Our Civil Liberties, May They Rest in Peace

I haven't visited or contributed to this blog in a long time, but I think it's of paramount importance that recent events be told.

Yesterday, 12/15/2011, Congress approved a bill that would allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens who were considered to be terrorists, aiding terrorists, or other enemies of the state.

Shortly thereafter, a group known simply as "Anonymous" released a video detailing the dire consequences of this bill:




After seeing this very chilling and eerie video, I, like a loon, became very curious about the origin and nature of the group who released it. As they say, curiosity killed the cat.

I somehow, through my poking around, stumbled onto a site detailing press releases from "Anonymous" and from there, somehow found the main site where this group meets.

I'm detailing my experiences here, so that you, and those whom I already know are reading may know I, as an individual, am not a threat, am not associated with this group, and have no information further than what can be accessed by anyone else online.

After finding this site, I found further information. Again, I bit, and pursued.

I watched several videos by the group Anonymous, and from there, watched many videos posted by one simply known as wellaware1. These videos, very convincingly, make the case that:


- Many of the worldwide revolutions have been staged.

- Many of the child disappearances have been staged - what percentage of them, no one knows.

- The #occupy movement is staged, and is a sham. This hurts me to say, as I was a very big supporter, and honestly thought we had touched a string for a peaceful grassroots movement to instigate fundamental change. This is not so. And the evidence is hard to deny.


As of this morning, after poking my nose around in places I'm sure it shouldn't have been:

- I have several new suspect characters stalking my political contributions online from several sources. (Yes, I noticed.)

- I've noticed a long string of strangely consistent hits on this blog, even though its been months since I've written on it or contributed anything to it at all.

- TODAY, I AM BLACKLISTED (account suspended) FROM ACCESSING THE WHITE HOUSE WEBSITE. 


Friends, before you institutionalize me, I know this sounds like something out of the x-files and I myself wouldn't believe it if it weren't happening to me. I may be currently on the enemy of the state watch-list and with the passage of this new bill, if it is signed into law, I genuinely fear for what happens next.

Spend time with your family. Prepare yourself for emergencies, just in case. Pay attention to the things that matter. I'd also recommend you do not snoop around like I did, but I'd hate to be a hypocrite.

I'd like to reiterate, for the record, I am not a threat, I am not affiliated with Anonymous, nor do I know anything further about them.

We Managed to Skirt Economapocalypse - Yay!

Good day folks!


So we’ve just passed the budget/ debt-ceiling raise and narrowly averted what I’ve been referring to as “Economapocalypse.” Because the deal was passed in the eleventh hour, there are plenty of questions about what this bill actually contains.


View the “Budget Control Act of 2011” in its final version here: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s365enr/pdf/BILLS-112s365enr.pdf



Some points of interest within the Bill:


1)Caps the amount that is available for an increase to the budget of the Disability portion of Social Security to $1,309,000,000 for additional new budget authority by 2017, to be continued at that rate from that point forward.


2)Introduces limits for additional new budget authority for Healthcare Fraud and Abuse control. (Similar to the caps on Social Security Disability.)


3)DISASTER RELIEF. This is a measure I’m particularly concerned about given the recent wave of devastating natural disasters in the U.S. This measure would limit the amount of disaster relief spending on any given incident to an average of disaster relief spending over the last 10 years, excluding both the highest and the lowest years.


4)Sets Discretionary Budget increase limits per each year. Discretionary spending includes both the security and non-security categories. Here is the breakdown over the next decade or so for the additional discretionary budget authority by year:


2012      $1,043,000,000,000
2013      $1,047,000,000,000
2014      $1,066,000,000,000
2015      $1,086,000,000,000
2016      $1,107,000,000,000
2017      $1,131,000,000,000
2018      $1,156,000,000,000
2019      $1,182,000,000,000
2020     $1,208,000,000,000
2021      $1,234,000,000,000


Certainly, there is tons and tons of material to read through, but those are some big factors in this legislation. Also of note are multiple changes to the higher education funding system, specifically to Pell grants, but I have not yet had time to review that portion of the legislation so I can’t tell you exactly what is contained within. There are also concerns regarding the creation of a “Super Congress” which is a newly created committee consisting of 3 members from each party that will act in some capacity of budget enforcement. Lastly, there are extreme implications for the judicial system including the questionable level of increase of judiciary authority (“legislating from the bench” or, activist judges) as well as a potential decrease in the level of court accessibility for tort and other average citizen-brought cases.


There is definitely a lot of information to sift through here and I’m positive we haven’t heard the last of this mess. Take some time to review the legislation yourself too and let me know if there is anything in particular you would like me to further research!

Im Back!

Sorry I have not been more attentive to my political blog, followers and readers!! My sincere apologies because some real shit has gone down in Washington lately.

That being said, I'm going to take today to re-vamp the blog a bit and get back to posting so you can all get back to reading.

Thanks guys!!!

The Re-Re-Re-Invention of the Wheel

Read the Story Here:White House Deficit Talks Coming Apart At The Seams

Both House and Senate members today released their picks for budget negotiations liaisons for their respective parties. Both Republicans and Democrats chose to send far fewer than the number of legislators requested by President Obama (8 from each party), and many of the picks on both sides of the aisle are already becoming controversial, threatening to slow or severely complicate the formation of a working budget by September.

After what was a narrowly avoided political and financial disaster regarding passing a new Federal budget just a few weeks ago, here we sit, deadlocked yet again.

Both parties in the last round of budget fiasco were both forced to cherry-pick which pet programs would be sacrificed and which would be saved. Obviously, the right vying for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and the Defense budget while taking a machete to the rest of the Federal Government and the left attempting to save programs that help the poorest in America as well as fighting to preserve programs such as the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), Planned Parenthood subsidies, as well as their biggest accomplishment of the prior legislative session – health insurance reform.

So instead of bickering over the minutest of details and facts, can we simply apply some common sense here and quit wasting everyone’s time?

Every single budget discussion quickly turns into a partisan shit fest where every program, its effectiveness, and its funding are called into question. While I feel those factors probably do need to be addressed, I would think that’s something we would do prior to having these talks.

All of that aside, why do we attack the Federal Budget like we’ve never done this before? Go back about a decade to the Clinton administration. We had a budget surplus. Not only a budget surplus, but a robust and booming economy in which the Middle Class grew like weeds, the top 2% were still the top 2%, and the poorest folks in America at least knew their children had a shot at the Middle Class if they studied and worked hard.

And I’ll be honest – I don’t particularly care who can take the credit for that budget. Point is, we have already found a model that works exceedingly well. Let’s go back to both the spending levels and the revenue levels of the mid-90’s and see where that takes us. All spending an equal percentage of the GDP as it was back then, all taxes back to those rates for everyone.

This is your “EASY” button, Federal Government. All you have to do is push it.

Apparently, We Love Blowing Sh!t Up.

Read the Story Here:Operation Odyssey Dawn: U.S. Launches Military Strikes in Libya

On Saturday, March 19th, the U.S. launched an attack against Gadhafi's air defenses from an aircraft carrier stationed in the Medierranian Sea to protect the U.N. sanctined "no fly zone" around Libya. Missiles were launched in the name of "support operations" to protect French and other military air operations following numerous impositions of sanctions against Gadhafi and Libya.

I am SO MAD about this!!!! We shouldn't even have gotten involved in this in the first place. We have two other unsuccessful wars already in the region and if the U.N. wants to do something about Gadaffi, why are WE the ones footing the bill??

I know we fired 122 missiles...those missiles cost roughly $500,000 each.

That, my friends is = $61,000,000 total.

In other words, the cost of firing those missiles could have paid fully for yearly salaries and full benefits for 813 teachers!!!! We have got some seriously misplaced priorities when we'd rather bomb other countries than educate our own citizens.

Perhaps I would feel differently about this IF:

If we weren't so selective in deciding precisely who receives our support (think Sudan).

If we weren't fracking BROKE as a nation due to our military operations in the first place.

If we hadn't already lost so many of our soldiers in the past decade.

If we didn't already have two failing wars under our belt.

If the U.N. would foot part of the bill.

Now generally speaking, I am a huge human rights activist. However, I do not feel our involvement in the region is appropriate. I understand we have an interest in the outcome and that it would be prudent of us to help these revolutionaries as opposed to be on the receiving end of their resentment, if they are successful on their own, for supporting their tyrannical leaders in the first place. Every country has had a revolution and has been left to its own devices to sort out for themselves, a government that reflects the will and wishes of the people. By middling in that process, we are not allowing things to take their course and will end up resented for that anyway.

So why bother??

This is not an argument for intervention, but rather a damn good argument against it. If we had never bothered to take sides in these matters, we wouldn’t be back-peddling against our own current. I continue to think about all the self-sustaining, peaceful, nations who keep to themselves and only have excellent education, modern infrastructure, wonderful healthcare, and happy citizens who have some of the highest approval ratings of their government in the entire world, as a result.

Hope in February's Unemployment Numbers

Read the story here:Unemployment Rate Falls in February, U.S. Adds 192K Jobs

Unemployment numbers from February indicate a small decrease in overall U.S. unemployment figures dropping to 8.9% from a steady 9% throughout most of the winter season. The private sector added 192,000 jobs last month, almost double the monthly average from all months last year. Job growth occured in sectors such as healthcare, construction, and office administration. The last time the U.S. saw this number of jobs added was in 2006 however, the percentage of American's seeking work remains at just 64.2%, a very low rate comparable to March of 1984.

To me, this seems like news to expend a little bit of hope over. It's not that unemployment is significantly down but more so that job growth is significantly up. I was curious as to how this data played out so I made myself a graph I'd like to share:

It may be difficult to read the legend so let me fill you in: Everything in BLUE represents 2008 so you can blame all that mess on the Bush Administration. The rest of the bars you can blame on the Obama Administration as he took office January 20, 2009 with RED = 2009, GREEN = 2010, and PURPLE = 2011. I'm sure everyone noted that the positive gains were all post-Bush. ;) Or, here is another way you can look at the data. The purple chunks represent a chronological timeline beginning with the same time period, January 2008 moving through to today's data, February 2011. The green line is the number of jobs either added or lost during that time:

So in short, we have been on nothing but an upwards trend with jobs starting with Obama's move into office. Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of measures this administration could have taken that would have pulled us out of this crap a lot faster, but the numbers don't lie and we are seeing improvement.

Before I get too high up on my horse, I would like to mention the one factor that could either plop us straight back into the middle of this recession, or pull us straight out - gas prices. There is speculation on both sides of this and I tend to agree with the former in that this is going to harm, not help our situation. Those who say the rise in gas prices may help believe that it could significantly impact other countries who pay a lot more for oil than we do here and as a result, manufacturing jobs may start coming home where oil is cheaper to use. I can't say I'm that optimistic. We, as a country, have very limited alternatives for the ground transportation of products that doesn't involve a couple of tanks of gasoline. True we may pay less per gallon for it, but due to the size of our country, the overall costs of ground transportation are stunning and definetly higher than our Chinese counter-parts who have the option of using a mag-train, therefore negating the rise in oil.

I do think this is a positive trend and overall good news so keep your chin up 99er's!

Tennessee Proposes Felony Charges for Freedom of Religion

Read the story here: Tennessee Considers Bill That Makes Following Shariah A Felony

The Tennessee State legislature is currently considering a bill that would make observing some versions and portions of Shariah a felony. The bill is backed by a conservative advocacy group with ties to the same group attempting to block the so-called "Ground Zero" mosque and represents yet another attempt to limit religious freedoms for Muslims in the US. Muslims fear that this could fundamentally fracture the way they worship due to the obtuse nature of the proposed regulations. Proponents of the bill say this measure gives them powerful counter-terrorism tools and that it simply attempts to outlaw the most extreme Islamic practices - peacefully practicing Muslims would be exempt from these laws.

Last time I checked, freedom of religion in this nation was a constitutionally guaranteed right. But that was yesterday. I feel pretty confident issuing the prediction that this will not stand up in The Supreme Court, which is where it will end up if this passes and we are talking about Tennessee here, but then again this court has already committed greater atrocities against established precedent. However, I would certainly call this easily unconstitutional, so instead of talking about the varying loads of legal cases that back this up, I’d like to first of all explain what Shariah law actually is.

Shariah law is the sacred law of the Muslim religion that derives from the Qur’an and the teachings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Since most of us are familiar with the basics of Christianity, it is very similar to the moral code of conduct Christians derive from both the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Also, just as with Christianity, there are several different sects and degrees of belief including fundamentalists, traditionalists, and modernists. Shariah law typically addresses secular issues such as crime and money but also addresses personal conduct in matter of sexuality, morality, prayer, etc.

“Nadeem Siddiqi, a 35-year-old American Muslim entrepreneur … said Shariah governs his life."Shariah is how I know how to fast in the month of Ramadan; how I wash before my prayers," he said. "It also directs me in how much charity I need to give to the poor. It orders me to be honest and fair in my business dealings."

Now that we have established that there is nothing fundamentally extremist about the nature of Shariah law, next I want to look at what the proponents of the bill are saying. What could possibly lead them to want to ban portions of someone’s moral compass?

Tennessee republican Sen. Bill Ketron who sponsors the bill:

"[the bill condemns those] who take Shariah law to the other extreme."
"a powerful counterterrorism tool."

Clearly, this represents a broad misunderstanding of not only Shariah, but also of the US Constitution. We do not ban portions of someone’s religion in this country, be it extreme or benign. Regardless, associating terrorism with Shariah law is nothing short of attacking the Muslim religion as being held responsible for the attacks on September 11th. Conservatives have long insisted that they are not blaming Islam as a religion for these attacks – this proposal strips away any slimy film of that notion. Shariah in practice does not mandate Jihad, just as Christianity in practice does not impose a 10 year debt-forgiveness schedule. Anyone who’s had a credit card or a mortgage for 11 years is painfully aware of that fact!

The thing you must remember is that when it comes to protecting our freedom of religion, an attack upon one religion, any religion, is an attack upon all of them. Sure it's on Islam now, but who is to say that your belief system, or lack thereof, isn’t next on the list? Now would be a good time to practice some personal Shariah and treat others as you would have them do unto you.