Archive for March, 2010
Anderson Cooper & The CIA?
“This guy peddling news is like David de Rothschild pushing for global warming taxes. Umm… how the average man still creams for serfdom. Ummmm….. serfdom covered cake.”
-Fred Face 3/30/09
Anderson Hays Cooper was born on June 3, 1967, in New York City, the younger son of the writer Wyatt Emory Cooper and the artist, designer, writer, and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, and is the great-great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt of the prominent Vanderbilt shipping fortune. Enough said!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson_Cooper
Turns out the dashing young CNN star and former host of “The Mole” had a very interesting summer job during his Yale years.
Anderson Cooper worked for the CIA.
Following his sophomore and junior years at Yale — a well-known recruiting ground for the CIA — Cooper spent his summers interning at the agency’s monolithic headquarters in Langley, Virginia, in a program for students interested in intelligence work. His involvement with the agency ended there, and he chose not to pursue a job with the agency after graduation, according to a CNN spokeswoman, who confirmed details of Cooper’s CIA involvement to Radar.
Well, isn’t that special?
We suppose it’s no real surprise that an ambitious young Ivy Leaguer from a powerful East Coast family would wind up working for the Firm.
Cooper’s much-publicized personal history was already loaded with clues.
* He’s reportedly a member of one of those Skull & Bones-style secret societies at Yale, the mysterious Manuscript Society (or Wrexham Foundation) … which also claims the late Sen. H. John Heinz III … whose widow later married Bonesman John Kerry.
* Like Pyle in “The Quiet American,” Cooper mysteriously moved to Vietnam for a year.
* He was trained at some crazy “survival school” in Africa, when he was 17.
* He was an anchor for ABC’s “World News Now,” the bizarre middle-of-the-night network news program seen only by spies and amphetamine addicts.
* He actually admits to taking part in a U.S.-supported insurgency in Burma: “I had a friend of mine make a fake press pass on a Macintosh, and I snuck into Burma and hooked up with some students fighting the Burmese government. I had met the person who was involved in the Burmese student movement in New York, and they gave me the name of a contact in a town in Western Thailand. So I found my way to this town that was like a Wild West border town, and I contacted the person and said I was a reporter. We met in an ice cream parlor, and then they agreed to take me in, and they smuggled me across the border into Burma.”
Burma? Sorry, but wannabe foreign correspondents went to Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, not to some fetid and dangerous military dictatorship in Southeast Asia that was killing thousands of people every year.
But Cooper is in “good company,” as they may or may not say over at Langley. There were more than 400 CIA plants in American newsrooms in the early 1970s. Nobody knows how many operate today. But some of the big names connected with the intelligence agencies include Joseph and Stewart Alsop, Henry Luce, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Bob Woodward and Philip Graham.
As this Vanderbilt University Television News Archive reminds those of us old enough to remember the Watergate fallout, Congress went after the CIA in the 1970s to find out how many journalists were working for The Man. (Fun fact: Vanderbilt University was founded by Anderson Cooper’s great-great grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt!)
Read more at Wonkette: http://wonkette.com/198892/anderson-cooper-comes-in-from-the-cold#ixzz0jha94XCw
http://wonkette.com/198892/anderson-cooper-comes-in-from-the-cold
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson_Cooper
30
03 2010
My opponent has now clearly crossed the line
My opponent has now clearly crossed the line
Dear Friend,
In a desperate attempt to win political office at any cost —Trey Grayson is using distortions about September 11 to question my integrity…and patriotism.
My opponent’s shameful TV ads and mailers are lies. And I think this is important, because the truth matters…to me…the families of September 11…and the people of Kentucky.
I believe that we were right – in fact obligated as a nation – to attack back against the terrorists who targeted us on 9/11 – and those who aided and harbored them.
My opponent knows this of course. But he’s showing once again that he’s a career politicians who will say or do anything to get into his next office.
You and I can’t let him get away with this. We know what the truth is — but we must ensure everyone in Kentucky does too.
I’ve prepared an ad calling on him to stop his lies. Telling him how he is dishonoring himself and our state. Now I need to run this ad across Kentucky.
By the time you read this, the ad will be up on TV. But I’d like to run it more. And in more places.
If you can help do that today, I’d appreciate it.
Anything you can do, even $5 or $10, will go straight to our advertising budget for the next week. Click HEREto donate now.
30
03 2010
Obama Pushing Another Radical Anti-gunner to the Federal Bench
“Liu believes that judges have the authority to impose their views… using clever verbal camouflage to disguise what they’re doing.”– Ed Whelan, a one-time clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and now president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (3/4/10)
Monday, March 29, 2010
Imagine a judicial candidate that is so far to the left that even Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, is hesitant to push him forward.
Imagine a liberal law professor that not only fails to meet the ABA’s basic requirements for a federal judge, but is so green behind the ears that it appears the only reason he is being nominated to the federal courts is because he served as part of President Obama’s transition team.
If you can imagine such a leftist candidate, then you would be thinking of Goodwin Liu, the President’s recent nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Liu is the Associate Dean and Professor of Law at the ultra-left UC Berkeley School of Law. Only 39 years old, he comes nowhere near fulfilling the ABA’s standards for a judge.
But what he lacks in experience, he makes up for in radical liberalism. In a recent book that he co-authored, Liu says that, “Applications of constitutional text and principles must be open to adaptation and change… as the conditions and norms of our society become ever more distant from those of the Founding generation.”
Got it? Like many radical progressives, Liu believes that our rights are constantly evolving. The Second Amendment might have been necessary in the 1700s, he believes, but now those rights are no longer necessary.
In Liu’s world, there would be no gun rights
Noted author David Kopel cites a law journal article of Liu’s where he criticizes the Supreme Court for declaring two gun control laws as unconstitutional — the Brady Law’s unfunded mandate and the Gun-Free School Zones Act.
Liu said that Supreme Court cases like these did “damage” to civil rights and “upset settled understandings of congressional power.” What?! Striking down gun control laws does damage to civil rights? Well, let’s be clear: the Court did upset someone’s “settled” understanding of things, but it was the LIBERAL’S misunderstanding of the Constitution.
By the way, Liu co-authored the 2002 law journal article with then-Senator Hillary Clinton… which should tell us all we need to know about Liu’s liberal, anti-gun views!
Rights evolve over time?
The bottom line is that Liu would not be a stickler for the Constitution if he were to sit on the appellate court.
“It becomes pretty clear why ‘originalism’ and ’strict construction’ don’t make a lot of sense,” Liu said in an interview promoting his book. “The Framers deliberately chose… broad words so they would be adaptable to new challenges over time.”
No wonder that the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions (R-AL), spoke out so forcefully against the nomination of Goodwin Liu:
I am very disappointed by President Obama’s nomination of Professor Goodwin Liu to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit….
Instead of nominating an individual who has demonstrated an impartial commitment to following the Constitution and the rule of law, President Obama has selected someone far outside the mainstream of American jurisprudence. Professor Liu believes that judges should look to “evolving norms and social understandings” in interpreting the Constitution, he has a history of advocating for racial preferences, and he served on the Board of the directors of the ACLU.
ACTION: Please urge your two Senators to oppose Obama’s appointment of Goodwin Liu, the latest anti-gun liberal to be picked for the federal courts. You can use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Centerathttp://www.gunowners.org/activism.htmto send your legislators the pre-written e-mail message below.
—– Pre-written letter —–
Dear Senator:
I oppose the nomination of Goodwin Liu, the President’s recent nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Liu is an anti-gun, radical leftist who doesn’t even meet the ABA’s basic requirements for a federal judge, as he has neither practiced law for 12 years, nor has he any experience as a trial lawyer.
Liu believes that our rights are constantly evolving… which is why I’m very concerned about his Second Amendment views. He co-authored a law journal article in 2002 with then-Senator Hillary Clinton, wherein he criticizes the Supreme Court for declaring two gun control laws as unconstitutional — the Brady Law’s unfunded mandate and the Gun-Free School Zones Act.
Leftists like Liu think our gun rights might have been necessary in the 1700s, but are no longer necessary today. I agree with Senator Jeff Sessions’ critique of Liu, as the latter mistakenly thinks that judges should look to “evolving norms and social understandings” in interpreting the Constitution.
I vehemently oppose this view and hope you will vote against any nominee who doesn’t stand strong on the Bill of Rights.
Please oppose Goodwin Liu.
Sincerely,
(your name)
30
03 2010
Slow Posting….
“… been trying to post as many stories as I can but I separated my shoulder during SXSW the other weekend & have been on some elephant pills until surgery this week. Will do the best I can but it might be a little slow for a week or so. Been recording some new music w/ all this time off from my shit job though! Not a total loss… (plus the pain killers are pretty fuckin’ good).”
Fred Face 3/30/10
30
03 2010
EM field, behind right ear, suspends morality
Morally impaired? Morally impaired? Morally impaired? Morally impaired? huh??
by Mark Baard
This new finding, from MIT, should cause scientists to more closely examine the risks to human health posed by mobile phones and other wireless, personal technologies. — M.B.
MIT neuroscientists believe they have isolated the brain region — just behind the right ear — where moral judgements take place.
And they can suspend someone’s ability to judge right from wrong, simply by generating a magnetic field near the same spotwhere many of us hold our cellular phones and wireless, Bluetooth, headsets.
The researchers’ findings, announced today:
The technique used by the MIT scientists, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), has been described as one that creates “virtual lesions” on the brain.
And although TMS’s long term effects on health are not well understood (similar amounts of electromagnetic radiation have been linked to increased cancer risk), the treatment is becoming increasingly popular for everything from tinnitus to depression.
The US military also hopes to use TMS to keep soldiers fighting, without the need to stop for sleep.
via Moral judgments can be altered.
See what else Hub scientists getting up to, by following my Boston Globe column, here.
http://heretic.blastmagazine.com/2010/03/em-field-behind-right-ear-suspends-morality/
29
03 2010
Militia Raids Part Of Government Effort to Provoke Violence, Purge Dissent
Steve Watson & Paul Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Monday, March 29th, 2010
Related: Feds Release Indictment Against Michigan Militia
News of a bust on nine members of a militia group in Detroit who were planning to “levy war” against the United States and “oppose by force” the nation’s government, should be treated with extreme suspicion, given that every major terror bust in the U.S. in recent years has been contrived.
According to an indictment (PDF) unsealed this morning in U.S. District Court in Detroit, eight men and one woman were training in modern combat techniques for a prophesized battle with the anti-Christ.
The indictment described the nine as gearing up to use bombs and other weapons to kill local, state, and federal law enforcement officials in an effort to act as a “catalyst for a more wide-spread uprising against the government.”
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force carried out a series of raids on group members in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio over the weekend.
Known as the “Hutaree” militia, each of the nine faces three to five charges, including sedition, attempts to use weapons of mass destruction, teaching/demonstrating use of explosive materials and two counts of carrying weapons in relation to a crime of violence.
Seven of the defendants appeared in court this morning and were ordered held without bond until Wednesday.
“This is an example of radical and extremist fringe groups which can be found throughout our society,” FBI special agent Andrew Arena told The Detroit News.
“The FBI takes such extremist groups seriously, especially those who would target innocent citizens and the law enforcement officers who protect the citizens of the United States.” Arena added.
Comments made by a well known former militia leader indicate that the Hutaree were regarded by other militia outfits as radical and reckless “low-hanging fruits”.
Mike Vanderboegh, who has close connections with the militia movement in Michigan and all over the country, was critical of the Hutaree, saying that they “have indicated in the past that, much like John Brown, they WANTED to start a civil war, which is why no responsible militia group in Michigan was willing to ally with them.”
Vanderboegh described the group as “a perfect target” for the feds, adding that the raids could have provoked a nationwide uprising if they had turned violent.
As we highlighted earlier this month, following the highly suspicious Pentagon shooting, recent history proves that domestic terror, far from being a militia plot or an “extremist fringe” threat, is a government specialty.
Just a brief reprisal of the last handful of major terror cases in the United States instantly reminds us that in every single instance the plot was artificially engineered by the federal government and then later seized upon, with the enthusiastic support of the corporate media, as justification for more funding, more power, and more authority to denounce critics of the war on terror and dissent against the state in general.
From ensuring known extremist Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, now known as the underwear bomber, was able to board Flight 253 in Amsterdam last December, to allowing Fort Hood shooter Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan to remain on a U.S. Army base, and even to participate in Homeland Security exercises, the actions of Federal authorities have provoked often tragic newsmaking incidents.
Dozens of terror busts and stings since 9/11 have been orchestrated by handlers aiding the accused terrorists at every turn. We have never come across a major case where the terrorists involved in a plot were not being prodded by the FBI and federal informants, or where clear prior knowledge and forewarning was not evident.
Lawyers in a case relating to the much vaunted 2007 terror plot to attack Fort Dix and kill “as many soldiers as possible” concluded that FBI informants were the key figures behind the operationand that the accused, six foreign-born Muslims, were merely bungling patsies.
Similarly, the “Toronto 18″ terrorists turned out to be “a bunch of incompetent guys who were primarily misled by a delusional megalomaniac”. The explosive fertilizer material the terrorist cell apparently planned to use was in fact purchased by an informant working for the RCMP who had radicalized the group.
In the media-lauded Miami terror case in 2007, the supposed ringleader Narseal “Prince Marina” Batiste “had heard of Al-Qaeda, but wasn’t sure what it stood for. The FBI instigators made Batiste swear loyalty to al-Qaida; then had him call on his local buddies to form an ‘Islamic army’ in Miami. None had military training. Some could barely read. But Batiste assured the group in the midst of its collective marijuana buzz of greatness ahead,” wrote Saul Landau.
These were the men who comedian John Stewart referred to as “seven dipshits in a warehouse”after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had ludicrously told the press that the group of semi-retarded gang-bangers had planned to “wage a ground war against America”.
One of the more recent examples was the case of the so-called Muslim terrorists busted in New York, who supposedly wanted to blow up synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military airplanes flying out of the New York Air National Guard base. The men were provided with fake explosives and inactive missiles by an FBI informant, reported the Christian Science Monitor. Two of the ringleaders of the “deadly” plot which was endlessly hyped by the media turned out to be semi-retarded potheads, exactly as we had predicted would be the case due to the innumerable past cases with the exact same modus operandi.
Then we have the most deadly and contrived “christian-patriot” terror plot – the OKC bombing of 1995. While the SPLC, the ADL and similar organizations are happy to play the Timothy McVeigh card over and over again, to back up the notion that hate-filled right wing extremists are taking over the country, they are less enthusiastic to mention the fact that McVeigh planned his deadly assault on the Alfred P. Murrah building under the intimate direction of a high-level FBI official. This according to McVeigh’s co-conspirator Terry Nichols, a claim voluminously backed up by a plethora of evidence that has been presented in court on several occasions.
Time and time again it is revealed that the only prominent people who call for violence in the patriot movement turn out to be working for the feds.
Radio talk show host and racist firebrand Hal Turner recently admitted in federal court that he worked for the FBI as a “National Security Intelligence” asset. “Turner also claims the FBI coached him to make racist, anti-Semitic and other threatening statements on his radio show, but the newspaper also found many federal officials were concerned that his audience might follow up on his violence rhetoric,” theAssociated Press reported in November, 2009.
Turner’s code name was “Valhalla” and “he received thousands of dollars from the FBI to report on such groups as the Aryan Nations and the white supremacist National Alliance.
The FBI, under its long-running COINTELPRO, subsidized, armed, directed and protected the Klu Klux Klan and other racist groups.
In light of all these cases, and the ongoing effort to re-direct the focus of the war on terroraway from foreign muslim terrorists to “home grown” American “extremists”, the question must be explored – were the FBI actively involved in radicalizing the “Hutaree” militia? Were any of the militia members FBI informants?
Count the hours until the links emerge.
http://www.infowars.com/militia-raids-part-of-government-effort-to-provoke-violence-purge-dissent/
29
03 2010
Health premiums could rise 17 pct for young adults
“Wow, Obama’s awesome. That works out perfect because the kids coming out of college will have no jobs to apply for… unless they work for the state… Homeland Security, TSA, etc. Doing a bang-up job buddy.”
-Fred Face 3/29/09
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, AP Medical Writer
CHICAGO – Under the health care overhaul, young adults who buy their own insurance will carry a heavier burden of the medical costs of older Americans — a shift expected to raise insurance premiums for young people when the plan takes full effect.
Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. That’s when premiums for young adults seeking coverage on the individual market would likely climb by 17 percent on average, or roughly $42 a month, according to an analysis of the plan conducted for The Associated Press. The analysis did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase.
The higher costs will pinch many people in their 20s and early 30s who are struggling to start or advance their careers with the highest unemployment rate in 26 years.
Consider 24-year-old Nils Higdon. The self-employed percussionist and part-time teacher in Chicago pays $140 each month for health insurance. But he’s healthy and so far hasn’t needed it.
The law relies on Higdon and other young adults to shoulder more of the financial load in new health insurance risk pools. So under the new system, Higdon could expect to pay $300 to $500 a year more. Depending on his income, he might also qualify for tax credits.
At issue is the insurance industry’s practice of charging more for older customers, who are the costliest to insure. The new law restricts how much insurers can raise premium costs based on age alone.
Insurers typically charge six or seven times as much to older customers as to younger ones in states with no restrictions. The new law limits the ratio to 3-to-1, meaning a 50-year-old could be charged only three times as much as a 20-year-old.
The rest will be shouldered by young people in the form of higher premiums.
Higdon wonders how his peers, already scrambling to start careers during a recession, will react to paying more so older people can get cheaper coverage.
“I suppose it all depends on how much more people in my situation, who are already struggling for coverage, are expected to pay,” Higdon says. He’d prefer a single-payer health care system and calls age-based premiums part of the “broken morality” of for-profit health care.
To be sure, there are benefits that balance some of the downsides for young people:
• In roughly six months, many young adults up to age 26 should be eligible for coverage under their parents’ insurance — if their parents have insurance that provides dependent coverage.
• Tax credits will be available for individuals making up to four times the federal poverty level, $43,320 for a single person. The credits will vary based on income and premiums costs.
• Low-income singles without children will be covered for the first time by Medicaid, which some estimate will insure 9 million more young adults.
But on average, people younger than 35 who are buying their own insurance on the individual market would pay $42 a month more, according to an analysis by Rand Health, a research division of the nonpartisan Rand Corp.
29
03 2010
CPS Warrior Nancy Schaefer Gunned Down
Infowars.com
March 29, 2010
From the Associated Press:
State investigators say the husband of former state Senator Nancy Schaefer shot his wife before turning the gun on himself. The couple’s bodies were found in their north Georgia home Friday. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducted autopsies on the Schaefer’s Saturday—investigators say all evidence points to the deaths as a murder-suicide. The bodies of Nancy and Bruce Schaefer, 73 and 74 years old respectively, were found by their daughter at the couple’s home in Clarkesville. Nancy Schaefer was a two-term state Senator representing Georgia’s 50th district. She lost her seat in 2008. Schaefer was also a candidate for mayor of Atlanta, Georgia lieutenant governor and governor of the state.
The corporate media does not bother to mention that Schaefer exposed the abuses of CPS and the international child sex slavery ring.
“Investigators told the Associated Press they believe Bruce Schaefer, 74, shot his wife once in the back while she slept in the bedroom early Friday morning and then shot himself in the head. Police found a handgun near his body and several letters written to family members, including a suicide note,” reports theAssociated Baptist Press.
Other reports indicate Bruce Schaefer shot himself in the chest. People who commit suicide usually shoot themselves in the head.
“Contrary to early reports that Bruce Schaefer had cancer, the Gainesville Times reported March 27 that the couple’s daughter, who discovered the bodies, told the local sheriff her father was not suffering from any serious illness at the time of the shootings. Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell said some of the letters mentioned serious financial problems and speculated that might have been a motive,” Associated Baptist Press also reported.
Appearing on the Alex Jones Show last May, Schaefer detailed how CPS is involved in child trafficking rings (see video below). After watching Schaefer’s interview with Jones, if you think Schaefer was involved in a suicide pact with her husband, you may also be interested in a famous bridge for sale in Brooklyn.
http://www.infowars.com/cps-warrior-nancy-schaefer-gunned-down/
29
03 2010
Alex Jones Behind the Scenes of CNN’s Attack Piece
“This is a great great watch. The end in priceless.”
-F.F.
Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com
March 27, 2010
In this important interview, Alex Jones shows us what goes on behind the scenes of the CNN attack piece apparently set on demonizing tea parties and pro-Constitutional movements as “violent”.
Alex instantly recognize the attempt to demonize him personally, as well as to discredit other grassroots political movements by the tone of the producer’s questions.
28
03 2010
Sotomayor Draws Retort From a Fellow Justice
By ADAM LIPTAK
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court released its first four decisions in argued cases this term on Tuesday. They were all minor, but one was notable for being Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court debut and for prompting a testy concurrence from Justice Clarence Thomas.
The case concerned whether federal trial-court rulings concerning the lawyer-client privilege may be appealed right away. Justice Sotomayor, with methodical reasoning and a formal writing style, said no.
“Permitting parties to undertake successive, piecemeal appeals of all adverse attorney-client rulings,” she wrote, “would unduly delay the resolution of district court litigation and needlessly burden the courts of appeals.”
Justice Sotomayor said that result was dictated by sound policy and was consistent with a law governing appeals.
The decision was unanimous, but Justice Clarence Thomas declined to join the part of Justice Sotomayor’s opinion discussing why the cost of allowing immediate appeals outweighs the possibility that candid communications between lawyers and their clients might be chilled.
In a concurrence, Justice Thomas took a swipe at his new colleague, saying she had “with a sweep of the court’s pen” substituted “value judgments” and “what the court thinks is a good idea” for the text of a federal law.
The federal government had urged the court to rule as it did but asked the court to exclude appeals of claims of the state secrets privilege and other governmental privileges from the sweep of its ruling. Justice Sotomayor obliged with a footnote saying “we express no view on that issue.”
In an otherwise dry opinion, Justice Sotomayor did introduce one new and politically charged term into the Supreme Court lexicon.
Justice Sotomayor’s opinion in the case, Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter, No. 08-678, marked the first use of the term “undocumented immigrant,” according to a legal database. The term “illegal immigrant” has appeared in a dozen decisions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/09sotomayor.html
More info on the Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohawk_Industries,_Inc._v._Carpenter
28
03 2010
DARPA Radar System Will Track Cars Anywhere
By Stephen Markley
This is something they will love over at “24” and its fictitious and nearly omnipotent Counter Terrorist Unit. The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing a radar system that can track suspects or vehicles around corners and “down into urban canyons”— essentially anywhere in a city.
Using a few unmanned air drones, DARPA will use the new Multipath Exploitation Radar to create 3-D urban maps and something called a Ku-band radar, which will run at high enough frequencies to get detailed images of vehicles. The drones bounce radars off the ground and buildings and match the patterns to 3-D maps, creating a full, vivid picture of a city in motion.
DARPA will first try to create the ability to track a single vehicle before expanding the system to follow multiple targets.
This makes Jack Bauer’s job easier, the “24” writers’ harder and privacy advocates more perplexing and complicated than ever.
26
03 2010
Personal Income Drops Across the Country
By SARA MURRAY
Personal income in 42 states fell in 2009, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
Nevada’s 4.8% plunge was the steepest, as construction and tourism industries took a beating. Also hit hard: Wyoming, where incomes fell 3.9%.
Incomes stayed flat in two states and rose in six and the District of Columbia. West Virginia had the best showing with a 2.1% increase. In Maine, Kentucky and Hawaii, increased government benefits, such as unemployment insurance and Social Security, offset drops in earnings and property values.
Nationally, personal income from wages, dividends, rent, retirement plans and government benefits declined 1.7% last year, unadjusted for inflation. One bright spot: As the economy recovered, personal income was up in all 50 states in the fourth quarter compared with the third. Connecticut, again, had the highest per capita income of the 50 states at $54,397 in 2009. Mississippi ranked lowest at $30,103.
26
03 2010
Judge Napolitano On Alex Jones TV: Obamacare is Unconstitutional
Infowars.com
March 26, 2010
Former New Jersey Superior Court Judge, political and legal analyst and the host of Freedom Watch, Andrew Napolitano, explains why Obamacare is an outrage to the Constitution.
http://www.infowars.com/judge-napolitano-on-alex-jones-tv-obamacare-is-unconstitutional/
26
03 2010
Climategate: the parliamentary cover-up
Climategate exposed the greatest scandal in the history of modern science but you’re never going to hear this from any of the official investigations. Andrew Orlowski at The Register has uncovered why.
Turns out, that there’s this well-funded SPECTRE-like advocacy group called GLOBE (Global Legislators for a Balanced Environment) International which has co-opted leading parliamentarians from the main parties in both the Commons and the Lords into advancing the AGW agenda.
One of those is Lord Oxburgh, recently appointed – on the Royal Society’s recommendation – to lead one of the two official enquiries into Climategate. Mysteriously, Lord Oxburgh has failed to mention GLOBE in his register of interests.
Orlowski reports:
GLOBE may be too obscure to merit its own Wikipedia entry, but that belies its wealth and influence. It funds meetings for parliamentarians worldwide with an interest in climate change, and prior to the Copenhagen Summit GLOBE issued guidelines (pdf) for legislators. Little expense is spared: in one year alone, one peer – Lord Michael Jay of Ewelme – enjoyed seven club class flights and hotel accommodation, at GLOBE’s expense. There’s no greater love a Parliamentarian can give to the global warming cause. And in return, Globe lists Oxburgh as one of 23 key legislators.
One insider has described Oxburgh’s appointment to lead this supposedly neutral investigation into Climategate as “like putting Dracula in charge of a blood bank.” Here are just a few more of this scrupulously unbiased fellow’s interests, revealed by Orlowski:
In the House of Lords Register of Lords’ Interests, Oxburghlists under remunerated directorships his chairmanship ofFalck Renewables, and chairmanship of Blue NG, a renewable power company. (Oxburgh holds no shares in Falck Renewables, and serves as a non-exec chairman.) He also declares that he is an advisor to Climate Change Capital, to the Low Carbon Initiative, Evo-Electric, Fujitsu, and an environmental advisor to Deutsche Bank. For a year he was non-exec chairman of Shell.
GLOBE seems especially drawn to the kind of MP who likes sailing close to the wind. Its president is none other than Stephen Byers, recently exposed in the “cash for influence” scandal as offering his services as a lobbyist like a “cab for hire” for a small consideration of just £5,000 a day. And its leading lights have also included Elliott Morley, one of the MPs more heavily implicated in the Telegraph’s parliamentary expenses scandal.
As Bishop Hill notes its UK parliamentary group officers also include the redoubtable and incorruptible Labour MP Eric Joyce – “the first MP to claim more than £1m in expenses and on more than one occasion the most expensive MP in the house. He once famously claimed for three oil paintings on expenses “because they looked nice”.”
But then, to judge from the research done by Cumbrian Lad at Bishop Hill, GLOBE is very much the kind of body that likes to do things on the sly. Its Memorandum of Incorporation includes this revealing snippet about its purposes:
“To provide a forum for ideas and proposals to be floated in confidence and without the attention of an international spotlight“
Bishop Hill reports:
GLOBE’s corporate structure and funding are not clear from its website, but Cumbrian Lad has discovered that it is a private limited company. Interesting that – an organisation of legislators, run as a private company. He has also obtained copies of its accounts and other information from Companies House.
GLOBE was incorporated in 2006, the founding directors all being British legislators – Malcolm Bruce MP (LibDem), Joan Ruddock MP (Lab) and Nick Hurd (Con), with the last directorship being held by Lord Hunt. Since that time, Joan Ruddock has stood down and Lord Oxburgh and Eliot Morley MP (Lab) have been appointed to the board.
The current accounts are all abbreviated, which means there is very little detail about the income and expenditure of the company, but for some reason 2007 was filed in full, revealing an income of £820k, almost double that of the previous year, and all of which was spent on administrative expenses.
And where does this money come from? Its 2008 accounts note:
The Directors acknowledge the support of International Organisations, Governments, Parliamentary Bodies and Industry, both financially and politically, with paticular acknowledgement to United Nations, The Global Environment Facility, The World Bank, European Commission, the Governments of Canada and Great Britain, the Senate of Brazil and Globe Japan.
Bishop Hill smells a rat:
My reading of all this would be that GLOBE is a vehicle to enable legislators to avoid the scrutiny of their electorates – the date of incorporation is probably instructive, coming just after the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act.
It’s no wonder Lord Oxburgh didn’t want to mention it on his CV.
Here is the link listing the names of all the MPs in its parliamentary group. The ones I find particularly interesting are the Tories on the list. They are:
Gregory Barker
Kenneth Clarke
Lord Fowler
Charles Hendry
Nick Hurd
Graham Stuart
Tim Yeo
If any of these represent your constituency, I urge you not to vote for them. A Conservative who indulges in this kind of slippery green activism is no conservative at all.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100031404/climategate-the-parliamentary-cover-up/
25
03 2010
GlaxoSmithKline’s Rotarix Vaccine Suspended Due To Pig Virus Insertion
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
Glaxo’s vaccine has been used in millions of children worldwide, including 1 million in the U.S., with no signs of safety problems – and the pig virus isn’t known to cause any kind of illness in people or animals, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
But vaccines are supposed to be sterile, and because there is a competing vaccine against diarrhea-causing rotavirus that has tested clean – Merck’s RotaTeq – the FDA decided to err on the side of caution.
“We don’t want to scare parents,” Hamburg told reporters. “This was a difficult decision for us to make because there is no evidence at this time that there is a risk to patients who have received this vaccine, and we know there are real benefits for children to be vaccinated against rotavirus.”
Rotavirus causes severe diarrhea and is a leading child killer in developing countries. In the U.S., with better health care, about 55,000 children a year were hospitalized for rotavirus infections and several dozen died each year before vaccination began – with Merck’s vaccine in 2006 and Glaxo’s in 2008.
Glaxo said Monday that regulators abroad have decided not to change how Rotarix is used while scientists probe the relevance of the discovery.
A group of scientists testing a new way to detect viruses in a variety of products stumbled onto fragments of genetic material – broken pieces of DNA – from what’s called porcine circovirus-1 in Rotarix and alerted Glaxo, which confirmed the findings and in turn alerted FDA, Hamburg said.
Rotarix, an oral vaccine, is made from a weakened strain of human rotavirus that has to be grown inside living cells before being purified into a vaccine dose. Glaxo uses a line of monkey kidney cells, or vero cells. Hamburg said the pig virus DNA fragments have been found in Glaxo’s cell bank, meaning they were present from the vaccine’s earliest development. How the original contamination occurred is under investigation.
Merck’s competing rotavirus vaccine RotaTeq is made by a very different process, and FDA’s testing showed no sign of the pig virus in it.
It’s not the first time unwanted viruses have been discovered in vaccines. Best known is a monkey virus that contaminated some polio vaccine in the 1950s; years later, scientists investigated if the SV40 virus might have increased vaccine recipients’ risk of later-in-life cancer but concluded it didn’t.
“We live in a world that’s teeming with microbes,” Hamburg said, but until now this particular pig virus is not one that FDA thought vaccine makers needed to check their products against.
Parents should switch to the Merck vaccine for now – it requires three doses instead of Glaxo’s two – because rotavirus is too serious a disease to ignore, said Dr. William Schaffner, a vaccine specialist at Vanderbilt University who was briefed on FDA’s decision.
He’s bracing for calls from worried parents and will tell them that “this has been an extraordinarily safe vaccine,” and that the discovery is “a consequence of our improved science and ability to detect things that we never could before.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/22/AR2010032201897.html
25
03 2010
CIA may face prosecution for drone’s raids in Pakistan
“Good.”
-F.F.
According to a report by the Washington-based New America Foundation, one in three “militants” killed in US Predator drone attacks in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas is in fact a civilian.
The US government’s refusal to offer legal grounds for CIA’s drones bombing raids in Pakistan may result in CIA officers facing prosecution for war crimes.
“Prominent voices in the international legal community” were increasingly impatient with Washington’s silence on the CIA’s bombing raids in Pakistan and elsewhere, Kenneth Anderson, a law professor at American University, told a congressional panel on Tuesday, AFP reported.
Lawyers at the US State Department and other government agencies were concerned the administration has “not settled on what the rationales are” for the drone strikes, he said.
“And I believe that at some point that ill serves an administration which is embracing this,” said Anderson.
The law professor said he believes the drone strikes are legal under international law, based on a country’s right to self-defense, and urged the US administration to argue its case publicly.
The drone attacks, which have so far taken the lives of many civilians, have sparked outrage among the Pakistani nation amid Washington’s claims that they are aimed at “Taliban militants.”
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=121594§ionid=351020401
25
03 2010
Cantor Accuses Democrats of Exploiting Threats
By CARL HULSE
The Congressional clash over threats and vandalism against lawmakers in the aftermath of the health care vote took a new turn Thursday as the No. 2 House Republican accused Democrats of recklessly exploiting the incidents for political gain.
Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican whip, told reporters that he had also been the subject of threats and that a shot was fired through a window of his campaign office in Richmond this week.
But he said he chose not to publicize the incident for fear of inciting more, and he said that Democrats were wrongly amplifying reports of vandalism and death threats made against lawmakers.
“It is reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain,” said Mr. Cantor, who delivered a stern-faced statement on the issue but did not take questions from reporters. “To use such threats as political weapons is reprehensible. By ratcheting up the rhetoric, some will only inflame these situations to dangerous levels. Enough is enough. It has to stop.”
Mr. Cantor referred to former Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who put out an appeal urging donors to contribute to help Democrats defend against the attacks.
Mr. Cantor’s push back came after House Democrats reported a series of office vandalisms, hate mail, abusive phone calls and other incidents after the health care vote. The incidents have captured significant attention, particularly after protesters at the Capitol over the weekend used racial and sexual slurs against Democrats as they went to vote on health care issues.
In the chamber, a House Republican shouted “baby killer” as a Democratic lawmaker discussed the abortion provisions in the health bill, and other Republicans cheered a protester who was ejected from the gallery.
The situation has complicated Republican efforts to continue to assail the health care bill. While they want to stoke public opposition, they also have to stand with Democrats in condemning violence and behavior beyond the bounds of civility. Mr. Cantor’s disclosure of the shot fired at his office also showed that Democrats are not the only victims of angry members of the public.
Some Republicans also suggested that Democrats and the news media were exaggerating the incidents to portray all opponents of the measure as bigots and fanatics to diminish their credibility.
But Mr. Cantor’s suggestion that Democrats were responsible for inflaming the situation offended some Democratic lawmakers who said they were rightfully concerned about threats against family members.
“That is the most irresponsible statement I have ever heard,” said Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida. “How dare he suggest we are being political instead of standing up for our families?”
Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, on Thursday reiterated his condemnation of any violence but said such outbursts had often followed contentious Congressional debates.
“There have been a lot of debates over my time here in Congress that have caused a lot of angry outbursts all over the country,” he said.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for leaders of Congress to speak out against any violence. And she also raised a potential worry for Democrats if the focus on the response to the legislation begins to eclipse the legislation itself.
“I don’t want this to be a distraction for why we are here,” she told reporters. “We are here to pass health care for all Americans.”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/cantor-accuses-democrats-of-exploiting-threats/
25
03 2010
Health bill may exempt top Hill staffers
“Awww can you say tyranny… forcing the public to adhere to a law that the lawmakers do not have to follow??
People are starting to finally wake-up because the Obama administration is out-crazing the Bush administration. Which is great but get ready for more false-flag terrorist attacks… probably involving “white” right wing terrorists, tea party people, etc. But anyone who lives in a world of reality then get ready for CIA spooks, special ops’, drugged patsies to carry out fake attacks to smear a movement that the US Government is scared shitless of because it’s gonna put them all in jail. It’s all so elementary when you take of those blinders.”
-Fred Face 3/25/10
By ERIKA LOVLEY & PATRICK O’CONNOR
The health care reform bill signed into law by President Barack Obama Tuesday requires members of Congress and their office staffs to buy insurance through the state-run exchanges it creates – but it may exempt staffers who work for congressional committees or for party leaders in the House and Senate.
Staffers and members on both sides of the aisle call it an “inequity” and an “outrage” – a loophole that exempts the staffers most involved in writing and passing the bill from one of its key requirements.
The bill requires “congressional staff” to buy insurance from the exchanges – with a stipend from the Office of Personnel Management But page 158 of the bill defines “congressional staff” narrowly, as “employees employed by the official office of a member of Congress, whether in the district office or in Washington.”
The Congressional Research Service believes a court could rule that the legislation “would exclude professional committee staff, joint committee staff, some shared staff, as well as potentially those staff employed by leadership offices.”
If that’s so, staffers who work for Nancy Pelosi in her capacity as representative from California would go into the exchange program, while staffers who work for her in her capacity as speaker would stay on the government’s plan. Other Capitol employees, like those who work for the clerk of the House or the House historian, would be similarly exempted.
Republican Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who both say they tried to correct the issue last year, are firing at Senate leaders, saying that Democrats purposely exempted upper-level staffers out of the bill.
Last September, the Senate Finance Committee adopted a Grassley amendment into its version of the bill, mandating that members of Congress and their staff get their health insurance through the exchanges. It was agreed to by unanimous consent.
Coburn had earlier filed a similar amendment in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which passed with some Democratic support.
However, when the combined Senate bill came to the floor, the definition of staff had been narrowed. Both senators filed a second amendment in December restating their original intent, but they say Democrats blocked it.
“The American people will be appalled to learn the health care bill exempts leadership and committee staff. This special deal for unelected staff underscores everything the public detests about the arrogance of power in Washington,” Coburn said. “I tried to fix this inequity along with senators Grassley, Burr and Vitter, but Majority Leader [Harry] Reid obstructed our effort.”
Reid spokesman Jim Manley acknowledged that the bill exempts committee staff but argued that leadership staff is not excluded. As for why committee staff is excluded, Manley said that when leaders merged the health care bills from the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, they took Coburn’s language from the HELP Committee rather than Grassley’s Finance Committee proposal because they feared Grassley’s language was so broad that it would have required “people like legislative counsel, Architect of the Capitol, etc.” to participate in the exchanges, too.
Tonight, as the Senate moved toward the process of debating the reconciliation bill, Grassley offered yet another amendment to force all congressional staffers, as well as the president, vice president, cabinet members and top White House staff to buy coverage through the exchanges.
“The new health care law creates two double standards. The congressional staff who wrote the new law exempted themselves from the new health care system, while other staff will be in it,” Grassley said today in a statement. “And, President Obama himself will not live under Obama health care. The message to grassroots America is that it’s good enough for you, but not for us.”
While the amendment is unlikely to gain traction as Democrats are trying to prevent any major changes to the legislation, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) is in the process of drafting similar legislation that he expects to introduce as a standalone bill in the coming week or so.
Democrats could have a hard time voting against this issue; the whole point of including members of Congress and their staffs in the first place was to allay concerns about hypocrisy.
A band of additional lawmakers, including Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) say they want the health care reform extended to all staffers.
“It is ironic that the very staffers and members who were saying ‘if you like what you have you can keep it,’ are discovering that they may be the first casualties of that betrayal. I bet that in the coming weeks, the hypocrisy of this loophole will pale in comparison to the other flaws we’ll discover,” Blackburn said.
Some Republican staffers are furious about what they see as special treatment for committee and leadership aides.
“It is absolutely outrageous that the very people who were directly responsible for writing this legislation put in an exemption for themselves. It’s doesn’t get much more self-serving than that, and it’s downright offensive,” said one Republican staffer.
The potential for different treatment also exasperates the envy some office staffers feel toward their committee counterparts.
“There is a view held by many people that committee work is more stable. It pays a little better and you’re not as subject to the cyclical nature of elections,” one House Republican staffer said. “So, there is a perception that overall, committee staff have better jobs. This is an inequity.”
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said he’s heard nervous cloakroom and speaker’s lobby staffers discussing their confusion over which staffers would be covered and which would not.
“Staff is already buzzing about it. It creates disillusionment because of the uncertainty. Obviously staffers are anxious about it,” Chaffetz said. “The whole bill is full of loopholes, it’s such a mess.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34900_Page2.html
25
03 2010
Pro-Obamacare Thugs, Not Tea Party Activists, Are The Real Violent Extremists
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Democratic proponents of the health care bill have attempted to portray anger being expressed by the majority of Americans who opposed the bill as some kind of vicious and deadly mass assault, casting themselves as poor victims of a bloodthirsty mob, when in reality the only real instances of violence have been carried out by pro-Obamacare thugs, with Tea Party activists their victims.
In reality, a couple of stunts and a few broken windows pale in comparison to the treatment dished out to anti-Obamacare activists on behalf of leftist Obamanoid goons.
During a debate on MSNBC yesterday, David Shuster attempted to put author Kevin Jackson on the spot by challenging him to name one incident where Republicans had been similarly “attacked”.
“Name one, name one,” yapped Shuster.
Here’s one – during an August 2009 demonstration in Mehville, Missouri, Obamacare opponents were locked out of a town hall meeting before Union thugs viciously attacked patriot and Tea Party activist Kenneth Gladney, who was handing out Gadsen flags outside the stage-managed event, while hurling racist insults.
“Kenneth was attacked on the evening of August 6, 2009 at Rep. Russ Carnahan’s town hall meeting in South St. Louis County,” wrote Gladney’s attorney, David B. Brown, in an email sent to Infowars. “Kenneth was approached by an SEIU representative as Kenneth was handing out ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flags to other conservatives. The SEIU representative demanded to know why a black man was handing out these flags. The SEIU member used a racial slur against Kenneth, then punched him in the face. Kenneth fell to the ground. Another SEIU member yelled racial epithets at Kenneth as he kicked him in the head and back. Kenneth was also brutally attacked by one other male SEIU member and an unidentified woman. The three men were clearly SEIU members, as they were wearing T-shirts with the SEIU logo.”
Brown characterized the attack on Gladney, who was hospitalized with multiple injuries, as “a truly senseless hate crime,” but you wouldn’t have heard anything about it on MSNBC the next day, because it wasn’t carried out by Tea Party members, it was an attack by pro-Obamacare thugs furious at people for using their free speech to express opinions which differed to their own.
Elston McCowan, 47, of St. Louis, and Perry Molens, 50, of De Soto, each were later charged with assaulting Gladney.
Here’s how Gladney himself described the incident.
A group of people with purple t-shirts were leaving the rally. As the group walked past me, I offered one of the gentlemen a Gadsen flag and a button. The man turned and looked at my board and said, “who in the fuck is selling this shit?”
I replied “I am Sir, would you like a flag or a button?“
He shouted at me, “What kind of nigger are you?!” Then, he grabbed my board, so I quickly grabbed it back, then the man punched me in the face and charged at me . I put my hands up to block the second blow from the large man, when two other people from that group grabbed me and threw me to the ground and started punching and kicking me. I was kicked in the head and in the back, legs and buttocks. Then a white woman ran up to me while I was on the ground and began kicking me in my head as well. A few people came to my rescue for which I am forever grateful.
Since then my life has been turned upside down and I wake up some days feeling scared and fearful for my life. The media has attacked me. They have made me out to be a dishonest and untrustworthy person. The real Kenneth is a kind and trust worthy man that just wants to be respected as a good man with a positive attitude that loves all people, no matter what walks of life they come from. I go to church and I believe in God, I hope to move past all of this and go on with my life. I still do not have a job and this situation has just made my life more complicated.
So when pro-Obamacare thugs racially taunt and beat up innocent bystanders, the media either ignores it or attacks the victim, but when anti-Obamacare people allegedly (nobody even knows who committed the vandalism and as Jackson points out, it could well have been Democratic operatives) break a few windows, hell hath no fury like the scorn of David Shuster and his fellow corporate media whores.
As Jackson also points out in the MSNBC clip, the establishment media didn’t engage in a mass bout of hand-wringing obsession when George W. Bush was depicted as the Joker or Hitler, but when Obama is portrayed the same way, it’s characterized as some kind of shameful racist hate crime.
This goes to the heart of what corporate media smears against the Tea Party are all about – an effort to silence dissent by framing opposition to big government as extremist, racist and dangerous – when in reality the only real instances of racism and violence have been committed by pro-Obamacare thugs.
But it doesn’t end there – here’s another example for David Shuster of Tea Party members being attacked by extreme pro-Obama lefitsts.
During a November 2009 immigration enforcement rally, A.N.S.W.E.R.-hired thugs attacked 62-year-old Dave Caulkett of Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, pummeling him with their signs and kicking him in the face as other A.N.S.W.E.R. goons cheered.
Before the event, A.N.S.W.E.R. Florida had sent out an email to their members calling for a “militant confrontation with the so-called “tea baggers.”
“Beating back these forces will require us to organize together, take the streets, fight the racists wherever they show their faces and drive them out of every community,” stated the email.
As Bill Smith points out, “As can also be clearly seen on the video, A.N.S.W.E.R. organizers set their thugs loose on the two men and stood by until they heard police coming. Then they stopped their members and repositioned them to make it look like nothing happened. This was an orchestrated attack designed to make people fearful of protesting against their agenda.”
So there we have it Mr. Shuster – while you fail to provide one actual instance where Tea Party members have attacked pro-Obamacare supporters or pro-illegal immigration activists, there are two clear examples of these very people attacking, beating, and hurling racist insults at Tea Party members in the last 6 months alone.
http://www.infowars.com/pro-obamacare-thugs-not-tea-party-activists-are-the-real-violent-extremists/
25
03 2010
POLITICO: Dick Cheney gets involved in Kentucky US Senate race. THEY WANT TO DESTROY RAND PAUL
Another Paul Nettles GOP
by Jonathan Martin
“Recognizing the threat, a well-connected former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney convened a conference call last week between Grayson and a group of leading national security conservatives to sound the alarm about Paul.
“On foreign policy, [global war on terror], Gitmo, Afghanistan, Rand Paul is NOT one of us,” Cesar Conda wrote in an e-mail to figures such as Liz Cheney, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Dan Senor and Marc Thiessen.
With an attached memo on Paul’s noninterventionist positions, Conda concluded: “It is our hope that you can help us get the word out about Rand Paul’s troubling and dangerous views on foreign policy.”
In an interview, Conda noted that Paul once advocated for closing down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and sending some suspected terrorists to the front lines in Afghanistan.”
Rand Paul is a MAJOR THREAT to the system. Now theyre going into smear mode Dick Cheney Liz Cheney Bill Kristol all of them and now his opponent Tray Greyson is again leading in fundraising!!!
Read more:http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34582.html#ixzz0iT…
BTW Rand’s moneybomb is next Tuesday March 23rd you can pledge on the moneybomb website and theyll remind you to donate on Tuesday on Rand Paul’s official website
http://www.winrandwin.com
Donate on Tuesday on Rand Paul’s official website
http://www.randpaul2010.com
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/129208
25
03 2010
Thick as a Brick: Lib Bloggers Blame Militia for Broken Dem Windows
This photo of a “three precent” rock appears on the Sipsey Street Irregulars blog. Three precent is a reference to the percentage of Americans who actively patricipated in the Revolutionary War.
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
March 24, 2010
It’s more grist for David Neiwert’s mill. “Authorities in Wichita and some other cities across the country are investigating vandalism against Democratic offices, apparently in response to health care reform,” reports The Kansas City Star. “And on Monday, a former Alabama militia leader took credit for instigating the actions.”
“As David Neiwert’s been pointing out for a while, right-wing extremist fury is only growing now that we have a black Democrat in the White House. Now that the health-care bill has actually passed, and the right wing has bought the hysteria that this is an “assault on liberty,” expect this — and worse,” writes Susie Madrak for the lib blog, Crooks and Liars.
Neiwert is the poster child for the Southern Poverty Law Center and other groups thatwork with the Department of Homeland Security to demonize folks who think it is a good idea to follow the Constitution. He writes for the corporate media, including the CIA’s favorite newspaper, The Washington Post, and has made a cottage industry out demonizing patriots. For his diligence, Neiwert received a National Press Club award, a prized trophy for faithful members of the corporate media.
“Mike Vanderboegh, of Pinson, Ala., former head of the Alabama Constitutional Militia, put out a call on Friday for modern ‘Sons of Liberty’ to break the windows of Democratic Party offices nationwide in opposition to health care reform. Since then, vandals have struck several offices, including the Sedgwick County Democratic Party headquarters in Wichita,” The Kansas City Star continues. The brick had had “some anti-Obama rhetoric” written on it, according to a Dem party functionary.
“We can break their windows,” Vanderboegh declared, according to Gather. “Break them NOW. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.”
The call for vandalism appeared on the Sipsey Street Irregulars blog on Friday, March 19. The Sipsey Street Irregulars blog appears to be operated by Mike Vanderboegh.
“These windows are not far away from where you are reading this right now,” the blog explains. “In virtually every city and county in this land, there is a local headquarters of Pelosi’s party — the Democrat party. These headquarters invariably have windows. When the Sons of Liberty wanted to express their opposition to the actions of the King’s ministers, they would gather in front of the homes and offices of his tax-collectors and government officials in Boston or New York and break their windows. Glass was expensive. The King’s minions were often the most well-to-do. The Sons of Liberty hit them in their pocketbooks.
The original Sons of Liberty was a secret organization of American patriots prior to the Revolutionary War. British authorities and the Loyalists considered the Sons of Liberty seditious rebels. Patriots attacked the apparatus and symbols of British authority and power such as property of the gentry, customs officers, East India Company tea, and as the war approached, vocal supporters of the Crown.
Vanderboegh’s act will not inspire a modern three percent to take action against the federal government. It will, however, provide plenty of ammo for the likes of David Neiwert, Chris Matthews, nearly the entire line-up at MSNBC, Bill O’Reilly (who specializes in demonizing the Oath Keepers), the Southern Poverty Law Center, and hundreds of Borg hive Democrats who have hysterically warned now for months that “militias” (as defined by the SPLC) and rightwing racist extremists (as defined by the DHS and the MIAC report) who hate Obama because of his skin color are about to start burning down government buildings and killing bureaucrats.
Mike Vanderboegh’s comments are a gift to the Department of Homeland Security and the SPLC. His call for vandalism feeds right into the propaganda cycle and follows on the heels of supposed Tea Party activists — as likely agents provocateurs — who hurled racist epithets at African American members of Congress last weekend.
As should be expected the Southern Poverty Law Center was all over the incident in short order. The fear-mongering organization posted the news of their “Hatewatch” page.
Not surprisingly, Democrats have attempted to link this bad behavior to Republicans who stood in opposition to Obamacare. “The Republican Party needs to distance themselves from this kind of behavior,” Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat from Ohio, said in a video produced by a Latino Facebook group. “I am calling upon Mr. Speaker that the Republicans who have supported this movement come out and condemn this Tea Party. It is unacceptable.”
Establishment Republicans hijacked the Tea Party movement last year and now demand supporters pay fealty to the Republican political platform of more wars and increasing the national debt.
Breaking windows will not put an end to Obamacare. It will provide plenty of ammo for statist propagandists who are now gearing up to shout down and intimidate the opposition.
http://www.infowars.com/thick-as-a-brick-lib-bloggers-blame-militia-for-broken-dem-windows/
24
03 2010
Confirmed: Virginia suing to block health care reform
“Good news. This is what needs to be done.”
-F.F.
Virginia state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli
By John Byrne
Can’t block health care reform in Congress? Sue.
That’s the strategy that’s been outlined by Virginia state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who confirmed Sunday that he will sue to block health care reform from becoming law. Reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
Virgina will file suit against the federal government charging that the health-care reform legislation is unconstitutional, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office confirmed last night.
Cuccinelli is expected to argue that the bill, with its mandate that requires nearly every American to be insured by 2014, violates the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. The attorney general’s office will file suit once President Barack Obama signs the bill into law, which could occur early this week.
“At no time in our history has the government mandated its citizens buy a good or service,” Cuccinelli said in a statement last night.
Cuccinelli announced his intentions through a spokesman last Wednesday. In a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi last week, Virginia’s top lawyer warned Democrats of using the “deem and pass” approach, which would not have permitted a freestanding vote on the Senate-passed health care reform bill — a measure Democrats didn’t ultimately embrace.
But Cuccinelli plans to sue anyway.
Cuccinelli has already been the source of political controversy this year for removing sexual orientation from the state’s non-discrimination policies.
Virginia isn’t the only Republican state that is considering lawsuits to combat Democrats’ passage of health reform.
Prominent Republican lawyers have said legal arguments are already being drafted to throw Washington into a legal battle if health care reform passes Congress. “Deem and pass” was front and center of the debate.
“There is a lot of discussion among various lawyers and we’ve had some conference calls,” said Cleta Mitchell, a Washington attorney long active in GOP circles. “People are just distraught that the Democrats are even contemplating doing something like this. It’s utter lawlessness to deem a bill passed without voting for it. It’s horrific.”
Legally, the rule is somewhat of a gray area in politics. But Tim Jost, a law professor at Washington & Lee University, believes the health care bill would be perfectly legitimate even if Democrats were forced to use “deem and pass.”
“The Constitution says that each house can write its own rules. Those rules are up to Congress to adopt and they’re not going to be second-guessed by the courts,” said Tim Jost, a law professor at Washington & Lee University. “As long as there is a vote on the language of the Senate bill, however they go about doing this, then the Senate bill is adopted by the house and they’ve met the requirements of the Constitution.”
http://rawstory.com/2010/03/virginia-confirms-sue-block-health-care-reform/
22
03 2010
RUN SOLDIERS, RUN!
The ‘bravest, most moral soldiers’ in the world in action….. not a shot was fired, not a stone was hurled, yet they ran for their lives. One small victory for Palestine, One GREAT boost to it’s morale!
GO Palestine!
22
03 2010
Court Slaps Prosecutor Who Threatened Child-Porn Charges Over ‘Sexting’
“Although, it might be behavior these kids should refrain from… it’s they’re own body they are taking pictures of!! So, the government is now in charge of images you willingly take of yourself. What country are we in again? No, really? I need to be reminded sometimes.”
-Fred Face 3/22/10
- By Kim Zetter
A Pennsylvania appellate court upheld a preliminary injunction on Wednesday barring local prosecutors from filing felony child-porn charges against a teenage girl who took a partially nude photo of herself with her cellphone.
The court said prosecutors were using the threat of charges as retaliation against the teen for exercising her constitutional right to refuse a voluntary reeducation program favored by the district attorney. The court also determined it was likely the girl and her parents will succeed in a civil rights lawsuit they’ve filed against the district attorney’s office.
Last year, District Attorney George P. Skumanick, Jr., threatened to charge three teenage girls with felony child-porn violations over digital photos they took of themselves.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a federal lawsuit against Skumanick on behalf of the girls and their parents accusing Skumanick of violating the girls’ civil rights. The suit said they had a constitutionally protected right to appear in the pictures and that the threat to prosecute the minors was “unprecedented and stands anti-child-pornography laws on their head.”
The ACLU won a preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania barring the prosecutor from bringing criminal charges against the three girls, which the court granted. Skumanick appealed.
The case dates back to October 2008, when officials of the Tunkhannock School District in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, discovered that male students were trading photos on their phones of female students in various states of undress. Officials confiscated the phones and turned them over to District Attorney Skumanick.
Skumanick told an assembly of students that possessing inappropriate images of minors could get them prosecuted under state child-porn laws and, if convicted, they would face a possible seven-year sentence and a felony record. Under a state law, they would also have to register as a sex offender for 10 years and have their name and photo posted on the state-s sex-offender website.
The prosecutor also sent a letter to about 16 students — three boys and 13 girls — who either appeared in the images or were found in possession of them. In a meeting with the students and their parents, he said he would file felony charges against the students unless they agreed to six months of probation, among other terms. He gave the parents 48 hours to agree.
The parents of three girls refused to sign. Skumanick then threatened to charge the girls with producing child pornography unless their parents agreed to the probation and sent the teenagers to a five-week, 10-hour education program. The program was designed in part by the district attorney’s office to discuss why what they did was wrong and what it means to be a girl in today’s society. The girls would also have to submit to drug testing.
When one parent asked Skumanick how his daughter, who appeared in a picture wearing a bathing suit, could be charged with child porn, Skumanick responded that she was posing “provocatively,” according to court documents.
The parents of three teenaged girls balked at the threats and filed the original suit against Skumanick.
While the decision was on appeal, Skumanick determined that he would not bring criminal charges against two of the teens, so the injunction upheld this week applies only to one girl, identified as “Nancy Doe” in court documents. The girl had photographed herself outside a shower with a towel wrapped around her waist and her breasts bared.
The state law makes it a felony to possess or distribute images depicting a minor engaged in a sex act or the “lewd” depiction of genitalia or nudity that is meant to arouse or titillate. “Just depicting nudity could be considered a sex act,” Skumanick told Threat Level last year, adding that the shower photo “is child porn under the statute.”
Skumanick was voted out of office last year, but the lawsuit continues against the current district attorney’s office.
In addition to accusing prosecutors of violating the civil rights of the teens, the suit accuses the DA of violating the parents’ 14th Amendment right to direct their children’s education and upbringing by forcing the students to participate in the DA’s program. In ruling against the DA’s office, the appellate court stated the prosecutor does not have authority to “coerce parents into permitting him to impose on their children his ideas of morality and gender roles.”
The practice of taking nude or semi-nude self-portraits and distributing them via a cellphone or the internet has come to be called “sexting” and has resulted in teens being arrested in a number of states under child-porn production, distribution and possession charges.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/sexting-lawsuit
22
03 2010
False Flag Imminent?
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
March 21, 2010
Just learned that there’s a Navy-wide exercise this coming Mon. Mar. 22 and Tues. Mar. 23 during which, as currently planned, U.S. bases/ commands will be at ‘Charlie’ (C) security level on Monday and then at DELTA (D) security level on Tuesday, March 23. To the best of my knowledge, the last time we were at ‘Delta’ was the day of 9/11, then reduced not too long after 9/11 to ‘Charlie’. My understanding is that the base security levels correspond to DEFCON levels, and that Delta is very high. There’s also something strange about the lack of general alert to personnel on the base where I work, the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, Calif., about this exercise, as I’m told that other Navy bases in our Navy S.W. Region alerted their personnel to this exercise as much as a month ago, and that Navy instructions were/are for all bases to do the same, yet so far there has been no all hands alert at NPS, and I was also told that someone said they didn’t understand why there was all the ’secrecy’ surrounding the coming exercise for NPS and not elsewhere.
A Wikipedia entry on Force Protection Condition (FPCON) currently used by the Department of Defense describes FPCON CHARLIE as a situation when an instance occurs or when intelligence reports that there is terrorist activity imminent. FPCON DELTA describes a situation when a terrorist attack is taking place or has just occurred.
“The decision on what level of FPCON to implement is affected by the current threat of terrorism towards military facilities and personnel, the amount of security forces available, and current relationships between the United States and the world, which may affect the chances of an attack.”
The threat level is set by USNORTHCOM.
According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon went to an Alpha security and defense alert once news of the WTC attack was reported, and after their building was hit, they went to a Charlie level of security. This is a scale from A-Alpha to B-Beta, C-Charlie, D-Delta. See John Judge, Kean and failure on 9/11.
It should be noted that the U.S. Navy has an Anti-Terrorism Training Exercise scheduled for March 22 – 26. “Inside information is that the below exercise will go to security level ‘Delta’ on Tuesday, March 23, reportedly the first such instance since 9/11,” a second forwarded email from the same person explains.
“Exercise Solid Curtain/Citadel Shield 2010 is a single, large, Navy-wide integrated exercise designed to enhance the training and readiness of Navy security personnel to respond to threats that may happen in the real world, but is not in response to any specific threat. Loud noises may be heard and members of the surrounding community may experience changes in traffic flow. Gate access may be slowed due to Random Anti-terrorism Measures being in effect. As a part of the exercise, Force Protection Conditions may be elevated, and communications channels may be interrupted.”
“The nationwide exercise is the largest Anti-terrorism/Force Protection (AT/FP) exercise in the country,” Navy Compass reported on Friday. “It is designed to enhance the training and readiness of Naval Security Force personnel to respond to threats to installations and units, leveraging all processes security forces would implement in the event of an actual emergency.”
The following press release was issued by the U.S. Fleet Forces Command Public Affairs on March 19, 2010:
NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) — Navy shore installations and activities in the continental United States, Hawaii and Guam will participate in Exercise Solid Curtain-Citadel Shield ‘10 (SC/CS-10), an annual security training exercise coordinated by U.S. Fleet Forces Command (USFF) from March 22-26.
The weeklong security exercise is the largest anti-terrorism/force protection (AT/FP) exercise conducted nationwide. It is designed to enhance the training and readiness of Naval Security Force personnel to respond to threats to installations and units, leveraging all processes security forces would implement in the event of an actual emergency.
“Instead of having numerous smaller exercises, Exercise Solid Curtain/Citadel Shield is a single, large, integrated exercise that accurately emulates what may happen in the real world,” said Capt. Sam A. McCormick, USFF director for Fleet Anti-Terrorism.
As the Navy component for U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), USFF will also use SC/CS-10 to enhance their ability to support NORTHCOM’s Homeland Defense mission.
“Solid Curtain is mainly an operational-level training event, while Citadel Shield, conducted by Commander Naval Installation Command, will provide advance guidance for personnel involved with the individual field training exercises,” said McCormick.
SC/CS-10 will consist of more than 250 individual training events across the country, each designed to test different regional AT/FP operations. Scenarios range from events such as recognizing and countering base surveillance operations, to higher-tempo and active simulated emergencies such as small boat attacks on waterfront bases and cyber attacks on installations.
“We are really focusing on the land-sea interface at the waterfront, as well as active shooter scenarios, in light of the incident at Ft. Hood,” said McCormick.
Many communication tools will be used to keep base personnel informed about exercise security situations. Computer network alert systems will distribute messages to office computers and the “giant voice system”will be used to immediately alert people base-wide. The giant voice system is an outdoor intercom loud enough to alert anyone outside on base of a potential threat.
While disruptions to normal base and station operations will be limited, there may be times when the exercise causes increased traffic or delays in base access. Area residents may also see increased security activity associated with the exercise.
“There will be possible traffic and base access delays during the exercise; however, we have set up the exercise to minimize the impact to local communities,” said McCormick.
During the exercise, assessors will collect information and relay that data to decision makers to improve AT/FP practices and procedures in the future.
“We will have assessors here on the battle watch floor and threat working groups to look for any inconsistencies in the reporting processes and procedures,” said McCormick. “This feedback will enable us, in a training environment in a realistic scenario, to address issues that will make us more ready and prepared for any actual event.”
For more news from U.S. Fleet Forces Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/clf /.
On September 6, 2001, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) practiced for dealing with simulated hijackings of two commercial aircraft by terrorists as part of its annual training exercise called Vigilant Guardian. Vigilant Guardian is one of four major exercises that NORAD conducts each year.
“No one knew specifically that 20 people would hijack four airliners and use them for suicide attacks against major buildings,” John Arquilla, an associate professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, said after the attacks.
Prior to 9/11, the city of New York had scheduled an exercise called Tripod. The exercise was designed to test the operation of the city’s Office of Emergency Management in the event of a biological-terrorism attack. More than 1,000 Police Academy cadets and Fire Department trainees were recruited to participate. Then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the police and fire commissioners, and representatives of the FBI and FEMA were present for Tripod on the morning of September 11, 2001.
On July 7, 2005, a consultancy agency with government and police connections was running an exercise at the same times and locations of terrorist attacks in London. “At half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up right now,” Peter Power, a former Scotland Yard official working at one time with the Anti Terrorist Branch, told the BBC.
There is no indication an actual terror event will “go live” on Monday or Tuesday, but considering the above forwarded email and the fact terror events were staged at the same time as terror drills on September 11, 2001, in New York and Washington and on July 7, 2005 in London, we should be attentive over the next 48 or so hours.
http://www.infowars.com/false-flag-imminent/