June 1, 2009

• Bilderberg Agenda Exposed  
• Secret Memos Reveal Bush Saw Iraq War as ‘Christian' Crusade  
• House Considering Censoring Internet  
• Chemist Says ‘Nano-Thermite' Bombs Brought Down World Trade Buildings  
• Israel Will Vanish Into Sands of Time  
• Audit the Fed, Expose the Fed & then Abolish the Fed By Congressman Ron Paul  
• ‘Extremist' Americans Could Lose Right to Bear Arms Under New Bill  
• Frightening Glimpse of the Future for Gun Owners  
• List of High-Powered Attendees at Bilderber 2009  

June 8 & 15, 2009

• Biden Blasted for ‘Bunker' Blunder  
• What Everyone Needs to Know About the Mideast  
• Schemes to Cripple Iranian Oil Industry Could Spur Record Gas Prices in U.S.  
• D.C. Looks to Devalue U.S. Dollar to Pay Off Massive Spending Spree  
• U.S. Could Make Criticism of Israel A Crime in 2009  
• How Long Can Silver Prices Be Artificially Suppressed?  

Whole Body Health

• DANGEROUS CORN: German Government Bans Variety of Corn Modified by Monsanto  
• Raw Milk Dairies Fight Bureaucracy  
• Support Your Local Independent Food Producers  
• Coca-Cola's Latest 'Health' Scheme  

June 22, 2009

• Israel Lobby Sees Obama as Enemy of Zionist Agenda  
• IRS Moves to Ban Tax Returns Filed By All But ‘Experts'  
• Federal Reserve Under Attack From All Angles  
• ‘Continental Congress' Will Meet Again'  
• Insider Alleges Larger Agenda Behind Big TV Signal Switch  

Bildergerg 2009

• What Is A ‘Bilderberger'?  
• Bilderbergers Are Criminals, Traitors According to U.S. Law  
• Nationalists Counter Global Influence of Bilderbergers  
• Bilderberg's Globalist Agenda Detailed  
• List of High-Powered Attendees at Bilderberg 2009  
• Borderless World Long-held Dream of Bilderberg Group  
• Bilderberg Security Perimeter Extended Record Two Miles  
• Greeks Loudly Protest Bilderberg, Illegal Immigrants  

June 29, 2009

• House Demands Federal Reserve Financial Data  
• Audit the Fed Bill Will Be Debated on House Floor  
• Arrested Reporters Spying for U.S. CIA?  
• Discussion of Holocaust to Be Banned?  
• Scientists Confirm U.S. Has World's Biggest Oil Reserves  
• Family Grows Tons of Food in Back Yard  
• CIA Regime Changers' Look to Foment Civil War in Iran  
• Tobacco Prohibition Coming: No ‘Ifs, Ands or Butts"  By Ron Paul  
• IRS Moves to Block ‘Amateur" Preparation of Federal Taxes  

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American Free Press June 1, 2009

Bilderberg Agenda Exposed  

AFP's editor crashed the secret meeting of the global elite and uncovered some scary schemes

By James P. Tucker Jr.

Bilderberg boys are a bunch of grumpy old men but remain fiercely dedicated to usurping sovereignty in the United States and throughout the world. Patriots can celebrate their setbacks but never let up: Bilderberg still threatens the sovereignty of all nations while fighting for world government.

Major goals remain exploiting the global recession and an imaginary "swine flu pandemic" to establish global departments of treasury and health under the United Nations. But at the May 14-17 meeting in Vouliagmeni, Greece, near Athens, Bilderberg took a keen interest in persuading the United States to surrender sovereignty to the International Criminal Court, or ICC.

Bilderberg is also setting up a "summit" in Israel June 8-11 so "the world's leading regulatory experts" can "address the current economic situation in one forum," said Zohar Goshen, chairman of a subgroup of the International Association of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). Mary Shapiro, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, will represent this country.

Bilderberg found President Obama a Willing Wilkie at its June, 2008 meeting in Chantilly, Va. near Washington. They were reassured when he chose their boy, Harold Koh, a strong advocate of the U.S. accepting the ICC, as the State Department's top lawyer.

In the Penn State Law Review, Koh wrote sneeringly of "nationalists" who oppose surrendering sovereignty to international institutions, including the ICC. He praised the "transnationalist faction" on the Supreme Court and the wisdom of the jurists for their rejection of the "nationalist faction."

"Generally speaking, the transnationalists tend to emphasize the interdependence between the United States and the rest of the world, while the nationalists tend instead to focus more on preserving American autonomy," Koh wrote. "The transnationalists believe in and promote the blending of international and domestic law, while nationalists continue to maintain a rigid separation of domestic from foreign law."

The "transnationalists view domestic courts as having a critical role to play in domesticating international law into U.S. law, while nationalists argue instead that only the political branches can internalize international law,"

Koh wrote. "Transnationalists believe that U.S. courts could and should use their interpretive powers to promote the development of a global legal system, while the nationalists tend to claim that U.S. courts should limit their attention to the development of a national system."

Five Supreme Court justices have said, to Koh's delight, that U.S. courts should take into consideration the rulings of foreign courts in deciding domestic cases. They are: John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

In a Bilderberg warm up, the Washington-based American Society of International Law called on the U.S. to embrace the ICC. These luminaries included former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, former Rep. Mickey Edwards and a roster of educated fools.

Carl Bildt, Sweden's minister for foreign affairs, made a pitch for two other major Bilderberg goals: creating a global Department of Treasury and Department of Health, with all nations surrendering sovereignty over these issues to the UN. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is to become the Treasury Department and the World Health Organization the World Health Department. But Bildt seized on an old Bilderberg issue, global warming, to make the case for WHO. Bilderberg propaganda over a "swine flu pandemic" has fallen victim to facts: On average, 300,000 Americans develop flu each year and 30,000 die. Only a few have died or even been seriously afflicted by "swine flu."

The world economic meltdown is a "once-in-a-generation crisis while global warming is a "once-in-a-millennium challenge," Bildt told Bilderberg. Sources inside Bilderberg said Bildt's speech mirrored an address he gave to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. Carnegie's president, Jessica Mathews, is a long-time Bilderberg participant.

"We are at a critical time," Bildt told Bilderberg. "The order of magnitude of world crises are more challenging than we are used to. The world economic recession has already reversed strong annual growth rates in many developing poor nations and in some parts of Europe and has the potential to bring down governments. . . . "

"When we hit bottom, we can't be sure where we'll bounce back up," Bildt said. "This is an urgent economic crisis unlike anything we have dealt with in living memory." However, he called for a bounce-back within years, not a decade-long recession as some called for in efforts to exploit human misery.

Bildt then turned to selling global warming as the gateway to a World Health Department under the UN. Bilderberg boys, including David Rockefeller and others who inherited great wealth as the sons of smokestack industrialists, grabbed global warming as an issue more than a decade as a means of generating huge profits with investments to "save the planet." Now, global warming has a new role.

"We know we need to take action," Bildt said of global warming. "The global crisis is now," he said. "The necessity to take action on climate change is now." His calls for "global action" on these supposed "crises" were thinly disguised calls for UN control.

Bildt called for world (UN) solutions to virtually all problems. He cited the European Union as "model of integration, saying, "the EU is emerging as a global actor." He advocates expanding NAFTA throughout the Western Hemisphere to create an "American Union."

The International Monetary Fund sent a report to Bilderberg advocating its rise to the role of World Treasury Department. "Further actions by policymakers, particularly in the financial sector, are needed to restore market trust and confidence," said Marek Belka, director of the IMF's European department and former prime minister of Poland.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner enthusiastically endorsed the plan for a World Treasury Department, although he received no assurance that he would become its leader. He expressed "hope" that American and European leaders could "work together" to achieve such a "global solution" to the world economic meltdown.

The IMF's planned new role as a world Treasury Department should be welcome news to the "little guy," Geithner told Bilderberg. "The damage has been unfair and indiscriminant," he said. "Ordinary Americans, small business owners and community banks who did the right thing and played by the rules are suffering from the actions of those who took on too much risk."

But, even with a World Treasury Department, problems will not disappear overnight, Geithner warned. "These are all welcoming signs, but the process of financial recovery and repair is going to take time," he said, lending his weight to a relative short-term recession as opposed to those who backed a long-term recovery. The people of Europe and America will have suffered enough to embrace a World Treasury Department, he said.

"Our hope is that we can work with Europe on a global framework, a global infrastructure which has appropriate global oversight," Geithner said. "We can't allow institutions to cherry-pick among competing regulators and ship risk to where it faces the lowest standards and weakest constraints."

Bilderberg is fervently working to persuade the Irish to accept an even stronger Lisbon Treaty, which would create an even stronger European Union, creating a permanent (instead of rotating) chairman and a more powerful Parliament. The EU Parliament can even now impose laws on member states.

Irish voters rejected this EU expansion in an earlier referendum, but Bilderberg is pressing for another vote. Citizens of France and Germany overwhelmingly opposed the measure, numerous polls showed, but their heads of state signed off. Ireland requires a referendum before approval.

A meeting is planned June 18-19 in Brussels to cross t's and dot i's in an effort to induce Irish voters to reverse themselves and endorse the treaty. Under EU rules, all states must back a change for it to take effect. Bilderberg leaders plan a "private meeting" in advance of the formal session to push ratification.

"They're going to make us vote until we vote their way," said an Irishman protesting at the gates of Bilderberg, who feared reprisals if identified. There were a large number of European journalists fighting to expose Bilderberg and much is being published in Europe. Many were seized by police, surrounded by pointed guns and had their film and notes seized.

But The Times of London had a helpful story the opening day of the Bilderberg meeting, Thursday, May 14. "What we have been able to establish from a World Bank spokesman, Alexis O'Brien, that the organization's president, Robert Zoellick, will be in Athens on unspecified business May 14," the paper said. "And that U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's public schedule is mysteriously empty for the next two days. Jo Ackermann, head of Deutsche Bank, will be traveling "somewhere in Europe.'

Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, will not be around until the end of the week." (This was a moment when all journalists were striving to identify Bilderberg participants.)

"Jim Tucker, veteran stalker of the Bilderberg club meetings, claims that Margaret Thatcher was ordered "to dismantle British sovereignty, but she said ‘no way,' so they had her sacked," the paper said. (Events confirmed this, as did Lady Thatcher in a later conversation with Tucker.)

AFP editor James P. Tucker Jr. is a veteran journalist who spent many years as a member of the "elite" media in Washington. Since 1975 he has won widespread recognition, here and abroad, for his pursuit of on-the-scene stories reporting the intrigues of global power blocs such as the Bilderberg Group. Tucker is the author of Jim Tucker's Bilderberg Diary: One Man's 25-Year Battle to Shine the Light on the World Shadow Government. Bound in an attractive full-color softcover and containing 272 pages—loaded with photos, many never published before—the book recounts Tucker's experiences over the last quarter century at Bilderberg meetings. $25 from AFP. No charge for S&H in U.S.

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American Free Press June 1, 2009

Secret Memos Reveal Bush Saw Iraq War as ‘Christian' Crusade  

U.S. troops emotionally strained; suicides at highest level since Iraq War began; ‘fragging' incidents increase

By Victor Thorn

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent President George Bush top-secret wartime memos with cover sheets that mixed Scripture and battle photos to cast the Iraq invasion as a holy Christian crusade, the journal CQ reports.

"Rumsfeld, not known to be religious, appeared to be trying to manipulate the Bible-quoting Bush into believing that invading Iraq was God's will. "Commit to the LORD, whatever you do, and your plans will succeed—Proverbs 16.3," appeared on an April 1, 2003 report over a photo of a U.S. soldier near a highway sign pointing to Baghdad. The next day, U.S. troops reached the Iraqi capital.

"Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps the faith—Isaiah 26.2," appeared on an April 3, 2003 memo over a photo of a U.S. tank entering Baghdad.

Four months later, during a summit in Egypt, the Palestinian foreign minister said Bush told him he was on "a mission from God" and was getting commands directly from the Lord. The White House at the time dismissed the claim as "absurd."

EMOTIONAL STRESS OVERWHELMING

The war grew tragically worse on May 11 when Sgt. John M. Russell went berserk and killed five unarmed servicemen at the Camp Liberty stress clinic in Baghdad, while wounding three others. Events leading up to this meltdown had many around him fully aware that they had a ticking time bomb on their hands.

James Dao and Lizette Alvarez of The New York Times wrote on May 14 that Russell's commanding officer "ordered him to turn in his gun and receive psychological counseling."

Russell was infuriated and humiliated. Ed Lavandera of CNN reported, "His wife told us that he emailed her and said he'd had the worst two days of his life because some of his officers had threatened him." PFC Michael Yates—one of those killed a day later—knew trouble was brewing, telling his mother, "Man, this guy's got issues."

All hell broke loose the next day when, according to Luis Martinez of ABC News, Russell "was taken against his will for treatment at the combat stress center because of concerns about his mental health."

Enraged at his two superiors who issued these orders, Russell's hostilities reached a breaking point at the counseling center, where a messy altercation broke out. Escorted from the premises in an Army vehicle, Russell proceeded to pummel the driver; then wrested his weapon away from him. After stealing the Jeep, Russell sped back to the clinic, where he opened fire on staff and patients. Dao and Alvarez called this onslaught "the worst case of soldier-on-soldier violence among American forces in the six-year Iraq war."

What happened to this career Army man who had also served in Serbia and Bosnia? One contributing factor may have been financially related to a $1,500 per month mortgage, whereas others blamed it on Russell's job maintaining robots that detonated IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

In Sherman, Tex., Wilburn Russell, 73, father of the beleaguered soldier, acknowledged these traumas, but raised the rhetoric to an entirely new level. He said: The U.S. Army turned my son into a mass killer. . . . Two officers threatened and harassed him for two days straight. . . . When the military turned against him, he didn't have any recourse. I guess he thought his life was over. He's going to lose his house, everything, his retirement. I guess he just broke. . . . I'm furious. I know he was set up and they ruined him. . . . If a guy actually goes to the clinic and asks for help, they think of him as a wimp and he's got something wrong with him and they try to get rid of him. . . . They set him up. They drove him out. They wanted to put as much pressure on him as they could to drum him out. I think they broke him.

Russell continued. "They ruined his life. They told him, ‘You're an idiot. You don't belong in here. We're gonna break you.' He took matters into his own hands. . . . They turned him loose with a guy with a gun. He beat the crap out of this guy and took his gun away from him. . . . He couldn't handle it. It overwhelmed him. They told my son, ‘You don't have enough brains and gumption to be a sergeant.'"

Speaking of our enlisted men and women in Iraq, Army Secretary Pete Geren admitted, "This is a very stressed force." The Army confirmed that the number of suicides spiked to 143 in 2008, the highest total since the military began keeping such records. Gary Mitchell of Editor and Publisher predicted that this amount could skyrocket to 225 in 2009.

Ironically, despite lower overall violence in Iraq, soldiers still complain of post-traumatic stress disorder, multiple redeployments with too little time between them, depression, and financial hardships. As a result, Tina Kells commented on May 11 that "fragging incidents, as the deliberate killing of military allies is called, are becoming increasingly common in Iraq. The Camp Liberty incident is the sixth such fragging in the past four years."

PBS adds that "attempted suicides and self-injuries have quadrupled over the past six years."

With stress levels peaking as the war drags on, Greg Mitchell summarizes how enlisted men are forced to bear the brunt. "Commanders constantly pressure soldiers with health issues to deploy even when their medical records show physical problems."

In response, soldiers from the Alaska Peace Center started a petition, stating, "As the shortage of troops has become more and more difficult to overcome, our commanders have become more and more aggressive in deploying soldiers with injuries and illnesses."

It's obvious that Sgt. John Russell was one of these "casualties" of war who was pushed too far; then finally snapped.

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

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American Free Press June 1, 2009

SPOTLIGH ON CONGRESS

House Considering Censoring Internet  

‘Cleansing' the Internet by Criminalizing Hurt Feelings

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO "STICKS AND STONES can break your bones, but words will never hurt you"?

The Internet has given average Americans unparalleled access to information that the elites historically have kept under wraps by controlling access to it. Now, Congress is trying to rein in that access by making it so that the government can go after someone for hurting another person's feelings on the World Wide Web.

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) has introduced the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act (HR 1966) that could make it a felony to use your "blog" or web page on sites like MySpace and Facebook "to cause substantial emotional distress" through "severe, repeated, and hostile" speech. MySpace and Facebook are web sites that allow an individual to post information on the Internet, including photos, video and text, and then share it with anyone around the world.

The bill has 17 co-sponsors and is currently stuck in the House Committee on the Judiciary. While no one likes a bully, the problem with making a federal case out of "cyberbullying" is that it could apply to independent journalists, organizations and individuals that the government or special interest groups do not like.

"It would have the effect of stifling free speech online under the threat of bringing federal criminal charges against anyone for any reason.

Traditionally, the Constitution said there was no remedy for hurt feelings. Miss Sanchez's dangerous new legislation would change that, making it possible for the Justice Department to prosecute anyone for no other reason than he wrote bad things about someone else.

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American Free Press June 1, 2009

Chemist Says ‘Nano-Thermite' Bombs Brought Down World Trade Buildings  

By Ralph Forbes

A highly respected Danish chemist and several of his colleagues are saying that irrefutable scientific evidence now exists to prove the attacks on the World trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, were a high-tech job requiring sophisticated help.

Niels Harrit, Ph.D, associate professor at the Department of Chemistry for 40 years at Copenhagen University in Denmark, home of the Niels Bohr Institute, is an expert in nano-chemistry. Dr. Harrit is one of the nine scientists primarily responsible for a shocking paper entitled: "Active Thermitic Material discovered in Dust from the 9-11 World Trade Center Catastrophe."

Their research, conducted over 18 months, led to the inescapable conclusion that planes did not cause the colapse of the three buildings at the WTC on 9-11. Harrit, like Dr. Steven Jones, who also played a major role in this ground-breaking research, refers to their findings as "the loaded gun." Nano-thermite is an exotic compound, which melts metal virtually instantly. It differs from regular thermite in a number of important ways. Its ignition temperature is far lower than that of the conventional kind, making it a discovery of military importance. The scientists say evidence of such large quantities of nano-thermite in the dust from the WTC site by the ton.

They reported "... The properties of these [red/gray] chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).... The iron oxide and aluminum are intimately mixed in the red material. When ignited in a DSC device the chips exhibit large but narrow exotherms occurring at approximately 430 degrees Centigrade, far below the normal ignition temperature for conventional thermite. Numerous iron-rich spheres are clearly observed in the residue following the ignition of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic."

Excerpts from The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2, a report on an April 2001 conference, discloses who was known to be3 working on such explosives at that time:

The 221st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society held during April 2001 in San Diego featured a symposium on Defense Applications of Nano-materials ... (Nan9-nergetics).... At this point in time, all of the military services and some DOE and academic labratories have active R&D [research and development] programs aimed at exploiting the unique properties of nano-materials that have the potential to be used in energetic formulations for advanced explosives.... Nanoenergetics hold promise as useful ingredients for the thermobaric (TBX) and TBX-like weapons, particularly due to their high degree of tailorability with regard to energy release and impulse management.

Can super-thermite be handled safely? The April 2000 report by Gash, et al. States: "Super-thermite electric matches" have been developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory for which "applications include triggering explosives for ... demolition." Such matches are designed to be ignited by a electric pulse.

"The energy/volume yield for Al/Fe2O3 (nano-thermites) composite material exceeds that of TNT, HMX and TATB explosives commonly used in demolitions ... the red/gray chips release more energy in kJ/g than does ordinary thermite.... Rapid gas generation is considered a pyrotechnic or explosive.... red chips when ignited produce very high temperatures even now, several years after the 9/11 tragedy, as shown by the bright flash observed and the production of molten iron-rich spheres.

... Correspondingly, the DSC tests demonstrate the release of high enthalpy, actually exceeding that of pure thermite. Furthermore, the energy is released over a short period of time.... A very high temperature reaction had occurred....

"We conclude that the red layer of the red/gray chips we have discovered in the WTC dust is active, unreacted thermitic material, incorporation nanotechnology, and is a highly energetic pyrotechnic or explosive material."
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American Free Press June 1, 2009

Israel Will Vanish Into Sands of Time  

By Ahmed Jamil

When the sun rises from the west and sets in the east, the Middle East Conflicts between Israel and Arabs may be settled. It is unfortunate to lump all Jews together. Many Jews accepted and lived according to the decree of god to live in the diaspora. They prospered as the nations they live in prospered.

For Centuries, the Jews lived among the Arabs with due respect. When they were driven from Western Europe, in the middle centuries, they found refuge in Muslim countries. Some of them still live there.

Had the Jews wanted to return to Palestine and live with the Arabs based on equality, respect and harmony, the current bloodshed and destruction would not happen. Unfortunately, world Zionism wanted to come from the back door to drive the Arabs from their homes, confiscate their land and replace them with immigrant Jews. Sixty-one years of crimes against the Arabs could melt mountains.

The Zionist intention is not to establish a Jewish home for the Jews and live with their neighbors in peace and harmony, but to fulfill the dream of greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates and beyond. Their building of settlements in the West bank is an indication that they plan to get rid of every Arab from Palestine - and then move forward.

The Holy Land has been a battlefield for centuries. The latest were the Crusades. Christians ruled it for nearly 200 years around the 10th century, then Muslims and finally the British. All came and went. So will Israel. Israel has been persecuting the Palestinians for 61 years, and has the ticket for departure, like it or not.

One thing hardly anyone realizes is that when God's wrath descended on the children of Israel, He implemented two things: one is that He will motivate others to confound them to the day of judgment; two, they are under the fear of being confounded. Also, according to the Quran, they have to be supported by God. God's support is gone and without the support of the West, Israel is too. However, Israel has walked over the cliff, with the demolishing of Gaza and the holocaust of the Palestinians. The world is changing its attitude toward Israel. Furthermore, the West, the sponsor of Israel, is getting its own financial problems and their civilization is on the downtrend.

The West has built a monster that it cannot control. Either it has to kill it or be killed. Israel now has the power to reach any Western capital with nuclear missiles. Moreover, Zionists have been planted in every government and will divert any attempt to solve the problems. Unless God intercedes to save humanity, the writing is on the wall.

My father used to tell us, "You could get away with things (wrongdoing) but once you are discovered, that would be the end of you." Israel has crossed the line. Her departure tickets are ready. Che can save herself by agreeing to live with arabs - and all goyim - on the same footing.

Is God telling us something? From Holy scripture comes the guidance for humanity to live in peace, harmony and brotherhood. Israel has defied the will of God. For its defiance. The account will be settled.
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By Congressman Ron Paul

I have been very pleased with the progress of my legislation, HR 1207, which calls for a complete audit of the Federal reserve and removes many significant barriers toward transparency of our monetary system. This bill now has nearly 170 cosponsors, with support from both Republicans and Democrats. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Ver.) has introduced a companion bill in the Senate (S 604), which will hopefully begin to gain momentum as well. I am very encouraged to see so many of my colleagues in Congress stand with me for greater transparency in government.

Some have begun to push back against this bill, and I am very happy to address their concerns.

The main argument seems to be that congressional oversight over the Fed is government interference in the free market. This argument shows a misunderstanding of what a free market really is. Fundamentally, you cannot defend the Federal reserve and the free market at the same time. The Fed negates the very foundation of a free market by artificially manipulating the price and supply of money - the lifeblood of the economy. In a free market, interest rates, like the price of any other consumer goods, are decentralized and set by the market. The only legitimate, constitutional role of government in monetary policy is to protect the integrity of the monetary unit and defend against counterfeiters.

Instead, congress has abdicated this responsibility to a cabal of elite, quasi-governmental banks who, instead of stabilizing the economy, have destabilized it. It took less than two decades for the federal Reserve to bring on the Great Depression of the 1930s. It has also inflated away the value of our currency by over 96 percent since its inception. It has invisibly stolen from the poor and given to the rich through this controlled inflation, and now openly stolen through recent bank bailouts. It has predictably exacerbated the very problems it was meant to solve.

Detractors have also argued that the Fed must remain immune from the political process, and that more congressional oversight would distort their very important decisions. On the contrary, the Federal Reserve is already heavily entrenched in the political process, as the Fed chairman is a political appointee. High-level officials routinely make the rounds between positions at the Fed, member banks, Treasury and back again, taking care of friends and each other along the way.

As far as the foolishness of placing complex monetary policy decisions in the hands of politicians - I couldn't agree more. No politician or central banker, no matter how brilliant, is smart enough to know more than the market itself. The failure of central economic planning has been witnessed over and over. It is frankly beyond me why we ever agreed to try it again.

To understand how unwise it is to have the Federal Reserve, one must first understand the magnitude of the privileges they have. They have been given the power to create money, by the trillionsm, and to give it to their friends, under any terms they wish, with little or no meaningful oversight or accountability. Thus the loudest arguments against greater transparency are likely to come from those friends, and understandably so.

However, it is the responsibility of every member of Congress to represent the interests of the people who sent them to Washington and find out what has been happening with our money. As the branch of government with the power of the purse, we really have no other reasonable choice when the economy is in the shape it is in.
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A new law introduced into Congress has activists worried that it could disarm anyone the federal government has labeled an ‘extremist." These could include opponents of abortion, Second-Amendment-rights advocates, tax protesters, environmental activists and a host of others - anyone on the expansive Department of Homeland Security watch list for potential "extremism."

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) Has introduced the Denying Firearms and explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009 (H.R. 2159), which would grant the attorney general power to deny a firearm to any "known or suspected dangerous terrorist." AFP corresponding editor Mark Anderson first wrote about this issue in last week's edition of American Free Press.

According to language in the bill, the only reason the attorney general's office would need to justify blocking someone from owning a firearm is that he is "appropriately suspected" of preparing for a terrorist act. The attorney general would only need to claim that law enforcement "has a reasonable belief" that the gun might be used in connection with "terrorism."

Second amendment rights advocates have already voiced concerns about the bill, saying that it would hand the federal government unprecedented authority to suspend a person's constitutionally guaranteed Second Amendment rights without a trial or any legal proof, only on the "suspicion" of being "dangerous."

Larry Prat, executive director of Gun Owners of America, expects the Justice Department to apply this bill in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security's "right-wing extremist" report, with labels veterans, advocates of the Second Amendment and other "radicals" as dangerous terrorists.

The Citizen, an online news site, sums up the bill this way: "The government now possesses the appropriate ‘watch lists' and has designated specific categories of Americans as domestic terrorists. If H.R. 2159 becomes law the Obama administration and the Justice department will go after opponents to their far-reaching plan to disarm the nation and deliver it defenseless into the clutches of bankers and corporatists determined to reduce a once proud constitutional republic to the status of a feudalist backwater."
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By Pat Shannan

A thump outside your bedroom door awakens you from a sound sleep. Half awake, you hear muffled whispers. At least two people have broken into your house. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber and inch toward the hallway. In the darkness, you make out two shadows.

One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire. The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside. You pick up the telephone to call police. You're in trouble.

In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered. Police arrive and inform you that one burglar has died. They arrest you for first-degree murder and illegal possession of a firearm. When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter.

"What kind of sentence will I get? you ask.

"Only 10 to 12 years," he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven.

The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper. Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choirboys. Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times. But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Son Didn't Deserve to Die." The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters. As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the international media. The surviving burglar has become a folk hero.

Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and he'll probably win. The media ublishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the pat and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time. The district attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.

A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, as you lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man. It doesn't take long for the dumbed-down jury to convict you of all charges, and the judge sentences you to life in prison.

This case really happened.

On Aug. 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk England, killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term. Before the trial, a police spokesman actually said to newsmen, "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands."

All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.

How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once-great British empire? The same way it is happening here in America.

As the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to won a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released.

The Pistols Act of 1903 seemed reasonable. It forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license. The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns.

Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed man, walked down the streets shooting everyone in sight with two semiautomatic rifles and a handgun. The final count: 17 people and a dog were dead.

The British public, already desensitized by 80 years of "gun control," demanded even tougher restrictions.

Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a school.

When the Dunblane inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given thre months to turn them over to authorities. Of course, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were visited by police and threatened with 10-year prison sentences if they didn't comply. Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens.

How did the authorities know who had handguns and where they lived? The people had already been lured into registering and licensing their lawful weapons.
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By Victor Thorn

Once again, mainstream media sources failed to report the real story behind the story. At the Gridiron Club's annual white-tie gala May 17 in Washington, Vice President Joe Biden disclosed classified information regarding Dick Cheney's infamous underground bunker beneath the Naval
Observatory in D.C.

Being that Biden took over residence from Cheney in the vice presidential manor this past January, he related to fellow diners (journalists included) how a young Naval tour guide "showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment. The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed."

Heckled by pundits for the umpteenth time, Biden dismissed his statements by saying that he was actually referring to an "upstairs workspace." But his words were obviously misleading because in December, 2002, neighbors living adjacent to the vice president's residence complained of "strange explosions" emanating from beneath Cheney's home. In response, the Naval Observatory's superintendent sent each a letter. "Due to its sensitive nature in support of national security and homeland defense, this project's specific information is classified and cannot be released."

The memo also stated that "the work was urgent and needed to be done on a highly accelerated schedule."

Cheney (who denied the very existence of this "Bat Cave"), then ordered Google to obscure his residence from their satellite maps.

With these revelations in mind, some commentators have erroneously stated that Vice President Cheney hunkered down in this bunker during the 9-11 terrorist attacks. But construction didn't officially begin on this enclave until December, 2002. Actually, at approximately 9:10-9:20 a.m. on Sept. 11, Cheney was scurried to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) beneath the White House East Wing. Here, a crucial event took place which had a profound effect on the purported Pentagon strike.

According to Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, he entered the PEOC at 9:25 or 9:26 a.m., whereupon he witnessed an aide repeatedly giving the vice-president frantic updates. He provided the following public testimony to the 9-11 Commission on April 23, 2003.

During the time that the airplane [Flight 77] was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in to say to the vice president, "The plane is 50 miles out." "The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to "the plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" The vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"

A growing number of researchers insist Flight 77 never struck the Pentagon. But, an event did take place at 9:38 a.m. where a certain amount of damage occurred, resulting in 125 deaths. But what are we to make of the "orders" which this aide questioned Dick Cheney about?

In an excellent article by Professor David Ray Griffin on April 28, 2008, entitled "9-11 Contradictions: When Did Cheney Enter the Underground Bunker?", he writes, "The expected orders, especially on a day when two hijacked airliners had already crashed into buildings in New York, would have been to shoot down any non-military aircraft entering the ‘prohibited' airspace over Washington."

But since Cheney was repeatedly asked about these "orders," Griffin concludes quite perceptively: "The question made sense only if the orders were to do something unusual—not to shoot the aircraft down. It appeared, accordingly, that Mineta had inadvertently reported Cheney's confirmation of stand-down orders."

Obviously, Flight 77 was never shot down over our nation's capital (nor did it strike the Pentagon). In a May 5, 2008, article, 9-11 researcher Aidan Monaghan stresses that ample notice was given to government officials.

"The FAA notified the military about the suspected hijacking of Flight 77 at 9:24 a.m., if not before. The FBI's D.C. field office was also notified that Flight 77 had been hijacked at about 9:20 a.m."

In essence, the Pentagon and White House had an eternity to react, but failed to do so. Somebody ordered the stand-down, and operationally at least, one of those men was Dick Cheney.

Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's probable hands-on involvement in the execution of 9-11 can be traced back to what journalist James Mann calls "The Armageddon Plan" in the March, 2004 issue of The Atlantic magazine. During the Reagan administration—when Cold War paranoia still ran high—Cheney and Rumsfeld joined 40-60 other federal officials in a highly classified program dealing with COG (continuity of government).

During these secretive operations, various shadow government teams were formed in the event of a nuclear strike by the Soviets. In an article for The Guardian by Tom Vanderbilt entitled "Is This Bush's Secret Bunker?", he describes how "the president could repair to Mount Weather; Congress had its secret bunker in Culpeper, Va.; the Pentagon was given a rocky redoubt called Site R [Raven Rock] in the mountains of southwest Pennsylvania; while the nation's air defenses were run out of NORAD."

Vanderbilt describes Mount Weather as "a sprawling underground complex bristling with mainframe computers, air circulation pumps, and a television/radio studio for post nuclear presidential broadcasts."

As each of these teams was dispatched to clandestine locales, mock "presidents" were appointed to each. Not surprisingly, both Cheney and Rumsfeld were designated to be "commanders-in-chief " of their respective squadrons.

Mann also explains how "the capstone to all these efforts was a special airplane, the National Emergency Airborne Command Post, a modified Boeing 747 based at Andrews Air Force Base and specially outfitted with a conference room and advanced communication gear. In it, a president could remain in the air and run the country during a nuclear showdown."

Considering these words, fast-forward to Sept. 11, 2001 when bedlam broke loose in D.C. As Mann concludes in his expose, "Cheney and Rumsfeld suddenly began to act out parts of a script they had rehearsed years before. Operating from the underground shelter beneath the White House, called the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, Cheney told Bush to delay a planned flight back from Florida to Washington."

In the meantime, Rumsfeld sent others, like Paul Wolfowitz, to out-of-town bunkers.

In essence, while one team ran the show in New York City from Rudy Giuliani's Office of Emergency Management (OEM) on the 23rd floor of WTC 7; another team consisting of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and General Richard Meyers remembered their special training via the Armageddon Plan. When questioned a few days after 9-11 by NBC's Tim Russert in regard to their actions at the time, Cheney responded furtively, "We did a lot of planning during the Cold War with respect to the possibility of a nuclear incident."

When Joe Biden spilled the beans about Cheney's not-so-secret bunker, he didn't know how close he came to opening up an entirely different can of worms.

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

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By Michael Collins Piper

If you have an expert's knowledge about the Middle East—or none whatsoever—Melissa Rossi's What Every American Should Know About the Middle East is the one book—bar none—that you need to read.

You may not agree with all of Rossi's opinions—this reviewer does not—but one thing is guaranteed: you will not find anywhere so comprehensive and so largely balanced an accounting of the region: its players, its politics, its culture, its ideology, all wrapped up in a lively-written, attractively assembled, easy-reading and often amusing 493-page volume.

Miss Rossi is familiar to AMERICAN FREE PRESS readers as the author of such works as What Every American Should Know About Who's Running America, but she is more than that. She's a globetrotting correspondent who has written for such "mainstream" publications as Newsweek, National Geographic Traveler, Newsday, Esquire, George and others. She's also been a guest on the weekly radio talk forum, "The Liberty Hour," co-hosted by U.S.S. Liberty survivor Phil Tourney and AFP correspondent Mark Glenn featured on the Internet every Saturday at republicbroadcasting.org.

But—most importantly—despite her ties to the big media, Rossi is an open-minded and engaging no-holds-barred journalist who is not afraid to tackle the one big issue relating to the Middle East: the ever controversial "special relationship" between the United States and its so-called "best ally," Israel.

Miss Rossi recognizes that there are many interests at work in the Middle East itself and in the U.S.-Israeli stance vis-?-vis the Arab and Muslim worlds. And she's up front in expressing her opinions, even as she explores the Middle East in a fascinating and panoramic overview which includes detailed (but never boring) explorations of each of the Middle East states.

Every chapter features interesting sub-sections highlighting a variety of facets of each nation's history and of the current events and issues that are impacting upon that nation's place in the world today. There are also many informative maps and photographs that help make the trip all the more enlightening.

While there are many guidebooks to the Middle East, they are largely "traveler-oriented" they generally tend to parrot the official U.S. (and Israeli) propaganda line. Not so with Miss Rossi's book. You'll find it most informative and you will not find another book that is so comprehensive in its scope and yet, at the same time, so enjoyable.

What Every American Should Know About the Middle East (softcover, 493 pages, #ME, $20) is available from First Amendment Books, 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100, Washington, D.C. 20003. Free S&H inside the U.S. Call FAB toll free at 1-888-699-6397 and charge to Visa or MasterCard. Outside U.S. add $11 per book S&H. ORDER ONLINE HERE.

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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THE WARMONGERING American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has issued its marching orders to Congress in regard to Iran and is likely headed for a collision course with the White House, according to a new report by a leading Capitol Hill newspaper.

AIPAC wants Congress to impose sanctions on any company around the world that does business with Iran's petroleum industry. Since Iran has to import 40 percent of what it needs to pump and refine oil, this legislation, which also calls on the U.S. government to pressure other countries to comply, would effectively close down Iran's main source of funding and result in a spike in oil prices.

Legislation in the House and the Senate has already been drafted—no doubt by AIPAC staffers themselves and then spoon-fed to their pawns in Congress.

In the House, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009 (H.R. 2194), which was introduced by Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), is currently in the Committee on Rules and has 132 sponsors.

The bill states it would "amend the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 to enhance United States diplomatic efforts with respect to Iran by expanding economic sanctions against Iran."

The Senate version, S. 908, introduced by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), already has 52 cosponsors and is currently in the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

In a nutshell, the two bills, which Iranian groups have described as "shameless," would block companies that "sell, ship, or insure refined petroleum deliveries to Iran or invest in Iran's domestic oil industry" from also conducting business in the United States. They essentially encourage an international oil embargo against Iran.

It's a dangerous game that will likely result in a spike in the price of oil, as commodity investors anticipate reductions in world supply. But AIPAC is unconcerned about average Americans, who rely on inexpensive gas to get them to work and are already suffering from an economic crisis brought about by Wall Street.

And that is not all of it. Another bill reportedly being pushed by AIPAC is the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2009 (H.R. 1327), which calls on state and local governments and educational institutions to divest themselves from corporations or other business entities which invest in Iran's oil and gas sector.

Ironically, while AIPAC is calling on governments and other institutions to officially stop doing business with Iran, it is illegal for businesses to refuse to do business with or divest themselves from Israel. In 1977, Congress passed legislation in direct response to an Arab boycott of Israel that created the Office of Anti-boycott Compliance within the Department of Commerce.

The law made it illegal for U.S. persons or organizations to "boycott a country that is friendly to the United States." Because Israel is an "ally" of the United States, the law prohibits actions that "further or support boycotts of Israel."

President Obama has already said he does not support increasing sanctions against Iran right now, instead advocating direct talks to discuss that country's nuclear program. The White House is seeking to shift U.S. policy on Iran after 30 years of an old policy that "has produced no results," he said. The world is now watching to see who will blink first.

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By Christopher J. Petherick

The only way Washington is going to pay off its $11 trillion national debt is to devalue the U.S. dollar, says Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex). While no one knows for sure when - or even if - this will ever happen, the congressman speculated on a national television talk show that it could come as early as later this year. Dollar devaluation means exactly what it implies: The government officially acknowledges that, relative to other currencies, the dollar is worth less than it was in years past.

This can be great news for debtors, because every dollar they owe is now worth less than it was when the money was originally borrowed. But it can be disastrous for hardworking Americans who have lived responsibly and never accumulated huge debts, or retirees who have built up liquid assets in the bank or families who have been scraping by, living paycheck to paycheck.

And it's not just Dr. Paul who is warning of more financial troubles directly related to the profligate ways of Washington and Wall Street.

The United States' top lender of last resort, China, is already anticipating the move, evidenced by a recent article in the state-owned China Business News. The Chinese daily reported in early June that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner made a special trip to the communist country to try to sell officials there on "the devalued dollar."

It said: "The Barack Obama administration may have to issue a mammoth $3.25 trillion of T -bills to fill the financial black hole of such a massive deficit. This is bound to scare investors away from the dollar-denominated long-term treasury bills.... It will swell the supply of base money, and thereby heighten the risk of devaluation of the dollar.... Though the devaluation of the dollar may be good news for U.S. exports, it will erode investor confidence, and might even lead to the collapse of the dollar's hegemony. Evidently, the falling dollar is an ominous sign looming large over Geithner's mission."

Were the United States entirely self-sufficient, it could likely weather this financial storm. But thanks to globalism and free trade, U.S. consumers are wholly dependent on imports. A devaluation of the dollar would result in across-the-board price increases on foreign imports. Commodities, such as oil, coffee, corn and food would cost more. All of the items sold in big-box stores like Wal-Mart would no longer be so affordable.

In fact, this is the biggest reason we can think of to buy silver and gold.

Worse still, since no one wants to hold a currency that is declining in value, Washington would find it impossible to borrow more money to fund big government. Decades of redistributing wealth would come to a grinding halt, followed by mass layoffs of federal workers and an end to funding for federal programs. Eventually, this would trickle down to state and local governments - the last remaining sectors that are actually hiring warm bodies these days.
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By

This important news article is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced here. However, it can be read on Paul Craig Roberts' Internet page.

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/090507_israel.htm
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Whereas the great majority of those who invest will invest in stocks, real estate or interest-bearing instruments, far less than 1 percent will ever buy real silver. James P. Cook, of Investment Rarities, Inc. reaches tens of thousands of readers monthly, making him the leading provider of silver information, yet this is minuscule compared to the 50-plus million investors in the U.S. alone. Mypoint is simple - if you're looking for an undiscovered investment item, silver fits the bill. By the time there really is a "Silver for Dummies" available, silver will no longer be undiscovered or cheap.

Because silver is an item known since the dawn of civilization, most people naturally hold strong preconceived opinions about it. For instance, many have some opinion of the dramatic price jump, and decline, from the 1980s Hunt Brothers' episode. But very few have taken the time to study silver closely. It's easier, and less time consuming, to rely on superficial opinions. Unfortunately, that's not usually the path to investment success.

While I always try to get people to buy real silver for the long term, I would be happy just to get the reader to look at it closely. I'm willing to bet that, if you take the time to study the real facts about silver, you will buy it. I've yet to run across anyone who's made a bona fide effort to lean about silver, who hasn't bought it. Those who do their homework and do buy silver for the right reasons always seem to buy more as time goes by.

So ehy should someone new to silver consider it as an investment? Of more precisely, why do I think, at this time, that silver is the best investment of all? In terms of silver, I don't really care about inflation or deflation, interest rates, the stock market, politics, monetary developments, or the direction of the dollar. I monitor these things, but they have remarkably little input in my long-term thinking about silver.

I see no chance that silver will ever be restored as money, in any form, s I understand the definition of the word. There's simply not enough silver available anymore for such a purpose. Besides, any attempt to make silver a medium of exchange would fail because it would be hoarded and not spent. "Bad money drives ot good" is the time-honored Gresham's Law.

I am a commodity analyst. That is my background. I look at silver in commodity terms, namely, does its current price accurately reflect current supply and demand? Is the price under, over or fairly valued compared to current and future supply and demand? This is the essence of all investment analysis.

An objective study of the law of supply and demand wold indicate that the price of silver is vastly undervalued. That's what makes silver a great investment at current prices. The world consumes, industrially, more silver that it produces, and must draw down inventories to balance. This can't last indefinitely, but as long as this deficit consumption pattern exists, any price would have to be considered undervalued. This is not unique to silver; this is the cornerstone of the law of supply and demand, which, in turn, is the cornerstone of our free market economy.

What's unique to silver is that it has been in a deficit consumption pattern for more than 60 years, with very low prices over most of that time. That would be impossible for any commodity, except that it has actually occurred in silver. But the very reason it has occurred in sliver is the reason I think silver is the best investment. A deficit consumption pattern in any commodity is the most bullish circumstance possible. It just can't get more bullish in any commodity than for consumption to exceed production. That condition can't last. The problem is, by the time it is obvious that a commodity's consumption is greater than its production, it is usually reflected in the price being quite high, and the deficit about to be corrected by that very high price, then boy oh boy, you better run, not walk to buy that commodity. And I don't care what the commodity is: a consumption deficit guarantees prices will go high enough to end the deficit.
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By Christopher J. Petherick

The head of the German agriculture department has issued new guidelines that effectively ban a type of genetically modified corn, which has been made in a laboratory by scientists at biotech giant Monsanto.

The variety of corn, called "MON 810" and sold under its trade name "Yield Guard," has been altered on a genetic level, making it resistant to the corn borer, a moth larva that consumes the plant and kills it.

MON 810 is grown extensively around the world. According to Agbios, an online database on genetically modified crops, more than 32 million acres in the United States has been planted with this type of GM corn.

Germany is following in the footsteps of several other EU countries—Austria, Hungary, Greece, France and Luxembourg—which have already banned it in spite of threats of sanctions from globalist groups.

Citing a move in Luxembourg in early April to ban the cultivation of MON 810, German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced that the German government was taking steps to prohibit farmers from planting the corn.

The two governments based their mandates on European studies that suggest a particular toxin, called Bt, added to the corn on a genetic level may be fatal to "non-target organisms," such as ladybugs. Ladybugs and other predator bugs eat pests such as moths and beetles.

A symptom of modern agriculture, the heavy use of pesticides has resulted in a never-ending cycle, where good and bad insects are indiscriminately killed and the natural cycle is thrown out of balance.

Worse still, German officials cited research showing that pollen from corn spreads much farther than previously thought. Since corn is pollinated by wind-borne pollen, the concern is that neighboring non-GM corn could become contaminated by genetic material from the Frankenfoods, which blow for miles in the wind.

This is substantiated by many organic growers, who contend that it is becoming more and more difficult to find truly heirloom, organic seeds that have not been tainted by genetically modified crops.

"I have come to the conclusion there are just reasons to assume that the genetically modified corn MON 810 represents a danger for the environment," Ms. Aigner, a member of the conservative Bavaria-based Christian Social Union, told reporters. "Therefore, the cultivation of MON 810 is now banned in Germany."

Critics of genetically modified foods have pointed to several studies, which indicate that foods modified in a laboratory at a genetic level can be hazardous to your health. One recent study in Europe has shown that GM corn fed to rats resulted in rampant infertility. Those that did reproduce suffered from low birth weights for offspring.

Not surprisingly, the billion-dollar biotech corporation has responded by suing Germany over the ban. In the suit, Monsanto insists that its product, which has been approved by the EU, is "safe to use."

"We are disappointed and frankly, we don't believe that they have justification to warrant this," Brad Mitchell, a spokesman for Monsanto, told a U.S. newspaper. "They have cited unconvincing evidence that it is unsafe. . . . But the scientific committee of the European Union approved it."

The EU has responded by saying that Germany is within its rights to ban GM corn, but has issued a threat saying it will block the German government if it uncovers evidence that Germany has banned GM corn because it is pursuing "protectionist trade measures."

Still, even if Monsanto fails to overturn Germany's ruling, the U.S. based corporation can appeal to the global trade body, the World Trade Organization, which Germany is a member of. This could result in penalties and trade sanctions being imposed on the country.

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By Mark Anderson

Mark McAfee takes pride in his family-owned dairy called Organic Pastures in California. He just wants to produce raw milk for its delicious taste, and healthy properties and sell it - so he can make a living and encourage a healthy lifestyle among consumers. But McAfee, like any producer of worthwhile products and services in America's much vaunted "free market," has to deal with the bureaucracy, waste and corruption of the global economy.

As is the case with wine makers in California - who are only allowed a single wine-sales outlet per winery across their vast state, separate from their vineyard sites - McAfee is finding out that there is not a free market within America's borders. Wal-Mart and various other chains can build as many stores and cookie-cutter eateries as they want - even as slave-made Chinese junk pours across our borders and into the "big box" retailers that are over-running our towns, dissolving their local businesses and their economic roots.

Meanwhile, local chambers of commerce thrive on big retail complexes and leave little room for family-owned agriculture and gainful manufacturing, thus destroying purchasing power and tearing valuable farm land asunder for more retail outlets to bolster international trade. Just as pasteurization depletes the beneficial enzymes and kills the good bacteria in raw milk this "free trade across national borders, but not within our borders" global credo depletes people's ability to use initiative and hard work to get themselves out of our collective "economic straightjacket" that's sewn together with NAFTA, "stimulus packages," and other deplorable nonsense.

But McAfee is a fighter who inhabits the real economy, where local resources are harnessed in a caring and fruitful manner, with proper stewardship of the land, animal husbandry and no corporate mindset, which works to the sustained benefit of producer and consumer. But the 2,000 conventional dairy farms in California over-produce their pasteurized milk, which is nutritionally substandard and can make people sick, causing people's allergies to flare up, among other problems.

"Sixty truckloads a day [as of last month] were being dumped down the drain," McAfee said, referring to conventional milk. "They have no place to put it. Megadairies here over-produced a product that nobody wants. We have 2,000 conventional dairies ... but just two raw-milk dairies.

Asked about rumors that Gov. Schwarzenegger had just loosened up raw-milk rules, a spokesman for the governor's office said on May 28 that his position has not changed, meaning he still has an unfavorable view of it. But McAfee said that over the last year or so, things still have improved considerably. About a year ago, 95 percent of the California legislature supported a raw milk measure (SB 201) that was debated on the Senate floor. While the measure was vetoed by the governor, the raw milk production and sales climate with in California is no longer one of constant scrutiny and frequent harassment.

"It's a dramatic difference, more hands-off, " McAfee said. "About 50,000 customers a week drink our milk from 400 stores in California. We run 12 trucks, five days a week."

Raw milk's properties are the real magnet. Lactose intolerance is not an issue with raw milk, whereas regular milk often causes such intolerance and provokes a "histamine response" leading to a runny nose, runny eyes, asthma-like symptoms and other problems, according to McAfee. The "carcasses" of dead bacteria from pasteurization - which he describes as literal carnage, including the fluids and entrails from the once living bacteria - lead to the histamine response, he said. Raw milk also builds up good intestinal bacteria and is a major boost to the human immune system, a worthy consideration during flu scares.

Just as a well-written newspaper can do nothing without distribution, a good dairy product does no good if it's not available. McAfee cannot sell raw milk across state lines in a nation that often treats its national borders like state lines and its state lines like national borders. It's as if McAfee is in another country; if he tried to truck or ship raw milk out of California, the federal Food and Drug Administration could nail him with a year in jail and a $250,000 fine. Funny how Chinese products get a tariff-free pass into any American state - no matter how much poison dog kibble, deadly prescription pills, dangerous human foodstuffs and hazardous toys we receive - but raw milk producers in one state cannot sell their stuff in another state.

The irony is that customers from out of state can come to McAfee or a California retail store to buy raw milk, but he cannot send his product to stores or customers in other states. He used to be able to do so by labeling the milk as "pet food," but the FDA changed the rules to tighten that loophole. But with state Sen. Dean Florez, a raw-milk supporter, running for lieutenant governor, things may be looking up.
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"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes," Benjamin Franklin wrote to Jean-Baptiste Leroy over 200 years ago, and echoing those sentiments in 1992, Clinton campaign strategist James Carville argued, " It's the economy, stupid." but these two finance-centered men failed to realize that one thing is even more central to our existence than money: food.

Americans have long ignored the issue of food, because there has been such an abundance of it on our continent. But while a variety of foodstuffs has become increasingly available, the quality had decreased. This decrease in quality is directly related to the decreasing variety of food sources, the centralization of which has seriously endangered our health. As society benefits from the elimination of bureaucracy and the trimming of government, so would we benefit from the diversification of our food sources.

When I was attending public school in the 1990s, our options in the cafeteria were very limited. Usually we could choose between some mystery meat and a slice of spongy, rectangular pizza. When I recently returned to public school as a substitute teacher, I was surprised to see that, in addition to the mystery meat, very poor quality burgers and french fries had been added to the menu. I would have jumped for joy if this were available when I was in school, but now that I'm an adult, it seems like a very poor choice.

It's bad enough that our children are forced into a government controlled school system that fills their heads with garbage, but do they have to fill their stomachs with garbage as well? This is your government in action. Instead of providing our children with nutritious foods culled from local farms and growers, public school administrators have cut deals with corporations who ship their fecal-contaminated burgers from factory complexes located thousands of miles away. If your children get sick, oh well, you can talk to their lawyers.

Now, Rep Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has introduced H.R. 875, the "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009," which would empower the federal government to regulate all food production in the United States, whether large or small. Not surprisingly, DeLauro's husband's consulting firm works with Monsanto, one of the aforementioned agriculture monoliths with a near monopoly on genetically engineered crops.

According to the text of the bill, "food establishments" would be required to submit to inspection at least annually, if not more. If any violations are discovered, federal agents would have the authority to "detain, seize or condemn food from the food establishment" or "take other appropriate enforcement action concerning the food establishment, including withdrawal of registration." Agents of the proposed Food Safety Administration would also have unfettered access to all records held by the food suppliers.

Imagine if you and your family owned and operated a small orchard that sold apples and apple-related products. By all accounts, your product is safe. Aside from the occasional insect, which will happen now and then without pesticides, no one has ever had reason to complain. If the federal government has itss way, your orchard will have to submit to on-the-spot inspections whether you have been accused of any wrongdoing or not. If that inspector finds an insect, or perhaps any blemish at all in your product, you could face fines of several thousand dollars or even property seizure. A local orchard, organic or otherwise, would never be able to fight these charges, while a national corporation, with its team of lawyers and lobbyists, would have no problem dodging the regulations.

This assault on locally grown food is also an assault on our very well being. Although the legislation, like all legislation that comes out of Washington, is worded to make you believe that it will protect you, what it is really doing is ensuring that those carcinogen-laced fries continue to fill your child's stomach in his or her public school cafeteria.

I have nothing against an adult choosing to eat those products, or choosing to eat out at fast food restaurants with their children. The problem comes when government and corporations collude to restrict our diets in ways that are ultimately harmful to our health. When we are forced to buy contaminated tomatoes from Mexico, and can no longer go to our local garden or farmers market, something is seriously amiss. Increasing our food choices when it comes to the food producers means increasing our our ability to eat healthy, and that, in turn, is good for our economy.
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By Pat Shannan

Looking at the list of ingredients in a bottle of VitaminWater 10, the deceptively named new product from Coca-Cola, one would be pleased to see that it contains the natural sweetener stevia. However, then we must also take notice of the inclusion of sucrose, crystalline fructose, and a mysterious product called Erythritol.

The average person picking up this bottle would easily think this is simply flavored water with vitamins and minerals added, which sounds like a good thing in theory. However, the water is laced with no less that 33 additional grams (more than six teaspoons of sugar, including the crystalline fructose.

As you may remember, Coca-Cola was actually slapped just a few months ago in a class-action lawsuit that contends the VitaminWater line is being illegally promoted as a healthy product.

"And rightfully so" says the renowned Internet advisor, Dr. Mercola, an M.D. who "went over the wall" in rebellion against the medical practice of "burning, cutting and poisoning " sometime ago.

"VitaminWater has a couple of potentially hazardous ingredients that many sodas don't even have. Nearly as ridiculous are the new diet waters. This concept was os crazy I actually did a video on this two and a half years ago."

Erythritol is a sugar alcohol, a sweetener that does not provide as many calories as sugar, but this is because the sugar alcohols are not completely absorbed into your body. High intakes of foods containing sugar alcohols can lead to abdominal gas and diarrhea.

Some sugar alcohols are reasonable to consume in moderate quantities - for example, xylitol doesn't blood sugar levels in the way that high-froctose corn syrup (HFCS) might, and it is anti-bacterial and actually helps prevent dental cavities.

Based on the latest research, crystalline fructose is definitely something to avoid as much as possible. Whereas regular HFCS contains 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose, the crystalline fructose is at a minimum 99 percent fructose, which could only mean that all the health problems associated with fructose may be even more pronounced with this product, according to Dr. Mercola.

And it that's not bad enough, crystalline fructose may also contain arsenic, lead, chloride and many heavy metals. Additionally, fructose is also known to significantly raise your triglycerides, which puts one at an increased risk of heart disease.

So in no way, shape or form is VitaminWater something to be considered healthy. As litigation director Steve Gardner of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) previously stated that, "Coke fears, probably correctly, that they'll sell less soda as Americans become increasingly concerned with obesity, diabetes and other conditions linked to diets too high in sugar. VitaminWater is Coke's attempt to dress up soda in a physician's white coat. Underneath, it is still sugar water, albeit sugar water that cost about ten bucks a gallon."

The deceptive maneuvering of VitaminWater is a good reminder of the importance of reading labels and not swallowing snazzy slogans hook, line and sinker. Anytime you opt to buy any kind of processed food or beverage, make sure to flip it over and read the ingredients for yourself, regardless of how healthy it appears at first glance.
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By Michael Collins Piper

President Barack Obama's foreign policy inclinations are a threat to Israel's survival. That's the no-holds-barred assessment by one of Israel's leading American publicists, Norman Podhoretz, the prominent neo-conservative long associated with the American Jewish Committee's influential magazine, Commentary. Podhoretz made the inflammatory charge against the U.S. president in an article in the May 2009 issue of Commentary in an article entitled "How Obama's America Might Threaten Israel," one of a series of polemics addressing the subject: "Israel at Risk."

This is no surprise to AFP readers. On Dec. 1, 2008, AFP surprised many by suggesting that Barack Obama might "pull a JFK" and begin putting pressure on Israel. Six months later, AFP's prediction appears on the mark. The difference between JFK and Obama, though, is that JFK's pressure was applied privately, through diplomatic channels. Obama's pressure has been both public and forthright.

The most recent frenzy from Israel and its American supporters in response to initiatives from the Obama administration came when the president forcefully demanded that Israel cease building settlements in the occupied West Bank. The president further inflamed the Zionist state and its American lobby by reiterating that demand in his widely heralded address to the Muslim world, delivered in Cairo.

In fact, the confrontation between the United States and Israel has been simmering for some time, beginning with the Obama administration's open call for Israel to submit to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

On May 7 the Philadelphia Bulletin carried a report headlined "Obama Follows JFK Example and Pressures Israel to Limit Nuclear Capability." The Bulletin stated: "For the first time since the Kennedy administration, a senior American official has commented explicitly and negatively about Israel's nuclear capability."

Shock waves rolled through Israel and the Jewish lobby in Washington after President Obama's assistant secretary of state, Rose Gottemoeller—speaking on May 5 at a meeting on the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—said Israel should become a signatory to the treaty. By doing so, Israel would be required to open up its secret nuclear arsenal to international inspection, something Israel has consistently refused to do.

The Bulletin noted that "The Obama administration's newfound opposition to Israel's formally undisclosed nuclear program reverses nearly 50 years of American silence on the subject," adding that after JFK struggled with then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion over the issue of Israel's nuclear arms, "President Kennedy refused to budge and continued to push Israel to abandon its nuclear option until his death on Nov. 22, 1963. No American president has made an issue of Israel's nuclear capability—until now."

In response to the perceived danger posed by Obama, the Jewish lobby rallied its troops. A leading voice for the lobby, The Washington Times, featured a front page headline story on May 6 shrieking "Secret U.S.-Israel nuclear accord in jeopardy," a clarion call for Republicans, conservatives, fundamentalist Christians, and those who want to curry favor with pro-Israel money barons, to join together to stop President Obama from pressuring Israel to sign the treaty.

Editorially, the Times asked if the United States would "sell out its strongest ally" by forcing Israel to come clean on its nuclear arsenal (which some say is the fifth largest in the world). The Times expressed fear the United States might close ranks with other nations that have repeatedly called for Israel to adhere to the non-proliferation treaty and open its nuclear installations for inspection.

A former Israeli foreign ministry advisor, Alan Baker, said the comments from the Obama administration were "surprising and worrying."

For its part, The Jerusalem Post asserted Israel sees no reason to sign the nuclear treaty because—according to Israel—the treaty is "ineffective."

Israel and its supporters believe Israel is the only nation in the Middle East that should be permitted to have nuclear weapons and that Israel (and the United States) must stop other nations, especially Iran, from developing a nuclear counter to Israel, the only nation in the Middle East that does have atomic weapons.

In fact, the statement by the Obama administration differs in no way from a 2006 position paper by the distinguished Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, the training ground for the "best and the brightest" among up-and-coming officers. The War College asserted that neither talk of a military attack on Iran nor ongoing American diplomatic initiatives are likely to stop Iran and that either course could result in disaster.

The report said Israel should take the initiative, close its nuclear reactor, turn over nuclear materiel to a third party, and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to maintain regular inspection of Israel's nuclear operations.

The report urged the United States to put pressure on Israel to make this possible.

America's military thinkers believe if Israel were to curtail its nuclear arms, the United States would be more able to convince other Middle East states with nuclear ambitions to do likewise. In truth, Israel's determined push for nuclear supremacy—a foundation of Israel's national defense policy—led Arab nations as well as Pakistan and Iran to also pursue a nuclear option.

Although many Obama critics find it hard to believe his administration would pressure Israel, noting that Israel's stalwart, Rahm Emanuel, is White House chief of staff, AFP noted on Dec. 1, 2008 that even though President Kennedy had placed Myer Feldman—a pro-Israel hardliner—in a key post in his White House, JFK and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and other administration insiders, worked assiduously to keep Feldman out of the loop on the conduct of U.S. Middle East policy. The president and his brother were even known to remark critically of Feldman behind his back.

JFK even sent word to friends of the Arab world at the State Department that even though JFK had won 90 percent of the Jewish vote that it should not be assumed that he was "in their pocket."

As part of their effort to destabilize Obama, Israel's advocates in the so-called "neo-conservative" network have deployed one of their longtime front men, ex-ambassador Alan Keyes, into the field.

The former Harvard roommate of Bilderberg figure William Kristol—the powerful neo-conservative publicist who remains a close Keyes friend—Keyes has been promoting an array of questionable allegations about Obama, some of which—a point little known—actually originated in Israel among supporters of Obama's 2008 opponent, John McCain. (Although Obama won 75 percent of the Jewish vote, McCain was favored over Obama in polls in Israel, the only foreign nation where McCain was the preferred choice. And note, too, as related by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his book The Samson Option, that following John F. Kennedy's 1960 election victory, one of the first things JFK did upon assuming office was to assure State Department officials who were sympathetic to the Arab world that they should not assume that the new president was "in their [the Jews'] pocket.")

In any case, the questionable stories about Obama being promoted by Keyes have been picked up by independent "patriot" media in the United States and loudly publicized by three widely circulated supermarket tabloids, The National Enquirer, The National Examiner and The Globe, which are all owned by one company, American Media Inc., a subsidiary of Evercore Partners, a shadowy consortium of pro-Israel financial interests under the direction of Wall Street operator Roger Altman.

Although Israeli propagandists have—for years—had a stranglehold on conventional "conservative" think tanks and media, Israel's disinformation specialists are filtering Keyes' stories into the "patriot" movement to checkmate the Obama administration's effort to put the reins on Israel.

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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By James P. Tucker, Jr.

In an astonishing power grab, the Internal Revenue Service wants to license all who prepare returns for taxpayers. This means that Uncle Oscar couldn't help his nephew prepare his income tax return unless a Washington bureaucrat grants a license.

H&R Block and the National Association of Tax Professionals (NATP) are supporting the effort by IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman for selfish reasons: If Uncle Oscar can't help, his nephew must pay a "licensed" preparer.

Shulman said in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee that he expects to make his recommendations to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and President Obama by the end of the year.

Shulman argued that licensing is needed because of bad guy tax preparers. Of the millions of tax returns filed over the last three years, only about 350 preparers were convicted of fraud, according to the IRS's own records.

Ryan Ellis, tax policy director at Americans for Tax Reform, challenged IRS claims that licensing would generate significant funds from "tax cheats." He told the Washington Times, "If the IRS thinks that licensing tax preparers will raise a lot of money, it won't."

Shulman's recommendations "could focus on a new model for the regulation of tax return preparers; education and training of return preparers; and enforcement related to return preparer misconduct," the IRS said.

"Education" and "training"? Many times over the years, newspapers have sent male and female reporters, posing as married couples, to IRS offices for "help" with their returns. They would offer simple situations: two kids and a mortgage. In an overwhelming majority of cases, four different IRS "professionals" would prepare their returns in four different ways.

Shulman said 87 percent of taxpayers now use computer software or paid preparers. "Tax preparers and the associated industry can help us increase compliance and strengthen the integrity of the tax system," Shulman said. On the subject of "integrity," he failed to mention David Rockefeller and other billionaires who pay no income tax at all by ducking their obligations with the help of high-priced "preparers."

The first step in the licensing process, the IRS said, will involve fact-finding
and receiving input from unlicensed tax preparers and software vendors, as well as those who are licensed by state and federal authorities, including enrolled agents, lawyers and accountants.

"H&R Block strongly supports the IRS initiative announced by Commissioner Doug Shulman to review comprehensively alternatives for improving the accuracy of tax filings and the ethics and integrity of all who hold themselves out directly or indirectly in providing tax preparation services," said Chairman Richard Breeden.

"We are all in favor of raising the bar," said NATP's Paul Cinquemani. "If people are operating out there without continuing education, they are on dangerous ground."

AFP editor James P. Tucker Jr. is a veteran journalist who spent many years as a member of the "elite" media in Washington. Since 1975 he has won widespread recognition, here and abroad, for his pursuit of on-the-scene stories reporting the intrigues of global power blocs such as the Bilderberg Group. Tucker is the author of Jim Tucker's Bilderberg Diary: One Man's 25-Year Battle to Shine the Light on the World Shadow Government. Bound in an attractive full-color softcover and containing 272 pages—loaded with photos, many never published before—the book recounts Tucker's experiences over the last quarter century at Bilderberg meetings. $25 from AFP. No charge for S&H in U.S.

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NERVOUS THAT ITS BACKROOM money dealings may soon come under public scrutiny, the Federal Reserve is reportedly bringing in the big guns in an effort to quash Rep. Ron Paul's landmark "Audit the Fed" bill (H.R. 1207), which has garnered 208 cosponsors as this issue goes to press—nearly half the members of the House of Representatives.

A national news wire service reported in early June that Linda Robertson, who currently heads up public relations for Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has been brought in by the United States' private central bank to polish its image.

Previously, Ms. Robertson served in top spots in both Republican and Democrat Treasury Departments. She also had a brief stint at the infamous energy company Enron, the Houston-based corporation that through fraud and deception, managed to fleece investors of billions of dollars.

Most notably, Ms. Robertson worked in the Treasury Department while Robert Rubin was secretary during the time in which the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was rolled back. Rubin's Treasury worked with Congress to formulate legislation, which allowed banks to form massive financial institutions by merging with investment firms and insurance companies.

These same megabanks, which formed as a result of the new rules, have now cost U.S. taxpayers trillions of dollars in bailout money.

"Members of Congress have chafed at the Fed's bold use of its emergency powers and in particular its multi-billion-dollar bailouts of investment bank Bear Stearns and insurer American International Group," Reuters reported in an article that broke the news about the Federal Reserve's new hire.

"Critics also bristle at the Fed's practice of maintaining the confidentiality of the companies that borrow directly from the central bank on the grounds that divulging their names would risk runs on those institutions."

As a result, says Reuters, the Fed will be bringing on Ms. Robertson to act as its point man when it comes to dealing with Congress.

In May, the federal government's Inspector General for the Federal Reserve Elizabeth Coleman testified before Congress that she does "not have jurisdiction to directly go out and audit Reserve Bank activities specifically."

Rep. Paul has already stated that the intention of his bill is to open "all Fed operations to a GAO audit and calling for such an audit to be completed by the end of 2010, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve."

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By Mark Anderson

Concerned citizens are planning a "Continental Congress" for Nov. 9-24, 2009 that calls for getting to the bottom of why government is so unresponsive to the general public. The venue will soon be named.

According to election-honesty advocate Vickie Karp, nominations are now being sought for delegates to the convention, which is being spearheaded by the We the People Foundation. The selection of delegates to the convention is slated for Sept. 12. Moreover, a "Taxpayer March on Washington" by a coalition of groups is also slated for Sept. 12, according to a ResistNet.com posting.

The Continental Congress planning session took place in late May. It involved 25 activists who took a train ride along the same general route as the infamous 1910 train ride to Brunswick, Ga., that financial and political heavyweights took when they hid out at the Jekyll Island resort to lay the groundwork for the ruinous Federal Reserve System. The modern day passengers included Ms. Karp, Republic Broadcasting Network Director John Stadtmiller and noted "Fed" author G. Edward Griffin.

"Later this year delegates representing the people of the 50 states will convene as a national assembly to publicly debate our government's abuses of the Constitution and to consider practical strategies which can bring about compliance with our freedom documents, not only in our government at all levels, but in our individual lives. The Continental Congress 2009 will be an undertaking of historical importance as we follow the example of our Founding Fathers, to . . . discuss the state of our nation to restore the light of liberty," states a posting at WeThePeopleFoundation.org, where a video describes the project.

(For more information also go to GiveMeLiberty.org, call (518) 6563578,
or write to: We The People Foundation For Constitutional Education,
Inc. 2458 Ridge Road Queensbury, NY 12804. Email:
info@givemeliberty.org)

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By Mark Anderson

According to a former 31-year IBM employee, the highly-publicized mandatory switch from analog to digital television is being done, at least in part, to free up analog frequencies and make room for scanners used to read implantable RFID microchips and track people and products throughout the world.

So while the American people, especially those in Texas and other busy border states, have been inundated with news reports advising them to hurry and get their expensive passports, "enhanced driver's licenses," passport cards and other "chipped" identification devices that they are being forced to own, this digital television/RFID chips (Radio Frequency Identification Devices) implanted in new clothing, in items such as Gillette Fusion blades, and in countless other products that become one's personal belongings. These RFID chips, many of which are as small, or smaller, than the tip of a sharp pencil, also are embedded in all U.S. passports, some medical cards, a growing number of credit and debit cards and so on. More than two billion of them were sold in 2007.

Whether active, semi-passive or passive, these chips can be accessed or activated with "readers" that can pick up the signal given off by the chip and glean information from it on the identity and whereabouts of the product or person, depending on design and circumstances, as Redmond explained in a little-publicized lecture in Canada. AFP just obtained a DVD of his talk,

Noted "Spychips" expert, author and radio nost Katherine Albrecht told american Free Press that while she's not totally sure whether there is a rock-solid RFID-DTV link, "The purpose of the switch to digital was to free up bandwidth. It's a pretty wide band, so freeing that up creates a huge swath of frequencies."

As is generally known, the active chips have an internal power source and antenna; these particular chips emit a constant signal. "This allows the tag to send signals back to the reader, so if I have an RFID chip on me and it has a battery, I can just send a signal to a reader wherever it is" Redmond stated in a recent lecture to the Catholic patriot group known as the Pilgrims of Saint Michael (PSM). PSM also advocates social credit, a dramatic monetary reform plan to end the practice of national governments bringing money into existence by borrowing it, with interest, from private central banks. The Group's publication The Michael Journal advocates having national governments create their own money interest-free.

"The increased use of RFID chips is going to require the increased use of the UBF [UHF] spectrum," Redmond said, hitting on his essential point that TV is going digital for a much different reason than the average person assumes. "They are going to stop using the UHF and VHF frequencies in 2009. Everything is going to go digital in the U.S. Canada is going to do the same thing.

Explaining the unsettling crux of the matter, he continued: "The reason they are doing this is that the UHF-VHF analog frequencies are being used for the chips. They do not want to overload the chips with television signals, so the chips' signals are going to be taking those analog frequencies. They plan to sell the frequencies to private companies and other groups who will use them to monitor the chips."

Albrecht responded to that quote by saying that it sounds plausible, since she knows some chips will indeed operate in the UHF-VHF ranges.

"Well over a million pets have been chipped," Redmond said, adding that all 31,000 police officers in London have been chipped as well, much to the consternation of come who want that morning donut without being tracked. London also can link an RFID chip in a public transportation pass with the customer's name. "Where is John Smith? Oh, he is on subway car 32," Redmond said.

He added that chips for following automobile drivers - while the concept is being fought by several states in the U.S. which do not want nationalized, chipped driver's licenses (Read ID) - is apparently a done deal in Canada, wherre license plates Have quietly be chipped. Such identification tags can contain work history, education, religion, ethnicity, reproductive history and much more. Farm animals, too, are increasingly being chipped.

"Some 800 hospitals in the U.S. are now chipping their patients; you can turn it down, but it's available," he said, adding: "Four hospitals in Puerto Rico have put them in the arms of Alzheimer's patients, and it only const about $200 per person."

VeriChip, a major chipmaker (the devices sometimes are called Spychips) describes its product on its website: "About twice the length of a grain of rice, the device is typically implanted above the triceps area of an individual's right arm. Once scanned at the proper frequency, the VeriChip responds with a unique 16-digit number which could be then linked with information abut the user held on a database for identity verification, medical records access and other uses. The insertion procedure is performed under local anesthetic in a physician's office and one inserted [the chip] is invisible to the naked eye. As an implanted device used for identification by a third party, it has generated controversy and debate."

The circles will keep widening, Redmond predicts. Chipping children "to be able to protect them," Redmond said, "is being promoted in the media." After that, he believes it will come to: chip the military, chip welfare cheats, chip criminals, chip workers who are goofing off, chip pensioners - and then chip everyone else under whatever rationale is cited by government and highly protected corporation that stand to make billions of dollars from this technology. Meanwhile the concept is marketed by a corporate media that, far from being a watchdog of the surveillance state, is part of it."That's the first time I have heard of it," a Federal Communications Commission official claimed, when AFP asked him about it. Preferring anonymity, he added: "I am not at all aware of that being a cause of going to DTV."

"Nigel Gilbert of the Royal Academy of Engineering said that by 2011 you should be ab le to go on Google and find out where someone is at any time from chips on clothing, in cars, in cell phones and inside many people themselves," Redmond said.
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If you've never heard the word "Bilderberg," don't feel as though you are out of touch or uninformed. Even some of the best-read and most widely-traveled folks on the face of the planet have no knowledge whatsoever regarding the existence of the Bilderberg group - formally known by its leadership and members as "the Bilderberg Meetings."

Although bilderberg has been in existence for now more than 55 years, constituting a virtual global ruling elite, its very name and activities remain largely hidden in the shadows, despite its immense clut in directing world affairs.

Although the mass media in the United States - both print and broadcast - has determinedly suppressed news and information, even the very existence, of Bilderberg, AFP's Jim Tucker has almost single-handedly pioneered in-depth coverage of Bilderberg through his work for two independent American news weeklies, The Spotlight (1975 through 2001) and afterward, including today, in the pages of American Free Press.

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All Americans who participate in secret Bilderberg meetings are criminals and traitors. The Logan Act expressly forbids U.S. citizens to negotiate public policy with representatives of foreign governments behind closed doors. Thus, American officials and private citizens who participate are law-breaking criminals.

U.S. and foreign government officials who attend are virtually all traitors because they put their world government goal ahead of the interests of their own nations. They scorn "nationalism" and work for "transnationalism."

All bilderberg "regulars" must support these goals or be ostracized. More than 100 of the `10 or so attendees are "regulars," invited every year. Typically, five or so participants are first-timers. A potential president is likely to be invited once but tossed aside when his political star dims, as former Vice President Dan Quayle can attest.

But you have to support Bilderberg's global agenda to survive. Infrequently, one refuses and is drummed out. In 1989, The Spotlight reported that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher attended for the first time, had little to say but objected to demands that she surrender sovereignty to the European Union. Bilderberg ordered her ouster and Lady Thatcher was replaced as prime minister by a member of her own Conservative Party, a trapeze artist's son named John Major.

AFP's Jim Tucker discussed this with Lady Thatcher in June, 1995. "It is an honor to be denounced by Bilderberg." Lady Thatcher told Tucker. "Anyone who would surrender the sovereignty of their country ..." her voice trailed off as she shook her head in disgust. "They are a stuck-up set," she added.

Lady Thatcher expressed optimism that Bilderberg would fail to meet its goal of a world government by 2002, a deadline that had been set back from the original target year of 2000. Although she is now in the dimness of Alzheimer's disease, Lady Thatcher's optimism proved justified. "They said, ‘nationhood should be suppressed,' but there will never be a new world order," she added.

There have probably been a few other lesser-known Bilderbergers ousted for nationalism over the years. But all Bilderberg "regulars" are traitors to their own countries. And American participants are criminals, too.

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By James P. Tucker Jr.

As you have and will read, Bilderberg is hurting but still haunting. They remain determined to formally establish the United Nations as a world government, reducing America to a mere geographical reference on the map of the "American Union" map.

Fut the news has been bad for Bilderberg for a long time. In the early 1990s, Bilderberg was confident that the American Union, patterned after the European Union, would be established by the year 2000 - nine years ago.

Since the 2009 meeting in Greece, Bilderberg has endured more bad news. There isa continent-wide rebellion against the European Union, as demonstrated by the recent elections to the European Parliament. The EU Parliament will now have many members dedicated to its elimination.

Europeans are fighting world government and illegal immigration harder than Americans because they are better informed. Most European cities have many daily newspapers that are pricey - they rely less on advertising and tend to be independently owned. That's why they dare to publish heavy coverage of Bilderberg's meetings. Now, more than ever, nationalist patriots across the world are opposing Bilderberg.

Throughout Europe, patriots expressed their hostility to the EU and the fact that its parliament can dictate laws to member states and its court is superior to each nation's highest court. Voters also object to EU-imposed immigration that threatens to change each nation's culture from white to black and tan.

It is every American patriot's duty to inform fellow citizens about this evil so we can fight back, too. We encourage you to purchase extra discount copies of this report to hand out to friends and collegues.

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By James P. Tucker, Jr.

Within days of the closed meeting in Vouliagmeni, Greece, Bilderberg's propaganda machine was working to condition the public mind to accept world departments of Treasury and Health and a surrender U.S. sovereignty to the International Criminal Court, ICC.

Paul Volker, former Fed chairman and longtime member of the Trilateral Commission, was brought to Bilderberg this year to help make the case for a World Treasury Department under the United Nations. Volker was named a special adviser to President Obama on the economic meltdown.

"Anybody in the world doing the creation of global policy would be well advised to talk to him," said James Wolfensohn , former World bank president and a Bilderberg luminary.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's support at Bilderberg for a World Treasury and global currency was denounced by the Washington Times. Without mentioning bilderberg, the Times said in an editorial; "Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner ... refused to rule out a world currency.... This shows that the Obama administration supports dramatically greater centralization on a national and international scale."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a strong plea for "global governance" to a receptive bilderberg. He cited "progress" on global governance and called for "raising the level of funding" to the International Monetary Fund. Bilderberg wants the IMF to evolve into the World Treasury Department.

John W. Rowe, chairman and CEO of Exelon Corp., gave a writing lesson on behalf of Bilderberg at the National Press Club in Washington during the meeting in Greece. The NPC, nor decades a classic gathering place for newspapermen, is now dominated by giggling girls and public relations operatives. "The road to a low carbon future is a long one," Rowe dictated. "We must begin the march now." Most of Exelon's power is generated by nuclear energy, not coal. "We serve almost 12 million people," Rowe boasted in echoing Bilderberg's claim that global warmingisa health risk.

The world needs "a new system of national security courts able to prosecute and adjudicate transnational crimes.... The need for such courts should be apparent to anyone," wrote Jimmy Lee Hoagland, a longtime bilderberg boy in the Bilderberg-controlled Washington Post on May 24 - exactly a week after receiving his orders in Vouligmeni. Hoagland called for a "multi-year international conference" to achieve "transnational" goals.

The Post obediently backed Bilderberg's call for scaring the public into accepting the World Health Organization as a global Department of Health, saying in a May 25 "swine flu" editorial: "nations are supposed to report unusual and serious outbreaks to the World Health Organization within 24 hrs" (so the UN can take global action).

Two days after Bilderberg concluded its secret meeting, The Post obediently took up the "global warming" chant, echoing Carl bildt's false claims at Bilderberg. Bildt, Sweden's minister for foreign affairs, added "global warming" to "swine flu" as reasons for creating a world Health department. The Post's David A. Fahrenthold falsely reported May 19 that there is a "consensus" among scientists that human carbon emissions are causing a dangerous long-term rise in world wide temperatures. But there is no such consensus, as he must have surely known.

Reports from the International Geology Conference and other such groups show that a majority of experts reject "global warming" claims. More than 31,000 scientists have signed a Global Warming Petition expressing doubts. John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, says warming is "the greatest scam in history." Earth temperatures actually have dropped since 1998. The National Snow and Ice Data Center in April showed more Arctic sea ice than in any April showed more Arctic sea ice than in any April since 2003.

Global business leaders, meeting in Copenhagen May 25, picked up Bilderberg's global warming chant. They called fro national governments to join a UN-administered treaty for regulating greenhouse gasses that proponents hope to have ready by December. The UN agency would set limits on carbon dioxide and then issue permits to companies that would divvy up how much of the overall pollution each of them can emit. Unused portions could be traded to other companies.

Bilderberg participants at the Copenhagen meeting held out for the UN to directly tax carbon emissions. Bilderberg has long advocated a direct, per-barrel tax by the UN on oil when extracted. A direct tax on people by the UN on oil when extracted. A direct tax on people of the world, they say, would enhance the UN's role as a world government. Such a tax has been pending before the UN for years, but the American media keeps this hidden from the public.

Richard Holbrooke, a State Department special envoy and longtime participant, assured Bilderberg that President Obama is "receptive" to their views, meaning he will obey orders. Holbrooke was joined in these assurances by James Steinberg, deputy secretary of state.

Even before bilderberg met, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), warned Americans of their mischief, saying: "The one thing that concerns me is that the people who surround Obama or Bush generally come from the same philosophic viewpoint and they have their organizations - they have the Trilateral Commission, the CFR, and the Bilderbergers - and they've been around a long time. And my biggest concern is that they practice Keynesian economics and interventionalism and world planning.

"And I don't think it's just Obama," Paul continued "Whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats - Goldman Sachs generally has someone in Treasury. And the big banks have someone in the Federal Reserve. And they're international people, too.... and they get involved with the IMF. But that is their stated goal. They do believe in a powerful centralized government, and we believe in the opposite."

Multi-billionaire George Doros, a longtime bilderberg boy who has been left out of recent meetings because of financial shakedown charges, was given a briefing by David Rockefeller in his private office at Rockefeller University in New York. The cover story was a prop. It focused on philanthropic professional giggler Oprah Winfrey.

(These billionaires Pays no income taxes but receives more than $230,000 a year from taxpayers as a "small farmer.")

The subject of the meeting was the Bilderberg agenda. Later, Soros apparently had to take a commercial flight instead of using one of his private jets. He paid for four first-class seats so he would not be crowed by the unwashed multitudes.
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http://www.americanfreepress.net/bilderberg2009.pdf
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By James P. Tucker Jr.

Bilderberg continued to push for world government at its May 14-19 secret meeting in Vouliagmeni, Greece, according to a participant. Alice Rivlin, who has represented the Brookings Institution at Bilderberg, smiled and nodded when asked if the agenda this year included "world government, a world without borders and an American Union."

These have been Bilderberg goals for many years but have been blocked by what participants refer to sneeringly as "nationalism." Bilderberg intends to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) throughout the Western Hemisphere as a prelude to establishing an "American Union" similar to the European Union. The ultimate goal is a world government under the UN. Her greatest Bilderberg thrill? "Sitting next to the queen," she replied, referring to Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

In a separate Bilderberg development, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tripped over his mouth and let the truth escape while addressing the Council on foreign Relations in New York. The CFR is heavily represented at Bilderberg meetings.

Geithner expressed support for a proposal to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency with a basket of currencies that would be managed by the International Monetary Fund. "We're actually quite open to that," he said. Publicly , both Geithner and President Obama say they are opposed to the idea.
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Bilderberg security has always been extreme, but this year in Vouliagmeni, Greece, Bilderberg outdid itself. In addition to the annual ritual of completely surrounding the crime scene with armed police, plainclothesmen and private security, Bilderberg extended its uniformed security perimeter for more than two miles beyond the gates of the exclusive Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel.

There are three sister hotels on the Nafsika campus. When Bilderberg met there in 1993, reporters and the public stayed in either of two sister resorts and only the Nafsika Astir was sealed off for Bilderberg. This time, one was closed for renovation and Bilderberg spent big bucks to keep the other empty. Thus, bilderberg was able to seal off the main entrance to the compound.

Despite having police cars and armed guards deployed around a two-mile perimeter, newsmen and patriots burst through to Bilderberg's main gate to shout questions and scream protests.

Police seized many newsmen, most of them several times. Police surrounded them with guns drawn, forced them to give up their film and notes. Bernie Davids of South Carolina, who accompanied AFP's Jim Tucker and collected information for all reporters, was among those arrested.

One evening, a stream of buses burst past dodging guards and 300 members of "KKE," a greek Communist Party, jumped out, waving red flags and chanting "new democracy." The Communists screamed that Bilderberg is "criminal" and "murderous."

The following night, the right-wing LAOS Party, also called "NEOS," an acronym for "Youth of the Orthodox Rally" burst through. They carried flags saying "Bilderberg Unwelcome." A man with a bullhorn led chants. They were led by two Greek Orthodox priests.

Reporters seized at least once included Charlie Skelton of the Guardian of London. Gerhard Wisnewski of Germany, Alexander Kintas of Athens, Giorgio of Brussels and Richard Toibin of Dubin, among others.

From early morning to lae at night, newsmen and protesters stormed the hotel gates, despite the ultra-extreme security efforts. Cars were stopped by police at the Plaza Vouliagmeni, where most of the newsmen were staying, more than two miles from the crime scene. The few drivers who could produce the right credentials were waved on with a bow and a smile. Most were turned away with a growl.
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By James P. Tucker Jr.

Greek patriots are continuing to protest the massive invasion of illegal immigrants - both black and Muslim. Protests began during the secret Bilderberg meeting inVouliagmeni, near Athens. Hundreds of thousand of immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia illegally enter Greece every year. Recent estimates claim that 250,000 illegal immigrants are in Greece.

Native Greeks angrily object to changing its culture and population from peaceful natives to marauding, immigrants. The United States faces a similar crisis; the Census bureau predicts that, by 2050, whites will become a minority, outnumbered by blacks and Hispanics. In both countries, part of the problem is that blacks and Hispanics have larger families, while whites hardly bear enough children to replace themselves.

Greeks began playing rough after immigrants in Athens attacked police with rocks and bottles, thinking police had defaced a Koran, the Muslim bible that advocates violence against "unbelievers." Actually, the policeman had not defaced the Loran but had taken from it a folded and glued sheet of paper containing Arabic writing.

But, chanting "God is great," 1,000 illegal Muslim immigrants marched on Parliament, throwing rocks and bottles, breaking windows and setting fires, causing widespread injuries.

"Far right-wing vigilantes replied by setting a fire to a Muslim prayer hall," The Washington Times reported. "Taken together, the incidents represent some of the worst sectarian violence witnessed in modern Greece." (Actually, a significant portion of protesters identified themselves as "left-wing.")

"In parallel with the urban violence in Greece, there was a resurgence in fringe IRA groups and violent riots in Sweden, France, Germany and Hungary," said Ioannis Michaletos, a specialist on southeastern European security issues with the Athens-based RIEAS think-tank. He thinks rioting in other European countries and Greece are related.
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Leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have served a subpoena on the privately owned and controlled Federal Reserve to compel officials at the country's private central bank to turn over key documents in an effort to get to the bottom of what went on when America's largest bank purchased a bankrupt Wall Street investment firm.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who chairs the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, has been looking into the circumstances surrounding Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch and what role government bailout funds may have played in the transaction.

According to a press release issued by committee chairman Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) and ranking member Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the documents subpoenaed include emails, notes of conversations and other critical evidence.

When Bank of America completed its planned acquisition of Merrill Lynch in January 2009 for nearly $30 billion, the megabank was then eligible for an additional $20 billion in a taxpayer bailout. This brought Bank of America's total bailout to $45 billion.

Kucinich and Towns want to know the exact details behind what the bank and the Federal Reserve had agreed upon when they arranged the deal in late 2008 to see if there were any backroom dealings promising bank executives additional taxpayer money if they rode to the aid of Wall Street.

During testimony before the House committee on June 11, Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis denied that access to more federal funds was the reason why Bank of America helped Merrill Lynch. The Treasury Department and the Fed had persuaded the bank to purchase the insolvent Wall Street firm in a selfless act to help Wall Street, he claimed.

"I believe that committed people of good intentions, in both the private sector and the government, worked desperately hard in late 2008 to prevent a collapse of the global financial system that would have resonated throughout the global economy," he said.

But Kucinich was not buying it. At the hearing, Kucinich ripped into Lewis, saying Bank of America took the deal in order to grab more taxpayer dollars.

"Due to the secretive and unaccountable conduct of the Fed throughout its interventions addressing the current financial crisis, many questions about the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch deal and bailout have, until today, remained unanswered," said Kucinich during the hearing. "The story of Bank of America's merger with Merrill Lynch and its huge taxpayer-provided subsidy help to answer broader questions about how the corporate management of very large financial institutions operates with virtual impunity for their mistakes."

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By Christopher J. Petherick

In mid-June, landmark legislation introduced by Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul that would give the federal government the power to audit the privately owned and controlled Federal Reserve picked up enough sponsors to get it out of committee and onto the floor of the House of Representatives. So far, the bill has 226 co-sponsors - more than half the entire membership of tthe House.

Paul's bill, titled the Federal Reserve Transparency Act (H.R. 1207), is currently being deliberated in the House Committee on Financial Services. But that is expected to change soon, according to published reports.

The measure, which Paul has introduced dozens of times during previous congressional sessions, would grant the Government Accountability Office the power to delve deeply into the fed's books and reports to Congress on the performance of the private central bank and its various funding arms. In an attempt to salvage the world's financial system, the Fed has loaned and handed out trillions of dollars. It has even given out money to central banks throughout Europe. Honest economists contend that the Fed is insolvent as a result of its balance sheet exploding from bad loans, and it will likely be taking the U.S. dollar with it when it goes down.

The majority of the bill's co-sponsors are Republicans, but the number of Democrats signing on to support the measure is growing, too. As AFP went to press on June 17, 52 Democrats had already signed on to the plan to audit the Fed, and, as co-sponsor number 218, it was Ohio Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who tipped the scales in favor of Paul's bill.

Once considered the bailiwick of "monetary extremists" and "crackpots," the call to audit the Fed is now making headlines in the mainstream news.

Upon hearing the news that his measure would finally come to the floor for a full debate, Paul was quick to blast officials at the Fed for "the magnitude of the privileges" they maintain with no check on their power and without ever coming under scrutiny.

"They have been given the power to create money, by the trillions, and to give it to their friends, under any terms they wish, with little or no meaningful oversight or accountability," he said. "Thus the loudest arguments against greater transparency are likely to come from those friends, and understandably so."

Still, he was optimistic that his bill would eventually become law.

"The tremendous grass-roots and bipartisan support in Congress for H.R. 1207 is an indicator of how mainstream America is fed up with Fed secrecy," he said. "I look forward to this issue receiving greater public exposure."
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By Victor Thorn

Why has former vice president Al Gore remained so publicly silent about the March 17 arrest by North Korean authorities of two female journalists working for his San Francisco-based network, Current TV? In early June, Laura Ling and Euna Lee were convicted of "grave crimes" for "the hostile activity of illegally entering North Korea." Their sentence: 12 years of hard labor.

But much more exists beneath the surface of this story. On June 11, blogger David Drake posed a compelling question. Since Gore is ideologically copacetic with President Obama, and considering that his administration yearns for hard data regarding Kim Jung Il's nuclear ambitions, what if "Obama needed some spies in North Korea, and Al Gore told him he had just the two people for the job"?

Drake continued, "What better cover for a spy than to claim to be a journalist?"

Whether actual or alleged journalists, on March 19 the Associated Press's Jean H. Lee reported that the two women were arrested after "ignoring warnings to stop shooting footage of the reclusive country." Evidence shows that they illegally crossed the border; then upped the ante when "they ignored orders to stop filming." North Korean soldiers took them into custody.

What makes this story even more intriguing is the fact that Laura Ling's sister, Lisa, entered North Korea under false pretenses in June 2006 to film a National Geographic documentary entitled Undercover in North Korea. Posing as a volunteer for Nepalese eye doctor Sanduk Ruit, Lisa Ling used miniature hidden cameras to capture damning images of the secretive regime. The young reporter then included material provided by the Department of Defense and State Department to produce a very harsh portrait of what she called "the most terrifying country on Earth."

Writing for the Asia Times on April 21, Donald Kirk called Lisa Ling's film "one of the most severe indictments of North Korea ever to appear on television." Ling enraged the country's hard-liners by directly targeting their so-called "Dear Leader."

"North Korea is ruled by an absolute dictator who has nuclear weapons. Kim Jung Il controls everything. What happens here in the Hermit Kingdom may touch everyone in the world."

Lisa Ling's career has been quite storied, including a stint on ABC's The View, host of National Geographic Explorer, and as a correspondent for CNN and Oprah Winfrey. Still, her expos? on the "unimaginable horrors" of North Korea most certainly incensed its leaders.

When coupled with the defiant resumption of its nuclear weapons program, Kim Jong Il may see the capture of Laura Ling as a perfect way to enact revenge against her sister and the U.S.A.

Though ignored inmost news stories, two other individuals accompanied Lee and Ling in North Korea. One of them was "cameraman" Mitchell Koss, who's been an influential media insider for decades.

According to the Asian-American news site Epicanthus, which has closely followed this case, "Mitchell Koss is no mere ‘cameraman.' He's a wily veteran newsman, a pro's pro, who has reported from every hot spot on the globe for the past 30 years."

Employed previously as a producer for CNN, ABC, and PBS, Koss has "commanded an almost surreal level of access from usually secretive government agencies such as the State Department, Department of Defense, DEA and ATF."

Koss was also in Al Gore's employ at Current TV when the two female journalists were arrested.

That's not all. Koss acted as a mentor to not only Anderson Cooper of CNN, but also Lisa Ling—sister of imprisoned "journalist" Laura Ling. There also appears to be a common agenda at hand. On August 24, 2003, Koss wrote an op-ed column for the L.A. Times entitled Refugees Could Undo Kim. Essentially, this article promoted the use of North Korean refugees to overthrow Kim Jung Il's regime. Coincidentally, when Lee and Ling were arrested, they were disguised as North Korean refugees, and the people they sought to interview were, as Jean H. Lee describes it, "North Korean defectors hiding in China."

The circumstances surrounding Koss get even stranger. As Lee and Ling fled from North Korea toward China before being apprehended, Koss escaped the border guards, only to be arrested by Chinese authorities. They freed him several days later. Since that time, Koss has remained in seclusion, refusing to comment on the case to anyone except the State Department. Some speculate that a fourth member of their party intentionally led them into a trap, but until Koss emerges from the shadows, the mystery persists.

Does the CIA still use embedded media provocateurs and plants as they did during their Operation Mockingbird days? Todd Shields of Editor and Publisher answered this question on December 7, 2001.

"The Central Intelligence Agency says its policy is not to use journalistic cover for its operations abroad, but it also says tough cases might force it to do so."

North Korea undoubtedly qualifies as a tough case. Even more peculiar is the fact that the CIA's vast mind-control program—MK-ULTRA—actually evolved from the propaganda-based Operation Mockingbird, which was inspired by brainwashing techniques made famous in North Korea (? la The Manchurian Candidate).

The CIA has utilized a stable of journalists since its post-World War II formation. Ben Bradlee—Washington Post editor and famed Watergate player—served the CIA under Operation Mockingbird in the 1950s during his stay in Paris. In a groundbreaking article for Rolling Stone magazine on October 20, 1977, Carl Bernstein listed the benefits of having CIA journalists at their disposal. They are "accorded unusual access, permitted to trade in areas often off-limits, and spend much of their time cultivating sources in government."

Are Euna Lee and Laura Ling spies? It's not certain at this time; but as Brian Stelter of The New York Times wrote on June 8, "The detainment of two Current TV employees has been shrouded in secrecy by the television channel."

In addition, instead of publicly championing their cause, co-owner Al Gore, like Mitchell Koss, "has steadfastly refused to comment." Their tepid reaction makes it difficult not to recall what former CIA Director William Colby quipped: "The Central Intelligence Agency owns anyone of any significance in the major media."

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

By Michael Collins Piper

The recent tragic death of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, allegedly killed by an individual said to be a "Holocaust denier" is now being touted as a reason to institute laws in the United States similar to those laws outlawing so-called "Holocaust denial" in force in 14 countries, mostly in Western Europe.

However, long-standing evidence suggests that those who advocate such measures in the United States do not intend to directly confront the issue of "Holocaust denial" in pushing such legislation. Rather, they intend to deal with the issue through an insidious tactical "back door" approach.

The scheme has been in the works for a long time and is not to be confused with the long-standing drive (once again before Congress) to set up a federal "hate crimes" bureaucracy.

Here's the story that's not been reported anywhere else: On June 12, the conservative Washington Times — which regularly touts the globalist and Zionist agenda—featured a headline story announcing that "Debate arises on legality of Holocaust denial," as a consequence of what happened at the Holocaust Museum, adding fuel to the fire.

So now the propaganda drive for legislation targeting not just "Holocaust denial" but all manner of political freedom of expression is being rejuvenated.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the wealthy American founder of the Israel Project, one of many well-funded Jewish lobby operations, was quoted in the Washington Times article as saying that public distribution of so-called "hate literature" as well as "hate" on public access cable should be outlawed.

And although the Times quoted officials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith as saying the ADL does not advocate laws criminalizing "Holocaust denial" in America, the fact is that for more than 20 years the ADL has been in the forefront of a coordinated effort to pave the way for legislation designed to suppress speech in the U.S. the ADL considers dangerous to its agenda.

The ADL's plan is to outlaw what it called "group defamation" that could be considered hurtful against certain specifically identifiable groups of people and thus potentially spark violence against them. In fact, the ADL's contention is that hurtful language actually constitutes "violence" in and of itself.

In other words, if an individual criticized the actions of the state of Israel for its recent bloody incursion into Gaza, this could be considered offensive by American Jewish supporters of Israel and, in turn, those criticisms of Israel could cause other Americans to become angry at the supporters of Israel. As a consequence of this, it is said, violence could occur.

Or, for example, if someone raised questions about the number of Jews who died in Europe during the Holocaust and suggested that the numbers had been inflated by Jewish groups for political benefit and financial profit—this is considered a form of "Holocaust denial" in Europe today—Jewish people could be "hurt" because their integrity was being questioned and it might cause others to think badly of them.

If this sounds unlikely or extraordinary, consider the documented record of the ADL in this regard.

In 1988 at Hofstra University in New York, the ADL conducted a three-day legal symposium entitled "Group Defamation and Freedom of Speech: The Relationship Between Language and Violence." The forum concluded with a call for passage of a law to ban what was described as "hate literature" by so-called "extremists."

The opinions expressed by the featured speakers at the ADL conclave advocating a ban on hate literature centered around two ideas:

• That words, written or spoken, in and of themselves, constitute violence. (For example, one need only call someone a "bad" name without threatening any physical action to perform an act of violence.)

• That words, written or spoken, take on a certain power that creates a reality for the target or victim of these words. (For example, by calling someone a "dirty rotten bum," he will become one.)

In his opening remarks, Hofstra law professor Monroe Freedman said that trying to defend free speech while trying to protect minorities against those who "defame" them is a "paradox of Constitutional democracy."

According to Freedman:

Group defamation can create a social climate that is receptive to and encourages hatred and oppression. If a minority group can be made to appear less than human, deserving of punishment, or a threat to the general community, oppression of that minority is a likely consequence.

We know also that language itself can hurt, that there are words that, by their very utterance, inflict injury. . . .When the message is violent, language can itself be violence.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) spoke of the "psychic pain" inflicted by language. Another speaker, self-described "Holocaust survivor" Elie Wiesel, injected his opinion that those engaging in group defamation should be "fought" and "dealt with harshly."

The conference featured a moot court argument of the winning submission of a competition among law students around the nation to write a model statute that could be used to prosecute those who engage in so-called "group defamation."

The first prize winner was a model statute defining group defamation as:

Any oral, written or symbolic speech, published with malice, that debases, degrades or calls into question the loyalties, abilities or integrity of members of a group based on a characteristic that is allegedly common to the members of that group, or that by its very utterance inflicts injury upon members of a group, or that promotes animosity against a group.

A "group" was defined as "an aggregation of people identified by a common race, religion, national origin, ethnicity or gender, or based upon heterosexuality or homosexuality."

Under the proposed statute, an agency would be established to monitor acts of group defamation; assess the impact of any speech that defames a group; and counteract the actually and potentially adverse effects of that speech. That agency would also review all films and movies before they could be shown and, if deemed to be offensive, ban public viewing.

In a similar vein, on November 2, 1995, then-Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)—now a powerful U.S. senator—joined with the aforementioned Congressman Conyers in promoting legislation of the character proposed at the ADL conference. The Schumer measure, H.R. 2580, was deceptively called "The Republican Form of Government Guarantee Act."

A longtime ADL spokesman in Congress, Schumer proposed to outlaw discussion of what he called "baseless conspiracy theories regarding the government" that he said endangered public order. Already he was known as the leading congressional enemy of the Second Amendment and the rights of gun owners. Schumer's new target—the First Amendment—would have been scrapped had the bill been passed.

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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By Pat Shannan

It has been more than a year since the Department of Interior announced that North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3 to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation, but little is being done about it.

The April 2008, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessment shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of a paltry 151 million barrels of oil. That would be 3,775 million (or 3.775 billion) barrels. New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in drilling and production technologies, and recent oil discoveries have resulted in these substantially larger oil volumes.

The USGS Bakken study was undertaken as part of a nationwide project assessing domestic petroleum basins using standardized methodology and protocol as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000, yet only 105 million barrels of oil had been produced from the Bakken Formation by the end of 2007.

At the time of the assessment, a limited number of wells have produced oil from three of the assessments units (AUs) in Central Basin-Poplar Dome, Eastern Expulsion Threshold and Northwest Expulsion Threshold. The Elm Coulee oil field in Montana, discovered in 2000, has produced about 65 million barrels of the 105 million barrels of oil recovered from the Bakken Formation.

The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the "Lower 48" states and is the largest continuous oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences. The next largest continuous oil accumulation in the U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil.

By tapping these domestic resources, rather than remaining dependent upon foreign sources, America could drastically reduce its cost of home heating and vehicular travel.

Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.

"It is clear that the Bakken formation contains a significant amount of oil—the question is, how much of that oil is recoverable using today's technology?" said Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) "To get an answer to this important question, I requested that the U.S. Geological Survey complete this study, which will provide an up-to-date estimate on the amount of technically recoverable oil resources in the Bakken Shale Formation."

Scientists conducted detailed studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and the modeling of petroleum geochemistry. They also combined their findings with exploration and production analyses to determine the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimates.

USGS worked with the North Dakota Geological Survey, a number of petroleum industry companies and independent, universities and other experts to develop a geological understanding of the Bakken Formation. These groups provided critical information for models used in the assessment.

"This sizable find is now the highest producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," said The Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

James Bartis, leading researcher with the study, says America has more oil in this one compact area than the entire Middle East. And the stunning news is that we have more oil inside our borders than all the other proven reserves on Earth, and that it could be extracted at an approximate cost to Americans of only $16 a barrel.

Pat Shannan is the assistant editor of American Free Press. He is also the author of several videos and books including One in a Million: An IRS Travesty and I Rode With Tupper, detailing Shannan's experiences with Tupper Saussy when the American dissident was on the run in the 1960s. Both are available from FIRST AMENDMENT BOOKS for $25 each.

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By Christopher Petherick

There is one good thing to come about as a result of the downturn in the economy. More and more people across the United States are adopting a "survivalist" mentality, taking responsibility for the well-being of themselves and their families and stockpiling food, medical, medical supplies and other necessities in anticipation of a likely economic collapse.

A host of articles written by mainstream journalists recently have acknowledged this growing trend, which the mainstream media is labeling "survivalism." As one Associated Press reporter wrote: "from teachers to real estate agents, these budding emergency gurus say the dismal economy has made them prepare for financial collapse as if it were an oncoming Category 5 hurricane. They worry about runs on banks, bare grocery shelves and power failures that could make taps run dry."

The more traditional term adopted by families, who are involved in this mini revolution today, is "urban homesteading." The concept is certainly nothing new. For centuries, families have worked to provide for themselves, free from reliance on governments and social safety nets. But the collapse of the economy this past year has spurred a resurgence in this, fueled largely by the Internet, which provides direct communication between the people who are providing for themselves.

Following on the heels of the wasteful, decadent 1990s, many families today are turning away from the frivolous, modern amenities to face the uncertainty of the future head-on and ensure that they have enough food to eat and warm shelter should disaster strike.

One of the most well-known urban homesteaders today is the Dervaes family, which has slowly been transforming an ordinary fifth-of-an-acre lot in Pasadena, Calif., into a mini farm that provides just about all of theif daily needs.

According to the website, Pathtofreedom.com, which is owned and operated by the family, the Dervaes's urban homestead now "supports four adults, who live and work full-time on 66' by 132'city lot." A host of photographs on the site proudly displays their microfarm, which they say "has over 359 varieties of edible and useful plants."

The Dervaes manage to produce "over three tons of produce annually." This provides fresh vegatables and fruit and a source of income.

An inspiration to all who read their site, the Dervaes have even gone beyond just providing food for themselves. In 2003, according to their site, they built "a biodiesel processor from a discarded hot water heater, which enables them to brew low emissions biodiesel (a renewable, nontoxic, biodegradable replacement for petrol diesel) from used vegetable oil to fuel their diesel sport utility vehicle, reducing the air toxins 90 percent."Other examples abound on the Internet, where like-minded families regularly meet and trade tips in online journals known as "blogs" and on other social networking sites like Facebook, Livejournal and Myspace.

In one blog, John, who says he is retired from the military and is currently working as a salesman in Ohio, offers tips on "old and new survivalism ways" and "basic homesteading skills." His latest posting offers suggestions on stocking up on inexpensive necessities such as used rifle sights for hunting varmints that he acquired for $29,99 and 100 pounds of chicken feed that he bought at the rock-bottom price of $10.

"Even if nothing happens, and the world keeps plugging along, it's a good feeling to know that you can provide for yourself and your family without the help of the government or big corporations," one homesteading blogger said.
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After two decades of attacks on Iran, the U.S. government holds that the recent Iranian elections were illegitimate. How is this surprising? The CIA has been involved in attempting to manipulate the Iranian government since they sponsored the shah's coup against Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. But today, a Mossad-connected opponent of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hossein Mousavi, is struggling to be installed as president by Israel and the United States.

In this recent election, the incumbent president, Ahmadinejad, won just over 63 percent of the vote. In a predictable fashion, the opposition claims fraud. But this is an old tactic: the U.S. backed parties have tried it in Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Serbia and many other places. But why should the current president have won the election? It seems his rule has been just and economically prosperous, so how could he not be reelected? The very fact that Iran has elections is enough to upset the America/Israeli propaganda against the Persian people.

Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 without a peep from the West. Since 2005, according to the CIA itself, Iran has grown economically an average of 6 percent yearly, very respectable when one considers the U.S.-sponsored sanctions which have driven up unemployment to an American level of 12 percent, though this is currently falling quickly as relations with China continue to grow. In the process, Iran has become the 18th most powerful economy in the world, and importantly, has diversified its economy substantially away from the oil sector, with 4.5 percent industrial (non-oil) growth rate per year since 2005.

Even more, Iran has successfully stood up to Israeli and American threats, including threats of nuclear war courtesy of John McCain. Iran has developed a foreign trade surplus of over 25 billion U.S. dollars, and also has $100 billion of foreign currency in its banks, much is American dollars. Iran has rebuilt its military into a First World fighting force. Like Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iran under Ahmadinejad and his immediate predecessors have taken a Third World country and turned it into a First World one, complete with universal schooling and a near 100 percent literacy rate.

It will only be a few years until Iran becomes a thriving industrial economy where the oil profits, according to the government,, will be plowed into major industrial and trading enterprises, creating a diverse and powerful economy. Apparently, the CIA does not think this is enough to warrant any reelection.

The Los Angeles Times wrote the following in late 2007; "In praising the Iranian president, Arabs quickly navigate around historical religious animosities and present-day fears that Iran is undermining Sunnis in Iraq and elsewhere. They prefer to speak of how Ahmadinejad is a rallying voice for Islam at a time the region is bewildered by its powerlessness to fix Iraq, Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

And the highly prestigious international news agency, Stratfor, wrote in May of this year, "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's popularity has risen among Iranian voters, Iran's Press TV reported May 13. A poll conducted revealed that 58.6 percent would vote for Ahmadinejad in the June 12 presidential elections." The identical numbers were reported by the neo-con organization, "Stand for Israel," no doubt with a shudder. Why does this man need to rig elections?

Certainly, food prices have gone up, but Ahmadinejad has also increased spending to assist the poor, and revamped old programs with the same end. It is hard to believe that the average Iranian holds the president responsible for American sanctions or the fallout from the American-created economic crisis that has enveloped the world.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the man who the West says won the elections, espouses policies that are consonant with his Western backers and slick New York oligarchs, but unpopular with the Iranian people. Mousavi advocates the western line for Iran: free Western television and the elimination of Islamic law in the country. Most of all, Mousavi has condemned all forms of "Holocaust revisionism," as if that is an issue with the Persian population. Such a program was developed in Washington and Tel Aviv, and had no resonance with Iran as a country, especially in the countryside. Mousavi has received millions from the West in recent months to mount an attack on Ahmadinejad. The very fact that the Mausavi campaign is running with English language websites and Facebook pages strongly suggest the work of Western operators, since the identical modus operandi was present in the West's manipulation of both the Serbian and Ukrainian elections in recent years.

Persian journalist Reza Fiyouzat writes that Mousavi has close ties with one Manuchehr Ghorbanifar, former Mossad double agent and a leading figure in the arms deals in the Iran/Contra scandals. In Chapter 1 of the Walsh Report on the scandal, we read this paragraph:

"On or about Nov. 25, 1985, Michael Ledeen received a frantic phone call from Ghorbanifar, asking him to relay a message from (Mausavi) the prime minister of Iran to President Reagan regarding the shipment of the wrong type of Hawks (missiles). Ledeen said the message essentially was ‘we've been holding up our art of the bargain, and here you people are now cheating us and tricking us and deceiving us....'"

there can be no doubt that Mousavi has been created as a shill to fight the anti-Washington president of Iran, using fashionable slogans not to win elections, but the next best thing, to receive money and approbation from the West. Mousavi is a part of the globalist plan for Iran and close to the CIA. The very fact that the West is spending this much money trying to manipulate these elections proves just how frightened the American government actually is.
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By Ron Paul

Another bill was passed and signed into law that takes more of our freedoms and violates the Constitution of the U.S. It was, of course, done for the sake of the children, and in the name of the health of the citizenry. It's always the case that when your liberty is seized, it is seized for your own good. Such is the condescension of D.C.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act will give sweeping new powers over tobacco to the FDA. It will require everyone engaged in manufacturing, preparing, compounding or processing tobacco to register with the FDA and be subjected to FDA inspections, which is yet another violation of the Fourth Amendment. It violates the First Amendment by allowing the FDA to restrict tobacco advertising in multiple ways, as well as an outright ban on advertising any cigarettes as light, mild or low-tar.

The FDA will have the power of pre-market reviews of all new tobacco products, and will impose new user fees, meaning taxes, on manufacturers and importers of tobacco products. It will even regulate the amount of nicotine in cigarettes.

My objections to the bill are not an endorsement of tobacco. As a physician I understand the adverse health effects of this bad habit. And that is exactly how smoking should be treated - as a bad habit and a personal choice. The way to combat poor choices is through education and information. Other than ensuring that tobacco companies do not engage in force or fraud to market their products, the federal government needs to stay out of the health habits of free people. Regulations for children should be at the state level. Unfortunately, government is using its already overly intrusive financial and regulatory roles in healthcare to establish a justifiable interest in intervening in your personal lifestyle choices as well. We all need to anticipate the level of health freedom that will remain once government manages all health care in this country.

Actions in Congress such as this tobacco bill are especially disconcerting after we thought we were beginning to see some progress in drawing down the wrong-headed and failed war on drugs. A majority of Americans now think marijuana should be legal, taxed and regulated, according to a recent Zogby poll and over 70 percent are in favor of allowing medicinal use of marijuana. Bills like this take us down exactly the wrong path. Instead of gaining more freedom with marijuana, we are moving closer to prohibiting tobacco. Our prisons are already bursting with non-violent drug offenders. How long will it be before a black market in tobacco fills the prisons with non-violent cigarette smokers?

Hemp and tobacco were staple crops for our founding fathers when our country was new. It is baffling to see how far removed from real freedom this country has become since then. Hemp, even for industrial uses, of which there are many, is illegal to grow at all. Now tobacco will have more layers of bureaucracy and interference piled on top of it. In this economy it is extremely upsetting to see this additional squeeze put on an entire industry. One has to wonder how many smaller farmers will be forced out of business because of this bill.
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By James P. Tucker, Jr.

In an astonishing power grab, the Internal Revenue Service wants to license all who prepare returns for taxpayers. This means that Uncle Oscar couldn't help his nephew prepare his income taxt return unless a Washington bureaucrat grants a license.

H&R Block and the National association of Tax Professionals (NATP) are supporting the effort by IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman for selfish reasons: If Uncle Oscar can't help, his nephew must pay a "licensed" preparer.

Shulman said in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee that he expects to make his recommendations to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and President Obama by the end of the year.

Shulman argued that licensing is needed because of had-guy tax preparers. Of the millions of tax returns filed over the last three years, only about 350 preparers were convicted of fraud.

Ryan Ellis, tax policy director at Americans for Tax Reform, challenged IRS claims that licensing would generate significant funds from "tax cheats." He told the Washington Times, "if the IRS thinks that licensing tax preparers will raise a lot of money, it won't.

Shulman's recommendations "could focus on a new model for the regulation of tax return preparers; education and training of return preparers; and enforcement related to return preparer misconduct," the IRS said:

"Education" and "training"? Many times over the years, newspapers have sent male and female reporters, posing as married couples, to IRS offices for "help" with their returns. They would offer simple situations: two kids and a mortgage. In an overwhelming majority of cases, for different IRS "professionals" would prepare their returns in four different ways.

Shulman said 87 percent of taxpayers now use computer software or paid preparers. "Tax preparers and the associated industry can help us increase compliance and strengthen and integrity of the tax system," Shulman said. On the subject of "integrity," he failed to mention David Rockefeller and other billionaires who pay no income tax at all by ducking their obligations with the help of high-priced preparers."

The first step in the licensing process, the IRS initiative announced by Commissioner Doug Shulman to review comprehensively alternatives for improving the accuracy of tax filings and the ethics and integrity of all who hold themselves out directly or indirectly in providing tax preparation services," said chairman Richard Breeden.

"We are all in favor of raising the bar," said NATP's Paul Cinquemani. "If people are operating out there without continuing education, they are on dangerous ground."
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