Thursday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Good morning to all, here is a disturbing but very relevant collection of articles that definitely aren’t being served sunny side up.

Is the U.S. Government the Enemy of the People? America’s Lost Liberties, Post-9/11

By John W. Whitehead

Take heed, America.

Our losses are mounting with every passing day.

What began with the post-9/11 passage of the USA Patriot Act has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.

The citizenry’s unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has resulted in a society where the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded.

Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, police violence and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.

The rights embodied in the Constitution, if not already eviscerated, are on life support.

Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since 9/11.

Indeed, since the towers fell on 9/11, the U.S. government has posed a greater threat to our freedoms than any terrorist, extremist or foreign entity ever could.

While nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government and its agents have easily killed at least ten times that number of civilians in the U.S. and abroad since 9/11 through its police shootings, SWAT team raids, drone strikes and profit-driven efforts to police the globe, sell weapons to foreign nations (which too often fall into the hands of terrorists), and foment civil unrest in order to keep the military industrial complex gainfully employed.

The American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, denied due process, and killed.

In allowing ourselves to be distracted by terror drills, foreign wars, color-coded warnings, underwear bombers and other carefully constructed exercises in propaganda, sleight of hand, and obfuscation, we failed to recognize that the U.S. government—the government that was supposed to be a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”—has become the enemy of the people.

Read the entire article HERE.

Robert Mueller and James Comey made the FBI a threat to democracy

Via The Daily Mail

The FBI under Robert Mueller undermined public confidence in justice while James Comey nearly destroyed it completely, a new book claims.

Ex-FBI agent Mike German, a 16 year veteran of law enforcement, writes the former directors of the bureau turned it into a ‘lawless law enforcer’.

In Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide: How the New FBI Damages Democracy, German says: ‘The FBI has systemic problems that, left unchecked, make the bureau a threat to the very democracy it is intended to serve’.

In a damning history of the FBI, German claims that Mueller, who later became the Special Counsel in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, wanted to ‘remake the FBI in his own image’ with no room for dissent.

He threw out the safeguards that were brought in by the Church Committee in 1975 and brought about a ‘new era of abuse’ against citizens.

Mueller’s FBI has silenced whistle-blowers and created many ‘victims of the FBI’ says German, who became an adviser to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after retiring and has written papers attacking the bureau.

Comey went further and ‘dispensed with the illusion the bureau was impartial and apolitical’ when he made his public comments about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016.

Read the entire article HERE.

U.S. Unleashes Military to Fight Fake News, Disinformation

Via Bloomberg

Fake news and social media posts are such a threat to U.S. security that the Defense Department is launching a project to repel “large-scale, automated disinformation attacks,” as the top Republican in Congress blocks efforts to protect the integrity of elections.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants custom software that can unearth fakes hidden among more than 500,000 stories, photos, video and audio clips. If successful, the system after four years of trials may expand to detect malicious intent and prevent viral fake news from polarizing society.

“A decade ago, today’s state-of-the-art would have registered as sci-fi — that’s how fast the improvements have come,” said Andrew Grotto at the Center for International Security at Stanford University. “There is no reason to think the pace of innovation will slow any time soon.”

U.S. officials have been working on plans to prevent outside hackers from flooding social channels with false information ahead of the 2020 election. The drive has been hindered by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s refusal to consider election-security legislation. Critics have labeled him #MoscowMitch, saying he left the U.S. vulnerable to meddling by Russia, prompting his retort of “modern-day McCarthyism.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Humans Are Creating Their Own Narratives

Via Liberty Blitzkrieg

Somewhere between the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein and his extremely suspicious death in a Department of Justice operated prison, the public learned that an FBI intelligence bulletin published by the bureau’s Phoenix field office mentioned for the first time that conspiracy theories pose a domestic terrorism threat. This was followed up last week by a Bloomberg article discussing a new project by the U.S. military (DARPA) to identify fake news and disinformation.

Recall that after the 2016 election, focus was on social media companies and we saw tremendous pressure placed on these platforms by national security state politicians and distressed Democrats to “do something” about the supposed fake news epidemic. Fast forward three years and it’s now apparently the U.S. military’s job to police human content on the internet. This is the sort of natural regression a society will witness so long as it puts up with incremental censorship and the demonization of any thought which goes against the official narrative.

Before we dissect what’s really going on, allow me to point out the glaringly obvious, which is that politicians, pundits, mass media and the U.S. military don’t actually care about the societal harm of fake news or conspiracy theories. We know this based on how the media sold government lies in order to advocate for the Iraq war, and how many of the biggest proponents of that blatant war crime have gone on to spectacularly lucrative careers in subsequent years. There were zero consequences, proving the point that this has nothing to do with the dangers of fake news or conspiracy theories, and everything to do with protecting the establishment grip on narrative creation and propagation.

The above tweet summarizes what’s really going on. It’s a provable fact that the harm caused by some crazy person reacting to viral “fake news” on social media doesn’t compare with the destruction and criminality perpetrated by oligarchs like Jeffrey Epstein, or governments which destroy entire countries and murder millions without flinching. It’s the extremely wealthy and powerful, as a consequence of their societal status and influence, who are in a position to do the most harm. This isn’t debatable, yet the U.S. military and media don’t seem particularly bothered by this sort of thing. What really keeps them up at night is a realization that the powerless masses of humanity are suddenly talking to one another across borders and coming to their own conclusions about how the world works. You’re supposed to be told what to think, not to think for yourself.

This is what the power structure’s really worried about. It’s terrified that billions of people are now in direct, instantaneous communication with one another and thinking independently about world events. The mass media’s freakout over the election of Donald Trump was never rooted in concerns about the man and his specific policies. What really bothered them was his election proved they no longer matter. Enough people simply ignored the media’s instructions to suck it up and go vote for Hillary Clinton. This repudiation and loss of control was devastating and terrifying for U.S. media personalities and their bosses.

Read the entire article HERE.

As the rule of law dissipates…

Via The American Thinker

There is a lot of unlawful activity going on in American bureaucracy. Some of it relates to red flag laws and other unconstitutional gun legislation. Some of it relates to permitting socialists and Islamofascists to hold office, which is unlawful. Some of it relates to unlawful attempts to suppress intelligent opposition to Islamofascist barbarism. These are just a few examples.

The common denominator in all of these and other criminal acts committed by public officials in all branches and at all levels of government is the refusal to keep the oath of office, refusal to remain bound by the limits of delegated power, and refusal to be guided by constitutional law. One could say the rule of law has become fluid, subject to the whims of those in power.

The refusal to keep the oath of office is so commonplace, resulting in no consequences, that even presidential candidates now campaign on the basis of promises to violate the Constitution upon taking office. That is extremely ironic, since swearing to support the Constitution is an inviolable lawful prerequisite to taking office. But no one seems to take it seriously.

Read the entire article HERE.

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