Saturday, November 2, 2013

Obama Signs Dictatorial Executive Order Imposing Debunked Climate Change Policies


Madame Le Moderateur


Another arrogant violation of Article I Section I of the Constitution
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
November 2, 2013
The Obama administration on Friday once again disrespected the Constitution by signing an executive order that circumvents Congress and the American people.
The latest move defiantly ignores a decision by Congress in 2009 to not establish a cap-and-trade system that would have supposedly discouraged greenhouse-gas emissions. The Waxman-Markey bill passed the House but was defeated in the Senate. At the time, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.
The latest unconstitutional EO establishes a task force of state and local officials “to advise the administration on how to respond to severe storms, wildfires, droughts and other potential impacts of climate change.” according to Fox News.
The EO lumps extreme weather events under the discredited rubric of climate change. It will mandate new federal building codes under Agenda 21′s “sustainability” and promises to “address climate impacts and infrastructure needs.” The order was praised by the EPA and its administrator, Gina McCarthy, who said it serves as a “roadmap for agency work” and forces the nation to face what it deems are “climate-related challenges.”
The EO will withhold money expropriated by the federal government from the states if they do not sign on to the latest climate scam proposals. It will “bring sweeping new changes to land use and resource policies,” “refocus of climate change data and use of it to push a new agenda into every priority of the federal government,” and, importantly, make policies immune to challenge by establishing “a new internal organization for coordination efforts during a government sequestration and possible future shutdowns.”
A study released last year debunked Al Gore’s “hockey stick” graph on warming and states that thestatistical outcomes on climate change produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and associated organizations are “quite wrong.”
Data compiled by NASA’s Langley Research Center earlier this year, writes Ethan A. Huff for Natural News, reveals that “all those atmospheric greenhouse gases that Al Gore and all the other global warming hoaxers have long claimed are overheating and destroying our planet are actually cooling it.”
Article I Section I of the Constitution unambiguously states that Congress, not the executive, has legislative power. An executive order is not lawful legislation.
“An Executive Order is a policy or procedure issued by the President that is a regulation that applies only to employees of the Executive Branch of government,” notes the Tenth Amendment Center. “When a President issues an unconstitutional Executive Order and Congress allows the order to stand they are violating their oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”

This article was posted: Saturday, November 2, 2013 at 9:35 am

The top Secret Trade Deal You Need To Know About...

Hope in the Midst of Trials


As the one-year anniversary of my husband’s death approaches, I realize I have learned many painful lessons. Here’s what I’m learning about hope.



Looking for the meaning of hope in the midst of trials.
In the last year since my husband’s death, God has walked with my children and me and provided for our needs. I would never wish this trial on anyone, yet I know that what God has been teaching me this past year will stay with me forever.
What is hope? How can we have more of it in our lives? What gets us through those difficult trials that many appear to crumble under? Why is hope so important to us today? How can we share hope with others?
I decided to study this topic at a time in my life when my hope felt ephemeral—when the world that I once knew had disappeared and what remained was unknown. I wasn’t sure I would ever experience the kind of hope I always thought that I possessed. So I went looking in the Bible to find comfort and the answer to these important questions.

What God says about hope

I’ve spent a lot of time studying Romans 5:1-5:
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
The section I was particularly interested in was verses 3 through 5. It says we are to glory in our tribulation, knowing that it produces perseverance, and after perseverance, then character and after developing character, we receive hope.
I meditated on this for some time. I knew that I felt no glory in my current trial. I saw nothing to rejoice about the tribulation of losing my mate of 25 years and the father of our two children. What was this scripture talking about?
I decided to look up the words, so I started with perseverance. Dictionary.com defines it as “steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.”
I sure thought that that definition was a mouthful. I know we have a purpose and that we are on a course toward the Kingdom of God. God promised the road would be a difficult one. But I don’t think I ever imagined it would be this difficult. I do not think I am alone in that opinion.
When I lost my husband, I felt like my whole world collapsed! We were seeking the Kingdom together. Our life revolved around that goal (“especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement”).
How do I find hope now to get through this life?
So, what about the next word, character? I have heard about building character for as long as I can remember. Character includes qualities such as honesty, courage and integrity.

I was beginning to see a pattern

I was beginning to see a pattern unfolding here. Tribulations are the trials we are required to go through in this life to fulfill a higher purpose for the Kingdom. What this is telling me is that when I am learning to persevere, I can develop character, integrity, honesty and courage.
Through all this, we learn to choose the high road when it would be easy to get discouraged, feel hopeless and ultimately give up. God says we are not to be hopeless, because we know the truth of the Kingdom of God. He tells us that all our struggles in this human life do not compare to that glory.
As it says in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
I know our family has sat around talking about what the Kingdom will be like, especially around the Feast of Tabernacles. God has given only a small glimpse of the wonders that will await us.

But what about the here and now?

How are we supposed to get through our physical lives? What do we do when we are under attack or when we are struggling with a particular sin that never seems to go away? What if we have undergone serious trials that have totally altered life as we know it?
Some people, like me, lost a spouse early in life. My children have become fatherless. Others have lost children in accidents. Still others deal with terrible ongoing sickness or debilitating pain every day of their lives.
Where does hope come in? God says He will not leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5), even when our physical lives change through trials, illness and death. He remains constant when we can’t.
I see the passage in Romans 5 as a formula that God has given to help us grow up into His Kingdom, so to speak.
The next part of the formula is the part I originally was seeking answers for. HOPE. The Bible has much to say about hope and the absence of it in our life.

Strong, confident expectation

In Scripture hope means a strong and confident expectation. “But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance” (Romans 8:25, emphasis added throughout). We believe in the testimony of God in His Bible and confidently hope for the results in our lives.
On the other hand, life without hope hurts. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12).
We know hope is tied to faith—believing that, no matter what, God is going to take care of us. No matter how bleak things in this life can become, we have to believe that we will get through it. God is giving us every opportunity to grow and overcome, so we can handle the responsibilities He intends us to have in His Kingdom.
God is developing us and preparing us for His purpose.
I have learned this past year that we don’t get to choose our trials. We need to persevere, not giving up, even when we are weary and tired of this world. He is building character in us so that we will be equipped to do the job He has for us to do.
I am learning that hope is something that we have to grow in, and it is related to the future and the ultimate plan God has for our lives. As my children and I approach the one-year anniversary of the death of my beloved spouse, I reflect on the past and look to the future with hope, knowing this formula given in the Bible will bring us to the ultimate goal God has for us.
Lori Bryant attends the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, in Joplin, Missouri, with her two children, Kayla and Andrew. Her husband died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2011.

Blessings of Abraham: How They Came to the United States


How did the United States become such a prominent nation? 

What made America great? How can we trace her roots?

The Blessings of Abraham given to America

The United States has been the most materially blessed single nation in history. Though few have recognized it, America’s rise to superpower status started with one man’s faithfulness to God.
Some 4,000 years ago Godcalled a man named Abram (whose name God later changed to Abraham). God told Abram to leave his present country and go where He would lead him. God promised Abram that if he obeyed, He would cause many nations and kings to come from his lineage (Genesis 17:1-6).
Abraham continued to be faithful to God, and when Abraham passed the supreme test of being willing to sacrifice his son, God made an unconditional promise that his descendants would be innumerable and have world dominance (Genesis 22:16-18). The blessings of Abraham were then passed down to his descendants.

Promise of national greatness passed down

This birthright promise was passed down to Abraham’s son Isaac, then to Isaac’s son Jacob, and then to Jacob’s son Joseph.
Joseph had two sons while he was in Egypt, Ephraim and Manasseh. Just before Jacob died, he adopted these two grandchildren and, being guided by God, made them inheritors of his birthright promise (Genesis 48:13-16).
Jacob was also inspired by God to give a prophecy about his two grandchildren. He said that Ephraim would become a multitude of nations and Manasseh would be a great single nation (Genesis 48:19). Jacob foretold that in the last days the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh would spread (Genesis 49:1, 22). They would prevail in wars because God would be with them (verses 23-24). And they would also inherit great natural resources (verses 25-26)—all part of the blessings of Abraham.

Ancient Israel failed to receive the full birthright promise

God wanted to give ancient Israel national greatness. When He made the covenant with the 12 tribes of Israel in the wilderness, He told them they would become great if they obeyed Him.
We know that Israel did not obey God; and eventually 10 of the tribes, including Ephraim and Manasseh, went into captivity to Assyria in 721-718 B.C. From this point forward, they were scattered and seemed to disappear from the historical records.
What became of God’s promises to give the blessings of Abraham to his descendants? Many Christians understand that the promise of salvation through Abraham’s Seed was fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:16). But what of the physical birthright promises? If we believe that God fulfills all His promises, we will look for a company of nations and a powerful single nation who have been blessed by God.

Where did the Israelites go?

Even though Israel was scattered, God said He would keep and preserve them (Amos 9:9). The Bible tells us in several passages, including Isaiah 49:12, that the Israelites migrated toward the northwest and to the “isles afar off” (Jeremiah 31:10). The British Isles are northwest of their previous homeland and the location of their captivity in Assyria.
Is it just a coincidence that the word British resembles two Hebrew words “beriyth-iysh,” which mean “covenant man”? The Bible repeatedly refers to the covenant (agreement) God made with Israel (Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 4:13).
God’s people would also be known by Isaac’s name. Americans and Britons are known as Anglo-Saxons. “Saxons” is simply a derivation of “Isaac’s sons.”

The United States and Britain become world powers

Before 1800, both America and Britain were regional powers. But shortly after 1800, both suddenly received many blessings. First Britain then the United States became world-leading superpowers.
In 1803 the United States acquired the Louisiana Purchase, which nearly doubled the size of the country. Britain’s empire suddenly spread around the globe, and the sun never set on her company of nations. At their peak, the United States and Britain came into possession of more than two-thirds of the world’s resources and wealth. God fulfilled the biblical promises to provide the blessings of Abraham to his physical descendants.

So what does it all mean?

There are many more biblical and historical clues that the United States and Britain (and the British “multitude of nations” including Australia, Canada and New Zealand) are indeed the descendants of ancient Israel. For more information about the United States’ roots in ancient Israel, read the related articles in this section.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

An Enemy of the State


Redefining 'Imminent Threat'

In early 2013, a Department of Justice white paper surfaced that laid out the Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen.

The government lawyers who wrote the 16-page document asserted that the government need not possess specific intelligence indicating that an American citizen is actively engaged in a particular or active terror plot in order to be cleared for targeted killing.

Instead, the paper argued that a determination from a 'well-informed high level administration official' that a target represents an 'imminent threat' to the United States is a sufficient basis to order the killing of an American citizen. But the Justice Department’s lawyers sought to alter the definition of 'imminent,' advocating what they called a 'broader concept of imminence.'

They wrote, 'The condition that an operational leader present an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons will take place in the immediate future.'

The government lawyers argued that waiting for a targeted killing of a suspect 'until preparations for an attack are concluded, would not allow the United States sufficient time to defend itself.' They asserted that such an operation constitutes 'a lawful killing in self-defense' and is 'not an assassination.'

Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU called the white paper a 'chilling document,' saying that 'it argues that the government has the right to carry out the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen.'

Jaffer added, 'This power is going to be available to the next administration and the one after that, and it’s going to be available in every future conflict, not just the conflict against al-Qaeda.

And according to the [Obama] administration, the power is available all over the world, not just on geographically cabined battlefields. So it really is a sweeping proposition...'

Today, decisions on who should live or die in the name of protecting America’s national security are made in secret, laws are interpreted by the president and his advisers behind closed doors, and no target is off-limits, including U.S. citizens. But the decisions made in Washington have implications far beyond their impact on the democratic system of checks and balances in the United States.

Jeremy Scahill, Perpetual War

BETRAYED: Democrats now admit they knew all along that millions would lose their existing health plans



Mike Adams
Natural News
October 30, 2013
The degree of betrayal found in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is finally coming to the surface… and it’s intense. As a top Democrat admitted today, the Democrats knew all along that Obamacare would cause millions to lose health care coverage. Yet they continued to promote it with premeditated lies such as, “You can keep your current health plan if you like it” and “your health insurance costs will be lower than a phone bill.”
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
“We knew that there would be some policies that would not qualify and therefore people would [lose their existing coverage],” said House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer in a NationalReview.com article.
National Review goes on to report this astonishing exchange:
Asked by another reporter how repeated statements by Obama to the contrary weren’t “misleading,” Hoyer said “I don’t think the message was wrong. I think the message was accurate. It was not precise enough…[it] should have been caveated with — ‘assuming you have a policy that in fact does do what the bill is designed to do.’”
In other words, lying to the public is not “wrong.” It’s accurate but not precise!
This is how Democrats think, of course: lie to the public to gain their contrived support, and then when things go wrong, shove a gun in everyone’s face to force them to comply with their Big Government mandates. That’s the entire plan of Obamacare and most socialists: obedience at gunpoint. Mao would have been proud to call Obamacare his own.
Obama administration also knew that “millions could not keep their health insurance
The lies of the Obama administration are now so blatant and undeniable that even the mainstream media is starting to expose them. NBC News reported today that “millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.”
NBC News goes on to report:
…50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”
…the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.
Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”
Like everything else spouted by Obama, all these claims were of course outrageous lies.
Lies within lies wrapped in lies and packaged in the language of “benefits”
Obama is not merely a liar but a sociopathic liar who feels no remorse for the massive social cost of his actions. He deliberately misleads Americans into supporting a plan that was designed from the start to destroy the American economy and leave tens of millions of people medical bankrupt with no insurance whatsoever.
This isn’t simply a debate about who wins or loses, it’s an issue that impacts the lives of tens of millions of Americans. It now appears that 16 million Americans will lose their health insurance thanks to Obamacare, and employers are slashing job hours, employment positions and more. Obamacare is devastating the U.S. economy and culture like an economic apocalypse.
Here are just a few of the lies we’ve all been told by Obama and his criminal cohorts:
LIE #1) “The average family insurance plan will cost $2500 less per year.”
LIE #2) “You can keep your plan, period.” (Total lie!)
LIE #3) “You can keep your doctor.” (Vicious lie!)
LIE #4) “The ACA will only add $900 billion to the deficit over the next ten years.” (Mathematical lie.)
LIE #5) “This is all about providing affordable health insurance to nearly all Americans.” (In truth, it’s all about the utter destruction of the U.S. economy, workers and employers.)
Rate increases of 400% – 500% or more now common
As we’re all now discovering, Obamacare isn’t “affordable” health care; it’s health care mandated at price-gouging monopoly rates.
For example, as NBC News reports:
George Schwab, 62, of North Carolina, said he was “perfectly happy” with his plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which also insured his wife for a $228 monthly premium. But this past September, he was surprised to receive a letter saying his policy was no longer available. The “comparable” plan the insurance company offered him carried a $1,208 monthly premium and a $5,500 deductible.
Natural News reported on a case where one couple was being told they would have to pay 539% more for health care coverage, thanks to Obamacare. Their rates were going up from $212 per month to $1,356.60 per month.
For Obama to call these health care plans “affordable” is an outrageous lie, and it’s going to financially devastate millions of families across America who simply cannot afford these outlandish rate increases. Yes, even those who voted for Obamacare and optimistically supported Obamacare are going to be hit with higher rates, too.
Americans outraged at depth of multi-layered betrayal, lies, deceit by Obama and the Democrats
Here are just a few of the user comments on the revelation that Obama and the Democrats KNEW all this would happen but lied about it anyway:
What a low life piece of garbage steny hoyer is. The dems LIED to ALL Americans and don’t give a damn that they did. If this doesn’t outrage the people who bought into obamacare then this country is finished. Socialism has won. What a sad day for this once great country, America, land of the used to be free.
They knew and still they went along with the lie. The republicans tried and tried to warn everybody and were demonized for it by the media and the rest of the libs. I bet this still doesn’t wake the drones up from their stupor.
I guess people aren’t laughing at Ted Cruz anymore.
Did they also know that their agenda would be toxic to the business community, and that in the first year of the socialist’s second term, 90 million people would be unemployed? Did they know more people would require food stamps and disability payments? Did they know that millions of young people would be without jobs or hope? How much did they know? And WHY do they hate America?
Even back in 2009 when they were hiding behind locked doors, keeping the Republicans from finding out this stuff they had already decided to screw the population. You must be an idiot to support Democrats when they do stuff like that. Now the Republicans are demonized for trying to protect the citizens from this sleazy, mean spirited BS.
So on how many other occasions such as COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM are you also lying. At this point we will assume 100% of the time.
They KNEW and they LIED. It’s time to light up the Congressional switchboard.
To a liberal a lie is completely truthful as long as it suckers you.
“…I think the message was accurate.” – Thank you Steny, I’m sure it was our fault, we must have listened wrong.
Liars. And it’s none of their damned business what coverage is appropriate for anyone. Who made Obama a health care expert? As a 59 year old woman that is not having more children, I don’t need maternity coverage. With this regime, who knows what will happen tho? King Obama for sure. He needs to go, along with all of them.
I have no insurance, before obamacare I was responsible for 100% of my health care costs. After obamacare I’m still responsible for 100% of my health care costs, but I have to pay the government a fine out of the money I was going to pay for my health care with. Is this a great plan or what?
This article was posted: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 at 6:47 am

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

3 Reasons to Ditch Halloween


Thousands of Christians around the world voluntarily have made the choice to kick Halloween to the curb. They made that decision because there are serious problems with the celebration of this holiday. (Photo by iStockphoto)
Thousands of Christians around the world voluntarily have made the choice to kick Halloween to the curb. They made that decision because there are serious problems with the celebration of this holiday. (Photo by iStockphoto)
On Oct. 31, millions will celebrate Halloween. But thousands have taken a stand against this dark holiday. Should you join the movement to ditch Halloween?

Earlier this month, CNN Moneyreported that Halloween spending is expected to be down slightly this year from previous years. Americans are still uncertain about the economy, so spending hard-earned money on costumes and candy seems like an unnecessary expense to some.
Despite the expected downturn in Halloween-related spending, the amount that will be spent on Halloween by Americans is still staggering. The National Retail Federation estimates that nearly $7 billion will be spent to celebrate the holiday this year—mainly on costumes, decorations and candy.

What will you go as?

Have you decided what you will be for Halloween this year? Whether the answer is yes or no—Life, Hope & Truth has a suggestion:
Dress like a Christian for Halloween this year.
You may ask, how does someone dress up like a Christian? The answer: by not dressing up like anything at all!
In other words, ditch Halloween completely!

The origin of Halloween

Thousands of Christians around the world voluntarily have made the choice to completely scrap Halloween. They didn’t make that decision because they are grumps or cheapskates! They made that decision because there are serious problems with the celebration of this holiday.
The origins of Halloween are not very hard to discover. All you have to do is Google “Halloween origins,” and you will find a plethora of information on where Halloween came from.
Here is its origin in a nutshell:
Halloween is a combination of two separate observances—All Saints’ Day (All Hallow’s Eve) and the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sah-win).
All Saints’ Day was an observance created by the Roman Catholic Church to honor “all” the “saints” who weren’t assigned a specific day of commemoration. After Catholicism was legalized and became the state religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, the Roman Church developed a tradition called canonization. This was the process of declaring a man or woman a saint because of some heroic deed or act of faith. Those declared saints could then be venerated and prayed to as an intermediary to God. Eventually the tradition developed to honor each particular saint on a certain day of the year—becoming that saint’s day.
By the seventh century, the Roman Church had canonized so many “saints” that they couldn’t all have a calendar date, so May 13 was declared All Saints’ Day—in honor of all the saints who didn’t have a particular day of veneration. All Saints’ Day was officially moved to Nov. 1 by Pope Gregory IV in the ninth century.
Why Nov. 1?
It is a generally accepted historical fact that Nov. 1 was selected to “counteract the pagan celebrations held on that date” (Strange Stories, Amazing Facts, p. 285). In other words, to appeal to the pagan masses, a day was selected for the celebration that was already being observed by pagans in an attempt to easily transfer their loyalties. They could continue keeping their former celebration and many of its customs, but now under a “Christian” banner. This is the basic origin of most of the holidays kept by mainstream Christianity.
The pagan festival it replaced was Samhain—an ancient Celtic festival that had many meanings and costumes. Samhain marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, and it was celebrated by lighting large sacrificial bonfires where crops were burned to honor the gods and costumes were worn to ward off the spirits of the dead that were believed to rise and wander around on the evening of Oct. 31.  

Three reasons to ditch Halloween

Taking into account the origins and the practices of Halloween, here are three reasons you should completely ditch Halloween from your life and your children’s lives:
  1. God forbids the merging of pagan customs into our lives. “You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way; for every abomination to the LORD which He hates they have done to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:31). God demands purity of worship from His followers—not combining paganism with Christianity.
  2. God wants us to avoid darkness. Halloween is all about darkness. It glorifies and emphasizes dark characters of mythology—witches, wizards, vampires, ghosts and zombies. These are all associated with either death, Satanism or the occult. The Bible is clear that we should “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness” (Ephesians 5:11). No fellowship means no participation!
  3. The whole celebration is based on a lie. The entire celebration of Halloween—from the celebrations it sprang out of to the present, commercialized holiday—is based on the unbiblical idea that humans have an immortal soul and live on in another form after death. The ancient Celts believed the souls of those in the Underworld wandered around on Samhain, and the Catholic All Souls’ Day is predicated on the belief that “canonized saints” are serving as mediators for God in heaven. Read “Is There Life After Death?” to learn what the Bible actually teaches on this subject.

Join the thousands of Christians around the world who have made the decision to ditch Halloween!

Don’t we all need a little less darkness in our lives?
To learn more about the holidays we should not keep and the holy days that we should keep, read our informative booklet “From Holidays to Holy Days: God’s Plan For You.”
Erik Jones is a writer/editor for the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, in the Dallas, Texas, area. He is a licensed history teacher with degrees in education and history. He also studied theology at Foundation Institute in Allen, Texas.

NSA spying has nothing to do with terrorism...says Greenwald

October 28th, 2013
05:04 PM ET
By Mick Krever, CNN
Spying by America’s National Security Agency does not have “anything to do with terrorism,” Glenn Greenwald, the activist journalist who broke the story, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.
“Is Angela Merkel a terrorist? Are sixty or seventy million Spanish or French citizens terrorists? Are there terrorists at Petrobras?” he asked rhetorically. “This is clearly about political power and economic espionage, and the claim that this is all about terrorism is seen around the world as what it is, which is pure deceit.”
The latest revelations of American spying involve the alleged taping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal mobile phone and that the U.S. gathered data about 60 million Spanish phone calls in a single month, which comes after similar reports from France.
Greenwald, formerly of The Guardian, has been systematically publishing reports of secret American intelligence gathering since he was given a treasure trove of leaks by former intelligence officer Edward Snowden.
“It is not true that every country intercepts the personal communications of their democratically elected allies,” Greenwald told Amanpour, referring to the oft-repeated criticism put forward by true believers that “everyone does it.”
“And it’s definitely not the case that every country mass, bulk collects the communications of millions of innocent people in virtually every country in the world.”
“It’s something that the world didn’t know, and now they do know, and that’s the reason why U.S. officials are so angry,” he said. “Not because it damaged national security but because it damages their reputation and credibility around the world.”
Greenwald also rebuffed the criticism that he is recklessly putting people’s lives in danger by revealing America’s spying tactics.
He said that Snowden had asked him to be “very scrutinizing and judicious,” and that he had only made public about 200 or 250 documents out of a total of “many, many, many thousands.”
“Ever since 9/11, British and American officials have screamed terrorism over and over and over every time they get caught doing bad things they shouldn’t do,” Greenwald said. “Every terrorist who’s capable of tying their own shoes has long known that the U.S. government and the U.K. government are trying to monitor their communications in every way that they can.”
“What we revealed is that the spying system is largely devoted not to terrorists but is directed at innocent people around the world.”
Greenwald announced earlier this month that he was leaving The Guardian newspaper to join a new online journalism venture founded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
“As a journalist, my question is not ‘How can I best help the U.S. government,” he told Amanpour. “My question is, ‘How do I best inform people around the world of the things they should know.’”
Far too many journalists, he said, are willing to leave their reporting at “'American officials told me yesterday.'”
“There’s no effort to investigate those claims or to find alternative voices,” he said.
The new outfit’s goal, he said, would aim to find “truly independent journalists, who don’t want to be invited to Washington cocktail parties.

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