Sunday, May 31, 2009
Obama’s new war doctrine: ‘Cyber dominance’
The US military is moving ahead with plans to create its first “cyber command” designed to bolster America’s potential to wage digital warfare as well as defend against mounting cyber threats, officials said on Friday.
After President Barack Obama announced Friday his plans to overhaul cyber security policy,
Defense Secretary Robert Gates was expected to soon formally propose the new cyber command that will be overseen by a four-star officer, Pentagon officials told AFP.
The move reflects a shift in military strategy with “cyber dominance” now part of US war doctrine and growing alarm over the perceived threat posed by digital espionage coming from China, Russia and elsewhere.
US officials say China has built up a sophisticated cyber warfare program and that a spate of intrusions in the United States and elsewhere can be traced back to Chinese sources.
Defense officials say the cyber command would focus on security efforts for US networks along with offensive capabilities to ensure “freedom of action in cyberspace” to protect America’s interests.
The precise details of US cyber military power remain secret, but it includes technology capable of penetrating and jamming networks, including the classified Suter airborne system, analysts say.
Full article here
US ready for ‘conventional’ war with N. Korea
Friday, May 29, 2009
The US is “prepared” to engage in a ‘conventional’ war with North Korea but it requires time to adjust to the new front, says the military.
Gen. George Casey appearing at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday said the US was ready to enter an old-fashioned war with North Korea if necessary.
However, he said, “It would probably take us a little bit longer to shift gears” away from the type of counterinsurgency fighting that now occupies the Army. Casey was referring the US two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We’d move forces as rapidly as we could get them prepared,” Casey insisted.
The US army’s chief of staff refrained from suggesting how long it would take to redeploy the army in the new front on the Korean peninsula, but said that the US army was “combat seasoned” and could move quickly.
“The mechanical skills of artillery gunnery and tank gunnery come back very, very quickly,” he said. “The harder part is the integration - that really brigade level and above of massing fires and effects in a very constricted period of time as opposed to what you do in a counterinsurgency over a much longer extended period of time.”
Thursday, May 28, 2009
S. Korea, US troops on alert after North's threats
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korean and U.S. troops raised their alert Thursday to the highest level since 2006 after North Korea renounced its truce with the allied forces and threatened to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels.
The move was a sign of heightened tensions on the peninsula following the North's underground nuclear test and its firing of a series of short-range missiles earlier this week.
In response, Seoul decided to join more than 90 nations that have agreed to stop and inspect vessels suspected of transporting banned weapons.
North Korea says South Korea's participation in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative is a prelude to a naval blockade and raises the prospect of a naval skirmish in its western waters.
(AP) South Korean soldiers look at the North Korean side through binoculars at Dora Observation Post in...
On Wednesday, it renounced the 1953 truce that halted fighting in the Korean War. It said Thursday through its official media that it was preparing for an American-led attack. The U.S. has repeatedly denied it is planning military action.
"The northward invasion scheme by the U.S. and the South Korean puppet regime has exceeded the alarming level," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. "A minor accidental skirmish can lead to a nuclear war."
The two Koreas remain technically at war since a peace treaty has never replaced the truce.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
North Korea To Use Force Against S. Korea
“The Korean People’s Army will not be bound to the Armistice Agreement any longer,” the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement today. Any attempt to inspect North Korean vessels will be countered with “prompt and strong military strikes.” South Korea’s military said it will “deal sternly with any provocation” from the North, reports Bloomberg.
As we have highlighted, any North Korean attack on South Korea will be countered by the United States, which is allied with South Korea. North Korea is allied with China, and Chinese military forces will support North Korea in any conflict just as they did in the 1950’s before the armistice was signed.
Read full report here
North Korea Threatens to Attack U.S. Warships
May 27, 2009
“Now that the South Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots,” North Korea is “compelled to take a decisive measure,” the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by state media.
The Stalinist regime said it could no longer promise the safety of U.S. and South Korean warships and civilian vessels in the waters near the Korea’s western maritime border, according to reports.
North Korea has bolstered its live artillery fire exercises and fighter jet training near the western sea border with South Korea since it declared an “all-out confrontational posture” against the South in January. North Korea is said to have deployed thousands of weapons hidden in mountain caves and tunnels near the inter-Korean border. The artillery puts South Korea’s capital area within target range, according to The Korea Times.
On May 25, North Korea conducted a nuclear test in violation of U.N. violation of Resolution 1718.
On March 9, South Korea and the United States kicked off their annual joint military exercises on despite strong oppositions by North Korea. According to the Chosun Daily, 26,000 U.S. troops and over 50,000 South Korean troops will participate in the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercise all over South Korea, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
It is unknown if the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and a total of seven U.S. Aegis destroyers that participated in the joint exercise are still in the area.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Ruling Party Official: Japan Should Attack North Korea
This seems to be the coming of something large. They mention WWIII in this, and I wonder if such could take place?
Paul Joseph Watson
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A ruling party lawmaker today urged Japan to break the terms of its pacifist constitution and pre-emptively attack North Korea following the Stalinist state’s nuclear bomb test.
“North Korea poses a serious and realistic threat to Japan,” stated former defense chief Gen Nakatani in Tokyo at a meeting of Liberal Democratic Party officials. “We must look at active missile defense such as attacking an enemy’s territory and bases.”
Nakatani said the attack could be accomplished by equipping navy ships with cruise missiles.
The former defense minister’s warning arrives on the heels of an LDP panel proposal that Japan should change the terms of its pacifist constitution, written by the U.S. after world war two to prevent Japan using hostile force to settle geopolitical disputes, to enable a military attack on North Korea.
“The Japanese government has built a defense network since a North Korean Taepodong-1 missile flew over Japan in 1998 that includes anti-missile batteries around Tokyo and is expanding to other major cities. Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada in March ordered the shooting down of any North Korean missile or related debris that entered Japanese territory,” reports Bloomberg.
It’s not an exaggeration to conclude that any attack on North Korea could eventually lead to world war three. North Korea and China are allies and both have nuclear weapons. If North Korea is attacked by anyone, its first course of action would be to strike South Korea, a close ally of the United States. This would obligate the U.S. to retaliate, bringing American troops to the Chinese border and any escalation from that point would be a disaster.
As we reported yesterday, if you’re wondering how North Korea got its nukes in the first place, look no further than the U.S. government itself.
Two years before North Korea was included in the “axis of evil,” former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, during his time as executive director of ABB, signed off on a $200 million dollar contract to build light water nuclear reactors in North Korea.
Rumsfeld was merely picking up the baton from the Clinton administration, who in 1994 agreed to replace North Korea’s domestically built nuclear reactors with light water nuclear reactors.
According to Henry Sokolski, head of the Non-proliferation Policy Education Centre in Washington, “These reactors are like all reactors, they have the potential to make weapons. So you might end up supplying the worst nuclear violator with the means to acquire the very weapons we’re trying to prevent it acquiring.”
President George W. Bush provided another $95 million in April 2002 towards the construction of more reactors in North Korea, as well as a further $3.5 million in January 2003.
Construction of the reactors was eventually suspended, but North Korea had an alternative source through which they could obtain the nuclear secrets vital to building an atom bomb arsenal - CIA asset and international arms smuggler AQ Khan.
In 2004, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb program, admitted sharing nuclear technology via a worldwide smuggling network that included facilities in Malaysia that manufactured key parts for centrifuges.
Khan’s collaborator B.S.A. Tahir ran a front company out of Dubai that shipped centrifuge components to North Korea.
Despite Dutch authorities being deeply suspicious of Khan’s activities as far back as 1975, the CIA prevented them from arresting him on two occasions.
“The man was followed for almost ten years and obviously he was a serious problem. But again I was told that the secret services could handle it more effectively,” former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers said. “The Hague did not have the final say in the matter. Washington did.”
Lubbers stated that Khan was allowed to slip in and out of the Netherlands with the blessing of the CIA, eventually allowing him to become the “primary salesman of an extensive international network for the proliferation of nuclear technology and know-how,” according to George W. Bush himself, and sell nuclear secrets that allowed North Korea to build nuclear bombs.
“Lubbers suspects that Washington allowed Khan’s activities because Pakistan was a key ally in the fight against the Soviets,” reports CFP. “At the time, the US government funded and armed mujahideen such as Osama bin Laden. They were trained by Pakistani intelligence to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Anwar Iqbal, Washington correspondent for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, told ISN Security Watch that Lubbers’ assertions may be correct. “This was part of a long-term foolish strategy. The US knew Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons but couldn’t care less because it was not going to be used against them. It was a deterrent against India and possibly the Soviets.”
In September 2005 it emerged that the Amsterdam court which sentenced Khan to four years imprisonment in 1983 had lost the legal files pertaining to the case. The court’s vice-president, Judge Anita Leeser, accused the CIA of stealing the files. “Something is not right, we just don’t lose things like that,” she told Dutch news show NOVA. “I find it bewildering that people lose files with a political goal, especially if it is on request of the CIA. It is unheard of.”
In 2005, Pakistani President Pervez Musharaf acknowledged that Khan had provided centrifuges and their designs to North Korea.
With this history in mind, the shock, condemnation and indignation being expressed by the U.S. government in response to North Korea’s second nuclear bomb test is tinged with hypocrisy to say the least. Through their policies in aiding North Korea to build light water reactors, and via the CIA asset AQ Khan who was protected at every step of the way while he helped provide North Korea with the means to build a nuclear arsenal, the U.S. government itself is directly complicit in providing North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il with the nuclear weapons that they are now condemning him for testing.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Bill to Audit Fed Gains Serious Momentum
Infowars
May 22, 2009
It looks like the Federal Reserve may finally have something to worry about now that HR 1207 is finally gaining serious steam. If enacted, HR 1207 will amend title 31 of the United States Code and reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States. In other words, for the first time since 1950, the criminals at the Federal Reserve will be forced by law to open their books.
HR 1207 was sponsored and introduced by Rep. Ron Paul. On February 26, 2009, it was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services. It now has 179 co-sponsors (see the list of sponsors below).
If passed, the bill will force the Fed to give a public accounting of the trillions of taxpayer “loans” handed over to the banksters. It will force Congress to audit the Fed and this will force out into the light of day the Fed practice of inflating the currency for the gain of a small number of international bankers. It will reveal the bankster practice of engineering financial crises and depressions — or scientifically created, as Congressman Charles A. Lindberg Sr. said after the Federal Reserve Act was passed in the dead of night — in order to consolidate illicit gains and eliminate competition (as the bankers are monopoly men).
On March 25, 2009, H.R. 1207 had 44 co-sponsors. “We’re making great progress because a lot of you have helped encourage your member of Congress to co-sponsor the bill,” Ron Paul said. “And to me, this is very, very important that we do this. The atmosphere in the Congress has definitely changed. It’s changed with their attitude about the Federal Reserve System, but overall there’s a tremendous push by the American people for the Congress to wake up and have more transparency… I have argued, of course, that we don’t need the Federal Reserve. It’s not part of our constitution and we should get rid of it, but it doesn’t happen that way. But if we get the audit and get the books open, make them answer the questions, I am convinced that the American people will be so outraged that then we will have reform of the monetary system.”
Imagine Ben Bernanke, shorn of his arrogance, dragged before Congress and compelled to answer questions. In the not too distant past, this prospect was a remote dream, but now, thanks to Ron Paul and all the people who have insisted their representatives support this bill, it may become law.
Obama Youth: A Reality
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Guantanamo Prisoners STILL Being Tortured Under Obama
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
While torture under the Bush administration was horrible, at least it has stopped. Right?
Wrong.
Jeremy Scahill (the reporter who broke most of the stories on Blackwater) says that a military police unit at Guantanamo regularly brutalizes unarmed prisoners, including gang-beating them, breaking their bones, gouging their eyes and dousing them with chemicals.
Specifically, whenever there is “disobedience” by the detainees - which can include praying, or having 2 styrofoam cups in their cell instead of 1, or refusing medication or failing to immediately respond when spoken to - the “Immediate Reaction Force” (IRF) is sent in.
Scahill describes what happens next:
When an IRF team is called in, its members are dressed in full riot gear, which some prisoners and their attorneys have compared to “Darth Vader” suits. Each officer is assigned a body part of the prisoner to restrain: head, right arm, left arm, left leg, right leg…
[The IRF teams then mete out brutal punishment, including] gang beating them, forcing their heads into toilets, breaking bones, gouging their eyes, squeezing their testicles, urinating on a prisoner’s head, banging their heads on concrete floors and hog-tying them — sometimes leaving prisoners tied in excruciating positions for hours on end…
[One prisoner was sprayed directly in the eyes with mace and gouged in the eyes and was then refused medical treatment, which resulted in permanent blindness in one eye. He also endured a "sexual attack".
Another prisoner had a third prisoner's feces spread on him.]
Read entire article here
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Let Man Live
This is an interesting clip, and I think it is a good one. There is one portion of the clip where John Piper suggests that the government pass laws, or something to that effect, reversing Roe v Wade; I think what he is looking for is to make abortion illegal in the sense that murder is illegal. I do not think that he is asking for government intervention as it pertains to passing laws to make abortion illegal in its own right.
Military Personnel Ordered To Comply With Illegal Private Firearms Registration
An alarming document sent to us by an Infantryman based out of Fort Campbell Kentucky shows that active duty military personnel are being secretly ordered to submit information to their Chain of Command on how many firearms they own privately, their location, as well of details of any Concealed Carry permits.
Though the order was apparently rescinded, the fact that active duty soldiers are being asked to submit every detail of their private firearm collection is a telltale sign that the second amendment is in dire straights. Furthermore, Alex Jones has personally confirmed that such directives are being issued all over the country.
The directive orders active duty personnel to report details of all privately-owned firearms to their Chain of Command, as well as future firearms purchases.
The memorandum was sent to us by a concerned 11B Infantryman based at Fort Campbell. In his e mail, the man expresses his shock at being ordered to comply with what amounts to a registration of privately-owned firearms.
Read entire article here
Monday, May 18, 2009
American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper
May 18, 2009
Infowars.com
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite tv dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blindth the foolish.
Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barrack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.
Then came Barrack Obama’s command that GM’s (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of “pure” free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.
So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a “bold” move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK’s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our “wise” Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.
Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper…but a “freeman” whimper.
So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set “fair” maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.
The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.
The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.
Bilderberg Fears Losing Control In Chaos-Plagued World
Prison Planet.com
May 18, 2009
Investigative journalist Daniel Estulin, whose information from inside Bilderberg has routinely proven accurate, states that the global elite’s plan to completely destroy the economy and ultimately lower global population by two thirds has stoked fears even within Bilderberg itself that the fallout from such chaos could ultimately result in the globalists losing their control over the world.
In a telephone interview, Estulin re-iterated his original points about Bilderberg’s 2009 agenda, which were released in a pre-meeting booklet to members. These include the notion that investors, whipped up into a false state of euphoria by the belief that the economy is recovering, are being suckered into ploughing their money back into the system as a set up for “massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead” as the stock market reverses its uptrend and plummets to new lows.
One of Bilderberg’s main topics of conversation at this year’s meeting was whether to oversee a long period of economic stagnation or to quickly sink the economy with a rapid depression.
Estulin called the “bank stress tests” recently conducted as being “little more than a shameless hoax based on the irrational assumption that the economy wont get as bad as it already is.”
Bilderberg are also intent in pushing through the Lisbon Treaty despite it being rejected by countries in Europe who allowed their population to vote on the issue, and are prepared to manufacture demonization campaigns against anti-EU pressure groups, namely the Libertas organization fronted by Declan Ganley.
One of Bilderberg’s primary concerns according to Estulin is the danger that their zeal to reshape the world by engineering chaos in order to implement their long term agenda could cause the situation to spiral out of control and eventually lead to a scenario where Bilderberg and the global elite in general are overwhelmed by events and end up losing their control over the planet.
Estulin said that the economic crisis is a vastly greater threat than a mere recession and that, as long as the present structure of the global economy remains the same, it will ultimately lead to a massive population reduction of two thirds within a generation or two.
Estulin said that such a massive crisis would bring many unknowns that “Scare and frighten some of the more savvy members of the Bilderberg inner circle who are wondering how far they have actually gone not only to destroy the world but perhaps even destroy themselves,” adding that this subject was a topic of conversation at this year’s meeting.
Estulin highlighted a phrase that he first ran across in Bilderberg documents many years ago but only came to understand more recently following the 2002 meeting in Chantilly Virginia, the term “demand destruction”.
Estulin said that a source connected to the World Bank explained to him that, “You destroy demand by destroying the world economy on purpose - which is what we’re witnessing right now,” added Estulin, “destruction of the world economy on purpose.”
Friday, May 15, 2009
America's--Hitler--Boy Scout Youth
Apparently in a shift away from the traditional Boy Scouts activities of sports, camping, survival skills and team leadership, the government is now training children “to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence” under the banner of the Explorers program, with the aid of military-style exercises aimed at subduing insurgents.
In one scenario, boys are trained how to conduct drug raids and take out an “obstreperous lookout”.
In other situations, Boy Scouts are trained to disarm “suspected terrorists” and subdue them, including Iraq war veterans.
Last month, Infowars reported on a document produced by the Department of Homeland Security’s National Infrastructure Coordinating Center identifying advocates of the Second Amendment, veterans, pro-life activists, and militia members as dangerous terrorists. A subsequent DHS document, entitled “Domestic Extremism Lexicon,” pinpointed “antigovernment” types “rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority” as possible terrorists. “Islamic groups are specifically excluded from this document,” writes Benjamin Sarlin for the Daily Beast.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
US looking to boost military funding for ‘right war’
Wednesday,
May 13, 2009
The US Congress is expected to pass an emergency bill on funding for the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Obama administration and Department of Defense are asking for around $95 billion of extra cash to beef up their overseas military operations, as well as humanitarian purposes.
Some of the requested funds will go towards aid purposes. For example, $1 billion is going to be spent to help countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq fight terrorism. About $2 billion will go towards stopping the global spread of swine flu.
If these figures are compared to a bigger picture, more than 19% of the bill is going towards military force, which goes against previous Obama rhetoric, as the new administration is heard constantly and insists that the US military policy in Afghanistan and Central Asia itself needs change and that this war cannot be won by military force alone.
Read more
This 19% of the bill will be spent on new machinery and new military equipment which raises the question over whether the American administration is really preparing to change anything.
In addition, despite Barack Obama promising at the beginning of his term that he will close the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention center, the appears that the American lawmakers are putting their foot on this money – all because Obama still has not presented a solid plan as to where the prisoners are going to go. Even the Democrats, who are expected to support Obama and give him this money insist that there is no way Obama’s administration could get this money before it explains what it plans to do with Gitmo inmates.
Full story here.
Southern Baptists come out against torture!
There is no room for torture as part of the United States’ intelligence gathering process, in Richard Land’s view. The practice known as “waterboarding” is torture, he said.
Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said there is no circumstance in which torture should be permissible in interrogations by U.S. officials, even if the authorities believe a prisoner has information that might involve national security. (emphasis mine)… “I don’t agree with the belief that we should use any means necessary to extract information,” Land said in an interview with Religion News Service and Baptist Press May 4. “I believe there are absolutes. There are things we must never do under any circumstances.”
Furthermore, Land said, if he could not in good conscience “waterboard” someone, he would not — if he were a public official — have the right to authorize someone else to do it.“For me the ultimate test is this: Could I in good conscience do whatever I am authorizing or condoning others to do? If not, then I must oppose the action,” Land said. “If I could not waterboard someone — and I couldn’t — then I must oppose its practice.”Land said he considers waterboarding torture because included in the definition of torture is whether a procedure causes permanent physical harm, noting he is unable to “separate physical from psychological harm” in this instance.
The practice contravenes an individual’s personhood and their humanity, he said.“It violates everything we believe in as a country,” Land said, noting the Declaration of Independence says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
House No. 2: Explore Pelosi interrogation briefing
Washignton Post
The House majority leader reluctantly agreed Tuesday that congressional hearings should investigate Speaker Nancy Pelosi's assertion that she wasn't informed, more than six years ago, that harsh interrogation methods were used on an al-Qaida leader.
Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called Republican challenges to Pelosi's assertion a diversion from the real question of whether the Bush administration tortured terrorist suspects. Nonetheless, he acknowledged the controversy should be resolved.
Democrats will hold a series of hearings on Justice Department memos released last month that justified rough tactics against detainees, including waterboarding — simulated drowning — and sleep deprivation.
While Democrats want the hearings to focus on what they call torture, Republicans have tried to turn the issue to their advantage by complaining that Pelosi and other Democrats knew of the tactics but didn't protest. Pelosi was briefed in 2002 while on the House Intelligence Committee.
Hoyer, asked at a news conference whether Democrats were inviting political problems for themselves by holding hearings, said, "I think the facts need to get out.
"I think the Republicans are simply trying to distract the American public with who knew what when. My response to that is, look, the issue is not what was said or what was known; the question and focus ought to be on what was done."
But he added that the controversy over "what was said and when it was said, who said it ... is probably what ought to be on the record as well."
Hoyer also was asked whether he believes Pelosi's support has been undermined among Democrats.
"No, I don't," he said.
A Senate Judiciary subcommittee holds the first hearing on the interrogation policy on Wednesday, but has scheduled testimony unrelated to the Pelosi matter.
A CIA document made public last week shows that Pelosi received a briefing in September 2002 on the tactics used on Abu Zubaydah, an al-Qaida leader and one of three prisoners subjected to waterboarding. Pelosi said she was told the agency was discussing its legal right to use the tactic in the future.
"We were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used," said Pelosi, D-Calif.
Former Top Rated NRA Senator to Introduce Gun Ban This Week
Infowars
May 11, 2009
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat and member of the so-called Blue Dog Coalition, plans to introduce an assault weapons ban this week. Gillibrand, the junior senator from New York, was at one time highly rated by the NRA for her advocacy of the Second Amendment.
Newsday claims Gillibrand has “undergone a transformation” over the last three months and has moved away from “her House record that won the NRA’s top rating while remaining a supporter of Second Amendment rights to gun ownership.” Since her Senate appointment, she has “passed just about every test on guns set by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy,” who reintroduced a bill closing the so-called gun-show loophole at a news conference last week.
It appears likely Ms. Gillibrand was a gun-grabber all along and used the Second Amendment as an election ploy. Polls indicate a large percentage of voters strongly support the Second Amendment.
McCarthy’s bill, H.R. 6676, would utilize the National Instant Criminal Background Check System for background checks on all gun store employees and dealers. In addition to H.R. 6676, three other bills have been offered including laws that would make it illegal for known or suspected terrorists to buy guns.
As reported by Infowars last week, the House is currently working on H.R. 2159, The Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009, sponsored by Rep. Peter King of New York. The bill would “increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of a firearm or the issuance of firearms or explosives licenses to a known or suspected dangerous terrorist.”
Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, told WorldNetDaily the bill will likely be used in junction with the DHS “Rightwing Extremism” report that characterizes advocates of the Second Amendment and others as terrorists. “By those standards, I’m one of [DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano’s terrorists,” Pratt said. “This bill would enable the attorney general to put all of the people who voted against Obama on no-gun lists, because according to the DHS, they’re all potential terrorists.”
Senator Gillibrand is working closely with gun-grabbing organizations, including New Yorkers Against Gun Violence and the Brady Campaign, according to Matt Canter, Gillibrand’s spokesman. New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and others are working with Gillibrand on “anti-trafficking legislation to stop the flow of illegal guns,” Canter told Newsday.
The Obama administration recently attempted to link the right to own firearms to drug cartel violence in Mexico. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration officials have said 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States. In fact, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S. Statistics reveal that most of the guns flowing into Mexico come from the black market, Russian crime organizations, South America, Asia, Guatemala, and the Mexican Army.
Soon after his shoo-in confirmation, Attorney General Eric Holder revived the assault weapons ban debate. Responding to a reporter’s question on weapons’ regulations, Holder said, “Well, as President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons. I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum.” Holder did not provide details on when legislation would be presented to Congress.
Democrats are reluctant to make additional attacks against the Second Amendment. In 1994, the issue was instrumental in handing over control of Congress to the Republicans. Earlier this year, the Democratic-led Senate dealt a body blow to the gun control movement, when 22 Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., joined 40 Republicans to shelve firearms restrictions in the nation’s capital.
Democrats fearful of backlash have told the Obama administration they would “actively oppose” any renewal of the assault weapons ban. Democrat senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus warned they would “strongly oppose any legislation that will infringe upon the rights of individual gun owners.”
Democrats, however, are biding their time. Veteran gun-grabber Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, author of the 1994 assault weapons ban, told CBS’ “60 Minutes” on April 12 that she has no intention of reintroducing the assault weapons ban at this time. “I’ll pick the time and the place, no question about it,” she said, that is to say when the opportunistic introduction of such legislation is politically expedient and will not damage her party.
Government propaganda and exploitation of recent high profile “gun violence” stories by the corporate media have not turned the public against the Second Amendment. “Recent polls show shrinking support for new gun control measures and strong public sentiment for enforcing existing laws instead. So strong is the shift in public opinion that a proposed assault-weapons ban — once backed by three in four Americans — now rates barely one in two,” reports the Houston Chronicle.
An April poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal found that support for curbing the sale of assault weapons and semiautomatic rifles has dropped from 75 percent in 1991 to 53 percent today
Monday, May 11, 2009
Don't Tred On Me is Tredded Upon
Small town police misled by phony left wing “reports” are bad enough. Federal government agencies and their armed agents under the direction of leftist radicals are exponentially worse. They will tread on us. The time has come to let our voices be heard!
Holder vs. the 2nd Amendment
Infowars
May 9, 2009
A sinister bill working its way through the House may eventually serve as a companion piece to the Department of Homeland Security’s “Rightwing Extremist” report that labels veterans and advocates of the Second Amendment as dangerous terrorists — H.R. 2159, The Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009, sponsored by Rep. Peter King of New York.On April 29, with little fanfare or corporate media coverage, H.R. 2159 was introduced and referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. The bill would “increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of a firearm or the issuance of firearms or explosives licenses to a known or suspected dangerous terrorist.” The entire bill can be read on the Govtrack website.A similar bill was introduced in the Senate in 2007 but did not make it out of committee.
As noted above, the DHS has compiled a long list of folks the government considers terrorists. The bill, if enacted, would allow the attorney general, a documented gun-grabber, to deny millions of Americans due process. “[Rep. King] would deny citizens their civil liberties based on no due process,” Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, tells WorldNetDaily.
Pratt worries that the new bill will be used in conjunction with the DHS “Rightwing Extremism” report. “By those standards, I’m one of [DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano’s terrorists,” Pratt continues. “This bill would enable the attorney general to put all of the people who voted against Obama on no-gun lists, because according to the DHS, they’re all potential terrorists. Actually, we could rename this bill the Janet Napolitano Frenzied Fantasy Implementation Act of 2009.”On May 1, 2009, Infowars reported on the existence of another DHS document, the “Domestic Extremism Lexicon.” It adds more suspected terrorists to the government’s list, including people working in the alternative media, anarchists, pro-life activists, skinheads, lone terrorists, members of the militia movement, “decentralized” terrorists, and others.
The DHS reports were distributed to “federal, state, local, and tribal counterterrorism and law enforcement officials so they may effectively deter, prevent, preempt, or respond to terrorist attacks against the United States.”Earlier this week, a man was stopped in Louisiana and detained by police for the crime of displaying a “Don’t tread one me” bumper sticker on his car. A background check was conducted to determine whether he was a member of an “extremist” group, according to The American Vision website. “Don’t tread on me” was originally displayed on a flag designed by general and statesman Christopher Gadsden during the Revolutionary War. It is depicted as a terrorist symbol in the DHS “Rightwing Extremist” report.
During Holder’s shoo-in confirmation hearings earlier this year, Stephen Halbrook, Second Amendment attorney, detailed Holder’s vehement opposition to the right to bear arms. Holder’s role in the Waco massacre and Ruby Ridge were expected to be brought up during the hearings but were not.Shortly after 9/11, Holder penned a Washington Post op-ed entitled “Keeping Guns Away From Terrorists.” In the article, the future Attorney General argues that a new law should give “the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms a record of every firearm sale.” He also states that prospective gun buyers should be checked against the secret “watch lists” compiled by various government entities.
In order to make his point, Holder makes the ludicrous hypothesis that Osama bin Laden would be able to purchase an unregistered firearm at a gun show in America.The government now possesses the appropriate “watch lists” and has designated specific categories of Americans as domestic terrorists. If H.R. 2159 becomes law the Obama administration and the Justice Department will go after opponents to their far-reaching plan to disarm the nation and deliver it defenseless into the clutches of bankers and corporatists determined to reduce a once proud constitutional republic to the status of a fuedalist backwater.
Friday, May 8, 2009
CIA Says Pelosi Was Briefed on Use of 'Enhanced Interrogations'
The Washington Post
Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.The memo, issued by the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency to Capitol Hill, notes the Pelosi-Goss briefing covered "EITs including the use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah." EIT is an acronym for enhanced interrogation technique. Zubaydah was one of the earliest valuable al-Qaeda members captured and the first to have the controversial tactic known as water boarding used against him.
The issue of what Pelosi knew and when she knew it has become a matter of heated debate on Capitol Hill. Republicans have accused her of knowing for many years precisely the techniques CIA agents were using in interrogations, and only protesting the tactics when they became public and liberal antiwar activists protested.
In a carefully worded statement, Pelosi's office said today that she had never been briefed about the use of waterboarding, only that it had been approved by Bush administration lawyers as a legal technique to use in interrogations."As this document shows, the Speaker was briefed only once, in September 2002. The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used," said Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman.
Pelosi's statement did not address whether she was informed that other harsh techniques were already in use during the Zubaydah interrogations.
In December 2007 the Washington Post reported that leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees had been briefed in the fall of 2002 about waterboarding -- which simulates drowning -- and other techniques, and that no congressional leaders protested its use. At the time Pelosi said she was not told that waterboarding was being used, a position she stood by repeatedly last month when the Bush-era Justice Department legal documents justifying the interrogation tactics were released by Attorney General Eric Holder.
The new memo shows that intelligence officials were willing to share the information about waterboarding with only a sharply closed group of people. Three years after the initial Pelosi-Goss briefing, Bush officials still limited interrogation technique briefings to just the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the so-called Gang of Four in the intelligence world.
In October 2005, CIA officials began briefing other congressional leaders with oversight of the intelligence community, including top appropriators who provided the agency its annual funding. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam and an opponent of torture techniques, was also read into the program at that time even though he did not hold a special committee position overseeing the intelligence community.
A bipartisan collection of lawmakers have criticized the practice of limiting information to just the "Gang of Four", who were expressly forbidden from talking about the information from other colleagues, including fellow members of the intelligence committees. Pelosi and others are considering reforms that would assure a more open process for all committee members.
Leaked 1955 Bilderberg Docs Outline Plan For Single European Currency
Prison Planet.com
Friday, May 8, 2009
Leaked documents from the 1955 Bilderberg Group conference held in Germany discuss the agenda to create a European Union and a single EU currency, decades before they were introduced, disproving once again debunkers who claim that Bilderberg has no influence over world events.
Leaked papers from the meeting which took place from September 23-25 1955 at the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany, were released by the Wikileaks website yesterday.
As we first reported in 2003, a BBC investigative team were allowed to access Bilderberg files which confirmed that the EU and the Euro were the brainchild of Bilderberg. They were probably reading from the same documents that were released by Wikileaks.
It was only last month that Belgian viscount and current Bilderberg-chairman Étienne Davignon bragged that Bilderberg helped create the Euro by first introducing the policy agenda for a single currency in the early 1990’s.
However, the documents show that the agenda to create a European common market and a single currency go back decades earlier
read the full article here
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Poll: Majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana
Thursday, May 7, 2009
3,937 voters were asked: “Scarce law enforcement and prison resources, a desire to neutralize drug cartels and the need for new sources of revenue have resurrected the topic of legalizing marijuana. Proponents say it makes sense to tax and regulate the drug while opponents say that legalization would lead marijuana users to use other illegal drugs. Would you favor or oppose the government’s effort to legalize marijuana?”
52 percent came out in favor, with 37 percent against. The poll was commissioned by the conservative-leaning O’Leary report.
“The survey, published as a full-page ad in [Wednesday's] issue of the political newspaper The Hill, polled a sample of 3,937 voters weighted to match the 2008 presidential outcome — 54 percent Obama voters and 46 percent McCain supporters,” Salem News reported.
The results are “slightly higher than the 46 percent support reported in an ABC News/Washington Post poll released at the end of April.”
Obama pressed to engage on gay issues
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
The New York Times
Thurs, May 7, 2009
President Obama was noticeably silent last month when the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
But now Mr. Obama — who has said he opposes same-sex marriage as a Christian but describes himself as a "fierce advocate of equality" for gay men and lesbians — is under pressure to engage on a variety of gay issues that are coming to the fore amid a dizzying pace of social, political, legal and legislative change.
Two of Mr. Obama’s potential Supreme Court nominees are openly gay; some advocates, irked that there are no gay men or lesbians in his cabinet, are mounting a campaign to influence his choice to replace Justice David H. Souter , who is retiring. Same-sex marriage is advancing in states — the latest to allow it is Maine — and a new flare-up in the District of Columbia could ultimately put the controversy in the lap of the president.
Mr. Obama’s new global health initiative has infuriated activists who say he is not financing AIDS programs generously enough. And while the president has urged Congress to pass a hate crimes bill, a high priority for gay groups, he has delayed action on one of his key campaign promises, repealing the military’s "don’t ask, don’t tell" rule.
Social issues like same-sex marriage bring together deeply held principles and flashpoint politics, and many gay activists, aware that Mr. Obama is also dealing with enormous challenges at home and overseas, have counseled patience.
But some are unsettled by what they see as the president’s cautious approach. Many are still seething over his choice of the Rev. Rick Warren , the evangelical pastor who opposes same-sex marriage, to deliver the invocation at his inaugural, and remain suspicious of Mr. Obama’s commitment to their cause.
In the words of David Mixner, a writer, gay activists are beginning to wonder, "How much longer do we give him the benefit of the doubt?" Last weekend, Richard Socarides, who advised President Bill Clinton on gay issues, published an opinion piece in The Washington Post headlined, "Where’s our fierce advocate?"
'They have a plan'The White House, aware of the discontent, invited leaders of some prominent gay rights organizations to meet Monday with top officials, including Jim Messina, Mr. Obama’s deputy chief of staff, to plot legislative strategy on the hate crimes bill as well as "don’t ask, don’t tell." Among those attending was Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, who said afterward that while the gay rights agenda might not be "unfolding exactly as we thought," he was pleased.
"They have a vision," Mr. Solmonese said. "They have a plan."
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
A Thought of My Own: Pledge of Allegence
I would like to begin by dealing with the second issue first; and to do this, I would first like to define socialism. Socialism is a "theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole." This economic system was adopted by Karl Marx, the founder of Communism, and in many ways, Adolph Hitler was socialist. I bring this point up because our pledge of allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy, a self-proclaimed socialist who frequently interjected socialism into his sermons. (To read more about him and the pledge, click here. Also, the picture posted at the top of this post is a picture entitled "The Bellamy Solute to the Flag) I in no way intend to suggest that socialists are inherently evil, instead, I find it rather odd that US citizens would recite words written by a man dedicated to the ideals of socialism, when those ideals so clearly contradict those laid forth in both our founding documents, and the words of our founding fathers.
Furthermore, the allegiance states "And to the republic for which it stands, One Nation . . ." These terms are not synonymous. When one thinks of a republic they are to understand that power is vested in the hands of the people who willing provide elected officials certain rights for the purpose of governance. This form of government is often times found in a Confederacy. A nation, on the other hand, does not require people to have nay power, but rather, and more often then not, a strong central government with its own agenda; not always the agenda of the people. A perfect example of this is the Roman Empire. A republic for 500 years, then came Cesar and out the window went the republic, and the will of the people, and in came Emperor. Frankly, to put these two words next to one another seems of over arching contradiction.
Finally, I find it difficult to pledge total allegiance to the state when my allegiance is to Christ. It could be said that one could have an allegiance to both their state and their god. To this, I define the word allegiance. Allegiance is "loyalty or devotion to some person, or of a subject to his or her sovereign". Christ is sovereign over my life, not the United States. One might then point to Romans 13 and say that as a Christian we are bound to give allegiance to our government. This works insofar as government is acting within the realm of Christ's character, which, sadly, is almost never. To read more about this topic click here.
Ultimately, I think that the action of saying the pledge, for myself, causes me to speak with a double tongue, and as a Christian, I simply cannot pledge my allegence to anything except God. (Please note that I am not against others saying the pledge, and I would in no way ask others to follow my example. This would take away from their freedom of speech, and their right to express their thoughts)
The video below deals first with the issue of Texas secession, and then with the Pledge of Allegiance. So please watch the entire clip.
Bilderberg: What They Have in Store for Our Future
Details of the economic agenda were contained in a pre-meeting booklet being handed out to Bilderberg members. On a more specific note, Estulin warns that Bilderberg are fostering a false picture of economic recovery, suckering investors into ploughing their money back into the stock market again only to later unleash another massive downturn which will create “massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead,” according to a Canada Free Press report.
Estulin’s sources also tell him that Bilderberg will again attempt to push for the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty, a key centerpiece of the agenda to fully entrench a federal EU superstate, by forcing the Irish to vote again on the document in September/October despite having rejected it already, along with other European nations, in national referendums.
In 2008, Estulin predicted that Bilderberg were creating the conditions for a financial calamity, which is exactly what began a few months later with the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Bilderberg has routinely flexed its muscles in establishing its role as kingmaker. The organization routinely selects presidential candidates as well as running mates and prime ministers.
Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were both groomed by the secretive organization in the early 1990’s before rising to prominence.
Once again, it will be left to the alternative media to fill the vacuum and educate the people on exactly what the globalists have planned for us over the coming year.