I have seen enough! Fabricating incidents so that wars can be fought; taking all privacy and right to due process from us in the name of national security; pipelines of our communication on a straight line to Maryland to protect us from terrorists; bailouts that paid for bonuses for the one percent; America sold for oil, gas and nuclear power; crumbling infrastructure while members of Congress drive Lexus; more and more homeless, many of them veterans, while our president takes his friends to Hawaii in Air Force One.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. Dwight D. Eisenhower

websites could be taken down because the Justice Department (DoJ) says the site is conducting infringing activities

The Congress and the House of Representatives have come up two separate bills to further curtail our freedoms. I guess it is just too hard for the poor peeps to tackle something important, like sending jobs overseas, corruption on capitol hill, the environmental dangers posed by fracking and the XL pipeline, climate change, the disappearing middle class, etc.

Oh, but they have time to write the bills that will take away the few pleasures left to the public that is struggling to work, live and pay taxes.

Congress is about to pass Internet censorship, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed to it. We need to kill the bills – PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House – to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity.

S.968 – PROTECT IP Act of 2011

PIPA -Establishes process by which a

. The DoJ or the copyright owner would begin legal action and the DoJ could demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site.This could all be done without anyone being heard by a judge.

Stop Protect IP Adresses (PIPA) – Read the bill here.

H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act

SOPA – Basically the same as PIPA, with some additions: . . . against any site they deem to have “only limited purpose or use other than infringement,” . . . It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison. This bill combines two separate Senate bills — S.968 and S.978.

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) - Read the bill here.

People are saying these bills will break the Internet.  In protest many of the large websites, like Wikipedia are “blacking out” their websites tomorrow 1/18. I have decided I will add this post to all my blogs as a public service announcement,

Barack Obama, 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

On Friday, October 9, 2009 at 11 am CEST, the Norwegian Nobel Institute awarded named Barack Obama as the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. The Institute awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

The last administration was known more for cowboying, oil wells, slaps on the back and back room deals.

Mr. Obama has brought his intelligence, his family, his gentleness, his strength and his vision to the Office of the President.

Pleaes get behind our President who is carrying a heavy load of wars, natural disasters, endangerd animals, health insurance, unemployment, economy, among others, on his plate.  Give him a chance and your prayers.

I watched the movie Charlie Wilson’s War on HBO the other night.  The movie is about an unlikely trio, consisting of the hard drinking and womanizing US Representative, an out of favor CIA operative, and a female Houston philanthropist, who joined forces to secretly bankroll the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union.

Russian troops had superior weapons, most notably helicopters that could rain destruction on the freedom fighters below.  The war went on for years and there were so many casualties, especially among the children.  The movie helps the viewer understand the wide-ranging and long-lasting implications of this little-known episode.

This morning I saw The True Story of Charlie Wilson’s War on the History Channel.  This was more interesting than the movie. Born and raised in Trinity, Texas, Wilson joined the Navy after graduating from college. Then he went to work at the Pentagon. He was an avid anti-communist.

Once elected, Wilson made a name for himself. In his Washington office, he surrounded himself with beautiful young women, who became known as Charlie’s Angels. He loved whiskey and the hedonistic lifestyle of the 1980s, which almost cost him his office. He might have continued with his life of debauchery, but he was stricken by reading an account of the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Afghanistan, which was now occupied by the Soviets.

Wilson had just been named to the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, the group responsible for funding CIA operations.  He decided to use his position, through a series of backroom deals, to steer billions of dollars to the Afghan rebels. Eventually, Rep. Wilson became part of what was then the largest covert operation in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency. Charlie Wilson became an ally of a CIA agent Gust Avrakotos and Houston philanthropist Joanne Herring to bankroll the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union.

The US would not give the Afghans American-made weapons that could cause an incident with the Soviet Union.  Ever resourceful, Charlie found a way to raise and route funds to the CIA to fund the purchase of Russian-made Stingers from the Saudis. In fact, the Saudis matched each dollar spent with one of their own.

With weapons that took away the Russian’s air superiority, the Afghans reclaimed their land. Unfortunately, the US did not follow through to help the war-torn nation rebuild their country.Those very freedom fighters that were armed by Charlie Wilson turned those same weapons against America within a decade.