The Real “Potential Domestic Terrorists”

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Photo Credit: OregonDOT

Sometime in the next week or so, Accuracy in Media will publish my research report about militarization of police forces and the proliferation of terrifying and sometimes fatal SWAT raids as a routine tool of law enforcement. While some of these raids are justified, most are simply excuses to use the vast amount of military equipment being bequeathed to federal, state and local police.

In this report I discuss the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to label tea partiers, veterans, gun owners, Christians and pretty much anyone Obama doesn’t like as “potential domestic terrorists.” You have seen the reports. You have also seen how this information percolates down to the state and local level through organizations like DHS “Fusion Centers,” which even leftwing organizations like the ACLU are up in arms about. You recall in particular the fusion center report that listed Ron Paul supporters as a profile for domestic terrorism.

DHS sees nothing wrong with this. Even more alarming is their use of the extreme leftist hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center as consultants on right wing extremism! As I exhaustively documented in my Capital Research SPLC piece, they have been associated with and dominated by communists since their inception, and utilize the communist-inspired strategy of Partisan Tolerance – i.e. intolerance of anything other than extreme left ideology.

DHS is following a time-honored communist tactic of preemptively labeling your enemies exactly what you are, to put them on the defensive. DHS, and for that matter law enforcement at all levels, is not so stupid as to believe that the rallying grandparents of the Tea Party movement, gun owners or veterans are actual or even potential “domestic terrorists”. But by labeling political enemies that way in the very high-profile manner they do, intimidates many people and makes them afraid to speak out or even associate with identified groups and individuals, lest they find their names on some government file or be erroneously lumped in targeted groups.

The whole point of this monologue is to introduce a story by Matt Bracken. Bracken has used the Left’s tactic against them magnificently in a short story called “What I Saw at the Coup.” In this tale a White House aide relates how her fellow advisors launch a plot to murder prominent conservatives in order to permanently silence the opposition.

Read more from this story HERE.

Even In Afghanistan, A Focus On Budget Battles Of Washington

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Photo Credit: Secretary of Defense

The new defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, arrived at this rugged security outpost situated along a ratline of insurgent infiltration from Pakistan to talk to American troops about the war.

Instead, the soldiers wanted to hear only about the budget battle back in Washington – in particular, how steep reductions in spending for the Pentagon would affect their careers, their salaries and their health care benefits, and their eventual retirements. Perhaps that could be viewed as a positive sign of the status of combat operations in Afghanistan.

As Afghan forces take the lead in securing their own country, members of the 101st Airborne Division’s First Brigade Combat Team were not so concerned about the quality of their body armor, or the details of counterinsurgency tactics, or whether there was a slackening of support for the war back home. Those are the sorts of things that usually come up when a defense secretary convenes a town-hall-style meeting with troops in the combat zone.

In his opening remarks delivered this weekend at the forward operating base, located in Jalalabad, a strategic crossroads in eastern Nangarhar Province, Mr. Hagel discussed the war effort, of course, and thanked the troops for their service to the nation. And he pledged to always keep at the forefront the needs of America’s service personnel and their families.

Then he opened up the dialogue to questions. Not a single one was about the war effort.

Read more from this story HERE.

Republicans Want To Cut Spending, Except For Spending In Their Districts

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Photo Credit: Majordomo2012

During the 2012 campaign, while Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were criticizing President Obama for spending too much and engaging in crony capitalism, Ryan stopped by a tank factory in Lima, Ohio, which the Army says it doesn’t need — and attacked Obama for wanting to close it.

At the time, I called this “perverse,” and suggested Republicans couldn’t effectively out-Santa-Claus Obama.

Today, Michael Scherer writes that House Speaker John Boehner is fighting to keep this tank factory open. Scherer also names other pork projects sought by Republicans who spend most of their time attacking federal overspending.

Read more from this story HERE.

Will Your Job Be ‘Reshored’ To A Federal Prisoner?

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Photo Credit: x1klima

Twelve million Americans are currently unemployed, according to the most recent Department of Labor statistics. Forty percent of the unemployed have been so for at least six months, and the average job seeker spends 36.9 weeks out of work.

The good news for the jobless? US industry is now in the throes of a “reshoring” trend: “Next year we’re going to bring some production to the US,” Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg Businessweek in December. “This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people and we’ll be investing our money.”

The bad news? The Bureau of Prisons is angling to have as many reshored jobs as possible filled by federal prisoners.

Between 2000 and 2011, wages in Asia have nearly doubled, according to the International Labour Organization. The Chinese government is planning to increase the minimum wage by 13% annually until 2015. Labor unrest, formerly unheard of in Asia, has become more frequent, with companies routinely raising workers’ pay after strikes. At the same time, wages paid to federal inmates working in prison factories across the United States have remained flat, ranging from $0.23 to $1.15 an hour.

Federal Prison Industries — also known by the trade name UNICOR — is a self-sustaining, self-funding company within the US Bureau of Prisons. It is owned wholly by the US government and was created by an act of Congress in 1934 to function as a rehabilitative tool to teach real-world work skills to federal inmates. These inmates were historically limited to producing goods for government use, such as furniture, uniforms, even, believe it or not, components for Patriot missiles.

Read more from this story HERE.

NYT To Obama: Prohibit Pipeline to Choke-Off Oil Supply

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Photo Credit: AP

The New York Times published an editorial on Sunday calling on President Barack Obama to prohibit construction of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would bring oil to the United States from Canada–but not to protect a fragile landscape in Nebraska or anywhere else in the United States.

The reason Obama should prohibit the pipeline, according to the Times, is to begin choking off America’s oil supply.

The paper thinks this is a good thing.

The Times was responding to a draft environmental impact statement on the latest version of the pipeline proposal that the State Department released a week ago. A year ago, the State Department rejected an earlier proposal from TransCanada, the company seeking to build the pipeline, because the route the company proposed at that time would have traversed the Sand Hills of Nebraska. TransCanada subsequently changed the route, and the State Department is now signaling that this new route would not cause significant environmental problems.

Under executive orders issued by past administrations, the president has assumed authority to approve pipelines that cross the international borders of the United States. The State Department carries out that authority.

Read more from this story HERE.

State Department Will Issue ‘Female’ Passports To Anatomical Males

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Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. State Department’s policy on dealing with transgendered people will allow Americans who are anatomically male but identify themselves as female to secure U.S. passports that match their gender “identity” rather than their anatomy.

The policy also allows records for births abroad to be changed to reflect the “new” gender of an individual.

“The U.S. Department of State is pleased to use the occasion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month to announce its new policy guidelines regarding gender change in passports and Consular Reports of Birth Abroad,” the June 9, 2010 media note states on State’s website states.

“Beginning June 10, when a passport applicant presents a certification from an attending medical physician that the applicant has undergone appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition, the passport will reflect the new gender,” the note states. “The guidelines include detailed information about what information the certification must include.”

“It is also possible to obtain a limited-validity passport if the physician’s statement shows the applicant is in the process of gender transition,” the note states. “No additional medical records are required.”

Read more from this story HERE.

VFW Mobilizes To Oppose Rank Of Drone Medal

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Photo Credit: Minnesota National Guard

The 1.9 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars is being mobilized by the group’s commander-in-chief to overturn a Pentagon decision to rank a new medal for drone operations higher in precedence than the Purple Heart.

In a message to all post, district and department managers, Vietnam veteran and former Marine John Hamilton says he wants every member of the nation’s largest organization for combat veterans to support House and Senate bills that would make certain the new Distinguished Warfare Medal ranks below the Purple Heart.

Defense Department officials, so far unswayed by complaints, want the new medal for cyber warriors and drone operators ranked ninth in order of precedence, ahead of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

“I cannot tell you how displeased I am with the new defense secretary for not overriding what has proven to be an extremely divisive decision by his predecessor, but the buck has not stopped yet,” Hamilton says in the letter.

Read more from this story HERE.

Palin, Trump Get Longer Speaking Slots At CPAC

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Time to address conservatives from across the country at CPAC is a prime commodity, especially for politicians eyeing a 2016 run — and it’s not being distributed equally…

According to an internal draft of the minute-by-minute schedule at CPAC, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, and Scott Walker are each slated to give 13-minute remarks on the main stage. Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan, however, get eleven minutes to deliver their comments. Former presidential candidate Rick Santorum is scheduled for a mere seven minutes.

The biggest winners in the time lottery are Sarah Palin (16 minutes) and Donald Trump (14 minutes). Palin and Trump are expected to be crowd-pleasers at CPAC: News of their respective appearances caused ticket sales to spike, according to a source.

Read more from this story HERE.

Record-Breaking Numbers Continue: 47,791,996 on Food Stamps in December

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

On Friday, the United States Department of Agriculture quietly released new statistics related to the food stamps program, officially known as SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The numbers reveal, in 2012, the food stamps program was the biggest it’s ever been, with an average of 46,609,072 people on the program every month of last year. 47,791,996 people were on the program in the month of December 2012.

The federal government also says that in a given month in 2012, the number of households on food stamps was 22,329,713.

The state with the highest average number of participants per month in 2012 was Texas, with an astonishing 4,038,440 folks drawing from the program. The second highest is California, with 3,964,221, and then Florida, at 3,353,064.

Washington, D.C., with an estimated population of 617,996, had an average of 141,147 participants. Meaning, roughly 23 percent of folks living in D.C. are on food stamps, according to the numbers provided by the federal government. The participation rate in Texas, which has an estimated population of 26,059,203, 15.5 percent.

The state with the lowest number of participants in the program was Wyoming, with 34,347 out an estimated population of 576,412.

Read more from this story HERE.

Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Caucus Battles Skeptics In Push To Protect United States

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Photo Credit: AP

A small but growing cadre of House members is set to relaunch efforts to protect the nation against what they say is a very real threat: the unleashing of an electromagnetic pulse either by a solar storm or a nuclear-armed foe that could cripple much of the nation’s electrical infrastructure.

“I realize there is skepticism, and I understand it’s easy to dismiss this as something coming from people who might go around wearing tinfoil hats,” said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., one of the leaders of the little-known bipartisan congressional Electromagnetic Pulse Caucus.

But Franks said that he and other members of the caucus—which has seen its roster grow to at least 18 members from 11 last session—will keep pressing “in a low-key way so as not to try to scare people” to show that the dangers are legitimate. Now is the time to take steps to protect the nation’s electric grid, said Franks, a House Armed Services Committee member who is also cochairman of the 39-member Missile Defense Caucus.

At the top of this effort is the belief that every facet of routine life could be at risk for a short or even long period of time with the disabling of key parts of the nation’s infrastructure. Computers and circuits of homes, hospitals, supermarkets, water-treatment facilities, and banks would be fried; telecommunications and transportation systems would grind to a halt; and public safety and even national security could be compromised.

Some of those concerned envision scenarios in which terrorists or some hostile or rogue state, such as Iran or North Korea, might someday build or acquire and then launch and detonate a nuclear warhead above the United States with the intent of triggering such a devastating electromagnetic pulse.

Read more from this story HERE.