RED ALERT: The Total Takeover Of America Enters Its Final Phase

Full frontal assault on every aspect of freedom kicks into high gear as the elite twist the knife into the rotting carcass of the United States

The wholesale looting of America and the transfer of wealth and power over to a private banking elite who are setting up a world government, along with the complete obliteration of any remaining freedom to protest, resist, or even speak out against this agenda, is now entering its final phase as numerous different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fall into place and portray a clear picture of tyranny.

We are about to sound the death knell for the United States if every one of the following attacks on our liberty, free speech, sovereignty, and right to not be ruled over by an unelected banking dictatorship is not fiercely opposed and crushed.

RED ALERT 1

The passage of the “Climate Bill” by the House and its likely approval by the Senate represents the entrée for the complete and total subjugation of any freedoms we had left and the beginning of nightmare regulation and suffocating control over every aspect of our personal lives by millions of green stasi tasked with enforcing impossible to attain goals of 80% carbon dioxide reduction - all based on the manufactured threat of global warming.

This bill will also sink the economy and create a new great depression, effectively obliterating America’s first world status. It represents a transfer of power and wealth from both the U.S. government and the American taxpayer over to the system of world government and global regulation now being erected by means of the climate change hoax.

This is far worse than just a “new tax” as Republicans are complaining - this is the total takeover of the American economy by private banking interests through the carbon trading system.

As we have attempted to warn, the major beneficiaries of the climate bill will be the elitists who own the carbon trading systems that will be used to handle the ‘cap and trade’ program, namely Al Gore and Maurice Strong, two figures intimately involved with a long standing movement to use the theory of man made global warming as a mechanism for profit and social engineering.

We must rally now to lobby members of Congress who voted for the legislation and demand they change their vote before July 2nd. Failing that, we must demand that the Senate does not rubber stamp this nightmare legislation. Failing that, we must support and organize to craft more legislation based on the example of Arizona, who recently passed state Senate legislation refusing to comply with insane climate laws coming from the federal level.

RED ALERT 2

The seemingly endless economic “bailouts” represent the wholesale looting of the American taxpayer and the grand theft of trillions of dollars by private banking interests who refuse to even disclose where the money went.

Not satisfied with stealing tens of trillions, under the Obama administration’s new regulatory reform plan, the Federal Reserve is now trying to enrich itself with dictator powers that will give it complete control over the U.S. economy, handing them the authority to “regulate” and shut down any company whose activity it believes could threaten the economy and the markets.

We must rally now and lobby more members of Congress to support Ron Paul’s H.R. 1207 bill to audit the Federal Reserve and highlight the fact that Bernanke is spewing financial terrorism when he threatens an economic collapse should the Fed be opened up to scrutiny.

RED ALERT 3

Federal hate crimes legislation, which in reality would criminalize “thought crimes,” has cleared the House and now faces the Senate as S.909, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (officially, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act).

S.909 is a direct violation of the First Amendment. It allows the federal government to prosecute people involved in “hate speech” transmitted over television, radio, and the internet. The House version of the bill states:

“Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce [radio, TV, internet] any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (HR 1966, SEC 3, Sec. 881a)”

In other words, if a talk show host engages in “hostile” speech against a person or persons of the above mentioned federally protected group that talk show host will face federal prosecution and the prospect of a two year prison term.

The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act would similarly criminalize free speech on the Internet if it can be deemed in any way to have been “harmful” to an individual. This represents the end of political blogging and free speech on the world wide web.

If both bills are not opposed and thrown out then the First Amendment will become nothing more than a relic of a bygone age.

RED ALERT 4

The Senate bill S.787, otherwise known as the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA), would replace language in the regulatory act currently using “navigable waters” with “waters of the United States.”

What this means is that “the government would essentially be able to regulate everything from standing water in floodplains to creeks that run behind business and residences,” according to an Environmental Leader report.

This represents a complete takeover of private land and waterways by the federal government, a total assault on private property rights and a complete federalization of America’s land and water.

“In a letter to Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Barbara Boxer and ranking member James Inhofe, the American Farm Bureau Federation said that the proposed law would “extend to all water — anywhere from farm ponds, to storm water retention basins, to roadside ditches, to desert washes, to streets and gutters, even to a puddle of rainwater,” stated the letter. “For the first time in the 36-year history of the act, activities that have no impact on actual rivers and lakes would be subject to full federal regulation.”

If this bill becomes law, it will empower the federal government to seize private property on a whim, using similar powers that Communist China employed during Chairman Mao’s “great leap forward,” where landowners had their property violently confiscated and stolen by the government.

If this bill passes the Senate, private property rights in the United States are effectively null and void and the federal government would legally have the power to bulldoze families from their homes as routinely happens in Communist China.

RED ALERT 5

Amongst the myriad of assaults on the Second Amendment rights of American citizens undertaken by the Obama administration during the course of its first year in office, the one that stands out as the most alarming is the attempt to ban people who appear on the terrorist watch list from buying guns.

But isn’t stopping terrorists from buying guns surely a sensible measure to take? The problem is that the terrorist watch list, sometimes called the no fly list, is not a list of likely terrorists, it is a sprawling database of of innocent people that contains the names of over one million Americans. This is a rise of 32% since 2007 alone.

Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes, reverends, the former assistant attorney general, toddlers and children, the ACLU administrator, people with difficult names and all American names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become caught in the vast tentacle of this list, documents the ACLU.

Moreover, once a person is included on the terrorist watch list it is virtually impossible to get off it.

The terrorist watch list is an ever-expanding tool with which to deny Americans basic rights as well as to strip them completely of the Fourth Amendment.

Now it is being used to prevent law-abiding citizens from purchasing firearms. Legislation sponsored by the The Government Accountability Office seeks to “close the gap” and prevent victims of the terrorist watch list from being able to purchase firearms.

This represents a new end run around the Second Amendment and a concerted effort on behalf of the federal government to classify millions of innocent Americans as potential terrorists, thus stripping them of their Constitutional right to own firearms.

RED ALERT 6

Our right to protest against any of the egregious assaults on the Constitution that are listed above is itself being removed by new law enforcement and Pentagon training manuals and guidelines that define protesting as domestic terrorism.

Current Department of Defense anti-terrorism training course material states that the exercise of First Amendment rights in the U.S. constitutes terrorist activity.

Over the last few years we have documented countless examples of security assessment reports from the likes of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, as well as police training manuals, which state that anti-war protesters, gun owners, veterans, Ron Paul supporters and those who merely cite the Constitution should be equated with extremists and domestic terrorists.

The fact that the government is now treating people who merely criticize its conduct as domestic terrorists is the clearest signal possible that the United States has entered a period in history similar to Germany in the early 1930’s and that it can only be a matter of time before the right “emergency” provides the justification for dissidents to be targeted for round-ups and mass imprisonment.

No one can claim now that this is merely a paranoid delusion - the government itself is training its law enforcement and military arms that protesters and people who use their First Amendment rights are domestic terrorists. The last time this happened was under King George shortly before the American Revolution.

ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT

If we don’t stand up in unison and exercise our right to protest and free speech now more than ever before, while pointing out that the real terrorists are those who would seek to destroy the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, then we may find ourselves doing our protesting behind the barbed wires and the concrete blocks of an internment camp.

The hour is late, the clock stands at one minute to midnight, and the federal government, through all the examples documented above, is on the verge of implementing nothing less than a total environmental, financial and societal dictatorship and killing what once was the United States of America.

Almost identical programs of total enslavement are also being pushed through in almost every other major western country at the same time.

If we don’t stop obsessing about the minutia of life and actually concentrate on the imminent destruction of the very principles of our livelihoods, the bedrock freedoms that allow us to operate in relative comfort on a daily basis and be reasonably secure in our own homes, being able to pay our bills, put food on the table, earn money, and air our grievances when government threatens to impinge on those basic freedoms, then there will be nothing left but a rotten hollow carcass and a memory of what America once strived to be - land of the free, home of the brave - not land of the thief, home of the slave.

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S 787 Near Complete Takeover of Private Land by out of control Government

IT IS TIME TO REALLY, REALLY PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT DISREGARD CONGRESS HAS FOR OUR PROPERTY RIGHTS AND LET THEM KNOW WHAT WE THINK!

You need to read this! This will be a near complete takeover of private land in the US by our out of control Government.

If you think food is high now or energy, just wait this this kicks in… We are getting change alright!

- Bob Parker
I’LL KEEP MY GUNS, FREEDOM, & MONEY…
YOU CAN KEEP THE “CHANGE!”

Message from R.J. Smith regarding:

S.787 Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA)

Hope many of you had a chance to watch democracy in action. In a mere one hour and seventeen minutes the EPW sailed through the CWRA S.787 (actually a slightly modified alternative amendment worked out yesterday by Baucus-Klobuchar-Boxer.) The Baucus “compromise” was largely window dressing, maintaining the existing CWA exemptions for some agricultural activities in the new CWRA. This was to lure farmers into supporting the CWRA. At best it might have gained them one farm organization.

S. 787 as amended passed and was reported favorably to the Senate. The vote was 12-7 on straight party lines.

Senators Inhofe, Vitter and Barrasso were heroic in their efforts to defend private property rights and states’ water rights and prevent most of the American land and water from effectively being Federalized/nationalized.

Inhofe made an excellent opening statement and subsequent comments. Said the bill was not fixable, but that there was no way to stop it in committee. He vowed a very robust effort to defeat it on the floor. Said it is a dagger aimed right at the heart of rural America.

Vitter noted this bill is a radical change in the CWA moving from regulation of navigable waters to regulation of all waters of the US. He submitted two amendments.

One to allow the president to override the CWRA in the case of natural disasters such as hurricanes, so that recovery efforts would not be delayed or halted. Boxer said public health would be compromised if exemptions were provided. Carper said Vitter’s amendment would undermine the intent of the bill.

Boxer and Carper argued they weren’t expanding any government authority — simply returning to the authority of the CWA prior to the SWANCC and Rapanos decisions, i.e., restoring the authority of the CWA. (Boxer repeated that theme over and over.)

Vitter responded that it restores nothing that was ever in the CWA — instead it returns to the vastly expansive definition of navigable which federal bureaucrats had achieved in order to usurp powers not grated to the Federal government (such as the migratory bird rule, the “glancing goose test”), which was why the Supreme Court had to step in and point out that navigable meant navigable.

It was defeated on a voice vote.

Vitter offered another amendment to include language that the use of mosquito control pesticides would never be required to obtain permits under the CWRA. Worried about this preventing control of diseases such as West Nile. Said FIFRA already adequately regulates their use. There have been movements to require such permits and there are currently cases in court. Boxer responded that Obama has issued a two-year stay or moratorium on such regulations — so nothing to worry about. Vitter insisted that it was necessary to resolve the uncertainty and a temporary stay was insufficient.

Defeated on a voice vote and a roll call vote.

Barrasso then offered a series of amendments, basically aimed at restricting the vast new “wetlands” listed as waters of the US.

First was to prohibit the Federal government from taking all streams and intermittent streams within a state. Said there was no authority for the US to seize jurisdiction over state streams. “No one in WDC has the right to seize and control our streams.” And they were already adequately protected under state laws. And that streams that only flowed when storm water runoff filled them would be placed under control of Washington. Defeated on voice vote.

Next amendment to prevent Federal government from taking all mudflats in the 50 states. Boxer objected to saying the environmentalists were special interest groups, they were just trying to protect our beautiful places. Defeated on voice vote and on a roll call vote by 13-6. I believe it was Voinovich who crossed. (It was difficult to hear the clerk announce the roll call vote and the votes themselves.)

Next amendment to prevent US takeover of all prairie potholes in the states, with vast numbers being on private farmland and ranchland. Voice vote sounded close so Boxer asked for a roll call vote. 13-6 against.

Next Barrasso amendment to prohibit Federal takeover of all wet meadows. Defeated on voice vote.

Next amendment to prevent EPA takeover of all natural ponds. It nationalizes all natural ponds on private lands. Defeated by voice vote.

Boxer asked Barrasso if he had any more amendments. He responded yes. She replied “Boy you are a glutton for punishment.” (So much for respect for property rights and the Fifth Amendment.)

Next amendment. To protect and exempt agriculture under the CWRA. Boxer said this would create an enormous loophole for pollution by famers. Defeated on voice vote.

Next amendment prohibits controls on animal farming: cattle, sheep, goats, fish, crawfish, etc. Defeated on voice vote.

Last Barrasso amendment required that specific language be inserted in the bill to clearly exempt ground water from the regulatory authority of the CWRA. Said while the findings suggest that ground water is not included, that was insufficient. Need unambiguous language. Boxer replied that doing so would weaken the bill! Defeated on voice vote and then on a roll call vote. Inhofe then asked that his name also be attached to all of the amendments.

Then Boxer called for the vote on S.787 as amended and it very quickly passed 12-7.

Now we wait to see what happens in the Senate and what Rep. Oberstar does in the House.

Senator Inhofe said in committee that there is no chance of the CWRA passing on the Senate floor. And in a post-mark-up press release reiterated that “The CWRA faces certain demise if it ever reaches the Senate floor.”

Also Senator Crapo placed a hold on the bill.

Let’s hope that Senator Inhofe’s optimism is well founded.

Meanwhile it is important that anyone who has examples of CWA horror stories of landowners — or any projects — tied up in years of costly red tape and permits, staggering court costs, and fines or imprisonment for carrying out legitimate activities on private land — please submit them to us. Especially if you have documentation such as newspaper stories.

The supporters of the CWRA are arguing that it is simply an attempt to return to the innocuous CWA pre-SWANCC, when the law did nothing but make our waters safe for drinking, swimming and fishing.

We need additional stories similar to those of the imprisonment of Ocie Mills and his son in FL for 21 months; John Pozsgai in PA for 18 months as part of a three-year sentence; Bill Ellen in MD for 6 months; etc., to demonstrate the vast overreach of the CWA and precisely why the Supreme Court had to step in.

And that returning to those unlimited powers — and in fact giving the Feds ever broader authority to regulate anything and everything would be a disaster.

Remember the case of the Gaston Roberge and his wife in Maine. They had owned a 2.8 acre commercial lot in the town of Old Orchard Beach for 20 years. Purchased originally to pay for their retirement.

In the mid-1970s they had allowed the town to deposit excavated dirt from a sewer line project on one half acre. When they attempted to sell the lot in 1986 the Corps told them it was a wetlands and they had violated the CWA by illegally dumping fill on it and were order to remove it.

They spent 8 years fighting through the green tape and with mounting frustration and costs finally went to court. In the discovery process they located an internal Corps memo recommending “Roberge would be a good one to squash and set an example” — in order to create a climate of fear among landowners and developers. Subsequently the Corps dropped the charges and paid some compensation to Roberge — but nowhere near enough to make him whole.

That attitude of the Federal bureaucrats of squashing people to set an example demonstrates the CWA had long ago been converted from water protection to an exercise in naked political power.

If you have such horror stories please send them to rsmith@nationalcenter.org. Or mail them c/o NCPPR, Capitol Court, N.E., Suite 200, Washington, D.C 20002.

And for information on the CWRA, many documents and papers and links to other sites visit the National Center’s CWRA webpage: http://www.nationalcenter.org/CWRA.html.

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Pro Establishment Buchanan: Climate Bill Is Transfer Of Wealth To World Government

Former presidential advisor slams fearmongering that led to passage of nightmare legislation

During an appearance on MSNBC, political commentator Pat Buchanan correctly defined the “Climate Bill” for what it really is, not just a new tax on the American people, but a complete transfer of power and wealth to a global government that is using the manufactured fear of global warming to grease the skids for total domination.

Referring to the passage of the climate bill and global warming in general, Buchanan said that the legislation was passed through the use of fear and that, “More and more scientists are coming forward to say this is a hoax and a scam which is designed to transfer wealth and power from the private sector to the government sector and from the government of the United States to a world government. Which is what we’re going to get in Copenhagen when we get this Kyoto two agreement.”

Buchanan labeled the legislation a “tax bill” that would raise the prices of utilities for every American, hammer the middle class and working class, “for a danger that we don’t even know is really there”.

The former senior advisor to three U.S. presidents accused the Obama administration of hyping the apocalyptic myth that the oceans will rise and that cities will be underwater in order to ram through the legislation.

Establishment left-wing blogs like Crooks and Liars and Media Matters are carrying the video of Buchanan’s remarks with little or no accompanying commentary, as if Buchanan’s comments alone are enough to discredit his position.

Those who act as shills for the climate change hoax may believe that anyone who dares challenge the authodoxy of the church of global warming is automatically a heretic and that no evidence whatsoever needs to even be presented to counter their sacrilege, but here in the real world we prefer to stick to the facts.

Empirical satellite data shows that mean global temperatures are the same that they were 30 years ago and that global sea ice is also at similar levels. Following a spike in global temperatures at the end of the last century that coincided with the sun undergoing its most active period in recent times, the planet has now cooled to 1979 levels. At the end of summer last year, despite hysterical predictions that the North Pole would be free of ice for the first time in history, Arctic sea ice had actually expanded by 30 per cent, an area the size of Germany.

Coinciding with expanding ice sheets, there has been no rise in sea levels for the past three years. Tropical storms and extreme weather events attributed to global warming like hurricanes and typhoons are at a record low.

The United Nations’s IPCC, the heavily politicized organization that is often erroneously cited as an independent scientific body by climate change promoters, was last year caught citing fake data to make the case that global warming is accelerating, a shocking example of mass public deception.

“This was startling,” reported the London Telegraph. “Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China’s official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its “worst snowstorm ever”. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.”

It soon came to light that the data produced by NASA to make the claim, and in particular temperature records covering large areas of Russia, was merely carried over from the previous month. NASA had used temperature records from the naturally hotter month of September and claimed they represented temperature figures for October.

As David Deming points out in his excellent article today, temperature data collected by weather stations is being artificially impacted by measuring systems placed nearby to sources of heat. This is why claims that global temperatures are still rising are completely contradicted by real world evidence of falling temperatures and what some scientists are warning is the beginning of a new ice age.

“Why do people think the planet is warming?,” writes Deming. “One reason is that the temperature data from weather stations appear to be hopelessly contaminated by urban heat effects. A survey of the 1221 temperature stations in the US by meteorologist Anthony Watts and his colleagues is now more than 80 percent complete. The magnitude of putative global warming over the last 150 years is about 0.7 °C. But only 9 percent of meteorological stations in the US are likely to have temperature errors lower than 1 °C. More than two-thirds of temperature sensors used to estimate global warming are located near artificial heating sources such as air conditioning vents, asphalt paving, or buildings. These sources are likely to introduce artifacts greater than 2 °C into the temperature record.”

“Every year in the US, more than forty thousand people are killed in traffic accidents. But not one single person has ever been killed by global warming. The number of species that have gone extinct from global warming is exactly zero. Both the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets are stable. The polar bear population is increasing. There has been no increase in infectious disease that can be attributed to climate change. We are not currently experiencing more floods, droughts, or forest fires,” he concludes.

As we have attempted to warn, the major beneficiaries of the climate bill will be the elitists who own the carbon trading systems that will be used to handle the ‘cap and trade’ program, namely Al Gore and Maurice Strong, two figures intimately involved with a long standing movement to use the theory of man made global warming as a mechanism for profit and social engineering.

Gore’s investment company, Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offset opportunities, is the largest shareholder of The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX).

While Maurice Strong, who is regularly credited as founding father of the modern environmental movement, serves on the board of directors of CCX. Strong was a leading initiate of the Earth Summit in the early 90s, where the theory of global warming caused by CO2 generated by human activity was most notably advanced.

Watch the clip of Buchanan’s comments below.

Bernanke Threatens America With Economic Collapse If Fed Audited

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke unleashed an alarming veiled threat of financial terrorism when he was questioned by Rep. Duncan on Thursday about his response to the fact that a majority of Congress co-sponsoring Ron Paul’s H.R. 1207 bill to audit the Federal Reserve.

Bernanke clearly regarded the bill’s intent as hostile to the institution he represents:

“My concern about the legislation is that if the GAO is auditing not only the operational aspects of the programs and the details of the programs but making judgments about our policy decisions would effectively be a takeover of policy by the Congress and a repudiation of the Federal Reserve would be highly destructive to the stability of the financial system, the Dollar and our national economic situation.”

The brunt of Bernanke’s statement is as crystal clear as a threat from a common street thug– back off from the Fed, or the economy gets it.

The chairman clearly implies that any attempt to restore monetary powers constitutionally granted to the Congress would be seen as a “takeover” and that the defensive and “repudiated” Fed would respond destructively.

Of course Congress’ constitutional power over money is enumerated in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution:

The Congress shall have power… To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

Bernanke’s open use of financial terrorism in the face of Congress’ blatant Constitutional authority is absurd and dispicable.

Greenspan, Bernanke and other Fed-related cronies have already bad-mouthed the Dollar and signaled it’s decline as the world’s currency. So what else is new?

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Feds To Get Power To Target Websites Making “False Claims”

New FTC guidelines would allow government to scrutinize content of websites, “patrol what bloggers say and do”

The Federal Reserve refuses to disclose where trillions of dollars in bailout money went and yet the FTC is more concerned about snooping into the financial affairs of bloggers who make a few bucks off affiliate relationships, according to new guidelines set to be introduced later this year that would give the government a foot in the door to regulate and shut down blogs for making “false claims”.

“New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers — as well as the companies that compensate them — for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest,” states an Associated Press report.

Furious that struggling families are supplementing their income by having housewives write blogs about cooking, or individuals posting political opinions and funding their operation by carrying affiliate links to Amazon books, the new FTC regulations would ensure that “Any type of blog could be scrutinized, not just ones that specialize in reviews,” according to the report.

The proviso that “any type of blog could be scrutinized” frames this assault on free speech in a wider context that just individuals making claims about products advertised on their websites.

The proposed guidelines (PDF) state that “deceptive speech is not protected by the First Amendment,” and that “The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that the government can restrict, or even ban, such speech.” Of course, the issue of whether such speech is deceptive will be decided by the government itself.

The definition of “false claims” is so loose that it could hand the feds the power to shut down any website on a whim based on the flimsiest of pretexts. The AP report notes that the new guidelines would create a system to “patrol systematically what bloggers say and do online”.

As the Cryptogon website points out, in reality this has little to do with the FTC’s concern for fair business practices and everything to do with the government getting a foot in the door for their overarching agenda to regulate and control blogs and free speech on the Internet.

“What has happened is that bloggers have blown the support columns out from underneath traditional media and the people who run the show don’t like that.”

“The fact that some of us are able to survive by maintaining blogs must have come as an incredible shock to fat bastards in boardrooms across the land. That we are not “regulated” is unthinkable in the Soviet hive mind that governs the political economy of the United States.”

This is all about creating a chilling atmosphere and preventing people from creating their own websites by establishing a mountain of red tape and bureaucracy around the currently simple process of writing and maintaining a blog.

The ultimate endgame is to mimic the Chinese Internet system of total government regulation and censorship via the implementation of a registration process whereby every blogger will be assigned a number and given permission to blog by the government. If the blogger expresses an opinion deemed unsavory by the authorities then their registration credentials will be terminated and their ability to login to their own blog will be removed.

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Proposed Law Allows AG Holder to Block Gun Sales to Over a Million Americans

New Jersey Democrat senator Frank R. Lautenberg plans to introduce legislation designed to cancel the Second Amend rights of well over a million U.S. citizens this coming week, according to the New York Times. “Mr. Lautenberg plans to introduce legislation on Monday that would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales to people on terror watch lists,” the newspaper reports.

Lautenberg is a notorious gun-grabber. He introduced a similar measure in 2007.

Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has promised to deny Americans
their Second Amendment right if they end up on the government’s
error-prone terrorist watch list.
Lautenberg’s action comes in the wake of statistics compiled by the Government Accountability Office drawing attention to an “odd divergence” in federal law that allows erroneously designated terrorists to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms but prevents them from getting on a plane or getting a visa.

The Inspector General of the Justice Department reported that the Terrorist Screening Center — the FBI-administered organization that consolidates terrorist watch list information in the United States — had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 and that the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month, according to the ACLU. In March of this year the list hit the one million mark, a 32% increase from 2007.

The actual number may far exceed one million entries. The FBI says the number of names on its terrorist watch list is classified. In addition to the National Counterterrorism Center watch list, the FBI keeps a list of persons said to be domestic terrorists, according to ABC News.

Lautenberg said he was frustrated by an FBI refusal to disclose to investigators details and specific cases of gun purchases beyond the aggregate data included in the GAO report, the Times notes.


Earlier this year, a Department of Homeland Security report on “rightwing extremism” designated advocates of the Second Amendment, pro-life and anti-illegal immigration activists, and returning veterans as “terrorists.” It is not known if members of these groups are on the so-called terrorist watch list, although it is a fair assumption to conclude they are.

On May 15, 2007, then Illinois representative Rahm Emanuel, speaking at the annual Stand Up For a Safe America event sponsored by the gun-grabbing Brady Center, said that if your name appears on the bloated and error-ridden terror watch list your Second Amendment right should be denied (Emanuel’s comments are included in the Alex Jones clip below).

Obama chief of staff Emanuel’s promise may soon carry the force of law if Lautenberg’s proposed law makes it through Congress. According to the New York Times, however, the Justice Department is “noncommittal” about whether it would develop guidelines if Congress moved to give the attorney general discretion to block gun sales.

Lautenberg’s proposed bill is one of several now working their way through the labyrinth of Congress. On April 29, with little fanfare or corporate media coverage, H.R. 2159 was introduced and referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. The bill would “increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of a firearm or the issuance of firearms or explosives licenses to a known or suspected dangerous terrorist.” Another bill, H.R. 1022, sponsored by New York Democrat Carolyn McCarthy and 67 co-sponsors, would provide AG Holder with the ability to ban guns at will.

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, told WorldNetDaily that H.R. 2159 will be used in conjunction with the DHS “Rightwing Extremism” report. “By those standards, I’m one of [DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano’s terrorists,” Pratt said. “This bill would enable the attorney general to put all of the people who voted against Obama on no-gun lists, because according to the DHS, they’re all potential terrorists.”

Lautenberg’s proposed bill would go one step further and allow Holder to deny the Second Amendment to officially designated enemies of the state.



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The Four Reasons the Mainstream Media Is Worthless

There are four reasons that the mainstream media is worthless.

1. Self-Censorship by Journalists

Initially, there is tremendous self-censorship by journalists.

For example, several months after 9/11, famed news anchor Dan Rather told the BBC that American reporters were practicing “a form of self-censorship”:

“there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around peoples’ necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions…. And again, I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism.”What we are talking about here - whether one wants to recognise it or not, or call it by its proper name or not - is a form of self-censorship.”

Keith Olbermann agreed that there is self-censorship in the American media, and that:

“You can rock the boat, but you can never say that the entire ocean is in trouble …. You cannot say: By the way, there’s something wrong with our …. system”.

As former Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin wrote in 2006:

Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do. . . .

There’s the intense pressure to maintain access to insider sources, even as those sources become ridiculously unrevealing and oversensitive. There’s the fear of being labeled partisan if one’s bullshit-calling isn’t meted out in precisely equal increments along the political spectrum.

If mainstream-media political journalists don’t start calling bullshit more often, then we do risk losing our primacy — if not to the comedians then to the bloggers.

I still believe that no one is fundamentally more capable of first-rate bullshit-calling than a well-informed beat reporter - whatever their beat. We just need to get the editors, or the corporate culture, or the self-censorship – or whatever it is – out of the way.

And Air Force Colonel and key Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski wrote:

I have been told by reporters that they will not report their own insights or contrary evaluations of the official 9/11 story, because to question the government story about 9/11 is to question the very foundations of our entire modern belief system regarding our government, our country, and our way of life. To be charged with questioning these foundations is far more serious than being labeled a disgruntled conspiracy nut or anti-government traitor, or even being sidelined or marginalized within an academic, government service, or literary career. To question the official 9/11 story is simply and fundamentally revolutionary. In this way, of course, questioning the official story is also simply and fundamentally American.

(page 26).

2. Censorship by Higher-Ups

If journalists do want to speak out about an issue, they also are subject to tremendous pressure by their editors or producers to kill the story.

The Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, Seymour Hersh, said:

“All of the institutions we thought would protect us — particularly the press, but also the military, the bureaucracy, the Congress — they have failed. The courts . . . the jury’s not in yet on the courts. So all the things that we expect would normally carry us through didn’t. The biggest failure, I would argue, is the press, because that’s the most glaring….

Q: What can be done to fix the (media) situation?

[Long pause] You’d have to fire or execute ninety percent of the editors and executives. You’d actually have to start promoting people from the newsrooms to be editors who you didn’t think you could control. And they’re not going to do that.”

In fact many journalists are warning that the true story is not being reported. See this announcement and this talk.

And a series of interviews with award-winning journalists also documents censorship of certain stories by media editors and owners (and see these samples).

There are many reasons for censorship by media higher-ups.

One is money.

The media has a strong monetary interest to avoid controversial topics in general. It has always been true that advertisers discourage stories which challenge corporate power. Indeed, a 2003 survey reveals that 35% of reporters and news executives themselves admitted that journalists avoid newsworthy stories if “the story would be embarrassing or damaging to the financial interests of a news organization’s owners or parent company.”

In addition, the government has allowed tremendous consolidation in ownership of the airwaves during the past decade. The large media players stand to gain billions of dollars in profits if the Obama administration continues to allow monopoly ownership of the airwaves by a handful of players. The media giants know who butters their bread. So there is a spoken or tacit agreement: if the media cover the administration in a favorable light, the MSM will continue to be the receiver of the government’s goodies.

3. Drumming Up Support for War

In addition, the owners of American media companies have long actively played a part in drumming up support for war.

It is painfully obvious that the large news outlets studiously avoided any real criticism of the government’s claims in the run up to the Iraq war. It is painfully obvious that the large American media companies acted as lapdogs and stenographers for the government’s war agenda.

Veteran reporter Bill Moyers criticized the corporate media for parroting the obviously false link between 9/11 and Iraq (and the false claims that Iraq possessed WMDs) which the administration made in the run up to the Iraq war, and concluded that the false information was not challenged because:

“the [mainstream] media had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked.”

And as NBC News’ David Gregory (later promoted to host Meet the Press) said:

“I think there are a lot of critics who think that . . . . if we did not stand up [in the run-up to the war] and say ‘this is bogus, and you’re a liar, and why are you doing this,’ that we didn’t do our job. I respectfully disagree. It’s not our role”

But this is nothing new. In fact, the large media companies have drummed up support for all previous wars.

For example, Hearst helped drum up support for the Spanish-American War.

And an official summary of America’s overthrow of the democratically-elected president of Iran in the 1950’s states, “In cooperation with the Department of State, CIA had several articles planted in major American newspapers and magazines which, when reproduced in Iran, had the desired psychological effect in Iran and contributed to the war of nerves against Mossadeq.” (page x)

The mainstream media also may have played footsie with the U.S. government right before Pearl Harbor. Specifically, a highly-praised historian (Bob Stineet) argues that the Army’s Chief of Staff informed the Washington bureau chiefs of the major newspapers and magazines of the impending Pearl Harbor attack BEFORE IT OCCURRED, and swore them to an oath of secrecy, which the media honored (page 361) .

And the military-media alliance has continued without a break (as a highly-respected journalist says, “viewers may be taken aback to see the grotesque extent to which US presidents and American news media have jointly shouldered key propaganda chores for war launches during the last five decades.”)

As the mainstream British paper, the Independent, writes:

There is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it. The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which now afflicts the production of our news.

The article in the Independent discusses the use of “black propaganda” by the U.S. government, which is then parroted by the media without analysis; for example, the government forged a letter from al Zarqawi to the “inner circle” of al-Qa’ida’s leadership, urging them to accept that the best way to beat US forces in Iraq was effectively to start a civil war, which was then publicized without question by the media..

So why has the American press has consistenly served the elites in disseminating their false justifications for war?

One of of the reasons is because the large media companies are owned by those who support the militarist agenda or even directly profit from war and terror (for example, NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the largest defense contractors in the world — which directly profits from war, terrorism and chaos).

Another seems to be an unspoken rule that the media will not criticize the government’s imperial war agenda.

And the media support isn’t just for war: it is also for various other shenanigans by the powerful. For example, a BBC documentarys documents:

There was “a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by a group of right-wing American businessmen . . . . The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.”

Moreover, “the tycoons told the general who they asked to carry out the coup that the American people would accept the new government because they controlled all the newspapers.“ See also this book.

Have you ever heard of this scheme before? It was certainly a very large one. And if the conspirators controlled the newspapers then, how much worse is it today with media consolidation?

4. Censorship by the Government

Finally, as if the media’s own interest in promoting war is not strong enough, the government has exerted tremendous pressure on the media to report things a certain way. Indeed, at times the government has thrown media owners and reporters in jail if they’ve been too critical. The media companies have felt great pressure from the government to kill any real questioning of the endless wars.

For example, Dan Rather said, regarding American media, “What you have is a miniature version of what you have in totalitarian states”.

Tom Brokaw said “all wars are based on propaganda.
And the head of CNN said:

“there was ‘almost a patriotism police’ after 9/11 and when the network showed [things critical of the administration's policies] it would get phone calls from advertisers and the administration and “big people in corporations were calling up and saying, ‘You’re being anti-American here.’”

Indeed, former military analyst and famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said that the government has ordered the media not to cover 9/11:

Ellsberg seemed hardly surprised that today’s American mainstream broadcast media has so far failed to take [former FBI translator and 9/11 whistleblower Sibel] Edmonds up on her offer, despite the blockbuster nature of her allegations [which Ellsberg calls "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers"].As Edmonds has also alluded, Ellsberg pointed to the New York Times, who “sat on the NSA spying story for over a year” when they “could have put it out before the 2004 election, which might have changed the outcome.”

“There will be phone calls going out to the media saying ‘don’t even think of touching it, you will be prosecuted for violating national security,’” he told us.

* * *

“I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to ‘How do we deal with Sibel?’” contends Ellsberg. “The first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn’t get into the media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go to to the government and they would be told ‘don’t touch this . . . .‘”

Of course, if the stick approach doesn’t work, the government can always just pay off reporters to spread disinformation. Indeed, an expert on propaganda testified under oath during trial that the CIA employs THOUSANDS of reporters and OWNS its own media organizations (the expert has an impressive background).

And famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein says the CIA has already bought and paid for many successful journalists. See also this New York Times piece, this essay by the Independent, this speech by one of the premier writers on journalism, and this and this roundup.

Indeed, in the final analysis, the main reason today that the media giants will not cover the real stories or question the government’s actions or policies in any meaningful way is that we live in a country that is not all that free (see point number 6). Mussolini said that fascism is the blending of the government and corporate interests, and the American government and mainstream media have in fact been blended together to an unprecedented degree.

See this book and the following 5-part interview for further information on 9/11 and the media: (Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 )

Can We Win the Battle Against Censorship?

We cannot just leave governance to our “leaders”, as “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance” (Jefferson). Similarly, we cannot leave news to the corporate media. We need to “be the media” ourselves.

“To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men.”
- Abraham Lincoln

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.“Powerlessness and silence go together. We…should use our privileged positions not as a shelter from the world’s reality, but as a platform from which to speak. A voice is a gift. It should be cherished and used.”
– Margaret Atwood

“There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at points in history and creating a power that [nothing] cannot suppress.”
- Howard Zinn (historian)

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent”
- Thomas Jefferson


Source

Leave Iran Alone!

Statement before the US House of Representatives opposing resolution on Iran, June 19, 2009

I rise in reluctant opposition to H Res 560, which condemns the Iranian government for its recent actions during the unrest in that country. While I never condone violence, much less the violence that governments are only too willing to mete out to their own citizens, I am always very cautious about “condemning” the actions of governments overseas. As an elected member of the United States House of Representatives, I have always questioned our constitutional authority to sit in judgment of the actions of foreign governments of which we are not representatives. I have always hesitated when my colleagues rush to pronounce final judgment on events thousands of miles away about which we know very little. And we know very little beyond limited press reports about what is happening in Iran.

Of course I do not support attempts by foreign governments to suppress the democratic aspirations of their people, but when is the last time we condemned Saudi Arabia or Egypt or the many other countries where unlike in Iran there is no opportunity to exercise any substantial vote on political leadership? It seems our criticism is selective and applied when there are political points to be made. I have admired President Obama’s cautious approach to the situation in Iran and I would have preferred that we in the House had acted similarly.

I adhere to the foreign policy of our Founders, who advised that we not interfere in the internal affairs of countries overseas. I believe that is the best policy for the United States, for our national security and for our prosperity. I urge my colleagues to reject this and all similar meddling resolutions.

Source

More Powerful Fed? Many In Congress Don't Seem to Like It

Don’t fight the Fed.

The old Wall Street axiom isn't playing well in Washington as Congress takes its first shots at the Obama administration's package of sweeping reform proposals for the financial sector.

Though various aspects of the plan released Wednesday have drawn criticism, the role of the Fed has seen some of the most strident opposition, from blatant skepticism to diplomatic doubting.

Legislators from both parties have not only questioned the Fed’s past performance and challenged its future capabilities, but have also expressed concern that the central bank will be politicized more than it already is and turned into a bailout instrument of the executive branch.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., for instance, told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during a Senate Banking Committee hearing Thursday that the White House proposals showed a "grossly inflated view of the Fed’s expertise."

The administration proposals would make the central bank part of a systemic risk council as well as the front-line regulator of too-big-to-fail firms, whose potential failure could threaten the financial system. The Fed would also have the authority to determine if such a threat existed and recommend closing the firm. (The FDIC, however, would execute the so-called "unwinding" of the business.)

Banking committee chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., compared administration's treatment of the Fed to giving a new car to a teenage driver who'd just wrecked one.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., added that "the Fed has failed miserably" as a bank holding regulator, reflecting a fairly common bipartisan view.

Such criticism of the Fed is not entirely new, but in the current environment it does suggest that the White House has perhaps underestimated Congress’s concern about the central bank’s close cooperation with the Treasury Department during the crisis and the extraordinary use of somewhat fuzzy emergency powers in using its balance sheet to provide what some consider an alternative form of fiscal stimulus.

That’s sparked renewed debate about the Fed being politicized and a re-examination of its independence.

The potential misuse of the new combination of powers is particularly worrisome to both Democrats and Republicans alike.

Concerns about the executive branch over-extending its powers were first provoked last fall when then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke sought $700 billion in emergency funding — for the now legendary TARP — with virtually no strings attached.

Though Congress was able to impose some checks and balances as well as some oversight provisions into the final legislation, critics say both the Bush and Obama administrations have nevertheless at times used the TARP as a bailout slush fund.

The program's Congressional Oversight Panel and the General Accounting Office have repeatedly faulted its operation and transparency.

During that time the Fed has provided financial assistance of one kind of another to troubled financial giants such as AIG, Citigroup, and Bank of America, as part of a historic leveraging of its balance sheet to the tune of $2.2 trillion.

Critics say that goes well beyond the original intention of section 13.3 of its charter, conceived almost a century ago, covering "unusual and exigent circumstances."

For that reason and others Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., who voted against the TARP, wants to make sure the new powers proposed for the Fed are not "used as a cover for a permanent bailout."

The problem for some legislators is that what they doubt the Fed would ever use its proposed resolution authority and would instead prop up the companies with taxpayer money because of what they perceive as an inherent conflict of interest.

"If a company you have regulated is in trouble you could admit the mistake...or you can try to hide, conceal and delay the problem," says Sherman, who has also been critical of the Fed's use of its balance sheet. "How do you do that? First you avoid using resolution authority. Second you give them a transfusion [of money]."

Republican lawmakers are equally concerned and have specifically stripped the Fed of some powers in their regulatory reform proposals. Under that plan, all Fed lending would have to be transferred to the Treasury’s balance sheet at a certain point and the central bank would also be subject to regular audits by the GAO.

"What you don't want to do is end up with another bailout czar," Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., one of the plan’s authors, recently told CNBC.com.

The Obama plan does require that the Fed seek "prior written approval" from the Treasury Secretary, but given recent events, that’s not enough for some lawmakers. Sherman, for one, would like to see the proposal amended to require presidential approval.

Analysts say Congressional skeptics are right to be concerned.

"What the Fed brings to the [resolution] power is fiscal power; it has money to spend," says Mark Calabria, a former senior staffer on the GOP side of the Senate Banking Committee, who recently moved to the Cato Institute. "If you want to have a pot of money to put into a failed institution and you can’t go to Congress for it, then the fed is the only one who has it."

In trying to reassure lawmakers, Geithner told banking committee members that the new Fed powers were "quite modest" and "carefully designed."

The resolution authority being proposed for too-big-to-fail firms is similar to what already exists with the FDIC and commercial banks, so in some ways it is not a stretch.

"We are not proposing to sustain some indefinite capacity to do what Congress authorized on a temporary basis, appropriately so, under the TARP," added Geithner, noting that the program is set to expire Dec. 31.

Though many say the Fed has acted responsibility, there's still lingering concern about that unchecked power, which some say circumvents the Constitution in that it designates spending authority solely to Congress.

Some on Capitol Hill, however, say the Fed debate has been blown out of proportion in the current environment and may be tinged with a bit of political grandstanding.

Congress has struggled with reconciling the Fed's critical but awkward role for years and isn't finished yet.

"We will look into the 13.3 issue next year once we've completed legislation," said one senior Congressional staffer, who added "you will see things [oversight provisions]" much like it happened with the TARP legislation.

Yet, given the sweeping nature of the reform proposals at a time when the financial crisis continues to linger in the nation's rear-view mirror, there’s an unusually high level of wariness in Congress.

There's even been some question about the role of Lawrence Summer, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, who along with Geithner is thought to have spearheaded the regulatory overhaul package and has been rumored to be the leading candidate to succeed Bernanke at the Fed, should he not be renominated.

"I think it would be good for us to know, as we move through, that none of the folks involved in helping create these new powers under the Fed are potential Fed chairmen," Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told Geithner — not once but twice — in the Senate hearing. "I think that would be good to know, but I'll leave that to you all, I think."

"No, I don't think that would be appropriate nor do I think it would be necessary," Geithner responded.

Source

Federal Reserve To Be Given Sweeping New Powers

Bankers get what they lobbied for, media reports total lack of transparency as “regulation”

The privately owned and run Federal Reserve is to be handed sweeping new powers under Obama administration proposals in a deal that will please bankers who lobbied for more Fed “oversight” of their activities.

The new rules would see the Fed given the authority to “regulate” any company whose activity it believes could threaten the economy and the markets.

“The final plan due to be released on Wednesday — which originally aimed to streamline and consolidate banking and securities regulation in one or two agencies — now is expected to sidestep most jurisdictional disputes and simply impose across the board standards to be applied by all financial regulators, according to administration and industry sources, ” reports the Washington Times.

In other words, the Fed, which is already totally unaccountable to Congress, is to be placed in complete control of the entirety of the US financial system, to do as it wishes without repercussion.

As the LA Times reports, the government, in conjunction with the private Federal Reserve, would effectively have the clout to simply seize and take over any company it desires.

In order to appease those opposed to the plan, such as Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, the Obama administration has agreed to create a “watchdog” council of regulators to “advise the Fed”.

However, as former chairman Alan Greenspan has most recently pointed out, given that the Fed is an independent entity, accountable to no one, it will have the power to simply reject and overrule any advice it is offered.

The mainstream media, for the most part, has reported the oversight plan as a much needed regulatory crackdown on those responsible for the financial crisis. However, the details of the plan constitute almost exactly what lobbyists for leading bankers have been pushing for over the past few weeks.

“All derivatives contracts will be subject to regulation and all derivatives dealers subject to supervision,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said at a Time Warner Economic Summit in New York on Monday, also noting “When you have too many people involved, there’s an accountability problem.”

As we reported earlier this month, heads of nine of the biggest banks in the derivatives market, including JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America, secretly lobbied to keep derivatives under Federal Reserve “oversight” and away from real scrutiny.

As reported by The New York Times, they all met secretly to discuss how to use the lax regulation and institutional secrecy of the NY Fed to shield their credit-default swaps business from prying eyes and attempts at regulation.

The banks formed a lobby– the CDS Dealers Consortium– only weeks after accepting TARP funds in October 2008 to protect its interests. Heading this effort was Edward Rosen, who previously helped fend off derivatives regulation. Rosen wrote and circulated a “confidential memo” to the Treasury Department and leaders on Capital Hill, making their agenda clear, the Times reported.

Rosen and his backers propose that derivatives be “traded in privately managed clearinghouses, with less disclosure,” according to the Times. The clearinghouse of choice for the big banks in Rosen’s CDS Consortium is ICE U.S. Trust, which is in turned regulated only by the Federal Reserve system.

So the upshot of all this is that the bankers get what they want, are allowed to carry on as they were, while at the same time the fractional reserve banking system and the federal government are both greatly expanded and empowered, and the compliant corporate media ludicrously tells us that a strict crackdown is underway.

This kind of activity is exactly what some leading representatives have warned of in recent weeks.

A fortnight ago, the Democratic Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Collin Peterson, announced to the press that “The banks run the place,” in reference to the US Congress.

While Peterson is also pushing for legislation to regulate derivatives trading, his proposed bill would limit derivatives trading to public exchanges, rather than private clearinghouses, which are managed by banks.

Peterson’s warning mirrors that of Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who just a few weeks before uttered the same rarely acknowledged truth.

“And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place,” Durbin said.

How simultaneously dangerous and ridiculous it is that the Federal Reserve is given more authority to oversee the economy. This is the same privately run entity that refused to comply with congressional demands for transparency and disclose the destination of trillions dollars in bailout funds. It is the same privately owned entity that has withheld internal memos, in spite of freedom of information act requests. It is the same private entity, run for the most part by European banking elites, that has arrogantly refused to tell Senators and Congressmen which banks were in receipt of government loans.

The government is ready to hand over everything to a monolithic private corporation and a gaggle of bastard banker offspring, that have gobbled up an amount close to the entire GDP of the country in taxpayers’ money and figuratively stuck the middle finger up regarding questions over where that money has gone.

It can be no more apparent than at this time that legislation to audit, repeal and eventually end the Federal Reserve, must be supported by Americans if they want to see their children and their grandchildren grow up without indentured debt and entrenched servitude to a fascistic marriage of private banks and hugely inflated government.

Source

State Run News: ABC Turns Programming Over To Government

Corporate news giant imitates Communist China, Soviet Union and North Korea, blocks dissenting voices to promote Obama health care agenda

Completely dispensing with any notion of independence or impartiality, ABC News is set to mimic the likes of Communist China and North Korea by completely turning its news coverage over to the government and excluding any dissenting opinions to promote President Obama’s health care agenda.

The night of Wednesday June 24th will officially herald the open commencement of state run news, imitating similar systems in historical dictatorships such as the Soviet Union, where Pravda was the official propaganda organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from 1912 to 1991.

In China, the vast majority of news outlets are completely owned and controlled by the Communist Party. Negative viewpoints about government policy are blocked and news developments that could reflect badly on China are ignored and censored. An almost identical system of media also exists in Stalinist North Korea.

Still, at least the Chinese and the North Koreans don’t try to hide the fact that the press is state run, unlike ABC News, owned by the corporate giant Walt Disney Company, which masquerades as an independent news outlet yet in little over a week will completely turn over its news coverage to act as enthusiastic propagandist for the government’s health care “reform” program.

The coverage will be in addition to ABC News’ regular programming, which is already vehemently pushing the government’s agenda on this issue.

“On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care — a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!,” according to the Drudge Report.

“ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.”

“The network plans a primetime special — ‘Prescription for America’ — originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.”

In a complaint to ABC News, Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Ken McKay called the decision “astonishing,” noting that ABC had rejected a request that dissenting voices from all sides of the political spectrum be represented.

ABC News’ announcement that they will openly turn over their news coverage to the government while censoring dissenting opinions goes one step further than the Bush administration, who at least made the effort to keep their fake news scandal a secret until it was exposed in 2005.

Under Bush, the government produced fake news packages and distributed them to local news networks around the country, most of which aired them without question. The fake news packages were also broadcast on a national level by CNN. Reporters and pundits were also paid off by the government to promote specific policies.

Source

Dr Ron Paul On Reforming Health Care

The Congressman appeared on CNN yesterday to discuss health care proposals.

DoD Training Manual Describes Protest As “Low-Level Terrorism”

Pentagon training course says engaging in First Amendment is terrorist activity

Current Department of Defense anti-terrorism training course material states that the exercise of First Amendment rights in the U.S. constitutes terrorist activity.

The ACLU has written to the DoD regarding its Antiterrorism and Force Protection Annual Refresher Training Course, which advises personnel that political protest amounts to “low-level terrorism”.

“It has come to our attention that the Department of Defense’s Annual Level I Antiterrorism (AT) Training for 2009 misinforms Department of Defense (DoD) personnel that certain First Amendment-protected activity may amount to “low level terrorism” The ACLU writes.

“We are writing to ask that you take immediate steps to remedy this situation.” the letter to acting Under-Secretary Gail McGinn states.

A PDF of the ACLU’s letter also contains print outs of the relevant sections of the course material.

The training introduction reads:

“Anti-terrorism (AT) and Force Protection (FP) are two facets of the Department of Defense (DoD) Mission Assurance Program. It is DoD policy, as found in DoD I 2000.16, that the DoD Components and the DoD elements and personnel shall be protected from terrorist acts through a high priority, comprehensive, AT program. The DoD’s AT program shall be all encompassing using an integrated systems approach.”

The first question of the Terrorism Threat Factors, “Knowledge Check 1″ section reads:

Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?

Select the correct answer and then click Check Your Answer.

Attacking the Pentagon
IEDs
Hate crimes against racial groups
Protests

In order to proceed, users must give the “correct” answer as “Protests”.

According to the document, all DoD personnel are required to complete the course on a yearly basis.

The ACLU points out that although in and of itself the classification of protest as terrorism is deeply disturbing, it is even more alarming when viewed in the context of the Pentagon’s long term efforts to crack down on organized dissent.

The surveillance and pre-emptive arrest of protesters, on charges of “domestic terrorism”, at last year’s RNC by the FBI is also cited by the ACLU.

Other precedents that the ACLU neglected to mention in it’s letter include, most recently, the fact that the FBI were spying on “Tea Party” protesters nationwide.

One week prior to those revelations, we also reported that the Maryland National Guard was put on alert in anticipation of the nationwide protests, while a Homeland Security spokesman refused to deny that protesters would be under surveillance from the DHS.

The Maryland National Guard issued a Force Protection Advisory on April 11 which warned the National Guard to be on alert during the Tea Party protests because Guardsmen and Guard facilities might become “targets of opportunity.” The contact point for the document was listed as the Antiterrorism Program Coordinator.

The advisory was almost exactly the same as a United States Army Reserve Command Force Protection Advisory that was issued last November before the nationwide End the Fed protests, warning that protesters were congregating across the country to demonstrate against the private Federal Reserve.

Over the last few years we have seen countless examples of security assessment reports from the likes of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, as well as police training manuals, which state that anti-war protesters, gun owners, veterans, Ron Paul supporters and those who merely cite the Constitution should be equated with extremists.

The continued surveillance of protesters, in addition to the ongoing agenda to equate dissent with terrorism, highlights the fact that the architecture of the police state, which was massively expanded under George W. Bush, has not been dismantled or relaxed by an Obama administration that promised “change,”. If anything, it has only grown bigger.

The Obama administration’s announcement that the illegal warrantless surveillance of American citizens, a program initiated under Bush, will continue and in fact intensify under Obama, is another shining example of the fact that - no matter who is in power and no matter the political persuasion of those being watched - all Americans who have the temerity to exercise constitutional rights are considered dangerous and worthy of being targeted by the federal government with surveillance tools supposedly introduced to fight terrorists.

Source

Audit The Fed Bill Already Neutered In The Senate?

HR 1207’s Senate version, S. 896, has been severely watered down, according to Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. Grassley named the top Republican on the Banking Committee, Richard Shelby, Sen. from Alabama, as the man pouring the water.

As reported by the Huffington Post, handwritten notes in the margins of S. 896 include the amendment “with respect to a single and specific partnership or corporation”. This qualification severely limits the “scope of the oversight.”

Grassley wanted the Federal Reserve audit to include all of the ‘Feds Emergency Actions under 13(3).’ However, as limited as that type of audit would be, this amended version of HR 1207 won’t even have that level of authority. Grassley states “it does not threaten monetary policy independence.”

S. 896 appears to have a very narrow scope or focus, which could narrow even further in conference committee negotiations. Currently the limited scope is listed here:

1. Actions related to Bear Stearns and its acquisition by JP Morgan Chase, including:

a. Loan To Facilitate the Acquisition of The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. by JP Morgan Chase & Co. (Maiden Lane I)

b. Bridge Loan to The Bear Stearns Companies Inc. Through JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A.

2. Bank of America — Authorization to Provide Residual Financing to Bank of America

Corporation Relating to a Designated Asset Pool (taken in conjunction with FDIC and

Treasury)

3. Citigroup — Authorization to Provide Residual Financing to Citigroup, Inc., for a

Designated Asset Pool (taken in conjunction with FDIC and Treasury)

4. Various actions to stabilize American International Group (AIG), including a revolving

line of credit provided by the Federal Reserve as well as several credit facilities (listed

below). AIG has also received equity from Treasury, through the TARP, which would also

be captured in amendment #1020.

a. Secured Credit Facility Authorized for American International Group, Inc., on September

16, 2008

b. Restructuring of the Government’s Financial Support to American International Group,

Inc., on November 10, 2008 (Maiden Lane II and Maiden Lane III)

c. Restructuring of the Government’s Financial Support to American International Group,

Inc., on March 2, 2009

5. TALF — finally, amendment #1020 would expand GAO’s authority to oversee the TARP,

including the joint Federal Reserve-Treasury Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility

(TALF)

*Neither* Amendment #1021 nor #1020 would include short-term liquidity facilities:

1. Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility

2. (AMLF)

3. Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF)

4. Money Market Investor Funding Facility (MMIFF)

5. Primary Dealer Credit Facility and Other Credit for Broker-Dealers (PDCF)

6. Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF)

View photos (5) of the Handwritten notes on S. 896 Here.

Source