Three million Americans are being forced to answer intrusive questions about their private lives under threat of home visits and fines by the government in the guise of The American Community Survey.
The survey, which is sent to 3 million random homes each year, is in addition to the census but demands far more invasive information from citizens, such as how many times they have been married, if they have a toilet that flushes, and how much is left outstanding on their mortgage.
According to one North Texas resident, “The questionnaire also wants answers about where she works, how much money she makes, and what time she leaves for work each day – the hour and minute! “I thought it was intrusive. I don’t have a high regard for the federal government collecting this information anyway,” the woman told CBS 11 News. “You don’t know what they’re going to do with it.”
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“Why do they need to know this? They don’t, in my opinion,” the woman said, before further stating that she thinks the personal questions are un-American. “Do they really need to know if we have a mortgage and whether this house is free and clear? That’s intrusive.”
The U.S. Census Bureau claims the survey helps them “determine where to locate services and allocate resources.”
If the person refuses to respond to the the survey or merely skips one question, then the Census Bureau promises that they will be fined and harassed until they do, a process that includes telephone calls and home visits.
However, it’s all hot air as no one has ever been charged with a crime for refusing to answer the ACS survey, and indeed several members of Congress have denounced the invasive questions as a violation of the Right to Financial Privacy Act.
On its very face, this is also a flagrant violation of the 5th amendment. Any census form that goes beyond asking how many people live in the residence is a violation of the 5th amendment, and court cases have established this, yet the census becomes more and more invasive each time.
Despite the fact that refusal to respond to the survey carries no ultimate penalty, the vast majority of the millions who receive it will doubtless comply in the face of threats of harassment and fines.
Objections to the invasive information being demanded by the government in the form of the survey arrive on the back of similar concerns about the 2010 census itself, particularly how census workers are using GPS to electronically tag every home in America.
In February, the Obama administration moved control of the census out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House, a tactic slammed as a trick by Democrats to keep their majorities in Congress.
Well, if the government needs the information to optimize resource allocation I can envision a few better ways to do it. One would be to make it entirely voluntary and include it in the Census sent to everyone. Another would be to actually enforce the threatened penalties.
Better still, for some of these cases, the questions could be included in tax write ups, a more subtle way of collecting the same information.
When Angela Witkamp heard that a local research company would soon be testing a swine flu vaccine, she had no reservations about signing up her two young daughters for a clinical trial.
“Any vaccination you get, there are side effects,” Witkamp said. “But the benefits of getting the vaccination definitely outweigh them. There are people dying from the swine flu.
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“Some of my friends call us guinea pigs, but they are not fully informed. The vaccination that they will be studying will be the same that anyone can get at the health department [when it is approved].”Witkamp and her girls, Baylee, 3, and Emmie, 5, are among thousands of people rolling up their sleeves for science as drug companies, doctors and government officials work to get a safe and effective swine flu vaccine on the market by October.
In June, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic of H1N1, or the swine flu, which has killed more than 300 and sickened more than 43,000 in the U.S. In Texas, 5,373 cases have been reported, with 357 confirmed in Dallas County and 210 in Tarrant County, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
New York journalist and poet Jerry Mazza speaks with RT’s Anastasia Churkina about 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan – and the effects they have had on the American psyche.
The Obama White House is calling for informer-citizens to denounce opponents of the president’s health care plan. A post on the White House website posted today reads:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
The post by Macon Phillips, the White House Director of New Media, does not indicate what the Obama White House will do with the information.
In the waning days of the election, St. Louis and Missouri sheriffs and top prosecutors announced a plan to arrest and prosecute Obama opponents. “A local television station’s coverage of a Missouri campaign ‘truth squad’ on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has touched off a national Internet frenzy,” the Detroit Free Press reported on September 30, 2008. “What has prompted all the furor is that several members of the Obama’s ‘truth squad’ in Missouri are prosecutors or members of law enforcement. They include St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer and St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch. All are Democrats.”
A television news report on the Obama “truth squads” in Missouri.
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“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment,” Gov. Matt Blunt responded. “This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights.”
Although the Obama administration has yet to call for prosecuting Obamacare opponents, the fact they are compiling a list of suspects is seriously troubling and reveals the authoritarian mindset of the administration.
It also brings to mind Nixon’s enemies list compiled by convicted criminal Charles Colson. Nixon’s list of political opponents would eventually total of over 30,000 names.
Considering the large number of Americans opposed to Obamacare, it is possible Obama’s list of political enemies may exceed that number in short order.
In a desperate response to a growing grassroots movement in staunch opposition to Obamacare, ThinkProgress has interviewed Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who sits on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.
ThinkProgress is a “progressive” blog run by the former Clintonite John Podesta and the Center for American Progress. CAP is not only stocked with the usual assortment of globalist Democrats, including Tom Daschle — who is Obama’s “health care czar” — and the wife of John Edwards, but it received “seed money” from the globalist financier George Soros.
Recycled Clintonite John Podesta shills for “quality, affordable health care” run by a government that can’t even broker used cars.
“ThinkProgress reported today on the growing number of angry right-wing activists viciously harassing Democratic, as well as moderate Republican, members of Congress on health care reform,” writes Lee Fang. According to ThinkSoros collaborator Jonathan Corn, this “angry right-wing” tactic is spawned by the insurance industry and will exploit Congress’ August recess to unleash “staff members to over 30 states to ‘confront’ lawmakers about health care reform.”
“These health insurance companies and people like them are trying to load these town halls for visual impact on television,” Durbin told ThinkSoros. “They want to show thousands of people screaming ‘socialism’ and try to overcome the public sentiment which now favors health care reform. That’s almost like flooding the switchboards on Capitol Hill. It doesn’t prove much other than the switchboards have limited capacity. So, we need to have a much more balanced approach that really allows members of Congress to hear both sides of the story, rather than being sucker-punched or side-tracked by these types of tactics.”
Sen. Dick Durbin talks with ThinkSoros
In fact, as documented on the Alex Jones Show today, people showing up at town hall meetings and opposing Obamacare are citizens — not insurance industry operatives or specifically Republicans — who understand very well what the plan means: a totalitarian health care system of medical rationing operated by the government.
For instance, in South Austin, Texas, a large group of people gathered at a grocery store and told Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett they will not accept Obamacare. Doggett was so perturbed by the adamant response he retreated from the scene with protesters in hot pursuit chanting “Just say no” to Obamacare (see video below).
Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas is confronted over Obamacare.
The corporate media claimed the demonstration was organized by Republican operatives, but as the man who shot the video told Alex Jones today the protest was non-partisan. In addition, Alex Jones’ producer, Rob Dew, mentioned that his wife, a registered Democrat, had received a mailer about the event.
The Austin chapter of Campaign for Liberty encouraged Doggett’s constituents to “bend” his ear and remind him “who he works for.” Campaign for Liberty is a political organization founded by Ron Paul, who is opposed to wasteful government spending, including Obamacare and the so-called “stimulus” package passed by the Democrat-dominated Congress. Campaign for Liberty is primarily concerned with constitutional issues and is not influenced by the Republican party or the insurance industry.
On Sunday, Health and Human Services Secretary and Bilderberg member Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Arlen Specter received similar treatment during a town hall meeting in Philadelphia. “I look at this health care plan and I see nothing that is about health or about care. What I see is a bureaucratic nightmare, senator. Medicaid is broke, Medicare is broke, Social Security is broke and you want us to believe that a government that can’t even run a cash for clunkers program is going to run one-seventh of our U.S. economy? No sir, no,” a woman told the duo, according to Fox News. Specter was shouted down when he declared, “We have to make judgments very fast,” Washington-speak for rushing Obamacare through Congress.
Health and Human Services Secretary and Bilderberg member Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Arlen Specter shouted down over Obamacare
ThinkProgress also attempted to link the grassroots Tea Party movement to lobbyist-run groups, specifically Americans for Prosperity, run by a former associate of Jack Abramoff, and FreedomWorks, run by former Republican Majority Leader and current lobbyist Dick Armey.
In fact, the the Tea Party concept of grassroots opposition to large and intrusive government was originated and organized by Libertarians. “The Libertarian Party of Illinois got the idea to hold an April 15, 2009 anti-tax “Boston Tea Party” in Chicago way back in December of 2008. On February 10, 2009 they started a Facebook page and began promoting the website throughout the Illinois media,” writes Donny Ferguson of the Libertarian National Committee.
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The concept was hijacked by Republicans in short order and touted by Fox News. “There are many organizations that are trying to hijack the movement,” Tea Party Patriots’ National Coordinator Amy Kremer told Newsmax on May 14. “We do not want it to be a GOP movement… Our concern is this is a nonpartisan movement.”
Corporate media polls admit that a large number of Americans oppose Obamacare. “Since April, approval of Obama’s handling of health care has dropped from 57 percent to 49 percent, with disapproval rising from 29 percent to 44 percent,” reports the Washington Post. “The erosion in Obama’s overall rating on health care is particularly notable among political independents.”
The Soros funded ThinkProgress has kicked into overdrive an effort to portray these independents and no shortage of Republicans and disaffected Democrats as useful idiots for the GOP and the insurance industry.
It is a strategy destined to fail as more Americans discover the real nature of Obamacare — a corrupt and bloated bureaucratic system based on the British model that rations health care and denies treatments and procedures to seniors and others with serious medical conditions.
As the campaign to audit the Fed is picking up momentum in the halls of Congress, reflective of the majority support by the people, several mainstream media outlets have taken their familiar positions to fulfil the role of compliant corporate lackeys they have become accustomed to. But it is to no avail. The campaign for liberty has clearly grown wings that spread far and wide, outflanking both the left and the right as it ascends to ever greater heights. Whatever happens next, the enemies of liberty will be hard put to it, trying to sprinkle sleeping dust into the eyes of the giant who stretches his arms to meet the dawn.
James Pethokoukis.
In a recent attempt at discrediting Ron Paul’s bill HR 1207, Reuters columnist James Pethokoukis strings together ludicrous straw men arguments to convince the sheeple that everything is fine so go back to sleep.
“Most Americans”, Pethokoukis states, “surely don’t realize that the non-policy aspects of the Fed are already audited by the GAO, nor have they watched the Fed chairman’s twice-a-year testimony, (…), in front of House and Senate committees.”
This is a hilarious argument, for the incidental testimonies provided by the Fed boss usually raise more questions than they answer; and besides, the ones demanding a proper audit of the Fed are usually the same ones prone to dissecting its cryptic musings with their hands in their hair. The columnist goes on to claim that both the occasional congressional grilling as well as the minutes published by the Fed provides enough transparency to satisfy critical observers: “Bernanke”, he states, “is clearly not operating in the shadows from some undisclosed location.”
You have to love the logic behind his curious little trifle, far exceeding the usual allowance of stupidity. It is no different than claiming someone standing in a shadowy corner of a dark alley at noon is actually standing in the full light of day. As the author moves from fallacy to fallacy, he predictably arrives at his final and most ludicrous position: “The effect on the economy might not be beneficial, either. Even if the result of the Fed bill is only more aggressive congressional questioning and criticism, financial markets might well fear the bank would start taking congressional wishes into account when making policy.”
We can’t have that, now can we. According to James Pethokoukis, it will be absolutely detrimental if the people’s representatives in Congress would be able to influence the actions of a private central banking cartel. Telling enough, the author then quotes none other than JPMorgan’s house economist Michael Feroli who was heard to remark that an audit “could immediately push up borrowing costs even if the audits are only a symbolic increasing of congressional oversight of monetary policy.”
If the bill, God forbid, should evaporate in the senate, then a great victory will have been achieved nonetheless. A recent Rasmussen poll has showed a staggering 75 percent agreeing with Dr. Paul’s stance on the Federal Reserve. Never before has the pressure been building up against the secretive banking cartel in the current measure, so even the entire effort should fail to reach its conclusion, it will not have been in vain. With more and more light shining upon the Federal Reserve and its secretive operations, and an increasing amount of people realizing that all is not well, the push for liberty will be victorious any way you slice it.
william signaigo
7:45 am on August 28, 2009 Permalink
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right on. but the biggest problem right now is the people. they need to get involved and participate in their country. they need to be informed. thanks for your piece here in this page, and keep it up.
OKLAHOMA CITY – National Level Exercise 2009, known as NLE 09, has come and gone and Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security Fusion Center Coordinator Kim Carter said he was pleased with the results of the exercise, which was held July 24-31.
“There really wasn’t a lot of media interest,” said Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security Fusion Center Coordinator Kim Carter. “I saw and read very little about it. Not a lot of media coverage about it.”
Red Dirt Report was very interested in NLE 09, since Oklahoma was directly involved in the exercise, which is part of the annual TOPOFF exercise involving FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security as well as foreign troops from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and Mexico.
This online newspaper did post an article headlined “RDR asks questions about NLE 09 exercise,” posted on July 23, and the article received a lot of attention, particularly with alternative news sites PrisonPlanet.com and WhatReallyHappened.com, in addition to being reported on locally by Radio Free Oklahoma.
Although somewhat vague about the scenario that was being studied by OKOHS and the other government agencies in FEMA Region VI, which includes Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and New Mexico, Carter said the scenario involved a terror event overseas. In the scenario, the United States is preparing for any terror-related events domestically as a result of the foreign terror event. That is where the government agencies come in and prepare and respond.
“We took several different events and the departments (involved) talked to one another … to make sure the information went through the chain of command,” Carter said.
“They did very, very well,” Carter said. “We picked up a lot of things and a lot of things were learned.”
What was learned? Well, it wasn’t entirely clear. The scenario “was based on things that can happen in Oklahoma,” Carter said, adding that it was also focused on things in FEMA Region VI. He added that the information leaned was used to “prevent possible threats across the United States.”
Asked if the focus was on foreign threats or domestic threats, Carter said it was on foreign-born individuals now living in the United States.
“Foreigners who come to the U.S. and have lived here, possibly for decades,” he said, adding that it was not focused on American citizens.
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“New technology” was accessed, Carter said, although he did not elaborate. Asked by Red Dirt Report about reports of high-altitude surveillance blimps, Carter said he was not familiar with them, although knows that weather balloons released from Norman’s weather center are often mistaken as UFOs.
Asked who participated, Carter said Oklahoma State Bureau of Information (OSBI); Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OHP); the Tulsa Police Department; the Oklahoma City Police Department and tribal police agencies.
Questioned about reports of foreign involvement in the exercise, Carter said no foreign troops were in Oklahoma. The foreigners were primarily along the Gulf coast of Texas and Louisiana, which is where the Mexican officials were located.
“Typically thee exercises in past years have been response exercises,” Carter said. “You had helicopters and explosions. This year it was more of a prevention exercise with people sitting in front of computer screens.”
And the fact that it wasn’t an action-filled exercise, may be the reason NLE 09 did not get a lot of media attention this time.
“There really wasn’t a lot of media interest,” Carter said. “I saw and read very little about it. Not a lot of media coverage about it.”
Asked if there will be a full report on NLE 09 available for public consumption, Carter said an after-action report should be posted online in October.
Overall, Carter said he was pleased with Oklahoma’s involvement with NLE 09 and because he was so busy all last week, was not able to return a call to Red Dirt Report until today.
“You always learn from these things,” Carter said.
It’s not a typo, the main ingredient in the GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis vaccines contain a LIVE VIRUS, an attenuated virus meaning it’s a weakened form of the swine flu virus. Attenuated vaccines can be deadly and cause virus shedding, when a person is injected with an attenuated live virus the organism moves through the human body possibly infecting the host and then exiting through the feces, mucous membranes and saliva glands of the inoculated person. This is called ‘virus shedding’ and can last for weeks. [Source]
Homeland Security, BATF, FBI, U.S. Marshals, U.S Military, NORTHCOM and FEMA are discussing plans to assist civilian authorities to enforce mandatory vaccinations and involuntary quarantines of large sections of the U.S. population.
Imagine millions of children that will be involuntarily vaccinated this coming fall that will be shedding H1N1 swine flu across the country, in the sewage drains and possibly passing through the desalination process and in our tap-water. If half of the U.S. population will be vaccinated with this swine flu vaccine this coming fall and winter, imagine how virulently deadly this swine flu will be on an annual basis, this mandatory vaccination plan will surely cause the pandemic and not solve it.
Some readers may be thinking that I am a conspiracy nut for bringing this up, that vaccine makers couldn’t possibly be that evil. But all the reader has to do is Google “attenuated vaccines”, it means the vaccine contains a live but weakened form of a pathogenic virus. Do you really want to risk your health and inject live swine flu into your bloodstream in hopes it will immunize? Please don’t take that chance.
Both Novartis and GSK vaccines will also contain MF59, a squalene-based adjuvant that when combined with a live attenuated virus becomes many times more potent and deadly. [Source]
GlaxoSmithKline’s version of swine flu vaccine has been confirmed to contain Thimerosal, a preservative for vaccines mainly composed of highly toxic mercury. Mercury is the 2nd most toxic metal on the planet and is known to cause autism and other neural injuries in children. The vaccine also contains formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical most commonly used for embalming dead bodies for preservation. [Source]
Today our efforts must be focused on educating the masses about these dangerous swine flu vaccines, we only have the entire summer to increase the volume of dissent so everyone will realize this entire swine flu pandemic is a hoax perpetuated by vaccine companies, the media and the federal government and that their solution will only increase the infection-rate of a new hybrid influenza strain. Contact your legislator by going here, fill out the form and demand the end to this madness.
Chuck Soupios
5:33 am on August 7, 2009 Permalink
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They may not institute mandatory vaccinations right now, but if enough people get sick after volunteering for them, the rest of us will be told it’s necessary. The H1N1 virus has the unique ability to hide in the small intestine where the immune system can’t affect it. That means it can re-assort later with another virus which could come from a seasonal flu injection (the way they told us it happened in Mexican pigs, which were never found to have the virus), thereby turning each volunteer into a walking time bomb. No one will blame the vaccine if it happens over a long period of time.`That would make this a perfect crime.
A layman
12:07 pm on September 29, 2009 Permalink
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Well, if you want to make this personal, keep in mind the facts back me up. Here’s info about 77% of the recent mumps vaccine recipients who contracted the disease POST VACCINATION:
A layman
12:06 pm on September 29, 2009 Permalink
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Are you a doctor? Who are you to say what is and isn’t safe?
Of course the vaccine has the virus! All vaccines have a weakened or dead version of the virus or bacterial they protect against. In he U.S., the vaccine for H1N1 is dead. In Europe, it’s live but very, very weakened.
In life, you cannot 100% guarantee you are going to come home alive every day. If you are so fearful of this vaccine, why don’t you stop driving a car or walking on the sidewalk?
Chuck Soupios
8:11 pm on March 1, 2010 Permalink
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Are you crazy? To put it bluntly, you must be out of your mind to suggest these vaccines are safe. By the way, are YOU a doctor? Would YOU be foolish enough to risk the lives of your children when there are so many safe ways to combat these viruses? Google Dr. Mercola and his research on Vitamin D3, and think long and hard about that. Here’s a link to one of his videos about D3:
We all have choices, so why choose vaccines when you have better options, especially since the vaccines have hurt so many people? By the way, I didn’t even mention the Type 2 polio vaccines which started a severe outbreak of polio recently in Nigeria. Vaccinations are simply a dangerous gamble, but if you like them so much, go back and ask for seconds…or even thirds. Hey, it’s your life. You’re entitled to suffer any way you like.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Arlen Specter got a preview Sunday of the tough sell lawmakers will face over health care as audience members booed and jeered them during a town hall meeting in Philadelphia.
Among those at odds with the officials touting the $1 trillion, 10-year plan was a woman who earned loud applause when she said she doesn’t want Washington interfering with her health care choices.
“I look at this health care plan and I see nothing that is about health or about care. What I see is a bureaucratic nightmare, senator. Medicaid is broke, Medicare is broke, Social Security is broke and you want us to believe that a government that can’t even run a cash for clunkers program is going to run one-seventh of our U.S. economy? No sir, no,” she said.
A surprising number of Americans believe that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii, and that records of his birth certificate have been forged. See, for example, this clip, in which a Republican congressman tries to calm a sceptical audience.
A thought occurs. If the forty-fourth president was indeed, as the “birthers” aver, born in Kenya in 1961, he would have been born a British subject. Perhaps his entire career is a clever scheme to bring the colonists’ rebellion to an end and revoke the Declaration of Independence.
Brilliant! Another thing that could be done is to ask the elderly in the area in Kenya they said Obama was born in and ask the elderly in the village if they remember seeing an extremely pregnant white woman giving birth in 1961.
william signaigo is discussing. 
Chuck Soupios, and 
A layman are discussing. 
lucidlunatic 2:54 pm on August 5, 2009 Permalink |
Well, if the government needs the information to optimize resource allocation I can envision a few better ways to do it. One would be to make it entirely voluntary and include it in the Census sent to everyone. Another would be to actually enforce the threatened penalties.
Better still, for some of these cases, the questions could be included in tax write ups, a more subtle way of collecting the same information.