Will Russia soon be taking US 9-1-1 calls?

Fox News

If American astronauts hitching a ride from the Russians to the International Space Station didn't ruffle enough feathers, there's growing concern about a proposal to use Moscow's satellites to transmit America's 911 emergency calls. 

Wireless carriers and public safety organizations have pitched the idea of using Russia's system to the Federal Communications Commission, as part of their recommendations for improving 911 response. Part of the concern is that under the current system, operators have a hard time locating people calling from cell phones indoors -- and Russia's satellite system, called GLONASS, might be able to help. 

But Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., head of a House Armed Services subcommittee, has raised concerns about the influence that might give Vladimir Putin's Russia over the U.S. system. 

In a Jan. 21 letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Rogers specifically questioned whether Putin might be able to use GLONASS "as a weapon" against the U.S., holding the 911 system "hostage" if he wanted. 

He warned the U.S. could be poised to "disregard" the threat from Putin "so soon after Russia's illegal seizure of Ukrainian territory" -- a source of flaring tension between Russia and the United States. 

"In view of the threat posed to the world by Russia's Vladimir Putin, it cannot be seriously considered that the U.S. would rely on a system in that dictator's control for its wireless 911 location capability," Rogers wrote, adding: "Our response to Russia's hybrid warfare, arms control cheating, illegal invasions of sovereign nations, and energy-based extortion must be broad-based isolation and counter-leverage." 

The letter, obtained by FoxNews.com, was first reported by The Washington Times. 

But Brian Fontes, CEO of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) which is among the groups pushing the new plan, described such concerns as "scare tactics." 

"They are spreading rumors that we are relying on the Russian government and doing harm, and on its face it's bogus," he told FoxNews.com. "They are projecting all this on a system that may be up and running in the future. It's hyperbole." 

The FCC plans to hold a meeting on Jan. 29, where the proposal could come up. The agency is reviewing the 911 service in light of difficulties first responders sometimes have finding people who call from wireless phones indoors under the United States' GPS system. Though the agency currently requires wireless providers to transmit location information to 911 call centers, there are still challenges in finding people -- particularly in large, multi-story buildings. The FCC wants wireless providers eventually to be able to transmit more accurate information. 

Retired Rear Adm. David Simpson, head of the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, said in a statement the agency is "committed to protecting both public safety and national security as we continue to examine the input and issues in the proceeding, and will coordinate with our colleagues across the government to ensure that national security needs are addressed." 

He underscored the urgency of a 911 overhaul in a blog post last month. 

"The vast majority of 911 calls are from mobile phones, and we are not where we need to be on location accuracy for wireless 911 calls," he wrote. "This puts American lives at risk and requires swift action from the FCC, from wireless carriers, and from public safety officials." 

The four largest wireless carriers, joined by two public safety organizations including NENA, proposed the plan, which among other components suggests using Russia's GLONASS satellite system to help locate 911 callers. 

Fontes said the industry is interested in pursuing all manner of solutions for boosting location accuracy, including improved GPS, sensors and beacon technology -- but using other countries' capabilities should be on the table. 

"If there is any proven -- heavy on the word proven -- and secure -- heavy on the word secure -- means of identifying where a 911 call is originating, I think any of those secure and proven systems should be considered by wireless providers," he said. 

A Sprint representative reportedly said in a recent letter to FCC officials that their plan does not call for relying exclusively on the GLONASS system -- just using it to help improve location information. 

According to The Washington Times, The Association of Public-Safety Communications also penned a recent letter to the FCC describing the national security warnings as "plainly false statements that stretch the imagination." 

FoxNews.com's Kelley Vlahos contributed to this report.

Edward Snowden: I would 'volunteer for prison' to return to US

Eun Kyung Kim TODAY

Edward Snowden may have recently received a three-year extension of his stay in Russia, but the former National Security Agency contractor says in a new interview with WIRED magazine that he still clings to hope of returning home to the United States, even if it means living behind bars.

“I told the government I’d volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose,” Snowden said the article released Wednesday. “I care more about the country than what happens to me. But we can’t allow the law to become a political weapon or agree to scare people away from standing up for their rights, no matter how good the deal. I’m not going to be part of that.”

Described by WIRED as “the most wanted man in the world,” Snowden is being sought for leaking top-secret documents that unveiled widespread surveillance programs overseen by the federal government. He currently is hiding out in an undisclosed community in Russia, where he says he goes mostly unrecognized.

The magazine includes numerous photographs of Snowden, including a previously unseen one of him with his former boss Michael Hayden, a past director of both the NSA and CIA. Other photos show Snowden in silhouette in a hotel room, or on a couch looking fatigued. In another photo, Snowden wears a T-shirt with the word “SECURITY” on the back. The one expected to draw criticism, however, is the magazine cover showing Snowden, whom many Americans consider a traitor, wrapped in an American flag.

Keep reading on TODAY.com >>

The threats to America grow

Putin Tells Obama to Get a New Job

Mary Greeley

Russia to Deny US Access to International Space Station over Ukraine Sanctions

breitbart

By Frances Martel

wikipedia.org

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced Tuesday that Russia has denied a NASA request for continued co-habitation of the International Space Station beyond 2020, citing sanctions on Russia over the ongoing crisis in Ukraine as a reason the Russia government wants to distance itself from the US space program.

Reuters reports Rogozin announced that the United States would not be able to use the International Space Station beyond 2020, when the mutual agreement to use it was set to expire, though NASA had requested an extension to 2024. The money used to keep it open would go to "more promising space projects" after 2020, he said.

In addition, Russia would not allow its native rocket engines to launch US military satellites and would close off eleven GPS sites on its territory until further notice. The measures are in response to sanctions from the United States, which Rogozin called "out of place and inappropriate."

While the United States has had access to the International Space Station for years, the only way to enter the station is using Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the Daily Mail notes. This gives Russia full discretion to decide which astronauts can access it.

Rogozin had previously hinted that Russia might use the space program as a way to counter a series of sanctions on it from the United States after Russia annexed the Ukrainian province of Crimea. After an initial round of sanctions in April, Rogozin tweeted that America should find another way to reach the International Space station: "I suggest U.S. delivers its astronauts to the ISS [international space station] with a trampoline."

That outburst came as a response to a sanction directly related to NASA. In April, the American space agency announced that "Given Russia's ongoing violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, Nasa is suspending the majority of its ongoing engagements with the Russian Federation." Those engagements did not include the International Space Station, however, which NASA was keen on keeping open for longer than the original date set to expire in 2020. That announcement came a month after questions surrounding the tensions between ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in Ukraine escalated, during which NASA announced that all ties with Russia's space program were "normal."

The news of further dissolution of ties with the United States followed a call by Russia for the European Union to stop issuing new sanctions and instead open dialogue with Russia. The latest round of sanctions from the EU targets individuals with power in the Russian government who are considered to be especially responsible for the annexation of Crimea and continued violence in the region.

Replacing Russian-made rocket engines is not easy

space-travel

Moscow (Voice of Russia) May 05, 2014

The Pentagon is hard-pressed to find a replacement for the Russian-made rocket engines it buys, a senior official has revealed. The import of the engines has for now been banned via a court order lobbied by SpaceX and based on sanctions imposed on Russia during the Ukrainian crisis, Stars and Stripes reports. The private space exploration company SpaceX says it has a cheaper way to launch satellites, and was suing the US Air Force for the chance to prove it.

US billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX on Wednesday won a court order temporarily blocking the Air Force from buying the Russian rocket engines on the grounds of a "potential violation" of US-imposed sanctions. The corporation says that by purchasing the engines, the Air Force is funneling money to Russia's military industrial complex, which could be sponsoring some sanctioned Russian figures.

However, the Pentagon has no "great solution" to reduce its dependence on a Russian-made engine that powers the rocket used to launch U.S. military satellites, the Defense Department's top weapons buyer said.

Earlier ordered by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the review of US Air Force dependence on the Russian-made RD-180 engines, used in American Atlas V rockets, has not yielded any solutions.

"We don't have a great solution. We haven't made any decisions yet," Frank Kendall, the US undersecretary of defense for acquisition, was quoted by Bloomberg.

United Launch Alliance LLC, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) and Boeing Co. (BA), has been purchasing RD-180 rocket engines from joint Russian-American enterprise RD-Amross LLC since 1997. The engines in question have been produced at a plant of NPO Energomash near Moscow, and over 40 of them were delivered during 1997-2007 period.

The US has used RD-180 engines to power its Atlas III and Atlas V rockets, which mostly deliver commercial or military communications satellites, as well as reconnaissance and navigation satellites.

So far, the replacement options outlined by the Air Force for Hagel have reportedly included building RD-180s in the US under an existing license from the Russian maker, or using different Delta-class rockets altogether. The U.S. also could accelerate the certification of new companies to launch satellites that don't use the Russian engine, he said.

Each of the options has its drawbacks, such as the need to harness the time and know-how for setting up engine production in the US, or the limited production capability for another class of rockets, according to Kendall.

There has not, however, been any indication that Russia could stop the production of engines already agreed upon under the latest contract, nor did the US freeze their delivery.

SpaceX won a court temporarily blocking the Air Force from buying the Russian rocket engines and Judge Susan Braden's preliminary injunction doesn't cover existing contracts or payments. Braden said her decision was reached after considering public interest, national defense and security concerns.

Bloomberg learned that five more RD-180 engines are still due to be delivered this year. The further deliveries could come under question at least temporarily, as, according to Pentagon spokeswoman Maureen Schumann, the United Launch Alliance has already stockpiled a two-year supply of the engines.

The United Launch Alliance has stockpiled about a two-year supply of the engines based on the current planned satellite launch schedule, Pentagon spokeswoman Maureen Schumann said in an e-mail in March.

The joint venture is also taking delivery of five more engines this year, ULA spokeswoman Jessica Rye said in an e-mailed statement.

So, while the US demands the rest of the world turn its economic back on Russia, it appears they are discovering the world is considerably more inter-dependent than it thought, columnist Tyler Durden writes.

Source: Voice of Russia >>

Will President Obama stop Putin?

Canada says Russia's actions "imperialistic" Russia fighter Jet Buzz US. Aircraft

Mary Greeley

Payin’ Putin: As Ukraine crisis simmers, NASA to pay Russia $71M for rocket ride

Fox News

March, 23, 2014: The sun rises behind the Soyuz launch pad shortly before the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft is rolled out by train to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

The U.S. will pay Russia $70.7 million for a single shuttle ride aboard the country’s Soyuz rocket Tuesday night, even as President Barack Obama fights for sanctions and penalties against Russia for its recent invasion of the Ukraine.
With politicians wrangling over the most diplomatic way to respond to Russia’s aggression, NASA said the space pay-off to the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) wouldn’t be affected by politics.
“We do not expect the current Russia-Ukraine situation to have an impact on our longstanding civil space cooperation with Russia, which goes back decades, including our partnership on the International Space Station (ISS) program,” Trent Perrotto, a spokesman for the space agency, told FoxNews.com.
“We are confident that our two space agencies will continue to work closely as they have throughout various ups and downs of the broader U.S.-Russia relationship.”

'If NASA had received the President’s requested funding, we would not have been forced to sign a new contract for Soyuz flights.'

- NASA administrator Charles Bolden

NASA astronaut Steve Swanson will join Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev aboard a Soyuz rocket set to blast off from a launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:17 p.m. EDT Tuesday night (early Wednesday morning in Russia).
Because the U.S. doesn’t presently have its own way to get astronauts into space, it relies upon Russian rockets to do so. Last April, NASA signed a new agreement with Russia governing six flights through 2017, at a cost of $70.7 million per seat. At the time, NASA administrator Charles Bolden blamed Congress for failing to fund a replacement ride.
“If NASA had received the President’s requested funding for this plan, we would not have been forced to recently sign a new contract with Roscosmos for Soyuz transportation flights,” he wrote in a NASA blog.
NASA told FoxNews.com on Monday that it continues to pursue ways to bring spaceflight back to U.S. soil, hopefully within the next three years.
“NASA is working aggressively to return human spaceflight launch to American soil and end our sole reliance on Russia to get into space. Later this year, NASA intends to select the American companies that will transport its astronauts to the space station beginning in 2017. In the meantime, NASA and Roscosmos will continue to work with each other to maintain the space station, where humans have lived continuously for more than 13 years.”
Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev -- officially named Expedition 39 -- will take an express, 6-hour journey to the station. The TMA-12M spacecraft they will helm was rolled out by train to the launch pad on Sunday, March 23.
The trio will remain aboard the station until mid-September, NASA said, and will join Japan’s Koichi Wakata, U.S. astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Russian Mikhail Tyurin, who have been aboard the orbital outpost since November.
Aboard the orbiting complex Friday, Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin tackled a range of scientific experiments and performed some routine maintenance and cleaning to get the station shipshape for the arrival of their three new crewmates, NASA said.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, the Pentagon said it would take a long, hard look at the connections between the two countries when it comes to space technology. Notably, rocket engines from Russian company NPO Energomash are used by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of U.S. firms Lockheed Martin and Boeing, to power Atlas V rockets -- which the Air Force relies upon for satellite launches.
At a congressional hearing on Thursday, March 13, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the rocket motor issue would definitely need to be examined, according to Reuters.
"I think this is going to engage us in a review of that issue. I don't think there's any question about that," Hagel said.

Top 5 Consequences of Putin's 'Crimea Reset'

breitbart

By Joel B. Pollak 

"We are entering into our renewed relationship with our eyes open," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton five years ago, before presenting Russia's foreign minister with the infamous bright red "reset" button.

Russia has pushed the "reset" button all right, resetting history and geography to take the Crimea back, while the U.S. and the European Union do virtually nothing. The White House announced Monday morning that President Barack Obama had imposed a set of sanctions on the Russian arms industry and senior Russian officials, but no one close to Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, according to the UK Telegraph.

The weakness of the west in facing the Russian seizure of the Crimea is likely to have a significant geopolitical effect, both in the short term and long term. Here are five of the most likely consequences of the :Crimea reset":

1. China advances claims over territory and airspace. An aggressively nationalist China was already moving to broaden its air defenses and its claims to the Senkaku Islands, despite U.S. plans to "pivot" from the Middle East to the western Pacific. It will now be even more assertive, knowing there are few consequences.

2. Al Qaeda steps up its attempts to create an Islamic caliphate. The Obama administration, having dispatched Osama bin Laden, has left Al Qaeda to expand across Africa and the Middle East. Those hoping to establish an Islamic state in the ruins of Syria and Iraq will be encouraged by the failure of the west to defend the sovereignty of Ukraine, because the artificial borders of the Middle East seem even more vulnerable now.

3. Israel plans for completely unilateral action on Iran. It is clearer than ever before that the Obama administration has no ability to enforce its own "red lines" and no will to risk armed conflict. Israel will likely set aside the task of obtaining U.S. approval for a pre-emptive strike on Iran and will make independent plans--perhaps in coordination with Saudi Arabia, which has likewise learned that Obama is not to be trusted.

4. Europe gets serious about fracking. As my colleague James Delingpole of Breitbart London observes, one of the positive side-effects of the Crimea crisis is that the EU has realized that energy independence is vital to its security. It will start to reject pseudo-scientific "green" arguments in favor of oil and gas development.

5. Russia continues to challenge U.S. allies and create crisis. The Crimea crisis is hardly over, and may reach other parts of Ukraine, as well as NATO allies in Eastern Europe, as Putin tries the same trick again. He is also expanding Russian influence into Latin America. He will only stop when the U.S. stops retreating from any possible confrontation, and commits military resources to stopping his advance. That point is still very far away.

Russia TV host: Russia could turn USA into radioactive ashes

ITN

Top U.S. Military Spy Chief: Have To Assume Russia Knows U.S. Secrets

War News Updates

Photo: Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, Director of DIA

Washington (CNN) -- In the world of military strategy, every contingency must be examined, especially the worst-case scenario.

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, made that clear when he told National Public Radio in an interview broadcast Friday how U.S. officials must plan for the possibility that Vladimir Putin's Russia has access to American battle plans and other secrets possibly taken by classified leaker Edward Snowden.

"If I'm concerned about anything, I'm concerned about defense capabilities that he may have stolen from where he worked, and does that knowledge then get into the hands of our adversaries — in this case, of course, Russia," Flynn said of the former National Security Agency contractor who fled to Moscow to seek asylum.

Read more >>

Russia May Suspend Nuclear Arms Inspections With US: START Treaty

Mary Greeley

U.S. Says Russia Tested Missile, Despite Treaty

By MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON — The United States informed its NATO allies this month that Russia had tested a new ground-launched cruise missile, raising concerns about Moscow’s compliance with a landmark arms control accord.

American officials believe Russia began conducting flight tests of the missile as early as 2008. Such tests are prohibited by the treaty banning medium-range missiles that was signed in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader at the time, and that has long been viewed as one of the bedrock accords that brought an end to the Cold War.

Beginning in May, Rose Gottemoeller, the State Department’s senior arms control official, has repeatedly raised the missile tests with Russian officials, who have responded that they investigated the matter and consider the case to be closed. But Obama administration officials are not yet ready to formally declare the tests of the missile, which has not been deployed, to be a violation of the 1987 treaty. 

Keep reading on NYT >>

SECRET SNOWDEN AID? Source: Hong Kong ally may have helped leaker

Read at foxnews >>

Hippocrits! U.S. Senators Introduce Bill to Expand Magnitsky Law Beyond Russia

Mary Greeley

Russian Diplomats Found Socialist Paradise in U.S.

breitbart

By Charles Hurt 

Investigators in New York and politicians here in America’s capital were shocked to learn last week that 50 Russian diplomats had defrauded the U.S. out of some $1.5 million as part of a Medicaid scam.

“Diplomacy should be about extending hands, not picking pockets in the host country,” said the clearly disappointed U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office made the accusations. “The charges expose shameful and systemic corruption among Russian diplomats in New York.”

But you know what is even more shameful? An even greater example of systematic corruption?

That our government leaders are somehow surprised by this. I mean, what do they expect?

The Soviet Union collapsed years ago because, to quote Margaret Thatcher, they eventually ran out of other people’s money. So, where do Russians have to go for their social programs now? They come here.

New York City may be reviled by terrorists as the pinnacle of capitalism, but the truth is the city — like the rest of the country — has increasingly become a cradle of socialism. And Russians know good socialism when they see it.

So they get posted here and get right down to the business of procreating. Because here in America, if you get yourself pregnant, it isn’t your responsibility. It’s the taxpayers’ and they will pick up the tab.

All you have to do is work up some documents that say you make some paltry amount of money and saunter on down to your local department of free stuff and apply for other people to pay for your pregnancy, birth, and infant care.

The part that really threw our leaders for a loop was that the Russian diplomats — obviously our good friends since they wanted to live here in America — had conspired with their bosses in the Russian government to lie about the diplomats’ income so they could be eligible for welfare.

How on earth is this surprising? I mean, they are Russians. They are, at heart, socialists. In order to be a socialist, first and foremost you must be able to lie. Not only must you be able to lie, but you must believe the lies you tell. Otherwise, socialism collapses.

Which gets us to the final point, which only a heartless capitalist would think to ask. And that is, why is it that we are now sharing our American socialism with the Russians?

Don’t our leaders realize the more people we let in to spend other people’s money, the faster we run out of other people’s money? At which point we will be forced to return to capitalism. Or, maybe that just and honest system we see flourishing over there in Russia these days with all the monstrously wealthy Russian oligarchs who live in castles in the south of France.

If only the people could get their hands on all that oligarchy money, they could have all the babies they wanted to. For free!

Russian Diplomats Charged in $1.5M Medicaid Fraud Scheme

By LARRY NEUMEISTER and VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press
NEW YORK
U.S. claims that dozens of Russian diplomats and their spouses cheated to get health care aid meant for the poor drew a sharp rebuke Thursday from a top Russian official who blamed the criminal case on "Russophobic forces" interested in scuttling progress toward Russia-U.S. cooperation in confronting world conflicts.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov made the remarks carried by Russia's state news agency, ITAR-Tass, after charges were announced in New York City against 49 current and former Russian diplomats and their wives.

He called the charges "no more than a cheap spin effort, no more than a desire to fulfill the order of Russophobic forces in the United States."

Ryabkov added: "We regret that attempt to stir up another conflict or dispute, particularly in view of the fact that Moscow and Washington recently have developed a good format of ties regarding big international issues. We wouldn't like to make such links, but in view of reaching some results in the sphere of settling major conflicts, some people in Washington needed to spoil the atmosphere. We can only assess it this way."

Ryabkov's comments came as a State Department spokeswoman in Washington seemed to downplay the announcement by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan, saying the department was reviewing the just-unsealed charges and didn't believe charges against a "handful" of people would damage U.S.-Russia relations.

Bharara said 25 current and former diplomats and 24 spouses were criminally charged in federal court in Manhattan after they underreported incomes to qualify for Medicaid funds even as they spent tens of thousands of dollars on luxury vacations, concert tickets, fine clothing and helicopter rides.

"Diplomacy should be about extending hands, not picking pockets in the host country," Bharara told a news conference.

More at breitbart >>

New world order? Nations testing US global influence

The Putin Jobs Program for Amerika: Former Soviet official behind black box "track & tax" of US drivers

Trevor Loudon's New Zeal Blog » 

Hasan Ikhratra, a former Soviet official

NoisyRoom.net
By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Hat Tip: Andrea Shea King
Cross-Posted at Right Wing News

Comrades! Now we are sharing jobs with the glorious communist motherland of Russia!! California is not content with their socialist and Marxist leanings. Oh no… now they are painting the state Russian red and putting actual communists in bureaucratic positions of power. With just a hint of KGB swagger and a whole lot of jack booted thuggery for the surveillance state:

WASHINGTON, October 30, 2013 — The California bureaucrat behind a big brother plan to track vehicles and “tax by the mile” worked as a government transportation planner in the former USSR.
Hasan Ikhrata, Executive Director of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), who told the Los Angeles Times “This really is a must for our nation. It is not a matter of something we might choose to do,” worked for the Moscow Metro Corporation, according to his official SCAG biography.
SCAG foresees mandatory tracking of all California motorists by 2025. A black box tax-by-the-mile pilot program is underway in Oregon and several other states. Some of the methods Oregon is experimenting with involve using GPS to track miles driven by program participants.
Ikhrata’s former employer Moscow Metro announced plans in July to track the movements of individual passengers on subways by tracking the SIM cards in their mobile phones, even if the phones are powered off, according to RT. Police operations chief of the Moscow metro, Andrey Mokhov argues that the tactic is legal because “By law, we are not allowed to trace a person without appropriate sanctions…but we can keep track of the property of companies, which is exactly what SIM cards are.”
Although Ikhrata no longer spends his days working as a Moscow planner, he appears to have imported into California’s sprawling bureaucracy an instinct which runs unchecked inside the iron machinery of the world’s most authoritarian governments: track, surveil, and ultimately control everything citizens do.

You see, it is not paranoia if the government is actually after you. It is not a conspiracy if it is provably happening. Hasan Ikhrata was supposedly chosen from a diverse pool of candidates across the country. They just didn’t say which country, although it is claimed he is a long time resident of San Bernardino County. He’s still a Russian and he’s still a commie. You can take the red out of Russia, but you can’t take the Russian out of the red. Side note: just as Russian officials are now becoming American officials, has anyone looked into who Obama is replacing the purged military officers with? Inquiring Americans would like to know. We know they are sycophants and Marxists, but are they imported? So many questions — so little time left.

The proposed tracking and surveillance of autos for the measurement of miles traveled to impose taxation will forcefully bring income into the Marxists coffers and further the economic collapse descending on America. It’s a win-win for the Progressive agenda. Tracking your every move, well, that’s priceless. Justification for this fascist move is that the government wouldn’t increase gasoline taxes and the money is needed to improve roads and bridges. Where have we heard that load of crap before? Oh yeah… on virtually every lame program used to tax and further empty our pockets since Obama took over.

Since we are down the rabbit hole on everything these days, this further infringement of our Constitutional rights is now being fought by odd bedfellows. The Tea Party, the ACLU and privacy groups are raising the alarm over the prospect of governments tracking the movements of Americans in their own vehicles. And so they should. Echoes of Ayn Rand:

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. – Ayn Rand

Perhaps with Russia conducting large scale nuclear drills, we should be a bit more circumspect here. Ballistic missiles (four of them at once), two by land and two by sub. Infiltrate, propagandize and invade. Sounds like a thriller to die for as we institute the Putin Jobs Program for Amerika.