Regarding The American "Reichstag Fire"

"What luck for the rulers that men do not think."
-Adolf Hitler

Those continuing to be taken in by the ridiculous and thoroughly debunked mythology about the events of 9/11 endlessly promoted, and exploited, by the Bush administration and its fellow travelers really need to wake up, and do so quickly.  (Click here for a short video nicely expressing this crass and cynical exploitation.)

Click Here For A Short, But Powerful, New 9/11 Video

A punchy, and very short, presentation of the 9/11 Pentagon incident can be seen at http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/pentagon.swf.  (This film appears to borrow heavily from material originally, and much more comprehensively, presented in 'Loose Change, Second Edition'.  Another good three-part video on this subject can be found here.)

Click here for a new video on this subject which appears to reveal that the BBC reported the collapse of WT7 a half hour or so before it actually happened...  I know, it would be silly to suggest that the Blair-government-owned BBC could for some reason have been working off a prepared script intended to steer the reactions of a shocked western world that day, and had just gotten its synchronization with scheduled events slightly wrong, so I won't do so...

But it seems similarly unlikely that the BBC would have just innocently anticipated that a building NOT hit by a plane, further from the twin towers than buildings 3, 4, 5 and 6, and afflicted by nothing more than a couple of minor fires would become the third steel-framed building to collapse into its own footprint at freefall speed that day (making it the third steel-framed building in history to-- allegedly-- collapse due to fire, and, by even more astonishing coincidence, on the very same day that, for the first time in modern history, an airliner went off course without receiving a fighter-jet checkout/escort within minutes-- whoops, make that four airliners... ).

A nice new 20 minute summary of significant points concerning the 9/11 affair can be seen here.

By the way, while I by no means intend to diminish the significance of the fact that two brave firefighters lost their lives in this unfortunate incident, I can't help but note that the raging fire that swept three upper floors of the 26-story Deutchse Bank Building near the remains of the World Trade Center on Saturday, August 18, 2007 for seven hours DID NOT result in the building collapsing...

I cannot say what really happened on 9/11, and am not trying to do so.

I CAN make rational observations as to whose interests were served by the events of that day, though; and I CAN say that it takes only a cursory examination of the voluminous available evidence to make perfectly clear to any but the blindest of partisan eyes that the official story is nonsense on stilts (at the very least), and that passive acceptance of that story is being hungrily exploited by the mortal enemies of liberty and the rule of law in America.

P. S. The London Daily Mail reports that as many as 100 million people have now viewed 'Loose Change', and that a recent New York Times poll revealed that 3 out of four Americans now disbelieve the official story about 9/11.  Maybe there's reason to hope.

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Recommended reading: 'My Wake-up Call: Watch For Another 9/11-WMD Experience' by Paul Craig Roberts

...and 'Working For The Clampdown' by James Bovard

After reading the above, this news story about a member of the Congressional "Homeland Security Committee" being denied even secure-room access to "the Decider's" prepared plans for the "continuity of government" after whatever future "incident" he decides merits invoking his shiny new claim of authority under the "Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act"; and this one about "the Decider's" decision that faithfully executing ALL the laws simply wouldn't be convenient, if it means executing them against his own loyalists; will be of interest as well...  Or maybe not...  After all, it can't happen here, right?

Aren't You Glad You've Taken Control Of Whether Any Of YOUR Money Finances Unconstitutional Activities-- Just As The Founders Intended?

"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. . . . [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and . . . degeneracy of manners and of morals. . . . No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

-James Madison

Wouldn't you rather be suspicious and wrong than complacent and wrong?

I know, I know, only tin-foil-hat types could harbor suspicions that our political class is capable of "malfeasance"...

Senator Max Cleland - Former member of the 9/11 Commission, resigned in December 2003:
"I, as a member of the [9/11] Commission, cannot look any American in the eye... It is a national scandal... this White House wants to cover [9/11] up."

Senator Mark Dayton - Member, Senate Committee on Armed Services and Homeland Security:
"[NORAD] lied to the American people, they lied to Congress and they lied to your 9/11 Commission.. .the most gross incompetence and dereliction of responsibility and negligence"

Congressman Ron Paul - Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee:
“The [9/11] investigations that have been done so far are more or less cover-up and no real explanation"

Congressman Curt Weldon:
"[9/11 Commission] there's something very sinister going on here... something desperately wrong... This involved what is right now the covering up of information that led to the deaths of 3,000 people"

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney - Member of the House Armed Services Committee:
“The [9/11] Commission ran up against obstruction by the administration and non-cooperation from government agencies... the errors and omissions immediately jumped out at us"

Director of the FBI, Louis Freeh:
"[9/11 Commission findings] raise serious challenges to the commission's credibility and, if the facts prove out, might just render the commission historically insignificant itself"

Former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Paul Craig Roberts, PhD:
"Distinguished national and international scientists and scholars present massive evidence that the 9/11 Commission Report is a hoax and that the 9/11 "terrorist attack" has been manipulated to serve a hegemonic agenda in the Middle East... We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to "pancake" at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false"

Assistant Secretary of Housing, Catherine Austin Fitts:
"The official story could not possibly have happened... It’s not possible. It’s not operationally feasible... The Commission was a whitewash."

U.S. Army Intelligence officer, Federal Prosecutor, Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice, John Loftus:
"The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defense of incompetence"

Foreign Service Officer, George Kenney:
"I cannot believe, much as I might like to, the standard account of 9/11"

Foreign Service Officer, J. Michael Springman:
"Fifteen of the nineteen people who allegedly flew airplanes into buildings in the United States got their visas from the same CIA Consulate at Jeddah"

Deputy Attorney General, State of Pennsylvania, Philip J. Berg, Esquire:
"The official story of what actually took place on 9/11 is a lie. "

Major General U.S. Army, Commanding General of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, Albert Stubblebine [his specialty – analyzing satellite photos]:
"I look at the hole in the Pentagon and I look at the size of an airplane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon. And I said, ‘The plane does not fit in that hole. So what did hit the Pentagon?’”

Col. Ronald D. Ray, U.S. Marine Corps, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Deputy Director of Field Operations for the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center:
"I'm astounded that the conspiracy theory advanced by the administration could in fact be true and the evidence does not seem to suggest that's accurate."

Col. Robert Bowman, U.S. Air Force, Director of Advanced Space Programs, PhD Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering:
"The official 9/11 story is impossible .. There is a cover up... high levels of our government don't want us to know what happened... highly placed individuals in the administration. ..Dick Cheney...the very kindest thing we can say about George W Bush...is high treason and conspiracy to commit murder."

Col. George Nelson, U.S. Air Force, aircraft accident investigator:
"I never witnessed nor even heard of an aircraft loss, where the wreckage was accessible, that prevented investigators from finding enough hard evidence to positively identify the make, model, and specific registration number of the aircraft -- and in most cases the precise cause of the accident... The government alleges that four wide-body airliners crashed on the morning of September 11 2001, resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 human beings, yet not one piece of hard aircraft evidence has been produced in an attempt to positively identify any of the four aircraft. On the contrary, it seems only that all potential evidence was deliberately kept hidden from view .. with all the evidence readilty available at the pentagon crash site, any unbiased rational investigator could only conclude that a Boeing 757 did not fly into the Pentagon as alleged. Similarly, with all the evidence available at the Pennsylvania crash site, it was most doubtful that a passenger airliner caused the obvious hole in the ground and certainly not the Boeing 757 as alleged .. the most heinous conspiracy in outr country's history."

Major Douglas Rokke, PhD, U.S. Army:
[Regarding the impact at the Pentagon on 9/11/2001] "When you look at the damage, it was obviously a missile."

Capt. Russ Wittenberg, U.S. Air Force, fighter pilot, commercial pilot flying 707, 720, 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, and 777s. Had previously flown Flight 93, which impacted in Pennsylvania, and Flight 175, the second plane to hit the WTC:
"The government story they handed us about 9/11 is total B.S. plain and simple...[Regarding Flight 77]"The airplane could not have flown at those speeds which they said it did without going into what they call a high speed stall. The airplane won't go that fast if you start pulling those high G maneuvers at those bank angles... The vehicle that hit the Pentagon was not Flight 77"

Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski, PhD, U.S. Air Force, Office of the Secretary of Defense, staff of the Director of the National Security Agency:
"It is as a scientist that I have the most trouble with the official government conspiracy theory, mainly because it does not satisfy the rules of probability or physics. The collapses of the World Trade Center buildings clearly violate the laws of probability and physics...There was a dearth of visible debris on the relatively unmarked Pentagon, where I stood only minutes after the impact. Beyond this strange absence of airliner debris, there was no sign of the kind of damage one would expect from the impact of a large airliner... this visible evidence or lack thereof may also have been apparent to the Sec of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who in an unfortunate slip of the tongue referred to the aircraft that slammed into the Pentagon as a ' missile ' ... I saw nothing of significance at the point of contact ~ no airplane metal or cargo debris was blowing on the lawn in front of the damaged building as smoke billowed from within the Pentagon .. all of us staring at the Pentagon that morning were indeed looking for such debris, but what we expected was not evident .. the same is true with regard to the damage we expected .. but I did not see this kind of damage. Rather, the facade had a rather small hole, no larger than 20 feet in diameter. Although this facade later collapsed, it remained standing for 30 0r 40 minutes, with the roof remaining relatively straight .. The scene, in short, was not what I would have expected from a strike by a large jetliner. It was, however, exactly what one would have expected if a missile had struck the Pentagon "

Senior Military Affairs Journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School, Barbara Honegger, MS:
"The US military, not al Qaeda, had the sustained access weeks before 9/11 to also plant controlled demolition charges throughout the superstructures of WTC 1 and WTC 2, and in WTC 7, which brought down all three buildings on 9/11...A US military plane, not one piloted by al Qaeda, performed the highly skilled, high-speed 270-degree dive towards the Pentagon that Air Traffic Controllers on 9/11 were sure was a military plane as they watched it on their screens. Only a military aircraft, not a civilian plane flown by al Qaeda, would have given off the "Friendly" signal needed to disable the Pentagon's anti-aircraft missile batteries as it approached the building...Only the US military, not al Qaeda, had the ability to break all of its Standard Operating Procedures to paralyze its own emergency response system"

Capt. Gregory M. Zeigler, PhD, U.S. Army, U.S. Army Intelligence Officer:
"I knew from September 18, 2001, that the official story about 9/11 was false. ... [A]nomalies poured in rapidly: the hijackers' names appearing in none of the published flight passenger lists, BBC reports of stolen identities of the alleged hijackers or the alleged hijackers being found alive, the obvious demolitions of WTC 1 and 2...and WTC7...not hit by an airplane...the lack of identifiable Boeing 757 wreckage at the Pentagon"

Capt. Eric H. May, U.S. Army, Intelligence officer:
"I view the 911 event ...as a matter that implies either...A) passive participation by the Bush White House through a deliberate stand-down or B) active execution of a plot by rogue elements of government, starting with the White House itself, in creating a spectacle of destruction that would lead the United States into an invasion of the Middle East"

Former Chairman, National Intelligence Estimates, CIA, responsible for preparing the President’s Daily Brief, U.S. Army Intelligence Officer, Raymond L. McGovern:
"I think at simplest terms, there's a cover-up. The 9/11 report is a joke...just as Hitler in 1933 cynically exploited the burning of the parliament building, the Reichstag, this is exactly what our President did in exploiting 9/11...making a war of aggression on a country that he knew had nothing to do with 9/11...that' s certainly an impeachable offense...But compelling evidence for an even more disturbing conclusion: that the 9/11 attacks were themselves orchestrated by this administration precisely so they could be thus exploited."

National Intelligence Officer and Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis, William Christison:
"There is persuasive evidence that the events of September did not unfold as the Bush administration and the 9/11 Commission would have us believe. An airliner almost certainly did not hit The Pentagon. The North and South Towers of the World Trade Center almost certainly did not collapse and fall to earth because hijacked aircraft hit them...this all was totally an inside job. I have since decided that... at least some elements in this US government had contributed in some way or other to causing 9/11 to happen or at least allowing it to happen... The reason that the two towers in New York actually collapsed and fell all the way to the ground was controlled explosions rather than just being hit by two airplanes. All of the characteristics of these demolitions show that they almost had to have been controlled explosions.. . I think you almost have to look at the 9/11 Commission Report as a joke and not a serious piece of analysis at all... It's a monstrous crime."

U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer, case officer CIA. Robert David Steele:
"I am forced to conclude that there is sufficient evidence to indict (not necessarily convict) Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and others...This is, without question, the most important modern reference on state-sponsored terrorism, and also the reference that most pointedly suggests that select rogue elements within the US Government, most likely led by Dick Cheney with the assistance of George Tenet, Buzzy Kronguard, and others close to the Wall Street gangs, are the most guilty of state-sponsored terrorism... I'm absolutely certain that WTC 7 was brought down by controlled demolition and that as far as I'm concerned means that this case has not been properly investigated. There's no way that building could have come down without controlled demolition."

CIA Case Officer, Specialist in the Middle East, Directorate of Operations, Awarded Career Intelligence Medal, Robert Baer:
[Regarding the opinion there was an aspect of 'inside job' to 9/11 within the U.S. Government], "There is that possibility, the evidence points at it."

Counter-terrorism expert in the Security Division of the federal Aviation Administration. Team leader of the FAA's Red (Terrorism) Team in the Federal Air Marshall program, Coast Guard officer, Bogdan Dzakovic:
"At worst, I think the 9/11 Commission Report is treasonous."

Minister of Justice, West Germany, Horst Ehmke, PhD:
"Terrorists could not have carried out such an operation with four hijacked planes without the support of a secret service."

State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Defense, West Germany, Andreas von Buelow, PhD:
"The official story is so inadequate and far-fetched that there must be another one...This is unthinkable, without years-long support from secret apparatuses of the state and industry."

President of Italy, Francesco Cossiga:
"[9/11] could not be accomplished without infiltrations in the radar and flight security personnel."

General Leonid Ivashov, Chief of Staff, Russian armed forces, Ministry of Defense:
"Only secret services and their current chiefs or those retired but still having influence inside the state organizations have the ability to plan, organize and conduct an operation [9/11] of such magnitude... Osama bin Laden and "Al Qaeda" cannot be the organizers nor the performers of the September 11 attacks. They do not have the necessary organization, resources or leaders."

Foreign Minister of Egypt, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal:
"Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation [9/11] of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaida as if it was Nazi Germany or the communist party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there. Bin Laden has been under surveillance for years: every telephone call was monitored and al-Qaida has been penetrated by American intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Egyptian intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of organisation and sophistication. "

Chief of Staff, Pakistani Army, General Mirza Aslam Beg:
"The information which is now coming up, goes to prove that involvement by the "rogue elements" of the U.S. military and intelligence organization is getting more obvious. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda definitely do not have the knowhow and the capability to launch such operations involving such high precision coordination, based on information and expertise."

European Parliament, Committee on Security and Defense, Giulietto Chiesa:
"Billions of people were given only one explanation. ...which is entirely false....everyone who dares to question it is treated as if he was a fool."

French Army Intelligence and artillery officer, Col. Pierre-Henri Bunel, Expert in the effects of artillery weapons and explosives:
"Image of the impact on the Pentagon is very instructive as to the nature of the explosion. ... It corresponds to a detonation of an explosive with high energetic power. The explosion does not correspond to a deflagration of kerosene...suggests a single engine flying vehicle much smaller in size than an airliner...resemble s the effects of anti-concrete hollow charges that I have been able to observe on a number of battlefields. ..lead me therefore to think that the detonation that struck the building was that of a high-powered hollow charge used to destroy hardened buildings and carried by an aerial vehicle, a missile."

Safety Engineer and accident Analyst, National Safety Technology Authority, Finland, Heikki Kurttila, PhD:

"Conclusion: The observed collapse time of WTC 7 was 6.5 seconds. That is only half a second longer than it would have taken for the top of the building to fall to the ground in a vacuum, and half a second shorter than the falling time of an apple when air resistance is taken into account. ... The great speed of the collapse and the low value of the resistance factor strongly suggest controlled demolition."

Counter-Terrorism Officer, MI5 (Britain), David Shayler:
"The available evidence indicates that people in key positions in the FBI, the State Department, the CIA and so on were not loyal to the Constitution; that they saw an opportunity in plans laid down by genuine Islamic terrorists to carry out an operation that would shock the world and would therefore justify U.S. adventurism in the middle East, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Chairman, 9/11 Commission, Thomas H. Kean, Former Governor of New Jersey:
"FAA and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue...We, to this day, don't know why NORAD told us what they told us...It was just so far from the truth."

Vice Chairman, 9/11 Commission, Lee Hamilton, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Homeland Security Advisory Council:
"We got started late; we had a very short time frame...we did not have enough money...We had a lot of people strongly opposed to what we did. We had a lot of trouble getting access to documents and to people. ... So there were all kinds of reasons we thought we were set up to fail."

9/11 Commissioner, Timothy J. Roemer, PhD, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:
"That panel members so distrusted testimony from Pentagon officials that they referred their concerns to the Pentagon's inspector general...We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting."

Senior Counsel, 9/11 Commission, John J. Farmer, Jr., Former Attorney General, NJ, Former Commissioner of the State Commission of Investigations:
[Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public] - "I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described... The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years."

"Taxes are not raised to carry on wars, wars are raised to carry on taxes."

-Thomas Paine

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By the way, for the sake of those who just can't keep inconvenient facts in their heads:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it  with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

-H. L. Mencken

 Another powerful editorial from Keith Olbermann...

A Couple Of Thoughts On "Islamofascists" And Other Criminal Types

IT HAS BEEN ALMOST 600 YEARS since anyone in the Islamic world moved aggressively against "The West" so much as to be noticed by anyone (and that was a conventional effort at imperial expansion).

People who are commanded to aggression or hostility against other cultures by their religions do not sit on their hands during 600-year interludes between efforts to do as their scripture instructs them.  Even those whose scriptural doctrine provides for the occasion of some specified catalyst to prompt acts of aggression or hostility don't bide their time for century after century awaiting the event.  Instead, some adherents inevitably perceive the prophesied conjunction of circumstances regularly, just as some Christians have imagined the second coming every century or so over the last 2000 years.

If such perceptions were not enough to prompt spontaneous Islamic crusades against the West (or the East, for that matter-- if Islamists were scripturally compelled to hostility against others, the Buddhists, Hindus, Greek Orthodox, Baha'is and everyone else would be being targeted by endless assaults, wouldn't they?), ambitious Islamic demagogues would have constantly manipulated this alleged scriptural prescription to fuel military adventures, or at least bloody pogroms against the cultural and religious aliens which have historically co-existed in peace within or alongside the Muslim world.

What does this mean?

Simple.  It means Muslims ARE NOT commanded to aggression or hostility against other cultures by their religion.  The recent sporadic hostile behaviors by some in the Islamic world toward certain Western interests (what little there actually has been outside of normal reaction to occupation by foreign armies) are no more a manifestation of some immutable cultural/religious incompatibility than was the behavior of the Irish toward Britain during the British conquest and occupation of the Emerald Isle, or the behavior of the Filipinos toward United States troops in the early years of the 20th century.  (Hey, I'm noticing a trend!  The Irish and Filipinos are both heavily Catholic!  Maybe the "terrorism" they were accused of by their occupiers was really an expression of some Catholic scriptural command to make violent and unprovoked war on "The West" out of hatred of its freedoms...?!)

Frankly stated, the notion that Islam is inherently and murderously hostile to non-Muslims is puerile BS peddled to the historically-ignorant in the Western world.  This is done in order to secure mindless support for sustained acts of unjustifiable aggression by various economic and geo-political interests against selected targets in the Islamic world whose presence or local stability are hindrances to the ambitions of those interests.

Don't let yourself be fooled, and don't let yourself be used.

***

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a  simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

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Keith Olbermann has a few choice words to add on the subject of the current "terrorism threat assessment"

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So, Where Is The 9/11 Hoax Taking Us?

The 'Military Commissions Act'

(Click on the title above to learn about this continuingly critically important topic)

"There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there's a prohibition against taking it away," says United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on January 18, 2007.  He continues, "The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended"

Watch this smirking embarrassment to America spit on the Constitution and the principles upon which it is based

The only thing more disturbing than hearing such calculated drivel spewed by a high official of the federal government in service of efforts by the current administration to further slip the leash of the Constitution, and to shield itself from the consequences of offenses already committed, is the fact that the room in which this was uttered didn't erupt into either astonished laughter, or rage.

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"...freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright
constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation."

- Thomas Jefferson
 

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To get this bumper sticker and speak a little truth to power (and help wake up the neighbors), send $5 and a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Lost Horizons WOT, 232 Oriole Rd., Commerce Twp., MI 48382

What's next?  Poking through our mail without a warrant?

Oops.  Silly me.  We got that one a couple of weeks ago, didn't we...

...And by the way, since when do we just shoot "suspects"?

About Weapons Of Mass Destruction

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The Would-Be Rapists Get A Little More Naked, While Miss Liberty And Her Protectors Sleep On...

THOSE RUNNING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION have already gotten away with fastening in place pretty nearly every standard tool of a police-state here in the "Homeland".  This has been accomplished by flogging the desperately defective pretext of defending us against what is at most a retaliation for brutal and corrupt foreign policy initiatives perpetrated on behalf of various special interests wielding improper influence in Washington, if not a blatant "false flag" fabrication of one kind or another.

Encouraged by its astonishing successes so far, these folks are now pushing the envelope a little further, announcing that Americans will now be the targets of 24/7 warrantless surveillance by their very own spy satellites.  No doubt if these folks are still harboring even the slightest concern about blowback from a suddenly aroused America, they just remind themselves of the ancient poacher's wisdom: "As well hung for a sheep as for a lamb..."

 In any event, this latest assault invites a review of what the supreme law governing federal authority in this area actually says and means.  I hope everyone will take a few moments to study the following analysis and learn what the Fourth Amendment really says and means:

An Unreasonable Assault On The Fourth

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Here's a nice little video very much in tune with the foregoing...

...and here's another (containing a few brief clips of protest activities in which some vulgar language is used).

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And Let's Not Forget The REAL ID Act

There's still hope:

Maine's Legislature Steps Up And Yanks On The Brake Line, Voting Overwhelmingly To Refuse To Implement The "REAL ID Act"!

Maine's action is notable for its clarity and focus.  This is not a "resolution", it is a law prohibiting any organ of the state from acting to implement, facilitate or cooperate with this grossly unconstitutional, and essentially corrupt federal outrage.  The reasons given for the state's action aren't the usual mealy-mouthed harbingers of eventual compromise or surrender usually seen in cases like this, in which the state complains about the costs that compliance would impose on the state.  Instead, and oh, so refreshingly, the reasons given are that the Real ID Act is a grossly unconstitutional, and essentially corrupt federal outrage.  Go Maine!

Georgia, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington have since acted as well, with varying degrees of firmness and clarity.  Legislation is pending in Arizona, Hawaii, Missouri, New Hampshire and Oklahoma.  At a luncheon meeting I attended today along with the Michigan Secretary of State's "point woman" on Real ID and a number of key Michigan political leaders, the legislative director of the Michigan ACLU discussed that organization's planned effort to immediately put Michigan on this honor roll, too.

A video of a New Hampshire anti-REAL ID rally can be seen here.

Montana Rejects "Real ID" With A Resounding, "NO!  HELL, NO!"

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And At Least One Judge In Vermont Demonstrates An Understanding Of Federalism..

(It's appalling that something so elementary and obvious merits news coverage these days...)

I'm no great fan of much of the ACLU's agenda, but one has to give credit where credit is due, and this presentation deserves credit.  Make sure your speakers are on, then click this link:

Ordering PIZZA in 2010

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"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

- James Madison

"They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

 

-Patrick Henry, speaking for himself, and every decent American since

 

Aren't You Glad You've Taken Control Of Whether Any Of YOUR Money Goes To Washington, Just As The Framers Intended?