ALBANY — Thirty-three state senators have publicly declared they will support legalizing same-sex marriage, all but assuring passage of the measure which will make New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples can wed.
The Senate took up the measure just before 10 p.m., and the Senate galleries were packed with gay couples in support of the bill and religious opponents of it.
Senator Stephen M. Saland, a Poughkeepsie Republican, became the critical 32nd vote, telling his colleagues in an emotional address that he believed the issue came down to a question of equality.
“I know my vote is a vote of conscience,” he told a hushed chamber. “I am at peace with my vote. It was a struggle. It was an extraordinary deliberation.”
This is a serious affront to liberty and due process. Media coverage and public apathy are just as offensive.
The Florida legislature has now approved $1.2 million for police to begin collection of DNA samples for all felony arrests. While some may view this as a unique and powerful crime-fighting tool, it is equally true that such sampling will be misused and exploited to nefarious ends by police, government, and corporations.
About this time last year we did a story outlining the preciousness of freedom and the dangers posed by DNA profiling in our article...
No need to rehash the points of that article here again, but be sure to check out that link of course. In the meantime though, let us have a look at this article from ABC-7 WWSB to expose the classic tactics of disinformation.
To begin, there is...
1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don't discuss it -- especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it's not reported, it didn't happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.
We see that there is no mention of resistance to this new program, no moment of pause, no consideration for the many valid reasons why DNA collection from anyone should be met with the utmost skepticism. And certainly there should be open discourse on taking DNA from citizens who have not been convicted of any crime.
Next we have...
8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough "jargon" and "minutiae" to illustrate you are "one who knows", and simply say it isn't so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.
...with the article reporting...
"We are very pleased with the decision," said Manatee County Sheriff's Office spokesperson, Dave Bristow.
Of course you are pleased the decision Mister Bristow, and the average Dorito-munching Wheel-watcher on the street will trust the word of the police authority, even if is the police themselves that we should be most afraid of in reality. And we should certainly be concerned about this end-run around the Constitution and due-process as well.
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel." ~Patrick Henry
Heck, police cannot even force you to take a breathalyzer because it is unconstitutional, but now they are going to be allowed to create a genetic profile of you from a DNA sample? But if the general reader even bothers to think about these things, next up on deck we have the emotional appeal to rhetoric. Invoke mental imagery of a ravaged and murdered little girl and a grieving father with...
Drew Kesse is also pleased with the decision. He has been lobbying for the change for years."The more we can take the scum off the street, that's what we need to do in this world," Kesse said. Kesse's daughter, Jennifer, was abducted from her vehicle at an Orlando area apartment complex in 2006
...which could fall under any of these headings if his authoritarian will were challenged...
2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the "How dare you!" gambit.
...Pretty much self explanatory, but of course you would expect him to scream out the "how dare you" appealing to your emotions for his suffering and that of the victim, which then sets the stage for...
7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could so taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.
...With the emotional swirl of an abducted little girl, you can pretty much demand whatever you want from the public. After all, to go against whatever this man wants as a solution to his suffering, you must be "for" horrific crimes against children. Which of course is a fallacy, as is his...
4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent's argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.
...tactic. He jumps right to the conclusion that anyone who is ever arrested is not only guilty before the case ever goes to trial, but that they are also "scum." I for one, do not equate an arrest with a conviction. In this say and age, we have good reason to even take a conviction on a murder charge with a high degree of skepticism.
Take for example, the case of Barry Gibbs, who spent nearly two decades in prison after being framed by two NYPD Detectives. And even in the end, it was not some new DNA evidence that freed him, like so many convictions overturned by the Innocence Project. He just got lucky, the crooked cops were exposed and their cases reviewed.So let's not jump to the erroneous conclusion that DNA testing will prevent any false convictions. Indeed, it even raises the specter of using false DNA evidence to a secure a conviction that could not ever hope to be overturned by the Innocence Project.
The article then goes on to report that 21 states already have such databases. Indeed, it is quite alarming that this trend has been allowed to continue and has not been overturned as being an affront to the liberty of all citizens, whether guilty or innocent, convicted or acquitted. You see, even if you go to trial and are found not-guilty, it's too late. Your sample has already been taken and stored. The United States now has the largest DNA profiling database in the world which is right in line with the fact that we also have the largest prison population. The US has only 5% of the world's population but 25% of world's prisoner population, not including supervision programs such as probation.
Now lastly, the article rounds out with this enigmatic claim...
And to give you an example of the economic success of the database, law enforcement agencies around the state of Indiana were able to save $60 million over the past year with this program.
So there we have a news station, rather then being objective, offering up a financial endorsement without any substantiation or explanation. How does one save $60 million, by spending a few million more? Of course, again, your average brain-dead reader will simply think "oh, it saves money, I'm all for it," and flip to the next page without thinking twice about it.
Meanwhile, that statement could actually fall under any one of these categories...
22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.
20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.
15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.
As well as the aforementioned...
9. Play Dumb.
8. Invoke authority.
...and even...
4. Use a straw man.
...since cost is not really even relevant to infringement on liberty, or for that matter, catching a child-abductor. And finally...
6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism reasoning -- simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent's viewpoint.
...seeing as how they made such a brief little article, chock full of disinformation tactics but reporting little of substance on such an important story for the future of our society and the Republic for which we stand.
And just as one added side-note. With familial DNA mapping, it is not only you who will be genetically mapped if you are arrested, but your family as well.
O.J Simpson has confessed to Oprah Winfrey that he murdered his former wife, it has been reported.
The talk show host made headlines recently saying that one of her regrets was never having got the shamed former sportsman to confess to the killing.
And it appears her wish may well have come true with reports Simpson has already told one of her producers in an interview from jail that he knifed ex-wife Nicole in self-defence - a confession he will now repeat to the talk show queen during a spectacular televised sit down interview.
So the government has seen fit to mandate how cigarette packs are labeled once again, despite the fact that there is no scientific evidence that smoking, or second-hand smoke actually causes the diseases they claim.
Despite this lack of evidence, cigarette packs were mandated to have a Surgeon General's warning declaring that smoking MAY cause a whole list of deadly ailments. Now, the Federal government is taking it a step further... and a step too far.
Now the government is ordering cigarette companies to label their product with horrific graphic images that no one wants to see, smoker or non-smoker. It's like the abortion issue. No matter where you stand on that topic, no one wants to see pictures of aborted fetuses on a billboard and having to comfort the traumatized children in the backseat who just caught a glimpse.
Really, I am not going to say that smoking really is good for you, or try to encourage smoking. You don't need a scientist to tell you that smoking, particularly heavy smoking can leave you winded, is generally a poor lifestyle choice, and probably does contgribute to other ailments. But there is NO proof that smoking is actually the cause of the fatal diseases they appear to claim saying "may" cause blah blah blah.
We DO know however, that things like alcohol, and fast food can be fatal. But we don't see labels on liquor bottles and cases of beer showing macabre images of fatal car wrecks. Your Big Mac does not come branded with a label that has a picture of the last guy who dropped on the floor of the place with a heart attack. (Ironically enough, my grandfather actually had a heart attack in a McDonald's.)
So what's really going on here? Why the assault on cigarettes, when there are far more deadly and PROVEN threats to our safety, health, and general well-being? I say put a disclaimer on your tax form that reads "warning: paying taxes directly funds the death of thousands of civilians each year."
You wanna know why? I'll tell you why. It was all too clear to me when my grandmother handed me a newspaper snippet reporting the news about the new labeling. My first reaction was... to go have a cigarette. This new campaign will actually ENCOURAGE smoking and inflating the highway robbery tax cash cow of state governments in particular. I pay over $10 a pack, while in NYC, it's over $15.
Now just to be clear here, and to put my own personal bias on the line, I am not a heavy smoker. I enjoy the occasional cigarette, and if I didn't drink, would make a pack last a month or two. As it is, I smoke about two packs a month. But no label is going to make me quit, and as I just pointed out, just the idea of the new labeling was enough to make me smoke more. It pissed me off and filled me with fear.
And THAT my friends, is the REAL heart of the matter. It is not about getting people to quit. It is about instilling fear, and creating resentment and divisiveness among the masses. It is about creating a world in which you can utterly despise someone you never met and know nothing about, solely based on a pack of cigarettes. A level of contempt on par with that of child pornographers and rapists even.
What is the real end result though, for the smoker, for society? In a word, desensitized. These images, after a few packs will become as meaningless as the Surgeon General's warning. And I'm sorry, but making images of death and horror become meaningless is NOT a good thing. In the long run, these images will only make such horrors "acceptable."
So really, there is only one question left to ask. What are they really preparing us for so that we don't think twice about seeing a man laying dead with his chest ripped open?
Oh, I know, you don't believe in conspiracy theories. The government would never profile and collect data on smokers habits, and how it can be applied to the larger framework of social engineering, right? Would never lie to the people and screw them over? Moron. Believe me, they are thinking about all of it and have the apparatus to do it. What have you got? Snooki.
"By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise." ~Adolf Hitler
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 09–1227. Argued February 22, 2011—Decided June 16, 2011
When petitioner Bond discovered that her close friend was pregnant by Bond’s husband, she began harassing the woman. The woman suffered a minor burn after Bond put caustic substances on objects the woman was likely to touch. Bond was indicted for violating 18 U. S. C. §229, which forbids knowing possession or use, for non-peaceful purposes, of a chemical that “can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans,” §§229(a); 229F(1); (7); (8), and which is part of a federal Act implementing a chemical weapons treaty ratified by the United States. The District Court denied Bond’s motion to dismiss the §229 charges on the ground that the statute exceeded Congress’ constitutional authority to enact. She entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to appeal the ruling on the statute’s validity. She did just that, renewing her Tenth Amendment claim. The Third Circuit, however, accepted the Government’s position that she lacked standing. The Government has since changed its view on Bond’s standing. Held: Bond has standing to challenge the federal statute on grounds that the measure interferes with the powers reserved to States.
The full pdf format decision is available at link:
While at first glance this may seem like a win for criminals, it actually upholds the Constitution, contrary to current trend where our liberty has been chipped away and reduced to the point that our rights are barely worth the paper they were printed on.
Ninth Amendment – Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
This case is hardly the sort of case one might expect to make it to the Supreme Court of the Unites States. Then again, it hardly seems like the sort of case police would make a Federal case in the first place and I am sure her attorney was no Public Defender either.
What we are left with is a case that highlights the way police and prosecutors like to do business. There is a law for everything. If you attract the ire of the system they will come down on you like a ton of bricks with a bunch of shit you never heard of.
Now as we read, this is a case of a wife seeking against her former friend and husband's lover, by leaving caustic chemicals strategically placed where her victim was likely to come in contact and be burned. Now on the one hand, we might say good for the wife. No one likes a home-wrecker anyway. On the other hand of course, the wife might have been a bitch in the first place, and either way, we as a society certainly can't tolerate people running around and inflicting chemical burns on other people no matter what their reason.
Nevertheless, this ruling has overturned her conviction and sets the precedent that no other Americans will be able to be convicted on 18 U. S. C. §229 either, at least not under any similar circumstances anyway. Does that mean it is legal now to run around giving people chemical burns? I doubt it. I am sure there are plenty of other laws on the books that they could pull out in order to throw a person in prison for doing just what she did. So then of course, that begs the question, why did the original prosecutor choose to charge her under a law that was created in order to make the United States compliant with an international treaty to prevent the proliferation of chemical weapons?
(a) Unlawful Conduct. - Except as provided in subsection (b), it shall be unlawful for any person knowingly - (1) to develop, produce, otherwise acquire, transfer directly or indirectly, receive, stockpile, retain, own, possess, or use, or threaten to use, any chemical weapon; or (2) to assist or induce, in any way, any person to violate paragraph (1), or to attempt or conspire to violate paragraph
Why did he make a Federal case out of something that would otherwise be considered run-of-the-mill crime? Were the prosecutors really at that much of a loss to find a law they could prosecute her under? Maybe stretching, looking for a stiffer penalty because the laws they had to work with didn't satisfy their own bloodlust? Perhaps. I did not follow the case from the start and don't know many of the details, but it seems to me there might have been something a little deeper.
Was this a test-case of sorts, to test the viability of charging citizens with what amounts to terrorism for generic criminal acts? Were they trying to make it an act of international terrorism to use common household chemicals for anything other than their "intended" purpose? Were they trying to establish a precedent that would make a potential terrorist of every American who keeps a bottle of bleach and ammonia under the kitchen sink? Sounds a little far-fetched maybe, a bit of a stretch? Maybe about as much as charging this woman under Federal an international chemical weapons laws in the first place.
And let is keep in mind here too, the country we live in today. A country where our Constitutional liberty is undermined at every turn. A country where average Americans are treated like criminals and little children strip-searched when they travel. Where dangerous chemicals are being deliberately pumped into our food, our water, our neighborhoods, our bodies. Where the President can assassinate Americans without any oversight whatsoever, no warrant, no trial. Where any American labeled a terrorist can be held indefinitely, without trial, without counsel, and without any evidence under the supra-constitutional Patriot Act.
Of course, this ruling is a small victory for liberty, butI am suspicious. Why "they" did not choose to make a stand here too? Guess it just wasn't part of the agenda for the time-being. It seems that for the time being the war on the Constitution may be more limited to a few other Amendments. "Choose your battles" sort of logic I suppose. Or better yet, maybe this ruling was in the interests of more powerful factions than one pissed off housewife.
It was Friday the 13th, and Skylar Walters thought he was going to die.
The 16-year-old inmate of Orangeville Jr.-Sr. High in Illinois was in gym class when a deranged-looking man barged into the school and began firing what appeared to be a handgun at several of the other students.
"I started praying to God and saying my last words," Skylar later recalled. "I was scared. I didn't know what to do."
As the intruder fired his gun, he called out the name of a particular student; the youngster quite sensibly fled the building. Other kids "were just running everywhere and crying and hiding," Skylar recounted. Some of the panicking schoolkids probably attempted to call or text their parents to describe the horror unfolding in front of them. They didn't know that each of the parents had been instructed not to answer if his child issued a desperate plea for help...
Now perhaps I am mistaken here, I am not an aviation expert, but it appears to me looking at the Federal Aviation Administration's own records, something unprecedented is happening. There isn't a peep about it in the mainstream media.
In 2009 and 2010, the FAA declared five no-fly zones in US national airspace. This year, and mostly in the last few weeks, they have declared over FIFTY!
We've been warned, time and time again. But no one seems to listen, too few people seem to care, falling for the same dumbed-down mantras of all totalitarian governments that have come before. Liberty is dead, long live liberty...
TSA Now Storming Public Places 8,000 Times a Year
Americans must to decide if, in the name of homeland security, they are willing to allow TSA operatives to storm public places in their communities with no warning, pat them down, and search their bags. And they better decide quickly.
Bus travelers were shocked when jackbooted TSA officers in black SWAT-style uniforms descended unannounced upon the Tampa Greyhound bus station in April with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and federal bureaucrats in tow.
A news report by ABC Action News in Tampa showed passengers being given the signature pat downs Americans are used to watching the Transportation Security Administration screeners perform at our airports. Canine teams sniffed their bags and the buses they rode. Immigration officials hunted for large sums of cash as part of an anti-smuggling initiative.
The TSA clearly intends for these out-of-nowhere swarms by its officers at community transit centers, bus stops and public events to become a routine and accepted part of American life.
The TSA has conducted 8,000 of these security sweeps across the country in the past year alone, TSA chief John Pistole told a Senate committee June 14. They are part of its VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) program, which targets public transit related places.
All of which is enough to make you wonder if we are watching the formation of the "civilian national security force" President Obama called for on the campaign trail "that is just as powerful, just as strong and just as well funded" as the military.
And then we have this little propaganda piece that literally makes me sick to my fuckin stomach at how easily Americans are falling for this shit...
Freedom? Freedom?! Are you fuckin kidding me lady? A heavy price? A heavy price is all the men and women who have died in America's wars from the time of the Revolution for the freedom clearly spelled out in our Constitution. This is not freedom lady, this is fascism. A pig with pretty lipstick.
China slams ‘war-addicted’ US
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[image: Preview] The Chinese defense ministry has accused the Pentagon of
fabricating false narratives in its latest report on Beijing’s military
threat
R...
Is OpenAI’s o3 Model AGI?
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I doubt it’s actually AGI, but it looks impressive. If it’s any
consolation, they let it use a very nontrivial amount of compute to pull
this off. If/when ...
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The Hemp Industry / Staying Positive
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Air Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2020
Doug Fine discussed the many amazing properties of hemp. Followed by Eldon
Taylor on staying positive in the COVID-19 era.
The Alzheimer’s Drug that Might Unlock Your Dreams
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As excited as I get about the potentiality of psychedelic drugs, I get far
more amped about pushing the boundaries of dreams as I’m not sure there are
an...
DOJ Stumbles at Hearing on Detaining Immigrants
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Criticizing an attorney for the government for arguing issues he never
raised in briefing, the First Circuit seemed likely at a hearing Wednesday
to u...
Mom Has Stacked Dinner Party Roster
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GOLDEN, CO—Their eyes widening in amazement as the 43-year-old rattled off
the names of heavy hitter after heavy hitter, impressed members of the
Dreesh...
