Free Speech For Me, But NOT For Thee!

Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011

Posted on Thu, Nov. 24, 2011

Disparaging tweet about Gov. Sam Brownback lands Kansas teen in principal’s office

By Suzanne Perez Tobias
The Wichita Eagle

A Kansas teenager is in trouble after mocking Gov. Sam Brownback during a mock legislative assembly for high school students.
Emma Sullivan, a senior at Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, was in Topeka on Monday as part of Kansas Youth in Government, a program for students interested in politics and government.
During the session, in which Brownback addressed the group, Sullivan posted on her personal Twitter page:
“Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot”
On Tuesday, Sullivan was called to her principal’s office and told that the tweet had been flagged by someone on Brownback’s staff and reported to organizers of the Youth in Government program.
The principal “laid into me about how this was unacceptable and an embarrassment,” Sullivan said. “He said I had created this huge controversy and everyone was up in arms about it … and now he had to do damage control.
“I’m mainly shocked that they would even see that tweet and be concerned about me,” she said. “I just honestly feel they’re making a lot bigger deal out of it than it actually was.”
Sullivan said the principal ordered her to write letters of apology to Brownback, the school’s Youth in Government sponsor, the district’s social studies coordinator and others.
Karl Krawitz, the school principal, did not return calls or e-mails Wednesday.
Brownback spokeswoman Sherriene Jones-Sontag said her office had forwarded a copy of Sullivan’s tweet to organizers of the school-sponsored event “so that they were aware what their students were saying in regards to the governor’s appearance.
“We monitor social media so we can see what Kansans are thinking and saying about the governor and his policies,” Jones-Sontag said.
“We just felt it was appropriate for the organizers to be aware … because of what was said in the tweet.”
Sullivan, 18, said she posted the comment because she doesn’t agree with Brownback’s policies, particularly recent cuts in state aid to schools. She is a registered Democrat.
“Some of my friends were joking about what they’d really like to say (to Brownback), so I just took out my phone” and tweeted, she said. “I guess it was kind of a heat-of-the-moment thing.”
She didn’t think much about it, Sullivan said, because her Twitter page – @emmakate988 – had only about 60 followers and was “pretty anonymous.”
Brownback’s office discovered the tweet via a Web search for his name, officials said.
Niomi Burget, Brownback’s scheduling secretary, e-mailed a screen shot of the tweet to the Youth in Government sponsor at Shawnee Mission East, writing: “I don’t know if this was someone with your group, but thought if it was, you might want it brought to your attention.”
The Shawnee Mission school district was not in session Wednesday. Leigh Anne Neal, spokeswoman for the district, said that district officials were not aware of the incident, but would look into it after the Thanksgiving break.
“In general,” she wrote, “students on school-sponsored field trips, in which they are representing the school, would be expected to conduct themselves in accordance with school district policies, including use of electronic devices. Students may express their personal beliefs, views, and opinions, as long as they do so appropriately and in accordance with school policies.”
Sullivan’s older sister, Olivia, a sophomore majoring in political science at Wichita State University, said she thinks the controversy amounts to Brownback “censoring the opinion of a student.”
“This is something she said on her personal Twitter account,” Olivia Sullivan said.
“It’s unacceptable, first of all, to censor her and punish her for what she said. But for the governor and his staff to waste their time getting a high school student in trouble? That’s ridiculous.”
As of Wednesday, the offending tweet remained on Emma Sullivan’s Twitter page despite a suggestion by her principal that she remove it. It’s still there alongside tweets from a recent “Twilight” movie marathon and her thoughts on Justin Bieber’s holiday CD (“Just found out justin bieber raps in his christmas album... #mixedfeelings”).
She said she plans to write the apology letters over Thanksgiving break and then put the episode behind her. She is awaiting word from the University of Arkansas, where she applied for college next year and hopes to double-major in psychology and sociology.
“I don’t regret what I said,” she said. “I guess I’m just kind of shocked right now.”

Reach Suzanne Perez Tobias at 316-268-6567 or stobias@wichitaeagle.com.

© 2011 Wichita Eagle and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansas.com/

My comments: Was the teens comment rude? Yes it was. Should she be forced to write and apology letter? If her parents want her to continue attending Shawnee Mission East High School then probably yes. We have a right to free speech in this country and I support her right to say what she did. Just because the god ordained governor King's minions do not like it does not mean she cannot say it!

Time For A Libertarian Revolution At The Polls In 2012!

12 Facts About Money and Congress That Are So Outrageous That It Is Hard To Believe That They Are Actually True

Economic Collapse Blog

Do you want to get rich? Just get elected to Congress. The U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives are absolutely packed with wealthy people that are very rapidly becoming even wealthier. The collective net worth of the members of Congress is now measured in the billions of dollars. The people that we have elected to the House and Senate are absolutely swimming in money. Unfortunately, it is not easy to get elected to Congress. In this day and age you generally have to be heavily connected to those that are very wealthy to get into Congress because it takes gigantic amounts of cash to win campaigns. But if you can get in to the club, you pretty much have it made. The numbers that you are about to read are very difficult to believe and they should deeply sadden you. They show that Congress has become all about money. Congressional races are mostly financed by wealthy people, most of the people that we elect to Congress are very wealthy, and they rapidly get wealthier after they are elected. All of this money has turned our republic into something far different than our founding fathers intended.
The following are 12 statistics about money and Congress that are so outrageous that it is hard to believe that they are actually true....
#1 The collective net worth of all of the members of Congress increased by 25 percent between 2008 and 2010.
#2 The collective net worth of all of the members of Congress is now slightly over 2 billion dollars. That is "billion" with a "b".
#3 This happened during a time when the net worth of most American households was declining rapidly. According to the Federal Reserve, the collective net worth of all American households decreased by 23 percent between 2007 and 2009.
#4 The average net worth for a member of Congress is now approximately 3.8 million dollars.
#5 The net worth of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi increased by 62 percent from 2009 to 2010. In 2009 it was reported that she had a net worth of 21.7 million dollars, and in 2010 it was reported that she had a net worth of 35.2 million dollars.
#6 The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, saw his wealth grow by 29 percent from 2009 to 2010. He is now worth approximately 9.8 million dollars.
#7 More than 50 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires.
#8 In 2008, the average cost of winning a seat in the House of Representatives was $1.1 million and the average cost of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate was $6.5 million. Spending on political campaigns has gotten way out of control.
#9 Insider trading is perfectly legal for members of the U.S. Congress – and they refuse to pass a law that would change that.
#10 The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population.
#11 U.S. Representative Darrell Issa is worth approximately 220 million dollars. His wealth grew by approximately 37 percent from 2009 to 2010.
#12 The wealthiest member of Congress, U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, is worth approximately 294 million dollars.
So how are members of Congress becoming so wealthy?
Well, there are lots of ways they are raking in the cash, but one especially alarming thing that goes on is that members of Congress often make investments in companies that will go up significantly if legislation that is being considered by Congress "goes the right way".
This is called a "conflict of interest", but it happens constantly in Congress and nobody seems to get into any trouble for it.
The following is video of Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes ambushing Nancy Pelosi about one particular conflict of interest involving credit card legislation. As you can see, she does not want to talk about it....

As noted above, insider trading is perfectly legal for members of Congress.
A law that would ban insider trading by members of Congress has been stalled for years on Capitol Hill.
So has this been a significant benefit to members of Congress?
Well, there has been at least one study that appears to indicate that members of Congress have been much more successful in the stock market than members of the general public have....

A 2004 study of the results of stock trading by United States Senators during the 1990s found that that senators on average beat the market by 12% a year. In sharp contrast, U.S. households on average underperformed the market by 1.4% a year and even corporate insiders on average beat the market by only about 6% a year during that period. A reasonable inference is that some Senators had access to – and were using – material nonpublic information about the companies in whose stock they trade.

Of course all of this could just be a coincidence, right?
Meanwhile, members of Congress keep telling the rest of us that we are just going to have to cut back because times are tough.
For example, during an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, Nancy Pelosi actually claimed that we should try to encourage poor people to have less children because it costs the government so much money to take care of them....

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

This elitist attitude extends all the way into the White House as well. Earlier this year, Barack Obama made the following statement....

"If you’re a family trying to cut back, you might skip going out to dinner, or you might put off a vacation."

Meanwhile, the Obamas are living the high life at taxpayer expense. In a previous article I mentioned one outrageously expensive vacation taken by the Obamas that was paid for by our taxes....

"Back in August, Michelle Obama took her daughter Sasha and 40 of her friends for a vacation in Spain.
So what was the bill to the taxpayers for that little jaunt across the pond?
It is estimated that vacation alone cost U.S. taxpayers $375,000."

There is a massive disconnect between what our politicians say and what our politicians do.
The high life is good enough for them, but the rest of us have got to "cut back" and suffer becomes times are hard.
But when it comes to money and Congress, the most corrupting influence of all is probably all of the campaign money that gets thrown around.
In America today, it takes gigantic mountains of money to run a successful campaign.
Sadly, the candidate that raises the most money almost always wins. In federal elections the candidate that raises the most money wins about 90 percent of the time.
More than 5 billion dollars were spent on political campaigns back in 2008.
That represents a huge number of favors that need to be paid back.
In 2012, it is being projected that 8 billion dollars could be spent on political campaigns.
When big corporations and wealthy individuals shovel huge piles of money into political campaigns, it is generally because they expect something in return.
Most of those that get sent to Congress realize that they never would have won if wealthy donors had not showered cash on them. Most of them understand that they should not bite the hands that feed them if they want the cash to keep rolling in.
Politics in America has become a game that is played by the elite for the benefit of the elite.
Average Americans have the perception that they are involved in the process and that their opinions really matter, but mostly it is just an illusion.
It is so sad.
Meanwhile, members of Congress rapidly get wealthier and average American families continue to suffer. In fact, the standard of living in the United States has fallen farther over the past three years than at any other time that has ever been recorded in U.S. history.
But for members of Congress the good times just keep on rolling.
Just as it has been for most of human history, the rich rule over the poor.
Does anyone out there believe that we have any hope of changing this?
Reprinted with permission from the Economic Collapse Blog.

My comments: After reading this my blood was boiling. If you were not convinced that the system is irretrievably broken then the previous article should be the convincer. There is no fundamental difference between the Republicans and Democrats. If you do not change your voter registration to Libertarian and vote Libertarian every election after reading the above article you are part of the problem and not part of the solution and in my opinion you are an accomplice in the crimes both parties have committed!

In Addition To Jury Nullification We Have This...

Let a Thousand 'Rogue' Grand Juries Bloom!

by William Norman Grigg

Recently by William Norman Grigg: 'Rising' to Empire, Falling From Grace

Amanda Culbertson has a conscience, which is another way of saying that she wasn't well-suited to government "work." Until recently she was employed by the Houston Police Department as a crime lab supervisor. In 2009, she became aware of serious problems with the reliability of the department's roadside blood alcohol testing vehicles, more commonly known as BAT vans.
Over the past decade, hundreds of police departments nation-wide have purchased the vehicles with the help of federal grants. The testing device deployed in them, the Intoxilyzer, is considered infallible by law enforcement agencies and most trial judges. However, the Kentucky-based company that manufactures the the Intoxilyzer has refused to disclose its source code. Without access to the source code, the device's findings are unverifiable. As one defendant points out, the machine could simply be a gimmicky random number generator, rather than a finely calibrated scientific instrument.
In 2008, it was discovered that a supervisor for the Houston Police Department had falsified BAT van inspection records for at least the previous eighteen months, thereby calling into question test results in at least 2,600 cases. When Culbertson was appointed to supervise the inspections, she learned that indifferently trained police officers allowed the units to overheat, which would skew test results. In addition, a glitch in the system caused the much-heralded Intoxilyzer to reset every time the air conditioner was turned on.
Over the course of several months, Culbertson tried to get officials in the police department and the Harris County DA's office to address her concerns. None of them was interested in disturbing what had become a very profitable scam.


In June, Culbertson and two of her colleagues quit their jobswith the HPD. "We could no longer choose between a paycheck and our integrity," Culbertson explained. Not surprisingly, she was called to testify by attorneys representing some of the hundreds of people facing DUI charges as a result of BAT van tests.
In professional terms, Culbertson landed on her feet: She was hired by a laboratory at Lone Star College that had a contract to conduct breathalyzer analysis for the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Shortly thereafter, the Harris County Commission – at the initiative of DA Pat Lykos – ended its contract with the Lone Star College lab. In effect, Lykos – in an act of vulgar retaliation – arranged for Culbertson to be fired.
Harris County's 185^th criminal court grand jury, which had been investigating problems with the BAT vans, called Culbertson to testify, along with former Harris County Prosecutor Brent Mayr. Lykos dispatched two members of her flying monkey corps – assistant DAs Carl Hobbs and Steve Morris – to "monitor" the grand jury testimony.
Since Lykos and her office were suspected of covering up the use of tainted evidence and retaliating against a whistleblower, the DA and her underlings were barred from being present in any capacity other than as sworn witnesses. Accordingly, when Lykos's minions materialized during Culbertson's testimony, the Grand Jury Foreman ordered them to leave. When that directive was ignored, the Foreman instructed the Baliff to remove them or place them under arrest.


Lykos unsuccessfully sought a court order compelling the grand jury to grant access to her underlings. When that effort failed, the DA's office exploited a back-channel to obtain official transcripts of the grand jury testimony. That led to a summons from Judge Susan Brown to Hobbs and Morris, along with court reporters Javier Leal and Katherine Chagaris, who face the possibility of contempt citations and the prospect of six months in jail.
The Harris County grand jury's insurrection caused consternation in the DA's office, and astonishment in the local media. "All too often in the past, Harris County grand juries have functioned as rubber stamps providing prosecutors with indictments without impartial scrutiny of their substance," notes the Houston Chronicle. Of course, this is true of practically every grand jury since the enactment of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in 1946.
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure were created by committee to be an instrument of what the German National Socialists called Gleichschaltung – the "synchronization" of legal (as well as political and cultural) institutions with the dictates of the central government. Germany had been a federated constitutional republic prior to 1933, when Gleichschaltung got underway. Five years later, the FDR regime's Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure – invoking the supposed need for "simplicity" and "efficiency" – began the same process in the United States.

The Advisory Committee had no legislative authority or popular mandate; it was a pure creation of the prosecutorial class. Thus it's hardly surprising that one of its most urgent priorities was to transform the grand jury from a citizen's assembly into an instrument of the prosecution. This meant "rectifying" – in the Orwellian sense – the Fifth Amendment by effectively removing the troublesome word "presentment."


The Fifth Amendment specifies that "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury...." A "presentment" is essentially a proprio motu indictment delivered by a grand jury without approval of a government prosecutor.
Presentments were often filed by grand juries investigating official corruption – such as the grand jury in Minneapolis that forced the resignation of the mayor and police chief in 1902, or the one that dislodged Boss Tweed and his politically sheltered cronies thirty years earlier.
This was an entirely appropriate function of the grand jury. The "grand jury in its primal, plenary sense ... was a group of men who stood as a check on government, often in direct opposition to the desires of those in power," points out constitutional scholar Roger Roots. Rather than being an instrument of the political class, Roots continues, "American grand juries initiated prosecutions against corrupt agents of the government, often in response to complaints from individuals." It also served as "a people's watchdog against arbitrary and malevolent prosecutions."
For most of America's history, "the evil that the grand jury sought to address was the exercise of distant power locally," wrote Kevin K. Washburn in an article for the Fordham Law Review. "Indeed, the grand jury came to us as an institution that was respected for its profound ability to protect local communities – indeed, possibly rebellious ones – from central government authority. It was, in essence, a local check on Crown authority."
In 1734, grand juries twice refused to indict John Peter Zenger for "seditious libel." New York's Royal Governor William Cosby bypassed the grand jury by filing a "criminal information" against Zenger – only to see the trial jury nullify the sedition law and acquit the newspaper publisher. During the 1760s, Crown prosecutors in Massachusetts were constantly stymied by grand juries that refused to indict colonists accused of violating the Stamp Act and other impositions.


Both before and after American Independence, "the grand jury's primary method for exercising its power was not rigorous review of facts, but nullification of validly enacted laws," Washburn observes. They didn't dispute the prosecutor's presentation of the facts, but rather "the legislator's right to impose such laws, or at least the prosecutor's decision to enforce them in a given context."
Obviously, this kind of power simply couldn't be left in the hands of mere Mundanes. Accordingly, the term "presentment" was conspicuously absent from Rule 6 of the original Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which dealt with the role of the grand jury. Lester B Orfield, who served on the Advisory Committee, later explained that retaining the term "might encourage the use of the `run-away' grand jury as the grand jury could act from their own knowledge or observation and not only from charges made by the United States attorney."
"Today, the grand jury is the total captive of the prosecutor, who, if he is candid, will concede that he can indict anybody, at any time, for almost anything, before any grand jury," wrote federal District Judge William J. Campbell in a 1973 law journal article calling for formal abolition of the institution on the grounds of redundancy. This isn't to say that the grand jury is considered useless by the prosecutorial caste: It helps maintain the pretense that prosecutors are servants of the public will.
What is happening in Harris County is not an example of a grand jury going "rogue," but rather one behaving exactly as it should. It is interposing itself on behalf of the public by investigating a federally subsidized revenue-collection racket, and the abusive prosecutor who presides over it. Hopefully its example will prove to be contagious.
Reprinted with permission from Pro Libertate.

November 8, 2011

William Norman Grigg [send him mail] publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.

Copyright © 2011 William Norman Grigg

The Pentagram Wants To Rule The Galaxy!

Pentagon successfully tests hypersonic flying bomb

(AFP) 

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Thursday held a successful test flight of a flying bomb that travels faster than the speed of sound and will give military planners the ability to strike targets anywhere in the world in less than a hour.
Launched by rocket from Hawaii at 1130 GMT, the "Advanced Hypersonic Weapon," or AHW, glided through the upper atmosphere over the Pacific "at hypersonic speed" before hitting its target on the Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands, a Pentagon statement said.
Kwajalein is about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii. The Pentagon did not say what top speeds were reached by the vehicle, which unlike a ballistic missile is maneuverable.
Scientists classify hypersonic speeds as those that exceed Mach 5 -- or five times the speed of sound -- 3,728 miles (6,000 kilometers) an hour.
The test aimed to gather data on "aerodynamics, navigation, guidance and control, and thermal protection technologies," said Lieutenant Colonel Melinda Morgan, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
The US Army's AHW project is part of the "Prompt Global Strike" program which seeks to give the US military the means to deliver conventional weapons anywhere in the world within an hour.
On August 11, the Pentagon test flew another hypersonic glider dubbed HTV-2, which is capable of flying 27,000 kilometers per hour, but it was a failure.
The AHW's range is less than that of the HTV-2, the Congressional Research Service said in a report, without providing specifics.
The Pentagon has invested 239.9 million dollars in the Global Strike program this year, including 69 million for the flying bomb tested Thursday, CRS said.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.

My note: If this is to be believed, then we know that the Pentagram is hell bent on ruling the planet. I sure hope that Ron Paul gets the GOP nomination and if not runs as the Libertarian Party candidate so that we can stop this absolute bloodthirsty madness. Peace now!

And Where In The Constitution Does It Say That Congress Can Regulate WHat Our Children Eat At School?

It never ceases to amaze me of the idiocy of "our" members of Congress. I put the word "our" in parenthesis because I did NOT vote for any of the idiots that currently "represent" the state of Kansas. I voted for the Libertarian candidates that ran against them. I put the word "represent" in parenthesis because they do not represent the people but whatever corporation or special interest "donated" (paid) them off. I put the word "donated" in parenthesis because we all know that campaign donations are really a back door bribe to do their (corporations) bidding. Heres an example for you: Pompeo-Koch Industries. Roberts and Moran: ADM. All three are also on the campaign donation list of the military-industrial-complex ala Boeing.