The Syndrum Files

Crooks, Computers, and the Coming Crash

2009-09-07T08:13:00.007+02:00

As stocks continued to rally into September, one has to ask one’s self, “just who’s buying this rally?”

The answer?

Computers and no one else.

I’ve written extensively about the computer trading programs that are dominating this market. All told, High Frequency Trading Programs HFTPs control 70% of trading volume on the NYSE.

However, at this point, five stocks (yes only five) account for 40% of the trading volume on the market. Those five stocks: Citigroup, CIT Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG. Think about that, five stocks out of several thousand, are accounting for 40% of ALL trading.

And which five are they?

Five that are virtually guaranteed to be propped up by the government in one way or another (CIT indirectly through Goldman and other government-aligned groups). This summates today’s market like nothing else: folks are ONLY trading the investments that they know are on life support from the government.

That metaphor extends to the entire economy. Nearly 20% of incomes come from the government. More than 34 million Americans are on food stamps. This will continue. The government will extend unemployment and every other short-term “fix” it can. But it won’t do ANYTHING to create real job growth.

The life support metaphor extends to the financial system as well. The Fed has extended TRILLIONS to support virtually everything out there. Here’s a brief list of some of the more major items:

* The Federal Reserve cutting interest rates from 5.25-0.25% (Sept ’07-today)
* Bear Stearns / the Fed taking on $30 billion in junk mortgages (March ’08)
* The Fed opens up various lending windows to investment banks (March ’08)
* The SEC proposes banning short-selling on financial stocks (July ’08)
* Hank Paulson uses the blank check with Fannie/ Freddie spending $400 billion in the process (Sept ’08).
* The Fed takes over insurance company AIG (Sept ’08) for $85 billion.
* The Fed doles out $25 billion for the auto makers (Sept ’08)
* The Feds kick off the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) with the Government taking stakes in private banks (Oct ’08)
* The Fed offers to buy commercial paper (non-bank debt) from non-financial firms (Oct ’08)
* The Fed offers $540 billion to backstop money market funds (Oct ’08)
* The Feds agree to back up to $280 billion of Citigroup’s liabilities (Oct ’08).
* $40 billion more to AIG (Nov ’08)
* Feds agree to back up $140 billion of Bank of America’s liabilities (Jan ’09)
* Obama’s $787 Billion Stimulus (Jan ’09)
* Fed announces its plans to buy $300 billion of Treasuries (Mar ’09)

Most if not ALL major banks, the stock market, the debt market, and more are on Fed life support right now in one form or another. Take this life support away, and you have a full-scale collapse. I’m talking about 300 on the S&P 500 and 3,000 on the Dow.

And what a life support it is:

The above chart is what you get when you throw trillions (literal trillions) at the financial system. But does throwing money around create sustained recovery? NOPE. I’ve often railed that the market is discounting an economic recovery that does not exist. However, I may have been wrong… at least in terms of what the market is discounting.

Today, I would argue that the market is discounting Ben Bernanke’s “juicing” of the system. The rise from 666 to 1,033 was the market announcing “this guy is going to throw as much money as he can at the crisis and it’s going to flow into the market.” This is a liquidity rally driven by non-thinking computer programs, not a rally based on fundamentals.

Speaking of which…

I’ve watched with first amusement, then disgust, and ultimately outrage as various pundits proclaimed Bernanke’s efforts “saved the financial system” or helped the US “weather the storm.” Bernanke did NO such thing. You could train a chimpanzee to hit the “print money” button at the Fed every-time the Fed phone rings with a Wall Street number and get the same results. To date, Bernanke has spent or put the taxpayer on the hook for some $24 TRILLION in bailouts, lending windows, and off balance sheet arrangements.

AND HE’S FIXED NOTHING.

Banks remain insolvent (if you marked their assets at market value, they’d all wipe out equity in a second), mortgages remain underwater, hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to lose their jobs every month, foreign investors grow increasingly distrustful of the dollar, and the financial system continues to have multiple black swans… all of which could bring about another CRASH.

Indeed, anyone looking to proclaim Bernanke as a savior should review the below video which shows that the guy DIDN’T HAVE A CLUE about the financial system/ economy from 2005-2007. Just click on the below image to watch (video should load in your Internet Browser). Prepare to see an Ivy-league educated guy who’s in charge of our monetary system NOT see the biggest housing bubble in US history OR the worst financial crisis since the ‘30s (an era on which he is an alleged expert).

Video of Bernanke’s mistakes:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ79Pt2GNJo)

However, to focus on Bernanke’s incompetence is to overlook his culpability in destroying Americans’ wealth. In the last 12 months alone, the man has committed perjury (he lied under oath about no longer monetizing debt), embezzlement ($24 trillion gone to banks at least $9 trillion of which no one, not even the head of oversight at the Fed, kept track of), fraud (any proclamation of green shoots or recovery is fraud), corruption (forcing Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch), and more.

It would, in fact, be no exaggeration to say that Ben Bernanke is a financial criminal on a scale that makes Bernie Madoff look like Mr. Rogers. Madoff ripped off $50 billion. Bernanke is currently destroying the middle class in the US, trashing our currency, worsening EVERY Americans’ quality of life, and erasing any hopes of retirement for millions of Boomers.

In simple terms, Bailout Ben, in a mere year and a half, has overseen the destruction of 30% of US household wealth (from a housing and stock bubble he FAILED to see coming while working under Greenspan). He has yet to do a single thing to protect the average American or the dollar, but instead has opted to funnel trillions of taxpayer dollars over to Wall Street so that Goldman Sachs and friends could claim they’re not insolvent and pay themselves RECORD bonuses.

Indeed, Bernanke has re-created late 2007: the time when stocks went up day after day after day on lower volume and no fundamentals. Indeed, if I had to summate the entire market rally since July in one sentence it would be: insane euphoria and discounting of Fed pumping. The 2007 reference is not mere whimsy either.

Insider selling is at its highest ratio to insider buying since October 2007. The Relative Strength Index for the market recently hit levels we haven’t seen since October 2007. Corporate debt issuance is at October 2007 levels (companies issue as much debt as they can when stocks are up). 36% of investors are bullish and 24% bearish: a gap we haven’t seen since… October 2007.

Bernanke has literally re-created the sentiment of late 2007: a time when fundamentals didn’t mean a thing.

And that didn’t end well.

Folks, the US stock market is an enormous house of cards propped up by the biggest bubble-blower in history. Fundamentals have NOT improved, the economy continues to collapse (regardless of the GDP accounting gimmicks they use to claim we’re out of the recession), and stocks are at least 20-30% overvalued.

By Graham Summers
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Summers/sep012009.html

The second crash is on its way. Its just a matter of timing....

Wish you weren't here: The devastating effects of the new colonialists

2009-08-11T23:16:00.002+02:00

A new breed of colonialism is rampaging across the world, with rich nations buying up the natural resources of developing countries that can ill afford to sell. Some staggering deals have already been done, says Paul Vallely, but angry locals are now trying to stop the landgrabs

Sunday, 9 August 2009 - Paul Vallely - The Independent

Thousand of protesters took to the streets, waving the orange flags of the opposition. Before long, looting began. Buildings were set on fire. But the turning point came when a crowd moved from the main square towards the presidential palace. Amid the confusion, someone panicked and gave the order to the troops guarding the palace to open fire. Scores died. The leaders of the army decided they'd had enough and stormed the palace, causing the president to flee.

A typical African coup d'état? Not quite. Certainly there were allegations of corruption in high places. The president had bought a private jet – from a member of the Disney family – for his own personal use. He was accused of unnecessary extravagance, of mismanaging public funds and confusing the interests of the state with his own. But something else had whipped up the protesters in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, earlier this year, when the government of Marc Ravalomanana was overthrown in the former French colony.

The urban poor were angry at the price of food, which had been high since the massive rise in global prices of wheat and rice the year before. Food-price rises hit the poor worse than the rest of us because they spend up to two-thirds of their income on food. But what whipped them into action was news of a deal the government had recently signed with a giant Korean multinational, Daewoo, leasing 1.3 million hectares of farmland – an area almost half the size of Belgium and about half of all arable land on the island – to the foreign company for 99 years. Daewoo had announced plans to grow maize and palm oil there – and send all the harvests back to South Korea.

Terms of the deal had not originally been made public. But then the news leaked, via the Financial Times in London, that the firm had paid nothing for the lease. Daewoo had promised to improve the island's infrastructure in support of its investment. "We will provide jobs for them by farming it, which is good for Madagascar," a Daewoo spokesman said. But the direct cash benefit to Madagascar would be zero – in a country which can barely produce enough food to feed itself: nearly half of the island's children under the age of five are malnourished.

The government of President Ravalomanana became the first in the world to be toppled because of what the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization recently described as "landgrabbing". The Daewoo deal is only one of more than 100 land deals which have, over the past 12 months, seen massive tracts of cultivable farmland across the globe bought up by wealthy countries and international corporations. The phenomenon is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe's farmland targeted in just the past six months.

To understand the impotent fury that provokes in impoverished farmers, consider the reaction if something similar happened in Britain. The international development policy consultant Mark Weston has a vivid image to help: "Imagine if China, following a brief negotiation with a British government desperate for foreign cash after the collapse of the economy, bought up the whole of Wales, replaced most of its inhabitants with Chinese workers, turned the entire country into an enormous rice field, and sent all the rice produced there for the next 99 years back to China," he suggests.

"Imagine that neither the evicted Welsh nor the rest of the British public knew what they were getting in return for this, having to content themselves with vague promises that the new landlords would upgrade a few ports and roads and create jobs for local people.

"Then, imagine that, after a few years – and bearing in mind that recession and the plummeting pound have already made it difficult for Britain to buy food from abroad – an oil-price spike or an environmental disaster in one of the world's big grain-producing nations drives global food prices sharply upwards, and beyond the reach of many Britons. While the Chinese next door in Wales continue sending rice back to China, the starving British look helplessly on, ruing the day their government sold off half their arable land. Some of them plot the violent recapture of the Welsh valleys."

Change the place names to Africa and the scenario is much less far-fetched. It is happening already, which is why many, including Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, has warned that the world may be slipping into a "neo-colonial" system. Even that great champion of the free market, the FT, described the Daewoo deal as "rapacious" and warned it is but the most "brazen example of a wider phenomenon" as rich nations seek to buy up the natural resources of poor countries.

The extent of this new colonialism is vast. The buyers are wealthy countries that are unable to grow their own food. The Gulf states are at the forefront of new investments. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar – which between them control nearly 45 per cent of the world's oil – are snapping up agricultural land in fertile countries such as Brazil, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Egypt. But they are ' also targeting the world's poorest countries, such as Ethiopia, Cameroon, Uganda, Zambia and Cambodia.

The amounts of land involved are staggering. South Korean companies have bought 690,000 hectares in Sudan, where at least six other countries are known to have secured large land-holdings – and where food supplies for the local population are among the least secure anywhere in the world. The Saudis are negotiating 500,000 hectares in Tanzania. Firms from the United Arab Emirates have landed 324,000 hectares in Pakistan.

But they are not the only buyers. Countries with large populations such as China, South Korea and even India are acquiring swathes of African farmland to produce food for export. The Indian government has lent money to 80 companies to buy 350,000 hectares in Africa and recently lowered the tariffs under which Ethiopian agri-products can enter India. One of the biggest holdings of agriculture land in the world is a Bangalore-based company, Karuturi Global, which has recently bought huge areas in Ethiopia and Kenya.

Food is not all the new colonialists are after. About a fifth of the massive new deals are for land on which to grow biofuels. British, US and German companies with names such as Flora Ecopower have bought land in Tanzania and Ethiopia. The country whose name became a byword for famine at the time of the Live Aid concerts has had more than 50 investors sign deals or register an interest in the cultivation of biofuel crops on its soil.

From Ethiopia's point of view, the economic logic is straightforward: the country is an importer of oil and is therefore vulnerable to price fluctuations on the world market; if it can produce biofuels it will lessen that dependency. But at a cost. To keep the foreign biofuel investors happy, the government doesn't force any companies to carry out environmental impact assessments. Local activists claim that 75 per cent of the land allocated to foreign biofuel firms are covered in forests that will be cut down.

More worrying is the plan by a Norwegian biofuel company to create "the largest jatropha plantation in the world" by deforesting large tracts of land in northern Ghana. Jatropha, which can be cultivated in poor soil, produces oily seeds that can produce biodiesel. A local activist, Bakari Nyari, of the African Biodiversity Network, has accused the company of "using methods that hark back to the darkest days of colonialism... by deceiving an illiterate chief to sign away 38,000 hectares with his thumbprint". The company claims the scheme will bring jobs, but the extensive deforestation which would result would deprive local people of their traditional income from gathering forest products such as shea nuts.

The failed Daewoo land deal in Madagascar may have been intended to be the biggest landgrab planned to date, but it is far from the only one.

So what is the cause of this sudden explosion of land acquisition across the globe? It has its roots in the food crisis of 2007/8, when prices of rice, wheat and other cereals skyrocketed across the world, triggering riots from Haiti to Senegal. The price spike also led food-growing countries to slap export tariffs on staple crops to minimise the amounts that left their countries. That tightened the supply still further, meaning food prices were driven up more by a situation of policy-created scarcity than by supply and demand.

This situation also made many rich countries that are reliant on massive food imports question one of the fundamentals of the global economy: the idea that every country should concentrate on its best products and then trade. Suddenly having unimaginable quantities of cash from oil was not enough to guarantee you all the food you needed. The oil sheikhs of the Gulf states found that food imports had doubled in cost over less than five years. In the future it might get even worse. You could no longer rely on regional and global markets, they concluded. The rush to grab land began.

The logic was clear. The highly populous South Korea is the world's fourth-biggest importer of maize; the Madagascar deal would replace about half of Korea's maize imports, a Daewoo spokesman boasted. The Gulf states were equally open: control of foreign farmland would not only secure food supplies, it would eliminate the cut taken by middlemen and reduce its food-import bills by more than 20 per cent.

And the benefits could only increase. The fundamental conditions that had led to the global food crisis were unchanged, and might easily worsen. The UN predicts that by 2050, the world population will have grown by 50 per cent. Growing the food to feed nine billion people will place enormous pressure on the Earth, eroding soils, denuding forests and draining rivers. Climate change will make all that worse. Oil prices will continue to rise, and with them the cost of fertiliser and tractor fuel. Demand for biofuels would further cut land available for food crops. The 2007/8 price crunch might just be a foretaste of something worse. The times of plenty are already over. Next, there might not be enough food to go round, even for those with lots of money.

We have not really noticed it here, because the UK, like the US, still instinctively seems to place unlimited faith in the ability of the market to provide. But other countries have begun to devise a long-term strategic response.

The clearest public sign of that came in June when, just before the meeting of world leaders at the G8 in Italy, the Japanese prime minister, Taro Aso, asked: "Is the current food crisis just another market vagary?" He replied to his own question: "Evidence suggests not; we are undergoing a transition to a new equilibrium, reflecting a new economic, climatic, demographic and ecological reality."

But the market is having its say, too: the cost of land is rising. Prices have jumped 16 per cent in Brazil, 31 per cent in Poland, and 15 per cent in the midwestern United States. Veteran speculators such as George Soros, Jim Rogers and Lord Jacob Rothschild are snapping up farmland right now. Rogers – who between 1970 and 1980 increased the value of his equities portfolio by 4,200 per cent, and who made another fortune predicting the commodities rally in 1999 – last month said: "I'm convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time."

After the disastrous involvement of financial speculators in housing – the global recession had its roots in the development of mortgage-based derivatives – it is hardly reassuring that the same financial whiz-kids are turning to land as a new source of profit. "The food and financial crises combined," says the Philippines-based food lobby group Grain, "have turned agricultural land into a new strategic asset."

In one way, that ought to be a good thing for poor countries. Land is what they have in plenty. And the agricultural sector in developing countries is in urgent need of capital. Aid once provided this, but the share of that which goes to farming fell from $20bn a year in the 1980s to just $5bn a year in 2007, according to Oxfam. A mere 5 per cent of aid now goes to rural-development agriculture, even though in the poorest places such as Africa, more than 70 per cent of the population rely on farming for their income. Decades of low investment have meant stagnating production and productivity.

Landgrab deals ought, at least, to rectify that by injecting much-needed investment into agriculture in these countries. That ought to bring new jobs and a steady income to the rural poor. It should bring new technology and know-how to local farmers. It should develop rural infrastructure, such as roads and grain-storage systems, to the good of the entire community. It should build new schools and health posts that will benefit all. It should give African governments much-needed taxes to invest in developing their countries. All of which should lessen dependency of food aid. Landgrabs should produce a win-win situation.

That was the kind of big billing which the government in Kenya gave to the deal it did recently with the state of Qatar. Just one per cent of land in the Arab emirate is cultivable, so Qatar is heavily reliant on food imports. The deal was that Qatar would get 40,000 hectares of land to grow food in return for building a $2.5bn deep-water port at Lamu in Kenya.

Unfortunately, even as the negotiations with Qatar proceeded, the Kenyan government was forced to announce a state of emergency because a third of Kenya's population of 34 million was facing food shortages. President Mwai Kibaki declared the situation a national disaster and appealed for international food relief. Hungry voters often fail to understand the long-term attractions of the economic advantages which could be brought to Kenya by creating what would be only its second deep-water port and opening up a third of the country – in the arid and neglected north-east – to development. This is a country, after all, where people kill for land, as was shown after the botched elections in 2007.

If the world food crisis tightens, as everyone seems to predict, it will become ever more unpalatable politically for a government such as Kenya's to countenance the massive export of food at a time of shortage. That is even more true in a continent as politically unstable as Africa.

There is, in any case, already fierce opposition from many to projects like this. The land offered to Qatar is in the Tana River delta. It is fertile with abundant fresh water but it is home to 150,000 farming and pastoralist families who regard the land as communal and graze 60,000 cattle there. They have threatened armed resistance. They are supported by opposition activists, who object less to the land being developed, but want it to grow food for hungry Kenyans. Then there are the environmentalists, who say a pristine ecosystem of mangrove swamps, savannah and forests will be destroyed.

The environment is another major worry in many of the great rash of land deals. Growing food crops in huge plantations is dominated by large-scale intensive monoculture production using large quantities of fertiliser and pesticides. The results are spectacular at first – which might satisfy the yen of the outside investors for short-term profit. But it risks damaging the long-term sustainability of tropical soils unsuited for intensive cultivation and can do serious damage to the local water table. It reduces the diversity of plants, animals and insect life and threatens the long-term fertility of the land through soil erosion, waterlogging or increased salinity. The intensive use of agrochemicals could lead to water-quality problems, and irrigating the land-holdings of foreign investors may take water away from other users.

Water is a key issue. In a sense, these aren't landgrabs so much as water grabs, suggests the chief executive of Nestlé, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe. With the land comes the right to draw the water beneath it, which could be the most valuable part of the deal. "Water withdrawals for agriculture continue to increase rapidly. In some of the most fertile regions of the world (America, southern Europe, northern India, north-eastern China), over-use of water, mainly for agriculture, is leading to sinking water tables. Groundwater is being withdrawn, no longer as a buffer over the year, but in a structural way, mainly because water is seen as a free good."

The world needs to begin to think more urgently about water. The average person in the world uses between 3,000 and 6,000 litres a day. Barely a tenth of that is used for hygiene or manufacturing. The rest is used in farming. And the world's lifestyle, with factors such as increased meat-eating, is exacerbating the problem. Meat requires 10 times more water per calorie than plants. Biofuels are one of the most thirsty products on the planet; it takes up to 9,100 litres of water to grow the soya for one litre of biodiesel, and up to 4,000 litres for the corn to be transformed into bioethanol. "Under present conditions, and with the way water is being managed," the Nestlé chief says, "we will run out of water long before we run out of fuel".

Indeed, in many places underground, aquifers are falling; in some regions by several metres a year. Rivers are running dry due to over-use. And the worst problems are in some of the world's most important agricultural areas. If current trends hold, Frank Rijsberman of the International Water Management Institute has warned, soon "we could be facing annual losses equivalent to the entire grain crops of India and the US combined". Between them, they produce a third of all the world's cereals.

Is there a way forward? The Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute believes so. It has recently produced a report containing recommendations for a binding code of conduct to promote what Japan, the world's largest food importer, called for at the G8 in Italy – responsible foreign investment in agriculture in the face of the current pandemic of landgrabs.

It wants a code "with teeth" to ensure that smallholders being displaced from their land can negotiate mutually beneficial terms with foreign governments and multinationals. It wants measures to enforce any agreement, if promised jobs, wage levels or local facilities fail to materialise. It wants transparency, and it wants legal action in their home countries against firms that use bribes, rather than relying on prosecutions in the Third World. It wants respect for existing land rights – not just those which are written, but those which exist through custom and practice. It wants compulsory sharing of benefits, so that schools and hospitals get built and those living in areas around landgrabs get properly fed. It suggests shorter-term leases to provide a regular income to farmers whose land is taken away for other uses. Or, better still, it would like to see contract farming that leaves smallholders in control of their land but under contract to provide to the outside investor. It demands proper environmental impact assessments. And it says foreign investors should not have a right to export during an acute national food crisis.

No one is fooled that this will be easy. The local elites in developing countries have a vested interest in the lucrative deals on offer. The government in Cambodia has massively promoted landgrabbing, taking advantage of the fact that many land titles were destroyed under the terror of the Khmer Rouge. Mozambique has signed a $2bn deal that will involve 10,000 Chinese "settlers" on its land in return for $3m in military aid from Beijing. The strategic considerations are clear. "Food can be a weapon in this world," as Hong Jong-wan, a manager at Daewoo, put it.

But things are ratcheting up on the other side, too. Landgrabs are "a grave violation of the human right to food", in the words of Constanze von Oppeln of the big German development agency Welthungerhilfe, one of the most prominent campaigners in the field. She speaks for many who have no voice internationally – although they are making their presence felt well enough in their own countries. A huge public outcry erupted in Uganda when its government began talking to Egypt's ministry of agriculture about leasing nearly a million hectares to Egyptian firms for the production of wheat and maize destined for Cairo. Mozambicans have similarly resisted the settlement of the thousands of Chinese agricultural workers on its leased lands. Earlier this year, angry Filipinos successfully blocked a deal by the Philippines government with China which involved an astounding 1,240,000 hectares. And last month the same activists exposed what they call a "secret agricultural pact" between their government and Bahrain. With 80 per cent of the 90 million population landless, the deal is "unlawful and immoral", activists there say.

Food touches something very deep in the human psyche. Do not expect either side to give up without a fight.

Signs that an attack on Iran has been postponed indefinitely...

2009-08-09T11:25:00.004+02:00

For the past 5 years, Iran has been lambasted as the bastion of evil. A nation full of radicals, zealots bent on developing nuclear weapons so they can wipe out Israel. An enemy of good, seeking to destabilize Iraq through their proxy fighters. The rhetoric has been intense, the propaganda convincing. Support for an attack grew. If it weren't for such dire situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a world economy skating on thin thin ice, I believe an emboldened Israel and US would have already attacked.

Now, a few recent press releases indicate that an attack, for now at least, has been postponed.

1) A truce has been agreed between Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and a Shi’a resistance group called the "League of the Righteous" (Asa'ib al-Haq), formerly framed as Iran's proxy army bent on destabilizing Iraq. With this truce in place, the argument that Iran is the source of continued calamity in Iraq, will not hold much water.

2) According to a U.S. government intelligence estimate made public Thursday, Iran will not be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium until 2013, setting a notably later date than any recent intelligence estimates thus far. This runs completely counter to the claims of the hawks in US and Israel claiming we have no time to waste in dealing with Iran's nuclear weapon producing capability.

California sprouts marijuana 'green rush'

2009-07-20T00:30:00.002+02:00

(AP) -- A drug deal plays out, California-style: A conservatively dressed courier drives a company-leased Smart Car to an apartment on a weekday afternoon. Erick Alvaro hands over a white paper bag to his 58-year-old customer, who inspects the bag to ensure that everything he ordered over the phone is there.

An eighth-ounce of organic marijuana buds for treating his seasonal allergies? Check. An eighth of a different pot strain for insomnia? Check. THC-infused lozenges and tea bags? Check and check, with a free herb-laced cookie thrown in as a thank-you gift.

It's a $102 credit card transaction carried out with the practiced efficiency of a home-delivered pizza - and with just about as much legal scrutiny.

More and more, having premium pot delivered to your door in California is not a crime. It is a legitimate business.

Marijuana has transformed California. Since the state became the first to legalize the drug for medicinal use, the weed the federal government puts in the same category as heroin and cocaine has become a major economic force.

No longer relegated to the underground, pot in California these days props up local economies, mints millionaires and feeds a thriving industry of startups designed to grow, market and distribute the drug.

Based on the quantity of marijuana authorities seized last year, the crop was worth an estimated $17 billion or more, dwarfing any other sector of the state's agricultural economy.

Experts say most of that marijuana is still sold as a recreational drug on the black market. But more recently the plant has put down deep financial roots in highly visible, taxpaying businesses:

Stores that sell high-tech marijuana growing equipment. Pot clubs that pay rent and hire workers. Marijuana themed magazines and food products. Chains of for-profit clinics with doctors who specialize in medical marijuana recommendations.

The plant's prominence does not come without costs, say some critics. Marijuana plantations in remote forests cause severe environmental damage. Indoor grow houses in some towns put rentals beyond the reach of students and young families. Rural counties with declining economies cannot attract new businesses because the available work force is caught up in the pot industry. Authorities link the drug to violent crime in otherwise quiet small towns.

"For those of us who are on the front lines. It's not about pot is bad in itself or drugs are bad," said Meredith Lintott, district attorney in Mendocino County, one of the country's top marijuana-producing regions.

"It's about the negative consequences on children. It's about the negative consequences on the environment."

Still, the sheer scale of the overall pot economy has some lawmakers pushing for broader legalization as a way to shore up the finances of a state that has teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. The state's top tax collector estimates that taxing pot like liquor could bring in more than $1.3 billion annually.

On Tuesday, Oakland will consider a measure to tax the city's four marijuana dispensaries, which the controller projects will ring up $17.5 million in sales in 2010. The city faces an $83 million budget shortfall, and expects the marijuana tax to raise $300,000.

Advocates point out that making pot legal would create millions if not billions of dollars more in indirect sales - the ingredients used to make edible pot products, advertising, tourism and smoking paraphernalia.

With a recent poll showing more than half of Californians supporting legalization, pot advocates believe they will prevail. And they say other states will follow.

Tim Blake is the proprietor of a 145-acre spiritual retreat center which holds an annual marijuana bud-growing contest in the heart of Northern California's pot-growing country.

Politicians, he says, are "going to see the economic benefits, they're going to see the health benefits and they're going to jump on the bandwagon."

---

On a property flanked by vineyards, Mendocino County farmer Jim Hill grows marijuana for up to 20 patients, including himself and his wife. He believes passionately in marijuana's purported ability to treat the symptoms of diseases ranging from cancer to Alzheimer's; he says his wife suffers from a serotonin imbalance, and he uses the drug to treat digestive problems and intestinal cramping.

Hill's plants enjoy careful nurturing in a temperature-controlled greenhouse. On a recent spring day, his college-age son spread bat guano to fertilize two dozen 6-foot-tall plants.

Hill is 45 years old; he says he spent $10,000 to set up the garden. Patients receive their drugs free in exchange for helping with his crop.

"It's kind of like living on an apple orchard," Hill said. "You don't pay for an apple."

Though marijuana is cultivated throughout California, the most prized crops come from the forested mountains and hidden valleys of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties - the Emerald Triangle.

The economic impact of so much pot is difficult to gauge. Authorities say the largest grows are run by Mexican drug cartels that simply funnel money from forest-raised crops back into their own bank accounts.

Still, marijuana money from outdoor and indoor plots inevitably flows into local coffers. Marijuana increases residents' retail buying power by about $58 million countywide, according to a Mendocino County report. The county ranks 48th out of 58 counties in median income but, by counting pot proceeds, could jump as high as 18th.

Businesses benefit from mom-and-pop growers who cultivate pot to supplement their incomes and from marijuana plantation workers who descend on the Emerald Triangle from all over the country for the fall harvest. Pot "trimmers" can earn more than $40 per hour.

In Ukiah, the county's largest city, business owners say the extra cash is crucial. "I really don't think we would exist without it," says Nicole Martensen, 37, whose wine and garden shop is stocked with bottles from county vintners.

The skunk-like smell of marijuana hangs over the town of about 11,000 during the October harvest, when cash registers brim with $100 bills. Sometimes the wads of cash spent in Martensen's shop come dusted with pot.

But Ukiah banker Marty Lombardi says existing businesses cannot compete with pot industry wages for workers. Lombardi's bank does not make loans to anyone suspected of trying to fund a pot operation, but he said most growers do not need them.

"I don't think you or I have any sense for how much money is generated," he said.

Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman says medical marijuana operations that follow state and county laws will face no hassles from his department. His deputies left intact 154 marijuana grows they visited last year, he said

"If you're living in the boundaries, I'm not going to mess with you," Allman said.

Which is not to say that there is no legal risk to growing, selling or buying marijuana. Federal laws still apply, and pot dealings not deemed medicinal are considered criminal by the state.

Local, state and federal authorities pulled up 364,000 plants across Mendocino last year. And the state Department of Justice reported more than 16,000 felony arrests and nearly 58,000 misdemeanor arrests for marijuana offenses in 2007 - the highest numbers in a decade.

Sparky Rose sits in the federal prison in Lompoc, serving a 37-month term. Law enforcement officials insist he is one of many sellers who have used the medical marijuana law as a guise for old-time drug dealing. Rose does not disagree, although he would like to think he helped some legitimate pot patients in the process.

A one-time Web designer, he started out in 2001 making $15 an hour as a "bud tender" working the counter at an Oakland club. Four years later, he was overseeing a dispensary chain with stores in seven cities, 283 employees and sales reaching $5 million a month.

That's not as much as it seems, he says. Much of the money went to pay salaries, to purchase equipment and to buy 200 pounds of marijuana each week.

Rose says he was making $500,000 a year before his 2006 arrest, a sum he considers fair given the chain's volume and the risk he assumed as the company's public face. Before opening a new location, he would meet with local officials and police to get their implicit OK.

"We operated out in the open, and the feds knew who we were and they let us do it for four years, so as time goes on you get this comfortable feeling," he says.

"While I was still in the business, a lot people would ask me, 'I'm thinking about starting a club, what advice do you have?' "And I'd say, 'The biggest warning is sooner or later, you will start to think it's legal.'"

---

Even people accustomed to buying marijuana over the counter are impressed when they visit the Farmacy, a dispensary-cum-New Age apothecary with three locations in Los Angeles. Decorated in soft beige and staffed by workers in lab coats, the Venice store sells organic toiletries, essential oils and incense along with 25 types of pot stored in glass jars, including strains such as Beverly Bubba and Third Eye.

Anyone can shop there, but to buy the cannabis-infused gelato, olive oil, soft drinks and other "edibles," customers must show a doctor's recommendation, have the information verified by the doctor's office and obtain a patient identification number for future visits.

During a two-hour span, the dozen or so customers who made a purchase all bought pot products and paid the 9.25 percent state sales tax on top of their purchases. The clubs, which are not supposed to turn a profit, call their transactions "donations."

Allen Siegel is 74; he is dying of cancer and wants to try smoking marijuana to ease his pain without knocking him out like prescription drugs do. So his wife Ina brought him to the Farmacy for his first visit as a legal pot patient.

"You go in there and they have so many choices," she says.

California's "green rush" was spurred by a voter-approved law 13 years ago that authorized patients with a doctor's recommendation to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal use. Although a dozen other states have adopted similar laws, California is the only one where privately owned pot shops have flourished.

Los Angeles County alone has at least 400 pot dispensaries and delivery services, nearly twice as many outlets as Amsterdam, the Netherlands capital whose coffee shops have for decades been synonymous with free-market marijuana.

Promoted as a way to shield people with AIDS, cancer and anorexia who use marijuana from prosecution, the 1996 Compassionate Use Act also permitted limited possession for "any other illness for which marijuana provides relief."

The broad language opened the door to doctors willing to recommend pot for nearly any ailment. In a survey of nearly 2,500 patients, longtime Berkeley medical marijuana advocate Dr. Tod Mikuriya found that more than three-quarters of the patients used the drug for pain relief or mental health issues.

Dispensaries began selling marijuana, although they were risking federal charges. Some operators have become less fearful since U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said this year that the Justice Department would not target pot operations following state laws, reducing the risk of random federal raids that existed under the Bush administration.

California's pot dispensaries now have more in common with a corner grocery than a speakeasy. They advertise freely, offering discount coupons and daily specials.

Justin Hartfield, a 25-year-old Web designer and business student, founded WeedMaps.com, where pot clubs and doctors who write medi-pot recommendations list their services and users post reviews. Hartfield says the site has brought in nearly $250,000 in its first year.

Hartfield exhibited at THC Expo, a two-day trade show at the Los Angeles Convention Center that attracted an estimated 35,000 attendees in June. There was hydroponic gardening equipment and bong vendors and bikini-clad models wearing leis made of fake marijuana leaves.

Like just about everyone else connected to the cannabis trade, Hartfield has a letter from a doctor that entitles him to buy medical marijuana from a dispensary. But he sees no point in pretending he is treating anything more than his taste for smoking weed.

"It is a joke. It's a legal way for me to get what I used to get on the street," he said.

He recalls telling the doctor who provided the referral that he suffered from insomnia and anxiety, though neither was true. As he signed the paperwork, the doctor "congratulated me like I was getting my degree from Harvard."

---

What would happen if marijuana was legal - not just for medical uses, but for all uses?

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, wants to tax and regulate all pot as it does alcohol. State Board of Equalization chairwoman Betty Yee, a supporter, projects the law would generate $990 million annually through a $50-per-ounce fee for retailers and $349 million in sales taxes. (The state now collects $18 million each year in taxes on medical marijuana.)

The state would not start collecting taxes on marijuana under Ammiano's bill until the federal government lifts its restrictions on the drug.

That's not enough for pro-pot activists who want Californians to vote next year on a proposal that would allow adults to legally possess up to one ounce of pot and allow cities to sell and tax the drug.

"Local governments are malnourished and in need of revenue badly," said Aaron Smith, state policy director for the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates legalization. "There's this multibillion-dollar industry that's the elephant in the room that they're not able to tap into."

Lintott, the Mendocino prosecutor, is not convinced that legalization would put an end to the underworld's marijuana operations. She argues that big-time growers would never bother filing tax returns. "Legalizing it isn't going to touch the big money," she says.

But others predict the black-market business model would fall apart.

Large-scale agri-businesses in California's Central Valley would dominate legal marijuana production as they already do bulk wine grapes, advocates argue. Pot prices would fall dramatically, forcing growers to abandon costly clandestine operations that authorities say trash the land and steal scarce water.

And legalization, supporters insist, would save state and local governments billions on police, court and prison costs.

But others survey California in 2009 and say the cannabis future is now. Richard Lee has parlayed a pair of Oakland dispensaries into a mini-empire that includes a marijuana lifestyle magazine and a three-campus marijuana trade school. Oaksterdam University's main campus is a prominent fixture in revitalized downtown Oakland.

All without legalization.

"It's like here's reality, and here's the law," Lee says. "The culture has gone so far beyond the law, people have gotten used to being able to get quality product. They are not going to go back."

http://www.physorg.com/news167162173.htmlű

"Audit the Fed" bill shot down in the senate...

2009-07-19T18:23:00.002+02:00

Not as if it had a chance of passing anyways... this bill is good for nothing else than to raise attention to matter.

unanswered questions from different points of view

2009-07-04T16:47:00.003+02:00

If the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile, then what happened to American Airlines Flight 77? Where did all the real, documented people on it go? Assassinated? Relocated? What about eyewitnesses who saw a plane, not a missile? And what are the chances that an operation of such size--it would surely have involved hundreds of military and civilian personnel--could be carried out without a single leak? Without leaving behind a single piece of evidence hard enough to stand up to scrutiny in a court?

If Bush needed 9/11 to attack Iraq, why didn't he put an Iraqi on the plane or say there was an Iraqi on the plane so he could make his case easier.

If Bush was in control and had the power to plant explosives in the towers, why didn't he have the power to plant WMD's in Iraq and capture Bin Laden to look like a hero?

If the government controls the media, why was the media so anti Bush, and pro Obama? Why don't they silence people like Glen Beck and Lou Dobbs when they try to educate us about the federal reserve, and silence all of the actors that voice their anti-government opinions?

Is Bin Laden a made up character? Why do some people (like Immortal Technique) say that Bin Laden was a CIA tactician, and others say he was just some guy living in a cave that couldn't have possibly pulled off an attack like 9/11?

If Bin Laden wasn't able to set up explosives in the tower without help from the US, then why were terrorists able to do it in 1993?

If, say, the US government is running a global conspiracy, why haven't the Iranian, Russian, or Chinese intelligence agencies revealed it, to cause a major scandal in the United States? If there are thousands of conspirators, and the conspiracy has gone on for decades, why have none of them defected? Why have none of them leaked the story? If many conspirators are dead, why have none of them told the truth on their deathbeds, or in their wills?

To those who believe that the WTC towers (1, 2 and 7) were destroyed by controlled demolitions: this programme, broadcast last July, shows how complicated and time consuming the process of a controlled demolition is (see 27:24 minutes in to 32:11). An empty building marked for destruction by specialists takes weeks if not months of preparation, during which the entire structure is gutted while the explosives are placed. How exactly were the WTC towers rigged for demolition in such a manner that no one working in the offices within these buildings noticed anything unusual?

To those who believe that the WTC towers (1, 2 and 7) were destroyed by controlled demolitions: this programme, broadcast last July, shows how complicated and time consuming the process of a controlled demolition is (see 27:24 minutes in to 32:11). An empty building marked for destruction by specialists takes weeks if not months of preparation, during which the entire structure is gutted while the explosives are placed. How exactly were the WTC towers rigged for demolition in such a manner that no one working in the offices within these buildings noticed anything unusual?
As a follow-up question, if these calls were fake, what happened to the passengers? Were they complicit in the 9/11 cover-up? Are they still alive?

to those who say there no hijackers: what’s your explanation for this?

On 9th September 2001 Ahmed Shah Massoud, the most effective military commander of the anti-Taliban coalition (the Northern Alliance, or NA) was killed by two Arab suicide bombers posing as journalists. The assassination of Massoud had taken months to plan, and the latter had received the bogus request for an ‘interview’ in May 2001 (See Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, pp.574-576; Jason Burke, Al Qaeda, p.197; Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections, p.210. Two days before 9/11, Al Qaeda killed the Taliban’s main enemy, who had also played a pivotal role in keeping the NA factions together, and who would have been the obvious figure to liase with if the Americans had decided to effect regime change in Afghanistan. If Al Qaeda were not responsible for 9/11, then why was Ahmed Shah Massoud’s assassination so well co-ordinated with the attacks on New York and Washington?

Conversely, prior to 9/11, the US government had minimal contacts with Massoud and other Northern Alliance figures, much to the latter’s frustration (See Coll, passim). If 9/11 was a “false flag” operation intended to justify a pre-determined plan to invade Afghanistan, then why didn’t the CIA and other US government agencies do more to facilitate ties with the NA?

Just before 9/11, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other key Al Qaeda personnel left their quarters in Kandahar to hide in Tora Bora (Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, pp.356-358). Why did bin Laden and al-Zawahiri suddenly leave their known locations and go to ground, if they were not anticipating imminent military action by the USA?

In the days following 9/11, the Bush administration asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a plan to invade Afghanistan. The JCS had to admit that they had no contingency plan for such an invasion, and in the weeks preceding Operation Enduring Freedom the CIA and the Department of Defense were obliged to improvise a plan of attack against the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies (Benjamin Lambeth, Air Power Against Terror; Bob Woodward, Bush At War). If 9/11 had been an inside job, and if there was a long-standing intention by Bush and his advisors to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban, then why did they have to scrabble around for a workable plan? Why was one not prepared beforehand?

We are being asked by the truthers to believe that the 19 hijackers were “patsies”, or non-existent. If that was the case, and if the intention of the real plotters in the US government was to justify military interventions to overthrow hostile regimes in the Middle East, why were 15 out of the 19 ‘bogus’ Al Qaeda terrorists given Saudi nationality? The other four hijackers consisted of an Egyptian, a Lebanese and two citizens of the UAE. We are being asked to believe that the conspirators behind 9/11 decided that they would make the hijackers citizens of allies of the USA, not enemies. Why were they not given Iraqi, Iranian or Syrian identity? Why were they not given forged links with terrorist groups (such as the Abu Nidal Organisation, the PLFP-GC or Hizbollah) with closer links to Tehran, Damascus and above all Baghdad? If we are supposed to believe that the Israelis had a hand in 9/11, then why were none of the patsies Palestinians linked to Fatah or Hamas? What kind of conspirator sets up a plot to frame an innocent party without forging the evidence to implicate the latter?

Following on from this point, if the identities and the nationalities of the hijackers were faked, then why did the Saudi, Egyptian, Lebanese and UAE governments accept that citizens from their own countries were involved? What incentive did Saudi Arabia have for accepting that 15 of its own people had committed mass murder on US soil? Why would the Saudis co-operate in a plot which would blacken their country’s name, benefit Israeli interests in the Middle East, provide the pretext for the overthrow of one fundamentalist Sunni regime in Afghanistan, and contribute to the destruction of a Sunni Arab dictatorship in Iraq long seen by the Saudi royal family as a bulwark against Iran?

Afghanistan is a landlocked country (truthers may need to be reminded of this fact), and any invasion is logistically impossible without the support of its neighbours. Prior to 9/11, Pakistan was a staunch ally of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan (see Ahmed Rashid, Taliban, passim). The former Soviet Central Asian states of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan backed the NA, but were also wary of antagonising their former imperial master, Russia. Pre-September 2001 these states would not have contemplated admitting any US or Western military presence on their soil. Although Russian President Vladimir Putin backed the USA’s invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, it took the Americans considerable effort to persuade him to permit the US and NATO forces to use bases on Uzbek and Tajik territory as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. It also took time and considerable pressure to force General Pervez Musharraf to abandon the Taliban - despite resistance from the military and ISI. Given the geo-political realities of Central Asia in mid-2001, there were no guarantees of any host nation support for any attack on Afghanistan. Assuming againt that 9/11 was an inside job, how could the US government realistically presume that the Russians and Pakistanis would actually permit the USA to effect regime change against the Taliban?

Assuming that claims of Mossad complicity in 9/11 (”dancing Israelis”, etc.) are correct, can the truthers suggest a feasible motive for the Israeli government conniving in an act of mass murder on US soil? Since 1967, the mainstay of Israel’s security and survival has been its alignment with the USA, and the military assistance it has received as a result. This relationship is based on a bipartisan political consensus (both the Republican and Democratic parties are predominantly pro-Israeli) and considerable public support in the USA. Why engage in a “false flag” attack against the civilian population of an ally, when you have so little to gain and so much to lose if your responsibility is ever disclosed?

Following on from this, assuming that the “five dancing Israelis” story isn’t a complete fabrication, what kind of secret service recruits undercover agents who compromise themselves by acting so ostentatiously in public? And if the five arrested Israelis were part of a conspiracy organised with the US government, then why did the FBI hold them in custody for over two months, instead of releasing them on the quiet a matter of hours and days after their apprehension?

If the WTC towers in New York City were destroyed by controlled demolitions rigged by US government agencies, then why were the fake terrorist attacks used to cover up these controlled demolitions so insanely convoluted? Why concoct a scenario involving the hijacking of planes which are then crashed into tower blocks (involving complicated planning involving remote controlled flights timed with explosives detonated in the towers, which allow plenty of opportunities for gliches and technical errors)? Why not use a more simple means, such as a truck bomb?

Assuming that Niaz Naik’s account of his alleged meeting with retired US officials in July 2001 is true, then where were the 17,000 Russian troops who were supposedly ready to invade Afghanistan when it came to the commencement of military operations in October 2001? And if the main motive behind the invasion was to build a natural gas pipe-line which would be under US control, then why was no attempt ever made to build one once the Taliban were overthrown?

We are being asked by the conspiracy theorists to assume that NORAD was stood down on the morning of 11th September 2001 so as to enable the success of the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. NORAD is a combined command, not a purely American one - it has a binational staff drawn from the US military and the Canadian Forces (CF). We are either supposed to believe that the CF personnel assigned to NORAD were too stupid to notice anything amiss in their headquarters - and query it - or that the Canadian government and the CF were complicit in 9/11. Which of these scenarios is true?

If Al Qaeda were set-up for the 11th September attacks, then why have its leaders and spokesmen repeatedly affirmed their responsibility for - and pride in - these attacks (see here, here, here and here for examples)? Why are we supposed to believe that repeated video pronouncements by bin Laden and Zawahiri are fake, while just one written statement allegedly from bin Laden denying responsibility - which was handed by courier to al-Jazeera without any confirmation of its origins - was genuine?

If the hijacking and crashing of four passenger planes was engineered by the US government, then why did UA93 crash into an empty field in Pennsylvania? Why not crash it into a target which would add to the death toll on 9/11, and further inflame US public attitudes and popular demands for revenge against the supposed perpetrators?

Finally, if the US government is institutionally ruthless enough to organise the massacre of thousands of its own citizens in a series of “false flag” attacks, then why is it too squeamish to arrange for the deaths of the supposed “truth-seekers” (David Griffin, Kevin Barrett, Steven Jones, Richard Gage, the Loose Change team, Alex Jones, etc.) who have exposed their complicity in one of the most heinous crimes a government can commit against its own people? Why are these people still alive and well, and in a position to publicise their “theories” on radio, television, in print and online?

Does Anyone Still Question 9/11 Was An Inside Job?

2009-07-03T11:58:00.008+02:00

Our old buddy Albert Einstein said

CONDEMNATION WITHOUT INVESTIGATION IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF IGNORANCE.

So let's investigate shall we?

Too many people people gobble up the government's story, don't research anything about it and are quick to attack someone who challenges it with an arsenal of information.

I know I'll get a lot of backlash for this, but there seems to be way too much ignorance still about 9/11 and you know I have to speak on it. I typed this up in 10 minutes, real quick like and it's jam packed with, a lot of questions I think everyone has and a few you probably haven't even thought of yet, as well as substantiated evidence backed by numerous sources, to give credence to my point. I don't claim to know everything about what happened, not by any means. I've always thought the whole thing was bogus.

I've been curious about the details since it happened and I've read enough to know we've been lied to, big time!

I'm not trying to start a new conspiracy theory. I'm rejecting the official conspiracy theory given to us by the government.

Let me start with this

If you believe the official fable the government handed out, according to these polls you are part of the minority.

In a 2004 CNN poll on Anderson Cooper, 89% of the people believe there was a government cover up.
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041111195501242

In an MSNBC poll, 67% of the people believe the government was involved
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14727720

In a New York Times and CBS poll, only 16% of the people believe Bush was telling the truth
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/13469

In a 2004 Zogby poll, half of New Yorkers believe US leaders had forehand knowledge
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=855

Radio Poll: 85% Of Canadians Believe 9/11 Inside Job
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/September2006/120906_b_Poll.htm

Too many people simply do not know what happened because they just haven't been exposed to the information. Too many people also think they already know everything and have a set belief system, that when challenged they have a tendency to say things like "Ohhh that can't be, our government would never do that!", "That only happens in third world countries!", "That's impossible, I would of heard it by now!" Bla blabiddy bla bla. The biggest personal disservice one can do is not keeping an open mind. I know for some it's difficult to imagine our government played a hand in this, but false flag operations and government sponsored terror are not new concepts and have been done in the past. False flag operations have been used to get us into every major war since our country's inception. This is no different! For those of you who do not know what a false flag operation is...

False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities.

Some examples

The planned, but never executed, 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by the U.S. Department of Defense for a war with Cuba involved scenarios such as hijacking a passenger plane, sinking a U.S. ship, burning crops and blaming such actions on Cuba. It was authored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nixed by John F. Kennedy, came to light through the Freedom of Information Act and was publicized by James Bamford.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag#Examples_of_false_flag_attacks_as_pretexts_for_war
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662&page=1

This document, titled "Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba" was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake "Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington," including "sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated)," faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a "Remember the Maine" incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/ http://911review.com/precedent/century/northwoods.html

WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A DECLASSIFIED FALSE FLAG OPERATION OF A GOVERNMENT APPROVED PLAN TO MURDER ITS OWN CITIZENS, TO JUSTIFY THE INVASION OF ANOTHER COUNTRY!

This can't be any clearer. If our government was going to go through with this, why is it so damn hard for people to imagine that 9/11 is any different?

More excellent examples:

Hitler and the Nazi's were involved in burning down the German parliament, The Reichstag. Hitler in turn immediately blamed the Communists while The Reichstag was still burning. Shortly thereafter he went to war. We blamed Osama and Al Qaeda, shortly thereafter we went to war. A decree entitled, "For the Protection of the People and the State." Justified as a "defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state," the decree suspended the constitutional guarantees pertaining to civil liberties in Germany and enabled the government to spy on its people and take away their rights. It stated:

"Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed." Looks kinda like the Patriot Act, huh?

Two weeks after the Reichstag fire, Hitler requested the Reichstag to temporarily delegate its powers to him so that he could adequately deal with the crisis. Then "Enabling Act" made Hitler dictator of Germany, freed of all legislative and constitutional constraints.

The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007 declares that in the event of a "catastrophic event", George Bush (now Obama) can become what is best described as "a dictator": "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government." This directive, completely unnoticed by the media, and given no scrutiny by Congress, literally gives the White House unprecedented dictatorial power over the government and the country, bypassing the US Congress and obliterating the separation of powers. The directive also placed the Secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic "security".

Why would Hitler and his associates turn a blind eye to an impending terrorist attack on their national congressional building or actually assist with such a horrific deed? Because they knew what government officials have known throughout history - that during extreme national emergencies, people are most scared and thus much more willing to surrender their liberties in return for "security." The government and special interests then have a green light to carry out their agendas. And that's exactly what happened during the Reichstag terrorist crisis and our terrorist crisis 9/11. Consider the similarities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2007/03/the-reichstag-fire-and-the-enabling-act/
http://www.oilempire.us/reichstag-fire.html

Have we forgotten about the Gulf of Tonkin incident?

The NSA deliberately distorted the intelligence reports to make it look like we got attacked, so we could start the war in Vietnam. This is now declassified and it is a known fact.

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/gulf_of_tonkin/index.shtml

What about WWII?

Well we all know by now that Pearl Harbor was provoked and known well in advance. Roosevelt's policy toward Japan was one of systematic pressure to force the Japanese imperialists to commit the overt act which would touch off a war explosion. Roosevelt was obliged to pursue this strategy in order to be able to brand Japan as the aggressor and stampede the people of the United States into a war to which a majority of the nation had been steadfastly opposed. The peace-loving President had assured the American people that their sons would not be sent to fight in foreign wars. This made it necessary that the United States should be attacked so that the drive of American imperialism for mastery of the Pacific could be presented in the guise of a war of national defense and survival.

Admiral Robert Theobald, the Commander of all destroyers at Pearl Harbor, wrote a book entitled 'The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor', in which he detailed his conclusions about the "surprise attack." He wrote:
1.President Roosevelt forced Japan to war and enticed them to initiate hostilities by holding the
Pacific fleet in Hawaiian waters as an invitation to that attack;
2.The plans to use Pearl Harbor as the bait started in June, 1940;
3.War with Japan meant war with Germany; and
4.Roosevelt, Marshall and Stark knew about Pearl Harbor 21 hours before the attack.

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/war/fdr_provoked_the_japanese_attack.htm
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/20/001.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Harbor_advance-knowledge_debate

What about WWI?

International bankers wanted in on WWI for profit and the Lucitainia was deliberately sent into German waters. Robert Lansing, the Assistant Secretary of State, is on record as stating:
"We must educate the public gradually - draw it along to the point where it will be willing to go into the war."

Even though Wilson proclaimed America's neutrality in the European War, in accordance with the prior admonitions of George Washington, his government was secretly plotting to involve the American people by having the Lusitania sunk. This was made public in the book 'The Intimate Papers of Colonel House', written by a supporter of the Colonel, who recorded a conversation between Colonel House and Sir Edward Grey of England, the Foreign Secretary of England:

Grey: What will America do if the Germans sink an ocean liner with American passengers on board?

House: I believe that a flame of indignation would sweep the United States and that by itself would be sufficient to carry us into the war.

Colonel House convinced President Wilson that the United States should enter World War I.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_M._House
http://books.google.com/books?id=-3EShjGGNpUC&dq=The+Intimate+Papers+of+Colonel+House,&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=g3knM-8p4g&sig=qIH0o1gogwuHlw2zgYcWq4z4_ac&hl=en&ei=ENdKSpvEFIrZlAeM0-DfDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4

Now comes the fun part

FACT: NEVER BEFORE IN HISTORY HAS A STEEL REINFORCED BUILDING FALLEN DUE TO FIRE!

ON SEPTEMER 11TH 3 BUILDINGS FELL DUE TO FIRE IN A MATTER OF HOURS

What are the odds of that happening?

Here are some examples of high-rise fires that were far more severe than those in the WTC buildings. In these precedents, the fires consumed multiple floors, produced extensive window breakage, exhibited large areas of emergent flames, and went on for several hours. The fires in the WTC towers did none of these things.

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires.html

"THE BUILDINGS COULD SUSTAIN MULTIPLE IMPACTS OF JETLINERS"

Manager of WTC Construction & Project Management, Frank DeMartini

WHAT ABOUT BUILDING 7?

It didn't get hit with any planes at and it is not even mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Larry Silverstein (then owner) admitted having the building "pulled" or demolished.

John Kerry confirmed that

The thing is he said they did it because it posed a danger. It takes weeks to wire a building like that...hmmm.....here's the light bulb moment!

Why did Larry Silverstein take out a lease for 99 years in July of 2001 on the WTC, two months before the attack? Larry upped the insurance at that time to $3.5 billion and (presciently) to cover potential hits by airliners flown by "terrorist hijackers"

HE INCLUDED TERRORIST HIJACKERS FLYING A PLANE INTO THE BUILDING AS A POSSIBLE PERIL TO BE COVERED!

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/04/374254.shtml http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/silverstein.html

That is highly unusual. I've worked for over 20 insurance companies and I've never seen a policy with specific coverage for this.

WHY DID BBC REPORT BUILDING 7 COLLAPSED 20 MINUTES BEFORE IT DID?

The transmission conveniently gets cut moments before the building does "collapse". This video demonstrates that there were people in the know about the controlled demolition that was to take place and the story was leaked early.

The question whether explosives were used or not has already been answered. We now know that planes did not bring down the towers. It's not a question anymore. Nano-thermite explosives were discovered in the dust. 8 scientists from premier universities around the world wrote a paper on it, here:

http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/openaccess2.htm
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/thermite.htm

YOU WANT SOME MORE SCIENCE?

How about over 700 architects and structural engineers giving you the latest evidence of controlled demolition with the use of explosives? No conspiracy theories here, just pure physics for all you scientists out there.

YOU WANT SOME MORE SCIENCE?

How about over 700 architects and structural engineers giving you the latest evidence of controlled demolition with the use of explosives? No conspiracy theories here, just pure physics for all you scientists out there.

http://www.ae911truth.org/

So now we now explosives were used and we were lied to by our government. What's the next step? Logically, we need to find out who planted them. I doubt crazy terrorists with long beards, wearing robes and turbines, just waltzed in there and dropped them off. That kind of logic would suite some people, but not me. Even if they were undercover, they would have had to enter the building and plant the explosives strategically many times, over and over again throughout the building, to demolish it. It takes weeks maybe months, as commercial architect Richard Gage founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth) said in his documentary.
The people who planted them had to have access to every area of the building that is required for controlled demolition. If they needed access, they needed to get by security. Who was in charge of security?

MARVIN BUSH!

Well wooptie-do, what a coinkidink!

Bush served on the board of Securacom (since renamed Stratesec). The chairman of the board of Stratesec is Wirt D. Walker III, a cousin of Marvin and George W. Bush. Securacom had contracts to provide security for Dulles International Airport (the airport from which American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, originated) and the World Trade Center in New York. Securacom's backers include a number of Kuwaitis through a company called KuwAm Corp (Kuwaiti-American Corp.). Stratesec also has Saudi investors.

http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/10-16-03/discussion.cgi.16.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securacom http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0204-06.htm

POWER WAS DOWN ON THE WEEKEND PRIOR TO 9/11

http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/11/interview-with-scott-forbes.html

"Of course without power there were no security cameras, no security locks on doors and many, many 'engineers' coming in and out of the tower."

SURVEILLANCE TAPES AND MAINTENANCE LOGS ARE AMONG THE MISSING EVIDENCE!

http://cms.firehouse.com/web/online/News/WTC-Surveillance-Tapes-Feared-Missing-/46$1561
Isn't that convenient?

WHY WAS ALL EVIDENCE CONTAINING DEBRIS AND WRECKAGE SHIPPED TO CHINA IMMEDIATELY?

Instead of being taken to the FBI-controlled dump on Staten Island where all the material is being stored and sifted, it was driven directly to the independently-owned scrapyards and then sold and shipped to China.

http://www.china.org.cn/english/2002/Jan/25776.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1357981/250-tons-of-scrap-stolen-from-ruins.html

WHY WERE THERE ABNORMALLY HIGH AMOUNTS OF PUT OPTIONS (BETS THAT A STOCK WILL FALL) PLACED ON UNITED AIRLINES, BOEING, AND AMERICAN AIRLINES WEEKS BEFORE THE ATTACK?

On the Chicago Board Options Exchange during the week before September 11th, put options were purchased on American and United Airlines, the two airlines involved in the attacks. The investors who placed these orders were gambling that in the short term the stock prices of both Airlines would plummet. Never before on the Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of at least $5 million after the September 11th attacks.
Interestingly, the names of the investors remain undisclosed and the $5 million remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account.

Tthe Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options? Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these "insiders" would have profited by almost $5 million. On September 10, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance;? Again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent "insiders," they would represent a gain of about $4 million.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115292514221107632.html

WHY WAS DICK CHENEY IN CHARGE OF NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND (NORAD) ON THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 11TH?

For the first time in US history a President or Vice President took charge of this military agency. Generals were always in charge and had the authority to shoot down hijacked aircraft. They were able to police the skies, like the police does our streets.

NORAD Stand down order

http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/analysis/norad/docs/intercept_proc.pdf

WHY DID NORAD CONDUCT DRILLS AND EXERCISES 2 YEARS BEFORE THE ATTACK AND ON THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 11TH , OF HIJACKED PLANES BEING USED AS WEAPONS? SPECIFICALLY BEING FLOWN INTO THE WORLD TRADE TOWERS AND THE PENTAGON?

WHY DID OUR TRILLION DOLLAR DEFENSE SYSTEM FAIL MISERABLY?

We have the most advanced radar and defense system known to man?

WHERE WAS THE $130 BILLION DOLLAR PENTAGON STAR WARS MISSILE DEFENSE?

These sophisticated military systems were designed to detect missiles fired from unknown locations at over 13,000 mph and shoot them down in mere minutes, why on 9/11 could they not detect any one of the four large airliners traveling at a mere 600 mph, especially when two of them were known to be lost for over 40 minutes before they crashed?

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/dec/20/opinion/ed-missiles20

WHY DID FLIGHT 77 FLY TOWARD THE PENTAGON UNDETECTED FOR 40 MINUTES? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THAT IS ABSURD!

Any plane flying toward the Pentagon would have been detected and intercepted long before it got close.

By the way
The former head of the Star Wars missile defense program, Dr. Robert M. Bowman, says that the official version of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory and his main suspect for the architect of the attack is Vice President Dick Cheney. He said that at the bare minimum if Osama bin Laden and

Al-Qaeda were involved in 9/11 then the government stood down and allowed the attacks to happen. Bowman outlined how the drills on the morning of 9/11.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2004/080904wargamescover.htm

Simulated planes crashing into buildings on the east coast were used as a cover to dupe unwitting air defense personnel into not responding quickly enough to stop the attack.

"The exercises that went on that morning simulating the exact kind of thing that was happening so confused the people in the FAA and NORAD....that they didn't they didn't know what was real and what was part of the exercise," said Bowman

"I think the people who planned and carried out those exercises, they're the ones that should be the object of investigation."

Asked if he could name a prime suspect who was the likely architect behind the attacks,
Bowman stated, "If I had to narrow it down to one person....I think my prime suspect would be Dick Cheney."

Bowman said that privately his military fighter pilot peers and colleagues did not disagree with his sentiments about the real story behind 9/11. He agreed that the US was in danger of slipping into a dictatorship and stated, "I think there's been nothing closer to fascism than what we've seen lately from this government."

Bowman slammed the Patriot Act as having, "Done more to destroy the rights of Americans than all of our enemies combined."

He trashed the 9/11 Commission as a politically motivated cover-up with abounding conflicts of interest, charging, "The 9/11 Commission omitted anything that might be the least bit suspicious or embarrassing or in any way detract from the official conspiracy so it was a total whitewash."

"There needs to be a true investigation, not the kind of sham investigations we have had with the 9/11 omission and all the rest of that junk," said Bowman.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2006/040406mainsuspect.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Bowman

WHY DID CHENEY TELL NORAD TOLD TO STAND DOWN ON THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 11TH?

Americas Air Force can scramble jets to intercept anything unusual within about 10 minutes. It took over a half an hour to scramble jets from the FURTHEST airports! 4 commercial jets were supposedly hijacked and cruising all over the map for over 1 1/2 hours, and we're supposed to believe they couldn't get even one jet out??

The senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission - John Farmer - says that the government agreed to lie. HE'S ADMITTING THEY LIED!

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/89754

He's writing a book on it now where he's going to expose the whole shebang.

http://www.amazon.ca/Ground-Truth-Behind-Americas-Defense/dp/0151013764

Why is Osama Bin Laden not officially charged for 9/11? He's not even wanted on the FBI list for 9/11. He's wanted for an embassy bombing, but not 9/11. The FBI's response to that was, "We could find enough evidence to convict him." AND WE WENT TO WAR?

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm

Here's what Jesse Ventura, former Navy Seal, Mayor and Governor says about it, as he speaks at a Ron Paul Rally (9/2/08)

Why did the Bush administrations neo-con think-tank, Project for a New American Century's (PNAC) 2000 document, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century", call for a New Pearl Harbor.

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl Harbor."

http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#.22New_Pearl_Harbor.22

It reads in their Statement of Principles
1) Increase an already enormous military budget at the expense of domestic social programs
2) Toppling of regimes resistant to our corporate interests
3) Forcing democracy at the barrel of a gun in regions that have no history of the democratic process
4) Replacing the UN's role of preserving and extending international order

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

There is now evidence that what the world is witnessing is a cold and calculated war plan - at least four years in the making - and that, from reading Zbigniew Brzezinski's own words about Pearl Harbor, the World Trade Center attacks were just the trigger needed to set the final conquest in motion.

"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor."

http://www.wanttoknow.info/brzezinskigrandchessboard

On September 10th, President George W. Bush recorded in his diary that

"the Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today".

http://www.wmin.ac.uk/sshl/page-2485

WHY DID BUSH AND CHENEY INSIST ON MEETING BEHIND CLOSED DOORS AND NOT TESTIFY UNDER OATH IN FRONT OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION?

More and more people question every day.

190+ Senior Military, Intelligence Service, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials
http://patriotsquestion911.com/

660+ Engineers and Architects
http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html

200+ Pilots and Aviation Professionals
http://patriotsquestion911.com/pilots.html

400+ Professors Question 9/11
http://patriotsquestion911.com/professors.html

230+ 9/11 Survivors and Family Members
http://patriotsquestion911.com/survivors.html

200+ Artists, Entertainers, and Media Professionals
http://patriotsquestion911.com/media.html

Firefighers for 911 Truth
http://firefightersfor911truth.org/

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth
http://www.ae911truth.org/

One final question

IF ALL OUR MAJOR WARS WERE CATEGORICALLY PROVEN TO BE FALSE FLAG TYPE INCIDENTS, THEN HOW IS 9/11 ANY DIFFERENT?

Here's your light bulb moment!

For more info

Loose Change Final Cut is the definitive 9/11 documentary
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3719259008768610598

Fabled Enemies is another gret 9/11 movie with a different edge
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2144933190875239407&ei=czczScLfCoSKqQOA5a3nDQ&q=fabled+enemies&hl=en

Terrorstorm is full of documented facts about government sponsored terrorism.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8136133221213939183&ei=fCwzScrBM4b-qAPck4niDQ&q=terrorstorm+final+cut

Zeitgeist will put everything into perspective
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197&ei=oLpNSu-lKIb2rQOxzLTDBg&q=zeitgeist&emb=1

War Made Easy is another documentary on wars and private interests
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8383084962209910782&ei=qDYzSf-NH5nWqAPYv5XzDQ&q=war+made+easy&hl=en

Endgame is a great documentary on who's really in charge of your global enslavement
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261&ei=Yj8zSb3ZAoTyqAPtivD2BQ&q=endgame&hl=en

Zeitgeist Addendum gives a solution
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912&ei=oLpNSu-lKIb2rQOxzLTDBg&q=zeitgeist&emb=1

And there's so much more...just research damn it wake the hell up!

What's gonna happen next?

Jon Stewart Blasts Glenn Beck & Michael Scheuer For Promoting Slaughter Of Americans

2009-07-03T06:46:00.003+02:00

Michael Scheuer, former CIA Counterterorism Analyst:

"The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States."

"Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary."

So let me get this straight....another 9/11 is needed, more Americans have to die and more of our rights have to be taken away in order for us to be saved. BULLSHIT!

And how could Glen Beck just sit back and agree with him?? I think I've lost all respect for him.
Speaking about rights, Scheuer confirms that the government wants to move against the 2nd Ammendement and take our guns away.

John Stewart Blasts Scheuer And Beck For Promoting The Slaughter Of Americans

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Osama bin Laden Needs to Attack America

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Jason Jones in Iran

What Happened To Our Constitutional Rights?

2009-07-03T02:47:00.007+02:00

Our civil rights have been raped after 9/11. Have you noticed that?

Let's start with the Patriot Act.

This unconstitutional document has completely violated our civil rights.

This document Violates -

The First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee, right to peaceably assemble provision, and petition the government for redress of grievances provisionViolates the Fourth Amendment guarantee of probable cause in astonishingly major and repeated ways. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution reads:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons of things to be seized."

The Patriot Act, now passed and the law of the land, has revoked the necessity for probable cause, and now allows the police, at any time and for any reason, to enter and search your house - and not even tell you about it.

Violates the Fifth Amendment by allowing for indefinite incarceration without trial for those deemed by the Attorney General to be threats to national security. The Fifth Amendment guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and the Patriot Act does away with due process. It even allows people to be kept in prison for life without even a trial.

Violates the Sixth Amendment guarantee of the right to a speedy and public trial. Now you may get no trial at all, ever.

Violates the Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment).

Violates the 13th Amendment (punishment without conviction).By law, they give the White

House a lot more power at the expense of Congress and the courts and undermine the structural checks and balances intended to safeguard our liberty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QRt_XJJ3XY

Ron Paul said it so well...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLqSlCZ27e0&feature=related

He also said nobody in Congress read it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdT0RNYoFfM

Report on USA Patriot Act Alleges Civil Rights Violations

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/21/politics/21JUST.html?ex=1374206400&en=169d18cca2384f6f&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

It's meant for terrorists, but according to the (accidentally leaked) Department of Homeland Security Rightwing Extremism Report

You might be a domestic terrorist if.....

*you are a U.S. military veteran returning from duty in Iraq or Afghanistan

*you believe in "end times" prophecies

*you believe in state or local authority

*you are against firearm restrictions and bans

*you are against illegal immigration

*you believe in the 2nd Amendment

*you criticize any of the free trade agreements the U.S. has made

*you are against same-sex marriage

*you believe that an economic collapse is happening

*you think that the U.S. may declare martial law someday

*you believe that the U.S. is creating detention camps

*you stockpile food, ammunition or weapons

*you believe that illegal immigrants are taking away American jobs

*you believe "New World Order" conspiracy theories

*Anyone who believes in gun rights

*Anyone who is pro-life

*Anyone who is concerned about "constitutional issues"

*Tax protesters

*"Anti-government groups"

*Anyone who is opposed to globalization

*Anyone who is opposed to world trade agreements

*Anyone who is opposed to U.S. military intervention around the world

*Anyone who considers themselves to be a "sovereign citizen"

*Religious "cults"*Anyone involved in large cash transactions

*Anyone opposing abortion

*Anyone opposing illegal immigration

*Anyone who believes that the New World Order is a threat

*Anyone who is against the North American Union

*Anyone who is against the income tax

*Anyone who has a negative view of the U.N.

These were pulled right out of the report, I'm not making it up.

Here it is:

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

http://action.aclu.org/reformthepatriotact/

Glenn Beck Reacts to the "RightWing Extremism" report issued from the DHS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNB500kR4xg

FOX Judge Napolitano Government and Liberty - Right Wing Extremism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUERAfO-P6g&feature=related

Next,NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51 AND HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-20

These directives would in effect make the President a dictator in case of a catastrophic event. The President will NOT work with the other branches of government equally to ensure a constitutional government is protected. It says clearly that there will be a cooperative effort among the three branches that will be coordinated by the President. If the President is coordinating these efforts it effectively puts him in charge of every branch. The language in the directive is entirely Orwellian in nature making it seem that it is a cooperative effort between all three branches but then it says that the President is in charge of the cooperative effort. Bush started this and passed it on to Obama

http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/laws/gc_1219245380392.shtm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/09/AR2007050902719.html http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ROG20070521&articleId=5721

The government could NOT of gotten away with all this and much more, if it weren't for 9/11. Because of 9/11 we gave up our rights! They realize the threat posed by large grassroots movements who are against the left right paradigm, especially ones including veterans and patriots demanding less government intrusion in our lives and a return to a constitutionally limited Republic.

Major General Albert Stubblebine: Towers Fell Down Because of Explosives

2009-06-29T19:58:00.003+02:00

I love this! The former Commanding General of the United States Army is coming out and saying explosives brought down the towers, a plane did not hit the pentagon and THE PRESS IS NOT FREE BECAUSE THEY ARE TOLD WHAT TO SAY.

SUCK ON THAT NAYSAYERS!

This is just another example of a prominent figure who is speaking the truth and making your petty, irrational arguments and lousy debuning look even more pathetic.

Major General Albert N. Stubblebine is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy (West Point, class of 52) who enjoyed a distinguished 32 year career in the U.S. Army.

He retired as the Commanding General of the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM).

In is last assignment, retired Major General Albert N. Stubblebine was responsible of all of the army’s strategic intelligence forces around the world. He had responsibilities for the signals intelligence, photo intelligence, counter-intelligence and human intelligence.

“I do not believe the free press is free anymore [...] The press is saying what they have been told to say about this. Now do I have proof about this? No. But I believe that all the stories that were told about 9/11 were false.”
— Major General Albert N. Stubblebine III

Prior to this assignment he commanded the US Army Electronics Research and Development Command (ERADCOM). During his active duty career he commanded soldiers at every level. One of his experiences in the Army was being in charge of the Army’s imagery interpretation for scientific and technical intelligence during the Cold War. Among his other accomplishments, he participated in a special task force which defined the requirements of the U.S. Army for future conflict.

He is a long-term out-of-the-box thinker who redesigned the U.S. Army’s Intelligence Architecture while serving as the Commanding General of the U.S. Army’s Intelligence School and Center. This intelligence restructuring earned him his place in the Intelligence Hall of Fame.

Major General Albert N. Stubblebine doesn’t believe in the official conspiracy theory put forward by the Bush administration and has been a 9/11 Truth defender for many years. In a recent interview, he mentions “you look at the buildings falling, they didn’t fall down because of an airplane hit them, they fell down because explosives went off inside. Demolition. Look at Building 7 for God sakes.”

“What is it they do not want the public to know?”

After his retirement, Major General Stubblebine served as the VP for Intelligence Systems with BDM, a major defense contractor. He has brought these experiences to leading-edge medical research and development in collaboration with his wife Rima E. Laibow, M.D.

http://world911truth.org/major-general-albert-stubblebine-towers-fell-down-because-of-explosives/

THEY WALK AMONG US, ARE IN POLITICS, AND THEY CONTINUE TO BREED

2009-06-28T21:01:00.001+02:00

WAKE UP AMERICA!

If you think a travel agent's job is boring, just look at these examples:

A DC airport ticket agent offers some examples of 'why' our country is
in trouble!

1. I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman ask for an aisle seat so that her
hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window..

2.. I got a call from a candidate's staffer, who wanted to go to Capetown I started to explain
the length of the flight and the passport information, and then she interrupted me with,
''I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts .''

Without trying to make her look stupid, I calmly explained, ''Cape Cod is in
Massachusetts , Capetown is in Africa ''

Her response - click.

3. A senior Vermont Congressman called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked
what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view
room. I tried to explain that's not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state.

He replied, 'don't lie to me, I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state!'' (OMG)

4. I got a call from a lawmaker's wife who asked, ''Is it possible to see England from
Canada ?''

I said, ''No.''

She said, ''But they look so close on the map.'' (OMG, again!)

5. An aide for a cabinet member once called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas.
When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had only a 1-hour layover in Dallas.
When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, ''I heard Dallas was a big
airport, and we will need a car to drive between gates to save time.''

6. An Illinois Congresswoman called last week. She needed to know how it was possible
that her flight from Detroit left at 8:30 a.m., and got to Chicago at 8:33 a.m. I explained
that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois , but she couldn't understand the concept of
time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went fast, and she bought that.

7. A New York lawmaker called and asked, ''Do airlines put your physical description on
your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?''
I said, 'No, why do you ask?'

She replied, ''Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage
that said (FAT), and I'm overweight. I think that's very rude!''

After putting her on hold for a minute, while I looked into it. (I was dying laughing). I
came back and explained the city code for Fresno , CA is (FAT - Fresno Air Terminal),
and the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage..

8. A Senator's aide called to inquire about a trip package to Hawaii. After going over all
the cost info, she asked, ''Would it be cheaper to fly to California , and then take the
train to Hawaii ?''

9. I just got off the phone with a freshman Congressman who asked, ''How do I know
which plane to get on?''

I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, ''I was told my flight number is
823, but none of these planes have numbers on them.''

10. A lady Senator called and said, ''I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola, Florida .. Do I have to get
on one of those little computer planes?''

I asked if she meant fly to Pensacola , FL on a commuter plane.

She said, ''Yeah, whatever, smarty!''

11. A senior Senator called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to
fly to China . After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him that he
needed a visa. 'Oh, no I don't. I've been to China many times and never had to have one
of those.''

I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he
said, ''Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my
American Express!''

12 A New Mexico Congress woman called to make reservations, ''I want to go from
Chicago to Rhino, New York. '' I was at a loss for words. Finally, I said, ''Are you sure
that's the name of the town?'' '
'Yes, what flights do you have?'' replied the lady. After some searching, I came back
with, ''I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a
rhino anywhere.'

''The lady retorted, ''Oh, don't be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!''

So I scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, ''You don't mean
Buffalo, do you?''

The reply? ''Whatever! I knew it was a big animal.''
Now you know why the Government is in the shape that it's in!

Could anyone be this DUMB?

YES, THEY WALK AMONG US, ARE IN POLITICS, AND THEY CONTINUE TO BREED

You start off each day with reading this then you have no reason to ask the Question: What are they thinking in DC.

Jam of the year

2009-06-28T13:04:00.003+02:00

¡VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

2009-06-28T00:57:00.009+02:00

Let's go California, where you at??

Our government is becoming increasingly tyranical, fascist, dictatorial, oppressive and draconian every day. We need every state to introduce bills like this to protect the people. The Federal Government has been violating our constitutional rights for too long and we need our state representatives to get out of bed with the special interest groups and start representing the people again. START REPRESENTING THE PEOPLE AGAIN! That would be in a perfect world however, where money does not corrupt our politicians to shit all over the constitution.

REFERENCE TITLE: sovereignty; tenth amendment.

State of Arizona

House of Representatives

Forty-ninth Legislature

First Regular Session

2009

HCR 2024

Introduced by

Representatives Burges, Ash, Biggs, Boone, Gowan, Mason, Montenegro, Pancrazi, Seel, Williams: Barto, Campbell CL, Court, Crandall, Crump, Driggs, Fleming, Goodale, Hendrix, Kavanagh, Lesko, McComish, McGuire, Miranda B, Murphy, Nichols, Pratt, Quelland, Stevens, Tobin, Weiers JP, Senator Harper

A concurrent RESOLUTION

Claiming sovereignty under the tenth amendment to the constitution of the united states over certain powers, serving notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates and providing that certain federal legislation be prohibited or repealed.

Whereas, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"; and

Whereas, the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and

Whereas, the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and

Whereas, today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government; and

Whereas, many federal laws are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union of States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal government may not usurp; and

Whereas, Article IV, section 4, United States Constitution, says in part, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government", and the Ninth Amendment states that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people"; and

Whereas, the United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and

Whereas, a number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States.

Therefore

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Arizona, the Senate concurring, that:

1. That the State of Arizona hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.

2. That this Resolution serves as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.

3. That all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed.

4. That the Secretary of State of the State of Arizona transmit copies of this resolution to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate of each state's legislature and each Member of Congress from the State of Arizona.

http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/1r/bills/hcr2024p.htm

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
-- U.S. Constitution, Tenth Amendment

Fed up with Washington's involvement in everything from land use to gun control to education spending, states across the country are fighting back against what they say is the federal government's growing intrusion on their rights.

At least 35 states have introduced legislation this year asserting their power under the Tenth Amendment to regulate all matters not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution.

"This has been boiling for years, and it's finally come to a head," said Utah State Rep. Carl Wimmer. "With TARP and No Child Left Behind, these things that continue to give the federal government more authority, our rights as states and individuals are being turned on their head."

The power struggle between the states and Washington has cropped up periodically ever since the country was founded. But now some states are sending a simple, forceful message:

The government has gone too far. Enough is enough.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer recently signed into law a bill authorizing the state's gun manufacturers to produce "Made in Montana" firearms, without seeking licensing from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Similar laws are being considered in Utah, Alaska, Texas and Tennessee.

The Montana law is expected to end up in the courts, where states' rights activists hope judges will uphold their constitutional right to regulate firearms.

That would reverse a longstanding trend, said Martin Flaherty, a professor of constitutional law at Fordham Law School.

"From 1937 to 1995 there is not one instance of the Supreme Court knocking back Congress," he said. "In the Constitution the interstate commerce clause gives Congress the right to regulate commerce between the states. That gives them a lot of power. There were questions of how far they can reach, but then comes the New Deal, and Roosevelt gets all these picks on the [Supreme] Court, and they come upon a theory whereupon congressional power is almost infinite."

That 1930s understanding of the Constitution is now the norm, with advocates for the federal government arguing that issues of a certain size and scope can be addressed only by an institution with the resources of the federal government.

As an example, federal authority is necessary in the economic crisis, said U.S. Rep. Dan Boren, whose home state of Oklahoma recently passed a sovereignty resolution.

"The economic situation in our nation over the past year has not been contained in any one community or state. The industries and institutions affected by the recent economic crisis touch multiple layers of our economy and are not confined to any one state or region," he said in a statement. "I feel there was Constitutional justification for Congress's recent efforts to stabilize our economy."

But for many state leaders, the degree to which Congress regulates issues within their boundaries, using the interstate commerce clause to regulate just about everything and anything, has become untenable.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry made headlines recently when he made a passing reference to the possibility of the Lone Star State seceding from the U.S., saying, "if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that?"

States rights advocates offer countless examples of what they believe is Washington's overreach.

In Utah, 67 percent of the state's land is controlled by the federal government through wilderness preserves, limiting state leaders in their bid to fill government coffers through oil and natural gas drilling after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar cancelled 103,000 acres of leases this year.

In Idaho, ranchers are furious that federal endangered species law prevents them from shooting the wolves that prey on their cattle.

"The balance of power between the states and the federal government is way out of whack," said Georgia state Senator Chip Pearson." The effect here is incalculable. Everything you do from the moment you wake up until you get to bed, there is some federal law or restriction."

Up until recently, the state sovereignty movement has remained almost entirely Republican, drawing supporters from the ranks that voted against President Obama and attended tea parties last month to protest federal tax hikes.

But the movement's rank and file are just as likely now to criticize Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, as they are the new president, pointing to what they believe were Bush's overreaching policies on education and homeland security.

Many are becoming frequent visitors to a Web site, TenthAmendmentCenter.com, which was founded in early 2007 and has become a community bulletin board for states rights activists and politicians. Up to 20,000 viewers log on to the site every day.

The site's founder, Michael Boldin, a 36-year-old Web marketer in Los Angeles who says he has no political affiliation, says he decided to launch the site after watching the Maine State Legislature fight the Department of Homeland Security on the Real ID act, a controversial Bush-era law that will require states to issue federally regulated identification cards, complete with biometric data and stringent address checks.

"Maine resisted, and the government backed off, and soon all these other states were doing the same thing," Boldin said. "The bottom line is, if there's widespread support, people can resist the federal government at the state level."

The deadline for states to comply with Real ID has now been pushed back until 2011.

The Tenth Amendment movement is not without controversy. In Georgia, a columnist for The Atlanta Journal Constitution called a sovereignty resolution in the state Senate a threat "to secede from and even disband the United States."

The resolution, which was passed as part of a group of bills that were banded together, affirmed the state's powers under the Tenth Amendment, taking its inspiration and language from Thomas Jefferson's 1798 resolution opposing the Alien and Sedition Acts -- laws enacted by the federal government during wartime to quiet protest against the government.

The resolution asserts that any instance of the federal government taking action beyond its enumerated powers "shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution for the United States of America by the government of the United States of America."

"It's been taken out of context by some editors," said Pearson, who sponsored the bill. "It certainly never meant secession. The intent was to communicate that the actions of the federal government are an infringement on states' rights."

Robert Natelson, a law professor at the University of Montana who was involved in drawing up that state's sovereignty resolution over a decade ago, argues that states up until now have been unwilling to take action of any real consequence in checking federal power.

"Back then they passed the resolution, but they didn't turn down any federal dollars," he said.

"If the states are serious about returning the federal government to its historical origins, they're going to have to do more than pass resolutions. They're going to have to turn down money and litigate."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/26/tenth-amendment-movement-aims-power-states/

Bill O'Reilly Flips Out (Dance Remix)

2009-06-27T06:19:00.001+02:00

RIP Michael Jackson

2009-06-26T20:15:00.001+02:00

Wake Up Bozo, The Media Is Controlled!!!

2009-06-26T10:38:00.001+02:00

By Z

There seems to be a lot of ignorance about the credibility of the US media in this country. Too many Americans are brainwashed by the daily spread of disinformation. Many Americans don’t suspect anything is wrong because they just haven’t picked up on it or haven’t been exposed to enlightening information on the matter. These are the same idgits who still think we still have a democracy and believe the official 9/11 fable…and probably believe in the Easter bunny and Santa Clause as well. It’s ok though because it’s not their fault. There are a few however who are incapable of accepting the irrefutable facts and evidence that categorically prove that the media is controlled. They go on saying “Why that’s absurd!”, “That’s preposterous”, “That can’t be…our press is free!”, “That only happens in third world countries and can’t happen here

WAKE UP YOU MORON! GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS!

A little side note…in this piece I’m only calling those people morons and other niceties who are incapable of accepting the irrefutable facts and evidence that categorically prove that the media is controlled.

THE EVIDENCE IS RIGHT HERE YOU GOON! YOU DENSE, TURD FOR BRAINS, IMBECILE, IGNORANT, NAÏVE SHEEPLE!

I want to beat those people over the head with my 9 iron, jeez! Ok…I’m cool, I’m cool, just had to get that out of my system.

Now that I have your attention, let’s look at a most excellent quote from a brilliant mind,

“Condemnation without investigation is the highest form of ignorance.”
Albert Einstein

Give that some thought, let it sink in and then read on.

The fact of the matter is that many Americans still insist or persist in believing that we have a free press, while getting most of their news from state-controlled television, under the misconception that reporters are meant to serve the public. Reporters are paid employees and serve the media owners, who usually cower when challenged by advertisers or major government figures. What you have to understand is that a handful of multinational corporations own all the media -TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, book publishers, etc. Theses conglomerates use the media to promote their businesses. Most of the income of for-profit media outlets comes not from their audiences, but from commercial advertisers who are interested in selling products to that audience. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the business world, for-profit corporations are institutions that by law are obligated to put the profits of their investors ahead of all other considerations.

A PUBLICLY TRADED CORPORATION HAS A FIDUCIARY DUTY TO ITS SHAREHOLDERS TO INCREASE AND MAXIMIZE PROFITS.

THE GOAL OF MAXIMIZING PROFITS IS IN DIRECT CONFLICT WITH THE PRACTICE OF RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM.

This concentration of ownership reduces the diversity and puts great power in the hands of a few companies. As news outlets fall into the hands of large conglomerates with holdings in many industries, conflicts of interest inevitably interferes with newsgathering. Media corporations share members of the board of directors with a variety of other large corporations including banks, investment companies, oil companies, health care, pharmaceutical, and technology companies.

In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. Now 6 huge corporations - Time Warner, Disney, Vivendi Universal, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -now control most of the media industry in the U.S.

http://www.mediachannel.org/ownership/chart.shtml
http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html

What you have to understand is that these journalists have a boss. A boss who tells them what they can say and what they cannot say. They get a story handed down from above which they have to talk about. They then have to pick a position that goes with the format of the network and then they read the teleprompter…just like Obama. They are all actors! They get their news straight out of the biased, subjective mouths of politicians. How is that objective news reporting? You think journalists have free reign to talk about everything they want to talk about? Let me ask you something, how can they? How can a journalist honestly report on anything that would negatively harm the special interests who own the network? They can’t! They wouldn’t have a job. It goes in direct violation of the business and political interests. You can’t have a rogue journalist badmouthing the interests of the network.

Look at this beautiful example…

NBC fired its Pulitzer prize-winning Baghdad correspondent Peter Arnett because he reported the truth. He said the US war plan has failed. He was reporting on NBC, which is owned by General Electric, one of the biggest defense contractors in the United States. If people begin to have doubts about the war, it could hurt GE's business. It is therefore in their best interest to paint the war in as positive terms as possible.

Can we really trust news agencies owned by defense contractors to provide unbiased news in wartime?

I think that question answers itself.

In less than 24 hours Peter was hired by Britain’s Daily Mirror. The tabloid's banner headline said: "Fired by America for telling the truth ... hired by Daily Mirror to carry on telling it." An editor for the Daily Mirror, told CNN, “Peter is one of the most respected journalists in the world, and we are delighted he is joining us to expose the truth about a war increasingly dominated by propaganda…Honesty is not acceptable in the Bush era if it conflicts with the White House view. The Daily Mirror is proud to have hired Peter Arnett. And proud that we have a team dedicated to telling the truth about what is happening in Iraq.”
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/31/sprj.irq.arnett/

Here is a big long list of documented instances of GE’s influence on NBC.
http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/envcrisis/media/ownership/nbc.html#GEonNBC

Since media owners are now so large and deeply involved in the highest levels of the economy, the news and other public information become heavily weighted in favor of all corporate values.

This is the BIGGEST propaganda machine in the history of mankind!

Many journalists, media moguls and people in government are coming out now and blowing the whistle. Jesse Ventura, former Mayor, Governor and Navy Seal, has exposed many lies since he gave up his seat in government. He views on how 9/11 was obviously an inside job is well known. As a patriot he questioned and poked a lot of holes in the official story. He also exposed how there are CIA operatives in every state government, when clearly the CIA is not allowed to be operational in the United States.

He came out with a new book “Don’t Start The Revolution Without Me”, where he exposes the whole democrat/republican smokescreen as a show…an act. In front of the public they make like they’re enemies, but they’re all friends involved in each other’s businesses. He says there is no difference, they’re all politicians who are paid off by the same special interests groups who fund their campaigns. They are owned by the people who gave them the money to put them there. In return, they pass laws which favor and facilitate the agenda of these special interests. The politicians with the most money get in office and stay there 98% of the time. They stay there because of the money the special interests give them. Therefore those who gave them the money, pull the strings. He said it is just like pro wrestling. Looks real, but very much orchestrated and planned. Just like the media. The most powerful media companies routinely make large contributions to both major political parties, while receiving millions of dollars in return in the form of payments for running political ads. He went on record several times and said the media is controlled and how the CIA is present in every major news organization. He said the government owns the media and the media pushes the government’s agenda. Interview here:
http://blog.ktradionetwork.com/2009/06/17/kevins-full-interview-with-jesse-ventura/

After he stepped down as governor, he signed a 3 year contract with MSNBC to do a talk show. Production was under way when MSNBC found out about Jesse’s opposition to the war and they cancelled the show. The same thing happened to Phil Donahue’s show that was #1 on MSNBC. They found out he was against the war and fired him. Remember who owns NBC? That’s right, General Electric. Clearly journalists cannot state their HONEST opinions on TV because they won’t have a job if they do.

Jesse claims he didn’t take part in the briberies and corruption because he was an Independent and the Reps and Dems saw him as an outsider. However, the educated public sees him as an insider…a man who was in there and is now blowing the whistle on the whole shebang!

Former CIA Director William Colby said:

"The central intelligence agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD was a secret CIA campaign to influence domestic and foreign media beginning in the 1950s. The media had been recruited and infiltrated by the CIA for propaganda purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
http://www.answers.com/topic/operation-mockingbird
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=vqz&q=cia+operation+mockingbird&aq=0p&oq=CIA+op&aqi=g%3Ap1g9

Thank you Jesse Ventura and many other insiders for confirming that the spooks are still there!

Here are some other reports of the CIA infiltrating the media:

People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1642896020070816

An ex-CIA agent details Google's relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency. He claims the CIA helped bankroll Google at its very inception.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2006/061206seedmoney.htm

Did you guys ever wonder how Google got its hands on an incredibly advanced digital satellite mapping service (Google Earth) which was previously only available to the CIA and other governments called? Hmmm….
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3652494.ece
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-138824025.html
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/05/will_the_cia_ce.html;jsessionid=NLJXD2F0YHKNMQSNDLPSKH0CJUNN2JVN

Many Americans think of their supposedly free press as a watchdog on government, mainly because the press itself shamelessly promotes that myth. One of the steps for the control of a population is to control all sources of information the population receives. With the help of the CIA and special interests, the mainstream American Press became a controlled multi-national corporate/government megaphone.

The Bush administration has been caught paying off journalists, here are a few accounts:

Television reporter Mike Vasilinda has pulled in more than $100,000 over the past four years through contracts with the office of Gov. Jeb Bush, the secretary of state, the Department of Education and other Florida government entities that are routinely featured in Vasilinda's widely broadcast stories.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20050326/NEWS/503260408?Title=TV-reporter-earned-money-from-state

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-06-williams-whitehouse_x.htm

Congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin on Anderson Cooper 360 CNN admitted that she was pressured by the network executives to frame her pieces in a way that made President Bush look positive, even editing her pieces to favor the administration.

Yellin: Press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the President's high approval ratings and my own experience at the White House was that the higher the President's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives, and I was not at this network at the time, but the more pressure I had from these executives to put on positive stories about the President. I think over time....

Cooper: You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the President?

Yellin: Not in that exact...they wouldn't say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive. Yes. That was my experience.
http://crooksandliars.com/2008/05/29/jessica-yellin-on-cnn-says-news-execs-pressured-her-to-make-bush-look-good/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULw0tfYvxhU

Bill Moyers: April 25, 2007: "Buying the war"

Four years ago this spring the bush administration took leave of reality and plunged our country into a war so poorly planned it soon turned into a disaster. The story of how high officials misled the country has been told. But they couldn't have done it on their own; they needed a compliant press, to pass on their propaganda as news and cheer them on. Since then thousands of people have died, and many are dying to this day. Yet the story of how the media bought what the white house was selling has not been told in depth on television.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html

Top Journalists Expose Major Cover-ups in Mass Media
http://www.wanttoknow.info/massmedia

Top News Articles Revealing Mass Media Manipulation
http://www.wanttoknow.info/massmedianewsarticles-0-10000

The Power of Nightmares is a revealing BBC documentary that digs deep into the roots of the war on terror, only to find that much of the widespread fear in the post 9/11 world has been fabricated by those in power for their own interests and spread through the media.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2798679275960015727&ei=FlNEStCgD6P2rALP1NG0DQ&q=%22power+of+nightmares%22&hl=en

ABC has now whored itself to the White House so the White House can use them to spread their biased propaganda about the health care plan.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/16/abc-news-teams-obama-white-house-present-presidents-health-care-plan/

Critics are calling this a surrender to the Obama administration’s effort to control the debate. Obama will only answer questions presented by audience members selected by ABC news. Presidents have been, but here it’s flagrantly and blatantly in your face! They get a list of the questions that are going to be asked and who’s going to ask them. This is government controlled media! Isn’t this what they do in North Korea and Communist China?? What they did in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany?

Kevin Trudeau the infomercial king, author and business man, exposed the corrupt business practices of the pharmaceutical industry, the food industry, the FDA, the FTC and the media in a book he wrote called “Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You To Know About”. In America only a patented FDA approved drug or surgery can legally prevent, cure or treat a disease. Doctors cannot by law, prevent, treat or cure a disease by natural homeopathic and holistic methods. It is also illegal for a company which sells an herb to claim it has medical benefits. The FDA sued Kevin 37million dollars and told him he couldn’t go on TV, on Radio or any media for at least 3 years, but they’re trying for indefinitely. The FDA was also trying to take his books of the shelves. Even thought it outsold Harry Potter as the number 1 best seller. He also had to publish it himself because no publishing company wanted to stick their neck out. What happened to the First Amendment? Freedom of speech, hello? These Gestapo-like regulatory agencies like the FDA, FTC are trying to suppress public knowledge about these natural cures because them along with the drug companies are making too much damn money. Drug companies are publicly traded companies and they too have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to increase profits. This is the reason why we haven’t seen any cures for years. If a drug company’s goal would be to cure disease and make people healthy they would go bankrupt! Healthy people don’t buy drugs. Their only purpose is to get people hooked on their drugs and have them buy those drugs until they die. They fund the campaigns of politicians, lie to doctors and pay off the FDA to approve their unsafe drugs.

These drug companies are part of the special interest groups which control the media. Have you bothered to count all the drug commercials on TV nowadays? Drug companies are the #1 advertisers. Have you noticed how none of the journalists on TV ever say anything bad about drug companies? Why wasn’t it headline news when Vioxx killed 200,000 people? Or when AstraZeneca, one of the largest drug manufacturers told their sales reps to lie to their customers/doctors and not tell them that Seroquel causes diabetes? There are literally hundreds of examples of complete media blackouts when it comes to reporting on these stories. There are also hundreds of examples of the media not reporting on possible natural cures. Why? The answer is very simple…you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

There are many special interest groups that have an influence on the media, but of course the biggest propaganda pushing entity is the government.

These special interest groups or CEO’s from multinational conglomerates (including the media) like to get together with world leaders, politicians and the banking elite every once in a while, to among many things, talk about ways they can work together to increase profits. They hold memberships in various organizations you might have heard of. The Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission and the ever so secretive Bilderberg group.

Now, whenever the CFR meets it’s done publicly. Every year when the G8 meets, and the G20 meets, they do it publicly and everybody knows about it as well. It’s all over the news, magazines, internet, there are even massive riots and protests like in England this year. You hear about everything from who was there and what was discussed, well not everything…but there are press releases. Front page coverage on every major newspaper, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, etc…You see it on every major network NBC, FOX, CNN for weeks!

So...how is it that when more world leaders like princes and royalty, prime ministers, presidents, all the central bankers from the Federal Reserve and around the world, the IMF, the World Bank, NATO, WTO, UN, all the media moguls who control the media, all the owners of the major corporations in the oil industry, pharmaceutical industry, food industry and others from the most powerful nations in the world, get together at a Bilderberg meeting and there’s a complete blackout in the media? Why is there is a much heavier security presence (paramilitary with machine guns) than at the G20? Why is it that when ballzy journalists like Alex Jones and Charlie Skelton from the Guardian,get too close, get followed, threatened and harassed by undercover officials and local police? Here is Charlie’s very detailed account of what happened at this year’s Bilderberg conference in Athens, Greece.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/charlie-skeltons-bilderberg-files
What’s with all the secrecy?

Here are a few names of attendees from past Bilderberg meetings:
Prince Philip, Prince Charles, Prince Bernhard, Queen Beatrix , Tim Geitner, Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, Zbigniew Brzezinski, General Petraeus, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, John Edwards, Gerald Ford, Robert Gates, Richard N. Hass, Robert McNamara, Dan Quayle, Colin Powell, Condeleezza Rice, David Rockefeller, David Rockefeller Jr, Nelson Rockefeller, Jay Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, George Soros, Paul Volker, Emma Rothschild, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Guy de Rothschild, Jacob Rothschild, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Rupert Murdoch, George Stephanopoulos, Peter Jennings, Fareed Zakaria, Bill Moyers…for a full list see >
http://www.infowars.com/wikipedias-bilderberg-group-attendee-list/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bilderberg_attendees

Some CFR attendees from the media:

Tom Brokaw (CFR Board of Directors), Dan Rather, Barbara Walters, Fareed Zakaria (CFR Board of Directors) William Buckley, Jim Lehrer, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner. All representing PBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, Disney, National Review.

Current CFR Board of Directors
http://www.cfr.org/about/people/board_of_directors.html

Current CFR Corporate Roster
http://www.cfr.org/about/corporate/roster.html

CFR controls American media
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPlvdSQ6cAM

So how come not one major media network is reporting on the Bilderberg meetings?? FOX, CNN, NBC, ABC, BLA BLABIDDY BLA BALA…where are you?
Where is the free media?? If you are so free and independent then why aren’t you reporting on the most important meeting that happens every year with the most powerful elite class on the planet?
Where are you Bill O’Reilly? Where are you Sean Hannity? Where are you Mr. Keeping it Real Anderson Cooper?

THIS IS A 100 % MEDIA BLACKOUT AND QUANITFIABLE EVIDENCE THAT THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS NOT TELLING YOU THE TRUTH!

Why is it that when some independent journalist asks one of the attendees about it, some deny it even exists? Youtube “We Are Change” and “Bilderberg”. Some might also say “no comment”, “I’m not at liberty to discuss that” or that it’s just a bunch of old farts getting together and it’s not a big deal, nothing to worry about. Like we’re supposed to believe it’s not a big deal when the most important people on earth get together and have a meeting. Right!

The mainstream media is obviously told to step down and not cover the most important event that happens every year. The owners of the mainstream media luckily all attend the Bilderberg and CFR meetings, so it kind of works out perfectly huh?

Both major political parties used the media to build the perception of opposing positions on key issues, while the whole time they are building consensus on issues that were critical to social change. That's verified in the Congressional Record for 1917, which reported that:

“...The j.p. morgan [banking] interests.... And their subsidiary organizations got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the united states and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press of the us.... They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. ...an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information....”
--Congressman Oscar Callaway statements were included in the Congressional Record (vol. 54, February 9, 1917, p. 2947)
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D04EEDE1F3FEE3ABC4951DFB366838A639EDE

Here we have J.P. Morgan on record! Bankers have bought and paid the media in this country time and time again people.
Here we have the head of the most prominent banking family admitting media collusion:

“We are grateful to the washington post, the new york times, time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been quite impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, now that the world is more sophisticated, it is prepared to march towards a world government and accept the supranational sovereignty of an intellectual and financial elite, which is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries…”

David Rockefeller

Rockefeller writes on page 405 of his memoirs:

“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the united states, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that is the charge, i stand guilty, and i am proud of it.”

Straight from the horse’s mouth!

The United States' original communications policy is the 1st Amendment. Freedom of the press was guaranteed in the Constitution because an exchange of information and an unfettered debate were considered essential components of a democratic society. Today, however, government policy is designed less to facilitate a democratic discussion than to protect the investments of media corporations. Regulations tend to promote the formation of huge media conglomerates and discourage new, competing voices. Although even the information you get on the internet nowadays should be taken with a grain of salt, there are many excellent alternative news outlets available, which are a much better source for truthful information than the mainstream media. There is entirely too much crap that the mainstream media focuses on. Britney Spears and her drug use, Lindsey Lohan is dating a lesbian, Kim Kardashian has a fat ass and likes it…are you kidding me? Seriously? This is not even news first of all, it’s gossip! This is intentionally done to dumb down the public.

“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.”
Adolf Hitler

Adolf was a sick puppy, but he sure was smart.
The media is just a propaganda machine used to influence your thinking and feelings, in order to gain your trust or distrust, acceptance or unacceptance of world events so the elite can continue with their agenda. So do yourself a favor and turn your TV off, it’s not doing anything but brainwashing you. You owe it to yourself to have a non-bias conduit that does not twist and bend the news to satisfy various external interests. If after all this you still think we have a free media, then clearly you are living on Fantasy Island. The plane, the plane…WAKE UP YOU MORON!

You know why I can say that?

Because I don’t have a boss and I can say whatever I want! I’m practicing my 1st Amendment rights baby!

I leave you with a little philosophical clarity…

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
Arthur Schopenhauer

IQ

2009-06-24T00:54:00.002+02:00

IQ is a funny thing. When i hear people arguing about topics, I always wonder who's IQ is higher. I also wonder about the IQ of our presidents. I wonder what would happen if people's IQ was a stat that actually mattered in this world. What if you had to give your IQ score to get a job? What if your IQ was like your name and was printed everywhere, on your drivers license and criminal record, etc? What if we elected presidents based on IQ instead of popularity? What if instead of an R and a D beside their names, they had an IQ score? I sure wouldn't make it. My IQ is high, but just below the area where people are considered geniouses. the highest I've scored is 137. There's millions of people smarter than me out there. But I sure would like to see what would happen if the whole country was in agreement to elect Steven Hawking or Christopher Michael Langan or some other verified genious. Those are the people I want to hear from, the people that are smarter than me. But how do I know if all these pothead conspiracy guys are smarter then me? No one takes IQ tests and has the balls to admit their score. I'm a pothead too but I don't agree with the rest of them that say Bush planned 9/11. Am I the stupid one or the smart one? How do i know if my president is smarter than me? I know I had the willpower and brainpower to quit smoking cigarettes, but our president doesn't. THE PRESIDENT. Do we even know the geniouses political preferences? Does anyone care? We care about celebrities views, but not geniouses views. Why? Popularity is really more important for our future?
Maybe IQ doesn't even matter. Maybe people with low IQ's do an even better job at running the world because of knowledge and experience. But how do we know? We've never tried things any other way. And who came up with IQ tests anyway? It had to be someone who knew all the right answers, so that must be the most genious person the world has ever seen. I wonder what that person thinks about all this.

Illuminati V Immortal Technique

2009-06-23T21:52:00.001+02:00

Another great jam by Immortal Technique

Kissinger says Obama will change Regime in Iran if the coup fails

2009-06-23T19:43:00.001+02:00

Here is Kissinger basically saying that Obama must make clear what kind of government he wants in Iran. The president of the United States has to decide what kind of government he wants in Iran?? Since when is Iran part of the United States? If the coup is unsuccessful and a "popularly based" government does not emerge, then WE the United States must work for regime change in Iran from the outside. This is an indicted war criminal making threats against a sovereign nation.

Immortal Technique spittin' some serious fire

2009-06-23T09:24:00.002+02:00

David Icke on Alex Jones TV: Superseding the Reptilian Brain

2009-06-23T00:11:00.003+02:00

Examiner) A fascinating dialogue between two pillars in the freedom and enlightenment movement; relevant to the emergence of free energy technology because it describes the 'mindset' of those who seek to suppress the emergence of these technology that would not only make oil obsolete, but would remove one of the primary methods of maintaining control over society.

Alex Jones is one of the most courageous spokesmen on the subject of the intentional erosion of freedom by a cabal who is seeking to establish a New World Order that would essentially be a global socialist dictatorship, for which President Barak Obama has been putting the U.S. on the fast track.

I recommend that you subscribe to his YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexJonesChannel and listen in once in a while.

One of the most amazing interviews he's done on his http://PrisonPlanet.tv show, from a spiritual point of view, is an interview he did on June 15, 2009, with David Icke, former professional football player, reporter, BBC television sports presenter, author, popular lecturer and New World Order researcher. See David's website at http://www.davidicke.com

Here they talk about the "reptilian brain", which is a mainstream scientific term for the brain stem where the primitive animalistic instincts are found: fight-flight, knee-jerk reactions, fear, lust, survival instincts. In contrast, the enlightened "consciousness" component of advanced humans, can supersede this animalistic foundation, and will ultimately be what enables civilization to rise above the present central-authoritarian-control-based society (New World Order) that is based in the reptilian brain instincts, both in terms of the controllers and those who allow themselves to be controlled.

It's a fascinating dialogue between two pillars in the freedom movement and well worth your time to listen to it.

This subject is highly relevant to the emergence of free energy technology as well, because it describes the "mindset" (reptilian) of those who seek to suppress the emergence of these technologies that would not only make oil obsolete, but would remove one of the primary methods of maintaining control over society. Distributed energy and free, individualistic, enlightened expression go hand in hand. That is our destiny.

Here is an embedded playlist showing the 10-part video series of this interview between Alex Jones and David Icke.

http://www.examiner.com/x-8199-Breakthrough-Energy-Examiner~y2009m6d21-David-Icke-on-Alex-Jones-TV-Superseding-the-Reptilian-Brain

Hyperinflation Could Hit US In 5-10 Years: Dr. Doom

2009-06-21T20:55:00.000+02:00

The US is headed toward hyperinflation, and within five to 10 years it could have inflation rates of 10 to 20 percent, said Marc Faber, editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report.

"In every society, when you have large fiscal deficits combined with easy monetary policies … the likelihood that you will have high inflation is very, very high," Faber said. "And it happens very quickly."

These numbers rise so speedily because the government "massively" understates the country's rate of inflation, Faber said. To get a true reading, he said, people need to ditch core inflation numbers and include CPI in their analysis.

"It’s a lie what they publish," said Faber. "If you underweigh education costs, and if you underweigh health care costs, then you come to a totally different result."

In such a volatile market, Faber said the safest place to invest is in equities or assets.

"I'm not very bullish about real estate prices in the U.S., but I'd rather be in real estate than in 30-year U.S. bonds."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31450173

Let's Give The Bastards More Power!

2009-06-18T21:09:00.005+02:00

WSJ-- The Federal Reserve would become the nation's most powerful financial overseer, an approach that is becoming a flashpoint as lawmakers and consumer groups attack the central bank for its role in creating and handling the financial crisis.
The proposal, if passed into law, would represent one of the biggest changes ever in the Fed's role. The central bank would win power to monitor risks across the financial system, and sweeping authority to examine any firm that could threaten financial stability, even if the Fed wouldn't normally supervise the institution. The nation's biggest and most interconnected firms would be subject to heightened oversight by the central bank.

President Obama said the plan would ensure "that lines of responsibility and accountability are clear" by placing authority in the Fed's hands.

Critics who wonder about the wisdom of the move say the Fed failed to use its authority to address loose lending practices and the housing bubble that pushed the U.S. into a recession. The Fed responded aggressively after the crisis began, but some argue those actions were overly secretive.

A movement is spreading in Congress to force the Fed to disclose the identity of institutions that borrow from the bank, a move officials say would discourage firms from seeking needed emergency funds. A large group of House members is pushing to audit the Fed.

"I don't have a lot of faith in the Fed being able to handle that big a universe," said John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a group of 600 community organizations.

Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) both said Wednesday the Fed's role is the biggest potential source of friction in the plan.

Mr. Dodd said there is well-founded concern the Fed's responsibility for monetary policy, including setting interest rates, could conflict with its role monitoring systemic risk. Fed officials have said they can handle multiple responsibilities. "There's not a lot of confidence in the Fed at this point, and I'm stating the obvious," Mr. Dodd said.

Mr. Frank said most of Mr. Obama's proposals reflect a broad consensus on Capitol Hill. But "the interplay between the Fed and the rest of the regulators on systemic risk" will be a thorny issue.

Some lawmakers want an interagency council, another feature of the plan, to have greater responsibility for systemic risk, and the authority to act. Obama administration officials believe a committee approach would allow problems at financial institutions to fester without a clear regulator responsible for addressing them.

"How much power the Fed is going to have is going to be probably one of the most controversial issues about this plan," said Robert Litan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He said he thinks the Fed's role in the new regulatory framework is likely to be changed by lawmakers.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reiterated the administration's determination to make the Fed the systemic regulator. "I do not believe there is a plausible alternative," he told reporters.

Fed officials said they took action throughout the financial crisis because the central bank was often the only institution with the power to prevent turmoil. The regulatory overhaul would provide a mechanism for the government to unwind failing nonbank financial institutions, freeing the Fed of the need to act. The central bank has also taken steps to release details about its lending programs.

Despite a major conceptual change in the Fed's role, central bank officials believe perhaps only a handful of additional firms would fall under their supervision. They are also expected to make a case to keep the Fed's consumer-protection responsibility -- with some tweaks -- instead of giving up that role entirely, as envisioned under the plan.

The regulatory overhaul proposed by the Bush administration last year also would have given the Fed responsibility for financial stability. But that plan would have removed its role of supervising banks. Fed officials quietly objected, saying it would be hard to guard against systemic risks without also performing routine bank examinations. The proposal gained little traction amid an escalating financial crisis.

The Obama proposal would require the central bank to seek approval from the Treasury secretary before invoking emergency lending powers. It also calls for the Fed to work with the Treasury and outside experts to review the Fed's structure and governance, including the role of the regional Fed banks. A report due by Oct. 1 would be used to propose changes to the Fed's structure "to improve its accountability and its capacity to achieve its statutory responsibilities."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124525004449623489.html#mod=article-outset-box

Time for 'new world order': Brazilian President

2009-06-18T21:04:00.001+02:00

The global financial crisis has reduced the differences between nations and created the opportunity to form a new world order, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday.

Speaking after a meeting with Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev in the Kazakh capital Astana, Lula called on the global community to seize on the crisis to create a fairer world for developing nations.

"I want to say that before the crisis, there were many countries which had greater significance than others, and some countries which had no significance at all," he said through a translator.

"After the crisis, everyone has become similar. We have the possibility to create a new world order and together we should improve our relations."

Lula arrived in Kazakhstan Wednesday following the first-ever summit between fellow developing economic powerhouses Russia, India and China -- together with Brazil dubbed the BRIC nations -- in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

Nazarbayev, head of Central Asia's largest economy, is keen to secure a larger role for his government in world affairs.

Following up on Lula's call, the pair said in a statement following their meeting that the United Nations should open up the UN Security Council to developing nations in an effort to bolster global security.

They said that opening the organisation, which only has five permanent members, to wider membership was the only way to make the often-criticised body "more legitimate and effective."

http://www.breitbart.com/image.php?id=iafpCNG.db1c3a82d0827b5cdf05eea3ba146af8.511p0&show_article=1&article_id=CNG.db1c3a82d0827b5cdf05eea3ba146af8.511

CIA Puts Economic Hit On Iran

2009-06-16T22:19:00.001+02:00

Information ClearingHouse
June 16, 2009 - AntiDefm

The CIA's Iranian Plan?

Short video explores the possibility that the CIA is involved in Iran's recent election unrest.

Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran: Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/05/bush_authorizes.html

Bush sanctions 'black ops' against Iran: Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1552784/Bush-sanctions-black-ops-against-Iran.html

Rice says Iran spying charges pervert rule of law: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran of perverting the rule of law by charging three Iranian-Americans with spying and denied they were involved in espionage.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2935787220070529

Secret war report led to spy charges for Roxana: Lawyer reveals that a trip to Israel in 2006 helped to incriminate journalist

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/secret-war-report-led-to-spy-charges-for-roxana-1684051.html

Journalist Copied Iranian Report on U.S. and Iraq: Her attorney revealed that the American-born journalist had been convicted of spying for the United States in part because she had a copy of a confidential Iranian report on the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/12/AR2009051203477.html

Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy: How many Americans could identify the National Endowment for Democracy? An organization which often does exactly the opposite of what its name implies. The NED was set up in the early 1980s under President Reagan in the wake of all the negative revelations about the CIA in the second half of the 1970s.

http://www.iefd.org/articles/trojan_horse.php

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22839.htm

WHO declares first 21st century flu pandemic

2009-06-13T03:37:00.005+02:00

It is now official, we are at level 6! The birds are chirping that there's going to be big outbreak this fall and vaccinations will be mandatory. We'll see what happens...

Federal quarantine authority is limited to diseases listed in presidential executive orders; President Bush added "novel" forms of influenza with the potential to create pandemics in Executive Order 13375. Anyone violating a quarantine order can be punished by a $250,000 fine and a one-year prison term.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/04/28/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry4975598.shtml

* Virus is causing moderate disease

* Phase 6 means spread is inevitable

* WHO urges countries to finish seasonal vaccines

* 109 deaths from new flu strain in Mexico (Adds comments from Mexican official)

By Jonathan Lynn

GENEVA, June 11 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization declared an influenza pandemic on Thursday and advised governments to prepare for a long-term battle against an unstoppable new flu virus.

The United Nations agency raised its pandemic flu alert to phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.

"With today's announcement, WHO moves from an emergency to a longer-term response. Based on past experience, this pandemic will be with us for some months, if not years, to come," WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said in a letter to staff, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

People aged 30-50, pregnant women or people suffering from chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes or obesity are at highest risk, Chan told a news conference.

The virus has killed 109 people in Mexico, where it was first detected in April before spreading to the rest of the world, prompting the Mexican government to temporarily shut schools and businesses in an effort to slow its spread.

Countries from Australia to Chile to the United States are reporting that the new swine flu virus is "crowding out" seasonal flu, becoming the predominant influenza strain, she said.

For now the virus was "pretty stable," but Chan warned that it could still change into a more deadly form, perhaps mixing with the H5N1 bird flu virus circulating widely in poultry.

"So it is incumbent on WHO and all members to stay vigilant and alert for the next year or two or even beyond," she said.

Mexican health minister Jose Angel Cordova said on Thursday the virus was under control in Mexico but warned there could be a new spike in cases later this year.

There is also a risk the swine flu could mix with its seasonal H1N1 cousin, which has developed resistance to the main antiviral flu drug Tamiflu, made by Roche AG (ROG.VX) and Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O), Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told a briefing. [ID:nN11441504]

The United States has been operating on pandemic status for weeks, with hundreds of thousands of cases and at least 1,000 hospitalizations, Schuchat said.

GUARDING AGAINST 'RASH' ACTIONS

The virus disproportionately makes younger people sick. Some 57 percent of U.S. cases were among people aged 5 to 24, and 41 percent of those hospitalized were in this younger age group.

H1N1 is active in all 50 states and there are so many cases now that in some areas, patients with specific flu-like symptoms -- a fever above 104 degrees F (40 degrees C), cough or other respiratory symptoms -- are presumed to have the new virus.

WHO reiterated its advice to its 193 member countries not to close borders or impose travel restrictions to halt the movement of people, goods and services, a call echoed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. [ID:nN11183745]

"We must guard against rash and discriminatory actions such as travel bans or trade restrictions," Ban told a news conference at U.N. headquarters.

The move to phase 6 reflects the fact that the disease, widely known as swine flu, is spreading geographically, but does not indicate how virulent it is.

Widespread transmission of the virus in Australia, signaling that it is entrenched in another region besides North America, was one of the key triggers for moving to phase 6.

"We are satisfied that this virus is spreading to a number of countries and it is not stoppable," Chan said.

"Moving to pandemic phase 6 level does not imply we will see an increase in the number of deaths or very severe cases. Quite on the contrary. Many people are having mild disease, they recover without medicines in some cases and it is good news," she said.

"Although the pandemic appears to have moderate severity in comparatively well-off countries, it is prudent to anticipate a bleaker picture as the virus spreads to areas with limited resources, poor health care, and a high prevalence of underlying medical problems," she added.

Canadian health officials said they were concerned about reports of more severe symptoms in some aboriginal communities, but said it was too soon to say for sure.

"To make conclusions based on a couple of communities that this is somehow a disease that is worse in a particular ethnic group. It's much too early to make any of those kinds of conclusions or presumptions," said Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer. [ID:nN11519995]

VACCINE DEVELOPMENT UNDERWAY

Chan said WHO would start distributing a further donation of 5.65 million courses of Tamiflu from Roche. [ID:nWLA6461]

WHO recommended drugmakers stay on track to complete production of seasonal influenza vaccine for the Northern Hemisphere's next winter. Each year, normal flu kills up to 500,000 people and infects millions.

Work on developing an H1N1 vaccine is already under way at leading companies, whose factories will be ready to switch to making a pandemic shot in around two weeks' time, when normal season flu vaccine production is complete. [ID:nLB16505]

Seasonal flu affects mainly the elderly and causes severe illness in millions, so a premature switch in vaccine production to cope with the new strain could put many people at risk.

"So our recommendation is they need to finish the seasonal vaccine and then move over," Chan said.

Chan said the Geneva-based agency would work with regulatory authorities to help fast-track approval of new pandemic vaccines that are safe and effective so that they can be made available as soon as possible.

In any case, the first doses would only be available in September, she added.

A pandemic could cause enormous disruption to business as workers stay home because they are sick or to look after family members and authorities restrict gatherings of large numbers of people or movement of people or goods.

World markets shrugged off the pandemic, as investors focused on possible global economic recovery.

The strain has spread widely, with 28,774 infections confirmed in 74 countries to date, including 144 deaths, according to WHO's latest tally of laboratory-confirmed cases. The United States has said tests only turn up a fraction of the true number of cases. (For the full text of Chan's remarks at a press conference, go to: here) (Additional reporting by Laura MacInnis in Geneva, Michael Kahn in London, Agustin Jimenez in Mexico City, and Maggie Fox in Washington, editing by Philip Barbara)

http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSNLB765857._CH_.2400

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/phase/en/index.html

Will America Make It?

2009-06-08T21:48:00.003+02:00

By Z

The rationale "America has pulled through in the past and it will do it again because we are the great USA", does not apply anymore. Many things have changed.

Will America make it? Let's look at history and some modern examples to tackle this question. We all know England ruled the world before WWI. America was nowhere to be seen. Most European countries were more powerful than we were. After the war we had a bad economy, poor standard of living, 25% unemployment rates, tax went from 25% to 91%. How did we pull through the great depression? We bombed all of the manufacturing capabilities in Japan and Germany. The Germans bombed everything in Russia, France, England...etc. After the war, guess which country was not bombed? That's right, America. We had plants and the largest capacity to manufacture goods. We became the world's largest exporter of goods manufactured here in the US of A. We made stuff! This is the reason why we became a superpower....and having the atomic bomb helped a little bit too I might add.

We don't make anything anymore...it's all done oversees and we import everything. Also, work is outsourced. American never outsourced back then. Many immigrants who live here, leech off of us. They come here illegally to work, don't spend their money in American stores, but in stores owned by people from their culture. Most of the money they make, they send back home to their families in their native country. They don't put money back into the economy. Everything is going out and there's nothing coming back in. Now I have nothing against immigration because my parents were immigrants. But they followed the rules and came here legally.

There was also no personal debt during the great depression. We all know how bad the personal debt problem is now. The average American owes $10,000. During my financial consulting years, I've seen how bad the debt problem is. My clients on the average were between $45,000 and $200,000 in personal debt, not including mortgages.

Let's talk about the dollar. It has no value anymore! We were on the gold standard back then and now we print monopoly money. More and more of it. The more we print, the less it's worth. Nobody wants to accept our currency abroad anymore. It's unstable and greatly devalued. The government is already bankrupt, it has gone bust! At the G20 in April, The World Bank, The IMF, NATO, China, Russia and other countries all called for a new international currency. To replace the dollar! ! Our Secretary of Treasury, Timothy Geitner, said he was not opposed to the idea.

Borders. If we are so scared of Terrorists in America, then why don't we protect our borders? Won't the Terrorists find out about that and get in? Our government doesn't care about borders. Duh! It wants to erase our borders...that's why not a single presidential candidate mentioned the border issue this past election, except for Ron Paul. NAFTA, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and the printing of the Amero are huge steps toward a North American Union. Even Mexico's president, Vicente Fox, confirmed on Larry King that this will happen down the road. Lou Dobbs has also been talking about this issue extensively. It's laughable!

These issues alone scream loss of sovereignty and the end of America.

I highly recommend everyone to study and closely pay attention to the groups and societies that make these decisions. This whole left vs right paradigm is all a smoke screen. It doesn't matter who the president is, unless it's Ron Paul or a third party that's not connected to these special interest groups and is there for the people and the people only. If you really want to understand what's going on, Research The Bilderberg group, The Trilateral Commission, The Council on Foreign Relations. These are all globalist societies that form the ruling elite. Everyone from the highest levels of governments all around the world. Presidents, Prime Ministers, Banking Families, Corporate Moguls and other whistleblowers. Research what their goals are and what steps they want to do to reach those goals. It's not a conspiracy anymore by any means...there's plenty of legitimate and credible information out there for people who want to know.

This country is in major trouble and I don't think it will make it unless people get off Fantasy Island and wake up.

I want to be optimistic of our country making it too, but the reality is very sobering and quite contrary.

Ding Ding, here is your wake up call!

Market manipulation, short-covering rallies and cyclical bulls

2009-06-05T10:22:00.004+02:00

Edward Harrison | Jun 1, 2009

There has been a lot of chatter in the markets about why U.S. equities continue to rally. Three distinct viewpoints have surfaced, two of which are bearish and one which is bullish. Let me share those theories with you.

1. Market Manipulation aka. the Plunge Protection Team

In this storyline, someone (probably the famed Plunge Protection Team) is manipulating the market to push it higher. Michael Panzner pointed out this view last Friday in a post called “Manipulation, Anyone?". Now, Michael’s site is called Financial Armageddon, so you know he’s bearish and the post reflects this.

Coming as it did on the last day of the week at the end of a month, some might find the action that took place near today’s close to be rather interesting.

From 3:54:28 pm to 4:00:02 pm, S&P 500 e-mini futures rallied 17.25 points on approximate volume of 356,300 contracts, or 19.3% of the total turnover from 9:30 a.m. until futures finished trading at 4:15 p.m.

Hmmm. Manipulation, anyone?

2. Short-covering rally

But, while Panzner thinks outright manipulation is to blame, he is not alone in seeing this upward move as suspicious. Others point to technical factors as responsible for why the market(s) is rallying (It is not just the U.S. - as I write this the Dax has rallied 4% AND the S&P 500 is up over 2%). Yves Smith pointed out a post over at the Market Tickert, which sees short covering as very much a factor in Friday’s late-day rally.

What does this all mean? A few things:

1. The stops up there are gone. They were potential rocket fuel for next week and the propellant to take us to - and potentially through - the 200DMA on the cash.
2. A bunch of someones had a lot of contracts that were short taken out on them. Those nearly 250,000 E-mini contracts did change hands, and odds are a very large percentage of them constituted stop-loss orders on contracts sold short from when we were up toward 933 a few weeks ago. Those traders are going to be quite pissed off, but that’s the risk of the game.

Next week is very likely to be extraordinarily violent, especially Monday. /ZN (10 year Treasury futures) has seen an insane drop in open interest over the last few weeks. This little game undoubtedly severely damaged open interest in the E-Mini /ES contract.

Thin markets are dangerous markets. While the E-Mini still is very liquid, the removal of these stops from the order book leaves the door open for both little resistance if the market decides to move higher early next week, and also provides the potential for irritated shorts to re-establish their positions short, driving the market lower. Those who wound up long during that little ramp job are likely to be rather nervous as well.

For my part I shorted that spike. Not large, and I am fully prepared to hedge it Sunday evening if necessary or just take it down, as there is every possibility, this close to the 200MA, that we will at least hit it on the cash, and blowing through it on volume and continuing higher cannot be ruled out.

I will note, however, that the last time we saw this sort of dislocation activity start up into the close it it too began with these sorts of “rocket shot” moves higher - and once the shorts were all blown out by having their stops run, the market essentially pancaked.

Look sharp - the sharks are in the water and you taste good.

For those of you who need a translation of what this means, I would say this: someone who was short had to liquidate a very large position due to a margin call and this forced the market up. In fact, many people believe (Meredith Whitney included) that much of the recent rally has nothing to do with fundamentals and is a short-covering rally plain and simple. Even so, it is a powerful rally nonetheless, and the shorts are getting killed.

3. Bull-Market/Secular Bear Market Rally

Then there is the bullish view. This view sees the market rally as a real bull market based on the potential for economic recovery sometime in the second half of 2009. Some think this is a secular bull – a view I am not discussing in this post. Others see this as a cyclical bull-market a.k.a bear market rally I would put Jeremy Grantham in this categoryt.gif. I would also put myself here, although I do think short-covering has made this rally dangerously over-bought. Paul Kedrosky recently made the bear market rally story very well in an interview with Tech Ticker’s Aaron Taskt (see the attached video as well).

Kedrosky thinks the S&P could approach 1100 by year-end, which would translate into the Dow well above 10,000.

Nonetheless, he believes it’s a bear market rally and unlikely to continue into 2010 as the market to get hit by fears of a “double-dip” recession.

How long the rally last is dependent on how long authorities can prop up the economy artificially. Remember the huge rally from 2002-2007 that took the Dow and S&P to new highs? That was a very long bear market rally. So, it is not altogether clear where the market is headed over the medium term. In my view, the U.S.market is going to eventually re-test its 2009 lows (which are 14 year lows when adjusted for inflation).

For now, there are enough doubters about how ‘real’ this rally is to provide road kill for the uptrend, making the kick up that much more powerful. Witness today’s breathtaking surge to the upside. When and whether systemic weakness re-asserts itself is another question altogether. For now, the bulls have gained hold.

Related Reading (google search):
Distress Investing: Principles and Technique (Wiley Finance)
How to Take Money from Wall Street: Learn to Profit in Bull and Bear Markets
The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets: How to Keep Your Portfolio Up When the Market is Down (Little Books. Big Profits)
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
Stan Weinstein's Secrets for Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets [STAN WEINSTEINS SECRETS FOR PR]

The 2012 Enigma by David Wilcock

2009-06-05T03:02:00.003+02:00

2012: Tragedy, transcension or just another year? David Wilcock exposes many great secrets here.

By the way...He insesintly pickes his nose in every other scene...lol. I haven't counted how many times he does yet. If anyone does, let me know. Dont ask me why I care.

Part I: CONVERGENCE The Movie, consciousness energy field, Edgar Cayce reincarnation, Da Vinci Code, Inconvenient Truth, galactic alignment, dodecahedron, 2012 / DNA crop circles, sacred geometry as vibration, tetrahedron, 19.5 degrees

Part II: Hans Jenny / Cymatics, space and time inverting, wave-particle duality, Buckyballs / fullerenes, DNA as a wave, Kaznacheyev, psychic healing, Dewey Larson, 3D time, space-time fabric, time-space

Part III: Fairy circles, natural stargates, ESP, nested spheres, channeling, chakras, Pineal gland, Sumerian tablets, Osiris, kundalini, pine cone symbolism, Tammuz, Shiva, Third Eye, Bindi, Bacchus, Dionysus, Jesus, the Vatican

Part IV: Pyramid sarcophagus, cathedral windows, the World Tree, melatonin, DMT, ayahuasca, Dreams, Out of Body Experience, the Silver Cord

Part V: Mark of the Beast, microclusters, synchronicity, shamanism, holographic sound, reverse-engineering the pineal gland, Dan Burisch, Project Looking Glass, CONTACT

Part VI: The Last Mimzy, the Roswell Crash, the Cube / Yellow Disc, Hellraiser, election tampering, pole shift, time-viewing technology, the Iraq War, DCTP / Doctrine of the Convergent Timeline Paradox, human-lineage ETs

Part VII: Tree of Life, Illuminati, Rothschilds, Hitler, New World Order, Lucifer, Luciferian philosophy, Catholic church, Philadelphia Experiment / Rainbow Project

Part VIII: Phoenix III, Montauk chair, time travel, Dec. 21, 2012, 20-year cycle, Stargate SG-1, Outer Band Individuated Teletracer / OBIT, The Outer Limits, Time Vector Generator / TVG, Mars pyramids, underground bases, jumproom, Total Recall, Minority Report, X-Men / Cerebro, Rifts in Time

Part IX: Forbidden Planet, psychic conduit, LSD trips, zero-time, 2012 dimensional shift, Edgar Cayce readings, Chandler’s Wobble, pole shift, Library of Atlantis / Hall of Records, California earthquakes

Part X: Create your own reality, 2012 not cataclysmic, Russian physics, Dr. Sergey Smelyakov / Auric Time Scale, Mayan Calendar, spiral imploding into 2012 changing consciousness, Ascended abilities, spiritual growth

Sarkozy’s Secret Plan for Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccination

2009-06-04T20:17:00.002+02:00

reposted from Globalresearch.ca
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13835

by F. William Engdahl

The French Government is developing secret plans to impose mandatory vaccination of the entire French population, allegedly against possible Swine Flu disease according to reports leaked in a French newspaper. The plan is without precedent and even defies recommended public health advice. Pharmaceutical giants benefit from the move, as the Swine Flu increases the trend towards the militarization of public health and use of needless population panic to advance the agenda.

According to a report in the May 30 edition of the French newspaper, Le Journal du Dimanche, the Sarkozy government has authorized spending of an estimated €1 billion to buy vaccines allegedly to combat or protect against H1N1 Swine Flu virus. The only problem is that to date neither the WHO nor the US Government’s Center for Diseases Control (CDC) have succeeded to isolate, photograph with an electron microscope and chemically classify the H1N1 Influenza A virus. There is no scientifically published evidence that French virologists have done so either. To mandate drugs for a putative disease that has not even been characterized is dubious to say the least.

Even more bizarre is the admission by the US Government’s Food & Drug Administration, an agency responsible for health and safety of its citizens, that the ‘test’ is approved for premature release to test for H1N1 is not even a proven test. More to the point, there is no forensic evidence in any of the deaths reported to date that has been presented that proves scientifically that any single death being attributed to H1N1 Swine Flu virus was indeed caused by such a virus. European epidemiologists believe the deaths reported to date are ‘coincidental’ or what are called opportunistic infections.

What we know conclusively is that the people who died often had prior respiratory complications of an undisclosed nature. People die every day with respiratory diseases. In the USA alone some 36,000 flu-related deaths are recorded yearly with no undue panic or alarm. Most are elderly or patients with lung diseases. To date in all France, 24 people have been identified by health authorities as even having ‘symptoms’ of H1N1. It is worth noting that the WHO and CDC list the symptoms of H1N1: temperature, coughing, headache, runny nose. Hmmmmm. Do you know anyone with such Swine Flu symptoms? Also worth noting is that in the counting of the more than 15,000 ‘confirmed’ H1N1 Swine Flu cases worldwide the vast majority made miraculous recovery within three to seven days, just as in the case of a bad cold.

The goal: Militarization of Public Health

Increasingly it is becoming clear that the successive waves of mass panic created in recent years by CDC, WHO and leading government agencies has an ulterior motive. We have been hit with mass panic over eating beef when cattle in the UK and elsewhere developed fatal illness that was called BSE or ‘Mad Cow’ disease. Later evidence emerged that BSE was the result of vaccination of the cows to kill harmless insects that got under the animal’s skin. More recently, after reports of incidence of what is called ‘Blue Tongue’ disease in cows, sheep and goats in Belgium and Holland in 2006, animal veterinary authorities in Germany, Switzerland and Austria imposed mandatory vaccination or treatment with drugs allegedly to protect the animals from bites by insects allegedly carrying the usually harmless illness.

The vaccinations of the animal herds has been made mandatory for an illness that typically was so mild as to go unnoticed and in only extreme rare cases could be tied to death. All animals after three months must be vaccinated. The vaccines, according to a report in the Swiss publication Aegis-Impuls from 2008, resulted in mass deaths, decreased birth rates, decline in milk yields, heart attack and other severe effects. The vaccines were used despite the fact none apparently had been previously certified as safe. They typically contained aluminium hydroxide and Thiomersol or mercury, as adjuvants and or preservatives, both highly toxic and both also used in most human vaccines.

Despite mass protests and reports to the veterinary authorities in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, the warnings went unheeded and mandatory mass vaccinations continued. Little wonder that farmers are taking their tractors to the streets to protest.

The report of a secret French government plan to vaccinate every French citizen over three months of age, over 100 million doses, is more than alarming. According to the French Le Journal du Dimanche, anticipating a probable return of the virus in the fall, the government will spend nearly a billion euros to buy vaccines. Authorities will announce in the fall if they decide to make the vaccine mandatory. "We will be ready to go in a very short time", explains the Minister of Health. According to sources, the state wants to order 100 million doses of flu vaccine from three laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi and Novartis. The latter two are French companies.

The French report comes just after the State of Massachusetts State Senate passed a mandatory vaccination bill that authorizes mandatory vaccination against purported H1N1 Swine Flu. In New York State the state hospital planning authority is debating making mandatory annual vaccination against flu of all public health employees, despite the fact that no approved vaccine for H1N1 exists. More and more it is beginning to appear that the scare about pandemic from flying birds or flying pigs is an excuse to justify mandatory vaccination with substances whose harmful side effects are demonstrably worse than any flu they should guard us against.

Novavax, a US pharmaceutical company based in Rockville, Maryland, conveniently enough just announced it is developing a vaccine for H1N1 based on “virus-like particles” that contain three key proteins of the flu virus without the genes required for replication. The vaccine is produced by techniques of genetic modification of organisms or GMO. The announcement came within days of the company announcing losses for the fiscal year of $36 million.

The drug Tamiflu which is officially recommended by the WHO as treatment to ‘ameliorate’ the symptoms of possible Swine Flu or H1N1 Influenza A as it has been renamed, is itself highly toxic. Health Canada informed Canadians of international reports of hallucinations and abnormal behaviour, including self harm, in patients taking the antiviral drug Tamiflu. In some cases death was the result and severe lung complications are widely reported associated with Tamiflu, the drug whose main financial benefactor is believed to be its largest stockholder, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

In 1976 in the US President Gerald Ford, nervous about winning a close election ordered mass immunisation of the population in the face of a possible pandemic to show voters he was a ‘hands on’ President. The 1976 pandemic never came but a vast number of people suffered serious neurological side effects from the vaccine that was rushed into production, including 25 reported deaths from Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Mandatory vaccination with drugs whose side effects are unknown because they have not been rigorously and independently tested begins to smack of the kind of inhuman mass human experiments carried out in the United States with mentally retarded, prisoners and other disadvantaged people or in Germany during the 1930’s.

American capitalism gone with a whimper

2009-06-03T09:55:00.002+02:00

Hard-hitting article on the Russian news site PRAVDA about the current state of affairs in America.

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-0/

Corporate Bribery and Fraud...you gotta love it

2009-06-03T01:52:00.007+02:00

These gigantic companies all committed major illegal acts of bribery and fraud and nobody went to jail. The corporation just paid the F I N E and the people responsible got off scott free.

Gotta love the power of the corporate entity that protects you no matter what. THERES NO CONSEQUENCE !

Intel Fined Over €1 Billion For Violation Of European Antitrust Laws

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/13/intel-fined-over-e1-billion-for-violation-of-european-antitrust-laws/

At Siemens, Bribery Was Just a Line Item

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/bribe/2009/02/at-siemens-bribery-was-just-a-line-item.html

German Manufacturer MAN in Bribery Investigation

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/business/global/13man.html

DoJ Targets Device Labeling Accuracy In $300 Million Quest Settlement

http://www.medicaldevicestoday.com/2009/04/doj-targets-device-labeling-accuracy-in-300-million-quest-settlement-.html

Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation

2009-06-02T06:57:00.006+02:00

America's richest people meet to discuss ways of tackling a 'disastrous' environmental, social and industrial threatJohn Harlow, Los Angeles
SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.

The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.

Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey.

These members, along with Gates, have given away more than £45 billion since 1996 to causes ranging from health programmes in developing countries to ghetto schools nearer to home.

They gathered at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist and president of the private Rockefeller University, in Manhattan on May 5. The informal afternoon session was so discreet that some of the billionaires’ aides were told they were at “security briefings”.

Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the summit was unprecedented. “We only learnt about it afterwards, by accident. Normally these people are happy to talk good causes, but this is different – maybe because they don’t want to be seen as a global cabal,” he said.

Some details were emerging this weekend, however. The billionaires were each given 15 minutes to present their favourite cause. Over dinner they discussed how they might settle on an “umbrella cause” that could harness their interests.

The issues debated included reforming the supervision of overseas aid spending to setting up rural schools and water systems in developing countries. Taking their cue from Gates they agreed that overpopulation was a priority.

This could result in a challenge to some Third World politicians who believe contraception and female education weaken traditional values.

Gates, 53, who is giving away most of his fortune, argued that healthier families, freed from malaria and extreme poverty, would change their habits and have fewer children within half a generation.

At a conference in Long Beach, California, last February, he had made similar points. “Official projections say the world’s population will peak at 9.3 billion [up from 6.6 billion today] but with charitable initiatives, such as better reproductive healthcare, we think we can cap that at 8.3 billion,” Gates said then.

Patricia Stonesifer, former chief executive of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gives more than £2 billion a year to good causes, attended the Rockefeller summit. She said the billionaires met to “discuss how to increase giving” and they intended to “continue the dialogue” over the next few months.

Another guest said there was “nothing as crude as a vote” but a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.

“This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this group agreed it needs big-brain answers,” said the guest. “They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.”

Why all the secrecy? “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government,” he said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6350303.ece

Rockefeller Funds Edible Vaccine Development At Cornell

2009-06-02T06:49:00.001+02:00

Old-Thinker News | June 1, 2009

When genetically modified foods were first introduced, the biotech industry hailed tomatoes that were frost resistant and round-up ready crops. Now, there is a further development in biotech that has received little attention in the mainstream media. Serious environmental and health concerns still surround GM food safety, but new technologies are being developed to turn foods into vaccine delivery systems. While there may be positive angles to this technology, we must take into account the long term goals of the establishment, which is already invested in the research and development of edible vaccine technology.

Edible vaccines

In 1996 the Rockefeller Foundation supplied grant money for early research on edible vaccines. The $58,000 grant, given to the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University, was aimed at developing and transferring edible vaccine technology to developing countries. Cornell University reports,

http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/96/9.12.96/edible_vaccine_grant.html

"Researchers at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research Inc. at Cornell now will begin exchanging new vaccine information with scientists in developing countries, starting with Mexico, thanks to a new Rockefeller Foundation grant.

Gomez-Lim and his American colleagues will try to verify the value of "edible" vaccines and to begin educational efforts in Mexico to facilitate the rapid adoption of these vaccines for safe and effective use."

Charles Arntzen, who served as President of the Boyce Thompson Institute, can be heard here explaining the use of bananas as edible vaccines in developing countries.

In 1998 the Boyce Thompson Institute became the first to develop genetically modified potatoes which were successfully tested on human subjects. "The potatoes were developed through a process known as transgenic implantation, in which a gene is transferred from one species to another. In this case the gene for a bacterial antigen -- the protein that stimulates the production of protective antibodies -- was inserted into the potato plant cells," reports BTI.

The article continues,

"Children of developing countries may not be the only beneficiaries of this new technology. Says Arntzen: 'American kids will also probably prefer being vaccinated by an edible vaccine rather than by a needle.'"

Edible vaccines - which have been given scant coverage in the mainstream media - received attention in the wake of the recent swine flu outbreak. Iowa State University research "...may someday allow pigs and humans to get a flu vaccination simply by eating corn or corn products," reports ISU. "The corn vaccine would also work in humans when they eat corn or even corn flakes, corn chips, tortillas or anything that contains corn, said Harris."

The prospect of delivering vaccines through food inevitably raises the issue of mass medication. Calls for statins and lithium to be placed in tap water have recently been made in the name of promoting "good mental and physical health." A recent AP report stated that lithium, along with hundreds of other active pharmaceutical ingredients have already been found in drinking water. Mosquitoes are also being turned into mass medication systems. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently gave a $100,000 grant to a Japanese research program aimed at genetically engineering mosquitoes to act as "flying syringes" to deliver vaccines.

People planners

The Rockefeller family - and in turn the entire Anglo-American establishment - has a history of consistently supporting population control and reduction. David Rockefeller, Bill Gates, and other billionaire philanthropists met in secret in New York City recently to discuss this very issue. The meeting was secret, according to an attendee, because "...anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government." Research in the realm of biotech and edible vaccines, as openly stated in prominent medical journals, will aid this long term agenda. This same group, primarily the Rockefeller family and their various foundations, was instrumental in shaping twentieth-century science, from the molecular sciences to social engineering. Dr. Lily E. Kay's seminal work, The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology, documents this fact.

Past incidents

In 1989 research was conducted by the National Institute of Immunology in New Delhi India into the use of hCG conjugated Tetanus and Diphtheria vaccines as a method of birth control. The research discussed the use of Tetanus and Diphtheria 'carriers' to bypass the immune system and deliver the female hormone called human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG). While hCG is required to maintain pregnancy, the injection of hCG bound to Tetanus Toxoid triggers an auto-immune response against hCG. The Rockefeller Foundation is listed in the document as giving grants for the research.

On November 4, 1996 the publication Vaccine Weekly carried an article titled "Study Suggests Women Were Injected with Contaminated Tetanus Vaccine." The article details an investigation that was carried out by the Philippine Medical Association into the discovery of hCG in tetanus vaccines. Similar incidents have also occurred in Thailand.

Further evidence is found in a 1995 BBC documentary titled "The Human Laboratory". The film covered the Philippines Tetanus hCG controversy in depth. The transcript for the program states,

NARRATOR: There are several research programmes around the world testing the contraceptive vaccine linked to tetanus which creates an immune response. The vaccine contains Beta HCG, part of a hormone necessary for pregnancy. This Beta HCG stimulates antibodies so that if a woman's egg becomes fertilised her own natural HCG will be destroyed and pregnancy will not occur.

MARY PILAR VERZOSA: I began to suspect that here in the Philippines that's exactly what's happening. They have laced the tetanus toxoid vials with the Beta HCG. The only way I could make sure that they hadn't done that was to examine the vials, and how to get a hold of those vials was going to be a problem. Who was I to collect them from the health centres?

NARRATOR: Sister Mary was helped through the Catholic network. A friend who worked in a health clinic removed the vials unnoticed. The nuns packed them with ice and sent them to an independent laboratory.

MARY PILAR VERZOSA: Oh boy that was really something when this came out of my fax machine. Report on HCG concentration in vaccine vials. Three out of those four vials registered positive for HCG, so my suspicions are affirmed that here in our country they are not only giving plain tetanus toxoid vaccination to our women, they are also giving anti-fertility.

"A socioculturally acceptable alternative"

Word has spread in the developing world of these documented cases, but these stories are dismissed as rumor by the United Nations and World Health Organization. Vaccination has been met with increased resistance across many developing countries. UNICEF reports from Ethiopia that, "All sorts of misguided rumours go round that the injections will sterilize them or harm them in some way. But here, the village elders are on board. They are here, encouraging the women to come along.”

Edible vaccines, according to the Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology, will be a more socioculturally acceptable alternative to needles. In other words, people will be less resistant to eating a mundane banana than taking a shot in the arm. The Journal states that new edible vaccine technology may serve a dual purpose of birth control. As stated,

"Edible vaccines hold great promise as a cost-effective, easy-to-administer, easy-to-store, fail-safe and socioculturally readily acceptable vaccine delivery system, especially for the poor developing countries... A variety of delivery systems have been developed. Initially thought to be useful only for preventing infectious diseases, it has also found application in prevention of autoimmune diseases, birth control, cancer therapy, etc."

The journal points out that, "There is growing acceptance of transgenic crops in both industrial and developing countries," and that, "Resistance to genetically modified foods may affect the future of edible vaccines." Indeed, GM foods are increasingly being presented as a solution to world hunger and food crises.

Will edible vaccines be used as a tool for birth control in the developing countries? The ability to do so has been demonstrated, and the agenda for population reduction and control has been admitted by the billionaire philanthropists who's foundations are involved with developing the technology.

http://oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker%20news/edible_vaccines.htm

NBA Finals conspiracy theories prove to be as durable as tinfoil

2009-05-29T04:26:00.004+02:00

By David Aldridge, TNT Analyst
Posted May 28 2009 12:03PM

Another year, another run on tinfoil at your local Safeway, Piggly Wiggly or Ralph's.

Every year, every nutbag with a computer and a complete lack of imagination writes some version of the following: David Stern wants the Lakers and (fill in the blank team here) in the Finals. You know the refs are gonna make that happen. The NBA is rigged. It's no better than pro wrestling.

I can't tell you how many people have been on Facebook with some variation of this. Isn't David Stern gonna be mad if Orlando and Denver are in the Finals? David Stern wants Kobe and LeBron in the Finals. David Stern must really be ticked off.

Every year, these podunks say, Stern, an unnamed cabal of referees, executives from ESPN, ABC and Turner, Phil Knight, Craig Sager's tailor -- and, occasionally and just for laughs, Carrot Top -- get together and make sure that the only teams in the Finals are from major-market cities. The theory goes that the NBA, desperate to regain the ratings it had in the Jordan Era, manipulates the Playoffs to ensure its biggest stars play in its biggest series. Because only the NBA is concerned with high ratings for its championship series/game. Bud Selig couldn't care less if Toronto and San Diego are in the World Series. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman loves an Edmonton-Florida Stanley Cup Final. PGA commish Tim Finchem would be delighted if Tiger misses the cut at the Masters.

Now, you know where you're reading this, and you may know what I do for a living. So you can dismiss this as butt-covering by a league apologist who works for one of its television partners, or that I doth protest too much. Can't stop you if your car is already going down that road.

But over 25 or so years in this profession, I like to deal in things that us fancy-pants reporters call "facts." Here are some:

The San Antonio Spurs have won four NBA titles since 1999.

The Spurs are ratings death.

They are ratings death because you all, in the main, are rank hypocrites. More on that later.

The longer a playoff series goes, the more people watch. (You can look this up, or you can trust me. It's true.) So a seven-game series is ratings gold.

In the last 10 Finals series, there have been two 4-0 sweeps (in 2002 and '07), three five-game series ('99, '01 and '04) and four six-game series ('00, '03, '06 and '08). Only one series has gone the full, ratings-exploding seven -- San Antonio's 4-3 victory over Detroit in '05. Which, again, you didn't watch, 'cause the Spurs were in it. If the league is rigging the Finals for maximum viewership, it's doing a lousy job. (By the way, do you know how many times Michael Jordan's Bulls played a seven-game Finals series? Zero. Out of six.)

More facts:

• New York, the largest TV media market in the United States according to a 2004 Nielsen Media ranking, hasn't made the Finals since 1999, and hasn't won a championship in 36 years.

• Los Angeles, No. 2 in that Nielsen study, has lost its last two Finals appearances since its threepeat from 2001-03.

• Chicago, No. 3, didn't make a single Finals from 1966-'91, when Jordan, Scottie Pippen and company reached full maturity. And since The Last Dance in '98, the Bulls haven't been back.

• Philadelphia, fourth, has been to one Finals (2001) since '83.

• Boston, fifth, won the title last season -- its first championship series appearance since '86.

• San Francisco (the Warriors), No. 6, has been in three Finals series since the franchise moved from Philadelphia in '62. None of those appearances has come since '75.

• Dallas, seventh, has made one Finals in the Mavericks' 29-year history.

• Washington, eighth, has not only not made the Finals since '79, but hasn't been to a conference final since '79.

• Detroit, 11th, has been in two Finals since the Pistons' back-to-back titles in '89 and '90.

• And Miami, No. 17, has made one Finals since the franchise's inception in '88.

You would think someone as all-powerful as Stern -- who can, apparantly, control the tides -- would have a better batting average. How is it that a city like Portland (the 23rd-largest TV market) has been in as many Finals over the last 35 years (two) as New York City? How has Indianapolis (number 25) been in the Finals more recently than 'Frisco? Orlando (No. 20) with as many title cuts as Dallas? Salt Lake City's Jazz (ranked 36th) having been to more Finals over the last three decades than D.C.?

Which brings us to media market No. 37: San Antonio, Texas.

The Spurs are everything you say you want in a championship team. They are quiet and non-controversial, to the point of inducing sleep. They have no controversies in their locker room. They play a team game, though they have great one-on-one players like Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. They don't preen or point, they play defense, they listen to their coach -- who is smart and crusty and profane and worldly. They play hard, are almost tattoo-free (Tim Duncan has a panther on his shoulder blade, I think) and their superstar, Duncan, took less money a few years ago so that the team could sign some other guys.

They have been in four Finals in the last 10 years.

Three of those were the lowest-rated of all time, in audience share, overall rating and average viewers.

"If we were in New York," Parker told me a couple of years ago, "they would love us."

So, why didn't you watch?

I'm not sure anyone did a poll, but anecdotally, you hear that the Spurs are (were?) "boring." No stars. No compelling personalities. No buzz.

Well, which is it? Do you want role models, or bad boys? If you can't stand Kobe, why do you keep watching him? And there's no question you do; the Lakers are the league's most popular team. People feel the Forum Blue and Gold. Which is probably why the Commish, for some reason, in the midst of perpetrating his massive fraud upon the public, said a few years ago that the ideal Finals matchup for the league would be "the Lakers vs. the Lakers." Now, I'm guessing he was kidding a little, but still, people remember things like that, which feeds the whole conspiracy beast.

Now, there's no question that Kobe and LeBron in the Finals would be good for business. That's why Nike's doing commercials featuring Kobe and LeBron puppets. It's why that vitamin water company has the whole "24 vs. 23" thing going, and why ESPN and NBA TV showed that special featuring the two of them. They are the two most popular guys in the game. But it's always been that way. The Playoffs are when the shoe companies and other high-end companies roll out the new ads featuring the game's superstars. They did it for Vince Carter; they did it for Tracy McGrady; they'll do it for Ricky Rubio or whoever the next flavor of the month is. Kevin Garnett didn't play a second in the Playoffs, but his new Gatorade spot has been in heavy rotation for weeks.

How, then, do the crazies explain away Orlando's 3-1 series lead over The Chosen One, and the Nuggets giving the Lakers all they can handle?

That's the best part about this nonsense. When it doesn't happen ... it's proof of an even-greater conspiracy!

The league doesn't really want the Cavs to make the Finals, see, 'cause that will cause LeBron to bolt Cleveland in 2010 ... for New York.

Pass the tinfoil.

http://www.nba.com/2009/news/features/david_aldridge/05/28/daily.dose/index.html

Bill Moyers, The Media Propaganda Machine

2009-05-27T05:58:00.001+02:00

Obama officials gave Bilderberg briefings

2009-05-27T05:10:00.005+02:00

POLITICO

By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 5/26/09

A handful of Obama administration officials attend the meeting of business, media and political leaders.

A handful of high-ranking Obama administration officials this month delivered private briefings at the annual invitation-only conference held by an elite international organization known as the Bilderberg group.

The closed meeting of some of the most powerful business, media and political leaders in North America and Western Europe heard from top Obama diplomats James Steinberg and Richard Holbrooke, who detailed the administration’s foreign policy, while economic adviser Paul Volcker, chairman of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, also gave a presentation at the heavily guarded seaside resort in Greece that hosted the event.

The Bilderberg group, which takes its name from the Dutch hotel where it held its first meeting in 1954, exists solely to bring together between 100 and 150 titans of politics, finance, military, industry, academia and media from North America and Western Europe once a year to discuss world affairs.

Its ultra-exclusive roster of globally influential figures has captured the interest of an international network of conspiracists, who for decades have viewed the Bilderberg conference as a devious corporate-globalist scheme.

This year’s closed-press meeting, held at the five-star Astir Palace hotel in Vouliagmeni on the Aegean Sea about 25 miles south of Athens, marked the 57th gathering of the opaque organization.

The publicity-shy Bilderberg group – which in a rare mass-circulation press release last year described itself as “a small, flexible, informal and off-the-record international forum in which different viewpoints can be expressed and mutual understanding enhanced” – has no website and participants are asked not to publicly discuss the proceedings.

But a meeting attendee tells POLITICO that Holbrooke, a State Department special envoy, briefed attendees on the Obama administration’s unified approach to dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, gave a presentation on the administration’s broader foreign policy and National Security Agency Director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander also participated in the conference.

An assistant to Volcker said she did not know the subject of his presentation at this year’s meeting. A White House official stressed that Volcker is not a full-time employee and wasn’t representing Obama in Greece. The White House, State Department and NSA did not respond to questions about whether Alexander, Holbrooke and Steinberg – all repeat Bilderberger attendees – were representing the Obama administration at the meeting and whether tax dollars paid for their travel.

Steinberg, it should be noted, was in the region on official business for talks with officials from Greece, Macedonia and Montenegro, on the eve of Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to other Balkan states: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Serbia.

Though Bilderberg tends to attract mostly former U.S. government officials, it’s not uncommon for sitting officials to attend.

Bilderberg stalwart Henry Kissinger, who’s attended more than half of its meetings, reportedly went at least twice during his stint as Secretary of State, while Alexander attended last year’s session as NSA director. In 2004, then-Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) attended the Bilderberg conference in Stresa, Italy, and both TIME magazine and the New York Times reported that his performance at a debate there played a role in his selection one month later as the vice presidential running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

But any suggestion that Bilderberg is secretly anointing world leaders or plotting global policy is the provenance of “the black helicopter crowd,” the attendee of this year’s conference told POLITICO.

The meetings are “one of the least well-kept secrets in the world” and “don’t have any decision-making authority,” said the attendee, who did not want to be identified breaching Bilderberg’s off-the-record rule. The attendee called Bilderberg “a useful group of people who are well-connected and thoughtful who put on these meetings and usually invite a few people from the [U.S.] administration to come so they understand what the administration is doing.”

Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, who attended the 2007 and 2008 Bilderberg meetings and until recently sat on the steering committee that picked invitees, did not respond to a request for comment about how invitees are selected.

Other American participants at this year’s conference included World Bank President Robert Zoellick, billionaire Bilderberg regular David Rockefeller, academic Barnett Rubin and leading neoconservatives Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, according to the attendee, who added that Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis and Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis also attended.

British press confirmed that top U.K. official Peter Mandelson was there.

Representatives of Obama economic advisor Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner – both of whom have participated in past Bilderberg meetings – refuted foreign press reports predicting their presence last weekend.

Geithner was in New York, said Treasury spokeswoman Heather Wong. “I don’t know how that [Bilderberg rumor] got out there. I had some foreign press calls asking me where he was last weekend, but I didn’t have any domestic calls.”

Indeed, the gathering produced barely a blip in the American mainstream media, with the only notable dispatches coming from a Wall Street Journal reporter who was barred entry to the usually publicly accessible Astir Palace hotel, and an Associated Press reporter who noted that it was being protected by “hundreds of police, navy commandos, coast guard speedboats and two F-16 fighter planes.”

As in past years, the near-absence of mainstream media coverage left Bilderberg-veil-piercing duties to a group of self-styled Bilderberg hunters whose reporting and speculation fill fringe, libertarian-leaning websites, newspapers and AM radio shows popular with those whose worldview is characterized by a deep and angry suspicion of the ruling class rather than any prevailing partisan or ideological affiliation.

“Leaked Agenda: Bilderberg Group Plans Economic Depression,” blared a headline early this month on the popular website Infowars, which is run by syndicated radio talk show host Alex Jones.

The story was based on reporting by veteran Bilderberg sleuth Daniel Estulin, whose sources told him Bilderbergers were torn between whether to initiate “a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty … or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.”

Estulin, the author of “The True Story of the Bilderberg Group,” claims to have infiltrated Bilderberg, and he told POLITICO that “in the end, the shorter-intense crowd within the Bilderbergers won out and so we’re going to be looking at a year, a year-and-a-half of really intense financial meltdown.”

Estulin, who was the first to report the precise location of Bilderberg 2009 (though in late 2007 he also reported that U.S. intelligence was considering assassinating Texas GOP Congressman and libertarian icon Ron Paul), declined to email POLITICO a copy of the pre-meeting booklet on which his story was based.

Both Estulin and Jim Tucker, another veteran Bilderberg hunter, insisted that Geithner—who Infowars reported was “to take orders from global elite at Bilderberg”—attended this year’s conference.

Tucker, who edits the nationalist American Free Press newspaper, traveled to Greece to report on last weekend’s Bilderberg meeting. He says he’s been on the sidelines of about 30 of the meetings. At this year’s event, two of his reporters were confronted by the Greek Navy when they rented a boat to try to take photographs of beachside Bilderbergers from the sea, he said.

“They don’t want the world to know how they’re planning our lives,” Tucker contended. “Obama is Bilderberg’s obedient little boy. He’ll follow orders.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22957_Page2.html

Soros Confirms Lindsey William’s Assertion Oil is a Weapon

2009-05-21T01:35:00.003+02:00

If you scrub the above YouTube video to 3 minutes, 45 seconds, you will hear the globalist George Soros at the elite confab last month in Davos, Switzerland, admit that the price of oil is being used as a weapon against the “enemies of the prevailing world order,” i.e, the New World Order. Soros pegs these enemies as Venezuela, Iran, and Russia.

“Chavez,” declares Soros, “his days are numbered.”

In Iran, the price of oil will lead to the defeat Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and bring in a “more reasonable regime,” that is to say a regime that takes orders from the global elite.

In the case of Russia, Soros is worried. He believes the falling price of oil and the resulting social and political chaos in that country will prompt Putin and the Russian leadership into “some foreign adventure… to divert attention,” possibly in Ukraine or elsewhere in the neighborhood.

Soros confirms in spades the prediction of Lindsey Williams, who told Alex Jones on several occasions that the global elite have planned to drastically reduce the price of oil in order to take out the oil-producing states and also foment a world-wide economic depression. “America will see a financial collapse so great that it will take years to come out of it,” Williams told Alex Jones on November 21, 2008.

On February 18, Pastor Williams, appearing on Alex Jones TV, updated and added details to his prediction, based on insider information (see video below).

Listening to George Soros, one might get the idea that the radical drop in the price of oil is simply a result of market dynamics and a coincidental opportunity to deal a crushing blow to “enemies of the prevailing world order,” when in fact it is a carefully orchestrated event.

George Soros knows this, but he is not about to tell you.

http://www.infowars.com/soros-admits-lindsey-williams-assertion-oil-is-a-weapon/

Alex Jones: Bilderberg Club’s plan

2009-05-20T20:03:00.001+02:00

Joe Biden Confronted With Nanothermite Evidence

2009-05-19T03:50:00.005+02:00

The Syndrum Files covered this last month when the news came out and I felt it deserved a follow-up in light of Biden's sketchy response.

A team of international scientists published a paper based on extensive research, on how nanothermite explosives were found in the WTC dust and concluded that's what brought down the buildings. I haven't heard this covered by the corporate controlled mainstream media since, which is no surprise. Thanks to the alternative media on the internet, people are being exposed to the truth.

This is an amazing job from We Are Change LA to “educate” Vice President Joe Biden about the nanotermite that was found in the WTC dust.

We cannot let this fact go unnoticed. There is a blackout on this in the US mainstream media and we need to break the silence. Now that Joe Biden has been confronted to nanothermite, documents in hand, the US government cannot pretend they don’t know about it.

Start around 3 min..

http://world911truth.org/

So the question is: What is Joe Biden going to do? What is Barack Obama going to do? What is the US government going to do? Nothing? Or will they call for a new independent investigation and support the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth petition?

I don't think they're going to do a thing. This is high treason and they know it. Obama with his change rhetoric can give it a rest. He promised an investigation into this and the Bush/Cheney war crimes if he would get elected. Where is it?? Was that just to shut up the public and get gain their approval for his election? How are we to believe him if he’s not a man of his word?

Besides all the rest of the hardcore evidence, this is the most solid and cannot be debunked in any way. The senior council of the 9/11 commission, John Farmer, already admitted they agreed to lie. Obama can open another investigation and end this once and for all, but I feel this will just get brushed under the rug like the JFK assassination, Pearl Harbor and countless others.

Doesn’t it make you angry that this smooth-talking, charming character comes along; promising us he will bring change and get to the bottom of our most recent tragedy, when in reality he’s completely ignoring our cries for truth and just perpetuating the globalist agenda?

Who's Hating on Mrs. Obama's Garden?

2009-05-16T12:11:00.005+02:00

Michelle Obama’s plan to plant a vegetable garden on the White House lawn is old news—everyone’s been bombarded with that adorable photo of schoolchildren tilling the south lawn with Mrs. O.—and no one seems to have much of a problem with it. Sure, it’s not the first White House garden. It’s mostly a PR stunt, a lovely vegetable patch that children can visit on field trips. Maybe some of them will plant a garden of their own, or visit a farmers' market, or just eat more fresh produce. What could be wrong with that?

A lot, according to the Mid America CropLife Association. The large agricultural association was so horrified by the idea of a vegetable garden that they wrote an open letter to Michelle Obama (Mrs. Barack Obama to be precise) and sent it to industrial farmers' advocacy groups. You can read the entire letter on the web, but here are a few choice excerpts:

Much of the food considered not wholesome or tasty is the result of how it is stored or prepared rather than how it is grown. Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical. Local and conventional farming is not mutually exclusive...

If Americans were still required to farm to support their family's basic food and fiber needs, would the U.S. have been leaders in the advancement of science, communication, education, medicine, transportation and the arts?

There's a lot to be said for advancing beyond the hunter-gatherer phase of human existence, but I doubt a home vegetable garden is enough to disintegrate several thousand years of evolutionary progress. It gets even better:

The White House is planning to have an "organic" garden on the grounds to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for the Obama's and their guests. While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and I shudder.

Really, shudder? Organic produce may be over-hyped, but the real problem is that "organic" produce doesn't do enough to find a truly sustainable solution. The Mother Jones food issue presents a number of proposals for the future of agriculture, (check back later this week for a special forum!) none of which involve reverting back to our Homo erectus habits. Or hating on home gardens.

source: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2009/04/obamas-organic-garden-white-house-conspiracy

This is all a PR outfit for big agrochem. They do not exist to promote farming or farmers. CropLife associations around the world are well funded organisations that exist ultimately to promote the chemical products, genetically engineered seeds and services of companies like Bayer, DuPont, Syngenta, and Monsanto.

They are extremely good at inserting themselves into policymaking bodies and thinktanks as providers of 'neutral' agricultural advice, even though virtually all their funding comes from agrochemical giants. They avoid appearances of one-sidedness by not using strident language. They seldom mount high profile campaigns in defense of their interests, preferring instead to set up 'working groups' and 'community liason groups' to push their agenda while appearing to bridge divides between toxin-spraying farmers and environmentalists or farmworkers' rights groups.

Their normal strategy is to portray any problems with agrochemicals, such as links to cancer, as circumstantial exceptions rather than commonsense outcomes of releasing vast amounts of known toxins into the environment. CropLife never admits that pesticides in general are possibly problematic: problems are due to individual 'uninformed' farmers 'misapplying' pesticides that would be harmless if 'responsibly used'. Etc.

Take a look at MACA's board of directors.

http://www.maca.org/officers/

DEBUNK THIS YOU ZOMBIES

2009-05-16T00:43:00.002+02:00

9/11 Blueprint for Truth: The Architecture of Destruction.

Commercial architect Richard Gage (founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth) presents a watertight case for controlled demolition of the three steel-building collapses at the World Trade Center, New York on 9/11/01. Includes physicist Steven Jones' updated evidence of thermite.
AIA of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth takes you through most of the scientific forensic evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the destruction of WTC 7 was accomplished with explosive controlled demolition.

Obama Man

2009-05-06T17:12:00.001+02:00

Too damn funny!

Ron Paul Introduces New Bill To Audit The Fed

2009-05-05T07:33:00.000+02:00

GO RON!

http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/audit-the-federal-reserve-hr-1207/

The end of the age of materialism

2009-05-04T16:42:00.005+02:00

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back... soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."

John Maynard Keynes

This often quoted Keynes’ insight is a constant reminder to us on the power of economists’ ideology in the modern financial system. The impact of this ideology, more than anything else, is what has caused today's global economic crisis.

Today's recession/near-depression, is nothing less than the world system of financialisation imploding on its own faulty logic. The basic economic dictum of neoclassical economics states that when selfish, self-interested individuals try to maximize their own welfare in a free market environment they unknowingly bring about a “virtuous and prosperous” world where everyone becomes materially better-off.

This financial logic has devoured the world and exhausted itself in the process. A new re-ordering is needed. A new power structure is to be called for. But more importantly, a new philosophical approach to economics must be taken. Humans are not inherently selfish. All their decisions are not based on a financial cost/benefit analysis. Social environment and local culture must be factored into behavioral economic models. A new "humanistic" approach must be taken to the basic monetary tenets that govern our lives. The age of materialism must end.

This is the magnitude of the crisis we are facing. And I believe this is the pivotal dilemma humanity must solve if we are to ensure our continued prosperity.

I will try to find researchers and authors exploring this topics and post them here.

This next insightful article explores the consequences of our use of financial instruments and argues that a new model beyond "financialisation" is needed:

Too big to save: the end of financial capitalism

Saskia Sassen

(This article was first published on 1 April 2009)

The misnamed "Group of Twenty" (G20) meets in London on 2 April 2009 to discuss how to save the global financial system. It is too late. The evidence is in: we don't have the resources to save this system - even if we wanted to. It has become too big to save: the value of global financial assets is several times the size of global gross national product (GDP). The real challenge is not to save this system but to definancialise our economies, as a prelude to move beyond the current model of capitalism. Why should the value of financial assets stay at almost four times the overall GDP of the European Union, and even more of the United States. What do everyday citizens - or the planet - gain from such excess?

The question answers itself. To explore further the inner workings of the financial system that has brought the world to this predicament is also to glimpse a future beyond financialisation. The task the G20 should actually address is not to save this financial system but to begin to definancialise the major economies to a significant degree, so that the world can begin to move towards the creation of a "real" economy that delivers security, stability, and sustainability. There is much work to do.

The logic

A defining feature of the period that begins in the 1980s is the use of extremely complex instruments to engage in new forms of primitive accumulation, with taxpayers' money the last frontier for extraction.

Global firms that outsource hundreds of thousands of jobs to low-wage countries have had to develop complex organisational formats, using enormously expensive and talented experts. For what purpose? To extract more labour at the cheapest possible price, including unskilled labour that would be fairly low in the developed countries as well. The insidious element is that millions of saved cents translates into shareholders' gains.

Finance has created some of the most complicated financial instruments in order to extract the meagre savings of modest households: by offering credit for goods they may not need and (even more seriously) promising the possibility of owning a house. The aim has been to secure as many credit-card holders and as many mortgage-holders as possible, so that they can be bundled into investment instruments. Whether people pay the mortgage or the credit-card matters less than securing a certain number of loans that can be bundled up into "investment products". Once thus bundled, the investor is no longer dependent on the individual's capacity to repay the loan or the mortgage. The use of these complex sequences of "products" has allowed investors to reap trillion-dollar profits on the backs of modest-income people. This is the logic of financialisation, which has become so dominant since the neo-liberal era began in the 1980s.

Thus in the United States - ground zero for these forms of primitive accumulation - an average of 10,000 homeowners have been losing their home to foreclosures every day. An estimated 10-to-12 million households in the US will not be able to pay their mortgages over the next four years; under current conditions they would lose their home. This is a brutal form of primitive accumulation: presented with the possibility (which is mostly a fantasy, a lie) of owning a house, many people of modest income will put whatever few savings or future earnings they have into a down-payment.

This type of complexity is aimed at extracting additional value from wherever it can - the small and modest and the big and rich. This too explains why the global financial system is in permanent crisis. Indeed, the term "crisis" is in some respects a misnomer: for what is happening is more nearly business as usual, the way financialised capitalism in the neo-liberal era works.

The financialising of more and more economic sectors since the 1980s has become both a sign of the power of this financial logic and the sign of its auto-exhaustion. When everything has become financialised, finance can no longer extract value. It needs non-financialised sectors to build on. The last frontier is taxpayers' money - which is real, old-fashioned, not (yet) financialised money. Krzysztof Rybinski's "zombies" are also parasites.

The limit

The difference of the current crisis is precisely that financialised capitalism has reached the limits of its own logic. It has been extremely successful at extracting value from all economic sectors through their financialising. It has penetrated such a large part of each national economy (in the highly developed world especially) that the parts of the economy where it can go to extract non-financial capital for its own rescue have become too small to provide the amount of capital needed to rescue the financial system as a whole.

By way of illustration: the global value of financial assets (which means: debt) in the whole world by September 2008 - as the crisis was exploding with the collapse of Lehman Brothers - was $160 trillion: three-and-a-half times larger than the value of global GDP. The financial system cannot be rescued by pumping in the money available.

This in turn explains the abuses of entire economies made possible through extreme forms of financialising. Before the current "crisis" erupted, the value of financial assets in the United States had reached 450% of GDP that is to say 4.5 times total GDP (see "Mapping global capital markets", McKinsey Report, October 2008). In the European Union, it stood at 356% of GDP. More generally, the number of countries where financial assets exceed the value of their gross national product more than doubled from thirty-three in 1990 to seventy-two in 2006.

Moreover, the financial sector in Europe has grown faster than in the United States over the last decade, mostly because it started from a lower level: its compound annual growth rate in 1996-2006 was 4.4%, compared with the US rate of 2.8%.

Even capitalist economies - leaving aside assessments of whether this is the most desirable economic system - do not need an amount of financial assets that is four times the value of GDP. Thus even within a capitalist logic, giving more funds to the financial sector in order to solve the financial "crisis" is not going to work - for it would just deepen the vortex of financialising economies.

The scale

Another way to portray the current situation is via the different orders of magnitude involved in (respectively) banking and finance. In September 2008, the value of bank assets amounted to several trillion dollars; but the total value of credit-default swaps (CDS) - the straw that broke the system - stood at almost $60 trillion. That is a sum larger than global GDP. The debts fell due, and the money was not there.

More generally - and again, to give a sense of the orders of magnitude that the financial system has created since the 1980s - the total value of derivatives (a form of debt, and the most common financial instrument) was over $600 trillion. Such financial assets have grown far more rapidly than has any other economic sector (see Gillian Tett, "Lost through destructive creation", Financial Times, 9 March 2009).

The level of debt in the United States today is higher than in the depression of the early 1930s. In 1929, the debt-to-GDP ratio was about 150%; by 1932, it had grown to 215%. In September 2008, the outstanding debt due on credit-default swaps - a Made-in-America product (and, it should be recalled, only one type of debt - was over 400% of GDP. In global terms, the value of debt in September 2008 was $160 trillion (three times global GDP), while the value of outstanding derivatives is an almost inconceivable $640 trillion (fourteen times the GDP of all countries in the world).

These numbers illustrate that this is indeed an "extreme" moment - but, again, it is not anomalous nor is it created by exogenous factors (as the notion of "crisis" suggests). Rather, it is the normal mode of operation of this particular type of financial system. Moreover, every time governments (that is, citizens and taxpayers) have bailed out the financial system since the first crisis of this phase - the New York stock-market crash of 1987 - they have given finance the instruments to continue its leveraging stampede. There have been five bailouts since the 1980s; on each occasion, taxpayers' money was used to pump liquidity into the financial system, and each time, finance used it to leverage. This time, the end of the cornucopia is near - we have run out of money to meet the enormous needs of the financial system.

The bridge

The implication of the foregoing is that two major challenges need to be faced:

▪ the need to definancialise the major economies

▪ the need to move out of the current model of capitalism.

Both will be difficult, but it will help to focus on some very basic facts. The current estimate of official global unemployment is 50 million; the International Labour Organisation (ILO) calculates that 50 million more could lose their jobs as the recession deepens. These figures are tragic for those affected. They are also relatively modest (without minimising the human reality in any way) when set against the 2 billion people in the world who are desperately poor. But this raises the question: how many "jobs" would be created if there were a system that aimed at housing and feeding those 2 billion? The world would then need those 50 million currently unemployed to go to work - and another billion more workers into the bargain.

If seen in this light, the financial "crisis" could serve as one of the bridges into a new type of social order. It could help all involved - citizens and activists, NGOs and researchers, local communities and networks, democratic governments - to refocus on the work that needs to be done to house all people, clean our water, green our buildings and cities, develop sustainable agriculture (including urban agriculture), and provide healthcare for all. This innovative order would employ all those interested in working. When all the work that needs to be done is listed, the notion of mass unemployment makes little sense.

The technology to underpin this work - in helping to eliminate diseases that affect millions, and to produce enough to feed all - has existed for several decades. Yet millions still die from preventable diseases and even more go hungry. Poverty has become more radical: no longer about having only a plot of land that did not produce more, today it means having only your body. Inequality too has intensified and taken on new dimensions, including a new global class of super-rich and the impoverishment of the traditional middle classes.

The history of the last generation confirms that the neo-liberal form of market economy cannot deliver answers to these problems of disease, hunger, poverty and inequality - indeed it reinforces them. Some mixing of clean markets and a strong welfare state has (as in Scandinavia) produced the best outcomes yet; but for most capitalist economies even to come near to this model would entail sweeping internal change (see Amartya Sen, "Capitalism Beyond the Crisis", New York Review of Books, 26 March 2009).

In any event, the increase in the financialising of market economies over the last generation has further sharpened the negative effects of profit-maximisation logics. To move even a little in the direction of addressing the problems financialisation has created means entering an economic space that is radically different from that of high finance. The challenge is there for those attending the G20 summit in London - and for those outside the gates.

Tupac Is Alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-05-01T05:12:00.000+02:00

I'm sorry, I had to...lol!

Damn You TMZ, Damn You!!

TMZ is reporting that Tupac is alive and well, and drinking Hand Grenades in New Orleans.

We were unable to get any sort of DNA evidence -- but this photo and video is good enough for us.

Thug life, bitches.

Globalist controlled media

2009-04-30T20:22:00.003+02:00

A couple clips from Edward Griffin's - The Capitalist Conspiracy: An Inside view of International Banking

A film made in the 60's that still stands its ground even today. The faces might of changed, but the power structure still remains.

Whole video here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6260646431723948415&ei=TfH5SdHLHKK6qAOVucT8Dg&q=the+capitalist+conspiracy&hl=en

Angels & Demons Exposed

2009-04-28T20:24:00.005+02:00

theresistancemanifesto.com

Below is an exceprt from Mark Dice's book, The Illuminati: Facts & Fiction from the section about Dan Brown's novel Angels & Demons.

Published in the year 2000, Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons is a fictional novel revolving around the Catholic Church and the Illuminati, and is a prequel to The Da Vinci Code which was later published in 2003. The common theme in The Da Vinci Code, as many know, is that the Catholic Church allegedly has been trying to cover up a family tree containing the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene which still exists today.

According to Brown and supporters of this widely discredited theory, numerous secret societies have been protecting this bloodline from the Catholic Church, who allegedly will do anything to keep this “secret” from getting out and ruining Christianity and the Vatican’s grip on power.

In Angels & Demons, the Illuminati is set out to destroy Vatican City as retribution for suppressing them hundreds of years ago and forcing them deeper underground. The story is most likely a purposeful whitewash of the real Illuminati, or the result of a creative writer seizing on topics of interest in the underground and making them mainstream. Either way, Brown’s writings and subsequent films which followed can only be seen as a deliberate attack on Christianity and muddying the water for real researchers of the Illuminati.

Thanks to Brown, the brainwashed masses of people think that when someone discusses the Illuminati and the very real effects the organization has on society and Bible prophecy, that one is too wrapped up in Angels & Demons. Many of those who have become victims of the Illuminati’s agendas don’t even believe such a thing exists. Angels & Demons was made into a motion picture starring Tom Hanks and released in May 2009. (See Angels & Demons the movie on page 335)

The main character, Robert Langdon, is a Harvard professor and expert on religious symbology. He becomes involved in trying to stop the Illuminati from destroying Vatican City in Rome by using an anti-matter bomb. Brown cleverly mixes historical facts into the plotline and blurs the line between fact and fiction by referencing actual quotes about the Illuminati from historical figures. Most of Brown’s readers (and viewers of the film) have no idea that the Illuminati he is referring to is a real organization and some of the “historical facts” he writes in his book are actually true.

For example, he writes that the Illuminati infiltrated Freemasonry, saying “…in the 1700’s, the Masons unknowingly became a front for the Illuminati. The Illuminati grew within their ranks, gradually taking over positions of power within the lodges. They quietly reestablished their scientific brotherhood deep within the Masons—a kind of secret society within a secret society. The Illuminati used the worldwide connection of Masonic lodges to spread their influence.”181

Brown even explains that the Illuminati are satanic, writing, “The church claimed Lucifer was a reference to the devil, but the brotherhood insisted Lucifer was intended in its literal Latin meaning—bringer of light. Or Illuminator.”182

Dan Brown even cleverly refers to numerous websites which feature material about the Illuminati and the New World Order. At one point his book reads, “This morning” Kohler challenged, “when I typed the word ‘Illuminati’ into the computer, it returned thousands of current references. Apparently a lot of people think this group is still active.”

“Conspiracy buffs,” Langdon replied. He had always been annoyed by the plethora of conspiracy theories that circled in modern pop culture. The media craved apocalyptic headlines, and self-proclaimed “cult specialists” were still cashing in on millennium hype with fabricated stories that the Illuminati were alive and well and organizing their New World Order.”183

Besides weaving in various historical facts about the Illuminati, Brown also includes some far-fetched ideas that have no basis in reality at all. He makes his readers think the Illuminati were a group of scientists that included Galileo, as well as famous artists such as Bernini, when both men had died a hundred years before the Illuminati had actually formed.184 He also includes other ideas that have never been associated with the Illuminati, and are clearly fictions created by Brown. One such example is his claim that the Vatican holds in its possession several “Illuminati brands” which consist of ambigrams in the names of earth, air, fire, and water, which he says the “scientific Illuminati” had designed to depict the four elements ancient scientists believed made up the physical universe. An ambigram is a design that spells out one or more words that can be read whether looked at right-side up or upside down. These “Illuminati brands” are heated up and used to burn the different symbols into the chests of various Cardinals who the Illuminati murder in the novel as revenge for the Catholic Church allegedly burning a brand of a cross in the chests of heretics in the past.

Brown even says that the Catholic Church murdered Nicolaus Copernicus for introducing heliocentrism, the idea that the earth revolves around the sun, and not vice versa as the church had claimed. I’m certainly not a supporter of the Catholic Church nor a defender of their past and present atrocities, but to say that they murdered Copernicus is simply a lie. He died at the age of seventy, which in the sixteenth century was quite an old age. There are numerous other lies and disinformation in Brown’s book as he repeatedly paints the Illuminati as a group of innocent scientists and artists who the Church had set out to torture and kill. Brown is clearly well informed regarding conspiracy theory culture and at one point has Robert Langdon discuss the mysterious all-seeing eye on the back of the one dollar bill and explains that mysterious symbol is what got him interested in the Illuminati. At one point he also mentions that the Bilderberg group financed the Illuminati. (See Jim Tucker’s Bilderberg Diary page 110)

Brown actually defends the Illuminati in his novel. His character Robert Langdon, who is an “expert” on the Illuminati, fails to see them as a sinister power hungry gang, but instead says, “The Illuminati may have believed in the abolition of Christianity, but they wielded their power through political and financial means, not through terrorists acts. Furthermore, the Illuminati had a strict code of morality regarding who they saw as enemies.”185

Regardless of how entertaining and captivating Brown’s novel may be, it serves only to disarm an already ignorant and degenerate public, leading them to believe that the Illuminati is a fictional creation. When told it is a historically verifiable secret society that continues to exist today, many are only reminded of the doubtful Robert Langdon from Angels & Demons and the sinister satanic cult which plotted to blow up the Vatican with an anti-matter bomb.

At the very end of Angels & Demons, in a very dramatic twist, Dan Brown writes that there is actually no such thing as the Illuminati, and that a demented Vatican official who holds the position of the Camerlengo had concocted the story and was actually behind the plot himself. In the book, it turns out that the Illuminati really did go into extinction in the late 1700s and the Camerlengo played off of people’s fears that they had secretly continued to exist.

The success of Dan Brown’s books are not due to their exceptional quality, but rather that the Illuminati had used their influence to promote both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons to spread their tainted message about Jesus and the Illuminati. Dan Brown himself has some interesting ties to the real Illuminati, and it’s possible that he was used for the purpose of muddying the waters surrounding Christianity, the Illuminati, and the New World Order. Brown is a graduate of Philips Exeter Academy which is a private boarding school which was set up for the children of the elite. The Illuminati has largely funded this school and used it to educate their children and prepare them for their duties later in life.

In 1930 Edward Harkness donated 5.8 million dollars to the school with the conditions that their method of teaching students would change to what he called the Aristotelian method of antiquity. Harkness was the second largest share holder in Rockefeller’s Standard Oil in the early 1900s and was in John D. Rockefeller’s inner circle. The Rockefeller family has been one of the most powerful Illuminati families for generations. Aristotle was a student of Plato who believed that most people were too stupid to govern themselves, and that society should be structured in a way that “philosopher kings” would rule and decided what was best for the people.

Dan Brown’s publisher for the first printing of Angels & Demons was Random House186 which is owned by the Bertelsmann media group in Germany which was the largest producer and publisher of Nazi propaganda during World War II.187 The Bertelsmann media group is a private company that has its primary owner listed as the Bertelsmann Foundation, the largest “non-profit” organization and think tank in Germany. The Da Vinci Code was also originally published by Random House through its subsidiary Doubleday. The reprint rights for Angels & Demons have since been sold to Simon and Shuster. The Illuminati thread leading through Dan Brown’s education, publisher, and themes of his books, clearly raises strong questions about his novels’ success and the messages they spread. It could very well be that Dan Brown is a willing participant in one of the biggest disinformation campaigns waged by the Illuminati in history.

References

#181 Brown, Dan – Angels & Demons page 38

#182 Brown, Dan – Angels & Demons page 39

#183 Brown, Dan – Angels & Demons page 40-41

#184 Galileo died in 1642 and Bernini died in 1680

#185 Brown, Dan – Angels & Demons page 41

#186 http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780739326756

#187 The London Times German media giant grew fat on Nazi propaganda by Roger Boyes October 9, 2002

http://www.theresistancemanifesto.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=82:angels-a-demons&catid=44:press-releases&Itemid=82

The Hungarian crisis of culture or economics?

2009-04-27T22:28:00.008+02:00

An article in the NY Times refers to an economic collapse of a nation just sticking its head into the club of Europe. A nation that just recovered from a bout with communism, still reeling from its trip to the West, spinning so fast, its about to topple right over in its new dancing shoes.

The contrast of change we have witnessed in the past ten years might not be as stark as what the author experienced in 20, but even that is nothing short of amazing. Each day I walk the streets, it hits me again and again the potential this city has.

The author does seem to take a shallow surface view of the situation... and for him, like many others, Budapest is Hungary, and infrastructure is the yardstick for progress. The infrastick is far outpacing both the culturestick or the ecostick, and the sensei Budastick burns much greener than the swaggy videkstick. But this country is being led by cosmopolitan Budapesters on one hand and self-righteous nationalists who feel they deserve much better without having to work for it, on the other. The crowds in between are a victim of their own vices...

Most Hungarians want it all with no sacrifice (praise goes for the exceptions). Ruthless every-man-for-himself living, fueled by the refusal to give in to hopelessness, pervades the self-destructive mentality and prolongs the dire economic situation. Give me socialist welfare but I wont pay my taxes; good service, but don't expect a smile from me; capitalist prosperity with a socialist safety net; honest business partners so we can screw others together before we screw each other. They are schico's caught in a limbo of corrupt balkan cronyism, german rigidity, mediterranean 'I dont give a fuck' business attitude, and Swedish socialist expectations.

Despite self-defeating mentality of the many, there is hope fueling a few. There is a vibe magnetic and infecting about the country, and especially Budapest. I had a conversation just yesterday with a Turkish friend who seems to have just realized after two years this will be his home. His family, friends and career are all waiting for him in Istanbul, but still he chooses Budapest. The author's description of the crowds walking the streets with "furtive energy, muffled pride" sums it up well. Scores of youth complain and talk about moving West, but when an opportunity arises, they stick it through and stick around. Despite the lingering cloud of pessimism formed the day children look into their parents eyes and crystallized the day they first learn their history, hope seems to shine through with the pulse of a city unlike any other in Europe. A love and hate relationship of the worst kind.

Hungary is infected by its own culture, at awe with its own potential, and angry at the world at its own failure to change. Hopefully, they will emerge from this crisis with renewed determination to put history on their side once and for all, but for that, constructive self-criticism needs to be fueled with determination and optimism, as opposed to resentment and greed.

ok, some specifics:
- Companies were firing people left & right in the first 3 months of the yr. Officially, unemployment stagnated at 7.8%, since March, which could be viewed as even positive if exports wouldnt have fallen by 30% since January and imports by even more. The central statistics office said thats probably the largest monthly fall since the collapse of Communism.
- Loan default rates will rise to nearly 25%! Thats Europe's highest rate and the biggest threat to the economy. The weaker the forint gets, the greater the threat.
- BP and Citibank are opening up 1000+ people operations in Q1,Q2 of this year. As industrial production dries up, the only source of new jobs will be back office deskwork at multinationals. That will only serve to further 'greenify' the budastick at the expense of the swiggity.
- some positive news - palacsinta, paprikas krumpli, rakott krumpli and fozeleks of all sorts are back in style! Cheap, filling recession food we all love when on a tight budget!

So the effects of the slowdown have barely begun to take effect... If anyone has any money to spare, look for investing in an apartment here towards the end of the year when desperation for cash really kicks in!

On the other hand, the city is full of smiling bikies enjoying cheap frocs at Godor and saving up for some of the kick-ass festivals about to rock our summer! :D

Hip-Hop Hijacked by Freemasons

2009-04-26T11:01:00.001+02:00

Back in the late 70's and early 80's when hip-hop was in its embryonic stages, most rap and hip-hop tracks had a happy-go-lucky vibe, with lyrics that talked about such things as who was the best MC or DJ.

There were more serious rappers, like Grandmaster Flash, who rapped about life in the ghetto. But even then, the songs had an overall positive vibe and the lyrics, although sometimes a bit deep and serious, usually tried to positively educate the young listener by speaking to them on their level and using terms that they can relate to. It was when we reached the mid 80's that hip-hop really started to evolve and many sub-genres started to develop. There were artists like Rob Base, Ice-T, Public Enemy, Run DMC, The Beastie Boys, Tone-Loc, De La Soul, and countless others.

Whatever you thought about any of these artists, hip-hop had a sense of honesty and integrity about it. For the most part, it appears that the genre sprang out of the grassroots. A lot of rap artists had actually lived the kind of life they rapped about. To some extent or other, many of them had already gained first-hand experience of the guns, drugs, racism, gang warfare, and the general despair of living life in the ghetto. For example, many of these issues were covered in a song called Colors, by Ice-T. In this song, Ice-T plays a character who lives this kind of life. Ice-T admits that he didn't personally live that kind of life but the character is based on the kind of person who does. Then a couple of years later, a rap outfit called NWA started rapping about the same issues in their debut album, Straight Outta Compton. And although the music was very good, they gave the misleading impression that they were actually living lives as gangsters in the ghetto. But in reality these guys were living millionaire lifestyles in the lap of luxury. I personally found this to be somewhat hypocritical and it was at this point that I realised that hip-hop had been taken over by the marketing gurus, who weren't just selling a lie, they were selling it to kids under the pretence that artists like "Vanilla Ice" had actually tasted life in the ghetto - yeah right!

Now hip-hop has reached the stage where it is being used to predictively program the minds of today's youth. In addition, many of today's top hip-hop artists are clearly involved to some degree in secret fraternal orders. They even have the audacity to flash masonic symbols all over the place. To me, this is an insult to the people who buy their music, and it shows that freemasonry has infiltrated just about every part of society, right down to the grassroots levels. I mean, if you can't even buy an album from your favorite rap artist without being predictively programmed and bombarded with masonic symbols and terms, what is the world coming to?

Don't get me wrong though, there are still plenty of great rap artists out there who haven't been compromised by the elite - such as Immortal Technique. And even the ones who have been compromised in some way, are not necessarily bad people and they may not even know that their strings are being pulled. All I can advise people to do is be aware of the symbolism, and be aware of how the music and film industries are being used to alter our behaviour by influencing the way we think about things.

The world as we know it is about to come to an end....

2009-04-25T23:06:00.004+02:00

What we need now [drum roll]... is a SUPERHERO!!!!

The 2009 Food 'Safety' Bills Harmonize Agribusiness Practices in Service of Corporate Global Governance

2009-04-25T00:17:00.003+02:00

We've been hearing about the whole GMO, Monsanto, Codex Alimentarius, World Trade Organization, World Health Organization scandal for quite some time now. We know it's coming and major steps are being taken towards its implementation. I just came across this article recently and it blew my mind when I read who Obama appointed as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. None other than Margaret Hamburg, MD.

From the article:

She sits on the board of directors at the Trust for America's Health. Hamburg, a well-connected player in the public health field, also serves on the board of directors of the Rockefeller Foundation. Among other things, the Rockefeller's vast fortune is responsible for funding foundations and institutes that spread unsafe genetically-engineered food crops around the world.
A notable craftsman at the Trust for America's Health is none other than the notorious Michael R. Taylor, JD. Most people who know Michael Taylor's name recall that he worked as Monsanto's lawyer at King & Spalding for years before being appointed to the FDA to oversee the swift introduction into the marketplace of GMOs.

What the article does not state is the reason why the Rockefellers are pushing these GMO's. It's a Eugenics Agenda Their whole campaign is geared towards reducing the worlds population by 80%. If you're not in their elite club, sorry you're shit out of luck!

Are you serious Obama? This in your face blatancy is unbelievable! This is the same crap as when we're told fluoridation of water is good for us because it protects our teeth.... and we have to get vaccinated because we'll get really sick if we don't. Vaccinations are becoming mandatory in many schools and hospitals nowadays. On a sidenote...

Students Kicked Out of School for Not Taking Vaccines

No need to connect the dots anymore ladies and gentleman, we have reached a new era.

I urge you to read the whole article and get up to speed on this

by Nicole Johnson
www.opednews.com

"I think it's time to de-professionalize the public debate on matters that vitally affect the lives of ordinary people. It's time to snatch our futures back from the "experts." Time to ask, in ordinary language, the public question and to demand, in ordinary language, the public answer."
-- Arundhati Roy, Power Politics

It's enough to make you so queasy you lose your lunch. HR 875, the "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009," is a head-spinning piece of legislation that would radically change the structure of the US government's regulatory agencies, usurping states rights to federalize food inspection and determine what agricultural practices are permissible. Considerable concern has been voiced about what this bill would mean for small and medium sized farmers, organic farming, the future of conventional and organic seeds, the food localization movement, and even home gardens. HR 875 would give regulators the power to enter private property, which is conveniently redefined as "premises," and impose enormous fines for noncompliance. Though not discussed in the corporate media, numerous articles about it appear on the internet, launching a debate about whether or not Monsanto is behind the bill.

In response to these articles, Brad Mitchell, a member of Monsanto's public relations staff who writes for the company's new blog -- a less-than-stealth effort to counter the public's deep distrust of the predatory corporation -- has gone on record stating that Monsanto has absolutely nothing at all to do with the bill.

Brad's assurances aside, experience dictates that taking Monsanto at its word is patently foolish. But for those who need a bit more proof, like the Organic Consumers Association and Food and Water Watch, let's settle the issue, once and for all: Who crafted the legislation and what do they hope to gain by it? Would it really make our food safer as it claims, or would it make mandatory the industrial agricultural practices that are the root cause of the food-borne illnesses it claims to vanquish? And what else might be at stake?

After a series of well-publicized cases of food contamination – E. coli-tainted meat, melamine-adulterated pet food and baby formula, salmonella-infected peanut butter – the public has been well primed to look toward Congress to fix a poorly funded and insufficiently staffed food safety inspection system. And, right on cue, a crop of "food safety" bills gets dumped our way. The most controversial and transformational of these pieces of legislation, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro's HR 875, can be traced directly to recommendations made by the Trust for America's Health, a non-profit organization sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Trust for America's Health has produced reports that serve as blueprints for a major restructuring of the agencies involved in overseeing food safety policy as well as eye-popping changes to the public health system. Its recommendations also have also made their way into the other food safety bills that have been recently introduced in Congress: SB 425, the "Food Safety and Tracking Improving Act;" HR 814, the "Trace Act of 2009;" and HR 759, the "Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009."

While the vaguely worded HR 875 gives the appearance of being a reasonable attempt to fix the problems outlined, a close inspection of the blueprints on which they are based --and a bit of knowledge about the industry players who crafted them -- reveals critical clues about how the public health system would be transformed for the benefit of biotech, pharmaceutical and agribusiness giants. Non-profit foundations have long served as effective tools for corporate wealth to influence public policy, providing the means to guarantee outcomes that enrich corporations at the public's expense. The global pharmaceutical and consumer product company Johnson & Johnson's tax-exempt foundation is no different.

Tayloring the Message: The Trust for America's Health

The public should familiarize itself with three key reports produced by The Trust for America's Health: "Keeping America's Food Safe: A Blueprint for Fixing the Food and Safety System at the US Department of Health and Human Services,"(1) "Fixing Food Safety: Protecting America's Food Supply from Farm-to-Fork,"(2) and the "Blueprint for a Healthier America: Modernizing the Federal Public Health System to Focus on Prevention and Preparedness."(3)

President Obama's nominee for Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Margaret Hamburg, MD, sits on the board of directors at the Trust for America's Health. Hamburg, a well-connected player in the public health field, also serves on the board of directors of the Rockefeller Foundation. Among other things, the Rockefeller's vast fortune is responsible for funding foundations and institutes that spread unsafe genetically-engineered food crops around the world.(4) Sadly, those who hoped that Obama's election would herald positive changes have repeatedly found themselves duped: the deep corporate ties of his appointees guarantee a continuation of corporate control over the US government, a veritable concierge service on steroids for private interests.

A notable craftsman at the Trust for America's Health is none other than the notorious Michael R. Taylor, JD. Taylor penned a paper included as an appendix of "Keeping America Safe: A Blueprint for Fixing the Food Safety System at the Department of Health and Human Services" called "Restructuring Food Safety at HHS: Design and Implementation." In it, Taylor prescribes the creation of a new Food Safety Administration that consolidates all safety functions formerly performed by a host of other government regulatory agencies and institutes on a federal level the use of industry-friendly "risk assessment" methods.

Monsanto's Jack of All Trades

Most people who know Michael Taylor's name recall that he worked as Monsanto's lawyer at King & Spalding for years before being appointed to the FDA to oversee the swift introduction into the marketplace of GMOs. He did so by ramming through a faux scientific regulatory conceit called "substantial equivalence."

Industry-independent scientists have rightly criticized the concept of substantial equivalence as an inappropriate method for determining safety, calling it "a pseudo-scientific concept because it is a commercial and political judgment masquerading as it if were scientific. It is, moreover, inherently anti-scientific because it was created primarily to provide an excuse for not requiring biochemical or toxicological tests. It therefore serves to discourage and inhibit potentially informative scientific research."(5)

FDA scientists at the Division of Food Chemistry and Technology wanted to see testing performed to ensure that GMO foods didn't increase levels of naturally occurring toxins, create new, previously unidentified toxins, increase the tendency to gather toxic substances from the environment such as pesticides or heavy metals, and alter the level nutrients.(6) Ignoring their scientific objections, the politically-appointed Taylor let loose GMO technology on the nation of guinea pigs without requiring any legitimate safety and toxicology investigations to protect public health. He also ensured that the public would remain ignorant of GMOs in their food by instituting a no-labeling policy. Now, almost 80% of the food sold in grocery stores contains GMOs. Monsanto subsequently rewarded Taylor for his government work by making him its Vice President of Public Policy.

These days, we find that Taylor has morphed from Monsanto's VP into a "research professor" at George Washington University School of Public Heath and Health Services. He also spends his time writing policy at a number of industry-funded think tanks, including Resources for the Future, Resolve Inc, the Food Safety Research Consortium, and the Alliance to End Hunger,

Those who are concerned about what the Organic Consumers Association calls the real Monsanto bill, The Global Food Security Act (SB 384), can see Taylor's contribution to that piece of legislation by reviewing a report he wrote for a think tank called the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa. The report, "Beating Africa's Poverty By Investing in Africa's Infrastructure,"(7) supports the expansive agenda of biotech firms. The organization is funded in part by the Rockefeller and Gates foundations, and Taylor's work product provides the rational for SB 384.(8) According the organization's website, it aims to "implement Partnership activities to strengthen agricultural and rural enterprises and to facilitate their integration into regional, national and global markets" by bringing together "core representatives from U.S. and Africa-based private and public organizations who have experience with Africa's agriculture and trade-related issues." To give him credit, Taylor is relentless and prolific. If only his work sought to empower rather than enslave.

Since shedding the title of Vice President of Monsanto, Taylor has been busy promoting the concept of "risk assessment" as a means to deal with food-borne illness as an alternative to urging regulatory agencies to actually enforce laws already on the books and to adequately fund them so they could do so. Like "substantial equivalence," the risk assessment conceit offers a great opportunity to change the system to benefit corporate interests. Taylor has spent years churning out the necessary conceptual building blocks in cross-pollinating think tanks and foundations to create the intellectual framework for legislative proposals like these food "safety" bills.

The reports produced by the Trust of America's Health rely heavily on "risk assessment, management and communication," a form of message control hatched at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, a corporate-funded affair that provides "scientific" justification for a wide range of policies corporations want to see implemented. Using this method of risk analysis, the necessary justification can be produced for just about whatever outcome is wished by the underwriters.

It's no real surprise that Taylor's think-tank-funded policy on risk assessment, like his report "Food Safety Updated: Developing Tools for a More Science- and Risk-Based Approach,"(9) underwritten by the Milbank Memorial Fund and Resources for the Future, has been embraced and institutionalized by the Codex Alimentarius Commission.

Codex – A Tool of Global Governance by Corporate Command

If some variation of this batch of bad bills is passed into legislation, US citizens will find their laws considerably closer to becoming harmonized with Codex Alimentarius, a set of international food codes crafted by unaccountable and unelected bureaucrats in conjunction with vested industry and trade interests. It's important that the public learns more about Codex, because its "standards" will be enforced by the World Trade Organization to govern global trade practices of all its member nations. Furthermore, this body of food codes will take legal precedence over national laws, like the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA).

The US media are assiduously silent on the matter of Codex. Under the helpful cover of the media's information blackout, Codex Alimentarius Commission meetings are regularly attended by officials from the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, State, Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of US Trade Representative, and the US Codex Office. Non-governmental agencies in attendance at the meetings include the 49th Parallel Biotechnology Consortium, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, Consumers Union, Crop Life International, Dow Chemical, Dupont, the European Association of Bioindustries, the Grain and Feed Trade Association, the International Cooperative Alliance, the International Council of Beverages Associations, the International Council of Grocery Manufacturers Association, the Institute of Food Technologists, the International Glutamate Technical Committee and the International Life Sciences Institute, Monsanto, and Sygenta, among others –with the exception, that is, of any democratically elected and accountable representatives of citizens these food codes will affect.

The standards created by the Codex Alimentarius Commission are set to enable industry interests to dictate and control rules covering vitamins, minerals and nutrients, genetically modified plants and livestock, toxic residues, antibiotics, drugs, growth stimulants and other hormones in food and animals, organic foods, the irradiation of plants and animal food and nanotechnology. Scott Tips, President of the National Health Federation, the only accredited health freedom organization allowed to participate at Codex meetings, projects that these standards are on tract to be implemented sometime between 2011 and 2013.

Codex committees -- such as the Codex Committees on Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC), Pesticide Residues (CCPR), Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods (CCRVDF), Food Hygiene (CCFH), General Principles (CCGP), Food Labeling (CCFL), Nutrition and Food for Dietary Uses (CCNFDU), Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems (CCFICS) and Methods of Analysis an Sampling (CCMAS) – all employ the concept of risk management to determine the rules they recommend to the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC).

Codex standards are of critical importance to agribusiness, because they are acknowledged as the appropriate guidelines in the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreements of the WTO Agreement. While the WTO had provisions that allowed member states to create barriers to trade by citing national legislation to ensure food safety, those provisions would become void, thanks to the SPS and TBT agreements, if an international safety standard created by Codex determined otherwise. So, thanks to the unelected and unaccountable private deal-makers who wrote these trade agreements, Codex rules will trump national law.

Meet the Missus -- Christine Lewis Taylor

Undermining US law for the benefit of multinational corporations is a family affair in the Taylor household. To see how the concept of "risk assessment" can be usefully abused, let's look at how Mrs. Michael Taylor adopts the conceit to her purposes.

Christine Lewis Taylor, a veteran FDA employee, has been busy working up the "scientific" justification for placing a cap on the level of nutrients people should be allowed to consume. To do so, she pushes a perverse concept that defines nutrients as toxins. In other words, Mrs. Taylor would like us all to believe that the vitamins and minerals needed by cells throughout the body in order to function and detoxify should be considered hazardous, requiring governmental oversight that would limit people's exposure to them under law.

After a stint heading up the Codex delegation on the Committee on Food Labeling and another as a delegate to Codex's Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses, Christine Lewis Taylor was farmed out by the Institute of Medicine to the World Health Organization, where she played an instrumental role as Project Director in applying the risk assessment model to redefine nutrition as we know it. Her mission: To develop the framework whereby an "upper safe limit" would be set, defining the amount supplements the public should be allowed to purchase except by prescription. In her WHO capacity, she organized a seminar, selected the scientists who would be allowed to participate in it, and oversaw the group's published conclusion.(10)

US law regulates supplements as food. But the pharmaceutical industry wants to change that and have supplements regulated as drugs, and bureaucrats like Mrs. Taylor are doing what they can to comply. Taylor argues that people are exposed to too many nutrients and wants to see the establishment of a one-size-fits-all international standard set that stipulates how much of each nutrient people need, a amount that in some cases is less than the already established recommended daily allowances.(11)

But the good news, at least for pharmaceutical companies, is that there would be more profit to be made in treating a host of vitamin-deficiency diseases. And, once these guidelines are adopted by Codex, people would no longer have the freedom to purchase therapeutic amounts of dietary supplements to compensate for a nutrient-deficient and legally poisoned food supply to which we're subjected. Supplements would no longer be consider food as they are under DSHEA but instead would be regulated as drugs, available only by prescription or in amounts so limited as to render them insufficiently helpful in the prevention of disease.

People are subject to disease not because they are deficient in pharmaceuticals. We are subject to disease because we either do not get the nutrients we need from our food sources or because we are exposed to environmental toxins and harmful food adulterants like hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, pesticide residues, aspartame, and GMOs, falsely deemed safe by the FDA. These adulterants contribute directly to a long list of predictable degenerative diseases. But thanks to the tireless work of Mrs. Taylor, the chemical cartel will get wealthier by making us sick and wealthier still by treating us for illnesses its products cause.

Sweeping Inconvenient Facts Under the Rug

In addition to her work toward the implementation of Codex, it's worth noting that Christine Taylor Lewis has done her part to rewrite history to make her husband's tenure at the FDA to appear less corrupt than it, in fact, was. Talk about housekeeping. While serving as the thesis advisor to a Tuft's university student, Taylor oversaw the details of a dissertation entitled the "Labeling of Genetically Modified Foods: Stakeholder Perceptions of the Food and Drug Administration's Public Consultation Processes and Food Industry Reactions to the United States Voluntary and European Union Mandatory Policies."(12)

This thesis belongs to Janice Lee Albert, who happened to be an employee of the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization in Rome while working on her dissertation. Albert's dissertation focuses on the controversy over labeling GMOs, a topic that deeply involved Michael Taylor, her thesis advisor's husband. However, that marital relationship is never disclosed in the dissertation. In fact, while Mr. Taylor's work is described throughout the dissertation, Albert fails to identify him by name as a key participant in the controversy. On the contrary, when Michael Taylor is – finally – mentioned by name, it is as one of twenty-four people Albert interviewed to obtain their views on the appropriateness of the FDA's labeling decisions. Astonishingly, Albert identifies Michael Taylor as an "Independent Expert," revealing nothing about the fact he (1) previously worked as a lawyer for the company who's product was getting special treatment or (2) the fact that he was the one in charge of implementing the concept of "substantial equivalence" at the FDA or (3) went to work for Monsanto afterwards.

Under Christine Lewis Taylor's supervision, Albert's thesis defends the FDA's controversial labeling decision and its consultation processes with the public as being "conducted as intended by law." Albert claims that members of the public who are dissatisfied with the FDA's decision not to label GMO products just don't understand the all the factors that go into making decisions at the FDA. She's probably correct on that point: Most of the public is under the mistaken assumption that the FDA has a responsibility to protect it from the unsafe products of an untested technology. Thanks to her explanation, at least we now know that certain employees of the FDA consider their only legal obligation is to offer the public an opportunity to voice its concerns, not act upon them.

Albert contends that the exact nature of the public concerns about GMOs was outside the scope of her dissertation and therefore unnecessary for her to address or even note. Nevertheless, a thorough pre-market study of the health risks associated with GMOs should never have been outside the scope of the FDA's responsibilities.

Scientists and journalists have lost their jobs for daring to cross the powerful biotech industry to publicize the health risks of GMOs.(13) The well-controlled media dutifully ignores the pile up of evidence of the nature of the dangers. In recent months, research has been published showing that GM corn increases infertility (14) and that the key ingredients in Monsanto's Round-Up Ready, the herbicide used on all GMO crops, cause death to human cells.(15)

Given what we now know about the dangers of GMOs, we should dispense with the discussion of whether or not to label them and move right to the topic of banning them altogether.

Identifying What Ails Us

Americans should be able to have confidence that the food they eat is safe. The Trust for America's Health, however, is using recent food-borne illness events as an excuse to make radical and unnecessary changes to a regulatory system has been purposely underfunded and understaffed.(16) While focusing exclusively of food borne illnesses, it has ignored the predictable diseases suffered by millions that are caused by the chronic consumption of foods adulterated with ingredients that an industry-dominated FDA deems to be GRAS, that is, "generally regarded as safe."

Restoring and protecting our health requires a real understanding about what ails us. To put things in perspective, food borne illnesses are responsible for some 5,000 death a year; but over 700,000 people die each year from government-approved medicine(17), and millions more suffer from predictable diseases that could be prevented if we had a safe, clean, whole-foods based food supply. If we allow those behind the food "safety" bills to use this crisis as an opportunity to change the food safety system, transnational corporations will have even more control over our health than they do now.

Prevention, as they say, is the best cure.

(2) "Keeping America's Food Safe: A Blueprint for Fixing the Food Safety System at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services," a report from The Trust for America's Health

http://healthyamericans.org/report/62/food-safety-2009

(3) "Blueprint for a Healthier America: Modernizing the Federal Public Health System to Focus on Prevention and Preparedness," a report from The Trust for America's Health,

http://healthyamericans.org/report/55/blueprint-for-healthier-america

(4) F. William Engdahl, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, published by Global Research, 2007.

(5) Erik Millston, Eric Brunner and Sue Mayer "Beyond Substantial Equivalence," published in Nature (7 Oct 1999).

http://www.greenpeace.org.br/transgenicos/pdf/beyond_substantial_equivalence.pdf

(6) Citizen Petition Before the United States Food and Drug Administration: Petition Seeking the Establishment of Mandatory Pre-Market Safety Testing, Pre-Market Environmental Review & Labeling for all Genetically Engineered Foods" filed by Center for Food Safety, Washington DC, et al., with Jane Henney, Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, March 21, 2000.

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/pubs/PetitionGEFoodRegs3.2000.pdf

(7) "Investing in Africa's Future – US agricultural development Assistance for Sub-Saharan Africa" By Michael R Taylor and Julie Howard, 2005, The Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa:

http://www.africanhunger.org/uploads/articles/ab119510183f8e254629783f67ea6abe.pdf

(8) "The Global Food Security Act" by Annie Shattuck. Foreign Policy in Focus, April 17, 2009.

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6050

(9) "Food Safety Updated: Developing Tools for a More Science-and Risk-Based Approach," Michael R. Taylor, Margaret O'K.Glavin, J. Glenn Morris, Jr., and Catherine E. Woteki. Published by the Milbank Memorial Fund and Resources for the Future, July 2003.

http://www.milbank.org/reports/2003foodsafety/030731foodsafety.html

(10) "Highlights of 'A Model for Establishing Upper Levels of Intake for Nutrients and Related Substances: Report of a Joint FAO/WHO Technical Workshop on Nutrient Risk Assessment, May 2-6, 2005" by Christine Lewis Taylor, PhD, Nutrient Reviews, Vol 65, Issue 1, pp 31-38.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?term=17310857&cmd=search&db=pubmed

(11) "The NAS Risk Assessment Model for Establishing Upper Intake Levels for Nutrients: A Critical Perspective From Psycho-physiological Perspective," Richard Malter, PhD. 2000.

http://www.iahf.com/nas/nasrebut.html

(12) "Labeling of Genetically Modified Foods: Stakeholder Perceptions of the Food and Drug Administration's Public Consultation Processes and Food Industry Reactions to the United States Voluntary and European Union Mandatory Policies." Janice Lee Albert

ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/nonfao/ai241e/ai241e00.pdf

(13) Jeffrey M. Smith, Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Altered Foods You're Eating. Yes! Books, 2003.

(14) "Biological effects of transgenic maize NK603xMON810 fed in long term reproduction studies in mice" Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, managed by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health, Family and Youth, and carried out by Veterinary University Vienna. November 2008

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/DocumentFiles/190.pdf

(15) "Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human Umbilical, Embryonic, and Placental Cells" by Nora Benachour and Gilles-Eric Séralini, Chem. Res. Toxicol., December 23, 2008 Copyright © 2008 American Chemical Society
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/tx800218n

(16) "Starvation Diet: FDA Lacks Adequate Resources for its Nutritional Health and Consumer Protection Missions" published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington DC. October 2003.

http://cspinet.org/new/pdf/starvationrep.final.pdf

(17) "Death by Medicine" by Gary Null PhD, Carolyn Dean MD, Martin Feldman MD, Debora Rasio MD, and Dorothy Smith PhD. Life Extension Magazine, March 2004.

http://www.webdc.com/pdfs/deathbymedicine.pdf

Obama’s First 100 Days: Worse Than Even We Predicted

2009-04-24T20:51:00.002+02:00

From protecting Bush officials who ordered torture from prosecution, to maintaining and expanding the American empire, to warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, all have remained and intensified under Obama.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 20, 2009

As President Barack Obama approaches his first 100 days in office, the corporate media prepares a new round of fawning idolatry about the Obama administration’s “achievements,” yet a summary glance at what Obama has actually done in that short time with regard to expanding the Bush police state and the Neo-Con empire is worse than even we predicted.

The day after Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States in November last year, we challenged Obama supporters and the administration itself to follow through on the rhetoric of “change” by starting to dismantle the architecture of the Bush police state and beginning to roll back the unwieldy morass of the American empire. Obama has done neither, and in fact his every action has been about ensuring the Bush police state remains in place, that the people who put it in place are protected from prosecution, and that the empire continues to expand.

We presented Obama and his supporters with a series of issues on which to make progress. While we did not expect Obama to accomplish much in his first few months in office, we at least challenged the new President to take the first steps in reversing eight years of what was a de facto dictatorship and plotting the course for the “change” that was so consistently promised.

We asked the following questions of an Obama presidency;

- Will Obama support Dennis Kucinich’s efforts to bring war crimes charges against Bush, Cheney and others for deceiving the country into a war or will he protect them against such charges like Nancy Pelosi has done?

In April 2008, Obama promised that as President he would ask his Attorney General to “immediately review” potential war crimes that occurred under the Bush White House. Obama or his Attorney General have done no such thing, and every noise they have made suggests that top Neo-Cons will be protected from deceiving America into a war.

Similarly we asked;

- Will Obama bring war crimes charges against Bush, Cheney and others for authorizing torture and will the torture of suspects under U.S. detention, a complete violation of both the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, cease under an Obama administration?

As we found out last week, the answer was a resounding NO. Upon the release of the torture memos, Obama’s right-hand man, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, told ABC News that top Bush administration officials “should not be prosecuted either and that’s not the place that we go.” In addition, Obama’s statement that accompanied the release of the torture memos stated, “In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.”

So no retribution for the people who ordered the torture, and no retribution to the people who carried it out, thus setting the precedent that future administrations are free to order torture - safe in the knowledge that they will face no consequences whatsoever.

- Will Obama withdraw American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan without sending them away again to bomb another broken-backed third world country?

The answer again is a resounding NO. Upon taking office, Obama announced that he would be sending another 17,000, and eventually perhaps as many as 30,000, extra troops to Afghanistan.

Regarding Iraq, after the “withdrawal” of U.S. troops in 19 months, a timescale that has since been put back again, “Mr. Obama plans to leave behind a “residual force” of tens of thousands of troops to continue training Iraqi security forces, hunt down foreign terrorist cells and guard American institutions,” reported the New York Times.

In terms of bombing another broken-backed third world country, Obama has beefed the U.S. military role in Pakistan beyond that pursued by the Bush administration and “expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan,” according to the New York TImes, with an increase in missile attacks by drone aircraft.

Meanwhile, Obama’s war chest demands came to a total of around $800 billion in war funds and subsidiary costs just to cover the rest of 2009.

Does any of this sound like a move towards bringing the troops home and rolling back the American empire, as Obama promised before he was elected?

- Will Obama end the warrantless secret surveillance and phone-taps of American citizens?

You’ll be shocked the learn that the answer was a resounding NO. Earlier this month, “The Obama administration formally adopted the Bush administration’s position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) warrantless wiretapping program,” reported the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. “But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration’s cover-up of the National Security Agency’s dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a ’secret’ that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again.”

- Will Obama cease his support for the Bush-administration backed banker bailouts, hated by the majority of Americans, and target the real cause of the problem - the Federal Reserve - or will he continue to give taxpayers’ money to banks who are merely hoarding it all for themselves?

Obama’s zealous push for more bailouts, along with increased power for the Federal Reserve and the implementation of global regulations that will effectively end any notion of a free market was perhaps the defining issue of his first 100 days as President. Obama has vigorously promoted the same financial policies that were introduced by the Bush administration in its final few months.

- Will Obama repeal Patriot Acts I and II as well as reversing Bush’s signing statement and acknowledging the repeal of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act? Will Obama seek to continue the militarization of America and preparations for martial law through Northcom and the secret government or will he dismantle the police state that has been constructed over the last eight years by the Bush administration?

Despite initial rhetoric about reversing Bush’s infamous signing statements, Obama himself stated that he will continue to use signing statements. The Patriot Act and its additions as well as the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, both core planks of the Bush police state, remain firmly in place, with no sign of any reversal.

Regarding militarization through Northcom, weeks after Obama’s election victory it was announced that, “The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.” Militarization of law enforcement and troops being used domestically in preparation for martial law is continuing apace under the Obama administration.

- Will Obama follow through on his rhetorical support for the second amendment or will he seek to ban guns as he did in Illinois?

Despite Obama promising that he was not interested in going after the second amendment before his election, one of his first actions was to appoint the rabidly anti-gun Eric Holder as his Attorney General. Obama has also falsely blamed the drug war crisis in Mexico on American gun shops. The leaked Obama gun ban list would make millions of Americans criminals for owning weapons such certain types of rifles or pistols. Anti-gun legislation has found its way into stimulus and other unrelated bills as pork barrel. The first steps of the Obama administration with regard to gun control have resulted in record firearm and ammunition purchases across the country.

Upon Obama’s election we made a cynical but unfortunately accurate prediction of how the much vaunted promise of “change” would actually manifest itself. The fact is that the “change” began and ended on the day Obama won the election.

- Illegal warrantless surveillance and wiretapping of American citizens will continue under Obama.

- Top Bush administration officials who ordered torture and those that carried it out will be protected from prosecution under Obama.

- Top Bush administration officials who deceived America into a war will be protected from prosecution under Obama.

- The expansion of the military empire through continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and further military incursions into Pakistan will continue and expand under Obama.

- Banker bailouts, reckless spending, inflation of currency through overprinting and global regulations stifling the free market, all of which were initiated under Bush, will continue under Obama.

- The militarization of the United States and the architecture of the police state that was set up under Bush will be preserved and expanded under Obama.

- The attack on the second amendment right to bear arms will continue under Obama.

“The egregious spending will continue, government will balloon in size, American soldiers will be used as cannon fodder for more interventionist wars of the military-industrial complex, U.S. citizens will continue to have their phone calls tapped and their rights curtailed,” we forecast last year, “and the Federal Reserve will continue to rule the financial system with an iron fist while the middle class is squeezed out of existence.”

Who can deny that all those things have only intensified under the Obama administration?

The honeymoon is over - Barack Obama has proven himself to be nothing more than we predicted all along - another stooge for the global banking syndicate that has controlled every U.S. president since JFK, and nothing more than a black face on the new world order - sworn to continue and intensify the same agenda that the Bush-Clinton-Bush dynasty advanced before him.

The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not be uttered on TV

2009-04-22T16:41:00.005+02:00

The New York Times' David Barstow won a richly deserved Pulitzer Prize yesterday for two articles that, despite being featured as major news stories on the front page of The Paper of Record, were completely suppressed by virtually every network and cable news show, which to this day have never informed their viewers about what Barstow uncovered. Here is how the Pulitzer Committee described Barstow's exposés:

Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.

By whom were these "ties to companies" undisclosed and for whom did these deeply conflicted retired generals pose as "analysts"? ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox -- the very companies that have simply suppressed the story from their viewers. They kept completely silent about Barstow's story even though it sparked Congressional inquiries, vehement objections from the then-leading Democratic presidential candidates, and allegations that the Pentagon program violated legal prohibitions on domestic propaganda programs. The Pentagon's secret collaboration with these "independent analysts" shaped multiple news stories from each of these outlets on a variety of critical topics. Most amazingly, many of them continue to employ as so-called "independent analysts" the very retired generals at the heart of Barstow's story, yet still refuse to inform their viewers about any part of this story.

And even now that Barstow yesterday won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting -- one of the most prestigious awards any news story can win -- these revelations still may not be uttered on television, tragically dashing the hope expressed yesterday (rhetorically, I presume) by Media Matters' Jamison Foser that "maybe now that the story has won a Pulitzer for Barstow, they'll pay attention." Instead, it was Atrios' prediction that was decisively confirmed: "I don't think a Pulitzer will be enough to give the military analyst story more attention." Here is what Brian Williams said last night on his NBC News broadcast in reporting on the prestigious awards:

The Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and the arts were awarded today. The New York Times led the way with five, including awards for breaking news and international reporting. Las Vegas Sun won for the public service category for its reporting on construction worker deaths in that city. Best commentary went to Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post, who of course was an on-air commentator for us on MSNBC all through the election season and continues to be. And the award for best biography went to John Meacham, the editor of Newsweek magazine, for his book "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House."

No mention that among the five NYT prizes was one for investigative reporting. Williams did manage to promote the fact that one of the award winners was an MSNBC contributor, but sadly did not find the time to inform his viewers that NBC News' war reporting and one of Williams' still-featured premiere "independent analysts," Gen. Barry McCaffrey, was and continues to be at the heart of the scandal for which Barstow won the Pulitzer. Williams' refusal to inform his readers about this now-Pulitzer-winning story is particularly notable given his direct personal involvement in the secret, joint attempts by NBC and McCaffrey to contain P.R. damage to NBC from Barstow's story, compounded by the fact that NBC was on notice of these multiple conflicts as early as April, 2003, when The Nation first reported on them.

Identically, CNN ran an 898-word story on the various Pulitzer winners -- describing virtually every winner -- but was simply unable to find any space even to mention David Barstow's name, let alone inform their readers that he won the Prize for uncovering core corruption at the heart of CNN's coverage of the Iraq War and other military-related matters. No other major television news outlet implicated by Barstow's story mentioned his award, at least as far as I can tell.

The outright refusal of any of these "news organizations" even to mention what Barstow uncovered about the Pentagon's propaganda program and the way it infected their coverage is one of the most illuminating events revealing how they operate. So transparently corrupt and journalistically disgraceful is their blackout of this story that even Howard Kurtz and Politico -- that's Howard Kurtz and Politico -- lambasted them for this concealment. Meaningful criticisms of media stars from media critic (and CNN star) Howie Kurtz is about as rare as prosecutions for politically powerful lawbreakers in America, yet this is what he said about the television media's suppression of Barstow's story: "their coverage of this important issue has been pathetic."

Has there ever been another Pulitzer-Prize-winning story for investigative reporting never to be mentioned on major television -- let alone one that was twice featured as the lead story on the front page of The New York Times? To pose the question is to answer it.

UPDATE: Media Matters has more on the glaring omissions in Brian Williams' "reporting" and on the pervasive impact of the Pentagon's program on television news coverage. Williams' behavior has long been disgraceful on this issue, almost certainly due to the fact that some of the "analysts" most directly implicated by Barstow's story are Williams' favored sources and friends.

On a different note, CQ's Jeff Stein responds today to some of the objections to his Jane-Harman/AIPAC/Alberto-Gonazles blockbuster story -- quite convincingly, in my view -- and, as Christy Hardin Smith notes, the New York Times has now independently confirmed much of what Stein reported.

UPDATE II: For some added irony: on his NBS News broadcast last night suppressing any mention of David Barstow's Pulitzer Prize, Brian Williams' lead story concerned Obama's trip to the CIA yesterday. Featured in that story was commentary from Col. Jack Jacobs, identified on-screen this way: "Retired, NBC News Military Analyst." Jacobs was one of the retired officers who was an active member of the Pentagon's "military analyst" program, and indeed, he actively helped plan the Pentagon's media strategy at the very same time he was posing as an "independent analyst" on NBC (h/t reader gc; via NEXIS). So not only did Williams last night conceal from his viewers any mention of the Pentagon program, he featured -- on the very same broadcast -- "independent" commentary from one of the central figures involved in that propaganda program.

On a related note, Howard Kurtz was asked in his Washington Post chat yesterday about Mike Allen's grant of anonymity to a "top Bush official" that I highlighted on Saturday, and Kurtz -- while defending much of Allen's behavior -- said: "I don't believe an ex-official should have been granted anonymity for that kind of harsh attack."

-- Glenn Greenwald
source:

Alan Keyes: Government Will Stage Terror, Declare Martial Law

2009-04-22T03:39:00.003+02:00

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes has given perhaps his most dire warning yet, saying that the Obama administration is preparing to stage terror attacks, declare martial law and cancel the 2012 elections, which is why they are demonizing their political enemies as criminals and terrorists.

Keyes is best known for his performance during the 2000 Republican presidential debates, when he was accredited by many media outlets as being the clear winner during a series of debates with George W. Bush and John McCain.

“It’s obvious that they will stop at nothing,” Keyes told attendees of a reception in Fort Wayne, adding, “We may wake up one day and there’s a series of terrorist attacks, the economy is paralysed….martial law will be declared everywhere in the United States and it won’t end until the crisis ends.”

Keyes said that Americans should be thankful if they even see another election in 2012, stating, “If we don’t wake up and work to see that it happens, we will not see another election.”

“The minute they think they can get away with it, they will end this system of government and that is their intention,” added Keyes, noting that everyone acting as if the time we are in was just “business as usual” reminds him of the attitude of politicians in the Weimar Republic when Hitler was rising to power or eastern Europe when the Communists were taking over after the second world war.

Keyes said that because the majority of people are decent-minded, they believe others will play by the rules when this simply isn’t the case, warning that this attitude will allow evil to take over before we can do anything about it.

“It is so clear hat we have now put a faction in place - they are not playing by the rules and they don’t intend to play by the rules - if they were playing by the rules they wouldn’t have tried to identify their opposition as criminals,” added Keyes, making reference to the recent controversy surrounding the release of the MIAC and Homeland Security reports, which implied that Americans who exercise and are knowledgeable about their constitutional rights are a threat to law enforcement and potential domestic terrorists.

Keyes said that the only solution was from the bottom up because our leaders “are so gutless that they won’t even ask that the Constitution be enforced for clear, plain, absolutely unequivocal requirements,” and respond meekly with “their lips shut and their hearts terrorized.”

Keyes also warned of Obama’s agenda to create a civilian security force and said it was part of the ultimate agenda to disarm American citizens and create a police state.

Keyes has been a vocal critic of Obama, warning that he is a radical Communist who is determined to destroy America, and that if his agenda is not stopped then the country as we know it will cease to exist.