A Satirical Dream: Trump’s 2019 State of the Union Address

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans:

It’s been another year since your president has stood before you to, once again, deliver yet another State of the Union address.

Tonight, however, will not be the standard fare.  Instead of half-truths and false optimism, I am going to set aside all that in order to say what I believe is true.

Dear citizens, we now stand a crossroads and we must choose.  We must choose if we are to move forward and deal with the real problems facing our nation, or to progress as a country of corruption; whether to return to our roots as an honorable republic – a nation of laws,  or to continue our decline into lawlessness and the abyss.

Continue reading “A Satirical Dream: Trump’s 2019 State of the Union Address”

Stabbing With Their Steely Knives, They Just Can’t Kill the Beast

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor…

– Ezekiel 28: 15-17

In horror stories originating from the times of the first songs there have always been common enemies.  Creatures of sinister intelligence, blind violence, disingenuity, clever crafters of schemes, or often containing the capacity for all of these; lurking in the dark, or hidden in plain sight, but always waiting and watching.  Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs suffered through the antics of wily wolves. Rapunzel and Hansel and Gretel agonized before the wicked wills of warted witches; and with Jack of Beanstalk fame it was jeering giants who longed to grind his bones for bread, alive or dead.  Star Wars had Darth Vader and the Lords of the Sith, whereas it was the evil eye of Sauron that ruled over J.R.R Tolkien’s shadowy land of Mordor.  And for most of the world’s religions today it remains Lucifer, the morning star, who fell from heaven by the weight of a prideful heart and now reigns as the Prince and Power of the Air; tempting, taunting, and tantalizing, all of mankind.

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Gestapo America

Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts

FBI Director James Comey got Hillary off the hook but wants to put you on it. He is pushing hard for warrantless access to all of your Internet activity.

Comey, who would have fit in perfectly with Hitler’s Gestapo, tells Congress that the United States is not safe unless the FBI knows when every American goes online, to whom they are sending emails and from whom they are receiving emails, and knows every website visited by every American.

In other words, Comey wants to render null and void the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution and completely destroy your privacy rights.

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Warrants? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Warrants!

Guest Post by Eric Peters

America is becoming unrecognizable. The landscape is still familiar; the flag looks the same. But it is a changed placed.Life in the Homeland

And some places are more changed than others.

In New Jersey, the state Supreme Court has just ruled that a cop can search your vehicle if you are pulled over for any reason – and without a warrant.

A defective turn signal, for instance.

Or a seatbelt “violation.”

Basically, the NJ court has ruled that once a cop turns on his emergency lights, your Fourth Amendment rights have been forfeited.

It used to be (and still is, in other states) that more in the way of evidence or at least, “reasonable suspicion” that the car’s driver or occupants had done something else (besides the alleged traffic infraction) was necessary before the cop could – legally – search the vehicle.

Not buckling up for “safety,” for instance, was insufficient, by itself, to legally justify searching either the driver or his vehicle.

The cop needed a warrant.NJ SA on parade

“I do not consent to any searches.”

“Am I free to go?”

Not anymore.

It used to be that the cop was empowered to check the driver’s papers (license, registration, proof of insurance) but – absent some additional grounds for suspicion – that was as far as he could take it.

Continue reading “Warrants? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Warrants!”

Rand Paul: ‘Disingenuous’ Obama Can Stop NSA Spying Any Time He Wants

“Why doesn’t he stop it? What’s he waiting for?”

Guest Post by Steve Watson

Fresh from his marathon filibuster of the proposed extension to the government snooping enabling section of the Patriot Act, Senator Rand Paul slammed the President this morning, accusing Obama of being deceitful over the issue.

Appearing on CBS, Paul noted “Here’s the thing about the president: He’s disingenuous about this,” the Kentucky Republican said on ‘This Morning.’ “The president started this program through executive order — he could end it anytime.”

The Senator also noted that the NSA bulk collection was recently ruled illegal by a federal appellate panel.

“Why doesn’t he stop it? What’s he waiting for?” Mr. Paul said. “He [says], ‘Oh, Congress can stop it.’ He started it on his own. He should stop it, and I’ve asked the president repeatedly, ‘Stop the program.’ “

Paul also refused to be drawn into an argument with anchor Charlie Rose who accused him of using the NSA issue to “sell books”.

Instead Paul stuck to the point, noting that he is not being unreasonable, “I’m just asking for two amendments and a simple majority vote” Paul stated.

“I think sometimes my party gets all caught up in the Second Amendment, which is fine, but we don’t protect the Fourth Amendment enough,” he added.” But actually I think neither party ends up protecting the Fourth Amendment enough, which is the right to privacy.”

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FOURTH TURNING – THE SHADOW OF CRISIS HAS NOT PASSED – PART TWO

In Part One of this article I laid the groundwork of the Fourth Turning generational theory. I refuted President Obama’s claim that the shadow of crisis has passed. The shadow grows ever larger and will engulf the world in darkness in the coming years. The Crisis will be fueled by the worsening debt, civic decay and global disorder. I will address these issues in this article.

Debt, Civic Decay & Global Disorder

The core elements propelling this Crisis – debt, civic decay, and global disorder – were obvious over a decade before the financial meltdown catalyst sparked this ongoing two decade long Crisis. With the following issues unresolved, the shadow of this crisis has only grown larger and more ominous:

Debt

  • The national debt has risen by $7 trillion (64%) to $18.1 trillion since 2009 and continues to accelerate by $2.3 billion per day, on track to surpass $20 trillion before Obama leaves office and $25 trillion by 2019.

  • The national debt as a percentage of GDP is currently 103% (it would be 106% if the BEA hadn’t decided to positively “adjust” GDP up by $500 billion last year). It is on course to reach 120% by 2019. Rogoff and Reinhart have documented the fact countries that surpass 90% experience economic turmoil, decline, and ultimately currency collapse and debt default.
  • Despite the housing collapse and hundreds of billions in mortgage, credit card, auto, and corporate debt being written off, dumped on the backs of taxpayers and hidden on the Federal Reserve balance sheet, total credit market debt has reached a new high of $58 trillion.

  • Harvard professor Laurence Kotlikoff has been a lone voice telling the truth about the true level of unfunded promises hidden in the CBO numbers. The unfunded social welfare liabilities in excess of $200 trillion for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare are nothing but a massive future tax increase on younger and unborn generations. Kotlikoff explains what would be required to pay these obligations:

To honor these obligations we could (a) raise all federal taxes, immediately and permanently, by 57%, (b) cut all federal spending, apart from interest on the debt, by 37%, immediately and permanently, or (c) do some combination of (a) and (b).”

The level of taxation and/or Federal Reserve created inflation necessary to honor these politician promises is too large to be considered feasible. Therefore, these promises, made to get corrupt political hacks elected to public office, will be defaulted upon.

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What 4th Amendment? Police Across the U.S. Are Using Radars to See Inside People’s Homes

Screen Shot 2015-01-20 at 11.49.17 AMThe intentional erosion of public privacy is no accident. It’s not merely a simplistically stupid overreaction to the dangerous world we live in either. It is a very deliberate and nefarious plan being intentionally implemented by the American oligarchy; i.e., the super rich and the super powerful. This is precisely why the establishment freaked out about the Edward Snowden revelations, and it is why every single minor event is immediately manipulated into an excuse to give the government and intelligence agencies more power.

While we already know a lot about the NSA’s unconstitutional and fascist policies when it comes to the web, the decimation of the 4th Amendment is also being eagerly practiced at a more local level by police departments across the country. USA Today published a very important article on this topic earlier today. Here are some excerpts:

WASHINGTON — At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies have secretly equipped their officers with radar devices that allow them to effectively peer through the walls of houses to see whether anyone is inside, a practice raising new concerns about the extent of government surveillance.

Those agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, began deploying the radar systems more than two years ago with little notice to the courts and no public disclosure of when or how they would be used. The technology raises legal and privacy issues because the U.S. Supreme Court has said officers generally cannot use high-tech sensors to tell them about the inside of a person’s house without first obtaining a search warrant.

Complete and total lawlessness.

Current and former federal officials say the information is critical for keeping officers safe if they need to storm buildings or rescue hostages. But privacy advocates and judges have nonetheless expressed concern about the circumstances in which law enforcement agencies may be using the radars — and the fact that they have so far done so without public scrutiny.

Should the primary concern of society be to keep police officers safe, when many officers have absolutely zero regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to the public? They signed up for a dangerous job, whereas these poor souls were just their innocent victims:

Continue reading “What 4th Amendment? Police Across the U.S. Are Using Radars to See Inside People’s Homes”

SURVEILLANCE STATE TIGHTENS THE NOOSE

The police surveillance state tightens the noose. Orwell couldn’t have dreamed of the stuff our authoritarian rulers now use to control us. Do you feel that boot on your face yet?

Via The Rutherford Institute

Police Bypass Fourth Amendment With License Plate Readers

By Kathryn Watson

From Watchdog

The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable” search and seizure, requiring a warrant. It’s the same argument used against the National Security Agency spy program.

“The Fourth Amendment is really clear that you’re supposed to have probable cause before you do that,” Whitehead said.

The Fourth Amendment isn’t the only amendment right that ALPRs threaten, Whitehead said. The technology might make people uncomfortable to exercise their First Amendment rights if license plate information is collected at political rallies, for example.

It doesn’t help quell fears the Virginia State Police captured license plate images of people at political events for Sarah Palin and President Barack Obama.

Such surveillance could trouble a private citizen who needs to see a psychiatrist, or a politician with an alcohol problem who wants to seek help, Whitehead said.

“It could be used against you later,” Whitehead said.

ALPR use stretches far beyond the Old Dominion’s borders. In a national survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, 71 percent of police agencies reported using license plate reader technology, while 85 percent said they planned to increase their usage of it.

Police argue ALPRs help solve crimes, and they have. Still, the percentage of serious crimes per scanned licenses is low. For every million licenses scanned in neighboring Maryland, only 47 were potentially associated with serious crimes, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

“You’re doing surveillance of innocent citizens,” Whitehead said.

The use of ALPR technology is just one aspect of what Whitehead calls the “police state.” That’s what his new book — “A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State” — is all about.

Changing the status quo requires a riled-up grassroots effort that starts at the local level, and expands to government at all levels, he said.

“Go to your local city council, argue for them to ask for a resolution asking their local congressman to get their act together and follow the Fourth Amendment,” Whitehead said.

Whitehead said state lawmakers can intervene in the surveillance system, and an appetite for data privacy seems to be growing within the General Assembly.