in this essay hornberger makes clear why we need the bill of rights, and what happens when its not enforced;

Many years ago, I was giving a lecture on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to a class at a public high school here in Virginia. During the course of my talk, I made the following statement: “The First Amendment does not give people the right of free speech.”

I asked the students whether my statement was correct or incorrect. Everyone immediately told me that I was wrong. They said the First Amendment did in fact give people the right of free speech.

I held my ground. I said it didn’t, and I pressed the students to figure out why I was maintaining my position. They were just as steadfast in their position, until a girl raised her hand and said, “Mr. Hornberger is right. The First Amendment does not give people rights. It prohibits the government from infringing on rights that preexist the government.”

She was absolutely right.

The First Amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Notice that the Amendment does not give people rights. Instead, it prohibits Congress from enacting laws that abridge people’s rights...........https://www.fff.org/2020/02/03/do-we-need-the-first-amendment/

i aught to post this essay by paul craig roberts every day. its a clear description of the how the corruption of the empire is manifest and where it could easily lead us all;

Film-maker Oliver Stone has won 12 Academy Awards for his films.  But this outstanding record doesn’t help when he seeks financing for a film critical of one of America’s wars.

“You do those kinds of stories, it’s not going to happen.”  Stone said that his dissent from the pro-war narrative has brought him “economic censorship.” See this. 

Hollywood practices the same censorship as CNN, the New York Times, and the rest of the presstitutes who champion war. Stone notes that we never hear the point of view from the countries that are labeled “threats,” such as Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela.  

The Democrat and Republican political parties are also all for war. The Democrats won’t even let Tulsi Gabbard participate in the New Hampshire presidential Town Halls, because she is not a partisan of war.

Stone says that the fact that Democrat leaders such as Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are as pro-war as Dick Cheney and the Zionist neocons “shows you how locked up America is.”  As Putin said in the interviews Stone did with him, “It doesn’t make a difference who is President of the United States.”  Washington’s  policy is hegemony achieved through war.

Trump said that he wanted to get America out of war.  Trump said he would normalize relations with Russia and withdraw American forces from the countries that George W. Bush and Obama had invaded with US troops or with proxies called “freedom fighters.”  However, under pressure from “Russiagate” and “impeach-gate,” Trump has fruitlessly sought protection from the powerful Israel Lobby, all for naught.  The most active people in Trump’s impeachment are Jewish members of the Democrat majority in the house and most of the contrived and false witness testimony against Trump was from Jews.  .........https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/02/03/as-the-democratic-party-hates-trump-deplorables-how-can-it-represent-white-people/

kunstler journey's into our oncoming night in this essay, describing how we may be getting there, and some of why;

All of a sudden, events are looking a bit fluxy out there, as though the world is shuddering through some spooky ch-ch-ch-changes, like a monster waiting to be born, with strange convergences of ecology, politics and economy, and there’s only so much you can do to prepare, really. Criticality is in the air!

The horses are out of the barn on the Wuhan Coronavirus. Air travel was curtailed too late in the game — and still only partially — with asymptomatic-but-infectious human carriers winging to every corner of the world and probably contaminating airports all along the way. There’s plenty of thought and counter-thought on what exactly is going on behind the scenes in China. The ruling party has knocked itself out demonstrating its earnestness in the crisis, performing great feats like the construction of a one-thousand-bed hospital in ten days, shutting down the lunar new year festivities (like cancelling Christmas here), and locking down a hundred million citizens in quarantine. Pretty impressive.

But there’s also a theory that the Coronavirus affords a cover for cascading failures in China’s corrupt and shifty banking system. The country had already stepped across some frontiers in demographics, energy consumption, and industrial growth that were shoving it toward contraction for the first time in two generations. Coronavirus has shut down a lot of production in big things like cars and big-little things like cell phones, and supply lines are shutting down to world markets. This amounts to the first big test of the integrated global economy, as well as the world’s debt-saturated business model.

When a lot of parties and counterparties can’t pay each other because their revenue flows are cut off, the securities, currencies, equities, and other abstract representations of wealth go south. The US and Europe are no better positioned for a crisis in their banking arrangements, and confidence is starting to crack. Both economic mega-regions have relied on central banking hocus-pocus to prop up stock markets and maintain the illusion that the logic of bonds still applies. The first thing to go moneywise in a contracting financial system is the magic of compound interest.......https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/crisis-o-rama/

did you know;

caitlin speaks herein about how those who attack you do so in plain sight but you don't notice;

I write a lot about government secrecy and the importance of whistleblowers, leakers and leak publishers, and for good reason: governments which can hide their wicked deeds from public accountability will do so whenever possible. It’s impossible for the public to use democracy for ensuring their government behaves in the way they desire if they aren’t allowed to be informed about what that behavior even is.

These things get lots of attention in conspiracy circles and dissident political factions. Quite a few eyes are fixed on the veil of government opacity and the persecution of those brave souls who try to shed light on what’s going on behind it. Not enough eyes, but quite a few.

What gets less attention, much to our detriment, is the fact that the primary mechanism of our oppression and exploitation is happening right out in front of our faces............https://www.theburningplatform.com/2020/02/02/the-primary-mechanism-of-your-oppression-is-not-hidden-at-all/

your belief that you have legal rights has no bearing on those uniformed assassins who arrive to satisfy their curiosity which usually escalates under most conditions;

Lufkin, TX — A Texas man was detained, pepper sprayed, and arrested in Lufkin, Texas for failing to give officers his name and allowing them to search his car. The man who goes by the name “Cold Front” told online reporters he had gone to a local trailer park to pick up his cousin when neighbors reported him as a suspicious man.

PINAC News reported Cold Front observed the lady who allegedly called the police and kindly waived to her to calm her fears, but to no avail.

Once police arrived, they were prevented from arresting Cold Front because he had committed no crime. They feigned needing to pat him down for weapons so they could claim he was resisting arrest, and again escalated the use of force. They pepper sprayed him to validate their own claims he was resisting, and to be able to legally detain him so they could get his real name and run their databases for warrants, after which time he was then legally required to identify himself. He admitted to having several driving violations and did not want to go to jail.

After police arrived they began to investigate, asking Cold Front what he was doing in the area and where he “stays.”  Cold Front told them he was not a resident at the trailer park and that he was there to pick up his cousin but couldn’t get his transmission shifter out of park.

But when Lufkin police asked him what his name was he refused to give it. He stood his ground but was threatened with arrest for “failure to identify”. Instead of arresting him on a lawless charge (Texas is not a stop and ID state), they manhandled him, pepper sprayed him, and arrested him on attempting to flee charges because he asked why they were attacking him.

Those charges won’t likely stand up in court but the accompanying video is enough to demonstrate just what can happen to Texans who attempt to exert their rights by not offering up potentially incriminating evidence to be used against them in a court of law.

Cold Front was asked over and over to provide his name. The principal reason cops ask for this is to search a person’s name and determine if they have any warrants out for their arrest. The fourth cop arrived on scene in the third video, exited his vehicle, and put on his bully gloves. Apparently, he already knew he would be using them against the man he had yet to meet. As he approached, Cold Front told cops once again he was not the suspect of any crime, was “doing nothing wrong” and was only waiting on someone to help him with his vehicle’s gear shifter.........https://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/innocent-mans-car-breaks-down-so-cops-swarm-him-like-wolves-assault-and-arrest-him/261453

caitlin will tell you in this essay how the federalies succeed in their information management process which removes any actual information from your eyes;

I write a lot about government secrecy and the importance of whistleblowers, leakers and leak publishers, and for good reason: governments which can hide their wicked deeds from public accountability will do so whenever possible. It’s impossible for the public to use democracy for ensuring their government behaves in the way they desire if they aren’t allowed to be informed about what that behavior even is.

These things get lots of attention in conspiracy circles and dissident political factions. Quite a few eyes are fixed on the veil of government opacity and the persecution of those brave souls who try to shed light on what’s going on behind it. Not enough eyes, but quite a few.

What gets less attention, much to our detriment, is the fact that the primary mechanism of our oppression and exploitation is happening right out in front of our faces.

The nonstop campaign by bought politicians, owned news outlets, and manipulated social media platforms to control the dominant narratives about what’s going on in the world contribute vastly more to the sickness of our society than government secrecy does. We know this from experience: any time a whistleblower exposes secret information about the malfeasance of powerful governments like NSA surveillance or Collateral Murder, we see not public accountability, nor demands for sweeping systemic changes to prevent such malfeasance from reoccurring, but a bunch of narrative management from the political/media class.

This narrative management is used to shift attention away from the information that was revealed and onto the fact that the person who revealed it broke the law or misbehaved in some way. It’s used to convince people that the revelations aren’t actually a big deal, or that it was already basically public knowledge anyway. And it’s used to manipulate public attention on to the next hot story of the day and memory hole it underneath the white noise of the media news churn. And nothing changes............https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/02/the-primary-mechanism-of-your-oppression-is-not-hidden-at-all/