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• Senate passes bill granting Obama ‘fast-track’ TPP authority  

  The US Senate passed a controversial “fast-track” trade bill in a 62-37 vote on Friday. It is a key part of President Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia, which aims to counter China’s rising economic and diplomatic power via the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

  The bill will now head to the House of Representatives for a vote early next month, where it is expected to face a tougher showdown.

  If passed by the House, the fast-track bill will give Obama the power to negotiate trade pacts with other countries and submit them to Congress without lawmakers being able to introduce amendments to them.

• Obama Takes Unexpected Setback On Trade Agenda As Fast Track Passes Senate

  The Senate approved a bill to “fast-track” trade agreements negotiated by the president. The agreement will prevent Congress from amending or filibustering Obama’s controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. The TPP deal would have a hard time surviving without fast-track authority.

  But a key crackdown on human trafficking survived the legislative jujitsu. The White House considers the provision a deal-breaker, as it would force one of the nations involved in the TPP talks — Malaysia — out of the agreement.

• How The Media Deceive The Public About “Fast Track” And The “Trade Bills”  

  The way that “Fast Track” is described to the American public is as an alternative method for the Senate to handle “Trade Bills” (TPP & TTIP) that the President presents to the Senate for their approval; and this alternative method is said to be one in which “no amendments are permitted, and there will be a straight up-or-down vote on the bill.”

  But, in fact, the “Fast Track” method is actually to require only 50 Senators to vote “Yea” in order for the measure to be approved by the Senate, whereas the method that is described and required in (Section 2 of) the U.S. Constitution is that the President “shall have the Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”  That’s not 50 Senators; it’s 67 Senators, that the Constitution requires.

  In other words: “Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority” (which was invented by the imperial President Richard Nixon in 1974, in order to advance his goal of a dictatorial Executive, that the Presidency would become a dictatorship) lowers the Constitutionally required approval from 67 Senators down to only 50 Senators.

  This two-thirds rule is set forth in the Constitution in order to make especially difficult the passing-into-law of any treaty that the United States will have with any foreign country. The same two-thirds requirement is set forth for amending the Constitution, except that that’s a two-thirds requirement in both the House and the Senate: it can be done “by either: two-thirds (supermajority) of both the Senate and the House of Representatives …; or by a national convention assembled at the request of the legislatures of at least two-thirds (at present 34) of the states.”

  Getting two-thirds of either house of Congress to vote for a bill is rare and difficult, but it has happened 27 times, because the entire process was public, and because there was widespread support of each Amendment.

  By contrast: Obama’s proposed trade treaties are still secret.
  

• A key source clues me in on TPP code of silence

  In the US, Senators, who must vote for the treaty in order for it to pass, go into sealed rooms and look at text—excerpts from drafts, summations—and then emerge, knowing they can be arrested if they open their mouths to anyone.

  A source close to the treaty negotiations has given me the legal basis for this law of omertà:

  National Security classifications that designate levels of secrecy for government data.

  What? That old justification?

  Yes. The relevant laws and regulations are long-standing. They are enforced by the Department of Justice. Various levels of classified data are set by agencies within the Executive Branch.

  I asked this source (he has read TPP draft-sections and summaries) what the punishment would be for revealing what he knows.

  He laughed. “I’m not about to find out,” he said.

  Applying “Secret,” “Top Secret,” or other classifications to a treaty that must be voted on, in order to become law, is a unique situation.

  It’s one thing to say a federal scientist can’t publicly publish details on how to build an H-bomb. It’s quite another thing to say US Senators can’t reveal, to the American people, what they’re voting on.

  There is no Constitutional basis for such an assertion. In fact, it’s a direct violation of the Separation-of-Powers principle.

  By assigning National Security secrecy-status to the details of the TPP, the Executive Branch is arbitrarily muzzling the Congress.

  We’re witnessing a stunning farce.

• EU dropped pesticide laws due to US pressure over TTIP, documents reveal  

  EU moves to regulate hormone-damaging chemicals linked to cancer and male infertility were shelved following pressure from US trade officials over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) free trade deal, newly released documents show.

  Draft EU criteria could have banned 31 pesticides containing endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). But these were dumped amid fears of a trade backlash stoked by an aggressive US lobby push, access to information documents obtained by Pesticides Action Network (PAN) Europe show.

  On 26 June 2013, a high-level delegation from the American Chambers of Commerce (AmCham) visited EU trade officials to insist that the bloc drop its planned criteria for identifying EDCs in favour of a new impact study.

• World Trade Organization Overrules U.S. Country-of-Origin Rules for Meat Products 

  U.S. government attempts to inform consumers about the origins of the beef and pork they purchase in stores have been undermined by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

  Siding with officials from Canada and Mexico, the WTO ruled that American regulations that require the meat industry to use country of origin labels (COOL) represent a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). COOLs are intended to tell shoppers in which country the meat they buy was born, raised and slaughtered. In addition to letting consumers know if the meat was produced locally, they gave regulators a way to begin tracing the meat in case of a problem with it.

  Mexican and Canadian officials argued the labels discouraged Americans from buying meat produced in their countries and exported to the U.S., creating an unfair trade situation.

   “This is just the latest example of how multinational companies use the global trade system to attack basic protections for U.S. consumers,” Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said in a statement. “The meat industry has been trying – and failing – for years to get rid of COOL through the U.S. system, so it had to use unaccountable, unelected trade officials at the WTO to do its dirty work.”

• TPP Remains Classified after Trade Transparency Act is Blocked by Senate Republicans 

  The battle between organized labor, progressive Democrats and President Obama over the Trans Pacific Partnership continued on Thursday when U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Joe Machin filed the Trade Transparency Act, a bill requiring that the public and Congress have at least 60 days to review and debate any trade legislation before being moved to the floor for a vote.  The move was intended to highlight the issue many Americans see with continuing to categorize trade negotiations as classified, especially when it effects the personal finances of millions of workers and business owners alike.

  Senators are forced to go into a classified viewing room in order to read the full text of the document, but are not allowed to bring in key staff or take notes on what is included in the bill text.  Not only this, but as you would assume for classified documents, elected officials are unable to speak to anyone without proper security clearance about the specific details of the trade negotiations without suffering potential criminal legal ramifications. This becomes a serious issue when dealing with complicated and technical negotiations regarding the largest trade deal in American history.  It also raises serious questions about the legislative process and democracy generally when the public is unable to view the content of a bill introduced in Congress, but foreign government officials and private corporations are.

  S. 1381; the Trade Transparency Bill, was introduced as part of a unanimous consent request, a procedural move intended to limit debate and structure the amendment process depending on the complexity of the circumstances being negotiated and allowing for tailor made agreements traditionally. But even one opposing vote can derail the tactic, and that is exactly what happened when Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Arizona voted no.  In an incredible Orwellian attempt to justify his opposition to government transparency he said “…if senators are concerned about the level of transparency on trade agreements, they should support the current legislation.”, referring to TPP itself.  Sen. Hatch admitted that he doesn’t know exactly what’s in the TPP bill, but still decided to kill any effort to bring transparency to the process.

  Most Republicans support the trade bill, while a majority of Democrats oppose it.  
  
  Later that day the Senate voted 62-38 to end debate on the bill, narrowly gaining the 60 votes needed to proceed. Seen as a victory for President Obama in the march towards winning Trade Promotion Authority, the ability to fast track trade bills without the ability to amend them, he is being forced to team up with Republicans who have opposed such measures as Comprehensive Immigration Reform and appointments to the National Labor Relations Board in an effort to shore up serious opposition from within his own party. This shows that Obama is willing to do whatever it takes to push the agreement through, including alienating unions who have withheld campaign contributions to Democrats in order to re-direct those resources to defeating TPP.  

Peerless Injustice

• “Satanic” Day-Care Operator’s Conviction Tossed

  Beginning in 1991, Fran and Dan Keller, who ran a day care out of their Austin home, committed unspeakable acts against their charges — they put one in a swimming pool with a baby-eating shark; they forced the kids to watch as they dismembered an infant;  they flew the children to Mexico, where they were raped by soldiers, before flying them back to the day care in time to be picked up by their parents.

  Except, possibly, just maybe, perhaps, none of that ever happened. Incredibly, even though the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday overturned the charges against Fran Keller because of “false evidence,” the court denied her claims of actual innocence.

  The Kellers were sentenced in 1992 to 48 years in prison after three children at their day care made outlandish allegations of ritualized torture, and an emergency room physician testified that the injuries to a three-year-old accuser’s hymen were consistent with sexual abuse. The prosecution also presented “expert” witnesses — a therapist and psychologist — who testified to the prevalence of Satanic cults. (As reported in Slate, the Kellers’ appellate attorney noted how the expert psychologist, Randy Noblitt, “was featured on ABC’s Primetime, having a conversation with Satan who, Noblitt agreed, was actually a pretty nice guy, notwithstanding, of course, his role as the dark lord of evil.”)  

  The Kellers were convicted just as the “Satanic panic” — a tide of accusations of ritualized sexual abuse often coinciding with “recovered memories” — was winding down. The Kellers’ trial took place two years after the debacle of California’s McMartin Preschool trial, the touchstone flagship Satanic panic case that should have put the nail in the coffin of this most unfortunate and embarrassing period of American jurisprudence. But, unfortunately for the Kellers, word hadn’t reached Travis County prosecutors in time.

  The Kellers appealed, and Fran was released on bond in 2013, at age 63. By that time, Michael Mouw, the physician who testified to the evidence of sexual abuse, had recanted, saying he was mistaken. And it’s because of that that the Texas CCA finally tossed Fran’s conviction. Not because of the complete lack of evidence of baby-eating sharks.

  Judge Cheryl Johnson was apparently baffled by her colleagues’ reasoning — she wrote in a concurring opinion that the court should go ahead and find Keller innocent.

  “This was a witch hunt from the beginning,” she wrote, before rattling off the list of the three-year-old accuser’s stories: “…She asserted that [Keller] had come to her house and had cut her dog’s vagina with a chainsaw until it bled, that she was taken to a cemetery, where, after a person dressed like a policeman threw a person in a hole, Daniel Keller shot the person who had been thrown into the hole and cut up the body with a chainsaw while all the children helped…She also alleged that [Keller] served blood-laced Kool-Aid, forced the children to have videotaped sex with adults and other children, sometimes wore white robes and lit candles before hurting the children.” 
  

VacciNation Resistance

• Harvard Trained Immunologist Demolishes California Legislation That Terminates Vaccine Exemptions 

  The following open letter written by a PhD Immunologist completely demolishes the current California legislative initiative to remove all vaccine exemptions. That such a draconian and cynical state statute is under consideration in the ‘Golden State’ is as shocking as it is predictable. After all, the legislation was mysteriously written and submitted shortly after the manufactured-in-Disneyland measles ‘outbreak’.

  The indisputable science that is employed by Tetyana Obukhanych, PhD ought to be read by every California legislator who is entertaining an affirmative vote for SB277. Dr. Obukhanych skillfully deconstructs the many false and fabricated arguments that are advanced by Big Pharma and the U.S Federal Government as they attempt to implement a nationwide Super-Vaccination agenda.

  When the California Senate refuses to consider authoritative scientific evidence which categorically proves the dangerous vaccine side effects on the schoolchildren, something is very wrong. Such conduct by the Senate constitutes a criminal conspiracy (as in a real conspiracy to inflict harm) which endangers the lives and welfare of children. Their official behavior must therefore be acknowledged for what it is — CRIMINAL — and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  When the California Senate refuses to consider authoritative scientific evidence which categorically proves the dangerous vaccine side effects on the schoolchildren, something is very wrong. Such conduct by the Senate constitutes criminal action that endangers the lives and welfare of children. Their official behavior must be acknowledged for what it is — CRIMINAL — and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  State of the Nation

  An Open Letter to Legislators Currently Considering Vaccine Legislation from Tetyana Obukhanych, PhD in Immunology

  Re: VACCINE LEGISLATION

  Dear Legislator:

  My name is Tetyana Obukhanych. I hold a PhD in Immunology. I am writing this letter in the hope that it will correct several common misperceptions about vaccines in order to help you formulate a fair and balanced understanding that is supported by accepted vaccine theory and new scientific findings. [READ MORE]
  

• A Randomized, Controlled Trial of an Aerosolized Vaccine against Measles   

  Background

  Aerosolized vaccine can be used as a needle-free method of immunization against measles, a disease that remains a major cause of illness and death. Data on the immunogenicity of aerosolized vaccine against measles in children are inconsistent.

  Methods

  We conducted an open-label noninferiority trial involving children 9.0 to 11.9 months of age in India who were eligible to receive a first dose of measles vaccine. Children were randomly assigned to receive a single dose of vaccine by means of either aerosol inhalation or a subcutaneous injection. The primary end points were seropositivity for antibodies against measles and adverse events 91 days after vaccination. The noninferiority margin was 5 percentage points.

  Results

  A total of 1001 children were assigned to receive aerosolized vaccine, and 1003 children were assigned to receive subcutaneous vaccine; 1956 of all the children (97.6%) were followed to day 91, but outcome data were missing for 331 children because of thawed specimens. In the per-protocol population, data on 1560 of 2004 children (77.8%) could be evaluated. At day 91, a total of 662 of 775 children (85.4%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 82.5 to 88.0) in the aerosol group, as compared with 743 of 785 children (94.6%; 95% CI, 92.7 to 96.1) in the subcutaneous group, were seropositive, a difference of −9.2 percentage points (95% CI, −12.2 to −6.3). Findings were similar in the full-analysis set (673 of 788 children in the aerosol group [85.4%] and 754 of 796 children in the subcutaneous group [94.7%] were seropositive at day 91, a difference of −9.3 percentage points [95% CI, −12.3 to −6.4]) and after multiple imputation of missing results. No serious adverse events were attributable to measles vaccination. Adverse-event profiles were similar in the two groups.

  Conclusions

  Aerosolized vaccine against measles was immunogenic, but, at the prespecified margin, the aerosolized vaccine was inferior to the subcutaneous vaccine with respect to the rate of seropositivity. (Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Measles Aerosol Vaccine Project Clinical Trials Registry–India number, CTRI/2009/091/000673.)
  

• Italian court rules mercury and aluminum in vaccines cause autism: US media continues total blackout of medical truth  

  It has been more than five months since an Italian court in Milan awarded compensation to the family of a young boy who developed autism from a six-in-one hexavalent vaccine manufactured by corrupt British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and the U.S. media is still nowhere to be found in reporting on this breakthrough ruling.

  On September 24, 2014, Italy’s version of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program agreed that GSK’s “INFANRIX Hexa” vaccine for polio, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, pertussis and haemophilus influenza type B induced permanent autism and brain damage in the previously healthy child, whose name has been kept private for safety.

  The vaccine, which contains multiple antigens, thimerosal (mercury), multiple forms of aluminum, formaldehyde, recombinant (genetically modified) viral components and various chemical preservatives,^[PDF] demonstrably caused the young boy to regress into autism shortly after he received all three doses of the vaccine, prompting his family to petition the case before Italy’s Ministry of Health.

  When the Ministry rejected it, the family proceeded to file a lawsuit, which is no longer an option in the U.S. thanks to a Supreme Court ruling that exempts drug companies from legal liability when their products harm, permanently disfigure or kill people.

  After listening to expert medical testimony, the Italian court remarkably concluded that the boy suffered permanent harm as a result of the vaccine, and particularly its neurotoxic mercury and aluminum components.

  Confidential GSK report reveals that INFANRIX Hexa causes brain damage, anal leakage, autism and more 

  Also presented as evidence was a 1,271-page confidential GSK report revealing that the drug giant knew full well from human clinical trials that INFANRIX Hexa causes autism, but the company chose to release the vaccine anyway. At least five known cases of autism arising from the jab are listed in the report on page 626, in fact: [READ MORE]
  

• Wave of medical police state refugees to flee California if SB 277 signed into law… Gov. Brown to declare war on children… no child safe  California will be the origin of America’s first wave of medical police state refugees fleeing medical tyranny if Gov. Jerry Brown signs SB 277 into law.
  SB 277 is California’s pharma-funded vaccine assault on all parents and children. It would eliminate all personal belief exemptions and force nearly all children in California to be forcibly injected with vaccines that are knowingly manufactured with neurotoxic substances such as mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde and MSG.
  If he signs the law, Gov. Brown will be declaring medical genocide against children whose genetic makeup causes them to have extremely heightened risks to vaccine injury. No child will be safe in California, and the state will cement its position as the first real-life medical police state in America, where risks of a medical civil war skyrocket.

Self Help

• Silver turns bacteria into deadly zombies  

  The zombie apocalypse may be more than just a horror story for some bacteria. New research shows that when exposed to a microbe-slaying silver solution, the germs can “go zombie,” wiping out their living compatriots even after death. The results may explain silver’s long-lasting antibacterial power and could improve the performance of medical products that keep us safe from harmful pathogens.

  The use of silver in medicine dates back thousands of years, and scientists have long known that the metal is a potent antibacterial agent. Silver ions perform their deadly work by punching holes in bacterial membranes and wreaking havoc once inside. They bind to essential cell components like DNA, preventing the bacteria from performing even their most basic functions.

  But silver’s “zombie effect” has gone unrecognized—until now. To uncover this grisly mechanism, scientists first killed a sample of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa using a solution of silver nitrate. Then, they carefully separated the dead bacteria from the silver solution. When they exposed living bacteria to the dead, they witnessed a microscopic massacre: Up to 99.99% of the living bacteria met their doom.

  Using electron microscopy, the researchers imaged the dead bacteria and discovered what caused them to go on their killing spree. Reservoirs of silver nanoparticles had built up in their corpses, indicating that the dead bacteria act like sponges, soaking up silver as they die. The stored silver can leach out to the environment, “especially if the environment contains other sponges for that silver,” says chemist David Avnir of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the senior author of the new study. “In our case, the other sponge is a living bacterium.”

• Suppressing Science For Monsanto? Groups Demand Investigation of USDA 

  More than 25 farmworker, environmental, and food safety organizations sent an open letter on Tuesday to the U.S. Department of Agriculture demanding that the agency investigate reports that its scientists are facing retaliation and suppression of their research on controversial neonicotinoid insecticides that pose a danger to pollinator and human health.

  “It is imperative that the USDA maintains scientific integrity and does not allow for harassment, censorship or suppression of findings that counter the interests of industry,” states the letter, whose signatories include Farmworker Justice, Food & Water Watch, and Center for Biological Diversity.  

  The letter follows a petition filed in March by the advocacy organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) charging that “USDA scientists whose work carries with it policy implications that negatively reflect upon USDA corporate stakeholder interest s routinely suffer retaliation and harassment.”

Chemical Warfare

• Monsanto Knew of Glyphosate (Roundup)-Cancer Link 35 Years Ago

  According to evidence unearthed from the archives of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) in the United States, it has been established that Monsanto was fully aware of the potential of glyphosate to cause cancer in mammals as long ago as 1981.

  Recently the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) issued a statement in which glyphosate (the main component of Roundup herbicide) was classified as “probably carcinogenic” to humans and as “sufficiently demonstrated” for genotoxicity in animals (1). This announcement of a change to toxicity class 2A was given vast coverage in the global media, causing Monsanto to move immediately into damage limitation mode. The corporation demanded the retraction of the report, although it has not yet been published! Predictably, there was more fury from the industry-led Glyphosate Task Force (2). This Task Force also sponsored a “rebuttal” review article (3) from a team of writers with strong links with the biotechnology industry; but because of the clear bias demonstrated in this paper (which suggests that glyphosate has no carcinogenic potential in humans) it is best ignored until it has been carefully scrutinized by independent researchers (4).

• Former Pro-GMO Scientist Reveals Secrets of Years of Research 

  Video – A message from Thierry Vrain, former pro-GMO scientist and researcher:

  “While the debate on the safety of GMOs remains important, it should not distract from remediating the serious health risks of glyphosate sprayed on both RoundUp Ready and non-engineered crops. After viewing this presentation many GMO videos may appear, but note that most avoid mentioning the herbicide, glyphosate, when more than 90% of all GMO crops in North America are sprayed with this herbicide that should have remained a pipe and boiler cleaner.”

  ~~ Help Waking Times to raise the vibration by sharing this article with friends and family…

• Thousands of Farmers in India Rise up Against Monsanto 

  — Rising up against biotech giant known for causing suicides 

  Some have said that India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, arrived at the nation’s pro-GMO position with the help of generous campaign funding from a GMO lobby, but that hasn’t stopped thousands of Indian farmers from demonstrating against Monsanto and their biotech cronies in a massive grassroots movement that shuns anti-farmer practices and genetically modified crop farming.

  Shri Rakesh Tikait, National Spokesperson for the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) explains:

  “The government is exhibiting its pro-industry stance by pushing for unneeded, unwanted and unsafe GMOs in our farming. We want all open air field trials of GM crops stopped immediately in the country since such open air trials pose not only a risk of contamination but also risk of trade rejection. Further, any moves towards trade liberalization in agriculture whether through the WTO route or through free trade agreements are unacceptable to us.”

  The farmers recently organized and occupied the streets in a Kisan Maha Panchayat (farmer meeting) in Delhi, India, in protest at the Modi government’s anti-farmer policies.

  Among the demonstrators were hundreds of women recently, as well, who have resolved to stay put on Parliament Street in India’s capital until the government engages them in a dialogue to resolve various burning issues, among them:

  • GMOs
  • Lack of fair and remunerative prices for farm produce
  • Demand for a farm income commission
  • Removing agriculture from free trade agreements including WTO
  • Adequate disaster relief for farmers
  • And more important topics that affect farmers in a country known for high suicide rates and massive GM crop failures.

  Indian farmers are among some of the hardest hit by biotech chicanery. They join the ranks of millions of others throughout the world, from Mexico to Russia that don’t want GM crops either.

• Is the pill shrinking parts of women’s brains? New report suggests yes    Adding to recent controversies surrounding various forms of birth control, a new study out of UCLA suggests that the birth control pill may thin areas in a woman’s brain and affect their function.
  Published in April in the journal “Human Brain Mapping,” the study measured cortical thickness in the brains of 90 women – 44 of whom were using oral contraceptives, and 46 of whom were naturally cycling.

  Only women using the combination form of oral contraceptives were used in the study – it did not measure women using progesterone-only or other forms of oral contraceptives. The research found that oral contraceptive use was significantly associated with a thinning in two areas of the brain: the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex.

  The lateral orbitofrontal cortex is involved in emotion regulation and response to rewards, while the posterior cigulate cortex regulates inward-directed thought, such as recalling personal memories or planning for the future.

  Although the study only measured brain structure, the findings suggest that there could be possible effects on behavior.  

• Exposed: The Full Story Behind Why Marijuana Is Illegal & Classified As A Schedule 1 Drug   

  Pharmaceutical Industry Classifies Cannabis As A Schedule 1 Drug
  

  The Comprehensive act required the pharmaceutical industry to maintain physical security and strict record keeping for certain types of drugs. It classified drugs into five different schedules (Schedule I being the hardest drugs) based on their potential for abuse (which is undefined in the act), current accepted medical use, and accepted safety under medical supervision. Marijuana was classified as a Schedule I drug by the pharmaceutical industry, claiming the drug had no proven medical benefits, and is an addictive and dangerous drug.

  Now, let’s ask ourselves something. Why would the pharmaceutical industry, the same companies who in the early 1900’s produced hemp medicine for decades, make a claim like that? As we all know, you cannot patent a plant or the naturally occurring compounds in the plant. For this reason, major pharmaceutical companies realized there was no money to be made, and were not interested in producing the plant. As a matter of fact, if it were legalized it would actually be detrimental to their business, similar to the situation facing the paper and fabric industries.

  The Facts Are Right In Front Of Us

  When you consider all of these facts, it is apparent why the ‘drug’ was classified like it was and made illegal. Pharmaceuticals is a business, and legalizing marijuana would mean losing hundreds of billions of dollars to a single, naturally occurring plant that anyone could grow in their backyard. The same goes for the hundreds of businesses in the paper and fabric industries that would lose profits to hemp substitutes. It is all about money and keeping the system chugging. That is why stories of an 8-month old child being cured of brain cancer from cannabis oil will never make headline news.

  The only thing we can do is work together as a community to spread these stories ourselves. In an age where we are more connected than ever before, it is up to us to control the national discussion, and take the power out of the hands of large news corporations. Word of mouth is the most powerful tool we possess to fight this uphill battle against marijuana prohibition. Now is the time to take a stance and voice your opinion. Spread the word and #StayMedicated.

Professional Help

• Lawyer’s signs raise questions about DUI checkpoints

  A criminal defense attorney is gaining national attention after his message about DUI checkpoints went viral.

  Warren Redlich is a criminal defense attorney based in Boca Raton, Florida. In 2013, he published a book called “Fair DUI” and launched a web site of the same name (fairdui.org).

  Redlich’s message is that when drivers approach a DUI checkpoint, they are not required to roll down their windows and talk to police. He says by doing so, drivers open themselves up to problems.

  Redlich is not the first with this kind of message. But, he is getting a lot of attention after a video he posted on New Year’s Day received 2.3 million views. “It wasn’t what any of us expected,” Redlich told us.

  Redlich says the problem lies in allowing an ordinary person the ability to assert his or her right to remain silent without actually speaking. To fix this problem, Redlich has created downloadable signs that can be printed out and put in the car. The signs are even customized for 10 states.

• Nurse Reveals Routine Vaccine-Induced Injury from Current Schedule at Hospitals

  It is clear that certain topics are off limits and conversation is controlled by pharmaceutical interests. The term is called astroturfing and it can be witnessed in full force at any state capital currently voting to take away medical freedom and vaccine exemptions. In a recent interview with Sharyl Attkisson, Dr. Joseph Mercola asked the question, “What other currently health related issues might be happening right now that you believe investigative journalists and the media are not reporting on. Or could do a better job if they weren’t being suppressed by the people who authorize the release of that information? Attkinson, a five-time Emmy Award winning investigative journalist and author of the book, “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.”, gave the following reply:
  “If people were simply covering in terms of news value, facts, and fairness we’d be giving way more coverage to vaccine side effects, autism, ADD, and all the immune disorders that have emerged in the past and been made untouchable by this environment that I’ve discussed with you (referring to astroturfing.)
  In a recent interview, Michelle Rowton of Nurses Against Mandatory Vaccines was asked her thoughts on the current medical community vaccinating children too early with too many vaccines, she replied:
  “I think what a lot of people don’t realize in a closed space like NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) is that they’ve decided that we need to vaccinate these babies on-time. Two months after they’re born…bam, there it goes. This baby could be four months early and still supposed to be inside their mother, weighting three or four pounds and getting the same amount of vaccines as a 200 pound man.”
  Rowton then went further to break bombshell news by saying:
  “I’ve sat in a room with our on-call staff of physicians and practitioners (when they say) “Oh wow, this is so embarrassing this 25 weeker never actually required a breathing tube and going on the vent after he was born, he was so strong. But we gave him his two month vaccinations and he got intubated last night ha ha, oops how embarrassing. The step-down units are calling the NICU’s and saying “hey we’re going to go ahead and give these four babies their two month shots today, make sure you have beds ready because we all know they’re going to have increased breathing difficulties, feeding and digestion difficulties, apnea, and bradycardia. This is what goes on.
  This week sees more committees voting on the removal of exemptions. The fairy tales painted by pro-vaccine doctors and nurses in committee testimony drifts further from reality as people at every level of society refuse to stop warning the public.

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Real Confidence

• Do Not Fear the Government:

  Do not fear the government. The main lesson(s) I have learned from the Bundy Ranch saga, so far, are that when we let go of fear, we win, and then the government actually fears us as it was meant to; and when we give in to fear, we lose. Over the years I’ve been increasingly involved in activism and “politics” (facing the government, not playing the games), I’ve of course seen many instances of losing thanks to fear, but also more and more instances of the people acting out of bravery, and winning, especially on the local level. This has made me very proud of my fellow Nevada-Americans. Numerous times during this ordeal, I actually *was* (and am) proud to be an American, and sang that song to myself with true heartfelt identification, and not just shallow patriotism due to being born here and raised on spoon-fed lyrical nationalism.

  Fear has led us to draconian laws that so many accept either because the federal government convinces us they’re necessary to keep us safe, or just because they wield power they convinced us they have, and we fear the consequences of not obeying the rules they set using their supposed powers. These powers and abuse of them is exactly what America was created to stand against. This is not some “old fashioned” belief, this is why we are supposed to be proud to be Americans. If this has been forgotten, why be proud?

• Why the Government is so Afraid of the Self-Reliant 

  We have to ask ourselves, why does the government hate, nay fear, the self-reliant? On the surface it doesn’t make sense. It’s outrageous and has no practical value. Every person who is self-reliant is one less person the government has to provide for; and when disaster strikes, it takes some weight off of their disaster relief efforts.

  But once you dig deeper, the reasons become abundantly clear. The short answer is that our government and many like it, is parasitic in nature. Some would argue that we don’t need half the services they provide, and even the ones we do need, are provided with gross inefficiency. Their system is designed to extract as much labor and capital from the population that it can so that they may spread the benefits to their cronies and dependents. It’s that simple. They don’t want you to be independent, because that’s one less person they can leach off of.

The Surveillance Party

• USA Freedom Act fails as senators reject bill to scrap NSA bulk collection
  

  For the second time in less than a year, US senators rejected a bill to abolish the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of American phone records.

  By a vote of 57-42, the USA Freedom Act failed on Friday to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to advance in the Senate after hours of procedural maneuvering lasted into the small hours Saturday morning.

  The result left the Senate due to reconvene on May 31, just hours before a wellspring of broad NSA and FBI domestic spying powers will expire at midnight.

  Architects of the USA Freedom Act had hoped that the expiration at the end of May of the Patriot Act authorities, known as Section 215, provided them sufficient leverage to undo the defeat of 2014 and push their bill over the line.

  The bill was a compromise to limit the scope of government surveillance. It traded the end of NSA bulk surveillance for the retention through 2019 of Section 215, which permits the collection of “business records” outside normal warrant and subpoena channels – as well as a massive amount of US communications metadata, according to a justice department report.

• NSA winds down once-secret phone-records collection program

  The National Security Agency has begun winding down its collection and storage of American phone records after the Senate failed to agree on a path forward to change or extend the once-secret program ahead of its expiration at the end of the month.

  Barring an 11th hour compromise when the Senate returns to session May 31, a much-debated provision of the Patriot Act — and some other lesser known surveillance tools — will sunset at midnight that day. The change also would have a major impact on the FBI, which uses the Patriot Act and the other provisions to gather records in investigations of suspected spies and terrorists.

  In a chaotic scene during the wee hours of Saturday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill known as the USA Freedom Act, which would have ended the NSA’s bulk collection but preserved its ability to search the records held by the phone companies on a case-by-case basis. The bill was backed by President Barack Obama, House Republicans and the nation’s top law enforcement and intelligence officials.

  It fell just three votes short of the 60 needed for passage. All the “no” votes but one were cast by Republicans, some of whom said they thought the USA Freedom Act didn’t go far enough to help the NSA maintain its capabilities.

  If Senate Republican leaders were counting on extending current law and continuing the negotiations, they miscalculated. Democrats and libertarian-minded Republicans refused to go along. A bill to grant a two-month extension of the law failed, and senators objected to each attempt by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky offer up a short term extension.

  The failure to act means the NSA will immediately begin curtailing its searches of domestic phone records for connections to international terrorists. The Justice Department said in a statement that it will take time to taper off the collection process from the phone companies. That process began Friday, said an administration official who would not be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

  While the phone records program has never been credited with thwarting a terrorist plot, the Senate failure also imperils other tools that the FBI has been using to hunt for suspected spies and terrorists.

• Why NSA surveillance is worse than you’ve ever imagined  

  Given the vast amount of revelations about NSA abuses, it is somewhat surprising that just slightly more than a majority of Americans seem concerned about government surveillance. Which leads to the question of why? Is there any kind of revelation that might push the poll numbers heavily against the NSA’s spying programs? Has security fully trumped privacy as far as the American public is concerned? Or is there some program that would spark genuine public outrage?

  Few people, for example, are aware that a NSA program known as TREASUREMAP is being developed to continuously map every Internet connection — cellphones, laptops, tablets — of everyone on the planet, including Americans.

  “Map the entire Internet,” says the top secret NSA slide. “Any device, anywhere, all the time.” It adds that the program will allow “Computer Attack/Exploit Planning” as well as “Network Reconnaissance.”

  One reason for the public’s lukewarm concern is what might be called NSA fatigue. There is now a sort of acceptance of highly intrusive surveillance as the new normal, the result of a bombardment of news stories on the topic.

  I asked Snowden about this. “It does become the problem of one death is a tragedy and a million is a statistic,” he replied, “where today we have the violation of one person’s rights is a tragedy and the violation of a million is a statistic. The NSA is violating the rights of every American citizen every day on a comprehensive and ongoing basis. And that can numb us. That can leave us feeling disempowered, disenfranchised.”

• Bigger than Heartbleed, ‘Venom’ security vulnerability threatens most datacenters

  Most datacenters nowadays condense customers — including major technology companies and smaller firms — into virtualized machines, or multiple operating systems on one single server. Those virtualized systems are designed to share resources but remain as separate entities in the host hypervisor, which powers the virtual machines. A hacker can exploit this newly-discovered bug, known as “Venom” — an acronym for “Virtualized Environment Neglected Operations Manipulation” — to gain access to the entire hypervisor, as well as every network-connected device in that datacenter.

Digital Nullnerability

• Google’s ‘phantom’ algorithm update hits websites 

  “mobilegeddon” update last month, which was designed to favor mobile-friendly sites in search results, had no impact on HubPages. But a secretive algorithm tweak soon after was disastrous.

  HubPages, a collection of more than 870,000 miniblogs covering everything from the “History of advertising” to “How to identify venomous house spiders,” saw its Google search traffic plunge 22 percent on May 3 from the prior week. Of the company’s 100 top pages, 68 lost visitors over that stretch.

  Unlike some previous updates that hurt HubPages’ lower-performing sites, this one was indiscriminate, said Paul Edmondson, founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based company. Furthermore, Google refuses to provide any details.

  “It was just a giant whack across the board,” said Edmondson, whose 10-year-old company employs professional editors to work with its vast network of independent writers. “Imagine how hard it is to run a business when you see 22 percent of your traffic evaporate overnight.” (Tweet This)

• EFF Withdraws Support For USA Freedom Act After Last Week’s Court Ruling   There has been some concern all along that the new USA Freedom Act, isn’t necessarily a good deal — but for the most part folks in the civil liberties world tended to agree with the general view well presented by Access, that the USA Freedom Act is “better than nothing, but less than we deserve.” That is, it is reform in the right direction, if very limited. Yes, there were some who disagreed, leading to a bit of a split among individuals and groups who are normally together on issues like this. Last week’s big ruling about NSA surveillance under Section 215 throws a wrench in just about everything, however.

  It was a huge win, but it immediately raised a bunch of questions. Currently on the table (and requiring some sort of vote before June 1st — or Section 215 disappears…) are two main proposals. The USA Freedom Act, which renews Section 215, but somewhat limits the ability of the NSA to use that authority for bulk collection, and Mitch McConnell’s bill that just re-authorizes Section 215 straight up, through 2020. Before the ruling last week, McConnell’s plan seemed absolutely ridiculous. But revisit it under last week’s ruling. One could make the argument that if Congress just took up McConnell on his offer, and renewed 215… it would still lead to the end of the bulk data collection, because the Second Circuit has now said that Section 215 doesn’t authorize such a program. This, of course, would be subject to an appeal and a big fight and an eventual Supreme Court decision, so there’s some risk involved and it might not end up where things are now. But, suddenly, one could argue that McConnell’s bill actually would cut off the program that people are so focused on killing off (leaving aside the other surveillance programs).

  And, given that fact, the USA Freedom Act seems like even less of a good deal, because it actually lays out more specifically ways in which the NSA can collect data, if probably not quite everyone’s data. So, under that ruling again, it’s arguable that the current USA Freedom Act would lead to greater NSA surveillance than even renewing Section 215! That’s kind of mixed up and crazy.

Secure Private Alternative To Skype: Tox
 

• • Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars

  • The people know that they have created this farce and financed it with their own taxes (consent), but they would rather knuckle under than be the hypocrite.

    Factor VI – Cattle
    Those who will not use their brains are no better off than those who have no brains, and so this mindless school of jelly-fish, father, mother, son, and daughter, become useful beasts of burden or trainers of the same.
    
    

  • Mr. Rothschild’s Energy Discovery
    What Mr. Rothschild [2] had discovered was the basic principle of power, influence, and control over people as applied to economics. That principle is “when you assume the appearance of power, people soon give it to you.”

The Law of War

• General Orders No. 100 : The Lieber Code

  INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIELD

Where Not Throwing Oppression Off, You Live Either Under an Occupation or by Conquest.

The Choice and Responsibility are Yours
United We Strike

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