US Military Personnel Who Contact Julian Assange, WikiLeaks are Subject to Death Penalty

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The US military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States – the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency.

Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with “communicating with the enemy”, a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death.

The documents, some originally classified “Secret/NoForn” – not releasable to non-US nationals – record a probe by the air force’s Office of Special Investigations into a cyber systems analyst based in Britain who allegedly expressed support for WikiLeaks and attended pro-Assange demonstrations in London.

The counter-intelligence investigation focused on whether the analyst, who had a top-secret security clearance and access to the US military’s Secret Internet Protocol Router network, had disclosed classified or sensitive information to WikiLeaks supporters, described as an “anti-US and/or anti-military group”.

The suspected offence was “communicating with the enemy, 104-D”, an article in the US Uniform Code of Military Justice that prohibits military personnel from “communicating, corresponding or holding intercourse with the enemy”.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama & the NDAA: Actions Speak Louder than Words

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In this Reality Check segment, the Fox commentator talks about the Obama Administration’s stated opposition to NDAA and then interviews the President. But after observing that the Department of Justice is nevertheless challenging federal court orders barring implementation of the NDAA, the Fox commentator concludes that Obama has been lying as “actions speak louder than words”:

Matt Damon’s Anti-Fracking Movie Financed by Oil-Rich Arab Nation (+video)

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By Lachlan Markay. A new film starring Matt Damon presents American oil and natural gas producers as money-grubbing villains purportedly poisoning rural American towns. It is therefore of particular note that it is financed in part by the royal family of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.

The creators of Promised Land have gone to absurd lengths to vilify oil and gas companies, as Scribe’s Michael Sandoval noted Wednesday. Since recent events have demonstrated the relative environmental soundness of hydraulic fracturing – a technique for extracting oil and gas from shale formations – Promised Land’s script has been altered to make doom-saying environmentalists the tools of oil companies attempting to discredit legitimate “fracking” concerns.

While left-leaning Hollywood often targets supposed environmental evildoers, Promised Land was also produced “in association with” Image Media Abu Dhabi, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Media, according to the preview’s list of credits. A spokesperson with DDA Public Relations, which runs PR for Participant Media, the company that developed the film fund backing Promised Land, confirmed that AD Media is a financier. The company is wholly owned by the government of the UAE.

The UAE, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has a stake in the future of the American fossil fuel industry. Hydraulic fracturing has increased the United States’ domestic supply of crude oil and natural gas in areas such as the Bakken shale formation and has the potential to increase domestic production much more in the foreseeable future. That means more oil on the market, and hence lower prices for a globally traded commodity.

Fracking is boosting the country’s natural gas supply as well. While the market for American natural gas is primarily domestic, the Energy Department recently approved Cheniere Energy’s plan to export about 2.2 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas per day from Louisiana. The Department is considering LNG export applications from seven other companies. Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s the trailer of Damon’s movie:

Delaware: 1st State in US to Jail Parents Who Spank

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Delaware has become the first state in the US to effectively outlaw corporal discipline of children by their parents. Gov. Jack Markell signed Senate Bill 234 into law on September 12.

The legislation, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Patricia M. Blevins, redefines the term “physical injury” in the child abuse and neglect laws to broadly include any act that causes “pain.”

“This bill establishes the offense of Child Abuse,” the legislation states. “These new statutes combine current statutes and redefine physical injury and serious physical injury to reflect the medical realities of pain and impairment suffered by children.”

Under the new law, a parent causing “physical injury” (e.g., pain) to a child under age 18 would be guilty of a class A misdemeanor and subject to one year in prison. A parent causing pain to a child who was three years of age or younger would be guilty of a class G felony and subject to two years in prison.

The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), along with the Delaware Home Education Association and the Delaware Family Policy Council, opposed the legislation, saying the bill was “a violation of the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, including the long-recognized right to administer reasonable corporal discipline.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaskan Combat Military Veterans May No Longer Qualify For PFD, But Murkowski, Young & Begich Do

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In a unanimous decision yesterday, the Alaska Supreme Court determined that former-Alaska Attorney General Wayne Anthony Ross’s son, an Annapolis graduate and active-duty Marine, no longer qualifies for an Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. As a result, his minor children also lose their Permanent Fund Dividends.

This decision was reached even though there is no dispute that Lieutenant Colonel Brian Ross has been a life-long Alaskan resident. He was born and raised in Anchorage. After graduating from Service High School in Anchorage, he attended the United States Naval Academy.

Wayne Anthony Ross told Restoring Liberty that his son “graduated as the top Marine applicant of the Class of 1994. He served in Iraq three times. He always continued to maintain himself as an Alaskan resident, registering his cars, voting, keeping his Alaska driver’s license and hunting licenses here. He owns land and a lodge herein Alaska and has returned home almost every year. He intends to return home here after getting out of the Marine Corps.” Mr. Ross said that, in 2012, his son returned to Alaska three times.

Unfortunately for LTC Ross, who entered active duty in 1990, our ethically-challenged state legislature decided in 1998 that Alaskan residents who have been absent from the state for more than ten years should no longer qualify for an Alaska PFD. Exceptions were made for our royal congressional class (at the time Senator Murkowski, Senator Stevens, and Representative Young), their immediate families, and even their staff, but no exception was made for Alaskan military veterans deployed outside of the state.

Mr. Ross argued that this different approach for congressional members and their families was a violation of equal protection. Obviously, if the legislature is willing to permit Senators and our lone Representative to continue to collect the PFD even though their residences have been in the Beltway for far more than ten years, veterans deployed in the service of their country should have the same treatment.

The Alaska Supreme Court unanimously said “no.” This decision should come as no surprise given the fact that this same Supreme Court chose to ignore equal protection violations during the Miller-Murkowski senatorial race in 2010. There, our royal Senator received a hand count of her ballots while Mr. Miller’s vote result was established by a Diebold machine count even though it was an established fact that the Diebold machine count was inaccurate.

Our Supreme Court unanimously said that it did not matter that over 60% of all Alaskan votes (McAdams and Miller votes) were counted differently than Murkowski’s.

The Alaskan electorate needs to bring accountability to the Alaskan judiciary. And a tool to do that is available. It’s called the retention vote. Vote “No” this November.

Obama: Illegal Alien Homosexual Partners of US Citizens Should Not Be Deported

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Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday that she has ordered written guidance be issued that same-sex couples’ relationships be considered “family relationships.” The move is the most tangible proof yet that the Department is taking action urging field offices not to pursue deportation cases against a foreign same-sex partner of an American citizen who would be able to obtain a green card if in an opposite-sex relationship.

The news came in a letter from Napolitano to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday, where she stated that “the phrase ‘family relationships’ includes long-term, same-sex partners” for purposes of exercising prosecutorial discretion in immigration enforcement matters, nearly two months after a DHS spokesman told BuzzFeed that such a policy was in place.

The written guidance had been requested repeatedly by lawmakers.

From Napolitano’s letter: “In an effort to make clear the definition ofthe phrase “family relationships,” I have directed [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to disseminate written guidance to the field that the interpretation of the phrase “family relationships” includes long-term, same-sex partners. As with every other factor identified in Director Morton’s June 11 memorandum, the applicability ofthe “family relationships” factor is weighed on an individualized basis in the consideration of whether prosecutorial discretion is appropriate in a given case.”

Because of the Defense of Marriage Act’s prohibition on the federal government recognizing same-sex couples’ marriages, such couples — when one is not a U.S. citizen — are not able to obtain a green card, which is readily available to opposite-sex couples.

Read more from this story HERE.

Even Al Gore Now Abandoning Loser Green Energy Investments

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If you are thinking about green energy for your portfolio, Al Gore has a few words of advice: “Don’t do it.”

“Of course he does not say that in public,” says Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management. “Gore’s company still talks about how alternative energy is a good investment. How companies are adopting it, governments are subsidizing it and people are using it.”

But SEC filings from Gore’s company, Generation Investment, tell a different story, says Gunderson, who hosts a nationally syndicated financial talk radio program and writes for MarketWatch and TheStreet.com.

“Generation Investment says it is all about climate change, but it is just a typical investment fund with typical stocks,” Gunderson said.

“It has Amazon, Colgate Palmolive, eBay, Nielsen, Qualcomm, Strayer University and a smattering of stocks from biotech and health care. Not one company that makes solar panels, or windmills or biogas or electric cars. Catheters and commercial real estate, yes. Solar panels, no.”

Read more from this story HERE.

New Justice Department Documents Show Huge Increase in Warrantless Electronic Surveillance

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Justice Department documents released today by the ACLU reveal that federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring Americans’ electronic communications, and doing so without warrants, sufficient oversight, or meaningful accountability.

The documents, handed over by the government only after months of litigation, are the attorney general’s 2010 and 2011 reports on the use of “pen register” and “trap and trace” surveillance powers. The reports show a dramatic increase in the use of these surveillance tools, which are used to gather information about telephone, email, and other Internet communications. The revelations underscore the importance of regulating and overseeing the government’s surveillance power.

Pen register and trap and trace devices are powerfully invasive surveillance tools that were, twenty years ago, physical devices that attached to telephone lines in order to covertly record the incoming and outgoing numbers dialed. Today, no special equipment is required to record this information, as interception capabilities are built into phone companies’ call-routing hardware.

Pen register and trap and trace devices now generally refer to the surveillance of information about—rather than the contents of—communications. Pen registers capture outgoing data, while trap and trace devices capture incoming data. This still includes the phone numbers of incoming and outgoing telephone calls and the time, date, and length of those calls. But the government now also uses this authority to intercept the “to” and “from” addresses of email messages, records about instant message conversations, non-content data associated with social networking identities, and at least some information about the websites that you visit (it isn’t entirely clear where the government draws the line between the content of a communication and information about a communication when it comes to the addresses of websites).

The reports that we received document an enormous increase in the Justice Department’s use of pen register and trap and trace surveillance. As the chart below shows, between 2009 and 2011 the combined number of original orders for pen registers and trap and trace devices used to spy on phones increased by 60%, from 23,535 in 2009 to 37,616 in 2011.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia declares “ownership” of Arctic Ocean Region Adjacent to Alaska by Russian Orthodox Consecration

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Photo credit: NASA Goddard

Russia has taken a bizarre step to declare its “ownership” of the Arctic Ocean region by having a Russian Orthodox bishop “consecrate” the North Pole on behalf of the church.

According to the Daily Telegraph, a bishop named Iakov of the northern Naryan-Mar (which lies north of the Arctic Circle) placed a “holy memorial capsule” into the icy sea while aboard the Rossiya, a nuclear-powered icebreaker during a polar expedition arranged by Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.

The capsule featured an inscription that read: “With the blessing of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, the consecration of the North Pole marks 1,150 years of Russian Statehood.”

Moscow is keen to assert its domination of the Arctic, given the huge reserves of untapped oil and gas believed to reside in the region, and has also accelerated its remilitarization there. Reportedly, the Russian military’s MiG-31 supersonic interceptor aircraft will be deployed in the Arctic region by the end of this year.

According to Bishop Iakov, the consecration is important to both the Orthodox Church and the Russian people for it “symbolizes the efforts of the state to recover the positions of Russia and confirmation of its achievements in the Arctic.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s “Export More Jobs” Gaffe & Gibson Guitar: Stunning Hypocrisy

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This past Thursday, President Obama made a slip of the tongue during a campaign speech in which he stated that he wanted to “export more jobs.” After seeing puzzled looks from his audience and hearing his own words echo in his ears, he then joked that he was channeling his opponent, Mitt Romney.

I hope this stunning, but no longer surprising, hypocrisy of Obama’s attack on Romney (in an attempt to mask his own goof up) is not wasted on an increasingly apathetic and seemingly gullible public. Many have either forgotten or never heard about a bizarre act in 2011 by the Obama administration in which it compelled the Gibson Guitar corporation to outsource its American labor force to Madagascar.

In fact, the administration threatened Gibson that it had to outsource jobs if the business wanted the “trouble” with Obama’s administration to go away. No matter the reason, it’s Obama with outsourcing blood on his hands from meddling in the affairs of a private business and coercing it to fire its American workers in favor of foreign ones.

Not only is it simply a bizarre act for anyone professing love for the American worker, but it also shows that Obama has demonstrated his lack of genuine concern for keeping jobs stateside. He’s already tried to send them overseas and it wasn’t even his own business. For some unknown reason, Obama wanted so badly for a U.S. business to outsource jobs that he stepped in and told them to do so or else face his wrath.

Talk about THE Outsourcer-In-Chief. Let’s hope that some of the Obama-no-matter-what crowd comes out of their trance in time to save our economy.

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Byron Nelson is an American who contributes to https://www.nocommunism.com in addition to Restoring Liberty. He’s on Twitter at https://twitter.com/no_communism.