Internet overtakes print in news consumption among Americans

ars technica.com

By Jacqui Cheng

Last updated 6 days ago


The Internet has surpassed newspapers as a primary way for Americans to get news, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. That makes the Internet the third most popular news platform overall, with many connected users taking advantage of nontraditional consumption methods such as social media postings, personalized news feeds, and getting their news on-the-go.


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Health Care Reform is Unconstitutional

JBS.org

Written by Art Thompson



Friday, 05 March 2010 09:49

One gets tired of the obvious never being spoken. Nothing can be more apparent in this regard than the current debate on health care.


At the onset of the debate you could see and hear a few saying that it was un-constitutional. Now you would be hard pressed to find anyone saying so. At least anyone that the media allows on the air and in print.

All we see is a back and forth debate on whether it is affordable and who will pay for it. The bottom line is that the average citizen will pay for it in one form or another of direct or indirect taxation. That is the way everything works.

You can talk all you want about soaking the rich or sticking it to the big businesses, but where do they get their money? From those to whom they sell a product and or a service ― you and me. It’s that simple. Goods and services will go up in price to pay for every tax or fee the government gets from anyone.

Recently, I watched the ninth episode of Band of Brothers, the series that Tom Hanks co-produced following the magnificent record of Easy Company, a unit of the 101st Airborne. In one scene, a member of Easy Company was shouting at the surrendered Germans how stupid and servile they were to have followed the Nazi leadership and brought war to all of Europe, disrupting their lives and causing so much death.


Yet most people do not know just how the German people became so servile. It reached a point where there was little they could do because the German people had no understanding of what got them there in the first place. They did not go from freedom to servitude in one day or even a year. It was a process.

The process is not so different down through history and that history is what our Founders studied extensively before they drew up our Constitution: the Law, a contract between the people and our government that in essence limits government and prevents it from becoming a totalitarian state. The Law is imposed on those in government, binding them down from mischief — as long as the people understand its purpose and adhere to the oath to the Law when accepting citizenship or the responsibility of a civil or military nature.

Responsibility is a moral obligation. It takes guts, determination, and resolve to carry out one’s responsibilities. It can get difficult. Politicians know this and are constantly garnering votes to put the responsibility on the shoulders of government rather than the person responsible — for retirement, for medical care, and on and on.

But with each little thing, the easing of responsibility on the individual becomes a bureaucracy that begins to control the individual and then to rule them — in the worst sense.

And this is what happened to the German people and it is happening to us. Healthcare, as an example, was provided to the Germans and they had reached the point where they depended on it. Once dependent and taxed to death for it, the Nazis knew they could use the system to convince the Germans that the infirm, both mentally and physically, should be eliminated, for the good of the people by easing taxes, for the good of the state to spend the money elsewhere, and for the good of the race by getting rid of inferior genes out of the gene pool.

That sounds nuts today, but when one studies the eugenics program of the Nazis, one discovers that it was based on the system that we already had in the United States and Hitler wrote letters to Americans thanking them for starting the program.

Thankfully we have retreated from such things on one level, but we’ve accelerated them on another. This is a story for another time, for the point here is how something that can look innocent can become the instrument of control and death.

Lenin, the brutal communist leader of Russia, said: “Socialized medicine is the keystone in the arch of the socialist state.” He used a system of terror and socialized medicine to woo and then control his citizens.

Our founders put in the Constitution what government could and could not do, ending with the wonderful Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

In other words, if we didn’t mention it, you can’t do it — unless you amend the Constitution. Remember, it is a contract.

We see a number of things that have come along that the federal government has undertaken in violation of this Amendment, and others. This has happened because the people who vote for politicians who promise to take care of us do not understand that one day this care will turn into control and then dictatorship, one step at a time. This for no other reason than that embodied in the famous words of Lord Acton: Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Government control of the health care system is unconstitutional and will be used as sure as night follows day to help subjugate the American people if allowed to go forward.

This is what is not being discussed by the Republicans. The reason? They want to have a smaller boa constrictor rather than an anaconda. Either way, they are still interested in squeezing the American people.

Art Thompson is CEO of The John Birch Society.

Editor's post on Infowars

This is a response I posted on Infowars.com Check out the story at IMF-style Austerity Measures Come to America


http://www.infowars.com/imf-style-austerity-measures-come-to-america/





SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!! Says:

March 5th, 2010 at 1:18 pm

The Globalists know how to fix the problem, but they are choosing greed and Globalism over Sovereignty and righteousness. They are hell bent on bringing about the “New World Order”, and the path they are on is turning out to be the most successful one in their eyes. They are not concerned with individual lives and national needs of individual states and countries. The end justifies the means to them. A reduction of the world’s population by 80% and a Comprehensive Control Grid that encompasses all nations in the hands of an Oligarchy is exactly what they desire. They are in the stages of completely destroying all currencies in order to bring about a more controlled form of currency through electronic transfer with Rfid Chips and all forms of purchases in electronic transactions. Trying to inform the government of a better way of paying of the “National Debt” and “Government Reform” is like trying to show Jeffrey Dammer how to avoid killing and eating his victims! Success to the Elite is being fulfilled throught their current agenda!



This is where the average person fails in this way of thinking. These Globalists have made righteousness into evil, and evil into righteousness!

The media will constantly come out with "documentaries", and "special edition news reports" with famous news Anchors on how the economic crisis came about. They will say how it was due to greed in the field of Capitalism, quick schemes to make CEOs and Wall Street Cronies rich and other random events like speculation in the Markets of Housing, Wall Street, etc., - but...... They will never tell the real reason!

Engineered Crisis to bring about Change! And that change is something that is in the works as I write. Sure, they will have congressional hearings, and parade CEOs in front of the CSPAN cameras in order to show the "Sheep Citizens" that Big Brother is on the case to solve the financial Crisis- when in reality, they are the mugger picking our pockets after having clubbed us over the head from behind!

Only when people begin to acknowledge the fact that a Coup de Grace' is in progress not only in the U.S., but on a global scale, can we hope to turn the current events around, and regain true security and freedom for America as well as the rest of the world.

I don't believe there is any real hope in our current government, save for a few brave souls in Congress. That doesn't mean I don't believe in government in general, indeed I believe there is the necessity of a limited government, just as I believe in a strong military, but strength does not have to mean an agressive military.
It should be ready and strong to defend - not to conquer and invade in order to occupy other countries for Globalist agendas.

If you want to live in the United States that once was a free and sovereign nation, that once was a lender and not a borrower, that once secured freedom and didn't trample on it - then NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN TO COME TO THE AID OF THEIR COUNTRY!!!!!

Mark Matheny

My Dearest Mr. Glenn Beck----

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!! Exclusive



My Dearest Mr. Glenn Beck----

I awakened in the wee hours of the morn unable to sleep,
much as you, out of concern and love for the preservation
of my country and the destruction of our freedoms, the
shredding of our Constitution and the growth of Big
Government Socialism and State Totalitarianism.


One of your recent guests on your TV ‘show’ was the head

of the Communist Party. How brave of you and what a great

service you are performing exposing this evil in our midst

and the grave threat he poses to our freedoms! What a

Great Warrior you are in your newly founded quest---

your “We’ve got them Surrounded” Crusade.

First let me make it quite clear that I am neither a “Bubba”
(a demeaning term you labled Patriots) nor am I a Lemming
who follows a phoney Pied Piper out to sea.


I liked your artful chart work of ‘stick’ the people—excuse me,
stick people—Your inept attempt was somewhat a reminder to
me of dear Ross Perot and his use of charts to explain things
to us un-elites. You remember Ross who attained his great wealth

from Big Government contracts, who threw an election. Others have

followed his pattern; Buchanan now has his cushy job as a media

good ole boy as does sister Bay and no doubt there are more who

will, and have dashed our ‘hope’ at the last minute who spend their

careers feeding at the government trough.

I kinda’ like to doodle myself and found your chart terribly lacking
in encompassing the overall Big Picture. You drew stick people,
Republicans and Democrats on opposite sides of the picture page
with two lines separating them with an area in the middle, as us---
You attributed so much % under the D’s and the R’s and in the middle
was US with a bigger percent---a majority---“there’s more of us
than them”---“we have them surrounded”---------you say-----(don’t
forget to buy $$$$ my T-shirts you lemmings-that’s what capitalism
is all about) kinda brings a tear to the eye----you’re so great at this—
good acting!!!!!

This is my chart drawing I would like to offer to you, Glenn ---my

chart has stick people too----But my stick people –the Dems and

Pubs are both at at the same Left side of the chart and you know

what-----my drawing has lines (strings) swooping downward

to the stick figures from the triangle at the top-----the stick figure

puppet ‘Demopubs’ are controlled at the top by the Council On

Foreign Relations and other Traitorous groups who are not only

in government but the mainstream media as well. Oh, did I just

let the Fox out of the henhouse—Sorry!!! Now isn’t their agenda

for World Government the same as that guest you had on who

heads the Communist Party---should not this artwork or ‘pieces of work’

be included in your chart? Oh, I forgot—maybe your chart is incomplete

or those who helped you draw and create it are one and the same

sly foxes who write out your paychecks $$$$$$$-

Did you know that your boss Ruppert Murdoch, one of the elites in

the top of the triangle or pyramid of my chart, who allows you to

“talk so freely” (ugh) gave the Democrats and Hillary lots of ‘fair

and balanced’ big bucks-$$$$$$--Does that not make your chart

a little tiny weeeeee bit unbalanced to the left?????

Looks like they’ve got your seat, your ‘asp’ and your assigned role

surrounded, along with somebody’s golden mike as well as owning

pretty boy Hannity’s long black curly eye lashes----

Those FEMA camps you’re “investigating”???

They aren’t just being built for Joe American but you brownshirt

media boys as well- Remember history? And don’t forget your

families—you are into family values aren’t you????

You might want to do a search on the web on FEMA camps-

you don’t need a network research team-----let your fingers do

the surfing------or go to Alex Jones website—now there’s a real

‘Bubba’ we patriots can count on-

Well, Glenn—I guess it’s back to the drawing board and your

real agenda------The co-opting and undermining of legitimate

Constitutional Liberty Preservation. Now that’s a real piece

of work as well as you and your comrades–

Phoney global warming ????—wait ‘til you and your ‘agenda

chart designers of the world unite’ and get a taste of some real

heat from the fires of Hell---off the charts----------

Carolyn Lanham

                                                                                      

                                                                                     

                                                                                      



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                          





                                                                                               

Gunman Killed After Shooting 2 Pentagon Police Officers

AOL News.com

WASHINGTON (March 5) -- Resentment of the U.S. government and suspicions over the 9/11 attacks have surfaced in writings by the Californian identified as the gunman who shot two Pentagon police officers before he was mortally wounded in a hail of return fire. The shooter's death was confirmed early Friday, hours after the Thursday evening assault, as authorities searched for a motive behind the brazen attack. The two officers, grazed by bullets, were treated in a hospital. The attack unfolded at the subway entrance to the massive Defense Department headquarters, as an eerie calm and silence were broken by the explosion of gunfire. "He just reached in his pocket, pulled out a gun and started shooting" at point-blank range, said Richard Keevill, chief of Pentagon police. "He walked up very cool. He had no real emotion on his face."

The Pentagon officers returned fire with semiautomatic weapons, sending the shooter to the hospital with critical injuries. Beverly Fields, chief of staff of the D.C. medical examiner's office, confirmed the man's death and said his body arrived at her office shortly after midnight.




John Patrick Bedell, 36, of Hollister, Calif., was identified as the shooter. Officials said they'd found no immediate connection to terrorism but had not ruled it out.



Signs emerged that Bedell harbored ill feelings toward the government and the armed forces, and had questioned the circumstances behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.



In an Internet posting, a user by the name JPatrickBedell wrote that he was "determined to see that justice is served" in the death of Marine Col. James Sabow, who was found dead in the backyard of his California home in 1991. The death was ruled a suicide but the case has long been the source of theories of a cover up.



The user named JPatrickBedell wrote the Sabow case was "a step toward establishing the truth of events such as the September 11 demolitions."



That same posting railed against the government's enforcement of marijuana laws and included links to the author's 2006 court case in Orange County, Calif., for cultivating marijuana and resisting a police officer. Court records available online show the date of birth on the case mentioned by the user JPatrickBedell matches that of the John Patrick Bedell suspected in the shooting.

The assault at the very threshold of the Pentagon - the U.S. capital's ground zero on Sept. 11, 2001 - came four months after a deadly attack on the Army's Fort Hood, Texas, post allegedly by a U.S. Army psychiatrist with radical Islamic leanings.

Hatred of the government motivated a man in Texas last month to fly a small plane into a building housing Internal Revenue Service offices, killing an IRS employee and himself.




Whatever the motive of Thursday's attack, the method resembled one in January in which a gunman walked up to the security entrance of a Las Vegas courthouse and opened fire with a shotgun, killing one officer and wounding another before being gunned down in a barrage of return fire.



President Barack Obama was getting FBI updates on the Pentagon shooting through his homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said.



Law enforcement officials were also scrutinizing a second man, who might have accompanied the shooter, and were running his name through databases.



The subway station is immediately adjacent to the Pentagon building, a five-sided northern Virginia colossus across the Potomac River from Washington. Since a redesign following the 2001 terrorist attack on the Pentagon, riders can no longer disembark directly into the building. Riders take a long escalator ride to the surface from the underground station, then pass through a security check outside the doors of the building, where further security awaits.



After the attack, all Pentagon entrances were secured, then all were reopened except one from the subway, said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.



Transit officials said the station would remain closed at least part of the day Friday while the FBI continued its investigation.



Keevill said the gunman gave no clue to the officers at the checkpoint about what he was going to do.



"There was no distress," he said. "When he reached into his pocket, they assumed he was going to get a pass and he came up with a gun."



"He wasn't pretending to be anyone. He was wearing a coat and walked up and just started shooting."



Keevill added: "We have layers of security and it worked. He never got inside the building to hurt anyone."



Ronald Domingues, 74, who lives next door to Bedell's parents in a gated golf course community in Hollister, said he doesn't know the family well. But he said Bedell sometimes lived with his parents and struck him "like a normal young man."



"He just seemed like a normal guy to me," Domingues said. "I wouldn't suspect he would be involved in anything like this."



Domingues described the neighborhood as middle-class. He said the Bedells live in a one story southwestern-style stucco home. The house was dark Thursday night.



Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan, Christine Simmons, Pauline Jelinek, Anne Gearan, Mike Gracia, Nafeesa Syeed, Philip Elliott and Kasey Jones contributed to this report.

Does Q4 GDP increase mean economic recovery ? Not on your life

SkyWatch Canada

Infowars
March 4, 2010

Most non-delusional people who understand a little bit about basic macroeconomics know that the reason for the present intentional economic crisis is that banks in late 2008 started cutting off credit which then effected everyone and everything in all sectors of the world economy. These banks decided to loan out gobs of money secured by fictitious toxic derivatives (bets), supplied by crooks who never intended to make good on these derivative obligations. Then as these derivatives matured and the crooks didn’t pay up those loans became unsecured and the banks started to panic. This panic caused them to cut the worlds credit off plunging the global financial system into a slump comparable to the great depression. But the buck doesn’t stop there. That’s just phase one of the collapse. When the credit markets seized up in late 2008 the governments of the world started their money printing presses and started bailing out the banks who had cut off the credit. By the end of 2009 credit was once again available and despite a few million jobs being lost in the US alone, jobless claims started slowing down. In Q4 2009 , Canada and the US reported record surges in their GDP giving some people false hope that the good times are here again and the economies of the developed world are going to start once again down the path of infinite growth. Nothing is farther from the truth.



It is known by many that the sum of the worlds outstanding derivative obligations is around 1.4 quadrillion dollars (1,400,000,000,000,000), which is about eight times the worlds GDP. These debts can never be repaid. Unfortunately the intention was never to repay them. The intention was to provide an excuse for the central banks of the world to run the money printing presses unendingly until the world enters global hyperinflation and paper money and all national currencies disintegrate. Then out of this chaos a solution will arise. We will probably see the dawn of a new global currency, a digital currency. Just don’t expect a fair exchange rate for you old dollars.

Read the entire article

China announces 7.5 pct jump in defense spending

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 20 mins ago

BEIJING – China on Thursday announced its smallest increase in defense spending in more than two decades, a likely result of both financial constraints and growing concern over perceptions of Beijing as a regional military threat.

The planned 7.5 percent boost in defense spending in 2010 follows at least 20 years of double-digit increases in the budget for the People's Liberation Army — the world's largest standing military with more than 2.3 million members.

Rapid military modernization and the acquisition of cutting-edge jet fighters, warships and submarines have aroused suspicions in Washington, Tokyo, New Delhi and elsewhere over China's intentions, further fueled by Beijing's growing diplomatic assertiveness and booming economic might.

The increase will be used to enhance China's ability "to meet various threats," said Li Zhaoxing, spokesman for China's parliament, the National People's Congress, at a news conference held on the eve of the opening of its annual legislative session.

"China is committed to peaceful development and a military posture that is defensive in nature," Li said.

He said this year's defense budget of 532.11 billion yuan ($77.9 billion) remained relatively low, particularly in relation to the country's vast territory and population. Li said Chinese defense spending has accounted for about 1.4 percent of gross domestic product in recent years, as opposed to more than 4 percent in the United States and more than 2 percent in Britain, France and Russia.

The increase over actual military spending in 2009 was 37.12 billion yuan, Li said. Defense expenditures account for 6.3 percent of China's total budget, a decline from previous years, he said.

Officials say about one-third of China's spending goes to salaries and improving living conditions for soldiers, with the rest split between replacing equipment and military research and development.

However, many overseas analysts believe the official figure accounts for only a part of actual military spending, with estimates on the total amount ranging up to twice or more what Beijing claims.

Figures provided by China's Cabinet show the country's last single-digit percentage in defense spending was in the 1980s.

The smaller rise in spending is due in part to the hit China's economy, especially the crucial export sector, has taken from the global financial crisis, prompting the government to rein in some expenditures, said Ni Lexiong, a defense analyst at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.

Meanwhile, the leadership has realized that large increases are generating concern and suspicion among China's neighbors, potentially sparking an arms race, he said.

"The decline shows that China does not want to be seen as an aggressive military power," Ni said.

Thursday's announcement follows repeated protests recently by Beijing over the U.S. sale of weaponry to Taiwan. Those sales are driven by threats from China to use force to bring the island under its control, backed up by an estimated 1,300 Chinese ballistic missiles positioned along the Taiwan Strait.

Communist-ruled China split with Taiwan amid civil war in 1949 and continues to regard the self-governing democracy as part of its territory. Beijing has warned of a disruption in ties with Washington if the sale goes ahead, but has not said what specific actions it would take.

Li, the congress spokesman, accused some foreign countries of backing Taiwan to thwart China, calling that unacceptable interference in China's internal affairs.

Washington's announcement in January that it intended to sell Taiwan $6.4 billion in helicopters, air defense missiles and other military hardware was especially unwelcome because it came amid a warming trend in Beijing's relations with the island, he said.

Taiwan relations are less a factor in Beijing's defense spending than economic stress and worries about appearing overly aggressive, said defense scholar Wang Kun-yi of Taipei's Tamkung University.

"China's defense budget is not specifically linked to cross-strait developments, but rather it is more related to the country's global positioning," Wang said.

Defense spending is among budget items to be approved at the end of the National People's Congress' session, which begins Friday and runs through March 14.

This year's session is expected to see a shift in spending priorities toward affordable housing, education, health care and other social programs.

Li said the full assembly this year would amend a law on how deputies are selected, correcting a disparity that gave urban Chinese greater representation than their more numerous rural neighbors.

Smart Grid: The Implementation of Technocracy?

The August Review

               Global Elite Research Center

By Patrick Wood, Editor

March 2, 2010

Introduction

According to the United Nations Governing Council of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), "our dominant economic model may thus be termed a 'brown economy." UNEP's clearly stated goal is to overturn the "brown economy" and replace it with a "green economy":

"A green economy implies the decoupling of resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth... These investments, both public and private, provide the mechanism for the reconfiguration of businesses, infrastructure and institutions, and for the adoption of sustainable consumption and production processes." [p. 2]

Sustainable consumption? Reconfiguring businesses, infrastructure and institutions? What do these words mean? They do not mean merely reshuffling the existing order, but rather replacing it with a completely new economic system, one that has never before been seen or used in the history of the world.

This paper will demonstrate that the current crisis of capitalism is being used to implement a radical new economic system that will completely supplant it. This is not some new idea created in the bowels of the United Nations: It is a revitalized implementation of Technocracy that was thoroughly repudiated by the American public in 1933, in the middle of the Great Depression.

The Technocrats have resurfaced, and they do not intend to fail a second time. Whether or not they succeed this time will depend upon the intended servants of Technocracy, the citizens of the world.

Read the entire article

Networks Ignore New Request for $15 Billion Bailout for Fannie Mae

Mortgage-backer has bled taxpayers for more than $75 billion, but is rarely criticized by the news media.

By Julia A. Seymour

Business & Media Institute

3/3/2010 1:47:06 PM

A business partly responsible for the economic downturn requested another $15.3 billion bailout last week.

It wasn’t one of the news media’s usual suspects, like the banks or insurance giant AIG – the ones they have repeatedly scorned and scrutinized for needing bailouts. It was government favorite and Democratic donor Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association, created as a public-private hybrid in 1938 but taken over by the federal government in Sept. 2008.

There was no media outrage; in fact there was almost no coverage. Fannie Mae’s Feb. 26 request for more than $15 billion made few print headlines and was ignored entirely by ABC, CBS and NBC – despite the billions of taxpayers’ dollars that have gone to bail Fannie out in the past year and a half.

“The new request for aid will bring Fannie Mae’s total to more than $75 billion,” according to an Associated Press report that ran in the Los Angeles Times Feb. 27.

The only hint in that article about improper conduct leading to Fannie’s downfall was in the last sentence: “The two companies (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) loosened their lending standards for borrowers during the real estate boom and are reeling from the consequences.”

Read the entire article

Troubled Times

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!!

By Mark Matheny

Troubled times are certainly upon us. The bailouts never seem to be enough, while unemployment continues to escalate although our government chooses to downplay the facts. A Harvard study has determined recently that gasoline prices will go as high as 7-8 dollars before 2012, all while the derivatives bubble gets bigger and will at some point bring about a global meltdown as sovereign nations default- and they all will according to many of the economists.

With the elections coming up in the fall I want to remind everyone that it is important to do your research on the candidates for the House of Representatives, and vote for the ones who will stand for constitutional issues and legislation only. Whether Democrat or Republican, it is important to remember that several of the members in the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative Branches of our current government are also members of the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commision, and the Bilderberg Group - all of which are pushing for Global Government.

We therefore must be discerning and unrelenting as we fight to restore the Republic that has made our Country so Great! I would also like to remind all to go to Ron Paul's Website (Ron Paul.com) and encourage him to run for President in 2012. We know that the office of the President is controlled by the Globalists in their effort to destroy our sovereignty, and bring in a New World Order, but we must continue the fight regardless! Donate to his cause if you can as well.

Whether or not you choose to believe that even more tumultuous times are just around the corner, the facts are unavoidable so prepare by getting your house in order, both spiritually and financially. Stock up on food supplies that will last, and pay off as much debt as you can - as soon as you can!!! The Dollar is on its last leg and more than likely lose even more value in the months ahead!

Also remember that it is still important TO VOTE!!! We have more of a chance with the Republican Party than with the Democrats in office. I know they are both controlled ( a left / right Paradigm) but we must restore power to the people through the proper process that was instituted by the founding fathers in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights!!

Lastly, Don't be afraid to speak out and teach others!! We must break the false notion that "Politics and Religion" are subjects we shouldn't speak to others about. These are subjects that will affect the life you and your children live now, as well as the life to come for eternity!!!

 "In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of great courage for I have overcome the world." Yeshua (Jesus)

Let Freedom Ring - Loudly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark Matheny

The Road to Dictatorship

Antiwar.com
by Justin Raimondo, March 01, 2010


 That 56 percent of all Americans "think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens" isn’t really all that surprising. After all, ever since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the government’s "right" to read our e-mails, seize our property, hold us as "enemy combatants," and otherwise trample on the Constitution has been expanding at an exponential pace. What’s really shocking, however, is that, according to this CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll, released on Feb. 28, most of the people who believe this are overwhelmingly … Republicans. That is, they are self-described supporters of the very same party which impaled the Constitution on the sword of the "war on terrorism." According to the poll, "only 37 percent of Democrats" believe this, as opposed to "63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans."


Is it just me, or was it only yesterday that the Democratic base was outraged by "Bushitler," and the "Cheney-PNAC" alleged neo-fascists who were taking over the country and driving dissent underground? How quickly they turn!

Adding to the irony, the poll was taken on the same weekend the extension of the PATRIOT Act passed the Democratic-controlled Congress – without debate, without a peep of protest from the "progressives" in Congress, and disguised as a vote in favor of a Senate amendment to the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act. Bravery is not something we see much of in Washington, D.C. As one blogger put it:

"So, if you heard the news of a Patriot Act vote, and went looking for the roll call, you wouldn’t find it. You’d see roll call # 67 for this year, but would reasonably conclude that the vote is thoroughly unrelated to the Patriot Act. If you hadn’t heard of the Patriot Act extension, and just wanted to see what legislation had been voted on yesterday, you would come away still ignorant of what the House of Representatives had actually done."
Read the entire article