February 7, 2011
- Foreclosure Crisis Will Worsen
- Mossad Losing its Reputation of Invincibility
- ‘Delayed-Action Biological Weapons' Increasingly Feminize World's Men
- Detroit's Demise a Dire Warning for Other Cities
- Kappa Beta Phi: A Secret Society for the Banksters?
- Big Business and Police State Want to Read Your Thoughts
- Population, Lack of Arable Land Spur Food Crisis
- Fluoride Battle Intensifies in Texas, California
- Arizona Moves to Stop Illegal Alien Voter Fraud
- 'Israel's Senator' a Neo-Con At Heart
- Google Targeted for Ties to CIA
February 14, 2011
- ‘Catastrophic Zionism': How Turmoil Benefits Israel
- Italian Prime Minister on Bilderberg Hit List?
- USDA Ruling Imperils Food Supply
- Rand Paul Says Over $500 Billion Can Be Hacked from the Budget
- Shanghai USA?
- List of ‘Project Censored' Stories Mirrors AFP Reporting
- Tape of Firefighters Inside WTC2 Reveals No ‘Towering Inferno'
- Survivors Say ‘Underwear Bomber' Was Set Up by Feds
- States Rush to Copy Arizona's Tougher Immigration Law
- Pro-Western Arab Leaders Watch Egyptian Situation Closely
- Magnetic North Pole Shifted 40 Miles In 2010 Alone
February 21, 2011
- Global Warming A Hoax
- Father and Son Look to Chase Moneylenders from ‘the Temple'
- Known Torturer Is Man U.S. Wants to Rule Egypt
- Say Hello to ‘Anonymous' in Cyberspace
- Oppression Breeds Revolution
- Israel Acts Quickly to Influence Egyptian Political Situation
- House Passes Extension to Much-Despised Patriot Act
February 28, 2011
- RUN RON, RUN!
- Trump Wants to Be President
- Did Loughner Act Alone in Shooting Rampage?
- AFP Editor Makes Bilderberg Documentary in Canada
- Fox News Caught Sabotaging Paul
- Tea Party Pressures Republicans To Cut Budget By $100 Billion
- Hi-Tech Advances Could Lead to 21st Century Slavery
- Patriot Act Treason
- Financial Guru: Future Looks Dim
- U.S. Taxpayers Fund Private Killers
- Planned Parenthood's Genocidal Agenda Exposed
- Book Exposes ‘Chosen People's' Goal of Global Conquest
- Heirloom Vegetable Seeds
A recent Morgan Stanley finance report cited by financial analyst Jeff Adams warns that a huge "shadow inventory" of homes with delinquent mortgages, which has yet to move through the foreclosure process, would take 47 months to clear at the current market sales rate.
While realtors and bankers claim—or at least want the American people to believe—that the real estate market is "turning around," Adams reports that Americans are not being told of this "shadow inventory" amid the rising tide of residential foreclosures that continues to paralyze prices and hamper housing market recovery. It appears this second foreclosure wave is about to arrive.
More than 10 percent of all mortgage borrowers in the U.S. are seriously delinquent, and the shadow inventory riding that new tidal wave totals around 8 million. While there are no exact numbers on the extent of the nation's growing shadow inventory, Morgan Stanley is telling its investors to slow down and not jump too soon, Adams adds.
People in Florida and California, particularly, have watched helplessly as the real estate crisis has pushed their home values to as little as 25 percent of what they paid for them less than a decade ago.
The report continued, "Given the sheer number of potential homes for sale and the weak pace at which demand is trending, the bottom of the housing market may last another three to four years, during which annual appreciation may reach only as high as inflation or income growth, meaning real asset values will remain unchanged or lower throughout this period."
The shadow inventory includes all loans behind by 90 days or more, already in foreclosure, as well as a large majority of loans that are 30 to 60 days delinquent and about to be in foreclosure. Morgan Stanley even includes a portion of current loans expected to eventually default.
Considering that, as of March 2010, approximately 7.5 million, or 15 percent of borrowers, had fallen behind—with the above-mentioned 8 million still to come—the bankers and realtors have not even reached "half time" in the predatory economic "game." It takes place on a rigged playing field ultimately run by the shadowy private central bankers and their cohorts in commercial banking, wielding their debt-based monetary and crooked financial system against the middle class.
Adams noted that firms besides Morgan Stanley are trying to measure the shadow inventory. Barclays Capital predicted that it would peak at 4.7 million in the summer of 2010. Capital Economics, a research firm, predicts that the shadow inventory could reach 5.5 million by the end of 2011. Thousands of people remain in their homes after banks have attempted to foreclose on them, because many banks do not have original titles on the homes due to the bundling and securitization of mortgages.
Pat Shannan is a contributing editor of American Free Press. He is also the author of several videos and books including, Everything They Told Me Was A Lie, One in a Million: An IRS Travesty and I Rode With Tupper, detailing Shannan's experiences with Tupper Saussy. They are available from FIRST AMENDMENT BOOKS ($25 each). Shannan's latest book, Everything They Ever Told MeWas a Lie (softcover, 300 pages) is available for $30 plus $5 S&H. Call AFP/FAB at 1-888-699-NEWS toll free to charge to major credit cards.
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There was a time when the very mention of Mossad, Israel's premier spy agency, sent shivers through its friends and enemies alike. It had an almost mythical status and its highly trained assassins were the stuff of Hollywood legend. Mossad agents, both men and women, would be parachuted into a country or would arrive on its coastline from a submarine or fishing trawler. Teams providing technical back-up and other logistical support, including vehicles and escape routes, would already be in place.
Kidon, as the agency's assassins were known, would use guns, knives, chemical weapons or secret means of assassination, which left few forensic traces. They even knew how to conceal a bomb in a target's phone and activate it with a phone call.
Mossad spies also had a legendary status. Some were sleeper agents for decades, living a lie in other communities and waiting for a phone call or coded letter to activate them.
It has therefore come as a shock to the Israeli public and spy watchers across the globe that Mossad is showing signs it is no longer the invincible agency it was once cracked up to be.
A former British intelligence officer, who spoke to AMERICAN FREE PRESS on condition of anonymity, felt Mossad had fallen into the trap of thinking it was so superior to its enemies that it did not need to worry about them. In this officer's view, it failed to recognize that Israel has fewer friends across the globe and therefore the Mossad's mistakes, which might have been glossed over in the past, are now more likely to make headlines.
"Mossad was never going to maintain the level of success it once had because countries it targeted in the past have improved their intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities," he said. "Mossad has taken on more tasks than it can handle with the assets available to it. There is a finite limit to the number of jobs any agency can handle because training agents for work in the field is a costly, time-consuming job and top-class talent is limited. Few people realize that Israel's growing dependency on the CIA for running ops in the Middle East is a sign of Mossad's limitations," the former intelligence officer explained.
The assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai in 2010 was an operation the former intel officer singled out as an example of Mossad's decline. The 11-person hit team that carried out the Dubai killing was caught on camera and the agents' identities were compromised.
So, too, was the way they operated, using fake passports and credit cards supplied by private American financial institutions. The operational base used for the hit was located in Europe, not Israel, but even some of the people who ran it are now known to the German authorities.
The former British spy has this to say about the Dubai hit: "It was a disaster and it did a lot of damage to Mossad. Having those operatives on camera and later on an Interpol wanted list means their training was wasted. They are of no further value in the field. For that to happen was proof, if anybody needed it, that Mossad had become sloppy and overconfident."
There is now evidence Mossad has recently been dealt an even bigger blow by the exposure of 10 of its spies in Iran, where it has been busy running a dirty war with the direct assistance of the CIA and U.S. Special Operations agencies. One element of this undercover war has been the targeted assassinations and abductions of Iranian scientists and other Iranian nuclear experts.
Some of the Mossad-CIA operatives used in Iran were trained at a joint Mossad-CIA facility within an Israeli base close to Herzliya on the Mediterranean Sea coastline. The base is classified within CIA files as one of a number of U.S. military-intelligence sites in Israel.
The sites have numbers from 51 through 56. Most of the sites contain military and technical equipment to be used in the event of a war with Iran but the one at Herzliya is also reserved for managing combined CIA Mossad operations aimed at Iran.
The Mossad and the CIA appear to have underestimated their Iranian counterparts because it took just one year for Iran's internal security apparatus to unmask the spy network, which Iran says was involved in killing one of its scientists. Among the spies seized was a young man who admitted he was trained by the Mossad in electronic surveillance and counter surveillance, as well as in techniques for attaching bombs to cars.
Israel did not deny Iran's claims about the spy network. In the past year, Iranian intelligence has also captured and executed leaders and senior fighters of the Jundallah terror network, which has been used by America and Israel against Iran. [See AFP January 3&10, 2011 for more.—Ed.]
Much to the displeasure of Mossad and the CIA, Pakistan has begun handing over Jundallah fighters it has captured to the Iranian military, as well.
Richard Walker is the pen name of a former N.Y. news producer.
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Is a blueprint being carried out in Japan to reduce its population, one whose success could very easily be implemented in America if a similar agenda continued to creep forward?
On June 13, 2008 The New York Times reported on the passage of an anti-fat law in Japan in which both men and women between the ages of 40 and 74 will be required to have their waistlines measured in an attempt to end obesity. Those found to be overweight will be given three months of "dieting guidance," and after six months they will receive "further re-education."
In America, we have a healthcare reform plan yet to be fully implemented that could also require annual checkups to control weight.
We often hear that being overweight is a disease and a drain on healthcare funds. It could also be taken to a different level involving young people. If children are consistently overweight, could that be construed as child abuse, resulting in children being taken into government custody?
Increasingly, people are eating foods that contain added hormones to increase production. Since the early 1990s, cows have been given recombinant bovine growth hormone—a Monsanto corporation innovation— to boost milk yields. Synthetic estrogen given to both cows and chickens increases the size of the animals and would clearly affect all resulting food products that humans consume.
On July 30, 2007 The Kansas City Star reported on "hormone fluctuation" causing males to experience gynecomastia, or enlarged breasts. As a result, some of these men have undergone breast reduction surgery.
Considering the widespread use of genetically modified crops, it stands to reason that such things would affect the human body and even genetic structure. On Oct. 27, 2005 the Russian Pravda news website reported on a study in which rats exclusively given genetically modified foods showed a severe and pronounced weakness in their offspring resulting in a birth mortality rate of more than 55 percent. It seriously affected the behavior of the rats themselves, leading the Pravda reporter to conclude that genetically modified foods are "in fact a delayed-action biological weapon."
Water would appear to be a factor, as well. In 2006, the University of Colorado conducted a study to discover why fish were spontaneously changing gender. Studies have shown that estrogen taken in by women who use birth control is not properly filtered from wastewater during treatment of raw sewage, and is subsequently released with high hormonal levels back into the water supply.
In 2009, CNN reported that young Japanese men are now commonly referred to as "herbivores" as they seem "not interested in flesh," meaning they evidently are not interested in sexual relationships with women, preferring a more platonic situation. This mentality has resulted in lower birth rates and even translated into less economic production as the aggressive business practices of previous generations have been replaced by a much more passive outlook.
In Japan, masculinity is on the wane, being replaced by a more feminized male. America has experienced something similar. The commonly used term "metrosexual" was coined in 1994 to describe a straight male who displays an almost stereotypically homosexual obsession with looks, grooming and clothing. The practice of men getting pedicures and their eyebrows waxed has become more common over the last few years.
While these trends could be attributed to hormone overload, perhaps social engineering programs encouraging men to be more in touch with their "sensitive" side, communicated through the media and education systems, are a contributing factor.
Other factors include long-standing internationalist concerns with planetary overcrowding, and a perceived need to force the entire population into conforming with health regulations for "the greater good." All these factors are on display in Japan, resulting in an easily palatable form of population control. Like other successful products sent to the United States by the Far East, it's not unreasonable to expect that similar programs have already been exported to America.
Frank Whalen has been a radio talk show host for the past 17 years, and worked as a consultant for Maxim magazine.
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Detroit might not be the only city that sinks into bankruptcy this year if the economic storm that is prophesied to sweep across the nation lives up to its billing. Recent estimates place 48 states in an at-risk status, with Illinois the odds-on favorite to topple first.
So it may be that the noble effort to save the Motor City has come too late. It's of little consequence, no doubt, that Detroit would be spared the ignominy of going down in history as the solitary failed city. Instead, it will be known as the first of many to have fallen. Presently, Detroit has suffered a 60-percent drop in factories and a nearly 90-percent reduction in its workforce from 1960 levels. The staggering impact of those numbers on the local economy doesn't take into consideration the loss of industry-related jobs and of secondary businesses that spring up around major employment facilities.
What happened to the auto industry in 2009 could not have come as a surprise, given the kind of numbers floating around even as far back as 1993.
At that time, a New York Times article entitled "Retirees Figure Big in Detroit Math" reported that in 1950, a company like Ford had 62 active workers per retiree. Just over 40 years later, the ratio had dwindled to 1.2 workers per retiree.
As economic conditions continued to deteriorate and the wear and tear of the hits Detroit absorbed in the past began to show—both tangibly and psychologically—the toll manifested itself in several ways, the most marked of which is flight from the city.
Since approaching 2 million in 1950, the population has steadily declined and now is at approximately 680,000—82 percent of whom are black.
Late last year, The Detroit News figured the official unemployment rate at 27 percent—the optimistic low end of a scale that, in reality, could easily be bumped upward to 47 percent.
The city's infrastructure is in no better shape for this continuing depopulation, as certain low-income sections are targeted for the bulldozer.
There are approximately 34,000 vacant homes, with three times as many vacant lots, and Detroit Mayor David Bing, a former National Basketball League player who spent nine of his 12 seasons with the Detroit Pistons, projects that within three years, 10,000 homes will be razed, 3,000 of which will come down this year. Residents in the sections designated for demolition are offered buyouts and relocation.
Although this plan, on its face, appears to be a radical move, several cities outside of Michigan have similar programs, with others ready to adopt such measures—an indication of how widespread and entrenched the nation's economic malaise has become.
The median sales price for a Detroit home is now $5,800. That figure doesn't leave much for the city in terms of property taxes, which, in turn, isn't good for the school system that is over $100 million in debt and trying to stave off bankruptcy by possibly closing half its schools and increasing class sizes to 60 or more.
Things have gotten so bad that a councilman with mayoral aspirations has abandoned his home. Detroit is also faced with a budget deficit of at least $85 million, moving Bing to plan more emergency measures such as halting key services, to include fire and police, in parts of the city considered "unsustainable."
This move could also become an inducement to move people who are not inclined to do so, perhaps forcibly.
Bing is also hoping for $25 million in aid from federal and state funds to pay for the first two years of demolition.
Keith Hansen is a veteran journalist and radio talk show host. His website can be found at beyondthegrassyknoll.com.
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History's major trends are largely made by conspirators - even if we aren't taught that any more. The private Bank of england, the Federal Reserve cabal, the Bilderberg group, to name a few, have caused depressions, inflations and world wars. In this context, let's inquire about Kappa Beta Phi - a secret honor society for leading Wall Street financial executives.
Members include:
1) New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg - the 10th richest man in
America, with $18 billion in net worth, founder and majority
owner of Bloomberg L.P.;
2) Jon Corzine - former CEO of Goldman Sachs, former U.S. senator,
New Jersey governor currently CEO of MF Global Inc;
3) Laurence D. Flink - CEO of BlackRock, the largest money-management
form in the world controlling $12 trillion. With an array of
government contracts, Black Rock is almost a shadow government.
The "modest" Fink takes $22.7 million in annual compensation;
4) Richard Grasso - former head of the New York Stock Exchange,
was forced to resign after it was revealed he was secretly given
a payoff of $140 million. Grasso "took the 5th against self-incrimination,
and the N.Y. courts ruled that not only could Grasso keep the
$140 million - but he was entitled to another $48 million;
5) David Komansky - former CEO of Merrill Lynch, now a director
of BlackRock;
6) Sallie Krawcheck - number seven of the World's 100 Most Powerful
Women;
7) Kenneth Langone - former chair of the New York Stock Exchange
Compensation Committee during the tenure of Grasso, and investment
banker of the Home Depot;
8) Mary Shapiro - Friend of Bernie Madoff, nominated by Obama
as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, confirmed
by the Senate;
9) Diana Taylor - gal-pal of Mayor Bloomberg, former New York
State superintendent of banks;
10) Sanford Weill - former CEO of Citigroup, whose office holds
a wood etching of him engraved with the words "the Shattener
of Glass-Steagall." Weill and partners ex-President ford
and Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin say they :somehow
knew" that congress would repeal Glass-Steagall - the anti-trust
firewall that kept banking out of insurance - and they profited
to the tune of $76 billion, while the Glass-Steagall repeal helped
cause the recent financial meltdown, and
11) John C. Whitehead - former chair of Goldman Sachs & Co.,
chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of N.Y., and
former director of the New York Stock Exchange. He is associated
with the Rockefellers.
The fraternity of top bankers was founded in1929 just prior to the Stock Market crash. The organization is notoriously tight-lipped about what it does, but, according to online sources, the group's purpose is to "keep alive the spirit of the ‘good old days of 1928 to 1929 .'"
Kappa Beta Phi isn't exactly fond of talking to the press. Once a reporter watched to see who whould enter the Astor Suite, which costs about $1,050 per night, but when a messenger showed him his own photo from his Facebook page, this "fearless" journalist go the message - and promptly left.
The public record is shockingly vacant regarding information on such movers and shakers meeting in secret, much like the bilderberg group that has its annual world-planning meeting behind closed doors with no inside attendance allowed by working reporters, although AFP every year makes whatever inroads it can to expose Bilderberg.
The few press reports acknowledging Kappa Beta Phi's existence have been sweetheart stories. New inductees - only 15 or 20 top executives are invited to join each year - sit at a long table with a black tablecloth at the front of the room.
If our leading financial "brains" act like buffoons,
that's outrageous enough. But if it's a Bilderberg clone that
conducts workshops or other schemes of financial and political
conquest of an undemocratic sort, then it's time to get out the
pitch forks, tar and feather.
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Sports car manufacturer Ferrari is currently working on a safety feature that monitors a driver's heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, perspiration, blink rate, facial reactions and brain activity. This may sound like the ingredients of your last visit to the doctor's office, but for some journalists who have been covering this story, these things have all the makings of what's referred to as "mind reading technology."
The two words "mind reading" conjure up an array of scary images. We imagine ourselves being strapped to a chair and fitted with a headset full of electrodes. Meanwhile, a lab-coated technician shakes his head in disgust as he reads our innermost thoughts and desires being spelled out for him on an adjacent computer screen. Of course, this sounds Orwellian. But in reality, this kind of mind-reading technology does not exist, at least not yet.
Ferrari's latest safety feature is no exception. The Italian company is merely repackaging existing medical instrumentation and cameras to measure physiological indices and body language. Even the so-called brain-activity measurements do nothing more than monitor electric activity to certain regions of the brain associated with fatigue and alertness.
Of course, this product could lead to some disturbing developments. For starters, it is not hard to imagine a lobbying effort on behalf of the manufacturers to compel Congress into making this feature mandatory for every new vehicle in America.
A wireless interface could be added that would allow police to remotely tap into the database of a passing motorist. The officer could then analyze this information with his onboard computer to verify if it matches certain criteria, thus appearing to give the officer "probable cause" to stop the "offending" motorist.
The U.S. government has also been guilty of misapplying the phrase "mind-reading technology" to some high-tech quackery it has rolled-out in the ongoing "war on terror."
In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled its "Malintent" system for identifying potential terrorists. It consists of a series of sensors and imagers that read - among other things - blood pressure, respiration, perspiration, blink rate and facial features. Sound familiar? Aside from a few extra bells and whistles, the "Malintent" system is not much different from Ferrari's new safety feature. In fact, both "Malintent" and Ferrari focus on the same physiological indices that polygraph examiners have been measuring for decades.
This writer has conducted thousands of polygraph examinations since 1984. As students, the first thing we learned from our instructors is that the words "lie-detector" and "machine" are taboo. The tool of our trade is merely a medical instrument. It cannot detect lies anymore than the "Malintent" system can read minds.
If a polygraph examination is performed correctly, it can help determine of a subject's reactions indicated deception. But this can only be established after comparing that subject's reactions to relevant questions against their reactions to "control" questions. This is an elaborate process that requires an extensive pre-examination interview. But even under ideal conditions, false positives can occur.
The government's "Malintent" system is not accurate at all, since it fails to employ any safeguards against false positives. General nervous tension can be easily misinterpreted outside of a formal testing environment. In the absence of control measures, there is no way to distinguish between a man who is nervous about cheating on this taxes and a man who is planning to hijack a plane.
The best polygraph examiners rarely give examinations. They
are able to convince the examinee that the test is foolproof
and that it is in their best interests to "come clean "
rather than come across looking like a liar. For talented interrogators
the polygraph instrument is mearly a prop used to help elicit
confessions.
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The global food crisis is rearing its ugly head, again. And unlike the most recent one in 2008, the current crisis will not only remain, but will escalate in severity, including food riots spreading across the globe.
An examination of 2010 crop-price statistics says it all: Corn up 61 percent; wheat up 80 percent, sugar at a 30-year high; coffee futures up nearly 50 percent; cotton futures prices up 92 percent; and soybeans up more than 40 percent. A few weeks ago, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) cut forecasts for U.S. crops, causing prices to climb even further.
Even globalists have chimed in. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's monthly Food Price Index is at its highest level since 1990, and the World Economic forum issued a warning that rising commodities might strain the world's food system.
To get a better understanding of this current crisis American Free Press (AFP) spoke with Steve Mercer director of communications for U.S. Wheat Associates, an organization that mediates between wheat producers and the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service.
AFP asked if the world is running out of harvestable land. Mercer was straightforward: "Basically, there isn't any significant additional land to be cultivated."
Since there is no more land in this sense, Mercer continued, farmers have entered into a struggle among themselves, a so-called "fight for acres" between corn, soybeans, wheat and canola. The price of each crop determines where farmers concentrate their energy.
Mercer explained the quandary facing his industry.
"Over the last 30 years the number of wheat acres has been steadily trending downward," he said.
How much does population growth in the developing world contribute to this crisis?
"If you look long term," Mercer said, "global population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2015. The developing world will have the most influence on wheat consumption, since wheat tends to be a staple in underdeveloped countries. We feel that in the next 40 years the world must produce 40 percent more wheat than it produces today."
With all these factors impacting the price of crops, AFP asked about the possibility of this situation getting out of control within the next decade.
Mercer was sanguine: "Populations have certainly increased dramatically in the last 50 years, but productivity has also increased dramatically. Today, one U.S. farmer feeds 150 people; it used to be 20. So, mechanization and the technology that's being put into seeds now have the potential to help us meet that demand. But it's not going to be easy. When we look at the future, we recognize that we have to produce more food with fewer resources, less water and fewer pesticides."
AFP inquired as to whether America might see a reclamation of urban land in the future like what is happening in Detroit and across the country - a shift that should hapen so more farmland becomes available.
Mercer said,"There's room for conventional farming, there's room for organic farming and there's room for urban farming. It's my personal opinion that all of these things will be necessary in the future.
Some folks are not waiting for the future to catch up with them. One Dutch scientist thinks insects will be the food of the future. In an interview with Reuters, he said that insects have more protein than cattle per bite, cost less to raise, consume less water and don't have much of a "carbon footprint."
In a weird twist, the Dutch scientist, in order to make it
easier to bite into that bug, plans to create a cookbook - for
the discriminating palate, of course.
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Austin, Texas - The injection of fluoride into U.S. public water systems has long been alleged to be "beneficial" to human dental health - before the chemical compound finally was subjected to a growing ware of severe criticism. Now - after decades of being put into American public water systems, flowing through human bodies and onward through sewage systems - fluoride is reaching a dramatic tipping point.
This is the time to bring fluoride's use to an end, according to a crusading scientist and activists in close touch with American Free Press.
The imminent fluoridation of the municipal water in San Diego, Calif., for the first time in the city's history - and the difficult but sustained effort by Austin, Texas citizens to rid that city's water of fluoride - could have a huge bearing on whether fluoride keeps it seemingly secure place in public water supplies.
Noted Cambridge and American-educated chemist Dr. Paul Connett, who spent 25 years in the waste management industry, said that Austin's situation represents a critical battle. Other sources contacted by AFP concur that if san Diego can resist or reverse fluoridation and Austin can discontinue it, there could be a domino effect that may put America on the anti-fluoridation path on which Europe already is headed.
Austin activists, if successful in de-fluoridating their city's water, would be able to proclaim Austin as the largest U.S. city to ever get rid f the dangerous additive whose origins stem back to the Manhattan Project, where it was used in key processes to produce weapons-grade fissionable materials for the atomic bomb.
A shift in the national paradigm came on Jan. 7, when fluoride - still widely used in the U.S. - was given perhaps its biggest-ever public demotion by official sources in its approximately 69-year, rocky history in American municipal water supplies. On that date, the mainstream press reported that the Department of Health and Human Services finally admitted that fluoride has harmful effects and that the dosage of it should be reduced in all U.S. public water.
Activist Linda Greene, a leader of the group Fluoride Free Austin, told AFP Jan. 23 in Austin that the report inspired her to intensify her activism. She referred to a noted 2006 National Research council report that listed several harmful effects of fluoride. The problem, Greene observed is that the media only reported on brittle bones (including risk of fracture) brittle teeth and stained/damaged teeth as being listed by the NRC as fluoride's ill effects. But the risk of cancer, thyroid problems and several other ills - while included in the NRC's report - were not mentioned in most reports on Jan. 7.
"Zero fluoride is the only safe level," since fluoride also has been linked to a lower IQ in humans and animals, Connett noted.
Dr. Neil Carmen of the Sierra Club and San Diego dentist Dr. David Kennedy agree on the "zero" level.
Connett last November approached the Austin City Council, but council members reportedly behaved arrogantly and failed to gather a quorum so its members could conduct official business. Connett, who addressed university students during the same visit, had to settle for meeting with council aids, who showed some interest and took notes.
"The water departments buy this hazardous waste fluoride that becomes a ‘product' and they put it into our drinking water," Connett explained to that university audience, which was shocked that such a highly concentrated and exceedingly hazardous waste byproduct of certain manufacturing processes (aluminum, fertilizers etc) suddenly loses its hazardous waste designation just because it's sold.
Kennedy is among those working feverishly to try to stop the San Diego political machine from putting fluoride in the city's water, which at AFP's press time was slated to begin anytime, amid allegations that some of the fluoride may come from Red China, a major manufacturing center.
At city council meetings and other venues Kennedy has met with numerous concerned citizens, including longtime resident Arlen Shire, a retired Air Force veteran tho alerted AFP to the San Diego situation. The city's "leaders" have for decades been banned by law from spending tax dollars on fluoride but found a loophole when a judge ruled that tobacco settlement funds could be tapped to purchase fluoride.
Connett stated in a video presentation that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention admitted in 1999 that if fluoride has any benefit whatsoever, it is only topical - only for the surface of teeth. But why, he asked do stores sell and towns inject fluoride into water used by baby formula when infants don't even have teeth yet?
"To get a tan, you don't drink suntan lotion," shire wryly observed in a letter to AFP.
Medicating the masses through water fluoridation is the ultimate violation of the right of informed consent that the American Medical Association upholds for doctors. Patients can only be advised of potential side effects and benefits, not be forced to take medicine. But state and local governments can legally do what doctors cannot do - by pumping the poisonous fluoride into public water and forcing it upon the populace, thereby making it impossible to control the dosage.
"There are some crazy doctors out there that want to
put lithium in water to reduce suicides and statin drugs to reduce
heart problems," Connett added, praying that such insanity
will never succeed.
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Resistance to President Obama's sell-out of this country to illegal aliens is rising. Kris Kobach, Arizona's newly elected secretary of state, job he sought so he could fight voter fraud by illegal immigrants, has proposed legislation that he says "will be head and shoulders above anything any state has ever done to secure the voting process.
Kobach's election came at a professional cost. He will probably lose his tenured seat at the University of Missouri at Kansas City law school because "a leave of absence usually doesn't last four years," he said Kobach's story echoes the strong resistance of many patriots.
"For election laws in Kansas and most states, if the secretary is not pushing for major reform to happen then it isn't going to happen," Kobach said. "It takes more than a few legislators. You really have to have a secretary of state pushing for it, especially with legislation this groundbreaking."
Kansas tried to enact a voter-fraud bill in 2008, but then-Gov. Kathleen Sibelius (D), who later showed up at secretive international Bilderberg planning meetings without public knowledge, vetoed the measure. But in November, former Sen. Sam Brownback ®) of Kansas was elected governor on a platform that included stopping illegal immigration and combating voter fraud.
Thomas Witt, president of the Kansas Equality Commission, has another problem with Kobach's plan. He said transgendered people may be rejected at the polls because their identification may not reflect their gender. "Birth certificates do not reflect their gender," Witt said. "I've already heard from transgendered people having a hard time because they haven't changed all their documents. Right there, you're having people being disenfranchised."
Kobach has the law on his side. Indiana's voter-fraud law, which requires voters to show an unexpired government-issued ID at the polls, was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2008 and again by the Indiana Supreme Court in June.
Brandon Judd, president of Local 2544 of the National border Patrol council, said the recent murder of U.S. border Patrol agent Brian a. Terry by illegal aliens [see AFP No. 4, Jan. 24, 2011, page 1] about 10 miles north of the border was a result of Washington's softness.
"This is one more example of the sacrifices made by front-line agents, and it's a major reason we are continually outraged by activists and self-serving politicians with incessant talk about ‘amnesty'[ for illegal aliens," Judd said. "While they play games, our country continues to be invaded and Border Patrol agents continue to pay the price."
Rep Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee, said 28,000 people, including 1,000 law enforcement
officers, have been killed in the past five years. "Our
border remains porous and the Obama administration has done nothing
to stop the steady flow of human and drug smuggling from Mexico,"
he said.
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On Jan. 19, one who can accurately be described as "Israel's
senator from Connecticut," Joseph Lieberman, announced that
he will not 
seek
re-election in 2012. As the first Orthodox Jew to serve in Congress,
Lieberman lost his Democratic primary in 2006, only to miraculously
achieve victory in the general election as an independent candidate.
Strangely, in his 2000 senatorial race, Lieberman's GOP challenger received 448,077 votes. Likewise, in 2006, his democratic foe received exactly the same number of votes: 448,077.
The Incredible odds against such a numerical natch don't seem so bizarre when voters realize that Lieberman's campaign hired Prenzina Holloway, who was specifically barred from engaging in absentee ballot activities. Not surprisingly, one of Holloway'‘s duties for Lieberman included voter outreach and the distribution of absentee ballot applications. This move elicited allegations of vote fraud.
Close scrutiny of Lieberman's record over the past two decades reveals a man firmly entrenched in deceit, corruption and strict opposition to personal freedoms for the American people.
In addition to his support for increased surveillance spy cameras, Lieberman also poroposed a Senate bill (S. 3480) that provides a massive power grab to the president in times of "national cyber emergencies." One aspect of his legislation is an "Internet kill switch" that conceivably grants the White House the power to shut down the entire Internet.
Lieberman commented on this draconian measure, "If China can disconnect the Internet, we need to have that here too."
The senator's dictatorial nature also led him to cosign the SHIELD Act last year, a move allowing online whistle blower organizations like WikiLeaks to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.
Similarly, along with Israel's second-most favorite American senator, John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lieberman favors detaining individuals without release even if the Department of Justice knowingly can never obtain guilty verdicts in a court of law.
The McCain-Lieberman police state mentality also extends to authorizing CIA operatives to murder U.S. citizens of foreign soil, in addition to weakening whistle blower protections.
Of course, it's no secret that Lieberman is an ardent Israel-first neo-conservative warmonger who supported McCain's 2008 presidential bid. Over the years Lieberman has called for military strikes against Iran and Yemen, causing Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to refer to him as "the new Cheney."
On jan. 20, Lieberman still insisted that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was justified and that there were weapons of mass destruction found in the Middle East country. He stated on MSNBC, "I believe that the evidence is very clear that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction."
Although George W. Bush has admitted that Iraq had no such weapons, Lieberman forwarded another grotesque lie: that Hussein was financing the same "terrorists" who attacked America on 9-11. Again, this propaganda was dispelled by a Senate Intelligence committee report finding no connection between al Qaeda and Hussein.
9-11 PROBE
Lieberman went on the record during a Dec. 18, 2010 town hall meeting and claimed that he would not condone a new 9-11 investigation. He based this assessment on the inexplicable collapse of the World Trade center 7 building, the third Manhattan building to crumble on sept. 11, 2001. Lieberman claimed, "I have no evidence that this really occurred."
With mind-boggling audacity, Lieberman added, "The 9-11 Commission was totally bipartisan. They dug up everything. They were very critical of people in our government and our intelligence services."
The extent of Lieberman's deception and treachery knows no bounds.
He and his wife Hadassah, a high-powered lobbyist, collected over $1 million in campaign contributions from healthcare companies during his congressional tenure. As such, he bacame a strong advocate of Obama's healthcare bill, while also supporting disastrous cap-and-trade legislation.
"Israel's senator" has also forged strong ties with Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman and Christian Zionist Pastor John Hagee.
At a July 2007 "Christians United for Israel" rally in Washington, D.C., Lieberman said of the Texas-based Hagee, "He is a man of god, and, like Moses, he is the leader of a mighty multitude."
As a further example of his clout, Lieberman joined Zionist mouthpiece William Kristol in "auditioning" Alaska gov. Sarah Palin prior to her becoming McCain's vice presidential candidate in 2008.
Earlier, Lieberman served as Al Gore's running mate in 2000, appropriately bowing under to the Florida vote scam debate debacle that allowed Israel's neo-conservative cabal under George W. Bush to seize control of the White House and unleash its 9-11 false-flag strikes against New York and Washington.
Allen Roland may have most effetively summarized Lieberman's reign of terror in a Dec. 17, 2009 article entitled "Why Lieberman rules the Senate."
Roland wrote: "Joe Lieberman is the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) senate-minder like Rahm Emanuel is
Obama's AIPAC -minder. Joe Lieberman speaks for AIPAC and, in
turn, is protected by AIPAC.
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The respected advocacy group Consumer Watchdog is calling
on Congress to initiate a probe into the secret relationship
between Internet giant Google and the National security Agency
(NSA). As part of a 32-page report, Consumer Watchdog blasted
its "relationship with the U.S. National Security Agency
and called for the company to be more open about what consumer
information it shares with the spy agency." Last year, AFP
reporter Ralph Forbes documented Google's close ties to U.S.
spy agencies like the CIA and the NSA as well as Israeli intelligence
in multiple articles in AFP's Sept. 13, 2010 and Nov. 2010 editions.
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If there is anything that can be said about the crisis in Egypt—which is reverberating throughout the Middle East—it is that it is ultimately open to multiple interpretations. Any "expert" who purports to give you "the last word" on the topic is deceiving you and perhaps himself. Geopolitical strategists, armchair pundits and conspiracy theory devotees are competing to tell the world "what's really happening and why," but there is no single truth to the matter.
First of all, consider the issue of popular unrest in Egypt.
All serious evidence indicates Hosni Mubarak's regime has sustained
itself 
through force and
oppression and, not surprisingly, support from the Egyptian military.
In addition, Mubarak has maintained a close relationship with
the United States and, thus, with Israel, with which Egypt entered
a controversial peace agreement in 1979 that remains in effect
today.
These factors have preserved Mubarak's rule—at least until now.
However, within Egypt, there has long been widespread discontent among a variety of domestic sources, ranging from Islamic fundamentalists in the Muslim Brotherhood to more "Western"-oriented young people to working families struggling to pay food bills.
So while there is breadth and apparent depth to the opposition, the critics of Mubarak are by no means united across a wide range of issues. However, the economic turmoil plaguing Egypt in recent months seems to have been a critical factor in helping spark the rebellion.
In short, to suggest that the Egyptian rebellion was orchestrated solely by the United States and/or Israel would ignore genuine grassroots Egyptian concerns.
Israel and the American supporters of Israel know that many Egyptians of all political stripes and religious persuasions have never been comfortable with the U.S.-Israeli-Egyptian relationship and that an element of Egyptian opposition to the Mubarak regime has been its cozy concert with Israel.
As a consequence of this, many pro-Israeli elements are taking a firm stand against "democracy" in Egypt precisely because they fear a popularly elected regime replacing Mubarak could be hostile to Israel, no matter what the new regime's religious flavor—if any at all.
Note, too, that one of the leading critics of the Mubarak regime is Nobel Prize-winning former International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei. Supporters of Israel consider ElBaradei to be problematic because he was a critic of the Bush administration's campaign against Saddam Hussein of Iraq, raising questions about Bush claims that Saddam was engaged in building nuclear weapons. Likewise, ElBaradei has stood in the way of Israeli and American efforts to provoke a confrontation with Iran over its efforts to engage in nuclear development.
However, there are more than a few observers who perceive ElBaradei as a ubiquitous double-dealer whose agenda is uncertain In the meantime, despite all of this, it is not a stretch of the imagination to believe that Israel could stand to benefit from turmoil in Egypt. The average observer might find this difficult to understand.
While most rational people would assume that Israel would prefer to have neighboring states that are stable, successful participants in the region, this is not necessarily the case.
In fact, a carefully crafted "think piece" entitled "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s," featured in the February 1982 edition of the World Zionist Organization's Jerusalem-based publication Kivunim: A Journal for Judaism and Zionism, candidly put forth an Israeli strategy to wreak havoc in the Arab world, dividing the Arab states from within. The author was Oded Yinon, an Israeli journalist with close ties to Israel's Foreign Ministry.
The program—which amounted to "balkanizing" the various Arab republics, splitting them into religious enclaves in which, for example, Shiite Muslims or otherwise Sunni Muslims would predominate—was an agenda that Israeli dissident Israel Shahak said, quite simply, was designed "to make an imperial Israel into a world power," by disrupting the Arab states and thereby setting the stage for Israeli dominance in the Mideast.
The formula was founded on the idea of creating chaos among Israel's Arab neighbors, hardly a policy any decent, well-meaning neighbor could be credited for fostering. In fact, the current-day political and religious divisions and devastation in Iraq—the consequence of the American invasion of Iraq demanded by the pro-Israel lobby in Washington—mirrors precisely what the Zionist position paper laid forth as the ideal state of affairs for Iraq, from an Israeli point of view, that is.
But where does Egypt fit into all of this? Reflecting on the Zionist strategy paper, Ralph Schoenman—an eminent American Jewish critic of Zionism—writing in 1988 in his book, The Hidden History of Zionism, pointedly noted the paper's intent of "double-crossing Mubarak" and emphasized that the Yinon paper hoped for "the downfall and dissolution of Egypt," despite the 1979 Camp David peace agreement.
This is geopolitics at its best—or worst—and demonstrates the kind of gambles Israel has historically been willing to take.
After all, Israel helped subsidize and nurture the fledgling Hamas faction within the Palestinian statehood movement, as a means to counter and undermine the secular Fatah faction led by senior Palestinian statesman Yassir Arafat. But Hamas got out of control, grew in popularity, and now stands as one of Israel's chief rivals.
Such gamesmanship by Israel is part of a philosophy known as "catastrophic Zionism," a term used almost exclusively by Israeli and Jewish writers.
The theme of "catastrophic Zionism," sometimes called "war Zionism," suggests that Israel—as a state— relies on crisis and the potential of war with its neighbors as a foundation of its very existence. This has actually been the belief of many hard-line "right wing" elements going back to the earliest days of Israel.
In short, there are many Zionists who believe such crisis is vital—fundamental—to Israel's survival. And for this reason, the believers in "catastrophic Zionism" will never lend their support to any policy, domestic or international, that could lead to a final solution of the conflict between Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbors.
In actual fact, this notion—that peace could be dangerous to the survival of Israel—is a governing concept in the minds of many Israelis and their supporters worldwide.
A journalist specializing in media critique, Michael Collins Piper is the author of The High Priests of War, The New Jerusalem, Dirty Secrets, The Judas Goats, The Golem, Target Traficant and My First Days in the White House All are available from AFP.
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"A significant number of young women prostituted themselves with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi," declared a document made public by Italian prosecutors on Jan. 17. The 74-year-old Berlusconi, a noted billionaire, is living a playboy lifestyle that easily rivals that of Bill Clinton.
But Berlusconi—Italy's largest private media owner, operating TV and radio stations, as well as magazines and newspapers and owner of AC Milan, one of the top soccer teams in the world—reportedly is not cozy with the Bilderberg group—or, at least, the secretive clique of media moguls, global bankers, corporate titans and high-level government officials that meets behind closed doors each year is not comfortable with him.
Thus, is the current media tizzy exploding in Italy actually a politically oriented smear—especially the fuss over allegations that the prime minister had sexual relations with a 17-year-old nightclub dancer?
Berlusconi's political views have not always been popular with the elite global ruling class. As someone who's considered to be a "right-wing conservative," Berlusconi opposes illegal immigration and has pledged to cut taxes.
Meanwhile, Bilderberg attendees have complained that Berlusconi's actions will undermine the euro. The Bilderberg-controlled Washington Post has called Berlusconi "the biggest challenge yet to the young euro currency."
Berlusconi, although quite wealthy, appears to be far removed from Bilderberg and its agenda. Interestingly, he also maintains a close friendship with Russia's Vladimir Putin, which may also make the globalists a bit nervous, depending on how genuinely independent from Bilderberg influence Putin really is.
Considering Italy's more tolerant attitude toward sex, with legal prostitution and the age of consent at 14, it appears that Berlusconi's enemies are trying to take him down on a technicality.
For his part, Berlusconi, who is not trying to conceal his lifestyle, instead continues to thumb his nose at the globalists. Berlusconi denies any wrongdoing, and when asked if he plans to resign over the scandal, he told the mainstream press, "Are you mad? I'm having fun."
In an Italy that appears to have turned into a Hollywood-style reality show, Berlusconi's main political rival, Nichi Vendola, is an openly homosexual ex-communist named after former Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev. Vendola wears a looped diamond earring, glittering black shoes with velcro straps and a paisley scarf. He also talks with a lisp and has a boyfriend named Ed.
Vendola has accused Berlusconi of being "a slimy bourgeois" in addition to "telling anti-Semitic and homophobic jokes."
Berlusconi responded: "It's better to like beautiful girls than to be gay."
His alleged "anti-Semitic" jokes have also likely fueled the vendetta waged by his enemies.
Among other things, during a party at his villa, Berlusconi was recorded telling a joke about an old Jew, who admits that "during the time of the death camps" he agreed to hide another Jew in his cellar, but forced him to pay $4,000 a day because "we are Jews."
The joke's punch line has the landlord asking his family if he should finally admit to the man in his cellar that Hitler is dead and that the war is over.
Peter Papaherakles is AFP's outreach director. He is Greek-American and has been living in America for nearly 40 years. Pete is also a talented illustrator, portraitist and cartoonist who can be commissioned. Contact him via email at Peteafp@americanfreepress.net or write him c/o AMERICAN FREE PRESS.
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Despite widespread opposition to genetically modified (GM) crops, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently approved GMalfalfa, threatening organic farms across the United States. In a related development, official Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documents that were recently leaked show that the federal bureaucracy ignored concerns from its own scientists that a new, "advanced" pesticide will likely kill honeybees.
Bees are already struggling to survive in this country due to a mysterious and bizarre condition: "colony collapse disorder" (CCD).
On Jan. 27, "the [USDA] announced it would allow the unrestricted, nationwide planting of genetically engineered alfalfa," reported the Rodale Institute, the nation's leading organic advocacy organizations. The concern among organic growers is that, in the years ahead, GM alfalfa will contaminate natural and organic alfalfa, because, unlike most crops, alfalfa pollen can travel for miles, mixing in with other alfalfa varieties in the area.
In a landmark 2006 study, Colorado State University researchers found GM alfalfa contaminated almost all of the alfalfa for miles around one test field that had been planted with the lab-created plants. They concluded: "The GM alfalfa gene was found at 83 percent of the collection sites, out to a distance of 1.7 miles from the pollen source."
Why the concern over GMalfalfa? Well, alfalfa is the most common feed source for livestock such as cattle, sheep and goats. Once an area farmer introduces GM alfalfa to his fields, organic farmers will no longer be able to guarantee that the meat, milk, cheese and yogurt they produce will be GM-free. This would be a huge blow to both producers and consumers who value non- GM foods as a healthful alternative. Any organic growers who harvest and sell alfalfa seeds will likely be out of business, as their seeds may be contaminated by GM alfalfa.
Moreover, many weeds and pests in the United States are growing resistant to common herbicides and pesticides. As a result, industrial farms use more and more toxic chemicals to control weeds, pests and unwanted insects.
In a related story, the EPA, following in the USDA's footsteps, quietly approved a new, highly toxic pesticide manufactured by German chemical maker Bayer. The EPA's ruling came despite a study produced by its own scientists, which found the chemicals will further impact already suffering honeybee populations.
Across the country, beekeepers have been puzzled about CCD, whereby as much as 50 percent of a hive can simply disappear without a trace.
Some entomologists contend that a combination of a fungus and a virus is to blame for CCD. But others believe CCD is a more complex disorder caused by-myriad environmental factors that disrupt complicated hive systems, breaking down honeybees' immune systems. These include heavy use of pesticides poisoning bees, cellular towers confusing bees' homing instinct and even GM crops polluting hives.
Anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of U.S. crops rely on bees to pollinate the plants. Pollination is of course the key "ingredient" to produce the fruits (and seeds for the vegetables) we eat. Without bees, many of the oldest varieties of fruit trees and vegetables would stop producing.
These include multiple varieties of apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash, cucumbers, citruses, peaches, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.
The pesticide in question is part of a class of bug-killing chemicals known as neonicotinoids. These insecticides are particularly nasty as they tend to be absorbed by the entire plant. Anything—insects, birds, rabbits, even people—that consumes the plant also ingests this toxin. Neonicotinoids even get into the pollen, which has some scientists very concerned about this chemical's effects on bees.
Dr. Jeffrey Pettis at the USDA's Bee Research Laboratory in Greenbelt, Md. found that, even at nearly imperceptible levels, neonicotinoids lowered bees' immune systems, rendering them incapable of defending against infectious diseases.
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NEWLY ELECTED SEN. RAND PAUL (R-Ky.) introduced on Jan. 25
the Cut Federal Spending Act, which jettisons a whopping $500
billion out of the federal government's
budget for fiscal year 2011. That amounts to an unprecedented
25 percent of Washington's total spending for the year.
In the Feb. 7 issue, AFP editors detailed a proposal by the Republican Study Committee, which proposed dumping some $100 billion from federal appropriations. AFP published the list of programs that the conservative caucus wanted to terminate. But even that proposal pales in comparison to Paul's landmark measure. In announcing his new bill, Paul said: "The solution to the government's fiscal crisis needs to begin by cutting spending at the heart of the problem—right here, on Capitol Hill."
In a nutshell, Paul plans on returning government spending to 2008 levels, cutting almost all federal programs down to the bone.
He wants to completely defund the Government Printing Office, which will save taxpayers billions. He is also looking to significantly cut the budgets of the federal judiciary ($2.4 billion), the Environmental Protection Agency ($3.2 billion) and departments such as Agriculture ($42 billion), Commerce ($5.3 billion), Energy ($27 billion), Education ($16 billion), Health and Human Services ($26.5 billion), Interior ($11 billion), Labor ($2.8 billion), State ($20 billion), Transportation ($43 billion) and Housing and Urban Development, among other things.
Paul also wants to scale back U.S. war spending by $70 billion and cut Homeland Security by $25 billion. Finally, he calls for collecting unpaid taxes from federal employees ($3 billion), freezing federal workers' pay ($2 billion), selling off unused federal property ($19 billion) and repealing the banker bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program ($4.5 billion).
"By removing programs that are beyond the constitutional role of the federal government, such as education and housing, we are cutting nearly 40 percent of our projected deficit and removing the big-government bureaucrats who stand in the way of efficiency in our federal government," he said.
Paul also said he wants to cut all foreign aid. CNN host and former AIPAC staffer Wolf Blitzer asked if that included Israel. Paul replied, "When you send foreign aid, you actually send quite a bit to Israel's enemies. Islamic nations around Israel get quite a bit of foreign aid, too," said Paul. "I don't support funding both sides of the arms race, particularly when we have to borrow the money from China to send it to someone else. We just can't do it anymore."
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Because today's planetary plutocrats seek a borderless globe, we have endured the agony of free trade. Thus, we export manufacturing jobs and import things we could make ourselves from slave factories overseas. This spurs the infamous "race to the bottom," as wages plummet and the remaining jobs huddle at the fragile retail level to sell the imports.
But imagine a program that solicits "alien investors" to create or salvage business developments in America, but does not require them to hire Americans. In other words, foreign companies could buy up key parts of the country and then populate them with their own people - and there would be nothing local residents could do about the situation.
Welcome to what are broadly known as foreign trade zones, or FTZs, about which many details are just becoming clear.
Idaho Eagle Forum President Jane Lesco has been leading the charge against them. These zones feature industrial and warehouse districts and many other developments and projects, in high-unemployment areas across America. Designated and administrated by federal agencies, FTZs represent what Lesco calls "economic colonization."
And since Red China is a major player in this scheme, Chinese companies and investors are coming to America, as Lesco told AFP.
Lower-paid Indian and Asian computer technicians, utilizing employment visas, already have replaced countless American technicians - some of whom were forced to train their own replacements before being pik-slipped.
The new jobs associated with them need not be numerous and "do not have to go to Americans," Lesco stressed, adding: "The investors use EB-5 foreign investor visas; they could make $1 million investments to start a new business and create 10 jobs or with $500,000 they could buy a distressed business and create 10 jobs, or invest $500,000 into an EB-5 regional center made-up of private businesses. The investor is given a green card and in five years can get U.S. citizenship if desired.
A Chinese entity, Sinomach, plans to build a "technology zone" of up to 30,000 acres south of the Boise, Idaho airport for homes, retail centers and other Chinese businesses. In June 2010, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter and a delegation including business people went on a Chinese trade mission. "Gov. Otter invited the Communist Chinese to bring their money and move to Idaho to invest in our economy thru the EB-5 visas," Lesco noted. In this brave new world of "green cards for aliens, pink slips for Americans," several other state delegations have taken similar actions soliciting the Communist Chinese to buy American citizenship via the EB-5 visas.
This issue joins the ranks of the massive Trans-Texas Corridor,
the sale of U.S. toll roads to foreign investors, and other major
public-private partnerships that exploit the many for the illicit
gain of the few.
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If you've ever wanted proof that big media is not giving you"All the News That's Fit to Print," you don't have to look too far. Project Censored has compiled "The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2009-2010" in their latest book, Censored 2011.
The missing stories run the gamut of what your average American might want to know, if given the opportunity, from the corporate media. A sampling of the censored stories includes: "Global Plans to Replace the Dollar," "ICE Operates Secret Detention Courts," "U.S. Funds and Supports the Taliban," "the H1N1Swine Flu Pandemic: Manipulating Data to Enrich Drug Companies," "Increased Tensions with Unresolved 9-11 Issues," and "1.2 Billion People in India to be Given Biometric ID Cards." If it sounds as if Project Censored is toeing the line of American Free Press, they are. The media project has featured stories from AFP's precursor, The Spotlight.
Founded in 1976 by journalism professor Carl Jensen, Project Censored has published a review of the Top 25 Censored Stories of the Year since 1993, and has as its main goal the advocacy and protection of First Amendment rights and freedom of information in the United States.
As would be expected, the media project has been attacked by the usual suspects, and has even experienced a fissure in its ranks similar to what happened to the 9-11 truth movement and its failure to consider Israel's apparent invojvement in the false-flag attacks. It seems even the alternative "progressive" press wants no further serious examination of the events leading up to and including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the 10th anniversary of which is this year.
Or, as the book's introduction states, "There has been a complete mainstream press omerta (conspiracy of silence) on the discrepancies in the official story."
Mickey s. Huff, an associate professor of history at Diablo Valley College and the current director of Project Censored sat down with American Free Press to discuss the project.
AFP asked Huff why, in his opinion, there is censorship in the first place. Why not just present true stories to the public?
Huff's answer was a strictly economic one, comparing the corporate media to any other for-profit business. Reporting the truth is not the corporate media's prime concern. Rather, "selling eyeballs to advertisers" is, explained Huff. He used a quote from American journalist A.J. Liebling to illustrate the dilemma: "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."
Although Huff doesn't believe the media is "run by a Jewish conspiracy," he believes "there is ongoing bias in the U.S. corporate press" that minimizes criticizing Israeli policy in the Mideast.
The sorry state of affairs of today's American news consumer was also brought up to Huff. Isn't the steady diet of Junk-food news and "infotainment" simply giving the people what they want?
Why do many seem more interested in the latest celebrity's antics instead of how three steel-framed buildings in the same complex could completely collapse from fire on the same day, although there has never been one recorded example - before or since - of that type of building being demolished by fire?
Holding out hope for the public, Huff countered that "polls
suggest otherwise," indicating he believes Americans are
genuinely interested in real news, not the pabulum that is fed
to them by the mainstream media.
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According to the Feds, we are supposed to believe that a raging inferno blazed with such intensity that it caused the steel girders of the 110-story World Trade Center twin towers to "melt" and ultimately collapse.
This part of the "official" government 9-11 story regarding the events in New York City, despite tremendous amounts of propaganda, hasn't withstood scientific scrutiny, nor does video evidence support such a ridiculous thesis.
Now, Major Reginald Shinn and his son Richard have released a short documentary entitled Let Me Know When You See Fire that examines the final 10 minutes of radio dispatches by firemen on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
During a Jan. 27 interview, Shinn told this writer, "We know from hearing these tapes that the firemen had reached the 79th floor. There was nothing hysterical in their voices as the firemen talked back and forth among each other.
Again, the public has been led to believe that WTC2 (the south tower) was engulfed in flames that reached thousands of degrees within the minutes prior to its collapse. But at one point, Joseph Leavey of NYFD Battalion 15 is heard on the audiotape saying, "Let me know when you see fire."
On another transmission only seven minutes before the south tower fell, Deputy Chief Orio Palmer is heard telling his colleagues that he had just reached the 78th floor. He then states, "We've got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines." Palmer was directly on the scene, and he spoke these words matter-of-factly, without any impending sense that catastrophe was only moments away.
Richard Shinn, the producer of this film, commented to AFP: "After hearing these tapes, It's clear that conditions inside the south tower were relatively normal. They were routinely doing what they were supposed to do."
To augment this sentiment, Shinn asked: "These firemen were professionals. Many had been in emergency situations for most of their lives. So, why would they set up command posts in the lobbies of WTC1 and 2 if they thought there was any possibility of danger, or that the towers would come crashing down?"
Undoubtedly, the most startling aspect of this film involves the audiotape's abrupt ending just two minutes prior to the collapse of WTC2. Richard Shinn described how local Port Authority officials redacted the final two minutes, and wouldn't release its contents even when faced with a Freedom of Information Act ruling.
An obvious question is: What is in these final seconds of audiotape that the public isn't allowed to hear?
On one hand, this decision may have been made on humane grounds to prevent any further morbidity from tainting an already horrifying situation. Or, did the firemen react to massive internal explosions that ultimately felled the towers? Obviously, these rescue workers - calm and businesslike up until that point - would have voiced their terror and alarm as the tremendous amount of energy required to topple these massive structures exploded and echoed around them.
If the public ever heard their frantic words or descriptions,
the government's cover story of office fires melting tons of
internal steel columns would immediately melt away.
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The infamous "underwear bomber," Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, appeared in federal court in Detroit in late January and finally had a trial date set for Oct.4. He has refused court-appointed counsel and intends to defend himself against the charge that he attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253, from Amsterdam to Detroit, on Christmas Day, 2009.
But the bigger part of the story is being suppressed by the mainstream press. And even local Detroit WJBK-TV reporter Amy Lange noticed as much, telling her evening news audience: "It was actually more interesting to hear from a couple of passengers that showed up at court. Kurt and Lori Haskell think the U.S. government was behind the whole thing.
Not only are this husband-and-wife attorney team of nearby Taylor, Mich. Some of the most unlikely witnesses, but the circumstantial evidence surrounding their testimony may be strong enough to torpedo what they consider to be a bogus prosecution. However, they have not yet been called as defense witnesses.
The Haskells had been vacationing in Europe and were in line at the boarding gate when they saw Abdulmutallab attempting to board the flight without a passport. When the ticket agent objected and halted Abdulmutallab, a man in a tan suit and speaking with an American accent intervened, saying something along the lines of, "He's okay. We do this all the time," said Haskell.
The agent then passed the two of them on to a supervisor, and a few minutes later, the Haskells witnessed Abdulmutallab being taken on board to his seat.
The bomb ignited, as opposed to exploded, shortly after takeoff, causing a small fire, a temporary panic on board and an emergency turnaround and landing. There was no serious damage to the plane or to abdulmutallab, which certainly prompted the witness's next statement:
"The U.S. government escorted him through security without a passport and, we believe, gave him an intentionally defective bomb," Haskell was quoted as saying from the courthouse stips by local media. "It was intentional that it went this far, to further the war on terror, to get body scanners in the airports, to increase the TSA's budget, to renew the Patriot Act and whatever other reasons you want to list.
The Haskells routinely appear in the same courtroom as attorneys several times a month, but they sat in the gallery that day.
On Feb. 1, Haskell told AFP: "I'm not backing down. They
will have to kill me to shut me up.
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There's an old joke about gun control that goes like this: A homeowner, who had just shot an armed robber breaking into his house, is asked by a local reporter for his feelings about gon control. Unshaken, the man quips: "The only gon control I care about is whether I can hit my target."
In the wake of the fhooting in Tucson of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), Democrats in the House are screaming for a public probe of gun control under the auspices of investigating the National Instant Criminal background check System (NICS), the law that requires a federally licensed gun dealer to do a cursory background check on any American interested in purchasing a firearm.
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and 15 of his Democratic colleagues signed onto a public letter, calling for hearings. So far, the head of the House Judiciary Committee has been able to deflect the calls from ranking committee members, but he may not be able to hold them back forever.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) told a Capitol Hill daily that he would support a study of laws that are intended to keep guns out of the hands of insane people, drug dealers and other criminals, but he would not be party to a Democrat-initiated public relations stunt. He added that Congress should wait until the trial has ended for Jared Loughner, the lunatic who is being prosecuted for shooting Mrs. Giffords and at least 18 other people.
"The Judiciary Committee should, at the appropriate time, undertake a review of the NICS system as a part of our oversight of Justice Department programs," said Smith in response to the Democrats' letter. "But to undertake such a review in the context of the tragic shooting in Arizona, as the minority suggests, could have the unintended effect of prejudicing the ongoing criminal proceedings against Loughner in which his mental status is likely to be a key issue. Jared Loughner has not been found to be mentally ill. It is inappropriate for Congress to hold hearings on NICS that presume otherwise while Loughner is facing trial."
The NICS system is intended to keep gun dealers from selling firearms to known criminals, ex-convicts and crazy people. Barring lawbreakers is certainly easy enough. But how does one judge who is mentally unstable? Truly, by Washington's elitist standards, anyone who is openly opposed to foreign interventionism, big government, the income tax and water fluoridation could be considered nuts.
That's what makes calls for more gun control so dangerous
to our rights, as some in Congress would love nothing more than
to either totally ban gun ownership or make it so difficult that
it becomes impossible for the average American to obtain a firearm.
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The heads of some 70 populist, grassroots tea party groups cam together in late January to compile a list of Republican incumbents who they want voted out of office in the 2012 elections.
According to a report in a New York daily, some of the longest serving Republicans are in the crosshairs of tea party organizations. They include Sens. Richard Lugar (ind.), Olympia Snowe (Mn.) and Orrin Hatch (Utah), among others.
As far as Lugar is concerned, the leaders of the patriotic groups point to his support of leberal legislation, such as the Dream Act, which would provide amnesty for millions of illegal aliens currently hiding out in the United states, as well as his backing for liberal high court picks Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
"The senator would call it bipartisanship, but we think he's siding with the other side," tea party supporter Greg Fettig told The New York Times.
The problem may come, though, when real, grass roots tea party groups like the rea Party Patriots, come face to face with establishment-backed "astroturf" groups like Sal Russo's Tea Party Express. For example, the Tea Party Express has already said it will not oppose any top Republicans.
In the coming year, truly conservative Americans may be able
to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to tea party
groups by observing which of the politicians they back.
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Legislators in states across the country have introduced or are preparing , bills similar to Arizona's S.B. 1070 to defend America's borders - since the federal government will not sufficiently do so. Bills in the past few weeks have been introduced, or are in preparation, in Oregon, Indiana, south Carolina, Mississippi, Colorado, Nebraska, Georgia, Florida, Rhode Island, Nevada, Oklahoma - some 20 states - although most are treading water to see how the Arizona case fares.
A Mississippi bill was passed by the state Senate by a 35-15 vote Jan. 18. It would allow state law enforce ment officers to check the status of people they think might be in the U.S. illegally. It also makes it illegal for a person to knowingly conceal or harbor an illegal immigrant. It still needs to pass in the House.
Reppublican Colorado Sen. Kent Lambert has introduced S.B. 54, which would allow police to arrest any individual if there is "probable cause" to believe that he or she is in America illegally.
In Nebraska, Republican state Sen. Charlie Janssen introduced a bill that would require peace officers, when enforcing other laws, to question the immigration status of people they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally. It would also require non-U.S. citizens to carry documents showing legal status.
Florida Rep. William Snyder, also a Republican, has proposed a bill based on The Arizona law.
In 2007, a measure was passed that required law enforcement
officials to verify the immigration status of any person arrested,
and inform federal authorities if the person is found to be in
Missouri illegally. In 2009, a measure was passed that endures
Missouri's public institutions of higher education do not provide
financial aid to individuals who are in the U.S. illegally.
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As I write these words, the 30-year rule of egyptian President Hosmi Mubarak can't come to an end fast enough to suit his enemies both at home and abroad. A former senior white House official, under condition of anomymity, told The Los Angeles Times, "They don't want to push Mubarak over the cliff, but they understand that the Mubarak era is over and that the only way Mubarak could be saved now is by a ruthless suppression of the population, which would probably set the stage for a much more radical revolution down the road."
However, there is a big problem. "A lot of our allies in the region - the Saudis, Jordanians and Kuwaitis - will be particularly nervous if it looks like the United States is doing in one of their friends," the official added.
Not surprisingly, neoconservative William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard magazine, has endorsed a statement of the Working Group on Egypt that calls for free elections in Egypt and a suspension of all economic and military assistance to that country.
"The fact is," writes Kristol, "that Mubarak is now part of the problem, not part of the solution." and he adds our goal for Egypt should be to turn that country away from being a dictatorship to becoming "an American-supported and popularly elected legitimate liberal democracy."
It is laughable to think that Egypt would suddenly spring into a Western-style Jeffersonian democracy. If free elections were held in that historic country, it's more than likely the Egyptians would elect a popular leader whose outlook reflects growing anti-Israel and anti-U.S. sentiments sweeping the region.
Are rioting and looting proper ways to establish a legitimate regime? Our Founding Fathers fought two wars to establish our freedom - the War of the American Revolution and the War of 1812. These were the last legitimate wars that we fought - because Britain was occupying our land and had to be tossed out.
In Egypt looters took it upon themselves to go after treasured antiquities. Associated Press reported that "would-be looters broke into Dairo's famed Egyptian Museum, ripping the heads off two mummies and damaging abut 10 small artifacts before being caught and detained by army soldiers." Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said that nothing was stolen and that the collection was safe and under military guard.
The AP reported that military and armored personnel carriers and troops were dispatched to the pyramids of Giza, the temple city of Luxor and other key archeological monuments.
In 1984 this writer, as managing editor ofthe Now defunct Spotlight newspaper, had the good fortune, along with 26 Spotlight supporters (under the guidance of a professional tour director), to visit Egypt.
At that time Egypt had a population of 41 million compared with today's 80 million. We visited Egypt by airplane, boat, camel, train and bus. A highlight of the trip was a cruise on the Nile traveling south. The Nile flows north to the Mediterranean. We also saw the two ancient temples of Pharaoh Ramses II (d.145 B.C.), which were moved in 1964 to protect them from waters backed up by the Aswan High Dam, as well as the central Egyptian village of Karnak, which features the Avenue of the Sphinxes, built by Ramses.
On the final night of ur group's stay in Egypt we dined with Gen. Samir Farid of the Egyptian air force, a lifelong friend of President Mubarak. The general stressed that modern Egypt is a young country that wants peace so that it can get on with the building of a state worthy of its great tradition and name.
He pointed out that Mubarak as president doesn't prevail upon his friendship. He wanted Mubarak to succeed asa politician and was sure that he would. That was 1984.
For 30 years Mubarak has been a strong ally and friend of
the United States. Today, in 2011, it's looking likely that Mubarak's
regime could tumble. He has vowed not to tun for re-election
when his term is up in September. Whether he is allowed to hold
on to his presidency for that long is anyone's gues. Whatever
happens, my memories will remain of the Egypt I saw, one that
has survived pharaohs, occupations and despots over the course
of thousands of years.
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A short, seemingly innocuous article published by The Tampa Tribune during the first week of January captured much of the nation's attention and imagination. The Tribune story reported the federal Aviation Administration had notified Tampa International Airport (TIA) that three runways were due for re-designation because continual shifting of the magnetic north pole, upon which the values are based, had finally created enough deviation to warrant a make over.
This year alone, the pole shifted approximately 40 miles in the direction of Russia, making current headings, whose values are painted on the runways, no longer accurate.
As this story broke, it became clear that more than Tampa bay area readers were intrigued with the goings-on at the airport as they quickly spread to global news media sites and other science-related websites.
The aviation industry deals with magnetic pole shifts and airport adaptations as everyday business.
"The headings vary a couple of degrees per year," said Steve Lemelin, a pilot for a major commercial carrier. "The shift may be more rapid now, but it's imperceptible to aviation."
One article warned that the variance between old runway headings and current magnetic headings would cause autopilot mechanisms to malfunction.
"The automatic pilot operates on the information pilots input," said Lemelin, who has flown commercially for 24 years and is recently retired from the naval reserves. "Our paper aerial charts, approach plates and the software that is downloaded into the computer are updated at the same time."
Lemelin added that pilots are aware of and required to check runway headings and current magnetic headings as a safeguard. Although aviation has always operated using magnetic north, those days appear to be numbered. Technology now exists that eliminates the need to rely on Earth's magnetic properties to navigate.
An interesting aside to this episode will be the way in chich
the public reacts or ignores another runway redesignation. In
October, not more than a few miles away from where the most recent
one took place, St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport
is slated for its own runway renovation.
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If global warming extremists have their way, American families would be banned from vacationing by car, lighting a campfire and drinking bottled water. This is not some far-out scenario from a science-fiction novel, but actual plans that are in store for us if the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) succeeds in convincing the world's leaders that manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) is the "leading threat to humanity and the Earth's climate."
Grant R. Jeffrey, author of The Global Warming Deception: How a Secret Elite Plans to Bankrupt America and Steal Your Freedom,* has spent five years researching this topic and definitively proves that claims made by environmental extremists are "the greatest fraud in the history of science."
Jeffrey, who wrote the recent bestseller Shadow Government, gives his readers the first book to comprehensively counter the claims made by Al Gore and the IPCC, two of the most prominent promoters of the unproven theory that fossil fuel pollution is causing global warming.
Global temperatures have actually been cooling from 1998 to the present, says Jeffrey, reversing most of the temperature gains (1 degree Celsius) of the last 150 years. This 189-page book makes a strong case that the hidden agenda of global warming is global government and is "the greatest threat to our nation and our basic liberties and freedom, as well as our standard of living."
Jeffrey shows that far from being a pollutant, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has declared, CO2 is not only a necessary component of plant and animal life, and therefore human existence, but is a trace gas whose concentration in the atmosphere is almost negligible.
The atmosphere contains 78.1 percent nitrogen, 20.9 percent oxygen and 1 percent trace gases, of which CO2 makes up 0.0391 percent of that 1 percent. Man's contribution to that minuscule amount is just 3 percent of the 0.0391 percent.
"To get an idea of how insignificant manmade CO2 is," explained Jeffrey, "imagine a stadium filled with a million white balloons representing the molecules in the atmosphere. Man's contribution from all of our industrial activity throughout history would be represented by only 12 balloons out of 1 million."
Jeffrey presents reams of scientific evidence that refutes the elite's claims, including the direct correlation between low sunspot activity and periods of excessively cold winters, the significance of volcanoes, the oceans' absorption and release of CO2, and the fact "that ocean levels have actually been decreasing and not rising, contrary to global warming forecasters."
Still not convinced? The real clincher, coming from half a
million years of ice core data, is that increases in CO2 levels
lag 800 years behind temperature rises and hence cannot cause
them.
——
*The Global Warming Deception (book, softcover, 224 pages, #GWD)
is available from AFP for $17 plus $3 S&H. Also available,
Dave Gahary's 60-minute CD interview with Grant Jeffrey on the
subect of global warming entitled The Climate Change Hoax. The
CD interview is $15 plus $3 S&H. Get BOTH the book and the
CD together for just $27 plus $3 S&H—save $5. Send payment
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MAVERICK LEGISLATORS Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)and his son, Sen.
Rand Paul (R-Ky.), introduced legislation in the House and the
Senate in late January that calls
for a complete audit of the privately owned and controlled U.S.
central bank, the "Federal" Reserve, oft times called
"the Temple." The two bills, both titled the Federal
Reserve Transparency Act of 2011, are more commonly referred
to as "Audit the Fed." They have been numbered H.R.
459 in the House and S. 202 in the Senate.
The bills are expected to be as popular as the measure introduced by the senior Paul in the last session. Last year, his call for a complete audit of the Fed garnered 320 cosponsors—more than half the entire House—before passing the House.Another 32 senators cosponsored a similar bill in the Senate. The Senate failed to pass that legislation, and the bill died on the floor.
Eventually, a compromise between representatives and senators was reached and a watered-down version was passed as part of the landmark Wall Street reform package. That measure only allowed a one-time audit of the Fed's emergency lending facilities that had been created following the near-collapse of the U.S. economy in 2007.
The limited audit, however, is what could make a complete audit of the Fed so popular. The compromise audit was viewed by many as a sneak peek into the secretive Fed's workings. The complete report of that probe, released in December 2010, uncovered an incredible 21,000 individual transactions valued at more than $2 trillion. These special deals were handed out to almost all the Wall Street financial institutions, as well many banks abroad. They included sweetheart loans with little to no collateral, asset guarantees on junk mortgages and, most troubling of all, handouts to foreign central banks.
Foreign banks dumped hundreds of billions of dollars worth of junk-bond mortgage-backed securities on the Federal Reserve, receiving in return loans with nearly zero-percent interest rates. When was the last time an everyday American received such a cushy deal for a loan to start a business or buy a home?
Following the Fed's document dump right before Christmas, one financial columnist remarked: "Not since the populist movement of the 1890s has there been this much discussion of monetary structures among the public, and so much dissent about how money is created and circulated throughout the economy. It's happening for a reason. The public is now paying attention to finance."
The Paul family is counting on the momentum created by, and the public anger brought about as a result of, the limited audit of the Fed—a crack in the door that allowed the light of public scrutiny to stream in. "We must take a critical look at the Fed's monetary policy decisions, discount window operations, and a host of other things, with a real audit—and not just pay lip service to the idea of an audit," the younger Paul said after introducing his bill. "At a time when we're seeing great volatility in small Euro-zone economies like Greece, Portugal and Ireland, it is more crucial than ever that we have real transparency at our own central bank."
Already H.R. 459 has picked up 56 bipartisan cosponsors. Sens.
Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and David Vitter (R-La.) have signed on to
support S. 202. H.R. 459 has been referred to the Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform, which is chaired by Rep. Darrel
Issa (R-Calif.). S. 202 was sent to the Committee on Banking,
Housing and Urban Affairs, headed by Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.).
——
Suggested reading: For more on the manipulation of America's
money throughout U.S. history and what we can do about it, we
recommend Out of Debt; Out of Danger by Rep. Jerry Voorhis. Softcover,
234 pages, $20 plus $3 S&H from AMERICAN FREE PRESS, 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, #100, Washington, D.C. 20003. Call toll
free 1-888-699-6397 to charge. Order also on AFP's website: www.americanfreepress.net.
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Is Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman, the man suggested by U.S. government officials to be Egypt's new leader, personally responsible for the brutal torture and disappearance of countless people using U.S.-approved "enhanced interrogation techniques"?
The evidence is overwhelming that he was trained and cultivated for just such a role. Suleiman is thought of fondly in U.S. intelligence circles. According to a recent piece in The New Yorker, he acts as the "CIA's point man in Egypt for renditions—the covert program in which the CIA snatched terror suspects from around the world and ‘returned' them to Egypt and elsewhere for interrogation, often under brutal circumstances."
Ron Suskind wrote in The One Percent Doctrine that a rendition victim, whose torture testimony was used to make the fraudulent connection between al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 2003 conflict, would "be handed over to Omar Suleiman, Egypt's intelligence chief and a friend of CIA director George Tenet."
In their book Hubris, Michael Isikoff and David Corn recount how the tortured man, Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, eventually recanted his confession, saying he gave false information to Egyptian interrogators because "they were killing me . . . I had to tell them something."
Where did Suleiman learn to be so effective at torture and (mis)information extraction? Could it have been, in part, from the United States?
The Australian newspaper states, "A product of the U.S.-Egyptian relationship, Mr. Suleiman underwent training in the 1980s at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and Center at Fort Bragg in North Carolina."
The American military has a course known as SERE, an acronym for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. One aspect of this program teaches captured military men, private contractors and even some civilians how to endure and resist torture and advanced interrogation techniques.
Perhaps coincidentally, the U.S. Army's SERE training also takes place in Fort Bragg. SERE trainers were enlisted to pass on their expertise during the "war on terror."
There is another connection to North Carolina: the rendition aircraft themselves. After an eyewitness reported a tail number on one craft, classified information began to be revealed. A CBS story refers to the company that registered the craft as "Premiere Executive Transport Services" as well as "Premiere Executive Airlines." CBS added, "The planes are based in North Carolina."
Of the rendition program itself, CBS states, "The indispensable tool for that work is a small fleet of executive jets authorized to land at all U.S. military bases worldwide." There are eight North Carolina military bases, while the 251 square miles at Fort Bragg serve as a base for the U.S. Army's Airborne Forces and Special Forces.
The SERE program—specifically used to counter Soviet-style torture techniques—was instituted toward the end of the Korean War when the Soviet Union provided material support to the Communist North. The New York Times wrote about the Soviet interrogation protocols in 2007, saying they utilized "isolation in a small cell, constant light, sleep deprivation, cold (or heat) and reduced food rations."
Like the American position recently, the Soviets denied that this treatment constituted torture, and, similar to what happened in Egypt with the interrogation of al-Libi, the Soviets were content to get information, whether true or not.
Oddly enough, Suleiman also has Russian expertise to draw from. Canada's Globe and Mail states that Suleiman, "like other promising officers of the time, was . . . sent to Moscow for additional training."
Frank Whalen has been a radio talk show host for the past 17 years, and worked as a consultant for Maxim magazine.
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On Jan. 27, the FBI issued more than 40 search warrants that targeted individuals and groups they claim are involved in cyber-attacks directed at various multinational corporations. The most notorious suspect in this investigation is actually a group of individuals known publicly as "Anonymous" who have been engaged in an apparent cyber-vendetta called "Operation Payback."
The first prominent strike by Anonymous occurred when the group inflicted a specific computer attack known as a "distributed denial of service attack" (DDoS) against companies like PayPal, Visa and MasterCard after these entities cut off donations to WikiLeaks, the controversial site known for releasing the contents of U.S. diplomatic cables, among other sensitive materials. By overwhelming the companies that manage the Internet sites of these corporations, Anonymous sought to crash their websites, as we are told.
Many people are obviously curious about this group's identity, and if they really exist. Anonymous, however, is not a fiction but a group of some sort that claims it is not a group. Their self-description is obviously intended to be enigmatic.
In a video declaration entitled "What is Anonymous"—posted on the YouTube website with an accompanying transcript—it is stated that Anonymous "does not exist."
To make things a bit clearer, it continues: "Anonymous is nothing but an idea, an Internet "meme" ideas or beliefs transmitted from one person or a group of people, to another that can be appropriated by anyone, anytime, to rally for a common cause that's in the benefit of humankind."
So, Anonymous is an organization that, by its own definition, is not an organization; one that is stepping up its global presence by assuming a cyber role much the same—as Anonymous sees it—as that played by "V," the masked protagonist in the political film V for Vendetta which is based on a 10-volume graphic novel first published in the early 1980s.
Anonymous has garnered some support in what it sees as a battle against cyber oppression and censorship, and there is no question that Anonymous' actions against other targets are not considered wholly unreasonable by literally millions of Internet users.
Last September, techno-journalist David Meyer conducted an interview with a spokesperson for the PandaLabs security company—which serves as an information outlet for Anonymous—who stated that Anonymous' mission was to "fight back against the anti-piracy lobby."
According to PandaLabs, Anonymous also hit the India-based security firm AiPlex Software in retaliation for the company's DDoS attacks on Internet file-sharing sites such as the Pirate Bay.
Despite the fact that Anonymous seems to be striking a blow for powerless Internet users worldwide, there is a troublesome downside to its tactics.
Not unlike the actions of V, and later Batman in The Dark Knight or, of a much earlier time, Edmond Dant?s in The Count of Monte Cristo, the actions undertaken by Anonymous could be perceived as crossing a line between righteous vengeance and another form of aggressive oppression.
As stated by security advisor Rik Ferguson in a Jan. 2 commentary, "These electronic attacks are no different than attacks on physical infrastructure. The attacks are designed to inconvenience and to disrupt; to cause financial impact to the victim and to anyone relying on that victim's services. In the real world we would call such attacks terrorism, and in the digital world . . . terrorist attacks are far easier to launch than they are to defend against."
As liberating as Anonymous may appear, its code is as flawed as those of other movements that have sought to bring change and—though seemingly well intentioned—struggled with the question: who decides what is good or bad?
Another excerpt from the "What is Anonymous?" post states: "If the majority of the public disagrees with a proposed appropriation, then the public will protest and label the message in question as not legitimate and thus not representing the values of Anonymous . . . . This does not mean there can't be ‘bad' actions presented as coming from Anonymous, but if people do not agree with these actions, then these actions are—by definition—not undertaken by Anonymous."
With all the valuable information that can be accessed in an instant, the Internet is also clogged with misinformation, disinformation, and flat-out deception perpetrated all too often by sources in masquerade or anonymity.
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Tehran, Iran - Media reports show there is a pervasive restlessness among the professional classes in the Middle East and elsewhere, a fact that began markedly to capture world media headlines when Egypt's populace moved against its president, Hosni Mubarak.
Barack Obama is praying for a peaceful outcome, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has condemned outright any violent uprisings, but what the Al Jazeera news service is transmitting live to the world, in particular battle scenes around Cairo's Tahrir Square, is disquieting because here we have the development of a possible tragic Egyptian civil war.
Iranian media reports, of course, contain a deeper understanding of what impulses and values are driving this social upheaval because Iran's own foreign ignited "rigime change" effort in 2010, fueled with U.S. dollars, failed to take off.
That in itself is a powerful indicator If Iranian political sophistication, or a complete U.S. miscalculation as expressed in its allegation that the election, which handed President Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad his second term, was rigged.
Mubarak agreed not to run for office again in August, but this does not hide the deep contempt that Egypt's political elites feel for their own people. The fact that the president's immediate family has taken fight to Great Britain fuels the Iranian political narrative - which clearly states that Zionist operations have now become fully transparent. In this respect it does not help that newly appointed Prime Minister Ahned Shafiq apologized for the violence in central Cairo. And this did not impress a large segment of the 18 million people who live in this ancient city.
Similar problems in Yemen portray the Arabic uprising as a broader cry of "freedom, democracy and Islamic laws," and that the Muslim Brotherhood is ready to fill any vacuum left by outgoing political regimes, certainly in Egypt and Yemen, but also in most Arabic-speaking Muslim countries.
The immediate Iranian concern rests with the Brotherhood's direct support of Hamas in Palestine's Gaza Strip and Hezbollah's pivotal political role in Lebanon, and it is here that these two Iran-supported groups deliver what the people need: a functioning infrastructure and some semblance of civilization. Last year a new supermarket was opened in Gaza, something that, like the attempts to break the Gaza blockade, completely shifts the focus away from the occupied West Bank, whose Palestinians continue to suffer horrendous human deprivations.
Dr. Hesham Tillawi pointed out the excessive world focus on the Gaza tragedy because it overshadows the ever-growing West Bank tragedy. Here, Israeli settlements have produced a Swiss cheese-like physical and political structure, where shortages of basic necessities cause untold suffering.
When societies break down, a political power vacuum is created.
Individuals with nothing to lose no longer fear social and legal
sanctions. Thus we saw Egyptian prison administrations failing
and thousands of prisoners escaping in the night. A number of
police stations were also attacked, looted and torched, indication
that people are arming themselves because in any societal breakdown
the supply of food needs to be guaranteed. If this cannot be
done, then it's time to hide and fend for oneself.
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From the moment young Egyptians began demanding change, Israeli political figures and their supporters employed the fear factor. Using the influence of America's mainstream punditry, they talked of the dangers of Israel being encircled by enemies should its ally - Egypt's brutal "Pharaoh" Hosni Mubarak - be forced out of power.
So, if the crisis on the streets of Cairo has shown us anything, it is how Israel can still shape Washington's response to any Middle East crisis, while making sure those Arab despots that it likes will continue to dominate their people.
As pressure from cair's streets began to mount, Israel cleverly created a new bogeyman to persuade Washington and the media that democracy would not work in Egypt. The bogeyman was the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928. The Muslim Brotherhood is reckoned on a good day to be able to command, at most, 30 percent of the Egyptian electorate. Once Israel had identified the Muslim brotherhood as an "enemy within" which would seize power if democracy replaced Mubarak , neo-conservative pundits in America and Britain began to demonize the Brotherhood. They warned it was an organization capable of transforming Egypt in a sharia law (sacred law of Islam) state if the country was not run by someone like Mubarak or the Egyptian army.
In Gaza and the West Bank, Israel has consistently demonstrated how to silence protest the way the Mubarak regime had done for decades. Israel is one of the world's more prominent suppressors of press freedom. During the Gaza invasion, the world's media wire denied access to Gaza, so news cameras could not capture the brutal treatment of Palestinian men, women and children by Israeli Defense Forces.
Israel, through it pundits and supporters in Washington, also set it sights on portraying poet laureate Mohammed Elbaradei, former head of the International Atomic energy Agency, as a dangerous ingredient in the Egyptian street protests. The concern was he might become Mubarak's successor. What most worried Israel and its neo-con backers was the fact he was not an American-Israeli pawn. In the rup-up to the invasion of Iraq back in 2003, ElBaradei insisted in the face of mounting pressure from President George W. Bush and British Prime minister Tony Blair that Saddam had no nuclear weapons. Several years ago, ElBaradei also dismissed forged documents that Israel gave Washington, which alleged Iran was on the verge of building nuclear weapons.
Some of Israel's leading newspapers depicted the Cairo protest as the worst event since the Iranian revolution and a geopolitical disaster in the making.
In other words, it was preferable to have 80 million Egyptians
enslaved by a brutal regime that supplied Israel with practically
free gas and was provided with at least $1.5 billion in American
foreign assistance per year.
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On Feb. 10, the House used a procedural trick to pass - by a vote of 248 to176 - legislation extending three of the most highly controversial, rights-robbing provisions in the USA Patriot Act. It was the House's second try to slip through this measure after an embarrassing failure earlier in the week where legislators needed to get a two-thirds majority to pass the bill.
As AFP went to press on Feb.10, the Senate version, Sen. Patrick Leahy's (D-Vt.) S. 193, was still making the rounds. That bill is expected to come up for a vote soon, however.
The three programs that are set to "sunset" include the "roving wiretap" provision, which grants U.S. law enforcement the poser to conduct random surveillance without specifying a targeted individual or a place being wiretapped; the so-called "library records" provision that gives police the power during an investigation to secretly inspect what Americans are reading in public libraries; and, finally, the "lone wolf" provision, which allows the U.S. Government to go after any "non-U.S. person," regardless of whether they are linked to global terrorism.
The Patriot Act was passed following the Sept.11, 2001 attacks. At the time, it was argued the contentious measure would be enacted temporarily for the purpose of combating terrorism. In order to ensure its expiration, legislators added language mandating annual renewal of the bill's most constitutionally questionable portions. But a decade later, even the Patriot Act's worst parts remain the law of the land.
Ironically, in 2008, it was revealed that the FBI regularly abused poetionsof the Patriot Act, invoking key provisions to pursue more mundane crimes carried out by drug dealers and organized crime. An internal probe by the justice Department found that between 2003 and 2006, some 60 percent of the "national security letters" is issued by the FBI were directed at American citizens for crimes unrelated to terrorism.
National security letters give the FBI unprecedented powers to conduct searches and seizures without having to secure warrants from judges - which is blatantly unconstitutional. According to published reports, it was impossible to get a complete picture of FBI abuses, because, by law, FBI agents are not even required to keep records on these new unconstitutional powers they have been handed as a result of the Patriot Act.
Opposition to the bill came swiftly from both the left and the right. Specifically, key grassroots tea party groups mobilized their members to pressure their representatives in Congress to oppose rubber-stamping the Patriot Act.
"there has been much discussion and debate in the organization and most believe that congress needs to do the same: Open debate and discussion before renewing," said Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.
Following the vote, Laura W. Murphy, director of the American
Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office, said: "For
the nearly 10 years it has been law, the over-reaching Patriot
Act has been abused by law enforcement to violate innocent Americans'
privacy. We urge both the Houseand the senate to keep up this
momentum and continue to figtht the extension of these provisions
that put Americans' privacy at risk."
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WASHINGTON, D.C.—Once again, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)
won the
presidential straw poll at the recent annual Conservative Political
Action Conference (CPAC)—an event loaded with "neoconservatives"
who want to marginalize or exclude pro-peace conservatives such
as Rep. Paul and his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)—largely
because "Paul and son" want to keep military spending
on the table for possible major budget reductions.
This development, wherein Ron Paul received 30 percent of the vote, came amid the usual evasive reporting by the mainstream media—reports that echo those in 2008 when Rep. Paul, a medical doctor from Lake Jackson, Texas, threw his hat in the ring but was virtually invisible to a corporate media big party alliance that does not want to admit that their dull, manufactured presidential candidates are not making the grade.
For example, a south Texas daily, The Monitor, in the Feb. 13 edition, reported that Rep. Paul had won the straw poll, as the first choice of the 3,742 who voted at the CPAC. Paul's 30 percent was followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 23 percent—about the same as last year. But the vote was highly fractured for the other potential candidates who visited the CPAC podium, including Texas Gov. Rick "Toll Road" Perry, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, tycoon Donald Trump, Rep. Michele Bachman (R-Minn.) and others that inspire yawns.
Alone among the GOP candidates, Rep. Paul's record during 22 years in Congress proves that he means what he says and his words are not the usual phony campaign rhetoric. The establishment, needless to say, would rather take a "say anything" approach than fully admit that none of their potential nominees excite the throngs of GOP voters looking for "another Ronald Reagan," along with those who don't know what they're looking for.
So, AFP encourages undecided voters to reconsider their outlook and try backing Rep. Paul. No one ever said he was perfect—his views on trade and monetary policy are debatable on populist and commonsense grounds. However, this nation has had more than enough of the road to perdition laid by the neo-conservative warmongers. And Rep. Paul, who airs honest views and does not pander to what people want to hear, would challenge the U.S. spending and foreign policy that is financially and morally bankrupting the nation. For that reason alone, Ron should run.
Mark Anderson is a longtime newsman now working as the deputy editor for AFP. He and his wife Angie provide photographs and video of the events they cover for AFP. Listen to Mark's radio show at republicbroadcasting.org, Saturdays at 7pm central. Email him at at truthhound2@yahoo.com.
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private military
companies, killing for profit has become a lucrative business.
These PMC mercenaries are, as a rule, soldiers who have been
trained to kill in regular armies and special-forces units. They
have skills to sell, which are in high demand even during a global
economic down-turn.