November 7, 2005
November 14, 2005
November 21, 2005
November 28, 2005
There will not be a December 5 issue due to Holiday, but there
will be a double issue for December 5-12
The possibility of using civilians to assist the Border Patrol in policing both America's northern and southern borders was offered recently, mostly as a trial balloon, by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner.
The proposal was immediately rejected by the Department of Homeland Security. However, Bonner indicated that the Border Patrol was considering training volunteers to create "something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary."
Bonner's proposal was not met with enthusiasm by the Bush administration. The plan came as the result of the Minutemen Project deploying 15,000 civilian volunteers to man observation posts and conduct foot and horseback patrols along the Mexican border from Texas to California and the northern border with Canada from Maine to Washington.
The Minutemen are deploying patrols in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas in the south and Idaho, Maine, Michigan, North Dakota, Vermont, Minnesota, and Washington in the north.
Bonner indicated that the Minutemen volunteers had brought considerable attention to the border crisis last April and had done so peacefully. He warned that deploying large numbers of project volunteers across several states could cause someone to get hurt if they are not properly trained.
Bonner told the House Government Reform Committee that the
Border Patrol had over the years valued the support of civilians
and that he wanted to "determine if there is a way to more
effectively harness citizen volunteers.
"We are concerned about people getting unnecessarily hurt
or killed in what can be a very dangerous and treacherous place,"
Bonner said.
"It is actually as a result of seeing that there is the possibility in local border communities, and maybe even beyond, of having citizens that would be willing to volunteer to help the Border Patrol," he said.
Prior to Bonner's proposal the administration has been critical of the Minutemen Project, and President Bush has called them "vigilantes."
However, the deployment of the citizen patrols last April resulted in a sharp decrease in the number of illegals crossing into the United States. This fact has forced the administration to take a closer look.
With polls showing Americans want strong border control, the Bush administration, which until now has permitted twelve million or more illegals to cross over, is apparently changing its tune.
"The problem is whether Bush is just giving lip service to increase his poll numbers," a Minuteman volunteer in Vermont told American Free Press.
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An attempt to slip "hate crimes" legislation (S. 1145) into the Children's Safety Act was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a victory for grass-roots America and First amendment advocates. But Rev. Ted Pike, who spearheaded public opposition to the bill, cautions that the peril remains.
There are several "hate crimes" bills lurking in Congress and they are typically added to "must pass" legislation, such as major spending bills, as amendments. Some have been dangerously close to becoming law as congressmen unwittingly voted on legislation, buried in foot-thick bills, without realizing the contents.
The latest victory shows that voters can educate congressmen. Three years ago, sen Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) joined with Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) In supporting hate crimes legislation.
However, after hearing from vociferous voters, Hatch joined in rejecting the latest effort to slip hate crimes legislation through Congress.
All such hate bills have two fatal flaws: they do violence to the Constitution and expand the role of the federal government down to your street and neighborhood. But these problems cannot be explained in a TV "sound bite" to non-reading Americans. This makes it hard for congressmen not to "vote against hate," so it is critical that thoughtful Americans educate lawmakers.
The hate crimes legislation would have to be enforced by "thought police" who look into a criminal's mind to determine if "hate" was part of the motivation. Critical evidence in such cases is whether the attacker uttered words offensive to certain handpicked groups - blacks and Hispanics, homosexuals and the handicapped.
Under the First Amendment, Americans can say awful, wrong, offensive words but their free speech is protected. It is, many lawmakers point out, a precious right that should not be compromised.
All states and localities enforce laws protecting individuals against violent crimes and they typically punish more severely than under federal laws. For example, two of the three white Texas men who dragged a black man to his death with a pickup truck are on death row (the third, who claimed he tried to stop the attack until he, too, was threatened, is serving life). The two are afraid to die and would have preferred that Texas yield to the federal government because the "hate crime" law has no death penalty.
Hate crime laws extend the heavy hand of Washington into states and localities by federalizing local crimes. A fist fight in your neighborhood can become a federal case.
With such legislation now pending on virtually a year-round basis, it is important to keep education lawmakers, Pike said. He does so on talk-radio and in appeals to Christian ministers.
Readers of American Free Press called, wrote and emailed their two senators and their House member.
It was a formula for victory, all agreed, but the fight must
go on.
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Just like the Sept. 11 attacks, there remain countless unanswered questions surrounding the bombing of Oklahoma city's Murrah Building on April 19, 1995. As we remember 9-11, wh should never forget OKC, because it is considered one of the seminal events that has been exploited by the federal government to expand the authoritarian state in which all Americans now live. AFP is proud to publish the following excerpt from what is considered the definitive report on the OKC bombing, titled Final Report on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. See page 11 for information on how you can get a copy of this important study, which explores this terrible tragedy more deeply than any other investigation to date.
On April 19, 1995, at 9:04 a.m. the blast from an explosion of explosions ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, Okla. The blast destroyed the federal building and caused severe damage to several other buildings in the downtown area. As a result, 169 persons, including 19 children, were killed, and hundreds of others were maimed or injured. Federal authorities called it the single largest terrorist attack in United States history.
The Murrah Building housed several federal offices, including those of the social Security Administration (SSA), Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), Housing and Urban Development federal credit union and a daycare center. The structure was a nine-story building made of steel and reinforced concrete, and half of it was reduced to rubble in a matter of seconds.
At about 10:30 that morning, approximately 60 miles east of Oklahoma city in Perry, Okla., a highway partrolman took note of a rickety 1977 yellow Mercury without a license plate speeding down the highway. He pulled the vehicle over and cited the driver for driving without a license plate. The patrolman noticed a bulge under the driver's jacket. When asked, the driver advised the officer that it was a gun. He was promptly arrested for carrying a concealed weapon and was taken to the Noble county courthouse to await arraignment. He was booked under the name of Timothy James McVeigh.
As rescue workers began the horrendous task of helping the injured and locating the bodies of the dead, law enforcement officers began searching for evidence and witnesses for any clues to help identify the perpetrators of this crime. Within a matter of ours, the FBI had located a piece of axle and a license plate thought to have been part of the truck used in the bombing. Through a check of the vehicle identification number (VIN), they were able to trace the vehicle, a 20-foot 1993 Ford truck, to a Ryder truck rental agency located in a Elliott's Body Shop in Junction City, Kan.
Employees of the body shop told investigators that, on April 17, they had rented the truck to a Bob Kling from Decker, Mich., who was accompanied by a second individual. They provide descriptions of both men to an FBI sketch artist. These sketches, known as John doe #1 and John Doe #2, were immediately released to the news media for publication and television for airing.
As federal agents continued their investigation, they visited the Decker, Mich., address that Bob Kling had provided to the Ryder rental agency. This was the home of James douglas Nichols and his brother Terry Lynn Nichols, although Terry was currently residing in Herrington, Kan. A check with the Michigan Department of Motor Vehicles also revealed that a McVeigh had a drivers license listed at the same address.
Through interviews with family and neighbors, it was learned that McVeigh and the Nichols brothers had been experimenting with small explosives and that McVeigh had a large stash of possible bomb-making materials. With this information, federal agents obtained a search warrant and found fuel oil, 28 bags of fertilizer, blasting caps and safety fuses. They arrested James Nichols and issued a warrant for the arrest of his brother. Terry Nichols presented himself at the Herrington, Kan., police station on April 22 and submitted to arrest.
Meanwhile, on April 21, the FBI received a phone call identifying John Doe #1 as being McVeigh who had seen the sketch on TV. He also said that McVeigh held very militant, anti-government views and was extremely angry over the deaths of Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, two years previously on April 19. The FBI ran a chick on McVeigh through the National Crime Information Center and found that he was already in custody in the Logan county, Olka., jail. They took him into federal custody and transported him to the El Reno Federal Penitentiary in El Reno, Okla, about 30 miles west of downtown Oklahoma City. A preliminary hearing to determine probable cause was held at the penitentiary. The indictment charged McVeigh and "Other Unknown" with the bombing of the Murrah building.
Then, abruptly, the FBI announced that they were no longer looking for John Doe #2, that they no longer believed there was a John Doe #2. They issued statements calling into doubt the accounts of numerous eye witnesses; they ignored scientific and engineering experts' information; the threatened witnesses who wouldn't be quieted with obstruction-of-justice charges; they discontinued the quest to determine if the "Others Unknown" were involved in a conspiracy and, if so, how; they developed a new theory and chose to ignore everything that didn't fit their new theory; the destroyed or ignored physical evidence. They chose not to call a single bombing victim as a witness in the trials of McVeigh and Nichols in Denver, Colo.
The victims who survived the Oklahoma City bombing and the families of those who died still have questions. They want the truth about all who were really involved and for all the guilty to be punished. They are not satisfied to settle for the easy answer as provided by the government. The truth is the only thing that will allow them to completely heal. Many do not feel that they have yet heard the whole truth or that everyone involved has been brought to justice. Their reasoning on this is justified, given all the evidence on a Middle-Eastern connection and numerous independent sightings of McVeigh with a dark, Arabic-looking individual in the days before the day of the bombing.
There is also the nagging question of whether the ATF and FBI had prior warning of the bombing - in light of the fact that the ATF agents did not report to work that morning. Numerous witnesses overheard or were directly told that the ATF had been pre-warned.
So what is the truth? What evidence is there that a large conspiracy
existed and that those guilty have gone unpunished? This report
presents that evidence. After reading it, you decide.
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The neo-conservatives running Washington, trampling on civil rights at home and invading countries overseas, have left a group of Vermont freedom fighters with no choice but to secede from the United States.
On Oct. 28, at the state capitol building in Montpelier, a historic independence convention was held, the first of its kind in the United States since May 20, 1861, when North Carolina decided to leave the Union.
More than 400 people gathered in the Vermont statehouse to start the daylong secession convention with a speech by keynote James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, and ended with a resolution passed to secede from the United States.
Most people think of secession as impossible if not treasonous, but the concept is deeply rooted in the Declaration of Independence, reminding us, "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government."
With the neo-con takeover of Washington, transforming America into a one-party dictatorship, that's what the resolution passed in Vermont seeks to do, according to members of the growing grassroots group, the Second Vermont Republic.
The measure is the first step in a long process that needs support from the state legislators, as well as an officially recognized convention.
The resolution states in part: "Be it resolved that the state of Vermont peacefully and democratically free itself from the United States of America and return to its natural status as an independent republic as it was between Jan. 15, 1777,and March 4, 1791."
Critics give the secession group "a snowball's chance in hell" of succeeding. But organizers say that, in today's tyrannical political climate, secession will succeed and prosper.
`This could only happen in Vermont where people are still fiercely independent and fed up with the course the American government is taking," said Thomas Naylor, head of the group. "We have a lot going for us and if you think about it, we have a lot in common with Poland's solidarity movement, which many said would never succeed."
He added: "Poland did get its freedom, mainly because
it was a country liked around the world, sort of like how people
in America feel about Vermont. When people think of Vermont, they
have a warm and fuzzy feeling, an image of black and white Holstein
cows and beautiful scenery. I
can also tell you there is now closet support in the legislature,
and we are serious about getting the support needed to secede
from the United States."
Naylor, a former Duke University economics professor, said from his Vermont home that statewide independence is really a euphemism for secession, adding Vermont will also seek to join the group of Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, similar to the Lakota Indians.
"Secession is one of the most politically charged words in America, thanks to Abraham Lincoln," said Naylor. He said he has been writing about secession for 10 years but the movement picked up tremendous steam after 9-11.
"Secession really combines a radical act of rebellion grounded in fear and anger with a positive vision for the future," he added.
"[Secession] first involves denunciation that the United States has lost its moral authority and is unsustainable, ungovernable and unfixable," he said.
"Second, there is disengagement or admitting `I don't want to go down with the Titanic.' Third, there is demystification that secession really is a viable option constitutionally, politically and economically. And finally, [there is] defiance, saying `I personally want to help take Vermont back from big business, big markets and big government, and I want to do so peacefully.'"
What started out as Naylor's fantasy, to have an independent country made up of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, has already grown from a small group of 36 supporters several years ago to a packed House chamber in the state's capitol. Claiming to have a membership of 160 as of last April, Naylor said the numbers have doubled or even tripled today.
"I'm getting calls from all over the country supporting our movement," said Naylor. "Although there are more than 20 states with some kind of secession movement - Alaska and Hawaii being the best examples - I think Vermont really has the best chance at succeeding at seceding."
The Vermont independence convention was held in Montpelier, the smallest state capital in the United States. But what this town lacks in size is more than made up for by its reputation as being one of the most fiercely independent and anti-big business towns in the country.
Montpelier is the only capital city to have prevented McDonald's from building one of its fast food restaurants inside the city limits.
"First and foremost, we want out of the United States. It's not just an anti-Bush statement. If [Sen. John] Kerry was elected, we still would have wanted out," said Naylor. "The reality is that we have a one-party system in this country, called the Republican Party, that is owned and operated and controlled by corporate America. So it's not just a Bush protest, but a protest against the empire."
Most Vermont politicians, including the congressional delegation, have ignored the grassroots secession movement. However, Vermont Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie has weighed in on the issue, giving it a certain amount of merit but stopping short of outright support.
"I really salute their energy and passion," he said in a local press interview. "We have an obligation to think of what is in our best interest as a state and for the people of our state, even as we approach federal and national issues."
Others who spoke at the Oct. 28 independence convention included Professor Frank Bryan of the University of Vermont; author Kirkpatrick Sale; J. Kevin Graffagnino, executive director of the Vermont Historical Society; Professor Eric Davis of Middlebury College; Shay Totten, editor of The Vermont Guardian; and Dr. Rob Williams of Champlain College.
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Fear mongering has become the hallmark of the administration of President George W. Bush and the corporate-controlled media that supports its agenda. The current hysteria about bird flu is being promoted by the same administration and controlled press, which blatantly used fabricated evidence to spread fear of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction in order to launch a war of aggression against Iraq.
"It's inevitable, say government officials,' a recent ABC News article on the bird flu virus begins. "A pandemic will strike the United States, and the impact will be profound."
"Against all scientific prudence and normal public health procedure, the world population is being whipped upinto a fear frenzy by irresponsible public health officials from the U.S. administration to the world Health Organization to the United States Centers for Disease Control." F. William Engdahl wrote in his recent article, "Is Avian Flu Another Pentagon Hoax?"
"Pandemics happen," said Mike Leavitt, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. "They happened before, and they'll happen again. If it isn't the H5N1 [bird flu] virus, it'll be another virus."
Leavitt spoke the day after Bush called for $7.1 billion to be spent to combat the threat of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which has reportedly killed some 62 people in southeast Asia during the past two years.
All of the 121 confirmed cases of bird flu in Asia occurred in people who worked closely with chickens and had been in contact with the birds' blood and feces, according to Gary Butcher, a veterinarian at the University of Florida who has a Ph.D. in poultry virology.
Two Vietnamese brothers became ill after eating a dish of chipped congealed raw duck blood and herbs. There have, however, been no proven cases of a human catching the virus from another human being and no cases have been reported in the United States or Europe.
"For it to become dangerous to humans," Butcher said, "it has to go through a pretty significant genetic change. If you put this in perspective, It's not going to happen. For a person to be infected now, it appears that the exposure level has to be astronomical."
"Parents should not be worried about their kids catching bird flu this year unless they're planning on visiting a chicken farm in Vietnam," said Dr. Bennett Kaye, a pediatrician at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
The Bush administration plan, however, has called for billions to be spent on building stockpiles of antiviral drugs, primarily Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate) and Relenza (zanamivir), although neither has been proven to be effective against avian flu in humans. Tamiflu is made from shikimic acid, which comes from star anise, the fruit of a small oriental tree. The British-based GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) makes Relenza.
Tamiflu is produced by Hoffman-LaRouche, the pharmaceutical giant based in Basel, Switzerland. The patent, however, is owned by Gelead Sciences, Inc. Of Foster Dity, Calif., and is protected until 2016. Donald H. Runsfeld was chairman of Gelead before he became defense secretary in January 2001.
Rumsfeld reportedly recused himself on Oct. 27 from government decisions concerning medications to prevent or treat avian flu rather than sell his considerable stock holdings in Gilead.
Gilead reported a 51 percent increase in revenues for the third quarter of 2005, compared with 2004. The company received $12.1 million, more than a 700 percent increase in its quarterly royalties received from Roche.
Because Roche has worldwide commercial rights on the production of Tamiflu, the billions being spent on the flu medication well greatly increase corporate profits at Roche and Gilead.
Succeeding Rumsfeld as chairman of Gilead is another Chicagoan from Winnetka, Mames M. Denny. Denny is a generous donor to the Republican Party of Illinois and the Bush campaign.
Two well-known members of the secretive group known as Bilderberg, Etienne E. Davignon and George P. Schultz, sit on Gilead's board of directors while a third member of the elitist group, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink, is on the board of Hoffman-LaRoche.
De Vink, a Dutch-American, is a founding member of Blackstone Healthcare Partners, LLC, a corporate advisory service of the Blackstone Group, a global investment from founded by Peter G. Peterson, the chairman of the council on Foreign Relations and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Stephen a. Schwatzman. Among other things, de Vink is a member of the European Advisory Council of Rothschild & Cie.
Dovetailing the Bush bird flu plan is a controversial Senate bill called the Biodefense and Pandemik Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005 (S. 1873). The bill is authored and filed by sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who was the third highest recipient of contributions from pharmaceutical industries in 2004 - after Bush and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
The Burr bill would allow health officials to purchase medicines and vaccines by simple fiat - without taking bids.
Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center, a private advocacy group pushing for safer vaccines, said the Burr bill is "a drug company stockholder's dream and consumer's worst nightmare.
"This proposed legislation, "Fisher said, "is an unconstitutional attempt by some in Congress to give a taxpayer-funded handout to pharmaceutical companies for drugs."
Under this bill, fisher said, the government "could force all citizens to use these drugs and vaccines while absolving, everyone connected from and responsibility for injuries and death which occur" as a result.
"It's a sad day for this nation," she added, "when
Congress is frightened and bullied into allowing one profit making
industry to destroy the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution
guaranteeing citizens their day in court in front of a jury of
their peers."
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Many Americans understandably are upset with the sharp spike in gas prices since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August, and are concerned by reports of oil company profits. But we must understand that high oil prices are not the result of an unregulated free market. On the contrary the oil industry is among the most regulated and most subsidized of U.S. industries. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves whether too much government involvement in the oil markets, rather than too little regulation, has kept the supply of refined gasoline artificially low.
Consider Marathon Oil, which operates a refinery in the Texas City. Marathon recently announced the construction of a new refinery that will bring several hundred thousand barrels of oil online every day - which is exactly what the nation needs.
But building a new refinery is a daunting task that requires billions of dollars in capital investment. The process of obtaining federal permits alone can take several years. As a result, we won't see a drop of refined gasoline from the new Marathon facility until 2009.
Federal subsidies and regulations are largely responsible for limiting the supply of refined gasoline in this country. The demand for gasoline has risen dramatically in America due to population growth in recent decades, but virtually no new refining capacity has been added.
Basic economics tells us that rising demand and a fixed supply lill lead to higher prices. No amount of congressional grandstanding about price gouging will change this economic reality. We must increase domestic exploration, drilling, and refining if we hope to maintain reasonable gas prices. We need more competition, which means we need less government.
Most Americans agree that the American economy should not be dependent upon Middle East oil. Economist George Reisman, however, explains that our own domestic regulations make us slaves to OPEC: "Today, it is possible once again to bring about a dramatic fall in the price of oil - indeed, one even larger than occurred in the 1980w.
And it could begin right away. All that is necessary is to abolish the U.S. government's restrictions on domestic energy production inspired by the environmentalist movement."
Reisman also explains how abolishing restrictions on coal production, natural gas production and nuclear power would further reduce the OPEC stranglehold. By increasing the supply of these other energy sources, demand for oil would decrease and prices would drop.
Note that much of the support for unrealistic environmental regulations comes from northeastern politicians and media, who weren't nearly as interested in oil fortunes when the business hit rock bottom in the 1980s. Texas and the Gulf Coast have always been willing to supply the nation's energy, and it's a bit disingenuous to hear criticism from those who are happy to use oil but don't want refineries in their backyards.
Oil is critical, but it is not a magic commodity that somehow is immune from the laws of economics. In fact, it is precisely because oil is so critical to our economy that we must allow the free market to deliver it. Absent government interference on the oil markets, gas prices would rise or fall according to concrete realities affecting supply and demand. High prices would encourage conservation better than any environmental regulations. Entrepreneurs would race to develop viable alternate fuels if gas prices rose too much.
Centralized government planning, on the other hand, cannot solve our energy dilemmas. The Nixon-era price controls on gasoline in the 1970s produced nothing but disastrous shortages. By contrast, the Reagan administration's immediate deregulation of the oil industry resulted in an unprecedented boom in oil production and a dramatic reduction in prices. This is the lesson we must remember.
What can Congress do to provide Americans with some relief at the pump? First it can suspend federal gas taxes, which would save consumers nearly 20 cents per gallon.
In the ling term, Congress must pass legislation like H.R. 4004, which I introduced earlier this month. H.R. 4004 takes a comprehensive approach by allowing offshore drilling, eliminating regulations that restrict refining and suspending harmful tax rules that discourage domestic oil production.
If we hope to have a stable, affordable supply of gas, we must
allow the free market to operate.
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The American public has been in an uproar following news of windfall oil industry profits such as Exxon Mobil's record-breaking 75 percent jump from last year. But the Senate, which has launched an "investigation" of the matter, seemed compromised by oil industry campaign contributions.
An unusual joint hearing of two committees, the Commerce Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was called by Senate GOP leaders. But the oil barons were holding all the cards.
Five oil barons "testified" - not under oath - Nov. 9 during the Senate hearing about possible gasoline-price gouging after Hurricane Katrina.
A formal request for sworn testimony from energy-company CEOs was denied by the chairman of the Commerce Committee, who also chaired the special joint session. The barons were invited to speak; they were not under subpoena.
From the start, the softness of the Senate's tepid, softball questioning seemed suspiciously proportional to the amount of industry funds a questioner had received.
When Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska, $102,190) announced he would not require the executives to give their testimony under oath, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash., $9,400) asked for a vote on the issue. Stevens shot back:
"There will be no vote. . . . It's the decision of the chairman, and I have made that decision."
Cantwell has been leading Senate Democrats in a publicity campaign against potential price gouging. "I move that we swear in witnesses," Cantwell insisted.
"I second the motion," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif., $9,450).
"That's the last we're going to hear about that, because it's out of order," Stevens replied. When the two women continued their protest, the chairman informed them:
"I intend to be respectful of the position that these gentlemen hold."
When Boxer later displayed a large chart showing the executives' obscenely large income, Stevens cut her off.
Lee Raymond, chairman of ExxonMobil Corp., acknowledged the high gasoline and home heating prices "have put a strain on Americans' household budgets," but he defended his company's profits.
Petroleum earnings "go up and down" from year to year and are in line with other industries when you consider the oil industry's enormous revenues, he claimed.
Chevron's David O'Reilly, Conoco Phillips's James Mulva, BP America's Ross Pillari and Shell Oil's John Hofmeister also spoke at the hearing.
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The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf
Coast on Aug. 29 may have exposed the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) as a toothless monster threatening the freedom of
the American people. However, the Bush administrations call to
use the military in addition to FEMA during national emergencies
signals a disturbing new trend for many Americans who are already
on edge about their dwindling rights.
In early October, President George w. Bush warned of the possibility
of a deadly disaster - a pandemic of Avian flu, or bird flu, which
officials claim, could kill millions of Americans. During a Rose
Garden news conference at the White House, Bush said he had recommended
the use of martial law to quarantine areas hit by the virus. But
he was not talking about using FEMA to lock down cities and towns,
he was talking about activating the U.S. military to confront
innocent civilians and isolate them in the event of infection.
One option is the use of military thats able to plan and move,
he said. So thats why I put it on the table. I think its an important
debate for Congress to have.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan later echoed the president
saying in a press conference: The Department of Defense would
assume the responsibility for the situation, and come in with
an overwhelming amount of resources and assets, to help stabilize
the situation.
Over the course of several White House administrations and through
dozens of presidential dictates known as executive orders (EOs),
FEMA had been built up by granting it super-emergency powers -
even superceding the president - in the event of a natural or
manmade disaster.
For years, critics have objected to how the Eos were used to usurp
powers that had been constitutionally reserved for congress in
the past. The most troubling of these EOs were passed under the
administrations of Democratic presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill
Clinton. Both Carter and Clinton signed away governmental powers
to FEMA, including some command decisions Traditionally held by
the White House. Many of Clintons EOs regarding FEMA are still
secret to this day.
To the relief of some Americans, FEMA, with a budget in 2005 of
$10 billion, proved to be little more than another ham-fisted
federal bureaucracy headed by a Washington political insider during
the Katrina disaster.
The disgraced former head of FEMA, Michael Brown, is now infamous
for exchanging emails with underlings regarding his choice of
clothes for the occasion and where he might find a sitter for
his dog as cries for help emanating from the wrecked Gulf coast
were ignored. The inept Brown was shortly replaced by the current
director, F. David Paulison, who has maintained a low-key leadership
of the embarrassed agency.
FEMAs role in leading the effort to deal with the devastated area
was then turned over to a man who displayed more ability, Coast
Guard Adm. Thad Allen.
But putting the administration of FEMA along the Gulf Coast under
the leadership of the military raises another point about the
federal government overextending its powers during a national
emergency.
Beginning in the 1980s in cities across America, military units
conducted exercises in urban warfare. Often, these were done in
conjunction with federal and local police, and most were cloaked
in secrecy with residents given no advance warning.
Citizens reported seeing black helicopters flying over their homes
at night. Flash-bang hand grenades were some near tragedies, including
a stray bullet very nearly hitting a person who had been dining
in a restaurant in Florida, a helicopter crashing in Texas and
a fire (caused by the trainees) going out of control along the
docks in New Orleans.
Many of these activities were reported locally in small dailies
and on a national level by the now-defunct Spotlight and AFP.
They were, however, blacked out in the mainstream media.
In the 1990s, this reporter revealed how young Marines based at
29 Palms, Calif, were given written tests to determine if they
would obey order to shoot American citizens during gun confiscation.
Frighteningly, one-third agreed that they would be willing to
shoot Americans if ordered.
Following Katrina, many American organizations were highly critical
of the U.S. military confiscating firearms in New Orleans and
forcing residents to leave their homes in the old city.
Armed Soldiers and police entered residents homes, brandishing
16 rifles and confiscating legally owned firearms and forcing
residents into the streets.
Eventually, the National Rifle Association filed a lawsuit, arguing
that the intrusions violated the second amendment, and the gun
grabbing was promptly stopped.
The urban warfare drills demonstrate that U.S. soldiers have not
been trained to de-escalate situations involving Americans, where
some may be armed to protect themselves. The concern among many
civil libertarians is that the armed forces reliance on overwhelming
force would lead to a shock and awe approach being employed across
America in the event that some residents or even town resisted
federal efforts to isolate them.
{utting the military in a civilian law enforcement role can result
in serious collateral damage to American life and liberty, wrote
Gene Healy, a senior editor at the libertarian Cato Institute.
What it does is set a high bar for the use of federal troops in
a policing role, he said. That reflects Americas traditional distrust
of using standing armies to enforce order at home, a distrust
thats well-justified.
Mike Blair is best known for his ground-breaking exposing the
U.S. government's abandonment of American POWs and MIAs in Korea
and Vietnam, Mike also specializes in military affairs and gunowners'
rights. Blair was cited by Project Censored for having uncovered
the top "most censored' story of 1990 - a scheme to scuttle
the Bill of rights in the name of "fighting crime."
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In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and with an ongoing
war in Iraq that costs more than $1 billion per week, taxpayers
might think Congress has better things to do with $21 billion
than send it overseas. Yet thats exactly what Congress did on
Nov. 4, approving a useless and counterproductive foreign aid
spending bill.
Never mind that the total federal debt recently topped $8 trillion,
or that a major U.S. city was virtually destroyed only a few months
ago. Arrogant is the only word to describe a Congress that cares
so little about its own taxpaying citizens while pretending to
know what is best for the world.
Consider just a few of the ways your money will be used under
the new bill:
* $6.38 million for the unelected Musharraf government in Pakistan;
* $7.35 million to continue dangerous drug meddling in South America;
* $150 million for development in Gaza, in addition to the billions
we already give the Palestinians every year;
* $110 million for the Middle East Partnership Initiative, ostensibly
for economic development, although the recipient nations include
oil-rich Kuwait and saudi Arabia. Why in the world are American
taxpayers giving welfare to OPEC governments?
* Over $500 million for various republics in the former Soviet
Union. Even as those nations spawn millionaires and even billionaires,
Americans are expected to provide welfare for their poor.
* $95 million in new money for the United Nations Democracy Fund,
which neddles with foreign governments but never seems to change
them.;
* $34 million for the pro-abortion United Nations Population Fund,
which lectures poor people about having too many children;
* $440 million for international population planning;
* $80 million for the dubious Global Environment Facility, run
by the World Bank to fund anti-capitalist environmnetal projects
around the world.
Constitutionally, of course, none of this spending is authorized.
But there also is a strong moral case to be made against taking
money from Americans and giving it to foreign governments. Foreign
aid doesnt help poor people; it helps foreign elites and U.S.
corporations who obtain the contracts doled out by those foreign
elites.
Everyone in Washington knows this, but the same lofty rhetoric
is used over and over to sell foreign aid programs. Corporate
welfare is bad enough, but corporate welfare in the guise of helping
poor foreigners is indecent.
In many cases, foreign aid money simply distorts foreign economies
and props up bad governments. In countries that pursue harmful
economics policies, an infusion of U.S. cash only exacerbates
and prolongs problems. No amount of money can help nations that
reject property rights, free markets and the rule of law.
Since American foreign aid programs began in earnest decades ago,
tens of billions of U.S. tax dollars have been given to nations
around the globe. The utter failure of this money to change things
for the better in those nations is no longer in question; even
the most earnest advocates deep down must admit the obvious. Most
of the recipient nations remain endlessly mired in poverty, political
and legal corruption and cultural malaise.
A rational person would argue that failed aid programs should
be eliminated. In Washington, however, failed programs get more
money thrown at them.
The American public deserves to know why there is room in the
budget for foreign aid, when taxpayers face record deficits and
debt at home.
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.Congress may be getting serious about controlling immigration and protecting the nation's southern border with a proposal for a 2,000-mile fence in the House and a stern warning to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff from the Senate.
The fence legislation by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) estimates the cost at $2 billion. It would also strengthen workplace enforcement and give local police authority to enforce immigration laws.
Rep. John Hostetler (R-Ind.), chairman of the immigration subcommittee, and Republican leaders are attempting to cobble together several bills into one piece of legislation to be considered by the full House.
Meanwhile, a Senate committee warned Chertoff to correct inadequacies in his department. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (DConn.), ranking minority member, suggested that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureaucracies should be merged to "enable them to operate more effectively."
Homeland Security's inspector general had recommended such a merger in a report critical of the department.
"This report presents a strong case that the status quo cannot be allowed to continue," Miss Collins said."It verifies what so many law-enforcement officials, current and former employees of the agencies and well-respected outside groups have said - that these two agencies are dysfunctional in their current structure.
The report "exhaustively documented serious coordination problems between ICE and CBP," Lieberman said. The "organizational difficulties have impeded the agencies' investigations, intelligence sharing and their efforts to apprehend, detain and deport aliens."
Miss Collins said she had "discussed the matter" with Chertoff and he should have more time to make structural changes. But, she warned, if significant changes are not made within a reasonable time frame, her committee would consider legislation merging the agencies.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
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Following a call for the impeachment
of George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the pages
of American Free Press, a new committee has been formed
to spearhead the effort. Senior editor James P. Tucker has announced
that Col. Donn de Grand Pre, one of America's most distinguished
patriots has agreed to head up the committee as chairman.
AFP's editorial in the Nov. 7 issue calling for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney really started the ball rolling. It struck a very responsive note with many readers, illustrated by the volume of letters to the editor sent to AFP, some of which have been published on page 18.
Grand Pre's record speaks for itself.
During World War II, Grand Pre served as a radio operator in Burma and China and was wounded twice while commanding combat forces in Korea. By the late 1950, Grand Pre had advanced into the upper circles of the military and was appointed to serve as deputy chief of the International division for the office of the chief of Research and development in the Pentagon.
In 1967, then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara tapped grand Pre to be director for ground weapons systems in the newly-created office of International Logistics Negotiations, responsible for negotiating sales contracts with heads of foreign nations for military weapons systems.
On Sept. 30, 1979, The Washington Post Magazine said of Grand Pre: "If you had been a Middle Eastern ruler in the 1970s in search of American weapons systems, you would have called Donn de Grand Pre, Pentagon arms peddler."
Since his retirement, the colonel has devoted his time to writing and speaking and has been a popular guest on talk radio, discussing world afairs from his unique vantage point.
Now a cattleman and farmer at his ranch in Reva, Va., he has somehow found time to author multiple books, including the famous "Barbarians Inside the Gates" trilogy, featuring The Serpent's Sting, The Viper's Venom and The Rattler's Revenge, Grand Pre has also written several other volumes including his semi-autobiographical novels, The Boys From Bent Willow and Look Homeward Cowboy as well as his candid non-fiction memoir, Confessions of an Arms Peddler. See page 20 of this issue for an ad regarding these excellent works.
Today, Grand Pre is among the first to say that wars are generated by profit, not patriotism. He contends that an international elite manipulates high finance and other levers of power for the ultimate purpose of setting in place a world government - a New World Order.
"This committee is open to all voting Americans,"
says Donn, who is presently drawing up a bill of particulars regarding
the misbehavior of the president. Once complete, it will be circulated
widely and all Americans in agreement may have their names added
to the committee.
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The following are some of the top reasons for impeaching Bush and Cheney:
* Bush and Cheney have woefully neglected the country's borders in order to pander to immigrants in the hopes that it will translate into more campaign funds from big business and more votes for the Republican Party.
* Bush and Cheney lied the country into attacking Iraq, which has resulted in the death and wounding of over 10,000 U.S. soldiers and killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
* Bush and Cheney lied about or underestimated the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
* Bush and Cheney have bankrupted the country with unparalleled spending and government growth.
* Bush and Cheney enthusiastically support free trade insanity that kills American industry and jobs, permitting low-wage countries like China, Mexico, etc. to flood the U.S. market.
* Bush and Cheney have enriched the military-industrial-banking complex at the expense of American taxpayers.
* Bush and Cheney have carried on the policy of using the highly toxic weapons component, depleted uranium, on the battlefield.
* Bush and Cheney have approved the use of torture at U.S.-run concentration camps which have been set up around the world.
* Bush and Cheney should have known well in advance of the attack on 9-11 and have sought to white-wash the facts which establish that it was an inside job.
* Bush and Cheney have subjected the nation to hardline, pro-Israel
neo-con ideologues like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas
Feith - individuals who have used military might and taxpayer
dollars to enable the Israeli government to commit genocide and
other crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people.
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A prestigious college professor has come forward to support calls for an investigation into the destruction of the world trade center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. Shortly after the collapse of the world trade Center, American Free Press presented evidence and eyewitness accounts that pointed to explosives having been used to demolish the three skyscrapers. In the four years since, more photographic evidence and eyewitness reports have come forward to support the controlled demolition theory.
While American Free Press investigated various aspects of the controlled demolition theory, the mainstream media has consistently ignored evidence that contradicts the official version that secondary fires caused the collapses.
The fact that the corporate-controlled press censors any discussion of explosions in the WTC was obvious last august when AFP invited William Rodriguez , a survivor, to Chicago to testify about his experiences in the North Tower.
Not a single reporter from the many mainstream media networks bothered to attend AFPs 9-11 Symposium to hear Rodriguez, the former WTC custodian, recount his dramatic experience of the worst terror attack in U.S. history.
Rodriguez, a national hero who remained in the burning tower helping firemen and saving lives up until the minute it was destroyed, presented testimony that contradicts the official version. Most importantly, he describes a massive explosion in a lower basement of the North Tower seconds before the airplane struck the building. And because his testimony challenges the official version, the controlled press avoids discussing Rodriguez or his observations as did the 9-11 Commission Report for which he testified.
Now, Steven Earl Jones, a highly regarded professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, has thrown down the scientific gauntlet and called for an independent, international scientific investigation "guided not by politicized notions and constraints but rather by observations and calculations" of the hypothesis that pre-positioned explosives brought down the three WTC towers.
"It is quite plausible that explosives were pre-planted in all three buildings and set off after the two plane crashes - which were actually a diversion tactic," Jones wrote recently in his paper entitled "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?" "Muslims are probably not to blame for bringing down the WTC buildings after all.
"I present evidence for the explosive-demolition hypothesis, which is suggested by the available data, testable and falsifiable, and yet has not been analyzed in any of the reports funded by the U.S. government," Jones wrote.
"The explosive demolition' hypothesis better satisfies tests of repeatability and parsimony," Jones wrote. "It ought to be seriously, scientifically investigated and debated.
"None of the government-funded studies have provided serious analyses of the explosive demolition hypothesis at all," Jones notes. Because this theory has not even been investigated, "the case for accusing ill-trained Muslims of causing all the destruction on 9-11 is far from compelling," he says. "It just does not add up.
"Questioning (preferably under oath) of officials who approved the rapid removal and destruction of the WTC steel beams and columns before they could be properly analyzed," he said, "should proceed in the United States."
Jones's 9,000-word paper contains evidence, much of it previously discussed in AFP and by Eric Hufschmid, author of Painful Questions, to support the explosive demolition theory. While the professor's analysis and call for "a serious investigation of the hypothesis" has been reported in the Desert Morning News and the CBS television affiliate KUTV in Utah, the national mainstream media has ignored it.
Jones begins with the collapse of WTC 7, the 47-story building owned by Larry Silverstein, which fell neatly into its foundation for no apparent reason at 5:20 p.m. on 9-11. While Silverstein has admitted on camera that he decided to "pull" the building and then watched it come down, Jones provides solid scientific reasons why he thinks pre-positioned explosives were used to demolish the tower.
"WTC 7 collapsed rapidly and symmetrically - even thigh fires were randomly scattered in the building," Jones whrote. A symmetrical collapse would require the "pulling" of most or all of the support columns, he says, something which would be highly unlikely without the aid of explosives. Furthermore, the building all fell too quickly.
"Where is the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum - one of the foundational laws of physics," Jones asks.
"The Second Law of Thermodynamics implies that the likelihood of complete and symmetrical collapse due to random fires as in the official' theory is small, since asymmetrical failure is so much more likely," he wrote. On the other hand, a major goal of controlled demolition using explosives is the complete and symmetrical collapse of buildings.
"Even with explosives," Jones says, "achieving such results requires a great deal of pre-planning and expertise."
The government reports failed to consider the controlled demolition hypothesis and the 9-11 Commission report does not even mention the collapse of WTC 7 "a striking omission of data highly relevant to the question of what really happened on 9-11," Jones wrote.
The fact that no steel-reinforced high-rise building has ever collapsed due to fire, although many have been demolished with explosives in precisely the same manner as the three that fell on 9-11, lends credence to the controlled demolition theory.
The quote from Dr. Jonathan Barnett, an official investigator, that steel members appeared to have been "partly evaporated" is "particularly upsetting to the official theory," Jones wrote, because it is impossible for fires to "generate temperatures anywhere near the 5,000 degrees (F) needed to evaporate[ steel.
However, thermite, RDX and other commonly-used explosives can readily slice through steel (thus cutting the support columns simultaneously in an explosive demolition) and reach the required temperature," Jones says.
This is consistent with an eyewitness account given to AFP shortly after 9-11. The eyewitness was standing on Church Street looking at the South Tower when he observed "a number of brief light sources being emitted from inside the building between floors 10 and 15." the emissions of light were accompanied by "a crackling sound." and occurred immediately before the tower collapsed, the witness said.
Another important piece of evidence, first reported in AFP, was the presence of molten metal in the basements of all Three demolished towers. This writer discovered in the summer of 2002 that molten steel had been found in the basements trhough interviews with Peter Tully, of Tully Construction, and Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled demolition, Inc. Both were involved in the removal of the rubble.
Jones provides quotes from two engineers, Dr. Keith Eaton and Leslie Robertson, who reported seeing molten metal at the site weeks after the collapses. "As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running," said Robertson, the structural engineer responsible for the design of the towers.
"I maintain that these published observations are consistent with the use of high-temperature thermite reaction, used to cut or demolish steel," Jones wrote. "The end products of the thermite reaction are aluminum oxide and molten iron.
"The government reports admit that the building fires were insufficient to melt steel beams," Jones wrote, "then where did the molten metal come from?"
The "squibs" or horizontal blasts of smoke and debris, seen in the high-quality photographs in Hufschmid's Painful Questions and in video images of the collapses, indicate that pre-positioned explosives were used to demolish all three towers.
"Squibs as observed during the collapse of WTC 7 going up the side of the building in rapid sequence provide additional evidence for the use of pre-placed explosives," Jones wrote. Jones also points to the unexplained failure of the weight-bearing central core columns of the twin towers as evidence supporting the demolition theory. The fact that the communication mast on top of the North Tower was the first thing seen falling "suggests that collapse began with one or more failures in the central core area of the building."
"But how?" Jones asks. "What caused the 47 enormous steel core columns of this building (which supported the antenna) to give way nearly simultaneously?
"Again, use of pre-positioned explosives to cut the core columns firs (standard demolition practice) provides a simple yet elegant explanation," he says.
Jones reveals how data was tweaked in the government-funded computer models in order to "save the hypothesis" that fires caused the floor trussed to fail and the towers to collapse.
Asking the questions AFP has been asking for years, Jones wrote: "That about the subsequent complete, rapid and symmetrical collapse of the buildings? What about the observed squibs? What about the antenna dropping first in the North Tower? What about the molten metal observed in the basement areas?"
When Jones's paper is published next year the controlled press
will no longer be able to ignore the evidence that the WTC towers
were brought down by controlled demolition. To continue to ignore
the subject would indicate that the lords of the mass media are
indeed complicit in the cover-up of 9-11.
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