April 7, 2008 The Pentagon's declassification of a five-year-old memo authorizing military interrogators to use brutal methods to extract information from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay sheds new light into the dark corners of the Bush administration's legal theories that put the President and his subordinates beyond domestic and international law. In the March 14, 2003, memo - which was released this past week - administration lawyer John Yoo cited the principle of national "self-defense" in combating terrorism as grounds for justifying harsh treatment of detainees up to and including death. Yet, as Yoo advanced his argument for virtually unfettered presidential war-time powers regarding the treatment of prisoners, the memo also pointed to other still-secret documents suggesting the administration was prepared to take its authority even further, into domestic military operations that would brush aside constitutional protections. Full Story
April 7, 2008 THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds. At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, "the grid" will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds. The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call. David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could "revolutionise" society. "With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine. Full Story
April 7, 2008 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has reduced the key federal funds rate six times in as many months -- reducing the cost for major borrowers significantly. This combines with providing $270 million in funding, plus $30 billion in additional guarantees, for JP Morgan Chase to buy Bear Stearns Cos. "Helicopter Ben" is living up to the nickname he earned after he remarked in a 2002 speech that he would stave off a recession even if he had to drop money from helicopters to do it. The results of these policies have been destructive. The dollar is collapsing not only against foreign currencies -- we're now at par with the Canadian dollar and rocketing toward a 2-1 deficit against the Euro -- but also against commodities. Gold was passing the $1,000-an-ounce landmark, silver $20. Even industrial metals like copper and zinc are fetching record prices. Full Story
April 5, 2008 James Risen's State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, may hold bigger secrets than the disclosure that President George W. Bush authorized warrantless eavesdropping on Americans. Risen's book also confirms the most damning element of the British Cabinet Office memos popularly called the "Downing Street memos;" namely, that "the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy." The result is that it is no longer credible to maintain that the failures in the Iraqi intelligence were the product of a broken intelligence community. The Bush administration deliberately fabricated the case against Iraq, lying to Congress and the American people along the way. Risen, a senior reporter for The New York Times, reports that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had an urgent need in the summer of 2002 to get the equivalent of a "second opinion" regarding Bush's plans for war in Iraq-insight independent of his own telephone conversations with the president and independent of what Blair was hearing from his own foreign office. Full Story
April 5, 2008 The Army and Marine Corps bought hundreds of thousands of sets of body armor -- without the equipment being properly tested, according to a report by the Defense Department's inspector general. "Nearly $3 billion worth of body armor did not go through early inspections known as 'first article testing,' or FAT, that are performed before major production," the Washington Post reports. Normally," the report notes, "a first article is tested to verify that the manufacturing process has generated an acceptable item and to catch and correct any defects in the manufacturing process." Full Story
April 5, 2008 The US State Department said Friday it is extending its diplomat protection contract for private security firm Blackwater USA, despite the incident last September in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. "I have requested and received approval to have Task Order 6, which Blackwater has to provide personal protective services in Baghdad, renewed for one year," said Gregory Starr at the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Blackwater is the most controversial of several private security firms tasked with protecting high-profile US officials and foreign dignitaries visiting Iraq. Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians while escorting a US diplomat through Baghdad in a September 16, 2007 incident that the Iraqi government considers a crime. Blackwater says its guards reacted in self-defense. Full Story
April 4, 2008 Though little discussed on the campaign trail, a crucial issue to be decided in November is whether the United States will return to its traditions as a constitutional Republic respecting "unalienable" human rights or whether it will finish a transformation into a frightened nation governed by an all-powerful President who can do whatever he wants during the open-ended "war on terror." That reality was underscored on April 1 with the release of a five-year-old legal opinion from former Justice Department official John Yoo asserting that President George W. Bush possessed nearly unlimited authority as Commander in Chief, including the power to have military interrogators abuse terror suspects. While most news coverage of Yoo's March 14, 2003, memo has focused on the legal gymnastics justifying harsh treatment of detainees - including possible use of mind-altering drugs - the centerpiece of Yoo's argument is that at a time of war the President's powers are essentially unfettered. Yoo's memo fits with views expressed by Bush ("The Decider") and many of his top legal advisers. Yoo's opinion also appears to be shared by four conservative Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court - John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito - just one vote shy of a majority. Full Story
April 4, 2008 For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn't apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism. That view was expressed in a Justice Department legal memo dated Oct. 23, 2001. The administration on Wednesday stressed that it now disavows that view. The October 2001 memo was written at the request of the White House by John Yoo, then the deputy assistant attorney general, and addressed to Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time. The administration had asked the department for an opinion on the legality of potential responses to terrorist activity. The 37-page memo has not been released. Its existence was disclosed Tuesday in a footnote of a separate secret memo, dated March 14, 2003, released by the Pentagon in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Full Story
April 4, 2008 Life at Ed and Elaine Brown's Plainfield home was quiet last spring, when visitors came to engage in philosophical discussions and bombs and guns were not in plain view, according to Cirino Gonzalez, one of three men on trial for aiding and arming the tax-protesting couple. Gonzalez's portrait of the Browns' home, which he left in late June, contrasts starkly with evidence about what investigators found there after the couple's arrest in October. The Browns were convicted of tax-related crimes last year but refused to surrender to authorities, instead retreating to their Plainfield home and threatening violence if U.S. marshals tried to arrest them. The standoff, fueled by supplies, weapons and moral support from a rotating group of sympathizers, continued for nearly nine months before the couple were arrested by undercover marshals posing as supporters. Full Story
April 3, 2008 Four possible defense witnesses in the trial of men accused of participating in an armed standoff in Plainfield have opted not to testify, after lawyers warned the witnesses that they might make self-incriminating statements if they chose to take the stand. Those witnesses include Elaine Brown, who with her husband, Ed, evaded capture on bench warrants by holing up for nearly nine months in their fortified Plainfield home. According to Keith Champagne, one of the other witnesses, who spoke with lawyers in the case, Elaine Brown decided to assert her Fifth Amendment right not to testify against herself during a hearing Tuesday afternoon. Lawyers said Judge George Singal has ordered them not to discuss the case with reporters. Jason Gerhard of Brookhaven, N.Y.; Cirino Gonzalez of Alice, Texas; and Daniel Riley of Cohoes, N.Y., have been charged with conspiring to help the Browns escape capture, conspiring to harm U.S. marshals, aiding and abetting the Browns, and bringing them weapons. Gerhard and Riley are also accused of building and handling explosive devices. All three men spent time living at the Browns' home, running errands on their behalf. Full Story
April 3, 2008 As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, and a prized Guantánamo detainee wouldn't talk, the Bush administration's highest-ranking lawyers argued for extreme interrogation techniques, circumventing international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the army's own Field Manual. The attorneys would even fly to Guantánamo to ratchet up the pressure-then blame abuses on the military. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail, and holds out the possibility of war crimes charges. The abuse, rising to the level of torture, of those captured and detained in the war on terror is a defining feature of the presidency of George W. Bush. Its military beginnings, however, lie not in Abu Ghraib, as is commonly thought, or in the "rendition" of prisoners to other countries for questioning, but in the treatment of the very first prisoners at Guantánamo. Starting in late 2002 a detainee bearing the number 063 was tortured over a period of more than seven weeks. In his story lies the answer to a crucial question: How was the decision made to let the U.S. military start using coercive interrogations at Guantánamo? Full Story
April 3, 2008 Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura vehemently savaged the official 9/11 story on a syndicated national radio show today, saying the WTC collapsed like a controlled demolition and was pulverized to dust as he also highlighted the impossible 10 second free fall speed of the towers. Appearing on The Alex Jones Show, Ventura said that his initial reaction to 9/11 was much like most people at the time, and he accepted the official story outright, a response he now regrets because he was in a position of power and could have used it to raise a lot of pointed questions. "I kicked myself when it initially happened that the light didn't go off but I was so shocked that this thing had even taken place that I apologize for not being more aware," said Ventura, adding that watching Loose Change at the insistence of his son was part of the catalyst for his wake up call. Full Story
Terry Melton Takes The Witness Stand Today
April 1, 2008 Freelance Cinematographer Terry Melton of Austin Texas, takes the stand today in defense of the "Freedom Three," Danny Riley, Reno Gonzales and Jason Gerhard who all face long federal prison sentences for their support of IRS tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown. Terry Melton pictured above left with Danny Riley in New York City on 9/11/07, the day before their arrest by the U.S. Marshals. Stay tuned to www.rprradio.com for live evening updates from Terry and others reporting on the trial. Terry's News Conference VideosJuly Concert
April 1, 2008 An explosive material found hanging from trees around Ed and Elaine Brown's Plainfield home was powerful enough to expel high-velocity debris, blow holes in the trees and send a wave of force and sound that could harm anyone standing nearby, the man who sold the compound to a Brown supporter said yesterday. Daniel Tanner, an Oregon-based explosives manufacturer who invented a two-part exploding target he named Tannerite, testified yesterday in the trial of three men accused of bringing guns and bombs to the tax protesting couple's house. He said that while his product was legal and safe if used on shooting ranges as recommended, it could be dangerous if detonated close to trees or outbuildings, and had the potential to injure bystanders if they were close to the material when it was set off. Full Story
April 2, 2008 Multinational Big Business interests linked to the U.S. political-military-industrial complex, are now coordinating the elites of the Conservative and Liberal Parties, as "One Big Party". This is being done through the prism of the Security and Prosperity and Partnership North American Union (SPP-NAU) agenda. This SPP-NAU agenda, was orchestrated directly and in violation of Canadian sovereignty, through the Office of U.S. President George W. Bush, as corroborated by the official SPP.gov website. Stéphane Dion and Stephen Harper are effectively functioning as leaders of the same political party, under the cover of apparent faked displays of "disagreements" in front of colluding affiliate corporate media organizations. These public displays, are designed to lull rank and file party members, and dupe Canadians into believing otherwise. This strategy includes the defamation claim media spectacle about Chuck Cadman that was launched by Stephen Harper against Stéphane Dion. Learned legal experts agree that this litigation claim will never see the light of day in a Canadian courtroom. Full Story
April 2, 2008 Three men accused of helping Plainfield tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown evade capture performed armed patrols of the property, tried to purchase weapons for the couple and built homemade guns and explosive devices, according to a fourth man who pleaded guilty to conspiring with them. Robert Wolffe of Randolph, Vt., had faced similar charges as three men standing trial for aiding and arming the Browns during their nearly nine-month standoff with federal officials. But unlike Jason Gerhard of Brookhaven, N.Y.; Cirino Gonzalez of Alice, Texas; and Daniel Riley of Cohoes, N.Y. , Wolffe chose to plead guilty to charges that could result in a sentence ranging between eight months and 52½ years, he said during his testimony. Wolffe said he still believed in the Browns' cause - that no law requires ordinary Americans to pay federal income taxes - but said that he has come to believe that as long as the justice system remains unaware of the truth, the Browns' convictions are valid. Full Story
April 2, 2008 The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the United Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his attack on Iran. If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If there were a shred of integrity left in American political life, perhaps a third act of naked aggression -- a third war crime under the Nuremberg standard -- by the Bush Regime could be prevented. On March 30, the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti, cited "a high-ranking security source: 'The latest military intelligence data point to heightened US military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran.'" According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said "that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future." Full Story
March 31, 2008 The US Federal Reserve is examining the Nordic bank nationalisations of the 1990s as a possible interim solution to the US financial crisis. The Fed has been criticised for its rescue of Bear Stearns, which critics say has degenerated into a taxpayer gift to rich bankers. A senior official at one of the Scandinavian central banks told The Daily Telegraph that Fed strategists had stepped up contacts to learn how Norway, Sweden and Finland managed their traumatic crisis from 1991 to 1993, which brought the region's economy to its knees. It is understood that Fed vice-chairman Don Kohn remains very concerned by the depth of the US crisis and is eyeing the Nordic approach for contingency options. Full Story
March 31, 2008 Rising fuel, wheat and soybean oil prices have caused the cost of food production to spike, and product prices are expected to jump another 3 percent in 2008 after they rose nearly 5 percent in 2007, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. People are also paying 57 cents more for a pound of coffee and $1 more for a carton of large, grade A eggs than they did at this time last year, data show, although the increase in the price of eggs is expected to dwindle by at least 2 percent in 2008. The average price of bread - $1.32 per loaf - has increased by nearly 32 percent during the last three years. Goods that contain wheat and soybean oil will continue to rise in 2008 by between 5.5 percent and 6.5 percent, according to the Economic Research Service, a service offered by the USDA. Full Story
March 31, 2008 Both Democratic presidential candidates agree that the United States should end its combat mission in Iraq within 12 to 16 months of their possible inauguration. The Republican candidate has spoken of continuing the war, even for a hundred years, until "victory." The core issue of this campaign is thus a basic disagreement over the merits of the war and the benefits and costs of continuing it. The contrast between the Democratic argument for ending the war and the Republican argument for continuing is sharp and dramatic. The case for terminating the war is based on its prohibitive and tangible costs, while the case for "staying the course" draws heavily on shadowy fears of the unknown and relies on worst-case scenarios. President Bush's and Sen. John McCain's forecasts of regional catastrophe are quite reminiscent of the predictions of "falling dominoes" that were used to justify continued U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Neither has provided any real evidence that ending the war would mean disaster, but their fear-mongering makes prolonging it easier. Full Story
March 28, 2008 The Supreme Court rebuffed President Bush on Tuesday for exceeding his powers under the law, ruling he does not have the "unilateral authority" to force state officials to comply with an international treaty. The Constitution gives the president the power "to execute the laws, not make them," said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Unless Congress passes a law to enforce a treaty, the president usually cannot do it on his own, he said. The 6-3 decision was a rare defeat for Bush in the courts, and it came in an unusual case that combined international law, foreign treaties and the fate of foreign nationals condemned to die in Texas, California and several other states. Full Story
March 27, 2008 New video and photographic evidence that puts three senior CIA operatives at the scene of Robert Kennedy's assassination has been brought to light. The evidence was shown in a report by Shane O'Sullivan, broadcast on BBC Newsnight. It reveals that the operatives and four unidentified associates were at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles in the moments before and after the shooting on 5 June, 1968. The CIA had no domestic jurisdiction and some of the officers were based in South-East Asia at the time, with no reason to be in Los Angeles. Full Story
March 27, 2008 Miami police could soon be the first in the United States to use cutting-edge, spy-in-the-sky technology to beef up their fight against crime. A small pilotless drone manufactured by Honeywell International, capable of hovering and "staring" using electro-optic or infrared sensors, is expected to make its debut soon in the skies over the Florida Everglades. If use of the drone wins Federal Aviation Administration approval after tests, the Miami-Dade Police Department will start flying the 14-pound (6.3 kg) drone over urban areas with an eye toward full-fledged employment in crime fighting. Full Story
March 27, 2008 Sgt. Kristofer Shawn Goldsmith was one of the many soldiers and Marines, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who gave testimony at last weekend's Winter Soldier investigation. They spoke from personal experience about what the American military is doing in those countries. They gave examples of what they had done, what they had been ordered to do, what they had witnessed, how their experiences had wounded them, both physically and psychically, and what kind of care and support they have, or most often have not gotten since coming home. The panel Goldsmith was on was called "The Breakdown of the U.S. Military," so he surprised the audience when he said that he was going to talk about prisoners of war. He was not, however, going to talk about the three soldiers listed as missing in action on the Department of Defense website. He was referring to those who have been the victims of stop-loss, the device by which the president can, "in the event of war," choose to extend an enlistee's contract "until six months after the war ends." The "War on Terror" is this president's excuse for invoking that clause. Full Story
March 25, 2008 An American nuclear submarine has crossed the Suez Canal to join the US fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf, Egyptian sources say. Egyptian officials reported that the nuclear submarine crossed the canal along with a destroyer on Friday and Egyptian forces were put on high alert when the navy convoy was passing through the canal. An American destroyer recently left the Persian Gulf, heading towards the Mediterranean Sea; earlier on Thursday, a US Navy rescue ship crossed the canal to enter the Red Sea. The deployment comes as recent reports allege that US Vice President Dick Cheney is seeking to rally the support of Middle Eastern states for launching an attack on Iran. This is while US officials deny that Cheney's Mideast tour is linked to a possible military attack on Iran. According to the latest reports, in recent months a major part of the US Navy has been deployed in and around the Persian Gulf. Full Story
March 25, 2008 As I've indicated many times previously, the power elite wants a World Socialist Government, but how will they get the people of the U.S. to accept Socialism? Well, first there will have to be a crisis. For example, today oil and commodity (e.g., corn) prices are skyrocketing (the price of wheat has tripled in the past 10 months). And with increased demand from China, India, etc., global demand will eventually outrun supply. This crisis will lead to calls for "National Planning" similar to that under FDR in the 1930s. In order to control populations, the power elite obviously has to be able to track them. This will be reminiscent of the 1930s in which the Nazis would request I.D. by saying, "Papiere, bitte" (Papers, please) of those under its control. Everyone also had an Arbeitsbuch containing her or his personal demographic, educational, occupational, etc. information. Today in Communist China, a similar document is the "Dangan." And by 2017 A.D., all British citizens will have a National I.D. card. Full Story
March 25, 2008 Montana governor Brian Schweitzer declared victory Friday after the Department of Homeland Security sent his state an extension to the Real ID act, despite his insistence Montana will never comply with a mandate he describes as a "boondoggle." "If I were writing the headline, it would be 'DHS Blinks," Schweitzer, a Democrat, told THREAT LEVEL by phone late Friday. Montana's attorney general sent DHS chief Michael Chertoff a letter (.pdf) Friday outlining the security features in Montana's current driver's licenses, which DHS threatened to reject as valid I.D. for boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings come May 11 unless the state promised to comply with Real ID. DHS responded by interpreting that letter as a request for an extension (.pdf) of the Real ID deadlines until 2010, reversing its previous position that Montana ID cards would be rejected by federal agents. "I sent them a horse and if they want to call it a zebra, that's up to them," Schweitzer said. "They can call it whatever they want, and it wasn't a love letter." Full Story
March 24, 2008 A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000. The grim milestone came on a day when at least 61 people were killed across the country. Rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone, underscoring the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups despite an overall lull in violence. The attacks on the Green Zone probably stemmed from rising tensions between rival Shiite groups and were the most sustained assault in months against the nerve center of the U.S. mission. Full Story
March 24, 2008 The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a tragedy - for Iraq, for the US, for the UN, for truth and human dignity. I can only see one gain: the end of Saddam Hussein, a murderous tyrant. Had the war not finished him he would, in all likelihood, have become another Gadafy or Castro; an oppressor of his own people but no longer a threat to the world. Iraq was on its knees after a decade of sanctions. The elimination of weapons of mass destruction was the declared main aim of the war. It is improbable that the governments of the alliance could have sold the war to their parliaments on any other grounds. That they believed in the weapons' existence in the autumn of 2002 is understandable. Why had the Iraqis stopped UN inspectors during the 90s if they had nothing to hide? Responsibility for the war must rest, though, on what those launching it knew by March 2003. Full Story
March 24, 2008 When Congress passed the Patriot Act in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, law-enforcement agencies hailed it as a powerful tool to help track down the confederates of Osama bin Laden. No one expected it would end up helping to snag the likes of Eliot Spitzer. The odd connection between the antiterror law and Spitzer's trysts with call girls illustrates how laws enacted for one purpose often end up being used very differently once they're on the books. The Patriot Act gave the FBI new powers to snoop on suspected terrorists. In the fine print were provisions that gave the Treasury Department authority to demand more information from banks about their customers' financial transactions. Congress wanted to help the Feds identify terrorist money launderers. But Treasury went further. It issued stringent new regulations that required banks themselves to look for unusual transactions (such as odd patterns of cash withdrawals or wire transfers) and submit SARs-Suspicious Activity Reports-to the government. Facing potentially stiff penalties if they didn't comply, banks and other financial institutions installed sophisticated software to detect anomalies among millions of daily transactions. Full Story
March 20, 2008 It is incredible to see the rampant devaluation of the U.S. Dollar. The Federal Reserve just hours ago made a rare cut of 25 basis points during the weekend which will cause even more inflation. Gold immediately moved up $20 an ounce and the U.S. Dollar Index plunged under 71 in international trading. If this type of market activity continues the U.S. Dollar will have no value in a few months. While it is probably unlikely that we will see a hyper-inflationary collapse of the U.S. Dollar within the next few months, these policies are entirely unsustainable. If the Federal Reserve does not move to defend the value of the U.S. Dollar we will eventually see a hyper-inflationary collapse and worldwide financial turmoil. This view is also shared by other well respected financial analysts. Full Story
March 20, 2008 New agricultural trends will soon seriously affect you. In fact, they already have. After years of relatively low inflation for basic agricultural commodities, prices for wheat, corn, eggs, milk, fruits, vegetables, beef and chicken are rising, and experts have said a new era of expensive food is here to stay-but that's not the worst that could happen. As global wheat supplies fall toward a 30-year low and U.S. stockpiles fall to a 60-year low, prices of the most popular varieties of the staple have climbed steeply, jumping 50 percent since August. At the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, where most of the high-demand spring wheat variety is traded, futures for May delivery have topped $18 a bushel. Wheat for March delivery increased by a quarter of its value to $24, the first time any U.S. wheat contract has exceeded the $20 mark, Bloomberg reports. Corn, soybeans and palm oil all hit new record highs in February, and barley, canola and sunflower seeds are also increasing sharply. Full Story
March 20, 2008 Americans have a right to own guns, Supreme Court justices declared Tuesday in a historic and lively debate that could lead to the most significant interpretation of the Second Amendment since its ratification two centuries ago. Governments have a right to regulate those firearms, a majority of justices seemed to agree. But there was less apparent agreement on the case they were arguing: whether Washington's ban on handguns goes too far. The justices dug deeply into arguments on one of the Constitution's most hotly debated provisions as demonstrators shouted slogans outside. Guns are an American right, argued one side. "Guns kill," responded the other. Inside the court, at the end of a session extended long past the normal one hour, a majority of justices appeared ready to say that Americans have a "right to keep and bear arms" that goes beyond the amendment's reference to service in a militia. Several justices were openly skeptical that the District of Columbia's 32-year-old handgun ban, perhaps the strictest in the nation, could survive under that reading of the Constitution. Full Story
March 19, 2008 Never before had St. Charles County Republican Party Chairman Jon Bennett received so many queries about where this year's party caucus was to be held. And Bennett didn't recognize most of the callers. On Saturday, Bennett learned why. Dozens of avid supporters of Ron Paul, a Texas congressman who is running a renegade quest for the presidential nomination, staged a political guerrilla attack. Paul's supporters predict they have snagged roughly a third of the 2,137 state Republican delegates. Those delegates will determine the state GOP platform this spring and help select the presidential delegates to the national Republican presidential convention in Minneapolis in September. The unorthodox push, which sparked shouting matches in some meetings, reflected Paul's campaign - an anti-establishment, grass-roots movement built on passion. Full Story
March 19, 2008 On the eve of the five-year anniversary of the start of the war with Iraq, Americans continue to think the results of the war have not been worth the loss of American lives and the other costs of attacking Iraq, according to a new CBS News poll. Today 29 percent of Americans say the results of the war were worth it; 64 percent say they were not. In August 2003, less than six months after the beginning of the war, Americans were divided as the whether or not the results of the war were worth it. Opinion reached a low point in March 2006 - when only one in four Americans said the war was worth the costs. Full Story
March 19, 2008 Banking is a ponzi scam. Banking is nothing but a government sactioned, giant multi-level game. It is a pyramid scam that makes all other scams look like child's play. At the top of the pyramid is the Federal Reserve Board, and their owners. At the bottom are the little local branches of all the different state and national banks. As in all pyramid scams, the small branches at the bottom will fall first, taking most of the heat off those at the top. But eventually the pyramid must topple. In fact, we already hear the rumble of the pyramid starting to fall. But what most people do not know is that the banking system (scam) was designed to fail, and make certain people very wealthy in the process. The process is called USURY. Banks loan us ten dollars, and require us to repay eleven dollars. Since banks are the creators of the money when they lend it to us, we have nowhere to turn to get that eleventh dollar to repay. Full Story
March 17, 2008 Yahoo isn't the only target of an unwelcome takeover. Diebold Inc., maker of automated teller machines, security systems and voting machines, was the recent target of an unsolicited $2.63 billion takeover offer from United Technologies Corporation, a leading aerospace defense contractor, whose divisions also include Otis elevators. The offer, which Diebold disclosed this weekend, amounted to $40 per Diebold share at a time when Diebold stock was trading at around $24 a share -- or at least it was before news of the takeover was made public. The price has since risen to about $37 a share. Diebold rejected the offer, but this doesn't mean the deal won't eventually go through, judging by the chairman of the board's statement that UTC was offering too little. Full Story
March 17, 2008 At least 15 touch-screen voting machines that produced improbable numbers in Ohio's 2006 statewide election are now under double-lock in an official crime scene. And the phony "Homeland Security Alert" used by Republicans to build up George W. Bush's 2004 vote count in a key southwestern Ohio county has come under new scrutiny. The touch-screen machines were locked up after Ohio's new Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, tried to vote last fall. On November 6, she spotted a gray bar with the words "candidate withdrawn" in a slot where the name of Democrat Jay Perez should have appeared. Her husband, voting nearby, told her Perez's name did appear, as it was supposed to, on his machine. Full Story
March 17, 2008 For thirty years, I have been writing, speaking, imploring, and begging others to make rational, concrete plans for a time in life that would offer no quarter, give no mercy, and that would in a word be--catastrophic. We are coming face to face with that moment. You have so little time left to do anything that will give you a fighting chance. What are you doing? National Guard units are training and preparing for urban combat. The United States has just reached an agreement with Canada’s armed forces to come in to this country and assume combat roles should they be needed in American cities and towns. The Federal Reserve’s last ditch effort to stem the “blood loss” in the sub-prime and other currency markets has failed. The dollar has been abandoned for Euros. The stock market can’t find its ass with both hands and a Chinese made, Wal-Mart sold ass finder. Israel has demanded that all of the financial aid it receives from Washington (that’s us) be paid for in Euros. The ultimate irony and slap in the face. Oil, dairy, wheat, wheat products, gold, silver, copper prices, are racing for the stratosphere with no end in sight. Full Story
March 17, 2008 Just four days after Bear Stearns Chief Executive Alan Schwartz assured Wall Street that his company was not in trouble, he was forced on Sunday to sell the investment bank to competitor JPMorgan Chase for a bargain-basement price of $2 a share, or $236.2 million. The stunning last-minute buyout was aimed at averting a Bear Stearns bankruptcy and a spreading crisis of confidence in the global financial system sparked by the collapse in the subprime mortgage market. Bear Stearns was the most exposed to risky bets on the loans; it is now the first major bank to be undone by that market's collapse. The Federal Reserve and the U.S. government swiftly approved the all-stock buyout, showing the urgency of completing the deal before world markets opened. The Fed also essentially made the takeover risk-free by saying it would guarantee up to $30 billion of the troubled mortgage and other assets that got the nation's fifth-largest investment bank into trouble. Full Story
March 15, 2008 The House on Friday approved a Democratic bill that would set rules for the government's eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails inside the United States. The bill, approved as lawmakers departed for a two-week break, faces a veto threat from President Bush. The margin of House approval was 213-197, largely along party lines. Because of the promised veto, "this vote has no impact at all," said Republican Whip Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri. The president's main objection is that the bill does not protect from lawsuits the telecommunications companies that allowed the government to eavesdrop on their customers without a court's permission after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The vote sent the bill to the Senate, which has passed its own version that includes the legal immunity for telecom companies that Bush is demanding. Without that provision, House Republicans said, the companies won't cooperate with U.S. intelligence. Full Story
March 15, 2008 Each year, federal agents peek at the financial transactions of millions of Americans - without their knowledge. The same type of information that raised suspicions about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is reviewed every day by authorities to find traces of money laundering, check fraud, identity theft or any crime that may involve a financial institution. As concerns about fraud and terrorist financing grow, an increasing number of suspicious deposits, withdrawals and money transfers are being reported by banks and others to the federal government. Banks and credit unions as well as currency dealers and stores that cash checks reported a record 17.6 million transactions to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in 2006, according to a report from the network, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department. "I don't think Americans understand that their financial transactions are being reported and routinely examined," said Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union. Full Story
March 15, 2008 (Guess who has to pay for this military industrial complex project!) The cost of buying and operating a new fleet of jet fighters for the U.S. military is nearing $1 trillion, according to a congressional audit that found the program dogged by delays, manufacturing inefficiencies and price increases. Released Tuesday, the report from the Government Accountability Office offers a sobering assessment of the ambitious effort to deliver a modern series of aircraft known as the F-35 Lightning II to the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Tasked by Congress to conduct an annual assessment of the program, the GAO said costs have gone up by $23 billion since last year alone. Close to $300 billion is needed to acquire 2,458 aircraft for the three services and another $650 billion will be needed to operate and maintain the fighters that are expected to be flying well into the 21st century, the report says. Operating costs, projected at $346 billion just a few years ago, have been driven upward by changes in repair plans, revised costs for depot maintenance, higher fuel costs and increased fuel consumption. Full Story
March 14, 2008 John McCain's personal fortune traces back to organized crime in Arizona, through his father-in-law, according to a report published by a multi-news agency team called Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. IRE reporters Amy Silverman and John Doherty, writing in the Phoenix New Times, note that the father of McCain's wife, James Hensley, was convicted by a federal jury in U.S. District Court of Arizona in March 1948 on seven counts of filing false liquor records. Hensley also was charged with conspiracy to hide from federal authorities the names of persons involved in a liquor industry racket with two companies he managed, United Sales Company in Phoenix and United Distributors in Tucson. The umbrella company, United Liquor, at that time held a monopoly in Arizona, organized and managed by Kemper Marley, who was accused of mob ties by a reporter who was murdered in 1977. Full Story
March 14, 2008 I know many of you are new to the election process but don't worry. I am going to go into some depth of how this all works so read and then read again if you need to. Did you know that the delegates can actually vote to unbind their delegates that are bound by state rules? Did you know that delegates can actually overturn any previous vote? Did you know the delegates have control of the entire process? The MSM is not reporting how to become the nominee in a situation like this so I will tell you to stop getting your info from the MSM. I know many of you are bummed about Dr. Paul not getting more votes in the states popular vote, But that is because you do not understand hoe the election system works : Let me explain to you the reality of how to become the nominee. First stop looking at who wins each states popular vote for most of these states the vote by the people is really nothing but a straw poll and have no real bearing on who will become the nominee. Full Story
March 14, 2008 In an interview on CNN Monday morning, long-shot presidential candidate Ron Paul, whose campaign is winding to a close, says he is unlikely to support presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and he left open the possibility of mounting a third-party bid for the White House. Recognizing the mathematical impossibility of overtaking presumed GOP nominee John McCain, Paul says his campaign for the White House is down-shifting as he focuses on building his "revolution" in other ways. The Texas congressman dismissed talk of a third-party presidential campaign as impractical, but he did not completely rule out the idea. "I don't think it's very practical, and I think Republicans deserve to have at least a conservative to vote for," Paul said. "The conservative base does not the support John McCain because he's identified more with the liberal Democrats. So why should they be disenfranchised? Although the odds are slim, but they have a right to vote for someone that stands for traditional Republican principles: limited government, personal liberties. I mean, this is something the Republicans used to brag about and preach, so they deserve a chance to vote for that." Paul said he likely would not support McCain for the sake of unifying the party. Full Story
March 12, 2008 Top current advisers to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign last year lobbied for a European plane maker that beat Boeing to a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract, taking sides in a bidding fight that McCain has tried to referee for more than five years. Two of the advisers gave up their lobbying work when they joined McCain's campaign. A third, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, lobbied for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. while serving as McCain's national finance chairman. EADS is the parent company of Airbus, which teamed up with U.S.-based Northrop Grumman Corp. to win the lucrative aerial refueling contract on Feb. 29. Boeing Co. Chairman and CEO Jim McNerney said in a statement Monday that the Chicago-based aerospace company "found serious flaws in the process that we believe warrant appeal." McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, has been a key figure in the Pentagon's yearslong attempt to complete a deal on the tanker. McCain helped block an earlier tanker contract with Boeing and prodded the Pentagon in 2006 to develop bidding procedures that did not exclude Airbus. Full Story
March 11, 2008 Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says. A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq. The Pentagon's inspector general found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations. It was impossible to link the dirty water definitively to all the illnesses, according to the report. But it said KBR's water quality "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards" and the military-run sites "were not performing all required quality control tests." "Therefore, water suppliers exposed U.S. forces to unmonitored and potentially unsafe water," the report said. Full Story
March 11, 2008 Reports that Ron Paul has quit the Presidential Race remind me of Mark Twain's famous quote, "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." The Ron Paul Presidential campaign continues, albeit at a different pace. Is Ron Paul still campaigning for president? Yes. Ron Paul has tentative plans to campaign in Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Ron Paul will also likely appear in other states that have remaining primaries. The press is reporting that Ron Paul has quit the race. This is not true. Ron Paul's video simply acknowledges that the campaign will continue but will also transform into additional activities such as education and supporting other candidates. In Kentucky we just held precinct conventions and Ron Paul Republicans won hundreds of precinct captains. In Kyle Texas, Craig Young upset the establishment choice for Republican County Chairman. The Ron Paul Revolution lives on! Victory comes in many forms. Help shape what the Ron Paul revolution becomes. Full Story
March 7, 2008 George W. Bush has created the path for American fascism, he's all but made the American Presidency and our Democratic system of governance a sham. He's not alone, however. In addition to the neo-conservative movement, we've seen the rise of cowardice in Congress. Democrats and moderate Conservatives have failed to stand up for justice and the Constitution. In the view of Americans who actually give a damn, the two-party system has failed and Democrats and Republicans may as well be working together as they've allowed Bush to get away with murder, so-to-speak. Since Bush was inaugurated, all of the problems with his administration have been under the microscope. The majority of the issues started as early as 2001 - illegal surveillance, international relations problems, above-the-law action. Other issues have arisen since then, including FEMA's response to Katrina, politicization of the Justice Department, disenfranchising voters, and providing fat contracts to his friends in corporate America. Full Story
March 7, 2008 Nothing could be better for the country than cancelling the 2008 election. Leave the office of the presidency empty. I can see only one possible justification for having a president of the United States: to preside over the dismantling of the federal government. If you think this is a radical idea, think again. This is, in part, what people have long voted for, even if they never actually get it. I can hardly remember a time when a president has been elected who didn't promise to get the government off our backs. In one way, this agenda makes no sense, of course. You don't hire a CEO to drive a company into bankruptcy. You don't appoint a pastor to shrink a congregation. Why should we expect a president to dismantle the thing that gives him power and fame, and his allies huge wealth? Well, realistically, you can't. But it's the best hope we have within the framework of conventional politics. The irony is that most presidents get elected on the prospect that they will curb power. It's true of George Bush, who promised domestic cuts and a humble foreign policy. Clinton was also elected on the promise of middle-class tax cuts. We can go back and back and see it was true for the first Bush, for Reagan, for Carter, for Nixon, and so on. Full Story
March 7, 2008 Computer security analyst Babak Pasdar says that a major mobile telecommunications carrier has a built-in backdoor that provides an undisclosed third-party with unfettered access to its internal technical infrastructure, including the ability to eavesdrop on all calls through its network. In an affidavit that describes the circumstances and basis for the allegations, Pasdar provides evidence which could indicate that the FBI is on the other side of the secret line, engaging in warrantless surveillance of mobile communications. Pasdar discovered evidence of the backdoor when he was part of a rapid deployment team that was brought in to facilitate a large-scale network security hardware migration for the mobile carrier. During the migration, Pasdar was instructed not to migrate the traffic for one particular DS-3, which was referred to as the "Quantico Circuit" by consultants who worked closely with the carrier (the FBI Academy is based in Quantico, Virginia). Full Story
March 5, 2008 While Ron Paul mostly has been depicted in the media as a political oddity whose following is limited to libertarians and bloggers, Paul's past shows he knows how to win tough campaigns - even when he has to fight his own party's power brokers, as he did to win a congressional seat in 1996. It was just two years after the "Republican Revolution" of 1994, led by Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America. Republicans were trying to expand their first House majority in decades. But Paul was hardly the kind of reliable partisan the party wanted to boost its ranks. Although he had served as a Republican congressman in the late 1970s and '80s, he had run for president against George H.W. Bush as the Libertarian Party's nominee in 1988, and he had a reputation for harboring quirky passions, such as restoring the gold standard for U.S. currency. Full Story
March 4, 2008 Two innocent and patriotic citizens' dodge 64 IRS lethal bullets in a triumph for justice and the American way. Last Christmas, the spirit of the season bestowed upon a Montrose, CO couple the greatest gift of all, freedom! James and Pamela Moran, facing a possible 180 combined years of incarceration were found not guilty by a jury of their peers on all 64 charges of an indictment in a Federal Courtroom. This victory defied all odds because the Morans were convicted of the same charges in December of 2004. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Moran's 2004 convictions, granting them the new trial. Staying true to form the government once again indicted the Morans and a court date was set for early December of 2007. The government expected the same outcome from this trial as they experienced in the first one in 2004. Now enters a ringer for the Morans in Texas attorney, and former Golden Gloves Champion, Michael Minns. So it was back to Sleepless in Seattle for round two. Full Story
March 4, 2008 Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) Gold rose to records in London and New York and silver gained to a 27-year high as the dollar's all-time low spurred demand for precious metals as a hedge against inflation. Palladium rose to the highest since 2001. Gold is up 15 percent this year as a U.S. housing slump and turmoil in credit markets led the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates when commodities were rising to records. The dollar declined on speculation Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will signal more rate cuts in testimony to Congress today. "With a weaker dollar, imports become more expensive and that can import inflation into a country," said Ben Davies, chief executive officer of Hinde Capital Ltd. in London who helps manage the Hinde Gold Fund. "The Fed wants to inflate their way out of the problems of a huge deficit and a banking system that's at the point of imploding." Full Story
March 3, 2008 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez moved tanks to the Colombian border and mobilized fighter jets on Sunday, warning Bogota could spark a war after its troops struck inside another of its neighbors, Ecuador. Reacting to Colombia's killing on Saturday of a Colombian rebel over the border in Ecuador, a Venezuelan ally, Chavez also withdrew all of his diplomats from Bogota in the worst dispute between the neighbors since he came to office in 1999. "Mr. Defense Minister, move me 10 battalions to the frontier with Colombia immediately, tank battalions. The air force should mobilize," Chavez said, adding he will bolster his military's presence along the 1,400-mile (2,200-km) border. "May God spare us a war. But we are not going to allow them violate our sovereign territory," the ex-paratrooper added on his weekly TV show. Full Story
Every election cycle we are treated to candidates who promise us "change," and 2008 has been no different. But in the American political lexicon, "change" always means more of the same: more government, more looting of Americans, more inflation, more police-state measures, more unnecessary war, and more centralization of power.
Real change would mean something like the opposite of those things. It might even involve following our Constitution. And that's the one option Americans are never permitted to hear.
Today we are living in a fantasy world. Our entitlement programs are insolvent: in a couple of decades they will face a shortfall amounting to tens of trillions of dollars. Meanwhile, the housing bubble is bursting and our dollar is collapsing. We are borrowing billions from China every day in order to prop up a bloated overseas presence that weakens our national defense and stirs up hostility against us. And all our political class can come up with is more of the same.
One columnist puts it like this: we are borrowing from Europe in order to defend Europe, we are borrowing from Japan in order to keep cheap oil flowing to Japan, and we are borrowing from Arab regimes in order to install democracy in Iraq. Is it really "isolationism" to find something wrong with this picture?
With national bankruptcy looming, politicians from both parties continue to make multi-trillion dollar promises of "free" goods from the government, and hardly a soul wonders if we can still afford to have troops in - this is not a misprint - 130 countries around the world. All of this is going to come to an end sooner or later, because financial reality is going to make itself felt in very uncomfortable ways. But instead of thinking about what this means for how we conduct our foreign and domestic affairs, our chattering classes seem incapable of speaking in anything but the emptiest platitudes, when they can be bothered to address serious issues at all. Fundamental questions like this, and countless others besides, are off the table in our mainstream media, which focuses our attention on trivialities and phony debates as we march toward oblivion.
This is the deadening consensus that crosses party lines, that dominates our major media, and that is strangling the liberty and prosperity that were once the birthright of Americans. Dissenters who tell their fellow citizens what is really going on are subject to smear campaigns that, like clockwork, are aimed at the political heretic. Truth is treason in the empire of lies.
There is an alternative to national bankruptcy, a bigger police state, trillion-dollar wars, and a government that draws ever more parasitically on the productive energies of the American people. It's called freedom. But as we've learned through hard experience, we are not going to hear a word in its favor if our political and media establishments have anything to say about it.
If we want to live in a free society, we need to break free from these artificial limitations on free debate and start asking serious questions once again. I am happy that my campaign for the presidency has finally raised some of them. But this is a long-term project that will persist far into the future. These ideas cannot be allowed to die, buried beneath the mind-numbing chorus of empty slogans and inanities that constitute official political discourse in America.
February 28, 2008 The dollar plunged Wednesday to another record euro low thanks to a stream of negative US data, while the tumbling greenback helped crude oil and gold prices hit historic highs, analysts said. The US currency also slid ahead of US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke's testimony before Congress later Wednesday, when he is expected to signal further rate cuts to try to prevent a recession in the world's largest economy. In early European deals, the euro touched a record 1.5088 dollars, after smashing through the 1.50 barrier for the first ever time on Tuesday. It later stood at 1.5048 dollars, from 1.4979 dollars in New York late on Tuesday. Full Story
February 28, 2008 William J. Haynes, the Pentagon's chief legal officer and overseer of Guantanamo's Military Commissions, is stepping down, amid mounting controversy over the tribunal process, so he can "return to private life," the Department of Defense announced late on Monday. His infamous memos and public statements advocated torture and the denial of habeas corpus for detainees. In a 2002 memo, he recommended techniques such as "twenty-hour interrogations, isolation for up to thirty days, deprivation of light and auditory stimuli...and stress positions such as the proposed standing for four hours." In response to this last technique, Haynes's boss at the time, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, wrote in the memo's margins, "I stand 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours." Haynes also wanted to keep death threats, waterboarding and exposure to extreme temperatures on the table as interrogation methods. He stated, "Fact: The detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are not protected by the Geneva Conventions." Full Story
February 28, 2008 Taking a break from grilling pro baseball players, Congress on Tuesday held a hearing to try to get to the bottom of the growing scandal of the missing White House e-mail archives. California Rep. Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, briefly outlined the ongoing saga of the White House e-mails in his opening statement, noting that the Bush administration in 2002 effectively dismantled the Automatic Records Management (ARM) System instituted by the Clinton administration in 1994. The White House "intentionally dismantled an effective system and replaced it with a primitive alternative that just didn't work," said Waxman. "It initiated its own study of missing e-mails in 2005 and now derisively attacks its own work as incompetent and grossly inaccurate." Full Story
February 28, 2008 Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told Bush administration officials Monday that he is tired of the Pentagon treating the California National Guard like a stepchild by using its equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan without returning or replacing it. The Republican governor, in a visit to Washington for the annual meeting of the National Governors' Association, said the California National Guard is missing about half of its equipment - from humvees to radios. That could leave California at risk in an earthquake, fire or other emergency, Schwarzenegger said. "It's not fair to the states for the federal government to go into a war and then to take from us the equipment," he said after meetings Monday with President Bush and Cabinet officials. "Every time our National Guard leaves, they take with them equipment but they don't bring it back." Other governors have also complained about the drain of equipment. Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, said last May that her state's response to a tornado in the town of Greensburg was limited because 15 of the Kansas National Guard's 19 Black Hawk helicopters were overseas, along with trucks, bulldozers and other equipment. Full Story
February 29, 2008 While Hillary Clinton battles Barack Obama on the campaign trail, a judge in Los Angeles is quietly preparing to set a trial date in a $17 million fraud suit that aims to expose an alleged culture of widespread corruption by the Clintons and the Democratic Party. At the conclusion of a hearing tomorrow morning before California Superior Court Judge Aurelio N. Munoz, lawyers for Hollywood mogul Peter F. Paul will begin seeking sworn testimony from all three Clintons – Bill, Hillary and Chelsea – along with top Democratic Party leaders and A-list celebrities, including Barbra Streisand, John Travolta, Brad Pitt and Cher. Paul's team hopes for a trial in October. The Clintons' longtime lawyer David Kendall, who will attend the hearing, has declined comment on the suit. The Clintons have tried to dismiss the case, but the California Supreme Court, in 2004, upheld a lower-court decision to deny the motion. Full Story
February 29, 2008 Watching old movies makes me sad. I'm inevitably reminded of a kindlier, gentler world without cameras that spy on populations, where overseas travelling was pleasurable and privacy was an individual's right. Nowadays, states are usurping responsibilities that are rightfully those of their citizens. Western so-called democracies, in particular, are supposed to have governments that are servants of the people, whereas, in fact, the opposite is true. Under the guise of doing what's best for us or ensuring our security, governments are exercising more and more control over our lives. And, tragically, we are facilitating this erosion of our own freedoms, mostly because we're not even aware it's happening. The US and Britain are leading the pack in this encroaching Orwellian nightmare. "War is peace; Freedom is slavery; Ignorance is strength," wrote George Orwell in his book 1984. In recent years, they have waged wars in the name of peace, put entire populations under their thumb in the name of freedom while government spin and a compliant media serve to keep people ignorant about their leaders' true motives. Full Story
February 29, 2008 After years of insisting there is no evidence to link vaccines with the onset of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the US government has quietly conceded a vaccine-autism case in the Court of Federal Claims. The unprecedented concession was filed on November 9, and sealed to protect the plaintiff's identify. It was obtained through individuals unrelated to the case. The claim, one of 4,900 autism cases currently pending in Federal "Vaccine Court," was conceded by US Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler and other Justice Department officials, on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services, the "defendant" in all Vaccine Court cases. The child's claim against the government -- that mercury-containing vaccines were the cause of her autism -- was supposed to be one of three "test cases" for the thimerosal-autism theory currently under consideration by a three-member panel of Special Masters, the presiding justices in Federal Claims Court. The doctors conceded that the child was healthy and developing normally until her 18-month well-baby visit, when she received vaccinations against nine different diseases all at once (two contained thimerosal). Full Story
February 29, 2008 Newly-released records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request contradict the 9/11 Commission’s report on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and raise fresh questions about the role of Saudi government officials in connection to the hijackers. The nearly 300 pages of a Federal Bureau of Investigation timeline used by the 9/11 Commission as the basis for many of its findings were acquired through a FOIA request filed by Kevin Fenton, a 26 year old translator from the Czech Republic. The FBI released the 298-page “hijacker timeline” Feb. 4. The FBI timeline reveals that alleged hijacker Hamza Al-Ghamdi, who was aboard the United Airlines flight which crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, had booked a future flight to San Francisco. He also had a ticket for a trip from Casablanca to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Full Story
February 25, 2008 Under George W. Bush, the United States has not lived up to its historic role as a leader in the Western Hemisphere. As president, I will restore that leadership by working to advance the common prosperity and security of all of the people of the Americas. That work must begin with a renewed strategic partnership with Mexico. Starting my first year in office, I will convene annual meetings with Mr. Calderon and the prime minister of Canada. Unlike similar summits under President Bush, these will be conducted with a level of transparency that represents the close ties among our three countries. We will seek the active and open involvement of citizens, labor, the private sector and non-governmental organizations in setting the agenda and making progress. Full Story
February 25, 2008 "Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy. If history is any indication, we may be on the road to violent revolution. There's something implacable, earnest, and righteously angry in the air. And it raises all kinds of questions for burned-out Boomers and jaded Gen Xers who've been ground down to the stump by the mostly losing battles of the past 30 years. Can it be - at long last - that Americans have, simply, had enough? Are we, finally, stepping out to take back our government - and with it, control of our own future? Is this simply a shifting political season - the kind we get every 20 to 30 years - or is there something deeper going on here? Full Story
February 25, 2008 The 72-year-old, 10-term Republican congressman has just vowed to continue his current campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. There's been some confusion in recent days since Paul sounded like he was, in effect, withdrawing to refocus his political efforts on a well-funded House primary challenger in his home Texas district near Houston on March 4. His vocal online supporters have been less evident, effusive and at times abusive in the last couple of weeks. But now they have reason to refocus themselves too. But Wednesday he struck a different note. "I will stay in as long as my supporters want me to," the Texas congressman promised CNN. "And I say as long as the number of volunteers continues to grow, and the money comes in, and there are primaries out there, and they want me to be involved, I am going to stay involved." Full Story
February 25, 2008 Jon Stewart hosted the New York Times' Philip Shenon on Monday night to discuss his new book, The Commission: An Uncensored history of the 9/11 Commission. The author described White House obstructionism in the course of the officially-mandated Sept. 11 investigation. "It is remarkable the efforts that the Bush White House went through to try to prevent the 9/11 Commission from getting the information it needed," Shenon told Stewart. "The person who was most responsible for that tension was former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who was then the White House Counsel." Stewart also asked Shenon about Commission executive director Philip Zelikow and his relationship with Karl Rove. According to the author, "alarms" went off for the staff when they heard about multiple phone calls Rove had made to Zelikow. Full Story
February 20, 2008 How big do you have to be to earn the wrath of the United Nations and Internet giant Google? If you're journalist Matthew Lee, all it takes are some critical articles and a scrappy little Web site. Lee is the editor-in-chief, Webmaster and pretty much the only reporter for Inner City Press, a pint-sized Internet news operation that's taken on Goliath-sized entities like Citigroup since 1987. Since 2005, he's been focusing almost entirely on stories that deal with internal corruption inside the U.N., posting several stories online almost daily. He's been especially interested in the inner workings of what could be called the practical-applications arm of the international organization, the United Nations Development Programme. Many of Lee's stories were featured prominently whenever Web users looked for news about the U.N. using the powerful Google News search engine, a vital way for media outlets both large and small to get their articles read. Full Story
February 20, 2008 When President Nixon was in his pre-Watergate heyday, he ordered the FBI and the CIA to electronically monitor the private behavior of his domestic political adversaries. Shortly after Nixon resigned, investigators discovered hundreds of reports of break-ins and secret electronic surveillance. None of it was authorized by warrants, and thus all of it was illegal. But it had been conducted pursuant to the president's orders. Nixon's defense was, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." He made that infamous statement in a TV interview years after he left office, but the attitude espoused was obviously one he embraced while in the White House. He, like his present-day successor, rejected the truism that the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the government from conducting electronic surveillance of anyone without a search warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause of a crime, restrains the president. Full Story
February 20, 2008 The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the Bush administration's domestic spying program. However, the justices' decision Tuesday included no comment explaining why they turned down the appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union. "Although we are deeply disappointed with the Supreme Court's refusal to review this case, it is worth noting that today's action says nothing about the case's merits and does not suggest in any way an endorsement of the lower court's decision. The court's unwillingness to act makes it even more important that Congress insist on legislative safeguards that will protect civil liberties without jeopardizing national security," ACLU Legal Director Steven R. Shapiro said in a news release. The setback comes as Congress spars with President Bush over whether to grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies. The ACLU and other groups say some 40 similar lawsuits pending against the private companies, rather than the government itself, are among the only means of oversight of Bush's warratnless wiretapping program. Full Story
February 20, 2008 That I find this story so hilarious probably says more about me than the cross-dressing federal judge in question, but as they say these days, it is what it is. The punch line is probably the best part. [Federal Judge Robert] Somma worked in private practice for years in Boston before he was appointed to the bench by President Bush in December 2004. Yes, the fact that Bush appointed him as a federal bankruptcy judge does crack me up, but let's start at the beginning. Somma's Mercedes-Benz E320 sedan hit a pick-up truck from behind about 11:29 p.m. on Feb. 6, the police report said. No one was hurt. Somma, who lives in Newbury, Mass., fumbled in his purse for his driver's license before handing it to the officer who later arrested him, the police report shows. "He had a difficult time locating his license in his purse. He passed over it multiple times before removing it," officer Paul J. Thompson wrote in his report. Full Story
February 14, 2008 Some are it again on this site, saying that McCain will be the nominee...I wish you people understood the delegate process and stop folding like a house of cards.....if that were the case, don't you think RP would have quit by now? Do some research!!! When McCain reaches 1191 as declared by the MSM, that will really not be the case. He is not guaranteed all of those delegates. HE MUST WIN THE 1191 DELEGATES AT THE CONVENTION!!! DID YOU GET THAT!!! HE DOES NOT WIN THE DELEGATES DURING THE PRIMARIES!!! Bound or pledged delegates are committed to the winner of the primary to vote for that candidate in the first round. Many states have yet to pick delegates. Of those that have, RP has very high delegate counts even though he hasn't won a single primary. How? Well people just simply apply. More of RP supporters are willing to become delegates than McCaine supporters.....Ask some here that have become RP delegates. Full Story
February 12, 2008 I've spent the last 25 years of my life waiting for things to change for the better. They have not. In fact, things have only become worse. You all know exactly where I'm coming from. Year by year, the American people are picked apart, lied to, robbed, enslaved and have had their Constitutional rights systematically stolen. I'm a U.S. Marine. I've been saying for over two decades that a revolution is coming - and I didn't mean the one we have here. I mean a bloody one. A revolution where my fellow Americans finally reach the melting point, when former and currently active military join together to take the country back by force. Where the common citizen is finally asked, "Will you take up arms to regain your rights?". Now I see differently. In the past months I have been given an entirely different outlook on the future. I see my fellow citizens, people with or without military backgrounds or affiliations to compel them to do so, joining the ranks of this freedom revolution. Full Story
February 12, 2008 Imagine that as resume fodder: "2006-2008 Line attendant. Stand around in uniform; look fat, dumb, and hippy. Pretend passengers are terrorists. Scowl and yell in bullying tones while disregarding individuals seeking assistance. Plan best route for own escape in case real terrorists actually show up some day." Anyway, poor Darron asked this cretin "if he could move ahead of others. She ignored him." Of course. She's too busy doing nothing. Eventually Darron made it to "the X-ray machine," where "he placed his laptop inside its case on the belt and went through the metal detector. An officer informed him the computer and case had to go through again separately." Those wimpy rays don't see through Christmas paper either, prompting the TSA to command, "Travel with unwrapped gifts. If a wrapped gift sets off an alarm, TSA security officers will need to unwrap the gift to resolve the alarm." Lois Lane must have hoped Superman's vision was this feeble. Full Story
February 12, 2008 Supporters need to value progress made in last 12 months and understand battle for liberty never ends. Amidst a certain amount of resentment amongst some Ron Paul supporters that the Texan has decided to scale back his presidential campaign in order to secure his Congressional seat, the real progress that has been made over the last 12 months has been highlighted by an unlikely source. Newsmax, which is largely a Neo-Con news outfit, admits in its new print magazine issue that Ron Paul may have "changed the GOP forever," conceding that he is "sparking an incredible movement of libertarian conservatives in the Republican Party." Newsmax writes that Paul's message of small government, limited taxation, and reduced intervention abroad "resonates with millions of Americans" and compares the Congressman's impact to that of conservative icon Barry Goldwater, who fundamentally shifted the course of the GOP 50 years ago. Full Story
February 9, 2008 The Brownshirt Party has chosen John "hundred year war" McCain as its presidential candidate. Except for Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and billy kristol, McCain is America's greatest warmonger. In a McCain Regime, Cheney will be back in office with another stint as Secretary of War. Norman "Bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran" Podhoretz will be Undersecretary for Nuclear War with General John "Nuke them" Shalikashvili as his deputy. Rudy Giuliani will be the Minister of Interior in charge of Halliburton's detention centers into which will be herded all critics of war and the police state. billy kristol will be chief White House spokesliar. The whole gang will be back--Wolfowitz, Perle, Wurmster, Feith, Libby, Bolton. America will have a second chance to bomb the world into submission. Full Story
February 9, 2008 Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does-and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to "shoot to kill" in the event of martial law. InfraGard is "a child of the FBI," says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm. Full Story
