Recurring themes in these reports include:
• The searches are extremely invasive
• Many travelers are reporting intense feelings of violation and humiliation
• Some report being physically hurt by the searches
• Some feel their searches are punitive
• Reports of gawking by agents
• Reports of seemingly unnecessary repeated touching of intimate areas
• Many vow not to fly any more
• Any traveler may be forced to undergo one of these searches
Daily Bell: Do law enforcement officials perceive the problems that you perceive? How many? The majority? What do the FBI and the ATF think of your organization? Have you heard from them?Read it all here.
Stewart Rhodes: Many rank and file police officers understand what is going on, and are very much aware of how the Bill of Rights has been relentlessly eroded. I don't know what percentage are awake. I'd like to say it was half, but I think it is less than that. But that is the point of my organization – to wake them up, and the percentage that are awake and aware, and studying the Constitution, is growing. The efforts of Oath Keepers Board Member Sheriff Mack, in particular, are making real headway among the police and sheriffs. In addition to many active duty police and sheriffs personnel who have become members, we now have several current serving police officers within our Oath Keepers state leadership. And for each officer who openly joins Oath Keepers, I think it is safe to say that there are hundred and perhaps thousands more who are of like mind, but who prefer to stay under the radar by not joining. So I can say without a doubt we are making an impact. The same is true among the military.
As for the federal officers, we have not heard directly or officially from the FBI or ATF, but we have heard from FBI agents, through intermediaries, who tell us that many among the rank and file are sympathetic to our position, but they also tell us that the powers that be in Washington are not happy, and would love to try to make us look like a militia, such as the Hutaree, so they can more easily discredit us. We intend to make it hard for them to do that.
One interesting bit of "intel" we got was from someone within the NSA who told us that the "powers that be" are "concerned about the Oath Keepers effect if/when they decide to give certain orders, but have no way to quantify that effect." In other words, we are like an iceberg: there is a very visible, credible "tip" of active duty who have stepped up and signed their John Hancock by joining, but there are many more who have not joined, and are thus the great mass under the surface that is hard to quantify. "They" don't, and can't, know how big that mass is until they test it. I like causing that kind of uncertainty in the minds of the self-anointed power elites. Hopefully it will make them hesitate to attempt to pull the plug, thus buying us more time.
Daily Bell: Here are some points you and other Oath Keepers adhere to and some questions regarding these points: You will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people. Why not – what makes you believe this will be a problem?
Stewart Rhodes: Once a people are disarmed, they are nearly defenseless against oppression. That is something our forefathers understood, and it was the attempt to disarm them that finally led to the fighting that kicked off our Revolutionary War. Add to that example the many examples since of disarmed populations being tyrannized or even mass-murdered. It is a critical line in the sand that must not be crossed, and not just because our Second Amendment says so, but because it is a violation of the inherit, human right to self preservation, and because the lessons of history show what happens to people who allow themselves to be disarmed. And the wholesale disarmament during Katrina shows that it can, indeed, happen again, right here in America. ...
Had today's political class been in power in 1623, tomorrow's holiday would have been called "Starvation Day" instead of Thanksgiving. Of course, most of us wouldn't be alive to celebrate it.Read the rest here.
Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen.
Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.
The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.
That's why they nearly all starved.
When people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. This went on for two years.
"So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented," wrote Gov. William Bradford in his diary. The colonists, he said, "began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length after much debate of things, (I) (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land."
In other words, the people of Plymouth moved from socialism to private farming. The results were dramatic. ...
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Ben Franklin.
The following are 22 quotes about enhanced pat downs and TSA groping. They are presented without commentary because they speak for themselves. Please share these quotes as widely as possible. If Americans do not wake up now, when will they ever wake up?….Please read the full list (22 items, all with linked sources) here. Also available here.
#1 Blogger Erin Chase:
I stood there, an American citizen, a mom traveling with a baby with special needs formula, sexually assaulted by a government official. I began shaking and felt completely violated, abused and assaulted by the TSA agent. I shook for several hours, and woke up the next day shaking.
#2 ABC News producer Carolyn Durand:
“The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around.”
#3 Wendy James Gigliotti:
“She said ’spread your legs.’ And then she took her full palms and started at my neck and ran all the way down my body, full palms, constant contact. And when she got down to my feet, she was in constant contact from my ankles all the way up to my groin, across my groin, and down the other leg. And she did that twice.”
#4 Female air traveler Ella Swift:
“The female officer ran her hand up the inside of my leg to my groin and she did it so hard and so rough she lifted me off my heels.”
#5 Flight attendant Cathy Bossi:
“She put her full hand on my breast and said, ‘What is this?’. And I said, ‘It’s my prosthesis because I’ve had breast cancer.’ And she said, ‘Well, you’ll need to show me that’.”
...
On Saturday, October 30, 2010, the Opera Company of Philadelphia brought together over 650 choristers from 28 participating organizations to perform one of the Knight Foundation's "Random Acts of Culture" at Macy's in Center City Philadelphia. Accompanied by the Wanamaker Organ - the world's largest pipe organ - the OCP Chorus and throngs of singers from the community infiltrated the store as shoppers, and burst into a pop-up rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's "Messiah" at 12 noon, to the delight of surprised shoppers. This event is one of 1,000 "Random Acts of Culture" to be funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation over the next three years. The initiative transports the classical arts out of the concert halls and opera houses and into our communities to enrich our everyday lives. To learn more about this program and view more events, visit www.randomactsofculture.org. The Opera Company thanks Macy's and the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ (www.wanamakerorgan.com) for their partnership, as well as Organ Music Director Peter Conte and Fred Haas, accompanists; OCP Chorus Master Elizabeth Braden, conductor; and Sound Engineer James R. Stemke. For a complete list of participating choirs and more information, visit www.operaphila.org/RAC. This event was planned to coincide with the first day of National Opera Week.
... The Missile Defense Agency told Fox News it did not launch any test missile Monday night that could explain the dramatic images. The Navy and the Air Force were also unable to offer an explanation.
[Col. Dave] Lapan said it does not appear that whatever was flying was part of a "regularly scheduled missile test." He noted that before a missile test, notifications are sent to mariners and airmen. This does not appear to be the case here.
At this point, the military is working only with video taken from the local news camera, and NORAD and Northcom apparently were not able to detect the contrail on their own. [emphasis added]
It appears from the video, Lapan said, the object was launched from the water and not U.S. soil, though at this point there is no way to be certain. ...
Mumbai: The US would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs 900 crore approx) per day on President Barack Obama's visit to the city.Your money, hard at work. Or something.
"The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit," a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.
About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments. ...
... There will be 18 states subject to reapportionment. The Republicans will control a majority of those — at least ten and maybe a dozen or more. More significantly, a minimum of seventeen state legislative houses have flipped to the Republican Party.Read it here. Looks like the big action was at the state level. Change we can believe in.
The North Carolina Legislature is Republican for the first time since 1870. Yes, that is Eighteen Seventy.
The Alabama Legislature is Republican for the first time since 1876.
For those saying this is nothing because it is the South, consider these:
The entire Wisconsin and New Hampshire legislatures have flipped to the GOP by wide margins.
The State Houses in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Montana, and Colorado flipped to the GOP.
The Maine and Minnesota Senates flipped to the GOP.
The Texas and Tennessee Houses went from virtually tied to massive Republican gains. The gains in Texas were so big that the Republicans no longer need the Democrats to get state constitutional amendments out of the state legislature. ...
There’s been lots of talk about voter fraud this election season. Already machines have purportedly preselected candidates and in other places, documents demonstrate non-citizens are registered to vote. Anyone who says voter fraud doesn’t exist has no credibility. I’ve covered elections for over 10 years. I’ve seen it over and over again with my own eyes. I’ve proved it in federal court. It is significantly more common than Sasquatch.Read the rest here.
But what does voter fraud look like? What can citizens be on the lookout for when they participate in their election? Let me share some examples:
Commands to vote
I’ve seen election judges telling voters for whom to vote. In Philadelphia, I have repeatedly seen the people who sign you in and check off your name give instructions to voters for whom to vote. It isn’t supposed to work that way, and if you see it, get the name of the election official and report it to their boss. Better yet, try to get the name of the voter.
Mass illegal assistance
One of the most outrageous behaviors is campaigns of illegal assistance. I’ve seen lone soldiers of a political machine march dozens of voters into the booth and vote for them. In some instances the voter provided little or no input. Remember that disabled citizens have a right under federal law to have anyone assist them, as long as it is not an employer or union representative. Illiteracy and inability to speak English well also trigger this right. So just because someone is in the booth with a voter doesn’t mean something illegal is happening. But if you see van loads of voters being “voted” without expressing their own input, get the tag number of the van and remember what illegal assistant looked like.
Phony voters
I’ve watched people in states without voter ID seek to vote who were clearly not the people they said they were. During one election, I saw a young man give a name. It caused the women working the polls who knew him to laugh at him and tell him to stop fooling them. He insisted, even under watchful eyes, that he was this person everyone knew him not to be. Everyone was laughing, but the poll workers relented and reluctantly gave him a ballot, somewhat perturbed that he pushed the issue. For a brief moment, he was someone else. And since voter ID was not the law in this state, he voted a regular ballot. ...
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