TENTARA AMERIKA LARANG UCAPAN "SELAMAT NATAL"

http://cahyono-adi.blogspot.com/2013/12/tentara-amerika-larang-ucapan-selamat.html#more

Beberapa tahun yang lalu ketika saya masih menjadi wartawan sebuah jaringan media massa mapan Indonesia, saya menyaksikan film sejarah Napoleon yang disiarkan stasiun televisi swasta. Saat itu juga saya mengetahui bahwa peristiwa Revolusi Perancis tahun 1789 dan Revolusi Bolshevik Rusia tahun 1918 digerakkan oleh satu kelompok yang sama meski tidak mengetahui kelompok tersebut.

Ada satu kesamaan di antara keduanya, yaitu keberadaan pejabat penguasa revolusioner yang disebut komisaris. Ini adalah pejabat regim yang ditempatkan di satuan-satuan birokrasi sipil dan militer dengan tugas mengawasi jalannya birokrasi agar sesuai dengan semangat revolusi. Pejabat ini memiliki pangkat yang lebih rendah dari pejabat birokrasi sipil dan militer dimana ia ditempatkan, namun ia memiliki kekuasaan yang lebih besar, termasuk menangkap dan mengeksekusi mati pejabat yang dianggap melanggar semangat revolusi.

Regim Nazi Jerman meniru model pemerintahan seperti ini dengan menempatkan perwira-perwira muda SS (satuan khusus yang sangat loyal kepada Hitler) di satuan-satuan birokrasi dan militer, dan terbukti efektif menjaga program-program dan kepentingan regim Hitler.

Sebagian peneliti sejarah menyebutkan bahwa Hitler, sebagaimana penggerak Revolusi Perancis dan Revolusi Bolshevik, bekerja untuk kelompok yang sama. Kelompok inilah yang membiayai kampanye Hitler dalam meraih kekuasaan hingga menjalankan roda pemerintahan, yang di antaranya adalah Prescott Bush, kakek Presiden Amerika George Bush yang menjadi bankir keluarga Rockefeller.

Kini, kelompok yang sama juga juga telah menguasai Amerika. Salah satu indikasinya adalah dengan adanya pejabat birokrasi militer semacam komisaris yang ditempatkan di dalam satuan-satuan birokrasi militer.

Sebagaimana diberitakan Fox News tgl 24 Desember lalu, para prajurit dan perwira satuan militer Brigade Infantri ke-158 yang berbasis di Camp Shelby Missisippi, dibuat marah oleh larangan yang diberikan oleh seorang "komisaris" militer atas penyebutan kata "Christmas" dalam kegiatan resmi militer, bahkan meski kegiatan tersebut diadakan untuk menyambut hari Natal.

"Sangat tidak bisa dipercaya, militer melarang kata "Christmas" seperti kata itu mengandung makna buruk," kata Michael Berry, pengacara dari Liberty Institute yang mewakili para prajurit yang tidak disebutkan namanya yang keberatan dengan larangan tersebut.

Sekitar 2 minggu yang lalu sebuah rapat rutin diadakan di pangkalan militer Camp Shelby yang dihadiri sebagian besar perwira Brigade Infantri ke-158. Dalam rapat tersebut dibahas rencana kegiatan turnamen sepakbola untuk menyambut hari Natal. Namun secara mengejutkan "komisaris" yang disebut "Perwira Kesamaan Hak" melarang penggunaan kata “Christmas” dalam kegiatan tersebut.

Menurut penuturan para prajurit, Perwira Kesamaan Hak tiba-tiba menghentikan rapat dan mengatakan kepada semua yang hadir untuk tidak menggunakan kata "Christmas" dalam turnamen tersebut.

“Hampir seluruh ruangan berteriak. Semua orang merasa kecewa. Perwira Kesamaan Hak mengatakan kepada komandan kami bahwa tidak semua orang merayakan Hari Natal dan kami tidak diperkenankan menggunakan kata "Selamat Natal", melainkan "Selamat Hari Libur"," kata Michael Berry menirukan penuturan seorang prajurit yang hadir dalam rapat tersebut.

Prajurit tersebut menambahkan telah terjadi diskusi yang singkat namun panas seputar "kebenaran politik" (political correctness), yaitu hal-hal tabu dalam kehidupan sosial politik Amerika yang sangat mengekang kebebasan warga Amerika. Pada satu titik, ketika tidak bisa lagi memberikan argumentasi yang jelas, sang "komisaris" berdalih bahwa larangan penggunaan kata "Christmas" adalah kebijakan resmi tentara Amerika, bukan pendapat pribadinya.

"Ia (komisaris) mengatakan bahwa sebagai individu seorang prajurit boleh mengucapkan "Christmas", namun sebagai organisasi tentara tidak bisa mengatakannya."

REF:
"Army: Don’t say Christmas"; Todd Starnes; Fox News; 24 Desember 2013 dalam thetruthseeker.co.uk; 25 DEsember 2013

Army: Don’t say Christmas

By Todd Starnes

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/12/24/army-dont-say-christmas/?intcmp=obnetwork

Published December 24, 2013

FoxNews.com

Don’t say Christmas.

That’s the message that was conveyed to a group of soldiers at Camp Shelby by an equal opportunity officer from the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, according to a soldier who attended a recent briefing.

“It’s unbelievable that the Army would ban ‘Christmas’ like it’s a bad word,” said Michael Berry, an attorney with the Liberty Institute, a legal firm representing the unidentified soldier.

Two weeks ago, a routine meeting was held at the Mississippi base with various leaders of the 158th Infantry Brigade. During the meeting, they discussed an upcoming Christmas football tournament. The equal opportunity officer immediately objected to the usage of the word “Christmas.”

“Our equal opportunity representative stopped the briefing and told us that we can’t say Christmas,” the soldier told me. “Almost the entire room blew up. Everybody was frustrated. The equal opportunity rep told our commander that not everyone celebrates Christmas and we couldn’t say Christmas celebration. It had to be holiday celebration.”

The soldier said there was a brief, but heated discussion about political correctness. At one point, the equal opportunity representative tried to deflect the criticism by pointing out it was the Army’s rules – not hers.

“She said an individual can say Christmas, but as an organization in the Army you can’t say Christmas,” the soldier told me.

So what does the Army have to say about the DEOMI officer’s edict?

“There is no policy at the 158th Infantry Brigade, First Army Division East or First Army that forbids using the word ‘Christmas’,” Public Affairs Chief Amanda Glenn told me.

She confirmed that there was a discussion in the meeting about the football tournament. She said it was meant to be a team building event and it had no tie to a specific religious event or holiday celebration.

“The Equal Opportunity advisor simply stated that it would be more appropriate to call it a holiday football event,” she said.

But Attorney Berry tells me that it was made very clear to the soldiers in the room that the name change was not merely a suggestion.

“She stated that the word Christmas had to be replaced with the word holiday,” Berry said.

The soldier who contacted me said it was just another instance of the military trying to curtail public expressions of the Christian faith.

“Between the Air Force and the Army – it’s like they don’t like Christian values, they don’t like the word Christ or Christmas,” the soldier said. “They don’t like you talking about it.”

Berry said it’s a shame that the Army has implemented word police.

“Are they going to have the ‘Merry Christmas’ police going around issuing citations to an soldier who slips and says the word?” he wondered. “They’re treating Christmas like it’s pornography. As a matter of fact, the Army actually treats pornography better than it does Christmas.”

It’s not the first time Equal Opportunity officers have caused trouble at Camp Shelby. Earlier this year, I reported exclusively about a briefing at Camp Shelby that labeled the American Family Association as a domestic hate group.

After my story was published, the Secretary of the Army ordered military leaders to halt all briefings on extremist organizations that labeled Evangelical Christian ministries as domestic hate groups.

Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. Sign up for his American Dispatch newsletter, be sure to join his Facebook page, and follow him on Twitter. His latest book is Dispatches From Bitter America.

It’s a Very Merry Christmas for Washington Insiders

By Daniel J. Mitchell

http://www.cato.org/blog/its-very-merry-christmas-washington-insiders

Last year, while writing about the corrupt and self-serving behavior at the IRS, I came up with a theorem that explains day-to-day behavior in Washington.
Simply stated, government is a racket that benefits the D.C. political elite by taking money from average people in America

I realize this is an unhappy topic to be discussing during the Christmas season, but the American people need to realize that they are being pillaged by the insiders that control Washington and live fat and easy lives at our expense.

If you don’t believe me, check out this map showing that 10 of the 15 richest counties in America are the ones surrounding our nation’s imperial capital.

Who would have guessed that the wages of sin are so high?

D.C., itself, isn’t on the list. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of people living large inside the District.

Here are some interesting nuggets from a report in the Washington Business Journal:

D.C. residents are enjoying a personal income boom. The District’s total personal income in 2012 was $47.28 billion, or $74,733 for each of its 632,323 residents, according to the Office of the Chief Financial Officer’s Economic and Revenue Trends report for November. The U.S. average per capita personal income was $43,725.

Why is income in D.C. so much higher? Well, the lobbyists, politicians, bureaucrats, interest groups, contractors, and other insiders who dominate the city get much higher wages than people elsewhere in the country.

And they get far higher benefits:

In terms of pure wages, D.C., on a per capita basis, was 79 percent higher than the national average in 2012 — $36,974 to $20,656. …Employee benefits were 102 percent higher in D.C. than the U.S. average in 2012, $7,514 to $3,710. Proprietor’s income, 137 percent higher — $9,275 to $3,906. …The numbers suggest D.C. residents are living the high life.

Below is a chart from Zero Hedge comparing income growth for both D.C. and the nation as a whole over the last few decades. It uses median household income rather than total personal income, so the numbers don’t match up exactly with the numbers from above. Regardless, it shows how D.C. income grew faster than the rest of the nation during the Bush years, and then even more dramatically during the Obama years.

In other words, policies like TARP, the fake stimulus, and Obamacare have been very good for Washington’s ruling class.

Want some other examples of profitable Washington sleaze? Here are some excerpts from Rich Tucker’s column for Real Clear Policy:

The real place to park your money is in Washington, D.C. That’s because the way to get ahead isn’t to work hard or make things; it’s to lobby Washington for special privileges. Look no further than the sweet deal the sugar industry gets. It’s spent about $50 million on federal campaign donations over the last five years. So that would average out to $10 million per year. Last year alone, the federal government spent $278 million on direct expenditures to sugar companies. That’s a great return on investment.

Big Corn may get an even better deal than Big Sugar:

Until 2012, the federal government provided generous tax credits to refiners that blended ethanol into gasoline. In 2011 alone, Washington spent $6 billion on this credit. The federal government also maintains tariffs (54 cents per gallon) to keep out foreign ethanol, and it mandates that tens of billions of gallons of ethanol be blended into the American gasoline supply. Nothing like a federal mandate to create demand for your product. How much would you pay for billions of dollars worth of largesse? Well, the ethanol industry got a steep discount. In 2012, opensecrets.org says, the American Coalition for Ethanol spent $212,216 on lobbying.

Rich warns that the United States is sliding in the wrong direction:

What makes Washington especially profitable is that its only products are the laws, rules, and regulations that it has the power to force everyone else to follow. …[W]e seem to be sliding toward what the authors term “extractive” institutions. That means government [is] using its power to benefit a handful of influential individuals at the expense of everyone else.

And let’s not forget that some people are getting very rich from Obamacare while the rest of us lose our insurance or pay higher prices.

This Reason TV interview with Andrew Ferguson explains that there is a huge shadow work force of contractors, consultants, and lobbyists who have their snouts buried deeply in the public trough:

"Washington parasitic economy with weekly standard "...class"

I particularly like his common sense explanation that Washington’s wealth comes at the expense of everyone else. The politicians seize our money at the point of a gun (or simply print more of it) to finance an opulent imperial city.

So if you’re having a hard time making ends meet, remember that you should blame the crowd in Washington.

P.S.: Despite Republican claims of being the party of free markets and smaller government, the insider corruption of Washington is a bipartisan problem. Indeed, some of the sleaziest people in D.C. are Republicans.

P.P.S.: Though scandals such as Solyndra show that Obama certainly knows how to play the game.

P.P.P.S.: Making government smaller is the only way to reduce the Washington problem of corrupt fat cats.

Topics:

Government and Politics, Regulatory Studies, Tax and Budget Policy

Tags:

big government, bureaucrats, corruption, cronyism, Elitism, lobbying, politicians, Sleaze

In the midst of an energy boom, electricity prices spike

posted at 2:31 pm on December 28, 2013 by Jazz Shaw

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/12/28/in-the-midst-of-an-energy-boom-electricity-prices-spike/

Here’s something of a mystery for all of you amateur sleuths out there. As has already been determined, America is experiencing a fossil fuels energy boom unlike any in living memory right now. Just yesterday, Erika ran down some of the numbers, with significant expansion being seen in domestic production of shale oil and natural gas. In the midst of all this plenty, you should all be kicking back and enjoying those sweet, lower energy bills, right?

Oddly enough… no.

In November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Electricity Price Index hit 202.284, an all-time record and nearly 20% higher than just six years ago.
This might strike some as strange, given the private-sector shale-fracking boom going on in the Midwest, Northeast and Texas, which has led to soaring new domestic supplies of natural gas and oil.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, as recently as 2008 the U.S. produced 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. Today, it’s 12.3 billion cubic feet and growing fast — truly astounding growth.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is on the verge of producing more oil than it ever has, and domestic sources now outstrip foreign ones. Thanks to fracking, more’s on the way.
But as energy booms, electricity prices are going up.

Huh. So I guess all that supply and demand malarkey they fed us in high school was just capitalist propaganda after all, eh? I mean, what could account for your electricity bills going up if the supply is more plentiful? Unless, of course, the invisible hand was being held in invisible handcuffs due to somebody’s thumb being on the scale.

What’s really at work here is simple: Through unnecessary regulations, government has destroyed another working market, telling us what kind of energy to use regardless of cost — based solely on the green movement’s moral beliefs about what kinds of energy are “good.”
Electricity is now one of the most regulated goods in the U.S. Thanks to the Environmental Protection Agency’s sweeping powers to regulate C02 — a power we can’t find anywhere in the Constitution — electricity is becoming a very expensive commodity.
And it’s about to get even more so. According to the Institute for Energy Research, EPA rules put in place to please environmentalists will remove 34,705 megawatts of coal-based energy capacity off our market.
Think about it: That’s equal to about 10% of what we now produce with coal being removed from the grid.

With the government “leaning forward” this way, they have vastly outpaced the ability of the industry to adapt. There were plans in place already to retire a number of coal fired plants over the next few decades, replacing or converting them to the cheaper, more plentiful natural gas supplies now available. But by leaping in with all of these regulations being dumped on the industry all at once, the available supply is dropping even as we swim in an ocean of fuel. And the prices go up to match.

That’s not the only area where you need to be concerned, of course. The Renewable Fuel Standard continues to mandate that increasing amounts of ethanol be put in your gasoline, lowering efficiency and in some cases, causing long term engine damage. But while traveling this week, I did see a sign of the times which shows that the free market works. There is a demand for gas without ethanol, and retailers have noticed. Keep your eye out for more of these in the near future.

There were a number of people who came after us, choosing to gas up at the non-ethanol pumps, even though the gas cost ten cents more per gallon. If you’d like to find stations near you where you can buy ethanol free gas, go here.

Welcome to the definitive list of stations that sell pure, ethanol-free gasoline in the U.S. and Canada!

http://pure-gas.org/

If you buy ethanol-free gas, and your station isn't listed here, please add it now!

State-by-state ethanol labeling requirements are listed at fuel-testers.com.

Please remove stations that no longer sell pure gas, even if you didn't post them! But please don't remove stations simply because they don't sell to autos – many folks use this site to find pure gas for their boats and planes.

Update or remove a station by clicking details->update this station on the station's listing.

Download the pure-gas.org card sheet, print it to card stock, cut the cards out and hand them to everyone you meet!

Alaska: all gasoline is ethanol-free.
New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, PEI: all premium grade gasoline is ethanol-free.
British Columbia: Chevron 94.
Ontario: Shell V-Power 91; Costco 91; Canadian Tire 91; Esso 91; Ultramar 91.
Quebec: Shell V-Power 91; Esso (all grades).

We currently have 7645 stations entered for the following provinces and states. Click on a province or state to see them!

Documents reveal top NSA hacking unit

by donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda)

http://theoldreader.com/profile/3cdfdfcc3b8eb1bf96b16c1b

The German newspaper Der Spiegel has unveiled a whole bunch of stuff about the NSA and its tools that defy belief. Their tools and actions go way beyond what we already knew; we're not just talking passive information gathering through cables and such, but way, way more. For instance, the NSA can divert shipments of purchased computers and equipment to their own secret workshops, where malware and spying hardware is added to these products before they are then shipped onward to the buyers. They also intercept Windows crash reports as they are sent from users' computers to Microsoft's servers. Worse yet, they can reportedly add special hardware to drones that can wirelessly infect computers from up to 8 kilometres away. We've only seen the tip of the iceberg here. The fact that no heads are rolling in Washington over this illustrates just how corrupt and undemocratic the US government has become.

Remlaps likes this

30 Dec 18:00

Forward!

by Kate

ZA&dunia

Senin, 30 Desember 2013