Minnesota Republicans want to outlaw cash-carrying poor people

Fight Back News

St. Paul, MN – Minnesota Republicans are pushing legislation that would make it a crime for people on public assistance to have more $20 in cash in their pockets any given month. This represents a change from their initial proposal, which banned them from having any money at all.

On March 15, Angel Buechner of the Welfare Rights Committee testified in front of the House Health and Human Services Reform Committee on House File 171. Buechner told committee members, “We would like to address the provision that makes it illegal for MFIP [one of Minnesota’s welfare programs] families to withdraw cash from the cash portion of the MFIP grant - and in fact, appears to make it illegal for MFIP families to have any type of money at all in their pockets. How do you expect people to take care of business like paying bills such as lights, gas, water, trash and phone?”

House File 171 would make it so that families on MFIP - and disabled single adults on General Assistance and Minnesota Supplemental Aid - could not have their cash grants in cash or put into a checking account. Rather, they could only use a state-issued debit card at special terminals in certain businesses that are set up to accept the card.

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Author Graham Hancock on the War on Drugs (Video)

Graham Hancock
Reality Sandwich

I do not believe that is our race, or our religion, our gender, our height, our looks, our job, our sexual orientation, or any other superficial characteristics that define us as human beings. Trumping all these by a country mile, it is our consciousness – the most intimate, precious, sapient, unique and individual part of ourselves – that is really the essence of who and what we are. Indeed, at the deepest level it is what we are – to the extent that if we are not sovereign over our own consciousness then we cannot in any meaningful sense be sovereign over anything else either. For these and many other reasons I strongly oppose the “war on drugs” which, in my view, has created an engine of oppression and control in society by which the State claims the right, purportedly in our own interests, to regulate our very thoughts and inner experiences, and to trespass the sanctum of our consciousness.

I was recently interviewed by Cara Lavan of Knowdrugs.net on the subject of drugs, the drug war, personal freedom and cognitive liberty. The interview, which is embedded here, captures some of the key points that I feel have been neglected, and must be taken into account, if we are ever to get to grips with these issues in society.



Evolve your consciousness, bite by bite, at Reality Sandwich.

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What the Patriot Act Does For You

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Philip Giraldi
AntiWar

Incessant warmaking overseas will someday end when the United States runs out of money or soldiers or both.  But less well understood is the collateral damage here at home where the consequences of the global war on terror will linger on in the form of a shattered constitution.  The Patriot Act is generally promoted as the principal legislative tool being used to fight international terrorism.  It is, in reality, a devastating and poorly conceived bit of legislation originally approved just after 9/11.  It will soon be up for an extension in the US Senate.  President Barack Obama, who criticized it while he was a candidate but apparently has had a change of heart since that time, favors its renewal.  Most members of Congress, few of whom have ever read the entire act, want it renewed.  The mainstream media likes it because who can resist patriotism?

That is the bad news.  But there is also some good news. Libertarians, traditional conservatives, progressives, and even some tea partiers are for the first time uniting to stop the extension.  Senator Rand Paul led the charge in the Senate back in February, resulting in a temporary 90 day continuation of key provisions of the act that will expire in May.  Before that happens, the Patriot Act will again be up for Senatorial approval but this time there will be an open debate in front of the full Senate and under the scrutiny of the media.  It will be the first time that has happened since 2001.  There will also be a roll call vote with each Senator having to come down for or against.  It is an opportunity not to be missed to roll back the tide of government intrusion in the life of every citizen.

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The Globalists' Egyptian Gambit: ElBaradei

From the Council on Foreign Relations to the Brookings Institute, Globalists agree. Mohamed ElBaradei for (Egyptian) President 

source

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer

Activist Post 

 It was previously reported that Mohamed ElBaradei, the self-proclaimed leader of the unfolding Egyptian protests, is actually sitting on the Board of Trustees of the Zbigniew Brzezinski/George Soros globalist think-tank, the International Crisis Group.

The mainstream media has been backing ElBaradei's ownership of the protests, hailing this Nobel Laurette and former UN IAEA director as the potential next president of Egypt and the "hero" of the protests. The New York Times refers to him as the "Nobelist" portraying him as standing "toe-to-toe" with hundreds of riot police and promising to run for president if and only if elections were "free and fair."

While ElBaradei poses as a critic of the United States, it is not because of their meddling with Middle Eastern affairs, it is because they are not meddling enough. ElBaradei berates the United States for not intervening in what he calls "social disintegration, economic stagnation, and political repression" in Egypt. Apparently ElBaradei isn't the only one who thinks so either.

Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) senior fellow, Project for a New American Century signatory, and Bush wrangler Elliott Abrams elaborated on the sort of "intervention" the United States should be committed to in his piece "Less 'Engagement,' More Democracy" in the New York Times. In his piece he criticizes the current policy of engaging with nations he deems repressive regimes as equals and calls for a revisit to George Bush's "freedom agenda." In other words - the export of "democracy" that has brought America the trillion dollar military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan at the cost of thousands of US soldiers' lives and the lives of millions of foreigners killed, maimed, or displaced.

Ultimately the "freedom agenda" has created puppet governments and sweeping economic reforms giving globalist corporate cartels free reign in these "importers of democracy." Those that remember Paul Bremer's Colalition Provisional Authority, may also recall the various "liberalizations" imposed upon Iraq including 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi companies and immunity granted to foreign contractors from Iraqi law.

In the end, the "freedom agenda" is nothing more than 21st century gunboat diplomacy coupled with the one-sided "treaties" the European imperialists imposed across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Fellow CFR policy wonk, Robert Danin echos Abrams' sentiments regarding the freedom agenda by regretting how President Obama had backed away from it during his 2009 speech in Cairo, and how interesting it is now that the administration seems to be interested in perhaps adopting it. He then goes on to explain how the protests are unprecedented, in that they are concerning not anit-American or anti-Israeli causes, but directed at inward problems at home.

With Tunisia and now Egypt internally infighting, a collective regional division seems to be developing. It is no secret the globalists via the United States and Israeli governments, want regime change in Iran and to desperately halt their nuclear program. Elliot Abrams in his New York Times piece states explicitly "our ultimate goal for Iran is not a nuclear deal with the ayatollahs but freedom for its people under a government they choose in honest elections." Newsweek goes one step further and reports on a covert war against Iran's nuclear program already well underway.Seymour Hersh reported as early as 2008 that the US was conducting military operations in Iran.

The floundering efforts to achieve the globalists' goals with Iran, now spanning several years, may have spurred the real policy makers, the globalist think tanks, to consider a wider regional campaign of destabilization and the installation of more reliable and more zealous allies to build the needed coalition to confront an unmovable Iran. At any rate, any opposition for the globalists' next phase in the Middle East will be muted with regimes across the region battling for their very survival.

Mohamed ElBaradei, then literally sitting on the International Crisis Group's Board of Trustees with the likes of George Soros, would not only be a trusted candidate to sow instability throughout Egypt, but would make an equally trustworthy leader of a pliable proxy regime to turn against Iran, Russia, and China. An ElBaradei controlled Egypt could equally be turned against disruptive members of the other globalist pet project Egypt is conveniently positioned to deal with, the African Union. And last but not least, Egypt controls the Suez Canal. Greater control over Egypt means greater control over the passage of freight through the canal.

Finally, globalist think-tank, the Brookings Institute, chimes in claiming Egypt's new opposition leader is indeed Mohamed ElBaradei and claims he is already reaching out for ties and a loose alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, an extremely large and influential opposition organization in Egypt. The Brookings Institute feigns the same ignorance as the rest of the mainstream media regarding ElBaradei's position in the International Crisis Group by claiming it will be Egypt that will decide the outcome "not Washington." Brookings also laments that Israel's government holds a huge stake in the outcome of Egypt's unrest but has "absolutely no ability to influence the course of events."

It should then comfort Israel and the Brookings Institute to know that ElBaradei is working so closely with US policy makers via the International Crisis Group and that his sentiments are echoed by America's "Neo-Conservative" establishment. In other words, Israel and America have their foot in the door and seem not to even realize it. The wiser suspects they most certainly do realize it.

Tony Cartalucci's articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at Land Destroyer.   

Related article by Tony Cartalucci
All is Not What it Seems in Egyptian Clashes 

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