13 March, 2009
11 March, 2009
Happy Birthday Jack Kerouac - March 12
Happy Birthday Jack Kerouac – 87 years born, 40 years gone
March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969
http://www.myspace.com/tikibunker
March is Jack Kerouac Birthday month at TikiBunker.
Please join us for virtual drinks and music throughout the month of March.
Send your post-Apocalyptic or Road Song requests to TikiBunker DJ, Joan d'Arc. I also accept drinking songs if they're good.
Please read a Kerouac book this month! Happy Birthday Jack!
http://www.myspace.com/bluesandhaikus
Is Israel Pushing Our Buttons?
Officials: Iran Does Not Have Key Nuclear Material
“Let there be no doubt: If there is an American war with Iran, it is a war that was made in Israel and nowhere else.” - Scott Ritter, Senior UN Weapons Inspector
Washington - Iran does not yet have any highly enriched uranium, the fuel needed to make a nuclear warhead, two top U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday, disputing a claim by an Israeli official.
U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples said Tuesday that Iran has only low-enriched uranium - which would need to be refined into highly enriched uranium before it can fuel a warhead. Neither officials said there were indications that refining has occurred.
Their comments disputed a claim made last weekend by Israel's top intelligence military official, who said Iran has crossed a technical threshold and is now capable of producing atomic weapons.
The claim made by Israeli Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin runs counter to estimates by U.S. intelligence that the earliest Iran could produce a weapon is 2010, with some analysts saying it is more likely that it is 2015.
Maples said the United States and Israel are interpreting the same facts, but arriving at different conclusions.
"The Israelis are far more concerned about it," Maples told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Continue reading at:
http://www.truthout.org/031109L
See also:
http://www.forward.com/articles/9734/
Book Review: Israel, Lobby Pushing Iran War by Scott Ritter
A former United Nations weapons inspector and leading Iraq War opponent has written a new book alleging that Jerusalem is pushing the Bush administration into war with Iran, and accusing the pro-Israel lobby of dual loyalty and “outright espionage.”
In the new book, called “Target Iran,” Scott Ritter, who served as a senior U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 and later became one of the war’s staunchest critics, argues that the United States is readying for military action against Iran, using its nuclear program as a pretext for pursuing regime change in Tehran.
“The Bush administration, with the able help of the Israeli government and the pro-Israel Lobby, has succeeded,” Ritter writes, “in exploiting the ignorance of the American people about nuclear technology and nuclear weapons so as to engender enough fear that the American public has more or less been pre-programmed to accept the notion of the need to militarily confront a nuclear armed Iran.”
Later in the book, Ritter adds: “Let there be no doubt: If there is an American war with Iran, it is a war that was made in Israel and nowhere else.”
“Let there be no doubt: If there is an American war with Iran, it is a war that was made in Israel and nowhere else.” - Scott Ritter, Senior UN Weapons Inspector
Washington - Iran does not yet have any highly enriched uranium, the fuel needed to make a nuclear warhead, two top U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday, disputing a claim by an Israeli official.
U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples said Tuesday that Iran has only low-enriched uranium - which would need to be refined into highly enriched uranium before it can fuel a warhead. Neither officials said there were indications that refining has occurred.
Their comments disputed a claim made last weekend by Israel's top intelligence military official, who said Iran has crossed a technical threshold and is now capable of producing atomic weapons.
The claim made by Israeli Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin runs counter to estimates by U.S. intelligence that the earliest Iran could produce a weapon is 2010, with some analysts saying it is more likely that it is 2015.
Maples said the United States and Israel are interpreting the same facts, but arriving at different conclusions.
"The Israelis are far more concerned about it," Maples told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Continue reading at:
http://www.truthout.org/031109L
See also:
http://www.forward.com/articles/9734/
Book Review: Israel, Lobby Pushing Iran War by Scott Ritter
A former United Nations weapons inspector and leading Iraq War opponent has written a new book alleging that Jerusalem is pushing the Bush administration into war with Iran, and accusing the pro-Israel lobby of dual loyalty and “outright espionage.”
In the new book, called “Target Iran,” Scott Ritter, who served as a senior U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 and later became one of the war’s staunchest critics, argues that the United States is readying for military action against Iran, using its nuclear program as a pretext for pursuing regime change in Tehran.
“The Bush administration, with the able help of the Israeli government and the pro-Israel Lobby, has succeeded,” Ritter writes, “in exploiting the ignorance of the American people about nuclear technology and nuclear weapons so as to engender enough fear that the American public has more or less been pre-programmed to accept the notion of the need to militarily confront a nuclear armed Iran.”
Later in the book, Ritter adds: “Let there be no doubt: If there is an American war with Iran, it is a war that was made in Israel and nowhere else.”
Czech Papers Question Whether Contaminated Baxter Vaccine Was ‘Attempt to Provoke Pandemic’
by Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.
The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.
Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 - otherwise known as the human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons on earth with a 60% kill rate - were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.
Initially, Baxter attempted to stonewall questions by invoking “trade secrets” and refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. After increased pressure they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident. This was seemingly an attempt to quickly change the story and hide the fact that the accidental contamination of a vaccine with a deadly biological agent like avian flu is virtually impossible and the only way it could have happened was by wilful gross criminal negligence.
According to a compiled translation from Czech newspaper stories, the media over there is asking tough questions about whether the contamination was part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.
“Was this just a criminal negligence or it was an attempt to provoke pandemia using vaccination against flu to spread the disease - as happened with the anti-B hepatitis vaccination with vaccines containing the HIV virus in US? - and then cash for the vaccines against H5N1 which Baxter develops? How could on Earth a virus as H5N1 come to the ordinary flu vaccines? Don’t they follow even basic precautions in the american pharma companies?” states the translation.
The fact that Baxter mixed the deadly H5N1 virus with a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses is the smoking gun. The H5N1 virus on its own has killed hundreds of people, but it is less airborne and more restricted in the ease with which it can spread. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which as everyone knows are super-airborne and easily spread, the effect is a potent, super-airbone, super deadly biological weapon.
As the Canadian Press article explains, “While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.”
There can be little doubt therefore that this was a deliberate attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus to its most potent extreme and distribute it via conventional flu vaccines to the population who would then infect others to a devastating degree as the disease went airborne.
The Canadian Press article states, “That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created,” but then claims that there is no evidence that this is what Baxter were doing, despite there being no clear explanation as to why Baxter has samples of the live avian flu virus on its premises in the first place.
However, to reiterate, the key aspect of this story is that it is virtually impossible for live avian flu virus to find its way into a vaccine by “accident”.
As health expert Mike Adams points out, “The shocking answer is that this couldn’t have been an accident. Why? Because Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) - a set of laboratory safety protocols that prevent the cross-contamination of materials.”
As explained on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosaf…):
“Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone. All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features.”
Under the BSL3 code of conduct, it is impossible for live avian flu viruses to contaminate production vaccine materials that are shipped out to vendors around the world.
This leaves only two possibilities that explain these events:
Possibility #1: Baxter isn’t following BSL3 safety guidelines or is so sloppy in following them that it can make monumental mistakes that threaten the safety of the entire human race. And if that’s the case, then why are we injecting our children with vaccines made from Baxter’s materials?
Possibility #2: A rogue employee (or an evil plot from the top management) is present at Baxter, whereby live avian flu viruses were intentionally placed into the vaccine materials in the hope that such materials might be injected into humans and set off a global bird flu pandemic.
Spreading bird flu would create an instantaneous surge of demand for bird flu vaccines. The profits that vaccine companies such as Baxter International could reap out of such a panic are astronomical.
In addition, as we have previously reported, those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Authorities in both Europe and the U.S. have openly detailed plans for martial law, quarantine and internment should a bird flu pandemic occur.
The other motivation, as we have exhaustively documented on this website for years, is the fact that elites throughout history have openly stated that they want to see a world population reduction of around 80 per cent. Shocking stories like this take the plausibility of that narrative out of the realms of conspiracy theory and into the dangerous reality of conspiracy fact.
“Baxter is acting a whole lot like a biological terrorism organization these days, sending deadly viral samples around the world. If you mail an envelope full of anthrax to your Senator, you get arrested as a terrorist. So why is Baxter — which mailed samples of a far more deadly viral strain to labs around the world — getting away with saying, essentially, “Oops?”, Adams concludes.
This is not the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses.
In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer Corporation had discovered that their injection drug, which was used by hemophiliacs, was contaminated with the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took it off the U.S. market only to dump it on the European, Asian and Latin American markets, knowingly exposing thousands, most of them children, to the live HIV virus. Government officials in France went to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally. No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in the United States.
Continue reading at prisonplanet.com
http://www.prisonplanet.com/accidental-contamination-of-vaccine-with-live-avian-flu-virus-virtually-impossible.html
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.
The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.
Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 - otherwise known as the human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons on earth with a 60% kill rate - were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.
Initially, Baxter attempted to stonewall questions by invoking “trade secrets” and refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. After increased pressure they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident. This was seemingly an attempt to quickly change the story and hide the fact that the accidental contamination of a vaccine with a deadly biological agent like avian flu is virtually impossible and the only way it could have happened was by wilful gross criminal negligence.
According to a compiled translation from Czech newspaper stories, the media over there is asking tough questions about whether the contamination was part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.
“Was this just a criminal negligence or it was an attempt to provoke pandemia using vaccination against flu to spread the disease - as happened with the anti-B hepatitis vaccination with vaccines containing the HIV virus in US? - and then cash for the vaccines against H5N1 which Baxter develops? How could on Earth a virus as H5N1 come to the ordinary flu vaccines? Don’t they follow even basic precautions in the american pharma companies?” states the translation.
The fact that Baxter mixed the deadly H5N1 virus with a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses is the smoking gun. The H5N1 virus on its own has killed hundreds of people, but it is less airborne and more restricted in the ease with which it can spread. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which as everyone knows are super-airborne and easily spread, the effect is a potent, super-airbone, super deadly biological weapon.
As the Canadian Press article explains, “While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.”
There can be little doubt therefore that this was a deliberate attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus to its most potent extreme and distribute it via conventional flu vaccines to the population who would then infect others to a devastating degree as the disease went airborne.
The Canadian Press article states, “That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created,” but then claims that there is no evidence that this is what Baxter were doing, despite there being no clear explanation as to why Baxter has samples of the live avian flu virus on its premises in the first place.
However, to reiterate, the key aspect of this story is that it is virtually impossible for live avian flu virus to find its way into a vaccine by “accident”.
As health expert Mike Adams points out, “The shocking answer is that this couldn’t have been an accident. Why? Because Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) - a set of laboratory safety protocols that prevent the cross-contamination of materials.”
As explained on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosaf…):
“Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone. All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features.”
Under the BSL3 code of conduct, it is impossible for live avian flu viruses to contaminate production vaccine materials that are shipped out to vendors around the world.
This leaves only two possibilities that explain these events:
Possibility #1: Baxter isn’t following BSL3 safety guidelines or is so sloppy in following them that it can make monumental mistakes that threaten the safety of the entire human race. And if that’s the case, then why are we injecting our children with vaccines made from Baxter’s materials?
Possibility #2: A rogue employee (or an evil plot from the top management) is present at Baxter, whereby live avian flu viruses were intentionally placed into the vaccine materials in the hope that such materials might be injected into humans and set off a global bird flu pandemic.
Spreading bird flu would create an instantaneous surge of demand for bird flu vaccines. The profits that vaccine companies such as Baxter International could reap out of such a panic are astronomical.
In addition, as we have previously reported, those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Authorities in both Europe and the U.S. have openly detailed plans for martial law, quarantine and internment should a bird flu pandemic occur.
The other motivation, as we have exhaustively documented on this website for years, is the fact that elites throughout history have openly stated that they want to see a world population reduction of around 80 per cent. Shocking stories like this take the plausibility of that narrative out of the realms of conspiracy theory and into the dangerous reality of conspiracy fact.
“Baxter is acting a whole lot like a biological terrorism organization these days, sending deadly viral samples around the world. If you mail an envelope full of anthrax to your Senator, you get arrested as a terrorist. So why is Baxter — which mailed samples of a far more deadly viral strain to labs around the world — getting away with saying, essentially, “Oops?”, Adams concludes.
This is not the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses.
In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer Corporation had discovered that their injection drug, which was used by hemophiliacs, was contaminated with the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took it off the U.S. market only to dump it on the European, Asian and Latin American markets, knowingly exposing thousands, most of them children, to the live HIV virus. Government officials in France went to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally. No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in the United States.
Continue reading at prisonplanet.com
http://www.prisonplanet.com/accidental-contamination-of-vaccine-with-live-avian-flu-virus-virtually-impossible.html
09 March, 2009
Missing From the Afghan "Surge": A Congressional Debate
. . . or any "Debate" at all . . . as Obama continues to ignore the "mandate" given him by the people.
No War = No "Surge"!
With 17,000 more troops headed for Afghanistan, this mini-documentary by Robert Greenwald's Brave New Foundation calls the Afghanistan "surge" into question.
So, if you want to "replicate the success of the surge in Iraq" in Afghanistan, it seems pretty clear that you are going to have to come to some arrangements with some armed groups that are currently considered "Taliban." If you're not talking to Taliban, you're not replicating the Iraq surge.
But another key element is missing with regard to Afghanistan that was present in 2006 to 2007 with regard to Iraq: public and Congressional debate. An escalating sequence of political events, including the Lamont Senate campaign, the recapture of the Congress by a Democratic majority, the Congressional fight in the spring of 2007 over a timetable for withdrawal - all sent a clear message to the Bush administration, the US military, the Iraqi government, Parliament and Iraqi society generally that time was running out for the US occupation, and that was a key cause of the change in policies. Even Defense Secretary Gates, while opposing a timetable for withdrawal, acknowledged that Congressional pressure was helpful in bringing about change in Iraq.
This public and Congressional pressure is missing today. President Obama has ordered more troops to Afghanistan. But while Obama administration officials have made suggestions in the direction of other elements - working to get the assistance of Iran and other neighbors, working with elements of the Taliban - the actual change we've seen so far in Afghanistan is: more troops.
If there were more pressure, the Obama administration would be moving more quickly to put these other elements in place. If there were a public and Congressional debate about an exit strategy, about a timetable for withdrawal, about blocking the Pentagon from building permanent military bases in Afghanistan, real change in US policy towards Afghanistan would be happening faster.
Robert Greenwald's Brave New Foundation is working to spark that debate. They've produced a ten-minute "mini-documentary" questioning the wisdom of sending more troops in support of the same failed policy.
Read more at:
http://www.truthout.org/030209T
No War = No "Surge"!
With 17,000 more troops headed for Afghanistan, this mini-documentary by Robert Greenwald's Brave New Foundation calls the Afghanistan "surge" into question.
So, if you want to "replicate the success of the surge in Iraq" in Afghanistan, it seems pretty clear that you are going to have to come to some arrangements with some armed groups that are currently considered "Taliban." If you're not talking to Taliban, you're not replicating the Iraq surge.
But another key element is missing with regard to Afghanistan that was present in 2006 to 2007 with regard to Iraq: public and Congressional debate. An escalating sequence of political events, including the Lamont Senate campaign, the recapture of the Congress by a Democratic majority, the Congressional fight in the spring of 2007 over a timetable for withdrawal - all sent a clear message to the Bush administration, the US military, the Iraqi government, Parliament and Iraqi society generally that time was running out for the US occupation, and that was a key cause of the change in policies. Even Defense Secretary Gates, while opposing a timetable for withdrawal, acknowledged that Congressional pressure was helpful in bringing about change in Iraq.
This public and Congressional pressure is missing today. President Obama has ordered more troops to Afghanistan. But while Obama administration officials have made suggestions in the direction of other elements - working to get the assistance of Iran and other neighbors, working with elements of the Taliban - the actual change we've seen so far in Afghanistan is: more troops.
If there were more pressure, the Obama administration would be moving more quickly to put these other elements in place. If there were a public and Congressional debate about an exit strategy, about a timetable for withdrawal, about blocking the Pentagon from building permanent military bases in Afghanistan, real change in US policy towards Afghanistan would be happening faster.
Robert Greenwald's Brave New Foundation is working to spark that debate. They've produced a ten-minute "mini-documentary" questioning the wisdom of sending more troops in support of the same failed policy.
Read more at:
http://www.truthout.org/030209T
Office of Grift Supervision?
Darrel Dochow - Office of Grift Supervision - allowed IndyMac bank to cook its books, investigators say.
The man at the center of a fraud scandal at the Treasury Department has been allowed to quietly quit and retire from his job as a government regulator, despite allegations that he allowed a bank to falsify financial records and amidst outcries from investigators who say the case shows how cozy government regulators have become with the banks and savings and loans they are supposed to be checking on.
Darrel Dochow, the West Coast regional director at the Office of Thrift Supervision (sic) who investigators say allowed IndyMac to backdate its deposits to hide its ill health, quit last Friday. Prior to his leaving, Dochow was removed from his position but remained on the government payroll while the Inspector General's Office investigates the allegations against him.
Treasury Department Inspector General Eric Thorson announced in November his office would probe how Dochow allowed the IndyMac bank to essentially cook its books, making it appear in government filings that the bank had more deposits than it really did. But Thorson's aides now say IndyMac wasn't the only institution to get such cozy assistance from the official who should have been the cop on the beat.
Read more here:
http://www.truthout.org/030809A
06 March, 2009
Ordo ab Chao
'Order out of Chaos.'
The old motto of Freemasonry. On September 11, 1990 President George H. W. Bush announced in a speech the prospective for a "new world order". Then on another 11th of September 11 years later two jets, reportedly 'hijacked' by "islamic terrorists" slammed into the World Trade Center ushering in a global "war on terror".
And just this past January 12th, Mr. Henry Kissinger penned an editorial in the International Herald Tribune (the global edition of the New York Times) titled "The Chance for a New World Order."
What was once ridiculed for years as paranoid "conspiracy talk" by the "corporate-owned" mass media is now being proposed and spoken with candor by the agents of the Fed/CIA media complex. As Mr. Kissinger writes: "The alternative to a new international order is chaos."
He explains how the "economic crisis" has made it possible and imperative for the nations of the world to unite in "common action" by creating an "international political regulatory system." According to the logic of Mr. Kissinger, since the economic world has been globalized, so should the political organization of the world, for only then can future economic instabilities be rectified. Oh yeah, similar to how the proponents of the Federal Reserve in 1913 claimed that it would "prevent Depressions".
It appears from the evidence that this current economic downfall has been orchestrated by the very same people(bankers) who are now receiving the billions/trillions in "bailout" money at the expense of the masses and the nation. This is being done as Mr. Kissinger so subtly describes in his article to create a "new world order."
"The extraordinary impact of the president-elect on the imagination of humanity is an important element in shaping a new world order." --Kissinger
Fed (Traitor) wants to keep AIG secrets
Fed vice chairman Donald Kohn said the names of AIG trading partners shouldn't be revealed. ... tells Congress he opposes unmasking the Wall Street firms that have pocketed tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout funds.
An apparent relation of Joseph McCarthy sidekick Roy Cohn's?
Let’s get pictures of all these asswipes!
The faces of these traitors SHOULD BE REVEALED!
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Officials shouldn't reveal which Wall Street firms pocketed billions of dollars in the government's bailout of AIG, a top Federal Reserve official said.
Firms that did business with the troubled insurer did so "expecting confidentiality," Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn told the Senate Banking Committee in testimony Thursday.
He said publishing a list of the firms that benefited from government support of AIG -- as lawmakers have been demanding -- could undermine trust in the markets and increase financial instability.
"I would be very concerned if we started revealing lists of names of companies that did transactions" with AIG or with the government on AIG's behalf, Kohn said in response to questions. Doing so, Kohn added, could "undermine confidence" in the financial system.
The comment was met with incredulity by senators who said the government must do a better job explaining how its actions over the past six months have benefited all Americans, and not simply troubled big companies and their trading partners. AIG has received more than $150 billion in federal aid since its brush with bankruptcy last fall.
"Public confidence in what we're doing is at stake, and the public right now is deeply deeply troubled," said committee chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn. "I understand the legal arguments you've given me, but that kind of answer undermines public trust."
Continue reading here:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/05/news/fed.transparency.fortune/index.htm
04 March, 2009
Declassified Memos Provide Look Into Bush Policies
The following story is APPALLING but not surprising to those of us who are aware that American Democracy is a SHAM, FRAUD, FAÇADE, IMITATION, JOKE, DECEPTON, COUNTERFEIT, FICTION for ENTERTAINMENT purposes only.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101389729
The Obama administration declassified nine Justice Department legal memos on Monday that asserted a sweeping view of presidential power, including authorizing the military to search Americans' homes without a warrant and sending detainees to other countries regardless of congressional statutes that might dictate otherwise.
Now civil liberties groups are pushing for the release of dozens of similar memos that remain classified.
About a month ago, the American Civil Liberties Union sent the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel a letter and a chart. The chart listed 55 classified Bush administration legal memos on national security issues. The letter basically said, "release these memos."
Some of the memos that the Justice Department declassified Monday were not even on the ACLU's list.
"So there are dozens of memos that are still secret," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security project. They include "memos that provided the basis for the national security agency's warrantless wiretapping program and memos that provided the basis for the CIA's torture program."
"Those are critical memos, and they're all still secret," he said. Jaffer knows they exist because the government has summarized or listed them in court documents.
Some secret memos have been mentioned with no description of their contents. And presumably some memoranda have never been mentioned at all. So, to paraphrase former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
Surprises in the Memos
One reason there's a lot of interest in these documents is that they could contain some surprises. For example, one memo declassified Monday is dated Oct. 23, 2001. It asserts that the military can ignore Americans' Fourth Amendment privacy rights and conduct searches against suspected terrorists without a warrant. It's a controversial claim, but the public learned about the assertion years ago in a footnote to another Justice Department document. The public did not know about a line in the same memo that said: "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully."
The Justice Department withdrew all nine of the newly released memos in January. The acting head of the office of legal counsel, Steven Bradbury, formally repudiated them five days before President Bush left office.
Duke Law Professor Chris Schroeder was acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel during the Clinton administration, and he was on the Obama administration's Justice Department transition team. He called the wholesale overturning of legal opinions such as these, "Absolutely unprecedented. I know of no comparable experience that comes remotely close."
Liberal activists say the Bush administration's last-minute about-face is evidence of how far off the rails the Justice Department went in the last eight years. Conservatives say it's a sign that things are going off the rails right now.
David Rivkin worked at the Justice Department under President Reagan and the first President Bush. He says he never would have written these legal memos, and he might have even withdrawn them, but not like this.
"In a normal environment," Rivkin says, "you gently pull it back. In an abnormal environment, you engage in recrimination, vilification, demonization and public repudiation - almost show-trial like. That's a very, very bad way to proceed."
I can think of another way to proceed, Mr. Rivkin.
A REAL TRIAL?
You may read all of the declassified memos and presumably more after they are declassified at the US Department of Justice website:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/documents/olc-memos.htm
So far on the list are the following:
Memorandum Regarding Status of Certain OLC Opinions Issued in the Aftermath of the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (01-15-2009)
Memorandum Regarding Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the "Purpose" Standard for Searches (09-25-2001)
Memorandum Regarding Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities within the United States (10-23-2001)
Memorandum Regarding Authority of the President to Suspend Certain Provisions of the ABM Treaty (11-15-2001)
Memorandum Regarding the President's Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captured Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations (03-13-2002)
Memorandum Regarding Swift Justice Authorization Act (04-08-2002)
Memorandum Regarding Determination of Enemy Belligerency and Military Detention (06-08-2002)
Memorandum Regarding Applicability of 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a) to Military Detention of United States Citizens (06-27-2002)
Memorandum Regarding October 23, 2001 OLC Opinion Addressing the Domestic Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities (10-06-2008)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101389729
The Obama administration declassified nine Justice Department legal memos on Monday that asserted a sweeping view of presidential power, including authorizing the military to search Americans' homes without a warrant and sending detainees to other countries regardless of congressional statutes that might dictate otherwise.
Now civil liberties groups are pushing for the release of dozens of similar memos that remain classified.
About a month ago, the American Civil Liberties Union sent the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel a letter and a chart. The chart listed 55 classified Bush administration legal memos on national security issues. The letter basically said, "release these memos."
Some of the memos that the Justice Department declassified Monday were not even on the ACLU's list.
"So there are dozens of memos that are still secret," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security project. They include "memos that provided the basis for the national security agency's warrantless wiretapping program and memos that provided the basis for the CIA's torture program."
"Those are critical memos, and they're all still secret," he said. Jaffer knows they exist because the government has summarized or listed them in court documents.
Some secret memos have been mentioned with no description of their contents. And presumably some memoranda have never been mentioned at all. So, to paraphrase former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
Surprises in the Memos
One reason there's a lot of interest in these documents is that they could contain some surprises. For example, one memo declassified Monday is dated Oct. 23, 2001. It asserts that the military can ignore Americans' Fourth Amendment privacy rights and conduct searches against suspected terrorists without a warrant. It's a controversial claim, but the public learned about the assertion years ago in a footnote to another Justice Department document. The public did not know about a line in the same memo that said: "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully."
The Justice Department withdrew all nine of the newly released memos in January. The acting head of the office of legal counsel, Steven Bradbury, formally repudiated them five days before President Bush left office.
Duke Law Professor Chris Schroeder was acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel during the Clinton administration, and he was on the Obama administration's Justice Department transition team. He called the wholesale overturning of legal opinions such as these, "Absolutely unprecedented. I know of no comparable experience that comes remotely close."
Liberal activists say the Bush administration's last-minute about-face is evidence of how far off the rails the Justice Department went in the last eight years. Conservatives say it's a sign that things are going off the rails right now.
David Rivkin worked at the Justice Department under President Reagan and the first President Bush. He says he never would have written these legal memos, and he might have even withdrawn them, but not like this.
"In a normal environment," Rivkin says, "you gently pull it back. In an abnormal environment, you engage in recrimination, vilification, demonization and public repudiation - almost show-trial like. That's a very, very bad way to proceed."
I can think of another way to proceed, Mr. Rivkin.
A REAL TRIAL?
You may read all of the declassified memos and presumably more after they are declassified at the US Department of Justice website:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/documents/olc-memos.htm
So far on the list are the following:
Memorandum Regarding Status of Certain OLC Opinions Issued in the Aftermath of the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (01-15-2009)
Memorandum Regarding Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the "Purpose" Standard for Searches (09-25-2001)
Memorandum Regarding Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities within the United States (10-23-2001)
Memorandum Regarding Authority of the President to Suspend Certain Provisions of the ABM Treaty (11-15-2001)
Memorandum Regarding the President's Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captured Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations (03-13-2002)
Memorandum Regarding Swift Justice Authorization Act (04-08-2002)
Memorandum Regarding Determination of Enemy Belligerency and Military Detention (06-08-2002)
Memorandum Regarding Applicability of 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a) to Military Detention of United States Citizens (06-27-2002)
Memorandum Regarding October 23, 2001 OLC Opinion Addressing the Domestic Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities (10-06-2008)
Where's Devin?
If you've wondered why I've not posted recently, it's because I am in the hospital waiting to have open heart surgery to replace two heart valves. They were damaged by a blood infection caused by an abscessed tooth! I expect to be in the hospital at least three more weeks, perhaps longer. I've already been here since Feb. 18th.
The nurse was nice enough to let me use one of their terminals.
In the meantime...eveybody take care and keep your teeth in good repair!
- Devin LaRue
The nurse was nice enough to let me use one of their terminals.
In the meantime...eveybody take care and keep your teeth in good repair!
- Devin LaRue
03 March, 2009
02 March, 2009
American policy on medical marijuana to change
Speaking at a press conference on Feb 25 with DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, and reiterating a position made by the White House following DEA raids in California on February 4, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters that ending federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries "is now American policy." The Attorney General's comments are the latest sign of a sea change in federal policy that prohibits the use of medical cannabis in the thirteen states that have enacted such laws.
25 February, 2009
Obama: Freeing up resources for more war
"the mission could outlive all of us"
He "asked" for your vote and People, he really socked it to ya.
"Hope" you're happy now.
Written by Norman Solomon, graphic by Joan d'Arc
http://www.truthout.org/022509A
Hours after President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress, The New York Times printed the news that he plans to gradually withdraw "American combat forces" from Iraq during the next 18 months. The newspaper reported that the advantages of the pullout will include "relieving the strain on the armed forces and freeing up resources for Afghanistan."
The president's speech had little to say about the plans for escalation, but the few words will come back to haunt: "With our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat Al Qaida and combat extremism, because I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world. We will not allow it."
Obama didn't mention the additional number of US troops - 17,000 - that he has just ordered to Afghanistan. But his pledge that he "will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people" and his ringing declaration, "We will not allow it," came just before this statement: "As we meet here tonight, our men and women in uniform stand watch abroad and more are readying to deploy."
Get the message? In his first speech to Congress, the new president threw down a 90-month-old gauntlet, reaffirming the notion that committing to war halfway around the world - in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan too - will make Americans safer. With drumrolls like that, the mission could outlive all of us.
And so, a colossal and fateful blunder, made by a very smart leader, arguably our best and brightest, is careening forward with the help of silence that defers all too readily to power. This is how the war in Vietnam escalated, while individuals and groups muted their voices. Many people will pay with their lives.
The reasons the war in Afghanistan cannot be won are directly connected to why the war is wrong. In essence, people do not like their country occupied for years on end, especially when the occupiers are routinely killing civilians (whatever the rationale). Monochrome words like Taliban and "terrorists" might seem tidy and clear enough as they appear in media coverage, or as they roll off a president's tongue, but in the real Afghan world the opponents of the US war are diverse and wide-ranging. With every missile strike that incinerates a household or terrorizes a village, the truly implacable "extremists" can rejoice at Uncle Sam's assistance to their recruiting efforts.
Those who are fond of talking and writing about President Obama's admirable progressive values will, sooner or later, need to come to terms with the particulars of his actual policies. In foreign affairs, the realities now include the ominous pairing of his antiterrorism rhetoric and his avowed commitment to ratchet up the US war effort in Afghanistan.
I don't often make predictions, but I'm confident about this one: Within a few years, some members of Congress, and leaders of some progressive groups with huge email lists, will look back with regret as they recall their failure to clearly and openly oppose the pivotal escalation of the Afghan war.
They could save themselves a lot of shame, and save others their lives, by speaking out sooner rather than later. In the process, they might help save the Obama presidency from running aground in Afghanistan.
Compendium
All my blogs, beginning with the most recent: "A Letter to the FBI"
Investigative (criminal politics) reporting, Satires, Poetry, Myth (translated from Blackfeet) just lots of varied and interesting reading, some paranoid for very good reasons :) The above title 'Compendium' is the link to the blog- Bookmark on arrival!!
24 February, 2009
Obama's Trilateral Connection
By Robert Eringer
February 21, 2009 12:00 AM
With spring nearly upon us, the Trilateral Commission will soon blossom into its annual conference -- scheduled for Tokyo, the weekend of April 24-26. This networking elite of politicians, bankers, industrialists and intellectuals from North America, Europe, Japan, and South Korea strives to shape foreign and economic policies of nations from behind the scenes. Who are these Commissioners -- and who commissioned them?
The notion of a tri-sphere concept, combining movers and shakers from three geographic regions, was first broached at a Bilderberg conference.
So what is Bilderberg -- and from where does it derive its authority?
It is an elite group of self-appointed global manipulators -- from North America and Europe -- who have met privately since 1954 to quietly influence governments.
Bilderberger banking bigwig David Rockefeller tapped Zbigniew Brzezinski to attend the April 1972 Bilderberg meeting in Knokke, Belgium, having taken a fancy to "Tripartite Studies" produced by the then-obscure Colombia University professor.
Appearing before Bilderbergers, Dr. Brzezinski made a pitch for inviting the Japanese into their secretive coterie on the basis that Japan had morphed into an economic powerhouse entitling it to play with the big boys. (South Korea joined that "sphere" much later.)
But the burghers of Bilderberg declined to integrate the Japanese into their own forum, a bilateral success for 22 years (by then) that had succeeded in fashioning a new order in Europe -- the Common Market and European unity. Instead, attendees sanctioned a new league and, thus, the Trilateral Commission was born.
Mr. Rockefeller and Zbiggy launched themselves through Europe and Japan on a recruiting drive.
Their "planning group" convened on July 23rd and 24th at Pocantico Hills, a Rockefeller estate overlooking the Hudson River. Mr. Rockefeller underwrote the expense from his own (deep) pocket, having discovered, decades earlier, that investing in high-level networking paid huge dividends.
With approval from "the highest political and financial circles" (an internal Commission memo), the trio selected chairmen and directors to represent each sphere of the tri.
The Commission quickly became a springboard for the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Mr. Carter, as governor of Georgia, had caught Mr. Rockefeller's eye as a potential president and, consequently, Zbiggy and Mr. Rockefeller lunched Jimmy in October 1972 at the Connaught Hotel in London, where they signed him on the spot to be a Commissioner. Jimmy also became David and Zbiggy's presidential candidate -- and the Commission bestowed him the power elite support (influence and money) he needed to "arise from nowhere."
The Trilateral Commission was not nowhere -- just nowhere (back then) to be found in the newspapers.
So Jimmy the peanut farmer got elected president in 1976, and Zbig became his national security adviser, the job he had coveted from the outset. Other Commissioners in the Carter Administration included Vice President Walter Mondale, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Defense Secretary Harold Brown and Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal -- 18 in all, from 54 original members from the American sphere.
Together, this elitist clique messed things up real good: Soaring inflation, interest rates at 20 percent, and the world chessboard a horrible mess. President Carter's poor judgment caused confusion among our allies, laughter in the Soviet Union, and led, ultimately, to the hostage crisis in Iran.
"It completely justified our belief," a former senior CIA official told The Investigator, "that left to its own devices, the power elite is fully capable of causing another world war, not unlike their predecessors last century."
The CIA descended into decline, having had to endure Stansfield Turner as its director.
Said our CIA source: "Admiral Turner was more concerned about intelligence officers abroad engaging in extra-marital affairs than Iran imploding from within. He apparently mistook our agency for a missionary group."
As if things were not bad enough, Trilateral Commissioners David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger pushed President Carter into allowing the ailing Shah of Iran into the United States, a political miscalculation that precipitated the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and the resulting hostage crisis that sealed the fate of Jimmy Carter's one-term presidency.
Mr. Rockefeller quietly bailed from the monster he'd created, putting his money behind another horse from the Commission stable: George Bush, a privileged East-coast preppie who had moved to Texas to prove his manhood in the oil biz.
But Mr. Bush lost to Ronald Reagan -- partly because the former California governor took a few jibes at "Trilateral Commission elitists" during his campaign to woo voters away from Mr. Bush in New Hampshire, where Commission membership had been whipped into a major issue just before its decisive primary.
Having enjoyed 15 minutes of fame during Jimmy Carter's presidency, the Commission then shriveled into just another think-tank opportunity for young men and women wishing entry to an international "Old Boy" network.
But now they're back!
Many of President Obama's picks for premier positions in his administration are Trilateral Commissioners (read: Beltway Establishment insiders). These include:
• Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner;
• National Security Adviser James Jones;
• Deputy National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon;
• Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair;
• State Department special envoys Richard Holbrooke. Dennis Ross, and Richard Haas;
• Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice;
• Lawrence Summers, Director of the National Economic Council;
• Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg;
• Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell;
• Paul Volcker, chairman of the Economic Recovery Committee.
(Gee, maybe President Obama will break Jimmy Carter's record?)
Ten days ago Adm. Blair clearly demonstrated how the "Old Boy" network functions: He tapped fellow Commissioner John Deutch to sit upon a spy satellite advisory panel.
Mr. Deutch, you may recall, was CIA director under Bill Clinton. "The worst director in CIA history," a former senior agency official told the The Investigator. You may also remember this: Soon after Mr. Deutch's departure from that job in 1996, he was discovered to have grossly mishandled government secrets. Mr. Deutch, it transpired, had downloaded 74 top secret documents onto four computers used at his home by other family members and connected by modem to the Internet -- on which Mr. Deutch also accessed Russian porn sites through his AOL account.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigated and produced a report to Congress stating: "Despite this knowledge (the risk of keeping secrets on un-encrypted computers), Deutch processed a large volume of highly classified information on these unclassified computers, taking no steps to restrict access to the information and thereby placing national security information at risk."
A senior CIA official privy to the classified version of the Senate Committee's report put it more bluntly for The Investigator: "Deutch allowed the Russians access to our biggest secrets."
Mr. Deutch was stripped of his security clearances. (They have now been restored.)
Anyone else would have been investigated for espionage. But an Old Boy like Mr. Deutch? Janet Reno's Justice Department worked out a gentle plea bargain. But while Mr. Deutch was in the midst of pleading guilty to a mere misdemeanor, brazen Bill, on the last day of his presidency, pardoned him, thereby vanquishing even a mild slap on the wrist for his fellow Commissioner. (Did we mention William Jefferson Clinton was a member of the Trilateral Commission when elected president in 1992?)
So excuse our suspicions about this so-called "power elite." Not because they're in charge again, but because they don't know what the heck they're doing. Conspiracy theorists yearn to believe these uber networkers rule the world. Truth is, our Beltway Establishment -- Democratic or Republican -- couldn't organize a binge in a brewery. These are the folks responsible, through negligence and profit taking, for where we are today -- ripped off by banksters and Wall Street, and Madoffs who made off.
"Obama for Change"? Maybe President Rhetoric meant spare change.
The opinions in the column are Robert Eringer's and not necessarily those of the Santa Barbara News Press. Readers may write Robert Eringer c/o the News Press. P.O. Box 1359, Santa Barbara 93102-1359.
February 21, 2009 12:00 AM
With spring nearly upon us, the Trilateral Commission will soon blossom into its annual conference -- scheduled for Tokyo, the weekend of April 24-26. This networking elite of politicians, bankers, industrialists and intellectuals from North America, Europe, Japan, and South Korea strives to shape foreign and economic policies of nations from behind the scenes. Who are these Commissioners -- and who commissioned them?
The notion of a tri-sphere concept, combining movers and shakers from three geographic regions, was first broached at a Bilderberg conference.
So what is Bilderberg -- and from where does it derive its authority?
It is an elite group of self-appointed global manipulators -- from North America and Europe -- who have met privately since 1954 to quietly influence governments.
Bilderberger banking bigwig David Rockefeller tapped Zbigniew Brzezinski to attend the April 1972 Bilderberg meeting in Knokke, Belgium, having taken a fancy to "Tripartite Studies" produced by the then-obscure Colombia University professor.
Appearing before Bilderbergers, Dr. Brzezinski made a pitch for inviting the Japanese into their secretive coterie on the basis that Japan had morphed into an economic powerhouse entitling it to play with the big boys. (South Korea joined that "sphere" much later.)
But the burghers of Bilderberg declined to integrate the Japanese into their own forum, a bilateral success for 22 years (by then) that had succeeded in fashioning a new order in Europe -- the Common Market and European unity. Instead, attendees sanctioned a new league and, thus, the Trilateral Commission was born.
Mr. Rockefeller and Zbiggy launched themselves through Europe and Japan on a recruiting drive.
Their "planning group" convened on July 23rd and 24th at Pocantico Hills, a Rockefeller estate overlooking the Hudson River. Mr. Rockefeller underwrote the expense from his own (deep) pocket, having discovered, decades earlier, that investing in high-level networking paid huge dividends.
With approval from "the highest political and financial circles" (an internal Commission memo), the trio selected chairmen and directors to represent each sphere of the tri.
The Commission quickly became a springboard for the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Mr. Carter, as governor of Georgia, had caught Mr. Rockefeller's eye as a potential president and, consequently, Zbiggy and Mr. Rockefeller lunched Jimmy in October 1972 at the Connaught Hotel in London, where they signed him on the spot to be a Commissioner. Jimmy also became David and Zbiggy's presidential candidate -- and the Commission bestowed him the power elite support (influence and money) he needed to "arise from nowhere."
The Trilateral Commission was not nowhere -- just nowhere (back then) to be found in the newspapers.
So Jimmy the peanut farmer got elected president in 1976, and Zbig became his national security adviser, the job he had coveted from the outset. Other Commissioners in the Carter Administration included Vice President Walter Mondale, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Defense Secretary Harold Brown and Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal -- 18 in all, from 54 original members from the American sphere.
Together, this elitist clique messed things up real good: Soaring inflation, interest rates at 20 percent, and the world chessboard a horrible mess. President Carter's poor judgment caused confusion among our allies, laughter in the Soviet Union, and led, ultimately, to the hostage crisis in Iran.
"It completely justified our belief," a former senior CIA official told The Investigator, "that left to its own devices, the power elite is fully capable of causing another world war, not unlike their predecessors last century."
The CIA descended into decline, having had to endure Stansfield Turner as its director.
Said our CIA source: "Admiral Turner was more concerned about intelligence officers abroad engaging in extra-marital affairs than Iran imploding from within. He apparently mistook our agency for a missionary group."
As if things were not bad enough, Trilateral Commissioners David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger pushed President Carter into allowing the ailing Shah of Iran into the United States, a political miscalculation that precipitated the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and the resulting hostage crisis that sealed the fate of Jimmy Carter's one-term presidency.
Mr. Rockefeller quietly bailed from the monster he'd created, putting his money behind another horse from the Commission stable: George Bush, a privileged East-coast preppie who had moved to Texas to prove his manhood in the oil biz.
But Mr. Bush lost to Ronald Reagan -- partly because the former California governor took a few jibes at "Trilateral Commission elitists" during his campaign to woo voters away from Mr. Bush in New Hampshire, where Commission membership had been whipped into a major issue just before its decisive primary.
Having enjoyed 15 minutes of fame during Jimmy Carter's presidency, the Commission then shriveled into just another think-tank opportunity for young men and women wishing entry to an international "Old Boy" network.
But now they're back!
Many of President Obama's picks for premier positions in his administration are Trilateral Commissioners (read: Beltway Establishment insiders). These include:
• Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner;
• National Security Adviser James Jones;
• Deputy National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon;
• Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair;
• State Department special envoys Richard Holbrooke. Dennis Ross, and Richard Haas;
• Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice;
• Lawrence Summers, Director of the National Economic Council;
• Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg;
• Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell;
• Paul Volcker, chairman of the Economic Recovery Committee.
(Gee, maybe President Obama will break Jimmy Carter's record?)
Ten days ago Adm. Blair clearly demonstrated how the "Old Boy" network functions: He tapped fellow Commissioner John Deutch to sit upon a spy satellite advisory panel.
Mr. Deutch, you may recall, was CIA director under Bill Clinton. "The worst director in CIA history," a former senior agency official told the The Investigator. You may also remember this: Soon after Mr. Deutch's departure from that job in 1996, he was discovered to have grossly mishandled government secrets. Mr. Deutch, it transpired, had downloaded 74 top secret documents onto four computers used at his home by other family members and connected by modem to the Internet -- on which Mr. Deutch also accessed Russian porn sites through his AOL account.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigated and produced a report to Congress stating: "Despite this knowledge (the risk of keeping secrets on un-encrypted computers), Deutch processed a large volume of highly classified information on these unclassified computers, taking no steps to restrict access to the information and thereby placing national security information at risk."
A senior CIA official privy to the classified version of the Senate Committee's report put it more bluntly for The Investigator: "Deutch allowed the Russians access to our biggest secrets."
Mr. Deutch was stripped of his security clearances. (They have now been restored.)
Anyone else would have been investigated for espionage. But an Old Boy like Mr. Deutch? Janet Reno's Justice Department worked out a gentle plea bargain. But while Mr. Deutch was in the midst of pleading guilty to a mere misdemeanor, brazen Bill, on the last day of his presidency, pardoned him, thereby vanquishing even a mild slap on the wrist for his fellow Commissioner. (Did we mention William Jefferson Clinton was a member of the Trilateral Commission when elected president in 1992?)
So excuse our suspicions about this so-called "power elite." Not because they're in charge again, but because they don't know what the heck they're doing. Conspiracy theorists yearn to believe these uber networkers rule the world. Truth is, our Beltway Establishment -- Democratic or Republican -- couldn't organize a binge in a brewery. These are the folks responsible, through negligence and profit taking, for where we are today -- ripped off by banksters and Wall Street, and Madoffs who made off.
"Obama for Change"? Maybe President Rhetoric meant spare change.
The opinions in the column are Robert Eringer's and not necessarily those of the Santa Barbara News Press. Readers may write Robert Eringer c/o the News Press. P.O. Box 1359, Santa Barbara 93102-1359.
23 February, 2009
Phosphorus Bombs US-Made; Raytheon Bomb Hits Gaza
White phosphorus shells traced back to U.S.. Activists call for arms embargoes on both sides.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5792182.ece
Jerusalem - Detailed evidence has emerged of Israel's extensive use of US-made weaponry during its war in Gaza last month, including white phosphorus artillery shells, 500lb bombs and Hellfire missiles.
In a report released today, Amnesty International detailed the weapons used and called for an immediate arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. It called on the Obama administration to suspend military aid to Israel.
The human rights group said that those arming both sides in the conflict "will have been well aware of a pattern of repeated misuse of weapons by both parties and must therefore take responsibility for the violations perpetrated".
The US has long been the largest arms supplier to Israel; under a current 10-year agreement negotiated by the Bush administration the US will provide $30bn (£21bn) in military aid to Israel.
"As the major supplier of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and of human rights," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa programme director. "To a large extent, Israel's military offensive in Gaza was carried out with weapons, munitions and military equipment supplied by the USA and paid for with US taxpayers' money."
For their part, Palestinian militants in Gaza were arming themselves with "unsophisticated weapons" including rockets made in Russia, Iran and China and bought from "clandestine sources", it said. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed and more than 4,000 injured during the three-week conflict. On the Israeli side 13 were killed, including three civilians. Amnesty said Israel's armed forces carried out "direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects in Gaza, and attacks which were disproportionate or indiscriminate". The Israeli military declined to comment yesterday.
Palestinian militants also fired "indiscriminate rockets" at civilians, Amnesty said. It called for an independent investigation into violations of international humanitarian law by both sides.
Amnesty researchers in Gaza found several weapon fragments after the fighting. One came from a 500lb (227kg) Mark-82 fin guided bomb, which had markings indicating parts were made by the US company Raytheon. They also found fragments of US-made white phosphorus artillery shells, marked M825 A1.
Continue reading at Guardian UK:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/23/military-aid-israel-amnesty
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5792182.ece
Jerusalem - Detailed evidence has emerged of Israel's extensive use of US-made weaponry during its war in Gaza last month, including white phosphorus artillery shells, 500lb bombs and Hellfire missiles.
In a report released today, Amnesty International detailed the weapons used and called for an immediate arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. It called on the Obama administration to suspend military aid to Israel.
The human rights group said that those arming both sides in the conflict "will have been well aware of a pattern of repeated misuse of weapons by both parties and must therefore take responsibility for the violations perpetrated".
The US has long been the largest arms supplier to Israel; under a current 10-year agreement negotiated by the Bush administration the US will provide $30bn (£21bn) in military aid to Israel.
"As the major supplier of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and of human rights," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa programme director. "To a large extent, Israel's military offensive in Gaza was carried out with weapons, munitions and military equipment supplied by the USA and paid for with US taxpayers' money."
For their part, Palestinian militants in Gaza were arming themselves with "unsophisticated weapons" including rockets made in Russia, Iran and China and bought from "clandestine sources", it said. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed and more than 4,000 injured during the three-week conflict. On the Israeli side 13 were killed, including three civilians. Amnesty said Israel's armed forces carried out "direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects in Gaza, and attacks which were disproportionate or indiscriminate". The Israeli military declined to comment yesterday.
Palestinian militants also fired "indiscriminate rockets" at civilians, Amnesty said. It called for an independent investigation into violations of international humanitarian law by both sides.
Amnesty researchers in Gaza found several weapon fragments after the fighting. One came from a 500lb (227kg) Mark-82 fin guided bomb, which had markings indicating parts were made by the US company Raytheon. They also found fragments of US-made white phosphorus artillery shells, marked M825 A1.
Continue reading at Guardian UK:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/23/military-aid-israel-amnesty
21 February, 2009
Argentina: Another Fireball Over Patagonia
Source: INFOBAE de Buenos Aires
Date: 02.20.09
Argentina: Another Argentinean Fireball in Patagonia
Witnesses to the phenomenon in Esquel and El Bolsón (Chubut Province) claim that the “night was completely lit” – it occurred last Saturday and research is ongoing to determine if it was a meteorite that entered the atmosphere and disintegrated, or if it was a UFO.
The strange “fireball” that crossed the skies over the Cordillera in Chubut between the towns of Esquel and El Bolsón is being investigated to see if it was an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) or a meteorite that entered the atmosphere and burned up before striking the ground.
The episode took place at midnight last Saturday – although it only became known today – and was seen by at least a dozen people driving along the road that links El Bolsón with Esquel.
Those who witnessed the phenomenon claimed that the dark night was almost entirely illuminated for a few seconds, leaving eyewitnesses “flabbergasted”
“On Saturday, between 23:00 and midnight, personnel on duty saw a fireball-type light,” said Ramon Lotero, second commander of the 36ths Squadron of the National Gendarmes.
“The duty officer went out to survey the vicinity, because we first thought it was a private plane, but nothing could be seen,” Lotero said in a statement reproduced by www.paginasdelsur.com.ar website. While there wasn’t much certainty about what occurred, the Air Force wasn’t able to explain it either. Lotero leaned toward the meteorite theory.
“In theory, it was a fireball. We speculated that it was a meteorite. We cannot say this but in theory we believe it was a meteorite. Had it been a small plane, it would have left some traces, and we looked for the spot where it could’ve fallen, but there was nothing there,” he added.
Drivers transiting at that time at the entrance to Esquel “also saw the same”.
The second commander estimated – based on the observations – that “the fireball” fell between El Bolsón and San Carlos de Bariloche, although he could not be more specific. “When the object was seen, Air Force personnel working at the local airport was contacted, but no further information was obtained,” Loreto pointed out.
(Translation (c) 2009. S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to INFOBAE and Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)
Date: 02.20.09
Argentina: Another Argentinean Fireball in Patagonia
Witnesses to the phenomenon in Esquel and El Bolsón (Chubut Province) claim that the “night was completely lit” – it occurred last Saturday and research is ongoing to determine if it was a meteorite that entered the atmosphere and disintegrated, or if it was a UFO.
The strange “fireball” that crossed the skies over the Cordillera in Chubut between the towns of Esquel and El Bolsón is being investigated to see if it was an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) or a meteorite that entered the atmosphere and burned up before striking the ground.
The episode took place at midnight last Saturday – although it only became known today – and was seen by at least a dozen people driving along the road that links El Bolsón with Esquel.
Those who witnessed the phenomenon claimed that the dark night was almost entirely illuminated for a few seconds, leaving eyewitnesses “flabbergasted”
“On Saturday, between 23:00 and midnight, personnel on duty saw a fireball-type light,” said Ramon Lotero, second commander of the 36ths Squadron of the National Gendarmes.
“The duty officer went out to survey the vicinity, because we first thought it was a private plane, but nothing could be seen,” Lotero said in a statement reproduced by www.paginasdelsur.com.ar website. While there wasn’t much certainty about what occurred, the Air Force wasn’t able to explain it either. Lotero leaned toward the meteorite theory.
“In theory, it was a fireball. We speculated that it was a meteorite. We cannot say this but in theory we believe it was a meteorite. Had it been a small plane, it would have left some traces, and we looked for the spot where it could’ve fallen, but there was nothing there,” he added.
Drivers transiting at that time at the entrance to Esquel “also saw the same”.
The second commander estimated – based on the observations – that “the fireball” fell between El Bolsón and San Carlos de Bariloche, although he could not be more specific. “When the object was seen, Air Force personnel working at the local airport was contacted, but no further information was obtained,” Loreto pointed out.
(Translation (c) 2009. S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to INFOBAE and Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)
20 February, 2009
FBI Finds Allen Stanford in Virginia
GET A LOAD OF THIS!
Notice how Class divisions rule treatment of crooks. He didn’t steal money. He “spooked international investors.” No “manhunt” for SIR Allen Stanford, but rather “the subject of intense speculation.”
And with what was SIR Allen Stanford “served” when he was finally caught? A glass of white wine and a filet mignon? La Dee Da. Any other crook would have been served with plastic handcuffs and a fine tasering.
This guy wasn’t even picked up. “He is making arrangements to surrender his passport …” Oh really. Here’s a guy charged with “massive ongoing fraud” and he’s free to run around clipping people’s wallets?
People, we’re through the looking glass here. The time for Revolution is HERE!
*******************************
Washington / St. John's - Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, accused of an $8 billion fraud that spooked investors around the world, was found in Virginia on Thursday and FBI agents served him with a complaint from U.S. regulators.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the Federal Bureau of Investigation had acted at the request of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and that Stanford had not been arrested. A law enforcement official said Stanford was making arrangements to surrender his passport.
The whereabouts of jet-setting, 58-year-old Stanford had been the subject of intense speculation since he failed to respond to a subpoena from the SEC to answer questions about his company's operations. Stanford has homes in the United States and the Caribbean.
The SEC filed civil charges in Dallas, Texas, on Tuesday against Stanford, two colleagues and three Stanford companies, accusing them of a "massive ongoing fraud". Earlier this week, U.S. federal agents raided Stanford Group Co offices in Miami, Houston and other U.S. cities.
Five Latin American countries have acted against Stanford businesses, and Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is monitoring a possible U.K. link after media reports that Stanford's books were audited in Britain.
Stanford was found in the area of Fredericksburg, Virginia, about 50 miles south of Washington, D.C. The fallout from the SEC charges against the financier and sports entrepreneur prompted investigations in the United States, Latin America and Europe.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that U.S. federal prosecutors were investigating whether Stanford was operating a Ponzi scheme. In a Ponzi scheme, money from new investors is used to pay earlier investors.
The SEC has accused Stanford of fraudulently selling $8 billion in certificates of deposit with impossibly high interest rates from his Antiguan affiliate, Stanford International Bank Ltd (SIB).
The scandal, emerging hard on the heels of allegations that Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff carried out a $50 billion fraud spooked international investors and sharply increased public distrust of investment plans.
In Caracas, Venezuela, the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez seized Stanford Bank Venezuela, one of the country's smallest commercial banks, to stem massive online withdrawals.
Here’s his picture:
http://www.truthout.org/022009L
Notice how Class divisions rule treatment of crooks. He didn’t steal money. He “spooked international investors.” No “manhunt” for SIR Allen Stanford, but rather “the subject of intense speculation.”
And with what was SIR Allen Stanford “served” when he was finally caught? A glass of white wine and a filet mignon? La Dee Da. Any other crook would have been served with plastic handcuffs and a fine tasering.
This guy wasn’t even picked up. “He is making arrangements to surrender his passport …” Oh really. Here’s a guy charged with “massive ongoing fraud” and he’s free to run around clipping people’s wallets?
People, we’re through the looking glass here. The time for Revolution is HERE!
*******************************
Washington / St. John's - Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, accused of an $8 billion fraud that spooked investors around the world, was found in Virginia on Thursday and FBI agents served him with a complaint from U.S. regulators.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the Federal Bureau of Investigation had acted at the request of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and that Stanford had not been arrested. A law enforcement official said Stanford was making arrangements to surrender his passport.
The whereabouts of jet-setting, 58-year-old Stanford had been the subject of intense speculation since he failed to respond to a subpoena from the SEC to answer questions about his company's operations. Stanford has homes in the United States and the Caribbean.
The SEC filed civil charges in Dallas, Texas, on Tuesday against Stanford, two colleagues and three Stanford companies, accusing them of a "massive ongoing fraud". Earlier this week, U.S. federal agents raided Stanford Group Co offices in Miami, Houston and other U.S. cities.
Five Latin American countries have acted against Stanford businesses, and Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is monitoring a possible U.K. link after media reports that Stanford's books were audited in Britain.
Stanford was found in the area of Fredericksburg, Virginia, about 50 miles south of Washington, D.C. The fallout from the SEC charges against the financier and sports entrepreneur prompted investigations in the United States, Latin America and Europe.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that U.S. federal prosecutors were investigating whether Stanford was operating a Ponzi scheme. In a Ponzi scheme, money from new investors is used to pay earlier investors.
The SEC has accused Stanford of fraudulently selling $8 billion in certificates of deposit with impossibly high interest rates from his Antiguan affiliate, Stanford International Bank Ltd (SIB).
The scandal, emerging hard on the heels of allegations that Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff carried out a $50 billion fraud spooked international investors and sharply increased public distrust of investment plans.
In Caracas, Venezuela, the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez seized Stanford Bank Venezuela, one of the country's smallest commercial banks, to stem massive online withdrawals.
Here’s his picture:
http://www.truthout.org/022009L
18 February, 2009
Meet the Ameros
The Wall Street Journal's "Market Watch" of Jan. 28, 2009 published an article by Todd "Harrison" titled: "Do We Need a North American Currency?--Uniting U.S., Canada, Mexico money could result from crisis."
http://www.marketwatch.com/search/?value=amero%20currency
What was once relegated by the Establishment as a 'conspiracy theory' is now being disseminated by the mainstream CIA media as a potential reality. The article proposes the possibility that the U.S., Canada and Mexico might coalesce their money into the 'Amero', as a consequence of the 'economic collapse'. Of course what he doesn't tell the people is that this 'crisis' is a coordinated plan intentionally impelled by the machinations of the central banking families, (just as they engineered the 1929 Great Depression) to despoil people's assets and induce social change. Mr. Harrison remarks:
"The New World Order is upon us, full of hope, promise and a fair amount of fear. The ability to combine Canadian natural resources, American ingenuity and cheap Mexican labor would allow North America to compete better on a global scale."
Just as the global central bankers united the numerous European nations into the European Union with the Euro, now they may attempt a similar scheme in North America according to the Rupert Murdoch controlled Wall Street Journal. If they succeed in implementing this hypothetical design, then the ultimate conclusion will be the transformation of America/Canada over the ensuing decades into a pervasive third-world socioeconomic environment.
http://www.marketwatch.com/search/?value=amero%20currency
What was once relegated by the Establishment as a 'conspiracy theory' is now being disseminated by the mainstream CIA media as a potential reality. The article proposes the possibility that the U.S., Canada and Mexico might coalesce their money into the 'Amero', as a consequence of the 'economic collapse'. Of course what he doesn't tell the people is that this 'crisis' is a coordinated plan intentionally impelled by the machinations of the central banking families, (just as they engineered the 1929 Great Depression) to despoil people's assets and induce social change. Mr. Harrison remarks:
"The New World Order is upon us, full of hope, promise and a fair amount of fear. The ability to combine Canadian natural resources, American ingenuity and cheap Mexican labor would allow North America to compete better on a global scale."
Just as the global central bankers united the numerous European nations into the European Union with the Euro, now they may attempt a similar scheme in North America according to the Rupert Murdoch controlled Wall Street Journal. If they succeed in implementing this hypothetical design, then the ultimate conclusion will be the transformation of America/Canada over the ensuing decades into a pervasive third-world socioeconomic environment.
17 February, 2009
The Word of Rahm
In 2006 Rahm Emanuel,(the name "rahm" means 'high' or 'lofty') now Chief of Staff of President Obama, and some dweeb named Bruce Reed co-authored a book titled: "The Plan: Big Ideas For America". These are the "ideological brains" behind Obama, who are the appointed messengers of the Federal Reserve banking families chosen to relay their sociopolitical injunctions to Obama.
Their inane book is rife with mawkish utopianism and cornball idealism. They write: "We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, all Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparations and community service."
This is intended to become their civilian 'thought police', who after completing their mandatory service will be conditionally commissioned to monitor the populace for any 'terrorist' ideas or statements hostile to the State. As Mr. "Emanuel" remarks on pg. 61: "We have no problem with spying on terrorists, here or elsewhere." Oh that's good to know Rahm, of course 'terrorist' is a subjective word, dependent upon who is in power and whom they consider to be 'enemies of the state'. According to these pseudo-communists like Rahm, a terrorist would be anyone who vociferates or protests against their government.
These Machiavellian operators then go on to write: "The United States needs to establish a first-class domestic counter terrorism force. A new Domestic Defense Division that would resemble Britain's successful domestic counter terrorism agency MI5. The sole mission would be to prevent and preempt terrorism at home." Oh yeah, I can imagine how they are going to 'preempt' terrorism--by shooting missiles from drone planes upon American citizens just like they do to the innocent people of Pakistan.
Their inane book is rife with mawkish utopianism and cornball idealism. They write: "We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, all Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparations and community service."
This is intended to become their civilian 'thought police', who after completing their mandatory service will be conditionally commissioned to monitor the populace for any 'terrorist' ideas or statements hostile to the State. As Mr. "Emanuel" remarks on pg. 61: "We have no problem with spying on terrorists, here or elsewhere." Oh that's good to know Rahm, of course 'terrorist' is a subjective word, dependent upon who is in power and whom they consider to be 'enemies of the state'. According to these pseudo-communists like Rahm, a terrorist would be anyone who vociferates or protests against their government.
These Machiavellian operators then go on to write: "The United States needs to establish a first-class domestic counter terrorism force. A new Domestic Defense Division that would resemble Britain's successful domestic counter terrorism agency MI5. The sole mission would be to prevent and preempt terrorism at home." Oh yeah, I can imagine how they are going to 'preempt' terrorism--by shooting missiles from drone planes upon American citizens just like they do to the innocent people of Pakistan.
Eliot Spitzer's lawsuit against Glaxo-Smith-Kline
Interesting. I just came upon this by accident.
What happened to this lawsuit after Eliot Spitzer was “taken out”?
Did it get dropped? Anyone know?
Glaxo faces criminal action in Britain over ‘suicide’ pills
Paul Durman and Dominic Rushe
GLAXO SMITH KLINE is facing a potential criminal prosecution for allegedly failing to inform British health regulators about the suicide risks associated with Seroxat, its blockbuster anti-depressant.
Officials at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) launched an investigation into Glaxo because of concerns that Britain’s biggest pharmaceutical group had withheld important data from clinical trials.
This showed that Seroxat could cause an increased risk of suicide and “self-harm” if prescribed to depressed teenagers.
The MHRA and the Committee on Safety of Medicines only received full details of the trials in May last year. Within two weeks, the MHRA announced a ban on giving Seroxat to children under 18 — the first regulator in the world to take such a step. Shortly afterwards, the US Food and Drug Administration issued similar, though less categorical, advice to doctors.
The MHRA investigation is expected to report its findings shortly. This weekend the MHRA said it “treats very seriously any failure to comply with the law. Last year, the MHRA announced that it would investigate Glaxo to make sure the company had complied with its legal obligations under UK and European law.” Drug companies are obliged to report new evidence that changes the balance of risks and benefits of using their products.
Depending on its findings, the MHRA could choose to prosecute either Glaxo as a company or go after named individuals. If found guilty, the penalties could include fines or imprisonment.
The MHRA action comes when Glaxo is still reeling from allegations last week that it had “engaged in repeated and persistent fraud by misrepresenting, concealing and otherwise failing to disclose” important information about the safety and efficacy of Seroxat, which is known as Paxil in America. The company must defend itself against a lawsuit from Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney-general who first came to prominence after taking on the abuses of Wall Street banks during the technology boom.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/article441644.ece
These are all 2004 news reports! What happened to this lawsuit?
http://www.youclaim.co.uk/Personal_Injury_News.asp?spid=143
I can't find anything newer than 2004 on this story! What happened to it? The trail has gone as cold as Eliot Spitzer!
What happened to this lawsuit after Eliot Spitzer was “taken out”?
Did it get dropped? Anyone know?
Glaxo faces criminal action in Britain over ‘suicide’ pills
Paul Durman and Dominic Rushe
GLAXO SMITH KLINE is facing a potential criminal prosecution for allegedly failing to inform British health regulators about the suicide risks associated with Seroxat, its blockbuster anti-depressant.
Officials at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) launched an investigation into Glaxo because of concerns that Britain’s biggest pharmaceutical group had withheld important data from clinical trials.
This showed that Seroxat could cause an increased risk of suicide and “self-harm” if prescribed to depressed teenagers.
The MHRA and the Committee on Safety of Medicines only received full details of the trials in May last year. Within two weeks, the MHRA announced a ban on giving Seroxat to children under 18 — the first regulator in the world to take such a step. Shortly afterwards, the US Food and Drug Administration issued similar, though less categorical, advice to doctors.
The MHRA investigation is expected to report its findings shortly. This weekend the MHRA said it “treats very seriously any failure to comply with the law. Last year, the MHRA announced that it would investigate Glaxo to make sure the company had complied with its legal obligations under UK and European law.” Drug companies are obliged to report new evidence that changes the balance of risks and benefits of using their products.
Depending on its findings, the MHRA could choose to prosecute either Glaxo as a company or go after named individuals. If found guilty, the penalties could include fines or imprisonment.
The MHRA action comes when Glaxo is still reeling from allegations last week that it had “engaged in repeated and persistent fraud by misrepresenting, concealing and otherwise failing to disclose” important information about the safety and efficacy of Seroxat, which is known as Paxil in America. The company must defend itself against a lawsuit from Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney-general who first came to prominence after taking on the abuses of Wall Street banks during the technology boom.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/article441644.ece
These are all 2004 news reports! What happened to this lawsuit?
http://www.youclaim.co.uk/Personal_Injury_News.asp?spid=143
I can't find anything newer than 2004 on this story! What happened to it? The trail has gone as cold as Eliot Spitzer!
"To Catch a Cheney"
by: Jeff Cohen, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
I have a plan to get NBC out of last place in the ratings. I'm promising blockbuster audience and international buzz. As a once disgruntled ex-employee, I now just want to be positive and help NBC, which needs all the free advice it can get.
Here's my idea: A series of NBC News prime-time specials featuring spectacular ambushes of big-time criminals lured into what they expect to be pleasurable surroundings. But, with hidden cameras whirring, the startled villain is dramatically confronted with the evidence of his massive crimes as millions of viewers look on in scorn and righteous amusement.
If it sounds familiar, it's because NBC News has scored huge ratings with its "To Catch a Predator" sleaze-fest - in which potential sex offenders by the bushel were lured via the Internet to what they thought would be sex with kids and instead got caught by NBC cameras and cops in hiding.
But my proposal doesn't involve sex abusers. I'm talking about men who've launched illegal war, mass murder, torture, dictatorship. And they're household names.
[. . . ]
To lure Dick Cheney from his undisclosed location, NBC's "To Catch a War Criminal" producers could pretend to be booking "Meet the Press." Cheney has been as comfy on that show as Alec Baldwin on "Saturday Night Live." It came out under oath in the Scooter Libby trial that Vice President Cheney's office viewed "Meet the Press" as "our best format," a program in which Cheney could "control the message." Putting him on that show, testified his communications chief, "was a tactic we used often."
It was on "Meet the Press" after 9/11 that Cheney warned: "We have to work the dark side, if you will. We're going to spend time in the shadows."
Read more at trouthout.org
http://www.truthout.org/021709B
I have a plan to get NBC out of last place in the ratings. I'm promising blockbuster audience and international buzz. As a once disgruntled ex-employee, I now just want to be positive and help NBC, which needs all the free advice it can get.
Here's my idea: A series of NBC News prime-time specials featuring spectacular ambushes of big-time criminals lured into what they expect to be pleasurable surroundings. But, with hidden cameras whirring, the startled villain is dramatically confronted with the evidence of his massive crimes as millions of viewers look on in scorn and righteous amusement.
If it sounds familiar, it's because NBC News has scored huge ratings with its "To Catch a Predator" sleaze-fest - in which potential sex offenders by the bushel were lured via the Internet to what they thought would be sex with kids and instead got caught by NBC cameras and cops in hiding.
But my proposal doesn't involve sex abusers. I'm talking about men who've launched illegal war, mass murder, torture, dictatorship. And they're household names.
[. . . ]
To lure Dick Cheney from his undisclosed location, NBC's "To Catch a War Criminal" producers could pretend to be booking "Meet the Press." Cheney has been as comfy on that show as Alec Baldwin on "Saturday Night Live." It came out under oath in the Scooter Libby trial that Vice President Cheney's office viewed "Meet the Press" as "our best format," a program in which Cheney could "control the message." Putting him on that show, testified his communications chief, "was a tactic we used often."
It was on "Meet the Press" after 9/11 that Cheney warned: "We have to work the dark side, if you will. We're going to spend time in the shadows."
Read more at trouthout.org
http://www.truthout.org/021709B
16 February, 2009
On Marilyn, the Illuminati, and the Father of Our Country
By Robert Eringer
February 14, 2009 12:00 AM
On Presidents Day we think mostly of George Washington, whom conspiracy theorists link to membership in the Illuminati. If you don't know about the Illuminati, you will this May, when the movie "Angels & Demons" (sequel to "The Da Vinci Code") is released. That version will come equipped with a great deal of hype.
Here's all you need to know:
The Illuminati was an anti-royal, anti-clerical secret society founded in Bavaria on May 1, 1776, by a disgruntled ex-Freemason named Adam Weishaupt, who envisioned a utopian super-state devoid of monarchs, clergymen and landowners.
Needless to say, monarchs, clergymen and landowners were not amused. They outlawed Illuminati membership in 1785 and drove it underground, where it organized the French Revolution, which toppled, well, the French monarch, the Church of France, and wealthy landowners.
Nearly a half-century later, a Yale University student named William Huntington Russell spent two semesters in Germany on a college exchange program and discovered the Illuminist occultism, which so entranced him, he took it home to New Haven, Conn. -- and created an American chapter: Skull & Bones. The mystic Bones number 322 derives from its year of incorporation (1832) as the Russell Trust Association, and its status as the second chapter (2) of the Illuminati. In 2004, two Yale "Bonesmen," George W. Bush and John Kerry, squared off for the U.S. presidency, setting conspiracy buffs atwitter.
"I suspect whatever bond exists among Skull & Bones members at school dissipates rapidly after graduation," a former senior CIA official told The Investigator."Far more dangerous to our country is the class system whereby graduates from Harvard and Yale and a few other top schools consider themselves some kind of ruling elite. Our new president, by the way, shares this elitism."
George Washington was not an Illuminist; he was a fervent Freemason, inducted as an "Entered Apprentice" into the "Craft" on November 4, 1752 (aged 21) at Masonic Lodge No. 4 in Fredericksburg, Va. From the White House to the Capitol Building and beyond, President Washington constructed the "Federal City" named after him to Masonic code, utilizing Masonic ritual and regalia at the laying of cornerstones -- a subject Dan Brown, author of "The Da Vinci Code," is expected to tackle in his next novel.
Radical rightists and lunatic leftists perceive a formal evolution of the Illuminati into the Round Table groups of the late 1800s, and the founding of (the UK) Chatham House and its American counterpart, the Council on Foreign Relations -- up to the Bilderberg Group and its better known spin-off, The Trilateral Commission. They subscribe to a belief that most everything that happens of any global significance -- assassinations, wars, 9/11, even hurricanes -- is part of a carefully choreographed grand design to form a single world government that would maintain control over everyone.
This school of thought (in this case, elementary school) in the 1970s produced two colorful conspiracy theorists: Peter Beter and Mae Brussell. Dr. Beter, a former Import-Export bank official, worked himself into weekly frenzies about "Soviet nuclear warheads buried in U.S. coastal waters!" He even provided precise longitudes and latitudes of every concealed warhead. A lake in West Virginia was cited -- and a panicked sheriff named Harley Mooney actually had it drained. Oops. No nuclear warhead.
"Darn Soviets," said Dr. Beter. "They moved it."
He also railed about "robotoids and automatons." In particular, Henry Kissinger, he claimed, had been replaced by a Soviet robotoid.
Three thousand miles away, in Carmel, Mae Brussell used her Sunday evening radio program to weave a vast web of conspiracy and intrigue around "The Gemstone File," which neatly tied everything from the assassination of JFK through Watergate to the late Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. The Gemstone File never won a Pulitzer, but it found a widespread underground audience and, circulated by photocopy, became a cult classic.
Both Dr. Beter and Ms. Brussell are no longer among us. A Brit named David Icke now holds their torch. He has propelled the so-called "Illuminati Conspiracy" to new heights, proclaiming that most world leaders are "hybrid reptilians" disguised as humans.
When it comes to Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, and Robert Mugabe, we are inclined to believe him.
While on the subject of conspiracy theories, this being Valentine's Day, think of Marilyn Monroe. Almost every man who met Marilyn fell in love with her. And she fell in love with a number of men -- and married a few of them, including baseball great Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller. Flirting with danger, she also fell in love with two married men: the Kennedy brothers -- first President JFK, then Bobby, the Attorney General.
To the President, Marilyn was just one in a series of bombshell actresses -- including Jayne Mansfield and Angie Dickenson -- who helped him relieve the pain of a damaged spine; Marilyn must have realized this, so she allowed JFK to pawn her off on his younger brother. Bobby she fell for, inferring from their pillow talk that he would divorce his wife Ethel and marry her. Soon, Marilyn's incessant, pesky phone calls to the Attorney General's office convinced Bobby that he had to terminate the affair.
Peter Lawford -- the British actor, Marilyn pal and Kennedy-in-law -- was consigned to convey the caddish communiquè.
Marilyn went bananas. She told Mr. Lawford that she would go public, maybe call a press conference. This would be part revenge for the fraternal double-whammy, and part calculation/rationalization that if Ethel learned of the affair, she would surely dump her husband and clear the deck for Bobby to do what Marilyn believed he truly wanted.
Mr. Lawford freaked and reported Marilyn's frame of mind to Bobby.
What happened next remains a mystery. But Marilyn Monroe was dead within a few days.
Some say she died from a self-administered drug overdose. Others say the overdose was assisted.
But one intelligence source we know suggests that an injection of a tiny amount of pure nicotine in the anus has the result of killing someone without leaving a mark.
We're still trying to get to the bottom of this.
The opinions in this column are Robert Eringer's and not necessarily those of the Santa Barbara News Press. If you have a story idea for The Investigator, contact him at eringer33@aol.com. State if your query is confidential.
February 14, 2009 12:00 AM
On Presidents Day we think mostly of George Washington, whom conspiracy theorists link to membership in the Illuminati. If you don't know about the Illuminati, you will this May, when the movie "Angels & Demons" (sequel to "The Da Vinci Code") is released. That version will come equipped with a great deal of hype.
Here's all you need to know:
The Illuminati was an anti-royal, anti-clerical secret society founded in Bavaria on May 1, 1776, by a disgruntled ex-Freemason named Adam Weishaupt, who envisioned a utopian super-state devoid of monarchs, clergymen and landowners.
Needless to say, monarchs, clergymen and landowners were not amused. They outlawed Illuminati membership in 1785 and drove it underground, where it organized the French Revolution, which toppled, well, the French monarch, the Church of France, and wealthy landowners.
Nearly a half-century later, a Yale University student named William Huntington Russell spent two semesters in Germany on a college exchange program and discovered the Illuminist occultism, which so entranced him, he took it home to New Haven, Conn. -- and created an American chapter: Skull & Bones. The mystic Bones number 322 derives from its year of incorporation (1832) as the Russell Trust Association, and its status as the second chapter (2) of the Illuminati. In 2004, two Yale "Bonesmen," George W. Bush and John Kerry, squared off for the U.S. presidency, setting conspiracy buffs atwitter.
"I suspect whatever bond exists among Skull & Bones members at school dissipates rapidly after graduation," a former senior CIA official told The Investigator."Far more dangerous to our country is the class system whereby graduates from Harvard and Yale and a few other top schools consider themselves some kind of ruling elite. Our new president, by the way, shares this elitism."
George Washington was not an Illuminist; he was a fervent Freemason, inducted as an "Entered Apprentice" into the "Craft" on November 4, 1752 (aged 21) at Masonic Lodge No. 4 in Fredericksburg, Va. From the White House to the Capitol Building and beyond, President Washington constructed the "Federal City" named after him to Masonic code, utilizing Masonic ritual and regalia at the laying of cornerstones -- a subject Dan Brown, author of "The Da Vinci Code," is expected to tackle in his next novel.
Radical rightists and lunatic leftists perceive a formal evolution of the Illuminati into the Round Table groups of the late 1800s, and the founding of (the UK) Chatham House and its American counterpart, the Council on Foreign Relations -- up to the Bilderberg Group and its better known spin-off, The Trilateral Commission. They subscribe to a belief that most everything that happens of any global significance -- assassinations, wars, 9/11, even hurricanes -- is part of a carefully choreographed grand design to form a single world government that would maintain control over everyone.
This school of thought (in this case, elementary school) in the 1970s produced two colorful conspiracy theorists: Peter Beter and Mae Brussell. Dr. Beter, a former Import-Export bank official, worked himself into weekly frenzies about "Soviet nuclear warheads buried in U.S. coastal waters!" He even provided precise longitudes and latitudes of every concealed warhead. A lake in West Virginia was cited -- and a panicked sheriff named Harley Mooney actually had it drained. Oops. No nuclear warhead.
"Darn Soviets," said Dr. Beter. "They moved it."
He also railed about "robotoids and automatons." In particular, Henry Kissinger, he claimed, had been replaced by a Soviet robotoid.
Three thousand miles away, in Carmel, Mae Brussell used her Sunday evening radio program to weave a vast web of conspiracy and intrigue around "The Gemstone File," which neatly tied everything from the assassination of JFK through Watergate to the late Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. The Gemstone File never won a Pulitzer, but it found a widespread underground audience and, circulated by photocopy, became a cult classic.
Both Dr. Beter and Ms. Brussell are no longer among us. A Brit named David Icke now holds their torch. He has propelled the so-called "Illuminati Conspiracy" to new heights, proclaiming that most world leaders are "hybrid reptilians" disguised as humans.
When it comes to Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, and Robert Mugabe, we are inclined to believe him.
While on the subject of conspiracy theories, this being Valentine's Day, think of Marilyn Monroe. Almost every man who met Marilyn fell in love with her. And she fell in love with a number of men -- and married a few of them, including baseball great Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller. Flirting with danger, she also fell in love with two married men: the Kennedy brothers -- first President JFK, then Bobby, the Attorney General.
To the President, Marilyn was just one in a series of bombshell actresses -- including Jayne Mansfield and Angie Dickenson -- who helped him relieve the pain of a damaged spine; Marilyn must have realized this, so she allowed JFK to pawn her off on his younger brother. Bobby she fell for, inferring from their pillow talk that he would divorce his wife Ethel and marry her. Soon, Marilyn's incessant, pesky phone calls to the Attorney General's office convinced Bobby that he had to terminate the affair.
Peter Lawford -- the British actor, Marilyn pal and Kennedy-in-law -- was consigned to convey the caddish communiquè.
Marilyn went bananas. She told Mr. Lawford that she would go public, maybe call a press conference. This would be part revenge for the fraternal double-whammy, and part calculation/rationalization that if Ethel learned of the affair, she would surely dump her husband and clear the deck for Bobby to do what Marilyn believed he truly wanted.
Mr. Lawford freaked and reported Marilyn's frame of mind to Bobby.
What happened next remains a mystery. But Marilyn Monroe was dead within a few days.
Some say she died from a self-administered drug overdose. Others say the overdose was assisted.
But one intelligence source we know suggests that an injection of a tiny amount of pure nicotine in the anus has the result of killing someone without leaving a mark.
We're still trying to get to the bottom of this.
The opinions in this column are Robert Eringer's and not necessarily those of the Santa Barbara News Press. If you have a story idea for The Investigator, contact him at eringer33@aol.com. State if your query is confidential.
Obama’s Masonic Inauguration
Who is this handsome gentleman?
Go on over to this website and find out!
Read about Obama’s ritual Masonic Inauguration.
“Meet the New Boss, the Same as the Old Boss”
http://darkmission.blogspot.com/
And have a great time.
Don’t forget to come back now, ya’ll hear?
Go on over to this website and find out!
Read about Obama’s ritual Masonic Inauguration.
“Meet the New Boss, the Same as the Old Boss”
http://darkmission.blogspot.com/
And have a great time.
Don’t forget to come back now, ya’ll hear?
15 February, 2009
Ezekiel Emanuel White House Health Care Policy Advisor
Obama! Kill Me Now!
Is dying a right, or a preference over the miserable state of life?
I have wondered when physician assisted suicide will begin to play a major role as the world goes down the dung hole. Here it is, in no time at all, the role of physician assisted suicide has come to the foreground with the appointment of Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emanuel’s brother, as “White House Health Care Policy Advisor.”
How far from "I'm depressed, I don't want to live" is
"I'm poor, I can't afford to live"?
From Wikipedia:
Dr. Ezekiel "Zeke" J. Emanuel (1957-) is a NIH bioethicist, a leading opponent of state-assisted suicide, and a proponent of a Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan (GHAP).
Ezekiel is the son of Dr. Benjamin M. Emanuel, a former member of the Zionist militant organization Irgun, and a Chicago pediatrician.
His brothers are White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a former Democratic US Representative and Hollywood-based superagent Ari Emanuel.[1] He has an adopted sister, Shoshanna.
From
Whose Right to Die? By EMANUEL EZEKIEL
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/euthanasia/eu0007.html
The empirical studies of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in the Netherlands (where the practices have long been accepted), the United States, and elsewhere indicate that pain plays a minor role in motivating requests for the procedures. A 1996 update of the comprehensive and rigorous 1991 Remmelink Report on euthanasia practices in the Netherlands revealed that in only 32 percent of all cases did pain play any role in requests for euthanasia; indeed, pain was the sole reason for requesting euthanasia in no cases. A study of patients in nursing homes in the Netherlands revealed that pain was among the reasons for requesting physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia in only 29 percent of cases and was the main reason in only 11 percent. A study of physicians in Washington State who admitted to having received requests for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia revealed that severe pain played a role in only about a third of the requests.
A study of HIV-infected patients in New York found that interest in physician-assisted suicide was not associated with patients' experiencing pain or with pain-related limitations on function. My own recent study of cancer patients, conducted in Boston, reveals that those with pain are more likely than others to oppose physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. These patients are also more likely to say that they would ask to change doctors if their attending physician indicated that he or she had performed physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. No study has ever shown that pain plays a major role in motivating patient requests for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.
What does motivate requests? According to studies, depression and general psychological distress. The Remmelink Report found that among Dutch patients the leading reason for requesting euthanasia was a perceived loss of dignity. The study of Washington State physicians found that the leading factors driving requests were fear of a loss of control or of dignity, of being a burden, and of being dependent. Among the New York HIV-infected patients the leading factors were depression, hopelessness, and having few — and poor-quality — social supports. In my own study, patients who were depressed were most likely to discuss euthanasia seriously, to hoard drugs for suicide, and to have read Final Exit, the Hemlock Society suicide manual.
Send your euthanasia request to the White House at obama.barack@fcboe.org:
Dear Barack,
I see that you have hired good ole Rahmmie's brother as your Health Care Policy Advisor.
I am poor. I can't afford to live.
OBAMA, Please KILL ME NOW!
Please write on the subject line:
OBAMA! KILL ME NOW!
Is dying a right, or a preference over the miserable state of life?
I have wondered when physician assisted suicide will begin to play a major role as the world goes down the dung hole. Here it is, in no time at all, the role of physician assisted suicide has come to the foreground with the appointment of Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emanuel’s brother, as “White House Health Care Policy Advisor.”
How far from "I'm depressed, I don't want to live" is
"I'm poor, I can't afford to live"?
From Wikipedia:
Dr. Ezekiel "Zeke" J. Emanuel (1957-) is a NIH bioethicist, a leading opponent of state-assisted suicide, and a proponent of a Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan (GHAP).
Ezekiel is the son of Dr. Benjamin M. Emanuel, a former member of the Zionist militant organization Irgun, and a Chicago pediatrician.
His brothers are White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a former Democratic US Representative and Hollywood-based superagent Ari Emanuel.[1] He has an adopted sister, Shoshanna.
From
Whose Right to Die? By EMANUEL EZEKIEL
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/euthanasia/eu0007.html
The empirical studies of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in the Netherlands (where the practices have long been accepted), the United States, and elsewhere indicate that pain plays a minor role in motivating requests for the procedures. A 1996 update of the comprehensive and rigorous 1991 Remmelink Report on euthanasia practices in the Netherlands revealed that in only 32 percent of all cases did pain play any role in requests for euthanasia; indeed, pain was the sole reason for requesting euthanasia in no cases. A study of patients in nursing homes in the Netherlands revealed that pain was among the reasons for requesting physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia in only 29 percent of cases and was the main reason in only 11 percent. A study of physicians in Washington State who admitted to having received requests for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia revealed that severe pain played a role in only about a third of the requests.
A study of HIV-infected patients in New York found that interest in physician-assisted suicide was not associated with patients' experiencing pain or with pain-related limitations on function. My own recent study of cancer patients, conducted in Boston, reveals that those with pain are more likely than others to oppose physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. These patients are also more likely to say that they would ask to change doctors if their attending physician indicated that he or she had performed physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. No study has ever shown that pain plays a major role in motivating patient requests for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.
What does motivate requests? According to studies, depression and general psychological distress. The Remmelink Report found that among Dutch patients the leading reason for requesting euthanasia was a perceived loss of dignity. The study of Washington State physicians found that the leading factors driving requests were fear of a loss of control or of dignity, of being a burden, and of being dependent. Among the New York HIV-infected patients the leading factors were depression, hopelessness, and having few — and poor-quality — social supports. In my own study, patients who were depressed were most likely to discuss euthanasia seriously, to hoard drugs for suicide, and to have read Final Exit, the Hemlock Society suicide manual.
Send your euthanasia request to the White House at obama.barack@fcboe.org:
Dear Barack,
I see that you have hired good ole Rahmmie's brother as your Health Care Policy Advisor.
I am poor. I can't afford to live.
OBAMA, Please KILL ME NOW!
Please write on the subject line:
OBAMA! KILL ME NOW!
Gaza: A wider view (the final update)
The finished essay with a final updated 'Orwellian Notes' for 15 February 2009 (title is link to article) by penucquem
13 February, 2009
Planet X Researcher Andy Lloyd does Roma!
“Mr. and Mrs. Darkstar” take Planet X to the Vatican!
"I think it's fair to say that conferences on the subject of 'Planet X' are a rare event. I was honoured to be asked to speak at this conference in Rome, but I was also a little sceptical about how many delegates would attend. I have several pages on the Dark Star website already translated into Italian, thanks to my friend Mattia. Even so, would that be sufficient to fill a conference hall full of people whose language I did not even share?
[....]
I set out six scenarios for the timing of Nibiru - two of them related to Zecharia Sitchin's original work, two of them related to my research, and the other two about 2003 and 2012. I tried to stick to the facts as much as possible, and stay neutral. I hope I achieved that, but I can't imagine that the talk was easy listening for the many delegates who were already convinced that the world will end in 3 years time. Still, that's what conferences are all about - to bring together an eclectic mix of opinions and research. It would be easy for me to go along with the current morbid interest in 2012 with a confirmatory nod - I'm sure my book sales and media exposure would climb as a result! But, at the end of the day, I don't think that the 2012 'event' will be catastrophic. At least, I don't think there is enough evidence to suggest this scenario."
See the details of "The Return of Planet X" conference at:
http://www.darkstar1.co.uk/roma.html
Taliban War Treasure – US Military Computers!
There is no way for the Powerful Oz to “win” this war.
Two empires have gone down before it.
U.S. IMPERIALISTS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN!
You are chasing a “shadow” – leave it alone. We all know the secret now. Osama bin Laden is already dead. You can stop the show now.
***************
The US Struggle to Keep the Taliban From Stealing What's Inside This Box
Wednesday 11 February 2009
by: Shahan Mufti, GlobalPost
Peshawar, Pakistan - Throughout the ages, this ancient Silk Road town near the border of Afghanistan has been the place where the black market thrives and the military spoils of empires are hawked openly.
Here in the storefronts you can still buy antique field rifles left over from the British presence of the 19th century and find uniforms and revolvers from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Now the shops in this industrial rim of Peshawar are filling with military equipment and computers looted from the most recent empire to bog down in this hostile and impenetrable terrain: the United States of America.
In the age of computerized high-tech warfare, it is not just American hardware available on the black market. Now there is also vital technology and information up for grabs and - as military officials here and in the U.S. fear - leaking into the wrong hands in this region where the Taliban and elements of Al Qaeda have a known presence.
I was recently able to purchase a U.S. military laptop for $650 from a small kiosk, which is known as the "Sitara Market," on the western edge of the sprawling open-air markets on the edge of Peshawar.
The laptop, which has clear U.S. military markings and serial numbers, contained restricted U.S. military information, as well as software for military platforms, the identities of numerous military personnel and information about weaknesses and flaws in American military vehicles being employed in the war in Afghanistan.
Continue reading at:
http://www.truthout.org/021209A
Two empires have gone down before it.
U.S. IMPERIALISTS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN!
You are chasing a “shadow” – leave it alone. We all know the secret now. Osama bin Laden is already dead. You can stop the show now.
***************
The US Struggle to Keep the Taliban From Stealing What's Inside This Box
Wednesday 11 February 2009
by: Shahan Mufti, GlobalPost
Peshawar, Pakistan - Throughout the ages, this ancient Silk Road town near the border of Afghanistan has been the place where the black market thrives and the military spoils of empires are hawked openly.
Here in the storefronts you can still buy antique field rifles left over from the British presence of the 19th century and find uniforms and revolvers from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Now the shops in this industrial rim of Peshawar are filling with military equipment and computers looted from the most recent empire to bog down in this hostile and impenetrable terrain: the United States of America.
In the age of computerized high-tech warfare, it is not just American hardware available on the black market. Now there is also vital technology and information up for grabs and - as military officials here and in the U.S. fear - leaking into the wrong hands in this region where the Taliban and elements of Al Qaeda have a known presence.
I was recently able to purchase a U.S. military laptop for $650 from a small kiosk, which is known as the "Sitara Market," on the western edge of the sprawling open-air markets on the edge of Peshawar.
The laptop, which has clear U.S. military markings and serial numbers, contained restricted U.S. military information, as well as software for military platforms, the identities of numerous military personnel and information about weaknesses and flaws in American military vehicles being employed in the war in Afghanistan.
Continue reading at:
http://www.truthout.org/021209A
12 February, 2009
An Inconvenient Debt
And here’s your “Inconvenient Truth”:
The Congressional Budget Office has said the House and Senate bills will result in so much government debt that within a few years it will crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next ten years than if the government had done nothing.
What a bloody SCAM! How about hitting everybody’s paycheck up there on “The Hill” and on “Wall Street”? Hey, Big O? Nobody’s talking about THAT, are they?
Central Bank Conspiracy
Whoever controls the money of a nation, controls that nation. --James A. Garfield, 20th U.S. Pres.
The plutocratic oligarchy reigns through their possession of the Central banks of the world; thus to understand who rules the world is to perceive the history of modern central banking. The first central bank was created in Sweden in 1656, which still exists today. Before the usurers were able to cause the European monarchies to obey them, they were the goldsmiths of the Middle Ages who loaned money to the masses and nobles alike. A Central bank, briefly, is a private corporation owned by professional blood-line banking families, who 'lend' money with interest to the government, thus forcing the government to be in perpetual debt to them. That is the origin of the "national debt". It is a debt intended to never be repaid, for who is supposed to pay it off? The State itself which the bankers control? From the moment a Central bank is established the State is no longer the monarchy, democracy, republic or dictatorship, but the Bank itself. That is what Amschel Mayer Rothschild meant when he summarised: Give me control of a nation's currency and I care not who makes its laws.
The Bank of England was formed in 1694 by William Paterson, and the right to issue money was transferred from the Crown to the Bank, due to the ceaseless scheming of a cabal of loansharks to gain power. To quote Mr. Paterson: The bank hath benefit of interest on all monies which it creates out of nothing.
Or as Nathan Mayer Rothschild so aptly phrased it: I care not what puppet is put on the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money supply.
In 1791 the First Bank of the U.S. was founded--our very own central bank! But in 1811 when its 20 year charter came up for renewal it was denied, and Nathan Mayer Rothschild responded: "Either the application for renewal of the charter is granted, or the U.S. will find itself in a most disastrous war." Thus ensued the War of 1812, which influenced the re-commission of the Bank in 1816. As the years passed, these aristocrats of cash encountered a foe in President Andrew Jackson who abolished the bank in 1836. But these conspirators never quit, as they instigated and ignited the Civil War while loaning money to both the North and South(but always just a little bit more to the client they want to win). They thought Abraham Lincoln was their obedient slave, until he started printing "Greenbacks". Instead of continuing to borrow money from the private bankers like a hayseed, Lincoln ordered the State to print its own money free of interest, and thus he was subsequently assassinated. Many years passed between the passing of Lincoln and the conception of the Federal Reserve in 1913, but the genetic lineage of monetary masters remained the same, even up to now.
Now that their goal of global governance has been achieved, the function of politics becomes a continual means of preserving their power, through constant entertainment, toil and turmoil; thus securing their perpetuity over an ignorant bewildered humanity.
"The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences." --Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope
The plutocratic oligarchy reigns through their possession of the Central banks of the world; thus to understand who rules the world is to perceive the history of modern central banking. The first central bank was created in Sweden in 1656, which still exists today. Before the usurers were able to cause the European monarchies to obey them, they were the goldsmiths of the Middle Ages who loaned money to the masses and nobles alike. A Central bank, briefly, is a private corporation owned by professional blood-line banking families, who 'lend' money with interest to the government, thus forcing the government to be in perpetual debt to them. That is the origin of the "national debt". It is a debt intended to never be repaid, for who is supposed to pay it off? The State itself which the bankers control? From the moment a Central bank is established the State is no longer the monarchy, democracy, republic or dictatorship, but the Bank itself. That is what Amschel Mayer Rothschild meant when he summarised: Give me control of a nation's currency and I care not who makes its laws.
The Bank of England was formed in 1694 by William Paterson, and the right to issue money was transferred from the Crown to the Bank, due to the ceaseless scheming of a cabal of loansharks to gain power. To quote Mr. Paterson: The bank hath benefit of interest on all monies which it creates out of nothing.
Or as Nathan Mayer Rothschild so aptly phrased it: I care not what puppet is put on the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money supply.
In 1791 the First Bank of the U.S. was founded--our very own central bank! But in 1811 when its 20 year charter came up for renewal it was denied, and Nathan Mayer Rothschild responded: "Either the application for renewal of the charter is granted, or the U.S. will find itself in a most disastrous war." Thus ensued the War of 1812, which influenced the re-commission of the Bank in 1816. As the years passed, these aristocrats of cash encountered a foe in President Andrew Jackson who abolished the bank in 1836. But these conspirators never quit, as they instigated and ignited the Civil War while loaning money to both the North and South(but always just a little bit more to the client they want to win). They thought Abraham Lincoln was their obedient slave, until he started printing "Greenbacks". Instead of continuing to borrow money from the private bankers like a hayseed, Lincoln ordered the State to print its own money free of interest, and thus he was subsequently assassinated. Many years passed between the passing of Lincoln and the conception of the Federal Reserve in 1913, but the genetic lineage of monetary masters remained the same, even up to now.
Now that their goal of global governance has been achieved, the function of politics becomes a continual means of preserving their power, through constant entertainment, toil and turmoil; thus securing their perpetuity over an ignorant bewildered humanity.
"The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences." --Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope
11 February, 2009
Is the Obama Administration pushing Hillary Clinton aside?
From talk.us.rhode-island
This is interesting. Is the administration shuuting her aside?
So where does all this leave Secretary of State Clinton?
While sympathy for Mrs. Clinton is outside the normal fare of these
columns, one cannot help but feel that she is surrounded by people who are,
at best, strangers and, at worst, enemies. The competition that has
historically occupied secretaries of State and national security advisers
seems poised to ratchet up to a new level in the current administration.
Hillary's essential problem is that she is an outsider in the current
mix. She was the adversary in the campaign, and Rice and Powers - at the
very least - know it well, having helped to run the campaign that dethroned
her. Can they - and she - be devoid of bitterness or at least of normal
human trepidation? Not very likely.
The fact is that the power of the secretary of State is not statutory,
nor does it flow from the prestige of the post's occupant. Former Gen. Al
Haig, once supreme commander of NATO and chief of staff to President Nixon,
found that out when he was undercut as secretary by the White House troika
of Mike Deaver, James Baker and Ed Meese. Bill Rogers, Eisenhower's attorney
general and Nixon's California confidant, found himself on the outs from the
moment he became secretary of State, with Henry Kissinger soaking up all the
power through his direct access to Nixon as national security adviser.
The power of the secretary of State flows directly from the president.
But Hillary does not have the inside track with Obama. Rice and Powers,
close advisers in the campaign, and Gen. Jones - whose office is in the
White House - all may have superior access. Holbrooke and Mitchell will have
more immediate information about the world's trouble spots.
So what is Hillary's mandate? Of what is she secretary of State? If
you take the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan out of the equation, what
is left? One would have to assume that the old North Korea hands in the
government would monopolize that theater of action. What, precisely, is it
that Hillary is to do? The question lingers.
And for this she gave up a Senate seat?
Hillary's incredible, shrinking role
By Dick Morris
Posted: 02/09/09 06:23 PM [ET]
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job
description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of
the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be
President Obama's chief Cabinet officer.
Since her designation:
- Vice President Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign
policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the Inauguration,
could not but send a signal to Hillary that he would conduct foreign policy
in the new administration, leaving Hillary in the role of backup.
- Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on
direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the
Clinton years.
- Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine), negotiator of the Irish Peace
Accords, was appointed to be the administration's point man on Arab-Israeli
negotiations.
- Samantha Powers, Obama's former campaign aide, who once called
Hillary a "monster," has been appointed to the National Security Council
(NSC) as director of "multilateral affairs."
- Gen. James L. Jones, Obama's new national security adviser, has
announced an expansion of the membership and role of the NSC. He pledges to
eliminate "back channels" to the president and wants to grow the NSC's role
to accommodate the "dramatically different" challenges of the current world
situation.
- Susan Rice, Obama's new United Nations ambassador, insisted upon and
got Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she will presumably also have the
same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy
adviser during the campaign.
By Dick Morris
Posted: 02/09/09 06:23 PM [ET]
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job
description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of
the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be
President Obama's chief Cabinet officer.
Since her designation:
- Vice President Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign
policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the Inauguration,
could not but send a signal to Hillary that he would conduct foreign policy
in the new administration, leaving Hillary in the role of backup.
- Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on
direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the
Clinton years.
- Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine), negotiator of the Irish Peace
Accords, was appointed to be the administration's point man on Arab-Israeli
negotiations.
- Samantha Powers, Obama's former campaign aide, who once called
Hillary a "monster," has been appointed to the National Security Council
(NSC) as director of "multilateral affairs."
- Gen. James L. Jones, Obama's new national security adviser, has
announced an expansion of the membership and role of the NSC. He pledges to
eliminate "back channels" to the president and wants to grow the NSC's role
to accommodate the "dramatically different" challenges of the current world
situation.
- Susan Rice, Obama's new United Nations ambassador, insisted upon and
got Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she will presumably also have the
same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy
adviser during the campaign.
So where does all this leave Secretary of State Clinton?
While sympathy for Mrs. Clinton is outside the normal fare of these
columns, one cannot help but feel that she is surrounded by people who are,
at best, strangers and, at worst, enemies. The competition that has
historically occupied secretaries of State and national security advisers
seems poised to ratchet up to a new level in the current administration.
Hillary's essential problem is that she is an outsider in the current
mix. She was the adversary in the campaign, and Rice and Powers - at the
very least - know it well, having helped to run the campaign that dethroned
her. Can they - and she - be devoid of bitterness or at least of normal
human trepidation? Not very likely.
The fact is that the power of the secretary of State is not statutory,
nor does it flow from the prestige of the post's occupant. Former Gen. Al
Haig, once supreme commander of NATO and chief of staff to President Nixon,
found that out when he was undercut as secretary by the White House troika
of Mike Deaver, James Baker and Ed Meese. Bill Rogers, Eisenhower's attorney
general and Nixon's California confidant, found himself on the outs from the
moment he became secretary of State, with Henry Kissinger soaking up all the
power through his direct access to Nixon as national security adviser.
The power of the secretary of State flows directly from the president.
But Hillary does not have the inside track with Obama. Rice and Powers,
close advisers in the campaign, and Gen. Jones - whose office is in the
White House - all may have superior access. Holbrooke and Mitchell will have
more immediate information about the world's trouble spots.
So what is Hillary's mandate? Of what is she secretary of State? If
you take the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan out of the equation, what
is left? One would have to assume that the old North Korea hands in the
government would monopolize that theater of action. What, precisely, is it
that Hillary is to do? The question lingers.
And for this she gave up a Senate seat?
We Hold These Truths by Richard C. Cook
Just wondering who might have the impetus to level a death threat against an economist? Someone who's got a stake in business as usual there in Washington?
You betcha.
"Cook’s observations are particularly relevant today, now that many of the same people who pushed for deregulation during the Clinton and Bush administrations have been appointed as key members of Obama’s economics team."
Book Review
We Hold These Truths by Richard C. Cook
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/richard-cook-its-time-to-fix-the-monetary-system-by-mike-whitney/
Richard Cook’s new book, We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, cuts through the nonsense and reveals the root cause of today’s economic crisis; a privatized credit system gone haywire. This is first-class analysis from a prescient reformer whose message is just now catching fire. While the pundits are still hung up on subprime mortgages and toxic assets, Cook has peeled the cover off our deeply-flawed monetary system and exposed the rot within. This is where the change needs to begin.
We Hold These Truths is a timely book that challenges conventional thinking about credit and the role of banks. As the author points out, “In a system where the banks have a monopoly on the issuance of credit, they inevitably become the most powerful entity in the economy and therefore the most powerful politically as well.” Cook’s observations are particularly relevant today, now that many of the same people who pushed for deregulation during the Clinton and Bush administrations have been appointed as key members of Obama’s economics team. It’s clear that Wall Street has further tightened its grip on Washington even while it continues to wreak havoc on the financial system. It’s no wonder Thomas Jefferson concluded that, “Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”
Cook’s strong suit is taking complex economic ideas and breaking them down for his readers. He devotes a fair amount of time to explaining the fundamental mismatch between what the country produces and its net earnings. This gap between GDP and purchasing power can only be filled through the issuance of credit. The problem is, that as borrowing increases, the ballooning debt becomes more unmanageable and the system begins to teeter. Wall Street’s reckless expansion of credit simulated prosperity for nearly a decade, but when the bubble burst, the financial system collapsed, creating the present downturn.
Cook believes that a National Dividend–which would come in the form of a check from the government to every man, woman and child in America–could make up for the loss in purchasing power and maintain economic stability. This is not “pie-in-the-sky” liberalism, but a reasonable proposal designed to stimulate business activity and avoid disruptive recessions. He also advocates public control of credit: community-run investment banks which operate as public utilities and provide low interest loans to consumers and businesses. These ideas were implemented during the Great Depression via the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) and the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) They were successful programs that helped build America’s middle class while seizing control of the mortgage industry from Wall Street speculators.
Cook also supports a basic income guarantee for every American regardless of whether they work or not. This is a defining issue that should be debated in terms of the value we place on human dignity. Everyone deserves a minimal standard of living. The last time Congress considered such an initiative was Nixon’s Family Assistance Act of 1970. The “reverse income tax” was voted down by a coalition of southern Democrats who opposed it mainly on racial grounds. Senator George McGovern who supported the bill said that “it would have provided a basic underpinning of income for all Americans.” Income guarantees are stimulative and help maintain demand. They are good for the economy and demonstrate the nation’s commitment to provide for those who are most in need.
We Hold These Truths is a book for people who want to understand the current crisis without getting bogged down in hand-wringing and negativity. It’s a blueprint for removing the gangrenous parts of the financial system and for establishing a dividend-based system that better serves the public interest. Richard Cook has presented the ideas that are likely to shape the national debate on monetary reform for years to come. They are certainly worth our consideration. It’s a great read.
You betcha.
"Cook’s observations are particularly relevant today, now that many of the same people who pushed for deregulation during the Clinton and Bush administrations have been appointed as key members of Obama’s economics team."
Book Review
We Hold These Truths by Richard C. Cook
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/richard-cook-its-time-to-fix-the-monetary-system-by-mike-whitney/
Richard Cook’s new book, We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, cuts through the nonsense and reveals the root cause of today’s economic crisis; a privatized credit system gone haywire. This is first-class analysis from a prescient reformer whose message is just now catching fire. While the pundits are still hung up on subprime mortgages and toxic assets, Cook has peeled the cover off our deeply-flawed monetary system and exposed the rot within. This is where the change needs to begin.
We Hold These Truths is a timely book that challenges conventional thinking about credit and the role of banks. As the author points out, “In a system where the banks have a monopoly on the issuance of credit, they inevitably become the most powerful entity in the economy and therefore the most powerful politically as well.” Cook’s observations are particularly relevant today, now that many of the same people who pushed for deregulation during the Clinton and Bush administrations have been appointed as key members of Obama’s economics team. It’s clear that Wall Street has further tightened its grip on Washington even while it continues to wreak havoc on the financial system. It’s no wonder Thomas Jefferson concluded that, “Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”
Cook’s strong suit is taking complex economic ideas and breaking them down for his readers. He devotes a fair amount of time to explaining the fundamental mismatch between what the country produces and its net earnings. This gap between GDP and purchasing power can only be filled through the issuance of credit. The problem is, that as borrowing increases, the ballooning debt becomes more unmanageable and the system begins to teeter. Wall Street’s reckless expansion of credit simulated prosperity for nearly a decade, but when the bubble burst, the financial system collapsed, creating the present downturn.
Cook believes that a National Dividend–which would come in the form of a check from the government to every man, woman and child in America–could make up for the loss in purchasing power and maintain economic stability. This is not “pie-in-the-sky” liberalism, but a reasonable proposal designed to stimulate business activity and avoid disruptive recessions. He also advocates public control of credit: community-run investment banks which operate as public utilities and provide low interest loans to consumers and businesses. These ideas were implemented during the Great Depression via the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) and the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) They were successful programs that helped build America’s middle class while seizing control of the mortgage industry from Wall Street speculators.
Cook also supports a basic income guarantee for every American regardless of whether they work or not. This is a defining issue that should be debated in terms of the value we place on human dignity. Everyone deserves a minimal standard of living. The last time Congress considered such an initiative was Nixon’s Family Assistance Act of 1970. The “reverse income tax” was voted down by a coalition of southern Democrats who opposed it mainly on racial grounds. Senator George McGovern who supported the bill said that “it would have provided a basic underpinning of income for all Americans.” Income guarantees are stimulative and help maintain demand. They are good for the economy and demonstrate the nation’s commitment to provide for those who are most in need.
We Hold These Truths is a book for people who want to understand the current crisis without getting bogged down in hand-wringing and negativity. It’s a blueprint for removing the gangrenous parts of the financial system and for establishing a dividend-based system that better serves the public interest. Richard Cook has presented the ideas that are likely to shape the national debate on monetary reform for years to come. They are certainly worth our consideration. It’s a great read.
CIA Meets Osama
According to the French newspaper "Le Figaro" of October 31, 2001 an agent of the CIA met with Osama bin-laden in a Dubai hospital in July 2001. While on the "World's Most Wanted" list no attempt was made to arrest him. The article reports that:
"During his hospitalization in July, he received the visit of the local representative of the CIA. This person was recalled to Washington on July 15, the day after bin-laden's departure for Quetta."
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0111/S00018.htm
If this information is legitimate it provides more proof to the theory that bin-laden is an agent of the State itself, contracted to play a staged role as the scripted 'archenemy'; leading his underground band of CIA-concocted radicals against the 'judeo-christian' West, to further the sociopolitical designs of the cryptic world rulers.
"During his hospitalization in July, he received the visit of the local representative of the CIA. This person was recalled to Washington on July 15, the day after bin-laden's departure for Quetta."
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0111/S00018.htm
If this information is legitimate it provides more proof to the theory that bin-laden is an agent of the State itself, contracted to play a staged role as the scripted 'archenemy'; leading his underground band of CIA-concocted radicals against the 'judeo-christian' West, to further the sociopolitical designs of the cryptic world rulers.
States Push to Take Back National Guard
Oooops. How will Obama get “his” war in Afghanistan? Time for ye olde draft?
http://www.truthout.org/021109J
Going on its seventh year, the Iraq war has taken its toll on not only the US military, but also on the states's National Guard units, which were called up when Congress passed the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) against Iraq. Now a growing state-level movement is working to keep the Guard at home.
Its logic: The AUMF's goals have been fulfilled. The authorization's explicit purposes were to defend the US against the "threat posed by Iraq" and to enforce UN Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq's alleged ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein - along with his supposed threat - is gone, and the UN resolutions are no longer relevant, so there's no longer a mandate to keep troops in Iraq.
The president can call up the states's Guard units in a time of war. But when the mandate for war becomes obsolete, say members of the Bring the Guard Home: It's the Law (BTGH) campaign, sending those troops overseas is illegal. BTGH members and their allies are now sponsoring a chain of bills and resolutions in states across the country, demanding an investigation into the legality of deploying the Guard to Iraq, and a refusal to comply with any illegal federal orders.
http://www.truthout.org/021109J
Going on its seventh year, the Iraq war has taken its toll on not only the US military, but also on the states's National Guard units, which were called up when Congress passed the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) against Iraq. Now a growing state-level movement is working to keep the Guard at home.
Its logic: The AUMF's goals have been fulfilled. The authorization's explicit purposes were to defend the US against the "threat posed by Iraq" and to enforce UN Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq's alleged ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein - along with his supposed threat - is gone, and the UN resolutions are no longer relevant, so there's no longer a mandate to keep troops in Iraq.
The president can call up the states's Guard units in a time of war. But when the mandate for war becomes obsolete, say members of the Bring the Guard Home: It's the Law (BTGH) campaign, sending those troops overseas is illegal. BTGH members and their allies are now sponsoring a chain of bills and resolutions in states across the country, demanding an investigation into the legality of deploying the Guard to Iraq, and a refusal to comply with any illegal federal orders.
Shepard Fairey, of Obama poster fame, arrested in Boston
Shepard Fairey has been forced to OBEY the Man in Boston.
For those who don’t’ know it, Shepard’s art career began as a RISD student in Providence when he placed a large sticker of Andre the Giant over the face of Vincent “Buddy” Cianci on a downtown billboard. The “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker campaign then went worldwide!
*****************
BOSTON — A street artist famous for his red, white and blue "Hope" posters of President Obama was arrested in Boston, where he was wanted on warrants for tagging property with graffiti.
Shepard Fairey, 38, was arrested Friday night on his way to the Institute of Contemporary Art. Fairey was scheduled to deejay a kickoff event at the museum for his first-ever solo exhibition, called "Supply and Demand."
Two warrants were issued for Fairey on Jan. 24 after police determined he’d tagged property in two locations with graffiti based on the Andre the Giant street art campaign from his early career, Boston Police Officer James Kenneally said Saturday.
Fairey, of Los Angeles, is scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor charges Monday in Brighton District Court, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney. Wark said Fairey would also be arraigned on a default warrant related to a separate graffiti case in the Roxbury section of Boston.
Fairey has spent the last two weeks in the Boston area installing the ICA exhibit, giving public talks and creating outdoor art, including a 20-by-50 foot banner on the side of City Hall, according to a statement issued Saturday by the ICA.
The museum described the reason for Fairey’s arrest as "his efforts posting his art in various areas around the city."
"We believe Shepard Fairey has made an important contribution in the history of art and to popular thinking about art and its role in society," the statement said. "We are enthusiastic to be working with him and are pleased to be showing the first museum retrospective of his work."
The museum said Fairey was released a few hours after his arrest, but that could not immediately be confirmed by authorities. A California lawyer who has represented Fairey in the copyright case didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the arrest.
Ginny Delany, who was at the ICA Friday night, told The Boston Globe that Fairey’s arrest "makes him even more of a hero to me." "The fact that he is arrested for his art shows that it is meaningful to him and he cares about what he is doing," said Delany, a graduate student from Cambridge.
Fairey’s Obama image has been sold on hundreds of thousands of stickers and posters, and was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington in the days before Obama’s inauguration. The image is the subject of a copyright dispute with The Associated Press.
Fairey argues his use of the AP photo is protected by "fair use," which allows exceptions to copyright laws based on, among other factors, how much of the original is used, what the new work is used for and how the original is affected by the new work.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1150628
For those who don’t’ know it, Shepard’s art career began as a RISD student in Providence when he placed a large sticker of Andre the Giant over the face of Vincent “Buddy” Cianci on a downtown billboard. The “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker campaign then went worldwide!
*****************
BOSTON — A street artist famous for his red, white and blue "Hope" posters of President Obama was arrested in Boston, where he was wanted on warrants for tagging property with graffiti.
Shepard Fairey, 38, was arrested Friday night on his way to the Institute of Contemporary Art. Fairey was scheduled to deejay a kickoff event at the museum for his first-ever solo exhibition, called "Supply and Demand."
Two warrants were issued for Fairey on Jan. 24 after police determined he’d tagged property in two locations with graffiti based on the Andre the Giant street art campaign from his early career, Boston Police Officer James Kenneally said Saturday.
Fairey, of Los Angeles, is scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor charges Monday in Brighton District Court, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney. Wark said Fairey would also be arraigned on a default warrant related to a separate graffiti case in the Roxbury section of Boston.
Fairey has spent the last two weeks in the Boston area installing the ICA exhibit, giving public talks and creating outdoor art, including a 20-by-50 foot banner on the side of City Hall, according to a statement issued Saturday by the ICA.
The museum described the reason for Fairey’s arrest as "his efforts posting his art in various areas around the city."
"We believe Shepard Fairey has made an important contribution in the history of art and to popular thinking about art and its role in society," the statement said. "We are enthusiastic to be working with him and are pleased to be showing the first museum retrospective of his work."
The museum said Fairey was released a few hours after his arrest, but that could not immediately be confirmed by authorities. A California lawyer who has represented Fairey in the copyright case didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the arrest.
Ginny Delany, who was at the ICA Friday night, told The Boston Globe that Fairey’s arrest "makes him even more of a hero to me." "The fact that he is arrested for his art shows that it is meaningful to him and he cares about what he is doing," said Delany, a graduate student from Cambridge.
Fairey’s Obama image has been sold on hundreds of thousands of stickers and posters, and was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington in the days before Obama’s inauguration. The image is the subject of a copyright dispute with The Associated Press.
Fairey argues his use of the AP photo is protected by "fair use," which allows exceptions to copyright laws based on, among other factors, how much of the original is used, what the new work is used for and how the original is affected by the new work.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1150628
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