We blundered over swine flu, admit health chiefs

Global health chiefs have finally admitted that they may have overreacted to the swine flu 'pandemic' - landing governments with millions of unused vaccines.

The World Health Organisation has conceded that it may have been guilty of failing to communicate 'uncertainties' about how virulent the new virus was.

Critics say the UN agency was too quick to designate the influenza a pandemic in June after it spread from Mexico.

Keiji Fukuda, its top influenza expert, yesterday admitted a six-phase system for declaring this was confusing and the bug was not actually as deadly as bird flu.

'The reality is there is a huge amount of uncertainty (in a pandemic),' he said.

'I think we did not convey the uncertainty. That was interpreted by many as a non-transparent process.'

He admitted the scale may be flawed as it takes into account the geographic spread of a virus but not its severity.

'Confusion about phases and level of severity remains a very vexing issue,' added Mr Fukuda.

He was addressing a meeting of experts reviewing the WHO's handling of the first influenza pandemic in 40 years.

Last week it emerged Britain wasted up to £300million on vaccines that will never be used.

H1N1 has killed 17,770 people in 213 countries, the WHO says.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1265530/We-blundered-swine-flu-admit-health-chiefs.html#ixzz0l3grZYLx


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H1N1 Spread Linked to Seasonal Flu Shots

The four new studies conducted by Canadian researchers conclude that the traditional seasonal flu vaccine seems to have boosted the risk of infection with pandemic H1N1 swine flu by almost double.

In one study, the researchers revealed to use ongoing sentinel monitoring system in order to assess the frequency of prior vaccination with the seasonal flu vaccine in people suffering from H1N1 swine flu in 2009 compared to people without swine flu.

The study discovered that seasonal flu vaccination was linked with a 68 percent boosted risk of falling in prey to swine flu.

“I do think that they did the best they could with the data they had”, said Dr. Mark Loeb, an infectious diseases expert at McMaster University in Hamilton who was not part of the study and who seems to be sceptical about the study’s conclusion.

The studies, published April 6 in the online journal PLoS Medicine, attributed to the combined of over 40 researchers including many of Canada’s top influenza experts. The data is reported to be fetched from four studies that draw cases from British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.

However, the studies failed to show the presence of a true cause-and-effect link between seasonal flu vaccination and subsequent swine flu illness, or it is due to presence of a common factor among the people in the study.


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Healthcare overhaul won't stop premium increases

Public outrage over double-digit rate hikes for health insurance may have helped push President Obama's healthcare overhaul across the finish line, but the new law does not give regulators the power to block similar increases in the future.

And now, with some major companies already moving to boost premiums and others poised to follow suit, millions of Americans may feel an unexpected jolt in the pocketbook.

Although Democrats promised greater consumer protection, the overhaul does not give the federal government broad regulatory power to prevent increases.

Many state governments -- which traditionally had responsibility for regulating insurance companies -- also do not have such authority. And several that do are now being sued by insurance companies.

"It is a very big loophole in health reform," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said. Feinstein and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) are pushing legislation to expand federal and state authority to prevent insurance companies from boosting rates excessively.

At least in the short term, regulators will be able to do little more than require insurers to publicly explain why they want to raise rates. Consumer advocates think that will not be an effective deterrent against premium increases such as the 39% hike that Anthem Blue Cross sent some California customers last year.

"The irony here is that it was the Anthem rate increase that breathed new life into the healthcare bill," said Jerry Flanagan, medical policy director of Consumer Watchdog, a longtime supporter of tougher premium regulation. "But there is nothing in this bill to guarantee that it doesn't happen again."

The lack of muscle is stoking concerns that more rate jumps -- and an angry backlash from ratepayers -- could undermine support for implementing the healthcare overhaul.

Insurance industry officials say that talk of more regulation is misguided and have urged federal officials to focus instead on containing rising medical costs, which help drive up premiums.

"Politicians are much more comfortable looking at healthcare premiums," said Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's Washington-based lobbying arm.

Ignagni, as well as some independent healthcare experts, said policymakers should look at ways to control what hospitals and other providers charge, although few elected officials have shown much appetite for doing so.

Obama endorsed Feinstein's insurance proposal this year, including it in the healthcare blueprint he unveiled in February as Democrats were struggling to revive their proposals. But congressional rules prevented Democratic leaders from including the rate control provision in the final healthcare package.

Many consumer advocates think this enhanced regulation -- known in the industry as "prior approval" authority -- is the only real way to protect ratepayers from insurers, particularly for-profit companies under pressure to generate returns that satisfy Wall Street investors.

Prior approval requires insurers to submit proposed rate increases to regulators, who can then comb through companies' financial and actuarial data to see if the proposals are justified.

Insurers cannot raise premiums without explicit permission from the regulator.

Some states have given prior approval authority to their insurance commissions and have used it to force down premiums.

In New York, the state insurance department reduced nearly a quarter of the proposed premium increases between 1990 and 1995, according to a recent department analysis.

More recently, state regulators in Kansas successfully pushed Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas to reduce a proposed premium increase for some of its elderly customers, according to state Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger.

California, which does not have the power to block health plan increases, has been using similar authority to control property and auto insurance premiums for more than 20 years, said Dwight M. Jaffee, a real estate and finance professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. "It has been very successful," said Jaffee, who studied the state's experience.

Health insurance, however, is more complicated than property and auto coverage. And even the most active state regulators typically cannot investigate every proposed change in every segment of the insurance market.

In Maine, where an aggressive Bureau of Insurance reviewed 186 rate filings in 2009, regulators focus on the so-called individual market, where people buy coverage if it is not available through their jobs.

Maine is battling Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which regulators last year blocked from raising premiums an average of 18.5% on its individual customers.

Many states do far less, often requiring insurers only to file their proposed rate increases with the state insurance commissioner before passing them along to consumers. New York switched to that approach in 1996, a move that state regulators say resulted in "excessive rate increases."

A handful of states, such as Missouri, do not even require insurers to publicly disclose rate hikes.

The new federal healthcare law would step up oversight of health insurers in states with such limited regulation.

The bill directs the secretary of Health and Human Services to work with state regulators to develop a process for reviewing proposed premium increases to determine if they are unreasonable.

Insurers that propose such hikes would be required to post justifications on their websites.

For the first time, all insurance companies would have to dedicate at least 75% of their premiums to paying medical claims; this would reduce the proportion of companies' revenue that could go to administrative expenses, such as executive salaries and stockholder dividends. Some analysts think that requirement could restrain premium growth.

"These provisions are powerful forces that will help end sky-high premium hikes," said Nick Papas, a spokesman for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

On Monday, the department announced it would accelerate the development of new regulations.

But more intensive oversight would not begin until 2014, when states set up new regulated insurance markets, or exchanges, where consumers who do not get insurance at work would shop for coverage.

The healthcare bill allows regulators to ban insurers from the exchanges if their rates are deemed unjustified.

Even some regulators wary of greater Washington control over state affairs say that more federal protections may be needed before then.

"Some consistency there is probably warranted," said Praeger, a Republican and former head of the National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners. Praeger criticized Obama's original proposal to give the federal government authority to block rate increases.

But she said last week that the insurance commissioners association was now talking with the administration about how the federal government could set a stronger minimum national standard for regulating medical insurance companies.

That could encourage more states to require insurers to get state approval before raising premiums.

On Capitol Hill, Feinstein said she was looking at ways to move her premium regulation bill forward, perhaps by attaching it to other legislation with bipartisan support.

Stepping up regulation doesn't promise to be easy. Insurance companies in Maine and Massachusetts have sued state regulators who tried to block rate increases.


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Key Fed, Treasury Actions Shrouded in Government Secrecy

Some crucial financial functions by the Treasury and Federal Reserve reportedly have been shrouded in secrecy by the U.S. government.

The prices of gold and silver have been allegedly suppressed by the Fed through JPMorgan Chase and HSBC, according to a London whistleblower.

Meanwhile, an analysis by a primary dealer in the U.S. Treasuries market shows that domestic banks could account for a large increase in direct bidders for government debt.

The reports come in the wake of economist Robert Reich's claim that the secretiveness of the Federal Reserve means it has no place in a democracy.

"The Fed is not part of the legislative branch," Reich recently wrote in his blog. "Its secret deals … violate the democratic process, if not the Constitution itself."

JPMorgan Chase and HSBC, which do the Federal Reserve's bidding in the precious-metals markets, reportedly have long been the government's lead actors in keeping down the prices of gold and silver.

Andrew Maguire explained to the New York Post JPMorgan's role in the metals pits in both London and here, and how they can generate a profit either way the market moves.

"JPMorgan acts as an agent for the Federal Reserve; they act to halt the rise of gold and silver against the U.S. dollar. JPMorgan is insulated from potential losses [on their short positions] by the Fed and/or the US taxpayer," Maguire, a 40-year veteran of the metal pits, told the Post.

"HSBC conducts an ongoing manipulative concentrated naked short position in gold. Silver is much easier to manipulate due to its much smaller [market] size," said Maguire, a former Goldman Sachs trader working at the London Bullion Market Association.

Maguire was scheduled to testify last week before the Commodities Futures Trade Commission, which is looking into the activities of large banks in the metals market, but was knocked off the list at the last moment.

However, "No one at JPMorgan is familiar with Andrew Maguire," said Brian Marchiony, a company spokesman. HSBC declined to comment.

Meanwhile, domestic banks could account for a large increase in direct bidders for government debt, Reuters reported.

The presence of direct bidders, one of three main categories of participants at Treasury auctions, has increased during recent auctions of securities.

Primary dealers, the banks and investment firms authorized to deal directly with the government and help the Federal Reserve carry out monetary policy, have fretted over the unpredictability of the direct bid, as well as the paucity of information on the identity of the bidders.

A report from Nomura Securities analyzing the Treasury Department's investor allotments and auction data theorizes that domestic banks account for part of the increase in direct bidders.

"With banks still reluctant to lend and the saving rate on the rise, bank assets have been shifting from loans to securities, benefiting from the steep curve," wrote George Goncalves, a fixed income strategist at Nomura.

Treasury data show banks increased their purchases of longer-dated Treasuries just as the percentage of direct bidders began to increase.

The department, which is aware of the identities of bidders but doesn't disseminate the information, welcomes the added participation in auctions as the government continues to issue new debt at a breakneck pace.

"At the March 10-year (note) auction, banks purchased $2.6 billion 10s (the highest on record)," Goncalves wrote. "Meanwhile banks purchased over $3 billion in (30-year bonds) in March too. This is noteworthy as in the past banks rarely went beyond the five-year point in this sort of size."

Nomura's analysis follows a hypothesis by Barclays Capital earlier this year that an increase in the direct bid was driven mainly by domestic money managers and mutual funds attempting to keep their purchases secret from the rest of Wall Street

For his part, Reich says that “Thomas Jefferson put a stop to Alexander Hamilton’s idea of a powerful central bank out of fear it would be unaccountable to the public. The Fed has just proven Jefferson’s point.”

As long as it's merely setting interest rates, Fed secrecy and political independence can be justified, says Reich, who served in three national administrations and was a secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton.

But once it departs from that role and begins putting billions of dollars of taxpayer money at risk — choosing winners and losers in the capitalist system — its legitimacy is questionable, says Reich, now a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

The Fed now admits it bailed out Bear Stearns — taking on tens of billions of dollars of the bank's bad loans — in order to smooth Bear Stearns' takeover by JPMorgan Chase, Reich notes.

“The secret Fed bailout came months before Congress authorized the government to spend up to $700 billion of taxpayer dollars bailing out the banks, even months before Lehman Brothers collapsed,” he points out.

“The Fed also took on billions of dollars worth of AIG securities, also before the official government-sanctioned bailout.”


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Don’t Be Fooled: Republicans Love Government Enforced Healthcare

Forget all the self-serving diatribes by Republicans about Obamacare. They are for government enforced health care. “Republicans were for President Barack Obama’s requirement that Americans get health insurance before they were against it,” the Associated Press reports this morning.

Republicans trumpeted the “obligation” (at gunpoint) that Americans buy health care insurance from large monopolistic corporations for decades, long before Hill and Bill attempted to foist their version on the plebs.

Republican statists view health care at gunpoint as a “free-market route to guarantee coverage for all Americans — the answer to liberal ambitions for a government-run entitlement like Medicare.”

Of course Republicans don’t support Medicare. It does not fit the narrow confines of their partisan political ideology. Medicare was included as part of the Social Security Act of 1965, signed into law by president Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat.

Republicans are miffed because Obama and the Democrats co-opted their original concept, minus a mechanism they proposed for controlling costs. Republicans are not opposed to totalitarian care, they are simply opposed to the Democrat version.

If you believe Republicans are serious about controlling costs, look no further than Bush’s $3 trillion budget proposal in 2008 (a record at the time). When Bush took office, the national debt was $5.73 trillion. When he left, it was $10.7 trillion.

Mitt Romney — who was billed as the man who would save us from Obama and the “socialists” during the selection, er election — forced the residents of Massachusetts to buy health insurance. Lord Romney said government mandated health care is “a personal responsibility principle.”

Government invariably demands “personal responsibility” on the part of the plebs while it engages in corruption, starts wars under false pretense and kills millions of people, and enslaves future generations to bankster debt.

Romney’s health care at gunpoint was backed by Scott Brown, the Republican that had Democrats and the usual suspects at MSNBC and CNN chattering about a fascist rightwing takeover of Congress.

Brown replaced the late Democrat Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. It was said his appointment would almost certainly lead to the collapse of Obamacare. Brown says his opposition to the new shakedown for large insurance corporations is over tax increases, Medicare cuts and federal “over-reach” — because Democrats are doing the reaching — on a matter that should be left up to states. It was a different story when his buddy Mitt was forcing gunpoint healthcare down the throats of Massachusettans.

In the case of states’ rights, Brown might want to look at the example set by the former leader of his party, George W. Bush. The Bush administration violated the Tenth Amendment by repeatedly meddling in the states in regard to medical marijuana, the federalization of education, and state control of the National Guard.

“The idea of an individual mandate as an alternative to single-payer was a Republican idea,” health economist Mark Pauly of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School told the Associated Press. In 1991, Pauly published a paper explaining how a “mandate” (government coercion) could be combined with tax credits to force the commoners into compliance. Pauly’s paper was embraced by the George H.W. Bush administration.

Republicans like to tell you they are opposed to taxation. Instead, they use taxes as a carrot and a stick to force government mandates down your throat.

Nixon before Bush backed the idea of a mandate that employers provide insurance. Even the Heritage Foundation back in the day supported this government imposed “individual requirement.”

Later today in Nevada, the Republican Tea Party will gather and demand the ouster of Democrat Sen. Harry Reid and the Democrats for passing Obamacare. The event will be led by the darling of the establishment Tea Party, former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin. On Friday, Tea Party Sarah threw her support behind the establishment stalwart John McCain.

McCain’s latest authoritarian outrage is the “Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010″ that, if passed, would turn the country into a military dictatorship. It was introduced with the participation of the notorious warmonger Joe Lieberman. Apparently the legislation is backed by Tea Party Sarah.

The Nevada event was organized by the Tea Party Express, an organization in bed with Our Country Deserves Better PAC, which is closely affiliated with the Republican-affiliated consulting firm Russo Marsh & Associates. In other words, the event in Nevada will be strictly an establishment Republican affair. The objective is not to get rid of government enforced health care, but to get of rid of Reid and put in a Republican. It is another example of the false right-left paradigm in action.

In January, the Tea Party Express supported Scott Brown. As noted above, Brown supported Romney’s version of Obamacare in Massachusetts.

Republicans will shamelessly exploit the compromised Tea Party and the efforts of the states to repeal Obamacare in order to win seats in Congress during the mid-term elections. If they manage to overturn the Democrat majority in Congress, they will not work to repeal Obamacare. They may nibble around the edges of the bill but will leave it largely intact. Republicans have no problem with the government forcing you to shell over your money to large insurance companies. Republicans are enforcers for the global elite and transnational corporations.

Both Republicans and Democrats need to be trounced in November. Obamacare needs to be challenged on Constitutional grounds. The establishment controlled Supreme Court, however, cannot be counted on to repeal the bill. It may take civil disobedience on the part of millions of Americans before this bill ends up in the dust bin of history where it belongs.


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Bill Murphy of GATA Reveals Whistle-Blower in Gold Price Suppression

Bill Murphy, Chairman of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee delivers his testimony about a whistle-blower in the gold price suppression scheme to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on 3/25/10.

Whistleblower Speaks Out On J. P. Morgan’s Market Manipulation

Do we have another Harry Markopolos here, describing in detail the manipulation of the silver markets by J.P. Morgan to the CFTC? How does this square with the testimony today from the CFTC Commissioners, who seem to indicate that the markets are functioning extremely well, and that investor can have full confidence in them?

I am led to understand that Mr. McGuire had offered to testify before the CFTC today, and that he was refused admittance. I do not know him, or the position he is in within the trading community. I cannot therefore assess his credibility or the validity of any evidence which he may present or possess. But I have the feeling that nothing will come of this.

Remember, there was no action on the Madoff scandal until AFTER his fraud collapsed, and the government was forced to acknowledge Markopolos’ existence. He had been ignored and dismissed by the bureaucrats at the SEC for years because of Madoff’s power and standing with the trading establishment. And of course by those who had an interest in hiding Madoff’s scheme, if nothing else, to promote ‘confidence’ in the markets.

What seems particularly twisted about this is that JPM is the custodian of the largest silver ETF (SLV). Is anyone auditing that ETF, and watching any conflicts of interest and self-trading? Multiple counterparty claims on the same bullion?

If you ever wanted to see a good reason for the Volcker rule, this is it. These jokers are one of the US’ largest banks, with trillions of dollars in unaudited derivatives exposure, and they seem to be engaging in trading practices like Enron did before it collapsed.


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The McCain-Lieberman Police State Act

The McCain-Lieberman Police State Act - by Stephen Lendman

If enacted, it will advance what this writer addressed in a December 2007 article titled, "Police State America - A Look Back and Ahead," covering numerous Bush administration laws, Executive Orders (EOs), National and Homeland Security Presidential Directives, edicts, and various illegal acts targeting designated domestic and foreign adversaries, dissent, civil liberties, human rights, and other democratic freedoms.

Straightaway post-9/11, George Bush signed a secret finding empowering the CIA to "Capture, Kill or Interrogate Al-Qaeda Leaders." He also authorized establishing a covert global gulag to detain and interrogate them without guidelines on proper treatment.

Other presidential directives ordered abductions, torture and indefinite detentions. In November 2001, Military Order Number 1 empowered the Executive to capture, kidnap or otherwise arrest non-citizens (and later citizens) anywhere in the world for any reason and hold them indefinitely without charge, evidence, due process or judicial fairness protections of law.

The 2006 Military Commissions Act authorized torture and sweeping unconstitutional powers to detain, interrogate and prosecute alleged suspects and collaborators (including US citizens), hold them (without evidence) indefinitely in military prisons, and deny them habeas and other legal protections.

Section 1031 of the FY 2010 Defense Authorization Act contained the 2009 Military Commissions Act, listing changes that include discarding the phrase "unlawful enemy combatant" for "unprivileged enemy belligerent." More on that below.

Seamlessly, Obama continues Bush administration practices and added others, including:

-- greater than ever surveillance;

-- ruthless political persecutions;

-- preventively detaining individuals ordered released - "who cannot be prosecuted," he said, "yet who pose a clear danger to the American people;"

-- a secret "hit list" authorizing CIA and Pentagon operatives to kill US citizens abroad based on unsubstantiated evidence they're involved in alleged plots against America or US interests;

-- weaker whisleblower protections;

-- state secrets privilege to block lawsuits by victims of rendition, torture, abuse or warrantless wiretapping; and

-- other anti-democratic measures.

Now, the March 4 S. 3081: Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010 to interrogate and detain "enemy belligerents who commit hostile acts against the United States to establish certain limitations on the prosecution of such belligerents, and for other purposes."

On the Senate floor, John McCain explained it, saying "we still don't have a clear mechanism, legal structure, and implementing policy for dealing with terrorists who we capture in the (alleged) act of trying to bring about attacks on the United States and our national security interests at home and abroad."

These suspects have no right to "Miranda warnings and defense lawyers. Instead, the priority and focus must be on isolating and neutralizing the immediate threat and collecting intelligence to prevent" any attacks.

"I (also) believe we must establish a system for long-term detention of terrorists who are too dangerous to release, but who cannot be tried in a civilian court" because no evidence exists to convict them.

At a March 4 press conference, Senator Joe Lieberman told reporters:

"These are not common criminals. They are war criminals. Anyone we capture in this war should be treated as a prisoner of war, held by the military, interrogated for information that will protect Americans and help us win this war and then where appropriate, tried not in a normal federal court where criminals are tried but before a military commission."

S. 3081 Provisions

The bill imposes harsh police state measures, including:

-- targeting anyone worldwide, including US citizens, "suspected of engaging in (or materially supporting) hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners through an act of terrorism, or by other means...;"

-- placing such individuals "in military custody for purposes of initial interrogation and determination of status in accordance with the provisions of this Act;"

-- transporting them to intelligence officials for more interrogation;

-- determining who may be a "high-value detainee (HVD);"

-- further interrogating those individuals by a "High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HVIG)....utiliz(ing) military and intelligence personnel, and Federal, State, and local law enforcement personnel....;"

-- having HVIGs submit their determination to the Defense Secretary and Attorney General after consulting with the Directors of National Intelligence, FBI, and CIA. "The Secretary of Defense and Attorney General (will then) make a final determination and report (it) to the President and the appropriate committees of Congress. In the case of any disagreement between the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General, the President will make the determination;"

-- designating seized individuals "unprivileged enemy belligerent(s);"

-- denying them Miranda rights:

-- deciding on a "Final (status) Determination" within 48 hours, "to the extent practicable;"

-- letting the President establish HVD interrogation group operations and activities, including whether detainees "meet the criteria for treatment as a high-value detainee for purposes of interrogation....," including the potential threat held individuals pose:

(1) for an attack against America, its citizens, US military personnel or facilities;

(2) their potential intelligence value;

(3) membership in or affiliation with Al Qaeda; and

(4) "such other matters as the President considers appropriate."

Pending final determination, detainees "shall be treated as unprivileged enemy belligerent(s)," defined as:

"An individual, including a citizen of the United States (to) be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities."

An "unprivileged enemy belligerent" means anyone (with or without evidence) suspected of "engag(ing) in (or materially supporting) hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners," including alleged Al Qaeda members.

Raised Concerns

Designating individuals "unlawful enemy combatants" or "unprivileged enemy belligerents" places them in legal limbo, contrary to international law, the Constitution, and three recent Supreme Court decisions:

-- Rasul v. Bush (2004) establishing US court system jurisdiction to decide if Guantanamo-held non-US citizens were wrongfully imprisoned;

-- Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) granting US citizen Yaser Hamdi and other Guantanamo detainees habeas rights to challenge their detentions in federal courts; and

-- Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) denying Guantanamo military commissions "the power to proceed because (their) structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949."

Obama-ordered preventive detentions (against uncharged persons) and S. 3081 violate international law, the Constitution, and the above Supreme Court decisions.

Writing for the Jurist Legal News & Research, University of Utah Law Professor, Amos Guiora, calls the proposed bill "the latest example of panic-based legislation" in the wake of the (false flag) December airplane bombing and whether alleged 9/11 suspects will be tried in federal or military courts - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others falsely charged based on tortured-extracted confessions.

Holding detainees through "end of hostilities in the terrorism paradigm is a euphemism for indefinite detention....subject(ing) an extraordinarily broad group of persons" to cruel and inhumane treatment based on unsubstantiated charges, and denying them due process and judicial fairness.

Guiora calls the proposed law:

"a fundamental miscarriage of justice created by the unconstitutional denial of the right to counsel, the right to remain silent, the right to be free from arbitrary, let alone indefinite detention, and the right to a day in court." Unfortunately, too often "legitimacy and justification take a back seat" to expediency and the political climate of the times.

As a result, innocent victims are unjustly arrested, called terrorists, interrogated, tortured, indefinitely detained and denied all rights despite constitutional and international law protections.

"Republicans and Democrats alike have failed to articulate, create and implement a lawful interrogation, detention and trial regime for post-9/11 detainees. That is shameful and reflects negatively on two Presidents, the Congress and the Supreme Court."

The major media also. Their reports hype the threat, pre-determine guilt, and influence public opinion to believe government-charged individuals are dangerous, guilty, and should be confined to deter "terrorism."

Yet the Constitution's Fifth Amendment states:

"No person shall....be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law....;" and

The 14th Amendment reads:

No "State (may) deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Yet in a climate of fear and intimidation, everyone is potentially vulnerable to legislative lawlessness if congressional timidity lets S. 3081 pass in an election year.

According to Guiora, it comes down to "the rule of law or the rule of fear." Protecting American citizens and national security is one thing. Discarding core legal principles to do it reflects the worst elements of police state justice.


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The Shadow Government’s Healthcare Bill Rules

I recently wrote what I had hoped was a satirical article, poking fun at the fact President Obama could not feasibly have read all the legislation he has signed into law, centering on the on the mammoth 2,700 page Healthcare Reform Bill. And although some people appreciated the article, a couple of readers did not.

One lady reader condemned the piece as being negative, with no discernible point; while, she invested no more of her own thought in it than that. A male reader (who showed some thought) bought the truth that while Obama probably didn’t read the Healthcare bill – due to time constraints – he was certainly briefed with a detailed summary of it, highlighting the bill’s major points.

This gentleman, like many others, does not see the absurdity of legislation that is so long it could take weeks or months to read; after all, our Constitution was handwritten on about four or five pages.

Our Declaration of Independence was handwritten on one sheet of paper.

Our lawmakers and president should not be briefed on proposed laws, they should scrutinize every line, of every proposed law, as it is that important to the American people. And the American public should be given the opportunity to do the same, as President Obama promised.

Our presidents should veto any bill they cannot comfortably read and understand in one sitting. In fact, if there are legislative passages the average, literate Americans cannot understand, those too should be vetoed. Convoluted, long passages in legislation is simply an effort to hide tyrannical intentions. And with “voice votes” becoming popular, in congress, we are even denied the knowledge of knowing just who supports tyranny.

All points of legislation should be debated in Congress, by senators and representatives, not given “talking points” by unseen agents of the International Monetary/Banking Cartel, to memorize and parrot to the corporate media.

In response, I asked the gentleman, above, who seemed to think a briefing was adequate, to consider what a colossal briefing Mr. Obama would have to have had to cover all 2,700 pages of just that one bill – the mislabeled Healthcare “Reform” Act.

If Mr. Obama was briefed in detail on the steady stream of hundreds of thousands of legislation pages proposed in congress, he’d be spending every waking moment being briefed, without doing any of it real justice.

Divinity students spend years in college studying the detailed summaries that highlight the major points in the 1,300 page Bible, and still not cover it all. Does the gentleman really think Obama can be briefed on something the size of ten novels, or two Bibles, in a month or so, especially considering all the other thousands of pages of Executive Orders (written for him) that he signs, or the thousands of pages of regulations that are annually issued by Executive Branch agencies?

Sadly, Mr. Obama – and our lawmakers – do no more than read (from teleprompters) or repeat “talking points” given to them by shadowy sources -the minions of the Shadow Government, that are beholden to the International Monetary/Banking Cartel.

Mr. Obama, and most all other politicians, avoid the subjects of who reads or writes the thousands of pages of legislation, regulations, directives, and executives orders that pour out of Washington annually, as they do not know who writes it all, and do not want to have to admit they don’t read much of any of it in any case. With one exception.

That exception, that was probably read by Obama, et al, was written into the Healthcare Reform Act as a loophole for the privileged: The president, his staff and family, Joe Biden’s staff and family, Nancy Pelosi’s staff, Harry Reid’s staff, and many other insiders are all exempted from the mandates of Obamacare. How nice, they’ve given it all to us taxpaying Americans to have, to hold, and to pay for.

It would seem to me that if most of the tenets of the world-wide Christian religion are contained within 1,300 pages of the Holy Bible, America does not need 900,000 to millions of pages of legislation, orders, directives, and regulations to be governed. How can we obey those laws if we don’t even know what they are?

But, the critical questions all thinking Americans will ask themselves run along the lines of who wrote the hundreds of thousands of pages of US legislation, orders, directives, and regulations that so severely affect our lives. That Madame and Sir was the point of my satirical piece, and is the important point of this article.


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Thanks, but No Thanks, Mr. Obama

I am an un-insured American. I guess I am supposed to be dancing in the streets today, what with this legislation about to be signed into law supposedly being on behalf of persons like myself. My near-sightedness, my sleep issues, my dental concerns—heck, even my bowel movements—have just been elevated to a subject worthy of federal legislation. And yet, somehow, I am decidedly not in a celebratory mood. Indeed, my feelings on the matter fall somewhere between “pissed off” and “re-secede from the Union.”

I know, I know, that’s extreme. But it’s an extreme action the President and the majority in Congress has taken. We’ll come back to that momentarily. But for now, I’ll establish why I am not feeling euphoric. Despite the fact that I am completely broke, and despite the fact that when I do get sick (which I recently was), it ends up involving debt and aggravation, I simply don’t want anything from government—federal, state, and local—other than for them to leave me the hell alone.

Most of the modern activities of government I have no desire whatsoever to participate in, much less to pay for, and, frankly, I resent the pretence that they are all carried out on my behalf. Bailing out the banks two years ago surely wasn’t for my benefit or yours; neither was that little scheme concerning weapons of mass destruction in Mesopotamia seven trips around sun ago. Why should government run healthcare be any different? Not to mention the blatantly obvious, but the bill just passed includes compulsory provisions that will fine the uninsured (like myself) if we don’t get coverage by such-and-such a date.

Dearly beloved, I am officially calling caca-del-torro on that provision. The company I work for offers decent plans, as I understand it, even for part-timers; but I let open-enrollment pass by without jumping on the bandwagon because I did not want additional money (such that it is, but that’s a separate subject) taken out of my check. Even for a good plan, it struck me as unaffordable with everything else that I am supposed to take care of (but sometimes can’t). Opting out was my choice. I made the intentional decision to bring home more money in lieu of insurance coverage. That is a textbook example of something economists call “cost-benefit analysis.”

At this stage my life, the cash is more immediately useful to me. Again, for emphasis, it was my choice. So this bill—this supposedly glorious, cure-all bill—would preemptively deny me the choice to sit it out and bring home the cash. The options available to me would be get coverage, or pay the stinking federal government a big fat fine—both of which, I suppose, I would have to pay for with funds magically created from sunshine and farts since my whole reason for not being covered is the fact that I can’t spare the extra money to begin with.

That being said, I’m just going to go ahead and say that I have no intention of getting any coverage whatsoever until I can actually afford it; and, I’ll go ahead and add this, since I’m broke as hell anyway, and I have no intention or ability to pay some jackass fine, I’m not going to pay it. It strikes me every bit as onerous and ridiculous as the old debtors prison system; I’m sure if I got locked up in Georgia, General Oglethorpe would be spinning in his grave across the pond.

There are provisions in that steaming-turd of a bill to allow the IRS to garnish wages to pay for coverage—and I suppose if I want to keep working, I can’t keep my company from hitting my paycheck. But you know, if you think it through, forcing any private individual or firm to collect taxes on behalf of government is tantamount to involuntary servitude. So much for the Thirteenth Amendment; but with the way sales and payroll taxes are collected, and with the draft last century, we’ve been ignoring the constitutional safeguards against having the will of others imposed upon our persons anyway.

Now, I could make a pretty strong constitutional case against this bill. It is federal usurpation on the grandest scale, a clear assumption of powers not delegated by the States or the people thereof to the central government, making it a swipe at the reserved powers of the States and the people. I could make that case, and I could easily go onward for many, many pages. But I won’t. Damn near every action of the federal government in the present day is some sort of blatant violation of the Ninth and Tenth amendments, so belaboring the point won’t serve much of a purpose. That and I think the moral argument in this case is stronger than the constitutional argument.

Your health is something that is fundamentally and basically yours. Your well-being belongs to you, and no one else, and if you are physically and mentally able and are no longer child, preserving it is your responsibility and no one else’s. That has everything to do with I quit smoking and drinking, and why I am trying to get the weight off—my own body is mine to take care of. Now, if some other entity, be it a company or a government, or even a spouse, takes control over how I take care of it (or don’t) I am no longer free regarding my own body. Now, to a wife, sure, I’d be willing to cede some of my autonomy. But see, that’s a voluntary partnership that is worlds apart from some bureaucrat telling me what treatments I can and can’t get at my age, or what doctors I can visit, etc. What I am stabbing at here is simple really: your health, being so basic to your existence in this life, is such that whoever controls your ability to maintain it effectively owns you.

I don’t know why that is so difficult to understand. I guess if you are comfortable with the idea of being owned, well, more power to you. I wish we could depart in peace. But that’s just it. No one can be allowed to opt out of participating and paying, because if that were a path open to any of us, who would remain in and pick up the tab?

Which comes to crux of the matter: Taxation comes with the implied threat of force. You are compelled to pay, and if you were to resist with a sufficient amount of, shall we say, chutzpah, the government, in claiming a monopoly on the use of force posits a right to kill you. So, therefore, we are seeing erected a healthcare system based not on the doctor patient relationship as in the days of old, or upon the damnable corporatist model presently existing, but upon the implied threat of force. The federal government will engage in banditry supposedly on behalf of the uninsured, and will serve as an engine of redistribution, and if you say “hell no” and fight back, they claim the right to pull the trigger in your direction.

Fine; perhaps such is unstoppable. That American healthcare would come to be based upon the implied threat of force should surprise no one, given that since at least the end of the War Between the States, the organizational principle of the federal government is the implied threat of force. But really, Mr. President, can you and your party spare us the pious rhetoric that pretends this is for the poor? We’re not as stupid as you and your predecessor in office think we are. We can look at this and ask the question “qui bono?” (who benefits?), and, as plain as the nose on my face, it can be shown, unequivocally, that the insurance and pharmaceutical industries supposedly to be punished by the measure are, in fact, poised to be its primary beneficiaries. If the government means to force everyone to get a coverage plan, and those plans are to be offered by these companies, then who the hell else could possibly stand to reap the windfall?

Additionally, in a sense, it’s to be a type of jobs bill as well, in all the new agents that will have to be hired for various agencies (including the pernicious IRS) to be employed in an enforcement capacity.

Now, examine if you will who owns the largest insurance companies, and who holds significant stakes in the pharmaceutical industry. GASP! Some of the same damn banks which were bailed out two years ago. Surprise! Could it be? Could it really be that some politicians would or could cynically use the issue of our health as a means to foist a system that would loop through the back door a continuing revenue stream to these same criminals?

Say it ain’t so!

While I agree with the sentiment, lawsuits in the federal courts aren’t going to do a bit of good, a fact arising from the sheer stupidity committed by an earlier generation of Americans who came to think it would be just a peachy idea for one branch of the federal government to be trusted with exclusively deciding the extent of the powers of said government.

The states and their ability in their organized capacity as bodies political to interpose between the individual citizens and unjust, unwarranted, and unconstitutional actions have been severely crippled. It’s time to resurrect that the old understanding of Sovereignty, that We, the People, are supposed to be ABSOLUTE RULERS of ALL OF OUR GOVERNMENTS, and as far as the federal government is concerned, that We, the People, in our organized capacity as THE STATES, are SOVEREIGN ABOVE IT. It was not meant to own us; we were not meant to serve it. It was designed to be a servant of the people and the States. In essence, I am suggesting, strongly, that it is time to rediscover the authentic and original, pre-Civil War conceptualization of federalism and popular sovereignty, and to invoke as vigorously as possible the principles enunciated in Mr. Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolution of 1798:

“Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that when-so-ever the general government assumes un-delegated powers, its acts are un-authoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.”

Now, the fact that I assert that the time has come for nullification and interposition opens up a whole different can of worms. And I’ll answer that right out of the gate: States Rights arguments have been abused in the past relative to racial issues. I don’t deny that. It is sad and unfortunate, and I regret the fact that earlier generations couldn’t see the error in tangling sound, constitutional principles with unsound, immoral, and unjust assertions about race.

I couldn’t care a damn less about the race of the President. I heard Wanda Sykes the other evening state that the only reason anyone was opposing the plan is that President is black. Bull. Fiscal insanity is fiscal insanity, regardless of the color of the individual proposing it. And to tell the truth, when it was clear Ron Paul mathematically would not be able to take the Republican nomination, based strictly on his then asserted pledge to leave Iraq within a year (a promise already well-broken), I considered voting for the guy now in office (I didn’t vote for him, but I considered it). And, taking into account that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are equally as responsible for spearheading this bill through, and that they are whiter than I am, attempting to make a race issue out of this would be profoundly ignorant and remarkably silly.

I will go ahead and tie this shut by saying all I want to do is to live my life as peaceably as possible. I’d like to live it out as I see fit, earn enough to take care of myself, and, if I can ever find a woman who’ll put up with me, a wife a few kids. And I’d like to be able to do that without having to concern myself with whether or not some damn lying politician is going to hatch a big idea he or she wants me to help pay for, or which will leave my hypothetical children less free than they otherwise would have been. All the flag-waving, chest thumping, swaggering, and jawing about how we’re the greatest and freest country ever doesn’t and won’t change the fact that we’re not as free as we used to be or could be.

And we won’t be, so long as others presume to plan our lives one way or another for us.


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