Is This Barack Obama’s Brain On Drugs?

We all know the difference between normal mistakes and those that hint at a deeper, more frightening problem, such as Alzheimer’s or another brain condition.  In light of this, how do you interpret a shocking mistake recently made by Barack Obama?  Writes Terry Jeffrey of CNS News:

In two campaign speeches over the last two days, President Barack Obama has twice mistakenly mentioned “my sons” when defending his administration’s regulation requiring virtually all health-care plans in the United States to provide women, without any fees or co-pay, with sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that can cause abortions.

Given that Obama has, ostensibly, only daughters, where does such a mistake come from?  And how do you make it twice on two different occasions without correcting yourself?  Then again, how can an American president , “I’ve now been in 57 states, I think – one left to go” without correcting himself?  Yes, Obama’s most recent bizarre slip of the mind makes me think of that older, equally bizarre one.  I mean, there are mistakes.

Then there are mistakes.

After all, it’s ingrained in every American child when extremely little that our nation has 50 states.  Fifty states, fifty states, fifty states, fifty states….  It should just roll off the tongue – in just the way the word “daughters” should when girls are all you’ve ever had.

Of course, this invites the quip – and it’s a good example of how there’s some truth behind every joke – that “American child” never described Obama, at least not in spirit.  But another possibility suggests itself:

Is Barack Obama brain-damaged?

I’m not just being a wise-guy.  With the president’s admitted past drug use and the recent revelations about how he was a member of the “Choom Gang” in high school, is it hard to imagine that he might have damaged his mind through the abuse of recreational drugs?

“Choom,” by the way, is slang for smoking marijuana.  And it seems that this gang activity was Obama’s favorite extra-curricular option in high school.  Writes ABC News’ Jonathan Karl:

In his 1995 memoir “Dreams of My Father,” Obama writes about smoking pot almost like Dr. Seuss wrote about eating green eggs and ham.  As a high school kid, Obama wrote, he would smoke “in a white classmate’s sparkling new van,” he would smoke “in the dorm room of some brother” and he would smoke “on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids.”

He would smoke it here and there.  He would smoke it anywhere.

Yes, I do like it, Uncle Scam I am.  In fact, as the Choom Gang story goes, Obama was a veritable Nikola Tesla of weed use who would actually start “pot-smoking trends.”  Add to this a diversity in drug inclinations that led him to dabble also in hard drugs, and perhaps it explains the soft head.

Of course, as for calling girls “sons,” there are other explanations.  Perhaps Obama is like those parents who don’t want to sex stereotype their children and thus are very pleased when their son dresses as a girl; maybe he’ll now refer to Malia and Sasha as sons half the time.  Perhaps he subscribes to the fashionable LBGT idea that “gender” is all a matter of perception.  Heck, apparently he already believes that one’s ideology and economic model needn’t have a relationship to reality.

Then, American Thinker editor Thomas Lifson theorizes that the explanation may be that Obama is hiding more than just a sordid past, writing:

It has never occurred to me that Barack Obama might have a second secret family, as Charles Kurault did, hidden from his first family (pardon the pun) and the general public.  I still find this hard to believe.

But what kind of brain freeze or derangement leads someone to refer to my sons, when two daughters are the only fruit of conception one has created?

Perhaps the freeze symptomatic of a fried brain?

Then again, Dr. Lifson could be right.  Maybe Obama had more of a reason than we think to say that if he had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.

All joking aside, the only thing we can know for sure about Obama is that he’s a very bizarre man.  He had an absentee father, and, in his high-school yearbook, he acknowledged a drug dealer but not his quasi-absentee mother.  He seems to have received more ideology than love, as he was mentored by communist-party member Frank Marshall Davis, was drawn to Marxist professors in college and was a member of the socialist New Party in the 1990s.  And when you consider this, it’s not surprising that he turned to drugs during adolescence: it’s what kids with troubled upbringings often do.

As to this, C.S. Lewis once wrote something very profound about the significance of upbringing:

No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.  Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism.  I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that “a gentleman does not cheat”, than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers.

It’s hard to know for sure how scarred, in mind and soul, Obama is as a result of his bizarre youth.  But should we continue to take the chance of letting him playAmerica’s hand?

Fukushima – A Giant Nail In The Coffin Of Humanity

For the past few weeks, word of the extent of the Fukushima disaster is spreading like the radiation slick moving across the Pacific Ocean thanks to social media and a lot of newly concerned citizens.

Independent researchers who have been trying to warn people for over a year are finally being heard. Much of that can be attributed to citizen journalists, who have realized mainstream media dropped the ball on this a long time ago.

To understand the dynamics of information and how it has been controlled, you would have to look at companies like General Electric and Westinghouse, who not only build nuclear reactors, but own major news outlets and, of course, are buddy-buddy with the Obama Administration.

Or, I can just tell you about it, since I have spent countless hours researching these connections and interviewing people about it. More on that at a later date. It deserves a nice big page in itself, with room for lots of details.

Not only do we have citizen journalists and the alternative media on top of this, but citizen scientists as well.

Have you met your new Fukushima expert, who just might live right next door? These are people who have taught themselves everything they possibly could about nuclear physics, radiation, Geiger counters, atomic power, nuclear plants, the effects of radiation on health, and radiation mitigation.

These citizen scientists have studied bombs, fallout, and weather and wind patterns. They have been monitoring radiation levels across the country, with their own equipment they purchased out of pocket and learned how to use.

They have read anything and everything they can get their hands on. They know the difference between alpha, beta, and gamma radiation, and how to avoid it.

They know that besides cancer, radiation can do all kinds of things to you, like severely compromise your immune system, intelligence, and thyroid, or make you aggressive, confused, and fatigued.

You might bruise or bleed in weird places and feel sick more than usual. They have learned all this out of their own instincts of survival.

Sometimes they even go 2 days without sleep, when bad stuff is happening, just to make sure they are keeping on top of the issues as much as possible.

It’s amazing what you can do in a short period of time when your life depends on it. And the more that they learn, the greater their sense of urgency has become in bringing this info to the masses.

And what conclusion have these citizen journalists and citizen scientists reached throughout 14 months of study?

They have come to the inevitable conclusion that all of our lives changed on March 11, 2011, when Fukushima went out of control.

The glaring problem is that we that we weren’t told about what actually happened.

Take, for instance, the fact that there were 3 meltdowns almost right away, and that the radioactive isotopes that blew all over Japan, Hawaii, Alaska, Canada and North America came in extraordinarily high quantities.

Or how various agencies that taxpayers have funded, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), did not do their job which is to protect the environment, and us.

In fact the EPA turned off their monitors for about a month, for the first time in their history. These are expensive and delicate pieces of equipment the taxpayers had already bought and paid for, for just such an emergency.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) knew, but they hid the information. The Obama Administration knew, but sent Hillary Clinton over to Japan to shake hands with the Prime Minister and show support.

Obama came out with a statement to the American people, saying, “We do not believe harmful levels of radiation will reach our shores,” which we now know was a lie.

We had to figure all this out for ourselves, which was difficult because the information was purposely withheld from us.

Despite their best efforts, they can’t stop the truth from leaking out of Fukushima. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have now proven this beyond a doubt.

Conspiracy theory is becoming conspiracy fact. And now we are going public with this information, and in a very big way.

It has been around 3 weeks since I wrote my first article for End the Lie, and still no real progress to report at the plant itself.

Tons of water continues to get poured into the reactors and flow subsequently into the Pacific Ocean, every second of every day.

Radiation continues to steam itself out of the ground, and thus up into the air, which then blows over us (i.e. resident of the northern hemisphere).

Earthquakes still happen daily around Japan. In fact there were 7 or 8 of them just in the past few days near Fukushima.

The spent fuel still sits in its shaky nest at the top of reactor number 4. Nothing has been done to further reinforce the structure.

The good news (if you can really call it that) is that it hasn’t fallen yet. The United Nations and the United States are now in their most preliminary stages of addressing the complexity of problems there, in an attempt to see if they can help out.

But as you know, the wheels of bureaucracy turn very slowly. It took almost 14 months for them to start turning at all.

Besides the ongoing releases into the ocean and air and the precariousness of the pool, we have a debris field the size of Texas starting to hit the west coast and Alaska, which may or may not be radioactive.

Japan has been burning radioactive trash, and will continue to do so until at least 2014, and that blows over us as well.

We have a radioactive slick moving across the ocean, which by all estimates should have sunk to the bottom, but hasn’t. And we have sick and dying mammals, fish, and birds all over the world, which may or may not be related, but should still be an enormous concern, since many of them are being found in the Pacific.

That is part of the problem when you are faced with the world’s largest disaster. All of the models for how to deal with it can be thrown out the window.

All the assumptions about fallout and it working itself into the food chain have been wrong. It was much worse, and has happened much faster, than anyone expected, even for concerned citizens and independent researchers following this closely.

The government knew this would be the case from the early SPEEDI numbers, which were hand translated and delivered to the US government as they happened. But for the most part, Fukushima has exceeded everyone’s expectations.

New ideas, new techniques, and new engineering has to be invented and implemented. New observations have to be made, and they are, as can be seen by searching “mutations” on YouTube and watching some videos.

We have citizen journalists and citizen scientists who are desperately trying to come up with solutions, and are doing it for free, while our government and agencies created to “protect us” continue to collect their paycheck, roll their eyes, shove their hands in their pockets and hum a tune like they’re waiting for a taxi.

But out of crisis, comes opportunity. I’ll use 9/11 again as an example.

Why do people get a warm fuzzy feeling when we see people rushing to aid those in the midst of disaster? Because we humans are hard-wired to care for others, and long to be part of a community.

Out of disaster, there is camaraderie, sympathy, and empathy. There are important lessons to be learned.

There are whole new industries that could be created out of this crisis, putting people to work. Aquaponics. Decontamination. Mitigation. Food testing.

And since we didn’t seem to learn these lessons with Chernobyl, we need to learn them right now.

All nuclear power does is boil water and create steam, which turbines turn into electricity. But when something goes wrong, it has the ability to kill everything on the planet. That is where we are at now.

We need to adapt if we are to survive. And part of that adaptation means we need to eliminate the possibility of this ever happening again, starting with the 23 reactors the same style as Fukushima, in the United States, which is the Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactor, or BWR.

People in the industry jokingly refer to these as “double-decker beach-bombs,” for the reason that the spent fuel is located in pools at the top of the reactor buildings, and they are usually located at a water source for emergency cooling purposes for when the fecal matter hits the fan at one of these plants.

In fact, several nuclear engineers who designed these reactors quit in protest before they went into production. They realized they had made a mistake. They realized this design would be extremely dangerous. GE went ahead and built them anyway.

When is the world going to realize the mistake of embracing nuclear energy as a power source, in spite of its danger?

And how long do we continue to ignore the brilliant scientists that warned about this, like Oppenheimer and Einstein? Or is it already too late?

There are no energy problems, in comparison. If you want to cut down on your electricity usage, turn off your TV.

We have natural gas deposits that could power everything we need. We have the power of the sun, water, wind and earth in the form of geothermal energy.

Nuclear power is a sham, just like the oil industry, and we have been duped into believing we need it to survive.

It generates billions and billions of dollars for these corporations. GE (who has the most ironic motto, “We Bring Good Things to Life”) made 14 billion dollars last year, and paid no taxes.

In addition to producing electricity, nuclear reactors also generate 500 pounds of plutonium a year per reactor, as a byproduct of the fission process.

What happens to all that highly toxic plutonium? The government gets to collect this material to make bombs, so we can go utterly decimate other countries, now known as “spreading democracy” and poison their populations for future generations.

Let’s not forget depleted uranium, or DU, which is now used in many military applications with horrific results.

Check out videos of children in Fallujah for some recent examples of this.

This is the one big secret that the nuke industry and our government will do anything to protect: besides being a billion dollar industry, nuke plants are basically bomb-making factories right under our noses.

Drawing attention to Fukushima would have drawn attention to this function of nuclear facilities.

An added side effect is that they also make people sick and help boost the health care industry, which in some states is now the number one private sector employer.

The plutonium and fission byproducts these plants produce help support our government’s number-one priority: the almighty military-industrial complex.

And it’s all in the name of money, power, and control. Energy companies hire top level advertisers and public relations people to promote and manipulate public opinion. Even during the Superbowl, ads were run showing how steam from nuclear power runs the turbines that make beer.

They want you to believe that we are dependent on this source of energy for our quality of life. The truth of the matter, on the other hand, is that nuclear power has ruined our lives.

Ask anyone who used to live in the ever-expanding evacuation zone in Japan, which may soon include the 35 million people in Tokyo.

Ask anyone who lives near a nuke plant and has a child with autism, gastroenteritis, or cancer. Just take a look at the statistics of cancer in the general population since we started embracing this technology.

The truth is: we have been nuked and are still getting nuked, every day, in a very big way.

I used to be a huge supporter of nuclear power, but 14 months of intensive study has changed my opinion significantly.

In addition to my studies, I have been influenced by some major health issues I developed after being outside the first 3 weeks after the reactors exploded. During that time I had a metallic-taste in my mouth, which I found out later was from tasting fission products. More on that later as well.

Nuclear cheerleaders like to complicate things in an attempt to make radiation something much harder to understand. That way it turns people off from the subject and they won’t pay attention as much.

The truth is, you don’t need to be a physicist, a scientist, or an expert in this field. You don’t need to know the differences between decay rates and half-lives, or cesium and strontium.

You only need to understand one thing: All radiation is bad, and all of it will make you sick, no matter how much Ann Coulter claims that the Japanese should be thankful for Fukushima.

The more you are exposed to it, the sicker you will be. The more places you can cut down on your exposure, the better off your health will be.

Radiation is cumulative. It builds up in the body. It destroys cells. It causes mutations in cell growth which can thus create cancer or other illnesses.

There is plenty of this radiation leaking out of Fukushima for over a year now, blowing around in our air, building up in our soil, and contaminating our water supply.

What’s worse, we have 104 of these plants in the United States, with special emphasis on the 23 previously mentioned, where this exact scenario is waiting to happen.

Radioactive steam comes out of these plants all the time, since as part of their normal operations. They vent to the atmosphere to keep things cool. Do some research into “rainshadow” in autism and brain cancer in children, and look where the numbers are the highest: around nuclear plants.

We can’t afford to wait or delay. If you aren’t already mitigating, you need to start now. You need to treat your health, and the health of your family, like you all have cancer already. That might sound like fear mongering to some, but this is one case where “better safe than sorry” truly applies.

This process involves eating healthy whole foods, filtering water, avoiding precipitation, taking supplements, and getting lots of sleep.

Stop eating fast food, and eat lower on the food chain, where bio-accumulation is less. Stop eating seafood, unless you know it is safe.

Include your children in these changes, because we will be dealing with this problem for at least the rest of our lives, and so will they.

We have to change our perspective. Quality of life becomes a much more important issue when your life expectancy has been shortened.

We have Fukushima to thank for this, and the nuclear industry, of course. As well as the various other individuals or agencies that tried to keep this information from us.

And then of course we have spent fuel pool doom lurking in the shadows. And for some unknown reason, Tepco seems to think their most immediate concern is building a huge underground wall, to contain something going on under the plant, the extent of which hasn’t yet been shared with us.

So what do they know that we don’t? Why is there a sense of urgency to contain something underground, when the spent fuel pool #4 is supposedly the weakest link in the Fukushima chain?

Where is all this technology we have to look for gas and oil, like ground-penetrating radar, optical coherence tomography, or even HAARP, to see what’s going on under the plants? What else is being hidden from us?

Instead of calling it game over, let’s play a new game called “No More Fukushimas.”

Let’s figure out ways to clean up this mess and not make more of them in the future. We can leave this for our children to deal with, that is if they are still here.

Or it is up to you, it is up to me, it is up to allof us to fix this situation, right now, as best as we possibly can.

Take care of your family first, have a plan for the worst-case scenario, then do what you can to help others.

Our lives all changed over a year ago, only you weren’t told about it. As bad as things are, there is a huge opportunity here for something wonderful to come out of this mess. A cleaner, brighter, healthier future for our children and generations to come. A future, period.

As a close associate of Obama once said, “Never let a crisis go to waste”. This might be the last crisis that we ever see, if we don’t so something about it.

Courtesy of 

Please send mutation images to . Shoot at the highest resolution possible, and include your name, location, and date the mutation was found, for proper credit if the images are published. If it is from store-bought produce, include the location where it was grown and purchased. The more information you provide, the better you will be helping the rest of us.

Please help Christina purchase a spectrometer in order to get the most accurate radiation readings and thus get you the most precise information possible by shopping through her  or donate directly via PayPal to . Keep in mind, this is expensive equipment and it is the only way that specific isotope readings can be obtained from food items.

Edited by Madison Ruppert

Christina Consolo is a former clinical researcher supervisor with NIH credentialing; a former Member-at-Large for the Board of Directors, Ophthalmic Photographers’ Society; A peer reviewer for the Journal of Ophthalmic Photography; She has written, published, and contributed to numerous scientific research in retinal imaging and ophthalmogy for the past 24 years; She is also an award-winning biomedical photographer and maintains several websites to teach people about radiation, mitigation, and other nuclear issues. She is also the host of “Nuked Radio” Tuesdays & Thursdays from 12-1:00 pm EST on theOrion Talk Radio Network.

For more info including mitigation for radiation exposure, please visit FukushimaFacts.com, where you can sign up to receive Fallout Forecasts on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Source: End the Lie

Shady Companies With Ties To Israel Wiretap The U.S. For The NSA

Army General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, is having a busy year — hopping around the country, cutting ribbons at secret bases and bringing to life the agency’s greatly expanded eavesdropping network.

In January he dedicated the new $358 million CAPT Joseph J. Rochefort Building at NSA Hawaii, and in March he unveiled the 604,000-square-foot John Whitelaw Building at NSA Georgia.

Designed to house about 4,000 earphone-clad intercept operators, analysts and other specialists, many of them employed by private contractors, it will have a 2,800-square-foot fitness center open 24/7, 47 conference rooms and VTCs, and “22 caves,” according to an NSA brochure from the event. No television news cameras were allowed within two miles of the ceremony.

Overseas, Menwith Hill, the NSA’s giant satellite listening post in Yorkshire, England that sports 33 giant dome-covered eavesdropping dishes, is also undergoing a multi-million-dollar expansion, with $68 million alone being spent on a generator plant to provide power for new supercomputers. And the number of people employed on the base, many of them employees of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, is due to increase from 1,800 to 2,500 in 2015, according to a study done in Britain. Closer to home, in May, Fort Meade will close its 27-hole golf course to make room for a massive $2 billion, 1.8-million-square-foot expansion of the NSA’s headquarters, including a cybercommand complex and a new supercomputer center expected to cost nearly $1 billion.

The climax, however, will be the opening next year of the NSA’s mammoth 1-million-square-foot, $2 billion Utah Data Center. The centerpiece in the agency’s decade-long building boom, it will be the “cloud” where the trillions of millions of intercepted phone calls, e-mails, and data trails will reside, to be scrutinized by distant analysts over highly encrypted fiber-optic links.

 

Despite the post-9/11 warrantless wiretapping of Americans, the NSA says that citizens should trust it not to abuse its growing power and that it takes the Constitution and the nation’s privacy laws seriously.

But one of the agency’s biggest secrets is just how careless it is with that ocean of very private and very personal communications, much of it to and from Americans. Increasingly, obscure and questionable contractors — not government employees — install the taps, run the agency’s eavesdropping infrastructure, and do the listening and analysis.

And with some of the key companies building the U.S.’s surveillance infrastructure for the digital age employing unstable employees, crooked executives, and having troubling ties to foreign intelligence services, it’s not clear that Americans should trust the secretive agency, even if its current agency chief claims he doesn’t approve of extrajudicial spying on Americans. His predecessor, General Michael V. Hayden, made similar claims while secretly conducting the warrantless wiretapping program.

Until now, the actual mechanics of how the agency constructed its highly secret U.S. eavesdropping net, code-named Stellar Wind, has never been revealed. But in the weeks following 9/11, as the agency and the White House agreed to secretly ignore U.S. privacy laws and bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, J. Kirk Wiebe noticed something odd. A senior analyst, he was serving as chief of staff for the agency’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (SARC), a sort of skunkworks within the agency where bureaucratic rules were broken, red tape was cut, and innovation was expected.

“One day I notice out in the hallway, stacks and stacks of new servers in boxes just lined up,” he said.

Passing by the piles of new Dell 1750 servers, Wiebe, as he often did, headed for the Situation Room, which dealt with threat warnings. It was located within the SARC’s Lab, on the third floor of Operations Building 2B, a few floors directly below the director’s office. “I walk in and I almost get thrown out by a guy that we knew named Ben Gunn,” he said. It was the launch of Stellar Wind and only a handful of agency officials were let in on the secret.

“He was the one who organized it,” said Bill Binney of Gunn. A former founder and co-director of SARC, Binney was the agency official responsible for automating much of the NSA’s worldwide monitoring networks. Troubled by the unconstitutional nature of tapping into the vast domestic communications system without a warrant, he decided to quit the agency in late 2001 after nearly forty years.

Gunn, said Binney, was a Scotsman and naturalized U.S. citizen who had formerly worked for GCHQ, Britain’s equivalent of the NSA, and later become a senior analyst at the NSA. The NSA declined Wired’s request to interview Gunn, saying that, as policy, it doesn’t confirm or deny if a person is employed by the agency.

Shortly after the secret meeting, the racks of Dell servers were moved to a room down the hall, behind a door with a red seal indicating only those specially cleared for the highly compartmented project could enter. But rather than having NSA employees putting the hardware and software together and setting up walls of monitors showing suspected terrorism threats and their U.S. communications, the spying room was filled with a half-dozen employees of a tiny mom-and-pop company with a bizarre and troubling history.

“It was Technology Development Corporation,” said Binney.

The agency went to TDC, he says, because the company had helped him set up a similar network in SARC — albeit one that was focused on foreign and international communications — the kind of spying the NSA is chartered to undertake.

 

“They needed to have somebody who knew how the code works to set it up,” he said. “And then it was just a matter of feeding in the attributes [U.S. phone numbers, e-mail addresses and personal data] and any of the content you want.” Those “attributes” came from secret rooms established in large telecom switches around the country. “I think there’s 10 to 20 of them,” Binney says.

Formed in April 1984, TDC was owned by two brothers, Randall and Paul Jacobson, and largely run out of Randall’s Clarkesville, Maryland house, with his wife acting as bookkeeper. But its listed address is a post office box in Annapolis Junction, across the Baltimore-Washington Parkway from the NSA, and thecompany’s phone number in various business directories is actually an NSA number in Binney’s old office.

The company’s troubles began in June 1992 when Paul lost his security clearance. “If you ever met this guy, you would know he’s a really strange guy,” Binney said of Paul. “He did crazy stuff. I think they thought he was unstable.” At the time, Paul was working on a contract at the NSA alongside a rival contractor, Unisys Corporation. He later blamed Unisys for his security problems and sued it, claiming that Unisys employees complained about him to his NSA supervisors. According to the suit, Unisys employees referred to him as “weird” and that he “acted like a robot,” “never wore decent clothes,” and was mentally and emotionally unstable. About that time, he also began changing his name, first to Jimmy Carter, and later to Alfred Olympus von Ronsdorf.

With “von Ronsdorf’s” clearance gone and no longer able to work at the NSA, Randy Jacobson ran the company alone, though he kept his brother and fellow shareholder employed in the company, which led to additional problems.

“What happened was Randy still let him have access to the funds of the company and he squandered them,” according to Binney. “It was so bad, Randy couldn’t pay the people who were working for him.” According to court records, Ronsdorf allegedly withdrew about $100,000 in unauthorized payments. But Jacobson had troubles of his own, having failed to file any income tax statements for three years in the 1990s, according to tax court records. Then in March 2002, around the time the company was completing Stellar Wind, Jacobson fired his brother for improper billing and conversion of company funds. That led to years of suits and countersuits over mismanagement and company ownership.

Despite that drama, Jacobson and his people appeared to have serious misgivings about the NSA’s program once they discovered its true nature, according to Binney. “They came and said, ‘Do you realize what these people are doing?’” he said. “‘They’re feeding us other stuff [U.S.] in there.’ I mean they knew it was unconstitutional right away.” Binney added that once the job was finished, the NSA turned to still another contractor to run the tapping operation. “They made it pretty well known, so after they got it up and running they [the NSA] brought in the SAIC people to run it after that.” Jacobsen was then shifted to other work at the NSA, where he and his company are still employed.

Randall Jacobsen answered his phone inside the NSA but asked for time to respond. He never called back.

In addition to constructing the Stellar Wind center, and then running the operation, secretive contractors with questionable histories and little oversight were also used to do the actual bugging of the entire U.S. telecommunications network.

According to a former Verizon employee briefed on the program, Verint, owned by Comverse Technology, taps the communication lines at Verizon, which I first reported in my book The Shadow Factory in 2008. Verint did not return a call seeking comment, while Verizon said it does not comment on such matters.

At AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from Narus, now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein in 2004. Narus did not return a call seeking comment.

What is especially troubling is that both companies have had extensive ties to Israel, as well as links to that country’s intelligence service, a country with a long and aggressive history of spying on the U.S.

In fact, according to Binney, the advanced analytical and data mining software the NSA had developed for both its worldwide and international eavesdropping operations was secretly passed to Israel by a mid-level employee, apparently with close connections to the country. The employee, a technical director in the Operations Directorate, “who was a very strong supporter of Israel,” said Binney, “gave, unbeknownst to us, he gave the software that we had, doing these fast rates, to the Israelis.”

Because of his position, it was something Binney should have been alerted to, but wasn’t.

“In addition to being the technical director,” he said, “I was the chair of the TAP, it’s the Technical Advisory Panel, the foreign relations council. We’re supposed to know what all these foreign countries, technically what they’re doing…. They didn’t do this that way, it was under the table.” After discovering the secret transfer of the technology, Binney argued that the agency simply pass it to them officially, and in that way get something in return, such as access to communications terminals. “So we gave it to them for switches,” he said. “For access.”

But Binney now suspects that Israeli intelligence in turn passed the technology on to Israeli companies who operate in countries around the world, including the U.S. In return, the companies could act as extensions of Israeli intelligence and pass critical military, economic and diplomatic information back to them. “And then five years later, four or five years later, you see a Narus device,” he said. “I think there’s a connection there, we don’t know for sure.”

Narus was formed in Israel in November 1997 by six Israelis with much of its money coming from Walden Israel, an Israeli venture capital company. Its founder and former chairman, Ori Cohen, once told Israel’sFortune Magazine that his partners have done technology work for Israeli intelligence. And among the five founders was , a husky, bearded Russian who had previously worked for Elta Systems, Inc. A division of Israel Aerospace Industries, Ltd., Elta specializes in developing advanced eavesdropping systems for Israeli defense and intelligence organizations. At Narus, Khirman became the chief technology officer.

A few years ago, Narus boasted that it is “known for its ability to capture and collect data from the largest networks around the world.” The company says its equipment is capable of “providing unparalleled monitoring and intercept capabilities to service providers and government organizations around the world” and that “Anything that comes through [an Internet protocol network], we can record. We can reconstruct all of their e-mails, along with attachments, see what Web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their [Voice over Internet Protocol] calls.”

Like Narus, Verint was founded by in Israel by Israelis, including Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, a former Israeli intelligence officer. Some 800 employees work for Verint, including 350 who are based in Israel, primarily working in research and development and operations, according to the Jerusalem Post. Among its products is STAR-GATE, which according to the company’s sales literature, lets “service providers … access communications on virtually any type of network, retain communication data for as long as required, and query and deliver content and data …” and was “[d]esigned to manage vast numbers of targets, concurrent sessions, call data records, and communications.”

In a rare and candid admission to Forbes, Retired Brig. Gen. Hanan Gefen, a former commander of the highly secret Unit 8200, Israel’s NSA, noted his former organization’s influence on Comverse, which owns Verint, as well as other Israeli companies that dominate the U.S. eavesdropping and surveillance market. “Take NICE, Comverse and Check Point for example, three of the largest high-tech companies, which were all directly influenced by 8200 technology,” said Gefen. “Check Point was founded by Unit alumni. Comverse’s main product, the Logger, is based on the Unit’s technology.”

According to a former chief of Unit 8200, both the veterans of the group and much of the high-tech intelligence equipment they developed are now employed in high-tech firms around the world. “Cautious estimates indicate that in the past few years,” he told a reporter for the Israeli newspaper Ha’artez in 2000, “Unit 8200 veterans have set up some 30 to 40 high-tech companies, including 5 to 10 that were floated on Wall Street.” Referred to only as “Brigadier General B,” he added, “This correlation between serving in the intelligence Unit 8200 and starting successful high-tech companies is not coincidental: Many of the technologies in use around the world and developed in Israel were originally military technologies and were developed and improved by Unit veterans.”

Equally troubling is the issue of corruption. Kobi Alexander, the founder and former chairman of Verint, is now a fugitive, wanted by the FBI on nearly three dozen charges of fraud, theft, lying, bribery, money laundering and other crimes. And two of his top associates at Comverse, Chief Financial Officer David Kreinberg and former General Counsel William F. Sorin, were also indicted in the scheme and later pleaded guilty, with both serving time in prison and paying millions of dollars in fines and penalties.

When asked about these contractors, the NSA declined to “verify the allegations made.”

But the NSA did “eagerly offer” that it “ensures deliberate and appropriate measures are taken to thoroughly investigate and resolve any legitimate complaints or allegations of misconduct or illegal activity” and “takes seriously its obligation to adhere to the U.S. Constitution and comply with the U.S. laws and regulations that govern our activities.”

The NSA also added that “we are proud of the work we do to protect the nation, and allegations implying that there is inappropriate monitoring of American communications are a disservice to the American public and to the NSA civilian and military personnel who are dedicated to serving their country.”

However, that statement elides the voluminous reporting by the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times and Wired on the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program. Also not reflected is that in the only anti-warrantless wiretapping lawsuit to survive the government’s use of the “state secrets” privilege to throw them out, a federal judge ruled that two American lawyers had been spied on illegally by the government and were entitled to compensation.

So take the NSA’s assurances as you will.

But as NSA director Alexander flies around the country, scissors in hand, opening one top-secret, outsourced eavesdropping center after another, someone might want to ask the question no one in Congress seems willing to ask: Who’s listening to the listeners?

Source: Wired

Sheriff Joe Says ‘Tons’ More Shocking Obama Info

“America’s toughest sheriff” says there is “tons” more potentially shocking information on Barack Obama in connection with his probe into the president’s eligibility, and he calls the media’s suppression of his findings of a likely forged presidential birth certificate and Selective Service Card “probably the biggest censorship blackout in the history of the United States.”

“I’m not going after the president to keep him off a ballot or anything else, but that could happen,” Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio said. “I’m going at it strictly as a law-enforcement guy investigating a possible forgery and fraud. I’m sticking with that, but I’ll tell you one thing. We got tons of other information that could be very shocking, too, but I’m sticking now with just the [forgery] investigation and possible criminal violations.”

The lawman from Maricopa County made the comments March 16 on a national radio show hosted by Roger Hedgecock. (Scroll down for video.)

Help Sheriff Joe blow the lid off Obama’s fraud. Join the Cold Case Posse right now!

As WND reported March 1, Arpaio and his Cold Case Posse announced there is probable cause indicating the documents released by the White House last April purported to be Obama’s original, long-form birth certificate and Selective Service registration card are actually forgeries.

Read the preliminary findings of Sheriff Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse investigation.

He stressed on the radio show his original intent with the posse was to put to rest all the claims suggesting Obama was not meeting the constitutional requirements to hold the presidency.

“I told these guys, ‘I want you to do a good job. I hope we clear the president,’” he explained. “I said give me the microfiche in Hawaii to show that he was born in that hospital. Give us the microfiche. I said that six months ago. And that would clear everything up. But as we went into it with an open mind, now we’re coming to a conclusion that we may have some forged documents revolving around this situation.”

When asked about making an arrest, Arpaio said, “We’re trying to identify any alleged forger. We haven’t done that yet. … I’m not blaming the president, but if they’re forged, someone has to be responsible for doing that.”

The sheriff also said that on Friday, he made a decision about where to send Obama’s Selective Service Card in order to have that agency “help us or do an independent investigation.”

“We have nothing to hide. We’re bringing it to their attention, and see what happens,” Arpaio said. “My problem is, there’s a lot of conflicts out here to get somebody to look into this. [Regarding] the media … this is probably the biggest censorship blackout in the history of the United States. When I go to the toilet, I make it in national news. … I just can’t believe the media, including the cable media blocking this thing out.”

Today, Arpaio issued a statement saying he sent his request for assistance to the U.S. Selective Service System, asking its director, Lawrence Romo, to respond to him within 30 days on whether or not his national office will provide the sheriff with the original document, and if that office will move forward with an investigation of its own.

On Hedgecock’s radio show, Arpaio noted:

“I guess common sense would be to send it to them. The Selective Service director is appointed by the president. … They only have 136 employees in the whole organization. I presume if I did that, what do you think they’re gonna to do with it? The director who was appointed from San Antonio, Texas, eight months into the Obama administration, what do you think he’s gonna do? He’s probably gonna call some guy at the White House if he can get up to the chief of staff to ask some advice, and then what are they gonna do? Give it to the attorney general? I don’t know. … So I’m fighting big battles here.”

Arpaio made special note about the issue of Obama’s possibly forged Selective Service Card.

“We had a press conference. A lot of people came. They were snickering, trying to embarrass me, [saying] this is a pony show trying to get publicity,” he said. “However, when we showed the Selective Service Card on the screen, you could hear a pin drop.”

Because of inconsistencies on the form itself – including an unusually incomplete date stamp – sheriff’s investigators suspect the form, which was allegedly filled out in Honolulu in 1980, may be a forgery.

WND is reporting today that Arpaio is seeking Obama’s original registration card from Selective Service.

Sheriff’s investigators were able to replicate the alleged forgery by obtaining a circa 1980 pica stamp and a circa “2008″ date plug. Investigators were able to clearly demonstrate the “80″ (which should have actually read 1980) in Obama’s Selective Service Registration form resulted from cutting out the “08″ from an authentic “2008″ date plug, and inverting the “08″ to read “80″ when the cut plug was loaded into the year slot on the 1980 pica stamp.

Meanwhile, although Arpaio did not focus on Obama’s Social Security Number at his news conference,WND has also reported the president may be using a fraudulent number, another important piece of information the national news media continue to suppress.

Follow all the future developments in this story – sign up for WND’s email news alerts right now!

The Arpaio findings are not the only items the media are refusing to cover. As WND reported yesterday, a full-blown cover-up appears to be taking place in connection with WND’s disclosure about a retired U.S. postman who has signed a sworn affidavit suggesting Obama was a foreign-born student who was receiving financial help to go to Harvard from the parents of domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.

Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse began its investigation in August after 250 members of the Surprise, Ariz., Tea Party, presented a signed petition asking him to undertake the investigation. The tea partiers indicated if a forged birth certificate had been used to place Obama on the 2012 Arizona presidential ballot, their rights as Maricopa County voters could be compromised.

NOTE: In case you missed the news conference of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse,”.

Then last December, Obama’s Justice Department held its own news conference to claim Arpaio’s office committed civil-rights violations against Hispanics, including racial profiling and heavy-handed immigration patrols based on racially charged complaints.

When asked about that during Friday’s radio show, Arpaio said, “They want to control my organization, [imposing] monitors and everything else. I’m not gonna go for that. So I guess they’ll sue me and we’ll go to court and put the real facts out. The real facts that they’re going to have to come up with including all their so-called witnesses that they won’t identify. They won’t give us anything.”

Source: WND

Got Meat?

Sue’s a self-professed Christian who attends church and a Bible study regularly and sings with the praise and worship team.  Sue also practices yoga, consults a psychic medium, plays the Ouija Board game with friends and believes in reincarnation.

Sue and her boyfriend sleep together in the apartment she shares with two friends from church.  No one questions what goes on behind closed doors.  Sue and Tim, who’s an atheist, plan to marry someday so she believes God will overlook this “sin.” Her roommates are on the same page.

Because Sue is skilled at assessing a person’s character and motives—and she’s usually right—she boasts that she has the “gift of discernment.” Her roommates agree.

Whether or not Sue is a Christian remains to be seen.  What’s clear by the choices she makes is that she’s out of God’s will.  So, does a person who goes against God have the “gift of discernment”?  What criteria should we use to determine if a person is discerning?

First off, there’s no doubt that God wants to mold our lives according to what is written in His Word. There’s no doubt that God wants to bring us into conformity with His will. And there’s no doubt that believers who conscientiously study the Bible will develop spiritual discernment. However, Christians looking for quick answers instead of truth can study the Bible until the Pacific Ocean turns into Hawaiian Punch and they’ll never truly  know God’s will for their lives nor will they gain an ounce of discernment.

A thorough study of the Bible will equip believers with understanding and wisdom that leads tomaturity. Christians who don’t know the Bible are unable to differentiate between God’s purpose and desire for their lives from their own aspirations.

The sincere Christian’s desire is to grow in the knowledge of our risen Lord and to walk in step with Him.  Regrettably a large number of believers remain “baby Christians.” Baby Christians spend a great deal of time stumbling around like one-year-olds learning to walk, preferring milk to meat. There’s no time like the present for milk drinkers to introduce meat into their diet!

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:12-14)  (Emphasis added)

Got meat?

“The Bible is the revelation of things as they really are,” said the late Ray Stedman.  “It represents the only truly realistic look at life that is available to man today.  It is the only instrument provided by God that is adequate to the task of producing mature, well-adjusted, whole persons.” Moreover, “It’s not the book, but the Lord that the book reveals that is our food.”

Jesus Christ is our sustenance, our nourishment, our provision.  No one who neglects the Bible will become a mature Christian. (Proverbs 1:5-7)

The Holy Spirit gives guidance to those who explore God’s Word.  He shows us what He wants us to do and be.  He’s our teacher and the dispenser of discernment.  With the Spirit in our corner we won’t be taken in by counterfeits.  We’ll come to recognize false prophets, aberrant teaching and flawed doctrine.  What a person says and teaches should line up with Scripture or it’s false.  John warns:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 1:1)

In this day and age many Christians don’t bother to test the spirits and fall prey to all sorts of false teaching.  When believers decide to take the time to weigh and examine what’s being taught they won’t be deceived.

Sadly, the contemporary Church is so lacking in discernment that even self-professed Christians, like Sue, dabble in pagan practices.  Believers say they’re dabbling for the fun of it, but that excuse won’t wash with God. In Deuteronomy 18: 9-12, He warns:

When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.

Could the Lord be any clearer than that?  He despises sorcery!

Yet millions of Christians completely ignore God’s warning.  Instead of taking Him at His word they demand to know what’s so wrong with astrology, holding séances, contacting spirit guides or angels — and what’s wrong with meditating?  I mean, everyone’s doing it!   Meditation is beyond the scope of this article but before I move on I need to point out that many Christians have been sucked into “Spiritual Formation.”  SF promotes contemplative prayer (listening prayer, breath prayer, centering prayer) and those who practice this sort of prayer say they do it to connect with God on a deeper level and to hear His voice.  In order to hear the voice of God, they believe, one must practice “Christian” mantra meditation.  The aim in mantra meditation is to empty one’s mind of all thought.  This technique, called Transcendental Meditation, has its roots in Hinduism which is a pagan religion.  So let’s be clear: “Whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD.”  If you don’t mind being an abomination (disgrace, repugnant) feel free to sit in on a séance.

Christians must come to understand that God made them and He owns them. The parameters He has set for His people to live by are for their ultimate good. God makes no bones about sorcery. It’s a health hazard!

Here’s the main reason it’s unhealthy.  The occult arts are part of Satan’s strategy of evil tricks and deception, designed to lead humans astray. The Bible teaches that Satan and his demons (fallen angels) are real beings that exist in the spirit realm.  These beings are out to destroy the human race.  That’s why Paul warned believers to “Put on the full Armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes” (Eph. 6:10, 11).

Unarmed Christians fall prey to deception so we must have a fair amount of knowledge on the cults and the occult.  For the purpose of this article I’ll focus on the New Age movement because it is in the realm of the occult.  The preferred term is New Age Spirituality (NAS).  Call it what you will, “spiritually” is the modern day equivalent of ancient paganism.  Neo-Paganism traditions and practices are deeply ingrained in our culture and have made inroads into the Roman Catholic Church as well as evangelical and mainline churches.

Defining NAS is difficult because it is both eclectic and diverse.  There’s no hierarchy, no membership, no specific doctrine and no dogma.  New Agers believe they are “one with the universe and a part of God.”  Because we are ignorant of our divine nature, personal enlightenment during mystical experiences will bring us out of our ignorance into a total awareness of our divinity.  Higher consciousness can be achieved through the help of so-called angels, spirit guides, psychics and through meditation, yoga (even so-called Christian yoga), drugs, and other Eastern religious practices.

One of the most distinctive beliefs of the New Age movement is monism–the belief that all of reality is essentially one. Hence, everything that exists is part of a single organic whole. Since all is essentially one, no difference exists between good and evil.

New Agers hold to pantheism—the belief that God is everything and everything is God.  Simply put, God is an impersonal all-pervading energy and is one and the same as the universe.  God is an “it” like the “Force” in Star Wars.

New Age religion not only goes against Scripture and tradition; it goes against reason.

Christianity believes that God has shown Himself in the pages of scripture.  “God is separate from his creation,” said the late Paul E. Little.  “He is transcendent—above and beyond His creation, the heavens and the earth.  He is not a slave to the natural law He authored, but is independent of it and above it.  He can override it at will—though normally He does not interfere with it.  He is exalted and eternal, the world’s Creator, Sovereign, and Judge.”  He is a personal, all-knowing, all-loving God.

There’s no question that the Bible condemns occult practices.  So, would Jesus Christ involve Himself in something He condemns?  No!  Jesus never speaks through spirit guides, psychics or mediums, nor does He give guidance through the Ouija board.  But demons do! Demons are powerful, odious and deceitful.  For centuries demons have been masquerading as spirit guides, voices from beyond the grave, even guardian angles.  What is their motive?  To trick, to deceive and to control lives!  Make no mistake about it:  Satan’s aim is to take a multitude of humans to hell with him. Peter gave this stern warning to keep believers from stepping into the devil’s trap:“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)

Satan has introduced many counterfeit gods.  Berit Kjos explains what the world’s counterfeit gods are like:

“They must be strong but permissive; compassionate but amoral, unifying but tolerant toward all beliefs except those that clash with the vision of solidarity. This new, more affirming image has already permeated religions around the world. His names don’t really matter, for they would all represent the same universal deity — re-imagined under the banner of love, tolerance and unity.” 

Sound familiar?

New Agers often sound like Christians.  They’ll talk about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit–even the atonement and salvation.  But don’t be fooled!  They redefine Christian terms to fit their own religious beliefs, thus the importance of probing to discover what someone really believes about God.  A discerning Christian will pick up on the deception.  Always find out what a self-professed Christian believes about Jesus. Is He the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, as orthodox Christians believe? Is He the Son of God and the Savior of the world?  If someone’s view of God is radically different from what the Bible teaches, that person is a counterfeit!

It’s important to note that every heretical doctrine that has slithered into the Church “begins with the misconception of the nature of God.”

Believe it or not, many New Agers actually read the Bible but it’s not the final authority in their lives as it is for the Christian. I often hear them on the radio or observe them on TV tossing out Bible verses and then manipulate the long-established interpretation to make it support their version of truth. Their defense is that they are “purifying the errors of Christianity.”  Not surprisingly theirpurified version of words and concepts contradict the Bible.  Tossing out Bible quotes and utilizing Christian terms does not translate into authentic Christianity.  In fact most New Agers are anti Christian.

In many contemporary churches a New Age, metaphysical gospel has replaced the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Preachers may talk about God, quote Scripture, and speak fluent “Christianese,” but they’re counterfeits.  So their eternal souls are separated from God and in need of reconciliation through the atoning work of Jesus Christ.

In our postmodern moral relativistic world, a person’s “feelings” and “experiences” take precedence over doctrine.  Moreover, many believers have this idea that they’re free to pick and choose the parts of their faith that they agree with, and just toss out what doesn’t mesh with their lifestyle! This is the primary reason so many believers are involved in the sorts of pagan practices I mentioned earlier.  What happens when Christians lose their scriptural base?  They’re open to almost anything!

How do we remedy this crisis?  Listen to the wise words of Ben Shin of Talbot Theological Seminary:

…if you want to go deeper in your relationship with God, then you have to know about Him and who He is.  That’s why doctrine and theology are really key because they give us deeper knowledge of Him. (Emphasis added)

So – when a person is involved in any way, shape, or form in the occult arts, inform him/her what the scriptures say.  A Christian will want to know the truth about everything, above all the practices God detests.  If truth matters he/she won’t be satisfied with anything else.  When confronted with truth, Christians are never to become defensive, proud or arrogant.  Those who have adopted an unbiblical doctrine or have fallen prey to aberrant teaching must set aside their pride and own up to their mistake no matter what the cost!

Going back to Sue and her roommates, by now it should be obvious that they are immature believers at best and it’s possible they’re not saved.  Does Sue have “powers of discernment”?  I’ll let you decide.

Further Research:

Articles on Contemplative Prayer—On Solid Rock Resources

Articles on the New Age Movement—On Solid Rock Resources

Articles on the Occult—On Solid Resources

Articles on yoga—On Solid Rock Resources

An Advocate For The Deprived

Honoring Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah…

Dahiyeh, South Beirut – Rushing to an appointment last Saturday I passed the Mohammad Hussein Fadallah Hassaniyeh (Mosque), which for many in my immediate Dahiyeh neighborhood is the religious institution we feel most connected to because of its long and continuing history of social and religious work in our community.

Nearly 18 months after the July 4th, 2010 death of Lebanon’s preeminent Islamic scholar, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, but seeming more like three months ago, the ‘Fadlallah Hassaniyeh’ is an ever active beehive of social work and religious study and truly a working people’s institution.

It is also the manifestation of Sayed Fadlallah’s achievement’s for and commitments to all in our community, Shia, Sunni, Christians and non-believers.

Unaware that it was the 12th day of the lunar month of Rabih el Awwal, the Prophet Mohammad bin Abdillah’s birthday, I was surprised by all the activity saturating the surrounding streets and the hundreds of school children in celebratory clothes doing various activities enjoying the festivity with their families.

Suddenly a gaggle of pre-teen friends from our neighborhood ran up to me and pulled me to the front of the vast ornate Fadlallah Mosque and to the tables in front where children were distributing small cloth wrapped candies in celebration. When night descends, which is early these days, the children might be given fireworks by their parents as was common in the past. Yet given so much uncertainly these days in the region and in Lebanon, even relatively mild explosive noises cause my neighbors to hustle their flocks inside and avoid balconies and windows until they understand what the noise was all about.

By then too late for my appointment, I postponed it and entered the Mosque and sat on a bench near the burial chamber (Maqam) of Ayatollah Fadlallah. I reflected on what he meant to Muslims and Christians in Lebanon and to all people of good will around the world and to me personally. I had the honor to meet with him several times and count his son Ali, who has succeeded him in much of his work, as my friend. As I sat close to the Maqam, I was surprised to see members of our community still arriving to his resting place, lean forward and speak privately to him and pledge to follow his progressive teachings, fatwas, and examples. Some, inspired by his life’s work took vows to become better people in their relations with others.

I also still recall vividly his funeral and the untold thousands who came to our neighborhood to join his funeral procession on July 6, 2010.

Friends carried his body around our neighborhood. They then marched to the spot of the 1985 CIA-Saudi assassination attempt, which killed 90 mainly school children and women and wounded more than 250, before returning to Imam Rida Mosque where he was laid to rest. Tens of thousands of mourners gathered at the mosque for prayer services before the funeral procession.

From all across the region delegations arrived and every Lebanese political and religious leader attended except the small minded Maronite Cardinal Patriarch Sfeir who took umbrage at Fadallah’s positive views about one person-one vote democracy. Sayeed Fadlallah did not favor Lebanon being ruled by the current archaic French colonial legacy of parceling out political power based on the undemocratic confessional formulae of the 1943 Paris installed National Pact.

His passing shocked and saddened the region and the loss of his advocacy of dialogue, respect and unity among all religions is incalculable. Justice for Palestine and ending the Zionist occupation was part of his unwavering lifelong work. Some media outlets, reported that shortly before he died, and upon being asked by a medical attendant a few days ago if he needed anything, he replied, “Only the end of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.”

I recalled the morning of July 4, Zeinab, the nurse on duty at the blood donor’s clinic at Bahman Hospital, a block from my home in Haret Hreik, had just instructed me to remain sitting for five minutes and to drink the juice she gave me before I returned to south Beirut’s blazing sun.
A companion and I had each just donated a pint of blood in response to an appeal from friends who worked in the Translation Office of Fadlallah. He had been hospitalized for the past 12 days but on Friday his stomach bleeding had increased dramatically, related to complications from a liver problem he had been treated for over the past several years. Sayeed Fadallah also suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure.

As we waited, Zeinab returned, tears in her eyes, and simply said, “The Sayeed has passed away.” And she disappeared. So did my Shia hijabed companion, and as it seemed, everyone from the floor.

I decided to walk down the stairs to the main level and could hear sobs from hospital staff on each floor, now seemingly darkened with each level eerier than the preceding one as I descended.

As I left the main entrance of Bahman hospital, I was thinking about some of the more than a dozen meetings I had the honor to attend with Grand Ayatolah Fadlallah and some of his staff over the past three years. Such as those who regularly visited him from the Washington DC based Council for the National Interest and one visit that I had arranged for former President Jimmy Carter.

Suddenly there was movement for two blocks in front and along the side streets adjacent to Bahman, a state of the art and science Hospital operated by Fadlallah’s Al Marbarrat Charity. This hospital was among hundreds of civil buildings in Haret Hreik and South Beirut, that Israel had bombed in July of 2006. The Fadlallah home was also reduced to rubble.

“How did these guys get here so fast” I wondered, for it was only minutes since the Majaa (religious guide) to millions in the Middle East had died. Some security units, dressed in black shirts, caps and trousers, walkie talkies in their left hands, others in civilian clothes, quickly placed traffic barriers in the area. They politely asked that all vehicles including motorcycles be relocated a least two blocks away.

Some, from their appearance, obviously war toughened fighters, wept and consoled men and women who began arriving at the hospital to pay their respects, first in two and three’s and then streams.

The loudspeakers from the Hassanayn Mosque, where every Friday Fadlallah for the past nearly 20 years, delivered sermons to tens of thousands of faithful, Muslim and Christian alike, began broadcasting religious music and Koranic verses to our shocked and grief stricken neighborhood. During the night of the 27th day of Ramadan, known as Laylat al-Kadr, (according to the Al Kadar Sura in the Koran, this is the day that the Angel Gabriel came down from heaven and the beginning of the revelation of the Koran) more than 50,000 filled Fadlallah’s Mosque and surrounding streets.

“The father, the leader, the marjaa, the guide, the human being is gone.” Sayyed Fadlallah has died this morning,” senior aide Ayatollah Abdullah al-Ghurayfi told a hastily called news conference, at the hospital, joined by the late cleric’s sons, Sayyed Ali Fadlallah and Jaafar, who, like nearly everyone else in attendance, could not hold back tears.

The sweltering evening of July 5th, an American delegation was given by his family and Hezbollah security the rare honor of viewing the body of Lebanon’s senior Shia cleric inside his Mosque near where he would be buried at 1:30 p.m. the following afternoon. The group met a wide spectrum of Lebanon’s political and resistance leadership but were not joined by anyone from the US Embassy since their government would boycott Lebanon’s national day of mourning and the burial of this Washington branded “Terrorist.” It was in 1995, that then President Bill Clinton, at the urging of AIPAC and facing a re-election campaign, so designated him. Former President Carter promised during a visit in June of 2009 that he would contact President Obama immediately about this travesty but was unable to have his name removed before the Sayeed’s death.

The American delegation paying their respects included residents of New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Hawaii and Oregon, a Catholic Priest and two nuns, some of whom were in Beirut as participants in the delayed Lebanon flotilla to help break the siege of Gaza. They felt they were the true representatives of their country, not their Embassy. Ever misleading the public with respect to the Middle East, the main stream western media began a thousand reports with the words, “A fiery anti-American critic died.” It is nonsense of course. Fadallah was very pro-American in the sense that he often extolled the founding American principles and his relationship with the American people was valued by both. Barely two weeks before his death he left his sick bed to meet with a group of Americans from Washington DC, against the advice of his doctors, and he urged them to work to preserve the founding principles on which their country was founded and to encourage dialogue between Muslims, Christians and Jews and to end the occupations of this region.

Like the rapidly growing number of American critics of US policy in the Middle East, many of Fadlallah’s Friday prayer sermons denounced arming and supporting serial Israelis aggressions.

For more than 50 years, he worked at “modernizing” the Shari’a and rendering it accessible to modern day youth, addressing their concerns, expectations and fears in a fast-changing world. He was truly the Mufti of the youth and of women, their guide who never oppressed their dreams and always simplified rulings. He was available for questions regarding the most taboo of social and political subjects. He was also the enemy of stalemate and a rejecter of tradition in its inflexible sense. He insisted on subjecting all ideas to discussions, debates and reassessments and was much more interested in human beings than doctrines.

His followers revered him for his moderate social views, openness and pragmatism. Fadlallah issued religious edicts forbidding female circumcision, condemning domestic violence-even allowing women to wear cosmetics and finger nail polish which some clerics opposed, and insisting that women could physically resist abusive husbands. He strongly supported female-male equality. He rejected the blood-letting at Ashoura events and like Hezbollah encouraged his followers to donate blood to the Red Crescent Society instead of cutting themselves. He also opposed the call to “jihad,” or holy war, by Osama bin Laden and he was among the first to condemn the 9/11 attacks. Fadlallah opposed ‘suicide attacks” but distinguished the right of an individual to sacrifice himself as a weapon during asymmetrical warfare by aggressors.

Fadlallah supported the Islamic revolution in Shiite Iran, and advocated armed resistance to Israel. In 2009, again during a meeting with Americans, including Jews, Fadlallah, whose family came from the southern Lebanese village of Ainata, reiterated his call for a Muslim-Jewish dialogue as part of interfaith efforts aimed at bridging the gap among various religious, rejecting any offensive against Jews or Christians in any Arab or Muslim country. But he emphasized to the delegation the importance of a Muslim-Jewish dialogue away from Zionist influence, stressing that Jews need to be freed from the cycle of world Zionism and Israel should be confronted because of its occupation of Arab lands.

He welcomed the election of Barack Obama in the US, telling the Wall Street Journal in 2009 that “some of Obama’s statements show that he believes in the method of dialogue”. He added: We don’t have a problem with any American president, but our problem is with his policy that might affect our strategic interest.” He later told visitors of his disappointment at President Obama’s Middle East policy, accusing him of being “under pressure” from Israeli supporters and “not a man who has a plan for peace”.

Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah had a widespread reputation for piety and scholarship through his teaching and the more than 40 books and treatises he wrote. He established religious schools and foundations, clinics and libraries as part of the charitable Al Marrarat Foundation.

In summary, Mohammad Hussein Fadallah was too moderate, progressive and too effective a spokesman advocating for the deprived to be tolerated by the US administration and Israel. Both required more stereotypical radical Muslim clerics to smear the region. The Mossad is believed to have targeted him more than half a dozen times including during the July 2006 Israeli attack.

A generation was inspired by Sayeed Fadallah and listened to him and studied his voluminous writings. Two generations feel the emptiness of his passing away.

Mohammad Hussein Fadallah was a rare man of an angel’s wit, mirth and singular learning. A marvelous man of gentleness, humbleness and affability. Sometimes when defending the rights of Muslims,Christians, Jews and all people of faith or non-believers of good will, his countenance was changed by a sad gravity and his smiling eyes darkened. For to his core, Grand Ayatollah Fadlallah believed in the right and responsibility to resist injustice and occupation.

He was a man for all seasons whose conscience and piety would not allow him to be idle as long as the poor and downtrodden remained dispossessed and voiceless or his beloved Lebanon and Palestine was occupied. For this, and for no other reason he was placed and kept on the US Political Terrorism list as a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT) in the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control and his American charitable assets confiscated.

Like Thomas More, Fadlallah rejected offered inducements and bribes including T list removal from Washington if he followed the King’s wishes and stop support to the Lebanese National resistance. He wore his nonsensical Terrorist label as a badge of honor as his daily good works mocked and marked the list keepers with shame and cowardice for squandering American founding principles and for funding, arming and providing diplomatic cover to the Zionist colonial enterprise that stole Palestine.

Each month since Sayed Fadlallah’s passing brings deeper understanding about the greatness of this public servant and the value of his achievements. Following Arbeen, the Muslim 40 day period of mourning for the departed, I visited with two of Fadallah’s close associates who wondered whether the future without his leadership would lead to his social service agency, the Mabarrat, having to cut back on its 30 schools, medical facilities, and social service agencies. They were worried that with his parting, his life’s work might become diminished and growing demands in the community could not be met.

This morning I was advised by a key aide of the late Ayatollah Fadlallah that the Marbarrat, thanks to Fadlallah’s administrative skill, planning and foresight, is strong, expanding and will long serve our community.

May Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah forever rest in Peace.

Madam Jane Predicts: American Wars Will Cause Deadly Climate Change

I just had a dream that it was the end of the world. So should I still go Christmas shopping or not?  Why bother, I thought.  But just to be on the safe side, I also asked the mysterious psychic Madam Jane for some input.  “Are my dreams and the Mayan calendars and all those Rapture freaks right?  Is the end of the world actually on its way?  Are we really all gonna die soon?”

“Yes of course,” replied Madam Jane.

Oh dear.

“The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is mounting at a catastrophic rate and will cause irreversibly-disastrous climate change in the next five years — and by far the biggest cause of this problem is the U.S. military and its allies.  Every time NATO bombs Libya and Americans bomb Pakistan and Israel bombs Gaza or a helicopter takes off in Afghanistan or a U.S. carrier fleet steams toward Syria and the Persian Gulf, we move one step closer to irreversible climate change,” stated Madam Jane, swaying back and forth with her eyes closed.

“Would it help at all if I had my car smog-checked today?” I then asked her hopefully.  Madame Jane just rolled her eyes.   “We’re doomed,” she replied.

So.  How do I want to spend my last days here on Earth?  Not a clue.  If you knew that seven billion people had approximately five years to live before climate-change-caused floods started pouring in from our rivers, and deserts started taking over our farmlands and oceans started drowning our coastal cities and a dreadful ice age started to set in, what would you do?

“I’d move to Hawaii,” replied Madam Jane.  Not me.  I’d buy hip-waders, ear muffs and really warm coats.

PS:  According to a recent AlterNet article entitled “Game Over for Planet Earth,” we’re all gonna be fried like fish in a skillet first before we even get a chance to freeze to death or drown.

      AlterNet says, “[Here's a] prediction offered by Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency:  Without an effective international agreement to staunch greenhouse gases within five years, the door will close on preventing a potentially disastrous rise in the planet’s temperature.”

PPS:  Madam Jane’s ominous-sounding and doom-like claim that irreversible climate change is only five years away is actually erroneous.  And AlterNet’s five-year claim is wrong too.  According to the Christian Science Monitor, irreversible climate change is already here.

“Even if all the world’s smokestacks and tailpipes were to suddenly stop spewing CO2, if all the trees everywhere were to be left standing, and if all the remaining coal, oil, and gas were to stay in the ground [and the American war-machine would suddenly stop spewing CO2 like there's no tomorrow as well], the planet would still be feeling the effects of global warming a millennium from now.”

PPPS:  How can we keep cheering on American wars abroad — without bringing those wars back home to us too, like the recent violent shootings in Oakland and the recent pepper-spraying at U.C. Davis?

My Christmas shopping may just have to wait.

EXTRA!  EXTRA!  Madam Jane also predicts that the “American war” on Iran is about to happen too!

Remember back when, long before the war on Iraq was declared, millions of tons of war material was being amassed at various East Coast military bases here in the U.S.?  Well, Madam Jane states that they are at it again.  “Long endless lines of container trucks are currently pouring into supply depots all over the East Coast.”  Oops.

Plus America’s bottom-kissing “yellow journalism” media is already geared up to make Iran look like the ultimate bad guy — just as it did right before Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq.

And not only that but, according to Middle East specialist David Pratt, the video game Battlefield 3 has just come out with a brand new version — starring good old Iran as the penultimate evil villain.  It just doesn’t get any more “War Profiteers Gone Crazy” than that!

And when Iran does get attacked, just THINK of all the air pollution that will be released!  Good grief.  Then Battlefield 3 will have to put out an even newer version — featuring deadly hand-to-hand combat with radioactive smog.

Which Occupiers Scare You More?

This is not about which side you take regarding Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Denver or Occupy Big Belch, Arkansas. Some things ought to frighten you more.

I saw this picture the other day of police dressed in full combat gear dispersing the crowd at Occupy Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina.

Such grotesquely excessive displays of power by police have become commonplace in America over the last two decades. The police – along with the FBI, IRS, DEA, DHS, TSA, BATF, etc. – are becoming exactly the kind of occupying army that is so characteristic of places like Guatemala and that the Founders warned us about. I hate to say this, but Iseriously believe that a lot of people are just jonesing for some sort of Kent State-type of tragedy at an Occupy rally* if for no other reason to prove a sick and totally twisted political point about the righteousness of their chosen side.

Who cares if innocent people have to die? Ya can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, ya know.

We have degenerated so far from the America of 1958, when the police could be counted on “To Serve and Protect.” This picture won a Pulitzer for photography.

Contrast this with the picture that won the Pulitzer for the year 2000.

The picture from Chapel Hill appeals to a lot of Americans. Is there a Cairo in our not too distant future? Early this year, a police van roared right through a group of protestors in the streets of Cairo, Egypt. Several people were killed. (WARNING: GRAPHIC FOOTAGE STARTS AT ABOUT THE 0:45 MARK.)

When I saw this, I said something to this effect: If this happened in America, lots of people would justify the killing. (I said other words too.) This should scare you way more than either the Occupiers or the police.

The Occupiers occupy a few square blocks – or, in many cases, a few square acres – of their respective cities. The cops are part of a larger army that occupies from Maine to Hawaii.

The biggest threat to our liberty in America comes neither from the caves of Afghanistan or from Washington, D.C. It comes rather from the millions of Americans who will rationalize tyranny when it is inflicted on others. They fail to realize is that when theycasually disregard the rights of others, they put their own liberty at grave risk.

* Thanks to  for providing me this link. It goes into much further detail on this matter than I have time for.

Slaying The New York State Pork Dragon

New York State was once known to the world as the Empire State. After decades of government mismanagement and corporate plunder, the beleaguered taxpayer needs and deserves substantial relief. Pouring public funds into corporate coffers as “gifts” for the honor of having these enterprises conduct their trade is a practice that enriches the few, while sucking the economic life out of impoverished residents. The racket of “Corporate Welfare” gives new meaning to those famous words of General Jack D. Ripper – “A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice”.

This government “Dr. Stranglove” pattern of providing for the defense of crony capitalism is obscene. The insidious rewarding of favorite chums with civic money is steeped, not only in conflicts of interest, but more importantly, breeds a culture of corruption that taints elected officials and bureaucratic facilitators. The insane notion of corporate personhood is used to rationalize a defective economic development policy that results in huge budget deficits with little benefit to state residents.

The “Mother of All Lawsuits”, publically known as the Pork Lawsuit is a significant watershed in restoring constitutional government in a state long known for protecting cartels and campaign contributors. Watch the video – The “” and note that this action was filed back in 2008.

Attorney and columnist for Lewrockwell.com James Ostrowski is the driving force behind this noble effort to hold state officials constitutionally accountable. The name of his site Political Class Dismissed is taken from a well-received  by the same title.

On October 12, 2011, the Pork Lawsuit was argued in NYS highest judicial court of law, the Court of Appeals. The first impact gained from the architecturally impressive courthouse is that you are entering a very sober environment immersed in history and privilege. The mere fact that such an august body of jurists heard the serious nature of the Pork Lawsuit pleading bodes well for the merits of the case. The previous Appellate level decision was 5-0 in favor of Mr. Ostrowski’s action. As the legion of corporate lawyers gather together to defend their ill-gotten gain of preferences, the image of a David and Goliath struggle emerges.

Michael Rebmann provides comments, NYS Court of Appeals Pork Lawsuit Summary.

In this declaratory judgment action, 50 New York taxpayers challenge the constitutionality of state appropriations to the Department of Agriculture and Markets and two public benefit corporations (PBCs) for ultimate distribution to private entities for economic development projects. They argue, in part, that this funding violates article VII, § 8(1) of the State Constitution, which prohibits gifts or loans of state money or credit to private entities. The challenged appropriations and grants included funding through Ag & Markets for promotional activities by the New York Apple Growers Association and the Long Island Wine Council to encourage consumption of New York agricultural products, and funding through PBCs for semiconductor manufacturing facilities in Saratoga, Albany and Dutchess Counties and renovation of a hotel in downtown Buffalo. The plaintiffs sued the State, its Urban Development Corp. (UDC) and Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp., and six private companies, including International Business Machines Corp., West Genesee Hotel Associates, and GlobalFoundries U.S., Inc.

Supreme Court dismissed the suit, ruling there was no violation of the gift or loan provision. It said, “The State is authorized to provide funding to a public benefit corporation, including [UDC]…. The very purpose of the [UDC] is to promote the State’s policy of enhancing job opportunities, urban renewal and economic development…. A review of the [UDC] projects at issue here shows that each speaks to a viable public, economic development purpose….” It said Ag & Markets “is expressly authorized to aid in the promotion and marketing of New York’s wine and grape products” and its appropriations to fund promotional contracts with non-profit agricultural organizations are not barred under Article VII, § 8.

The Appellate Division, Third Department modified by reinstating the claim that the appropriations “indirectly gave state funds to private entities in violation of … article VII, § 8(1) by passing the funds through [Ag & Markets] and the PBCs before disbursement.” It said, “Giving the funds to private entities by channeling them through authorized public entities will not shield these appropriations from challenge, for the State may not do “‘indirectly that which cannot be done directly”‘….” It said the constitutionality of the appropriations does not depend on whether they served a public purpose, but “whether their public benefits constitute sufficient consideration while the private benefits are merely incidental.” The question was not resolved as a matter of law by the defendants’ submissions “showing their public purposes,” it said, and remitted the matter to Supreme Court for further proceedings.

The defendants argue that “appropriations for the public purpose of promoting economic development” do not violate article VII, § 8. “Recent precedents establish that an appropriation is valid … so long as it has a predominant public purpose and any private benefit is purely incidental,” the State says, claiming the challenged appropriations meet this standard. It also argues the appropriations “were not gifts at all because the recipients agreed to create jobs or provided other valuable consideration to the State in exchange for the funds.”

 

An interview by Liz Benjamin from Capital Tonight provides valuable insight from one of the petitioners, Lee Bordeleau. View the next video, .

Prior to entering the coffered ceiling courtroom and before the questioning by the seven justices, Mr. Ostrowski made a dynamic public appeal at the Capital Building. His remarks included.

Corporate welfare is banned by the State Constitution: “The money of the state shall not be given or loaned to or in aid of any private corporation…” Art. VII. Like many states, New York got burned by past wasteful corporate welfare and pork barrel projects so we made it illegal. This hasn’t stopped anyone. After all, if you are willing to steal other people’s money, you would also be willing to flaunt the law.

Corporate welfare converts normally feisty business people into gutless toadies to politicians they would never hire at their own firms, and silences them from criticizing the regime or supporting real change lest they be cut off from the subsidies they feel they need in New York’s hostile business climate. That explains why the WNY tax revolt and tea party movements have virtually no support from private business firms above the level of mom and pop shops.

The politicians also love corporate welfare because it gives them a tool to bamboozle the public about how they are supporting economic development. But it’s yet another big lie. How does stealing your money and preventing you from using it to support businesses whose products best fit your needs and wants improve the economy? How does it stimulate economic growth to prevent you from using your money to start and grow your own company, and instead give your money to a company that bought a politician with a campaign donation?

. . . we filed the Pork Lawsuit and we are winning! If we win this appeal, we can shut down billions of dollars in corporate welfare and return that money to the people. How about getting rid of the regressive state gas tax which forces the poor and working class in NY to play the highest gas prices in the country outside of Hawaii? If we win this suit, we will immediately file another one to bar 1000 local governments from giving away our money.

The national implication of this Pork Lawsuit is that most state constitutions have the same gift and loan provisions in their own charter. This language is clear, but the courts need to confirm that banning public subsidies is an essential duty of legitimate government. The Solyndra Scandal is not an isolated abnormality. Many state governments are pumping scarce financial resources into suspect projects. A vivid example of this Enron prototype scam is documented in An Ill First Wind Hits the Public in the Pocketbook. The First Wind project is a primary focus of the citizen groupCohocton Wind Watch. As a petitioner to the Pork Lawsuit, CWW stands shoulder to shoulder with the other plaintiffs in an effort to stop the foolish and ineffective policy that is bankrupting our state budgets.Seldom does good news penetrate the media cycle. This is a saga of a legal battle that all of us share and everyone will benefit from when corporate subsidies are declared illegal. Get behind this fight. Expand this challenge in other states and force the courts to put an end to the rip-off. Old Jack Ripper is crying from the grave that we all regain our precious bodily fluids. It is time to end the dominance of that fictional coke machine. Break the cartel and demand our money back. The public deserves better .

Political Persecution in Maricopa County

When we think of political persecution, places such asTiananmen Squaremay come to mind.  Increasingly, however, this tool of tyranny is coming to our shores – and it is not made inChina.  It is, in the case I’ll discuss today, made inMaricopaCounty.

Every avid news reader knows about the battles between Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the federal government; Leviathan has targeted him because of his principled stand against illegal immigration. What is not quite as well known, however, is that the sheriff and his supporters – most notably, former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas – have long been battling a corrupt local political machine bent on thwarting the rule of law and benefitting itself.  Not surprisingly, as in the film Walking Tall, Arpaio’s and Thomas’ attempt to end local corruption has come at a price: the State Bar of Arizona (SBA) has begun prosecuting Thomas and two of his deputies in a move that reeks of political retaliation.

One of these underlings is ex-deputy county attorney Lisa Aubuchon.  The other is ex-deputy county attorney Rachel Alexander, whom some readers may recognize as the proprietor of the website Intellectual Conservative.  Alexander, despite having played only the smallest of roles in a racketeering case against the Maricopa County Supervisors, now faces suspension of her law license and significant career damage.  And outrageously, Alexander’s supervisor, Pete Spaw, has not been charged despite having played a far larger role in the RICO case.  This has led many to conclude that Alexander is the victim of selective prosecution.

The problems for Thomas and his deputies started when the CountySupervisorsfiled wrongful prosecution charges against them with the SBA, which their leftist allies in the bar association ran with.  What were these local politicians so upset about?  John Hawkins at RightWingNews.com provides some background, writing:

Thomas came up with a unique way to prosecute illegal immigrants with a felony, instead of just letting them go with a slap on the wrist.  He used a felony smuggling statute to prosecute them, describing them as “smuggling themselves.”  With a felony conviction, they would be required to serve time and would not be able to return to theU.S. He even distributed money — which was seized from racketeering funds — to programs for youth run by the Boy Scouts and churches.  By law, that money is to be distributed to organizations that keep youth away from crime and drugs.  Thomas ensured that it was no longer only distributed to left wing politically correct organizations.  Due to the proactive efforts of Thomas, along with Joe Arpaio and Senator Russell Pearce, illegal immigration has greatly decreased inArizona.  The population of illegal immigrants dropped by one-third over two years.

This didn’t sit well with the illegal-alien enablers in local government.  Hawkins continues:

Thomas ran for re-election in 2008 on a platform of stamping out public corruption with Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Together they decided to take on powerful politicians who had gotten away with corrupt acts for years.  Don Stapley, the Chairman of theCountySupervisors, raised thousands of dollars to run for president of the National Association of Counties, even though he did not have an opponent.  He then spent that money on personal luxury items.  Stapley allegedly spent $6000 of these funds at Bang and Olufsen electronics, along with $1300 for hair implants, $400 for candleholders and $10,000 for furniture for his home.  He also spent these funds, solicited as campaign money, to buy tickets to Broadway plays and movie theatres.  He bought flowers, paid the grocery store and department stores, paid for massages – and paid for family trips to Sundance, to Utah to ski, a trip for his son and friends to Florida and a three-week vacation in Hawaii for his entire family at a beach house costing approximately $11,000.

Thomas brought charges against Stapley and a jury indicted him.  Stapley was also indicted for failing to disclose his real estate dealings on financial statements.  His business partner, Conley Wolfswinkel, is a convicted felon.  Thomas also brought charges against Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox.  She was indicted for voting on giving money to Chicanos por la Causa while failing to disclose she had a sweetheart loan deal from them.  Wilcox, who drives a 2006 Corvette, gave herself prime real estate territory atPhoenix’sSkyHarborAirportthrough the “minority-owned business” affirmative action program.

Unfortunately, though, the Maricopa Machine knows how to protect itself.  These charges were all transferred to now retired judges – one of whom resigned in disgrace – and were dismissed.  And the Machine plays dirty.  At one point the supervisors removed Thomas’ entire 30-lawyer Civil Division from his jurisdiction – until ultimately being ordered to return it by the Arizona Court of Appeals.  At another point they allegedly hacked into Alexander’s Intellectual Conservative website, cloaking it so that Google would block it; this severely impacted upon the site’s traffic (the hacking damage has since been undone).

To understand the kind of political persecution the SBA is guilty of, note that even some of Thomas’ opponents are rallying to his and his deputies’ defense.  This includes the lifelong Democrat who, along with a Republican supporter of former Democrat governor Janet Napolitano and a third colleague, paid for an advertisement alerting fellow bar members to how their dues are being used for a political vendetta.  What follows is an excerpt:

As John Hawkins points out in his piece, when an expert (Hazard) who helped draft the American Bar Association’s ethics rules says the SBA’s charges are without merit, it should raise a red flag.

Also sounding the alarm is the Maricopa County Republican Committee, which responded to the Machine’s injustice by taking the unusual step of condemning the prosecution.  In a formal resolution, the MCRC pointed out that “even a columnist for the liberal Arizona Republic, Robert Robb, has denounced the Bar’s investigation”; the MCRC concluded with, “NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the Maricopa County Republican Executive Guidance Committee that it demand the State Bar drop the baseless and politically motivated investigation into Andrew Thomas, Lisa Aubuchon and Rachel Alexander.”

Yet, in the sea of injustice that is this sordid affair, the charges against Alexander are so outrageous that even some who side with the SBA against Thomas have defended her.  For example, Arizonaattorney Greg Patterson writes that the case against Alexander – a woman “well known in the conservative blogging community” – “is both selective and overreaching.”  David Roney at SonoranAlliance.com places matters in further perspective, writing:

Alexander is being charged, despite a long, unblemished record at MCAO [Maricopa County Attorney’s Office], solely for her role working on the RICO case.  What was her role?  She worked under her supervisor Pete Spaw’s direction.  Shaw [sic] was an experienced RICO attorney who, according to my sources, started the drafts of the pleadings, finalized the drafts of the pleadings with Andrew Thomas, and developed the key theories in them.  He exclusively dealt with opposing counsel, and filed all of the pleadings electronically.  Alexander’s role consisted of mostly research for the pleadings, and taking direction from Spaw, nothing further.  Yet Spaw was not charged by the Bar, only Alexander.

The real issue here is [an] allegation that Alexander sought to burden and embarrass county supervisors.  The allegation is nothing short of hilarious on its face….  The supervisors, with a few exceptions, have done a pretty good job of bringing poor press and embarrassment upon themselves.  And they did so all without the help of Alexander.

Without a doubt, crooks are very “embarrassed” when light is shone on their dark deeds.  Yet the ideological component cannot be overlooked.  There is a full court press on to destroy Thomas, Aubuchon and a woman running a website named “Intellectual Conservative” for the same reason the Machine targets Sheriff Joe Arpaio: They were pursuing an agenda some call conservative but is really just the upholding of the rule of law – and the antithesis of liberalism.

So this is a story of corruption.  There is the garden variety, in which those who walk tall and stand against evil are targeted by those who wish to continue enriching themselves.  But then there is the kind that is another hallmark of despotic regimes: political persecution.  It is a phenomenon of fascism, whereby those who toe your line get benefits, and those who don’t get intimidated into silence or, when they’re too stout-hearted, destroyed.

By any means necessary.

Then, once big business and all other prominent people and entities are marching in lock-step, you have complete control over civilization.  This isChicago– and, it appears, Maricopa – politics.  And we allow it to stand at our own peril.

Protective Flood Berm Collapses at Ft Calhoun Nuclear Plant; KSU Has Radioactive Leak

Highlighted in yellow above, the protective berm is a water filled “AquaDam” that collapsed early Sunday morning.  (Extra large size image here.)

Overwhelmed by the rising Missouri River, a 2000-foot stretch of a protective water balloon, surrounding the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska, collapsed at 1:25 AM on Sunday, June 26.  Two days earlier, Kansas State University reported an emergency when radiation leaked at 149 times the Derived Air Concentration (DAC) limit for Iodine during a trial run of its reactor.

Six and a half hours after the Ft Calhoun water berm collapsed, operators reported it to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, registering it as a “non-emergency.”

The NRC says there’s nothing to worry about. The flooding has “had no impact on the reactor shutdown cooling or the spent fuel pool cooling.”

Operating since 1973, Ft Calhoun filled its spent fuel cooling pool to capacity in 2006. The structure is 40 feet deep and 38 feet above ground.  Ft Calhoun then built a dry cask storage facility, circled below, which the NRC says does not need the AquaDam water berm:

On June 15, we first posted news about the threat to Nebraska’s nuclear plants, amid an apparent media blackout on the story. On June 23, the AP released its report of a year-long investigation into US nuclear plants indicating that 75% of them leak radiation.

Indeed, when Kansas State U ran its research reactor for 25 minutes on June 24, air quality monitors sounded the alarm that Iodine radiation had exceeded the DAC limit by 149 times above allowable levels, prompting KSU to declare an emergency.

Though four different systems caught the excessive radiation levels, operators reported their belief that this was due to the proximity of a radioactive sample near the monitors.  They did not disclose what kind of sample nor why it was near four different monitors, if that’s even possible. Plus, the sample they discuss showed Cesium, not Iodine.

On May 31, NRC Chief Gregory Jaczko defended the NRC against allegations it is too closely allied with plant operators.  He cited several examples where plants were ordered to hasten work on long overdue safety measures and applauded the NRC for its “transparency and openness.”

That transparency and openness didn’t apply to the events at both Nebraska’s nuclear power plants until after our June 15 article. It took a week for the NRC to mention it.

On June 21, Jaczko reported that the NRC ordered Ft Calhoun to beef up its flood response plan last year. He is confident that “the plant is very well positioned to ride out the current extreme Missouri River flooding while keeping the public safe.”

That same statement was reissued on June 26 after the collapse of the water berm, which is clearly part of Ft Calhoun’s flood response plan, along with sandbags and a mound of earth piled around the plant.

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen  that “sandbags and nuclear power plants should not be in the same sentence.”

Keep in mind as these events unfold that nuclear power plants provide about 40 years of electricity while producing radioactive waste that lasts thousands of years. Despite this reality, the NRC is currently developing plans for safe storage of nuclear waste up to only 300 years. (See SECY-11-0029)

Chief Jaczko joins with Senator Harry Reid and President Obama in refusing to bury the nation’s nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, which has long been deemed unsafe.  Funding for the project was cut in 2010, though the issue is still mired in litigation.

Off planet is the safest repository, given the danger posed to Earth by millennia of radioactivity. Professor Benjamin Sovacool calls nuclear energy the deadliest, costliest form of energy on record, showing that, on average, there has been one nuclear accident resulting in at least $330 million in damage every year for the past 30 years.

“The meltdown of a 500-megawatt reactor located 30 miles from a city would cause the immediate death of an estimated 45,000 people, injure roughly another 70,000, and cause $17 billion in property damage.”

That’s what we have at Ft Calhoun — a 500 MW reactor 20 miles north of Omaha.

Check back with us for updates.

Why We Chose The Flathead Valley Of Montana

Last weekend, we had people visit us here in the Flathead Valley of Montana from at least eight states: Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. And since my family and I moved here last October, people have moved here from at least a dozen states. And many more are in the process of moving or trying to move.

As I was speaking with an out-of-State guest last Sunday, he asked me, what was it that made you decide to move to Montana’s Flathead Valley, as opposed to Idaho or some other State? Of course, that is a very fair question. I will attempt to answer that question in today’s column. As a Christian, I believe that “the steps of a trusting man are ordered by the Lord.” So, ultimately, I believe that the superintending hand of God guides and directs those who put their trust in Him. Accordingly, I believe that our move from Florida to Montana was directed by divine providence. What follows are the reasons, factors, and philosophies that guided us to this wonderful valley.

Cities

During the 18 months between the summer of 2008 and the end of 2009, I traveled more than 60,000 miles to virtually every area of this vast country. I traveled from coast to coast and border to border. I visited huge cities and small villages. There were only a handful of states that I did not visit during that span of time.

As I traveled the country, it became very obvious to me that not every place shares the same love for and understanding of freedom. I quickly discovered that Thomas Jefferson was right when he said that big cities were the “bane” of freedom. And there are almost no exceptions to the fact that the bigger the city is, the less freedom there is. Furthermore, it is also an accurate observation that those states that are dominated by big cities (which most states are) the more difficult it is for freedom-loving people in those states to be able to actually resist the juggernaut of oppression and socialism.

Chicago is why the people in Illinois are losing their liberties; Baltimore is why the people in Maryland are losing their liberties; Atlanta is why the people in Georgia are losing their liberties; St. Louis and Kansas City are why the people in Missouri are losing their liberties; Dallas and Houston are why the people in Texas are losing their liberties; Los Angeles and San Francisco are why the people of California are losing their liberties; Portland is why the people of Oregon are losing their liberties; Seattle is why the people of Washington State are losing their liberties; Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Orlando are why the people of Florida are losing their liberties; Birmingham is why the people of Alabama are losing their liberties, etc., etc.

In order for freedom to be defended, it will require a State, or group of states, to draw a line in the sand against this assault against our liberties, which, for the most part, is being orchestrated by Washington, D.C., and its allies in the big cities. We deduced that freedom-loving people in any State dominated by one (or a handful) of major metropolitan areas are almost helpless to defend this globalist, socialist juggernaut that is steamrolling the country.

This was a major reason that we selected Montana over Idaho (our second choice). California liberals are leaving the land of fruits and nuts like rats off a sinking ship. The economic conditions in California are driving people to surrounding states in record numbers. And many of them are flocking to the beautiful city of Boise. It’s very possible that Boise will fast become another Portland or Seattle. If this happens, the great freedom-loving State of Idaho will quickly go the way of Oregon and Washington State.

The beauty of Montana is it has no major cities that dominate the State. Missoula (home of the University of Montana) is the most liberal city in the State. The population there is a little over 90,000. Billings is the largest city in the State, and it is largely a Republican area. The population there is just over 100,000. To give readers an idea of Montana geographics: Montana is the fourth largest State in total land area (behind Alaska, Texas, and California), but the total population of the State is UNDER one million. Here’s another statistic to help readers understand what I’m saying: we live just outside the town of Kalispell. The population of Kalispell is around 20,000. And Kalispell is the seventh LARGEST city in the State! Montana’s lack of large metropolitan areas is a huge asset to the defense of liberty, in our opinion.

People

As I traveled those 60,000-plus miles, I met a huge variety of people. And there is no doubt that there are freedom-loving people scattered all over “the fruited plain.” But, that’s the problem: they are SCATTERED. I found some wonderful freedom lovers in South Carolina, New Hampshire, Eastern Tennessee (especially in the Johnson City area), Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Eastern Washington State, Utah, and the Dakotas. That is not to say that there are not thousands of freedom lovers in other states. There most certainly are!

But I also observed that people who are dependent upon the federal government are much more tolerant of the machinations of the federal government. And if you live in an area that has a large population of welfare-dependents or federal government-dependants, you are going to find yourself pretty much alone when you attempt to “rally the troops” against federal usurpation of power. (And, yes, we have some of that problem here in Montana, too.)

But during my extensive travels, I had the opportunity to come speak in Western Montana on several occasions. I spoke in the rural town of Hamilton to a crowd of around 800 enthusiastic patriots. I spoke in Missoula to several hundred. I spoke in Kalispell to a crowd of over 500 on a below-zero weeknight. When I first visited the Kalispell area, a local State legislator put out one email to some friends and supporters telling them I would be speaking to a small gathering outside of town. His email was sent less than 24 hours from the time that I would be speaking. In that short time, with only one email as publicity, there were some 100 people in attendance to hear me speak–including several pastors, businessmen, physicians, and State legislators and senators. I spoke for an hour and we had Q & A for an hour. It was amazing!

I can tell you that I could take out a full-page ad in the newspaper and spend thousands of dollars in advertising a similar event in the town where I had lived in Florida for over 35 years, and if two-dozen people showed up, it would be a miracle. That’s a difference in people!

My family and I believe that there are very traumatic, tumultuous days ahead for our country. We wanted to be with like-minded patriots who truly understand that there is a conspiracy at the highest levels of government, business, and religion to sell America to the forces of evil. We wanted to be around people who wouldn’t give us that “deer-in-the-headlights” stare if we dared to question the official story of 9/11, or act like they’re looking at a Martian when we talk about the sinister military-industrial complex, or the evilness of fighting perpetual foreign wars, or the unconstitutionality of the Patriot Act, or the evilness of sending trillions of dollars to foreign countries, or the ruination of our country via deficit spending, or the wickedness of the Federal Reserve, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. And while Montana has its share of liberals, socialists, and environmentalist wackos, we have found more freedom-minded people (on the whole) in the Flathead Valley of Montana than anywhere else we’ve been.

I’ve been sold out and betrayed by these “good Christians” who are more statists than they are Christians, who love the government more than they love God, and who will assist the PTB in putting principled freedomists in jail–or worse! I want to spend the rest of my life among people who love freedom (and understand what that means) and who are willing to fight and die to protect it! And I believe I’ve found such people in the Flathead Valley of Montana. Come visit Liberty Fellowship here in Kalispell one Sunday, and you will see what I mean!

Watch us as we livestream our Sunday messages each Sunday afternoon at 2:30pm (MDT). Go to:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?page_id=17

Or to watch my archived video messages from Liberty Fellowship, go to:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?cat=16

Mountains and Location

As I said, we were very attracted to Eastern Tennessee, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Arizona. But at the end of the day, we believed these states lack some key ingredients necessary to defending liberty. Arizona and Texas are on the southern border, which presents huge problems all their own. Oklahoma might have the best State legislators in the country right now, but the State is landlocked. The same is true for Missouri. Who around them will come to their assistance against federal encroachment?

As we analyzed the states (well, to be honest, we did not even consider Massachusetts or California. Sorry. Any state that would deny us the right to keep and bear arms was a State that we dismissed out-of-hand), we quickly eliminated all states east of the Mississippi River for geopolitical reasons: too many military installations, or too close to the belly of the beast, or too flat, or too isolated from “friendlies,” or too inhospitable to freedom principles, etc. And it wasn’t long before we felt strongly attracted to the mountain states of America’s great northwest: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Utah. Colorado was dismissed for the same reason other states were dismissed: one huge metropolitan area dominates the entire State.

During this time, I also did much searching of the scriptures relative to the subject of mountains, and I was very impressed with all the positive things God’s Word has to say about them. There is no question that this search was as much spiritual as it was geopolitical, or anything else! (I’ll let readers do their own research of the scriptures, if they are of a mind to do so.)

Weather

We determined that the cold weather climate of Montana was an asset, not a liability! Why? Because it keeps out undesirables: people who are comfort-oriented and not liberty-oriented! Let the “beautiful people” go to California or Hawaii or Florida. People who live in the mountains live here for reasons other than weather and personal comfort. And when what’s coming actually comes, we will need rugged people who mean business, not people who are looking for a sunroom!

Firearms

As I mentioned above, we refuse to live in any State that does not recognize and respect our right as free men and women to keep and bear arms. I am convinced that, humanly speaking, the only reason there is a modicum of liberty left in these States United is the presence of nearly 100 million firearms held in the private possession of the American people. As such, any State to which we would relocate had to be firearm friendly.

Montana just might be the most gun friendly State in the entire country. Consider: the average home in Montana has 27 firearms in it. 27! Compared to most places, the crime rate in this State is extremely low. And a major reason for the peace and tranquility of this State is the fact that the vast majority of Montanans are armed and prepared to use those arms in their own defense.

Even most Democrats in Montana stand steadfast in the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Example: it was the two Democrat US Senators from Montana that, in essence, killed newly elected President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder’s attempt to resurrect the Clinton “assault weapons” ban. During the US Supreme Court Heller case deliberations, it was a Democrat Montana State administration that wrote a letter to the court and to the Obama administration warning them that when Montana joined the Union in 1889, it did so under the agreement that the federal government recognized the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, and that if now the federal government was refusing to recognize the right of the people to keep and bear arms, the State of Montana would consider its contract with the federal government (i.e., its entrance into the Union) to be null and void!

In addition, open carry is lawful throughout the State of Montana. That’s how deeply the citizens of Montana regard the right to armed self-defense. Plus, Montana is in the middle of a region of states that regard the Second Amendment just as dearly.

When push comes to shove (and it will), to be among people who are willing to fight and die to preserve their right of self-defense was a major factor as our family deliberated relocation.

Conclusion

I don’t think I have to convince many readers that America cannot continue on the same path it’s on forever. There is a day of reckoning coming, and everybody who has half a brain knows it! And another thing, more and more of us are waking up to is the fact that neither major party in Washington, D.C., is going to fix it. At this point, I don’t think it can be fixed in Washington! The only hope for freedom’s survival is stalwart, independent, courageous people defending liberty one State at a time. And we (my family and I) believe that the mountain states are the last best hope for freedom in North America. And now you know a few of the reasons why we chose Montana.

I recommend that you read these two recent news items, as you contemplate your (and our country’s) future:

From the London Guardian:

http://tinyurl.com/3lmr4gh

From James Carville:

http://tinyurl.com/6gkozo2

I further recommend that readers who are contemplating relocation check out the information provided by Joel Skousen and James Wesley, Rawles. These gentlemen have some tremendous research material available on this subject.

Skousen’s web site:

http://www.joelskousen.com/

Rawles’ web site:

http://www.survivalblog.com/

Let me hasten to say that I completely understand that not every freedom-minded patriot would feel inclined to relocate to the mountain states, or anywhere else! Nor should they. God is bigger than any one State or region, and He will doubtless lead His children in different ways, to different areas, and to different works. Neither am I suggesting that those of us who relocate to the mountain states are any more spiritual or any more patriotic than those who do not. I do not believe that in any shape, form, or fashion! I am simply sharing with my readers how God led us.

But I will also add that there is no question in my mind that God is bringing a remnant to Montana. I see it up close and personal every day! The gathering of eagles has begun! What it all means is yet to be seen. From the bottom of my heart, I am as excited as a kid in a candy store just to be part of it–all the betrayals and trials associated with this move notwithstanding!

The Democrats Attack Unions Nationwide

Obvious political truths are sometimes smothered by special interests. The cover-up of the Democrats’ national anti-union agenda is possible because the truth would cause enormous disturbances for the Democratic Party, some labor leaders, liberal organizations and, consequently, the larger political system.

Here is the short list of states that have Democratic governors where labor unions are undergoing severe attacks: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, California, New York, Illinois, Washington, Hawaii, Minnesota, Maryland and New Hampshire. Other states with Democratic governors are attacking unions to a lesser degree.

The Democrats in these states have sought to distance themselves from the Republican governors of Wisconsin and Ohio, who have specifically attacked the collective bargaining rights of unions. The above Democrats all hide their anti-union attacks behind a “deep respect for collective bargaining;” akin to a thief who will steal your car but, out of respect, will not target your deceased Grandma’s diamond earrings.

For example, the anti-union Democratic governor of Connecticut is demanding $1.6 billion in cuts from state workers! The contract has not been ratified yet, but Governor Malloy referred to the agreement as: “historic because of the way we achieved it – we respected the collective bargaining process and we respected each other, negotiating in good faith, without fireworks and without anger.”

The anti-union Democratic governor of the state of Washington uses similar language:

“They [labor unions] contributed [to fixing the state budget deficit] with a salary cut; they contributed by paying more in health care. They have stepped up and said we want to be a part of the solution. I did it by going to the table, respecting their collective bargaining rights and we got the job done.”

The anti-union Democratic governor of Oregon is demanding 20 to 25 percent pay cut for state workers:

“But [says the Governor] those concessions will be made across a bargaining table through our collective bargaining process and with mutual respect.”

This garbage normally wouldn’t fool a 4th grader, but some labor leaders are playing dumb, in the hopes that the above attacks will not ruin the long-standing friendship between unions and Democrats. Of course, such hopes are founded on illusion: workers are not so blind as to not notice that the governors they campaigned for are now demanding their wages and benefits be destroyed in an unprecedented attack.

But by minimizing the Democrats role in targeting unions, some labor leaders are disarming the labor movement. On the one hand, labor leaders of both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win federations have drawn some correct conclusions from the events in Wisconsin, especially when they say that “labor is in the fight of its life” and “the corporations are out to bust unions.” On the other hand, both union federations have made excuses for the anti-union Democratic Party, enabling labor to be vulnerable on its “left” flank to the anti-union attack.

The fight against massive cuts in wages and benefits cannot be separated from the attack on collective bargaining; they are two sides of the same coin. Workers only care about collective bargaining because it enables them to improve their wages and benefits. A union that agrees to massive cuts in wages will not remain a union for long, since workers will not want to pay dues to an organization that cannot protect them. Concessionary bargaining destroys the power of a union in the same way that cancer destroys the body; pulling the plug [ending collective bargaining] comes after losing a battle with cancer.

Fighting the concessionary cancer is the essence of the problem. This is the real lesson of Wisconsin: workers want to fight back against the nationwide attack against their livelihoods, whether it be wages and benefits or collective bargaining. The AFL-CIO and Change to Win realize this to a certain degree; they are separately creating campaigns to deal with the attack, with SEIU jumping out in front with its Fight for a Fair Economy.

These union campaigns are doomed to fail if the energy generated by them is funneled into the 2012 campaign for Barack Obama.

Any successful union campaign will require that massive resources and energy be used, since the attack workers are facing is colossal. If workers are told to halt their campaigns to door knock and make phone calls for Obama, the campaign will lose all legitimacy, since Obama has established himself as a friend of Wall Street and thus no friend to workers. Voting for Democrats has a demoralizing effect on workers when the inevitable “betrayal” happens; and demoralized union members will not fight as effectively for their own pro-union campaign.

A successful union campaign will require that workers are energized about it. SEIU’s campaign focuses largely on making more connections with other labor and community groups, which is very positive. However, without waging an energetic battle to prevent state workers from making massive concessions, the campaign will fail, because workers who make massive concessions will be demoralized and not take the union campaign seriously, since it failed to address their most pressing needs. The fight to defend state workers has the potential — as Wisconsin proved — to unleash tremendous fighting energy among workers, while also uniting those in the broader community, who are eager for working people to fight back.

If labor unions continue down their current path of making huge concessions in wages and benefits while making excuses for the Democrats attacking them, the movement will wither and die.

If, on the contrary, labor unions demand that state budget deficits be fixed by taxing the rich and corporations, workers would respond enthusiastically; if public-sector unions demanded No Cuts, No
Concessions, workers would energetically join the union’s cause; if unions banded together to demand that a national jobs campaign be created by taxing the top 1 percent, a flood of energy would erupt from working people in general; if, during election time, unions joined together to run their own independent candidates with these demands, an unstoppable movement would quickly emerge.

Without using aggressive demands aimed at solving the immediate problems facing working people, a social movement cannot be created to deal with the crisis facing labor unions and working people in general. ONLY a national social movement with Wisconsin-like energy has the potential to shift the direction in which the country is going, away from the rich and corporations towards working people. Such a social movement cannot be born from soft demands, half-fought battles, or campaigning for Democrats.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org) He can be reached at

1) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/nyregion/connecticut-reaches-deal-with-unions-to-close-budget-shortfall.html?_r=2&hp

2) http://www.npr.org/2011/02/27/134103416/Governors-Meet-As-Pro-Union-Protests-Spread

3) http://www.katu.com/news/local/117565323.html

World Intel Agencies Laugh At Obama Birth Certificate

By Wayne Madsen | Opinion Maker…

From intelligence agencies around the world, the verdict on President Obama’s newly-released certificate of live birth from Hawaii is in: the certificate is a rank forgery on the same level as the Niger “yellow cake” uranium and Iraq Oil Ministry forged documents. Intelligence and law enforcement services are experts on fake documents since they have to deal with large numbers of counterfeit documents, such as birth certificates, passports, identity cards and driver’s licenses, as well as currency. Intelligence agencies are also experts at forging their own documents for their clandestine agents.

Within 24-hours of the release of the long form Certificate of Live Birth on April 27, intelligence agencies from Britain and China to Germany and Russia examined the document and concluded it was a forgery based on the fact that Barack H. Obama Sr.’s race, listed as “African,” was a monumental error, considering that not only the United States, but other English-speaking nations described Africans and those of African descent as either “Negroes” or “blacks” in 1961.

In 1961, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare classified non-Whites, who were not Asian, Eskimo, Aleut, Hawaiian, part-Hawaiian, or other “non-White,” as “Negro.” The U.S. Census Bureau also used the term “Asian and other Pacific Islander” in 1961, which included Filipino, Hawaiian, and part-Hawaiian. The Census Bureau, like HEW, used the term “Negro” to describe blacks and those of black descent. The term “mulatto,” used to describe those of mixed white and black ancestry, ceased being used by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1918.

1961 Vital Statistics of the United States;
U. S. Dept. of Health Education, and Welfare;
Public Health Service;
National Center for Health Statistics;
National Vital Statistics Division;

Race and color

Births in the United States in 1961 are classified for vital statistics into white, Negro, American Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Aleut, Eskimo, Hawaiian and Part-Hawaiian (combined), and “other nonwhite.”

The category “white” includes, in addition to persons reported as “white,” those reported as Mexican or Puerto Rican. With one exception, a reported mixture of Negro with any other race is included in the Negro group; other mixed parentage is classified according to the race of the nonwhite parent and mixtures of nonwhite races to the race of the father. The exception refers to a mixture of Hawaiian and any other race, which is classified as Part-Hawaiian. In most tables a less detailed classification of “white” and “nonwhite” is used.

In the United Kingdom, the terms “black” and “Asian” were used in the 1961 census to describe those who were “non-white British” nationals. Barack Obama, Sr., as a citizen of the British Colony of Kenya, would have known that his British racial designation was “black” in 1961. The term “African” was not used as a racial designation in either the colony of Kenya or on the British mainland. In South Africa and other British colonies in Africa, “Coloured” was used to describe those of mixed white-black descent.

The consensus among intelligence agency experts is that the Obama long form Certificate of Live Birth was hastily manufactured by an amateur who never thought of using the standard race designation of Negro in Barack Obama, Sr.’s racial designation block on the form either due to ignorance or an attempt to be politically correct in 2011 by refusing to use an accepted term from 1961.

The past decade has seen the use of crude forgeries to propel the United States into a war in Iraq (the bogus Niger “yellow cake” uranium documents) and to try to indict various U.S. and foreign politicians and businessmen (the fake Iraq Oil Ministry “Oil-for-Food” documents). The Obama forged Certificate of Live Birth represents yet another attempt to perpetuate a fraud on a grand scale.

 

Importing Disaster

Demographic Changes Mean Democrat Future…

At a gathering some years ago, I had a political conversation with a man who had recently arrived here from Denmark.  He was advocating his home country’s socialist system, which, of course, led to profound disagreement.  He was good natured and cordial, however, so the debate ended on a polite note.  Yet it also ended on an ironic one: When asked if he wanted to return home, his answer was no.

This is a common phenomenon.  We see it, for instance, in liberal northerners who move to the South for the lower taxes and cost of living and greater freedom but then continue to vote for the kind of politicians who made the Northeast a nice place to leave.  And while this befuddles many, it’s simply man’s nature.  Of course people want that which is good, such as a better lifestyle, but wanting and attaining are two different things.  Everyone wants good health, for example, but many nevertheless are too attached to unhealthful foods and practices to relinquish them.  Oh, they might move into your healthy body if they could, but they would likely do to it what a government–subsidized project does to a good neighborhood.

Now, there is a reason why I’m talking about how a change in location doesn’t equate to a change in ideology.  In the Financial Times recently, Richard McGregor reported on the latest population data, writing:

The electorate has become less white and more Hispanic more rapidly than predicted, according to the national census, two trends that will influence elections for decades.

…Mr Obama and the Democrats have long had a significant lead among minority voters, [and these demographic changes are] lifting their chances of taking states such as Nevada, Georgia and Arizona [which were] lost in 2008.

As to the rate of this change, McGregor writes:

The non-Hispanic white population dropped from 69.1 per cent in 2000 to 63.7 per cent in 2010. By contrast, the minority population, which includes African Americans and African Asians [sic], jumped from 30.9 per cent to 36.3 during the same period.

Ironically, while McGregor cites whites’ lower fertility rate, he doesn’t even once mention the 800-lb statist in the middle of the room: immigration.  I guess being flooded with unassimilable foreigners is now taken so for granted that it no longer even warrants mention.

What McGregor does do is discuss immigration’s effects, as he, quoting the National Journal, asks “whether Republicans can increase their advantage among whites enough to overcome what is likely to be a growing share of the overall vote cast by minorities [in 2012].”

The answer?

It doesn’t matter.

As long as we continue our suicidal immigration policies—where 85 percent of newcomers hail from the Third World and Asia (thanks, Ted Kennedy)—the only thing that will be in question about our descent into socialism, and perhaps beyond, is the rate.

Despite this, like McGregor, all most conservatives talk about is 2012 this and 2012 that.  Yet, what good is fighting for momentary political success if you don’t secure the cultural foundation of which it’s born?  And how can you enjoy the latter when the rate of cultural invasion greatly exceeds the rate of assimilation?

Remember that people create the government; government doesn’t create the people.  If you replace Westerners with Muslims, you no longer have Christendom (or even the shell of it we now inhabit) but Iran West.  And if you replace apple-pie Americans with I-want-your-piece-of-the-pie socialists, you no longer have the US but the USSR redux.  Oh, of course, our immigration scheme isn’t replacing us in one fell swoop; instead, it’s happening incrementally, which all the frogs in the frying pan of water don’t really seem to notice much.  But as the aforementioned census data demonstrates, those increments are becoming bigger—and more rapid.  And a death by a thousand cuts is still a death.

So we may talk about how Tea Parties are “waking people up,” but conservatives are asleep; the reality they’re ignoring is that there are fewer who can be woken up all the time.  While you’re attempting the daunting task of re-education, the statists are importing ready-made voters.  You’re fertilizing the tree in the hope it will bear more fruit.

The statists are chopping it down and are planting a new tree.

And it never seems to occur to conservatives that we should try to take the axe away.  Virtually every time someone complains about illegal migration, it’s accompanied by the disclaimer, “Now, I have no problem with legal immigration….”  In fact, this blind devotion to our colonization (I call this devotion “immigrationism”) is so great that warnings about it are usually met with crickets chirping.  So I will spell it out.

According to my calculations, on average, groups descended from the new immigrants in question vote for leftists approximately 79 percent of the time.  This means that 79 percent of 36.3 percent of the population now supports statists (on top of the whites who do), and the latter figure is up almost 6 points in just 10 years.  Soon it will be 79 percent of 40.

Then 79 percent of 50.

Then 60.

And 70, and, well, does anyone get it?

Or do I still hear crickets?

So what does this mean for the future?  Well, in the 1990s, we had Bill Clinton and many people thought it couldn’t get any worse than the Wizard of Is.  Eight years after he left office, however, we got Barack Obama, and now, once again, some think it can’t get any worse.

But they are wrong.

Just wait until Malia Obama is running.

On the right.

And who might be running to her left?  Well, since our imported socialists come not from Denmark but south of the border, that is where I’ll look for possibilities.

Perhaps he will be like the new president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, who was a Marxist guerrilla.

Maybe like Bolivia’s Evo Morales, whose Movement towards Socialism Party has given the nation the “Law of Mother Earth” legislation, which grants human rights to nature (animals, trees, insects, etc.).  This resurrection of Bolivia’s pagan past will be enforced by a bureaucracy called the “Ministry of Mother Earth.”

Or that future candidate could reflect Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, who has called for a socialist Latin America and has nationalized the assets of “uncooperative” oil companies.

He could also look like the man against whose socialist government we fought a proxy war in the 1980s, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega.

And then there is Mr. Ego and Mouth himself, Hugo Chavez.  ‘Nough said.

Of course, we could get lucky and just end up like Mexico, a kleptocratic, drug-cartel-plagued state with socialist tendencies.

And we’re well on the road to such Third Worldism.  Many conservatives are waiting for the next Ronald Reagan, but they miss the point.  The question is not “Where are all the leaders?” but something else:

Where are all the followers?

Answer: dying off and being replaced.

In 1984, Reagan enjoyed a 49-state landslide victory, losing only Walter Mondale’s home state, Minnesota, by a narrow margin.  Today, however, he not only would likely lose states such as Massachusetts, Hawaii, Vermont and New York, to name a handful, he wouldn’t even carry his home state of California.  And consider who Americans elected a mere 20 years after Reagan left office: a man who spent those 20 years sitting in a bigoted, anti-American church; a man with a 2007 voting record to the left of that of the Senate’s only avowed socialist (Bernie Sanders).  “And imagine,” some will say, “that man, Barack Obama, was elected by the same nation!”

But he wasn’t.

Just by people residing within the same borders.

And these are the consequences of not controlling the cultural elements that come into your land and, through the process the Soviets called “demoralization,” are raised up out of it.

Of course, my predictions are based on certain assumptions, not the least of which is that there will be an intact American republic to elect a leader in the future.  But with how balkanized we are—the left-right and secular-religious divides, groups such as La Raza (the Race) and MEChA and the desire to “reconquer” Ca. and the Southwest in Mexico’s name—this is not a given.  And, you know what, it might not be a bad thing.  Because what is a given is that the nation’s dissolution may represent the only chance, albeit a small one, to establish a traditionalist bastion.  Why?  Well, just remember 79 percent of 36.3, 40, 50, 60 and 70.  If traditionalists have to compete against a national tide like that, the crickets will soon be chirping over Western civilization in North America.

Pluto’s Expanding Atmosphere Confounds Researchers

By Sid Perkins | ScienceMag.org…

Recent observations of Pluto reveal that the icy orb’s atmosphere has expanded dramatically since 2000, and for the first time researchers have detected carbon monoxide. The findings may be evidence of seasonal changes in climate linked to Pluto’s most recent close approach to the sun, but scientists still aren’t sure about how those variations unfold over the course of each 248-year orbit.

Pluto’s atmosphere recently expanded dramatically and now extends almost one-quarter of the distance to Charon, its largest orbital companion (lower right). Credit: P. A. S. Cruickshank 

Pluto is the only object orbiting in the frigid realm beyond Neptune that is known to have an atmosphere. That tenuous sheath of gas was discovered in 1988 when the “dwarf planet” passed between Earth and a distant star, blocking some of the star’s light. Although telescopic observations at various wavelengths since the early 1990s have since identified several substances in Pluto’s surface ices—including nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide—only methane had been detected previously in its atmosphere.

Now scientists can add carbon monoxide to the mix. New observations of the atmosphere’s emissions at various wavelengths, particularly at the 1.3-millimeter wavelength, betray the presence of the gas for the first time. Because carbon monoxide probably could have been observed by instruments in previous studies, its newfound presence likely marks a new stage in the season-by-season evolution of Pluto’s atmosphere, the researchers suggest. Pluto was discovered only about 80 years ago—less than one-third of the time it takes to make a single orbit, notes team member Jane Greaves, an astrobiologist at the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom, so “we’re seeing everything happen for the first time.”

Pluto rendered surface (ESO/L Cal ada) 

Although methane and carbon monoxide are the only gases yet detected in Pluto’s atmosphere, scientists expect that by far the largest constituent is nitrogen, a gas that’s hard to detect due to its subdued emissions characteristics at many wavelengths, Greaves says. “It’s frustrating that we don’t know about 97% of Pluto’s atmosphere.”

The new observations also reveal that Pluto’s atmosphere is growing. Data collected around the turn of the century suggested that Pluto’s cold, diffuse atmosphere extended no more than 135 kilometers above the planet’s surface, Greaves says. But she sees hints of an atmospheric expansion in data that she and her colleagues gathered using telescopes atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea on 11 nights scattered between August 2009 and May 2010. She says that the atmosphere now reaches heights of more than 3000 kilometers—a distance almost one-quarter of the way to Charon, Pluto’s largest moon. “This is not what we expected,” Greaves says. “The atmosphere has changed so dramatically.”

Pluto travels along a highly elliptical path and last passed closest to the sun in 1989. Many planetary scientists expected the atmosphere to shrink as the icy orb began receding from the sun’s warmth. The unanticipated expansion may be related to changes in the darkness of the orb’s surface a decade or so ago, which may have caused the surface ices to absorb more solar radiation and more efficiently evaporate. Or, Greaves suggests, long-term variations in the sun’s ultraviolet output, changes linked to the roughly 11-year cycle of solar activity, may be playing a role. The team will present both findings tomorrow at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in Llandudno in the United Kingdom.

The recent changes in the atmosphere, as well as their timing, are indeed unexpected, says Peter Barnes, an astronomer at the University of Florida, Gainesville. “Pluto is obviously a much more dynamic object than anyone had expected.”

Current studies are just a taste of what’s to come when NASA’s New Horizons mission nears Pluto. The heavily instrumented craft, launched in 2006, is halfway to Pluto and should whiz by the icy orb and its orbital companions in 2015.

 

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