April 3, 2006
April 10, 2006
April 17, 2006
April 24, 2006
COOK COUNTY, Illinois, Chicago's use of a flawed computerized
voting system operated by a privately held foreign company reveals
how meaningless and absurd the "democratic" process
in America has become.
Having observed voting systems across Europe, from Serbia, Germany
and Estonia to Holland and France, this reporter has noted that
the most honest and transparent elections are also the most simple.
The more complicated methods of voting, such as the unverifiable computerized voting systems widely used across the United States, lack the most essential element of democratic elections - transparency.
The $50 million touch-screen and optical-scan voting system provided by Sequoia Voting Systems failed across Chicago and suburban Cook County during the March 21 Illinois primary. However, the leading corporate-controlled newspapers merely lamented the failures of the system without addressing its fundamental flaws or even reporting that the company running the election is foreign-owned.
The "high-tech" computerized voting system was "cumbersome" and "slow," one mainstream Chicago newspaper reported. The machines failed across the county causing "plenty of frustration and confusion for voters," the paper reported. The ballots and votes from more than 400 precincts were still uncounted two days after the election due to machine malfunctions and lost memory cartridges which contain the results.
Reports from other dailies noted that as of noon Wednesday, Chicago was missing memory cartridges from 252 polling stations while Cook County officials "couldn't find" the results from 162 suburban precincts.
Election officials tried to assure the public that although nobody knew where all the ballots and computerized memory cartridges were, they were "most assuredly not lost."
"I don't trust that," U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said. "This is Chicago. This is Cook County. We created vote fraud, vote scandal and stealing votes. We created that mechanism. It became an art form."
"Ballot chaos" is how another large Chicago newspaper described the situation in which the votes from hundreds of precincts could not be found or counted on Election Night.
"We have accounted for the votes," Langdon Neal, city election chairman told the publication. "What we haven't been able to do is count them."
In one precinct on the Near South Side, for example, the Sequoia optical scanner failed to register anything but Republican ballots. Although "election officials" tried to repair the machine four times, by the end of the day it had failed to register a single Democratic ballot in a precinct in which some 86 percent of the voters are Democrats.
When this reporter went to vote, the touch-screen machine went completely dead as the voter in front of me pressed the button to print. When the poll workers were asked if other voters had had similar problems with the equipment they said it had happened all day and showed me an unplugged machine that had broken down earlier.
When the polls closed at 7 p.m., American Free Press was at the Cook County Clerk's office to see how the votes were tallied.
Citizens in Chicago, as in most American cities, are, however, forbidden from viewing or participating in the any aspect of the vote-counting process.
The so-called counting of the votes is managed by some two dozen employees of Sequoia Voting Systems, a privately held foreign company. These employees, many of whom are not even U.S. citizens, have "full access" to the "back room area," a sealed-off section of the 5th floor of the county clerk's office which is called the "tally area."
In Chicago, the person in charge of the tallying of the votes was a British employee of Sequoia named David Allen from London. Allen, who ran the "Sequoia War Room" in an office next to that of Cook County Clerk David Orr, oversaw the "tally room" team, which included a dozen Venezuelan employees, who operated the hidden computer equipment that counts the votes.
As American Free Press has noted before, there are wire services such as the Associated Press, who could be seen having direct connections leading from their computers to the hidden mainframe computer of the Sequoia tallying system located behind the wall on the 5th floor of the clerk's office.
Senior executives from Sequoia Voting Systems and from its partner company, Smartmatic, such as company president Jack A. Blaine and Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez, vice president of special operations, also had "full access" to the tally area.
Sequoia, which was previously held by the British-based firm De La Rue PLC, a company, which produces bank notes, travelers checks and cash handling equipment, was merged or combined with Smartmatic in March 2005.
Smartmatic, which has a U.S.-based office in Boca Raton, Fla., is headed by three young Venezuelans along with Blaine, a former vice president with Unisys. A dozen Venezuelans could be seen managing the most sensitive aspects of the recent election in Chicago.
Smartmatic, the parent company of Sequoia Voting Systems, obtained the company for a "ridiculously low amount of money," Charles D. Brady, an analyst with Hibernia Southcoast Capital Inc., said at the time of the merger.
While De La Rue purchased 85 percent of Sequoia in 2002 for $35 million, it reportedly sold the growing global company for only $16 million in 2005. Tracey Graham, then president of Sequoia, said more than 30 organizations had expressed interest in buying her company, yet no names of other bidders were given citing "confidentiality agreements."
The chief officers of Sequoia-Smartmatic are two 32-year old Venezuelans from Caracas, Antonio Mugica and Alfredo Anzola. Anzola also works as a Venezuela-based lawyer brokering international oil deals with the Cleveland law firm of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey.
"With the combination of Sequoia and Smartmatic, both proven innovators with accomplished track records in either the U.S. or abroad, we are creating the first truly global leader in providing voter-verified electronic voting systems," Blaine said in March 2005 when the merger was announced.
There is, however, nothing verifiable about the Sequoia voting system used in Cook County. The voter has no way of knowing if his vote has been counted or how it was counted.
The absolute lack of transparency in U.S. voting systems yields unverifiable election results, which can only be accepted on faith. In Chicago voters are asked to trust the results produced by malfunctioning machines operated by a privately owned foreign company.
Asked about the nature of the foreign company that runs elections in Cook County, Scott Burnham, spokesman for Cook County Clerk Orr simply said, "Ask Sequoia" and hung up the phone. Asked about the ownership of the privately held company, Allen, who supervised the tally, refused to answer and handed the phone to Michelle Shafer, the company's vice president and spokesperson.
Pressed about Allen's citizenship, Shafer finally admitted that the Sequoia employee who oversaw the tally was, indeed, a British citizen who had been assisted by a team of Venezuelans.
Dimas Ulacio, one of the Venezuelan technicians who worked in the tally area spoke with American Free Press. "Who really owns Sequoia?" Ulacio was asked. "Is Sequoia-Smartmatic truly a Venezuelan company or is it a British-owned company masquerading as a Venezuelan company?"
Ulacio laughed but refused to answer.
While a high percentage of the precinct results - about 90 percent - are usually reported within one hour of the polls closing, the Sequoia system failed to produce any results for nearly two hours. Only 44 percent of the precinct results had been reported four hours after the polls closed.
The widespread failures of the Sequoia voting system in the Cook County election, Shafer said, made for a "very typical Election Day in a jurisdiction where they are changing voting technology." Rather than blame the machines, Shafer blamed human error.
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Rep. Tom Tancredo lifted an angry voice against Senate-advocated amnesty for illegal aliens March 17 and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) Responded within hurs by introducing legislation to strengthen border protection without amnesty.
The federal government is in wholesale denial about the Mexican government's involvement in human trafficking and drug smuggling, Tancredo warned. He vowed to fight any Senate-passed "guest worker" bill that, in fact, grants amnesty to illegal immigrants.
In a briefing at the National Press Club, the chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus urged the Senate "to reject any amnesty/guest worker bill that would reward lawbreakers who sneak across our borders."
"Some senators are trying to sell amnesty/guest worker programs as a so-called get-tough measure," said Phil Kent of the Monterey, Va.-based Americans for Immigration Control. "That's nonsense. The House already passed legislation in December with effective border enforcement tools and the Senate needs to follow up."
"The insanity of not protecting our borders has got to end," Tancredo said. "More than one million illegal aliens a year pour into the U.S. In addition, there are approximately 10 to 15 million illegals already in the U.S. This epidemic is hurting every U.S. citizen, including workers, students, seniors, etc. No one is exempt and no one is immune from the damage this insanity causes."
Frist was annoyed that the Senate Judiciary Committee, under Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), had for weeks failed to come up with an immigration bill to send to the floor for a Senate vote. Specter, sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) And others want to include amnesty in their reform bill. The White House also backs amnesty. Al are toadying for Hispanic votes.
So Frist presented his own proposal, which includes strong border protections without amnesty. But amnesty amendments are likely to be proposed during the floor debate. Frist also said he would withdraw his bill if the Judiciary Committee has ne ready for a debate starting March 27. Frist's office said the Senate will "definitely' take up immigration legislation March 27.
Meanwhile, more House members look up Tancredo's message, warning senators they would oppose any legislation that goes beyond border security and enforcing current immigration laws.
"We are concerned that some of these proposals are fundamentally
incompatible with the desire of the American public for real immigration
reform - and their clear opposition to reform proposals that amount
to little more than thinly disguised attempts to provide amnesty,"
70 Republicans and one Democrat wrote to the Senate Judiciary
Committee.
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One-quarter of people who receive medical care in the United States but cannot pay are illegal aliens. According to a new study. This, in part, accounts for rising health care costs for all U.S. citizens.
U.S. law mandates that hospitals have to treat anyone who needs emergency care, regardless of whether they can afford it. According to bureau of the Census statistics, 14 percent of people treated in a U.S. hospital today are unable to pay. Of those, one in four are illegal aliens.
This is especially bad for many of the border states, which have been hit the hardest by illegal immigration. In fact, the cost of free medical care, social programs and crime is bankrupting counties in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
For example, in Pima County, Ariz., hospitals wer recently forced to eat $76 million in unpaid treatment cost. In 2000 (the latest year where statistics are available) one-third of the costs were from treating illegal aliens.
Medical expenses are just one of the costs these counties must now absorb.
Greg Cox, a San Diego County, Calif., supervisor and president of the U.S.-Mexican Border Counties Coalition, says that his county spends a whopping $50 million a year to arrest, jail, prosecute and defend illegal aliens. Only $2 million is reimbursed by Washington. This cuts deeply into the $600 million that San Diego County has annually in discretionary spending to fund its libraries, public safety and parks.
"This is a crisis of monumental proportions and the Bush
administration is doing nothing to cure it," said a retired
Border Patrol officer.
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Morris Dees, who makes a lucrative career out of smearing many decent U.S. organizations, was visibly shaken at what he expected to be a "sweetheart" event when a pro-Southern group on his hit list challenged him on his lurid past, The Times Examiner of Greenville, S.C., reports.
Dees spoke at the University of South Carolina's "Carolina Productions Lecture Series," a student-run campus organization, on Feb 27. An estimated 300 people, including more than 30 law enforcement personnel, attended. Some professors ordered students to attend; some gave extra credit for attending. Considering how embarrassing it proved for Dees, his faculty cheer-leaders probably regret such pressure.
Dees labeled the League of the South as "racist" and "terrorist" in publications put out by his Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and public statements.
But the League is "racially neutral with members of different races," said Lexington attorney Larry Salley, a member of the board.
H.K. Edgetton of Black Mountain, a black man noted for supporting southern heritage, called Dees a "poverty pimp" during the question-and-answer period.
But it was Salley who had the most fun with Dees.
"Salley prepared and passed out a well-documented brochure that appeared to be the official program, featuring Dee's photograph and the statement ‘With Justice for All' on the cover," The Times examiner reported.
Inside, after the anticipated Dees-friendly words, the brochure transitioned into the harsh facts with footnotes citing the source of the material. Dees disciples, in blissful ignorance, helped hand out the brochures.
One of the 14 documented statements is from Harper's magazine:
"The cover story of Harper's magazine's November 2000 issue exposed the SPLC's alarmist fund-raising tactics with which it raises large sums that are not used to help those it pruports to serve. The Southern Center for Human Rights . Stephen Bright charged that Dees is a fraud who has milked a lot of very wonderful, well-intentioned people. It it's got headlines, Morris is there."
Quoting from the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals, CIV2114 (1979), the brochure says:
"Of all the damning indictments against Morris Dees, the worst comes from his closest connection. He was sued by his ex-wife. Maureene bass Dees, who alleged that he had committed incest with his stepdaughter and future daughter-in-law."
"When Dees saw the program he was visibly shaken," the paper quotes Salley. I stood up and asked him why 55 percent of the SPLC's income went into his pocket, and he tried to shout me down. Then other members of our group tried to ask him similar questions, and they shut down the question-and-answer period."
Carolina Productions "is taxpayer funded and in the past they have had groups such as transvestite exotic dancers," Salley said.
The following night Dees spoke at Western Carolina University where about 200 attendees received the same brochure.
Dees refused to comment on the well-deserved roasting he took.
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Well-know Hollywood actor Charlie Sheen has joined the ranks
of the skeptical when it comes to the establishment version of
the Sept. 11 attacks. On March 20, Sheen told popular radio talk
show host Alex Jones: "It seems to me like 19 amateurs with
box cutters taking over four commercial airliners and hitting
75 percent of their targets - that feels like a conspiracy theory.
It raises a lot of questions..... Then when the buildings came
down later on that day I said to my brother, "Call me insane,
but did it sorta looked like those buildings came down in a controlled
demolition?"
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A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has asked the Mexican government
to criminalize the construction or financing of border tunnels
into the United States. In letters to Mexican President Vicente
Fox and the Mexican Congress, the senators, led by Dianne Feinstein
(D-Calif) said 40 tunnels into the United States have been discovered
since 2001. They are used by drug traffickers and illegal aliens
to sneak into the United States.
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This news article is copyrighted by Creators Syndicate Inc. which prohibits me from reprinting it here. However, you can read the very same article, titled Iranophobia on the Internet at: http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts155.html
Nationally syndicated columnist, Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D.
a former editor at The Wall Street Journal, is the author of several
books. He has been associated with the Hoover Institution, and
the Institute for Political Economy and from 1981 to 1982 served
as assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy.
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Senators and President
Bush are claiming a crucial need for "guest workers"
even though such arguments are completely destroyed by a new report
from the Center for Immigration Studies. The House has passed
legislation that makes it a felony, instead of merely a civil
offense, to enter this country illegally. It provides more Border
Patrol agents and would build a fence in certain high-traffic
sections of the Mexican border. It does not include amnesty provisions
- which activists have insisted on calling "guest Worker"
provisions - whereby illegal aliens would be allowed to live here
doing "jobs Americans won't do."
The strong House bill is pending in the Senate, but the judiciary Committee reported an immigration bill with "guest worker" provisions advocated by President Bush. Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), among others.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) Introduced his own bill that excludes amnesty and addresses border protection much I the same way as the House-passed bill. He acted while waiting for the drama to unfold at the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But the bipartisan toadying for the Latino vote is so great that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Said he would try to block a vote on the Frist bill by using"every procedural means at my disposal,:including a filibuster. He said legislation must include a "guest worker" program and a "path to citizenship" for illegal aliens already here.
There is the prospect that no immigration reform bull will be passed. If the Senate insists on amnesty provisions, it will be a tough conference with House members to reconcile the two measured so they can be sent back to both chambers for a final vote. House members say they will fight any Senate passed amnesty provisions. But Bush will exert heavy pressure on House members to accept amnesty - an invitation to the White House is valuable to congressmen. The administration prefers no legislation to a law excluding amnesty.
The mainstream media ignored the findings of the highly respected Center for Immigration Studies, which were released in Washington March 22. It used Census Bureau date to refute the argument that illegal aliens perform low pay work Americans refuse.
"Even prior to Hurricane Katrina, there were almost four million unemployed adult natives age 18 to 64 with just a high school degree or less, and another 19 million not in the labor force," reported the center's Stephen Camarata. "The "The share of these less-educated adult natives in the workforce has declined steadily since 2000 and March 2005, only 9 percent of the net increase in jobs for adults 18-64 went to natives.' he said. "This is striking because natives accounted for 61 percent of the net increase in the overall size of the 18-61 percent of the net increase in the overall size of the 18-64 population."
Between March 2000 and March 2005 the number of adult immigrants - legal and illegal - with only a high school education of less in the labor force increase by 1.6 million. At the same time, employment among less-educated adult natives increased by nearly one million. Census data show.
In total, there are 11.6 million less-educated adult immigrants in the labor force and nearly half of them are estimated to be illegal aliens. The percent of adult natives with out a hogh school diploma who are in the labor force fell from59 to 56 percent between March 2000 and March 2005 and for adult natives with only a high school diploma participation in the labor force fell from 78 to 75 percent.
"States with the largest increase in immigrants also saw larger declines in natives working, and in occupational categories that received the most new immigrants, native unemployment averages 10 percent," Camarota said.
It's received little attention among Americans who don't follow public affairs - and it's not been widely mentioned in the media across the country, at least thus far - but among informed folks who closely follow the intrigues of the Israeli lobby, the release of a new report critical of Israel and its lobby had been the most talked-about subject of recent days.
Two of the most distinguished foreign policy specialists in the American academic world - John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard - have released a paper, entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" that has some less than favorable things to say about Israel and the U.S. relationship with that tiny, yet powerful, foreign nation.
The 83-page paper, which includes some 40 pages of detailed footnotes, was first published on the Internet, but a pared-down rendition of the paper was published on March 23 in The London Review of Books. The article can be found on the Internet at Harvard's official web site, www.ksg.Harvard.edu/research/working-papers/index.htm (1)
Ironically, as the New York-based newspaper, Forward, put it on March 24, "There's little that's new" in the report. Anyone who has been a reader of American Free Press or who, going back to the 1960s and 1970s, read other populist publications like Liberty Letter or The Spotlight knows what's now being reported by the two academics.
Although America's mainstream media always portrayed Israel in the fondest light, free thinkers raised uncomfortable questions that suggested the truth might be different. Such critics of the U.S. -Israel axis were called "anti-Semites," and "neo-Nazis" and "haters."
Worldwide, in contrast, Israel and its American lobby have not been held in such esteem, In 2002, for example, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who - until then - was an icon of the American press, shocked many when he asserted that in the United States "the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal," because, Tutu said, "the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful."
Now Meinsheimer and Walt have stepped up to echo what critics of Israel have been saying for years. However, what is disturbing to pro-Israel forces is that the academia, as Forward put it, "can't be dismissed as cranks outside the mainstream." As the Jewish weekly put it: "They are the mainstream."
Walt has not only been a Harvard professor, but he's also the outgoing academic dean of the university's John E Kennedy School of Government which Forward acknowledged is "the nation's most prestigious center of political studies."
In the wake of the firestorm directed at Harvard, the professors removed the Kennedy School logo from the paper on the Internet. Despite this, as the paper's critics have noted, the genie is out of the bottle and copies of the paper have been flying across the glove via email.
As a result, a lot of people who previously were told that criticism of Israel was the work of "haters" and "extremists" are leaning that two of the most respected American foreign affairs specialists are saying some tough things about Israel, its Washington lobby and the dangers of the lobby's influence on U.S. foreign policy making.
On March 25, the fiercely pro-Israel "Editorial Board" column of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) took the professors to task but accurately noted that:
The premise of Mearsheimer and Walt is that Israel is a huge strategic liability for the U.S. which wrecks or reputation in the Arab world, Complicates our diplomacy at the UN, inspires Islamic fanaticism and terror, goads us into misbegotten wars and makes us complicit in Israeli human rights abuses, all the while costing some $3 billion a year.
Although the WSJ asserted Mearsheimer and Walt were not necessarily "Anti-Semitic," their paper is "anti-Semitic in effect."
Meanwhile, pro-Israel elements are touting the claim by another Harvard professor, pro-Israel agitator Alan Dershowitz, that the two largely relied on material on "neo-Nazi" and "anti-Semitic" web sites as their sources.
Derchowitz is not telling the truth. The most cursory examination of the citations used by the duo demonstrates they used thoroughly "mainstream" sources as documentation. The Washington Post, The New York Times, Israel's Ha'aretz, the New York-based Jewish Week, and the aforementioned Forward were prominent among the sources.
In the meantime, on March 26, The New York Daily News, owned by Mort Zuckerman, former chairman of the Conference of President of Major American Jewish Organizations - a major force in the Israeli lobby - featured a commentary making the claim that "there is no Israel "lobby."
However, that claim is refuted in the very first footnote in the very first footnote in the Mearsheimer-Walt report, which says: "The mere existence of the lobby suggests that unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national interest. It it was, one wold not need an organized special interest group to bring it about. But because Israel is a strategic and moral liability, it takes relentless political pressure to keep U.S. support intact."
And so it is.
(1) Note this is a copyrighted document. AFP is unable to reproduce
and distribute this paper. For those who do not have access to
the Internet, it is suggested that they go to a public library
and have a librarian access the relevant web site address cited
and print out the 83-page document.
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The New Mexico Democratic Party has called for President Bush to be thrown out of office. Delegates to the party's state convention in Albuquerque supported a call for the president's impeachment largely because of "perceived abuses of power and corruption in Bush Administration," Party Chairman John Wertheim said.
Abuses of power, he said, include warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens, the misstatement of facts preceding the invasion of Iraq and the scandal surrounding the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide in connection with the leak of the identify of a covert CIA operative.
"Everyone understands President Bush is not going to be impeached." Wertheim said. "But these abuses of power and corruption in the administration are deeply serious matters and there should be more talk about this abuse of power."
The one-sentence amendment, added from the floor to the platform's section on political and election reform, reads: "Resolved, that the Democratic Party of New Mexico supports the impeachment of President George Bush and his lawful removal from office."
The amendment, proposed by delegate Robb Chavez of Bernalillo County, was approved on a show of hands by about 80 percent of the 1,400 convention delegates, Wertheim said, It required support by at least two-thirds of the delegates.
Democrats perceive a double standard regarding attitudes toward the actions of Bush and former President Bill Clinton, Wertheim said. Concerns raised about Bush's actions are "much more serious than anything that was said about President Clinton," he said
Earlier, the Santa Cruz, Calif, City Council passed a resolution calling on Congress to look into impeaching the president.
A recent Zogby International poll found that a majority (52
percent) of Americans say Congress should consider impeaching
Bush, if he wiretapped U.S. citizens without court approval.
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Today's so-called "dollar" only purchases five cents of what it purchased in the 1930s, 10 cents of what it purchased in the 1960s and 1970s, and maybe 50 cents of what it bought in the 1980s. So the "crash" of the paper dollar system is not something that is soon to happen; it is already happening. But do even worse times lie just around the corner for the dollar?
The government and the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank want you to think inflation is under control. But the truth is, the dollar is crashing from inflation.
From reading the headlines, one would think the Fed was a strong fighter against inflation. For example, you may have heard about the March 28 decision to raise short-term interest rates again to 4.75 percent - hailed as an "inflation-fighting" move.
In reality, according to those economists who can think and are not brainwashed, it is well known that hiking interest rates is inflationary. What it does is to increase the cost of doing business. And since virtually everyone is in debt, it forces businesses to charge their customers more.
But what you probably did not hear about, and should have, was the ending of the "M3" reports, on March 23. The Fed discontinued publishing M3 figures after that date.
According to an official announcement: "On March 23, 2006, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ceased publication of the M3 monetary aggregate. The board also ceased publishing the following components: large denomination time deposits, repurchase agreements and Eurodollars."
The Fed's announcement is one sign of a sinking U.S. dollar, and indicates that former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan got out just in time, like a rat from a sinking ship.
What is M3? You have to understand money supply to know what that is.
M1 refers to the sum of currency, or paper dollars, that can be spent immediately by the public. M2 is M1 plus assets that have been invested for the short term, including money market mutual funds and other financial transactions. M3 is M2 plus all long-term deposits, including institutional money market accounts. M3 refers to the broadest category of money in circulation.
The Fed changing its reporting of M3 deserved headline treatment and didn't get it. As the Federal Reserve had promised last November, the U.S. central bank will no longer collect or publish this most-inclusive measure of the growth of the U.S. money supply, although it will continue to publish narrower measures such as M1 and M2.
There are actually two kinds of "inflation," money supply growth (real inflation) and price inflation, which is not really inflation, but we have been conditioned to call it that.
The Fed - under Greenspan, and now under Ben Bernanke - has behaved as if money supply growth didn't matter and as if "price inflation" were all that mattered. Even as they have raised interest rates in an effort to cool off the economy and reduce demand for consumer goods, they've continued to let money supply grow at close to double-digit rates. M3 grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 8.7 percent in the three months from November 2005 to February 2006. That's faster than the annual rate - 8 percent - for the 12-month period beginning in February 2005.
So, as the Federal Reserve was "fighting inflation" by raising interest rates to 4.75 percent, from 4 percent in November 2005, it was letting the money supply grow by an inflationary 8.7 percent. Something is wrong with this picture. And now, they simply have decided not to tell us what is going on.
Said Stephen Zarlenga, a prominent monetary expert, "I can't imagine what they think they are doing with this announcement. Inevitably, people will think it is some sort of cover-up. The real problem with our system is that banks - private entities - are allowed to create `money' out of nothing."
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Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington,
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The recent immigration protest in Los Angeles have brought the issue to the forefront, provoking strong reactions from millions of Americans. The protesters' cause of open borders is not well served when they drape themselves in Mexican flags and chant slogans in Spanish. If anything, their protests underscore the Balkanization of America cause by the widespread illegal immigration.
How much longer can we maintain huge unassimilated subgroups within America, filled with millions of People who don't speak English or participate fully in American life? Americans finally have decided the status quo is unacceptable, and immigration may be the issue that decided the 2008 presidential election.
We're often reminded that America is a nation of immigrants, implying that we're cold-hearted to restrict immigration in any way. But the new Americans reaching our shores in the late 1800s and early 1900s were legal immigrants. In many cases they had no chance of returning home again. They maintained their various ethnic and cultural identities, but they also learned English and embraced their new nationality.
Today, the overwhelming majority of Americans - including immigrants - want immigration reduced, not expanded. The economic, cultural and political situation was very different 100 years ago.
We're often told that immigrants do the jobs Americans won't do and sometimes this is true. But, in many instances illegal immigrants simply increase the supply of labor in a community, which lower wages. And while cheap labor certainly benefits the economy as a whole, when calculation the true cost of illegal immigration we must include the cost of Social services that many new immigrants consume - especially medical care.
We must reject amnesty for illegal immigrants in any form. We cannot continue to reward lawbreakers and expect things to get better. If we reward millions who come here illegally, surely millions more will follow suit. Ten years from now we will be in the same position, with a whole new generation of lawbreakers seeking amnesty.
Amnesty also insults legal immigrants, who face years of paperwork and long waits to earn precious American citizenship.
Birthright citizenship similarly rewards lawbreaking and must be stopped. As long as illegal immigrants know their children born here will be citizens, the perverse incentive to sneak into this country remains strong. Citizenship involves more than the mere location of one's birth. True citizenship requires cultural connections and an allegiance to the United States. Americans are happy to welcome those who wish to come here and build a better life for themselves, but we rightfully expect immigrants to show loyalty and attempt to assimilate themselves culturally. Birthright citizenship sometimes confers the benefits of being American on people who do not truly embrace America.
We need to allocate far more resources, both in terms of money
and manpower, to securing our borders and coastlines here at home.
This is the most critical task before us, both in terms of immigration
problems and the threat of foreign terrorists. Unless and until
we secure our border, illegal immigration and the problems associated
with it will only increase.
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Call them the king breakers: Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Peter King (R-N.Y.) Are leading a vight to abolish provision of the Voting Rights Act requiring states to provide ballots in languages other than English. Thier group of 56 lawmakers expressed concern that the multilingual ballot requirements are inconsistent with the naturalization process, which requires legal immigrants to learn English to become citizens.
"English is the language of opportunity." Steve King told a Washington news conference March 31. "Multilingual ballots encourage a linguistic divide in our nation and discourage law-abiding immigrants from learning English to naturalize and assimilate into our society."
A coalition of 26 grassroots organizations, including ProEnglish and the Eagle Forum, have banded together to pressure Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) Of the House Judiciary Committee to oppose multilingual ballots, Steve King's office said. A new Zogby poll shows most Americans (69 percent) want ballots printed only in English. Even most Hispanics (51 percent) favor English-only ballots.
In a letter to Sensenbrenner, the 56 lawmakers said the possibility of non-citizens using the ballots "threatens the integrity of our democracy." They are "an unfunded mandate" and a "waste of taxpayer funds," they said. "Almost 300 counties in 30 states" are affected.
They also noted these facts: In 1996, Yuba County, Calif., was required to spend $30,000 for Spanish-language ballots when there had been only one such request in 16 years. In 2004, Los Angeles county was required to provide more that 2.200 interpreters and spend $2.1 million to provide translations and ballots in seven languages.
"Federal law protects the right of all citizens to bring their own interpreter into the voting booth with them," they told Sensenbrenner.
Another bill by Steve King, to make English the official language
(English Language Unity Act, H.R. 977) also received a boost from
the Zogby poll, which found support from 84 percent of voters.
It has the bipartisan support of more than one-third of the House,
said K.C. McAlpin, head of ProEnglish.
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An employer of Arapahoe County in Colorado is fighting for his - and your - First Amendment rights, which are threatened by local bureaucrats who fear someone out there may be offended. What would offend them? His sign advertising his part-time business, which reads:
"Lawn Services Done With Pride By an English Speaking American." It is adorned with a depiction of the American flag, advertising the lawn-care business he operated in his spare time.
The sign is so "offensive" that Mike Gray of Littleton is in danger of losing his job as a heavy equipment operator for the Arapahoe County Road and Bridge Department. His supervisor has threatened to fire him over the sign even though it has nothing to do with his work for the county.
Gray's lawyer and the county's lawyer are now duking it out. In the meantime, he is covering up part of his sign, showing only "English Speaking American" and the flag when his trailer is parked at his county space.
"I'm not going to cover up the flag," he told American Free Press. "The day I cover up the flag is the day I'm six feet under. I don't care about the other part when I'm at work, everybody here knows what I do anyway."
In addition, his U.S. Border Patrol cap, a gift from his son, was also deemed "offensive." So county bureaucrats adopted a "new dress code" banning his hat.
"The hat is not derogatory or inflammatory," he said. "I just says ‘U.S. Border Patrol,' which the last time I checked was part of the U.S. government. For some reason they find it offensive."
His sign is "reprehensible and discriminatory to our non-English speaking and/or Hispanic workforce," supervisor Monty Sedlack wrote Gray.
Gary said his sign is not offensive because everyone in his department speaks English. "There are only 30 or 40 of us there - it's a small operation," Gray said. "We have a few Hispanics, but they're Americans and they speak English. They're violating one of my constitutional rights. This is political correctness gone nuts."
Gray's attorney, David Lane, has threatened to seek an injunction
against the county to allow him to display the trailer sign and
were his Border Patrol cap.
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A"secret war" against
America is not so secret anymore.
America's cities are occupied with a horde of insurgents with the potential to reduce the United States to a corrupt third world colony.
But the real enemy is not the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens marching though America's streets.
These hordes are victims, too, of big business elites, who have been plotting to increase their vast fortunes at the expense of the American middle class.
The Republicans on the House International Relations Committee quietly proposed to link any migratory accord with Mexico with the opening of PEMEX, Mexico's oil monopoly, to American investment. PEMEX is the golden goose of Mexico's corrupt elites, and they don't want to share the wealth with America's corrupt elites.
Mexico has twice the oil reserves of the United States. If the rulers of Mexico were only as bad as the media tells us Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is, their country would be prosperous and there would be no economic reason for any Mexican to illegally cross the U.S. border. But crushed by corruption, millions of Mexico's poor flood over the border willing to work cheaper than Americans, driving the wages of U.S. workers to third world levels - which is precisely what the masters of the global plantation want.
This invasion was not with guided cruise missiles, tanks and bombs. The stealth attack was by what the Mexican plutocracy cynically calls its secret "cockroach army."
"The common people - the poor, the dirty, the lice-ridden,
the cockroaches - are advancing on the United States, a country
that needs to speak Spanish because it has 33.5 million Hispanics
who are imposing their culture. Mexico is reconquering the United
States by means of migratory tactics. . . . It fills me full of
joy, because the Hispanics can have an ever greater influence
all the way from Patagonia to Alaska," boasted Elena Poniatowska,
a Polish born "Mexican intellectual." Few Americans
have heard of her, but perhaps she can best be described as a
Spanish-speaking
clone of Condoleezza Rice, Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton.
All the signs point to a plot. In February and March, cable movie channel HBO promoted, "Walkout," a propaganda potboiler glorifying Mexican students cutting classes and marching in the streets.
HBO has made it clear that Spanish speakers in the United States are a priority by investing in HBO Latino. HBO also reached out to radical racist, anti-white Mexicanbundists.
The National Council of La Raza sent mass e-mailings urging its members to support and watch the "historic film."
Another agitator was the proliferation of Mexican language-radio stations. Clear Channel, the neo-con propaganda conglomerate that took over country radio stations all over America to push its war hysteria propaganda, is now aggressively increasing its stable of Spanish-language stations.
Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corporation, wants to take over Univision, the largest Spanish-language television network in the United States, and the fifth-largest American network (behind Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS). Time Warner, CBS, Walt Disney, Grupo Televisa of Mexico, Bill Gates, and several private equity firms are also expected to bid for Univision. GE's NBC swallowed up Telemundo this year, the second largest Spanish-language cable service. The Tribune Company said it is buying Telefutura.
Six years ago, on April 14, 2000, the Bilderberg-controlled Wall Street Journal lamented that soon the American economy will face "shortages" of illegal immigrants from Mexico. Politicians and Wall Street said NAFTA's first day of operation, Jan. 1, 1994, would "mark the beginning of the end for Mexico's poverty, feudalism and violence."
They promised the Reagan Amnesty of 1986 would "solve" the illegal uninvited guest problem. Instead, it caused illegal immigration to explode from 3 million to 12 million to 20 million.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
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While the media plays up the significance of the government show trial of the seemingly deranged "20th hijacker" Zacharias Moussaoui , not one 9-11 victim's lawsuit has been allowed to be heard in a trial by jury. Why have the 9-11 victims's families not been given the same tight to have their cases heard in an open trial?
Ellen Mariani, who lost her husband Neil on United Air Lines (UAL) Blight 175, filed the first 9-11 wrongful death lawsuit against UAL on Dec. 20, 2001. Mariani was interviewed on national television in May 2002 by Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, who repeatedly questioned her about why she had chosen to pursue litigation instead of accepting the government fund. "I want justice," Mariani said. "I want accountability. Who is responsible? I want the truth.
Today, Mariani, lith the other 9-11 plaintiffs, is under a gag order which prevents her from speaking about her ongoing lawsuit. Likewise, thousands of employees of federal agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration have received gag orders in the mail keeping them from telling what they know about the events of 9-11.
After more than four years, however, Mariani's determined pursuit for the truth about 9-11 through the court system has failed to yield any answers or discovery about who is responsible for 9-11. Today she is no closer to obtaining what she has stated she wanted from the beginning - a trial by jury.
Why have the many victims' cases like Mariani's brought by relatives of loved ones lost on 9-11, not bee allowed to be heard in a trial by jury - a basic American right? And why have the foreign-owned security companies involved in the shocking security lapses, which enabled the attacks of 9-11, been granted immunity by the U.S. Congress.
All of the relatives' wrongful death criminal lawsuits against the airlines and their security companies have bee consolidated by the presiding judge into a negligence lawsuit, which is a civil case and much less likely to be argued or investigated in an open trial with a jury. The 9-11 wrongful death and personal injury cases against American Air Lines (AA) or UAL or any of the foreign security companies, namely Argenbright Security (British), Glove Aviation Services Corp. (Swedish) and Huntleigh USA Corp. (Israeli) and being handled by U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York.
In the case of at least one of these security defendants, Huntleigh, there would seem to be a conflict of interest for the judge because the airline security company who is responsible for the shocking security lapses at both the Boston and Newark airports on 9-11 is a wholly-owned subsidiary of an Israel's military intelligence agency, Mossad.
Hellerstein, 73, on the other hand, has deep and longstanding Zionist connections and close family ties to the state of Israel. A Zionist is a supporter of the state of Israel.
Hellerstein's wife is a former senior vice president and current treasure of a New York-based Zionist organization called AMIT. AMIT promotes Jewish immigration to Israel and stands for Americans for Israel and Torah. AMIT's motto is "Building Israel - One Child at a Time." Hellerstein is a member of the Jewish Center of New York and a former president of the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York.
This raises the obvious question about why, in the 9-11 terror case in which an Israeli security company is a key defendant and in which individuals from Israeli military intelligence are suspected of being involved, was Hellerstein chosen to preside over all 9-11 victim lawsuits?
Huntleigh USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of an Israeli company called International Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS) International N.V., a Netherlands-based aviation and transportation security firm headed by "former Israeli military commanding officers and veterans of government intelligence and security agencies."
Menachem Atzmon, convicted in Israel in 1996 for campaign finance fraud, and his business partner Ezra Harel, took over management of security at the Boston and Newark airports when their company ICTS bought Huntleigh USA in 1999. UAL Flight 175 and AA 11, which allegedly struck the twin towers, both originated in Boston, while UAL 93, which purportedly crashed in Pennsylvania, departed from the Newark airport. ICTS also operates the German port of Rostock on the Baltic Sea.
Some victims' families brought lawsuits against Huntleigh claiming the security firm had been grossly negligent on 9-11. While these relatives have a right to discovery and to know what Huntleigh did or did not do to protect their loved ones on 9-11, Hintleigh, along with the other security companies, was granted complete congressional protection in 2002 and will not be called to account for its actions on 9-11 in any U.S. court.
Hellerstein, however, is not the only player overseeing the 9-11 litigation process who has close ties to Israel. In fact, all of the key players and law firms involved are either active Zionists or work for firms that do a great deal of business representing Israeli companies and/or the state of Israel.
Kenneth R. Feinberg, for example, the special master of the federally funded Victims' Compensation Fund, is also a dedicated Zionist. Feinberg single-handedly administered the $7 billion fund that paid our U.S. taxpayer money to some 97 percent of the families who could have sued to recover tort damages for monetary loss and pain and suffering. Those who accepted funds signed away their right to litigate against the government, the airlines or the security companies.
The Kenneth Feinberg Group is listed as one of the top 10 supporters of the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies for 2004-2005. The Jerusalem Institute is an Israel-based Zionist organization that, among other things, suports the building of the illegal separation wall across Palestine.
The Feinberg Group also lists as its clients major insurance and re-insurance companies such as Lloyd's of London. These are the companies who stood to lose billions of dollars if 9-11 victims' lawsuits had gone forward.
Feinberg was appointed special master by then Attorney General John Ashcroft. Ashcroft, a dedicated Christian Zionist and supporter of such groups as Stand for Israel, is today working as a lobbyist for Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), Israel's major military aerospace company, which hired the former U.S. attorney general to help secure the U.S. government's approval to sell an Israeli weapons system to the South Korean Air Force.
The Israelis hired Ashcroft to improve their chances against
a system built by Chicago-based Boeing.
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Congressmen and staffers on Capitol Hill who support strong border protections and oppose amnesty under any disguise are telling voters over and over: call your congressman and two senators. Tell them to insist on the House-passed borders-only bill. Tell them you will watch their votes and vote yourself in November.
It is better, they say, to have no legislation than have bad legislation. The Senate is insisting on less potent "border control" in legislation that includes amnesty. This is raw politics. If the Senate prevails, congressmen can tell Americans they voted for "border control." If challenged they can say they "had to vote" for the border-and -amnesty bill to get border control. When speaking to Hispanic voters - some of whom are non-citizens and will cast illegal ballots - they can boast of voting for "legalization," a "path to citizenship" and "guest worker" legislation."
The Senate took no action, despite much debate, before leaving Washington for two weeks to hunt Easter eggs. In this interval, it is critical that voters tell them to approve the House's borders-only bill. After that, they can debate what to do with the 12million to 20 million illegal aliens already here. They can vote to kiss them and berp them, but as separate legislation after closing off the borders.
Congress's failure to adopt strong, borders-only legislation would come at a painful price politically, conservatives warned.
"They will remember in November," said Repp. J.D.Hayworth (R-Ariz.). "And many of those who have stood with our Republican majority in the last decade are not only angry, many of them plan to be absent from the polls this year" when the entire House and one-third of the senate is up for election.
Twenty Senate Republicans joined Democrats in blocking a call to end the filibuster on a borders-only bill April 7 just before Congress left town. The vote to block the borders-only vote was 36-62, 24 short of the 60 required. It is important that, if the Senate finally acts, that House conferees stand firm on their borders-only bill and refuse Senate efforts to add amnesty measures, lawmakers said.
Meanwhile, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland security Committee, warned senators against being intimidated by the many thousands of legal and illegal aliens who demonstrated in American cities, waving foreign flags and attempting to dictate laws to the U.S. Congress.
"The Senate, I think, was quite frankly intimidated by having hundreds of thousands of people in the streets waving flags, but I don't think we should pass legislation or devise legislation based on how many people you can get out onto the street," King said.
Leaders of the illegal alien groups have urged them to stop waving foreign flags because it provokes American outrage, that hurts their cause. There were even allegations that some "news" media collaborated by digitally removing foreign flags out of protest photos.
Rep. Luis Gutierez (D-Ill._ said he has made televised pleas to leave the Mexican and other foreign flags at home and instead embrace the American flag. Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.), the grandson of a Mexican migrant worker, said foreign flags are an insult to Americans. "I think when you come here and wave a Mexican flag in our face in a country that's giving a lot of these people an opportunity they're never had before, I think a lot of Americans are insulted," Bonilla said.
The Senate debate became so silly senators could make a moron feel like a genius.
Senate Democrats refused to allow a vote on an amendment to one of their amnesty bills that would prohibit convicted fellons from becoming citizens. "It hurts the bill," said senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (R-Nev.) "It hurts the very foundation of and what I believe is the spirit " of the legislation. He rambled on in this vein.
Democrats also wanted to impose in-state College tuition for Illegal aliens, which typically reduces costs by two-thirds. "It should be called ‘No illegal alien left behind,'" deadpanned Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
"All undocumented illegal immigrants deserve this chance," said sponsor Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.).
The best comments were echoed for the past:
Said America's 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt: "in
the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes
here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself
to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone
else...but this is predicated upon man's becoming in very fact
an American, and nothing but American...There can be no divided
allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something
else also, isn't an American at all, We have room for but one
flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language,
and that is the English language....and we have room for but one
sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
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