Jeb Bush Floats Insane Idea To Replace Obamacare With Apple Watches

After delivering the standard Republican mumbo jumbo about moving to “a patient-centered system” a.k.a. you’re on your own. Bush suggested that smartphones can replace affordable health insurance, “On this device in five years will be applications that will allow me to manage my healthcare in ways that five years ago were not even possible. I’ll have the ability, someone will, you know, because of my blood sugar, … someone will send me a signal it’ll come here, I’ll get a double beep saying ‘you just ate a butterscotch sundae or something like that. You went way over the top. You’re a diabetic, you can’t do that—whatever, we’ll be able to guide our own healthcare decisions in a way that will make us healthy. Ultimately, we have to get to a health system, away from a disease system.”

The problem with Bush’s plan is that the app can’t provide health care. In fact, what is missing in Bush’s health care idea is health care. An app and a smartphone can’t save a person from the crippling debt caused by a serious illness. An app isn’t a substitute for a law that lowers the cost of health insurance, covers more people, and gives them access to free preventive medical care.

An Apple Watch can’t hide the fact that under Jeb Bush fewer Americans will have health insurance. If the diabetic in Jeb Bush’s example needed medical care, they would be screwed.

Republicans have floated some bogus ideas in their desperate attempts to fool people into believing that they have an alternative to the Affordable Care Act, but Jeb Bush’s idea is one of the worst. Why do people have to choose between an Apple Watch and affordable health insurance? Why can’t people have apps that work with their affordable health insurance?

Bush set up a false choice, but what was most telling was that during his remarks he had to tell the audience to applaud when he mentioned repealing Obamacare. Even Republicans aren’t buying the Obamacare repeal rallying cry anymore.

An Apple Watch isn’t a replacement for health insurance in the same way that Jeb Bush isn’t a replacement for an intelligent president.

Link: http://www.politicususa.com/2015/05/15/jeb-bush-floats-insane-idea-replace-obamacare-apple-watches.html

Chicago Man: Cops Brought Me to Secret Prison, Anally Raped Me to Force Me to be an Informant

Chicago, IL — A Chicago man has come forward about his experience with the Chicago Police Department which turned into a living nightmare.

The incident happened on October 21, 2012 at the now infamous Homan Square facility. Angel Perez was targeted by police because they believed he knew an alleged drug dealer.

Video obtained by the Guardian and the subsequent interview detail the horrifying events as the incident the unfolded. The Guardian reports:

So the next day, October 21 2012, he agreed to meet at Al’s Beef. Camera footage shows Perez walking over to their car with his hand extended for a handshake, unarmed and unassuming. The officers turn him around, push him against the car, cuff him and take him to Homan Square – where, he alleges, they sexually assaulted him.

The footage that follows, which the Guardian is publishing, is rare video showing the Homan Square detention operations that the Chicago police have downplayed. They have instead pointed to the evidence lockers at the warehouse and the press conferences they hold there for drug busts to insist that the Guardian’s expose of their incommunicado detentions are overblown.

But the footage, taken from surveillance cameras inside and on the perimeter of Homan Square, shows two officers walking a handcuffed Perez through a blue door inside the warehouse marked “prisoner entrance” at 3.49pm. He was taken to a second-floor room, he said, where he contends police inserted a metal object, believed to be a handgun barrel, into his rectum.

Perez said the cops shackled him, taunted him and then began to force the gun barrel into his rectum.

“He jammed it in there and I started jerking and going all crazy. …go into a full-blown panic attack,” he tells the Guardian. “The damage it caused, it pretty much swole my rear end like a baboon’s butt.”

Scared to death of what the cops would do if he refused to cooperate, Perez agreed to go along with the sting. He later set up a meeting to purchase $170 worth of heroin.

For $170 worth of Heroin, Chicago police allegedly raped a man with a gun.

No charges were ever brought against Perez and in 2013 he filed a lawsuit for damages.

Warning: The video below contains graphic detail of the incident.

Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/chicago-man-cops-brought-secret-prison-anally-raped-force-informant/#hOiJ5k2UKPkJcMiA.99

Pope Francis extends agenda of change to Vatican diplomacy

By Gavin Jones and James Mackenzie

ROME (Reuters) - Pope Francis' hard-hitting criticisms of globalization and inequality long ago set him out as a leader unafraid of mixing theology and politics. He is now flexing the Vatican's diplomatic muscles as well.

Last year, he helped to broker an historic accord between Cuba and the United States after half a century of hostility.

This past week, his office announced the first formal accord between the Vatican and the State of Palestine -- a treaty that gives legal weight to the Holy See's longstanding recognition of de-facto Palestinian statehood despite clear Israeli annoyance.

The pope ruffled even more feathers in Turkey last month by referring to the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the early 20th century as a "genocide", something Ankara denies.

After the inward-looking pontificate of his scholarly predecessor, Pope Benedict, Francis has in some ways returned to the active Vatican diplomacy practiced by the globetrotting Pope John Paul II, widely credited for helping to end the Cold War.

Much of his effort has concentrated on improving relations between different faiths and protecting the embattled Middle East Christians, a clear priority for the Catholic Church.

However in an increasingly fractured geopolitical world, his diplomacy is less obviously aligned to one side in a global standoff between competing blocs than that of John Paul's 27-year-long papacy.

This is reinforced by his status as the world's first pope from Latin America, a region whose turbulent history, widespread poverty and love-hate relationship with the United States has given him an entirely different political grounding from any of his European predecessors.

"Under this pope, the Vatican's foreign policy looks South," said Massimo Franco, a prominent Italian political commentator and author of several books on the Vatican.

He said the pope has been careful to avoid taking sides on issues like Ukraine, where he has never defined Russia as an aggressor, but has always referred to the conflict between the government and Moscow-backed rebels as a civil war.

That approach is intended to ensure he remains more credible with countries like Syria, Russia or Cuba, all nations where Francis feels he can help local Christians best by steering an independent course.

DIPLOMATIC RISKS

Francis already has his hands full overhauling the Vatican's complex internal bureaucracy after a series of financial and sexual scandals involving abuse of children by priests which date back decades.

But clearly deeply interested in how the world outside the walls of the Vatican works, he appears determined to use his position and the huge global audience he commands to challenge entrenched diplomatic positions as well.

The former secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, a veteran insider whose office formerly controlled both relations with foreign powers and many internal Vatican affairs, has been replaced. His office has been downgraded to resemble a more classical diplomatic service while Francis has set a bolder, more personal stamp on Vatican foreign policy.

"He's someone who's capable of praying in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and then talking about the Armenian genocide. He's not someone who's bound by political correctness," said former Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

"It's the diplomacy of a real leader."

Whether it is to the taste of all the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, world politicians with priorities of their own or even the many layers of the Church's own administration is another matter.

With many conservative Catholics unhappy about the pope's focus on issues like economic injustice and his relatively tolerant tone on sensitive social topics like homosexuality and the status of divorced people, pronounced views on delicate diplomatic issues could cause further division in the Church.

It is a point where he will be particularly tested in September on his upcoming visit to the United States, where some conservative U.S. Catholics are openly hostile.

After helping to foster last year's agreement reviving diplomatic relations between Havana and Washington, Francis reaped criticism from many U.S. conservatives, including Marco Rubio, a candidate for the Republican nomination for president.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a practicing Catholic, avoided directly admonishing the pope, but said he should "take up the cause of freedom and democracy" in Cuba.

That kind of veiled criticism from a politician who would normally be considered a staunch Church ally reflects the wider unease some Catholics feel at the change Francis has ushered in at one of the world's most conservative institutions.

"Bishops complain that he becomes popular by attacking the Church," said Franco.

"He speaks directly to the people and doesn't respect the usual command structures. He decides on his own or with people who are not those who previously had a central role."

Link: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/pope-francis-extends-agenda-change-vatican-diplomacy-091928480.html

Pentagon Admits Preparing for Mass Civil Breakdown, Joint Drills Raise Concern

When the federal government considers a U.S. city or state hostile, even for training, some find that troubling.

A Special Forces unit based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina is conducting joint exercises with a local police force in and around Columbia, South Carolina this week.

The exercises, which involve the 3rd Special Forces Group and the Richland County Sheriff Department’s SWAT team, will be taking place during late-night and pre-dawn hours and will run until May 15.

RELATED STORIES

• House Won’t Allow ‘Dreamers’ To Enlist In Military
• ‘I’m Literally Shaking’: Feminist Cannot Bear This Fox News Guest’s Controversial Remarks
• Watch: Video Shows NYPD Officer Shooting Alleged Hammer Attacker

Columbia CBS affiliate WLTX reported to area residents:

Military and sheriff’s department vehicles will be traveling in the Lower Richland County community near Eastover and Hopkins, in Elgin near Screaming Eagle Road, and North Richland County in the Monticello Road area. The sheriff’s department says people in those areas may also hear ordinance being set off or shots being fired. They say those will be simulations or blanks and do not pose a risk to the community.

County Sheriff Leon Lott told CBS that his deputies “will provide simulated scenarios for the military.” According to Lott, the county offers an ideal training location that cannot be replicated on Fort Bragg.

TRENDING STORIES

• ‘I’m Literally Shaking’: Feminist Cannot Bear This Fox News Guest’s Controversial Remarks
• ISIS Promises ‘Harsher’ Attacks On American Soil
• House Overwhelmingly Passes Bipartisan Bill To Hold Obama Accountable

Richland County encompasses Columbia and is the second most populous county in South Carolina with over 400,000 residents.

Announcement of this joint military/civilian exercise comes as many Americans are already skittish about the military conducting training among the civilian population, most notably with Operation Jade Helm 15.

As reported by Western Journalism, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) is launching Jade Helm 15 this summer, which is a series of military exercises across the southwestern states that will include special forces from all four branches. Some Americans speculate that Jade Helm is training the military to suppress rebelling citizens in a coming civil war, whereas the Army refers to it as ‘Realistic Military Training.’

Texas, Utah, and a small portion of California are listed as hostile territory on the training map, which raised concerns particularly in the Lone Star State.

In response to public feelings ranging from a simple desire for more information to discontent, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, took the matter up directly with the Defense Department. “I have no reason to doubt” the assurances of the Pentagon about the exercises, he said; “but I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty; because when the federal government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in this administration, the natural consequence is that many citizens don’t trust what it is saying.”

“When the federal government begins, even in practice, games or exercises, to consider any U.S. city or state in ‘hostile’ control and trying to retake it,” added Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, “the message becomes extremely calloused and suspicious.”

Link: http://www.westernjournalism.com/a-joint-military-police-training-exercise-among-civilian-population-raises-concerns/

Investigation Ongoing After Man Attempts To Fly Drone Near The White House

WASHINGTON — A man was detained by the Secret Service Thursday after attempting to fly a drone over a fence at The White House.

U.S. Park Police and U.S. Secret Service are investigating the device.

Parts of The White House were placed on lockdown. The lockdown has since been lifted. President Obama was not at home at the time. No further information was available.

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800.

Link: http://breaking911.com/investigation-ongoing-after-man-attempts-to-fly-drone-near-the-white-house/

Vatican Officially Recognizes Palestinian State In New Treaty

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican officially recognized the state of Palestine in a new treaty finalized Wednesday, immediately sparking Israeli ire and accusations that the move hurt peace prospects.

The treaty, which concerns the activities of the Catholic Church in Palestinian territory, makes clear that the Holy See has switched its diplomatic recognition from the Palestine Liberation Organization to the state of Palestine.

The Vatican had welcomed the decision by the U.N. General Assembly in 2012 to recognize a Palestinian state. But the treaty is the first legal document negotiated between the Holy See and the Palestinian state and constitutes official diplomatic recognition.

"Yes, it's a recognition that the state exists," said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

The Israeli foreign ministry said it was "disappointed" by the development.

"This move does not promote the peace process and distances the Palestinian leadership from returning to direct and bilateral negotiations," the ministry said in a text message. "Israel will study the agreement and will consider its steps accordingly."

The treaty was finalized days before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visits Pope Francis at the Vatican. Abbas is heading to Rome to attend Francis' canonization Sunday of two new saints from the Holy Land.

The Vatican has been referring unofficially to the state of Palestine for at least a year.

During Pope Francis' 2014 visit to the Holy Land, the Vatican's official program referred to Abbas as the president of the "state of Palestine." In the Vatican's latest yearbook, the Palestinian ambassador to the Holy See is listed as representing "Palestine (state of)."

The Vatican's foreign minister, Monsignor Antoine Camilleri, acknowledged the change in status, given that the treaty was initially inked with the PLO and is now being finalized with the "state of Palestine." But he said the shift was simply in line with the Holy See's position.

This isn't the first time that the Vatican under Francis has taken diplomatic moves knowing that it would ruffle feathers: Just last month, Francis referred to the slaughter of Armenians by Turkish Ottomans a century ago as a "genocide," prompting Turkey to recall its ambassador.

Link : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/13/vatican-recognizes-state-of-palestine_n_7274096.html

Shock Report About Secret Obama Treaty: “Unlimited Migration From Mexico… Gun Import Bans… Ammunition Bans”

Gov’t May Give Obama Authority To Write Gun Control Into TPP

The Obama administration is feverishly working with foreign lawmakers and officials on a new Trans-Pacific Parternship (TPP) trade agreement. Yet what may seem like business as usual is anything but.

The President has made it a point to keep any details of the agreement completely secret, so much so that what amounts to a gag order has been placed on anyone who has anything to do with the bill. Even members of Congress are unable to discuss the contents of the bill with each other or in public, and anyone who is invited to discussions over the bill must leave cell phones and staff members behind. Since not even Republicans have yet to spill the beans about the details of the agreement, one can only assume that those attending the meetings are doing so under threat of criminal prosecution or worse if they talk.

This, of course, begs the question: What is so important to the Obama administration that it has to be kept secret from the American public until after the agreement has been passed?

What could possibly be so critical to national security that the purportedly “most transparent” Presidential administration in history says no one can talk about it?

Could it be that whatever is being negotiated is so significant that if the American people got wind of what was taking place there would be a collective outcry or widespread protests in the streets?

According to Gun Owners of America, this is exactly what’s happening, and it is nothing short of shocking.

Gun import bans … Microstamping of firearms … Ammunition bans … The full implementation of the anti-gun UN Arms Trade Treaty … Illegal amnesty which locks in millions of new, anti-gun voters.
This anti-gun wish list could be part of the secret trade agreement that President Obama is getting ready to spring on the Congress.

This trade pact is called “fast track,” and what it means is that Obama can write any form of gun control he chooses into a trade agreement — import bans, amnesty, etc.
And this agreement DOESN’T need two-thirds vote in the Senate, as a treaty would. When completed, the agreement is merely subject to a majority vote in both Houses … it can’t be filibustered … it can’t be amended … and the GOP can’t refuse to consider it.

Top Secret TPP means you won’t know what’s in the bill
Reports have already surfaced that the TOP SECRET draft contains a whole chapter with a European Union-style provision allowing unlimited migration from Mexico into the United States. This would fulfill Obama’s dream — which he begun with Executive Amnesty — to import millions of new anti-gun (liberal) voters into the country.

Of course, we can’t quote for you any of the language in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement because the document is TOP SECRET. Obama won’t reveal it, even to most congressmen, until Congress has given it its imprimatur by allowing it to pass under fast track procedures.
On Monday, Politico reported:

If you want to hear the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the Obama administration is hoping to pass, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door.

If you’re a [congressional] member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving.
And no matter what, you can’t discuss the details of what you’ve read.

Truly, even more than with ObamaCare, this is a case of “You have to pass it to find out what’s in it.”

 Is it outside of the realm of possibility that the Obama administration is trying, once again, to partner with a foreign governing body to restrict gun ownership in America? Would President Obama cede the sovereignty of our borders to the United Nations?

Call us fringe conspiracy theory lunatics, but given the secrecy surrounding the treaty one can only assume the worst.

It should be clear that the eventual goal of the foreign entities like United Nations istotal disarmament of the American people.

Clinton confidant Dick Morris explained in 2012 how restrictions outlined in a foreign treaty such as the new trade agreement might work:

It’s entirely a backdoor effort to force gun registration and eventually bans and restrictions with the act of the United States Congress – to do it with international treaty.

One of the deadly parts about this is that when a treaty is signed and made binding in the United States it acquires the force of a Constitutional Amendment. Under the Supremacy Clause, every Congress and every state legislature has to honor that treaty, unless a Constitutional Amendment is passed to the contrary or unless all the other signatories let the U.S. out of the treaty.

So this would be permanent, long-term gun control…all done without Congress.
Source: Five Words For the United Nations: FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS

His views have been reinforced by an ambassador who sat in on the UN Small Treaty negotiations:

“In New York, right here on our own shores, we’ve got a Trojan horse. They won’t accept U.S. firearms policy. They want to take the decision away from the U.S. electorate and undermine our Constitution.”

Ambassador Faith Whittlesey
US Delegate to UN Small Arms Conference
January 2012 

Moreover, just so we’re clear, the plan to disarm Americans has been in motion for many years. Last year we reported that the United Nations was operating within the borders of the United States already and according to their own job postings at the UN web site, they were actively recruiting Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Specialists.

According to the United Nations information page on ‘DDR’ operations, the New York post will involve various aspects related to the process by which a governing organization would confiscate firearms, all of which target what the U.N. calls “small arms.”

Disarmament is the collection, documentation, control and disposal of small arms, ammunition, explosives and light and heavy weapons from combatants and often from the civilian population.
Demobilization is the formal and controlled discharge of active combatants from armed forces and groups, including a phase of “reinsertion” which provides short-term assistance to ex-combatants.
Reintegration is the process by which ex-combatants acquire civilian status and gain sustainable employment and income. It is a political, social and economic process with an open time-frame, primarily taking place in communities at the local level.

Like Obamacare, we’ll soon find out the legal language behind the new Trans-Pacific Partnership. And like Obamacare, we can predict with a fair amount of certainty that this “free trade” agreement will be anything but free.

(GOA)  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Orrin Hatch may soon give the President authority to write gun control restrictions into a “trade agreement.” So click here to contact your Senators –- whether they are liberal or conservative. Urge them to vote against the anti-gun “fast track” bill (S. 995).
Will UN-style gun control be rammed down our throats?

Gun import bans … Microstamping of firearms … Ammunition bans … The full implementation of the anti-gun UN Arms Trade Treaty … Illegal amnesty which locks in millions of new, anti-gun voters.

This anti-gun wish list could be part of the secret trade agreement that President Obama is getting ready to spring on the Congress.

This trade pact is called “fast track,” and what it means is that Obama can write any form of gun control he chooses into a trade agreement — import bans, amnesty, etc.

And this agreement DOESN’T need two-thirds vote in the Senate, as a treaty would. When completed, the agreement is merely subject to a majority vote in both Houses … it can’t be filibustered … it can’t be amended … and the GOP can’t refuse to consider it.

Top Secret TPP means you won’t know what’s in the bill

Reports have already surfaced that the TOP SECRET draft contains a whole chapter with a European Union-style provision allowing unlimited migration from Mexico into the United States. This would fulfill Obama’s dream — which he begun with Executive Amnesty — to import millions of new anti-gun (liberal) voters into the country.

Of course, we can’t quote for you any of the language in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement because the document is TOP SECRET. Obama won’t reveal it, even to most congressmen, until Congress has given it its imprimatur by allowing it to pass under fast track procedures.

On Monday, Politico reported:

If you want to hear the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the Obama administration is hoping to pass, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door.

If you’re a [congressional] member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving.

And no matter what, you can’t discuss the details of what you’ve read.

Truly, even more than with ObamaCare, this is a case of “You have to pass it to find out what’s in it.”

Some Republicans are being duped

But that’s not all: The fast track authority being granted to Obama and his successor for the next six years applies to whatever type of trade negotiation Obama chooses to enter into.

So, if he can write the UN Arms Trade Treaty into a trade agreement, then it can’t be filibustered or amended or prevented from consideration.

Tragically, many conservative Republicans have listened to business lobbyists — who are focused on the free trade issues without considering the impact on personal liberties — and have endorsed fast track. But one business leader recently took Republican lawmakers to the woodshed for this:

By now Congressional Republicans should know better. The Obama administration has stonewalled Congress on many issues, e.g., guns to Mexico and the IRS scandal, and this President has ignored the law and by-passed Congress on such matters as executive amnesty and the Bergdahl prisoner exchange. [The] alleged economic benefits of TPP — and they are minimal … — do not trump the Constitution, the law, and the proper use of fast track.

It is significant that, in Sen. Orrin Hatch’s 114-page bill specifying the goals of U.S. trade negotiations (S. 995), there is not a single word prohibiting Obama from using the agreements to implement gun control. And yet, that gun control will be just as binding as if Congress enacted it in a statute.

You can read an article written by GOA’s Legislative Counsel, which goes into this issue in much more detail.

You can also go here to read the full article written by the business leader (mentioned above) explaining why fast track is NOT really about free trade.

ACTION: Contact your Senators — no matter whether they are conservative or liberal. Urge them to vote against the anti-gun fast track bill (S. 995).