WKYT-TV in Lexington and The Courier-Journal and WHAS-TV in Louisville. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

With just five days to go until Election Day, McConnell has surged as Republican voters show increasing unity and President Barack Obama's popularity hits a new low in the state.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/10/30/3510712_mitch-mcconnell-widens-lead-over.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

The GOP wave cometh.

Obama's NSA gives your emails to British intelligence

Welcome to the Police State

British spies trawl through American telephone 

and email records without a search warrant.

(Daily Mail)  -  British spies today admitted they can access mobile phone and email records without a warrant - if they are handed over by American or other foreign intelligence agencies.

The Government has until now insisted its GCHQ eavesdropping centre does not use information gathered in the States to bypass restrictions on the what information can be gathered in Britain.

But in court documents released today, GCHQ admitted it scoops up information of 'unanalysed intercepted communications content' from its US intelligence partner without a warrant.

Campaign group Privacy International said the revelation exposed 'a huge gap in protection for British people'.

A spokesman for the organisation, which is suing the UK spy agency alongside Liberty and Amnesty International, said: 'The British public had been consistently persuaded by government over the last year that GCHQ are not using the NSA as a backdoor to sidestep protection in the law.'

It means UK spies can help themselves to data collected by the US National Security Agency without any oversight. GCHQ - which has refused to comment - has not revealed whose phone and email records it has trawled through.

The agreement between the NSA and GCHQ allows the UK to store anything discovered in the data for up to two years.

But this deadline can be extended unilaterally by 'senior UK officials' if they believe it to be necessary for national security purposes.

GCHQ was forced to draw back the veil on some of their top secret policies during a legal challenge to their practices following whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations about the NSA last year.

Amongst the legal challengers were Amnesty International and the British civil rights advocates, Liberty.

'We now know that data from any call, internet search, or website you visited over the past two years could be stored in GCHQ's database and analysed at will, all without a warrant to collect it in the first place,' said Privacy International deputy director Eric King to the Guardian.

'It is outrageous that the government thinks mass surveillance, justified by secret 'arrangements' that allow for vast and unrestrained receipt and analysis of foreign intelligence material is lawful.'

Read more: Daily Mail.

Now it's a felony to dance in Utah

Retard Alert!

• "Thou shalt not dance," say the retards that run a Utah town.  Morally uptight community sets party organizer back $15,000.

An event organizer in Utah was flabbergasted when police stormed his Halloween party over the weekend and proceeded to monitor party goers for signs of dancing, even though a permit had been secured with the city in advance.

Cops terminated the Heart of Dixie’s third annual Monster Mash in St. George, Utah, this past Friday, and issued threats of felony arrest to the event’s organizers for violating a city ordinance which prohibits “public dancing” without the approval of the city council.

Calling the city’s seemingly arbitrary rule “not OK,” Jared Keddington, the event’s organizer, told Fox 13 Now that he had followed the city’s rules and secured a permit.

“We were given a permit and then told by officers that we couldn’t have the dance, under threat of being taken to jail with a felony of inciting a riot,” Keddington said, adding that the permit included awkward stipulations that would have been near impossible to comply with reports Infowars News.

No doubt dancing mice are illegal too.

“Things had been crossed out, and in hand was written, ‘no dance activity permitted,’” Keddington said. “On another page it was typed that the event must not be allowed to become a dance party due to random acts of dancing by patrons.”

Despite the issued permit’s explicit language, the city contends it did not take issue with the “dancing,” but with the organizer’s failure to properly follow the permit process.

“Had this actually come to the city a month in advance, which we typically require for large-scale events, there wouldn’t have been an issue,” a spokesman for the city, Marc Mortensen, stated.

“Do you want them to just ignore the law?” Mortensen added, defending the town police’s crack down. “They were enforcing the law. That’s their job.”

St. George City Code section 3-2A-4 states, “No license for a public dance hall shall be issued until the applicable requirements… of this article have been complied with, and the location of the dance hall shall have been approved by the city council. ”

Nowhere in the City Code does it mention the necessity of having to apply for a permit a month in advance.

Keddington says that the city’s and cops’ actions cost his company a total of $15,000 stemming from people failing to show up after learning that dancing would not be permitted.

“It’s not OK to tell people they can’t dance,” Keddington said. “It’s not OK to tell people they have to get a permit to dance.”

Students suspended for posing with pellet guns in their livingroom

You Must Obey Your Masters

• Fascist Big Brother "educators" beat down two children for daring to pose for a photo in a private home and post it on Facebook.

TAUNTON  (CBS News)  –  Two high school students in Taunton have been suspended after they posted a photo of themselves holding Airsoft rifles. Thousands of people have leapt to their defense online, but their school isn’t backing down.

The Airsoft rifles look dangerous, but they shoot plastic pellets. Tito Velez, 15, often competes with a team as a hobby.

Last Friday, Tito and his girlfriend Jamie Pereira posed with the Airsoft rifles before the Bristol Plymouth Regional Technical School homecoming dance. The post got them suspended from school.

“This isn’t dangerous, you can’t kill someone with it,” Tito said Tuesday. “We didn’t shoot anyone; we were pointing them at the floor.”

“I understand but I think they took this way too far,” Jamie said. “Suspending us for 10 days and possible expulsion is way too much.”

Many argue that the Facebook post is protected by the Constitution, even in light of recent school shootings. But when the teenagers put the caption “Homecoming 2014″ on the photo, it tied the rifles to a school function.

“These students know what is provocative,” Superintendent Dr. Richard Gross said. “To tie that to one of our school events kind of puts it over the top which brings us into it.”

There’s a lot to consider here: the Constitutional right to freedom of speech; yet, on the other hand, there is the implied threat whether it’s real or not.

Dr. Gross says police would have cancelled the homecoming dance if they had known about the Facebook post on Friday.

Only free men own guns.
..
"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and
fear, and with sincerity of heart . . . "
Ephesians 6:5

Islamist militants may capture Libya’s oilfields

Benghazi declared ‘Islamic emirate’ by militants

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Obama's Chickens Come Home to Roost

• The Endless Clusterfuck  -  The corrupt fruits of Comrade Obama's unconstitutional war on Libya is the gift that just keeps giving.

Egypt is warning terrorist groups are poised to seize control of Libya’s oilfields, as the country’s foreign minister appealed for an expansion of the Western-led campaign against jihadists fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq & Al-Sham (ISIS) to tackle extremism threatening North Africa.

Sameh Shukri, the Egyptian foreign minister, used a visit to London Monday to push for a new approach from Britain and the West to Islamist violence in Egypt and its neighbours, modelled on the campaign targeting the Islamic extremists.

“The natural resources in Libya represents a very large pool of wealth and funding that will fund terrorist activity not only there but in other parts of the world,” he said. “You see [ISIS] in Iraq utilizing gasoline and the black market, and in Libya this is a danger that will have a big impact for us,” reports the National Post.

Six months after the Egyptian leader, Abdelfattah el-Sisi, was elected president following the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi, Mr. Shukri said the organization was behind violence similar to ISIS in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere in North Africa.

Egypt has supported the Libyan government against Islamist militias that now control most of the country’s big cities and large swaths of territory, though not yet the oilfields capable of producing 2.7 million barrels a day.

“We have a struggle against similar organizations that are an offshoot of other terrorist ideologies like the [Muslim] Brotherhood and all these organizations support each other,” Mr. Shuki said. We have seen terrorists from Isil move from Iraq and Syria to Sinai, even Nigeria.

“The interconnected nature of all these organizations has to be recognized.”

Given the shared ideological roots of the Muslim Brotherhood and violent Islamist movements, the Egyptian foreign minister said the fight could not be won in Iraq and Syria alone.

General: It will take "years" to train our Syrian "allies"

Army Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III
Commander of U.S. Central Command

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/17/243802_us-general-itll-take-time-to-train.html?sp=/99/200/111/&rh=1#storylink=cpy

From the "How stupid do they 

think we are department?"

By Gary;

“It will take time.”

That was the line used repeatedly by the U.S. general leading the military campaign against the Islamic State.

While Army Gen. Lloyd Austin praised some “encouraging” signs, he cautioned patience on virtually every aspect of this open-ended battle, suggesting that it would take years to build viable Iraqi and Syrian partner forces, reclaim territory from the militants, and reform the oppressive governments whose policies fuel extremism.

“We can and will get the job done and done well,” Austin said. “But, again, it will take time.”

100% Pure Bullshit

Hell, the CIA has already been training and arming "moderate" Islamists for years to fight Syria.  Just how many years more will it take until these very questionable troops are ready? . . . assuming they don't join ISIS once we give them weapons.

Any honest historian has to wonder about the quality of American military training.

World War II  -  “Give me ten thousand Filipino soldiers and I will conquer the world,” said General Douglas MacArthur in typical American bravado.  The problem is the U.S. "trained" and armed Filipino Army collapsed in a matter of weeks.

Korean War  -  The U.S. "trained" and armed South Korean Army also collapsed in a matter of weeks running for the coast at the far southern tip of the nation.

Vietnam War  -  The U.S. "trained" and armed South Vietnamese Army also collapsed in the face of renewed Communist attacks.  In this case Gerald Ford and the Democrat Congress helped the Communists along be refusing to resupply the South Vietnamese.

ISIS - Iraq War  -  Years and years of U.S. "training" and billions in spending saw an almost instant collapse of the Iraqi Army once it faced a real enemy.

NEXT: Afghanistan  -  Coming soon, yet another U.S. "trained" and armed army will face an enemy with resolve.  Will the Afghans stand against committed Islamists or will there be wholesale desertion to the the Taliban?  

Time will tell on Afghanistan, but history says we may have to welcome the coming Taliban rulers of Afghanistan. 

Fall of Saigon
Yet another example of American "trained" and armed troops.
Pardon me if I see a pattern here.

Dems panic in liberal Santa Barbara & pour in cash

A GOP wave in liberal Santa Barbara?

• Liberals are freaking out.  It appears that internal polls showed underfunded GOP Congressional candidate Chris Mitchum gaining in what has been a solid Democrat seat.

Democrats are pumping money into liberal congressional districts that were long thought to be safely in their column.

Democrats, for example, have begun to worry about the prospects of California Rep. Lois Capps, an eight-term congresswoman who is typically a lock for reelection but who now finds herself in a competitive race against actor Republican Chris Mitchum, a perennial candidate and the son of the late actor Robert Mitchum.

In a sign of how seriously national Democrats are taking the threat, the DCCC is making a last-minute purchase of $99,000 worth of radio advertising in the Santa Barbara area to boost Capps, according to a committee aide.

Read more: Politico

The GOP Problem
Chris Mitchum is running in California's 24th Congressional District.
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The GOP has lost solid middle class district after solid middle class district all across California. If Republicans cannot win the middle class then they are finished as a political party. 

Chris' famous dad Robert Mitchum.

Off the Plantation: Elbert Guillory Explains Why Blacks Shouldn’t Vote for Kay Hagan

GOP State Senator Elbert Guillory

Waking Up Black Voters

Louisiana State Senator Elbert Guillory is one of the best spokesmen the Republican Party has.  Earlier this month, he produced an amazing video commercial telling Louisiana blacks how Mary Landrieu has failed them.

Now, Senator Guillory has turned to Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina:

Send Kay Hagan Home

Why I am a Republican

This man is articulate, forceful, and believable, and he comes across to this pale male as authentic.  But what do I know?

If you are intrigued by Senator Guillory, take a look at his video explaining Why I am a Republican.  He gives me hope that the solid black Democrat voting bloc can be fractured.

(American Thinker)

LAURA INGRAHAM: GOP establishment abandoned Scott Brown because he’s fighting amnesty.

Latest Poll

48% Brown, 47% Shaheen 

Radio’s Laura Ingraham on Tuesday morning said the GOP establishment has abandoned former Sen. Scott Brown, who’s in a neck-and-neck race in New Hampshire, because he’s fighting amnesty.

“Republicans should be up 10 to 15 points,” Ingraham said. “I think where Republicans aren't up, we've had an Establishment that has refused to contribute significant money like we're seeing with Scott Brown. They are not giving him the resources he needs. How dare they not! So he's not getting the ad coverage he needs.”

Ingraham said she is hearing that Brown isn’t on television as much as incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) reports Breitbart News.

“People up in New Hampshire are telling me they aren’t seeing any Scott Brown ads on television. Shaheen is pummeling Scott Brown in New Hampshire on television,” she said. “I need you to go to Scottbrown.com [and] support him—he’s standing up for you, your wages, and your ability to get a decent job. He’s standing against the GOP Establishment who’s telling him, 'Shhh... Be careful how you talk about these issues. We’re going to (wink, wink) tacitly support that executive amnesty so Jeb’s okay with it.' Scott Brown is running his own type of campaign.”

Ingraham called on the “Republican business types” to put their money where their mouths are and back Brown up.

“Where are all of these big Republican business types?” Ingraham asked. “Are they giving money to these campaigns? All of these high-paid political consultants—I’m so tired of these people—they give terrible advice, they make sure they get paid on time, but meanwhile, we have people begging for money in the final week of this election cycle. Why?”

Government listened to reporter through her laptop

Welcome to the Police State

Naked press intimidation - Ex-CBS reporter was 

spied on by Big Brother Government.

By Gary;

Do you hear that big nothing out there?

Yep, that silence you hear is the bi-partisan collection of Washington D.C. political hacks who say nothing when their unconstitutional spying on the American people is exposed.

Simply, our politicians are traitors to the Constitution that they swore to uphold.  Their goal is to build a Police State to "protect" us, but that Police State is really to protect their jobs and power.

Now we have a former CBS News reporter saying she was spied on by the government which planted classified documents on her computer.

Sharyl Attkisson says speculates that the motive was to lay the groundwork for possible charges against her or her sources.

Attkisson's government source told her the computer was hacked into by “a sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency.”

Sharyl Attkisson

The spyware included programs that Attkisson says monitored her every keystroke and gave the snoops access to all her e-mails and the passwords to her financial accounts.

“The intruders discovered my Skype account handle, stole the password, activated the audio, and made heavy use of it, presumably as a listening tool,” she said.

Notice there is no real outrage form the Elite Political Class.  After all, they are the ones running and funding the NSA spy system and attacking a free Internet press.

The march to 1984 goes on and on with the eager support of both Liberals and Conservatives.

Both parties have abandoned most of the Bill of Rights in favor of a corrupt neo-Fascist government of, by and for the special interests.

All hail Big Brother.

(NY Post)

Judge Napolitano

On both parties in Congress allowing the military to arrest U.S. citizens.

"Where I see it going is toward a totalitarian state."

William Binney

Former NSA official

The Bipartisan Police State
Both Liberals and Conservatives have locked arms to fully fund, protect and grow an unconstitutional 1984 Police Surveillance State.  Your every phone call, text, email, purchase and movement is recorded, cataloged and scrutinized by Big Brother.
.
If you dare to speak out against your Masters you can expect an IRS anal probe of biblical proportions and loss of business through intimidation of your customers.

The Land of the Formerly Free.

Talking chickens ad puts Democrat on the defensive in Iowa Senate race

"Not very Iowa"

The latest poll shows GOP Ernst pulling away 

with 49% to the Democrat's 46%.

A new ad featuring talking chickens threatens to further place embattled Iowa Senate Democratic candidate Rep. Bruce Braley on the defensive for attempting to sue his next-door neighbor over chickens she uses as therapy animals for autistic children. 

The viral ad, sponsored by Americans for Prosperity (AFP), comes just eight days before Braley, a lawyer, faces off with Republican rising star Joni Ernst in a race that political analysts say could alter the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. 

The new ad features two barnyard chickens located “Somewhere in Iowa” mocking Braley’s unneighborly behavior as being out of touch and just “Not very Iowa.”

The Iowa race remains one of the nation’s most competitive and closely watched. According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Ernst currently maintains a slender 2.2% lead over Braley. In August, Braley denied the chicken lawsuit charges to the Washington Post.

“This was a personal dispute between my wife and a neighbor because chickens were on our property all the time,” Braley told the Post.

(Breitbart)

Pot farmers to fight Islamic State

Just Don't Piss Off The Drug Lords

ISIS can blow up churches and mosques, cut off heads, 

bomb cities, but don't screw with the drug lords.

(Washington Post)  -  The cultivation of marijuana is illegal in Lebanon, but that doesn't mean people don't grow it. The  industry boomed during the country's lengthy civil war, earning millions for the impoverished yet fertile Bekaa Valley province, and Lebanese authorities have struggled to control it ever since. In 2012, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime listed Lebanon as one of the five "main countries producing cannabis resin," yielding an amount similar to Pakistan's production.

Political instability in Lebanon has often led to boom times for pot farmers. "The worse the security situation is in Lebanon, the more we can grow," one farmer told the Christian Science Monitor in 2007. As such, the chaos in neighboring Syria appears to have been a boon for the farmers, with troops diverted to the border and annual cannabis-eradication drives skipped.

However, the continued rise of the Islamic State militant group has some of Lebanon's cannabis farmers concerned. Yaara Bou Melhem of Australia's Special Broadcasting Service Corp. spoke to one farmer who is collecting weapons in a bid to fight the Islamic State should its fighters breach the border.

"I'll burn a tank if I hit it with it," Abo Hamoudi, 65, said as he showed off his arsenal. "If I hit a pickup with Islamic State people in it, it will burn. If I hit any vehicle with Islamic State in it, I'll burn it."

Among Lebanese authorities, there's some suspicion but also a tacit acceptance that, if worse comes to worst, the farmers may act. "I think they're using Islamic State militants as an excuse to justify having weapons, but the real reason is to protect their hashish," Col. Ghassan Shamseddine, head of Lebanon's drug enforcement unit, told SBS News. "But, of course, if there's any assault from outside of Lebanon into Lebanon, they may use their weapons to help the army."

For the farmers, the concern may be understandable: The Bekaa Valley is not far from Syria, and the Lebanese military has clashed with Syrian militants in the border town of Arsal. Neither the Islamic State nor al-Qaeda proxy Jabhat al-Nusra have shown themselves to be sympathetic to marijuana cultivation: In August, Islamic State militants released a video that showed them burning marijuana fields in Syria.

(Washington Post)