SOTU

"Oh Yeah, 100 Percent" - Trump Tells Republican He'll Release The Memo

by Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/31/2018 - 00:36

 

 After what even the mainstream-est of mainstream media admitted under duress was a solid SOTU address...

Nearly half of those who watched President Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday reacted "very" positively to the speech, according to a snap CNN/SSRS poll.
According to that survey, the results of which were announced on-air on CNN, 48 percent of respondents said they had a "very positive" reaction to the speech — Trump's first since taking office. Only 22 percent said they had a "somewhat positive" reaction to the speech, while 29 percent reacted negatively.
Sixty-two percent of respondents said that the policies outlined by the president on Tuesday would move the country in the right direction, according to the CNN/SSRS poll. By comparison, 35 percent said they would move it in the wrong direction.

Which was followed by the exact opposite from The Democratic Party's official response...








It appears President Trump has managed to set another narrative as he left the House Chamber.





As Trump shook hands up the aisle after his SOTU address, Rep. Jeff Duncan called out to Trump, asking him "Let's release the memo," referring to the House Intelligence Committee’s FISA memo.
As the following clip shows, Trump responded instantly: "Oh yeah, don’t worry, 100%.

So that seems pretty clear.

As The Hill notes, Republican members of the committee said on Tuesday that they are working on a transcript of the closed-door vote and will release it when its finished.

To Your Health !

An ER visit, a $12,000 bill — and a health insurer that wouldn’t pay

A new insurance policy expects patients to diagnose themselves.

By Sarah Kliffsarah@vox.com Jan 29, 2018, 8:00am EST 

 

Brittany Cloyd was doubled over in pain when she arrived at Frankfort Regional Medical Center’s emergency room on July 21, 2017. 

“They got me a wheelchair and wheeled me back to a room immediately,” said Cloyd, 27, who lives in Kentucky. 

Cloyd came in after a night of worsening fever and a increasing pain on the right side of her stomach. She called her mother, a former nurse, who thought it sounded like appendicitis and told Cloyd to go to the hospital immediately.

The doctors in the emergency room did multiple tests including a CT scan and ultrasound. They determined that Cloyd had ovarian cysts, not appendicitis. They gave her pain medications that helped her feel better, and an order to follow up with a gynecologist.

A few weeks later, Cloyd received something else: a $12,596 hospital bill her insurance denied — leaving her on the hook for all of it. 

“We have a mortgage, we have bills, we have student loans,” says Cloyd, who works for the Kentucky government and has a 7-year-old daughter. “There is absolutely no way I could pay a $12,000 bill. I don’t even have $1,000 sitting around.”

Cloyd has her health insurance coverage through her husband’s job. His company uses Anthem, one of the country’s largest health insurance plans. In recent years, Anthem has begun denying coverage for emergency room visits that it deems “inappropriate” because they aren’t, in the insurance plan’s view, true emergencies. 

The problem: These denials are made after patients visit the ER, sometimes based on the diagnosis after seeing a doctor, not on the symptoms that sent them, like in Cloyd’s case.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Hospitals keep ER fees secret. Share your bill here to help change that.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 

The policy has so far rolled out in four states: Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, and Kentucky.

“We cannot approve benefits for your recent visit to the emergency room (ER) for pelvic pain,” the letter that Cloyd received from Anthem stated, which she shared with Vox. “Emergency room services can be approved ... when a health problem is recent and severe enough that it needs immediate care.”

The Anthem letter goes on to list “stroke, heart attack, and severe bleeding” as examples of medical conditions for which ER use would be acceptable.

Anthem’s new policy mirrors similar recent developments in state Medicaid programs, which increasingly ask enrollees to pay a higher price for emergency room trips that the state determines to be non-urgent.

Indiana implemented this type of policy in 2015, and the Trump administration recently approved a request from Kentucky to do the same. Beginning in July, Kentucky will charge Medicaid enrollees $20 for their first “inappropriate” emergency room visit, $50 for their second, and $75 for their third. 

All of these policies suggest a new and controversial strategy for reining in health care costs: asking patients to play a larger role in assessing their own medical condition — or pay a steep price. 

Vox looked into Anthem’s practice of denying emergency room visits as part of a year-long project on emergency room billing. The series has previously explored rising emergency room prices. It relies on a database of readers’ own emergency room bills. If you have one to share, you can submit it here.

Anthem initially agreed to an interview on its new policy and Cloyd’s case, but a spokesperson canceled the day before it was scheduled to take place. Instead, the insurer provided a statement and declined to answer more specific follow-up questions.

“Anthem’s goal is to ensure access to high-quality, affordable health care, and one of the ways to help achieve that goal is to encourage consumers to receive care in the most appropriate setting,” the insurer said in its statement.

Emergency room doctors and patients argue that these new policies can often deprive patients of needed care and deter them from using emergency services in the future. They worry that other insurance plans may follow the lead of Anthem, a giant in the industry with more than 40 million members. 

Members of Congress and state regulators are pressing Anthem for additional information about how the policy works and which type of visits no longer receive coverage.

Police Station Update: An Historical Perspective

Police Station Update

Project on HOLD ! 

Looks like combining the police station project with the elementary school project was a bad idea. In my opinion, tying these two projects together increased the costs for the Police Station...because the elementary school project wanted to divert the costs for drainage issues for both projects onto the Police Station project...as well as increased bid prices.[Julie Farrell]

Historical Perspective:
August 31, 2016

Historical Look Of Templeton Center

What is the criteria for determining "the historical character" of Templeton Center?

In a Gardner News article (8/30/16) regarding the construction of the police station in Templeton Center, Chief Bennett stated:

"Bennett said the exterior design will closely resemble an Old New England church or school building. He said he chose this design intentionally so it would fit within the historical look of other nearby buildings situated around Templeton common"

The State Of The Union Is... The Inevitable Conclusion Of Years Of Ignorance, Greed, & Neglect

by Tyler Durden

Tue, 01/30/2018 - 05:00

 

 

 

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
Tonight we have the State of the Union. Donald Trump will be gloating from ear to ear, but he’ll be subdued – by his standards. Expect perhaps $1 or even $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending to be announced, plus an immigration plan that gives Democrats much of what they want in exchange for some of the things Trump wants, as well as more on trade surpluses and deficits. The Democrats will attempt to turn it into a circus of sorts by bringing guests, and they will fail.

What America needs right now is dialogue, but it’s only moving further away from it. Anything that’s wrong with anything or anyone gets blamed on Trump. By half the population. That’s nice and easy and convenient, but it doesn’t lead anywhere.

This pic, even though it features a very dumb question, says a lot about where the country stands, and it’s not standing pretty. Everybody’s just busy confirming their own opinions 24/7, egged on by networks, newspapers and social media. It’s like Moses split the nation.


 

 

Watched the Trump speech in Davos last week.
He made all the points you would expect him to. No scandals, nothing anyone could blame him for. In fact, it’s true that the US economy is doing well, in Trump terms. They’re not my terms, because they laud stock markets that quit being actual markets the moment the Fed and it global brethren killed off price discovery. But in Trump terms a record S&P 500 is all you need to know, alongside low unemployment numbers, even if the latter have everything to do with underpaid shit jobs robbed of all benefits American workers once fought so hard for.

In Trump’s view, that’s a good thing. In mine, it’s a recipe for mayhem. I was watching CNN in the build-up to the speech, and Trump’s denial of the NYT report that he had intended to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller was completely ignored. Like he never said it. At CNN, anonymous sources have -way- more credibility than the president. That’s a bit of a problem.

After the speech, all sorts of people were interviewed, and Joe Stiglitz of Nobel Memorial fame was one of them. He couldn’t muster anything better than that Trump is a bigot, a misogynist and a racist. That’s a terribly poor reaction to a speech like the one we saw and heard -which included not one word that would make any sane person think of these ‘topics’-, certainly from an economist.


*  *  *

The 1-year-old Donald Trump presidency has brought us a lot of new things, but none more significant than that Trump has been under investigation since day 1 (and even before that). This sets a dangerous precedent that will resound through US politics for a very long time to come, not least of all because today, one year into the presidency, none of the investigations has resulted in anything tangible, while they continue without a finish line in sight.

The problem with that is that if you can do it with one president, someone will do it with the next one and the next one after that as well. Which does great damage not to Trump, but to the entire US political system, and the Office of the President of the United States in particular. If the office cannot command sufficient respect on Capitol Hill to limit any such investigation to an absolute minimum, in deference to what it represents, why would anyone else, domestically or abroad, show such respect?

Obviously, some people may claim that the situation is unique, simply because it concerns Trump, but that argument doesn’t fly very far, because he was elected president, the culmination of a process that, given the powers endowed upon the office, should be close to sacred in the country. And if the very people (s)he must most closely work with, in the Senate and the House, are willing to subject a newly elected president to endless investigations without producing any results for a whole year, where and what are the limits?

It is at present of course all based on opaque accusations of the Trump campaign working with Russian intelligence to swing America’s election process in favor of the president. But to date, four different committees on Capitol Hill, plus Special Counsel Robert Mueller, have made nothing public that proves any such ‘collusion’. And Mueller’s investigation is not only unlimited in time, it’s also unlimited, in practical terms, in scope: whatever is deemed even possibly, perhaps, linked to collusion with Russia, goes.

#ReleasetheMemo

EXCLUSIVE: FBI Used Agents As Pawns To Insulate Hillary, Aides & Clinton Foundation From Prosecutions

Posted on September 25, 2016 by Investigative Bureau

In mid-summer a wave of panic and despair began to wash over key rank-and-file FBI agents who were doggedly working the Hillary Clinton investigations. Agents reluctantly pondered a potential, brutal reality that was creeping into the fabric of the high-profile case. What if their collective work wasn’t meant to bring this case to a grand jury for indictments and justice? What if they themselves, FBI agents sworn to uphold the law, were being used as intelligence pawns by superiors and higher powers to actually shield Clinton and her inner circle from ever seeing a pair of handcuffs and a jail cell?

“I got a pit in my stomach,” a FBI insider said. “That empty, sinking feeling you get in your gut. I thought we may have unknowingly been parties to this entire mess. It’s a blow to the ego. We’re supposed to see these things coming.”


Agents, along with the country, had just absorbed the troubling optics of Attorney General Loretta Lynch meeting privately with the husband of the investigation’s primary target on a jet tarmac just days earlier. And then hours after that debacle, the FBI announced Hillary would venture to its headquarters, in a matter of hours, to finally answer the bureau’s lingering questions about how she handled classified and top secret emails as secretary of state.

We say Clinton investigations, plural, because there were really two parallel inquiries that unfolded during the year-long FBI probe. There was the public email and home server investigation but agents were also building a pay-for-play criminal case involving Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and her husband, former President Bill Clinton. And that case was growing serious wings.

The FBI case agents and support personnel are forbidden to “go public” or comment on the record to share their frustrations and dismay because they each signed an unprecedented confidentiality agreement prior to signing onto work the Clinton investigation. Violating that agreement would likely cost them their careers and pensions. Regardless, True Pundit conducted interviews with FBI assets and support personnel who collectively painted a dark insiders’ portrait of the Clinton criminal probe which was commissioned to determine how Clinton and her aides handled, maintained, stored and ultimately botched some of the most sensitive information ever breached in the country’s 240-year history. True Pundit’s interviews and intelligence gathering on the Clinton investigation found:

• Allegations of pay-for-play involving the Clinton Foundation were not properly vetted, ultimately white washed
• FBI agents were blocked from serving search warrants to retrieve key evidence
• Attempts to secure Clinton’s medical records to confirm her head injury were sabotaged by FBI Director James Comey
• FBI agents were not allowed to interrogate witnesses and targets without warning
• Clinton and aides were provided special VIP accommodations during interviews
• FBI suspended standard investigative tactics employed in other probes
• FBI agents efforts were often blocked, suppressed by FBI, DOJ brass
• Agents lost faith that their superiors and DOJ wanted to see the case reach a grand jury
  

  ---

Visionary Reads the Tea Leaves
The wheels on the federal investigations started coming loose after the New Year, in January of this year.

John Giacalone was the supervisor of the bureau’s National Security Branch and also the FBI brains and genesis behind the Clinton email and private server investigation. He first approached Comey in 2015 for the green light to probe how the former secretary of state operated her private email server and handled classified correspondences. Rumors had been swirling in intelligence circles. Once approved, Giacalone spearheaded the investigation, and helped hand select top agents who were highly skilled but also discreet. Many of those agents were concerned when Giacalone abruptly resigned in the middle of the investigation.

FBI insiders said Giacalone used the term “sideways” to describe the direction the Clinton probe had taken in the bureau. Giacalone lamented privately he no longer had confidence in the direction the investigation was headed. He felt it was simpler to quietly step aside, walk away instead of fight to keep the investigation on its proper track. Giacalone was a true heavyweight agent at FBI. In fact, he likely should have been running the entire show. His pedigree included running and creating FBI divisions in New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and even serving as deputy commander in the Iraqi theater of operations. But in the midst of the Clinton investigation, Giacalone handed the bureau his retirement papers in Feb.

“John is a strategic thinker. He recognizes patterns and signs and can then see things long before they develop,” a FBI insider said. “Losing him was a major blow. We now know perhaps what he was envisioning. He didn’t want that around his neck.”

Giacalone could not be reached for comment.

In late 2015 through January 2016, Giacalone shared the frustration of many agents who were perturbed about one lingering issue: When was the FBI going to interview Hillary Clinton?
By June, that frustration had reached a boiling point, largely fueled by Giacalone’s resignation months earlier. Frustrated FBI personnel were beginning to question the pace of the case and believed their intelligence gathering and analysis were beyond strong enough for a referral to the Justice Department in early 2016, sources said. Agents were left to wonder if their dogged research would ever see public eyes. There was a fear creeping into the case that perhaps the investigation was being politicized, that FBI and DOJ brass were trying to run out the clock, or “slow-walk” the case, on what should be considered an easily warranted criminal indictment prior to November’s general election.
Suddenly, Giacalone’s retirement in Feb. was starting to make more sense to FBI grunts who didn’t have the seasoning and street smarts of the retired New Yorker to digest the landscape, months prior, of the probe’s downward trajectory
“The window here has almost closed,” a federal law enforcement source told True Pundit in June.

“Clinton should have been interviewed months ago. There is no longer enough time to refer it to DOJ, vet the case with AUSA’s (Assistant US Attorney’s), the AG and her staff, prepare the case, call a Grand Jury, and put the case on.”

Officials in June reiterated that all those elements in the legal process, if expedited without delays or legal snags, would put a grand jury decision to indict in late September or October, just weeks before the election.

“Can you imagine the uproar if she was arrested weeks before the election?” a federal law enforcement source said. “There was a window we were shooting for and we could have made it but everything is so slow now. I mean, she hasn’t even been interviewed. It’s incredible.”

Trump Administration Says It Has "No Plans" To Build "Nationalized" 5G Network

by Tyler Durden

Mon, 01/29/2018 - 11:53

 

Update: Several senior White House officials told Recode Monday that the Trump administration has no plans to build a "nationalized" US 5G network. The presentation, compiled by an unnamed senior NSC aide, was merely a dated proposal that will probably never see the light of day, the officials said.
The administration sources also pointed out that the FCC has a much larger role in setting broadband policy, and Ajit Pai, the current FCC chairman, has said he opposes the nationalization idea.

The NSC, they said, is only one component of a much larger decision-making process on the part of the federal government to set broadband policy. Its say is not final on these matters — and its memo does not appear to have gained traction with other tech-focused arms of the White House, according to multiple sources within the Trump administration.

A spokesman for the NSC, meanwhile, did not respond to an email seeking comment Monday.
* * *
Last night, Axios dropped a bombshell on the week's already brimming news cycle when it published a report and PowerPoint deck created by a National Security Council staffer outlining the necessity of building a nationalized 5G network to guard against cyberthreats.

But while the PowerPoint portrayed a nationalized 5G network as essential for national security, Axios said Monday that the report is generating a fair amount of blowback.


 

 According to Axios, those sounding alarm bells range from those who fear it could lead to greater surveillance to those who see it as an unwarranted encroachment on free enterprise. Still others worry that government control of key communications networks could threaten free speech.

Both the FCC and CTIA issued statements this morning opposing the idea. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai opposes the idea.

Meetings the Week of January 29, 2018

Meetings the Week of January 29, 2018

Monday  1/29/18

Agricultural                    JK Crossroads                 6:30 pm

BOS                                PCS Town Hall*            6:30 pm

Meeting Materials

Tuesday  1/30/18

Cap. Planning                  PCS Town Hall*                 6:00 pm

Wednesday 1/31/18

Adv. Com                       PCS Town Hall*                6:00 pm

Recreation                  NRHS Library                7:00 pm

Thursday 2/1/18

Cable                            PCS Town Hall*                  6:00 pm

                         

* Pauly Cosentino Sr. Town Hall

Golf: Westminster CC has new, familiar owners after purchase earlier this month

By Bill Doyle
Telegram & Gazette Staff

Posted Jan 27, 2018 at 5:01 PM  

Updated Jan 27, 2018 at 7:16 PM

 

 

When Bill Gustus and Donnie Lyons met with Westminster Country Club’s members a few days before purchasing the club this month, they received a warm welcome because some of the members knew of their improvements to Settlers Crossing after they bought that Lunenburg golf course five years ago.

“One of the Westminster members lives four doors down,” Gustus said, “from Settlers Crossing and goes by it every day. He’s excited about it. He said, ‘If you do up at Westminster what you did in Lunenburg, I’m telling you we’re going to have a good time.’”

Within the next week, about a dozen memberships were sold.

Gustus, his wife Laura Caron-Gustus, and Lyons purchased the 18-hole Westminster CC, including its function hall and restaurant, from Don Leblanc and his sister-in-law Sharon Leblanc on Jan. 11 for what Lyons said was $1.8 million. The threesome bought the nine-hole Maplewood Golf Course in Lunenburg for $1.4 million in November 2012, and renamed it Settlers Crossing Golf Course.


“It was a very similar situation to what we ran into at Settlers,” Gustus said. “Revenue had been declining over the last few years, but the fixes seemed pretty easy to us and the price was right as a result of what is happening in the golf industry over the last 10 years or so.”

Orlando shooter’s company G4S (“jobs too dirty for CIA”) just took over Super Bowl security

By

Kevin Barrett

-

 (Watch this week’s False Flag Weekly News above; click HERE for links to stories we covered, and HERE to support the show)

By Kevin Barrett, Veterans Today Editor
Is G4S, formerly known as Wackenhut (“we do stuff even the CIA won’t touch”) the right company to provide Super Bowl security?

We may find out soon enough. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has reported that U.S. Bank Stadium has suddenly fired its security provider just one year into a three year contract — and replaced it with G4S, which “will provide the 24/7/365 security of the building” according to Patrick Talty, the general manager of SMG, the firm that owns the stadium. US Bank Stadium is the site of the next Super Bowl, scheduled for February 4, 2018.

Ironically, the security outfit that was suddenly dismissed, Chicago-based Monterrey Security, was blamed for hiring dubious characters as security personnel.  But the new provider, G4S, is the firm that groomed Orlando false flag patsy Omar Mateen!  G4S has a long history of “deep state” activity, as discussed in  my edited book Orlando False Flag.

Who’s really behind “radical Islamic terrorism”? Click HERE to find out!

Sudden changes of security a few months before a big event are not a good sign. The long-term takeover of World Trade Center security by the forces behind 9/11 culminated just two months before the event, when Larry Silverstein, the owner of WTC-7, purchased the asbestos-ridden Twin Towers and the rest of the complex on a 100 year lease and gained total control over Trade Center security. Silverstein, a close friend of Israeli PM Netanyahu, presided over the murderous demolition of the entire WTC complex, narrowly escaping with his life when, he claims, his wife reminded him not to take his usual breakfast at the top of Tower One due to a dental appointment.

Silverstein later confessed on national television to demolishing or “pulling” Building 7. Yet he was able to walk off with a 4.5 billion dollar cash settlement (after doubling the insurance and re-doubling his payout with an absurd double-indemnity claim) including three quarters of a billion dollars for the “terrorists'” destruction of WTC-7, the very building that Silverstein had confessed to “pulling” himself.

Hiring G4S for the Super Bowl is a little bit like handing WTC security to Larry Silverstein.
Here is some information about G4S. All items are taken from Orlando False Flag: The Clash of Histories.

Seven months into a job as a prison guard in 2007, Mateen was fired for threatening to bring a gun to class. He settled on a career as a low-level security guard for G4S Security Solutions, a global security firm that em- ployed him for nine years. Though Mateen’s applications to two police departments were rejected, he was able to pass a G4S background check and receive several guard assignments. (The world’s third largest private employer, G4S has accumulated a staggering record of human rights abuses, including accusations of child torture.)

G4S has named a psychiatrist who had conducted a psychological evaluation to certify Mateen’s fitness for a job with the agency. But the psychiatrist claims she never saw Mateen and that she was not even living in Florida at the time the test is claimed to have been conducted. Why is G4S lying?…

USAF Begins Massive GPS Blackouts In The Western US During Largest Ever Air War Drill

by Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/26/2018 - 19:46

 

 The United States Air Force is launching its largest-ever three-week premier set of air war drills, called Red Flag 18-1, starting on Friday and will conclude February 16, said the 99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs.

On January 26, the air war drill, known as Red Flag, officially kicked off at Nellis Air Force Base, 20-miles outside of Las Vegas. Base officials have warned residents of increased military aircraft activity due to aircraft departing from Nellis Air Force Base twice-a-day to conduct war drills on the Nevada Test and Training Range.

“We’re trying a few new and different things with Red Flag 18-1,” said Col Michael Mathes, 414th Combat Training Squadron commander. “It’s the largest Red Flag ever with the largest number of participants, highlighting the balance of training efficiency with mission effectiveness.”

The drill involves a variety of attack, fighter and bomber aircraft as well as participants from the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, and Marine Corps. Foreign participants include Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal Air Force.

A video from the 2015 Red Flag drill is shown below.

“Red Flag 18-1 primarily is a strike package focused training venue that we integrate at a command and control level in support of joint task force operations,” said Mathes. “It’s a lot of words to say that we integrate every capability we can into strike operations that are flown out of Nellis Air Force Base.”



According to The Drive, the air war drill is the largest of its kind in the 42-year history, as the United States prepares for a possible conflict on the Korean Penisula.

Further, the USAF is going to “blackout GPS over the sprawling Nevada Test and Training Range,” said the Drive, which will provide realistic war-like conditions to challenge aircrews.

Flying.com reports the drills at the Nevada Test and Training Range will cause rolling GPS blackouts for the vast portions of the Western United States from January 26 through February 18. All GPS-equipped aircraft operating in the Western United States should be prepared for possible navigation failure in the region.

The NBAA Command Center reports the U.S. military will begin training exercises on the Nevada Test and Training Range between 0400Z until 0700Z daily. Training maneuvers will impact vast portions of the Western U.S. including California, Nevada, Oregon, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Montana and New Mexico.

Immigrants Vs. Aliens: The Global Invasion-Giveaway Continues

by Tyler Durden

Thu, 01/25/2018 - 23:30

Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via SHTFplan.com,

The United States was a nation founded by immigrants, and immigration has always had a clear-cut path toward American citizenship. The United States was built by successive waves of immigrants who came to America in search of a better life. There is a difference between being an immigrant and being an illegal alien. Immigrants follow the rules of the nation they emigrate to and pursue a legitimate path toward permanent citizenship or toward legal employment in the country.

Illegal aliens bypass all legal systems in place…rules designed to protect citizens of the country in numerous ways.




For the past 100 years, the United States has pursued a laissez-faire policy toward illegal aliens. Much of this was because American businesses and industries such as farming and mining, for example, wanted illegal aliens to come here. They wanted to pay them under the table, avoiding the taxes and withholding, and circumventing the minimum wage. The public was also complicit: turning a blind eye, provided that it didn’t directly affect them.

But it did…and year after year, tens of thousands of illegal aliens crossed our borders and started their new lives in America…at the expense of American citizens. Now it has changed into something completely different:

Now it is a part of the socialist playbook based on Cloward and Piven, and Alinsky’s actions and doctrines to destroy the United States from within; it has become a global movement toward the goal of global governance.

This is not immigration, either in the U.S. or worldwide. It is the planned, systematic destruction of national identities and sovereignties. This is being accomplished in several manners:

Germany: Return Of The Stasi Police State?

by Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/26/2018 - 02:00

Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

• Germany's new law requires social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to censor their users on behalf of the government. Social media companies are obliged to delete or block any online "criminal offenses" within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint -- regardless of whether the content is accurate or not.
• Social media platforms now have the power to shape the form of current political and cultural discourse by deciding who will speak and what they will say.
• Notice the ease with which the police chief mentioned that he had filed charges to silence a leading political opponent of the government. That is what authorities do in police states: Through censorship and criminal charges, they silence outspoken critics and political opponents of government policies, such as Beatrix von Storch, who has sharply criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel's migration policies.
• While such policies would doubtless have earned the German authorities many points with the old Stasi regime of East Germany, they more than likely contravene the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to which Germany is a party, as well as the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

Germany's new censorship law, which has introduced state censorship on social media platforms, came into effect on October 1, 2017. The new law requires social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to censor their users on behalf of the German state. Social media companies are obliged to delete or block any online "criminal offenses" such as libel, slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint -- regardless of whether the content is accurate or not. Social media companies are permitted seven days for more complicated cases. If they fail to do so, the German government can fine them up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the law.

The new censorship law, however, was not fully enforced until January 1, 2018, in order to give the social media platforms time to prepare for their new role as the privatized thought police of the German state. Social media platforms now have the power to shape the form of current political and cultural discourse by deciding who will speak and what they will say.

On January 1, 2018, however, the law was immediately enforced. Twitter began by suspending the account of the deputy leader of the Alternative for Germany party (AfD), Beatrix von Storch, for 12 hours, after she tweeted the following in response to a New Year's greeting issued in Arabic by the Cologne Police:

"What the hell is happening in this country? Why is an official police site tweeting in Arabic? Do you think it is to appease the barbaric, gang-raping hordes of Muslim men?"

(During New Year's Eve of 2015/16, over 1,000 mainly Muslim men sexually assaulted around 1,200 women in Cologne.)
Von Storch also had her Facebook account suspended for repeating her tweet there. Facebook told her that her post contravened German law, as it constituted "incitement to hatred".
It did not stop there. Cologne police filed charges against von Storch for "incitement to hatred", which is punishable under section 130 of the German Criminal Code. According to the Cologne police chief, Uwe Jacob, multilingual tweets at major events are an important part of the police's communication strategy:

"The campaign was really well received by most people – however, some were bothered by the fact that we tweeted in Arabic and Farsi – they were very prominent right-wingers, who then felt that they had to make tweets that incited to hatred. We simply filed charges".

Notice the ease with which the police chief mentioned that he had filed charges to silence a leading political opponent of the government. That is what authorities do in police states: Through censorship and criminal charges, they silence outspoken critics and political opponents of government policies, such as von Storch, who has sharply criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel's migration policies.
While such policies would doubtless have earned the German authorities many points with the old Stasi regime of East Germany, they more than likely contravene the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to which Germany is a party, as well as the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights states:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers...
2. The exercise of these freedoms... may be subject to such... restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

In its case law, the European Court of Human Rights has stated that Article 10

"...protects not only the information or ideas that are regarded as inoffensive but also those that offend, shock or disturb; such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broad-mindedness without which there is no democratic society. Opinions expressed in strong or exaggerated language are also protected".

Even more important in the context of charges against politicians is the fact that according to the European Court of Human Rights' case law:

"...the extent of protection depends on the context and the aim of the criticism. In matters of public controversy or public interest, during political debate, in electoral campaigns... strong words and harsh criticism may be expected and will be tolerated to a greater degree by the Court".

When leading politicians are criminally charged for questioning the actions of the authorities, such as in this case the actions of the police, we are no longer dealing with a democracy, but with a regular police state.

Several other accounts on Twitter and Facebook were also suspended under the new censorship law in the first days and weeks of January. One such Twitter account was the satirical magazine, Titanic, which was blocked for parodying von Storch's tweet about the "barbaric hordes" of Muslim men. The privatized Twitter thought police, in their eagerness to censor, had overlooked that Titanic was just poking fun. The suspension of the Titanic account alerted some politicians -- a mere three months after the law went into force -- to the problematic nature of the law. Leader of the Green party, Simone Peter and Secretary-General of the FDP, Nicola Beer were both critical of the law. "The law is messed up and must be replaced by a decent one", Beer said.
Another politician, Martin Sichert, AfD member of the Bundestag for Nürnberg and state Chairman for the AfD, had a Facebook post deleted for violating "community standards". In the post, which he substantiated with links to factual sources, he drew attention, among other things, to the way women are treated in Afghanistan. He also drew attention to the sexual abuse of small children in Afghanistan:

"It is scary and at the same time shameful that our state is preventing the enlightenment of citizens by simply censoring factual opinions, publicly available citations and links to reputable sources."

Sichert and von Storch are just the most famous people to have their speech shut down on social media. There are countless others, whose stories never reach the media.
Under the censorship law, anyone can ask a social network operator to delete postings, even if the post does not affect him personally in any way. If the social network provider does not respond within 24 hours, the person wishing to have a post deleted can involve the Federal Office of Justice; there is even a form for this purpose on the homepage of the Federal Office of Justice. This office is responsible for the prosecution of violations, and the district court of Bonn is the sole authority permitted to examine disputes about the criminal liability of comments made on social media and to impose fines on the social media companies for failing to delete those comments within the required 24 hours.

It is regrettable that Germany, which can barely keep up with the terrorism threat and the wave of violent crime, is spending such vast resources on shutting down the free speech of its citizens on social media. The Federal Department of Justice has rented additional offices in Bonn to house approximately 50 new lawyers and administrators to implement the new law and ensure that the social media providers delete "offending posts" within 24 hours. "It was also important that we created a new file management system," explains Thomas W. Ottersbach of the Federal Office of Justice in Bonn.

"This is the only way to ensure that deadlines are met and that a statistical evaluation can be carried out. Because it is important that we keep an eye on which [social media] operator's complaints are piling up and where they are just isolated cases."

The old German police state is back.

 

The War on Men

Water Fluoride Ban Backers Ask Court to Use More Data in EPA Case

 

Source: BNA News | Bloomberg Environment & Energy Report | January 24th, 2018 | By Pat Rizzuto

Location: United States, TSCA Lawsuit

 

A federal district court will consider arguments Jan. 26 to decide how much evidence to review as it decides whether the EPA should ban fluoride in drinking water.

Health advocates—who argue that adding fluoride to drinking water can harm the brain—say the nation’s primary chemicals law allows them to provide the court new information that the Environmental Protection Agency didn’t have or consider when it rejected their request to ban the use of the mineral in water.

The EPA interprets that same law as limiting the judge’s review to the “administrative record,” meaning the information the agency had when it decided on Feb. 17, 2017, to deny the petitioners’ request to remove fluoride, which is added to water to prevent tooth decay.

The judge’s decision is important to companies that make and use chemicals even if they don’t have a stake in how fluoride is regulated, Eric Gotting, a partner at Keller & Heckman LLP, told Bloomberg Environment Jan. 23.

Basis of Citizen Petitions

The district court decision might influence the amount of information other courts would review as they take up challenges to decisions the EPA would make on citizen petitions asking the agency to collect data for, or regulate, a chemical, he said.

That’s important because environmental and health advocates are expected to file more citizen petitions now that the Toxic Substances Control Act amendments of 2016 increased the options available to the EPA to obtain information about or regulate chemicals, he said.

The TSCA provision that allows citizen petitions to challenge the agency’s failure to act or its denial of a petition in court gives groups “a second bite” at the rulemaking apple, Gotting said during a recent webinar Keller and Heckman hosted. The Jan. 26 hearing may set out how much information the court will review in that “second bite.”

Courts Decide Unreasonable Risk

Michael Connett—an attorney representing Food and Water Watch, which led a coalition of health organizations and individuals concerned about fluoride—described the legal clash the judge will consider Jan. 26.

Coming to America?

 

 

Sweden Hell: Armed Migrant Teens Roaming With Kalashnikovs; Military May Be Deployed

by Tyler Durden

Thu, 01/25/2018 - 05:00

As we reported last week, Sweden may or may not be preparing for civil conflict - as Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said that the government would do whatever it takes - including deploying the military - to end the wave of gang violence coming primarily from young migrants in the country's "no-go" zones.

"It’s not my first action to put in a military, but I’m prepared to do what it takes to ensure that the seriously organized crime goes away," Lofven said after the party leadership discussion in parliament, adding “it is also obvious that there are social problems... ...We see criminals with total lack of respect for human life, it’s a terrible development I’m determined to turn around.”

Lofven's comments come on the heels of a spate of gang related murders, including that of a 21-year-old man in Malmö last weekend, shot in the head as he stepped out of a taxi near a grocery store.

The same weekend, a 16 year old boy found shot in Rosengård district of Malmö died in the hospital next to a bus stop. Two people were taken in for questioning by the police.


Rosengård district of Malmö. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

And on January 3rd a 22-year-old man was shot in the Fosie district of Malmö, the day after an 18-year-old woman was taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds ten minutes away in Rosengård.

In Malmö, where a fifth of the 340,000 inhabitants are under 18, children as young as 14 roam the streets with Kalashnikov assault rifles and bulletproof vests. The average age of gang members is 22, the vast majority of them hailing from migrant families. -thetimes.co.uk

The increase in crime has been so overwhelming that Swedish authorities admit they are unable to investigate rape cases right now because of the enormous backlog of gang crime under investigation. “We are forced to choose between two evils,” said police.

 Prime Minister Lofven's strong language also follows an attack on the Rosengård police station last Wednesday after an explosive device was lobbed at the electric-fenced building - the latest in ongoing violence against Swedish peacekeepers. 


Rosengard police station was attacked (thetimes.co.uk)

Last August, Stockholm police officer Ted Eriksson, 34, was stabbed in the neck by an Afghan asylum seeker who claimed to be 17 but was suspected of being in his late twenties. The man said he wanted to kill a policeman, however officer Eriksson fortunately suffered minor injuries.


Ted Eriksson (LISA MATTISSON/TT NEWS AGENCY)

In April, 2017, three Swedish female police officers were beaten as they attempted to apprehend a violent refugee.

In 2013, Swedish police were targeted several times during the Stockholm riots - which saw a police station burned down, several officers injured, and rocks thrown at firefighters and other first responders.

And in 2016, migrants even attacked the crew of '60 Minutes' while they were filming a segment on... migrants.

Meanwhile, increasingly powerful weapons have been turning up in Swedish neighborhoods. In 2015, anti-tank missiles were found in a basement of a 36-year-old man suspected of smuggling guns from his brothers in Bosnia into the Swedish no-go zone of Örebro - considered an "Especially vulnerable area" according to a 2017 police report.

Tea House Restaurant ... ... Monday Jan 29, 2018

Things Are Getting Worse, Not Better: Round Ups, Checkpoints, & National ID Cards

by Tyler Durden

Wed, 01/24/2018 - 21:25

 

Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
Here in Amerika, things are getting worse - not better - as the nation inches ever closer towards totalitarianism, that goose-stepping form of tyranny in which the government has all of the power and “we the people” have none.



 

 

Take what happened recently in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.


On Friday, Jan. 19, 2018, immigration agents boarded a Greyhound bus heading to downtown Miami from Orlando and demanded that all passengers provide proof of residence or citizenship. One grandmother, traveling by bus to meet her granddaughter for the first time, was arrested and taken off the bus when she couldn’t provide proof of residency.

This isn’t is a new occurrence.

A year ago, passengers arriving in New York’s JFK Airport on a domestic flight from San Francisco were ordered to show their “documents” to border patrol agents in order to get off the plane.

With the government empowered to carry out transportation checks to question people about their immigration status within a 100-mile border zone that wraps around the country, you’re going to see a rise in these “show your papers” incidents.

That’s a problem, and I’ll tell you why.

We are not supposed to be living in a “show me your papers” society.

Despite this, the U.S. government has recently introduced measures allowing police and other law enforcement officials to stop individuals (citizens and noncitizens alike), demand they identify themselves, and subject them to patdowns, warrantless searches, and interrogations.

These actions fly in the face of longstanding constitutional safeguards forbidding such police state tactics.

Set aside the debate over illegal immigration for a moment and think long and hard about what it means when government agents start demanding that people show their papers on penalty of arrest.

The problem with allowing government agents to demand identification from anyone they suspect might be an illegal immigrant—the current scheme being employed by the Trump administration to ferret out and cleanse the country of illegal immigrants—is that it lays the groundwork for a society in which you are required to identify yourself to any government worker who demands it.

Templeton Senior Center Presents...

 

Friday, January 26, 2018

6 pm

To reserve a seat 

please call 978-894-2780

School choice has big impact on budgets

School choice has big impact on budgets

By Gerry Tuoti / GateHouse News Service
Posted Jan 21, 2018 at 5:24 PM
Updated Jan 21, 2018 at 5:24 PM

Each year, millions of dollars in state funding flows from school system to school system, following students whose parents send them to a neighboring community.

In Massachusetts, a 1991 initiative known as inter-district school choice gives parents the option of enrolling their children in a public school district in a community other than their hometown. While the law lets each school district decide whether to accept out-of-district students, no district can deny its students the right to leave.

“School choice money can be a major factor in determining both the revenue you gain and the revenue you lose for many school districts,” said Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. “Depending on where you are, districts may really depend on that money to sustain the services they’re able to provide to students ... School choice has made districts a little more competitive with each other.”

Since state funding follows the students, school choice has had the unintended consequence of widening the gap between affluent suburban districts and cash-strapped urban and rural school systems, according to some critics. When a student leaves one public school system for another, state funding goes from the sending district to the receiving district in the form of school choice tuition. To soften the blow for sending districts, the state caps school choice tuition payments at $5,000 per student.

For districts that gain and lose large numbers of school choice students, the aggregate financial impact can be large.

Opposite experiences among neighbors

In the small town of Avon, more than a quarter of all students enrolled in the public school system come from other communities on school choice. According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, school choice students brought more than $958,000 into Avon last fiscal year.

“The choice revenue is close to a million dollars, or about 11 percent of our budget,” Avon Superintendent Paul Zinni said. “When you’re talking about 11 percent added into your budget, that’s significant.”