Obama wants to replace your car with public transportation

Do you hate the car(s) you drive and instead would rather take public transportation like bus and rail?

No?

But Obama’s Secretary of Transportation says you do!

LaHood gives keynote speech at the APTA, March 11, 2013

Nicholas Ballasy reports for The Daily Caller that at the American Public Transportation Association’s legislative conference last Monday, March 11, 2013, soon-to-retire Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was making a case for high-speed rail in America. LaHood said Americans want to “get off the 95 corridor,” “get out of their cars” and use a more “convenient” form of transportation.

He said: “Ridership is at an all-time high on Amtrak on the northeast corridor. Amtrak is making money on the northeast corridor. Why? Because the people are ahead of the politicians on this. People want to get off the 95 coordinator, get out of their cars [and] have a convenient way to travel. This is where America is moving, and in every budget proposal the president has put forth, he’s included high-speed rail. We will not be dissuaded by detractors. High-speed rail is coming to America, and it’s coming because of the president’s investment. It’s going to happen. There’s no stopping it.”

You can watch and hear LaHood for yourself, here.

La Hood and his boss, the POS in the White House, are marching goose-stepping to the tune of UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development’s Sustainable Cities Strategy — a regional plan to replace cities, counties, and states with Mega-Regions. High-speed trains are the building blocks for the Mega-Regions, where personal car usage will be restricted in favor of public transportation, and individual homes replaced with high-density housing. All decided by unelected boards of elected officials. (Read more about the Sustainable Cities Strategy, here.)

And that’s precisely why, despite being BILLIONS of dollars in deficit, California’s dysfunctional state government nevertheless insists on the construction of expensive high-speed rail.

H/t FOTM’s sage_brush

~Eowyn

Obama’s America: You’re being watched EVERYWHERE

Welcome to Obama’s America! – a super-surveillance state worse than that of George Orwell’s dystopic 1984.

1. In Obama’s America, the regime collects data on everyone — even innocent citizens suspected of no crime:

In February 2012, The Wall Street Journal discovered that the Obama regime’s “counterterrorism” officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime. Hot Air reports that despite Mary Ellen Callahan, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), arguing against the proposal, pointing out that “This is a sea change in the way that the government interacts with the general public,” Attorney General Eric Holder signed the changes into effect.

By December 2012, Rebecca Greenfield reports for The Atlantic Wire that the dragnet is already a done deal:

“A little known agency called the National Counterterrorism Center has a big ole database of civilian information that it can use to monitor innocent people for suspicious behavior, without probable cause. Oh, and it can also give that data to foreign nations if it wants to. That database includes flight records, lists of casino employee, the names of Americans hosting foreign exchange students, and anything the government can prove is “reasonably believed” to contain “terrorism information,” per The Wall Street Journal’s Julia Angwin, who got a look at the database after a Freedom of Information Act request. The NCTC super-database could potentially balloon to include information from any government database, from flight information to health records.”

Ostensibly, the regime collects all this information on everyone in order to prevent and stop terrorists. Alexander Joel, civil liberties protection officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the parent agency of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), insists that there are “guidelines” that “provide rigorous oversight to protect the information that we have, for authorized and narrow purposes.” But a privacy expert warns that the NCTC easily can get around the rules by exempting themselves from certain Federal Privacy Act restraints: “All you have to do is publish a notice in the Federal Register and you can do whatever you want.”

2. In Obama’s America, TSA goons will expand their reach beyond airports to highways and every other means of public transportation:

Wendy McElroy reports for The Dollar Vigilante that the groundwork is being laid for Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to expand its “security checks” from airports and the current random checks of bus, subway and train stations, to highways and almost every other means of public travel. The expansion would erase one of the last remaining differences between the US and a total police state — namely, the ability to travel internally without being under police surveillance.

TSA’s application to expand its reach is tucked away on page 71431 of Volume 77, Number 231 of the Federal Register (November 30), which is submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA).

3. In Obama’s America, city buses will record everything you say:

Cities across America are equipping their public transport systems with audio recording devices, potentially storing every word spoken by passengers on board. The interception of audio communication will apparently be conducted without search warrants or court supervision. Rights activists say the surveillance plan by far exceeds what is necessary for security.

The multimillion dollar project already is underway in several US cities, including San Francisco, Eugene, Traverse City, Columbus, Baltimore, Hartford and Athens, reports The Daily, which obtained documents detailing the purchases. The money partially comes from the federal government. San Francisco, for example, has approved a $5.9 million contract to install the eavesdropping systems on 357 modern buses and historic trolley cars over the next four years, with the Department Homeland Security footing the entire bill.

If you think, “Well, I don’t take buses. I drive my own car!”

Think again.

4. In Obama’s America, you’ll be watched by your own car:

Beginning in 2014, if Obama gets his way, every car and light truck will be installed with a “black box” — event data recorders (EDRs) that supposedly “capture valuable safety-related data in the seconds before and during a motor vehicle crash,” but which also telegraph your physical location and your comings and goings. In fact, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said approximately 96% of model year 2013 passenger cars and light-duty vehicles are already equipped with black-box capability.

Horace Cooper of the National Center for Public Policy Analysis calls Obama’s proposal “an unprecedented breach of privacy for Americans.” He warns: “Not only will this new requirement give new resources and data to the DOT to support more economically-damaging regulations in the future, this mandate itself represents an unprecedented breach of privacy for Americans. [Contrary to what is being claimed, EDRs] can and will track the comings and goings of car owners and even their passengers. Black boxes are already being used to track myriad activities — and what they can record is virtually unlimited.”

So you say “I’m just not gonna buy a new car! I’ll keep my old car going – forever.”

You still can’t escape. In fact, the CIA will keep an eye on you through your home appliances!

5. In Obama’s America, you’ll be watched by your “smart” home appliances:

Spencer Ackerman reports for Wired back in March 2012 that more and more personal and household devices are connecting to the Internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. At a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm, (then) CIA Director David Petraeus (he’s since “retired” because of the Paula Broadwell sex scandal) enthused about how all these wired household devices are “transformational” technologies for “clandestine tradecraft,” i.e., spying by government.

Once upon a time, spies had to place a bug in your chandelier to hear your conversation. With the rise of the “smart home,” you’d be sending tagged, geolocated data that a spy agency can intercept in real time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room’s ambiance.

Petraeus said: “Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing.”

Although the CIA has a lot of legal restrictions against spying on American citizens, collecting ambient geolocation data from devices is a grayer area, especially after the 2008 carve-outs to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Hardware manufacturers, it turns out, store a trove of geolocation data; and some legislators have grown alarmed at how easy it is for the government to track you through your phone or PlayStation.

H/t California Political News & Reviews and FOTM’s Anon and Miss May.

~Eowyn

Obama’s Transportation Sec lauds China’s authoritarian system

Just like his boss, Obama the POS, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is also an elitist in socialist garb.

Josh Rogin reports for Foreign Policy, July 5, 2012, that in an interview with The Cable at the elitist 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival on June 30, LaHood lauded China for outpacing the United States in building major transportation infrastructure like high-speed rail. LaHood credits China’s achievement to its authoritarian system and because the Chinese don’t have the Republican Party holding up progress.

This is what LaHood said:

“The Chinese are more successful [in building infrastructure] because in their country, only three people make the decision. In our country, 3,000 people do, 3 million. In a country where only three people make the decision, they can decide where to put their rail line, get the money, and do it. We don’t do it that way in America.”

During his conference session at the festival, LaHood blamed Republicans in Congress, especially the Tea Party freshman class elected in 2010, for the relative lack of progress in moving forward with high-speed rail even though the administration has obligated more than $11 billion to the effort.

He said: “Two years ago, between 50 to 60 Republicans were elected to the House of Representatives to come to Washington to do nothing, and that’s what they’ve done and they’ve stopped any progress. Those people don’t have any vision about what the government can do. That’s been a real inhibitor in our ability to think outside the box and think big. We used to be No. 1. We’re not No. 1 anymore. We’re No. 23. Previous generations have always left something to the next generation. We owe it to the next generation to leave them something. We shortchange the next generation if we don’t leave them high-speed rail. That’s our obligation.”

He then predicted that 80% of Americans will be connected with passenger rail within the next 25 years. He said that this will be accomplished through a series of commitments by the federal government, state governments, and the private sector: “That’s how they did in Europe, that’s how they did it in Asia, and that’s how we will do it in America. There’s no turning back on this. We’re not going to turn back. And you know why? Because that’s what the people want. That’s why… there’s no stopping high speed rail.”

LaHood heavily criticized the governors of Wyoming and Florida, who have rejected federal attempts to move forward with high-speed rail in their states, and he fought off a heckler from California who said that high-speed rail was not a wise investment of taxpayer money.

Notwithstanding his praise of China’s authoritarian system that, unlike the U.S., doesn’t have to bother with the opinions of the “little people”, LaHood unconvincingly offers that democracy is still preferable. “We have the best system of government anywhere on the planet. It is the best. Because the people have their say,” he said.

H/t FOTM’s beloved Sage Brush.

~Eowyn

Wikileaks Confirms North American Union Conspiracy. Obama Signs Trucking Agreement w/ Mexico

An effective way to combat an opposing group, belief, or opinion is to characterize it as a “conspiracy theory.” That term immediately conjures in the mind images of tinfoil-hat wearing kooks.

But when we examine the dictionary definition for “conspiracy” — any secret agreement between two or more persons to undertake an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act — then the notion that there are conspiracies is not so far-fetched. For that matter, the very existence of a federal law called RICO — Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act – is an acknowledgment that conspiracies exist!

The plain fact is that not all conspiracies are imaginary. There are at least 30 conspiracy theories that turn out to be true, including the Mafia, the CIA’s MK-ULTRA, asbestos, Watergate, the Tuskegee syphilis study, and the 1944 conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.

Now, a Wikileaks document confirms that the North American Union agenda to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into a single monetary and political body is not some kooky fringe “conspiracy theory,” but a real conspiracy. Robert Hilz reports for Canada’s National Post, June 2, 2011:

The integration of North America’s economies would best be achieved through an “incremental” approach, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable.

The cable, released through the WikiLeaks website and apparently written Jan. 28, 2005, discusses some of the obstacles surrounding the merger of the economies of Canada, the United States and Mexico in a fashion similar to the European Union.

“An incremental and pragmatic package of tasks for a new North American Initiative (NAI) will likely gain the most support among Canadian policymakers,” the document said. “The economic payoff of the prospective North American initiative … is available, but its size and timing are unpredictable, so it should not be oversold.” [...]

In the cable, U.S. diplomats focused on a number of key areas to move forward with continental integration, including a possible common currency, labour markets, international trade and the borders of the three countries.

H/t Prison Planet

Photo credit: Christian Science Monitor

The North American Union conspiracy is proceeding according to plan. A week ago, the United States and Mexico signed an agreement allowing trucks from each nation to travel on the other country’s highways – a key provision of NAFTA.

Howard LaFranchi reports for The Christian Science Monitor, July 6, 2011, that under the agreement, the US will reinstate a pilot program for Mexican truck certification that was introduced under the Bush administration – and defunded by an angry Congress in 2009. Mexico, in turn, will immediately drop half of the tariffs on about 100 US products, with the rest to be removed when Mexican trucks actually start rolling across the border. The accord requires all Mexican trucks operating in the US to comply with US safety standards, and it mandates the installation of monitoring devices to track truck usage and compliance with service requirements.

The Obama administration’s US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood signed the agreement despite fears of unsafe Mexican trucks barreling along US highways, driven by unprofessional Mexican truckers, and in spite of growing resistance, especially in the US Congress, to free-trade provisions with Mexico.

H/t beloved fellow Tina.

Here’s an image of the rumored North American Federation currency:

~Eowyn