NoWorldSystem.com
April 21, 2010
The Senate passes the Wall Street Reform Bill (S. 3217) by a 59-39 vote, if it passes the House it will kill jobs by making it difficult for small businesses to succeed and it will give permanent and unlimited bailout authority for the big banks on Wall Street. It would also do nothing to solve problems in the financial system and won’t prevent the next financial crisis.
Republican Senator David Vitter: “Congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration want to create a permanent bailout mechanism all while spouting their rhetoric of getting tough on Wall Street, but if you look at who is already lining up to support their ‘reform’ measure it’s a who’s who of the big banks that have already received the taxpayer bailout the first time.” Democrat Congressman Brad Sherman: “There are serious problems with the Dodd bill. The Dodd bill has unlimited executive bailout authority. That’s something Wall Street desperately wants but doesn’t dare ask for.”
This bill would also break the back of small business by having them register with the SEC to only wait 120 days for the SEC to review their filing. A second provision in the bill raises the wealth requirements for venture capitalists that want to invest in startups – if the bill passes, investors would need assets of more than $2.3 million (up from $1 million) or income of more than $450,000 (up from $250,000). The third restriction removes the federal pre-emption allowing angel and venture financing in the United States to follow federal regulations, rather than face different rules between states.” There’s no doubt about it that the provisions in the bill would absolutely chill investing and small business which is the backbone of our economy. [Source]
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Dr. Cass Sunstein wants to turn off the lights
Jerry Mazza
Infowars.com
May 21, 2010
Paul Joseph Watson, a writer at Prison Planet whom I greatly respect, gave us a reminder Monday May 17th that Obama Czar Wants Mandatory Government Propaganda On Political Websites. The Big Brother Czar is also a Harvard Professor currently dishing up the pabulum for Obama’s White House that “conspiracy theories” should be banned from the Internet; so much for Harvard, Czar-Dr. Cass Sunstein and intellectual freedom.
Sunstein’s tonality is reminiscent of Joseph Goebbels New Years Address for 1939.
What’s more Sunstein wants to “legally force” Americans “to do what’s best for our society” and water down their free speech (granted by the US Constitution), by mandating websites with pop-up links to opposing government propaganda be “forcibly included on political blogs.” Could we have such pop-ups when the President is speaking, Henry Kissinger, Bibi Netanyahu, AIPAC, Larry Silverstein, NIST, Fox News, Lloyd Blankfein?
Coincidentally, the also Harvard educated Constitutional lawyer now President, Barack Obama, agrees with Sunstein and has knighted him “Head of Information Technology in the White House for ‘Conspiracy Theories,’” i.e. any political thought that doesn’t regurgitate establishment views, like Obama’s ties to the CIA at Columbia University and after. Those who talk truth to power will be taxed or banned. I hear the clicking of boot heels as Sunstein speaks and I write.
In fact, Sunstein’s “thinking” came from a rather sullied “White Paper,” in which he talks about countering “dangerous ideas” and “taking those who disseminate such theories” to where? Prisons like Hitler’s camps, Stalin’s Siberian gulags.
These dangerous ideas and/or theories would include “some held by the vast majorities of Americans,” such as the incredible body of facts that prove the JFK assassination was part of a wider plot, including the CIA, Big Oil, the Mafia, the defense industry, and a combination of assassins. Sunstein is such a patent ploy for the New World Order that he should wear an “NWO” armband, perhaps a skull and bones on his lapel.
Sunstein adds to his hit list that believing “global warming is a deliberate fraud” is another theory government censorship should stomp its black boot on. Frankly, whether you or I believe in global warming or not is our business and constitutional right, and not his. Sunstein calls “false and dangerous” the idea that exposure to sunlight is healthy, despite certain medical experts that agree prolonged exposure reduces risk of developing certain cancers. Again, whether it does or doesn’t is a matter for open discussion in a democratic society. Choices of credence should be made by individual physicians and lay people according to their patients and health.
Basically, this crypto-Nazi wants to write into law that government should dictate “the very nature of reality to Americans and that their opinions can only be voiced at best when accompanied by mandatory federal propaganda or at worst that Americans can be silenced entirely by federal decree,” as Watson writes. He also points out that our Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan argued “that the government can ban books and political pamphlets.” What’s going on there at Harvard (where Kagan served as law school Dean) that cries out for such repression? Tom Paine must be turning over in his grave.
Memories of Goebbels
Frankly, Sunstein’s tonality is reminiscent of Joseph Goebbels New Years Address for 1939. “This is Goebbels’… address to Germany, delivered on 31 December 1938. He reviews the past year, recalling repeatedly that Austria had been incorporated into Germany. Despite his claim that complainers are not worth dealing with, he devotes a major part of the speech to denouncing those who failed to share his faith in Adolf Hitler….”
The “complainers” that Goebbels was referencing were the intellectuals, writers, journalists, activists, the Internet bloggers and questioners of their day, who had criticized Hitler’s barbaric behavior, including the burning of the Reichstag, which Hitler and the Nazis blamed on the vision-impaired, Dutch left-wing radical Marinus van der Lubbe, who later was tried by them and beheaded. Or course, after successfully lying that the communists, not the Nazis under Goebbels direction did it, Hitler went on to create the “Enabling Act” which enabled the Nazis to strip away most of the civil rights of Germans, as did George Bush’s renewed PATRIOTACT for Americans, and which this author would like to see banned forever from our laws.
But after praising the “miracles” [read violence] that brought the Nazis to power, Goebbels goes on to say, “This ability to believe is rather weak in some circles, above all in those with money and education. They may trust more in pure cold reason than a glowing idealistic heart. Our so-called intellectuals do not like to hear this, but it is true anyway. They know so much that in the end they do not know what to do with their wisdom. They can see the past, but not much of the present, and nothing at all of the future. Their imagination is insufficient to deal with a distant goal in a way such that one already thinks it achieved.” I assume that distant, imagined goal was the fall of the Third Reich a decade later, leaving Germany in ruins, poverty and disgrace, a path on which the US may be dangerously in its pursuit to world hegemony.
Goebbels continues, “They [the complainers] were also unable to believe in the victory of National Socialism while the National Socialist movement was still fighting for power. They are as little able today to believe in the greatness of our national German future. They perceive only what they can see, but not what is happening, and what will happen.”
We perceive only what they see, like the red nanothermite dust in the ruins of Ground Zero, the high-powered aerosolized military explosive that took the towers down on 9/11. But then, we also see what has happened as a result, the creation of the War on Terror, blamed on the Muslim’s, Osama bin Laden and box-cutter carrying hijackers, which lies gave us the right to start our ongoing havoc, still running in Iraq, Afghanistan, now Pakistan, and all points south and east.
Returning to Goebbels, “That is why their carping criticisms generally focus on laughable trivialities. Whenever some unavoidable difficulty pops up, the kind of thing that always happens, they are immediately inclined to doubt everything [the administration’s 9/11 conspiracy theory] and to throw the baby out with the bath water [the truth out with blind belief]. To them difficulties are not there to be mastered, but rather to be surrendered to [lies are there to believed rather than questioned].
Goebbels adds, “One cannot make history with such quivering [sic questioning] people. They are only chaff in God’s breath. Thankfully, they are only a thin intellectual or social upper class, particularly in the case of Germany. They are not an upper class in the sense that they govern the nation, but rather more a fact of nature like the bubbles of fat that always float on the surface of things.” Bubbles of fat floating on the surface of things? Could that be the corpulent Goering? Today’s rotund Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich? I’ll work on that one.
Ergo, on mindless blasts of rhetoric like those of Goebbels, the Third Reich, meant to last a thousand years, fell into dust and disgrace in 12. Alas and alack, for the sake of freedom, for the future of America, to all who would turn off the light of truth, professors or thugs, presidents or prelates, philosophers or fools, czars or czarinas, I wish you all a hard landing in reality, ASAP.
The Continuing Erosion of the Bill of Rights
NowPublic
May 23, 2010
I keep seeing people go absolutely mad over Arizona’s immigration reform bill. But nobody seems to care about the ever growing erosion of our civil liberties by the federal government! Why is this?
Why do people get so worked up about a bill in a state that they don’t even live in, but completely ignore the fact that the federal government keeps chipping away at thier rights with a sledgehammer?
Under George W. Bush and continuing under Barack H. Obama, you have the following threats to your individual liberty:
1. The Patriot Act, originally signed into law by George Bush and reauthorized by Barack Obama. Which gives the federal government the ability to listen in on your phone calls, read your mail and email, search and seize your property or you all without a warrant! It also strips you of your writ of Habeus Corpus, they can arrest you and hold you without a warrant, without charging you, and without access to legal representation indefinitely,as long as they claim you are a “terrorist” or an “enemy combatant” which would not be determined by a court of law, because you are not being charged with a crime!
2.The nomination of Elena Kagan for Supreme Court justice by Barack Obama. This woman believes that the government can ban books and speech it deems offensive.
May 23, 2010
I keep seeing people go absolutely mad over Arizona’s immigration reform bill. But nobody seems to care about the ever growing erosion of our civil liberties by the federal government! Why is this?
Why do people get so worked up about a bill in a state that they don’t even live in, but completely ignore the fact that the federal government keeps chipping away at thier rights with a sledgehammer?
Under George W. Bush and continuing under Barack H. Obama, you have the following threats to your individual liberty:
1. The Patriot Act, originally signed into law by George Bush and reauthorized by Barack Obama. Which gives the federal government the ability to listen in on your phone calls, read your mail and email, search and seize your property or you all without a warrant! It also strips you of your writ of Habeus Corpus, they can arrest you and hold you without a warrant, without charging you, and without access to legal representation indefinitely,as long as they claim you are a “terrorist” or an “enemy combatant” which would not be determined by a court of law, because you are not being charged with a crime!
2.The nomination of Elena Kagan for Supreme Court justice by Barack Obama. This woman believes that the government can ban books and speech it deems offensive.
Supplanting the United States Constitution: War, National Emergency and “Continuity of Government”
Peter Dale Scott
Global Research
May 23, 2010
In July 1987, during the Iran-Contra Hearings grilling of Oliver North, the American public got a glimpse of “highly sensitive” emergency planning North had been involved in. Ostensibly these were emergency plans to suspend the American constitution in the event of a nuclear attack (a legitimate concern). But press accounts alleged that the planning was for a more generalized suspension of the constitution.
As part of its routine Iran-contra coverage, the following exchange was printed in the New York Times, but without journalistic comment or follow-up:
[Congressman Jack] Brooks: Colonel North, in your work at the N.S.C. were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?
Both North’s attorney and Sen. Daniel Inouye, the Democratic Chair of the Committee, responded in a way that showed they were aware of the issue:
Brendan Sullivan [North's counsel, agitatedly]: Mr. Chairman?
[Senator Daniel] Inouye: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area so may I request that you not touch upon that?
Brooks: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed, by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was an area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.
Inouye: May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session.[1]
But we have never heard if there was or was not an executive session, or if the rest of Congress was ever aware of the matter. According to James Bamford, “The existence of the secret government was so closely held that Congress was completely bypassed.”[2] (Key individuals in Congress were almost certainly aware.)
Brooks was responding to a story by Alfonzo Chardy in the Miami Herald. Chardy’s story alleged that Oliver North was involved with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in plans to take over federal, state and local functions during a national emergency. This planning for “Continuity of Government” (COG) called for “suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law.”[3]
To my knowledge no one in the public (including myself) attached enough importance to the Chardy story. Chardy himself suggested that Reagan’s Attorney General, William French Smith, had intervened to stop the COG plan from being presented to the President. Seven years later, in 1994, Tim Weiner reported in the New York Times that what he called “The Doomsday Project” – the search for “ways to keep the Government running after a sustained nuclear attack on Washington” –had “less than six months to live.”[4]
To say that nuclear attack planning was over was correct, But this statement was also very misleading. On the basis of Weiner’s report, the first two books on COG planning, by James Bamford and James Mann, books otherwise excellent and well-informed, reported that COG planning had been abandoned.[5] They were wrong.
Mann and Bamford did report that, from the beginning, two of the key COG planners on the secret committee were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the two men who implemented COG under 9/11.[6] What they and Weiner did not report was that under Reagan the purpose of COG planning had officially changed: it was no longer for arrangements “after a nuclear war,” but for any “national security emergency.” This was defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: “any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.”[7]
In other words extraordinary emergency measures, originally designed for an America devastated in a nuclear attack, were now to be applied to anything the White House considered an emergency. Thus Cheney and Rumsfeld continued their secret planning when Clinton was president; both men, both Republicans, were heads of major corporations and not even in the government at that time. Moreover, Andrew Cockburn claims that the Clinton administration, according to a Pentagon source, had “no idea what was going on.”[8] (As I shall explain later, this sweeping claim needs some qualification.)
The expanded application of COG to any emergency was envisaged as early as 1984, when, according to Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan,
Lt. Col. Oliver North was working with officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency . . . to draw up a secret contingency plan to surveil political dissenters and to arrange for the detention of hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens in case of an unspecified national emergency. The plan, part of which was codenamed Rex 84, called for the suspension of the Constitution under a number of scenarios, including a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua.[9]
Clearly 9/11 met the conditions for the imposition of COG measures, and we know for certain that COG planning was instituted on that day in 2001, before the last plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. The 9/11 Report confirms this twice, on pages 38 and 326.[10] It was under the auspices of COG that Bush stayed out of Washington on that day, and other government leaders like Paul Wolfowitz were swiftly evacuated to Site R, inside a hollowed out mountain near Camp David.[11]
What few have recognized is that, nearly a decade later, some aspects of COG remain in effect. COG plans are still authorized by a proclamation of emergency that has been extended each year by presidential authority, most recently by President Obama in September 2009. COG plans are also the probable source for the 1000-page Patriot Act presented to Congress five days after 9/11, and also for the Department of Homeland Security’s Project Endgame — a ten-year plan, initiated in September 2001, to expand detention camps, at a cost of $400 million in Fiscal Year 2007 alone.[12]
At the same time we have seen the implementation of the plans outlined by Chardy in 1987: the warrantless detentions that Oliver North had planned for in Rex 1984, the warrantless eavesdropping that is their logical counterpart, and the militarization of the domestic United States under a new military command, NORTHCOM.[13] Through NORTHCOM the U.S. Army now is engaged with local enforcement to control America, in the same way that through CENTCOM it is engaged with local enforcement to control Afghanistan and Iraq.
We learned that COG planning was still active in 2007, when President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD 51). This, for the sixth time, extended for one year the emergency proclaimed on September 14, 2001. It empowered the President to personally ensure “continuity of government” in the event of any “catastrophic emergency.” He announced that NSPD 51 contains “classified Continuity Annexes” which shall “be protected from unauthorized disclosure.” Under pressure from his 911truth constituents, Congressman Peter DeFazio of the Homeland Security Committee twice requested to see these Annexes, the second time in a letter signed by the Chair of his committee. His request was denied.
The National Emergencies Act, one of the post-Watergate reforms that Vice-President Cheney so abhorred, specifies that: “Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated” (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002). Yet in nine years Congress has not once met to discuss the State of Emergency declared by George W. Bush in response to 9/11, a State of Emergency that remains in effect today. Appeals to the Congress to meet its responsibilities to review COG have fallen on deaf ears.[14]
Former Congressman Dan Hamburg and I appealed publicly last year, both to Obama to terminate the emergency, and to Congress to hold the hearings required of them by statute.[15] But Obama, without discussion, extended the 9/11 Emergency again on September 10, 2009;[16] and Congress has continued to ignore its statutory obligations. One Congressman explained to a constituent that the provisions of the National Emergencies Act have now been rendered inoperative by COG. If true, this would seem to justify Chardy’s description of COG as suspension of the Constitution. Are there other parts of the Constitution that have been suspended? We do not know, and the Chair of the Homeland Security Committee has been told he cannot find out.
Plans drafted by a secret committee, including corporation heads not in the government, have provided rules that allegedly override public law and the separation of powers that is at the heart of the Constitution. Congress is derelict in addressing this situation. Even Congressman Kucinich, the one Congressman I have met, will not answer my communications on this subject.
Yet as I see it, the only authorization for the COG planning was a secret decision by President Reagan (NSDD 55 of September 14, 1982) which in effect federalized the counterinsurgency planning (called Cable Splicer), which he had authorized in California when governor there.
It is clear that the planning by Cheney, Rumsfeld and others in the last two decades was not confined to an immediate response to 9/11. The 1000-page Patriot Act, dropped on Congress as promptly as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution had been back in 1964, is still with us; Congress has never seriously challenged it, and Obama quietly extended it on February 27 of this year.
We should not forget that the Patriot Act was only passed after lethal anthrax letters were mailed to two crucial Democratic Senators – Senators Daschle and Leahy – who had initially questioned the bill. After the anthrax letters, however, they withdrew their initial opposition.[17] Someone — we still do not know who – must have planned those anthrax letters well in advance. This is a fact most Americans do not want to think about.
Someone also must have planned the unusual number of war games taking place on 9/11. COG planners and FEMA had been involved in war games planning over the previous two decades; and on 9/11 FEMA was again involved with other agencies in preparing for Operation Tripod, a bioterrorism exercise in New York City. [18]
Someone also must have planned the new more restrictive instructions, on June 1, 2001, determining that military interceptions of hijacked aircraft had to be approved “at the highest levels of government” (i.e. the President, Vice-President, or Secretary of Defense).[19] The Report attributes this order to a JCS Memo of June 1, 2001, entitled “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects.” But the written requirements had been less restrictive before June 1, 2001, and I am informed that the change was quietly revoked the following December.
In The Road to 9/11 I suggest the change in the JCS memo came from the National Preparedness Review in which President Bush authorized Vice-President Cheney, together with FEMA, “to tackle the… task of dealing with terrorist attacks.”[20] Not noticed by the press was the fact that Cheney and FEMA had already been working on COG planning as a team throughout the 1980s and 1990s.[21]
As I wrote above, it is necessary to qualify a Pentagon official’s claim (to author Andrew Cockburn) that the Clinton administration had “no idea what was going on” in COG. Let me quote from my response to Cockburn’s book in my own, The Road to 9/11:
[Weiner’s] article persuaded authors James Mann and James Bamford that Reagan’s COG plans had now been abandoned, because “there was, it seemed, no longer any enemy in the world capable of . . . decapitating America’s leadership.” [22] In fact, however, only one phase of COG planning had been terminated, a Pentagon program for response to a nuclear attack. Instead, according to author Andrew Cockburn, a new target was found:
Although the exercises continued, still budgeted at over $200 million a year in the Clinton era, the vanished Soviets were now replaced by terrorists. . . . There were other changes, too. In earlier times the specialists selected to run the “shadow government” had been drawn from across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans alike. But now, down in the bunkers, Rumsfeld found himself in politically congenial company, the players’ roster being filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks. . . .“You could say this was a secret government-in-waiting. The Clinton administration was extraordinarily inattentive, [they had] no idea what was going on.”
Cockburn’s account requires some qualification. Richard Clarke, a Clinton Democrat, makes it clear that he participated in the COG games in the 1990s and indeed drafted Clinton ’s Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 67 on “Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government.” But COG planning involved different teams for different purposes. It is quite possible that the Pentagon official was describing the Department of Defense team dealing with retaliation.
The Pentagon official’s description of a “secret government-in-waiting” (which still included both Cheney and Rumsfeld) is very close to the standard definition of a cabal, as a group of persons secretly united to bring about a change or overthrow of government. In the same era Cheney and Rumsfeld projected change also by their public lobbying, through the Project for the New American Century, for a more militant Middle East policy. In light of how COG was actually implemented in 2001, one can legitimately suspect that, however interested this group had been in continuity of government under Reagan, under Clinton the focus of Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s COG planning was now a change of government.[23]
Understandably there is great psychological resistance to the extraordinary claim that Cheney and Rumsfeld, even when not in government, were able to help plan successfully for constitutional modifications, which they themselves implemented when back in power. Most people cannot bring themselves even to believe the second, known half of this claim: that on September 11, 2001, COG plans overriding the constitution were indeed implemented. This is why the first two print reviews of The Road to 9/11, both favorable and intelligently written, both reported that I speculated that COG had been imposed on 9/11. No, it was not a speculation: the 9/11 Commission Report twice confirms that COG was instituted on the authority of a phone call between Bush and Cheney of which they could find no record. No record, I did speculate, because it took place on a secure COG phone outside the presidential bunker – with such a high classification that the 9/11 Commission was never supplied the phone records.
A footnote in the 9/11 Report says
“The 9/11 crisis tested the U.S. government’s plans and capabilities to ensure the continuity of constitutional government and the continuity of government operations. We did not investigate this topic, except as needed to understand the activities and communications of key officials on 9/11. The Chair, Vice Chair, and senior staff were briefed on the general nature and implementation of these continuity plans.[24]
The other footnotes confirm that no information from COG files was used to document the 9/11 report. At a minimum these files might resolve the mystery of the missing phone call which simultaneously authorized COG, and (in consequence) determined that Bush should continue to stay out of Washington . I suspect that they might tell us a great deal more.
What is the first step out of this current state of affairs, in which the constitution has in effect been superseded by a higher, if less legitimate authority? I submit that it is to get Congress to do what the law requires, and determine whether our present proclamation of emergency “shall be terminated” (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002).
An earlier polite, judiciously worded appeal to this effect failed. It may be necessary to raise the issue in a larger, albeit more controversial context: the scandal that a small cabal was able to supersede the Constitution, and Congress has failed, despite repeated requests, to do anything about it. I would hope that Americans concerned about this matter would raise it with all the congressional candidates in the forthcoming elections. At a minimum, candidates should promise to call for a full discussion of the proclaimed national emergency, as the law requires.
Global Research
May 23, 2010
In July 1987, during the Iran-Contra Hearings grilling of Oliver North, the American public got a glimpse of “highly sensitive” emergency planning North had been involved in. Ostensibly these were emergency plans to suspend the American constitution in the event of a nuclear attack (a legitimate concern). But press accounts alleged that the planning was for a more generalized suspension of the constitution.
As part of its routine Iran-contra coverage, the following exchange was printed in the New York Times, but without journalistic comment or follow-up:
[Congressman Jack] Brooks: Colonel North, in your work at the N.S.C. were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?
Both North’s attorney and Sen. Daniel Inouye, the Democratic Chair of the Committee, responded in a way that showed they were aware of the issue:
Brendan Sullivan [North's counsel, agitatedly]: Mr. Chairman?
[Senator Daniel] Inouye: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area so may I request that you not touch upon that?
Brooks: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed, by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was an area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.
Inouye: May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session.[1]
But we have never heard if there was or was not an executive session, or if the rest of Congress was ever aware of the matter. According to James Bamford, “The existence of the secret government was so closely held that Congress was completely bypassed.”[2] (Key individuals in Congress were almost certainly aware.)
Brooks was responding to a story by Alfonzo Chardy in the Miami Herald. Chardy’s story alleged that Oliver North was involved with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in plans to take over federal, state and local functions during a national emergency. This planning for “Continuity of Government” (COG) called for “suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law.”[3]
To my knowledge no one in the public (including myself) attached enough importance to the Chardy story. Chardy himself suggested that Reagan’s Attorney General, William French Smith, had intervened to stop the COG plan from being presented to the President. Seven years later, in 1994, Tim Weiner reported in the New York Times that what he called “The Doomsday Project” – the search for “ways to keep the Government running after a sustained nuclear attack on Washington” –had “less than six months to live.”[4]
To say that nuclear attack planning was over was correct, But this statement was also very misleading. On the basis of Weiner’s report, the first two books on COG planning, by James Bamford and James Mann, books otherwise excellent and well-informed, reported that COG planning had been abandoned.[5] They were wrong.
Mann and Bamford did report that, from the beginning, two of the key COG planners on the secret committee were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the two men who implemented COG under 9/11.[6] What they and Weiner did not report was that under Reagan the purpose of COG planning had officially changed: it was no longer for arrangements “after a nuclear war,” but for any “national security emergency.” This was defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: “any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.”[7]
In other words extraordinary emergency measures, originally designed for an America devastated in a nuclear attack, were now to be applied to anything the White House considered an emergency. Thus Cheney and Rumsfeld continued their secret planning when Clinton was president; both men, both Republicans, were heads of major corporations and not even in the government at that time. Moreover, Andrew Cockburn claims that the Clinton administration, according to a Pentagon source, had “no idea what was going on.”[8] (As I shall explain later, this sweeping claim needs some qualification.)
The expanded application of COG to any emergency was envisaged as early as 1984, when, according to Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan,
Lt. Col. Oliver North was working with officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency . . . to draw up a secret contingency plan to surveil political dissenters and to arrange for the detention of hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens in case of an unspecified national emergency. The plan, part of which was codenamed Rex 84, called for the suspension of the Constitution under a number of scenarios, including a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua.[9]
Clearly 9/11 met the conditions for the imposition of COG measures, and we know for certain that COG planning was instituted on that day in 2001, before the last plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. The 9/11 Report confirms this twice, on pages 38 and 326.[10] It was under the auspices of COG that Bush stayed out of Washington on that day, and other government leaders like Paul Wolfowitz were swiftly evacuated to Site R, inside a hollowed out mountain near Camp David.[11]
What few have recognized is that, nearly a decade later, some aspects of COG remain in effect. COG plans are still authorized by a proclamation of emergency that has been extended each year by presidential authority, most recently by President Obama in September 2009. COG plans are also the probable source for the 1000-page Patriot Act presented to Congress five days after 9/11, and also for the Department of Homeland Security’s Project Endgame — a ten-year plan, initiated in September 2001, to expand detention camps, at a cost of $400 million in Fiscal Year 2007 alone.[12]
At the same time we have seen the implementation of the plans outlined by Chardy in 1987: the warrantless detentions that Oliver North had planned for in Rex 1984, the warrantless eavesdropping that is their logical counterpart, and the militarization of the domestic United States under a new military command, NORTHCOM.[13] Through NORTHCOM the U.S. Army now is engaged with local enforcement to control America, in the same way that through CENTCOM it is engaged with local enforcement to control Afghanistan and Iraq.
We learned that COG planning was still active in 2007, when President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD 51). This, for the sixth time, extended for one year the emergency proclaimed on September 14, 2001. It empowered the President to personally ensure “continuity of government” in the event of any “catastrophic emergency.” He announced that NSPD 51 contains “classified Continuity Annexes” which shall “be protected from unauthorized disclosure.” Under pressure from his 911truth constituents, Congressman Peter DeFazio of the Homeland Security Committee twice requested to see these Annexes, the second time in a letter signed by the Chair of his committee. His request was denied.
The National Emergencies Act, one of the post-Watergate reforms that Vice-President Cheney so abhorred, specifies that: “Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated” (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002). Yet in nine years Congress has not once met to discuss the State of Emergency declared by George W. Bush in response to 9/11, a State of Emergency that remains in effect today. Appeals to the Congress to meet its responsibilities to review COG have fallen on deaf ears.[14]
Former Congressman Dan Hamburg and I appealed publicly last year, both to Obama to terminate the emergency, and to Congress to hold the hearings required of them by statute.[15] But Obama, without discussion, extended the 9/11 Emergency again on September 10, 2009;[16] and Congress has continued to ignore its statutory obligations. One Congressman explained to a constituent that the provisions of the National Emergencies Act have now been rendered inoperative by COG. If true, this would seem to justify Chardy’s description of COG as suspension of the Constitution. Are there other parts of the Constitution that have been suspended? We do not know, and the Chair of the Homeland Security Committee has been told he cannot find out.
Plans drafted by a secret committee, including corporation heads not in the government, have provided rules that allegedly override public law and the separation of powers that is at the heart of the Constitution. Congress is derelict in addressing this situation. Even Congressman Kucinich, the one Congressman I have met, will not answer my communications on this subject.
Yet as I see it, the only authorization for the COG planning was a secret decision by President Reagan (NSDD 55 of September 14, 1982) which in effect federalized the counterinsurgency planning (called Cable Splicer), which he had authorized in California when governor there.
It is clear that the planning by Cheney, Rumsfeld and others in the last two decades was not confined to an immediate response to 9/11. The 1000-page Patriot Act, dropped on Congress as promptly as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution had been back in 1964, is still with us; Congress has never seriously challenged it, and Obama quietly extended it on February 27 of this year.
We should not forget that the Patriot Act was only passed after lethal anthrax letters were mailed to two crucial Democratic Senators – Senators Daschle and Leahy – who had initially questioned the bill. After the anthrax letters, however, they withdrew their initial opposition.[17] Someone — we still do not know who – must have planned those anthrax letters well in advance. This is a fact most Americans do not want to think about.
Someone also must have planned the unusual number of war games taking place on 9/11. COG planners and FEMA had been involved in war games planning over the previous two decades; and on 9/11 FEMA was again involved with other agencies in preparing for Operation Tripod, a bioterrorism exercise in New York City. [18]
Someone also must have planned the new more restrictive instructions, on June 1, 2001, determining that military interceptions of hijacked aircraft had to be approved “at the highest levels of government” (i.e. the President, Vice-President, or Secretary of Defense).[19] The Report attributes this order to a JCS Memo of June 1, 2001, entitled “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects.” But the written requirements had been less restrictive before June 1, 2001, and I am informed that the change was quietly revoked the following December.
In The Road to 9/11 I suggest the change in the JCS memo came from the National Preparedness Review in which President Bush authorized Vice-President Cheney, together with FEMA, “to tackle the… task of dealing with terrorist attacks.”[20] Not noticed by the press was the fact that Cheney and FEMA had already been working on COG planning as a team throughout the 1980s and 1990s.[21]
As I wrote above, it is necessary to qualify a Pentagon official’s claim (to author Andrew Cockburn) that the Clinton administration had “no idea what was going on” in COG. Let me quote from my response to Cockburn’s book in my own, The Road to 9/11:
[Weiner’s] article persuaded authors James Mann and James Bamford that Reagan’s COG plans had now been abandoned, because “there was, it seemed, no longer any enemy in the world capable of . . . decapitating America’s leadership.” [22] In fact, however, only one phase of COG planning had been terminated, a Pentagon program for response to a nuclear attack. Instead, according to author Andrew Cockburn, a new target was found:
Although the exercises continued, still budgeted at over $200 million a year in the Clinton era, the vanished Soviets were now replaced by terrorists. . . . There were other changes, too. In earlier times the specialists selected to run the “shadow government” had been drawn from across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans alike. But now, down in the bunkers, Rumsfeld found himself in politically congenial company, the players’ roster being filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks. . . .“You could say this was a secret government-in-waiting. The Clinton administration was extraordinarily inattentive, [they had] no idea what was going on.”
Cockburn’s account requires some qualification. Richard Clarke, a Clinton Democrat, makes it clear that he participated in the COG games in the 1990s and indeed drafted Clinton ’s Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 67 on “Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government.” But COG planning involved different teams for different purposes. It is quite possible that the Pentagon official was describing the Department of Defense team dealing with retaliation.
The Pentagon official’s description of a “secret government-in-waiting” (which still included both Cheney and Rumsfeld) is very close to the standard definition of a cabal, as a group of persons secretly united to bring about a change or overthrow of government. In the same era Cheney and Rumsfeld projected change also by their public lobbying, through the Project for the New American Century, for a more militant Middle East policy. In light of how COG was actually implemented in 2001, one can legitimately suspect that, however interested this group had been in continuity of government under Reagan, under Clinton the focus of Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s COG planning was now a change of government.[23]
Understandably there is great psychological resistance to the extraordinary claim that Cheney and Rumsfeld, even when not in government, were able to help plan successfully for constitutional modifications, which they themselves implemented when back in power. Most people cannot bring themselves even to believe the second, known half of this claim: that on September 11, 2001, COG plans overriding the constitution were indeed implemented. This is why the first two print reviews of The Road to 9/11, both favorable and intelligently written, both reported that I speculated that COG had been imposed on 9/11. No, it was not a speculation: the 9/11 Commission Report twice confirms that COG was instituted on the authority of a phone call between Bush and Cheney of which they could find no record. No record, I did speculate, because it took place on a secure COG phone outside the presidential bunker – with such a high classification that the 9/11 Commission was never supplied the phone records.
A footnote in the 9/11 Report says
“The 9/11 crisis tested the U.S. government’s plans and capabilities to ensure the continuity of constitutional government and the continuity of government operations. We did not investigate this topic, except as needed to understand the activities and communications of key officials on 9/11. The Chair, Vice Chair, and senior staff were briefed on the general nature and implementation of these continuity plans.[24]
The other footnotes confirm that no information from COG files was used to document the 9/11 report. At a minimum these files might resolve the mystery of the missing phone call which simultaneously authorized COG, and (in consequence) determined that Bush should continue to stay out of Washington . I suspect that they might tell us a great deal more.
What is the first step out of this current state of affairs, in which the constitution has in effect been superseded by a higher, if less legitimate authority? I submit that it is to get Congress to do what the law requires, and determine whether our present proclamation of emergency “shall be terminated” (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002).
An earlier polite, judiciously worded appeal to this effect failed. It may be necessary to raise the issue in a larger, albeit more controversial context: the scandal that a small cabal was able to supersede the Constitution, and Congress has failed, despite repeated requests, to do anything about it. I would hope that Americans concerned about this matter would raise it with all the congressional candidates in the forthcoming elections. At a minimum, candidates should promise to call for a full discussion of the proclaimed national emergency, as the law requires.
Great Depression 2.0. Bet on it
Mike Whitney
Information Clearing House
May 22, 2010
Deficits create demand. Demand generates spending. Spending generates economic activity. Economic activity generates growth. Growth generates jobs, increases government revenues, reduces deficits and ends recessions.
Simple, right?
Global markets have plunged for more than a month, wiping out more than $5.3 trillion in total market value.
When consumers have too much debt, they will not spend no matter how low interest rates are. This is not theory, this is fact.
If the government cuts spending at the same time as consumers, then overall spending declines and the economy slips into recession. This is what the deficit hawks want–a return to recession. This is politics, not economics.
KEYNE’S KOAN: Increasing the deficits, lowers the deficits
The deficit hawks say “You can’t solve a debt problem by adding more debt”. This is a very persuasive argument, but it’s wrong. Increasing the deficits, lowers the deficits. This sounds wrong, but its right. Here’s proof from a recent article by economist Marshall Auerback:
“Ireland began cutting back deficit spending in 2008, when its banking crisis began to spread and its budget deficit as a percentage of GDP was 7.3 per cent. The economy promptly contracted by 10 per cent and, surprise, surprise, the deficit exploded to 14.3 per cent of GDP.” (“The US is not Greece”, Marshall Auerback, counterpunch.org)
Ireland is not the exception. Ireland is the rule. A nation cannot starve itself to prosperity nor can it shrink its way to growth. Austerity is fine for monks, but bad for the economy.
Deficit cutting during a downturn creates bigger deficits, higher unemployment, greater economic contraction, and more suffering. Every country that follows the IMF’s prescription for belt-tightening, undergoes a mini-Depression. That’s because its bad economics (or, rather) politically-driven economics. By weakening the state, private industry and speculators hope to grab public assets on-the-cheap and force privatization of public services. These are the real objectives behind the austerity measures.
When the government is in surplus, the private sector must be in deficit. When the government is in deficit, the private sector must be in surplus. It’s that simple. So, when consumers and households must save to make up for lost equity and falling revenue, (such as, after the collapse of the housing bubble) the government MUST increase deficits to keep the economy running, to reduce slack in demand and to lower high levels of unemployment. Without Obama’s fiscal stimulus, the economy would not have produced 3 quarters of positive growth. The stimulus (and monetary policy) kept the economy from tipping into a severe recession. Had Obama followed the advice of the deficit hawks (many of who also supported Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) the country would be mired in another Great Depression. This is worth considering when some Fox bimbo in a plunging-neckline says “The stimulus did nothing.”
Sovereign governments whose debts are paid in its own currency, are not like you and me. They are not fiscally constrained or required to balance their checkbook. Nor should they if it weakens the economy or increases unemployment. The government can spend without risk of going broke because the debt is owed to itself. Yes, this can create inflation when unemployment is low and there is too much money chasing too few goods. But that should not deter government from stimulating the economy when unemployment is 10%, underemployment is 20%, manufacturing is slow, housing is in a shambles, core CPI is below 1%, and the economy is teetering towards outright deflation. Deficits should be increased and sustained at a high level until unemployment and overcapacity begin to retreat. Economists know that consumer deleveraging is a long-term project, which means that government stimulus will be required for a very long time. Get used to it.
Last week, economist James Galbraith was interviewed by the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein. Klein asked Galbraith if he thought “the danger posed by the long-term deficit is overstated by most economists?” Here’s his answer:
James Galbraith:”I think the danger is zero. It’s not overstated. It’s completely misstated.
Ezra Klein: “Why?”
James Galbraith: “What is the nature of the danger? The only possible answer is that this larger deficit would cause a rise in the interest rate. Well, if the markets thought that was a serious risk, the rate on 20-year treasury bonds wouldn’t be 4 percent and change now. If the markets thought that the interest rate would be forced up by funding difficulties 10 year from now, it would show up in the 20-year rate. That rate has actually been coming down in the wake of the European crisis.
So there are two possibilities here. One is the theory is wrong. The other is that the market isn’t rational. And if the market isn’t rational, there’s no point in designing policy to accommodate the markets because you can’t accommodate an irrational entity.” (Washington Post)
Naturally, Galbraith’s answer stirred up controversy at the Fox School of Economics where Andrew Mellon’s photo is still proudly on display. But Galbraith is right. If the markets were really worried, then yields on long-term Treasuries would go up. But they’re not going up, because the economy is still battling deflation. The 10-year Treasury is presently 3.4%, just as one would expect in a Depression. On Wednesday, core CPI came in at 1%. There is no inflation in the system. The inflation doomsters are discredited alarmists who should be ignored. The economy needs more stimulus, more government spending. Here’s Galbraith again:
“To put the point firmly…. the economy is recovering because of the budget deficits. Without these budget deficits, there would be no recovery, because it is the deficits that are helping to put more money into households’ pockets. To talk of recovery but to criticize the deficits is ridiculous. The whole point of this thing [stimulus spending] is to add to the deficit. The patient is recovering from a deadly illness and yet the press is attacking the medicine….”
“The deficit and the public debt of the U.S. government can, should, must, and will increase in this crisis. They will increase whether the government acts or not. The choice is between an active program, running up debt while creating jobs and rebuilding America, or a passive program, running up debt because revenues collapse, because the population has to be maintained on the dole, and because the Treasury wishes, for no constructive reason, to rescue the big bankers and make them whole.” (“Galbraith: deficits are the solution not the problem”, John Hanrahan, Nieman Watchdog)
Not all deficit spending is good. John Maynard Keynes never advocated bailing out underwater financial institutions run by crooks, and yet, that has been the essential Fed policy from Day 1. Keynes believed that markets were fundamentally unstable; that government had a role to play in smoothing out capitalism’s excesses, reducing inequality and creating jobs. He also believed that slumps will last much longer than necessary if government does not intervene and stimulate demand.
The value of deficits depends on how the money is spent. The $700 billion TARP was largely wasted on financial institutions that should have been nationalized, broken up, and their toxic assets put up for auction. The $787 billion stimulus, on the other hand, was largely a success, because it provided urgently needed relief for the states, benefits for unemployed workers, tax cuts and infrastructure programs. Experts belief the stimulus increased employment by roughly 2 million workers and raised GDP by 1.5% to 2.5%. Stimulus is not a panacea, and no one ever said it was. It’s an emergency blood-transfusion to get a sickly patient through a violent trauma. It did what it was designed to do, and it paid for itself via the uptick in economic activity and growth. Here’s how Paul Krugman sums it up:
“…increasing government spending in a slump more or less pays for itself: it leads to higher output not just in the short run but in the long run, and therefore leads to higher revenue that very likely more than offsets the original expense.” (Paul Krugman’s blog, “The Conscience of a Liberal”, New York Times).
Stimulus critics may want to memorize the Krugman quote. Or, maybe, this from the April 2010 IMF World Economic Outlook:
“Fiscal policy provided major support in response to the deep downturn, especially in advanced economies…..Fiscal balances have deteriorated, mainly because of falling revenue resulting from decreased real and financial activity. Fiscal stimulus has played a major role in stabilizing output but has contributed little to increases in public debt, which are especially large in advanced economies.” (Found at Billy Blog, Bill Mitchell)
Repeat: Stimulus has “contributed little to increases in public debt.” In other words, the giant deficits are not the result of stimulus (or so-called “profligate” public spending) but of “falling revenue” because the economy is still flat on its back. The message is simple; put people back to work, increase demand, restore public confidence, and spend more money. Now.
MELTDOWN IN THE EU: What happens when deficit hawks set policy
Global markets have plunged for more than a month, wiping out more than $5.3 trillion in total market value. Ostensibly, the catalyst was Greece’s large deficits, but that’s only part of the story. Under the terms of the Maastricht Treaty, (aka–the Treaty on European Union) EU countries are not allowed to exceed the treaty’s 3% ceiling on fiscal deficits. The nonsensical treaty basically repeals the business cycle by edict. Are recessions forbidden, too?
Sanctimonious German bureaucrats and heads-of-state have taken up the cause of fiscal probity and turned a thoroughly-manageable matter into a full-blown crisis that could break up the EU and drag the world back into deep recession. Keep in mind, Germany has been the main beneficiary of Greek deficits as reflected in their bulging surpluses. One does not exist without the other; and as Keynes pointed out, surplus countries increase global instability by exerting “negative externality”. That hasn’t stopped German media from finger-wagging at their “spendthrift” neighbors to the south.
Now markets are in a frenzy; volatility has skyrocketed and gauges of market stress (Libor) are steadily rising. Interbank lending has begun to slow. Greek deficits have uncovered the systemic-rot in the EU banking system which is overloaded with garbage assets and non performing loans, only the EU does not have the fiscal/political infrastructure in place to guarantee the dodgy paper. So the pressure on the banks continues to grow and the prospect of another Lehman crash looms larger by the day.
Meanwhile, in Berlin, embattled politicians–who are 100% certain that the “everyone else is to blame”–are sticking to their Hooverian economics plan; balanced budgets, austerity programs, fiscal straight-jackets all around. This is the deficit hawks remedy, too, the Hoover Solution. Take a good look; this is what the U.S. will look like if the Keynes-bashers, the belt-tighteners, and the deficit gloomsters get their way. Great Depression 2.0. Bet on it.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Mexican President Wants to Disarm Americans
Felipe Calderón Pressures U.S. Leadership to Re-Enact Unconstitutional Assault-Weapons Ban from House Floor
Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com
May 20, 2010
Mexican President Felipe Calderón called upon the United States Congress to re-enact the assault weapons ban in a bid to disarm the American people as they are integrated into the North American Union system. Further, he placed blame for fueling drug cartels and gang violence squarely on the United States and their supply of firearms.
Calderón made these outrageous and anti-American remarks from the floor of the U.S. Congress during an official visit, and also renewed attacks on the immigration legislation passed by Arizona.
President Obama joined in his cause, making the startling declaration that “We are not defined by our borders” during a press conference welcoming Calderón on the White House lawn. Such a statement with immigration AND “weapons” problems on the border? Whatever happened to the Robert Frost adage ‘Good fences make good neighbors‘?
Alex Jones responds to these radical statements in a video address, questioning Calderón’s wherewithal to scold the United States or meddle with its internal affairs, particularly when Mexico has become such an unmanageable, nightmarish police state– where, by the way, there is a total gun ban for ordinary citizens.
Calderón told the United States that it must “regulate the sale of these weapons in the right way.” He continued:
“Many of these guns are not going to honest American hands. Instead, thousands are ending up in the hands of criminals.”
Calderón’s Call to Disarmament is particularly inappropriate before Congress, who are Constitutionally barred from making any law which would violate any part of the Bill of Rights– secured to the people and several states in balance against the power given to the Federal Government. Further, Calderón’s plan holds the same fallacy as other attempts at gun control. If carried out, banning “assault” weapons would empower– rather than restrict– narcotrafficking gangs and leave “good” people helpless. It would not, as he naively intends, curb cartel violence or dry out the tools of their intimidation.
Yet his proposals have long been advanced and supported by the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, among others. President Obama voiced general support for a renewed ban last year, but acknowledged that it would be difficult to achieve politically. Moreover, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder has also expressed support for re-enacting a gun ban, but has shied away from it while the White House has kept it quiet purposely to avoid political damage to other parts of President Obama’s already wildly-radical agenda. Last year, Newsweek scolded Eric Holder for “backing away” from the ban issue and failing to support an issue ‘important to Mexican officials.’
A MESSAGE FOR ARIZONA
President Calderón also used the opportunity to amplify his criticism of Arizona’s immigration laws, a position which is hypocritical on several points. First, why would he have a voice among Mexican people who fled at all costs from the failing and violent narco-state which he heads? Furthermore, how can the Mexican President decry the efforts of Arizona to control its borders and maintain stability, when Mexico has considerably more severe laws against illegal immigration than that recently introduced by the under-pressure border state.
Though Calderón issued a tongue-in-cheek travel advisory to ‘visiting’ Mexican citizens warning them to be wary of the strict new attitude in Arizona, it is his own country which has grown wild with corruption, violence, drug cartels, authoritarian police and the unsustainable blow of mass exodus which has turned Mexico into a vacuum and failed state. While the United States has attempted to progress on issues of discrimination, Mexico continues to openly oppress its minority groups and stifle attempts at resistance. Despite this distinction, many sanctuary cities across the United States have joined with Calderón and proposed bans on Arizona of their own.
‘SOUTHBOUND FLOW OF ILLEGAL WEAPONS’ ISSUE RAISED TO PROMOTE NORTH AMERICAN INTEGRATION
Most of all, the two heads of state, Calderón and Obama, have demonstrated a reckless and uncaring attitude towards curbing illegal immigration– which threatens to wreck both countries. Yet they have pushed hard for amnesty and other provisions to legalize workers and prevented any attempts to impede the open flow of goods and people across the border.
They have both worked furiously to fast-track North American regional integration. They met in Guadalajara in August 2009 alongside Canadian PM Stephen Harper to continue– largely in secret — the agenda announced under the Bush-era Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America agreement (talks included the hot-button issue of “illegal southbound flow of American guns and cash that helps fuel this extraordinary violence”).
President ObamaРfor someone who claimed ignorance about the North American Union during his 2008 campaign [video]Рcertainly has gone a long way in supporting the total destruction of United States sovereignty, all while embracing cheap globalist clich̩s, obliterating the economy and opening-up the floodgates to labor replacement from Mexico and other Latin American countries.
Politicians– through NAFTA, WTO, CAFTA and SPP agreements, among others– are ushering in a corporatist-controlled North American Union, alongside a longer-term global merger. Robert Pastor and other key architects from the Council on Foreign Relations clearly designed the North American Union to circumvent the confines of the U.S. Constitution, and such a system is unlikely (once in power) to allow or accept the resistance of an armed population.
UNITED NATIONS ATTACK ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT
Unfortunately, the United States has long-ago set its course in that direction, having signed onto the United Nations treaty and its disarmament plan, already poignantly and also frighteningly symbolized by the monument outside its headquarters of a tied-up gun barrel, rendered incapable of effective action.
Clearly, Calderón and Obama now hope to finish the deal.
At the same time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has recently renewed her campaign for the UN Small Arms Treaty (NEW START), urging the Senate to ratify the treaty signed back in December with the Russian Federation. Clinton utilized frightening Cold War rhetoric about the proliferation of nuclear armaments to argue for the control of “small arms.” Unless the Senate ratifies the treaty, Clinton argued, there would be no existing protection against a nuclear threat (despite a valid 2002 treaty). She stated:
“The choice before us is between this treaty and no treaty governing our nuclear security relationship with Russia, between this treaty and no agreed verification mechanisms on Russia’s strategic nuclear forces, between this treaty and no legal obligation for Russia to maintain its strategic nuclear forces below an agreed level.”
To fulfill the UN’s mandate of eventual disarmament (of private, citizen-held arms) or to listen to the dictates of a corrupt puppet-figurehead like Calderón is to commit treason against the American people and our way of life. How many authoritarian regimes in the 20th and 21st Centuries have taken away its people’s arms, only to enslave and exterminate them? How could we in the United States allow ourselves to be disarmed at a time when law enforcement along the border have warned citizens to buy guns because its sheriffs, police and other authorities cannot protect the border zone?
Calderón should take the advice not of his flattering host Obama, eager to dismantle America’s strengths, but from his harshest critics, who would gladly embrace a neighbor, were he not spitting on our culture and seeking to undermine it through diplomatic channels or base immigration-attrition. We at Infowars.com have already recommended that he get the hell out of our country and refrain from being the pot who called the kettle black. His country has too many problems for him to be busy with the lessons America should learn. He should go back to Mexico and start on his own mess. Let’s hope he takes the recommendation.
Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com
May 20, 2010
Mexican President Felipe Calderón called upon the United States Congress to re-enact the assault weapons ban in a bid to disarm the American people as they are integrated into the North American Union system. Further, he placed blame for fueling drug cartels and gang violence squarely on the United States and their supply of firearms.
Calderón made these outrageous and anti-American remarks from the floor of the U.S. Congress during an official visit, and also renewed attacks on the immigration legislation passed by Arizona.
President Obama joined in his cause, making the startling declaration that “We are not defined by our borders” during a press conference welcoming Calderón on the White House lawn. Such a statement with immigration AND “weapons” problems on the border? Whatever happened to the Robert Frost adage ‘Good fences make good neighbors‘?
Alex Jones responds to these radical statements in a video address, questioning Calderón’s wherewithal to scold the United States or meddle with its internal affairs, particularly when Mexico has become such an unmanageable, nightmarish police state– where, by the way, there is a total gun ban for ordinary citizens.
Calderón told the United States that it must “regulate the sale of these weapons in the right way.” He continued:
“Many of these guns are not going to honest American hands. Instead, thousands are ending up in the hands of criminals.”
Calderón’s Call to Disarmament is particularly inappropriate before Congress, who are Constitutionally barred from making any law which would violate any part of the Bill of Rights– secured to the people and several states in balance against the power given to the Federal Government. Further, Calderón’s plan holds the same fallacy as other attempts at gun control. If carried out, banning “assault” weapons would empower– rather than restrict– narcotrafficking gangs and leave “good” people helpless. It would not, as he naively intends, curb cartel violence or dry out the tools of their intimidation.
Yet his proposals have long been advanced and supported by the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, among others. President Obama voiced general support for a renewed ban last year, but acknowledged that it would be difficult to achieve politically. Moreover, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder has also expressed support for re-enacting a gun ban, but has shied away from it while the White House has kept it quiet purposely to avoid political damage to other parts of President Obama’s already wildly-radical agenda. Last year, Newsweek scolded Eric Holder for “backing away” from the ban issue and failing to support an issue ‘important to Mexican officials.’
A MESSAGE FOR ARIZONA
President Calderón also used the opportunity to amplify his criticism of Arizona’s immigration laws, a position which is hypocritical on several points. First, why would he have a voice among Mexican people who fled at all costs from the failing and violent narco-state which he heads? Furthermore, how can the Mexican President decry the efforts of Arizona to control its borders and maintain stability, when Mexico has considerably more severe laws against illegal immigration than that recently introduced by the under-pressure border state.
Though Calderón issued a tongue-in-cheek travel advisory to ‘visiting’ Mexican citizens warning them to be wary of the strict new attitude in Arizona, it is his own country which has grown wild with corruption, violence, drug cartels, authoritarian police and the unsustainable blow of mass exodus which has turned Mexico into a vacuum and failed state. While the United States has attempted to progress on issues of discrimination, Mexico continues to openly oppress its minority groups and stifle attempts at resistance. Despite this distinction, many sanctuary cities across the United States have joined with Calderón and proposed bans on Arizona of their own.
‘SOUTHBOUND FLOW OF ILLEGAL WEAPONS’ ISSUE RAISED TO PROMOTE NORTH AMERICAN INTEGRATION
Most of all, the two heads of state, Calderón and Obama, have demonstrated a reckless and uncaring attitude towards curbing illegal immigration– which threatens to wreck both countries. Yet they have pushed hard for amnesty and other provisions to legalize workers and prevented any attempts to impede the open flow of goods and people across the border.
They have both worked furiously to fast-track North American regional integration. They met in Guadalajara in August 2009 alongside Canadian PM Stephen Harper to continue– largely in secret — the agenda announced under the Bush-era Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America agreement (talks included the hot-button issue of “illegal southbound flow of American guns and cash that helps fuel this extraordinary violence”).
President ObamaРfor someone who claimed ignorance about the North American Union during his 2008 campaign [video]Рcertainly has gone a long way in supporting the total destruction of United States sovereignty, all while embracing cheap globalist clich̩s, obliterating the economy and opening-up the floodgates to labor replacement from Mexico and other Latin American countries.
Politicians– through NAFTA, WTO, CAFTA and SPP agreements, among others– are ushering in a corporatist-controlled North American Union, alongside a longer-term global merger. Robert Pastor and other key architects from the Council on Foreign Relations clearly designed the North American Union to circumvent the confines of the U.S. Constitution, and such a system is unlikely (once in power) to allow or accept the resistance of an armed population.
UNITED NATIONS ATTACK ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT
Unfortunately, the United States has long-ago set its course in that direction, having signed onto the United Nations treaty and its disarmament plan, already poignantly and also frighteningly symbolized by the monument outside its headquarters of a tied-up gun barrel, rendered incapable of effective action.
Clearly, Calderón and Obama now hope to finish the deal.
At the same time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has recently renewed her campaign for the UN Small Arms Treaty (NEW START), urging the Senate to ratify the treaty signed back in December with the Russian Federation. Clinton utilized frightening Cold War rhetoric about the proliferation of nuclear armaments to argue for the control of “small arms.” Unless the Senate ratifies the treaty, Clinton argued, there would be no existing protection against a nuclear threat (despite a valid 2002 treaty). She stated:
“The choice before us is between this treaty and no treaty governing our nuclear security relationship with Russia, between this treaty and no agreed verification mechanisms on Russia’s strategic nuclear forces, between this treaty and no legal obligation for Russia to maintain its strategic nuclear forces below an agreed level.”
To fulfill the UN’s mandate of eventual disarmament (of private, citizen-held arms) or to listen to the dictates of a corrupt puppet-figurehead like Calderón is to commit treason against the American people and our way of life. How many authoritarian regimes in the 20th and 21st Centuries have taken away its people’s arms, only to enslave and exterminate them? How could we in the United States allow ourselves to be disarmed at a time when law enforcement along the border have warned citizens to buy guns because its sheriffs, police and other authorities cannot protect the border zone?
Calderón should take the advice not of his flattering host Obama, eager to dismantle America’s strengths, but from his harshest critics, who would gladly embrace a neighbor, were he not spitting on our culture and seeking to undermine it through diplomatic channels or base immigration-attrition. We at Infowars.com have already recommended that he get the hell out of our country and refrain from being the pot who called the kettle black. His country has too many problems for him to be busy with the lessons America should learn. He should go back to Mexico and start on his own mess. Let’s hope he takes the recommendation.
Top Official Says Feds May Not Process Illegals Referred From Arizona
FOXNews.com
MaY 21, 2010
A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.
John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made the comment during a meeting on Wednesday with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper reports.
“I don’t think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution,” Morton told the newspaper.
The best way to reduce illegal immigration is through a comprehensive federal approach, he said, and not a patchwork of state laws.
Congressman Slams “Outrage” Of Calderon Lecture On Immigration
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, May 21, 2010
Following Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s attack on the second amendment and his lecturing on American immigration policy, Congressman Tom McClintock described Calderon’s behavior as an “outrage” during a speech on the House floor yesterday, pointing out that America treats immigrants far better than the brutal way they are dealt with in Mexico.
During a series of speeches, including one in front of Congress, Calderon attacked Arizona’s decision to enforce its immigration policy while also calling upon lawmakers to re-enact the assault weapons ban in a bid to disarm the American people as they are integrated into the North American Union system.
President Obama treasonously supported Calderon’s message by alarmingly proclaiming, “We are not defined by our borders,” during a speech on the White House lawn.
McClintock later reacted by labeling Calderon’s rhetoric an “outrage” and slammed the Mexican President for holding American sovereignty in contempt while Democrats in Congress cheered him on.
McClintock said Calderon should, “Abide by the fundamental rules of diplomacy between civilized nations not to meddle in each other’s domestic debates.”
“Unlike Mexico’s immigration law — which is brutally exclusionary — the purpose of America’s law is not to keep people out. It is to assure that as people come to the United States, they do so with the intention of becoming Americans and of raising their children as Americans. Unlike Mexico, our nation embraces immigration and what makes that possible is assimilation,” said McClintock.
Watch the clip.
The Congressman pointed out that immigration has been used not to assimilate newcomers as American citizens, but to cause division amongst racial and ethnic lines while seeking to “elevate devotion to foreign ideologies and traditions, while at the same time denigrating American culture, American values and American founding principles.”
McClintock quoted the following words from President Teddy Roosevelt, which perfectly illustrate how the original boundaries of immigration policy have been completely violated, with illegal immigrants now seeing themselves as radicalized Mexicans who subscribe to a racist liberation theology, not assimilated Americans who want to integrate with their neighbors.
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
However, the federal government and local authorities have not only allowed illegal immigrants to fly the Mexican flag on public property while spending millions of dollars every year translating official documents into Spanish, but they have also sat back as illegals engage in provocations by claiming that the U.S. is Mexico while tearing down American flags, as was highlighted by the recent case in Morgan Hill California, where students were kicked off campus and disciplined for the crime of wearing T-shirts which featured American flags.
Moreover, in schools such as New Hampshire Estates Elementary School, we see children admitting their parents are illegal aliens while dancing around a Mexican flag with the First Lady, Michelle Obama.
These two examples alone, and there are a myriad of others, clearly show that Teddy Roosevelt’s caution to immigrants entering the U.S., that there is only room for one flag and one language, has been completely disregarded as hordes of immigrants pumped up with racist La Raza doctrines of radical liberation theology pour into the U.S. and claim it to be Mexico.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The correction is coming and it will be a bloodbath
Zero Hedge
May 20, 2010
The correction, soon to be crash, is here: the market had a bigger relative open to close move today than it did on May 6. We closed at the day’s lows on massive volume, despite definitive central bank intervention, regardless whether it was the SNB, the ECB, or the Fed. The central planners have lost control of the market, and all thanks to the inevitable collapse of hyper capitalist Keynesianism coming out of the formerly most communist country in the world. A day of ironies. And it’s not over. Futures are already down another 4 handles. The correction is coming, and it will be a bloodbath. The Fed can not push rates lower. It will print. It is inevitable. It is our destiny.
Update: Futures now 7 handles lower. 46 point move in ES: that is almost a 5% move in the S&P for now.
May 20, 2010
The correction, soon to be crash, is here: the market had a bigger relative open to close move today than it did on May 6. We closed at the day’s lows on massive volume, despite definitive central bank intervention, regardless whether it was the SNB, the ECB, or the Fed. The central planners have lost control of the market, and all thanks to the inevitable collapse of hyper capitalist Keynesianism coming out of the formerly most communist country in the world. A day of ironies. And it’s not over. Futures are already down another 4 handles. The correction is coming, and it will be a bloodbath. The Fed can not push rates lower. It will print. It is inevitable. It is our destiny.
Update: Futures now 7 handles lower. 46 point move in ES: that is almost a 5% move in the S&P for now.
Mexican President Denounces Arizona Law Despite Laws Against Illegal Immigration in His Own Country
Thursday, May 20, 2010
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer
At a May 19, 2010 press conference in the White House Rose Garden, President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon both criticized the new illegal immigration law in Arizona. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)(CNSNews.com) – At a joint press conference in the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday, President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon criticized Arizona’s new law against illegal immigration.
Calderon, through a translator, called the law “discriminatory,” while Obama said the wording of the law was “troublesome” and could lead to innocent people being “harassed or arrested.”
“I think the Arizona law has the potential of being applied in a discriminatory fashion,” Obama said. He said a “fair reading of the language of the statute” raises the possibility that individuals suspected of being in the country illegally could be “harassed or arrested.”
Calderon said while he remains “respectful of the internal policies of the United States,” he firmly rejects criminalizing “migration” so that “people who work and provide things for this nation (USA) will be treated as criminals.”
In Calderon’s Mexico, however, illegal immigration is punished with fines and deportations.
President Obama -- who took only two questions from foreign journalists at the press conference -- said he has asked the Justice Department to examine the Arizona immigration law for possible civil rights violations. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)“I know that we share the interest in promoting dignified, legal and orderly living conditions to all migrant workers,” Calderon said through a translator in his prepared remarks. “Many of them, despite their significant contribution to the economy and to the society of the United States, still live in the shadows, and occasionally, as in Arizona, they even face discrimination.”
Obama -- who only took two questions, both from foreign journalists -- said he has asked the Justice Department to look into the Arizona law. Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder told the House Judiciary Committee he had not read the law that Obama and members of his administration have denounced since it was signed by Arizona governor Jan Brewer on April 23.
The two leaders’ criticism comes despite revisions to the Arizona law that expressly prohibit police from racial profiling.
The revised Arizona law specifically states that a person’s immigration status can be checked only if an individual is stopped for some other, valid reason. “A lawful stop, detention or arrest must be in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state,” the revised law says.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has not only criticized the Arizona law but has threatened to boycott Arizona. The immigration laws in Mexico, however, are stricter in some ways than U.S. immigration laws. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)By contrast, Mexican immigration law, revised in 2009, gives Mexican officials the right to check people’s immigration status, and if someone is found to be in the country illegally, they can be fined and deported. The law also requires foreigners to register with the government.
'Mexicans interfering'
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- who hosted Calderon for lunch at the State Department following the Rose Garden press conference – objecting to Mexico pressuring the U.S. about its immigration laws and policies.
“In their advocacy efforts on behalf of Mexican citizens living in the United States, President Calderon and other officials of the Mexican government have crossed the line and are interfering in the internal affairs of the United States,” Smith said in a statement on Wednesday.
“It is well recognized in international law that immigration controls are an internal matter, and not subject to international scrutiny,” Smith said. “Yet, President Calderon has opposed the recently enacted Arizona immigration law, which in fact mirrors federal law.
“Mexican government officials openly talk of a Mexican government boycott of Arizona, but make no effort to prevent their citizens from going there,” Smith said. “American public officials have the right and the responsibility to implement an immigration policy that is in the best interests of the American people.”
According to a White House press release, Obama and Calderon discussed “enhancing mutual economic growth” through the implementation of new, secure border crossings; “clean energy” and the fight against “global warming”; and combating “transnational organized crime.”
Under the heading “Enhancing Social Well Being and Ties Between Our People,” the press release states that Mexicans are needed to fill jobs in the United States.
“Both acknowledged the importance of fixing the broken immigration system, securing the common border and dismantling human trafficking groups, and to set clear rules and priorities for future immigration that level the playing field for American workers while providing a mechanism to fill labor demand in the United States in excess of domestic capacity,” the press release states.
The latest U.S. unemployment rate stands at 9.9 percent, according to the latest figure of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
New World Order Freaking Out Over Arizona Law
John Smithers
Wake Up 1776
May 20, 2010
For the first time in a long time I feel that the globalist/communist/international banker/progressives (aka the “New World Order”) are in a reaction phase due to this Arizona law. They are not used to reacting. They are used to being proactive in taking away our sovereignty. They have been in charge for a very long time and are now starting to see an uprising like never before.
Anyone notice that all of the talk shows are booking Spaniards like Antonio Banderas and other Hispanics? Ellen’s show, the View, and a bunch of other daily talk shows are focusing on nothing but bashing the Arizona law. That means they are scared that other states may pass similar legislation. Stopping illegal immigration will halt the North American Union, the American version of the European Union. The globalists strategy is to flood our nation with foreigners so that they can promise the foreigners free subsidies on the backs of the American taxpayers. But having 50 free and independent Republics (states) passing immigration reform will utterly destroy their hopes of destroying our nation through invasion.
And now today we have the Mexican “president” lecturing American lawmakers today on what laws we should and should not pass. And then try to tell us that the guns we make are what is causing the fighting in Mexico? I just get a sense that the New World Order is in jeopardy and they are scared we will take our nation back one state at a time.
Good job Arizona! Keep it up. We all support you! Every state needs to push for an Arizona law so they aren’t going it alone. They need us on their left and right flanks in this fight!
Wake Up 1776
May 20, 2010
For the first time in a long time I feel that the globalist/communist/international banker/progressives (aka the “New World Order”) are in a reaction phase due to this Arizona law. They are not used to reacting. They are used to being proactive in taking away our sovereignty. They have been in charge for a very long time and are now starting to see an uprising like never before.
Anyone notice that all of the talk shows are booking Spaniards like Antonio Banderas and other Hispanics? Ellen’s show, the View, and a bunch of other daily talk shows are focusing on nothing but bashing the Arizona law. That means they are scared that other states may pass similar legislation. Stopping illegal immigration will halt the North American Union, the American version of the European Union. The globalists strategy is to flood our nation with foreigners so that they can promise the foreigners free subsidies on the backs of the American taxpayers. But having 50 free and independent Republics (states) passing immigration reform will utterly destroy their hopes of destroying our nation through invasion.
And now today we have the Mexican “president” lecturing American lawmakers today on what laws we should and should not pass. And then try to tell us that the guns we make are what is causing the fighting in Mexico? I just get a sense that the New World Order is in jeopardy and they are scared we will take our nation back one state at a time.
Good job Arizona! Keep it up. We all support you! Every state needs to push for an Arizona law so they aren’t going it alone. They need us on their left and right flanks in this fight!
How Mercury Kills The Brain: Vaccines & Autism
Infowars.com
May 20, 2010
This video from the University of Calgary thoroughly shows how brain cells degenerate and die when being exposed to mercury. This is the same neurotoxin that is found in vaccines, which has led the the massive increase with people suffering from autism and other neurological diseases (mainly children). Mercury is one of the most toxic substances you can put in a human body. It is a heavy metal known to contribute to neurological disorders, including autism, dementia, and even Alzheimer’s disease. Mercury also tends to build up in tissues in the human body and is not easily removed, so even small exposures to mercury can accumulate over time and end up compromising the health of the person involved. It’s vital you do the proper research before you plan to get any sort of vaccine injected in you especially if you are planning to have your children vaccinated.
Agenda 21 Alert: Immigration Theater
Agenda 21 Alert: Immigration Theater
Cassandra Anderson
Infowars.com
May 20, 2010
The purpose of the federal government’s neglect of protecting the border with Mexico is so that illegal immigrants can pass through it, virtually at will, in order to create a nearly open border. This accomplishes the globalists’ objectives of weakening sovereignty and nationalism, developingeconomic strife, and fomenting discord between taxpaying citizens and illegal immigrants, which are necessary elements to implement the North American Union. Further, it sets the stage for amnesty and the federal government’s immigration bill that would establish a national ID card for all workers, the inroad to REAL ID.
A protester holds a placard near Arizona State Troopers close to the state’s capitol building in Phoenix.
Arizona’s new immigration law (SB1070)
In response to Los Angeles City Council’s vote to boycott Arizona, an Arizona utility regulator
However, Arizona’s new immigration law may not be the picture of freedom and sovereignty that has been painted. Due to some language in the law, it is possible that any state agency or state subdivision may hand over any data on any person for any public benefit, service or license . This could set up a national database
F. EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN FEDERAL LAW, OFFICIALS OR AGENCIES OF THIS STATE AND COUNTIES, CITIES, TOWNS AND OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS OF THIS STATE MAY NOT BE PROHIBITED OR IN ANY WAY BE RESTRICTED FROM SENDING, RECEIVING OR MAINTAINING INFORMATION RELATING TO THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF ANY INDIVIDUAL OR EXCHANGING THAT INFORMATION WITH ANY OTHER FEDERAL, STATE OR LOCAL GOVERNMENTAL ENTITY FOR THE FOLLOWING OFFICIAL PURPOSES:
1. DETERMINING ELIGIBILITY FOR ANY PUBLIC BENEFIT, SERVICE OR LICENSE PROVIDED BY ANY FEDERAL, STATE, LOCAL OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF HIS STATE.
2. VERIFYING ANY CLAIM OF RESIDENCE OR DOMICILE IF DETERMINATION OF RESIDENCE OR DOMICILE IS REQUIRED UNDER THE LAWS OF THIS STATE OR A
JUDICIAL ORDER ISSUED PURSUANT TO A CIVIL OR CRIMINAL PROCEEDING IN THIS
STATE.
3. CONFIRMING THE IDENTITY OF ANY PERSON WHO IS DETAINED.
A better solution would be to protect any information that is collected by keeping it within the State. And guarding the borders.
Incidentally, the author of the bill, State Senator Russell Pearce
While Arizona pretends to be the model of freedom, it has hidden the truth in another PR stunt: Governor Jan Brewer promised to allow the State’s freeway speeding camera contracts expire. What the mainstream media isn’t revealing is that these cameras comprise less than 10% of radar cameras
For more information on Agenda 21 Sustainable Development, please visit http://www.morphcity.com/.
Pig virus contaminates rotavirus vaccines, but FDA says no problem
Mike Adams
Natural News
May 20, 2010
Rotavirus vaccines are commonly given to children, and this year’s batch of vaccines made by GlaxoSmithKline and Merck are contaminated with a pig virus, the FDA recently discovered. So the FDA called a meeting to determine whether injecting a pig virus into the bodies of young children might be some sort of problem requiring a recall of the vaccines.
Can you guess what conclusion the agency reached? As reported by Reuters, the FDA concluded “…it was safe for doctors to resume giving patients Glaxo’s Rotarix and continue using Merck’s Rotateq. The agency said there was no evidence the contamination caused any harm…”
In other words, as long as they can bury the evidence and deny any link between vaccines and health problems — which has been the standard excuse of the FDA for decades — they can continue to claim the vaccines are safe enough to inject into little children.
The Establishment Is In Full Blown Panic Over Rand Paul
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The establishment is in full blown panic over the runaway success of Kentucky primary winner Rand Paul and has set about attacking the son of Congressman Ron Paul from every conceivable angle in an attempt to undermine his support base and ensure his defeat by a Democratic opponent in November.
Whatever your personal agreements or disagreements with the nuances of Paul’s policies, the fact is that he represents the rarest breed of politician – one not controlled by special interests – and that is a fundamental threat to the status quo and the gravy train for the crooks and scoundrels in Washington DC.
On the one hand, establishment neo-con news organs like the New York Daily News have attempted to eviscerate Paul’s Tea Party base by implying that he is not “conservative” enough in that he doesn’t support endless unconstitutional wars of aggression that have not been authorized by Congress. Of course, classical conservatism of the George Washington, founding fathers variety, dictates that foreign policy should be based around a strong national defense while avoiding foreign entanglements and interventionism – which is exactly what Rand Paul embraces.
So the sight of the neo-cons trotting out the universally loathed Dick Cheney – he had the lowest approval ratings for any Vice President in recent history – to back Paul’s opponent Trey Grayson was a pathetic effort to characterize Paul as being soft on foreign policy, a tactic that went out of date some five years ago, and its failure was evident in the size of Paul’s crushing victory.
Establishment neo-con Republicans have to know that the game is up. Unless they can completely take over and subvert the Tea Party movement, which they have openly called for, it’s all over for them. The fact that the Tea Party got right behind Paul despite his openly stated desire to bring the troops home proves that neo-con sentiment within the ranks of the Tea Party is on the wane. Conservatives are finally starting to understand that unconstitutional foreign wars of aggression are not conservative.
On the flip side of the rigged political spectrum we have the neo-libs crying foul about Paul’s libertarian credentials. Despite the fact that Paul has vehemently supported his father’s stance of shrinking big government, legalizing marijuana and ending the drug war, putting a stop to banker bailouts, reducing the national debt, lowering taxes, and restoring personal liberties, just because Paul hasn’t explicitly supported gay marriage, this invalidates everything else according to this warped and myopic argument.
In reality, the issues of abortion and gay marriage have always divided libertarians into socially conservative and socially liberal camps. Rand Paul believes that one of the few roles of government should be to protect life, which he believes begins at conception. Just because Paul doesn’t believe that individual freedom should give people the freedom to kill their own children doesn’t make him a neo-con.
While people who profess to be libertarians may grandstand with righteous indignation and attack Paul for his stance on abortion in the belief that they are performing some kind of moral duty to “expose” him as a neo-con, in reality they are only doing the bidding of the establishment in acting as the left-wing of the pincer attack on the Senatorial candidate’s support base.
The establishment does not care from which direction the mud is thrown at Rand Paul – so long as some of it sticks – which is why they will continue to desperately try to undermine him before the elections in November, while still failing to grasp that real populist candidates who resonate with the burgeoning resistance to big government are all but immune to such smears.
Aided by helpful attacks from both sides, Democrats are apparently “giddy” about taking on Paul come November, but so long as the Senate contender sticks to his core principles, he should have little problem in seeing off an opponent who will be unable to extricate his campaign from the plunging popularity of Barack Obama and the big government agenda that he fronts for.
“I say bring it on,” Rand Paul shot back yesterday. “Please bring President Obama to Kentucky, bring him to campaign as much and as often as they can because he’s incredibly unpopular here, the Democrat policies are incredibly unpopular here – so I say bring it on.”
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Dow Theorist Richard Russell: Sell Everything, You Won’t Recognize America By The End Of The Year
Joe Weisenthal
Business Insider
May 19, 2010
WHOA!
Richard Russell, the famous writer of the Dow Theory Letters, has a chilling line in today’s note:
Do your friends a favor. Tell them to "batten down the hatches" because there’s a HARD RAIN coming. Tell them to and sell anything they can sell (and don’t need) in order to get liquid. Tell them that Richard Russell says that by the end of this year they won’t recognize the country. They’ll retort, "How the dickens does Russell know — who told him?" Tell them the stock market told him.
That’s pretty intense!
Update: By popular demand, here’s more on what he sees in the market. The gist is that the markets recent gyrations are telling him that the economy is in trouble:
Read entire article:
http://www.businessinsider.com/dow-theorist-richard-russell-sell-everything-liquid-you-wont-recognize-america-by-the-end-of-the-year-2010-5
Snake Oil Salesman Obama Peddles Worthless Wall Street Reform
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
May 19, 2010
Congress will save us from Wall Street, Obama said in his weekly radio and internet address. The bill in Congress will curb predatory lending practices, prevent banks from taking on too much risk, and give shareholders more of a say, Obama insisted. “Put simply, Wall Street reform will bring greater security to folks on Main Street. My responsibility as president isn’t just to help our economy rebound from this recession; it’s to make sure an economic crisis like the one that helped trigger this recession never happens again,” he said. “That’s what Wall Street reform will help us do.”
The Democrat Borg collective show its support as Obama visited Buffalo, New York.
Right. And I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn.
In fact, the Senate “financial reform” bill does almost nothing to “reform” Wall Street. It leaves the derivatives market in place. It does nothing to address the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives crisis threatening to smash the global economy like a bug. Derivatives and securitization are the primary toxins at the core of the current crisis. The Senate has fashioned a bill with a loophole you could drive a Mack truck through — a truck loaded up with derivatives.
How will the Democrats protect us from Wall Street? Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd’s “reform” bill claims the government will crack the whip over the derivatives market by mandating that most trades go through a clearinghouse, a scheme that will supposedly shed more light on secret market trading and allow for government regulators to more effectively police derivatives.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
But there is a problem. There is absolutely no consequence if firms evade the requirements. The bill “includes a brief section that completely undercuts that new rule,” writes Zach Carter. “Under the current bill, there is no penalty for anybody who fails to centrally clear their trades — even though the bill labels this activity illegal. What’s more, even though this behavior is illegal, the trade itself is still valid. In other words, banks are required to bring their trading into the open. But if they don’t shed light on their trades, nothing will happen to them. I wonder what banks will choose.”
In short, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo — representing 97 percent of the total activity in the U.S. banking system and the equivalent of 60 percent of GDP — will continue to trade derivatives under the cover of darkness. It will business as usual on Wall Street. The engineered destruction of the economy will continue unabated.
The snake oil salesman and teleprompter reader Obama will do nothing to save you and your family from impending doom. If Obama was serious about reforming Wall Street, he’d show Larry Summers and the other bankster operatives in his administration the door. Summers and his pal Robert Rubin were responsible for killing off the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act during the Clinton administration.
Repealing Glass-Steagall allowed monsters such as Citigroup to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and deliver the economy to the periphery of destruction.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Senator: Kagan Argued Government Could Ban Books
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, May 17, 2010
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Mitch McConnell pointed out that Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan once argued that the government should have the power to ban books and censor political pamphlets, as yet more alarming information on Kagan’s hostility towards the First Amendment comes to light.
During the Citizens United vs. FEC case, Kagan’s office was asked by Chief Justice John Roberts if the government could ban publications it they were paid for by a corporation or labor union.
“If it’s a 500-page book, and at the end it says, ‘and so vote for x,’ the government could ban that?” Roberts asked, to which Kagan’s deputy, Malcolm L. Stewart, said the government could censor such information.
Justice Roberts blasted Kagan’s argument at the time, reports Newsmax.
“The government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech. It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concern,” he wrote.
“Solicitor Kagan’s office in the initial hearing argued that it would be OK to ban books,” Senator McConnell said. “And then when there was a rehearing Solicitor Kagan herself in her first Supreme Court argument suggested that it might be OK to ban pamphlets.”
McConnell called for a full investigation of Kagan’s First Amendment stance in light of her “troubling” position on free speech, adding that classic political pamphlets like Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” and the Federalist Papers could be banned under Kagan’s logic.
Under Kagan’s definition of the government’s role in policing free speech, the state would also have a remit to censor things like newspaper editorials, as well as the political opinions of radio talk show hosts or television reporters. This is alarming given the fact that Obama’s information technology czar Cass Sunstein has called for the re-introduction of the “fairness doctrine,” which would also force political websites to carry mandatory government propaganda.
Obama’s Supreme Court nominee also thinks certain expressions of free speech should be ‘disappeared’ if the government deems them to be offensive. On the surface that’s any opinion on racial, sexuality or gender issues, but since criticizing Obama is now deemed racist, where will it all end?
In a 1993 University of Chicago Law review article, Kagan wrote, “I take it as a given that we live in a society marred by racial and gender inequality, that certain forms of speech perpetuate and promote this inequality, and that the uncoerced disappearance of such speech would be cause for great elation.” (emphasis mine).
“In a 1996 paper, “Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine,” Kagan argued it may be proper to suppress speech because it is offensive to society or to the government,” reports World Net Daily.
Kagan’s standpoint on free speech, that it is subject to regulation and definition by the government, has no place in America, completely violates the fundamental premise of the First Amendment, that even unpopular speech should be protected, and would be better suited for countries like Iran, Zimbabwe or North Korea.
Little surprise therefore when we learn that in her undergraduate thesis at Princeton, Kagan lamented the decline of socialism in the U.S. as “sad” for those who still hope to “change America.”
If Kagan is approved she is going to find an eager ally in White House information czar Cass Sunstein, who in a January 2008 white paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” called for the government to tax and outright censor political viewpoints it deemed unsavory.
Kagan’s repulsive take on the rights enshrined in the Constitution is not just limited to free speech.
The Supreme Court nominee outlined her belief that Americans can be guilty until proven innocent, or in fact just plain guilty without even the chance to be proven innocent, when she was quoted as saying, “That someone suspected of helping finance Al Qaeda should be subject to battlefield law — indefinite detention without a trial — even if he were captured in a place like the Philippines rather than a physical battle zone.”
Kagan is also hostile to the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms. She has habitually come down on the side of gun control in claiming the state has the right to impose restrictive gun laws and said that she disagrees with the language of the Second Amendment.
Despite accepting the 5-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller as a precedent on gun rights, Kagan added that the Constitution “provides strong although not unlimited protection against governmental regulation,” thus leaving the door open for future regulation.
Gates Foundation Suggests Sterilizing Males with Ultrasound
Tiffany O’Callaghan
Time.com
May 17, 2010
Among the 78 research projects to receive $100,000 grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation earlier this week as part of the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, is an effort by researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, to develop a non-invasive, reversible form of birth control for men — using ultrasound. Based on preliminary trials in rats, researchers James Tsuruta and Paul Dayton hope to develop a technique that would render men temporarily infertile for up to six months after one or two ultrasound exposures.
The project is one of 10 to receive grants toward the goal of creating new technologies for contraception. Other projects geared toward men include a male contraceptive pill that researchers say would work by limiting the maturation of sperm, and research into the specific chemical compounds in the vagina that guide sperm to egg — which researchers hope to recreate in the lab and potentially use to “disrupt” sperm navigation en route to the egg. (Earlier this year, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco uncovered clues about how pH levels impact how sperm swim, and expressed hope that further research in this arena could yield possibilities for male contraception as well.)
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