In a surprise move today, Representative Eric Cantor(R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill. This move was most likely due to several things. One of those things is that SOPA and PIPA met huge online protest against the bills. Another reason would be that the White House threatened to veto the bill if it had passed. However, it isn't quite time yet to celebrate, as PIPA(the Senate's version of SOPA) is still up for consideration.
Phi Beta Iota: SOPA is simply the latest example of a Congress that thinks nothing of abdicating its Article 1 responsibilities–every single day, Congress is betraying the public trust. They will continue to do this until we force upon them the Electoral Reform Act of 2012.
What we all need to wake up to is that there is a truth he is not talking about, nor any of the establishment candidates: No matter who gets elected things are going to radically change in the coming years.
The industrial age is not just going away lightly, it is collapsing all around us. The monetary system is junk. Our educational system–put a fork in it. The way we live, work and play–all soon to be extinct, buried in the ground never to be seen again unless humans die off and just a few of us are left to start over.
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Revolution? REVOLUTION???!!! Fuck yes it’s a god damn revolution. There is nothing anyone can do about it. Go ahead, elect Mitt Romney or re-elect President Obama, it will only make the transition an even uglier event. When I was in 6th grade I began to realize something: the system is cocked. The TV had politicians with combovers spewing dumb dumb nonsense to the brainwashed. I was sucking it in but not inhaling. After all, I was only in 6th grade. Even though they knew how to roll it up for me my body refused intake. The whole system did not make sense but we were ok with it until now, as inevitable implosion is upon us. Well, here it is America.
Vote for Ron Paul people. And while you are at it, puff, puff, pass to the left and put yourself in a position to enjoy the show because if you think Ron Paul is crazy you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The Internet is in an uproar over proposed U.S. Senate bill Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and it's corresponding bill in the House, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Among other consequences, these bills would lead to blocking websites (the way China does), and stopping ads & Visa/Mastercard payments to them, simply by alleging – not proving – that they are engaging in, enabling or facilitating copying content illegally. This and other features of the bills are so broad that many in the technology world have been organizing against the bills, concerned that they are an extreme overreaction which would greatly inhibit free speech and fair competition. Protest before Congress' annual winter break (including a mass defection from domain name registrar GoDaddy for their support of the bills) have slowed things down enough for many more people to get involved. As Congress reconvenes, a number of large websites plan to shut down for half the day on January 18, to raise awareness on the issue. Wikipedia may join in, which would obviously gain a lot of people's attention, and Anonymous has already signed on:
The video about police preparing for riots has me extremely worried. But protestors need to understand that they're part of the dynamic too. This is a very complex conflict dynamic. Demonizing the police isn't going to help. It will more likely make things worse. And if things escalate beyond a certain point, an incident could easily turn into a situation like the L.A. Riots, because as police lose control troublemakers come out of the woodwork.
America needs some official or officially recognized group to act as legal third party observers in these kinds of protest situations, like the observers that we sometimes send to other countries to observe elections, or like U.N. Peacekeepers, except unarmed—-not to interfere, but to observe. They should be easily recognizable. With observers on hand, both police and protestors would likely be more well behaved.
This is an extremely dangerous dynamic! And if protestors aren't careful, they'll play right into the hands of authoritarians, giving them the perfect excuse for violent crackdown. Then the movement will have lost the moral high ground for good. And a dangerous dynamic of conflict escalation will have begun.
Protestors need to learn to be as polite as angels when protesting. They shouldn't show anger in any way. They should show only gentleness and compassion. They should not resist arrest. And they should become model prisoners once arrested. That was Gandhi's way. It removes any justification for police violence. The slightest deviation from that strategy can only lead to dangerous escalation.
Blue Republicans are people who have never before thought of joining the Republican party, but are going to do so for one year to ensure that Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination for President in 2012.
Many of us previously identified as Democrats or Independents and/or supported Obama in 2008. We believe that on issues that matter most — war vs. peace (Iraq, Yemen etc.), civil liberties (Patriot Act etc.), and crony corporatism (bailouts etc.) — Obama has pursued a course similar to that of George Bush.
States are changing their systems all the time so ALWAYS CHECK YOUR OWN STATE INFORMATION to make sure you do what you need to do to make Ron Paul the Republican nominee for President
Pizza is a vegetable, corn is sugar? When do we start tarring and feathering these unethical morons and any Member of Congress that gives them any time at all?
We note with interest that this story appears on Russia Today TV, which has eclipsed the BBC as a source of useful truthful information–and of course it does not appear here in the USA, where the mainstream media blocked opposing views on the Iraq War, preferring to take money and profer 935 now documented lies.
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Obesity has long been a major problem for many children across America. And while many look for solutions, the government stands accused of turning a blind eye to a trend that's causing diabetes and heart disease, but spells profit for giant food corporations. RT's Marina Portnaya tasted what's on the menu in U.S. public schools.
To sum up the situation, given its financial condition and the political forces working to worsen it, the US government is facing a completely impossible and irremediable situation. I'm going to try to illustrate that here. But because I'm a perpetual optimist, not a gloom-and-doomer, I'm also going to give you solutions to the purely financial problems – albeit with some good news and some bad news. The good news is, there actually are solutions. The bad news is that there is zero chance that any of them will be put into effect.
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Click on Image to Enlarge
Is there any chance that the US government can reform and go back to a sustainable basis at this point? I'd say no. Its descent started in earnest with the Spanish-American War in 1898, when it acquired its first foreign possessions (Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, etc). It accelerated with the advent of the income tax and the Federal Reserve in 1913. It accelerated further with World War I, when the government took over the economy for 18 months. The New Deal and World War II made the state into a permanent major feature in the average American's life. The Great Society made free food, housing and medical care a feature. The final elimination of any link of the dollar to gold in 1971 ensured ever-increasing levels of currency inflation. The Cold War and a series of undeclared wars (Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq) cemented the military in place as a permanent focus of the government. And since 9/11, the curve has gone hyperbolic with the War on Terror. It's been said that war is the health of the state. We have lots more war on the way, and that will expand the state's spending. But the Greater Depression will be an even bigger drain, and it will likely destroy the middle class as an unwelcome bonus.
Phi Beta Iota: The most significant error in the above, but an error that compounds the warning rather than diminishing it, is that the military portion is shown as 24% when it is actually closer to 50%. See this illustration. We are asking the author for his opinion of the Automated Payment Transaction (APT) Tax.
