03/15/14

Ted Cruz Tattooed Abs Posters: “Blacklisted & Loving It” Tour: Cruz Keynoting Winston Churchill Dinner

By: Maggie Thornton
Maggie’s Notebook

Senator Ted Cruz is keynoting the Claremont Institute’s annual Winston Churchill dinner tonight at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. These photoshopped posters of Cruz showed up at the Beverly Hilton and popular L.A. clubs: “the Viper Room, the Seventh Veil, Whiskey-a-Go-Go, as well as on car windshields and utility poles among other places.”

Ted Cruz Tattooed Abs Poster: Southern California ‘Blacklisted & Loving It’ Tour

Explanation? What do you think? Doug Ross thinks:

Ted Cruz. Ronald Reagan.

It’s about to get real.

Original story via Breitbart.

—————-

Ted Cruz quips via Twitter:

“I saw these posters popping up around Los Angeles, but I noticed a glaring error in them. And since I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about me, I wanted to be clear about something. I don’t smoke cigarettes.”

03/15/14

No Knock Police Raids

By: T F Stern
T F Stern’s Rantings

Inalienable individual rights as protected by our constitution and Bill of Rights have been further eroded, almost to the point of being erased. The 4th Amendment has been under attack for quite some time as police powers have triumphed over and over again under the pretense that society’s safety is more important than individual rights.

It wasn’t too long ago Homeland Security redefined the borders of our United States, expanding the coastline a hundred miles inland to accommodate warrantless searches to (supposedly) combat terrorism. I used to say, “…and if you believe that… I have some ocean front property in Ft. Worth for sale”; but according to these new parameters the stock yards of Ft. Worth are now adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, who’da’ thunk it!

Here in Texas a homeowner got shot, the victim of a no-knock police raid. A warrant had been obtained to arrest the homeowner’s son; but because the home owner was thought to own weapons police decided that crashing in unannounced was their best option.

“In August 2006, Collin County (Texas) police obtained a warrant to search John Quinn’s home based on information that Quinn’s son might be in possession of controlled substances. The warrant did not authorize police to enter the residence without knocking and announcing their entry. Nevertheless, based solely on the suspicion that there were firearms in the Quinn household, the SWAT team forcibly broke into Quinn’s home after he had gone to bed and proceeded to carry out a search of the premises. During the raid, Quinn was shot by police, who panicked and opened fire on him through a solid wood door. Quinn had been reaching for his lawfully owned firearm, thinking that his home was being invaded by criminals.” (emphasis added)

{…}

“The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the case of a Texas man whose home was subject to a no-knock, SWAT-team style forceful entry and raid based solely on the suspicion that there were legally-owned firearms in his household. In denying a petition for certiorari in Quinn v. Texas, the Court let stand a lower court ruling that essentially makes lawful gun ownership and possession grounds for police to evade the protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment and improperly penalizes and limits the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The Rutherford Institute had asked the Court to weigh in on the case and protect Americans against encroachments on their Second Amendment rights.”

There’s an important issue which runs afoul of the rule of law. The warrant, which I’ve not seen, didn’t authorize a no-knock raid by police; but police took it upon themselves to add a variable, “based solely on the suspicion that there were firearms in the Quinn household” in order to ‘get around’ the directions of the court issued warrant.

Think about that for a moment and you’ll come to the same dark conclusion. If this stands, and apparently the Supreme Court isn’t interested, then any and all future police raids will include the presumption, before or after the fact, that the homeowner may have a weapon based solely on suspicion rather than on recorded fact. Hell, anyone might have a weapon.

Just wait until the federal government produces a list of registered gun owners based on forms that supposedly are used only at the point of purchase to verify the buyer isn’t on the list of folks who can’t own or purchase a firearm. You think I’m a conservative oddball conspiracy nut cases…think again.

Last week agents of the federal government (ATF) raided a gun shop that sold lawful firearms and parts in order to obtain the names of everyone who had purchased parts.

“According to a memo from the Anchorage Second Amendment Task Force, the Great Northern Guns store in Anchorage was asked to give their Bound Book to the ATF so it could be copied in its totality. The store refused, citing their legal rights and the fact that to do so would be a violation of the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986.” (emphasis added)

Asked? Demanded is more accurate; if you don’t comply we will shut your business down, put you in jail and let your family starve. Tell me again how the federal government respects the rule of law and individual God given rights…

George Washington warned:

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

Getting back to John Quinn, the homeowner who got shot defending himself inside his own home; had the police officers followed the letter of the law as printed on the warrant would the outcome have been different? What criminal and/or civil charges have been filed against these police officers for expanding the effective limits of the court ordered warrant? Apparently the courts have already decided; they don’t give a crap because they refused to hear the case.

Watching America become a police state one incursion at a time may be the most painful part of being a citizen in our day. We are being destroyed from within.

In summary, the 4th Amendment, intended to restrain government from improper search and seizure, that 4th Amendment has no meaning in our day and age. The 2nd Amendment, the important reminder to government that individuals were to own and bear arms to protect themselves from government tyranny, that 2nd Amendment is hanging by a thread and is under constant assault from every level of government.

The courts and police have determined that force of government trumps antiquated thoughts such as the rule of law and individual God given rights.

This article has been cross-posted to The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government & The American Constitution.”

03/15/14

Internet Control — Keys To The Kingdom

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Another Friday, another violation of American freedoms and rights. This one is personal. Today, ICANN and the US government announced their intention to relinquish control of the Internet to the UN by 2015. Where’s Congress? Where’s the outrage that should be thunderous over this travesty?

From WaPo:

U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move that pleased international critics but alarmed some business leaders and others who rely on the smooth functioning of the Web.

Pressure to let go of the final vestiges of U.S. authority over the system of Web addresses and domain names that organize the Internet has been building for more than a decade and was supercharged by the backlash last year to revelations about National Security Agency surveillance.

The change would end the long-running contract between the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based nonprofit group. That contract is set to expire next year but could be extended if the transition plan is not complete.

We are handing over the Internet to THE most incompetent and evil body on the planet. It is ruled by Islamic dictators and Communists. John D. Rockefeller was all giddy over the prospect, he called the move “consistent with other efforts the U.S. and our allies are making to promote a free and open Internet, and to preserve and advance the current multi-stakeholder model of global Internet governance.” That ought to chill you to the bone right there. Handing the Internet to the UN paves the way for global government and Rockefeller knows it.

Newt Gingrich was a lone voice of sanity on this issue — here’s his tweet on the subject:

“What is the global internet community that Obama wants to turn the internet over to? This risks foreign dictatorships defining the internet.”

Indeed it does. It threatens free speech and every other Constitutional right we now have. All of this is being done using NSA spying as an excuse. Out of one side of the collective Progressive mouth comes the denials that this has anything to do with NSA spying. Out of the other, comes the placating narrative that this will ease the global concerns over NSA spying. Let me ask you this… what if the whole point of Edward Snowden being at the NSA was to facilitate this? What if the leaks about spying from the NSA (an organization that needs severe housecleaning to be sure), was a basis to further the global oversight of the Internet? Once again, we’ve been had and we fell for it. But handing the Internet over to the UN overlords is just the first shoe to drop. There will be others.

The United States has long maintained authority over elements of the Internet, which grew from a Defense Department program that started in the 1960s. The relationship between the United States and ICANN has drawn wider international criticism in recent years, in part because big American companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft play such a central role in the Internet’s worldwide functioning. The NSA revelations exacerbated those concerns.

The next shoe to drop comes to us from The Daily Caller. This move opens the door to a global Internet tax, probably beginning with domains. The power to tax, is the power to control — globally. Any control America had over the UN is now gone with this move and we have made it possible to institute a global government. It’s the ultimate shell game for a UN coup of the US’ power. And it took someone from within to facilitate the move – Barack Obama and the Progressive enemies within:

The U.S. government’s plan to give away authority over the Internet’s core architecture to the “global Internet community” could endanger the security of both the Internet and the U.S. — and open the door to a global tax on Web use.

“U.S. management of the internet has been exemplary and there is no reason to give this away — especially in return for nothing,” former Bush administration State Department senior advisor Christian Whiton told The Daily Caller. “This is the Obama equivalent of Carter’s decision to give away the Panama Canal — only with possibly much worse consequences.”

The U.S. Commerce Department announced late Friday it would relinquish control of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) — the organization charged with managing domain names, assigning Internet protocol addresses and other crucial Web functions — after its current contract expires next year.

[…]

“While the Obama administration says it is merely removing federal oversight of a non-profit, we should assume ICANN would end up as part of the United Nations,” Whiton said. “If the U.N. gains control what amounts to the directory and traffic signals of the Internet, it can impose whatever taxes it likes. It likely would start with a tax on registering domains and expand from there.”

It doesn’t end there. No, that is just the beginning. This is also a national security threat. What if the UN didn’t like the actions of the US? A common occurrence. Would we lose our Internet access? Could someone shut down our power grids? Take over our government? Our enemies would have almost full access. Forget about stopping cyber attacks. We would be facilitating them through the UN. This has intellectual property, economic, national and international security implications.

A last chilling quote from Whiton:

“Under invariably incompetent U.N. control, it could mean a hostile foreign power disabling the Internet for us,” Whiton said.

All in the name of protecting us from terrorism. How is it we have come full circle since 9-11… from hardening our defenses to protect the US from foreign attacks, to handing her to foreign enemies?

The US sycophants of the Progressive agenda are lining up and Verizon and other big business leaders are at the head of the line:

“This is a step in the right direction to resolve important international disputes about how the Internet is governed,” said Gene Kimmelman, president of Public Knowledge, a group that promotes open access to the Internet.

Verizon, one of the world’s biggest Internet providers, issued a statement saying, “A successful transition in the stewardship of these important functions to the global multi-stakeholder community would be a timely and positive step in the evolution of Internet governance.”

There are a number of US officials who have been ringing warning bells over the dangers of ceding ICANN’s authority to the International Telecommunication Union, which is a UN agency. There are fears, and justifiably so, that enemies such as Russia, China and Iran could use this move to implement online censorship. Congress, in 2012, unanimously passed a resolution stating the US’ commitment to keeping the Internet free of government control. But the Progressives don’t give a crap about Congressional oversight. They care about power and globalism. They are Marxists, what do you expect? If they could, they would hand the US to our enemies post haste. Meanwhile, this is dumped on Americans again during multiple conflicts and emergencies. This time, we have a brewing war in the Ukraine, revolution in Venezuela, nukes in Iran and a missing Malaysian airliner. Distract and conquer rides again.

Meanwhile, useful idiots in the media, including Fox News, are saying this is all a good thing. Yep, just like Obamacare. Others are saying we can undo it when Conservatives get control. Yep, just like Obamacare. It won’t happen I fear. It’s like opening Pandora’s box – once it’s open, that’s it.

Americans For Limited Government had this to say about handing the Internet over to our enemies at the UN:

“Congress needs to prevent the Obama Administration from giving away U.S. control over the Internet to any international body. To allow the free speech rights of U.S. citizens to be threatened by international bodies that don’t recognize these fundamental rights is dangerous and a threat to our national sovereignty. Perhaps this latest egregious action by the Obama Administration in their quest to deconstruct the United States will finally wake Congress up to their power of the purse responsibility as a co-equal partner in government.”

USAHitman has a great piece on all of this, They are ringing the warning bell on tyranny at the UN:

Analysts, however, said the UN plot to take over the Internet and expand its powers has essentially nothing to do with either terror or propaganda. Instead, critics of the scheme argued, the establishment is getting nervous about the Internet — possibly the final bastion of true free speech in the world — and is working to crack down on it now, before the people of the world wake up and remove the shackles of tyranny.

“The powers-that-be have decided that they need to track user details on the Internet to prevent crime…. The ultimate goal is world government and it is being built via ever-more authoritarian means,” noted analysts at the liberty-minded Daily Bell, which has been vigorously defending Internet freedom as the potential key to advancing human freedom throughout the world.

In essence, then, the UN hopes to facilitate tyranny. “What we call the Internet Reformation has made it more difficult for the power elite to utilize dominant social themes — fear-based promotions — to frighten middle classes into giving up wealth and control to globalist institutions like the UN,” the analysts observed. “As a result, the elites wish to attack and control the Internet.”

Heavyweight defenders of free speech and an open Internet, however, insist that the fight must go on. “For the first time in human history, supporters of liberty around the world can share information across borders quickly and cheaply. Without the filter of government censors, this information emboldens millions to question governments and promote liberty,” wrote Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a hero to freedom activists around the world. “This is why liberty-minded Americans must do everything possible to oppose — and stop — government attempts to censor or limit the free flow of information online.”

While the coalition of communist and Islamist tyrants try to rein in Internet freedom at the global level, the United States has also seen an unprecedented federal assault on the open Internet as well. The Department of Justice, various special interests groups, and lawmakers in both parties, for instance, have been fiendishly working to adopt everything from a federal “cybersecurity” regime to data-retention schemes similar to the plan outlined by the UN.

For Internet freedom activists, though, government regulation or control of the Internet is off the table and non-negotiable. First of all, the U.S. Constitution does not allow even the federal government to regulate the Web, much less the UN; and if either gets its foot in the door, restoring liberty online would be extremely difficult. Even if it were constitutional, however, activists say letting any government regulate the Internet would be a terrible idea for numerous reasons.

Right they are, but their admonishments seem to be falling on deaf and clueless ears. Have you noticed, it always comes back to the Communists and the Islamists? They are attempting an evil global coup. The Obama Regime is giving away our liberty. Will it just quietly happen while we all sit here? It happened to the Germans, it can happen to us. This is the worst thing Obama has done to date. I thought for sure that this would get America up in arms. Not so far, not even close. I would remind Americans that the first thing done when conflict breaks out, or a regime wants to silence its masses, is to clamp down on the Internet. We have just handed the greatest force for freedom and liberty on the planet to dictators. The freest nation on the planet created the Internet. Now the most oppressive ones will silence it. Contact your Senators and Congressmen and fast.

Obama and the Marxists have just handed Internet control to our enemies – they have given them the keys to the kingdom that now dominates virtually every aspect of our lives and our freedoms. Free press and bloggers, such as myself, will be controlled, regulated, penalized and shut out. A new world government headed by the UN will take complete control, unless we stop this takeover from the enemies within and without.