New American Phenomena

It turns out that after 246 years, a new phenomena has been uncovered far into the deepest regions of the US. It sent shivers down the historical food chains and libraries everywhere, not to mention the panic in news rooms and on op-ed desks.

In 2020, we officially discovered that you can abridge any free speech or press by simply calling it Russian disinformation,… multiple sources familiar with the matter have told us.

This is not a joke, it is not hyperbole. No civil service employees or federal agents have been harmed or exposed in creation of this report. It cannot be used in a “court of law;” and no Russian disinformation was used or consulted for this report.  Sponsored by FJB LLC. We regret any confusion this may have caused in the past. But now you know.

Right Ring | Bullright | 2022

Institutional Failure

We no longer have the luxury of debating serious concepts or ideas, but can only opine on current political reality. As long as we still can anyway.

But this column or next just might be the last, at this critical stage. Who knows? That is the political reality of the time. Just call this an SOS to the future.

Odd how America was always standing up for those timeless principles and freedoms like speech or basic civil liberties. Not anymore. That is the stuff of yesteryear now.

All of this in our current reality is due to institutional failure. No, it is not just a president’s dictate or even Congress’s decrees; it takes more than that to really set our country off the irreversible edge. Our institutions have a big and necessary role in that condition, not only governmental institutions but private or non-governmental institutions.

Right now they are screaming for us to jump, “don’t look back. Hurry up!”

Who are they? Well, media for one has a big role. But there are plenty others like policy centers, research labs to big corporations to technology, universities, education. All working hand and glove in a concerted, malicious way against civil liberties of people is enough to throw in the towel on society — as if government failure and corruption were not enough of a problem.

But all operating in a concerted effort, until you have something that makes George Orwell blush in his grave. And snark is substituted for substance in defense of what they do. So what is the answer to that? Well, we don’t know because we probably were never to this pinnacle before. Sadly, we just don’t know.

Institutions are to society what sin is to mankind. It is the cancerous rot that can destroy the body from inside out. If left corrupt and untreated, it can unleash a ticking clock on the mantle of freedom and all we hold dear. Or you could call that the glue or ligaments that hold us all together. And what a number both can do on us in a short amount of time.

So now a first amendment case to defend one’s self is no longer an acceptable option?

Right Ring | Bullright | © 2021

The Big Wet Dream

The Anti-American Dream

Pat Condell

Published on Dec 31, 2018
The quickest way to create a captive society is to educate children to hate their own freedom. Nobody’s feelings were consulted during the making of this video. Anyone who has a problem with that can drop dead. ‘The Good Censor’:

Leaked briefing reveals that Google has abandoned free speech for ‘safety and civility”. https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/1… Google employees want no censorship for China, but plenty of censorship for us. https://theintercept.com/2018/08/03/g…

He’s right. Were they writing the Constitution and Bill of Rights today…. we’d have a whole different thing. That’s a scary thought. The fruits of that sabotage are real.

“If you don’t understand the wisdom in the 1st amendment, you have not been educated, you’ve been processed; you’ve been cheated,…”

175 & Counting Lawsuit and Blackmail

Who are the 175? Well, it’s the beginning, and growing, number of plaintiffs who are part of a class action lawsuit against CNN for its discriminatory practices.

Wonder why you don’t hear about this and it never comes up on their own news network when they talk about discrimination? Funny how that is.

Here’s Something You Don’t Hear Much About: The 175 People Suing CNN For Racial Discrimination

By: Joseph Curl | Daily Wire

There has been much ado — and rightly so — over the goings on at Fox News Channel – sexual harassment, hush money allegedly paid to victims, a string of high-profile resignations (some of which were really firings)…./

There has been much ado — and rightly so — over the goings on at Fox News Channel – sexual harassment, hush money allegedly paid to victims, a string of high-profile resignations (some of which were really firings).

“The lawsuit against CNN, meanwhile, claims the company’s Atlanta headquarters is rife with racism,” The New York Post wrote on April 27.

“The lawsuit against CNN, meanwhile, claims the company’s Atlanta headquarters is rife with racism,” The New York Post wrote on April 27.

Minority employees had to endure bigoted remarks such as “It’s hard to manage black people” and “Who would be worth more: black slaves from times past, or new slaves?,” according to a complaint by former workers Celeslie Henley and Ernest Colbert Jr. filed in Atlanta federal court.

Colbert Jr. also claims he was paid thousands less than white colleagues as a manager at the affiliated Turner Broadcasting System.

Henley, a former CNN executive assistant, says she was fired in 2014 for complaining that black employees were being paid less than white counterparts.

See more: http://www.dailywire.com/news/16140/heres-something-you-dont-hear-much-about-175-joseph-curl

 

Another Offensive Move from CNN media

Compounding their injury, CNN has now engaged in a blackmail campaign against the meme-maker of the CNN – WWE smackdown video, featuring Trump. These people apparently have no sense of humor whatsoever. And they cannot take any mockery at all, even while they ridicule and mock the American people and White House daily.

They threatened this social media person, a 15 yr-old kid man, with exposing his real identity and other posts they found objectionable. How they got the information, supposedly from ISP via TWC, adds to it. They basically made him agree to shut up.

But what difference does it make who made the clever little video joke that went viral? Only CNN cares because they claim it “incites violence.” They also want Twitter to shut down Trump’s Twitter account for posting it. Now they claim they’ll continue asking Twitter why they haven’t taken action? Whew-wee, have they taken it too far or what?

That is the same network chronically complaining about ‘off-camera’ White House press briefings. That curtails their grandstanding and filibuster capabilities. Even though there is no such requirement in our US Constitution to them.

The same network who daily uses more anonymous sources than freckles. They demand protection and guarantee it to “sources,” no matter how controversial their leaks are. No problem, the leakers need Constitutional protections.

However, a private citizen who made a clever, funny meme on the internet is sought, bullied, threatened and blackmailed by CNN into silence. (Read, threaten to turn left-wing goons on him) They don’t really have a clue on the first amendment or the Constitution.

So the lesson, class, is no free speech in the first amendment for the people. Only plenty of far-reaching protections for the MSM elite media, “press” though.

Conclusion: CNN has become 1st Amendment Assassins — my first amendment view.

(*Correction: so it was not a 15 yr old kid, but again that only matters to CNN)

The Day has Come

I never thought or expected to see the day that the collective press/media would become a chief adversary, even an enemy, but that day is here.

Well, it is just happened to really hit me that way. Regardless of all our problems, government corruptions and failures, the “press” has now positioned itself in such a way that it is a chief adversary (if not the foremost one) and just a tool of the power.

Sort of scary. One can look at all the reasons and motivations. That is one hell of a revelation to come to terms with. I thought I had witnessed many problems before.

We know all that stuff about the idea and main purpose of the press — the ideal. However, it made itself into this hyper-politicized, bias oriented institution in general. They’ve picked their side, the battle lines have been drawn. We’ve defined the battlefield and the strategy is unfolding before our eyes. It not only applies to politics but it is an ideological adversary — even a radical one.

Not a scenario I had expected to this operational level. The saying is know your enemy. What happens when the press/media finally becomes a determined enemy of the people? Couple that predicament with the most critically import election of our time.

This was on top of another observation a while back that we don’t really have a free press. So I wondered, after these many years, maybe the press did not want to be free after all? Not anymore anyway. That used to be a major difference we had to other places.

RightRing | Bullright

Government marginalized the church

The Breitbart Interview With Franklin Graham: The Government ‘Has Marginalized the Church’

Breitbart | Jan 6, 2016

Franklin Graham, CEO of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, tells Breitbart News the government in the United States: federal, state and local, “has marginalized the church.”

The Breitbart News interview with Graham comes one day after he launched his 50 state “Decision America 2016” tour on the steps of the State Capitol in Des Moines, Iowa. Graham’s goal is to encourage Christians to participate in the political process this election cycle by voting for candidates who support Biblical values and by considering their own run for office.

“We have removed God from the political process,” Graham tells Breitbart News.

“One hundred years ago, pastors were the political leaders in the community,” Graham says.

More: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/06/breitbart-interview-franklin-graham-government-marginalized-church/

He is right. But then I know what this article will spawn. All those who jump on the anti-Christian bandwagon. Theocracy will be the buzzword. Never mind how this ‘slander the Christians’ campaign is working out, over the years. But now there is a new band leader with Obama out front chastising Chrisitians every chance he gets.

 

 

Charleston dynamics and race agenda

As a reference, I made a list of inter-related issues after the Charleston shooting.
A little lengthy and in no specific order.

· Freedom of Religion
· Freedom of Speech
· 1st amendment
· Gun control – agenda and otherwise
· 2nd Amendment
· Location location location – Charleston
· Southern hospitality or Southern racism
· Racism issues
· Hate speech
· Hate crimes
· Legislation and hate legislation
· Flags and symbols
· Pride
· History
· Revisionism
· Civil Rights
· Civil war
· North South tensions
· Political Correctness
· States Rights (or 10th amendment issues)
· Crime culture
· Morality and values in community
· Politics – like it or not injected especially presidential campaigns.
· Christianity
· Terrorism
· Presidential pronouncements, actions, responses
· Dep of Justice
· Monuments and cultural heritage
· Media – biases and coverage.
· Protests
· Death penalty
· Constitution
· Bill of rights
· Legal processes

· Christian persecution throughout the world.
· Tenants of Christianity – i.e. forgiveness etc.
· Security of Churches or religious buildings.

· Social Justice – as in the current Leftist dialogue and definition.
· Moral relativism
· Hypocrisy
· Love and understanding
· Evil
· Mental illness, mental heath problems
· Structural racism — as in the lefts’ new buzzword and definition
· White Supremacy
· Black racism or prejudice
· Race-baiting — Al Sharpton, activists
· Academia and advocacy groups, southern poverty law center

I’ll skip commentary, except the shootings were disturbing. Having all this around the killing of 9 people seems an awful lot to have on the plate at one time.

Not to get the intended reaction is a little divine justice. But we have come to a surreal point where not to riot is a surprise, where rioting and civil unrest is the norm.

Look where they’ve taken it, from shootings to a flag and creeping racism. Those who use racism now have more in common with the shooter’s motives than with victims.

RightRing | Bullright

Honey, I shrunk the Bill of Rights

In the years of Obama’s reign, we have seen the eroded Bill of Rights take one assault after another.

There was Obamacare, and now we see the Nuns being denied their freedom. There was the drone issue.(they even mocked that) There is that gun control on the back burner. There is the NSA spying ordeal. (don’t even think about right to privacy there) And this is not to mention what other branches have done, like the Kelo decision. There is hardly a freedom that escaped Obama’s axe.

On top of that is the lying. Then the systematic attacks on our military. The calling of names of anyone who takes offense to his plans. And the abuse of government power to threaten opposition and enforce whatever laws he feels like.

There’s the freedom of press, where they spied on the AP and charged Jim Rosen with espionage. Then his war on the states — abolishing the tenth amendment wholesale.

After inventing their abortion “right”as a right of privacy, they have little use for the ninth amendment. Due process is whatever they decide it should be, or not. Even the challenges over his legal, natural-born status were dismissed.

We no longer have a bill of rights, we have a list of caveats, which unlike “rights” mean whatever they want. He’s done more to challenge the BoR than anyone in US history. Your rights — i.e. life, libery, and pursuit of happiness etc. — were not so unalienable after all.

What do you expect from a guy who’s default view that government of, by, and for the people is Government of, by, and for Government? A guy who’s executive authority is limitless. Protecting against enemies, foreign and domestic, means making alliances with them. Guarding against invasion means opening the doors for it. Labels American patriots and soldiers terrorists. Screws our friends but makes friends with enemies of the US.

He believes all men are created unequal and that it is government’s job to try to equalize — however it chooses, however he defines equal. (some are more equal than others) ‘It’s the non-bill of rights, stupid !’ Welcome to Obama’s more perfect union.

RightRing | Bullright

Filthy “Pool” for O-regime, what do you expect?

The column did not need a subtitle, but the author supplied one anyway.
Dirty “pool”(report) in China? Big surprise.

Dirty Pool

Column: The rise of secretarial journalism

BY: Matthew Continetti | Free Beacon
December 6, 2013 5:00 am

It was a sunny day in Beijing on Thursday—refreshingly sunny, to be more precise—when Vice President Joe Biden met Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. I know this because I have read the pool report of the occasion, a pithy and practically content-free piece of journalism that is nevertheless one of the more entertaining things to enter my inbox in recent days. The pool report confirms the lingering suspicion—if it hasn’t been confirmed a million times already—that the line between journalism and Democratic Party cheerleading has more than faded. It has become invisible.

Pool reports are summaries of official events distributed to reporters, who then use the information to write articles or produce news packages. The building blocks of journalism, involving basic details such as names, places, and local color, pool reports are typically written by members of the periodical press. But the Internet has thrown open the question of what the periodical press is. And in the case of Vice President Biden’s visit with the Chinese collective oligarchy at the Zhongnanhai Leadership Compound, the pool report was composed and issued by someone who is not a member of the periodical press, someone who is not really “a journalist,” as the term is broadly understood, at all. His name is Steve Clemons.

Clemons is a Washington hand and bon vivant who has spent a long career working for a Democratic senator, working for think tanks, and working in the interstices of online journalism, event programming, and D.C. social climbing. For some time he has been parked at the New American Foundation—a center-left think tank that recently hosted an event for an anti-Israel screed written by the son of a top Clinton confidante—and at the Atlantic Monthly, where he is “Washington editor at large.” Politico has described him as a “foreign policy ‘super-agent,’” and the foreign policy for which he flacks lines up remarkably closely with the “realist” policy of the Obama administration: eager to negotiate with traditional adversaries, convinced that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the cause of Middle East turmoil, and determined to prevent neoconservatives and the dastardly Israel Lobby from committing America to foreign entanglements. Clemons was a key player in the campaign to install as America’s secretary of defense the embarrassingly stupid Chuck Hagel. He is not, let us be clear, a “disinterested observer.” I look forward to Sean Hannity’s pool reports from President Ted Cruz’s state visit to France.

Clemons’s prose is clichéd. “Good morning from refreshingly sunny Beijing where the skies are robin egg blue,” began his first report. Biden did not just greet his Chinese counterpart, Clemons said. Biden “warmly greeted” him. After an exchange of pleasantries, “your pool was then escorted out to brisk air, sunny skies, and a momentary look at the gardens and other pavilions of the exclusive Zhongnanhao Compound.” I hope your pool made the moment count, since he got closer to the center of Chinese authoritarian decision-making than most Chinese ever will. Dan Balz can rest easy: Clemons is not coming for his job anytime soon. Biden Deputy Chief of Staff Shailagh Murray, on the other hand, who used to be a “journalist” herself—well, Shailagh, you better watch out.

“An awkward thing happened in which your pool inadvertently became part of the story,” Clemons reported. The awkward thing was this: The vice president, in conversation with Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao, began gesturing at Clemons and saying, “He is a very important man. Seriously he is important.”

“Your pool demurred as best he could”—I’m sure he did—but Biden continued, telling Li that he should bypass the diplomatic niceties and talk directly with Clemons. “He is the one you really want to speak to. Seriously.” Later Biden bought Clemons a Magnum ice cream bar. But do not assume that the gift of delicious ice cream from a powerful admirer would affect our correspondent’s reportage. “Your pool decided to find out how much the Magnum bar cost and return that amount of yuan to Vice President Biden.” And the First Amendment endured.

Remarkably, no one in the traveling press corps seems to have thought it weird, much less wrong, to assign pool reports to a Beltway player so in sync with the administration’s foreign policy, so beloved by the vice president. “Thanks again to @SCClemons of @The Atlantic for a colorful pool report from the Biden trip,” tweeted CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller. “Colorful” is one word for it. “Useless” and “self-indulgent” are others. The vice president himself, by continually referring to “your pool,” seems to have understood better than the traveling press the conflict of interest presented by Clemons. Or perhaps the press, in giving Clemons the pool assignment, sought to show to the world, in a passive-aggressive way, just how phony and strained the coverage of this White House is. Whatever their reasons, neither Clemons nor anyone else in the press corps traveling with Biden seems to have asked what the vice president’s son Hunter, a former lobbyist with manifold business interests, was up to while accompanying dad on his East Asian tour. Or would asking that question hurt one’s future job prospects?

Adversarial journalism has been replaced by secretarial journalism. Obamacare’s glitches have not slowed the trend. While Robert Pear of the New York Times has been skeptical and critical of the Obamacare rollout, his colleagues on the paper’s political team are eager to return to boosting the program’s namesake. “Democrats’ Latest Campaign for Health Care Law Begins,” read the front-page headline on Thursday’s paper. “Seizing on the good news of an improving health care website and rising enrollments,” write Jonathan Weisman and Michael D. Shear, President Obama and his allies on Wednesday “highlighted parts of the law that are popular with the public and reminded Americans, and the law’s opponents, of what would be lost if the Affordable Care Act were repealed.” […/]

Continue reading more> http://freebeacon.com/dirty-pool/

Leave it to Biden to perfectly demonstrate the purpose of a free press, especially in China. (Not) Well, go Joe, show ’em just how it’s done! What better place to roll out your expertise in pool reporting control? The other non-surprise is how all this seems to go over rather well with the press “corpse” in general — alas, the errant word fits here.

All this irony is lost on Biden and, naturally, on Clemons. Both he and Biden continually refer to “your pool”, like some British Lord. “Lord of Pressland” maybe?

Compare the salutation to “your honor” — “your pool”. Or maybe he could be dubded “your Pookie“, since Obama is fond of the name — like a composite reporter?

RightRing | Bullright

This sends chills up the spine

Tennessee Newspaper Opinion Editor Fired Over Headline Critical of Obama

He Gives Us the Inside Story — The Blaze

Aug. 1, 2013

The opinion page editor at the Chattanooga Times Free Press has been fired over a headline of an editorial that was highly critical of President Barack Obama’s new “jobs plan.”

“Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough,” the headline reads.

Drew Johnson, the now-former opinion page editor at the Free Press, announced his firing on Twitter Thursday and later explained the situation in an exclusive interview with TheBlaze.

“I just became the first person in the history of newspapers to be fired for writing a paper’s most-read article,” Johnson wrote.

(Scroll down for update)

[…]

More: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/01/tennessee-newspaper-opinion-editor-says-hes-been-fired-for-writing-editorial-ripping-obamas-jobs-plan/

Obama and his Brownshirts have been busy. Quite a good headline but modest really.
The update statement from the paper suggests it was “rude”. Really?

I think rude and crude describes what this tyrant and his war on energy are doing to this country. And this only proves it. Another brick in the wall of silence.

Dick Durbin: Congress Should Decide Who Qualifies For First Amendment Freedoms

This is why you should never believe “liberals'” mantra, and why they are so dangerous.

PA Pundits International

By Matthew Sheffield ~

In addition to trying to redefine the Second Amendment as not protecting anyone’s right to bear arms, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (pictured) is now excited about how to redefine the First Amendment.

As with guns, Durbin is trying to limit constitutional freedoms so that they cannot be used by people of whom he disapproves. In an opinion essay published in the Chicago Sun Times last week, Durbin argued it was “time to say who’s a real reporter,” so that no one else can be given First Amendment protections.

“Is each of Twitter’s 141 million users in the United States a journalist? How about the 164 million Facebook users? What about bloggers, people posting on Instagram, or users of online message boards like Reddit?” Durbin asked.

Ostensibly, Durbin’s motive seems to be about extending additional freedoms sometimes called “shield laws” which place some limitations on courts…

View original post 754 more words

Paula Deen debacle and the left’s economic justice

Paula is a good ol’ gal, with no offense meant. She is a personality and now a celebrity. But based on a word she used some time ago, her reputation is under fire and her job on the line, due to her own words in a deposition. I have some sympathy for her situation.

*This is not a defense of Paula, but then THIS is not just about Paula either.

Does it show how vulnerable a celebrity can be for their words? Hardly, she is the exception and not the rule. After all, look what so many celebs have said or done. It doesn’t cost them their position.

Now I am saying forgiveness does have a place. We as society should take that as one of our duties and exercise it seriously. It makes another statement about the times, the penalty for telling the truth. She’s the latest casualty.

MY question is are we going to now put corporations and sponsors in charge of ethical conduct — or society — to be the ‘culture police’? Are these guys the poster boards for ethical conduct? Should they be? Are they up for the job? Resumes anyone?

For the most part, the left advocated and justified Food Channel’s reaction, as the self-appointed race and “civil rights” police. There must be consequences for using such language, even in the past, they say. If it were anyone else would they have a different view? It wouldn’t surprise me. But this fits their political paradigm and they applaud it.

Lets go a bit further. It seems to be a double standard for the left. These are the greedy corporate titans the Marxist left loves to blame for everything from global warming, to murders on the street, to crooked politics, not to mention the human and civil rights abuses. But in this case, the left will salute a corporation for its knee-jerk reflex to fire Paula because of a word she said she used 30 years ago. (at a traumatic time)

But think about it, there are boycotts and there are “boycotts”. The Left and the LGBT lobby have used boycotts as their tool against any opposition. It goes hand in hand with their economic argument, or their social justice agenda. So they attack businesses who do not support them. For example, they are calling out corporations for having business ties or a relationship supporting Israel, based on their own political ideology.

Now what is worse: the left taking an economic position based on sexuality or a disdain for Israel, or simply keeping cultural issues in the social fabric of society – and out of the corporate board rooms? But no, can’t do that because this is how the activist left operates across the spectrum, from the board room to the public square.

Yet they want to make the corporations the cops on the beat for society? Really?

These leftists don’t like government making laws that might ban certain sexual behavior, but they are okay with using corporations as the arbiter for personal conduct? (as long as they align themselves with the uber-Left politics) What happens when businesses take positions that are not convenient or in line with their sociopolitical positions – and their ideology? Ah oh! They are treading where they ought not tread.

Sure there is room for forgiveness. I thought the left always lectured us about that?

Update… an interesting thing happened, which often does in these evolving events:
George Zimmerman’s trial began on the Trayvon Martin shooting. The prosecution’s star witness, a teenaged black girl, comes out to testify that Trayvon described Zimmerman as a “creepy ass cracker“. Asked if she thought that was a racist remark, she said “no”.

Then in the aftermath punditry — always the last word in all things ethical — debated it suggesting that was just the way they talked in her community. Oh, those double standards are rearing their ugly little heads once again. See how this game works?

But apparently she didn’t say that in her prior statements because she did not want to offend Trayvon’s mother. Okay, so you didn’t want to mention it to his mother, but you do not believe its a racist remark? Okay. The punditry concludes that’s just how people talk in that community, like a dialect. Glad that’s settled.

Anyone up for a good game of whack-a-mole?

NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily (Guardian)

[Guardian]Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama

Under the terms of the order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data and the time and duration of all calls.

Glenn Greenwald

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government’s domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

The Guardian approached the National Security Agency, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment in advance of publication on Wednesday. All declined. The agencies were also offered the opportunity to raise specific security concerns regarding the publication of the court order.

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI’s request for its customers’ records, or the court order itself.

“We decline comment,” said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman.

The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compels Verizon to produce to the NSA electronic copies of “all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls”.

The order directs Verizon to “continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order”. It specifies that the records to be produced include “session identifying information”, such as “originating and terminating number”, the duration of each call, telephone calling card numbers, trunk identifiers, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, and “comprehensive communication routing information”.

The information is classed as “metadata”, or transactional information, rather than communications, and so does not require individual warrants to access. The document also specifies that such “metadata” is not limited to the aforementioned items. A 2005 court ruling judged that cell site location data – the nearest cell tower a phone was connected to – was also transactional data, and so could potentially fall under the scope of the order.

While the order itself does not include either the contents of messages or the personal information of the subscriber of any particular cell number, its collection would allow the NSA to build easily a comprehensive picture of who any individual contacted, how and when, and possibly from where, retrospectively.

It is not known whether Verizon is the only cell-phone provider to be targeted with such an order, although previous reporting has suggested the NSA has collected cell records from all major mobile networks. It is also unclear from the leaked document whether the three-month order was a one-off, or the latest in a series of similar orders.

The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Obama administration’s surveillance activities.

For roughly two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on “secret legal interpretations” to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be “stunned” to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted.

Because those activities are classified, the senators, both members of the Senate intelligence committee, have been prevented from specifying which domestic surveillance programs they find so alarming. But the information they have been able to disclose in their public warnings perfectly tracks both the specific law cited by the April 25 court order as well as the vast scope of record-gathering it authorized.

Julian Sanchez, a surveillance expert with the Cato Institute, explained: “We’ve certainly seen the government increasingly strain the bounds of ‘relevance’ to collect large numbers of records at once — everyone at one or two degrees of separation from a target — but vacuuming all metadata up indiscriminately would be an extraordinary repudiation of any pretence of constraint or particularized suspicion.” The April order requested by the FBI and NSA does precisely that.

The law on which the order explicitly relies is the so-called “business records” provision of the Patriot Act, 50 USC section 1861. That is the provision which Wyden and Udall have repeatedly cited when warning the public of what they believe is the Obama administration’s extreme interpretation of the law to engage in excessive domestic surveillance.

In a letter to attorney general Eric Holder last year, they argued that “there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows.”

“We believe,” they wrote, “that most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted” the “business records” provision of the Patriot Act.

Privacy advocates have long warned that allowing the government to collect and store unlimited “metadata” is a highly invasive form of surveillance of citizens’ communications activities. Those records enable the government to know the identity of every person with whom an individual communicates electronically, how long they spoke, and their location at the time of the communication.

Such metadata is what the US government has long attempted to obtain in order to discover an individual’s network of associations and communication patterns. The request for the bulk collection of all Verizon domestic telephone records indicates that the agency is continuing some version of the data-mining program begun by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

The NSA, as part of a program secretly authorized by President Bush on 4 October 2001, implemented a bulk collection program of domestic telephone, internet and email records. A furore erupted in 2006 when USA Today reported that the NSA had “been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth” and was “using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity.” Until now, there has been no indication that the Obama administration implemented a similar program.

These recent events reflect how profoundly the NSA’s mission has transformed from an agency exclusively devoted to foreign intelligence gathering, into one that focuses increasingly on domestic communications. A 30-year employee of the NSA, William Binney, resigned from the agency shortly after 9/11 in protest at the agency’s focus on domestic activities.

In the mid-1970s, Congress, for the first time, investigated the surveillance activities of the US government. Back then, the mandate of the NSA was that it would never direct its surveillance apparatus domestically.

At the conclusion of that investigation, Frank Church, the Democratic senator from Idaho who chaired the investigative committee, warned: “The NSA’s capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter.”

Additional reporting by Ewen MacAskill and Spencer Ackerman

http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

 

A big H/T to Dave for this article

Official “tolerance” alliance agenda with Muslims and Islam

DOJ: Social Media Posts Trashing Muslims May Violate Civil Rights

Judicial Watch – May 30, 2013 [*emphasis mine]

 

In its latest effort to protect followers of Islam in the U.S. the Obama Justice Department warns against using social media to spread information considered inflammatory against Muslims, threatening that it could constitute a violation of civil rights.

The move comes a few years after the administration became the first in history to dispatch a U.S. Attorney General to personally reassure Muslims that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is dedicated to protecting them. In the unprecedented event, Attorney General Eric Holder assured a San Francisco-based organization (Muslim Advocates) that urges members not to cooperate in federal terrorism investigations that the “us versus them” environment created by the U.S. government, law enforcement agents and fellow citizens is unacceptable and inconsistent with what America is all about.

“Muslims and Arab Americans have helped build and strengthen our nation,” Holder said after expressing that he is “grateful” to have Muslims as a partner in promoting tolerance, ensuring public safety and protecting civil rights. He also vowed to strengthen “crucial dialogue” between Muslim and Arab-American communities and law enforcement.

Evidently that was a precursor of sorts for an upcoming Tennessee event (“Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society”) that will feature the region’s top DOJ official, who serves as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and an FBI representative. The goal is to increase awareness and understanding that American Muslims are not the terrorists some have made them out to be in social media and other circles, according to a local newspaper report. The June 4 powwow is sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee.

The area’s top federal prosecutor, Bill Killian, will address a topic that most Americans are likely unfamiliar with, even those well versed on the Constitution; that federal civil rights laws can actually be violated by those who post inflammatory documents aimed at Muslims on social media. “This is an educational effort with civil rights laws as they play into freedom of religion and exercising freedom of religion,” Killian says in the local news story. “This is also to inform the public what federal laws are in effect and what the consequences are.”

The DOJ political appointee adds in the article that the upcoming presentation will also focus on Muslim culture with a special emphasis on the fact that the religion is no different from others, even though some in the faith have committed terrorist acts, Christians have done the same. As an example he offers that the worst terrorist attack in the U.S. prior to 9/11 was committed by American Christians in Oklahoma City. He also mentioned the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting last year in which another Christian, an American white supremacist, fatally shot six people and wounded four others.

“Some of the finest people I’ve met are Muslims,” Killian said, adding later: “We want to inform everybody about what the law is, but more importantly, we want to provide what the law means to Muslims, Hindus and every other religion in the country. It’s why we came here in the first place. In England, they were using Christianity to further their power in government. That’s why the First Amendment is there.”

Over the years the Obama administration has embarked on a fervent crusade to befriend Muslims by creating a variety of outreach programs at a number of key federal agencies. For instance the nation’s Homeland Security covertly met with a group of extremist Arab, Muslim and Sikh organizations to discuss national security matters and the State Department sent a controversial, anti-America Imam (Feisal Abdul Rauf) to the Middle East to foster greater understanding and outreach among Muslim majority communities.

The Obama Administration has also hired a special Homeland Security adviser (Mohamed Elibiary) who openly supports a radical Islamist theologian and renowned jihadist ideologue and a special Islam envoy that condemns U.S. prosecutions of terrorists as “politically motivated persecutions” and has close ties to radical extremist groups.

The president has even ordered the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to shift its mission from space exploration to Muslim diplomacy and the government started a special service that delivers halal meals, prepared according to Islamic law, to home-bound seniors in Detroit. Who could forget Hillary Clinton’s special order allowing the reentry of two radical Islamic academics whose terrorist ties have long banned them from the U.S.?

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2013/05/doj-social-media-posts-trashing-muslims-may-violate-civil-rights/

Better yet, from the local Tennessee paper:

Group sets meeting to increase tolerance of Muslims, culture

Tullahoma News
May21, 2013  [excerpt – informational]

CITY EDITOR
Brian Justice

A special meeting has been scheduled for the stated purpose of increasing awareness and understanding that American Muslims are not the terrorists some have made them out to be in social media and other circles.

“Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society” will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 4, at the Manchester-Coffee County Conference Center, 147 Hospitality Blvd.

Special speakers for the event will be Bill Killian, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and Kenneth Moore, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Knoxville Division.

Sponsor of the event is the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee — a 15-member board formed two years ago when the General Assembly was considering passing legislation that would restrict those who worship Sharia Law, which is followed by Muslims.

Killian and Moore will provide input on how civil rights can be violated by those who post inflammatory documents targeted at Muslims on social media.

“This is an educational effort with civil rights laws as they play into freedom of religion and exercising freedom of religion,” Killian told The News Monday. “This is also to inform the public what federal laws are in effect and what the consequences are.”

Killian said the presentation will also focus on Muslim culture and how, that although terrorist acts have been committed by some in the faith, they are no different from those in other religions.

He referred to the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing in which Timothy McVeigh, an American terrorist, detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. Commonly referred to as the Oklahoma City Bombing, the attack killed 168 people and injured more than 800.
../

Zak Mohyuddin, a Muslim Advisory Council member, said a shortened version of a documentary called “Welcome to Shelbyville” will also be featured.

The documentary, produced by the Public Broadcasting Service, spotlights recent demographic changes in nearby Shelbyville, with a focus on the growing number of immigrants from Latin America and Somalia with many Somalis from the Bantu minority ethnic group which practices Islam.

Read more: http://www.tullahomanews.com/?p=15360

—-

Thanks to Just Gene for the tip

I could write a thesis on the problems with this. But using Tim McVeigh as defense example? That one is really getting old. The truth is we’ve heard a whole lot since McVeigh. The left throws it out every opportunity they get, constantly using that bombing to indict the entire right – the outspoken right, evangelical or otherwise.  Along with extorting McVeigh as an example of the Christian faith,  which is a real stretch. They’ve done that for years.

Do you hear any mass hysteria about that bigotry speech toward the right? Never.  An American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee? What parallels are there to that?

Now too cute by half Muslims want to use McVeigh as a centerpiece to validate their case? That was one incident and the truth is, like in Boston, it is brought up all the time. It’s always thrown up to conservatives even when it doesn’t apply. But do they ever mention the Waco or Ruby Ridge episodes? No, just ol’ deranged Tim McVeigh – who  also justified killing children and innocent civilians as collateral damage. I don’t remember him having a following, and there was no shortage of people condemning it from…lets see….EVERYWHERE! But selective outrage and memory fails them about Jackboot Reno and the power of the “Justice” department.

Imagine the administration and DoJ engaging in collaborative efforts with those sorts of people?  Then look how they treated Tea Parties and patriots. Remember the memos about right-wing political extremists, with their suspicion lists including even soldiers returning. (soldiers a threat, not Islamists)  More of their version of fairness and social justice?

Anyway, they get a full VIP- audience to Muslims’ concerns from DoJ and the administration. When was the last tine the justice department sought to comfort your concerns as Christians or Jews? About government oppression? Or if you are an illegal or Hispanic, they give them an 800 number to call DoJ. But for Christians, they get the crushing power of government aimed at them and the cold shoulder treatment, as the IRS scandal shows. They all made Tim McVeigh into a millstone to hang around conservatives and Christians, they politicized it too.

Let’s not forget their crackdown on military chaplains praying in Jesus name, or the recent warnings about evangelizing in the military. And on, and on. Where does it end? This is no slippery slope, this is a cliff.

“Cozy on, dudes!” We have Islamophobia?
Related posts: Shariafying Government, Obama cozies up with Muslim Brotherhood.

Our Enslaved Free Press

This article is really good reposted at The Merry Poppins blogspot.

You can link to the original full article from there.

Maser Media, Dianny Rants

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Free Press has become enslaved.

To believe otherwise, is self-delusion.

But it wasn’t enslaved by a tyrannical government; it willingly enslaved itself. …/

http://themerrypoppins.blogspot.com/2013/01/liberalism-enslaving-our-free-press.html

No lack of politicking from pulpits

Can’t get no, can’t get no… satisfaction … no, no, no. [part 1]

I never imagined saying this, but our problem today does not stem from a lack of taking on political issues from the pulpit. No. Wait; hold the tomatoes! It’s just that when they do mention anything related to politics, it is mostly a sanitized politically correct view. I know that is not every church or pulpit. Some pastors treat social issues equally serious.

But many pastors and clergy who will not talk about something in any way related to politics often do find their voice, but on other political matters. One could make a list: social justice, peace, being thy brother’s keeper, not judging others, not using certain outdated labels that may sound offensive, tolerance, and so on. So it is just so-called hot button issues they will not talk about – i.e. abortion, gay marriage, etc. Is that what we are called to do, effectively “screen” our speech? And to do it for political correctness?

(Note: keep in mind that I had written this a while ago, over a year, as the elections were still heating up)

I recently got schooled from the pulpit about vocal support and candidate endorsements. The sermon was basically we should “be very cautious about endorsing” in politics. (one notable Texas pastor’s endorsement of Perry was Exhibit A) You can read into that, ‘you ought to refrain from publicly endorsing politics or candidates’. You would be reading my mind too. The basis was probably meant as endorsing from the pulpit but there it was in broad daylight, an anti-activism type message to Christians.

It is far deeper than just candidate endorsements of clergy from the pulpit, the same principle is then applied to all politics and all of us. Message: stay clear of politics. You also might correctly assume the basis for all this was ‘render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s’. The actual passage and I’ll give various scriptures:

Mark 12:15-17
But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?”

“Caesar’s,” they replied.

17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

Matt 17:24-27
Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”

25 “Yes, he does,” he replied.

When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes — from their own sons or from others?”

26 “From others,” Peter answered.

“Then the sons are exempt,” Jesus said to him. 27 “But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

This is usually the reference used

Matt 22:17-21
17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?”

21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Of course, many use that latter exchange to broadly lecture us to “Give to Caesar’s what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Thus, since this politics stuff is rendered Caesar’s turf now, it all therefore belongs to him. “Go back to your prayer closet, Christians.” The truth is our life and rights come from God. With that we have some responsibility. We are accountable to God. And we are responsible for our leadership, and choices.

Something similar may unfold in the Middle East, in countries where people are crawling out from under brutal dictators. We might sympathize with them but they could be headed down a tough road – do they know it? That is, if as they say claims are true that they strive for democracy. Whether that is really the case or not, let us accept that premise for now. They might discover the ideal is not as simple as it sounds. They will share some responsibility for their democracy at some point. Then, they cannot just blame a tyrant and authorities for the results. They will have to accept some blame for problems and consequences, or reap credit when things go well. So they might have a few surprises ahead, such as accountability. It will not be easy for those who have not experienced “freedom” before. Providing they get that far … and that is their goal.

We have the example of Jesus crucifixion. Remember Pilate washed his hands of the deed, or tried to, in as much as the event was already in process. He wanted to escape responsibility for Jesus’ death. Though we still associate Pilate with Jesus’ crucifixion. In Acts, the apostles made it known to political elites that they had a shared responsibility for His death. That was not a convenient message they wanted to hear, and it did not tickle their ears. In fact, they wanted to shut down the apostles for that reason. It made them look bad. Some people suggest “…but we must keep clear of politics.” But we can see in Christ’s time the air was thick with politics.

The Sadducees didn’t care much for the resurrection message; and the apostles didn’t care to be silenced by political pressure. The point is the apostles did not stop preaching, even as it was seen as a form of political speech and dissent with powers that be. On the contrary, they prayed and with the help of the Holy Spirit grew bolder in speaking out. (even to those who sent Jesus to his death)

I don’t read those events as an example to stifle or tone down one’s message to suit elite politicos, and cede one’s virtue to authorities or powers that be. Likewise, those cautious clergy today never suggest taking a silent approach on, say, the “social justice” agenda. They endorse that. The social justice advocates will demand taking a bold approach to preferred “social issues” – just not certain others – while likening their stand to bold traditional Christian activism.

So my instinctive reaction about ceding certain aspects, political issues or turf to powers that be – under the guise of giving to Caesar what is his – is to remember Pilate. Are we to reject our own responsibility for the circumstances we are in and our God-given rights, remaining silent, then try to wash our hands of the blame for the results in view of the consequences? That would be slightly hypocritical, wouldn’t it? Should we render to Caesar the all-encompassing political turf, stifling our conscience or virtue, and cede all “controversial” social matters to his authority? Politics have usurped cultural matters

Our first allegiance is still to God. If I silence my voice, or cede to status quo those matters over to political authorities or others, I cannot escape accountability. I still bear some responsibility for the outcome. So what then about what we owe God?

The double standards are amplified when the pulpits do talk about their pet issues, social justice and peace. They want to do that “loudly and proudly”. Seriously, are the rest of us demanding injustice, or are we actively opposing peace just for the sake of it? It’s been a while since I attended a good anti-peace march, or a rally against justice. Sorry, I never did and don’t know anyone who has. But I somehow am vehemently against peace and justice according to them, if you follow their accusation to its logical conclusion. That is, to follow their entire “social justice” agenda – as they define it. In fact, they actually posit in their rhetoric that, unless we jump aboard their political agenda, we must be anti-peace or anti-social justice. Many Christians resent that insinuation but it does exist. Many Christians have signed on to that. (one only has to look at the [message of churches])

It’s like that with “99-percenters”, Wall Street Occupiers. They point to everyone outside that 1 percentile of wealth as part of the 99% they speak for. Thus, we must be part of that 1%, then, if we don’t agree with their agenda. I think there are more than 1% of us who look past this fallacy and their unreasonable approach. Some Christians are disgusted by these political tactics. But many buy into them.

When I hear preachers and leftists claim their staunch support for social justice, I wonder who is opposed to justice? It must need a whole lot of defending. Of course, their subjective, ever-evolving definition of “social justice” holds the real key to them.(and we are beholden to their definition) But in simple and clear terms, supporting true justice or peace is a no-brainer. Who could really disagree? We can support justice. It’s a fallacy that we do not.

However, many of these passionate advocates are reluctant to take on matters of abortion, gay marriage, or state-sponsored euthanasia from the pulpits. (all presently ensconced in politics) Their ‘passion pond’ dries up quickly. Statistics are reserved for issues like war or hunger. No, those “political” issues are too controversial. “Better to wash our hands of those. We don’t want the stains that come with those.” In doing so, they advise the flock to leave those “cultural” matters alone. But if their advocacy were not so lopsided and full of double standards, it probably would look much different.

We may better ask if we are really cheating God and not rendering to God what is His? And are we giving Caesar more power authority and control than he should have? Those questions do not seem to come up.

Today, rendering to Caesar not just what is his but what he wants is far more popular and convenient than giving to God what is God’s.

The message is clear: “everything will be fine if you just leave those divisive, controversial, cultural matters alone.” Leave that all to Caesar. Otherwise, full steam ahead. Some see all this as “a culture war”, but I think it’s more like ‘cultural survival of the best fit’, to compliant Christians.

So some clergy can keep right on making blanket disclaimers about not endorsing any specific political candidates or Party politics. But they will likely keep right on endorsing specific “preferred” political issues .

Part 2 to follow
(continued- Part 2 )

MY comment: That’s as good as saying: “planet Zohr was directly in line with Poluto and the sign of Aquarius was in distress through the month of November, causing internal conflict with the sun. Basically a very bad time for truth telling in DC. And had it not been for that Romney guy…. ”

Consider it explained.

Socialism is not the Answer

THE 1^st AMENDMENT WAS MURDERED IN BENGHAZI TOO – Earlier this week, in an astonishing admission of dereliction during an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan, ABC News Senior White House Correspondent, Jake Tapper, blamed the failure of the mainstream media to cover the Benghazi story before the election on “intense politicization” of the story, saying that it was because of “republican conspiracy theories” that made it impossible for he and the leftist, pro-Obama media to do its job.  Tapper also said that one of the reasons the leftist media was guilty of journalistic malpractice in covering the murder of four Americans by terrorists was because they “didn’t want to interfere with the Obama Administrations positive narrative about Al Qaeda”.

Now, AP Columnists Kim Dozier and Nedra Pickler have published an insidious and deceptive story claiming that the reason Obama and members of his administration were justified in lying to…

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