I had to stay up to watch the dawn break in Egypt – The sheer excitement of THIS MOMENT is beyond incredible for us to see in our lifetime. So many thoughts, and I just have to put some onto typeset. First – against the backdrop of our challenge:

Borrowing from Mike Vanderboegh – This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

The U.S. media has infected the electorate with a Kardashian mindset for so long they will have no appropriate constitution to be able to explain what is happening in Egypt right now.
This day is a natural fulfillment of humanities highest aspiration: FREEDOM.
The greatest and most significant lie every perpetually sold upon the American body electorate is the premise the freedom continuum is based on a lack of freedom on the right side of the political spectrum  – “right-wing extremists” –  This is so false, and it is abundantly and joyously evident at this very moment in what you are bearing witness to in Egypt. (more…)

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statuses/348793179757219843

Pay close attention to what is going on in Turkey.   Prime Minister Erdogan has been taking more and more power away from the parliament into his office.  Simultaneous to this he has been turning the secular Turkey into an Islamist Turkey.   Erdogan had began restricting music, alcohol sales, and ‘freedom in general’.

Erdogan is BFF’s with President Obama.   Prime Minister Erdogan is Barack Obama’s closest foreign leader in friendship and ideology.   

When the ordinary Turkish citizen became alarmed at what they were witnessing, it was worsened when Erdogan took to the TV and said anyone who opposes him is a terrorist, an extremist, and needs to be put down.   [Sound familiar?]   In response the ordinary Turk said “whoah, wait a minute”, and took to the street to support freedom.

Erdogan responded by putting the military on alert,  and ordered the government to begin a process of attacking his people with tear gas, water cannons, and violence. (more…)

“Dubya would never have done this to us“…  Support/Approval for George W Bush now exceeds President Obama.

WASHINGTON DC – The FBI has dramatically increased its use of a controversial provision of the Patriot Act to secretly obtain a vast store of business records of U.S. citizens under President Barack Obama, according to recent Justice Department reports to Congress. The bureau filed 212 requests for such data to a national security court last year – a 1,000-percent increase from the number of such requests four years earlier, the reports show.

The FBI’s increased use of the Patriot Act’s “business records” provision — and the wide ranging scope of its requests — is getting new scrutiny in light of last week’s disclosure that that the provision was used to obtain a top-secret national security order requiring telecommunications companies to turn over records of millions of telephone calls.  (continue reading)

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The long run. The lifelong commitment.  The big picture. The foundational truths. These are the elements that feed the reactors that are burning deep within the hearts and minds of those who make a difference, whether or not they are flamboyant as they do it.  Such  people are deliberately self-aware but not self-conscious, because their focus is on what desperately needs to be done in response to what others are doing.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy is the title by Eric Metaxas that documents the short life and astounding work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who lived all four of those identities to the full.

It is a mistake to think of Hitler having a meteorically sudden rise to power, and it is a great misreading of events to think that those who actively resisted him did so out of the anxiety of a moment, implementing plans only drawn up under the pressure of we must do something right now.  Bonhoeffer and and others who actively resisted both inside and outside of government and military service, were far more thoughtful than such a perception would suggest.

What follows is a two page excerpt from Metaxas’ 2010 biography and may provide some food for thought as we find our places in our own national mess, perhaps feeling as he did, that we have so little ground under our feet because of the entrenched betrayals and deceptions that are dissolving the world as we knew it. (more…)

……. [Excerpt From CFP]  The present administration is going after leakers, media sources, anyone and everyone who is even suspected of ‘betrayal.’ That’s what they call it, ‘betrayal.’…This administration considers anyone telling the truth about Benghazi, the IRS, hell, you name the issue, ‘betrayal,’” he said.

“We know all this already,” I stated. He looked at me, giving me a look like I’ve never seen, and actually pushed his finger into my chest. “You don’t know jack,” he said, “this is bigger than you can imagine, bigger than anyone can imagine.  …. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you’re on that list. It’s a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list,”…  (continue reading)

Either they provided the information, OR, the administration is accepting the NSA tapping into the massive computer servers that drive the internet.

GUARDIAN UK – Two different versions of the PRISM scandal were emerging on Thursday with Silicon Valley executives denying all knowledge of the top secret program that gives the National Security Agency direct access to the internet giants’ servers.

The eavesdropping program is detailed in the form of PowerPoint slides in a leaked NSA document, seen and authenticated by the Guardian, which states that it is based on “legally-compelled collection” but operates with the “assistance of communications providers in the US.”

Each of the 41 slides in the document displays prominently the corporate logos of the tech companies claimed to be taking part in PRISM. (more…)

fyi, an insider detail – We can secondarily confirm the information provided within this Wall Street Journal report. Those of you who have been with the Treehouse community since the beginning may remember a conversation thread about the “new age” credit cards that allow capability of RFID transmission. [symbols: ((( )))  and Ξ ]  One of our close friends actually quit his job in disgust over the use of his computer program -a central component to the RFID system- being used to embed internally into credit cards with the expressed intent on tracking user id, location, history etc.  He knew the potential risk several years ago, and sent a warning – we shared – it appears this is now coming to light.

WASHINGTON (WSJ) —The National Security Agency’s monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency’s activities.

The disclosure this week of an order by a secret U.S. court for Verizon Communications Inc.’s phone records set off the latest public discussion of the program. But people familiar with the NSA’s operations said the initiative also encompasses phone-call data from AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., records from Internet-service providers and purchase information from credit-card providers.

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…he sees you when your sleeping, he knows when you’re awake;  He knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.   You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why….

WASHINGTON DC – The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.

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