No More “Ugly American”

For years, Americans who travelled abroad were perceived as loud, arrogant, obnoxious, and culturally insensitive. Thus the epithet “ugly American.”

No more. American tourists now rank 11th on a list of 27 nationalities.

The French have the distinction of being the worst foreign tourists, according to a survey conducted by Expedia. They are the most frugal and meanest tippers, as well as the most impolite tourists. Why am I not surprised? LOL

~Eowyn

………………

Japanese voted world’s best tourists by hoteliers

Announcement / Corporate July 09, 2009, 20:14 IST

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/japanese-voted-world%5Cs-best-tourists-by-hoteliers/363427/

British and Canadians rank 2nd and 3rd among the 27 nationalities in second annual global Expedia Best Tourist Survey.

The second annual global Best Tourist Survey, conducted by Expedia®, the world’s leading online travel company, has ranked the Japanese as the world’s best tourists overall among the 27 nationalities surveyed.

Around 4,500 hoteliers across the globe provided their opinions on the best travellers overall, as well as on specific categories including politeness, generosity, behaviour, tidiness, fashion sense, willingness to try and speak the local language, and the propensity to complain.

Like last year, the Japanese won the top prize, with hoteliers worldwide naming them as the world’s best tourists. They were ranked not only as the quietest and most polite, but also the cleanest and least likely to complain. The British again came in second place overall, followed by the Canadians.

The survey also revealed that the French hold the unenviable reputation for being the world’s worst tourists. According to hoteliers, as well as being the most frugal and meanest tippers, they can also lay claim to being the most impolite tourists.

Arthur Hoffman, Managing Director, Expedia Asia Pacific, says: “Hoteliers are experts when it comes to interacting with tourists and the annual global Expedia Best Tourist Survey presents some interesting and intriguing perceptions about tourists from around the world.”

The Best and the Worst in this year’s Expedia Best Tourist Survey:

• Worldwide, the Japanese, British, Canadians, Germans and Australians are considered the most polite nations.
• The top three loudest nations are the Americans, Italians and the Spanish
• After the Americans and the British, the next biggest tippers are the Germans and the Japanese
• Canadians and Swiss were the other nationalities named as least likely to complain.

About the Expedia Best Tourist Survey – methodology
The survey was conducted during the period 10-23 June 2009 on a total of 4557 hotel managers from Expedia partner hotels worldwide who were randomly selected and contacted via email by the research company, TNS Infratest.

Big Brother Is Watching

Conservatives rightly should be criticized for our complacency as the Bush administration moved toward the installation of a Big Brother state.

But we have no excuses now. Obama is going full steam ahead with project “Einstein,” which will monitor private networks on the Internet.

~Eowyn

………………….

Big Brother is Watching You: Pervasive Surveillance Under Obama

The DHS-NSA-AT&T “Cybersecurity” Partnership

by Tom Burghardt

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14249

Under the rubric of cybersecurity, the Obama administration is moving forward with a Bush regime program to screen state computer traffic on private-sector networks, including those connecting people to the Internet, The Washington Post revealed July 3.

That project, code-named “Einstein,” may very well be related to the much-larger, ongoing and highly illegal National Security Agency (NSA) communications intercept program known as “Stellar Wind,” disclosed in 2005 by The New York Times.

There are several components to Stellar Wind, one of which is a massive data-mining project run by the agency. As USA Today revealed in 2006, the “National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.”

Under the current program, Einstein will be tied directly into giant NSA data bases that contain the trace signatures left behind by cyberattacks; these immense electronic warehouses will be be fed by information streamed to the agency by the nation’s telecommunications providers.

AT&T, in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the NSA will spearhead the aggressive new initiative to detect malicious attacks launched against government web sites–by continuing to monitor the electronic communications of Americans.

This contradicts President Obama’s pledge announcing his administration’s cybersecurity program on May 29. During White House remarks Obama said that the government will not continue Bush-era surveillance practices or include “monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic.”

Called the “flagship system” in the national security state’s cyber defense arsenal, The Wall Street Journal reports that Einstein is “designed to protect the U.S. government’s computer networks from cyberspies.” In addition to cost overruns and mismanagement by outsourced contractors, the system “is being stymied by technical limitations and privacy concerns.” According to the Journal, Einstein is being developed in three stages:

Einstein 1: Monitors Internet traffic flowing in and out of federal civilian networks. Detects abnormalities that might be cyber attacks. Is unable to block attacks.

Einstein 2: In addition to looking for abnormalities, detects viruses and other indicators of attacks based on signatures of known incidents, and alerts analysts immediately. Also can’t block aacks.

Einstein 3: Under development. Based on technology developed for a National Security Agency program called Tutelage, it detects and deflects security breaches. Its filtering technology can read the content of email and other communications. (Siobhan Gorman, “Troubles Plague Cyberspy Defense,” The Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2009)

As readers of Antifascist Calling are well aware, like other telecom grifters, AT&T is a private-sector partner of NSA and continues to be a key player in the agency’s driftnet spying on Americans’ electronic communications. In 2006, AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein revealed in a sworn affidavit, that the firm’s Internet traffic that runs through fiber-optic cables at the company’s Folsom Street facility in San Francisco was routinely provided to the National Security Agency.

Using a device known as a splitter, a complete copy of Internet traffic that AT&T receives–email, web browsing requests and other electronic communications sent by AT&T customers, was diverted onto a separate fiber-optic cable connected to the company’s SG-3 room, controlled by the agency. Only personnel with NSA clearances–either working for, or on behalf of the agency–have access to this room.

Klein and other critics of the program, including investigative journalist James Bamford who reported in his book, The Shadow Factory, believe that some 15-30 identical NSA-controlled rooms exist at AT&T facilities scattered across the country.

Einstein: You Don’t Have to Be a Genius to Know They’re Lying

But what happens next, after the data is processed and catalogued by the agency is little understood. Programs such as Einstein will provide NSA with the ability to read and decipher the content of email messages, any and all messages in real-time.

While DHS claims that “the new program will scrutinize only data going to or from government systems,” the Post reports that a debate has been sparked within the agency over “uncertainty about whether private data can be shielded from unauthorized scrutiny, how much of a role NSA should play and whether the agency’s involvement in warrantless wiretapping during George W. Bush’s presidency would draw controversy.”

A “Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for EINSTEIN 2″ issued by DHS in May 2008, claims the system is interested in “malicious activity” and not personally identifiable information flowing into federal networks.

While DHS claims that “the risk associated with the use of this computer network security intrusion detection system is actually lower than the risk generated by using a commercially available intrusion detection system,” this assertion is undercut when the agency states, “Internet users have no expectation of privacy in the to/from address of their messages or the IP addresses of the sites they visit.”

When Einstein 3 is eventually rolled-out, Internet users similarly will “have no expectation of privacy” when it comes to the content of their communications.

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters, “we absolutely intend to use the technical resources, the substantial ones, that NSA has.” Seeking to deflect criticism from civil libertarians, Napolitano claims “they will be guided, led and in a sense directed by the people we have at the Department of Homeland Security.”

Despite protests to the contrary by securocrats, like other Bush and Obama “cybersecurity” initiatives the Einstein program is a backdoor for pervasive state surveillance. Government Computer News reported in December 2008 that Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said that “the misuse or exposure of sensitive data from such a program [Einstein] could undermine the security arguments for surveillance.”

And with Internet Service Providers routinely deploying deep packet inspection tools to “siphon off requested traffic for law enforcement,” tools with the ability to “inspect and shape every single packet–in real time–for nearly a million simultaneous connections” as Ars Technica reported, to assume that ISPs will protect Americans’ privacy rights from out-of-control state agencies is a foolhardy supposition at best.

The latest version of the system will not be rolled-out for at least 18 months. But like the Stellar Wind driftnet surveillance program, communications intercepted by Einstein 3 will be routed through a “monitoring box” controlled by NSA and their civilian contractors.

Under a classified pilot program approved during the Bush administration, NSA data and hardware would be used to protect the networks of some civilian government agencies. Part of an initiative known as Einstein 3, the plan called for telecommunications companies to route the Internet traffic of civilian agencies through a monitoring box that would search for and block computer codes designed to penetrate or otherwise compromise networks. (Ellen Nakashima, “Cybersecurity Plan to Involve NSA, Telecoms,” The Washington Post, July 3, 2009)

However, investigative journalist Wayne Madsen reported last September “that the Bush administration has authorized massive surveillance of the Internet using as cover a cyber-security multi-billion dollar project called the ‘Einstein’ program.”

While some researchers (including this one) question Madsen’s overreliance on anonymous sources and undisclosed documents, in fairness it should be pointed out that nine months before The New York Times described the NSA’s secret e-mail collection database known as Pinwale, Madsen had already identified and broken the story. According to Madsen,

The classified technology being used for Einstein was developed for the NSA in conducting signals intelligence (SIGINT) operations on email networks in Russia. Code-named PINWHEEL, the NSA email surveillance system targets Russian government, military, diplomatic, and commercial email traffic and burrows into the text portions of the email to search for particular words and phrases of interest to NSA eavesdroppers. According to NSA documents obtained by WMR, there is an NSA system code-named ”PINWALE.”

The DNI and NSA also plan to move Einstein into the private sector by claiming the nation’s critical infrastructure, by nature, overlaps into the commercial sector. There are classified plans, already budgeted in so-called “black” projects, to extend Einstein surveillance into the dot (.) com, dot (.) edu, dot (.) int, and dot (.) org, as well as other Internet domains. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has budgeted $5.4 billion for Einstein in his department’s FY2009 information technology budget. However, this amount does not take into account the “black” budgets for Einstein proliferation throughout the U.S. telecommunications network contained in the budgets for NSA and DNI. (Wayne Madsen, “‘Einstein’ replaces ‘Big Brother’ in Internet Surveillance,” Online Journal, September 19, 2008)

A follow-up article published in February, identified the ultra-spooky Booz Allen Hamilton firm as the developer of Pinwale, an illegal program for the interception of text communications. According to Madsen, “the system is linked to a number of meta-databases that contain e-mail, faxes, and text messages of hundreds of millions of people around the world and in the United States.”

In other words both classified programs, Pinwale and Einstein, are sophisticated electronic communications surveillance projects that most certainly will train the agency’s formidable intelligence assets on the American people “using as cover a cyber-security multi-billion dollar project called the ‘Einstein’ program,” as Madsen reported.

AT&T: “No Comment”

An AT&T spokesman refused to comment on the proposals and is seeking legal protection from the state that it will not be sued for privacy breaches as a result of its participation in the new program. “Legal certification” the Post reports, “has been held up for several months as DHS prepares a contract.”

NSA’s involvement is critical proponents claim, because the agency has a readily-accessible database of computer codes, or signatures “that have been linked to cyberattacks or known adversaries. The NSA has compiled the cache by, for example, electronically observing hackers trying to gain access to U.S. military systems,” the Post averred.

Calling NSA’s cache “the secret sauce…it’s the stuff they have that the private sector doesn’t,” is what raises alarms for privacy and civil liberties’ advocates. Known as Tutelage, NSA’s classified program can detect and automatically decide how to deal with malicious intrusions, “to block them or watch them closely to better assess the threat,” according to the Post. “The database for the program would also contain feeds from commercial firms and DHS’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, administration officials said.”

Jeff Mohan, AT&T’s executive director for Einstein, was more forthcoming earlier this year. He told Federal News Radio: “With these services, we will provide a secure portal from the agency’s infrastructure, or Intranet to the public internet. There is a technical aspect, which is routers, firewalls and that sort of thing that applies these security capabilities across that portal and looks a Internet traffic that comes from public Internet to Intranet and vice versa.”

The “technical aspect” will also provide federal agencies the ability to capture, sort, read and then store Americans’ private communications in huge data bases run by NSA.

Mohan said that AT&T will provide the state with “optional services such as scanning e-mail and placing filters on agency networks to keep malicious e-mail off the network as well as forensic and storage capabilities also are available through MTIPS [Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Services].”

In addition to AT&T, other private partners awarded contracts under the General Services Administration’s MTIPS which has a built-in “Einstein enclave” include: Sprint, L3 Communications, Qwest, MCI, General Dynamics and Verizon, according to multiple reports published by Federal Computer Week.

Claiming that the state is “looking for malicious content, not a love note to someone with a dot-gov e-mail address,” a former unnamed “senior Bush administration official” told the Post “what we’re interested in is finding the code, the thing that will do the network harm, not reading the e-mail itself.”

Try selling that to the tens of millions of Americans whose private communications have been illegally spied upon by the Bush and Obama administrations or leftist dissidents singled-out for “special handling” by the national security state’s public-private surveillance partnership!

An Electronic Spider’s Web

As the “global war on terror” morphs into an endless war on our democratic rights, the NSA is expanding domestic operations by “decentralizing its massive computer hubs,” The Salt Lake Tribune revealed.

The agency “will build a 1-million-square-foot data center at Utah’s Camp Williams,” the newspaper disclosed July 1. The new facility would be NSA’s third major data center. In 2007, the agency announced plans to build a second data center in San Antonio, Texas after the Baltimore Sun reported that NSA had “maxed out” the electric capacity of the Baltimore area’s power grid.

The San Antonio Current reported in December, that the NSA’s Texas Cryptology Center will cost “upwards of $130 million.” The 470,000 square-foot-facility is adjacent to a similar center constructed by software giant Microsoft. Investigative journalist James Bamford told the Current that under current law “NSA could gain access to Microsoft’s stored data without even a warrant, but merely a fiber-optic cable.”

A follow-up article by The Salt Lake Tribune reported that the facility will cost upwards of $2 billion dollars and that funds have already been appropriated by the Obama administration for NSA’s new data center and listening post.

The secretive agency released a statement Thursday acknowledging the selection of Camp Williams as a site for the new center and describing it as “a specialized facility that houses computer systems and supporting equipment.”

Budget documents provide a more detailed picture of the facility and its mission. The supercomputers in the center will be part of the NSA’s signal intelligence program, which seeks to “gain a decisive information advantage for the nation and our allies under all circumstances” according to the documents. (Matthew D. LaPlante, “New NSA Center Unveiled in Budget Documents,” The Salt Lake Tribune, July 2, 2009)

Not everyone is pleased with the announcement. Steve Erickson, the director of the antiwar Citizens Education Project told the Tribune, “Finally, the Patriot Act has a home.”

While the total cost of rolling-out the Einstein 3 system is classified, The Wall Street Journal reports that “the price tag was expected to exceed $2 billion.” And as with other national security state initiatives, it is the American people who are footing the bill for the destruction of our democratic rights.

Poll On Sotomayor

AT&T Yahoo has a poll on whether you favor or not favor the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

To vote, go HERE.

Below are the results as of 1pm West coast time.

~Eowyn

……………..

Q. In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released just before the start of the Supreme Court nominee’s confirmation hearings, 47 percent of people questioned would like to see the Senate vote in favor, with 40 percent opposed and 13 percent unsure.

Where do you stand? Do you want Sotomayor to be confirmed?

Yes. Sotomayor would be a strong addition to the court.	28%
No. Sotomayor would be a detrimental addition to the court.	70%
Not sure/No opinion.	2% 55947 votes

Obama’s Patronage System

An earlier post in May alerted readers of Giovanni’s World to a caller to the February 6, 2009 episode of the “Smoking Gun” radio show. The caller “Chicago Bob” claimed that Obama has put in place a plan to obliterate the Republican Party and transform the United States into a one-party system.

Describing himself as “a conservative democrat from Chicago who now feels betrayed,” Chicago Bob said he was in a meeting after the ‘08 election in which he was told by a Democratic official that “we’ll get billions of dollars coming down the pipeline” which will be used “to build an army of Democrats” – much larger than ACORN – via the same corrupt job patronage system Democrats had used to make Chicago a single-party city.

Sounding quite distraught, Chicago Bob said that there’ll be “more people working for the Democrats than for the U. S. Army.” The jobs will be “camouflaged in a million different ways” — there’ll be jobs for cities, for states.

When the 2012 election comes, this “army” of Democrat “clients” will feel obligated to work for the Democrats, “to completely freeze out Republicans forever and forever” so that the two-party system will be completely destroyed.

Here’s the audio of “Chicago Bob”:

Now, we have solid evidence that “Chicago Bob” was telling the truth.

H/t to alert GiovanniWorld member Steve!

~Eowyn

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Billions in aid go to areas that backed Obama in ‘08

By Brad Heath – July 9, 2009 – USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-07-08-redblue_N.htm

WASHINGTON — Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year’s presidential election.

That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration’s massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation.

“There’s no politics at work when it comes to spending for the recovery,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says.

Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Barack Obama | John McCain | United States Census Bureau

The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.

Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work. The imbalance is so pronounced — and the aid so far from complete — that it would be almost inconceivable for it to be the result of political tinkering, says Adam Hughes, the director of federal fiscal policy for the non-profit OMB Watch. “Even if they wanted to, I don’t think the administration has enough people in place yet to actually do that,” he says.

“Most of what they’re doing at this point is just stamping the checks and sending them out,” Hughes says.

The stimulus package Obama signed in February includes about $499 billion in new spending, and to date, the Obama administration has allocated about $158 billion to specific projects and programs. Most of that money has gone directly to state governments, which then disperse the money to prevent school layoffs, repair roads and fund social services. That contrasts with the $17 billion that Washington distributes directly to local communities.

Including the larger chunk of money given to state governments, the aid favors states that voted for Obama, which have received about 20% more per person

Not all of the money favors places that supported Obama. About a third of the $17 billion, or $5.5 billion, in contracts that the federal government has signed for projects ranging from repaving runways to cleaning up nuclear waste has gone overwhelmingly to counties that supported McCain.

Jake Wiens, an investigator with the non-profit Project on Government Oversight, says it’s too soon to draw meaningful conclusions about whether the type of aid in the stimulus favors Obama’s constituents.

But, he says, “it will be important to pay close attention as the data come in to ensure that political favoritism plays no role.”

The imbalance didn’t start with the stimulus. From 2005 through 2007, the counties that later voted for Obama collected about 50% more government aid than those that supported McCain, according to spending reports from the U.S. Census Bureau. USA TODAY’s review did not include Alaska, which does not report its election results by county.

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Lust-In-Chief

Obama oggling the tush of a 16-year-old junior delegate (whatever that means) & French President Sarkozy looking on in amusement, at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, July 9, 2009

The White House says Obama was merely making sure that both he and the luscious young lady had secure footing on the steps.

Sure….

H/t to red-blooded GiovanniWorld member Steve!

ABCNews posted this video which seems to tell a different story. What do you think?

~Eowyn

A Platform To Die For

We have a local talk radio program that has a following here in the western part of the state. While repairing a tractor earlier today I cranked up the radio and listened while I worked.

The only guest they had today was the chair of the NC Constitution Party. The host of the show literally went line by line through the entire Party Platform, and I was impressed. Below is the entire platform. It’s not very long, which is smart to begin with, and it simply makes sense!

My next chore will be to compare the NC Platfrom with the National Platform and see if they are both following the same game-plan.

From a guy that is disgusted with both the Dems and the Repubs, this platform is a breath of fresh air!

Gio most definately approves!!!

Constitution Party of North Carolina 2008 Platform (State Platform)

I. Preamble

The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of Almighty God, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States. We hereby appeal to Him for mercy, aid, comfort, guidance and the protection of His Providence as we work to restore and preserve these United States.

This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been and are afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.

The goal of the Constitution Party is to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries.

The Constitution of the United States provides that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” The Constitution Party supports the original intent of this language. Therefore, the Constitution Party calls on all those who love liberty and value their inherent rights to join with us in the pursuit of these goals and in the restoration of these founding principles.

The U.S. Constitution established a Republic rooted in Biblical law, administered by representatives who are constitutionally elected by the citizens. In such a Republic all Life, Liberty and Property are protected because law rules.

We affirm the principles of inherent individual rights upon which these United States of America were founded:

- That each individual is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are the rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness;
- That the freedom to own, use, exchange, control, protect, and freely dispose of property is a natural, necessary and inseparable extension of the individual’s unalienable rights;
- That the legitimate function of government is to secure these rights through the preservation of domestic tranquility, the maintenance of a strong national defense, and the promotion of equal justice for all;
- That history makes clear that left unchecked, it is the nature of government to usurp the liberty of its citizens and eventually become a major violator of the people’s rights; and
- That, therefore, it is essential to bind government with the chains of the Constitution and carefully divide and jealously limit government powers to those assigned by the consent of the governed.

II. Essential Core Values of the Constitution Party of North Carolina

Sanctity of Life

The pre-born child, whose life begins at fertilization, is a human being created in God’s image. The first duty of the law is to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. It is, therefore, the duty of all civil governments to secure and to safeguard the lives of the pre-born.

To that end, the Constitution of the United States was ordained and established for “ourselves and our posterity.” Under no circumstances may the federal government fund or otherwise support any state or local government or any organization or entity, foreign or domestic, which advocates, encourages or participates in the practice of abortion. We also oppose the distribution and use of all abortifacients.

We affirm the God-given legal personhood of all unborn human beings, without exception. As to matters of rape and incest, it is unconscionable to take the life of an innocent child for the crimes of his father.

No government may legalize the taking of the unalienable right to life without justification, including the life of the pre-born; abortion may not be declared lawful by any institution of state or local government – legislative, judicial, or executive. The right to life should not be made dependent upon a vote of a majority of any legislative body.

Further, we condemn the misuse of federal laws against pro-life demonstrators, and strongly urge the repeal of the FACE Acts as an unconstitutional expansion of federal power into areas reserved to the states or people by the Tenth Amendment. In addition, we oppose the funding and legalization of bio-research involving human embryonic or pre-embryonic cells.

Finally, we also oppose all government “legalization” of euthanasia, infanticide and suicide.

Religious Freedom

Article I of the Bill of Rights reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Our Constitution grants no authority to the federal government either to grant or deny the religious expressions of the people in any place. Both the First and Tenth Amendments forbid such tyranny.

We call upon all branches of government to cease their attacks on the religious liberties of the people and the states, regardless of the forum in which these liberties are exercised.

We assert that any form of taxation on churches and other religious organizations is a direct and dangerous step toward state control of the church. Such intrusion is prohibited by the Constitution and must be halted.

We assert that private organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America, can determine their own membership, volunteers, and employment based on their oaths and creeds.

Traditional Family

We assert that the traditional nuclear family, consisting of one man and one woman joined by marriage, is the healthiest and most secure relationship, and form of family, in which to create a stable and prosperous environment to establish and build strong families. We believe it is the best form of family and should be encouraged by law.

Private Property Rights

We affirm the Fourth Amendment right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, including arbitrary or de facto registration, general and unwarranted electronic surveillance, national computer databases, and national identification cards. We also reaffirm that civil governments must be strictly limited in their powers to intrude upon the persons and private property of individual citizens, in particular, that no place be searched and no thing be seized, except upon proof of probable cause that a crime has been committed and the proper judicial warrant issued.

We assert our opposition to using Eminent Domain to take private property, through the force of government, from one private party to give to another.

Pro-Second Amendment

The right to bear arms is inherent in the right of self defense, defense of the family, and defense against tyranny, conferred on the individual and the community by our Creator to safeguard life, liberty, and property, as well as to help preserve the independence of the nation.

The right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution; it may not properly be infringed upon or denied.

The Constitution Party of North Carolina upholds the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. We oppose attempts to prohibit ownership of guns by law-abiding citizens, and stand against all laws which would require the registration of guns or ammunition.

National Sovereignty

The United States is properly a free and sovereign republic which should strive to live in peace with all nations, without interfering in their internal affairs, and without permitting their interference in ours. We are, therefore, unalterably opposed to entangling alliances – via treaties, or any other form of commitment which compromise our national sovereignty, or commit us to intervention in foreign wars.

To this end, we shall:

- Steadfastly oppose American participation in any form of world government organization, including any world court under United Nations auspices;
- Call upon the President, and Congress, to terminate United States membership in the United Nations, and its subsidiary organizations, and terminate U.S. participation in all so-called U.N. peace keeping operations;
- Bar the United Nations, and its subsidiaries, from further operation, including raising of funds, on United States territory; and
- Propose that the Constitution be obeyed to prohibit the United States government from entering any treaty, or other agreement, which makes any commitment of American military forces or tax money, compromises the sovereignty of the United States, or accomplishes a purpose properly the subject of domestic law. In this connection we specifically denounce the agreement establishing the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and any other such trade agreements, either bilateral or regional in nature. All treaties must be subordinate to the Constitution, since the Constitution is the only instrument which empowers and limits the federal government.

American troops must serve only under American commanders, not those of the United Nations or foreign countries.

Anti-Socialism

We assert that we are opposed to Federal Aid, Foreign Aid and National health care.

We deny the assumption that civil government has the authority to set wages and prices; so doing is inconsistent with principles of individual liberty and the free market.

III. National Constitution Party Platform

The Constitution Party of North Carolina affirms and adopts the platform of the national Constitution Party with the exception of those specified in the Essential Core Values and Preamble of the Constitution Party of North Carolina.

Is Ginsburg A Competent SCOTUS?

Major h/t to GiovanniWorld member sink-hole Steve!

This admission by Ginsburg has me scratching my head. And I’m wondering if maybe we shouldn’t test our Supreme Court Justices every 8-10 years to keep up with their competency levels. Never mind. If it makes sense, we won’t do it.

Gio-

LAW OF THE LAND
Ginsburg: I thought Roe was to rid undesirables
Justice discusses ‘growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of’

---

Posted: July 08, 2009
9:46 pm Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

 

In an astonishing admission, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she was under the impression that legalizing abortion with the 1973 Roe. v. Wade case would eliminate undesirable members of the populace, or as she put it “populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

Her remarks, set to be published in the New York Times Magazine this Sunday but viewable online now, came in an in-depth interview with Emily Bazelon titled, “The Place of Women on the Court.”

The 16-year veteran of the high court was asked if she were a lawyer again, what would she “want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda.”

Abortionists admit killing babies, call it ‘absolute evil.’ Get the culture-war classic ‘The Marketing of Evil’ – autographed – $4.95 today only!

Ginsburg responded:

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often.Question: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?

Ginsburg: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae – in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.

When pressed to explain what she meant by reproductive rights needing to be straightened out, Ginsburg said, “The basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman.”

Asked if that meant getting rid of the test the court imposed, in which it allows states to impose restrictions on abortion such as a waiting period, the justice said she was “not a big fan of these tests.”

I think the court uses them as a label that accommodates the result it wants to reach. It will be, it should be, that this is a woman’s decision. It’s entirely appropriate to say it has to be an informed decision, but that doesn’t mean you can keep a woman overnight who has traveled a great distance to get to the clinic, so that she has to go to some motel and think it over for 24 hours or 48 hours.I still think, although I was much too optimistic in the early days, that the possibility of stopping a pregnancy very early is significant. The morning-after pill will become more accessible and easier to take. So I think the side that wants to take the choice away from women and give it to the state, they’re fighting a losing battle. Time is on the side of change.

Three years ago, Ginsburg received some embarrassing national attention when she napped on the bench during a court hearing.

“Justices David Souter and Samuel Alito, who flank the 72-year-old, looked at her but did not give her a nudge,” reported Gina Holland of the Associated Press.

The incident caught the attention of Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, who said:

“At first, she appeared to be reading something in her lap. But after a while, it became clear: Ginsburg was napping on the bench. By Bloomberg News’s reckoning – not denied by a court spokeswoman – Ginsburg’s snooze lasted a quarter of an hour.

“It’s lucky for Ginsburg that the Supreme Court has so far refused to allow television in the courtroom, for her visit to the land of nod would have found its way onto late-night shows.”

The Freedom Conundrum

How much freedom are you willing to give up to Obama?

Just a few words from me.

Gio-

“I am a free man, but not as free as I was a year ago.” Believe it or not, I have repeated that line to myself every single day for the last 5 months. I even wrote it down and stuck it to the upper right hand corner of my monitor screen. Now I’m wondering how long until I have to make a major change to my slogan by changing “a year ago” to “six months ago”.

One of the endearing qualities of George W. Bush was his commitment to the blessing that we call ‘freedom’. Whenever he left our soil for places around the globe he always brought the freedom sermon. The one that states that all mankind has a God given right to freedom. In fact, I believe in my heart that Ronald Reagan was very proud of ‘W’ every time he brought up the subject of freedom, especially when he was on foreign soil. Where I think ‘W’ went wrong is, he had no clue that some either did not want freedom, or did not deserve it. That can all be hashed out by future historians, let me move on.

At this point I could copy a very dry dictionary explanation of what the word ‘Freedom’ means, but if I were to do that, I would be admitting that there are Americans that need the word explained to them, and I’m just not ready to do that yet. This one word, “Freedom”has been the basis of almost everything we have done in creating this huge wonderful mess we call the United States of America. It’s why the Puritans went through hell not only getting here, but to stay and create a place where one could worship their God without retribution. That was their freedom. How about our Founding Fathers and the freedom they were looking for. Yet they were not looking for freedom for themselves, they wanted all citizens of this country to feel the glory of freedom. They went so far as to put words to paper that announced to the world that they, as Americans, were now a free people. Then shortly afterwards, they went to war, with a joke of a military that should have been crushed by the British, to break the chains of bondage once and for all. I believe in my heart that there was some divine intervention in the outcome of that war, as God knew that free men could do incredible things, and freedom was the only just route for a God loving nation.

Does being free always mean you are right? No, of course not.

Does being free always mean you will do the right thing? No, of course not.

 Does being free mean justice will always be applied equally? No, of course not.

Being free does however mean that we have the ability to learn from our mistakes and apply what we have learned to correct our mistakes, helping to enhance and perfect freedom. Slavery was one of those issues that our Founding Fathers got wrong from the very start. How our Founding Fathers could be right on so many issues, yet get the slavery issue so wrong is something of a mystery. Fortunately, they gave us the tools in which slavery could be addressed.

Freedom was also the issue that gave us the Civil War. The South wanted freedom  from the North. The South was especially tired of the North telling the South what they could or could not do. And sadly, all it took to start a war where hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans killed each other, was the North to demand freedom for the slaves of the South. My next point has been debated by many, but it seems quite reasonable that the South was fighting mad over this demand because everyone in the South knew that Northeners still owned slaves. Whatever side of that debate you fall on, it’s irrefutable that the Civil War became the war that gained slaves their freedom.

There are so many things in the past of the American experience that were done in the name of freedom, that it would require me to write volumes just putting together that list. Having said that, let’s me speed up to present day America and my thoughts about “Freedom”.

Going back to how I started this little dissertation, my freedoms, and you’re freedoms are in grave danger. Each day the elected leader of this great nation (Americans also have the freedom to elect bad leaders) takes us two steps closer towards his aspirations of Marxist Nirvana. The obvious problem with Marxist Nirvana is…. it’s all dependent on the people giving up their freedoms and handing over all decisions to the state. The perfect Nanny State! For Communists, weak-minded, lazy good for nothing, sit around all day and smoke dope….. Sorry, got carried away there.

Strangely enough, I’m going to bring this almost full circle by talking about president George W. Bush again. Not surprisingly, the Obama administration keeps blaming Bush for everything he says he has to do. Let’s stop the BS right here and get the truth circulating for a change. George Bush was the man for the job after we got hit on 911. And if Americans told the truth, they would tell you that his bugging of phone conversations of terrorists going in or out of our country was just peachy keen with them. Add me to the list. Another endearing quality of president Bush was his love of tax cuts. His tax cuts allowed this country prosperity like it had never seen before, during a period when our economy should have contracted rapidly after we were attacked. His economic downfall was listening to guys who wanted to protect a market in which they had made their fortunes, and his spending like a drunken Sailor.

I would like to characterize what Bush did economically (minus the tax cuts) as dumb. Yeah I know, it’s a bit harsh but it’s true. It was dumb of him to throw away any pretense he had about being a Conservative when it came to spending money. At this juncture I would like to mention that living in this once great country of ours, we also have the freedom to screw-up royally. There’s that word again.

 Contrast that with what Obama is doing. Obama is using his elitist, Ivy League, Marxist trained brains to destroy us on purpose. Bush’s destruction was an accident, whereas Obama’s is done with intent. And this my dear friends is where the Freedom Train starts to get derailed.

This great nation has always tried to spread the ideals of freedom. It was something that George Bush was very good at. Obama however has done the opposite. In fact, Obama has a disease called ‘Sosorryitis’. Yep, everytime he get’s on foreign soil he has to pull out his ‘we are so sorry’ speech. Why he has to apologize to everyone for the USA wanting to help spread freedom and liberty throughout the world is something to worry about. It would be a fun exercise to get a hold of some of the transcripts of speeches he’s made while on foreign soil, and then count how many times he used the words “liberty” and “freedom”. My guess would be ZERO!

The way I see it we have two choices. The first is the easiest for us, but could be deadly dangerous for our children and grandchildren, and that would be to just go along with his programs. The second requires the citizens of this once great country to get involved in saving their country. I’m hopeful that this will happen in the near future, but I really have no idea what the tipping point might be. Which freedom will Obama take away next that will be the one to set the streets on fire? 

Before I leave you with a few words from some ordinary, average American citizens, I would like to ask you the reader to tell me about the intrusions into our freedoms that worry you the most. Just post in the comments section.

After reading some of what you are about to read, I may be ready to change my quote from the very first sentence of this piece. This one… “I am a free man, but not as free as I was (6 months ago) a year ago.”

Another Disastrous Obama Nominee
If you need a shining example of the utter disingenuousness of Barack Obama’s commitment to government transparency, I have two words for you: Ron Sims. This lifelong political hack is to transparency what sunlight is to Dracula, what salt is to a slug, what kryptonite is to Superman, what “The View” is to intelligent debate. That is: lethal.

In its press release announcing the nomination of the Seattle-area county executive to the No. 2 post at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the White House described Sims as a “visionary urban leader.” The White House also touted Sims’ “willingness to make the tough choices necessary to ensure that American tax dollars are spent wisely.”

But Sims’ key accomplishments in the Pacific Northwest have involved illegally keeping taxpayers in the dark. Despite his long-known notoriety in Washington State as an incompetent manager and obstinate campaign finance law-breaker, President Obama trusts Sims to oversee the day-to-day operations of a federal agency with 8,500 employees, a $39 billion yearly budget, and a chronic history of corruption and cronyism.

Ask Stefan Sharkansky. A Seattle blogger and citizen activist, Sharkansky blew the whistle on election fraud shenanigans involving Sims’ office during the November 2004 gubernatorial election. He has fought since December 2004 to obtain public records related to gross errors in the county’s ballot counting. Since filing suit against Sims in October 2005, Sharkansky told me, “the county has released a number of additional documents which confirm both (a) that county officials unlawfully counted hundreds of ineligible ballots in the 2004 election (a multiple of the 133 vote “margin of victory” in the governor’s race); and (b) that they unlawfully withheld documentation of the illegal vote counting from public disclosure for many months (up to a few years) after the documents were first requested.”

“What we’ve seen is not just a lazy agency dragging its heels to respond to document requests, but an organized effort to cover up official misconduct and to obstruct justice,” Sharkansky stated in his suit. His case goes to trial next week.

This alleged defiance of open-records laws fits a disgraceful pattern in Sims’ office.

 
Ask Armen Yousoufian. In 1997, the former Boeing engineer embarked on what would be a 12-year legal battle to force Sims to obey public-disclosure rules. Instead of making the “tough choices necessary to ensure that American tax dollars are spent wisely,” Sims did everything in his power to ensure that King County, Wash., taxpayers were deprived of vital information on how their money was being spent.

Yousoufian wanted access to government documents related to a sports stadium subsidy plan up for a vote in Washington in the summer of 1997. The records he requested at the end of May 1997 pertained to the fiscal impact of a massive tax-hike proposal to build a new football palace for the Seattle Seahawks. Time was of the essence: County residents were preparing to vote on a ballot initiative package worth $300 million on June 17, 1997. Boosters of similar “public-private stadium partnerships” had made dubious claims of economic windfalls that never transpired. Yousoufian — serving as the watchdog that Sims failed to be for his constituents — was absolutely right to question the numbers.

But Sims, a leading stadium subsidy booster and corporate water-carrier for Microsoft billionaire and Seahawks owner Paul Allen, didn’t put an informed citizenry first. His office deliberately stonewalled Yousoufian’s request — at first failing to deliver the documents, then claiming they didn’t exist, and then admonishing him to bug off because he had been given everything he requested. All lies. While Sims’ deputies gave Yousoufian the grand runaround, Referendum 48 passed by a margin of 51-49.

Yousoufian launched a one-man crusade to hold Sims accountable to taxpayers. In 2000, he sued under Washington’s open-records law. He spent $330,000 of his own money in legal fees and 4,000 hours of his own time. A lower court ruled in his favor, dinging the county’s obstructionism as “egregious,” but skimped in awarding him the minimum $5 a day for each of the 8,252 days that Sims’ office withheld the documents. The courts found “hundreds” of instances where Sims’ office deceived Yousoufian or refused to tell the truth. To deter future abuse, Yousoufian appealed for higher fines.

In January 2009, just weeks before Obama would tap Sims for the No. 2 HUD post, the high court issued a historic ruling in Yousoufian’s favor, damning Sims’ “blatant violations of the state Public Records Act.” This travesty is the singular responsibility of Ron Sims. It dragged on through his entire tenure as King County executive — and beyond. The state Supreme Court remanded the case back to the lower courts to determine a final fine that may exceed some $1 million in taxpayer funds. In keeping with his whitewashing ways, Sims is now trying to have the Supreme Court ruling vacated.

Obama’s best and brightest: working hard to keep taxpayers in the dark. Long live transparency!

Obama’s first six months: F. Democrats last two and one half years: F-
By Jim Hayett
July 4, 2009 

Transparency. Obama’s main theme or at least one of many. After reading the emails coming from the EPA so to silence a 35 year veteran of the agency, and a senior analysts in the EPA’s National Center for Environment Economics, so to make sure Obama and Pelosi get their energy tax bill passed, I realized why the newest Rasmussen poll now shows more people not approving Obama’s performance than those that do. According to the poll, The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll ( July 2nd) shows that 33% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-five percent (35%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. This new drop in approval comes only from his outright lies so to get elected. If Obama wants to back his promises, he should start here. However, lying is a daily event with Obama, Pelosi, and the liberal democrats.

Iraq. Obama repeatedly said he would get our troops out of Iraq and close Gitmo promptly. Now that he got many of the not too bright crowd to put him in the Oval Office, he decided to break both of those promises. But as a nation of “cowards,” those that voted for him either don’t know any of this or are just too sheepish when it comes to party politics. One of those answers is dead accurate. We still have no place to put these terrorists in Gitmo and troops in Iraq will remain for quite some time.

No new taxes on those making under $250,000. This one really gets me because Obama and the democrats pulled the typical liberal spin and demagoguery so to get into the White House and Washington by constantly making this false claim. But what does Obama do shortly after he gets the poor and middle class votes? He pulls a “Diamond” Jim Doyle move: promise no new taxes but whack a tax bill, shortly after victory, on those that not only voted for this idiot but are the least group who can afford the new energy tax that this bill imposes on just about everything.

Obama promised partisan politics will no longer be in Washington as we know it if we elect him. Let’s see. After he wins, Pelosi and Obama make statements that they won so they write the bills. Real bi-partisan I see. And how much time was given to most Republican to read the bills before they were passed? In the case of the most recent bill, cap and trade, 3:10am in the morning of the day for the vote! Almost identical to Obama’s spending bill.

Obama and the democrats bash Bush and the Republican’s for their spending. What Obama and his liberal cronies did to our economic balance sheet is one of the most disastrous moves a regime can do to a country, short of dictatorship. Obama and the democrats put us in so much debt that no one knows how or who will pay for this. But what is even more disgusting and hypocritical is that these same idiots in Washington, and many that aren’t in Washington, blasted Bush for his spending. Regardless, Obama in six months quadrupled our dept to $13 trillion and not a peep from the liberals and the MSM.

Job growth. Obama and his team said the stimulus money will cap unemployment at 8%. Just the other day, unemployment rose just shy of 10% (25% higher than what the “great one” promised). However, add in those that took part-time work, but lost their full-time job, and that unemployment rate skyrockets to 16%. Now, add in the 20% unemployment rate for our nations teenagers, which will only move higher with the increase in minimum wages, and you can see how badly Obama and the liberals have lied to their voters once again.

Speaking of MSM. It’s still hard to believe that there are Americans living in this once great country who are clueless about our bias, liberal MSM. When 86% of the media admit they are liberal, and many admitted to their dislike and slanted journalism with the Iraq war, how can anyone who has an IQ or a pulse, not know any of this? When the vast majority of our mainstream print media are going under, and many more soon to follow, or some of our most watched and read journalists are caught lying about Bush or the war, of which they all lost their jobs as did those that ran these once honest and prominent media outlets, you wonder how anyone living in America can’t see the bias in our media.

And finally, here’s a woman that shares my worries…

Obama wants to take our freedoms away

Anyone with eyes and ears can tell the Obama administration is set on making all Americans slaves. This way it can go along with the other countries on one world government, one world money and one world religion.

You will not have a choice to do anything else. They will not give you one.

It will not be the black population rising to the top, nor the white population. It will be one called greed. And we will be pawns in their move to what they want — total power.

Our president will hand partial control to the United Nations. There are already moves in place to do this. Soon you will not be able to correct your child the way you do now. Nor will you be able to tell them to go to school, go to church or clean their room. The United Nations will control this aspect.

You will go to prison. They will mandate what happens to and when. They will give your child the parents they want them to have.

We as Americans must stand together. Not one race against another. We are going to lose our country. There is no time for anyone to say, “Well, I will look into it tomorrow, because it is tomorrow already.” Our new administration is pushing daily for bills to be passed at a pace never seen before.

Beware. Stand up for your rights today.

Cynthia Saulter
Carrollton

Liberal Double Standards

Giovanni’s World has a working hypothesis — liberals are hypocrites. They say one thing but do another and they maintain double standards.

Here are two latest examples of liberal double standards.

Double Standard No. 1:

Liberals say they are champions of racial/ethnic minorities, especially blacks and Latinos/Hispanics. That is the reason for the nomination to the Supreme Court of the lackluster & racist Sonia Sotomayor. That is also the reason why the Democrat-controlled Senate will confirm her.

But wait!

Miguel Estrada

In 2001, under the Bush administration, Democrats torpedoed the nomination of another Latino, attorney Miguel Estrada, to the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C.

Born in Honduras, Estrada immigrated to the United States when he was 17, arriving with a limited command of English. He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree from Columbia in 1983. In 1986, he received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Since the Democrats did not have enough votes to block Estrada’s nomination, they used a filibuster to prevent his nomination from being given a final confirmation vote on the full Senate floor. Using his power as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy delayed Estrada’s confirmation hearing for over two years. Estrada finally withdrew his name in frustration.

Double Standard No. 2:

In January of this year, NBC News made zero mention of the thousands of pro-lifers who came to Washington for the annual March for Life.

Yesterday however, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams hailed 12 left-wing Greenpeace activists who illegally hanged a banner at Mount Rushmore. The banner was on screen for a full 15 seconds. (For NewsBusters’ article on this, go HERE.)

In other words, don’t ever believe what liberals say about themselves. They don’t really care about blacks, or Latinos, or Hispanics. Nor do liberal journalists really care about the news. In each of the two cases above, what really matters to liberals is the promotion of their left wing ideological agenda.

~Eowyn

Open Letter to Obama

On July 1, Gio’s World posted this video by America’s modern-day Thomas Paine.

Here he is again, with a new video, an “Open Letter to the President.” A little birdie tells me, however, that his impassioned plea to Obama will fall on deaf ears.

~Eowyn

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