Target shooters, those using .22 long rifles, .223 and .308 calibers were already feeling the pinch, but starting in December even waterfowlers were having trouble finding steel shot.

Then all ammunition began to fly off shelves, and replacements were slow in coming — if at all.

Now it is May and dove season is only four months out. Deer season for some in Texas is five months away, and hunters are starting to get a little nervous. The store shelves are filling up, but there is still a lot of ammo on backorder. Most stores are still limiting purchases and there hasn’t been anything that says manufacturers are about to catch up with demand. Gun owners of all types are buying and selling ammo among each other like it was a rare commodity.

This isn’t the first time in recent years there has been a run on ammunition. The last time came because lead for bullets was diverted to war use.

This run is different. It came out of fear of what the government was going to do with guns and ammo in the light of mass shootings incidents in Colorado and Connecticut. It started with firearms sales jumping almost immediately after last November’s Presidential election.

A retailer couldn’t have come up with a more effective advertising campaign than a President promising gun control, and for months stores experienced non-stop sales. Some around the state were greeted each morning for by lines waiting for doors to open. Guns, especially the popular sporting rifles and pistols, flew off the shelves and were soon backordered.

It was madness. One Tyler-area retailer said he had a couple walk in for the first time and said they were told they needed to buy an AR-15. Then they said, “Can you show us what one looks like.”

Apparently liking what they saw. They bought two.

Pistol sales were just as hot. An Austin retailer told of a woman who walked up to the counter asking to buy a pistol. When asked what kind, she pointed into the case and said, “Is that a good one?” Told it was, she bought the gun.

However, there could only be so much demand for guns and despite sales of $11.7 billion in 2012, eventually supply caught up with demand.

That is when the run on ammo and components began. Because a lot of the new gun buyers weren’t hunters, they were buying larger amounts of ammo to use at the range, home defense or in some cases as doomsday supplies.

Unlike with guns, however, the manufacturers haven’t caught up with demand. That is reflective on store shelves and at the cash register where prices have increased.

So the question is will the ammunition supply chain fill in time for hunting season? The answer is a little like looking at the Dallas Cowboys, you hope they are better, but don’t bet the bank on it.

“Like many manufacturers in the shooting sports industry, we are experiencing an extremely high demand for our products. We are working as hard as we can to produce an increased supply of quality ammunition to meet our customers’ needs.”

That is the official word from Winchester. It scarily says nothing, and efforts to get elaboration from a company spokesperson got absolutely nothing more.
Remington was just as elusive.

“Remington is at full capacity at this time with a majority of categories of ammunition. Remington is continuing to look at how to increase capacity and supplying ammo products to the various channels of distribution/sales that we support,” said company spokeswoman Jessica Kallam.

Ditto Federal, who offered a similar prepared statement.

Hornady, which primarily makes bullets, said it has added shifts and equipment in an effort to meet demand.

Despite conspiracy theories about government ammo buy-ups causing the shortage, the truth seems to be a less-sinister retail perfect storm, according to industry insiders.

“It is definitely a consumer demand shortage,” said Mike Bazinet, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an organization underwritten by the sporting goods industry including arms and ammo manufacturers. “We don’t speculate more than that. We certainly know when people are concerned about access that causes a concern about demand.”

Bazinet said the biggest pull on supplies has been a 35-consecutive month increase in firearms sales nationwide. Many of these are new buyers, and unlike hunters who might shoot four or five rifle shells a year they are shooting hundreds of rounds an afternoon.

He added that many manufactures have brought out a number of new rifles using .22 Long Rifle shells. An almost forgotten shell except for plinking, the remaining squirrel hunters and summer camps, demand has exploded exponentially in recent years as the new guns have been sold.

That, along with the fear of government action, brought the consumers to stores. Then they ran into a new retail strategy in which retailers don’t sink their cash into product that sits in warehouses out of season.

“There is that wider phenomenon of just-in-time buying by retailers. Do I want to pay to store this ammo that is not going to sell in back room?” Bazinet said.
And without product to sell and a nationwide demand, everyone found themself short.

Local retailers are reporting that gun sales have slowed from their peak, but that are still higher than what had been considered normal. That rush of new customers continues to put pressure on what ammunition the stores have available.

Source: tylerpaper.com

Hurrah, the worm has turned! Or has it? The corporatist controlled mass media love affair with the puppet spinmeister seems to be on the rocks. For progressive propagandists, the profession of journalism has long sunk into the sewer. Withal, the elitist snobbery of the self-appointed gatekeepers for the globalist power structure got a slap in the face and a wakeup call, from Associated Press spy-gate. The reporter darlings for the Obama “Chicago Outfit” protection racket just got a taste of unexpected payback appreciation. Slow on the uptake, Obama Lapdog Andrea Mitchell on IRS Scandal: “One of the most outrageous excesses I’ve seen in all my years in journalism” “Wait until this fossil finds out about AP records being seized.”

This sentiment typifies the insincere shock from the hypocrites that ignored the criminal pattern of governance for the last four plus years. Just listen to their temper tantrum in the YouTube video, Media turn on Obama in response to AP probe. Oh, woe is I, how can our esteemed profession be treated in such a way by our celebrity creation rock star? How could he betray us, after we covered for him at every turn?

Well, the fact that the “Chicago Gangster Organization” of the Obama crew targeted the electronic communications of the press should not be a shock in the age of the Patriot Act. The real bombshell is that the Justice Dept. Wiretapped the House of Representative’s Cloak Room. “California congressman Devin Nunes made the claim yesterday that the Justice Department wiretapped telephones in the House of Representative’s Cloak Room, an exclusive part of the Capitol where members are able to privately interact with one another.

“Will the newly invigorated and hardy souls of the “Fourth Estate” become bloodhounds and sniff out the ugly stories behind the headlines? Before the long beleaguered news consumer regains confidence that the muckraker tradition of theWashington Merry-Go-Round has returned, consider who really benefits from this miraculous turn of conscience.

Let’s get right down with the despicable truth that most mainstream news is simply a product of disinformation that benefits the shadowy forces that control the editorial content of the spin. Polite company is supposed to ignore that Zionism and the Mediahas an Israel-First agenda in reporting. The direct links of tribe ownership, editorial approval and journalists staffing is simply a fact within the industry.

The linkage of a systemic slanted viewpoint and sympathy for an ideology that conflicts with traditional Americanism is a reality that cannot be denied by any honest observer. Prodigious lies from politicians are expected, but repeating the prevarications, while professing a claim that objective journalism is their trade, is a primary reason whypresstitutes are so despised.

In order to understand the current media scorn towards the Obama regime needs a shot of bold courage for analysis of the geo-political influence that dictates the perspective that goes into print. Since the mass media is a top down cabal of groupthink, it is entirely explicable that some political objective is at the core of the “so called” fabricated media outrage.

The Obama administration has demonstrated a reluctance to do the bidding of the most bellicose pro Zionists. The significance that an illegal preempted strike on Iran, a priority for Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, has not received approval from Barry Soetoro means that the string is running out on Obama usefulness. Interminable media speculation has been registered about Barack Hussein Muslim sympathies. Leaving the extent of such motivations aside, the critical question is whether a teleprompt reader, tutored by the CIA to become an asset for the agency, is really making foreign policy decisions.Consider that the red line has passed for Obama, and that operations for false flag distractions are firmly in the hands of his controllers. Stripping the imposter in chief of his political capital and placing blame on his inept and gonzo behavior is a natural for the skilled character blackwash of media assassins.

The most reasonable conclusion from an analysis of the sudden turn by a uniform media is that the order, from on high, went forth that ignoring greater Israel interests, has consequences. From none other than the oracle of Zionist supremacy, the New York Times editorial board Spying on The Associated Press, expresses their new found denigration.

“For more than 30 years, the news media and the government have used a well-honed system to balance the government’s need to pursue criminals or national security breaches with the media’s constitutional right to inform the public. This action against The A.P., as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press outlined in a letter to Mr. Holder, “calls into question the very integrity” of the administration’s policy toward the press.”

The mere mention of the Attorney General from the Department of Injustice, mildly stated is just a little late. “Fast And Furious” Eric Holder is the poster boy for careerist corruption going back to the Oklahoma City Bombing. Why now is the media turning on an AG that makes one longing for the resurrection to office of John Mitchell?

The POTUS proclaims, I Have ‘Complete Confidence’ In Holder.

“President Barack Obama continues to back Attorney General Eric Holder following the fallout over the Justice Department secretly obtaining two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press.

During a Rose Garden press conference, the president stated that he has “complete confidence” in the job Holder is doing.”

And why would Obama not back his buffoon sibling in law-breaking? Know NothingHolder is either the minister of incompetence or the sheriff of selective memory.

“Attorney General Eric Holder used the phrase “I don’t know” or some variation, at least 57 times during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee today as House Republicans grilled him over controversies including the IRS’ targeting of Tea Partiers, the Justice Department’s seizure of journalist phone records, and the security lapses surrounding the Boston bombing.

Holder, who says he has recused himself from an intelligence leak probe in which the Department of Justice subpoenaed phone records from Associated Press reporters, repeatedly dodged questions about the growing scandal.

When asked whether the DOJ attempted to work with the AP before seizing the phone records, Holder said, “I don’t know what happened. I was recused from the case.”

The Daily Mail expands in the article, Eric Holder points finger at his DEPUTY, “Holder said that he recused himself from the making the controversial decision to subpoena the phone records of Associated Press journalists, saying that it was made by Deputy Attorney General James Cole.”For all those remaining Obama supporters, why isn’t Eric Holder indicted for obstruction of justice as a prelude to impeachment of his boss?

Already we are hearing that many more disclosures are about to break. One such disgrace, coming out of a broadcaster, notable for their ESPN coverage, is the account of the IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office.

“Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.”

The sport of network political coverage has been more about entertainment than accountability coverage. The application of investigative inquiry and objective criteria is mostly absent from the half-truths and feel good treatment of favored political causes and personalities. Quality investigatory reporting of a Robert Novak, Seymour Hersh or a Jack Anderson is very rare today. The standards that they practiced need to be applied by the Washington press corps.

Will the media demonstrate the same intensity of scrutiny, when querying Press Secretary Jay (Ron Ziegler, Jr) Carney as they did during Watergate? Dream on folks, the asymptomatic embellishment in reporting by the progressive media is embedded in their genes. Their function is to enable the collectivist cover-up that has a primal goal of dismantling our constitutional republic.

Independent news organizations need to get down to veracity and confront the power structure with the same vigor and intensity of John Peter Zenger. The publishing trade honed by Benjamin Franklin is dishonored by the journalists that grovel for career recognition from media conglomerates that write deliberate falsehoods.

Journalists know that their editor can strip out any item that does not conform to the “PC” policy of the publisher. The real Associated Press scandal is that the moguls of media stories are in the business of serving the political agenda of their ownership masters.

The reason that alternative news sites are dangerous to the establishment version of information is that the internet readers obtain none filtered content and are able to assess their own conclusions. The rightful contempt due for government political propaganda also applies to the slick talking heads that mouth the scripts of their internationalist overlords. Whom do you trust? The globalist adaptation of reality has no credibility.

This was the final step Dan needed to take before exercising the sudden death partnership agreement between himself and Hightower, who had provided the original funding which allowed Green Hills to open its doors in 1982. More on Hightower

Dan had cut a deal with Franklin, agreeing to help him evade characterization of the stock award as marital property in exchange for Franklin’s assistance to prevent Hightower from exercising his right to buy out the company for 47 million, far less than the approximately 350 million it was actually worth.

Franklin’s wife, Melinda, had no idea her husband was divorcing her, though later she would find out he had filed the day he returned from their Hawaiian vacation with the entire family of six children on January 1st. It was planned not as a divorce but as take-no-prisoners war.

Melinda had every reason to believe their marriage was stable. The previous year she had saved Craig from the tax disaster his non-filing of returns had caused. He had, in fact, never filed until Melinda forced the issue the previous year when she discovered the reason they were bankrupt was Franklin’s non-filing.

Other things she did not know came very close to killing her and the couple’s son, Arthur. More

Hightower found out about the plan just after the meeting during which he was persuaded to sign off on Franklin’s new share agreement. Dan informed him the sudden death partnership agreement had been exercised.

Shocked, Hightower returned to Pasadena and began to make arrangements to raise the capital. This, he believed, would not be difficult for him. He had started and still owned other companies. He was wrong only because he did not know Craig was to persuade the other vice presidents and critical employees to agree to walk out if he owned Green Hills. Craig did just this the next summer. When the due diligence team came to Green Hills a walk-out occurred. Lavish promises of additional stock and other benefits had been made to the senior personnel. Not all promises were kept, but after the fact there was little they could do about it.

Dan and Craig are both psychopaths. More about them here, “When psychopaths cooperate”

Over the next nearly two years the outcome of the Hightower buyout remained in question because Glenn, outraged by Dan’s manipulations, which had begun with an restraining order keeping him from making contact with employees, filed a law suit after the orchestrated walk out. Law suit, Exhibit 7 “Morgan Pillsbury – Franklin Transcript”

Dan, who has all of the human skills of a piranha, evidently finally realized he needed someone to create a more human face for the corporation. Since Dan hoped to take Green Hills public this should also be someone with an impressive corporate resume able to make affirmative introductions to potentially useful board members, essential to acquiring credibility.
And thus entered a new member for the GHS Team.

John B. Douglas III, Unlikely Addition to the Green Hills Team

Douglas Bio from Green Hills Site

Douglas’ association with Green Hills Software actually began simultaneous with the time Dan was feverishly working to ensure he had the 47 million locked down to buy Green Hills himself. Reading the various and carefully worded resumes which abound on the Internet for Jack you find this phrasing at Bloomberg Business Week. “Mr. Jack Douglas has been Vice Chairman at Green Hills Software since April 2003. Mr. Douglas served as Chief Executive Officer to obtain multiple forms of debt and equity financing and on other strategic initiatives. Mr. Douglas also acts as a key advisor to other growing companies. ”

Chief Executive Officer of what, Green Hills Software, during the time they were attempting to go public? Of course, it could be a mis-statement by an online site which was perpetuated through reposting. But there are other indications money was tight during the period of 1998 – 2003 when Green Hills became a government contractor.

Dan borrowed a million dollars from Dr. Carl Franklin, Craig’s father, supposedly to pay for Craig’s stock options. It would have seemed reasonable for Craig to then use the generous dividends being paid from 1998 on to repay this, but evidently this did not happen. The money was extracted from Dan. Craig never repays loans since he has better uses for the money. This has been true his entire life, with only a few exceptions.

This ‘loan,’ for what ever reason it was made, was not repaid when expected and only firm action on the part of Dr. Franklin’s other two sons, Sterling and Larry, both attorneys, resulted in extracting the money from Dan.

Someone with Jack’s qualifications must have seemed like a dream come true for Dan at the time because along with Jack’s connections he also brought a far more normal personal manner than either Dan or Craig had to offer as officers of the company.

Also, there was Dan, strapped for money, with Hightower suing and only Craig to provide him with comfort and ideas.

Craig at this time, late 1998 through 1999, had became obsessed with having a hit man kill his wife, according to affidavits given later by those talking to him every day. (Affidavit, Middle of Page 2) This came about because Melinda was, like Hightower, not following the carefully scripted plan he and Dan had laid out. She was supposed to die during the divorce from her heart condition, as Hightower was supposed to just go away. Therefore, it is doubtful Dan found their daily lunches together very comforting. Craig’s public rantings probably made Dan, who is far more cautious, uneasy.

Craig Franklin

Jack Douglas

Craig looks far more normal here than he actually is. Despite appearances, he is highly intelligent with an I. Q. of 180, making him smarter than Einstein.

Jack not only looks normal, he looks charming, sophisticated, and intelligent. His resume, which includes his graduation, summa cum laude from Harvard Law, speaks for itself. Jack could be depended on not to shock potential investors with his table manners, too, an iffy proposition with Craig.

Additionally, Jack’s masterful analysis for running an in-house division for corporate counsel, “The Reebok Rules,” is filled with sage advice, some of which Jack might have found useful himself.

Now, what motivated John B. (Jack) Douglas III, to go to work at Green Hills, besides money? Jack had received stock when he was working for Apple and, presumably, his income from the stellar corporations, including Reebok, where he held senior executive positions , “helping Reebok grow to over $3 billion in revenue,” also provided substantial remuneration, as did Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Each of these jobs seems to have grown shorter in duration. Jack was at Reebok for ten years, the others for far shorter periods, compressed into the time he had also assumed a consulting role with Green Hills.

By all reports, if they are to be believed, it was not any problem with his professional performance which caused him to move on. That leaves personal considerations and, of late, we have had indications all was not normal with Jack’s personal life.

On April 17th Jack was arrested for committing an act of, “Lewdness, open and gross, c 272 s16 (272/16)” in plain sight of a family seated for a meal at the Olive Garden Restaurant in Taunton, Massachusetts. The father of the children, an off duty police officer immediately confronted Jack, this leading to his arrest and arraignment. The event took place at 3:49pm. The facts are recounted in the POLICE REPORT.

Evidently, Jack is an exhibitionist, a form of sexual perversion, “known by several names including: flashing, apodysophilia, and Lady Godiva syndrome, according to Thrive Boston.

According to the same site ”Some exhibitionists have a conscious desire to shock or upset the person or persons they are exposing themselves to. In contrast, a high percentage of exhibitionists hope or fantasize that the target of their exposure will become sexually aroused and want to engage in sexual activity with them.

In some cases an exhibitionist will masturbate while exposing him or herself.”

The first part of this accords with Jack’s reported activity.

The Defense Human Resources Activity (DHRA) site provides the outcome of studies which state male exhibitionists may be sexually inhibited, or even impotent, this starting before age 18 in most cases. Most common in men in their twenties the impulse supposedly diminishes during the 30s and 40s, becoming less common. Another study found, “that the typical exhibitionist is married, has above average intelligence, is satisfactorily employed, and shows no other evidence of serious emotional problems.132 and that,” The absence of other emotional problems has been a consistent finding in a number of studies. 130 “

The condition is reported to be treatable and treatment programs are available which lower the rate of recidivism to ‘rare.’ Today Jack is entering his sixties, however, making him somewhat unusual for an exhibitionist.

It is therefore unlikely the incident in Taunton was the first time Jack exhibited himself, raising the possibility his changes in employment and frequent changes of address are not unrelated to this condition.

It is conceivable Green Hills provided a safe harbor for Jack because events in his personal life had overcome him. By leaving Millennium and ‘hiring on’ at Green Hills he could continue to live in Massachusetts and still have an active professional profile, even if it was one which radically changed his previous, far more prestigious, trajectory.

Also, he did not actually have to live in Santa Barbara and see very much of Dan and Craig. But he knew, through his interactions with them, beginning in 1998, the company would cover for him if questions about his personal life were raised. Dan had certainly provided this service to Craig, who was guilty of raping women in his office during working hours, to say nothing of his after hours activities.

And, given the arrest cited above, it is very likely he knew it would be well to have an understanding and helpful employer.

Despite not inconsiderable research on the web there is actually very little to be found about Jack’s personal life. Those with which he is associated are better understood as extensions of his professional life.

Unlike his fellow Team members Jeff Hazarian and Jason Issacs, he appears to be uninvolved in his local community in any not-for-profit organization. Hazarian and Issacs both joined Green Hills after the events of 1998 and are in stable marriages. Hazarian is very active in his church. Issacs and his wife contribute and participate in local charities, which other members of the GHS management team, do not appear to do.

In effect, Dan provided a sanctuary for those employees inclined to engage in personally unethical behavior. This became a perk of employment, where it obtained the services of individuals who otherwise would not have tolerated his unwillingness to share profits and a business strategy which included providing weapons used to commit human rights violations around the world.

The score card for the management team can be read like this.

Dan and Craig – Psychopathic.
Dave Kleidermacher and Dave Chandler – Caught by greed and their complicity in Dan’s 1998 fraud.
Jack – Sexually Deviant, needs assistance in finding an effective treatment program.
Chris Smith – Unknown.
Tim Reed – Cal Tech graduate, still researching.
Jeff and Jason – Tolerant of the corporate culture which financially benefits them.

Next: The genocides of the 20th Century and how they link to America’s present wars.

A continuing series of articles written for publication on Drone Free Zone in cooperation with PsychoBusters, a coordinated project carried out to awaken the public to the psychological nature, and motives, of those presently providing contracting services and products to the military and governmental agencies. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
William B. McReynolds
williambmcreynolds@gmail.com
T +1 (623) 209-2003

As alert Zero Hedge readers are aware, this week the EURO Politburo is busy debating the dodgy subject of deposit “bail-ins.”

The following article very succinctly explains this odious mode of fractal fractional reserve end-game chicanery.

The author encourages all of you to share it with others.

NO BANK DEPOSITS WILL BE SPARED FROM CONFISCATION

By Matthias Chang Esq, futurefastforward.com (with author’s permission)

I challenge anyone to prove me wrong that confiscation of bank deposits is legalized daylight robbery

Bank depositors in the UK and USA may think that their bank deposits would not be confiscated as they are insured and no government would dare embark on such a drastic action to bail out insolvent banks.

Before I explain why confiscation of bank deposits in the UK and US is a certainty and absolutely legal, I need all readers of this article to do the following:

Ask your local police, sheriffs, lawyers, judges the following questions:

1) If I place my money with a lawyer as a stake-holder and he uses the money without my consent, has the lawyer committed a crime?

2) If I store a bushel of wheat or cotton in a warehouse and the owner of the warehouse sold my wheat/cotton without my consent or authority, has the warehouse owner committed a crime?

3) If I place monies with my broker (stock or commodity) and the broker uses my monies for other purposes and or contrary to my instructions, has the broker committed a crime?

I am confident that the answer to the above questions is a Yes!

However, for the purposes of this article, I would like to first highlight the situation of the deposit / storage of wheat with a warehouse owner in relation to the deposit of money / storage with a banker.

First, you will notice that all wheat is the same i.e. the wheat in one bushel is no different from the wheat in another bushel. Likewise with cotton, it is indistinguishable. The deposit of a bushel of wheat with the warehouse owner in law constitutes a bailment. Ownership of the bushel of wheat remains with you and there is no transfer of ownership at all to the warehouse owner.

And as stated above, if the owner sells the bushel of wheat without your consent or authority, he has committed a crime as well as having committed a civil wrong (a tort) of conversion – converting your property to his own use and he can be sued.

Let me use another analogy. If a cashier in a supermarket removes $100 from the till on Friday to have a frolic on Saturday, he has committed theft, even though he may replace the $100 on Monday without the knowledge of the owner / manager of the supermarket. The $100 the cashier stole on Friday is also indistinguishable from the $100 he put back in the till on Monday. In both situations – the wheat in the warehouse and the $100 dollar bill in the till, which have been unlawfully misappropriated would constitute a crime.

Keep this principle and issue at the back of your mind.

Now we shall proceed with the money that you have deposited with your banker.

I am sure that most of you have little or no knowledge about banking, specifically fractional reserve banking.

Since you were a little kid, your parents have encouraged you to save some money to instil in you the good habit of money management.

And when you grew up and got married, you in turn instilled the same discipline in your children. Your faith in the integrity of the bank is almost absolute. Your money in the bank would earn an interest income.

And when you want your money back, all you needed to do is to withdraw the money together with the accumulated interest. Never for a moment did you think that you had transferred ownership of your money to the bank. Your belief was grounded in like manner as the owner of the bushel of wheat stored in the warehouse.

However, this belief is and has always been a lie. You were led to believe this lie because of savvy advertisements by the banks and government assurances that your money is safe and is protected by deposit insurance.

But, the insurance does not cover all the monies that you have deposited in the bank, but to a limited amount e.g. $250,000 in the US by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Germany €100,000, UK £85,000 etc.

But, unlike the owner of the bushel of wheat who has deposited the wheat with the warehouse owner, your ownership of the monies that you have deposited with the bank is transferred to the bank and all you have is the right to demand its repayment. And, if the bank fails to repay your monies (e.g. $100), your only remedy is to sue the bank and if the bank is insolvent you get nothing.

You may recover some of your money if your deposit is covered by an insurance scheme as referred to earlier but in a fixed amount. But, there is a catch here. Most insurance schemes whether backed by the government or not do not have sufficient monies to cover all the deposits in the banking system.

So, in the worst case scenario – a systemic collapse, there is no way for you to get your money back.

In fact, and as illustrated in the Cyprus banking fiasco, the authorities went to the extent of confiscating your deposits to pay the banks’ creditors. When that happened, ordinary citizens and financial analysts cried out that such confiscation was daylight robbery. But, is it?

Surprise, surprise!

It will come as a shock to all of you to know that such daylight robbery is perfectly legal and this has been so for hundreds of years.

Let me explain.

The reason is that unlike the owner of the bushel of wheat whose ownership of the wheat WAS NEVER TRANSFERRED to the warehouse owner when the same was deposited, the moment you deposited your money with the bank, the ownership is transferred to the bank.

Your status is that of A CREDITOR TO THE BANK and the BANK IS IN LAW A DEBTOR to you. You are deemed to have “lent” your money to the bank for the bank to apply to its banking business (even to gamble in the biggest casino in the world – the global derivatives casino).

You have become a creditor, AN UNSECURED CREDITOR. Therefore, by law, in the insolvency of a bank, you as an unsecured creditor stand last in the queue of creditors to be paid out of any funds and or assets which the bank has to pay its creditors. The secured creditors are always first in line to be paid. It is only after secured creditors have been paid and there are still some funds left (usually, not much, more often zilch!) that unsecured creditors are paid and the sums pro-rated among all the unsecured creditors.

This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The law has been in existence for hundreds of years and was established in England by the House of Lords in the case Foley v Hill in 1848.

When a customer deposits money with his banker, the relationship that arises is one of creditor and debtor, with the banker liable to repay the money deposited when demanded by the customer. Once money has been paid to the banker, it belongs to the banker and he is free to use the money for his own purpose.

I will now quote the relevant portion of the judgment of #3b4d81;”>the House of Lords handed down by Lord Cottenham, the Lord Chancellor. He stated thus:

“Money when paid into a bank, ceases altogether to be the money of the principal… it is then the money of the banker, who is bound to return an equivalent by paying a similar sum to that deposited with him when he is asked for it.

The money paid into the banker’s, is money known by the principal to be placed there for the purpose of being under the control of the banker; it is then the banker’s money; he is known to deal with it as his own; he makes what profit of it he can, which profit he retains himself,…

The money placed in the custody of the banker is, to all intent and purposes, the money of the banker, to do with it as he pleases; he is guilty of no breach of trust in employing it; he is not answerable TO THE PRINCIPAL IF HE PUTS IT INTO JEOPARDY, IF HE ENGAGES IN A HAZARDOUS SPECULATION; he is not bound to keep it or deal with it as the property of the principal, but he is of course answerable for the amount, because he has contracted, having received that money, to repay to the principal, when demanded, a sum equivalent to that paid into his hands.” (quoted in UK Law Essays, #3b4d81;”>Relationship Between A Banker And Customer,That Of A Creditor/Debtor, emphasis added,)

Holding that the relationship between a banker and his customer was one of debtor and creditor and not one of trusteeship, #3b4d81;”>Lord Brougham said:

“This trade of a banker is to receive money, and use it as if it were his own, he becoming debtor to the person who has lent or deposited with him the money to use as his own, and for which money he is accountable as a debtor. I cannot at all confound the situation of a banker with that of a trustee, and conclude that the banker is a debtor with a fiduciary character.”

In plain simple English – bankers cannot be prosecuted for breach of trust, because it owes no fiduciary duty to the depositor / customer, as he is deemed to be using his own money to speculate etc. There is absolutely no criminal liability.

The trillion dollar question is, Why has no one in the Justice Department or other government agencies mentioned this legal principle?

The reason why no one dare speak this legal truth is because there would be a run on the banks when all the Joe Six-Packs wise up to the fact that their deposits with the bankers CONSTITUTE IN LAW A LOAN TO THE BANK and the bank can do whatever it likes even to indulge in hazardous speculation such as gambling in the global derivative casino.

The Joe Six-Packs always consider the bank the creditor even when he deposits money in the bank. No depositor ever considers himself as the creditor!

Yes, Eric Holder, the US Attorney-General is right when he said that bankers cannot be prosecuted for the losses suffered by the bank. This is because a banker cannot be prosecuted for losing his “own money” as stated by the House of Lords. This is because when money is deposited with the bank, that money belongs to the banker.

The reason that if a banker is prosecuted it would collapse the entire banking system is a big lie.

The US Attorney-General could not and would not state the legal principle because it would cause a run on the banks when people discover that their monies are not safe with bankers as they can in law use the monies deposited as their own even to speculate.

What is worrisome is that your right to be repaid arises only when you demand payment.

Obviously, when you demand payment, the bank must pay you. But, if you demand payment after the bank has collapsed and is insolvent, it is too late. Your entitlement to be repaid is that of a lonely unsecured creditor and only if there are funds left after liquidation to be paid out to all the unsecured creditors and the remaining funds to be pro-rated. You would be lucky to get ten cents on the dollar.

So, when the Bank of England, the FED and the BIS issued the guidelines which became the template for the Cyprus “bail-in” (which was endorsed by the G-20 Cannes Summit in 2011), it was merely a circuitous way of stating the legal position without arousing the wrath of the people, as they well knew that if the truth was out, there would be a revolution and blood on the streets. It is therefore not surprising that the global central bankers came out with this nonsensical advisory:

“The objective of an effective resolution regime is to make feasible the resolution of financial institutions without severe systemic disruption and without exposing taxpayers to losses, while protecting vital economic functions through mechanisms which make it possible for shareholders and unsecured and uninsured creditors to absorb losses in a manner that respects the hierarchy of claims in liquidation.”(quoted in #3b4d81;”> #3b4d81;”>FSB Consultative Document: Effective Resolution of Systemically …)

This is the kind of complex technical jargon used by bankers to confuse the people, especially depositors and to cover up what I have stated in plain and simple English in the foregoing paragraphs.

The key words of the BIS guideline are:

“without severe systemic disruptions” (i.ea bank runs),

“while protecting vital economic functions” (i.e. protecting vested interests – bankers),

“unsecured creditors” (i.e. your monies, you are the dummy),

“respects the hierarchy of claims in liquidation” (i.e. you are last in the queue to be paid, after all secured creditors have been paid).

This means all depositors are losers!

Please read this article carefully and spread it far and wide.

You will be doing a favour to all your fellow country men and women and more importantly, your family and relatives.

Source: zerohedge.co

One international political result was registered at the United Nations this past week when a US-Qatari-Saudi drafted General Assembly Resolution that was designed to increase pressure on the Assad government stumbled badly and fell far short of what the Saudi Ambassador to the UN and other US allies predicted would be an overwhelming vote in favor.

Effect of shift in popular opinion in Syria

Over the past four or five months it has become increasingly clear that public opinion in Syria is shifting for reasons that include, but are not limited to the following:

While inflation at the grocery stores in probably the most common complaint heard from a cross-section of society here, the population is adapting somewhat to higher prices and it appears to credit the government for efforts, some successful, to soften the impact of the illegal US-led sanctions that target this same Syrian population for purely political reasons to achieve regime change.

While Syrians demand dignity and freedom from oppressive security forces and an end to corruption, as all people do in this region and beyond, they are witnessing a return to near normalcy with respect to supplies of electricity, benzene, mazout fuel oil, bus schedules, schools, and a host of public services such as garbage collection, street sweeping, park maintenance, and sympathetic traffic cops who are rather understanding of short-cuts taken by drivers and pedestrians due to “the situation”.

In addition, public service announcement and even text messages demonstrate that the government is aware of the degree of suffering among the population, accept partial blame, and are focusing on remedial measure and crucially, ending the crisis with its horrific bloodshed. One observes here a definite trend of the pulling together of a high percentage of Syrians who share a very unique history and culture and who are deeply connected to their country and who are increasingly repelled by the continuing killing from all sides including the recent barbarisms of body mutilations and summary executions videotaped and broadcast on utube by jihadist elements. The latter who these days come from nearly three dozen countries, paid for and indoctrinated by enemies of Syria’s Arab nationalism and deep rooted pillar of resistance to the occupation of Palestine.

In addition, many among Syria’s 23 million citizens, who initially supported the uprising following government reaction to event in Deraa in March 2011, now have serious second thoughts about who exactly would replace the current government. Events in Syria are also making plain that the army is still loyal to the Assad government, and according to Jane’s Defense Weekly, is actually gaining experience and strength as well as the well-known fact that as western diplomats are admitting, the “opposition militias” are hopelessly fractured, turning one another, many essential mafia outfits, and beginning to resemble their fellow jihadists from Libya, Chechnya and in between.

Opinion in Damascus and surrounding areas visited this past week, confirms this observers experience the past five months of a sharp and fairly rapid shift in opinion that now strongly favors letting the Syrian people themselves decide, without outside interference, whether the Assad regime will stay, and indeed, whether, the Baathist party will continue to represent majority opinion, not through wanton violence but rather via next June’s election. Many express confidence in the run up to this critical vote, noting that the election will be closely monitored by the international community to assure fairness.

Perhaps aided by the current glorious May weather, a certain optimism, that was more scarce in the past, pervades many neighborhoods.

For different reasons, foreign powers, including the USA, Turkey, European Union, the UK Jordan and even the majority population of the six Gulf Cooperation Council family run countries, according to Pew Research, are shifting their earlier positions which were based in part of the US administration, NATO, and Israeli assurances that the Assad government would surely fall quickly, “A matter of days, not weeks” US President Obama promised. That was two years ago.

As noted above, this trend has accelerated since the UN General Assembly vote with last weeks which did not go as planned on the biased and politicized non-binding draft resolution on Syria.

The public reaction in Syria and across the Middle East is substantially that the “Friends of Syria” non-binding GA resolution contradicts the reality on the ground, backs terrorism in Syria and hinders the international efforts to help achieve a political solution to the crisis in this country. Only 107 states voted in favor of the resolution, 12 against while 59 countries, mostly from Africa and Latin America, abstained from voting.

One reason the vote fell short of the 130 favorable votes that the basically same resolution garnered the past two times is that it is widely viewed as ignoring the crimes and atrocities committed by the armed jihadist groups in Syria and the flow of thousands of international terrorists backed by the West, the Gulf states and Turkey who provide them with weapons and money. According to the Russian delegate, backed by several other speakers, “the resolutions ignores all the terrorists’ heinous crimes and denounces what it called the escalation of the attacks by the Syrian government”. Afterward one Latin American Permanent Representative told Inner City Press that the count would have been below 100 if not for some “last minute arm-twisting.” As it turned out, 15 countries didn’t vote at all, opting to “get coffee,” as one African Permanent Representative put it before the vote.

Syria’s Ambassador al-Jaafari exposes a hoax in the Gulf

Syria’s permanent Envoy to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari said his country regretted the adoption of a biased and unbalanced UN resolution, thanking the countries that rejected the resolution “for their responsible positions which support the UN principles and the international law articles”. He noted that the decrease in the number of countries that voted in favor and the increase of numbers of those who abstained from voting indicates the growing international understanding of the reality of what is happening in Syria due to the foreign interference, support of terrorism, the spread of extremism and incitement besides the refusal of dialogue.

“We rely on the UN and its member states to support Syria and its people against the culture of extremism and terrorism, and to encourage the comprehensive national dialogue to peacefully resolve the Syrian crisis.” he said. In a statement released after the vote on the UN draft resolution on Syria, al-Jaafari He said that the French delegation had foiled the issuance of a number of UN press releases to condemn the terrorist acts committed by al-Qaeda-linked armed groups in Syria which claimed the lives of thousands of Syrians as it foiled a UN release to condemn the attempt of assassination of the Syrian Premier.

After Qatar’s ambassador spoke in favor of the resolution his country drafted (and re-drafted several time), Ja’afari revealed that there existed an e-mail, from the representative of the Syrian opposition given to Syria’s embassy in Qatar, showing Qatar’s involvement in the kidnapping of UN peacekeepers by the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade. He read out a phone number from the e-mail as several Gulf diplomats grimaced or scowled, and three left the Chamber.

Visibly stunned, the UK Permanent Representative Lyall Grant called the whole matter “deeply confusing”. Another Permanent Representative, from a militia contributing country, said that if true, it’s “very problematic.” The reasons include the fact that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had just thanked Qatar for its roles in the release of the UN Peacekeepers the earlier kidnapping of whom the Qatari government may have planned, paid for and executed.

Meanwhile, Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson Martin Nesirky said he would not disclose any more about the “negotiations to free the peacekeepers or who was behind the crime.”

Score a major diplomatic victory for Syria’s UN Ambassador as public opinion shifts in favor of the Assad government and pressure as well as certain optimism builds in the run-up to the Geneva II conference being organized by the White House and the Kremlin.

In April of 2012, Dr. Richard Holmes took a stroll in the woods in Wiltshire, England. His body was found two days later.

Holmes is one of several Porton Down scientists who have died under questionable circumstances. The death in November 2001 of Vladimir Pasechnik was ruled to be a stroke, although co workers stated that Pasechnik was in good health. Vladimir Pasechnik was a Russian defector who first alerted the West to the extensive clandestine research into biological warfare taking place within the Soviet Union.

His death was, oddly, belatedly announced by Dr. Christopher Davis of Virginia. Davis was the member of British intelligence who de-briefed Dr. Pasechnik at the time of his defection. The announcement of Pasechnik’s death did not come in England until a month after he died. Interestingly, Pasechnik was also debriefed by a Dr. David Kelly, head of microbiology at Porton Down, which is England’s top secret chemical, biological and nuclear laboratory.

Dr. David Kelly, whose body was also found in the woods, had been invited to take the position of chief microbiologist at Porton Down in 1986. Later, he worked extensively with Dr. Wouter Basson of South Africa’s clandestine Project Coast. Basson was known to be working on a “black’s only” bioweapon. When South Africa’s apartheid government fell, Basson was subsequently charged with an assortment of crimes, including murder. He skated on all the charges and is now a successful cardiologist in Durbanville, South Africa.

Another scientist who collaborated with Kelly and Basson, Dr. Larry Ford of Irvine, California died in 2001 of a shotgun blast that was ruled a suicide. Police found guns, ammunition and explosives when they dug up his yard. Cholera, botulinum, salmonella and typhoid were also located in vials in his refrigerator. All told, 266 bottles and vials of lethal toxins were found in the Ford home.

The CIA declined to comment on Ford’s intelligence connections.

Dr. Kelly’s death in 2004—in the same woods that were to later claim the body of Dr. Richard Holmes—sent shock waves through the clandestine scientific community. Kelly reportedly died after slashing his wrists and consuming a cocktail of painkillers . His death was subsequently ruled a suicide.

However, according to the mainstream publication the Daily Mail, thirteen respected doctors declared that it was medically impossible for Dr. Kelly to have died in this manner. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1200004/Did-MI5-kill-Dr-David-Kelly-Another-crazy-conspiracy-theory-amid-claims-wrote-tell-book-vanished-death.html

Andrew Gilligan, a reporter for BBC, claimed that Kelly had recently given him and other reporters information that proved the government had exaggerated the Iraqi danger in its “dossier” in order to justify the war against Iraq. Kelly was also reported to be writing a “tell-all” book.

The Daily Mail also reported that “at 8am, half an hour before Dr. Kelly’s body was discovered under the tree, three officers in dark suits from MI5′s Technical Assessment Unit were at his house. The computers and the hard-disk containing the 40,000 words of the explosive book were carried away. They have never been seen since. “

In 2004, Kelly’s replacement as the chief scientist for chemical and biological defence at the Ministry of Defence’s laboratory at Porton Down, Dr. Paul Norman, died when the plane he was piloting crashed near Devon.

The Wiltshire coroner’s office stated this week that Dr. Holmes’ coroner’s inquest will take place shortly. Dr. Holmes had recently left his employment at Porton Down before his fateful walk in the woods. It is unclear why he resigned. Within a month after leaving Porton Down, he was dead.

Here is how Breitbart.com covers the story: “Vice President Joe Biden wants pastors, rabbis and nuns to tell their flocks that enacting gun control is the moral thing to do. But another vote may have to wait until Congress wraps up work on an immigration overhaul.

“Biden met for two-and-a-half hours Monday with more than a dozen leaders from various faith communities –Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh, to name a few. Both Biden and the faith leaders encouraged each other not to give up on what has been an arduous and thus far fruitless effort by Biden and President Barack Obama to pass new gun laws in the wake of December’s schoolhouse shooting in Connecticut.

“Around a large, circular table in a conference room on the White House grounds, Biden waxed optimistic about prospects for passing a bill, according to four participants who spoke to The Associated Press after the meeting. Biden’s chief of staff, Bruce Reed, joined the group, as did a handful of Obama aides who work on faith-based outreach. The meeting closed with a meditation and a prayer for action.”

The report continued saying, “Monday’s session reflects an attempt to broaden the coalition calling for new gun laws to include a wide array of religious groups–including evangelicals and conservative faith communities.”

The report concluded by saying, “A spokeswoman for Biden declined to comment on the meeting. But Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said a diverse spectrum of denominations and religious orders were represented. She said they included evangelical leaders Richard Cizik and Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham, as well as Sister Marge Clark of Network, a Catholic group.”

See the report here:

Biden Asks Clergy To Make Moral Argument On Guns

There is nothing new about the White House attempting to use America’s pastors to promote gun control. Both the G.W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations have had the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conduct pastor training programs whereby pastors are instructed to use their influence to convince citizens to completely surrender any and all rights and liberties to the federal government in the event of a national emergency or crisis. Submission to tyrannical actions such as forced relocation and gun confiscation is taught in these training programs.

See this report:

Secret FEMA Plan To Use Pastors As Pacifiers In Preparation For Martial Law

And here is a local Louisiana television news report on the FEMA “Clergy Response Teams”:

FEMA Training Pastors For Emergency Response

Obviously, the Obama administration’s effort to enact more gun control has already enjoyed the support of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land (who is a member of the CFR) and evangelist Franklin Graham. It is noteworthy that Mr. Graham was in attendance at Vice President Biden’s private meeting. President Obama must consider Franklin Graham a key ally in his quest to enact these new gun control measures.

Unfortunately, a sizable percentage of America’s pulpits are occupied by men and women who are either extreme liberal and socialist activists or by conservatives who are sheepishly passive and compliant, and who would, therefore, say or do nothing to interfere with or resist any tyrannical efforts by the federal government. There are many other pastors who truly love freedom and would naturally resist any effort of government to usurp God-given liberties, but they have been indoctrinated in the fallacious “obey-the-government-no-matter-what” interpretation of Romans 13. It is more than interesting that FEMA is instructing pastors to teach this perversion of Romans 13 to their congregations. Plus, I seem to recall that this is exactly what Hitler’s Nazi government instructed the pastors of Germany to also do. But this is just a coincidence, right?

This is the biggest difference between Obama’s gun control measures and the efforts of old King George III when he attempted to seize the weapons of the colonists that were stored in Concord, Massachusetts. When that attempt occurred in 1775, the pulpits of Colonial America were mostly unified in renouncing this act of tyranny and in boldly proclaiming the Biblical principles of lawful self-defense to their congregations. But when Barack Obama and Senator Dianne Feinstein tried to enact laws in 2013 that were equally egregious to those of old King George, the silence of America’s pulpits was deafening. Yes, millions of liberty-loving Americans rose to the challenge and helped beat back Obama’s gun grab, but this was done with little or no help from America’s pastors. This fact was not lost to the White House, and now the effort is underway to convince America’s pastors and ministers to openly support Obama’s gun grab.

For the sake of freedom and liberty in this country, it is critical that America’s pastors start sounding forth the clarion call. It is critical that they become “watchmen on the wall.” It is critical that they join the fight to preserve, protect, and defend those Natural rights that are safeguarded in the US Constitution–including the right of the people to keep and bear arms. PASTORS MUST BE ENGAGED.

As I said earlier, there are many pastors and Christians who only know what they have been taught. And what they have been taught is that the Bible does not support the right to resist government, that the right to keep and bear arms is not sacred, and that Christians are supposed to be pacifistic in their approach to issues that relate to the Second Amendment. They are taught this erroneous doctrine in Bible colleges and universities and seminaries all over America–regardless of denomination.

It is for this reason that my constitutional attorney son, Tim, and I wrote a brand new book entitled, “To Keep or Not To Keep: Why Christians Should Not Give Up Their Guns.” This book looks at the right to keep and bear arms strictly from a Biblical perspective. Books outlining the constitutional and historical principles relating to the Second Amendment are plentiful. But I know of NO BOOK written within the last one-hundred years that deals with this subject solely from a Scriptural perspective. That is exactly what our new book does.

Here are some of the questions we answer in our new book:

*Is the right to keep and bear arms a divine right?

*Should Christians surrender their firearms if the law requires them to do so?

*Does the New Testament require Christians to always be non-violent?

*Did the fact that Jesus and the apostles not rise up with arms against tyrannical government mean that Christians today should never do so?

*Were America’s Founding Fathers right or wrong when they rebelled with arms against the British Crown?

These are the questions that Christians everywhere are rightly asking. These are the questions that America’s pastors must be addressing from their pulpits. And these are the questions that Tim and I show the Biblical answers to in our new book.

To order this brand new book, “To Keep or Not To Keep: Why Christians Should Not Give Up Their Guns,” go to:

Keep Your Arms

I firmly believe that if enough pastors and Christians would read and digest this book, it would revolutionize the way churches respond to efforts such as Obama’s gun grab. It might even be an instrument that could help preserve liberty in our nation for the next fifty years or more.

We MUST get this book into the hands of as many people as possible. I’m asking readers to help me get the word out about this new book. If everyone reading this column would purchase two of these books, one for themselves and one for a friend, the results could be mind-boggling. I truly believe this book has the potential to change the course of America. Why? Because the pulpits and churches have the potential to change the course of America. And this book has the potential to provide the instruction and inspiration necessary to awaken and energize America’s pastors and churches. Perhaps your pastor or Christian school administrator would even be willing to sell multiple copies of this book in their church or school. There are discount prices for bulk orders. Why not ask him or her?

Again, to purchase this brand new book, “To Keep or Not To Keep: Why Christians Should Not Give Up Their Guns,” go to:

Keep Your Arms

President Obama and Vice President Biden are trying to enlist pastors and ministers in their efforts to disarm the American people. I’m asking pastors and ministers and Christians all over America to join “the holy cause of liberty.” (Patrick Henry) And make no mistake about it: without the freedom to keep and bear arms, there is no freedom. And, yes, as our new book shows, that is a Biblical principle.

P.S. Where does your pastor stand? We have asked pastors all over America to be courageous enough to publicly support the right to keep and bear arms from their pulpits. We have asked these men and women to also be willing to add their names to our list of Second Amendment Pastors so freedom-minded people in their cities can see that there are pro-freedom pastors nearby. To see if there is a Second Amendment pastor near you or, as a pastor, to sign up as a Second Amendment pastor, go here:

Second Amendment Pastors

Government is bad for personal freedom. That argument is premised upon the truism that everything government does interferes with freedom because it either prohibits or compels. Everything it owns it has taken from others. Much of what it says is divorced from the truth. President Obama, like President George W. Bush, has argued that his first job is to keep America safe, and if he impairs personal freedom in the process, that is a small price to pay for safety. Many of my colleagues in the media on the left and right have bought this argument, notwithstanding its fallacies.

Until now.

This past week, we learned that the IRS has targeted for additional scrutiny the tax exemption applications of groups with whose messages it disagrees. We also learned that the Department of Justice obtained the personal telephone records of hundreds of reporters and editors employed by the Associated Press without a search warrant issued by a judge. And during this past week we learned that the White House, the Department of State and the CIA all engaged in a conspiracy of disinformation so that the official version of events of what caused the murders of four Americans at our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, would not impair Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012.

The common threads in all of this government secrecy and lying are a general rejection of government’s moral obligation to tell the truth, a disturbing yet brazen willingness to evade and avoid the restrictions the Constitution has deliberately built around government, and a glib admission that the government can do as it pleases so long as it can politically get away with it.

The Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause requires that the government treat all similarly situated entities in a similar manner. The Constitution’s First Amendment prohibits the government from using the speech and expressive activities of persons in America as a basis for the disparate treatment of them.

Thus, on its face – that is, on the basis of what the IRS has admitted and without any further investigation – we have violations of these constitutional principles. If the IRS were to examine the applications for tax exemption of Media Matters with the same level of scrutiny as it does with Tea Party Patriots, it would not run afoul of these principles. But Congress has given the IRS broad latitude to scrutinize the behavior of the taxpayers it chooses to scrutinize, and the IRS has given itself authority to probe, prod and plunder wherever it wishes. I say “given itself,” because the IRS has rule-making power, which when overlooked by Congress (as is almost always the case) actually serves to enhance IRS powers beyond what Congress permits.

Short of criminal behavior such as bribery or conspiracy, the IRS employees who have singled out applications for tax exempt status for more scrutiny based on anticipated political expression are subject to removal from office, but they cannot be prosecuted or sued. Here again, Congress is to blame, as both Republicans and Democrats have used and abused the IRS to their advantage, and neither party inwardly wants laws that will prevent it from doing so in the future. Is this what you expect of our tax collectors?

The First Amendment also assures the right of professional journalists to seek and protect their sources, and it gives them immunity from government prosecution or retribution for truthfully publishing matters of material public interest, even when it involves information stolen from the government. The Supreme Court taught us this in the Pentagon Papers case.

Moreover, the Fourth Amendment requires that if the government wants private information about who stole its secrets, it needs a search warrant from a judge. But the Patriot Act, which was celebrated by some in the media whose telephone records have since been seized, permits federal agents to write their own search warrants when they seek records from a third party like a telephone company and can claim that pursuit of terrorists is at stake. The Patriot Act makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment, and the government knows that. When the government chills free speech, we all suffer. Thomas Jefferson preferred newspapers without government to government without newspapers. Whose personal records will the government authorize itself to seize next?

The lesson of Benghazi is that we had no lawful right to interfere in the domestic affairs of the Libyan government. It was unlawful for Obama to bomb Col. Gadhafi without a congressional declaration of war. The organized assault on our consulate was the unintended consequence of us using force to infuse American-style democracy on a people whose culture is unable and unwilling to accept it.

But the president’s people were terrified that the murder of our ambassador to Libya during the 2012 presidential campaign might impair Obama’s re-election chances. So they and he tried to rewrite history, and the more they and he lied the more they and he needed to lie to cover up their original lies. Would you retain an employee who lied to you about the deaths of innocents and lied more to cover up the original lies?

Now, back to Bush and Obama and the president’s job. According to the Constitution, the president’s first job obligation is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. According to the Constitution, that means preserving Americans’ freedom first and safety second. Freedom is our natural state and is the ultimate natural right. Safety is a need that we ourselves can provide when unimpeded by the government. If the president keeps us safe but not free, he is not doing his job. Do you know anyone who feels freer or even any safer because the government trampled personal freedoms and so far has gotten away with it?

Source: Andrew Napalitano |LewRockwell.com

Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, an officer of Green Fields, said, “While much attention has been given to organizing a class action law suit,  the sad fact is that given the history of Exxon for the last two generations, many of the people involved could be dead before a dime is ever paid for resident’s health by Exxon. This kind of irresponsibility can no longer be tolerated.”

The statement continued, “Instead, we propose Exxon offer to relocate ALL impacted families and individuals whose homes may now be dangerous to health to new homes. For Exxon, this cost is minimal for a spill of this magnitude. For the people it might literally be life and death. Exposure to toxic Tar Sands can become a death sentence, which Exxon well knows. People in Mayflower are already struggling with health issues, bewildered, and desperate for answers.

CNN reported, few of the over 10,000 who helped clean up the Exxon Valdez Spill almost 25 years ago are alive today and Exxon has still failed to pay all of the ordered reparations. We cannot permit this to happen again.

We can make this the turning point for America, rejecting the systemic irresponsibility of corporations like Exxon, establishing accountability for oil companies to ensure that people are not dying to improve their profits.”

Pillsbury-Foster closed her comments urging people to go to their website, read it, and take action in conjunction with David Lincoln, who is on the ground in Mayflower to provide coordination. Dave can be reached by phone to 870-321-0251 and by email to davelinc@aol.com.

From: Green Fields Renewal – Goals

We propose a negotiated settlement using a Qualified Settlement Trust. This works to help you limit the damage done to you and your family so you can move on with your lives, while at the same time creating a precedent which will protect others in the future.

When citizens are affected by large pollution events, such as a pipeline spill, they are often left little recourse to ensure compensatory damages for their losses. A Qualified Settlement Trust is a tool used in negotiating an appropriate and long-term model to assist community members who have been impacted.  

The fund is established under §468B of the Internal Revenue Code. This Code section permits Exxon to deposit money or property into a trust and receive a full and complete release of liability. Once the funds are deposited, Exxon is entitled to a current deduction from income tax for the amount paid into the fund.

A QST provides a way for the entire community to stand together and be secured. Individuals can still retain legal counsel; this could bring a fair and just reaction from Exxon or the court systems in the event that Exxon does not fulfill their obligations.

This takes into account the well documented history of Exxon and other oil companies for delay and intimidation of those impacted.

Otherwise, the strategy Exxon and other oil companies follow is ruthless, and intended to avoid creating any precedent for alleviating the problems created or assisting those harmed.

This approach protects you, and everyone in your community. To learn more, talk to Dave, and sign up, go to  OUR GOALS

Our Proposal

Our proposal for you is to rebuild your homes outside the impacted area, but still within your community, to remove you permanently from the danger zone.

Your Homes

As part of the restitution for what you have already suffered, and for impacting your lives and health, we propose those homes be entirely paid for by Exxon and built to allow you to focus less on the problems you will still face, and more on ensuring your health and the health of your families is not further impacted.

Moving the subdivision should include everyone, both owners who are resident and renters. Owners who were not resident should be paid the full price for the loss of the house because all of the homes in the subdivision have been permeated with toxic fumes and are no longer safe for habitation.

Follow-Up Health Insurance

All who have been impacted, including clean-up personnel, should receive no cost to them coverage for twenty years, again paid for by Exxon along with heath professionals to provide assessments on an ongoing basis.

The Environment

The land and water remain impacted. We propose Exxon do a thorough clean-up using the technologies now in use in other parts of the world for exactly these problems. This technology leaves the land and water clean and fertile in a far shorter period of time and helps avoid the problems which are already occurring as the waste seeps into other areas downstream.

This proposal would cost Exxon far less than litigation – but would create the precedent for accountability all of us need. You can ensure this happens, benefiting yourselves and all Americans – if you stand firm.

We will provide multiple forms of documentation, proving the point, to you and to the media directly through this site.

Today, you face years of health risks. Many have died of exactly what you face today.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
WilliambMcReynolds@gmail.com 
T +1 (623) 209-2003
F +1 (623) 209-2008

Today, we tend to believe that world Jewry’s transition towards support for Israel followed the 1967 war though some might  argue that already in 1948, American Jews manifested a growing support for Zionism. However, this rabbinical pronouncement proves that as early as 1942, the American Jewish religious establishment was already deeply Zionist. And if this is not enough, the rabbis also regarded Zionism as the ‘implementation’ of Judaism. Seemingly, already then, the peak of World War two, the overwhelming majority of American Rabbis regarded Zionism, not only as fully consistent with Judaism, but as a “logical expression and implementation of it.”

In spite of the fact that early Zionist leaders were largely secular and the East European Jewish settler waves were driven by Jewish socialist ideology, the rabbis contend that “Zionism is not a secularist movement. It has its origins and roots in the authoritative religious texts of Judaism.

Those rabbis were not a bunch of ignoramuses. They were patriotic and nationalistic and they grasped that “universalism is not a contradiction of nationalism.” The rabbis tried to differentiate between contemporaneous German Nationalism and other national movements and they definitely wanted to believe that Zionism was categorically different to Nazism. “Nationalism as such, whether it be English, French, American or Jewish, is not in itself evil. It is only militaristic and chauvinistic nationalism, that nationalism which shamelessly flouts all mandates of international morality, which is evil.” But as we know, just three years after the liberation of Auschwitz the new Jewish State launched a devastating racially driven ethnic-cleansing campaign. Zionism has proven to be militaristic and chauvinistic.

Shockingly enough, back in 1942 as many as 757 American rabbis were able to predict the outcome of the war and they realised that the suffering of European Jewry would be translated into a Jewish State . “We are not so bold as to predict the nature of the international order which will emerge from the present war. It is altogether likely, and indeed it may be desirable, that all sovereign states shall under the coming peace surrender some of their sovereignty to achieve a just and peaceful world society (a Jewish State).”

Some American patriots today are concerned with Israeli-American dual nationality and the dual aspirations of American Jews. Apparently our rabbis addressed this topic too. According to them, there is no such conflict whatsoever. All American Jews are American patriots and all American decision makers are Zionists. “Every fair-minded American knows that American Jews have only one political allegiance–and that is to America. There is nothing in Zionism to impair this loyalty. Zionism has been endorsed in our generation by every President from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and has been approved by the Congress of the United States. The noblest spirits in American life, statesmen, scholars, writers, ministers and leaders of labor and industry, have lent their sympathy and encouragement to the movement.”

Back in 1942 our American rabbis were bold enough to state that defeating Hitler was far from sufficient. For them, a full solution of the Jewish question could only take place in Palestine. “Jews, and all non-Jews who are sympathetically interested in the plight of Jewry, should bear in mind that the defeat of Hitler will not of itself normalize Jewish life in Europe. “

But there was one thing the American rabbis failed to mention – the Palestinian people. For some reason, those rabbis who knew much about ‘universalism’ and in particular Jewish ‘universalism’ showed very little concern to the people of the land. I guess that after all, chosennss is a form of blindness and rabbis probably know more about this than anyone else.

Zionism: An Affirmation of Judaism

http://zionistsout.blogspot.com/2008/03/zionism-affirmation-of-judaism.html

ZIONISM AN AFFIRMATION OF JUDAISM A Reply by 757 Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Rabbis of America to a Statement Issued by Ninety Members of the Reform Rabbinate Charging That Zionism Is Incompatible with the Teachings of Judaism

THE SUBJOINED REPLY was prepared at the initiative of the following Rabbis who submitted it to their colleagues throughout the country for signature: Philip S. Bernstein, Barnett R. Brickner, Israel Goldstein, James G. Heller, Mordecai M. Kaplan, B. L. Levinthal, Israel H. Levinthal, Louis M. Levitsky, Joshua Loth Liebman, Joseph H. Lookstein, Jacob R. Marcus, Abraham A. Neuman, Louis I. Newman, David de Sola Pool, Abba Hillel Silver, Milton Steinberg, and Stephen S. Wise.

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED RABBIS of all elements in American Jewish religious life, have noted with concern a statement by ninety of our colleagues in which they repudiate Zionism on the ground that it is inconsistent with Jewish religious and moral doctrine.This statement misrepresents Zionism and misinterprets historic Jewish religious teaching, and we should be derelict in our duty if we did not correct the misapprehensions which it is likely to foster.

We call attention in the first place to the fact that the signatories to this statement, for whom as fellow-Rabbis we have a high regard, represent no more than a very small fraction of the American rabbinate. They constitute a minority even of the rabbinate of Reform Judaism with which they are associated. The overwhelming majority of American Rabbis regard Zionism not only as fully consistent with Judaism but as a logical expression and implementation of it.

Our colleagues concede the need for Jewish immigration into Palestine as contributing towards a solution of the vast tragedy of Jewish homelessness. They profess themselves ready to encourage such settlement. They are aware of the important achievements, social and spiritual, of the Palestinian Jewish community and they pledge to it their unstinted support. And yet, subscribing to every practical accomplishment of Zionism, they have embarked upon a public criticism of it. In explanation of their opposition they advance the consideration that Zionism is nationalistic and secularistic. On both scores they maintain it is incompatible with the Jewish religion and its universalistic outlook. They protest against the political emphasis which, they say, is now paramount in the Zionist program and which, according to them, tends to confuse both Jews and Christians as to the place and function of the Jewish group in American society. They appeal to the prophets of ancient Israel for substantiation of their views.

TREASURING the doctrines and moral principles of our faith no less than they, devoted equally to America and its democratic processes and spirit, we nonetheless find every one of their contentions totally without foundation.

Zionism is not a secularist movement. It has its origins and roots in the authoritative religious texts of Judaism. Scripture and rabbinical literature alike are replete with the promise of the restoration of Israel to its ancestral home. Anti-Zionism, not Zionism, is a departure from the Jewish religion. Nothing in the entire pronouncement of our colleagues is more painful than their appeal to the prophets of Israel—to those very prophets whose inspired and recorded words of national rebirth and restoration nurtured and sustained the hope of Israel throughout the ages.

Nor is Zionism a denial of the universalistic teachings of Judaism. Universalism is not a contradiction of nationalism. Nationalism as such, whether it be English, French, American or Jewish, is not in itself evil. It is only militaristic and chauvinistic nationalism, that nationalism which shamelessly flouts all mandates of international morality, which is evil. The prophets of Israel looked forward to the time not when all national entities would be obliterated, but when all nations would walk in the light of the Lord, live by His law and learn war no more.

Our colleagues find themselves unable to subscribe to the political emphasis “now paramount in the Zionist program.” We fail to perceive what it is to which they object. Is it to the fact that there are a regularly constituted Zionist organization and a Jewish Agency which deal with the mandatory government, the Colonial office, the League of Nations and other recognized political bodies? But obviously, even immigration and colonization are practical matters which require political action. The settlement of a half million Jews in Palestine since the last war was made possible by political action which culminated in the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate. There can be little hope of opening the doors of Palestine for mass Jewish immigration after the war without effective political action. Or is it that they object to the ultimate achievement by the Jewish community of Palestine of some form of Jewish statehood? We are not so bold as to predict the nature of the international order which will emerge from the present war. It is altogether likely, and indeed it may be desirable, that all sovereign states shall under the coming peace surrender some of their sovereignty to achieve a just and peaceful world society.

Certainly our colleagues will allow to the Jews of Palestine the same rights that are allowed to all other peoples resident on their own land. If Jews should ultimately come to constitute a majority of the population of Palestine, would our colleagues suggest that all other peoples in the post-war world shall be entitled to political self-determination, whatever form that may take, but the Jewish people in Palestine shall not have such a right? Or do they mean to suggest that the Jews in Palestine shall forever remain a minority in order not to achieve such political self-determination?

PROTESTING their sympathy both for the homeless Jews of the world and for their brethren in Palestine, our colleagues have by their pronouncement done all these a grave disservice. It may well be that to the degree to which their efforts arc at all effective, Jews who might otherwise have found a haven in Palestine will be denied one. The enemies of the Jewish homeland will be strengthened in their propaganda as a result of the aid which these Rabbis have given them. To the Jews of Palestine, facing the gravest danger in their history and fighting hard to maintain morale and hope in the teeth of the totalitarian menace, this pronouncement comes as a cruel blow.

We do not mean to imply that our colleagues intended it as such. We have no doubt that they are earnest about their fine spun theoretical objections to Zionism. We hold, however, that these objections have no merit, and further that voicing them at this time has been unwise and unkind.

We have not the least fear that our fellow Americans will be led to misconstrue the attitudes of American Jews to America because of their interest in Zionism. Every fair-minded American knows that American Jews have only one political allegiance–and that is to America. There is nothing in Zionism to impair this loyalty. Zionism has been endorsed in our generation by every President from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and has been approved by the Congress of the United States. The noblest spirits in American life, statesmen, scholars, writers, ministers and leaders of labor and industry, have lent their sympathy and encouragement to the movement.

Jews, and all non-Jews who are sympathetically interested in the plight of Jewry, should bear in mind that the defeat of Hitler will not of itself normalize Jewish life in Europe.

An Allied peace which will not frankly face the problem of the national homelessness of the Jewish people will leave the age-old tragic status of European Jewry unchanged. The Jewish people is in danger of emerging from this war not only more torn and broken than any other people, but also without any prospects of a better and more secure future and without the hope that such tragedies will not recur again, and again. Following an Allied victory, the Jews of Europe, we are confident, will be restored to their political rights and to equality of citizenship. But they possessed these rights after the last war and yet the past twenty-five years have witnessed a rapid and appalling deterioration in their position. In any case, even after peace is restored Europe will be so ravaged and war-torn that large masses of Jews will elect migration to Palestine as a solution of their personal problems.

 Indeed, for most of these there may be no other substantial hope of economic, social and spiritual rehabilitation.

THE freedom which, we have faith, will come to all men and nations after this war, must come not only to Jews as individuals wherever they live, permitting them to share freedom on a plane of equality with all other men, but also to the Jewish people, as such, restored in its homeland, where at long last it will be a free people within a world federation of free peoples.

Of the 757 Rabbis listed below, 214 are members of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform); 247 are members of the Rabbinical Assembly of America (Conservative); and the rest are affiliated with the Rabbinical Council of America (Orthodox) or the Union of Orthodox Rabbis. The total represents the largest number of rabbis whose signatures are attached to a public pronouncement in all Jewish history.

To see the scanned image in PDF format with the list of signers, click here

Note: A version of the above statement was released to the press on November 20, 1942. By that time 818 rabbis had signed on. It appears in Samuel Halperin’s The Political World of American Zionism. (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1961) 333.