The Patriot Act is still a threat on our civil liberties or freedoms. Congress wants to continue as servants of the out of control national security state. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) made a backroom deal to reauthorizes the insidious surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act for another 4 years. The ACLU reported that Reid and McConnell introduced the bill S. 1038. This will extend the provisions until June 1, 2015. The text of the measure of now hasn’t been published. The Patriot Act came almost a decade ago. It was in the wake of the 9/11 provocation and the anthrax attacks. According to the ACLU, the Senate will begin its debate on Monday with votes possible on that same night. The White House is skipping a legal deadline to seek congressional authorization of the military action in Libya under the War Powers Act. According to the Associated Press, few on the Hell are objecting to it. The White House continues to support illegal spying on Americans indefinitely as long as consultations with Congress continue. This extension of controversial parts of the Patriot Act will infringe on our civil liberties like the authorization to seize the records of libraries and other institutions. The tactic of using as little debate as possible to expand the power of the government in a false fashion is evil. Most of the surveillance powers of the Patriot Act are permanent. Yet, 3 controversial provisions have expiration dates in the law since it has serious civil rights abuses. Such suspicions were certainly warranted as dozens of reports by Congress and the Justice Department, media investigations and Freedom of Information Act and other lawsuits subsequently disclosed. The provisions set for renewal are the roving wiretap provision (that gives the FBI the power to get wiretaps from the Foreign Surveillance Court or FISC under the color of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the FISA Act), Section 215, and the lone provision. The roving wiretaps give retroactive immunity to the government’s telecommunications’ partners. The FBI can investigate people in some cases without a warrant. The FBI can make the say so of one warrant valid nationwide. The Fourth Amendment says explicitly that warrants are only issued particularly describing the place to be searched. Section 215 allows FISC warrants for any type of record or banking statements, etc. The government does not have to demonstrate "probable cause." Government officials need only certify to a judge, without providing evidence or proof, that the search meets the statute's overly-broad requirements and the court has been stripped of its authority to reject the state's application. Surveillance orders under Section 215 can even be based on a person's protected First Amendment activities: the books they read, web sites searched or articles they have published. In other words, exercising free speech under the Constitution can become the basis for examining personal records. The lone wolf provision is bad since it allows the feds to spy on individuals not linked to terrorist groups, but who may share ideological affinities with groups deemed suspect by the secret state. The definition of a lone wolf is ambiguous. The provision was set to expire on February 28, 2011, but the Obama White House extended it until May 27 (where it is set to expire). The temporary extension failed to extend it since even Tea Party people joined with 122 Democrats to defeat the bill. In fact, the OIG demonstrated conclusively that widespread abuses by the FBI in their issuance of constitution-shredding National Security Letters, handed out without probable cause and attached with built-in secret gag orders, have been used by the Bureau to target innocent Americans. Huge domestic spying occurred in the first 2 years of the Barack Obama administration. It isn’t a secret that Barack Obama’s White House extended the previous regime’s assault on civil liberties and political rights (that benefit the Pentagon and the national security apparatus). The White House wants to expand the power of getting records among the state. They want iPhones and Blackberries to be wiretapped as well. Meanwhile, Obama's Justice Department continues to stonewall Congress and privacy advocates "demanding the release of a secret legal memo used to justify FBI access to Americans' telephone records without any legal process or oversight."
The abortion funding battle continues after 20 years of Rust v. Sullivan. On May 23, 1991, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in the case of Rust v. Sullivan. This upheld federal regulations that banned federal funds appropriated until Title X from being used to counsel on behalf of or refer women for an abortion as a method of family planning. This is the 20th anniversary this week. It was a momentous decision. It affirmed the Court’s earlier decision in Maher v. Roe that a “….government may ‘make a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion, and … implement that judgment by the allocation of public funds.” The Court said that the government can’t selectively fund a program to encourage certain activities believing it to be in the public interest without doing the same funding to an alternative program (that deals with the problem in another way). Today, a strong majority of the American people agree with the view that Congress shouldn’t fund abortions using taxpayer funds explicitly. There is a hidden abortion subsidy that comes along preferring birth over death to root out. Every year, Planned Parenthood (or the nation’s largest abortion provider) gets hundreds of millions of tax dollars. Last year, PP has done hundreds of thousands of abortions. Still, Americans remain opposed to taxpayer funded abortion. There is another funding battle over abortion. The fight is trying to keep federal funding away from organization committed to abortion. The hidden subsidy allows them to represent themselves as being concerned about family planning, while they use federal funds to promote abortion. AUL and its pro-life allies are fighting tirelessly to de fund abortion providers. Abortion isn’t in the public interest. Study after study proves that abortion harms women and so it harms our society. Planned Parenthood of Indiana challenged the new law in believing that it would lose 1.3 and 2 million dollars in revenue annually (to lead to the closure of 13 centers). I do believe in funding sexual education and other services not abortion though. In a decision denying the abortion providers’’ claim that the court should immediately grant a temporary restraining order (TRO), the federal district court in Indiana labeled the harm Planned Parenthood claims as predictions are insufficient to justify a grant of a TRO. The court called the potential harm to PP as a gradual deterioration. The Planned Parenthood Empire was built on abortion. Indiana chooses childbirth over abortion. Rust v. Sullivan still remains and Pro-Life people are as strong as ever.
It’s apparent what the mainstream media is all about. Frank Zappa before he died in December 4, 1993 that he compared groupies to worshippers and he called himself the devil’s advocate. I don’t need to mention Slayer since people know what Slayer promoted in his lyrics. There is the famous son of “Hotel California” back in 1976. It was performed by the famous group called the Eagle. Most people in that time (and even now in 2011) didn’t know that the song was about the Church of Satan. The Church of Satan is located in a converted Hotel on California Street. The album cover shows Anton LaVey looking down on the festivities. The Eagles' manager, Larry Salter, admitted in the Waco Tribune-Herald, (Feb. 28, 1982) that the Eagles were involved with the Church of Satan! Not surprisingly, one of the Eagles' songs is titled “Have A Good Day in Hell.” The Hotel California song talked about the Eagles being enclosed in a place as prisoners of their own device. The song talks about how that they can’t leave the place, which according to scholars a metaphor for Hell. Even the Beach Boys admitted that they’ve done witchcraft and witchcraft music back in the 1960’s. Today, witchcraft, the occult, and corporatism are common in the music industry among tons of genres. There is controversy on whether backward masking is real or not. What is true is that human communication can unlock hidden meanings and we say words (and sometimes human conceal their true intent among overt words too). Aliester Crowley in his book entitled, “Magick in Theory and Practice” admitted that he wanted his followers to listen to phonograph records reversed.
Republican candidates for President are coming up. The 2012 Presidential election is coming up soon. The Republicans believe that they have the quintessential alternative to the present President Barack Obama. Their names are Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Gary E. Johnson, Fred Karger, Andy Martin, Jimmy McMilan, Ray Moore, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Buddy Roemer, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Jonathan Sharkey. This Presidential race is interesting for numerous reasons. One is that the Democratic Presidential race is made up of President Barack Obama for 2012. Another reason is that much of the public is showing disdain or disappointment in the crop of candidates. Some are undecided to vote for which person. The field for the Republican is rather wide open. Some people have talked about Herman Cain and Ron Paul as populists. Herman Cain was the former Federal Reserve banker and he’s a businessman from Georgia. He spoke in Atlanta to announce his candidacy for the Presidency. Herman Cain worked in radio, wrote columnists, and was the former chairman and CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. Cain has huge following in the Tea Party Movement and individuals in Georgia as well. Harman Cain is a mainstream conservative that opposed the health care plan of then President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. He believes in a gold standard, the Fair Tax, and even lowering corporate tax rates from 35 to 25 percent. He’s a neo-con on foreign policy issues as well. Ron Paul’s history is well known. He is a famous Congressman from Texas that adheres to the Austrian economic philosophy. He’s a well known ally of the radio talk show host Alex Jones. Ron Paul ran before in 2008 with a huge following, because his message of limited government, free markets, and individual liberty has a resonance among a lot of folks. Paul believes in trying to return to the values of individual liberty. I have no problem with individual liberty, but I don’t agree with Paul’s goal of bashing any public assistance as some vice. Legitimate public help to assist fellow human begins is a blessing not some illegality (when the Constitution does the give the right to tax, build roads, promote science, and other acts in order to improve upon the nation’s standard of living). I do agree with many of the Republican candidates in the support of the 2nd Amendment, promoting the dignity of human life, and opposing tyranny done by the government (I respect the government doing the right thing, but if the government acts immorally, people have the God-given right to oppose tyrannical government). Man should have supremacy over the state not vice versa.
By Timothy
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