Good News for the Holidays; LA city council votes a major beginning in change for our nation

Hi folks! Here is some great news that can, should and I believe will change our nation and the world for the better. Look over the short intro and watch the video below!

Hey, here’s some good news to brighten your day. The Los Angeles Council has made L.A. the first U.S. city to officially vote for a constitutional amendment to overturn the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling that effectively granted corporate entities the same rights as individual citizens. (The ruling allowed unlimited funding of media campaigns for and against politicians and presidential candidates — legalising profit-motivated media brainwashing by powerful industry interests.)

The L.A. Council’s vote is an excellent step towards taking the money out of politics.

Are the senate going to take away our constitutional rights in this week’s vote?

In this article from infowars we see yet again how dangerous it can be for us when the charlatans in Washington who are supposed to protect our interests are doing nothing but eroding them.

With the bill expected to be up for a vote within 48 hours, Senator Rand Paul has offered an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that will kill a provision allowing the militaryto detain individuals, including American citizens, without trial or due process.
The “indefinite detention” sections of the NDAA bill would turn the whole of the United States into a “battlefield” and hand the executive branch the power to have the military arrest U.S. citizens and hold them without trial.
The provision is merely an update to the “parallel legal system” had been in place under the auspices of the war on terror for over a decade, “In which terrorism suspects — U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike — may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system,” as the Washington Post reported in December 2002.
In attempt to kill the indefinite detention provision of the legislation, Senator Rand Paul aims to strike Section 1031 from the bill, which reads as follows.
“Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force…includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons…Detention under the law of war without trial”.
The amendment is seen as having more teeth than a change offered by Colorado Senator Mark Udall which the ACLU has urged voters to support. “There are other similar Amendments too, however none of them completely eliminate the Constitutionally offensive section,” reports the Tennessee Campaign for Liberty website.
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Writing in the Washington Post today, Udall emphasizes the fact that the bill does affect American citizens.
“The provisions would require the military to dedicate a significant number of personnel to capturing and holding terrorism suspects — in some cases indefinitely — even those apprehended on U.S. soil. And they authorize the military to do so regardless of an accused terrorist’s citizenship, even if he or she is an American captured in a U.S. city,” writes Udall.
Republican Congressman Justin Amash also warned that the bill had been “carefully crafted to mislead the public,” in suggesting that the indefinite detention provision didn’t apply to American citizens when it clearly does.
“Note that it does not preclude U.S. citizens from being detained indefinitely, without charge or trial, it simply makes such detention discretionary,” Amash wrote on his Facebook page.
As we documented yesterday, every single piece of legislation passed in the name of catching terrorists has been used against American citizens on countless occasions.
In an op-ed for the SIlicon Valley Mercury News, S. Floyd Mori, national executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League, warns that the legislation would create the legal framework for internment without trial on a similar scale to how Japanese-Americans were held in concentration camps during World War II.
“Indefinite detentions based on fear-driven and unlawfully substantiated national security grounds, where individuals are neither duly charged nor fairly tried, violate the essence of U.S. law and the most fundamental values upon which this country was built,” he writes.
The National Defense Authorization Act is set for a procedural vote at midday on Wednesday.

Supreme Court protects Crime in Courts

The article below is just too hard to believe. The Supreme court appears to be protecting corruption on the bench! Just another sign that the fiddle is playing and Rome is burning!

U.S. Supreme Court Issues Landmark Decision: Constitution is Void

ATLANTA, Jan. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision that serves to allow judges to void the Constitution in their courtrooms. The decision was issued on January 18, 2011, and the Court did not even explain the decision (Docket No. 10-632, 10-633, and 10-690). One word decisions: DENIED.

Presented with this information and massive proof that was not contested in any manner by the accused judges, at least six of the justices voted to deny the petitions:

“There is no legal or factual basis whatsoever for the decisions of the lower courts in this matter. These rulings were issued for corrupt reasons. Many of the judges in the Northern District of Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit are corrupt and violate laws and rules, as they have done in this case. The Supreme Court must recognize this Petition as one of the most serious matters ever presented to this Court.”

The key questions answered negatively by the U.S. Supreme Court was:

“Whether federal courts must be stopped from operating corruptly and ignoring all laws, rules, and facts.”

By denying the petitions, SCOTUS has chosen to sanction corruption by federal judges and to allow federal judges to void sections of the Constitutional at will.

William M. Windsor has been involved in legal action in the federal courts in Atlanta since 2006. Windsor was named a defendant in a civil lawsuit (1:06-CV-0714-ODE) in which Christopher Glynn of Maid of the Mist in Niagara Falls, swore under oath that Windsor did a variety of things including the crimes of theft and bribery. Windsor stated under oath that Christopher Glynn made it up and lied about absolutely everything that he swore. Windsor then obtained deposition testimony from Glynn and the other managers of the Maid of the Mist boat ride, and they admitted, under oath, that charges against Windsor were not true.

Despite this undeniable proof, 32-year federal Judge Orinda D. Evans declared that the grandfather of three should not have fought the lawsuit, and she forced him to pay a fortune in legal fees of Maid of the Mist. Windsor appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, but federal judges Dubina, Hull, and Fay rubber-stamped Judge Evans’ ruling. Windsor then took his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court where the justices said the appeal was not worthy of their consideration (cert denied).

After attempting to get the case reopened with new evidence that proved fraud upon the courts and obstruction of justice, Judge Evans and Judge William S. Duffey committed a variety of crimes and violations of Constitutional rights, as did judges with the Eleventh Circuit. All of this was detailed for the Supreme Court.

Windsor says: “I have discovered that the federal judges in Atlanta, Georgia, Washington, DC, and the justices of the United States Supreme Court function like common criminals intentionally making bogus rulings against honest people while covering up the crimes of their fellow judges. I have been contacted by people from all over the country and around the world with their stories of judicial corruption with judges all over the U.S.

“My charges have been totally ignored by the United States Attorney’s Office, the FBI, and Congress. I do not believe there is a shred of decency, honesty, or Constitutional rights in our federal courts. In my opinion, we now live in a police state. Judges are free to do absolutely anything they want. Our laws are meaningless. Your life savings can be stolen by a federal judge, and they have no risk in violating every law in the books.

“In my opinion, this is the most serious issue that our country has ever faced. Our rights have been stolen. And the mainstream media refuses to cover this story because they are afraid of the judges. Heaven help us.

“I believe our only hope in America is if the masses become aware of what is taking place. I am writing an expose, and my book will be available at Borders, Barnes & Noble, and on amazon.com soon. The publisher will decide if the title is Lawless America or Screwed, Glued, and Tattooed.”

For more information, see www.LawlessAmerica.com.

These are the sort of things that just make me so cynical. I am really trying to recover from this one still….

I See Something and I’m Saying Something

This article by Szandor is excellent I urge you to read.

In the attempt to turn the United States of America into another Soviet Union, East Germany or fascist tattletale, surveillance state, Homeland Security (can you say motherland?) has expanded their “If you see something, say something” campaign. Walmart, that paragon of free markets and civil liberties, has decided to pitch in and help the authoritarian collectivists crank up the fear and turn us all into sniveling spies crying wolf and pointing at our neighbors. Well, if it keeps us safe, maybe it isn’t that bad an idea after all. I mean, after all, this is America and if we can’t take an idea developed by communist, fascist and socialist nations and make it better than no one can.

The program is meant to help people identify indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats so that they can report them to law enforcement authorities. Well, I see plenty of threats and criminal activities going on right under our noses, so I’m reporting it right now. I’m telling. I’m sure that someone out there somewhere is or knows some law enforcement authority that can help protect us all from those who perpetrate these crimes.

To start with, and perhaps most importantly, I see the Federal Reserve and other central banks of the world committing fraud. I see a Ponzi scheme. I see them taking honest money away from us, money that should be backed by some kind of commodity, and replacing it with fiat paper backed by nothing, printing as much of it as they want whenever they feel like it, or simply digitally adding a bunch of zeros to certain accounts. I see them indebting the world and enslaving humanity. I see them counterfeiting an economy that was working to create a prosperous middle class into one that oppresses mankind. I see them laughing at us from their sheltered palaces and villas wallowing in their horded trillions as the rest of us scrimp and try to get by on their crumbs. These people should be investigated, arrested and tried for defrauding mankind. Tell me, Ms. Napolitano, since I reported them, will you now do something to protect us from them?

I see criminal governments. I see them all across the globe, but the most egregious one is the one I see in Washington, DC. They have been engaging in criminal behavior for decades. They have been working on destroying the very documents that brought them into being. They break the law by completely ignoring the Constitution, the highest law in the land. They have completely trashed the Bill of Rights. They are aiding and abetting their friends and campaign contributors in the central banking business. They are helping their multi national corporate buddies to monopolize the economy in this nation and economies around the world. I see them stealing hard earned money in the form of taxation and wasting it paying for unnecessary destruction, interest on debt and other programs detrimental to societies interested in individual liberty. What authorities can I report to which will bring these people to justice?

I see a criminal military hierarchy conducting unconstitutional, undeclared wars and occupations. I see them creating far more civilian casualties than acceptable. I see them pumping nuclear waste into the environment to devastate future generations. I see them sending our children into battles that should not be fought for the benefit and profits of the multi national corporations, the military industrial complex and the central banking system. I see them unrelentingly engaging in torture, criminal abuse and psychological operations without remorse. I see them acting not as the moral defenders of their homeland fighting for noble principles, but as brutal occupiers engaged in practices that were at one time abhorred by our sensibilities and used by our enemies in earlier wars, practices that were admonished by free peoples as evil and pointed to as justification for battling tyrants. I am reminded that at one time we were told that simply obeying orders was not an excuse for engaging in war crimes. What mighty authority is there that I can report these people to?

I see a criminal TSA ready to walk out of the airports and onto the streets of America to force their abuses and sexual deviances onto the entire populace, not just air travelers. I see them violating the rights of common folk and degrading humanity. I see them blindly obeying their superiors and expecting blind obedience from their victims. I see them shutting down their machines and acting more reasonably when confronted, like children denying their transgression and hiding the goods behind their backs when caught with their hand in the cookie jar. I see them returning to their old ways when they think they can get away with it, like the same children raiding the cookie jar once again when their mother’s back is turned. I report these people like so many others have, but because you support them, Ms. Napolitano, and approve of their criminality and unconstitutional policies, all any of us can do to effect change is to refuse to fly.

I see a criminal and complicit corporate media refusing to report on the things that really matter. I see them misinforming and disinforming the masses. I see them championing collectivism and demonizing the individualism this country was founded on. I see them supporting the very institutions mentioned above, aiding and abetting in their criminality. I see government agencies moving to try to cut off the online news sources that are more legitimate than the corporate sources in an effort to put the waking masses back to sleep. I see one hand washing the other and any authority I might complain to would simply shrug their shoulders and do nothing.

I see criminal multi national corporations spreading their poisons and pollution over the entire planet. I see them being allowed to do so with relative impunity. Although I see them every so often given a slap on the wrist with meaningless fines, I don’t see any of their executives being stripped of their wealth and sent to jail. I see them allowed to do more or less as they please while smaller businesses aren’t able to survive simply because they can’t afford to comply with ineffective, burdensome regulations. It’s difficult to hold them accountable even by refusing to buy their products when in many cases one can’t determine if certain products are made by certain corporations, or one is forced to buy the products because of monopolization and necessity.

Ok, I’ve done my job. I’ve seen the threats and I’ve reported them. I’ve been shouting about them for quite some time now. The Department of Homeland Security has done nothing about them. I somehow don’t believe they’re ever going to do anything about them. They prefer to point to phantoms outside our door when the real threats occupy the inner sanctums of our own house.

I feel more threatened now by those holding the reins of power than I ever did by the enemies outside our walls. I feel my civil liberties are more threatened by those dressing in suits and creating law here at home than by aba wearing Bedouins living in deserts and caves in far off lands. Perhaps, however, if more people would stop worrying so much about their neighbors and start pointing out the crimes going on in the upper echelons of society something would get done. Perhaps if enough people pointed such things out to the Department of Homeland Security we’d have a better chance of seeing these threats alleviated or at least mitigated. Or perhaps if people would simply start ostracizing and treating with disdain those in the elite and political classes and stop honoring, idolizing and respecting them so much, perhaps then it might be harder for them to get away with the crimes they currently commit with impunity. Perhaps then we might see some change.

My archived articles are available at szandorblestman.com. Please visit there to help support me and my efforts. I also have an ebook available entitled “The Ouijiers” by Matthew Wayne.

I love his take on all of these situations!

Big Brother is WATCHING

If you don’t believe the government is watching you or worse know about it and don’t think it wrong, in which case you are completely lost in my opinion and nothing will wake you up, this article will certainly confirm that they are in fact watching and waiting…for what we are not certain. What is certain is that these rascals are using whatever reason suits their agenda to run ashod of the constitution and our rights, which by the way are now seemingly non existent.

I used to say we are a free country, much freer than any other, now I cannot any longer testify this to be true. It is a sad day.

Of course, NOTHING will be done about this latest incursion. Watch and weep folks, as this seems to be what we are increasingly becoming good at doing…mostly nothing significant.

Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online

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Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans’ Credit Cards in Real Time

Federal law enforcement agencies have been tracking Americans in real-time using credit cards, loyalty cards and travel reservations without getting a court order, a new document released under a government sunshine request shows.

The document, obtained by security researcher Christopher Soghoian, explains how so-called “Hotwatch” orders allow for real-time tracking of individuals in a criminal investigation via credit card companies, rental car agencies, calling cards, and even grocery store loyalty programs. The revelation sheds a little more light on the Justice Department’s increasing power and willingness to surveil Americans with little to no judicial or Congressional oversight.

For credit cards, agents can get real-time information on a person’s purchases by writing their own subpoena, followed up by a order from a judge that the surveillance not be disclosed. Agents can also go the traditional route — going to a judge, proving probable cause and getting a search warrant — which means the target will eventually be notified they were spied on.

The document suggests that the normal practice is to ask for all historical records on an account or individual from a credit card company, since getting stored records is generally legally easy. Then the agent sends a request for “Any and all records and information relating directly or indirectly to any and all ongoing and future transactions or events relating to any and all of the following person(s), entitities, account numbers, addresses and other matters…” That gets them a live feed of transaction data.

DOJ powerpoint presentation on Hotwatch surveillance orders of credit card transactions

It’s not clear what standards an agent would have to follow to get a “Hotwatch” order. The Justice Department told Sogohian the document is the only one it could find relating to “hotwatches” — which means there is either no policy or the department is witholding relevant documents.

The Justice Department did not return a call for comment.

Every year, the Justice Department does have to report to Congress the numbers of criminal and national security wiretaps undertaken, as well as the number of National Security Letters issued. Tens of thousands of NSLs are issued yearly — most with gag orders that forbid ISPs or librarians from ever saying they have ever been served with such a subpoena.

But the Justice Department does not report or make public the number of times it got real time or historic cell phone location information, nor how often it is using these so-called “hotwatch” orders.

Get active or just watch your choice. I am obviously of the former or I wouldn’t be doing this today. We need people to wake up NOW!

We think Govt operates outside Constitution

All I can say is if this survey is true, 44% think the Govt is operating outside the Constitution, then what the heck do we continue to sit on our thumbs here?

Many Say Government Now Operating Outside the Constitution

Voters are clearly dubious about the size and scope of today’s federal government.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 39% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the federal government currently operates within the limits established by the Constitution of the United States.

Forty-four percent (44%) disagree and say it is not functioning within those limits, while another 17% aren’t sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Earlier surveys have shown that just one-in-five voters believe that the government today has the consent of the governed. Forty-eight percent (48%) see the government as a threat to individual rights. According to the Declaration of Independence, governments are formed to protect certain inalienable rights.

Most Americans think the Constitution is just fine the way it is and should be left alone. But 39% say the governing document doesn’t put enough restrictions on what the government can do.

As is often the case, there’s a wide gap between the perceptions of the Political Class and those of Mainstream voters when it comes to the federal government. Eighty-three percent (83%) of Political Class voters say the government now operates within constitutional limits, but 62% of those in the Mainstream don’t share that view.

One aspect of the Constitution that is frequently challenged is its protection for freedom of speech. But 85% of voters say, generally speaking, that the constitutional protection of speech is a good thing for the United States. Only six percent (6%) disagree.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on November 21-22, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Nearly two-out-of-three voters (65%) are at least somewhat angry at the current policies of the federal government, including 40% who are Very Angry.

Sixty-one percent (61%) of Democrats say the federal government currently is operating within the limits established by the Constitution. Holding the opposite view, 65% of Republicans and 52% of voters not affiliated with either of the major parties do not believe the government is functioning within constitutional bounds.

But all three groups agree overwhelmingly that the constitutional protection of freedom of speech is a good thing.

Sixty-six percent (66%) of political conservatives say today’s federal government is out-of-bounds constitutionally, but 66% of liberals disagree. By a narrow 43% to 37% margin, moderates think the government is within constitutional guidelines.

In surveys for several years, voters have defended the Constitution and questioned how it is being applied.

Sixty percent (60%) of voters, for example, say the U.S. Supreme Court should make its decisions based on the Constitution and legal precedents rather than being guided by a sense of fairness and justice. But only 38% think the high court is actually guided by the Constitution when it makes its rulings.

Despite continuing gun control efforts by federal, state and local governments, Americans overwhelmingly believe the Constitution guarantees the right of the average citizen to own a gun.

At the same time, most voters (65%) say they prefer a smaller government with lower taxes rather than one with more services and higher taxes.

Most Americans say the government already has too much influence over the economy and is involved in too many things that would be better left to the private sector.

Seventy percent (70%) of voters think big government and big business generally work together against the interests of investors and consumers.

While protective of their freedom of speech rights, most Americans have agreed over the years that they are willing to sacrifice some of that freedom to protect children from indecency.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

Isn’t it time we began to pushback?

Is there a Muslim in your attic?

This is a good article and one that everyone should read. Our Constitution allows for freedom of religion and speech and other liberties that our forefathers fought and died for! For modern man to just decide that all that was/is just nonsense makes no sense to me at all.

If we are just going to go off the deep end as a society then we absolutely should follow a discriminatory attitude. Not all Muslims nor Christians or Jews are terrorists…they are not all very religious either only some. Even fewer are what I call Spiritually oriented.

Will You Hide a Muslim in Your Attic?

Friday, 03 September 2010 12:06 Szandor Blestman

There’s some scary stuff happening in this nation right now. It has to do with Muslims. No, I am not afraid of Muslims. No, I do not believe that they are out to destroy our way of life. No, I do not believe that they are inherently violent people who see Christians and Jews as demons that need to be wiped from the face of the Earth. No, I do not believe they are the new boogie man hiding around every corner with a belt of explosives waiting to duck into some nightclub to kill himself and as many other innocent people as he can in a blaze of glory. It is not the Muslims that scare me. It is the people who are trying to make me so paranoid of the Muslims that I will forsake my principles and turn against my fellow human beings because their ways are different than mine that scare me. It is those who believe that people should be treated differently simply because of their religion that scare me.

Didn’t we already go through this? How often does this deja vu have to happen before we get it? It wasn’t that long ago when a national socialist country decided it wanted to restrict and regulate people due to their religion. The German Nazis were quick to label Jews as evil. They were the reason for all of mankind’s woes. They were the spawn of the devil. They were racially inferior and needed to be controlled. Oh, it started off in a seemingly harmless enough fashion, with registrations and the like so that the government could keep an eye on them and make sure they were on the up and up and doing all their business by the rules, but it quickly devolved into something much worse. It quickly became one of the darkest chapters in human history.

Now we Americans are labeling the Muslims as evil. Now I’m hearing talk of forcing Muslims to register with government officials in some sort of bureaucratic registry scheme meant to track them. I’ve even heard some control freak individuals suggest that the Muslims be put into camps separate from the rest of the population. That is what is scary to me, that these ideas could even be proffered in a supposedly enlightened society.

Ask yourself, how would you feel if a group you could be identified with was being demonized in such a fashion? If they began to register people and then to round them up to put them into camps, would you fight back or would you cower and go along to get along? If you were to fight back, do you think they’d use that as propaganda to justify them rounding up even more of your people? Even if you were simply exercising your right to self defense, people would likely see you as being the aggressor once the media got a hold of the story and distorted it as they often do. Would you like this kind of treatment?

There was a great religious figure from the past who once said something like “Treat people as you want to be treated,” or some such thing. It seems to me that is a philosophy that has fallen from favor these days.

This has all come to a head recently because some Muslims want to build a mosque close to where the World Trade Center in New York city once stood. They have been accused of all sorts of evil things, from wanting to build it there as a symbol of victory, to getting their money from terrorist organizations, to wanting to use sharia law to subjugate us all. It seems that when rumors like this abound the general public gets their panties in a wad and jumps on the protest band wagon before they check out the story and get all the facts. Until I knew better, I had heard that the mosque was being built on the same property where the twin towers stood, not some two blocks away.

The fact is that this is someone’s private property. If that someone doesn’t mind a mosque being built there, then it should be allowed. If those who don’t want it built there are so concerned, they should at least try to raise the money to buy the property so that they can build a church or whatever else they want there. Another mosque in a city as large and diverse as New York is not going to suddenly radicalize all the Muslims in New York and create a war zone. They are not going to suddenly become blood thirsty, rabid savages intent on killing all that moves no matter the cost. They will likely continue to live their lives as peacefully and productively as they can and leave you alone to go about yours. They will likely keep to themselves to practice their religion and leave you alone to practice yours, so long as you leave them alone. That is how human nature works for those of us who are not paranoid busy bodies.

So what if it is decided to use government force to prevent these people from building the mosque? What if the worse case scenario happens and Muslims are forced to register so that government “officials” can keep an eye on them? What if it is decided Muslims need to report to camps until the “war on terrorism” is concluded? What then? If you don’t think such things can happen here, I suggest you reconsider. Worse things have happened in other so called “enlightened” societies. More barbaric and brutal episodes of human subjugation have gone on even in modern times. It is not beyond the realm of possibilities that such an episode could happen here. After all, the government has not followed its own rules as outlined in the Constitution in well over a hundred years.

What if you found out these camps were cruel and brutal to the Muslim people? What if you found out many were dying at these camps? What if you had a Muslim family living next door to you that you knew was peaceful and had harmed no one? Would you hide them in your attic? Or your garage? Or wherever you could? Would you keep them safe from the government wolves? Would you risk your own life in order to help fellow human beings?

That was the story of Anne Frank who was hidden by neighbors from the Nazis in World War II. That was a story of the light of the human soul in dark times. It was an heroic tale that showed the depths of caring that humans are capable of. I would like to think that I would be such a brave soul, able to hide fellow human beings from those who would cause them harm in their time of need. I can’t be sure I would, however, and I hope I never have to find out. I would certainly hate to find out what fate would await those who were caught helping the Muslims if such a scenario were to play out.

But such dark times need not descend upon our nation. We should never have to discover if we are so brave to be able to help our neighbors in such a way. We have established the concept of individual rights in this nation and have outlined behaviors government officials are legally obliged to adhere to. They are supposedly not allowed to violate those individual rights, including the rights to engage in peaceful religious activity and to freely associate with others of a like mind. There are also individual rights regarding private property and one’s use of it. The government does not own you, nor does it own your property, even though they think and act like they do. Government officials can only get away with what the populous will let them get away with. It scares me that so many might be willing to let them get away with not only dictating what can be done with someone’s private property, but perhaps going even further and violating the individual rights to life, liberty and property because of one’s faith.

Don’t be fooled into believing that all people of any religion or race are inherently violent, or stupid, or any other stereotype. People are people and for the most part wish to live their lives as best they can, and as peacefully as they can. They wish, for the most part, to be left alone, especially when it comes to government intrusion. The vast majority find violence and conflict abhorrent and will engage in it only when they feel threatened or cornered. Those who commit violence against their fellow humans should be caught and punished on an individual level. It is simply wrong to punish a group because a few in that group have committed atrocities. Group punishment is a practice that has historically been found to disgust our sensitivities because of its inherent unfairness. That is even more the case the more brutal the punishment becomes. It is my hope that humans as a race have evolved beyond such practices and that we will not let fear and paranoia bring us back to that dark place in our souls.

My archived articles are available at szandorblestman.com. Please visit there to help support me and my efforts. I also have an ebook available entitled “The Ouijiers” by Matthew Wayne.

I urge everyone to read and support opinion pieces that might not find their way into MSM.

Ron Paul For President!

A glimmer of hope has arisen. A recent ‘straw poll’ had Ron Paul leading all other contenders by a wide margin for Presidential Candidate in 2012.

Paul Tops U.S. Presidential Poll at Conservative Conference

By Greg Stohr

Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) — Representative Ron Paul of Texas won a straw poll for the 2012 Republican U.S. presidential nomination conducted among activists at the Conservative Action Political Conference.

Paul, a former Libertarian Party presidential candidate, received 31 percent of the vote, followed by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with 22 percent, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with 7 percent and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty with 6 percent.

Less than 25 percent of the more than 10,000 people attending the conference voted, according to poll results released by the event’s organizers. Students accounted for 48 percent of those voting. Young people were among Paul’s supporters when he sought the 2008 Republican nomination, with more than 200 Students for Ron Paul chapters formed at U.S. colleges.

The conference featured speeches by several potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, including Pawlenty, Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia.

Gingrich yesterday predicted that Republicans will win control of both the House and the Senate in the November election and then the White House in 2012.

He attacked proposed tax increases, saying “any tax increase is a job-killing measure and should be defeated” and described the Democratic leadership as a “secular, socialist machine.”

Pawlenty Speech

In his speech, Pawlenty said that if conservatives take power, “we need to do what we say we’re going to do.” Conservatives “need to go to Washington, D.C., and walk the walk.”

Romney said President Barack Obama focused on overhauling the U.S. health-care system to the detriment of the economy.

Obama didn’t know that “the number one cause of failure in the private sector is lack of focus, and that the first rule of turning around any troubled enterprise is focus, focus, focus,” Romney told the conference. “His energy should have been focused on fixing the economy and creating jobs. He failed to focus, and so he failed.”

Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, didn’t attend.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 21, 2010 00:00 EST

Best news I have heard in years about presidential candidates.