Eeyore's News and View

Banned by U.K., Savage hits back
Radio talk star blocked from visits, along with terrorists, neo-Nazis
Talk radio host Michael Savage is considering legal action against Britain's top homeland security official after she released today a list grouping him with terrorists and neo-Nazi murderers banned from entry because the government believes their views might provoke violence.
In a telephone interview with WND, Savage said he is still waiting to hear back from attorneys, but he noted Britain has very strict anti-defamation laws.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to publicize the list of 16 people banned since October to show the type of behavior Britain will not tolerate, according to U.K. news reports.
Savage's immediate reaction upon hearing the news was typically wry.
"Darn! And I was just planning a trip to England for their superior dental work and cuisine," he recalled thinking.
"Then it sank in," he told WND, "and I said, 'She said this is the kind of behavior we won't tolerate? She's linking me with mass murderers who are in prison for killing Jewish children on buses? For my speech? The country where the Magna Carta was created?'"
Smith explained to Britain's GMTV that she believed it was "important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it's a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country."
"Coming to this country is a privilege," she said. "If you can't live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded.
In an interview with the BBC, Smith said Savage, the No. 3-rated radio host in the U.S., is "someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country."
Savage said his message for Smith and the people of the U.K. is, "Shame on you. Shame that you've fallen to such a low level."
"It's interesting to me that here I am a talk show host, who does not advocate violence, who advocates patriotic traditional values – borders, language, culture – who is now on a list banned in England," Savage said. What does that say about the government of England? It says more about them than it says about me."
The U.K. list also includes Hamas leader Yunis Al-Astal, former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard Stephen Donald Black, neo-Nazi Erich Gliebe and radical pastor American pastor Fred Phelps, known for his virulent anti-gay protests at funerals. Phelps' daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper also is on the list.
Smith said the British government believes the people on the list have views or attitudes that could provoke violence.
"If people have so clearly overstepped the mark in terms of the way not just that they are talking but the sort of attitudes that they are expressing to the extent that we think that this is likely to cause or have the potential to cause violence or inter-community tension in this country, then actually I think the right thing is not to let them into the country in the first place. Not to open the stable door then try to close it later," she said.
"It's a privilege to come to this country. There are certain behaviors that mean you forfeit that privilege."
The others on the list are Jewish extremist Mike Guzovsky; imprisoned Russian skinhead leaders Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky; and Islamic leaders Wadgy Abd El Hamied Mohamed Ghoneim, Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal, Safwat Hijazi , Amir Siddique, Abdul Ali Musa, Samir Al Quntar and Nasr Javed.
Said Savage, "How can a nation put me on a list and leave hate preachers in England who say that we're going to kill all of you? We're going to convert all of you to Islam. How is it possible that those hate preachers can't be deported from Britain, but I can be banned from Britain? People who advocate actual murder cannot be deported from Britain.
"How is it that liberalism has gotten so distorted and cowardly?"
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=9712

Homeland agency pulled back extremism dictionary
WASHINGTON — The same Homeland Security Department office that categorized veterans as potential terrorists issued an earlier report that defined dozens of "extremists" ranging from black power activists to abortion foes. The report was nixed within hours and recalled from state and local law enforcement officials.
Whites and blacks, Christians and Jews, Cubans and Mexicans, along with tax-hating Americans were among several political leanings listed in the "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" that came out of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) in late March.
The lexicon lists definitions for key terms and phrases used by Homeland Security analysts "that addresses the nature and scope of the threat that domestic, non-Islamic extremism poses to the United States," the report said.
Click here to download a PDF of "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" http://video1.washingtontimes.com/video/lexicon.pdf
Black separatism was defined as a movement that they said advocates the establishment of a separate nation within the U.S., and its members "advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence directed toward local law enforcement" to advance their goals. Black power is a "term used by black separatists to describe their pride in, and the perceived superiority of the black race," the report said.
Under the listing "antiabortion extremism," the lexicon cites a movement that "advocates violence against providers of abortion-related services." It notes that some people in the movement "cite various racist and anti-Semitic beliefs to justify their criminal activities."
"The lexicon was not an authorized I&A product, and it was recalled as soon as management discovered it had been released without authorization," said Amy Kudwa, Homeland Security spokeswoman.
"This product is not, nor was it ever, in operational use," Ms. Kudwa said.
WASHINGTON — Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the report "causes further concern that Congress needs to get to the bottom of exactly how DHS determines what intelligence products to distribute to law enforcement officials around the country."
"Although we have evidence that some of the groups described in this and other DHS intelligence products are an active terror threat to our nation, I would be interested in knowing why this lexicon mentioning left-wing extremist groups was deemed inappropriate by DHS and recalled, yet a similar report focusing on veterans, antiabortion activists and anti-illegal immigration activists was fit for distribution and sent out by DHS to law enforcement agencies across the country," Mr. King said.
The 11-page lexicon document lists terms from A through W, beginning with "aboveground," which is defined as extremist groups or people who "operate overtly and portray themselves as law-abiding," and ending with "white supremacist movement." The listing notes six categories of white supremacists: Neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan, Christian identity, racist skinhead, Nordic mysticism and Aryan prison gangs.
A "left-wing extremist" is described as someone who opposes war or is dedicated to environmental and animal rights causes, while a "right-wing extremist" is someone who is against abortion or for border enforcement.
The same "right-wing" definition appeared in a report last month that prompted an outcry in the veterans community for also suggesting that veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were targets for extremist groups to recruit for attacks against the U.S.
That report was not recalled; however, the department said it has instituted changes to more carefully review these reports before they are sent to local law enforcement agencies.
"Since this happened prior to our last experience, our new internal protocols were obviously not in place," Ms. Kudwa said.
Roger Mackin, the head of the I&A responsible for the report that suggested veterans were being recruited to commit terrorist acts in the U.S., was replaced late last month. Ms. Kudwa said then that the personnel moves were categorically not related to the veterans-related story reported by The Washington Times in mid-April.
She also said Mr. Mackin would move outside Homeland Security, to the cybersecurity section at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The new detail for Mr. Mackin had been planned for several weeks and predated the April 7 report, Ms. Kudwa said at the time.
The latest report to become public, the lexicon on domestic extremism, stated that people involved with anti-immigration extremism "may have been known to advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence and terrorism to advance their extremist goals."
"They are highly critical of the U.S. government's response to illegal immigration and oppose government programs that are designed to extend 'rights' to illegal aliens, such as issuing driver's licenses or national identification cards and providing in-state tuition, medical benefits, or public education."
"Cuban independence extremism" is defined as those who "do not recognize the legitimacy of the Communist Cuban Government and who attempt to subvert it through acts of violence, mainly within the U.S."
Mexican separatism defines those would advocate an armed struggle to take back Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas, the report stated.
Environmental extremism is described as those "who use violence to end what they perceive as the degradation of the natural environment by humans."
And, the "tax-resistance movement" is described as "groups or individuals who vehemently believe taxes violate their constitutional rights."
The criteria in the listings are a willingness to advocate or engage in criminal activity or plot acts of terrorism.
The report lists traditional extremist groups, such as racist skinheads or lone terrorists who might plot against the U.S., as well as some obscure groups. Racial Nordic mysticism is listed as an ideology adopted by many white supremacist prison gangs "who embrace a Norse mythological religion, such as Odinism or Asatru."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/05/homeland-pulled-back-extremism-dictionary/

Georgia says it stopped army mutiny
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgia said it had ended a brief mutiny Tuesday at a military base near the capital and thwarted a plan to disrupt NATO exercises.
The Interior Ministry first announced that the mutiny was part of a Russia-supported plot to overthrow the government, and that the suspected organizers had been arrested the night before.
But the ministry later backed off and said the plotters were intent mainly on disrupting NATO military exercises set to begin Wednesday in Georgia.
The several hundred soldiers at the base handed over their weapons and surrendered after speaking to President Mikhail Saakashvili, who suggested that force could be used against them if they refused to give themselves up to police, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
Saakashvili said in a televised address that the mutiny was an isolated case and the situation in the country
"The plan was to have military riots at different places all over Georgia," Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said. "To make sure that at the minimum the NATO training will not happen and at the maximum there is a full-scale military riot in the country."
Russia's NATO envoy Dmitri Rogozin was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying the allegations of Russian involvement were "crazy."
Russia's Foreign Ministry said the Georgian government was engaged in its "latest anti-Russian prank." The ministry statement said, "Russia in principal does not interfere in the internal affairs of Georgia."
An official in Saakashvili's office said the intent of the mutineers seemed to be limited to disrupting the upcoming NATO exercises. There was no evidence, he said, that they planned a coup attempt. Neither is there any evidence of Russian involvement. He spoke on condition he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Russia, which fought a brief war with Georgia last year, has sharply criticized the exercises, which it said would encourage Saakashvili to rebuild its devastated army.
The Georgian president has been the target of more than three weeks of street protests by opposition demonstrators demanding he resign. His government has accused Russians of supporting the opposition.
The official in Saakashvili's office said the mutiny was inspired by a small group of disgruntled officers who were involved in a similar action at the same base in 2001.
Opposition leaders said the reports of the planned coup were made up; some called it a "virtual coup" and a "staged play."
"It's nothing but a tall tale, and we've heard so many of them already," said Georgy Khaindrava, a former Saakashvili ally. "Saakashvili could not make up anything smarter."
Utiashvili, the Interior Ministry spokesman, had said the suspected coup plot was organized by a former special forces commander, Georgy Gvaladze. Gvaladze and another former military commander have been arrested, and other suspects were still being sought, he said.
He also had said the ministry has a video of Gvaladze talking to his supporters about the planned coup, and that he is shown saying that 5,000 Russian troops will come to support the coup, and that it was planned for Thursday.
A ministry statement released later said Gvaladze was accused of organizing the military mutiny.
Defense Minister David Sikharulidze said earlier that he had been blocked from entering the military base in Mukhrovani, about 20 miles from Tbilisi, the capital. The base's tank battalion of about 500 army personnel had announced that they would refuse to follow orders, he said.
Among the mutineers were civilians who had no relation to the battalion, he said.
The soldiers from Mukhrovani were bused to another base, where they were to be questioned.
The NATO exercises, which continue through June 1, were originally planned to include about 1,300 personnel from 19 NATO and partner nations.
But some former Soviet republics have recently decided not to take part.
Among the countries to back out was Armenia, which is dependent on Russia for its economic survival. Four other former Soviet republics — Estonia, Latvia, Kazakhstan and Moldova — and Serbia also had decided to pull out, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported Tuesday.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-05-05-georgia-coup_N.htm

At What Point Is a Traitor a Patriot?
by William Buppert
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power"
~ Benito Mussolini
We are now entering an era where not only is your patriotism questioned but the word traitor is bandied about with abandon by the usual suspects in DC whenever one is disappointed or outraged by the latest usurpation of liberties and freedom from the central government and the Offal Office in the WAFL (War Against Freedom and Liberty) House formerly known as the White House.
Little did we know that in 1917 Woodrow Wilson and Vladimir Lenin started an ideological race to see whether America or Russia would form the perfect Soviet union. Fast-forward to the last decade of the Busheviks and Obamunism and it appears obvious the Russians came in second and we took the Gold Medal. The collectivist efforts of the Government Supremacist Party with its Democrat and Republican wings have finally paid off and we are entering the home stretch where the Federal Government now takes ownership in major corporate ventures, the entire banking system and the national security apparatus is being used to seal the deal. I would submit the system is doomed but it does not mean the DC regime won’t take the rest of us down with it.
Now we are asked to pledge our support and monies to a government that is not only out of control and extra-Constitutional but seeking to turn America into a Stalinist hellhole flying a Green Swastika.
So what is treason and what is traitor?
The Constitution of the United States, Article III, defines treason against the United States to consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort. This offence is punished with death. By the same article of the Constitution, no person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. The more conventional definition means one’s refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of the present government or performing services for foreign nations like spying or fighting as the Patricios did during the 1848 Mexican-American conflict.
Pay attention to the second clause. Who in America truly thinks we were destined to become a stronger imitation of the pathetic Soviet structure of state organizing principles embracing the worst economic nostrums, the brutality of occupation behavior by the central government toward its citizens ensuring the creation and nurturing of a special class of rulers in our own American nomenklatura? I would suggest that our rulers in DC are adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort because they are contravening the Constitution and the spirit and letter of limited governance on a daily basis.
Let me make one more clarification that will alienate some readers. My reference to patriot is lower case much like my use of libertarian. I have no use for the conspiracists, religionists and opportunists who use the capital-P Patriot nomenclature as a thin disguise for their lack of intellectual rigor or a red, white and blue excuse to avoid their financial obligations (I am not referring to taxes). Whether the Christian Identity church or the self-styled Patriot lawyers who plead their cases before government courts, I am not interested.
It is high time to revisit the definitions because the gulf between our rulers and the people is ever widening and the knives are coming out. The question actually becomes who is the traitor. Those who seek to lift the Constitution above men to substantiate the rule of law or a rule by men who hold themselves above the Constitution in interpretation. I have commented before that the Supreme Court is the use of robed government employees to expand and approve the growth of the Leviathan state at the expense of individual liberty with an imprimatur of legitimacy and it has proven out.
We now see that there is nothing the Federal government can recognize as a brake or impediment to whatever power they wish to exercise. We have sophisticated men and women going through intellectual rationalizations of torture and the imposition of institutionalized physical pain on men who have no Constitutional rights whatsoever. Washington, with a sweeping gesture of overbearing arrogance, participates in the largest multi-trillion dollar money-laundering exercise in the history of man to satisfy bankster special interests and does not allow the bill-payers to see where or what the money is doing and discourages the borrowers to repay the monies loaned.
So it appears as if we are laboring under a tyranny that would make George III blush. The Tea Parties have at least encouraged some Americans to look at their roots. I, for one, agree with the recent Tea Party critic on LRC that the events are far too civil but the time for mischief is coming. The original Boston Tea Party did not file EPA impact statements or ask permission to smash the state.
The point is that treason is usually the term employed by the besieged statists when they discover someone has parted the curtain or discovered their tailors are using vapor fabric. The eminent Lysander Spooner would inform you it is no treason at all to oppose bad laws.
The Congress has even gone so far as to question the use of wiretaps that catch them in the net when they betray their country to a foreign power which are the very authorizations they themselves enjoined against the American people. CongressCreature Jane Harmon obviously has loyalty issues that are much more germane to the traditional understanding of traitorous behavior:
Lo and behold, Jane’s had an epiphany. She now "think[s] the question is about ... did our government abuse the rights of American citizens, including members of Congress, with legal or illegal wiretappings…" It seems that compromising yourself on tape focuses the mind about as wonderfully as hanging does. And catch Jane’s conflating "members of Congress" with "American citizens." What a wit!
What an ingenious defense from the same Congress that has appointed the illiterate Janet Napolitano to head up the Department of Fatherland Security which is presently hounding the right-wing terrorists of the nation who either agree with the Constitution or served in the military. A tangled web we weave. So, so (your best Joe Pesci imitation), let me get this straight. I am a traitor if I wish to observe the Constitution as the highest law of the land using strict constructionist interpretation but I am a loyal American if I seek to exercise leniency or influence on the outcome of a spy debacle by AIPAC. Just so you know that justice turns in the way we have cynically come to expect in DC, the espionage charges against the AIPAC defendants have been dropped.
The Tea Party in 1775 was a traitorous act by Britons against Britain and a necessary event to sever the illegitimate rule of a faraway government (much like DC but more mild and principled) which sought through taxes, regulation and military occupation to lord over a people who wanted none of it. It was a traitorous act in the sense it refused to any longer recognize the legitimacy and span of control exercised by a many-tentacled imperial beast reliant on a host to draw energy and power from much like a remora. DC is the sine qua non of the modern phenomenon of a Remora Nation. It represents the last gasp of a grasping, imperious and unprincipled kakistocracy (government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens) desperately clinging to power for the sheer sake of it.
We are in a unique situation in these united States as opposed to the Colonists. We have founding documents in both the DI and the Constitution (dare we say the unfairly maligned Articles of Confederation) that can be used as a measure of performance and a report card for our rulers in DC. They have failed. The whole Progressive and Neoconservative project is in an ascendant position that will either collapse or seal the fate of all freedom-loving Americans. I would suggest that we are strikingly similar to the Soviet Union in the 1980s with the implementation of policies that are nonsensical, dangerous and economically illiterate. They are conducting themselves much like a nomenklatura bent on securing their fortunes and immunity before the whole rotten system known as modern twentieth-century American governance rips asunder under the weight of its stunning contradictions and absurdly vicious behavior to its host population.
My point is that the traitors aren’t us; it is every man and woman who places their allegiance to a contemporary power structure in DC and not to the foundational documents that animated the Founding. In the end, the government-media complex is a powerful propaganda tool which may succeed in identifying Americans who want limited or no government as traitors, so there it is. If a traitor is the American who takes a stand, draws a line in the sand and stands against the Red Tide emanating from DC, count me in the ranks. I love my country but fear my government.
"...it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds..."
~ Samuel Adams
http://lewrockwell.com/buppert/buppert22.html

Olofson machine gun transfer conviction upheld
May 4, 3:19 PM
David R. Olofson's conviction "for knowingly transferring a machinegun in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o)" has been upheld.
A May 1 ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held on May 1:
In sum, the defendant’s proffered jury instruction was not a correct statement of the law, and the district court properly rejected it. Furthermore, the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to sustain Olofson’s conviction, and 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(o) and 924(a)(2) are not unconstitutionally vague as applied to the facts of this case. In addition, the district court did not abuse its discretion in either excluding the defendant’s firearms expert from the courtroom during the government expert’s testimony or in denying Olofson’s motion to compel the production of evidence he had requested from the government. Accordingly, we AFFIRM Olofson’s conviction.
Earlier today I reported on my WarOnGuns blog that exclusion of expert witness Len Savage from the courtroom during testimony by his government counterpart was held to be "not an abuse of discretion." The Wisconsin Law Journal case digest can be read here.
Olofson's legal options at this point appear to be to request the Seventh Circuit Court to hear the case en banc, to petition the Supreme Court, or to accept the decision. A relief fund has been established to fund his legal costs by Gun Owners of America.
More information on developments in this case will be reported as they're made known.
Click here to download the decision.
For those unfamiliar with the case, see the additional information at the bottom of this post. In short, Olofson had a semiautomatic rifle that could misfire if certain ammuniton was used. It was determined that even though it was a malfunction, it legally met the definition of a machine gun.
http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m5d4-Olofson-Machine-Gun-Transfer-Conviction-Upheld