Summer Dystopia: 75% of Americans Unhappy with Nation’s Direction

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GALLUP-politics-Obama-Holder(CNSNews.com) – “Three-quarters of Americans are now dissatisfied with the nation’s course, up from 68 percent in July,” an August 12 Gallup poll found.

The Gallup results were echoed by a Rasmussen poll, which found that only 29 percent of likely voters believe “the country is heading in the right direction.”

And Americans don’t trust Congress or the news media to help turn things around.

“Confidence in the country’s direction” peaked the week just before Election Day and has been “gradually decreasing ever since,” Rasmussen reports. But public opinion on the performance of Congress is even more negative, according to the latest polling data.

Pollsters report growing disapproval of President Obama’s handling of economic and national security issues, with only 45 percent of Americans currently approving of his job performance and 47 percent expressing their disapproval.

Read more from this story HERE.

Egypt Sending Diplomatic Mission to Russia

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putin_As the situation in Egypt escalates, a source with very close ties to the Egyptian government tells Breitbart News that the country is preparing to send a diplomatic mission to Russia. While the Obama Administration sends conflicting messages about the conflict, Russia, China and Saudi Arabia have issued strong statements in support of the government’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. America’s influence in the region is waning.

“They’re terrorists,” the source told Breitbart News in reference to people protesting in support of the Muslim Brotherhood. “They have machine guns, they have weapons…Hamas and other outside groups are pushing guns to them. Where is America?”

Breitbart News has also learned that Russia is offering the Egyptian government fighter jets and other military equipment. This week, President Obama announced that the US is suspending its planned joint military exercise with the Egyptian army. It seems the Russians are jumping in to fill the void left by the Americans.

“Sadat threw Russia out of Egypt,” the source told Breitbart News. “Peace came from that. If Russia reenters Egypt, they reenter the world.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Texas ‘Garden of Eden’ Owner Claims SWAT Raided Her Property Under ‘Guise’ of a Drug Bust and Took 20,420 Pounds of Material (+video)

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swat_raidThe owner of sustainable farm in Texas claims a SWAT team came onto her property “under the guise that we were doing a drug trafficking, marijuana-growing operation” and ended up taking more than 20,000 pounds of material and allegedly violated personal rights, according to WFAA-TV.

“There were 15 to 20 blackberry bushes. There were sunflowers for our bees and gifting. Lots of okra, and we had a sweet potato patch that they whacked down with a Weed-Eater. The weeds that we used to shade our crops are also gone,” owner of the Garden of Eden Shellie Smith told WFAA of the scene after authorities came through.

The SWAT team had a probable cause search warrant to come onto the Arlington farm August 2. A code enforcement team also entered the property with an abatement warrant, which allowed them to take nearly “20,420 pounds of nuisance materials” from the property.

WFFA reported these materials including two dozen tires with stagnant water and “compost, wooden pallets and furniture.”

“The purpose was to improve the quality of life, to resolve life safety issues within neighborhoods and to hold the property owner responsible for creating blight conditions on their property,” the City of Arlington’s spokeswoman Sana Syed wrote in a statement of the raid.

Read more from this story HERE.

Blowback: Group Planning 9-11 Million Muslim March on DC Blasted (+video)

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million_muslim_marchCritics say a Muslim group picked the wrong day – Sept. 11 – to march on Washington to complain about religious profiling and President Obama’s handling of an investigation into the terror attacks that rocked America 12 years ago.

The mass demonstration, called the “Million Muslim March,” was changed to a more mainstream-sounding event, “Million American March Against Fear,” but the name did not seem to gain much traction and has apparently reverted back to its original title.

American Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC), which is organizing the march, claims Muslims nationwide have been the victims of anti-Islamic bigotry in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on American soil.

“On 9.11.01 our country was forever changed by the horrific events in New York. The entire country was victimized by the acts done on that day,” the group said in a statement. “Muslim and Non Muslim alike were traumatized but we as Muslims continue 12 years later to be victimized by being made the villains. To this day every media outlet and anti Islamic organization has committed slanderous and libel statements against us as Muslims and our religion of Islam.”

“Yet our Government either sits idly by and does nothing to protect our freedoms or it exacerbates the problem with its constant war on terrorism in Islamic countries, congressional hearings on Islam in America, and its changes to the NDAA law,” the statement says.

Read more from this story HERE.

Noonan: What We Lose if We Give Up Privacy

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surveillance_stateWhat is privacy? Why should we want to hold onto it? Why is it important, necessary, precious?

Is it just some prissy relic of the pretechnological past?

We talk about this now because of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency revelations, and new fears that we are operating, all of us, within what has become or is becoming a massive surveillance state. They log your calls here, they can listen in, they can read your emails. They keep the data in mammoth machines that contain a huge collection of information about you and yours. This of course is in pursuit of a laudable goal, security in the age of terror.

Is it excessive? It certainly appears to be. Does that matter? Yes. Among other reasons: The end of the expectation that citizens’ communications are and will remain private will probably change us as a people, and a country.

Among the pertinent definitions of privacy from the Oxford English Dictionary: “freedom from disturbance or intrusion,” “intended only for the use of a particular person or persons,” belonging to “the property of a particular person.” Also: “confidential, not to be disclosed to others.” Among others, the OED quotes the playwright Arthur Miller, describing the McCarthy era: “Conscience was no longer a private matter but one of state administration.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Heritage Action CEO Calls Out House GOP

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house_leadershipHeritage Action for America CEO Michael Needham on Thursday cast House Republicans as gutless for backing down on Obamacare and the farm bill.

“Washington loves to play this game of saying something can’t be done,” he said. “Politicians like to set expectations as low as possible so they can’t help but trip over them.”

During a C-SPAN “Newsmakers” interview with CQ Roll Call’s Niels Lesniewski and The Hill’s Bob Cusack, which will air Sunday, Needham said Republicans don’t know what is possible because there are still seven weeks until Sept. 30, when the government will need new spending legislation to avoid a shutdown.

Lawmakers have been asking what Heritage Action’s strategy would be if the government shut down, and they say Heritage doesn’t have an answer.

But Needham shrugged off that concern.

Read more from this story HERE.

Government Now Admits There IS an ‘Area 51’

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area_51The last time I visited Area 51, it didn’t exist.

But as of this week it does. Officially.

For reasons unknown, the government finally has admitted that Area 51 — the Shangri-La of alien hunters and a sturdy trope of ­science-fiction movies — is a real place in the Mojave Desert about 100 miles north of Las Vegas.

It presumably does not house hideous squidlike ETs, but at least you can see the place on a map. Area 51 is confirmed in declassified CIA documents posted online Thursday by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. A dogged researcher pried from the CIA a report on the history of the U-2 spy plane, which was tested and operated at Area 51.

The military, which runs the base, always denied that Area 51 was called by its famous moniker, preferring a designation connected to the Groom Lake salt flat, a landing strip for the U-2 and other stealth aircraft.

Read more from this story HERE.

DOJ Seeks to Block Bernanke Testimony

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ben-bernanke2WASHINGTON — The government is trying to block questioning of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in a lawsuit by the former head of American International Group Inc.

The Justice Department told a federal appeals court Friday that high-ranking officials should not have to testify except in extraordinary circumstances.

Former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg sued the government over the $182 billion bailout of the insurance giant that has since been repaid.

Read more from this story HERE.

Illegal Aliens Protest for Tuition Benefits (+video)

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students_RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — Dozens of undocumented students at Wake Technical Community College are pushing for changes to a policy that requires them to pay out-of-state tuition.

The students are forced to pay the out-of-state fees, which are nearly four times the cost of in-state tuition, even if they graduated from a North Carolina high school and have been living in the state for some time.

Five students were arrested at Thursday’s protest after repeated warnings to leave the campus. Wake Tech officials said the group didn’t file the proper paperwork to protest at the college. The five individuals, ranging in age from 17-27, are all charged with second-degree trespassing.

Meanwhile, undocumented students moved their demonstration to the highway demanding equal tuition rights.

“I think it’s discriminatory because they give us the opportunity already to be able to study here. We work really hard,” said undocumented student Jose Rico.

Read more from this story HERE.

U2’s Bono Says Only Capitalism Can Pull World Out of Poverty (+video)

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BONOIreland’s Bono, the international superstar of music and philanthropy, has always used his status to bring attention to world poverty and illness.

He played a key role in bringing international relief to Africa as it struggled with the AIDS epidemic; it is said he is responsible for saving millions of lives through his efforts.

Known for his philanthropy as much as his creativity in the music field, Bono has drawn together quite a far flung army of volunteers in his war on poverty and disease. Under his tent, he has brought world leaders, rock stars, soccer moms and evangelicals, all united in goals to make the world a better place.

But through his experience in bringing aid to those in need, it seems Bono has had an awakening, perhaps Biblical in proportion best summed up by:

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”

Bono, during a speech to students at Georgetown University, declared his altered view on political and economic issues, by saying: ONLY capitalism can end poverty:

“Aid is just a stopgap,” he said. “Commerce/ entrepreneurial capitalism take more people out of poverty than aid. We need Africa to become an economic powerhouse.”

Bono encouraged the students to think of what they can do to support those in Africa and other 3rdworld countries in need of justice and comfort….

As if writing a lyric to one of his songs, he said:

“Because when you truly accept that those children in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God’s eyes or even in just your eyes, then your life is forever changed, you see something that you can’t un-see.”

Bono wields tremendous world influence and his awakening on capitalism can signal a ground shift on how world aid organizations actually find long term cures for poverty and disease, rather than putting a band aid on it.

Bono signaled appreciation for another world famous capitalist during an interview last year with Mike Huckabee: “America needs Reagan-like statesmanship that is so missing.”…See story here.

President Reagan valued the magic and power that entrepreneurial capitalism brought to the standard of living for mankind throughout the world.

Sounds like Bono has seen the light.

Here’s the video of the Georgetown University speech:

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.