SENIOR CITIZENS LOCKED INSIDE YELLOWSTONE BY ARMED GUARDS DUE TO GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Fearless Investigative Grassroots Journalism

Inciting Fear With Unnecessary Shutdowns
To Inflict Maximum Public Pain

Kristin Tate, Full Disclosure — What should have been a beautiful, relaxing trip, turned into a dark nightmare for many tourists in America’s national parks during the last week.

Thanks to the partial government shutdown, some people were locked inside Yellowstone National Park for days.

Pat Vaillancourt was one of those people. She came into Yellowstone with a bus tour group, which “included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada, and the United States.” They were on a nine day tour of national parks when the government shut down on October 1.

When the tour bus arrived at the Old Faithful Inn, located near the middle of the massive park, the group was locked inside by armed guards, who rudely told the tourists they could not leave. The inn was barricaded.

Vaillancourt said, “They looked like Hulk Hogans, armed. They told us you can’t go outside. Some of the Asians who were on the tour said, ‘Oh my God, are we under arrest?’ They felt like they were criminals.”

Vaillancourt and her tour group finally left the park after two days. She said the bus was not allowed to make any bathroom stops for over 2.5 hours as it left the park. When the group stopped at a private dude ranch for a planned bathroom stop, they were told to leave. According to Vaillancourt, the dude ranch said that they would be shut down if they allowed the bus to come in for a rest stop.

Vaillancourt and the others on her bus were not the only people to get this rough treatment. According to the Eagle Tribune, nearly 1,000 people were in a national park when the federal government shut down.

Understandably, Vaillancourt was disturbed by her experience in Yellowstone. What seems to have upset her the most, though, was how harsh the armed park employees were.

She concluded, “We’ve become a country of fear, guns and control. It was like they brought out the armed forces. Nobody was saying, ‘We’re sorry.’”

Clearly, the Obama administration is frustrated that the House Republicans refuse to fully fund Obamacare. It is not hard to surmise that the administration could be taking out that frustration on the American public, and aiming to make a political point by inciting fear with unnecessary shutdowns to inflict maximum public pain.

Vaillancourt’s disturbing story does not sound like a vacation in “the land of the free.”

What has become of America?

» Full Article
» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | Website
» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | YouTube

About the Author

Kristin Tate is a multi-media journalist. She previously worked under John Stossel at Fox Business, and with guerilla journalist James O’Keefe. Tate was a Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) Chapter President and Founder in Boston. She has been heavily involved in the libertarian movement, campaigning for notable candidates like Ron Paul and Thomas Massie. She will continue to fight tirelessly for individual liberty and free markets through journalism and new media.

---

Other Popular News Items On Ben Swann

» Ben Swann Biography

» Exclusive: Many Americans Suffering Sticker Shock: Is Obamacare Really Affordable?

It’s Day 8 of the Federal Government shutdown and many citizens who are able to sign up for healthcare under the Affordable Care Act are shocked how to see how expensive the plans are for working middle class families.

» Feds Now Blocking Children From Going To School And Families From Visiting Dead Relatives

It is perhaps worth mentioning that when government builds the roads- it also gets to close them whenever it feels like it (just because). The latest round of political theater from the Obama administration has hit in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. In an attempt to make residents of Tennessee suffer, the only safe road for school buses to travel on has been shut down. Furthermore, the feds have stepped in and shut down family cemeteries no longer allowing living relatives to visit their deceased loved ones.

» Truth In Media: A Constitutional Republic Allows Us To Take Back Power From Government

The Patriot Act was rushed into law just after September 11th, 2001 as Congress threw its hands in the air and decided that safety was more important than liberty. Government agencies took a law that allowed the Constitution to be trampled and handed a blank check to government agencies. 12 years later, we’re surprised that the feds are abusing that power?

MORE AMERICANS “RETHINKING” 9/11?

Fearless Investigative Grassroots Journalism

Ben Swann Truth In Media

» Video missing? Watch full screen here

“Ben Swann takes a look at claims by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth about why they say the official story on the collapse of Building 7 is not only untrue, it is not possible. Also, a new poll shows that more and more Americans are now rethinking the official story.”

» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | Website
» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | YouTube


» Ben Swann Biography

OBAMACARE FORCES ITS WAY INTO YOUR PRIVATE SEX LIFE

Fearless Investigative Grassroots Journalism

Doctors Will Be Financially Punished
If They Fail To Ask Such Questions

Kristin Tate, Full Disclosure — “Pro-choicers” often hold signs at rallies that say things like, “Stay Out Of My Uterus.” Now conservatives might be sporting similar signs to protest Obamacare.

Under Obamacare, all doctors – from dermatologists, to podiatrists, to neurologists – will be asking very personal questions about your sex life. Questions like, “Are you sexually active?”, “With whom?” and “How many sexual partners do you have?”

Doctors will be financially punished if they fail to ask such questions.

Here is how it will work: under Obamacare, all doctors who do not use electronic methods by 2015 will face heavy fines from Medicare and Medicaid.

In those records, the government has mandated that doctors include details pertaining to patients’ sex life.

Some doctors say the regulations could harm the patient-doctor relationship. Dr. Richard Amerling, a nephrologist and professor at Albert Einstein Medical College, said the requirements make your medical record “into an interrogation, and the data will not be confidential.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union is concerned about privacy (or lack thereof). In a 2012 report, the group pointed out that almost all information on a patient’s medical record can be found with one click of a mouse.

As Betsy McCaughey of the New York Post argued that should be assertive and defend their personal privacy. She wrote, “WikiLeaker Bradley Manning showed how incompetent the government is at keeping its own secrets; incidents where various agencies accidentally disclose personal data like Social Security numbers are legion. And that’s not to mention the ways in which commercial databases are prone to hacking and/or exploitation.”

In the 1980s and 1990s, women’s rights activists vehemently protested the federal government’s ability to access a woman’s health records.

Ironically, women’s rights groups have not made a peep about the intrusive Obamacare mandates.

Obamacare is arguably an intrusive vehicle for the federal government to push its way into our private business and bodies. » Full Article

» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | Website
» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | YouTube

About the Author

Kristin Tate is a multi-media journalist. She previously worked under John Stossel at Fox Business, and with guerilla journalist James O’Keefe. Tate was a Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) Chapter President and Founder in Boston. She has been heavily involved in the libertarian movement, campaigning for notable candidates like Ron Paul and Thomas Massie. She will continue to fight tirelessly for individual liberty and free markets through journalism and new media.

---

Other Popular News Items On Ben Swann

» Ben Swann Biography

» 8 Crazy Ways The Government Watches Us

» Exclusive: School Teaches Students It’s Constitutional For Cops To Confiscate Guns

» Book Used By Schools Changes Meaning Of Second Amendment

THE MOST DANGEROUS DOMESTIC SPYING PROGRAM IS ‘COMMON CORE’

Fearless Investigative Grassroots Journalism

» Ben Swann Biography

---

The Government Won’t Be The Only Organization
With Access To The Information

Joshua Cook, Full Disclosure — Earlier this year, revelations about the Department of Justice spying on the Associated Press were quickly followed by revelations that the NSA was collecting phone data on all Verizon, and then all American cell phone, users. Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing drew yet more attention to the issue, and domestic surveillance programs have remained a top issue in people’s minds ever since.

While Americans focus on institutions like the CIA and NSA, though, programs are being implemented which would lead to a much more institutional way of tracking citizens. Obamacare is one of these, but Common Core Standards – the federal educational program – is the most eyebrow-raising.

Bill Gates was one of the leaders of Common Core, putting his personal money into its development, implementation and promotion, so it’s unsurprising that much of this data mining will occur via Microsoft’s Cloud system.

Even the Department of Education, though, admits that privacy is a concern, and that that some of the data gathered may be “of a sensitive nature.” The information collected will be more than sensitive; much of it will also be completely unrelated to education. Data collected will not only include grades, test scores, name, date of birth and social security number, it will also include parents’ political affiliations, individual or familial mental or psychological problems, beliefs, religious practices and income.

In addition, all activities, as well as those deemed demeaning, self-incriminating or anti-social, will be stored in students’ school records. In other words, not only will permanently stored data reflect criminal activities, it will also reflect bullying or anything perceived as abnormal. The mere fact that the White House notes the program can be used to “automatically demonstrate proof of competency in a work setting” means such data is intended to affect students’ futures.

Perhaps even more alarming is the fact that data collection will also include critical appraisals of individuals with whom students have close family relationships. The Common Core program has been heavily scrutinized recently for the fact that its curriculum teaches young children to use emotionally charged language to manipulate others and teaches students how to become community organizers and experts of the U.N.’s agenda 21.

Combined with this form of data collection, it’s easy to envision truly disturbing untruths and distortions making their way into the permanent record.

Like Common Core, states were bribed with grant money from the federal government to implement data mining, and 47 states have now implemented some form of data mining from the educational system. Only 9 have implemented the full Common Core data mining program. Though there are restrictions which make storing data difficult on the federal level, states can easily store the data and allow the federal government to access it at its own discretion.

The government won’t be the only organization with access to the information. School administrators have full control over student files, and they can choose who to share information with. Theoretically, the information could be sold, perhaps withholding identifying information. In addition, schools can share records with any “school official” without parental consent. The term “school official,” however, includes private companies which have contracts with the school.

NSA data mining is troubling because it could lead to intensely negative outcomes, because it opens up new avenues for control, and because it is fundamentally wrong. Common Core data mining, tracking students with GPS devices however, is far, far scarier.

It gives the government the ability to completely control the futures of every student of public education, and that will soon extend to private and home schools. It provides a way to intimidate students – who already have a difficult time socially – into conforming to norms which are not only social, but also political and cultural.

» Full Article
» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | Website
» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | YouTube

About the Author

Joshua Cook is a native and resident of the South Carolina Upstate. He received his MBA from North Greenville University and is actively involved in South Carolina politics.

---

The Radical Progressive Left’s
Public School Indoctrination Agenda

(UPDATE: 47 States have now adopted Common Core)

COMMON CORE: Educate Yourself On The Consequences

“Fundamental Transformation Of America”... It’s Here Now

» STOP COMMON CORE

» THE WHOLE STORY ON COMMON CORE

» WANT TO SEE WHAT CSCOPE AND COMMON CORE (EVEN HOMESCHOOLING) LESSONS LOOK LIKE? THESE PARENTS OPENED UP TO THEBLAZE

» INDOCTRINATION AND THE PROGRESSIVE FUTURE; BIG GOV, BIG CORP, AND COMMON CORE

» SOS: STAND AGAINST 'MOST IMPORTANT' PIECE OF “FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION”... IT'S HERE NOW

» WHAT INFORMATION IS BEING COLLECTED ON YOUR KIDS THROUGH 'COMMON CORE'?

» EXPOSING COMMON CORE: KIDS ARE BEING INDOCTRINATED WITH EXTREME LEFTIST IDEOLOGY

» ALBANY HIGH SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT: THINK LIKE A NAZI AND DEMOSTRATE JEWS ARE EVIL

» INDOCTRINATION: 4TH GRADER TAUGHT GIVING UP CONSTITUTION RIGHTS FOR SECURITY IS OK

» NEW YORK PARENTS HAVE ANTI-COMMON CORE PLAN

» ‘EVERYTHING I LOVE ABOUT TEACHING IS EXTINCT’: TEACHER RESIGNS IN SCATHING YOUTUBE VIDEO TARGETING STANDARDIZED EDUCATION

» MORE COMMON CORE & CSCOPE ARTICLES

» HERE IT COMES: COMMON CORE & UNAPPROVED IRIS SCANS

» THE MOST DANGEROUS DOMESTIC SPYING PROGRAM IS COMMON CORE

EXCLUSIVE: NSA USING COPYRIGHT CLAIMS TO CRUSH FREE SPEECH?

Fearless Investigative Grassroots Journalism

Reality Check

» Video missing? Watch full screen here

Transcript

Can a government agency block criticism by claiming copyright infringement? Sounds a bit ridiculous but it is happening. The NSA is effectively stopping one small business owner from criticism, claiming that by using its name he has infringed on their copyright.

Can they do that?

This is a Reality Check you won’t see anywhere else.

This is a story I had a hard time believing until I looked into it for myself. Here is the backstory.

Dan McCall is the owner of a company that makes snarky t-shirts. The company is called Liberty Maniacs. Liberty Maniacs carry a number of t-shirts dealing with lack of privacy and the growing police state. They sell on a site called www.Zazzle.com

None of it has been a problem—until Liberty Maniacs released a shirt called “The NSA.”

The image looks like the NSA logo but has a motto that is clearly a pun—“Peeping while you are sleeping”—followed by the phrase “The NSA, the only part of government that actually listens.”

Shortly after the shirt went online, www.Zazzle.com pulled the shirt from its website, sending this message: “Thank you for publishing products on Zazzle.

Unfortunately, it appears that your product, The NSA, contains content that is in conflict with one or more of our acceptable content guidelines. We will be removing this product from the Zazzle Marketplace shortly.

“Policy Notes: Design contains an image or text that may infringe on intellectual property rights. We have been contacted by the intellectual property right holder and we will be removing your product from Zazzle’s Marketplace due to infringement claims.”

Dan McCall, the owner of Liberty Maniacs spoke with me via Skype and says there were multiple items dealing with the NSA that were pulled down from Zazzle.

“In terms of shirts, two, and then maybe four or five bumper stickers. Basically anything remotely relating to the NSA was taken down. So I’m not sure if that was subsequently a blanket policy that Zazzle themselves put up because they don’t want to deal with the hassle and they didn’t want to spend time interpreting each thing knowing they would run into problems or if they were plugged into NSA legal and they were watching things as they go,” says McCall.

So to be clear, McCall was using the NSA logo, the NSA claimed copyright infringement and Zazzle.com pulled the content down.

In fairness, what McCall was doing does use the official logo of a government agency. Can anyone just use that logo? Actually, yes. According to both the Electronic Freedom Foundation and the American Bar Association, “parody is recognized as a type of fair use, like other commentary and criticism, and courts recognize that a parody must often take recognizable elements from the work it comments upon.

Courts do distinguish parody from satire. Parody copies from the object it mocks…”

You can’t claim copyright infringement if your logo or image is used as part of a parody. So the next question, is this logo a parody?

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, a parody “is the use of some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author’s works. Like other forms of comment or criticism, parody can provide social benefit, by shedding light on an earlier work, and, in the process, creating a new one.”

“According to the [U.S. Supreme] Court, a parody is the ‘use of some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author’s works.’ Id. at 580. Like other forms of comment or criticism, parody can provide social benefit, ‘by shedding light on an earlier work, and, in the process, creating a new one.’ Id.” –Juli Wilson Marshall, Nicholas J. Siciliano, Latham & Watkins LLP

McCall says, “I tried to visually take the most obvious direction at pointing at them that I could. It was their logo. I just tried to adulterate it a little bit and put a few jabs in there and that will be it. So it wasn’t a huge design coup and it did the job basically.”

Now, what might be the most interesting twist in this entire story is that while the NSA is claiming copyright infringement against McCall for his parody, the NSA itself is facing accusations of true copyright infringement.

Take a look at this image. This is the official NSA logo for the Prism program. Prism is, of course, the program that deals with NSA spying via email and phone records.

According to reports from England, the Prism image used here is being used without permission.

Adam Hart Davis is a well-known BBC presenter and the image belongs to him. Here is the Davis pic. As you can see, the NSA image is just Davis’ picture flipped upside down. Adam’s son, Damon, who wrote about this in the Register Newspaper, claims that the image is free for use, but a donation is requested and, at minimum, use of the image requires a link to his photo gallery and acknowledgement, none of which he has received from the NSA.

What you need to know is that because the work put out by Liberty Maniacs is clearly a parody, it is not copyright infringement. That is the easiest part of this story.

But the bigger issue here is the issue of free speech. It is a first amendment issue. McCall sees it that way as well.

“First amendment issues affect everybody and it specifically affects everybody who is expressing themselves—any artist, whether on the right or on the left or in the middle or whatever side. If you are not allowed to express yourself artistically or in many other ways, we have taken a turn for the worse,” says McCall.

Bottom line, there is no gray area here. But the NSA is a very powerful government agency. They don’t need a gray area or even to be right to get companies like Zazzle.com to cooperate.

This is why Internet piracy bills like SOPA and PIPA and CISPA are so dangerous. If those bills become law, all the feds have to do is claim copyright infringement to shut down an entire site. They don’t have to be right.

Dan McCall’s story is just a taste of what happens when government agencies decide they will enforce laws but not be subject to them.

And that is Reality Check. » Full Article

» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | Website
» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | YouTube
» Ben Swann | Biography

OBAMACARE PROVISION: “FORCED” HOME INSPECTIONS

Fearless Investigative Grassroots Journalism

» Ben Swann Biography

---

Obamacare Provision Targets
Millions Of Americans

“Clearly, any family may be visited by federally paid agents...
for almost any reason.”

Joshua Cook, Full Disclosure — According to an Obamacare provision millions of Americans will be targeted.

The Health and Human Services’ website states that your family will be targeted if you fall under the “high-risk” categories below:

• Families where mom is not yet 21.

• Families where someone is a tobacco user.

• Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities.

• Families with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States.

There is no reference to Medicaid being the determinant for a family to be “eligible.”

In 2011, the HHS announced $224 million will be given to support evidence-based home visiting programs to “help parents and children.” Individuals from the state will implement these leveraging strategies to “enhance program sustainability.”

Constitutional attorney and author Kent Masterson Brown states:

“This is not a “voluntary” program. The eligible entity receiving the grant for performing the home visits is to identify the individuals to be visited and intervene so as to meet the improvement benchmarks. A homeschooling family, for instance, may be subject to “intervention” in “school readiness” and “social-emotional developmental indicators.” A farm family may be subject to “intervention” in order to “prevent child injuries.” The sky is the limit.

Although the Obama administration would claim the provision applies only to Medicaid families, the new statute, by its own definition, has no such limitation. Intervention may be with any family for any reason. It may also result in the child or children being required to go to certain schools or taking certain medications and vaccines and even having more limited – or no – interaction with parents. The federal government will now set the standards for raising children and will enforce them by home visits.”

Part of the program will require massive data collecting of private information including all sources of income and the amount gathered from each source.

A manual called Child Neglect: A Guide for Prevention, Assessment, and Intervention includes firearms as potential safety hazard and will require inspectors to verify safety compliance and record each inspection into a database.

Last session South Carolina Rep. Bill Chumley introduced a bill, H.3101 that would nullify certain provisions of Obamacare. The bill would give the state attorney general the authority to authorize law enforcement to arrest federal agents for trespassing. It would make forced home inspections under Obamacare illegal in South Carolina. It passed in the House but died in the senate.

Kent Brown and Rep. Rick Quinn discuss “forced” home inspections under Obamacare in the video below.

Obamacare Forced Home Inspections

» Video missing? Watch full screen here

» Full Video Here

» Full Article

Related Article:
» OBAMACARE TROOPS PLANNING HOME VISITS
Constitutional Attorney:‘This Is Not A Voluntary Program’

» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | Website
» Ben Swann Full Disclosure | YouTube

About the Author

Joshua Cook is a native and resident of the South Carolina Upstate. He received his MBA from North Greenville University and is actively involved in South Carolina politics.

---

Other Popular News Items On Ben Swann

» AS OBAMACARE DEADLINE LOOMS, DOCTORS ARE OPTING FOR “CASH ONLY” CLINICS

Physicians across the country are attending seminars that teach doctors how to start their own direct primary care practices.

» MCCAIN & GRAHAM STAND WITH RAND: “END AID TO EGYPT”

US senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has been calling for an end to foreign aid to Egypt and Syria for quite some time. Just recently the Senate voted 86-13 against Paul’s most recent attempt to end aid to Egypt.

» NEW COMPANY ALLOWS ORGANIZATIONS TO HIRE FAKE PROTESTERS

So, no one supports your cause? No problem. You can hire supporters- even protesters.

Local TV Anchor Who Delivered Blistering Piers Morgan Gun Control Fact Check Tells TheBlaze Why He Did It

An Excoriating Fact-Check of CNN’s Piers Morgan
and His Anti-Gun Claims

Billy Hallowell, TheBlaze — Ben Swann, a local Fox anchor for WXIX-TV in Cincinnati, recently delivered an excoriating fact-check of CNN’s Piers Morgan and his anti-gun claims. Since the tragedy at Sandy Hook, many media outlets have essentially remained silent, while taking gun control advocates’ talking points at face value.

However, Swann has embraced a very different approach. Last Wednesday, he delved deeply into the debate, intensely fact-checking — in an on-air bit — many of the statistics and statements that the CNN host has most-recently spouted. The segment quickly went viral, raising eyebrows and interest across the blogosphere. On Monday, the local journalist spoke with TheBlaze in detail about the segment.

For Swann, 34, this is nothing new. The journalist regularly does fact checks on statements and scenarios surrounding prominent national issues through WXIX’s “Reality Check” segment (an undertaking that the anchor writes, produces and hosts). While his Morgan followed the same mold in terms of on-air practices at the station, it has gained the most national attention when compared to past clips.

“The segment that we do called ‘Reality Check’ — we do this three times per week,” he told TheBlaze. “We take things that are going on in the media…and we look to eliminate the bias and opinion out of them. We focus specifically on the facts of the story.”

When it comes to Morgan’s most recent on-air statements about firearms and gun violence, Swann said that he noticed that the CNN host had been “making a lot of statements that are not quite right.” So, he set out to examine the facts, which led to the now-infamous, viral fact-check.

[...] In the original segment, while exploring the United Kingdom’s numbers (Great Britain is part of the UK), Swann noted that the UK has the second-highest overall crime rate in the European Union (EU); the EU has also named Britain the most violent country in the union.

“In the UK, there are 2,034 violent crimes per 100,000 people,” Swann said in the original clip, showcasing that fewer guns is certainly not indicative of a lower crime rate (the rate in the U.S. is 466 per 100,000 residents).

Even in re-approaching these numbers, the anchor claims that the U.S. still comes out with a more favorable rate. He will release his clarified results during one of this week’s “Reality Checks.”

“There’s a disingenuous argument when you say this is about assault rifles,” Swann said of the overarching debate. “For us, it’s really an issue of getting into factual numbers so we can have an honest debate.” » Read More

Related: » Alex Jones vs Piers Morgan On Gun Control (Full Interview)

» TheBlaze
» Billy Hallowell Article Archive

About the Author

Billy Hallowell has been working in journalism and media for more than a decade. His writings have appeared in Human Events, Mediaite and on FOXNews.com, among other outlets. Hallowell has a B.A. in journalism and broadcasting from the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York and an M.S. in social research from Hunter College in Manhattan, New York. He is the founder of Pathufind Media and lives just outside NYC with his wife. You can find him on Twitter @BillyHallowell.

---

Reality Check: Piers Morgan vs. Alex Jones, and Gun Homicide Rates

FOX19.com-Cincinnati News, Weather