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Fear and Loathing in Scotland – Why the NO’s Won and Lessons Learned from the Vote

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Screen Shot 2014-09-19 at 9.49.01 AMYesterday morning, as I sat down for my ritualistic dose of caffeine and began to write, I noticed that I had auspiciously planted myself in front of two older women from the UK. One was from Scotland, the other from somewhere else in the United Kingdom with an accent I couldn’t quite place. The non-Scottish woman asked her friend for thoughts on the independence referendum. The Scottish woman replied that she would have voted “YES,” but that her friends were all voting “NO.” She said that “they were afraid.”

Upon overhearing this, I felt a pit form in my stomach. Almost all of the enthusiasm that I had for the day was immediately drained. Not only was I excited to see a historically defiant and proud people vote for independence, but yesterday marked the launch of the Contributor section of Liberty Blitzkrieg. It was a big day for me, yet all of a sudden it was as if the atmosphere suddenly evaporated and despair filled the air. Although no results had yet been reported, I knew the result. It was going to be NO.

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Introducing Liberty Blitzkrieg Contributors

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Liberty Blitzkrieg was launched two and a half years ago on April 19th, 2012, the day after the 237th anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and if not for the tremendous support of my faithful readers, would not have been possible. The interest my work has generated, the thoughtful email messages of encouragement, the passionate comments, and of course the generous and entirely voluntary Bitcoin donations has touched me and inspired me to improve my writing and content generation every single day.

When I first started out, I figured maybe a few hundred people would come and visit per day. As 2014 comes to a close, those expectations have been exceeded greatly, with Liberty Blitzkrieg averaging 65,000 unique visitors and 123,000 page views per month so far this year. What can I say except: Thank You!

My philosophy on writing has always been, and continues to be, that I’d prefer to write one or two powerful and incisive posts per day, rather than five or six watered down articles. As such, I feel my current capacity for daily content is more or less maxed out. This leaves me with a great deal of topics left unaddressed, partly due to personal time constraints, but also because I lack the expertise and interest to cover certain subjects. Enter Contributors.

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Video of the Day: The Republic of Bill

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I saw this video a couple of weeks back, but never got around to posting it. The Republic of Bill sounds like a pretty great place. Where do I sign up? In Liberty, Michael Krieger Like this post? Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G Follow me on Twitter.

It’s Not Just the Police – The Feds are Also Militarizing Public Schools with Grenade Launchers, M16s and Tanks

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Screen Shot 2014-09-17 at 12.35.53 PMEvents last month in Ferguson, Missouri (read my detailed thoughts here) forced Americans to confront the frightening reality that many of of the nation’s police departments have been quietly, but consistently, militarizing over the past couple of decades. It’s one thing to intellectually understand that this has happened, it’s quite another to see cops deploy tanks and point sniper rifles at peacefully protesting U.S. citizens.

Just as disturbing as the scenes themselves, is the fact that this has been happening for so long under the 1033 transfer program with only muted criticism. The program was originated in the late 1990’s under the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997 (recall that the NDAA is also being used to allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial), and it allows for the transfer of excess Department of Defense equipment to domestic police. In other words, it has been public policy for almost two decades to militarize the police.

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The FBI Unveils its Controversial Facial Recognition Database with 52 Million Photos to be Stored

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Screen Shot 2014-09-16 at 12.25.38 PMIn April of this year, I highlighted the FBI’s disturbing and Orwellian plan to launch a massive biometric database known as the Next Generation Identification (NGI) System in the post, FBI Plans to Have 52 Million Photos in Facial Recognition Database by 2015. In that piece I noted that:

The latest article from the EFF that caught my attention was published a couple of days ago, and shines light on the disturbing push by the FBI to create an extensive facial recognition database, which will include criminal and non-criminal photos alike. The information received by the EFF via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, demonstrates that the feds may have a mugshot database with up to 52 million photos by 2015.

The program is called Next Generation Identification (NGI), and the aspect of it that bothers the EFF most is the fact that non-criminal and criminal photos will be combined in the same database. So someone who has no criminal record can suddenly be flagged as a suspect just because an algorithm says so. What’s worst, research shows that the potential for false positive identification increases as the dataset increases.

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Why You Should Think Twice Before Using Facebook’s Messenger App

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“Messenger appears to have more spyware type code in it than I’ve seen in products intended specifically for enterprise surveillance.”

– Jonathan Zdziarski, expert in iOS related digital forensics and security

Anyone who reads Liberty Blitzkrieg consistently will be aware of my disdain for the company Facebook. There are many reasons for my negative sentiments, but at its core is the company’s complete disrespect toward its own users.

Facebook made major headlines earlier this summer when it was caught in a massive controversy over its decision to intentionally manipulate its users’ feeds in order to affect their emotional state, something I covered in the article: Was the Department of Defense Behind Facebook’s Controversial Manipulation Study? 

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Record Beheadings and the Mass Arrest of Christians – Is it ISIS? No it’s Saudi Arabia

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Screen Shot 2014-09-15 at 10.36.07 AMIn the past month, a group of radical Islamic extremists based in the Middle East beheaded at least 23 people and enforced a ban on Christianity by arresting a group of people for practicing the faith in a private home.

No, I’m not talking about ISIS. The real culprit is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of the America’s closest global allies.

I have highlighted the inhumanity of the Saudi regime frequently recently in order to demonstrate the incredible hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy. While America’s phony politicians and useless mainstream media will often hype anti-Chrtistian bigotry and humanitarian issues when it suits the status quo message, the true driver of U.S. foreign policy can be summarized with two words: CORPORATE PROFITS.

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Obama’s ISIS War is Not Only Illegal, it Makes George W. Bush Look Like a Constitutional Scholar

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Rudderless and without a compass, the American ship of state continues to drift, guns blazing.

– Andrew J. Bacevich, the Boston University political science professor and former Army colonel who lost his son in the Iraq war in 2007, in a recent Reuters article.

I have spent the past several days outlining my deep concerns about the “ISIS crisis” and Obama’s willingness to employ extreme propaganda in order to once again embark on another poorly thought out military campaign here and here. What I have also come to realize is that his latest war plan is brazenly illegal and unconstitutional.

While critics have been questioning the legality of U.S. military campaigns consistently since the end of World War II, one trend has become increasingly clear. With each new President and each new war, we have witnessed those who hold the office act more and more like dictators, and less and less like constitutional executives.

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Humans Need Not Apply – How Robots Will Take Over the Economy

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Stop what you’re doing and watch this video. That is all. Like this post? Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G Follow me on Twitter.

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: “I’m Glad People Have This 9/11 Mentality Again”

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Screen Shot 2014-09-11 at 11.37.09 AMIn the wake of non-stop propaganda from politicians of both parties, as well as a mainstream media desperate for ratings, the American public is finally terrified enough to support another war in the Middle East. This is an unfortunate development I lamented in yesterday’s post: The American Public: A Tough Soldier or a Chicken Hawk Cowering in a Cubicle? Some Thoughts on ISIS Intervention.

With just 6% of likely U.S. voters thinking Congress is doing a good or excellent job according to a recent Rasmussen poll, it’s no surprise to see so many of these corrupt clowns falling over one another to appear tough on ISIS, using myriad hyperbolic and Orwellian statements.

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