Thursday, March 22, 2012
Tennessee Lawmakers Pass Resolution Blasting UN Agenda 21
Legislation attacking the United Nations’ “Agenda 21” agreement as a radical socialist plot at odds with American liberty and values was approved overwhelmingly by members of the Tennessee House of Representatives last Thursday, sparking some criticism by far-left activists but widespread praise by conservative groups and Tea Party organizations across the nation.
The non-binding measure, House Joint Resolution 587, recognizes the “destructive and insidious nature” of the controversial UN scheme — “a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering, and global political control.” The bill easily sailed through the House on March 15 with 72 votes in favor, including at least six Democrats, and 23 votes against.
“I think this planet carries me and the eight billion people that are here right now, just fine. And what these individuals want to do, they want to cap the number of people that this planet can have,” noted bill supporter Republican state Rep. Glen Casada, citing China’s barbaric “one-child” policy and its enforcement through forced abortions as among the many reasons why the UN plot to limit population is dangerous.
“It is insidious and it should scare you if you love freedom,” Rep. Casada warned. “I’m sorry, but humans are not enemies to the planet. We need to be creating more energy, not consuming less.”
The efforts by Tennessee lawmakers follow a growing tsunami of awareness and outrage all across America about the highly controversial global agenda adopted in 1992. According to experts, other legislative bodies, and even official UN Agenda 21 documents, the worldwide scheme aims to foist so-called “sustainable development” on the people of the world.
FBI wouldn’t exclude extrajudicial killings in the US
United States Attorney General Eric Holder recently explained how the president can order the assassination of his own citizens abroad. But did his rationalization justify executions within the US? Apparently, the FBI wouldn’t exclude it.
Responding to a congressional inquiry this week on the rationale of assassinating Americans, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller affirmed that he himself isn’t too clear on the what Holder explained.
The attorney general addressed an audience at Northwestern University in Chicago this week with an explanation for US President Barack Obama’s killing of three American citizens overseas last year. Alleged terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki and two other US-born citizens were executed in a drone strike last year in Yemen, a kill that the White House has been reluctant to discuss in detail until just recently. Speaking from Northwestern this week, Holder insisted, however, that the details the president acted on were “sufficient under the Constitution for the United States to use lethal force against a US citizen abroad.”
Following up on Wednesday, US Congressman Tom Graves, a Republican from Georgia, asked the FBI’s Mueller if Holder’s qualifications for an ordered kill could be applied domestically.
“I have to go back. Uh, I’m not certain whether that was addressed or not,” responded an unsure Mueller.
Rep. Graves from there rephrased his inquiry, asking if, “from a historical perspective,” the federal government has “the ability to kill a US citizen on United States soil or just overseas.” Mueller once again suspended an explanation.
“I’m going to defer that to others in the Department of Justice,” responded the director.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Obama raises eyebrows with executive order revising authority to nationalize resources for defense
President Obama’s signature on an executive order that updates presidential authority to take control over national defense resources in time of emergency has legal minds arguing over whether the White House is trying to expand power or merely organize rules 18 years in the making.
The executive order, signed late Friday, revokes an earlier order put in place by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and says any other previously issued orders or rulings by previous presidents shall remain in effect unless they are inconsistent with the new order.
The purpose of the order, according to its contents, is to make sure the U.S. is prepared to mobilize technological and industrial resources “capable of meeting national defense requirements” and ensure “technological superiority of its national defense equipment in peacetime and in times of national emergency.”
It orders Cabinet agencies to determine military and civilian staffing and evaluate access to resources like suppliers, materials, skilled labor and professional and technical personnel. It also is intended to ensure the U.S. government is prepared “in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States.”
The executive order gives the homeland security secretary authority to issue guidance to other department heads to establish and activate a National Defense Executive Reserve (NDER) composed of experts in the private and public sector — though not full-time federal employees — to fill executive positions in the federal government in the event of a national defense emergency.
CIA Chief: We’ll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher
More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.
Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an “Internet of Things” — that is, wired devices — at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. “‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”
All those new online devices are a treasure trove of data if you’re a “person of interest” to the spy community. Once upon a time, spies had to place a bug in your chandelier to hear your conversation. With the rise of the “smart home,” you’d be sending tagged, geolocated data that a spy agency can intercept in real time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room’s ambiance.
“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,” Petraeus said, “the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.”
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
The Power to Kill
President Obama, who came to office promising transparency and adherence to the rule of law, has become the first president to claim the legal authority to order an American citizen killed without judicial involvement, real oversight or public accountability.
That, regrettably, was the most lasting impression from a major address on national security delivered last week by Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.
There were parts of the speech worth celebrating — starting with Mr. Holder’s powerful discussion of why trying most terrorists in civilian courts is best for punishing them and safeguarding America. But we are deeply concerned about his rejection of oversight and accountability when it comes to killing American citizens who are suspected of plotting terrorist acts.
A president has the right to order lethal force against conventional enemies during conventional war, or against unconventional enemies in unconventional wars. But when it comes to American citizens, there must be compelling evidence that the threat the citizen poses is imminent and that capturing the citizen is not a realistic option.
The case that has brought the issue to international attention is the Sept. 30, 2011, drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, who United States officials say was part of Al Qaeda’s command structure. Another American was killed in the strike, and Mr. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, also an American citizen, was killed in an attack two weeks later.
The killings touched off a storm of criticism. Mr. Awlaki’s father tried to sue the government, which used the “national secrets” defense to have the case tossed out. But the administration has refused to acknowledge that the killing took place or that there is in fact a policy about “targeted killings” of Americans.