In Defense Of Freedom Of Speech, Journalist Helen Thomas and Courage

Lisbon
 
Free speech in America? 
 
As long as you talk about the right things,
the right way. 
 
Fortunately, there are a few heroes left in
America. 
 
Here's one we can be proud of. 

Helen Thomas - No free speech for telling the truth

The most veteran reporter on the Washington Press Corps...

And consistently the most courageous.

She was fired for questioning Israel's ongoing abuse of Palestinians.

The price?

1. Fired from her job

2. The Washington Press Corps Association "leaders" want to take back her lifetime of awards.

An American we can be proud of

 

In defense of our children - an important message from Brasscheck TV‏

Lisbon
 
No video this time...just a very important
message. 
 
Please read and if you agree with me that it's
important, please share.
 
Thanks.
 
=========================================
 
=== It's sick - plain and simple ===
 
There's been little discussion about the 
euphemstically-named full-body "pat downs" taking 
place in US airports as they effect CHILDREN.
 
We've put up numerous videos now of very young children
being stripped searched in public, touched against their
will, and, in any other place and under any other 
circumstances, molested by TSA screeners.
 
Parents are counseled to tell their children that
these "screenings" are a game.  
 
The US news media's comment on this?
 
Deafening silence. 
 
Instead they ask us if we aren't being "too sensitive"
and tell us there needs to be a "balance between
security and privacy." 
 
Children are being taught that anyone in uniform
has free access to their bodies...that they can't
say "no"...and that their parents are unable to protect
them. 
 
In turn, parents are being taught that they
cannot protect their children.
 
The only word that comes to my mind to describe
this enterprise is "criminal."
 
Did not the TSA, Homeland Security, and the White
House (and the jackals in Congress that fund this
insanity) anticipate this as an outcome?
 
There are two possibilities here: either this is
official idiocy and arrogance of the highest order
or this outcome was anticipated and deemed acceptable.  
 
I don't know the answer...but I do know that as a
governmenty agency that works closely with the CIA
and FBI, Homeland Security and the TSA have access
to hundreds of psychologists and psychiatrists,
in their employ, under contract, and available 
at the drop of a dime. 
 
I am not an expert in child abuse so I asked my
friend and colleague Kenneth Wooden for his comment. 
 
Wooden is a former journalist and author of the
chilling and important book "The Children of Jonestown."
 
His experience covering the Jonestown story and seeing
the hundreds of children's coffins that came back from
Guyana motivated him to create a training company that
teaches children how to identify and protect themselves
from predators. 
 
I asked him what he thinks of the TSA's policy of
commanding its employees to strip search and conduct
full body "pat downs" of small children.
 
I specifically asked him his opinion of the TSA
advising that young children be told that these officially 
sanctioned intrusions of their bodies are a game. 
 
Wooden's answer follows...
 
=== The TSA has crossed the line ===
 
As a national child personal safety expert, I submit the TSA 
crosses the line when it allows the patting down of children for 
security reasons, cloaked as a game.  
 
The most recent Gallup Poll on childhood abuse revealed that in just one
year, more than a million children were sexually and physically abused.
Along the same lines, the American Medical Association has referred to the
rape and sexual exploitation of women and children as a "violent and silent
epidemic."  Men increasingly reveal how they were sexually assaulted in
their youth, by a rainbow of sexual predators, usually someone they knew.
 
Given that background - and the number of survivors that have been sexually
abused and exploited - it is beyond comprehension how the Homeland Security
Agency's  TSA can conceive of such insensitive and invasive security checks
on our children and youth.  Even worse, they want to depict pat downs of
children as a game!  As an investigative researcher/reporter who has
interviewed well over a thousand sexual offenders, I can document that one
of the favorite ploys to lure children and youth into sexual abuse is to
disguise it as a "game."
 
How can experts working at the TSA be so incredibly misinformed and
misguided to suggest that full body pat downs for children be portrayed as a
game?!To do so is completely contrary to what we in the sexual abuse
prevention field have been trying to accomplish for the past thirty years.
Such policy could essentially desensitize children to inappropriate touch
and ultimately make it easier for sexual offenders to prey on our children.
This policy is also incredibly insensitive to the countless victims who have
already been traumatized by unwanted touching in their lives and could be
re-traumatized by such pat-downs. 
 
In my judgment as a lifelong journalist and child advocate, such unapprised
actions by the TSA borders on criminal negligence and, legally speaking,
"deliberate indifference to the future emotional well being of millions of
victims and the potential for far too many more young victims." 
 
Ken Wooden
 
Child Lures Prevention 

Is The Administration Setting Us Up For An "Event" So Obama Can Say "I Was Trying To Protect You"?

Town Council Meeting On Nov. 16, 2010 Now Available

FOR THOSE INTERESTED  This meeting is now available for viewing online.  Much time has been spent improving the Mysterious Poor Volume issues that seem to plague the Town Council meetings, but has never been an issue with the School Committee meetings.  

Hmmm,  Wonder Why?  Ask Eldridge, he is in charge and responsible right?  Am sure he will tell you something, just not certain how credible it will be.

A BIG Thank you to the staff at Great Falls TV in making this online edition much easier to hear then the broadcast on last Thursday's evening.  The residents of Lisbon truly appreciate it.

Click here to view.

Lisbon Seat Belt Convincer Demo‏

 

Lisbon – The Lisbon Police Department, in conjunction with The Maine Bureau of Highway Safety invites you to ride The Convincer.  The Seat Belt Convincer is an easy-to-use educational tool that allows riders to experience force, up to five times their body weight, similar to that of a 5-7 mph crash. 

Demonstrations will be held at Lisbon Community School, 33 Mill Street in Lisbon on Wednesday, November 24 for 11:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.  Riders must be 18 years of age or older.  FMI contact SRO Officer Estes at 353-4132 or email destes@lisbonschoolsme.org

Florida's Foreclosure Fraud Explained The Gavel And The Damage Done

 Submitted by friend: 

Peter Hébert

The Gavel and the Damage Done

The State of Florida was the nation’s number two foreclosure hot spot. The courts were backed up, understaffed, and overwhelmed. On July 1, 2010, the Florida state legislature allocated $9.6 million for special foreclosure courts to meet the demands of the banks to foreclose. Though Judge A.C. Soud retired in July 2007 after 26 and-a-half years on the bench, he was tasked to reduce the foreclosure backlog by 60 percent. The game plan was simple: review 25 foreclosure cases per hour. That is one foreclosure in less than two-and-a-half minutes in a restricted access conference room.

Under Soud’s supervision were a bunch of judges, who had been pulled out of retirement. Their better days were years behind them.The work was easy, because most of the cases were uncontested.

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone described the existential absurdity of Florida’s judicial system: 

Watching Judge Soud plow through each foreclosure reminds me of the scene in Fargo where the villain played by Swedish character actor Peter Stormare pushes his victim’s leg through a wood chipper with that trademark bored look on his face. Mechanized misery and brainless bureaucracy on the one hand, cash for the banks on the other.

The judge permitted the fraudulent prosecution of each MERS-related petition. Each proceeding was calculated, efficient, and delivered the final solution.

 Attorney April Charney of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, Inc. permitted Taibbi into Soud’s courtroom proceedings. Soud accused Charney of having “unprofessional conduct” concerned that Taibbi might contact a homeowner from a proceeding for an interview. Soud warned Charney that he would cite her for “possible contempt in the future.”

The exposé in Rolling Stone prompted the American Civil Liberties Union and various press and broadcasting associations to place demands on Chief Justice Charles Canady to open the courts for the public to attend. Judge Soud’s response was that he had no intention of reading Taibbi’s article in Rolling Stone. Taibbi’s criticism of Soud’s conduct was that the judge never bothered to read through the mortgage cases. His job consisted of opening the file, looking at the stop watch, and slamming down the gavel—“Motion granted! Next!”

Copyright (C) Peter Hébert of Freedom House Press

Excerpt from The Collapse of Home Prices and the Foreclosure Crisis (coming in 2011)

Peter Hébert

Author of Mortgaged And Armed, Freedom House Press, July 4, 2010

(www.MortgagedAndArmed.com)

Available through Amazon.com 

About the Author

Peter Hébert has a Masters of Business Administration in finance and marketing from Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He was the keynote speaker for the MBA graduating class at Mount St. Mary’s University on its 200th anniversary. He has a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and history from the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. 

Hébert has over 20 years experience in residential mortgage lending; residential property management and leasing; commercial and residential real estate marketing and sales; and secondary market experience in due diligence, commercial loan servicing, multi-family loan registrations, and residential loss mitigation. Hébert is a communicator and educator at heart with experience teaching a college course in corporate finance; and designing and teaching continuing education courses to licensed real estate agents and loan officers. His professional experience includes serving as a litigation consultant and as an expert witness. 

Hébert is the author of Mortgaged and Armed (Freedom House Press, July 4, 2010). His upcoming books for 2011 are The Collapse of Home Prices and the Foreclosure Crisis as well as Predator Nation, and are a continuation of the analysis and alternative narrative tied to mortgage finance, the economy, legislation, and regulation. As the founder of Freedom House Press, Hébert is committed to publishing in-depth analysis and solution oriented narratives.

Buy American Made Products If You Can Find Them

The US Dollar Devaluation

For Our Warriors We Give Thanks To You All

"I Honor Back" by Jon Kahn

At Itunes http://tinyurl.com/26oykez from Jon Kahn aka Jon David. A song to honor our brave men and women in uniform. Also check out Jon's other music including "Careless Conversation," as Jon David "American Heart" and from his band the Color Green: the albums "Breakable" and "Rust

 

Banking Malfeasance / Financial Crimes On A Mind Boggling Scale

Lisbon
 
The TSA thing is pretty serious. It's also
a colossal distraction - and may well have
been designed to be so. 
 
Here's why...
 
You can choose to fly or not. 
 
I choose to NOT fly until sanity is restored
to US airports.
 
If it doesn't happen in my lifetime, so be it. 
 
But it's kind of hard to live in an economy
that's been looted back to the stone age.
 
And that is what our friends on Wall Street
and the federal government have done - and
continue to do - to us on a scale that's
almost incomprehensible. 
 
The level of wealth destruction is not immediately
obvious - yet. 
 
Here's what the news media is not telling you
about the state of our banking system. 
 
(When we're finished with the TSA, we must deal with
this, or it will enslave us worse than scanners and gropers.)
 
Video:
 
http://www.realecontv.com/page/728.html
 
- Brasscheck

To make this as simple as possible:

1. The big banks (Bank of America, ChaseJPMorgan, Citibank, Wells Fargo etc.) and their loan servicers are openly engaging in criminal behavior on a scale so large it's almost impossible to calculate it

2. What we do know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that these banks are in fact insolvent. In other words, they have real, undeniable losses on their books that exceed their capital

Except for one thing... the government lets them lie, deny and delay and is now pumping another $600 BILLION of your money into a wild gamble they hope will be enough to jump start the economy, turn housing prices around and up, and make the hundreds of billions of real estate loans now worth ZERO worth something.

If you have money in these banks or are doing business with them, you are literally supporting organized crime.

Just thought you might like to know.

Incredible. isn't it? And the news media snoozes.

New Challenges For Us

End of Free Internet: US Senate Committee Approves Internet "Blacklist" Bill

Activist Post

It seems the lame duck Congressional session is becoming anything but unproductive. Yesterday, we saw the cloture of the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510), and today the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act was unanimously approved by the US Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday with a 19-0 vote. The COICA has been overwhelmingly viewed by bloggers as a corporate hijacking of the Internet by mega-media cartels.  Indeed, its eventual passage will be the end of the free Internet as we now it.

Read more.


Read what our friend Julia Davis wrote about this.

Erosion of 1st Amendment rights exemplified by South Park censorship and Senate Bill S. 3081

• April 26th, 2010 9:44 am PT

America - it would not be the land of the free, if it were not the home of the brave

Photo: Julia Davis Photography

 

Founding father Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Without Freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of speech.” According to these simple truths, Americans are quickly losing their constitutional rights to think, speak and live free. Our daily lives are replete with examples from the media, as well as looming legislature threatening our freedom and independence.

South Park censorship

The irreverent cartoon, “South Park”, made us laugh by poking fun at every imaginable topic. This notoriously acerbic animation made fun of Jesus, the Queen, Mormons, Scientologists, Catholics, Jews, celebrities and politicians.

The 201st episode of merciless satire hit a snag when a New York-based group of extremist Muslim converts, “Revolution Muslim”, sent death threats to Comedy Central. They were prompted by an episode featuring the prophet Muhammad in a bear costume. Death threats were posted on the group’s website, targeting the originators of “South Park”, Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

To illustrate the fate that would befall the animators, the site ran by extremists featured a picture of Van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker, with his throat cut and a knife in his chest. He was murdered in 2004 after filming a documentary on the abuse of women in Muslim countries. The same website also listed the New York headquarters of Comedy Central and the production company of “South Park”, adding: "You can pay them a visit at these addresses."

The group that issued death threats has a record of making extremist statements. One of its members, Younus Abdullah Muhammad, told CNN last year that the attacks of 9/11 were “justified”.

How did the most powerful country in the world respond to death threats? By unleashing the might of law enforcement and recently empowered Interpol to hunt down the perpetrators? By refusing to acknowledge terroristic tactics? Wrong. The “solution” was a complete capitulation. The caustic cartoon was mutilated with bleeps and "censored" blocks throughout, removing all references in question. It wasn’t seamless or effortless – to the contrary, choppy inserts seemed to say, “We’re afraid of your threats and will do whatever you please. Do you like us now?”

Shockingly, this was the second time that “South Park” had been censored after taking on the prophet as a subject. In 2006, soon after violent protests erupted against the Danish cartoons, Stone and Parker produced a double episode that also featured the prophet. It was quietly sterilized by Comedy Central. If our media is so terrified, who is winning the war on terror?

By bowing down to brute force and ignoring our own set of values, we’re encouraging future threats of violence. Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, our strength and courage as a nation is being thrown under the feet of uncivilized attackers. Is this the message the US as a nation wants to convey?
While we continue to kowtow to terrorists, the new legislation pending before the Senate will make it easy for the government to target outspoken Americans.

Senate Bill S. 3081

Unlike the immediate “South Park” reaction, you won’t see any furore in the mainstream media over the pending Senate bill, entitled "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010". If the proposed piece of draconian legislation is passed by the Senate, it will place every American in danger of becoming “Enemy Of The State”, under the guise of protecting national security. This outrageously un-American bill was cooked up by Arizona Senator John McCain, Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator Jeff Sessions, Senators Roger Wicker, Saxby Chambliss, Scott Brown, David Vitter and George LeMieux.
Deliberately vague legal definitions serve as a carte blanche for arresting, interrogating and detaining any American citizen without trial, formal charges or even Miranda warnings. McCain, the former Republican Candidate for the US Presidency, who was also a former Prisoner Of War, should be ashamed of the language used in the Bill S. 3081. Section 5 of the bill makes it clear that U.S. citizens are included, stating in relevant part: "An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy… may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities."

Text of S. 3081: Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010

S.3081 would eliminate several Constitutional protections, allowing Government to arbitrarily pick up Americans on mere suspicion—with no probable cause. Any political opinions and statements that criticize U.S. Government could be used by Authorities to deem you a “hostile Enemy Belligerent”, thereby justifying your arrest and indefinite detention. S.3081 is so broadly written that any protesters or Tea partiers might be arrested and detained just for attending demonstrations. The government can justify that by charging that attending demonstrations could be considered to have materially supported anti-government hostilities.

Full language of the bill appears to do away with the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh Amendments of the constitution, in addition to Statute 42 (1983) violations that correspond with infringements on the rights of whistleblowers and US citizens. Investigative journalists with the Los Angeles based company, Fleur De Lis Film Studios, served media requests, requesting on-camera interviews with all of the senators responsible for the creation of the Bill S. 3081. All of these senators refused to answer questions pertaining to the unconstitutional bill they’re proposing to pass into law.

Under this bill’s predecessor, the unpatriotically deceptive Patriot Act, law enforcement generally needed probable cause to detain a person indefinitely. Passage of S.3081 will permit government to use “mere suspicion” to crush an individual’s Constitutional Protections against unlawful arrest, detention and interrogation without benefit of legal counsel and trial. According to S.3081 Big Brother is not required to provide detained individuals U.S. Miranda Warnings or even an attorney.

S.3081 is written so broadly that it could target any individual who writes on the Internet or verbally express an unflattering commentary about the government. Such an individual might be detained on the basis he or she is an “unprivileged enemy belligerent”, “supporting hostilities against U.S. Government.” Such allegations of “suspicious activities” need not be proven – the military can use hearsay or informants.

Notably, McCain’s S.3081 mandates merging Federal, State and Local Police and subsequently the U.S. Military to detain and hold Individuals in the U.S. without probable cause. Interestingly, a recently released Rand Report prepared for the Army, appears to suggest that the U.S. Government develop a Local, State and Federal “National Police Stabilization Force”, merging State law enforcement with the Feds. What could happen to State Rights and what Laws and Jurisdiction would be used to prosecute state Citizens arrested by a National Police Stabilization Force? A National Police Force could potentially be sent by the President into any State with the approval of its governor, against the wishes of its Citizens.

Historically it is foreseeable under S.3081 that “erroneous informant information” could be used to detain innocent Individuals. Other countries have used lying informants and corrupt law enforcement officials to imprison or annihilate political opposition.

AZ Immigration Bill

Another way to circumvent the constitution under the guise of protecting us from illegal immigration was the controversial Arizona Immigration Bill, signed by Governor Jan Brewer. Instead of the common sense approach of tougher border control, harsher penalties against businesses that employ illegals and questioning criminal detainees as to their legal status in this country, the new bill provides a venue for the police to question and arrest any citizen on the street for looking “suspicious”. The Obama administration called the Arizona bill "misguided" and instructed the Justice Department to determine whether it is legal or not. The President also said the federal government must enact immigration reform at the national level – or leave the door open to "irresponsibility by others."

The law will take effect in late July or early August, and AZ Governor Brewer ordered the state's law enforcement licensing agency to develop a training course on how to implement it without violating civil rights. The law doesn’t take into account the intentional targeting of individuals for personal motives, attacks against whistleblowers, protesters or civil rights activists. It simply opens the door for local police to stop and question anyone on the street without any probable cause.

Pastor Martin Niemöller wrote:

“THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

As Americans, we should speak up – without waiting until they come for each and every one of us. We should stop the erosion of our constitutional rights under the guise of such actions being done “for our own good”. We have to stand up for what is right, for what is just, for our American dream. Our freedom depends on it.

Read more stories by Julia Davis, Los Angeles Homeland Security Examiner
Julia Davis -- Red County Contributor
Follow Los Angeles Homeland Security Examiner Julia Davis on Twitter

 

Florida Airport Marks Pioneering Effort For Air Travelers

Florida airport to opt out of TSA screening

By David Edwards

Many Americans are frustrated and outraged at new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening policies that require full body scanning or invasive pat-downs at airports.

Now one airport in Central Florida has decided not to use TSA agents at all for screening their passengers.

Larry Dale, the CEO of the Sanford Airport Authority, told WDBO radio that his board has authorized him to use a private screening firm instead of TSA employees.

"All of our due diligence shows it's the way to go," Dale said. "You're going to get better service at a better price and more accountability and better customer service."

The CEO expects to send the federal government final notification in January. The private screeners could be in place within the next 12 months.

Read more.

Entrepreneurial Business 101

The Story of Business: http://bankruptingamerica.org
(sponsored by Public Notice and the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council)
------------------
"I risk my livelihood...I don't know what greater risk I could be taking," says Wes Garner, owner of Great Lakes Calcium, a small business in Green Bay, Wisconsin that makes the compound in Tums.

Wes is an entrepreneur, and he's invested his life into his business. He does it because he loves to create, innovate, and provide the foundation for himself and his employees to make a good living.

But Wes is worried. Uncertainty is one of the most damaging hurdles a business can face. And Wes doesn't understand why government is making things unnecessarily uncertain and complex for his business.

Wes's story is the first video of our series "The Story of Business" -- a joint project between us and the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council. Stay tuned for more...
------------------
Check out a more comedic take "Wait and See": http://bit.ly/cFRAqu

S.3081 Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010

THIS BILL IS SPONSORED BY SENATOR JOHN McCAIN

"The Department of Homeland Security can attack your home at any time and arrest you without warrant. This bill was introduced by Senator McCain on behalf of Senator Joe 'The Chameleon' Lieberman! Please read and share!"

 

S.3081 - Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010

A bill to provide for the interrogation and detention of enemy belligerents who commit hostile acts against the United States, to establish certain limitations on the prosecution of such belligerents for such acts, and for other purposes. 

Official Summary

3/4/2010--Introduced.Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010 - Requires an individual who is suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners through an act of terrorism and who may be an unprivileged enemy belligerent to be placed in military custody for purposes of initial interrogation and determination of status. Allows the detention and interrogation of such individuals for a reasonable time after capture or coming into custody. Defines "unprivileged enemy belligerent" as an individual who:
(1) has engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners;
(2) has purposely and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners; or
(3) was a part of al Qaeda at the time of capture. Authorizes the President to establish an interagency team composed of executive branch personnel with expertise in national security, terrorism, intelligence, interrogation, or law enforcement to interrogate an individual placed in military custody and to determine if such individual is an unprivileged enemy belligerent. Designates such team as a high-value detainee interrogation group. Designates certain individuals in military custody as high value detainees based upon the potential threat such individuals pose for an attack on the United States, its citizens, or military personnel, the potential intelligence value of such individuals, or membership in al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist group. Directs the high-value detainee interrogation group to conduct interrogations of such individuals and make preliminary determinations whether such individuals are unprivileged enemy belligerents. Deems as the paramount purpose of such interrogations the protection of U.S. civilians and facilities through thorough and professional interrogation for intelligence purposes. Prohibits the use of Department of Justice (DOJ) appropriated funds to prosecute an unprivileged enemy belligerent in an Article III court. Allows the detention of an unprivileged enemy belligerent without criminal charges or trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged or which the individual has purposely and materially supported.

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s3081/show

Precipice Of A World At War, Once Again

By Todd Comber

How many times have you heard "history repeats itself".  

Now this has 'clicked' for me.  We, as a Nation and World for that matter have a state of delusion of Economic facts.  Mortgage fraud, bank bailouts, unemployment and remember the H1N1 hoax.  Well now with this new information of moving tanks into Afghanistan, it all makes sense.   

There are great mineral and other treasures hidden beneath the soils and mountains of Afghanistan that are worth an untold amount of value to those who claim ownership.  It is vial and valuable to fuel the economies of the world.  Russia  failed to conquer finding and claiming them at a great toll.  And now with the United Nations meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, this is all starting to make perfect sense.

Soon we will be witnessing a War of Worldly Nations.  The Recent increase in the airport security screenings is for our protection but comes under a fallacious disguise.  As history bears witness, wars have been used as economic stimuli to feed the greed of society.  Doesn't matter what is moral or correct.  There are only a few very powerful people making decisions for the rest of us.

Doesn't matter if it is Lisbon, Maine or Lisbon, Portugal,  we are just along for the ride.

Well, my window is down and I have been speaking out for a while now, but my guard is up.

May GOD and everyone of us bless each other.  We surely need all the help. 

TSA "Touch Society of America"

Don't Touch My Junk takes aim at the TSA with its obscene pat-downs and naked body scanners now installed at airports across the USA. Written by Mike Adams (the Health Ranger), a strong advocate of freedom and civil liberties, this song is based on a true story by a traveler named John Tyner who told the TSA, "If you touch my junk I'll have you arrested."

Today Marks The 147th Anniversary Of The Gettysburg Address

The Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863

On June 1, 1865, Senator Charles Sumner commented on what is now considered the most famous speech by President Abraham Lincoln. In his eulogy on the slain president, he called it a "monumental act." He said Lincoln was mistaken that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Rather, the Bostonian remarked, "The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech."

 Abraham Lincoln

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

We are met on a great battle-field of that war.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground.

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion

-- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Runway Able - Incredible Piece of WW II History

WHAT EVERY YOUNG AMERICAN SHOULD KNOW BUT WHAT OUR CLASSROOMS DO NOT TEACH THEM ABOUT HISTORY.  IF YOU KNOW OF SOME YOUNGSTER WHO DOES NOT KNOW THE TRUE MEANING OF WINNING A WAR AND WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT, HAVE THEM READ THIS AND LEARN. THEY JUST MIGHT GET A DIFFERENT PERSECTIVE AS TO WHY OUR SOLDIERS ARE FIGHTING AND DYING IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

WE ARE FACED TODAY WITH A THREAT JUST AS EVIL AS THE JAPANESE WERE, BUT ONLY MORE SO!

 

 Subject: Runway Able - Incredible Piece of WW II History: 

 

Tinian  Island,   Pacific Ocean.  

 

It's a small island, less than 40 square miles, a flat green dot in the vastness of Pacific blue.  
Fly over it and you notice a slash across its north end of uninhabited bush, a long thin line
that looks like an overgrown dirt runway.  If you didn't know what it was, you wouldn't give
it a second glance out your airplane window

 

On the ground, you see the runway isn't dirt but tarmac and crushed limestone, abandoned with weeds sticking out of it.  Yet this is arguably the most historical airstrip on earth.  This is where World War II was won.  This is Runway Able:

 

On July 24, 1944, 30,000 US Marines landed on the beaches of Tinian ...  Eight days later, over 8,000 of the 8,800 Japanese soldiers on the island were dead (vs. 328 Marines), and four months later the Seabees had built the busiest airfield of WWII - dubbed North Field -  enabling B-29 Superfortresses to launch air attacks on the Philippines, Okinawa, and mainland Japan.

Late in the afternoon of August 5, 1945, a B-29 was maneuvered over a bomb loading pit, then after lengthy preparations, taxied to the east end of North Field's main runway, Runway Able, and at 2:45am in the early morning darkness of August 6, took off.

The B-29 was piloted by Col. Paul Tibbets of the US Army Air Force, who had named the plane after his mother, Enola Gay.  The crew named the bomb they were carrying Little Boy.  6½ hours later at 8:15am Japan time, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima .

Three days later, in the pre-dawn hours of August 9, a B-29 named Bockscar (a pun on "boxcar" after its flight commander Capt. Fred Bock), piloted by Major Charles Sweeney took off from Runway Able.  Finding its primary target of Kokura obscured by clouds, Sweeney proceeded to the secondary target of Nagasaki, over which, at 11:01am, bombardier Kermit Beahan released the atomic bomb dubbed Fat Man.
Here is "Atomic Bomb Pit #1" where Little Boy was loaded onto Enola Gay:

There are pictures displayed in the pit, now glass-enclosed.  This one shows Little Boy being hoisted into Enola Gay's bomb bay.

 

And here on the other side of ramp is "Atomic Bomb Pit #2" where Fat Man was loaded onto Bockscar.

 

The commemorative plaque records that 16 hours after the nuking of Nagasaki , "On August 10, 1945 at 0300, the Japanese Emperor without his cabinet's consent decided to end the Pacific War."

Take a good look at these pictures, folks.  This is where World War II ended with total victory of America over Japan . I was there all alone.  There were no other visitors and no one lives anywhere near for miles.  Visiting the Bomb Pits, walking along deserted Runway Able in solitude, was a moment of extraordinarily powerful solemnity.

It was a moment of deep reflection.  Most people, when they think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , reflect on the numbers of lives killed in the nuclear blasts - at least 70,000 and 50,000 respectively. Being here caused me to reflect on the number of lives saved - how many more Japanese and Americans would have died in a continuation of the war had the nukes not been dropped.

Yet that was not all.  It's not just that the nukes obviated the US invasion of Japan , Operation Downfall, that would have caused upwards of a million American and Japanese deaths or more.  It's that nuking   Hiroshima and Nagasaki were of extraordinary humanitarian benefit to the nation and people of   Japan .

Let's go to this cliff on the nearby island of Saipan to learn why:

 

Saipan is less than a mile north of Tinian ...  The month before the Marines took Tinian, on June 15, 1944, 71,000 Marines landed on Saipan ...  They faced 31,000 Japanese soldiers determined not to surrender.

Japan had colonized Saipan after World War I and turned the island into a giant sugar cane plantation.  By the time of the Marine invasion, in addition to the 31,000 entrenched soldiers, some 25,000 Japanese settlers were living on Saipan, plus thousands more Okinawans, Koreans, and native islanders brutalized as slaves to cut the sugar cane.  

There were also one or two thousand Korean "comfort women" (kanji in Japanese), abducted young women from Japan 's colony of Korea to service the Japanese soldiers as sex slaves.  (See The Comfort Women: Japan 's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War, by George Hicks.)

Within a week of their landing, the Marines set up a civilian prisoner encampment that quickly attracted a couple thousand Japanese and others wanting US food and protection.  When word of this reached Emperor Hirohito - who contrary to the myth was in full charge of the war - he became alarmed that radio interviews of the well-treated prisoners broadcast to Japan would subvert his people's will to fight.

As meticulously documented by historian Herbert Bix in Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, the Emperor issued an order for all Japanese civilians on Saipan to commit suicide.  The order included the promise that, although the civilians were of low caste, their suicide would grant them a status in heaven equal to those honored soldiers who died in combat for their Emperor.

And that is why the precipice in the picture above is known as Suicide Cliff, off which over 20,000 Japanese civilians jumped to their deaths to comply with their fascist emperor's desire - mothers flinging their babies off the cliff first or in their arms as they jumped.  

Anyone reluctant or refused, such as the Okinawan or Korean slaves, were shoved off at gunpoint by the Jap soldiers.  Then the soldiers themselves proceeded to hurl themselves into the ocean to drown off a sea cliff afterwards called Banzai Cliff.  Of the 31,000 Japanese soldiers on Saipan , the Marines killed 25,000, 5,000 jumped off Banzai Cliff, and only the remaining thousand were taken prisoner.

The extent of this demented fanaticism is very hard for any civilized mind to fathom - especially when it is devoted not to anything noble but barbarian evil instead.  The vast brutalities inflicted by the Japanese on their conquered and colonized peoples of China , Korea , the Philippines , and throughout their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" was a hideously depraved horror.  

And they were willing to fight to the death to defend it.  So they had to be nuked.  The only way to put an end to the Japanese barbarian horror was unimaginably colossal destruction against which they had no defense whatever. Nuking Japan was not a matter of justice, revenge, or it getting what it deserved.  It was the only way to end the Japanese dementia.

And it worked - for the Japanese.  They stopped being barbarians and started being civilized.  They achieved more prosperity - and peace - than they ever knew, or could have achieved had they continued fighting and not been nuked.  The shock of getting nuked is responsible.

We achieved this because we were determined to achieve victory.  Victory without apologies.  Despite perennial liberal demands we do so, America and its government has never apologized for nuking Japan ..  Hopefully, America never will.

 

Oh, yes... Guinness lists Saipan as having the best, most equitable, weather in the world.  And the beaches?  Well, take a look: 

 

Your Safety & Privacy Sold For Profit, Not Security

John Tyner, a California man, became a national sensation when he recorded his encounter during an airport security pat-down. After the exchange, Tyner uploaded the video to the web and shortly after - it went viral. "We can do that out here, but if you touch my junk I am going to have you arrested," Tyner told the airport security official. The US media has had a field day, reporting the pros and cons of body scanning machines and pat-downs in the name of security. But one question they failed to ask is: who is behind the push for the body scanners?


"No Dose of Backscatter Ionizing Radiation
Has Ever Been Proven Safe."

Russia Today points out an important detail being left out of most mainstream media reports about the new body scanning devices being rolled out in airports everywhere: former Department of Homeland Security Chief, Michael Chertoff, who has been advocating this technology on any news program that will have him is personally profiting from their implementation. As a Security Consultant and Chairman of the Chertoff Group, one of his main clients is Rapiscan, a manufacturer of these devices.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security awarded contracts of US$160 million each to two manufacturers of these back-scattering devices, one which which was Rapiscan.

Beyond the issue of Chertoff's illegal advertising his product on news programs by pretending to be a public servant, there is some debate about the safety of these new Back-scatter X-Ray Body Scanning devices. One former intelligence agent and present-day security consultant, Wayne Simmons appeared on Andrew Napolitano's "Liberty Pen" and said that while the device is an excellent tool, "There is no dose of backscatter ionizing radiation that has ever been proven safe," and that he would prefer to see only passengers who are deemed to be suspicious going through these devices, with the bulk going through the metal detectors, with which we've all become accustomed.

Recently, passenger John Tyner was singled out to go through one of these machines but chose to "opt out," which meant he'd be subjected to the TSA's new irrationally invasive pat-down method. As he was barefoot and taken aside by the TSA worker he turned on his cellphone camera and said: "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested." Tyner then uploaded the video to his YouTube account and he became a instant hero as it went viral.

 Watch the following to have it explained more clearly. 

FREE Lisbon Movie Tuesday, Nov. 23‏

Miracle on 34th Street 112310