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A Sampling of 2011 news articles from The American Free Press
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October 3, 2011

October 10, 2011

October 17, 2011

October 24, 2011

October 31, 2011

American Free Press September 23

9-11 Cop Breaks Silence  

By Dave Gahary

The New Jersey police officer responsible for capturing five Israelis who filmed and celebrated while the World Trade Center towers burned has broken his silence, agreeing to a Sept. 16 exclusive interview with AMERICAN FREE PRESS.

As AFP readers are no doubt aware, these are the same Israelis who were working under the direction of Urban Moving Systems, a Mossad front company at the center of Israeli involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Sgt. Scott DeCarlo has never spoken to the media about the details of that day except for two 30-second cameo appearances in Internet videos from undetermined sources. In fact, DeCarlo confirmed that this is the first, and last, interview he will ever grant in regard to this subject.

DeCarlo revealed to AFP hidden details about the events of 9-11 that mainstream media venues should have uncovered 10 years ago, if not for their near-total blackout of meaningful coverage where Israel is concerned.

Although not scheduled to work that day, DeCarlo reported anyway and "was posted on the highway" to prevent traffic from entering New York City.

"There was a BOLO, which is a ‘Be On the Look Out' for a particular van, perhaps loaded with explosives," explained DeCarlo, "that may have been on its way to destroy the George Washington Bridge."

DeCarlo explained: "It [the suspicious van] happened to come our way, and I grabbed my sergeant [DeCarlo himself was a patrolman at that time] and said: ‘Hey, man, that's our van.' It wasn't the exact license plate given reported—it was off by one numeral—but I said: ‘That's gotta be it; it's just too close.'"

He continued: "The van was coming off the N.J. Turnpike trying to get on Route 3. Traffic was rolling at two miles an hour, so we got in front of the van on foot, weapons drawn, and stopped it."

All five of the Israeli spies refused to exit their vehicle, so DeCarlo was forced to get physical.

"We asked them to get out of the van, but they didn't listen," he said. "So, we . . . put them in handcuffs and did it as quickly as possible."

AFP asked DeCarlo why he thought the Israelis refused to follow his orders. DeCarlo was unsure, but asked this writer, "You ever have a gun pointed at your head?"

DeCarlo then described what happened after the spies were dragged from their van. "When we removed them, one of the guys that was rather chatty said: ‘We're not your enemy, we're your friend. Our enemies are your enemies,'" DeCarlo said. "At that point they said they were from Israel. They kept saying, ‘Hey, we're on your side.'"

"We brought them over to the New Jersey State Police holding cells in the Meadowlands Stadium, and that's the last I saw of them," he said. Shortly after that, the FBI reportedly took over. The five Israelis were held for 10 weeks, but were eventually deported to Israel on charges of immigration violations. In November 2001, they appeared on an Israeli TV talk show discussing how they were in the U.S. "to document the event."

Sgt. DeCarlo asked AFP to request interested parties not to contact him.
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American Free Press September 21

9-11: Beyond Exposure, Seeking Solutions  

By Mark Anderson

The dilemma with 9-11—beyond just unearthing more evidence that the federal government's conspiracy theory is the height of absurdity—is what to do with all the evidence. You can expose a lot of the "who" and the "how" of 9-11 regarding the forces behind the Twin Towers' destruction, the damage to the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania event. But then what?

Will the American citizenry push the seemingly immovable government story aside and achieve justice by actually jailing the real 9-11 perpetrators—whoever they may be? The government says everyone centrally responsible for the crimes of 9-11 perished in the attacks. And while the U.S. military-intelligence complex has water-boarded many a suspect with obscure names, no one has gone to jail over 9-11.

Meanwhile, however, a couple of hard-working analysts this writer has interviewed are pondering this matter.

Texas architect Ron Avery, one of the two participants in a Sept. 9 debate in Austin on how the three World Trade Center buildings were destroyed on 9-11, was elated to see the Central Texas Republican Liberty Caucus (CTRLC)—a major source of Rep. Ron Paul's home-state support structure that has long been reluctant to fully confront the 9-11 issue—finally bring the issue out in the open by sponsoring the debate.

Avery, who maintains that pre-planted internal explosives were used in New York in 9-11, explained to AFP, "Now the Republican Liberty Caucus backing Ron Paul is finally looking at this, which is like saying, ‘Ron, it's time to come out on 9-11.'"

Thus, the Austin debate was seen by some as a potential turning point in a stifling political atmosphere, where political parties and candidates would rather avoid troubling questions about 9-11.

Among political candidates, 9-11 has been a tough issue. Debra Medina, a volunteer in Rep. Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign, in 2010 challenged Texas Gov. Rick Perry during his re-election bid and was neutralized with surprise 9-11 questions on radio from Fox News "presstitute" Glenn Beck, which made her quit. And while Rep. Paul of Texas often says that armed pilots could have prevented the supposed 9-11 skyjackings, he still will not fully challenge the official 9-11 story.

Rep. Paul's only other common 9-11 remark has been that America's attacks on foreign nations invite "blowback" in the form of terrorism, yet there has long been a rift between some of his supporters who want a more aggressive 9-11 probe, and those who prefer to play it safe and not be labeled as a wacky "conspiracy theorist."

Significantly, the CTRLC's national president, Dave Nalle, attended the Austin debate. He's skeptical of Avery's 9-11 views, but he at least sanctioned the debate so members could make up their own minds.

And now that Paul is again running for president, there is hope that what transpired in Austin could help change the climate in favor of a broader 9-11 inquiry that will encourage Paul to say more about 9-11 and help dislodge the conventional story.

AFP, among other alternative media, has been aggressively challenging the government's 9-11 conspiracy theory over the years, with the much-in-demand Sept. 5, 2011 special 9-11 edition of AFP being the latest effort in that initiative. Dozens of copies were distributed at the debate. The government's story is weakening, but it's difficult to overcome the conventional story.

While pointing out that a full 9-11 probe—and avoiding the foreign wars that the 9-11 attacks spawned—go hand-in-hand, Avery stated during the debate, "The main reason that Medina and Paul were both defeated was their 9-11 stuff . . . One of Ron Paul's main platforms is non-interventionism in foreign policy, and a non-police state and freedom at home, but you just cannot have those things if you accept [or won't challenge] the 9-11 story."

As Avery told AFP, "Medina and Paul won't face the initial thing that it [the conventional 9-11 story] is a hoax to start with." Avery says all political candidates concerned about 9-11 need to learn how to breach this subject and challenge the media to make the media back down, thereby getting 9-11 truth to a higher level that is harder to discredit.

Notably, radio host and longtime 9-11 activist Kevin Barrett agreed with that assessment when he interviewed this AFP writer on the air on Sept. 19.

Avery, known for producing "911 Undeniable Conspiracy," a DVD presentation that addresses viewers as if they are jurors, seeks to establish in the legal sense that a genuine conspiracy took place on 9-11. In so doing, Avery seeks to demonstrate that the government's version cannot survive scrutiny. He shared some of that approach at the Austin debate, taking on former NASA employee Jeff Larson, who insisted that fires and gravitational collapse were enough to down the structures. It was not easy for Larson to maintain that stance.

But everyone in the Austin restaurant agreed that life in America was drastically altered in the wake of 9-11.

"Regardless of what happened on 9-11, our country has changed in mostly irreversible ways that most people are not happy with," commented Pierre de Rochemont, an outspoken CTRLC member who now doubts much of the government story—after a long, painful journey over the last 10 years.

Having been in New York just after 9-11-01, he finally got past the deep emotionalism of the 9-11 events, so he could break free of the stubborn mind set that the government's version must be true.

The debate audience leaned in favor of Avery's view that the 110-story Twin Towers were built entirely too well to be so thoroughly destroyed by jet impacts, the ensuing office fires and mere gravitational collapse. Avery noted that only an approximately four-floor section (out of 110 stories) directly impacted by the airliner in the South Tower was burning, yet about 77 floors below that fire area could not possibly have crumbled, especially so quickly and completely, without something blowing them to smithereens.

"There was nothing but cold hard steel above those four floors, and nothing but cold hard steel below them," Avery remarked.

Larson, however, mainly covered Building 7 (WTC 7), which fell into its own footprint in the late afternoon of 9-11-01, several hours after the Twin Towers' destruction. He claimed that those rare clips of WTC 7's fall that include audio lack the telltale sounds of a standard demolition, but Avery said the building went down at virtually free-fall speed—"meaning eight floors of that building structurally disappeared."

All that aside, Aaron Bolinger, a longtime, trusted contact, told this AFP writer on the AFP Hour radio show (www.republicbroadcasting.org) on Sept. 19 that his organization, the National Veterans Committee for Constitutional Affairs (www.nvcca.net), has produced an 86-page booklet, State Investigations Into 9-11, on pursuing 9-11 justice through state legislatures, since the states are the true "principal" in the federal-state relationship and the federal government is the agent of the states.

Bolinger, a stalwart critic of the "Real ID" personal identification system that would contain various biometric information on cardholders and render them more track-able by authorities, says that without the "big lie" that is the conventional 9-11 story, there would not be any Real ID proposal.

Fortunately, about 17 states in varying ways and degrees have balked at implementing the federal Real ID Act. Bolinger stresses that the murders of 9-11 were really state crimes, that it was wrong for the states to relinquish the 9-11 investigation to the federal government, and that the legal framework of the nation's state legislatures is such that House or Senate committees at the state level could initiate a real 9-11 probe and subpoena witnesses.

Pennsylvania's legislature is especially well-structured for this approach, he said, pointing out that either legislative chamber could get started, perhaps by the current state representative whose district includes Somerset County introducing an investigative measure regarding the rural locale of Shanksville, where Flight 93, claims the federal government, went down (in Somerset County) on 9-11—leaving no wreckage whatsoever.

Avery and Bolinger are thus dedicated to taking 9-11 to a new level: Beyond exposure, seeking solutions.

Editor's note: Go to www.911uc.org for more on Avery's presentation.
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American Free Press October 3, 2011

New Interrogation Techniques Unveiled

By Keith Johnson

Are elite scientists on the precipice of introducing a whole new generation of interrogation and mind-control techniques whereby individuals can be compelled to confess to crimes they did not commit?

According to university researchers in Estonia, the process involves placing a powerful magnet to either side of the brain's prefrontal cortex (PFC). The result is that this can significantly influence whether a person decides to lie or tell the truth in a given situation.

A study published in Behavioral Brain Research by professors Inga Karton and Talis Bachmann documents a recent experiment in which 16 test subjects were shown different colored discs and given the option to either answer truthfully or deceptively to questions about what color they saw. Those who received transcranial magnetic stimulation to the left side of the PFC were found to lie more often, while those who received the identical stimulation to the right side tended to answer more honestly.

As provocative as these findings are, they do not yet establish a foolproof method for extracting the truth from potentially reluctant witnesses or suspects. This initial study only demonstrates that a disproportionate number of test subjects either lied or gold the truth depending on which side was stimulated. Otherwise, the results suggest that those intent on misleading their interrogators could still be successful in doing so, while those more susceptible to mind control may be persuaded to make patently false statements that could potentially work against their own best interests.

Past research suggest that stimulating the brain's PFC with magnetic fields may not be any more effective in eliciting confessions than administering the proper amounts of drugs of alcohol.

In 2008, a study funded by the Charleston Alcohol Research Center used rodents to examine the effects of alcohol on the PFC. They determined that certain concentrations of ethanol, usually associated with mild to moderate intoxication, significantly disrupted the activity of an essential neuron receptor that regulates the PFC and prevents it from functioning abnormally.

According to an article in Science Daily, "The prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain that helps us decide whether we should take actions or not," said John J. Woodward, a neurosciences professor in the Center for Drug and Alcohol Programs at the Medical University of South Carolina. "When the PFC is damaged or its activity is decreased, behavior can change dramatically, and people can lose much of their inhibition and ability to weigh the consequences of their actions."

In light of these findings, it could be that the Estonian researchers stumbled on a new way to simulate the intoxicating effects that drugs and alcohol have on the brain rather than finding a key that unlocks the door to the mind's internal defenses.

But that's not to say that the U.S. government will not find ways to exploit this new technology for its own nefarious purposes. In fact, using magnets - as opposed to pharmaceuticals - for interrogation purposes may provide law enforcement with the loophole they need to skirt legal and human rights concerns.
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American Free Press October 3, 2011

War Criminals Bush and Cheney Should Avoid Traveling Abroad

By Pat Shannan

A series of upcoming speaking engagements by accused war criminals George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is generating waves of protest in Canada. Bush, who canceled a sept. 20 engagement at Tyndale College in Toronto due to similar pressure, has been invited to speak on Oct. 20 at a gathering in Durrey, British Columbia hosted by Mayor Diane Watts.

But Lawyers Against the War (LAW) founder Gail Davidson says the Canadian government must either bar Bush at the border, because of his alleged involvement in torture and crimes against humanity, or order his arrest when he enters Canada to endure he is prosecuted and prevent him from returning to his safe haven in the United States.

In a seven-page letter to Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Canadian Ministers of Justice, Ms. Davidson cites evidence of complicity in torture from numerous international reports and authorities, including Bush himself. According to Ms. Davidson, "In his 2010 memoirs, Bsh admitted to authorizing the use of interrogation techniques that constitute torture, such as water boarding." This puts the whole national government on legal notice that under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, Canada hasa legal duty to deny safe haven from prosecution to anyone suspected of torture, committed anywhere against any person(s).

Furthermore, Canada has a legal obligation to ensure a suspect is prosecuted, if not in Canada, in a jurisdiction willing and able to do so. This requires the arrest and detention of the suspect to prevent his escaping to a jurisdiction willing to provide safe haven from prosecution.

"Because the U.S. attorney general has declared and demonstrated a refusal to prosecute bush for torture," Ms. Davidson said, "Canada's initial duty would be first to prevent him returning to safe haven in the U.S. and then to ensure his prosecution, either here or elsewhere."

Bush canceled a speech in Switzerland in February, and another speech last November when London's Mayor Boris Johnson stated that, as an accused war criminal, he should not come to England or any other European nation. Johnson warned, "You may never see Texas again."
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American Free Press October 3, 2011

Secession a Viable Option for Texas

By Mark Anderson

Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) members say that while the legal processes of nullification and constitutional restoration have been carefully considered for redressing their grievances about widespread federal power abuses, they believe that secession from the ailing union—toward a new Texas nation—is the key to restoring Texan freedom.

In this first-ever coverage of a TNM gathering on Sept. 10, AMERICAN FREE PRESS learned that they seek significant headway toward Texas nationhood via education and dedicated activism.

Secession—which has been batted around in varying degrees over the years in states as diverse as Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii and others—is being explored along a different trajectory in a California proposal [see AFP No. 37, Sept. 12, 2011] for 13 or more counties to form a 51st state, to be called South California, but which will remain within the United States.

However, the TNM, citing their state's almost autonomous electrical grid, and unique history and culture, feels Texas is an ideal candidate for outright nationhood.

Notably, another group—called the Republic of Texas—claims that since Texas was its own nation after the Mexican War, the United States did not have the authority to annex it into the union. TNM member Dave Mundy disagrees, saying that the people of Texas voted for annexation into the U.S. Moreover, while Article 1 of the Texas constitution does establish that "the people are sovereign," and that they have the right to alter or abolish their state government, neither the Texas nor the U.S. constitutions directly address secession from the union.

The Texas Constitution's Article 1, section 1, as Mundy noted, says the state's independence is subject to the U.S. Constitution:

"Texas is a free and independent state, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the states."

Section 2 of Article 1 says, in part:

"All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority. . . . The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their state government in such manner as they may think expedient."

TNM members told AFP they are mindful of the need to clean up their state government, while working toward independence. A major question they ponder is whether the central government would use force to prevent Texas secession.

The TNM met at the Crockett Hotel, directly behind the Alamo, during the 175th anniversary of the decisive battle there that birthed the independent nation of Texas that lasted nine years, until 1845. TNM speakers said the federal union that Texas eventually joined has become an intolerable tyrant.

"It's clean . . . it's peaceful . . . it's passionate as hell," TNM meeting moderator Cary Wise, a former police officer, declared about the TNM. He said local and state government officials need to be aware of the TNM's outlook and should be encouraged to cooperate.

It's the agents of federal domination and their central banking supervisors (having trampled states' rights established in the 10th Amendment to the Constitution) who are the real revolutionaries—the ones who actually divorced the original constitutional order and seceded from the pursuit of liberty for all. "We are the counter revolutionaries," Wise stated. "We counter the revolutionaries who see the federal state as the supreme being."

TNM speaker Robert Smith noted that concerned Texas citizens—and those from other states who want to help—need to consider what kind of future awaits them under the current United States union, with its endless wars, mountainous debt, record joblessness and other extreme ills. "Let's get Texas independent and show the rest of the nation what liberty is—what limited government is," Smith said.

Restoration, Smith argued, involves the laborious task of rebuilding and reviving damaged freedoms. And nullification, he continued, also would be tedious, since countless disagreeable federal laws, executive orders and court rulings would have to be challenged. "We could not even get it done with the TSA bill," he remarked, pointing out that the recent Texas bill to forbid Transportation Security Administration personnel from groping airline passengers boarding flights in Texas was knocked down by the U.S. Department of Justice—and Texas regrettably backed down.

Interestingly, a former Soviet citizen, Sergei Smet, attended the gathering, saying that when he first heard President Barack Obama speak, he felt like he was back in the old Soviet Union. Now a Texas resident and TNM member, he said, "He [Obama] was chosen carefully for this office—like Bush, like Clinton, like everybody else." As he sees it, martial law is just around the corner, and social unrest will be exploited to justify a crackdown on the populace. So it's time to act, he said.
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American Free Press October 3, 2011

SPOTLIGH ON CONGRESS

U.S. Leaders Preparing to Sign Another Free Trade agreement

By Richard Walker

In November 2011, a massive free trade agreement - the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA of the Asia-Pacific region - will put another nail in the coffin of America's economy and workforce. The triking thing about this agreement, which will be signed with eight Asia and Pacific nations, is that it has elicited no outrage from Congress, even as the U.S. economy is in free-fall mode.

It is not as if Congress, or for that matter President Barack Obama, is ignorant of the price paid by American workers since NAFTA was put in place by George H.S. Bush in 1992 and ratified a year later by bill Clinton with the backing of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

NAFTA, which stands for North American Free Trade Agreement, bonded the United States, Canada and Mexico in an economic pact which everyone was told would lead to cheaper goods and more jobs.

This lie has been repeated with every subsequent free trade dal. The reality is, however, those deals have stripped American manufacturing to its bare bones, hitting the middle class particularly hard. The Agreement, which came into force in 1994, was promoted through the World Trade Organization and resulted in the loss of almost 1 million American manufacturing jobs to Mexico.

What Americans came to find out was that free trade agreements actually allow American corporations to ship jobs to countries that pay workers a pittance and produce cheap goods that flood back into the United States. They pit skilled workers against those in countries with the lowest possible wages. It is an unfair match, and American workers lose every time, while corporate pirates profit big time.

China is a case in point. Since it joined the World Trade Organization, several million American jobs have been lost, and the U.S. trade deficit with China has rocketed into hundreds of billions. With this money, China has bought American land and assets.

A striking irony of Obama's so-called economic strategy is that, while he has been talking about a jobs bill, he has also been finalizing plans to sign this latest Pacific NAFTA with countries that include Vietnam, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore. One of its aims is to bring trade tariffs down to zero percent in three years. On his bus trips across America, Obama refused to recognize that free trade has devastated U.S. manufacturing. Now only 9 percent of American jobs are in manufacturing.

Can Obama really be unaware that many of the countries we signed agreements with have been secretly subsidizing their industries? Does he not know that when he bought his last iPad, it was manufactured in China where Apple employs 10 times more people than it does in the United States?

The love affair congress and big corporations have with shipping jobs overseas resulted in more than just the massive loss of manufacturing jobs. High technology and engineering companies are also moving abroad.

So, when free trade proponents like Obama and House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) tell us we, as consumers, get cheap products through NAFTA-type deals, they deliberately fail to mention how those same deals are destroying job opportunities for present and future American generations.

If the free trade jobs exodus is not stopped, there will be no source of knowledge in the U.S. industrial sector, and no way for U.S. workers to earn a living wage in the future.
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American Free Press October 3, 2011

You Can Help Stop Free Trade Treaties

By James P. Tucker Jr.

President Barack Obama and the Republican-led Congress plan to sneak sovereignty-surrendering trade treaties past the American people, and the Bilderberg-controlled newspapers and broadcasters will again try to keep Americans ignorant of the scheme.

The problem is, if ignorance and complacency prevail, America will become a mere geographical reference when the Western Hemisphere becomes a "union" pattered after the European Union.

It is critical that each of us talk to our friends and neighbors and make them aware of this crisis. Give copies of AFP or machine copies of this report to every patriot you can reach. We have to win this battle every year for our sovereignty to survive; Bilderberg has to only win once.

As a candidate, Obama acted critical of these trade deals. As president, he followed Bilderberg's orders and did an about-face on the issue.

As a compromise, Obama and Democrats in general want to pass the trade Adjustment Assistance Act (TAA) to provide aid and retraining to workers who lose their jobs because the trade laws sent them overseas.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) caved in and said he will bring up a vote on TAA and the trade deals. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had also opposed the trade deals because they would ship jobs from his state overseas. But he caved in and agreed with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to hold a vote anyway.

Two trade deals are with Panama and Colombia; a third is with South Korea. The deals with Panama and Colombia would be a giant step toward an "American Union." With these two Latin nations in the fold, the next step in the plan is a deal with Mexico, to eliminate the border, and with Canada, to finally create a "North American Union." This would then be expanded to force the entire Western Hemisphere into an "American Union," with a common currency, possibly to be called the "amero."

When the Mexico deal comes up, it will include establishing a transcontinental highway running from Mexico through Texas and potentially through Canada.
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American Free Press October 3, 2011

Wall Street Invaded

By Victor Thorn

Beginning on Sept. 17, three organizations—Adbusters, Occupy Wall Street and U.S. Days of Rage-unleashed a campaign to radically disrupt, for two straight months, the heart of America's financial sector, in New York City. Events are also planned in 10 other cities, including Washington, D.C.

One of these groups, Adbusters (aka Culture Jammers), envisions a scene reminiscent of the recent London riots that devastated England's commercial district. On Aug. 10, Adbusters proclaimed, "Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly and modestly. A revolution is an insurrection."

When it comes to an honest appraisal of the Occupy Wall Street protests, radio talk show host Dave Orts of Push Back Now couldn't have been more forthright about the participants. On Sept. 13 he told this writer: "What most gets under their skin is that other people have more money than they do. Money is a great addiction, and today's youth have a desire to ascend up the financial ladder. They know the money is already there, but it's being held and not released by those on Wall Street."

Orts provided a fitting example. "When a 22-year-old college kid paying taxes on a summer job sees Jeffrey Immelt working on President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board while his company General Electric didn't pay a cent in income taxes last year, they know something's wrong."

Although many Americans don't agree with the Days of Rage tactics, Orts gives them credit for being mobilized. "In order for us to remove a rock from our shoe, we have to take action. The rock doesn't go away on its own." However, he finds a certain amount of amusement in their naïve aspirations. "If anyone thinks they're going to peacefully assemble and take down Wall Street," Orts laughed, "on 9-11 both towers came crashing to the ground, but Wall Street still only remained closed for a few days."

The end result may also be a bit misguided. Orts noted: "The Days of Rage icon used on their posters is a communist model. The name Days of Rage connotes a group of people that are deeply disturbed by a societal evolution that is not fitting to what they want. Yet they view President Obama's political appointees and union leaders feeding off the top tier of government, and they feel betrayed. The promised redistribution of wealth isn't coming their way, so in essence they're saying, ‘If you keep screwing around, you won't be around any longer.'"

WHAT THEY WANT

For their part, U.S. Days of Rage organizer Alexa O'Brien and her cohorts have made five demands:

1) Money should be removed from "buying politicians" who feed the Wall Street beast.

2) The resources of our nation shall no longer be used to coddle and benefit banksters and their minions.

3) The U.S. government should diligently rein in the parasitic destruction wreaked by Wall Street.

4) Our nation should no longer be held hostage by "too big to fail" banks.

5) Solutions should be found that stop the Federal Reserve from stealing our future.

O'Brien summarized their goals. "We have no choice but to focus on the sources of money. Both the Democratic and Republican parties set the bankster agenda because of the money."

BRINGING THE YOUTH

When asked to describe why leftist youths were so frustrated that they'd try to occupy Wall Street, Eric Verlo of Not My Tribe told this writer on Sept. 12: "Barack Obama promised hope and change, but it never happened. Now we're taking real change to the streets to show him how it's done."

He continued: "Our eyes have been opened to the fact that presidents don't have as much power as we thought they did. But compared to George Bush, Obama seems powerless."

When asked about the possibility of violence during their Days of Rage event, Verlo stated matter-of-factly, "It's hard to get people motivated if you say, ‘Hey, come out and get beat up or slaughtered.'But when it comes to defending ourselves, if you want to swing back, that's everyone's free choice."

As to the locale of these demonstrations, Verlo put their views into perspective: "The youth organizers are very anti-capitalist, and Obama isn't delivering. Wall Street is where money changes hands, and they shouldn't be so influential. They're the real power center. They're in charge, and we intend to camp out until somebody responds to us."

PUPPETS

According to Greg Eddolls of the Strong Watchman website, Days of Rage organizers are parroting the Mideast's "Arab spring" uprisings, with one exception.

He told this writer on Sept. 13, "Participants from the younger generation want something, but it's based on ignorance because they don't even know what larger forces they're dealing with."

Specifically, Eddolls explained: "Mantras like ‘Government for the People' sound like a noble cause until they start talking about redistribution of wealth. Those with a socialist mind set don't know what comes with it. In an Orwellian scenario, the government provides everything, and in exchange they also control everything."

Associated with this phenomenon, Eddolls sees radical transformations taking place in our nation: "Starting a business or going out and making a living are no longer the dominant theme in America. A new generation that still believes in individualism and hard work is fading, and instead they're more accepting of a collectivist message that's hidden within global government."

The planners behind this Days of Rage event are exploiting this sentiment. Eddolls elaborated: "To destabilize our current government, major civil unrest is needed. A stated aim of the anti-capitalists is to prevent the rich from being rich. So, they want to create panic on Wall Street, resulting in, they hope, massive bank runs. People will then remove all their cash, with the financial strain creating a great deal of turmoil."

When AFP inquired as to whether this scenario is part of a plot to weaken our country, Eddolls answered, "The New World Order is now a conspiracy fact, not a theory, that's been proven right over the past 15 years."

OBAMA'S RADICALS

It should be noted that two of the figures who are helping organize the U.S. Days of Rage are SEIU union leader Stephen Lerner and ACORN founder Wade Rathke. Both have direct ties to Barack Obama.

This connection to the president has deeper roots in a group known as the October 2011 Movement that contains a host of former Students for a Democratic Society members among its ranks. On Oct. 6, a "Seize DC happening" is planned where many of the above-mentioned groups intend to bring about a U.S. version of the Tahrir Square uprising in Egypt.

Of note, the Weather Underground, a violent band of 1960-1970s anarchists, formed as a splinter group from the SDS. The Weathermen were co-founded by none other than Bill Ayers. Not only did Obama launch his 1995 state senatorial career via a luncheon at Bill Ayers's Hyde Park home, it's commonly accepted in many circles that Ayers ghostwrote Obama's "autobiography."

On Aug. 18, investigative reporter Danette Clark described a previous version of this year's Sept. 17 event organized by the Weather Underground in Chicago: "The Oct. 8 1969 Days of Rage consisted of violent demonstrations and blowing things up. A commemorative statue of a murdered police officer in Haymarket Square was destroyed by a dynamite bomb. The blast scattered pieces of the statue onto the Kennedy Expressway and shattered nearly 100 windows. Weathermen and fellow demonstrators donning motorcycle and football helmets charged and attacked police officers while smashing windows in automobiles, buildings and homes."

Lerner, who serves on SEIU's International Executive Board, was President Obama's guest at the White House on four separate occasions. He is also orchestrating, behind the scenes, the Sept. 17 Occupy Wall Street rally.

Lerner's stated goals are to destroy JPMorgan Chase, collapse the stock market and destabilize the American power structure by rebuilding a new movement. On March 23, Lerner told the Washington Times: "How do we bring down the stock market? How do we bring down their bonuses? How do we interfere with their ability to be rich?"

One of Lerner's fellow organizers, Wade Rathke, founded the disgraced community advocacy group ACORN, while also acting as union president of the New Orleans branch of SEIU. Rathke referred to their coordinated Days of Rage efforts as an "anti-banking jihad."

As a past SDS member affiliated with Ayers, Rathke voiced his disgust with what he called "rats" who notified FBI agents about a left-wing plot to bomb the 2008 Republican National Convention in New Orleans. Coincidentally, Barack Obama began his career as the chief national trainer for Rathke's ACORN.

But the most unapologetically extreme member of Obama's reactionary force is Ayers, who described to Chicago magazine in Aug. 2001 the goal of 1969's Weather Underground Days of Rage: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home. Kill your parents. That's where it's really at."

Later, he wrote joyfully of the widespread destruction: "The streets became sparkling and treacherous with the jagged remains of our rampage."

Ayers's literary flair is obvious, as his talents were later used to pen Obama's autobiography Dreams From My Father. Although mainstream media lapdogs have largely ignored their ties, Obama lives in the same elite Chicago neighborhood as Ayers and served with him on the Woods Fund. Obama later appointed Ayers head of the prestigious Annenberg Challenge.

14 CITIES MOST PRIMED FOR RIOTS

On Aug. 11, Chaz Valenza of Op-Ed News compiled a list of cities that, he felt, were powder kegs ready to erupt (as chronicled earlier this year in AFP, Detroit tops the list, suffering from 40 percent unemployment, a mere $14,000 average yearly income, 36 percent poverty and a 37 percent dropout rate, not to mention the nation's third-highest crime rate): 1.) Detroit; 2.) Miami Beach; 3.) Cleveland; 4.) Memphis; 5.) New Orleans; 6.) Buffalo; 7.) Milwaukee; 8.) St. Louis; 9.) Baltimore; 10.) Atlanta; 11.) Cincinnati; 12.) Long Beach; 13.) Newark; 14.) Philadelphia.
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American Free Press October 3, 2011

Nuclear Hazards Understated by Profit-Hungry Nuke Industry

By Frank Whalen

With a recent explosion at the Narcoule nuclear site in France, yet another potential nuclear tragedy is unfolding that could lead to the possibility of a cover-up. Much like the ongoing disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, French officials are making the same hollow assurances and hoping that bad publicity doesn't derail future expansion and profit.

Despite not knowing the cause of this explosion, officials quickly announced, "there was no risk of a radioactive leak after the blast," according to BBC News. France, a country that relies on nuclear power for 75 percent of its electricity, has a vested interest in keeping the public passive. Government officials have lied ridiculously in the past, especially concerning the Chernobyl disaster.

Some 25 yeas after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, the French public is still demanding accountability after a government investigation concluded there was no solid proof of intentional deception by officials at the time. The San Francisco Chronicle reported this month: "Researchers and cancer victims accuse the government of intentionally downplaying risks of a radioactive cloud that the accident in then-Soviet Ukraine spewed over much of Europe, in part to protect France's powerful nuclear industry.

The nuclear industry is powerful enough globally that cover-ups appear across national borders, even when health risks are present.

Regarding the Fukushima incident, the UK's Guardian newspaper revealed: "British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a coordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known." Email exchanges showed, "Officials stressed the importance of preventing the incident from undermining public support for nuclear power."

The Marcoule nuclear site creates mixed oxide fuel (MOX) from weapons-grade nuclear material. According to DC Bureau, the most secretive institution in the federal government, the National Nuclear Security Administration, uses the MOX concept to convince the public that "it will solve the country's energy problems by taking excess warhead material and converting it to reactor fuel for ‘peaceful' purposes."

DC Bureau's Joseph Trento reported, "The Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations accepted an unproven idea and committed billions of taxpayers' money to building an enormous plant to take surplus plutonium from weapons and civilian programs from around the world, grind it into a fine powder and turn it into a fuel array for civilian nuclear power reactors. Some experts say this process is more dangerous than stabilizing and burying the excess plutonium."

Making the global connection apparent, Trento went on to say: "The United states, using Areva, a French-government-owned contractor, is building a MOX plant, at a cost of billions of dollars to U.S. taxpayers, that will produce an even deadlier from of Areva-made plutonium-based fuel that was loaded into Fukushima Daiichi reactor No. 3 a year ago. It was among the Tokyo Power Electric company reactors that melted down in March."

The Guardian story reveals that this cover-up was co-ordinated by the British government "with multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse trying to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK."

The Washington Post reported, "Even as it struggled to contain the world's worst nuclear disaster in a quarter-century, Tokyo Electric Power company late last month quietly set out big plans for the future: It proposed building two new nuclear reactors at its radiation-spewing Fukushimma Daiichi power plant."

Much like the BP oil spill nightmare here in America, examples of the energy industry suppressing the truth are many. The history of international collusion for revenue-driven deceptions leaves open the question of whether or not to believe that France's Marcoule nuclear site truly poses no radiation threat. Further, this pattern should be duly noted as the nuclear industry juggernaut continues to trade safety protocols and human lives for profit.
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American Free Press October 3, 2011

Israel Positions Nuclear Subs Off Iran  

By Keith Johnson

Israel's submarine fleet is by far the most secretive of its strategic long-range manned arsenals. Unlike the Jewish state's other seafaring crafts, these submersibles never dock in any ports except their own, and their missions are such highly guarded secrets that only a few, even on board, are privy to what their assignment is and where it will next take them.

"Nobody knows where you are except for your crew and your direct commanders," said a former "Lt. Col. Oded" in a recent interview with Israel's Ynet news service. "Even your family doesn't know. They don't know what you're doing or when you'll be back. They know nothing."

Oded says he served 20 years in the Israeli navy and was commander of the Leviathan, one of two state-of-the-art 800-class Dolphin submarines that were donated to Israel by the German government. The Israelis later bought a third Dolphin for $350 million under an agreement in which German taxpayers would absorb 50 percent of the cost.

Though the whereabouts of these mobile doomsday machines are generally kept under wraps, the Israelis occasionally make their presence known. When that happens, the message is clear that they mean business and are prepared to strike at any given moment. That's precisely what happened in July 2009 when Israel sent one of its Dolphins on a high-profile cruise of the Suez Canal. Although the official line out of Israel was that they were merely conducting standard naval drills, it was clear to all that the real purpose of their presence was to flaunt their strategic reach in Iran's face.

In June 2010, all three of Israel's Dolphins arrived off the coast of the vilified Persian nation. The Sunday Times reported, "The submarines of Flotilla 7—Dolphin, Tekuma and Leviathan—were sent in response to Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, a political and military organization in Lebanon, could hit sites in Israel, including air bases and missile launchers."

The article added, "The deployment is designed to act as a deterrent, gather intelligence and potentially to land Mossad agents."

It's widely believed that these three submarines are often rotated, with only one maintaining a constant vigil in the region for any extended period.

According to a recent UPI article, "Five Dolphins is considered the minimum number required to keep two boats on patrol off Iran at all times."

That's why, to bring the fleet up to their desired quota, two more Dolphins are being constructed for Israel under a deal reached in 2006 whereby the German government agreed to absorb one-third of a total $1.27 billion price tag.

In July 2011, a deal was finalized for a sixth Dolphin submarine that will again be subsidized by Germany under the same arrangement. According to Der Spiegel, the subsidy was being offered to Israel as part of reparations for the "Holocaust." The first of the three is slated for delivery to Israel by 2012.

Unlike Iran, Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has illicitly pursued a weapons program that, by some estimates, has put more than 600 nuclear-tipped warheads at its disposal.
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American Free Press October 3, 2011

Palestine Independence or Israeli Tyranny?

By Ralph Forbes

In 2008 many voters looking for "hope and change" thought Obama xould walk on water - but his legacy may well be that he waded Knee-deep through rivers f blood. Iraq, Afghanistan, libya and so on came to pass because American interests were hijacked by Israel-firsters. At first Obama appeared to try to bring some semblance of fairness to the middle east - which would have resulted in peace and security for Israel and the whole world. This brought the wrath of Zionist fanatics down upon Obama - and he submitted. Feeding Israeli intransigence endangers the whole world, practically guaranteeing war.

With nowhere to turn, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced he would seek membership for a state of Palestine from the UN Security Council. True American interests, the saner half of Israelis and 126 countries back the initiative - but the rulers of Israel, the ADL, AIPAC and the neo-cons, who misrule America, defy justice and shriek, "No!"

For more than a half century Israel - baked by the United States and its puppet regimes - could get away with brutal repression, but no more.

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in a meeting of the National security council, described Israeli Prime Minster benjamin Natanyahu as "ungrateful" and said that, by refusing to acknowledge Israel's growing isolation, Netanyahu was endangering his country.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Yayyip Erdogan said that recognition of a Palestinian state is an obligation, not an option. He told the Arab League that Israel's behaving like a spoiled child was building a blockade around its own people through its policies. "Israel will break away from solitude only when it acts as a reasonable, responsible, serious and normal state." He said the Turkish navy will patrol the Mediterranean to prevent Israel from assaulting ships in international waters. "Israel will no longer be able to do what it wants in the Mediterranean, and you'll be seeing Turkish warships in this sea."

Turkey, a member of NATO, demanded that Israel formally apologize for last year's deadly takeover of a Gaza bound aid convoy, killing nine Turks and a teenaged American citizen.

Thousands of protesters massed in Cairo's Tahrir Square to demand reforms and an end to military trials of civilians. Then stormed the heavily fortified Israeli embassy in Cairo. Israel's ambassador to Egypt, Yatzhak Levanon, and 80 diplomats fled Egypt, Yitzhak Levanon, and 80 diplomats fled Egypt, which says it will no longer allow Israel to steal billions of dollars of natural gas in corrupt deals.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the Zionists of starting both world wars. He also blamed Israel for starting and perpetuating terror, including Sept. 11, 2001

For America, Israel has been the tail wagging the dog for 70 years.

Dr. Nahum Goldmann, former president of the World Jewish Congress, wrote the ruthless persecution of the Palestinians by Zionist zealots was"the original sin."

When the criminal conspiracy for mass murder and stealing the homes and lands of the Palestinian people was trying to gain "legitimacy," three secretaries of state - James Byrnes, General George Marshall and Dean Acheson - and Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, who was "suicided" by the Irgun, an Israeli terrorist organization, for his pro-American stance, foresaw America's recognition of the criminal regime as the great American tragedy.

It is time to address the concern expressed by Forrestal so long ago: "I think it is about time that somebody should give some consideration as to whether we might lose the United States."
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American Free Press October 10, 2011

Battle On The Border

Narco-guerrillas attack Arizona police with grenade launchers.

By Bill White

The Federal government and the mainstream media want Americans to believe that, so far, the violent war being waged between rival Mexican drug gangs has largely been isolated to Mexico. However, a recent attack on U.S. police in Arizona has many people wondering if the ghastly violence that has plagued Mexican cities and towns has finally come to the United States.

According to news reports based on intercepted police scanners, a group of Mexican-based narco-guerrillas attacked an Arizona police convoy that was traveling along U.S. Interstate Highway 8 with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. This onslaught led to the destruction of a police car and injury to two police officers, as well as the arrest of one of the guerrillas.

Prior to this incident, a group of Arizona policemen was searching the desert for a lookout post established by a Mexican drug cartel to monitor American police activities. Sometime thereafter, they came under fire from an organized group of men wielding AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. Arizona forces responded by deploying a SWAT team and numerous other units, which were able to overpower the guerrilla unit and force it to retreat, capturing one of the well-armed insurgents.

Such attacks have become increasingly common along the U.S. border, where drug cartels in neighboring Mexico have overtaken the government and established semi-independent fiefdoms in the northern Mexican desert. These cartels smuggle drugs and immigrants and have become increasingly brazen in their attacks on American security forces, often conducting well-orchestrated ambushes and occasional assassinations of the law enforcement personnel attempting to control them.

This act of armed aggression against the United States did not receive national attention, and similar acts of war by Mexican insurgents are generally ignored by media venues that wish to use Mexican immigration to disintegrate and destroy the social cohesion of America's population .

Ironically, some of the blame for the violence rests squarely with the CIA and the U.S. military, as these violent drug cartels have hired many Central American soldiers, who received training in the latest military techniques by U.S. forces in the 1980s.
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American Free Press October 10, 2011

New Jersey School Institutes Terror Drills

Frightening ritual designed to condition children to accept police state.

By Bill White

The New Jersey public school system is now requiring kindergartners and first grade children to undergo monthly ritual terrorization as part of an effort to ingrain a security-state mentality into an upcoming generation of Americans.

According to a letter circulated to parents by the New Jersey public school system, all children in the state, beginning art age five, are required to train monthly for what to do in case their school is attacked by terrorists. Not American public school has ever been attacked by terrorists, and the handful of school shootings, which have drawn national attention since the late 1990s, have been committed by disaffected and likely mentally ill high school and university students. That is what makes these drill so disconcerting. They are part of a general effort by the New Jersey public school system and others to hammer a constant state of fear into the lives of everyday Americans.

With these "terror drills," the New Jersey school system is training kids how to react in case America is invaded by a foreign power - has not occurred since the War of 1812.

The public school system was originally developed with the intention of training citizens to be part of the state apparatus, and early public school theory focuses on the training of young people to play a role in society. As society becomes more centralized, the main function of school systems in modern society is to condition young people into adopting American government bureaucracy.

The modern political system is based on perpetual war that creates constant fear, for which government intervention is the only possible solution. When America's last real threat - the Soviet Union - imploded in the early 1990s, those in the mass media who induce hysteria within the populace were momentarily left without an enemy. After a brief effort to paint the American people as their own enemy via alleged threats of domestic terrorism, Western elites settled on creating an Islamic enemy that helped promote their goal of Zionist control in Palestine.
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American Free Press October 10, 2011

Mock Terror Attack in Denver May Be Dry Run for Elite

By Victor Thorn

On Sept. 23, over 100 different agencies conducted mock terror drills in Denver, Colo. under the jurisdiction of the federal government's department of Homeland security. Referred to as Operation Mountain Guardian, the exercises, which were meant to realistically mimic an actual catastrophic situation, created quite a stir in the mile-high city.

The Denver Post reporter Sara Burnett wrote on Sept. 24, "Improvised explosive devises set in motion a simulated terrorist attack that also included shooters, hostage negotiations and the release of mock radioactive materials at locations across metro Denver."

Denver's News 9 added: "First responders tested residents with load noises, simulated weapons, smoke, emergency vehicles and other actions."

Some researchers are claiming that these drills, the largest ever in Denver, are a preparatory exercise for the global elite, who will find shelter in underground bunkers beneath Cheyenne Mountain and in other protective structures if chaos endues.

Author Alex Christopher says he worked in the Denver International Airport's underground tunnels.

He stated in a June 1, 1996 interview: "I can tell you that it is a very unusual and spooky type of place. If you are a sensitive person you get nauseated as soon as you enter the perimeter of the airport, especially when you go underground. You become very nauseated and nervous. There is also so much electromagnetic flux in the area that if you get out on the open ground around the airport, you will ‘buzz.'"
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American Free Press October 10, 2011

Electronic Devices Vulnerable to Electromagnetic Pulse Event

By Peter Papaherakles

Could an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack result in a natural or man-induced disturbance of the Earth's electromagnetic field? Not only would such an event destroy the entire electric grid that the modern information age has come to depend on, it would even render basic electric transmission useless, sending us back to the 1880s. This could happen in one of two ways: Either as a result of a nuclear explosion in the ionosphere, or by an intense solar eruption sending a blast of radiation toward Earth.

Sunspot activity has been increasing for several years now and is expected to continue to do so into the near future. Some have predicted extreme solar flares that could overwhelm the Earth's buffering layers of electromagnetic protection. The explosion of a nuclear device, or even non-nuclear radio-frequency weapons, such as HAARP, could have the same effect.

The results would be devastating. The Internet would be gone. Computers and everything dependent upon them would be useless. Cell phones, iPads, Blackberries would no longer work. Stores with computerized cash registers would no function.

All banks and ATMs would shut down because they cannot operate without computers. That means no bank money for Americans, who depend on it. Since most money is recorded electronically, there would be no way to access it.

The electronics in your car, including the onboard computer that controls fuel injection as well as exhaust, would also be dead, so you couldn't drive anywhere. Even if you could, gas stations would be closed.

Need pills for that medical condition? Forget about it. No money, no doctors, no hospitals, no transportation, no pills.

And here is the worst part: Not only would computers and electronics be useless, the entire electric grid would be shut down. No electricity, no lights, no refrigerators, no supermarkets, no hospitals and no heat in the winter. You couldn't even call anyone for help because the phones would not work.

Is this starting to sound like your worst nightmare?

It's estimated that it would cost $20 billion to protect the electric grid, but it hasn't happened. Meanwhile, the military wastes trillions on useless wars.

Several countries already have the potential capacity to launch EMP weapons, including North Korea. According to Newsmax, "North Korea's last round of tests, conducted in May 2009, appear to have included a ‘super EMP' weapon capable of emitting enough gamma rays to disable the electric power grid across most of the lower 48 states."

Gen. Eugene Habiger, former head of U.S. Strategic Command, said in reference to an EMP attack:
"It is not a matter of if. It is a matter of when."
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American Free Press October 10, 2011

Rep. Kucinich Wants Constitutional Money

By Mark Anderson

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) on Sept. 21 introduced the National Emergency Employment Defense Act (NEED), H.R. 2990, which would remove the power of creating money from the privately owned and controlled Federal Reserve System and restore to Congress to constitutionally create money interest-free. The bill closely reflects the American Monetary Act (AMA), model legislation developed by the American Monetary Institute, which is headed by noted money historian Steve Zarlenga.

Kucinich has persisted in pursuing legislation to make the historic change of converting to interest-free government money spent into circulation—as the Constitution mandates—instead of being borrowed into existence from the private banking system at ruinous interest.

H.R. 2990 "would . . . reassert congressional sovereignty and regain control of monetary policy from private banks," according to Kucinich, and the bill would "address our structural economic problems directly by creating over 7 million jobs," when "the nation struggles with long-term unemployment at rates not seen in generations, and as infrastructure crumbles across the nation."

Fractional-reserve lending—money lent beyond what banks have in their reserves, using a multiplier effect—would be eliminated, and the nation's endangered infrastructure would undergo an unprecedented overhaul to account for much of the proposed job and money creation.

A fact sheet from Kucinich adds:

"The conflict of interest between private ownership of the 12 Fed banks and management of our nation's monetary policy is ended by incorporating the Fed into the Treasury. The Fed is put on a budget and made accountable to the American people;

"A separate Monetary Authority (part of Treasury) made up of experts is made responsible for managing monetary policy. Its governing principle
is to ensure that the money supply is sufficient to meet the demand in the economy, and is not inflationary or deflationary. The Fed executes monetary policy actions."

Moreover, "banks could continue to make profits by lending money that savers and investors make available to them for that purpose. Banks may also borrow from the Treasury," says the fact sheet. "The Monetary Authority advises Treasury how much money is needed in the economy. Treasury advises Congress how much recycled or new money is required to pay off debt (as it comes due) and supplement existing revenues to fund infrastructure renewal, grants and loans to state and local governments, education and other priorities, as appropriated by Congress."

When pressed about whether the national debt should be repudiated, Zarlenga said: "If there is illegitimate debt then it doesn't have to be repaid."

Investigative writer William Norman Grigg researched the Fed's founding regarding the late Col. Edward Mandel House—a shadowy White House "assistant" who labored to create the Fed behind President Woodrow Wilson's throne. Grigg feels that the Fed "has to be destroyed, from root to branch." Even the creation of the Fed's Board of Governors, chaired by a government appointee, was done to make the bank less distasteful to a skeptical public. "If you preserve any part of the Fed, you risk it reconstituting itself," Grigg countered.
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American Free Press October 10, 2011

SPOTLIGHT ON CONGRESS

Analyzing President Obama's Latest Economic Stimulus Plan

On Sept. 8 Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress in the hopes of obtaining $447 billion in new stimulus spending under his "American Jobs Act." but members of the House and Senate on both sides of the aisle are finding it difficult to justify such a request from taxpayers, especially in light of some recent statistics.

For example, If 1.9 million jobs are created under Obama's plan, at the above stated price tag, the cost to taxpayers will be $235,000 per new hire. If interest on this borrowed money is added to the overall sum, the cost per job rises to above $300,000. Of course, there is no guarantee that anyone will be removed from unemployment lines, as Obama recently joked, "I guess shovel-ready jobs weren't so shovel ready."

On Sept. 15, Washington reporter Dan Gainor revealed that under Obama's green jobs program, "A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program has created just 3,545 new, permanent jobs." If one does the math, they'll discover over $10 million has been forfeited on each green job. Also, in light of $535 million in loan guarantees from the Department of energy that were lost in Solyndra solar panel bankruptcy scandal, how could this same agency be primed to lend another $9.3 billion to similar companies?

If such waste isn't blatant enough, $4 million in stimulus money went to the Montgomery County, Md. Housing Commission to provide shelter for 12 homeless people in a three-story apartment building. The bottom line: $330,000 per person.

With additional horror stories emerging about the Justice Department spending $16 per muffin at the capitol Hilton, or a rural North Dakota airport subsidizing each airline passenger $300 per ticket, it seems an outrage for congress to squander nearly half-a-trillion more on Obama's outlandish follies.
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American Free Press October 10, 2011

‘Squatters' Can Prevail if Bankers Unable to Produce Original Note

By Pat Shannan

When legal researchers began to say around 2004 that many banks could not foreclose on a home buyer because the bankers no longer held the original notes, federal judges put a few of the people who fought their foreclosures in jail. And when an Ohio congresswoman spoke about it on the floor of the House of Representatives, she was chastised for urging her constituents to "break the law." Today, however, courts are ruling against banks, and some home owners known to this writer have been exercising "squatter's" right with possession for three years or more without making a single payment.

After witnessing more than 27,000 bankruptcies in only one county of her Toledo district in 2008, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) began to take notice of the number of home foreclosures that followed. After seeing the evidence exposing the scheme that none of the Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae mortgage creations in those years was on the up and up, she showed her outrage with an unprecedented speech urging all Americans to ignore any foreclosure notice and stay in their homes as squatters.

Establishment television news host Bill Moyers criticized Mrs. Kaptur on public television for encouraging people to break the law, which was merely another media subterfuge. Actually, Mrs. Kaptur was asking Americans to force the banks to obey the law.

Many people with mortgages began to take Mrs. Kaptur's advice. Some, especially in Florida, have already do so.

"James B." of Tampa learned from others that defense lawyers were demanding that the courts grant an order against foreclosing banks that could not produce the original note, and that federal judges were suddenly granting it. He stopped paying his mortgage in August 2008 and is still in his home. It is now worth only about a third of the $330,000 borrowed against it in 2006.

"Dewey T." of Orlando went to jail in 2005 for two years for promoting a program - called a "scheme" by federal prosecutors - that taught mortgagees how to fight with these legal tools to avoid foreclosure. The bottom line was simple: If the bank didn't have the original, signed note because it had been sold so many times nobody could find it, the bank could not legally foreclose for non-payment.

In 2008 after his release, longtime acquaintance Dewey told AFP,"The same federal judge that sentenced me to jail has now ruled 14 times in favor of the defendant who was standing on the same statutes that we were teaching."

How could this be? He says that at the time of his legal problems, these federal judges, who always have inside information, had heavy holding in Fanny/Freddie stocks and had prejudicial reason t rule against him. But when the house bubble collapsed in 2007 and exposure of the fraud was inevitable, judges sold their shares and began to rule fairly on the law again.

They continue to do so today, and in Florida, where property values have now nosedived to as little as one-seventh of the mortgaged value five or more years ago, Americans are encouraged to not acquiesce to bankers' demands, but instead put up a legal fight. It appears that now they can win, and the first step is a demand to "produce the note."
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American Free Press October 10, 2011

IMF-World Bank Fighting for Global Financial Dominance

By James P. Tucker Jr.

Many leaders of the international elite dominated joint meetings of the World bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington Sept. 23-26 and pressed their campaign for world government.

The elite is composed of international financiers and political leaders who meet each spring to map their strategy. The senior group, Bilderberg, draws about 120 leaders from Europe and North America. It first met under that name in 1954. The trilateral Commission, a brother group of about 300 members, was established in 1973 to include Japan. The groups have an interlocking leadership and common agenda.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a leader of Bilderberg and the Trilateralists, continued to push for a world treasury department behind his facade of euphemisms. Unless the 17-nation eurozone can resolve its enduring financial crisis, Geithner said, the result will be "cascading default, bank runs and catastrophic, risk.

Geithner and colleagues chatting over coffee that they should speak carefully, not directly, or nationalists might find out and raise hell, making such a global department impossible, according to a source who was present. No doubt, members of the Bilderberg group and the Trilateral commission know about American Free Press, which has consistently exposed what goes in inside their secret elite meetings.

The euro threat "must be taken off the table," Geithner said. "Otherwise it will undermine all other efforts, both within Europe and globally," to keep a weak recovery from slipping into a recession.

The eurozone's troubles were discussed at several IMF meetings. On Sept. 24, the International Monetary and Financial Committee said euro-zone members had pledged to "do whatever is necessary" to stabilize financial markets.

"‘Whatever is necessary' means a world treasury department," said a source who was present. AFP had three sources inside the meetings. Bilderberg and the Trilateral commission believe a world treasury department would be a major step toward establishing a "global government" under the United Nations. For more than a decade, three proposals to establish world government have been pending before the UN General assembly. So far, public opposition - supported by AFP and other patriotic publications - has made voting on these measures politically impossible.
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American Free Press October 10, 2011

Trilats Planning Tokyo Meeting for April 2012

By James. P. Tucker Jr.

AFP learned that the Trilateral commission (TC) will meet in Tokyo in late April. Founded by international banker David Rockefeller in 1973, the commission is a globalist organization that quietly holds meeting annually to discuss ways to undermine the sovereignty of the United states and to pave the way further for the completion of a new world order led by the mega-billionaire upper crust of the global elite.

Last January, this writer visited the Washington, D.C. office of the Trilateral Commission (202-467-5410) to inquire about the group's next meeting. The door was locked, and I had to push a button. I stepped in as the door opened and it slammed on my foot. Two homely both pushed on the door and started screaming hysterically.

"I will make you broads famous," I promised. Being famous among the infamous comes at a high price for information seekers.

Trilateral boys will see mixed blessings this year. It will be a joint meeting with their senior brother group, Bilderberg, with which they share a common agenda: world government under their direction. International financiers, dominated by the Rockefeller and Rothschild families lead both groups.

It is uncertain if Bilderberg will hold a separate, full meeting as it has since 1954 because members are distraught over the heavy public attention they've received in the past decade. For many years, Bilderberg's meeting were truly secret. But for a decade, because of heavy criticism in the European press and an increasingly curious American public, there has been embarrassing exposure. Crowds of media men and patriots grew to more than 1,000 last spring at the Bilderberg meeting in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Trilateralist are less secretive than bilderbergers, but they always seal off three floors of their hotel with armed guards, and all business is conducted behind closed doors.

The Trilateralists are confident of maintaining the recession through 2012, although it poses a political risk to President barack Obama, who they own hook, line and birth certificate. Like Bilderberg, the trilateral Commission wanted the war in Libya to expand into a Middle east bloodbath. While the war continues, they still hope it would grow into a bigger action that will give some kind of convenient excuse for an attack on Iran.
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American Free Press October 10, 2011

U.S. Covers for Israeli Crimes

By Ralph Forbes

Americans don't know the full extent of bribery, blackmail and murder that Israel will resort to in order to obtain its goals, which are ultimately self-defeating for the Israeli people and may even result in a world holocaust. History proves bribery, blackmail and murder established the state of Israel, resulting in six decades of misery for the Israelis, the Palestinians and indeed the whole world.

The American people, as well as the entire world, especially the Palestinians, are victims of psychological warfare waged by the Mossad, the Israeli secret police whose motto is "by way of deception we shall wage war," and its propaganda efforts, known as hasbara.

The hasbara has supporters of Israel waging psychological warfare by endlessly repeating a few big lies over the worldwide mass media, which it controls. For example, Robert Maxwell, the billionaire international media mogul, was a katsa - a secret agent, a spy for the Mossad - before he was murdered by Mossad agents for trying to extort more money for his acts of treason. Today, rupert Murdoch, the worldwide media mugul, is believed to be at least a sayanim (helper) if not a katsa. Arnon Milchan, is not only a media tycoon but is also a nuclear weapons spy and smuggler for Lakam, another super-secret Israeli agency.

Seven sayanim run the vast majority of U.S. television networks, the Hollywood movie industry, newspapers, magazines, the book and record publishing industry.

Of course, not all media employees are bought, bribed directly or indirectly, blackmailed or intimidated. Most are ignorant, deceived, naive, or just moral cowards.

Pro-Israel advocates effectively employ hasbara to make examples of those who utter forbidden truths, such as journalist Helen Thomas. Even The Jerusalem Post fired senior reporter Larry Derfiner after he posted "The awful, necessary truth about Palestinian terror" on his personal blog. Definer wrote: "What's needed very badly is for Israelis to realize that the occupation is hurting the Palestinians, that it's driving them to try to kill us, that we are compelling them to engage in terrorism, that the blood of Israeli victims is ultimately on our hands, and that it's up to us to stop it by ending the occupation."
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American Free Press October 10, 2011

America Needs Dept. of Peace

It's time for the American people to start thinking and acting the way good citizens of a unique constitutional republic ought to act. They should stand for America first and not pledge their allegiance to any foreign entity or internationalist construct. However, the opponents of a free America work around the clock to destroy our freedoms by lulling us into an internationalist slumber.

President George Washington warned in his "Farewell Address" that the United States should avoid permanent alliances with other countries. Today we have a military presence in over 135 countries. Does this foster world peace, as pundits and politicians like to tell us? Hardly anyone believes that. There is no way that anyone can hide in a world of instant communication.

One touted expert on world affairs and a senior fellow at the internationalist Council of foreign relations is Max Boot, who wrote in a nationally syndicated think piece for The Los Angeles Times that the United states should build nations and not be concerned with this country.

He cited isolationism as a disease that is eating away at the heart and soul of America. "Whenever America has eschewed commitments abroad and turned inward, the results have been disastrous," writes boot. "The most isolationist decade in the country's history - the 1930s - was followed by World War II."

This statement is more nonsensical than one supposedly implying some type of cause-and-effect. Honest historians know that FDR and Winston Churchill needed war to bring the world out of the Great Depression. The U.S., acting as it did in World War I, rushed to Britain's aid. In the Pacific, the U.S. provoked the Japanese into a Dec. 7, 1941 "surprise attack" on Pearl Harbor.

Boot then goes on to cite periods of isolationism among Americans, such as the "Come Home America isolationism" of the 1970s as well as the "isolationism of the 1990s," blaming them for many of the world's ills.

But in truth America's meddling has only exacerbated already powder-keg situations around the world. Our 12 years of fighting a costly no-win war in Afghanistan to perfect the poppy industry has been a shocking disaster except for the poppy growers and heroin dealers.

And remember, the U.S. invaded Iraq to bring down Saddam for allegedly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Nation building was tried in Iraq despite its cost and time, and now the Iraqis hate us even more than they did before we attacked their nation for the second time.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is involved with nation building in Sudan, Chad, the Philippines, Colombia and Mexico. How's that working out?

So what of all the evidence against U.S. meddling in others' affairs? Boot blames this on the fact that nation-building efforts don't get enough money from American taxpayers.

In response, boot suggests, "a news agency, the Department of Peace, to expand our capacity for so-called nation building." Or, does he mean tens of thousands of new bureaucrats?

What America needs to do is give a boot to juveniles like Max Boot.
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American Free Press October 17, 2011

The People vs Wall Street

By Jeffrey Smith

NEW YORK—In addition to the arrest of hundreds of protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge on Oct. 1, a major incident occurred with regard to the Sept. 24 macing of female demonstrators during the ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" demonstration intended to disrupt the N.Y. financial center.

On Oct. 1, this writer joined marchers who proceeded up Church Street, but when they reached Canal Street, police moved in. Although this reporter was not with the main group, witnesses stated that police tackled some of the marchers who were clearly not attempting to become aggressive with those in uniform.

There are Marxist and anarchist elements in the protests, and it's difficult to discern whether there are government or private agencies that have deployed agents provocateurs among the crowd to incite incidents in an attempt to cast the entire protest in a negative light. But local support from conservative groups has helped legitimize the massive demonstration, which calls for abolishing the privately owned and controlled Federal Reserve and expresses outrage at huge salaries of millions of dollars annually paid to employees and officers of international banking groups like Kuhn-Loeb.

The protest continued up University Place toward Union Square, but for reasons still not made clear, a police supervisor, recognizable by his white uniform shirt, stepped forward to spray mace into the faces of women contained within a police barrier.

The response to videos from dozens of digital video recorders in the area has caused an explosion of interest not only across the U.S., but also around the world, after being posted on the Internet.

Another element that has the potential to incite even greater hostilities occurred when the 38,000-member Transit Workers Union voted to support their cause. They are the first major organization to support the marchers.

Joining them were several hundred Continental and United pilots, joined by additional pilots from the Air Line Pilots Association, who descended on Wall Street. The pilots, who were almost all dressed in their uniforms, were in stark contrast to the unorganized youth who had been living for weeks in Zuccotti Park.

A final element adding to the mix is an Internet-based group called "Anonymous" that has threatened to hack into Mayor Michael Bloomberg's business records. There is widespread speculation that this prompted orders for the police to back off.

There is a widespread belief generally expressed among protesters that police actions have their origin in Bloomberg's directives as to how to deal with protesters who don't remain confined to the park.

"It's all Bloomberg and his staff," stated Jeff Burnbeck from Vermont. Others at the scene concurred. The protesters' consensus is that the mace attack and much of the official misbehavior toward demonstrators is a reflection of the mayor and his associates.
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American Free Press October 17, 2011

Federal Reserve to Monitor Internet for Critics

By the Staff of American Free Press

The privately owned (and misleadingly named) Federal Reserve Bank has announced a plan to monitor bloggers and Facebook users to determine whether or not they are engaged in criticism of the American banking system that it views as harmful to the economy.

In a "request for proposal" issued this month and widely circulated on the Internet, Federal Reserve officials stated: "It will establish a fair and equitable partnership with a market leader who will gather data from various social media outlets and news sources and provide applicable reporting to FRBNY. This request for proposal was created in an effort to support [Federal Reserve Bank of New York] FRBNY's social media listening platforms initiative."

The announcement is related to an effort by the federal government to control public opinion through the manipulation of resources available on the Internet. Last month, the U.S. Army announced it would be working with major social media providers, such as Facebook, to aggregate and analyze anti-war material in order to determine whether it is so-called enemy propaganda. This material could then be used by the Army to attack legitimate dissent voiced by American citizens against more unending foreign intervention.

These proposals are also part of a Pentagon program initiated under the reign of President George W. Bush by a group of neo-conservatives who recommended the establishment of an office of propaganda that would control what information regarding American military operations could be disseminated over the Internet.
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American Free Press October 17, 2011

Corruption Plagues Obama

By Victor Thorn

There is a sickness in the White House that leads directly to Chicago's poisonous political machine. Criminality is such a part of Barack Obama's business dealings—and those of his cronies—that corruption comes to them easily.

The latest scandal involves the theft of over half a million dollars by the program director of Chicago's Black Nurses Association. The woman in question, Margaret Davis, is charged with defrauding a variety of state agencies for her own personal benefit. The man who funneled taxpayer money to Ms. Davis is Dr. Eric Whitaker of the Illinois Department of Public Health.

On Sept. 26, journalist Jim Kouri described Whitaker as "Barack Obama's close personal friend, adviser and campaign contributor." The two met in 1992 at Harvard Law School, becoming so close that Whitaker joined Obama during his 2008 Midwest presidential bus tour.

But their history of cronyism extends much deeper. In 2003, while serving as a state senator, Obama had his political fixer Tony Rezko, now a convicted felon, suggest to Gov. Rod Blagojevich, himself impeached and a convicted felon, to appoint Whitaker as state health director.

In this position, Whitaker directed funds to Ms. Davis that supposedly were earmarked for low-income inner city blacks. Further, according to an Oct. 28, 2008 article by Lynn Sweet of The Chicago Sun Times, Whitaker "approved medical construction projects while Rezko and his associates controlled that board, which they used to solicit kickbacks and payoffs."

Interestingly, Obama personally introduced Rezko to banker Alexi Giannoulias, who proceeded to lend Rezko's mobsters $22 million.

Connections to the president don't end there. After leaving his government post, Whitaker signed on with Michelle Obama at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he pulls $670,000 per year at what is called a "no-show job."

A Sept. 19 article in Whiteout Press revealed the importance of this institution: "What Yale University and Skull and Bones were to Bush era political power, the University of Chicago has become in American politics."

To finalize the Chicago way—i.e., quid pro quo or pay-for-play—Whitaker hired Blago's chief of staff as his senior aide at an annual salary of $311,000. Meanwhile, after Chicago Mayor Richard Daley stepped down, his brother, Bill, moved to Washington, D.C. and became Obama's chief of staff. In return, Obama's former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, conveniently took control of the Democratic Party machine as the newly elected mayor of Chicago.

THE TRUMP CONUNDRUM

On Aug. 17, Dr. Jerome Corsi met with "America's toughest sheriff," Arizona's Joe Arpaio, to whom he provided a voluminous amount of information relating to Barack Obama's fraudulent birth certificate. As a result, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has formed a 40-person "cold case posse" to review these documents.

In a press release sent to AFP and other media outlets, Maricopa County spokesman Jesse Spurgin explained, "The goal is to determine whether there appears to be enough evidence to move forward with an investigation."

One of the individuals pursuing this matter is Gary Hubbard of the Illinois Tea Party. During a Sept. 28 interview with this writer, Hubbard dropped a bombshell when asked about Donald Trump's role in and pursuit of the birth certificate issue.

"Prior to the release of Corsi's book Where's the Birth Certificate?, the White House desperately wanted to know what it contained. In the meantime, Trump called Corsi for an advance copy, but then admitted that he never read it. Within a week, Obama's photographically manipulated birth certificate was released."

When questioned specifically about how this book made it into the Obama camp, Hubbard replied: "Corsi indicated that he thought Trump forwarded it to the White House. Trump then dropped the birth certificate topic like a hot potato. How convenient that he hasn't said a word about it since."

Hubbard's suspicions were evident. When asked why he didn't trust the high-profile real estate tycoon, he answered: "If Trump decides to run third party, it'll guarantee Obama's reelection. They're all complicit."

The notion of Obama's chances in the 2012 election also brought an unexpected response: "The Bilderbergers won't put up with Obama's plummeting favorability ratings and inability to govern," Hubbard began. "They're in charge. They have the majority of money in the world, and control most of the rest. There are plenty of things closing in on Obama, from many different directions."

With the ease by which the president's birth certificate can be debunked, AFP inquired as to why supposedly conservative pundits aren't validating this issue. Hubbard was forthright: "Fox News is just as guilty as Congress in the cover-up."

When asked why, Hubbard continued: "Either they've all been bought off, they're worried about some type of ‘accident' happening to them, or there are fears that the black community will riot."

Could the birth certificate issue compromise Obama? In other words, the power elite could expose this forgery, and within days a media onslaught would bring about Obama's version of Watergate.

When posed with this scenario, Hubbard had even stronger ideas: "Obama should be removed from office for treason, not merely impeached. You can't impeach someone that isn't even a legal sitting president."

OBAMA BETRAYS BLACK BASE

When Obama addressed the Congressional Black Caucus on Sept. 25, one of the decade's greatest Freudian slips went virtually unreported. While beating his class warfare mantra like a dead horse, the president suddenly experienced an inopportune teleprompter moment. "If asking a billionaire to pay the same rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor, makes me a warrior for the working class. . . ."

Now certain disgruntled loyalists are whispering that the president sounds more like Jesse Jackson when he called New York City "Hymie Town."

Or did Obama's comment more closely resemble Louis Farrakhan's remark about Judaism being a "gutter religion" and the rhetoric of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the president's former spiritual adviser?

Jews aren't the only ones seething. Many of Obama's strongest base supporters—blacks—were incensed that Obama found it necessary to slip into a stereotypical ghetto dialect during his speech. Worse, their great oratorical hope chided blacks by telling them to "take off their bedroom slippers, stop complainin', stop grumblin' and stop cryin'."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) was particularly annoyed, saying that Obama wouldn't approach Hispanics or gays in the same fashion. Nor would he tell Jews to quit whining about Israel.

Earlier, on Aug. 17, Rep. Waters testified that blacks were getting tired of making excuses for the president. She also wanted to know why, during his recent bus tour, Obama didn't visit any impoverished black neighborhoods. Lastly, on Sept. 9, Rep. Waters insisted that Obama start treating blacks like Iowans, where he is always campaigning.

Jumping on the bandwagon, Princeton University professor and activist Cornell West characterized Obama as "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats."

In addition to these labels, West added, "Barack Obama has a fear of free black men. . . . All he has known culturally is white. When he meets an independent black brother, it's frightening." Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, echoed this resentment when he said there was no leadership in the White House in regard to the economy.

Yet, when all is said and done, will blacks still fall in line and vote for the failed polices of "hope and change"?

Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) conveyed the hypocrisy in a Sept. 18 statement: "If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem [rampant unemployment among blacks], we probably would be marching on the White House." Cleaver added, "There is a less volatile reaction in the Congressional Black Caucus because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president."

Such an attitude, of course, explains in part why five decades of black submission to false leaders like Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and the Congressional Black Caucus have kept blacks shackled by poverty, inner city violence, absentee fathers, drug abuse and 70 percent of children born out of wedlock. .
——
*Order Where's the Birth Certificate (hardback, 392 pages, #WTC, $25 minus 10% for AFP Readership Council members) by calling AFP's toll free charge line at 1-888-699-NEWS.
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American Free Press October 17, 2011

Remembering the Real Montana Freemen

By Pat Shannan

With the passing of Leroy Schweitzer last month in Colorado's super-max federal prison in Florence, questions loom as his family awaits the results of a private autopsy. Over halfway through a 22-year sentence, Schweitzer had been a model prisoner and had never harmed anyone to be put there in the first place. Why was he still under look-down 24 hours a day, seven days a week, next to such notorious killers as mob hit men and alleged "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski?

Memories are stirred when looking back on these events. The few of us privy to the Freemen's side of the story, compared to the millions deluded by media propaganda, knew that Attorney General Janet Reno had unfairly targeted these people. More importantly, we knew why.

Nothing like the disparaging media portrayal of "armed and dangerous," the Montana Freemen were businessmen and ranchers, some even millionaires and one the mayor of Cascade. They embodied true Americanism by demanding government adherence to constitutional law and had little patience with the large majority of Americans that willingly endure the inconveniences of government interference in their lives. The ensuing 81-day siege at the 960-acre Clark Ranch in central Montana was provoked by an unwarranted sneak attack by the FBI and not a frontal assault by these law-abiding citizens who had never swung a punch or been accused of shooting anyone.

Following years of in-depth legal research, Schweitzer and Dan Petersen, both referred to as "leaders" (mistakenly, because the Freemen were never an organized group), began to educate others locally. Soon, however, many students came, from several states. Their legal instruction included the fraud committed against American citizens by the Federal Reserve System, and more importantly, how to counter it.

But the Freemen went beyond merely pointing out this evil. In their anger, they engaged in the same practice of creating funds in an effort to call attention to the crimes of the Fed and, perhaps, bring it down.

They did this by suing federal judges and others while securing what they believed to be "perfected liens" that they converted into certified bank drafts, which were then used to pay off government debt, mainly farm foreclosures and IRS liens.

Feeling the heat, the FBI attacked on March 25, 1996. Agents and their paid informant lured Schweitzer and Petersen into a phony copy machine purchase, then stungunned and beat them into submission. Twenty-two other men and women went into seclusion at the Clark Ranch outside of Jordan in central Montana. It was then the media propaganda blitz began, driving the Freeman to fear being jailed or killed. On June 13, 1996 they finally agreed to walk out of the ranch into awaiting handcuffs, lengthy court hearings and jail. Only Petersen and Russ Landers remain incarcerated to this day.

In 1996, during this writer's first visit to Jordan, Mont., the Freemen showed the evidence of 38 instances where Schweitzer had signed drafts, drawn from funds created from unchallenged summary judgments, and not only paid off liens but received in many cases five-figure government refunds for overpayment. The bank drafts were obviously "money," at least as legitimate as the thin air creations by the Fed.

That's why the federal government considered these men dangerous—not because they might have owned guns and not because they were a physical threat to anyone. It was the Freemen's knowledge—and their passing it on to others—that created the Fed's fear of exposure of its fraudulent system.

Considering the current outrage at the inflation caused by the Fed's creation of trillions of dollars of credit money for the ultra-wealthy, it is fair to assume that the Freemen may have arrived on the scene just a little too early. .
——
The Montana Freemen: The Untold Story by Pat Shannan (1996, softcover, 100 pages, #MF, $15 plus $3 S&H) from AFP, 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100, Washington, D.C. 20003. Call 1-888-699-6397 toll free to charge. Order also online at www.americanfreepress.net.
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American Free Press October 17, 2011

Christians Muzzled in California

California Tells Couple: 'You Gotta Pay to Pray'

By Dave Gahary

The secular elite's continuing assault on this country's white, Christian majority has taken a new turn, this time coming compliments of the Golden State. A California couple has been fined $300 and threatened with more if they continue to praise the Lord with their friends within the confines of their own home.

On Sept. 26, AMERICAN FREE PRESS conducted an exclusive interview with the couple's attorney, Brad Dacus, president and founder of the non-profit Pacific Justice Institute (PJI).

PJI defends religious freedom, parental rights and other basic civil liberties. They are manned by over 1,000 volunteer affiliate attorneys. With the tag line of "Faith, Family and Freedom," PJI has its work cut out for it. In 2010 alone, the institute received over 4,000 requests for assistance, a clear indication of the ongoing attacks by Christianity's detractors.

THE FOUNDATION TO DEFEND THE FIRST AMENDMENT (FDFA) has also stepped forward to assist the cause of freedom. FDFA recently provided much-needed funding to help defend the California family against the state's attack on their religious freedom.

Chuck and Stephanie Fromm of San Juan Capistrano are the latest Christians targeted by the secular elite. Their only supposed crime was hosting Bible study sessions at their home every Sunday with as many as 50 like-minded individuals. They reside in a semi-rural development with ample parking.

AFP asked the Fromms' attorney to summarize the case against them.

"The city of San Juan Capistrano has a policy that says if you have more than three people meeting at your home on a regular basis," explained Dacus, "then you have to pay money—pay homage to the city—to seek their permission and get a conditional use permit. . . .Basically, according to the city, if you want to pray, you have to pay."

Dacus discussed draconian measures taken by city officials. "The Fromms were told by the city magistrate at a hearing that they would be charged $500 for every day they are caught reading the Bible or praying in their home during Bible studies," said Dacus. "So, if this Bible study group meets," he continued, "and they're caught meeting to read the Bible, then they'll be fined $500 a day by the government, to punish them."

The Fromms' troubles are representative of a broader assault on Christianity, wherein a minority attacks the majority. Dacus elaborated: "There are 52 homes in this neighborhood, and only one person complained. This lady has a real attitude problem against Christians."

The city, apparently, is not content with simply stopping the Fromms in their own home.

"The Fromms decided to meet at the clubhouse of the homeowners association," explained Dacus. "The city found out about this gathering and notified the housing association that they couldn't allow the Bible study group to meet there without getting a conditional use permit."

AFP asked why this case is so important. Dacus replied: "There are millions in America that meet every week at a Bible study. So, if we're not successful, the floodgates are going to be wide open for cities and counties across the country to feel at liberty to exercise this same degree of control and oppression. It'll be just the beginning." Dacus concluded by saying, "We are prepared to take this all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary."

——
*FDFA is a nonprofit 501(c)3 that works to defend every American's right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference. Tax-deductible donations can be sent to FDFA, which shares an office with AMERICAN FREE PRESS. Send cash or check to FDFA, 645 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, Ste. 100, Washington, D.C. 20003. No credit cards, please.
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American Free Press October 17, 2011

Israel Readies for Iran Attack

President Obama meets with Prime Minister Netanyahu in New York

By Keith Johnson

A Sept. 23 report by Newsweek journalist Eli Lake reveals that Barack Obama secretly approved the transfer of 55 high-tech bunker busting bombs to Israel during the early days of his administration. Although this disclosure should come as no surprise, it does demonstrate that tensions between Obama and the Israeli government are nowhere near as bad as some claim, and that military cooperation between the two countries is as strong as it's ever been.

Lake's latest piece raises more questions than it answers. Particularly, why did the U.S. shroud this latest deal in such secrecy when previous transfers of the same weapon were transacted conspicuously?

The bombs identified by Lake are GBU-28 hard target penetrators— deadly projectiles that can be launched from Israel's F-15 fighter jets and are capable of destroying heavily fortified targets beneath 100 feet of earth or 20 feet of concrete. They were initially deployed by the U.S. for Operation Desert Storm, but used more extensively in the Battle of Tora Bora on caves during the bombardment of Afghanistan and western Pakistan in 2001 and 2002.

Delivery of at least some of those weapons was confirmed in July 26, 2006 when The Telegraph reported: "Britain has been used as a staging post for major shipments of bunker-busting bombs from America to Israel. The Israelis want the 5,000-pound smart bombs to attack the bunkers being used by Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon."

The article went on to cite defense sources who confirmed: "Two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes filled with GBU 28 laser-guided bombs landed at Prestwick Airport, near Glasgow, for refueling and crew rests after flying across the Atlantic."

Since the transactions were conducted in such secrecy, some are wondering whether Obama had actually approved delivery of a new, more advanced bomb that exceeds that weapon's capabilities?

A nuclear variant of the GBU-28 is the B61-11, which can also be deployed from Israel's existing delivery systems, and—according to the June 1997 edition of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists—is capable of "destroying the deepest and most hardened of underground bunkers, which the conventional warheads are not capable of doing."

In an April 6, 2006 article for The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reported that the Pentagon presented plans to the Bush White House for the deployment of the B61-11 to strike Iran's underground nuclear facilities at Natanz.

There is no doubt that Israel would love to get its hands on such a weapon, though they would not be able to negotiate openly for its procurement. Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and keeps its nuclear arsenal largely under wraps. Any deal would have to be transacted in the strictest confidence, as would the delivery of such a weapon.

So far, neither Newsweek nor any other source has nailed down exactly when the delivery of bombs to Israel occurred. However, one clue is contained in a November 2009 U.S. cable released by Wikileaks, which reads, "The transfer should be handled quietly to avoid any allegations that the U.S. government is helping Israel prepare for a strike against Iran."

Four months later, on March 15, 2010, The Scotland Herald reported: "Hundreds of powerful U.S. bunker buster bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran."

It's reasonable to speculate that the shipment contained munitions that were later transported from this transfer point to Israel via ship or submarine. It would have also been an ideal time to do so. Just days earlier, Vice President Joe Biden had been in Israel urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cease construction of illegal settlements in Jerusalem, and the world perceived that the relationship between the two nations was at an all-time low.
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American Free Press October 17, 2011

Phony ‘Terrorist Plots' Traced to FBI Intrigues

By

In the past decade, Washington has killed, maimed, displaced and made widows and orphans millions of Muslims in six countries, all in the name of the so-called war on terror. Washington's attacks on the countries constitute naked aggression and impact primarily civilian populations and infrastructure and, thereby, constitute war crimes under law. Nazis were executed precisely for allegedly doing what Washington is doing today.

Moreover the wars and military attacks have cost American taxpayers in out-of-pocket and already-incurred future costs at least $4 trillion - one third of the accumulated public debt - resulting in a US deficit crisis that threatens the social safety net, the value of the U.S. dollar and its reserve currency role, while enriching beyond all previous history the military-security-banking complex and its apologists.

Perhaps the highest cost of Washington's "war on terror" has been paid by the Constitution and civil liberties. Any U.S. citizen whom Washington accuses is deprived of all legal and constitutional rights. The Bush/Cheney-Obama regimes have overturned humanity's greatest achievement - the accountability of government to law.

If we look around for the terror that the police state and a decade of war has allegedly protected us from, the terror is hard to find. Except for 9-11 itself, assuming we accept the government's improbable conspiracy theory explanation, there have been no terror attacks on the U.S. Indeed, an investigative program at the University of California discovered that the Domestic "terror plots" hyped in the media were plotted by FBI agents.

FBI undercover agents now number 15,000 - 10 times their number during the protests against the Vietnam War, when protesters were suspected of communist sympathies. As there apparently are no real terror plots for this huge workforce to uncover, the FBI justifies its budget, terror alerts and invasive searches of American citizens by thinking up "terror plots" and finding some deranged individuals to ensnare. For example, the Washington, D.C. Metro subway bombing plot, the New York City subway plot and the plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago were all FBI brainchildren organized and managed by FBI agents.

Online news outlet Russia Today reports that only three plots might have been independent of the FBI, but as none of the three worked they obviously were not the work of such a professional terror organization as al Qaeda is purported to be. The Times Square car bomb didn't blow up, and apparently could not have.

The latest FBI sting ensnared a Boston man, Rezwan Ferdaus, who is accused of planning to attack the Pentagon and the Capitol with model airplanes packed with C-4 explosives. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz assured Americans that they were never in danger, because the FBI's undercover agents were in control of the plot.

Ferdaus's FBI-organized plot to blow up the Pentagon and Capitol with model airplanes has produced charges that he provided "material support to a terrorist organization" and plotted to destroy federal buildings - the most serious charge, which carries 20 imprisoned years for each targeted building.

What is the terrorist organization that Ferdaus is serving? Surely no al Qaeda, which allegedly outwitted all 16 US intelligence services, all intelligence services of America's NATO and Israeli allies, NORAD, the National Security Council, Air Traffic Control, Dick Cheney and U.S. airport security four times in one hour on the same morning. Such a highly capable and competent terrorist organization would not be involved in such foolish nonsense as a plot to blow up the Pentagon with a model airplane.

When I observe the gullibility of my fellow citizens at the absurd "terror plots" that the U.S. government manufactures, it causes me to realize that fear is the most powerful weapon any government has for advancing an undeclared agenda.

Think now about the airliner shoe-bomb plot, the shampoo and bottled water plot, and the underwear-bomb plot. Experts, other than the prostitutes hired by the U.S. government, say that these plots are nonsensical. The "shoe bomb" and underwear bomb" were colored fireworks powders, incapable of blowing up a tin can. The liquid bomb, allegedly mixed up in an airliner toilet room, has been dismissed by experts as fantasy.

The purpose of these make-believe plots is to raise the fear level and to create the opportunity for former Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff to make a fortune selling porno-scanners to the TSA. Truly, Amerika is a light unto the world, an example for all.
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American Free Press October 17, 2011

Paul Says: Stay Out of Foreign Entanglements

By Rep. Ron Paul

The Palestinian National Authority's announcement that it would seek UN recognition as an independent state dominated the news in the United States in late September, though in truth it should mean very little to us. Only a political class harboring the illusion that it can run the world obsesses over the aspirations of a tiny population on a tiny piece of land thousands of miles away. Remember, the UN initiated this persistent conflict with its 1947 partition plan.

Unfortunately the debate is dominated by those who either support the Israeli side in the conflict, or those who support the Palestinian desire for recognition. We rarely seem to hear the view of those who support the U.S. side and U.S. interests. I am on that side. I believe that we can no longer police the world. We can no longer bribe the Israelis and Palestinians to continue an endless "peace process" that goes nowhere. It is not in our interest to hector the alestinians or the Israelis, or to "export democracy" to the region and then reject it when people vote the "wrong" way.

I have reservations abut the Palestinian drive for UN recognition. Personally I with the United States would de-recognize the United Nations. In every Congress I introduce legislation to end our membership in that organization. The UN is a threat to our sovereignty - and a threat to our economic well-being.

Increasingly over the past several years, we see the UN providing political and legal cover for the military aspirations of interventionists rather than serving an international forum to preserve peace. Neoconservatives in the U.S. have grown to love the UN as they co-opt the organization under the guise of endless "reform."Under the sovereignty-destroying doctrine of "responsibility to protect," adopted at the 2005 World Summit, the UN takes it upon itself to intervene in internal conflicts of its member states whenever it believes that human rights are being violated. Thus the Un provides the green light for a kind of global no-knock raid on any sovereign country.

If asked, I would counsel the Palestinians to avoid the UN. UN membership is no guarantee that sovereignty will be respected. We see what happens to UN members such as Iraq and Libya when those countries' leaders fall out of favor with U.S. administrations. Under U.S. and allied pressure a fig leaf resolution is adopted in the UN to facilitate devastating military intervention When the UN gave NATO the green light to bomb Libya there was no genocide taking place. It was a "preventive" war. The result? Thousands dead, a destroyed country and dubious new leaders.

While I do not see UN membership as a productive move for the Palestinian leaders, I do not believe the U.S. should block Palestinian membership. I believe in self-determination of peoples and I recognize that peoples may wish to pursue statehood by different means. As we saw after the cold War, numerous new states were born out of the ruins of the USSR as the various old Soviet republics decided that smaller states were preferable to an enormous and oppressive multinational conglomerate.

The real,pro-U.S. solution to the problems in the Middle East is for us to end all foreign aid, stop arming foreign countries, encourage peaceful diplomatic resolutions to conflicts and disengage militarily in others words, follow Jefferson's admonition in his first inaugural address: "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."
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American Free Press October 17, 2011

Free Trade agreement With Colombia Should Be Nixed

Congressional members are facing increasing opposition in regard to three pending free trade agreements that will further erode America's manufacturing base, the Markets to be opened are located in South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

Despite growing hostility from Democratic colleagues in rust-belt states, as well as his core base of union members, the Obama administration appears to favor an ever-expansive version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) initiated by President George H.W. Bush and passed into law under President Bill Clinton. Although promising more jobs and greater prosperity for Americans, NAFTA legislation over the years has had a toxic effect on the U.S. manufacturing base as well as the financial situation - so much so that some have even started referring to the agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada as NAFTAFA, or the North American Free Trade and Financial Agreement.

Within less than two decades, a number of accounting gimmicks were ushered in to keep the U.S. economy propped up, including the "dot com" Internet bubble, housing bubble and stock market bubble, all of which led to bank bailouts and trillion-dollar stimulus packages used to subsidize state and local governments so they didn't go belly up. Needless to say, a $14 trillion national debt has been created in the process.

Particularly infuriating to labor leaders is the deal relating to Colombia. In a Sept. 26 article, Travis Mannon quotes AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka as saying: "22 union leaders have been killed so far this year in Colombia, including 15 since the Labor Action Plan went into effect between the U.S. and Colombia. While the new government may have good intentions, unfortunately, on the ground, Colombian working families are neither safer nor more able to exercise basic rights. Colombia continues to be the most dangerous place in the world to be a union member," Trumka explained.

This problem has been ongoing for at least a decade. On July 23,2001 journalist Garry Leech wrote: "Almost 4,000 trade unionists have been murdered in the past 15 years. Last year saw 128 labor leaders assassinated. Most of the killings have been attributed to paramilitaries belonging to the United Self-Defense forces of Colombia, who view union organizers as subversives and, therefore, legitimate targets in their dirty war against Colombia's guerrilla insurgents. Three out of every five trade unionists killed in the world are Colombian."

If this many CEOs had been killed in Colombia, does anyone think there would be a possibility that the U.S. would be considering "free trade" agreements with that country?
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American Free Press October 17, 2011

Financial Vultures Circling

By Richard Walker

Alessio Rastani, an independent London-based trader, recently made headlines when he unashamedly declared on British television that "governments don't rule the world; Goldman Sachs rules the world." Within hours, his words reverberated throughout Europe and across the Atlantic. Some accused him of being a fraud, but the BBC said he was genuine. Somehow, the debate about his credibility was a sideshow, missing the real issue that what he said was true about traders on both sides of the Atlantic.

Wall Street titans who emerged flush with money from the 2008 collapse are now hoping to benefit from a perfect financial storm in the U.S as the final months of this year close in. Some experts argue there is no antidote to the economic woes of Europe and the U.S., and resorting to stimulus packages is not the answer. European economists dismiss a 3 trillion euro package that will be used to bolster their currency as a measure that has arrived too late.

One thing is clear: The interconnectivity of global financial markets has made big banks and institutions like Goldman Sachs more powerful than governments. Hedge funds use complex and little-understood mechanisms to make money, often betting on failure as much as success they control our fate, and in the works of London trader Rastani: "This is not a time right now for wishful thinking that governments are going to sort things our. The governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world."

There is little doubt Goldman Sachs and billionaire speculators can cause international economic chaos. One only need consider the history of billionaire George Soros and how he exploited a financial crisis to make himself a cool $1.1 billion. He infamously master-minded the collapse of the English pound in 1992 by betting $10 billion it would be devalued. His entry into the market forced the British government to devalue its currency. In the financial industry, this strategy is known as selling short, and is a favorite ploy of financial wizards. Soros cost the British Exchequer billions of pounds, and a generation of people saw a major decrease in their savings.

Another factor to monitor in the present crisis is how people are justifiably losing confidence if private banking. Nowadays, complex trading among banks is confined to small numbers of high-tech professionals, with the resulting fraud amounting to billions of dollars that can remain hidden for years. Some major companies in Europe, like siemens, have become do suspicious of other banks they have been quietly moving funds to the European central bank. They have probably been motivated by news that banks including HSBC and Barclays are holding hundreds of billions of dollars in loans made to vulnerable European governments and companies.

With growing uncertainty, is it any wonder speculators like Soros go to bed every night dreaming of greater riches, while the rest of us suffer sleepless nights, worrying about how we will make ends meet?

And while mst of us are having nightmares about surviving a deeper recession and a global financial collapse, there are financial traders and speculators rubbing their hands with glee. They are looking to make a killing on the misery of others as the economy worsens.
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

OWS Hits Times Square & Goes Worldwide

By Jeffrey Smith

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demonstrations, in a series of flashing developments, have gained major new support, becoming an undisputed national movement with demonstrations attacking America's secret rulers spreading to 80 cities nationwide.

Occupy rallies, which are also using the name "We're the 99%," are now being held in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas and dozens of other cities. A second major rally is now set for Washington, D.C.

This week has seen a series of marches and rallies in Manhattan and elsewhere around the nation targeting major figures involved in the present economic conditions. New York protestors marched up Manhattan's posh upper east side to the residences of Rupert Murdoch, oil billionaire David Koch and JP Morgan Chase Bank chairman Jamie Dimon.

"What? We get tax increases and they get bailouts?," shouted Michael Sullivan from Virginia as he marched along Park Avenue.

In Chicago police arrested almost 200 protestors when they cleared Grant Park.

"I'd like to ask how is it that Mayor Bloomberg can allow protestors in a public space and Rahm Emanuel won't," one protestor reportedly observed.

Rallies and demonstrations have also spread to at least 60 cities world wide. Demonstrators surged through 60 German cities, including Berlin and Frankfurt. Marchers in London outside St Paul's Cathedral assailed international bankers. In Sidney and Melbourne protestors massed to hand out literature questioning often hidden financial control. Demonstrations also erupted in cities across Switzerland, Portugal, South Africa, Canada, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines.

The leaderless coalition of activists which contain an ultra wide range of political views, early last week gained the critical support of several major labor unions including New York's Transit Workers and the Teamsters. Other major unions followed culminating in a mass rally Oct 5th in New York's Foley Square in which 15 of the nation's largest labor unions rallied with the protestors against top banks and Federal Reserve policies. Significant major negative mention was also made towards recent international adventures and the increasing role of non-governmental organizations (NGO) in the formulation of U.S. governmental policies outside of elected government.

The breakthrough in major support followed a turbulent two weeks which saw N.Y. Mayor Michael Bloomberg apparently order police to place increasingly restrictive limits on the practical movement of protestors outside of their base in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street which ended in a major incident in which women protestors, who appeared non-threatening, were maced. The major incident went viral on the Internet and a group of computer hackers began their own investigation resulting in the controversial naming of the police deputy inspector involved.

Incidents with the city continued until a second group of hackers in support of the protest came forward. In a little recognized event, the second group of hackers let it be known that if any more violence occurred to people simply seeking to exercise constitutional rights, the hackers would target the information systems directly associated with the Bloomberg business empire. Word of the pronouncement quickly spread to key parts of the protest site that evening.

For whatever reason, in the hours after the warning, the visible harassment of the demonstrators in the park greatly diminished. Large groups of police with plastic wrist ties, the amount of police commanders present, drive-bys of police vehicles with flashing lights, city vehicles headlights being projected into the park at late night hours and city legal demands that personal items be brought out of the park, were all reduced or appeared to vanish.

Late last week, in a major victory for the demonstrators, the Bloomberg administration in an eleventh hour decision decided to back off a demand that all demonstrators clear the area "for a cleaning of the park." A chorus of organized labor, civic leaders, religious and political figures so strongly advised the mayor against any plan to oust the demonstrators, that minutes before the "cleaning" was to take place the city relented and allowed the movement to remain in Zuccotti park unmolested.

Another major victory occurred the next day on Saturday Oct 15th when the movement successfully staged a huge rally in Times Square which drew demonstrators from every region of the country, sending a strong message both to city officials and the mainstream media, which expected nothing like the amount of turnout which occurred.

Labor leaders and other key advocacy groups here have recognized that OWS had successes in mounting a serious challenge to Bloomberg, something no conventional group or movement here had achieved. This is considered to be, because OWS's structure prevents the targeting of individual leaders, a standard government tactic of the past. The concept of leaderless resistance first came to wide notice among activists when it was used by a number of major patriotic organizations in the late 70s to early 90s with good initial success.

One demonstrator in Times Square ironically called the world protests a "harmonization of response to international financial rulers". The term harmonization is generally used among world government advocates, which include major banking figures, to describe plans to bring peoples of the world to a single, clearly enforced, level of life experience.

Entrance of major labor leaders to the movement's supporters also means that OWS has access to the legal departments and media relations of some of the unions involved. How this is important, several say, was shown when a second major incident occurred when hundreds of protestors, led in part by several activists holding "End the Fed" signs, used the Brooklyn Bridge for a protest. The resulting major incident resulted in 700 arrests, but also resulted in the Transit Union, defying the city, going into court to block the city from using the services of bus drivers to transport prisoners seized at OWS demonstrations.

But while the major unions have added important new support, they have also brought a series of new decisions which many observers say may be pivotal to the continued progress and ultimate survival and success of the occupy movement.

The huge labor rally of Oct. 5 also, almost all observers say, drew a wide number of liberal and left-leaning movements and organizations which quickly outnumbered the union members in Foley square. These groups promptly began to use the occupy rally both in Foley Square and thereafter at Zuccotti Park to promote a wide array of the outside group's objectives, causing considerable disquiet in legitimate OWS circles and forcing a series of critical policy decisions.

This has already led to two incidents last week. In one, a group of Green Party activists who set a table in front of the occupied protest were asked to leave. This was followed by an incident involving Ron Paul supporters who began distributing campaign literature on Broadway in front of the protest. Occupied activists later explained they had no problem with anyone distributing literature on their ideology, but did not want the area used for the promotion of partisan campaigns for political office.

The last few days have also seen a series of highly suspicious conditions occurring at the demonstration area. In recent days, there has been an influx of people who do not appear genuinely interested in the objectives of the occupy movement.

Several seasoned activists noted that this strongly resembles what occurred under the COINTELPRO government programs of the 1960s and 1970s, which only ceased after Watergate.

The mainstream media, which has been uniformly hostile, immediately fixed on the few vagrants and disorderly individuals who had attached themselves to the movement and produced a series of very negative articles. The MSM became hostile immediately after it became clear that the gathering was targeting the financial sector and the Federal Reserve and that the gathering could not be easily categorized, and attacked in standard left or right fashion.

Rupert Murdoch's New York Post led off the attacks with a series of strongly hostile articles. This was followed by a major incident in which the controversial U.K. tabloid The Daily Mail produced a long, scathing article focusing on every aspect in the protest area which was outside of the intentions of the occupy organizers. In one incident, rally organizers charge that the Mail staged an incident where a "protestor," who they had never seen before, was pictured fouling a police car at the fringes of the rally. The incident and other aspects of the paper's coverage caused widespread criticism of the British press but also had the ironic effect of causing renewed attention in some quarters to the entire subject of London banks' high degree of secrecy and the role they played in the current financial crisis.

In all the OWS rallies a key, if not always highly visible, component has been a notable patriot element which has had its role in keeping the protests vital but has also helped to keep the protests focused on what are considered by many, if not all protestors, to be the three core issues; the banks and the Fed, the general behavior of the finance-influenced government and the other major avenue of power in the country, the operations of the private NGO policy makers.

Addressing the NGOs this week, one protestor called Washington "only the ceremonial seat of government" due to the power of such NGO organizations as the Trilateral Commission, Club of Rome and the Council on Foreign Relations, which has come in for much criticism here due to the country's recent international adventures at a time when domestic economic conditions, including jobs, are in sharp decline.

But while the patriot element has been present since the first day of protest, September 17th, in recent days, patriotic involvement has been less consistent. This has led several leading key patriotic leaders to urgently petition patriots in a 500 mile radius to come to New York or at least attend or organize OWS rallies in a city near them. Patriots are also being strongly directed to contact local and area news media in connection to their activities.

OWS has set up a web site specifically for those seeking to attend or wishing to organize a local or regional rally against America's secret elite. The Web site, www.occupytoghether.org features a locator system which directs those interested to local gatherings.
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

Drones to Monitor U.S. Citizens

By the Staff of American Free Press

Barack Obama's government is expanding its use of remote-controlled drone aircraft from monitoring and killing its enemies overseas to tracking and monitoring average Americans here inside the United States. These are the same drones that the U.S. military claims have successfully assassinated so many of its political opponents abroad.

According to two recent documents circulated by the U.S. Army, the White House is seeking vendors to help it develop "tagging, tracking and locating" technology as part of a network of unmanned drones that would hover over American cities and towns, videotaping people as they go about their daily tasks. They could then use facial recognition technology to feed this information into a centralized database that would allow the government to more efficiently monitor our daily lives.

While the initial deployment of this technology will be in Afghanistan where it will be tested on alleged terrorists and militants who oppose U.S. occupation of that country, the technology is scheduled for American delivery after testing its use in the domestic tracking of citizens.

One of the two contracts to develop this tracking technology has been awarded to Prodigy Systems Corporation, a government contractor that is developing systems which allow the aircraft to create three-dimensional models of their targets in order to track Americans' movements in real time. Their technology is called the "long range, non-cooperative, biometric tagging, tracking and location system," with the non-cooperative referring to the fact that this technology is intended as an intrusion into American's lives.

As a further frightening development, it has been reported that the Army is also experimenting with technologies that would allow these drones essentially to read people's minds by monitoring electrochemical reactions in the brain to supposedly determine if a person has "hostile intentions." One suggested use of this technology is to punish "future crimes" by allowing the police to arrest individuals who are exhibiting hostile intentions before they actually commit a criminal act. This technology is known as the "adverse behavior acquisition collection and understanding system," or ABACUS, and is developed by Charles River Analytics. Modus Operandi, Inc. is developing a competing technology called Clear Heart.

Many of these technologies are merely refinements of existing capacities held by the U.S. federal government, which already uses cellular phone and traffic camera technology to monitor persons and locations across the country. While information from these devices aren't funneled directly to the feds, when the government wants to track the location of a person in recent periods, they issue subpoenas or national security letters to cell phone or local government providers and obtain records that track cellular phone signals, or the tapes of certain locations captured on camera. An effort to integrate facial recognition technology into these applications has been ongoing as well.
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

FBI Stages Iranian ‘Ghost Terror'

By Fred Lingel

The case brought by the FBI against two Iranian men and three Iranian officials for plotting to kill a Saudi Arabian diplomat in the United States looks to be a classic frame-up job in order to distract the public from ongoing problems plaguing the Obama regime.

"This is made up," said Mostafa Abdelzadeh, editor of the U.S. desk at the Fars News Service, a popular Iranian news organ. "Even a U.S. official said there is no evidence linking these men to the Iranian government."

On Oct. 11, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that one of its informants, posing as a member of a Mexican drug trafficking cartel, had framed Manssor Arbabsiar, his cousin, allegedly a general in the Iranian Qods military service, and Ali Gholam Shakuri, an alleged colonel in Qods, for a "ghost terrorism" conspiracy that had been concocted by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

The DEA informant, identified in the federal indictment as "CS-1," allegedly spoke with Arbabsiar, who had been arrested four previous times on petty charges and was likely involved in drug trafficking across the U.S. border from Mexico. CS-1 suggested that he could provide a four-man hit squad to kill a political target in the United States if he was paid $1.5 million dollars. When Arbabsiar agreed, the informant ratcheted up the charges by suggesting a bomb be used—an offense that carries a 35-year mandatory minimum jail term—and engaged in behavior that is typical of other similar FBI frame-ups of innocent Americans, including the use of the phrase "painting a house" for committing a murder—a detail that is straight out of an FBI operational manual and has been used in hundreds of similar murder-for-hire cases around the country.

During the investigation, Arbabsiar, an apparent big talker, was never able to provide the entire $1.5 million or any proof that his relationship with the Iranian government was more than just talk. Instead, according to the indictment, Arbabsiar was only able to come up with just shy of $100,000—money he used as a down payment, and which he hoped to profit from if he could receive Iranian government sanction.

Under U.S. law, the federal government is permitted to attempt to entrap any person that they believe has a predisposition to commit a crime, and can charge that person with "conspiracy" as long as one other person who is not a federal agent or informant is involved in the offense. In this case, the method of entrapment was textbook—from the use of stereotyped "code phrases" such as "to paint a house," to the escalation of the method of attack from a shooting to a bombing, which raised the mandatory minimum sentence.

Typically, in such cases, after being framed for an act of terrorism, the victims are tortured and brutalized by the authorities until they are forced to give a false confession.

According to the indictment, Arbabsiar was beaten into giving a confession only hours after his arrest, and the only evidence definitively linking Arbabsiar to Iran is the confession he gave, which likely came under threats and torture.
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

Journalist Accuses Israel of Fukushima Sabotage

By Richard Walker

A leading Japanese journalist recently made two incredible claims about the Fukushima power plant that suffered a nuclear meltdown in March 2011, sending shockwaves around the world. First, the former editor of a national newspaper in Japan says the U.S. and Israel knew Fukushima had weapons-grade uranium and plutonium that were exposed to the atmosphere after a massive tsunami wave hit the reactor. Second, he contends that Israeli intelligence sabotaged the reactor in retaliation for Japan's support of an independent Palestinian state.

According to Yoishi Shimatsu, a former editor of Japan Times Weekly, these nuclear materials were shipped to the plant in 2007 on the orders of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, with the connivance of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The shipment was in the form of warhead cores secretly removed from the U.S. nuclear warheads facility BWXT Plantex near Amarillo, Texas. While acting as the middleman, Israel transported warheads from the port of Houston, and in the process kept the best ones while giving the Japanese older warhead cores that had to be further enriched at Fukushima.

Shimatsu credits retired CIA agent and mercenary Roland Vincent Carnaby with learning the warheads were being transported from Houston. In a strange twist, Carnaby was mysteriously shot dead less than a year later by Houston police at a traffic stop. He was shot once in the back and once in the chest. He did not have a weapon in his hands. Intelligence sources said he had been tracking a Mossad unit that was smuggling U.S. plutonium out of Houston docks for an Israeli nuclear reactor.

In an even more explosive charge, the journalist says that 20 minutes before the Fukushima plant's nuclear meltdown, Israel was so upset with Japanese support for a Palestinian declaration of statehood that it double-crossed Japan by unleashing the Stuxnet virus on the plant's computers. The virus hampered the shutdown, leading to fallout from a section of the plant housing uranium and plutonium retrieved from the warheads supplied in 2007.

While it is impossible to verify some of Shimatsu's claims, there was a massive cover-up at the time of the Fukushima disaster in March. Explosions at the site were immediately downplayed. While it was subsequently reported that three reactors suffered meltdowns, Japanese authorities tried to rate the disaster as a Level 4 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, although outside experts declared it a 7, which is the highest level.

Something worth noting is how in 2009, two years after Shimatsu says the warheads were secretly moved to Japan, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a veiled warning to Japan not to abandon its anti-nuclear weapons policy.

The IAEA had to know, however, that Japan has long retained the potential to build nuclear weapons. That was made clear as far back as 1996 when a leaked Ministry of Foreign Affairs document exposed how Japan had been promoting a dual strategy in respect to nuclear weapons since the mid-1960s. It would often publicly profess a non-nuclear policy while maintaining the ability to build a nuclear arsenal. The Liberal Democratic Party, which has dominated Japanese politics, has always said there is no constitutional impediment to nukes.

A factor that undoubtedly would have encouraged the Bush-Cheney White House to provide Japan with the means to secretly build nukes was the growing power of China. Cheney and Bush sought to arm Japan and India with nuclear weapons as a means of curbing China.
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

U.S. College Students Owe $1 Trillion to Bankers

By Frank Whalen

Student debt, which now totals nearly $1 trillion, rarely gets the attention that its magnitude warrants. Who's at fault for this looming crisis in America's education sector? According to a new documentary by two respected film makers, the blame lies squarely with Congress.

In Default: The Student Loan Documentary, film makers Serge Bakalian and Aurora Meneghello thoroughly tackle the issue.

According to the film, astoundingly, student loans do not have normal consumer safeguards such as bankruptcy protection, refinancing options and a statute of limitations. They also do not adhere to usury laws, fair debt and collections practices, or truth in lending requirements.

When asked who was responsible for such a tragic state of affairs during an Oct. 6 interview with this writer, both film makers answered in a word: "Congress." It comes directly as a result of legislation passed by Congress, which favors even the most predatory lender over young Americans seeking higher education.

The group Student Loan Justice notes that "in 2005, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act was passed, and included in it a change which removed bankruptcy protections from private student loans."

Ms. Meneghello cited Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), current Speaker of the House, as an example of an elected official who is in the pocket of the lending industry.

In a commentary from January 2006, news website Real Clear Politics stated, "The king of the student-loan business is Sallie Mae. It should surprise no one that Sallie Mae is Boehner's most generous benefactor." The story adds, "Boehner raised $172,000 from student-loan companies during 2003 and 2004."

According to published reports, student loans in the U.S. now total nearly $880 billion, and that is increasing by more than $2,800 per second. If you default on a student loan, you stand to lose everything.

Bakalian expanded on this sentiment, saying, "Wages can be garnisheed, as well as Social Security and disability."

Take the case of Vincent Grande. This 25-year-old Floridian was just weeks away from graduating college when he was killed. His parents were in for even more shock when they learned that not only had they just lost their only son, but they were responsible for $81,000 in student loans. The parents were told: "You co-signed. Too bad."

Ms. Meneghello heard many similar tales while making Default. She told this reporter, "We talked to borrowers all over the U.S. and heard stories of couples contemplating divorce, homes on the verge of being taken away, and even some people who felt they couldn't marry or start a family because they would be placing this financial burden on loved ones."

She hopes this film will inspire some changes in the way things are done.

"I'd like to see bankruptcy protections reinstated for student loans," she said. "This would give lenders an incentive to negotiate with borrowers. Currently, they know they can go after borrowers, so they feel no need to try to work out a deal with them."

Ms. Meneghello said that unlike the adversarial approach to negotiating most loans, borrowers often told her their mistake was that they "trusted my financial aid office." She added: "Students are told that loans for college are good for them because it is an investment in their future. The problem is that people don't often share their own personal experiences because they invested in themselves and in their dreams and now feel like failures."

With the importance that society places on college degrees. yet the lack of available jobs, this reporter asked the film makers if they felt the truths exposed in Default are another reason to not go to college.

After a brief pause, Bakalian responded: "People who want to better themselves and their situations are being saddled with $100,000 of debt. I'd hate to suggest that, but yes."
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

Agent Orange: 50-Year Legacy of Misery

By Dave Gahary

A toxic herbicide known as Agent Orange (AO), named after the orange stripe painted across drums containing the defoliant, continues to wreak horrific biological damage on newborns today, not only in the country where it was irresponsibly sprayed, but in countries where individuals, mostly veterans, of what the Vietnamese call the "American War" had sent them to fight.

President John F. Kennedy approved the large-scale chemical warfare program in August 1961 for use in Vietnam. It officially ended in 1970, although numerous firsthand accounts suggest it was extended past that point and used illegally in Cambodia and Laos.

AO, used to clear the triple canopy jungles of Vietnam, the lifeblood of that country's civilians, contains TCDD-dioxin, the most toxic small molecule known to science. Some 50 years later, Vietnamese forests particularly hard hit by AO are still dead. Research done in 1982, where minute quantities of dioxin-laced food was fed to rhesus monkeys, proved fatal.

On Oct. 7 AMERICAN FREE PRESS conducted an exclusive 90-minute interview with Fred A. Wilcox, the author of Scorched Earth: Legacies of Chemical Warfare in Vietnam, to get a more thorough understanding of the topic. Wilcox, an associate professor of writing at Ithaca College, has been a veteran's advocate, environmentalist and scholar on the Vietnam War for over 30 years.

"Three million Vietnamese, including 500,000 children, are suffering from the effects of toxic chemicals used during the war," explained Wilcox. This number does not include 2.4 million U.S. service members who were in Southeast Asia, nor does it include veterans from other countries such as South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The effects, he said, are caused by dioxin settling in fatty tissues. Then it is transferred into sperm, blood and milk, which then pass the poison on to progeny. Those directly exposed suffer an early demise from various forms of cancer, among other maladies that claim even more victims.

Birth defects observed include cleft lips, absence of nose and eyes, shortened limbs, malformed ears, club feet, deformed forearms, water on the brain, all or part of the brain missing and a variety of heart problems. The most common birth defects are children born without anuses, and chest or belly-linked twins. Some children are delivered without belly skin, thus exposing their intestines and other organs.

The U.S. military turned its back on those who served, telling veterans who complained about the ill effects of their exposure that "they were alcoholics, drug addicts and malingerers and suffered from combat stress." Only in 2009 did the Veterans Administration begin compensation for some AO-related illnesses.

A class action lawsuit brought by Vietnam veterans and their families in 1978 resulted in an out-of-court settlement of $180 million in 1984, a major victory for the companies that made AO, Dow Chemical and the Monsanto Corporation. Vets were left with a maximum payout of $12,000, widows received $3,700, while their children got nothing. However, the court did award more than $13 million in attorneys' fees.

The Vietnamese weren't so lucky. They brought a separate class action lawsuit 20 years later, accusing these corporations of war crimes. The plaintiffs were assigned the same Brooklyn, N.Y. judge that betrayed U.S. Vietnam veterans two decades earlier, Jack B. Weinstein.
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

Secret But Official NSC ‘Hit List' Names Those U.S. Wants Killed

By Pat Shannan

A secret panel of senior advisors from the National Security Council has assumed the power to place anyone, including American citizens, on lists to be killed.

While the president will take most of the criticism, it is actually the panel that was behind a decision to add Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Islamic preacher with supposed al Qaeda connections - to the target list.

Politicos from the both sides of the fence have voiced opposition to this policy. Liberals criticized the drone attack on an American citizen as "extrajudicial" murder, while conservatives accuse Obama of hypocrisy. They note that the Obama administration insisted on publishing Bush-era administration legal memos justifying the use of torture, but refused to make public Obama's rationale for killing a U.S. citizen without due process.

Of greater importance to Americans is the question of what right the president, or any government agency, has to order the death of a fellow citizen without a trial to determine his guilt or innocence.

In response to this charge, an official from the department of Justice was quoted in a memorandum, "What constitutes due process in this case, is a due process in war." Is he not aware that the U.S. has not fought a declared war since 1945?

Throughout history, tyrants have used torture and assassination as a tool to cling to power. But even Adolf Hitler opposed assassination, despite the fact that he was a target himself on at least seven occasions.

In September, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) accused President Obama of circumventing the rule of law and acting as though he was not bound by the Constitution.

Rep. Paul said: "The assassination of American citizens without due process is an impeachable offense," he said. "We have crossed that barrier from republic to dictatorship to tyranny."
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

Romney Calls for New Century of War  

By Ralph Forbes

The Citadel in Charleston, S.C. is brimming with history and symbolism. South Carolina also happens to be a key state in the Republican primaries. It is an ideal setting for a patriot - or even a chicken hawk phony - to deliver a major campaign speech. And that is why Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney chose this state to introduce on Oct. 7 his vision for a "New American Century" of more wars and global occupation.

As a former Marine, this writer identified with the 2,100 cadets, who have contributed 1,400 of their classmates to the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. I was sickened by the thought of these young Americans being cold-bloodedly used as props in a slick political campaign - to be used as cannon fodder for profits - sacrificed to cynical schemes of a foreign power.

Why doesn't the establishment media remind Romney of what he said, when asked in 2007, why none of his five sons - all perfect candidates for military service had come forward to serve in the war that Romney supports enthusiastically? His response was "My sons are adults. They've chosen not to serve in the military in active duty, and I respect their decision in that regard.. And one of the ways my sons is showing support for our nation is helping me get elected, because they think I'd be a great president."

The mainstream media also let Romney get away with it when he said, "Since 1842, every tyrant, petty thug or great power that threatened America learned that if you wanted to take on America, you were taking on the Citadel. That's a line of heroes that's never broken and never will be." Romney didn't say that Citadel Cadets were in the first battles of Ft. Sumter - and valiantly fought for the Confederacy to the bitter end against tyranny in the War Between the States.

But the real meat of his talk on Oct. 7 was his vision of the future. The following are excerpts of what Romney had to say in which he advocated more global meddling and more wars:

We are at war with Islamic fundamentalism. We must fight against the most ancient of prejudices: anti-Semitism.

In my first 100 days in office, I will announce an initiative to increase the shipbuilding rate from nine per year to 15.

I will begin the full deployment of a multilayered national Ballistic missile defense system.

I will enhance our deterrent against the Iranian regime by ordering the regular presence of aircraft carrier task forces, one in the Eastern Mediterranean and one in the Persian gulf region. I will begin discussions with Israel to increase the level of our military assistance and coordination, an Iranian nuclear weapon is unacceptable.

I will launch a campaign to advance economic opportunity in Latin America - free trade.

I will reaffirm as a vital national interest Israel's existence asa Jewish state. I will count as dear our special relationship with the United Kingdom.

We have this promise from a shameless chicken hawk: Nuclear war against Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan and billions of Muslims in the Middle East. Of course, this means no money for the American middle class, as well as an end to jobs, Social Security, Healthcare, tax relief and infrastructure. Endless trillions will continue to go down the black holes of the military-industrial banking police state.
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

Cabal of Rabid Warhawks Advising Mitt Romney  

By Ralph Forbes

The American media is strangely silent about Mitt Romney's shadow National Security Council, the 50-plus madmen Romney has surrounded himself with as "foreign policy advisers" - many of whom helped push the U.S. into the disastrous war against Iraq. Romney had the chutzpa to name his foreign policy after the Project for a New American Century, the neo-con dream of a new Pearl Harbor that was fulfilled on 9-11. Several include:

MICHAEL HAYDEN: On CNN (2010), former CIA director and prominent torture advocate, Michael Hayden said attacking Iran over its nuclear program might not be a bad idea. "In my personal thinking, I have begun to consider that nuclear war may not be the worst of all possible outcomes."

ELIOT COHEN: Insanely used the 9-11 attacks to advocate war with Iran. Cohen, director of the strategic studies program at Johns Hopkins University, said either we attack Iran, or it gets nukes. "The choices are now what they ever ware; an American or an Israeli strike, which would probably cause a substantial war."

ERIC EDELMAN: Former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. Earlier this year in an article in the Council of Foreign Relations's publication Foreign Affairs, Edelman, along with two other co-authors, said that the U.S. will either have to attack Iran or contain its nuclear weapons capability. "The military option would not be dismissed because of appealing but flawed notion that containment is a relatively easy or low-risk solution to a very difficult problem," they wrote.

NORM COLEMAN: Former Republican senator from Minnesota. Said that if Israel ever attacks Iran, the United States should join in. Coleman said: "The United States is going to be part of that."

KIM HOLMES: The Heritage Foundation's Kim Holmes worried that negotiation with Iran over its nuclear program might be preventing the U.S. from using military force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Holmes called peace a "serious mistake."

Should Mitt Romney become president, get ready for more undeclared war, bigger government and a further expansion of the police state.
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

Rick Perry Lying About Jobs In Texas  

By Mark Anderson

Rick Perry's presidential campaign says that 384,000 jobs have been created in Texas from August 2009 through August 2011, more than double any other state in the nation. He also claims that Texas employment grew 85 percent faster than in California, New York, Illinois, Florida and Pennsylvania. But according to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), most Texas job-creation is being fed by a constant flow of immigrants - both legal and illegal.

A CIS report specifies, "About 40 percent of all job growth I Texas since 2007's second quarter, right before the recession began, and the second quarter of 2011, "Total employment in Texas increased by 279,000. Of this, 225,000 jobs went to immigrants (legal and illegal) who arrived in the United States in 2007 or later.

So, more than three-fourths of the job growth in Texas can be attributed to newly arrived non-citizens - legal and illegal, while native-born, longtime Texans are on the margins of their own job market.

In addition, a little-known development is that Perry, via state Senate Bill 1048, went well beyond the Trans Texas Corridor concept of building and leasing public toll roads for the benefit of foreign investment entities by adding many other kinds of public assets to the mix.

"We are basically marrying these investment corporations with the state here in Texas," vigilant Texas activist Terri Hall told this writer. She added that S.B. 1048 was reportedly written by Balfour Beatty, a British infrastructure firm. The Texas assets that mainly foreign investors would financially support include "mass transit, telecommunications, our capitol building and every kind of public building," Ms. Hall said.

"Rick Perry is going to hock it all up on the auction block for Wall Street so [they largely foreign corporate elites] can charge lease payments to get paid back for their public investments," Ms. Hall said.
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

Americans Demand Real Change  

By Keith Johnson

Throughout the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that began on Sept. 17, heavy-handedness by the New York City Police Department has proven to be decisively biased against protesters. Hero Vincent, a 21-year-old activist from Connecticut, has been on the ground in New York from the beginning of the protests and has already been subjected to two high-profile arrests by the NYPD.

Vincent spoke with this writer on Oct.5. When asked about his first arrest, Vincent told AFP that he was one of more than 100 protesters arrested at 12th Street and University Place on Sept. 24.

"My arrest was kinda like the ‘face of the arrests' because it got a lot of video footage and news coverage," said Vincent. "I was charged with three felonies including assault on a police officer and harassment."

In relating what led to that arrest, Vincent said that he was simply trying to help a female friend get to her feet after she'd been knocked to the ground by police officers. The entire incident was caught on tape, which Vincent describes: "The footage shows a police officer punching me in the face a couple of times and knocking me over a barrier while four cops beat me with batons and kick me in my stomach."

Vincent was also one of more than 700 protesters arrested while trying to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. "I was in the first group," Vincent told AFP. "They [police] led us onto the bridge - and then halfway across - cut us off from both ways."

While trapped on the bridge, police told the crowd that if they didn't disperse, they'd all be taken into custody. "But there was no way to get off the bridge, " said Vincent, "so we were arrested."

"We're here for change," declared Vincent. "But no Obama change, because that's only made things worse." When asked if he believes Wal Street to be the sole problem, he said: "It's the Federal Reserve, too." "They continue to print money out of nothing and devalue our currency. It's banks, corporations and politicians. It's an organization of atrocities."

And organized they were. Before activists took to the streets to occupy Wall Street, the nation's second largest banking institution was already making preparations to protect itself from potential riots. On June 14, online magazine City Arts covered the NYC Police Foundation's 40th anniversary and mentioned that JPMorgan Chase had "recently donated $4.6 million.

According to the Chase website: "The gift was the largest in the history of the foundation and will enable the NYC Police department to strengthen security."

Less than three months earlier, on March 22, Business Insider reported that Service Employees International Union leader Stephen Lerner had a secret plan to target some of the beggest banks in the world. According to this article Lerner wanted to attack JPMorgan Chase in spring with demonstrations on Wall Street, protests at the annual shareholder meeting, and then calls for a coordinated mortgage strike."
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

Protesters Gather in Front of White House  

On Oct. 8 nearly 200 protesters clashed with security guards at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, resulting in many of them being pepper sprayed by police and causing the museum to close down. As the Occupy Wall Street protests spread from New York to Washington and to several other major cities across the U.S., the nation's capital has seen thousands of demonstrators imitating the style of the New York protesters.

For the duration of the long Columbus day weekend, crowds of people camped out in Freedom Plaza, a park in front of the White House, turning it into a makeshift shantytown. Another group protested in McPherson Square, While others marched along NW K Street, the enclave of the high-priced corporate lobbyists.

The crowd was characterized by an eclectic array of political issues. There were socialists, End the Fed protesters, anti-Wall Street marchers and activists from Code Pink and Stop the Machine. There were also anti-war activists, old hippies and an assortment of unrelated anti-establishment organizations.
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Left-Right Unite  

By Michael Collins Piper

The Second American Revolution has begun. Both Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the Tea Party represent growing dissatisfaction on the part of grassroots Americans with the powers-that-be: The plutocratic interests that dominate both major political parties.

The big money interests that reign supreme dictate the course of America's economy through their domination of the Federal Reserve System and the allied families and financial groups who control the mass print and broadcast media in America. Through their greedy influence they profit at the expense of the American people, manipulating U.S. policies—both foreign and domestic—in pursuit of their ultimate dream of a New World Order.

They are looting the American economy even as they redirect American industry abroad, resulting in increasing unemployment and deprivation at home and the institution of a slave labor system in lands abroad.

In addition, they are responsible for the wars of imperial domination in the Middle East and worldwide, further bankrupting the U.S. treasury, even as Americans—at home—are told to surrender their traditional reliance on government programs—safety nets—that ensure decent healthcare and reasonable standards of living for the poor and the working middle class.

All the while, the Wall Street money kings—such as Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of international banking giant, Goldman Sachs, who pulls down over $100 million per year in cash and bonuses—have lined their own pockets while squeezing every last cent they can from the pension funds of working Americans who suffer as a consequence.

These pirates operate through shadowy power blocs such as the Bilderberg meetings, the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations and through tax free foundations and think tanks. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are central to their global mechanism of control.

And while these plutocratic plunderers use their considerable resources to direct the course of public debate— attempting to infiltrate and subvert dissident political movements—there is a very real undercurrent of anger rising against their intrigues. Although the plutocrat-controlled media seeks to pit OWS and the Tea Party against one another, the two groups have much in common: The spiraling popular dissent is a remarkable convergence of the traditional "left" and "right" that—combined—makes a mighty force to quash the ruling elite.

This weekly newspaper, AMERICAN FREE PRESS, stands with the American people who are making their voices heard. Consider AMERICAN FREE PRESS your voice: A tribune representing the vanguard of those standing united for populism versus plutocracy—the universal struggle.

Get in touch with AMERICAN FREE PRESS—your weekly force for the American people and a growing power to restore freedom. Call toll free 1-888-699-6397 and subscribe for as little as $5 per month.
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American Free Press October 24, 2011

AFP Staffer Ignites Federal Reserve Protest  

By Dave Gahary

As the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, which began Sept. 17 in Manhattan, spreads rapidly across the globe, a small protest broke out in Washington, D.C. in front of the privately owned "Federal Reserve." Those in attendance were attempting to draw attention to an issue that many consider far more important than how corporations influence politicians to the detriment of average citizens, which is a main complaint of the OWS movement.

While the "End the Fed" protests in Washington, D.C. first started in 2008, AFP'S bookstore director, Olga Belinskaya, played an integral part in restarting it on Oct. 9 of this year, connecting it with the OWS movement.

Miss Belinskaya was photographed in front of the Fed lighting a $20 Federal Reserve Bank note on fire. After her point had been made, three others spontaneously joined her in the "Burn the FRN" protest. It is not yet widely known, but every Fed note actually represents debt, on which Americans must pay interest to the private bank.

During an Oct. 14 interview with AFP, Miss Belinskaya discussed how the protest unfolded in what might be called "Occupy the Fed."

"A group of Occupy DC people from Freedom Plaza had some banners that said ‘Audit the Fed,' ‘End the Fed' and ‘The Fed Owns Obama.' So, we took a megaphone and called a bunch of people to walk over to the Fed with us," she explained.

"We got a group of about 60 people," she continued, "and we walked together for probably 40 minutes, and everybody was really pumped up. When we finally arrived at the Federal Reserve, I went over to a guy with a megaphone and said, ‘Hey, why don't you use it to call a bunch of people over so we can burn some money?' He did, and three people came over, and we all, very quickly, without any planning, took a lighter to the bills. It turned out that half the people in the crowd were either journalists or had cameras. They took pictures, and one happened to be an AP reporter. So, he released it."

The photo of burning debt money quickly spread across the Internet and found its way into The Kuwait Daily, among other publications.

AFP asked Miss Belinskaya whether people should be paying attention to the Federal Reserve. "Yes, because that's where the money comes from, a private corporation that prints money," she said. "That's their product. I would encourage more people to burn their money, even if you just burn it in your backyard or on the street. Just do it for yourself."

Do you recommend any particular denomination, asked AFP? "I know $20 is a lot of money," she said. "Maybe not to bankers but it certainly is to me. If you burn a $20 instead of spending it, then it clearly shows that the world didn't stop. I'm the same person as before. It's an artificial tool used by bankers to control us, and it doesn't have to make or break the circumstances. I knew that before, but watching it turn into ash just gives it more weight in my mind."
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Fighting Back Against Civil Forfeiture Laws  

By Keith Johnson

Tewksbury, Mass. – Up until recently, Russ Caswell has been living the American dream. For more than a half-century, he and his family have operated a modest motel his father built in 1955. He owns the property free and clear and was expecting to retire in the near future. But thanks to unconstitutional civil forfeiture laws being enforced by the federal government, Caswell's plans have been cut short, and his dream has been turned into a nightmare.

The ordeal began two years ago when Caswell and his wife each received letters from the feds notifying them that their million-dollar property was being seized.

"I couldn't believe it," recalls Caswell, who spoke to this AFP writer on Oct 13. "You expect something like this to happen in Cuba or Soviet Russia, but not in the United States."

Caswell said he has been a law-abiding American and a well-respected member of his community for his entire life. He diligently paid his operating permits and has passed more than a dozen yearly inspections by the fire department and the Board of Health. But because a handful of people who rented rooms from the Caswells between 2001 and 2009 were arrested on drug offenses, the Department of Justice—working in cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Tewksbury Police Department—has moved to take Caswell's property by way of federal "civil forfeiture" laws.

In the end, Caswell could end up with nothing after the feds sell his property and split the proceeds through an "equitable sharing arrangement" that would award the Tewksbury police with an 80 percent share and the federal government with the rest.

"I never knew about these laws," says Caswell. "The first time I found out I was in any kind of trouble is when I opened my mailbox. I felt like I was being robbed. But instead of putting a gun to my head, these people used a pen."

One of the things that troubles Caswell most is that he has always cooperated with the police and believed they had a good working relationship.

"I call them at the first sign of trouble," says Caswell. "I've put up signs, installed cameras, and I've opened up my books so the police could see if someone that they were looking for was staying here. They never complained or said I wasn't doing enough."

For the past two years, Caswell has not only suffered a loss of business from negative publicity, but he has also spent tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees.

"They the government wanted me to settle," says Caswell, "and I guess most people would. But I've done nothing wrong, and I'm not about to go that route."

Due in part to dwindling funds, Caswell recently enlisted the help of the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that fights civil forfeiture abuse nationwide. Larry Salzman is a lawyer with the firm who recently spoke to AFP about Caswell's case.

"Civil forfeiture cases really treat innocent property owners worse than criminals," says Salzman. "Criminals must be proven guilty before property is taken. But once the federal government targets property for civil forfeitures, not only does the owner have to prove that they didn't know anything about the crime, they also have to prove that they did everything possible—without putting themselves in harm's way—to stop it."

When asked if the Caswell case was unique, Salzman replied: "The federal forfeiture fund has more than $1.6 billion in revenue it's generated in the past year. There are a lot of properties being taken in this manner. It's an expensive proposition to take on the government. Many find that it's simply easier to settle out of court. That's why abusive forfeiture cases are rarely reported."

He went on to say: "Allowing police to keep the proceeds of forfeited property gives the direct financial incentive to abuse power. In a case like this where an agency stands to get more than $1 million from a single forfeiture, I think that shows that fair and impartial law enforcement doesn't exist."

Salzman also believes the Caswells have been victims of selective enforcement.

"If they the government go after the Holiday Inn, they have to deal with their corporate lawyers," he said. "But if they go after the Motel Caswell, they're only dealing with a family with a mortgage-free property."

The Caswells are expected in court on Nov. 8. "We're going to argue that the forfeiture laws themselves are in excess of federal powers," says Salzman.

"And we're going to argue that the punishment involved in this case violates the excessive fines clause of the U.S. Constitution."

For more information on the Caswells, please visit their Facebook page, Friends of Russ Caswell.
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Money for Everyone—Except Americans  

By Christopher J. Petherick

One of the top Republican legislators in Congress says Washington has enough money for more wars and foreign aid, but when it comes to helping tax-paying Americans devastated by natural disasters, they'll get zilch.

After three acts of God tore through Louisa, Va. in a matter of weeks last August, the congressman who represents that area, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), declined to help the small rural community just outside of Richmond pay for an estimated $18 million in property damage.

On Aug. 23, Louisa found itself at the heart of a 5.8 magnitude earthquake that rattled the entire East Coast. Less than a week later, on Aug. 26, Hurricane Irene sideswiped the area. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, a month later, a tornado touched down near the town, causing even more damage.

Despite this, Cantor made it clear that he would not support disaster relief—even for his own constituents who sent him to Washington to represent them—unless it was offset by spending cuts.

But Cantor has no problem sending American tax dollars to wealthy countries like Israel. In fact, last year, Cantor sought to insulate Israel from congressional efforts to scale back the $50 billion that American taxpayers handout to foreign governments annually by creating a special Israeli aid program in the U.S. military that was outside normal State Department budgetary channels.

According to estimates, Israel receives around $3 billion every year from the U.S. But Yitzhak Benhorin, a reporter for Israel's Ynet News, contends that it is usually more than that. Benhorin writes that Israel remains the "biggest beneficiary of U.S. foreign aid. . . . A couple of years ago, the Bush administration approved a $30 billion aid budget to Israel, spread out over a decade."

And it's not like Cantor is a lone voice in his party defending aid to Israel at the expense of American taxpayers.

All of the Republican presidential contenders except for Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) believe aid to Israel is sacrosanct. During the Republican presidential debate on Oct. 18, Paul stood out among his fellow candidates, saying that the U.S. should cut handouts to Israel in order to save taxpayers money.

"I would cut all foreign aid," he said in response to a question on Israel. "I would treat everybody equally."

Herman Cain and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) nearly stumbled over each other for the opportunity to come to Israel's defense.

"We should not be cutting foreign aid to Israel," countered Rep. Bachmann. "The biggest problem with this administration and foreign policy is that President Obama is the first president since Israel declared her sovereignty who put daylight between the U.S. and Israel."

Cain quickly added, "If we clarify who our friends are, clarify who our enemies are, and stop giving money to our enemies, then we ought to continue to give money to our friends, like Israel."
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

NY Newstand Told Not to Sell Copies of AFP  

By Victor Thorn

On Oct. 12, Nazarius Cavan, a member of the AFP Distributor Program, contacted this writer to report that two New York City newsstand owners had been harassed and intimidated into removing, at least temporarily, the latest issue of AMERICAN FREE PRESS from their news racks.

To get further details, Norby Walters, an employee on the scene, told AFP, "I received a phone call from our store at 33rd St. near Penn Station stating that we had an hysterical man complaining. So, I went to that location to find this person screaming and accusing us of selling papers that promoted anti-Semitism."

Unable to speak rationally with this individual, Walters replayed what happened next.

"This man, who didn't identify himself and continued to act like a bully, said he intended to call the ADL or JDL and have 100 Jews protest in front of our newsstand."

Even more incredibly, the man promised to "have Mayor Bloomberg shut down our operation."

After the man issued these threats, Walters showed him a copy of AFP's issue 42, pointing out that it wasn't anti-Semitic.

Commendably, Walters refused to back down by responding: "If you represent Jewish people and treat me like a piece of crap, then I deserve an apology. It's people like you that create anti-Semitism in the first place."

After the protester left, Walters called his boss—who is Jewish—and was told to pull all copies of AFP, and then put them back on the racks later.

As Walters returned to work, Cavan resumed his conversation with AFP. "The reason I distribute copies of the newspaper at Penn Bookstore and the other two newsstands is because they're prime locations. It's always busy."

When asked what he thought would result from this altercation, Cavan predicted, "I think we may have more trouble with the ADL now that this incident happened."
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Saving Money, Losing Privacy, Tracking Your Every Move  

By Frank Whalen

In the wonderful world of total surveillance, another carrot is being dangled before consumers: The promise of cheaper car insurance rates with a new option called Pay-As-You-Drive, or PAYD. The idea is that drivers will only be charged premiums based on usage. According to State Farm Insurance: "Premiums could be set, along with other rating factors, by ranges of miles driven, by actual miles driven, or sometimes by either hours or miles driven. In theory, it helps match price to risk: the fewer miles driven, the greater the savings."

It all sounds like a good thing, but the carrot comes with a stick: State Farm adds that their program utilizes a Global Positioning System (GPS) device. In some cases, they can even monitor driving behavior such as braking and acceleration so insurance companies can set rates based on these factors.

According to a State Farm representative, PAYD program rates are initially calculated based on the length of commute between workplace and home, existing driving records, as well as age. When asked for details on the GPS component, an agent told this reporter, "I don't know much about that, as it is not yet available in every state." Another agent was surprised to hear of the GPS aspect, calling it "Big Brother stuff."

The potential for abuse is obvious. While enticing customers with the promise of cheaper rates, a private company could have access to information that far exceeds the scope of insurance premium pricing.

This information could also be misinterpreted. In June 2001, CNET News reported the story of James Turner, who was fined $450 by Acme Rent-a-Car after speeding in a rental vehicle. GPS enabled the company to determine supposed infractions. "When Turner contested the charges, Acme was able to point out on a map exactly where he exceeded the company's threshold speed of 79 mph." Finally, it won a court ruling so that Turner would have the amount deducted from his debit card.

An insurance company would also be privy to any information that could be used to unjustifiably raise rates. The burden of oversight would fall upon consumers. Obviously, the difficulty of proving that a certain maneuver did not constitute reckless behavior at a certain date, time and location seems almost impossible. Finally, an insurance company would be able to track everywhere a driver goes, effectively removing Americans' constitutional right to privacy.

Other concerns would be the protection of a customer's personal information, both from hackers and from law enforcement agencies invoking aspects of the PATRIOT Act. In 2007, a Justice Department audit of the FBI's misuse of national security letters unequivocally declared: "Agents demand personal and business information about individuals—such as financial, phone, and Internet records—without court orders."They added: "As many as 22 percent of national security letters were not recorded, and the letters were issued without proper authority, cited incorrect statutes or obtained information they weren't supposed to."

The Environmental Defense Fund lauds this program, writing: "Mileage or usage-based insurance provides a strong incentive to drive less, helping to ease congestion and reduce tailpipe emissions." Citing a study, they report that in embracing such an option: "Total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would go down by 2 percent and oil consumption by 4 percent, helping to stabilize our climate and reducing America's dependence on foreign oil."

On Oct. 10, 2008 the UK Commission for Integrated Transport "proposed a nationwide blanket of speed cameras as a means of fighting global warming." However, trials showed that it would be "impossible to drive on any primary road in Britain without being tracked and subjected to an instant fine for exceeding the posted speed limit."

As many examples clearly show, programs said to be for the public good or of a personal benefit rarely live up to their magnanimous promises. More often than not, there is a tidy profit involved for companies and governments, and through choosing to participate, citizens allow for an ominous expansion of surveillance. Like many programs before it, Pay-As-You-Drive fits this model perfectly.
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Conservative Celebrity Questions Obama's Natural-Born Claims  

By Victor Thorn

The 1950s pop star Pat Boone recently announced that he didn't believe Barack Obama's claims of being born in America. Boone revealed on Sept. 16: "I was in Kenya about a year and a half ago, and everybody said, ‘You know he was born here.'Why else would he be hiding all his records?"

Obama's "original" birth certificate (released by the White House on April 27) has been blasted as a fake document. Individuals on the Internet have provided step-by-step instructions on how to dissect the eight computer-manipulated layers used in this forgery. Even high school students on the Internet have illustrated the shabby work of those who doctored up this document.

Yet, considering the ease in which Obama's birth certificate can be debunked, the controlled media still walks in lockstep with their government overlords by refusing to genuinely investigate this matter.
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Kucinich Money Bill Can Unify Protesters  

By Mark Anderson

As the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement enters into its second month, will a sizable number of protesters move beyond listing various grievances regarding corporate greed and rampant joblessness, in order to search out specific solutions that would represent lasting, fundamental changes for the better?

Well, a story recently posted on this website, about a proposed bill for permanent and historic reform of the monetary system, drew a lot of traffic. It's just a question of whether OWS, a diverse movement that wears a lot of ideological hats, can agree on the common enemy with enough passion and focus to see what must be done: Dethrone the bankers' system, and carefully consider what to replace it with.

So far, AFP is hearing that such a consensus is "not there" yet. But there are some basic trends that could change that.

The proposed monetary reform bill, introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), is known as the "NEED" bill (the National Employment Emergency Defense Act, HR 2990). It came along just four days after rising public frustration over economic servitude for "the 99 percent" gave way to perhaps the biggest American uprising since the Vietnam War days.

This uprising started Sept. 17 in New York and by Oct. 6 had spread to the streets of Washington, Boston, and even to places as distant as McAllen in far-southern Texas and dozens of other large and small towns. Demonstrations also erupted in cities across Switzerland, Portugal, South Africa, Canada, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines. OWS indeed can do a world of good, provided it does not fizzle and is not broken up by police, nor co-opted by insider sophisticates posing as populists.

The best thing that could happen, based on today's hard economic and political realities that AFP has studied closely, is for this globe-girdling movement to truly wise up to the system of the financial overlords, so the "heat" of protest can lead to the "light" of inquiry and to real, lasting reforms—specifically by permanently replacing this predatory monetary system with something that liberates the people from debt slavery and makes the production and sale of goods and services flow normally, leading to prosperity.

After having received reader feedback on the constitutionality of HR 2990, this reporter found the following statement by Rep. Kucinich, representing his view and placed in the Congressional Record: [Volume 157, Number 141, Sept. 21, 2011, House, Page H6343]:

"Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant to the following: The constitutional authority on which this bill rests is Article I, Section 8, which enumerates the power of Congress to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures. The bill will re-assert the sole grant of constitutional authority to Congress to create money."

Of course, if Congress reasserts this sole constitutional power, then, by definition, the private banking system, at the top of which sits the Federal Reserve as far as these United States are concerned, must be denied the awesome power of money creation. Having that power in private hands, metaphorically speaking, arrogates the Federal Reserve Note above America, showing that bankers and their partners in credit-rating agencies have the captain's seat in a command economy—to their perpetual profit as princes of "the 1 percent" caste.

HR 2990, referred to the House Financial Services Committee as of Sept. 21, has five general headings, or titles and 33 sections. Title 1 is "Origination of United States Money," indicating that Federal Reserve Notes would be pushed aside by U.S. Treasury money, or what the bill refers to as simply United States Money.

Title 2 is "Entry of United States Money Into Circulation." Title 3, perhaps the touchiest, is "Reconstruction of the Federal Reserve System." Title 4 is "Transitional Arrangements." And the fifth title is simply "Additional Provisions."

As telling as some of these broad titles are, the details within them cover a lot of ground and may appeal to liberals, conservatives and many points between—perhaps as diverse as the protests themselves.

The bill champions a lot of libertarian and conservative goals by denying the Fed money-creation authority, which resonates with many socialists and liberals as well. Yet, title 5 has section 508 ("universal health care funding") and section 506 ("Social Security trust funds") which are traditionally liberal-Democratic themes but are often seen by conservatives as schemes leading to massive debt, waste and abuse.

However, if money is created free of interest, as this bill, if passed, would mandate, the mechanism to provide or sustain such programs would differ greatly from what we have today—where every attempt to make major changes or create a social safety net is saddled with debt.

In the bill, the Social Security part's entire wording is: "The Secretary in consultation with the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds shall submit to the Monetary Authority any requests to cover impending deficits in Social Security Trust Fund accounts."

In other words, with new interest-free money comes a perceived means of shoring up suffering funds, something that ought to draw the attention of aging baby boomers and younger citizens who feel Social Security will die before they get old.

Title 5 (Section 501) also contains "direct funding of infrastructure," while another section (507) is, interestingly, "initial monetary dividend to citizens." The latter, at least very generally, happens to resemble part of the "social credit" monetary reform first proposed by Maj. C.H. Douglas in the early 20th century; he called it a national dividend. Here is Section 507:

". . . the Secretary [of the Treasury], in cooperation with the Monetary Authority, shall make recommendations to the Congress for payment of a Citizens Dividend as a tax-free grant to all United States citizens residing in the United States in order to provide liquidity to the banking system at the commencement of this Act, before governmental infrastructure expenditures have had a chance to work into circulation. . . . The Secretary shall maintain a thorough study of the effects of the Citizens Dividend observing its effects on production and consumption, prices, morale, and other economic and fiscal factors."

The Monetary Authority, a U.S. Treasury entity under the bill, also would establish the criteria for "interest-free lending of United States Money to state and local government entities, including school boards and emergency fire services . . ." (Section 510)

No one is saying the Kucinich bill is perfect, though its timing and content call for the attention of the protesters and all other concerned Americans at this pivotal time in history.

The legislation does nationalize—and therefore does not completely dissolve—the Federal Reserve, and in fact it calls for placing a specific "Fed" component within the Treasury Department. The Federal Reserve Board as we know it would be disbanded but a "Federal Reserve Bureau" within the Treasury is created.

This bureau, which deserves cautious consideration, would "administer, under the direction of the Treasury Secretary, the origination and entry into circulation of United States Money, subject to the limitations established by the Monetary Authority Treasury; and administer lending of United States Money to authorized depository institutions."

Also, HR 2990 stipulates that "money creation is solely a function of the United States Government;" and "fractional reserve lending is ended." The Fed bureau's commissioner and deputy commissioner would be appointed by the president to seven-year terms.

Back on New York's streets, Matt Lepacek, a founding member of We Are Change/New York, told AFP what he told a national Fox News audience the evening of Oct. 16: There is a regular assembly, or people's "think tank," called the New York General Assembly, that meets every day on one end of Zuccotti Park—the main turf of the huge Manhattan protest—to share ideas. And it's been there from day one, despite media claims that the protest has had no organized component whatsoever from the start.

"So many people speak on a number of issues," he told AFP, adding that for now the assembly and overall protest are mainly about naming scoundrels such as Goldman Sachs, the New York Stock Exchange itself, and, yes, the Federal Reserve. The notion of debt-free money and/or ending the Fed, are mentioned in conversation. But the money idea as brought forth by Kucinich in Congress has yet to be highlighted in the park's "congress," at least as of this writing on Oct. 19.

Yet, it will be interesting to see how things play out as viral ideas spread around, and a movement that seeks to stay the course, as cold weather approaches, hears ideas and sharpens its focus. May monetary reform place highly on their list as Kucinich's bill is reviewed.
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Fed Insider GOP Frontrunner?  

By Frank Whalen

In a stunning upset to "GOP frontrunner" Rick Perry, Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain emerged victorious in the recent Florida Republican straw ballot. Cain received 37 percent of the vote, more than double the support for second place Perry. But in the aftermath of Florida's straw ballot, reports came in that Cain's campaign has little money, barely any organization and is still trailing far behind the other leaders in the polls. So why is the Republican Party and the mainstream media still promoting him in the top tier even after marginalizing other good Republicans like former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer or former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson? The answer may come as a surprise to many diehard supporters of the Republican Party. And, Cain seems to have some scandals swirling around his campaign that may emerge to cause problems.

Associated Press reported that former Iowa straw poll coordinator Kevin Hall revealed: "Herman Cain's presidential campaign tried to conceal the role of a top adviser who had been ousted as leader of a gay pride group in Wisconsin amid a financial scandal." Hall said in testimony: "A conservative candidate, Mr. Cain is on the record as stating that he believes homosexuality is a sin and a choice. They know that, if his top adviser [Scott Toomey], his highly paid adviser, is openly gay, it would cast a negative light on Mr. Cain and would cost him in his efforts to become president. Basically, the campaign is trying to cover up the fact that Mr. Toomey was still involved. They asked me to help them cover up that fact."

On May 23, Andy Kroll of Mother Jones reported that efforts have also been made on Cain's behalf to conceal associations that cast a negative light on his business savvy.

"Scrubbed from Cain's official story is his long tenure as director at a Midwest energy corporation named Aquila that, like Enron, recklessly dove into the wild west of energy trading and speculation—and ultimately screwed its employees out of tens of millions of dollars," reported Mother Jones.

FOREIGN POLICY

Relatively silent on foreign policy issues, Cain has been open about a few things. During the Sept. 22 Fox News-Google GOP debate, Cain stated emphatically that the nation's Middle East policy should be as follows: "Any country that messes with Israel is in fact challenging the United States." These words originate from a presidential candidate that displays a complete lack of understanding on the issue of Middle East peace.

Cain has also taken no position on Afghanistan, claiming that there was too much information he couldn't access. However, in a May 15 interview with the popular news website "Raw Story," he was quoted as saying, "On the other hand, I do know enough about our solid relationship with Israel, from decades of observation, that I would make it even stronger."

CAN CAIN REPRESENT THE PEOPLE?

The question remains: Who is Cain really? His background is filled with examples of successful business experience, a man who clearly has managed large ventures with skill. He also was a member of the board of directors to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in 1992, serving as its chairman from January 1995 to August 1996.

Cain's affiliation with the Fed is particularly troublesome. In December 2010 he dismissed the need for an audit of the privately owned and controlled Fed, telling radio talk show host Neil Boortz: "There's no hidden secrets going on in the Federal Reserve to my knowledge. I tell people, we've got 12 Federal Reserve banks. Find out which district you are in, call them up and go from there. We don't need to waste money with another commission or an audit." Such an attitude obviously didn't fly with those who've become more aware of the Fed's status as a privately owned corporation. During an exchange with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) at the Oct. 11 Bloomberg debate, Cain flip-flopped by saying: "I do not object to the Federal Reserve being audited. I simply said, if someone wants to initiate that action, go right ahead. It doesn't bother me. So, I've been misrepresented in that regard. I don't have a problem with the Federal Reserve being audited. It's simply not my top priority."

News With Views contributing writer Kelleigh Nelson stated in a June 21 article: "Herman Cain is not a constitutional conservative, and he is definitely not my choice." She went on to write, "After doing the research, I'm appalled at how much he is like the typical establishment Republican."

Mr. Nelson further explained her opinion by noting: "Cain is on numberous boards, and many of the people that are members of the Bilderberg group, Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission repeatedly show up on the same boards. Cain has befriended the Koch brothers [David and Charles], who pose as libertarians, but attend Bilderberg group meetings. The Koch brothers support Cain's nomination, and he is their puppet. They are behind ‘Americans for Prosperity' and are connected to both the Ford and Rockefeller foundations." She added: "Cain says the Patriot act is 90 percent right on. He doesn't tell us what he feels is wrong with the other 10 percent that isn't good, but he still sides with itl.

CAIN HIDING HIS REAL VIEWS UNDER TARP

Cain also has some explaining to do amongst his tea party supporters regarding his endorsement of the notorious federal bank bailout program called TARP. News website Talking Points Memo quotes him as saying, "If they want to nail me with my support for TARP - you know what? I'm not going to be able to counter that." Cain went on to explain: "I thought TARP was going to be an opportunity for the government to allow any bank that needed to, to restructure its balance sheet. But it didn't. It only picked its friends. That's when I turned against TARP."

SHAMELESS PARTY LEADERS

So why is Cain gaining such momentum among Republican candidates if his chances are so slim? His race certainly plays a role. Some people are asking whether President Obama's marked decline in popularity made it an uphill battle for the election of another black president. Cain doesn't believe so, as he explained to another news website called the "Daily Beast" on Sept. 26. "Is there a thimbleful of people out there who are going to be reluctant to vote for me because I'm black and because of Obama?" asked Cain. "Yes. I just remind them of the first 43 presidents who were all white. You didn't have any duds in that group? I think we did."

Could there be another reason? In going up against a black president, theGOP might be planning to groom Cain for another historic first: The first black vice president. The Daily Beast quoted Cain as saying, "He would consider a vice presidential spot on the GOP ticket."

In this light, perhaps Cain is giving the GOP an ability to withstand attacks from the pro-Obama crowd that the Republican Party - and by default their association with tea partiers - are inherently racist simply for disagreeing with the president.

Could this be the real reason behind Cain's meteoric rise?
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Copper Thefts Reflect Desperate Financial Times  

By Mark Anderson

A disturbing symptom of America's economic downtown is that copper from air conditioners, wiring, grave markers—anything thieves can get their hands on—is fair game in the ever-expanding scrapping racket, carried out by a cash strapped element of the populace that cannibalizes nearly everything in its path.

This scene is being played out across the country. In the case of Georgia, Tom Gillis, an Avondale, Ga. police officer, told this writer that he had to help form a three municipality task force to fight the metal-stealing frenzy that is growing not only geographically, but also in the variety of objects stolen and the sheer audacity involved in taking them.

"This week a graveyard got hit for dozens of bronze markers," Gillis told AFP. "We've even had manhole covers stolen. I also had a stack of stolen state-direction signs with ‘Georgia Department of Transportation' stamped on the back of them."

Police in Georgia and across the country are partnering with scrap yards so the type and quantity of metal traded in for cash can be monitored, much in the way that pawnshops are watched when there are spikes in stolen merchandise.

In DeKalb County east of Atlanta, within the area of Gillis's task force, police broke up a ring that stole dozens of air conditioning units worth $200,000. Chicago thieves stole two air conditioners from an animal shelter, costing the facility $25,000.

Even indirect fatalities have resulted. Vandals who stripped copper from Miami streetlights contributed to the death of Thelma Morrow. A Toyota Corolla struck her on a rainy September night.

"The driver told police the streetlight outages helped make the crash difficult to avoid, and firefighters needed emergency floodlights to tend to Mrs.Morrow. She died weeks later at age 52," the South Florida Sun-Sentinel sadly noted.

Gillis is warning homeowners everywhere to lock their crawl-space entrances or scrappers might literally yank the plumbing right out from under their homes. The nation's countless foreclosures and abandoned homes are similarly a major target. But the scrappers hardly stop there. According to the East Peoria Times-Courier, Rep. Mike Unes (R-Ill.) has filed H.B. 3825 to make the resale of stolen metals harder.

"This summer alone, dozens of households in our region have been the targets of copper and aluminum theft, especially copper coils found in commercial air conditioners. Thieves are also targeting local churches, farms, and businesses causing tens of thousands of dollars of damages," Unes told the Times-Courier.

Illinois farmer Ernie Runyon's irrigation systems have been hit hard. Last summer, more than a dozen of his 31 irrigators were robbed of their copper wire. One irrigator was hit three separate times. The loss is $4,000 to $10,000 per irrigator. His insurance provider canceled his policy covering these systems because of the number of claims.

Unes's legislation provides an example that could help stem the tide. His bill orders metal dealers to no longer pay cash for air conditioners, condensers or evaporator coils. This includes any type of copper. Moreover, payments cannot be made at transaction time. Instead, they can only be finalized after three business days have passed—and only by check or money order. Scrap yards must keep better records and cannot purchase anything marked as belonging to the government or a business.

Amid these acts of desperation, iron and steel air conditioner cages are selling nearly as fast as air conditioners are being stolen—a hot item to deny thieves some cool cash.
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Agitators Attempt to Disrupt Peaceful Protests  

By Bill White

Opponents of the Occupy Wall Street movement have been infiltrating national rallies held by the group and attempting to instigate violence between demonstrators and police, part of a larger effort to discredit Americans angry at the theft bankers have practiced against them by identifying the protesters as anti-government extremist.

Patrick Howley, the assistant editor of The American Spectator magazine, a conservative journal, highlights efforts on the part of the establishment to delegitimize rightful anger at the massive theft of wealth that has occurred in the past half-century. At a recent protest in Washington, D.C., Howley - angry that only 10 of the protesters had been pepper sprayed and abused by D.C. police - sparked violence between police officers and the crowd, leading to several arrests. Howley bragged about his efforts on the American SpectatorI blog.

The group infiltrated by Howley was part of a larger protest targeting an exhibit of drone weapons at the Air and Space Museum. The United States government designed these weapons to monitor and assassinate political opponents during war operations, but they have become increasingly useful in intelligence activities. Plans have also been developed for their use in neutralizing political dissident within U.S. borders. (AFP Oct. 24)

The American Spectator belongs to a network of so-called right-wing publications that engage in caricatured abuse of leftists while cheerleading the essentially communist and Trotskyite doctrine of neo-conservatism, whixh is the guiding belief system of those in power in the Republican Party. Howley and his fellow agitators use anti-Marxist rhetoric to confuse the American people by gaining support from the ignorant and poorly educated who mistake their views for a true nationalist perspective.

In addition to spurring violence between protesters and American security forces, stridently pro-Israel organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League, have also launched programs within the media to identify the Occupy Wall Street forces as anti-Semitic, a tenuous claim, given that many of the protests are led by Jews.

This has been based largely on the fact that many demonstrators are pointing out that the banks being protested are almost all Jewish owned.

Over the past few decades, those working through both capitalist and communist means have hollowed out the American economy, shipped American jobs overseas and replaced workers domestically with illegal immigrants (largely Mexican). To conceal the impact these actions have had on wages, bankers "stimulated" the economy with credit based on the mortgaging of real and capital assets - a plan that collapsed several years ago - and which led to the continuing redistribution of those assets into the hands of speculators who buy them for pennies on the dollar from the foreclosing banks.

This program has led to a reaction in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement, a strange blend of traditional liberal forces and conservatives, both of whom are attacking the banking system for stealing the wealth of millions of Americans.
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

SPOTLIGHT ON CONGRESS

Congress OKs Monitoring of ‘Lone Wolf' Americans  

Americans have Congress to thank for allowing the FBI to use a little-known provision of the Patriot Act to monitor political dissidents with no ties to terrorism or political organizations - that whey are calling "potential lone wolves." This has been loosely defined as any American with political views contrary to official dogma, even if that American has never displayed any propensity to ward criminal acts.

In a recent congressional hearing, FBI Director Robert Mueller stated that Americans with ho actual ties to terror groups posed a "serious national security threat," an opinion joined by National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen, who said the Americans whose opinions differ from Washington are "probably the greatest challenge we face."

This effort to attack American citizens who oppose the central government has been highlighted by the recent high-profile assassination of several Americans whose only offense was producing Internet videos that encouraged resistance to the U.S. intervention in Arabic and Islamic nations, such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

President Barack Obama and the elitists that brought him into office have been continuing a campaign of torture, terror and preventive arrest of American dissidents. They've also claimed the right to kill Americans abroad who speak out against U.S. war policy - an act the Obama regime equates with violent terrorism.

The Obama administration is desperately trying to divert attention away from a failing economy and internationalism that is a cornerstone of the essentially communist nature of its regime. Earlier this year, Obama officials attempted to launch a new war on domestic terrorism and white nationalism, but this effort failed after key nationalist leaders refused to cooperate with a federal administrative and congressional investigation.

The Obama program, a continuation of the policies of Reagan, Bush and Clinton, involves the opening of American borders to international trade and immigration, combined with the violent imposition of socialism on the last bastion of traditional society in the world - the Islamic culture of north Africa and southern Asia.

But this program has also bankrupted the United States, and with the failure of international banks to disguise this bankruptcy with massive infusions of credit, everyday people have seen their wealth deteriorate and are beginning to feel the impact of increased poverty - resulting in both the left and right, such as the tea party and the Occupy Wall Street movement, coming together to fight the internationalists.
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Democrats Want Obama's Presidential Records Sealed  

By Pat Shannan

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) has introduced the Presidential records Act Amendments of 2011. The bill would further seal the administration's records after Obama leaves office, along with Obama's personal and college history already surreptitiously concealed from public view. Does town really expect Americans to believe that his motives are pure?

Should this become law, former presidents will be allowed to assert a new privilege against disclosing records not of their liking, according to longtime Washington guard dog Judicial Watch. The archivist of the United States would be required to notify the former president, as well as the incumbent, of intentions to make records public. Anything that either the former or current president claims should be kept private would not be released.

Obama on his first day in office, revoked a similar order issued by George W. Bush, seemingly attempting to live up to his rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."

Bush had raised suspicions by signing Executive Order 13233 on Nov. 1, 2001, only six weeks after the 9-11 debacle. Obama said at the time of his revocation of the executive order that he was giving the American people "greater access to historic documents."

So far he has had no official comment pertaining to his current reversal of attitude, but we can be certain this move by Town and other supporting Democrats was not initiated without Obama's knowledge.

No one in the federal government has even tried to explain why this is necessary. Except for those already aware of Obama's continual history of corruption, lies, cover-ups, lies, cover-ups, bribery and disregard for the rule of law, no one seems to care either.

Obama's oft-repeated campaign pledges to televise his healthcare negotiations on C-Span were never pursued after he was elected. His attempts at covering up connections between himself and convicted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich fell apart when pictures appeared of the two of them together at social, political and sporting events.

PERFECT TIMING

Now, long-term suppression will be necessitated for the records of the alleged assassination plot by Iranian terrorists to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

Even though the chief suspect was jailed weeks earlier, the FBI announced this dubious tie-in with Iran and Mexican drug runners only one day before Attorney General Eric Holder was to be served with a subpoena investigating his apparent perjury in the gunrunning operation to Mexico.

If there is a news award for spectacular timing, this Iran fairytale will be contending for first prize with the phony death incident last April of the long-dead Osama bin Laden, who military intelligence and CIA operatives confirmed died of kidney failure in Dec. 2001.
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Assassination Drones Infected?  

By Keith Johnson

A massive security breach occurred recently at the Air Force Base in Nevada that is home to the nation's growing number of pilotless drones responsible for assassinations and surveillance around the world. The computer attack, which reportedly targeted the software the military uses to fly the multibillion-dollar Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, raises serious questions about vulnerabilities associated with the program.

An Oct. 7 report appearing in Wired magazine stoked fears that the computers used at Creech Air Force Base to navigate America's fleet of Predator and Raptor drones had been infiltrated by a mysterious virus. Wired noted that this computer bug "logged pilots' every keystroke as they remotely flew missions over Afghanistan and other war zones.

It was uncertain at the time if the virus had been deliberately introduced, if it had spread to other systems or if classified information had been stolen. What was certain, according to writer Noah Schactman's anonymous sources, was that the virus was tenacious enough to resist multiple attempts to purge it from Creech's computer systems.

Days later, the U.S. air Force came forward and downplayed the significance of the report, claiming that the infection was common malware: "It was not designed to transmit data or video, nor is it designed to corrupt data, files or programs on the infected computer."

The virus was apparently isolated to a Windows-based ground support system, which is separate from the flight-control system Air Force pilots use to fly the aircraft remotely. The sources claimed that it in no way interfered with the military's ability to control the unmanned craft.

Contrary to the Wired report, an anonymous defense official who spoke to Associated Press said that the malware in question was not a key logger but rather one that "is routinely used to steal log-in and password data from people who gamble or play games online."

Gregory d. Evansis a world-renowned cyber security specialist and former hacker who recently spoke with AFP on Oct. 12 about this incident.
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Alabama Fights Back Against DOJs Immigration Tyranny  

By Peter Papaherakles

Attorney General Eric Holder and the Barack Obama administration are waging a bitter, costly war against American citizens over illegal immigration, and Alabama is on the front lines of the battle.

Struggling to defend itself against an invasion of illegal immigrants, Alabama passed a no-nonsense immigration law in June 2011. Among other things, the law grants state and local officials the power to check the immigration status of public school students and to detain suspected illegal aliens. The law was scheduled to go into effect on Sept. 1, but, as expected, Holder and the Department of Justice (DOJ) moved to block it just one day before the new law was set to go live.

However, on Sept. 29, Birmingham Federal Judge Sharon Blackburn refused to block the majority of Alabama's law as demanded by DOJ "did not meet requirements for an injunction in major areas."

As a result, illegal aliens began fleeing en masse from Alabama to other states. Many reportedly even went home to beloved old Mexico.

Liberal newspapers whined that America's crops would rot in the fields because there would be no one to pick them and that the rights of the illegals were being violated. In a poll, most Alabaman's disagreed, saying they were pleased that immigration laws were being enforced.

The general belief was that those who violate basic immigration rules are here illegally. Individuals who sneak into the country are criminal invaders who have no respect for our laws. They are not entitled to jobs, education, medical care, drivers licenses, the voting franchises or any other privileges that law-abiding, taxpaying legal aliens and citizens have.

Infuriated by a victory for American citizens and legal aliens, Holder went on the attack again, claiming Alabama's measures violated illegal aliens' constitutional rights and discriminated against them. He did not address the rights of legal tax-paying citizens and legal aliens who pay his salary.

On Oct. 14, a Federal Appeals Court suspended key parts of the law resulting in postponement of its adoption. Gov. Bentley is undeterred, however, and plans to keep fighting until the law is adopted.

AG Eric Holder has tried to use his power to postpone strong immigration laws across the nation on several occasions. Maybe it's Holder we meed to deport.
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American Free Press October 31, 2011

Military Chaplains Rebelling Against ‘Queer' Marriage  

By Pat Shannan

When the Pentagon issued a directive to all military chaplains ordering them to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies and to make military chapels available for all private ceremonies, the chaplains rebelled with a resounding, "No." It was not a request to, "Please reconsider," but rather an emphatic, "absolutely not." It is a stand that could cost them their military careers and pensions, but probably will not because Congress is already intervening.

The Catholic Archdiocese for Military Service was first to respond, issuing a statement that no Catholic chaplains serving in the military will perform or participate in any same-sex marriage ceremonies. Then, members of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty issued a statement indicating that they will also no participate in performing same-sex ceremonies.

The latter group represents over 2,000 of the 2,700 military chaplains of all religious beliefs and sects, and its executive director, Col. Ron Crews, said, "We wanted to let the Department of Defense know that it's not only the Catholic chaplains, but that some 2,000 chaplains who come from evangelical backgrounds are saying our chaplains will not participate in same-sex ceremonies in the military."

Now the Pentagon faces a Capitol Hill backlash. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said that he will oppose passage of the annual defense authorization bill unless language is included granting military chaplains the power to reject same-sex unions.

Several military chaplains told reporters that their own decisions will depend less on the political arena and more on religious principles and personal conscience. Others fear compromise by some of the non-Christian chaplains.

"The Bible teaches us to be submissive to those placed in authority over us, but it also stipulates that to do so as long as it does not go against the will of God," said Crews. "First and foremost we are required to remain faithful and true to what God says in the Bible and then to those in authority over Us [Acts 5:29]. In the case of same-sex ceremonies, chaplains are following directions from God and refusing to perform ceremonies that according to the Bible would be an abomination."

The liberal United Churches of Christ is one of the few Christian denominations that permits its ministers to perform sam-sex marriages or cast blessings of same-sex unions in the states that allow them.
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