Okay, James Clapper did not really testify that jillions of terrorist attacks were stopped by the military’s PRISM and telephone electronic surveillance dragnets targeted against Americans, but he might as well have.

nsa spyingClapper, the director of the military’s National Security Agency, told members of the U.S. Senate that his organization’s electronic surveillance dragnet had stopped “dozens” of attacks against the USA by nasty terrorists bent on bloody murder. The truth, however, is rather less dramatic.

Actually, the Obama Administration has only identified two cases in which the NSA’s unconstitutional spying is supposed to have contributed to thwarting terrorist attacks. What’s more, in those two cases, the NSA surveillance system played only a backup role. It was conventional, legal, constitutional intelligence methods that identified and blocked those attempted terrorist attacks. The NSA spying wasn’t necessary in these cases.

James Clapper knows that, as long as his electronic spying system is classified, he can make whatever claims of success he likes. Who’s going to try to verify his claims, after all? No one is conducting real oversight. The justifications for the massive daily violation of Americans’ constitutional rights are themselves top secret.

Of course, we don’t have to believe Clapper. We have no reason to. From what we know, it seems clear that James Clapper and his military friends have trashed the U.S. Constitution and given us, in return, an ineffectual security tool.

The social networks of America’s citizen Homeland Insecurity activists are abuzz this week with dire warnings that come from Christian prophet Pamela Rae Schuffert. Schuffert, from her new base of operations in Montana, says that Americans need to be on high alert for nuclear weapons attacks that are scheduled to take place just a little bit more than a week from now.

pamela rae schuffert conspiracy theorySchuffert says that she has a source from within the U.S. military, a Navy Seal and decorated sniper, who she has been talking to her for several days now, telling her all about secret plans by the NWO (a shadowy organization that plans to establish a New World Order) to detonate nuclear weapons across the United States of America and then establish martial law over the survivors.

Schuffert’s military contact, whom she says she is not allowed to identify by name, had been warning her of nuclear weapons that had been set to explode in American cities on May 5, a week from tomorrow. Yesterday, however, this mysterious Navy sniper accelerated his warning to Schuffert, telling her that nuclear weapons in California could be detonated tomorrow!

Schuffert wrote yesterday that the nuclear terrorism planned for the next week in the United States is designed to create a critical mass of satanic power. She advised, “Because the NEW WORLD ORDER is indeed an ILLUMINATI satanic agenda for this nation and the world, we must remember that they often perform major operations AFTER high level satanic ritual dates. They often do this to ensure they have ‘gotten power from satan’ through such dark (human sacrifice) rituals, prior to staging major NWO agenda events.

MAY 1st is BELTAINE…a major satanic ritual date for HUMAN SACRIFICE. I was personally informed by former NWO planners, who were also former satanists as well, that every victim that dies in such black ops will count as one more sacrifice to satan, to then obtain more power from him to bring forth his NEW WORLD ORDER agenda.”

So, what should you do about this dark, satanic conspiracy?

Nothing. The truth is that it doesn’t exist anywhere except in Pamela Rae Schuffert’s fevered fundamentalist mind.

There’s no evidence that any satanic human sacrifices have taken place anywhere as a celebration of May Day. There’s no evidence of any New World Order conspiracy to impose martial law over the United States. There’s no evidence that any nuclear bombs have been set to explode anywhere, at any time, in the USA.

Pamela Rae Schuffert has the religious belief that the End Times are coming soon, and she’s so eager for the mythical destruction to become reality that she concocts fake stories about secret contacts from the highest level of the military who tell her that very very soon, the NWO conspiracy will go into action, and satanists will begin their diabolical attacks.

Schuffert’s predictions always turn out to be completely wrong.

Last year, Pamela Rae Schuffert said that her unnamed military sources were warning that a NATO invasion of the United States would begin by July 1, 2012. Those of you who pay close attention to the news will remember that no such thing ever happened.

Schuffert never acknowledged any doubt about the accuracy of her predictions. She only claimed credit for stopping the NATO invasion of the United States. Yes, Schuffert asserted that she had blocked the entire military force of NATO by writing about their plans on her blog, making it impossible for their plans to go forward as scheduled.

Then, almost in the same breath, Schuffert made another warning: She said that her top secret contacts had told her that Barack Obama had arranged through the CIA for Louis Farrakhan to lead a series of riots by African-Americans and Muslims in cities across the USA in the summer of 2012.

Of course, that never happened either.

I don’t know Pamela Rae Schuffert personally, but the more I read what she writes, the more convinced I become that she genuinely believes that there really are shadowy defectors from the U.S. military and the NWO leadership who speak to her, giving her alone the information needed to stop terrible attacks from taking place. Without examining her in person, I can’t make a diagnosis, of course, but it sounds to me as if Schuffert has difficulty distinguishing between her wandering mind’s own dark fears and external warnings spoken to her from real people. This sounds to me like the confusion of someone with schizophrenia.

But then, Schuffert isn’t alone. There are many Americans who listen earnestly to her conspiracy theories of imminent satanic illuminati doom. Schizophrenia can’t account for their efforts to spread her rambling End Times prophecies. There are always deluded people babbling on about the coming end of the world. The fact that many Americans are inclined to actually believe such a person is what concerns me.

“Most terrorists are Muslim,” say the ultraconservative supporters of religious-based profiling and surveillance in America. The claim is resurfacing in the last week:

Christopher Cook, April 19 2013:

Whatever the specifics, the general fact is always the same: Not all Muslims are terrorists, but nearly all terrorists are Muslims…. Islamist terrorism is now a fact of life. The left would like to create an alternate reality in which they were not the perpetrators of most of the domestic terrorism in United States’ history, but they cannot. So they do the next best thing: they lie.

Craig R. Kelso, April 21 2013:

We were attacked again by terrorists; Muslim terrorists. I know that not all Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslim.

Pappy’s Rants, April 22 2013:

I read recently………not all muslims are terrorists but most terrorists are muslim.

Ruth King, April 23 2013:

Unfortunately, Obama seems driven by a desire to befriend Muslims and demonize those who recognize that, while not all Muslims are terrorists, most terrorists are Muslims and that radical Islam is a clear, present, and dangerous threat…. Many analysts are now questioning whether the atrocity that befell the citizens of Boston will become the “new normal.” It is clear that future attacks are inevitable as long as our government and the president in particular do not call a spade a spade and begin to take all necessary measures to protect American citizens from the evil deeds of Islamists.

Not one of these claims is backed up by an actual count comparing the number of terrorist threats by non-Muslims to those made by Muslims. That’s what you’d need to be able to make a claim like “most terrorists are Muslims”, at least if you cared about facts. These posters don’t care about facts. They just know what they know because they think they know it, facts be damned.

The rest of us who do care about facts can refer to Alejandro J. Beutel’s yearly report, Data on Post-9/11 Terrorism in the United States. Beutel stacks the deck in favor of finding more Muslim terrorists by including both American and foreign Muslim threats against the United States, while only counting American non-Muslims and leaving foreign non-Muslims out.

I last looked at this dataset two years ago, but with data in through June of 2012 and the war-on-Islam freakout voices rising again, it’s time to take another look. The following are the latest available year-by-year statistics on Muslim versus non-Muslim terrorist threats against the United States:

2002
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American or foreign Muslims: 5
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American non-Muslims: 6

2003
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American or foreign Muslims: 2
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American non-Muslims: 8

2004
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American or foreign Muslims: 3
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American non-Muslims: 4

2005
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American or foreign Muslims: 2
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American non-Muslims: 3

2006
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American or foreign Muslims: 7
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American non-Muslims: 2

2007
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American or foreign Muslims: 3
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American non-Muslims: 4

2008
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American or foreign Muslims: 3
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American non-Muslims: 9

2009
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American or foreign Muslims: 11
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American non-Muslims: 19

2010
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American or foreign Muslims: 11
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American non-Muslims: 32

2011
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American or foreign Muslims: 10
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American non-Muslims: 19

First half of 2012
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American or foreign Muslims: 3
# of terrorist threats against the United States by American non-Muslims: 11

The actual, observable and sourced facts show that in every year, the majority of those making terrorist threats against the United States have been non-Muslims.

This past Friday, I’d planned a trip down to Boston, a trip that was halted by the lockdown of the entire city and many of its suburbs. Stuck outside the city with little to do but wait, I made my way to a Newbury Comics store where I found this trio of books for sale:

The Choice in Books: Keep Calm and Drink Up, Keep Calm and Carry On or Now Panic and Freak Out

That’s a pretty good summary of the choice before us when some schmuck with a bomb tries to grab our attention. Which do you choose?

Remember this, every time you hear political pundits asking “What are the Boston suspect’s legal rights?” – referring to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, keep this important fact in mind:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a citizen of the United States of America.

your legal rights

When they ask, “What legal rights should Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have?”, the real question they’re asking is What legal rights should every American citizen have?

If federal government takes legal rights away from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, after all, they only way they can do that is to set a precedent for the revocation of the same legal rights from every other American citizen.

Otherwise, we don’t have legal rights at all – only a security state that we hope won’t turn its gaze on us.

Unless you are willing to have yourself subjected to a particular form of interrogation, don’t ask for that interrogation to be applied to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

No Terror Here

April 16th, 2013 | Posted by Peregrin Wood in Homeland Insecurity | Media - (4 Comments)

Here’s what the newspaper left outside my hotel door says today: Terror Returns. The newspaper says that Americans are “rattled”.

americans rattled

Is it true? Are we rattled? Are we living in terror?

Let me go check. Here’s what the lobby of my hotel looks like. No one is in terror here. They’re too busy checking their cell phones on comfy couches to be rattled.

image

What about outside? Here’s the scene on the street: Perfectly normal. No one in terror or rattled.

image

Yes, there was real terror in one part of one community in the USA. Everywhere else, terror is not to be found. Americans aren’t living in fear, really. The only people who I’ve noticed acting rattled are the corporate journalists in the newspapers and on TV. They’re rattling their cages far out of proportion to events. Why are corporate journalists working so hard to create such exaggerations of Americans’ reactions to the bombing in Boston?

Greg Hittelman of the Conflict Awareness Project, writes that “The world’s weapons business is a kind of Wild West: law and order is not the rule, it’s the exception.” The unregulated flow of deadly weapons across international borders has encouraged the high rate of war between nations, civil war, terrorism, piracy, and other violent crime. Totalitarian regimes have relied on easy access to weaponry to intimidate dissidents and prevent political reforms.

The business of international arms trade is highly destructive, but it’s also highly profitable. The international Arms Trade Treaty to be completed by the United Nations this month will regulate the flow of weapons across international borders, diminishing the suffering caused by the unscrupulous governments and individuals who seek to purchase and use weaponry that isn’t manufactured in the countries where they live. The treaty won’t work, however, if large nations like the United States don’t participate.

A large group of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, are seeking to cripple the international Arms Trade Treaty by preventing American participation. This week, led by Pennsylvania Republican Mike Kelly, they introduced H. Con. Res. 23, legislation that calls upon Barack Obama to disable the Arms Trade Treaty by refusing to sign it.

The consequences of failure to ratify the international Arms Trade Treaty are clear. Deadly weapons will continue to be easily available to members of Al Quaeda and other terrorist organizations, if the House Republicans have their way. These weapons will be used against American soldiers, and will help terrorists, dictators, and international criminal organizations to increase their power.

Why would anyone knowingly create such dangerous conditions?

international arms trade treatyThe House Republicans who have signed H. Con. Res. 23 are uncritically repeating the claims of the National Rifle Association that the Arms Trade Treaty somehow violates the second amendment rights of American citizens. These claims are without basis in fact, however, and have been proven to be without merit.

The International Arms Treaty explicitly recognizes that national legal systems for regulating weaponry will continue to have precedence over the treaty itself. Furthermore, under American law, no treaty can overrule the Constitution, which is always the supreme law of the land.

What’s more, though the second amendment establishes the right of people in the United States to keep and bear weapons, the second amendment does not establish the right of people or businesses in the United States to sell deadly weapons to foreign governments, criminals and terrorists. There is no constitutional right to profit from bloodshed.

Yet, that’s just what the House Republicans who support H. Con. Res. 23 are seeking to protect. They claim, in writing, that the need of international arms merchants to turn a profit must not be interfered with. H. Con. Res. 23 complains that the “Treaty risks imposing costly regulatory burdens on United States businesses, for example, by creating onerous reporting requirements “. However, the international Arms Trade Treaty would actually create no new regulatory reporting requirements. What would happen, if the Arms Trade Treaty were ratified by a large number of nations, including the United States, is that the ability of terrorists, dictators and criminal organizations to purchase American weapons would become severely reduced. That would, it’s true, dry up the international marketplace for deadly weapons. As a result, Americans weapons manufacturers would probably not enjoy the amount of profit that they have had in the past.

Most people recognize that diminished profits for the manufacturers of deadly weapons is a reasonable price to pay for a world with less crime, less terrorism, less despotism, and less war. The politicians who signed H. Con. Res 23, however, just don’t see things that way. So long as weapons manufacturers can profit, they prefer to keep the world in its current violent state.

Their motivation for protecting the economic interests of weapons manufacturers isn’t very abstract, either. Every single politician on the list below, of members of Congress who have signed H. Con. Res. 23, has been given money by the representatives of companies that manufacture deadly weapons for profit. They are willing to unleash deadly violence upon the world, in order to sustain their own individual appetite for corruption.

Politicians In Congress Who Want To Protect Terrorists’ Access To Deadly Weapons:

Rep. Mike Kelly (Republican-PA, District 3
Rep. Mark Amodei (Republican-NV, District 2)
Rep. Michele Bachmann (Republican-MN, District 6)
Rep. Lou Barletta (Republican-PA, District 11)
Rep. Joe Barton (Republican-TX, District 6)
Rep. Dan Benishek (Republican-MI, District 1)
Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (Republican-MI, District 11)
Rep. Gus Bilirakis (Republican-FL, District 12)
Rep. Rob Bishop (Republican-UT, District 1)
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (Republican-TN, District 7)
Rep. Charles Boustany (Republican-LA, District 3)
Rep. Kevin Brady (Republican-TX, District 8)
Rep. Jim Bridenstine (Republican-OK, District 1)
Rep. Mo Brooks (Republican-AL, District 5)
Rep. Paul Broun (Republican-GA, District 10)
Rep. Larry Bucshon (Republican-IN, District 8)
Rep. Michael Burgess (Republican-TX, District 26)
Rep. Ken Calvert (Republican-CA, District 42)
Rep. Shelley Capito (Republican-WV, District 2)
Rep. John Carter (Republican-TX, District 31)
Rep. Steve Chabot (Republican-OH, District 1)
Rep. K. Conaway (Republican-TX, District 11)
Rep. Tom Cotton (Republican-AR, District 4)
Rep. Eric Crawford (Republican-AR, District 1)
Rep. John Culberson (Republican-TX, District 7)
Rep. Steve Daines (Republican-MT, District 0)
Rep. Ron DeSantis (Republican-FL, District 6)
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (Republican-TN, District 4)
Rep. Jeff Duncan (Republican-SC, District 3)
Rep. John Duncan (Republican-TN, District 2)
Rep. Renee Ellmers (Republican-NC, District 2)
Rep. Blake Farenthold (Republican-TX, District 27)
Rep. Stephen Fincher (Republican-TN, District 8)
Rep. Charles Fleischmann (Republican-TN, District 3)
Rep. John Fleming (Republican-LA, District 4)
Rep. Bill Flores (Republican-TX, District 17)
Rep. J. Forbes (Republican-VA, District 4)
Rep. Trent Franks (Republican-AZ, District 8)
Rep. Cory Gardner (Republican-CO, District 4)
Rep. Scott Garrett (Republican-NJ, District 5)
Rep. Phil Gingrey (Republican-GA, District 11)
Rep. Louie Gohmert (Republican-TX, District 1)
Rep. Paul Gosar (Republican-AZ, District 4)
Rep. Sam Graves (Republican-MO, District 6)
Rep. Tim Griffin (Republican-AR, District 2)
Rep. H. Griffith (Republican-VA, District 9)
Rep. Andy Harris (Republican-MD, District 1)
Rep. Vicky Hartzler (Republican-MO, District 4)
Rep. George Holding (Republican-NC, District 13)
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Republican-KS, District 1)
Rep. Bill Huizenga (Republican-MI, District 2)
Rep. Randy Hultgren (Republican-IL, District 14)
Rep. Duncan Hunter (Republican-CA, District 50)
Rep. Lynn Jenkins (Republican-KS, District 2)
Rep. Bill Johnson (Republican-OH, District 6)
Rep. Walter Jones (Republican-NC, District 3)
Rep. Jim Jordan (Republican-OH, District 4)
Rep. Steve King (Republican-IA, District 4)
Rep. John Kline (Republican-MN, District 2)
Rep. Doug LaMalfa (Republican-CA, District 1)
Rep. Doug Lamborn (Republican-CO, District 5)
Rep. James Lankford (Republican-OK, District 5)
Rep. Robert Latta (Republican-OH, District 5)
Rep. Billy Long (Republican-MO, District 7)
Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (Republican-MO, District 3)
Rep. Kenny Marchant (Republican-TX, District 24)
Rep. Tom Marino (Republican-PA, District 10)
Rep. Michael McCaul (Republican-TX, District 10)
Rep. Tom McClintock (Republican-CA, District 4)
Rep. David McKinley (Republican-WV, District 1)
Rep. Mark Meadows (Republican-NC, District 11)
Rep. Luke Messer (Republican-IN, District 6)
Rep. Michael Michaud (Democrat-ME, District 2)
Rep. Jeff Miller (Republican-FL, District 1)
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (Republican-OK, District 2)
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (Republican-SC, District 5)
Rep. Randy Neugebauer (Republican-TX, District 19)
Rep. Kristi Noem (Republican-SD, District 0)
Rep. Richard Nugent (Republican-FL, District 11)
Rep. Alan Nunnelee (Republican-MS, District 1)
Rep. Pete Olson (Republican-TX, District 22)
Rep. Steven Palazzo (Republican-MS, District 4)
Rep. Stevan Pearce (Republican-NM, District 2)
Rep. Scott Perry (Republican-PA, District 4)
Rep. Robert Pittenger (Republican-NC, District 9)
Rep. Ted Poe (Republican-TX, District 2)
Rep. Mike Pompeo (Republican-KS, District 4)
Rep. Bill Posey (Republican-FL, District 8)
Rep. Trey Radel (Republican-FL, District 19)
Rep. Nick Rahall (Democrat-WV, District 3)
Rep. Tom Reed (Republican-NY, District 23)
Rep. David Roe (Republican-TN, District 1)
Rep. Mike Rogers (Republican-AL, District 3)
Rep. Dennis Ross (Republican-FL, District 15)
Rep. Keith Rothfus (Republican-PA, District 12)
Rep. Matt Salmon (Republican-AZ, District 5)
Rep. Steve Scalise (Republican-LA, District 1)
Rep. David Schweikert (Republican-AZ, District 6)
Rep. Austin Scott (Republican-GA, District 8)
Rep. Pete Sessions (Republican-TX, District 32)
Rep. John Shimkus (Republican-IL, District 15)
Rep. Adrian Smith (Republican-NE, District 3)
Rep. Steve Southerland (Republican-FL, District 2)
Rep. Chris Stewart (Republican-UT, District 2)
Rep. Steve Stivers (Republican-OH, District 15)
Rep. Steve Stockman (Republican-TX, District 36)
Rep. Marlin Stutzman (Republican-IN, District 3)
Rep. Glenn Thompson (Republican-PA, District 5)
Rep. Mac Thornberry (Republican-TX, District 13)
Rep. Patrick Tiberi (Republican-OH, District 12)
Rep. Ann Wagner (Republican-MO, District 2)
Rep. Tim Walberg (Republican-MI, District 7)
Rep. Randy Weber (Republican-TX, District 14)
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (Republican-OH, District 2)
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (Republican-GA, District 3)
Rep. Ed Whitfield (Republican-KY, District 1)
Rep. Joe Wilson (Republican-SC, District 2)
Rep. Robert Wittman (Republican-VA, District 1)
Rep. Steve Womack (Republican-AR, District 3)
Rep. Kevin Yoder (Republican-KS, District 3)
Rep. Ted Yoho (Republican-FL, District 3)
Rep. C. Young (Republican-FL, District 13)
Rep. Don Young (Republican-AK)

Each time we sell a made-in-the-USA liberal political t-shirt at Skreened, we set aside one dollar to donate to a liberal political cause and another dollar to better the economic condition of poor people outside the United States.

This month, our domestic political donation goes to The Partnership for Civil Justice in recognition of its good work in using Freedom of Information Act requests to uncover the fact that the U.S. government has been using its “anti-terrorism” powers to squelch legal, nonviolent protests against the abuses of Wall Street financiers.

This month’s donation to help poor people outside the United States goes to Coffee Kids, an organization that helps coffee-farming communities in Latin America that are paid so little for their work by big-time coffee corporations. Coffee Kids invests in health-care, education and gardening projects to improve the lives of coffee farmers and their families.

If you have a few extra dollars, please consider helping these good groups continue their good work.