Obama Repeals 5th Amendment
*please go to page 7 if this is not new to you.*
Government calls for inventory of all weopans at V.F.W. Posts including old muskets swords tanks and everything from WWII and Vietnam.
Link to source. www.infowars.com check front page to link to article
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Scientists' Leaked Correspondence Illustrates Bitter Feud over Global Warming
wall street journal
By KEITH JOHNSON
The scientific community is buzzing over thousands of emails and documents -- posted on the Internet last week after being hacked from a prominent climate-change research center -- that some say raise ethical questions about a group of scientists who contend humans are responsible for global warming.
The correspondence between dozens of climate-change researchers, including many in the U.S., illustrates bitter feelings among those who believe human activities cause global warming toward rivals who argue that the link between humans and climate change remains uncertain.
Some emails also refer to efforts by scientists who believe man is causing global warming to exclude contrary views from important scientific publications.
"This is horrible," said Pat Michaels, a climate scientist at the Cato Institute in Washington who is mentioned negatively in the emails. "This is what everyone feared. Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult for anyone who does not view global warming as an end-of-the-world issue to publish papers. This isn't questionable practice, this is unethical."
In all, more than 1,000 emails and more than 2,000 other documents were stolen Thursday from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the U.K. The identity of the hackers isn't certain, but the files were posted on a Russian file-sharing server late Thursday, and university officials confirmed over the weekend that their computer had been attacked and said the documents appeared to be genuine.
"The selective publication of some stolen emails and other papers taken out of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to engage with this issue in a responsible way," the university said.
Most climate scientists today argue that the earth's temperature is rising, and nearly all of those agree that human activity is likely to be a prime or at least significant cause. But a vocal minority dispute one or both of those views.
A partial review of the hacked material suggests there was an effort at East Anglia, which houses an important center of global climate research, to shut out dissenters and their points of view.
In the emails, which date to 1996, researchers in the U.S. and the U.K. repeatedly take issue with climate research at odds with their own findings. In some cases, they discuss ways to rebut what they call "disinformation" using new articles in scientific journals or popular Web sites.
The emails include discussions of apparent efforts to make sure that reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that monitors climate science, include their own views and exclude others. In addition, emails show that climate scientists declined to make their data available to scientists whose views they disagreed with.
The IPCC couldn't be reached for comment Sunday.
Journal Communitydiscuss.." Any group with such a single-minded view (whether they are believers in global warming, global warming rejectionists, liberals, conservatives, whatever) bears close watching and a certain amount of skepticism.
"
.- George Rebovich.
In one email, Benjamin Santer from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., wrote to the director of the climate-study center that he was "tempted to beat" up Mr. Michaels. Mr. Santer couldn't be reached for comment Sunday.
In another, Phil Jones, the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics' research was unwelcome: We "will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" Neither man could be reached for comment Sunday.
The emails were published less than a month before the opening of a major climate-change summit in Copenhagen.
Representatives of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a large professional organization, expressed concern that the hacked emails would weaken global resolve to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. The association believes "that climate change is real, it is related to human activities, and the need to counteract its impacts is now urgent," said Ginger Pinholster, an association spokeswoman. She added that the association's journal, Science, evaluates papers solely on scientific merit.
John Christy, a scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville attacked in the emails for asking that an IPCC report include dissenting viewpoints, said, "It's disconcerting to realize that legislative actions this nation is preparing to take, and which will cost trillions of dollars, are based upon a view of climate that has not been completely scientifically tested."
Mojib Latif, a climate researcher at Germany's Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, said he found it hard to believe that climate scientists were trying to squelch dissent. Mr. Latif, who believes in man-made global warming but who has co-authored a paper ascribing current cooling to temporary natural trends, said, "I simply can't believe that there is a kind of mafia that is trying to inhibit critical papers from being published."0 -
Obama Quietly Backs Patriot Act Provisions
common dreams
by William Fisher
NEW YORK - With the health care debate preoccupying the mainstream media, it has gone virtually unreported that the Barack Obama administration is quietly supporting renewal of provisions of the George W. Bush-era USA Patriot Act that civil libertarians say infringe on basic freedoms.
And it is reportedly doing so over the objections of some prominent Democrats.
When a panicky Congress passed the act 45 days after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, three contentious parts of the law were scheduled to expire at the end of next month, and opponents of these sections have been pushing Congress to substitute new provisions with substantially strengthened civil liberties protections.
But with the apparent approval of the Obama White House and a number of Republicans - and over the objections of liberal Senate Democrats including Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Dick Durbin of Illinois - the Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to extend the three provisions with only minor changes.
Those provisions would leave unaltered the power of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to seize records and to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mail in the course of counterterrorism investigations.
The parts of the act due to expire on Dec. 31 deal with:
National Security Letters (NSLs)
The FBI uses NSLs to compel Internet service providers, libraries, banks, and credit reporting companies to turn over sensitive information about their customers and patrons. Using this data, the government can compile vast dossiers about innocent people.
The 'Material Support' Statute
This provision criminalises providing "material support" to terrorists, defined as providing any tangible or intangible good, service or advice to a terrorist or designated group. As amended by the Patriot Act and other laws since Sep. 11, this section criminalises a wide array of activities, regardless of whether they actually or intentionally further terrorist goals or organisations.
FISA Amendments Act of 2008
This past summer, Congress passed a law that permits the government to conduct warrantless and suspicion-less dragnet collection of U.S. residents' international telephone calls and e-mails.
Asked by IPS why committee chairman Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and other Democrats chose to make only minor changes, Chip Pitts, president of the Bill of Rights Defence Committee, referred to "the secret and hypocritical lobbying by the Obama administration against reforms - while publicly stating receptiveness to them." White House pressure, he speculated, "was undoubtedly a huge if lamentable factor".
He added that some committee members were cautious because of the recent arrests of Najibullah Zazi and others.
Zazi , a citizen of Afghanistan and a legal U.S. resident, was arrested in September as part of a group accused of planning to carry out acts of terrorism against the U.S. Zazi is said by the FBI to have attended courses and received instruction on weapons and explosives at an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan.
Leahy acknowledged that, in light of these incidents, "This is no time to weaken or undermine the tools that law enforcement relies on to protect America."
Pitts told IPS, "Short-term and political considerations driven by dramatic events once again dramatically affected the need for a more sensible long-term, reasoned, rule-of-law approach."
"In the eight years since passage of the original Patriot Act, it's become clear that the escalating political competition to appear tough on terror - and avoid being accused of being "soft on terror" - brings perceived electoral benefits with few costs, with vital but fragile civil liberties being easily sacrificed," he added.
In contrast to the Senate, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee approved a version of the legislation containing several significant reforms. In a 16-10 party-line vote, the committee's version curbs some of the government's controversial surveillance powers.
The Patriot Act, passed by a landslide after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to provide law enforcement and intelligence agencies additional powers to thwart terrorist activities, was reauthorised in 2005.
The legislation has been criticised by many from across the ideological spectrum as a threat to civil liberties, privacy and democratic traditions. Sections of the original act have been ruled unconstitutional, with certain provisions violating protected rights.
Judiciary Chair John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, said the goal of the new legislation was to "craft a law that preserves both our national security and our national values".
The proposed new legislation would permit the so-called "lone wolf" provision to sunset. This authority removed the requirement that an individual needed to be an agent of a foreign power to be placed under surveillance by intelligence officials and permitted surveillance of individuals with a much lower evidentiary threshold than allowed under criminal surveillance procedures.
It was intended to allow the surveillance of individuals believed to be doing the bidding of foreign governments or terrorist organisations, even when the evidence of that connection was lacking.
The Justice Department maintains that the "lone wolf" authority is necessary, even though there is no evidence that it has been used. Its opponents believe that existing authorities are sufficient to achieve the goals of the lone wolf provision while more effectively protecting the rights of innocent citizens.
The proposed new House legislation would also restrict the use of national security letters. According to a Congressional Research Service report, "National security letters (NSL) are roughly comparable to administrative subpoenas. Intelligence agencies issue them for intelligence gathering purposes to telephone companies, Internet service providers, consumer credit reporting agencies, banks, and other financial institutions, directing the recipients to turn over certain customer records and similar information."
Under current law, intelligence agencies have few restrictions on the use of NSLs, and in numerous cases, have abused the authority. An FBI inspector general report in 2007 "found that the FBI used NSLs in violation of applicable NSL statutes, Attorney General Guidelines, and internal FBI policies". The reform provisions seek to create greater judicial scrutiny of NSL use.
The bill approved in the Senate contains much more modest reforms. It would retain the lone wolf provision, and is, in general, much more in line with the wishes of the administration. Should both bills pass and go into conference to be reconciled, it is unclear which approach would prevail.
House and Senate versions still need to be voted on by each body separately and then reconciled into a single bill to send to the president for signature.
Pitts told IPS, "President Obama's flip-flop on Patriot Act issues does as much damage as did his flip-flop on the FISA Amendments Act and telecom immunity last year. But it's imperative that we fight, while we still can, to comprehensively reinsert requirements for fact-based, individualised suspicion, checks and balances, and meaningful judicial review prior to government intrusions."
In a report on the Patriot Act, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, "More than seven years after its implementation there is little evidence that the Patriot Act has been effective in making America more secure from terrorists. However, there are many unfortunate examples that the government abused these authorities in ways that both violate the rights of innocent people and squander precious security resources."
c 2009 IPS North America0 -
New York Congress Critters, Attorney General Holder Move Against Second Amendment
Infowars
November 24, 2009
Senator Gillibrand and Representative McCarthy have introduced the Gun Trafficking Prevention Act of 2009. Ostensibly designed to prosecute gun traffickers, the bill would also deny the Second Amendment to anybody on the so-called terror watch list. The legislation is supported by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, and the Brady Campaign.
The number of unique names on the U.S. terror watch list totals 400,000, newly released FBI data reveals. The Washington Post reported that during a 12-month period ending in March of this year, 1,600 people were nominated daily by the U.S. intelligence community to be put on the list due to `reasonable suspicion.'
In July, 2008, the terror watch list contained well over a million names, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
"Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other 'suspicious characters,' with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office in July, 2008. "Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening Center needs to fix it, or the next president needs to fix it, but it has to be done soon."
Obama did not fix it. Instead, as noted below, his attorney general and two Congress critters from New York are well on their way to making sure over a million Americans are stripped of their constitutional right to own firearms.
PRNewswire-USNewswire
Before the Senate Judiciary Committee November 18th, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed a stunningly broad and aggressive anti-gun agenda.
"The President of the United States asked that politicians not use the Ft. Hood attack to engage in `political theater.' It appears those committed to attacking gun owners and the Second Amendment simply can't help themselves and are engaged in blaming guns and gun owners on the heels of this terrorist attack. Sadly it looks like `politics as usual,'" said LEAA's spokesperson, Ted Deeds.
After explaining and defending his decision to give enemy combatants constitutional protections and the right to public trial in civilian courts, Attorney General Holder revealed his support for a national gun owner registration scheme and authorizing the government to ban firearm possession for any person by merely adding that person's name to the terror watch list.
Drawing reasonable conclusions from what Holder publicly said, we now know:
Holder wants a national, permanent gun registration system administered by law enforcement. A registration of honest citizens that have cleared the federal background check for gun purchases with those records permanently retained by and shared among law enforcement.
Holder wants new federal authority to prohibit any person on the federal watch list (reported to be 400,000 names) from buying guns and supports confiscating guns from those on the list who possess them.
Transcribing General Holder: "The position of the Administration is that there should be a basis for law enforcement to share information about gun purchases." ". [It's not] inconsistent to allow law enforcement agencies to share that kind of information, for that information to be retained and then to be shared by law enforcement." "It seems incongruous to me that we would bar certain people from flying on airplanes because they are on the terrorist watch list and yet we would still allow them to posses weapons." {Emphasis added}
LEAA's Executive Director Jim Fotis said, "Those behind the badge don't believe more restrictions on honest gun owners is a reasonable, practical or constitutional response to acts of terrorism. As a retired officer, I know that America's men and women in blue want to fight terrorism, to stop terrorists; not waste time keeping records on innocent gun owners!"0 -
Copenhagen, Carbon and Control
Genevieve Moore
Infowars
November 30, 2009
From scrapped cars to bloated NGOs, funded by those who aim to profit from carbon, one need only look to the European Union and the UK to see what's planned for America. It's no surprise that the US government, and associated institutions, plan to support "low carbon" strategies for a new world. It takes only a few clicks of the mouse to discover the tentacle-like, death hold the green revolutionaries possess throughout the USA and the world.
While American consumers were gladly handing over their "clunkers", so too, was Canada, the UK, South Africa, Germany, France, Italy and now China.
A myriad of tentacles have been developed which appear to be innocuous non-profits like Transition US, Post Carbon Institute, Carbon Trust, or the Chicago Climate Exchange. Examples of relevant government entities include the US Bureau of Economic Geology, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Global Environment Facility and the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel, along with their board members' dubious affiliations. Let's not forget the universities who receive research dollars from power hungry, carbon over-lords to develop foundational, and intricately designed systems-modeling data in order to validate the next level of global control, while mystifying most of us with complicated jargon and mathematics.
It's interesting to note that while American consumers were gladly handing over their "clunkers", so too, was Canada, the UK, South Africa, Germany, France, Italy and now China is announcing a similar move. Proponents of this scheme say it will boost sluggish auto sales. So, is this about climate change, or another back door bailout?
Look a little deeper, however, and we find that scrappage schemes really don't work to reduce much of anything. In fact, the United Kingdom Energy Research Centre (UKERC) published findings in June of 2009 specifically addressing vehicle scrappage programs. For clarity's sake the UKERC is a government appointed consortium of academia from 15, UK academic institutions. In their research and data study they find that vehicle scrappage does nothing to reduce carbon emissions; has little impact on sustaining vehicle efficiency and may actually have the reverse impact by increasing miles driven because people now have new cars. See their findings at this web location: http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.php?page=VSS-Detail
Yet despite the UK's own scientific information, the scrappage program which began April 22, 2009, was extended on September 28, 2009: The Government today announced a ?100M increase to the vehicle scrappage scheme to build on the success of the scheme in boosting consumer demand. http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/sectors/automotive/scrappage/page51068.html
If these programs are found to be questionable, especially without the acquisition of real data, then this futile exercise begs the question: What is this about? The author will hypothesize that this particular program and the implementation thereof, is a piloted demonstration of governments acting as one, single, global entity.
Scrapping vehicles is a hyped sell to consumers to accomplish several things: create a precedent for a united, carbon-guised, global effort; line the pockets of the automakers, shareholders and data makers; bolster the image of environmental concern, securing a healthy, well-indoctrinated voting block. Perhaps most importantly, to set a "carbon budget precedent" as a local and individual control mechanism.
What does this have to do with Copenhagen? Since our president has already demonstrated his willingness to align himself with the UK, and ultimately the EU/UN by ushering in his "cash for clunkers" program, let's look at other items on his agenda. This from ABC's Z. Byron Wolf: "While not originally expected to attend the event, Mr. Obama will take the opportunity in an international venue to lay out his road map to achieving the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emission 83 percent by 2050, with benchmarks of achieving a 30 percent reduction from 2005 emission levels in 2025 and a 42 percent reduction off those levels by 2030, according to officials and a memo released by the White House".
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/11/obama-to-lay-out-emissions-goals-in-copenhagen.html
This same article quotes, "Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works committee passed a more ambitious bill that would seek to cut emissions 20 percent by 2020. The White House seems to endorse the more modest House approach by saying the President will announce reducing emissions "in the range of 17% below 2005 levels."
Interestingly, our government proposals are taken directly from, "UK's National Strategy for Climate and Energy: Transition to a Low Carbon Society". This document specifically states, "The UK is calling for an ambitious global agreement at UN talks in Copenhagen in December 2009#8243;. The plans shared in this document include: To drive this transition the government has put in place the world's first ever legally binding target to cut emissions at least 80% by the year 2050 and a set of 5 year carbon budgets to 2022 to keep the UK on track".
What else should we be expecting in America? How about Smart Meters, Personal Carbon Allowances, and other quite shocking programs designed to thwart our freedoms. The real business of carbon regulation is a matter of global sychronicity while controlling our mobility and freedom without actually have to expose themselves to challenge, or debate. After all, the science has been purchased, as have the politicians and the corporations.
Confoundedly, proponents of programs and policies geared toward carbon budgeting are presented as good stewards of this planet and they may even believe they are. The disarming aspect of "carbon-nation" is that no one seems to notice the evolution of this slow, seemingly painless, asphyxiation which the carbon paradigm presents to our sovereignty as a nation.0 -
Resist DC: A Step-by-Step Plan for Freedom
Rep. Matthew Shea (WA-4th)
Tenth Amendment Center
November 30, 2009
This summer, legislators from several states met to discuss the steps needed to restore our Constitutional Republic. The federal government has ignored the many state sovereignty resolutions from 2009 notifying it to cease and desist its current and continued overreach. The group decided it was time to actively counter the tyranny emanating from Washington D.C.
From those discussions it became clear three things needed to happen.
State Legislatures need to pass 10 key pieces of legislation "with teeth" to put the federal government back in its place.
The people must pass the legislation through the Initiative process if any piece of the legislative agenda fails.
County Sheriffs must reaffirm and uphold their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
With the advent of the Tea Party Movement, many people have been asking how exactly we can make the above reality. What follows is Part I of the outline of that plan regarding state legislation, the action steps any concerned citizen can take to see this legislation to fruition, and the brief history and justifications behind each.
Step 1: Reclaim State Sovereignty through Key Nullification Legislation
Our Constitutional Republic is founded on a system of checks and balances known as the "separation of powers." Rarely, however, are the states considered part of this essential principle.
Enter the "doctrine of nullification."
Nullification is based on the simple principle that the federal government cannot be the final arbiter of the extent and boundaries of its own power. This includes all branches of the federal government. In the law this is known as a "conflict of interest."
Additionally, since the states created the federal government the federal government was an agent of the states; not the other way around. Thus, Thomas Jefferson believed that, by extension, the states had a natural right to nullify (render as of no effect) any laws they believed were unconstitutional.
In the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 he wrote,
"co-States, recurring to their natural right.will concur in declaring these acts void, and of no force, and will each take measures of its own for providing that neither these acts, nor any others of the General Government not plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shalt be exercised within their respective territories."1
Alexander Hamilton echoed this sentiment in Federalist #85 "We may safely rely on the disposition of the state legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority." 2
It is clear then that State Legislatures can stop the unconstitutional overreach of the Obama administration through nullification. Here is a list of proposed nullification legislation to introduce in all 50 States.
Nullification of Socialized Health Care [current efforts] [ example legislation]
Nullification of National Cap and Trade [ example legislation]
Federal Enumerated Powers Requirement (Blanket Nullification) [details]
Establishment of a Federal Tax Escrow Account [ example legislation]
If imposed, socialized health care and cap and trade will crush our economy. These programs are both unconstitutional, creating government powers beyond those enumerated by the Constitution. If those programs are nullified, it will give the individual states a fighting chance to detach from a federal budget in freefall and save the economies of the individual states.
Next, blanket nullification.
The Federal Government, particularly the House of Representatives, needs to abide by its own rules. In particular, House Rule XIII 3(d) specifically states that:
"Each report of a committee on a public bill or public joint resolution shall contain the following: (1) A statement citing the specific powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the law proposed by the bill or resolution." 3
Needless to say, this rule is generally ignored. The idea behind blanket nullification is that if the Congress does not specify the enumerated power it is using according to its own rules, or the power specified is not one of the enumerated powers granted to Congress in the United States Constitution, then the "law" is automatically null and void.
Lastly, the federal government cannot survive without money. I know that seems obvious but many states are missing the opportunity to use money as an incentive for the federal government to return to its proper role. Most visibly, states help collect the federal portion of the gasoline tax. That money should be put into an escrow account at the state level and held there. The Escrow Account legislation includes a provision that all consumer, excise, and income taxes payable to the federal government would go through this account first. This would do two things. First, it would give states the ability to collect interest on that money to help offset revenue shortfalls. Second, it would allow states to hold that money as long as needed as an incentive for the federal government to return within the enumerated boundaries of its power.
Step 2: Erect an impenetrable wall around the County Sheriff and the 2nd Amendment.
As recently stated in the famous Heller opinion by the United States Supreme Court, the right to bear arms "is an individual right protecting against both public and private violence" and "when the able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized they are better able to resist tyranny." 4
Thus, it is clear that the 2nd Amendment not only protects the right to self-defense but that right extends to defending oneself against tyranny. As with any historical attempt to establish a dictatorship weapons must be seized or severely regulated. 5
Here is a list of legislation to prevent this from happening, some of which has already been introduced in states around the country:
Sheriff First [ model legislation]
Extension of the Castle Doctrine (right to protection) [ sample legislation]
Prohibition of Gun and Ammunition Tracking [see above]
Firearms Freedom Act [current efforts] [ model legislation]
The county Sheriff is the senior law enforcement officer both in terms of rank and legal authority in a county. This comes from a tradition of over 1000 years of Anglo-Saxon common law. Anglo-Saxon communities were typically organized into "shires" consisting of approximately 1000 people. 6
The chief law enforcement officer of the shire was the "reeve" or "reef." Hence, the modern combination of the two words, as we know them today, "shire reef" or "Sheriff." 7
Consequently, the Sheriff's pre-eminent legal authority is well established. This was confirmed in Printz v. United States. 7 Justice Scalia quotes James Madison who wrote in Federalist 39:
"In the latter, the local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject, within their respective spheres, to the general authority, than the general authority is subject to them, within its own sphere."9
Sheriff 1st legislation would formally declare that all federal agents and officers must give notice of, and seek permission before, any arrest, search, or seizure occurs. Thus, federal agents and officers seeking to enforce unconstitutional laws must go through the county Sheriff first.
Extending the castle doctrine to one's person would go a long way toward eliminating the arbitrary "no carry" areas. Like Virginia Tech, it is these areas where guns for self-defense are most needed.
Many gun and ammunition tracking schemes have been, and are still being, attempted. The intended purpose of "reducing gun related" crime is never realized. Instead, law-abiding citizens are punished with regulatory burdens and fees. Quite simply we need transparency in government not in the people.
Montana started the firearms freedom act to rein in the federal government's use of the Commerce Clause to regulate everything within the stream of commerce. The original intent of the Commerce Clause was to regulate commerce between states not within states as Professor Rob Natelson points out in his 2007 Montana Law Review article.10
The Montana FFA simply returns to that original understanding regarding firearms made, sold, and kept within a state's borders.
This list is by no means exhaustive. However, it does contain some immediate steps that can be taken toward freedom and restoring our God honoring Constitutional Republic. Hitler's laws of January 30 and February 14, 1934, should serve as a stark reminder of what happens when state sovereignty is abolished.
In the coming few weeks I will publish the next part of the plan.
Matthew Shea [send him email] is a State Representative in Washington's 4th District. He's the author of HJM4009 for State Sovereignty. Visit his website.
Copyright c 2009 by TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
NOTES:
1. Kentucky Resolution of 1798, Thomas Jefferson, Adopted by Kentucky Legislature on November 10, 1798.
2. Federalist No. 85, Publius (Alexander Hamilton), August 13 and 16, 1788.
3. Rules of the House XIII 3(d), "Content of Reports," Page 623, 110th Congress.
4. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. ___ (Actual Pages 11, 13) (2008)
5. Id at (Actual Page 11).
6. http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/history/ancient/1859-teutoburg-forest-the-battle-that-saved-the-west
7. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=sheriff&searchmode=none
8. Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997)
9. Federalist No. 39, Publius (James Madison), January 16, 1788
10. Tempering the Commerce Power, 68 Mont. L. Rev. 95 (2007).
there are more links than I could put in, in the original article.0 -
http://www.infowars.com/its-over-al-gore/
Don't have time to post the article on this one and it has several videos as well so click the link for pure enjoyment.0 -
That last one on "steps to restoring the republic" was great. I like it better than my idea of "a few, storming the gates". Guess mine would be better as a last resort.[;)]
Do you post these anywhere else on the net? Even over in GD would get more coverage than in here, but this one should be posted on every conservative forum on the net!0 -
Superior man arrested for trespassing on his own land
DuluthNewsTribune
no author mentioned:
The latest chapter in a saga over an easement for a pipeline ended with Jeremy Engelking going to jail.
Jeremy Engelking will appear in Douglas County court this afternoon to face a trespassing charge. But here's the kicker: The Superior man allegedly trespassed on his own property.
Engelking, 27, aimed to hunt deer Wednesday morning when he noticed a pipeline crew on his land. He hopped on his ATV and told workers they had no right to be on his property because he had received no compensation from Enbridge Energy Partners L.P. for an easement.
Engelking said workers told him he was in an unsafe place and asked him to come to an equipment staging area, where he continued to argue his case.
But just as he was turning to leave, Engelking said an officer from the Douglas County Sheriff's Department arrived on the scene and approached with a Taser drawn.
"He ordered me to 'get down on the ground now!' And he said that I was being arrested for trespassing," Engelking said.
When Engelking protested, pointing out that he was on his own property, he said Sgt. Robert Smith told him: "It doesn't matter. You're going to jail. You can tell it to a judge tomorrow."
Engelking offered no resistance, but Smith placed him in handcuffs then transported him to the Douglas County Jail. After posting a $200 bail bond, Engelking was released that afternoon. He also had to pay about another $100 to recover his impounded ATV.
The incident report says Engelking parked his ATV in front of pipeline equipment, stopping workers. Engelking said it wasn't his intention to physically block work.
Lorraine Grymala, a community affairs manager for Enbridge, said access to work sites is restricted in the interest of safety.
"We can't have people in the right of way without an escort and the proper gear," she said. "People could get hurt."
Engelking's arrest Wednesday is the latest episode in a long disagreement he and his father, Jerry Engelking, have had with Enbridge, dating to the company's last pipeline expansion in 2002.
Jerry Engelking, who owns 200 acres next to his son, said he refused to sign off on changes proposed to the original 1949 easement across his property because he felt the revisions put too many restrictions on how he could use his property. That original easement said future pipes laid along the same route would require payments in advance.
According to court documents, Enbridge sent a $15,000 check to Jerry Engelking and also tried to hand-deliver payments, but Engelking refused to accept them.
Engelking said that to claim the money he would have had to broaden the scope of the existing easement across his property, so he turned the checks down. When the latest pipeline project came along, the Engelkings again refused to modify the original 1949 right-of-way agreement.
The family sought a restraining order against Enbridge on Sept. 24, arguing the company intended to use the pipeline for transporting petroleum products other than those originally allowed, protesting that they had not been paid and citing damage to property.
Douglas County Circuit Court Judge George Glonek granted a temporary injunction but lifted it the following day, saying the company's plans for the pipeline were appropriate and efforts had been made to pay the Engelkings.
Jerry Engelking said the fight's not finished yet.
Officers reported no similar incidents along the path of the Enbridge pipeline construction in Douglas County, said Lt. Gerald Moe of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department.
Grymala said that Enbridge has worked with about 1,500 landowners as part of the pipeline project.
"We recognize construction is an inconvenience to people; people want access to their land," she said. "We strive to be respectful of that, to have a good working relationship."0 -
Bloomberg And Lautenberg Pair Up To Violate The Second And Fourteenth Amendments
AmmoLand
December 6, 2009
Is your name the same as, or similar to, that of someone on the FBI's "terrorist watchlist?" Or, have you been erroneously placed on the watchlist?
You can't find out because the FBI won't say exactly why people get watchlisted, won't say who has been watchlisted, and therefore doesn't offer watchlisted people the chance to clear their names immediately. In fact, small children, federal air marshals, military personnel who have fought terrorists overseas, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, members of Congress, and many other good Americans have even been stopped from boarding commercial aircraft for this reason. The government has reported that there were 700,000 names in the watchlist as of April 2007, and the ACLU estimates that the number has since risen to 1.3 million.
Obviously, these people are not all terrorists. However, politicians who hate the Second Amendment know that some of the good Americans who are erroneously on the list, or who get incorrectly flagged by the list, are gun owners. And, because the FBI won't reveal its watchlisting criteria, those politicians think that more gun owners can be placed on the list over time, by like-minded bureaucrats making arbitrary determinations about who ought to have guns.
One such politician is Michael Bloomberg, whose hobbies include being mayor of New York City and raising intellectually deficient complaints about gun laws. Never one to concern himself with the facts when there is a chance to get his name in the paper, Bloomberg recently claimed that the recent murders on Ft. Hood would have been prevented if the FBI hadn't been required to erase NICS-approved gun purchase records after 24 hours.
Mischaracterizing events related to the Ft. Hood murders for political reasons shows disrespect to the lives that were lost there and is crass to the extreme. That said, the reason that the FBI didn't know about the Ft. Hood suspect's gun purchase is not that his NICS record was erased after 24 hours. Rather, it's that he wasn't on the watchlist in the first place, as NICS checks the list and alerts the FBI if a listed person tries to buy a gun.
Another such politician is Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), author of legislation Bloomberg supports (S. 1317, H.R. 2159 in the House), which would allow the Attorney General to stop watchlisted people from buying guns through NICS. It would also prevent those people from contesting their rejections in a full and open hearing in court. Obviously, that scheme would violate not only the Second Amendment, but also the Fourteenth Amendment's protection against deprivation of liberty without due process of law.
This week Lautenberg introduced a separate bill (S. 2820), calling for NICS firearm transaction records to be retained for 10 years on a person suspected of being a member of a terrorist organization. That, however, is a smokescreen for another provision in the same bill, to retain NICS records of approved firearm transfers for 180 days for other gun buyers.
While Lautenberg introduced S. 2820 in the wake of Ft. Hood (with terrorism fresh on Americans' minds), gun control supporters have wanted NICS records retained for longer than 24 hours since NICS' inception. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), a co-sponsor of the Lautenberg bill, argued in favor of a 180-day retention back in 2001. After all, the Brady Act, as passed by Congress, required that NICS "destroy" the records of approved firearm purchases.
Along with the Lautenberg bills described above, gun control supporters are concurrently campaigning for a law to force all private gun sales to be run through NICS. Connecting the dots is a simple task. The goal shared by gun control supporters and by government entities for whom no amount of knowledge about American citizens is too much, is to incrementally increase the amount of information the government possesses on gun owners who, through no fault of their own, end up on a secret government list.
Action: Please call your U.S. Senators and urge them to oppose S. 1317 and S. 2820. You can call your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121.0 -
Caller to Alex Jones Show Reveals BATF Harassment at Gun Show
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
December 7, 2009
A caller to the Alex Jones Show today said he was asked to give the last four digits of his Social Security number in order to attend the Tanner Gun Show in Denver, Colorado. The caller said he was asked to surrender his SS number after he had paid to attend the show and had a stamp put on his hand. He also said federal agents were circulating the gun show looking for weapons capable of firing in full automatic mode.
The Tanner Gun Show is Colorado's oldest and largest gun show, featuring nearly 700 available tables of guns, knives, and accessories such as ammunition, hunting and fishing equipment, military surplus, gun safes, and many more unique items, according to its website.
The Alex Jones Show called the Tanner Gun Show to confirm the caller's accusation. The organization had not responded at the time this article was posted.
Numerous callers said following the call from Colorado that they had been asked to give social security and drivers license numbers at gun shows or while purchasing ammunition at stores around the country.
Under the Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968, firearm dealers with a Federal Firearms License (FFL) were prohibited from doing business at gun shows and were restricted to selling firearms at the address listed on their license. The law changed with the enactment of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, which allows FFLs to transfer firearms at gun shows provided they follow the provisions of the GCA and other pertinent federal regulations. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reports that between 50% and 75% of the vendors at gun shows possess a Federal Firearms License.
BATF regulations on gun shows are posted here.
Last month New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy introduced a bill to regulate the sale of firearms. The Gun Trafficking Prevention Act would provide funding for the BATF to hire 1,500 agents and investigators. Gillibrand said the measures outlined in the bill would cost $370 million over five years.
In October, California governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 962 requiring ammunition to be kept behind the counter where customers cannot access it without assistance. It also requires gun shop owners to thumbprint people who buy handgun ammunition, as well as record their identification and provide that information to police.
The BATF falsely claims gun shows are the source of more than 30% of all illegally trafficked guns in the country.
In October, vehement gun-grabber and critic of the Second Amendment, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, ran an undercover operation at gun shows. Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, used the skewered results from Bloomberg's sting operation to encourage the federal government to enact more restrictive gun laws.
Studies reveal, however, that less than 2% of felons incarcerated for crimes involving guns had acquired those guns at gun shows.
Helmke's Brady Campaign not only wants intrusive background checks on gun sales at gun shows but on all gun sales. "Our national policy should be: no background check, no gun, no excuses," states the Brady Campaign.
Bloomberg's roving gun show sting is part of a wider effort by federal and state governments to characterize gun shows as the source of illegal guns in America - used by gangs and drug cartels - and thus shut them down and further restrict the sale of legal firearms to Americans.
As part of the federal government's jihad against gun shows and the Second Amendment, earlier this year Obama said that "[m]ore than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States." U.S. officials have erroneously claimed that 90% of guns recovered from criminals in Mexico came from the United States.
In November, the BATF said that a large percentage of guns that are smuggled into Mexico come from gun shows.
In fact, as Bill Conroy reports, much of the weaponry used by drug cartels in Mexico is sold to them by an emerging military weapons cartel and not bought at gun shows in the United States. The United States, under State Department license, sells military-grade weapons to the Mexican government.
In addition to attempting link legal gun sales to the drug cartel business in Mexico, the corporate media has engaged in a propaganda campaign to demonize gun owners as domestic terrorists.
For instance, Max Blumenthal, in Gun Show Nation, characterizes gun show attendees as a "heavily armed, tightly organized movement incited by right-wing radio to a fever-pitched resentment of President Obama and his allies in Congress." He attempts to link this "movement" to the murder of police officers. Blumenthal writes:
On April 4, a neo-Nazi wannabe named Richard Poplawski murdered three Pittsburgh police officers with a high-powered assault rifle. By all accounts, Poplawski was an avid follower of right-wing talkers including Alex Jones and Glenn Beck who "grew angry recently over fears Obama would outlaw guns."
The Department of Homeland Security, in its now infamous report on "rightwing extremism," has warned that federal and state laws designed to destroy firearm possession and undermine the Second Amendment "may be invigorating right-wing extremist activity, specifically the white-supremacist and militia movements." The report also sounds a clarion call over returning veterans who it claims are being lured into this putative domestic terror movement controlled by white supremacists.
The color of law requirement put into effect at the Tanner Gun Show in Colorado reveal how the government is actively engaged in a covert war of intimidation and harassment of legal gun shows and gun owners. If the Gun Trafficking Prevention Act and other legislation is enacted around the country and the BATF receives additional funding, we can expect the level of harassment and intimidation to increase exponentially in the months and years ahead.
Addendum
An email received by Infowars states that people attending the Tanner Gun Show were asked for their zip code. The email writer wonders if the man mentioned in the story, who said he was asked for his Social Security number, might be mistaken. However, more than a dozen callers to the Alex Jones Show specifically stated that they were asked for Social Security numbers and driver's licenses.0 -
Newspaper Establishes Registered Gun Database, Equates Gun Owners to Sex Offenders
NRA
December 8, 2009
On November 30, 2009, the Bloomington Herald-Times made the following announcement:
"This week, HeraldTimesOnline.com will launch its new gun permit database. You'll be able to search gun permit records by county, city or town and street."
The Herald-Times has begun receiving calls and emails, and their response is a defiant defense of their online gun permit database.
Anyone who visits the newspaper website will be able to search the number of permits on a given street or neighborhood. Although at this point the names and house numbers are not listed, the newspaper's website treats law-abiding Indiana gun owners like sex offenders on a searchable database.
It is NRA's firm belief that there is no public good served by the publishing or cataloguing private citizens' gun ownership information, and that more harm is done by such an action. Law-abiding Hoosiers should not be subjected to the same treatment as sex offenders, and if the newspaper won't listen to their constituents and customers, then NRA Members and Indiana gun owners should send a financial message by cancelling their subscriptions to the Bloomington Herald-Times.
Please contact the Bloomington Herald-Times to respectfully voice your displeasure at the irresponsible action the newspaper has made.
Scott Schurz, Sunday Hoosier Times/Editor-in-Chief.0 -
High-stakes duel between Rep. Paul and Bernanke intensifies
By Silla Brush
The Hill
Rep. Ron Paul and Ben Bernanke are locked in a clash of titans.
Paul, the 74-year-old House libertarian from Texas with the high-pitched voice, has fought for decades to kill off the Federal Reserve.
Bernanke, the mild-mannered ex-Princeton professor and chairman of the bank, is waging a high-stakes battle for the Fed's reputation. And he's doing everything possible to knock out Paul.
The fight is still in the early rounds. But with the full House expected to vote this week to give government auditors more power to scrutinize the Fed, Paul has the upper hand.
The Senate is a much more difficult round for Paul, though a similar stew of liberal and conservative support is starting to simmer in the upper chamber behind the Republican's wonky auditing measure.
Bernanke and Paul have never met one-on-one behind closed doors, Paul's office said. The battle has taken place in public - on blogs, with grassroots activists and during congressional hearings.
Bernanke has testified against the provision, given lengthy media interviews, written op-eds and attempted to lift the cloud of secrecy that hangs over the bank.
The Fed is audited, he argues, but allowing government scrutiny of interest rate decisions will politicize the Fed. Opening the door to congressionally requested audits would compromise the market's confidence in the bank.
Paul, a longstanding supporter of a new gold standard, made his case formally in his recently published book, End the Fed.
The 2008 presidential candidate's crusade is no longer a quixotic quest. He is a prime beneficiary of the grassroots anger this year against government bailouts for Wall Street.
First introduced in February, Paul's bill to audit the Fed has gained 317 co-sponsors, a shocking three-quarters of the House. The bill has not won over many Democrats in leadership, but it has picked up several committee chairmen, including Reps. Bart Gordon (Tenn.), Jim Oberstar (Minn.) and John Spratt (S.C.).
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), a prominent Paul ally on the bill, has provided a huge boost to the effort with his firebrand strain of liberal politics.
Grayson has publicly slammed the Fed, going so far as calling its top lobbyist a "K Street whore" before apologizing. Paul himself said the full force of "lobbyists for the Fed" is stacked against him.
As the popularity of the Paul-Grayson measure rose this year, Bernanke's fell.
Praised by many economists for taking the necessary steps to right the economy over the last year, his overall public approval has soured. A Rasmussen poll in November showed that just 21 percent of those surveyed thought Bernanke should be reappointed. Meanwhile, 79 percent of those polled said auditing the Fed is a good idea.
Republicans have jumped behind Paul, who stood out in last year's GOP presidential primary for his outspokenness against the Iraq war.
"There needs to be Fed independence and accountability for those dollars to at least look back at those decisions," said Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas).
But the political value is plain as Republicans argue the government is taking too large a role in the economy.
"The Fed becomes for Republicans a very convenient, always controversial, always misunderstood, very specific whipping boy that they can ride to potential victory in 2010 and 2012," said a Washington-based financial lobbyist.
Bernanke has the normally powerful Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) in his corner. But as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank couldn't eke out a compromise.
Frank rarely loses battles, but an attempt - with Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) - at a deal on the audit issue simply fell short at the committee level. Liberal activist Robert Borosage, who is campaigning against Bernanke's nomination for a second term, said the compromise effort was nothing more than "the establishment alternative."
The committee voted 43-26 in favor of Paul's amendment as 15 Democrats on the panel bucked Frank.
The vote drew a bright line between the senior Democrats atop the committee and the freshman and sophomore members.
"I think some of the newer members are in the most vulnerable districts," said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), a Paul-Grayson co-sponsor who instead joined Frank in voting against the Paul amendment. "They were certainly getting the calls that I was getting, and they were reading the politics differently."
Frank and Paul are both veterans of the House, and while they are on nearly opposite ends of the political spectrum, they have a mutual respect. The two have worked closely on an Internet gaming measure.
Many Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill say that Frank, despite his partisan rhetoric, is a pragmatist.
"I never felt [Frank] was against me," Paul said.
Frank said last week the language wouldn't be changed when the House heads for the vote. Ten of the 13 House members on the Rules Committee are among Paul's backers, including Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.).
"Absent some change in the way the public is reacting, I don't see any changes," Frank said. "I think there is this tension within the Republican Party. A lot of their people who traditionally have a lot of influence are troubled by this, but they may be cowed by the anger at the Fed."
In the Senate, Paul has found support from Sens. Jim DeMint, the conservative Republican from South Carolina, and Bernie Sanders, the Independent from Vermont who calls himself a proud socialist.
A left-right coalition of interest groups on the outside is joining forces against Bernanke.
Bob Cusack contributed to this article.0 -
Hopefully this battle between B. Frank and Ron Paul will expose the harm that Fed Reserve bank has caused this country and wakes a few more people to the scam.
Thanks Steve, good article.0 -
Welcome, thanks for the input. 0 -
Indiana City Threatens $2500 Fines for Challenging Traffic Tickets
thenewspaper
December 10, 2009
Motorists who receive minor parking or traffic tickets in Indianapolis, Indiana are being threatened with fines of up to $2500 if they attempt to take the ticket to court. A local attorney with the firm Roberts and Bishop was so outraged by what he saw in Marion County traffic court that he filed a class action suit yesterday seeking to have the practice banned as unconstitutional.
"The deck is stacked against the motorist," lawyer Paul K. Ogden wrote. "To penalize that person for seeking justice seems wrong. I know it is done for the purpose of discouraging baseless challenges to tickets and clogging the docket, but in the process you are also penalizing people who have a legitimate defense and want a chance to present it to the court."
The city made explicit the threat of additional fines for challenging parking tickets in a November 30 press release announcing a deal between Indianapolis and a private firm, T2 Systems, to hand over operations of a parking ticket court to increase municipal income.
"Using Six Sigma process improvement strategies, it is estimated that under this program the city may collect an additional $352,000 to $520,000 in parking citation revenue over the next 12 months," the city press release stated. "If citations are not paid prior to their scheduled hearing, the city may request a fine of up to $2500 per citation. Upon receiving a judgment for an unpaid citation, individuals responsible could be subject to collections actions or having their vehicle registration suspended."
In traffic court, Judge William Young has been making good on the threats by routinely siding with police officers in disputes and imposing fines of up to $500 on anyone who challenges a moving violation ticket, no matter how minor, and loses. Those who pay without going to court do not face this extra fine.
"Unfortunately what you have happen a lot of times is that judges aren't particularly worried about whether what they're doing may be violating the law as the odds of someone ever appealing a $400 traffic ticket is remote," Ogden wrote. "I see it all the time. Trial judges flouting the law knowing they are unlikely to ever be challenged on an appeal because the litigants can't afford it."
Ogden is specifically representing three motorists affected by court policies. Toshinao Ishii received a ticket for driving 63 MPH in a 55 zone in February. Had he paid the ticket without challenge, the fine would have been $150. After Judge Young sided with the police officer in court, Ishii was fined $550. Motorist Matthew Stone was told by his doctors not to wear a seatbelt over his chest as it could damage his cardiac pacemaker. He received a $25 ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. After court officials threatened Stone with a $500 fine, he gave up his intention of challenging the citation. Adam Lenkowsky, who did not receive a ticket, attempted to attend a traffic court proceeding on September 23, 2009. He was barred from the court, despite the state constitutional requirement that court proceedings be open.
Ogden argues the court's practices in the first two cases violate the excessive fines clause of the state constitution as well as the clause requiring that "all penalties shall be proportioned to the nature of the offense."0 -
Is Obama Really Preparing For Civil War?
infowars
Chuck Baldwin
December 11, 2009
According to an obscure report in the European Union Times (EUTimes.net), "Russian Military Analysts are reporting to Prime Minister Putin that US President Barack Obama has issued an order to his Northern Command's (USNORTHCOM) top leader, US Air Force General Gene Renuart, to `begin immediately' increasing his military forces to 1 million troops by January 30, 2010, in what these reports warn is an expected outbreak of civil war within the United States before the end of winter.
"According to these reports, Obama has had over these past weeks `numerous' meetings with his war council abut how best to manage the expected implosion of his Nation's banking system while at the same time attempting to keep the United States military hegemony over the World in what Russian Military Analysts state is a `last ditch gambit' whose success is `far from certain.'"
The EU Times article continues by saying, "To the fears of Obama over the United States erupting into civil war once the full extent of the rape and pillaging of these peoples by their banks and government becomes known to them, grim evidence now shows the likelihood of this occurring much sooner than later."
The Times story goes on to say that there are "over 220 million American people armed to the teeth and ready to explode."
The Times article concludes by saying, "Though the coming civil war in the United States is being virtually ignored by their propaganda media, the same cannot be said of Russia, where leading Russian political analyst, Professor Igor Panarin has long warned that the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the US is heading for collapse."
Many of us would be inclined to pooh-pooh such a story, but then there is this column from Bloomberg.com entitled "Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public," written by Alice Schroeder. According to Ms Schroeder:
"`I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,' said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank."
There is no doubt that the American people have good reason to despise these international banksters epitomized by Goldman Sachs. Even one of Goldman's poster-boys, Henry Paulson, US Treasury secretary and former Goldman CEO, admitted that the American people were fed up. Schroeder quotes Paulson as saying, during testimony to Congress last summer, "[People] were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system."
Schroeder correctly opines, "There you have it. The bailout was meant to keep the curtain drawn on the way the rich make money, not from the free market, but from the lack of one. Goldman Sachs blew its cover when the firm's revenue from trading reached a record $27 billion in the first nine months of this year, and a public that was writhing in financial agony caught on that the profits earned on taxpayer capital were going to pay employee bonuses."
Schroeder concludes her column by saying, "And if the proles [proletariat: plebs, working class, peasants] really do appear brandishing pitchforks at the doors of Park Avenue and the gates of Round Hill Road, you can be sure that the Goldman guys and their families will be holed up in their safe rooms with their firearms."
So, do Wall Street and Russian analysts know something that we don't know? Is this why George W. Bush initiated USNORTHCOM to begin with? Is this why Barack Obama is beefing up USNORTHCOM? This would help explain the reports of all those potential detention camps that have been constructed (including the abandoned military installations that have refurbished security fences, guard towers, etc., around them). Has the American people's disgust with these crooks and thieves within the federal government and Wall Street reached a boiling point?
There is no question that people are angry, and for good reason.
The fraudulent financial policies of the Federal Reserve and its lackeys in the White House and Congress have literally bankrupted the country. Real unemployment is most likely over 20%. Taxes (along with costly fees, regulations, restrictions, penalties, mandates, etc.) at every level are going through the ceiling. America's jobs have been outsourced. Barack Obama continues G.W. Bush's irresponsibility, digging America deeper and deeper into foreign entanglements, at the cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. The IRS continues to harass and harangue honest citizens, squeezing them like the proverbial turnip. And now, add the insanity of a global climate treaty being hammered out in Copenhagen, and a universal health care bill being rammed through Congress, and the outlook is even gloomier.
I feel very comfortable in saying that the usurpations of power, the encroachments upon liberty, and the arrogant tax-and-spend policies emanating from Washington, D.C., and Wall Street these days are far more egregious than what George Washington and the boys were enduring in 1775-76 at the hands of the British Crown. There is no doubt in my mind that if Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Sam Adams were alive today, they would have given cause for the Goldman Sachs banksters to retreat to their bunkers years ago!
The fact is, we do need a revolution! But not a revolution of anarchy and pitchforks. (The history of France should be ample evidence of the futility of this strategy.) We need a revolution of the individual states: to reclaim their sovereignty and fight for the liberties of their sovereigns (We the People). That is exactly what our forefathers did in `76.
America's founding document (the Declaration of Independence) declares that our states are "free and independent." And so they are. We are not "one nation" with one all-powerful central government. We are a confederation of nation-states, united in a voluntary union, with each State reserving to itself the power and authority of self-determination, and ceding to the federal government limited, specifically delineated duties and limitations-limitations that have been totally ignored to the point that, for all intents and purposes, our once-great constitutional republic has been thoroughly expunged. Therefore, it is NOW time for the states to stand up to this meddlesome, every-growing tyranny that is known as Washington, D.C., and defend the rights and liberties of their citizens!
What Dr. Ed Vieira (an attorney with 4 earned degrees from Harvard, who has successfully argued cases before the US Supreme Court) wrote a few weeks ago should serve as a template for every State governor and legislature that truly cares about liberty. See Ed's column at:
http://www.newswithviews.com/Vieira/edwin201.htm
As Vieira says, the states should resurrect their militias. Many-if not all-states have the legal authority for such entities in their constitutions. In some states they are called the State Guard. Some plainly use the word "militia." Whatever they are called, they need to be activated. And all that is necessary for this to be accomplished is the order of the governor. It's that simple!
And as Vieira said, states need to adopt an alternative currency-including, and most especially, gold and silver. In other words, they need to develop their own private economies, complete with their own banks and exchange mediums. They also need to reject the multinational agribusiness and develop their own in-State agricultural and energy businesses.
I would dare say that the first State that determines to follow Vieira's sagacious counsel (and rumblings of this have already begun in states such as Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, New Hampshire, Indiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, etc.) would have so many liberty-loving patriots flock there that its economy would explode with prosperity-resulting in a domino effect of many other states following suit-and the revolution that this country so desperately needs would indeed take place. Furthermore, such a revolution would be constitutional, lawful, moral, and, yes, in compliance with the laws of Nature and of Nature's God.
In the meantime, is Barack Obama really worried about civil war? He might be. It is my observation that Washington politicians and bureaucrats are the most paranoid people on the planet. The problem is-as with most power-hungry Machiavellians-their paranoia often translates into more oppression and less liberty for the citizenry. And if this is true, it simply means that the states need to hurry up and do what needs to be done.0 -
Move To Cut ACORN Funding Ruled Unconstitutional
by The Associated Press
npr
December 11, 2009, 10:45 pm ET
The U.S. government's move this fall to cut off funding to ACORN was unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Friday, handing the embattled group a legal victory.
U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon issued the preliminary injunction against the government, saying it's in the public's interest for the organization to continue receiving federal funding.
ACORN claimed in its lawsuit that Congress' decision to cut off its funding was unconstitutional because it punitively targeted an individual organization.
Gershon said in her ruling that ACORN had raised a "fundamental issue of separation of powers. They have been singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding, in the absence of any judicial, or even administrative, process adjudicating guilt."
Bill Quigley, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of ACORN and two affiliates, said the decision sends a sharp message to Congress that it can't single out an individual or organization without due process.
"It's a resounding victory for ACORN," he said. "I'd be surprised if the government decides to appeal."
ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, describes itself as an advocate for low-income and minority homebuyers and residents in communities served by its offices around the country. Critics say it has violated the tax-exempt status of some of its affiliates by engaging in partisan political activities.
The law that halted ACORN's federal funding took effect Oct. 1 and was extended Oct. 31. It was set to either expire or be extended again on Dec. 18.
ACORN's lawsuit was filed in federal court in Brooklyn and sought reinstatement of the funds. Quigley said millions of dollars in funds should begin to flow again to ACORN next week. The judge said the "public will not suffer harm by allowing the plaintiffs to continue work on contracts duly awarded by federal agencies."
ACORN has been dogged by allegations of voter-registration fraud and embezzlement.
Several of its offices were the subject of an embarrassing hidden-camera sting in which ACORN employees were shown advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her pimp to lie about her profession and launder her earnings. The videos sparked a political uproar, with Republicans trying to use the group's troubles to portray Democrats as corrupt.
The group's lawsuit named the U.S. government, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the secretary of the Treasury as defendants.
Justice Department spokeswoman Beverley Lumpkin said the agency was reviewing the decision and declined to comment further.
"Today's ruling is a victory for the constitutional rights for all Americans and for the citizens who work through ACORN to improve their communities and promote responsible lending and homeownership," ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis said in a statement.0 -
Ron Paul Introduces the Free Competition in Currency Act
Ron Paul
Infowars
December 13, 2009
Before the US House of Representatives, December 9, 2009
Madame Speaker, I rise to introduce the Free Competition in Currency Act of 2009. Currency, or money, is what allows civilization to flourish. In the absence of money, barter is the name of the game; if the farmer needs shoes, he must trade his eggs and milk to the cobbler and hope that the cobbler needs eggs and milk. Money makes the transaction process far easier. Rather than having to search for someone with reciprocal wants, the farmer can exchange his milk and eggs for an agreed-upon medium of exchange with which he can then purchase shoes.
This medium of exchange should satisfy certain properties: it should be durable, that is to say, it does not wear out easily; it should be portable, that is, easily carried; it should be divisible into units usable for every-day transactions; it should be recognizable and uniform, so that one unit of money has the same properties as every other unit; it should be scarce, in the economic sense, so that the extant supply does not satisfy the wants of everyone demanding it; it should be stable, so that the value of its purchasing power does not fluctuate wildly; and it should be reproducible, so that enough units of money can be created to satisfy the needs of exchange.
Over millennia of human history, gold and silver have been the two metals that have most often satisfied these conditions, survived the market process, and gained the trust of billions of people. Gold and silver are difficult to counterfeit, a property which ensures they will always be accepted in commerce. It is precisely for this reason that gold and silver are anathema to governments. A supply of gold and silver that is limited in supply by nature cannot be inflated, and thus serves as a check on the growth of government. Without the ability to inflate the currency, governments find themselves constrained in their actions, unable to carry on wars of aggression or to appease their overtaxed citizens with bread and circuses.
At this country's founding, there was no government-controlled national currency. While the Constitution established the Congressional power of minting coins, it was not until 1792 that the US Mint was formally established. In the meantime, Americans made do with foreign silver and gold coins. Even after the Mint's operations got underway, foreign coins continued to circulate within the United States, and did so for several decades.
On the desk in my office I have a sign that says: "Don't steal - the government hates competition." Indeed, any power a government arrogates to itself, it is loathe to give back to the people. Just as we have gone from a constitutionally-instituted national defense consisting of a limited army and navy bolstered by militias and letters of marque and reprisal, we have moved from a system of competing currencies to a government-instituted banking cartel that monopolizes the issuance of currency. In order to reintroduce a system of competing currencies, there are three steps that must be taken to produce a legal climate favorable to competition.
The first step consists of eliminating legal tender laws. Article I Section 10 of the Constitution forbids the States from making anything but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts. States are not required to enact legal tender laws, but should they choose to, the only acceptable legal tender is gold and silver, the two precious metals that individuals throughout history and across cultures have used as currency. However, there is nothing in the Constitution that grants the Congress the power to enact legal tender laws. We, the Congress, have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, but not to declare a legal tender. Yet, there is a section of US Code, 31 USC 5103, that purports to establish US coins and currency, including Federal Reserve notes, as legal tender.
Historically, legal tender laws have been used by governments to force their citizens to accept debased and devalued currency. Gresham's Law describes this phenomenon, which can be summed up in one phrase: bad money drives out good money. An emperor, a king, or a dictator might mint coins with half an ounce of gold and force merchants, under pain of death, to accept them as though they contained one ounce of gold. Each ounce of the king's gold could now be minted into two coins instead of one, so the king now had twice as much "money" to spend on building castles and raising armies. As these legally overvalued coins circulated, the coins containing the full ounce of gold would be pulled out of circulation and hoarded. We saw this same phenomenon happen in the mid-1960s when the US government began to mint subsidiary coinage out of copper and nickel rather than silver. The copper and nickel coins were legally overvalued, the silver coins undervalued in relation, and silver coins vanished from circulation.
These actions also give rise to the most pernicious effects of inflation. Most of the merchants and peasants who received this devalued currency felt the full effects of inflation, the rise in prices and the lowered standard of living, before they received any of the new currency. By the time they received the new currency, prices had long since doubled, and the new currency they received would give them no benefit.
In the absence of legal tender laws, Gresham's Law no longer holds. If people are free to reject debased currency, and instead demand sound money, sound money will gradually return to use in society. Merchants would have been free to reject the king's coin and accept only coins containing full metal weight.
The second step to reestablishing competing currencies is to eliminate laws that prohibit the operation of private mints. One private enterprise which attempted to popularize the use of precious metal coins was Liberty Services, the creators of the Liberty Dollar. Evidently the government felt threatened, as Liberty Dollars had all their precious metal coins seized by the FBI and Secret Service in November of 2007. Of course, not all of these coins were owned by Liberty Services, as many were held in trust as backing for silver and gold certificates which Liberty Services issued. None of this matters, of course, to the government, which hates competition. The responsibility to protect contracts is of no interest to the government.
The sections of US Code which Liberty Services is accused of violating are erroneously considered to be anti-counterfeiting statutes, when in fact their purpose was to shut down private mints that had been operating in California. California was awash in gold in the aftermath of the 1849 gold rush, yet had no US Mint to mint coinage. There was not enough foreign coinage circulating in California either, so private mints stepped into the breech to provide their own coins. As was to become the case in other industries during the Progressive era, the private mints were eventually accused of circulating debased (substandard) coinage, and with the supposed aim of providing government-sanctioned regulation and a government guarantee of purity, the 1864 Coinage Act was passed, which banned private mints from producing their own coins for circulation as currency.
The final step to ensuring competing currencies is to eliminate capital gains and sales taxes on gold and silver coins. Under current federal law, coins are considered collectibles, and are liable for capital gains taxes. Short-term capital gains rates are at income tax levels, up to 35 percent, while long-term capital gains taxes are assessed at the collectibles rate of 28 percent. Furthermore, these taxes actually tax monetary debasement. As the dollar weakens, the nominal dollar value of gold increases. The purchasing power of gold may remain relatively constant, but as the nominal dollar value increases, the federal government considers this an increase in wealth, and taxes accordingly. Thus, the more the dollar is debased, the more capital gains taxes must be paid on holdings of gold and other precious metals.
Just as pernicious are the sales and use taxes which are assessed on gold and silver at the state level in many states. Imagine having to pay sales tax at the bank every time you change a $10 bill for a roll of quarters to do laundry. Inflation is a pernicious tax on the value of money, but even the official numbers, which are massaged downwards, are only on the order of 4% per year. Sales taxes in many states can take away 8% or more on every single transaction in which consumers wish to convert their Federal Reserve Notes into gold or silver.
In conclusion, Madame Speaker, allowing for competing currencies will allow market participants to choose a currency that suits their needs, rather than the needs of the government. The prospect of American citizens turning away from the dollar towards alternate currencies will provide the necessary impetus to the US government to regain control of the dollar and halt its downward spiral. Restoring soundness to the dollar will remove the government's ability and incentive to inflate the currency, and keep us from launching unconstitutional wars that burden our economy to excess. With a sound currency, everyone is better off, not just those who control the monetary system. I urge my colleagues to consider the redevelopment of a system of competing currencies and cosponsor the Free Competition in Currency Act.0 -
The (Obama 4 Change Admin.) doesn't have to collect your firearms - just stop the flow of ammo. All those gun haters that are protected by gun toting employees of the U.S. realize if you don't have any ammo all you have is very expensive paper-weights. What's the difference between politicians and criminals? MONEY! Everyone else is expendable. The real crime is our rights are being abolished at an alarming rate in the name of security. Security for who I ask? Get ready the worst is yet to come. A disarmed people are nothing more than salves. 0 -
Arnold Arrives in Copenhagen for Final Push Towards Global Government
Patrick Henningsen
infowars
December 16, 2009
While climate protestors dressed as clowns lined the outer perimeter of the UN Climate Summit in at Copenhagen's Bella Centre, another three-ringed media circus was taking place inside.
Large snow falls across Europe have made for an appropriate backdrop to the largest-ever international meeting ever to combat global warming. Earlier in the week saw the arrivals of a number of high-flying celebrities and politicians. President Obama, Tony Blair and Al Gore all arrived amongst great media interest, each hoped to reignite what has been described by many as a conference teetering on the edge of total failure. In the latest example of delegates and press becoming even further detatched from reality, hundreds scurried through the Centre's hallways in the hopes to get a glimpse of the failing conference's `Last Action Hero' and California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The former actor's appearance signals the final PR push by proponents of the Globalist elite to leave Copenhagen with some form of an international agreement to implement the monetisation of the earth's carbon to be enforced by a new structure of global government.
The Headline in today's UK Independent Newspaper read At Last, a ray of light amid the gloom - Arnie's in town. So overcome with celebrity intoxication of Gov Schwarzenegger's appearance, fawning politicians and press could hardly bottle their glee. Gordon Campbell, the premier of British Columbia gushed, "He's an action hero in the movies and a climate action hero for the globe". The article continues to describe how the Governor admitted his previous trips to Copenhagen had been for "movie promotions and bodybuilding and weightlifting seminars", rather than a determination to secure the future of the planet. Schwarzenegger added that "Movements begin with people, not governments," and urged the UN to organise another summit to "discuss localised ways of fighting climate change."
This movement Schwarzenegger is speaking of is, of course, is an international call to arms to fight `climate change'. Clearly not designed and wholly executed by grass roots green activists and anarchist climate action groups, one might ask exactly who and what is the driving force behind this movement. Here's a clue. we've all heard(to great pains) of Wall Steet's notorious credit default swaps and subprime mortgages, but what about "carbon default swaps" and "subprime carbon offsets"? Global banks, multinational energy companies and signatories of the Copenhagen treaty seek to create a global "Cap and Trade" scheme that would drive what Commodity Futures Trading commissioner Bart Chilton sees as a $2 trillion market, "the biggest of any [commodities] derivatives product in the next five years." Clearly a recipe for fraud and fiat money laundering on a scale which mankind has never witnessed before.
Arnold is no stranger to Cap and Trade. It was revealed in 2003 by award-winning investigative reporter Greg Palast how gubernatorial candidate Schwarzenegger was part of a larger scheme to help Enron and other power companies avoid paying back billions in illicit profits by replacing then California Gov. Gray Davis. In a 2002 lawsuit filed by former California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, Enron was cited for carrying off their profits by fraudulent reporting of sales transactions, megawatt "laundering," and creating "fake power delivery scheduling". In total some $9 billion were generated in profits, as Enron caused the power shortages in California and singlehandedly rinsed consumers for millions of dollars- and the federal government left to stand back watching from a safe distance. To this date, Gov. Schwarzenegger has never denied his May 17, 2001 meeting with Enron's Kenneth Lay and disgraced junk-bond peddler Mike Milken at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles, a meeting which was allegedly part of a plan to recall Gov. Davis and replace him with someone who would assist in keeping the legal heat off Lay and his cronies.
In reality, the idea of `Carbon Trading' - which is the device that would drive forward "Cap and Trade" policies and numerous global taxes, was invented by none other than Ken Lay, whose then company Enron would currently be one of the prime beneficiaries in the global alternative energy market. Perhaps Al Gore himself would have placed a call to Ken Lay to congratulate the company that did to much so spark the CO2 reduction debate within the industry in the 1980s and 1990s.
Just as today's carbon traders and carbon off-set firms are lapping up media kudos and billions of investment capital in anticipation of a globally binding agreement to `fight climate change', ERON's chief Ken Lay and colleagues became the toast of Wall Street as Enron innovations in creative book-keeping, claiming profits from programs not yet started and manipulating energy markets through brokering, futures contracts and other exotic financial instruments.
The UN's COP15 folly will come to a close in a few days and with any luck, the world will be spared any binding draconian treaty which is underpinned by is dodgy alarmist science.0 -
Obama Declares War On Pakistan
Webster G. Tarpley
Infowars
December 14, 2009
Obama declared all-out war on Pakistan during his December 1, 2009, West Point speech.
Obama's West Point speech of December 1 represents far more than the obvious brutal escalation in Afghanistan - it is nothing less than a declaration of all-out war by the United States against Pakistan. This is a brand-new war, a much wider war now targeting Pakistan, a country of 160 million people armed with nuclear weapons. In the process, Afghanistan is scheduled to be broken up. This is no longer the Bush Cheney Afghan war we have known in the past. This is something immensely bigger: the attempt to destroy the Pakistani central government in Islamabad and to sink that country into a chaos of civil war, Balkanization, subdivision and general mayhem. The chosen strategy is to massively export the Afghan civil war into Pakistan and beyond, fracturing Pakistan along ethnic lines. It is an oblique war using fourth-generation or guerrilla warfare techniques to assail a country which the United States and its associates in aggression are far too weak to attack directly. In this war, the Taliban are employed as US proxies. This aggression against Pakistan is Obama's attempt to wage the Great Game against the hub of Central Asia and Eurasia or more generally.
US DETERRED FROM OPEN WAR BY PAKISTAN'S NUKES
The ongoing civil war in Afghanistan is merely a pretext, a cover story designed to provide the United States with a springboard for a geopolitical destabilization campaign in the entire region which cannot be publicly avowed. In the blunt cynical world of imperialist aggression ? la Bush and Cheney, a pretext might have been manufactured to attack Pakistan directly. But Pakistan is far too large and the United States is far too weak and too bankrupt for such an undertaking. In addition, Pakistan is a nuclear power, possessing atomic bombs and medium range missiles needed to deliver them. What we are seeing is a novel case of nuclear deterrence in action. The US cannot send an invasion fleet or set up airbases nearby because Pakistani nuclear weapons might destroy them. To this extent, the efforts of Ali Bhutto and A.Q. Khan to provide Pakistan a deterrent capability have been vindicated. But the US answer is to find ways to attack Pakistan below the nuclear threshold, and even below the conventional threshold. This is where the tactic of exporting the Afghan civil war to Pakistan comes in.
The architect of the new Pakistani civil war is US Special Forces General Stanley McChrystal, who organized the infamous network of US torture chambers in Iraq. McChrystal's specific credential for the Pakistani civil war is his role in unleashing the Iraqi civil war of Sunnis versus Shiites by creating "al Qaeda in Iraq" under the infamous and now departed double agent Zarkawi. If Iraqi society as a whole had lined up against the US invaders, the occupiers would have soon been driven out. The counter-gang known as "Al Qaeda in Iraq" avoided that possibility by killing Shiites, and thus calling forth massive retaliation in the form of a civil war. These tactics are drawn from the work of British General Frank Kitson, who wrote about them in his book Low Intensity Warfare. If the United States possesses a modern analog to Heinrich Himmler of the SS, it is surely General McChrystal, Obama's hand-picked choice. McChrystal's superior, Gen Petraeus, wants to be the new Field Marshal von Hindenburg - in other words, he wants to be the next US president.
The vulnerability of Pakistan which the US and its NATO associates are seeking to exploit can best be understood using a map of the prevalent ethnic groups of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and India. Most maps show only political borders which date back to the time of British imperialism, and therefore fail to reflect the principal ethnic groups of the region. For the purposes of this analysis, we must start by recognizing a number of groups. First is the Pashtun people, located mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then we have the Baluchis, located primarily in Pakistan and Iran. The Punjabis inhabit Pakistan, as do the Sindhis. The Bhutto family came from Sind.
PASHTUNISTAN
The US and NATO strategy begins with the Pashtuns, the ethnic group from which the so-called Taliban are largely drawn. The Pashtuns represent a substantial portion of the population of Afghanistan, but here they are alienated from the central government under President Karzai in Kabul, even though the US puppet Karzai passes for a Pashtun himself. The issue involves the Afghan National Army, which was created by the United States after the 2001 invasion. The Afghan officer corps are largely Tajiks drawn from the Northern Alliance that allied with the United States against the Pashtun Talibans. The Tajiks speak Dari, sometimes known as eastern Persian. Other Afghan officers come from the Hazara people. The important thing is that the Pashtuns feel shut out.
The US strategy can best be understood as a deliberate effort at persecuting, harassing, antagonizing, strafing, repressing, and murdering the Pashtuns. The additional 40,000 US and NATO forces which Obama demands for Afghanistan will concentrate in Helmand province and other areas where the Pashtuns are in the majority. The net effect will be to increase the rebellion of the fiercely independent Pashtuns against Kabul and the foreign occupation, and at the same time to push many of these newly radicalized mujaheddin fighters across the border into Pakistan, where they can wage war against the central government in Islamabad. US aid will flow directly to war lords and drug lords, increasing the centrifugal tendencies.
On the Pakistani side, the Pashtuns are also alienated from the central government. Islamabad and the army are seen by them as too much the creatures of the Punjabis, with some input from the Sindhis. On the Pakistani side of the Pashtun territory, US operations include wholesale assassinations from unmanned aerial vehicles or drones, murders by CIA and reportedly Blackwater snipers, plus blind terrorist massacres like the recent ones in Peshawar which the Pakistani Taliban are blaming on Blackwater, acting as a subcontractor of the CIA. These actions are intolerable and humiliating for a proud sovereign state. Every time the Pashtuns are clobbered, they blame the Punjabis in Islamabad for the dirty deals with the US that allow this to happen. The most immediate goal of Obama's Afghan-Pakistan escalation is therefore to promote a general secessionist uprising of the entire Pashtun people under Taliban auspices, which would already have the effect of destroying the national unity of both Kabul and Islamabad.
BALUCHISTAN
The other ethnic group which the Obama strategy seeks to goad into insurrection and secession is the Baluchis. The Baluchis have their own grievances against the Iranian central government in Tehran, which they see as being dominated by Persians. An integral part of the new Obama policy is to expand the deadly flights of the CIA Predators and other assassination drones into Baluchistan. One pretext for this is the report, peddled for example by Michael Ware of CNN, that Osama bin Laden and his MI-6 sidekick Zawahiri are both holed up in the Baluchi city of Quetta, where they operate as the kingpins of the so-called "Quetta Shura." Blackwater teams cannot be far behind. In Iranian Baluchistan, the CIA is funding the murderous Jundullah organization, which was recently denounced by Teheran for the murder of a number of top officials of the Iranian Pasdaran Revolutionary guards. The rebellion of Baluchistan would smash the national unity of both Pakistan and Iran, thus helping to destroy two of the leading targets of US policy.
OBAMA'S RUBE GOLDBERG STRATEGY
Even Chris Matthews of MSNBC, normally a devoted acolyte of Obama, pointed out that the US strategy as announced at West Point very much resembles a Rube Goldberg contraption. (In the real world, "al Qaeda" is of course the CIA's own Arab and terrorist legion.) In the world of official US myth, the enemy is supposed to be "Al Qaeda." But, even according to the US government, there are precious few "Al Qaeda" fighters left in Afghanistan. Why then, asked Matthews, concentrate US forces in Afghanistan where "Al Qaeda" is not, rather than in Pakistan where "Al Qaeda" is now alleged to be?
One elected official who has criticized this incongruous mismatch is Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who said in a television interview that `Pakistan, in the border region near Afghanistan, is perhaps the epicenter [of global terrorism], although al Qaida is operating all over the world, in Yemen, in Somalia, in northern Africa, affiliates in Southeast Asia. Why would we build up 100,000 or more troops in parts of Afghanistan included that are not even near the border? You know, this buildup is in Helmand Province. That's not next door to Waziristan. So I'm wondering, what exactly is this strategy, given the fact that we have seen that there is a minimal presence of Al Qaida in Afghanistan, but a significant presence in Pakistan? It just defies common sense that a huge boots on the ground presence in a place where these people are not is the right strategy. It doesn't make any sense to me.' Indeed. `The Wisconsin Democrat also warned that U.S. policy in Afghanistan could actually push terrorists and extremists into Pakistan and, as a consequence, further destabilize the region: "You know, I asked the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, and Mr. Holbrooke, our envoy over there, a while ago, you know, is there a risk that if we build up troops in Afghanistan, that will push more extremists into Pakistan?" he told ABC. "They couldn't deny it, and this week, Prime Minister Gilani of Pakistan specifically said that his concern about the buildup is that it will drive more extremists into Pakistan, so I think it's just the opposite, that this boots-on-the-ground approach alienates the Afghan population and specifically encourages the Taliban to further coalesce with Al Qaida, which is the complete opposite of our national security interest."'1 Of course, this is all intentional and motivated by US imperialist raison d'?tat. .
MALICK: "DID OBAMA DECLARE WAR ON PAKISTAN?"
Obama's speech did everything possible to blur the distinction between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are after all two sovereign states and both members of the United Nations in their own right. Ibrahim Sajid Malick, US correspondent for Samaa TV, one of the largest Pakistan television networks, called attention to this ploy: `Speaking to a hall full of cadets at the US Military Academy of West Point, President Barack Obama almost seemed like he might be declaring war on Pakistan. Every time he mentioned Afghanistan, Pakistan preceded mention.. Sitting at the back benches of the hall at one point I almost jumped out of my chair when he said: "the stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them." I was shocked because a succession of American officials recently confirmed that the Pakistani arsenal is secure.'2 This article is entitled "Did Obama Declare War On Pakistan?", and we can chalk the question mark up to diplomatic discretion. During congressional hearings involving General McChrystal and US Ambassador Eikenberry, Afghanistan and Pakistan were simply fused into one sinister entity known as "Afpak" or even "Afpakia."
In the summer of 2007, Obama, coached by Zbigniew Brzezinski and other controllers, was the originator of the unilateral US policy of using Predator drones for political assassinations inside Pakistan. This assassination policy is now being massively escalated along with the troop strength: "Two weeks ago in Pakistan, Central Intelligence Agency sharpshooters killed eight people suspected of being militants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and wounded two others in a compound that was said to be used for terrorist training.. The White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.'s drone program in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, officials said this week, to parallel the president's decision.to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. American officials are talking with Pakistan about the possibility of striking in Baluchistan for the first time - a controversial move since it is outside the tribal areas - because that is where Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to hide."3 The US is now training more Predator operators than combat pilots.
BLACKWATER ACCUSED IN PESHAWAR MASSACRE OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN
The CIA, the Pentagon, and their various contractors among the private military firms are now on a murder spree across Pakistan, attacking peaceful villages and wedding parties, among other targets. Blackwater, now calling itself Xe Services and Total Intelligence Solutions, is heavily involved: `At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.' 4
As shocking as Scahill's report is, it must nevertheless be viewed as a limited hangout, since there is no mention of the persistent charges that a large part of the deadly bombings in Peshawar and other Pakistani cities are being carried out by Blackwater, as this news item suggests: "ISLAMABAD Oct. 29 (Xinhua) - Chief of Taliban movement in Pakistan Hakimullah Mehsud has blamed the controversial American private firm Blackwater for the bomb blast in Peshawar which killed 108 people, local news agency NNI reported Thursday."5 This was blind terrorism designed for maximum slaughter, especially among women and children.
US ALSO AT WAR WITH UZBEKISTAN?
Scahill's report also suggests that US black ops have reached into Uzbekistan, a post-Soviet country of 25 million which borders Afghanistan to the north: `In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the ground by JSOC forces. "That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don't know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan," he said. "So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?"' 6 Such are the ways of hope and change.
The role of US intelligence in fomenting the Baluchistan rebellion for the purpose of breaking Pakistan apart is also confirmed by Professor Chossudovsky: `Already in 2005, a report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA forecast a "Yugoslav-like fate" for Pakistan "in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Baluchistan." (Energy Compass, 2 March 2005). According to the NIC-CIA, Pakistan is slated to become a "failed state" by 2015, "as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanization and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons". (Quoted by former Pakistan High Commissioner to UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Times of India, 13 February 2005).. Washington favors the creation of a "Greater Baluchistan" which would integrate the Baluch areas of Pakistan with those of Iran and possibly the Southern tip of Afghanistan, thereby leading to a process of political fracturing in both Iran and Pakistan.'7 The Iranians, for their part, are adamant that the US is committing acts of war on their territory in Baluchistan: "TEHRAN, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) - Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said .that there are some concrete evidences showing U.S. involvement in recent deadly bomb explosions in the country's Sistan-Baluchistan province, the official IRNA news agency reported. .. The deadly suicide attack by Sunni rebel group Jundallah (God's soldiers) occurred on Oct. 18 in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province near the border with Pakistan when the local officials were preparing a ceremony in which the local tribal leaders were to meet the military commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).8
US GOAL: CUT THE PAKISTAN ENERGY CORRIDOR BETWEEN IRAN, CHINA
Why would the United States be so obsessed with the breakup of Pakistan? One reason is that Pakistan is traditionally a strategic ally and economic partner of China, a country which the US and British are determined to oppose and contain on the world stage. Specifically, Pakistan could function as an energy corridor linking the oil fields of Iran and possibly even Iraq with the Chinese market by means of a pipeline that would cross the Himalayas above Kashmir. This is the so-called "Pipelinestan" issue. This would give China a guaranteed land-based oil supply not subject to Anglo-American naval superiority, while also cutting out the 12,000 mile tanker route around the southern rim of Asia. As a recent news report points out: `Beijing has been pressuring Tehran for China's participation in the pipeline project and Islamabad, while willing to sign a bilateral agreement with Iran, has also welcomed China's participation. According to an estimate, such a pipeline would result in Pakistan getting $200 million to $500 million annually in transit fees alone. China and Pakistan are already working on a proposal for laying a trans-Himalayan pipeline to carry Middle Eastern crude oil to western China. Pakistan provides China the shortest possible route to import oil from the Gulf countries.. The pipeline, which would run from the southern Pakistan port of Gwadar and follow the Karakoram highway, would be partly financed by Beijing. The Chinese are also building a refinery at Gwadar. Imports using the pipeline would allow Beijing to reduce the portion of its oil shipped through the narrow and unsafe Strait of Malacca, which at present carries up to 80% of its oil imports. Islamabad also plans to extend a railway track to China to connect it to Gwadar. The port is also considered the likely terminus of proposed multibillion-dollar gas pipelines reaching from the South Pars fields in Iran or from Qatar, and from the Daulatabad fields in Turkmenistan for export to world markets. Syed Fazl-e-Haider, "Pakistan, Iran sign gas pipeline deal," Asia Times, 27 May 2009.9 This is the normal, peaceful economic progress and cooperation which the Anglo-Americans are hell-bent on stopping.
Oil and natural gas pipelines from Iran across Pakistan and into China would carry energy resources into the Middle Kingdom, and would also serve as conveyor belts for Chinese economic influence into the Middle East. This would make Anglo-American dominion increasingly tenuous in a part of the world which London and Washington have traditionally sought to control as part of their overall strategy of world domination.
US domestic propaganda is already portraying Pakistan as the new home base of terrorism. The four pathetic patsies going on trial for an alleged plot to bomb a synagogue in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City had been carefully sheep-dipped to associate them with the shadowy and suspicious Jaish-e-Mohammad, allegedly a Pakistani terrorist group. The same goes for the five Moslems from Northern Virginia who have just been arrested near Lahore in Pakistan.
INDIA AND IRAN
As far as the neighboring states are concerned, India under the unfortunate Manmohan Singh seems to be accepting the role of continental dagger against Pakistan and China on behalf of the US and the British. This is a recipe for a colossal tragedy. India should rather make permanent peace with Pakistan by vacating the Vale of Kashmir, where 95% of the population is Moslem and would like to join Pakistan. Without a solution to this issue, there will be no peace on the subcontinent.
Regarding Iran, George Friedman, the head of the Stratfor outlet of the US intelligence community recently told Russia Today that the great novelty of the next decade will be an alliance of the United States with Iran directed against Russia. In that scenario, Iran would cut off oil to China altogether. That is the essence of the Brzezinski strategy. It is urgent that the antiwar movement in the United States regroup and begin a new mobilization against the cynical hypocrisy of Obama's war and escalation policy, which suprasses even the war crimes of the Bush-Cheny neocons. In this new phase of the Great Game, the stakes are incalculable.
for those who are interested, do a little research on Mr. Tarpley, you will find he knows his stuff.0 -
I know, I know, it was a long one but still a good read. Mr. Tarpley knows what he is talking about. I would say be prepared but once again I would be preaching to the choir. 0 -
Copenhagen climate summit: `most important paper in the world' is a glorified UN press release
Gerald Warner
London Telegraph
Friday, Dec 18th, 2009
When your attempt at recreating the Congress of Vienna with a third-rate cast of extras turns into a shambles, when the data with which you have tried to terrify the world is daily exposed as ever more phoney, when the blatant greed and self-interest of the participants has become obvious to all beholders, when those pesky polar bears just keep increasing and multiplying - what do you do?
No contest: stop issuing three rainforests of press releases every day, change the heading to James Bond-style "Do not distribute" and "leak" a single copy, in the knowledge that human nature is programmed to interest itself in anything it imagines it is not supposed to see, whereas it would bin the same document unread if it were distributed openly.
After that, get some unbiased, neutral observer, such as the executive director of Greenpeace, to say: "This is the single most important piece of paper in the world today." Unfortunately, the response of all intelligent people will be to fall about laughing; but it was worth a try - everybody loves a tryer - and the climate alarmists are no longer in a position to pick and choose their tactics.
But boy! Was this crass, or what? The apocalyptic document revealing that even if the Western leaders hand over all the climate Danegeld demanded of them, appropriately at the venue of Copenhagen, the earth will still fry on a 3C temperature rise is the latest transparent scare tactic to extort more cash from taxpayers. The danger of this ploy, of course, is that people might say "If we are going to be chargrilled anyway, what is the point of handing over billions - better to get some serious conspicuous consumption in before the ski slopes turn into saunas."0 -
Health Bill Passes Key Test in the Senate With 60 Votes
nytimes
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ROBERT PEAR
Published: December 21, 2009
WASHINGTON - After a long day of acid, partisan debate, Senate Democrats held ranks early Monday in a dead-of-night procedural vote that proved they had locked in the decisive margin needed to pass a far-reaching overhaul of the nation's health care system.
Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, after the vote early Monday. The last Democratic holdout, he announced his support of the bill on Saturday.
Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times
Senators John Kerry, Harry Reid and Charles E. Schumer after the vote.
The roll was called shortly after 1 a.m., with Washington still snowbound after a weekend blizzard, and the Senate voted on party lines to cut off a Republican filibuster of a package of changes to the health care bill by the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada.
The vote was 60 to 40 - a tally that is expected to be repeated four times as further procedural hurdles are cleared in the days ahead, and then once more in a dramatic, if predictable, finale tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
Both parties hailed the vote as seismic.
Democrats said it showed them poised to reshape the health system after decades of failed attempts.
"Health care in America ought to be a right, not a privilege," said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut. "Since the time of Harry Truman, every Congress, Republican and Democrat, every president, Democrat and Republican, have at least thought about doing this. Some actually tried."
Republicans said that the bill was fatally flawed and that voters would retaliate against Democrats at the polls in November.
"It's obvious why the majority has cooked up this amendment in secret, has introduced it in the middle of a snowstorm, has scheduled the Senate to come in session at midnight, has scheduled a vote for 1 a.m., is insisting that it be passed before Christmas - because they don't want the American people to know what's in it," said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee.
Mr. Alexander added, "Our friends on the Democratic side seem determined to pursue a political kamikaze mission toward a historic mistake."
Each side blamed the other for the extraordinary series of votes - at dawn Saturday, after midnight Monday, at dawn again on Tuesday, at 1 p.m. on Wednesday and finally on Christmas Eve, when most Americans will be sequestered for the holiday.
The Democrats charged the Republicans with obstinately throwing every procedural obstacle in their way, including filibusters and the full 30 hours of debate allowed under the rules after each filibuster is broken by a vote of 60 senators.
The Republicans charged the Democrats with recklessly rushing to adopt a dizzyingly complex 2,700-page bill that would affect virtually every American, and would reshape one-sixth of the nation's economy at a cost of $871 billion over 10 years.
"If the Republicans want to exercise every single right they have under the rules, they can keep us here until Christmas Eve, no doubt about it," said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa. "But to what end, I ask? To what end? We're going to have the vote at 1 a.m. that requires 60 votes, and then why stay here until Christmas Eve to do what they know we're going to do?"
Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said he and his colleagues had a duty to fight until the last minute.
"There is nothing inevitable about this," Mr. Cornyn said. "The only thing I think inevitable about it is in the light of the unpopularity of what is being jammed down the throats of the American people, there will be a day of accounting. We don't know when that day of accounting will be. Perhaps the first day of accounting will be Election Day 2010."
Adoption of the legislation is not a certainty.
The Senate bill, once completed, must be reconciled with the bill adopted by the House last month, and there are substantial differences between the two. The House measure, for instance, includes a government-run health insurance plan, or public option, that was dropped from the Senate bill.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has said the House would not just accept the Senate bill. And some Senate Democrats have warned that they could turn against the bill if changes made during negotiations with the House are not to their liking.
Given the late hour, the White House did not immediately issue a statement after the Senate vote.
The health care legislation, which President Obama has called his top domestic priority, seeks to extend health benefits to more than 30 million people who are currently uninsured. The bill would require nearly all Americans to obtain health insurance, or pay financial penalties for failing to do so, and it would provide federal subsidies to help moderate-income Americans buy private coverage.
About half of the people who would gain coverage, some 15 million, would do so through a broad expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for low-income Americans, and growth in the Children's Health Insurance Program.
To pay for the new coverage, the bill would impose an array of fees and taxes, including an increase in the payroll tax for individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000 and a new excise tax on high-cost insurance polices. The bill also calls for major reductions in government spending, by slowing the growth of Medicare.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that the $871 billion cost of the bill would be more than offset by the new revenues and cuts in spending, so that it would reduce future federal budget deficits by $132 billion between 2010 and 2019.
The outcome of the Monday morning vote was effectively decided on Saturday, when Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, the last holdout, announced that he would support the bill and Mr. Reid unveiled his final "manager's" package of changes. Mr. Reid's amendment included provisions aimed at winning over Mr. Nelson and others. Republicans derided the changes as akin to bribery.
On Sunday, any lingering doubts were put to rest. Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, who voted in favor of several Republican amendments to the health care bill, issued a statement saying he would support the measure. And Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, who had been in intense talks with the White House, issued a statement saying she would vote no.
But the late-night session was not without drama, thanks to the tremendous snowstorm on Saturday that buried much of the Northeast, and limited the travel options of some senators caught away from Washington. With Amtrak experiencing severe delays, a government plane was sent to retrieve Senators Frank R. Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrats.
Because the Democrats nominally control the votes of 60 senators - 58 Democrats and two independents aligned with them - which is the precise number needed to overcome filibusters, the absence of even one lawmaker would have changed the outcome of the vote and would probably have forced Democrats to miss their deadline of adopting the health care legislation by Christmas.
The most senior senator, Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, who turned 92 years old last month and uses a wheelchair, was invoked by both sides as a victim of the parliamentary warfare that has the Senate convening at all hours of the day and night.
The 1 a.m. Monday vote was on a motion to cut off debate on Mr. Reid's manager's package. A simple majority vote to approve the package is scheduled for roughly 7 a.m. on Tuesday.0 -
State to Destroy 4 Million Newborn Blood Samples
Houston Chronicle
AUSTIN - The state will destroy an estimated 5.3 million blood samples legally collected from newborns but kept without parental consent under a federal lawsuit settlement announced Tuesday.
The number of newborns involved is unclear because multiple samples are received from each by the Texas Department of State Health Services, department spokeswoman Allison Lowery said.
Typically, two samples are taken from each child, but there could be more, she said. The disputed samples cover a period of about seven years starting in 2002. The state conducts newborn screening to detect disorders or illnesses.
"This is about consent," said lawyer Jim Harrington of the Texas Civil Rights Project. The group, after discovering the agency had been keeping the samples without permission, sued on behalf of parents in federal district court in San Antonio.
The Health Department said in a statement it would destroy the samples - retained as blood spot cards - that it received and stored before legislation took effect last May allowing their retention. The legislation allows parents, guardians or managing conservators to opt out of having the blood retained.
Lowery said the agency is seeking permission from fewer than 400 parents to preserve their babies' samples because the children tested positive for rare disorders.
Collected before lawsuit
She said samples have been securely stored at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health.
That institution said in a statement that all the blood spots at the center were collected before the lawsuit and are subject to a joint resolution between the center and the agency to destroy them.
Andrea Beleno, an Austin mother who was one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said she was pleased with the settlement.
"There's no financial gain for any of the plaintiffs," Beleno said. "Basically, what we wanted to do was to make sure that our children's privacy was being protected and that the state is respecting our rights, because if we don't stand up and make the government do that, nobody's going to do it for us."
Parents from San Antonio and Houston also were part of the lawsuit, which was filed against Commissioner David Lakey of the Department of State Health Services and Dr. Nancy Dickey, president of the Texas A&M Health Science Center and vice chancellor for health affairs of the Texas A&M System.
"The Texas A&M Health Science Center is glad that we have reached agreement in order to settle the lawsuit," Dickey's office said in a statement. "We are saddened, however, that a superb database has been lost. This database could have continued to shed light on causes of congenital birth defects and potentially led to preventive measures saving thousands of infants and their families the distress these defects cause."
The parents' lawsuit said there was no legal authority to keep the blood indefinitely without consent.
Harrington said his group became aware the blood samples were being stored after being called by a reporter from the Austin American-Statesman. Beleno said she first read about it in the newspaper.
Detailed conditions
Under the settlement, Harrington said, all blood specimens must be destroyed unless the state gets written permission to retain and use them. The destruction must occur within 120 days of the lawsuit being dismissed with the settlement, which occurred Dec. 14.
The agency also must post information on its newborn screening Web site, including a list of all research projects for which it has provided newborn-screening blood specimens.
In addition, the agency must inform the parents who sued how their children's blood was used and any financial transactions involving the specimens, Harrington said.
Pledges compliance
The Texas Department of Health said in its statement that it is complying with the new law and "will continue to be very sensitive to the privacy concerns of parents and the confidentiality of all medical information."
"If parents don't object, the department saves the samples for uses allowed under the new legislation - primarily quality assurance and control purposes to ensure accuracy in lab testing and because the samples could provide an invaluable resource in researching new or more effective ways to prevent, diagnose and treat serious medical conditions that affect Texas children, including leukemia and birth defects," the agency said in its statement.0 -
Another false flag terror attack as justification for war and trampling on our freedoms
The Blood of Patriots and Tyrants
I want this country to realize that we stand on the edge of oblivion. I want everyone to remember why they need us!
How impudent we Americans have become, with our "tea parties", marching on Washington, demanding smaller government, trying to abolish the private Federal Reserve, demanding government get out of our lives, becoming tired of endless war. Who do we think we are?
Well, they're not going to let us get away with it. They're going to remind us why we need them. Why they must take more control. Why we need to be degraded and humiliated further. Oh, and they want to bomb more Muslim countries. That will make them stop participating in this government-run black op. Plus, everybody loves a good bombing. It looks like oh so much fun watching it live on Fox News, and you never have to worry about the controlled media showing the mangled bodies of women and children and elderly, who deserve to die anyway because they're not Americans. And when the families and friends of the dead, or the fortunate survivors of our bombs, decide to seek vengeance for the murder of their loved ones, well they'll just be more terrorists that we have to kill in order to keep the heimat safe.
Meanwhile, it wasn't degrading and humiliating enough for the TSA to pull grandma out of line to make her take off her shoes to make sure she's not another shoe bomber, or have your teenage daughter or your girlfriend or wife felt up by some tax feeding pervert, no. The government put on a show for you Christmas day, and now they will punish you for their crime. They will make you miserable for their purposeful negligence. You or I aren't allowed to bring a fish hook on board a plane - and if the statist shills in the media have their way, you won't be allowed to bring perfume or cologne on board either (this is all liberals' fault, don't you know?) - yet this patsy was able to board with explosives that are easily detectable, partially contained inside a syringe. You or I need how many forms of ID to get on a plane, yet this person was escorted past security by an unknown person, without any identification or passport, on an international flight. There are well over 1.3 million people on the TSA no-fly list, who have not been charged with a crime, yet this person, with supposed terror connections - his own father throws him under the bus - was on a watch list but not the no-fly list. No, this wasn't a black op at all. It was al Qaeda, which isn't really the CIA, trying to scare you again. And the government, which knew this was coming yet, we are to believe, just dropped the ball - totally benign negligence - would have you believe that they can keep you safe now, this time, if only you'll degrade and humiliate yourself further and give up more liberty and privacy. Just a little more, they swear. It's FYOG. Hey, freedom isn't free.
So, it wasn't convenient at all that this kamikaze hid his "bomb" in his underpants. As if that were the determining factor that allowed him to sneak past security undetected. Now, if only you'll give up these quaint, antiquated notions (see also here, here, here, here, here...) of a right to be secure in your persons, houses, papers, and effects, and allow them to put millimeter wave scanners in airports so some worthless TSA slob can examine you naked, the government can stop this kind of terrorism, which is of their own making, once and for all. That is, until the people realize it's all a sham, a theatrical performance, used as justification to oppress them and bomb foreigners, at which point the government will just put on another show to remind us all that we're slaves, and should keep our mouths shut and our faces in the mud. That's freedom, baby. Love it or leave it.0 -
Alex Jones Calls For Mass Resistance To Implementation Of Body Scanners
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
InfoWars
Radio talk show host Alex Jones is calling for petitions, boycotts and lawsuits en mass in an effort to block the nationwide implementation of full body scanners that represent a total violation of privacy, a health risk, and the next wave of tyranny being metered out against the American people and the people of the world under the phony pretext of fighting terrorism.
"Our long journey into domestication and dependency on the scientific dictatorship is accelerating, our entire society is being turned into a massive surveillance grid, it has been designed to persecute the people," Jones warned on his show yesterday, adding that the scanners were the latest manifestation of the prison planet being constructed around humanity.
Allied with the contrived global warming movement, terrorism is the other prong of the pincer being used to crush freedom and advance totalitarianism in the developed world as Homeland Security follows the plan it was created to carry out - the gradual implementation of martial law in America characterized by the kind of stifling security we now see in airports being introduced into our daily lives in shopping malls, public schools, and many other buildings.
Jones warned that those who refuse the body scan and opt for a pat down will be subject to a strip search and treated like terrorists.
"We're being trained like dogs..you're the people they want to train to accept this, you're the milk cows, you're the cattle, you're the once proud free people being trained to accept this," said Jones, adding that the funding was already in place for body scanners at all U.S. airports in early 2009 before the Christmas Day incident magically arrived to provide the perfect pretext to push ahead with pull implementation.
"Magically that happens and they begin beating the drum within hours of it, see we must have the body scanners, it was all set, it was all rigged, every TV network, every station had their talking points," said Jones, adding that body scanners were instantly promoted as the solution, allied with calls to renew the rapidly expiring Patriot Act.
The fact that the aborted plane bombing attack also provided the perfect justification to expand U.S. military operations into the Arabian Peninsula in the name of fighting Al-Qaeda, a process already well underway before the bombing attempt, makes the suspicious circumstances surrounding the December 25 incident all the more alarming.
As we have documented, The FBI has repeatedly changed its story in a haphazard effort to accommodate eyewitness testimony from passengers that conflicts with the official version of events.
At first the FBI denied that a second man was arrested in connection with the incident but later admitted a second man was handcuffed after Flight 253 passenger and eyewitness Kurt Haskell said he saw an Indian man being led away by authorities after sniffer dogs had found something in his luggage.
Officials then claimed that the man had not been on Flight 253 at all and was not connected with the incident, but had to reverse their statement again just days later when other eyewitnesses emerged, admitting that the man had been on the plane.
The fact that the FBI is apparently protecting accomplices involved with the bombing attempt, and thereby keeping the official story within the script necessary to pin the attack on a lone man from Yemen who was inspired by Al-Qaeda, blatantly suggests that the facts are being manipulated to fit a pre-conceived geopolitical agenda.
Jones stated that if the body scanners were allowed to be implemented, it would not be long before travelers were forced to wear taser bracelets before they even enter an airport that allow officials to deliver an electric shock to anyone they deem suspicious on a whim. Homeland Security has already been busy exploring the possible roll out of such devices.
"A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taserr. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers," reported the Washington Times.
In the UK, the level of detail produced by the body scanners is such that their implementation would break child pornography laws, specifically the Protection of Children Act 1978, under which it is illegal to create an indecent image or a "pseudo-image" of a child.
"They do not have the legal power to use full body scanners in this way," said Terri Dowty, of Action for Rights of Children, adding there was an exemption in the 1978 law to cover the "prevention and detection of crime" but the purpose had to be more specific than the "trawling exercise" now being considered," reports the Guardian.
Those vigorously pushing for the widespread rollout of body scanners in the aftermath of the highly suspicious Christmas Day bombing attempt have been found to have their own financial motives.
"Since the attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports," reports the Boston Globe.
"What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. Chertoff disclosed the relationship on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question."
Approaching the issue from a health angle, despite official assurances that the scanners are safe, there are many concerns about the physical impact of firing radiation at the body, especially if the individual has had previous x-ray scans, mammograms, or is a frequent flyer.
Dr. John Gofman, Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at University of California, Berkeley, maintains that there is no safe dose of ionizing radiation. Gofman argues that radiation from medical diagnostics and treatment is responsible for 50 per cent of cancers of 60 per cent of heart disease cases amongst Americans.
"The fact, that X-ray doses are so seldom measured, reflects the false assumption that doses do not matter.[but] they do matter enormously. And each bit of additional dose matters, because any X-ray photon may be the one which sets in motion the high-speed, high energy electron which causes a carcinogenic or atherogenic [smooth muscle] mutation. Such mutations rarely disappear. The higher their accumulated number in a population, the higher will be the population's mortality rates from radiation-induced cancer and ischemic heart disease," states Gofman.
In addition to all these issues, full body scanners would not even have stopped the Christmas Day bomber from boarding Flight 253, according to a British MP who helped design the machines.
"I must advise the Prime Minister - and the British public - that the scanners are not a "silver bullet," said Ben Wallace, who worked on the scanners at defense research organization QinetiQ. "You would be mistaken to think that they would counter the new threat."
"The millimetre wave technology is harmless, quick and can be deployed overtly or covertly. But it cannot detect chemicals or light plastics."0 -
IF OBAMA & CONGRESS PASS AN IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT IN 2010
By Frosty Wooldridge
January 4, 2010
NewsWithViews
What it means to every American citizen: virtual flood of humanity into the United States from all over the world.
Representative Luis Gutierrez (D, IL) introduced another "comprehensive immigration reform" in December, 2009. You could give his bill an Orwellian name such as, "Stupidity is Intelligence" or "Ignorance is Brilliant" or "No matter how stupid the American people, they are smart to flood their country with unending legal and illegal I immigration." Gutierrez called his version of Dante's nightmare: Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act of 2009.
U.S. Congressman Brian Bilbray (R, CA) said, "I am amazed that the Democrats are trying to push this thing through when we are in the middle of a major financial downturn with unemployment over 10 percent. How crazy can we get in one move?"
Representative Bilbray added, "Gutierrez is not representing the Constitution or the current voters of the U.S., but is only vying for cheap votes and cheap labor. The bill is custom made for people breaking the law and to reward those employers who have created the problem. This bill will become a magnet for more illegal immigration."
Gutierrez said, "We have waited patiently for a workable solution to our immigration crisis to be taken up by this Congress and our President," said Rep. Gutierrez. "The time for waiting is over. This bill will be presented before Congress recesses for the holidays so that there is no excuse for inaction in the New Year. It is the product of months of collaboration with civil rights advocates, labor organizations, and members of Congress. It is an answer to too many years of pain -mothers separated from their children, workers exploited and undermined security at the border- all caused at the hands of a broken immigration system. This bill says `enough,' and presents a solution to our broken system that we as a nation of immigrants can be proud of."
What Gutierrez failed to mention: our government fails to enforce immigration laws and would not enforce any new ones. Therefore, the system would continue as broken. Additionally, he expects to double and even triple legal immigration to well over three million annually.
OUR CIVILIZATION STANDS IN SERIOUS TROUBLE
In the past ten years, I have written about every ramification of unending and mass immigration into the United States. I have addressed water shortages, environmental traumas, air pollution, species extinction, resource depletion, ruination of our culture, displacement of our language and Balkanization of our society.
Much of it accelerates beyond my predictions. It's almost incomprehensible to me that California adds 1,700 people daily net gain and 400 cars net gain daily onto their roads while they don't have enough water to maintain their current 38 million person population on their way to 58 million-virtually all their growth stems from legal and illegal immigration.
If any kind of an "Immigration Reform" bill passes with an outright amnesty of 20 million illegal aliens and their children, along with chain migration with family reunification to add millions more, plus continued diversity migration and endless visas-we face irreversible consequences with unsolvable problems.
This situation grows more horrid and more ominous than the average American can understand. Our president, this U.S. Congress, the general public cannot grasp what we face and the mainstream media avoids it at all costs. We might as well be a person or `civilization' standing on the beach in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina comes ashore in the next hour. But we stand there waiting for it to hit with no sense of urgency or understanding of our peril. But no matter how much we ignore this "Human Katrina", this `thing' we created, i.e., unending mass immigration will most certainly take our civilization over the abyss.
No, it won't happen overnight, but within 10 to 20 years, if we set in motion this massive spectacle of importing millions into this society-once they manifest-we will be in the middle of a horrendous predicament.0 -
Agenda 21 Alert: Obama's $250 Million Plan to Brainwash Your Children
Cassandra Anderson
Infowars
January 7, 2010
On January 6, 2010, Obama proudly unveiled his "Innovative Agenda". Financed by Public- Private Partnerships, the goal is to train over 100,000 elementary school math and science teachers. The Intel Foundation has committed to spending $200 million dollars to this venture, with 4 other companies providing another $50 million dollars.(1)
The mainstream media's spin on this story was that this is a gift to increase American children's test scores. And most people believe this is a wonderful investment in the future and don't understand the real intention behind the "gift", with strings attached.
Do you think that depopulation of the planet is wonderful?
Do you think that the destruction of individual rights and the Constitution is wonderful?
Do you think that clearing humans from 50% of America's landscape is wonderful?
Anytime you here the phrase "Public- Private Partnership", you can be sure that a corporation or foundation is benefiting, as PPP's are the tool of fascism. The "Private" component of the PPP is the money partner and is always interested in profit and power. When they couple with the government (the Public component of the PPP), the benefit is enforcement of policies, tax breaks, fees, etc. Please find out more by watching Joan Veon's videos featured on InfoWars December 3rd.(http://www.infowars.com/agenda-21-alert-public-private-partnerships/)(2).
After doing a little research on Intel's website and its affiliation with the EPA and the United Nations, the implications are clear: Intel is preoccupied with the global warming hoax and intends to institute Agenda 21 Sustainable Development by indoctrinating children through education.
Lori Wigle, Intel's Eco- Technology General Manager and "Green Queen" went to the Copenhagen convention and wrote in her blog that technology could provide a structure for people to telecommute from home so that "ultimately we may need fewer roads".(2) Remember that the collectivists' agenda is to concentrate people in cities and remove them from the land. If there are no roads, the land becomes `off-limits'.
Further, Intel's Corporate Responsibility Director, Michael Jacobson, glorifies the alliance between Intel and the United Nations in his blog regarding the United Nations Global Compact.(4)
The United Nations Global Compact is based on the Rio Declaration of Environment and Development from 1992, and IS Agenda 21 Sustainable Development. Soft language is used, but the underlying message is that an international governing body should regulate all things concerning human interaction with the environment.(5) The man made global warming hoax is one of the biggest weapons of propaganda and legal action that the collectivists use.
Lastly, education is a tool that the globalists use to promote their programs, and is clearly documented in their own materials. For example, California's Assembly Bill 32 (Cap & Trade), the final report states, "ARB will also rely on partners throughout the state to develop and display options for curricula that will enhance the K-12, community college, trade technical training programs, and programs at four-year colleges." (page 102)(6)
The Good News:
Being forewarned is being forearmed. You can teach your children about "Climategate" and get other parents involved. You can educate the educators and become more involved in what your child learns.0 -
33 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True, What Every Person Should Know.
Jonathan Elinoff
I have too many programs running to get to the original site. This is a good article and a little long to post in here. Please follow the links.
steve0
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