NEWS FOR 2/26/2015 Thursday February 26th 2015

OBAMA THE DICTATOR___________________


While the creepy #ILOVEOBAMA continues to trend on Twitter, fewer than half of American adults, 47 percent, say they believe that the president loves his country.

According to a survey conducted by Huffington Post/YouGov and released this week, a whopping 35 percent of Americans, more than one in three, believe that Obama doesn’t love the United States, while 17 percent said they weren’t sure.

The poll was conducted in the wake of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani telling a gathering in Manhattan that “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America.”

The poll also found that a similar number, only 45 percent, said they think Obama is as patriotic as most other Americans.

When divided along political beliefs, a distinct difference emerges, with 85 percent of Democrats saying they have no cause to question Obama’s patriotism, and only 11 percent of Republicans offering the same opinion.

(Infowars, feb 26th)

http://www.infowars.com/fewer-than-half-of-americans-believe-obama-loves-the-country/



Obama to ban bullets by executive action, threatens top-selling AR-15 rifle

Obama to ban ammo through executive action by labeling bullets “cop killers”

As promised, President Obama is using executive actions to impose gun control on the nation, targeting the top-selling rifle in the country, the AR-15 style semi-automatic, with a ban on one of the most-used AR bullets by sportsmen and target shooters.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this month revealed that it is proposing to put the ban on 5.56mm ammo on a fast track, immediately driving up the price of the bullets and prompting retailers, including the huge outdoors company Cabela’s, to urge sportsmen to urge Congress to stop the president.

Wednesday night, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, stepped in with a critical letter to the bureau demanding it explain the surprise and abrupt bullet ban. The letter is shown below.

The National Rifle Association, which is working with Goodlatte to gather co-signers, told Secrets that 30 House members have already co-signed the letter and Goodlatte and the NRA are hoping to get a total of 100 fast.

"The Obama administration was unable to ban America's most popular sporting rifle through the legislative process, so now it's trying to ban commonly owned and used ammunition through regulation," said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA-ILA, the group's policy and lobby shop. "The NRA and our tens of millions of supporters across the country will fight to stop President Obama's latest attack on our Second Amendment freedoms."

At issue is so-called “armor-piercing” ammunition, an exemption for those bullets mostly used for sport by AR-15 owners, and the recent popularity of pistol-style ARs that use the ammo.

The inexpensive 5.56 M885 ammo, commonly called green tips, have been exempt for years, as have higher-caliber ammunition that also easily pierces the type of soft armor worn by police, because it’s mostly used by target shooters, not criminals. The agency proposes to reclassify it as armor-piercing and not exempt.

(washington examiner, feb 26th)

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2560750



Obama Dares GOP: Go Ahead, ‘Have a Vote on Whether What I’m Doing Is Legal…I Will Veto’

Pres. Obama is daring Republicans to vote on whether or not his executive actions are legal.

Discussing opposition to his executive amnesty orders at an immigration town hall Wednesday, Obama said he would veto the vote because his actions are “the right thing to do”:

“So in the short term, if Mr. McConnell, the leader of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, want to have a vote on whether what I’m doing is legal or not, they can have that vote.  I will veto that vote, because I’m absolutely confident that what we’re doing is the right thing to do.”

Obama argued that he has merely “expanded my authorities” – not broken any laws:

“What we’ve done is we’ve expanded my authorities under executive action and prosecutorial discretion as far as we can legally under the existing statute, the existing law.  And so now the question is, how can we get a law passed.”

Obama called the “political process” a “separate track”:

So we’re going to have to keep on with the political process on a separate track.  But in the meantime, we’re going to do everything that we can to make sure that we implement executive actions as we’ve discussed.

In addition to these “shortcuts,” the immigration law must be changed, as well, Obama said:

“There are only so many shortcuts.  Ultimately, we have to change the law.  And people have to remain focused on that.”

(MRCTV.org, feb 26th)

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/obama-go-ahead-have-vote-whether-what-i-m-doing-legal-i-will-vet




THE BORDER, IMMIGRATION AND OBAMA______________


Drug Smuggling Tunnel Found After $3 Million Pot Bust on Border

Federal agents discovered an underground tunnel crossing the border into Mexico from Naco, Arizona on Tuesday as part of an investigation after a traffic stop that yielded over two tons of marijuana, with a value of approximately $3 million.

According to a press release by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) got a tip about a large shipment of marijuana being moved. The HSI officers contacted the local Bisbee, Arizona Police Department (BPD), and BPD pulled over a box truck at about 6:30 pm on the outskirts of the city.

A Tucson Sector Border Patrol canine team assisted BPD in the traffic stop, and their dogs alerted to the rear of the truck. When the truck was searched, more than 4,700 pounds of marijuana was found, in stacked bundles. The driver of the box truck was arrested, but authorities had not yet released his name.

Bisbee Police Staff Sergeant Robert Coronado thanked HSI and the Border Patrol for their assistance, saying, “The Bisbee Police Department supports the efforts of its local officers and appreciates the continued support of the U.S. Border Patrol and HSI, which provide assistance on a regular basis.”

Other evidence uncovered by BPD and the Border Patrol led to a warrant being issued to search a residence in nearby Naco, Arizona, which is about 10 miles south of Bisbee and directly on the border with Mexico.

HSI and Border Patrol agents arrived at the Naco residence shortly before dawn on Tuesday and discovered the entrance to a tunnel in a small shed at the edge of the property. A suspect at the residence was also arrested and detained.

Border Patrol’s specially trained tunnel team examined the tunnel, which was highly sophisticated. Investigators found a cement shaft at the entrance, equipped with a hydraulic lift. The corridor to the tunnel on the U.S. side is large enough for an adult to stand upright and is shored-up with wooden supports.

Concerns about air quality in the tunnel stopped investigators from continuing through the tunnel’s full length, but they notified authorities in Mexico, who are working to ascertain where the Mexican entrance to the tunnel is located.

(breitbart, feb 26th)

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/02/26/hold-ready-drug-smuggling-tunnel-found-after-3-million-pot-bust-on-border/



Obama: ‘Consequences’ for ICE Officials Who Don’t Follow Executive Amnesty

President Obama warned workers at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: implement executive amnesty, or else. He made the comments in a town hall event on immigration on MSNBC.

(weekly standard, feb 26th)

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-consequences-ice-officials-who-dont-follow-executive-amnesty_866479.html



President Obama’s amnesty juggernaut has taken another step forward despite a federal judge’s order to halt it in its tracks.

The president’s plan to delay the deportation of as many as 5 million illegal aliens through memos issued by appointees moved ahead Tuesday when the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the extension of a program allowing spouses of certain visa holders to obtain work permits.

According to the Washington Times, the move will, in 90 days, allow some 180,000 immigrants to be eligible for the benefit “in the first year.”

“Allowing the spouses of these visa holders to legally work in the United States makes perfect sense,” the newspaper quoted agency chief Leon Rodriguez saying. “It helps U.S. businesses keep their highly skilled workers by increasing the chances these workers will choose to stay in this country during the transition from temporary workers to permanent residents.”

At virtually the same time, U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen, who a week ago ordered federal agencies to stop implementation of the Obama amnesty plan, told plaintiffs in the lawsuit they have until March 3 to provide any additional arguments regarding the government’s request that he reverse his decision.

The order from Hanen came Tuesday in light of the federal government’s emergency motion that seeks permission for the amnesty program to move forward immediately.

(WND, feb 26th)

http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/obamas-amnesty-moves-ahead-despite-judges-order



Obama to Amnesty Beneficiaries: ‘There’s Going to Be a President Rodriguez Someday’

Republicans should stop fighting amnesty, President Obama said on Thursday, because one day a Hispanic will become president.

“Over the long term, this is going to get solved, because at some point there’s going to be a President Rodriguez or there’s going to be a President Chen,” Obama told a Florida International University town hall audience, hosted by Telemundo and MSNBC.

“The country is a nation of immigrants, and ultimately it will reflect who we are and its politics are going to reflect who we are,” Obama continued, implying that neither native-born Americans or legal immigrants have moral standing to determine who enters and stays in the country.

(breitbart, feb 26th)

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/26/obama-to-amnesty-beneficiaries-theres-going-to-be-a-president-rodriguez-someday/




U.S. GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION AND SCANDALS____________



Emails prove Hillary 'terror' lie in Benghazi

State Department emails released through a lawsuit by Judicial Watch show then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew while the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi was under way that it was being carried out by terrorists.

Clinton blamed the attack on “rage and violence over an awful Internet video” when she spoke at a ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base on Sept. 14, 2014, as the remains of the four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were returned to the United States.

The emails were made public Thursday by the Washington, D.C., legal watchdog group.

“These emails leave no doubt that Hillary Clinton’s closest advisers knew the truth about the Benghazi attack from almost the moment it happened,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

“And it is inescapable that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knowingly lied when she planted the false story about ‘inflammatory’ material being posted on the Internet,’” Fitton said.

He said the “contempt for the public’s right to know is evidenced not only in these documents, but also in the fact that we had to file a lawsuit in federal court to obtain them.”

“The Obama gang’s cover-up continues to unravel, despite its unlawful secrecy and continued slow-rolling of information,” Fitton said. “Congress, if it ever decides to do its job, cannot act soon enough to put Hillary Clinton, Cheryl Mills and every other official in these emails under oath.”

Fitton criticized the current House Select Committee investigation on Benghazi headed by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R- S.C.

“Never once has Gowdy or the House Select Committee asked Judicial Watch to turn over the many bombshell documents Judicial Watch has obtained from the Obama administration by FOIA request, “ Fitton told WND.

“I would have thought a serious congressional investigation into Benghazi would have started with the documents we had, since Judicial Watch has led in exposing the White House cover-up,” he said.

(WND, feb 26th)

http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/hillary-knew-emails-during-benghazi-attack-reported-terrorism/




Foreign governments, Dictators, Autocrats, Warlords gave millions to Clinton Foundation while Hillary was at State Dept.

The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, including one donation that violated its ethics agreement with the Obama administration, foundation officials disclosed Wednesday.

Most of the contributions were possible because of exceptions written into the foundation’s 2008 agreement, which included limits on foreign-government donations.

The agreement, reached before Clinton’s nomination amid concerns that countries could use foundation donations to gain favor with a Clinton-led State Department, allowed governments that had previously donated money to continue making contributions at similar levels.

The new disclosures, provided in response to questions from The Washington Post, make clear that the 2008 agreement did not prohibit foreign countries with interests before the U.S. government from giving money to the charity closely linked to the secretary of state.

In one instance, foundation officials acknowledged they should have sought approval in 2010 from the State Department ethics office, as required by the agreement for new government donors, before accepting a $500,000 donation from the Algerian government.

(washington post, feb 26th)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept/2015/02/25/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html




State Department’s Director of Counterterrorism Arrested for Trying to Arrange Sex With a Minor

A senior State Department official was arrested on Tuesday on charges of soliciting sex from a minor, according to the AP. Director of Counterterrorism Daniel Rosen was busted in a sting operation by a detective posing as a child online, because life imitates To Catch a Predator.

Rosen was charged with use of a communications device to solicit a juvenile, and shuttled off to jail in D.C.; it's unclear if he's still there or if he's posted bail.

The State Department is already working hard to distance itself from him, with a Department spokeswoman telling Fox News, "His security clearance will be suspended and he will be put on administrative leave while this proceeds to its end through any judicial process." According to what appears to be his LinkedIn profile, Rosen has worked at the State Department since 2008 and is "responsible for all CT Bureau strategic planning, policy planning, program and budget planning and oversight, and legislative relations and interaction."

His professional skills include "foreign policy," "strategic planning" and ..."human rights." Awkward.

(NY Mag, feb 25th)

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/02/state-dept-official-allegedly-solicits-minor.html



Save the Internet: FCC Net Neutrality rules worst example of government intervention... ever

Of all the government interventions by the Obama administration, the plan released Thursday by the Federal Communications Commission to regulate the Internet is the worst.

Yes, ObamaCare is massive and is clogging one-sixth of the economy. But even before ObamaCare, government had a huge imprint on the health care industry with Medicaid and Medicare. Also, regulations on pharmaceutical and insurance industries led to their energies being focused as much on pleasing government bureaucracies as curing illnesses.

But the Internet is young, fresh, alive and untainted. The FCC’s plan to muddy the pure waters of the Internet pollutes the one free flow of information on the planet. And what hurts as much as witnessing the pollution of the Internet with bureaucratic interference? With the exception of the Republican FCC commissioners, most are being blasé about the whole thing.

(fox news, feb 26th)

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/02/26/save-internet-fcc-net-neutrality-rules-worst-example-government-intervention/



Ron Paul on Net Neutrality

Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a non-elected federal government agency, voted three-to-two to reclassify broadband Internet as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act. This means that – without the vote of Congress, the peoples’ branch of government – a federal agency now claims the power to regulate the Internet. I am surprised that even among civil liberties groups, some claim the federal government increasing regulation of the Internet somehow increases our freedom and liberty.

The truth is very different. The adoption of these FCC rules on the Internet represents the largest regulatory power grab in recent history. The FCC’s newly adopted rule takes the most dynamic means of communication and imposes the regulatory structure designed for public utilities. Federal regulation could also open the door to de facto censorship of ideas perceived as threatening to the political class – ideas like the troops should be brought home, the PATRIOT Act should be repealed, military spending and corporate welfare should be cut, and the Federal Reserve should be audited and ended.

The one bright spot in this otherwise disastrous move is that federal regulations making it more difficult to use the Internet will cause more Americans to join our movement for liberty, peace, and prosperity. The federal government should keep its hands off of the Internet!

(Ron Paul institute, feb 26th)

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2015/february/26/internet-rip/



Lynch clears committee with three GOP votes

Loretta Lynch cleared a key vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday in her bid to become the nation’s next attorney general, picking up support from three Republicans on the panel in favor of her confirmation.

The vote was 12-8. The three Republicans who backed her nomination, along with all committee Democrats, were Orrin Hatch of Utah, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

The next battle is on the Senate floor, where the federal prosecutor from Brooklyn is still expected to have enough GOP backing to be confirmed. But the controversy over President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration have overshadowed her nomination — particularly after her confirmation hearing last month, where she testified that those unilateral moves are legal.

Most GOP senators on the committee stressed that they could not support someone to be the nation’s chief law enforcement official who believes that the executive actions — which Republicans uniformly oppose and say are unconstitutional — are legal.

(Politico, feb 26th)

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/loretta-lynch-attorney-general-committee-vote-115539.html



Loretta Lynch's Secret Prosecutions

The office headed by the woman poised to become the next attorney general has used an unusual method to keep many of its prosecutions hidden from the public, an NBC News investigation has found.

Federal prosecutors in New York's Brooklyn-based Eastern District pursued cases against secret, unnamed "John Doe" defendants 58 times since Loretta Lynch became head prosecutor in May 2010. Two of the 58 are terrorism cases.

Eastern District prosecutors have also sought permission to close the courtroom to the public for 11 different Doe cases during the same period, and judges have granted permission in at least 10 of the cases, as recently as February 12.

Critics are concerned the practice may infringe the Constitution's guarantee of a public trial.

(NBC news, feb 26th)

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/loretta-lynchs-secret-prosecutions-n294666



Republicans confront health chief on secret ObamaCare plan

A Republican House subcommittee chairman is accusing the Obama administration of secretly preparing a fallback strategy if the Supreme Court strikes down a major piece of its healthcare reform law later this year, even as officials publicly maintain that no plan exists.

Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, says federal officials are hiding a roughly 100-page document on the looming court case. The case, King v. Burwell, could cut off ObamaCare subsidies in three-quarters of states and potentially collapse the national marketplace.

Pitts confronted the head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about the plan, which he says is being circulated among senior officials, for the first time on Wednesday.

(the hill, feb 26th)

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/233914-gop-chairman-accuses-white-house-of-lying-on-obamacare-backup-plan



Treasury won't explain decision to make $3 billion in Obamacare payments

The U.S. Treasury Department has rebuffed a request by House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R- Wis., to explain $3 billion in payments that were made to health insurers even though Congress never authorized the spending through annual appropriations.

At issue are payments to insurers known as cost-sharing subsidies. These payments come about because President Obama’s healthcare law forces insurers to limit out-of-pocket costs for certain low income individuals by capping consumer expenses, such as deductibles and co-payments, in insurance policies. In exchange for capping these charges, insurers are supposed to receive compensation.

What’s tricky is that Congress never authorized any money to make such payments to insurers in its annual appropriations, but the Department of Health and Human Services, with the cooperation of the U.S. Treasury, made them anyway.

(washington examiner, feb 26th)

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/treasury-wont-explain-decision-to-make-3-billion-in-obamacare-payments/article/2560739



John Boehner Blows Kisses to the Press, Won't Budge on DHS

With less than two days to go before a Homeland Security Department shutdown, John Boehner isn't blinking.

"We passed a bill to fund the department six weeks ago. Six weeks ago!" the House speaker said during a press conference Thursday. "It's time for the Senate to act. How many times do I have to say it?"

Boehner doesn't appear to be going along with his Republican counterparts in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is looking to avert a shutdown by offering Democrats a clean funding bill for DHS. The speaker would not say whether he would back a Senate funding bill without provisions that would defund President Obama's executive actions on immigration. At one point, Boehner blew kisses at reporters after they asked whether he would.

McConnell had attempted to push through a House-passed funding bill four times, but Senate Democrats blocked it each time because of the immigration language.

"Yesterday, the White House press secretary said that this was a fight amongst Republicans. It is not a fight amongst Republicans," Boehner said on Thursday. "All Republicans agree that we want to fund the Department of Homeland Security and we want to stop the president's actions in response to immigration."

McConnell and Boehner spoke with each other on Wednesday for the first time in two weeks. Boehner now has two options: amend the Senate legislation to include immigration language and send it back, or bring a vote to the floor in hopes of avoiding a shutdown.

On Thursday, when asked whether he feels that his speakership is being challenged, Boehner said: "No, heaven's sakes, no. Not at all."

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has been making the rounds on the Hill this week, urging lawmakers to keep his department open.

(National journal, feb 26th)

http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/john-boehner-blows-kisses-to-the-press-won-t-budge-on-dhs-20150226



Americans React to the ‘USS Gabrielle Giffords’

Former democratic politician and noted gun control advocate Gabrielle Giffords took to Facebook Thursday to preview the recently built military combat ship named in her honor.

The Navy vessel, an Independence-class littoral combat ship, has been shrouded in controversy since the name was announced in February of 2012.

Multiple high-ranking military officials, including retired Rear Admiral George Worthington, the former commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command, argued that an actual member of the military, such as Medal of Honor winner Dakota Meyer, would be a more appropriate recipient.

“Here is the issue. There are a lot of dead Marines out there whose names could go on anything that appears to be an amphibious ship,” Worthington told the Daily Caller. “We think fallen Marines and perhaps supporting sailors should go on fantails before random victims.”

Now, with the ship preparing to launch by the end of 2015, Americans and military personnel are once again reacting to the controversial decision.

“She has done nothing to earn her name on a ship. A lying politician,” a Facebook user said on Gifford’s post. “Naming of ships is reserved for those who fought or served valiantly for our country. Battleships are named after states. Carriers named after presidents and others named after naval personnel. (Posthumously). This woman is neither naval personnel nor KIA in battle.”

Giffords, who was a shooting victim in 2011, has been an adamant gun control activist, calling for the ban of semiautomatic rifles while she and her husband secretly purchase and fire the exact weapons they’re trying to outlaw.

Noting the USS Gabrielle Giffords’ role as a “combat ship,” countless other Facebook users commented on what they felt was pure hypocrisy.

“Are you going to put squirt guns on it?” a commenter said. “Better make sure the ship only has less than ten rounds on board.”

“Will this ship be limited from having the ability to have weapons installed?” another said. “Those men and women serving on that warship are having their very own rights of owning a firearm by the mouth breather the vessel is named after, what a joke.”

Others supported and congratulated Giffords while echoing her views on gun control and the Second Amendment.

“Restriction of firearms is a huge step to protect our children,” one woman said. “A Navy ship protects our nation.”

(Infowars, feb 26th)

http://www.infowars.com/americans-react-to-the-uss-gabrielle-giffords/




A leading Republican candidate for Missouri's governor's office died in an apparent suicide on Thursday morning.

Thomas Schweich, the 54-year-old state auditor who'd just won a second term while running unopposed in 2014, was pronounced deceased from a single gunshot wound, possibly self-infliction, according to a Clayton Police Department press release.

Detectives are conducting an investigation and an autopsy is pending, authorities said.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said Schweich's wife, who was in another room, heard him making phone calls -- and then a gunshot. It happened just hours after Schweich had requested interviews with the Post-Dispatch and The Associated Press at his home.

Missouri Republican Party Chairman John Hancock asked for prayers for Schweich's family.

"I am in utter shock at the news of Tom Schweich's tragic passing. Tom will be remembered as a tenacious, energetic, effective elected official who worked tirelessly on behalf of the citizens of this state and this nation," he said. "I ask all Missourians to join me in praying for Tom's family."

In October, Schweich launched an audit of municipal courts in Ferguson and six other cities, an initiative that had bipartisan support, according to St. Louis Public Radio.

"More and more officials have become concerned about the abuse of the traffic court system for revenue generation purposes rather than for safety, justice and efficiency purposes," Schweich told reporters at the time.

(CNN, feb 26th)

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/politics/missouri-politician-suicide/index.html




WAR ON ISLAMIC STATE_______________


ISIS Abducts 220 Christian Civilians, Burns Two Churches in Syria

In their latest terror campaign, ISIS militants in Syria have rounded up 220 Christian civilians in the past three days, according to reports Thursday from the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The jihadists also burned two Christian churches during their raids.

The kidnappings took place in 11 different villages in the Tal Tamir countryside in al-Hasakah. The Observatory states that the prisoners have been taken to the Abd al-Aziz mount to the southwest of Tal Tamir.

“These were peaceful villages that had nothing to do with the battles,” said Nasir Haj Mahmoud, a Kurdish official in the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, in northeastern Syria.

Mahmoud said that some Christians are fighting under the YPG in Hasaka province, but not in that area.

On Tuesday, Islamic State militants moved toward al-Hasakah’s southern border and abducted upwards of 70 Christians from the village of Tal Shamiram.

In an attempt to liberate the captives, mediators from Arabian tribes along with an unnamed Assyrian are endeavoring to negotiate with the kidnappers.

According to reports, in recent days ISIS has taken control of ten villages in the Tal Tamir area, resulting in widespread displacement of Christian citizens.

“We cannot give a specific number of Assyrians that have fled, but it hasn’t been a very large number of people, because Assyrians are a very small minority in Syria,” said Rami Abdul Rahman of the Observatory. “The only areas where Assyrians are left, even before the war, is in Hasakah province and small villages surrounding there.”

According to the Observatory, some Syrian Christians are fighting back against ISIS.

The Syriac Military Council is an Assyrian Christian militia (MFS), the armed wing of the Mesopotamia National Council (MUB), which represents the Assyrian Christians in Syria, who are located primarily in the northeastern al-Hasakah province.

The MFS is the only fighting group representing just the Assyrian population, and has some 800 soldiers who work in tandem with the YPG.

“For me, I just want the Islamic State to know that despite how many people they kill, bomb our churches, we are Assyrian Christians, we will never leave our people here or our country,” said Matai Nazha, a 20-year-old fighter.

On Wednesday, Kurdish militia managed to cut off one of ISIS’ supply lines from Iraq. A Kurdish official who wished to remain nameless said the YPG had taken control of a main road linking Tel Hamis with al-Houl, a town near the Iraqi border. He described the road as the “main artery” for the Islamic State.

“We believe we will finish the battle of Tel Hamis in this campaign,” he said.

(Breitbart, feb 26th)

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/02/26/isis-abducts-220-christian-civilians-burns-two-churches-in-syria/




Following New York Arrests, FBI Says ISIS In All 50 States

Following the sensationalized arrest of three men in New York, FBI director James Comey urged Americans to inform on their neighbors if they are perceived to be “acting in strange ways.”

As reported by Infowars.com yesterday, the men busted for allegedly posting threats against Obama were shepherded by the FBI. This is now the case in virtually all the terrorist cases the government sensationalizes for political effect.

Murtaza Hussain, writing for The Intercept, details the extent an informant helped Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 24, and Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19, plan a trip to Syria to join ISIS.

“The covert informant under the direction of the FBI evidently helped encourage the two towards terrorism over the course of these months. Instead of dissuading them, the informant went so far as to watch recruitment videos with the 19-year old Saidakhmetov and help him make his travel documents,” Hussain writes.

As lurid news reports detailing the supposed danger posed by a “radicalized” teenager and a 24 year old droned over the corporate media, FBI boss Comey told the National Association of Attorneys General terror “isn’t a New York phenomenon or a Washington phenomenon,” but a phenomenon in every state of the Union.

“We have investigations of people in various stages of radicalizing in all 50 states,” Comey said.

He said the threat of domestic terror is active “in ways that are very hard to see” and the FBI depends on information sharing between state and local law enforcement and the federal government.

(infowars, feb 26th)

http://www.infowars.com/following-new-york-arrests-fbi-says-isis-in-all-50-states/



Jihadi John Connected to British Intelligence

Emwazi is said to be the executioner in a number of ISIS videos, according to the U.S. government. The legitimacy of the beheading productions are disputed by experts.

According to The Daily Mail, Emwazi claimed the “MI5 knew ‘everything about me; where I lived, what I did, and the people I hanged around with’ and claimed the organization attempted to ‘turn’ him to work for them.”

Emwazi claimed to have been harassed and intimidated by security services in 2009 when he flew to Tanzania with friends on a safari. He was arrested in Dar es Salaam and sent back to Britain. In a stop over in Amsterdam, however, an MI5 agent allegedly accused him of trying to reach Somalia to join the terrorist group Al Shabaab.

According to the Daily Mail, Emwazi filed a harassment claim with the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

The following year, Emwazi was arrested when he returned to Britain from his native Kuwait. He was subsequently placed on a terror watch list.

(infowars, feb 26th)

http://www.infowars.com/jihadi-john-connected-to-british-intelligence/




Swedish ‘Immigrant Assimilation Guides’ Accused of Recruiting for Islamic State

The Swedish government has been forced to shut down its “assimilation guide service” after discovering that several of its aides may have been trying to recruit immigrants for Islamic State.

The assimilation guides, who were employed by Sweden’s state job agency Arbetsformedlingen, have been accused of taking bribes and making “recruitment attempts to militant fighting groups”, and have all been fired with immediate effect.

The agency’s general director Mikael Sjöberg told Sweden’s Expressen newspaper: “We have received indication that there have been instances of recruitment attempts or contact-making situations related to various militant fighting groups.”

(breitbart, feb 26th)

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/02/26/swedish-immigrant-assimilation-guides-accused-of-recruiting-for-islamic-state/





GLOBAL CONFLICTS_________________


Kerry: U.S. Aware of Illicit Iranian Nuke Facility

Secretary of State John Kerry admitted before Congress on Wednesday that the United States is aware of a secret Iranian facility that an Iranian opposition group identified this week as part of an undisclosed parallel nuclear program.

The group, the National Council of the Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has a history of disclosing the existence of Iranian nuclear facilities that the United States has been later forced to confirm were indeed part of a clandestine nuclear program.

Kerry, under questioning before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, acknowledged that the United States has evidence of the facility, but declined to elaborate to lawmakers about its nature.

“Did the [Iranian] regime tell us about existence of this new nuclear facility,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.) asked Kerry at the hearing.

“What you’re saying is it’s a nuclear facility,” Kerry responded. “That is yet to be determined, but we know about the facility, yes.”

“So had they disclosed that facility to us?” Rohrabacher asked.

“It has not been revealed yet as a nuclear facility,” Kerry insisted. “It is a facility that we are aware of, which is on a list of facilities we have. I’m not going to go into greater detail, but these things are going to have to be resolved [in negotiations] as we go forward.”

(free beacon, feb 25th)

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/kerry-u-s-aware-of-illicit-iranian-nuke-facility/



Top Ukrainian Nazi Visits U.S. Congress, Pentagon, Seeks Weapons for Ukraine

The Deputy Speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Andriy Parubiy, who had been the co-founder of the Nazi-inspired Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine, met in Washington on Wednesday, February 25th, with members of the U.S. House and Senate who support his request that the U.S. Government donate weapons to his virtually bankrupt Government. Parubiy also visited with the Pentagon. Weapons are needed by his Government because his Government is engaged in a civil war against the residents in the area of Ukraine that had voted 90% for the former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, whom Parubiy himself (when he was called “the Mayor of Maidan”) led to overthrow in a violent February 2014 coup.

(Infowars, feb 26th)

http://www.infowars.com/top-ukrainian-nazi-visits-u-s-congress-pentagon-seeks-weapons-for-ukraine/



Athens: first anti-gov’t protest by far-left ANTARSYA turns ugly

The first anti-government rally in Athens turned ugly as anti-authoritarian protesters started to smash the windows of a pastry shop and two jewelry shops and put two vehicles and several garbage bins on fire.

(AP, feb 26th)

http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2015/02/26/athens-first-anti-govt-protest-by-far-left-antarsya-tomorrow-communists-turn




POLICE STATE____________________



VIDEO: Here’s What It Looks Like To Be Stomped On By A Jackboot Thug Cop

A man in Massachusetts is suing police in Amherst after he was attacked for filming officers using excessive force while making an arrest.

Thomas Donovan, a legal studies student at the University of Massachusetts, is pressing ahead with the civil rights lawsuit, alleging that his First Amendment rights were infringed.

Donovan was pepper sprayed and hit with batons by police dressed in riot gear as they cracked down on students during an annual day of St. Patrick’s Day related festivities in Amherst.

The video clearly shows that Donovan was not interfering with police making the arrest. Indeed, he was on the other side of a fence which cops had to walk around in order to assault him.

(Infowars, feb 26th)

http://www.infowars.com/heres-what-it-looks-like-to-be-stomped-on-by-a-jackboot-thug-cop-video/



A Houston police officer is coming under fire for his actions captured on camera during an encounter with an open-carry activist.

The video, uploaded to Youtube Monday by gun rights group Open Carry Texas, depicts a Houston police officer approaching, then harassing a man who is openly displaying an AR 15 rifle, which is perfectly legal in Texas.

“The officer says he received complaints from people who did not know the law about a person carrying a rifle,” according to the video’s description.

In the video, the unidentified Houston officer attempts to persuade a Second Amendment activist wearing a kilt to present identification because he is walking around with “a gun strapped on his hip,” which the man refuses to do.

After the man explains to the officer, “I do not consent to questioning,” the irritated cop fires back, “Look you can try this constitutional crap all you want, but I got news for ya. I’m part of that three percent you’re trying to represent, but you ain’t doing nothing but f*ck it up for everybody else right now, you got me?”

During the encounter, another officer grabs the man’s camera and turns it away from the action, claiming she “didn’t want it to slide off the hood.”

When the man still refuses to identify himself, the officer replies, “You can try all you want with your Constitutional bulls*it alright? But you don’t know your rights as well as you think you do.”

The man is then detained in the back of a squad car while the officer phones the District Attorney, who cannot find a reason to arrest the man.

“Right (after meeting) you can hear it plain as day, the officer says you’re not under arrest and you’re not being detained,” an activist with Open Carry Texas, David Amad, told CBS affiliate KHOU.

(Infowars, feb 26th)

http://www.infowars.com/cop-confronts-open-carry-activist-for-engaging-in-constitutional-crap-bullsht/



Baltimore Police are speaking out about the actions of an officer, caught on camera punching an unarmed 19-year-old in the face just before his arrest.

Derek Valcourt has learned more about what happened and the video you’ll see only on WJZ.

Tonight Baltimore Police tell WJZ that the officer is still on active duty while police investigate.

Cell phone video from Monday afternoon shows Baltimore Police Officer Brad Chenoweth order a group of people to move along from in front of a McDonald’s at Howard and Fayette Street. That’s when a confrontation with 19-year-old Antonio Moore breaks out.

(CBS baltimore, feb 26th)

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2015/02/25/investigation-launched-after-video-shows-officer-punching-man-in-the-face/





INTERNET___________________


President Obama to reddit: Thanks for your help on net neutrality

Following Thursday's vote at the Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality, President Obama and the White House are thanking the coalition of open-Internet advocates and others who flooded the FCC with comments on the proposal supporting the agency's rules.

Obama specifically sent a note to the reddit community, which organized an outpouring of support for net neutrality rules after a user named TheArmedGamer posted a call for comments on the site. The company also asked redditors to participate in a call-a-thon with activist groups to petition Congress and the FCC to support strong net neutrality regulations. Alexis Ohanian, reddit's co-founder and executive chairman, personally manned the phones for three hours.

In a company blog post, Ohanian also thanked the reddit community. "A year ago, they said it'd be futile. Today, we defeated opponents of net neutrality who have spent tens of millions of dollars every year lobbying government," the post said. "We defeated them by spending our time. Thank you."

(washington post, feb 26th)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/26/president-obama-to-reddit-thanks-for-your-help-on-net-neutrality/



5G researchers manage record connection speed

Researchers at the University of Surrey's 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) managed one terabit per second (Tbps) - many thousands of times faster than current data connections.

The head of the 5GIC said he hoped to demonstrate the technology to the public in 2018.

Ofcom has said 5G could be available in Britain by 2020.

At 1Tbps, it would be theoretically possible to download a file 100 times the size of a feature film in about three seconds. The speed is more than 65,000 times faster than average 4G download speeds.

It is also far in excess of the previous best achieved in tests: Samsung's 7.5 gigabits per second (Gbps), which is less than 1% of the Surrey team's speed.

According to news website V3, 5GIC director Prof Rahim Tafazolli said: "We have developed 10 more breakthrough technologies and one of them means we can exceed 1Tbps wirelessly. This is the same capacity as fibreoptics but we are doing it wirelessly."

(BBC, feb 25th)

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31622297



Google's Quiet Dominance Over The 'Ad Tech' Industry

A few months ago, display advertising on the Internet mysteriously vanished for more than an hour. On more than 55,000 websites such as BuzzFeed and Forbes, spaces that usually display advertisements went blank. It turned out that Google’s behemoth online advertising platform, DoubleClick, was to blame. The DoubleClick ad server had crashed, disrupting the entire infrastructure by which advertisers buy billions of dollars of ads across millions of websites.

Think about it: In an era of global competition, one company’s network crash broke the Internet.

The crash was a stark reminder of how an established player like Google has quietly achieved dominance over the so-called “ad tech” industry, the multi-billion dollar economic backbone that supports the vast majority of “free” content and services online.

The exponential growth of the Internet over the past decade is the direct result of advertising that enables Internet publishers to monetize their content. Ad tech makes this possible by helping companies track, serve and measure the effectiveness of ads online. Without a healthy, competitive ad tech industry, much of the free online content we use every day would go behind paywalls or disappear altogether.

Google’s efforts to dominate ad tech and squeeze out competitors is bringing that potentially ominous future closer to reality.

Piece by piece, Google has assembled a dominant position at each critical juncture in the complex ad tech infrastructure. Google imposes restrictions on publishers and advertisers alike to force them into committing exclusively to Google’s end-to-end ad tech pipeline, making it more difficult for smaller companies to retain their footing or for new innovative companies to enter. Industry observers warned the Federal Trade Commission about this prospect several years ago, and the agency vowed to keep a close watch. But the FTC has failed to rein in Google’s aggressive behavior, at least so far.

Internet advertising has exploded in recent years, driven primarily by technologies that allow advertisers to target ads precisely and in real-time to specific groups (e.g., 30-year old men in Massachusetts driving Toyotas) regardless of what sites members of those groups are visiting.

(Forbes, feb 26th)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2015/02/26/googles-quiet-dominance-over-the-ad-tech-industry/



Facebook Adds New Gender Option for Users: Fill in the Blank

Facebook users who don't fit any of the 58 gender identity options offered by the social media giant are now being given a rather big 59th option: fill in the blank.

(AP, feb 26th)

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/facebook-adds-gender-option-users-fill-blank-29245549




HEALTH_________________


This is what it's like to be dead, according to a guy who died for a bit

A man who died twice for about two minutes at a time, once from a motorcycle accident, once from an overdose of painkillers, gave an AMA on Reddit today and fielded questions on his experience.

"I had no idea, it was just black emptiness. No thoughts, no consciousness, nothing.

"Both times I was just "not there". It was just all black. I would describe it as when you take a nap. A short nap with no dream, you wake up and it feels like you've been sleeping a long time, when in reality it's only been about 15 minutes.

"The only reason I know is because the doctors were obligated to share the information with me. "So yeah, you were dead for a couple of minutes, just FYI" hahaha.

"So if the doctors wouldn't have said anything I would've just thought that I took a dreamless nap."

"It was definitely not just a gap. Much like a dreamless nap, you don't just wake up and feel like time just jumped ahead. You know that you've been asleep for a while. At the same time, you can't really remember experiencing anything at all, unless you had a dream.

"So yes and no. I experienced something, and that something was nothing."

(Independent, feb 26th)

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/this-is-what-its-like-to-be-dead-according-to-a-guy-who-died-for-a-bit-10068959.html



The economic costs from the psychological affliction of depression have gotten significantly larger in recent years—and people suffering from that condition were hit particularly hard by the 2008 financial crisis, a new study has found.

Annual costs related to major depressive disorder rose to $210.5 billion in 2010, according to the study published Wednesday in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. That represents a 21 percent increase over the $173.3 billion in overall annual economic fallout linked to sufferers of the disorder as of 2005, the report noted.

"The current study adds to our understanding of MDD as a source of significant economic burden," the report's authors wrote.

The report, which drew on data from insurance claims in the OptumHealth Reporting and Insights database, leads off with the observation that in the U.S., depression "is the leading cause of disability for people aged 15-44, resulting in almost 400 million disability days per year, substantially more than more other physical and mental conditions."

(CNBC, 25th)

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102454896



Gov. Charlie Baker has demanded and received the resignations of four members of the state Health Connector board, including MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, who touched off a national uproar late last year with videotaped comments about misleading marketing of the Affordable Care Act and derogatory remarks about the intelligence of the American people.

Gruber was appointed to the board in 2006 by then Governor Mitt Romney and re-appointed by Governor Deval Patrick. The other three board members asked to resign – John Bertko, Rick Jakious and George Gonser – were all original Patrick appointees.

(CBS boston, feb 25th)

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/02/25/gov-baker-calls-for-resignation-of-gruber-at-health-connector/



Law Requiring California Parents To Vaccinate Their Children Likely To Pass

Last Thursday, a state law was introduced that, if passed, will eliminate the “personal belief” exception to California’s vaccination law.

Right now, under California law there are two ways to get out of having a child vaccinated: one is if you have a medical reason, and two is if you have a “personal belief” that prevents vaccination. The law proposed last week would leave that medical exception in place and get rid of that “personal belief” part.

(CBS san francisco, feb 23rd)

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/02/23/measles-vaccine-children-school-california/



It’s happening under the leadership of the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS):“The Adult Immunization Plan.”

The goal of the Plan? To vastly increase the number of adults in the US who are vaccinated against diseases in accordance with the CDC schedule of vaccines.

Here are key quotes from the Plan:

“The HHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities includes a measure to increase the percentage of the minority population who receive the seasonal influenza vaccination.”

Translation: The government cares about minorities, and to prove it these persons will be injected with a variety of germs and toxic chemicals.

“Increase the use of electronic health records (EHRs) and immunization information systems (IIS) to collect and track adult immunization data.”

Translation: expose confidential patient medical records to many doctors and government agencies, in order to discover all adults who aren’t up to speed on their vaccinations—and therefore must get the shots. Goodbye, privacy. Goodbye, unencumbered free choice.

“Educate and encourage other groups (e.g., community and faith-based groups) to promote the importance of adult immunization…A variety of networks can be leveraged, including faith-based and community organizations and individual trusted leaders.”

Translation: Step up government-initiated propaganda at all levels of society, in order to convince adults to come forward and receive their injections.

“All healthcare professionals must ensure that adult patients are fully immunized.”

Translation: During every office visit, doctors must check the vaccination status of their adult patients and pressure them to take their injections.

“The Affordable Care Act [Obamacare]…will help make prevention [vaccination] affordable and accessible for all Americans by requiring health plans to cover preventive [vaccination] services…”

Translation: Increased taxes and the rabid printing of new money will ensure that many more Americans are injected with a variety of germs and toxic chemicals.

(Infowars, feb 26th)

http://www.infowars.com/adult-immunization-push-medical-dictatorship/



The term ‘GM food’ should be abandoned, say politicians who are calling for an extraordinary rebranding exercise.

MPs on the science and technology select committee has demanded a ‘reframing of the public conversation’ about genetically modified food.

In an inflammatory report today, it says the GM label has become a ‘lightning rod’ for fears about designer crops.

It says the term should be reserved for plants created using the most basic form of genetic engineering, with many newer methods excluded. Anti-GM groups accused MPs of trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public.

(daily mail, feb 26th)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2969566/Call-GM-food-ease-public-fears-say-MPs-Report-says-label-lightning-rod-fears-designer-crops.html




6 things you're dying to ask about head transplants

Why are we calling this procedure a head transplant rather than a body transplant?

The head transplant moniker is partly a hangover from monkey and dog experiments of the last century. This was how the surgeons that carried out those experiments referred to the procedure, and it stuck.
Technically, calling it a body transplant would be more accurate because the head is representative of the person receiving the new body part. But be careful, it's not a whole body transplant. That term is usually used to describe a procedure in which the brain of one organism is transplanted into the body – and skull – of another.
By calling Sergio Canavero's proposed surgery a head transplant it makes it clearer that this involves the head and the brain inside.

What's the difference between brain and head transplants?

A brain transplant would involve removing the brain from the skull and placing it in a donor skull. It is more difficult than a head transplant because of the complex surgery to separate the brain and blood supply without damaging delicate tissue.

Could the transplant technique work for a cryogenically frozen head?

No. The proposed technique requires a healthy human head and brain. It is not yet known whether it is possible to "defrost" a cryogenically frozen head and resurrect healthy brain tissue.

Would the surgery be psychologically damaging?

Some people who have received face or limb transplants mourn the loss of their old body part or feel that their self image is conflicted. Studies show that inputs from our body, such as a heartbeat or rumbling stomach, can influence our will power, emotions and languageMovie Camera. Who knows whether the person who comes out of the operating room would be the same as the one who went in.

Would there be any benefits apart from getting a healthier body?

If the recipient head is older than the donor body, they may get a rejuvenating boost. Infusions of young blood can raise physical endurance and cognitive function in older animals. A study is now seeing if young blood has the same effect on people with Alzheimer's.

I'm a registered organ donor. Could my body be used for this?

Each country has its own rules. In the UK, joining the register would not automatically allow your body to be used. "If a person needs something not specified on our forms, we would ask a potential donor's family to consent," says an NHS spokesperson. "We would only approach a family if the planned procedure had ethical approval."

(new scientist, feb 25th)

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27035-6-things-youre-dying-to-ask-about-head-transplants.htm




MISCELLANEOUS NEWS___________________



After last week’s holiday-shortened exuberance over initial jobless claims, this week’s slam back to reality is quite a shock to the “everything is awesome” crowd. Initial jobless claims jumped 31,000 to 313,000 – the biggest percentage rise since December 2013. Continuing claims dropped modestly but remain up around 3.5% over the last quarter – near the worst since 2009. Continuing claims dropped modestly this week but the quarterly trend has shifted…

(zero hedge, feb 26th)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-26/initial-jobless-claims-surge-most-2013



Astronomers have discovered the largest and most luminous black hole ever seen — an ancient monster with a mass about 12 billion times that of the sun — that dates back to when the universe was less than 1 billion years old.

Supermassive black holes are thought to lurk in the hearts of most, if not all, large galaxies. The largest black holes found so far in the nearby universe have masses more than 10 billion times that of the sun. In comparison, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is thought to have a mass only 4 million to 5 million times that of the sun.

(space.com, feb 26th)

http://www.space.com/28664-monster-black-hole-largest-brightest-ever.html



Madonna Falls During Satanic Performance at Brit Awards

Too old to worship Lucifer?

56 year old Madonna fell down a set of stairs during the performance. Note the costumes of her follow performers:

(infowars, feb 26th)

http://www.infowars.com/madonna-falls-during-satanic-performance-at-brit-awards/



Kardashian Family Signs $100M Deal to Stay on E! for Four More Years

Having Kardashian fatigue? Buckle up, because television’s most camera-happy coterie has just signed a $100 million dollar deal with E! to stay on television for at least another four years.

According to a report from Page Six, Kris Jenner inked the four-year deal, which will bring Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney, as well as Kylie and Kendall Jenner back for four more seasons of scripted reality.

Don’t expect dad Bruce Jenner to make any cameos, though, as he is not a part of the deal, and will instead star in his own series on the network, which will document his transition from a man to a woman some time this year.

(breitbart, feb 26th)

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2015/02/26/kardashians-sign-100m-deal-to-stay-on-e-for-four-more-years/

NEWS FOR 2/25/2015 Wednesday February 25th 2015

   
AUDIT THE FEDERAL RESERVE


Janet Yellen Is Freaking Out About ‘Audit The Fed’ – Here Are 100 Reasons Why She Should Be

I want to share with you some facts and figures that I have shared before, but they bear repeating.  Please share this list of 100 reasons why the Federal Reserve should be shut down with everyone that you know…

#1 We like to think that we have a government “of the people, by the people, for the people”, but the truth is that an unelected, unaccountable group of central planners has far more power over our economy than anyone else in our society does.

#2 The Federal Reserve is actually “independent” of the government.  In fact, the Federal Reserve has argued vehemently in federal court that it is “not an agency”of the federal government and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

#3 The Federal Reserve openly admits that the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks are organized “much like private corporations“.

#4 The regional Federal Reserve banks issue shares of stock to the “member banks” that own them.

#5 100% of the shareholders of the Federal Reserve are private banks.  The U.S. government owns zero shares.

#6 The Federal Reserve is not an agency of the federal government, but it has been given power to regulate our banks and financial institutions.  This should not be happening.

#7 According to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress is the one that is supposed to have the authority to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”.  So why is the Federal Reserve doing it?

#8 If you look at a “U.S. dollar”, it actually says “Federal Reserve note” at the top.  In the financial world, a “note” is an instrument of debt.

#9 In 1963, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 11110 which authorized the U.S. Treasury to issue “United States notes” which were created by the U.S. government directly and not by the Federal Reserve.  He was assassinated shortly thereafter.

#10 Many of the debt-free United States notes issued under President Kennedy are still in circulation today.

#11 The Federal Reserve determines what levels some of the most important interest rates in our system are going to be set at.  In a free market system, the free market would determine those interest rates.

#12 The Federal Reserve has become so powerful that it is now known as “the fourth branch of government“.

#13 The greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was when there was no central bank.

#14 The Federal Reserve was designed to be a perpetual debt machine.  The bankers that designed it intended to trap the U.S. government in a perpetual debt spiral from which it could never possibly escape.  Since the Federal Reserve was established 100 years ago, the U.S. national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger.

#15 A permanent federal income tax was established the exact same year that the Federal Reserve was created.  This was not a coincidence.  In order to pay for all of the government debt that the Federal Reserve would create, a federal income tax was necessary.  The whole idea was to transfer wealth from our pockets to the federal government and from the federal government to the bankers.

#16 The period prior to 1913 (when there was no income tax) was the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history.

#17 Today, the U.S. tax code is about 13 miles long.

#18 From the time that the Federal Reserve was created until now, the U.S. dollar has lost 98 percent of its value.

#19 From the time that President Nixon took us off the gold standard until now, the U.S. dollar has lost 83 percent of its value.

#20 During the 100 years before the Federal Reserve was created, the U.S. economy rarely had any problems with inflation.  But since the Federal Reserve was established, the U.S. economy has experienced constant and never ending inflation.

#21 In the century before the Federal Reserve was created, the average annual rate of inflation was about half a percent.  In the century since the Federal Reserve was created, the average annual rate of inflation has been about 3.5 percent.

#22 The Federal Reserve has stripped the middle class of trillions of dollars of wealth through the hidden tax of inflation.

#23 The size of M1 has nearly doubled since 2008 thanks to the reckless money printing that the Federal Reserve has been doing.

#24 The Federal Reserve has been starting to behave like the Weimar Republic, and we all remember how that ended.

#25 The Federal Reserve has been consistently lying to us about the level of inflation in our economy.  If the inflation rate was still calculated the same way that it was back when Jimmy Carter was president, the official rate of inflation would be somewhere between 8 and 10 percent today.

#26 Since the Federal Reserve was created, there have been 18 distinct recessions or depressions: 1918, 1920, 1923, 1926, 1929, 1937, 1945, 1949, 1953, 1958, 1960, 1969, 1973, 1980, 1981, 1990, 2001, 2008.

#27 Within 20 years of the creation of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. economy was plunged into the Great Depression.

#28 The Federal Reserve created the conditions that caused the stock market crash of 1929, and even Ben Bernanke admits that the response by the Fed to that crisis made the Great Depression even worse than it should have been.

#29 The “easy money” policies of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan set the stage for the great financial crisis of 2008.

#30 Without the Federal Reserve, the “subprime mortgage meltdown” would probably never have happened.

#31 If you can believe it, there have been 10 different economic recessionssince 1950.  The Federal Reserve created the “dotcom bubble”, the Federal Reserve created the “housing bubble” and now it has created the largest bond bubble in the history of the planet.

#32 According to an official government report, the Federal Reserve made 16.1 trillion dollars in secret loans to the big banks during the last financial crisis.  The following is a list of loan recipients that was taken directly from page 131 of the report…

Citigroup – $2.513 trillion
Morgan Stanley – $2.041 trillion
Merrill Lynch – $1.949 trillion
Bank of America – $1.344 trillion
Barclays PLC – $868 billion
Bear Sterns – $853 billion
Goldman Sachs – $814 billion
Royal Bank of Scotland – $541 billion
JP Morgan Chase – $391 billion
Deutsche Bank – $354 billion
UBS – $287 billion
Credit Suisse – $262 billion
Lehman Brothers – $183 billion
Bank of Scotland – $181 billion
BNP Paribas – $175 billion
Wells Fargo – $159 billion
Dexia – $159 billion
Wachovia – $142 billion
Dresdner Bank – $135 billion
Societe Generale – $124 billion
“All Other Borrowers” – $2.639 trillion

#33 The Federal Reserve also paid those big banks $659.4 million in “fees” to help “administer” those secret loans.

#34 During the last financial crisis, big European banks were allowed to borrow an “unlimited” amount of money from the Federal Reserve at ultra-low interest rates.

#35 The “easy money” policies of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have created the largest financial bubble this nation has ever seen, and this has set the stage for the great financial crisis that we are rapidly approaching.

#36 Since late 2008, the size of the Federal Reserve balance sheet has grown from less than a trillion dollars to more than 4 trillion dollars.  This is complete and utter insanity.

#37 During the quantitative easing era, the value of the financial securities that the Fed has accumulated is greater than the total amount of publicly held debt that the U.S. government accumulated from the presidency of George Washington through the end of the presidency of Bill Clinton.

#38 Overall, the Federal Reserve now holds more than 32 percent of all 10 year equivalents.

#39 Quantitative easing creates financial bubbles, and when quantitative easing ends those bubbles tend to deflate rapidly.

#40 Most of the new money created by quantitative easing has ended up in the hands of the very wealthy.

#41 According to a prominent Federal Reserve insider, quantitative easing has been one giant “subsidy” for Wall Street banks.

#42 As one CNBC article stated, we are seeing absolutely rampant inflation in “stocks and bonds and art and Ferraris“.

#43 Donald Trump once made the following statement about quantitative easing: “People like me will benefit from this.”

#44 Most people have never heard about this, but a very interesting studyconducted for the Bank of England shows that quantitative easing actually increases the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

#45 The gap between the top one percent and the rest of the country is now the greatest that it has been since the 1920s.

#46 The mainstream media has sold quantitative easing to the American public as an “economic stimulus program”, but the truth is that the percentage of Americans that have a job has actually gone down since quantitative easing first began.

#47 The Federal Reserve is supposed to be able to guide the nation toward “full employment”, but the reality of the matter is that an all-time record 102 million working age Americans do not have a job right now.  That number has risen by about 27 million since the year 2000.

#48 For years, the projections of economic growth by the Federal Reserve haveconsistently overstated the strength of the U.S. economy.  But every single time, the mainstream media continues to report that these numbers are “reliable” even though all they actually represent is wishful thinking.

#49 The Federal Reserve system fuels the growth of government, and the growth of government fuels the growth of the Federal Reserve system.  Since 1970, federal spending has grown nearly 12 times as rapidly as median household income has.

#50 The Federal Reserve is supposed to look out for the health of all U.S. banks, but the truth is that they only seem to be concerned about the big ones.  In 1985, there were more than 18,000 banks in the United States.  Today, there are only6,891 left.

#51 The six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) have collectively gotten37 percent larger over the past five years.

#52 The U.S. banking system has 14.4 trillion dollars in total assets.  The six largest banks now account for 67 percent of those assets and all of the other banks account for only 33 percent of those assets.

#53 The five largest banks now account for 42 percent of all loans in the United States.

#54 We were told that the purpose of quantitative easing is to help “stimulate the economy”, but today the Federal Reserve is actually paying the big banks not to lend out 1.8 trillion dollars in “excess reserves” that they have parked at the Fed.

#55 The Federal Reserve has allowed an absolutely gigantic derivatives bubble to inflate which could destroy our financial system at any moment.  Right now, four of the “too big to fail” banks each have total exposure to derivatives that is well in excess of 40 trillion dollars.

#56 The total exposure that Goldman Sachs has to derivatives contracts is more than 381 times greater than their total assets.

#57 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has a track record of failure that would make the Chicago Cubs look good.

#58 The secret November 1910 gathering at Jekyll Island, Georgia during which the plan for the Federal Reserve was hatched was attended by U.S. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department A.P. Andrews and a whole host of representatives from the upper crust of the Wall Street banking establishment.

#59 The Federal Reserve was created by the big Wall Street banks and for the benefit of the big Wall Street banks.

#60 In 1913, Congress was promised that if the Federal Reserve Act was passed that it would eliminate the business cycle.

#61 There has never been a true comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve since it was created back in 1913.

#62 The Federal Reserve system has been described as “the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world“.

#63 The following comes directly from the Fed’s official mission statement: “To provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system.”  Without a doubt, the Federal Reserve has failed in those tasks dramatically.

#64 The Fed decides what the target rate of inflation should be, what the target rate of unemployment should be and what the size of the money supply is going to be.  This is quite similar to the “central planning” that goes on in communist nations, but very few people in our government seem upset by this.

#65 A couple of years ago, Federal Reserve officials walked into one bank in Oklahoma and demanded that they take down all the Bible verses and all the Christmas buttons that the bank had been displaying.

#66 The Federal Reserve has taken some other very frightening steps in recent years.  For example, back in 2011 the Federal Reserve announced plans to identify “key bloggers” and to monitor “billions of conversations” about the Fed on Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs.  Someone at the Fed will almost certainly end up reading this article.

#67 Thanks to this endless debt spiral that we are trapped in, a massive amount of money is transferred out of our pockets and into the pockets of the ultra-wealthy each year.  Incredibly, the U.S. government spent more than 415 billion dollarsjust on interest on the national debt in 2013.

#68 In January 2000, the average rate of interest on the government’s marketable debt was 6.620 percent.  If we got back to that level today, we would be paying more than a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt and it would collapse our entire financial system.

#69 The American people are being killed by compound interest but most of them don’t even understand what it is.  Albert Einstein once made the following statement about compound interest…

    “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.”

#70 Most Americans have absolutely no idea where money comes from.  The truth is that the Federal Reserve just creates it out of thin air.  The following is how I havepreviously described how money is normally created by the Fed in our system…

    When the U.S. government decides that it wants to spend another billion dollars that it does not have, it does not print up a billion dollars.

    Rather, the U.S. government creates a bunch of U.S. Treasury bonds (debt) and takes them over to the Federal Reserve.

    The Federal Reserve creates a billion dollars out of thin air and exchanges them for the U.S. Treasury bonds.

#71 What does the Federal Reserve do with those U.S. Treasury bonds?  They end up getting auctioned off to the highest bidder.  But this entire process actually creates more debt than it does money…

    The U.S. Treasury bonds that the Federal Reserve receives in exchange for the money it has created out of nothing are auctioned off through the Federal Reserve system.

    But wait.

    There is a problem.

    Because the U.S. government must pay interest on the Treasury bonds, the amount of debt that has been created by this transaction is greater than the amount of money that has been created.

    So where will the U.S. government get the money to pay that debt?

    Well, the theory is that we can get money to circulate through the economy really, really fast and tax it at a high enough rate that the government will be able to collect enough taxes to pay the debt.

    But that never actually happens, does it?

    And the creators of the Federal Reserve understood this as well.  They understood that the U.S. government would not have enough money to both run the government and service the national debt.  They knew that the U.S. government would have to keep borrowing even more money in an attempt to keep up with the game.

#72 Of course the U.S. government could actually create money and spend it directly into the economy without the Federal Reserve being involved at all.  But then we wouldn’t be 17 trillion dollars in debt and that wouldn’t serve the interests of the bankers at all.

#73 The following is what Thomas Edison once had to say about our absolutely insane debt-based financial system…

    That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt.

    Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 — that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost.

    But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good.

#74 The United States now has the largest national debt in the history of the world, and we are stealing roughly 100 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day in a desperate attempt to keep the debt spiral going.

#75 Thomas Jefferson once stated that if he could add just one more amendment to the U.S. Constitution it would be a ban on all government borrowing…

    I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

#76 At this moment, the U.S. national debt is sitting at$18,141,409,083,212.36.  If we had followed the advice of Thomas Jefferson, it would be sitting at zero.

#77 When the Federal Reserve was first established, the U.S. national debt was sitting at about 2.9 billion dollars.  On average, we have been adding more than that to the national debt every single day since Obama has been in the White House.

#78 We are on pace to accumulate more new debt under the 8 years of the Obama administration than we did under all of the other presidents in all of U.S. history combined.

#79 If all of the new debt that has been accumulated since John Boehner became Speaker of the House had been given directly to the American people instead, every household in America would have been able to buy a new truck.

#80 Between 2008 and 2012, U.S. government debt grew by 60.7 percent, but U.S. GDP only grew by a total of about 8.5 percent during that entire time period.

#81 Since 2007, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio has increased from 66.6 percent to101.6 percent.

#82 According to the U.S. Treasury, foreigners hold approximately 5.6 trillion dollars of our debt.

#83 The amount of U.S. government debt held by foreigners is about 5 times larger than it was just a decade ago.

#84 As I have written about previously, if the U.S. national debt was reduced to a stack of one dollar bills it would circle the earth at the equator 45 times.

#85 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his entire fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.

#86 Sometimes we forget just how much money a trillion dollars is.  If you were alive when Jesus Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.

#87 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#88 In addition to all of our debt, the U.S. government has also accumulated more than 200 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities.  So where in the world will all of that money come from?

#89 The greatest damage that quantitative easing has been causing to our economy is the fact that it is destroying worldwide faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. debt.  If the rest of the world stops using our dollars and stops buying our debt, we are going to be in a massive amount of trouble.

#90 Over the past several years, the Federal Reserve has been monetizing a staggering amount of U.S. government debt even though Ben Bernanke once promised that he would never do this.

#91 China recently announced that they are going to quit stockpiling more U.S. dollars.  If the Federal Reserve was not recklessly printing money, this would probably not have happened.

#92 Most Americans have no idea that one of our most famous presidents was absolutely obsessed with getting rid of central banking in the United States.  The following is a February 1834 quote by President Andrew Jackson about the evils of central banking…

    I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the Bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the Bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out and, by the Eternal,(bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out.

#93 There are plenty of possible alternative financial systems, but at this point all 187 nations that belong to the IMF have a central bank.  Are we supposed to believe that this is just some sort of a bizarre coincidence?

#94 The capstone of the global central banking system is an organization known as the Bank for International Settlements.  The following is how I described this organization in a previous article…

    An immensely powerful international organization that most people have never even heard of secretly controls the money supply of the entire globe.  It is called the Bank for International Settlements, and it is the central bank of central banks.  It is located in Basel, Switzerland, but it also has branches in Hong Kong and Mexico City.  It is essentially an unelected, unaccountable central bank of the world that has complete immunity from taxation and from national laws.  Even Wikipedia admits that “it is not accountable to any single national government.”  The Bank for International Settlements was used to launder money for the Nazis during World War II, but these days the main purpose of the BIS is to guide and direct the centrally-planned global financial system.  Today, 58 global central banks belong to the BIS, and it has far more power over how the U.S. economy (or any other economy for that matter) will perform over the course of the next year than any politician does.  Every two months, the central bankers of the world gather in Basel for another “Global Economy Meeting”.  During those meetings, decisions are made which affect every man, woman and child on the planet, and yet none of us have any say in what goes on.  The Bank for International Settlements is an organization that was founded by the global elite and it operates for the benefit of the global elite, and it is intended to be one of the key cornerstones of the emerging one world economic system.

#95 The borrower is the servant of the lender, and the Federal Reserve has turned all of us into debt slaves.

#96 Debt is a form of social control, and the global elite use all of this debt to dominate all the rest of us.  40 years ago, the total amount of debt in our system (all government debt, all business debt, all consumer debt, etc.) was sitting at about 2 trillion dollars.  Today, the grand total exceeds 56 trillion dollars.

#97 Unless something dramatic is done, our children and our grandchildren will be debt slaves for their entire lives as they service our debts and pay for our mistakes.

#98 Now that you know this information, you are responsible for doing something about it.

#99 Congress has the power to shut down the Federal Reserve any time that it would like.  But right now most of our politicians fully endorse the current system, and nothing is ever going to happen until the American people start demanding change.

#100 The design of the Federal Reserve system was flawed from the very beginning.  If something is not done very rapidly, it is inevitable that our entire financial system is going to suffer an absolutely nightmarish collapse.
(End of the american dream, feb 25th)

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/janet-yellen-is-freaking-out-about-audit-the-fed-here-are-100-reasons-why-she-should-be




NET NEUTRALITY______________


Soros, Ford Foundation shovel $196 million to 'net neutrality' groups, staff to White House

George Soros and the Ford Foundation have lavished groups supporting the administration’s “net neutrality” agenda, donating $196 million and landing proponents on the White House staff, according to a new report.

And now, as the Federal Communications Commission nears approving a type of government control over the Internet, the groups are poised to declare victory in the years-long fight, according to the report from MRC Business, an arm of the conservative media watchdog, the Media Research Center.

“The Ford Foundation, which claims to be the second-largest private foundation in the U.S., and Open Society Foundations, founded by far-left billionaire George Soros, have given more than $196 million to pro-net neutrality groups between 2000 and 2013,” said the report, authored by Media Research Center’s Joseph Rossell, and provided to Secrets.

“These left-wing groups not only impacted the public debate and funded top liberal think tanks from the Center for American Progress to Free Press. They also have direct ties to the White House and regulatory agencies. At least five individuals from these groups have ascended to key positions at the White House and FCC,” said the report which included funding details to pro-net neutrality advocates.
(washington examiner, feb 25th)

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/soros-ford-shovel-196-million-to-net-neutrality-groups-staff-to-white-house/article/2560702



FCC Chair Refuses to Testify before Congress ahead of Net Neutrality Vote

Two prominent House committee chairs are “deeply disappointed” in Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler for refusing to testify before Congress as “the future of the Internet is at stake.” Wheeler’s refusal to go before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday comes on the eve of the FCC’s vote on new Internet regulations pertaining to net neutrality. The committee’s chairman, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), and Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R., Mich.) criticized Wheeler and the administration for lacking transparency on the issue. “So long as the chairman continues to insist on secrecy, we will continue calling for more transparency and accountability at the commission,” Chaffetz and Upton said in a statement. “Chairman Wheeler and the FCC are not above Congress.” The vote on the new Internet regulations is scheduled for Thursday. The FCC’s two Republican commissioners have asked Wheeler to delay the vote to allow more time for review.

The changes would allow the commission to regulate the Internet like a public utility, setting new standards that require the provision of equal access to all online content.

(national review, feb 25th)

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/414380/fcc-chair-refuses-testify-congress-ahead-net-neutrality-vote-andrew-johnson



FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai: Net Neutrality is a "Solution That Won't Work to a Problem That Doesn't Exist"

Pai is an oustpoken opponent of expanding government control of the internet, including FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's plan to regulate Internet Service Providers (ISPs) under the same Title II rules that are used to govern telephone-service providers as public utilities. Under current FCC regulations, ISPs are considered providers of "information services" and subject to essentially no federal regulation.

He is also sharply critical of President Barack Obama's very public push to influence policy at the FCC, which is technically an independent agency. Last year, it was widely believed that Wheeler, a former head of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, would not push for Title II. Pai calls the president's actions—which included "creating a YouTube video of with very specific prescriptions as to what this agency should do"—unprecedented in his experience. Coupled with the fact that "the agency suddenly chang[ed]course from where it was to mimic the president’s plan," says Pai, "suggests that the independence of the agency has been compromised to some extent."
(reason.com, feb 25th)

http://reason.com/archives/2015/02/25/fccs-ajit-pai-on-net-neutrality-a-soluti/



Republicans Fear Net Neutrality Plan Could Lead to UN Internet Powers

The U.S. government's plan to enact strong net neutrality regulations could embolden authoritarian regimes like China and Russia to seize more power over the Internet through the United Nations, a key Senate Republican warned Wednesday.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune of South Dakota argued that by claiming more authority over Internet access for net neutrality, the Federal Communications Commission will undermine the ability of the U.S. to push back against international plots to control the Internet and censor content.

Countries like Russia already have made it clear that they want the International Telecommunications Union or another United Nations body to have more power over the Internet, Thune said.

"It seems like reclassifying broadband, as the administration is doing, is losing a valuable argument," Thune said at his panel's hearing on Internet governance. "How do you prevent ITU involvement when you're pushing to reclassify the Internet under Title II of the Communications Act, and is everyone aware of that inherent contradiction?"

On Thursday, the FCC is set to vote on net neutrality regulations that would declare Internet access a "telecommunications service" under Title II. Advocates, including President Obama, argue that the move is the only way the FCC can enact rules that will hold up to legal challenges in court. The rules aim to prevent Internet providers from acting as "gatekeepers" and controlling what content users can access online.
(National journal, feb 25th)

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/the-future-of-broadband/republicans-fear-net-neutrality-plan-could-lead-to-un-internet-powers-20150225



Hillary Clinton Endorses FCC’s Title II Designation for the Internet

(Breitbart, feb 25th)

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/25/hillary-clinton-endorses-fccs-title-ii-designation-for-the-internet/




PRIVACY__________________


Edward Snowden’s Libertarian Moment: We “Will Remove From Governments The Ability To Interfere With [Our] Rights”

Via Mark Sletten comes this thread from yesterday’s Ask Me Anything session at Reddit that featured Edward Snowden, Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras, and journalist Glenn Greenwald.

The question posed to Snowden:

    What’s the best way to make NSA spying an issue in the 2016 Presidential Election? It seems like while it was a big deal in 2013, ISIS and other events have put it on the back burner for now in the media and general public. What are your ideas for how to bring it back to the forefront?

His answer is well worth reading in full (below), but its essence is a full-throated defense of classical liberal and libertarian theorizing not just about the consent of the governed but the right to work around the government when it focuses on social order over legitimacy. And, as important, a recognition that this is what we at Reason and others call “the Libertarian Moment,” or a technologically empowered drive toward greater and greater control over more and more aspects of our lives. While the Libertarian Moment is enabled by technological innovations and generally increasing levels of wealth and education, it’s ultimately proceeds from a mind-set as much as anything else: We have the right to live peacefully any way we choose as long as we are not infringing on other people’s rights to do the same. Our politics and our laws should reflect this emphasis on pluralism, tolerance, and persuasion (as opposed to coercion) across social, economic, and intellectual spheres of activity.

As Snowden emphasizes, it’s not simply that governments (thankfully) fail at attempts for perfect surveillance and law enforcement. It’s that technologically empowered people are actively worked to route around government attempts to fence us in. 

FULL INTERVIEW IN THE ARTICLE

(hit&run, feb 24th)

http://reason.com/blog/2015/02/24/edward-snowdens-libertarian-moment-we-wi



Citing encryption, FBI lobbying to keep phone metadata spying powers

The law that the Obama administration cites to allow bulk telephone metadata collection expires on June 1, and the FBI has already begun lobbying to keep Section 215 of the Patriot Act from expiring. Bad guys "going dark" using encryption, the FBI says, is one of the reasons why the government needs to collect the metadata of every phone call made to and from the United States.

Robert Anderson, the FBI’s chief of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, told reporters during a roundtable discussion Tuesday that the Patriot Act is necessary because encrypted communications are becoming more commonplace in the wake of the Edward Snowden disclosures.

"In the last two to three years, that whole ‘going dark’ thing went from a crawl to a flat-out sprint because the technology is changing so rapidly," Anderson said.

Joseph Demarest, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, told reporters that if Section 215 expires, "Obviously it’s going to impact what we do as an organization and certainly on cyber."

The comments, especially as they relate to encryption, are part of a growing chorus of calls—from as high as President Barack Obama—that the government needs Silicon Valley's assistance for backdoors into encrypted tech products like the iPhone.

(ARS technica, feb 25th)

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/citing-encryption-fbi-lobbying-to-keep-phone-metadata-spying-powers/



Lenovo.com, the official website of world's largest PC maker has been hacked.

At the time of writing, users visiting Lenovo.com website saw a teenager's slideshow and hacker also added song "Breaking Free" from High School Musical movie to the page background.

It appears that Lizard Squad hacking group is responsible for the cyber attack against Lenovo and it could be in retaliation to the Superfish malware incident.

It was revealed earlier this week that Lenovo had been pre-installing controversial 'Superfish' adware to its laptops which compromised the computer's encryption certificates to quietly include more ads on Google search.

(the hacker news, feb 25th)

http://thehackernews.com/2015/02/lenovo-hacked.html




TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY_________________


3D printing: Australian researchers create jet engine, breakthrough captures attention of Airbus and Boeing

Australian researchers have created the world's first 3D-printed jet engine in a manufacturing breakthrough that engineers expect will lead to cheaper, lighter and more fuel-efficient jets.

The partnership between Monash University and spin-out company Amaero Engineering has captured the attention of Airbus, Boeing and defence contractor Raytheon.

The breakthrough opens the door for engineers to make and test parts in days instead of months.

"[In the past you had to] melt, mould, carve and turn to get the final product," said Professor Ian Smith, Monash University's vice-provost for research.

"This way we can very quickly get a final product, so the advantages of this technology are, firstly, for rapid prototyping and making a large number of prototypes quickly.

"Secondly, for being able to make bespoke parts that you wouldn't be able to with classic engineering technologies."

(ABC AU, feb 25th)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-26/australian-researchers-create-first-3d-jet-engine/6262462




Computers have beaten humans at chess and "Jeopardy!," and now they can master old Atari games such as "Space Invaders" or "Breakout" without knowing anything about their rules or strategies.

Playing Atari 2600 games from the 1980s may seem a bit "Back to the Future," but researchers with Google's DeepMind project say they have taken a small but crucial step toward a general learning machine that can mimic the way human brains learn from new experience.

Unlike the Watson and Deep Blue computers that beat "Jeopardy!" and chess champions with intensive programming specific to those games, the Deep-Q Network built its winning strategies from keystrokes up, through trial and error and constant reprocessing of feedback to find winning strategies.

“The ultimate goal is to build smart, general-purpose [learning] machines. We’re many decades off from doing that," said artificial intelligence researcher Demis Hassabis, coauthor of the study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature. "But I do think this is the first significant rung of the ladder that we’re on."

The Deep-Q Network computer, developed by the London-based Google DeepMind, played 49 old-school Atari games, scoring "at or better than human level," on 29 of them, according to the study.

The algorithm approach, based loosely on the architecture of human neural networks, could eventually be applied to any complex and multidimensional task requiring a series of decisions, according to the researchers.

The algorithms employed in this type of machine learning depart strongly from approaches that rely on a computer's ability to weigh stunning amounts of inputs and outcomes and choose programmed models to "explain" the data. Those approaches, known as supervised learning, required artful tailoring of algorithms around specific problems, such as a chess game.

The computer instead relies on random exploration of keystrokes bolstered by human-like reinforcement learning, where a reward essentially takes the place of such supervision.

(LA times, feb 25th)

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-computer-learning-space-invaders-20150224-story.html



Mind-Controlled Drone Scientists Work On Groundbreaking Flight

A company has successfully flown a mind controlled drone, a step that its scientists say will lead to passenger carrying airplanes steered only by pilots’ brains.

In a rather stunning demonstration yesterday, Portuguese business Tekever fitted a special cap to a pilot to measure his brain activity, allowing him to steer a drone through a mission in the sky using his thoughts alone.

The company’s eventual target for the drone technology is applying it to pilots flying private and commercial aircraft using their minds alone, but it acknowledges there is a lot of work ahead.

For yesterday’s test demonstration, in order to steer the drone, pilot Nuno Loureiro focused entirely on simple thoughts within set formats, which he learned during extensive training. This means the drone received clear signals, from his brain waves, that it could process quickly.

(Forbes, feb 25th)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/leoking/2015/02/25/mind-controlled-drone-scientists-work-on-groundbreaking-flight/



3 Austrian men first to get mind-controlled bionic hands after amputation

Three Austrians have replaced injured hands with bionic ones that they can control using nerves and muscles transplanted into their arms from their legs.

The three men are the first to undergo what doctors refer to as "bionic reconstruction," which includes a voluntary amputation, the transplantation of nerves and muscles and learning to use faint signals from them to command the hand.

Previously, people with bionic hands have primarily controlled them with manual settings.

(AP, feb 25th)

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/3-austrian-men-mind-controlled-bionic-hands-article-1.2128484



First full body transplant is two years away, surgeon claims

Doctor plans to graft a living person’s head on to a donor body using procedures he believes will soon be ready

Sergio Canavero, a doctor in Turin, Italy, has drawn up plans to graft a living person’s head on to a donor body and claims the procedures needed to carry out the operation are not far off.

Canavero hopes to assemble a team to explore the radical surgery in a project he is due to launch at a meeting for neurological surgeons in Maryland this June.

He has claimed for years that medical science has advanced to the point that a full body transplant is plausible, but the proposal has caused raised eyebrows, horror and profound disbelief in other surgeons.

The Italian doctor, who recently published a broad outline of how the surgery could be performed, told New Scientist magazine that he wanted to use body transplants to prolong the lives of people affected by terminal diseases.

“If society doesn’t want it, I won’t do it. But if people don’t want it, in the US or Europe, that doesn’t mean it won’t be done somewhere else,” he said. “I’m trying to go about this the right way, but before going to the moon, you want to make sure people will follow you.”

(guardian, feb 25th)

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/25/first-full-body-transplant-two-years-away-surgeon-claim




IMMIGRATION______________


Obama’s Amnesty “Town hall” Closed To Public, Will Feature Handpicked Illegals Asking Questions

The Miami Herald reports that the event, scheduled to take place at the Miami campus of Florida International University, is not being sponsored by the University, and is in fact closed to the public for all intents and purposes.

Indeed, the facilities are being privately rented out to the real organisations behind the event, MSNBC and Telemundo. Both media organisations are staunch supporters of the amnesty program and have relentlessly pumped out one-sided programming promoting it.

“Though billed as a “town hall,” tickets for the private event were distributed by organizers and not made publicly available.” The Herald notes.

“Telemundo and MSNBC rented the public Graham Center facility at FIU’s main campus for about $39,000, according to a copy of the contract.” the report continues.

So tickets were never publicly available, yet remarkable numbers of illegal immigrants have managed to get their hands on them.

(Infowars, feb 25th)

http://www.infowars.com/obamas-amnesty-town-hall-closed-to-public-will-feature-handpicked-illegals-asking-questions/



Obama Holds Closed-Door Meeting With 'Immigration Advocacy Leaders'

President Obama is holding a closed-door White House meeting with "immigration advocacy leaders" this morning, the White House announced. Later today the president will hold an immigration townhall in Miami, which will be broadcast on MSNBC.

"In the morning, the President will meet with immigration advocacy leaders to provide an update on the Administration’s immigration accountability executive actions. This meeting in the Roosevelt Room is closed press," the White House schedule reads.

It is unclear who will be in attendance at the private meeting.

The meeting comes amid a fight between the White House and Congress about Department of Homeland Security funding -- and whether the executive amnesty he signed last year should receive federal money to support the action.

(weekly standard, feb 25th)

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-holds-closed-door-meeting-immigration-advocacy-leaders_865984.html



Amnesty Beneficiaries Could Claim More Than $35K In Tax Benefits In First Year

Illegal immigrants who are able to obtain Social Security Numbers and work permits as a result of President Obama’s executive amnesty could claim tens of thousands of dollars in back tax benefits, a new Congressional Research Service memo obtained first by Breitbart News reveals.

The report comes following the Internal Revenue Service’s confirmation that once illegal immigrants are granted Social Security Numbers — as a result of Obama’s executive actions — they will be able to file back tax returns and obtain up to four years of tax benefits, including the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC).

(breitbart, feb 25th)

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/25/amnesty-beneficiaries-could-claim-more-than-35k-in-tax-benefits-in-first-year/



HHS Confirms Unaccompanied Illegal Alien Children in U.S. Will Have Access to Abortion

(CNS, feb 24th)

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/penny-starr/hhs-confirms-unaccompanied-illegal-alien-children-us-will-have-access




POLICE STATE_______________


Cop Who Illegally Kidnapped and Beat Down Syndrome Man Says He Would Do It Again if He Could

On Tuesday, we reported that the police had admitted that San Diego Sheriff’s Deputy Jeffrey Guy broke the law when he assaulted 22-year-old Antonio Martinez, who doctors say, has the mental capacity of a 7-year-old.

On Wednesday, a shocking new report from ABC 10 News has uncovered that Guy also has a history of using force with another agency. Not only did this cop say he would assault an innocent man with down syndrome again if the opportunity arises, but an investigation revealed that he has a history of excessive force.

Also, the department has not been complying with a California law requiring police to undergo training on how to proceed with the mentally disabled.

(Free thought project, feb 25th)

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/deputy-pepper-sprayed-assaulted-kidnapped-man-syndrome-i-act-same/



Exclusive: FBI Tries to Flip Open Carry Activist After Arrest at Political Rally

An open carry activist and military veteran speaking exclusively with Infowars says federal agents told him to “be quiet” for a year or face federal charges after being arrested by Department of Homeland Security agents at a political rally in Spokane, Washington.

The activist, Anthony Bosworth, was participating in the “Our State, Our Rights” rally near the city’s federal courthouse when members of multiple federal agencies approached and began demanding identification.

While inquiring on the alleged need to provide ID, Bosworth was accused of being in violation of federal gun laws according to a DHS agent on scene.

“It’s against federal law,” the agent claimed. “18 U.S. C 930 says it’s illegal.”

Bosworth, correctly citing the law’s wordage, asserted that the restriction only applied to the inside of federal buildings.

“On federal property,” the DHS agent argued. “You’re on federal property.”

18 U.S. Code 930 in fact never once uses the words “on federal property,” but instead repeatedly refers to the possession of a firearm inside a federally-run building.

    (a) Except as provided in subsection (d), whoever knowingly possesses or causes to be present a firearm or other dangerous weapon in a Federal facility (other than a Federal court facility), or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both.

After being confronted by a U.S. Marshall, Bosworth was arrested while attempting to locate the end of the federal property line.

“You’re not protesting. You’re violating the law,” the Marshall said.

According to Bosworth, who spoke with Infowars following his release, the same U.S. Marshall later attempted to coerce him into ceasing all political activity while in custody.

Bosworth stated that after receiving a citation, the Marshall said that he could likely avoid federal charges and prison time if he was “quiet for a year.”

“He basically said, ‘Between me and you some friendly advice, if you be quiet for a year there is a good chance this will all go away. Just some friendly advice,’” Bosworth recalled.

(Infowars, feb 25th)

http://www.infowars.com/exclusive-fbi-tries-to-flip-open-carry-activist-after-arrest-at-political-rally/



Report: UK Cops Drew Tasers On Over 430 Kids In 2013

Officers fired on youths between 10 and 17-years-old 37 times

(Infowars, feb 25th)

http://www.infowars.com/report-uk-cops-drew-tasers-on-over-430-kids-in-2013/



Watch policeman perform EXORCISM on 'drunk' suspect before arresting him

Stunning footage shows the religious cop shouting "Unleash his body, Jesus. Out in the name of Jesus" as stunned passers-by look on

(mirror, feb 25th)

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/watch-policeman-perform-exorcism-drunk-5227990




GLOBAL CONFLICTS_______________



How the Military Will Fight ISIS on the Dark Web

The Dark Web is not so much a place as it is a method of achieving a level of anonymity online. It refers to web sites that mask the IP addresses of the servers on which they reside, making it impossible to know who or what is behind the site or sites. They don’t show up on search engines like Google so, unless you know exactly how to reach them, they’re effectively invisible. Activists and dissidents in countries like China and Iran use the Dark Web to get around state surveillance; journalists use it to reach sources and whistleblowers rely on it to spread the word about institutional abuse or malpractices. New evidence suggests that the Islamic State, or ISIS, or at least ISIS supporting groups, are seeking the Dark Web’s anonymity for operations beyond simple propaganda. Thus yet another challenge for law enforcement and the military: to track users on the Dark Web in a way that’s effective against ISIS but that doesn’t violate privacy.

Adm. Michael Rogers, commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency, speaking at the Cybersecurity for a New America Event on Monday in Washington said that groups like ISIS raising money on the Dark Web was “clearly a concern. It’s something that we’re paying attention to.” Without addressing explicitly how the NSA, goes about the task of paying attention, he added simply: “We spend a lot of time tracking people that can’t be found.”

A new report from the Chertoff Group illustrates some of the ways that the national security community will be keeping tabs on those who have taken steps to make themselves untraceable online.

First, while the Dark Web is incredibly valuable as a tool for dissident action, it also has some real dark spots. Ido Wulkan, the senior analyst at S2T, a Singapore-based technology company that develops Dark Web harvesting technologies, recently revealed to Israeli newspaper Haaretz that his company has found a number of websites raising funds for ISIS through bitcoin donations.

(Defense One, feb 25th)

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/02/how-military-will-fight-isis-dark-web/105948/



Iran hangs Obama in effigy even as it negotiates nuclear deal with US

Just weeks before Secretary of State John Kerry held new nuclear talks with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva, Iranians were hanging Kerry's boss in effigy at a huge Tehran-sponsored rally marking the Islamic Revolution’s 36th anniversary, an event that critics say underscores the absurdity of the ongoing diplomatic effort.

The U.S. and Iran are trying to reach a final nuclear agreement by a March 31 deadline against a backdrop of ongoing anti-American hatred in the Islamic republic. Photos posted by the Middle East Media Research Institute this week show Iranians marching in front of a display depicting President Obama hanging from a gallows and carrying signs of Kerry, portrayed as a devious fox.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians took part in the Feb. 11 Revolution Day, which commemorates the 1979 overthrow of the U.S.-assisted Shah of Iran. The Iranians, as they have in past, chanted, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” They also burned and trampled an American flag.

(Fox news, feb 25th)

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/25/iran-hangs-obama-in-effigy-on-revolution-day-2015-as-it-negotiates-nuclear-deal/



Iran has begun a major three-day naval drill in Persian Gulf in which more than 20 new missiles will be test fired.

The war games, dubbed Great Prophet 9, kicked off today, with the mock sinking of US Nimitz-class aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz.

Four “Nasr” cruise missiles targeted a real-size model of the warship with a length of more than 333 metres. Several other ballistic missiles and assault speed-boats have also taken part in the operation.

Real Admiral Ali Fadavi, the Navy Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), has said more than 20 missiles including underwater drones will be unveiled during the exercises. Ground-to-sea and ground-to-ground ballistic missiles are also being tested.

(IB times, feb 25th)

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/iran-begins-massive-naval-drill-test-firing-more-20-new-missiles-1489404



Voters wary of promises in Britain's unpredictable election

Posters are being printed and slogans are being polished as Britain's politicians battle it out in the most unpredictable national election in decades. One top election analyst has dubbed it "the lottery election."

Voters, though, don't seem very excited about who gets the prize.

"There's nobody who can run a country. They all lie to us," said Victor Loach, a fishmonger selling his wares in the cobbled central square of Atherstone, 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of London. "And why do they shout at each other like children?"

It's a common refrain. Opinion polls suggest voters are lukewarm about both Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives, seeking a second term, and Ed Miliband's opposition Labour Party.

So who is going to win the May 7 vote?

"The simple answer is nobody," said Leighton Vaughan Williams, director of the Political Forecasting Unit at Nottingham Business School. "It's very, very unlikely indeed that any party will get a majority.

"Indeed, it's very, very unlikely that any two parties can put together a majority after the election."

Britain's electoral landscape has become a patchwork of parties, including Scottish and Welsh nationalists, Greens and anti-Europeans. Any of them could end up holding the balance of power in Parliament.

It's a radical change after decades in which Britain's electoral system usually delivered either Conservative or Labour majorities in the House of Commons. Not anymore. Support for the two big parties has plummeted,

CONTINUED IN ARTICLE....CHECK IT OUT ITS VERY WELL DONE.

(AP, feb 25th)

http://news.yahoo.com/voters-wary-promises-britains-unpredictable-election-071759533.html



Protests heat up in already tense Venezuela following teen's death

The killing of a 14-year-old boy by a policeman during an anti-government protest is raising already high tensions in Venezuela amid a crackdown on the opposition and crippling economic problems.

Protesters hurling rocks clashed with police backed by armored vehicles late into the night, and the country was braced for further demonstrations Wednesday after the student, identified as Kluiverth Roa, was shot in the head and killed during a confrontation in San Cristobal, the capital of a restive western state.

Police officer Javier Mora Ortiz, 23, confessed to firing on the boy with plastic ammunition, officials said.

A photo and video of the student lying in a pool of blood, his backpack hanging over his shoulder, as a man frantically tries to staunch the bleeding and others scream and clutch their heads in horror rocketed around social media. Mourners were gathering in San Cristobal for the funeral, expected Wednesday afternoon.

Ruling party officials, including President Nicolas Maduro, condemned the killing with rare speed and forcefulness.

But as Maduro spoke, many residents of the university town near the Colombian border leaned out their windows to bang pots and pans in a cacophonous protest that lasted two hours. Shops closed their doors and public transportation halted as protesters set up flaming barricades on main thoroughfares.

Buses began running again Wednesday morning, but schools remained closed.

In Caracas, small groups gathered Wednesday to protest the killings. Teacher Carolina Castro was among dozens of government critics who held signs outside the diplomatic mission of the Vatican beseeching Pope Francis intervene.

"It hurts me that they're killing our students," said Castro, who wore a homemade necklace with a photo of the 14 year-old. "How many more Venezuelans have to be murdered before there is a reaction?"

Maduro said in a nationally televised address that masked protesters used rocks to attack police who sought to quell the demonstration. He called on young people to resist instigating such confrontations, but also condemned the killing.

(Latino fox news, feb 25th)

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2015/02/25/protests-heat-up-in-already-tense-venezuela-following-teen-death/




CHINA______________________


China submarines outnumber U.S. fleet: U.S. admiral

 China is building some "fairly amazing submarines" and now has more diesel- and nuclear-powered vessels than the United States, a top U.S. Navy admiral told U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday, although he said their quality was inferior.

Vice Admiral Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of naval operations for capabilities and resources, told the House Armed Services Committee's seapower subcommittee that China was also expanding the geographic areas of operation for its submarines, and their length of deployment.

For instance, China had carried out three deployments in the Indian Ocean, and had kept vessels out at sea for 95 days, Mulloy said.

"We know they are out experimenting and looking at operating and clearly want to be in this world of advanced submarines," Mulloy told the committee.

U.S. military officials in recent months have grown increasingly vocal about China's military buildup and launched a major push to ensure that U.S. military technology stays ahead of rapid advances by China and Russia.

(Reuters, feb 25th)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/25/us-usa-china-submarines-idUSKBN0LT2NE20150225?



Exclusive: China drops leading technology brands for state purchases

China has dropped some of the world's leading technology brands from its approved state purchase lists, while approving thousands more locally made products, in what some say is a response to revelations of widespread Western cybersurveillance.

Others put the shift down to a protectionist impulse to shield China's domestic technology industry from competition.

Chief casualty is U.S. network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O), which in 2012 counted 60 products on the Central Government Procurement Center's (CGPC) list, but by late 2014 had none, a Reuters analysis of official data shows.

Smartphone and PC maker Apple Inc (AAPL.O) has also been dropped over the period, along with Intel Corp's (INTC.O) security software firm McAfee and network and server software firm Citrix Systems (CTXS.O).

The number of products on the list, which covers regular spending by central ministries, jumped by more than 2,000 in two years to just under 5,000, but the increase is almost entirely due to local makers.

(Reuters, feb 25th)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/25/us-china-tech-exclusive-idUSKBN0LT1B020150225



Five Pieces Of Indisputable Evidence Of Forced Organ Harvesting Of Falun Gong Practitioners In China

1. Sharp increase of number of organ transplantscoincides with onset of persecution of Falun Gong (Falun Dafa).

2. A marked number of Falun Gong practitionersgo missing at the same time that there is a rapid increase in the number of organ transplantsin China.

3. China’s lack of transparency regarding the source of organs for transplantation. Organ transplants in China are performedwithout revealing the identity of the donor.

4. Incredibly short average waiting periods of only one to two weeks, compared to waiting periods ranging from two to three years in other countries, coincided with the beginning of the persecution of Falun Gong in China (July 1999).

5. Admission of the regime’s representative and the testimony of witnesses.

(sleuth journal, feb 25th)

http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/five-pieces-indisputable-evidence-forced-organ-harvesting-falun-gong-practitioners-china/



MISCELLANEOUS NEWS_______________


Congressional Republicans are making a last-ditch effort to stop the District of Columbia from decriminalizing private recreational use of marijuana from going into effect Thursday, threatening the mayor and her staff with fines and jail time.

In a letter [PDF] sent late Tuesday to DC’s newly-inaugurated Democrat mayor, Muriel Bowser, Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Mark Meadows (R-NC) warned the District government that enacting Initiative 71 would be “contrary to law.” The two representatives, majority members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, also demanded the District turn over extensive documentation on any employees involved with the Initiative by March 10, with the implicit threat of fines and jail time for violating federal law.

(Russia Today, feb 25th)

http://rt.com/usa/235531-dc-marijuana-legalization-mayor/



POPE FRANCIS APOLOGIZES TO THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTEL

Vatican Seeks to Quell Mexican Anger Over Pope's Drug Remark

Francis made the reference in an email over the weekend to an Argentine friend and lawmaker, Gustavo Vera, who is involved in combating the drug trade. He published the pope's email on the website of his Alameda Foundation.

In the email, Francis wrote: "Hopefully we are in time to avoid Mexicanization."

The Mexican government formally complained about the remark during a meeting with the Holy See's ambassador to Mexico and in a note of protest, saying the government was committed to battling drug cartels and that there was no benefit to "stigmatizing Mexico."

(abc news, feb 25th)

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/vatican-apologizes-mexico-popes-drug-remarks-29207220



Video of the Day – Watch as Florida Parents are Treated Like Children for Questioning School Curriculum

In order to give you some background on the issue, see the Letter to the Editor he wrote to the Naples Daily News on 1/28 to say what he was prevented from saying at the 1/20 School Board Workshop. Letter reprinted below:

    I examined seventh-grade “Civics in Practice” and it contained numerous factual inaccuracies. For example, on Page 100 it states, “The Constitution can be changed in two ways; formally by Amendment, and informally by Government.” This notion of dictatorship is enhanced by eighth-grade textbook “United States History,” which states on Page 185, “The President issues Executive Orders. These commands have the power of law.”

    While some called us book-burning Nazis, Page 274 of “Civics in Practice” states, “Citizens must be alert to propaganda” and glittering generalities is a “type of propaganda which often uses words such as freedom and patriotism.” This world government indoctrination is augmented on Page 425, where a geographical map of North America eliminates the United States, and places our great nation in nine new “cultural nations.”

    For pointing this out, one public speaker at the School Board textbook workshop called us “narrow-minded, racist Bible-thumpers.”

    Thank you, Superintendent Patton.

The author has assured me that there is absolutely zero racist or religious angle to any of his concerns, and that this is being shamelessly injected into the argument due to an inability to debate the actual concerns.

(liberty blitzkreig, feb 25th)

http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/02/24/video-of-the-day-watch-as-florida-parents-are-treated-like-children-for-questioning-school-curriculum/



Condom vending machines introduced to prisons in California

A controversial new law has been introduced in California requiring all prisons in the state to install condom vending machines. The new legislation stipulates that within the next five years California must start distributing condoms in around three dozen state prisons.

(Indepedent, feb 25th)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/condom-vending-machines-introduced-to-prisons-in-california-10069805.html



Boston Tops 100 Inches Of Snow In Record-Setting Winter

Overnight snow showers brought the season total to 101.8 inches. That’s less than 6 inches shy of the all-time record of 107.6 inches set in the winter of 1995-96.

Boston has smashed several snowfall records, including snowiest February and snowiest all-time month, as one snowstorm after another pummeled New England.

It’s also been one of the coldest months ever, breaking the record in Boston for most sub-freezing days ever seen in February

(CBS boston, feb 25th)

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/02/25/bostons-tops-100-inches-of-snow-in-record-setting-winter/



Trump says he is serious about 2016 bid, is hiring staff and delaying TV gig

(Washington post, feb 25th)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-he-is-serious-about-2016-bid-is-hiring-staff-and-delaying-tv-gig/2015/02/25/4e9d3804-bd07-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html



HEALTH___________________


Johnson & Johnson Loses Trial Over Risperdal And Male Breasts

In a setback to Johnson & Johnson, a Philadelphia jury decided the health care giant must pay $2.5 million in damages for failing to warn that its Risperdal antipsychotic could cause gynecomastia, which is abnormal development of breasts in males. The lawsuit was brought by the family of an autistic boy who took the drug in 2002 and later developed size 46 DD breasts, according to a lawyer for the family.

The case has drawn attention for a few reasons. For one, this was the first lawsuit claiming J&J hid the risks of gynecomastia to go to trial after a handful of cases were settled in recent years. The trial also served as a reminder that J&J paid $2.2 billion two years ago to resolve criminal and civil allegations of illegally marketing Risperdal to children and the elderly.

Moreover, former FDA commissioner David Kessler served as a paid expert witness for the family and testified that J&J knew about the risks associated with Risperdal, but failed to disclose the data showing the extent to which youngsters may develop gynecomastia. In a report prepared for a 2012 case that was settled, Kessler wrote that J&J’s Janssen unit, which marketed the drug, had violated the law.

(WSJ, feb 25th)

http://blogs.wsj.com/pharmalot/2015/02/24/johnson-johnson-loses-trial-over-risperdal-and-male-breasts/



Rio de Janeiro's state environmental agency says it is investigating a fish die-off that has left thousands of carcasses floating in waters where sailing events are to be held when Brazil hosts next year's Olympics.

The dead twaite shad, small whitish gray fish, were discovered Tuesday by inspectors conducting routine water testing in Rio's sewage- and trash-filled Guanabara Bay. The agency was conducting tests to determine the cause of the die-off, with results expected in a week, it said in a statement Tuesday.

The discovery of the fish, which were washing up on the coastline outside Rio's international airport and about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the starting point for the 2016 Olympic sailing events, comes amid a visit by International Olympic Committee inspectors, in Rio to check up on the city's progress in preparing for the games.

It also follows upbeat comments by Rio Governor Luiz Fernando Pezao, who said the city was working to meet its pledge to treat 80 percent of the sewage in the sprawling urban area that rings the bay. While the lion's share of area sewage long has long flowed, raw, into the bay, Pezao said 49 percent of the area's sewage was now being treated. Still, he acknowledged that Rio is unlikely to meet its goal of 80 percent treatment.

(AP, feb 25th)

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/rio-officials-probe-source-fish-die-off-olympic-29217766



A west Indian city has banned most public gatherings in an attempt to halt the spread of swine flu, which has claimed at least 926 lives nationwide in 11 weeks.

Officials prohibited gatherings of five or more people in Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat state, starting Wednesday. Marriages and funerals are exempt from the ban, but participants will need to wear protective masks, officials said.

The law invoked for the ban is generally used to maintain law and order, not health, and officials said they would be flexible in interpreting which public events would be prohibited.

Among the thousands in Gujarat testing positive for H1N1, the virus which causes swine flu, were its assembly speaker and state health minister.

The Health Ministry said most of the more than 16,000 cases reported nationwide since mid-December were in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh.

(AP, feb 25th)

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/indian-city-bans-public-gatherings-swine-flu-fears-29209456



12 MIN VIDEO REPORT:

Navy Proves Flu Shot Causes Flu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3hWK6277H4

(Rob Dew, infowars, feb 25th)