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Signs of the Time

A Sampling of 2009 news articles from The American Free Press
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August 3, 2009

August 10, 2009

August 17, 2009

August 24, 2009

August 31, 2009

American Free Press August 3, 2009

Rights Group Condemns Israel  

Amnesty International says Israel cannot explain away murdering so many children, civilians in Gaza

By Richard Walker

Israel has enough clout in Washington to silence criticism. It is also adept at making its critics think twice about speaking out because they risk a withering condemnation from sections of the media and are likely to be branded as an anti-Semites. As a consequence, critics of Israel, even within universities, are increasingly reluctant to voice their opinions when Israel's foreign policies threaten peace in the Middle East or promote military strategies that display a total disregard for civilian life.

But now an Amnesty International report has emerged accusing the Israeli government and its military chain of command of lacking a moral compass by showing a total disregard for international law and human life in Gaza.

Amnesty, like other groups that have looked at the Gaza death toll, reached the conclusion that you cannot, as Israel has tried to do, explain away the deaths of so many children by claiming they died in crossfire or were used as human shields. Amnesty said if civilians were used as human shields it was by the Israeli army, who put them in harm's way and, in some cases, made them go into buildings they suspected were booby-trapped.

During the Gaza invasion—codenamed "Cast Lead"— Israel deployed weapons that Amnesty says should never have been used in civilian areas, including Hellfire missiles, phosphorus bombs, 120 mm mortar rounds and tank shells filled with thousands of metal darts that acted like shrapnel.

Hospitals were attacked and ambulance staff were killed and prevented from tending civilian wounded for days. Families were directed to homes that were then shelled and over 200 policemen were killed in a sustained bombardment of their facilities. Some civilian victims, including women and children, were clearly shot at close range. Others were terribly maimed when phosphorus bombs were used indiscriminately.

Amnesty drew attention to two families. The first was the Sammouni extended family that lost 31 of its members in southeast Gaza City on Jan. 5, 2009. The day before, Israeli soldiers moved dozens of the family's members from one of their homes to another and then shelled the second home. Not everyone died immediately.

Some took days to die from their injuries. Ambulance personnel were not allowed to get to them. A few children who survived were found clinging to their dead mothers.

In other instances, Amnesty confirmed that bodies were left decomposing for days in parts of Gaza. A second example of a family tragedy occurred on Jan. 12, 2009 when a grandmother, mother and three children were sitting outside their home at 9 a.m.. They were killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a drone. The missile and drone were supplied to the Israeli military by the U.S.

Amnesty concluded that the largest numbers of civilian fatalities and injuries resulted from long-range, high-precision weapons fired from helicopters, drones, tanks and mortars. The victims were not caught in crossfire, as Israel alleged, and were not used as human shields by Hamas militants.

"Many were killed when their homes were bombed or as they slept. Others were going about their daily activities, sitting in their yard, handling the laundry on the roof when they were targeted in air strikes or tank shelling.

Children were studying or playing in their bedrooms, or on the roof, or outside their homes when they were struck by missiles or tank shells. Paramedics and ambulances were repeatedly attacked while rescuing the wounded or recovering the dead," said the report, adding it believed Israel failed to take steps required under international law to protect civilians. Amnesty also unequivocally dismissed Israel's argument that the deaths of 300 children reflected "collateral damage" and the "panicked reactions of lone soldiers."

Amnesty quoted an Israeli commander, who gave his men the following advice during a security briefing: "I want aggressiveness. If there is someone suspicious on the upper floor of a house, we'll shell it. If we have suspicions about a house, we'll take it down. There will be no hesitation. Nobody will deliberate. Let mistakes be over their lives, not ours."

That strategy has led to tanks firing shells from a distance of five miles, with the result that they often collapsed more than one house. In the targeting of a mosque, the house next to it was hit and five girls ranging in age from 4 to 17 years were killed. When shells filled with 5,000 tiny metal darts were fired into Gaza, people in a 300 x 100 yard radius of an exploding shell were at risk of death or serious injury. Since the end of the Gaza operation Israel has refused to explain how high-precision weapons, whose operators could see the smallest details of a target, could kill so many women and children.

The indiscriminate use of phosphorus rated special condemnation by Amnesty, yet Gaza was not the first time Israel used the weapon against civilian targets. It fired phosphorus shells into Lebanon and, just as it had done during the Lebanon conflict, it reacted with public outrage when reporters accused it of using the weapon in Gaza. We now know the outrage was feigned as the evidence from Gaza is clear. The Israeli military repeatedly fired phosphorus shells over densely populated areas.

"Phosphorus was often launched from artillery shells in air-burst mode, which aggravated the already devastating consequences of the attacks. Each shell ejected over 100 felt wedges with highly incendiary white phosphorus, which rained down over houses and streets, igniting on exposure to oxygen and setting fire to people and property," said Amnesty, which further accused the Israel military of preventing people from being properly treated for horrific phosphorous burns.

The very fact the Israeli Defense Forces did not come clean about using phosphorus meant many lives were not saved because surgeons did not know what had caused, and how to treat certain types of wounds. The Amnesty report added that white phosphorus and artillery shells were used in attacks that were indiscriminate and violated international law.

"The Israeli military could not have been unaware of the presence of civilians in locations, which were repeatedly attacked. . . . Israeli forces continued to employ the same tactics for the entire duration of the 22-day offensive. . . . Much of the destruction was wanton and deliberate. It was often the result of reckless and indiscriminate attacks which were seemingly tolerated or even directly sanctioned up the chain of command, and which at times appeared intended to collectively punish local residents for the actions of armed groups. . . . Children, women and elderly people were among those trapped and denied access to medical care," were just some of the report's conclusions.

Throughout operation "Cast Lead," the Israeli military denied the international media and independent observers access to Gaza, and, since then, it has refused to speak to investigators. It has made no effort to launch an internal inquiry, and that testifies to a mindset that places scant value on the lives of Palestinians. At the very least, Congress should ask Israel to explain why it killed, injured and maimed so many civilians and particularly why it slaughtered 300 children.

On the other hand, if Congress and the American mainstream media are not prepared to address the issue, why should Israel? It is made to feel confident that its closest ally will stand by it no matter what crimes it commits.

In a very real sense, the American people, who constantly are told how great, humane and generous they are, and who finance Israel's murder machine with their tax dollars, are guilty of these appalling atrocities.

Unlike the U.S., Britain has taken punitive action against Israel for its Gaza operation. The Israeli embassy in London was informed that Israel had violated current British and European laws that forbade the use of weapons for "internal repression."

An all-party group of British parliamentarians welcomed the move and also a government promise to review all military export licenses to Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli promoters, such as the "Rev." John Hagee, make millions of dollars with the support of the Israeli-controlled American media, holding rallies to support Israel and its murderous policies.

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American Free Press August 3, 2009

Patriots Protest ‘Rev.' John Hagee  

By Willis A. Carto

They told me in Sunday School that Jesus Christ was the "Prince of peace." If my teachers were right, then people like Pat Robertson, John Hagee, Tim LaHaye and others of their stripe are criminals, not Christians.

Robertson and Hagee are strong advocates of war. They want the U.S. to hit Iran with all we've got and kill as many innocent Persians as possible. Why? Because, they claim, the Iranians want to bomb their favorite country—Israel, which they believe is where God lives.

According to them, God is unhappy with his peacenik Son but he likes these three slobs and their adoring camp followers.

Well, this is not the first time we have noted that Robertson is no friend of ours. He once excoriated The Spotlight—our predecessor—for catching on to the clear fact that Robertson is a profiteer of the most sleazy kind, a religious fraud who makes lots of money shaking down sincere Christians by convincing them he has a direct pipeline to God.

Few things in this world are as contemptible as fraudsters who claim to have direct communication to God and use this awful lie to pervert Christianity. Unfortunately, Robertson has made millions by panhandling with his slick Elmer Gantry line. Robertson has squeezed many millions of dollars from sincere Christians who would never believe that he is the fraud he is.

Hagee preaches that Israel is God's chosen nation and does not have to conduct itself in a civilized manner as do other nations. Hagee says nothing about the Talmud—the Jewish holy book that requires Jews to hate and kill Christians.

In 1982 Israel totally obliterated two Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra and Shatilla, killing 2,300 Palestinians, including children and pregnant women after driving some 660,000 into the desert. Today they live in tents and small houses they built for themselves. The U.S. demands that the UN pay for the meager living expenses of these refugees. Of course, most of the UN budget is paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

Hagee insanely wants the U.S.A. to nuclear bomb Iran and start another war. He believes this will start Armageddon and destroy the world, and he and his followers will be wafted up to heaven.

Hagee operates a number of independent businesses, of which his "religious" scam, Global Evangelism TV, is only one. His income is over $50 million per year and he pays little or no income tax. He has an airstrip, a jet plane and crew, given him by U.S.-supported Israel. He has a 7,600-acre ranch in Brackettville, Texas, a chef, waiters, servants and ranch hands to feed him and other animals

He operates a hotel there and charges $250 per night. The Bible explicitly commands that the only way for Jews to attain salvation is through Christ. But Hagee preaches that Jews do not have to accept Christ to go to heaven. Galatians 1:9 says, "If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that you have received, let him be accursed."

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American Free Press August 3, 2009

Botched UK Policies, Rampant Immigration—Not Afghan Peasants—A Real Threat to Britain  

From the British News Service

Third World immigration and twisted British foreign policy are the primary causes of the terrorist threat to Britain, and not peasants in Afghanistan, the British National Party's defense spokesman, Peter Mullins, said.

Speaking to BNP News after reviewing the announcement by Gordon Brown that the "Taliban war was keeping the UK safe," Mullins said it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that Afghan peasants on the other side of the world represented no threat to Britain.

"Mr. Brown is utterly delusional and pig-ignorant, or a psychopathic liar," Mullins said. "The only threat to Britain today comes as a result of mass immigration which has caused a large pool of Islamist fanatics to settle in our country.

"British foreign policy—which consists of supporting every cause in the world which is hostile to our interests—serves to incite this already hostile population into committing acts of terrorism against British people. It is so obvious that only a madman could not see it. But perhaps that is precisely what we are dealing with," Mullins said.

Brown said that war was a "patriotic duty to keep the streets of Britain safe from the threat of terrorist attack." This comes as a double insult on top of the recent heavy losses suffered by British forces in Afghanistan.

Brown acknowledged that there was public concern about the campaign, but he insisted that it was part of a "clear strategy" to clear the terrorist networks from Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to protect the streets of Britain.

"The sheer idiocy of Brown's arguments was so stupefying that it was nearly overwhelming," Mullins, a former Vulcan Royal Air Force bomber team member, said. "Why does he think there are Muslims, born and bred in Britain, fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan? The presence of British-born Muslims in Afghanistan fighting and killing British soldiers there has been confirmed by SAS Brigadier Ed Butler, who said that there are British passport holders who live in the UK who are being found in places like Kandahar.

"Earlier this year, it was revealed that RAF Nimrod spy planes monitoring Taliban radio signals in Afghanistan had heard militants speaking with Yorkshire and Midlands accents," he continued.

"Brigadier Butler also said in public that British intervention in Afghanistan had inspired militant Islamic groups in Southeast Asia to support terrorist plots in Britain. This would not have happened if the government—supported by the Conservative Party— had not become involved in that war in the first place."

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American Free Press August 10. 2009

AFP Reporter Inspects Progress of Border Fence  

By Mark Anderson

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R-Calif.), who succeeded his dad, retired Rep. Duncan L. Hunter, has introduced legislation to extend the border "wall" another 350 miles—in addition to the nearly 700 miles of the reinforced fencing that already has been built along the U.S.-Mexican border. The younger Hunter, who served in the Marine Corps just after 9-11 and became the first Marine combat veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan elected to Congress, will try to defend America's borders instead of pretending that national security lies only in protecting other nations.

In response to advice of the AFP READERSHIP COUNCIL to report more on border issues, AFP is notching up efforts to follow the border fence's progress. Rep. Hunter introduced the Unlawful Border Entry Prevention Act on July 22. The bill would give Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who's the former governor of Arizona, discretionary authority to construct 350 miles of additional border fencing in locations she determines necessary.

It would amend the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. This AFP writer returned to see the border fence in south Texas on July 26, where it runs along Military Highway in Hidalgo County. This concrete-based structure has vertical metal posts shooting out the top; it's about 14 feet tall.

Earlier, AFP spent a day with the South Texas Minuteman Project, which scouts the border and reports to the U.S. Border Patrol on illegal entries from Mexico. At that time, AFP filmed a literal wall section near the city of Mission that was all concrete. It looked something like the Berlin Wall. But the design in most areas is the concrete/metal post combination usually called a border "fence."

Many of the metal posts look rusty. There are large gates in the fence, relatively few and far between, where it can be opened wide enough through which to drive large vehicles. The vertical metal sections in the gated areas are taller than in the regular parts of the fence where there are no gates. Near the University of Texas at Brownsville, the site of Fort Brown—that was used to monitor border mischief from Francisco "Pancho" Villa and other 19th century militants who menaced U.S. border towns 100 years ago—is now on the Mexican side of the border fence.

The irony is unmistakable: The land used for the original Fort Texas in the 1840s, later re-named Fort Brown after Major Jacob Brown's death and utilized to protect the U.S. border, now appears to be physically separated from the U.S., even while the America of today continues to face border violence as it did a century ago.

The fort played a role in the opening of the Mexican-American War. Soon thereafter, in 1849, the city of Brownsville was established near the fort's grounds and named after Major Brown. Violence from the 1910 Mexican Revolution raged along the Rio Grande River and sometimes spilled across the U.S. border, just like drug cartel violence does today.

"This required heavy U.S. Army deployments all along the river," states an exhibit at the Historic Brownsville Museum. The army used the fort to defend America's border with Mexico—before interventionism in other nations' affairs became entrenched. Gen. John J. Pershing made an excursion into Mexico to hunt Pancho Villa after he had raided U.S. border towns, destroying Columbus, N.M. in March of 1916.

Eighteen Americans were killed. Hunter believes that the fence works but that the Department of Homeland Security, not the military, should be the main agency involved. He said:

"Under the existing border fence mandate, the DHS was given until December 2008 to identify specific locations on the Southwest border for . . . fence construction. There is currently no legal authority for DHS to build additional border infrastructure in the event that it is needed. The threat of violence, illegal drug smuggling and terrorist activity along the U.S.- Mexico border continues to escalate."

Mark Anderson is a longtime newsman now working as a corresponding editor for American Free Press. Together he and his wife Angie provide many photographs of the events they cover for AFP. Mark welcomes your comments and inputs as well as story leads. Email him at at truthhound2@yahoo.com.

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American Free Press August 10. 2009

Fed Chairman ‘Forgets' Banks He Loaned Half Trillion $  

By Christopher J. Petherick

Ben Bernanke, the head of the privately owned and controlled Federal Reserve, cannot remember to which foreign banks the Fed has loaned a half trillion dollars. His lack of memory can be understood, given that the Fed has loaned or guaranteed trillions of U.S. dollars to banks around the world since the U.S. economy took a turn for the worse in the summer of 2008. Still, it was quite an embarrassment for the country's top banker, who, during a three-hour grilling on July 21 before the House Committee on Financial Services, admitted he did not know the recipients of foreign liquidity swaps—loans to foreign financial entities—that amounted to some $550 billion.

Shortly after news broke of Bernanke on the hot seat, video of his testimony spread like wildfire on the Internet with hundreds of thousands of viewers around the world watching the chief banker stutter and squirm. Here is the relevant portion of the official transcript relating the exchange between Bernanke and Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), who is also a sponsor of Rep. Ron Paul's landmark "Audit the Fed" legislation (H.R. 1207).

Grayson: "What's that [the $553 billion amount]?"

Bernanke: "Those are swaps that were done with foreign central banks. Many foreign banks are short dollars. . . ."

Grayson: "So who got the money?"

Bernanke: "Financial institutions in Europe and other countries."

Grayson: "Which ones?"

Bernanke: "I don't know."

Grayson: "Half a trillion dollars, and you don't know who got the money?"

Grayson was following up on earlier testimony by Bernanke, who said that loans to foreign banks had increased from $24 billion at the end of 2007 to $553 billion at the end of 2008. That is a 2,300 percent increase in one year for anyone doing the math.

Grayson and Bernanke were debating complicated global financial transactions known as foreign liquidity swaps, whereupon the Federal Reserve gives U.S. dollars to foreign financial entities, usually foreign central banks. In return for dollars, the foreign institutions usually hold an equivalent amount of their own currencies in accounts for the Fed.

Officially, the Federal Reserve states, "When the foreign central bank lends the dollars it obtained by drawing on its swap line to institutions in its jurisdiction, the dollars are transferred from the foreign central bank's account at the Federal Reserve to the account of the bank that the borrowing institution uses to clear its dollar transactions."

Translated from banker-speak, the U.S. dollars, in a nutshell, are going to back unstipulated loans in countries around the world.

As of now, the Fed has dollar liquidity swap lines open with 13 foreign central banks. These include the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Central Bank of Brazil, the Bank of Canada, Denmark's National Bank, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Korea, the Bank of Mexico, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Norway's Norges Bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Sweden's Sveriges Riksbank, and the Swiss National Bank.

Bernanke tried to clarify the need for the swaps, saying that foreign central banks are short of U.S. dollars and come into the U.S. market, driving up interest rates. "We swap our currency dollar for their currency," said Bernanke. "They take dollars and lend to banks in their jurisdiction."

Grayson responded that his staff had looked into some of the swaps, including a $9 billion dollar loan to New Zealand. That works out to $3,000 for every citizen in New Zealand, he said.

"Seriously, wouldn't it have been better to extend that kind of credit to Americans rather than New Zealanders?" asked Grayson.

Putting aside the constitutionality of lending dollars to foreign banks—strictly speaking, neither the Federal Reserve nor the fractional reserve banking system is constitutional—there are considerable dangers associated with these types of transactions. Should the "swapped" foreign currency lose value, and the foreign bank balk at paying back the loan at the agreed-upon rate, the Federal Reserve and the dollar could be dragged down with them. Also, should the U.S.-backed foreign loans go bad, the whole system could go down like dominoes with foreign central banks taking down the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy.

It's a dangerous game the U.S. private central bank is playing with the American people's money, all the more reason why it should be opened up to public scrutiny. With no clue as to the solvency of the Federal Reserve, Rep. Paul's "Audit the Bill" looks better and better every day.

UPDATE: Since AFP last went to press on July 22, another legislator—Rep. DonYoung (R-Alaska)—has signed on to sponsor Rep. Paul's audit the Fed bill, bringing the number of supporters in the House to 276.

Christopher Petherick is a journalist and publisher based in Maryland. For more information, see his website at www.brandywinehouse.us or write directly to BRANDYWINE HOUSE BOOKS AND MEDIA, P.O. Box 638, Cheltenham, MD 20623. Petherick encourages all readers with Internet access to sign up for AFP's free weekly email newsletter. It's loaded with house news and special offers available only to newsletter recipients and AFP web site users. See AmericanFreePress.net.

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American Free Press August 10. 2009

Air Force Vet Breaks Silence on What Hit Pentagon on 9-11  

By James P. Tucker, Jr.

A veteran Air Force mechanic called to help clean up the Sept. 11, 2001 explosion at the Pentagon says the U.S. government's blaming a plane for the damage makes no sense. The evidence was staged, he said.

He agreed to a face-to-face interview with AFP on condition he not be identified for obvious reasons: the Air Force would punish him severely (the same military harshness that gagged survivors of the 1967 USS Liberty attack for many years).

The airman, a tech sergeant, is richly experienced in hazardous waste cleanup, having been deployed twice to Afghanistan in the first Persian Gulf war under President Bush the Elder and, later, under George the Younger. He has 17 years of Air Force service.

The scene at the Pentagon "doesn't look right," the airman said. "There was only a piece of engine and sections of landing gear on the ground. It was like they were placed there. Where were the wings? Tail section? We expected to find a lot of debris but there was very little."

There were "two massive engines" from planes that had, according to the government, penetrated the Pentagon "but the holes were too small" for that to be true, the airman said. The holes in the Pentagon were of the size made by Predators—the remote-controlled spy planes used in Iraq and Afghanistan—he said.

He indicated agreement with numerous construction experts interviewed by AFP who say the planes that struck the Twin Towers in New York could not have caused them to collapse as they did and bombs had to have been set off from inside.

Another oddity he noted was the story of young Israeli citizens, in this country illegally, who had set up a tripod camera on the roof of the warehouse where they worked and trained their camera on the Twin Towers shortly before the attacks. Witnesses told police the boys celebrated the attacks by joyfully jumping and slapping hands. Police held the men overnight and they were returned to Israel the next day. All this was reported in the mainstream media, but the story was immediately dropped. How did these Israelis know where to be and when to film the Trade Center disaster.

His "first instinct" is still with him. The airman told AMERICAN FREE PRESS: "We attacked ourselves to set up the invasion of Iraq."

If true, this is the exact definition of treason, the penalty for which is death.

AFP correspondent James P. Tucker Jr. is a veteran journalist who spent many years as a member of the "elite" media in Washington. Since 1975 he has won widespread recognition, here and abroad, for his pursuit of on-the-scene stories reporting the intrigues of global power blocs such as the Bilderberg Group. Tucker is the author of Jim Tucker's Bilderberg Diary. $25 from AFP. No charge for S&H in U.S.

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American Free Press July 3, 2009

Even ‘Voice of Wall Street' Thinks Fed Should be Audited  

By Christopher J. Petherick

Critics of the Federal reserve should pat themselves on the back. Rep. Ron Paul's landmark bill that calls for a public audit of the privately owned and controlled central bank has gained so much ground that even the leading voice for Wall Street in the media felt compelled to report on it.

On July 20, The Wall Street Journal published a report by economics writer Suceep Reddy on its web site titled "No Longer Alone, Ron Paul Fights the Fed." With a touch of sarcasm, the propaganda arm of the banksters and investment giants snickered that "Rep. Ron Paul usually stands far outside the mainstream in Congress, particularly in his campaign to kill the Federal Reserve." However, the Journal then conceded the fact that "the Texas Republican now has the bulk of his colleagues standing alongside him in a fight against the central bank's autonomy.... His bill to audit the Fed (H.R. 1207), just three pages long, has 174 co-sponsors - every House Republican and almost 100 Democrats - and counting.

Sticking with its initial derisive tone, the Journal dismissed the intent of Paul's measure with a sweeping generalization that "most of his cosponsors do not share his anti-Fed stance" and are only seeking broader oversight over the private bank in charge of the American people's money. Perhaps that is truth in the Journal's gross assumption. Still, the editors there must know that, Should Paul's bill pass the House and Senate – for whatever reason - the Fed's fiscal practices will be investigated, and Main Street will learn that the banksters have killed the U.S. dollar by keeping Wall Street and the fractional reserve banking system on life support at a huge cost to the American public.

Oddly, the Journal left in a fatuous remark by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) who told the newspaper in an interview that none of the "Depression-era lawmakers" that gave the Fed its power "ever thought it would involve trillions of dollars." Don't Sherman and the Journal editors know Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 - over a decade before the depression happened?

Ironically, at that time, advocates of the Fed sold the Federal Reserve System to the American public by claiming that it would stabilize the U.S. currency and prevent the boom-bust cycles that repeatedly plagued the country in the late 1800s and early 19th century.

Rep. Paul, who was interviewed by the Journal for the article, was firm in his contention that the Fed's will face and audit. However, he adds, he also believes Congress and the White House will not rein in the bankers as they should but will likely increase the Fed's powers over the U.S. financial system.

"I think what they'll do is they'll give in to some of the transparency at the same time they'll give them more power," said Paul. "We're going to be bugging you a lot more. We're going to be keeping eyes on you. The might be the way. Maybe inadvertently I'll help them get more power at the Fed."

Ultimately, if Paul's bill becomes law, and the U.S. private central bank is forced to endure public scrutiny, the last laugh may be on media outlets like the Journal, which, for years, have kept Main Street America in the dark about the financial crimes that have been committed by the money men and their lackeys in Washington. It would be just deserts for outlets like the Journal to be forced to expose their masters.
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American Free Press July 3, 2009

SPOTLIGHT ON CONGRESS

Senate Passes Thought Crimes Bill But Vows to Protect Free Speech  

Despite strong opposition from citizen groups around the country, the Senate voted on July 16 to add a controversial hate crimes amendment (S. Amdt. 1511) to a military funding bill for fiscal year 2010 that is expected to pass easily through Congress and be on the desk of President Obama soon. The good news - if there can be considered to be any good news to come out of this development - is that Democrats, at the last minute, agreed to a compromise and added a measure ensuring Americans' right to free speech.

By a vote of 63 to 28, senators agreed to add an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (S. 1390). The hate crimes measure, originally drafted by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), provides "assistance" to states, localities and Indian tribes investigating and prosecuting so-called "hate crimes" whether they want it or not.

The new measure also added homosexuals and the disabled to a special class of Americans, created by the federal government, who get better treatment from law enforcement than average Americans. In other words, the federal government will now help investigate and prosecute a violent thug who robs and murders a homosexual or disabled person. But when it comes to someone who rapes, robs and murders a pregnant woman, a grandmother, or anyone else outside of these new federally protected classes, local police are on their own.

It mattered not to the senators who voted in favor of this measure that Attorney General Eric Holder, during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in late June, could not prove that states and local police were failing to prosecute violent crimes. When questioned, Holder could not name one state that failed to meet his standards for investigating or prosecuting crimes against these supposed special classes of Americans.

Rev. Ted Pike, a vocal critic of hate crimes laws, had this to say about the vote: "There was no floor debate. A complete end run had been done around adequate Senate hearings, a mark-up session and rules committee debate. Total Senate debate of the hate bill amounted to little more than a brief ‘kangaroo' hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee several weeks ago. Witnesses, which included Attorney General Eric Holder, were stacked four to two against conservatives."

Democrats, at the last minute, agreed to add an amendment (S. Amdt. 1610) by Sen. Dam Brownback (R-Kan.) clarifying that "the hate crimes amendment shall not be construed or applied to infringe on First Amendment rights."

Despite Brownback's addition, Pike still contends the amendment is unconstitutional: "the new measure remains a massive invasion of state's rights in law enforcement in violation of the 10th Amendment. It violates the 14th Amendment by exalting certain groups, including homosexual pedophiles, above the majority. But, thanks to massive pressure on liberal senators, especially during the last two days, and the initiative of Sen. Brownbck, at least the First Amendment may not be as imminently threatened as before."

Colorado Senators voted:

Bennet (D-CO) voted for.
Udall (D-CO) voted for.
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American Free Press August 3, 2009

SPOTLIGHT ON CONGRESS

Vaccine ‘Interventions'  

If there is anything we've learned it is that federal legislators can't just give Main Street Americans a break. It always comes with a catch. And that's what is happening in regard to the new healthcare reform bill that was approved in mid-July by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.

A report by Cybercast News, an online agency, states that an official summary of the proposed bill notes that "under this program, CDC will provide grants to states to improve immunization coverage of children, adolescents, and adults through the use of evidence-based interventions. States may use funds to implement interventions that are recommended by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, such as reminders or recalls for patients or providers, or home visits.

Oddly, the language was only included in the committee's summary of the legislation. A search of the proposed bill, which has been released to the public, shows that controversial language of "home visits" and "interventions" is missing from the actual text of the legislation.

The concern here is that the federal government wants to work with local medicrats to enact a pilot program that would force vaccines - called "interventions" in bureaucratic language - on anyone who refuses to get a shot. Studies have shown that vaccines do not work to prevent the spread of viruses, which often mutate, rendering the medicine useless, and can have deadly side effects for those who receive |Top|

American Free Press August 3, 2009

South Floridian Mystified by ‘Flying Objects'  

By S.H. Pearson

After midnight on July 16, I counted over 50 spherical shapes hovering slightly southwest of the Cutler Bay area of "South Florida. They were clustered over certain demographically definable neighborhoods between South Miami and maranja to the west of the Florida Turnpike. What they were doing there is a viciously guarded secret.

Over the last several nights I have noticed these unidentified flying objects from what seemed like two miles high and up, spanning the stratosphere. They appeared to be hundreds of them. They were locked into position, resembling stars in every way, save their strobe like flashes of what looked like laser beams. These beams shot down from them in vivid flails that frayed at the bottom like a broom. The strobes of light alternated in shocks of color: red, green, red, blue, red, gold, and red. This sequence was repeated from midnight until 5 a.m. when the color show stopped and turned to a steady starlight in perfect masquerade.

In the early morning hours of July 21, I noticed how these menacing strobe-stars were everywhere. They populated the sky above me in countless numbers. They were staggered in distance from the Earth to cover what seemed like every mile between here and the moon. I noticed that they were evenly distributed to the east, west and south but nowhere north of the Cutler Bay area.

As I drove southward along Biscayne Bay with the top down, I noticed stabbing laser beams that looked like sewing machine needles jutting up and down in rapid motion. They protruded from the underside of these fake stars. Their vibrant color beams were alarming to me as I had read much of the voluminous "white paper" entitled Air Force 2025. This document of the war department colored my perception. It put into context what these laser beams might be designed for. Air Force 20 25 discusses the new heights to which they are willing to soar to wage a future war - and to what expense. This document is available online. (fas.org/spp/military/docops/usaf/2025/index.html)

An hour later I was sitting in my lawn chair in a parking lot, watching the laser show. To my alert certainty I waw what appeared to be laser beams trained on my forehead. They came down to me from several of the UFOs in assorted colors. My trepidation ran nose-to-nose with curiousity as I watchyed the many descending beams. They came at me in a telescopic fashion at the speed of light. I sat in my lawn chair like a stone pharaoh, wondering what would happen next. That I was watching was apparently also watching me.

These craft must have sophisticated surveillance technology. These lasers appeared to me like the ones professors used in classrooms to point at items on a lecture screen. Tactically, such lasers are used to point out a garget for night vision sniping.

I needed a witness s0o I drove to the local firehouse and rang the doorbell. After a few minutes a drowsy crew emerged. None of them seemed to believe me and none of them was interested in looking through my binoculars. So I drove to the local marina. As I had hoped, I was stopped by the Park Security Officer. Handing him my binoculars and pointing at the sky, I asked him to have a look. He was astounded by what he saw.

Our odd Miami weather may play a part in this. For weeks, the night sky has b een uncharacteristically clear for the subtropics. It is the middle of monsoon season for this latitude, yet we have had little rain. The rain we did have fell out of its diurnal cycle. The wet season is given to copious daily cloudbursts between noon and 3 p.m. Now there are "Frankenstein" clouds that pass for thunderheads. I have seen aerosol mists devour columnat nimbut giants in less than five minutes berore my eyes. Apparently Boeing aerosols are designed to dehydrate rain clouds. This would make sense in what I have observed since July 6. At night we have what looks like a Nevada sky and I can see for miles into the stratosphere.

At 5 o'clock on several mornings I have noticed a distinct pattern of events. A large tanker-plane would circle our area low and slow several times. This aircraft laid a thick blanket of aerosol haze that spread over the city anhd hung in the air for hours. This artificial fog put a veil between the UFOs and anyone below.

I thought I'd give the local FBI a chance to weigh in. After broaching the subject to an agent in Miami, he replied, "I am not allowed to handle that." Without exception every military, government, state and local official I have questioned about thisw has behaved in a daunted manner. Even as far north as Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, the Air traffic controller seemed paralyzed with fear.

S.H. Pearson is a freelance writer and the wife of a U.S. serviceman who can be reached at shpearson.wordpress.com.
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American Free Press August 3, 2009

Mystery Surrounds NASA Plan to ‘Bomb' Moon  

By Victor Thorn

NASA intends to "bomb" the moon on Oct. 9, 2009. Many Americans are asking, "Isnt America already experiencing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression? Aren't we already dropping bombs in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and possibly Iran in the near future? Why do we want to spend $583 million (USA Today, June 18) to drop a bomb on an object that's on average 238,000 miles away?

On June 18, NASA launched a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that also carried a Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). Eventually, while detailed maps are being made of the lunar surface, LCROSS will unleash a 5,000-pound Centaur rocket traveling at two times the speed of a rifle's bullet. When it hurtles into the Moon's South Pole and crashes, the explosion will equal one ton of TNT. As a result, scientists estimate that a mushroom cloud of dust and debris will rise six miles into the sky. Four minutes later, the LCROSS satellite - loaded with sensors, infrared spectrometers, cameras and transmission devices - will follow the Centaur rocket to gather data and send it back to Earth before also crashing into the Moon's surface.

What is the ultimate purpose of this extraterrestrial kamikaze project? After creating a crater that is five miles wide and 16 feet deep, NASA wants to determine if water is preserved in ice formations buried beneath the Moon's crust.

Is this venture feasible? If NASA does locate water, Michael Milstein of Popular Mechanics wonders what we'd do after finding it, especially since "the eternally dark polar craters would kill rovers, with temperatures close to minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit."

Astronomy researcher Ted Twietmeyer doubts the viability of even obtaining data. In a June 22 article entitled "NASA Moon Bombing Is Cause for Worry," he wrote, "Water disappears completely in a vacuum. Therefore, the idea of NASA finding water on the Moon by exploding a bomb in a vacuum on the Moon is utterly ridiculous. Heat from the bomb combined with the vacuum will flash-evaporate any trace of water so fast it cannot be measured. Long before the sublunar surface cools off to take a reading, any water will be long gone. So the idea of using a bomb to find water is wrong on many levels."

But what if finding water for future manned lunar colonies is simply a cover story? Richard C. Hoagland, former science advisor to CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite and founder of the Enterprise Mission website, proposes something far more chilling. In his book Dark Mission, he contends that a clandestine group within NASA has been carrying on a secret space program for 40 years, complete with anti-gravity technology and free energy.

"Now htat a number of nations are sending craft to the Moon, an upcoming crater impact mission being staged by NASA in October could be an attempt to vaporize artificial domes to cover up the evidence of secret space missions over the last 40 years," Hoagland wrote.

In a June 19 article, Alfred Lambremont Webre of the Seattle Exopolitics Examiner provides stunning evidence to support Hoagland's theory. The incidents he cites have also been verified by numerous other sources. First, "in a 2006 television documentary, Apollo 11: The Untold Story, Buzz Aldrin admitted for the first time publicly that the astronauts saw UFOs on their trip to the Moon, but they were not allowed to discuss this information on the live audio feed to NASA. He stated that he felt it would have created a ‘panic'."

Secondly, "In 1979, Maurice Chatelain, former Chief of NASA's Communication Systems, confirmed that Neil Armstrong had indeed reported seeing two UFO's on the rim of a crater. ‘The encounter was common knowledge in NASA,' he revealed, ‘but nobody has talked about it until now'."

Dr. Vadimir Azhazha, a physicist and math professor at Moscow University, stated, "Neil Armstrong relayed the message to Mission Control that two large, mysterious objects were watching them after having landed near the Moon module. But his message was never heard by the public because NASA censored it.

Paul Sutherland of Skymania wrote on June 19 (later reprinted by the prestigious Scientific American): "The orbiter will circle the Moon for at least a year searching for potential landing sites for astronauts when they return there in the next decade. It will also look for suitable materials that might support a colony."

NASA wants men and women to live on the Moon. If they plan on having us set up colonies, why is it so difficult to accept that others may have already established colonies, too? But don't expect NASA to tip its hand and disclose its true intentions. As Hoagland writes on the back cover of Dark Mission, "Few people are aware of the hard evidence that secret brotherhoods quietly dominate NASA, with policies far more aligned with ancient religious and occult mystery schools than the facade of rational science the government agency has successfully promoted to the world for almost 50 years.
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American Free Press August 3, 2009

Federalizing Healthcare Not the Answer for the Illness  

By Congressman Ron Paul

Political Philosopher Richard Weaver famously and correctly stated that ideas have consequences. Take for example ideas about rights versus goods. Natural law states that people have rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A good is something you work for and earn. It might be a need, like food, but more "goods" seem to be becoming "rights" in our culture, and this has troubling consequences. It might seem harmless enough to decide that people have a right to things like education, employment, housing or healthcare. But if we look a little further into the consequences, we can see that the workings of the community and economy are thrown wildly off balance when people accept those ideas.

First of all, other people must pay for things like healthcare. Those people have bills to pay and families to support, just as you do. If there is a "right" to healthcare, you must force the providers of those goods, or others, to serve you.

Obviously, if healthcare providers are suddenly considered outright slaves to healthcare consumers, our medical schools would quickly empty. As the government continues to convince us that healthcare is a right instead of a good, it also very generously agrees to step in as middle man. Politicians can be very good at making it sound as if healthcare will be free for everybody. Nothing could be further from the truth. The administration doesn't want you to think too much about how hospitals will be funded, or how you will somehow get something for nothing in the healthcare arena. We are asked to just trust the politicians, and somehow it will all work out.

Universal healthcare never quite works out the way the people are led to believe before implementing it. Citizens in countries with nationalized healthcare never would have accepted this system had they known up-front about the rationing of care and the long lines.

As bureaucrats take over medicine, costs go up, and quality goes down, because doctors spend more and more of their time on paperwork and less time helping patients. As costs skyrocket, as they always do when inefficient bureaucrats take the reins, government will need to confiscate more and more money from an already foundering economy to somehow pay the bill. As we have seen many times, the more money and power that government has, the more power it will abuse. The frightening aspect of all this is that cutting costs, which they will inevitably do, could very will mean denying vital services. And since participation will be mandatory, no legal alternatives will be available.

The government will be paying the bills, forcing doctors and hospitals to dance more and more to the government's tune. Having to subject our health to this bureaucratic insanity and mismanagement is possibly the biggest danger we face. The great irony is that in turning the good of healthcare into right, your life and liberty are put in jeopardy.

Instead of further removing healthcare from the market, we should return to a true free market in healthcare dollars. My bill, HR 1495, the Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Act, provides tax credits and medical savings accounts designed to do just that.

Ron Paul, a medical doctor, is a Republican member of the U.S. Congress who represents the 14th District of Texas. Call his weekly update line toll free at 1-888-322-1414 or visit his website at www.ronpaul.org.
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American Free Press August 10, 2009

Provocative New Book on Jesus Tackles Key Questions on Religion, Philosophy Over the Years  

By Michael Collins Piper

Victor Thorn has emerged as one of the most respected independent journalists writing today. His hard-hitting books and monographs, not to mention his multiple investigative reports and his many ventures in radio, have captivated the attention of truth-hungry readers and listeners all over the world. His website at Wingtv.net is a popular "must visit" location on the Internet.

Ranging from his three-volume exposé of Hillary (and Bill) to his various works relating to the 9-11 tragedy to his inquiries into the nature of the New World Order and its impact on American liberty, Thorn has established himself as a voice to be reckoned with in the alternative—some would say "dissident"—media today.

Now Thorn has branched out into the realm of religion and philosophy and his new book, Jesus Speaks: Secret Knowledge and Initiation at the Last Supper—325 pages long—will be certain to create controversy. The book will incite, confound, amaze, excite, inform and educate—and it may even horrify a few persons who are faint of heart. But it's a book that you will find hard to put down.

Those who are accustomed to Thorn's hard-hitting political analysis, based on history and current events, will find a "whole new Victor Thorn" in these pages. Some folks will call him a heretic and demand he be burned at the stake. Many people will be angry at this writer for even reviewing Thorn's book and will say that American Free Press should not sell the book, that AFP shouldn't delve into matters of religion.

(Ironically, many of these critics would otherwise be in the forefront of denouncing other attempts at censorship. But when it comes to religion, a lot of people lose all sense of fairness and are thus quite prepared to censor others' opinions.) Certainly, there will be those who will cry that the book is "anti-Semitic." And there will be those who will say that the book is an abomination, that it is "anti-Christian" by its very foundation. But say what you will about Jesus Speaks, it's a book that will accomplish one thing that, frankly, many books do not: it will make you think.

Thorn's book will challenge you to examine what you think you know about the origins of mankind, the early days of Christianity, the very nature of the universe itself.

Be prepared, for, to paraphrase Thorn, you will, upon reading this book—beginning with its very opening pages—embark upon a journey that will let you experience a dazzling array of new ideas. So let's be up-front about it: if you are hidebound in your religious views and not prepared to debate and consider new ideas and different interpretations of traditional Christian teachings, you might as well not even open this book. But if you refuse to do so, you will deny yourself the opportunity of opening your mind some of the most fascinating writing that's ever come from the highly literate pen of Victor Thorn.

So what's the book about?

The book is written in the first person, as though the reader is hearing the words of Jesus Christ to his disciples at the Last Supper. "Outrageous!" you say. Well, don't say that until you've read the book. The book is dynamite and the depth and breadth of what it covers—and in such a deliberate and provocative fashion—will leave the reader with new insights into so many realms. And, in fact, with a deeper appreciation than ever for the good teachings of the man we know Jesus Christ. Here are some of the highlights:

• Why the Old Testament is so strewn with violence, and how it involves Yahweh.

• Where did the Ten Commandments originate, and what they really mean?

• Who really raised Jesus, and how this small, isolated group that was erased from the New Testament were the most important figures in his life.

• John the Baptist's rebellious heroism, as well as his obsessive struggle against the Jewish religious elite.

• The sponsors of Jesus' travels afar during his early adult life, which lands he visited outside Palestine, and the influential teachers that helped shape his world vision.

• Although commonly called the devil, Lucifer, or Satan; the true source of evil (whose identity has been masked for millennia) is finally revealed.

•Who Jesus confronted in the desert after being baptized (prior to beginning his ministry).

• Proof of how the Genesis creation stories, as well as figures such as Moses and Abraham, were plagiarized from earlier cultures and mythologies.

• How ancient mystery schools, secret societies and select familial bloodlines established a control pyramid that stretched from Sumeria, Mesopotamia, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and to Rome.

• The suppressed importance of forbidden archaeology.

• Cycles of civilization explained, and how mankind existed on this planet long before our most recent 6,000 year epoch of time.

• Hidden symbolic meanings withheld in the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, Tower of Babel, Sodom & Gomorrah, plus Cain & Abel; and how they relate to the fundamental building block of life—DNA.

• The true importance of Atlantis, the Great Pyramid, and other archaeological wonders.

• Discover how kings, pharaohs, princes, lords, generals, rabbis, and priests were put in place to subjugate man.

• The significance of karma and reincarnation, and how these concepts are used by some cultures to exert control, while other religions completely removed them from their holy books.

•Why was December 25 chosen as the date of Jesus' birthday?

• The ultimate purpose of Jesus' ministry, and who he came to expose as the primary source of evil (in addition to their henchmen who continue to perpetuate it).

• Tyranny exposed—the Pharisees, Sadducees, Sanhedrin, and Keepers of the Law.

A journalist specializing in media critique, Michael Collins Piper is the author of The High Priests of War ($20). He is also the author of The New Jerusalem ($20), Dirty Secrets ($22), The Judas Goats ($25), The Golem: Israel's Nuclear Hell Bomb ($25), Target: Traficant ($25) and My First Days in the White House ($20). All are available from AFP by calling 1-888-699-NEWS. Charge to Visa/MC.

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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American Free Press August 10, 2009

‘Concealed-Carry' Bill Shot Down  

Gun control advocates won a victory on July 22 when the Senate rejected a measure introduced by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) that would have allowed a person with a concealed-carry permit in one state to be able to use it in other states. The vote was 58-39 in favor of S. Amdt. 1618 that establishes concealed-carry7-permit reciprocity in the 48 states that already have concealed weapons laws. That roll call fell two votes short of the 60 needed to approve the measure, offered as an amendment to the defense spending bill.

Ironically, gun control supporters invoked states' rights arguments, saying the bill violated the sovereignty of state governments and undermined those that had strict concealed carry laws.

The win was considered unusual due to the pro-gun attitude in Congress of late. This year, despite being controlled by Democrats, Congress has been on the side of gun rights organizations. In a series of landmark bills, legislators restored the right of people to carry loaded weapons into national parks, rolled back the tough gun control laws in the nation's capital and ignored urgings from Attorney General Eric Holder to revive the misnamed assault weapons ban that expired in 2004

In introducing his bill, Thune had rightly said, "Law-abiding individuals have the right to self-defense," even when they cross state lines. He cited statistics showing that states that enact concealed carry laws benefit from lower violent crime rates than those states that do not. "For example," he said, "for every year a state has a concealed carry law, the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by over 2 percent."

However, Sen. Charles Schumer (D.N.Y.), one of the leading opponents of Second Amendment rights, argued that Thune's measure was "the most dangerous piece of legislation to the safety of Americans when it comes to guns since the repeal of the assault weapons ban."

Thune shot back that if a person from South Dakota with a carry perit visited Central Park in New York City, "Central Park will be a much safer place."
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American Free Press August 10, 2009

Senate Funds Electronic Meddling in Iran's Internal Affairs  

On July 23, the Senate passed by voice vote a measure that would appropriate tens of millions to taxpayer dollars to meddle in Iran's political process. Specifically, the funds would go to pay for programs that promote "Western news" and Internet "social networking sites," which they claim were used by political opponents in Iran to help organize protests after the presidential elections.

Sone of the most ardently pro-Israeli members of the Senate, including included Sens. John McCain (R), Lindsey Graham (R), Joseph Lieberman (I), Ted Kaufman (D) and Robert Casey (D), were behind the bill called the Victims of Iranian Censorship (VOICE). Act (S. Amdt. 1744). The measure is intended "to support the Iranian people as they seek, receive and impart information and promote ideas in writing, in print or through any media without interference."

The measure calls for providing $30 million for expanding Radio Free Europe broadcasts in Farsi, the native language of Iran. The money also goes to combat what the authors say are the Iranian government's efforts to block access to web sites or text messages over cell phone networks. An additional $20 million would go to create a "special fund to develop new ways for Iranians to get access to and share information."

It doesn't take a Ph.D. to know that Iranians do not want the U.S. government - especially Joe Lieberman and John McCain - meddling in their country. The measure only serves to undermine claims by President Obama that the United States did not meddle in the affairs of Iran this time.

Reputable sources have already7 charged that the CIA was largely responsible for promoting violence among the peaceful demonstrations that had been sponsored by the various Iranian political groups.

The London Times reported as recently as 2007 that, under the Bush administration, Congress appropriated $400 million for U.S. intelligence assets to "to launch covert ‘black operations' to achieve regime change in Iran."

Following Iran's presidential election in early summer, French author Thierry Meyssan wrote that Iranians had received text messages before the election votes had even been counted telling them that the Iranian Guardian Council had declared Iranian presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi to be the winner. Then the official announcement came over that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the election, Meyssan wrote, claims that fraud had taken place carried the day. This was further amplified by the "Western media, which moved quickly to parrot claims that the elections were illegitimate.

Meyssanh also argued that the CIA and Mossad had used Internet social networking software like "Twitter" to place fake stories about bloody beatings, gun battles and mass killings that were never confirmed for the express purpose of inciting mass uprisings. This prompted many Iranians to come out to protest with the belief that their fellow countrymen were being brutally suppressed by factions in the Iranian police.

Ironically, the U.S. federal government bans Iranian news agencies from operating in the United States under the claim that they are propaganda arms of the Islamic government.

To learn more about the long history of U.S. meddling in Iran, order a copy of The CIA in Iran: The 1953 Coup and the Origins of the U.S.-Iran Divide published by AFP, the book - that reports truthfully on the DIA's covert operation that overthrew the Democratically elected government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq in the 1950s.Available from AFP, 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, #100, Washington, D.C. 20003 for $20.
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American Free Press August 10, 2009

Massive New Jersey Bust Exposes Tip of Global Criminal Syndicate  

Compiled by the Staff of AFP

The case of the New Jersey rabbis who ran a mafia-style syndicate - with a sideline in body parts - is only part of a global criminal conspiracy to traffic in human body parts headquartered in Israel and financed by the Israeli National Health Plan.

Israel is the world supermarket bor body parts - but almost no Israelis are willing to donate body parts. If you are an Israeli who wants somebody else's organs, you can enjoy a government financed "transplant tourism" vacation, group or individual. Pick Eastern Europe, turkey, China, India, Pakistan, China, Central and South America, the Philippines, etc. Choose from a line-up of donors - like selecting a live lobster to be boiled for dining pleasure.

An Israeli "health" ministry directive - courtesy of the American taxpayer who is buried under the costs of health care - reimburses Israelis who go abroad for transplants as much as $80,000.

Insurance companies are happy to pay, since the cost of kidney surgery, even in the relatively short run, is less than the cost of dialysis. Allowing the brokers to operate benefits the state by exporting Israel's organ shortage overseas. The patients who do go abroad "save the country a lot of money," explained Dr. Michael Friedlaender, a kidney specialist at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. "Not only in terms of what doesn't have to be spent on dialysis, but also by opening places for other people who are on the list."

The demand for body parts - the black market money plus the amount of Israeli government health plan money - is so great that the schemes for supplying the market are beyond a normal person's imagination.

In China prisoners are executed if their blood type makes the "donor" a match to a list. Technically, Israeli government insurance suspended paying for organ transplants in China after just this kind of embarrassing publicity, but in practice they still do it.

The practice is now so widespread that insurance companies, subsidized by the Israeli government, are funding these illegal transplants all over the world - from South Africa to Turkey.

In Israel, Palestinians are routinely murdered and their body parts "harvested." Gastarbeiter (foreign worker) "donors" constitute nearly half of all donors in Israel. Tourists who have died in Israel have had their body parts harvested.

Under the guise of "rescuing" orphans, children are kidnapped around the world to be dissected for body parts. The remains are cremated to destroy evidence.

A retired Israel army officer under arrest on suspicion of participation in an international organ trafficking scheme testified before a Brazilian court that the Israeli government financed organ transplants. The retired army officer, Geldaya Tauber Gady, told a court in Brazil that Israel financed organ transplants in other countries mainly South Africa, through its national health service. "The Israeli government is aware of the traffic in organs for patients in its country and pays for all transactions through four national health plans."

In all, "44 people were arrested in the wide-ranging scandal, which ensnared elected officials, political operatives and members of the Syrian Jewish communities in Deal (N.J.) And Brooklyn," the Star Ledger of Newark reported July 28. One, Jack Shaw, 61, died in an apparent suicide. These were numerous other serious felony charges unrelated to the rabbis' organ selling.
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American Free Press August 10, 2009

Big Papers Rip Rabbis  

By the Jim Tucker Jr.

If American Free Press had published headlines you see on this page from two of the largest-circulation newspapers a year ago, the phones would be howlig with accusations of "anti-Semitism."

"Rabbis & Mayors, Kidneys & Bribes," screamed the New York Daily News "Is Nothing Sacred"? It screamed on the front page. "Massive scandal snares mayors, lawmakers, rabbis and even a human organ trafficker," page one said in a subhead.

"Kosher Nostra" read a blaring front-page headline in the New York Post. Its front page cited "Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, 58, Brooklyn - accused of conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney bought from Israel for a transplant in U.S. in exchange for 160,000."

These and other major newspapers around the nation covered the horror stories in depth, without apologizing to Israel. Even The Washington Post felt compelled to carry the story, although downplayed in a shorter version.

But this is a breakthrough. A yar ago, such straight-forward reporting that could embarrass Israel would have been suppressed, with Israeli apologists being trotted out to explain this nation's "greates ally" is populated only with good people.

In a related breakthrough, The Washington Times led its front-page with an exclusive story in which a former Pentagon analy6st convicted of revealing classified information says he worked undercover as an FBI double bagent to gather information on the pro-Israel lobby in the United States. The FBI clearly believed the Israeli lobby was detrimental to U.S. interests.

The Times although taking "conservative" positions on the issues, has been among the greatest apologists for the Israeli lobby in the U.S. media, most of which is more devoted to the ijterest of Israel than that of the United States.

Larry Franklin told the Times he wore a portable recording device for the FBI to capture conversations between Keith Weissman, a lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Israeli Embassy official Naor Gilon, and that he cooperated on other matters, during a 10-week period in 2004. Franklin said he never sought to spy for Israel and felt betrayed when the FBI agents whom he had assisted suddenly told him to get an attorney and threatened to send him to prison for disclosing classified information to AIPAC officials and the Israel Embassy.

Franklin was pressured into pleading guilty but served on probation, not in prison.

He said his FBI handlers convinced him that AIPAC analysts Steven Rosen and Weissman were "bad people" and that the agency needed his help in making a criminal case against the Pro-Israel lobby officials. The two were eventually indicted but this spring – after years of legal wrangling - the government reversed course and dropped all charges against him.
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American Free Press August 10, 2009

Israel's Kidnap of Ex-Rep. McKinney Ignored by Feds, Mainstream Media  

By Mark Glenn

While sailing in international waters, the Spirit of Humanity - a civilian ship loaded with humanitarian goods and scheduled to arrive at Gaza - was accosted by Israeli boats in the middle of the night and stormed by masked gunmen in a scenario not unlike any wild west train robbery executed by armed desperadoes.

This hijacking took place in international waters, making it an act of prracy. It also resulted in the kidnapping of a former U.S. congresswoman, Cynthhia McKinney, who was then thrown into an Israeli prison on the July 4 weekend when Americans celebrate their "freedom" from a hostile, predatory foreign power.

Anyone doubting that any other group of pirates engaging in any kind of similar business would have resulted in earsplitting/eye-blinding/mind-numbing media coverage needs to just step back in time a few weeks to the minute-by-minute media coverage of the famed Somali pirates and how Uncle Sam dealth with them and their crimes. For days on end, it was not just a story, but the story, complete with its grand finale, the rescue of the pirated ship by a team of Navy Seals who eliminated the pirates with well-placed bullets from sniper rifles one by one.

Imagine what would have taken place had the SS Spirit of Humanity been hijacked by some other Middle Eastern group such as Hamas, Hezhollah, or even it it ware an official act by some Middle Eastern state such as Syria, Libya or Iran. The president, speaker of the House, Senate majority leader and the janitor at the Pentagon would have been paraded in front of the news cameras. With pounding fists, throbbing forehead veins and misty eyes, all persons on the payroll of Jewish interests would have classified this was an act of piracy against a humanitarian ship and an act of kidnapping against a former member of Congress. The military might of the U.S. would have been brought to bear and the criminals would have been be made into examples of what happens when the wrong people test the patience of the right people.

But the kidnapping of a former U.S. congresswoman bringing humanitarian supplies to the besieged Palestinian Christians and Muslims in Gaza did not make any news coverage. Perhaps those mandating what is reported in the media did not want a repeat of what took place the last time this same very-vocal Congresswoman was in front of an American news camera following a similar incident when these same Hebrew-speaking pirates tried to prevent her and her shipmates from bringing humanitarian supplies to Gaza by ramming her ship and trying to sink it: her mention of Israel's deliberate attack on the USS Liberty 42 years ago that resulted in the deaths of 34 American servicemen.

The United States lifted not a finger over the fact that an American citizen, and a black liberal Democrat and former member of Congress at that, was captured and held against her will by a foreign power operating outside of international law. By contrast, other members of the SS Spirit of Humanity from nations such as the UK and Ireland were visited by officials from their respective consulates who worked for their release. Ms. McKinney, on the other hand was effectively abandoned by her government. What few news stories there were about it, mocked her as some kind of crazy woman, not the impassioned humanitarian she is.

Shameful.
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American Free Press August 17, 2009

UK Public Inquiry into Iraq Could Expose Torture Network Operated by Bush and Blair  

By Richard Walker

The CIA and the White House are watching nervously as political and public pressure builds in Britain for the truth to be told about the British role in facilitating the "rendition" of suspects to CIA "black" sites and to pro-Western Middle East intelligence services that routinely use torture.

Just like the clamor that forced the British government to launch an open inquiry into the Iraq war there is now similar pressure for a major investigation into whether the British government of Tony Blair permitted British intelligence services to participate in the rendition process and allowed the CIA to house "ghost detainees" at Britain's Diego Garcia air base in the Indian Ocean.

A human rights committee set up by both Houses of the British Parliament waded into the fray on August 4, 2009, with a report calling on the government to order an independent inquiry into whether Britain was complicit in the alleged torture of detainees.

The committee also issued a stinging criticism of the government for trying to avoid parliamentary scrutiny of the issue. Some commentators in Britain believe this could have the effect of blowing the lid on rendition and torture.

Sir John Chilcot, chairman of the Iraq Inquiry, speaks at a news conference on July 30 in London. The head of a British inquiry into the Iraq war said he will call former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bush administration officials to testify, but acknowledged it is unlikely that they would give any real evidence.

Craig Murray, a former British diplomat, told the committee that when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, she ordered the intelligence services to disregard any evidence, that they knew had been acquired under torture. But Tony Blair changed that policy after 9-11. David Davis, a former shadow cabinet minister, reacted to the committee's recommendations by saying he was certain Blair and his successor, Gordon Brown, had seen evidence of Britain's "clear violations of its international obligations."

For months, the Obama White House has grown increasingly concerned that a British inquiry into rendition could expose the history of the program and how the CIA did business with intelligence services that tortured. Recently, Obama instructed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to impress upon her British counterpart, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, the need for the British government to keep rendition and intelligence acquisition classified matters. After Clinton met Miliband in Washington, he declared publicly that the U.S. and Britain had a unique intelligence sharing relationship based on "fundamental principle that they did not disclose each other's intelligence publicly." Nevertheless, deep down Miliband must have known the rendition train had already left the station.

Most British politicians have made it clear they are fed up with the drip-drip of information from government since 2005 when the practice of rendition was first made public. It took years for the government to admit that at least two renditions took place through Diego Garcia.

Now, MPs want to know why the Diego Garcia flight records for 2002 to 2008 have vanished without trace. A further scandal has erupted over revelations that the British intelligence agency, MI5, may have been aware of the torture in Morocco of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Binyamin Mohammed. Two high court judges have already said, from evidence they reviewed, they believe MI5 sent the CIA questions to ask Mohammed while he was being interrogated.

In 2005, Blair and his then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, gave the House of Commons an assurance that Britain had never played any role in the rendition of suspects. In 2008, David Miliband was forced to apologize to Parliament, saying the assurance given by Blair and Straw had been inaccurate. That was followed by the home secretary publicly admitting in February 2009 that Britain had played a separate role in the rendition of two suspects from Iraq to U.S. custody in Afghanistan. There have also been questions asked in Parliament about a "ghost detainee," Mustafa Naser, whose whereabouts have remained a mystery since 2005. His wife has hired British lawyers to pursue the case of her husband because one of their children was born in Britain. Naser is Spanish and a Spanish judge has also launched an investigation into his disappearance. Two retired CIA officers have told Naser's lawyers he was in CIA custody in 2005 before being transferred to Syrian intelligence for interrogation. The Spanish authorities have sources that suggest he may still be held somewhere in Syria.

One of the cases that may open up the British role in the CIA's rendition program is that of Mohammed Madni, who was pulled off the streets of Jakarta in Indonesia in January, 2002, beaten and placed in American custody. His lawyers say he was put in a coffin and flown by way of Diego Garcia to Cairo where he was tortured by Egyptian intelligence. Later he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay and eventually released without charge. According to Madni, the authorities at Guantanamo admitted they had made a mistake and told him that when he was arrested in 2002 he had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the British government is forced through a court order to admit that Madni was rendered through Diego Garcia, it will open the floodgates to a series of legal actions that could place Britain in the dock of the European Human Rights Court. As Madni's lawyers have pointed out, if the Blair government knew suspects were being sent for interrogation to countries like Syria and Egypt, they also knew it was not for a Club Med experience.

The ongoing cases in Britain of men who were rendered is very worrying for Washington because it could shine a light into one of the most questionable and secret programs of the Bush era, especially the CIA's use of what were termed "black sites." They were facilities housed within prisons, detainee camps and on board ships in international waters.

While Diego Garcia is believed to have housed at least two major al Qaeda suspects, other sites included "the Salt Pit," an old brick factory outside Kabul in Afghanistan, which was used as a prison but had a sealed off section given over to the CIA. Szymany Airport in Poland, a former Soviet base, was another CIA interrogation and holding center. "Temara," an interrogation center within the headquarters of the Moroccan security service, was the place where the British detainee, Binyam Mohamed, was held for 18 months. His British lawyers have assembled a large file of information about his captivity including years he later spent at Guantanamo. They claim that while he was being tortured in Morocco his genitals were sliced with a knife. Two other CIA "black sites" were located within the Eagle Base in Bosnia and the Ariana Hotel in the center of Kabul, which has been under CIA control since 2001. Camp Bucca, a detainee holding facility in Iraq, close to the border with Kuwait, had within it a classified area used only by the CIA. It was sometimes visited by members of allied and foreign intelligence services. The two U.S. ships that had CIA interrogation facilities were the USS Bataan and the USS Peleliu. The Bataan was previously used as a floating prison and rendition site during the Clinton era, which raises questions about how long rendition has been a secret practice.

Many focus on the Bush era as though rendition began then. But it clearly did not. During Bill Clinton's presidency, suspects were also "disappeared" and sent to countries like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia for interrogation. That is why the ObamaWhite House and the CIA fear a wide-ranging investigation of rendition in Europe. It could potentially open up a can of worms and it might prove difficult to put the lid back on.

When Blair was challenged recently about rendition, he shocked the Obama White House by suggesting Obama would probably continue using aspects of rendition. Some of Blair's critics in Britain said it was a typical example of Blair turning the spotlight on others to shield himself. Of course, Blair has more to worry about than Obama, Bush or Clinton. He sits at the heart of Europe with a court system that would not flinch from trying him for crimes against humanity if evidence pointed to his guilt. Some British lawyers argue that, if it could be shown Blair approved rendition that led to torture, he could be brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. From Obama's perspective, he has made it clear he does not wish to dwell on the past because it could divide the country and complicate his presidency. However, the British inquiry into the Iraq War has the potential to produce startling revelations and if the rendition program was exposed too through yet another inquiry, both those events could force Obama's hand.

Richard Walker is a New York based writer and a former news producer.

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American Free Press August 17, 2009

Americans Want Federal Reserve's Secret Shenanigans Exposed  

By Christopher J. Petherick

A recent survey by a major U.S. polling firm has found that an overwhelming majority of Americans support auditing the privately owned and controlled Federal Reserve.

According to the respected national polling company Rasmussen Reports, 75 percent of American respondents said they "favor auditing the Fed and making the results available to the public."

In a press release issued in late July, Rasmussen did not specifically cite Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul's Audit the Fed bill (H.R. 1207), instead vaguely referring to the fact that "half the members of the House now support a bill giving the Government Accounting Office, Congress' investigative agency, the authorization to audit the books of the Federal Reserve Board.

Support for the bill has grown now that the Obama administration is proposing to give the Fed greater economic regulatory powers."

It also noted that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, during a recent town hall meeting, tried to convince the gathering that the American public does not believe government should be involved in managing money.

"I don't think the American people want Congress running monetary policy," he said. Rasmussen's pollsters certainly showed that the American people disagree with Bernanke and want the secret fiscal operations engaged in by the Federal Reserve Board exposed.

During a telephone survey of 1,000 adults conducted between July 27 and July 28, the polled found that only 9 percent of respondents opposed the plan, saying that they think it is a bad idea to scrutinize the country's central bank. Another 15 percent said they were not sure. Other findings by Rasmussen include:

46 percent of Americans say the Fed chairman has too much power over the U.S. economy. Fifty-one percent of those taking the survey oppose expanding the Fed's regulatory powers. 54 percent of Americans believe interest rates will continue to rise in the coming years by as much as 20 points.

"So much for the ongoing secrecy of the nation's independent central banking system," concluded Rasmussen. Since AFP's last report on the Audit the Fed bill, six new congressmen have signed up to co-sponsor Paul's landmark bill bringing the grand total to 282. They are:

Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif), Rep. Laura Richardson (DCalif.), Rep. John A. Boccieri (D-Ohio), Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), Rep. Donald M. Payne (D-N.J.) and Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.).

The Senate version of Paul's legislation (S. 604), introduced by Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Ver.) has 20 cosponsors. They include: Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Sen.Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wisc.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sen.Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Sen. Blanche L. Lincoln (D-Ark.), Sen. JohnMcCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.).

Christopher Petherick is a journalist and publisher based in Maryland. For more information, see his website at www.brandywinehouse.us or write directly to BRANDYWINE HOUSE BOOKS AND MEDIA, P.O. Box 638, Cheltenham, MD 20623. Petherick encourages all readers with Internet access to sign up for AFP's free weekly email newsletter. It's loaded with house news and special offers available only to newsletter recipients and AFP web site users. See AmericanFreePress.net.

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American Free Press August 17, 2009

Who Is Behind Barack Obama's Rise to Stardom?  

By Victor Thorn

Is Barack Obama the product of a vast socialist conspiracy designed to undermine the fundamental tenets established by our Founding Fathers, all bankrolled and organized by elite financiers? The answer is unequivocally yes.

To deconstruct this labyrinth-like network, one must start at the top with global slash and burn speculator George Soros and his ties to the world's most powerful banking family. Journalist, historian and economic researcher William Engdahl sets the stage.

"Soros has been identified as a front man for the Rothschild banking group. Understandably, neither he nor the Rothschilds wants this important fact to be public." He continues, "Soros's connection to the ultra-secret international finance circles of the Rothschilds is not just an ordinary or accidental banking connection."

Finally, in a November 1, 1996 article, Engdahl writes, "From the very first days when Soros created his own investment fund in 1969, he owed his success to his relation to the Rothschild family banking network."

Soros, through his Open Society Institute, funnels approximately $300 million a year into various liberal venues, including the influential MoveOn.org, which he owns. According to veteran researcher Anton Chaitkin, Soros also hand-picked Barack Obama to challenge Hillary Clinton (and ultimately defeat GOP nominee John McCain). On Sept. 5, 2008, he wrote, "Barack Obama came under special Soros sponsorship in the 2004 U.S. Senate race and raised $60,000 for his campaign." After attaining victory, Obama met personally with Soros, then attended a fundraiser at his home.

Chaitkin elaborates further in "Soros Runs British Foreign Office Coup Against U.S. Elections," an online article. "On December 4, 2006, two years after getting into the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama went to Soros's New York office to be interviewed for higher office. Soros then took Obama into a conference room for other politically subordinate billionaires. With money and connections assured, Obama announced for the presidency soon afterward."

Lets look at the words of Michelle Obama from a June 19, 2008 speech. She said, "We're going to have to change our traditions and our history." She explained further on Aug. 25, 2008. "All of us are driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won't do. We have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be."

Who, precisely, will determine how our world should be? Mrs. Obama's poignant phrase was lifted directly from Saul Alinsky, a Chicago-based Jewish extremist who penned the handbook for far-left causes, Rules for Radicals.

To implement his plans to undermine America, an intricate network needed to be established that would spread its tentacles throughout every aspect of society. One of the primary vehicles they utilized was the Tides Foundation, to which Soros contributed $13 million from 1997-2003. Established by Jewish antiwar activist Drummond Pike in 1976, this tax-exempt organization serves a very important function. According to researcher Ben Johnson of Front Page Magazine in September 2004, they "allow high-profile individuals to fund extremist organizations by ‘laundering' their money through Tides, leaving no paper trail."

In essence, after taking a 10 percent cut, Tides has fed over $300 million to entities such as cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, MoveOn.org and those who advocate abortion-on-demand, all the while assuring contributors that they won't be publicly linked to these causes. One look at the Tide Foundation's board reveals who calls the shots.

Drummond, senior vice president Gary Schwartz, and executive vice president Ellen Friedman are all Jewish. Pike also used his leverage to bail out ACORN's welfare rights leader Wade Rathke, after he embezzled $948,507. To protect Rathke, ACORN never contacted law enforcement officials or sought prosecution. Instead, Stephanie Strom of The New York Times wrote on Aug. 17, 2008, "The organization announced that an anonymous supporter had agreed" to pay off the debt. That man was Drummond Pike. To cover their tracks, Arthur Schwartz (also Jewish) now coordinates their slippery public relations.

Of course, Barack Obama began his political career as the chief national trainer for ACORN, which now faces lawsuits in 14 states for voter fraud. Obama's mentor as a community organizer in Chicago was Gerald Kellman, a Saul Alinksy protegé. To begin his meteoric rise toward the White House, money originated from what Clarice Feldman of American Thinker calls the "Gang of Four"— Soros, Peter Lewis, Stephen Bing and Herbert & Marion Sandler. All are Jewish billionaires.

One of Obama's most important backers was Marilyn Katz (Jewish), who oversaw security for the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and advocated violent guerrilla tactics toward the police (as did Obama associate William Ayers of the Weather Underground). Katz became a fundraising bundler for Obama, as well as hosting fundraisers and serving as an Illinois delegate at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

The Tides Foundation controls the San Francisco-based Apollo Alliance, which "absolutely believes that government is the solution to all social and economic problems."

On July 28, Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity described how the "Apollo Alliance is designed to bring together the elements of organized labor with community organizers and green groups." More importantly, Kerpen revealed that the Apollo Alliance "put out a draft stimulus bill in 2008 . . . that included almost everything that ended up being in the final stimulus bill."

Van Jones, Obama's new "green jobs czar," described the Apollo Alliance as a "grand unified field theory for progressive left causes." Who exactly is Van Jones? After participating in the 1992 L.A. riots (for which he was arrested and incarcerated), Jones told the East Bay Express on November 2, 2005, "I met all these young radical people of color—I mean, really radical Communists and anarchists. And it was like: this is what I need to be part of. I spent the next 10 years of my life working with a lot of these people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary. I was a rowdy black revolutionary on April 28th, and when the verdicts came down on April 29th, I was a Communist."

To round out this list, the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) is primarily responsible for what is contained in Obama's socialized health care bill. Andy Stern and Anna Burger lead the SEIU, both of whom are Jewish cronies of George Soros. Their vice president is Gerald Hudson (Jewish). Pushing this bill and the stimulus package to various media outlets is Robert Borosage (Jewish) of the Institute for America's Future (also a huge recipient of Soros's funding). Overseeing the housing and banking industries is none other than Barney Frank (Jewish), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Last but not least, Key members of Obama's inner circle—David Axelrod, Lawrence Summers and Rahm Emanuel are Jewish and Bilderberg.

Putting this complicated matter into perspective is educational theorist and critic David Solway. On July 7, 2009 he wrote, "We Jews are a sly and surreptitious people . It pains me to admit this, but candor compels. . . . The best way to bring America to its knees, to weaken its will to survive, to cleverly turn it against itself, was to do everything in our considerable arsenal of means to deliver the White House to Barack Obama."

The conspiracy has been completed, and now the Jewish Rothschild-Soros connection controls voter registration (ACORN), money laundering (Tides), billions in stimulus spending (Apollo), possibly the future of health care (SEIU), finance (Franks), and the Oval Office's inner workings (Emanuel, Axelrod and Summers).

Victor Thorn is a hard-hitting researcher, journalist and the author of many books on 9-11 and the New World Order. These include 9-11 Evil: The Israeli Role in 9-11 and Phantom Flight 93.

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American Free Press August 17, 2009

How the Israeli Lobby Works to Subvert Democracy  

By Jeff Gates

In the early 1960s, the late Sen. William J. Fulbright (D-Ark.) fought to force the American Zionist Council to register as agents of a foreign government. The council eluded registration by reorganizing as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC has since become what Fulbright most feared: a foreign agent dominating American foreign policy while disguised as a domestic lobby.

Israelis and pro-Israelis object when they hear that charge. How, they ask, can we so few wield such influence over so many? Answer: it's all in the math and in the single-issue advocacy brought to bear on U.S. policy- making by dozens of "domestic" organizations that compose the Israel lobby, with AIPAC its most visible force.

Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) enthusiasm for all things Israeli ensured him the GOP nomination to succeed Christian-Zionist G.W. Bush. McCain's style of campaign finance reform proved a perfect fit for the diaspora-based fund-raising on which the lobby relies. ("Diaspora" refers to Jews living outside Israel.—Ed.)

Co-sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), this change in federal election law typifies how Israeli influence became systemic.

"McCain-Feingold" raised the amount (from $1,000 to $2,300) that candidates can receive from individuals in primary and general elections. A couple can now contribute a combined $9,200 to federal candidates: $4,600 in each of the primary and in general elections. Primary elections, usually low budget, are particularly easy to sway.

Importantly for the diaspora, this change also doubled the funds candidates can receive without regard to where those contributors reside. A candidate in Iowa, say, may have only a few pro-Israel constituents. When campaign support is provided by a nationwide network of pro-Israelis, that candidate can more easily be persuaded to support policies sought by Tel Aviv.

Diaspora-based fund-raising has long been used by the lobby with force-multiplying success to shape U.S. foreign policy. Under the guise of reform, McCain doubled the financial resources that the lobby can deploy to elect and retain its supporters.

The influence-peddling process works like this. Candidates are summoned for in-depth AIPAC interviews. Those found sufficiently committed to Israel's agenda are provided a list of donors likely to "max out" their campaign contributions. Or the process can be made even easier when AIPAC-approved candidates are given the name of a "bundler."

Bundlers raise funds from the diaspora and bundle those contributions to present them to the candidate. No quid pro quo need be mentioned. After McCain-Feingold became law in 2003, AIPAC-identified bundlers could raise $1 million-plus for AIPAC-approved candidates simply by contacting 10 like-minded supporters. Here's the math:

The bundler and spouse "max out" for $9,200 and call 10 others, say in Manhattan, Miami, and Beverly Hills. Each of them maxes out ($10 x $9,200) and calls 10 others for a total of 111. [111 x $9,200 = $1,021,200.]

Imagine the incentive a candidate has to do well in the AIPAC interview. One call from the lobby and a candidate can collect enough cash to mount a credible campaign in most congressional districts. From Tel Aviv's perspective, that political leverage is leveraged yet again because only about 10 percent of the 435 House races are competitive in any election cycle (typically 35 to 50).

Additional force-multipliers come from: (a) sustaining this financial focus over multiple cycles, (b) using funds to gain and retain seniority for those serving on congressional committees key to promoting Israeli goals, and (c) opposing candidates who question those goals.

Jewish Achievement reports that 42 percent of the largest political donors to the 2000 election cycle were Jewish, including four of the top five. That compares to less than 2 percent of Americans who are Jewish. Of the Forbes 400 richest Americans, 25 percent are Jewish according to Michael Steinhardt, a key founder of the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC was led by Jewish Zionist Sen. Joe Lieberman ( I-Conn.) when he resigned in 2000 to run for vice president with pro-Israeli presidential candidate Al Gore.

Money was never a constraint. Pro-Israel donors were limited only by how much they could lawfully contribute to AIPAC-screened candidates. McCain- Feingold raised a key limit. The full impact of this foreign influence has yet to be tallied. What's known, however, is sufficient to apply the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Of the top 50 neo-conservatives who advocated the attack on Iraq, 26 were Jewish.

Harry Truman, a Christian Zionist, remains one of the more notable recipients of funds. In 1948, he was trailing badly in the polls and in fund-raising. His prospects brightened dramatically in May after he recognized as a legitimate state an enclave of Jewish extremists who originally planned to settle in Argentina before putting their sights on Palestine.

That recognition was opposed by Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the bulk of the diplomatic corps, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency and numerous distinguished Americans, including moderate and secular Jews concerned at the troubles that were certain to follow. Not until 1984 was it revealed that a network of Jewish Zionists had funded Truman's campaign by financially refueling his whistle-stop campaign train with $400,000 in cash ($3 million in 2009 dollars).

Until then, Truman was badly trailing Dewey. His election was a great upset. To buy time on the public's airwaves, money raised from the Israel lobby's network is paid to media outlets largely owned or managed by members of the same network. Presidents, senators and congressmen come and go but those who collect the checks rack up the favors that amass lasting political influence.

The U.S. system of government is meant to ensure that members of the House represent the concerns of Americans who reside in congressional districts—not a nationally dispersed network (a diaspora) committed to advancing the agenda of a foreign nation. Federal elections are meant to hold senators accountable to constituents who reside in the states they represent—not out-of-state residents or a foreign government.

In practical effect, McCain-Feingold hastened a retreat from representative government by granting a nationwide network of foreign agents disproportionate influence over elections in every state and congressional district. Campaign finance "reform" enabled this network to amass even more political clout—wielding influence disproportionate to their numbers, indifferent to their place of residence and often contrary to America's interests.

This force-multiplier is now wielded in plain sight, with impunity and under cover of free speech, free elections, free press and even the freedom of religion. Therein lie the perils of an entangled alliance that induced the U.S. to invade Iraq and now to seek war against Iran—which will be the biggest no-win war ever if we attack Iran. By allowing foreign agents to operate as a domestic lobby, the U.S. has been induced to confuse Zionist interests with its own.

Read Jeff Gates' GUILT BY ASSOCIATION

In Guilt by Association, author and D.C. insider Jeff Gates* shows how an "enemy within" endangered and discredited America by associating U.S. foreign policy with the Colonial Zionism pursued by expansionist Israel. Guilt by Association shows how this transnational criminal syndicate staged the latest financial crisis, a repeat of the financial pump-and dump that ravaged the S&L industry two decades ago. Guilt by Association documents how, over decades, treason became systemic, aided by foreign agents posing as domestic lobbyists for a criminal state. Softcover, 287 pages, #GA, $32. Just $28 for AFPRC members. *Gates is also an educator and advisor on financial policy to 35 countries. He served for seven years as counsel to the Senate Committee on Finance in the 1980s.

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American Free Press August 17, 2009

SPOTLIGHT ON CONGRESS

Bill Pushed by GOP Aims to Prevent Political Dissidents from Owning Guns  

Washington is once again up to no good when it comes to your Second amendment rights. This time, a Republican is leading the charge to grab you guns in violation of the Constitution

Working in conjunction with the gun-grabbing wing of the Democrat Party, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) has introduced a new gun control bill titled "the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009" (H.R. 2159). The bill already has 11 co-sponsors, a number of whom are Republicans. It is currently being debated in the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

The measure is being sold as a way6 to fight "terrorism." However, according to a leading gun rights group, the measure is highly dangerous and threatens the foundation of Americas' constitutional rights.

The Republican-backed bill would allow the Justice Department headed by notoriously anti-gun. Attorney General Eric Holder, to prevent Americans, who have been accused of being a "domestic terrorist," from owning firearms. Of course, no one wants terrorists to won weapons, right? The problem is, language in the bill will allow federal officials to use secret information - even simple summaries of evidence - to show in a court of law that an American citizen is a "domestic terrorist" - and judges would be obligated to accept it.

In a letter to supporters, Dudley Brown, the executive director of the National Association for Gun Rights, wrote: "As you know, in a recently released report, the goons at Barack Obama's Department of Homeland Security Classified gun owners, honorably discharged veterans and little old church ladies as threats to the security and stability of the United States of America.... Even a gesture as simple as placing a pro-gun bumper sticker on your car or supporting a pro-gun candidate makes you a potential ‘domestic terrorist' in the eyes of the thugs running our government."

If this dangerous measure becomes law, adds Brown, "Eric Holder - or any other attorney general for that matter - will be allowed to disarm you based on your political views without have to provide any evidence for his claims."

Contact your representatives in Congress at their home offices today and tell them to oppose this rights-robbing bill. If you act now, you will be able to catch them while they're still on recess for the month of August and at home socializing with constituents.
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American Free Press August 17, 2009

SPOTLIGHT ON CONGRESS

Legislation Hurts Family Farms, Food Safety  

In the wake of recent outbreaks of bacterial contamination in the nation's food supply, the House passed legislation on July 30 intended to address critical food safety issues. But critics have already come forward with terms like "ineffectual," "costly," "invasive" and "inane" to characterize this far reaching measure.

On July 30, the House overwhelmingly passed the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2749) by a vote of 283 to 142 with eight members not voting. Among other new proposals, the measure gives broad authority to the Food and Drug Administration to force recalls on food suspected of being contaminated. It also grants federal authorities new sweeping powers to inspect and close down any company that is engaged in the processing and production of food.

A number of hot button issues were included in the measure and have family farm advocates up in arms. This includes language that calls on farms and food producers to initiate steps to help "trace" livestock as they go from farms to finished goods on sale at supermarkets and stores around the country.

Opponents argue that the word "trace" is a code word for the highly controversial National Animal Identification System, or NAIS, American Free Press has reported at length on NAIS, an onerous system that would require even small farms to register and possibly microchip all animals.

Regulators would then be able to monitor and track food grown by the growing number of small farmers and homesteaders, who are trying to get out from under Big brother.

There are also concerns that the government will force small producers and organic producers to use vaccines and genetically modified crops and livestock to fit the requirements of the new world order.

The bottom line, say critics, is the bill does nothing to stop the massive volume of contaminated food that is being imported into the United States from countries like China. It also does little to address the pollution and disease spread by factory farming. This measure only serves to undermine the American economy with more goofy free trade schemes, undermine family farms and further the consolidation of the country's food under an increasingly smaller number of multinational agribusinesses.
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American Free Press August 17, 2009

Attorney Says Kenyan Birth Certificate for Real  

Feisty lady lawyer files suit to force authentication of recently found foreign document.

By Pat Shannan

Orly Taitz, the California attorney handling the federal case of Army Maj. S.F. Cook, (see accompanying story) has filed a number of lawsuits demanding proof of Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as president. Now, as part of the Cook case, Taitz has released a copy of what purports to be a Kenyan birth certificate and has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court for its authentication.

The mainstream media was disparaging the lawsuit from the first day, claiming it to be another Internet creation. The Washington Post headline "The Berserk Birthers" reflected its scorn.

The document lists Obama's parents as Barack Hussein Obama and Stanley Ann Obama, formerly Stanley Ann Dunham, the birth date as aug. 4, 1961, and the hospital of birth as Coast General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya.

Other birth certificates from Kenya have been shown to Taitz for purposes of comparison, and the form of the documents appears to be identical. If official authentication is secured, the document will undoubtedly become the "smoking gun" in the dozens of other lawsuits previously filed.

Taitz said that the document came from an anonymous source who doesn't want his name known because "he's afraid for his life."

Taitz's motion, filed on August 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Central district of California, requests the purported evidence of Obama's birth - both the alleged birth certificate and foreign records not yet obtained - be preserved from destruction, asks for permission to legally request documents from Kenya and seeks a subpoena for deposition from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"I filed the motion with the court asking for expedited discovery, which would allow me to start subpoenas and depositions even before Obama and the government respond," Taitz said. "I am asking the judge to give me the power to subpoena the documents from the Kenyan embassy and to require a deposition from Hillary Clinton so they will be forced to authenticate the birth certificate."

Remembering that Obama's lawyers responded in earlier court challenges claiming that she did not have anything backing her claims, she is now forcing the issues with a Kenyan birth certificate that actually has signatures. there is already some debate as to the authenticity of Taitz's Kenyan certificate; it may well be a forgery itself according to several online news sources.

Meanwhile, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times has made itself look foolish by publishing as authentic the Certificate of Live Birth which AFP proved to be fraudulent last year, then refusing to issue a correction when informed of the faux pas. The document was printed by laser on a form "Revised 11/01," when Obama was already 40 years old. Obviously, this is not his original birth certificate or even an original "certificate of live birth.
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American Free Press August 17, 2009

Obama's ‘Birth Pangs' Getting Worse?  

More Military Officers Challenge President To Show the Proof

By Pat Shannan

The question of Barack Obama's birth status and challenges thereof reached a new level when U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, set to deploy to Afghanistan from Fort Benning, Ga., decided he shouldn't have to go until his alleged commander-in-chief proves the legitimacy of hi9is occupation of the White House. This began yet another bizarre chain of events that has resulted once more in the government's continued refusal to address the issue at any level.

First, the Columbus, Ga., Ledger-Enquirer reported that Maj. Cook was refusing his deployment orders to report for duty because Barack Obama is not the lawful commander-in-chief. The newspaper than parroted the party line assertion that Obama was actually born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after it became a state, thereby suggesting that Maj. Cook's charges were ridiculous. However, the newspaper, in typical mainstream media fashion, neglected to mention that Obama has never answered the numerous legal cases demanding he prove his claim is a fact.

A hearing in federal court was booked for July 16, but then cancelled on the day before when the Army backtracked and declared that Maj. Cook would not be deployed to Afghanistan after all, displaying once again the government's reluctance to face the facts of the case. However, cook learned later the same day that come one from the department of Defense had pressured his civilian boss into firing him.

In June, AFP reported the similar story of the Naval Lt. Commander Walter Fitzpatrick, who took a stand in March of this year. He filed criminal charges of treason against Obama in federal court in Knoxville but is yet to have the court address it. Instead, the U.S. attorney reported to his Washington superiors at the DOJ that Fitzpatrick was a "terrorist."

California-based attorney Orley Taitz, who has handled various other suits against Obama, filed a 20-page document with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of georgia asking the court to consider granting his client's request, based upon Maj. Cook's belief that Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States.

Cook further stated in his brief that he "would be acting in violation of international law by engaging in military actions outside the United States under this president's command.... Simultaneously subjecting himself to possible prosecution as a war criminal by the faithful execution of these duties."

Cook, a reservist, received the orders mobilizing him to active duty on June 9, and a hearing to discuss Cook's requests was to take place in federal court in Columbus on July 16, but when the Army rescinded his orders, the hearing was rendered moot.

"We won! We won before we even arrived," attorney Orly Taitz said with excitement. "It means that the military has nothing to show for Obama. It means that the military has directly responded by saying Obama is illegitimate - and they can't fight it. therefore, they are revoking the order. No explanation, no reasons, just revoked."

Cook added, "If Obama is not there lawfully any order coming out of the presidency or his chain of command is illegal. Should I deploy, I would essentially be following an illegal order. If I happened to be captured by the enemy in a foreign land, I would not be privy to the Geneva Convention protections," he said.

"That and the fact the individual who is occupying the White House has not been entirely truthful with anybody," he said. "Every time anyone has made an inquiry, it has been either cast aside, it has been maligned, it has been laughed at or just dismissed summarily without further investigation."

He said he would be prepared for a backlash against him as a military officer, since members of the military swear to uphold and follow their orders. However, he noted that following an illegal order would be just as bad as failing to follow a legal order. Meanwhile, retired Maj. Gen. Carroll Dean Childers and active U.S. Air Force reservist Lt. col. David Earl Graeff have joined the suit "because it is a matter of unparalleled public interest and importance and because it is clearly a matter arising from issues of a recurring nature that will escape review unless the court exercises its discretionary jurisdiction."

Before news of the order being revoked was reported, MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann called Cook a "Jackass" and Taitz a "conwoman," as he labeled both of them the "worst persons in the world." He verbally flogged the soldier as "an embarrassment to all those who have served without cowardice," as if conscientious objection were the issue.

Over the past year, when reporters from the major media weren't ignoring this birth issue totally, they were belittling it with attempted character assassination, such as with Olbermann, while turning a blind eye to the most important factor, the law.

Taitz may get the last laugh, however. In her oldest case - that of former presidential candidate Alan Keyes filed more than a year ago - she has been promised by a federal judge in California that her case will be heard on the merits" and "nothing will be dismissed on procedural issues." Judge David Carter is a former Marine who not only realizes the importance of a president being constitutionally qualified but has publicly stated that if Obama is not qualified, "he needs to leave the white House.

News Flash!: As this issue of AFP goes to press, editors have learned that dual citizen Taitz has flown to Israel. She has been accused of fraud and Israel has no extradition treaty with the U.S.
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American Free Press August 17, 2009

It's Common sense: The U.S.A. Can't Pay for Healthcare Plan  

As the healthcare debate rages on, there is one reality that even the proponents of this Hostile takeover of healthcare by government cannot ignore - and that is money. government simply does not have the money for a new, expansive, public healthcare plan. The country is in a deep recession that will deepen even further with the coming collapse of the commercial real estate market. The last thing we need is for government to increase and expand taxes to pay for another wasteful program. Foreigners are becoming less enthusiastic about buying our debt, and creating another open-ended welfare program will not help.

Champions of socialized medicine want to tax the rich, tax businesses that already cannot afford to provide health plans to employees, and tax people who don't want to participate in the government's scheme by buying an approved healthcare plan. Presumably, all these taxes are to induce compliance. This is not freedom, nor will it improve healthcare.

There are limits to how much government can tax before it kills the host. Even worse, when government attempts to subsidize prices, it has the net effect of inflating them instead. The economic reality is that you cannot distort natural market pressures without unintended consequences. Market forces would drive prices down. Government meddling negates these pressures, adds regulatory compliance costs, layers of bureaucracy and higher prices.

The non-partisan CBO estimates that the healthcare plan will cost almost a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. But government crystal balls always massively underestimate costs. It is not hard to imagine the final cost being two or three times the estimate.

It is still surreal that in a free country we are talking only about HOW government should fix healthcare, rather than WHY government should fix healthcare. This should be between doctors and patients. But this has been the discussion since the 1960s and the inception of Medicare and Medicaid, when government first began intervening to keep costs down and make sure everyone had access. The result of Medicaid/Medicare price controls and regulatory burden has been to drive more doctors out of the system - making it more difficult for the poor and the elderly to receive quality care. Seemingly, there are no failed government programs, only underfunded ones. If we refuse to acknowledge common-sense economics, the prescription will always be the same: more government.

Make no mistake, government control and micromanagement will hurt, not help, healthcare in this country. Even if it really would accomplish all they claim, paying for it would still plunge the country into poverty. The government, like any household struggling with bills to pay, must prioritize its budget. If the administration is serious about supporting healthcare without contributing to our skyrocketing deficits, it should fulfill promises to reduce our overseas commitments and use some of those savings to take care of Americans at home instead of killing foreigners abroad.

The leadership in Washington persists in a fantasy world of unlimited money to spend on unlimited programs and wars to garner unlimited control. But there is a fast-approaching limit to their ability to borrow, steal, and print. Acknowledging this reality is not mean-spirited or cruel. On the contrary, it could be the only thing that saves us from complete and total economic meltdown.

Ron Paul, a medical doctor, is a Republican member of the U.S. Congress who represents the 14th District of Texas. Call his weekly update line toll free at 1-888-322-1414 or visit his website at www.ronpaul.org.
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American Free Press August 17, 2009

Economic Wizards Envision Worst-Case Financial Scenario  

By Pat Shannan

"Hard Money" advocates warn that fiat currency can survive for only so long and that we have just about reached the end of that bogus trail. These intellectuals have preached for decades that when too much paper is finally printed and put into circulation, the regulators will lose control and the inevitable hyperinflation sets in. They are telling us economic Armageddon is now unavoidable.

These few followers of truth and knowledge have their own guru - in this case four of them - who speak the same language of truth, law, honesty and logic. And over the past 18 months, this quartet has ben singing in tight harmony at every concert, meeting and publication. They are the real prognosticators of fact that will always be ignored by the mainstream deceivers.

These "Top Four" guide the newsletter advice of hundreds and the investment counseling of thousands. The recognized "Top Four" in no particular order are Doug Casey, Harry Schultz, Jim Willie and Roger Wiegand.

All four agree that there is something big in the global banking industry that's expected to take place soon that will dramatically affect the value of the U.S. dollar, British pound and other major currencies. None pinpoints a date but all believe a banking holiday is imminent and some have speculated it could come as early as Labor Day weekend.

This being the case, the banks would close on Friday and some would reopen the following Tuesday with the collar devalued by at least 10 percent. Other advisors have suggested that 10 percent would not be worth the establishment's effort and expect it to be much more.

Harry Schultz is a veteran newsletter writer and expert analyst whose reputation is beyond reproach. He wrote in his June newsletter a preface to a surprise event of magnificent magnitude and importance, with only one precedent in U.S. history.

He wrote, "Some U.S. embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies, enough to last them a year. Some embasies are being sent enormous amounts of U.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly, but not British pounds. Notice the U.S. dollar and British pound are grouped together, both to become unavailable." Schultz elaborated some more on the prospects of price inflation arriving in force. He prefers non-U.S. companies, many listed in the U.S. and Canada or Australia.

He elaborated, "The world is staggering today between stagflation and net deflation. But the wild card is the currency risk, which has 50 percent chance of boiling over and causing literally overnight mega-inflation in the asset markets.

Schultz has used his enormous pulpit of thousands of subscribers to broadcast the message with ample publicity. One financial newsletter reported overhearing two FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) men wearing official jackets talking to a police chief in California. FEMA would take control nationwide in a virus epidemic. They wanted to federalize the entire police system across the United States. They discussed plans to close the banks in late August or early September, and that "will get ugly," in their words. Another source says that "Panasonic has told their people to be back in Japan by September 2009."

Should the U.S. dollar devaluation would officially be touted as beneficial, to trigger a possible U.S. economic recovery. However, it would cause instant commodity price inflation and a rise in the entire national cost structure.

We remind the AFP readers again: if your bank fails to re-open after the banking holiday, anything in a so called safe deposit vault in a bank is immune from seizure, but this is a lie. Do not fail to head this warning. Govern yourself accordingly.
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American Free Press August 17, 2009

Last Thing America Needs Is Burgeoning Bureaucracy  

Once upon a time the American people left the running of government to their elected Officials and, with the help of the media, trusted them to do the right thing. And the greatest master of all times at "working the propaganda mill" was FDR. Many people didn't even know he was crippled, he hid the fact so carefully. And many people now believe that his mind was as corrupted as his body.

In 1932, the nation was in the Great Depression. The people would do anything he suggested. First, FDR had to convince them to elect him. His platform was very conservative and patriotic. Herbert Hoover couldn't sell the people on a second term. Who would reelect anyone they held responsible for destroying their savings and causing them to lose their jobs and homes?

FDR moved quickly to gain the public's confidence. Social Security (1935), funded by a tax on payrolls, would be there to help ease the burden of retirement for the elderly. Today, with the growth of government, Social security, along with Medicare and a burgeoning national welfare program, have become a government staple. Those who have paid little into the system reap its rewards. Illegal immigrants can even get on the rolls.

Congress passed the Civilian Conservation Reforestation Relief act (1933), which provided jobs on federal construction and conservation projects; the Federal Emergency Relief Act, creating the the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, giving financial aid to states and cities for relief measures; and the Agricultural Adjustment Act, establishing the agricultural Adjustment Administration which subsidized farmers for curtailing acreage for surplus crops andthe number of livestock.

Whatever the erea, be it securities trading oversight, or presidential entering into reciprocal trade agreements, or devaluing the dollar and withdrawing gold from circulation, the FDR government moved fast.

The country went through World War II prompted by a "sneak" attack on Pearl Harbor that galvanized the public into action. FDR's promise that no American boys would go to war was long forgotten as all the while FDR with a compliant Congress had been moving toward war.

World War II was the last constitutional war in which the United States participated. FDR asked the Congress to declare war, and they did so. Congress has, since then, abdicated this cinstitutional authority found under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution.

From 1941-43 FDR built the Pentagon, which has been the symbol of American global armed might. The military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about has become the military-industrial-financial complex.

Today, the economy of the country is on the rocks. Big banks have needed bailouts, big manufacturing companies are in trouble; the country is fighting another no-win war in Afghanistan and wallowing in disgrace in Iraq. Israel wants the U.S. to bomb Iran. China has a stranglehold on our currency.

President Barack Obama, though short on executive experience, called for swift action in allareas. Relying heavily on Obama's hardball-playing Chicago handlers for guidance, a Democratic congress shut out the GOP opposition and moved quickly to put the country deeper in debt.

The country once had the most envied private health care system in the world. Canada's socialized medicine program is practically inoperative and costly, forcing many Canadians to seek medical care in the U.S. Britain's National Health Service is completely dysfunctional.

The voters should keep in mind that the government can't operate anything well. Concerning life and death matters, who wants a cumbersome, bumbling and bloated federal bureaucracy in charge: It didn't work in FDR's era; it's not working in Europe; it won't work in America.
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American Free Press August 17, 2009

‘Terrorists' Could Go to ‘Hybrid Prisons' in U.S.  

By Mark Anderson

An Aug. 2 Associated Press piece that did not stay prominently posted online for very long revealed that the Obama Administration "is looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists, combining military and civilian detention facilities at a single maximum-security prison." Blending military and civilian proceedings sounds like the meaning of the word "terrorists" could become very broad indeed, given recent reports on DHS "patriot" profiling.

Several "anonymous" officials, as is usually the case with AP reports, shared this scheme. "The administration is eyeing a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum security prison in Standish, Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site to hold the 229 suspected al-Qaeda, Taliban and foreign fighters now jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba," said AP. Note that the basis of this whole scenario is the government's tireless insistence that al Qaeda and the Taliban are the only "mortal enemies" Americans need to worry about and were behind 9-11, the many facts to the contrary be damned.

American Free Press confirmed by contacting the Michigan Department of Corrections that the Standish facility in northeast Michigan is indeed slated for closure, having opened just 18 years ago in 1990 in Arenac County as a maximum-security facility. Patricia Caruso, MDOC director, said that the general Michigan prison population is declining and that the facilities slated to close between now and the end of the year are the Muskegon and the Hiawatha correctional facilities, as well as the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility.

The fancy facility the feds seek reportedly would operate as "a hybrid prison system" jointly managed by the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Military. This development deserves close, ongoing scrutiny. Watch AFP for updates.
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American Free Press August 24, 2009

FORCED VACCINATION PROGRAM FEARED  

‘Experts' say public schools the best place to institute ‘voluntary' vaccinations

By Mark Anderson

ALTHOUGH SOME CONJECTURE is unavoidable when it comes to the "swine flu pandemic," some troubling aspects of this issue have been factually established or are coming into focus.

For one thing, as AMERICAN FREE PRESS reported a couple months ago, pigs such as those on corporate farms in places like Mexico—farms "seeded" by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which helps corporate pig farmers operate outside the U.S. with almost no regulations—are major breeding places for viral illnesses. The animals are crammed together in tight, highly unsanitary and cruel conditions by the thousands.

Meanwhile, President Obama just completed his "three amigos" conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. They agreed, publicly anyway, that the feared spread of this flu must not allow cross-border trade and tourism to suffer, so no plans to fully secure the U.S. border with Mexico, to keep flu-carrying illegal aliens out of the U.S. during this "outbreak," were announced.

This is odd indeed, considering we're supposedly facing a threat that justifies millions of planned vaccine doses for the United States alone. Many of the early swine flu cases were thought to have started in Mexico, if the overall conventional story is to be believed.

Mark Smith of the Associated Press, displaying the usual religious faith that mainstream reporters have in official pronouncements, scribbled the following just after the summit:

In April, when Obama visited Mexico City, the first swine flu cases were just surfacing. Now, it's a global epidemic that's sickened more than 43,000 people in the United States and is blamed for 300 deaths. The toll in Mexico is at least 15,000 cases and 141 deaths; in Canada it's 10,000 cases and 50 deaths.

While the H1N1 virus is in a summer lull in the Northern Hemisphere, it's expected to roar back in the fall. Public health officials are readying medicines [vaccines] and public education campaigns, hoping to curb the flu without disrupting vital cross-border trade and tourism.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control itself listed far different numbers online—on the very same day (Aug. 10) that Smith's report was filed; moreover, the CDC has announced that its tracking of actual swine flu cases has largely ceased and flimsy statistical "models" are being used instead. That day, the CDC listed 436 swine flu "deaths" and 6,506 people "hospitalized" from it.

Yet, Smith says, without attribution, that "43,000" have been "sickened." A lot of people are "sickened" every day by the regular flu, colds and a number of other things. Most of those "sickened" recover and may or may not visit a hospital or doctor. As Cleveland, Ohio-based Dr. Sherri Tenpenny pointed out, if the CDC is correct that millions of people have been "infected" by swine flu but only had regular symptoms and recovered, then a natural immunity likely exists. So why rush to vaccinate America?

Five major drug companies stand to make huge amounts of cash for producing millions of vaccine doses. Clinical trials just started at eight major institutions, according to Dr. Tenpenny, a noted researcher/ watchdog who has critiqued this $1.8 billion (so far) swine flu initiative that the federal government seems hell-bent on carrying out, with up to 100 million doses slated to be made by November.

Then, enough to vaccinate every man, woman and child, a total of 300 million doses, is expected by March 2010, according to an overhead presentation Tenpenny gave on July 27, now posted online. The five companies that so far have received $1,816,989,920 in U.S. dollars, listed with their pie share, are: Novartis, 46 percent; Sanofi Pasteur, 26 percent; CSL (Melbourne, Australia), 19 percent; Med-Immune, 6 percent and GlaskoSmithKline, 3 percent.

The eight places where trials are being carried out are: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston; Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati; Emory University , Atlanta; Group Health Cooperative, Seattle; Saint Louis University, St. Louis; University of Iowa, Iowa City; University of Maryland Medical School, Baltimore, more; and Vanderbilt University, Nashville. No more than 42 days will be allowed to see if the trial participants have a bad reaction, when auto-immune and arthritis problems can take months to show up.

Tenpenny observed that the money to fund the vaccines also paid for squalene-based "adjuvants" (vaccine manufacturing agents known as ASO 3 and ASO 4, and MF-59). The first two have not been legalized for use in the U.S. and have been shown to cause crippling inflammation including extreme arthritis in lab mice, while "MF-59 is the squalene-based adjuvant that was in the anthrax vaccine" and is suspected to cause Gulf War illness, Tenpenny said.

So by all indications a major vaccination plan, which the CDC claims is "voluntary," is under way and schools likely will be a major venue, according to Tenpenny. Come September, October or no later than November, these "voluntary" vaccinations—that very likely will become forced vaccinations—are expected to visit your town, even as many Americans remember that the swine flu vaccine administered to 46 million Americans in 1976 was itself responsible for deaths and cases of paralysis—a literal example of "death by injection."

Some 4,000 Americans claimed damages from the 1976 program, amounting to $3.5 billion.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan told The Washington Post July 10 that schools are "natural sites" to start this massive vaccination. Tenpenny says infants and children up to 4 years old are at the top of the list, followed by school-age kids; then children with asthma and pregnant women; then critical-response workers (first responders, nurses etc); and so on. Some reports say young people aged 18-24 are a major target group (others say 19-24) because they supposedly have been more adversely affected by the H1N1 flu than other groups.

Americans are told to expect three shots this fall (the regular seasonal shot, followed by two H1N1 shots). School children who have never had a flu shot are targeted for four shots in the fall—twice for seasonal flu, twice for swine flu. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (a Bilderberg participant) has urged school superintendents to make plans to use their buildings for mass vaccinations and for vaccinating kids first.

Website Educates Public About Vaccine Dangers

Dr. Sherri Tenpenny announced a website from which flyers and brochures can be downloaded and printed for community activists who want to warn their local leaders, first responders, area medical personnel, their local sheriff and others about what activists feel is a potentially tyrannical or unsafe H1N1 vaccination plan and its possible threat to freedom and public health. The user-friendly website is PandemicFluOnline.com.

PandemicFluOnline's core contributors are gearing up for Pandemic Flu Awareness Week (August 16-23), building the website for dramatically expanding the people's knowledge on the historical, political and financial realities of the current pandemic response.

They seek the participation of health freedom advocates, both individuals and organizations, as well as medical professionals to help dramatically expand awareness in an effort to sidestep what they believe will be "a vaccine-induced public health disaster of unprecedented proportions."

PandemicFluOnline is seeking donations to help fund newspaper/magazine advertisements, radio and TV spots, and YouTube clips. To get a more "official" perspective, a DHS spokes man suggested flu.gov. That site is premised on the vaccinations being completely necessary. Reading the website makes it difficult to believe that the program will be "voluntary," as the CDC and other sources claim.

State-by-state information is available at this website. Grant dollars are flowing to the states to assist them in their efforts. The 1918 pandemic is mentioned, as the federal and state governments characterize the current H1N1 "outbreak" as a probable plague.

Mark Anderson is a longtime newsman now working as a corresponding editor for American Free Press. Together he and his wife Angie provide many photographs of the events they cover for AFP. Mark welcomes your comments and inputs as well as story leads. Email him at at truthhound2@yahoo.com.

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American Free Press August 24, 2009

Plan to Audit Fed Gathers Support Across Spectrum  

By Christopher J. Petherick

Lately, at a time of growing divisions, there is one issue, above all others, that is bringing liberals and conservatives together: The plan to audit the privately owned and controlled central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve. A new report in Baltimore's daily Examiner highlights the bipartisan nature of Rep. Ron Paul's Audit the Fed bill (H.R. 1207).

"The groundswell to audit the Fed has made strange bedfellows, with Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and Libertarians throwing their support behind H.R. 1207," writes reporter Steve Cauley. "Democrat Eliot Spitzer, the former governor and attorney general of New York, recently called the Fed ‘a ponzi scheme' on MSNBC."

Juxtapose that with House minority leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), writes Cauley. In a recent entry on his web site, Boehner blasted the Fed for its "lack of transparency and accountability" in regard to the federal dollars it has committed by the Fed and Treasury Department. The money the central bank and the U.S. agency have handed out raise "serious concerns" and make the audit that much more critical.

Other prominent liberals and conservatives who support auditing the Fed include populist activist Ralph Nader, conservative actor Chuck Norris and Libertarian talk show host Glenn Beck, to name but a few.

Paul's legislation is currently held up in the 71- member House Committee on Financial Services. But, every day, it gains new support; it is up to 282 cosponsors now. Paul characterizes this as the "most important step" in the evolution of his landmark measure.

"Now more than ever, we need to know what the Fed has been doing in secret," Paul told Cauley. "I am pleased that all of my Republican colleagues in the House, as well as many Democrats, understand the need for this kind of transparency."

Now it is up to Paul, Boehner and others to keep pushing to make an audit of the Fed a reality.

Christopher Petherick is a journalist and publisher based in Maryland. For more information, see his website at www.brandywinehouse.us or write directly to BRANDYWINE HOUSE BOOKS AND MEDIA, P.O. Box 638, Cheltenham, MD 20623. Petherick encourages all readers to sign up for AFP's free weekly email newsletter. See AmericanFreePress.net.

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American Free Press August 24, 2009

Truth About John Edwards' Crimes Revealed Despite Media Blackout  

Once a political powerhouse, he now faces five years in prison

By Victor Thorn

John Edwards could have made it to the White House, either as Skull & Bonesman John Kerry's vice president, or as a presidential candidate in 2008. Now, as of August 6, his former mistress and probable love-child mother, Rielle Hunter, testified before a grand jury about the possible illegal use of over $100,000 in campaign funds that was used as hush money to silence her.

Edwards admits that the investigation involves the questionable use of PAC money (a federal offense); and if convicted, he could face up to five years in prison.

Initially, his finance chairman, Fred Barron, said he used his personal resources to pay Miss Hunter for "videographer services," while aide Andrew Young said he fathered her child. Both have retreated and/or outwardly denied their initial claims. The scene became more titillating when Miss Hunter carried her two-year-old daughter into the courthouse, clearly indicating that the infant was pertinent to the proceedings.

AFP first broke the story in 2004 that John Edwards had attended the 50th annual Bilderberg conference in Italy. Like Bill Clinton before him, the global elite vetted this candidate, who all the while reported directly back to Democratic nominee John Kerry. His appearance wowed the crowd to such an extent that author Uri Dowbenko wrote, "Mr. Edwards spoke so well in a debate on American politics that participants broke Bilderberg rules to clap before the session ended."

As a result, on July 11, 2004, Alan Cowell and David Halbfinger of the New York Times asserted, "A well-received speech by Sen. John Edwards at a conference last month in Stresa, Italy was one reason for his selection as John Kerry's vice presidential running mate."

The man slated by these shadowy leaders to place Edwards on the Democratic ticket in 2004 was Fannie Mae CEO James A. Johnson. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg, Johnson also served as a board member for Goldman Sachs. Equally as important, Fannie Mae is widely recognized as a primary cause of the U.S. housing market crash via their purchase of billions in toxic mortgages.

In 2008, after it became clear that Barack Obama had secured the Democratic nomination, Johnson again assumed the role of forming an explorative committee for potential vice presidential candidates. He later resigned under a cloud of controversy due to his association with Fannie Mae.

While Edwards' wife suffered from breast cancer, many in the know wondered why newsmen refused to cover his affair with his assistant. After the story broke, CNN's Howard Kurtz described the cover up on Aug. 10, 2008.

"It became a ludicrous situation, a conspiracy of silence by the media." For his part, Edwards categorically denied any wrongdoing. "The story is false. It's completely untrue, ridiculous."

Then, on July 21, 2008, a photographer from the National Enquirer snapped pictures of Edwards meeting with girlfriend Rielle at 2:40 a.m. inside the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Edwards quickly withdrew from the presidential race, and then all hell broke loose.

In an upcoming book, aide Andrew Young purports that Edwards was waiting for his wife Elizabeth to die so that he could marry Miss Hunter. He adds more fuel to the fire with allegations of an Edwards/Hunter sex tape that is "impossible to put down" with Edwards "taking positions that weren't on his official platform."

Victor Thorn is a hard-hitting researcher, journalist and the author of many books on 9-11 and the New World Order. These include 9-11 Evil: The Israeli Role in 9-11 and Phantom Flight 93.

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American Free Press August 24, 2009

Family Farm Groups Celebrate Defunding of Microchip Program  

By Christopher J. Petherick

Advocates for family farms and locally grown food are celebrating passage of an amendment to the 2010 Agriculture Appropriations bill (H.R. 2997) sponsored by Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.)and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) that makes deep cuts in funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) controversial National animal Identification System (NAIS). The measure was passed by unanimous consent on Aug. 3.

NAIS is part of a highly contentious program enacted by the USDA that was intended to safeguard the U.S. food supply. From the start, however, farm groups have protested the plan, which would require all farms to register livestock with state and federal authorities. The biggest beef with the program stems from the fact that only small family farms will be required to microchip every animal to facilitate and federal tracking. Large-scale factory farms, which are the biggest spreaders of disease and contaminated foods, lobbied Congress to ease their requirements. As a result, USDA said massive corporate producers will only have to monitor and track whole herds, not individual livestock.

Prior to the vote, Ranchers-Cattleen Action Legal Fund USA, a grassroots farm advocacy group, sent a letter to Congress, which said, in part: "Contrary to its stated purposes, NAIS imposes high costs and paperwork burdens on family farmers."

Advocates for family farms contend that NAIS is yet another program designed in Washington to kill small farmers and further the consolidation of farming into the hands of a few multinational corporations like Archer Daniels Midland and ConAgra.

Washington should know that the only way to really stop diseases from spreading across the country and to ensure the safety of the United States' food supply is to diversify farming by promoting locally grown produce and livestock.

"If we go with this NAIS, then we got that national database that nobody wants and government control," one rancher told a Wyoming newspaper. "Worst of all, you're signing away your property rights. We don't like that."
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American Free Press August 24, 2009

Website Educates Public About Vaccine Dangers  

By Mark Anderson

Dr. Sherri Tenpenny announced a website from which flyers and brochures can be downloaded and printed for community activists who want to warn their local leaders, first responders, area medical personnel, their local sheriff and others about what activists feel is a potentially tyrannical or unsafe HINI vaccination plan and its possible threat to freedom and public health. The user-friendly website is PandemicFluOnline.com

PandemicFluOnline's core contributors are gearing up for Pandemic Flu Awareness Week (August 16-23), building the website for dramatically expanding the people's knowledge on the historical, political and financial realities of the current pandemic response. They seek the participation of health freedom advocates, both individuals and organizations, as well as medical professionals to help dramatically expand awareness in an effort to sidestep what they believe will be "a vaccine-induced public health disaster of unprecedented proportions." PandemicFluOnline is seeking donations to help fund newspaper/magazine advertisements, radio and TV spots, and YouTube clips.

To get a more "official" perspective, a DHS spokesman suggested flu.gov. That site is premised on the vaccinations being completely necessary.

Reading the Website makes it difficult to believe that the program will be "boluntary," as the CDC and other sources claim.

State-by-state information is available at this website. Grant dollars are flowing to the states to assist them in their efforts. The 1918 pandemic is mentioned, as the federal and state governments characterize the CurrentHINI "outbreak" as a probable plague.
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American Free Press August 24, 2009

SPOTLIGHT ON CONGRESS

‘G.I. Joe' Says ‘Attack Iran'  

Joe Lieberman, the independent senator who many contend serves Israel before his actual state of Connecticut, is pressing hard in the Senate for a U.S. attack on Iran. "Only through crippling sanctions do we have a chance to convince the Iranians to stop this nuclear weapons program," he recently told his colleagues on the Senate floor. And if that doesn't work, he said, the United States will be left with one option: war.

"G.I. Joe" has a problem, though. Iran is no threat to the United States, and the White House and the Pentagon seem to realize that. According to the Islamic Republic News Agency, the Persian country spends only $6 billion annually on its military, which is less than one percent of what the United States spends every year. In addition, Iran has not attacked another country in over a century and has made no aggressive moves showing that it intends to do so. Compare that with Israel, which has repeatedly threatened to bomb the Persian country that is home to 60 million people.

The Zionist-controlled mainstream media has tried to help Lieberman's cause by repeatedly citing a mistranslation of an October 2005 speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In that talk, it was claimed that Ahmadinejad said he wanted to wipe Israel off the map. But according to those who understand Farsi, the language of Iran, Ahmadinejad paraphrased a previous Iranian leader's well-known words, saying that he hoped Israel's regime - the Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem - would collapse.

Should Iran complete its nuclear program, Israel, which has long maintained nuclear hegemony in the Middle East, would be the only country threatened by Iran. That is the reason why Lieberman and other extremist supporters of Israel want to crush the Persian state and murder millions of innocent Iranians in the process.
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American Free Press August 31, 2009

CAMPS FOR DISSIDENTS READIED  

Congressmen, authors, patriots warn FEMA camp system in place

By Victor Thorn

There exists an explosive hot-button issue that U.S. government officials don't want revealed to the American public; namely, that internment camps have been established—and are ready to detain citizens if mass insurrections occur. Under FEMA's National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09), potential trigger events could be economic collapse, widespread bank closures, massive social unrest (possibly due to proof that Barack Obama is not natural-born), or a flu pandemic.

This final item led Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) to declare on August 11 that the government "might use a pandemic disease or national disaster as an excuse to declare martial law."

Renowned researcher Michel Chossudovsky addressed the mechanics of this subject in a March 19 article entitled, Preparing for Civil Unrest in America: Legislation to Establish Internment Camps on U.S. Military Bases:

"How will the U.S. government face an impending social catastrophe? The chosen avenue, inherited from the outgoing Bush administration, is the reinforcement of the Homeland Security apparatus and the militarization of civilian state institutions."

Are Army bases actually being converted into detainment camps? In his September 2008 newsletter, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) pulled no punches. "Even though we know that detention facilities are already in place, the government now wants to legalize the construction of FEMA camps on military installations using the ever-popular excuse that the facilities are for the purposes of a national emergency."

Conservative author and former presidential candidate, Pastor Chuck Baldwin, confirms this notion in an August 11 article, Why Are Internment Camps Being Built?: "I've had military personnel tell me that many of the U.S. military bases that have been recently ‘closed' are also being prepared as large-scale ‘holding areas.'"

To counteract these charges, some claim the "renovated bases" will simply be used to hold illegal aliens. A recent news item appeared in the Idaho Observer's June issue: "In January 2006, it was revealed that Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), had received a $385 million contract to build detention facilities ‘for an emergency influx of immigrants.'"

But to argue that their sole focus is simply on illegal immigrants doesn't hold water because the U.S. has had an open-border policy for at least three decades. On the other hand, more likely targets for detainment would be anti-New World Order proponents, Second Amendment advocates, dissidents, people who refuse to participate in forced inoculation programs, Christians, tax protesters and those deemed "extremists" and "enemies of the state" under a recent Department of Homeland Security report on "homegrown right-wing terrorists."

To show their seriousness in pushing this agenda, Bob Unruh revealed a disturbing development on August 7 for World Net Daily: "An ad campaign featured on a U.S. Army website seeking those who would be interested in being an ‘internment/resettlement' specialist is raising alarms across the country."

What specifically would this position entail? The description is clear: "Internment/Resettlement (I/R) specialists in the Army are primarily responsible for day-to-day operations in a military confinement/correctional facility or detention/internment facility."

Legislation introduced by representative Alcee Hastings (D-Fl.) under HR 645 would have the DHS establishing at least half a dozen national emergency centers for large-scale imprisonment of American citizens on military installations. Further, HR 645 would create a Guantanamo-style setting after martial law is declared. At that point, posse comitatus laws would be rendered non-existent, replaced by military jurisdiction over all detainees. As a result, the incarcerated would find it much more difficult to enforce their Constitutional rights to a fair trial and/or legal representation.

If skeptics doubt this scenario, they need to reexamine President Obama's own words in a May 21 speech at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. At this locale, he spoke of "prolonged detention" for all those who posed a threat to U.S. security. Even members of the liberal media were disconcerted by the implications of this proposal, including MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who questioned the "expectation of future crimes" that seemed implicit in his plan. Maddow had further suspicions about the president's advocacy of an Orwellian Big Brother-world via the use of "preventive incarceration" to keep certain people in prison indefinitely without charge.

Finally, similar to the policies of George W. Bush, Obama vowed to "reshape the standards that apply to our rule of law" (i.e., prolonged military detention and the denial of habeas corpus).

Obama and his representatives have unmistakably drawn a line in the sand. The Department of Homeland Security even has an "Operation Endgame" that proposes the "removal of all ‘potential terrorists.'" How would such a roundup be accomplished? How would "terrorist" be defined? FEMA official Glenn Cannon admitted to the Associated Press on Feb. 13, 2008 that they are "looking at ways to use passenger trains to get elderly and sick people out of harm's way during an emergency situation."

But would they conceivably stop at just senior citizens and the infirm, or is their plan much more sinister? On Feb. 4, 2008, Lewis Seiler and former Congressman Dan Hamburg (D-Calif.) provided a chilling scenario for The San Francisco Chronicle: "Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary KBR to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees."

Such accounts should ring alarm bells, especially when we realize that the U.S. has a long history of detaining its own citizens. In 1838, President Martin Van Buren authorized a massive roundup of Cherokee Indians.

During the Civil War, Abe Lincoln's jails were filled with inmates due to "suspicions of disloyalty." Much worse, President Woodrow Wilson imprisoned over 100,000 Americans during World War I who were deemed political opponents or pacifists.

In 1939, the FBI compiled a "Custodial Detention Index," whereas FDR signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which permitted the incarceration of not only Japanese, but Americans, including orphaned infants and anyone deemed a "dissident" as well.

More recently, on August 20, 2006, Allen Roland of Global Research described one of the most horrifying pieces of legislation ever passed: "Through Rex 84, an undisclosed number of concentration camps were set in operation throughout the United States for internment of dissidents and others potentially harmful to the state." Closely associated with this action is Operation Garden Plot, which activist priest Frank Morales characterizes as "a master plan to suppress democratic opposition in the United States."

It was actually implemented during the 1992 L.A. riots. Finally, Operation Cable Splicer is designed for "the orderly takeover of state and local governments" by FEMA and other federal agencies.

Victor Thorn is a hard-hitting researcher, journalist and the author of many books on 9-11 and the New World Order. These include 9-11 Evil: The Israeli Role in 9-11 and Phantom Flight 93.

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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American Free Press August 31, 2009

AFP Interviews Man Who Exposed Madoff To SEC Back in 2000  

By Pat Shannan

When Bernard Madoff was finally arrested and exposed to the world as a charlatan, the one person who was not shocked by it was Harry Markopolos, the amateur fraud investigator who had been screaming to the SEC for nearly a decade. Had SEC officials listened to him from the beginning, Madoff's stolen take would not have reached half of the estimated $65 billion that it finally did.

As a portfolio manager for a large equity derivatives asset management firm in Boston, Markopolos had sharpened his insight in this venue far beyond that of any ordinary detective. When his firm's partners returned with literature from a New York conference where they had learned of Madoff's remarkable success, they asked him to reverse-engineer this high performing strategy in order that the Boston firm might offer this successful product to their own customers.

Speaking to a crowd of more than 2,000 at the American Certified Fraud Examiner's conference in Las Vegas in July, Harrry Markopolos explained how it took him but a few minutes to determine that "Madoff didn't know the first thing about portfolio construction mathematics" and that he could not have been using this described strategy to earn the returns he was advertising.

When he reported what he suspected to his superiors in early 2000, they deep-sixed the whole plan, but Harry did not. There were too many red flags. His sleuthing had just begun, and his eventual team was made up of "four ordinary men" who were not paid for their after-hours endeavor but whose persistence finally paid off with the public exposure of a ponzi scheme magnified far beyond the imagination of even Charles Ponzi himself.

The Social Security system, legalized by government sanction, is the only ponzi scheme known to have expanded larger than that of Madoff. In 1920, in Boston also, Italian immigrant Charles Ponzi advertised that he could double an investor's money in only 90 days and immediately had throngs flocking to his office door. Word got out that had delivered exactly what he promised, and exactly 90 days later, the dozens of investors turned into hundreds.

Soon it was thousands. Ponzi, of course, was paying off the old investors with the funds from the new ones. He was eventually caught, prosecuted and jailed; and his name still lives in notoriety.

Markopolos knew at first glance that Madoff was not doing what he claimed and began to see Madoff as a brilliant con artist who, much like Ponzi, knew how to prey on the depravity of man and his greed.

He says, "Under existing securities law, if you tell clients that you are using Strategy A to invest their money but, in fact, you use an undisclosed Strategy B, you've committed fraud."

From that point on for Madoff, it was only a matter of watching the stock boards closely and publishing his imaginary investments after they had increased in value. He created an illusion of an investment strategy that was not ostentatious enough to attract suspicion but sufficient to reflect a small but steady profit return every month. And while his naïve investors remained satisfied, the discerning eyes of Markopolos were opening wider.

In May of 2000, he submitted an 8-page report to the Boston Regional Office of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) listing red flags and mathematical proof of a major fraud but got no reply. He re-submitted his evidence to the Boston and other SEC offices in 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2008, to no avail. By this time, Markopolos was realizing that Madoff had been operating with protection from the inside.

In late 2008, when the stock market crumbled and investors rushed in to redeem their investments, Madoff ran out of cash, turned himself in to authorities, and pleaded guilty in federal court last March 12th.

Markopolos said that all the members of his team feared for their lives during the long investigation and he for more reason than any of the others because of his visibility. He was the one who was submitting all the complaints each year, and he knew that any leak from the SEC could make him a marked man.

He explained that the "offshore feeder funds" were only one step removed from organized crime. "If organized crime knew that Madoff was stealing their money, he would have been killed. Therefore, if Madoff had ever found out that we had a team tracking him through Europe and North America and that he risked getting exposed, it was a good bet that he would have had several billion reasons to want us silenced first. To compartmentalize the damage, I was the only one who went to the SEC."

No one there knew Markopolos had an assisting team in the field. But Markopolos has proof that the SEC was culpable, too, and says publicly that he has tremendous anger at the agency and sadness for the victims. He says that there were SEC lawyers who were "in bed with Madoff " and helped destroy lives.

"Madoff paid people to look the other way," says Markopolos and reminds us that there is a federal report scheduled to come out by the end of the year. He emphasizes that unless there is a cover-up, "the SEC will cease to exist."

Harry sounds like he must have read the 9-11 Commission's Final Report and other government balderdash. Both he and we are watching and anxiously waiting for the report, but we do not expect it to be seriously detrimental to the SEC. The likely conclusion will include finger-pointing and the firing of a very few scapegoats. It's the bureaucratic way. If the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks can completely ignore the collapse of a 47-story building at the World Trade Center, we cannot foresee the government dismantling one of the giants in its controlling bureaucracy just because a lot of lawyers lied, cheated and broke the law. Nothing new here.

Pat Shannan is the assistant editor of American Free Press. He is also the author of several videos and books including One in a Million: An IRS Travesty and I Rode With Tupper, detailing Shannan's experiences with Tupper Saussy when the American dissident was on the run in the 1980s. Available from FAB for $25 each.

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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American Free Press August 31, 2009

All Americans Must Push for Audit of Federal Reserve  

By Mark Anderson

Many Americans speak favorably of a "town hall form of government." This American Free Press writer has found this sentiment to be particularly strong in New England, where grassroots New Hampshire and Massachusetts residents have told AFP that they feel government operates best when most key decisions are made locally and everyone can have their say. The closer the officials are to the people, the better. The town-hall forum must be open and honest, not choreographed and controlled.

But when people like U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania b=get involved - arranging his bogus, controlled "town hall" meeting on healthcare laced with armed security guards - such meetings take on a deceptive, coercive character.

The overriding concern is this: There is a danger that these healthcare "town halls" held by Specter and several other congressmen will keep the Audit the Fed bill in Congress off our news pages and television screens. We cannot let that happen.

Close to 300 of the 435 House members have cosponsored the bill, HR 1207, to audit the Federal Reserve System. That high ratio should have catapulted YR 1207 forward, so it can leave the House financial Services Committee and exit the House itself en route to the Senate and Obama's desk to be signed into law. Nothing less will do.

With the summer recess of Congress about to end, Americans need the New England-style "Spirit of ‘76" like never before to summon the determination to force Congress to audit the Fed in a genuine way, and not allow a brush-off audit where the Fed hands over a "second set of books" and gets its iron fist slapped. The current healthcare debate may have its place, providing Americans with a way to vent their economic frustration. but a nation that polices the world with hundreds of military bases across the globe - and which has a staggering trade deficit (thanks to our criminal free trade policies) that causes the budget deficit by fostering the loss of revenue-producing industrial jobs - is in no position to establish nationalized healthcare. President Obama himself said about eight weeks ago that the money is not there.

As this reporter has learned by attending and studying programs by the American Monetary Institute and The Michael Journal, the very existence of the privately owned and controlled Federal Reserve System prevents the creation of any kind of manageable, affordable health care system, public or private, because there is just too much debt and red tape. Our government must return to being the financial sovereign by producing its own money and stop buying it from the Fed at interest, simply put. To spend money into existence debt-free in harmony with production, instead of perpetually borrowing fund just to operate daily, would stop the debt monster in its tracks and "reset the dials," so an actual national health care plan could at least be feasible, even though there still are constitutional questions regarding federal health care involvement. But at least money would no longer be the main object.

In a timely manner, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul - the source of HR 1207 - has activated his Campaign for Liberty (CFL) that grew out of his former presidential bid, in order to amplify and sustain the Audit the Fed movement, so it does not get buried under an avalanche of swine flu scares and soap-opera news coverage on health-care. Most of the concise online letter from CFL President John Tate is as follows:

"As you and I both know, Campaign for liberty is leading the fight to pass Ron Paul's bill to Audit the Fed. With 282 cosponsors in the House and 23 in the Senate, your efforts have so far proven very successful in establishing large, bipartisan support for Federal Reserve transparency. We've come a long way in demonstrating to the nation that monetary policy is a critical issue, and every day more and more people are waking up to the harm that the Fed has caused our economy.

"But our mission is not yet complete. There are more Americans to educate, more signatures to collect, and more work to be done to combat the "big funs" that have come out against Ron Paul's Audit the Fed bill. That's why today I'm proud to announce that we've taken the next step in our efforts by launching , a focused, coalition website with one purpose: to push this historic piece of legislation through Congress, past the past the president's desk and into law.

AuditTheFed.com includes: contact information for your congressman and senators, petitions, widgets and banners to promote the website, dynamic graphs of the bill's cosponsors, a detailed summary of the Audit the Fed bill, a list of our growing coalition, a blog to keep you up to date on all the latest Audit the Fed news, a sign up for email updates, and social networks to help get the word out online. This website was designed to put you, the liberty-loving activist, in a position to efficiently and effectively promote Audit the Fed to family, friends, neighbors and strangers alike.

You can write/call the CFL at: Campaign For Liberty, 5211 Port Royal Road, Suite 310, Springfield, Va. 22151. Phone (703) 865-7162, FAX (703) 865-7549. Website CampaignForLiberty.com
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American Free Press August 31, 2009

Obama's Cabinet of Death  

Some say ‘Obamacare' no more than slow-motion euthanasia

By Victor Thorn

Deep in the corridors of President Obana's White House lurk death-mongers with little to no regard for human life. These "czars" and appointed officials follow the lead of their "commander-in-chief," who was one of only five senators to vote against to a ban on the gruesome practice of partial-birth abortion (October, 2007). As an Illinois state senator, Obama inconceivably voted twice against the Induced Infant Liability Act, which gave protection to babies born of botched abortions. In other words, if an aborted baby accidentally survived, it would simply be placed in an incubator until starvation set in because the mother intended it to die. When registered nurse Jill Stanek showed photographs of these fully alive children to Obama - babies that would be caused to die - she said, "Those pictures didn't faze him at all." His cold-bloodedness also became evident during the 2008 presidential campaign when declaring that his biggest congressional mistake wasa vote in favor of saving Terri Schiavo's life.

As senior citizens caught a glimpse of Obama's proposed "death panels," they reacted with outrage this summer at town hall meetings. Although his handlers tried to misdirect attention, Obama himself confirmed their existence. When David Leonhardt of the New York Times asked on April 28 how he's deal with those "toward the end of their lives," his response was: "You have to have some independent group that can give you guidance." Specifically, Section 1233 of the House bill would appint death counselors on "the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration and other end–of-life treatments."

Blowback was immediate. Former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey remarked, "This consultation is essentially an attempt to kill off elderly Americans." Andy Martin's (R-IL) July 23 comments were even more direct. "What Barack Obama wants to do is slowly withdraw healthcare from our elderly population. He wants to target the most vulnerable in our society for extermination through bureaucratic empowerment. Obamacare is nothing more than slow-motion euthanasia in the guise of cost control."

Similarly, analyst Marie Jon cut through the rhetoric " ‘Advance care planning' is code words for a mandated medical death sentence." In an article for the American Thinker on July 26, John Griffing hit a New World Order nerve. "Today's Medicare recipients could be the first to experience our government's new solution to America's ‘useless eaters.' " Finally, as an alternative, Rep Verginia Foxx (R-NC) told her colleagues on the House floor (July 28) that they needed a plan that "will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government."

Possibly the most diabolical individual in Obama's cabinet is "science czar" John Holdren, whose extremist views were exposed in his book, Ecoscience. Below is a sampling of what he proposed ( all verbatim quotations):

• Compulsory population-control laws, even laws requiring compulsory abortion, could e sustained under the existing Constitution.
• The development of a long–term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control.
• Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control.

Holdren also intimates that newborn babies aren't yet "fully human," and that a transnational "planetary regime" should be enacted to, as Matt Barber of Life News wrote on July 23, "enforce mandatory abortions for population control and limit the use of natural resources."

As Kansas governor, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius was notable in her ardent support (and cover up) of the practices of slain abortion doctor, George Tiller, "the Baby Killer." Even after patients recounted horror stories of his butcher-like practices, Tiller still contributed over $30,000 to various Sebelius campaigns, and was only one of three doctors who practiced partial birth in America (even nine months into a woman's pregnancy). Further, Sebelius was nominated for her current position after Obama's original selection, former Sen. Tom Daschle, resigned under a cloud of controversy due to income tax evasion. Daschle gained notoriety for his advocacy of European-style universal healthcare where seniors are expected to fulfill their "duty to die" for the betterment of society. (Daschle is a Bilderberg participant.)

On the other hand, Obama's "healthcare czar" is the brother of Israeli dual citizen Rahm Emanuel. Known as "Doctor Death," Ezekiel Emanuel has authored such articles as: "What Are the Potential Cost Savings from Legalizing Physician-Assisted Suicide?"; Choosing the Time to Die: The Ethics and Economics of Suicide in Old Age"'; "The Ends of Human Life: Medical Ethics in a Liberal Polity"

Emanuel formerly chaired the United States Institute of Health's Department of Bioethics (i.e. euthanasia education) while also engineering the "complete lives system." On January 31, Britain's leading medical journal, The Lancet, published the crux of his proposal:

When implemented, the "complete lives system" produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.

On July 30, Jim O'Neil of Canada Free Press even cited Dr. Emanuel's thoughts on the way in which physicians should engage in their practice. "Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath to seriously as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost, or the effects on others." Stated differently, the elderly should simply die so as to not be a burden on others. These words draw us perilously close to the dystopian societies envisioned in movies such as THX 1138, A Brave New World and Soylent Green.

With new strains of a swine flue on the horizon, and therefore threats of forced vaccinations, how close are we to mandatory sterilizations and the Rockefeller-funded eugenics of decades past? In Barack Obama's chamber of horrors, one fact has become abundantly clear: individuals are expendable, especially if they're newborns or senior citizens.
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American Free Press August 31, 2009

SPOTLIGHT ON CONGRESS

Ominous Gun Control Bill Hits Congress  

A pro-Second Amendment rights group has issued a call to action to oppose legislation that would establish a national gun database and grant federal authorities the power to arbitrarily bar citizens from owning firearms.

In a video message posted on the Internet, Dudley Brown, the executive director of the National Association for Gun rights, blasted Illinois Democrat Rep. Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009 (H.R. 45). The bill is currently being deliberated in the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security and has no cosponsors.

Click on video to watch it.

AFP already reported on this dangerous bill in the March 2 edition. However, it is critical that patriots keep attention focused on the legislation, which would strip Americans of their constitutional right.

According to Brown, H.R. 45 would completely change the way Americans obtain and own firearms in the United States. The measure forces citizens to take written examinations before they could purchase firearms. It releases all medical records, including mental health records, to "notorious anti-gun Attorney General Eric Holder" for the purpose of determining who should and should not be allowed to own a firearm. It mandates a two-day waiting period for the purchase of all firearms, not just hand guns, a well as imposing a $25 tax on all of those purchases. It creates a national database that would contain extensive information about citizens and their firearms. It imposes on gun dealers stiff penalties for even the smallest clerical error.

And, finally, it establishes a ban on all private gun sales, meaning citizens would no longer be able to sell or even give away a shotgun or rifle to a friend, neighbor son or grandson.

"H.R. 45 is a very dangerous bill," said Brown. "It moves the yard marker on what is possible." At one time, gun owners considered the Brady Bill "extreme," he said. Now it is considered common place even among gun rights groups. "W must be vigilant ," Brown added. "We can't let down our guard."
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American Free Press August 31, 2009

SPOTLIGHT ON CONGRESS

Death Panels DOA?  

In early August, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin set off protests around the country after she posted a write-up on her web site that healthcare reform proposed by the Democrats included so-called "death panels" where bureaucrats and other federal appointees would be able to make decisions about which patients should live and which should die. But are death panels real or are they just Republican demagoging in order to kill a major Democratic proposal?

Democrats have denied the existence of death panels, citing specific language in the legislation. They claim that language providing so-called "end-of-life consultations" - which, according to Palin, form the basis of the death panels - only means that medical practitioners would be encouraged to have sit-down meeting with terminally ill patients to talk about such things as living wills and treatment options.

But there may be a germ of truth in Palin's statement, evidenced by the fact that leading Democrats are backpedaling on funding these end-of-life consultations. In mid-August during a television interview, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said it would not be part of a bill that the Senate Finance Committee is currently working on. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a Sunday morning television talk show that it is probably off the table." Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who also sits on the Finance committee, threw his cards on the table in an interview on Sunday morning, saying that the consultations are probably doomed.

The problem is few people have actually seen the 1,000-page bill as it is currently being negotiated in the Senate. So no one really knows what the language actually says. Some who have seen the proposal contend that the ambiguity in the measure could be interpreted to mean that doctors and bureaucrats could encourage euthanasia for critically ill patients.
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American Free Press August 31, 2009

Swine Flu Shots to Be Mandatory for Some?  

By Mark Anderson

Even as the CDC's website calls the planned, large-scale federal vaccination plan "voluntary" - which also is how the IRS officially describes the income tax - two other federal sources also denied it involves forcing those who refuse to take the shots.

Asked about a recent Fox News report and AFP research that implied the military might help force the populace to take the shots, Michael Kucharek, in the public affairs department of the U.S. Northern Command (Northcom) in Colorado, told AFP that the military's involvement in anticipated HINI outbreaks would not involve martial law. He called such claims not just overblown but "erroneous."

Reports on television and online include speculation that those who refuse the shots may be arrested and perhaps placed in federal detention centers, which may include abandoned or under-utilized military bases or new facilities (AFP July 27, 2009).

The Army's Third Infantry Division/First Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., is under the command of Northcom to handle domestic duties, but requiring Americans to take the HINI shots by gunpoint or some other "incentive" is not one of those duties, Kucharek claimed, when pressed by AFP

"That is not what we signed up for... Constitutionally," he added, stressing that HINI vaccination efforts, as he understands it, will start at the local level - :and if we can help in any way with the primary [federal] agency, we will, but that will not include forced vaccinations," he insisted.

"We would be very much into protecting our armed forces," he also told AFP on Aug. 11, meaning that the soldiers - while Northcom is designated to work with lead federal agencies to assist in natural and manmade disasters - would not get too deeply involved in the HINI effort to the point of risking the soldiers' health. That wold deplete their ability to defend the nation from attack or deploy overseas, Kucharek added. His Army brigade spent considerable time in Iraq and was assigned under Northcom for domestic duties as of Oct. 1, 2008 for a one year stint, and a more permanent domestic military unit is expected to take over later, according to the Army Times.

Kucharek acknowledged the established regional joint task forces linking Northcom with bureaucracies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency; he said this involves Northcom providing logistical support, such as distributing shipments of the drug Tamiflu and various planning operations.

A DHS Soijesnab who preferred anonymity claimed: "It can't be mandatory; it would have to be a voluntary thing. It will be recommended, and those recommendations will come down."

However, a Michigan nurse told AFP that hospital workers where she works will be required to take the shots. And, we can all remember getting inoculations in grade school that were required for attendance. Several shots are still required for attendance. Will HINI be any different? A Michigan state trooper told AFP Aug. 17 that he and his colleagues will be strongly recommended to take the shots. But perhaps not leterally forced. There is a thin line between "required" and Strongly recommended."

Job sanctions could be levied against "refusniks." Welcome to today's America.
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American Free Press August 31, 2009

Follow the Medical Moolah:
Obama, the AMA and the Healthcare Racket

By Ralph Forbes

When the AMA cozied up in bed with Obama under the "Health Plan" sheets, it shocked many Americans, whose only source of "news" is the pablum spooned out by the mass media.

Even more shocking was the charge by apparently a majority of doctors that the AMA is acting to protect revenue, and not the interests of most doctors or their patients.

In a recent online survey conducted by Dr. Daniel Palestrant founder and CEO of Sermo, Inc.(1), out of the 4,000 doctors who responded, 94 percent (an overwhelming majority) say they do not suport the House health care bill.

According to Palestraint, the AMA made a decision to do what was in the best interest of its own business model. They are really looking out for their revenue stream. The AMA's deal with Obama's "health" planners - ram-rodded by Ezekiel "Zeke" J. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D.(2), brother of the ubiquitous Zionist extremist, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel - was protecting its licensing revenue, protecting its insurance company clients.

The AMA's lifeblood is its monopoly on billing codes (known as Current Procedure Terminology or CPT codes). AMA membership has shrunk to less than 15-20 percent of U.S. physicians. It now earns far more money from selling those CPT codes to insurance companies than it does from membership dues. As much as 40-50 percent of each healthcare dollar is spent on administrative overhead. Physicians largely blame CPT codes for this problem.

Healthcare reform is necessary. The waste and opportunities for graft hiding behind a lack of pricing transparency and collusion among insurers to manipulate those process must be cured. The AMA has a vested interest in its monopoly of the CPT system.

The CPT system is privately owned. Its use is strictly limited so that licensing fees can be obtained. Palestrant notes this has the unfortunate side effect of keeping the general public from doing easy comparisons of healthcare goods and services, also benefitting the insurance companies - who do not want those side-by-side comparisons because they promote competition and transparency.

"Cui Bono?" Who benefits from CPT codes? The AMA receives approximately $70 billion in "licensing fees" from anyone who needs to use those codes. Insurance companies can use the CPT coding system for price gouging.

Timothy Pickering, while working in military hospital administration, had an idea for helping consumers penetrate the mystery of healthcare costs. He set up a free web site that estimated prices for medical procedures, based on the amounts the federal government typically reimburses doctors for the treatment.

Pickering, naively, assumed the AMA would be happy because the site would help patients. The AMA threatened him with a lawsuit if he didn't cease and desist from publishing their codes - unless the AMA was paid for each code and each patient who peeked at the costs. Pickering likens the AMA to a restaurant that charges patrons to look at the menu. "Most of us would take our business else where," the screed says, "if there was another choice."

Endnotes:
(1) Founded as an early-warning adverse-effect reporting system for drug side effects. Serno has become "the fastest-growing community created by physicians, for physicians".
(2) Kevorkian is still the reigning "Dr. Death," but Emanuel, who already is known as a deadly doctor," may make Kevorkian seem like a rank amateur. Emanuel explicitly defends discrimination against older patients. His communitarian "final solution" may solve Social Security's and Medicare's financial problems by denying health care to millions of senior citizens - and possibly mandating "compassionate deaths." Besides Emanuel, Obama appointed Dr. David Blumenthal as national coordinator of health-information technology, a job that involves making sure doctors obey electronically delivered guidelines (EDGs) and Embedded Clinical Decision (ECD) support - a bureaucratic euphemism for computers telling doctors what to do.
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American Free Press August 31, 2009

Recent WTO Ruling Underscores Threat to U.S. Sovereignty  

By Robert W. McClelland

WTO now stands for World Trade Outrage rather than its original name, World Trade Organization. The WTO just ruled that the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda can freely violate American copyrights and trademarks in order to punish the United States for our laws prohibiting Internet gambling.

Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in 2006 after finding that "Internet gambling is a growing cause of debt collection problems for insured depository institutions and the consumer credit industry." The social and financial costs of gambling would be greatly increased if we permit Internet gambling.

The WTO ordered this punishment because it says U.S. laws interfere with free trade in "recreational services." The foreign tribunal ranks free trade as more important than the intellectual property rights Americans have enjoyed since our Constitution was written. The WTO's 88-page decision contained the panel's remarkable admission that "we feel we are on shaky grounds." But that didn't stop the Geneva tribunal from issuing its ruling.

Americans have every right to protect our people against the corruption and loss of wealth that result from gambling on the Internet. It is shocking for an unelected foreign tribunal to tell our Congress and president they lack the power to protect our people. Even American supremacist judges would not have the nerve to authorize stealing copyrights and trade marks as a remedy for on side in an unrelated dispute. But the WTO has granted what has been called a "piracy permit" that allows a small Caribbean nation to "pirate," or steal, U.S. property rights.

The WTO has ruled against the United States in 40 out of 47 major cases, and against us in 30 out of 33 trade remedies cases. After the WTO ruled that the U.S. cannot divert tariff revenue to U.S. companies that are injured by foreign subsidies to their competitors, Vice President Dick Cheney provided the tie-breaking vote in the Senate on Dec. 21, 2005 to kowtow to the WTO.

For many years, opponents of the WTO have predicted that this foreign bureaucracy would massively interfere with our sovereignty. This new ruling is crazy, unjust and impertinent, but without a lot of public protest, it looks unlikely that our "free trade" president or congress will do anything to protect us from the WTO.

How is a foreign tribunal in Geneva able to put the United States in such a box? It's because the internationalist free trade lobby cooked up a sleazy deal to force the WTO on us back in 1994 during the week after Thanksgiving when Americans were preoccupied with Christmas shopping and festivities.

The deal to lock us into WTO consisted of three parts. First, the 14-page WTO agreement was surreptitiously added, without debate or publicity, to the 22,000 page version of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) implementing legislation, and was voted on under "fast track" rules which allowed no amendments or changes, severely limited debate, and forbade any filibuster. Second, the treaty clause to the U.S. Constitution for ratification of treaties was ignored and WTO was declared passed by Congress as a non-treaty. Third, the GATT/WTO agreement was passed in the December lame-duck session with votes of dozens of congressmen who were looking for lucrative jobs representing foreign interests because they had been defeated in the Republican landslide of November 1994.

The WTO is a supra-national body in Geneva that sets, manages and enforces WTO-made rules to govern global trade. The WTO includes a one-country-one-vote legislature and 151 nations (we have the same one vote as Cuba), an unelected multinational bureaucracy, and a Dispute Settlement Board which deliberates and votes in secret and whose decisions cannot be appealed or vetoed.

WTO is a direct attack on our sovereignty because it claims it can force us to change our laws to comply with WTO rulings. Article XVI, paragraph 4, states: "Each member shall ensure the conformity of its laws, regulations, and administrative procedures with its obligations." The WTO has the final say about whether U.S. laws meet WTO requirements.

Where are the presidential candidates who speak up to defend our sovereignty against the globalists who, under the mantra of "free trade," willingly allow the WTO to tell us what laws we may or may not adopt?
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American Free Press August 31, 2009

Illegal Aliens and the Cost of Insurance  

By Streven A. Camarota

As Congress and the nation debate healthcare reform, the impact of immigration policy is an important component of that discussion. This memorandum provides information about immigration's effect on the nation's healthcare system. The analysis is primarily based on data collected by the U.S. government in March 2008 About insurance coverage in the prior calendar year (2007).

Among the findings:

• In 2007, 33.2 percent of all immigrants (legal and illegal) did not have health insurance compared to 12.7 percent of native-born Americans.
• Immigrants account for 27.1 percent of all those without health insurance Immigrants are 12.5 percent of the nation's total population.
• There are 14.5 million immigrants and their U.S.-born l children (under18) who lack health insurance. The Account for 31.9 percent of the entire uninsured population. Immigrants and their children are 16.9 percent of the entire uninsured population. Immigrants and their children are 16.8 percent of the nation's total population.
• In 2007, 47.6 percent of immigrants and their U.S.-born children were either uninsured or on Medicaid compared to 25 percent of natives and their children.
• Lack of Health insurance is a sugnificant problem even for long-time residents. Among immigrants who arrived in the 1980s, 28.7 percent lacked health insurance in 2007.
• The high level of uninsurance among immigrants is partly explained by the large share who have low levels of education. This means they often have jobs that do not provide insurance. Moreover, their lower incomes often make insurance unaffordable.
• Cultural factors may also contribute to the high rate of immigrant uninsurance. College-educated immigrants are twice as likely as college-educated natives to lack health insurance.
• In an earlier study, the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that 64 percent of illegal immigrants were uninsured in 2006, accounting for one out of seven people without insurance. If the U.S.-born children (under 18) of illegal immigrants are included, they7 account for one out of six people without insurance.
• Among legal immigrants (non-citizens), 27 percent were uninsured in 2006.

The data for this analysis vome from the March 2008 Current Population Survey (CPS) collectged by the Census Bureau. Our estimates for the illegal population come from an earlier CIS study published in 2007 that used data from the March 2007 CPS. The March CPS, which is also called the Annual Social and Economic Supplement, is one of the best sources of information on the foreign-born. The foreign-born are defined as persons living in the United states who were not U.S. citizens at birth. Inn this report the terms foreign-born and immigrant are used synonymously. The CPS does not include pwersons in "institutions," such as prisons and nursing home. The foreign-born population in the CPS includes naturalized U.S. citizensk, legal permanent residents (green card holders)., illegal immigrants, and some person on ling-term temporary visas, mainly students and guest workers.
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American Free Press August 31, 2008

The Free Market Is the Most Effective Regulator of All  

By Congressman Ron Paul

Since the bailouts last fall, lawmakers have been behaving as quasi-owners of the bailed-out banks and businesses, leading to calls for increased regulation of executive pay packages that sound more like lottery winnings than an honest salary.

Many lawmakers voted in favor of these unconstitutional bail outs, believing that these corporations were too big to fail, and allowing them to go under would precipitate widespread economic disaster. This second wave of citizen outrage at the bailouts has left these lawmakers with a bit of egg on their face, and once again, they feel the need to "do something" to "fix" it. Shouldn't there be a regulatory structure in place governing executive compensation? Politically, it seems quite feasible. People are outraged that the system has once again gutted the many to make a few at the top fantastically wealthy. But they are incorrectly demonizing the free market.

What we need to realize is that there WAS a regulatory structure in place that was attempting to stop bad management, including overpaying executives. That regulatory structure is the free market, and when poor management brought these companies to the point of bankruptcy, Congress circumvented the wisdom of the free market, and inserted its own judgment at our expense. And now because of that intervention, we will be burdened with massive new regulations. We can be certain this effort will fail.

The free market is a naturally occurring phenomenon that can't be eliminated by governments, not even totalitarian ones like the former Soviet Union. It can be regulated, over-taxed and manipulated until it is driven underground. Lately it has been wrongly accused of doing so many things it just doesn't do, that are really the fault of crony corporatism and convoluted government policies that brought on the crisis. Too many doing whatever it wants, but that is not the free market. Unconstitutional taxpayer funded bailouts are what allow giant corporations to run roughshod over the economy. The free market is what puts them out of business when they misbehave.

The free market is you and your neighbors working hard to produce what you produce, and exchanging goods and services voluntarily, in mutually agreeable arrangements. The free market is about respecting property rights and contracts. It is not about building up oligarchs and monopolies and confiscatory tax theft - these are creatures of government.

We must watch out when government comes up with interventionist solutions to interventionist problems. The root of our problems lie in interventionism. Trusting the free market is the solution.
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