Just in case you didn't realize Hillary is bought and paid for.
“George Soros is delighted to join more than one million Americans in supporting Ready for Hillary,” said Michael Vachon, Soros’s political director, in a statement. “His support for Ready for Hillary is an extension of his long-held belief in the power of grassroots organizing.”
Soros will co-chair the PAC's national finance council
Life. What is it exactly? What existed before you did? How should we live our lives now? And what happens after this life is over?
We humans think about life a lot. Sometimes we wonder what it was like before we arrived on the scene—historical novels and movies often romanticize and appeal to our curiosity about what the lives of others were like.
But mostly, we wonder how to cope with our own experience of life now. How do we deal with the challenges, the heartaches, the successes and failures, the ups, the downs?
Down deep, though, lie nagging questions. Is there some transcendent purpose to life? If so, what is it? If there’s a God, what does He expect of us? What does He have in mind for our lives? How can we know? Does He reveal that design to us?
Then there’s one of the toughest of questions, one people have pondered forever: What happens after life is over? Is heavenreally the reward of the saved, as most Christians believe? Exactly what would that be like? How do we know?
And what about the “other side” of that equation—is there some terrible after-death experience for the condemned? Is the common concept of an ever-burning hellfirebiblically accurate? Will we be reincarnated, as others believe, being recycled in another life-form? Or—the most futile notion of all—will nothing happen, because life means nothing?
Tough questions, but vital questions! If you’d like answers, read on!
The government watchdog Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, insisting the agency release previously demanded documents made under a Freedom of Information Act request that would clarify how conservative groups were screened for nonprofit status.
Judicial Watch filed the suit on Oct. 9 but announced it Tuesday. President Tom Fitton said in a written statement that the suit was “designed to cut through the Obama administration cover-up of its IRS scandal.”
Specifically, the watchdog said it wanted the IRS to release copies of “all communications relating to the review process for organizations seeking 501(c)(4) nonprofit status since January 1, 2012.” The group also asked the court “to order the IRS to provide records of communications by former IRS official Lois Lerner concerning the controversial review and approval process.”
Judicial Watch said it’s taking the court route to obtain the records because the IRS has failed to uphold FOIA on four requests, dating back to May 2013 — as news of the agency’s seeming biased delay of granting tax exemptions to conservative groups seeking nonprofit status was rocking national headlines.
“The Obama IRS suppressed the entire tea party movement just in time to help Obama win reelection,” said Mr. Fitton, in a written statement. “One of the most pressing questions, of course, is, ‘What did the president know and when did he know it?’ We know that former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman and his political aide, Jonathan Davis, visited the White House hundreds of times during the Obama IRS witch hunt. This may help explain why the IRS is now stonewalling our FOIA requests and forced us to go to federal court.”
Don’t donate to the tea party or to evangelical Christian groups — that was the message soldiers at a pre-deployment briefing at Fort Hood said they received from a counter-intelligence agent who headed up the meeting.
If you do, you could face punishment — that was the other half of the message....
Reporter Audrey Hudson said the investigators, who included an agent for Homeland's Coast Guard service, took her private notes and government documents that she had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act during a predawn raid of her family home on Aug. 6
Briefings characterized conservatives as terror threat
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com October 25, 2013
The Secretary of the Army has halted training programs that characterize conservatives as radical extremists in light of numerous media reports which highlighted how recruits were being taught that Christians were to be considered “domestic hate groups.”
Image: Wikimedia Commons
“On several occasions over the past few months, media accounts have highlighted instances of Army instructors supplementing programs of instruction and including information or material that is inaccurate, objectionable and otherwise inconsistent with current Army policy,” Army Sec. John McHugh wrote to military leaders in a memorandum obtained by Fox News’ Todd Starnes.
McHugh has “directed that Army leaders cease all briefings, command presentations or training on the subject of extremist organizations or activities until that program of instruction and training has been created and disseminated.”
As we reported yesterday, Fort Hood soldiers were told that Christians, Tea Party supporters and anti-abortion activists were a radical terror threat, enemies of America, and that anyone found to be supporting these groups would be subject to discipline under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Earlier this month, it also emerged that several dozen active duty and reserve troops at Camp Shelby in Mississippi were taught that the American Family Association, a well-respected Christian ministry, was a “domestic hate group,” prompting five Congressmen to complaint that the, “mislabeling of a Christian organization reflects what appears to be a troubling trend of religious intolerance in the military.”
The halt of such training programs has been announced despite claims by Fort Hood that the training program, during which it was also suggested that Christians who protest against abortion were planning to bomb family planning clinics, did not include such information.
As we have profusely documented, the problem of Christians and other conservative groups being demonized as extremists and terrorists is not just confined to the U.S. Military.
Alex Jones’ 2001 documentary film 9/11: The Road to Tyranny featured footage from a FEMA symposium given to firefighters and other emergency personnel in Kansas City in which it was stated that the founding fathers, Christians and homeschoolers were terrorists and should be treated with the utmost suspicion and brutality in times of national emergency.
An audio recording released by labor activists Wednesday afternoon captures a staffer for McDonald’s’ “McResources Line” instructing a McDonald’s worker how to apply for public assistance.
The audio – excerpted in the campaign video below – records a conversation between Chicago worker Nancy Salgado, a ten-year employee currently making the Illinois state minimum wage of $8.25, and a counselor staffing the company’s “McResources” 1-800 number for McDonald’s workers. The McResources staffer offers her a number to “ask about things like food pantries” and tells her she “would most likely be eligible for SNAP benefits” which she explains are “food stamps.” After Salgado asks about “the doctor,” the staffer asks, “Did you try to get on Medicaid?” She notes it’s “health coverage for low income or no income adults and children.”
“It was really, really upsetting,” Salgado told Salon Wednesday, “knowing that McDonald’s knows that they don’t pay us enough, and we have to rely on this.” Noting that McDonald’s was “a billionaire company,” she asked, “how can they not afford to pay us?”
In the full, fifteen-minute audio, which was provided to Salon by the campaign, the McResources counselor can also be heard telling Salgado she “definitely should be able to qualify for both food stamps and heating assistance.” She tells Salgado that having food stamps “takes a lot of the pressure off how much money you spend on groceries.” She also tells Salgado she may possibly qualify for Medicaid, though “I wouldn’t want to get your hopes up.” The conversation begins with Salgado telling the counselor that she’s recording the conversation so she can share the info with her sister; it ends with the counselor suggesting Salgado urge the owner of her franchised store to pay a fee and sign up for McResources, which she says would allow McDonald’s to provide more help to employees there.
The video is the latest salvo in a union-backed effort to force a transformation in the virtually non-union fast food industry, which is increasingly prevalent in and representative of the post-crash US economy. As I’ve reported, the campaign – whose key national backer is the Service Employees International Union – has included a wave of strikes which began in New York last November, and in August escalated to a one-day sixty-city work stoppage.
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The new video follows two reports released last week – one by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Urban & Regional Planning, funded by the fast food campaign; and another by the pro-union National Employment Law Project – which estimated that fast food workers utilize nearly $7 billion annually in public assistance, while fast food corporations last year netted $7.4 billion profits.
After noting such stats, the campaign video’s on-screen text reads, “McDonald’s doesn’t want to pay its workers more. McDonald’s wants you to pay its workers more.” And then, “Umm, who’s on welfare? These guys” – followed by icons for McDonald’s and other top fast food chains.
The video was released hours after a DC press event in which three congressional Democrats joined members of the union-backed non-union workers group OUR Walmart to blast the retail giant for paying wages that leave workers in need of public assistance. As I reported, Congressman George Miller accused the company of undermining the purpose of welfare reform, while Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky called Walmart elites the real “welfare kings” of America. Highlighting employees’ use of public assistance was also a tactic of the union-backed mid-2000’s “air war” efforts against the company. That message was criticized at the time by Wal-Mart defender Jason Fuman, who now chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisors; he wrote in 2006 that Wal-Mart critics seemed to be “playing on the atavistic anti-welfare, anti-government, anti-tax instincts of some conservatives.”
McDonald’s did not immediately respond to a Wednesday afternoon inquiry. The National Restaurant Association last week dismissed the Berkeley-Urbana-Champaign study: its Executive Vice President Scott DeFife charged in an e-mail that “These misleading efforts use a very narrow lens and selective data to attack the industry for their own purposes and fail to recognize that the majority of lower-wage employees works part-time to supplement a family income.”
Salgado said she “of course” supports government funding for the public programs mentioned on the McResources line, but that she found it “ridiculous how fast food workers, we have to rely on our government systems,” given that “McDonald’s should be able to pay all of its employees” enough not to. While “McDonald’s is going to say what’s good for them,” charged Salgado, “it’s not only a part-time job at this point. It’s a job that we all rely on.” Salgado confrontedMcDonald’s US CEO earlier this month when he was keynoting a Union League Club First Friday luncheon, asking him whether it was fair for her to be making the state minimum wage after a decade of service.
Salgado, who has twice joined fellow non-union fast food workers in going on strike, told Salon that “at first was very scary,” and she expected to be fired. However, she said, “after I went back with a lot of support from my union, it was really easy afterwards.”
(AP) Merkel calls Obama to complain about surveillance By GEIR MOULSON and JOHN-THOR DAHLBURG Associated Press BERLIN German Chancellor Angela Merkel complained to President Barack Obama on Wednesday after learning that U.S. intelligence may have targeted her mobile phone, saying that would be "a serious breach of trust" if confirmed.
For its part, the White House denied that the U.S. is listening in on Merkel's phone calls now.
"The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges."
However, Carney did not specifically say that that U.S. had never monitored or obtained Merkel's communications.
The German government said it responded after receiving "information that the chancellor's cellphone may be monitored" by U.S. intelligence. It wouldn't elaborate, but German news magazine Der Spiegel, which has published material from NSA leaker Edward Snowden, said its research triggered the response.
Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement the chancellor made clear to Obama in a phone call that "she views such practices, if the indications are confirmed ... as completely unacceptable."
Merkel said among close partners such as Germany and the U.S., "there must not be such surveillance of a head of government's communication," Seibert added. "That would be a serious breach of trust. Such practices must be stopped immediately."
Carney, the White House spokesman, said the U.S. is examining Germany's concerns as part of an ongoing review of how the U.S. gathers intelligence.
The White House has cited that review in responding to similar spying concerns from France, Brazil and other countries.
U.S. allies knew that the Americans were spying on them, but they had no idea how much.
As details of National Security Agency spying programs have become public, citizens, activists and politicians in countries from Latin America to Europe have lined up to express shock and outrage at the scope of Washington's spying.
Merkel had previously raised concerns over the electronic eavesdropping issue when Obama visited Germany in June, has demanded answers from the U.S. government and backed calls for greater European data protection. Wednesday's statement, however, was much more sharply worded and appeared to reflect frustration over the answers provided so far by the U.S. government.
Merkel called for U.S. authorities to clarify the extent of surveillance in Germany and to provide answers to "questions that the German government asked months ago," Seibert said.
Overseas politicians are also using the threat to their citizens' privacy to drum up their numbers at the polls _ or to distract attention from their own domestic problems. Some have even downplayed the matter to keep good relations with Washington.
After a Paris newspaper reported the NSA had swept up 70.3 million French telephone records in a 30-day period, the French government called the U.S. ambassador in for an explanation and put the issue of personal data protection on the agenda of the European Union summit that opens Thursday.
"Why are these practices, as they're reported _ which remains to be clarified _ unacceptable? First because they are taking place between partners, between allies, and then because they clearly are an affront to private life," Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the French government spokeswoman, said Wednesday.
But the official French position _ that friendly nations should not spy on each another _ can't be taken literally, a former French foreign minister said.
"The magnitude of the eavesdropping is what shocked us," Bernard Kouchner said in a radio interview. "Let's be honest, we eavesdrop too. Everyone is listening to everyone else. But we don't have the same means as the United States, which makes us jealous. "
The French government, which until this week had been largely silent in the face of widespread U.S. snooping on its territory, may have other reasons to speak out now. The furor over the NSA managed to draw media attention away from France's controversial expulsion of a Roma family at a time when French President Francois Hollande's popularity is at a historic low. Just 23 percent of French approve of the job he is doing, according to a recent poll.
In Germany, opposition politicians, the media and privacy activists have been vocal in their outrage over the U.S. eavesdropping. Up until now, Merkel had worked hard to contain the damage to U.S.-German relations and refrained from saying anything bad about the Americans.
Merkel has said previously her country was "dependent" on cooperation with the American spy agencies _ crediting an American tip as the reason that security services foiled an Islamic terror plot in 2007 that targeted U.S. soldiers and citizens in Germany.
In Italy, major newspapers reported that a parliamentary committee was told the U.S. had intercepted phone calls, emails and text messages of Italians. Premier Enrico Letta raised the topic of spying during a visit Wednesday with Secretary of State John Kerry. A senior State Department official said Kerry made it clear the Obama administration's goal was to strike the right balance between security needs and privacy expectations.
Few countries have responded as angrily to U.S. spying than Brazil. President Dilma Rousseff took the extremely rare diplomatic step of canceling a visit to Washington where she had been scheduled to receive a full state dinner this week.
Analysts say her anger is genuine, though also politically profitable, for Rousseff faces a competitive re-election campaign next year.
David Fleischer, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia, said since the Sept. 11 attacks Brazilian governments knew the Americans had stepped up spying efforts.
"But what the government did not know was that Dilma's office had been hacked as well," Fleischer said.
Information the NSA collected in Mexico appears to have largely focused on drug-fighting policies or government personnel trends. But the U.S. agency also allegedly spied on the emails of two Mexican presidents, Enrique Pena Nieto, the incumbent, and Felipe Calderon.
The Mexican government has reacted cautiously, calling the targeting of the presidents "unacceptable." Pena Nieto has demanded an investigation but hasn't cancelled any visits or contacts, a strategy that Mexico's opposition and some analysts see as weak.
"Other countries, like Brazil, have had responses that are much more resounding than our country," said Sen. Gabriela Cuevas of Mexico's conservative National Action Party.
Yet Mexico has much-closer economic and political ties to the United States that the Mexican government apparently does not want to endanger.
Beyond politics, the NSA espionage has been greeted with relative equanimity in Mexico, since the government has had close intelligence cooperation with the United States for years in the war on drugs.
"The country we should really be spying on now is New Zealand, to see if we can get enough information so the national team can win a qualifying berth at the World Cup," Mexican columnist Guadalupe Loaeza wrote.
