Congress: The Fine Line Between Partisan And Treason

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Wednesday June 13, 2012 · 7:39 PM PDT

2012/06/13 · 19:39

What is Treason? Is Congress Guilty?

Is Congress guilty of treason? Treason is generally considered the act of betraying one's country and the crime is considered to be not only reprehensible, but a capital crime. Depending upon the nature and severity of the treasonous act, the penalty can be death. The betrayal of one's country can take many forms; it can go well beyond selling state secrets or working to advocate for or plotting the violent overthrow of the government. It is possible to make a case that the deliberate tanking of a country's economy solely for political gain is treason, and on that basis I suggest that the Republican members of our Congress are guilty of treason.

It is now widely known that on the very eve of the Presidential inauguration in January of 2009, fifteen or so key Republican legislators, flanked by their wordsmith, Frank Luntz, and a formerly disgraced Republican Speaker of the House (Newt Gingrich), plotted to destroy a Presidency and to tank the economy. They agreed that they would make President Obama a one-term President by any means necessary, and if that meant destroying an already drowning economy, well- Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!

To their credit, both John Boehner and Mitch McConnell were absent (only because they supposedly hate Frank Luntz), but were both brought up to speed and swore their allegiance, not to the flag, but to the unholy alliance. These legislators would refuse to cooperate in any way, shape or form with the new President. They premeditated. They made the conscious decision to stand united and obstruct any effort by this new President to salvage what was left of the economy. In their minds, the result would be well worth the collateral damage they would inflict on the citizens and the country that they had sworn to protect. If these "statesmen" stood together, united, the country would NOT recover from the worst financial crisis the country had seen since the Great Depression and the people they screwed in the process would blame the President and he would in turn become a one-term President. Blame the Congress? Never! They were simply being partisans, not traitors...

Even when they went so far as to oppose anything and everything that they themselves had always supported? Well, when the new President decided to give some traditional Republican ideas a shot, the Republicans immediately said no. Not on your life, Mr. Obama! We think your ideas smack of socialism and besides that, we don't think you are an American! These Congressional Republicans would not lift one finger to help this President succeed, because if he succeeded, the suffering of the American people might end sooner rather than later and that could defeat the Master Plan.

No one would call them out and they had hoped that no one would find out about that winter's night meeting that began as a sour grapes session, but quickly turned into a daring game of chicken, during which they plotted the death of a Presidency and the continued economic ruin of millions of Americans.

Treason By Any Other Name Is Still Treason

Is there anything that this President could have suggested that would have garnered any support from those on the Republican side of the aisle? I think not. Supporting this President would have been anathema. Many names and labels have been given to the Republican dogma currently being preached in Congress. Many who are so concerned with political correctness have skated around the behavior, fearful maybe, of being considered unfair. Democrats for the most part have called it obstructionism, while still others have labeled it Big "C" conservatism or extreme partisanship. Few have dared to call it what it really is, but I contend that treason by any other name is still treason.

'The List' Or How To Get Big Brother's Attention

Jillian Barclay

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday May 30, 2012 · 9:23 AM PDT

2012/05/30 · 09:23

The Words That Get You A Big Brother You May Not Want!

Government monitoring of emails, Tweets, Facebook posts, Instant Messages or for that matter, just about any social media outlets that millions of American citizens use everyday have become tools in a major surveillance effort by the federal government. In the '60's and '70's it was dossiers that were gathered on thousands of unsuspecting citizens. Then surveillance targeted anti-war protesters, civil rights activists and suspected Communists. Today, it is much more sophisticated and much more widespread. Everyone and everything is monitored. Traffic cameras are not used only to monitor traffic infractions, but to spy and gather intelligence by local police departments and then turned over to the federal government. Go grocery shopping and you are on camera. Your car, your cell phone, your IP address, everything today can be and is tracked. The internet police are watching you and there are certain words which will make Big Brother government watch you even more closely.

The NSA and Homeland Security are engaging in never-ending data mining. You do not have to be suspected of a crime or wrongdoing to be under surveillance, and what's better? You usually do not know about it.

Dossiers were laughable in comparison to the sophisticated intelligence gathering industry of the 21st century. Dossiers in the '60's were often simply raw material, a picture here, a speech there, stored in cardboard boxes and paper folders. They were rarely well coordinated, cross-checked or indexed, with the exception of the dossiers kept on influential leaders of the Civil Rights Movement or the movement against the Viet Nam War. Today's surveillance efforts do not end at raw data. Citizens today, once caught in the blip of government radar, are profiled and indexed, every bit of raw data including employment records, shopping preferences, prescription and credit histories merged to present a total picture or profile, if you will.

EPIC.org, The Electronic Privacy Information Center, filed a lawsuit under FOIA, the Freedom of Information Act, which resulted in the release of a list of over 500 words and phrases that if used by you on Facebook, etc., will earn you special attention by the Department of Homeland Security.

A simple email such as: "Hey, mom, In San Diego, waiting for my flight, delayed, of course. Decided to get some exercise while I wait, but couldn't walk too far; feel sick, may have mild food poisoning. Might have eaten some bad pork at the airport restaurant. Either that or the flu. See you soon!" will flag you... Send a Tweet, put this on Facebook or Instant Message - same effect...

Why is your message to mom enough to warrant a second look? Because it uses not just one, but several of the random words on the list, which is published below:

DHS & Other Agencies
•Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
•Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
•Coast Guard (USCG)
•Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
•Border Patrol
•Secret Service (USSS)
•National Operations Center (NOC)
•Homeland Defense
•Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)
•Agent
•Task Force
•Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
•Fusion Center
•Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
•Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
•Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
•Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
•U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
•Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
•Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
•Air Marshal
•Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
•National Guard
•Red Cross
•United Nations (UN)

Domestic Security
•Assassination
•Attack
•Domestic security
•Drill
•Exercise
•Cops
•Law enforcement
•Authorities
•Disaster assistance
•Disaster management
•DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)
•National preparedness
•Mitigation
•Prevention
•Response
•Recovery
•Dirty Bomb
•Domestic nuclear detection
•Emergency management
•Emergency response
•First responder
•Homeland security
•Maritime domain awareness (MDA)
•National preparedness initiative
•Militia
•Shooting
•Shots fired
•Evacuation
•Deaths
•Hostage
•Explosion (explosive)
•Police
•Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT)
•Organized crime
•Gangs
•National security
•State of emergency
•Security
•Breach
•Threat
•Standoff
•SWAT
•Screening
•Lockdown
•Bomb (squad or threat)
•Crash
•Looting
•Riot
•Emergency Landing
•Pipe bomb
•Incident
•Facility

HAZMAT & Nuclear
•Hazmat
•Nuclear
•Chemical Spill
•Suspicious package/device
•Toxic
•National laboratory
•Nuclear facility
•Nuclear threat
•Cloud
•Plume
•Radiation
•Radioactive
•Leak
•Biological infection (or event)
•Chemical
•Chemical burn
•Biological
•Epidemic
•Hazardous
•Hazardous material incident
•Industrial spill
•Infection
•Powder (white)
•Gas
•Spillover
•Anthrax
•Blister agent
•Exposure
•Burn
•Nerve agent
•Ricin
•Sarin
•North Korea

Health Concern + H1N1
•Outbreak
•Contamination
•Exposure
•Virus
•Evacuation
•Bacteria
•Recall
•Ebola
•Food Poisoning
•Foot and Mouth (FMD)
•H5N1
•Avian
•Flu
•Salmonella
•Small Pox
•Plague
•Human to human
•Human to ANIMAL
•Influenza
•Center for Disease Control (CDC)
•Drug Administration (FDA)
•Public Health
•Toxic
•Agro Terror
•Tuberculosis (TB)
•Agriculture
•Listeria
•Symptoms
•Mutation
•Resistant
•Antiviral
•Wave
•Pandemic
•Infection
•Water/air borne
•Sick
•Swine
•Pork
•Strain
•Quarantine
•H1N1
•Vaccine
•Tamiflu
•Norvo Virus
•Epidemic
•World Health Organization (WHO and components)
•Viral Hemorrhagic Fever
•E. Coli

Infrastructure Security
•Infrastructure security
•Airport
•CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources)
•AMTRAK
•Collapse
•Computer infrastructure
•Communications infrastructure
•Telecommunications
•Critical infrastructure
•National infrastructure
•Metro
•WMATA
•Airplane (and derivatives)
•Chemical fire
•Subway
•BART
•MARTA
•Port Authority
•NBIC (National Biosurveillance Integration Center)
•Transportation security
•Grid
•Power
•Smart
•Body scanner
•Electric
•Failure or outage
•Black out
•Brown out
•Port
•Dock
•Bridge
•Canceled
•Delays
•Service disruption
•Power lines

Southwest Border Violence
•Drug cartel
•Violence
•Gang
•Drug
•Narcotics
•Cocaine
•Marijuana
•Heroin
•Border
•Mexico
•Cartel
•Southwest
•Juarez
•Sinaloa
•Tijuana
•Torreon
•Yuma
•Tucson
•Decapitated
•U.S. Consulate
•Consular
•El Paso
•Fort Hancock
•San Diego
•Ciudad Juarez
•Nogales
•Sonora
•Colombia
•Mara salvatrucha
•MS13 or MS-13
•Drug war
•Mexican army
•Methamphetamine
•Cartel de Golfo
•Gulf Cartel
•La Familia
•Reynose
•Nuevo Leon
•Narcos
•Narco banners (Spanish equivalents)
•Los Zetas
•Shootout
•Execution
•Gunfight
•Trafficking
•Kidnap
•Calderon
•Reyosa
•Bust
•Tamaulipas
•Meth Lab
•Drug trade
•Illegal immigrants
•Smuggling (smugglers)
•Matamoros
•Michoacana
•Guzman
•Arellano-Felix
•Beltran-Leyva
•Barrio Azteca
•Artistics Assassins
•Mexicles
•New Federation

Terrorism
•Terrorism
•Al Queda (all spellings)
•Terror
•Attack
•Iraq
•Afghanistan
•Iran
•Pakistan
•Agro
•Environmental terrorist
•Eco terrorism
•Conventional weapon
•Target
•Weapons grade
•Dirty bomb
•Enriched
•Nuclear
•Chemical weapon
•Biological weapon
•Ammonium nitrate
•Improvised explosive device
•IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
•Abu Sayyaf
•Hamas
•FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces Colombia)
•IRA (Irish Republican Army)
•ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna)
•Basque Separatists
•Hezbollah
•Tamil Tiger
•PLF (Palestine Liberation Front)
•PLO (Palestine Libration Organization)
•Car bomb
•Jihad
•Taliban
•Weapons cache
•Suicide bomber
•Suicide attack
•Suspicious substance
•AQAP (Al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula)
•AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb)
•TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan)
•Yemen
•Pirates
•Extremism
•Somalia
•Nigeria
•Radicals
•Al-Shabaab
•Home grown
•Plot
•Nationalist
•Recruitment
•Fundamentalism
•Islamist

Weather/Disaster/Emergency
•Emergency
•Hurricane
•Tornado
•Twister
•Tsunami
•Earthquake
•Tremor
•Flood
•Storm
•Crest
•Temblor
•Extreme weather
•Forest fire
•Brush fire
•Ice
•Stranded/Stuck
•Help
•Hail
•Wildfire
•Tsunami Warning Center
•Magnitude
•Avalanche
•Typhoon
•Shelter-in-place
•Disaster
•Snow
•Blizzard
•Sleet
•Mud slide or Mudslide
•Erosion
•Power outage
•Brown out
•Warning
•Watch
•Lightening
•Aid
•Relief
•Closure
•Interstate
•Burst
•Emergency Broadcast System

Cyber Security
•Cyber security
•Botnet
•DDOS (dedicated denial of service)
•Denial of service
•Malware
•Virus
•Trojan
•Keylogger
•Cyber Command
•2600
•Spammer
•Phishing
•Rootkit
•Phreaking
•Cain and abel
•Brute forcing
•Mysql injection
•Cyber attack
•Cyber terror
•Hacker
•China
•Conficker
•Worm
•Scammers
•Social media

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