Maurice Clemmons, man wanted for questioning, has troubling criminal history
(Seattle Times)
Maurice Clemmons, the 37-year-old Tacoma man being sought for questioning in the killing this morning of four Lakewood police officers, has a long criminal record punctuated by violence, erratic behavior and concerns about his mental health.
Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence over the protests of prosecutors.
"This is the day I've been dreading for a long time," Larry Jegley, prosecuting attorney for Arkansas' Pulaski County said tonight when informed that Clemmons was being sought for questioning in connection with the killings.
Clemmons' criminal history includes at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington. The record also stands out for the number of times he has been released from custody despite questions about the danger he posed.
Huckabee, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination last year, issued a statement tonight calling the slaying of the police officers "a horrible and tragic event."
If Clemmons is found responsible, "it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State," Huckabee said.
He added that Clemmons' release from prison had been reviewed and approved by the Arkansas parole board.
Clemmons had been in jail in Pierce County for the past several months on a pending charge of second-degree rape of a child. He was released from custody just six days ago, even though was staring at seven additional felony charges in Washington state...
As part of the child-rape investigation, the sheriff's office interviewed Clemmons' sister in May. She told them that "Maurice is not in his right mind and did not know how he could react when contacted by Law Enforcement," a sheriff's report says.
"She stated that he was saying that the secret service was coming to get him because he had written a letter to the President. She stated his behavior has become unpredictable and erratic. She suspects he is having a mental breakdown," the report says.
Deputies also interviewed other family members. They reported that Clemmons had been saying he could fly and that he expected President Obama to visit to "confirm that he is Messiah in the flesh."...
News accounts say Huckabee commuted Clemmons' sentence, citing Clemmons' young age at the time the crimes were committed.
But Clemmons remained on parole — and soon after landed in trouble again. In March 2001, he was accused of violating his parole by committing aggravated robbery and theft, according to a story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
He was returned to prison on a parole violation. But in what appears to have been a mistake, Clemmons was not actually served with the arrest warrants until leaving prison three years later. As a result, Clemmons' attorney argued that the charges should be dismissed because too much time had passed. Prosecutors dropped the charges...MORE...LINK
-------------------------
Photo: Alleged cop killer Maurice Clemmons
Photo: Christian Zionist Mike Huckabee poses for the cameras on one of his eleven visits to Israel
Photo: Mike "Guitar" Huckabee grooves in the spotlight, basks in the attention
FOR LIBERTARIAN NATIONALISM: ANTI-CORPORATIST, ANTI-COMMUNIST, ANTI-GLOBALIST...PRO-SOVEREIGNTY, PRO-POPULIST, PRO-FREE ENTERPRISE
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Monday, November 30, 2009
Long a punching bag for liberals and Jews, is the Catholic Church finally starting to hit back?
A Church Militant?
(Taki Magazine ) -- by Patrick J. Buchanan
With the House debate on health care at its hottest, the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a stunning ultimatum: Impose an absolute ban on tax funds for abortions, or we call for defeat of the Pelosi bill.
Message received. The Stupak Amendment, named for Bart Stupak of Michigan, was promptly passed, to the delight of pro-life Catholics and the astonished outrage of pro-abortion Democrats.
No member was more upset than Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, son of Edward Kennedy, who proceeded to bash the Church for imperiling the greatest advance for human rights in a generation.
Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin responded, accusing Kennedy of an unprovoked attack and demanding an apology. Kennedy retorted that Tobin had told him not to receive communion at Mass and ordered his diocesan priests not to give him communion.
False! The bishop fired back.
He had sent Kennedy a private letter in February 2007 saying that he ought not receive communion, as he was scandalizing the Church. But he had not told diocesan priests to deny him communion.
As Rhode Island is our most Catholic state, Kennedy went silent and got this parting shot from Tobin: “Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church.”
The clash was naturally national news. But Tobin’s public chastisement of a Catholic who carries the most famous name in U.S. and Catholic politics is made more significant because it seems to reflect a new militancy in the hierarchy that has been absent for decades
Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., just informed the city council that, rather than recognize homosexual marriages and provide gays the rights and benefits of married couples, he will shut down all Catholic social institutions and let the city take them over. Civil disobedience may be in order here.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York sent an op-ed to The New York Times charging the paper with anti-Catholic bigotry and using a moral double standard when judging the Church.
During the “horrible” scandal of priest abuse of children, wrote the archbishop, the Times demanded the “release of names of abusers, rollback of the statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records and total transparency.”
But when the Times “exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuses in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish Community ... 40 cases of such abuses in this tiny community last year alone,” wrote the archbishop, the district attorney swept the scandal under the rug, and the Times held up the carpet...Cont'd...LINK
(Taki Magazine ) -- by Patrick J. Buchanan
With the House debate on health care at its hottest, the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a stunning ultimatum: Impose an absolute ban on tax funds for abortions, or we call for defeat of the Pelosi bill.
Message received. The Stupak Amendment, named for Bart Stupak of Michigan, was promptly passed, to the delight of pro-life Catholics and the astonished outrage of pro-abortion Democrats.
No member was more upset than Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, son of Edward Kennedy, who proceeded to bash the Church for imperiling the greatest advance for human rights in a generation.
Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin responded, accusing Kennedy of an unprovoked attack and demanding an apology. Kennedy retorted that Tobin had told him not to receive communion at Mass and ordered his diocesan priests not to give him communion.
False! The bishop fired back.
He had sent Kennedy a private letter in February 2007 saying that he ought not receive communion, as he was scandalizing the Church. But he had not told diocesan priests to deny him communion.
As Rhode Island is our most Catholic state, Kennedy went silent and got this parting shot from Tobin: “Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church.”
The clash was naturally national news. But Tobin’s public chastisement of a Catholic who carries the most famous name in U.S. and Catholic politics is made more significant because it seems to reflect a new militancy in the hierarchy that has been absent for decades
Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., just informed the city council that, rather than recognize homosexual marriages and provide gays the rights and benefits of married couples, he will shut down all Catholic social institutions and let the city take them over. Civil disobedience may be in order here.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York sent an op-ed to The New York Times charging the paper with anti-Catholic bigotry and using a moral double standard when judging the Church.
During the “horrible” scandal of priest abuse of children, wrote the archbishop, the Times demanded the “release of names of abusers, rollback of the statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records and total transparency.”
But when the Times “exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuses in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish Community ... 40 cases of such abuses in this tiny community last year alone,” wrote the archbishop, the district attorney swept the scandal under the rug, and the Times held up the carpet...Cont'd...LINK
Private bankster network has been digging US public economic policy deeper for decades: Federal court ruled Federal Reserve private institution in ’82
Court Rules Federal Reserve is Privately Owned
Case Reveals Fed's Status as a Private Institution
(Save-A-Patriot.org) --
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below are excerpts from a court case proving the Federal Reserve system's status. As you will see, the court ruled that the Federal Reserve Banks are "independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations", and there is not sufficient "federal government control over 'detailed physical performance' and 'day to day operation'" of the Federal Reserve Bank for it to be considered a federal agency:
Lewis v. United States, 680 F.2d 1239 (1982)
John L. Lewis, Plaintiff/Appellant,
v.
United States of America, Defendant/Appellee.
No. 80-5905
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Submitted March 2, 1982.
Decided April 19, 1982.
As Amended June 24, 1982.
Plaintiff, who was injured by vehicle owned and operated by a federal reserve bank, brought action alleging jurisdiction under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The United States District Court for the Central District of California, David W. Williams, J., dismissed holding that federal reserve bank was not a federal agency within meaning of Act and that the court therefore lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. Appeal was taken. The Court of Appeals, Poole, Circuit Judge, held that federal reserve banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of the Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations.
Affirmed.
1. United States
There are no sharp criteria for determining whether an entity is a federal agency within meaning of the Federal Tort Claims Act, but critical factor is existence of federal government control over "detailed physical performance" and "day to day operation" of an entity. . . .
2. United States
Federal reserve banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of a Federal Tort Claims Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations in light of fact that direct supervision and control of each bank is exercised by board of directors, federal reserve banks, though heavily regulated, are locally controlled by their member banks, banks are listed neither as "wholly owned" government corporations nor as "mixed ownership" corporations; federal reserve banks receive no appropriated funds from Congress and the banks are empowered to sue and be sued in their own names...Cont'd...LINK
Case Reveals Fed's Status as a Private Institution
(Save-A-Patriot.org) --
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below are excerpts from a court case proving the Federal Reserve system's status. As you will see, the court ruled that the Federal Reserve Banks are "independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations", and there is not sufficient "federal government control over 'detailed physical performance' and 'day to day operation'" of the Federal Reserve Bank for it to be considered a federal agency:
Lewis v. United States, 680 F.2d 1239 (1982)
John L. Lewis, Plaintiff/Appellant,
v.
United States of America, Defendant/Appellee.
No. 80-5905
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Submitted March 2, 1982.
Decided April 19, 1982.
As Amended June 24, 1982.
Plaintiff, who was injured by vehicle owned and operated by a federal reserve bank, brought action alleging jurisdiction under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The United States District Court for the Central District of California, David W. Williams, J., dismissed holding that federal reserve bank was not a federal agency within meaning of Act and that the court therefore lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. Appeal was taken. The Court of Appeals, Poole, Circuit Judge, held that federal reserve banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of the Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations.
Affirmed.
1. United States
There are no sharp criteria for determining whether an entity is a federal agency within meaning of the Federal Tort Claims Act, but critical factor is existence of federal government control over "detailed physical performance" and "day to day operation" of an entity. . . .
2. United States
Federal reserve banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of a Federal Tort Claims Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations in light of fact that direct supervision and control of each bank is exercised by board of directors, federal reserve banks, though heavily regulated, are locally controlled by their member banks, banks are listed neither as "wholly owned" government corporations nor as "mixed ownership" corporations; federal reserve banks receive no appropriated funds from Congress and the banks are empowered to sue and be sued in their own names...Cont'd...LINK
Slow learners in Congress finally starting to catch up with visionary Ron Paul
Ron Paul gains mainstream steam
(Politico) -- By VICTORIA MCGRANE
Is libertarian rock star and Texas Republican Ron Paul going mainstream?
He’s got everyone from South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint to Minnesota moderate Democrat Collin Peterson to California liberal Barbara Boxer on his side in his audit-the-Fed crusade. He’s drawing liberal support in his push to rein in the cost of the war in Afghanistan. Senate candidates like Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes of New Hampshire are finding Dr. No’s populist economic anger to be useful in the campaign, echoing Paul’s criticism of the Federal Reserve.
Even Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is delivering backhanded compliments, taking credit for merely allowing a vote on Paul’s amendment to audit the central bank.
This convergence of odd bedfellows, and the economic angst that’s driving it all, is yet another signal that President Barack Obama is going to have more and more trouble keeping his traditional Democratic allies on his side as the economic debate continues. It seems that everyone is looking for something new to latch on to in the economic debate — even if those ideas belong to one of the more eccentric members of Congress.
“This brought people together [from] the whole political spectrum, from progressives and liberals and libertarians and conservatives. ... they all came together. That, to me, is what is really so important,” said Paul, who has been introducing his audit-the-Fed measure since the early ’80s.
After so many tries, this time Paul’s measure attracted 313 co-sponsors in the House, representing every possible point on the political spectrum. It also scored a strong vote in a key committee and has a companion in the Senate that’s supported by a bipartisan coalition of senators.
And Paul’s economic views, long dismissed by the political establishment, seem to be resonating more broadly than just the audit-the-Fed measure, both in the larger financial reform debate and the growing concern about the cost of continuing the war in Afghanistan...Cont'd...LINK
(Politico) -- By VICTORIA MCGRANE
Is libertarian rock star and Texas Republican Ron Paul going mainstream?
He’s got everyone from South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint to Minnesota moderate Democrat Collin Peterson to California liberal Barbara Boxer on his side in his audit-the-Fed crusade. He’s drawing liberal support in his push to rein in the cost of the war in Afghanistan. Senate candidates like Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes of New Hampshire are finding Dr. No’s populist economic anger to be useful in the campaign, echoing Paul’s criticism of the Federal Reserve.
Even Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is delivering backhanded compliments, taking credit for merely allowing a vote on Paul’s amendment to audit the central bank.
This convergence of odd bedfellows, and the economic angst that’s driving it all, is yet another signal that President Barack Obama is going to have more and more trouble keeping his traditional Democratic allies on his side as the economic debate continues. It seems that everyone is looking for something new to latch on to in the economic debate — even if those ideas belong to one of the more eccentric members of Congress.
“This brought people together [from] the whole political spectrum, from progressives and liberals and libertarians and conservatives. ... they all came together. That, to me, is what is really so important,” said Paul, who has been introducing his audit-the-Fed measure since the early ’80s.
After so many tries, this time Paul’s measure attracted 313 co-sponsors in the House, representing every possible point on the political spectrum. It also scored a strong vote in a key committee and has a companion in the Senate that’s supported by a bipartisan coalition of senators.
And Paul’s economic views, long dismissed by the political establishment, seem to be resonating more broadly than just the audit-the-Fed measure, both in the larger financial reform debate and the growing concern about the cost of continuing the war in Afghanistan...Cont'd...LINK
How Larry Summers, Obama's National Economic Council director, ran Harvard's economic condition into the ground
Harvard ignored warnings about investments
Advisers told Summers, others not to put so much cash in market; losses hit $1.8b
(Boston.com) -- By Beth Healy
It happened at least once a year, every year. In a roomful of a dozen Harvard University financial officials, Jack Meyer, the hugely successful head of Harvard’s endowment, and Lawrence Summers, then the school’s president, would face off in a heated debate. The topic: cash and how the university was managing - or mismanaging - its basic operating funds.
Through the first half of this decade, Meyer repeatedly warned Summers and other Harvard officials that the school was being too aggressive with billions of dollars in cash, according to people present for the discussions, investing almost all of it with the endowment’s risky mix of stocks, bonds, hedge funds, and private equity. Meyer’s successor, Mohamed El-Erian, would later sound the same warnings to Summers, and to Harvard financial staff and board members.
“Mohamed was having a heart attack,’’ said one former financial executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering Harvard and Summers. He considered the cash investment a “doubling up’’ of the university’s investment risk.
But the warnings fell on deaf ears, under Summers’s regime and beyond. And when the market crashed in the fall of 2008, Harvard would pay dearly, as $1.8 billion in cash simply vanished. Indeed, it is still paying, in the form of tighter budgets, deferred expansion plans, and big interest payments on bonds issued to cover the losses...Cont'd...LINK
Leading research center on "climate change" admits it tossed raw historical data that could verify its claims, points to "homogenised" data instead
Climate change data dumped
(Times Online) -- Jonathan Leake
SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.
The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.
In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”
The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.
Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, discovered data had been lost when he asked for original records. “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,” he said...Cont'd...LINK
(Times Online) -- Jonathan Leake
SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.
The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.
In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”
The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.
Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, discovered data had been lost when he asked for original records. “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,” he said...Cont'd...LINK
Sunday, November 29, 2009
The same Wall Street crooks behind America's economic fiasco are repeatedly appointed to "regulate" one another
Still Doing God’s Work on Wall Street
(Truthdig) -- By Robert Scheer
Jail, anyone? Perhaps that’s too harsh, and at any rate premature, but is anyone ever going to be held accountable for the behind-the-scenes sweetheart deals that passed tens of billions of taxpayer dollars through the AIG shell game to the very banks that caused the financial meltdown? Or for the many other acts of double-dealing that left one out of three American homeowners owing much more than their houses were worth while the folks who swindled them were rewarded with hundreds of billions in public money?
Undoubtedly not, since the same folks who are most culpable wrote the laws that made this, and the other scams at the heart of the banking collapse, perfectly legal. And guess what? They’re back at work in the government, writing the new laws that will, they claim, prevent us from being had once again. As a telling example of that process at work, check the official response of the Department of Treasury to the devastating report by the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Neil M. Barofsky, titled “Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties.” The main factor was that Timothy Geithner followed the lead of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd “I’m Doing God’s Work” Blankfein in crowding the lifeboats with bankers.
Geithner, now treasury secretary, was previously the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), where he negotiated the deal to pay Goldman Sachs and the other top banks in full to cover their bad bets on securitized mortgages. Barofsky’s report concluded that Geithner’s scheme represented a “backdoor bailout” for the financial hustlers at the center of the market fiasco. Noting that Geithner denies that was his intention, the report states, “Irrespective of their stated intent, however, there is no question that the effect of FRBNY’s decisions—indeed, the very design of the federal assistance to AIG—was that tens of billions of dollars of Government money was funneled inexorably and directly to AIG’s counterparties.”
Not surprisingly, the Treasury Department that Geithner now heads defended his actions in not forcing “haircuts” on the full dollar-for-dollar payoff by AIG to the banks while he was at the New York Fed: “The government could not unilaterally impose haircuts on creditors, and it would not have been appropriate for the government to pressure counterparties to accept haircuts by threatening to retaliate in some way through its regulatory power.”
Nonsense, argues Eliot Spitzer, who as New York attorney general was way ahead of the curve in challenging Wall Street arrogance. Writing in Slate on Monday, Spitzer points out: “Pressuring Goldman and the other counterparties to offer concessions would have forced them to absorb the consequences of making suspect deals with an insurance company that was essentially a Ponzi scheme.”
The Ponzi scheme was based on the collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) in which the bankers traded and which AIG had insured with the credit default swaps (CDSs) that they sold but failed to back with adequate funding. Now Geithner’s Treasury concedes that AIG “should never have been allowed to escape tough, consolidated supervision.” But none of AIG’s scams were regulated, nor were any of the others at the center of the larger financial debacle, because of laws pushed through Congress by Geithner’s boss, Lawrence Summers, when they both were in the Clinton administration. Specifically, they prevented regulation of those opaque CDOs and CDSs that would come to derail the world’s economy...Cont'd...LINK
(Truthdig) -- By Robert Scheer
Jail, anyone? Perhaps that’s too harsh, and at any rate premature, but is anyone ever going to be held accountable for the behind-the-scenes sweetheart deals that passed tens of billions of taxpayer dollars through the AIG shell game to the very banks that caused the financial meltdown? Or for the many other acts of double-dealing that left one out of three American homeowners owing much more than their houses were worth while the folks who swindled them were rewarded with hundreds of billions in public money?
Undoubtedly not, since the same folks who are most culpable wrote the laws that made this, and the other scams at the heart of the banking collapse, perfectly legal. And guess what? They’re back at work in the government, writing the new laws that will, they claim, prevent us from being had once again. As a telling example of that process at work, check the official response of the Department of Treasury to the devastating report by the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Neil M. Barofsky, titled “Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties.” The main factor was that Timothy Geithner followed the lead of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd “I’m Doing God’s Work” Blankfein in crowding the lifeboats with bankers.
Geithner, now treasury secretary, was previously the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), where he negotiated the deal to pay Goldman Sachs and the other top banks in full to cover their bad bets on securitized mortgages. Barofsky’s report concluded that Geithner’s scheme represented a “backdoor bailout” for the financial hustlers at the center of the market fiasco. Noting that Geithner denies that was his intention, the report states, “Irrespective of their stated intent, however, there is no question that the effect of FRBNY’s decisions—indeed, the very design of the federal assistance to AIG—was that tens of billions of dollars of Government money was funneled inexorably and directly to AIG’s counterparties.”
Not surprisingly, the Treasury Department that Geithner now heads defended his actions in not forcing “haircuts” on the full dollar-for-dollar payoff by AIG to the banks while he was at the New York Fed: “The government could not unilaterally impose haircuts on creditors, and it would not have been appropriate for the government to pressure counterparties to accept haircuts by threatening to retaliate in some way through its regulatory power.”
Nonsense, argues Eliot Spitzer, who as New York attorney general was way ahead of the curve in challenging Wall Street arrogance. Writing in Slate on Monday, Spitzer points out: “Pressuring Goldman and the other counterparties to offer concessions would have forced them to absorb the consequences of making suspect deals with an insurance company that was essentially a Ponzi scheme.”
The Ponzi scheme was based on the collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) in which the bankers traded and which AIG had insured with the credit default swaps (CDSs) that they sold but failed to back with adequate funding. Now Geithner’s Treasury concedes that AIG “should never have been allowed to escape tough, consolidated supervision.” But none of AIG’s scams were regulated, nor were any of the others at the center of the larger financial debacle, because of laws pushed through Congress by Geithner’s boss, Lawrence Summers, when they both were in the Clinton administration. Specifically, they prevented regulation of those opaque CDOs and CDSs that would come to derail the world’s economy...Cont'd...LINK
New British inquiry into Iraq war: Truth-seekers, or another committee of Israel-firsters sent in for one more whitewash?
Oliver Miles: The key question – is Blair a war criminal?
(The Independent) -- The Iraq inquiry will start hearing evidence in open session on Tuesday, and it will almost certainly lead to fireworks. Let us hope the media cover it properly; five months ago, there was a sharp debate on Iraq in the Commons which the media ignored...
We've had umpteen Iraq inquiries already, but this one should be different. Its terms of reference are open. Previous inquiries concentrated on the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the misuse of intelligence to make the case for war, the "dodgy dossier" and so on. But there are plenty of other questions, starting with the big one: was this a war of aggression and therefore a war crime? There were two views about its legality, and the then attorney general seems to have held both of them...
When Bush tried to persuade President Chirac to go to war, Bush compared Saddam Hussein with Gog and Magog, obscure legendary figures named in the book of Ezekiel as enemies of the people of Israel. This sounds like a joke, but seems to be true. Chirac was baffled and his staff consulted a professor of theology who spilt the beans. Blair told his Iraq experts that Saddam was "uniquely evil"; the inquiry should ask him whether Bush mentioned Gog and Magog to him, or he to Bush.
The Prime Minister's choice of the members of the committee has been criticised. None is a military man, Sir John Chilcot was a member of the Hutton inquiry and has been closely involved with the security services, Baroness Prashar has no relevant experience, Sir Roderic Lyne was a serving ambassador at the time of the war, and so on.
Rather less attention has been paid to the curious appointment of two historians (which seems a lot, out of a total of five), both strong supporters of Tony Blair and/or the Iraq war. In December 2004 Sir Martin Gilbert, while pointing out that the "war on terror" was not a third world war, wrote that Bush and Blair "may well, with the passage of time and the opening of the archives, join the ranks of Roosevelt and Churchill" – an eccentric opinion that would se em to rule him out as a member of the committee. Sir Lawrence Freedman is the reputed architect of the "Blair doctrine" of humanitarian intervention, which was invoked in Kosovo and Afghanistan as well as Iraq.
Both Gilbert and Freedman are Jewish, and Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism. Such facts are not usually mentioned in the mainstream British and American media, but The Jewish Chronicle and the Israeli media have no such inhibitions, and the Arabic media both in London and in the region are usually not far behind.
All five members have outstanding reputations and records, but it is a pity that, if and when the inquiry is accused of a whitewash, such handy ammunition will be available. Membership should not only be balanced; it should be seen to be balanced.
Tony Blair's responsibility for the Iraq war was a strike against him as a candidate for the role of president of the European Council. Perhaps the launch of the inquiry helped to kill the idea off. No European democratic institution has entertained the idea of electing someone under the shadow of a war crime charge since Kurt Waldheim became President of Austria in 1986...MORE...LINK
(The Independent) -- The Iraq inquiry will start hearing evidence in open session on Tuesday, and it will almost certainly lead to fireworks. Let us hope the media cover it properly; five months ago, there was a sharp debate on Iraq in the Commons which the media ignored...
We've had umpteen Iraq inquiries already, but this one should be different. Its terms of reference are open. Previous inquiries concentrated on the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the misuse of intelligence to make the case for war, the "dodgy dossier" and so on. But there are plenty of other questions, starting with the big one: was this a war of aggression and therefore a war crime? There were two views about its legality, and the then attorney general seems to have held both of them...
When Bush tried to persuade President Chirac to go to war, Bush compared Saddam Hussein with Gog and Magog, obscure legendary figures named in the book of Ezekiel as enemies of the people of Israel. This sounds like a joke, but seems to be true. Chirac was baffled and his staff consulted a professor of theology who spilt the beans. Blair told his Iraq experts that Saddam was "uniquely evil"; the inquiry should ask him whether Bush mentioned Gog and Magog to him, or he to Bush.
The Prime Minister's choice of the members of the committee has been criticised. None is a military man, Sir John Chilcot was a member of the Hutton inquiry and has been closely involved with the security services, Baroness Prashar has no relevant experience, Sir Roderic Lyne was a serving ambassador at the time of the war, and so on.
Rather less attention has been paid to the curious appointment of two historians (which seems a lot, out of a total of five), both strong supporters of Tony Blair and/or the Iraq war. In December 2004 Sir Martin Gilbert, while pointing out that the "war on terror" was not a third world war, wrote that Bush and Blair "may well, with the passage of time and the opening of the archives, join the ranks of Roosevelt and Churchill" – an eccentric opinion that would se em to rule him out as a member of the committee. Sir Lawrence Freedman is the reputed architect of the "Blair doctrine" of humanitarian intervention, which was invoked in Kosovo and Afghanistan as well as Iraq.
Both Gilbert and Freedman are Jewish, and Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism. Such facts are not usually mentioned in the mainstream British and American media, but The Jewish Chronicle and the Israeli media have no such inhibitions, and the Arabic media both in London and in the region are usually not far behind.
All five members have outstanding reputations and records, but it is a pity that, if and when the inquiry is accused of a whitewash, such handy ammunition will be available. Membership should not only be balanced; it should be seen to be balanced.
Tony Blair's responsibility for the Iraq war was a strike against him as a candidate for the role of president of the European Council. Perhaps the launch of the inquiry helped to kill the idea off. No European democratic institution has entertained the idea of electing someone under the shadow of a war crime charge since Kurt Waldheim became President of Austria in 1986...MORE...LINK
In Orwellian op-ed, Bernanke says regulating the Fed will damage the Fed-ruined economy
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, just days ahead of his confirmation hearing, is warning Congress that actions limiting the central bank's independence could prove detrimental to the causes of financial reform and economic recovery.
In an op-ed piece to be published in Sunday's Washington Post, Bernanke criticizes two moves aimed at limiting the Fed -- a proposal in the Senate to strip the central bank of its bank regulatory powers and a House Financial Services Committee vote to audit monetary policy deliberations and actions.
"These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the United States," Bernanke wrote...
Bernanke's column comes ahead of a Senate Banking Committee hearing, scheduled for Thursday, considering his nomination for a second term as Fed chairman. President Obama announced the nomination in August.
The last sentence of his commentary is likely to be the theme he and his supporters will stress during the hearing.
"Now more than ever, America needs a strong, nonpolitical and independent central bank with the tools to promote financial stability and to help steer our economy to recovery without inflation," Bernanke wrote
In an op-ed piece to be published in Sunday's Washington Post, Bernanke criticizes two moves aimed at limiting the Fed -- a proposal in the Senate to strip the central bank of its bank regulatory powers and a House Financial Services Committee vote to audit monetary policy deliberations and actions.
"These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the United States," Bernanke wrote...
Bernanke's column comes ahead of a Senate Banking Committee hearing, scheduled for Thursday, considering his nomination for a second term as Fed chairman. President Obama announced the nomination in August.
The last sentence of his commentary is likely to be the theme he and his supporters will stress during the hearing.
"Now more than ever, America needs a strong, nonpolitical and independent central bank with the tools to promote financial stability and to help steer our economy to recovery without inflation," Bernanke wrote
Tax-revolt, Leftist style: Dems hope to use Obama's Afghanistan surge as excuse to raise taxes on everyone
Democrats in revolt over Barack Obama’s troop surge
(Sunday Times) -- Christina Lamb in Washington
Barack Obama's much-vaunted eloquence faces the biggest test of his presidential career this week when he takes to the stage at West Point military academy to explain to a nation that thought it had elected an anti-war president why he is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan.
After almost three months of agonising, nine war councils and endless leaks, the president will finally make his views known on Tuesday when he is expected to announce that he is sending about 30,000 more troops. This will push up American forces to 100,000 and the total number of allied forces to almost 140,000, as many troops as the Soviet Union had in Afghanistan.
The carefully chosen backdrop cannot disguise Obama’s dilemma. Somehow he has to convince his own public that the United States has an exit strategy and will not become bogged down, as it did in Vietnam, while making clear to the Taliban and Pakistan that it has not lost its resolve and will stay as long as it takes.
Obama’s toughest challenge will be to win over his most loyal political supporters. He is facing a growing revolt in the Democratic party over why the US needs to be in Afghanistan at all when the real threat — Al-Qaeda — is in Pakistan, and over the spiralling cost in both lives and dollars.
“I think the operative question is why we’re there,” said Anna Eshoo, a Democratic congresswoman who sits on the House intelligence committee. “That’s what I’ll be wanting to hear from the president.”
Eshoo, who represents a seat in California where unemployment is at a post-war high of 12.5%, is one of a growing number of voices in the party questioning whether the nation can afford the war.
The annual bill for the extra troops is estimated at $30 billion (£18.2 billion), on top of the $10 billion-a-month the war is costing. “We’re still not out of Iraq and we’re getting deeper into Afghanistan, both of which are hugely expensive,” she said.
She has joined David Obey, a Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, to introduce legislation that would impose a surtax on all taxpayers to fund the war. “It doesn’t seem fair that the sacrifice is being made only by military and their families,” she said.
In a sign of White House concern over the issue Obama invited Peter Orszag, the budget director, to sit in on his final round of deliberations on the Afghanistan strategy last week. “There is serious unrest in our caucus ... can we afford this war?” said Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker.
Obey’s proposal would impose a 1% surtax on anyone earning less than $150,000 a year, and up to 5% on those earning more. It was an idea put into practice by President Lyndon Johnson, who brought in a temporary 10% surtax to help pay for the Vietnam war.
Democrats fear that stepping up the conflict at a time when unemployment is at a 26-year high of 10.2% will rebound on them in the mid-term elections next November.
“I think it threatens his domestic agenda pretty substantially,” said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas. “That’s what a lot of other Democrats like Pelosi are worried about right now.”
For this reason Obama’s speech will emphasise that sending more troops does not mean a neverending commitment to the war. “The president will ... underscore for the American people that this is not an open-ended conflict,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.
Obama has come under much criticism from the military at home and abroad and both sides of the political spectrum for the amount of time he has taken to decide whether to back recommendations made by General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, to send more troops “or risk failure”...Cont'd...LINK
(Sunday Times) -- Christina Lamb in Washington
Barack Obama's much-vaunted eloquence faces the biggest test of his presidential career this week when he takes to the stage at West Point military academy to explain to a nation that thought it had elected an anti-war president why he is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan.
After almost three months of agonising, nine war councils and endless leaks, the president will finally make his views known on Tuesday when he is expected to announce that he is sending about 30,000 more troops. This will push up American forces to 100,000 and the total number of allied forces to almost 140,000, as many troops as the Soviet Union had in Afghanistan.
The carefully chosen backdrop cannot disguise Obama’s dilemma. Somehow he has to convince his own public that the United States has an exit strategy and will not become bogged down, as it did in Vietnam, while making clear to the Taliban and Pakistan that it has not lost its resolve and will stay as long as it takes.
Obama’s toughest challenge will be to win over his most loyal political supporters. He is facing a growing revolt in the Democratic party over why the US needs to be in Afghanistan at all when the real threat — Al-Qaeda — is in Pakistan, and over the spiralling cost in both lives and dollars.
“I think the operative question is why we’re there,” said Anna Eshoo, a Democratic congresswoman who sits on the House intelligence committee. “That’s what I’ll be wanting to hear from the president.”
Eshoo, who represents a seat in California where unemployment is at a post-war high of 12.5%, is one of a growing number of voices in the party questioning whether the nation can afford the war.
The annual bill for the extra troops is estimated at $30 billion (£18.2 billion), on top of the $10 billion-a-month the war is costing. “We’re still not out of Iraq and we’re getting deeper into Afghanistan, both of which are hugely expensive,” she said.
She has joined David Obey, a Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, to introduce legislation that would impose a surtax on all taxpayers to fund the war. “It doesn’t seem fair that the sacrifice is being made only by military and their families,” she said.
In a sign of White House concern over the issue Obama invited Peter Orszag, the budget director, to sit in on his final round of deliberations on the Afghanistan strategy last week. “There is serious unrest in our caucus ... can we afford this war?” said Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker.
Obey’s proposal would impose a 1% surtax on anyone earning less than $150,000 a year, and up to 5% on those earning more. It was an idea put into practice by President Lyndon Johnson, who brought in a temporary 10% surtax to help pay for the Vietnam war.
Democrats fear that stepping up the conflict at a time when unemployment is at a 26-year high of 10.2% will rebound on them in the mid-term elections next November.
“I think it threatens his domestic agenda pretty substantially,” said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas. “That’s what a lot of other Democrats like Pelosi are worried about right now.”
For this reason Obama’s speech will emphasise that sending more troops does not mean a neverending commitment to the war. “The president will ... underscore for the American people that this is not an open-ended conflict,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.
Obama has come under much criticism from the military at home and abroad and both sides of the political spectrum for the amount of time he has taken to decide whether to back recommendations made by General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, to send more troops “or risk failure”...Cont'd...LINK
How Israel and its agents colonized the U.S. government and Congress through bureaucratic intrigue and simply ignoring the law
Israel’s Illegal Settlements in America
(AntiWar.com) -- by Grant Smith, November 28, 2009
US Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell was highly enthusiastic about Israel’s partial, temporary illegal settlement freeze stating "it is more than any Israeli government has done before and can help move toward agreement between the parties." In fact, Israel has done more. In 2005 Israel reversed settlement construction and its overt occupation of Gaza. Palestinians situation worsened under a strangulating economic blockade and total Israeli control of borders, airspace and maritime access. Ironically, those Americans seeking a permanent end to Israeli settlement activities face a predicament similar to the Palestinians. Peace in the Middle East depends on reversing a peculiar manifestation of illegal Israeli settlements right here at home. These US settlements were built not on stolen land, but the strategic territory of US governance through violations of the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Among Israel’s first international efforts as a state was establishing an "Israel Office of Information" (IOI) in the United States in the fall of 1948. The IOI registered as a foreign agent with the US Department of Justice which required it not only to file activity reports about its efforts on behalf of Israel every six months, but also place a stamp on pamphlets and other materials circulating in the US that their true origin was the Israeli government.
The IOI quickly ran into trouble. It was cited by the FARA section for failing to disclose the existence of a California office. The FBI noticed it wasn’t affixing disclosure stamps to the material it circulated. Isaiah Kenen, registered as a foreign agent of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, soon tired of such regulatory oversight and disclosures. He coordinated his IOI departure with the Israeli government from the IOI to lobby from a domestically chartered lobbying organization, the American Zionist Council (AZC). The DOJ ordered him to reregister, but he never did.
During a 1952 summit meeting, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion proposed that leaders of major organizations centralize US lobbying and fundraising coordination under the American Zionist Council (AZC) rather than the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency. The AZC was a small umbrella organization that united the leadership of top organizations such as Hadassah and the Zionist Organization of America. But the AZC continued to rely heavily upon financial support from the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency in Jerusalem for public relations and lobbying until the 1960s. Between 1962-1963 a Senate and Justice Department investigation found the AZC and Kenen had received direction and the equivalent of $35 million from the Jewish Agency via its American Section in New York to lobby for US taxpayer-funded aid and arms. The Justice Department ordered the AZC to register as an Israeli foreign agent on November 21, 1962. This initiated a fierce DOJ/AZC battle that lasted until 1965, when the DOJ allowed the AZC to file a secret FARA declaration expecting it to shut down operations. The Jewish Agency was also forced shut down its American Section in New York after a rabbi and George Washington University legal scholar forced it to file its secret 1953 "covenant agreement" with the Israeli government which conferred governmental powers to the Jewish Agency.
The AZC quietly and quickly reorganized lobbying operations within its former division, internally referred to as the "Kenen Committee" (today called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC) which Isaiah Kenen led until 1975. The Jewish Agency also executed a shell company paper reshuffle, reemerging as the World Zionist Organization-American Section within the same building, with the same staff, management and publications.
Today, the most important nucleus of the Israeli government’s power in America lies far outside its Washington DC embassy, official consulates, or properly registered FARA entities. The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations consists of only two key paid employees according to its 2008 charitable tax return (PDF). Like the AZC under Ben-Gurion’s mandate, the Conference of Presidents has only one true role: corralling American organizations into a US power base for the Israeli government...Cont'd...LINK
(AntiWar.com) -- by Grant Smith, November 28, 2009
US Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell was highly enthusiastic about Israel’s partial, temporary illegal settlement freeze stating "it is more than any Israeli government has done before and can help move toward agreement between the parties." In fact, Israel has done more. In 2005 Israel reversed settlement construction and its overt occupation of Gaza. Palestinians situation worsened under a strangulating economic blockade and total Israeli control of borders, airspace and maritime access. Ironically, those Americans seeking a permanent end to Israeli settlement activities face a predicament similar to the Palestinians. Peace in the Middle East depends on reversing a peculiar manifestation of illegal Israeli settlements right here at home. These US settlements were built not on stolen land, but the strategic territory of US governance through violations of the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Among Israel’s first international efforts as a state was establishing an "Israel Office of Information" (IOI) in the United States in the fall of 1948. The IOI registered as a foreign agent with the US Department of Justice which required it not only to file activity reports about its efforts on behalf of Israel every six months, but also place a stamp on pamphlets and other materials circulating in the US that their true origin was the Israeli government.
The IOI quickly ran into trouble. It was cited by the FARA section for failing to disclose the existence of a California office. The FBI noticed it wasn’t affixing disclosure stamps to the material it circulated. Isaiah Kenen, registered as a foreign agent of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, soon tired of such regulatory oversight and disclosures. He coordinated his IOI departure with the Israeli government from the IOI to lobby from a domestically chartered lobbying organization, the American Zionist Council (AZC). The DOJ ordered him to reregister, but he never did.
During a 1952 summit meeting, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion proposed that leaders of major organizations centralize US lobbying and fundraising coordination under the American Zionist Council (AZC) rather than the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency. The AZC was a small umbrella organization that united the leadership of top organizations such as Hadassah and the Zionist Organization of America. But the AZC continued to rely heavily upon financial support from the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency in Jerusalem for public relations and lobbying until the 1960s. Between 1962-1963 a Senate and Justice Department investigation found the AZC and Kenen had received direction and the equivalent of $35 million from the Jewish Agency via its American Section in New York to lobby for US taxpayer-funded aid and arms. The Justice Department ordered the AZC to register as an Israeli foreign agent on November 21, 1962. This initiated a fierce DOJ/AZC battle that lasted until 1965, when the DOJ allowed the AZC to file a secret FARA declaration expecting it to shut down operations. The Jewish Agency was also forced shut down its American Section in New York after a rabbi and George Washington University legal scholar forced it to file its secret 1953 "covenant agreement" with the Israeli government which conferred governmental powers to the Jewish Agency.
The AZC quietly and quickly reorganized lobbying operations within its former division, internally referred to as the "Kenen Committee" (today called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC) which Isaiah Kenen led until 1975. The Jewish Agency also executed a shell company paper reshuffle, reemerging as the World Zionist Organization-American Section within the same building, with the same staff, management and publications.
Today, the most important nucleus of the Israeli government’s power in America lies far outside its Washington DC embassy, official consulates, or properly registered FARA entities. The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations consists of only two key paid employees according to its 2008 charitable tax return (PDF). Like the AZC under Ben-Gurion’s mandate, the Conference of Presidents has only one true role: corralling American organizations into a US power base for the Israeli government...Cont'd...LINK
Saturday, November 28, 2009
More vain, bizarro behavior out of Emperor Obama: He appoints himself Chairman of UN Security Council
While We Were Looking The Other Way–Obama To Be First President To Chair UN Security Council
(Right Soup) -- Some unprecedented news today, folks. Never in the history of the United Nations has a U.S. President taken the chairmanship of the powerful UN Security Council. Perhaps it is because of what could arguably be a Constitutional prohibition against doing so. To wit: Section 9 of the Constitution says:
"No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
The UN has a standing military force, we are held to it’s global policies, and we have an Ambassador to the UN just as we do to other foreign States. Clearly the argument can be made that the UN can be considered a foreign State. Our heads of State don’t serve at the UN, Ambassadors do.
Nonetheless, the rotating chairmanship of the UN Security Council goes to the U.S. this month. The normal course of business would have U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice take the gavel. However, this time will be different. Constitution be damned, Barack Hussein Obama has decided to put HIMSELF in the drivers seat, and will preside over global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament talks slated to begin September 24th. The Financial Times says:
"Barack Obama will cement the new co-operative relationship between the US and the United Nations this month when he becomes the first American president to chair its 15-member Security Council. The topic for the summit-level session of the council on September 24 is nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament – one of several global challenges that the US now wants to see addressed at a multinational level. UN officials also hope a climate change debate on September 22 will give fresh impetus to the search for a global climate deal at Copenhagen in December. There are also hopes a possible meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president, that Mr. Obama would host, could lead to a breakthrough about a timetable for Middle East peace."
Here is what the UN Security Council does. Picture Obama as the Chair of this committee with this power.
Under the UN Charter, the functions and powers of the Security Council are:
* to maintain international peace and security in accordance with the principles and purposes of the United Nations;
* to investigate any dispute or situation which might lead to international friction;
* to recommend methods of adjusting such disputes or the terms of settlement;
* to formulate plans for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments;
* to determine the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression and to recommend what action should be taken;
* to call on Members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the use of force to prevent or stop aggression;
* to take military action against an aggressor;
* to recommend the admission of new Members;
* to exercise the trusteeship functions of the United Nations in “strategic areas”;
* to recommend to the General Assembly the appointment of the Secretary-General and, together with the Assembly, to elect the Judges of the International Court of Justice.
No American president has ever attempted to acquire the image of King of the Universe by officiating at a meeting of the UN’s highest body...Cont'd...LINK
(Right Soup) -- Some unprecedented news today, folks. Never in the history of the United Nations has a U.S. President taken the chairmanship of the powerful UN Security Council. Perhaps it is because of what could arguably be a Constitutional prohibition against doing so. To wit: Section 9 of the Constitution says:
"No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
The UN has a standing military force, we are held to it’s global policies, and we have an Ambassador to the UN just as we do to other foreign States. Clearly the argument can be made that the UN can be considered a foreign State. Our heads of State don’t serve at the UN, Ambassadors do.
Nonetheless, the rotating chairmanship of the UN Security Council goes to the U.S. this month. The normal course of business would have U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice take the gavel. However, this time will be different. Constitution be damned, Barack Hussein Obama has decided to put HIMSELF in the drivers seat, and will preside over global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament talks slated to begin September 24th. The Financial Times says:
"Barack Obama will cement the new co-operative relationship between the US and the United Nations this month when he becomes the first American president to chair its 15-member Security Council. The topic for the summit-level session of the council on September 24 is nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament – one of several global challenges that the US now wants to see addressed at a multinational level. UN officials also hope a climate change debate on September 22 will give fresh impetus to the search for a global climate deal at Copenhagen in December. There are also hopes a possible meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president, that Mr. Obama would host, could lead to a breakthrough about a timetable for Middle East peace."
Here is what the UN Security Council does. Picture Obama as the Chair of this committee with this power.
Under the UN Charter, the functions and powers of the Security Council are:
* to maintain international peace and security in accordance with the principles and purposes of the United Nations;
* to investigate any dispute or situation which might lead to international friction;
* to recommend methods of adjusting such disputes or the terms of settlement;
* to formulate plans for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments;
* to determine the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression and to recommend what action should be taken;
* to call on Members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the use of force to prevent or stop aggression;
* to take military action against an aggressor;
* to recommend the admission of new Members;
* to exercise the trusteeship functions of the United Nations in “strategic areas”;
* to recommend to the General Assembly the appointment of the Secretary-General and, together with the Assembly, to elect the Judges of the International Court of Justice.
No American president has ever attempted to acquire the image of King of the Universe by officiating at a meeting of the UN’s highest body...Cont'd...LINK
Big Government Leftist bigotry: State university set to indoctrinate students into negative categorical thinking about whites, Christians and America
Teaching plan: America 'an oppressive hellhole'
University outlines 're-education' for those who hold 'wrong' views
(WorldNetDaily) -- By Bob Unruh
A program proposed at the University of Minnesota would result in required examinations of teacher candidates on "white privilege" as well as "remedial re-education" for those who hold the "wrong" views, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
The organization, which promotes civil liberties on the campuses of America's colleges and universities, has dispatched a letter to University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks asking him to intervene to prevent the adoption of policies proposed in his College of Education and Human Development.
"The university's general counsel should be asked to comment as soon as possible," said the letter from Adam Kissel, an officer with The FIRE. "If the Race, Culture, Class, and Gender Task Group achieves its stated goals, the result will be political and ideological screening of applicants, remedial re-education for those with the 'wrong' views and values, [and] withholding of degrees from those upon whom the university's political reeducation efforts proved ineffective."
By any "non-totalitarian" standards, he wrote, the the plans being made so far by the school are "severely unjust and impermissibly intrude into matters of individual conscience."
Kissel wrote that it appears that the university "intends to redesign its admissions process so that it screens out people with the 'wrong' beliefs and values – those who either do not have sufficient 'cultural competence' or those who the college judges will not be able to be converted to the 'correct' beliefs and values even after remedial re-education."
"These intentions violate the freedom of conscience of the university's students. As a public university bound by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the university is both legally and morally obligated to uphold this fundamental right," he wrote.
WND messages left with the university requesting comment did not generate a response today.
Among the issues discussed in the plans are requirements that teachers would be able to instruct students on the "myth of meritocracy" in the United States, "the history of demands for assimilation to white, middle-class, Christian meanings and values," and the "history of white racism."
The demands appear to be similar to those promoted earlier at the University of Delaware.
As WND reported, the Delaware university's office of residential life was caught requiring students to participant in a program that taught "all whites are racist."
School officials immediately defended the teaching, but in the face of a backlash from alumni and publicity about its work, the school decided to drop the curriculum, although some factions later suggested its revival.
FIRE, which challenged the Delaware plan, later produced a video explaining how the institution of the university pushed for the teachings, was caught and later backed off:
Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten said the developing Minnesota plan would require teachers to "embrace – and be prepared to teach our state's kids – the task force's own vision of America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic."...Cont'd...LINK
University outlines 're-education' for those who hold 'wrong' views
(WorldNetDaily) -- By Bob Unruh
A program proposed at the University of Minnesota would result in required examinations of teacher candidates on "white privilege" as well as "remedial re-education" for those who hold the "wrong" views, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
The organization, which promotes civil liberties on the campuses of America's colleges and universities, has dispatched a letter to University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks asking him to intervene to prevent the adoption of policies proposed in his College of Education and Human Development.
"The university's general counsel should be asked to comment as soon as possible," said the letter from Adam Kissel, an officer with The FIRE. "If the Race, Culture, Class, and Gender Task Group achieves its stated goals, the result will be political and ideological screening of applicants, remedial re-education for those with the 'wrong' views and values, [and] withholding of degrees from those upon whom the university's political reeducation efforts proved ineffective."
By any "non-totalitarian" standards, he wrote, the the plans being made so far by the school are "severely unjust and impermissibly intrude into matters of individual conscience."
Kissel wrote that it appears that the university "intends to redesign its admissions process so that it screens out people with the 'wrong' beliefs and values – those who either do not have sufficient 'cultural competence' or those who the college judges will not be able to be converted to the 'correct' beliefs and values even after remedial re-education."
"These intentions violate the freedom of conscience of the university's students. As a public university bound by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the university is both legally and morally obligated to uphold this fundamental right," he wrote.
WND messages left with the university requesting comment did not generate a response today.
Among the issues discussed in the plans are requirements that teachers would be able to instruct students on the "myth of meritocracy" in the United States, "the history of demands for assimilation to white, middle-class, Christian meanings and values," and the "history of white racism."
The demands appear to be similar to those promoted earlier at the University of Delaware.
As WND reported, the Delaware university's office of residential life was caught requiring students to participant in a program that taught "all whites are racist."
School officials immediately defended the teaching, but in the face of a backlash from alumni and publicity about its work, the school decided to drop the curriculum, although some factions later suggested its revival.
FIRE, which challenged the Delaware plan, later produced a video explaining how the institution of the university pushed for the teachings, was caught and later backed off:
Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten said the developing Minnesota plan would require teachers to "embrace – and be prepared to teach our state's kids – the task force's own vision of America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic."...Cont'd...LINK
It took the election of Barack Obama to slap some sense into neoconned conservatives
Hope & Fear
Democratic dominance is not the end of the world.
(American Consevative) -- By W. James Antle III
By the end of the year, the federal government may have totally restructured the American healthcare system. This health-insurance industry takeover may lead to widespread taxpayer subsidies for elective abortion. A new national energy tax may be imposed to reduce carbon emissions. The secret ballot for union organization may be effectively eliminated, swelling Big Labor’s ranks and coffers. Or maybe none of these things will have happened.
Hard as it may be to believe, that last prospect looks most likely. It is a real possibility that none of these major legislative items—all considered inevitable after the Democratic victories of 2006 and 2008—will be enacted by the end of year, or will they pass only in attenuated form. The election of Barack Obama and his party’s congressional supermajorities was supposed to signal that change had come. A year later, very little has changed.
This is no doubt disappointing to many of Obama’s supporters, for whom the biggest change might be watching their audacious hopes harden into cynicism. The administration’s inability to fulfill the wildest dreams of the Left is enraging many of the squabbling interest groups that comprise the Democratic Party, from pro-choice feminists, who balked at the anti-abortion Stupak amendment that was necessary to ram a healthcare bill through the House, to gay-rights groups, who have been told that their status in their party’s coalition remains “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But the persistence of the status quo should also be disillusioning for another group: conservatives who believe that the Republic cannot survive Republican electoral setbacks.
To hear that great red-state prophet Sean Hannity tell it, America stands at the precipice of socialism. But virtually all the socialism now stalking the land—bailouts for the automobile industry, the banks, homeowners, and various other politically favored groups—began under the Bush administration. So did the tidal wave of red ink ready to break over taxpayers’ heads. In eight short years, a budget surplus of $127 billion gave way to a $1.2 trillion deficit. A big new entitlement was created that added at least $8 trillion to Medicare’s unfunded liabilities, compounding a $50 trillion shortfall that dwarfs our official national debt and threatens to bankrupt the country.
President Obama and his congressional allies have, of course, made all of these problems worse. Confronted with the Bush administration’s overspending, they passed out taxpayer dollars with an even more generous hand. Faced with rising deficits, they borrowed even more money, starting with a $787 billion stimulus plan that stimulated little besides a retro industry of Keynesian economists. Nobody in Obama’s inner circle seems to question whether federal bureaucrats with no experience building cars should really be running General Motors.
But in one significant way, Obama has made things better: when George W. Bush was piling up deficits, growing the federal government, creating new entitlements, and signing sundry stimulus packages or bailouts, Hannitized conservatives muted their criticism. Worse, they were often Big Government’s biggest cheerleaders. Now that Obama is in power, the country’s spokesmen for limited government are finally doing their jobs...Cont'd...LINK
Democratic dominance is not the end of the world.
(American Consevative) -- By W. James Antle III
By the end of the year, the federal government may have totally restructured the American healthcare system. This health-insurance industry takeover may lead to widespread taxpayer subsidies for elective abortion. A new national energy tax may be imposed to reduce carbon emissions. The secret ballot for union organization may be effectively eliminated, swelling Big Labor’s ranks and coffers. Or maybe none of these things will have happened.
Hard as it may be to believe, that last prospect looks most likely. It is a real possibility that none of these major legislative items—all considered inevitable after the Democratic victories of 2006 and 2008—will be enacted by the end of year, or will they pass only in attenuated form. The election of Barack Obama and his party’s congressional supermajorities was supposed to signal that change had come. A year later, very little has changed.
This is no doubt disappointing to many of Obama’s supporters, for whom the biggest change might be watching their audacious hopes harden into cynicism. The administration’s inability to fulfill the wildest dreams of the Left is enraging many of the squabbling interest groups that comprise the Democratic Party, from pro-choice feminists, who balked at the anti-abortion Stupak amendment that was necessary to ram a healthcare bill through the House, to gay-rights groups, who have been told that their status in their party’s coalition remains “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But the persistence of the status quo should also be disillusioning for another group: conservatives who believe that the Republic cannot survive Republican electoral setbacks.
To hear that great red-state prophet Sean Hannity tell it, America stands at the precipice of socialism. But virtually all the socialism now stalking the land—bailouts for the automobile industry, the banks, homeowners, and various other politically favored groups—began under the Bush administration. So did the tidal wave of red ink ready to break over taxpayers’ heads. In eight short years, a budget surplus of $127 billion gave way to a $1.2 trillion deficit. A big new entitlement was created that added at least $8 trillion to Medicare’s unfunded liabilities, compounding a $50 trillion shortfall that dwarfs our official national debt and threatens to bankrupt the country.
President Obama and his congressional allies have, of course, made all of these problems worse. Confronted with the Bush administration’s overspending, they passed out taxpayer dollars with an even more generous hand. Faced with rising deficits, they borrowed even more money, starting with a $787 billion stimulus plan that stimulated little besides a retro industry of Keynesian economists. Nobody in Obama’s inner circle seems to question whether federal bureaucrats with no experience building cars should really be running General Motors.
But in one significant way, Obama has made things better: when George W. Bush was piling up deficits, growing the federal government, creating new entitlements, and signing sundry stimulus packages or bailouts, Hannitized conservatives muted their criticism. Worse, they were often Big Government’s biggest cheerleaders. Now that Obama is in power, the country’s spokesmen for limited government are finally doing their jobs...Cont'd...LINK
Why Palin and not Paul?
(American Conservative Blog)--...LINK
-------------------------
Chris Moore comments:
I agree that Ron Paul is a far more authentic, principled conservative, and Sarah Palin pales in comparison. But here’s the problem. The Democrat (and Leftist) game is to promise the world to the electorate in order to gain power, and once in power, use the largesse and money-power of government to perpetuate their partisan advantage. In other words, the Left is willing to fight unfairly by using taxpayer money to buy its permanency — which begets a similar (unprincipled) response from the Right. Dick Cheney embraced and articulated this reality once he and Bush were elected by saying something along the lines of: “Now it’s our turn” (to use Big Government to our advantage).
So as soon as the Left starts fighting dirty and using the power of government to rig the game, it poisons the well. Since the entire design of the Left is to use taxpayer money to not only buy off the referees, but to buy off the media reporting on the game, and the team owners as well, any opposition that does not respond to some extent in kind is doomed to permanent minority (and eventually Gulag) status.
Until conservatives find a way to enforce the Constitutional limits on government and prevent Leftists from taking taxpayer money to tilt the playing field to their own advantage, they’d (seemingly) be crazy to put a libertarian in office who will unilaterally disarm, and probably be voted out of office next election cycle once the Left paints him as “heartless” for not throwing billions in taxpayer money at the first “emergency” to come down the pike
I think that’s a big reason someone like Palin gets better traction than someone like Paul on a national level on the Right.
-------------------------
Chris Moore comments:
I agree that Ron Paul is a far more authentic, principled conservative, and Sarah Palin pales in comparison. But here’s the problem. The Democrat (and Leftist) game is to promise the world to the electorate in order to gain power, and once in power, use the largesse and money-power of government to perpetuate their partisan advantage. In other words, the Left is willing to fight unfairly by using taxpayer money to buy its permanency — which begets a similar (unprincipled) response from the Right. Dick Cheney embraced and articulated this reality once he and Bush were elected by saying something along the lines of: “Now it’s our turn” (to use Big Government to our advantage).
So as soon as the Left starts fighting dirty and using the power of government to rig the game, it poisons the well. Since the entire design of the Left is to use taxpayer money to not only buy off the referees, but to buy off the media reporting on the game, and the team owners as well, any opposition that does not respond to some extent in kind is doomed to permanent minority (and eventually Gulag) status.
Until conservatives find a way to enforce the Constitutional limits on government and prevent Leftists from taking taxpayer money to tilt the playing field to their own advantage, they’d (seemingly) be crazy to put a libertarian in office who will unilaterally disarm, and probably be voted out of office next election cycle once the Left paints him as “heartless” for not throwing billions in taxpayer money at the first “emergency” to come down the pike
I think that’s a big reason someone like Palin gets better traction than someone like Paul on a national level on the Right.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Buchanan: Multilateralism and globalism are on the way out; Unilateralism and nationalism are on the way in
Earning the World’s Contempt
By Patrick J. Buchanan
(American Conservative Blog) --
...Under the new center-left government that broke a 50-year hold on power by the LDP, Japan will cease refueling U.S. warships off Afghanistan, is demanding renegotiation of a U.S. troop deployment deal already agreed to and is moving out of Washington’s orbit — and closer to Beijing. Pyongyang, having tested a second nuclear device, continues to dismiss all U.S. demands.
China just backhanded Obama’s request to revalue its currency to stanch the steady hemorrhaging of U.S. jobs, technology, and factories to the mainland, and treated Obama’s call for openness and better treatment for dissidents and minorities with dismissive contempt.
Yet had it not been for U.S. magnanimity in throwing open its market to Chinese goods, Beijing would never have registered the double-digit growth rates it has seen for the past two decades.
Some gratitude China is showing.
Despite U.S. warnings, President Hamid Karzai has stolen the Afghan election in a fashion so brazen as to make a mockery of U.S. claims of his legitimacy. Corruption remains pandemic, and ignored, including in Karzai’s own family. He knows we have no other option.
Iran continues to slap away Obama’s open hand, secure in the knowledge that China or Russia will veto any serious U.N. sanctions.
Israel, too, has taken the measure of Obama.
“Bibi” Netanyahu, elected on a platform of no negotiation with Hamas, no Palestinian enclave in Jerusalem and no withdrawal from the West Bank, a la Gaza, has defied Obama’s demand for an immediate halt to any and all expansion of settlements. Not only has Bibi gone unpunished, his poll ratings have soared in Israel, and Obama has capitulated completely, leaving Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas so disillusioned and demoralized he is considering not running again.
The hopes raised by Obama’s Cairo speech have disappeared, as our traditional Arab friends like the Egyptians and Saudis have been hung out to dry.
Hillary Clinton may have pressed the reset button on relations with Russia — but there has been precious little reciprocity for the U.S. decision to scrap the ballistic missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Moscow has recognized Georgia’s breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent republics and is now busy meddling in Ukraine to inflict a humiliating defeat on our man in Kiev, President Viktor Yushchenko, in January’s election.
Again, none of the above represents a grave threat to any vital U.S. interest. Nevertheless, this lack of reciprocity, this lack of respect, this indifference to what the president is demanding or even asking is revealing about the era we have now entered — and about Barack Obama.
All that bloviation we heard for two decades — about the “Second American Century,” the “End of History,” the “New World Order,” America as “omnipower” and “indispensable nation,” the “New Rome” seizing its “unipolar moment” to impose “benevolent global hegemony” on mankind and “ending tyranny in our world” — it was, all of it, bullhockey.
Second, though Obama may be liked and admired by people all over the world, this counts for next to nothing in global power politics.
Brazil, Japan, China, Russia and Israel are all countries with their own national interests that do not necessarily comport with those of the United States. All have come to see Obama as a diffident, dithering, doubting dilettante who can be dissed with impunity. And none of these nations is going to sacrifice what it considers critical to win a smile from Barack Obama.
Multilateralism and globalism are on the way out. Unilateralism and nationalism are on the way in.
As other countries look out for their national interests first, why do we not do the same?
If we Americans will not put America first, who will?...MORE...LINK
-------------------------
Chris Moore comments:
The liberal American elite sees itself as internationalist, and it imagines it is the envy of the world, similar to how the liberal Hollywood elite imagine that it is the envy of the peons in the American hinterlands. And in a very superficial sense, it is. But it’s a meaningless and empty position.
Sometimes the world encourages this vanity. Remember the reception Obama got in Germany? Little wonder the administration got it in its collective head that the world would roll over to its will.
But the truth of the matter is, America today is regarded the world over as the rich and vain playboy who is beloved by everyone in the bar while he’s buying their drinks, but deep down, no one really respects or takes seriously because they know he’s not a serious person.
I hate to say it, but the Baby Boomer generation of leadership, from Clinton through W through Obama and most of the pols in between, has been epically vain, flaky, naive and incompetent. Like Obama, it seems to believe that its wish is God’s command. And remember the Bush administration’s delusion?: “We’re an empire now, we create our own reality.”
These simply are not serious or responsible people. Yes, many Boomers are highly creative, and that has brought certain technological advantages to America. But the drawbacks far outweigh their contributions, and their general lack of competence and serousness has basically destroyed the country.
-----
"While other nations celebrate their heritage, we’re being taught to revile ours, and to transform our country into something, anything, else."
I agree 100%, and I think this condescending attitude that patriotism and love of country and culture is somehow provincial and backward comes out of the internationalist dogma that says nationalism is a relic of the past. This profound hatred of nationalism originated on the internationalist Left (because of its own delusions of grandeur and destiny -- that it and it alone held the key to the future of mankind), but today it has actually been embraced and encouraged by elements of the Right for their own greedy purposes. For example, multi national corporations and corporate advocates of open borders embrace internationalism, necessary in order to grow markets and drive down the price of labor. And of course, there was the pretentious internationalist Bushcon/Neocon scheme to "remake the Middle East," which is yet more Marxist-think drivel.
IMO, both the elitist Left and elitist Right have become an enemy to the American national interests and the American constitution, and now worship the false God of internationalism. The irony is, so many Boomers (and really all Americans) don't even realize it's their own internationalist pretensions that are the cause of their current misery and are dooming America’s future.
I guess years of atheist-materialist, internationalist Marxist-think has penetrated deeply into to the psyches of the "elite" on both the Right and Left and trickled down to the masses, and today most Americans don’t even know enough to take care of their own first. Not very “sophisticated,” that. Why, even an animal has more common sense.
By Patrick J. Buchanan
(American Conservative Blog) --
...Under the new center-left government that broke a 50-year hold on power by the LDP, Japan will cease refueling U.S. warships off Afghanistan, is demanding renegotiation of a U.S. troop deployment deal already agreed to and is moving out of Washington’s orbit — and closer to Beijing. Pyongyang, having tested a second nuclear device, continues to dismiss all U.S. demands.
China just backhanded Obama’s request to revalue its currency to stanch the steady hemorrhaging of U.S. jobs, technology, and factories to the mainland, and treated Obama’s call for openness and better treatment for dissidents and minorities with dismissive contempt.
Yet had it not been for U.S. magnanimity in throwing open its market to Chinese goods, Beijing would never have registered the double-digit growth rates it has seen for the past two decades.
Some gratitude China is showing.
Despite U.S. warnings, President Hamid Karzai has stolen the Afghan election in a fashion so brazen as to make a mockery of U.S. claims of his legitimacy. Corruption remains pandemic, and ignored, including in Karzai’s own family. He knows we have no other option.
Iran continues to slap away Obama’s open hand, secure in the knowledge that China or Russia will veto any serious U.N. sanctions.
Israel, too, has taken the measure of Obama.
“Bibi” Netanyahu, elected on a platform of no negotiation with Hamas, no Palestinian enclave in Jerusalem and no withdrawal from the West Bank, a la Gaza, has defied Obama’s demand for an immediate halt to any and all expansion of settlements. Not only has Bibi gone unpunished, his poll ratings have soared in Israel, and Obama has capitulated completely, leaving Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas so disillusioned and demoralized he is considering not running again.
The hopes raised by Obama’s Cairo speech have disappeared, as our traditional Arab friends like the Egyptians and Saudis have been hung out to dry.
Hillary Clinton may have pressed the reset button on relations with Russia — but there has been precious little reciprocity for the U.S. decision to scrap the ballistic missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Moscow has recognized Georgia’s breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent republics and is now busy meddling in Ukraine to inflict a humiliating defeat on our man in Kiev, President Viktor Yushchenko, in January’s election.
Again, none of the above represents a grave threat to any vital U.S. interest. Nevertheless, this lack of reciprocity, this lack of respect, this indifference to what the president is demanding or even asking is revealing about the era we have now entered — and about Barack Obama.
All that bloviation we heard for two decades — about the “Second American Century,” the “End of History,” the “New World Order,” America as “omnipower” and “indispensable nation,” the “New Rome” seizing its “unipolar moment” to impose “benevolent global hegemony” on mankind and “ending tyranny in our world” — it was, all of it, bullhockey.
Second, though Obama may be liked and admired by people all over the world, this counts for next to nothing in global power politics.
Brazil, Japan, China, Russia and Israel are all countries with their own national interests that do not necessarily comport with those of the United States. All have come to see Obama as a diffident, dithering, doubting dilettante who can be dissed with impunity. And none of these nations is going to sacrifice what it considers critical to win a smile from Barack Obama.
Multilateralism and globalism are on the way out. Unilateralism and nationalism are on the way in.
As other countries look out for their national interests first, why do we not do the same?
If we Americans will not put America first, who will?...MORE...LINK
-------------------------
Chris Moore comments:
The liberal American elite sees itself as internationalist, and it imagines it is the envy of the world, similar to how the liberal Hollywood elite imagine that it is the envy of the peons in the American hinterlands. And in a very superficial sense, it is. But it’s a meaningless and empty position.
Sometimes the world encourages this vanity. Remember the reception Obama got in Germany? Little wonder the administration got it in its collective head that the world would roll over to its will.
But the truth of the matter is, America today is regarded the world over as the rich and vain playboy who is beloved by everyone in the bar while he’s buying their drinks, but deep down, no one really respects or takes seriously because they know he’s not a serious person.
I hate to say it, but the Baby Boomer generation of leadership, from Clinton through W through Obama and most of the pols in between, has been epically vain, flaky, naive and incompetent. Like Obama, it seems to believe that its wish is God’s command. And remember the Bush administration’s delusion?: “We’re an empire now, we create our own reality.”
These simply are not serious or responsible people. Yes, many Boomers are highly creative, and that has brought certain technological advantages to America. But the drawbacks far outweigh their contributions, and their general lack of competence and serousness has basically destroyed the country.
-----
"While other nations celebrate their heritage, we’re being taught to revile ours, and to transform our country into something, anything, else."
I agree 100%, and I think this condescending attitude that patriotism and love of country and culture is somehow provincial and backward comes out of the internationalist dogma that says nationalism is a relic of the past. This profound hatred of nationalism originated on the internationalist Left (because of its own delusions of grandeur and destiny -- that it and it alone held the key to the future of mankind), but today it has actually been embraced and encouraged by elements of the Right for their own greedy purposes. For example, multi national corporations and corporate advocates of open borders embrace internationalism, necessary in order to grow markets and drive down the price of labor. And of course, there was the pretentious internationalist Bushcon/Neocon scheme to "remake the Middle East," which is yet more Marxist-think drivel.
IMO, both the elitist Left and elitist Right have become an enemy to the American national interests and the American constitution, and now worship the false God of internationalism. The irony is, so many Boomers (and really all Americans) don't even realize it's their own internationalist pretensions that are the cause of their current misery and are dooming America’s future.
I guess years of atheist-materialist, internationalist Marxist-think has penetrated deeply into to the psyches of the "elite" on both the Right and Left and trickled down to the masses, and today most Americans don’t even know enough to take care of their own first. Not very “sophisticated,” that. Why, even an animal has more common sense.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Lawmakers suspect those pushing cap and trade may be same Wall Street crooks who engineered housing and commodity bubbles
US Lawmakers Seek To Unseal Records In Climate Fraud Case
(DOW JONES NEWSWIRES) -- By Ian Talley
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. legislators are seeking to open sealed documents in a case of multi-million-dollar climate fraud, according to a rare filing by House of Representatives' lawyers.
Two Republican legislators say the records could shed light on the potential challenges of policing a new, trillion-dollar commodities market that would be created under climate legislation that Congress is considering.
Reps. Joe Barton (R., Texas), ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Greg Walden, (R., Ore.), ranking member of an oversight and investigations panel, have asked a federal district court in California to unseal all the closed records regarding the successful prosecution of Anne Masters Sholtz, a former California Institute of Technology economist, for fraud. The House Office of General Counsel is pursuing the matter for the lawmakers, without objection from the Department of Justice.
Fueled by recent Wall Street chicanery and the contribution of banks, brokers and hedge funds to the financial meltdown, lawmakers say the case of climate fraud could expose the very real weaknesses of a federal "cap-and-trade" system.
Congress is considering legislation that would set a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions and create a market where companies can buy and sell emission rights.
The California case involves a nearly identical climate trading system called the Southern Californian Regional Clean Air Incentives Market, or Reclaim, designed to cut air pollution in the Los Angeles region. Sholtz, who helped design Reclaim, allegedly hustled New York Investment firm AG Clean Air out of more than $12 million between 1999 and 2001 by selling fake emission credits.
Sholtz was convicted on one count of fraud in 2005, receiving what the lawmakers say was a veritable slap on the hand for the felony -- a one-year house probation sentence. According to House investigators, there was an estimated $50 million to $80 million in claims against her in bankruptcy filings and the Environmental Protection Agency had received complaints that Sholtz had defrauded nine companies.
Barton said the case -- and the sealed documents -- could show that the federal authorities "may not understand how to stop a vastly more destructive, Bernie Madoff-version of Ms. Sholtz from taking advantage if the nationwide cap-and-trade system is approved." Madoff, who allegedly managed a $50 billion fraudulent hedge fund, has become an icon of Wall Street scams.
According to the filing made earlier this week, the sealed pleadings in the Sholtz case, "may provide insights into the Reclaim system's vulnerabilities to fraud that could be very valuable to the Congress."
A Republican aide said records currently publicly available from the Sholtz case indicate that the government had difficulty linking the actual economic losses from the cap-and-trade system to the fraud, complicating prosecution.
The fear of fraud and manipulation has prompted some lawmakers propose policies that would restrict trading of greenhouse gas emissions. But given the political sway of companies that want to participate in the cap-and-trade program and say that financial trading of emissions is vital to the success of the system, it's uncertain if those proposals will make much headway.
Rep. Walden is also fearful that many of the most exuberant, enthusiastic advocates of cap-and-trade are some of the same major institutional investors that were involved in the housing and commodity markets that failed in the past year...Cont'd...LINK
(DOW JONES NEWSWIRES) -- By Ian Talley
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. legislators are seeking to open sealed documents in a case of multi-million-dollar climate fraud, according to a rare filing by House of Representatives' lawyers.
Two Republican legislators say the records could shed light on the potential challenges of policing a new, trillion-dollar commodities market that would be created under climate legislation that Congress is considering.
Reps. Joe Barton (R., Texas), ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Greg Walden, (R., Ore.), ranking member of an oversight and investigations panel, have asked a federal district court in California to unseal all the closed records regarding the successful prosecution of Anne Masters Sholtz, a former California Institute of Technology economist, for fraud. The House Office of General Counsel is pursuing the matter for the lawmakers, without objection from the Department of Justice.
Fueled by recent Wall Street chicanery and the contribution of banks, brokers and hedge funds to the financial meltdown, lawmakers say the case of climate fraud could expose the very real weaknesses of a federal "cap-and-trade" system.
Congress is considering legislation that would set a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions and create a market where companies can buy and sell emission rights.
The California case involves a nearly identical climate trading system called the Southern Californian Regional Clean Air Incentives Market, or Reclaim, designed to cut air pollution in the Los Angeles region. Sholtz, who helped design Reclaim, allegedly hustled New York Investment firm AG Clean Air out of more than $12 million between 1999 and 2001 by selling fake emission credits.
Sholtz was convicted on one count of fraud in 2005, receiving what the lawmakers say was a veritable slap on the hand for the felony -- a one-year house probation sentence. According to House investigators, there was an estimated $50 million to $80 million in claims against her in bankruptcy filings and the Environmental Protection Agency had received complaints that Sholtz had defrauded nine companies.
Barton said the case -- and the sealed documents -- could show that the federal authorities "may not understand how to stop a vastly more destructive, Bernie Madoff-version of Ms. Sholtz from taking advantage if the nationwide cap-and-trade system is approved." Madoff, who allegedly managed a $50 billion fraudulent hedge fund, has become an icon of Wall Street scams.
According to the filing made earlier this week, the sealed pleadings in the Sholtz case, "may provide insights into the Reclaim system's vulnerabilities to fraud that could be very valuable to the Congress."
A Republican aide said records currently publicly available from the Sholtz case indicate that the government had difficulty linking the actual economic losses from the cap-and-trade system to the fraud, complicating prosecution.
The fear of fraud and manipulation has prompted some lawmakers propose policies that would restrict trading of greenhouse gas emissions. But given the political sway of companies that want to participate in the cap-and-trade program and say that financial trading of emissions is vital to the success of the system, it's uncertain if those proposals will make much headway.
Rep. Walden is also fearful that many of the most exuberant, enthusiastic advocates of cap-and-trade are some of the same major institutional investors that were involved in the housing and commodity markets that failed in the past year...Cont'd...LINK
Giraldi: What's the mission creep after Afghanistan? The Muslims seeking to liberate Kashmir?
Finish the Job
(American Conservative Blog) -- Posted on November 24th, 2009 by Philip Giraldi
President Obama has told visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he will “finish the job” in Afghanistan and wipe out every last lurking terrorist. “Finish the job” is one of those expressions that politicians use a lot when they don’t know what the hell they are talking about. It is widely believed that Obama will approve a 34,000 soldier increase for the conflict when he speaks to the nation next week. US soldiers cost $1 million each per year in Afghanistan, which suggests that it might be cheaper to give the insurgents good jobs working for the post office or something similar to wean them from their brigand ways. How much more surging can we afford, particularly as it doesn’t seem to be working?
I am all for finding and killing GENUINE terrorists (as opposed to farmers or wedding party guests) who threaten the United States but I have to wonder what Obama has been smoking lately. There is no coherency to the policies that he appears to embrace, which are little more than mission creep seeking to rebuild central Asia. There is little or no al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan while the presence in Pakistan appears to be fairly small and largely preoccupied with scurrying from one bolt hole to another. If the US successfully pressures al-Qaeda it will just move somewhere else and continue doing what it is doing, which does not appear to be very much. Is it really worth 100,000 troops on the ground at a cost of $170 billion per year? Not to mention lots of dead American soldiers.
The massive US troop presence in Afghanistan is there to fight the Taliban - which does not threaten the United States in any way, shape, or form - while shoring up Mr. Hundred Per Cent Hamid Karzai and his merry band of cutthroat thieves. Is Obama also telling the Indians wink-wink that he will next turn on the Muslims seeking to liberate Kashmir, who also do not threaten the US? Who’s next after that and where does it all end?...Cont'd...LINK
(American Conservative Blog) -- Posted on November 24th, 2009 by Philip Giraldi
President Obama has told visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he will “finish the job” in Afghanistan and wipe out every last lurking terrorist. “Finish the job” is one of those expressions that politicians use a lot when they don’t know what the hell they are talking about. It is widely believed that Obama will approve a 34,000 soldier increase for the conflict when he speaks to the nation next week. US soldiers cost $1 million each per year in Afghanistan, which suggests that it might be cheaper to give the insurgents good jobs working for the post office or something similar to wean them from their brigand ways. How much more surging can we afford, particularly as it doesn’t seem to be working?
I am all for finding and killing GENUINE terrorists (as opposed to farmers or wedding party guests) who threaten the United States but I have to wonder what Obama has been smoking lately. There is no coherency to the policies that he appears to embrace, which are little more than mission creep seeking to rebuild central Asia. There is little or no al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan while the presence in Pakistan appears to be fairly small and largely preoccupied with scurrying from one bolt hole to another. If the US successfully pressures al-Qaeda it will just move somewhere else and continue doing what it is doing, which does not appear to be very much. Is it really worth 100,000 troops on the ground at a cost of $170 billion per year? Not to mention lots of dead American soldiers.
The massive US troop presence in Afghanistan is there to fight the Taliban - which does not threaten the United States in any way, shape, or form - while shoring up Mr. Hundred Per Cent Hamid Karzai and his merry band of cutthroat thieves. Is Obama also telling the Indians wink-wink that he will next turn on the Muslims seeking to liberate Kashmir, who also do not threaten the US? Who’s next after that and where does it all end?...Cont'd...LINK
Report: Obama to send 34,000 more troops into Afghanistan line of fire
Pentagon preparing to send 34,000 troops to Afghanistan, official says
Washington (CNN) -- The Pentagon is making detailed plans to send about 34,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in anticipation of President Obama's decision on the future of the eight-year-old war, a defense official said Tuesday.
Obama held a lengthy meeting with top advisers Monday night and said Tuesday that he would announce plans for Afghanistan after the Thanksgiving holiday.
A Defense Department official with direct knowledge of the process said there has been no final word on the president's decision. But planners have been tasked with preparing to send 34,000 additional American troops into battle with the expectation that is the number Obama is leaning toward approving, the official said.
Obama ordered more than 20,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in March...Cont'd...LINK
VANITY IN CHIEF: Photo: What's president Obama clutching in his hand in this picture of him leaving the White House? Troop deployment plans to Afghanistan to be studiously and gravely pondered because American lives are on the line? No! Far more important! The GQ magazine featuring himself on the cover as "Man of the Year"
Washington (CNN) -- The Pentagon is making detailed plans to send about 34,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in anticipation of President Obama's decision on the future of the eight-year-old war, a defense official said Tuesday.
Obama held a lengthy meeting with top advisers Monday night and said Tuesday that he would announce plans for Afghanistan after the Thanksgiving holiday.
A Defense Department official with direct knowledge of the process said there has been no final word on the president's decision. But planners have been tasked with preparing to send 34,000 additional American troops into battle with the expectation that is the number Obama is leaning toward approving, the official said.
Obama ordered more than 20,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in March...Cont'd...LINK
VANITY IN CHIEF: Photo: What's president Obama clutching in his hand in this picture of him leaving the White House? Troop deployment plans to Afghanistan to be studiously and gravely pondered because American lives are on the line? No! Far more important! The GQ magazine featuring himself on the cover as "Man of the Year"
"Global warming" exposed as a fraud cooked up by conspiring scientists, profiteering opportunists
(By THE WASHINGTON TIMES) --
...It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming claims.
Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, and professor Michael E. Mann at Pennsylvania State University, who has been an important scientist in the climate debate, have come under particular scrutiny. Among his e-mails, Mr. Jones talked to Mr. Mann about the "trick of adding in the real temps to each series ... to hide the decline [in temperature]."
Mr. Mann admitted that he was party to this conversation and lamely explained to the New York Times that "scientists often used the word 'trick' to refer to a good way to solve a problem 'and not something secret.' " Though the liberal New York newspaper apparently buys this explanation, we have seen no benign explanation that justifies efforts by researchers to skew data on so-called global-warming "to hide the decline." Given the controversies over the accuracy of Mr. Mann's past research, it is surprising his current explanations are accepted so readily...MORE...LINK
...It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming claims.
Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, and professor Michael E. Mann at Pennsylvania State University, who has been an important scientist in the climate debate, have come under particular scrutiny. Among his e-mails, Mr. Jones talked to Mr. Mann about the "trick of adding in the real temps to each series ... to hide the decline [in temperature]."
Mr. Mann admitted that he was party to this conversation and lamely explained to the New York Times that "scientists often used the word 'trick' to refer to a good way to solve a problem 'and not something secret.' " Though the liberal New York newspaper apparently buys this explanation, we have seen no benign explanation that justifies efforts by researchers to skew data on so-called global-warming "to hide the decline." Given the controversies over the accuracy of Mr. Mann's past research, it is surprising his current explanations are accepted so readily...MORE...LINK
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Current economic turmoil could be ended tomorrow, but powers-that-be want to preserve the Fed and its private banking empire
LESSONS FROM THE JAPANESE: TIME TO STOP BORROWING MONEY AND START PRINTING IT
Ellen Brown, November 23rd, 2009
(WebOfDebt.com) --
...Most people think money is issued by the government, but the only money the government creates are coins, which compose less than one ten-thousandth of the money supply – about $1 billion out of $13.8 trillion (M3). Dollar bills are issued by the Federal Reserve, a privately-owned banking corporation, and lent to the government and to other banks. And coins and dollar bills together make up only about 7% of the money supply. All of the rest is simply written into accounts on computer screens by bankers when they make loans.
Contrary to popular belief, banks do not lend their own money or their depositors’ money. Every time a bank makes a loan, it is brand new money, simply written into the account of the borrower. As explained on Wikipedia:
“The different forms of money in government money supply statistics arise from the practice of fractional-reserve banking. Whenever a bank gives out a loan in a fractional-reserve banking system, a new sum of money is created. This new type of money is what makes up the non-M0 components in the M1-M3 statistics. In short, there are two types of money in a fractional-reserve banking system: (1) central bank money (physical currency, government money); and (2) commercial bank money (money created through loans) - sometimes referred to as private money, or checkbook money. In the money supply statistics, central bank money is M0 while the commercial bank money is divided up into the M1-M3 components.”
If there were no banks, we would have no money except pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Money created as bank loans does not stick around, since loans eventually get paid back. When old loans get paid off and new ones aren’t taken out to replace them, the money supply shrinks; and lately, new loans have fallen off dramatically.
Why? Banks insist that they are lending as much as they are prudently allowed to. The problem is that they have reached the lending limits imposed by the capital requirements set by the Bank for International Settlements. In the years of the credit boom, banks were able to leverage their capital into far more loans than are being created now. This was because loans were taken off the banks’ books by investors, allowing the same capital to be used many times over to generate new loans. These investors, called “shadow lenders,” have now exited the market, and they are not expected to return any time soon. They left after it became clear that the credit default swaps allegedly protecting their investments were only as good as the solvency of the counterparties (typically AIG or hedge funds), which had a bad habit of going bankrupt rather than paying up. An estimated $10 trillion disappeared from the money supply along with the shadow lenders, and the Fed has managed to get only a few trillion back into the market as replacement money...
Although the Federal Reserve cannot create money and simply spend it into the economy, Congress can. The Constitution authorizes Congress “to coin money [and] regulate the value thereof.” A former chairman of the House Coinage Subcommittee once observed that Congress could solve its financial problems just by minting some very large-denomination coins and paying off its debts. This solution is invariably rejected as dangerously inflationary; but when the “shadow money” is factored in, it actually wouldn’t be. Government bonds already serve as a medium of exchange, trading in massive quantities around the world just as if they were money. Paying off government bonds with newly-printed dollars and then ripping up the bonds (or voiding them out on a computer screen) would not significantly affect the size of the overall money supply, since “shadow money” would just be replaced with dollar bills (paper or electronic). In the chart above, green money (public shadow money) would become blue money (dollar bills and checkbook money), leaving the total money stock unchanged.
It might be argued that the money borrowed by the government has already been spent into the economy, and that if the bonds are now turned into dollars, the money will be out there twice. And that is true; but on the shadow-money model, the inflation has already occurred and cannot now be reversed. It occurred when the government printed the bonds. The bonds are already out there serving as money. Whether the money stock takes the form of dollars or bonds, it will be used as a medium of exchange in the real economy.
Another argument often raised is that the money created as government securities and Federal Reserve loans has been “sterilized” by lodging it with central banks and commercial banks. When this money hits Main Street as dollars competing for goods and services, the floodgates will open and hyperinflation will be upon us. That is the alleged justification for keeping the stimulus money in the banks instead of in the marketplace. But then what was the point of the stimulus? If the money is only stimulating the banks, it is not doing anything for the real economy. We want money out there in the marketplace generating demand for products, which generates jobs. Price inflation results only when “demand” (money) exceeds “supply” (goods and services). If the money is used to create goods and services, prices will remain stable. We have workers out of work and factories sitting idle. They need some “demand” (money) stimulating them to create supply, in order to make the economy productive again.
Other critics point to gold’s recent rise as an indicator of inflation already being upon us. But the more likely explanation for gold’s rise is that foreign central banks are looking for something besides U.S. government bonds in which to park their money. They no longer want our bonds, so fine. We should tell them that no more are for sale. We will in the future sell our bonds to our own central bank, which will rebate the interest to the government after deducting its costs, making its credit the best deal in town. And we will use the money, not to feed a parasitic private banking empire by building up bank reserves, but for direct expenditures on infrastructure and other public projects that will put people back to work, add to the productive economy, and increase the collective well-being of the American people...more...LINK
Ellen Brown, November 23rd, 2009
(WebOfDebt.com) --
...Most people think money is issued by the government, but the only money the government creates are coins, which compose less than one ten-thousandth of the money supply – about $1 billion out of $13.8 trillion (M3). Dollar bills are issued by the Federal Reserve, a privately-owned banking corporation, and lent to the government and to other banks. And coins and dollar bills together make up only about 7% of the money supply. All of the rest is simply written into accounts on computer screens by bankers when they make loans.
Contrary to popular belief, banks do not lend their own money or their depositors’ money. Every time a bank makes a loan, it is brand new money, simply written into the account of the borrower. As explained on Wikipedia:
“The different forms of money in government money supply statistics arise from the practice of fractional-reserve banking. Whenever a bank gives out a loan in a fractional-reserve banking system, a new sum of money is created. This new type of money is what makes up the non-M0 components in the M1-M3 statistics. In short, there are two types of money in a fractional-reserve banking system: (1) central bank money (physical currency, government money); and (2) commercial bank money (money created through loans) - sometimes referred to as private money, or checkbook money. In the money supply statistics, central bank money is M0 while the commercial bank money is divided up into the M1-M3 components.”
If there were no banks, we would have no money except pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Money created as bank loans does not stick around, since loans eventually get paid back. When old loans get paid off and new ones aren’t taken out to replace them, the money supply shrinks; and lately, new loans have fallen off dramatically.
Why? Banks insist that they are lending as much as they are prudently allowed to. The problem is that they have reached the lending limits imposed by the capital requirements set by the Bank for International Settlements. In the years of the credit boom, banks were able to leverage their capital into far more loans than are being created now. This was because loans were taken off the banks’ books by investors, allowing the same capital to be used many times over to generate new loans. These investors, called “shadow lenders,” have now exited the market, and they are not expected to return any time soon. They left after it became clear that the credit default swaps allegedly protecting their investments were only as good as the solvency of the counterparties (typically AIG or hedge funds), which had a bad habit of going bankrupt rather than paying up. An estimated $10 trillion disappeared from the money supply along with the shadow lenders, and the Fed has managed to get only a few trillion back into the market as replacement money...
Although the Federal Reserve cannot create money and simply spend it into the economy, Congress can. The Constitution authorizes Congress “to coin money [and] regulate the value thereof.” A former chairman of the House Coinage Subcommittee once observed that Congress could solve its financial problems just by minting some very large-denomination coins and paying off its debts. This solution is invariably rejected as dangerously inflationary; but when the “shadow money” is factored in, it actually wouldn’t be. Government bonds already serve as a medium of exchange, trading in massive quantities around the world just as if they were money. Paying off government bonds with newly-printed dollars and then ripping up the bonds (or voiding them out on a computer screen) would not significantly affect the size of the overall money supply, since “shadow money” would just be replaced with dollar bills (paper or electronic). In the chart above, green money (public shadow money) would become blue money (dollar bills and checkbook money), leaving the total money stock unchanged.
It might be argued that the money borrowed by the government has already been spent into the economy, and that if the bonds are now turned into dollars, the money will be out there twice. And that is true; but on the shadow-money model, the inflation has already occurred and cannot now be reversed. It occurred when the government printed the bonds. The bonds are already out there serving as money. Whether the money stock takes the form of dollars or bonds, it will be used as a medium of exchange in the real economy.
Another argument often raised is that the money created as government securities and Federal Reserve loans has been “sterilized” by lodging it with central banks and commercial banks. When this money hits Main Street as dollars competing for goods and services, the floodgates will open and hyperinflation will be upon us. That is the alleged justification for keeping the stimulus money in the banks instead of in the marketplace. But then what was the point of the stimulus? If the money is only stimulating the banks, it is not doing anything for the real economy. We want money out there in the marketplace generating demand for products, which generates jobs. Price inflation results only when “demand” (money) exceeds “supply” (goods and services). If the money is used to create goods and services, prices will remain stable. We have workers out of work and factories sitting idle. They need some “demand” (money) stimulating them to create supply, in order to make the economy productive again.
Other critics point to gold’s recent rise as an indicator of inflation already being upon us. But the more likely explanation for gold’s rise is that foreign central banks are looking for something besides U.S. government bonds in which to park their money. They no longer want our bonds, so fine. We should tell them that no more are for sale. We will in the future sell our bonds to our own central bank, which will rebate the interest to the government after deducting its costs, making its credit the best deal in town. And we will use the money, not to feed a parasitic private banking empire by building up bank reserves, but for direct expenditures on infrastructure and other public projects that will put people back to work, add to the productive economy, and increase the collective well-being of the American people...more...LINK
Who's raiding the University of California system and making billions disappear? Administrative bureaucrats, and worse
Who's raiding the University of California system and making billions disappear?
(Goon Squad) --
As UC Regents Approve Major Tuition Hike, Students, Faculty Decry Erosion of Public Education in CA and Nationwide
" ... money is being funneled into the compensation of the star faculty and the star administrators, because in the UC system there’s over 3,000 people who make over $200,000. And many of them make $400,000, $500,000. A lot of them are mostly administrators and staff, and so the university has—basically has fewer and fewer faculty, more and more students and more and more administrators. "
'The administrators are cutting—are virtually no cuts. In fact, the same meeting, when they decided to raise student fees [32%], they voted on millions of dollars of increased salaries and special bonuses to administrators and to the highest-paid people. And so, there has been several compensation scandals in the UC system. And what they discovered is the UC has secret packages that it gives a lot of its administrators and athletic coaches and some of its star faculty, a small percentage, and that it makes these secret deals, it breaks its own rules, and that money continually floats to the top of the university.'
'One of the stories I want to talk about is just that UC lost over $23 billion in investments in the last two years. And one reason why it lost so much money is that it invested heavily in toxic assets and in real estate.'
Why not ask the President, Mark Yudof about these serious charges?
A Philadelphia native, he earned an LL.B. degree (cum laude) in 1968 from the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned a B.A. degree (cum laude with honors in political science) in 1965.
His wife, Judy, is the immediate past international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. She also serves on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council and the international board of Hillel. In 1993, Mark and Judy Yudof were co-recipients of the Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award. The Yudofs have two grown children - a son, Seth, and a daughter, Samara.
Source
Wherever you go, there's always that Holocaust™ angle. Don't look too close or ask too many questions about all those missing billions, what are you, some anti-Semite?
From the Federal Reserve, to Wall Street to the inner corridors of the White House, there's always an Israeli connection. The Fed has printed up and gave away 24 TRILLION dollars of OUR money and is refusing to say where it went.
Wall Street has and continues to steal trillions in their never ending shell games.
And now our universities are being looted and plundered. Hmm, wonder how that happened?...--Greg Bacon...Cont'd...LINK
--------------------------
Chris Moore comments:
Jewish nationalists always seek to stack any institution where they exert power with their own kind. For example, Wikipedia notes:
"University of California presidential search committee chairman Richard C. Blum [Jewish Zionist investment banker billionaire, husband to plutocrat Jewish Zionist US Senator from California Dianne Feinstein] announced on March 20, 2008 that [Jewish Zionist Mark] Yudof had been selected for recommendation to the Board of Regents as the next president of UC to succeed Robert C. Dynes."
So I would be interested to know how many of the $200k to $500k per year bureaucrat administrators who are sucking the UC System dry, and depriving the youth of California a proper education in favor of their own narcissistic enrichment, are also fellow Jewish Zionists to Yudof, Feinstein and Blum. But even the ones who are not technically Jewish Zionists are certainly Jewish Zionists in spirit, because what they are doing to the students of the U.C. system reflects the same kind of contempt for the lesser "other" (albeit non-violent contempt) that the Jewish Israelis (violently) project onto the Palestinians. And the U.C. students are beginning to respond in kind (see video below of near riot at UCLA in response to proposed 32% tuition hike to pay for what? Bureaucrats' inflated salaries?).
Apparently the greedy, self-important Jewish nationalist mentality has been absorbed top down by the entire U.C. hierarchy from the rank powers above.
(Goon Squad) --
As UC Regents Approve Major Tuition Hike, Students, Faculty Decry Erosion of Public Education in CA and Nationwide
" ... money is being funneled into the compensation of the star faculty and the star administrators, because in the UC system there’s over 3,000 people who make over $200,000. And many of them make $400,000, $500,000. A lot of them are mostly administrators and staff, and so the university has—basically has fewer and fewer faculty, more and more students and more and more administrators. "
'The administrators are cutting—are virtually no cuts. In fact, the same meeting, when they decided to raise student fees [32%], they voted on millions of dollars of increased salaries and special bonuses to administrators and to the highest-paid people. And so, there has been several compensation scandals in the UC system. And what they discovered is the UC has secret packages that it gives a lot of its administrators and athletic coaches and some of its star faculty, a small percentage, and that it makes these secret deals, it breaks its own rules, and that money continually floats to the top of the university.'
'One of the stories I want to talk about is just that UC lost over $23 billion in investments in the last two years. And one reason why it lost so much money is that it invested heavily in toxic assets and in real estate.'
Why not ask the President, Mark Yudof about these serious charges?
A Philadelphia native, he earned an LL.B. degree (cum laude) in 1968 from the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned a B.A. degree (cum laude with honors in political science) in 1965.
His wife, Judy, is the immediate past international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. She also serves on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council and the international board of Hillel. In 1993, Mark and Judy Yudof were co-recipients of the Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award. The Yudofs have two grown children - a son, Seth, and a daughter, Samara.
Source
Wherever you go, there's always that Holocaust™ angle. Don't look too close or ask too many questions about all those missing billions, what are you, some anti-Semite?
From the Federal Reserve, to Wall Street to the inner corridors of the White House, there's always an Israeli connection. The Fed has printed up and gave away 24 TRILLION dollars of OUR money and is refusing to say where it went.
Wall Street has and continues to steal trillions in their never ending shell games.
And now our universities are being looted and plundered. Hmm, wonder how that happened?...--Greg Bacon...Cont'd...LINK
--------------------------
Chris Moore comments:
Jewish nationalists always seek to stack any institution where they exert power with their own kind. For example, Wikipedia notes:
"University of California presidential search committee chairman Richard C. Blum [Jewish Zionist investment banker billionaire, husband to plutocrat Jewish Zionist US Senator from California Dianne Feinstein] announced on March 20, 2008 that [Jewish Zionist Mark] Yudof had been selected for recommendation to the Board of Regents as the next president of UC to succeed Robert C. Dynes."
So I would be interested to know how many of the $200k to $500k per year bureaucrat administrators who are sucking the UC System dry, and depriving the youth of California a proper education in favor of their own narcissistic enrichment, are also fellow Jewish Zionists to Yudof, Feinstein and Blum. But even the ones who are not technically Jewish Zionists are certainly Jewish Zionists in spirit, because what they are doing to the students of the U.C. system reflects the same kind of contempt for the lesser "other" (albeit non-violent contempt) that the Jewish Israelis (violently) project onto the Palestinians. And the U.C. students are beginning to respond in kind (see video below of near riot at UCLA in response to proposed 32% tuition hike to pay for what? Bureaucrats' inflated salaries?).
Apparently the greedy, self-important Jewish nationalist mentality has been absorbed top down by the entire U.C. hierarchy from the rank powers above.
Monday, November 23, 2009
ADL denounces nearly all conservatives, including slavering Christian Zionists, as anti-Semites; (But somehow leaves Neocons off the enemies list)
The ADL targets WND
(By Joseph Farrah, World Net Daily) --
Go figure.
I've been labeled everything from a tool of the international Zionist conspiracy to Israel's best friend to "the Arabian Knight" to "a righteous gentile."
I am asked to speak to more Jewish audiences, including many chapters of the B'nai B'rith, both in the U.S. and Canada, than Christian audiences, even though I am an Arab-American Christian.
I'm a former columnist for the Jerusalem Post, and my coverage and analysis of the Middle East has been hailed by Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as thousands of other prominent Jewish leaders in Israel and the U.S.
Nevertheless, the ADL is after me and my news organization.
In case you don't know what the ADL stands for, it is the Anti-Defamation League – formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. It was founded, the group's website explains, "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all."
Now, the group, which bills itself as "the nation's premier civil rights–human relations agency," claims to fight "anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry" and defend democratic ideals and civil rights for all.
So, why would the ADL go after me?
"Since the election of Barack Obama as president, a current of anti-government hostility has swept across the United States, creating a climate of fervor and activism with manifestations ranging from incivility in public forums to acts of intimidation and violence," the group explains in its latest special report. "What characterizes this anti-government hostility is a shared belief that Obama and his administration actually pose a threat to the future of the United States. Some accuse Obama of plotting to bring socialism to the United States, while others claim he will bring about Nazism or fascism. All believe that Obama and his administration will trample on individual freedoms and civil liberties, due to some sinister agenda, and they see his economic and social policies as manifestations of this agenda. In particular, anti-government activists used the issue of health-care reform as a rallying point, accusing Obama and his administration of dark designs ranging from 'socialized medicine' to 'death panels,' even when the Obama administration had not come out with a specific health-care reform plan. Some even compared the Obama administration's intentions to Nazi eugenics programs."
Well, to the aforementioned, I plead guilty.
If that's the new definition of anti-Semitism in America, I guess I am one.
But I won't be lonely, according to the ADL's sweeping indictment of what has become popular American opinion.
Anyone who participated in a tea party is one also.
Anyone who got raucous at a town-hall meeting is one, too.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., is one for shouting "You lie" to the president – even though he apologized and even though he was right in his initial statement.
Glenn Beck is one for "raising anxiety about and distrust towards the government."
But, as for me, my biggest "hate crime" appears to be the fact that I have continued to ask a question that few others in the media have been willing to ask – "Where's the birth certificate?"
Did you know that is, according to the ADL, a sign of being a hatemonger and an anti-Semite?
It's also an expression of "anti-government hostility or anger" and serves to proliferate "anti-government conspiracy theories."...Cont'd...LINK
---------------------------
Chris Moore comments:
It's clear that the ADL is hell-bent on wringing the "anti-Semite" card for every last ounce of its political capital. Lately, it seems to be (correctly) sensing that the card is almost played out, so it's desperate to get in one last rushed round that will (it hopes) result in American backing for an attack on Iran. This necessitates keeping all domestic dissent at bay, and Obama's approval ratings way up, because an attack on Iran is going to damage him on the Left.
The ADL couldn't care less about America, and just like the "anti-Semite" card it is forever playing, simply seeks to wring the American people for all the capital they are worth on behalf of the greater Jewish nation and its interests.
The ADL has become a self-parody and a very ugly joke. So have the Zionists.
(By Joseph Farrah, World Net Daily) --
Go figure.
I've been labeled everything from a tool of the international Zionist conspiracy to Israel's best friend to "the Arabian Knight" to "a righteous gentile."
I am asked to speak to more Jewish audiences, including many chapters of the B'nai B'rith, both in the U.S. and Canada, than Christian audiences, even though I am an Arab-American Christian.
I'm a former columnist for the Jerusalem Post, and my coverage and analysis of the Middle East has been hailed by Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as thousands of other prominent Jewish leaders in Israel and the U.S.
Nevertheless, the ADL is after me and my news organization.
In case you don't know what the ADL stands for, it is the Anti-Defamation League – formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. It was founded, the group's website explains, "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all."
Now, the group, which bills itself as "the nation's premier civil rights–human relations agency," claims to fight "anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry" and defend democratic ideals and civil rights for all.
So, why would the ADL go after me?
"Since the election of Barack Obama as president, a current of anti-government hostility has swept across the United States, creating a climate of fervor and activism with manifestations ranging from incivility in public forums to acts of intimidation and violence," the group explains in its latest special report. "What characterizes this anti-government hostility is a shared belief that Obama and his administration actually pose a threat to the future of the United States. Some accuse Obama of plotting to bring socialism to the United States, while others claim he will bring about Nazism or fascism. All believe that Obama and his administration will trample on individual freedoms and civil liberties, due to some sinister agenda, and they see his economic and social policies as manifestations of this agenda. In particular, anti-government activists used the issue of health-care reform as a rallying point, accusing Obama and his administration of dark designs ranging from 'socialized medicine' to 'death panels,' even when the Obama administration had not come out with a specific health-care reform plan. Some even compared the Obama administration's intentions to Nazi eugenics programs."
Well, to the aforementioned, I plead guilty.
If that's the new definition of anti-Semitism in America, I guess I am one.
But I won't be lonely, according to the ADL's sweeping indictment of what has become popular American opinion.
Anyone who participated in a tea party is one also.
Anyone who got raucous at a town-hall meeting is one, too.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., is one for shouting "You lie" to the president – even though he apologized and even though he was right in his initial statement.
Glenn Beck is one for "raising anxiety about and distrust towards the government."
But, as for me, my biggest "hate crime" appears to be the fact that I have continued to ask a question that few others in the media have been willing to ask – "Where's the birth certificate?"
Did you know that is, according to the ADL, a sign of being a hatemonger and an anti-Semite?
It's also an expression of "anti-government hostility or anger" and serves to proliferate "anti-government conspiracy theories."...Cont'd...LINK
---------------------------
Chris Moore comments:
It's clear that the ADL is hell-bent on wringing the "anti-Semite" card for every last ounce of its political capital. Lately, it seems to be (correctly) sensing that the card is almost played out, so it's desperate to get in one last rushed round that will (it hopes) result in American backing for an attack on Iran. This necessitates keeping all domestic dissent at bay, and Obama's approval ratings way up, because an attack on Iran is going to damage him on the Left.
The ADL couldn't care less about America, and just like the "anti-Semite" card it is forever playing, simply seeks to wring the American people for all the capital they are worth on behalf of the greater Jewish nation and its interests.
The ADL has become a self-parody and a very ugly joke. So have the Zionists.
As 'real' unemployment rate hits 17.5%...
The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
(CNBC.com ) -- As experts debate the potential speed of the US recovery, one figure looms large but is often overlooked: nearly 1 in 5 Americans is either out of work or under-employed...Cont'd...LINK
(CNBC.com ) -- As experts debate the potential speed of the US recovery, one figure looms large but is often overlooked: nearly 1 in 5 Americans is either out of work or under-employed...Cont'd...LINK
...rewarding Hollywood limousine liberals with coveted White House invites Obama's top priority
Obama Thanks Hollywood With Coveted Invites To First White House State Dinner
(Deadline Hollywood) -- By Nikki Finke | Category: Uncategorized | Monday November 23, 2009 @ 8:28am
EXCLUSIVE: If tradition stands, the details of the guest list will be revealed only a few hours before the Obama administration's first state dinner tomorrow. The welcome for India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be the biggest social event of the Obama White House. Already the Washington DC press corp is buzzing about the "got-to-be-there" fever. But this first dinner is primarily a thank you to the Obamas' most important political supporters. So I've learned that, among the Hollywood contingent asked to attend, are onetime DreamWorks partners David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg; Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Michael Lynton; and WME Entertainment Agency co-CEO Ari Emanuel.
Spielberg's inclusion is interesting since he was a much ballyhooed Hillary Clinton supporter during the first months of her primary campaign when she looked like a sure thing, then quietly threw his clout behind Obama after he became the clear winner. But, given that the guest of honor is India's highest ranking statesman, Spielberg's new financial relationship with India's giant corporation Reliance more than explains his presence. Geffen was an early Obama backer who publicly took on the Clintons with pointed criticism at the start of the primary season. Katzenberg was not an early bird, but he became a faithful fundraiser. Both he and Geffen were considered Obama's biggest Hollywood bundlers during the campaign...Cont'd...LINK
(Deadline Hollywood) -- By Nikki Finke | Category: Uncategorized | Monday November 23, 2009 @ 8:28am
EXCLUSIVE: If tradition stands, the details of the guest list will be revealed only a few hours before the Obama administration's first state dinner tomorrow. The welcome for India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be the biggest social event of the Obama White House. Already the Washington DC press corp is buzzing about the "got-to-be-there" fever. But this first dinner is primarily a thank you to the Obamas' most important political supporters. So I've learned that, among the Hollywood contingent asked to attend, are onetime DreamWorks partners David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg; Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Michael Lynton; and WME Entertainment Agency co-CEO Ari Emanuel.
Spielberg's inclusion is interesting since he was a much ballyhooed Hillary Clinton supporter during the first months of her primary campaign when she looked like a sure thing, then quietly threw his clout behind Obama after he became the clear winner. But, given that the guest of honor is India's highest ranking statesman, Spielberg's new financial relationship with India's giant corporation Reliance more than explains his presence. Geffen was an early Obama backer who publicly took on the Clintons with pointed criticism at the start of the primary season. Katzenberg was not an early bird, but he became a faithful fundraiser. Both he and Geffen were considered Obama's biggest Hollywood bundlers during the campaign...Cont'd...LINK
The Democrats' grand plan: Don't end the wars...raise the taxes!
The Democrats’ War Tax
They want to add it on top of the others
(Antiwar.com) -- by Justin Raimondo, November 23, 2009 Sen. Carl Levin has a solution to the problem of how to finance our losing, futile war in Afghanistan – a war we are fighting to support what has now been officially deemed the second most corrupt government on earth: he wants a war tax. An "additional income tax to the upper brackets, folks earning more than $200,000 or $250,000" a year is what the Michigan Democrat and powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee proposes. His colleagues in the House have the same idea, only their tax is far less "progressive."
David Obey, chairman of the influential Appropriations Committee, John Murtha, who chairs the Defense Subcommittee, and Barney Frank, the banksters’ catamite who heads up the House Financial Services Committee, have proposed the "Share the Sacrifice Act of 2010" – and isn’t that a title worthy of Atlas Shrugged’s mealy-mouthed villains? In this "share-the-shafting" version of the Democrats’ war tax, everyone is conscripted into paying for our foreign policy of endless war, including those who are least able to afford it. If you make "up to $150,000" a year you would have to pay an extra 1 percent. The balance will come from those who make more. Now that’s real egalitarianism for you: all must suffer, none are spared, because… well, don’t you know there’s a war on?
What – you’re against a tax hike? You’re no doubt a terrorist sympathizer, or, perhaps, even an agent of al-Qaeda...Cont'd...LINK
They want to add it on top of the others
(Antiwar.com) -- by Justin Raimondo, November 23, 2009 Sen. Carl Levin has a solution to the problem of how to finance our losing, futile war in Afghanistan – a war we are fighting to support what has now been officially deemed the second most corrupt government on earth: he wants a war tax. An "additional income tax to the upper brackets, folks earning more than $200,000 or $250,000" a year is what the Michigan Democrat and powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee proposes. His colleagues in the House have the same idea, only their tax is far less "progressive."
David Obey, chairman of the influential Appropriations Committee, John Murtha, who chairs the Defense Subcommittee, and Barney Frank, the banksters’ catamite who heads up the House Financial Services Committee, have proposed the "Share the Sacrifice Act of 2010" – and isn’t that a title worthy of Atlas Shrugged’s mealy-mouthed villains? In this "share-the-shafting" version of the Democrats’ war tax, everyone is conscripted into paying for our foreign policy of endless war, including those who are least able to afford it. If you make "up to $150,000" a year you would have to pay an extra 1 percent. The balance will come from those who make more. Now that’s real egalitarianism for you: all must suffer, none are spared, because… well, don’t you know there’s a war on?
What – you’re against a tax hike? You’re no doubt a terrorist sympathizer, or, perhaps, even an agent of al-Qaeda...Cont'd...LINK
Big Government Washington’s record of abysmal failure; More to come?
(CraigsList) -- To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature,
It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:
•The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775 You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
•Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
•Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
•War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.
•Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
•Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
•The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM??...LINK
It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:
•The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775 You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
•Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
•Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
•War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.
•Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
•Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
•The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM??...LINK
Wall Street banksters got rich selling Main Street governments junk, made sure they would get richer by sticking their marks with the fallout bill
Cities find the fine print is costing millions
Local governments fork over billions in fees on investments gone bad
(MSNBC/Busniness Week) -- By Theo Francis, Ben Levisohn, Christopher Palmeri and Jessica Silver-Greenberg
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is struggling to save his city from fiscal calamity. Unemployment is at a record 28 percent and rising, while home prices have plunged 39 percent since 2007. The 66-year-old Bing, a former NBA all-star with the Detroit Pistons who took office 10 months ago, faces a $300 million budget deficit — and few ways to make up the difference.
Against that bleak backdrop, Wall Street is squeezing one of America's weakest cities for every penny it can. A few years ago, Detroit struck a derivatives deal with UBS and other banks that allowed it to save more than $2 million a year in interest on $800 million worth of bonds. But the fine print carried a potentially devastating condition. If the city's credit rating dropped, the banks could opt out of the deal and demand a sizable breakup fee. That's precisely what happened in January: After years of fiscal trouble, Detroit saw its credit rating slashed to junk. Suddenly the sputtering Motor City was on the hook for a $400 million tab.
During late-night strategy sessions, Joseph L. Harris, Detroit's then-chief financial officer, scoured the budget for spare dollars, going so far as to cut expenditures on water and electricity. "I figured the [utility] wouldn't turn out our lights," says Harris. But there wasn't enough cash, and in June the city set up a payment plan with the banks.
Now Detroit must use the revenues from its three casinos — MGM Grand Detroit, Greektown Casino, and MotorCity Casino — to cover a $4.2 million monthly payment to the banks before a single cent can go to schools, transportation, and other critical services. "The economic crisis has forced us to move quickly and redefine what services a city can and should provide," says Bing. "While we face a tough road ahead, I believe we're on the right path." UBS declined to comment.
Detroit isn't suffering alone. Across the nation, local governments and related public entities, already reeling from the recession, face another fiscal crisis: billions of dollars in fees owed to UBS, Goldman Sachs and other financial giants on investment deals gone wrong.
Wall Street promised big, with small print
The seeds of this looming disaster were sown during the credit boom, when Wall Street targeted cities big and small with risky financial products that promised to save them money or boost returns.
Investment bankers sold exotic derivatives designed to help municipalities cut borrowing costs. Banks and insurance companies constructed complicated tax deals that allowed public utilities, transit authorities, and other nonprofit organizations to extract cash immediately from their long-term assets. Private equity firms, pointing to stellar historical gains, persuaded big public pension funds to plow billions of dollars into high-cost investments at the peak of the market.
Many of the transactions shared a striking similarity: provisions that protected the banks from big losses and left the customers on the hook for huge payouts.
Now, as many of those deals sour, Wall Street is ramping up its efforts to collect from Main Street.
"The banks stuffed customers with [questionable investments] and then extorted money from the customers to get rid of them," says Christopher Whalen, managing director at research firm Institutional Risk Analytics...Cont'd...LINK
Local governments fork over billions in fees on investments gone bad
(MSNBC/Busniness Week) -- By Theo Francis, Ben Levisohn, Christopher Palmeri and Jessica Silver-Greenberg
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is struggling to save his city from fiscal calamity. Unemployment is at a record 28 percent and rising, while home prices have plunged 39 percent since 2007. The 66-year-old Bing, a former NBA all-star with the Detroit Pistons who took office 10 months ago, faces a $300 million budget deficit — and few ways to make up the difference.
Against that bleak backdrop, Wall Street is squeezing one of America's weakest cities for every penny it can. A few years ago, Detroit struck a derivatives deal with UBS and other banks that allowed it to save more than $2 million a year in interest on $800 million worth of bonds. But the fine print carried a potentially devastating condition. If the city's credit rating dropped, the banks could opt out of the deal and demand a sizable breakup fee. That's precisely what happened in January: After years of fiscal trouble, Detroit saw its credit rating slashed to junk. Suddenly the sputtering Motor City was on the hook for a $400 million tab.
During late-night strategy sessions, Joseph L. Harris, Detroit's then-chief financial officer, scoured the budget for spare dollars, going so far as to cut expenditures on water and electricity. "I figured the [utility] wouldn't turn out our lights," says Harris. But there wasn't enough cash, and in June the city set up a payment plan with the banks.
Now Detroit must use the revenues from its three casinos — MGM Grand Detroit, Greektown Casino, and MotorCity Casino — to cover a $4.2 million monthly payment to the banks before a single cent can go to schools, transportation, and other critical services. "The economic crisis has forced us to move quickly and redefine what services a city can and should provide," says Bing. "While we face a tough road ahead, I believe we're on the right path." UBS declined to comment.
Detroit isn't suffering alone. Across the nation, local governments and related public entities, already reeling from the recession, face another fiscal crisis: billions of dollars in fees owed to UBS, Goldman Sachs and other financial giants on investment deals gone wrong.
Wall Street promised big, with small print
The seeds of this looming disaster were sown during the credit boom, when Wall Street targeted cities big and small with risky financial products that promised to save them money or boost returns.
Investment bankers sold exotic derivatives designed to help municipalities cut borrowing costs. Banks and insurance companies constructed complicated tax deals that allowed public utilities, transit authorities, and other nonprofit organizations to extract cash immediately from their long-term assets. Private equity firms, pointing to stellar historical gains, persuaded big public pension funds to plow billions of dollars into high-cost investments at the peak of the market.
Many of the transactions shared a striking similarity: provisions that protected the banks from big losses and left the customers on the hook for huge payouts.
Now, as many of those deals sour, Wall Street is ramping up its efforts to collect from Main Street.
"The banks stuffed customers with [questionable investments] and then extorted money from the customers to get rid of them," says Christopher Whalen, managing director at research firm Institutional Risk Analytics...Cont'd...LINK
Potter's revenge: A not-so wonderful life in today's Midwest as illegal immigrants imported for prostitution, slave labor
Forced labour and rape, the new face of slavery in America
(Guardian) -- In the Midwestern heartland, police are encountering a new social evil: trafficking, often involving women and children who are forced to work as prostitutes or unpaid labour; and the outcomes can be brutal.
Figures from the State Department reveal that 17,500 people are trafficked into the US every year against their will or under false pretences, mainly to be used for sex or forced labour. Experts believe that, when cases of internal trafficking are added, the total number of victims could be up to five times larger. And increasing numbers of trafficked individuals are being transported thousands of miles from America's coasts and into heartland states such as Ohio and Michigan.
"It is not only a crime. It is an abomination," said Professor Mark Ensalaco, a political scientist at the University of Dayton, Ohio, who organised a recent conference on the issue. In Ohio a human trafficking commission has just been set up to study the problem, while in the northern Ohio city of Toledo a special FBI task force is tackling the issue. For many local law enforcement officials, it is a bewildering new world.
In one recent incident a 16-year-old Mexican girl was found to have been trafficked across the US border. Doctors noticed the heavily pregnant girl showed clear signs of physical abuse when she was brought into a hospital in Dayton to give birth. The police were called but the couple who had brought her had already fled. When the girl's story emerged, it became clear she had been kept against her will in the nearby city of Springfield and used for labour and sex. "I thought slavery ended a few centuries ago. But here it is alive and well," said Springfield's sheriff, Gene Kelly.
He emphasised the risks to the girl's baby after it had been born if the doctors had not been so alert: "Like the mother, the baby could have ended up a victim for years to come. Who knows? Future labour? Future person to traffic?"...Cont'd...LINK
(Guardian) -- In the Midwestern heartland, police are encountering a new social evil: trafficking, often involving women and children who are forced to work as prostitutes or unpaid labour; and the outcomes can be brutal.
Figures from the State Department reveal that 17,500 people are trafficked into the US every year against their will or under false pretences, mainly to be used for sex or forced labour. Experts believe that, when cases of internal trafficking are added, the total number of victims could be up to five times larger. And increasing numbers of trafficked individuals are being transported thousands of miles from America's coasts and into heartland states such as Ohio and Michigan.
"It is not only a crime. It is an abomination," said Professor Mark Ensalaco, a political scientist at the University of Dayton, Ohio, who organised a recent conference on the issue. In Ohio a human trafficking commission has just been set up to study the problem, while in the northern Ohio city of Toledo a special FBI task force is tackling the issue. For many local law enforcement officials, it is a bewildering new world.
In one recent incident a 16-year-old Mexican girl was found to have been trafficked across the US border. Doctors noticed the heavily pregnant girl showed clear signs of physical abuse when she was brought into a hospital in Dayton to give birth. The police were called but the couple who had brought her had already fled. When the girl's story emerged, it became clear she had been kept against her will in the nearby city of Springfield and used for labour and sex. "I thought slavery ended a few centuries ago. But here it is alive and well," said Springfield's sheriff, Gene Kelly.
He emphasised the risks to the girl's baby after it had been born if the doctors had not been so alert: "Like the mother, the baby could have ended up a victim for years to come. Who knows? Future labour? Future person to traffic?"...Cont'd...LINK
What Big Government Washington, its liberal commissars and greedy cronies have wrought: the unraveling of America
Commentary The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society
(By David DeGraw, The Public Record) -- Nov 19th, 2009
I: U.S. Societal Breakdown
You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Before exposing the root causes of this breakdown, let’s look at some vital statistics and facts:
* The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The US already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top one percent, the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99% of the US population has grown to a record high.
* As the stock market went over the 10,000 mark and just surged to a 13-month high, the three big banks that took taxpayer money and benefit the most from the government bailout have just set a new global economic record by issuing $30 billion in annual bonuses this year, “up 60 percent from last year.” Bloomberg reported: “Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses.” Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm’s history, they are also benefiting by only paying 1% in taxes.
* The profits of the economic elite are “now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth.”
As the looting is occurring at the top, the US middle class is just beginning to collapse.
* Workers between the age of 55 – 60, who have worked for 20 – 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans went up by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion.
* Home foreclosure filings “hit a record high in the third quarter [of 2009]… They were the worst three months of all time… 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter” in this three month period. “3.4 million homes are expected to enter foreclosure by year’s end, with some experts estimating that next year will be even worse.”
President Obama has enacted a $75 billion taxpayer funded program that has been a spectacular failure in stemming the foreclosure crisis and has proven to be another massive waste of billions of taxpayer dollars.
* 25 Million people are unemployed or underemployed.
This means we have 25 million people who urgently need to increase their income, and they’re quickly running out of options. The unemployment rate is expected to rise further and remain high for several years. “The president’s chief economic adviser warned that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay ‘unacceptably high’ for years to come.”
The NY Times reports: “Americans now confront a job market that is bleaker than ever in the current recession, and employment prospects are still getting worse. Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking…” As this ratio continues to grow, it will lead to a further reduction in wages – average worker wages have seen a sharp decline over the past year...Cont'd...LINK
(By David DeGraw, The Public Record) -- Nov 19th, 2009
I: U.S. Societal Breakdown
You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Before exposing the root causes of this breakdown, let’s look at some vital statistics and facts:
* The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The US already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top one percent, the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99% of the US population has grown to a record high.
* As the stock market went over the 10,000 mark and just surged to a 13-month high, the three big banks that took taxpayer money and benefit the most from the government bailout have just set a new global economic record by issuing $30 billion in annual bonuses this year, “up 60 percent from last year.” Bloomberg reported: “Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses.” Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm’s history, they are also benefiting by only paying 1% in taxes.
* The profits of the economic elite are “now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth.”
As the looting is occurring at the top, the US middle class is just beginning to collapse.
* Workers between the age of 55 – 60, who have worked for 20 – 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans went up by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion.
* Home foreclosure filings “hit a record high in the third quarter [of 2009]… They were the worst three months of all time… 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter” in this three month period. “3.4 million homes are expected to enter foreclosure by year’s end, with some experts estimating that next year will be even worse.”
President Obama has enacted a $75 billion taxpayer funded program that has been a spectacular failure in stemming the foreclosure crisis and has proven to be another massive waste of billions of taxpayer dollars.
* 25 Million people are unemployed or underemployed.
This means we have 25 million people who urgently need to increase their income, and they’re quickly running out of options. The unemployment rate is expected to rise further and remain high for several years. “The president’s chief economic adviser warned that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay ‘unacceptably high’ for years to come.”
The NY Times reports: “Americans now confront a job market that is bleaker than ever in the current recession, and employment prospects are still getting worse. Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking…” As this ratio continues to grow, it will lead to a further reduction in wages – average worker wages have seen a sharp decline over the past year...Cont'd...LINK
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Case study: How the ADL and cronies use "hate" charges to intimidate open debate, sabotage American democracy
ARE HATE CRIME LAWS LEGALIZING TREASON?
(Intifada Voice of Palestine) --
The Anti-Defamation League silencing strategy offers a microcosm of how the US was induced to war in Iraq based on false intelligence, says Jeff Gates.
Lawful Treason?
Winning wars in the Information Age largely depends on winning the battle for public opinion. Thus the opinion-shaping role of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) when it attacked a high profile California professor for his criticism of Israeli policy in Palestine.
That ADL intimidation campaign successfully chilled debate on campuses nationwide during several time-critical months while a new president, promising the hope of change, reassessed U.S.-Israeli relations. His only change—endorsing more Israeli settlements on Palestinian land—quashed any hope of peace.
This ADL silencing strategy offers a microcosm of how the U.S. was induced to war in Iraq based on false intelligence. From the provocation of September 11, 2001 until the invasion of March 2003, war-planners ignored, dismissed or sought to silence anyone critical of the spurious premises offered for war.
Only later did we discover that the intelligence was fixed around a preset agenda. Even now, Americans are unaware that the U.S.-led invasion had long been an Israeli goal.
In similar fashion, an ADL campaign silenced on-campus criticism of Israel’s December 2008 assault on Gaza. At the University of California Santa Barbara, ADL-initiated charges were lodged against sociology Professor William Robinson. The disciplinary action dragged on until June 24th when 100 professors and 20 department heads demanded an end to all proceedings.
By then the damage was done-to the reputation of Professor Robinson, to academic freedom at the University of California and to national security as this campaign silenced academics countrywide. While Robinson’s reputation can be restored, the damage to national security is irreparable.
Manipulating Thought
The ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles coordinated the assault on Robinson after he shared with students from his globalization website a photo essay critical of Israel. The essay had circulated for weeks on the Internet.
Aaron Ettenberg, a member of the Faculty Senate Charges Committee, collaborated with Santa Barbara Rabbi Arthur Gross-Schaefer who reviled Robinson in the local community and urged-along with the ADL-that he be disciplined by the university for his “anti-Semitic” behavior.
Chancellor Henry Yang was subjected to threats to withhold funding featuring a campaign led by ADL National Director Abe Foxman and Rabbi Marvin Heir from the Wiesenthal Center.
Professor Ettenberg had served the previous two years as president of the local chapter of B’nai B’rith, an ADL affiliate. Rabbi Gross-Schaefer was director of the local chapter of Hillel, an on-campus ADL affiliate.
Mark Yudof, president of the University of California, opted not to intervene even as this silencing campaign attracted international attention. Yudof’s wife, Judith, is the immediate past international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism representing 760 synagogues. She is also a director of Hillel.
As with the dominance of Jewish Zionists among neoconservative war-planners, the pro-Israeli bias was all-pervasive. Richard Blum chairs the statewide Board of Regents for the University of California. His wife, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. What was their reaction as this professor was silenced? Silence.
Coincidence or Faith-Based Coordination?
Would a professor and a local rabbi have risked their careers and their reputations absent their confidence that-based on the shared bias of university administrators and government officials-they could intimidate with impunity? Absent such implied support, would this silencing operation have dragged on for so long?
Absent their silence-with its tacit approval-what might have been the impact of campus criticism when Israel’s assault on the captive population of Gaza left 1300 dead, one-third reportedly women and children? Those complicit in this silencing campaign knew the impact on public opinion of student protests against the Vietnam War-particularly on California campuses.
Those concerned about anti-Semitism must explain how this broadly coordinated intimidation campaign was allowed to succeed. In the same way that public opinion was manipulated prior to an invasion that launched the Global War on Terrorism, this campaign sought to deny students the facts required to understand Israel’s role in provoking that terror.
Absent access to facts, how can the U.S. preserve a system of self-governance founded on the premise of informed consent? Without facts, how can national security be protected from those who “fix” intelligence in order to deploy the U.S. military for the interests of a foreign nation?
Unless those complicit are held accountable, how will American youth learn the essential role of free and open debate on topics of direct relevance to their lives?
In a representative system of government, the greatest threat to liberty is manipulation of the facts required for informed citizen participation. Anyone who cherishes freedom should be alarmed at the ongoing success of such manipulation and outraged that its common source traces to a purported ally.
Psychological warfare targets knowledge as a means to manipulate thought, opinion and emotion (the “hearts and minds”) and thereby influence behavior. At the center of such disinformation is the displacement of facts with false beliefs meant to prod decision-making toward a preset goal.
Thus the false reports of Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and so forth. Thus the high profile assault on a high-profile center of learning to silence a professor who threatened to replace manipulated beliefs with confirmed facts.
Where U.S. policies toward Israel are at stake, facts are routinely suppressed to shape debate. Such strategic deceit systematically undermines U.S. national security.
Treason in Plain Sight
Intimidation campaigns have long been a key tool for organized crime and for those whose undisclosed agenda can succeed only when shielded from public scrutiny. Those complicit in such “psy-ops” know their agenda could not prevail in an open debate. They also know that if their treachery is detected they face charges of treason, a capital crime.
That’s why this form of treason instead targets knowledge to corrupt the facts required for informed choice. That focus denies those targeted a meaningful choice while leaving intact the appearance of open debate. Meanwhile the perpetrators seek refuge behind the very freedoms they undermine-freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion.
In this case, pro-Israeli operatives silenced on-campus criticism of Israel while Israel committed dozens of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Evidence of those crimes was depicted in the Internet-posted photo essay that the ADL attacked as “anti-Semitic.”
What was the strategic result? That assault on Gaza marked yet another violent provocation guaranteed to catalyze a violent reaction (aka “terrorism”), adding plausibility to the narrative of “militant Islam.” The result made the U.S. appear guilty by its association with this criminality.
We then compounded our complicity by covering up the facts when the Congress, dominated by the Israel lobby, overwhelmingly approved a resolution portraying as “irredeemably biased” a chronicle of those war crimes in “The Goldstone Report,” a comprehensive account by an eminent Jewish jurist. [See How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy http://criminalstate.com]
The U.S. was doubly damaged. We not only discredited ourselves, we also endangered our national security by condoning criminality destined to provoke more violence directed at our troops.
When such psy-ops campaigns are detected, defenders of democracy must fight back by making the perpetrators transparent and their common motivation apparent. This is how Israel wages war on the U.S. from inside the U.S.-by deceiving us to wage its wars and by provoking others to hate us due to our alliance with religious extremists and their apartheid policies...--Jeff Gates...Cont'd...LINK
(Intifada Voice of Palestine) --
The Anti-Defamation League silencing strategy offers a microcosm of how the US was induced to war in Iraq based on false intelligence, says Jeff Gates.
Lawful Treason?
Winning wars in the Information Age largely depends on winning the battle for public opinion. Thus the opinion-shaping role of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) when it attacked a high profile California professor for his criticism of Israeli policy in Palestine.
That ADL intimidation campaign successfully chilled debate on campuses nationwide during several time-critical months while a new president, promising the hope of change, reassessed U.S.-Israeli relations. His only change—endorsing more Israeli settlements on Palestinian land—quashed any hope of peace.
This ADL silencing strategy offers a microcosm of how the U.S. was induced to war in Iraq based on false intelligence. From the provocation of September 11, 2001 until the invasion of March 2003, war-planners ignored, dismissed or sought to silence anyone critical of the spurious premises offered for war.
Only later did we discover that the intelligence was fixed around a preset agenda. Even now, Americans are unaware that the U.S.-led invasion had long been an Israeli goal.
In similar fashion, an ADL campaign silenced on-campus criticism of Israel’s December 2008 assault on Gaza. At the University of California Santa Barbara, ADL-initiated charges were lodged against sociology Professor William Robinson. The disciplinary action dragged on until June 24th when 100 professors and 20 department heads demanded an end to all proceedings.
By then the damage was done-to the reputation of Professor Robinson, to academic freedom at the University of California and to national security as this campaign silenced academics countrywide. While Robinson’s reputation can be restored, the damage to national security is irreparable.
Manipulating Thought
The ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles coordinated the assault on Robinson after he shared with students from his globalization website a photo essay critical of Israel. The essay had circulated for weeks on the Internet.
Aaron Ettenberg, a member of the Faculty Senate Charges Committee, collaborated with Santa Barbara Rabbi Arthur Gross-Schaefer who reviled Robinson in the local community and urged-along with the ADL-that he be disciplined by the university for his “anti-Semitic” behavior.
Chancellor Henry Yang was subjected to threats to withhold funding featuring a campaign led by ADL National Director Abe Foxman and Rabbi Marvin Heir from the Wiesenthal Center.
Professor Ettenberg had served the previous two years as president of the local chapter of B’nai B’rith, an ADL affiliate. Rabbi Gross-Schaefer was director of the local chapter of Hillel, an on-campus ADL affiliate.
Mark Yudof, president of the University of California, opted not to intervene even as this silencing campaign attracted international attention. Yudof’s wife, Judith, is the immediate past international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism representing 760 synagogues. She is also a director of Hillel.
As with the dominance of Jewish Zionists among neoconservative war-planners, the pro-Israeli bias was all-pervasive. Richard Blum chairs the statewide Board of Regents for the University of California. His wife, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. What was their reaction as this professor was silenced? Silence.
Coincidence or Faith-Based Coordination?
Would a professor and a local rabbi have risked their careers and their reputations absent their confidence that-based on the shared bias of university administrators and government officials-they could intimidate with impunity? Absent such implied support, would this silencing operation have dragged on for so long?
Absent their silence-with its tacit approval-what might have been the impact of campus criticism when Israel’s assault on the captive population of Gaza left 1300 dead, one-third reportedly women and children? Those complicit in this silencing campaign knew the impact on public opinion of student protests against the Vietnam War-particularly on California campuses.
Those concerned about anti-Semitism must explain how this broadly coordinated intimidation campaign was allowed to succeed. In the same way that public opinion was manipulated prior to an invasion that launched the Global War on Terrorism, this campaign sought to deny students the facts required to understand Israel’s role in provoking that terror.
Absent access to facts, how can the U.S. preserve a system of self-governance founded on the premise of informed consent? Without facts, how can national security be protected from those who “fix” intelligence in order to deploy the U.S. military for the interests of a foreign nation?
Unless those complicit are held accountable, how will American youth learn the essential role of free and open debate on topics of direct relevance to their lives?
In a representative system of government, the greatest threat to liberty is manipulation of the facts required for informed citizen participation. Anyone who cherishes freedom should be alarmed at the ongoing success of such manipulation and outraged that its common source traces to a purported ally.
Psychological warfare targets knowledge as a means to manipulate thought, opinion and emotion (the “hearts and minds”) and thereby influence behavior. At the center of such disinformation is the displacement of facts with false beliefs meant to prod decision-making toward a preset goal.
Thus the false reports of Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and so forth. Thus the high profile assault on a high-profile center of learning to silence a professor who threatened to replace manipulated beliefs with confirmed facts.
Where U.S. policies toward Israel are at stake, facts are routinely suppressed to shape debate. Such strategic deceit systematically undermines U.S. national security.
Treason in Plain Sight
Intimidation campaigns have long been a key tool for organized crime and for those whose undisclosed agenda can succeed only when shielded from public scrutiny. Those complicit in such “psy-ops” know their agenda could not prevail in an open debate. They also know that if their treachery is detected they face charges of treason, a capital crime.
That’s why this form of treason instead targets knowledge to corrupt the facts required for informed choice. That focus denies those targeted a meaningful choice while leaving intact the appearance of open debate. Meanwhile the perpetrators seek refuge behind the very freedoms they undermine-freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion.
In this case, pro-Israeli operatives silenced on-campus criticism of Israel while Israel committed dozens of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Evidence of those crimes was depicted in the Internet-posted photo essay that the ADL attacked as “anti-Semitic.”
What was the strategic result? That assault on Gaza marked yet another violent provocation guaranteed to catalyze a violent reaction (aka “terrorism”), adding plausibility to the narrative of “militant Islam.” The result made the U.S. appear guilty by its association with this criminality.
We then compounded our complicity by covering up the facts when the Congress, dominated by the Israel lobby, overwhelmingly approved a resolution portraying as “irredeemably biased” a chronicle of those war crimes in “The Goldstone Report,” a comprehensive account by an eminent Jewish jurist. [See How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy http://criminalstate.com]
The U.S. was doubly damaged. We not only discredited ourselves, we also endangered our national security by condoning criminality destined to provoke more violence directed at our troops.
When such psy-ops campaigns are detected, defenders of democracy must fight back by making the perpetrators transparent and their common motivation apparent. This is how Israel wages war on the U.S. from inside the U.S.-by deceiving us to wage its wars and by provoking others to hate us due to our alliance with religious extremists and their apartheid policies...--Jeff Gates...Cont'd...LINK
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