Thursday, May 30, 2013
NIXOBAMA: Powerful Video Compares Scandal Responses
“I first learned from news reports…”
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
May 29, 2013
A striking video has been posted to the web directly comparing disgraced president Richard Nixon’s comments over the Watergate scandal with president Obama’s reaction to the multiple scandals his administration is currently embroiled in.
On August 9, 1974, president Richard Nixon resigned from office following damning revelations regarding a cover up relating to a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex. Eventually the scandal also resulted in the indictment, trial, conviction, and incarceration of dozens of Nixon’s top administration officials.
Prior to his resignation, Nixon’s responses to the scandal were to feign ignorance, point to inaccurate talking points provided by aides, cite national security, and encourage the media to let him do his job. Fascinatingly, Obama has made almost exactly the same comments.
Is history repeating itself? Are the two presidents singing from the same scandal-ridden hymn sheet? Judge for yourself:
Nixon: “I first learned from news reports…”
Obama: “I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this.”
–
Nixon: “The comments I made during this period, the comments made by my press secretary on my behalf were based on the information provided to us at the time we made those comments.”
Obama: “Keep in mind by the way these so-called talking points that were prepared…pretty much matched the assessments that I was receiving at that time.”
–
Nixon: “And had we not had that kind of security, and that kind of secrecy that allowed for that kind of exchange that is essential…”
Obama: “Leaks related to national security can put people at risk…”
–
Nixon: “I must now turn my full attention, and I shall do so once again, to the larger duties of this office…”
Obama: “Others may get distracted by chasing every fleeting issue that passes by, but the middle class will always be my number one focus. Period.”
The makers of the video at the Revealing Politics Blog note one statement Nixon made that Obama has yet to make – “In any organization, the man at the top must bear the responsibility. That responsibility, therefore, belongs here in this office. I accept it.”
Watch the video:
The comparisons between Obama and Nixon are now everywhere. Indeed, Mitch McConnell today released a new campaign ad, targeting the Obama administration over the IRS scandal and using Nixon’s infamous quote “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”
While the comparisons are legion, constitutional experts actually believe Obama is many times worse than Nixon with regards to the creation of an “imperial presidency” with unilateral powers and privileges.
—————————————————————-
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.
This article was posted: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at 10:31 am
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Boston and the CIA ‘Snafu’: The grey eminence behind Turkey’s Erdogan and AKP
F. William Engdahl
voltairenet.org
May 25, 2013
The public admission by Fuller, on a website reported tied to the CIA, of his relationship to the Uncle of the alleged but not ever convicted Boston bombers [2] opened a can of worms the CIA might well wish never had been opened.
A deeper look into Fuller’s role reveals him to be a key figure in what FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds terms American Deep State rogues. Edmonds worked as an FBI translator from Turkish, Azerbaijani and Farsi languages during and after September 11, 2001 when she uncovered damning email and other evidence of criminal networks linking the actors of 9/11, drug networks out of Turkey and terrorists in and around Al Qaeda together with senior Pentagon and other US Government officials. [3]
In her classified translations Edmonds discovered that a criminal network had penetrated the highest levels of the US Government including Pentagon and FBI, and were engaged in illegal sales of weapons, including nuclear, of drugs and more. Criminal activities were being protected by claims of State Secrets, she asserted. Repeated attempts to call attention inside the FBI to what she was convinced was a conspiracy against the United States from within came to no avail. Her gripping account to bring attention to an alarming rogue network inside Washington is the subject of her autobiography, Classified Woman – The Sibel Edmonds Story. [5]
Attorney General John Ashcroft went all the way to the Supreme Court to muzzle her under a little-used Doctrine of State Secrets. Edmonds, suffering under an unprecedented Bush Administration gag order, was banned from revealing the complicity of high-ranking US and Turkish figures uncovered by her and duly reported at FBI before she was fired in 2002 for “blowing the whistle.” She partly got around the Government gag by posting photos with no comment on her website. Others filled in the names. [6]
Graham Fuller was one of the 21 American Deep State rogues Edmonds posted.
In 1995, according to investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker, the uncle of the alleged Boston bombers, Ruslan Tsarnaev, “incorporated the Congress of Chechen International Organizations in Maryland, using as the address listed on incorporation documents 11114 Whisperwood Lane, in Rockville Maryland, the home address of his then-father-in-law.” [7] Father-in-law was Graham Fuller whose daughter was married to Uncle Ruslan.
Chechnya, an autonomous province of Russia deeply involved in oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea, has been the scene of Islamic jihad terrorists since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1995 when Uncle Ruslan founded the Congress of Chechen International Organizations from Graham Fuller’s home, the Islamist Jihad terror war against Moscow was raging full-force in Chechnya. Putin and Russian intelligence have repeatedly claimed the terrorism was being fed from outside.
As more is coming out on the role of Fuller, the evidence points to the conclusion that the Chechnya terrorists were also a project bearing the footprints of the “former” CIA political Islam expert, Graham Fuller. By 1988 Fuller had formally moved from a very senior post at CIA to the neo-conservative think tank, RAND Corporation, where he officially worked on the “Middle East, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and problems of ethnicity and religion.” [8]
While at RAND Fuller played a key role gaining asylum for a Turkish national in the USA. Fetullah Gülen, a Turkish national who was forced to flee in 1999 and seek asylum, won his US residence permit due to the intervention of two senior CIA or former men. One was Graham E. Fuller. [9]
Foreign Policy Journal describes the role of Fuller and the CIA in getting indicted Turkish fugitive Gülen asylum in the USA: “Fethullah Gülen became a green card holder despite serious opposition from FBI and from Homeland Security Department. Former CIA officers (formally and informally) such as Graham Fuller and Morton Abromovitz were some of the prominent references in Gülen’s green card application.” [10]
According to Edmonds, an authority on the subject, “US Islamization Operations in Central Asia via Gülen started in late 1997, early 1998. That brings me to …Graham Fuller.” [12]
Gülen schools in Russian Chechnya and Dagestan regions, both locations of fanatical Jihadists since 1991, were ultimately banned by Putin. The Russian government has banned all Gülen schools and the activities of the Gülen-linked Nurcu sect in Russia. Over 20 Turkish followers of Gülen were deported from Russia in 2002-2004. In 1999 Uzbekistan closed all Gülen’s Madrasas and shortly afterward arrested eight journalists who were graduates of Gülen schools, and found them guilty of setting up an illegal religious group and of involvement in an extremist organization. In Turkmenistan, government authorities placed Gülen’s schools under close scrutiny and have ordered them to scrap the history of religion from curriculums. [14]
Responsible Turkish journalists I’ve met with relate that Gülen-loyal police tied to Edrogan’s AKP have infiltrated the Turkish police, intelligence services and other key state institution and are systematically arresting, purging or silencing all nationalist military, trade union and other secular figues opposed to creation of an Islamic Sharia state in Turkey, uprooting ninety or more years of Kemalist legal foundations. More than one hundred Turkish journalists have been arrested for writing critically about the actions of Gülen’s AKP.
Gülen’s public profile is as a humble, deeply spiritual Imam of love and brotherhood. His record in practice is anything but. Gülen once stated, “You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers, until the conditions are ripe.” Sounds a bit like Lenin in the old days. Certain networks in Washington including people in and around Fuller obviously have no problem with that.
Why would the CIA and US agencies want Central Asia? As Obama adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, notes in his now-famous book, The Grand Chessboard, “For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia…America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained…It follows that America’s primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.”
Washington has used Turkey and the AKP fundamentalist networks of Gülen to wreak havoc across the post-communist oil and mineral-rich regions of Central Asia. Graham Fuller’s foot prints are all over those covert operations as are Fetullah Gülen’s. In 2008 Fuller published a book titled, “The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World.” As Sibel Edmonds describes, the process involved using Turkey with assistance from ’actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia’ as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army before 9/11. [15]
Edmonds notes regarding US operations in Central Asia, “This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.” [16]
What did Uncle Ruslan Tsarnaev, uncle of the Boston alleged bombers do when he was married to Graham Fuller’s daughter? Ruslan worked for companies connected to Halliburton, doing oil deals in the Caucasus and as “consultant” for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. Russia barred USAID from its soil in late 2012, alleging USAID together with CIA was attempting to influence the internal political processes in the country. [17]
Some are beginning to ask whether the Boston bombing might have been a deception operation carried out by the Rogues associated with Graham Fuller and the network within the CIA and Pentagon, to make it appear Putin was behind the ghastly events. In any case, when Graham Fuller went to the press to publicly denounce CIA links to the Tsarnaevs he made what is likely to go down as one of the greatest snafus in US intelligence history. He lost his cool, and with it, has put the spotlight on the entire CIA-sponsored Islamic Jihadist operations run through Fetullah Gülen across Turkey into Central Asia and Russia and China.
voltairenet.org
May 25, 2013
- Graham Fuller (foreground) and Turkish Muslim guru Fetullah Gülen who has dark ties to CIA and fanatical Jihadist groups worldwide.
The public admission by Fuller, on a website reported tied to the CIA, of his relationship to the Uncle of the alleged but not ever convicted Boston bombers [2] opened a can of worms the CIA might well wish never had been opened.
A deeper look into Fuller’s role reveals him to be a key figure in what FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds terms American Deep State rogues. Edmonds worked as an FBI translator from Turkish, Azerbaijani and Farsi languages during and after September 11, 2001 when she uncovered damning email and other evidence of criminal networks linking the actors of 9/11, drug networks out of Turkey and terrorists in and around Al Qaeda together with senior Pentagon and other US Government officials. [3]
Fuller, A Deep State Rogue
- Whistleblower Sibel Edwards has revealed extraordinary information on the U.S. government’s support for international terrorist networks and organised crime. She was described as “the most gagged person in the history of the United States” by the American Civil Liberties Union.
In her classified translations Edmonds discovered that a criminal network had penetrated the highest levels of the US Government including Pentagon and FBI, and were engaged in illegal sales of weapons, including nuclear, of drugs and more. Criminal activities were being protected by claims of State Secrets, she asserted. Repeated attempts to call attention inside the FBI to what she was convinced was a conspiracy against the United States from within came to no avail. Her gripping account to bring attention to an alarming rogue network inside Washington is the subject of her autobiography, Classified Woman – The Sibel Edmonds Story. [5]
Attorney General John Ashcroft went all the way to the Supreme Court to muzzle her under a little-used Doctrine of State Secrets. Edmonds, suffering under an unprecedented Bush Administration gag order, was banned from revealing the complicity of high-ranking US and Turkish figures uncovered by her and duly reported at FBI before she was fired in 2002 for “blowing the whistle.” She partly got around the Government gag by posting photos with no comment on her website. Others filled in the names. [6]
Graham Fuller was one of the 21 American Deep State rogues Edmonds posted.
In 1995, according to investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker, the uncle of the alleged Boston bombers, Ruslan Tsarnaev, “incorporated the Congress of Chechen International Organizations in Maryland, using as the address listed on incorporation documents 11114 Whisperwood Lane, in Rockville Maryland, the home address of his then-father-in-law.” [7] Father-in-law was Graham Fuller whose daughter was married to Uncle Ruslan.
Chechnya, an autonomous province of Russia deeply involved in oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea, has been the scene of Islamic jihad terrorists since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1995 when Uncle Ruslan founded the Congress of Chechen International Organizations from Graham Fuller’s home, the Islamist Jihad terror war against Moscow was raging full-force in Chechnya. Putin and Russian intelligence have repeatedly claimed the terrorism was being fed from outside.
As more is coming out on the role of Fuller, the evidence points to the conclusion that the Chechnya terrorists were also a project bearing the footprints of the “former” CIA political Islam expert, Graham Fuller. By 1988 Fuller had formally moved from a very senior post at CIA to the neo-conservative think tank, RAND Corporation, where he officially worked on the “Middle East, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and problems of ethnicity and religion.” [8]
While at RAND Fuller played a key role gaining asylum for a Turkish national in the USA. Fetullah Gülen, a Turkish national who was forced to flee in 1999 and seek asylum, won his US residence permit due to the intervention of two senior CIA or former men. One was Graham E. Fuller. [9]
Foreign Policy Journal describes the role of Fuller and the CIA in getting indicted Turkish fugitive Gülen asylum in the USA: “Fethullah Gülen became a green card holder despite serious opposition from FBI and from Homeland Security Department. Former CIA officers (formally and informally) such as Graham Fuller and Morton Abromovitz were some of the prominent references in Gülen’s green card application.” [10]
Jihad Spreads to Central Asia
From his new luxurious heavily-guarded estate in Saylorsburg, a remote part of eastern Pennsylvania, Gülen launched a series of fundamentalist Salafist mosques and madrasses, not only in his native Turkey where he was the alleged power behind Turkey’s AKP regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, himself a product of Gülen’s schools, but across the Islamic regions of Central Asia as they separated from the Soviet Union in the chaos after 1991. [11]According to Edmonds, an authority on the subject, “US Islamization Operations in Central Asia via Gülen started in late 1997, early 1998. That brings me to …Graham Fuller.” [12]
- Fethullah Gulen, lives in Pennsylvania. From there he runs a $25 billion international network. He is tied to hundreds of Gulen charter schools in the United States itself, 36 of which are located in Texas alone.
Gülen schools in Russian Chechnya and Dagestan regions, both locations of fanatical Jihadists since 1991, were ultimately banned by Putin. The Russian government has banned all Gülen schools and the activities of the Gülen-linked Nurcu sect in Russia. Over 20 Turkish followers of Gülen were deported from Russia in 2002-2004. In 1999 Uzbekistan closed all Gülen’s Madrasas and shortly afterward arrested eight journalists who were graduates of Gülen schools, and found them guilty of setting up an illegal religious group and of involvement in an extremist organization. In Turkmenistan, government authorities placed Gülen’s schools under close scrutiny and have ordered them to scrap the history of religion from curriculums. [14]
Responsible Turkish journalists I’ve met with relate that Gülen-loyal police tied to Edrogan’s AKP have infiltrated the Turkish police, intelligence services and other key state institution and are systematically arresting, purging or silencing all nationalist military, trade union and other secular figues opposed to creation of an Islamic Sharia state in Turkey, uprooting ninety or more years of Kemalist legal foundations. More than one hundred Turkish journalists have been arrested for writing critically about the actions of Gülen’s AKP.
Gülen’s public profile is as a humble, deeply spiritual Imam of love and brotherhood. His record in practice is anything but. Gülen once stated, “You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers, until the conditions are ripe.” Sounds a bit like Lenin in the old days. Certain networks in Washington including people in and around Fuller obviously have no problem with that.
Why would the CIA and US agencies want Central Asia? As Obama adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, notes in his now-famous book, The Grand Chessboard, “For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia…America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained…It follows that America’s primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.”
Washington has used Turkey and the AKP fundamentalist networks of Gülen to wreak havoc across the post-communist oil and mineral-rich regions of Central Asia. Graham Fuller’s foot prints are all over those covert operations as are Fetullah Gülen’s. In 2008 Fuller published a book titled, “The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World.” As Sibel Edmonds describes, the process involved using Turkey with assistance from ’actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia’ as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army before 9/11. [15]
Edmonds notes regarding US operations in Central Asia, “This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.” [16]
What did Uncle Ruslan Tsarnaev, uncle of the Boston alleged bombers do when he was married to Graham Fuller’s daughter? Ruslan worked for companies connected to Halliburton, doing oil deals in the Caucasus and as “consultant” for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. Russia barred USAID from its soil in late 2012, alleging USAID together with CIA was attempting to influence the internal political processes in the country. [17]
Some are beginning to ask whether the Boston bombing might have been a deception operation carried out by the Rogues associated with Graham Fuller and the network within the CIA and Pentagon, to make it appear Putin was behind the ghastly events. In any case, when Graham Fuller went to the press to publicly denounce CIA links to the Tsarnaevs he made what is likely to go down as one of the greatest snafus in US intelligence history. He lost his cool, and with it, has put the spotlight on the entire CIA-sponsored Islamic Jihadist operations run through Fetullah Gülen across Turkey into Central Asia and Russia and China.
[1] Laura Rozen, “Former CIA officer: ‘Absurd’ to link uncle of Boston suspects,” Agency, Back-Channel Al-Monitor, April 27, 2013.
[2] Laura Rozen, “Former CIA officer: ‘Absurd’ to link uncle of Boston suspects, Agency,” Back-Channel Al-Monitor, April 27, 2013.
[3] Daniel Hopsicker, “Boston bombers’ uncle married daughter of top CIA official,” April 26, 2013.
[4] See “The Government-in-Exile of East Turkistan Republic”
[5] Sibel Edmonds, Classified Woman – The Sibel Edmonds Story, First Edition, 2012.
[6] Sibel Edmonds, “Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery.”
[7] Daniel Hopsicker, Op. Cit.
[8] 2006 Campagna-Kerven Lecture Series, Speaker Bio – GRAHAM E. FULLER.
[9] Emine Dilek, “The Tale of Uncle Tsarnaev CIA Chief Graham Fuller and a Turkish Islamist Who Lives in USA,” progressivepress.net, April 27, 2013.
[10] Sibel Edmonds, “Turkish Intel Chief Exposes CIA Operations via Islamic Group in Central Asia,” boilingfrogspost.com, January 6, 2011.
[11] Pelin Turgut, The Turkish Imam and His Global Educational Mission, Time, April 26, 2010.
[12] Sibel Edmonds, Op Cit.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Sibel Edmonds, cited in “The Turkish Lobby, the Neocons, and the Crusade to Free the Ergenekon Terrorists,” rastibini.blogspot.de, December 15, 2008.
[16] Luke Ryland, “Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam and Madrassas,” lukery.blogspot.de, July 10, 2008.
[17] Emine Dilek, Op. Cit.
[2] Laura Rozen, “Former CIA officer: ‘Absurd’ to link uncle of Boston suspects, Agency,” Back-Channel Al-Monitor, April 27, 2013.
[3] Daniel Hopsicker, “Boston bombers’ uncle married daughter of top CIA official,” April 26, 2013.
[4] See “The Government-in-Exile of East Turkistan Republic”
[5] Sibel Edmonds, Classified Woman – The Sibel Edmonds Story, First Edition, 2012.
[6] Sibel Edmonds, “Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery.”
[7] Daniel Hopsicker, Op. Cit.
[8] 2006 Campagna-Kerven Lecture Series, Speaker Bio – GRAHAM E. FULLER.
[9] Emine Dilek, “The Tale of Uncle Tsarnaev CIA Chief Graham Fuller and a Turkish Islamist Who Lives in USA,” progressivepress.net, April 27, 2013.
[10] Sibel Edmonds, “Turkish Intel Chief Exposes CIA Operations via Islamic Group in Central Asia,” boilingfrogspost.com, January 6, 2011.
[11] Pelin Turgut, The Turkish Imam and His Global Educational Mission, Time, April 26, 2010.
[12] Sibel Edmonds, Op Cit.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Sibel Edmonds, cited in “The Turkish Lobby, the Neocons, and the Crusade to Free the Ergenekon Terrorists,” rastibini.blogspot.de, December 15, 2008.
[16] Luke Ryland, “Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam and Madrassas,” lukery.blogspot.de, July 10, 2008.
[17] Emine Dilek, Op. Cit.
This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:53 am
IT’S AIRBORNE: Human Transmission of Deadly H7N9 Virus Now Confirmed
Mac Slavo
SHTFPlan.com
May 24, 2013
In April of this year researches studying the H7N9 bird flu virus in China advised global governments to get prepared for the worst case scenario. According to the World Health Organization, H7N9 is one the most lethal influenza strains ever identified because it mutates eight times faster than a normal flu virus, and according to official records, has a death-to-infection ratio of about 25%.
It was initially believed that the virus could only be transmitted to humans who have had direct contact with poultry. After 36 H7N9 deaths and 131 of infections officially reported since the virus was first identified, the worst case scenario that many feared may now be on the horizon.
The Sun China Morning Post is reporting that researches have confirmed that, not only can the virus be transmitted from one human to another, but it has gone airborne.
Though it’s been called one of the most lethal flu viruses in history by WHO, Chinese scientists have downplayed the threat by claiming the effects are “mild,” and the U.S. government has up until now made no decision on whether to move forward with a vaccine for this particular strain. Earlier reports indicate that the virus is resistant to Tamiflu, a drug commonly used to treat most flu symptoms.
H7N9 is reportedly now under control in China, but we know for a fact that the virusjumped to Taiwan in April, and it may have spread elsewhere. Given that research shows the virus can spread through the air before symptoms appear, it’s certainly possibly that an outbreak is in its preliminary phase right now.
Curiously, the United Nations reports that the virus has already cost the global economy some $6.5 billion in losses. Those are massive numbers given that only 131 official cases have been reported.
We’ll know soon enough if the Chinese government has controlled the outbreak among its one billion population, and if it’s taken hold in other countries. If it’s airborne, the contagion will spread like any common cold or flu.
Pandemics have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people throughout history, and once they start they are very hard to control. With H7N9 having a mutation rate that is eight times faster than other flu viruses, it could very well become even deadlier than it is now. Moreover, it could become even more contagious over time.
The only thing we can do at this point is to wait for news as it becomes available and take preemptive steps to prepare for the possibility of a widespread outbreak.
http://www.infowars.com/its-airborne-human-transmission-of-deadly-h7n9-virus-now-confirmed/
SHTFPlan.com
May 24, 2013
In April of this year researches studying the H7N9 bird flu virus in China advised global governments to get prepared for the worst case scenario. According to the World Health Organization, H7N9 is one the most lethal influenza strains ever identified because it mutates eight times faster than a normal flu virus, and according to official records, has a death-to-infection ratio of about 25%.
It was initially believed that the virus could only be transmitted to humans who have had direct contact with poultry. After 36 H7N9 deaths and 131 of infections officially reported since the virus was first identified, the worst case scenario that many feared may now be on the horizon.
The Sun China Morning Post is reporting that researches have confirmed that, not only can the virus be transmitted from one human to another, but it has gone airborne.
The H7N9 bird flu virus can be transmitted not only through close contact but by airborne exposure, a team at the University of Hong Kong found after extensive laboratory experiments.It’s important to note that the Chinese government has never been very straight forward about statistics, especially if they involve negative perceptions of their country, so in all likelihood the H7N9 virus has infected countless others.
Though the virus appears to have been brought under control recently, the researchers urged the Hong Kong authorities to maintain strict surveillance, which should include not only poultry but humans and pigs.
…
In the study, to be published today in the journal Science, ferrets were used to evaluate the infectivity of H7N9. It was found the virus could spread through the air, from one cage to another, albeit less efficiently.
Inoculated ferrets were infected before the appearance of most clinical symptoms. This means there may be more cases than have been detected or reported.
“People may be transmitting the virus before they even know that they’ve got it,” Zhu said.
SCMP via Zero Hedge
Though it’s been called one of the most lethal flu viruses in history by WHO, Chinese scientists have downplayed the threat by claiming the effects are “mild,” and the U.S. government has up until now made no decision on whether to move forward with a vaccine for this particular strain. Earlier reports indicate that the virus is resistant to Tamiflu, a drug commonly used to treat most flu symptoms.
H7N9 is reportedly now under control in China, but we know for a fact that the virusjumped to Taiwan in April, and it may have spread elsewhere. Given that research shows the virus can spread through the air before symptoms appear, it’s certainly possibly that an outbreak is in its preliminary phase right now.
Curiously, the United Nations reports that the virus has already cost the global economy some $6.5 billion in losses. Those are massive numbers given that only 131 official cases have been reported.
We’ll know soon enough if the Chinese government has controlled the outbreak among its one billion population, and if it’s taken hold in other countries. If it’s airborne, the contagion will spread like any common cold or flu.
Pandemics have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people throughout history, and once they start they are very hard to control. With H7N9 having a mutation rate that is eight times faster than other flu viruses, it could very well become even deadlier than it is now. Moreover, it could become even more contagious over time.
The only thing we can do at this point is to wait for news as it becomes available and take preemptive steps to prepare for the possibility of a widespread outbreak.
http://www.infowars.com/its-airborne-human-transmission-of-deadly-h7n9-virus-now-confirmed/
Monday, May 20, 2013
Genetically modified democracy: Monsanto moves to obliterate states' rights to label GMOs
(NaturalNews) Reliable sources in Washington D.C. have informed the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) that Monsanto has begun secretly lobbying its Congressional allies to attach one or more "Monsanto Riders" or amendments to the 2013 Farm Bill that would preempt or prohibit states from requiring labels on genetically engineered (GE) foods.
In response to this blatant violation of states' rights to legislate, and consumers' right to know, the OCA and a nationwide alliance have launched a petition http://salsa3.salsalabs.com to put every member of Congress on notice: If you support any Farm Bill amendment that would nullify states' rights to label genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we'll vote - or throw - you out of office.
On Wednesday, May 15, an amendment to the House version of the Farm Bill, inserted under the guise of protecting interstate commerce, passed out of the House Agricultural Committee. If the King Amendment makes it into the final Farm Bill, it would take away states' rights to pass laws governing the production or manufacture of any agricultural product, including food and animals raised for food, that is involved in interstate commerce. The amendment was proposed by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), largely in response to a California law stating that by 2015, California will allow only eggs to be sold from hens housed in cages specified by California. But policy analysts emphasize that the amendment, broadly and ambiguously written, could be used to prohibit or preempt any state GMO labeling or food safety law.
Will the King Amendment survive the Senate? No one can be sure, say analysts. However few doubt that Monsanto will give up. We can expect that more amendments and riders will be introduced into the Farm Bill--even if the King Amendment fails - over the next month in an attempt to stop the wave of state GMO labeling laws and initiatives moving forward in states like Washington, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and others.
Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) have admitted privately that they've "lost the battle" to stop GE food labeling at the state level, now that states are aggressively moving forward on labeling laws. On May 14, Maine's House Ag Committee passed a GMO labeling law. On May 10, the Vermont House passed a labeling bill, 99-42, despite massive lobbying by Monsanto and threats to sue the state. And though Monsanto won a razor-thin victory (51 percent to 49 percent) in a costly, hard fought California GMO labeling ballot initiative last November, biotech and Big Food now realize that Washington State voters will likely pass I-522, an upcoming ballot initiative to label GE foods, on November 5.
If Monsanto can't stop states from passing laws, then the next step is a national preemptive measure. And all signs point to just such a power grab. Earlier this year, Monsanto slipped its extremely unpopular "Monsanto Protection Act," an act that gives biotech immunity from federal prosecution for planting illegally approved GE crops, into the 2013 Federal Appropriations Bill. During the June 2012 Farm Bill debate, 73 U.S. Senators voted against the right of states to pass mandatory GE food labeling laws. Emboldened by these votes, and now the House Ag Committee's vote on the King Amendment, Monsanto has every reason to believe Congress would support a potential nullification of states' rights to label.
The million-strong OCA and its allies in the organic and natural health movement are warning incumbent Senators and House members, Democrats and Republicans alike, that thousands of health and environmental-minded constituents in their Congressional districts or states will work to recall them or drive them out of office if they fail to heed the will of the people and to respect the time-honored traditions of shared state sovereignty over food labels, food safety laws, and consumers' right to know.
Trouble in Monsanto Nation
Over the past 20 years Monsanto and the biotech industry, aided and abetted by indentured politicians and corporate agribusiness, have begun seizing control over the global food and farming system, including the legislative, patent, trade, judicial and regulatory bodies that are supposed to safeguard the public interest.
In the U.S., despite mounting evidence www.earthopensource.org of the damage GE crops inflict on human health and the environment, approximately 170 million acres of GE crops, including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa, papaya, and squash, are currently under cultivation. These crops, untested and unlabeled, comprise 41 percent of all cultivated cropland, or 17 percent of all cropland and pastureland combined. According to the GMA, at least 70 percent of non-organic grocery store processed foods contain GMOs. And GE grains and mill byproducts now supply the overwhelming majority of animal feed on the factory farms that supply 90 percent to 95 percent of the meat, eggs and dairy products that Americans consume.
Yet despite their marketplace dominance, record profits and enormous political clout in Washington D.C., Monsanto and the biotech industry are in deep trouble. Evidence is mounting that Monsanto's top-selling herbicide, Roundup, is a deadly poison, destroying important human gut bacteria and likely contributing to the rapid increase of food allergies and serious human diseases including cancer, autism, neurological disorders , Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), dementia, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Those most susceptible http://articles.mercola.com to poisoning by Monsanto's Roundup are children and the elderly.
Scientists aren't the only ones raising new questions about Roundup. Farmers are complaining that they're being forced to spray more and more chemicals on crops increasingly under siege from a growing army of herbicide-resistant weeds. The situation is so bad that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just raised http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27491.cfm the limits of Roundup residue allowed on grains and vegetables to even more dangerous levels. But just in case the EPA someday stops raising the limits, Monsanto, Dow and the biotech industry are working on a new "solution" to the onslaught of herbicide-resistant Superweeds: They've applied for approval of a new and highly controversial generation of super toxic herbicide-resistant GE crops, including "Agent Orange" (2,4-D and dicamba-resistant) corn, soybeans and cotton.
As a recent widely-circulated article points out, http://articles.mercola.com
"The use of 2,4-D is not new; it's actually one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. What is new is that farmers will now 'carpet bomb' staple food crops like soy and corn with this chemical at a previously unprecedented scale - just the way glyphosate has been indiscriminately applied as a result of Roundup Ready crops. In fact, if 2,4-D resistant crops receive approval and eventually come to replace Monsanto's failing Roundup-resistant crops as Dow intends, it is likely that billions of pounds will be needed, on top of the already insane levels of Roundup being used (1.6 billion lbs were used in 2007 in the US alone)."
In addition to these Agent Orange crops, an expanded menu of genetically engineered organisms are awaiting approval. Next on the menu? GE apples, trees, and salmon.
State Labeling Laws: The 'skull and crossbones' that terrify Monsanto
Monsanto's greatest fear isn't a federal government charged with protecting the health and safety of its citizens. Congress and the White House seem only too happy to oblige the biotech industry's unquenchable thirst for growth, power and dominance. No, it's the massive, unstoppable (so far) grassroots movement of Millions Against Monsanto that strikes fear in the heart of the Biotech Bully. U.S. citizens are waking up. They're demanding labels on genetically engineered foods, similar to those already required in the European Union. They're calling for serious independent safety-testing of GE crops and animals, both those already approved (especially Monsanto's Roundup-resistant crops) and those awaiting approval.
The anti-GMO movement has finally figured out, after 20 years of fruitlessly lobbying Congress, the FDA and the White House, that the federal government is not going to require labels on GE foods. Instead the movement has shifted the battleground on GMO labeling from Monsanto and Big Food's turf in Washington D.C. to the more favorable terrain of state ballot initiatives and state legislative action - publicizing the fact that a state GMO labeling law will have the same marketplace impact as a national labeling law.
State laws spell doom for Monsanto. Companies like Kellogg's, General Mills, Coca-Cola, Pepsi/Frito-Lay, Dean Foods, Unilever, Con-Agra, Safeway, Wal-Mart and Smuckers are not going to label in just one or two states. Monsanto knows that U.S. food companies will go GMO-free in the entire U.S., rather than admit to consumers that their products contain GMOs.
As Monsanto itself has pointed out, labels on genetically engineered foods are like putting a "skull and crossbones" on food packages. This is why Monsanto and their allies poured $46 million into defeating a California ballot initiative last year that would have required labels on GMO foods. This is why Monsanto has lobbied strenuously in 30 states this year to prevent, or at least delay, state mandatory labeling laws from being passed. This is why Monsanto has threatened to file federal lawsuits against Vermont, Connecticut, Maine and Washington if they dare grant citizens the right to know whether or not their food has been genetically engineered or not.
And this is why Monsanto's minions are trying to insert amendments or riders into the Farm Bill that will make it nearly impossible, even illegal, for states to pass GMO labeling laws. And there's nothing to stop them when Congress is filled with pro-biotech cheerleaders who could care less that 90 percent of U.S. consumers want mandatory labels and proper safety testing of genetically engineered crops and foods.
Countering Monsanto's Final Offensive: Throw the Bums Out!
Only a massive grassroots resistance will deter the U.S. Senate and House from stomping on our rights. Only an unprecedented campaign of public education, petition-gathering and grassroots pressure will be able to convince the ever-more corrupt and indentured politicians in Washington D.C. to back off.
Eighteen state constitutions have century-old provisions for state registered voters to collect petitions and recall state and local officials, forcing them to either resign or stand for reelection. But what very few Americans, and even members of Congress, realize is that 11 states have constitutional provisions to recall U.S. Senators and House of Representative members, as well as state elected officials.
It's time we exercise the full power of direct democracy, not just state and municipal ballot initiatives. We must continue to support efforts like the current state ballot initiative to label GMOs in Washington state, and county ballot initiatives to ban GMOs, factory farms and other corporate crimes, in the 24 states and hundreds of counties and municipalities where these are allowed. But we also need to use the power we have to recall and throw out of office our out-of-control Congressional Senators and Representatives as well.
If our elected officials in Congress continue to represent Monsanto and big corporations, rather than their constituents, then let's throw the bums out! If the Washington political Establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, continue to trample on our inalienable constitutional rights and contemptuously disregard the 225-year principle of a shared balance of power between the federal government, the states and local government, then we have no choice but to recall them or throw them out of office.
Please join the nation's organic consumers and natural health advocates in this strategic battle, the Food Fight of Our Lives. Please join this campaign to save, not only our right to choose what's in our food, but our basic right to democratic representation and self-determination as well. Sign the petition. http://salsa3.salsalabs.com Tell your Congressmen and women, especially the 73 incumbents who voted last year to eliminate states rights' to legislate on GMO labels, and those in the House this week who voted to support the King Amendment that "enough is enough," "basta ya." Power to the People!
In response to this blatant violation of states' rights to legislate, and consumers' right to know, the OCA and a nationwide alliance have launched a petition http://salsa3.salsalabs.com to put every member of Congress on notice: If you support any Farm Bill amendment that would nullify states' rights to label genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we'll vote - or throw - you out of office.
On Wednesday, May 15, an amendment to the House version of the Farm Bill, inserted under the guise of protecting interstate commerce, passed out of the House Agricultural Committee. If the King Amendment makes it into the final Farm Bill, it would take away states' rights to pass laws governing the production or manufacture of any agricultural product, including food and animals raised for food, that is involved in interstate commerce. The amendment was proposed by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), largely in response to a California law stating that by 2015, California will allow only eggs to be sold from hens housed in cages specified by California. But policy analysts emphasize that the amendment, broadly and ambiguously written, could be used to prohibit or preempt any state GMO labeling or food safety law.
Will the King Amendment survive the Senate? No one can be sure, say analysts. However few doubt that Monsanto will give up. We can expect that more amendments and riders will be introduced into the Farm Bill--even if the King Amendment fails - over the next month in an attempt to stop the wave of state GMO labeling laws and initiatives moving forward in states like Washington, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and others.
Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) have admitted privately that they've "lost the battle" to stop GE food labeling at the state level, now that states are aggressively moving forward on labeling laws. On May 14, Maine's House Ag Committee passed a GMO labeling law. On May 10, the Vermont House passed a labeling bill, 99-42, despite massive lobbying by Monsanto and threats to sue the state. And though Monsanto won a razor-thin victory (51 percent to 49 percent) in a costly, hard fought California GMO labeling ballot initiative last November, biotech and Big Food now realize that Washington State voters will likely pass I-522, an upcoming ballot initiative to label GE foods, on November 5.
If Monsanto can't stop states from passing laws, then the next step is a national preemptive measure. And all signs point to just such a power grab. Earlier this year, Monsanto slipped its extremely unpopular "Monsanto Protection Act," an act that gives biotech immunity from federal prosecution for planting illegally approved GE crops, into the 2013 Federal Appropriations Bill. During the June 2012 Farm Bill debate, 73 U.S. Senators voted against the right of states to pass mandatory GE food labeling laws. Emboldened by these votes, and now the House Ag Committee's vote on the King Amendment, Monsanto has every reason to believe Congress would support a potential nullification of states' rights to label.
The million-strong OCA and its allies in the organic and natural health movement are warning incumbent Senators and House members, Democrats and Republicans alike, that thousands of health and environmental-minded constituents in their Congressional districts or states will work to recall them or drive them out of office if they fail to heed the will of the people and to respect the time-honored traditions of shared state sovereignty over food labels, food safety laws, and consumers' right to know.
Trouble in Monsanto Nation
Over the past 20 years Monsanto and the biotech industry, aided and abetted by indentured politicians and corporate agribusiness, have begun seizing control over the global food and farming system, including the legislative, patent, trade, judicial and regulatory bodies that are supposed to safeguard the public interest.
In the U.S., despite mounting evidence www.earthopensource.org of the damage GE crops inflict on human health and the environment, approximately 170 million acres of GE crops, including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa, papaya, and squash, are currently under cultivation. These crops, untested and unlabeled, comprise 41 percent of all cultivated cropland, or 17 percent of all cropland and pastureland combined. According to the GMA, at least 70 percent of non-organic grocery store processed foods contain GMOs. And GE grains and mill byproducts now supply the overwhelming majority of animal feed on the factory farms that supply 90 percent to 95 percent of the meat, eggs and dairy products that Americans consume.
Yet despite their marketplace dominance, record profits and enormous political clout in Washington D.C., Monsanto and the biotech industry are in deep trouble. Evidence is mounting that Monsanto's top-selling herbicide, Roundup, is a deadly poison, destroying important human gut bacteria and likely contributing to the rapid increase of food allergies and serious human diseases including cancer, autism, neurological disorders , Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), dementia, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Those most susceptible http://articles.mercola.com to poisoning by Monsanto's Roundup are children and the elderly.
Scientists aren't the only ones raising new questions about Roundup. Farmers are complaining that they're being forced to spray more and more chemicals on crops increasingly under siege from a growing army of herbicide-resistant weeds. The situation is so bad that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just raised http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27491.cfm the limits of Roundup residue allowed on grains and vegetables to even more dangerous levels. But just in case the EPA someday stops raising the limits, Monsanto, Dow and the biotech industry are working on a new "solution" to the onslaught of herbicide-resistant Superweeds: They've applied for approval of a new and highly controversial generation of super toxic herbicide-resistant GE crops, including "Agent Orange" (2,4-D and dicamba-resistant) corn, soybeans and cotton.
As a recent widely-circulated article points out, http://articles.mercola.com
"The use of 2,4-D is not new; it's actually one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. What is new is that farmers will now 'carpet bomb' staple food crops like soy and corn with this chemical at a previously unprecedented scale - just the way glyphosate has been indiscriminately applied as a result of Roundup Ready crops. In fact, if 2,4-D resistant crops receive approval and eventually come to replace Monsanto's failing Roundup-resistant crops as Dow intends, it is likely that billions of pounds will be needed, on top of the already insane levels of Roundup being used (1.6 billion lbs were used in 2007 in the US alone)."
In addition to these Agent Orange crops, an expanded menu of genetically engineered organisms are awaiting approval. Next on the menu? GE apples, trees, and salmon.
State Labeling Laws: The 'skull and crossbones' that terrify Monsanto
Monsanto's greatest fear isn't a federal government charged with protecting the health and safety of its citizens. Congress and the White House seem only too happy to oblige the biotech industry's unquenchable thirst for growth, power and dominance. No, it's the massive, unstoppable (so far) grassroots movement of Millions Against Monsanto that strikes fear in the heart of the Biotech Bully. U.S. citizens are waking up. They're demanding labels on genetically engineered foods, similar to those already required in the European Union. They're calling for serious independent safety-testing of GE crops and animals, both those already approved (especially Monsanto's Roundup-resistant crops) and those awaiting approval.
The anti-GMO movement has finally figured out, after 20 years of fruitlessly lobbying Congress, the FDA and the White House, that the federal government is not going to require labels on GE foods. Instead the movement has shifted the battleground on GMO labeling from Monsanto and Big Food's turf in Washington D.C. to the more favorable terrain of state ballot initiatives and state legislative action - publicizing the fact that a state GMO labeling law will have the same marketplace impact as a national labeling law.
State laws spell doom for Monsanto. Companies like Kellogg's, General Mills, Coca-Cola, Pepsi/Frito-Lay, Dean Foods, Unilever, Con-Agra, Safeway, Wal-Mart and Smuckers are not going to label in just one or two states. Monsanto knows that U.S. food companies will go GMO-free in the entire U.S., rather than admit to consumers that their products contain GMOs.
As Monsanto itself has pointed out, labels on genetically engineered foods are like putting a "skull and crossbones" on food packages. This is why Monsanto and their allies poured $46 million into defeating a California ballot initiative last year that would have required labels on GMO foods. This is why Monsanto has lobbied strenuously in 30 states this year to prevent, or at least delay, state mandatory labeling laws from being passed. This is why Monsanto has threatened to file federal lawsuits against Vermont, Connecticut, Maine and Washington if they dare grant citizens the right to know whether or not their food has been genetically engineered or not.
And this is why Monsanto's minions are trying to insert amendments or riders into the Farm Bill that will make it nearly impossible, even illegal, for states to pass GMO labeling laws. And there's nothing to stop them when Congress is filled with pro-biotech cheerleaders who could care less that 90 percent of U.S. consumers want mandatory labels and proper safety testing of genetically engineered crops and foods.
Countering Monsanto's Final Offensive: Throw the Bums Out!
Only a massive grassroots resistance will deter the U.S. Senate and House from stomping on our rights. Only an unprecedented campaign of public education, petition-gathering and grassroots pressure will be able to convince the ever-more corrupt and indentured politicians in Washington D.C. to back off.
Eighteen state constitutions have century-old provisions for state registered voters to collect petitions and recall state and local officials, forcing them to either resign or stand for reelection. But what very few Americans, and even members of Congress, realize is that 11 states have constitutional provisions to recall U.S. Senators and House of Representative members, as well as state elected officials.
It's time we exercise the full power of direct democracy, not just state and municipal ballot initiatives. We must continue to support efforts like the current state ballot initiative to label GMOs in Washington state, and county ballot initiatives to ban GMOs, factory farms and other corporate crimes, in the 24 states and hundreds of counties and municipalities where these are allowed. But we also need to use the power we have to recall and throw out of office our out-of-control Congressional Senators and Representatives as well.
If our elected officials in Congress continue to represent Monsanto and big corporations, rather than their constituents, then let's throw the bums out! If the Washington political Establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, continue to trample on our inalienable constitutional rights and contemptuously disregard the 225-year principle of a shared balance of power between the federal government, the states and local government, then we have no choice but to recall them or throw them out of office.
Please join the nation's organic consumers and natural health advocates in this strategic battle, the Food Fight of Our Lives. Please join this campaign to save, not only our right to choose what's in our food, but our basic right to democratic representation and self-determination as well. Sign the petition. http://salsa3.salsalabs.com Tell your Congressmen and women, especially the 73 incumbents who voted last year to eliminate states rights' to legislate on GMO labels, and those in the House this week who voted to support the King Amendment that "enough is enough," "basta ya." Power to the People!
Friday, May 17, 2013
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
What No One Wants to Hear About Benghazi
Ron Paul
Infowars.com
May 13, 2013
Congressional hearings, White House damage control, endless op-eds, accusations, and defensive denials. Controversy over the events in Benghazi last September took center stage in Washington and elsewhere last week. However, the whole discussion is again more of a sideshow. Each side seeks to score political points instead of asking the real questions about the attack on the US facility, which resulted in the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Republicans smell a political opportunity over evidence that the Administration heavily edited initial intelligence community talking points about the attack to remove or soften anything that might reflect badly on the president or the State Department.
Are we are supposed to be shocked by such behavior? Are we supposed to forget that this kind of whitewashing of facts is standard operating procedure when it comes to the US government?
Democrats in Congress have offered the even less convincing explanation for Benghazi, that somehow the attack occurred due to Republican sponsored cuts in the security budget at facilities overseas. With a one trillion dollar military budget, it is hard to take this seriously.
It appears that the Administration scrubbed initial intelligence reports of references to extremist Islamist involvement in the attacks, preferring to craft a lie that the demonstrations were a spontaneous response to an anti-Islamic video that developed into a full-out attack on the US outpost.
Who can blame the administration for wanting to shift the focus? The Islamic radicals who attacked Benghazi were the same people let loose by the US-led attack on Libya. They were the rebels on whose behalf the US overthrew the Libyan government. Ambassador Stevens was slain by the same Islamic radicals he personally assisted just over one year earlier.
But the Republicans in Congress also want to shift the blame. They supported the Obama Administration’s policy of bombing Libya and overthrowing its government. They also repeated the same manufactured claims that Gaddafi was “killing his own people” and was about to commit mass genocide if he were not stopped. Republicans want to draw attention to the President’s editing talking points in hopes no one will notice that if the attack on Libya they supported had not taken place, Ambassador Stevens would be alive today.
Neither side wants to talk about the real lesson of Benghazi: interventionism always carries with it unintended consequences. The US attack on Libya led to the unleashing of Islamist radicals in Libya. These radicals have destroyed the country, murdered thousands, and killed the US ambassador. Some of these then turned their attention to Mali which required another intervention by the US and France.
Previously secure weapons in Libya flooded the region after the US attack, with many of them going to Islamist radicals who make up the majority of those fighting to overthrow the government in Syria. The US government has intervened in the Syrian conflict on behalf of the same rebels it assisted in the Libya conflict, likely helping with the weapons transfers. With word out that these rebels are mostly affiliated with al Qaeda, the US is now intervening to persuade some factions of the Syrian rebels to kill other factions before completing the task of ousting the Syrian government. It is the dizzying cycle of interventionism.
The real lesson of Benghazi will not be learned because neither Republicans nor Democrats want to hear it. But it is our interventionist foreign policy and its unintended consequences that have created these problems, including the attack and murder of Ambassador Stevens. The disputed talking points and White House whitewashing are just a sideshow.
Former Congressman Ron Paul’s article first appeared at the-free-foundation.org, the temporary home for his weekly column until his personal web page is up and running.
Infowars.com
May 13, 2013
Congressional hearings, White House damage control, endless op-eds, accusations, and defensive denials. Controversy over the events in Benghazi last September took center stage in Washington and elsewhere last week. However, the whole discussion is again more of a sideshow. Each side seeks to score political points instead of asking the real questions about the attack on the US facility, which resulted in the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Republicans smell a political opportunity over evidence that the Administration heavily edited initial intelligence community talking points about the attack to remove or soften anything that might reflect badly on the president or the State Department.
Are we are supposed to be shocked by such behavior? Are we supposed to forget that this kind of whitewashing of facts is standard operating procedure when it comes to the US government?
Democrats in Congress have offered the even less convincing explanation for Benghazi, that somehow the attack occurred due to Republican sponsored cuts in the security budget at facilities overseas. With a one trillion dollar military budget, it is hard to take this seriously.
It appears that the Administration scrubbed initial intelligence reports of references to extremist Islamist involvement in the attacks, preferring to craft a lie that the demonstrations were a spontaneous response to an anti-Islamic video that developed into a full-out attack on the US outpost.
Who can blame the administration for wanting to shift the focus? The Islamic radicals who attacked Benghazi were the same people let loose by the US-led attack on Libya. They were the rebels on whose behalf the US overthrew the Libyan government. Ambassador Stevens was slain by the same Islamic radicals he personally assisted just over one year earlier.
But the Republicans in Congress also want to shift the blame. They supported the Obama Administration’s policy of bombing Libya and overthrowing its government. They also repeated the same manufactured claims that Gaddafi was “killing his own people” and was about to commit mass genocide if he were not stopped. Republicans want to draw attention to the President’s editing talking points in hopes no one will notice that if the attack on Libya they supported had not taken place, Ambassador Stevens would be alive today.
Neither side wants to talk about the real lesson of Benghazi: interventionism always carries with it unintended consequences. The US attack on Libya led to the unleashing of Islamist radicals in Libya. These radicals have destroyed the country, murdered thousands, and killed the US ambassador. Some of these then turned their attention to Mali which required another intervention by the US and France.
Previously secure weapons in Libya flooded the region after the US attack, with many of them going to Islamist radicals who make up the majority of those fighting to overthrow the government in Syria. The US government has intervened in the Syrian conflict on behalf of the same rebels it assisted in the Libya conflict, likely helping with the weapons transfers. With word out that these rebels are mostly affiliated with al Qaeda, the US is now intervening to persuade some factions of the Syrian rebels to kill other factions before completing the task of ousting the Syrian government. It is the dizzying cycle of interventionism.
The real lesson of Benghazi will not be learned because neither Republicans nor Democrats want to hear it. But it is our interventionist foreign policy and its unintended consequences that have created these problems, including the attack and murder of Ambassador Stevens. The disputed talking points and White House whitewashing are just a sideshow.
Former Congressman Ron Paul’s article first appeared at the-free-foundation.org, the temporary home for his weekly column until his personal web page is up and running.
This article was posted: Monday, May 13, 2013 at 3:07 pm
Monday, May 13, 2013
South Carolina to criminalize implementation of Obamacare; showdown with feds inevitable
(NaturalNews) More and more states are beginning to challenge the Obama Administration over what they view as unconstitutional abuses of power, especially regarding firearms and health care. The latest example comes from South Carolina, whose legislature has passed a measure declaring Obamacare to be "null and void" and criminalizing its implementation.
Lawmakers in the House passed the Freedom of Health Care Protection Act by a vote of 65-39, which seeks to "prohibit certain individuals from enforcing or attempting to enforce such unconstitutional laws; and to establish criminal penalties and civil liability for violating this article."
According to reports, the measure would permit the state attorney general, with reasonable cause, "to restrain by temporary restraining order, temporary injunction, or permanent injunction" anyone who is believed to be causing harm to any state resident or business through implementation of the Obamacare law.
"To that end, we will not pursue the type of government-run health exchanges being forced on us by Washington," she said. "Despite the rose-colored rhetoric coming out of D.C., these exchanges are nothing more than a way to make the state do the federal government's bidding in spending massive amounts of taxpayer dollars on insurance subsidies that we can't afford."
The measure moved to the state Senate May 2 and has been referred to the Committee on Finance, the Washington Times reported.
Obamacare has been declared constitutional by creative fiat, thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the law's individual mandate requiring Americans to purchase health insurance (the first ruling of its kind requiring citizens to engage in commerce). Parts of the law are still in court, however, such as challenges to the law's mandated coverage of contraceptives.
"Not in South Carolina," she said. "We will not expand Medicaid on President Obama's watch. We will not expand Medicaid ever."
Other sections of the law are already showing signs of weakness or fraying:
• The insurance exchanges called for in the law are not ready. "The Obama Administration now says a special system of exchanges designed to make it easier for small businesses to provide insurance will be delayed an entire year - to 2015," Fox News has reported. The exchanges were supposed to be up and running when the law fully took effect on Jan. 1, 2014.
"Lots of small businesses struggle with providing insurance for their workers so this was supposed to facilitate it and make it easier for small business to do this," Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told Fox News in April. "It was a huge portion of the sale job. When they passed the law in 2010 there were many senators and members of Congress who were saying 'I am doing this because it's going to help small businesses.'"
• Even the bill's authors lack confidence. U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., one of Obamacare's principal authors, has told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, whose department will oversee major portions of Obamacare implementation, "I just see a huge train wreck coming down." Baucus is up for reelection in 2014; the six-term senator's approval ratings tanked following his involvement in, and unwavering support for, Obamacare, The Associated Press has reported.
• The law is already affecting employers and employment - negatively. For months employers have been voicing concerns that they won't be able to afford the law's requirements for employee health care coverage. In fact, many say they are considering busting full-timers down to part-time status in order to avoid the requirement to insure full-time workers (http://www.huffingtonpost.com).
Sources for this article include:
http://www.washingtontimes.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthcare/reduced_work_hours13.pdf
http://www.latimes.com
Lawmakers in the House passed the Freedom of Health Care Protection Act by a vote of 65-39, which seeks to "prohibit certain individuals from enforcing or attempting to enforce such unconstitutional laws; and to establish criminal penalties and civil liability for violating this article."
According to reports, the measure would permit the state attorney general, with reasonable cause, "to restrain by temporary restraining order, temporary injunction, or permanent injunction" anyone who is believed to be causing harm to any state resident or business through implementation of the Obamacare law.
'Not now, not ever'
House members appear to be following the lead of Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, who declared in her State of the State Address earlier this year that South Carolina neither wants nor can afford President Obama's signature legislative accomplishment, "not now, not ever.""To that end, we will not pursue the type of government-run health exchanges being forced on us by Washington," she said. "Despite the rose-colored rhetoric coming out of D.C., these exchanges are nothing more than a way to make the state do the federal government's bidding in spending massive amounts of taxpayer dollars on insurance subsidies that we can't afford."
The measure moved to the state Senate May 2 and has been referred to the Committee on Finance, the Washington Times reported.
Obamacare has been declared constitutional by creative fiat, thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the law's individual mandate requiring Americans to purchase health insurance (the first ruling of its kind requiring citizens to engage in commerce). Parts of the law are still in court, however, such as challenges to the law's mandated coverage of contraceptives.
'Not in South Carolina'
In March, Haley - during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference - said she does not support the law's expansion of Medicaid coverage to low-income Americans; the nation's highest court, in the same ruling, found that Congress did not have the authority to mandate that states expand the benefit program."Not in South Carolina," she said. "We will not expand Medicaid on President Obama's watch. We will not expand Medicaid ever."
Other sections of the law are already showing signs of weakness or fraying:
• The insurance exchanges called for in the law are not ready. "The Obama Administration now says a special system of exchanges designed to make it easier for small businesses to provide insurance will be delayed an entire year - to 2015," Fox News has reported. The exchanges were supposed to be up and running when the law fully took effect on Jan. 1, 2014.
"Lots of small businesses struggle with providing insurance for their workers so this was supposed to facilitate it and make it easier for small business to do this," Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told Fox News in April. "It was a huge portion of the sale job. When they passed the law in 2010 there were many senators and members of Congress who were saying 'I am doing this because it's going to help small businesses.'"
• Even the bill's authors lack confidence. U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., one of Obamacare's principal authors, has told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, whose department will oversee major portions of Obamacare implementation, "I just see a huge train wreck coming down." Baucus is up for reelection in 2014; the six-term senator's approval ratings tanked following his involvement in, and unwavering support for, Obamacare, The Associated Press has reported.
• The law is already affecting employers and employment - negatively. For months employers have been voicing concerns that they won't be able to afford the law's requirements for employee health care coverage. In fact, many say they are considering busting full-timers down to part-time status in order to avoid the requirement to insure full-time workers (http://www.huffingtonpost.com).
Sources for this article include:
http://www.washingtontimes.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthcare/reduced_work_hours13.pdf
http://www.latimes.com
Parents have no 'right' to homeschool their kids, says Justice Department
(NaturalNews) Individual liberty is being burned at the stake, as governments set fire to people natural rights. This time it has everything to do with homeschooling.
It all started in Germany. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike were raising their five children in the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg, when they decided to remove their children from the public education system. In 2006, the Romeike's illegally withdrew their children from the German public schools system and began homeschooling. Believing that the public education system was undermining their Christian faith, the Romeike's began breaking the law and teaching their kids at home. By exercising their natural rights, the Romeikes were fined over $10,000 by the German government and at one point their children were forcefully removed from their home. In 2010, after getting their children back, they chose to flee Germany and move to the United States.
Nothing much was said about the issue until the Obama's Administration's Department of Justice got involved.
Attorney General, Eric Holder came out and opposed the federal court ruling, siding with the German government. He pleaded that the Romeike's be denied their asylum. Holder believes that governments may legitimately use force and authority to make parents comply with government-sanctioned schools.
With statements like these, the United States, once a beacon for liberty, is now endorsing force and mandates in regard to education. The right to homeschool and teach one's own children is a fundamental human right is now at stake. It doesn't matter what beliefs each family has. It's liberty that matters. According to Holder, that liberty should be supervised by the federal government.
The policy in the United States is currently one of freedom. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution secures homeschooling as a fundamental liberty. The Constitution enables each individual state to regulate homeschooling in its own way. Is this idea under attack?
Very much so. The Attorney General currently seeks to deport the Romeike's. Their right to home school their children their own way doesn't matter to the Department of Justice. The government is more concerned with compliance: Everyone giving away their liberty and free will, and absorbing the education laid out by federal law.
From the failed No Child Left Behind Act to the new federally implemented Common Core program, the government is socializing the public school system. The new Common Core program is based on a one-size-fits-all approach that school Board President Michael Faccinetto condemns, saying:
"All we care about are these high-stakes tests and numbers and data instead of the kids." Faccinetto continues, "Standardized tests don't define the success of a child."
Indeed, homeschooling in the US is on the rise. Since 1999, the number of homeschooled children has increased by 75 percent.
Typically, a parent-involved education lays the groundwork for a set of core values that helps children become more productive and principled later in life.
More times than not, homeschooling is not a close-minded, antisocial way of educating. It's actually a more integrative, creative approach, with opportunities outside the classroom.
Homeschooling isn't anything to be ashamed of, and there should be nothing criminal about it. It is a parent's natural right to teach their children what they want as long as they are not harming another. A family that flees a county's educational control to find liberty in the United States is a testimony of freedom and the Attorney General should be ashamed for wanting to strip the family of asylum and deport them back into the hands of the controlling German government.
Sources for this article include:
http://theaquilareport.com
http://blog.acton.org
http://familyrights.azproject.org
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com
It all started in Germany. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike were raising their five children in the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg, when they decided to remove their children from the public education system. In 2006, the Romeike's illegally withdrew their children from the German public schools system and began homeschooling. Believing that the public education system was undermining their Christian faith, the Romeike's began breaking the law and teaching their kids at home. By exercising their natural rights, the Romeikes were fined over $10,000 by the German government and at one point their children were forcefully removed from their home. In 2010, after getting their children back, they chose to flee Germany and move to the United States.
Finding freedom in the US, only to be challenged again, this time by the US
Upon arrival in Tennessee, the Romeikes were granted asylum. A federal judge rebuked the German policy and ruled that the Romeike's had a reasonable fear of persecution for their personal beliefs if they returned to Germany.Nothing much was said about the issue until the Obama's Administration's Department of Justice got involved.
Attorney General, Eric Holder came out and opposed the federal court ruling, siding with the German government. He pleaded that the Romeike's be denied their asylum. Holder believes that governments may legitimately use force and authority to make parents comply with government-sanctioned schools.
With statements like these, the United States, once a beacon for liberty, is now endorsing force and mandates in regard to education. The right to homeschool and teach one's own children is a fundamental human right is now at stake. It doesn't matter what beliefs each family has. It's liberty that matters. According to Holder, that liberty should be supervised by the federal government.
Government supervised education
The German policy that's currently in place says that the upbringing of a child is a parent's natural right but the government's duty is to watch over them in the performance of this duty. The law also states that: "The entire school system shall be under the supervision of the state."The policy in the United States is currently one of freedom. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution secures homeschooling as a fundamental liberty. The Constitution enables each individual state to regulate homeschooling in its own way. Is this idea under attack?
Very much so. The Attorney General currently seeks to deport the Romeike's. Their right to home school their children their own way doesn't matter to the Department of Justice. The government is more concerned with compliance: Everyone giving away their liberty and free will, and absorbing the education laid out by federal law.
From the failed No Child Left Behind Act to the new federally implemented Common Core program, the government is socializing the public school system. The new Common Core program is based on a one-size-fits-all approach that school Board President Michael Faccinetto condemns, saying:
"All we care about are these high-stakes tests and numbers and data instead of the kids." Faccinetto continues, "Standardized tests don't define the success of a child."
Homeschooling typically allows for a broader, more creative, and more self-disciplined approach to learning
Will federal compliance be the way forward for education in the United States, or are people catching on and learning that the freedom of homeschooling allows for the exploration of alternative ideas, engaging children more effectively with their society and themselves?Indeed, homeschooling in the US is on the rise. Since 1999, the number of homeschooled children has increased by 75 percent.
Typically, a parent-involved education lays the groundwork for a set of core values that helps children become more productive and principled later in life.
More times than not, homeschooling is not a close-minded, antisocial way of educating. It's actually a more integrative, creative approach, with opportunities outside the classroom.
Homeschooling isn't anything to be ashamed of, and there should be nothing criminal about it. It is a parent's natural right to teach their children what they want as long as they are not harming another. A family that flees a county's educational control to find liberty in the United States is a testimony of freedom and the Attorney General should be ashamed for wanting to strip the family of asylum and deport them back into the hands of the controlling German government.
Sources for this article include:
http://theaquilareport.com
http://blog.acton.org
http://familyrights.azproject.org
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com
Thunder god vine compound annihilates cancer in 40 days, researchers discover
(NaturalNews) Rarely known outside traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), lei gong teng or "thunder god vine" is stunning Western researchers with its ability to stop cancer in its tracks - in as little as forty days. Used for its health enhancing qualities for more than 2,000 years in China, the West is beginning to recognize the astounding benefits of the vine for treating cancer, giving new hope to those who suffer from the most deadly forms of the disease.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Center discovered that mice treated with triptolide for 40 days showed no further incidence of tumors, even after ceasing treatment. Ashok Saluja, vice chairman of research and the study's leader, told Bloomberg, "You could see every day you looked at those mice, the tumor was decreasing and decreasing, and then just gone."
Scientists at John Hopkins School of Medicine also found extracts of lei gong teng to be effective in eliminating cancerous tumors. Jun O. Liu, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and molecular sciences at Johns Hopkins, notes:
"... triptolide has been shown to block the growth of all 60 U.S. National Cancer Institute cell lines at very low doses, and even causes some of those cell lines to die."
Apparently, the compound impedes the manufacture of new RNA, thereby curbing cancerous proliferation in mice. These findings are laying the foundation for human clinical trials in the near future.
Triptolide has been shown to inhibit colorectal, pancreatic and ovarian cancers, among others. Rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune disorders like multiple sclerosis and lupus respond to lei gong teng as well.
Since the herb can cause serious side effects, including loss of bone density, headache and infertility, it is important to consult a qualified TCM practitioner before use.
"While it is great news that this study is bringing the beneficial effects of inexpensive and near-free plant compounds to light, the bad news is that the individuals responsible for the research are actually looking to create a pharmaceutical drug from the essential component triptolide. A drug that will seek FDA approval and ultimately be patented, nutritionally ruined, and sold for exorbitant amounts of cash. Instead, just get your hands on some thunder god vine for yourself."
Sources for this article include:
http://naturalsociety.com
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110303153118.htm
http://www.bloomberg.com
http://www.naturalstandard.com
http://www.plosone.org
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22902510
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22464014
http://www.livingwellmagazine.net
About the author:
Carolanne enthusiastically believes if we want to see change in the world, we need to be the change. As a nutritionist, natural foods chef and wellness coach, Carolanne has encouraged others to embrace a healthy lifestyle of organic living, gratefulness and joyful orientation for over 13 years. Through her website www.Thrive-Living.net she looks forward to connecting with other like-minded people who share a similar vision.
Follow on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/Thrive_Living
At Facebook, follow here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Thrive-Living/499578863433146
For Pinterest fans, connect here: www.pinterest.com/thriveliving/natural-news/
Read her other articles on Natural News here:
http://www.naturalnews.com/Author1183.html
Thunder god vine compound swiftly conquers cancer
Lei gong teng (Tripterygium wilfordii) is native to China, Japan and Korea where it has long been valued for its distinct anti-inflammatory, immunosuppressive and anti-cancer properties. Supplying ample amounts of the active compound triptolide, the herb demonstrates substantial success in eradicating cancerous tumors.Researchers at the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Center discovered that mice treated with triptolide for 40 days showed no further incidence of tumors, even after ceasing treatment. Ashok Saluja, vice chairman of research and the study's leader, told Bloomberg, "You could see every day you looked at those mice, the tumor was decreasing and decreasing, and then just gone."
Scientists at John Hopkins School of Medicine also found extracts of lei gong teng to be effective in eliminating cancerous tumors. Jun O. Liu, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and molecular sciences at Johns Hopkins, notes:
"... triptolide has been shown to block the growth of all 60 U.S. National Cancer Institute cell lines at very low doses, and even causes some of those cell lines to die."
Apparently, the compound impedes the manufacture of new RNA, thereby curbing cancerous proliferation in mice. These findings are laying the foundation for human clinical trials in the near future.
Triptolide has been shown to inhibit colorectal, pancreatic and ovarian cancers, among others. Rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune disorders like multiple sclerosis and lupus respond to lei gong teng as well.
Since the herb can cause serious side effects, including loss of bone density, headache and infertility, it is important to consult a qualified TCM practitioner before use.
The dark side of scientific research
Even though emerging research regarding the thunder god vine is encouraging, financial gain is still the underlying motivating factor. Anthony Gucciardi of Natural Society aptly observes:"While it is great news that this study is bringing the beneficial effects of inexpensive and near-free plant compounds to light, the bad news is that the individuals responsible for the research are actually looking to create a pharmaceutical drug from the essential component triptolide. A drug that will seek FDA approval and ultimately be patented, nutritionally ruined, and sold for exorbitant amounts of cash. Instead, just get your hands on some thunder god vine for yourself."
Sources for this article include:
http://naturalsociety.com
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110303153118.htm
http://www.bloomberg.com
http://www.naturalstandard.com
http://www.plosone.org
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22902510
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22464014
http://www.livingwellmagazine.net
About the author:
Carolanne enthusiastically believes if we want to see change in the world, we need to be the change. As a nutritionist, natural foods chef and wellness coach, Carolanne has encouraged others to embrace a healthy lifestyle of organic living, gratefulness and joyful orientation for over 13 years. Through her website www.Thrive-Living.net she looks forward to connecting with other like-minded people who share a similar vision.
Follow on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/Thrive_Living
At Facebook, follow here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Thrive-Living/499578863433146
For Pinterest fans, connect here: www.pinterest.com/thriveliving/natural-news/
Read her other articles on Natural News here:
http://www.naturalnews.com/Author1183.html
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Homeland Security Funded Exercise Portrayed Homeschoolers as Terrorists
Taken on its own, the KOMO 4 News report below out of Seattle paints a
stark and frightening picture of police battling “angry parents” in a
simulated shooting at a school. The practice of police training to take
on everything from homeschoolers to patriots and constitutionalists –
“rightwing extremists” in government parlance – is anything but a
rarity. Such exercises are now a prominent feature of the expanding
police state.
In 2002, Alex Jones covered school shooting police exercises targeting homeschoolers, a topic included in his film, Police State Trilogy. Since that time, the effort to malign homeschooling parents as extremists and terrorists has only increased.
Police State Exercises Now Part of Public Education Landscape
In 2004, cops in Muskegon, Michigan conducted a “mock attack” on a school bus as part of a terrorism response exercise. The terrorists portrayed in the exercise were not fanatical Muslims or even phantom rightwing extremists – they were said to be fanatical homeschoolers.
According to the Muskegon Chronicle, the exercise was a simulated “attack by a fictitious radical group called Wackos Against Schools and Education who believe everyone should be homeschooled,” Homeschool World reported in September, 2004.
The simulated attack was funded by the Department of Homeland Security.
Prison Planet.com reported:
But it is not simply homeschoolers who are portrayed as terrorists in government school exercises.
In 2011, Pottawatamie County, Iowa, and Homeland Security conducted an exercise simulating a school shooting. The shooter was portrayed as a “white teen boy, whose family is involved in anti-illegal immigration rallies” and supports the Second Amendment. The father of the shooter was portrayed as a member of an “underground white supremacist group,” according to an email sent to Infowars.com.
School children are now routinely subjected to unannounced exercises. In a Michigan school in 2006, militarized cops took students “from the classroom into the halls, patted down by officers and asked what they had in their pockets.” The Associated Press reported that some of the children “were so scared, they just about wet their pants.”
“In the years since 9/11 and the Columbine school shootings, there has been a concerted effort to make school emergency drills much more ‘realistic’ and much more intense,” writes Michael Snyder. “Unfortunately, the fact that many of these drills are deeply traumatizing many children does not seem to bother too many people. Do we really need to have ‘active shooter’ drills where men point guns at our kids and fire blanks at them?”
Snyder documents numerous instances where school officials, in coordination with local militarized police often operating with Department of Homeland Security grants, have relocated children during mock terror drills and active shooter scenarios. Schools also routinely engage in lockdown drills, an activity that naturally acclimates young minds to accept an ever-encroaching police state.
“Schools have become hi-tech prisons,” Steve Watson wrote in 2007. “Children all across America and the UK are being conditioned to accept that they are not free and that they must submit to draconian laws and measures for their own safety… Everyday we post reports from mainstream news sources documenting this disturbing trend.”
Homeschooling: Part of Domestic Terror Construct
The demonization of Americans who are opposed to interning their children in public reeducation facilities predates the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the attacks of September 11, 2001.
According to Time Magazine, the rhetoric that supposedly contributed to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City came from “well known-elements of far-right thought: tax protesters, Christian homeschoolers, conspiracy theorists… and self-reliant types” in opposition to the federal government.
Lew Finch, the superintendent of schools in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, went further and directly placed the blame for the bombing on homeschoolers. “There is a dedicated, very well organized, very well financed movement in America that is very anti-public schools, very anti-government,” he told the Des Moines Register on May 4, 1995. “The ultimate example of that sentiment is the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.”
“We will continue to see armed men terrorize our children, aim guns at their head and indoctrinate them to accept living under tyranny unless parents and teacher organizations band together to file huge lawsuits against those responsible and we vehemently denounce the insidious Sovietization of the public school system,” Watson and Jones noted.
Homeschool parents and organizations, as well, would be wise to combat insidious government propaganda that likens them to terrorists. Left unopposed, this massive brainwashing effort will convert an entire generation into believing that homeschooling is not only evil and socially harmful, but it breeds terrorists.
The goal is to completely eradicate parent directed education and the threat it poses to public indoctrination mills that train children to passively participate in their own destruction while simulatenously worshipping government.
http://www.infowars.com/homeland-security-funded-exercise-portrayed-homeschoolers-as-terrorists/
In 2002, Alex Jones covered school shooting police exercises targeting homeschoolers, a topic included in his film, Police State Trilogy. Since that time, the effort to malign homeschooling parents as extremists and terrorists has only increased.
Police State Exercises Now Part of Public Education Landscape
In 2004, cops in Muskegon, Michigan conducted a “mock attack” on a school bus as part of a terrorism response exercise. The terrorists portrayed in the exercise were not fanatical Muslims or even phantom rightwing extremists – they were said to be fanatical homeschoolers.
According to the Muskegon Chronicle, the exercise was a simulated “attack by a fictitious radical group called Wackos Against Schools and Education who believe everyone should be homeschooled,” Homeschool World reported in September, 2004.
The simulated attack was funded by the Department of Homeland Security.
Prison Planet.com reported:
The mock attack was funded by a Homeland Security grant and required the participation of students to act bloody and injured, also involving hospitals, morgues and mannequins painted up to look like dead children, as parents were ordered to dash to emergency rooms frantic in the belief that their child had perished.“Michigan is the epicenter of the agenda to mould all schools into youth internment centers, indoctrinating all children to accept the presence of surveillance cameras, biometric scanning to access buildings and buy food, ID tracking cards and men in uniforms pointing guns at them as normal,” Paul Joseph Watson and Alex Jone wrote on November 6, 2008. “Allied to this is the openly stated agenda not to educate but to dumb down students and brainwash them with bizarre humanist rhetoric about the evils of the family, all in preparation for their smooth acquiescence into enslaved adulthood as a downtrodden worker bee under the control matrix of the elite.”
The Muskegon Area Intermediate School District later had to apologize for characterizing homeschoolers as terrorists after hundreds of complaints poured in.Stereotypes consistently propped-up by the media demonize homeschoolers as hicks, retards and extremists, despite the fact the local and national spelling bees are routinely won by homeschooled children.The ceaseless attack on homeschooling is an attempt to neutralize any alternatives parents have to placing their children in the state run re-education gulags known as the “public school system.”
But it is not simply homeschoolers who are portrayed as terrorists in government school exercises.
In 2011, Pottawatamie County, Iowa, and Homeland Security conducted an exercise simulating a school shooting. The shooter was portrayed as a “white teen boy, whose family is involved in anti-illegal immigration rallies” and supports the Second Amendment. The father of the shooter was portrayed as a member of an “underground white supremacist group,” according to an email sent to Infowars.com.
School children are now routinely subjected to unannounced exercises. In a Michigan school in 2006, militarized cops took students “from the classroom into the halls, patted down by officers and asked what they had in their pockets.” The Associated Press reported that some of the children “were so scared, they just about wet their pants.”
“In the years since 9/11 and the Columbine school shootings, there has been a concerted effort to make school emergency drills much more ‘realistic’ and much more intense,” writes Michael Snyder. “Unfortunately, the fact that many of these drills are deeply traumatizing many children does not seem to bother too many people. Do we really need to have ‘active shooter’ drills where men point guns at our kids and fire blanks at them?”
Snyder documents numerous instances where school officials, in coordination with local militarized police often operating with Department of Homeland Security grants, have relocated children during mock terror drills and active shooter scenarios. Schools also routinely engage in lockdown drills, an activity that naturally acclimates young minds to accept an ever-encroaching police state.
“Schools have become hi-tech prisons,” Steve Watson wrote in 2007. “Children all across America and the UK are being conditioned to accept that they are not free and that they must submit to draconian laws and measures for their own safety… Everyday we post reports from mainstream news sources documenting this disturbing trend.”
Homeschooling: Part of Domestic Terror Construct
The demonization of Americans who are opposed to interning their children in public reeducation facilities predates the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the attacks of September 11, 2001.
According to Time Magazine, the rhetoric that supposedly contributed to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City came from “well known-elements of far-right thought: tax protesters, Christian homeschoolers, conspiracy theorists… and self-reliant types” in opposition to the federal government.
Lew Finch, the superintendent of schools in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, went further and directly placed the blame for the bombing on homeschoolers. “There is a dedicated, very well organized, very well financed movement in America that is very anti-public schools, very anti-government,” he told the Des Moines Register on May 4, 1995. “The ultimate example of that sentiment is the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.”
“We will continue to see armed men terrorize our children, aim guns at their head and indoctrinate them to accept living under tyranny unless parents and teacher organizations band together to file huge lawsuits against those responsible and we vehemently denounce the insidious Sovietization of the public school system,” Watson and Jones noted.
Homeschool parents and organizations, as well, would be wise to combat insidious government propaganda that likens them to terrorists. Left unopposed, this massive brainwashing effort will convert an entire generation into believing that homeschooling is not only evil and socially harmful, but it breeds terrorists.
The goal is to completely eradicate parent directed education and the threat it poses to public indoctrination mills that train children to passively participate in their own destruction while simulatenously worshipping government.
http://www.infowars.com/homeland-security-funded-exercise-portrayed-homeschoolers-as-terrorists/
Senior IRS official: 'I'm not good at math' - yeah, we know
(NaturalNews) During a conference call with reporters, senior IRS official Lois Lerner uttered words that are now reverberating across the blogosphere: "I'm not good at math."
Don't worry, Lois, neither is anyone else. And the less you can do math, the happier you'll be at the IRS where, let's face it, no two people ever come up with the same answer for any given tax return.
This utterance bubbled out of Lois's mouth in the middle of a conference call concerning the stunning revelations that the IRS targeted conservative groups for punitive audits during the 2012 elections. Yep, when you're not a gung-ho supporter for the socialist agenda, IRS agents just happen to come knocking on your door. The IRS apologized for the punitive targeting, but that's hardly enough. People should be going to jail over this. This is political witch hunting at its worst.
But don't worry. Nobody involved in this can do math, either. In fact, most journalists can't do math and hardly any taxpayers understand math at all. If they did, they would be impeaching Obama faster than an AR-15 being raffled off at a Tea Party rally for his outrageous explosion in government debt spending that has ballooned the national debt more than all the other presidents in U.S. history... combined! See www.USdebtclock.org
Obama has set America on course for an apocalyptic financial blowout, but no one seems to notice because they can't do math. After all, sixteen trillion in debt sounds a whole lot like sixteen million. It's only one letter off. How big of a difference could that be, after all?
Why is this a big deal? Because it means the government doesn't need an IRS to raise the money to fund itself. The IRS exists for only one reason: To socially control and manipulate the population while keeping people as impoverished as possible.
Let me say that another way: The government doesn't need your tax money to fund itself. It can whip up trillions out of dollars out of nothing any time it wants (as it has done repeatedly since the first bankster bailouts of 2008).
Your paltry $10,000 in federal taxes (or whatever you pay) is inconsequential to the government's debt spending blowout. All the money you earn in your entire life couldn't even put a dent in the national debt. The idea that the federal government needs your $10,000 to run things is utterly ridiculous.
In summary, the real news today is not that a top IRS official can't do math. The real jaw-dropper is that the very idea of paying taxes to "fund the government" is a mathematical hoax.
April 15th is nothing more than a vestigial ritual that has no economic function whatsoever other than keeping people enslaved and "guilty" of crimes that are selectively enforced.
Don't worry, Lois, neither is anyone else. And the less you can do math, the happier you'll be at the IRS where, let's face it, no two people ever come up with the same answer for any given tax return.
This utterance bubbled out of Lois's mouth in the middle of a conference call concerning the stunning revelations that the IRS targeted conservative groups for punitive audits during the 2012 elections. Yep, when you're not a gung-ho supporter for the socialist agenda, IRS agents just happen to come knocking on your door. The IRS apologized for the punitive targeting, but that's hardly enough. People should be going to jail over this. This is political witch hunting at its worst.
But don't worry. Nobody involved in this can do math, either. In fact, most journalists can't do math and hardly any taxpayers understand math at all. If they did, they would be impeaching Obama faster than an AR-15 being raffled off at a Tea Party rally for his outrageous explosion in government debt spending that has ballooned the national debt more than all the other presidents in U.S. history... combined! See www.USdebtclock.org
Obama has set America on course for an apocalyptic financial blowout, but no one seems to notice because they can't do math. After all, sixteen trillion in debt sounds a whole lot like sixteen million. It's only one letter off. How big of a difference could that be, after all?
If you could do math, you would realize the IRS has no purpose other than social engineering
But here's the real kicker in all this: Anyone who can do math realizes the entire "take" from taxpayers by the IRS each year is only about $1.2 trillion (this is personal income tax, not corporate). And yet, as we've seen over and over again, the U.S. government can conjure up a trillion dollars anytime it wants! Especially for bankster bailouts, stimulus spending or anything else it's trying to push.Why is this a big deal? Because it means the government doesn't need an IRS to raise the money to fund itself. The IRS exists for only one reason: To socially control and manipulate the population while keeping people as impoverished as possible.
Let me say that another way: The government doesn't need your tax money to fund itself. It can whip up trillions out of dollars out of nothing any time it wants (as it has done repeatedly since the first bankster bailouts of 2008).
The income tax is a mathematical myth
The idea that the government needs your tax dollars to fund its operations is a mathematical myth. It doesn't need a penny from you! Geesh, the Fed is right now creating $85 billion a month in new money just to prop up the derivatives debt market. That's over one trillion dollars a year all by itself. If it can create $1 trillion each year, it can certainly create another $1.2 trillion on April 15th if it really wanted to.Your paltry $10,000 in federal taxes (or whatever you pay) is inconsequential to the government's debt spending blowout. All the money you earn in your entire life couldn't even put a dent in the national debt. The idea that the federal government needs your $10,000 to run things is utterly ridiculous.
In summary, the real news today is not that a top IRS official can't do math. The real jaw-dropper is that the very idea of paying taxes to "fund the government" is a mathematical hoax.
April 15th is nothing more than a vestigial ritual that has no economic function whatsoever other than keeping people enslaved and "guilty" of crimes that are selectively enforced.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Scorecard: How Many Rights Have Americans REALLY Lost?
How Many Constitutional Freedoms Do We Still Have?
Preface: While a lot of people talk about the loss of our Constitutional liberties, people usually speak in a vague, generalized manner … or focus on only one issue and ignore the rest.This post explains the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights – the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution – and provides a scorecard on the extent of the loss of each right.
First Amendment
The 1st Amendment protects speech, religion, assembly and the press:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.However, the government is arresting those speaking out … and violently crushing peaceful assemblies which attempt to petition the government for redress.
A federal judge found that the law allowing indefinite detention of Americans without due process has a “chilling effect” on free speech. And see this and this.
There are also enacted laws allowing the secret service to arrest anyone protesting near the president or other designated folks (that might explain incidents like this).
The threat of being labeled a terrorist for exercising our First Amendment rights certainly violates the First Amendment. The government is using laws to crush dissent, and it’s gotten so bad that even U.S. Supreme Court justices are saying that we are descending into tyranny.
For example, the following actions may get an American citizen living on U.S. soil labeled as a “suspected terrorist” today:
- Being young (if you live near a battle zone, you are fair game; and see this)
- Protesting anything (such as participating in the “Occupy” movement)
- Questioning war (even though war reduces our national security; and see this)
- Criticizing the government’s targeting of innocent civilians with drones (although killing innocent civilians with drones is one of the main things which increases terrorism. And see this)
- Stocking up on more than 7 days of food (even though all Mormons are taught to stockpile food, and most Hawaiians store up on extra food)
- (Not having a Facebook account may soon be added)
- Liking the Founding Fathers
- Being a Christian
- Being “anti-nuclear”
- Being “anti-abortion”
- Being “anti-Catholic”
- Being “anti-global”
And 1st Amendment rights are especially chilled when power has become so concentrated that the same agency which spies on all Americans also decides who should be assassinated.
Second Amendment
The 2nd Amendment states:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.Gun control and gun rights advocates obviously have very different views about whether guns are a force for violence or for good.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/02/constitution.html
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