Posts Tagged ‘government overreach’

Government Dismisses Conspiracy Charge Against Radio Shock Jock Pete Santilli, Arrested for First Amendment Activities Relating to Oregon Standoff

Posted: September 7, 2016 by gamegetterII in .gov bullshit, Malheur wildlife refuge, police state, Police state USSA, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Via THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE

PORTLAND, Oregon — Citing a lack of evidence, federal prosecutors have dismissed the government’s conspiracy charge against radio shock jock Pete Santilli, a new media journalist who was arrested and charged in connection with his reporting on the 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon. The dismissal came on the eve of Santilli’s trial.

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute advised Santilli’s court-appointed attorney, Thomas Coan, on the First Amendment protections for Santilli’s activities as a journalist. Santilli is the only journalist among those who were charged with conspiracy to impede federal officers from discharging their duties by use of force, intimidation, or threats. However, Santilli was charged solely as a reporter of information and not as an accomplice to any criminal activity.

In coming to Santilli’s defense, Institute attorneys warned that Santilli’s case followed a pattern by the government of intimidating journalists whose reporting portrays the government in a negative light or encourages citizens to challenge government injustice and wrongdoing.

The Rutherford Institute’s memorandum on the First Amendment rights of journalists and the government’s complaint regarding Santilli are available at www.rutherford.org.

“The FBI’s prosecution of this radio shock jock has been consistent with the government’s ongoing attempts to intimidate members of the press who portray the government in a less than favorable light,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “This is not a new tactic. During the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, numerous journalists were arrested while covering the regions’ civil unrest and the conditions that spawned that unrest. These attempts to muzzle the press were clearly concerted, top-down efforts to restrict the fundamental First Amendment rights of the public and the press. Not only does this tactic silence individual journalists, but it has a chilling effect on the press as a whole, signaling that they will become the target of the government if they report on these events with a perspective that casts the government in a bad light.”

In early January 2016, a group of armed activists, reportedly protesting the federal government’s management of federal lands and its prosecution of two local ranchers convicted of arson, staged an act of civil disobedience by occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon. Broadcaster Pete Santilli, who has covered such protests in the past, including the April 2014 standoff in Nevada between the Bundy ranching family and the federal government over grazing rights, described himself as an embedded journalist reporting on the occupation in Burns. Santilli did not participate in the takeover of the refuge, nor did he reside on the grounds of the refuge.

However, as a self-described “shock jock” who uses “colorful language,” Santilli was vocal about his commitment to exercising his First Amendment rights in a nonviolent, peaceful fashion and the need for others to do so as well. When asked to clarify his role in relation to the occupation, Santilli declared, “My role is the same here that it was at the Bundy ranch. To talk about the constitutional implications of what is going on here. The Constitution cannot be negotiated.” Santilli also took pains to emphasize during his broadcasts that the only weapon he is using is the First Amendment: “I’m not armed. I am armed with my mouth. I’m armed with my live stream. I’m armed with a coalition of like-minded individuals who sit at home and on YouTube watch this.” In the wake of a roadblock that resulted in the arrests of several key leaders of the occupation and the killing of another, Santilli was arrested and eventually indicted with conspiracy to impede federal officers.

This press release is also available at www.rutherford.org.

‘We the Prisoners’: The Demise of the Fourth Amendment

Posted: June 28, 2016 by gamegetterII in .gov bullshit, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

 

By John W. Whitehead
June 28, 2016

“Our carceral state banishes American citizens to a gray wasteland far beyond the promises and protections the government grants its other citizens… When the doors finally close and one finds oneself facing banishment to the carceral state—the years, the walls, the rules, the guards, the inmates—reactions vary. Some experience an intense sickening feeling. Others, a strong desire to sleep. Visions of suicide. A deep shame. A rage directed toward guards and other inmates. Utter disbelief. The incarcerated attempt to hold on to family and old social ties through phone calls and visitations. At first, friends and family do their best to keep up. But phone calls to prison are expensive, and many prisons are located far from one’s hometown… As the visits and phone calls diminish, the incarcerated begins to adjust to the fact that he or she is, indeed, a prisoner. New social ties are cultivated. New rules must be understood.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic

In a carceral state—a.k.a. a prison state or a police state—there is no Fourth Amendment to protect you from the overreaches, abuses, searches and probing eyes of government overlords.

In a carceral state, there is no difference between the treatment meted out to a law-abiding citizen and a convicted felon: both are equally suspect and treated as criminals, without any of the special rights and privileges reserved for the governing elite.

In a carceral state, there are only two kinds of people: the prisoners and the prison guards.

With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, “we the people”—the prisoners of the American police state—are being pushed that much further into a corner, our backs against the prison wall.

This concept of a carceral state in which we possess no rights except for that which the government grants on an as-needed basis is the only way I can begin to comprehend, let alone articulate, the irrational, surreal, topsy-turvy, through-the-looking-glass state of affairs that is being imposed upon us in America today.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we who pretend we are free are no different from those who spend their lives behind bars.

Indeed, we are experiencing much the same phenomenon that journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates ascribes to those who are banished to a “gray wasteland far beyond the promises and protections the government grants its other citizens” : a sickening feeling, a desire to sleep, hopelessness, shame, rage, disbelief, clinginess to the past and that which is familiar, and then eventually resignation and acceptance of our new “normal.”

All that we are experiencing—the sense of dread at what is coming down the pike, the desperation, the apathy about government corruption, the deeply divided partisanship, the carnivalesque political spectacles, the public displays of violence, the nostalgia for the past—are part of the dying refrain of an America that is fading fast.

No longer must the government obey the law.

Likewise, “we the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law.

While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled.

For instance, in a recent 5-3 ruling in Utah v. Strieff, the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for police to stop, arrest and search citizens without reasonable suspicion or probable cause, effectively giving police a green light to embark on a fishing expedition of one’s person and property, rendering Americans completely vulnerable to the whims of any cop on the beat.

In a blistering dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted the court for holding “that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer’s violation of your Fourth Amendment rights.” Sotomayor continued:

This Court has allowed an officer to stop you for whatever reason he wants—so long as he can point to a pretextual justification after the fact. That justification must provide specific reasons why the officer suspected you were breaking the law, but it may factor in your ethnicity, where you live, what you were wearing, and how you behaved. The officer does not even need to know which law you might have broken so long as he can later point to any possible infraction—even one that is minor, unrelated, or ambiguous.

The indignity of the stop is not limited to an officer telling you that you look like a criminal. The officer may next ask for your “consent” to inspect your bag or purse without telling you that you can decline. Regardless of your answer, he may order you to stand “helpless, perhaps facing a wall with [your] hands raised.” If the officer thinks you might be dangerous, he may then “frisk” you for weapons. This involves more than just a pat down. As onlookers pass by, the officer may “‘feel with sensitive fingers every portion of [your] body. A thorough search [may] be made of [your] arms and armpits, waistline and back, the groin and area about the testicles, and entire surface of the legs down to the feet.’”

If you still can’t read the writing on the wall, Sotomayor breaks it down further: “This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants—even if you are doing nothing wrong… So long as the target is one of the many millions of people in this country with an outstanding arrest warrant, anything the officer finds in a search is fair game for use in a criminal prosecution. The officer’s incentive to violate the Constitution thus increases…”

Just consider some of the many other ways in which the Fourth Amendment—which ensures that the government can’t harass you, let alone even investigate you, without probable cause—has been weakened and undermined by the courts, the legislatures and various government agencies and operatives.

Breath tests, blood draws: Americans have no protection against mandatory breathalyzer tests at a police checkpoint, although mandatory blood draws violate the Fourth Amendment (Birchfield v. North Dakota).

Ignorance of the law is defensible if you work for the government: Police officers who violate the law can be granted qualified immunity if they claim ignorance of the law (Heien v. North Carolina). That rationale was also applied to police who clearly used excessive force when they repeatedly tasered a pregnant woman during a routine traffic stop and were granted immunity from prosecution (Brooks v. City of Seattle).

High–speed car chases: Police officers can use lethal force in car chases without fear of lawsuits (Plumhoff v. Rickard).

No–knock raids: Police can perform a “no-knock” as long as they have a reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence, under the particular circumstances, would be dangerous or futile or give occupants a chance to destroy evidence of a crime (Richards v. Wisconsin). Legal ownership of a firearm is also enough to justify a no-knock raid by police (Quinn v. Texas).

Warrantless searches by police: Police can carry out warrantless searches on our homes based on a “reasonable” concern by police that a suspect (or occupant) might be attempting to destroy evidence, fleeing or hurt, even if it’s the wrong house (Kentucky v. King). Police can also, without a warrant, search anyone who has been lawfully arrested (United States v. Robinson) as well as their property post-arrest (Colorado v. Bertine) and their vehicle (New York v. Belton), search a car they suspect might contain evidence of a crime (Chambers v. Maroney), and search a home when the arrest is made on its premises (Maryland v. Buie).

Forced DNA extractions: Police can forcibly take your DNA, whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime. Innocent or not, your DNA will then be stored in the national FBI database (Maryland v. King).

Strip searches: Police can subject Americans to virtual strip searches, no matter the “offense” (Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Burlington). This “license to probe” is now being extended to roadside stops, as police officers throughout the country have begun performing roadside strip searches—some involving anal and vaginal probes—without any evidence of wrongdoing and without a warrant.

Seizures: For all intents and purposes, you’re “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment from the moment an officer stops you (Brendlin v. California).

Search warrants on a leash: Police have free reign to use drug-sniffing dogs as “search warrants on leashes,” justifying any and all police searches of vehicles stopped on the roadside (Florida v. Harris), but the use of a K-9 unit after a reasonable amount of time has passed during a stop does violate the Fourth Amendment (Rodriguez v. United States).

Police and DUI Checkpoints: Police can conduct sobriety and “information-seeking” checkpoints (Illinois v. Lidster and Mich. Dep‘t of State Police v. Sitz).

Interrogating public transit passengers: Police officers are free to board a bus, question passengers, and ask for consent to search without notifying them of their right to refuse (U.S v. Drayton).

Warrantless arrests for minor criminal offenses: Police can arrest you for minor criminal offenses, such as a misdemeanor seatbelt violation, punishable only by a fine (Atwater v. City of Lago Vista).

Stop and identify: Refusing to answer when a policeman asks “What’s your name?” can rightfully be considered a crime. No longer do Americans, even those not charged with any crime, have the right to remain altogether silent when stopped and questioned by a police officer (Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada).

Traffic stops: As long as police have reasonable cause to believe that a traffic violation occurred, they may stop any vehicle (Whren v. U.S.). If probable cause justifies a vehicle search, then every part of the vehicle can be searched (U.S. v. Ross). A vehicle can be stopped even if the driver has not committed a traffic offense (U.S. v. Cortez).

Anonymous tips, careful driving, rigid posture and acne: Police officers can stop cars based only on “anonymous” tips (Navarette v. California). Police can also pull you over if you are driving too carefully, with a rigid posture, taking a scenic route, and have acne (U.S. v. Westhoven).

What many Americans fail to understand is the devastating amount of damage that can be done to one’s freedoms long before a case ever makes its way to court by government agents who are violating the Fourth Amendment at every turn. This is how freedoms, long undermined, can give way to tyranny through constant erosion and become part of the fabric of the police state through constant use.

Phone and email surveillance, databases for dissidents, threat assessments, terror watch lists, militarized police, SWAT team raids, security checkpoints, lockdowns, roadside strip searches: there was a time when any one of these encroachments on our Fourth Amendment rights would have roused the public to outrage. Today, such violations are shrugged off matter-of-factly by Americans who have been assiduously groomed to accept the intrusions of the police state into their private lives.

So when you hear about the FBI hacking into Americans’ computers without a warrant with the blessing of the courts, or states assembling and making public terror watch lists containing the names of those who are merely deemed suspicious, or the police knocking on the doors of activists in advance of political gatherings to ascertain their plans for future protests, or administrative government agencies (such as the FDA, Small Business Administration, Smithsonian, Social Security, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Mint, and Department of Education) spending millions on guns and ammunition, don’t just matter-of-factly file it away in that part of your brain reserved for things you may not like but over which you have no control.

It’s true that there may be little the average person can do to push back against the police state on a national level, but there remains some hope at the local level as long as we retain a speck of our independence and individuality—as long as we can resist the defeatist sense of double-consciousness (a phrase coined by W. E. B. Du Bois in which we view ourselves as inferior through the prism of our oppressors)—as long as we continue to cry out for justice for ourselves and those around us—as long as we refuse to be shackled and made prisoners—and as long as we continue to recognize that the only way the police state can truly acquire and retain power is if we relinquish it through our negligence, complacence and ignorance.

Unfortunately, we have been utterly brainwashed into believing the government’s propaganda and lies. Americans actually celebrate with perfect sincerity the anniversary of our independence from Great Britain without ever owning up to the fact that we are as oppressed now—more so, perhaps, thanks to advances in technology—than we ever were when Redcoats stormed through doorways and subjected colonists to the vagaries of a police state.

You see, by gradually whittling away at our freedoms—free speech, assembly, due process, privacy, etc.—the government has, in effect, liberated itself from its contractual agreement to respect our constitutional rights while resetting the calendar back to a time when we had no Bill of Rights to protect us from the long arm of the government.

Aided and abetted by the legislatures, the courts and Corporate America, the government has been busily rewriting the contract (a.k.a. the Constitution) that establishes the citizenry as the masters and agents of the government as the servants. We are now only as good as we are useful, and our usefulness is calculated on an economic scale by how much we are worth—in terms of profit and resale value—to our “owners.”

Under the new terms of this one-sided agreement, the government and its many operatives have all the privileges and rights and “we the prisoners” have none.

As Sotomayor concluded in her ringing dissent in Utah v. Strieff:

By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged. We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by police are “isolated.” They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere. They are the ones who recognize that unlawful police stops corrode all our civil liberties and threaten all our lives. Until their voices matter too, our justice system will continue to be anything but.

This commentary is also
available at www.rutherford.org.

FBI Just Created and Foiled their Own Terrorist Plot to Demonize Those Who Question Government

Posted: June 27, 2016 by gamegetterII in .gov bullshit, Police state USSA
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

fbi-terrorist-plotBy William N. Grigg

The FBI once again appears to have averted a terrorist plot of its own manufacture by arresting 57-year-old William Keebler, a man from Stockton, Utah described in press accounts as a militia organizer exhibiting an “extreme hatred” for the federal government. A vociferous critic of the federal Bureau of Land Management who was present during the April 2014 standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada, Keebler was a close friend of the late LaVoy Finicum. FBI agents arrested  Keebler in Nephi, Utah Wednesday morning after he allegedly attempted to bomb a vacant cabin owned by the BLM.

According to a federal charging document, for the past several months FBI undercover operatives have been members of Keebler’s militia, the Patriots Defense Force, which met at his home in Stockton, Utah. On many occasions, he expressed the entirely reasonable view that “the BLM was overreaching their authority to implement grazing restrictions on ranchers” and insisted that state and local governments, rather than Washington, should be in charge of public lands in the western States.

Predicting that future confrontations with the Feds might make violent resistance necessary, Keebler reportedly conducted training exercises and “talked about gathering intelligence on potential targets,” such as the BLM office in Salt Lake City. He made it clear, however, that “he didn’t plan on blowing people up for now”; the federal probable cause affidavit characterizes Keebler’s attitude as wanting his group “to be prepared to escalate things, and take people out if necessary.”

Last April, a federal informant “tasked with building Keebler an explosive device” — the charging document, significantly, doesn’t specify by whom the informant had been “tasked” — showed the subject a video of “a 6-inch pipe bomb blowing up some abandoned furniture in the mountains of southern Utah.” That overt act, which was carried out by a federal asset without (as far as the available evidence shows) Keebler’s approval, advance knowledge, or involvement, is described as an act in which he “maliciously damage[d]” and “destroy[ed] … personal or real property.

A few weeks later, Keebler allegedly selected the abandoned BLM cabin in Arizona as a target. The FBI-controlled informant produced what he described as two pipe bombs — one to be placed at the target and detonated via remote control, the other “was to be used against law enforcement” in the event this was necessary. Late Tuesday night (June 21), someone — the document doesn’t specify who it was — placed “an inert explosive device … against the door of one of the BLM cabins in Mount Turnbull. After the device was placed against the door, Keebler was handed a remote detonation device. Keebler then pushed the detonator button multiple times in order to remotely detonate the inert explosive.” He then departed for Utah, where FBI agents arrested him several hours later.

Keebler spent 13 days in Bunkerville and spent time in the company of the late LaVoy Finicum, whose funeral he attended in Kanab, Utah last February. Significantly, Keebler and several members of his militia were in attendance at an April 1 event in Orem, Utah featuring speeches by Finicum’s widow and Shawna Cox, who was an eyewitness to Finicum’s killing. That event was attended by hundreds of people whom the Feds would characterize as “anti-government extremists.”

“Some people who were with [Keebler] were videotaping all of the speakers with very expensive, professional-grade equipment,” a Utah broadcaster who attended the event told The Free Thought Project. “They were walking the room taking note of everybody who was there.”

According to the timeline described sketchily in the federal probable cause affidavit, it was at about this time that the FBI’s Homeland Security Theater Troupe was finishing its scheme to snare Keebler in a bogus bombing plot.

One likely purpose of this FBI-scripted operation is to depict the late LaVoy Finicum — who has emerged as a folk hero for many residents of the rural West — as a would-be terrorist bomber. The arrest affidavit takes great care to accuse Finicum of scouting out the location eventually used in the FBI-controlled false flag attack. That allegation, which Finicum is no longer alive to dispute, is already being retailed by some progressive media outlets.

One’s personal feelings on the unfoldings in Oregon earlier this year are irrelevant when considering the reality of the situation. This attempted ‘bombing,’ like the overwhelming majority of FBI-foiled terror plots, was little more than a staged scene with easily manipulated actors — being entirely scripted, directed, and produced by the federal government. Though this was theater on a virtually fictional scale, the fruits of the federal government’s success in thwarting their own scheme will be the loss of liberty for all — in spite of the current target only being ‘preppers’ and ‘anti-government constitutionalists.’

William N. Grigg writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.

Ham-Handed Arrest at Pediatric Clinic Highlights Official War on the Powerless

Posted: March 31, 2016 by gamegetterII in Police state USSA, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,
0
h/t Wirecuter

Forget that “war on cops.” Unaffordable penalties, incompetent courts, and heavy-handed tactics are all evidence of an official assault on regular Americans.

 The cops raided my wife’s pediatric practice looking for a fugitive, last week.

Actually, let’s put the word “fugitive” in quotes. The story is an eye-opening tale in itself. It’s also a glimpse at how business-as-usual in courts and cop shops around the country screws with people’s lives and alienates the public from those who are allegedly their protectors.
My wife, Dr. Wendy Tuccille, was on her way to the office in Cottonwood, Arizona, when her phone rang. Frantic staff called to tell her that the clinic’s parking lot was full of cops, there to arrest one of her employees, C.H. (it’s a small town so we’ll stick with her initials), on an outstanding warrant.

When my wife arrived she found a gaggle of cops—12 to 15 she told me, some in battle jammies—in plain view at the rear corner of the building. The parking lot was full of police vehicles, in sight of families and children arriving to be seen and treated.
“Who’s in charge here?” she asked, demanding that they move the Fallujah reenactment out of view.
“We were already in the process of moving the vehicles at this time,” Cottonwood Detective Sergeant Tod Moore insisted in a statement to me. “It should be noted only 1 marked police unit was in the main parking lot area of the business.” (The clinic’s staff dispute that point.) Moore also claimed that only 10 officers were present. They included three detectives dressed in civilian clothes—and tactical vests—who arrived to initiate the arrest, joined by seven additional officers, including SWAT members, who transported another suspect with them on the trip to deliver the arrest warrant that the detectives hadn’t brought along.
C.H.’s crime? It was an eight-year-old “amended charge of 28-1381A1 DUI to the Slightest Degree,” according to Court Clerk and Associate Magistrate Anna M. Kirton. Kirton signed C.H.’s release order after my wife paid $1,300 to spare her employee 26 days in jail. More accurately, C.H. was arrested for making only partial payment of the fines and fees she’d been assessed, and for missing a court appointment that she never knew about.
“I was young and stupid,” C.H. told me about the day in 2008 when her 21-year-old self was pulled over for a broken license plate light. She and her friends had open beer bottles in the car, and a marijuana pipe that C.H. claims wasn’t hers, but which ended up in her purse. The original arrest, then, was for open containers and “drug paraphernalia,” which was pled down to an even lesser charge.
After a night in jail, C.H. went to court, only to discover that there was no record of her arrest or charge to face, so she was sent home.
Years later, she was pulled over again and arrested on the original charge after the court got its paperwork in order. As Kirton told me, “On January 19, 2011, the Defendant entered into a plea with the State. She plead guilty to an amended charge of 28-1381A1 DUI to the Slightest Degree, (13-3415A was dismissed per the plea).  She was sentenced to the mandatory minimum sentence required by law in the State of Arizona. Part of this sentence included fines and fees totaling $2005.00.”
Actually, that was all of the sentence—provided she made her payments.
That’s where things get a bit fuzzy. C.H. tells me she thought she paid in full. The court says otherwise. C.H. got married at that time, so things may have fallen through the cracks in the confusion. Court records show an official notice to C.H. returned because of a bad address on September 24, 2012 and a failure to appear recorded against her the next day. A warrant for her arrest was issued a week later.
The “bad address” in the court files is C.H.’s mother’s house. It was the first place the police looked for her last week, so they have it accurately recorded somewhere as the place to find her. That house stopped being her official mailing address sometime last year, but it remains a convenient place to contact her—it was her mom who told police about C.H.’s job.
For whatever reason, the court notice of a command appearance never reached C.H., she remained unaware that the county thought she still owed $1,300, and last week a small army showed up to collect.
For all of its drama, the arrest was nothing special, in itself—just part of a regular bureaucratic spring cleaning. In response to my (very pointed) query, Detective Sergeant Moore wrote, “a Verde Valley Wide Warrant Sweep was conducted by members of the Cottonwood Police Department to include SWAT Members, Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office, PANT [Partners Against Narcotics Trafficking], GIITEM [Gang and Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission], Camp Verde Marshall’s Office, Clarkdale Police Department, US Marshall’s Office and HSI [Homeland Security Investigations]. The purpose of this sweep was to try and reduce the large number of outstanding warrants currently held by the numerous agencies listed.”
But why the small army? (Neither the U.S.Marshals Service nor Homeland Security responded to queries by press time.)
“The teams were tasked to apprehend people who had a variety [of] offenses,” Cottonwood Patrol Division Commander Jody Makuch said in an email. “While we cannot predict the behavior of the people who fail to meet their obligations, we do have to be prepared for a worst case scenario to protect the public and the officers.”
They had a quota to meet, so they went with one-size-fits-all.

Read the rest here

Elites Link Anti-Government Thought to Mental Illness, Lay Groundwork for Incarceration

Posted: March 16, 2016 by gamegetterII in .gov bullshit, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
1

Conclusion: This attack on dissent is serious. Educate your family and friends about what’s going on. Do not be fooled by their propaganda, but beware of the risks of speaking out too freely.

Believe in conspiracy theories? You’re probably a narcissist: People who doubt the moon landings are more likely to be selfish and attention-seeking … Psychologists from the University of Kent carried out three online studies … -UK Daily Mail

We are seeing an increasing number of academic studies analyzing the psychology behind “conspiracy theorists” and those who question government propaganda. The idea being that people who don’t trust government may be mentally ill.

These analyses are published in prominent publications in the UK and are building a “scientific” literature revolving psychological dysfunction and “conspiracy theory.”

More:

Do you think the moon-landings were faked, vaccines are a plot for mind control, or that shadowy government agencies are keeping alien technology locked up in hidden bunkers?

If so, chances are you’re a narcissist with low self-esteem, according to psychologists. In the internet age conspiracy theories can incubate in quiet corners of the web, but it may be psychological predispositions of believers which keep them alive, rather than cold hard facts.

The article goes on to explain that researchers at the University of Kent have used online studies  from hundreds of people to generate the study’s conclusions.

The findings appeared in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science with the suggestion that those who adopt conspiracy theories have “outwardly inflated self-confidence” but may be “overcompensating for a lack of belief in themselves.”

The article mentions a previous study conducted by Oxford’s Dr. David Robert Grimes.

From what we’ve written on this study:

Grimes had the idea that mathematics could prove or disprove certain conspiracy theories. A physicist, he “developed a mathematical equation to derive the truth of conspiracy theories,” according to the Christian Science Monitor …

Grimes calculated that the moon landing and climate change conspiracies “would require about 400,000 secret-keepers each, the unsafe vaccination conspiracy would involve 22,000 people, and the cancer cure conspiracy would involve over 710,000 people.”  Even with the utmost secrecy, Grimes reports, his equations show within four years the conspiracies would be exposed nonetheless.

At the time, we commented on Grimes’s apparent “earnestness” in struggling to “understand how people can even engage in conspiratorial thinking to begin with.” We made this comment in relationship to yet a third article on the psychology of conspiracy.

This commentary appeared in the Guardian and, as we pointed out, “argued against conspiratorial thinking based on a new book, Suspicious Minds … written by Rob Brotherton.”

Basically, the idea is that people are naturally prone to conspiracy theories because of the way their brains have evolved. “Identifying patterns and being sensitive to possible threats,” the article explains, “is what has helped us survive in a world where nature often is out to get you.”

Brotherton explains in the article that he decided that the best way to present his thesis was to avoid confronting conspiracy theories head on. Instead, he wanted to explain how people adopted such theories for psychological reasons.

“I wanted to take a different approach, to sidestep the whole issue of whether the theories are true or false and come at it from the perspective of psychology. The intentionality bias, the proportionality bias, confirmation bias. We have these quirks built into our minds that can lead us to believe weird things without realising that’s why we believe them.”

So here we have three explanations of conspiracy theories presented by major publications in less than three month’s time. And, who knows, perhaps there were more.

In the conclusion to our Grimes’ analysis, we noted that: “It looks as if a more powerful and disciplined program may be underway. Something to ponder along with a further moderation of certain public declarations.”

By “public declarations” we meant those of individuals prone to mentioning conspiracy theories in non-appropriate contexts. As it turns out, we anticipated the current news cycle only by a couple of months.

Just this week, in fact, Attorney General Loretta Lynch attended a Senate Judiciary Hearing and acknowledged discussions at the Department of Justice of taking civil action against “climate change deniers.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) questioned her on the issue and drew comparisons between such deniers and the tobacco industry that claimed for decades that the tobacco was not proven to cause ill health.

The Clinton administration eventually brought a successful civil suit against Big Tobacco. And Whitehouse suggested that civil or criminal charges might be brought against “anti-warmists.”

The forces of intolerance are gathering in the US, just as overseas.

We have urged in the past that people pay close attention to these growing trends. By turning statements of opinion into a psychological condition they are trying to discredit anyone who speaks out against the government.

In the Soviet Union, people who spoke out against government policies were often placed in mental asylums. At the time, concerned citizens in the West protested such incarcerations as barbaric abuses. Yet now, if our supposition is correct, these practices are about to expand in the West as well.

Conclusion: This attack on dissent is serious. Educate your family and friends about what’s going on. Do not be fooled by their propaganda, but beware of the risks of speaking out too freely.

source

America’s Gestapo: The FBI’s Reign of Terror

Posted: March 14, 2016 by gamegetterII in .gov bullshit, police state, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

Via John Whitehead @ The Rutherford Institute

“We want no Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him.”—President Harry S. Truman

“Don’t Be a Puppet” is the message the FBI is sending young Americans.
As part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the nation’s de facto secret police force is now recruiting students and teachers to spy on each other and report anyone who appears to have the potential to be “anti-government” or “extremist.”
Using the terms “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably, the government continues to add to its growing list of characteristics that could distinguish an individual as a potential domestic terrorist.
For instance, you might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you:

  • express libertarian philosophies (statements, bumper stickers)
  • exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA or gun club membership)
  • read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books
  • show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)
  • fear an economic collapse
  • buy gold and barter items
  • subscribe to religious views concerning the book of Revelation
  • voice fears about Big Brother or big government
  • expound about constitutional rights and civil liberties
  • believe in a New World Order conspiracy

Despite its well-publicized efforts to train students, teachers, police officers, hairdressers, store clerks, etc., into government eyes and ears, the FBI isn’t relying on a nation of snitches to carry out its domestic spying.
There’s no need.
The nation’s largest law enforcement agency rivals the NSA in resources, technology, intelligence, and power. Yet while the NSA has repeatedly come under fire for its domestic spying programs, the FBI has continued to operate its subversive and clearly unconstitutional programs with little significant oversight or push-back from the public, Congress or the courts. Just recently, for example, a secret court gave the agency the green light to quietly change its privacy rules for accessing NSA data on Americans’ international communications.
Indeed, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the FBI has become the embodiment of how power, once acquired, can be easily corrupted and abused.
When and if a true history of the FBI is ever written, it will not only track the rise of the American police state but it will also chart the decline of freedom in America.
Owing largely to the influence and power of the FBI, the United States—once a nation that abided by the rule of law and held the government accountable for its actions—has steadily devolved into a police state where justice is one-sided, a corporate elite runs the show, representative government is a mockery, police are extensions of the military, surveillance is rampant, privacy is extinct, and the law is little more than a tool for the government to browbeat the people into compliance.
The FBI’s laundry list of crimes against the American people includes surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, intimidation tactics, harassment and indoctrination, governmental overreach, abuse, misconduct, trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property.
And that’s just based on what we know.
Whether the FBI is planting undercover agents in churches, synagogues and mosques; issuing fake emergency letters to gain access to Americans’ phone records; using intimidation tactics to silence Americans who are critical of the government; recruiting high school students to spy on and report fellow students who show signs of being future terrorists; or persuading impressionable individuals to plot acts of terror and then entrapping them, the overall impression of the nation’s secret police force is that of a well-dressed thug, flexing its muscles and doing the boss’ dirty work of ensuring compliance, keeping tabs on potential dissidents, and punishing those who dare to challenge the status quo.
The FBI was established in 1908 as a small task force assigned to deal with specific domestic crimes. Initially quite limited in its abilities to investigate so-called domestic crimes, the FBI has been transformed into a mammoth federal policing and surveillance agency. Unfortunately, whatever minimal restrictions kept the FBI’s surveillance activities within the bounds of the law all but disappeared in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The USA Patriot Act gave the FBI and other intelligence agencies carte blanche authority in investigating Americans suspected of being anti-government.
As the FBI’s powers have grown, its abuses have mounted.
The FBI continues to monitor Americans engaged in lawful First Amendment activities.
COINTELPRO, the FBI program created to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralize” groups and individuals the government considers politically objectionable, was aimed not so much at the criminal element but at those who challenged the status quo—namely, those expressing anti-government sentiments such as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon. It continues to this day, albeit in other guises.
The FBI has become a master in the art of entrapment.
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks the FBI has not only targeted vulnerable individuals but has also lured them into fake terror plots while actually equipping them with the organization, money, weapons and motivation to carry out the plots—entrapment—and then jailing them for their so-called terrorist plotting. This is what the FBI characterizes as “forward leaning—preventative—prosecutions.”
FBI agents are among the nation’s most notorious lawbreakers.
In addition to creating certain crimes in order to then “solve” them, the FBI also gives certain informants permission to break the law, “including everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies,” in exchange for their cooperation on other fronts. USA Today estimates that agents have authorized criminals to engage in as many as 15 crimes a day. Some of these informants are getting paid astronomical sums: one particularly unsavory fellow, later arrested for attempting to run over a police officer, was actually paid $85,000 for his help laying the trap for an entrapment scheme.
The FBI’s powers, expanded after 9/11, have given its agents carte blanche access to Americans’ most personal information.
The agency’s National Security Letters, one of the many illicit powers authorized by the USA Patriot Act, allows the FBI to secretly demand that banks, phone companies, and other businesses provide them with customer information and not disclose the demands. An internal audit of the agency found that the FBI practice of issuing tens of thousands of NSLs every year for sensitive information such as phone and financial records, often in non-emergency cases, is riddled with widespread violations.
The FBI’s spying capabilities are on a par with the NSA.
The FBI’s surveillance technology boasts an invasive collection of spy tools ranging from Stingray devices that can track the location of cell phones to Triggerfish devices which allow agents to eavesdrop on phone calls.  In one case, the FBI actually managed to remotely reprogram a “suspect’s” wireless internet card so that it would send “real-time cell-site location data to Verizon, which forwarded the data to the FBI.”
The FBI’s hacking powers have gotten downright devious.
FBI agents not only have the ability to hack into any computer, anywhere in the world, but they can also control that computer and all its stored information, download its digital contents, switch its camera or microphone on or off and even control other computers in its network. Given the breadth of the agency’s powers, the showdown between Apple and the FBI over customer privacy appears to be more spectacle than substance.
James Comey, current director of the FBI, knows enough to say all the right things about the need to abide by the Constitution, all the while his agency routinely discards it. Comey argues that the government’s powers shouldn’t be limited, especially when it comes to carrying out surveillance on American citizens. Comey continues to lobby Congress and the White House to force technology companies such as Apple and Google to keep providing the government with backdoor access to Americans’ cell phones.
The FBI’s reach is more invasive than ever.
This is largely due to the agency’s nearly unlimited resources (its minimum budget alone in fiscal year 2015 was $8.3 billion), the government’s vast arsenal of technology, the interconnectedness of government intelligence agencies, and information sharing through fusion centers—data collecting intelligence agencies spread throughout the country that constantly monitor communications (including those of American citizens), everything from internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails.
Today, the FBI employs more than 35,000 individuals and operates more than 56 field offices in major cities across the U.S., as well as 400 resident agencies in smaller towns, and more than 50 international offices. In addition to their “data campus,” which houses more than 96 million sets of fingerprints from across the United States and elsewhere, the FBI is also, according to The Washington Post, “building a vast repository controlled by people who work in a top-secret vault on the fourth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington. This one stores the profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and legal residents who are not accused of any crime. What they have done is appear to be acting suspiciously to a town sheriff, a traffic cop or even a neighbor.”
If there’s one word to describe the FBI’s covert tactics, it’s creepy.
The agency’s biometric database has grown to massive proportions, the largest in the world, encompassing everything from fingerprints, palm, face and iris scans to DNA, and is being increasingly shared between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in an effort to target potential criminals long before they ever commit a crime.
This is what’s known as pre-crime.
If it were just about fighting the “bad guys,” that would be one thing. But as countless documents make clear, the FBI has no qualms about using its extensive powers in order to blackmail politicians, spy on celebrities and high-ranking government officials, and intimidate dissidents of all stripes.
It’s an old tactic, used effectively by former authoritarian regimes.
In fact, as historian Robert Gellately documents, the Nazi police state was repeatedly touted as a model for other nations to follow, so much so that Hoover actually sent one of his right-hand men, Edmund Patrick Coffey, to Berlin in January 1938 at the invitation of Germany’s secret police. As Gellately noted, “[A]fter five years of Hitler’s dictatorship, the Nazi police had won the FBI’s seal of approval.”
Indeed, so impressed was the FBI with the Nazi order that, as the New York Times revealed, in the decades after World War II, the FBI, along with other government agencies, aggressively recruited at least a thousand Nazis, including some of Hitler’s highest henchmen, brought them to America, hired them on as spies and informants, and then carried out a massive cover-up campaign to ensure that their true identities and ties to Hitler’s holocaust machine would remain unknown. Moreover, anyone who dared to blow the whistle on the FBI’s illicit Nazi ties found himself spied upon, intimidated, harassed and labeled a threat to national security.
So not only have American taxpayers been paying to keep ex-Nazis on the government payroll for decades but we’ve been subjected to the very same tactics used by the Third Reich: surveillance, militarized police, overcriminalization, and a government mindset that views itself as operating outside the bounds of the law.
This is how freedom falls, and tyrants come to power.
The similarities between the American police state and past totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany grow more pronounced with each passing day.
Secret police. Secret courts. Secret government agencies. Surveillance. Intimidation. Harassment. Torture. Brutality. Widespread corruption. Entrapment. Indoctrination. These are the hallmarks of every authoritarian regime from the Roman Empire to modern-day America.
Yet it’s the secret police—tasked with silencing dissidents, ensuring compliance, and maintaining a climate of fear—who sound the death knell for freedom in every age.

source

Man’s Peaceful Facebook Post About Corrupt Cops Leads to Felony Charges, Endless Persecution

Posted: January 21, 2016 by gamegetterII in Police state USSA, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
2

Boise, ID – A mistrial was called in the case of police accountability activist Matthew Townsend, who faces a potential five-year prison sentence for writing a Facebook post critical of a Meridian, Idaho police officer who arrested him without justification. His new trial, which is scheduled for three days, will begin on February 29.

Trial Judge Lynn Norton prompted Assistant Ada County Prosecutor James Vogt to move for a mistrial during the opening argument of defense counsel Aaron Tribble after Townsend’s attorney mentioned that the original arrest involved an alleged jaywalking violation, and that Townsend is now charged with a felony for complaining about the arrest on Facebook.

As before Vogt stated the reasons for his objection, Norton instantly asked the prosecutor: “Are you going to move for a mistrial?” Tribble pointed out that the charge had been described as a felony, and that the size of the jury – fourteen panelists, evenly divided between male and female – made it clear that the offense being considered was a felony, rather than a misdemeanor. Vogt protested that the instructions to the jury do not permit them to be informed of, or take into account, potential sentencing options, and contended that they likewise “cannot take into account the degree of the offense.”

The Idaho Rules of Criminal Procedure do not address that question. Courtroom spectator A.J. Ellis, who recently served jury duty in neighboring Owyhee County, told The Free Thought Project that “during jury selection we were explicitly told that the case before us dealt with a misdemeanor offense.” Several trial attorneys contacted for comment by The Free Thought Project in multiple states likewise reported that a mistrial on the grounds cited by Vogt at Norton’s prompting struck them as a novelty.

Tribble’s opening argument was interrupted by objections no few than four times before Norton invited Vogt to move for a mistrial. Both the prosecutor and the clearly partisan trial judge (about whose previous behavior more will be said shortly) were visibly unhappy with Tribble’s presentation. He informed the jury that “I don’t think your time is going to be well served” by the trial, because the prosecution cannot prove a key element of the alleged offense. Specifically, that Townsend intended to prevent Corporal Richard Brockbank of the Meridian Police Department from testifying in the preliminary hearing on the misdemeanor charge.

“There are nine elements to this offense,” Tribble pointed out to the jury. “The prosecution’s evidence addresses eight of them.” The ninth – intent – cannot be proven with the available evidence.

During his opening argument, Vogt repeatedly emphasized an artfully crafted and dishonestly cropped version of Townsend’s March 18, 2015 Facebook post:

Tomorrow, I go to pretrial at the Ada County Courthouse to claim that my charge of “resisting or obstructing” a supposed jaywalking investigation after Meridian Police Department – Idaho officer RICHARD BROCKBANK refused to charge me after I demanded that he charge me for the “crime” that he supposedly stopped me for, is terroristic in nature and in other ways unconstitutional and criminal.
The cop refused to charge me for said “crime” that he was accusing me of and so I walked away… and was soon after kidnapped and hauled away by several costumed State goons for my disrespect of officer Brockbank’s harassment towards me.
I’m hoping that the REAL reason I was harassed to begin with will be released by the State rather than I... we shall see. If my case isn’t dismissed tomorrow upon my request, I will begin a non-violent and legal shame campaign that will be remembered. HOA “upsets”, protests in the aggressors neighborhoods (I know where you all live- this is notification of knowledge and future protests, not a threat), mailers, door hangers, online ads, local and (hopefully) national media- I’ve done it before and I can do it again as well as other peaceful, but… annoying avenues will commence.
The State has 3 options: drop the charges and leave me alone; 2) Endure my non-violent retaliation (do you want to be the focus of my rage?); 3) Kill me and deal with those that know, love, and care about me. Make your choice.” (Emphasis added.)

That message was “tagged” to the Meridian Police Department, every media outlet in Boise, and – since Townsend didn’t know how to contact Corporal Brockbank directly – everyone with the surname “Brockbank” on Facebook.

Studiously avoiding Townsend’s explicit repudiation of violence or unlawful action, and the fact that this statement was directed not merely at Brockbank but the media, Vogt pretended that this was a direct threat to Officer Brockbank and his family. He did this by repeating, as if in a mantra: “I know where you all live … leave me alone or be the focus of my rage … kill me.”
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/idaho-activist-railroaded-court-jaywalking/#jSTQgH5AV2xUpRh0.99

What’s Really Going on With the BLM in the West

Posted: January 20, 2016 by gamegetterII in .gov bullshit, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
2

The single most important thing you need to understand about the BLM,EPA,USFS,and USFWS is the reason they are pushing ranchers,loggers,farmers,and individuals off of land that’s often been in the families for generations.

The whole clusterfuck is the fault of the environmental-emphasis on the mental-movement,and the endless stream of lawsuits filed against the USFWS,BLM,USFS,and the EPA.

These lawsuits not only cost hundreds of millions,if not billions of taxpayer dollars-the lawyers from groups like the Center for Biological Diversity-many,many more lawyers than biologists-earn a living from these lawsuits.

Groups like The Center for Biological Diversity,Wild Earth Guardians ,Natural Resources Defense Council to name a few of the major serial lawsuit filers,sue and then settle for whichever agency they sued setting aside even more land that is restricted from most or all human activity.

Most of these groups file their suits by abusing the endangered species act-which by the way must go-it’s time to get rid of it to stop this abuse.

Think back to the northern spotted owl,and the 70’s eco-freaks spiking trees,maiming loggers for life,chaining themselves to trees and/or equipment.

They got almost all logging stopped on USFS lands throughout the intermountain west,and the Pacific NW by abusing the ESA.

After all the drama and bullshit-logging was NEVER a danger to the northern spotted owl-a larger,more aggressive species of owl had displaced the spotted owl.

No apologies to the loggers out of a job-or maimed for life when their chainsaws hit a spike in a tree-there was no anti-kickback feature on chainsaws,or cut proof chaps, helmets with face shields back then-if the saw kicked back and hit your arm,leg,head,face,wherever-you got seriously effed up.

None of the people or groups involved ever admitted they were wrong either.

One of the worst abusers of the ESA,and most prolific filers of lawsuits is The Center for Biological Diversity.

They’re who got all the Nevada land around the Bundy ranch closed to grazing to protect the “endangered” desert tortoise-the same tortoise that the USFWS was euthanizing at a tortoise “sanctuary”in the same part of Nevada.

The very same Center for Biological Diversity that sued the EPA in an attempt to ban ALL lead ammo-using junk science,and made up bullshit.

The very same Center for Biological Diversity that passes out condoms with picture of “endangered species”-because they hate humans.

The very same Center for Biological Diversity that got farmers banned from drawing irrigation water from the San Joaquin/Sacremento river delta due to the presence of a 3″ fish-the delta smelt

The very same Center for Biological Diversity that sued for continued ESA protection for the gray wolf-long after the wolf reintroduction fiasco had reached the goal of 300 wolves,or 30 breeding pairs,which caused a decade long legal battle,and took an act of congress to get the gray wolf removed from  ESA protection. Immediately after that loss,the CBD filed for ESA protection for gray wolves in the great lakes area,and the Mexican gray wolf in NM and AZ.

The wolf lawsuits…all 10 pages worth.

There’s another 3″ fish,the Santa Ana sucker,that the CBD filed and won lawsuits over granting ESA protections,and preventing nearly a million people from drawing residential drinking water from an existing reservoir.

The very same Center for Biological Diversity who’s metrosexual members showed up in Burns Oregon,and at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge

Is everyone starting to get the picture? CBD et-al file a blizzard of lawsuits in fed court-mostly in the 9th circus,against USFWS,USFS,EPA,BLM.

USFWS delcares whatever toad,frog,lizard,tortoise,mouse,rat,snake,bird,or fish is the “endangered species” of the day,week,month,year,or decade must have ESA protections and closes off millions of acres of “public” land to everyone except for the enviro-nazis and the few humans who  only want to go hiking and take pictures  are allowed-along with biologists “studying” the supposedly endangered species-so they can file yet another lawsuit falsely claiming the need for continued ESA protection-like they did with the gray wolf in the northern Rockies-as the wolf population swelled to 10 times the goal for removal from ESA protection.

This scam is played out over and over and over-and each time,more “public” land is closed to the public,and more families lose their land,more loggers,ranchers and farmers lose their jobs.

The Center for Biological Diversity is only one of more than two dozen such groups comprised of enviro and/or animal “rights” whackos who continuously file lawsuits in fed.court.

This shit has been going on for over 35 years now-since the first “earth day” in 1970-close to 4 decades of environmental and animal “rights” whackos dictating public lands policies via lawsuits abusing the Endangered Species Act.

This is why sawmills closed,loggers are unemployed,ranchers and farmers and anyone else in the way of the feds settling of enviro-nazi lawsuits is being pushed off of their land.

Those who refuse to sell are treated like the Hammonds were/are being treated.

 

 

 

Warning to U.S. Military and Federal LEOs: Do Not Follow Orders to “Waco” Ammon Bundy Occupation, or Risk Civil War

Posted: January 17, 2016 by gamegetterII in .gov bullshit, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
1

SF insig

De Oppresso Liber?  We Shall See

Via Oath Keepers-

This is addressed first and foremost to the entire U.S. military, but especially to the military Special Operations Command and community.    Secondly, it is addressed to federal LEOs, and especially to their SRTs, such as the FBI HRT (many of whom are former military special operations).  This comes from combat arms and special operations veterans, along with veteran Sheriffs and police officers, within the Oath Keepers organization:

Critical Warning:

The Ammon Bundy led occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon must be handled as a normal, non-crisis, law enforcement matter, and preferably by Oregon Sheriffs (who are organized as the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association), and their deputies, together with the local community there in Harney County, OR.   The locals can resolve this, if given enough time.   The Oregon Sheriffs can resolve this, if given enough time.

This situation must not be handled in a military or paramilitary fashion, using military assets, military rules of engagement, or otherwise attempting to end it suddenly by use of dynamic assault, resulting in catastrophic loss of life, as has occurred twice in recent American history, with horrific results (at Ruby Ridge in 1992, and at Waco Texas in 1993).  If you do it “Waco” style here, you risk pushing this nation over the edge into a civil war, because there are “no more free Wacos.”

This is not an emergency situation, unless you turn it into one.  Ammon Bundy’s occupation of an empty building is essentially the same as civil-disobedience sit-ins that the political left has engaged in for decades, from anti-war and civil rights protesters in the 60s and 70s (including a nineteen month occupation of Alcatraz by American Indian activists), to Occupy Wall Street Movement and Black Lives Matter activists today.

These ranchers, cowboys, and veterans just happen to be armed, as westerners tend to be.   Get over it.  There are no hostages, there are no close-by neighbors at risk, there is nobody there except those who want to be.

So tread lightly, and at most handle this like the Montana Freeman standoff, where the FBI was patient and waited them out, with a peaceful surrender coming after eighty one days.   In this situation, the locals will likely have this resolved long before that length of time.  Regardless, there is no rush.

Despite that reality of there being no emergency here, we have very good reason to believe that ideologue leftist bureaucrats within the Obama Administration – such as within the D.O.J., and their politically minded “perfumed prince” puppets within the D.O.D. – are pressuring you to prepare to use military assets and military rules of engagement to conduct a dynamic raid.   We are an organization of current serving and retired military, police, fire-fighters and other first responders, and we have contacts at every major military installation in America (including Joint Base Lewis-McChord), and at the Pentagon.   We hear things.  We’ll just leave it at that.

And we know that the Obama Administration considered the use of military force during the Bundy Ranch standoff in April, 2014, pursuant to Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities.”  Fortunately for all Americans, they decided not to do it.  This fact was confirmed by a May 28, 2014 Washington Times article:

A U.S. official said the Obama administration considered but rejected deploying military force under the directive during the recent standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters.

From Inside the Ring: Memo Outlines Obama’s Plan to Use the Military Against Citizens. 

So, the military force hammer was, in fact, on the table during Bundy Ranch, as we suspected.  Please don’t try to tell us it’s not on the table again, now.   We know it is.  The only question is whether the Obama Admin leftist weenies will be foolish enough to try to actually use it, and if they do, whether you will be foolish enough to obey their idiotic orders and obediently act as that hammer.

In addition, it is clear you federal LEOs have not handled this in the normal law enforcement manner of cordoning off the area and immediately initiating negotiations.  Why is that?  Why has there yet to be even an attempt to open direct lines of communications between you and Ammon Bundy, as members of Pacific Patriot Network, Idaho III%, and Oath Keepers on the ground in Burns, OR have been repeatedly urging you to do for the past week, to no avail?

Don’t do it.  Do not follow unlawful orders if the Obama Administration fools decide to go “full retard.”  No matter how eager the politicians like Harry Reid are for Ammon Bundy’s head, after the black eye Ammon and his family gave them at Bundy Ranch in 2014, and no matter how much they pressure you to “make an example” out of these guys, you cannot drop the hammer on a bunch of ranchers, cowboys, and veterans sitting in an empty building without it blowing up in all of our faces.  Treat this with kid gloves, like the Montana Freeman standoff, instead of like the Waco standoff, or risk setting off a civil war.

The stuffed-shirt, pencil necked metrosexuals inside the D.C. beltway will not be the ones bleeding and dying in the chaos that could follow (at least not at first).

man_plucks_eyebrows_spornosexual_metrosexual_shutterstock_1000x667

Guys like this, in D.C., won’t be the ones who will bleed (not at first).

It will be you current serving military and LEO, and it will be us patriotic veterans, along with our many active duty brothers who still take their oaths seriously (and we are truly everywhere, including within your immediate ranks) who will bleed.  It will be the warrior class of America killing each other while the political hacks laugh (they hate you too, don’t you know).

Read the rest @ Oathkeepers here

Heroes: Vanderboegh and Codrea not Woodward and Bernstein

Posted: January 15, 2016 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery, Gov't overreach, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Via Christian Mercenary

Excerpt…

“When it was revealed that the Obama Administration was responsible for walking illegally purchased guns to Mexican drug cartels claiming that they were tracking the purchases back to the true buyer, without putting in place a means of tracking the guns past the border, the media covered it up. Who knows how many lives were lost as a result of that policy? It was so bad that ATF agents contacted Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea, often considered “anti-government,” to get the word out about the actions of the FBI. The story didn’t really get any traction until Brian Terry, a Border Patrol agent, was killed with one of the guns walked down to Mexico near Rio Rico, AZ.

We all know the names Woodward and Bernstein, but almost no one knows the names Vanderboegh and Codrea. Why is this? Why was no one ever convicted in the Fast and Furious scandal? The only ones punished were those agents who leaked the story to Vanderboegh and Codrea. Eventually, myself and many others contacted enough conservative radio talk show hosts and  Vanderboegh and Codrea chronicled it so successfully that Sharyl Atkisson of CBS took it up and put the national story out there. Not only has she not been celebrated by her colleagues in the media, her computer was hacked by federal agents and she has been harassed and drummed out of her job at CBS.”

Read the whole thing @ Christian Mercenary here

Older Entries