The 7 Most Exclusive Secret Societies in History

Freemasons reportedly have a number of secret handshakes that they employ when meeting fellow travelers. Thumbs are pressed against knuckles or wrists in various permutations depending on the greeters' position within the society. Members of the Illuminati might be seen declaring their affiliation with hand signals that make them look suspiciously like classic rock fans. The Karstphanomen (the secret society in my new book, The Devil's Workshop) whisper Latin phrases to one another, conveying their mutual agreement that the "end justifies the means."
But beyond all the special handshakes and code words, there doesn't seem to have been much point to most secret societies other than self-interest. Once an invitation was secured, membership in one of these societies guaranteed a person certain considerations: political favors, appointments to influential positions, business and financial opportunities. Some societies with a more religious (or perhaps sacrilegious) bent believed they could gain mystical abilities or accrue occult powers and artifacts.
Secret societies still exist today, but the advent of the Internet has made real secrets much harder to keep. Masons ride in parades and the Karstphanomen now work out in the open with lawyers and public advocates. Only Anonymous, the tech-savvy Internet entity has captured the popular imagination in the same way that secret societies once did. But even they don't fully follow the tradition of selfishness, since they seem to want to entertain us while dragging others' secrets out into the open.
Children still make tree houses and ice forts with signs that read "keep out" and "no girls allowed." Exclusivity abounds. Secret societies may be a relic of a bygone time, but they still have the power to intrigue us. These lucky seven are thought by some to have some vestige of influence even now...
Freemasons
The Freemasons are the longest-lasting secret society (that the general population is aware of) still in existence. They've become synonymous with secret handshakes, bizarre rituals and a hierarchy in which members move up through various levels as they gain experience and respect within the society. Originally formed by the union of several smaller societies, the first "lodge" was founded in London in 1717, but at that time rumors of the Masons' existence had already been circulating for at least a century. Most modern secret societies take their cue from the Freemasons by incorporating handshakes, code words, private rituals and complex chains of command.
Illuminati
Although the Illuminati originally branched off from, and broke away from, the Freemasons, they have since become a prime focus for conspiracy theorists, many of whom credit Illuminati agendas for every conceivable disaster, mystery, and economic downturn. In point of fact, there is no evidence that the Illuminati still exist, but that only seems to add to their mystique.
The Skull and Bones
Perhaps the least secret of all secret societies, the Skull and Bones Society at Yale University was founded by William H Russell in 1832. Originally called the Eulogian Club, the Skull and Bones boasts many prominent heads of state (including at least three presidents), captains of industry, and heads of covert agencies among its membership. The society meets twice a week for rituals that are purported to closely follow Masonic rites, but many claim the organization is really nothing more than a glorified college fraternity.
The Rosicrucians
Founded in the early fifteenth century by Christian Rosenkreutz, the Rosicrucians were purported to be using occult practices to bring about a global transformation. Two centuries later, the publication of three manifestos launched them into the popular consciousness. They are believed by discerning conspiracy theorists to have founded the Freemasons, the Illuminati, and the Invisible College, and to have been the guiding force behind every significant revolution in modern history.
Bilderberg
In 1954, the world's most influential movers and shakers met in a hotel to discuss and plan the coming year's global agenda. They have continued to meet every year, but the content of their talks has remained a zealously guarded secret. They are not technically a secret society, since their existence and membership are not in question, but many conspiracy theorists worry about the influence and reach of their annual meetings.
The Elders of Zion
In 1920, a newspaper owned by industrialist Henry Ford ran a series of articles reprinting a Russian document called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The document was quickly debunked as a hoax, but those articles were collected as a book, newly titled The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem. Adolph Hitler read the book, was influenced by it, and appropriated many of its ideas for himself. Anti-Semitic theorists around the world still believe that the Protocols were genuine and that there was once a Jewish conspiracy to achieve world domination.
The Knights Templar
Early in the twelfth century, nine knights took a vow to protect pilgrims traveling through the Holy Land. More knights joined the cause and the organization grew, gathering wealth, fame and power as their influence spread. Popular culture has cast them in the role of funders of many other secret societies and guardians of the most sacred Christian treasures. But the members of the Knights Templar were eventually tortured and executed, and the society was disbanded. There is no compelling evidence that they ever possessed the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail or the blood of Jesus Christ.

Because New Mothers Just Waste Maternity Leave On Stupid Things Like Raising Their Children

People really need to stop saying America is the greatest country to live in. USA fails in all departments that our Government provides for the people compared to all other countries.








 

Our Government has turned it's back on the American people since the early 90's. The Constitution has been forgotten and government want's to take it away from you. American needs to change fast if anyone is going to live a Laissez-Faire, which we should be to live a normal life.

Compared to USA, things you get for free in other countries with no limit of time frame. So no worries about only for 2 years or 5 years. it's forever. House, College Education, Medical ( including people on vacation who don't live their.) Energy (Solar), Paid Maternity Leave (Father included), Money to start business, Monthly living expense.
 Now USA--- food stamps (only if you make it and qualify thru hundreds of restrictions, and for limited amount of time.Welfare only if you ( see above food stamps). That's it. and still it's not enough to live life like a normal human being.

It's three times cheaper to give housing to the homeless than to keep them on the streets

A new study is out providing support to one of my favorite ideas in public policy — that the best way to deal with the challenge of homelessness is to give homeless people homes to live in. To some it sounds utopian and it's natural to worry about the cost, but a great deal of evidence suggests that it would be cheaper to house the homeless than to let them languish on the streets and deal with the aftermath.
The latest is a Central Florida Commission on Homelessness study indicating that the region spends $31,000 a year per homeless person on "the salaries of law-enforcement officers to arrest and transport homeless individuals — largely for nonviolent offenses such as trespassing, public intoxication or sleeping in parks — as well as the cost of jail stays, emergency-room visits and hospitalization for medical and psychiatric issues."
Between 2005 and 2012 the rate of homelessness in America declined 17 percent
By contrast, getting each homeless person a house and a caseworker to supervise their needs would cost about $10,000 per person.
This particular study looked at the situations in Orange, Seminole, and Osceola Counties in Florida and of course conditions vary from place to place. But as Scott Keyes points out, there are similar studies showing large financial savings in Charlotte and Southeastern Colorado from focusing on simply housing the homeless.
The general line of thinking behind these programs is one of the happier legacies of the George W Bush administration. His homelessness czar Philip Mangano was a major proponent of a "housing first" approach to homelessness. And by and large it's worked. Between 2005 and 2012, the rate of homelessness in America declined 17 percent. Figures released this month from the National Alliance to End Homeless showed another 3.7 percent decline. That's a remarkable amount of progress to make during a period when the overall economic situation has been generally dire.

Source: National Alliance to End Homelessness

But the statistical success of anti-homelessness efforts even in the face of a bad economy underscores the point of the Florida study.
When it comes to the chronically homeless, you don't need to fix everything to improve their lives. You don't even really need new public money. What you need to do is target those resources at the core of the problem — a lack of housing — and deliver the housing, rather than spending twice as much on sporadic legal and medical interventions. And the striking thing is that despite the success of housing first initiatives, there are still lots of jurisdictions that haven't yet switched to this approach. If Central Florida and other lagging regions get on board, we could take a big bite out of the remaining homelessness problem and free up lots of resources for other public services.

5 Craziest Laws Passed by GOP Legislators, Just This Month.

May 28, 2014  |  

 

 

 

Only in D.C. does the Republican Party drop like an anvil on any improvements to the country that could conceivably pass through our bicameral legislature. In our various state houses, the GOP is busy passing laws rather than squashing them.
And what laws they pass: divining menaces to the Republic in everything from high-speed buses to homeless people’s knapsacks to solar panels, state-level Republicans have gone on the offense. More often than not they've succeeded in getting laws passed that range from counterproductive to downright cruel. Below are the five craziest and most destrcutive, just in the past couple of months.


1. Missouri Legalizes Shooting People for Being in Your Section
Feeling the Castle Doctrine defined “castle” too narrowly, Missouri State Representative Joe Don McGaugh proposed a bill allowing any citizen to use deadly force to protect against unlawful entry of private property. “This is a common sense extension of the law that would empower a nanny or babysitter, or anyone with the owner’s permission to occupy a property, to defend himself or herself against an intruder,” he said.
Unfortunately, McGaugh didn’t write his bill very carefully, and the Missouri House ended up passing a law that endorses use of deadly force by anyone pretty much anywhere. The bill allows for force by “occupants” of “private property"— conditions written so loosely that occupants could refer to a diner or a baseball game attendee or someone watching a movie, while invasion could mean anybody they feel intruding on whatever property they happen to be on.
As Think Progress explained, the bill is basically Stand Your Ground, except it replaces the threat of immediate physical harm with the feeling of invasion. Feel threatened in a business by someone you don’t think belongs there? Take out your gun and start shooting. Or, to quote Charles Pierce, “If you're at a Royals game, don't even think about moving down to the really good seats unless you feel lucky, punk.”
2. Florida City Tries to Make it Illegal for Homeless People to Own Stuff
The city of Ft. Lauderdale recently took up a resolution that would make it illegal for homeless people keep their possessions anywhere on public property. The resolution would allow police to confiscate any property stored on a public ground, provided twenty-four hours notice is given; confiscated property may be retrieved, if the person pays a “reasonable” fee for storage and transportation.
The city claims the ordinance is due in part to an “interest in aesthetics,” but as homeless people have no alternative method for hanging on to their belongings, the resolution effectively criminalizes their only possessions.
“Maintaining city streets is a legitimate concern, but simply punishing homeless people for leaving their possessions in public places is not an effective or humane way to address it,” Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty said to Think Progress. “Instead, city and business leaders should work with advocates and homeless people to develop alternative short and long term solutions, such as public storage options for homeless people and affordable housing.”
The resolution is, of course, backed by the city’s business community, which merely finds homeless people an eyesore.
3. Oklahoma Bans Increases in the Minimum Wage
While the Obama administration raises the minimum wage threshold for private contractors working with the government, Democrats in Congress push for a $10.10 minimum wage, and Seattle votes in the country’s highest minimum at $15.00 an hour, Oklahoma is going in the exact opposite direction: not only is Oklahoma not considering a statewide increase, but it banned individual cities from even considering such a raise on their own.

The move was widely viewed as a preemptive attack on a movement by the Central Oklahoma Labor Federation to raise the Oklahoma City’s wage to $10.10, in line with that being called for by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and her fellow Republicans in the legislature argued the bill created a “level playing field for all municipalities in Oklahoma” and protected against “artificial” raises in the minimum wage, whatever those are.
"Mandating an increase in the minimum wage would…would create a hardship for small business owners, stifle job creation and increase costs for consumers," Fallin said. "And it would do all of these things without even addressing the goal of reducing poverty."
Not quite. The statistics on the relation of minimum wage to job creation or loss are murky, but most studies find raising the wage’s overall affect on employment to be negligible. Two things raising the minimum wage definitely does: increases earnings for lower-income workers (by $33 billion in the case of a nationwide raise to $10.10) and lifts almost one million people out of poverty. Neither is something metropolises in Oklahoma are going to find out about any time soon.

4. Oklahoma Punishes Solar and Wind Power Producers
Oklahoma wasn’t done. Unhappy with people who install their own solar panels or wind turbines, an action that helps the utilities by easing the pressure on the companies during peak hours, the state is now penalizing private energy producers through a surcharge.
The extra charge applies to those who sell excess energy generated by the panels or turbines back to the grid, known as net metering. It was snuck in as a rider on another bill at the last minute, catching lawmakers and alternative energy groups off guard. It passed without a single dissenting vote.
It didn’t take long for Oklahoman owners of small businesses to point out the absurdity of a law that punishes in-state producers of energy.
“Oklahoma offers tax credits for large wind turbines which are built elsewhere, but wants to penalize small wind which we manufacture here in the state?” Mike Bergey, president & CEO of Bergey Windpower  said. “That makes no sense to me.”
Who would support such a bill? The ultra-conservative advocacy group ALEC, which has framed people with solar panels as “freeriders on the system,” though they actually contribute to the city’s power resources. ALEC is in good with Fallin. Thanks to this cozy relationship, Oklahoma is set to become the first state to pass a law of this kind. Where states have deals worked out between utility companies and individual power generators, ALEC is set on repealing them. They now have a template in a last-minute sabotoage in Oklahoma.
5. Tennessee Outlaws High-Speed Mass Transit
A proposed high-speed bus system in Nashville got on the bad side of the Tennessee legislature last month. But rather than fix or alter the suggested plans, Tennessee senators solved the matter by passing a bill against high-speed mass transit altogether.
The Amp was designed as a 7-mile high-speed bus line connecting various parts of Nashville, which would make it Tennessee’s  first mass transit system, and had the support of the business community. With Nashville’s congestion getting worse and a million residents expected to move to the city over the next twenty years, the plan seemed like a no-brainer. But to work, the high-speed bus systems needed a dedicated line and traffic signal priority. This angered drivers. Wealthier residents  began complaining of the undesirable elements the transit system could bring through their neighborhood, with one expressing the fear that it could bring “burger flippers” through her neighborhood. Then a major auto-dealer began sponsoring lawn signs opposing the plan, fearing a functional mass transit system could hurt sales.


That’s when the Koch Brothers got involved. Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee sprung into existence, staffed entirely with lobbyists and blessed with an undisclosed budget. Shortly thereafter, a bill appeared in the Tennessee legislature making it illegal “for buses to pick up or drop off passengers in the center lane of a state road”—effectively outlawing the Amp and any transit system like it. The bill’s sponsor  said he worried parking spaces might be sacrificed to make room for the line—the ultimate expression of a car-centered culture bewildered by the need, to say nothing of the desire, for public transportation.

The bill passed the state Senate without much opposition. But in the end, this was too much, even for Tennessee. The single-lane legislation was  ultimately rendered irrelevant when the Tennessee legislature negotiated a deal to allow the project to go forward with greater oversight from the legislature.
But the Kochs had shown how easy it could be to derail a city’s much-needed mass transit project with a friendly congressman and an indomitable fear of taking away a single parking space.

5 Signs that America Has Gone Bonkers—and a Glimmer of Hope People are saying enough is enough!

May 29, 2014  |  

 

 

 

 

  It might appear that the U-S-of-A has gone bonkers. So let me clear up any confusion that you might have: Yes, it has!
        Yet, it hasn't. More on that in a moment.
        First, though -- whether looking at the "tea party" congress critters who've swerved our nation's political debate to the hard right, or at the peacocks of Wall Street who continue to preen and profit atop the wreckage they've made of our real economy -- it's plain to see that America is suffering a pestilence of nuts and narcissists in high places. These "leaders" are hell bent to enthrone themselves and their ilk as the potentates of our economic, governmental and social systems, and they are aggressively trying to snuff out the light of egalitarianism that historically has been our society's unifying force.
         Bill Moyers, America's most public-spirited journalist, summarized the state of or nation in these terms: "The delusion is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe to sit at the seat of power." Symptoms of this national insanity include these examples:
        -- We can't even keep the doors of our government open. In October of last year, Washington's tea party Republican faction, unable to win the budget cuts it had demanded, threw a procedural fit to get what its acolytes wanted. Their stunt literally shut down the nation's government for 16 days and bled $24 billion from the U.S. economy. They won nothing except the widespread public scorn they earned for being self-aggrandizing political fools.
        -- Lloyd Blankfein, bankster-in-chief of Goldman Sachs, runs a financial casino that has bilked its own customers, been so reckless that it took a $10 billion taxpayer bailout to keep it afloat and lobbied furiously to kill regulatory reforms that would've reined in its ongoing destructiveness. So has this wrongdoer faced prosecution and jail? Ha! Blankfein continues to reign, retaining his CEOship at Goldman and hauling in $23 million last year in personal pay.
        -- A narrow, five-man majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has decreed that corporations are "persons" with the right to spend unlimited sums of their shareholders' money to elect or defeat whomever they want -- and to do so secretly. This year, in McCutcheon v. FEC, the Court also overturned the campaign finance rules limiting individual's contributions on aggregate federal campaign contributions -- thus enthroning a tiny elite as America's ruling electoral power.
        -- Big Money's control of politics gives it control of public policy. Thus long-term joblessness and underemployment rage on unabated, middle-class income is plummeting, the majority is finding upward mobility roped off, labor unions are being systematically disempowered and our social safety net is being shredded.
        -- From retail workers to adjunct college professors, the new normal for workaday people is poverty-wage, part-time, temporary, no-benefit employment. At McDonald's, the world's biggest burger chain with 860,000 U.S. workers and $5.5 billion in profits, typical pay is only $8.20 an hour and "full-time" jobs amount to only 30 hours a week. McDonald's business plan: Shift the bulk of its labor costs to taxpayers and workers themselves. The top executives calculate that employees will subsidize their gross underpayment by finding second jobs, and then get health care from emergency rooms and go to welfare offices for food and other basic needs.
         All this (and more) explains the popularity in America of this bumper sticker: "Where are we going? And what am I doing in this hand basket?"
        Most people know that things are screwy, that this is not the America that's supposed to be. And therein lies the good news: The USA hasn't gone crazy -- its leaders have, and they can be changed.
        In opinion polls, tea party Republicans are becoming less popular than swine flu, while solid progressives are on the rise. Such undiluted populist voices as Elizabeth Warren's and Bernie Sanders' in the Senate, Alan Grayson's in the House and Mayor Bill de Blasio's in New York City are shifting the debate from the corporate agenda to the people's.
        The anthem by rocker Patti Smith sums up where we Americans are -- and where I think we're going: "People have the power -- to dream, to rule, to wrestle the world from fools." Ordinary folks are awakening to the realization that the fools have seized power, and the folks are now making moves (and movements) to seize the fools by their short hairs and reclaim our dreams.

This Is What’s REALLY In A McDonald’s Hamburger.

Have a look at what is in a McDonald’s hamburger and see if you would be interested in consuming one of these again. You can also see what’s in a McRib, why you shouldn’t eat their french fries, and check out the strange fibers found in their nuggets.

According to McDonald’s own website, this is the list of ingredients for their popular McDouble, the sandwich that you see in the above video.

Regular Bun:

Ingredients: Enriched Flour (Bleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar, Yeast, Soybean Oil and/or Canola Oil, Contains 2% or Less: Salt, Wheat Gluten, Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Carbonate, Ammonium Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Mono and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Monoglycerides, Monocalcium Phosphate, Enzymes, Guar Gum, Calcium Peroxide), Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Calcium Propionate and/or Sodium Propionate (Preservatives), Soy Lecithin.

This is a list of side effects caused by the ingredients of just the bun alone:

- Ammonium sulfate is a chemical byproduct of steel-making and synthetic fiber production. It was the most common source of lawn fertilizer nitrogen until price increases starting in 2004 reduced its availability.-

 Bleached White Flour: It has been shown that alloxan is a byproduct of the flour bleaching process, the process they use to make flour look so “clean” and — well, white. No, they are technically not adding alloxan to the flour — although you will read this bit of misinformation on the Internet. But, they are doing chemical treatments to the grain that result in the formation of alloxan in the flour. Alloxan, or C4 H2O4N2, is a product of the decomposition of uric acid. It is a poison that is used to produce diabetes in healthy experimental animals (primarily rats and mice), so that researchers can then study diabetes “treatments” in the lab. Alloxan causes diabetes because it spins up enormous amounts of free radicals in pancreatic beta cells, thus destroying them.  

High Fructose Corn Syrup contains contaminants including mercury that are not regulated or measured by the FDA.

 

Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate: possible side effect is food intolerance
 

 Azodicarbonamide (Banned in the EU, Singapore, and Australia) is used in the food industry as a food additive, a flour bleaching agent and improving agent. Azodicarbonamide actually relaxes the dough so that when it is divided in large-scale bakeries under pressure, it still retains a good character.  It has been known to cause allergic reactions in those sensitive to other azo compounds, such as food dyes. The consumption of azodicarbonamide may also heighten an allergic reaction to other ingredients in a food. The principal use of azodicarbonamide is in the production of foamed plastics as an additive. 

 

In the UK, the Health and Safety Executive has identified azodicarbonamide as a respiratory sensitizer (a possible cause of asthma) and has determined that these products should be labeled with the words “may cause sensitization by inhalation.”

 

Guar Gum is banned by the FDA in large amounts due to reports of the substance swelling and obstructing the intestines and esophagus.

 

Sorbic Acid: According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the chemical is a strong irritant and—in large enough quantities—has the potential to cause severe damage to the tissues of the eyes, skin and respiratory tract

Read more at http://www.realfarmacy.com/this-is-whats-really-in-a-mcdonalds-hamburger/#SRZ82CVkuUomXPWL.99

 

 

PASTEURIZED PROCESS AMERICAN CHEESE

Ingredients: Milk, Cream, Water, Cheese Culture, Sodium Citrate, Contains 2% or Less of: Salt, Citric Acid, Sodium Phosphate, Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Lactic Acid, Acetic Acid, Enzymes, Sodium Pyrophosphate, Natural Flavor (Dairy Source), Color Added, Soy Lecithin (Added for Slice Separation).

KETCHUP

Ingredients: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Water, Salt, Natural Flavors (Plant Source).

PICKLE SLICES

Ingredients: Cucumbers, Water, Distilled Vinegar, Salt, Calcium Chloride, Alum, Potassium Sorbate (Preservative), Natural Flavors (Plant Source), Polysorbate 80, Extractives of Turmeric (Color).

ONIONS

MUSTARD

Ingredients: Distilled Vinegar, Water, Mustard Seed, Salt, Turmeric, Paprika, Spice Extractive.

100% BEEF PATTY

Ingredients: 100% Pure USDA Inspected Beef; No Fillers, No Extenders.
Prepared with Grill Seasoning (Salt, Black Pepper).

 

Final Word on U.S. Law Isn’t: Supreme Court Keeps Editing

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has been quietly revising its decisions years after they were issued, altering the law of the land without public notice. The revisions include “truly substantive changes in factual statements and legal reasoning,” said Richard J. Lazarus, a law professor at Harvard and the author of a new study examining the phenomenon.

The court can act quickly, as when Justice Antonin Scalia last month corrected an embarrassing error in a dissent in a case involving the Environmental Protection Agency.

But most changes are neither prompt nor publicized, and the court’s secretive editing process has led judges and law professors astray, causing them to rely on passages that were later scrubbed from the official record. The widening public access to online versions of the court’s decisions, some of which do not reflect the final wording, has made the longstanding problem more pronounced.

Unannounced changes have not reversed decisions outright, but they have withdrawn conclusions on significant points of law. They have also retreated from descriptions of common ground with other justices, as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor did in a major gay rights case.

Photo

Justice Antonin Scalia corrected his recent dissent in a case involving the Environmental Protection Agency. Credit Alex Wong/Getty Images

The larger point, said Jeffrey L. Fisher, a law professor at Stanford, is that Supreme Court decisions are parsed by judges and scholars with exceptional care. “In Supreme Court opinions, every word matters,” he said. “When they’re changing the wording of opinions, they’re basically rewriting the law.”

Supreme Court opinions are often produced under intense time pressure because of the court’s self-imposed deadline, which generally calls for the announcement of decisions in all cases argued during the term before the justices leave for their summer break. In this term, 29 of the 70 cases argued since October remain to be decided in the next five weeks or so.

The court does warn readers that early versions of its decisions, available at the courthouse and on the court’s website, are works in progress. A small-print notice says that “this opinion is subject to formal revision before publication,” and it asks readers to notify the court of “any typographical or other formal errors.”

But aside from announcing the abstract proposition that revisions are possible, the court almost never notes when a change has been made, much less specifies what it was. And many changes do not seem merely typographical or formal.

Four legal publishers are granted access to “change pages” that show all revisions. Those documents are not made public, and the court refused to provide copies to The New York Times.

The final and authoritative versions of decisions, some published five years after they were announced, do not, moreover, always fully supplant the original ones. Otherwise reliable Internet resources and even the court’s own website at times still post older versions.

The only way the public can identify most changes is by painstaking comparison of early versions of decisions to ones published years later.

But there have been recent exceptions. Last month, Justice Scalia made a misstep in a dissent in a case involving the E.P.A. Under the heading “Plus Ça Change: E.P.A.’s Continuing Quest for Cost-Benefit Authority,” he criticized the agency for seeking such authority in a 2001 case. But he got its position backward. Worse, he was the author of the majority opinion in the 2001 decision.

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Law professors pointed out the mistake, and Justice Scalia quickly altered his opinion, revising the text and substituting a bland heading: “Our Precedent.”

Even more recently, Justice Elena Kagan this month corrected her dissent in Town of Greece v. Galloway, modifying a categorical assertion about the location of the first community of American Jews.

The court did not draw attention to the changes, but they did not go unnoticed. Other revisions have. A sentence in a 2003 concurrence from Justice O’Connor in a gay rights decision, Lawrence v. Texas, has been deleted from the official record. She had said Justice Scalia “apparently agrees” that a Texas law making gay sex a crime could not be reconciled with the court’s equal protection principles.

Lower court judges debated the statement, and law professors used it in teaching the case. The statement continues to appear in Internet archives like Findlaw and Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.

Photo

When Justice Sandra Day O’Connor deleted a reference to common ground in a gay-rights case, it went unnoticed. Credit T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images

But it has vanished from the official version published in 2006 and from the one available on Lexis, a legal database.

“They deliberately make it hard for anyone to determine when changes are made, although they could easily make that information public,” Professor Lazarus wrote in the study, which will be published in The Harvard Law Review.

In revisions to two 2009 opinions, on school searches and race-conscious hiring, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg added phrases to clarify and broaden the points she had made. The changes appear in Lexis, but the court’s website still features the original versions.

The court also corrects factual errors, including, in recent years, ones about who was president in 1799, which senator made a particular statement and whether a defendant was convicted or merely indicted.

Continue reading the main story

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Cabbage Ron

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This was a very interesting article but the immediate question is: How do we fix this process that has gone awry? We can't just wring our...

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Consider these situations:1. The EPA issues regulations setting limits to greenhouse gas emissions released by power plants into the air.2....

Court Observer

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This practice is unconscionable in a republican form of government. And totally unnecessary. How can citizens be required "to know the...

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After-the-fact editing is not a new phenomenon. “The current court did not begin this practice, which finds its origins in the court’s earliest days and has extended to all justices over the years, liberal and conservative, but the court today can take the steps to correct it,” Professor Lazarus said. “Easy to do, and long overdue.”

The court seems to have been even more freewheeling in the past. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney added approximately 18 pages to his 1857 majority opinion in the Dred Scott decision after it was announced.

Photo

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg added phrases to two opinions in 2009. Credit Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

There are indications in former justices’ papers that the court knows that its editing practices are open to question.

By making a “considerable number of corrections and editorial changes in the court’s opinions after their announcement and prior to their publication in the United States Reports,” a court official wrote to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger in 1984, “we actually operate a system that is completely at odds with general publishing practices.”

In an internal memorandum in 1981, Justice Harry A. Blackmun offered reasons that the court operated “on a strange and ‘reverse’ basis, where the professional editing is done after initial public release.” Once an opinion has garnered the five votes needed to have it speak for the court, he said, the author wants to issue it immediately to guard against defections and “get ‘on the scoreboard.’ ”

There are four generations of opinions, and only the last is said to be final. So-called bench opinions, in booklet form, are available at the court when decisions are announced. Slip opinions are posted on the court’s website soon after. They are followed by preliminary softcover prints and then by the only official versions, which are published in hardcover volumes called United States Reports. The official versions of opinions from 2008 were published in 2013.

There are two exceptions to the general practice of quietly slipping changes into opinions. One happens only after the decisions are published in final form. The hardcover books sometimes contain a page of “errata.”

The court also issues an occasional order formally revising an opinion. The most recent notable example was in 2008, when the court learned that it had banned capital punishment for child rapists partly based on the faulty premise that no federal law allowed such executions. In denying a motion for rehearing, the court issued an order revising parts of the original decision to reflect the correct information.

But most changes can be found only by careful comparison or in the “change pages” that the court does not make public. Professor Lazarus obtained a year’s worth of the pages but was denied access to more. He said the court should consider posting them on its website.

“Of course the justices make mistakes,” he said. “And, of course, they can correct them. They just need to use a process that is more in keeping with the integrity and rigor of the process that produces the opinions in the first instance.”

U.S.A. Government is leader in Drug sales. Making 10 Billion a year. Invasion of Afghanistan Spawned Worst Global Heroin Epidemic Ever.

This is why I don't donate to DARE programs or any government or law enforcement programs for drugs. I can't believe the government spends so much of our tax dollars on drug awareness programs, say no to drugs, don't do drugs, but yet they have been the ones bringing in the drugs in the USA to distribute to the drug cartels to give to drug dealers to give to the drug users. and make billions off it.

 

 Since the US Invasion of Afghanistan, the Heroin Output has Increased over 5,000%

More than decade since the US invaded Afghanistan to destroy Al Qaeda and punish the Taliban, the US and NATO occupation drags on, even as the war begins to wind down. And Afghanistan’s status as the world’s number one opium poppy producer remains unchallenged.

Afghan opium production started with the US-backed overthrow of the secular Afghan Government in 1978 and grew steadily with the consequent civil war, the Russian invasion and the US-backed religious-based resistance.

Afghan opium production increased further after the departure of the Russians. However in 2000, several years after they captured Kabul, the Taliban banned opium production, slashing Afghan opium production from about 76% of word production in 2000 to 6% in 2001.

In the aftermath of the 2001 US bombing of Afghanistan, the British government was entrusted by the leading industrial nations to carry out a drug eradication program, which would, theoretically, allow Afghan farmers to get out of poppy cultivation and switch to alternative crops. The British were working in close liaison with the US DEA’s “Operation Containment” out of Kabul.

The British crop eradication program was an apparent smokescreen, considering that since October 2001, opium poppy cultivation has flourished. The presence of occupation forces in Afghanistan did not result in the eradication of poppy cultivation as lawmakers had promised, it did exactly the opposite.

The Taliban prohibition had caused “the beginning of a heroin shortage in Europe by the end of 2001″, the UNODC acknowledged, however immediately following the October 2001 invasion, opium markets were restored and opium prices spiraled. By 2002, the opium price was almost 10 times higher than in 2000.

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Heroin is a multimillion dollar business protected by powerful, international interests, which requires a stable, steady and secure product flow. One of the secret objectives of the war was to re-install the CIA to manage Afghanistan’s drug trade, since these spooks appear to be better at selling dope than they are at keeping our country safe. They figured, with all the US troops providing security at their command, they may as well go all out and challenge the enormous profits their colleagues were making in South America and Mexico with the cocaine trade.

Indeed, the CIA has got the drug trade in South and Central America, as well as in Mexico so under their control, I wrote an article about it, quoting a Mexican Official who said, the CIA Manages the entire International Drug Trade.

Within a year of the US Alliance invasion the Afghan opium production skyrocketed from 6% of world production in 2001, to 74% in 2002, 93% in 2006, 95% in 2007 and 94% in 2008.

According to Glenn Greenway, the Drug Truth Network reported September 15, 2008, “Afghan heroin output has increased a staggering 5,000% since the US invasion 7 years ago.” I would guess this percentage is even larger today.

UN Secretary General Ban ki-moon said recently at an international conference in Vienna, that Afghanistan will never be stable unless it tackles its drug problem.

In 2007, Afghanistan supplied 93% of the world’s opium, according to the U.S. State Department. Illicit poppy production, meanwhile, brings $4 billion into Afghanistan, or more than half the country’s total economy of $7.5 billion, according to the United Nations Office of Drug Control (UNODC) and also represents about half of the economy of Pakistan!

Destroying the labs has always been an obvious option, but for years America refused to do so for political reasons. In 2001 the Taliban and bin Laden were estimated by the CIA to be earning up to 10 per cent of Afghanistan’s drug revenues, then estimated at between 6.5 and 10 billion U.S. dollars a year. This income of perhaps $1 billion was less than that earned by Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI, parts of which had become the key to the drug trade in Central Asia. The UN Drug Control Program (UNDCP) estimated in 1999 that the ISI made around $2.5 billion annually from the sale of illegal drugs.

At the start of the US offensive in 2001, according to Ahmed Rashid, “The Pentagon had a list of twenty-five or more drug labs and warehouses in Afghanistan but refused to bomb them because some belonged to the CIA’s new NA [Northern Alliance] allies.”  Rashid was “told by UNODC officials that the Americans knew far more about the drug labs than they claimed to know, and the failure to bomb them was a major setback to the counter-narcotics effort.”

 James Risen reports that the ongoing refusal to pursue the targeted drug labs came from neocons at the top of America’s national security bureaucracy, including even Donald Rumsfeld. These men were preserving a pattern of drug-trafficking protection racket in Washington that dates back all the way to World War 2.
Thanks primarily to the CIA-backed anti-Soviet campaign of the 1980s, Afghanistan today is a drug-corrupted and heroin-ravaged society from the heads of state all the way down to the junkies on the streets.
Governing Afghans are likely to become involved in the drug traffic, sooner or later, just as the FARC in Colombia and the Communist Party in Myanmar have evolved in time from revolutionary movements into drug-trafficking organizations.


situation in Pakistan is not much different. The US mainstream media have never mentioned the February 23 report in the London Sunday Times and that Asif Ali Zardari, now the Pakistani Prime Minister, was once caught in a DEA drug sting.

Important as heroin may have become to the Afghan and Pakistani political economies, the local proceeds are only a small share of the global heroin traffic. According to the UN, the ultimate value in world markets in 2007 of Afghanistan’s $4 billion opium crop was about $110 billion: this estimate is probably too high, but even if the ultimate value was as low as $40 billion, this would mean that 90 percent of the profit was earned by forces outside of Afghanistan.

It has been estimated that 80 percent or more of the profits from the traffic are reaped in the countries of consumption. The UNODC Executive Director, Antonio Maria Costa, has reported that “money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis.”

Since the time of invasion of Afghanistan, the Opium production is given a boost by United States and its powered Afghan government. Hamid Karzai and his clan are heavily involved in this business. This being understood, they have taken measures to cultivate Opium, provided support for trafficking with Tajikistan in a legal way and this has resulted as an increase in use of Opium around the globe and has especially hit Russia and Europe.In the years since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan Russia has been flooded with heroin. The drug has crept along a trail stretching from Afghanistan through Tajikistan and other Central Asian nations and over the Russian border, turning the country into the world’s top consumer of heroin, the Russian government says.
The drug has spread like fire through a country uniquely unqualified to cope with its dangers: Narcotics were largely absent during Soviet times, and most people are still unaware of the risk of heroin addiction, even as an estimated 83 Russians a day die by overdosing on the drug, official statistics show. Russia estimates that one in every 50 people of working age is addicted to heroin. South Wales has seen a jump of 180% in heroin addiction rates since the invasion of Afghanistan. In 2008, the EU estimated that a young European died every hour from a drug overdose.

   Watch, Heroin Afghan Drug Wars 2 of 4, here. Heroin Afghan Drug Wars 3 of 4, here. Heroin Afghan Drug Wars 4 of 4, here.

Also, folks, it’s not just opium coming out of Afghanistan. According to the UNODC World Drug Report 2011, Afghanistan is also “among the significant cannabis resin producing countries,” producing somewhere between 1,500 and 3,500 metric tons of hash in 2010, with no reason to think it has changed dramatically in 2011. That brings in somewhere between $85 million and $265 million at the farm gate.

A decade after the US invasion, Afghanistan remains the world’s largest opium producer by far and possibly the world’s largest cannabis producer. Given the crucial role these drug crops play in the Afghan economy, there is little reason to think anything is going to change anytime soon.

House defies Pentagon on defense spending. WTF our military won't be ready for any attack.

$601 Billion dollars more. MORE WASTEFUL TAX DOLLARS. Pentagon states they need more $$$$ despite warnings that it will undercut military readiness. Are you F*&%KING BRAIN DEAD OR JUST HAVE YOUR HEAD UP YOUR ASS. Who ever said this statement needs to be put in front of a firing squad. If our military is not ready for an attack by someone with what we have, which is more than all the 196 countries put together, our military is the most unskilled military in all the universe.
 
USA spends more on military then 26 countries combined. Which 25 are allies. Their is no country trying to invade the USA and hasn't since Japan. USA can cut 85% of our military and still be the most powerful country in the world. 2013 USA spent $711 Billion on military for ( 1 COUNTRY ). These 12 countries China, Russia, UK, France, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Brazil, Italy, South Korea, Australia combined only spent $670.9 Billion on
military for ( 12 countries ).
 
USA has been a country for 227 years, we have spent 209 of those years at war. This is just another waste of $601 Billion dollars. It never ends. Just like the Boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base AZ. 21 Brand new C271 aircraft's worth $1.6 Billion scrapped. Like who cares, it's only $1.6 billion to throw away in trash. Why not it's not our money HAHAHA. 


 This March 14, 2014 file photo shows House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeo

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House defied the Pentagon on Thursday, overwhelmingly backing a $601 billion defense authorization bill that saves the Cold War-era U-2 spy plane, military bases and Navy cruisers despite warnings that it will undercut military readiness.

A White House veto threat — reiterated just hours before the vote — had little impact in an election year as lawmakers embraced the popular measure that includes a 1.8 percent pay raise for the troops and adds up to hundreds of thousands of jobs back home. The vote was 325-98 for the legislation, with 216 Republicans and 109 Democrats backing the bill.

Hours later, the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee announced the completion of its version of the bill that backs several of the Pentagon proposals while breaking with the administration on some weapons.

Most notably, the Senate panel "created a path to close Guantanamo," said the committee's chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a long-sought goal of President Barack Obama. Under a provision of the bill, the administration would have to produce a comprehensive plan for transferring terror suspects from the U.S. naval facility in Cuba that would be subject to a congressional vote.

The Senate panel backed the administration on some personnel benefits and a 1 percent pay raise for the military, while breaking with the administration by sparing the A-10 Warthog close-support plane and an aircraft carrier.

Certain to frustrate the administration was a provision that would authorize the military to train and equip vetted Syrian rebels battling forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.

The Senate bill must be reconciled with the House version.

Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, defended his House bill and rejected the suggestion that the measure was a "sop to parochial interests," arguing it makes "the tough decisions that put the troops first."

But the panel's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, complained that the House rejected the Pentagon's cost-saving proposals and came up with no alternatives.

"We ducked every difficult decision," Smith said.
With the ending of two wars and diminishing budgets, the Pentagon had proposed retiring the U-2 and the A-10, taking 11 Navy cruisers out of the normal rotation for modernization and increasing out-of-pocket costs for housing and health care.

Republicans, even tea partyers who came to Congress demanding deep cuts in federal spending, and Democrats rejected the Pentagon budget, sparing the aircraft, ships and troop benefits.

An increasingly antagonistic White House issued a veto threat on Monday, and Chief of Staff Denis McDonough reinforced that message in a private meeting with House Democrats on Tuesday morning. Late Wednesday, the White House issued another veto threat over restrictions in the bill on President Barack Obama's ability to transfer terror suspects from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The full-throated message had little influence.

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., highlighted her vote for the bill and its importance to her home state, where more than 150,000 have defense or defense-related jobs. Her colleague, Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., praised the A-10 Warthog, which trains in Tucson.

In committee, Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., a former pilot and tea party favorite elected in 2012, spared three of seven AWACS aircraft based at Tinker Air Force Base in his home state.

The House engaged in a spirited debate over post-Sept. 11 laws and practices, and whether they are overly broad and still viable nearly 13 years after the terror attacks. Lawmakers pressed to sunset the authorization given to the president to use military force, to end the indefinite detention of terror suspects captured on U.S. soil and to close the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The House rejected all three amendments to change current law.

To address the pervasive problem of sexual assault in the military, the bill would change the military rules of evidence to prohibit the accused from using good military character as defense in court-martial proceedings unless it was directly relevant to the alleged crime.

The "good soldier defense" could encompass a defendant's military record of reliability, dependability, professionalism and reputation as an individual who could be counted on in war and peacetime.

Overall, the legislation would provide $495.8 billion for the core defense budget, $17.9 billion for energy programs within Pentagon spending and $79.4 billion for the war in Afghanistan and other overseas operations.

Continued Suspicious Deaths of Our 9/11 Witnesses

  

The victims of 9-11 are assured of a permanent place in the American history, memory and psychology. Mainly because so many were innocent. But also because the tragedy continues to be milked by the Powers That Be, using all the resources at their disposal to make sure we believe in a common enemy, and are willing to give up more and more of our rights and freedoms for a false sense of security and safety.

It enabled our Fearless Leaders to launch a multi-billion, probably a trillion dollar Police State. It enabled our politicians to spend and make enough money, with which they could have wiped out hunger and poverty, but rather choosing to spend it on an overpriced, inefficient, dysfunctional Department of Homeland Security, as well as arm practically every arm of law enforcement with enough firepower to wage war against their own people and kill every citizens 100 times over.
It is agreed that literally anything beamed over primetime television finds its way into the the American hearts, and minds, no matter if it be Keeping up with the Kardashians or Shamwow. In a similar way, the official version of 9-11 will continue to be propagated as long as it squats over primetime television programming. America responded by creating really kitsch memorabilia, bumper stickers, posters and paraphernalia. To quote Ken Layne at Wonkette,

On 911, nearly 3,000 people were horribly killed so that Rudy Giuliani could earn a hundred million dollars and run for president of 9/11 and the most corrupt administration in American History could wage endless war around the world and many working-class people could affix “United We Stand” bumper stickers to their SUVs, so they could drive around with pride while eating hamburgers off their laps and listening to talk radio wingnuts.
How did such a truly awful, gut-wrenching event inspire such stupid crap? It’s just part of our modern, idiotic culture — the same mouth-breathing instinct that compels people to pile a bunch of wet stinking stuffed animals at the site of a fatal car crash, or order a hundred Thug Life “memorial T-shirts” to remember some shithead gangsta teen who got himself shot, or make a GeoCities memorial site for Princess Diana (with animated GIFs and MIDI music of “Candle In The Wind”). Or, if you’re an entrepreneur, maybe you just manufacture some lighters in China with bas-relief images of the burning WTC towers and Osama bin Laden’s face, and when you open it, the thing will play “Für Elise” and little LEDs will blink in the “fire.”

More enterprising Americans jump started charities to shamelessly profiteer from 9-11. Think of it as a cannibalistic frenzy of extreme capitalism.
As of now, 9/11 remembrance (the official version, of course) has mutated into some kind of pagan religion, right alongside Superbowl and Easter rabbits that lay eggs.And like any religion, it carries exclusivity. If you are not into remembering (the official version of) 9/11, you are with the terrorists. Efforts have been made to identify and document all categories of the victims of 9-11, from actual victims and families of victims to survivors and those that experienced the attacks firsthand.
Even the dogs that participated in the rescue effort have been recognised. Though it has been documented that rescue workers exposed to asbestos and dying of such exposure are being sidelined to prevent a barrage of financial claims.
For the record, the World Trade Center was once used in an advertisement by Asbestos® Ltd. But there is one category of 9/11 victims, perhaps the most deserving of recognition, that will continue to remain hidden from public view. These are the Americans who died as victims of the 9/11 cover-up, before, during and after 9/11. Unlike other victims of 9/11, these victims were not accidental heroes. It was their beliefs and their convictions that lead to their deaths. And in some cases, they knew the danger they were involved in.

Conclusion

Fortunately, there are still some credible 9/11 witnesses left alive. For example, William “Willy” Rodriguez is the hero who helped save hundreds of lives, and the last person to escape alive from the World Trade Center (WTC) Towers (before they collapsed — 20 people survived the collapse: 16 crawled to safety and four more were later rescued.) Rodriguez and a handful of co-workers who were down in the basement at the time of the attack, actually heard and felt huge explosions beneath their feet in the lower basement levels.

While this anomaly in itself should have been cause for serious investigation, it is the timing of these explosions that is extremely troubling: They occurred several seconds before the first airplane impacted the tower. The first of these explosions, which occurred about 7-8 seconds before the plane struck the tower was so powerful it literally threw Rodriguez upwards, clean off the floor, as parts of the false ceiling collapsed onto and around him. Rodriguez heard and felt at least three explosions going off down in the basement levels within seconds of each other.

Absolute pandemonium broke out, with screams of “Bombs! Bombs!” rising above the din as terrified workers scattered in all directions, frantically seeking ways to escape. Its absolutely inexcusable that accounts like this have been kept under the mainstream radar. Though they were reported, they go down in both the hearings and history as little more than a footnote. America (and by default, Western Societies) can be just as dangerous as dictatorships and  Middle Eastern monarchies, if you happen to be in the bad books of the Cabal. But at the same time, America is different from  dictatorships and Middle Eastern monarchies. People tend to dance along in denial….the show goes on. 9/11 Truthers will always be a minority.

It is unlikely that the Powers That Be will encounter resistance or overthrow. How did this come to be? Or rather, has it always been like this? A good starting point is to take into consideration how American society is sociologically different. If suppose a murder were to happen in a simplistic tribal society in some remote region of Afghanistan, the village elders would gather and within a day or two, and a decision would be made on either retribution or compensation, depending on what the victim(s) family wanted. In Western society, there are no village elders. And even if they are not rotting in retirement homes, their role in society is limited strictly to their economic potential (which they ironically accept). Members of Western society are usually incapable of organizing for the purpose of obtaining justice.

Instead, justice has been outsourced to institutions dominated by secret societies. In other words, providing justice is to the discretion of The Powers That Be. And rather than society, they get to determine whether or not a crime has occurred in the first place. This societal failure is not because of a massive cloak of deception. Rather, its because of an inherent and undocumented Darwinian belief system. Where members of society have little time or mind space for what happens outside their little bubble. And where their top priority is worship of the NOW. Reciprocally, whoever controls the NOW controls them. The implications are dangerous for the remainder of the world. Suppose Osama Bin Laden never made the ill fated decision to move to Afghanistan. And instead moved to Orange County and invested in  banking and oil corporations. Would he too, like the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, get to use us for his wars? 9/11 Cover-up victim Hunter S. Thompson was quoted as saying “I’m afraid that we’re raising a generation of dancers” with reference to present day American youth. This statement was immortalized in a beautiful lyric by The Killers.

Residents of dictatorships can be conditioned to accept tyranny through fear and coercion.  On the other hand, Thompson’s “dancers” need no fear and coercion. They can be conditioned to delightfully “dance” for their Cabal. And in doing so, they even outdo the residents of dictatorships and thugocracies in subservience. And those that refuse to “dance” are regularly weeded out like the victims of the 9/11 cover-up.

Impeachment buzz around Congress, Obama hires Neil Eggleston criminal defense attorney.

 

 

 

As the impeachment buzz surrounding the Obama administration has finally becomes mainstream, we look back at all of the offenses our president has committed that have brought him to this point.

They have ranged from criminal negligence to outright unconstitutional tyranny.
Ted Cruz has released a list of 76 of Obama’s “lawless actions,” and we are certain there must be many more where these came from. Such a pattern of disregard for the wishes of the American people and our Constitution simply cannot be stood for, and it seems like Mr. Obama might finally be catching on to that fact.

Darryl Issa has reported that more criminal charges will be coming for the Obama administration, and it looks like President Obama is preparing for them – he has chosen to hire as White House Counsel Neil Eggleston, a renowned criminal defense attorney.

The White House Dossier reports:

Eggleston is the kind of guy you go to when someone tells you, “time to lawyer up.” He’s a veteran at cleaning up ethics messes for politicians, most notably Bill Clinton, whom he aided during the Whitewater probes and the Monica Lewinsky affair, double entendre intended.

But that’s not nearly all. He represented Rahm Emanuel during the scandal surrounding former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, as well as Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and George W. Bush political director Sara Taylor when scandals touched them, Clinton Cabinet members Federico Pena and Alexis Herman during corruption probes, and various business people involved in “complex criminal investigations” according to the New York Times.

Which begs and pleads the question, is Obama looking for more protection for the White House from the various GOP congressional probes, or is he aware of the possibility that something much, much worse could break?

We are just as curious. What is Obama up to? All we can do is hope that the GOP leaders in charge of these congressional probes will eventually get to the bottom of the mess Obama has made of our federal government. And with enough evidence, even his criminal defense attorney won’t be able to get him out of answering for the crimes he’s committed.
Please share this article on Facebook and Twitter if you’re also curious as to what prompted our President to hire such an attorney.
FROM OUR FRIENDS AT CONSERVATIVE TRIBUNE

New Bipartisan House Bill Calls on Congress to Fly Coach, Just Like the Military.

WHAT! A BILL GOING THRU CONGRESS THAT WILL SAVE MONEY. THAT'S A FIRST. DON'T GET TO EXCITED, THEIR JUST THROWING YOU A BONE. EVERY ONCE IN A GREAT WHILE THEY DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO JUST SAY "HEY WE DID THIS" BUT THIS IS ONLY A DIME IN SAVINGS TOWARDS OUR TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT.


There’s a new bill gaining traction in Congress, the self-explanatory “If Our Military Has to Fly Coach Then so Should Congress Act” has support from both sides of the party line, and is making headlines because of it’s appeal to common sense as well as dollars and cents. The bill would make it illegal for politicians to use taxpayer dollars towards flying first class on commercial airlines, a move that many agree restores some of the service in the title of public servant.

The bill follows an earlier proposal introduced by Democratic Representative Tammy Duckworth from Illinois which would prevent lawmakers from using their Congressional allowances to fly first class. Members of Congress are given, on average, about $1 million dollars in allowance.
A Republican Representative from Arizona, Paul Gosar, said: “It’s a very simple bill. At a time of massive deficits and with a national debt in excess of $17 trillion, members of Congress should not be using taxpayers’ hard-earned money to buy luxury airline seats.”

Many of our Congressmen and Senators fly first class wherever they go, but this bill in Washington could put a stop to that, and actually save a great deal of money, based on estimates using current first class ticket pricing information. A first-class, round-trip airline ticket from Washington D.C. to Phoenix, AZ for example, can range anywhere from $1300 to $2000 per a flight, a heavy drag on taxpayer pockets for a completely inessential luxury item that adds up very quickly.
Last year, a Washington Times inquiry found Congress spends between $6 million and $10 million each year on overseas trips alone, which doesn’t include the transportation lawmakers take between Washington and their home districts. Nor does it include privately funded gift trips members often receive from advocacy groups.

Many government employees, including military officers and other public servants that put their lives in harms way, are prohibited from flying in first class while on business. This bi-partisan bill “H.R. 4632″ sets the same limits on congressional trips that govern most other government travel: Members and their staff cannot use taxpayer funds to buy first-class tickets unless they need to accommodate a disability or other medical need.
“As representatives of the American people, we in Congress have a responsibility to wisely use the people’s money,” said Rep. Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican, in a statement. “Members of the House and Senate should never secure their own luxury travel at taxpayer expense, but they especially should not do so when our nation is buried $17 trillion deep in debt.”

Other co-sponsors include Representative John Barrow, a Georgia Democrat, and North Carolina Republican Representative Walter Jones,  who also co-sponsored the bill.