Haunting this year’s presidential contest is the sense that the U.S. government no longer belongs to the people and no longer represents them. And this uneasy feeling is not misplaced. It reflects the real state of affairs.
We have lost the government we learned about in civics class, with its democratic election of representatives to do the voters’ will in framing laws, which the president vows to execute faithfully, unless the Supreme Court rules them unconstitutional. That small government of limited powers that the Founders designed, hedged with checks and balances, hasn’t operated for a century. All its parts still have their old names and appear to be carrying out their old functions. But in fact, a new kind of government has grown up inside the old structure, like those parasites hatched in another organism that grow by eating up their host from within, until the adult creature bursts out of the host’s carcass. This transformation is not an evolution but a usurpation.
What has now largely displaced the Founders’ government is what’s called the Administrative State—a transformation premeditated by its main architect, Woodrow Wilson. The thin-skinned, self-righteous college-professor president, who thought himself enlightened far beyond the citizenry, dismissed the Declaration of Independence’s inalienable rights as so much outmoded “nonsense,” and he rejected the Founders’ clunky constitutional machinery as obsolete. (See “It’s Not Your Founding Fathers’ Republic Any More,” Summer 2014.) What a modern country needed, he said, was a “living constitution” that would keep pace with the fast-changing times by continual, Darwinian adaptation, as he called it, effected by federal courts acting as a permanent constitutional convention.
But the Administrative State’s constitutional transgressions cut deeper still. If Congress can’t delegate its legislative powers, it certainly can’t delegate judicial powers, which the Constitution gives exclusively to the judiciary.
Nevertheless, after these administrative agencies make rules like a legislature, they then exercise judicial authority like a court by prosecuting violations of their edicts and inflicting real criminal penalties, such as fines and cease-and-desist orders. As they perform all these functions, they also violate the principle of the separation of powers, which lies at the heart of our constitutional theory (senselessly curbing efficiency, Wilson thought), as well as the due process of law, for they trample the citizen’s Fifth Amendment right not to lose his property unless indicted by a grand jury and tried by a jury of his peers, and they search a citizen or a company’s private papers or premises, without bothering to get judge-issued subpoenas or search warrants based on probable cause, flouting the Fourth Amendment.
They can issue waivers to their rules, so that the law is not the same for all citizens and companies but is instead an instrument of arbitrary power. FDR himself ruefully remarked that he had expanded a fourth branch of government that lacked constitutional legitimacy. Not only does it reincarnate the arbitrary power of the Stuarts’ tyrannical Star Chamber, but also it doesn’t even meet the minimal conditions of liberty that Magna Carta set forth 801 years ago.
How is a return to subjection an advance on freedom? No lover of liberty should ever call such left-wing statism “progressive.” In historical terms, this elevation of state power over individual freedom is not even “liberal” but quite the reverse.
Unease over illegal immigration also has stoked today’s fear that the government no longer belongs to the people, and it’s important to understand the separate but mutually reinforcing ways that it has done so.
The result of Obama’s diktat, as contrary to the spirit of the Founders’ Constitution as is the Administrative State, is that law-abiding taxpayers must pay for the kids’ welfare support, health care, and schooling—as they already do for “anchor babies” born to mothers who have sneaked over the U.S. border for the purpose of having a child eligible for “child-only” welfare benefits, scarcely less than ordinary welfare payments and vastly more than the income of Central American peasant families. No American voted to incur these costs, which, if current trends continue, are likely to persist for several generations of such families, so they amount to taxation without representation as naked as George III’s.
Less than a week after a Muslim teen from Afghanistan used an ax to slash passengers aboard a train in Germany, a Syrian refugee in Germany used to a machete to hack to death a pregnant woman Sunday before he was run over by a man driving a BMW.
The attack took place in the southwestern city of Reutlingen at a kebab shop in a bus station at Listplatz Square.
News media in Germany have been reporting the motive for the attack remains unclear, adding, the incident “did not bear the hallmarks of a terrorist attack.”
Images on social media show the assailant with a bloody forehead but alive on the ground after police arrived on the scene.
Local media report that the man argued with the woman before attacking her.
Published reports indicate a man driving a BMW was passing the incident and struck him with his car, knocking him to the ground, before police arrived to detain him.
Politicians are literally walking billboards for giant corporations who dish out millions of dollars in campaign contributions. This year’s campaign saw massive amounts of attention paid to this fact, and the idea that U.S. elections are actually rigged. Even if you don’t believe they’re rigged, the superdelegate process alone completely undermines democracy. Elections in the U.S. seem to be a form of entertainment, a mere distraction, more so than a real process of democracy and election. Every time elections come around, we are witnessing the illusion of democracy, and it’s not a secret. Politics, elections, and government policy are not controlled by the politicians; they seem to be the ‘fall’ people. They too take orders, and have a ‘boss.’ Above the government sit the corporations, and above them the big banks. This is the current power structure of modern day global dominance. Foster Gamble from Thrive gives an excellent visual depiction of it in this clip from the Thrivedocumentary.
A great example comes from a $100,000 a head fundraiser at the home of Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent New York businesswoman, and a member of the famous Rothschild banking family. A family that has been accused of, as Jay Syrmopoulos from The Free Thought Project puts it, “pulling the strings of many different governments through their control of various economic systems throughout the world.” Prior to this fundraiser, Wikileaks Clinton emails release shed further light on Hillary’s relationship with the Rothschild family
Politicians are for sale. A 2014 study from Princeton University revealed that the United States is not a democracy or a republic, but rather an oligarchy where the balance of power and control of global resources lies within the hands of a very small, tight-knit group of people, and that these groups of people basically control and dictate government policy. You can see corporate influence in so many areas; the TPP is one out of many great examples .
The 29th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt might have said it best by stating that “presidents are selected, not elected” and that “behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing to allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.” (source)
Even the very first British MP, Benjamin Disraeli, wrote that “the world is governed by different personages to what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.” (Coningsby, Book 4, Chap. 15.) – Page 131
I’ll leave you with one last quote that relates to what I am getting at here.
The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation … The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties … [and] control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques, which compose the invisible government. It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection. (source)(source)
Film director Oliver Stone believes that Pokemon Go is a tool capable of collecting massive amounts of data about its users and represents a step towards “robot society”.
The director of Platoon, Wallstreet and JFK was at Comic-Con 2016 in San Diego to discuss his new movie Snowden. Considering the topic of the movie, the panel were discussing the NSA, online privacy and government surveillance. A question from a fan lead Oliver Stone to lash out against today’s newest worldwide phenomenon: Pokemon Go.
“It’s a new level of invasion,” Stone said of the game. “Nobody has ever seen, in the history of the world, something like Google, ever. It’s the fastest-growing business ever, and they have invested huge amounts of money into what surveillance is, which is data-mining. They’re data-mining every person in this room for information as to what you’re buying, what it is you like, and above all, your behavior.”
-CBS News, Oliver Stone: Pokemon Go is “totalitarianism”
-CBS News, Oliver Stone: Pokemon Go is “totalitarianism”
Shortly after the game launch, observers worried about the massive amount of permissions requested by Pokemon Go upon installation. The game indeed requested full access to user’s Google Accounts on iOS. Although game developer Niantic claims to have fixed this issue, the app still collects massive amounts of data.
Niantic may collect — among other things — your email address, IP address, the web page you were using before logging into Pokémon Go, your username, and your location. And if you use your Google account for sign-in and use an iOS device, unless you specifically revoke it, Niantic has access to your entire Google account. That means Niantic could have read and write access to your email, Google Drive docs, and more. (It also means that if the Niantic servers are hacked, whoever hacked the servers would potentially have access to your entire Google account. And you can bet the game’s extreme popularity has made it a target for hackers. Given the number of children playing the game, that’s a scary thought.) You can check what kind of access Niantic has to your Google account here.
Some might claim that a bunch of apps already collect all of that information and that there is nothing new under the sun. That is correct. Pokemon Go is simply yet another incremental step towards high tech control, where users are lured to specific locations and tracked during the entire time. In short, it is yet another level of heat in the pot.
If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigrant Front National party, saw her rating in the BVA poll rise three percentage points to 27 percent after the Nice attack.
French President Francois Hollande’s popularity rating has inched up from near record lows this month, despite heavy criticism he received over security issues since the Bastille Day attack in Nice, two polls showed.
The poll for Orange and Itele was conducted on July 20-21, days after a delivery man in Nice killed 84 people when he drove his truck through a crowd of revellers leaving a July 14 fireworks display on the beach front promenade.
A July 22-23 Ifop poll for the Journal du Dimanche published on Sunday showed a bigger improvement, with those satisfied with the president rising three percentage points to a five-month high of 17 percent.
Conservatives with an eye on a presidential election nine months away lost no time criticising Hollande’s Socialist government for not doing more following last November’s terrorist attacks in Paris that left 130 dead.
Hollande’s government has ordered an inquiry into policing on the night of the attack in the Riviera city in a bid to dispel criticism that security was inadequate.
Known for tough talk on security and immigration issues, conservative former president Nicolas Sarkozy saw his rating jump four percentage points to 24 percent in the BVA poll.
To the Democratic National Committee elites, keeping average Americans away from their convention is a good idea, while protecting the southern border from intruding terrorists, rapists and murderers is a bad one.
The DNC has erected a four-mile fence around its convention site at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center. (Isn’t it ironic they’re doing so much to protect a site named after a bank?)
The fence, which appears to be about 8 feet tall, is intended to keep out any individuals with whom Democratic Party leaders, delegates and other liberal elites would rather not mingle.
Fox 29’s Steve Keeley shared a picture of a portion of the fence he said was erected near the intersection of Pattison and Broad.
There is protesting and free speech – and there is criminal action that poses as protesting and free speech. Protests that turn into riots are no longer protected by the First Amendment, and anyone who funds such activity like a coward behind the scenes is equally guilty of inciting violence and destruction of private property.
Such people should be charged with aiding and abetting such criminality. Enter billionaire businessman George Soros.
As reported this week by The Washington Times, which investigated Soros’ donations to groups that have been spurred to unrest built on racial animosity, the billionaire rabble-rouser has given millions of his fortune to watch American cities descend into chaos:
Mr. Soros spurred the Ferguson protest movement through years of funding and mobilizing groups across the U.S., according to interviews with key players and financial records reviewed by The Washington Times.
In all, Mr. Soros gave at least $33 million in one year to support already-established groups that emboldened the grass-roots, on-the-ground activists in Ferguson, according to the most recent tax filings of his nonprofit Open Society Foundations.
The financial tether from Mr. Soros to the activist groups gave rise to a combustible protest movement that transformed a one-day criminal event in Missouri into a 24-hour-a-day national cause celebre.
Combustible, indeed. And expensive. Within months of the rioting, looting and burning of Ferguson businesses and communities, taxpayers were hit with $5.7 million in expenses. City and county officials were not sure where they were going to find the money to make up for the losses in tax base, either, as scores of businesses that were destroyed remain closed today.
In Baltimore, where other protests against police (none of whom have been convicted of the crime of killing Freddie Gray, by the way) led to damaging riots, the cost was greater: $20 million and counting. And again, much of what destroyed isn’t coming back. Most people with the means to leave a volatile city will do so and apply their wares elsewhere.
In essence, Soros encouraged the people he claimed to care about to destroy their own infrastructure, thereby deepening their poverty and decreasing their chances to pull out of their cycle of poverty – cycles that liberals like Soros and the Democratic Party created in the first place with their policies of failure.
All for political empowerment. Soros doesn’t care about “social justice” or “the people;” Soros cares about Soros. He knows as an elite he will never have to deal with folks on the street. And when it all burns to the ground, he’ll be above it, ready with the rest of the global elite to rebuilt in theirtyrannical image.
He should not get away with that. Not only should American cities rocked and burned by protests fueled with Soros money bill him for the damage, they should seek legal action against him as well. You can provide people with the opportunity to protest, but you cannot spur them to riot, loot and destroy.
George Soros should be arrested, tried and convicted, with the message sent loud and clear: If you conspire to destroy American cities, you will be held accountable.
Flames raced down a steep hillside "like a freight train," leaving smoldering remains of homes and forcing thousands to flee the wildfire churning through tinder-dry canyons in Southern California, authorities said Sunday.
The fire that has destroyed at least 18 homes in northern Los Angeles County gained ferocious new power two days after it broke out, sending so much smoke in the air that planes making drops on it had to be grounded for part of the afternoon.
"For this time of year, it's the most extreme fire behavior I've seen in my 32-year career," County fire Chief Daryl Osby said.
About 300 miles up the coast, crews were battling another fire spanning more than 16 square miles and forcing evacuations outside the scenic Big Sur region.
The Southern California blaze has blackened more than 34 square miles of brush on ridgelines near the city of Santa Clarita, and authorities found a burned body in a car. No new measurements were available, but officials said the fire might now be double that size.
Planes were unable to make drops over the fire for a long stretch of the afternoon, but helicopters are releasing retardant around the perimeter.
The fire has ripped through brush withered by days of 100-degree temperatures and years of drought.
"It started consuming houses that were non-defendable," Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief John Tripp said, describing the flames as charging through terrain "like a freight train."
2 comments:
Today's outrageous news… I saw no comments, so I figured I'd comment…
JESUS, COME TAKE US HOME!
Dave - I don't think you'll get any disagreement on that one ! :)
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