Our Plastic Dashboard Saint

Christians have little Saints on their car dashboards.

Meet ours, Brother Templar, who was a member of "The Poor Fellow Soldiers of Jesus Christ."

We thought it was time we shoved the "Tolerance and Diversity" where it ought to be shoved, and maybe start a new trend.

Does that sound like 'Hate Speech'? 

If it does take it up with the 1st Amendment. You need to deprogram yourself.

Bolton Announces US Will Not Cooperate With the International Criminal Court

What Does Memorial Day Look Like When The War Never Ends?

frontpagemag

May 28, 2018

Daniel Greenfield

 

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

What does Memorial Day mean in an age of endless war?

The era of wars that began and concluded neatly, with declarations, speeches, rules, objectives, deciding battles and signed peace accords, ended before the oldest active duty soldier serving today was born.

The men and women who fight and die, leaving their families never knowing if they will return, and in what form, serve not in wars, but endless police actions, peacekeeping missions, terrorist pursuits and nation building exercises with names that sound like obscure action movies, New Dawn, Inherent Resolve, Freedom’s Sentinel, that will never have a final ending, only another generic name.

Obama ended the Iraq War twice. It’s still ongoing. And likely will for all of human history.

We didn’t begin the Iraq War. Arguably Mohammed and the Sassanids did. Over 1,300 years later, the Persians and the rulers of Mecca and Medina are still fighting over Bahrain. When we left, it went on without us. And the Sunnis and Shiites, Mecca, Medina and Tehran, will go on fighting no matter what.

Civilized nations fight wars. And the places where we fight are not civilized, though they may have flags, anthems and constitutions. They’re murderous tribal wastelands torn by perpetual hatreds and feuds.

The Islamic resurgence has placed us in a state of permanent war. We may debate over which fronts that war should be fought on, but only the left can deny that the conflict itself is inescapable. We may fight it in Iraq or in New York, in Syria or in Sweden, the front lines may shift, but the war won’t go away.

And yet, paradoxically, this form of fighting takes us back to the origins of our military.

The heritage of the US Army goes back to the provincial regiments that fought in colonial territorial disputes with the French and defended the colonies against Indian raids. The Marine Corps shone at Tripoli in the Barbary Wars. Like the battles that their spiritual successors are called upon to fight today, these were conflicts with tribal raiders, bandits and territorial conflicts with no clear conclusion.

If you think the Afghanistan and Iraq wars are endless, the Indian wars arguably went on for 300 years.

We define our history by the definitive wars against European nations with definitive victories. The great cataclysmic world wars convinced us that our conflicts would get bigger and more explosive.

Instead we have returned to civilizational warfare. We no longer fight nations, but tribes. The wars are low intensity, but never go away. The weapons are primitive, but the goal of the attackers is to destroy our morale by inflicting psychological trauma, terrorizing us with barbaric atrocities, to defeat us.

Our military is still adapting its techniques and technology to this old/new way of war. But as a society we must also adapt the way we honor our troops and respect their sacrifices. Memorial Day was born out of the reconciliations between North and South after the Civil War. But we cannot look either to wars won or reconciliations achieved. We must honor the soldiers of a war that may never end.

The volunteer army has isolated entire cultural swathes of the country not only from military service, but from its realities, its virtues and its sacrifices. Paradoxically this too takes us back in time to an era when the wealthy could pay others to take their place in a regiment. But military service was always part of American life. The sacrifices of service and the nature of duty were widely understood.

The polarizing anthem protests reveal once again a divide between the parts of the country that understand military service and those that don’t. It is impossible to sustain patriotic communities without service. Those communities that do not serve in the military will instead take service in various causes, from political activism to gangs, as a substitute for what military service offers young men.

The war we are in is no longer a temporary emergency. And the military has been badly damaged by both the strains of recruitment in the previous decade and the social experiments of this decade.

To truly honor the sacrifices of those who fell in battle, we must set service at the heart of our society.

We are once again fighting wars in which everyone is on the front line. Whether as a soldier flying over Syria or the commuter on a bus targeted by a terrorist, we are all under fire. As we debate the Second Amendment, the role of militias and an armed populace are becoming more relevant than ever. And we must adapt both the military and the civilian populations to a definition of war that is both new and old.

Every terrorist attack erodes the distinction between the front line and the home front. And yet our language and understanding have been slow to adapt. The soldiers wounded in the Fort Hood attack had to struggle for their recognition against a tide of bureaucracy and political correctness. Arming soldiers in recruitment centers, like those shot and killed in the Chattanooga attacks, was another uphill battle. The National Guard has been sent to the border, but their hands have been mostly tied.

When we segregate the home front from the front line, we not only fail to grasp the nature and scope of the war we are fighting, but we also segregate the men and women who serve from everyone else.

The central principle of the militia was that everyone was at risk and so everyone was obligated to serve.

Not everyone ought to serve in the military, but everyone ought to understand the responsibility of that service and have a role in defending their community in even the smallest possible way. Every passenger who boards a plane is informed of his or her responsibility in the event of trouble. But when he lands, he walks off the plane with little idea of what he can do in the event that his country is under attack.

After 9/11, Americans were told to go shopping. They’re still shopping, and being targeted in malls.

In an age of endless war, the best way to honor those who take on the responsibility of that great service is to share their burden. There are important charities that help veterans. And it is always a good thing to thank those who serve for their service. But as a society, we must do more than thank, we must rebuild a society in which protecting the country is not only the duty of the fourth son of a poor family, but the duty of every single American. And in which it is what qualifies you to be an American.

That society will not be born overnight. But it is a society whose existence is intimately tied to our national survival. And it is a society worth fighting for.

The colonies and colonists prevailed against impossible odds to build the greatest nation in the world through a shared sense of solidarity, duty and sacrifice. America cannot expect to prevail through a civilizational war that may last centuries by expecting only a few percent of its population to take on that solidarity, that duty and those sacrifices. If we go on that way, we will not survive. And the sacrifices of those who fell in defense of the nation throughout the centuries will have been made in vain.

This Memorial Day, let us not only remember the sacrifices of the dead, but their sense of duty.




Thank You, to those to whom we owe everything.

NAVY Seal Who Shot bin Laden; "Don't Wish Me A Happy Memorial Day"

Weaselzippers
Via FOX News:

Don’t wish me a happy Memorial Day. There is nothing happy about the loss of the brave men and women of our armed forces who died in combat defending America. Memorial Day is not a celebration.

Memorial Day is a time for reflection, pause, remembrance and thanksgiving for patriots who gave up their own lives to protect the lives and freedom of us all – including the freedom of generations long gone and generations yet unborn. We owe the fallen a debt so enormous that it can never be repaid.

Memorial Day is a time to honor the lives of those who would rather die than take a knee when our national anthem is played. But they will fight and die for the rights of those who kneel.

This holiday is a time to think of young lives cut short, of wives and husbands turned into widows and widowers, of children growing up without a father or mother, of parents burying their children.

Memorial Day is a time to think of might have beens that never were. Of brave Americans who put their country before themselves. Without these heroes, America would not be America.

Unfortunately, for many Americans this solemn holiday might as well be called Summer Day – marking the unofficial start of the season of barbecues, days at the beach, time spent on baseball fields and golf courses, hiking and enjoying the great the outdoors. All those things are great – we all appreciate them and they are some of the best things in life.

But Memorial Day is not Summer Day. Nor was the holiday created as a way to promote sales of cars, furniture or clothes.

Another Memorial Day brings with it a whole lot more than the start of summer. Since last Memorial Day, grass is now growing above the final resting places of many young men and women whose lives were taken too soon while defending our country in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other far-off places many Americans have rarely heard of.

When Army Sgt. La David Johnson, Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, Sgt. 1st Class Jeremiah Johnson and Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright were killed last October in an ISIS ambush in Niger, many Americans asked: We have troops in Niger? These unknown soldiers lost their lives protecting you – every one of you reading these words.

Think about this: Millions of high-school seniors are walking across auditorium stages this season, receiving their diplomas. Most will go on to college or jobs, but some will choose a career of military service, joining the second generation of American warriors fighting in the Global War on Terror – a war that began with the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that took the lives of almost 3,000 people in our homeland.

Keep reading…



Thank you Robert O'Neill, Fox, and WZ.

Minnesota Republicans Call For Crackdown On Child-Care Assistance Fraud (Diverted to Terrorists)

Star Tribune
Chris Serres Star Tribune
May 15, 2018 — 9:57pm

Key lawmaker calls a report of pilfered money going to overseas terrorists "extremely troubling."



Rep. Mary Franson, R-Alexandria listened as Rep. Nick Zerwas, R-Elk River railed against alleged abuse of child-care funds. 

 Minnesota Republicans said Tuesday they want to crack down on subsidized child-care providers who commit fraud, following a television news report that suggested illegally obtained funds may be going overseas to finance terrorist groups.

State and federal officials said Tuesday that they’ve seen no evidence of a link between Minnesota day-care operators and overseas terrorist groups, but that they welcome any additional resources to investigate fraud against the state’s child-care subsidy program.

The legislation introduced Tuesday would enable the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) to close child-care businesses that participate in the program but fail to fully cooperate with investigators. It would also create new criminal and civil penalties for anyone who transferred fraudulently obtained money to countries on the U.S. State Department’s travel ban list.

The legislation, announced abruptly at a news conference, would also direct the state Legislative Auditor to investigate the Child Care Assistance Program, which subsidizes the child-care expenses of about 29,000 low-income children per month.

It’s in response to a Fox 9 news report that said Minnesota refugee families are taking suitcases full of cash on flights from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to countries in Africa and the Middle East where terrorist groups are active.

Thank You Mr. Seres and Star Tribune 

Read More

Thousands of Gaza Hamas Thugs Attack Israel For $100 A Day

frontpagemag

They attack for $100 a day. And Israeli soldiers fight them for $13 a day.

May 15, 2018

Daniel Greenfield

 
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

Hamas supporters in Gaza held the world’s first peaceful protest with hand grenades, pipe bombs, cleavers and guns. Ten explosive devices were peacefully detonated. There were outbursts of peaceful gunfire and over a dozen kites carrying firebombs were sent into Israel where they started 23 peaceful fires. And Israeli soldiers peacefully defended their country leaving multiple Hamas attackers at peace.

"We will tear down the border," Hamas Prime Minister Yahya Sinwar had peacefully vowed. "And we will tear out their hearts from their bodies."

But the only hearts his terror thugs tore out were already bleeding with sympathy for Islamic terrorists.

The Hamas mob chanted, “Allahu Akbar” and the genocidal racist threat of, “Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud," a reference to the primal Islamic massacre of the Jews. While IDF soldiers held back the invaders, the jets of the IAF targeted the snake’s head striking Hamas compounds and outposts. By 5.30 PM, the Hamas organizers changed course and began urging the thugs away from further fence attacks.

Hamas had offered $100 to every rioter. During previous violent assaults back in April, the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group had been offering $200 to anyone shot by Israelis, $500 for severe injuries and $3,000 to the dead.

$100 a day may not seem like a lot, but the Israeli teen soldiers they’re trying to kill, earn $13 a day.

The Hamas supporting thugs are depicted as helpless, starving victims who can barely lift the firebombs they’re throwing at Israelis, but they make ten times as much as the Israeli soldiers they are there to kill.

Hamas can write all those checks to its aspiring killers because the cash is coming from Iran.

Last year, Senwar, whom Israel had released in exchange for captured Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit, had boasted that Iran was once again "the largest backer financially and militarily".

That comes out to an estimated $100 million a year.

With as many as 50,000 Hamas supporters in Gaza participating in the day’s attacks at $100 a head, over 1,000 allegedly injured at least $200 each, and another 52 allegedly killed at $3,000 each (there is no reason to treat Hamas casualty figures coming out of Gaza as anything other than propaganda), the whole thing cost Hamas and Iran $5.3 million. The unmarked cargo plane filled with foreign currency that Obama dispatched to Iran carried $400 million. That was part of a known $1.7 billion cash payment.

But the total Obama terror payments to Tehran may go as high as $33.6 billion.

Despite media misreporting, the Hamas mass fence attacks began back on March 30 and even though their Great March of Return was supposed to end in mid-May, the show proved to be unexpectedly popular in Tehran, Brussels and Berkeley, and the attacks will continue through at least June.

Even a single one of Obama’s cash smuggling runs to Iran is enough to fund attacks just like these for two and a half months. And the $100,000 that an Iranian group offered to anyone who blows up the embassy? That illegal cash run can pay for bounties on every American diplomatic facility in the world.

Lefties bemoaning Israel’s moral authority can look up and follow the money trail from Iran’s IRGC (the terror mothership whom Obama resisted sanctioning), to the unmarked cargo planes from Obama, and to their own greasy little fingers that pushed the button or marked the ballot for him. The Israeli teens in IDF khaki with rules of engagement for using force longer than some graduate thesis papers are dealing with a problem from hell created by Democrat voters who wanted to feel inspired by Obama.

The cost of that inspiration today ran to dozens dead. If the Israeli teens shooting in self-defense lack moral authority, where is the moral authority of the Obama voters whose votes financed the attack?

Those Israeli teens in green earn $408 a month if they're in a combat unit. Before a raise a few years ago, they weren't even earning $300. Support units earn $327 and rear units $225. Not only is that far lower than the average civilian salary, but if often hardly covers living expenses. Dodging the draft isn’t hard these days. The average red-shirted hipster does it easily, putting in a few years at a fake startup before heading to Berlin to protest Zionism. And those who serve know if that they make a single mistake, if they shoot an attacker who turns out not to be armed, Israeli leftists will see them jailed.

Hamas supporters charge at them for $100 a day. And IDF soldiers hold the line for $400 a month.




So why for $400 a month, do Israeli soldiers face down mobs of tens of thousands of Hamas supporters baying for their blood? The average IDF soldier who reports for duty comes from one of the Judean communities (slurred as settlements) under attack by Hamas or from development towns in the north under attack by Hezbollah. He is often a religious settler who sees the hand of G-d in the high hills or a descendant of Mizrahi immigrants whose recent ancestors were oppressed under Muslim rule.

When your family lives under fire, holding the line on the Hamas mob isn’t an abstract idea of duty.

The Hamas invaders were there to kill Israelis. The Israeli soldiers were there to protect Israelis. The attackers were invading someone else’s land while the defenders were protecting their own country.

That’s why Hamas has to pay its rioting thugs ten times as much as Israeli soldiers earn to attack them.

While the $100 a day thugs threw rocks and firebombs, the professional terrorists hung back waiting for a breach in the fence. Some were caught planting bombs. And killed. They are among the 10 known Hamas terrorists killed in the Gaza fighting and bemoaned by the media as victims of a Jewish massacre.

The $400 a month Israeli teenager with a rifle is there as the front line in case the fence is breached. Hamas wants to take more hostages to free more terrorists. If it can’t do that, it will kill them. And if the attackers make it past the soldiers, they will hit Israeli towns and villages hoping to kill anyone they find.

While the fence holds up, the Hamas terrorists and their supporters sent flaming kites in the hopes of setting Israeli farms and fields on fire. One such attack had already destroyed 400 acres of wheat.

A sympathetic New York Times piece from last week described the "flaming-kite squadrons" prepping hundreds of fire kites, but unfortunately, "The wind was blowing the other way."

“The wind is still against us,” Ismail al-Qrinawi whined. “We are waiting for it to pick up so we can fly tens of kites and burn their crops." Instead, "the direction of the wind not only thwarted the kites, but also blew copious amounts of Israeli tear gas toward the protesters."

Pharaoh and his legions had the same bad experience with the wind. G-d must be an Islamophobe.

Hamas organized the invasion. It urged its human shields to head to the fence telling them that the Israelis had run away. That was the same way Egypt’s Nasser had tricked Jordan’s King Hussein during the Six Day War. Instead of defeating the Israelis and salvaging Gaza, Nasser’s scheme led to the liberation of Jerusalem, along with Judea and Samaria by the indigenous Jewish people. And it also had disastrous consequences for this latest attempted invasion by Egyptian-Jordanian settlers into Israel.

While the Hamas supporters were destroying their own crossing point infrastructure, as they had previously trashed their own gas lines, the United States was inaugurating the opening of an embassy in Jerusalem. Despite media misinformation, the riots predated the embassy and will postdate it.

The media used contrasting photos of the embassy opening and the Pallywood fake photos of protesters crying for the cameras and pretending to limp on crutches to smear Israel and America. And as usual they missed the real story. While Israelis and Americans were building something, Muslim terrorists were destroying everything they could get their hands on. While Rabbis and Pastors blessed, Imams cursed.

Hamas Sheikh Iyad Abu Funun had sworn on the Koran that, "We will not leave a single Jew on our Islamic land." It did not matter, “whether left-Wing, right-wing, secular, religious, or extremist.”

That is what this is about.

The dedication of the embassy is a leap of faith. Faith in building rather than destruction. Faith in life instead of death. Faith in the G-d who watches over Jerusalem, not the Allah for whom Gaza burns.


Thank You Mr Greenfield and FPM

Former Obama Officials Suggest European Allies Expel American Diplomats (for Pulling Out of Iran Deal)

dailycaller
Peter Hasson Reporter
7:04 PM 05/12/2018



Two former Obama administration officials suggested that America’s European allies should punish President Donald Trump for withdrawing from the Iran deal and levying additional sanctions on the Islamic republic.

The European Union and individual European countries are obligated to take aggressive steps to preserve the Iran deal, in order to avoid becoming Trump’s “doormat,” Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson argued in an op-ed that ran in The New York Times Thursday. Both Simon and Stevenson were directors on former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council (NSC).

“The European Union could, for instance, announce the withdrawal of member-states’ ambassadors from the United States. Isn’t this what states do when diplomatic partners breach solemn agreements, expose them to security risks and threaten to wreak havoc on their economies? That is, after all, what the administration is threatening to do by courting the risk of a Middle Eastern war and applying secondary sanctions to European companies,” they argued. “Depending on the American response, European capitals might even follow up with expulsion of American ambassadors.”

“It would be hard to fault these moves as irresponsible, given that they would not impair vital security functions like intelligence-sharing and law enforcement coordination. They would, however, symbolize a stark diplomatic breach that could extend to other areas in which the Trump administration needs allied support,” the former Obama officials wrote. “Thus, the White House would face the first hard choice in this whole process: a full-blown crisis in trans-Atlantic relations. If the administration’s next move were to impose secondary sanctions on Europe, the Europeans could slap its own penalties on American multinational corporations, which in turn would place additional pressure on the White House.”

Simon and Stevenson conceded it would be “radical” for Europe to sanction American companies in order to protect the Iran deal, but claimed that “it would arise in response to correspondingly egregious American behavior.” (RELATED: Obamas Have Slammed Trump A Dozen Times Since Leaving The White House, Breaking With Precedent)

Obama himself sharply and publicly criticized Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran deal — breaking with precedent that presidents refrain from criticizing their successor. The former president and former first lady Michelle Obama have publicly slammed Trump a dozen times since they left the White House. 


Thank You Mr Hasson and the DC. 

Congressional Hearing: Iranian Sleeper Cells Threaten U.S.

NAZIs and Socialists Are The Same Bunch of Idiots

Feel Good Video of the Day. ISIS Moron Planting IED Blows Himself Up

Video: 3 New Airstrikes Against Taliban: DoD Footage

Here Comes Snowden 2.0: How The Govt. Determines If You're A Terrorist Threat

via Zero Hedge;

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/05/2014 15:23 -0400

Moments ago CNN blasted a headline stating that the US believes there is a new, post-Snowden leaker exposing national security. Why? The reason is the following article that was released a few hours ago by the Intercept, and which is an expose on yet another classified system called Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), in which we read: "The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama Administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the terrorist screening system. Since taking office, Obama has boosted the number of people on the no fly list more than ten-fold, to an all-time high of 47,000—surpassing the number of people barred from flying under George W. Bush." And there is Snowden 2.0.

Aside from this rather stunning revelation, we also learn the following:

• The second-highest concentration of people designated as “known or suspected terrorists” by the government is in Dearborn, Mich.—a city of 96,000 that has the largest percentage of Arab-American residents in the country.
• The government adds names to its databases, or adds information on existing subjects, at a rate of 900 records each day.
• The CIA uses a previously unknown program, code-named Hydra, to secretly access databases maintained by foreign countries and extract  data to add to the watchlists.
• 16,000 people, including 1,200 Americans, have been classified as “selectees” who are targeted for enhanced screenings at airports and border crossings.
• There are 611,000 men on the main terrorist watchlist and 39,000 women.
• The top five U.S. cities represented on the main watchlist for “known or suspected terrorists” are New York; Dearborn, Mich.; Houston; San Diego; and Chicago. At 96,000 residents, Dearborn is much smaller than the other cities in the top five, suggesting that its significant Muslim population—40 percent of its population is of Arab descent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau—has been disproportionately targeted for watchlisting.
• The top “nominating agencies” responsible for placing people on the government’s watchlists are: the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
• In 2013, the main terrorism database included more than 860,000 biometric files on 144,000 people.
• The database contains more than a half a million facial images, nearly a quarter of a million fingerprints and 70,000 iris scans.
• The government maintains biometric data on people that it hasn’t identified–TIDE contains 1,800 “BUPs,” or “biometrics of unknown persons.”
• In a single year, the government expanded its collection of “non-traditional” biometric data, including dramatic increases in handwriting samples (32 percent), signatures (52 percent), scars, marks, and tattoos (70 percent), and DNA strands (90 percent).

Snowden 2.0 speaks:

A U.S. government official told The Intercept that as of November 2013, there were approximately 700,000 people in the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, but declined to provide the current numbers. Last month, the Associated Press, citing federal court filings by government lawyers, reported that there have been 1.5 million names added to the watchlist over the past five years. The government official told The Intercept that was a misinterpretation of the data. “The list has grown somewhat since that time, but is nowhere near the 1.5 million figure cited in recent news reports,” he said. He added that the statistics cited by the Associated Press do not just include nominations of individuals, but also bits of intelligence or biographical information obtained on watchlisted persons.

So how does the US government if you are a "potential terrorist":

Most people placed on the government’s watchlist begin in a larger, classified system known as the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE). The TIDE database actually allows for targeting people based on far less evidence than the already lax standards used for placing people on the watchlist. A more expansive—and invasive—database, TIDE’s information is shared across the U.S. intelligence community, as well as with commando units from the Special Operations Command and with domestic agencies such as the New York City Police Department.

The documents also offer a glimpse into which groups the government is targeting in its counterterrorism mission. The groups with the largest number of targeted people on the main terrorism watchlist—aside from “no recognized terrorist group affiliation”—are al Qaeda in Iraq (73,189), the Taliban (62,794), and al Qaeda (50,446). Those are followed by Hamas (21,913) and Hezbollah (21,199).

Although the Obama administration has repeatedly asserted that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula poses the most significant external terrorist threat to the United States, the 8,211 people identified as being tied to the group actually represent the smallest category on the list of the top ten recognized terrorist organizations. AQAP is outnumbered by people suspected of ties to the Pakistan-based Haqqani Network (12,491), the Colombia-based FARC (11,275,) and the Somalia-based al-Shabab (11,547).

The documents also reveal that as of last year, the U.S. had designated 3,200 people as “known or suspected terrorists” associated with the war in Syria. Among them were 715 Europeans and Canadians, as well as 41 Americans. Matt Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, recently claimed that there are more than 12,000 foreign fighters in Syria, including more than 1,000 Westerners and roughly 100 Americans.

Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.

In shrug chart format:

And the punchline: a dystopia in which Tom Cruise drops out of drone and shoots you before you have even done anything.

“We’re getting into Minority Report territory when being friends with the wrong person can mean the government puts you in a database and adds DMV photos, iris scans, and face recognition technology to track you secretly and without your knowledge,” says Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “The fact that this information can be shared with agencies from the CIA to the NYPD, which are not known for protecting civil liberties, brings us closer to an invasive and rights-violating government surveillance society at home and abroad.”

Much more in the full Intercept article.

But wait, because this is where it gets even more surreal.

Presenting the US disinformation propaganda bureau in its full grandure. From HuffPo:

The Associated Press dropped a significant scoop on Tuesday afternoon, reporting that in the last several years the U.S. government's terrorism watch list has doubled.

A few minutes after the AP story, then consisting of three paragraphs, was posted at 12:32 p.m., The Intercept published a much more comprehensive article. The original article, which has since been updated and expanded, appears below:

The government, it turned out, had "spoiled the scoop," an informally forbidden practice in the world of journalism. To spoil a scoop, the subject of a story, when asked for comment, tips off a different, typically friendlier outlet in the hopes of diminishing the attention the first outlet would have received. Tuesday's AP story was much friendlier to the government's position, explaining the surge of individuals added to the watch list as an ongoing response to a foiled terror plot.

The practice of spoiling a scoop is frowned upon because it destroys trust between the journalist and the subject. In the future, the journalist is much less willing to share the contents of his or her reporting with that subject, which means the subject is given less time, or no time at all, to respond with concerns about the reporting.

The government's decision to spoil a story on the topic of national security is especially unusual, given that it has a significant interest in earning the trust of national security reporters so that it can make its case that certain information should remain private.

After the AP story ran, The Intercept requested a conference call with the National Counterterrorism Center. A source with knowledge of the call said that the government agency admitted having fed the story to the AP, but didn't think the reporter would publish before The Intercept did. "That was our bad," the official said.

Asked by The Intercept editor John Cook if it was the government's policy to feed one outlet's scoop to a friendlier outlet, a silence ensued, followed by the explanation: “We had invested some quality time with Eileen," referring to AP reporter Eileen Sullivan, who the official added had been out to visit the NCTC.

"After seeing you had the docs, and the fact we had been working with Eileen, we did feel compelled to give her a heads up," the official said, according to the source. "We thought she would publish after you."

...

AP spokesman Paul Colford responded to questions about the timing of the stories in a statement to The Huffington Post: "Pulitzer Prize-winning AP reporter Eileen Sullivan has been covering this territory for a long time. She gathered and reported additional news today as part of her expertise on this subject."

Not even Orwell could have foreseen the government waging such an open propaganda war...

In the meantime, don't be cyncial of the world's most "transparent" administration: be hopeful; after all you still haven't been killed for a crime you never committed.

Thank You Mr Durden and Zero Hedge.