23 PERCENT OF AMERICANS IN THEIR PRIME WORKING YEARS ARE UNEMPLOYED

23 PERCENT OF AMERICANS IN THEIR PRIME WORKING YEARS ARE UNEMPLOYED

BY MICHAEL SNYDER

SEE: http://www.activistpost.com/2016/03/23-percent-of-americans-in-their-prime-working-years-are-unemployed.html; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

By Michael Snyder

Did you know that when you take the number of working age Americans that are officially unemployed (8.2 million) and add that number to the number of working age Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force” (94.3 million), that gives us a grand total of 102.5 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now?  I have written about this before, but today I want to focus just on Americans who are in their prime working years.  When you look at only Americans that are from age 25 to age 54, 23.2 percent of them are unemployed right now.  The following analysis and chart come from the Weekly Standard…

Here’s a chart showing those in that age group currently employed (95.6 million) and those who aren’t (28.9 million):

“There are 124.5 million Americans in their prime working years (ages 25–54). Nearly one-quarter of this group—28.9 million people, or 23.2 percent of the total—is not currently employed. They either became so discouraged that they left the labor force entirely, or they are in the labor force but unemployed. This group of non-employed individuals is more than 3.5 million larger than before the recession began in 2007,” writes the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee.

Clearly, we have never recovered from the impact of the last recession.

But let’s try to put these numbers in context.

Below, I would like to share two charts with you.  They show what has happened to the inactivity rates for men and for women in their prime working years in the United States in recent years.

In order to be considered “inactive”, you can’t have a job and you can’t be looking for a job.  So this subset of people is smaller than the group that we were talking about above.  The 23.2 percent of Americans in their prime working years who are unemployed right now includes those who are looking for a job and those who are not looking for a job.

These next two charts do not include anyone that has a job or that is currently looking for a job.  These charts only cover “inactive” people in their prime working years that are not considered to be in the labor force.

As you can see in this first chart, the inactivity rate for men in their prime working years exploded higher during the last recession and then continued to go up even after the recession supposedly ended.  At this point, it is hovering near all-time record highs.  Does this look like an “economic recovery” to you?…

For women, we see a similar thing.  In this next chart, you can see that the inactivity rate for women in their prime working years rose during the last recession and then just kept on rising.  At this point, it is also hovering near all-time record highs…

What are we to make of all this?

For both men and women in their prime working years, the inactivity rate is even higher than it was during the last recession and is hovering near the all-time record.

All of these people neither have a job nor are they looking for one.

So what in the world is going on here?

Are they independently wealthy?

Have these people found rich spouses to marry so they don’t have to work?

No, the truth is that the middle class in America is steadily eroding and poverty is absolutely exploding.  Credit card debt has soared to a new record high, and 48 percent of all U.S. adults under the age of 30 believe that “the American Dream is dead”.

The issue isn’t that people don’t want to work.

The issue is that people cannot find enough work.

And even if you have a job, that does not mean that you are on easy street.  According to the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

Tens of millions of Americans are now among the ranks of “the working poor”.  So many families are watching their expenses soar while their paychecks go down or stagnate.  If you are in this situation right now, then you probably know how exceedingly stressful it can be.

Just look at what is happening to the cost of health insurance.  The following comes from Fox News…

Health insurance premiums have increased faster than wages and inflation in recent years, rising an average of 28 percent from 2009 to 2014 despite the enactment of Obamacare, according to a report from Freedom Partners.

And I am not exactly sure where they got those numbers.  Personally, I know that my health insurance rates have gone up far faster than that.

Two years ago, my health insurance company wanted to double the health insurance premiums for my family even though we never get sick.  So I switched to another insurance company that offered a policy that was only about 30 percent higher than my last one.  But then when it came time to renew, that insurance company wanted to raise my rate by another 50 percent.

Thanks to Obamacare, American families are being absolutely crippled by the cost of health care.  And of course we are seeing the rising cost of living so many other places as well.  Our paychecks are being squeezed harder and harder, and this is absolutely killing the middle class.  In fact, the middle class in America is now a minority for the first time ever.

And now for the real bad news – this is about as good as things are ever going to get in this country.  As you can see from what I have shared above, we never really had any sort of meaningful “economic recovery”, and now we have entered the early phases of the next major downturn.

So where do we go from here?  Unfortunately, our debt-fueled prosperity has provided us with a massively inflated standard of living that is not even close to sustainable.  As this bubble bursts, the economic pain is going to be absolutely unprecedented.

But it won’t be just economic pain that we are facing.  In my new book, I detail the things that I believe that are coming to this country, and I explain why the entire planet will soon be facing incredibly challenging times.  It is going to be one of the most controversial Christian books of 2016, because it directly challenges many of the things that are being taught in mainstream churches today.  My book is an ominous message of warning and an inspiring message of hope, and I truly believe that it is the most important thing that I have ever written.

No matter how you may see the future, the key is that we all learn to love one another.  The years ahead are going to be extremely challenging, and those who want to chase everyone else away and survive as lone wolves are going to have a very rough time.  We all need each other, and those that have friends, family and communities around them are going to be in a much better position to weather the coming storms.

So let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare for the worst…

EXPANDED POLICE STATE MEASURES ACTIVATED AT AIRPORTS AFTER BRUSSELS JIHADIST KILLINGS, INJURIES

Expanded Police State Measures Activated At Airports After Brussels

Published on Mar 23, 2016

Video has surfaced of blaming for the bombing attacks in Brussels that occurred on March 22nd 2016, a globalist think tank immediately calls for invading Syria, and Senate Democrats are pushing for additional “security measures” at airports in the United States including an expansion of the TSA perimeter. Never let a crisis go to waste.

Globalists Exploit Brussels Terror to Push Police State

BY ALEX NEWMAN

SEE: http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/22863-globalists-exploit-brussels-terror-to-push-police-state; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

The blood after last week's terror attack in Brussels, Belgium, was not even dry yet when globalists and anti-sovereignty extremists, in typical fashion, began demanding more assaults on liberty and more power for themselves under the guise of “protecting” people from terrorism. At the top of the agenda: exploiting the crisis to impose a “Security Union” on Europeans that would consolidate the emerging continental police state.

The self-styled “president” of the European Union, for example, joined other radical politicians and bureaucrats in arguing that it was time for the EU super-state to have its own “intelligence” agency. Other European leaders pushed a scheme for a EU military force with powers to intervene in member states — even against their will, if Brussels claims the situation is urgent.  

Democrats in the United States, including presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, seized the opportunity to launch a fresh jihad on digital encryption, privacy rights, and national sovereignty. At the global level, Interpol, a self-styled planetary “law-enforcement” agency once controlled by Germany's National Socialists (Nazis), wanted everyone to know that it was working on the Brussels case, too.

All the while, the same power-hungry globalists posing as protectors were busy flooding the West with Islamic immigrants — mostly military-aged men from Islamic countries bombed and ripped to shreds by globalist Western governments and their allies. This all but guarantees an endless supply of future terrorist attacks to exploit in the war on liberty and self-government, regardless of how draconian the police state becomes.   

EU “President” Jean-Claude Juncker (shown above) was among the first to exploit the attack to demand more power. Speaking the day after the attack, Juncker called for deeper integration in intelligence gathering. “It becomes more and more obvious that we must reflect over the better cooperation between our respective secret services,” the globalist said. “Our knowledge of our immediate neighborhood is not good enough.”

He also called for imposing a “Union of security,” similar to the “Union of energy, Union of the capital markets, or an economic and monetary Union,” according to media reports funded by EU taxpayers. When globalist EU leaders speak of “union” or “integration,” it is code word for usurping what little remains of national sovereignty and self-government, and transferring those powers to the power-mad continental regime in Brussels.

In other words, Juncker was taking advantage of the attack to demand more power for the increasingly radical super-state over “security,” which covers everything from defense and law enforcement to intelligence and border control. Already, EU officials and propaganda outlets are touting the “Moscow model” for airport security across the bloc, which would see increased security at airports.     

Juncker was speaking alongside Socialist French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who made similar demands for consolidating power in the unaccountable hands of Brussels bureaucrats, often dubbed “eurocrats.” Valls was busy promoting a recently unveiled scheme to create an armed EU force that would be able to intervene in EU member states even when national authorities reject intervention. Unless the plot is stopped, the so-called European Border and Coast Guard would also take over border security from member states, along with allegedly tackling transnational crime and terror.

“There is an urgent need to strengthen the external borders of the European Union,” claimed Valls. He also called for imposing a controversial surveillance scheme that would track travelers across Europe. The most recent iterations of the plot call for mandatory biometric screening of passengers coming into or out of Europe, so people can be checked against international databases. Critics have blasted the scheme as Orwellian, but with the latest terror attack, Big Government-loving EU extremists are pushing it once again.  

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi did not even let one night pass before exploiting the attack to wage jihad on the sovereignty and liberty of formerly independent European peoples. “Today they hit Belgium, but they also hit the capital of the European Union,” Renzi said. “We need a European pact, a pact for freedom and security... Europe must go all the way this time. We must invest in a common security and defense structure. The security services must work together, and better together, with constant, timely and continuous cooperation.” Echoing the increasingly radical rhetoric of the Obama administration, he also said “primary school teachers” should be enlisted in the war.  

Even in the United States, globalists were only too anxious to exploit the murders in Brussels to wage jihad on liberty and privacy. Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, for example, echoed many of the same policy prescriptions outlined by European globalists — more surveillance, more power for the EU, more controls on travel, less privacy, and so on. She also called for the imposition of a “new, unified, European border and coast guard,” a top demand from European globalists in recent months that was exposed recently by The New American.

Fellow U.S. Democrat Adam Schiff, a Big Government congressman from California, acknowledged having absolutely no idea what role encryption technology may have played in the Brussels attacks — if any. But it is time for a more vigorous jihad on privacy and encryption anyway. “We can be sure that terrorists will continue to use what they perceive to be the most secure means to plot their attacks,” he said.  

In his weekly column, though, former Congressman Ron Paul, a longtime champion of liberty, blasted arguments made by “so-called security experts” calling for Europeans to give up more freedom for alleged security. “They should pause a little beforehand and consider what their governments have done so far to keep them 'safe',” said Paul, a non-interventionist who ran for president on three occasions and now runs the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Among other actions, Paul pointed to European politicians' foreign interventionism, including helping Obama destroy Libya and Syria. Those disasters were followed by throwing down the welcome mat and offering welfare checks to anyone who could make it to Europe. Millions are taking up the offer, and ISIS is boasting that hundreds of its operatives are, too.   

Paul also highlighted the absurdity of handing more money and power to the same governments that fail so catastrophically and consistently in response to every failure on their part. “Why is it that after a terrorist attack, governments are rewarded with bigger budgets and more power over people?” he asked. “Shouldn’t failure be punished instead of rewarded?”

“Europeans should be demanding to know why their governments provoke people in the Middle East with aggressive foreign policies, and then open the door to millions of them,” explained Paul. “Do their leaders just lack basic common sense?” A more likely explanation, he said, is a conflict of interest among those promoting the same dangerous policies they benefit from.

“As in the United States, the security crisis in Europe is directly tied to bad policy,” Paul concluded. “Until bad policy is changed, no amount of surveillance, racial profiling, and police harassment can make the population safer.”

Of course, the agenda to impose a transnational military on the peoples of Europe that would be accountable only to the unaccountable super-state is hardly new. As far back as the mid-1950s, globalists have attempted to impose a “European Defense Community” on the nations then being deceived and bludgeoned into surrendering their sovereignty. In the African Union and the Union of South American States — both imposed by the same global government-promoting forces behind the EU — such military schemes are already well underway. Today, globalists become increasingly shrill in pushing their transnational military demands with each and every opportunity to exploit a crisis.  

Already, the EU has made massive strides in its quest to impose an unaccountable police state on the peoples of Europe. Consider, for example, that the “European Police Office,” or Europol, is now so powerful that it is openly working to censor speech on the Internet under the guise of fighting nebulous notions of “extremism.” Other EU “security” agencies include “Frontex,” which deals with external borders, and “Eurojust,” which purports to battle transnational crime.

Some analysts say that further “security” power grabs by Brussels' tentacles are likely to be resisted by member states weary of handing any more power to the perpetually expanding and deeply unpopular super-state. But that rests largely on the assumption that the EU would respect the wishes of formerly sovereign European peoples. So far, the EU has brazenly bulldozed over public opposition, going so far as to ignore clear “no” votes in referendums on imposing a continental constitution.

The Pavlovian demands of globalists and their lackeys in government and the media that people surrender more liberty and privacy have become standard after every tragedy. If the “terrorists” really attack because they “hate freedom,” though, there will soon be no more reason to attack — at least if Americans and Europeans heed the dangerous demands of politicians and police-state advocates to surrender what little freedom remains.

A much simpler and cheaper strategy for stopping terrorism would be to stop funding it, quit destroying foreign countries, and immediately regain control of the borders forced open by internationalist extremists without a humanitarian bone in their body. But that assumes that the globalists are actually interested in keeping anyone but themselves safe — and experience suggests that would be a dangerous assumption to make.

Brussels Terror Attacks Underscore Insanity of EU Migration Policy

Refugee Crisis: Using Chaos to Build Power

Refugee Crisis Has Europe on the Brink

Globalists Who Created Refugee Crisis Now Exploiting It

Hungarian PM: Mass Migration a Plot to Destroy Christian West

EU “Police” Will Censor Internet to Fight “Extremism”

EU Exploits Refugees to Usurp More Power, Build Armed Force

Insider: EU-U.S. Must Take More Refugees, Get Rid of Sovereignty

Globalists Using Muslim Terrorists as Pawns

The EU: Regionalization Trumps Sovereignty

EU in Final Phase of Destroying Democracy, Czech President Warns

With Obama Support, Interpol to Lead Global “Terror War” Scheme

ISIS: The Best Terror Threat U.S. Tax Money Can Buy

After Backing Jihad and Open Borders, French Gov't Feigns Shock

U.S. Defense Intel Chief: Obama Gave “Willful” Aid to Al-Qaeda

BREITBART INTERVIEW WITH DINESH D'SOUZA: DEMOCRATS "A CRIMINAL GANG" SEEKING WEALTH & POWER

Breitbart: Democrats "A Criminal Gang"
Seeking Wealth And Power, Says D'Souza

Published on Mar 16, 2016

http://hillarysamericathemovie.com

Dinesh D’Souza discussed the history of the Democratic Party and his new film "Hillary’s America" with Breitbart News daily host Stephen K. Bannon today on SiriusXM radio, calling it akin to a criminal gang.

"I begin to look at the Democratic Party and Progressivism not just as a movement of ideas but as a movement to seize wealth and power — to get its hands on the wealth of America and exercise power over other people’s lives in the same way a criminal gang does," said D’Souza.

"We’re telling the story of American politics in a way that shows many of the crimes of the Democratic party, of Obama and Hillary, are rooted in things this party has been doing to American and to poor people for a long time," he added.

He also said he would like to release the film the weekend of the Democratic convention.

NSA WILL SPY FOR LOCAL COPS UNDER NEW OBAMA RULES

NSA WILL SPY FOR LOCAL COPS UNDER 

NEW OBAMA RULES 

BY Michael Maharrey

SEE: https://offnow.org/nsa-will-spy-for-local-cops-under-new-obama-administration-rules/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

New rules under development by the Obama administration will make it even easier for federal agencies like the FBI and DEA to access troves of phone calls, emails and location data collected by the NSA on millions of people, including Americans, and pass it on to local cops for everyday investigations, or basically any other purpose that suits them.

Proponents of federal spying inevitably defend any objection to mass warrantless surveillance by playing the terrorism card.

The NSA must be able to sweep up virtually everybody’s electronic data to protect America from terrorist attacks, so the argument goes. This carries a great deal of weight, especially in the wake of tragic bombings in Paris and Brussels. Many Americans brush off the constitutional violations and invasion of privacy inherent in NSA spy programs because they honestly believe they only target terrorists.

But in fact, the vast majority of information dredged up by the U.S. spy apparatus ends up in the hands of state and local law enforcement for use in routine criminal investigations. Instead of “fighting terrorism,” the American surveillance state primarily serves as a way to circumvent the Fourth Amendment and prosecute the unconstitutional “War on Drugs.”

We’ve known for several years that a DEA Special Operations Division utilizes warrantless data collected by the NSA for routine drug investigations. Reuters revealed the extent of NSA data sharing with state and local law enforcement in an August 2013 article. According to documents obtained by the news agency, the NSA passes information to police through the SOD. These cases “rarely involve national security issues.”

Former NSA technical director William Binney said the feds share information gathered without a warrant and direct the local police force to make an arrest. Using a process known as “parallel construction,” investigators then build their case using normal policing techniques, getting warrants for information they’ve already obtained. The process serves to hide the illegally gathered information, creating the illusion of a legitimate case.

As Washington Post columnist Radley Balko put it, parallel construction is “a bureaucratically sterilized way of saying big stinking lie.”

Binney called this “the most threatening situation to our constitutional republic since the Civil War.”

A new policy quietly under development by the Obama administration will make it even easier for the NSA to share this information with no privacy screening. According to a New York Times report, “Robert S. Litt, the general counsel in the office of the Director of National Intelligence, said that the administration had developed and was fine-tuning what is now a 21-page draft set of procedures to permit the sharing.”

Under the proposed rule changes, federal agencies such as the FBI would gain direct access to streams of information gathered by the NSA, including emails, phone calls and location data. They would then be free to pass along this information to state and local law enforcement.

All of this can happen without any congressional or judicial oversight under a Reagan era executive order known as EO 12333. ACLU of Massachusetts blog Privacy SOS explains the ramifications of these changes.

“In short, domestic law enforcement officials now have access to huge troves of American communications, obtained without warrants, that they can use to put people in cages. FBI agents don’t need to have any ‘national security’ related reason to plug your name, email address, phone number, or other ‘selector’ into the NSA’s gargantuan data trove. They can simply poke around in your private information in the course of totally routine investigations. And if they find something that suggests, say, involvement in illegal drug activity, they can send that information to local or state police. That means information the NSA collects for purposes of so-called ‘national security’ will be used by police to lock up ordinary Americans for routine crimes.”

Simply put, these new rules will codify parallel construction – formalizing what has been happening under the radar for years. Implementation of these new procedures will effectively cement routine violations of the Fourth Amendment into federal law.

Balko observed that in one sense, bringing this mass data sharing into the open might count as a good thing. Attorneys in states that have passed laws limiting the collection of warrantless data will find it easier to challenge and disallow this type of shared information. Nevertheless, as Balko notes, the fact the feds no longer feel the need to hide this kind of data sharing seems pretty ominous.

“It’s all another sobering reminder that any powers we grant to the federal government for the purpose of national security will inevitably be used just about everywhere else. And extraordinary powers we grant government in wartime rarely go away once the war is over. And, of course, the nifty thing for government agencies about a ‘war on terrorism’ is that it’s a war that will never formally end.”

These new rules coming down the pike make it even more imperative that states take action to prohibit state and local law enforcement from obtaining warrantless data. Robust restrictions on law enforcement access to information collected without a warrant will make such data collected by the NSA and shared with state and local cops inadmissible in court. State electronic data privacy protection laws not only have impact at the state level, they also indirectly but effectively address these federal surveillance schemes.

Sadly, millions of Americans continue to shrug off this daily, blatant disregard of constitutional restrictions on federal power. Ironically, the same people who scream bloody murder at the mere mention of federal gun control as a violation of the Second Amendment wholeheartedly embrace these routine violations of the Fourth Amendment. It almost seems they don’t realize the Second and Fourth Amendment make up parts of the same constitution.

Shred one, you shred the other.

OBAMA: "WE HAVE TO REJECT ANY ATTEMPT TO STIGMATIZE MUSLIM AMERICANS, AND THEIR 'ENORMOUS CONTRIBUTIONS' TO OUR COUNTRY"

OBAMA: "WE HAVE TO REJECT ANY ATTEMPT TO STIGMATIZE MUSLIM AMERICANS, AND THEIR 'ENORMOUS CONTRIBUTIONS' TO OUR COUNTRY"

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/03/obama-we-have-to-reject-any-attempt-to-stigmatize-muslim-americans-and-their-enormous-contributions-to-our-country; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Obama’s timing is grotesque. After the Brussels jihad massacre, he should be talking about how he is ramping up our resistance to jihad terror, not about how we have to stop picking on the poor Muslims in America, whom no one is picking on in the first place.

“We have to reject any attempt to stigmatize Muslim-Americans,” i.e., we are not going to speak honestly about the motivating ideology of jihad terror, no matter how high the bodies pile up.

“…and their enormous contributions to our country and our way of life.” Yes, look at all the enormous contributions Muslims have made to our country and our way of life. Muslims remodeled the New York skyline. Muslims brought about the transformation of government buildings in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere into veritable fortresses, each with massive stone blocks outside to prevent jihadis from using truck bombs. Muslims provided the impetus for huge advances — and huge expenses — in the development of technology used to screen passengers in airports. Muslims are responsible for air travel being transformed from a glamorous, adventurous activity to a cramped, hectoring, inhospitable affair, with glum, shoeless hordes holding up their beltless trousers while being herded through intrusive and inefficient checkpoints. We also owe Muslims for insisting upon the political correctness that requires everyone to be humiliated equally. Passengers are poked, prodded, threatened, and treated as likely criminals while America is hamstrung from efficiently focusing on the true source of the problem.

We also must credit Muslims with increases in the U.S. government. It is now bigger, wealthier (on your tax money), and watching you more closely than it was on September 10, 2001. Muslims can take a bow for the creation of at least two government agencies — the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security — plus a massive expansion in the budgets of all manner of intelligence and law enforcement entities. Those bloated budgets are one manifestation of what is actually the greatest contribution that Muslims have made to our nation: the slow destruction of the American economy. Osama bin Laden explained that he mounted the 9/11 jihad terror attacks in order to weaken the American economy; in October 2004 he rejoiced at how he had induced the Americans to spend, spend, spend to try to stymie him: “Al-Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost — according to the lowest estimate — more than $500 billion, meaning that every dollar of al-Qaeda defeated a million dollars.”

And that was in 2004. How many more billions have been spent since then, even aside from the billions wasted on the nation-building misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan? If Osama were alive today, he could look with satisfaction on an America that is poorer, uglier, meaner, more dangerous, less productive, and less efficient than it was on September 10, 2001.

Such an enormous contribution Muslims have made to our country!

“Obama: Stigmatizing Muslims ‘plays into hands’ of jihadists,” AFP, March 26, 2016:

Washington (AFP) – President Barack Obama has urged Americans not to stigmatize Muslims following this week’s deadly attacks in Brussels, saying that doing so is “counterproductive” in the fight against radical Islam.

In his weekly media address, Obama said Muslim-Americans are “our most important partners in the nation’s fight against those who would wage violent jihad.

“That’s why we have to reject any attempt to stigmatize Muslim-Americans, and their enormous contributions to our country and our way of life,” Obama said.

“Such attempts are contrary to our character, to our values, and to our history as a nation built around the idea of religious freedom. It’s also counterproductive,” he said.

“It plays right into the hands of terrorists who want to turn us against one another — who need a reason to recruit more people to their hateful cause.”

Obama made his remarks as the global community continues to reel from Tuesday’s attacks in Belgium, claimed by the Islamic State group, which killed 31 dead, including two Americans, and wounded 300….

U.S. MUSLIM GROUP DEMANDS FBI CANCEL COUNTER-TERROR PROGRAM

U.S. MUSLIM GROUP DEMANDS FBI CANCEL COUNTER-TERROR PROGRAM

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/03/us-muslim-group-demands-fbi-cancel-counter-terror-program; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

“Foremost, the SRC is problematic as it continues to target Arabs and Muslims, and turns our religious leaders, mental health professionals, teachers and dedicated community members into informants for the FBI.” If they were loyal to the U.S. and against jihad terror, they would be willing informants.

“US Muslim Anti-Discrimination Group ‘Demands’ FBI Cancel Informant Program,” by Ron Brynaert, Daily Caller, March 26, 2016 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

In an email sent to supporters, a prominent US anti-discrimination Muslim group announced that it’s “requesting a meeting with FBI Director James Comey” and is “demanding” that it cancel an informant program reportedly set to “be formally introduced next week.”

“The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee demands that the FBI cancel the launch of its controversial ‘Shared Responsibility Committee’ program,” the email states. “Since learning about the program last fall, ADC has frequently expressed serious concerns about the initiative, which is part of the government’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program.”

Last November, the Washington Post reported, “The FBI has designed an unusual game-style Web site about extremism meant to be used by teachers and students to help the agency spot and prevent radicalization of youth, say Muslim and Arab advocacy groups who were briefed by the FBI on the program and fear it will foment discrimination against Muslims.”

The “Don’t Be A Puppet” website — aimed at schools to help “keep youth from falling prey to online recruiting by terrorists” — was put on hold after the ADC and other “members of the Muslim and Arab advocacy groups invited to preview the effort complained that despite being described as combatting ‘violent extremism,’ it frames the topic heavily through the lens of Islam and will lead to profiling of Muslim youth.”

The “Shared Responsibility Committees” (SRCs) were also referred to at an FBI meeting last November, “which the Muslim and Arab participants said are proposed groups of community leaders and FBI representatives who could discuss cases of specific youths.”

In the email, which was sent Friday, the ADC claims “it raises numerous civil rights and civil liberties concerns and has been planned in secrecy. Foremost, the SRC is problematic as it continues to target Arabs and Muslims, and turns our religious leaders, mental health professionals, teachers and dedicated community members into informants for the FBI.”

It continues: “The FBI and other government agencies have failed to be transparent and forthcoming with details about the program, which the FBI packages as a form of community engagement. The SRCs expand the FBI’s surveillance powers, under the guise of an ‘interventionist’ program. Similar programs were implemented in Europe, and they failed miserably. In implementing the program, the FBI has ignored history and the concerns raised by community members. Instead the FBI has relied on fringe groups from within the community. These groups are recipients of government grants used to implement such programs and do not work in the best interest of the community.”

Former CIA officer Clare M. Lopez — who is now the Vice President for Research and Analysis at the Center for Security Policy, and a foreign policy adviser for Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz — recently complained that the FBI was the “real puppet” being led by a “Muslim Brotherhood puppeteer.”…

MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY ORDERS PROFESSOR TO APOLOGIZE FOR CONSERVATIVE BLOG POST IN DEFENSE OF ANTI-GAY STUDENT, OR LOSE HIS JOB

CATHOLIC INTOLERANCE FOR ANTI-GAY EXPRESSIONS; UNIVERSITY TO PUNISH PROFESSOR FOR BLOG COMMENTS IN SUPPORT OF STUDENT WHO CONFRONTED A TEACHER WHO REFUSED TO ALLOW ANTI-GAY COMMENTS

FREE SPEECH NOT ALLOWED HERE AT JESUIT SCHOOL

EXCERPTS FROM WIKIPEDIA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquette_University

"Marquette University /mɑːrˈkɛt/ is a private, coeducational Catholic university in the central United States, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Established by the Society of Jesus as Marquette College on August 28, 1881, it was founded by John Martin Henni, the first Bishop of Milwaukee.

The university was named after 17th century missionary and explorer Father Jacques Marquette, with the intention to provide an affordable Catholic education to the area's emerging German immigrant population. Initially an all-male institution, Marquette became the first coed Catholic university in the world in 1909, when it began admitting its first female students.

Marquette is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. The university is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and currently has a student body of about 12,000. Marquette is one of the largest Jesuit universities in the United States, and the largest private university in Wisconsin."

SEE: http://abcnews.go.com/US/Media/catholic-marquette-university-hires-lesbian-dean-rescinds-offer/story?id=10742162

"In April 2010, Marquette University offered a position as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences to Jodi O'Brien, a highly respected and openly lesbian professor with sterling credentials at another Jesuit university, Seattle University. On May 2, Marquette rescinded the offer over concerns about her scholarly writing as it related to Catholic teaching. O'Brien had published works on lesbian sex and same-sex marriage. Several faculty members at Marquette said the decision raised concerns about academic freedom. Faculty and students from both universities protested Marquette's decision."

PROFESSOR ORDERED TO APOLOGIZE FOR CONSERVATIVE BLOG POST, OR LOSE HIS JOB 

SEE: http://the-trumpet-online.com/professor-ordered-to-apologize-for-conservative-blog-post-or-lose-his-job/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

A conservative professor at Marquette University has been ordered to apologize for critical comments he made of another professor on his blog, or else he will lose his job.

The tribulation of political science professor John McAdams began nearly a year and a half ago. McAdams has long run a blog called Marquette Warrior where he frequently voices conservative views on both Marquette and national issues. In the fall of 2014, he wrote about an incident between a Marquette undergraduate and a graduate student, Cheryl Abbate, who was teaching a philosophy course.

Abbate was discussing how the philosophy of John Rawls could be used in modern political debates, and so spent some time engaging in short debates over various political issues. But when she reached gay rights as an issue, she skipped over it, allegedly stating that “everybody agrees on this.”

A student opposed to gay marriage approached Abbate after class, arguing it was disrespectful to so lightly dismiss his opinion and deny him the opportunity to voice his views in class. In response, Abbate told the student that his opinions were not appropriate for the class. The entire thing was caught on tape, as the student surreptitiously recorded the conversation.

“Do you know if anyone in your class, in your class is homosexual? And do you not think that it would be offensive to them if you were to raise your hand and challenge this?” Abbate told the student. “You don’t have a right in this class … to make homophobic comments.”

McAdams’ blog post strongly criticized Abbate’s response, accusing her of “shutting up” dissent, a tactic he described as “typical” among modern liberals. Abbate, for her part, claimed she was simply trying to avoid wasting time on an off-topic argument, and she accused McAdams of misrepresenting her words.

After McAdams’ blog post, the story attracted national attention, producing a torrent of criticism at Abbate (who eventually transferred to the University of Colorado). That wave of criticism in turn got McAdams in trouble with Marquette administrators, who claimed his criticism of Abbate amounted to unprofessional harassment. McAdams was suspended with pay by Marquette and banned from campus pending a disciplinary hearing.

More than 15 months after McAdams’ initial suspension and months after a faculty committee produced a lengthy report on the matter, Marquette finally levied its final punishment Thursday. McAdams is suspended without pay through the fall 2016 term, and he has been ordered to issue an apology for his behavior. If he refuses to do so, he won’t be allowed back following his suspension.

Marquette maintains that its punishment is not an act of political retribution.

“[This punishment] has been guided by Marquette University’s values and is solely based on Professor McAdams’ actions, and not political or ideological views expressed in his blog,” Marquette president Michael Lovell said in a campus wide email sent Thursday evening.

But McAdams thinks otherwise, and he told The Daily Caller News Foundation that he has absolutely no plans to issue any apology.

“I am not going to grovel and apologize,” he said. “This whole thing is reminiscent of the Inquisition. If somebody would just confess they’d been consorting with the devil, then they wouldn’t be burned at the stake.”

McAdams said he plans to sue Marquette if it tries to dismiss him. While Marquette is a private school and isn’t subject to the First Amendment like public universities are, McAdams said the school’s faculty contracts effectively grant professors First Amendment free speech rights. Those rights, he said, should protect his right to speak freely on his blog.

McAdams said that while several professors have supported him, either openly or in private, he also has made many enemies after 10 years of blogging.

“The era of the old-fashioned liberals is pretty much over in academia,” he said. “The old-fashioned liberal would protect academic freedom, including the academic freedom of conservative students and conservative professors … [Now,] the faculty cannot be expected to support academic freedom for ideas that are right of center.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/25/professor-ordered-to-apologize-for-conservative-blog-post-or-lose-his-job/#ixzz44AW0Lv00

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Marquette professor banned for sticking up for free speech

Published on Dec 19, 2014

John McAdams, a Marquette professor for 35 years, has been banned for sticking up for a student who supports marriage as between a man and a woman.

America's Forum | John McAdams is fighting back against an attempt by his University to fire him

Published on Feb 16, 2015

Political science professor at Marquette University is fighting back against an attempt by his University to fire him. He says the University is trying to squelch his right to free speech.