As Tyranny Descends Upon America...

 

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Are You Resolute Enough In Your Beliefs To Stand Against Tyranny?
The Many Think They Have It, But Only A Few Know They Do
NewsFocus, by Tim Watts - 062612

With all of the signs of a police state descending upon the US, few people have ever stopped to think about what they would do if the government gets out of hand and becomes tyrannical and dictatorial. How many would openly stand in defiance of a corrupt government that oppresses its people?

Do you really have what it takes to make a stand against the criminal cabal behind the new world order?

How deep is your belief that freedom is every person's right?

How convicted and passionate are you in defending your beliefs?

I want you to look at the following photo of a German man, at the height of Nazi power, openly standing in defiance of Hitler. His name is August Landmesser. He originally supported the Nazi party, but once he saw where it was going, he stood in defiance of it. How many people have the courage of August Landmesser?

When push comes to shove, do you seriously believe that you have the fortitude to stand with greater principles against a greater power?

The criminals who control our government have enacted much legislation to now do far more than Hitler ever dreamed about. The Patriot Act, the NDAA, the SIP and HR 658 all threaten your liberty and freedom. Our rights have been legislated away. Our freedom is rapidly vanishing. What are you going to do about it?

Again, how many reading this will have the courage of August Landmesser?

Americans need to think long and hard on this one. And from the look of things, they'd better do it fast.


A 1936 photo of German August Landmesser refusing to perform the Nazi salute.
(And make sure you check out the two weasels behind Landmesser. Don't ever be like them.)
 

Why Personal Privacy is Now Public Enemy #1
TheDailyReckoning.com, by Joel Bowman - 020712

We’d prefer to invite you to a quieter place, Fellow Reckoner…somewhere we could talk in private. A speakeasy, perhaps. Somewhere off the radar. Alas, that’s becoming increasingly difficult.

In fact, according to recruitment propaganda handed out by the FBI and the Department of Justice to Internet cafe owners across the country, a person may be considered “suspicious” if they “are overly concerned about privacy” or if he/she “attempts to shield the screen from view of others.”

Other “Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities Related to Internet Café,” according to this particular flyer, include, “paying with cash,” traveling an “illogical distance to use [the] Internet Café,” acting “nervous” or exhibiting “suspicious behavior inconsistent with activities.”

What constitutes an “illogical distance,” we wonder? Two miles? Five? Twenty? What about visiting a cafe while on vacation? Is that an “illogical distance” from a person’s home? Come to think of it, what does an “illogical distance” even mean? Negative three miles? Minus six miles? Moreover, how would one even know the distance a person traveled to email grandma or fill out online job applications? Should we be spying on them?

Well… Yes, say the Feds. ... (Read More)

NewsFocus: Terrorism is the act of instilling fear in order to change a society. A solid case can be made that the real terrorists changing our society are Federal government agencies, overzealous in their encouragement of paranoid and terrified citizens to do their job for them. If the Feds cannot do their jobs, as they did prior to 9/11, then we as taxpayers need to find someone else who can. They operate with our money. Don't forget that. They are using our tax dollars to instill fear among the populace, and making us all terrorist suspects for the most asinine of reasons.

One example... if you suspect someone of being a terrorist, you are encouraged to follow them, no matter how unfounded your reasoning is, or that proposed by the FBI. Now, if the person you are following sees you and tries to run or get away from you, that is supposedly even more reason why they could be a terrorist.

Do you see a problem here?

So what if the person being followed is innocent, and considers their pursuer to be a terrorist? Wouldn't it be normal for them to become worried and try to get away from someone stalking them?

Again, terrorism is the act of instilling fear within a populace with the intent to change their society. So ask yourself, who has done the better job of fomenting fear, our elected officials and government agencies, or mythical boogeyman conjured up by these aforementioned officials?

For the record, the US has done more to create terrorism by invading foreign countries for no reason at all, murdering and raping their citizens, all for the patently bogus bullshit War On Terror. It's time for people to realize who the real terrorists truly are.
 

Is A False Flag Attack Being Hatched To Attack Iran?
 

FreedomLink Program On The Growing US Police State

Joe Joseph and Tim Watts discuss the police state that is taking hold in America.

Senators Terrified With Abuse of Patriot Act’s Secret Laws
RT News.com - 031612

Horrified with the way the US government uses the Patriot Act against its own people, two senators have been trying to make these practices public for years. Tired of being ignored, they're now taking their fight against secret programs to public.

Two US senators wrote the attorney general of the United States this week, urging the federal government to give the American public evidence explaining how the Patriot Act has been interpreted since signed into law in 2001.

In a joint letter to Attorney General Eric Holder sent Thursday, Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Mark Udall (D-Colorado) plead with the government to provide the American people with the facts behind what the Patriot Act can let America’s top investigators do. The lawmakers, who have rallied for disclosure of these details for more than two years, say citizens would be “stunned” to learn what the government believes it can get away with under the law. ... (Read More)
 

The Death Of Freedom In America

Is CIA finalizing false flag SAM attacks as pretext for war with Iran?
PressCore.ca - 112311

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the U.S. and Israel against an attack on Iran, cautioning that such a move would mean “a very serious mistake”. Russia warned the U.S. because Russian intelligence knows that the CIA is finalizing preparations for multiple false flag attacks against the United States. The CIA is reportedly going to use SA-7 shoulder-fired, low-altitude surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), that the CIA smuggled out of Libya and into the United States, against both civilian and U.S. government aircraft. Russian intelligence indicates that the United States government has authorized Israel to launch an attack against Iran immediately following multiple false flag SAM attacks in the U.S. Unbeknownst to Barack Hussein Obama is that the CIA will be targeting him. ... (Read More)

NewsFocus: This is a disturbing story. God help us if this were to happen. With the Federal Reserve on the run from Congress and the Occupy Wall Street protests, and a Ron Paul presidential run gaining steam, the crooked cabal behind the scenes could very well be formulating options to hold onto its power.
 

Two Constitutions In The United States
The 1st Version Was Suspended In Favor Of A Vatican Corporation In 1871
PressCore.ca - 092911


Pope meeting with the board of directors of The Vatican Bank

Since 1871 the United States president and the United States Congress has been playing politics under a different set of rules and policies.  The American people do not know that there are two Constitutions in the United States.  The first penned by the leaders of the newly independent states of the United States in 1776.  On July 4, 1776, the people claimed their independence from Britain and Democracy was born.  And for 95 years the United States people were free and independent.  That freedom ended in 1871 when the original “Constitution for the united states for America” was changed to the “THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”.

The Congress realized that the country was in dire financial straits, so they made  a financial deal with the devil – international bankers — (in those days, the Rothschilds of London ) thereby incurring a DEBT to said bankers.  The conniving international bankers were not about to lend the floundering nation any money without some serious stipulations. So, they devised a way of taking back control of the United States and thus, the Act of 1871 was passed.  With no constitutional authority to do so, Congress created a separate form of government for the District of Columbia. ... (Read More)
 

Federal Reserve Bankers Linked To Fake gold in Fort Knox
PressCore.ca - 060311

In October of 2009 China received a shipment of gold bars from the United States Department of the Treasury Bullion Depository in Fort Knox. The gold is regularly exchanged between countries to pay debts and to settle the balance of trade. Most gold is exchanged and stored in vaults under the supervision of a special organization based in London, the London Bullion Market Association (or LBMA). When the shipment was received, the Chinese government ordered special tests be performed to guarantee the purity and weight of the gold bars as China is the largest foreign holder of US Treasury securities.  Chinese officials were shocked to learn that the bars were fake. The gold shipment contained a tungsten core with a thin coating of real gold. These tested gold bars originated in the US and had been stored in Fort Knox for years.

The Chinese government quickly launched an investigation and issued a statement that implicated the US government in the scheme.  The gold shipment serial numbers revealed that these fake bars were made by the Federal Reserve bankers during the Clinton administration.  It was during the Bill and Hillary Clinton presidency that the bankers of the Federal Reserve manufactured between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks.  640,000 of these tungsten blanks were gold plated and were shipped to Ft. Knox where they remain there to this day. ... (Read More)
 

School Sucks: The American Way

So much truth in such a short video.

School Sucks: Pronoun Magic [Tips For Aspiring Politicians/Criminals]

This will give you a lot to think about. Please do.
 

Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home front
Unmanned aircraft from an Air Force base in North Dakota help local police with surveillance, raising questions that trouble privacy advocates.
LA Times,

 Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

"We don't use [drones] on every call out," said Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks. "If we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don't call them." ... (Read More)

NewsFocus: This sets an ugly precedent with a direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. The military is expressly prohibited from involvement in US domestic police action. Like they couldn't have sent up a police helicopter?
 

America's First 9/11:
Fusion Center Documents Label OKC Bombing Investigators As Terrorists
Red Dirt Report, by Andrew W. Griffin - 112811

OKLAHOMA CITY – Ten years after 9/11 and 16 years after the Oklahoma City bombing, it appears the federal government continues to view some Americans who embrace their First Amendment rights – press and speech, primarily – as a danger to the State, and as a result they are listing certain investigative websites as extremist and a terroristic threat to the “homeland.”

One, labeled as “extremist” and therefore a threat to the U.S. Government, includes a well-known site, once operated by a truth-seeking Oklahoma state legislator, working to expose anomalies related to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing – OKCbombing.net. A link to the document can be seen here.
 

This shocking designation is indeed troubling, particularly to the local documentary film production company Free Mind Films, which is also releasing an explosive documentary about the Oklahoma City bombing, A Noble Lie. (Read More)

A Noble Lie

Video: See more on the OKC Bombing
 

SOPA Is “Unconstitutional”, Would “Criminalize” the Internet … Modeled On China
WashingtonsBlog - 121311

Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe is one of the top constitutional experts in the country, and wrote one of the main treatises on the subject. Tribe wrote a letter to Congress last week stating that SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) is unconstitutional.

As the Hill notes:

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law expert at Harvard Law School, argues [SOPA] violates the First Amendment in a memo sent to members of Congress on Thursday.

The bill would empower the Justice Department and copyright holders to demand that search engines, Internet providers and payment processors cut ties with websites “dedicated” to copyright infringement.

Tribe argues the bill amounts to illegal “prior restraint” because it would suppress speech without a judicial hearing.

Additionally, the law’s definition of a rogue website is unconstitutionally vague, Tribe writes.

“Conceivably, an entire website containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement,” Tribe writes. “Such an approach would create severe practical problems for sites with substantial user-generated content, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and for blogs that allow users to post videos, photos, and other materials.” ... (Read More)
 

Nuclear Agencies Are Wholly Controlled By (and Serve) the Nuclear Industry … Just Like the Fed Is Owned By (and Serves) Its Member Banks
WashingtonsBlog -121111

The Federal Reserve banks are owned by private banks, and so the Fed looks out for their member banks … and not necessarily the people or the nation.

Similarly – as documented below – the nuclear agencies are owned and controlled by the nuclear industry, and serve them … instead of public health or safety.

Congressman: There’s Been an “Attempted Coup” at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

I noted last week:

New US plant designs are very near being licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission without any Fukushima modifications.

Now we know why.

Congressman Markey wrote yesterday:

As part of his ongoing investigation into U.S. nuclear safety since the Fukushima meltdowns, today Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) … released a blockbuster new report that details how four Commissioners at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) colluded to prevent and then delay the work of the NRC Near-Term Task Force on Fukushima, the entity tasked with making recommendations for improvement to NRC regulations and processes after the Fukushima meltdowns …. (Read More)

Verizon apologizes after sending mass text warning of 'threat to life' in New Jersey ... without saying it was a test message
The Daily Mail - 121211

Verizon Wireless was forced to apologise on Monday for sending out a mass text message warning to thousands of people warning of a 'civil emergency' and an 'extreme threat to life.'

The text urging people to 'take shelter before 1.24pm' was sent out at 12.26pm on Monday to cell phone users in the New Jersey counties of Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris and Ocean.

It led to scores of worried residents calling their local police departments, NJ.com reports. ... (Read More)

NewsFocus: Many people called 9/11 saying they were not sure how to act. In that case, consider it test successful. This reporter suspects that this is exactly what those behind the test wanted to hear, as the gauging of their new fear toy was the real test.
 

The Council on Foreign Relations and the “Grand Area” of the American Empire
TheIntelHub.com, by Andrew Gavin Marshall - 121311

The process of establishing an American Empire during and after World War II was not – as has been postulated (by those who even admit there is such a thing as an ‘American Empire’) – an ‘accident’ of history, something America seemingly stumbled into as a result of its unhindered economic growth and military-political position as arbiter of world peace and prosperity.

A vast literature has developed in the academic realm and policy circles – particularly within Political Science and the think tank community, respectively – which postulates a notion of ‘American empire’ or ‘American hegemony’ as accidental, incidental, benevolent, reluctant, and desirable. ... (Read More)
 

U.S. Gov Plans To Scan Americans For Pre-Crimes
Homeland Security Moves Forward With 'Pre-Crime' Detection
"Minority Report" Pre-Crime System Endangers American Civil Liberties

CNet.com, by Declan McCullagh - 100711

An internal U.S. Department of Homeland Security document indicates that a controversial program designed to predict whether a person will commit a crime is already being tested on some members of the public voluntarily, CNET has learned.

If this sounds a bit like the Tom Cruise movie called "Minority Report," or the CBS drama "Person of Interest," it is. But where "Minority Report" author Philip K. Dick enlisted psychics to predict crimes, DHS is betting on algorithms: it's building a "prototype screening facility" that it hopes will use factors such as ethnicity, gender, breathing, and heart rate to "detect cues indicative of mal-intent."

The latest developments, which reveal efforts to "collect, process, or retain information on" members of "the public," came to light through an internal DHS document obtained under open-government laws by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. DHS calls its "pre-crime" system Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST.

"If it were deployed against the public, it would be very problematic," says Ginger McCall, open government counsel at EPIC, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C.

It's unclear why the June 2010 DHS document (PDF) specified that information is currently collected or retained on members of "the public" as part of FAST, and a department representative declined to answer questions that CNET posed two days ago. ... (Read More)

Psychopaths Develop Technology To Detect Angry Normals
"Minority Report" Pre-Crime System Being Employed
TruthJihad Blog, by Kevin Barrett - 100811

A cabal of psychopaths that rules the former USA has developed a new tool to detect and neutralize non-psychopaths who threaten their power. That, at least, is the implication of a recently-uncovered Department of Homeland Security document revealing the existence of Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) - a "pre-crime" detection unit not unlike the one dystopian novelist Philip K. Dick dreamed up for "Minority Report," which inspired the Tom Cruise film. And by way of homage to another great dystopian writer, George Orwell, FAST will red-flag individuals harboring what the ruling psychopaths call "malintent." ... (Read More)

DHS Working On "Minority Report" Pre-Crime System
This new "pre-crime" detection facility was discovered via a June 2010 DHS document that was acquired by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). The document states that information is currently collected and retained on "members of the public" as part of the pre-crime system,  which is called Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST).

 

Jesse Ventura Denied Jury Trial In TSA Lawsuit

The government won't allow a jury trial because they know they will lose.

Ventura Remarks Highlighted By The Media

 


Click here for information that every person needs to know about 9/11

The Message of the Occupy Protests is 'End the Federal Reserve'
The Concerted Attempts By Some To Neuter The 'End The Fed' Movement
NewsFocus Op/Ed, by Tim Watts - 102211

In case you've been sleeping under a rock lately, a protest movement has been sweeping the country, labeled as the "Occupy Movement." Like its Middle East Arab Spring counterparts, this is a people's movement against tyrannical oppression, only this time the enemy is big money.

The masses are fed up with Wall Street and how they recklessly tanked the economy. People are pissed off that they're losing their homes, their jobs, their pensions, and yet the criminals who perpetrated this fraud are the ones getting protected with bailout money. No one on Wall Street has been held responsible for this collapse. Not one person has been indicted or convicted. Wall Street has destroyed twenty percent of our national net worth. The Federal Reserve bankers have been 100 percent culpable in all of it.

Americans are rightfully pissed off. Many believe this collapse was not an accident. If this is true, we have treason of the highest order. ... (Read More)


Naomi Wolf: How I Was Arrested At Occupy Wall Street
Arresting a middle-aged writer in an evening gown for peaceable conduct is a far cry from when America was a free republic
Guardian UK, by Naomi Wolf - 101911

 

 
Last night I was arrested in my home town, outside an event to which I had been invited, for standing lawfully on the sidewalk in an evening gown. ... (Read More)

Naomi Wolf.org


 

The Media Needs To Be Held Accountable
Silence Over 9/11 Should Warrant 'Accessory' Charges
NewsFocus Op/Ed, by Tim Watts - 110211

It's been ten years now since the attacks of 9/11. The truth movement has made many inroads, most specifically borne out in a 2006 CBS/New York Times poll that showed 81% of Americans feel the U.S. government is hiding the real truth when it comes to 9/11.

  • Telling the truth 16%

  • Hiding something 53%

  • Mostly lying 28%

  • Not sure 3%"

With numbers that large, it's quite frustrating for those participating in the 9/11 truth movement to not yet have any arrests or indictments of government officials.

So what is the hold up to reaching the critical mass of awareness?

That's a very simple answer. In two words, "the media." ... (Read More)
 

Revealed – The Capitalist Network That Runs the World
CommonDreams.org, by Andy Coghlan and Debora MacKenzie 110311

As protests against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy

The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs). ... (Read More)
 

Bush Administration Facing War Crimes
Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest
Former Defense Secretary Stripped of Legal Immunity
GlobalResearch.ca, by by Ralph Lopez - 092011

“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” -Major General Antonio Taguba

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been stripped of legal immunity for acts of torture against US citizens authorized while he was in office.
 
The 7th Circuit made the ruling in the case of two American contractors who were tortured by the US military in Iraq after uncovering a smuggling ring within an Iraqi security company.  The company was under contract to the Department of Defense.   The company was assisting Iraqi insurgent groups in the “mass acquisition” of American weapons.  The ruling comes as Rumsfeld begins his book tour with a visit to Boston on Monday, September 26, and as new, uncensored photos of Abu Ghraib spark fresh outrage across Internet.  Awareness is growing that Bush-era crimes went far beyond mere waterboarding. ... (Read More)
 
NewsFocus: This has to go to the top... Not only Rumsfeld, but Bush and Cheney as well. That whole wretched regime. Republican or Democrat, it doesn't matter. If they are guilty of these crimes, then they should taste some of the same punishment that they sanctioned. It's time we purge our government of filth like this. If Obama, Biden and Holder refuse to have these rat bastards put away for life, then they should be held guilty as accomplices to rape, torture and murder.
 
Where is your soul America? Put down the @#%* TV remote and be angry about this. Demand accountability now!
 
CNN.com, by Ariel Dorfman - 092311
 
Dick Cheney, it has been said, fears that "somebody will Pinochet him."
 
This extraordinary grammatical twist of the word Pinochet cannot be found in Cheney's recently published memoirs. It was used in several television interviews by Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Colin Powell, to suggest that George W. Bush's vice president dreads the possibility that he, like Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Chile's late dictator, will be put on trial for crimes against humanity in a foreign land. ... (Read More)
 


Click here to learn more on how we are deceived by a complicit, sold out media.

Why Don't We Know The Truth? Because Corp Media Is Biased
Don't Believe It? Here's The Proof! Conflict of Interest Media Links To The CFR
NewsFocus, by Tim Watts - 082211

Oftentimes in life when real truth presents itself to the unknowing, or those who have been misled, the first response is, "Well, if that was really true it would be on the nightly news."

Well folks, the painful truth is, our corporate owned, billionaire-run media is not telling you the truth. To be painfully blunt, they don't want you to know.

After 25 years of media experience, this reporter can state matter of factly that our media is in bed with the "powers that be." One glaring example, all of our major network news anchors are members of the Council on Foreign Relations. This is something which is expressly taboo in honest journalism, yet the relationship is a provable fact. Here is the undeniable truth, with the hyperlinks...

Network anchors: NBC's Brian Williams, CBS's Katie Couric, and ABC's Diane Sawyer. Former anchors Dan Rather (CBS) and Tom Brokaw (NBC) are also members. Other key news media members include Bob Schieffer (CBS), Barbara Walters (ABC), Judy Woodruff (CNN), Paula Zahn (CNN), Lesley Stahl (CBS 60-Minutes), George R. Stephanopoulos (ABC), Jim Lehrer (PBS), David R. Gergen, (CNN), Fareed Zakaria (CNN), Terry Moran (ABC), Charlie Rose (PBS), Rupert Murdoch (NewsCorp/FOX), Bernard Kalb (CNN), MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski, Morton Kondracke (The McLaughlin Group/Roll Call), Garrick Utley (NBC/CNN), and Monica Crowley (Talk-Radio).

Print journalists and columnists include Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation), Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal), David Schlesinger (Reuters), Judith Miller (NY Times), Gene Lyons (Salon),  Charles Krauthammer (columnist), Marc A. Thiessen (columnist), David E. Sanger (NY Times), David Remnick (The New Yorker), Jack Rosenthal (NY Times), P.J. O'Rourke (columnist), James L. McGregor (journalist), Jon Meacham (Newsweek/PBS), Daniel P. Henninger (Wall Street Journal/FOX), Jim Hoagland (Washington Post), David B. Ensor (journalist), Sidney S. Blumenthal (Salon), and Mark Helprin (Time), to name but a few.

There are indeed more media members, but by now I certainly hope you get the point.

In broadcast school and journalism we were taught two basic fundamentals:

1) Seek out and follow the truth, because it is the story.

2) Do not become involved in entangling alliances that prevent you from adhering to rule number one.

So why would key members of our corporate media become members in a group that exists, at the minimum, to affect foreign policy, and at the extreme, to manipulate it for the new world order?

This is a clear-cut conflict of interest, plain and simple. If you don't get that, you need to. You need to understand that our media is clearly in bed with an arguably nefarious organization that has a history of meddling in foreign affairs. The role of the news media is to be a watchdog, to investigate groups such as this, not be in league with it as part of its membership. This is egregious conduct and these members should be ashamed of their affiliation, not proud of it.

So if the CFR takes a position against Iraq, Egypt or Libya, how do you truly expect the news media to report the real truth with an unbiased look at the facts?

Our media is controlled, and has been ever since the early 1900s. Don't believe that? Read the official U.S. Record, volume 54, dated February 9, 1917. Congressman Oscar Calloway noted it for all the world to see, but if you don't look for it, don't expect our media to tell you about it.

If all of this is indeed news to you, then more than likely you know nothing about the CIA's efforts to infiltrate the media through Operation Mockingbird, in order to control our news system and to spread media disinformation in the U.S.

The point of this article is, do not trust the corporate owned media!

Hopefully this highlights the absurdity of the gullible response, "Well, if it was really true it would be on the nightly news."

Such a naive observation couldn't be further from the truth.

The real truth is very seldom ever on the nightly news, especially when it comes to the "powers that be." Once in a great while we have had exceptions to the rule, but sadly enough, because of concentrated corporate media ownership, along with biased media affiliations, such as with the CFR, the exceptions are becoming fewer and farther between.

See also:

Media Deception: You Are Not Getting The Truth

The Takeover of the American Media

We Need Media Reform

Audio: US Media Control

The Council On Foreign Relations

 

TruTV Renews 'Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura' For 3rd Season
Ex-Governor Is Back On The Air And On The Prowl
NewsFocus, by Tim Watts - 101111

Fans of the hit TruTV show 'Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura' will be heartened to know that the show has been given renewed life with a third season. The show was thought to be cancelled after a 2011 season that saw some of Ventura's programs pulled due to sensitive content, IE: touching a nerve with the powers that be. Programs on FEMA detention camps and the JFK assassination apparently raised the eyebrows and perspiration level for some who perhaps thought the show was hitting too close to home and revealing too much. Some episodes were pulled from the TruTV website, yet still exist on the internet through YouTube and other online video services. (CTJV)

Ventura has added some new faces to the show for the 2012 season, with Sean Stone, the son of Oliver Stone, and his own son, Tyrel Ventura, the latter previously a producer for the program. No scheduling dates have been set as of this printing.

See also:

Video:
Jesse Ventura: Enough Government Cover-Ups!

Video: We are being watched more than ever in the US – Jesse Ventura
 

Piratizing Social Security By Those Too Rich To Ever Need It!
Meria.net, by Meria Heller
 

Once again Social Security is being touted as an “entitlement” program by those in Congress who never have to worry about Social Security. Why? Because they leave office with a golden parachute paid by the US taxpayer. Quite the retirement plan for THEM, but not for us. Perhaps if they had to worry about their retirement as most  Americans do, they would have a different opinion.

If you recall, when the Social Security Act came about and as you can see from the picture, we were told this would never be used for identification! What a joke. Everyone asks for your social security number when you go to apply for jobs, credit or make a purchase. They told us the same lie when they issued us driver’s licenses. (Read More)
 

The Two-Term President That Was Never Ever Elected, Not Even Once
New Court Filing Reveals How the 2004 Ohio Presidential Election Was Hacked
FreePress.org, by Bob Fitrakis - July 20, 2011

A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio's 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush.

The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove. Connell ran the private IT firm GovTech that created the controversial system that transferred Ohio's vote count late on election night 2004 to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by SmarTech. That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory. Connell died a month and a half after giving this deposition in a suspicious small plane crash. ... (Read More)

Flashback: Bush Insider Who Planned To Tell All, Killed In Plane Crash

NewsFocus Op/Ed: We knew it all along, but now there is conclusive proof. Where is the lying corporate media on this one? How about it ABC, CBS, and NBC? Have you got the guts or the integrity to "sack up" on this one? Highly doubtful when all the major anchors are shills for the CFR and the Bilderberg Group.

America had better take notice of this. As for the allegedly "fair & balanced" FOX News, don't even hold your breath on this one. Roger Ailes is as dirty on the Bush stolen elections as anyone. He should be in prison with Bush I and II and Cheney as well.
 

FAA Probing News Corp’s Use of Drones

LOS ANGELES — With the newsgathering techniques of its sister publications in Britain under fire, News Corp. is facing a probe into the use of drones by its U.S.-based digital publication, The Daily.

Federal Administration Aviation spokeswoman Laura Brown says her agency is investigating whether The Daily’s use of “unmanned aerial systems” violates FAA regulations.

Commercial operators typically need a certificate in order to fly the unmanned aircraft, especially in populated areas. ... (Read More)

Murdoch Using Drone Aircraft to Spy on U.S. SERIOUSLY Updated x6
 

The Terrible Truth About Facebook
Information Clearinghouse, By The Video Patriot - 080611

Think you have any privacy when it comes to a social networking site?
Continue
 

When Do "We The People" Say Enough Is Enough?
10 Indications The United States Is A Dictatorship
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" -- Lord Acton
ActivistPost.com - 051611

For a people to be free, they must first be honest with themselves, their government, and the world at large.  History is filled with stories of free nations that fell under the spell cast by their governments who exploited the threat of terror.

In fact, numerous presidents in American history already have used various specific threats to sidestep their Constitutional restraints.  Today we are entering a nebulous world where our "enemy" cannot be defined, has no particular allegiance to one country, and is able to adopt new leaders at will.  Rather than encourage a sense of resilience and independence in its citizens, America has chosen to amplify the terror threat in order to concentrate power in the hands of the State.  The very first signpost on this historically familiar road to tyranny is an atmosphere of hate, suspicion, and vindictiveness.  It first begins as an outwardly directed aggression and then rather abruptly turns inward upon itself. ... (Read More...)
 

Is This The "Change" That We Were Promised?
The International Bank Cartel Is Moving Fast On Their New World Order
NewsFocus - Op-Ed by Tim Watts - 042011

Events are rapidly changing in the world around us. Those that pay attention are seeing clear signs of a fervent push to bring about the final pieces for the long planned and much feared New World Order. Only those that are still locked within "The Matrix" of a controlled media are without a clue. Those that still get their news and information from the corporate controlled media have no idea what is actually taking place, right in front of them. It's time for the overly entertained lemmings of America to put down the remote control and step away from their Dancing With The Stars and American Idol shows, and pay attention now, before it's too late.

Is It Democracy On The Rise, Or Is This A Global Agenda?

Have you ever questioned why all of a sudden that democracy is on the rise in the Middle East? At least, that's what has been sold to us regarding the faux protests that have been orchestrated by outside factions. During the Egyptian protests, while the western media did its best to propagate the big lie about the source of the unrest, Al Jazeera was running interviews of protestors, both anti and pro Mubarek, who all said that the uprising was initiated by outside sources. The U.S. media failed to run those comments, even though every major news organization gets a feed from Al Jazeera. They knew about the claims. They just didn't want to run them because it went against the grain of the official story. (Read More)
 

Investigation into Whether America is Still a Constitutional Government
www.Constitutionally.Blogspot.com

The United States has been in a declared state of emergency from September 2001, to the present.

On September 11, 2001, the government declared a state of emergency. That declared state of emergency was formally put in writing on 9/14/2001:

"A national emergency exists by reason of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, New York, New York, and the Pentagon, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, I hereby declare that the national emergency has existed since September 11, 2001 . . . ."

That declared state of emergency has continued in full force and effect from 9/11 to the present. ... (Read More)
 

Whose Country Is It Anyway? A Political-Economic Oligarchy Has Taken Over The United States of America
Global Research, by Prof. John Kozy - July 4, 2009
 

A political-economic oligarchy has taken over the United States of America. This oligarchy has institutionalized a body of law that protects businesses at the expense of not only the common people but the nation itself.

CNN interviewed a person recently who was seriously burned when his vehicle burst into flames because a plastic brake-fluid reservoir ruptured. Having sued Chrysler, he was now concerned that its bankruptcy filing would enable Chrysler to avoid paying any damages. A CNN legal expert called this highly likely, since the main goal of reorganization in bankruptcy is preserving the company’s viability and that those creditors who could contribute most to attaining that goal would be compensated first while those involved in civil suits against the company would be placed lowest on the creditor list since compensating them would lessen the chances of the company’s surviving. This rational clearly implies that the preservation of companies is more important than the preservation of people. Of course, similar cases have been reported before. The claims of workers for unpaid wages have often been dismissed as have their contracts for benefits.

But there is an essential difference between a business that lends money or delivers products or services to another company and the employees who work for it. Business is an activity that supposedly involves risk. Employment is not. Neither is unknowingly buying a defective product. Workers and consumers do not extend credit to the companies they work for or buy products from. They are not in any normal sense of the word “creditors.” Yet that distinction is erased in bankruptcy proceedings which preserve companies at the public’s expense. ... (Read More)

The People's Oath
Our Rights Have Been Oppressed By The Ultra-Wealthy For Long Enough
NewsFocus.org - Op/Ed - 041511

"We the people" reserve the right to do unto those that have afflicted us.

To the central bankers, the ultra wealthy, and the multinational corporations... we reserve the right to do unto them and their families as they have done to us.

To our corrupt politicians and leaders, we recognize no laws that you have made in secret against us. Any such laws made against the people shall be considered as treason by "we the people," and thus considered null.

We refuse to recognize any government of tyranny, for it is an unlawful affair.

"We the people" recognize ourselves to be the only authorized form of legitimate government, a legal authority given to us by our forefathers, and guaranteed through the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

Don't tread on us and we won't tread on you.


 

What The Heck Is Going On In Greenbrier Arkansas?
Tiny Area Receives Concentrated Amount of Earthquakes

NewsFocus, by Tim Watts - 031811

Update: Weekend provides two more quakes in Greenbrier. Arkansas papers report fracking as the cause, but fail to ask the bigger questions. Greenbrier is not the only fracking site in America. Secondly, who is allowed to deep drill without a USGS survey? Third, if indeed fracking is responsible, and this does cause calamity for the New Madrid area, who will be held responsible? More to come soon...

NewsFocus has been tracking world earthquake data since early last week, long before the Honshu, Japan 9.1 quake. Using computer software with near real-time data from USGS, it has been possible to track and trend the earthquake data, while denoting location, depth and strength. The frequency of quakes within specific regions has been most notable and appears as an indicator of tectonic hot spots. ... (Read More)
 

White House Wants New Copyright Law Crackdown
BlacklistedNews.com - 031611
The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers. ...

NewsFocus: Make no mistake about it, the U.S. government has done more to protect corporate intellectual copyrights than they have to protect our own personal, private property rights. The impetus of this proposal is questionable. Many feel the new laws are a backdoor attempt to censure those publishing alternative media. NewsFocus does not condone the stealing of legitimate commercial media, however, as with the Patriot Act (and every other heinous law written since 9/11) much will be written between the lines on this one.

An effort is underway to stop aggregate news sites, such as this one. There is no copyright infringement involved in this site, nor many others. All stories published are, for all intents and purposes, news advertisements which take you directly to the site hosting the story. True aggregate news sites are actually helping to send viewers and readers to those sites. They are not stealing content. This is a huge story to pay attention to. There could be many adverse repercussions from this. More to come.
 

Why Do America’s Police Need Armored Tanks?
Blacklisted News.com
America’s most in-demand police vehicle is a ten-officer 16,000-pound armored tank that takes bullets like Superman and drives 80 mph. The federal government buys dozens each year for local police departments. Do America’s local police need tanks?
 

FBI: ‘Sovereign citizen' cases on the rise
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, by Tammy Joyner - 030711

Federal authorities are seeing an increase in the number of  foreclosed and unoccupied homes in metro Atlanta being seized by members of an anti-government group.

"I'm not sure I can connect it with the economy, but we've seen a surge of these in the last year, in particular," Stephen Emmett, special agent in the Atlanta field office of the FBI, said Saturday. Emmet said federal and local authorities increasingly are running into confrontations with members of a sect known as "sovereign citizens."

The group believes banks can't own land or property and that any home owned by a bank -- including the thousands of foreclosed properties throughout Georgia -- are theirs for the taking. ... (Read More)

NewsFocus: The fact that the FBI has the temerity and gall to wrongly label these people as "domestic terrorists" is absolutely shameful. More to come on this issue.
 

US Supreme Court Rules Against Corporate Privacy (Yay!!)
AFP - ‎Mar 1, 2011‎
WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court Monday ruled that corporations do not enjoy the same rights to privacy as individuals, rejecting claims by AT&T that it should not have to disclose the contents of embarrassing documents. In a unanimous 8-0 decision, ...

SCOTUS: Corporations Have NO 'Personal Privacy' (It's about time)
RawStory.com - 030211
The Supreme Court of the United States ruled Tuesday that AT&T and other corporations do not have personal privacy rights under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The Freedom of Information Act requires federal agencies to make documents publicly available upon request, but contains an exemption for documents that "constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

Claiming they were a "corporation citizen," AT&T tried to use the personal privacy exemption to prevent the disclosure of federal government documents about the company.

The unanimous decision in Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc. reversed a ruling by a US appeals court in favor the telecommunications company.

How Far Does Free Speech in the US Go? Supreme Court Says it Trumps All

Supreme Court: No privacy exemption for businesses in FOIAs
 

Why Do America’s Police Need Armored Tanks?
Blacklisted News.com
America’s most in-demand police vehicle is a ten-officer 16,000-pound armored tank that takes bullets like Superman and drives 80 mph. The federal government buys dozens each year for local police departments. Do America’s local police need tanks?
 

Moore: "Madison Is Only The Beginning; The Rich Have Overplayed Their Hand
RawStory.com, By Reuters - 030511

MADISON, Wisconsin (Reuters) - Thousands of union supporters protested Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposals on Saturday at the state capital, a day after the state's chief executive followed through on his threat to issue layoff warning notices to unions representing state workers.

Joining the crowd was liberal filmmaker Michael Moore, who praised the protesters gathered in the battle over union bargaining rights as joining the history of the American labor movement. ... (Read More)

Walker signs Wisconsin’s anti-union bill

Madison firefighters’ union president calls for general strike
 

More On Wisconsin Protests...
 

Supporters of Good Government Painted As 'Anti-Government'
Our Constitutional Right To Reform Our Government Is Being Whitewashed
NewsFocus, by Tim Watts - 030311

It would appear that the corporate media machine, along with many inside the U.S. Government, are doing their best to paint legitimate protesters and advocates for good government as an "anti-government" faction. (see link)

Anti-government extremist groups on rise in US: study (Pure Bullshit)

This bogus charge is not true in the least, and is patently disingenuous, if not just a bald-faced lie.

It's not just conservatives who are mad at Obama. A great many progressives have been howling about the "third term of Bush." No, this is not about "anti-government," this is about upset Americans and a government that has turned against the middle and lower class, in favor of corporations and the elite upper class.

"We the people" have the inalienable right to overthrow bad government. It is written into the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, twice, in two spots! It is a right of the people. Check it out for yourself and know your rights.

Americans protesting against their government are exercising the lawful, legal right bestowed upon them in keeping control over the elected servants who serve us in "our" government. We have every right to be critical of our elected officials and to protest any time we feel like it. Period. End of discussion.

Don't be fooled by the media lie. When you see false charges such as this in the media, call them on it. Make them aware that we know better and that they are the ones in the wrong. And it might be nice to remind them that anyone that attempts to neuter or take our rights away without a vote of "we the people," will be held guilty of treason by the people.

Don't be intimidated from defending your legal Constitutional rights, and don't be afraid to call your government out when the weasels who worked their way into office are working against us, for the benefit of themselves and their rich campaign donors.

The U.S. Government is our government. It's time we take it back, legally, according to our legal Constitutional right to do so.

Don't let anyone tell you differently. Any politician or government official that tries to say differently is merely a remnant of a bad government trying desperately to save itself.

There is no such thing as "anti-government" when you're trying to reform a bad government. Especially when you have the expressed legal right to do so.
 

Suicides Overtake US Combat Deaths, Second Year In A Row!
More US Service Members Dying From Suicide In 2010 Than Died In Combat
CrooksandLiars.com, by Nicole Belle - 012811

We talk about the trillions of dollars added to the deficit because of our occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan...but how can you monetize this very real and very painful cost?

For the second year in a row, more American soldiers—both enlisted men and women and veterans—committed suicide than were killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Excluding accidents and illness, 462 soldiers died in combat, while 468 committed suicide. A difference of six isn't vast by any means, but the symbolism is significant and troubling. In 2009, there were 381 suicides by military personnel, a number that also exceeded the number of combat deaths. ...

NewsFocus: This should be a national outrage! If you miss the staggering implications of this, you need a morality check. The US Government should be spending vast amounts of its three-quarters of a trillion dollars in annual defense spending, applying some of it to understanding what they're doing to our soldiers, our countrymen... decent men and woman valiantly serving our country. A Congressional effort to lead on this issue is imperative. In all the horrors and disgust of war, the suicide issue is truly a very sad, disturbing, and alarming tragedy that we need to address as a society.

Flashback:
Army recruiting stand-down ordered
Army Times, by Michelle Tan - Staff writer - Posted : Thursday Jan 29, 2009 10:45:21 EST
Army Secretary Pete Geren has ordered a stand-down of the Army’s entire recruiting force and a review of almost every aspect of the job is underway in the wake of a wide-ranging investigation of four suicides in the Houston Recruiting Battalion. ...
 

REPORT: You Have More Money In Your Wallet Than Bank Of America Pays In Federal Taxes!
ThinkProgress.org, by Zaid Jilani - 022611

Today, hundreds of thousands of people comprising a Main Street Movement — a coalition of students, the retired, union workers, public employees, and other middle class Americans — are in the streets, demonstrating against brutal cuts to public services and crackdowns on organized labor being pushed by conservative politicians. These lawmakers that are attacking collective bargaining and cutting necessary services like college tuition aid and health benefits for public workers claim that they have no choice but than to take these actions because both state and federal governments are in debt.

But it wasn’t teachers, fire fighters, policemen, and college students that caused the economic recession that has devastated government budgets — it was Wall Street. And as middle class workers are being asked to sacrifice, the rich continue to rig the system, dodging taxes and avoiding paying their fair share. ... (Read More)
 

A Timeless Classic That Still Holds True:
George Carlin's 'The Rulers of the World'

Leave it to a comedian to hit it right on the head. Pay attention America.

Ray McGovern Bloodied at Clinton Talk
Consortium News, by Robert Parry - February 17, 2011

Sometimes the hypocrisy is just overwhelming. So, it probably shouldn’t surprise us that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would deliver a speech hailing the peaceful protests that changed Egypt while 71-year-old Ray McGovern was roughed up and dragged away for standing quietly in protest of her support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“So this is America,” said McGovern as he was hustled from the room by two security guards. “This is America.” ...
 

What You've Been Missing: Exposing The Noble Lie

The video drops out briefly around the :52 mark, but this is a solid production.
 

Time To Shoot The Messenger? (So-To-Speak)
The Circus That Has Surrounded The Wikileaks Scandal; Questions Linger
NewsFocus, by Tim Watts - 020511

Even though I felt it necessary to write an early piece asking for people not to dismiss the Wikileaks information out of hand without looking first, I did leave a serious caveat as to what would eventually be released by the website, leaving the veracity of the organization to the actual data divulged; the old "proof is in the pudding" cliché. Many of my close friends know that I have had reservations about Assange for some time now. I voiced my concerns openly from the start, even while asking for patience. I too was most hopeful that Wikileaks would be something good, but sadly, at this point, I must now say that I can no longer view Julian Assange with any tangible optimism. I have returned to my basic gut instinct, that this is a Trojan horse intelligence operation, originated to cover the sins of bad government. ...
(Read More)

Darn It! People, WAKE UP to This Wikileaks Fraud

Is Wikileaks A Front For The CIA or Mossad?
 

Nearly 11 Percent of US Houses Are Empty!
CNBC, by Diana Olick - 013111
I usually find the quarterly homeowner vacancy and homeownership report from Census pretty lackluster, but the latest one released this morning was anything but.

America's home ownership rate, after holding steady for a while, took a pretty big plunge in Q4, from 66.9 percent to 66.5 percent. That's down from the 2004 peak of 69.2 percent and the lowest level since 1998.

Homeownership is falling at an alarming pace, despite the fact that home prices have fallen, affordability is much improved and inventories of new and existing homes are still running quite high. ...
 

Jesse Ventura Sues TSA in Pat-Down Smackdown
KSTP TV - 012411

Former governor Jesse Ventura never shied away from a battle during his one term as Minnesota's chief executive.

Now, as a "television performer," as he describes himself in a new lawsuit, the former pro-wrestler is trying to launch a legal smackdown against the agencies that are supposed to protect the flying public.

In a complaint filed Monday morning in the U.S. District Court for Minnesota, Ventura is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its secretary, Janet Napolitano, as well as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and its administrator, John Pistole.

Ventura accuses the agencies of violating his "basic rights to privacy and dignity, and his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," after he received a pat-down by a TSA agent at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in November 2010. ... (Read More)

Click here to read Ventura's lawsuit
Click here for a link to the FAQs about TSA pat-downs

NewsFocus: Go get 'em Governor! A great candidate for President in 2012.  :o)
 

The School of the Americas (The School of Assassins)
One of The Worst Evils Ever Concocted By The United States
NewsFocus.org - 013011

Arguably one of the greater evils this country has ever authored. If you aren't aware of the School of the Americas, please be enlightened with the following links. If you're mad about this, or that you didn't know this, please channel that energy to help shut down this horrific US institution. Write your Congressional representatives and demand action. This is not only a national embarrassment, but a world tragedy responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. And that is a very conservative estimate. Those afflicted since its inception in 1946, could number in the millions.
 

The School of The Americas: Training For Oppression
Real News Network Report Protest Against SOA

School of the Americas: School of Assassins, USA
ThirdWorldTraveler.com

We routinely had Latin American students at the School of the Americas (SOA) who were known human rights abusers, and it didn't make any difference to us.
-Major Joseph Blair (retired), former SOA instructor

World War II was the "good war". After that conflict, most Americans believed that US intentions in the world were noble -- the US was the punisher of aggression and a warrior for freedom. This image was for generations of Americans the measure by which they judged their country in world affairs. The war in Vietnam ended the illusion that America was always on the "right side". Today, America's image as a defender of democracy and justice has been further eroded by the School of the Americas (SOA), which trains Latin American and Caribbean military officers and soldiers to subvert democracy and kill hope in their own countries.

Founded by the United States in 1946, the SOA was initially located in Panama, but in 1984 it was kicked out under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty and moved to the army base at Fort Benning, Georgia. Then-President of Panama Jorge Illueca called it "the biggest base for de-stabilization in Latin America," and a major Panamanian newspaper dubbed it, "The School of Assassins." ... (Read More)

School of the Americas: School of Assassins
SOA Watch: Close the School of the Americas
Online NewsHour: School of the Americas -- Sept 21, 1999
School of the Americas: At War With Democracy? [Transcript]

Video Documentary: Father Roy: Inside the School of Assassins

YouTube Video: Closing the School of Assassins (School of the Americas)
C-Span Video: The School of the Americas
 

50 Years Ago Today: 'Beware The Military Industrial Complex'
Eisenhower's Farewell Address And His Warning To The Nation, That Came True
NewsFocus.org, by Tim Watts - 011711

This year, the date January 17th is Martin Luther King Day, but it also is coincidentally the 50th anniversary of President Eisenhower's famous farewell address to the nation, a warning on the encroaching danger of the military industrial complex. His speech is landmark not only for its grave content, but also the fact that it came from a President who was a five-star General and military lifer, until his political career. For someone of that position to issue such a dire warning is notable and has not been lost on historians, but some would now have us believe that Eisenhower didn't mean what we previously heard him to say.

Interestingly enough, in today's world of "Military Gone Wild," we now have a concerted effort to redefine or recant the previously understood meaning of Eisenhower's words, somehow claiming half a century later that his warning was not at all what he meant to say or imply. I suppose when they have an annual budget of $700-billion plus, the military industrial complex can even spin the warning against them.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. -President Dwight D. Eisenhower

I've always found it interesting to watch Eisenhower's eyes during that speech, as they occasionally darted left and right, away from the camera, as if he was watching for someone to come out of the wings. He looked nervous. God only knows the concern that may have been going through his mind at the time. He was ratting out a powerful new industry, and some very powerful people as well. You would never hear such a speech from a sitting US President today.

Whichever way you view his address, one thing is certain, Ike was right on the money with his warning, but with a military defense industry budget at three-quarters of a trillion dollars annually, and growing, who knows... 50 years from now they may have everyone brainwashed to actually believe that what Ike meant to say was that it was all good.

Ike was absolutely right. After a decade of war in Afghanistan, and an unprovoked invasion and war on Iraq, his warning still rings true to this very day, "Beware the military industrial complex."

The Eisenhower Farewell Address - January 17th, 1961 The Actual Speech

Ike's Warning Resonates Baltimore Sun

In Praise of… Ike's Prescient Words
The Guardian - ‎011711
Fifty years ago a US president delivered what became one of the most famous farewell speeches in history. It contained the warning that a ...

Ike was right all along: The danger of the military-industrial complex Independent
Ike warned of 'military-industrial complex' 50 years ago USA Today

50th Anniversary of Prophetic Eisenhower Warning, Now Come True.

Eisenhower Warning - Part 1

Eisenhower Warning - Part 2

The Danger of the Military-Industrial Complex
Ike Was Right All Along

Rupert Cornwell - 011711

The US by itself accounts for roughly half of military spending worldwide. How much better if some of that money would be used to improve the country's education and infrastructure, or provide health care for all, or increase foreign aid, rather than on protecting America from threats that geography alone renders illusory. Read More

50 years later, Eisenhower's grim warning on military profit rings true Raw Story

Martin Luther King Day marks Eisenhower 'military industrial complex' speech Examiner.com
 

 The Assassination of MLK And The US Cover-Up

Much like the second JFK investigation, damning facts that the media easily forgets.

Dem. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Others Shot at Arizona Safeway
TheAtlantic
Jan 8, 2011 ... She was shot at point blank range, according to news reports, along with members of her staff. ... The gunman, who may have come from inside the Safeway, ....

Authorities Search for Second Man in Deadly Arizona Shooting Spree
FOX News - 010911
This still from a surveillance video shows a second 'person of interest' possibly connected with the gunman who opened fire in Tucson, Arizona. ...

Vitriol And Violence
Los Angeles Times - 011011
If there's a political lesson to be learned from Saturday's shooting deaths in Tucson, it's eluding the partisans on both wings. On the left, many see the attempted assassination of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as the logical result of overheated ...

Palin mired in crosshairs map controversy after Tucson shootings Washington Post
Conservatives scoff at attempted linkage to shooting MSNBC 
Tea partiers balk at blame Politico 
Conservatives' rhetoric more violent by far Baltimore Sun
Rush Limbaugh Joins Attempt To Blame The Left For AZ Shooting
LezGetReal

Shooting could affect timing of shuttle mission Houston Chronicle

Rand Paul on shooting: 'Weapons don't kill people' Raw Story
Opposing view on guns: Firearms control doesn't work
USA Today

NewsFocus: This is a disturbing story from many aspects. The tragedy itself is overwhelming, but the ramifications could be a monumental threat to American rights. First off, many have taken note of the assailant's demeanor after the shooting. He was described as "a man with a blank expression on his face."

Joe Zamudio, told CNN, "He was going to keep shooting. It was not over. His expression was blank. Callous almost."

This is typical of a "Manchurian candidate," someone programmed to carry out a specific task, such as assassination. This has been the case for many killings and political assassinations since the CIA days of MKULTRA, most recently the Ft. Hood shooting. (Sgt. 1st Class Miguel Valdivia told investigators that the gunman had "a blank expression on his face, almost like he was not there.")

Another interesting note, much like the Oklahoma City bombing, a second person has been identified on surveillance videos as a possible accomplice. This has caused some to question a conspiracy for purpose, not the random irrational shooting we're being led to believe. Much like the unsolved anthrax attacks where Democratic members of Congress were specifically targeted, and then they fearfully panicked and signed the Constitution challenging Patriot Act (without even reading it)... we could now see another knee-jerk reaction, such as restrictive new gun control laws, as politicians once again fear for themselves. Many feel the disarming of America would leave us vulnerable to an increasingly oppressive and tyrannical government.

Read the Constitution anyway you like, our forefathers intended for the citizenry to be able to protect ourselves from a corrupt oppressive government. Criminals will always have access to guns. Restricting law abiding citizens their access to a firearm defense only serves to make them vulnerable as victims. While we are deeply saddened over the senseless Arizona killings, we hope that saner minds will prevail when it comes to curtailing legal gun ownership in America.
 

I Used To Be A Rachel Maddow Fan
Recent Stance On The 2nd Amendment Is Absolutely Baffling
NewsFocus.org | Op/Ed, by Tim Watts - 011411


MSNBC host Rachel Maddow tows the party line on the "interpretation" of the second amendment.

I am in mourning. It feels as though I've been betrayed by a longtime acquaintance. It's a hollow feeling when someone you used to trust implicitly does an "about face" and suddenly says something completely contrary to your normal expectations of that person. A progressive icon whom I have admired for many years said, in one extremely ignorant moment, something so egregiously wrong that it has now dashed the previous high esteem that I once held for her. I'm referring to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, previously of Air America fame, which is where I stumbled across her years ago. Maddow is smart and politically savvy. She earned a political science doctorate from Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar, as well as a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Stanford University. Again, she is extremely bright, well educated and very articulate, which is the foundation for my concern.

Please hear me out. ... (Read More)
 


Click on the banner ad for more information

Experts: Mystery Contrail Was From Chinese Missile
'Muted Response' Was Decision 'Made By The President Himself'
WorldNewsDaily - 111910


This image, caught off the coast of California, clearly resembles a missile contrail.

Although the U.S. Defense Department and North American Aerospace Defense Command have speculated publicly that the unidentified contrail of a projectile soaring into the skies off the California coast – and recorded by a KCBS television crew – came from a jet and posed no security threat to the U.S., several experts are raising provocative and disturbing questions about the government's official response...

California Missile launch update: Chinese sub launched missile
Was Mysterious Missile Launch A Chinese Signal?
China Fired Missile Seen In Southern California?
Mystery Missile Launches Off Southern California Coast, Military Says 'Not Us'

Mysterious Missile Launch Off Southern California Coast

Many experts agree, this was a missile. Likely fired to make a point.
 

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

-John F. Kennedy 1961      

Wal-Mart Teams Up With Homeland Security Department
Unprecedented Government Public Intrusion 'Right Out of the Movies."
NewsFocus.org, Op/Ed - 120741


Wal-Mart has announced a partnership with Homeland Security for in-store messaging. (Photoshop sign)

The Wal-Mart Corporation and United States Homeland Security are teaming up to message shoppers. New overhead TV monitors will flash signs, such as, "If you see something suspicious, say something."

First off, let me just say, "Well, duh!!" This is pretty basic McGruff the Crime Dog 101.

Secondly, in light of the previous comment, since when have we needed a government presence in our public shopping mart instructing us with direct messaging? Many are quickly making parallels with Hollywood police state movies, such as "Blade Runner," or "Minority Report." Americans don't want our government watching our every move and telling us how to behave, especially when it's the government that is arguably perceived as the worst role model for decent, moral behavior. It's the "we the people's" job to tell our government how to act, for the people.

This new revelation, coupled with the already existing outrage over the intrusion of TSA airport screenings, is not sitting well with the public, which is very much upset over the loss of personal rights and a growing police state. In a nutshell, the new DHS Wal-Mart messaging is just plain creepy and is only going to stir up more fear and unrest among Americans. Where does it possibly go from here?

Public turmoil and government suspicion are not what we need at this point to make this country whole again. We need honest, open government, and ALL of our rights back. Otherwise, our own government is the one throwing in the towel on the US Constitution, not the American people. The government can't defend our rights, so just get rid of them? Is that it?

Our government leaders are the persons that failed us. They failed us, miserably, on 9/11, but not one single official was admonished or ever punished for their disastrous failures, yet we, the American people, have born the brunt of their failure by the loss of our Constitutional rights, through the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. They failed us, yet we're paying for it. Does that really make sense to you?

And now we have Homeland Security and Janet Napolitano staring us in the face while shopping at Wal-Mart now. How comforting. "Everyday low prices and Big Bother too!"

Damnit America, wake up! We're supposed to run the show, not the corrupt politicians.

This is not our version of America. Terrorists did not steal our American way of life, our heavily bribed politicians did that. We want our country back, like it was before 9/11. Don't believe the feeble lie that that isn't possible. Terrorism does not mean that we lose our rights just because our elected and appointed officials failed badly at protecting us, or because they are incompetent in performing the jobs which we pay them to do for us.

Wake up folks. We knew how to do security before 9/11, without the Patriot Act or Military Commissions Act. We've never had a day in US history where so many government agencies and institutions had so many lapses in judgment, screw-ups, or failed protocol. And somehow, we've never had another since. I doubt that DHS is the new key to accomplishing what we could already do before 9/11, dependable security. Don't let the actions, or inactions, of a few who failed us on September 11th, force the rest of us to pay for their mistakes by giving up our Constitutional rights and freedom.

And now what are the American people to think, with Homeland Security in their favorite shopping mart? (And soon to be hotels, motels and malls, etc.)

One thing does come to mind, to paraphrase the fictitious Howard Beale from the 1976 movie 'Network,' "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore."

Pass it on.


Alex Jones Weighs In With Some Interesting Thoughts

Where does it stop? First it's Wal-Mart messaging, then what? Freeway signs?
 

Black-Out in DC: Chained Protest Is Ignored By Media
Pay No Attention to Those Veterans Chained to the White House Fence
by Dave Lindorff - 121910

There was a black-out and a white-out Thursday and Friday as over a hundred US veterans opposed to US wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world, and their civilian supporters, chained and tied themselves to the White House fence during an early snowstorm to say enough is enough.

Washington Police arrested 135 of the protesters, in what is being called the largest mass detention in recent years. Among those arrested were Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst who used to provide the president's daily briefings, Daniel Ellsberg, who released the government's Pentagon Papers during the Nixon administration, and Chris Hedges, former war correspondent for the New York Times.

No major US news media reported on the demonstration or the arrests. ... (Read More)
 

Enchanted Financial Forest
 
Another Fiore home run.

Are TSA Airport Screenings Getting 'Out of Hand?'
Homeland Security Receives Thousands of Complaints After New Procedures
NewsFocus, by Tim Watts - 121710

What were we doing wrong? Ever since 9/11 we have stepped up security in all public venues, including airport security. Arguably one of the biggest transitions for Americans has been the increased security at airports. So far, even though it has been a huge inconvenience for most, we've been getting by, with no major disasters. So why then the sudden shift to the heavy handed Nazi Gestapo tactics adopted since October?

Since that time our Constitutional rights have taken yet another blow with the new TSA forced personal searches. The way it stands now, you are given two choices: 1) Submit to a revealing full body x-ray scan, complete with cumulative radiation exposure health risks, or 2) an extremely intrusive personal grope and grab that makes nothing off limits as far as genital fumbling and fondling goes.

So what kind of choice is that? "Would you like us to hang you or shoot you?"

How about getting to say, "neither?"

What we're being presented with, against our wishes, is not a "choice," per se. It's an assault on American Constitutional rights. Plain and simple.

Again, where were we failing in our airport security since 9/11 that we needed to ratchet up the police state tactics like this? Oh sure, we had a failed shoe bomber and a guy who lit his crotch on fire, but nothing we couldn't handle. Certainly nothing to warrant the loss of freedom and our quality of life.

The new scanners at issue are now reported to be incapable of detecting bombs within body cavities anyway, so why are we using them? It's already been proven that they truly don't make us safe.

Oh, yeah... that's right, former DHS head Michael Chertoff went out of his way to  initiate them into the system before he left Homeland Security, profiting directly off the machines as a result of his representation of the company making the scanners.

Nice.

Americans need to quit believing the false premise that giving up our rights gives us a better quality of life. So far all we've seen is government power grow over the people, with checks and balances thrown out the window in the interest of "national security." Meanwhile, many former high level US officials are now directly involved in private corporations which are immorally profiting from the "War on Terror," causing many to wonder and publicly ask questions as to the impetus and integrity of US efforts.

Contact your Congressional representatives, including your state and local representatives. Tell them enough is enough. We want our rights back, along with the freedom they were meant to protect.


Scientists: Nude Airport Scanners May Be Dangerous
112210
"No exposure to X-ray is considered beneficial. We know X-rays are hazardous, but we have a situation at the airports where people are so eager to fly that they will risk their lives in this manner," he said. ...

Chertoff Makes Cash off of Airport Scanners
PoliticolNews - 111710
Nov 17, 2010 ... The fact that Michael Chertoff is an ex-Bush pick for Homeland ... Lobbyist Michael Chertoff and Airport scanners, Airport scanners are ...

Conflict! Several Lawmakers Invested in Maker of Airport Body-Scanning Machines The individual investments are worth thousands, and in some cases tens or hundreds of thousands, of dollars.

Body Scanner Makers Doubled Lobbying Cash Over 5 Years
Diana Sweet
Multimillion dollar government contracts don't just happen. Ask the companies with the big government contracts to supply Body-scanning machines to U.S. airports how much more they had to spend on lobbying on the Hill. ...

The Airport Scanner Scam
MotherJones.com - 010410
Former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff told the Washington ... groped by airport screeners, the scanners might sound pretty good. ...

TSA Gets Up Close and Personal
More opinion on TSA measures
Stephen Colbert Demonstrates How to Use Pancakes to Fool TSA Scanners
 


 

Homeland Security: What Good Is It To Us?
We're Forced To Give Up Many of Our Personal Constitutional Rights And Yet The Government Still Cannot Protect Us
NewsFocus - by Tim Watts - 121810

They have denigrated our rights and humiliated us with Gestapo-like intrusive personal searches, and yet we still get this: TSA let a loaded gun on an airplane

So the trillion-dollar question is, what's it all for?!

We have been forced into giving up many of our most precious Constitutional rights, and yet they still cannot guarantee our safety. Excuse me for asking, but... don't you think that's a pretty piss poor trade-off for Americans?

I would rather take my Constitutional guarantee of liberty and freedom back, any day, over a government's false guarantee for a security that is impossible to achieve.

And so... with the aforementioned thought in mind, let us make a declaration:

"We the people" demand an immediate Homeland Security terrorism refund. Please give us back all of our rights and the Constitution that we paid with.

We have been fooled into attempting to purchase something which only has value for those who have rights to protect. Without personal rights, what is there to protect, other than corporations and the state? A life under oppression is not worth protecting.

If we have no rights, then what fear do we have to protect against? What is it that we fear losing? What "value" do we still hold precious that we wish to fight for? Are we so content with the mere existence to just breathe that we're willing to forsake all else?

Many Americans haven't truly considered the entangling ramifications of bowing down to accept "Big Brother." What could possibly be attractive about adapting to life under a fascist state, with the middle and lower classes rolled into one, to live merely as an "economic component" whose basic driving purpose in life is to facilitate a corporate culture through labor and consumption?

That's a pretty poor excuse for the country that our forefathers originally envisioned. They fought hard and gave their lives in order to give us a Republic with a Constitution that guaranteed our inalienable rights as individuals. They would surely not approve of trading rights for liberty, for it was Benjamin Franklin himself who once said, "Those  who would trade liberty for security deserve neither."

Wake up folks! We've been swindled into a deal with the devil, and it's not paying off for "we the people." Surely many of you see this by now.

Just like the very first "Homeland Security" under Adolph Hitler, we sorely wish that the new Homeland Security would also go away, for it is not an institution conducive to any society wishing to base itself upon freedom, liberty, and human rights.

That used to be the American way of life, but is sadly no more. An overwhelming number of Americans would like to have that life back right about now. Not to be trite, but just because we're alive does not mean we have a life. Existing under oppression does not qualify as a quality of life.

It's time for America to say good riddance to the Patriot Act and Homeland Security, and say hello to an America we used to know instead, with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as the foundation of government.

We were able to defend the nation and support our Constitutional rights before 9/11. Who was it that said we could no longer do that after 9/11? Oh yeah, George Bush, "There will be no going back to the era before September 11th, 2001."

What kind of leader says that to a stricken nation in a moment of crisis? What ever happened to defending our American way of life?

Why would we roll over and give up our rights now, after 9/11? What the hell kind of sense does that make? That sounds like surrender and capitulation to this author, something which Bush should be morally ashamed of for dictating such an irrational, insensitive decree during a time of national crisis and personal duress.

We have historically fought wars to protect our freedom, so why on God's green earth would we ever just give up our freedom so that we can allegedly fight a "terror" war? That's what we were told by the Bush-Cheney administration, to actually give up some of our hallowed Constitutional rights, just so we could better fight the "evil-doers."

Hellooooo? Does anyone recognize the utter insanity in such an illogical and quite asinine concept?

Bush told us, "They hate us for our Freedoms." So then, giving in to the terrorists and getting rid of our freedoms is the best way to win the War on Terror? Really? Does that honestly make any sense, to just give up on freedom because Bush and Cheney said the terrorists hate it?

We were able to exist quite freely and still fight terror very successfully before 9/11. There is certainly no viable reason to suggest that we still cannot do this after 9/11. Don't listen to crooked politicians who lie and try to tell us that we can no longer do that, "unless we give up some of our Constitutional rights." That is absolutely just flat out pure bullshit, plain and simple, and we should all know better than that.

We've clearly defended our freedoms before, under some of the worst conditions, with the Constitution intact, and we will do it again.

It's time for the American people to stand up to our elected officials. "We the people" still have some power, but if we don't stand up now, that will eventually be gone too, along with Habeas Corpus and many other already stolen Constitutional rights.

Fight terrorism by standing up to the real powers that stole our rights and freedom. Call your elected officials and tell them that enough is enough with this ethereal, bogus "War on Terror." We want our country and our Constitution back, and we want it back now.

Without our precious Bill of Rights, we essentially have nothing left to really fight for, which pretty much makes the battle a worthless fight, unless of course the real reason you're in it in the first place is for nothing more than profit and control.

Think about it.
 

 

Click on image for more pictures

If you're seriously desperate for a little physical interaction, without the commitment...
 

Towards A North American Security Perimeter
Global Research, by Dana Gabriel - 121110
There are numerous reports circulating that Canada and the U.S. are secretly negotiating a security and trade deal which could be signed as early as January 2011. The proposed agreement would establish a security perimeter as a means to better secure North America and stimulate trade. The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), along with other U.S.-Canada initiatives have allowed the two countries to incrementally move towards creating a common security perimeter.

The idea of a Canada-U.S. security perimeter is not new. Various bilateral actions over the last number of years have further laid the groundwork for this concept to become a reality.
...

NewsFocus: Despite what some think about Lou Dobbs or Glenn Beck, they have been the only mainstream media to cover the deal signed between the US, Canada and Mexico, during the Bush-Cheney administration, The North American Union. The Amero has already been proposed as a single currency between the three countries.

Special NewsFocus page on the SPP agreement for a North American Union
 

Phil Donahue On Today's Media
 

The March to War: Was September 11 2001 the Start of World War III?
Global Research, by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya - 121110

The tragic attacks of September 11, 2001 have resulted in almost ten years of perpetual war. September 11, 2001 was the first drum beats, or the opening salvos, of a much wider conflict. The  deployment of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan has secured a bridgehead into the Eurasian Heartland, which is geographically positioned on or near the borders of Iran, China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

Was Afghanistan the starting battle of a global war? The invasion of Afghanistan can be compared to the landing of the Western Allies, specifically the Americans, in North Africa as a bridgehead into Italy and Europe. At the same time NATO has been pushing from Europe towards the Eurasian Heartland, like the landing of the invading forces of the Western Allies in France.    

Was September 11th, 2001 the start of the Third World War?

Historically speaking, it should be noted that distinctions between times of war and peace are not always clear-cut and conflicts do not always correspond to the dates set and standardized by historians. War was not even declared in the cases of many past conflicts, such as in the early 1700s when Augustus II of Saxony-Poland invaded Livonia or when Frederick IV of Denmark invaded Holstein-Gottorp. Also, in the cases of many conflicts, attempts were always made to cloak or hide the nature of the conflict as being a war or an act of aggression. The Romans and other imperial powers regularly engaged in this type of conduct. ...
 

 

The War You Don't See (Pt 1)

See the rest of this John Pilger documentary here

 

 

Goldman Sachs Reports 'Perfect' Quarter
Goldman Sachs reports net gains on every day of first quarter but admits that its legal woes are likely to mount
Guardian.co.uk, by Andrew Clark 051010
Despite its legal woes, the Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs bolstered its reputation as a money-making machine by producing a "perfect" first quarter of 2010 with a net gain from its trading floor on every single day, a feat it has never achieved before. ...

Goldman Sachs and Other Banks Report “Perfect” First Quarters
Bailout Leaches Suck Taxpayer Money And Profit Big While America Suffers
DemocracyNow - 051310
The New York Times reports the nation’s largest banks managed to make money from trading every single day during the first three months of the year. Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase all finished with what is known as a perfect quarter—they went without losing money on a single day. The Times reported perfect trading quarters on Wall Street are about as rare as perfect games in Major League Baseball.
...

Perfect Quarter At Four U.S. Banks BusinessWeek

NewsFocus: Zero days of trading losses? Record profits? I guess when you're sucking the taxpayer tit for billions in white-collar socialism, how can you lose? If you're not outraged by this, then you're dead. Companies that scammed the system and helped tip us into economic disaster get rewarded with no slap on the wrist from a gutless Congress and a sold-out administration full of Wall Street insiders. (Not just Obama, but the crooked Bush administration too.)

At least one government has the stones to do the right thing and put its bankers in prison where they belong. (See Iceland) It's time for "we the people" to join together and demand justice. The left and the right need to meet in the middle and hold our elected weasels accountable for their incompetence in handling this disaster, but also flag them for their recalcitrance towards their boss, us!
 

 

The Real Cost of War In Iraq: Are Gasoline And The War Connected?

Another Way Films production, titled "One Minute."

From producer Dutch Merrick, one of the brightest, most talented people in Hollywood. Mr. Merrick is not only well read, but extremely astute politically. He produced this short film to highlight the real reasons for the war in Iraq and to express its true cost. You can view more of Mr. Merrick's videos on his YouTube website. His company web address is www.anotherway.tv. Kudos to Dutch for this very well produced film.

 
U.S. officials: No credible evidence that terrorists trained Shahzad

"There is nothing that confirms that any groups have been found involved in this for certain," one U.S. official told McClatchy. "It's a lot of speculation at this point."

Four U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials and two other U.S. officials with knowledge of the case spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss classified intelligence or the ongoing investigation publicly.

Pieces still missing in NYC car bomb plot puzzle
The Associated Press - Verena Dobnik, Colleen Long - ‎051110‎
NEW YORK - The Pakistani-American who police say admitted to igniting a failed car bomb in busy Times Square has made no court appearance since his arrest early this week and, though he is cooperating, authorities remain unsure he was acting alone. ...

'I was expecting you. Are you NYPD or FBI?'
DailyMail.co.uk - 050610
What failed Times Square bomber said as he was arrested on flight to Dubai

Times Square Bomb Suspect 'Said' To Implicate Himself
Washington Post - Spencer S. Hsu, Jerry Markon - ‎050410
The suspect in a failed attempt to detonate a car bomb in Times Square admitted his role in the plot and told investigators he had received training in bomb-making in his native Pakistan, ...

Pakistan Makes Arrests Connected To NYC Bomb Attempt Reuters
Times Square Bomb Attempt (May 1, 2010) New York Times


NewsFocus: And Now...
WHAT THE U.S. MEDIA WON'T BRING UP IN THE NY BOMB CASE
:

Before You Get Worked Up About Pakistani Terrorists, Here Are Three Reasons Why Anyone From Pakistan Might Possibly Want Retribution Against The US:
(What's The Old Saying?...You Reap What You Sow.)

Reason # 1: Blackwater (Xe) Unleashed On Pakistan
The Secret US War in Pakistan The Nation
Blackwater / Xe in Pakistan (video) PakAlert
Blackwater/Xe behind Pakistan unrest Press TV
Qazi sees Blackwater agents behind terrorism The News International
Xe Worldwide (Blackwater) spreads tentacles to Pakistan The Nation
Notorious BlackWater-Xe is Now Serving In Peshawar, Pakistan Pro-Pakistan

Reason # 2: U.S Drone Attacks Killing Hundreds Of Civilians
US Drone Strikes Kill 687 Civilians The News
44 US drone hits in Pakistan killed 700 The Peninsula Online
CIA Pakistan drone strikes 'violation of laws' Morning Star Online
Legal questions raised over CIA drone strikes The Associated Press
US Killed 700 Civilians in Pakistan Drone Strikes in 2009 Antiwar.com
Drone Strikes Continue to Fuel Anti-US Sentiment in Pakistan Antiwar.com

Reason # 3: U.S. Implicated In Mumbai Attacks (Pakistan's 9/11)
Mumbai Terror Suspect Was 'Rogue US Secret CIA Agent Times Online
CIA Foreknowledge of the Mumbai Attacks | 911Blogger.com 9/11 Blogger
CIA Double agent Headley implicates US in Mumbai attacks Pakistan Ledger
Mumbai attacks part of 'blowback' for CIA double-cross Online Journal
Headley Saga: Mumbai attack was a joint IB-CIA-Mossad-RSS project MilliGazette
Secrets of a CIA double-agent 'at the heart of Mumbai massacre Global Newsroom

So how would you feel if Pakistan did all of this to us? Just sayin'...

CIA Agent Involved In Mumbai Terror Attack

What Are Erik Prince and Blackwater Doing In Pakistan? Maybe Someone Should Ask

Sources: Blackwater's Running A Secret War in Pakistan - So Classified, Even Administration Doesn't Know

American Double Standards On War On Terror Exposed

NewsFocus: The CIA is the worst evil ever unleashed on mankind. They have fomented terrorism against Americans through their illegal aggression against foreign governments. They toppled a democratically elected leader in Iran and installed the Shah, who in turn persecuted and murdered hundreds, if not thousands of innocent Iranians during his long reign of terror. (Oh you say, so that's why the Iranians took US people hostage for 444 days.) The CIA is also responsible for propping up more dictators in this world, all for U.S. interests and immoral corporate profits. Take your pick, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Manuel Noriega, Agusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, etc, etc, etc. We could go on and on, but all you have to do is look. The CIA has certainly left a long bloody trail to follow. And thank you Prescott Bush, an integral figure in the creation of the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA, which his own son George HW Bush later became the head of. Former President Truman eventually came to regret the creation of this most nefarious organization. To understand the current state of terrorism in this world, you have to understand the history of the CIA.

"I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in '47, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo." -- Harry S Truman (1961)

Why The CIA Is The World's Number One Terrorist Organization

As the saying goes, there are indeed "two sides to every story." The American people, sadly enough, know only one story, the U.S. bullshit that we've all been spoon-fed by our complicit, bought-and-paid for corporate media. We are the most overly entertained society in the history of mankind, by design. Americans are far too trusting of their media and their government. Many would beg to differ, but history seems to suggest otherwise. (9/11 anyone?)
 

 

U S   W A R   C O V E R A G E:
Iraq War
   |   Afghanistan War

 

Bill Moyers Signs Off With Last Broadcast
America And The World Lose A Great Journalist With Moyers' Retirement
NewsFocus - by Tim Watts - 050210

The American media has lost an icon of journalistic integrity with the retirement of Bill Moyers. Always willing to tell it like it is, even when it rubbed corporate sponsors the wrong way, Moyers' affable style was easy to get comfortable with, but his integrity to honest journalism was probably the character trait that will define his broadcast legacy the most. Sadly, you don't get honest news like that from the major networks anymore. Moyers refused to be a corporate shill and for that he is head and shoulders above the current dollar-a-holler news whores who will read anything off a teleprompter for a buck.

Moyers was probably the first mainstream journalist to publicly tell all about the powers that be, with his revealing 1987 PBS broadcast report on "The Secret Government." Unlike so many of his peers, Bill was passionate about reporting the truth. He was ever observant, and oh so vigilant when it came to ferreting out the real facts of a story.

During his sign off, he left us parting words of wisdom on the state of our union, and he was, as always, spot on the money. "Plutocracy and democracy don't mix," said Moyers. Wise words indeed. Something you won't get from today's corporate media.

He also said not to worry about him leaving, because someone else will surely pick up the baton and carry on for him. While this editor may not hold the same optimism, I certainly hope and pray that he is right. Jon Stewart and Amy Goodman, you're all we've got left now.

To the honorable and noble Bill Moyers, thank you very much for your service sir. You will be greatly missed, and much more so than even Cronkite, because unlike Cronkite and so many other tainted journalists before and after you, we have never seen your name associated with "Operation Mockingbird," and for that we thank you.

Have a wonderful retirement Bill. You deserve it.

Bill Moyers: Plutocracy And Democracy Do Not Mix

Bill Moyers leaves a powerful message for us all on his last broadcast.
 

 
 
Placing your political party ahead of your country is treason.
We are not Republicans and Democrats, we are Americans first.

-NewsFocus                  

 

The I-Q Corridor
Plan For Regional Economic Power From Minneapolis To Chicago
BurghDiaspora - 040108

But today, individual states aren't big enough or rich enough to compete on a global scale. A shift in thinking toward a more regional approach is crucial, agrees Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council.

The council has coined the "I-Q Corridor" a 400-mile swath from Chicago to Minneapolis running through Milwaukee and Madison. That region taken as a whole has the economic strength to be a force in a world economy, Still says.

"It may seem like a long way from Chicago to the Twin Cities but it's a shorter drive or flight than what separates San Diego from Silicon Valley," he said.
...
 

 

Lawsuits Expected Over Ariz. Illegal Immigrant Law
The Associated Press - Jonathan J. Cooper - ‎042710
PHOENIX — The debate over Arizona's new illegal immigrant law will likely move from protest lines and talk shows to the courtroom, where a judge could be asked to decide whether the state can enforce laws that until now had been the federal ...

Humor: Video: Daily Show Jason Jones profiles Arizona Tequila drinkers

The Backlash Begins
Economist - 050710
A new state law has galvanized Latinos nationwide, and others too ...

Arizona Sheriff Says He Won’t Enforce New ‘Racist’ Anti-Immigration Law
Justice Department considers suing Arizona to block immigration law
Outcry Continues Over Controversial Ariz. Immigration Law
New Arizona Immigration Law 2010 Faces Contention
New immigration law turns Arizona into police state
Arizona Enacts Stringent Law on Immigration
Hundreds protest AZ immigration law
Cities Threaten to Boycott Arizona

NewsFocus: The myopic Governor signed the bill, then denied there would be racial profiling. So these officers aren't pulling over Hispanics due to their skin color? Seriously Governor? Then for what reason are they pulling them over? The kicker is, the Governor says she doesn't know what an illegal immigrant looks like! Is she ignorant, stupid, or just a huge liar? So what are we doing about illegal white aliens in this country? The outcry isn't about defending the rights of illegal aliens. It is all about protecting the inalienable rights of American citizens. The "show your papers" approach is going to affect legitimate citizens for certain. There is no way around that. This is simply a horribly bad approach towards addressing the immigration issue.

Note: Like the health care debate, this is an extremely volatile issue that once again polarizes the country, keeping Americans from looking at the bigger, more nefarious issues that need scrutinizing... IE: Bush/Cheney war crimes, the Wall Street fraud that has threatened not only the US, but entire world economies, the role of the Federal Reserve in the economic collapse, the behind-the-scenes push by global elites for a new world order, not to forget the investigation of military grade thermate explosives residue found in the World Trade Center debris, as well as the inept and incomplete anthrax investigation of a military grade toxin that was traced to U.S. military labs at Fort Detrick, and then immediately dropped like a hot rock by the FBI. Just sayin'...

The Immigration Debate

From Current TV's "SuperNews"

Texas Rep. Introduces Similar Anti-Immigration Bill As Arizona's
ABC News - Emily Friedman - ‎042810‎
A Texas lawmaker said today that she agrees with the controversial immigration bill passed in Arizona and plans to introduce a similar one ...

Texas lawmaker to introduce anti-immigration bill The Associated Press
Texas eyeing Arizona-like immigration law UPI.com
 

 
Why Is FEMA Trying To Cover Up NLE 10?
PublicIntelligence.net - 041410

Public Intelligence has received a request from FEMA to remove a “For Official Use Only” document regarding the National Level Exercise 2010 (NLE 10), which was scheduled for this coming May.  The exercise was to be based on National Planning Scenario 1 which simulates a nuclear detonation in a U.S. city.  However, recent political pressure has led to the exercise being “scaled back” according to the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and a variety of other publications.  At the behest of Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the exercise’s Nevada events have reportedly been canceled and the FEMA website now shows no mention of NLE 10.

NewsFocus: This is disturbing on many counts. Those involved in 9/11 and 7/7 research realize that the US and British governments were both having terror disaster drills where the exact scenario they were preparing for strangely happened on the day of their actual exercise. Any good mathematician will tell you the odds of that happening are astronomical. So please excuse us if we have the slightest trepidation when our government is preparing for a nuclear attack exercise on domestic soil. This is the one event that would allow them to declare martial law, scaring the masses into submission once again and thus ending any possible new 9/11 investigation.
 
 

Defense Spending Is Much Greater than You Think: One Trillion Dollars
IntelDaily.com, by Robert Higgs - 042210
When President Obama presented his budget recently for fiscal year 2011, he proposed that the Pentagon’s outlays be increased by about 4.5 percent beyond its estimated outlays in fiscal 2010, to a total of almost $719 billion. Although many Americans regard this enormous sum as excessive, few appreciate that the total amount of all defense-related spending greatly exceeds the amount budgeted for the Department of Defense.
...

Pentagon looks to revive Nazi space-bomber plan
Pocket 'Antipodes raid' hyper-smart missiles sought
TheRegister.co.uk, by Lewis Page - 042210
The US military appears to have temporarily given up on exotic scramjet powered hyper-plane and -missile notions for the purpose of suddenly blowing things up at short notice anywhere in the world. Rather, Pentagon boffins are now re-examining a plan once considered by the Nazis for the purpose of bombing America.
...
 

 
For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. 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's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it. --David Rockefeller, Memoirs, 2002
 
George W. Bush 'Knew Guantánamo Prisoners Were Innocent'
Held To Make Americans Think There Were Bad Guys, To Influence The Wars

TimesOnline.co.uk, by Tim Reid - 040910


George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration. ...

Document: Bush, Cheney Knew They Sent Innocent Men To Gitmo, Kept Them There For 'Political' Reasons

 

Ramsey Clark chosen to head commission to investigate Bush crimes
911Blogger.com - 040810
On April 3, at a meeting of over 150 lawyers, legal scholars and human rights campaigners, Ramsey Clark, founder of Indict Bush Now, was chosen to be the chairperson of an international campaign to investigate war crimes committed by officials from the Bush administration.

Representatives at the meeting held in Beirut, Lebanon, came from all over the world. The campaign will investigate the lies, deceit and manipulation leading up to the Iraq war; the conduct of the war itself against an essentially defenseless country; and the horrors of the continued occupation.

Lawyers and judges in several countries are exploring prosecution.

Ramsey Clark emphasized that it is the imperative responsibility of the American people to relentlessly pursue this investigation, and to seek prosecution and indictment inside of the United States. ...
 

 
US Military Warns Oil Output May Dip Causing Massive Shortages By 2015
Shortfall could reach 10m barrels a day, report says; Cost of crude oil is predicted to top $100 a barrel
GuardianUK.co.uk, by Terry Macalister - 041110

The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.

The energy crisis outlined in a Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command, comes as the price of petrol in Britain reaches record levels and the cost of crude is predicted to soon top $100 a barrel.

"By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day," says the report, which has a foreword by a senior commander, General James N Mattis. ... (Read More)
 

 
Are Americans Too Broken By Corporate Power To Resist?
y Joan Brunwasser
We need to take a look at what forces in American society are preventing people from being able to resist tyranny and dehumanization. ...
 
 
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.  -Thomas Jefferson
 
Truth Has Fallen And Has Taken Liberty With It
y Paul Craig Roberts

There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest. ...

Nothing Will Improve in America Until Some People Go to Jail
Agonist.org
Here are some candidates among the elite and powerful in the U.S. who should be put on trial, convicted, and sent to prison with lengthy terms: ...

 

 
Court Rules Against NSA’s Illegal Spying, Illegal NSA Spying Continues
IntelDaily.com, by Tom Burghardt - 041210
(The Intelligence Daily) — What could be a significant legal victory in the on-going battle against blanket surveillance transpired March 31 in district court in San Francisco, along with a stinging rebuke of the Obama administration.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that the government had violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and that the National Security Agency’s warrantless spying program was illegal. ...
 

 
Carl Boggs: The Crime of Empire
Rogue Superpower and World Domination
y Ludwig Watzal
The U. S. power elites believe in national exceptionalism”, they view the country as a benevolent or benign hegemon working for democracy, human rights, and peace”. The elite – politicians, media, academia, and think tanks - presents U. S. policy as pragmatic, non-ideological, furthering liberal democracy, freedom, equality, and citizen participation. ...
 
 
FCC Considers Reclassification Of Internet In Push To Regulate It
RCFP.org
The Federal Communications Commission has been exploring ways to reassert its  authority over the Internet after last week's federal appellate court decision cast doubt on whether the commission has the authority to enforce its net neutrality policy. ...

Court Backs Comcast Over FCC on 'Net Neutrality'
Wall Street Journal - Amy Schatz - 040710‎
It orders the company to change its policies but doesn't fine Comcast. Sept: Comcast appeals, saying the FCC's net-neutrality principles aren't enforceable. ...

Net Neutrality Battle: Corporate Takeover? Common Dreams

The death of Net neutrality: Five quick thoughts ZDNet
Decision may reignite "Net Neutrality" debate MarketWatch
Comcast Strikes a Blow Against Net Neutrality Television Broadcast 
Court Rules Against FCC in Comcastic Net Neutrality Decision
All Things Digital
Comcast Net Neutrality Case Appeal Court says FCC Overstepping their Authority Digital News Report
 

 
No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government. -Thomas Jefferson
 

Defense Motion: False-Flag Terror Bomb-Plot Was Feds Idea
Just Like The Original World Trade Center Bombing Was Planned By The FBI
WashingtonPost.com, by Jim Fitzgerald - Friday, March 19, 2010; 1:49 PM The Associated Press

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Four men accused of trying to bomb synagogues and shoot down planes in New York last spring did little more than go along with a fake plot proposed, directed and funded by the federal government, defense lawyers claim in asking the court to dismiss the case.

A federal informant chose the targets, offered payment, provided maps and bought the only real weapon involved, a handgun, the attorneys said in a dismissal motion filed this week in federal court.

They alleged the defendants were not inclined toward any crime until the informant began recruiting them.

"The government well knew that their case had been a government-inspired creation from day one and that the defendants had not been independently seeking weapons or targets," the motion said. ...

NewsFocus: For those that let the media sweep the original story away from them, this is exactly like the Yamzi Yousef story, where the FBI initiated the bomb plot and then reportedly provided the actual explosives for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

The New York Times reported on Emad Salem, an undercover agent who testified that the FBI knew about the attack beforehand and told him they would thwart it by substituting a harmless powder for the explosives. However, an FBI supervisor called off this plan, and the bombing was not stopped.  [New York Times, 10/28/93]
 

 
In Bizarre, Soviet-Style Move, White House Threatens to Veto Intelligence Budget Unless FBI's Anthrax Frame Up Is Accepted
WashingtonsBlog.com - March 15, 2010

In a bizarre, Soviet-style move, the White House has threatened to veto the intelligence budget unless everyone accepts the FBI frame up of Dr. Bruce Ivins.

As Bloomberg writes:

President Barack Obama probably would veto legislation authorizing the next budget for U.S. intelligence agencies if it calls for a new investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks, an administration official said. ...

Anthrax Case Closed: FBI Says Scientist Was Anthrax Killer
AP News, by Devlin Barrett and Pete Yost, Associated Press Writers Fri Feb 19, 2010
WASHINGTON – The FBI sought to close the book on its long, frustrating hunt for the killer behind the 2001 anthrax letters Friday, formally ending its investigation and concluding a mentally unhinged scientist was responsible for killing five people and unnerving Americans nationwide.

After years of false leads, no arrests and public criticism, the FBI and Justice Department said. ...

Unsolved Anthrax Case to be Closed Firedoglake

The Anthrax Attacks Remain Unsolved: The FBI disproved its main theory about how the spores were weaponized

Rep Holt Introduces Independent Investigation of Anthrax Bill

It's about time we had an independent look. Let's see how far we get with this.

NewsFocus: Apparently the rest of America is smarter than the FBI because virtually nobody is buying this crock for an explanation, except possibly FOX News viewers. Remember, the Bush White House was coincidentally taking the antidote for anthrax, Cipro, for one month prior to the anthrax attacks. That in itself is very suspicious of foreknowledge. On the heels of 9/11, this event was the catalyst for the heinous Patriot Act and still needs a thorough investigation. There are FBI field agents who know better, but politics at the top have handcuffed our best investigators. This was officially the second horrific attack during the Bush-Cheney administration.
 

 
Kucinich & Nader Talk About Health Care On Democracy Now
Never A Shortage For The Truth When These Two Show Up For A Discussion
NewsFocus.org - 032010
Congressman Dennis Kucinich and perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader with Amy Goodman on
Democracy Now discussing the state of the current health care bill and the mounting pressure from Washington to get it passed. Watch the show below.
 

Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader on Democracy Now

 
Richest 400 Taxpayers See Incomes Double, Tax Rates Halved
CrooksandLiars.com, by
For Democrats wavering in their resolve to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, shocking new data from the IRS should hopefully stiffen their backbones. Between 2001 and 2007, the 400 richest taxpayers doubled their annual incomes to an average of $345 million, while their effective tax rate plummeted to only 16.6% from 29.4% in 1993.

Following recent analyses confirming that income inequality in the United States has reached record levels, noted tax journalist David Cay Johnston summed up the new data, "The incomes of the top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars and as a share of all income in 2007, while the income tax rates they paid fell to a record low. The numbers tell the tale of the widening chasm between the rich and everyone else:

In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its Web site without announcement that were discovered February 16...

Adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars, the top 400 enjoyed a 27 percent increase in their income, or nine times the rate of increase for the bottom 90 percent...Since 1992, the bottom 90 percent of Americans have seen their incomes rise by 13 percent in 2009 dollars, compared with an increase of 399 percent for the top 400. ... (Read More)
 

 

Obama seeks record $708 billion in defense budget
Reuters.com
President Barack Obama on Monday asked Congress to approve a record $708 billion in defense spending for fiscal year 2011, including a 3.4 percent increase in the Pentagon's base budget and $159 billion to fund U.S. military missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pentagon’s Black Budget Tops $56 Billion
Wired.com
Last year, that budget grew to more than $50 billion – ”the largest-ever sum,” according to Aviation Week’s Bill Sweetman, a longtime black-budget seer. A few more billion were added for wartime operations, for a total of $54 billion. This year’total would be $2 billion higher, a 3.7 percent increase.

NewFocus: We're really digging that "Change you can believe in."
 

 
Every Occupation Fuels an Insurgency
Dennis Kucinich
Afghanistan, Jobs and Health Care, All big issues in America. And one man with strong opinions on all of them is U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich.
Continue
 
 
Citizens United Ruling - The Broader Context (Part 1)
Bradblog.com, by Ernest A. Canning 021910
Following the recent activist SCOTUS ruling removing corporate campaign limits, Attorney Ernest Canning begins his series detailing 'the latest chapter of a 40-year assault on Constiutional Democracy'...

Congress takes on Citizen's United

80% of Americans hate the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling

After ruling, Wall Street CEOs form conservative 'action tank'
 

 

Supreme Court Campaign Finance Ruling Angers Many
SCOTUS Allows Corporations Free Spending In U.S. Elections
NewsFocus: Is This The End Of Democracy As We used To Know It?

Citizens Ruling: An Intellectually Dishonest Power Grab
Washington Post - ‎012210
In opening the floodgates for corporate money in election campaigns, the Supreme Court did not simply engage in a brazen power grab. ...

Manchurian Candidates: Supreme Court allows China and others unlimited spending in US elections GregPalast.com

SCOTUS Gives Corporations Free Speech, and Starts a Civil War Firedoglake (blog)
Supreme Court Decision: More Votes for the Rich Huffington Post
Supreme Court Ruling Is an Invitation to Scandal U.S. News & World Report
The US Supreme Court Sells Out: A Government of, for, and by the Corporations Huffington Post

Congressman Alan Grayson Talks To Keith Olbermann About The Ruling

People in America need to wake up and realize how serious this truly is.

Cha-Ching! Supreme Court ruling means Big Business can spend billions on elections


The case we've all been waiting for – and dreading – is finally here. Citizens United v. FEC started off as an insignificant case about an anti-Hillary film, but the Roberts Court turned it into a vehicle for radically expanding the influence of corporations.

Here's the bottom line to today's 5-4 ruling: giant corporations can spend as much as they please on elections to advance their agendas. The right-wing Roberts court ruled that Exxon has the same free speech rights as you and me. In other words, Exxon is a person too. ... (Read More)

CALL FOR IMMEDIATE ARREST OF 5 SUPREME COURT JUSTICES FOR TREASON
 THE FIVE THAT STAND AGAINST ALL AMERICANS, THE “MAFIA” JUDGES
 VeteransToday.com, January 22, 2010 by Gordon Duff
 

 Five members of the Supreme Court declared that a “corporation” is a person, not a “regular person” but one above all natural laws, subject to no God, no moral code but one with unlimited power over our lives, a power awarded by judges who seem themselves as grand inquisitors in an  meant to hunt down all heretics who fail to serve their god, the god of money. ...

Iowa Democratic leaders rake SCOTUS ruling
DesMoinesRegister.com (blog) - Kathie Obradovich - ‎Jan 21, 2010‎
Iowa Democratic legislative leaders said this morning that the US Supreme Court ruling opening the floodgates to corporate campaign spending likely voids ...

SCOTUS: America For Sale To Highest Bidder

I remember arguing with Democratic strategists about the Alito and Roberts nominations to the Supreme Court. I said instead of focusing on abortion rights, a divisive issue, we should sound the alarm about their strongly pro-corporatist rulings. But hey, what do I know?

And now, the predictable results. I can't tell you how depressed I am about this:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.

By a 5-4 vote, the court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states. ... (Read More)

Corporate Personhood Should Be Banned, Once and For All
y Ralph Nader - 012510
This corporatist, anti-voter decision is so extreme that it should galvanize a grassroots effort to enact a Constitutional Amendment to once and for all end corporate personhood and curtail the corrosive impact of big money on politics.
Continue


Democracy in America Is a Useful Fiction
y Chris Hedges - 012510
Corporate forces, long before the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, carried out a coup d'état in slow motion. The coup is over. We lost.
Continue

American Corporatocracy
y Paul A. Moore - 012410
The US government has been hollowed out during the rise to absolute power of the corporations. Elections have become an elaborate "reality show" that plays out on corporate television for viewers entertainment.
Continue

Sign Alan Grayson's Supreme Court petition against corporations being allowed to spend unlimited cash on elections

If you want to see who the real corporatists are then wait until they are put to the test over the Citizen's United ruling. Conservatives have been trying to destroy any type of campaign finance reforms and what this ruling means is that corporations will be allowed to blackmail any candidate just by threatening to spend gobs of money against them if they vote the wrong way.

Alan Grayson's petition says it all.

At any moment, the Supreme Court will announce whether it will allow corporations to spend unlimited funds on political campaigns.

Sign my petition to the Supreme Court now, and tell them to keep unlimited corporate spending out of our federal elections. PETITION TEXT

Unlimited corporate spending on campaigns means the government is up for sale and that the law itself will be bought and sold. It would be political bribery on the largest scale imaginable.

This issue transcends partisan political arguments. We cannot have a government that is bought and paid for by huge multinational corporations. You must stop this.

Click here to sign <<<

Bill Introduced Calls for Constitutional Amendment to Tackle Campaign Finance Ruling
Kyle Berlin - Thursday 04 February 2010

Two lawmakers introduced a bill this week aimed at adding an amendment to the US Constitution, which would allow Congress and the states to regulate political expenditures by corporations.

The amendment bill is in response to a recent landmark Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which struck down several longstanding prohibitions on corporate political contributions, saying legislative measures to control such spending infringed upon corporate First Amendment free speech rights.

Dodd to Introduce Constitutional Amendment to Reverse Campaign Finance Ruling
NorwalkPlus.com - Thursday 04 February 2010

Please see this report by Truthout's Kyle Berlin about a similar bill introduced in the House earlier this week.

Washington DC - Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) announced today that he will be introducing a constitutional amendment in the coming days to reverse the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The decision overturned 100 years of precedents to come to the unjustified conclusion that corporations deserve the same free speech protections as individual Americans.

“Money is not speech,” said Dodd. “Corporations are not people. And in the wake of one of the most radical decisions in the Supreme Court’s history of campaign finance jurisprudence, a constitutional amendment is necessary to fully restore the trust and voice of the American people. If corporations – foreign as well as domestic – are allowed even greater and more direct influence over our elections, our democracy as we know it will cease to exist. I won’t stand for that. I urge my colleagues, and the American people, to join me in defense of democracy by supporting this amendment and other interim steps to mitigate the damage done by this decision.”

Legislation to Counter Supreme Court's Campaign Finance Ruling Gaining Support
Kyle Berlin - Friday 29 January 2010

In the wake of last week's sweeping 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, which struck down several longstanding prohibitions on corporate political contributions, Democratic lawmakers are proposing legislation to counter some of its effects.

Perhaps the most politically promising proposal is the Fair Elections Now Act, a bill introduced which aims to blend small-donor fundraising with public funding as a means of reducing the pressure of fundraising from large contributors.

Read more on the Politics page...
 

 
The Mystery Bush Billboard
Minnesota Public Radio, by Bob Collins - February 8, 2010
It was late at night and I wasn't sure I'd seen the billboard correctly as I whizzed past it on I-35 in Wyoming last week on the way back from Wrenshall. But an e-mailer confirms I saw what I thought I saw. ...

NewsFocus: Isn't Cheney from Wyoming? Hmmmm.... ;o)


A scary thought for a great many Americans.
 

 
The Anthrax Attacks Remain Unsolved
The FBI disproved its main theory about how the spores were weaponized
Wall Street Journal, by EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN - 012410

The investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks ended as far as the public knew on July 29, 2008, with the death of Bruce Ivins, a senior biodefense researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Md. The cause of death was an overdose of the painkiller Tylenol. No autopsy was performed, and there was no suicide note.

Less than a week after his apparent suicide, the FBI declared Ivins to have been the sole perpetrator of the 2001 Anthrax attacks, and the person who mailed deadly anthrax spores to NBC, the New York Post, and Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. These attacks killed five people, closed down a Senate office building, caused a national panic, and nearly paralyzed the postal system. ...
 

 

Americans are mad as hell...

Fictional newscaster Howard Beal tries to wake the masses in "Network."
What does it take to stir the people to stand up and say no more?

 
You Won't Believe In Conspiracy, Until You Know The Media
Americans Easily Dismiss Conspiracy Claims Because of Naive Media Trust

Get the real story on who runs the media that we trust to protect our democracy. Learn how just half a dozen men hold control of our media programming and why that's a bad thing for democracy. A mere six individuals (CEOs) decide which stories you get to see and which stories you don't get to see. Once you realize the truth about our misguided notion of integrity in broadcasting and the news, you will see how easy it is to deceive a populace. You could convince them of literally anything. Even into giving up their rights. View the NewsFocus page on The Media for all you need to know.
 
 

Geithner to AIG: Let's Keep This Under Our Hat, Okay?

This is pretty interesting, don't you think? It pains me that wacky Darrell Issa is the one who gets to point the finger, but oh well:

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show. ...
 

 
Welcome to Orwell’s World 2010
Inverted lies that “passed into history and became truth"
Global Research, by John Pilger - December 31, 2009

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell described a super-state called Oceania, whose language of war inverted lies that “passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’, ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’.”

Barack Obama is the leader of a contemporary Oceania. In two speeches at the close of the decade, the Nobel Peace Prize winner affirmed that peace was no longer peace, but rather a permanent war that “extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan” to “disorderly regions and diffuse enemies”. He called this “global security” and invited our gratitude. To the people of Afghanistan, which America has invaded and occupied, he said wittily: “We have no interest in occupying your country.”

In Oceania, truth and lies are indivisible. According to Obama, the American attack on Afghanistan in 2001 was authorized by the United Nations Security Council. There was no UN authority. He said the “the world” supported the invasion in the wake of 9/11 when, in truth, all but three of 37 countries surveyed by Gallup expressed overwhelming opposition. He said that America invaded Afghanistan “only after the Taliban refused to turn over [Osama] bin Laden”. In 2001, the Taliban tried three times to hand over bin Laden for trial, reported Pakistan’s military regime, and were ignored. Even Obama’s mystification of 9/11 as justification for his war is false. More than two months before the Twin Towers were attacked, the Pakistani foreign minister, Niaz Naik, was told by the Bush administration that an American military assault would take place by mid-October. The Taliban regime in Kabul, which the Clinton administration had secretly supported, was no longer regarded as “stable” enough to ensure America’s control over oil and gas pipelines to the Caspian Sea. It had to go. ... (Read More)


NewsFocus: This is all about the grand New World Order. "We the People" are being dragged to a new system of government, without our vote, without your consent. Don't believe it? Start looking on your own and quit believing the corporate media. Ever hear of the Bilderbergers? It's time you start to learn. This new world structure of a global government is presented as a way to end all war, but it is all about monopolies and the uber-rich becoming more wealthy and more powerful. What constitutional checks and balances will be built into this new system to protect human rights? Who will protect us from the corporations that are already abusing us? What safeguards will stop another Hitler from usurping and taking over the globalist New World Order? Where is our guarantee of a better way of life? Call your elected representatives and tell them that this is treason and "We the People" do not approve.

See: Jesse Ventura's "Conspiracy Theory" program on the Bilderbergs

See: Wake Up Call (The New World Order)

See: More on the proposed New World Order

See: George HW Bush, Bill Clinton And Other Politicians Call For the NWO
 

 
American Gulag
Obama to Indefinitely Imprison Detainees Without Charges
By Glenn Greenwald - 012410
The administration is claiming the power to imprison whomever it wants without charges whenever it believes that -- even in the face of the horrendously broad "material support for terrorism" laws the Congress has enacted -- it cannot prove in any tribunal that the individual has actually done anything wrong. 
Continue
 
 
There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all! -Mario Savio Dec 2, 1964
  
 

Saving America: The Necessary Steps To Reclaim Our Democracy
"We the people" Need To Insist Upon Restoring The Vision Of Our Forefathers
NewsFocus - 122609

  • Election Reform - Get rid of Political Action Committees (PACs) and corporate donations.
  • Media Reform Break up media monopolies and encourage diversity of news and opinion.
  • Take over the Federal Reserve Return power to print money to U.S. Government.
  • Balance the Courts We should not lean left or right, but strike a fair balance in our courts.
  • Tax Reform Make the rich pay their share accordingly, as we do, with no more loopholes.
  • PATRIOT Act Reform Re-establish the Constitution & Bill of Rights for "We the People."

If we don't act soon, it may be too late to reclaim the country we once knew. Those that have all the power are counting on you to be complacent, unmotivated and ignorant.
 

 

Alan Greenspan Admits There Is No Authority Above The Federal Reserve
 
If they truly have nothing to hide, audit the Federal Reserve, now!

 

There is no greater form of patriotism than questioning your government.

-NewsFocus          

 

NewsFocus: A Huge Conflict Of Interest?

Ex-Homeland Security chief head said to abuse public trust by touting body Scanners
Washington Post - Kimberly Kindy, Julie Tate - ‎Dec 31, 2009
Since the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports.

What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. ...

Chertoff Now a Pitch Man for Scanners and Security DigitalJournal.com
Chertoff uses former job to promote undisclosed client Village Voice  

'Privacy'? Turns Out Airport Scanners Can Store, Send Images
CrooksandLiars.com, b
Imagine that! First of all, who can believe that they'd lie to us about just how much they can see with these airport scanners? (That was irony, folks.) And not only that, they have the capability to take, say, celebrity scans and email them to the National Enquirer. Who'd a thunk it? ...

Bollywood star claims he autographed own naked body scan

Airport Body Scanning Raises Radiation Exposure, Committee
Bloomberg.com, by
Jonathan Tirone - 010510
Air
passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings and governments must explain any decision to expose the public to higher levels of cancer-causing radiation, an inter-agency report said. ...

A Risk Is A Risk. Do You Want To Be One Of The Ten To Get Cancer?
 
Tens deaths per year is ten too many! Do families get the right to sue?


PR Effort Underway To Convince Us To Accept Body Scans
TV News Anchors Are Sucked Into The Official VNR Press Account
NewsFocus, by Tim Watts - 011810

The next invasion of privacy and a new threat for the people is full body x-ray scans. With former Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff using his Washington DC connections to push the new technology under the guise of national security, even though he and his machine producing client will become filthy rich from profit, is it any wonder the push is on to get us to accept this next Orwellian step towards control?

First things first... x-rays are harmful to human beings. We've known that for years now. Case closed.

Secondly, don't believe everything that comes from a news anchor's mouth when it comes to introducing new technology. In almost every case, the information comes from the producer of said technology, and they will say only that which helps them sell the product and make them money.

The PR marketing effort for the body scanners is that it is only "like a dental x-ray," something we've all had, but we don't all get the same number of dental x-rays. Some go to the dentist more than others. Conversely, many people fly more than others also.

The tactic with the dental x-ray analogy is to make it seem like an everyday common occurrence, but according to Time Magazine, a dental x-ray delivers 5r per x-ray, and 10r is said to be damaging.

Most people just don't get dental x-rays as often as some people fly in our jet-set world. What about the risk to those who fly a lot? And what about the frequent flyer that now needs a dental or chest x-ray? How has the frequent airport scanning made them more vulnerable to cancer, or to that next fatal x-ray dose from their physician or dentist?

You can't keep taking 5r on every business and vacation flight and not harbor legitimate health concerns over continued x-ray scanning. The medical community takes this seriously enough. We need to find safer technology and not rush into something that will be harmful to frequent flyers.

Whether they admit it or not, x-rays, in any dose, are never a good thing for humans.

Given the dangerous nature of x-rays, one would think that those who claim to have our safety in mind would be moving the population away from exposure to harmful x-rays, rather than increasing exposure and the subsequent risk of cancer, or even sterility and infertility, as a direct result of repeated exposure.

And scanners are not perfect either. They can't tell if the heels on a pair of shoes are powerful molded explosives, so there are always going to be security weaknesses in the system.

It seems the best way to minimize terrorism would perhaps be not to meddle in their country's foreign affairs. Perhaps if we maintained our corporate interests here at home we would be better off in the world as a nation.

One thing we don't need is to be pushed into a quick decision on x-ray scanners that we will one day regret. The news reporters in the video piece above did no fact checking. They simply accepted a corporate PR fabrication (VNR) that might help better sell this dangerous technology to the people. This was irresponsible journalism. There was no effort made to check for information on radiation levels, nor any other tangible consumer safety concerns. They were there to sell body scanners.

Don't take anything from TV talking heads that fail to thoroughly explore the other side of the issue and then attempt to sell you the hype. It's time that we slowed down and took a better look at security, rather than doing a "Patriot Act knee-jerk reaction" and quickly accepting something bad before we thoroughly check it out or find a better way.

German 'Fleshmob' Protests Airport Scanners
Wired News - Kim Zetter - ‎011210‎
The underwear bomber's Christmas Day attack has prompted calls for the increased use of full-body scanners at airports that would strip-search passengers down to their naked bodies. ...
 

 
Pentagon now spending more for war than all 50 States combined spend to run the country
IntelDaily.com - 122509
The U.S. spends more for war annually than all state governments combined spend for the health, education, welfare, and safety of 308 million Americans. Joseph Henchman, director of state projects for the Tax Foundation of Washington, D.C., says the states collected a total of $781 billion in taxes in 2008. For a rough comparison, according to Wikipedia data, the total budget for what the Pentagon calls "defense" in fiscal year 2010 will be at least $880 billion and could possibly top $1 trillion. That's more than all the state governments collect. ...

War On Terror: War Expenditures
 

World’s Sole Military Superpower’s 2 Million-Troop, $1 Trillion Wars
InformationClearinghouse.info - 122109
After allotting over a trillion dollars for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq alone and packing off more than two million of its citizens to the two nations, the U.S. military establishment and peace prize president have already laid the groundwork for yet more wars. Boeing, Raytheon and General Electric won’t be kept waiting. ...

The War Trap
InformationClearinghouse.info, by Ernest Partridge - 121809
It appears that Einstein was right: everything has changed except our modes of thinking, and thus, as he warned, "we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."
Continue

President Eisenhower Tried To Warn Us All

For a former 5-Star General To Make These Comments Is Startling.

Can the Human Race Outgrow War?
InformationClearinghouse.info, by James Carroll - 012510
The fantasy that Pentagon spending might be checked was obliterated by last week’s other news - the Supreme Court decision to allow unlimited corporate funding of political campaign ads. Defense contractors will spend billions reinforcing the natural law of war.
Continue

US House passes $636 billion military spending bill IntelDaily.com

An American soldier speaks out with the truth
 
From IVAW: U.S Soldiers Are Waking Up!
 

 
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. --President John F. Kennedy 4/27/61
 
US General: UAE's air force could take out Iran's
YNetNews.com
Speaking at a conference in Bahrain organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the American general said, "The Emirati Air Force itself could take out the entire Iranian Air Force, I believe, given that it's got ... somewhere around 70 Block 60 F-16 fighters, which are better than the US F-16 fighters."
 
 

Kucinich calls on Congress to end wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan through War Powers Act
Examiner.com - ‎Dec 9, 2009‎
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (also known as the War Powers Act) has several provisions, but we'll focus on this part in the section on Congressional ...
Kucinich: Resolutions to End Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Center for Research on Globalization

US military suicides reach new high
WSWS.org, by By James Cogan 120209
The number of serving American military personnel who took their lives in 2009 has already exceeded last year’s record. These suicides are first of all tragic. Secondly, they indicate the immense psychological harm that the neo-colonial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have inflicted on members of the armed forces. ...

Soldiers going AWOL for PTSD care
 

 

U S   W A R   C O V E R A G E:
Iraq War
   |   Afghanistan War

 

Stunning Statistics About the War Every American Should Know
InformationClearinghouse.info, by Jeremy Scahill 121809
Contrary to popular belief, the US actually has 189,000 personnel on the ground in Afghanistan right now—and that number is quickly rising.
Continue

U.S. in Afghanistan : 1979-2009
TheRagBlog.Blogspot.com - 122709
The pain and suffering of the peoples of Afghanistan has a long history before and since the United States intervened in their political lives in 1979. Many outside powers share responsibility for their plight. But today’s situation directly relates to the covert war the United States encouraged and funded from the summer of 1979 ...
 

 

Franken's anti-rape amendment becomes law
RawStory.com, by Stephen C. Webster -122109
Over the unexplained objections of 30 Republican Senators, an anti-rape amendment authored by Senator Al Franken (D-MN) became law Monday with President Obama's signature on the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010.

The provision was sparked by the gang-rape of a 19-year-old Kellogg, Brown & Root employee by her coworkers in Iraq. After returning to the United States, Jamie Leigh Jones found she couldn't sue the company because of a clause in her employment contract.

Franken's amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act prohibits companies from using employment contracts to bar litigation over sexual assault or discrimination.

When the Senate took up Franken's measure, 30 Republicans voted against it. None cared to explain why, with some suggesting it's simply not the government's business to rewrite employment contracts. ...

Thanks Minnesota, for electing Sen. Al Franken (Reddit.com)
 

 

Social Security Update:

Social Security Administration Sends Letters Explaining No COLA
Reason Given Is No Rise In Cost of Living. (Say What!? Seriously?)
NewsFocus.org, by Tim Watts 121109

The Social Security Administration has sent letters out to Americans explaining why there will be no cost of living. According to SSA there was "no rise in the cost of living during the past year," although many of those needing their social security to exist upon would beg to differ on that SSA assessment. With many goods rising in price during the economic downturn, many are asking exactly where SSA is getting their figures from.

The explanation given by SSA reads as follows...

By law, Social Security benefits increase automatically to keep pace with inflation. When there is a period of no inflation, the law does not permit an increase in benefits, Based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the Department of Labor, there was no rise in the cost of living during the past year, so your benefit will remain the same in 2010. The CPI is the federal government's official measure used to calculate cost-of-living increases.

Far be it from the government to bail-out social security, helping those who need it most, instead of the rich Wall Street tycoons and mega-wealthy bankers who caused this economic disaster.

Many of those relying on their social security find the excuse from SSA to be highly disingenuous and insulting. A more honest approach might have been to simply admit that the government is strapped for money after the bail-outs to the rich, rather than attempting to say that the cost of essential goods has not risen.

The American people do know better. We get the greed thing. Slap in the face well taken.

What makes all of this worse, our formerly esteemed Congress took their 2009 cost of living increase and is now said to be planning on their 2010 increase as well. WTF?

Congress to take 2010 cost of living increase  KHQ News

Congress to take 2010 cost of living increase  MSNBC News

Bill floated to rescind pay increases ( For 2011, not 2010 !! )

Write your Congressman now and demand that they refuse a cost of living increase for the bogus reasons given by Social Security.

Our elected representatives have some temerity. Absolutely unbelievable.

The Rich Get Bailed Out And The Poor Get The Shaft
Congress Had Better Cap Their Own Salaries For Two Years After This

Millions Face Shrinking Social Security Payments
The Associated Press
 - Stephen Ohlemacher - ‎082309‎
WASHINGTON — Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise. The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won't be a cost of living adjustment ...
No cost of living increase for Social Security DigitalJournal.com
 

 

American Fascism
By political definition the US is now fascist, not a constitutional republic
InformationClearinghouse.info, by Carl Herman
The definition of “fascism” has some academic variance, but is essentially collusion among corporatocracy, authoritarian government, and controlled media and education. This “leadership” is only possible with a nationalistic public accepting policies of war, empire, and limited civil and political rights.
Continue

Americans Are As Blind To US Fascism As Nazi-Era Germans
Examiner.com, by Carl Herman 121209
Psychological research demonstrates that large-scale dramatic change can escape attention when the change is unsuspected, unannounced, and agents causing the change act as if nothing is different. Two areas of this cognitive study are “change blindness” and “inattentional blindness.”  When we include consideration of “cognitive dissonance,” the rejection of facts when they conflict with important beliefs, we can approach an explanation of how educated citizens could accept fascism when it was unsuspected, unannounced, and the responsible agents fraudulently represented the new government as no different from the old. Cognitive dissonance would deter many people to accept the new reality, even when the facts were clear.

The definition of “fascism” has some academic variance, but is essentially collusion among corporatocracy, authoritarian government, and controlled media and education. This “leadership” is only possible with a nationalistic public accepting policies of war, empire, and limited civil and political rights. ... (Read More)
 

 
Are Americans a Broken People?
Why We've Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression
InformationClearinghouse.info, by Bruce E. Levine
A psychologist asks: Have consumerism, suburbanization and a malevolent corporate-government partnership so beaten us down that we no longer have the will to save ourselves?
Continue
 
 
Networks Still Using Military Analysts Without Identifying Massive Conflicts Of Interest
InformationClearinghouse.info, by Laura Bassett
Military strategy is a frequent topic on TV in the wake of President Obama's announcement that he will send more troops to Afghanistan now -- and start bringing them out by mid-2011. But few television viewers have any idea that some of what they're hearing originates from men who are literally profiting from the war.
Continue
 
 

Kucinich: 'Class war is over, working people lost'
RawStory.com, by Sahil Kapur - Thursday, December 17th, 2009 -- 3:05 pm
WASHINGTON -- Reflecting on the growing divide between Wall Street and Main Street, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) on Wednesday offered a powerful critique on the state of the economy in an open committee hearing.

"The class warfare is over -- we lost," Kucinich said before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "I want to make that announcement today. Working people lost.  The middle class lost." ...
 

 

America Without a Middle Class - Not Far Away As You Might Think
America today has plenty of rich and super-rich. But it has far more families who did all the right things, but who still have no real security
AlterNet, by Elizabeth Warren, December 5, 2009
Can you imagine an America without a strong middle class? If you can, would it still be America as we know it?

Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street. ...
 

 

3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana
Twenty Five Times More Than 1995 Estimate
USGS, 041008

Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil. ...
 

 

Salon Radio: Patriot Act and FISA reforms
Salon.com, by Glenn Greenwald 100109
When Congress enacted the Patriot Act in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, it provided for a four-year expiration date for some of the more controversial provisions.  In 2005, when it was time for Congress to decide if those should be extended, the Bush administration insisted that none of those powers had been abused yet (like everything) they were critical to fighting Terrorism.  As a result, the Congress thus overwhelmingly voted to extend them for four more years, though this time they required the issuance of a report from the Inspector General of the Justice Depratment to determine if there had, in fact, been any abuses.  Unsurprisingly, the IG's Report that issued in 2007 and 2008 documented extreme abuse at the FBI with many of those powers.  Moreover, it was recently revealed that, far more often than not, federal law enforcement agencies use these powers (including the pernicious "sneak and peek" searches) in cases having nothing whatsoever to do with Terrorism. ... (Read More)

The Joint Post/Obama Defense of the Patriot Act and FISA Salon.com

How Would a Patriot Act? Glenn Greenwald.blogspot.com

USA Using Patriot Act Against Its Own Citizens

 
 

 

Our Defense Budget Pours Trillions - Yes, Trillions - Down A Hole. Maybe It's Time To Fix That.
CrooksandLiars.com, b
As David Sirota points out, here are some "objective, nonpartisan, non-ideological facts":

-- The 2010 Pentagon budget means "every man, woman and child in the United States will spend more than $2,700 on (defense) programs and agencies next year," reports the Cato Institute. "By way of comparison, the average Japanese spends less than $330; the average German about $520; China's per capita spending is less than $100."

-- "(The Pentagon budget) dwarfs the combined defense budgets of U.S. allies and potential U.S. enemies alike," reports Hearst Newspapers. ...

 
 

 

KUCINICH: AMERICA 'IN FIGHT OF ITS LIFE'... AT HOME
Congressman Says Prolonging Afghan war a ‘threat to our national security’
RawStory.com, 120409
Far from being a necessary part of the US's national security strategy, the Afghanistan war is actually a threat to it, says Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich.

In a statement released two days after President Barack Obama announced a 30,000-troop surge for the war effort and a July, 2011, beginning for troop withdrawal, Kucinich argued that extending the war would destabilize the United States at home. ...

“The war is a threat to our national security. We’ll spend over $100 billion next year to bomb a nation of poor people while we reenergize the Taliban, destabilize Pakistan, deplete our army and put more of our soldiers’ lives on the line. Meanwhile, back here in the USA, 15 million people are out of work. People are losing their jobs, their health care, their savings, their investments, and their retirement security. $13 trillion in bailouts for Wall Street, trillions for war; when are we going to start taking care of things here at home?” ...
 

 
The Great Geopolitical Battle Over Energy Transit Routes
Intel Daily, 120409
As we all live in the present, it is very hard to fully assess the future implications of decisions supported or made by political and business leaders. An extraordinary...
 
 
Hersh: Military waging war with White House
"They think he’s weak and the wrong color. Yes, there’s racism in the Pentagon."
Durham Herald Sun
 - Neil Offen - ‎Oct 13, 2009‎
The army is also “in a war against the White House — and they feel they have [President] Obama boxed in,” Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh told ...

Sy Hersh: Military 'In War Against The White House' CrooksandLiars.com
 
 

Mysteries Surround Afghanistan’s Stealth Drone
Drone with stealth technology flying skies of Afghanistan
Wired.com, by David Hambling, December 4, 2009



Earlier this year, blurry pictures were released by the French magazine Air & Cosmos of a previously unknown stealth drone taken at Kandahar in Afghanistan. The photos, snapped in 2007, prompted a wave of speculation about the classified aircraft. That speculation grew even more intense this week, when a blog belonging to the French newspaper Libération released an even better photograph. But while the new picture may answers some questions, it also creates a heap of new mysteries. Chief among them: Why use such a fancy, stealthy aircraft in Afghanistan? The Taliban have neither the radar to spot the plane, nor the weaponry to shoot it down.

US Air Force confirms 'Beast of Kandahar' drone

Michael MooreTakes on Obama's Afghanistan Escalation
MichaelMoore.com, December 3rd, 2009
'Obama's Vietnam'; "We have been in this war for twice as long now as the U.S. was in World War II, twice as long as World War II. We defeated Hitler and Tojo and Mussolini in half the time it's taken us to find Osama bin Laden." –  Michael Moore on Larry King Live

Michael Moore calls Afghanistan troop build-up 'insane' - RawStory.com

Examining Obama's Rationale for Escalating The Afghanistan War
Intel Daily, 120409
Outlining his rationale for the decision to send yet more troops to Afghanistan, President Barack Obama on Tuesday began with a familiar refrain: “We did not ask for...

Kucinich: Afghans want to be saved from us, not by us
RawStory.com, By Muriel Kane - Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
“The people of Afghanistan don’t want to be saved by us," Kucinich continued. "They want to be saved from us. Our presence and our Predator drones kill countless innocents, creating more US enemies and destabilizing Pakistan." ...

Obama's War
Is He Taking Ownership Or Just Cleaning Up A Huge Bush Mess?
InformationClearinghouse.info, By Jim Hightower
Obama has been taken over by the military industrial hawks and national security theorists who play war games with other people's lives and money.
Continue

Some Simple Questions After Obama's Afghanistan War Speech
InformationClearinghouse.info, By David Sirota
Would you be OK sending yourself or a loved one over to face combat and potentially death for the mission Obama articulated in Afghanistan? If not, how could you support sending other people?
Continue

Taliban Did Not Refuse to Hand Over Bin Laden
InformationClearinghouse.info, by Ralph Lopez 120409
Obama slipped past a real doozy Tuesday night when he said the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden. It just ain't so. They tried three times to open negotiations for this, but Bush refused each time. He wanted to bomb people so bad it hurt.
Continue

How do you ask a Man to be the Last Man to Die for a President's Political Image?
InformationClearinghouse.info, By David Sirota 120409
There are 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 from other countries in Afghanistan. The U.S. Army's recently revised counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out counterinsurgency campaign in a country with Afghanistan's population would require about 600,000 troops.
Continue

More on Afghanistan War
 

 
America's Regression
InformationClearinghouse.info, By Glenn Greenwald
Torture is one of the most universal taboos in the civilized world.  The treaty championed by Ronald Reagan declares that "no exceptional circumstances" can justify it, and requires that every state criminalize it and prosecute those who authorize or engage in it.
Continue
 
 

Sources: Blackwater's Running A Secret War in Pakistan - So Classified, Even Administration Doesn't Know
CrooksandLiars.com, b
There was a definite method to BushCo's madness: Namely, hire subcontractors to evade the laws that prevent the DoD and the CIA from taking part in torture and assassination. From The Nation:

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.



 

 

USDA Reports Stunning Rise In Number of Hungry In America
CrooksandLiars.com, b
I can just hear Rush Limbaugh now: "If they're so hungry, how did they get so fat?" And our side's not much better, because of course they're going to agree with the Republicans that the best way to handle the problem is with tax cuts and deficit reduction.

I think I need to bang my head against a wall now:

The nation's economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people -- including almost one child in four -- struggled last year to get enough to eat.


 

 

Gene Lyons: Why Is There Always Money For The Latest War?
CrooksandLiars.com, b
Gene Lyons in Salon on the myriad forces that insist we can't afford health care, but just as strongly assure us that $6.73 trillion for the war in Afghanistan is perfectly doable. (That's $1 million per soldier, per year.) Go read the whole thing:

For all its brutality, the Taliban rebellion is mainly a localized, nationalist effort to expel foreigners -- one reason Gen. McChrystal hopes to be able to pacify them, as his mentor Gen. David Petraeus bought off Iraqi insurgents. With winter approaching, Taliban fighters will soon be forced into semi-hibernation. Any U.S. buildup will take at least a year to complete.

They're selling us endless war the way they sell cellphones and Viagra.

The question is: How much is President Obama buying?

The Military Industrial Complex

Eisenhower knew better than anyone.
 

 
Pickens: US 'Entitled' To Iraq Oil
Oil baron tells Congress US entitled to Iraqi oil because of war
Reuters India, by Tom Doggett - Thu Oct 22, 2009
Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are "entitled" to some of Iraq's crude because of the large number of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq. ...

NewsFocus: This is what is wrong with the rich conservative view of the world. We attack their country, without provocation, destroying their infrastructure while killing over a million and yet some ignorant arrogant multi-billionaire thinks we are now owed their natural resources. This is galling that any human would conceive of such immoral unstable thinking. This is why other countries hate the US. Too often we go to war for "US interests." What ever happened to doing the right thing for our fellow man?
 

 
Obama: Health Insurers 'Deceptive And Dishonest'
Reuters - Patricia Zengerle, Todd Eastham - ‎101609
WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - US President Barack Obama lashed out on Saturday against the "deceptive and dishonest" efforts of health insurance companies, who he said are trying to kill healthcare reform, no matter the cost to ...

Go to Health page for more on the health reform fight.

See also: Health Care page
 

 
Obama Plants Monsanto And CropLife Officials In Key Agriculture Posts
ThinkProgress.org
Lobbyists “won’t find a job in my White House,” President Obama assured us upon inauguration. And yet he just nominated to two key posts “Big Ag” industry power brokers, who come straight from the chemical pesticide and biotechnology sectors. While they may not be registered as lobbyists, both men come from organizations representing powerful agribusiness interests, which every year spend millions of dollars in lobbying to advance their companies’ chemical and transgenic products. ...
 
 
Saving Face in Afghanistan
InformationClearinghouse.info, by Ron Paul - October 14, 2009
We overthrew the Taliban government in 2001 with less than 10,000 American troops. Why does it now seem that the more troops we send, the worse things get? If the Soviets bankrupted themselves in Afghanistan with troop levels of 100,000 and were eventually forced to leave in humiliating defeat, why are we determined to follow their example?
Continue
 
 
Bush Administration Blocked Efforts To Prevent Housing Crisis
RawStory.com, by Daniel Tencer - Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 -- 10:42 am
Federal regulators in the Bush administration blocked attempts by state governments to prevent predatory lending practices that resulted in the financial crisis now stalking the American economy, a new study from the University of North Carolina says. ... (Read More)
 

 

Kansas City Star Asks, Should sections of the Patriot Act that take away civil liberties be eliminated?
Kansas City Star - ‎100109
YES: With several provisions of the Patriot Act expiring this year, President Obama has his first real opportunity to rein in Bush-era erosions of Americans’ civil liberties, while still ensuring national security.

So it’s good that the White House has signaled its willingness to narrow the expansive snooping powers granted the federal government in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ...

Senator Russ Feingold Has Questions On Misuse of the Patriot Act

The only Senator wise enough to vote no on the Patriot Act

NewsFocus: Most have never ever read this voluminous bill, yet they naively and readily say that we need it because it's called the "Patriot" Act. They ask, "How could that be a bad thing if it has patriot in it?" (They've no doubt never read the No Child Left Behind Act, or The Clear Skies Act; laws that do the opposite of what they imply.) We have always had the proper laws in place to deal with terrorism and crime. To say that we haven't is a bald faced lie. What we've never had though before the Patriot Act was a bill that usurped our Constitutional rights. We don't need the Patriot Act. Research on your own and learn. Be forewarned though, you will have to put down the TV remote to do this. (Shock, gasp!)
Watch the video:
Unconstitutional

Considering The Price of Liberty
Santa Maria Times - ‎Sep 23, 2009‎
Some members of Congress, mostly Democrats, want to rename the Patriot Act. The new law would be called the Justice Act — but a change of name is not enough ...

Roll back the Patriot Act The Michigan News
Salon Radio: Patriot Act and FISA reforms Salon

Congress Had No Time to Read the USA PATRIOT Act
SunlightFoundation.com, by Paul Blumenthal on 03/02/09 @ 2:03 pm
It is hard to determine how long the final version of the USA PATRIOT Act was available prior to its consideration. By all measures, it was not available to the public and was barely made available to members of Congress. As one of the primary examples of bills that were rushed through Congress, there was little chance that the PATRIOT Act wouldn’t be a major Read the Bill case study. (NewsFocus: The vote was perpetrated this way by design. Face folks, Congress was hoodwinked.)

No More Unlawful Government Spying: Pass the Justice Act Now!
AlterNet - ‎100109
Sen. Russ Feingold and others have introduced the JUSTICE Act, which reforms our surveillance laws, including the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act of
...

Senate Dems propose surveillance law changes USA Today
Can Liberal Democrats Reform the Patriot Act? TIME

Obama Administration Uncertain On Patriot Act Removal
Talking Transparency Isn't the Same as Seeing It Through
'Continuities between the Obama and Bush administration overwhelm the differences'
Washington Post - Dana Milbank - ‎Sep 24, 2009‎
President Obama campaigned on a promise to restore transparency to government. But now the time has come to renew the USA Patriot Act, ...

Patriot Act may get renamed, but with a few changes Chicago Tribune 
No More Unlawful Government Spying: Pass the Justice Act Now! AlterNet
 

 

Does your boss want you dead?
'Dead peasants' insurance pays your employer a secret, tax-free windfall when you die. Insurers have sold millions of policies to companies such as Dow Chemical.
MSN Money, b
y Liz Pulliam Weston 100209
Right now, your company could have a life insurance policy on you that you know nothing about. When you die -- perhaps years after you leave your employer -- the tax-free proceeds from this policy wouldnt go to your family. The money would go to the company. ...

Is Your Employer Betting On Your Death?

A revelation from Michael Moore's new film.

 

How the Feds Imprison the Innocent
InformationClearinghouse.info, by Paul Craig Roberts
For two decades I have been attempting to make Americans aware that the danger to their liberty comes not from foreign adversaries, terrorists, or criminals, but from prosecutors, who have destroyed law as a shield of the innocent and turned law into a weapon against the innocent.
Continue
 

 

Who Are ‘The Deciders’?
InformationClearinghouse.info, by David Sirota
Avoiding another Vietnam, requires a figurehead government—one that delegates all military decision-making power to generals and effectively strips it from elected civilians who will supposedly be too “politically motivated” (read: influenced by voters).
Continue
 

 

Telco Spy Immunity Up for Grabs
Wired News - David Kravets - ‎Sep 24, 2009‎
A secret court, known as the FISA court, may grant roving wiretaps without saying who is the target. Generally, the authorities must assert that the target ...

Senators Want to End Telecom Immunity for Spying Program
PC World - Grant Gross - ‎Sep 29, 2009‎
Four Democratic US senators will introduce a bill to repeal a provision protecting telecommunications carriers from lawsuits targeting their assistance to a ...
 

 

How Bush’s Court May Undo Democracy
The Ghost of Bush: How Dubya’s court can undo democracy
ArtVoice.com, By Michael I. Niman, ArtVoice (9/17/09)
The key to American politics is that you’ve always got to watch for the action behind the distraction. The distractions right now is the healthcare debate, and the economy, and the war, and the other war, and the other wars, environmental collapse, and so on. All salient stories with lots of enticing, media-ready vignettes—you know, heart-wrenching narratives, images of things blowing up, stranded polar bears floating out to sea on melting ice, that sort of stuff.

Lost somewhere on the back burner of our consciousness are the yawn-factor stories, like the endless deliberations of the US Supreme Court, which seem to move slower than even pre-season baseball games or rush-hour traffic. Make no mistake about it, however. The Supreme Court is the ticking time bomb Dubya left in the executive bedroom. And it’s about to blow. ...
http://artvoice.com/issues/v8n38/the_ghost_of_bush
Corporations Lawsuit: Campaign Contributions

Free speech precedent in 19th-century Supreme Court ruling
Boston Globe - ‎Sep 18, 2009‎
THE HEADLINE of Jim Sleeper's op-ed, “Corporate free speech? Since when?'', asks a question but doesn't give the answer. “Since when'' would be since 1886
...

Corporations aren't people
Concord Monitor - Charles F. Weed - ‎Sep 17, 2009‎
We may soon be confronting the consequences of a Supreme Court decision in a case heard last week. Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission may
...

Giving corporate money more clout in elections is scary
Asheville Citizen-Times - ‎Sep 19, 2009‎
In a little-noticed series of events, the US Supreme Court could be about to radically change the landscape of US politics. Here's the tale: Back in 2008,
...

Quietly, Sotomayor turns on corporations
Raw Story - John Byrne - ‎Sep 18, 2009‎
Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's newly installed Supreme Court Justice, has a few words for corporations seeking protection under law.
...

Sotomayor's important statement about corporations
True/Slant - ‎092009‎
Last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a “provocative comment” that probed the foundations of corporate law. The case, Citizens United v. ...
 

 

Who's Fighting for Us?
Why won't Congress Bail Out The Homeowners?

You Can Help By Writing Your Congressman

From BraveNew Films

 

 

Is America Hooked on War?
InformationClearinghouse.info, By Tom Engelhardt
However much it might seem that most of us are peaceably watching our TV sets or computer screens or iPhones, we Americans are also -- always -- marching as to war. We may not all bother to attend the church of our new religion, but we all tithe. We all partake. In this sense, we live peaceably in a state of war. 
Continue

 

 

It's All About Oil, Stupid!
Rik Tresa's Blog - SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 2:02PM
So they said the war in Vietnam was to stop the Commie's march across the Asia Peninsula. Now after 58,159 dead, 2,000 missing, 303,635 wounded, no telling how many fucked up in the head and many still dying from Agent Orange induced cancer, (my friend Billy C. being a victim).. all these years later we find out it was really to control the oil the United States knew that was laying there just off shore waiting for some Texas wild cat to tap. 600 million barrels to be exact. (Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Vietnam/Oil.html)

Then Kuwait.. They said it was to stop Saddam from taking over a country that was our, "friend." But of course, unless you are blind as well as stupid, it was to keep control of all that oil, 104 billion barrels to be exact of that, the US exports $59.97 billion. We are also major trading partners, go figure. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait)

Next came Bush's war with Iraq. First we were told that Saddam was involved with the fucks that took down the world trade center, (although personally I believe the fucks behind that little operation was Bush and Cheney them selves and no one else.) Then when the 911 link was debunked, Bush said, "He tried to kill my dad!" So 9 years later, 4,662 US personnel dead, 31,494 wounded and who knows how many fucked up in the head and we all know by now, (again unless you are blind and stupid.. or a Republican) all for the love of oil. 118 billion barrels a day to be exact, 1,600 oil wells. (Source: http://www.oilempire.us/iraqoil.html)

Which brings us to Afghanistan. What is in Afghanistan that the US wants? ...
(Read More)
 

 

DoJ Official Blows Cover Off PATRIOT Act
InformationClearinghouse.info, By Ryan Grim 092409
In the debate over the PATRIOT Act, the Bush White House insisted it needed the authority to search people's homes without their permission or knowledge so that terrorists wouldn't be tipped off that they're under investigation. Now that the authority is law, how has the Department of Justice used the new power? To go after drug dealers.
Continue
 

 

CIA Torturers Running Scared
InformationClearinghouse.info, By Ray McGovern
For the CIA supervisors and operatives responsible for torture, the chickens are coming home to roost; that is, if President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder mean it when they say no one is above the law – and if they don’t fall victim to brazen intimidation.
Continue
 

 

Rockefeller & Company - CEO allegedly kills self
NY investment manager found dead in Mass
AP 091609
BOSTON — Massachusetts investigators say James S. McDonald, president and chief executive of investment management firm Rockefeller & Co., has died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. A spokesman for the Bristol district attorney's office says the 56-year-old McDonald was found in his vehicle at about 3 p.m. Sunday behind a car dealership in Dartmouth. ...
 

 

Pfizer To Pay Record $2.3B Penalty For Drug Promos
Repeat offender Pfizer paying record $2.3B settlement for illegal drug promotions
Finance.Yahoo.com, By Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer - September 2, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal prosecutors hit Pfizer Inc. with a record-breaking $2.3 billion in fines Wednesday and called the world's largest drugmaker a repeating corporate cheat for illegal drug promotions that plied doctors with free golf, massages, and resort junkets. ...

NewsFocus: would this fine have happened under Bush -Cheney? Not.
 

 

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds

--Albert Einstein           

 

Bush Administration Pushed To Raise Terror Alert For No Reason Other Than Personal Political Gain During 2004 Re-election
Threat Level Urged To Scare Americans, Even Though It Wasn't Warranted
The Raw Story.com, 082009

A remarkable detail to be published in former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's soon-to-be-released book asserts that the Bush Administration attempted to wield the color-coded terror alert system for political gain -- a charge often leveled by Democrats but not previously confirmed by a high-ranking Bush Administration official.

Ridge's publisher is pushing details from his book in advance of its release. Notable among them: Tom Ridge, the first head of the 9/11-inspired Department of Homeland Security, wasn't keen on writing a tell-all. But in The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again, out September 1, Ridge says he wants to shake "public complacency" over security. ...

Ex-DHS chief links politics to terror alerts
The Associated Press,
082009
WASHINGTON — Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge claims in a new book that he was pressured by other members of President George W. Bush's Cabinet to raise the nation's terror alert level just before the 2004 presidential election. ...
 

 

US banking sector will see further collapses
Telegraph.co.uk - James Quinn - ‎082409
The American banking sector is likely to see as many as a further 200 failures before the current recession abates and will see regulators increasing the ...
Analyst: Up to 200 more banks may fail in crisis Forbes 
Analyst Bove: Big FDIC Assessment Coming Wall Street Journal
 

 

Homeless Are Forgotten In America As We Bail Out The Wealthy

We bailed out the Wall Street tycoons who bankrupted America,
but the self professed greatest country on earth can't help its poor.

 

The Real Truth About Hurricane Katrina
Valuable coastline real estate is a huge incentive that entices an unscrupulous greed.

The Further Pillage of New Orleans: Shady Bush Cronies Sold Faulty Pumps To City of New Orleans

This USAToday piece leaves out an important piece of the puzzle here. The company who sold the pumps was closely tied to the Bush family, at one time even employing Jeb Bush. ...

Clueless In New Orleans

Expert Fired Who Warned Levees Would Burst
Hurricane George (Bush), Four Years Later
GregPalast.com, by Greg Palast - August 26, 2009

I don't get to use the word "heroic" very often. Van Heerden is heroic. The Deputy Director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, it was van Heerden who told me, on camera, something so horrible, so frightening, that, if it weren't for his international stature, it would have been hard to believe:

"By midnight on Monday the White House knew. Monday night I was at the state Emergency Operations Center and nobody was aware that the levees had breached. Nobody."

On the night of August 29, 2005, van Heerden was shut in at the state emergency center in Baton Rouge, providing technical advice to the rescue effort. As Hurricane Katrina came ashore, van Heerden and the State Police there were high-fiving it: Katrina missed the city of New Orleans, turning east.

What they did not know was that the levees had cracked. For crucial hours, the White House knew, but withheld the information that the levees of New Orleans had broken and that the city was about to drown. Bush's boys did not notify the State of the flood to come which would have allowed police to launch an emergency hunt for the thousands that remained stranded. ... (Read More)

Big Easy To Big Empty - Pt 1

Big Easy To Big Empty - Pt 2

Prisoners of Katrina (BBC video 59:02)
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, while thousands fled New Orleans, the city's prisoners were trapped. Fresh eye-witness accounts reveal what really happened to those left behind ...

What The Far Right Has To Say About Katrina And New Orleans

Neal Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly...
What's The Difference? Hate Speech is hate speech.
 

 

Concentration Of Wealth For The Rich Is The Greatest On Record
Thank You George W. Bush For Not Taxing The Top 1% Of The Rich
RawStory.com , by Daniel Tencer - 081609
The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans now have a larger share of total income than they ever have in records going back nearly a century — an even larger amount than during the Roaring Twenties, the last time the US saw such similar disparities in wealth.

In recent years, the fact that differences between rich and poor are the greatest they’ve been since the Great Depression has become a popular talking point among liberal-leaning economists. ...

The Widening Gap In America's Two Tiered Society
InformationClearinghouse.info, By Emily Spence
If the U.S. populace somehow imagines that its members are viewed any differently than any other populations across the world that are used to produce maximal profits for the top economic class, there's a rude awakening in store ahead. Further, most legislators simply do not care whether middle and lower class interests are or aren't well served as long as they, themselves, can somehow make out well in the times ahead.  Continue
 

 

This is what is wrong with right-wing thinking:
Antonin Scalia Thinks Its OK to Execute Someone Found Innocent by the Courts
 

 

GOP Senators: US Faces Terrorist Attack If Holder Probes Bush’s Torture Program  (More state sponsored terrorism from the GOP)
The Intelligence Daily, 082009
Nine Republican lawmakers sent a letter to Eric Holder Wednesday saying the U.S. could face a terrorist attack if the attorney general appoints a special prosecutor to...

NewsFocus: Okay, so does the GOP have a direct line connection with terrorists, or are they the ones making the threat here? Do you really think that Al Qaeda would hate seeing Bush get in more trouble? Seriously?

This is nothing more than business as usual for the far-right, scare tactics and fear.

Three Top Intel Experts Say GOP Covering For Bush White House In Potential Terror Investigation
RawStory.com 082309
Former intel experts said the GOP senators were sounding “false alarms” in order to keep secret embarrassing and possibly outrageous revelations about a Republican White House. ...
 

 

Michael Moore's New Movie On Capitalism And The Economy

This will be his biggest hit of all, showing the rich getting richer.

 

UPDATE!
Path-Breaking UBS Whistleblower Rewarded With Jail Sentence
National Whistleblowers Center Concerned That The Treatment of Mr. Birkenfeld Will Discourage Future Whistleblowers

WhistleBlowers.org 082109
(Washington, D.C.) Today whistleblower Bradley C. Birkenfeld was sentenced to 3 years and 4 months in prison for assisting a client at UBS to evade taxes.  Mr. Birkenfeld on his own initiative blew the whistle on UBS, Switzerland's largest bank.  His disclosure and cooperation with U.S. authorities provided inside information into the bank's conduct and began the dismantling of the historic secrecy of Swiss banks.  In fact by blowing the whistle, Mr. Birkenfeld's disclosure directly led to a ground-breaking legal settlement in which UBS agreed to pay $780 million in fines and UBS and the Swiss Government have agreed to turn over the names of thousands of Americans suspected of tax evasion. ... (Read more)

Rich scared as IRS digs into Swiss banks CBS News

IRS Tax Deal With UBS Hits Last-Minute Hitch
Forbes - ‎Aug 7, 2009‎
Negotiators ask for more time to hammer out final details of an out-of-court settlement. The legal cat and mouse game between UBS and the US Inland Revenue ...
US Government settles tax secrecy with UBS Times Online

Deal reached over names of UBS clients
MiamiHerald.com - Martha Brannigan - ‎Jul 31, 2009‎
The US and Swiss governments have reached a settlement on how to deal with US demands for the names of possible tax cheats with secret UBS accounts. ...

UBS Probe Spurs Rich Americans Into Confessions
New York Times Blogs - ‎Jul 30, 2009‎
Wealthy taxpayers are singing a chorus of mea culpas to the Internal Revenue Service amid a desire to come clean about past tax evasion as the government ...

US wins accord in Swiss banks row
Globe and Mail - Kevin Carmichael - ‎Aug 1, 2009‎
The US government sued UBS for the names in February after winning a separate, but similar, legal skirmish with the bank. In that instance, UBS agreed to ...
 

 

US troops will deploy to Colombia
 

 

Blackwater founder implicated in murder
IntelDaily.com
Comment: Blackwater could not have been created and given billions of dollars in government contracts without the approval of the Pentagon. Erik Prince (born into a wealthy family and former...
Blackwater Chief is a Super Villian: Ex-Employees
Blackwater still getting federal contracts
 

 

Majority in US Oppose Both Wars
Elected Officials And 'Powers That Be' Are Against The Wishes Of The People
By The Associated Press 072409
A majority of Americans oppose both the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, though the war in Afghanistan is a little more popular.
 

 

Fear Rules (In The U.S.)
Who Spent All That Money For What?
CounterPunch - by Paul Craig Roberts 2009-06-10

The power of irrational fear in the US is extraordinary.  It ranks up there with the Israel Lobby, the military/security complex, and the financial gangsters.  Indeed, fear might be the most powerful force in America.

Americans are at ease with their country’s aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, which has resulted in a million dead Muslim civilians and several million refugees,  because the US government has filled Americans with fear of terrorists.  “We have to kill them over there before they come over here.”  

Fearful of American citizens, the US government is building concentration camps, apparently all over the country.  According to news reports, a $385 million US government contract was given by the Bush/Cheney Regime to Cheney’s company, Halliburton, to build “detention centers” in the US. The corporate media never explained for whom the detention centers are intended.  

Most Americans dismiss such reports.  “It can’t happen here.”  However, In northeastern Florida not far from Tallahassee, I have seen what might be one of these camps.  There is a building inside a huge open area fenced with razor wire.  There is no one there and no signs.  The facility appears new and unused and does not look like an abandoned prisoner work camp.  

What is it for?

Who spent all that money for what? ... (Read more)
 

 

World Economy Becomes Focus For CIA Recruiting (Ruh-roh Raggy)
NPR - Tom Gjelten - ‎Jul 6, 2009‎
The CIA expects to receive 180000 resumes this year. It is focusing recruitment efforts on finding Wall Street bankers to help analyze the ...

CIA hires Wall Street talent
Times Online - Dominic Rushe - ‎Jul 11, 2009‎
THE CIA is taking advantage of the financial meltdown to recruit a new generation of financially literate spies with a series of job ads targeting Wall ...

CIA Training, Recruiting Initiatives Highlight Intelligence ...
Examiner.com - ‎Jun 26, 2009‎
Meanwhile, CIA is attempting to beef up its cadre of business and economics experts with a recruiting pitch aimed at down-on-their-luck Wall Street types. ...
 

 

Torture Inc. Americas Brutal Prisons
In Case You Missed It: Must Watch TV!
InformationClearinghouse.info, Video Report By Deborah Davies
Savaged by dogs, Electrocuted With Cattle Prods, Burned By Toxic Chemicals, Does such barbaric abuse inside U.S. jails explain the horrors that were committed in Iraq?
Read More
 

 

Will Torture Probe Prosecute Peons and Protect Politicians?
The New American - Thomas R. Eddlem - ‎071409
Or will it include an investigation of the higher-up Bush officials — including President Bush and Vice President Cheney — who undoubtedly conspired to ...
Why Are They Afraid To Merely ....Investigate?

Do the right thing on torture guardian.co.uk
Holder Considers Criminal Probe of Bush Administration Democracy Now
BBC: CIA tortured months before Bush Memos said it was legal

Bush's Secret Spy Programs
Huffington Post - Faiz ShakirAmanda Terkel - ‎Jul 13, 2009‎
... an unidentified CIA operation that was an "on-again, off-again" effort until Panetta stopped it in June. The Times reported on Saturday that Cheney gave ...
US Wiretapping of Limited Value, Officials Report New York Times
 

 

Our Constitutional Rights Are In Serious Jeopardy

Taking A Look At The State Of Our Constitutional Rights

See more video on the attack of our US Constitution and our freedoms

 

The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free
By Chris Hedges - June 29, 2009
The ability of the corporate state to pacify the country by extending credit and providing cheap manufactured goods to the masses is gone. The pernicious idea that democracy lies in the choice between competing brands and the freedom to accumulate vast sums of personal wealth at the expense of others has collapsed. The conflation of freedom with the free market has been exposed as a sham. The travails of the poor are rapidly becoming the travails of the middle class, especially as unemployment insurance runs out and people get a taste of Bill Clinton’s draconian welfare reform. And class warfare, once buried under the happy illusion that we were all going to enter an age of prosperity with unfettered capitalism, is returning with a vengeance. ...
 

 

Billionaire Club In Bid To Curb Overpopulation
America's Richest Meet To Discuss 'Disastrous' Environmental, Social And Industrial Threat
In Short, How Will They Maintain The Good Life That They Already Have

Times Online (UK)
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. 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,” ....

Billionaire: Elite Want Two-Thirds Of The “Dumb People” Wiped Off The Planet
Does This Include All The Dumb Rich People Too?
Wealth Has Never Been A Replacement For IQ

PrisonPlanet.com | By Paul Joseph Watson | May 27, 2009
Billionaire entrepreneur Kevin Trudeau, who has been constantly harassed and sued by the FTC for promoting alternative health treatments, told The Alex Jones Show yesterday that elitists and Bilderberg members who he had personally conversed with spoke of their desire to see “two thirds of the dumb people” wiped off the planet. ...
 

 

Sage Advice From The Movie 'Network'

You've Got To Get Active When Let Down By The System
 

 

Bush-Era Officials Could Be Prosecuted
U.S. News & World Report - 042209
President Obama signaled Tuesday that he has changed his stance on the prosecution of Bush Administration aides over the possible torture of terrorism ...

'No one is above the law,' Holder says of torture inquiry
CNN Political Ticker - 042209
Obama has called the practice torture. Other techniques include keeping the prisoner in "stress positions" for long periods of time, enclosing the .

Harsh Interrogations: Could There Be Prosecutions?
Washington Post - ‎042209‎
If, one way or the other, one or more persons are prosecuted for torturing detainees, doesn't that implicate the president's authority to conduct foreign ...
Dems push for torture hearings, ignoring Obama The Associated Press
Torture, Truth and Accountability Huffington Post
Prosecuting Torture Mother Jones ..
  

 

Obama Stands Nuremberg On Its Head
TruthDig, By Mike Farrell, Apr 20, 2009
Responding to reporters Tuesday, the president walked back from his “torture is a thing of the past” policy. While the administration still doesn’t want to hassle the good Germans who carried out torture, or even the superiors who ordered it, Obama said the Justice Department may go after the Bush lawyers who tried to legalize such abuses.

Olbermann Comments On Lack of Obama Spine for Prosecution

Keith has this one right on the button.

 

Let's Call This One, "Change We Don't Believe In"

Obama DOJ Invoke "State Secrets" to Block Warrantless Spying ...
AlterNet - ‎Apr 6, 2009‎
It's not the first time Obama's DOJ has employed the tactic so often used by the Bush administration to block accountability for government crimes. ...
Obama administration invokes ‘state secrets’ claim to defend Bush ...
Think Progress 

New and worse secrecy and immunity claims from the Obama DOJ
Salon - ‎Apr 6, 2009
When Congress immunized telecoms last August for their illegal participation in Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program, Senate Democratic apologists for telecom immunity repeatedly justified that action by pointing out that Bush officials who broke the law were not immunized -- only the telecoms. 
Government opts for secrecy in wiretap suit San Francisco Chronicle
In Warrantless Wiretapping Case, Obama DOJ's New Arguments Are ... EFF
Obama Administration quietly expands Bush's legal defense of ... Raw Story
Obama's DoJ defends Bush-era wiretaps
Register

DOJ Claims Illegal Surveillance Protected by "Sovereign Immunity
Bay Area Indymedia - ‎1 hour ago‎ 040709
The federal government has finally responded to a lawsuit against dragnet warrantless wiretapping filed last September by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
...
 

 

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all! -Mario Savio Dec 2, 1964

Excerpt From A 1964 Speech By Mario Savio Is Still Very Viable Today

Most Americans don't want a new world order of greed for the uber-rich

 

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

 

OBAMA RELEASES HIDDEN REAGAN AND HW BUSH RECORDS
Ed Note
: These records include George HW Bush. The National Archive says that more than 250,000+ pages of presidential records will be made public at the Reagan library in Simi Valley, CA and the George HW Bush library in Houston, Texas. These records were strangely enough still pending with the George W. Bush Administration as of January 20, 2009. It only took President Obama less than two months to clear these records (see executive order 13849). Now maybe we can see more on HW and the Iran-Contra treason scandal. That's a large part of what W was hiding from public scrutiny.

Obama Releases Reagan, HW Bush records kept secret by Bush
Raw Story - ‎041009
The Obama administration is about to release 244,966 pages of documents from the Reagan White House that the Bush administration had held back for years ...

National Archives to Release Reagan and Bush 41 Presidential Records
PR Newswire
Obama releases Reagan records Politico

Bush Won't Give Deposition In lawsuit Over His Presidential Library
Condo Owners Claim They Were Duped; Land For W Bush Library
Dallas Morning News, By LORI STAHL - ‎Apr 9, 2009‎
Former President George W. Bush won't agree to give a deposition in the long-running lawsuit against SMU, ...

Cheney's records won't be coming soon to Bush library at SMU
Recalcitrant Dick Says He Can Do What He Wants With His Records  (We'll see)
Dallas Morning News, By LAURA ISENSEE- ‎Apr 6, 2009‎
WASHINGTON – While former President George W. Bush's records have gone to Texas, Dick Cheney's are staying here, ...
  

 

The Party of Division: The Right Wing Disgust For Gay People
The Party That Claims To Reflect 'Christian Fundamentalists'
You have to ask yourself, what would Jesus say? What would Gandhi say? What would mother Theresa say? How does this truly threaten heterosexual marriage? The GOP says, "but it will be taught to our kids in school." These must be the same parents with latch-key children who take no responsibility for the upbringing and education of their own kids. When will the right take responsibility for the education of their own offspring?
 

The Right-Wing Against Gays (WWJD?)

Leave it to Stephen Colbert to tell it like it is.

   

 

CIA vacating its 'black site' prisons overseas
Austin American-Statesman - ‎Apr 9, 2009‎
The CIA has never revealed the location of its so-called black sites overseas, but intelligence officials, aviation records and news reports have placed ...
Court Docs: Detainees Tortured Before CIA Received Legal OK The Public Record

CIA abandons use of contract interrogators, vacates 'black site prisons'

The Associated Press - ‎Apr 9, 2009‎
WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA has stopped using contractors to interrogate prisoners and fired private security guards at the CIA's now-shuttered secret ...
CIA chief Leon Panetta orders closure of secret rendition sites guardian.co.uk
Panetta bans CIA use of contract workers for interrogations, security Los Angeles Times
    

 

Kucinich Wants House To Investigate Assassination Claims
Cleveland Congressman Wants Cheney And Bush Investigated
The Plain Dealer - cleveland.com - ‎031609‎
Dennis Kucinich wants the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to investigate allegations by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that the White House operated an 'executive assassination ring' during the presidency of George W. Bush. ...

Kucinich Calls For Investigation Into Claims Of Government Sanctioned Assassinations
90.3 WCPN ideastream® - ‎031609
Cleveland Congressman Dennis Kucinich is calling for an investigation into alleged assassinations sanctioned by the Bush administration. ...

Who Did Cheney Have Murdered? OpEdNews
 

 

Most US Voters Blame Bush, Not Obama For Economic Crisis
Reuters - ‎3 hours ago‎
WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama benefits from a broadly held perception that others bear the bulk of responsibility for state of the US economy, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll published on Tuesday. ...

What Americans Think And What The GOP Wants Us To Think

Either the GOP is just stupid, or they're lying for party first and America second.
 

 

Corporate Welfare
Time, By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele 110998
How would you like to pay only a quarter of the real estate taxes you owe on your home? And buy everything for the next 10 years without spending a single penny in sales tax? Keep a chunk of your paycheck free of income taxes? Have the city in which you live lend you money at rates cheaper than any bank charges? Then have the same city install free water and sewer lines to your house, offer you a perpetual discount on utility bills--and top it all off by landscaping your front yard at no charge? ...
 

 

Leahy Bails on 'Truth Commission' Plan
U.S. government seems paralyzed at the prospect of holding ex-President George W. Bush and other senior officials accountable
Consortium News - By Charlotte Dennett - April 1, 2009
Those of you following the George W. Bush prosecution trail will be interested to know that Patrick Leahy’s “truth commission” is a no-go. I was in a meeting with Leahy and four other Vermonters on Monday when he broke the news to us. ...
 

 

What A Dick!
Conduct Unbecoming
MiamiHerald.com - ‎Mar 18, 2009
Leave it to former Vice President Dick Cheney to throw custom and protocol to the winds to engage in partisan sniping with the new administration so soon ...

Cheney says Obama endangers US
Seattle Post Intelligencer - ‎Mar 15, 2009‎
Asked Sunday on CNN if he thinks President Obama "has made Americans less safe," former Vice President Dick Cheney said: "I do." Looking slimmer and relaxed
...

Expose on Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney Above The Law?

Dick Cheney, please go away
Detroit Free Press - ‎Mar 17, 2009‎
What part of "former vice president" doesn't Dick Cheney understand? And why can't he comprehend that after eight disastrous years, Americans really aren't ...
 

Cheney Link To Halliburton

Cheney Admits His CFR Secret

  

The person who knows better, yet keeps it to their self, is no better than the ignorant or deceptive among us. -NewsFocus
 

 

With Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity and Beck is there really a liberal media bias?
Examiner.com, by Jon Rapoport - April 4th, 2009
Rush Limbaugh’s robust ratings and the immense success of FOX News’s Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck should finally end the out of touch belief that liberals dominate the media message of this country. The growth of conservative media, combined with the rapid decline of the daily newspaper, has definitively changed the media landscape ....
 

 

Gang of villagers chase away Google car
CNN - updated 8:58 a.m. EDT, Fri April 3, 2009
Google's ambitious plan to offer a 3-D street level view of communities across three continents hit a snag when angry residents of a UK village blocked the search engine's camera car from photographing their homes. Fearing the appearance of their well appointed properties on the Web site would attract criminals scouting for burglary targets, villagers in Broughton, north of London, summoned the police after spotting the car. ...
 

 

Diebold admits all versions delete ballots
Startling admission made during public hearing in CA to consider decertification of the company's voting and tabulation software
Brad Blog, 031709
Admits systemic audit log failure, same system used for over a decade.
Even the audit log system on current versions of Premier Election Solutions' (formerly Diebold's) electronic voting and tabulating systems --- used in some 34 states across the nation --- fail to record the wholesale deletion of ballots. Even when ballots are deleted on the same day as an election. That's the shocking admission heard today from Justin Bales, Premier's Western Region manager, at a State of California public hearing on the possible decertification of Diebold/Premier's tabulator system ...
CIA expert: Most electronic voting systems can be hacked
 

 

Congressman: Culprits Of Financial Collapse Should Be Arrested
Not treated as saviors and given more power to “fix” the problem that they created
PrisonPlanet.com, By Paul Joseph Watson - March 12, 2009
Congressman Ron Paul says that the people responsible for the economic crisis should not be hailed as saviors and given more power to fix the problem that they created, but arrested and criminally prosecuted. Paul told the Alex Jones Show that the only way the private Federal Reserve could be brought under control would come as a result of a mass uprising, noting that there is a lot more awareness in Washington about the Fed’s contribution to the economic crisis.

The Congressman has two bills before Congress, one to abolish the Fed altogether and another to audit the organization. “Today they’re protected, they’re in total secrecy and they’re protected by the law - if 1207 is passed we have an audit and they have to answer the questions and I figure, if we ever get that far and get the exposure and get the transparency that we need then people will wake up and realize, why do we have them at all,” said Paul.
  

 

More News On This Site:  

 

Congresswoman introduces bill to ban use of global currency
Bachmann bill would ban global currency
Briefing Room, Eric Zimmermann  033009
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has introduced legislation that would "bar the dollar from being replace by any foreign currency." A statement from Bachmann's website:
“Yesterday, during a Financial Services Committee hearing, I asked Secretary Geithner if he would denounce efforts to move towards a global currency and he answered unequivocally that he would," said Bachmann. "And President Obama gave the nation the same assurances. But just a day later, Secretary Geithner has left the option on the table. I want to know which it is. The American people deserve to know."

On Monday, Geithner and Bernanke both rejected the idea of a global currency in Congressional testimony. But in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, Geithner indicated he was open to the idea.

 

2008 Bohemian Grove Guest List Obtained By 9/11 Truth Activists
Notable US Dignitaries In Secretive Organization, including George HW Bush
An official guest list for Bohemian Grove's 2008 midsummer encampment along with a map of the Grove's facilities has been obtained by a San Francisco based action group...

2008 Bohemian Grove Guest List: George HW Bush Included
See The List For A Record of Republicans And Democrats That Are Involved
JustGetThere.US - 031409
Activists from truthaction.org have obtained the official guest list for Bohemian Grove's 2008 midsummer encampment along with a map of the ...
 

THE RETURN OF HOOVERVILLES TO AMERICA
Car And Tent Cities Are Springing Up Daily Across The US, Now Called Bushvilles
SanFranciscoSentinel.com - BY THEA CHROMAN, Feb 28, 2009‎
San Francisco’s per capita homeless rate has long been the highest in the country. But in the past year, it shot up 40 percent, ...
Inside a Tent City Oprah.com

TENT CITIES SHOCK AMERICANS
It's actually more of a shock to those well off and to the horribly naive
Electric New Paper
 - ‎Mar 7, 2009
As many as 50 people a week arrive at the tent city and the authorities estimate it is now home to more than 1200 people, reported the Telegraph. ...
Loaves & Fishes: Don't Bring Food To Tent City MSNBC
Sarcramento struggles with spiralling homelessness problem Telegraph.co.uk
Sacramento Tent City: The Second Great Depression?
Bay Area Indymedi

More: Tent Cities In America (see video)
 

 

 

Obama orders review of Bush's signing statements
Los Angeles Times, by Frank James - ‎Mar 9, 2009‎
Officials must consult the Justice Department before enforcing them. Obama also says he will limit his own use of such statements.  Reporting ...
 

 

Passage of Employee Free Choice Act is Critical
Common Dreams (press release) - ‎031009 3 hours ago‎
"We urge the House and Senate to quickly pass this important piece of legislation. Our economy can only prosper when it works for everyone. ...
Employee Free Choice Act: All You Need To Know Huffington Post
Employee Free Choice Act will rebuild economy, strengthen democracy OpEdNews
Unions Prioritize the Employee Free Choice Act
PBS

The Employee Free Choice Act - We Need This!

Big money is trying hard kill this, so that must mean it's actually good for us.

Should CEOs Start Sharing The Billions?
Albert Lea Tribune - ‎Mar 7, 2009‎
When you think the American worker could not possibly be beaten down any further, corporate America conspires with the Republican Party to crush the Free Choice Act (Card Check). One wonders how they can keep a straight face in their “concern” that the Free Choice Act deprives workers of their right to a private vote.

Free Choice Act: Working people would get real power
Sun-Sentinel.com - By John Sweeney Mar 8, 2009‎
Some say we shouldn't criticize Wall Street for being greedy any more than we should hold the sky accountable for being blue. But now that the corporate charlatans have threatened to take the whole economy down with them, it's time to put some real checks and balances back into our system. This fiasco didn't start yesterday. ...
America's Workers Hold Over 100 Grassroots Events Across the ... Common Dreams
The Employee Free Choice Bill Battle Is Joined
Washington Post
 

Bernanke Says Fed to ‘Deploy All Tools’ for Economic Revival
Bloomberg - By Steve Matthews Mar 7, 2009‎
(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank will “forcefully” use every resource to restore financial-market stability and revive US economic growth.
Bernanke: Fed will use all tools at its disposal
Reuters
 

Pelosi: Bush Admin., Lawbreakers Should Face Prosecution
Raw Story -  022609
Pelosi said she supported the investigation, but said any investigation should hold open the possibility of prosecution. “Senator Leahy has a proposal, ...

Pelosi in Favor of Bush Administration Investigation

Rachel Maddow talks with the Speaker of the House

Senator Leahy Calls Hearing To Discuss Truth Commission...
Common Dreams (press release)
 - ‎40 minutes ago‎ 022609
WASHINGTON - February 25 - On the Senate floor today, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, announced that his committee will
...
Leahy schedules hearing on security policies BurlingtonFreePress.com
Leahy Announces Hearing Next Week on Truth Commission The Washington Independent
Leahy Would Investigate Democrats, Too The Washington Independent
 

Senators Surprised By Existence of Intelligence Center
West Virginia Public Broadcasting - ‎022609
At the time 9/11 happened there was a lot of information out there, but different people had it and they either didn’t know where to take it to or kept it ...
 

IRS: Bank kept 52,000 secret Swiss accounts for US taxpayers
MarketWatch, By Alistair Barr - 6 hours ago 021909
SAN FRANCISCO -- UBS AG kept as many as 52000 secret Swiss bank accounts for US taxpayers and the firm should ...
Swiss bank admits helping US clients avoid taxes MarketWatch
UBS admits helping tax evaders
CNNMoney.com
Swiss Bank UBS to Pay $780 Million Over US Tax Charges Washington Post
  

The BBC Reports On The Bush-Cheney war Crimes

BBC News On US War Crimes - Pt 1

BBC News On US War Crimes - Pt 2

 

Congress Goes After SEC On Madoff Scandal
Lawmakers Sink Teeth Into the SEC
By Frank Ahrens Washington Post, United States - Feb 4, 2009

Lawmakers gave officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission a severe tongue-lashing yesterday over investment fund manager Bernard ...

SEC Official Ripped By Congress On Madoff Scandal

Hard to believe the SEC could not come up with a simple straight answer.

Whistleblower blasts SEC over Madoff scandal
USA Today - 10 hours ago 020409
A frustrated whistle blower is ripping into the Securities and Exchange Commission in testimony before a House panel investigating the Bernie Madoff ...

Madoff whistleblower blasts SEC
CNNMoney.com - 7 hours ago 020409
A fraud investigator told Congress that he'd warned the agency about Madoff's Ponzi scheme years ago. But his efforts went nowhere. ...

Madoff Scheme Overlooked By SEC Since 2001

This scandal could have clearly been averted.

Lawmaker says SEC hindering House's Madoff probe
The Associated Press - 7 hours ago 020409
WASHINGTON (AP) — A key House lawmaker is telling top Securities and Exchange Commission officials that the agency is failing to cooperate with a committee ...

Plan To Rebuild The Twin Towers
New Twin Towers? It may not be too late.
Nicole Gelinas, 6 July 2008
Since al-Qaida demolished the World Trade Center nearly seven years ago, New York’s naked emperors—Governors George Pataki and Eliot Spitzer and architect Daniel Libeskind—have viewed an historic rebuilding challenge as an opportunity to invent a square wheel and then deny for years that it can’t roll.

WTC2011 - The New Twin Towers
 

Whistleblower: NSA Spied On Everyone
David Edwards and Muriel Kane Published: Wednesday January 21, 2009
Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.

NSA Whistleblower Says Bush-Cheney Spied On Everyone

This is only the first whistleblower to come forth. Just wait, there will be more.
 

DynCorp Disgrace
Sex Slave Trade With US Business Participation
Is Money The Only Thing Corporate America Has Gone Perverse
Over?
B
y Kelly Patricia O'MearaInsight Magazine January 14th, 2002
Middle-aged men having sex with 12- to 15-year-olds was too much for Ben
Johnston, a hulking 6-foot-5-inch Texan, and more than a year ago he blew
the whistle on his employer, DynCorp, a U.S. contracting company doing
business in Bosnia. ...
 

 

SPECIAL REPORT:
Our Broken Government - A Center for Public Integrity Investigation
by Josh Israel January 7, 2009
As America approaches a historic transfer of power, it is becoming ever-clearer what a daunting set of tasks awaits the new administration. When Barack Obama takes the oath of office at noon on January 20 he will inherit an economy collapsing before our eyes and a pair of ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But he will also inherit a federal government whose machinery should bear an "out of order” sign. ...
 

 

Obama Pledges Public Works on a Vast Scale
New York Times - 29 minutes ago
By PETER BAKER and JOHN M. BRODER WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama committed Saturday to the largest public works construction program since the creation of the interstate highway system a half-century ago as he seeks to put together a plan to ...
 

 

Bush tries to rewrite war history
Sunday, December 14, 2008
President Bush is trying mightily to rewrite the history of the Iraq war before his administration leaves power. He and members of his national security brain trust, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, would like to dispel the narrative that they misled the country into war. Instead, both Bush and Rice are trying to characterize the White House as the unwitting recipient of faulty intelligence.
 

 

The Pentagon is Muscling in Everywhere
It's time to stop the mission creep.
By Thomas A. Schweich
We no longer have a civilian-led government. It is hard for a lifelong Republican and son of a retired Air Force colonel to say this, but the most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration is the encroachment of the Department of Defense into a striking number of aspects of civilian government. Our Constitution is at risk. Continue

 

 

Key Witness In Rove Probes Killed
Center for Research on Globalization, Canada 
by Michael Carmichael Mike Connell's untimely death will haunt Karl Rove and the Republican Party. As the key witness in investigations into election fraud ...

Karl Rove's IT Guru Dies In Plane Crash

George Bush Aide Dies In Plane Crash
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - 122208
Mystery surrounds the death of a Republican pollster, recently compelled to give evidence about alleged election fraud in the 2004 election in Ohio, ...

Programmer who may have helped rig 2004 election dies suspiciously

(see video, plus more, on Connell death here)

 

Cheney Says He Okayed Possible War Crimes
David Edwards and Muriel Kane, Published: Wednesday December 17, 2008
Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley believes that not only did Vice President Dick Cheney "unambiguously" confess to a war crime during an ABC interview on Monday, but the US' future....

Levin: 'As far as I'm concerned, Cheney admitted torture'
Vice President Dick Cheney confessed to approving torture, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Wednesday night.

During an interview with ABC News on Monday evening, Cheney had said "I supported it," referring to the practice known as "waterboarding," a form of simulated drowning.

"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do," Cheney said. "And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it." (Read more)

The Noose Tightens
Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and other top Bush officials could soon face legal jeopardy.
By Jonathan Tepperman
The United States, like many countries, has a bad habit of committing wartime excesses and an even worse record of accounting for them afterward. But a remarkable string of recent events suggests that may finally be changing—and that top Bush administration officials could soon face legal jeopardy for prisoner abuse committed under their watch in the war on terror. ...

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) Calls for Independent Counsel to Investigate Cheney and Rumsfeld for Violating Torture Laws
Democracy Now!  December 23, 2008
Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York has urged Attorney General Michael Mukasey to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and other senior Bush administration officials for violations of the law relating to the torture of prisoners in US custody. Nadler is the chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
Real Video Stream  |  Real Audio Stream  |  MP3 Download

Cheney: If President Does it During Wartime, it's Legal
VP mocks successor, doesn't regret 'F*ck yourself' remark
By Andrew McLemore
Dick Cheney is leaving office without remorse and taking some potshots at his successor on the way out the door.
Continue

Cheney: 33 had 'enhanced interrogation'

Cheney Defends His Tenure, Adminstration's Actions
Washington Post - 6 hours ago
By Dan Eggen Vice President Cheney offered an unabashed defense of the Bush administration's claims of broad executive powers today, mocking criticism from Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Cheney claims power to decide his public records
The Associated Press - 121908
As of November, it had not made a final determination on the status of Cheney's records produced when he acts as president of the Senate, which he says are...

Cheney = Nixon

Cheney: If Bush does it during war, it's legal
 

 

Secret of the Lusitanian
Arms find challenges Allied claims it was solely a passenger ship
By Sam Greenhill
Her sinking with the loss of almost 1,200 lives caused such outrage that it propelled the U.S. into the First World War. But now divers have revealed a dark secret about the cargo carried by the Lusitania on its final journey in May 1915.
 

 

Martial Law, the Financial Bailout, and War
By Prof. Peter Dale Scott - 2009-01-08
Since the financial meltdown, there has been a sustained move in the direction of martial law preparations...
 

 

Times' 'new Deep Throat' unmasked

NSA Domestic Surveillance Whistleblower Revealed

Three years after the New York Times first revealed the Bush administration's program of illegal domestic surveillance by the NSA, whistleblower Thomas Tamm has acknowledged his role in making public the President's lawbreaking. In its expose Sunday, Newsweek details how the former Justice Department official came to discover the White House's violations of the FISA law and reluctantly decided to turn to the Times. ( Continue reading )
 

 

Pearl Harbor: The Facts Behind the Fiction
The New American - Dec 4, 2008
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japan launched a sneak attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, shattering the peace of a beautiful Hawaiian morning and ...

Guest Column: Seven decades cannot erase a memory
The Daily Astorian, OR - 10 hours ago
By GEORGE MURDOCK Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea! Last week, I stood on the Arizona Memorial looking out over Pearl Harbor. ...
 

 

Bush: ‘I Was Unprepared for War’ (The war President? Really?)
New York Times, United States - 2 hours ago
By Kate Phillips In what might be considered one of the first exit interviews, President Bush told ABC News’s Charles Gibson that during the eight years of
...

Farewell Dubya. Now to undo the damage done ...
Independent, UK - Nov 4, 2008
“Both McCain and Obama are quite close to each other.” From a European perspective, she says, the statements by both senators on working to ending torture ...

Obama's plans for probing Bush torture
Salon - Nov 12, 2008
The Obama plan, first revealed by Salon in August, would emphasize fact-finding investigation over prosecution. It is gaining currency in Washington as ...

Obama’s First Problem is US War Crimes
The president-elect has to take a stand on Bush’s dark legacy
By Andrew Sullivan
There is, in the end, a simple and sobering truth: these people have to be brought to justice if the rule of law is to survive in America. In his constitutional soul, Obama knows this. Continue

Congress Opposes Bush Pardons: Bush Pardons of His Own Subordinates for Crimes He Authorized
By David Swanson - 2008-11-21
Nadler Introduces Resolution Opposing Bush Pardons

You Cannot Pardon a Crime you Authorized
By Lawrence Velvel - 2008-11-27
War Crimes of President Bush and His Subordinates
 

 

Texas DA Reveals Evidence In Cheney Indictment
Ron Brynaert,
Published: Thursday November 27, 2008
Hopes Media Won't Let It Die
Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra spoke to two Texas television stations Wednesday night regarding his investigation of injustice within the prison systems which led to the indictment...

Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales Indicted in Private Prison Case ...
Democracy Now, NY - Nov 24, 2008
Evo Morales knows about “change you can believe in.” He also knows what happens when a powerful elite is forced to make changes it doesn’t want. ...

Prosecutor who had Cheney indicted yells at judge
The Associated Press - Nov 21, 2008
RAYMONDVILLE, Texas (AP) — A county prosecutor who brought indictments this week against Vice President Dick Cheney and others pounded his fist and shouted ...

Hearing set for Monday to oust judge in Cheney indictment
Houston Chronicle, United States - Nov 25, 2008
The indictment against Cheney alleges that his personal investment in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies, gives him culpability ...
 

 

25 Most Important Stories the Media Isn't Reporting
From HULIQ.com - 110608
Project Censored conducts research on important national news stories that are underreported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored by the US corporate media.
 

 

   
 

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Last modified: June 29, 2012