we have given up liberty for an imagined bit of safety;

Benjamin Franklin stated, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Would modern-day Americans do that? Would they give up liberty to purchase a little temporary safety?

There is no question about it. They already have. In fact, they have been doing it for their entire lives.

Consider the fact that we live under a government that has the omnipotent power to assassinate, torture, and indefinitely incarcerate without trial any American citizen. It goes without saying that anyone who lives under a regime that wields that type of total power cannot possibly be considered to be a free person, even if the power isn’t being exercised widely. The fact that the government just wields the power is enough to nullify freedom in that country.

It wasn’t always that way. For the first 150 years or so of America’s existence, the federal government lacked those totalitarian-like powers. That was made clear in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which expressly forbade the federal government from killing people, including American citizens, without due process of law, from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments on people, such as torture, and from jailing people indefinitely without trial.

So, what happened? The American people in the 20th century became afraid, very afraid. They were afraid of the communists. They were convinced that Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, North Vietnam, and other Red nations were coming to get them.

Thus, to purchase a little temporary safety, Americans acceded to the conversion of the federal government, with its limited powers, to a national-security state, with its omnipotent, totalitarian-like powers of assassination, torture, and indefinite detention.

The same phenomenon has occurred with the war on drugs. At one time, Americans were free to ingest whatever they wanted, including drugs. They understood that the right to ingest whatever they wanted was necessarily part and parcel of a free society..........more..........

 the video rebel returns;

The above quote did not originate with Alexis de Tocqueville who wrote Democracy in America. But I think it describes the choice Americans must make in their very near future.

We cannot continue on this path, supporting a Genocide in Gaza that is far worse than the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

From a practical perspective, we have a $2 trillion deficit, because we allow Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Bank to rob taxpayers by the trillions.

Next year we will raise our military spending from $1.51 trillion to more than $1.6 trillion. The US hides $621 billion in 6 agencies other than the DOD. This is according to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office.) One example would be the Department of Energy which handles nuclear weapons. Other examples would be the CIA, the DIA and the State Department also Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department and Social Security.

I do not regard Israel as an ally. Sam Cohen went to Israel and gave them the Neutron bomb which they sold to China.

The US gave the Israelis our Patriot missile defense system. They did not like it, so they sold it to China. China crossed the US Patriot system with the Russian S-300 and created the HQ 9 which Pakistan is using to shoot down Indian jets.

The US gave Israel our advanced avionics which they sold to China. The Chinese incorporated that American research into their J-10 fighter jet. Pakistan is using the Chinese J-10 against India. And we expect our military personnel to defend Taiwan against American weapons Israel sold to China..........more.......

 zuckerberg's threatening new tool;

May 10th, 2025

Welcome to the open air dragnet.

Via: The Hill:

Mark Zuckerberg recently took to Instagram to boast that nearly a billion people now use Meta AI across the company’s platforms. To celebrate, he announced the launch of a new standalone app, encouraging users to “Check it out!” It sounded innocuous, almost charming, as if he were discussing a playful new feature. But make no mistake: this wasn’t just a product release. It was a warning shot from a man who now has his hands firmly on the wheel of reality.

The new app is only part of the story. The real revolution — and the real threat — lies in what comes next: Meta’s AI glasses. Sunglasses, spectacles, whatever you want to call them — they look like something out of a sci-fi flick. But they’re real, and they’re here. Very soon, millions or perhaps tens of millions of people will be walking around with them on. And you might not even know it.

These aren’t just toys. They’re tools — and weapons. They comprise a camera, microphone, an AI interface and internet access, all embedded discreetly in eyewear. They are capable of recognizing faces, interpreting language, overlaying information in real-time and collecting vast swaths of data as their owners simply walk down the street. They can whisper comprehensive summaries about the stranger across the subway, translate foreign speech in real time, suggest pickup lines, record interactions without consent and overlay reviews of a restaurant before you’ve even looked at the menu..........more........

 this is certainly a curious item;

United States Customs and Border Protection plans to log every person leaving the country by vehicle by taking photos at border crossings of every passenger and matching their faces to their passports, visas, or travel documents, WIRED has learned.

The escalated documentation of travelers could be used to track how many people are self-deporting, or leave the US voluntarily, which the Trump administration is fervently encouraging to people in the country illegally.

CBP exclusively tells WIRED, in response to an inquiry to the agency, that it plans to mirror the current program it’s developing—photographing every person entering the US and match their faces with their travel documents—to the outbound lanes going to Canada and Mexico. The agency currently does not have a system that monitors people leaving the country by vehicle............more.........

 fourteen minutes with the civil rights lawyer showing a video of two deputies murdering a motorcycle rider in ashe county just north of here. apparently there are no charges against the deputies;

watch.........

 

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 nine minutes in which you see something of a political earthquake as the king of england has dived into the middle of the recent election doing something quite unusal;

watch.......