The Amtrak Crash: Why the FBI Lied and Why It Is No Freak Accident Lending the Possibility of a Terror Attack [+video]

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Photo Credit: Shoebat When the tragic Amtrak crash happened, initially, the media and the FBI reported that foul play or terrorism was ruled out. When this misinformation came out on the 13th of this month, Shoebat.com reported [that]:

. . .Two trains, separate incidents within three minutes from each other and both incidents caused damage on the engineer’s window (one confirmed due to a projectile) which now some photos surfaced of the Amtrak crash also showing signs of engineer’s window shatter. Whether this is another projectile or was caused by the crash is unknown, but what is known is that both incidents were either coordinated around the same time with damage to the engineer’s window. Were these simply due to accidents? One is not. But this new revelation begins to lessen the possibility that chance was involved and that foul play becomes a possibility. . .

Such concentrated shatter holes are not easily formed by flying debris. Train driver windows are 223 Type 1 standard windows which have “minimum requirements for glazing materials in order to protect railroad employees and railroad passengers from injury as a result of objects striking the windows of locomotives”.

The driver’s window are not the same as the side windows of passenger trains which must meet Type II standards. According to federal standards, the driver windows need to have glazing that will withstand a 40 grain .22 caliber bullet travelling at 960 feet per second, or a 24 lb cinderblock travelling at 44 feet per second. . .

Karl Edler, a retired engineer who drove the line hundreds of times, said an impact could help explain the wreck. When a train pulls out of the North Philadelphia station, the engineer usually twists the throttle “up to notch eight, which is engineer-speak for wide open,” he said. . .

“Usually, you just leave the throttle open until you get up to 80 miles per hour, then put on the brake for the curve,” he said. “Seems reasonable that something happened right about that time he would have started slowing down that kept him from taking the throttle off. He was startled by the impact or whatever. And by the time he realized it, it was too late.” (Please read more from “The Amtrak Crash: Why the FBI Lied and Why It Is No Freak Accident Lending the Possibility of a Terror Attack” HERE)

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Ted Cruz Becoming a Hit Among Wall Street Donors

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Presidential candidate Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favorite and leading figure in the 2013 government shutdown that rattled investors, isn’t the kind of politician who usually wins a lot of friends among Wall Street campaign donors.

The freshman Republican senator from Texas has none of the moderate tendencies that financiers often prefer in presidential candidates. Cruz relishes his image as an anti-establishment figure and boasts of his aversion to compromise. He has vowed to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and repeal President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare plan, commonly known as Obamacare.

Despite the uncompromising rhetoric, Cruz is winning praise from some potential Wall Street donors, including bankers and hedge fund managers, who told Reuters there is more to him than the conservative firebrand of the campaign trail. He has been courting financiers in their homes in New York and Greenwich, Connecticut, they said.

But the praise does not appear to be translating into cash donations – at least so far. Some potential donors on Wall Street said they had doubts about whether Cruz can win the 2016 election, when he would likely face off against Hillary Clinton.

A spokesman for Cruz said his campaign was happy with its initial fundraising effort and believed that the senator appealed to a wide range of people. (Read more from “Ted Cruz Becoming a Hit Among Wall Street Donors” HERE)

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Waco Police: Several Killed in Biker Gangs’ Shootout [+video]

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Police said at least nine people were dead and others wounded after a fight between rival motorcycle gangs at a Texas restaurant turned into a shootout Sunday afternoon.

Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton told CBS affiliate KWTX the gunfire began shortly after noon Sunday at the Twin Peaks restaurant, located in the Central Texas Market Place on Interstate 35.

KWTX reported eight bikers were killed at the restaurant and one other person died at a hospital. At least 18 people were hurt, according to Swanton, none of them police or bystanders.

Police initially said three gangs were involved, but later said factions from at least five gangs took part in the melee.

Swanton said the fight quickly escalated from fists and feet to chains, clubs and knives before the shooting began. He described it as “one of the most violent scenes I’ve seen in my 34 years as a police officer in Waco.” (Read more from “Waco Police: Several Killed in Biker Gangs’ Shootout” HERE)

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Creepy Ads Use Litterbugs’ DNA to Shame Them Publicly

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Photo Credit: Wired Next time you’re about to toss a cigarette butt on the ground, consider this freaky fact: It takes less than a nanogram (or less than one billionth of the mass of a penny) of your dried saliva for scientists to construct a digital portrait that bears an uncanny resemblance to your very own face. For proof look to Hong Kong, where a recent ad campaign takes advantage of phenotyping, the prediction of physical appearance based on bits of DNA, to publicly shame people who have littered.

If you walk around the city, you’ll notice portraits of people who look both scarily realistic and yet totally fake. These techno-futuristic most-wanted signs are the work of ad agency Ogilvy for nonprofit Hong Kong Cleanup, which is attempting to curb Hong Kong’s trash problem with the threat of high-tech scarlet lettering. It’s an awful lot like the Stranger Visions project from artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg, who used a similar technique a couple years back to construct sculptural faces as a way to provoke conversation around what we should be using these biological tools for.

In the case of Hong Kong’s Face Of Litter campaign, the creative team teamed up with Parabon Nanolabs, a company out of Virginia that has developed a method to construct digital portraits from small traces of DNA. Parabon began developing this technology more than five years ago in tandem with the Department of Defense, mostly to use as a tool in criminal investigations.

Parabon’s technique draws on the growing wealth of information we have about the human genome. By analyzing saliva or blood, the company is able to make an educated prediction of what you might look like. Most forensic work uses DNA to create a fingerprint, or a series of data points that will give a two-dimensional look at an individual that can be matched to pre-existing DNA samples. “We’re interested in using DNA as a blueprint,” explains Steven Armentrout, founder of Parabon. “We read the genetic code.” (Read more from “Creepy Ads Use Litterbugs’ DNA to Shame Them Publicly” HERE)

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1 Dead, Several Injured in Osprey Hard-Landing at Bellows [+videos]

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Photo Credit: Star Advertiser One Marine died and several were injured in an MV-22 Osprey aircraft hard-landing incident Sunday morning at Bellows Air Force Station.

At least twelve of 22 Marines onboard were injured in a “hard-landing mishap,” which occurred at about 11 a.m. when the aircraft from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based out of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California, was conducting training, said Capt. Alex Lim, a spokesman for the U.S. Marine Corps’ Forces Pacific.

Military, police, fire and Emergency Medical Service personnel are responding to the scene at Bellows station in the Waimanalo area. The injured Marines were transported to a local hospital for treatment.

Residents in the Kailua, Keolu Hills and Enchanted Lake areas reported seeing plumes of thick, black smoke rising from the Bellows area. Bellows is used as a training area for Marines.

The Osprey was not participating in an exercise connected to the U.S. Pacific Command Amphibious Leaders Symposium. (Read more from “1 Dead, Several Injured in Osprey Hard-Landing at Bellows” HERE)

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What Is This Strange Sound From the Sky? Noise Heard Across Globe for Nearly a DECADE – but Nobody Has a Good Explanation [+video]

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Photo Credit: Daily Mail

Photo Credit: Daily Mail

A mysterious noise from the sky is continuing to baffle people all over the world – as well as giving those who hear it sleepless nights.

Sounding like a trumpet or a collective from a brass section of an orchestra, a selection of videos shot from the Canada to Ukraine, via the U.S., Germany and Belarus show strange goings on above us.

And the eerie sounds have been continuously heard at all different times and locations for almost a decade.

The first video posted on YouTube recording the unusual, unearthly sounds, was in 2008 when a user recorded the strange sounds in the sky from Homel, in Belarus.

That same year another anonymous user shared the ‘ear-deafening’ sounds that they insisted ‘were not a hoax,’ from a quiet neighbourhood believed to be in the U.S. . .

Geoscientist David Deming from the University of Oklahoma has previously written about a phenomenon called The Hum – ‘a mysterious and untraceable sound that is heard in certain locations around the world by two to ten per cent of the population’.

Writing in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, he said that sources of The Hum could include telephone transmissions and ‘aircraft operated by the U.S Navy for the purpose of submarine communications’. [Here’s another not-so-good explanation of what may be causing the “hum”]

According to Nasa, the Earth has ‘natural radio emissions’. (Read more from “What Is This Strange Sound From the Sky? Noise Heard Across the Globe for Nearly a DECADE – but Nobody Has an Explanation” HERE)

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Obama Lectures Christians Again: Church Should Focus More on Poverty and Less on Abortion and Homosexual Marriage [+video]

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140721-barack-obama-white-house-1044a_767b48082482e96b3dd425ac8b9446eePresident Obama suggested that people of faith should focus more on helping the poor, instead of focusing on divisive issues such as gay marriage and abortion.

During a panel discussion on poverty at Georgetown University, Obama specifically referred to his own [self-described] Christian faith, pointing out that he recognized the importance speaking out about the issue as president.

“I think it would be powerful for our faith-based organizations to speak out on this in a more forceful fashion,” he said, admitting that his wish might sound “self-interested” because he had disagreements with Christian and Catholic organizations about gay marriage and abortion.

“There is great caring and great concern, but when it comes to what are you really going to the mat for, what’s the defining issue – this is often times viewed as a ‘nice to have’ relative to an issue like abortion,” Obama said.

He argued that churches should spend more time pursuing “powerful” ideas such as helping those in poverty in order to attract more followers. (Read more from “Obama Lectures Christians: Church Should Focus More on Poverty and Less on Abortion and Homosexual Marriage” HERE)

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Unbelievable: Girl Scouts Welcome Cross-Dressing Boys Into Their Ranks [+video]

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

By Thomas D. Williams. The Girl Scouts of America (GSA) is the latest organization to cave to pressure from the LGBTIQA lobby, adapting its policies to extend membership to boys who identify as girls.

Penny Nance from Concerned Women for America called the decision “just one more slap in the face to Christian parents.”

On the GSA website, the association states: “If the child is recognized by the family and school/community as a girl and lives culturally as a girl, then Girl Scouts is an organization that can serve her in a setting that is both emotionally and physically safe” . . .

The conservative American Family Association expressed its outrage at the policy change, accusing scout leaders of “losing their moral compass.” This is the case of adults being “willing to experiment on our kids—both the boys who are confused and the girls who will wonder why a boy in a dress is in the bathroom with them” . . .

This isn’t the first time that the issue of “transgender” boys wanting to join the Girl Scouts has come up, though such cases are fairly uncommon. In early 2012, seven-year old Bobby Montoya, who was living as a girl, was allowed to join his local Girl Scout troop in Colorado. (Read more from “Girl Scouts Welcome Cross-Dressing Boys Into Their Ranks” HERE)

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One of Nation’s Largest Public School Districts Now Teaching That There’s No Difference Between Boys, Girls

By Todd Starnes. One of the nation’s largest public school systems is preparing to include gender identity to its classroom curriculum, including lessons on sexual fluidity and spectrum – the idea that there’s no such thing as 100 percent boys or 100 percent girls.

Fairfax County Public Schools released a report recommending changes to their family life curriculum for grades 7 through 12. The changes, which critics call radical gender ideology, will be formally introduced next week.

“The larger picture is this is really an attack on nature itself – the created order,” said Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council.

“Human beings are created male and female. But the current transgender ideology goes way beyond that. They’re telling us you can be both genders, you can be no gender, you can be a gender that you make up for yourself. And we’re supposed to affirm all of it.”

The plan calls for teaching seventh graders about transgenderism and tenth graders about the concept that sexuality is a broader spectrum — but it sure smells like unadulterated sex indoctrination. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Sentenced to Death

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tsarnaevA federal jury Friday sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death, the final chapter to a brutal, emotionally exhausting trial that brought forth indelible images of an unspeakable crime.

There was no visible reaction from Tsarnaev, 21. Several survivors and relatives of victims dabbed tears in the quiet courtroom.

Bill and Denise Richard, parents of the bombing’s littlest victim, 8-year-old Martin, looked on stoically from the second row. They were against the death penalty.

The verdict marked the first time in the post-9/11 era that federal prosecutors have won the death penalty in a terrorism case.

Tsarnaev could be sent to death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, but his final destination will not be known until after the judge formally sentences him in court. No sentencing date has been set. (Read more from “Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Sentenced to Death” HERE)

Scalia Defends the Constitution, Questions the 17th Amendment

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Photo Credit: Flickr

Photo Credit: Flickr

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia reaffirmed his commitment to defending the Constitution while speaking to the Federalist Society in his home state of New Jersey on Friday.

Scalia, the preeminent conservative firebrand of the court, told the audience it is the structure of the government under the Constitution and not the liberties guaranteed under the Bill of Rights that makes us free.

As reported by The Daily Signal: “Every tin horn dictator in the world today, every president for life, has a Bill of Rights,” said Scalia, author of the 2012 book Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts. “That’s not what makes us free; if it did, you would rather live in Zimbabwe. But you wouldn’t want to live in most countries in the world that have a Bill of Rights. What has made us free is our Constitution. Think of the word ‘constitution’; it means structure.”

Congress passed the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which became known as the Bill of Rights, during the opening months of its first session in 1789, largely following those proposed by the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison. They were ratified by the states and became the law of the land in 1791.

Scalia argued that without the division of power created by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, which guarantees freedom of speech and religion, the right to bear arms, protection against unlawful search and seizures, and trial by jury of one’s peers among other rights, would just be paper promises with no mechanism to enforce them.

“The genius of the American constitutional system is the dispersal of power,” he said. “Once power is centralized in one person, or one part [of government], a Bill of Rights is just words on paper.”

Scalia stands on firm ground with his observation. James Madison wrote in Federalist 51 that the best bulwark against government tyranny is structuring a system where “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

He observed: “In the republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments [federal and state], and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments [legislative, executive, judicial]. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.”

Scalia noted that the most profound departure from the dispersal-of-power structure established under the Constitution was passage of the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913, which changed the method of the election of U.S. senators to the popular vote rather than by the state legislatures.

The Founders intended the House of Representatives to be the “people’s house” with elections every two years, while senators served for six year terms–their constituency being the state legislature. This ensured that senators would have no incentive to trample on the state government’s authority through federal action.

The Constitution created a federal government with certain enumerated powers, leaving all the remaining authority to the states and the people. Scalia and many other critics believe the federal government has usurped broad authority in powers left primarily to the states.

“What a difference that makes,” Scalia said. “When you have a bill that says states will not receive federal highway funds unless they raise the drinking age to 21, that bill would not pass. The states that had lower drinking ages would tell their senators, ‘You vote for that and you are out of there.’”

Repeal of the 17th Amendment is one of the proposals in radio talk show host Mark Levin’s bestselling book Liberty Amendments.

Regarding interpretation of the Constitution overall, Justice Scalia is an originalist. In other words, he believes that it is not up to courts to re-interpret the nation’s governing document, but follow what the Founders’ intended. If the Constitution or laws generally need revision, it is up to the legislative branch to do so. “When we read Shakespeare, we have a glossary. We don’t think the words have changed there, so why do we think they have changed in the Constitution?” the justice has told audiences in the past.

Justice Scalia is currently the longest serving member on the Supreme Court, having been appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1986. Anthony Kennedy is the only other Reagan appointee still serving on the high bench. (See “Scalia Defends the Constitution, Questions the 17th Amendment”, originally posted HERE)

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