Obama’s amazing disgrace

Guns kill and, President Barack Obama says, so does the Confederate flag. According to the president, it is a symbol for white racism; it is a flag that encourages the South to take false pride in an ugly heritage that can lead to white supremacy.

Obama laid it all out last Friday when he was the guest celebrity eulogist for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney. The South Carolina state senator was one of nine people senselessly slaughtered on June 17 in Charleston, South Carolina, during a Bible study at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. They died at the hands of either a psychopath or a white racist who was inspired at least in part by the Confederate flag.

At the memorial, Obama said:

For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. … But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge — including Gov. (Nikki) Haley, whose recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise — as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride.

… By taking down that flag, we express God’s grace.

What does Obama know about God’s grace? It is hard to know which God he worships or whether or not he even believes in God. Is it the fire-and-brimstone God that his Chicago Christian pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, educated him on? Is it Allah, the Muslim god that his father instructed him on? Or is “God” a powerful political word for Obama to bandy about because the real Obama is an atheist.

I don’t know how you feel; but I get the notion that when the president provides his understanding of God’s wishes, they are really Obama’s wishes.

Certainly, Obama was using God and the Christian pulpit last Friday when he heaped shame on the Southern whites at an inappropriate time: at a funeral for a dead Southern pastor.

In the end, it wasn’t so much a eulogy for Pinckney as it was a domestic policy speech and the need for economic, social and racial reform in the United States.

And the president did it in true Obama fashion by pontificating, lecturing and scorning the South.

As one Obama insider said, the president’s lecture to the country on race capped off his best week. If the best week for the president is locking down Obamacare, guaranteeing gay marriage and fermenting worse racism, then the insider was right: Obama hit the trifecta.

It was the climax to a week where the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act as law and legalized gay marriage throughout the nation. Then came the climax: The President was asked to do what he does best — give a memorial speech for black victims murdered by a crazed white man who had a photo taken with the Confederate flag, that shameful flag that was the banner to enslave blacks.

No Obama sermon would be complete without a lecture on gun control. With dozens of members of Congress at the funeral, Obama reiterated his call for stricter gun laws:

For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation. Sporadically, our eyes are open: When eight of our brothers and sisters are cut down in a church basement, 12 in a movie theater, 26 in an elementary school. But I hope we also see the 30 precious lives cut short by gun violence in this country every single day …

But Obama’s post-tragedy pulpit speech gives him a way to interpret America’s ills. And it is no surprise that none of it stems from blacks but from ignorant whites, particularly in the South, which almost ripped the union apart for the sake of enslaving the black man.

Obama’s notion of the truth is that African-Americans are the God-loving people of the country who understand grace. For Obama, too many whites are white supremacists who will never understand the helplessness of the African-American who has been enslaved, lynched and economically repressed by racism.

However, with the help of the federal government, racist whites can be reeducated and will finally embrace the African-Americans for what they really are — typified by Obama — as a special subset of Americans who are akin to the lost tribe of Israel. Past injustices to African-Americans can never be washed away. But in true Obama fashion, this can be addressed by greater government giveaways and an even greater voice for the liberal message in the mainstream media.

All of this will work out very well for a bigger welfare state and the Frankenstein legacy that Obama has blueprinted for himself. The plan was crafted by the liberal progressives before 2007, and its endgame is to take away our guns. After all, sometimes whites shoot blacks.

Barack has left the building

I was a teenager when I got a front-row seat to see Elvis at the Las Vegas Hilton. He belted out “Amazing Grace.”

Watching Obama sing it front and center at the memorial for Pinckney last Friday was like watching an Elvis impersonator. If you watch it, you can see Obama is totally into the moment. It was not a moment of Obama remembering a good man who was senselessly murdered along with eight others. It was the moment for Obama to have the world see him shine — as a healer and a singer. Even if the president could sing, the nation needs a good leader, not a celebrity.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/IN05jVNBs64?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

It is as if because Obama is half black, he understands pain and loss — things no white person can ever understand. And Obama has the ultimate VIP pass. He is half black, and he is the most powerful man in the world.

It is laughable to imagine a white president singing “Amazing Grace” after mayhem befell a black community. But Obama has the ultimate American Express card. He is welcome on Jimmy Kimmel’s show and by all of Hollywood and its producers and writers, who change history when it comes to the Civil War and the constant injustice and violence perpetuated by whites against blacks.

Leon Trotsky would see this as a mechanism to divide a country. As for Obama, I don’t think he cares about America or Americans. His real goal is to build his legacy and use that to drag the nation further left.

It’s surprising when you consider that Obama cannot see any evil in Islam, saying Islam is a religion of peace that has little or nothing to do with the continuing global jihad. But anytime white violence touches what he calls his black brothers and sisters, his knee-jerk reaction is to attack white racists.

For any wrong endured by a black man, woman or child, Obama is there. He is there with his love for America (black America). He is there with his progressive ideals. He is there to point out how white Americans should feel endless guilt for the way blacks are treated and murdered every week at the hands of whites, while ignoring black-on-black and black-on-white murders.

The liar king

America is on a course of black dissatisfaction. The president has declared that blacks deserve more from our government, while whites see only Obama’s accusatory finger.

This is a despicable labeling of race and generations against the South. Obama went so far on Friday as to compare the gun rampage by an avowed white supremacist as an act of terrorism, linking it to America’s long history of racist church bombings and arsons.

Obama said the shooting was not a random act, but a “means of control, a way to terrorize and oppress,” a continuation of what Obama has labeled “original sin.”

To Obama, Southern plantation owners ripped blacks out of Africa’s Garden of Eden and enslaved them. The truth is that before slavery, Africans lived short, brutish lives with disease, starvation, never-ending tribal wars and — oh, yes — black slavery.

But let’s not have the truth get in the way of a grand legacy. There is a stir across the South, some sponsored by Republicans, to pull down the Confederate flag. Big retailers like Wal-Mart have already stopped selling the flag, while the mass media have explained that it is a hateful relic that should have been shelved a century ago.

Almost nobody wants to examine what caused the Civil War. It started over excessive taxes against the South, economic domination by the North and the armed invasion of the Southern states ordered by the Union Army of President Abraham Lincoln.

In an opinion piece on Al.com, Roger K. Broxton, president of the Confederate Heritage Fund, pointed out: “Abraham Lincoln repeatedly stated his war was caused by taxes only, and not by slavery, at all.”

History changes, especially for the leaders in our government, the mass media and public school boards around the country. Lincoln was the Great Emancipator who freed the slaves and built the bedrock of what would become the American Industrial Revolution. And I have seen over the past seven years nothing that suggests that Obama doesn’t want to be chiseled into American history just as Josef Stalin engraved himself as the Soviet hero.

It was pointed out on a CNN debate with Don Lemon last week that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, yet there is a monument to him in Washington that no one has asked to be torn down. Lemon said: “There may come a day when we may want to rethink Jefferson.”

Hopefully, we will never see such a day. But I think it is possible that the Jefferson Memorial could be torn down and in its place an Obama Memorial erected right there on the National Mall. I am not saying it will happen. But if America keeps shifting further toward the dead end of blaming whites today for what happened 50 to 300 years ago, the nation is going to be torn apart — ripped to shreds by race revisionists, rabble-rousers and wealth redistributors who are the heart of the Democratic Party. Like their leader Obama, their actions costs them nothing. Men like Jefferson put everything at risk for principal. Yet we may want to tear down Jefferson and build up Obama? If that doesn’t show how far this country has gone to hell, nothing does.

Yours in good times and bad,

–John Myers

The post Obama’s amazing disgrace appeared first on Personal Liberty.

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/obamas-amazing-disgrace/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/obamas-amazing-disgrace/

Hypocrisy cake

The liberal/progressive mind is steeped in hypocrisy and double standard.

History began yesterday. Truth is the fleeting outrage of the moment. Nothing else matters.

Christians who refuse to violate their conscience and cater — whether it’s by baking a cake, photographing, making flower arrangements or hosting nuptials in their establishments — to homosexual “weddings” are bigots and haters, the liberal/progressive tells us. Upon establishing their businesses, Christians must check their belief system at the door. The Christian business owner’s principles become secondary to the privileges and desires of the customer.

Any deviation from this established dogma subjects the Christian business owner to state-sponsored harassment, fines, threats of imprisonment and sensitivity/diversity training courses, aka re-education camp. Such abuse is reasonable to the liberal/progressive.

But Wal-Mart’s refusing to bake a cake emblazoned with a Confederate battle flag and the words “Heritage not Hate” is a principled stand and perfectly acceptable to the liberal/progressive mind. When something the “tolerant” leftists will not tolerate is involved, refusal of service is a virtuous stand.

After all, erasing the Confederate battle flag from our history by shoving it down the memory hole would have prevented a lunatic from shooting nine people in a church, we are told in so many words.

In its statement on the ban of all things Confederate, Wal-Mart claimed, “We never want to offend anyone with the products we offer.”

The liberal/progressive advocates for an end to all things offensive, except for those things offensive to Christians.

The Christian must just “grin and bear it,” while the liberal/progressive snacks on a slice of hypocrisy cake.

The post Hypocrisy cake appeared first on Personal Liberty.

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/hypocrisy-cake/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/hypocrisy-cake/

Let your kid play in sight of your house, get charged with child endangerment

A Maine mom is facing a child endangerment charge for allowing her 7-year-old daughter to play at a park across the street from her house — all while the mother remained at home.

Westbrook, Maine, resident Nicole Jensen told WMTW-TV she and other neighborhood parents allow their kids to play in the nearby park with the understanding that an adult is never more than a few steps away.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/a-xbZv_Nj5I?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

“We watch each other’s kids. I don’t just send her over here and ignore her all day,” she explained.

But somebody saw the girl playing in the park with no adults immediately in sight and — what else? — called 911.

The cops came and took the girl. They say they tried to call Jensen but couldn’t reach her on the phone.

“[An hour is] a long time for a 7-year-old girl to be by herself — in any location; let alone a public park,” said Police Chief Janine Roberts.

So they took the girl to the precinct. If they hadn’t eventually made contact with Jensen, the cops’ next move would have been to drop her daughter off at DHR.

An incensed Jensen said that’s overkill.

“They brought her to the police station when her house is right there,” Jensen said, gesturing toward her home. She said that she and other nearby parents make sure to check in on the kids at least every hour, and that the police were wrong to take her daughter to the local precinct instead of simply walking the young girl to her home across the street.

“She did nothing wrong,” Jensen said. “She’s followed all of my rules.”

Reason’s Lenore Skenazy has the moral of the story: “Let’s hope Jensen has learned her lesson: Parks aren’t for kids! They’re for real estate values. They’re props. You’re not supposed to let your kids actually, you know, play, in them.”

The post Let your kid play in sight of your house, get charged with child endangerment appeared first on Personal Liberty.

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/let-your-kid-play-in-sight-of-your-house-get-charged-with-child-endangerment/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/let-your-kid-play-in-sight-of-your-house-get-charged-with-child-endangerment/

How segregated is your state?

(DAILYMAIL) — Racial tensions in the US appear to be at a peak following the Charleston massacre and a string of black deaths at the hands of white police officers.

Now, data scientists have been using 2010 census data to better understand these racial tensions – and their resulting interactive map paints a worrying picture of segregation in the US.

It reveals how some American cities, largely those on the east coast, have a stark division between between white and black. In Detroit, for example, the division can be clearly seen between 8 mile.

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/how-segregated-is-your-state/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/how-segregated-is-your-state/

Flag-burners ‘driven by racism and hate’

A group calling for officers of the New York City Police Department to be stripped of their guns is planning an action to destroy “a symbol of oppression and genocide” in a Brooklyn park.

Members of “Disarm NYPD” say want to burn the American flag in Fort Greene Park.

On Facebook, the group says more than 300 people plan to attend.

Though the group is mostly focused on alleged police brutality against African-Americans, in a flyer distributed to promote the July 1 event the group linked the protest to the actions of Dylann Roof, the accused shooter in the massacre at a Charleston, South Carolina, church.

The group wrote, “Roof isn’t an isolated actor – he is a product of a consistent pattern of state-sponsored terrorism and racialized dehumanization in America.”

It is also praising the desecration of Confederate flags, noting “the Confederacy only lasted four years” and “between the years of 1776 and 1861, slavery was upheld by the United States of America.”

The page features numerous images of American and Confederate flags burning and expresses solidarity with other actions of flag desecration.

The website containing Roof’s manifesto, found after the shootings, also featured images of the accused killer burning and spitting on American flags.

Flags, flags, flags! From Gadsden to Union Civil War, from Bennington to Culpeper, from Betsy Ross to tea-stained!

The burning of flags has become commonplace in recent protests.

Flags were burned in Ferguson, Missouri and ripped down from a flagpole and replaced with a black and white variant during protests in Chicago.

The “Eric Sheppard Challenge,” calling for African-Americans to express solidarity with a reported member of the New Black Panther Party by stomping on the American flag, became a social media craze in April, with students posting themselves stepping or jumping on the flag on Facebook, Youtube and Instagram.

Following the shooting in Charleston, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan called for a campaign against the American flag, because, in his words, “we’ve caught as much hell under that as the Confederate flag.”

Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh had predicted such a campaign would follow the effort against the Confederate flag.

Colin Flaherty, a reporter who chronicles inner city violence and is the author of “White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It,” warned figures like Farrakhan are not marginal.

“Farrakhan … is a figure of respect and influence among a large number of black people. So when he calls for burning down the flag, quitting the military and treating cops as occupying forces, he is not just encouraging black mob violence against police and white people – he is reflecting it.”

The motif of “occupation” and the idea of America as somehow constituting a foreign power has been exploited by the Disarm NYPD group in its propaganda.

It writes: “While the so-called patriots yell that we should just leave, we instead choose to dream. We dream of what real freedom looks like: freedom from paramilitaries occupying our communities, beating and killing our sons and daughters; freedom from our communities being destroyed by the speculative capital of gentrification; freedom from mass surveillance; and freedom from systemic racism.”

In another example of how the flag has been used as part of a protest against the police, the rapper Kendrick Lamar appeared on the Black Entertainment Television Awards on June 28 with a giant torn American flag in the background. Lamar performed his song “Alright” while standing on top of a vandalized police car in what was widely perceived as an attack on alleged “police brutality.”

Civil Rights leader Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization for a New Destiny (BOND) and author of “Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America,” condemned the performance and what he sees as a larger hate campaign against the police.

“The 2015 BET Awards were full of hate. Allowing rapper Kendrick Lamar to open up the show rapping about police killing blacks in the streets while standing on top of a vandalized police car only incites hate and violence.”

Peterson, a WND columnist, claimed Lamar’s performance “reinforces the lie told by ‘Black Lives Matter,’ Al Sharpton, the Obama Department of Justice and others that police are racist.”

“I would like to know who at BET approved this song? Would BET approve a song by a white artist accusing black leaders of hating white people? The answer is no. This shows how rampant and out of control black racism is today. This is black racism gone wild. BET needs to be repudiated and scolded for allowing this type of hate and lie to be put center stage. I thought liberals were supposed to be about love and compassion. Where’s the love in this?” he asked.

“It’s not true that police are killing innocent blacks, but when a popular rapper says it on BET, some will believe it. It should be illegal to incite this type of hate against police. Shame on all the black ‘leaders,’ record executives, business people, most of all the parents and adults who sat in the audience and went along with this madness. Until black Americans start cleaning up their own mess and repent of their own racism, they have no room to point the finger at anyone else.”

Peterson believes conservatives who think the effort to destroy and marginalize traditional symbols will ever stop are simply fooling themselves.

“All of this is not about the Confederate flag at all. Dylann Roof’s actions weren’t about the flag either. What these people are doing is not about ‘freedom,’ it’s about destroying every symbol that represents the straight white male. They don’t want anything that reminds them of the white male that they hate. The idea of America and the flag is a reminder of the white male. They’re driven by racism and hate toward whites. After burning the American [flag] they will find something else to destroy. I invite them to go somewhere else and create the ‘freedom’ they’re seeking. They can go back to Africa if they so choose.”

Speaking of those who would burn the American flag to attack police, Peterson charges: “These people have no self-governing at all. They carry the same hatred for white men and America that Farrakhan and the New Black Panther members have. They need to be shunned just like white skinheads or Ku-Klux-Klan groups.

“They should be arrested for inciting violence and charged. But because they tend to be black, they get away with it. If we don’t say no to these thugs, there’s no end to their destruction. They’re using the Charleston shooting to justify their actions. They don’t care about the people that died in the church; they have no love or compassion for them. They just want to destroy America.”

 

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/flag-burners-driven-by-racism-and-hate/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/flag-burners-driven-by-racism-and-hate/

U.S. troops in Afghanistan ‘feel abandoned’

WASHINGTON – ISIS is beginning to extend its influence into Afghanistan, but the Obama administration no longer is giving the country priority, and the 10,000 American troops that remain are feeling abandoned, a U.S. intelligence officer has told Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin

The officer, who is stationed in Afghanistan and has requested anonymity for security reasons, paints a bleak picture in a war zone that is apparently all but forgotten after an investment of more than $1 trillion by the U.S.

There simply aren’t enough active duty U.S. reservists or guard personnel in Afghanistan to complete the mission, he contends.

The United States has “zero strategy for the country,” the intelligence officer said.

“We’re essentially waiting for politicians to pull the plug.”

In March, President Obama announced he was freezing U.S. troop levels to 9,800 through the end of this year and would conclude the American war before leaving office.

Yet, defense ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting recently in Brussels reaffirmed their commitment to secure Afghanistan as security deteriorates.

On June 22, the Afghan parliament in Kabul was attacked amid clashes throughout northern Afghanistan.

The Institute for the Study of War recently pointed out that Taliban forces have attacked several strategic bases as their forces have been bolstered by foreign fighters, including Arabs, Uighurs, Chechens, Tajiks and Uzbeks.

“This force composition is somewhat unusual for the Taliban and may reflect a unification of effort between several anti-government militant fronts or a spillover of foreign militants into Afghanistan,” the institute’s report said.

In addition, it said ISIS is establishing judiciary courts and imposing social restrictions in a number of provinces as a sign of “its transition from a fighting force into a governing presence” in Afghanistan.

“The compelling threat posed by a growing ISIS legitimacy, the surge of foreign militants, and the effective military operations of the Taliban will combine to test the limits of the Afghan government and (Afghan security forces) throughout the summer offensive,” the institute said.

Get the rest of this report, and others, at Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/u-s-troops-in-afghanistan-feel-abandoned/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/u-s-troops-in-afghanistan-feel-abandoned/

LGBT activists: Marriage was never the ‘end game’

Now, the real fight begins, say leaders in the LGBT movement.

And it won’t be for the faint of heart.

So-called “marriage equality” is not the end-game, according to the activists. It’s merely a window through which they will push for other rights, in housing, education, health care, employment and religious practice.

An op-ed in the Nation, a left-of-center magazine, provided a playbook for LGBT rights activists moving forward from last Friday’s 5-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court proclaiming same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states.

In that op-ed, LGBT activists were encouraged to take the offensive against any individual or group that does not agree with their worldview.

“Create a specific anti-fascist infrastructure of social media, legal, research and watchdog groups to expose and defeat the right wing culturally and politically,” writes the article’s authors, a trio of LGBT rights activists. “In sum, the work ahead for queers is to be transformative, not transfixed.”

A perusal of commentary from LGBT leaders shows that marriage was never the end game. The next step will be for activists to fan out throughout the 50 states, with a special focus on those less-friendly states in the Bible Belt and middle America.

The article goes on to lament that 29 states have no LGBT rights protection, so that is where they plan to strike first.

‘Zones without rights’

Particularly troubling to the three Nation authors were the existence of what they call “zones without rights.” These are place where not enough agitators are committed to persistently push the homosexual agenda.

“Large parts of the U.S. (the South, Midwest and Southwest) are zones without rights,” the authors wrote. “Very few people actually give time or money to queer organizations and LGBT advocacy groups; this over-weights the influence of a few funders. Mainstream parties ‘handle’ rather than support us – the Democrats see us an ATM; the Republicans, as a punching bag. LBT women’s issues are absent from the mainstream movement’s agenda. The leadership of the queer movement is aging, and there’s still not enough investment in young leaders and people of color (POC) leaders.”

They will send activists out as community organizers wearing different hats. Some will come as “faith-based” leaders urging the embrace of homosexuality within traditional Christian churches, while others will focus on housing and employment discrimination and still others on getting the LGBT agenda more firmly entrenched into school systems both public and private.

Just as many major cities have passed “non-discrimination” ordinances forcing businesses and other private organizations to not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, now LGBT activists say they will push for politicians to introduce the same type of laws at the state level in legislatures nationwide.

Below is a roundup of comments from the LGBT leaders.

Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning speaks out

Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning

Transgendered Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning) penned an op-ed in the Guardian from his jail cell, giving his views on the next phase of the LGBT rights movement. Manning came out the day after a military court sentenced him to 35 years in prison in 2013 for espionage.

Same-sex marriage is “just the beginning,” according to Manning. “We can’t let our movement end.”

“There are still queer and trans folks who struggle every single day for the right to define themselves, to access gender-appropriate healthcare and to live without harassment by other people, the police or the government. Many queer and trans people live – and lived – in our prison and jails, in our homeless shelters, in run-down houses and apartment buildings, and on the corners of every major city. Marriage equality doesn’t help them; and the potential loss of momentum for trans/queer rights after this win could well hurt them.”

Manning said coming out and requesting that the media refer to him with female pronouns while also demanding “gender confirming healthcare” from the federal prison system was “an incredibly empowering moment.”

“Nobody can control or define our identities unless we let them, and so I chose to come out and to define myself – nothing more. In the two years since, I am always awestruck and inspired by the queer and trans kids out there all over the world who reach out to me and send letters from very real places like Noblesville, Indiana, Arklow, Ireland and Abeokuta, Nigeria.

“We do have to, as a movement, give hope to these kids, and especially young trans youth like Leelah Alcorn, who committed suicide last year after leaving a devastating indictment of the world that she experienced, or Islan Nettles, who was murdered on the streets of New York in 2013. It’s hope that my younger self, who, like many trans/queer kids, struggled to survive while living homeless in Chicago in 2006, could’ve used.

“We need to send a powerful message to the world in a unified voice: that we can fight for social justice for everyone, everywhere and change the world, not just get married. We can continue to build our communities and address the root causes of queer and trans poverty and deaths. We can work to get queer and trans people out of the prisons and jails and off the streets, and to improve our access to housing, education, employment and gender-confirming healthcare.

“… My name is Chelsea Manning, I am trans woman and I am here to recruit you to the next stage in the equality movement. Join me.”

Magazine offers playbook for LGBT activism

In the op-ed in the Nation by Urvasha Vaid, Tamara Metz and Amber Hollibaugh, the LGBT movement was broken down by strengths and weaknesses, and then the authors presented a list of “opportunities” and “threats.”

Among the strengths listed were “young people’s attitudes,” as they are more open to LGBT rights, and the “vibrant infrastructure of grassroots groups” who advocate for transgenders. These are largely the same activists who advocate for “people of color, youths, seniors, immigrants, criminal justice and HIV/AIDS,” the article said.

The marriage decision was not enough to make life sufficiently “equal” for LGBT people.

And, they say, the LGBT movement has weaknesses that need to be shored up.

“The queer movement is focused on formal legal gay/lesbian equality only and still does not address the economic, racial and gender-based inequities affecting low-income LGBT folks, transgender people, people of color, women and others in queer communities,” the authors wrote.

‘Unify’ all minorities and demonize opponents

They encouraged LGBT activists to look at immigrant rights groups for lessons on how to build coalitions into a progressive voting bloc.

The strategy is to unify all minority groups, including LGBT, youth, women, Latinos, immigrants, blacks, progressive men, labor and environmentalists under one banner, building “a progressive voting bloc for the next five decades.”

“Faith-based organizing in every denomination creates great leaders, new frames and a base of support,” the authors write. “Social media is a queer space of organizing and movement building.”

Among the threats listed by the Nation article? There are many, and all focus on conservatives who still believe some boundaries in the sexual revolution needn’t be crossed. They write:

“The religious, cultural, economic and political right that targets LGBT people, women’s economic, reproductive and sexual freedom and is organized around a racialized notion of national culture. A religious liberty framework is being deployed to undermine all civil rights laws. Social policy retrenchment as economic conditions worsen hurts millions of our people, and requires stronger alliances to forestall. Like what happened with abortion rights, the demobilization of donors and volunteers post-marriage is a risk. Over-criminalization, the national security state and over-policing harm the lives of many in LGBT communities (trans, immigrant, POC, sex workers, youth, HIV+ people, urban-based).”

The next phase: ‘Disestablish marriage’

Tamara Metz, associate professor of political science and humanities at Reed College and the author of “Untying the Knot” wrote a portion of the article under the subtitle, “What’s Next? Disestablish Marriage!”

Now that marriage “equality” is the law of the land, the next phase of the struggle is to work toward the elimination of marriage as an institution, Metz argues.

“Abolish the legal category. Even as we savor the victory for civil equality this week, we should start to push for disestablishing marriage. Freedom, equality and the health of our liberal democratic polity depend on it.

“Get the state out of the business, and let couples (and groups, for that matter) marry under the auspices of what are for them real ethical authorities. In these hands – of their church, their family, their urban tribe, their garden club – the power of the status to transform would be invigorated.”

Metz is not the first to be totally honest about the LGBT movement’s goal of rendering the term “marriage” meaningless as an institution that has limits or boundaries of any sort.

Lesbian journalist Masha Gessen, a Russian-American who wrote a book blasting Russian President Vladimir Putin for his anti-gay stance, said in 2012 in a radio interview that homosexual activists were “lying” about their real political agenda.

Here is what she said in an ABC Radio interview.

“It’s a no-brainer that (homosexual activists) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. … (F)ighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there – because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.

“The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist. And I don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That’s sort of not what I had in mind when I came out 30 years ago.

“I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally. … I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby’s biological father is my brother, and my daughter’s biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father. So the five parents break down into two groups of three. … And really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.”

 Listen to the ABC Radio interview with lesbian journalist Masha Gessen:

Samantha Allen, writing for the Daily Beast under the headlined article “LGBT Leaders: Same-Sex Marriage is Not Enough,” said LGBT people face challenges with regard to housing, violence, immigration status and other forms of discrimination.

Felipe Sousa-Rodriguez, deputy managing director for United We Dream, or UWD, a youth-led U.S. immigrant organization, called Friday’s ruling “bittersweet” for “the estimated 267,000 LGBTQ people who are also undocumented.”

“The reality for them is that they face unrelenting discrimination for both sexual orientation and gender identity as well as their immigration status,” he told the Daily Beast.

Carlos Padilla, the program coordinator of UWD’s Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project (QUIP), said undocumented LGBT immigrants face high rates of violence and sexual assault in detention centers.

“To make matters worse, the Department of Homeland Security often places these people into solitary confinement for ‘their own protection,’” Padilla told the Daily Beast. “This is torture and we cannot stand for it as a country.”

Illegal-immigrant LGBT people constitute 3 percent of the U.S. LGBT community but account for 8 percent of LGBT hate-violence survivors, a statistic that Padilla finds unacceptable.

But it seems what most LBGTs want is not a change in the laws but a change in people’s attitudes toward them.

“For LGBT people as a whole, a wide range of cultural problems are sure to persist even after same-sex marriages become a nationwide norm,” Allen writes. “A recent GLAAD poll found that, despite majority support for same-sex marriage in the U.S., many Americans still have a fundamental discomfort with LGBT people in their own social circles.

“More than 100 million Americans still say they’re uncomfortable just seeing a gay co-worker’s wedding photo, and staggering rates of hate violence continue to devastate the transgender community,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis told the Daily Beast. “We must not only advance policy, we must also accelerate acceptance of the LGBT community – because laws alone don’t end discrimination, people do.”

Focusing on churches, schools, families

The activists intend to make that happen by using the left’s vast community organizing resources. They will focus on re-educating churches, schools and families.

One community organizing group, Believe Out Loud, an online community for LGBT Christians, told the Daily Beast it has “a unique role to play in promoting this acceptance in the context of U.S. churches, particularly within Christianity.”

“As we look ahead to a movement beyond marriage equality, we know that the work of affirming Christians is not yet finished. It’s now time for churches to move beyond simply accepting what we understand, to affirming LGBTQ people as they are,” the organization said in a statement.

While legal rights are seen as “one critical piece of the puzzle,” Dr. Eliza Byard, executive director of GLSEN, an LGBT advocacy group that focuses on reaching public schools, told the Daily Beast. “Education is the glue that holds society together and transmits both opportunity and shared values from one generation to the next.”

Texas a ‘battleground’ state

One of the first battleground states that the LGBT activists will focus on is Texas. They plan to agitate at the grassroots level in churches, schools, city councils, state legislatures and in Congress while also aggressively filing lawsuits against those who do not bend to their wishes.

National and state gay rights leaders convened in front of the Texas Capitol Monday to make a statement: The fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is not over. The next frontier, they told the Texas Tribune, is to push for more protections against discrimination in areas including employment and housing.

“In many states, including my home state of Ohio and right here in Texas, you can get married but then suffer consequences,” Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage, told the Tribune. “You can get married and then lose your job, lose your home and so much more because we are not guaranteed nondiscrimination protections. … Friday’s historic ruling is a victory, but it’s just the beginning.”

Obergefell was joined by a coalition of community-organizing groups including the Human Rights Campaign, Democrat state Rep. Celia Israel of Austin, Equality Texas, two same-sex couples who filed suit over Texas’ same-sex marriage ban, and others who announced they would be part of a statewide campaign for nondiscrimination protections.

Their announcement came a day after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a written opinion that county clerks in Texas who have religious objections to same-sex marriage can opt out of issuing such licenses, though they should be prepared to face fines or legal challenges, the Tribune reported.

Democrat proposals for statewide nondiscrimination laws have failed to gain any traction in the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature, where conservatives have tried to override city ordinances.

Nine Texas cities with populations of more than 100,000 have passed LGBT nondiscrimination ordinances over the past decade, including Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Plano.

As gay-rights activists push for the expansion of these laws at the state level, Republicans are pushing back, and the strength of that push back will soon be tested.

“Our religious liberties find protection in state and federal constitutions and statutes,” Paxton said in a statement Sunday on his written opinion. “While they are indisputably our first freedom, we should not let them be our last.”

Paxton’s opinion followed a memo by Gov. Greg Abbott that directed heads of state agencies to “preserve, protect, and defend the religious liberty of every Texan.”

In Missouri, State Rep. Stephen Webber, D-Columbia, called for the state to pass a law barring discrimination against members of the LGBT community.

“People can still be fired for their sexual orientation. Newly married gay couples can be denied housing,” Webber told Missouri.net. “This is not the end. This is an important step, but we’re going to continue pushing forward until everybody in the state has complete equal rights.”

Diane Booth, who married her partner in Iowa in 2013, said a nondiscrimination act needs to be passed at the federal level.

“You can be fired at will. You can be refused service in a restaurant. Heck, they’re even trying to refuse people selling flowers and baking cakes,” said Booth.

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/lgbt-activists-marriage-was-never-the-end-game/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/lgbt-activists-marriage-was-never-the-end-game/

Professional leftists jump on ‘Dump Trump’ bandwagon

Donald Trump

Now that both Univision and NBC have severed ties with Donald Trump in response to his remarks about Mexican immigrants, activists are setting their sights on the mogul’s business relationship with Macy’s Inc., urging the department store chain to “Dump Trump” as well.

A closer look at the leaders of the anti-Trump campaign reveals it is not the grassroots protest movement it claims to be. Rather, the “Dump Trump” operation is organized by professional progressive agitators with a history of dubious anti-conservative campaigning, including charges of misleading the public about the actual numbers of protest supporters.

Trump is a Macy’s merchandizing partner and occasional spokesman. Trump’s menswear line sells cologne, shirt, ties and other clothing and apparel while Trump himself has been featured in Macy’s television commercials. Macy’s has held major Trump-themed events at its flagship story at Herald Square in New York.

MoveOn.org, financed by billionaire George Soros, posted an online petition directed at Terry J. Lundgren, chairman of the Board, CEO, director and president of Macy’s Inc. The petition, which boasts of more than 709,000 online signatures, complains “Donald Trump does not reflect ‘the magic of Macy’s.’ We urge you to sever ties with him.”

That petition was written by Angelo Carusone, executive vice president of the heavily Soros-financed. progressive activist group Media Matters. Carusone has been identified in establishment media reports as the man behind the campaign targeting Trump’s relationship with Macy’s.

Indeed, Carusone first drafted his anti-Trump petition back in 2012, when the complaint was also sponsored by MoveOn.org. The petition accused Trump of repeatedly making “sexist” and “racially charged” remarks.

In “¡Adios, America!” the intrepid Ann Coulter touches the third rail of American politics. Get her latest now at the WND Superstore!

The activism led to Trump’s attorneys sending Carusone a cease-and-desist letter and threatening to sue him for “not less than” $25 million if the online campaign continued.

The letter charged Carusone had spread misinformation about the size and success of his protest, and it accused the activist and Media Matters of being “an ultra left political group aimed at suppressing free speech by targeting conservative activists and their business partners through baseless threats and intimidation.”

Professional crusader

Carusone is a professional anti-conservative social media crusader. He previously led a successful Twitter-based “StopBeck” effort targeting then-Fox News host Glenn Beck.

And he attempted to get businesses to boycott Rush Limbaugh regarding the radio host’s comments about contraceptives and “reproductive rights” advocate Sandra Fluke.

Carusone and Media Matters also ran “StopFox, StopPalin, StopLevin, StopOReilly and StopHannity” movements.

A report by NewsBusters charged Carusone’s anti-Limbaugh Twitter movement consisted of a “small number of Stop Rush extremists” who launched most of the messages and that “Stop Rush activists are full time extremists, not customers.”

NewsBusters further reported “Stop Rush tweets often originate from automated software, not people.”

Continued NewsBusters: “Media Matters and all these Stop Rush nuts are today’s political version of this scene from The Wizard of Oz where the ‘great and powerful Oz’ was revealed to be a fraud – just a guy behind a curtain pulling levers that belched fearsome images and sounds when in fact the whole thing was a fantasy.

“The Wizard of Oz in fact did not exist – and neither does the reality of the Stop Rush effort.”

Carusone told the Washington Post that his campaign targeting Macy’s has gained momentum from NBC’s decision to severe ties with Trump.

“Macy’s always had cover from NBC to the extent that it was willing to maintain that relationship,” Carusone said. “Not only has Macy’s just lost that cover, but NBC made it about values when they made that decision. Now (Macy’s) on the hook for the same values question.”

‘They’re not sending their best’

NBC announced it was officially distancing itself from Trump following remarks he made about illegal immigrants when he announced his run for president.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

In a statement to Fox News.com, Trump labeled NBC as “weak and foolish” for ending its relationship with him.

“If NBC is so weak and so foolish to not understand the serious illegal immigration problem in the United States, coupled with the horrendous and unfair trade deals we are making with Mexico, then their contract violating closure of Miss Universe/Miss USA will be determined in court,” Trump said. “Furthermore, they will stand behind lying Brian Williams, but won’t stand behind people that tell it like it is, as unpleasant as that may be.”

Last week, Univision, the nation’s largest Spanish-language television network, announced it would not air the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, both co-owned by Trump, and will cut future business ties with the mogul in response to his remarks.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott.

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/professional-leftists-jump-on-dump-trump-bandwagon/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/professional-leftists-jump-on-dump-trump-bandwagon/

Negative reaction to ‘gay marriage’ surges

The negative reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s creation of a right to same-sex “marriage” is surging, with clerks quitting, judges dropping their license procedures and even one U.S. senator telling people it should be ignored.

By a 5-4 majority, including two justices who publicly had advocated for same-sex marriage and possibly violated ethics standards by participating in the case, the Supreme Court on Friday ordered that states could not refuse to grant same-sex duos marriage licenses or recognize such licenses from other states.

Since then, there have been numerous warnings of looming governmental persecution against Americans whose religious beliefs condemn homosexuality.

Now the Associated Press reported it found in a survey that one-third of the counties in Alabama, 22, were not issuing licenses.

The report said many were shutting down marriage license operations altogether as probate judges said they needed time to sort out the ruling.

Randolph County Probate Judge George Diamond told the AP he is waiting for the end of a 25-day appeal period following the U.S. Supreme Court decision before he begins issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

“A Queer Thing Happened to America” chronicles the amazing transformation of America over the last 40 years and addresses the question head-on: Is there really a homosexual agenda, or is it a fiction of the religious right? Get your copy of the book the publishing world was afraid to touch!

The report said Alabama laws specify that probate judges “may” issue marriage licenses, so they are not required to do anything.

AP also reported a county clerk in Arkansas announced her resignation because of her religious and moral opposition to the mandate for same-sex marriage.

Cleburne County Clerk Dana Guffey said she told her boss, Judge Jerry Holmes, of her plans, CBS reported.

“It is definitely a moral conviction for me,” she said. “I didn’t announce anything publicly or on social media or anything because I didn’t want my decision to be seen as hateful. I know some people will look at it like that, but this wasn’t easy. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly. And I do not hate anybody.”

Meanwhile, in Kentucky, several county clerks announced they would not issue marriage licenses to “gay” couples. In Rowan County, Clerk Kim Davis said her office has decided to stop issuing marriage certificates altogether to avoid discrimination lawsuits.

“We’ve not had any applicants yet, but we’ve had several calls,” she said to the Lexington Herald-Leader. “It’s hard, I will tell you that. What has happened is that five lawyers have imposed their personal view of what the definition of marriage should be on the rest of us. And I, as a Christian, have strong views, too. And I know I don’t stand alone.”

Chris Joe, the president of the Kentucky County Clerks Association, said several clerks have called him to cite religious objection to the court’s decision. And in response, they’ve decided to stop issuing marriage certificates entirely.

And Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a candidate for GOP nomination for president, told NPR that there are many across America who can just ignore it.

He said the case was brought by parties from four states but that “does not mean that those who are not parties to a case are bound by a judicial order.”

U.S. Sen Ted Cruz, R-Texas

He said it’s tragic that the Supreme Court justices decided in the case to rewrite the Constitution instead of doing their job, which was to interpret the law.

“It is a sad moment for the court when you have judges seizing authority that does not belong to them,” he said.

One change that would help, he believes, is to have justices on the ballot for retention or removal by voters periodically.

“If judges overstep their bounds, violate the Constitution, then the people have a check to remove them of office. I’ve called for that change,” he said.

Long-term plans to mitigate the damage from the Supreme Court also are starting to appear.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, also a candidate for the GOP nomination for president, said that if elected, he would sign executive orders to protect businesses, churches and others from the “discrimination, intimidation, or civil or criminal penalties” expected for exercising their religious beliefs.

He said the attorney general also could prosecute violations of First Amendment rights.

“While some cowardly politicians wave the white flag and surrender to this unconstitutional, out-of-control act of judicial tyranny, I reject this decision and will fight from ‘Day One’ of my administration to defend our Constitution and protect religious liberty,” he said.

In Alabama, the state Supreme Court, which earlier instructed state officials not to follow a federal judge’s demand for same-sex marriage recognition, said it was accepting motions or comments on the dispute.

There, Chief Justice Roy Moore said the high court was not ordering probate judges either to follow or not follow the U.S. Supreme Court. Alabama was not part of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell case.

WND reported talk-radio giant Rush Limbaugh expects polygamy to be the next goal.

Listen:

“Look, folks, you can think all you want, but there’s no legal basis to stop it now,” Limbaugh told his listeners on Monday’s show. “There is no intellectually honest way to distinguish the reasoning on gay marriage from applying the same reasoning to supporting polygamy.”

Limbaugh explained the case for same-sex marriage was “all rooted in self-esteem and dignity and not being denied things that make you happy.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, he said, doesn’t assume marriage is a union of only two people.

In fact, it didn’t set any boundaries at all.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND’s Email News Alerts!

“That limit is not specifically there,” Limbaugh explained. “They’ve rewritten what marriage is now, is the point here, folks. Marriage was what it was as ordained from the ancient biblical texts.”

He then read passages from Genesis 2:23-24 and Matthew 16:4-6, which define marriage.

“But it’s been rewritten now, and it’s been written not under any sort of constitutional purview but rather some people out there that were denied something, and it’s not right,” he said. “A lot of people had something and those people didn’t and then those people want it, so we think they should have it. Their self-esteem and their dignity is tied up into it.”

WND reported Monday that not only did the court’s mandate for same-sex marriage not resolve the controversy, it triggered a wave of rejection.

“This ruling by the five lawyers is no law at all,” said Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, a prominent legal defender of biblical marriage. “It is lawless and must be treated as such.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., wants to remove the government from marriage completely.

He said “some rights are more equal than others” and concluded “perhaps the time has come to examine whether or not government recognition of marriage is a good idea, for either party.”

“Since government has been involved in marriage, they have done what they always do – taxed it, regulated it and now redefined it. It is hard to argue that government’s involvement in marriage has made it better, a fact also not surprising to those who believe government does little right,” he said.

Some want Congress to limit the courts’ jurisdiction over marriage issues.

A recent iteration of that idea comes from Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, whose plan was announced just weeks ago.

“For too long, federal courts have overstepped their constitutionally limited duty to interpret the Constitution,” he said then. “Rather, federal courts have perverted the Constitution to make law and create constitutional rights to things such as privacy, birth control and abortion. These unenumerated, so-called constitutionally protected rights were not envisioned by our Founding Fathers.”

At Conservative Review, Daniel Horowitz said the Supreme Court has threatened the nation’s foundational principle.

“We have seen the court redefine statutes. We have seen the court redefine the Constitution like they did with Obamacare and in Roe v. Wade. But now we witness the court go a step further and void out natural law, the very foundation on which the Declaration of Independence was constructed – the document that asserts fundamental rights and liberties.”

The decision, he said, was based on “indefensible” assertions and “is not just immoral.”

“It is irrational and illegal,” he said of the majority opinion written by Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Mississippi State House Judiciary Chairman Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, told the Jackson Clarion Ledger one possibility could be for the state to quit issuing licenses.

“One of the options that other states have looked at is removing the state marriage license requirement,” Gipson said. “We will be researching what options there are. I personally can see pros and cons to that. I don’t know if it would be better to have no marriage certificate sponsored by the state or not. But it’s an option out there to be considered.”

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said he’s reviewing the state’s options.

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/negative-reaction-to-gay-marriage-surges/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/negative-reaction-to-gay-marriage-surges/

Look what photos Obama’s TSA is posting online

The Transportation Security Administration is getting an earful from angry Americans after the agency’s spokeswoman tweeted a photo of the contents of a traveler’s suitcase – $75,000 in cash – for all the world to see on Tuesday.

“If you had $75,000, is this how you’d transport it? Just asking! TSA @ RIC spotted this traveler’s preferred method,” tweeted Lisa Farbstein, TSA spokeswoman at headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

The public reaction was fierce and included some of the following comments:

• So … taxpayers are paying you to tweet photos of their luggage?
• What other perfectly legal possessions should air travelers worry TSA might photograph and post to social media?
• Fantastic. Give someone a chance to rob said traveler.
• Gee, it’s a total mystery why so many people distrust TSA and think you overstep boundaries.
• Thanks for the pic. Thieves at the next airport appreciate the info.
• Were you asked to publicly post this person’s private property to social media or did you decide to post on your own?
• Did you receive this passenger’s permission to photograph their belongings and tweet it out? This is grotesque.
• That’s awesome. Next will you post public pics of someone’s meds? You should be fired.
• Is this what y’all do on the clock? Post pics of travelers’ personal belongings on twitter?
• Now that the public knows the exact design, color and size of this bag and also its contents, how is this traveler safer?
• So the TSA is just outright fu–ing with people and bragging about it.
• What other photos get taken of the property of people who violate no rule or law? How long are the photos preserved?
• Shame on you. What a disgrace.
• And you wonder why nobody trusts you people.
• Wow. Way to breach privacy. No wonder no one respects TSA.
• Were they planning on using that to bring down a plane? Why are you showing people’s personal belongings? Oh yeah, you suck.
• What the hell is wrong with you? Besides being a government busybody. None of your damn business & none of social medias’!

One Twitter user asked Farbstein about the government approved way to transport legally earned cash so it wouldn’t be seized by TSA.

Farbstein responded, “TSA didn’t seize/confiscate/take it. It alarmed the x-ray machine as an unknown and we spotted it. It’s just a curiosity.”

The photo was taken at the Richmond, Virginia, airport. Farbstein confirmed that the contents were “not on the prohibited items list.”

After the Washington Free Beacon published a story on the incident, Farbstein emailed the following statement to the paper:

“TSA officers routinely come across evidence of criminal activity at airport checkpoints. Examples include evidence of illegal drug trafficking, money laundering, and violations of currency reporting requirements prior to international trips. TSA turned this bag over to law enforcement, which is investigating.”

It wasn’t clear whether the passenger was traveling domestically or internationally. TSA guidelines state, “For international flights, you must report the transport of $10,000.00 USD or more to the U.S. Customs Service.”

A 2013 TSA press release says Farbstein is “part of an external media team that works to place positive stories in the media with a focus on the agency’s counterterrorism mission.”

The release quotes Farbstein:

“What I do matters because when I explain what we do and that we know the majority of travelers present no threat, reporters often are surprised at how advanced TSA is and they are absolutely amazed to hear about the good catches our Officers make every day across the country.”

A 2009 TSA blog post addressed the issue of passengers carrying large sums of cash in their luggage:

Sometimes a TSA officer may ask a passenger who is carrying a large sum of cash to account for the money. You have asked why such a question is posed and whether a passenger is required to answer.

In reacting to potential security problems or signs of criminal activity, TSA officers are trained to ask questions and assess passenger reactions, including whether a passenger appears to be cooperative and forthcoming in responding.

TSA officers routinely come across evidence of criminal activity at the airport checkpoint. Examples include evidence of illegal drug trafficking, money laundering, and violations of currency reporting requirements prior to international trips.

When presented with a passenger carrying a large sum of money through the screening checkpoint, the TSA officer will frequently engage in dialog with the passenger to determine whether a referral to law-enforcement authorities is warranted.

The TSA officer may consider all circumstances in making the assessment, including the behavior and credibility of the passenger. Thus, a failure to be forthcoming may inform a TSA officer’s decision to call law-enforcement authorities.

According to the Washington Post, Richmond airport spokesman Troy Bell said the traveler’s cash was seized by a federal agency.

“I don’t believe the person was issued a summons or a citation,” he said. “The traveler was allowed to continue on his way.”

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/look-what-photos-obamas-tsa-is-posting-online/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/look-what-photos-obamas-tsa-is-posting-online/