TRAITORS!!! - Congress reaffirms indefinite detention of Americans under NDAA

 

The US House of Representatives approved an annual defense spending bill early Thursday after rejecting a proposed amendment that would have prevented the United States government from indefinitely detaining American citizens.

An amendment introduced in the House on Wednesday this week asked that Congress repeal a controversial provision placed in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that has ever since provided the executive branch with the power to arrest and detain indefinitely any US citizen thought to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda or associated organizations.

“This amendment would eliminate indefinite detention in the United States and its territories,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Washington), a co-author of the failed amendment, said during floor debate on Wednesday, “So basically anybody that we captured, who we suspected of terrorist activity, would no longer be subject to indefinite detention, as is now, currently, the law.”

“That is an enormous amount of power to give the executive, to take someone and lock them up without due process,” Smith added. “It is an enormous amount of power to grant the executive, and I believe places liberty and freedom at risk in this country.”

Pres. Barack Obama vowed when he signed the 2012 NDAA into law on December 31, 2011 that he would not use the indefinite detention powers provided to him by Congress. When that provision was challenged in federal court, however, the White House fought back adamantly and appealed a District Court ruling that initially reversed the indefinite detention clause, eventually sending the challenge to the Supreme Court where it stalled until earlier this month with the justices there said they would not consider the case.

The bill sponsored by Smith and co-author Rep. Paul Broun (R-Georgia) would have given the legislative branch a chance to repeal the same provisions that SCOTUS declined to hear, but the bipartisan amendment failed on a vote of 191 to 230.

A separate proposal from Rep. Smith meant to expedite the shut-down of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was also rejected early Thursday; an amendment from Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Florida) intended to cut federal funding for recreational facilities at Gitmo, however, was approved in the NDAA draft that left the House on Thursday.

On Twitter, Smith said he was “disappointed” but “won’t stop fighting to pass this critical legislation.”

Disappointed my amndts to #CloseGitmo &end #indefinitedetention failed in the #NDAA. I won't stop fighting to pass this critical legislation

— Rep. Adam Smith (@RepAdamSmith) May 22, 2014

And while the White House is unlikely to abandon its own fight with regards to keep the indefinite detention provision intact, the Obama administration threatened to vote this year’s NDAA because it would continue to complicate the president’s promise to close the Guantanamo Bay facility — a vow older than his own administration.

“If this year’s Defense Authorization bill continues unwarranted restrictions regarding Guantanamo detainees, the president will veto the bill,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement Wednesday evening.

When the 2011 NDAA passed Congress with the controversial indefinite detention provision included, the White House said at the time that it would veto the legislation before Pres. Obama eventually balked.

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

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Contributed by RT of RT.com.

Congress reaffirms indefinite detention of Americans under NDAA
Contributing Author
Fri, 23 May 2014 01:30:46 GMT

MUST MUST WATCH!!! Judge Jeanine: War heroes don’t leave men to die

 

The VA is a hotbed of corruption

Judge Jeanine: War heroes don’t leave men to die
Sun, 18 May 2014 18:48:18 GMT

Sen. Rand Paul Joins Eric Bolling on Hannity- May 22, 2014

Nautiluscoin: The people's Bitcoin that could lure in Wall Street, too

California Cops Fatally Shoot Man Who Witnesses Say Was Backing Away From Them

 

“They killed Osman like a dog as he lay on the ground. Why are we to trust them investigating themselves? Why does it take so many bullets to the head to subdue a man who is already lying on the ground? Osman’s life had value. We want the truth,”

Once again  a fatal police shooting is in the limelight. Police officers in Salinas, California responded to a call of a man exposing himself, and of attempted to break into a property.

From the point they initiated contact with the man, the police statements and the witness statements start to deviate…ending up as nothing even remotely similar to each other.

The Monterey County Herald quoted Salinas police Cmdr. Vince Maiorana as saying that the man was initially unresponsive when police tried to approach him about the alleged attempted break-in, then began to act strangely:

“Officers end up talking to this individual, trying to find out what he’s doing and what the situation was based upon the original 911 call,” Maiorana said. ”This individual started to wave the gardening shears at the officers. We tried to deploy a Taser; the Taser did not work and as the officers tried to detain this individual, this individual pulled the gardening shears and actually attacked the officers with the gardening shears.

“In response, the officers, fearing for their personal safety, shot this individual and he is now deceased.”

Cell phone video footage obtained by The Herald  shows that two officers with guns drawn and only a few feet away from the man fired four or five shots in broad daylight on Tuesday in a commercial part of Salinas, a town of roughly 154,000.

“There’s some split-second decisions that have to be made by the officer,”Maiorana told the Herald.”When the officer commanded this individual to drop the shears and to get down on the ground, this individual actually attacked the officer with the gardening shears.”

Now witnesses give quite a different version of events. They say the taser did work, and that Osman Hernandez was on the ground, stunned from the taser when the police officers opened fire.

“They killed Osman like a dog as he lay on the ground. Why are we to trust them investigating themselves? Why does it take so many bullets to the head to subdue a man who is already lying on the ground? Osman’s life had value. We want the truth,”

A KSBW report added that the one eyewitness told the network that Hernandez was on the ground and stunned from the Taser when police fired no fewer than four shots.

The shooting happened outside the Y Delicia’s Bakery at Sanborn Plaza. It was the third fatal officer-involved shooting in Salinas this year and the second one in the last two weeks.

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

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Contributed by Chris Carrington of The Daily Sheeple.

Chris Carrington is a writer, researcher and lecturer with a background in science, technology and environmental studies. Chris is an editor for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up!

California Cops Fatally Shoot Man Who Witnesses Say Was Backing Away From Them
Chris Carrington
Thu, 22 May 2014 17:20:20 GMT

AS USUAL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES NOT DOING ENOUGH TO PROTECT YOU–THIS LAW DOES NOTHING - House approves curbs on NSA record-gathering

House approves curbs on NSA record-gathering

Published May 22, 2014

Associated Press

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This June 6, 2013, file photo shows the sign outside the National Security Agency campus in Fort Meade, Md. A presidential advisory panel has recommended dozens of changes to the government's surveillance programs, including stripping the NSA of its ability to store Americans' telephone records and requiring a court to sign off on the individual searches of phone and Internet data.AP/FILE

WASHINGTON –  The House on Thursday passed legislation to end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of American phone records, the first legislative response to the disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Although the compromise measure was significantly "watered down," in the words of Democrat Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, it passed by a vote of 303 to 120, with 9 members not voting.

"We must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good," Schakowsky, an intelligence committee member, said in summing up the feelings of many Republicans and Democrats who voted for the measure but wanted tougher provisions. Dropped from the bill was a requirement for an independent public advocate on the secret intelligence court that oversees the NSA.

The USA Freedom Act would codify a proposal made in January by President Barack Obama, who said he wanted to end the NSA's practice of collecting the "to and from" records of nearly every American landline telephone call under a program that searched the data for connections to terrorist plots abroad.

The bill instructs the phone companies to hold the records for 18 months--which they already were doing-- and lets the NSA search them in terrorism investigations in response to a judicial order. The phone program was revealed last year by Snowden, who used his job as a computer network administrator to remove tens of thousands of secret documents from an NSA facility in Hawaii.

The measure now heads to the Senate.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the intelligence committee, has said she is willing to go along with a similar idea.

NSA officials were pleased with the bill because under the existing program, they did not have access to many mobile phone records. Under the new arrangement, they will, officials say.

"I believe this is a workable compromise that protects the core function of a counter terrorism program we know has saved lives around the world," said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the House Intelligence Committee chairman.

Privacy and civil liberties activists denounced the measure, saying it had been "gutted" to win agreement from lawmakers such as Rogers who supported the NSA phone records program.

"This legislation was designed to prohibit bulk collection, but has been made so weak that it fails to adequately protect against mass, untargeted collection of Americans' private information," Nuala O'Connor, president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement.

Technology companies such as Google and Facebook also withdrew their support, saying they were concerned about language they fear could allow bulk collection of Internet data. Proponents say that concern is misplaced.

"Those who say this bill will legalize bulk collection are wrong," said Rep. C. A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. "They are trying to scare you by making you think there are monsters under the bed."

The White House endorsed the measure.

"The bill's significant reforms would provide the public greater confidence in our programs and the checks and balances in the system," the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement Wednesday.

House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the bill is perhaps the most significant action Congress will take in response to the Snowden leaks. The former NSA contractor handed journalists documents that revealed a host of once-secret NSA surveillance programs, including some that sweep in the personal information of Americans even as they target foreigners.

Outrage over the programs that Snowden publicized brought together conservatives and liberals who favor civil liberties, while the administration and congressional leadership resisted changing what they considered a useful counterterror tool.

"I think there's been remarkable convergence on the issue," Schiff said. "It wasn't long ago that it was a real struggle with the idea of ending bulk collection. I think it's a very good bill."

Schiff said he wished the bill had provided for an independent public advocate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret judicial body that sets the legal parameters for NSA surveillance that touches on Americans. Such an advocate could challenge the government's legal positions on what surveillance is permissible, he said. As it stands, the FISA court only hears from the government. No one represents the American public, whose data is being collected, or the terror suspect in court.

Instead, the law includes "a fairly weak" provision for friend of the court briefs, which are already allowed under existing law.

"I don't think it's the end of the reform process," Schiff said.

In another change, the original bill required annual public reports by the government estimating, to the nearest 100, how many Americans were subject to various categories of secret intelligence surveillance, according to OpentheGovernment, a coalition promoting government transparency.

Those requirements were dropped from the bill, the group said.

BREAKING: Republicans to Roll Back Michelle Obama’s Insane “Lunch” Rules

BREAKING: Republicans to Roll Back Michelle Obama’s Insane “Lunch” Rules

There are a number of problems facing our nation’s government run public school system, not least of which are the abysmal common core standards that are dumbing down the kids of America, and disarmed victim zones, better known as gun free zones.

Despite these problems, and many more, the biggest ‘issue’ that was able to garner the full attention of the First Lady Michelle Obama is the school lunch program, and her attempts at forcing healthy lunches on unwilling students.

But students have rejected Michelle and her healthy lunches, and have shown just how out of touch she is, as if we didn’t already know from her comments about gun control in Chicago, or complaining about her lack of travel while on vacation.

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Now, having witnessed the massive backlash and rejection of ‘healthy lunches’ by students across the country, House Republicans are moving to roll back and delay some of Michelle Obama’s ridiculously unrealistic school lunch mandates, according to the AP.

The Agriculture Department will allow some schools to delay adding more whole-grains to meals this year, responding to criticism from school nutrition officials and Congress that the standards were too difficult to put in place.

The delay comes hours after a Republican-led House spending panel criticized the Obama administration’s healthier school-lunch standards and proposed letting some schools opt out of them entirely.

The USDA is allowing a two-year delay in the whole grains mandate for schools that can prove they face “significant challenges” implementing the new standards on lunches.

“Schools raised legitimate concerns that acceptable whole-grain rich pasta products were not available,” said Kevin Concannon, USDA undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services. “We worked to find a solution which will allow more time for industry to develop products that will work for schools.”

While many students have adapted easily to whole grain breads and rolls, which have been on the market for some time, school nutrition directors say they are having a harder time with pastas, biscuits, tortillas and grits – all popular items on the lunch line. The current requirement is that 50 percent of all grain products be whole-grain rich, but that is set to jump to 100 percent in the next school year.

The move is being supported by the School Nutrition Association, which represents companies and school nutrition directors involved in school lunches.

“Getting students to accept whole grain pasta is just one of many challenges school meal programs have faced under USDA regulations,” said Leah Schmidt, president of the group.

The waivers for schools to opt-out of the new healthy lunch requirements is part of a GOP funding bill for agriculture and food programs.

Championed by first lady Michelle Obama, the healthier standards have been phased in over the last two school years, with more changes coming in 2014.The first lady held a call to rally supporters Monday.

In addition to whole grain requirements, the rules set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on foods in the lunch line and beyond. While many schools have had success putting the rules in place, others have said they are too restrictive and costly.

Rep. Robert Aderholt, the Alabama Republican who is chairman of the agriculture appropriations panel, said the school lunch rules have “upset the economics of the school meals program by driving the cost of the plate up while pushing participation down.”

Of course, the USDA spokesman criticized the move as political, despite the fact that the USDA themselves have adjusted the healthy lunch standards after mass complaints and protests by hungry students.

“With one third of American children fighting obesity, we cannot accept politically motivated efforts to undermine standards and deny kids healthier options,” he said.

This is good news, and a good step in the right direction.  Michelle Obama’s healthy lunch program may have had the good intentions of combating childhood obesity, but the implementation was done entirely wrong.  Placing mandates on schools to meet unrealistic requirements and goals that don’t take into account the wishes of the students, the ones that have to actually eat these lunches that they don’t want, is just another example of one-size-fits-all big government, and has only resulted in higher costs for schools and wasted lunches as kids throw away the grains, fruits and vegetables that they didn’t want but were forced to take.

Nobody really opposes healthy lunches for school children.  The difference is that we believe the decisions about what constitutes the makings of a healthy school lunch should be left up to the state departments of education, individual schools and school districts, and the parents of the school children.

And of course, it all comes down to what the kids actually want to eat too, something that local schools can better determine for themselves, and not some bureaucrats in Washington DC.

Please share on Facebook and Twitter if you support this effort by the GOP to roll back Michelle Obama’s ridiculous healthy school lunch mandates.

Cash is Out, Bartering is King

 

Tess Pennington
Activist Post
It’s yard sale season now! It’s a great place and time to practice bartering skills and pick up cheap but valuable items. Part of my preps are acquiring items the majority of folks take for granted but will have huge value in an economic collapse situation. Fire, water, smokes, salt, spices, sanitation/hygiene items, etc. are just a few things that will buy me things I need and can’t produce myself in a SHTF event. Don’t think it can happen here. Look at Greece. Spain is soon to follow.
Reality tells us that we may soon be coming to a point in which cash is no longer king.  The economy has been drying up for years.  Over one million Americans filed their initial unemployment claim over the last month.  The dollars we bring home are buying less on every trip to the grocery store.
Few of us are completely self-sufficient.  There are always going to be a few things that we cannot make for ourselves.  If your personal preps are in order, consider investing your prep dollars in a new way: purchase barter items!

A lot of things that are inexpensive now will be invaluable later.  As the economy collapses even further, people will be focused on survival and the barter system will reignite.  Barter items will be far better than cash – you can’t eat a dollar!

What kind of items will be worth their weight in gold?  Check out this list for a few suggestions:

• Matches and lighters
• Seeds
• Canning jars, lids and rings
• First aid items
• Tools
• Water Filtration Supplies
• Sewing supplies
• Vitamins
• Salt
• Feminine Hygiene Supplies
• Vitamins
• Fishing Supplies
• Fuel (gasoline, propane, kerosene, etc)
• Sweeteners such as honey, sugar and syrup
• Coffee/Tea
• Carbonated beverages
• Liquor
• Cigarettes/tobacco
• Small packages of food (baggies of beans/rice, etc)
• Livestock
• Cooking oil
• Firewood
• Farm supplies (pesticides, fertilizer, etc.)
• Weapons, Ammo *
• Batteries
• Warm clothing
• Hats/Gloves (think about those little dollar store stretchy items)
• Soap/shampoo
• Hand sanitizer
• Dental care items (toothbrushes/toothpaste/floss)

*Caution: Exercise great discretion when bartering with weapons and ammunition.  It is entirely possible that those items could be used against you to take your supplies.  These are items to be bartered only with someone you trust implicitly or as an absolute last resort.
Barter items can be purchased at the dollar store, the flea market or at liquidation houses.  Don’t forget yard sales – even though you already possess a meat grinder, someone who has ammo that you need might not have one. Items that you can acquire and store inexpensively may one day be more valuable than gold.
Don’t forget about the items that you can produce yourself.  This goes hand-in-hand with the barter of skills.  Stock up on the supplies you need to create the following items for a long-term flow of “income”.

• Fresh produce
• Ammunition (see *caution above)
• Home canned items
• Preserved meats (jerky, ham, etc)
• Warm knitted or crocheted items (mittens, hats, scarves)
• Yarn spun from animal fibers
• Homemade candy
• Homemade soap
• Homemade candles
• Wooden or clay bowls and plates
• Herbal remedies

Use this list to get your creative juices flowing.  What items do you possess the ability to make?
Which of these items will be particularly useful if the grid goes down or if the economy crumbles?
What items are you stocking up on for life in a potential barter-based economy?  Please share your ideas below!
Related Activist Post Articles:

• 10 Easy DIY Career Opportunities
• 10 Ways to Survive Skyrocketing Food Prices

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
Contributed by Tess Pennington of Ready Nutrition. Tess Pennington is the author of The Prepper’s Cookbook: 300 Recipes to Turn Your Emergency Food into Nutritious, Delicious, Life-Saving Meals. When a catastrophic collapse cripples society, grocery store shelves will empty within days. But if you follow this book’s plan for stocking, organizing and maintaining a proper emergency food supply, your family will have plenty to eat for weeks, months or even years.

Cash is Out, Bartering is King
Activist
Wed, 21 May 2014 00:21:00 GMT

The US Department of Agriculture Needs Submachine Guns...And This Is Why

 

Wendy McElroy
Activist Post
On May 7, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) posted a notice on the government's Federal Business Opportunities site in order to solicit bids on an undisclosed number of submachine guns.
The notice read, in part,

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, located in Washington, DC, pursuant to the authority of FAR Part 13, has a requirement for the commerical [sic] acquisition of submachine guns, .40 Cal. S&W, ambidextrous safety, semi-automatic or 2 shot burts [sic] trigger group, Tritium night sights for front and rear, rails for attachment of flashlight (front under fore grip) and scope (top rear), stock-collapsilbe [sic] or folding, magazine - 30 rd. capacity, sling, light weight, and oversized trigger guard for gloved operation.” [Note: spelling errors in original]

Speculation On The Why of Submachine Guns
When President Abraham Lincoln established the USDA in 1862, he called it the “People's Department.” The USDA website lists its current areas of authority as: Assisting Rural Communities; Conservation; Education and Research; Food and Nutrition; and, Marketing and Trade. The agency has over 100,000 employees. Why do employees of the People's Department need semi-automatic machine guns to do their job? What would the job description be?

Second Amendment sites have speculated that the most likely recipients are agents of the US Forest Service (USFS) Law Enforcement & Investigations unit; the USFS falls under USDA control.
Although this seems likely, there are also counter-indications. The solicitation notice makes no mention of the USFS, and those agents are already armed. The Wikipedia site on USFS states “Special agents are normally plainclothes officers who carry concealed firearms, and other defensive equipment...” Moreover, the weapon being solicited is typically used for close quarter operations, such as inside a building or into a crowd, rather than in an open or unpopulated area.
Several people have attempted to reach the two “public servants” listed in the notice as USDA contacts for interested weapon companies. Attempts to contact Linda F.B Josey, head of the Procurement Management Branch, reach an auto-reply that states she is “out for training.” Desiree Clayton, the contracting officer, is "not in the office at this time."
The news site Politico managed to get an answer. Politico reported, “USDA spokeswoman Courtney Rowe says the guns are needed by the more than 100 agents employed by the law-enforcement division of the department’s Office of the Inspector General. They’ve carried machine guns for 20 years, she notes. USDA OIG officers 'are placed in very dangerous law enforcement situations,” another USDA official told POLITICO. 'They make arrests, they serve subpoenas and they engage in undercover operations'.” What sort of “very dangerous law enforcement situation” does the USDA confront?
Assuming The USFS Is The Intended Recipient
The USFS is closely allied with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and often provides it with back-up. A key reason is because the two agencies share responsibility for managing an estimated 167 million acres of public rangeland in America, with the USFS presiding over more than half. The BLM recently laid siege to the ranch of Cliven Bundy. A timeline on the Bundy conflict provides insight into the relationship of the two agencies.
In March 1993, the BLM designated hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land in Nevada for conservation efforts and closed it off to livestock grazing. Since the 1930s, federal rangelands in Nevada have been managed primarily by the BLM (or its predecessor) and the USFS. Rancher Cliven Bundy called the BLM move a “land grab.” He claimed Nevada owned the land and he refused to remove his cattle.
In 1995, the USFS was responsible for overseeing 7 million acres in Nevada and became quickly entangled in conflict with ranchers. In April 1995, USA Today reported,

Thursday evening, a small bomb went off in the U.S. Forest Service office in Carson City, Nev....

"If it was sent as a message," says Forest Service spokeswoman Erin O'Connor, "we got it." Ultimately the issue will be settled by the courts, but ranchers who say they can't afford to raise livestock without greater access to public land are taking matters into their own hands -- setting up what some officials fear is an inevitable and dangerous confrontation. The situation is becoming so tense that federal workers now travel mostly in pairs and are in constant radio contact with district offices.
"I'm concerned about the safety of my employees," says Jim Nelson, Forest Service district manager for Nevada. "They can't go to church in these communities without having someone say something. Their kids are harassed in school. Stores and restaurants are not serving them."

A year later, more pipebombs had exploded in the offices of the USFS and the BLM.
In 2002, another Nevada rancher was found guilty of grazing on federally-claimed land. His sentence affirmed the USFS's authority over the disputed area.
Skip forward to April 2014. There were a series of conflicts with the Bundys and their supporters on one side, and armed BLM and other agents on the other. A photojournalist described one incident. “We were on a bridge in southern Nevada in the midst of a tense standoff between the BLM and a group of angry ranchers, milita-members [sic] and gun-rights activists. It seemed as if we were a hair’s breadth away from Americans killing Americans right in front of me.” He reported “the man with a rifle beside me....aimed his weapon in the direction of [BLM] officers,” and said “I’ve got a clear shot at four of them.” Ultimately, no shots were fired.
Such stand-offs are undoubtedly among the “very dangerous law enforcement situations” that the USFS anticipates. The agency is hardly alone in stockpiling military weapons and ammunition. Bob Owens at the website Bearing Arms observed, “This is part of a trend to arm every branch of federal government, whether the individual agency has a legitimate need for a paramilitary force or not."

Conclusion
No agency seems innocuous or too small to avoid becoming paramilitary. On August 13, 2012, the Business Insider reported, “ the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is looking for 46,000 rounds of ammunition for the National Weather Service.”
After all, nothing says “public servant” like an armed enforcement agent who points a gun while checking the level of rainfall. That's especially true if he packs a submachine gun which ordinary Americans cannot obtain without a Federal Firearms License.
Join the other Dollar Vigilantes discussing this article.
Wendy McElroy is a regular contributor to the Dollar Vigilante, and a renowned individualist anarchist and individualist feminist. She was a co-founder along with Carl Watner and George H. Smith of The Voluntaryist in 1982, and is the author/editor of twelve books, the latest of which is "The Art of Being Free". Follow her work atwww.wendymcelroy.com.

The US Department of Agriculture Needs Submachine Guns...And This Is Why
Activist
Tue, 20 May 2014 23:18:00 GMT

"September 11 - The New Pearl Harbor" - Full version (1/3)