"IF YOUR'E GOING TO PUT YOUR FAMILY IN A NURSING HOME... YOU BETTER VISIT THEM AT LEAST EVERY TWO DAYS, YOU BETTER LIVE NEAR THEM, YOU BETTER BRING THEM LUNCH, YOU BETTER SIT THERE AND WATCH TV WITH THEM, YOU BETTER SIT THERE AND RUB THERE FEET AND LOVE YOUR PARENTS (voice raises in anger) THAT WIPED YOUR BUTT, THAT TOOK CARE OF YOU, YOU SCUMBAG YUPPIES!!!"
-Alex Jones speaking to yuppies (and all Americans for that matter)
"What a bunch of garbage, liberal, Democratic, conservative, Republican, it's all there to control you, two sides of the same coin! Two management teams, bidding for control of the CEO job of Slavery Incorporated!"
--Alex Jones
We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years......It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.
Author: David Rockefeller, Source: Trilateral Commission meeting, June, 1991
In the video here, the former Clintonite Dick Morris, who is now a darling of Fox News, tells Sean Hannity the globalists will put the “American economy under international regulation” and “those people who have been yelling, oh, the UN is going to take over… they’ve been crazy, but now they’re right.”
“Those conspiracy people,” Sean Hannity interjects, “had suggested that for years… you’re not wrong.”
It’s the “international regulation of the financial institutions” we have to worry about, warns Dick Morris. It will happen under “IMF control… Remember, the IMF is run by the Europeans and backed by Americans.”
It’s too bad Mr. Morris didn’t give us the rest of the story. The IMF is a loan sharking operation created by the bankers under the Bretton Woods scheme and its primary purpose to date has been to get third world nations into hock so they can be more effectively looted. It is now poised, as Morris eludes, to embark on a far more ambitious bankster scam — to initiate something called “global quantitative easing” by printing billions of dollars worth of a global “super-currency,” deceptively billed as a way to address the economic crisis manufactured by the global elite.
“Alistair Darling and senior figures in the US Treasury have been encouraging the Fund to issue hundreds of billions of dollars worth of so-called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) in the coming months as part of its campaign to prevent the recession from turning into a global depression,” the Telegraph reported on March 16.
SDRs are now based on four currencies — the US dollar, the Japanese yen, the euro and the British pound. They are used largely as a unit of account by the IMF and other international organizations.
Read between the lines and you get to the bottom of the real reason for the issuance of SDRs — to push for a world currency. Recall a few days ago Zhou Xiaochuan, China’s central bank’s governor, calling for the IMF to forge a new world reserve currency.
China demands a settlement system between the SDRs and other currencies so that they can be used in international trade and financial transactions. The IMF would manage these SDRs and they would gradually replace existing reserve currencies.
As envisioned by our rulers, a world “super-currency” will ultimately require a world government. Morris blames the Europeans for this and he is only partially right — it is a scam long ago devised by international bankers primarily based in Europe and Britain and backed, as Morris admits, by the American financial elite.
The issuance of paper SDRs “would please the plutocratic international bankers” to no end, writes Robert Bradshaw, and this “move would allow them a golden opportunity to print fiat paper money in huge quantities to flood the world. We can be sure that the fat cats [the bankers] would love to have a new paper world currency in their greedy little hands. Since they already control the IMF and most world central banks, such a new global currency would definitely fit into their plans for world rule.”
It is hardly surprising that SDRs and world currency will be on the agenda at the G20 this week. The globalist George Soros has urged Obama to push the SDR agenda and has warned that if a world currency is not established and the global economy collapses (as planned) the United States “shall cease to be the dominant financial power” and “China is liable to come up ahead.” Soros is merely running a time-tested shell game in an effort to get the U.S. to pony up for what will ultimately be its demise, again as planned. China is the model to be used for our totalitarian future.
Dick Morris and the disinfo operative Sean Hannity may indeed be alarmed by this obvious push for world government. It is interesting to note that Hannity has only lately come around to the existence of the New World Order — formerly in the realm of crazy conspiracy theories — now that Obama is in the White House and the Democrats in control of Congress. Hannity and Morris are simply reading from a provided script.
Point is, the New World Order wants you to know what they have in mind for you. It tickles them to give you a preview of things to come now that the New Savior is in office and enjoying high popularity — a one world government with a high-tech control grid overlay designed to usher in a brave new world of hellish serfdom and eventually the dream of our eugenicist rulers: a mass culling of the herd who are considered little more than useless eaters.
Research, Reports: Obama Intimately Tied To Phony Environmental Movement
President helped fund profiteers of carbon tax program he is now seeking to implement
A combination of interesting mainstream and alternative media reports reveal compelling links between president Obama and a privately owned carbon trading group, which also has direct ties with elitist groups such as the Club of Rome and the Trilateral Commission.
Judi McLeod's excellent article for Canada Free Press, which she expanded from a Fox News piece, highlights how years before he became president, Obama helped directly fund a carbon trading exchange that will likely play a critical role in the proposed cap-and-trade carbon reduction program.
The charity was the Joyce Foundation on whose board of directors Obama served and which gave nearly $1.1 million in two separate grants that were “instrumental in developing and launching the privately-owned Chicago Climate Exchange, which now calls itself “North America’s only cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide.”
Essentially Obama helped fund the profiteers of the carbon taxation program that he is now seeking to steer through Congress.
McLeod also notes that The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) has direct ties to both Al Gore and Maurice Strong, two figures intimately involved with a long standing movement to use the theory of man made global warming as a mechanism for profit and social engineering.
Gore's investment company, Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offset opportunities, is the largest shareholder of CCX.
While Maurice Strong, who is regularly credited as founding father of the modern environmental movement, serves on the board of directors of CCX. Strong was a leading initiate of the Earth Summit in the early 90s, where the theory of global warming caused by CO2 generated by human activity was most notably advanced.
While McLeod's article highlights the cronyism and corporate dealings behind this set up, we should also add the fact that both Gore and Strong come from a stable of elite groups that have long sought to use the environmental movement to advance their agendas.
Strong, who was groomed by David Rockefeller to eventually serve as Director of the Rockefeller Foundation, is also a member of the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Club of Rome.
Gore too comes from the Club of Rome clique.
Lets take a look at the connections these groups have to the environmental movement.
In 1990, writes veteran reporter Jim Tucker, the Bilderbergers adopted climate change as the preferred model to impose global government and reintroduce serfdom. “Like the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group discovered the issue of environmental deterioration. Bilderbergers embraced a report from the Trilateral Commission that year on the environment, because the potential profit in cleaning up the mess would be immense.”
The following year, the Club of Rome think tank published The First Global Revolution, a book suggesting a draconian neo-Malthusianism approach will solve the world’s "problems", in fact a problem the global elite has with humanity.
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill,” the book states. “All these dangers are caused by human intervention,” and thus the “real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
Richard Haass, the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations, expanded on this topic in his article, State sovereignty must be altered in globalized era. According to Haass, a system of world government must be created and sovereignty eliminated in order to fight global warming and terrorism, both invented as the Club of Rome suggested.
“Some governments are prepared to give up elements of sovereignty to address the threat of global climate change,” writes Haass. “The goal should be to redefine sovereignty for the era of globalization, to find a balance between a world of fully sovereign states and an international system of either world government or anarchy.”
In the past, the Club of Rome has resorted to deceptive tactics in order to support their plans. In 1972, the Club of Rome, along with an MIT team released a report called Limits to growth. The report stated that we were to reach an environmental holocaust by the year 2000 due to overpopulation and other environmental problems. Support for their conclusions was gathered by results from a computer model. Aurelio Peccei, one of the founders of the Club of Rome, later confessed that the computer program had been written to give the desired results.
As we reported two years ago, During the secretive Trilateral Commission group meeting in March 2007, elitists gathered to formulate policy on how best they could exploit global warming fearmongering to ratchet up taxes and control over how westerners live their lives.
Why is this so concerning? Because groups such as the Club of Rome are contracted out by our own governments and the UN to prepare ‘Policy Guidance Documents’ which they use in formulating their policies and programs. How come the Club of Rome gets the gig? Simply because many high ranking UN and government officials are also CoR members, or have direct corporate ties to members. The same goes for the CFR and the Trilateral Commission.
A recently unearthed documentary that sought to expose this agenda at its inception is George Hunt's excellent research piece on the environmental movement.
Considering the information unearthed concerning Obama's links to all of this, it is not surprising that he is now pushing the "cap-and-trade" carbon tax program, which in reality represents a war on the middle and working classes.
Prior to the election, Obama called for drastically reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent, a move that would inflict a new Great Depression, cost millions of jobs, and sink America to near third world status.
The 80 per cent figure is a huge leap towards the ultimate goal, expressed by the Carnegie Institute last year and afforded sober credibility by the corporate media - a complete reduction down to zero carbon emissions.
As we have previously noted, such a move would lead to the near complete reversal of hundreds of years of technological progress and man’s return to the stone age.
Above:Democrat Jim McDermott has sponsored the new mandatory service bill.
It seemed like a victory, of sorts. Last week the Senate approved a bill to radically expand the AmeriCorps program. The bill initially contained language that proposed a study for mandatory service for all young people in the United States, but this language was removed as the bill moved through the Senate and did not appear in the final version.
Well, it’s baaaaaaack. The language was stripped from one bill, but it suddenly appeared in another. It is now contained in HR 1444, due to crawl across the House floor this week. HR 1444 is sponsored by Rep. Jim McDermott, a Washington state Democrat, and is assigned to the House Committee on Labor and Education.
The bill, under Section 4 (b)6, states:
Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.
How “mandatory service,” i.e. servitude, strengthens the “social fabric of the Nation” is not explained.
HR 1444, like its earlier parent 1388, includes the prospect of a “public service academy, a four-year institution that offers a federally funded undergraduate education with a focus on training future public sector leaders” and reaches all the way down to primary school, requiring a review of “the means to develop awareness of national service and volunteer opportunities at a young age by creating, expanding and promoting service options for primary and secondary school students and by raising awareness of existing incentives.”
That is, “existing incentives” as determined by the government.
In addition to Obama’s election campaign pledge to create a 250,000 strong national security force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces, Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has authored a book (The Plan: Big Ideas for America) that calls for three months of compulsory civil service for all Americans aged 18 to 25.
So it looks like the goblin of compulsory national service has not gone away, it has simply morphed into another bill, soon to be considered by the House.
One thing is for certain: the federal government considers you and your children little more than ciphers to be press ganged into mandatory “service” to a government addicted to wars waged in the name of international bankers.
If Jon Stewart walked out of his studio with his camera crew, went to where establishment figures were speaking, and threw tough questions at them, you'd get something like We Are Change.
The We Are Change reporters have asked the tough questions - a la Stewart (well, minus the comedy) - to former presidents, secretaries of defense, leading Neocons and Iraq war architects, and many other establishment figures.
So their interviews are syndicated nationally and they've all received Pulitzer prizes, right?
Not exactly . . .
We Are Change founder Luke Rudkowski was arrested for trying to ask New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg about his refusal to pay for the health care of 9/11 first responders.
The charges? "Impersonating a member of the press" and trespassing.
Professional Journalism
Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, created the concept of "professional journalism". What is professional journalism, you may ask?
Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media. That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It is a history few journalist talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising. As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called “professional journalism” was invented. To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment-objective, impartial, balanced. The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalist. The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media and with the great corporations, and the whole thing was, as Robert McChesney put it so well, “entirely bogus”.
For what the public did not know was that in order to be professional, journalists had to ensure that news and opinion were dominated by official sources, and that has not changed. Go through the New York Times on any day, and check the sources of the main political stories-domestic and foreign-you’ll find they’re dominated by government and other established interests. That is the essence of professional journalism. I am not suggesting that independent journalism was or is excluded, but it is more likely to be an honorable exception. Think of the role Judith Miller played in the New York Times in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Yes, her work became a scandal, but only after it played a powerful role in promoting an invasion based on lies. Yet, Miller’s parroting of official sources and vested interests was not all that different from the work of many famous Times reporters, such as the celebrated W.H. Lawrence, who helped cover up the true effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August, 1945. “No Radioactivity in Hiroshima Ruin,” was the headline on his report, and it was false.
Consider how the power of this invisible government has grown. In 1983 the principle global media was owned by 50 corporations, most of them American. In 2002 this had fallen to just 9 corporations. Today it is probably about 5. Rupert Murdoch has predicted that there will be just three global media giants, and his company will be one of them. This concentration of power is not exclusive of course to the United States. The BBC has announced it is expanding its broadcasts to the United States, because it believes Americans want principled, objective, neutral journalism for which the BBC is famous. They have launched BBC America. You may have seen the advertising.
The BBC began in 1922, just before the corporate press began in America. Its founder was Lord John Reith, who believed that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism. In the same year the British establishment was under siege. The unions had called a general strike and the Tories were terrified that a revolution was on the way. The new BBC came to their rescue. In high secrecy, Lord Reith wrote anti-union speeches for the Tory Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and broadcast them to the nation, while refusing to allow the labor leaders to put their side until the strike was over.
So, a pattern was set. Impartiality was a principle certainly: a principle to be suspended whenever the establishment was under threat. And that principle has been upheld ever since.
And as Newsweek's Evan Thomas admits in a new article:
By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are. Safeguarding the status quo, protecting traditional institutions, can be healthy and useful, stabilizing and reassuring....
"If you are of the establishment persuasion (and I am). . . ."
Virtually all mainstream reporters are "establishment" journalists like Thomas. This is just another way of saying "professional" journalists in the sense Bernays used that term.
(This does not mean that everyone who makes their living through journalism is a sell-out. Some people do make some or all of their income as journalists and alternative news site operators, but aren't afraid to question those in power.)
The Significance of Rudkowski's Arrest
The media organization which sponsors Rudkowski is Infowars.com, a website which has many times the readership of small town "establishment" or "professional" newspapers. Indeed, given the popularity of Infowars and its sister sites, Prisonplanet.com and Jonesreport.com, the Infowars news network probably has more readers than all but the largest traditional newspapers.
So the issue cannot be one of size or audience.
The real question is whether real journalists will have access to those in power, and so be able to exercise the stereotypical role of the "Fourth Estate" in asking hard-hitting questions to our leaders in government.
If "professional" journalists with a "vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are" are the only ones allowed to speak with those holding the reigns of governmental power, then freedom of the press is dead in America. And if freedom of the press is dead, so is democracy.
We Are Change New York members have described the “inhumane, insane and surreal” experience of being arrested by police for asking Mayor Bloomberg a question and promise that “the full story of this incident is yet to be heard.”
Luke Rudkowski, along with fellow We Are Change members Manny and Anthony, were all arrested on Saturday night for asking Bloomberg a question about 9/11 first responders outside the Hilton Hotel on Sixth Avenue.
They followed orders by police to stay in one designated area and yet were arrested for trespassing and were later hit with the charge of “impersonating a journalist,” despite having Infowars press credentials.
As The George Washington Blog points out today, “The media organization which sponsors Rudkowski is Infowars.com, a website which has many times the readership of small town “establishment” or “professional” newspapers. Indeed, given the popularity of Infowars and its sister sites, Prisonplanet.com and Jonesreport.com, the Infowars news network probably has more readers than all but the largest traditional newspapers. So the issue cannot be one of size or audience.”
Our recent exclusive report about the MIAC controversy became a national story, being covered by Fox News and the Associated Press, amongst hundreds of other mainstream news outlets. To claim that Infowars is not a genuine media outfit is manifestly absurd.
“Rudkowski’s arrest - like Amy Goodman’s arrest at the RNC convention for documenting violence against protestors - is an attempt to crack down on real attempts to question the powers-that-be and to document their actions,” concludes the George Washington Blog.
The We Are Change members have all now finally been released from Manhattan central bookings. They plan to air a live web broadcast at 10pm Eastern tonight to tell the full story and broadcast footage that led up to the incident. However, since the prosecution has seized all three of the group’s cameras and footage of the incident as criminal evidence, new cameras will have to be purchased.
We Are Change are asking all concerned activists to help them buy more cameras and create a legal defense fund by making a donation. They are also asking anyone who can offer legal services to contact bri.wearechange@gmail.com.
The court case will be in two months and the group is planning a countersuit on the basis of false arrest, official oppression and violation of the 1st amendment.
“You can try to stop me, but you cant stop the idea of CHANGE! This is not over by any means,” promises Luke Rudkowski.
Anthony, Manny and Luke are safe home, live broadcast coming soon.
This is Luke Rudkowski here, just got home from the most inhuman place in NYC, Manhattan central bookings. The stories that I have from that place and about everything that has happened while shooting for my new film "Truth to Power" is insane and surreal.
I will try to buy another camera tomorrow in between my class's in order to give a live video broadcast this Monday March 30th, 10PM Eastern Time on wearechange.org.
I have to buy another camera because the prosecution is keeping all 3 WeAreChange cameras and footage of the incident as criminal evidence. From conversations between wearechange and the mayors office before the incident, to the police department seizing footage of the arrest, you will hear it all on the live broadcast 10Pm Eastern here on WeAreChange. The full story of this incident is yet to be heard.
Special shouts out to Manny and Anthony for being in their with me, these men showed tremendous amounts of courage in the face of intimidation and threats by police intelligence as they filmed the events and were arrested.
I am going to make this a huge issue, all donations will go to the legal defense of wearechange and a counter suit. Anything we can get is greatly appreciated, especially if people can send us used cameras or are able to donate their legal services, the court case is going to be in 2 months.
You can try to stop me, but you cant stop the idea of CHANGE! This is not over by any means.
Infowar adds.....He means real CHANGE (for the better) not the Obama type CHANGE. Funny thing is.....WEARECHANGE was established way before Obama's campaign started preaching change.The Obama camp simply capitalized on Americas disgust with the government. Obama's campaign even started to mimic the Ron Paul campaign at times.The people bought the BS hook line & sinker. The good news is, people are now waking up to the lies.
Obama & Bush are puppets for the global elite. Wake up & join the fight against the New World Order.
Fox News blowhard Glenn Beck is up to his old tricks again - after attempting to convince the public that he was some kind of crusader against the new world order he is now giving a platform to arch-yellow journalist debunker James Meigs of Popular Mechanics in a pathetic attempt to discredit so-called “conspiracy theories” behind FEMA camps.
After announcing yesterday on his show that he called Meigs three weeks ago to have him look at the issue of FEMA camps, Beck then attacks the credibility of the Internet before turning to Meigs, who states that Popular Mechanics has assigned one of their illustrious reporters to the issue, presumably from the same pool of reporters who made such infantile, glaring and agenda-driven botch jobs of “debunking” 9/11 truth.
Despite admitting that they haven’t deeply researched the issue, Meigs makes it clear that they have already decided it “isn’t true” - proving once again that the whole process isn’t about really getting to the bottom of the issue, it’s about debunking a perfectly provable fact by means of strawman tactics and deceitful reasoning.
“It looks from our early reporting like a classic conspiracy theory,” claims Meigs, adding, “Little grains of truth all adding up to something that really isn’t true.”
Beck and Meigs are going to go full court press in attempting to debunk the issue a week on Monday - April 6th.
Little grains of truth that add up to something that isn’t true? This is quite rich coming from a guy whose military-industrial complex rag is put out by by Hearst Publishing - the very progenitors of the term “yellow journalism”.
But who are we to question the expertise of James Meigs? The illustrious former editor of those serious and scholarly publications Video Review and Entertainment Weekly.
Little grains of truth that add up to something that isn’t true?
The fact that internment facilities inside America have been built and prepared for the incarceration of American citizens is not a “conspiracy theory,” it is a manifestly provable fact, and we have tirelessly written article after article documenting the reality of FEMA camps.
The purpose of such facilities is to provide “temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster,” the expansion of which under FEMA is codified under HR 645, otherwise known as the National Emergency Centers Act.
Ominously, the bill states that the camps can be used to “meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” an open ended mandate which many fear could mean the forced detention of American citizens in the event of widespread rioting after a national emergency or total economic collapse.
The issue of containment camps re-gained national attention three years ago when it was announced that Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.
The language of the preamble to the agreement veils the program with talk of temporary migrant holding centers, but it is made clear that the camps will also be used “as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency.”
Following the story, first given wide attention by Prisonplanet.com, the Alternet website put together an alarming report that collated all the latest information on plans to initiate internment of political subversives and Muslims after the next major terror attack in the US.
The article highlighted the disturbing comments of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who encouraged torture-supporting former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to target, “Fifth Columnists” Americans who show disloyalty and sympathize with “the enemy,” whoever that enemy may be.
It is important to stress that the historical precedent mirrors exactly what the Halliburton camp deal outlines. Oliver North’s Reagan era Rex 84 plan proposed rounding up 400,000 refugees, under FEMA, in the event of “uncontrolled population movements” over the Mexican border into the United States.
The real agenda, just as it is with Halliburton’s gulags, was to use the cover of rounding up immigrants and illegal aliens as a smokescreen for targeting political dissidents. From 1967 to 1971 the FBI kept a list of persons to be rounded up as subversive, dubbed the “ADEX” list.
As recently highlighted by author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of close to one million “terror suspects” with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
Discussions of federal concentration camps are no longer the rhetoric of paranoid Internet conspiracy theorists, they are mainstream news.
Halliburton, through their KBR subsidiary, is the same company that built most of the major new detention camps in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program, has recently been updated and the revision details a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.”
The plan is clearly to swallow up disenfranchised groups like prisoners, immigrants and Muslims at first and then extend the policy to include ‘Fifth Columnists,’ otherwise known as anyone who disagrees with the government or exercises their Constitutional rights.
Respected author Peter Dale Scott speculated that the “detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law.”
Daniel Ellsberg, former Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense, called the plan, “preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters. They’ve already done this on a smaller scale, with the ’special registration’ detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo.”
Furthermore, In 2002, FEMA sought bids from major real estate and engineering firms to construct giant internment facilities in the case of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack or a natural disaster.
Okanogan County Commissioner Dave Schulz went public in 2003 with his contention that his county was set to be a location for one of the camps.
In May 2006, we exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to “obey the government” in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation.
A whistleblower who was secretly enrolled into the program told us that the feds were clandestinely recruiting religious leaders to help implement Homeland Security directives in anticipation of a potential bio-terrorist attack, any natural disaster or a nationally declared emergency.
The first directive was for Pastors to preach to their congregations Romans 13, the often taken out of context bible passage that was used by Hitler to hoodwink Christians into supporting him, in order to teach them to “obey the government” when martial law is declared.
It was related to the Pastors that quarantines, martial law and forced relocation were a problem for state authorities when enforcing federal mandates due to the “cowboy mentality” of citizens standing up for their property and second amendment rights as well as farmers defending their crops and livestock from seizure.
It was stressed that the Pastors needed to preach subservience to the authorities ahead of time in preparation for the round-ups and to make it clear to the congregation that “this is for their own good.”
Pastors were told that they would be backed up by law enforcement in controlling uncooperative individuals and that they would even lead SWAT teams in attempting to quell resistance.
Though some doubted the accuracy of this report at the time due to its fundamentally disturbing implications, the story was later confirmed by a KSLA 12 news report, in which participating clergy and officials admitted to the existence of the program.
This program is continuing under the Obama administration with churches declaring that Barack Obama’s presidency is appointed by God and that Obama himself is “God’s minister”.
In another detention camp related development, last May it was revealed that the federal government is accepting bids on the contracts from county governments or private companies to build and run “family detention centers” on both coasts and on the Southwestern border.
Again, as with REX 84, the precedent is to deal with an influx of immigrants.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) already runs two similar camps, one of which hit the headlines at the end of 2006 after residents in Taylor Texas held protests outside the The T. Don Hutto detention facility.
One of the last acts of Congress in 2006 was to send President Bush a bill that establishes a $38 million program of National Park Service grants to preserve Japanese POW internment camps in Hawaii, California, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. Is this really in the name of historical interest or does it dovetail with programs on the books to intern hundreds of thousands of dissidents in a time of crisis?
“What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?”, asked former Congressman Dan Hamburg of the watchdog groupVoice of the Environment, Inc. in a article carried by the San Francisco Chronicle last year.
“Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and non citizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.” Hamburg co-wrote with Lewis Seiler.
The article continued:
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.”
Over the past decade we have witnessed an extreme acceleration of the physical implementation of a framework and infrastructure ready to receive those who will not go along with a coordinated destruction of traditional American values and freedom.
You do not need any confirmation one way or the other on this issue from James Meigs, Fox News or Glenn Beck, who has a track record as one of the most insidious corporate propagandists on television.
Just over a year ago Beck was on TV every week telling CNN viewers that Ron Paul supporters, libertarians and the anti-war left were terrorist sympathizers. Beck inferred that the U.S. military should be used to silence such dissenters, a theme we revealed to be a direct talking point that could be traced back to a September 2006 White House directive.
Glenn Beck is a modern day Judas Iscariot, attempting to co-opt the legitimate movement of millions of Americans furious at the abuse and conduct of their government. His invitation to have the corporate crony journalistic prostitutes at Popular Mechanics “debunk” the manifestly provable existence of internment camps in America tells us everything we need to know about where his sympathies really lie.
US technology magazine 'Wired’ has been setting America’s digital agenda for more than a decade and next week it launches in Britain. Urmee Khan met its editor, David Rowan.
Rowan believes the time is right for a serious look at technologyPhoto: SUDHIR PITHWA
You won’t find any geeks or gadgets or bikini-clad girls clutching iPhones on the pages of Britain’s new version of US technology magazine Wired. In fact, the word “gadget” is banned.
“We’re about ideas and innovation,” says editor David Rowan, former editor of The Jewish Chronicle and the Guardian’s websites. He’s now the man responsible for launching a UK edition of Wired, the bible that was first published in San Francisco at the height of the dotcom boom, and which has succeeded in encapsulating both the vision and frivolity of Silicon Valley.
The magazine, however, is also much more than that: it’s come to be considered as the last word on all things digital. Its cover story last April lifted the veil on Apple, with insiders spilling the beans on a culture of secrecy verging on “paranoia”, and exposing founder and chief executive Steve Jobs as an autocrat who ruled with “messianic zeal”. It was the first time that Apple had been subjected to such robust criticism.
Given the turmoil regarding Jobs’s position (he’s currently on a leave of absence from Apple due to ill health), Rowan feels the time is approaching for Jobs to step down. That he feels able to say so in public is an indication of Wired’s sense of its place in its market.
“The brand will outlive him. Apple’s been fantastically strong and produced design and innovation. But, you could say, were he to retire, it would give the company a chance to continue to grow market share.”
“[It raises an] interesting question – do you need to be run by a complete control freak to be a fast-growing and innovative company?”
The launch of Wired in the UK is actually more of a relaunch. Publishers originally sold a UK version in 1995, but the magazine closed after two years. Condé Nast snapped up the global title in 1998 for a reported $25 million.
Rowan doesn’t believe Wired will suffer a similar fate this time, despite the credit crunch, which has seen established titles such as men’s magazine Arena fold in recent months.
“It’s a good time to build a business during recession – companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Hewlett Packard launched in difficult times, magazines like Fortune and Business Week were launched in the 1930s during the depression.
“We’re the last unreconstructed optimists. We are ignoring the fact that there’s economic trouble out there and focusing on ideas and innovation and everything from smart people in business or in medicine or in design who are developing things that are going to change our world.”
Rowan keeps talking about the “next big idea” and says he seeks to bring a mischievous British slant to the popular US magazine, which explains why one future issue features renowned writer Alain de Botton driving dumper trucks and JCBs around the DiggerLand theme park.
“There’s tons of these quite important ideas coming out of Britain and we’re tapping into these people slightly ahead of the curve,” he hopes.
Rowan believes the time is right for a serious look at technology, too. “In 1995, not many people had email addresses or mobile phones. Since then it’s not geekish to download MP3s from iTunes – it’s pretty mainstream. People are living a digital life.”
Wired’s pedigree in the US cannot be faulted. Former staff writers went on to found the influential technology blog Boing Boing, while Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of the US version, has written a book on the business of “freeconomics”. He argues that giving content away in the digital age – such as music or online services – is actually a good way of making money. The book is based on an essay he first wrote for Wired in an issue that was – you’ve guessed it – given away free. The book, however, is a conventionally paid-for title, and it speaks volumes, too, that Wired is a printed magazine launching in a world it says is moving online at breakneck speed. But Wired has established a reputation for accurate future-gazing, however, so it’s no surprise that the launch issue includes a list of 99 trends and technologies that will become commonplace over the next few years.
“Extraterrestrials will be found by 2028, an Aids vaccine will be developed by 2024,” says Rowan. “[We’ll have] remote control surgery, male birth control by 2020.”
His most immediate prediction is quite mundane, however: pocket camcorders that allow people to quickly record video and upload it to the web will be huge, he says, and adds that scheduled television is dead because people want to watch TV online, using catch-up services such as the BBC iPlayer. He thinks emerging technologies, including 3D television, are a few years away from going mainstream, because people will wait for the price of the technology to fall. The word “gadget” may be banned but Wired is full of them.
Rowan also believes that the credit crunch will lead to a fundamental shift in our banking systems, with people choosing to borrow from and lend to one another using websites such as Zopa.com, rather than trust the big banks.
“The great thing about being editor of Wired is that you can rely on the data and on futurologists rather than on your own flawed opinions, and these people are pretty big. So whatever they collectively agree on is a pretty safe bet.”
He envisages the home of the future being “all be wired up”, while gadgets will be recharged without the need for plugs.
“You’ll be skiing down a Swiss mountain and you can run your bath on your iPhone, check who’s in your front garden on your iPhone. Your house could have Twitter feeds, telling you how much energy it is using.
The biggest challenge facing Wired in the UK, however, is establishing a distinct voice. The US version knows its market, and is comfortable in its tone and style. After all, what magazine can feature domestic goddess Martha Stewart on its front page one week, icing a cake baked in the shape of a Nintendo Wii, and the next, carry an article with the headline: “What went wrong in Iraq: blame the geeks”?
Indeed, Wired in the US has no worries about using the word geek. Perhaps the British version will grow to love its inner geek, too.
JACKSON, Miss. -- The governor's signature Monday put a stop to red-light camera use in Mississippi.
As a result, the cameras installed across the state will come down Oct. 1. Opponents said the cameras violate privacy but supporters said the cameras cut down on crashes.Jackson city attorney Sarah O'Reilly Evans said the capital city will stop collecting fines from tickets issued when automatic cameras snap pictures of vehicles running red lights. The change is being made immediately.
The city stopped accepting payments March 20. Anyone who sent a payment after March 20, their check will be returned or refunded. Those who have not yet payed their ticket, they are no longer required to do so, said Director of Administration for the city of Jackson Rick Hill.
Red-light cameras at eight intersections across Jackson must come down by Oct. 1, or at least stop photographing drivers. Some people who got the tickets for running red lights didn't think the cameras were fair, as 16 WAPT reported in a recent "Who's Accountable" report (More).Gov. Haley Barbour defended his decision to pass the law banning the cameras, saying, "The studies are all over, everywhere. There are studies that say it cuts down on T-bone accidents, but there are studies that say it increases the number of rear-end accidents."Jackson Deputy Police Chief Dwayne Thomas said the red-light camera contractor picked the intersections based solely on safety, "Some of the most dangerous intersections, some intersections where people have the propensity to run the lights the most."Last week, Barbour called into the Paul Gallo radio show, saying his biggest concern was whether banning the red-light cameras would keep Mississippi Highway Patrol dashboard camera video from being used in court."This video evidence that's come into use here is one of the best things to protect innocent people but also to make sure guilty people are punished," Barbour said.The governor said that once the highway patrol assured him banning the red-light cameras would not keep them from catching speeders or drunken drivers, he signed the bill.Barbour acknowledged this red-light camera ban could end up in court. A representative for American Traffic Solutions, the Jackson red-light camera contractor, said the company could sue because it has a three-year contract with the city.
Barney Frank was livid. Code Pink kept distracting Frank, who was holding an adult session with a couple world class criminals, Fed mob boss Ben Bernanke and Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who wants himself granted a scepter to wave over the heads of subject corporations. Frank told the kids in pink to “grow up” and declared they did not understand “rational” discussion, for instance stealing trillions from your children and the children of their children.
No doubt Code Pink’s leader, Medea Benjamin, and her followers are silly — but then they are supposed to be.
Medea aka Susan Benjamin is described as “one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement” and was nominated as one of 1,000 exceptional women from around the world to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. If Medea seriously confronted Bernanke and Geithner for their economic crimes instead of harping on the AIG bonus sideshow, chances are slim to none she would be nominated for a Nobel.
The only reason Benjamin is allowed to be anywhere near Bernanke and Geithner is because she represents a particularly harmless faction of the false opposition that is funded by the globalist George Soros and the MacArthur Foundation, the latter with connections to the CIA through Henry Bienen, president of Northwestern University (see Michael Pugliese, CIA funding the pseudo-left). The CIA has long used foundations (specifically the Ford Foundation) to fund a non-communist “parallel left.” The MacArthur Foundation also has connections to the Council on Foreign Relations through its former senior vice president, Victor Rabinowitch. Billionaire George Soros is a CFR member and a member of the Bilderberg Group.
Above:Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin talks to a Capitol Hill police officer during a House hearing on the AIG bonuses, March 18, 2009.
The MacArthur Foundation, CFR, and the Bilderbergers — these are not the sort of benefactors that will fund sincere opposition to the Federal Reserve and the bankster dominated Treasury Department. Barney Frank would not tolerate activists from End the Fed or similar adults anywhere near the House Financial Services Committee.
Code Pink is allowed to sit in attendance with its silly signs and clownish costumes because it is part of a controlled opposition that is allowed to “protest” only within the most narrow of parameters, namely the corporate media orchestrated “outrage” over AIG bonuses.
If a real activist appeared before Barney’s committee protesting the criminal behavior of the Federal Reserve and the bankers, he or she would likely be tased and beaten to a pulp by the Capitol Hill police.
Code Pink is allowed because it poses no real threat and offers a bit of color for the corporate media.
DeKalb County school officials are forging ahead with plans to open a first-of-its-kind military-style public high school, despite a growing campaign by activists upset at the involvement of the U.S. Marines.
“It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in Georgia education,” said Michael Burke, a DeKalb resident and spokesman for the Georgia Veterans Alliance, a group that aligns itself with the work of the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, among others.
“The whole thing is just a ploy” to help the Marines recruit, Burke said. “We expect to fight it tooth and nail.”
That response irritated DeKalb school system officials. They said it stereotypes the proposed Marine school and students who may be interested in it. The protests — mounted largely through e-mails and letters — have not deterred them, they said.
“This is not a training ground to send kids into the military,” said DeKalb schools Superintendent Crawford Lewis, whose system, with 99,700 students, is the state’s third-largest. “My job is not to look after a portion of children but all the children. One size does not fit all. For the mom who believes her child is capable of going to college but lacks discipline, this is a choice.”
A DeKalb school spokesman said Monday the system has hired a commandant for the school, which system officials hope to open in August. The commandant was selected from a list of three candidates from the Marines.
A memorandum of understanding with the Marines has not yet been signed, although DeKalb school board members authorized the school’s concept Sept. 9.
The DeKalb Marine Corps Institute will be the first of its kind in Georgia, and joins an expanding network of such schools nationwide. The first public military academy opened in Richmond, Va., in 1980, and more than a dozen now exist in places from New York to Wisconsin.
One proponent has been Arne Duncan, recently nominated as the nation’s education secretary after leading the Chicago public school system since 2001. Chicago opened the nation’s first public high school run by the Army’s Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps and now features six full-site military academies, among other military-style programs.
DeKalb officials say their school will combine academics with a military-style regimen for as many as 650 ninth- through 12th-graders. The school’s commandant will handle anything not related to academic instruction. A principal will be hired to handle academics, which includes a focus on math and science.
According to Lewis, the Marines would share costs of operating the school, including paying for teacher salaries. DeKalb would pay for benefits.
High school students could apply from across the system to the “choice” magnet school, although admission is dependent on their mastery of algebra. Enrollment would not require a student to make any post-graduation military service or commitment.
“I’ve gotten an awful lot of what you might say is irrational hate mail” about the school, said DeKalb school board member Paul Womack, who suggested the idea. “But this school is an outstanding school. This is a chance to bring regimentation and discipline into the lives of young people.”
Lewis on Monday declined to be more specific about how the school would operate, including costs, who would supervise teachers and other management issues, because the system has not reached a final agreement with the Marines. Lewis said he hoped the agreement would be completed in two weeks.
The school will have its own campus, using an existing building. Officials are considering placing the school at its Heritage Center, located off Briarcliff Road in north DeKalb. Some neighbors, however, have suggested in e-mails and on local blogs that the former elementary school is too small.
The Senate last night rubber stamped a nightmare domestic draft bill that legislates mandatory national service and creates an “army” of at least 7 million civilian enforcers working at the the behest of the government, while also containing language that threatens to ban free speech and the right to protest.
A passage contained in section 6104 of the original House version entitled “Duties,” in subsection B6, states that a commission will be set up to investigate, “Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed.” This language has been dropped from the version passed by the Senate.
However, Section 120 of the bill discusses the “Youth Engagement Zone Program” and states that “service learning” will be “a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.” This part remains in the version passed by the Senate.
Roles which will be staffed by members of the programs, labeled “Required National Service Corps,” include “criminal justice,” “environmental stewardship,” and “public safety”.
Aside from the programs aimed at college students and young people, others will be specifically targeted towards, “Retired and other former law enforcement, fire, rescue, and emergency personnel, and other individuals with backgrounds in disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery.”
The bill was rubber stamped by the Senate last night in a 74 to 14 vote, a move that creates “An army dispersed to help with education, health services and the environment, (which) would vastly enlarge the notion of “community organizing,” and allow, as Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, said tonight, for about 7 million people to be engaged in such work,” reports the New York Times.
References to the program as the creation of a civilian “army” have dominated mainstream news coverage of the legislation.
7 million members of this civilian “army” equates to about one member for every 50 Americans, a similar figure to the number of East Germans who collaborated with the Stasi and informed on their own citizens during the cold war.
The GIVE Act is just one of many pieces of legislation that vastly expand service organizations in line with Obama’s agenda to create a “national civilian security force”.
In January we also reported on the introduction by the Department of Defense of a “civilian expeditionary workforce” that will see American civilians trained and equipped to deploy overseas in support of worldwide military missions.
The DoD report states, “Management retains the authority to direct and assign civilian employees, either voluntarily, involuntarily, or on an unexpected basis to accomplish the DoD mission.”
Though the civilian expeditionary workforce program is restricted to DoD employees, similar programs have already been established for public sector workers.
One such program has seen hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and utility workers recently trained and dispatched as “Terrorism Liaison Officers” in Colorado, Arizona and California to watch for “suspicious activity” which is later fed into a secret government database.
Similar initiatives have been introduced in other western countries, including recently in the UK with the announcement that MI5 is currently training up to 60,000 UK citizens as part a civilian network of terrorist spotters, according to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and home secretary, Jacqui Smith.
In an interview with Ben Smith of the New York Daily News, Emanuel outlined the agenda for military-style training, essentially a domestic draft, aimed at preparing Americans for a chemical or biological terrorist attack.
Asked by Smith about the universal service plan and whether people would have to live in military barracks, Emanuel laughed before responding, “We’re going to have universal civil defense training, somewhere between the ages of 18 to 25 you will do three months of training….but there can be nothing wrong with all Americans having a joint similar experience of what we call civil defense training or civil service in service of the country, in preparation, which will give people a sense of what it means to be an American.”
“It will be a common experience and we will be prepared, God forbid, God forbid that there is a chemical hit, another terrorist act or natural disaster becoming more frequent - there’ll be a body of citizens who are ready and capable and trained - that’s all you have to think about,” said Emanuel before smugly declaring, “We’re all here for you OK? It’s a circle of love.”
Asked if the training would be military style, with people wearing uniforms, Emanuel stated, “If you’re worried about are you going to have to do 50 jumping jacks the answer is yes,” adding that the service could be done through state national guard.
Shockingly, the GIVE legislation also contains language that could completely demolish the 1st amendment.
The 12th amendment to the act states, “Amendment to prohibit organizations from attempting to influence legislation; organize or engage in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes; and assist, promote, or deter union organizing.”
As Gary Wood writes, “Those in support of this legislation will argue this amendment is limited in scope and is not meant to interfere with the rights of citizens to protest, petition, boycott, or strike in resistance to government proposed laws. However, the people associated through service under the GIVE Act are considered volunteers, still free citizens, yet it will be unlawful for them to take part in any protests against any legislation. This is as close to a sedition act, a violation of 1st Amendment rights, as has been proposed in recent history. A basic right as a part of our natural, inalienable rights, is to resist government. Our founders not only knew it was a right but it was a responsibility. This legislation begins to break that down significantly.”
Fears about Obama’s plans to create involuntary servitude and domestic spy squads were first stoked in July 2008, when Obama told a rally in Colorado Springs, “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”
Despite denials that Obama plans to institute a mandatory program of national service, his original change.gov website stated that Americans would be “required” to complete “50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year”. The text was only later changed to state that Americans would be “encouraged” to undertake such programs.
Numerous other national service bills have been introduced which target everyone from schoolchildren to the elderly. They include the Service For All Ages Initiative, the Summer of Service Act, the Semester of Service Act, the Encore Service Act and the ACTION Act.
Regarding the GIVE Act, “The bill’s opponents — and there are only a few in Congress — say it could cram ideology down the throats of young “volunteers,” many of whom could be forced into service since the bill creates a “Congressional Commission on Civic Service,” reports Fox.
“We contribute our time and money under no government coercion on a scale the rest of the world doesn’t emulate and probably can’t imagine,” said Luke Sheahan, contributing editor for the Family Security Foundation. “The idea that government should order its people to perform acts of charity is contrary to the idea of charity and it removes the responsibility for charity from the people to the government, destroying private initiative.”
Lee Cary of the conservative American Thinker warns that Obama’s agenda is to, “tap into the already active volunteerism of millions of Americans and recruit them to become cogs in a gigantic government machine grinding out his social re-engineering agenda.”
The passage of such shocking legislation with barely a whimper from political activist groups goes to show how well the corporate media has performed in camouflaging the legislation with flowery characterizations of helpful volunteerism, when in reality the bill creates the pretext for mandatory national service and the creation of a multi-million man domestic civil defense unit who will be tasked with spying on their fellow Americans under the justification of protecting the country from terrorism.
Following overwhelming House passage last week, the Senate tonight voted 74 to 14 on a procedural move that essentially guarantees a major expansion of a national service corps, a cornerstone of volunteerism that dates back to the era of President Kennedy. It’s akin to a call to arms by President Obama, who has harkened back to those early days to demand giving back by those who voted for him.
In fact, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the senior Democrat from Massachusetts whose battle with brain cancer has oft kept him absent from the Senate these days, appeared on the floor to welcomes all around as he cast his approving vote as a co-sponsor.
From President Kennedy’s days to the creation of Americorps by then President Bill Clinton, the notion of public service has become a rallying cry. Tonight’s vote, propelled by President Obama’s urging of an expansion, would mean a growth in such work from 75,000 community service jobs to 250,000.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of the Senate bill at least would be an outlay for the fiscal year 2010 of $418 million to about $5.7 billion from 2010 through 2014.
It’s an historic vote in the sense that a national service corps, an army dispersed to help with education, health services and the environment, would vastly enlarge the notion of “community organizing,” and allow, as Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, said tonight, for about 7 million people to be engaged in such work.
The bill enjoyed extraordinary bipartisan support, including namely the major co-sponsor, Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, who tonight even recommended reading the biography of R. Sargent Shriver, relative by marriage to the Kennedys and who directed the original Peace Corps from 1961 to 1966.
In addition, Senator Hatch mentioned that the Rev. Rick Warren, the evangelical minister of Saddleback Church and author of “A Purpose Driven Life,” was an enthusiastic supporter of this effort, as was Senator John McCain, the former Republican presidential nominee. The latter’s support, to Senator Hatch, demonstrated the exceptional bipartisan backing of the expansion.
Eleven senators did not cast a vote. The 14 Republicans, some of whom cited the cost in voting against the proposal, are: Senators Sam Brownback of Kansas, James Bunning of Kentucky, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Michael Crapo of Idaho, Jon Kyl of Arizona, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, John Ensign of Nevada, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Jim Risch of Idaho, Pat Roberts of Kansas, Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, both of Alabama, Tom DeMint of South Carolina and John Thune of South Dakota.
On March 18, Rep. George Miller, a Democrat from California, tacked an amendment on H.R. 1388, entitled “Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act,” or GIVE (to government), Obama’s plan to require mandatory service for all able young people. Miller’s amendment will “prohibit organizations from attempting to influence legislation; organize or engage in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes; and assist, promote, or deter union organizing,” according to GovTrack.us, a site that tracks Congress.
In other words, Obama’s “volunteer corps” act, passed by the House with a 321-105 margin and requiring the government to develop a plan for indentured servitude, would deny millions of people their right to oppose and organize against government legistation under the First Amendment. “This is as close to a sedition act, a violation of 1st Amendment rights, as has been proposed in recent history. A basic right as a part of our natural, inalienable rights, is to resist government. Our founders not only knew it was a right but it was a responsibility. This legislation begins to break that down significantly,” writes Gary Wood for the Examiner.
GIVE (up your rights) will conscript millions of young people, put them in uniforms and send them packing to 4-year “public service” academies where they will be indoctrinated and trained to become “public sector leaders.”
GIVE was passed by the House on March 18 by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 321 to 105. “At this moment of economic crisis, when so many people are in need of help and so much needs to be done, this could not be more urgent,” said Obama. “It is up to every one of us to do his or her small part to make the world a better place.”
Under section 6104 of the bill, entitled “Duties,” in subsection B6, the legislation states that a commission will be set up to investigate, “Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.”
Section 120 of the bill addresses the “Youth Engagement Zone Program” and states that “service learning” will be “a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.”
H.R. 1388 not only reauthorizes programs under the National and Community Service Act of 1990 and the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973, but also includes “new programs and studies” and is expected to be funded with an allocation of $6 billion over the next five years, explains Bob Unruh for WND.
“Many, however, are raising concerns that the program, which is intended to include 250,000 ‘volunteers,’ is the beginning of what President Obama called his ‘National Civilian Security Force’ in a a speech last year in which he urged creating an organization as big and well-funded as the U.S. military. He has declined since then to elaborate,” Unruh adds.
It appears Miller’s amendment is designed to strip members of this emerging “National Civilian Security Force” of their constitutional rights under the First Amendment.
The First Amendment reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
According to GovTrack.us, the addition of the Miller amendment to GIVE was agreed to by voice vote.
On March 23, a similar bill was passed by the Senate on a 74 to 14 vote. “From President Kennedy’s days to the creation of Americorps by then President Bill Clinton, the notion of public service has become a rallying cry. Tonight’s vote, propelled by President Obama’s urging of an expansion, would mean a growth in such work from 75,000 community service jobs to 250,000,” reported the New York Times.
That led Stratton to issue a letter to Prison Planet, one of the web sites publicizing the story. Stratton says his comments have been "minterpreted." From the letter:
The very fact that many officers in our 166-member police department may choose to retire, leave city employment or seek employment elsewhere were the city to plan to ultimately move to that option, could result in a sudden exodus of personnel. Our responsibility to provide continued public safety through adequate numbers of police officers could mean a temporary assignment of State Police, other local law enforcement personnel, or even state militia only as an emergency and temporary measure until such time as a new department is formed and fully staffed.
Contrary to what your readers may believe, the City of Schenectady is not considering the implementation of martial law as a permanent remedy to the ongoing personnel and administrative problems within our police department. We are addressing those challenges internally, as we continue to investigate all realistic, long-term options available should we decide to dissolve or consolidate the department with another non-military law enforcement agency.
Yesterday we reported on how a New York State city is considering implementing martial law and replacing the local police force with National Guardsmen, in an effort to clean up law enforcement in the area.
City officials in Schenectady are reportedly considering scrapping the entire police force in response to the actions of a small selection of officers who have been accused of assaulting citizens.
While other options have been raised, such as a consolidated county-wide police force diverting authority to the State Police, Mayor Brian Stratton has indicated that he believes the Governor could declare martial law during a period of “transition”.
Mayor Stratton today sent us a statement clarifying his comments, which were originally made to Capital News 9. Stratton writes that though martial law is not a “permanent remedy” to the problem, the use of state militia to oversee a transitional phase is being seriously considered.
We don’t feel in any way that our article “misinterpreted” the Mayor’s comments as he claims. Indeed, our subheadline emphasized the fact that the use of national guard was a “transitional” issue. The main thrust of our report was to express alarm that the extreme measure of declaring martial law was being considered in response to a relatively minor problem.
We were also trying to make the point that for authorities to be able to declare martial law so readily and on such a flimsy pretext sets a dangerous precedent for the entire country.
In addition, the use of military assets in civilian law enforcement is still illegal under Posse Comitatus, unless a clear state of emergency exists.
However, for the purposes of Mr. Stratton’s right of response, we are happy to post his statement in full below.
——————— ——————— ——————
Dear Mr. Watson:
Your recent posting of an article on www.prisonplanet.com (“City Considers Martial Law to Clean Up Policing”) is misinterpreting the nature and intent of comments I have made to local media regarding the potential use of martial law in the City of Schenectady.
As reported on the local cable news channel, Capital News 9, I have said that martial law might be a necessary but temporary interim measure if in fact our city were to abolish its police department and transition over an extended period to a county-administered force or other option.
The very fact that many officers in our 166-member police department may choose to retire, leave city employment or seek employment elsewhere were the city to plan to ultimately move to that option, could result in a sudden exodus of personnel. Our responsibility to provide continued public safety through adequate numbers of police officers could mean a temporary assignment of State Police, other local law enforcement personnel, or even state militia only as an emergency and temporary measure until such time as a new department is formed and fully staffed.
Contrary to what your readers may believe, the City of Schenectady is not considering the implementation of martial law as a permanent remedy to the ongoing personnel and administrative problems within our police department. We are addressing those challenges internally, as we continue to investigate all realistic, long-term options available should we decide to dissolve or consolidate the department with another non-military law enforcement agency.
I hope that this email will clear any confusion over the recent report on Capital News 9.
Once again, YouTube has engaged in now classic censorship. On YouTube’s “Most Viewed” page, we see a number of popular videos. The number one most viewed video comes in a 364,715 views, the second most viewed at just over 200,000.
Alex Jones’ high quality encode of The Obama Deception, posted on ChangeDaChannel’s page, is not included, even though it blows the other videos away at 462,032 views (as of 1:30 PM Central) — an obvious effort by Google’s YouTube to make sure people remain unaware of and do not watch the video. In essence — and not unlike the old Soviet Union — YouTube is acting as a political police goon squad for the establishment, attempting to make sure as few people as possible see this important documentary.
YouTube has also deleted ChangeDaChannel’s honors in a crass effort to knock the film’s ratings down.
YouTube and Google Video are notorious for censoring and fudging view results on Alex Jones films and other films including Loose Change and NufffRespect’s hugely popular Question Your Reality video. For more on the mechanics behind Google’s censorship, see Google Censorship — How It Works.
It is important that The Obama Deception get out to as many people as possible and that is why Alex has allowed the film to be posted on the internet. ChangeDaChannel has the best high quality encode of the film and this needs to go viral.
Please watch the film below and order your copy of the DVD today. Now that Obama’s drones are on the street and going door-to-door in order to high pressure you into supporting the banker scam that will indenture our former republic to the international bankers for generations to come, it is vitally important you get a copy of this film, make copies, and pass them out to your family and neighbors so they will be ready to respond when Obama’s little Maoists come knocking on your door.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has defended a report issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center that smears Ron Paul supporters, people who have knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, and people who display political bumper stickers as potential domestic terrorists.
As we revealed in our exclusive report last week, a leaked secret report distributed by the federal Missouri Information Analysis Center lists Ron Paul supporters, libertarians, people who display bumper stickers, people who own gold, or even people who fly a U.S. flag and equates them with radical race hate groups and terrorists.
The MIAC report specifically describes supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as “militia” influenced terrorists and instructs the Missouri police to be on the lookout for supporters displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties.
The MIAC report does not concentrate on Muslim terrorists, but rather on the so-called “militia movement” and conflates it with supporters of Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, the so-called patriot movement and other political activist organizations opposed to the North American Union and the New World Order.
Police are educated in the document that people are are anti-abortion, own gold, display an assortment of U.S. flags, or even those that talk about the film Zeitgeist, view the police as their “enemy” and conflates them with domestic terrorists like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph and other domestic militia groups who have been charged with plotting terrorist attacks.
Governor Nixon defended the report yesterday, stating, “Getting information, especially public information, out of our fusion center out to local law enforcement agencies is we do every day and we’re going to continue to do,” said Nixon. “Any way they take that information and can analyze what the threat levels are is important to make sure the public stays safe.”
Both Governor Nixon and the Missouri Information Analysis Center may have acted foolishly in refusing to denounce the report for what it is - a completely inaccurate smear which if anything makes America less safe from terrorists because it identifies as terrorists some of the most patriotic groups one can imagine.
The fact that the document clearly constitutes libel and defamation has not gone unnoticed by Chuck Baldwin, Ron Paul and Bob Barr, who have agreed to pursue legal action if the report is not withdrawn.
The three former presidential candidates have sent a letter to Missouri officials protesting the MIAC report. Appearing on The Alex Jones Show yesterday, Baldwin said that he and his fellow letter signatories will consider legal action if the letter does not result in a repudiation of the MIAC report and its absurd allegations.
Savage: “Obama appointees actually have almost the same exact policies as the Nazi Party did”
Michael “Savage” Weiner, corporate media talk show host and former beatnik, has told his audience that Obama’s appointees are following the policies of the Nazis. Savage, a former Bush supporter and notorious carnival barker for the false right-left paradigm (and neocon Muslim-hater), does not bother to call out a single Obama appointee by name. Instead, in the audio clip here, Weiner concentrates on Obama’s “green shirts,” an allusion to Hitler’s SA brown shirts.
Savage is correct about the fascistic character of Obama’s mass movement, but he has conveniently omitted an important part of the larger picture.
Hitler was a creation of Wall Street financiers and the international bankers, a historical fact documented by British economist, historian, and writer Antony C. Sutton. Sutton documents the roles played by J.P. Morgan, T. W. Lamont, the Rockefeller interests, General Electric Company, Standard Oil, National City Bank, Chase and Manhattan banks, Kuhn, Loeb and Company, and other elitists in the rise of Hitler and Nazism.
“Wall Street financed the German cartels in the mid-1920s which in turn proceeded to bring Hitler to power,” writes Sutton in the final chapter of his book, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. “Hitler and his S.S. street thugs came in part from affiliates or subsidiaries of U.S. firms, including Henry Ford in 1922, payments by I.G. Farben and General Electric in 1933, followed by the Standard Oil of New Jersey and I.T.T. subsidiary payments to Heinrich Himmler up to 1944.” Hitler’s mass movement was a creation of bankers and industrialists.
In Adam Lebor’s Hitler’s Secret Bankers (see also Charles Higham’s Trading With the Enemy), we learn how the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and its American president, Thomas McKittrick, continued trading and money laundering on behalf of the Nazis throughout the Second World War.
BIS is an international organization of central banks established under the globalist Bretton-Woods International Financial scheme. BIS is closely associated with the Bilderberg Group, the elitist organization established by the Nazi collaborator Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (see Alden Hatch’s H. R. H. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands for more on Bernhard’s SS connections).
It should be noted that Timothy F. Geithner, Obama’s point man on the economy and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, sits on the board of directors of BIS (Fed mob boss Ben Bernanke also sits on the board of this one-time Nazi front group that now controls the IMF and World Bank).
It is no mistake Bilderberg and Rockefeller stooge Henry Kissinger came out early in favor of Obama, as did Rockefeller minion and co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Obama’s appointees are overwhelmingly of the globalist and bankster persuasion — a preponderant number are members of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission.
Financial support for the Obama campaign flowed in from Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and others.
Michael “Savage” Weiner would have us believe Obama is a “neo-marxist fascist dictator” and his hand-picked appointees “actually have almost the same exact policies as the Nazi Party did,” when in fact Obama’s policies are those of the bankers, not Hitler or Ernst Röhm, co-founder of the Sturmabteilung or SA. In fact, Obama is a puppet for the global elite and it is completely irrelevant if he subscribes to Marxism, Nazism, or anything else.
Mark Dice talks to Michael Weiner about the Bilderberg Group.
Savage and the neocons are fond of conflating Nazism with “progressive” Democrat liberalism — which is yet another artificially generated flavor of bankster dominated statism — a tactic they employed in the days following the false flag attacks of September 11, 2001, when neocons absurdly attempted to demonize Muslims as “Islamofascists.”
In a call to Savage’s radio show, activist Mark Dice was able to get the former beatnik turned talk show host to admit he believes any mention of the Bilderbergers is too “esoteric” for his largely neocon wannabe audience. It is not the Bilderbergers (and by way of extension the CFR and the Trilateralists) we need to worry about, but rather the “Democrat socialist group run by Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Ann Feinstein, and the others.”
Weiner further admits he has known about the Bilderberg Group since 1990, and yet he refuses to discuss the organization’s objectives and the indisputable fact members are at the highest levels of government, including the Obama administration. It is the Democrats we need to worry about, declares Savage, not the international banking elite.
“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers,” wrote the historian of the elite, Carroll Quigley, in his book Tragedy and Hope. “Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”
Michael “Savage” Weiner understands this all too well. His role — along with Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and other corporate media “conservatives” — is to foment a carefully orchestrated and controlled opposition to the current regime so that in four or eight years, after Obama has accomplished the tasks assigned to him by the global elite, the American people “can throw the rascals out… without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.”
Left: Watch the trailer: (scroll down to watch the full film for free via google)
THE OBAMA DECEPTION: ABOUT THE FILM
The Obama Deception is a hard-hitting film that completely destroys the myth that Barack Obama is working for the best interests of the American people.
The Obama phenomenon is a hoax carefully crafted by the captains of the New World Order. He is being pushed as savior in an attempt to con the American people into accepting global slavery.
We have reached a critical juncture in the New World Order’s plans. It’s not about Left or Right: it’s about a One World Government. The international banks plan to loot the people of the United States and turn them into slaves on a Global Plantation.
Covered in this film: who Obama works for, what lies he has told, and his real agenda. If you want to know the facts and cut through all the hype, this is the film for you.
Watch the Obama Deception and learn how:
* Obama is continuing the process of transforming America into something that resembles Nazi Germany, with forced National Service, domestic civilian spies, warrantless wiretaps, the destruction of the Second Amendment, FEMA camps and Martial Law.
* Obama’s handlers are openly announcing the creation of a new Bank of the World that will dominate every nation on earth through carbon taxes and military force.
* International bankers purposefully engineered the worldwide financial meltdown to bankrupt the nations of the planet and bring in World Government.
* Obama plans to loot the middle class, destroy pensions and federalize the states so that the population is completely dependent on the Central Government.
* The Elite are using Obama to pacify the public so they can usher in the North American Union by stealth, launch a new Cold War and continue the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The information contained in this film is vital to the future of the Republic and to freedom worldwide. President Barack Obama is only the tool of a larger agenda. Until all are made aware, humanity will remain captive to the masters of the New World Order.
Note: The film maker asks people to upload his films for free. Go to the film website if you wish to purchase a hard copy or download the film in high quality. The film was released early on the net & hard copies will be released March 15.
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Alex Jones’ latest edifying documentary, The Obama Deception, is without doubt his most timely work to date.
As we teeter on the brink of a full blown economic depression fueled by the excessive inflationary monetary policies of governments and the international banking cartels they operate under, the American people have turned to a man who has been masterfully presented to them as their last HOPE.
As we stare over the precipice into a cultural, moral and spiritual abyss that has been shifted ever closer by decades of interventionist foreign policy and the growth of a political agenda dominated by an unfettered military industrial complex, the masses have identified with a carefully staged call for CHANGE.
As we peer across the ever receding divide between unconstrained freedom and a system of authoritative control empowered by the continual subversion of basic liberties, the public has chosen to invest their fragile confidence in a figure they have been astuciously persuaded to associate with PROGRESS.
He is Obama.
This is THE OBAMA DECPTION.
The Obama Deception lays bare the cynical fraud behind the spell binding image of the new president, a slick front man for the corporate oligarchs who have seized control of the country from the shadows.
The film is not about left or right politics, but instead seeks to shine a light on a deep-rooted agenda to use America and its largely unwitting population as the engine for global dominance, while feigning to represent the best interests of the nation.
The documentary, perhaps most importantly, outlines the fact that even if Barack Obama had the best intentions in the world, they would not come to pass because he is firmly rooted within a perennial and clandestine power structure that spans beyond presidents, borders and economies.
The Obama Deception emphasizes that only by facing up to and challenging this overriding architecture, the modus operandi that has come to shape our way of life and the world around us, can we actually achieve any palpable and effective change.
Those who supported Obama’s election will undoubtedly reassess their reasoning when they see how he continues to expand the machinery of warfare, how he has purposefully and meticulously left in place the framework of torture & renditions, how he has personally pushed through banker-bailouts, advanced the elitist North American Union agenda and much more.
Featuring interviews with leading economic analysts, politicians, business professionals, journalists, authors, social commentators and entertainers, in addition to empirical research and analysis by Alex Jones and the Infowars team, The Obama Deception is part political investigation, part cultural exploration of the pivotal and decisive times we live in.
Note: The film maker asks people to upload his films for free. Go to the film website if you wish to purchase a hard copy or download the film in high quality. The film was released early on the net & hard copies will be released March 15.
Note: The film maker asks people to upload his films for free. Go to the film website if you wish to purchase a hard copy or download the film in high quality. The film was released early on the net & hard copies will be released March 15.
In anticipation of the official release of THE OBAMA DECEPTION– now available for high-quality download and streaming at PRISONPLANET.TV– director Alex Jones reaches out to Obama supporters everywhere, to let them where he stands.
The Obama Deception is not about Left or Right politics, but about taking a stand against the offshore bankers who have seized control of the country from the shadows. The film aims to expose that Barack Obama is a puppet– a mere front man– for the globalists’ agenda who will help to loot the Treasury, bankrupt the U.S.A. and seize assets from the American people, all while pretending to represent the people of the nation.
Those who supported Obama’s election need to wake up right now to the fact that the Obama Administration has been a bait-and-switch. Obama will lie to the people, even as he continues and expands the foreign wars, pushes through banker-bailouts, continues torture & renditions, advances the North American Union agenda and much more.
Watch the video here: www.youtube.com/watch or go to the top of this blog in the left hand corner (second video).
A 17-year-old former student opened fire near Stuttgart, Germany, killing at least 16 people. The teenager was a former student at a Winnenden school, where he initiated the shooting spree. Three teachers and at least 10 students were killed by his actions.
The media is reporting that Tim Kretschmer, “walked calmly into three classrooms and opened fire, without saying a word.” Following the shooting at his school, Tim ran to a psychiatric clinic school and killed an employee there. (Did he have a link to the psychiatric staff members there?)
A day earlier, a man in his mid-30’s opened fire in Alabama, killing ten people before he was shot and killed by law enforcement.
In seeing the news reports on these events, the ignorant masses quite predictably leaped to the conclusion that “guns are the problem.” Apparently in their minds, these shootings were carried out solely by guns and have nothing whatsoever to do with the people pulling the triggers. But the truth is far more insidious: It is the psychiatric medications that are causing violent shooting sprees in America, Germany and elsewhere.
These dangerous psychiatric medications drastically imbalance brain chemistry, causing teens (and adults) to feel distanced from reality, as if they are walking through a video game. In fact, this was exactly how the Columbine school shooters described their experience of carrying out the infamous shootings in Colorado.
The report that Germany’s shooter, Tim Kretschmer, “walked calmly into three classrooms and opened fire, without saying a word” is a strong indication that he was almost certainly suffering the brain-altering side effects of psychiatric medication.
The pharmaceutical companies, of course, incessantly attempt to deny the reality that their drugs cause school shootings. In fact, their psychiatric drugs actually cause the very same things they often claim to treat! Antidepressants, for example, can cause depression, suicidal thoughts and violent behavior. They also directly promote weight gain, obesity and diabetes, and those health conditions can then lead to more depression, requiring more “treatment” with medication.
It’s all a gigantic scam. These drug companies are just selling patented chemicals for profit while destroying the lives of human beings in the process. In my view, Big Pharma is responsible for the deaths of all those killed by drug-induced shooting sprees. Read the jaw-dropping collection of quotes (below) from authors on this issue to learn even more.
Not surprisingly, the mainstream media remains virtually silent on this issue, not even mentioning any link between psychiatric drugs and school shootings. The media, you see, is largely funded by drug company advertisements.
A film you must see
A truly remarkable documentary film on the history of psychiatric medication is now available through CCHR (the Citizens’ Commission on Human Rights). Watch it here: http://www.cchr.org/#/video...
Listen to the song: S.S.R.Lies
You may also know I'm the writer and singer on the song known as
The lyrics are included on the right-hand column of that page.
Authors' Quotes on Antidepressants and School Shootings
Below, you'll find selected quotes from noted authors on the subject of antidepressants and suicide or violent behavior. Feel free to quote these in your own work provided you give proper credit to both the original author quoted here and this NaturalNews page.
Illegal mind-altering drugs may elicit the same or similar adverse reactions as many of the newer mind-altering antidepressants, yet this important correlation, beyond a cursory mention, is absent from serious consideration in most of the schoolshootings. The following list of schoolshootings is an example of the number of children with a known history of psychiatric counseling and psychiatric drug use: [abbreviated list, get the book to read the full list]
• Kip land "Kip" Kinkle, 15 years old, May 21, 1998, Thurston Middle School, Springfield, Ore. Killed his mother and father and two students; wounded 25 others. Psychiatric counseling and drug use: Prozac.
• Shawn Cooper, 15 years old, April 16, 1999, Notus Junior-Senior High School, Notus, Idaho. Fired two gun shots. No one injured or killed. Psychiatric drugs used: "antidepressants."
• Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, 18 and 17 years old, respectively, April 20, 1999, Columbine High School, Littleton, Colo. Twelve students and one teacher killed; 24 others wounded. Shooters commit suicide. Psychiatric drug use: Harris had been prescribed Zoloft and Luvox.
• Thomas "T.J." Solomon, 15 years old, May 20, 1999, Heritage High School, Conyers, Ga. Six wounded. Psychiatric drug use: Prior psychiatric counseling and Ritalin.
• Elizabeth Bush, 14 years old, March 7, 2001, Bishop Neumann High School, Williamsport, Pa. Wounded one student. Psychiatric drug use: "antidepressants."
• Jason Hoffman, 18 years old, March 22, 2001, Granite Hills High School, El Cajon, Ca. Killed one; wounded one. Psychiatric drug use: Celexa and Effexor.
• Cory Baadsgaard, 16 years old, April 15, 2001, Wahluke High School, Mattawa, Wash. Held 23 students and a teacher hostage with a rifle. No injuries or deaths. Psychiatric drug use: Paxil and Effexor.
• John Jason McLaughlin, 15-years old, September 14, 2001, Recori High School, Cold Spring, Minnesota. One killed and 1 wounded.
• Jeff Weise, 16 years old, March 21, 2005, Red Lake High School, Red Indian Reservation, Minn. Killed nine and wounded seven others then committed suicide. Psychiatric drug use: Prozac.
• Michael Carneal, 14 years old, Dec 1, 1997, Heath High School, West Paducah, Ky. Killed three students; wounded five others. Had psychiatric counseling prior to shooting.
• Mitchell Johnson, 13 years old, and Andrew Golden, 11 years old, March 25, 1998, Westside Middle School, Jonesboro, Ark. One teacher, four students killed; 11 wounded. Johnson received psychiatric treatment prior to the shooting.
Reports in the media began suggesting that antidepressants might be behind the horrific murders that shook the nation. These stories typically noted that Andrea Yates (Houston bathtub drownings), Kip Kinkel (Jonesboro, Arkansas, shootings), Eric Harris (Columbine school shootings) and Christopher Pittman (South Carolina grandparents murdered) were on or had been on antidepressants. The relationship between violence against others and violence against self is apparent.
- America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceivedby Dr. Timothy Scott
- Available on Amazon.com
Despite mountains of evidence, they were avidly denying that antidepressants can cause mayhem, murder, and suicide. From the moment Prozac burst on the scene in 1989, to the start of the FDA hearings on antidepressants in 2004, many stories of antidepressant-induced violence and suicide had been reported in the press. Hundreds more had been sent to the FDA and had even been published in the scientific literature concerning antidepressant-induced "harm to self and others.
- Medication Madness: A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers of Mood-Altering Medicationsby Peter Breggin
- Available on Amazon.com
However, mania is by no means the only way antidepressants can induce violence. The SSRI antidepressants, as well as some other antidepressants such as Wellbutrin and Desyrel (trazodone) cause akathisia. In earlier chapters, I described this drug-induced neurological condition that can become a virtual inner torture of irritation and anguish. Akathisia can drive a person toward bizarre and even violent actions. SSRIs can also cause a loosening of inhibition or self-control, leading to unanticipated acts of violence.
- The Anti-Depressant Fact Book: What Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and Luvoxby Peter R. Breggin
- Available on Amazon.com
Many doctors seem to believe that antidepressants will reduce the likelihood of a patient attempting or committing suicide. The labels for antidepressants warn about being careful about suicide but they emphasize that this care is required until the antidepressant can take effect. This falsely implies that antidepressants can reduce the danger of suicide. After reviewing the vast literature and after examining the internal records of several antidepressant makers, it is absolutely clear that antidepressants do not reduce the suicide rate.
- The Anti-Depressant Fact Book: What Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and Luvoxby Peter R. Breggin
- Available on Amazon.com
Andrew Mosholder, the task of investigating the emerging (though it had been around for years) evidence of a link between antidepressants and suicide attempts in children. As he was told to, he did his job and filed his report, but the FDA refused to release it. They also refused to allow him to participate in public hearings on antidepressants that were conducted in February 2004. Why? Our belief is that it is because of his finding that children who take antidepressants are two times more likely to exhibit suicidal behaviors than depressed children who are not given antidepressants.
- The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Childrenby Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey
- Available on Amazon.com
Classic papers dating as far back as the 1930s describe the risk with amphetamine antidepressants. For decades pharmaceutical companies and drug proponents adamantly denied the phenomenon, but by the 1970s, when strict limitations were imposed on prescribing amphetamines, their ability to trigger suicide and violence had been firmly established. In the 1980s, a similar phenomenon was recognized with tricyclic antidepressants, the class of drugs used between the fall of amphetamine antidepressants in the 1970s and the rise of serotonin boosters in the 1990s.
- Prozac Backlash: Overcoming the Dangers of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Other Antidepressants with Safe, Effective Alternativesby Joseph Glenmullen, M.D.
- Available on Amazon.com
On July 16, 2005, BMJ(formerly known as the British Medical Journal), in a major review article ("Efficacy of antidepressants in Adults"), summarized the research on the long-term outcome of antidepressants this way: "Antidepressants have not been convincingly shown to affect the long-term outcome of depression or suicide rates." Today antidepressants are increasingly used by Americans who are not severely depressed, and they are being prescribed on a long-term basis. The previously mentioned 2000 ABC News poll reported that 46 percent of antidepressant users had taken them for a year or more.
- Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazyby Bruce E. Levine
- Available on Amazon.com
The cases and scientific evidence presented in this book should convincingly demonstrate that antidepressants cause suicide. Given that psychiatric drugs can cause suicide, is there evidence that any of them actually reduce suicide? The answer is no. Particularly in the case of the antidepressants, drug companies and their paid researchers have tried for years to show that these drugs reduce the suicide rate, but no compelling evidence has been forthcoming.
- Medication Madness: A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers of Mood-Altering Medicationsby Peter Breggin
- Available on Amazon.com
Given that this conservative diagnostic manual makes clear that antidepressants cause mania and that mania can produce goal-directed criminal acts, anger, violence, depression, and suicide, no physician should doubt that antidepressants cause acts of violence or suicide. Unfortunately, despite clinical experience, scientific data, and a consensus of opinion among experts, many doctors refuse to believe that their medications are sometimes driving patients to crime, violence, and suicide.
- The Anti-Depressant Fact Book: What Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and Luvoxby Peter R. Breggin
- Available on Amazon.com
Adults whose symptoms worsen while being treated with antidepressants, including an increase in suicidal thinking or behavior, should be evaluated by their health-care professional. The data convinced even the FDA hardliners. Belatedly, the agency issued warnings about suicidal thinking and antidepressants. These cautions came far too late to prevent many terrible tragedies over nearly 2 decades. As difficult as it has been for psychiatrists and FDA officials to contemplate, people taking SSRI-type antidepressants are sometimes preoccupied with thoughts of suicide or homicide.
- Best Choices From the People's Pharmacyby Joe Graedon, M.S. and Teresa Graedon, Ph.D.
- Available on Amazon.com
Adults in Taiwan and Korea, where antidepressants are rarely used, have very low rates of major depression. Adults in America, Canada and France, where antidepressants are commonly prescribed, have much higher rates. Are western people born inherently inferior to Asian people mentally; that is, more prone to develop a mental disease? In 1950, when no antidepressants existed, the suicide rates for children and young people were less than half the rates for those same age groups in 2000 despite dramatic growth in antidepressant use among America's youth.
- America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceivedby Dr. Timothy Scott
- Available on Amazon.com
Perhaps the most dangerous misconception is that the seriously depressed can better be prevented from suicide by antidepressants than any other therapeutic technique. Not only is there no such proof, but SSRI antidepressants actually increase suicidal thoughts and behavior for some patients. In 2004, the FDA ordered that antidepressants carry a "black box" warning, the government's strongest warning, alerting consumers to the risk of increased suicidal thoughts and behavior among children and teens taking them.
- Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazyby Bruce E. Levine
- Available on Amazon.com
The availability of graduated doses, 5- and 10-milligram pills, would have undermined this advantage over all other antidepressants available at the time. Likewise, had the FDA decided to add a warning on suicide and violence to the label of antidepressants, this would have necessitated closer monitoring of patients, markedly reducing Prozac's unique appeal for primary-care clinicians. Another memo makes clear that dosing problems were brought to Lilly's attention again not long after the drug went on the market.
- Prozac Backlash: Overcoming the Dangers of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Other Antidepressants with Safe, Effective Alternativesby Joseph Glenmullen, M.D.
- Available on Amazon.com
As this book goes to press, a research team led by Kirsch (2008) has once again produced a meta-analysis of the scientific literature demonstrating the ineffectiveness of antidepressants. It is a sad, ironic, and tragic tale: It's impossible to prove that antidepressants actually relieve depression but it's relatively easy to demonstrate that they can worsen depression and cause mania, murder, and suicide. If my colleagues wanted to be scientific about it, they would call them "depressants" rather than antidepressants, and take them off the market.
- Medication Madness: A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers of Mood-Altering Medicationsby Peter Breggin
- Available on Amazon.com
Paxil is not substantially different from Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, Celexa, Effexor, Wellbutrin, or any other of the newer antidepressants in its capacity to cause overstimulation and a variety of other dangerous adverse mental reactions. If Paxil causes suicide in adults, so do the other antidepressants. As already described, the FDA has mandated clear warnings that are identical for the drugs. But because it is so short-acting and potent, Paxil probably poses a more frequent and more severe risk than some of the other antidepressants.
- Medication Madness: A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers of Mood-Altering Medicationsby Peter Breggin
- Available on Amazon.com
Madhukar Trivedi, a clinical psychiatrist who is the director of the Mood Disorders Research Program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical school, has been researching the effectiveness of using exercise to augment antidepressants. In 2006 he published a pilot study showing that patients who weren't responding to antidepressants lowered their scores on a common depression test by 10.4 points on a 17-point scale -- a huge drop -- after twelve weeks of exercise. All seventeen patients were deeply depressed and had been taking antidepressants for at least four months.
- Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brainby John J. Ratey, MD
- Available on Amazon.com
Children using venlafaxine (Effexor) -- a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) -- had a 2.3 times greater risk of suicide attempts compared with no drug treatment at all. Tricyclic antidepressants were also significantly linked with suicide attempts.
- Bottom Line's Health Breakthroughs 2007by Bottom Line Health
- Available on Amazon.com
They divided the people into two groups -- those who had received antidepressants and those who had not. They found that children between the ages of six and 18 who were taking antidepressants were 1.5 times more likely to attempt suicide and 15 times more likely to die in that attempt than individuals not treated with an antidepressant.
- Bottom Line's Health Breakthroughs 2007by Bottom Line Health
- Available on Amazon.com
Express Scripts reported in 2003 that in a five-year period (1998-2002) the use of antidepressants in children increased from 1.6 per 100 to 2.4 per 100 -- an adjusted annual increase of 9.2 percent, with the fastest-growing segment of users being preschoolers (newborns to 5 years old). As a follow up to the FDA's revelations about the adverse effects associated with antidepressants, Express Scripts updated its study, reporting "the prevalence of antidepressant use in children continued to rise through the first half of 2004.
- Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills That Killby Kelly Patricia O'Meara
- Available on Amazon.com
Still, though, there is the matter of the 2004 public hearings, where once again, due to the public outcry, the FDA was forced to revisit the issue of suicidality and SSRIs due to an ever-increasing number of claims that the mind-altering antidepressants (including Prozac) were causing suicidal thoughts and other harmful behaviors. What does Breggin conclude? "Lilly continued to hide the documents and the data at the 2004 FDA hearings on pediatric suicidality caused by antidepressants. At the hearings Tom Laughren of the FDA said that he knew of no data linking SSRIs to suicide or hostility.
- Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills That Killby Kelly Patricia O'Meara
- Available on Amazon.com
An estimated 500,000 grade-school children are now taking antidepressants. In the teen years, this high rate of depression translates into a tragically high number of suicides and attempted suicides. The teen suicide rate has increased threefold since 1960, making it the third leading cause of death among adolescents.
- The Omega Diet: The Lifesaving Nutritional Program Based on the Diet of the Island of Creteby Artemis P. Simopoulos, M.D., and Jo Robinson
- Available on Amazon.com
But a very well-kept secret, revealed by considering all the research, is that the actual rate of death from suicide is higher in patients who take the new antidepressants than in those who take the older tricyclics. Even more important, twice as many people taking the new antidepressants successfully committed suicide than did the people who took placebos.
- The Omega Diet: The Lifesaving Nutritional Program Based on the Diet of the Island of Creteby Artemis P. Simopoulos, M.D., and Jo Robinson
- Available on Amazon.com
And it is here that even those who continue to believe in the usefulness of antidepressants overwhelmingly fault the industry. The most charitable read it as a case of fragmented decision making and regulatory numbness. Others assert that it was all about maintaining sales. Whatever you believe about motivation, you can be certain that every major SSRI maker fudged when it came to reporting publicly the rate of suicide, suicidal ideation, and violence associated with use of their drug.
- Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodiesby Greg Critser
- Available on Amazon.com
What's more, for almost all the drugs, except Prozac, there was no evidence from the clinical trials in children that the antidepressants worked any better at relieving depression than a placebo or dummy pill. British authorities moved in late 2003 to try to stop the drugs being prescribed to children. A year later authorities in the U.S. demanded that companies add a "black box" warning to antidepressant labels -- more than a decade after the drugs had first appeared on the market.
- Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patientsby Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels
- Available on Amazon.com
According to independent analysis of the clinical trials -- almost all of which have been funded by their manufacturers -- on average the advantages of these antidepressants over placebo or dummy pills are modest at best, yet their side effects can include sexual problems, severe withdrawal, reactions, and an apparent increase in the risk of suicidal behavior among the young. Somewhat ironically, part of the marketing of these new antidepressants has played directly on fears that suicide could result if a young person's depression was left untreated.
- Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patientsby Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels
- Available on Amazon.com
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher and author with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a manufacturer of mercury-free, energy-efficient LED lighting products that save electricity and help prevent global warming. He's also a successful software entrepreneur, having founded a well known email marketing software company whose technology currently powers the NaturalNews email newsletters. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and pursues hobbies such as Pilates, Capoeira, nature macrophotography and organic gardening. Known on the 'net as 'the Health Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org
Infowar note: The following article is an example of how far we have drifted from our constitutional principles in this country. The author of this article seems to think reclaiming the country in the name of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is a “right wing” concept. If we follow this logic, then, the left wing wants tyranny, dictatorship, and a police state. In fact, it seems Chuck Norris is moving away from the Republican party — in his article on WorldNetDaily, linked below, he actually claims there is little difference between the two parties — and is calling for a Second American Revolution. If this is “right wing,” count me in.
The call by some right wing leaders for rebellion and for the military to refuse the commander in chief’s orders is joined by Chuck Norris who claims that thousands of right wing cell groups have organized and are ready for a second American Revolution. During an appearance on the Glen Beck radio show he promised that if things get any worse from his point of view he may “run for president of Texas.” The martial artist/actor/activist claims that Texas was never formally a part of the United States in the first place and that if rebellion is to come through secession Texas would lead the way.
Today in his syndicated column on WorldNetDaily Norris reiterates the point: “That need may be a reality sooner than we think. If not me, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star state, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state.”
He continues; calling on a second American Revolution; “…we’ve bastardized the First Amendment, reinterpreted America’s religious history and secularized our society until we ooze skepticism and circumvent religion on every level of public and private life.
How much more will Americans take? When will enough be enough? And, when that time comes, will our leaders finally listen or will history need to record a second American Revolution? We the people have the authority according to America’s Declaration of Independence, which states: That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”
Norris claims that; “Thousands of cell groups will be united around the country in solidarity over the concerns for our nation.” The right wing cells will meet during a live telecast, "We Surround Them," on Friday March 13 at 5 p.m.
He closes with the words of Sam Houston followed by a plug for his next martial arts event.
Congressman: Absence of “change” underlines fact that both parties follow same agenda on major issues
Congressman Ron Paul has slammed Barack Obama’s foreign policy, saying it is identical to that of his predecessor George W. Bush, proving once again that both parties follow the same agenda on major issues.
Paul compared Obama’s pre-election promises to those of his predecessor George W. Bush, who before his election in 2001 guaranteed that the U.S. would not be the policeman of the world or engage in nation building.
Since the inauguration, Obama has sent 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan and and rapidly expanded the Bush-era bombing raids on Pakistan.
“Even though Obama was the so-called peace candidate and was going to bring our troops home from that war in Iraq, I’m afraid there’s evidence now that shows he’s going to pursue the same foreign policy - which was my argument during the campaign, that no matter what happens, both major parties support the same foreign policy, the same monetary policy, the same welfare policy and there’s never really any change,” said the Congressman.
As we reported last month, Obama’s war chest for 2009 alone, when one includes the budget of the defense department, the vast majority of which is related to spending on new fighter jets and other weapons-related programs, is a whopping $805 billion dollars.
Every single component bar one of the DoD budget is up 5-10% compared to 2008, with the budget for “military construction” increasing by a mammoth 19.1%.
Meanwhile, despite public pronouncements by Obama that a plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq is in progress, the details of the agreement actually establish a permanent presence of a sizable occupying force in perpetuity.
In reality, after the “withdrawal” of U.S. troops in 19 months, “Mr. Obama plans to leave behind a “residual force” of tens of thousands of troops to continue training Iraqi security forces, hunt down foreign terrorist cells and guard American institutions,” reported the New York Times.
A senior military officer spelled it out more plainly to the Los Angeles TImes, “‘When President Obama said we were going to get out within 16 months, some people heard, ‘get out,’ and everyone’s gone. But that is not going to happen,’ the officer said.”
Ron Paul also discussed Obama’s monetary policy, noting that every time a new government initiative was announced to supposedly rescue the economy, the stock markets sink.
Paul said that he also did not hesitate to slam Obama’s policies on civil liberties, especially on liberal talk shows that were sympathetic with the new president.
“I don’t think there’s any reason for us to rejoice,” said the Congressman.
Listen to the audio of the interview with Ron Paul at the following links, (or via the two youtube videos in this blog):
A New York Times article about the different test studies being conducted as a precursor to the introduction of a CO2 or mileage tax admits that cars will contain tracking devices that will record where motorists have been.
Obama’s transportation secretary Ray LaHood recently caused controversy when he let slip that the administration was considering a “vehicles miles traveled” tax to replace the federal fuel tax. Press secretary Robert Gibbs hastily moved to offset concerns by claiming that such a tax “is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration.”
The largest is the $16.5 million federal Road User Study, under which thousands of volunteers in Austin, Tex.; Baltimore; Boise, Idaho; Raleigh and Durham, N.C.; San Diego; and the Quad Cities region of Iowa are driving cars equipped with tracking devices that catalogue their every movement.
For such a program to achieve its objective of taxing people by the mile, one would think that the only information the tracking device would need to measure is how many miles the vehicle has traveled. However, the true purpose of the technology is revealed when we learn that the system will also “record where motorists have been”.
Jon Kuhl, principal investigator for the Road User Study, concedes that “invasion of privacy” will be an issue, but the article does not mention how this will be overcome.
“You’d have to have a record where the car is at all times, and that certainly would frighten America,” said Mike Moffatt, an economist at the Ivy School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.
Efforts to sell the mileage tax proposal as a replacement for gas tax are likely to increase as the proposal nears introduction, but as is the case in North Carolina, where legislators are considering introducing a fee of one-quarter of a cent per mile, the charge will be in addition to tax per gallon of gas, not as a replacement for it.
The Times article notes that Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon are also piloting similar schemes.
An increase on the roads of fuel-efficient vehicles and cars run on electricity is causing panic amongst tax-hungry authorities, who are seeking new ways to snag people who are managing to pay far less gas tax.
Indeed, the Times article quotes Susan Martinovich, director of the Nevada Department of Transportation, who expressed her desire to pursue such individuals.
“Those people are not paying as much, and yet they’re still on the road and still causing congestion and impacting pavement. How do I get at those people?” she stated.
“How do I get at those people?” That phrase perfectly underscores the nature of this entire program - a fresh government assault on the personal privacy and the wallet of the beleaguered American taxpayer that will achieve nothing aside driving more people into near-poverty while ensuring their every move is tracked and catalogued by big brother.
The Times article concludes as all the best PR pieces for an expansion of government taxation and surveillance would be expected to, by proclaiming that the mileage tax is “inevitable” and that it will begin by all automakers installing the tracking devices in new cars as standard.
Corporation boasts of “inserting messages” about global warming into hit shows like The Simpsons, 24, Prison Break & Family Guy
Rupert Murdoch’s Twentieth Century Fox corporation has admitted to planting political brainwashing within its globally popular TV shows and indeed boasts that it is proud of the fact.
A corporate video currently being showcased on another part of Murdoch’s media empire, MySpace.com, shows Fox executives and stars of its universally recognized shows bragging about how they use the platform of hit shows that are broadcast globally to implant messages about the supposed threat of global warming.
This is not the first time Fox have been enthusiastic in propagandizing for the establishment. In 2003, Rupert Murdoch himself admitted that the corporation had “tried” to help the Bush administration sell the war in Iraq.
The text accompanying the video states, “In 2006, News Corp. embarked upon a company wide initiative to reduce the size of its carbon footprint.”
The means by which this “initiative” was carried out is then made clear by a plethora of clips from Fox’s most popular shows - the Simpsons, King of the Hill, Family Guy, Prison Break - which are all loaded with messages about global warming and the need to do something about it.
“What could we do on a practical level to start making a difference,” asks one executive before another answers, “The biggest thing we’ve done is inserting messages about the environment into some of our content.”
In other words, Fox has embarked on a deliberate campaign, which could only have been done with the coordination of the script writers of each program, to force people to accept the pseudo-science of global warming by brainwashing them into accepting it as a reality. This has been achieved by weaving in messages about climate change and having popular characters in the TV shows embrace specific tenants of the global warming manifesto.
“The most powerful way we could communicate the commitment on behalf of our company, was to change the practices within the production, as well as work in a message about global warming, about environmental changes, about empowering people to take responsibilities,” states Fox chairman Dana Walden.
We’re also treated to the vomit-inducing sight of Kiefer Sutherland, who plays the torture loving Jack Bauer in 24, sounding about as genuine as a 3 dollar bill reading off a teleprompter about how Fox is committed to reducing its “carbon footprint”.
This again goes to show that the acceptance of global warming as a reality by the general public is not being accomplished as an organic reaction to scientifically proven threats, but by propagandists artificially piggy-backing the climate mantra on the back of fictional TV shows passively absorbed by people in their millions.
This is key because of the process that people’s brains undergo when they are watching television. Political messages implanted in fictional television programs will always enjoy a receptive audience.
According to an Associated Content article, “Studies have shown that watching television induces low alpha waves in the human brain. Alpha waves are brainwaves between 8 to 12 HZ. and are commonly associated with relaxed meditative states as well as brain states associated with suggestibility.”
Experiments have shown that less than one minute after the viewer begins to watch television, the brain switches from Beta level consciousness, associated with active and logical thought, to Alpha level, which is associated with passive acceptance and suggestibility. This is why advertisers spend billions a year on commercials as well as product placement within TV shows themselves.
The scale of what Fox is admitting to here is staggering, and the fact that they even boast about what they are doing beggars belief. As Darryl Mason sardonically comments, “I never realised just how much I’d learned about the dire threats of global warming-induced climate change simply by watching immensely, globally popular Murdoch/Fox entertainments like The Simpsons and 24.”
Millions of people not just in America but globally are being educated, or should I say re-educated, about the highly complex and highly debatable topic of global warming, not through a reasoned public debate between advocates and skeptics, but through fictional cartoons, comedies and drama shows produced by a monolithic corporation that has its tentacles deeply embedded into the same establishment that is trying to sell global warming in order to introduce a CO2 tax and regulate people’s lives.
A lot of the bailout money is going to the failing companies' shareholders
Indeed, a leading progressive economist says that the true purpose of the bank rescue plans is "a massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives"
The Treasury Department encouragedbanks to use the bailout money to buy their competitors, and pushed through an amendment to the tax laws which rewards mergers in the banking industry (this has caused a lot of companies to bite off more than they can chew, destabilizing the acquiring companies)
And as the New York Times notes, "Tens of billions of [bailout] dollars have merely passed through A.I.G. to its derivatives trading partners". Josh Mashall provides some of the details:
By law, the Fed isn't allowed to buy assets -- it can only lend, as lender of last resort. That was a problem for the Bear Stearns bailout, because JP Morgan said it would only buy Bear if someone else assumed responsibility for the crap. [The] Fed came up with this idea to start a shadow company, called a special purpose vehicle (SPVs were how Enron operated, creating "Chewco" and the like named after Chewbacca - the New York Fed called their SPV "Maiden Lane LLC" for name of the street the NY Fed is located on in southern Manhattan). The deal then was JP Morgan put $1 billion into Maiden Lane, the Fed put $29 billion in cash into it. Maiden Lane paid Bear Stearns $30 billion, which went straight back to JP Morgan as this deal happened simultaneously to JP's purchase of Bear. So Morgan got $30 billion in cash ($29 billion net) and the Fed got stuck owning the crap, but was legally only making a loan to Maiden Lane, who was the legal owner (Maiden Lane was incorporated not in NYC, but in Delaware to avoid paying taxes). By the Fed's own accounting - which is very different from a real company's accounting - Maiden Lane has lost $5 billion between its creation and today....
Using the loophole it had learned during Bear Stearns, the Fed set up two new companies: Maiden Lane II and Maiden Lane III [to help bail out AIG's investors]. Two dealt with the secured lending and Three the shitty credit default swaps. The Fed lent each Maiden Lane $20 billion and $25 billion and then Maiden Lane paid off the investors that had either lent AIG the money to buy the shitty mortgage backed securities (ML II) and those who had the shitty mortgages and the corresponding insurance (ML III). To avoid booking a loss on the Fed's balance sheet, because the Fed had some legal problems if either of these Maiden Lanes lost money, and because of a reporting requirement that Dodd had put into TARP which actually required the Fed to report to the Congress and the public about the cost to taxpayers from ML I, the Fed did some creative accounting. They still paid all of the investors off at full value (par), so that they didn't lose anything. But they booked the loss on AIG's balance sheet and kept Maiden Lane clean. This is the hidden story behind how AIG went from losing $38 billion during the first 9 months of 2008 to losing $61 billion in the 4th quarter.
This was all exposed at today's hearing. And despite repeated requests from Senators on both sides - Dodd, Shelby, Corker, Warner - the Fed is still refusing to say who it bailed out through Maiden Lane II and III.
In other words, through a little game-playing by the Fed, taxpayer money is going straight into the pockets of investors in AIG's credit default swaps and is not even really stabilizing AIG.
Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth (pl911truth.com) is today being launched as the latest formal group calling for a new investigation into the events of September 11, 2001. The organization is headed by Councilor (Senator) Yukihisa Fujita of Japan and former Senator Karen Johnson of Arizona.
This initiative is formed around a petition asking President Obama "to authorize a new, truly independent, investigation to determine what happened on 9/11."
Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth thus joins other concerned citizens’ groups calling for a new investigation, including Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, and Veterans for 9/11 Truth.
Independent researchers from these professions have established beyond any reasonable doubt that the official account of 9/11 is false and that the official investigations have been cover-up operations.
Senator Yukihisa Fujita explains the new initiative: "Thus far there has been no response from political leaders in Washington or in other capitals around the world. Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth has been formed to encourage such a response."
The organization is being launched with 20 charter members, including a former US governor, a former US senator, former US representatives, and former and present members of the British, German, Japanese, Norwegian, and European parliaments.
Charter member Robert Bowman, former Director of Advanced Space Programs Development for the U.S. Air Force , explains the continuing relevance of the issue: "The 9/11 Tragedy has been used as the excuse for two deadly wars of aggression, for taking away our rights, and for committing war crimes that have undermined America’s reputation. Only by exposing the truth about 9/11 can we end this madness."
Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth invites other people who hold, or have held, a political office---whether elected or appointed, whether municipal, state, provincial, national, or international--- to sign the petition at pl911truth.com.
Senator Johnson sums it up: "The organization believes that the truth about 9/11 needs to be exposed now---not in 50 years as a footnote in the history books---so the policies that have been based on the Bush-Cheney administration’s interpretation of the 9/11 attacks can be changed."
A special California budget commission tasked with proposing new sources of revenue for the state is scheduled to discuss next week a broad new carbon tax that would likely be aimed at major energy and fuels providers, and which could potentially raise billions of dollars annually to help the state meet its growing budget shortfall.
Fortunately,
The proposal is already being attacked by major industry groups in the state, which argue are currently facing multiple carbon fees and taxes under the state’s sweeping climate change regulatory program currently being implemented under the 2006 state law, AB 32…
The coalition—the AB 32 Implementation Group—argues that the state is already implementing a number of greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations and programs under AB 32 that will… add up to $50,000 to the cost of a new home, … cost between $1,000 and $3,000 per car, and [add] a new $500-million-a-year water charge.”
Californians should direct their concerns to Mark Iberle, Staff Director for the Commission on the 21st Century Economy. You can phone the Commission at (916) 322-2263.
Pakistan Cricket Attack "Inside Job" Theory Goes Viral Attack likely part of ongoing strategy of tension by nefarious forces; Another pretext to expand war on terror
The mainstream media has embraced suggestions of an "inside job", as evidence continues to mount that Tuesday's attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team was a carefully staged event, rather than a hit and run strike.
The evidence that the attack was carefully coordinated has been summarized as follows.
None of the 12 gunmen were killed or captured and CCTV footage has emerged of some of the attackers making a leisurely getaway from the scene in the aftermath of the assault, past an approaching police vehicle, without the security forces chasing them
On the first two days of the Test match, the Sri Lanka and Pakistan team buses had left together. However, as umpire Chris Broad has revealed, on Tuesday the Pakistan bus left five minutes after the Sri Lanka bus.
"On this particular day, the Pakistan bus left five minutes after the Sri Lankan bus. Why?" Broad said. "It went through my mind as we were leaving the hotel: 'Where is the Pakistan bus?"
Broad said Pakistan security forces had left the convoy vehicles like "sitting ducks" and that there was "not a sign of a policeman anywhere" when the attack began.
"There were times in the Karachi Test when the Sri Lankans went first and the Pakistanis went afterwards. But after this happened you think My God, did someone know something and they held the Pakistan bus back?" Broad added at a press conference yesterday.
Simon Taufel, an Australian umpire caught in the attack, also confirmed that their bus had been left unprotected once the assault began.
"You tell me why supposedly 20 armed commandos were in our convoy and when the team bus got going again, we were left on our own? I don't have any answers to these questions." Taufel said.
Another umpire, Steve Davis commented: "I saw a (man in) uniform with a pistol and I thought this is an insider come to do us away."
The umpires were backed by Muttiah Muralitharan, the most successful bowler in Test history, who questioned whether the terrorists had inside information.
"Somehow in this incident there were no police with guns on the bus," the Sri Lankan spinner told the radio station FIVEaa in Adelaide. "If someone was there with a gun we would have had a chance of defending ourselves.
"Normally all the buses go and we have four or five escorts. We left at 8.30am and Younus Khan [with the Pakistan team bus] at 8.35am. We divided into two - maybe they knew the information for the right time." Muralitharan added.
Of course, this is a possibility, however, it should be noted that six Pakistani security officials were killed in the attack as they attempted to defend the Sri Lankan bus, and other witnesses such as Mehar Mohammed Khalil, the Pakistani driver of the Sri Lankan bus, have disputed the allegation that the Pakistani bus left five minutes later and that the police protection was not present.
Last November, after the Mumbai attacks took place, the corporate media and Indian authorities pointed the finger at Pakistani intelligence, providing a perfect pretext for expanded U.S. military aggression against the country, as promised by then President-elect Barack Obama.
However, as we revealed in our reports at the time, the evidence indicated that Indian authorities had aided the terrorists. It is interesting to note that the mainstream media did little to pursue this angle, yet this time around every major outlet has highlighted the "inside job" theory almost immediately.
Further questions regarding Tuesday's attack have arisen from the leak of a "secret" report which fore-warned the federal and provincial Punjab governments that India was planning an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team.
The report, dated Jan 22, warned officials: "It has reliably been learnt that RAW [the Research and Analysis Wing, India's intelligence agency] has assigned its agents the task to target Sri Lankan cricket team during its current visit to Lahore, especially while travelling between the hotel and stadium or at hotel during their stay ... Extreme vigilance and heightened security arrangements indicated."
However, the government in Punjab and its senior security officials, who were preparing for the Sri Lankan team's visit, were removed from office by a controversial court ruling days ahead of the test match.
Rehman Malik, Pakistani chief interior ministry adviser, has claimed "a foreign hand" lay behind the attack on the cricketers – which has been widely interpreted as pointing the finger at India.
Malik said: "We suspect a foreign hand behind this incident. The democracy of the country has been undermined, and foreigners are repeatedly attacked to harm the country's image."
Malik is said to have "shared" the assessment of the country's ISI intelligence agency with the FBI director Robert Mueller.
Mehar Mohammed Khalil, the Pakistani driver of the Sri Lankan bus, has also said he believes the terrorists are from India. He said: 'Their complexions were Indian-type. They were definitely not Pakistani.'
Furthermore, it has been pointed out that similarities exist between the estimated 12 suspected militants who launched the attack in Lahore and those who launched the Mumbai attacks which left more than 170 people dead last year. Both groups of men were young and clean-cut, wore Western clothes and backpacks, and were heavily armed.
The Press Trust of India has reported that a visiting Pakistani peace delegation has branded the incident as "Mumbai No 2 with same people behind it".
With allegations of Pakistani intelligence involvement and Indian intelligence involvement, it must also be noted that the region is strategically important, both states are nuclear and other globalist led intelligence agencies such as the CIA, Mossad and MI6 have much to gain from playing off India and Pakistan against each other.
However, once again, the overriding story that is being sold paints Pakistan as the problem state.
Will this latest tragedy be used as another excuse to expand the war on terror and increase U.S. military activity inside Pakistani territory?
"From where I sit [Pakistan] sure looks like it's going to be a bigger problem," Christopher Dell, who runs the U.S. embassy in Kabul, said.
"It is certainly one of those nuclear-armed countries the instability of which is a bigger problem for the globe. Pakistan is a bigger place, has a larger population, it's nuclear-armed. It has certainly made radical Islam a part of its political life, and it now seems to be a deeply ingrained element of its political culture. It makes things there very hard."
Why would anyone give credibility to an investigation by a man who just one year ago called for the suspension of the First Amendment?
Steve Watson Infowars.net
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
In light of Fox News’ new chief propagandist Glenn Beck’s recent baitand switchwith regards to the existence of martial law holding facilities within America, we at Infowars feel it necessary to further enlighten Mr Beck on a few details.
The purpose of such facilities is to provide “temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster,” the expansion of which under FEMA is codified under HR 645, otherwise known as the National Emergency Centers Act.
Ominously, the bill states that the camps can be used to “meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” an open ended mandate which many fear could mean the forced detention of American citizens in the event of widespread rioting after a national emergency or total economic collapse.
The issue of containment camps re-gained national attention three years ago when it was announced that Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.
The language of the preamble to the agreement veils the program with talk of temporary migrant holding centers, but it is made clear that the camps will also be used “as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency.”
Following the story, first given wide attention by Prisonplanet.com, the Alternet websiteput together an alarming report that collated all the latest information on plans to initiate internment of political subversives and Muslims after the next major terror attack in the US.
The article highlighted the disturbing comments of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who encouraged torture supporting then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to target, “Fifth Columnists” Americans who show disloyalty and sympathize with “the enemy,” whoever that enemy may be.
It is important to stress that the historical precedent mirrors exactly what the Halliburton camp deal outlines. Oliver North’s Reagan era Rex 84 plan proposed rounding up 400,000 refugees, under FEMA, in the event of “uncontrolled population movements” over the Mexican border into the United States.
The real agenda, just as it is with Halliburton’s gulags, was to use the cover of rounding up immigrants and illegal aliens as a smokescreen for targeting political dissidents. From 1967 to 1971 the FBI kept a list of persons to be rounded up as subversive, dubbed the “ADEX” list.
As recently highlighted by author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of close to one million “terror suspects” with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
Discussions of federal concentration camps are no longer the rhetoric of paranoid Internet conspiracy theorists, they are mainstream news.
Halliburton, through their KBR subsidiary, is the same company that built most of the major new detention camps in Iraq and Afghanistan. KBR have been embroiled in a human sex slave tradethat their representatives have lobbied to continue.
We have a company that has been handed a contract to build prison camps in America that is engaged in trafficking young girls and women. Can this horror movie get any more frightening? Sadly, yes.
A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program,has recently been updated and the revision details a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.”
The plan is clearly to swallow up disenfranchised groups like prisoners, immigrants and Muslims at first and then extend the policy to include ‘Fifth Columnists,’ otherwise known as anyone who disagrees with the government or exercises their Constitutional rights.
Respected author Peter Dale Scott speculated that the “detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law.”
Daniel Ellsberg, former Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense, called the plan, “preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters. They’ve already done this on a smaller scale, with the ’special registration’ detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo.”
Furthermore, In 2002, FEMA sought bids from major real estate and engineering firms to construct giant internment facilitiesin the case of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack or a natural disaster.
Okanogan County Commissioner Dave Schulz went public in 2003with his contention that his county was set to be a location for one of the camps.
Furthermore, in May 2006, we exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA programwhich is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to “obey the government” in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation.
A whistleblower who was secretly enrolled into the program told us that the feds were clandestinely recruiting religious leaders to help implement Homeland Security directives in anticipation of a potential bio-terrorist attack, any natural disaster or a nationally declared emergency.
The first directive was for Pastors to preach to their congregations Romans 13, the often taken out of context bible passage that was used by Hitler to hoodwink Christians into supporting him, in order to teach them to “obey the government” when martial law is declared.
It was related to the Pastors that quarantines, martial law and forced relocation were a problem for state authorities when enforcing federal mandates due to the “cowboy mentality” of citizens standing up for their property and second amendment rights as well as farmers defending their crops and livestock from seizure.
It was stressed that the Pastors needed to preach subservience to the authorities ahead of time in preparation for the round-ups and to make it clear to the congregation that “this is for their own good.”
Pastors were told that they would be backed up by law enforcement in controlling uncooperative individuals and that they would even lead SWAT teams in attempting to quell resistance.
Though some doubted the accuracy of this report at the time due to its fundamentally disturbing implications, the story was later confirmed by a KSLA 12 news report, in which participating clergy and officials admitted to the existence of the program.
This program is continuing under the Obama administration with churchesdeclaringthat Barack Obama’s presidency is appointed by God and that Obama himself is “God’s minister”.
In another detention camp related development, last May it was revealed that the federal government is accepting bids on the contracts from county governments or private companies to build and run “family detention centers” on both coasts and on the Southwestern border.
Again, as with REX 84, the precedent is to deal with an influx of immigrants.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) already runs two similar camps, one of which hit the headlines at the end of 2006 after residents in Taylor Texas held protests outside the The T. Don Hutto detention facility.
One of the last acts of Congress in 2006 was to send President Bush a bill that establishes a $38 million program of National Park Service grants to preserve Japanese POW internment campsin Hawaii, California, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. Is this really in the name of historical interest or does it dovetail with programs on the books to intern hundreds of thousands of dissidents in a time of crisis?
What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens? asked former Congressman Dan Hamburg of the watchdog groupVoice of the Environment, Inc.in a article carried by the San Francisco Chroniclelast year.
“Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.” Hamburg co-wrote with Lewis Seiler.
The article continued:
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.”
Over the past decade we have witnessed an extreme acceleration of the physical implementation of a framework and infrastructure ready to receive those who will not go along with a coordinated destruction of traditional American values and freedom.
You do not need any confirmation one way or the other on this issue from Fox News or Glenn Beck, who has a track recordas one of the most insidious corporate propagandists on television.
Just over a year ago Beck was on TV every week telling CNN viewersthat Ron Paul supporters, libertarians and the anti-war left were terrorist sympathizers. Beck inferred that the U.S. military should be used to silence such dissenters, a theme we revealed to be a direct talking point that could be traced back to a September 2006 White House directive.
Now Beck acts like Ron Paul’s closest supporter, featuring interviews with the Congressman every other day.
Listen to Alex Jones’ analysis of Glenn Beck’s sudden “determination” to investigate real issues.
Terror Memos Reveal Total Destruction Of U.S. Constitutional Freedoms
No official reversal, illegal practices can continue
By releasing internal Justice Department memos showing how the Bush fronted Neocons systematically destroyed civil liberties in America after 9/11, the Obama administration has sought to distance itself from such practices. However, closer inspection of the actions of the new regime, reveal no deviation from such policies in the war on terror.
Nine memos/opinions, said by the Bush administration to give legal grounding to detention and torture of terror suspects, were released yesterday.
They reveal how the rights of all American citizens have been effectively stripped away under the auspices of the so called "war on terror".
A 2002 opinion written by then-assistant attorney general John Yoo, stated that the rights of any suspect could be rescinded.
"The power to dispose of the liberty of individuals captured ... remain in the hands of the president alone," Yoo wrote.
Another 2003 opinion written for Alberto Gonzales, then counsel for Bush, stated:
"Congress can no longer regulate the president's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements."
Another memo intended for John Bellinger, who was then legal advisor to the National Security Council, suggested that the president's "power to suspend treaties is wholly discretionary," indicating that international laws could be ignored if necessary.
Perhaps the most despicable of the memos dated from October 23rd 2001, Just weeks after 9/11. As reported by AP, it effectively stated that constitutional free-speech protections and a prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure could take a back seat to military needs in fighting terrorism inside the country.
"The government's compelling interests in wartime justify restrictions on the scope of individual liberty," it said.
"The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically," John Yoo and Justice Department official Robert Delahunty wrote.
"The president has the legal and constitutional authority to use military force within the United States to respond to and combat future acts of terrorism... the Posse Comitatus Act does not bar deployment." it continues.
"We do not think that a military commander carrying out a raid on a terrorist cell would be required to demonstrate probable cause or to obtain a (search) warrant," the memo reads, also stating that the Fourth Amendment laws "are unsuited to the demands of wartime."
Effectively the Justice Department gave the green light for military forces within the U.S. to smash in people's doors, search their homes without probable cause, drag them away without charge and detain and torture them for as long as they like at the behest of the president.
Furthermore, the memo states, "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," envisioning the possibility of censorship restrictions on newspapers and the Internet.
A September 25 2001 memo previews what would become an extensive debate over the National Security Administration's warrantless surveillance program, saying "the president must be able to use whatever means necessary to prevent attacks on the United States; this power, by implication, includes the authority to collect information necessary for its effective exercise."
In effect, the DoJ Ok'd a total suspension of the U.S. Constitution after 9/11.
Though, the Obama administration has tentatively stated that the memos are invalid, the new president's actions do not reflect such an assertion.
As reported last month, one of Obama's first actions in office was to sign an executive order securing the continued practice of secretly capturing, transporting and imprisoning so called "enemy combatants".
Under executive orders issued by Obama just two days into his tenure, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"The Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard." Greg Miller noted.
A minor provision within one executive order states that instructions to close the CIA's secret prisons "do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis", meaning that some "black sites" can remain open.
Though former CIA officials have admitted that rendition is mostly unproductive, an administration official told the LA Times anonymously: "Obviously you need to preserve some tools -- you still have to go after the bad guys. The legal advisors working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice."
As we further illuminated in our previous report, Obama's much lauded declaration to "ban" torture and his "commitment" to close down detention facilities is full of loopholes and hidden clauses designed to allow such practices and premises to be continued, albeit with renewed secrecy.
If Obama were truly committed to ending the legacy of torture and secret detention, he would authorize the prosecution of those officials responsible, all the way up to the top. Instead, he , along with his CIA Director Leon Panetta, has said he will do no such thing.
Indeed, the latest sign of allowing such crimes to go unpunished comes in the form of federal prosecutor John Durham signaling that even though he has yet to complete his investigation, he is unlikely to indict any CIA employees for incinerating 92 secret interrogation tapes that purportedly show suspects being waterboarded.
Furthermore, we have not seen Obama repeal Patriot Acts I and II, nor have we seen a reversal of Bush's signing statement that would effectively repeal the John Warner Defense Authorization Act.
We have not seen any evidence to suggest that the NSA will cease warrantless secret surveillance and phone-taps of American citizens.
We have not seen any deviation from the Bush-era war on terror policies.
MONDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.
HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.
"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply," the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies, said in a prepared statement.
In the first study, published in current issue of Environmental Health, researchers found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS.
And in the second study, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), a non-profit watchdog group, found that nearly one in three of 55 brand-name foods contained mercury. The chemical was found most commonly in HFCS-containing dairy products, dressings and condiments.
But an organization representing the refiners is disputing the results published in Environmental Health.
"This study appears to be based on outdated information of dubious significance," said Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association, in a statement. "Our industry has used mercury-free versions of the two re-agents mentioned in the study, hydrochloric acid and caustic soda, for several years. These mercury-free re-agents perform important functions, including adjusting pH balances."
However, the IATP told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that four plants in Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio and West Virginia still use "mercury-cell" technology that can lead to contamination.
IATP's Ben Lilliston also told HealthDay that the Environmental Health findings were based on information gathered by the FDA in 2005.
And the group's own study, while not peer-reviewed, was based on products "bought off the shelf in the autumn of 2008," Lilliston added.
The use of mercury-contaminated caustic soda in the production of HFCS is common. The contamination occurs when mercury cells are used to produce caustic soda.
"The bad news is that nobody knows whether or not their soda or snack food contains HFCS made from ingredients like caustic soda contaminated with mercury. The good news is that mercury-free HFCS ingredients exist. Food companies just need a good push to only use those ingredients," Wallinga said in his prepared statement.
More information
The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry has more about mercury and health.
SOURCE: Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, news release, Jan. 26, 2009
President Obama has presented the most irresponsible budget in US history. His fiscal year 2010 budget projects federal spending of $3.5 trillion and a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion. In other words, 50 percent of the government’s budget consists of red ink.
And Americans are angry that sub-prime borrowers took mortgages they couldn’t afford.
The bald fact is that the US government is going to have to borrow–or print–half of the money it intends to spend in Obama’s first budget. This fact has fallen through the cracks as New York Times headlines proclaim “A Bold Plan Sweeps Away Reagan Ideas.” It certainly does sweep away Reagan ideas. No Reagan budget ever presumed that the federal government could borrow half of its annual expenditures. Indeed, Obama’s budget deficit for 2010 alone exceeds the totality of “Reagan Deficits” for Reagan’s two terms of office.
As presidential budgets are marketing devices rather than financial statements, they are imbued with optimistic assumptions. Obama’s budget is based on optimistic assumptions about the extent of decline in GDP. A more realistic projection of GDP decline would reveal that Obama’s budget is the first since World War II in which more than half of the government’s expenditures must be financed by red ink. I suspect that the red ink component of the FY 2010 budget will surpass World War II budgets.
To whom can the US government turn for $1.75 trillion for FY 2010, on top of $1.2 trillion for FY 2009?
Not to taxpayers. Obama’s net tax increase comes to $170 billion over 10 years, or $17 billion a year, a drop in the bucket. A supply-side economist could have told him that not even these paltry revenues will be realized.
Not to private savers. Americans are over their heads in debts.
Not to foreigners. Thanks to Clinton/Bush financial deregulation and Wall Street and bankster greed, the rest of the world is in financial turmoil and hasn’t $1.75 trillion in savings to lend. Possibly, the stock market will collapse further, and whatever remaining wealth Americans have will flow into “safe” US Treasuries.
The only other alternative is the printing press. Printing press finance would destroy the dollar as reserve currency and ignite high inflation. The US would be unable to pay for its imports, and Americans whose incomes do not rise with the rate of inflation would be plowed under.
This prospect is not a “war on terror” scare tactic like “anthrax,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “al Qaeda connections,” and “Iranian nukes.”
The economic catastrophe that the US faces is very real. But there is no awareness of this reality in Obama’s budget. The crux of Obamanomics is the assumption that the economy can run forever on consumer loans, if we can just get the banks to lend, and the federal government can run forever on loans from China, Japan,and Saudi Arabia.
Obama is requesting $130 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during 2010 plus a $75 billion supplemental request for the wars during 2009. This $205 billion is on top of $534 billion for the Pentagon in 2010, for total military spending of $739 billion.
The Chinese government’s budget shows China’s military spending at $59 billion in 2008. (The Pentagon claims Chinese military spending is between $97 billion and $139 billion.) Russia’s military spending in 2009 is projected to be about $50 billion.
In the midst of the greatest economic crisis in US history when trillions of dollars are being added to US national debt, Obama’s budget spends more on two pointless wars than the total military spending of China and Russia combined. Obama’s wars serve only the profits of the military/security complex and the promotion rate of military officers. The longer the wars continue, the larger the number of officers who can retire at higher ranks, thus further swelling future annual deficits and the national debt.
Moreover, as is becoming apparent, the Bush/Obama war in Afghanistan cannot be fought without fighting a war in Pakistan.
As if this isn’t enough war, Obama parrots Dick Cheney’s charge, totally unsupported by any evidence, that Iran is making nuclear weapons. The chances are high that the new White House Moron will have us at war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. As Obama’s wars expand, the $205 billion for war in Iraq and Afghanistan will become $400 billion annually and then $600 billion annually.
Obama’s “troop withdrawal” from Iraq has proved to be just another con job. Obama has announced that the withdrawal doesn’t include the 50,000 US soldiers who will remain in Iraq indefinitely–like the US troops that have been kept in Japan and Germany for 64 years and in Korea since the early 1950s,
Meanwhile Medicare is on the ropes. The latest Medicare trustees report says that Medicare’s funds for hospital payments will be exhausted in 10 years. To make ends meet, Obama proposes cutting payments to Medicare providers.
Obama’s plan is to make doctors and patients pay for Medicare. One way to get National Health is to make it uneconomic for private health care to service Medicare patients. Already many doctors will not accept Medicare patients because of the low payments, endless paperwork, and risk of prosecution for “over-billing.” Looking at one recent Medicare patient medical bill, Medicare and supplemental insurance paid 29 percent of the billed amount, requiring the doctor to eat 58.5 percent of his charges and the patient to pay 12.5 percent. The doctor was paid $93.16 on a $320.89 bill. And Obama wants to reduce payments to providers?
What is Obama thinking? A country that can’t afford Medicare can’t afford National Health. Medicare provides only for the elderly, and it provides very little. A person pays the Medicare tax as long as he earns and on the totality of earnings. For the rich the Medicare tax can exceed the cost of a gold-plated private insurance policy.
Basic Medicare leaves a person unprotected. To provide better coverage, it is necessary to enroll in Medicare Part B for which the premium is $308.30 per month or $3,699.60 per year. On top of this, a person needs a privately supplied supplemental policy to complete Medicare coverage. AARP’s policy, which, after deductibles are met, covers half of drug costs, cost the “Medicare protected” elderly $ 273.50 per month or $3,282 per year. The drug prescription plan passed by Congress costs the individual yet more.
The two supplements to Medicare cost the Medicare patient $6,981.60 per year. In addition, if the Medicare patient has much retirement income besides Social Security, he pays income tax on 85% of the $3,699.60 Medicare Part B premium as it is part of taxable Social Security, which for someone in the 25% bracket is another $925 dollars.
In the late 1970s, Democratic Senator Russell Long, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told me that as Social Security was collected as a tax on wages and salaries, the US government had promised never to tax the benefits. So much for any commitment that the US government makes to the American people.
A top Social Security income, net of Medicare Part B premium, is $23,220 per year. Deduct the AARP policy, and the elderly who have paid in maximum Social Security taxes, get $20,000 per year. Of course, few Social Security retirees receive the maximum payment. AARP’s Public Policy Institute reports that in 2006 the average annual Social Security benefit for a retired worker was $12,372. Such a worker would have little left after paying the Medicare Part B premium and an additional premium for a supplement.
Offshoring and “free trade” have destroyed employer-provided health coverage for millions of employees. Private health care coverage can cost as much as one-third and even one-half of a person’s earned income, and some people are not insurable. National Health seems to be in the cards–only there is no money for it. All the money is being spent in pointless wars and on bailouts of financial fraud. The Obama budget puts bankster bailouts and pointless wars ahead of the health of the American people.
National Health advocates emphasize that a single-payer system is less expensive because it eliminates layers of profits. It is also less expensive for a less promising reason. Unless there is a parallel private health care system, National Health systems limit health spending to what is provided in the government budget. Over time, health care has to compete with everything else in the budget. Every part of the budget has its partisans and special interests. It is fantasy to assume that National Health will always be well funded. Just look at the state of the National Health Service in the UK.
Obama’s plan to tax the rich is another con job. Obama’s budget defines the rich as a person with a $250,000 before tax income. This is a rotten joke. The rich are the banksters, such as Hank Paulson with his $160 million annual bonus, and heads of hedge funds with their $1,000 million annual incomes. To confuse the struggling middle class with the real rich is criminal. A person with a $250,000 income before tax does not come close to being rich. Obama’s “tax the rich” scheme will devastate the upper middle class and leave the super rich undamaged.
The only change we have from Obama and the Democrats is for the worse. Bush’s FY 2008 budget deficit was $450 billion. The FY 2009 deficit is projected at $1.2 trillion. The budget deficit in Obama’s first budget is $1.75 trillion, a fourfold increase in two years.
Obama’s projected budget deficits are an understatement. For example, Obama’s budget assumes a less steep economic decline than the economy is experiencing, and it projects that war costs will drop to $50 billion annually beginning in 2011–this despite Obama sending more troops to Afghanistan and recent congressional testimony of Lt. General David Barno, former head of US forces in Afghanistan, who said the war in Afghanistan could last until 2025.
The “war on terror” will never end, because the moronic US government has defined everyone who resists US hegemony as a “terrorist.” The great danger to American civil liberty is that the US government regards as terrorists American citizens who realize that the neoconservative dream of American hegemony is a fantasy. As the Obama regime has not repealed the Bush regime rule– “you are with us or against us”–Americans who oppose hegemonic war are lumped into the “against us” category.
There seems little chance that civil liberties will be restored. Obama and his “liberal” Justice (sic) Department have sided with Bush/Cheney on every important civil liberties issue. Yet, the ACLU sees “hope” in Obama’s rhetoric!
On February 21 Yahoo News reported: “President Barack Obama’s administration has sided with predecessor George W. Bush on the rights of detainees at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, saying they cannot challenge their detention in US courts. In a two-sentence court filing Friday, the US Justice Department said “the government adheres to its previously articulated position” of denying habeas corpus rights to Bagram detainees, backing a similar decision by the Bush administration.”
“Earlier this month,” Yahoo News reports, “the Obama administration backed another Bush anti-terror policy when it urged a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing Boeing Company of helping fly suspects to secret CIA detention centers overseas. The Justice Department said the case should be thrown out to protect state secrets.”
Do you remember the illegal spying? The US telecom industry succumbed to Bush regime pressure and broke the law together with President Bush. The illegal act made the US telecom industry subject to lawsuits, but the Bush regime placed its co-conspirators above the law.
Now Obama has sided with the Bush regime. On February 26, therawstory.com reported: “The Obama Justice Department continues to stand behind a Bush era law meant to prevent lawsuits against telecommunications companies accused of illegally sharing private customer information with intelligence agencies. In a brief filed late Wednesday obtained by Raw Story, the Department of Justice provided its views to Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, after the San Francisco federal judge questioned the constitutionality of the wide-sweeping law and whether it gives the U.S. Attorney General too much power in deciding whether a company is immune from lawsuits after it has shared information with federal agents.”
On February 26 antiwar.com reported that the “new CIA director (Leon Panetta) declares nothing has changed, nothing will change.” Panetta declared that the US policy of conducting war on Pakistan’s sovereign territory “would continue.” The attacks, Panetta claimed, “have been successful.” For the CIA, claims of success equal legality. Did the Bush regime ever express greater arrogance and hubris?
With Rahm Israel Emanuel, an Israeli dual citizen, in charge of the White House and Obama’s schedule, Obama will have an even less independent foreign policy in the Middle East than Bush. Somehow someone among the Obamacons managed to put forward an appointment that could challenge the Israel Lobby’s stranglehold. Charles Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, former top Pentagon official, and president of the Middle East Policy Council, was chosen by Admiral Denis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, to head the National Intelligence Council.
The neocons went berserk. Steve Rosen, formerly of AIPAC, currently indicted as an Israeli spy, Gabriel Schoenfeld, who wants the New York Times indicted for allegedly violating the Espionage Act for reporting the Bush regime’s illegal spying, Daniel Pipes, who sees Muslim terrorists under every bed, Michael Rubin of the warmonger American Enterprise Institute, and Frank Gaffney, possibly the goofiest person in America, damned Freeman’s appointment as “deeply troubling,” because Freeman has an open mind on the Middle East situation.
In other words, if you are not on Israel’s side, you are disqualified.
There is no more certain indication of continuing war in the Middle East on Israel’s behalf than for Freeman’s appointment to be blocked.
Pay close attention to this one. If Obama succumbs to the Israel Lobby and nixes Blair’s appointment of Freeman, the US will have to finance interminable wars on top of trillion dollar bailouts and massive unemployment.
The US might not even make it to 2012 before it is a banana republic.
Dr. Roberts was assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service, Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and William E, Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University.
In light of Fox News’ new chief propagandist Glenn Beck’s recent 
