Alex Jones’ highly anticipated upcoming documentary Fall of the Republic: The Presidency of Barack Obama boldly lifts the lid and unveils the fraud behind Brand Obama and how the globalists are using their newest, and slickest ever puppet to destroy the last vestiges of America’s freedom, Constitution and economy, all while helping the bankers loot the country clean.
The film exposes the agenda that Obama was put in place to accomplish, a world government allied with a bank of the world run by globalist eugenicists hell-bent on destroying America’s first world status and replacing it with a hollow shell of tyranny.
The mind control, the television programming, and all the media talking points that serve to reinforce the image of Brand Obama are laid bare, unveiling the naked ruth, as legendary author and documentary film maker John Pilger recently discussed, that Obama is nothing more than a corporate marketing creation, a skilled hypnotist using seductive tools of propaganda – race, gender and class – to hoodwink the masses into accepting his rhetoric while ignoring the contradiction of his actions.
The film exposes how Brand Obama says one thing – to make people buy into the brand – and then the real Obama does another.
The burgeoning police state, warrantless wiretapping, secret arrests, indefinite detention of citizens, torture, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Pakistan, have all been expanded under Brand Obama despite his promises to reverse them all.
The real question to ask is not which class Obama claims to represent or fight for, but which class Obama serves. Fall of the Republic leaves no room for doubt that the class Obama serves is the elite and it is their agenda he is diligently following
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Tuesday, August 25, 2009
A New York District Judge has ordered the Federal Reserve to disclose the destination of around $2 trillion dollars in bailout funds after the Fed failed to convince the Judge that the records should be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
“Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska rejected the central bank’s argument that the records aren’t covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers’ competitive positions. The collateral lists “are central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression,” according to the lawsuit that led to yesterday’s ruling,” reports Bloomberg, the news outlet that originally filed the lawsuit.
Citing the fact that the US taxpayer is an “involuntary investor” in the nation’s banks, Bloomberg argued that the risks behind the $2 trillion in lending needed to be made public.
“When an unprecedented amount of taxpayer dollars were lent to financial institutions in unprecedented ways and the Federal Reserve refused to make public any of the details of its extraordinary lending, Bloomberg News asked the court why U.S. citizens don’t have the right to know,” said Matthew Winkler, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News. “We’re gratified the court is defending the public’s right to know what is being done in the public interest.”
The Federal Reserve and Ben Bernanke in particular have attempted to hide the destination of the bailout funds at every step of the way since Bloomberg first filed the lawsuit over nine months
During a hearing on Capitol Hill last month, Congressman Alan Grayson confronted Bernanke on which foreign banks had received around half a trillion dollars in credit swaps.
Bernanke responded, “I don’t know.”
“Half a trillion dollars and you don’t know who got the money?” asked Grayson.
It’s no surprise that the Fed is reticent to disclose who got the bailout funds, since the man appointed by Henry Paulson to dole out the ill-gotten gains was none other than his fellow ex-Goldman Sachs executive Neel Kashkari. This level of cronyism undoubtedly ensured that Bernanke and Paulson’s bankster gangster friends were well looked after.
“President elect Barack Obama, who in a September 22 campaign speech promised to “Make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people’s business,” refused to comment on the story when contacted by Bloomberg, which is no surprise considering the fact that the man who guaranteed “change” has indicated he will not only follow the Bush administration policy of a socialized financial system, but radically expand it,” we wrote in our original story on the lawsuit back in November.
That foresight has now manifested itself again today, with Obama set to nominate Ben Bernanke, one of the main architects of the bailout under Bush, as Fed chief for a second term
The power elite are also in the business of creating illusions. They use their politicians and the mass media to try to create a perception of reality they would like us to see.
I’m getting very upset by what I’ve been seeing since this health care issue has come to the fore. I’m becoming really angry by how much my intelligence has been insulted. I’m beginning to feel like the man who has to explain to his friends that Criss Angel is not really defying the laws of physics. He’s in the business of creating illusions. He does not really float above buildings, pull ladies in half, climb through closed, solid windows without breaking the glass, walk on water, or do any of the things one might see him do. These are illusions. They are parlor tricks. They are elaborate, complicated, well designed, well executed, likely expensive illusions, but they are nothing but illusions nonetheless.
The power elite are also in the business of creating illusions. They use their politicians and the mass media to try to create a perception of reality they would like us to see. The illusions they create are elaborate, complicated, well designed, well executed and likely expensive, but they are illusions nonetheless. The difference between the illusions the power elite create and those of Criss Angel is that Mr. Angel creates his illusions strictly for entertainment purposes, the power elite are creating theirs so that they can control mass consciousness and hence make it easier to control the population in general. The problem for them is that many people are beginning to realize exactly what’s been happening.
One of the ways to create a good illusion is to get the audience to look over there while something is happening over here. Another is to keep things hidden and produce them when you want them seen. Still another way is to make the audience believe something isn’t what it appears to be, or that something is what it doesn’t appear to be. Or any combination of these things can help produce a good illusion. Of course, if the audience looks where the action is and detects the slight of hand, or if they see the hidden element before it is produced, or if they are not convinced that something is or is not something else, then the illusion is ruined.
I know that this story is a few days old, but I think it, and the response of Hardball, is one which need not die.
The fundamental question here is do we, under the 2nd amendment, have a right to bear arms, even at a presidential event? My own position on this issue is yes! I understand the counter argument here, and it is a legitimate one, but where do we begin to draw the line where our rights begin and where they end. If I have a right to bear arms, as it says in the Constitution, then don't I have that right wherever I am, or do my rights have boundary lines? If so, where must I stop practicing my religion, where do I no longer have the right to due process, and is there a court somewhere where I can be held for double jeopardy or forced to incriminate myself?
Obviously the answer to these questions is no; there are no lines which exist where I must stop practising my right to free religion or to due process. If this is true for these rights, then why are there restriction upon other rights, not just the 2nd amendment, but even my right to peacefully protest, which is what this man was doing. Owning and carrying a gun does not make a person a terrorist; if such is true then there are many rednecks and hunters who, by that shere logic, are terrorists.
I am not saying we all bring semi-automatic weapons to presidential events, but the shere fact that he was carrying a gun, and if legally registers, is protected by the Constitution, and to remove that right only opens up opportunities to remove other rights. We might say that it is unsafe to bring a loaded weapon to an event like this, but isn't it much more unsafe to stand by and allow the rights we have to be stripped away. If we do that long enough this discussion will be moot, for there will be no right to bear arms, no right to free speech or the like.
WASHINGTON — When former President Bill Clinton landed in Pyongyang on Aug. 4 to win the release of two imprisoned American journalists, senior officials said, he met an unexpectedly spry North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, who feted him over a long dinner that night, even proposing to stay up afterward.
Kim was flanked by two longtime aides — a surprise to Americans who had suspected that both men had been pushed aside — and he gave no hint that North Korea was in the throes of a succession struggle, despite the widespread questions over how long he might live.
Clinton was determined not to extend a public relations coup to Kim, who expressed a desire for better relations with the United States. Clinton did not ask to see the North Korean leader, requesting instead a meeting with "an appropriate official."
To ensure he would not leave empty-handed, Clinton asked that a member of his entourage meet with the journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, shortly after he landed to make sure they were safe, said a senior administration official.
For all the billions of dollars a year that the United States spends on intelligence gathering about mysterious and unpredictable countries like North Korea, it took just 20 hours in Pyongyang by an ex-president to give the Obama administration its first detailed look into a nuclear-armed regime that looms as one of its greatest foreign threats.
Tuesday, Clinton went to the White House to brief Obama and his top aides about the trip. Even before the 40-minute session in the Situation Room, Clinton had spoken to the president by phone and briefed his national security adviser, Gen. James Jones. But the meeting was rich in symbolism, and the president invited Clinton to the Oval Office to talk further.
Joseph DeTrani, the government's senior officer responsible for collecting and analyzing intelligence on North Korea, played a key role in arranging the visit.
Officials said Clinton's visit cleared up some of the shadows surrounding Kim's health. After a stroke last year, he looked frail in photos and missed important meetings, spurring questions about who might replace him — and when. Those questions have not gone away, officials said, but they may recede a bit in the wake of Clinton's visit.
Clinton did not engage in a wide-ranging discussion about North Korea's nuclear program. Nor did Kim give Clinton any indication that Pyongyang would relinquish its nuclear ambitions — a condition the United States has set for resuming negotiations, officials said.
"We didn't hear things that altered our perception on the North Korean attitude," one official said.
Clinton's visit was valuable, analysts said, largely because North Korea is so opaque.
It is perhaps the hardest spying target, more difficult even than Iran, according to current and former officials. Its political and military structure is nearly impenetrable, and Western intelligence services have had to rely on information from defectors who cross the border into South Korea.
"The Clinton trip has got a lot of people rethinking and reassessing," said Victor Cha, a top North Korea adviser in the Bush administration.
WASHINGTON – Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, a leading figure in the liberal wing of his party, said Monday he doubts there can be meaningful health care reform without a direct government role.
Dean urged the Obama administration to stand by statements made early on in the debate in which it steadfastly insisted that such a public option was indispensable to genuine change, saying that Medicare and the Veterans Administration are "two very good programs that have been around for a long time."
Dean appeared on morning news shows Monday amid increasing indications the Obama White House is retreating from the public option in the face of vocal opposition from Republicans and some vocal participants at a town-hall-style meetings around the country.
The former Vermont governor was asked on NBC's "Today" show about President Barack Obama's statement over the weekend that the public option for insurance coverage was "just a sliver" of the overall proposal. Obama's health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, advanced that line, telling CNN Sunday that a direct government role in a system intended to provide virtually universal coverage was "not the essential element."
Dean, a physician, argued that a public option is fair and said there must be such a choice in any genuine shake up of the existing system.
"You can't really do health reform without it," he said. Dean maintained that the health insurance industry has "put enormous pressure on patients and doctors" in recent years.
He called a direct government role "the entirety of health care reform. It isn't the entirety of insurance reform ... We shouldn't spend $60 billion a year subsidizing the insurance industry."
Dean also said he doesn't foresee any Republican support for a public option. "I don't think the Republicans are interested and in order to have a bipartisan bill, you've got to have both sides interested," he said.
The shift in the administration's stance on a government-run insurance program leaves open a chance for compromise with Republicans that probably would enrage Obama's liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority.
Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., who is co-chairman of the Middle Class Caucus, said that "leaving private insurance companies the job of controlling the costs of health care is like making a pyromaniac the fire chief."
But Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., told reporters in Philadelphia on Monday that the success of health care overhaul doesn't hinge on any one element and co-ops might provide the same results under a different name.
"I believe that the president has to make the evaluation as a matter of leadership as to what the administration wants to do. There is an alternative to the so-called public option by having co-ops. I think these matters are subject to exploration," Specter said.
Officials from both political parties are looking for concessions while Congress is on an August recess. Facing tough audiences, lawmakers and the White House are looking for a way to cover the nation's almost 50 million uninsured while maintaining political standing.
I appologize to my readers for not posting in a while. This is the result of LIFE, and it has been LIFE that has kept me from doing my job as an informed American. That said, I have time today, for LIFE has slowed down, and I find that this rticle does much to explain, on some level, the problems with the current administration.
By PETER BAKER
As White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel was the one to bring the hammer down on Sidney Blumenthal.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wanted to hire Mr. Blumenthal, a loyal confidant who had helped her promote the idea of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” more than a decade ago. But President Obama’s campaign veterans still blamed him for spreading harsh attacks against their candidate in the primary showdown with Mrs. Clinton last year.
So Mr. Emanuel talked with Mrs. Clinton, said Democrats informed about the situation, and explained that bringing Mr. Blumenthal on board was a no-go. The bad blood among his colleagues was too deep, and the last thing the administration needed, he concluded, was dissension and drama in the ranks. In short, Mr. Blumenthal was out.
Perhaps nothing illustrates how far Mr. Emanuel has come than that conversation last month. Sixteen years ago, it was Mrs. Clinton, then first lady, who helped have Mr. Emanuel demoted as a senior official in Bill Clinton’s White House after he ruffled feathers with his aggressive style. Now all these years later, it is Mr. Emanuel telling Mrs. Clinton what she cannot do as a member of the cabinet.
Seven months after moving into his office in the West Wing, Mr. Emanuel is emerging as perhaps the most influential White House chief of staff in a generation. But with his prominence in almost everything important going on in Washington comes a high degree of risk.
As the principal author of Mr. Obama’s do-everything-at-once strategy, he stands to become a figure of consequence in his own right if the administration stabilizes the economy and financial markets, overhauls the health care system and winds down one war while successfully prosecuting another.
If things do not go well — and right now Mr. Obama’s political popularity is declining, his health care legislation is under conservative assault, the budget deficit is at an eye-popping level and Afghanistan remains volatile — it is Mr. Emanuel whose job will be on the line before Mr. Obama’s.
President Obama has issued signing statements claiming the authority to bypass dozens of provisions of bills enacted into law since he took office, provoking mounting criticism by lawmakers from both parties.
President George W. Bush, citing expansive theories about his constitutional powers, set off a national debate in 2006 over the propriety of signing statements — instructions to executive officials about how to interpret and put in place new laws — after he used them to assert that he could authorize officials to bypass laws like a torture ban and oversight provisions of the USA Patriot Act.
In the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama called Mr. Bush’s use of signing statements an “abuse,” and said he would issue them with greater restraint. The Obama administration says the signing statements the president has signed so far, challenging portions of five bills, have been based on mainstream interpretations of the Constitution and echo reservations routinely expressed by presidents of both parties.
Still, since taking office, Mr. Obama has relaxed his criteria for what kinds of signing statements are appropriate. And last month several leading Democrats — including Representatives Barney Frank of Massachusetts and David R. Obey of Wisconsin — sent a letter to Mr. Obama complaining about one of his signing statements.
This is not written by me, but by a friend of mine who runs another news blog entitled civicsnews.blogspot.com. I hope you enjoy both this article, and his web page.
For the 2,000th post since the inception of CIVICS NEWS in early 2008 (when it functioned as a current events log for my high school classes!), it is fitting that the honor go to...drum roll...Greg Boyd.
Boyd's book The Myth of a Christian Nation is a MUST-read, and this audio file that I just finished listening to should not be missed by anybody who wants to take seriously what it means to be a Christian.
The title of his message is, "What Does a Christian Look Like?" Download the audio here and enjoy on your iPod or your lap top. Boyd wrestles with issues such as nationalism & the kingdom of God, how to look at every human being as loved by God (and how this impacts our politics and militarism), and much, much more. Boyd confronts the issue of the relation of Christians to human governments in an up-front and Christ-centered manner. His message is unquestionably biblical. He will make us uncomfortable (as I'm sure his articles previously posted did), but that's a good thing.
CIVICS NEWS has by and large been devoted to chronicling the evils of the state in order to wake people up to the fact that we should not put our trust in princes (politicians), but instead in Christ. I want to make an effort beginning with this post, the 2,000th post, to bring in more material that points us to Christ and his Kingdom, in addition to pointing us away from Satan and his kingdoms.
What does "Christ and his Kingdom" mean, exactly? Perhaps you are not particularly religious and you don't look forward to a bunch of religious jargon and Christian cliches. Well, start by listening to Boyd's "What does a Christian Look Like?" Much more will come, but the simple principle is love. We believe not only that there is a Creator God, but that this God IS LOVE, a concept that I'm sure most Christians don't grasp, as I myself have not actually understood it until recently, and even now, dimly so. If you're typically offended or annoyed by religion, this will be one message that I'm confident you can buy into and agree with. Stick around and see what you think.
The news coverage will continue in the same libertarian, watch-dog posture, since governments will continue to oppress and steal and kill, and we Christians should be out front calling it what it is, disassociating Christ from those evils, and even being non-violently politically active to help to roll back the violent oppression of the state. These aims will still remain, but I hope to bring in more material about the Kingdom of Love and the character of our Lord in addition to the news coverage. Enjoy Boyd's audio message.
WASHINGTON – Bowing to populist anger, the House voted Friday to prohibit pay and bonus packages that encourage bankers and traders to take risks so big they could bring down the entire economy.
Passage of the bill on a 237-185 vote followed the disclosure a day earlier that nine of the nation's biggest banks, which are receiving billions of dollars in federal bailout aid, paid individual bonuses of $1 million or more to nearly 5,000 employees.
"This is not the government taking over the corporate sector," Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C, said of the House action. "It is a statement by the American people that it is time for us to straighten up the ship."
Aware of voter outrage about the bonuses, Republicans were reluctant in Friday's debate to push back, even though they voted overwhelmingly against the bill. They said severe restrictions should apply only to banks that accept government aid. The legislation's ban on risky compensation would apply to any firm with more than $1 billion in assets, including bank holding companies, broker-dealers, credit unions, investment advisers and mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The White House and Senate Democrats haven't endorsed the measure, leaving its prospects uncertain. The Senate Banking Committee planned to take up the proposal in the fall as part of a broader bill overhauling financial regulations.
"Obviously it has some important things that we think need to become law, and we'll take a look at the full bill," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday.
The legislation includes President Barack Obama's suggestion that shareholders get a nonbinding vote on compensation packages. It also would prohibit members of compensation committees from having financial ties to the company and its executives, as Obama wanted.
But House Democrats added a provision that would require regulators to issue new guidelines prohibiting pay packages that encourage "inappropriate risks" that could "threaten the safety and soundness" of the institution or "have serious adverse effects on economic conditions or financial stability."
Does anyone remember the story of police brutality against a pastor and an old women? Well, if you don't think they use unnecessary force, look at the video below.
Perhaps it is not clear the dangers of the Federal Reserve, at least for the majority of uninformed Americans, but it is true that they are running this nation, and as Greenspan once said, they are, for the most part, above the law. How is it that a nation of people bent on the idea of liberty could so casually allow the federal reserve to run the nation without any checks? It is really to this question that Ron Paul has been trying to deal with. Audit the feds! It seems, thank the Lord, that more and more people are beginning to see the Fed for what it is.
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Tuesday, July 28, 2009
As momentum builds for Ron Paul’s efforts to audit the Fed, a new Gallup poll shows that Americans are turning against the Federal Reserve, with just 30 per cent saying the agency is doing a good job.
35 per cent rate the job the Fed is doing as “only fair” and 22 per cent say it is doing a “poor” job.
The contrast compared with when the question was last asked in 2003 is clear. Six years ago, just 5 per cent thought the Fed was doing a “poor” job, while 53% thought it was doing a “good/excellent” job.
The Fed is bottom of the pile when compared to the ratings received by other agencies in the poll (we hesitate to call the Fed a “government agency” because it isn’t). The IRS and the FDA are the other two least popular agencies.
According to Gallup editor in chief Dr. Frank Newport, “Americans are blaming to some degree the actions or inactions of the Federal Reserve board” for the economic turmoil.
Increasing skepticism towards the role of the Federal Reserve arrives alongside efforts on behalf of Congressman Ron Paul to audit the Fed with his widely supported H.R.1207 bill.
The legislation would amend existing law to allow the Comptroller General to audit the Federal Reserve Board and its member banks.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke seems frightened to death at what might be revealed if the Federal Reserve were forced to open its books and has been busy scuttling around lying about the bill in order to try and shoot it down
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's push to overhaul health care needs Republican votes, lawmakers from both parties say.
Democratic and GOP officials acknowledged Sunday that Obama's ambitious plan would not pass without the aid of a doubtful GOP, whose members are almost united against the White House effort.
"Look, there are not the votes for Democrats to do this just on our side of the aisle," said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., the chairman of the budget committee.
Rep. Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat and a member of the fiscally conservative "Blue Dogs," said he doubts the Democratic-controlled House could pass a proposal as it's drafted now.
"We have a long way to go," Cooper said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, however, insisted she has the votes to move forward with the plan despite concerns among fiscally conservative fellow Democrats.
"When I take this bill to the floor, it will win. We will move forward, it will happen," said Pelosi, D-Calif.
Not so fast, Republicans said. Sensing a public uneasiness over the pace and price tag of the overhaul, Republicans said the longer the delay, the more the public understands the stakes of a policy that has vexed lawmakers for decades.
"We could have a plan in a few weeks if the goal is not a government takeover," said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. "We've never seen the government operate a plan of any kind effectively and at the budgets we talked about."
Democrats countered that their plans — and there are many iterations on Capitol Hill, as committees in the House and Senate work on versions — would expand coverage without adding to the deficit. Even so, they are likely to leave for an August recess without a vote.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said they are "80 percent" in agreement on what a final version will include and are making progress.
Obama adviser David Axelrod said, "Now, we're at the final 20 percent and we're trying to work through those details."
That final piece, however, will require GOP backing — something Sen. Mitch McConnell said was unlikely. The Senate minority leader said congressional Democrats are having difficulty selling a health care bill to their own members.
"The only thing bipartisan about the measure so far is the opposition to it," said McConnell, R-Ky.
Conrad and DeMint spoke with ABC's "This Week." Cooper appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation." Pelosi and McConnell were interviewed for CNN's "State of the Union." Gibbs spoke on "Fox News Sunday." Axelrod appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation" and CNN's "State of the Union."
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 30% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -10. Yesterday and today are the only time that Obama's Approval Index ratings have fallen to double digits in negative territory (see trends).
Fifty-six percent (56%) of Democrats Strongly Approve of his performance while 72% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. See other recent demographic highlights.
The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates also available on Twitter.
Obama is now seen as politically liberal by 76%. That's up six points from a month ago, 11 points since he was elected, and the highest total to date. Forty-eight percent (48%) now see him as Very Liberal, up 20 points since he was elected (Premium Members can see trends and crosstabs).
The President received generally poor grades for his response to a question about a Cambridge police incident involving a black Harvard professor. However, the results show a huge divide between black Americans and white Americans on all questions.
Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty percent (50%) disapprove. It is important to remember that the Rasmussen Reports job approval ratings are based upon a sample of likely voters. Some other firms base their approval ratings on samples of all adults. President Obama's numbers are always several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters. That's because some of the President's most enthusiastic supporters, such as young adults, are less likely to turn out to vote.
President Obama will attend the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper next month, it has been revealed.
The White House had not responded to requests to verify Obama’s schedule during the second week of August, however, a statement from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs titled “Upcoming Travel by the President,” confirms that Obama will attend the recently re-branded “North American Leader’s Summit” in Mexico.
“The president will travel to Guadalajara, Mexico, August 9-10 to attend the North American Leaders Summit with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper,” the announcement, reported by World Net Daily, states.
“The summit meeting will provide an opportunity for the United States, Mexico, and Canada to engage on a broad range of issues, including economic recovery and competitiveness in North America, our shared interest in energy and the environment, and cooperation among our governments to promote the safety and welfare of our citizens, including continued close cooperation to counter the A/H1N1 influenza pandemic.” the statement continues.
The U.S. budget deficit topped $1 trillion for the first nine months of the fiscal year and broke a monthly record for June as the recession subtracted from revenue and the government spent to rejuvenate the economy.
The shortfall for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 totaled $1.1 trillion, the first time that the gap for the period surpassed $1 trillion, Treasury figures showed today in Washington. The excess of spending over revenue for June was $94.3 billion, the first deficit for that month since 1991, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Individual and corporate tax receipts are sliding even as the worst recession in five decades shows signs of easing because the jobless rate continues to rise — reaching a 26-year high in June — and companies have yet to see a sustained increase in demand. The shortfall is also widening as the government ramps up spending from the $787 billion stimulus program President Barack Obama signed into law in February.
I fully embrace the maxim (which . . . borrows from a Christian) that “all power corrupts.” I would go further. The loftier the pretensions of the power, the more meddlesome, inhuman, and oppressive it will be. Theocracy is the worst of all possible governments. All political power is at best a necessary evil: but it is least evil when its sanctions are most modest and commonplace, when it claims no more than to be useful or convenient and sets itself strictly limited objectives. Anything transcendental or spiritual, or even anything very strongly ethical, in its pretensions is dangerous and encourages it to meddle with our private lives. Let the shoemaker stick to his last. Thus the Renaissance doctrine of Divine Right is for me a corruption of monarchy; Rousseau’s General Will, of democracy; racial mysticisms, of nationality. And Theocracy, I admit and even insist, is the worst corruption of all.
This, along with all the other areas of fascists news I have reported on, is troubling. I love the end of this where Ezekiel Emanuel leaves after the comment is made about him. No Time for questions. No time for debate. No Time for further development and explanation. He has to leave. WHY?
Does this sound as though another world war is about to erupt. Imagine the magnitude of such an event. In 1919 WWI ended. This was called the Great War and the War to End All Wars. Indeed, no one could have guessed that WWII was just lurking around the corner. If history is to teach us anything, then in this case we should take threats very seriously, for as we have seen in the past, they end up, in many cases, coming true. I suppose some might argue for a preemptive strike. This is not what I am calling for. Rather, we need to figure some diplomatic way, not via the UN, to deal with this oncoming threat. I know not what, but we must take such things to heart.
USA TODAY
North Korea threatened Saturday to shoot down any Japanese planes that enter its airspace, accusing Tokyo of spying near one of its missile launch sites. The North has designated a no-sail zone off its eastern coast from June 25 to July 10for military drills, raising concerns that it might test-fire short- or mid-range missiles in the coming days, in violation of a U.N. resolution.
North Korea's air force said Japan's E-767 surveillance aircraft conducted aerial espionage near the Musudan-ri missile site on its northeast coast Wednesday and Thursday.
The country's official Korean Central News Agency said the air force "will not tolerate even a bit the aerial espionage by the warmongers of the Japanese aggression forces but mercilessly shoot down any plane intruding into the territorial air of the (North) even 0.001 mm."
An official from Japan's defense ministry said the country's planes regularly gather information on North Korea but declined to comment on the types of planes used or the locations monitored. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing government policy.
The threat against alleged Japanese aerial espionage is rare, though the North has regularly complained of U.S. spy missions in its airspace.
Japan is very sensitive to North Korea's missile programs, as its islands lie within easy range. In 1998, a North Korean missile flew over Japan's main island. Tokyo has since spent billions of dollars on developing a missile shield with the United States and has launched a series of spy satellites primarily to watch developments in North Korea.
But in April, another rocket flew over Japan's main island, drawing a strong protest from Tokyo. Pyongyang claims it put a satellite into orbit, while the U.S. and its allies say it was really a test of the country's long-range missile technology.
The launch was one of a series of missile tests in recent months, and the communist regime further raised tensions by conducting a second underground nuclear test in May. Its actions have drawn harsh international condemnation and new U.N. sanctions.
SEOUL, South Korea—Punching their fists into the air and shouting "Let's crush them!" some 100,000 North Koreans packed Pyongyang's main square Thursday for an anti-U.S. rally as the communist regime promised a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation" for any American-led attack.
Several demonstrators held up a placard depicting a pair of hands smashing a missile with "U.S." written on it, according to footage taken by APTN in Pyongyang on the anniversary of the day North Korean troops charged southward, sparking the three-year Korean War in 1950.
North Korean troops will respond to any sanctions or U.S. provocations with "an annihilating blow," one senior official vowed—a pointed threat as an American destroyer shadowed a North Korean freighter sailing off China's coast, possibly with banned goods on board.
A new U.N. Security Council resolution passed recently to punish North Korea for conducting an underground nuclear test in May requires U.N. member states to request inspections of ships suspected of carrying arms or nuclear weapons-related material.
In response to the sanctions, the North pulled out of nuclear talks and has ramped up already strident anti-American rhetoric. And the isolated regime may now be moving to openly flout the resolution by dispatching a ship suspected of carrying arms to Myanmar.
While it was not clear what was on board the North Korean-flagged Kang Nam 1, officials have mentioned artillery and other conventional weaponry. One intelligence expert suspected missiles.
The U.S. and its allies have made no decision on whether to request inspection of the ship, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday in Washington, but North Korea has said it would consider any interception an act of war.
If permission for inspection is refused, the ship must dock at a port of its choosing so local authorities can check its cargo. Vessels suspected of carrying banned goods must not be offered bunkering services at port, such as fuel, the resolution says.
A senior U.S. defense official said the ship had cleared the Taiwan Strait. He said he didn't know whether or when the Kang Nam may need to stop in some port to refuel, but that the Kang Nam has in the past stopped in Hong Kong's port.
Another U.S. defense official said he tended to doubt reports that the Kang Nam was carrying nuclear-related equipment, saying information seems to indicate the cargo is banned conventional munitions. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to talk about intelligence.
North Korea is suspected to have transported banned goods to Myanmar before on the Kang Nam, said Bertil Lintner, a Bangkok-based North Korea expert who has written a book about leader Kim Jong Il.
Pyongyang also has been helping the junta in Yangon build up its weapons arsenal, a South Korean intelligence expert said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The two countries have not always been on good terms. Ties were severed in 1983 after a fatal bombing during the South Korean president's visit to Myanmar blamed on North Korean commandoes.
We've just learned Michael Jackson has died. He was 50.
Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him. We're told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back.
A source tells us Jackson was dead when paramedics arrived. A cardiologist at UCLA tells TMZ Jackson died of cardiac arrest.
Once at the hospital, the staff tried to resuscitate him but he was completely unresponsive.
We're told one of the staff members at Jackson's home called 911.
La Toya ran in the hospital sobbing after Jackson was pronounced dead.
Michael is survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince "Blanket" Michael Jackson II.
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.
Off China's coast, a U.S. destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed to punish the nation for an underground nuclear test last month.
The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago with the USS John S. McCain close behind. The ship, accused of transporting banned goods in the past, is believed bound for Myanmar, according to South Korean and U.S. officials.
The new U.N. Security Council resolution requires member states to seek permission to inspect suspicious cargo. North Korea has said it would consider interception a declaration of war and on Wednesday accused the U.S. of seeking to provoke another Korean War.
"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.
David Edwards and Stephen Webster Raw Story Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Ron Paul, the popular Republican Congressman from Texas, is ripping into the president and Congress for what he sees as their “goal” with round after round of stimulus: complete economic collapse.
“From their spending habits, an economic collapse seems to be the goal of Congress and this administration,” he said in his June 22, 2009, weekly address.
He added that Democrats who voted for the president’s war funding request, which gave an additional $106 billion to military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq — among other, unrelated items — were actually voting in favor of the wars, not just authorization of the president’s agenda.
He called it an affront to everyone who believed a vote for Obama was a vote for a peace candidate.
The president’s insistence on including an additional $108 billion in asset exchange with the International Monetary Fund is merely “buying global oppression,” he said.
Paul added that, “this [bill sent] $660 million to Gaza, $555 million to Israel, $310 million to Egypt, $300 million to Jordan and $420 million to Mexico; and some $889 million will be sent to the United Nations for so-called peace keeping missions.”
In other words, the latest U.S. war funding was an “International bailout,” he said.
The legislation’s provisions for the IMF included 100 billion dollars for the New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB), a credit instrument providing the multilateral institution with additional resources to deal with exceptional risks to the stability of the international monetary system.
They also include an expansion of the nation’s special drawing rights by five billion SDRs, adding roughly eight billion dollars to the IMF’s financial firepower.
The 100 billion dollars for the NAB acts as a credit line for the IMF in case member countries need emergency loans that exceed the institution’s resources. As such, the money is not considered an immediate budget expense.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) had proposed to strip out the IMF funds, but his measure was defeated in May by a vote of 64-30.
“Not only does sending money to the IMF hurt citizens here, evidence shows that it even hurts those it pretends to help,” Paul said. “Along with IMF loans come IMF required policy changes called ’structural adjustment programs,’ which amount to forced Keynesianism. This is the very fantasy-infused economic model that brought our own country to its knees.”
David Scheiner, an internist based in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park, has a diverse practice of lower-income adults from the nearby housing projects mixed with famous patients like U.S. Sen. Carol Mosely Braun, the late writer Studs Terkel and, most notably, President Barack Obama.
Scheiner, 71, was Obama's doctor from 1987 until he entered the White House; he vouched for the then-candidate's "excellent health" in a letter last year. He's still an enthusiastic Obama supporter, but he worries about whether the health care legislation currently making its way through Congress will actually do any good, particularly for doctors like himself who practice general medicine. "I'm not sure he really understands what we face in primary care," Scheiner says.
PRINCETON, NJ -- President Barack Obama's job approval rating fell to 58% in Gallup Poll Daily tracking from June 16-18 -- a new low for Obama in Gallup tracking, although not dissimilar to the 59% he has received on four other occasions.
Thirty-three percent of Americans now disapprove of the job Obama is doing as president, just one point shy of his record-high 34% disapproval score from early June.
Since Obama took office in January, his approval rating in Gallup tracking has averaged 63%, and most of his three-day ratings have registered above 60%. Approval of Obama did fall to 59% in individual readings in February, March, April, and early June; however, in each case, the rating lasted only a day before rebounding to at least 60%.
The latest decline in Obama's approval score, to 58%, results from a drop in approval among political independents as well as among Republicans. Democrats remain as highly supportive of the president as ever.
Obama's approval rating was 60% from June 13-15, at which time 88% of Democrats, 60% of independents, and 25% of Republicans approved of the job he was doing. In the June 16-18 polling, Democrats' approval of him stands at 92% -- up slightly -- whereas approval is down among both independents (by seven points) and Republicans (by four points).
Since February, Obama's weekly approval ratings from Republicans have consistently averaged close to 30% and from independents, close to 60%. With Republican approval now down to 21% and independent approval down to 53%, Obama's overall job approval has dipped to a new low for his presidency.
It is not clear what's behind the decline, but two issues have received considerable play in the news this week, and could be contributing factors. On Monday, the president received bad news on healthcare reform from the Congressional Budget Office, whose estimate of the cost of one reform plan caused sticker shock on Capitol Hill. This may be feeding into public concerns about the administration's deficit spending. At the same time, the disputed Iranian presidential election has been front-page news. Obama's cautious response has sparked sharp criticism from Republican Sen. John McCain and many on the political right who are eager for him to declare the election a "fraud," and to show more solidarity with the Iranian protestors.
Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,504 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted June 16-18, 2009, as part of Gallup Poll Daily tracking. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
The U.S. military is planning to intercept a flagged North Korean ship suspected of proliferating weapons material in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution passed last Friday, FOX News has learned.
The USS John McCain, a navy destroyer, will intercept the ship Kang Nam as soon as it leaves the vicinity off the coast of China, according to a senior U.S. defense official. The order to inderdict has not been given yet, but the ship is getting into position.
The ship left a port in North Korea Wednesday and appears to be heading toward Singapore, according to a senior U.S. military source. The vessel, which the military has been tracking since its departure, could be carrying weaponry, missile parts or nuclear materials, a violation of U.N. Resolution 1874, which put sanctions in place against Pyongyang.
The USS McCain was involved in an incident with a Chinese sub last Friday - near Subic Bay off the Philippines.
The Chinese sub was shadowing the destroyer when it hit the underwater sonar array that the USS McCain was towing behind it.
That same navy destroyer that was being shadowed by the Chinese is now positioning itself for a possible interdiction of the North Korean vessel.
This is the first suspected "proliferator" that the U.S. and its allies have tracked from North Korea since the United Nations authorized the world's navies to enforce compliance with a variety of U.N. sanctions aimed at punishing North Korea for its recent nuclear test.
The ship is currently along the coast of China and being monitored around-the-clock by air.
The apparent violation raises the question of how the United States and its allies will respond, particularly since the U.N. resolution does not have a lot of teeth to it.
The resolution would not allow the United States to board the ship forcibly. Rather, U.S. military would have to request permission to board -- a request North Korea is unlikely to grant.
North Korea has said that any attempt to board its ships would be viewed as an act of war and promised "100- or 1,000-fold" retaliation if provoked.
The U.S. military may also request that the host country not provide fuel to the ship when it enters its port.
The Kang Nam is known to be a ship that has been involved in proliferation activities in the past -- it is "a repeat offender," according to one military source. The ship was detained in October 2006 by authorities in Hong Kong after the North Koreans tested their first nuclear device and the U.N. imposed a subsequent round of sanctions.
The latest tension follows a Japanese news report that North Korea may fire a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday the military is "watching" that situation "very closely," and would have "some concerns" if North Korea launched a missile in the direction of Hawaii. But he expressed confidence in U.S. ability to handle such a launch.
Gates said he's directed the deployment of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense, a mobile missile defense system used for knocking down long- and medium-range missiles.
"The ground-based interceptors are clearly in a position to take action. So, without telegraphing what we will do, I would just say ... I think we are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect the American territory."
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Friday, June 19, 2009
Responding to the Obama administration’s new regulatory reform plan, which will officially hand the Federal Reserve complete dictatorial control over the U.S. economy, Congressman Ron Paul told MSNBC that the Fed was now more powerful than Congress.
Paul emphasized that no amount of regulation could compensate for a financial system created and controlled by the Federal Reserve that was completely unstable to begin with.
“The regulations should be on the Federal Reserve. We should have transparency of the Federal Reserve. They can create trillions of dollars to bail out their friends, and we don’t even have any transparency of this. They’re more powerful than the Congress,” said Paul.
As we reported yesterday, the new rules would see the Fed given the authority to “regulate” any company whose activity it believes could threaten the economy and the markets.
Obama’s regulatory “reform” plan is nothing less than a green light for the complete and total takeover of the United States by a private banking cartel that will usurp the power of existing regulatory bodies, who are now being blamed for the financial crisis in order that their status can be abolished and their roles handed over to the all-powerful Fed.
“They’re giving a tremendous amount of more power to the Federal Reserve - the very institution that created our problem. That’s about the way Washington works,” said the Congressman
“Too much regulations to begin with, so they give it more. The Federal Reserve creates the problem, so we give them more power. It’s fiat money that’s the problem, so we allow them to double the money supply - you can’t solve the problems that way. That’s like saying you can take care of a drug addict by just giving them more drugs,” concluded Paul, adding that the lack of understanding about how the Federal Reserve created the problem and how the free market ought to work was the root of the crisis.
Completely dispensing with any notion of independence or impartiality, ABC News is set to mimic the likes of Communist China and North Korea by completely turning its news coverage over to the government and excluding any dissenting opinions to promote President Obama’s health care agenda.
The night of Wednesday June 24th will officially herald the open commencement of state run news, imitating similar systems in historical dictatorships such as the Soviet Union, where Pravda was the official propaganda organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from 1912 to 1991.
In China, the vast majority of news outlets are completely owned and controlled by the Communist Party. Negative viewpoints about government policy are blocked and news developments that could reflect badly on China are ignored and censored. An almost identical system of media also exists in Stalinist North Korea.
Still, at least the Chinese and the North Koreans don’t try to hide the fact that the press is state run, unlike ABC News, owned by the corporate giant Walt Disney Company, which masquerades as an independent news outlet yet in little over a week will completely turn over its news coverage to act as enthusiastic propagandist for the government’s health care “reform” program. The coverage will be in addition to ABC News’ regular programming, which is already vehemently pushing the government’s agenda on this issue. “On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care — a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!,” according to the Drudge Report.
“ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.”
“The network plans a primetime special — ‘Prescription for America’ — originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.” In a complaint to ABC News, Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Ken McKay called the decision “astonishing,” noting that ABC had rejected a request that dissenting voices from all sides of the political spectrum be represented.
ABC News’ announcement that they will openly turn over their news coverage to the government while censoring dissenting opinions goes one step further than the Bush administration, who at least made the effort to keep their fake news scandal a secret until it was exposed in 2005.
Under Bush, the government produced fake news packages and distributed them to local news networks around the country, most of which aired them without question. The fake news packages were also broadcast on a national level by CNN. Reporters and pundits were also paid off by the government to promote specific policies.
This is a unique story. We have heard about national helth care for years, yet here it is. I have been following this to some degree. You can see my previous post by clicking here.
Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration this week will propose the most significant new regulation of the financial industry since the Great Depression, including a new watchdog agency to look out for consumers' interests.
Under the plan, expected to be released Wednesday, the government would have new powers to seize key companies -- such as insurance giant American International Group Inc. -- whose failure jeopardizes the financial system. Currently, the government's authority to seize companies is mostly limited to banks.
But critics say the easing of the financial crisis that gripped the country last year appears to have reduced the momentum for some of the most far-reaching proposals, such as merging several banking regulatory agencies.
They're also concerned that the proposed agency whose mission would be to protect consumers against financial misconduct wouldn't have the authority to do so for a wide-enough range of products."This is too little, too late," said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), based on his understanding of the plan. "It's going to be way less than it should be."
On Monday, Obama administration officials sketched the outlines of the plan the president is to unveil Wednesday. They said it would seek to reduce gaps in regulatory oversight, rein in the use of mortgage-backed securities and other complex derivatives, reduce incentives for companies to take excessive risk and give the government new power to quickly intervene during any future crises. "We had a system that proved too unstable, too fragile. . . . Those are things we have to change,"
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Monday at an economic forum in New York.The administration also is expected to propose creation of a regulatory body for financial products marketed to consumers, such as credit cards, whose oversight is now spread over several agencies.
WASHINGTON — As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.
The latest on President Obama, the new administration and other news from Washington and around the nation.
The opposition, which comes as Mr. Obama prepares to address the powerful doctors’ group on Monday in Chicago, could be a major hurdle for advocates of a public insurance plan. The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization.
While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.” It is now reacting, for the first time, to specific legislative proposals being drafted by Congress.
In the presidential campaign last year and in a letter to Congress last week, Mr. Obama called for a new “public health insurance option,” which he said would compete with private insurers and keep them honest.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Wednesday that she supported that goal. “A bill will not come out of the House without a public option,” she said Wednesday on MSNBC.
But in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the American Medical Association said: “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.” If private insurers are pushed out of the market, the group said, “the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”
While not the political behemoth it once was, the association probably has more influence than any other group in the health care industry. Lawmakers seek its opinion and support whenever possible. It has repeatedly persuaded Congress to cancel or postpone cuts in Medicare payments to doctors, though it has not secured a “permanent fix.”
How is it the policy of the United States to torture people, when we ourselves would shutter at the very idea of such actions towards others? Does our own willingness to torture indicate that we as US citizens have now begun to put variant values on different people of different races and creeds? Does not Emma Lazarus best describe the mindset of this nation with her poem The New Colossus when she so poignantly stated, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door" Does this no longer apply. Did it ever?
How is it the policy of the US military to allow such treatment of others who, according to our own documents, hold natural rights which only God can remove; among those include "life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" Is it the official policy of the majority of Americas to be double faced. We smear at the idea of the Holocaust, and scream injustice of Saddam Housain, and yet WE HAVE GETMO!
How is it that Christians will sit back and allow, by our own inaction, such atrocities to take place, even if such actions do not meet our own definition of what torture is? 1 Peter versus 8-9 assert: "Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing." It matters not if we think a certain action is torture, rather, what matters is that we remain "of one mind" with the scriptures.
Torture is a violation of the sound doctrine to which this nation rests. I end with a thought from Thomas Jefferson who once said, "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
Stepping up its rhetoric amid growing US pressure against the country, North Korea says it could use nuclear weapons “as a merciless offensive” if provoked.
“Our nuclear deterrent will be a strong defensive means … as well as a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country’s dignity and sovereignty even a bit,” the official Korean Central News Agency quoted Pyongyang’s state-run Minju Joson newspaper as saying.
The tough talk came as the US has been pushing for tougher measures against North Korea in recent weeks in response to the communist nation carrying out nuclear and short-range missile tests. US President Barack Obama has said that “North Korea’s actions over the last couple of months have been extraordinarily provocative”, adding that Washington was not “intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation”.
On Sunday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) briefed President Lee Myung-Bak on plans for a counter-attack on North Korea should Pyongyang fire missiles at ships controlled by the South.
“North Korea’s firing of ground-to-ship missiles at our navy ships would prompt counter-attacks simultaneously from surface, air and sea,” JCS chairman Kim Tae-Young said.
Could California become the first state in the nation to do away with welfare? That doomsday scenario is on the table as lawmakers wrestle with a staggering $24.3 billion budget deficit.
County welfare directors are "in shock" at the very idea of getting rid of CalWORKs, which has been widely viewed as one of the most successful social programs in the state's history, said Bruce Wagstaff, director of the Department of Human Assistance in Sacramento. "It's difficult to come up with the right adjective to react to this," Wagstaff said. "It would be devastating to the people we serve."
H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance, said California is in an unprecedented fiscal situation that has made all programs, from education to human services, vulnerable to deep and painful reductions.
"I don't wish for a moment to minimize the profound impact" that eliminating CalWORKs would have, Palmer said. "But the easy decisions are way past being in the rearview mirror for us. We face the specter of California not having cash on hand to pay its bills in July." Wagstaff and other administrators are betting that the state will rescue the "welfare to work" program. But they are bracing for cuts that would slash benefits to the lowest levels since the late 1990s, when CalWORKs began as part of the federal government's bold reform of the welfare system.
The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration.
The court said it will not hear an appeal from former Army Capt. James Pietrangelo II, who was dismissed under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The federal appeals court in Boston earlier threw out a lawsuit filed by Pietrangelo and 11 other veterans. He was the only member of that group who asked the high court to rule that the Clinton-era policy is unconstitutional.
In court papers, the administration said the appeals court ruled correctly in this case when it found that "don't ask, don't tell" is "rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion."
During last year's campaign, President Barack Obama indicated he supported the eventual repeal of the policy, but he has made no specific move to do so since taking office in January. Meanwhile, the White House has said it won't stop gays and lesbians from being dismissed from the military.
Last year, the federal appeals court in San Francisco allowed a decorated flight nurse to continue her lawsuit over her dismissal. The court stopped short of declaring the policy unconstitutional, but said that the Air Force must prove that ousting former Maj. Margaret Witt furthered the military's goals of troop readiness and unit cohesion.
The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was the first that evaluated "don't ask, don't tell" through the lens of a 2003 Supreme Court decision that struck down a Texas ban on sodomy as an unconstitutional intrusion on privacy. The administration did not appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court and Witt's lawsuit is ongoing. The appeals court in Pietrangelo's case also took the high court decision into account, but concluded that it should defer to Congress' determination that the policy fosters cohesion in military units.
North Korea on Friday agreed to hold talks with South Korea next week, Seoul officials said, amid high tensions between the two nations. Related photos / videos
The North has accepted a proposal for working-level talks on June 11 at the Kaesong joint industrial complex just north of the border, according to South Korea's unification ministry. South Korean and US troops have gone on heightened alert since the North staged a nuclear test in late May, renounced the armistice that ended the Korean war in the 1950s and threatened the South with possible attack.
South Korean officials say they fear the North will stage a border provocation on land or at sea. Next week's talks will focus on operations at Kaesong.
The two sides held their first government-level talks in more than a year on April 21. The North demanded pay rises for its workers and land-use fees at the Seoul-funded estate. Seoul said the fate of a South Korean manager at Kaesong who has been detained since March 30 must be settled before any other negotiations. Pyongyang alleges the man criticised its communist system and tried to persuade a local worker to defect.
Last month the North announced it had scrapped all wage and rent agreements in force at the estate. It told the 101 South Korean companies to pack up and leave if they cannot accept the new terms.
The announcement cast doubt on the future of the estate, opened in December 2004 as a symbol of reconciliation but frequently hit by political tensions. The Seoul government and South Korean businesses have invested 730 billion won (548 million dollars) into the venture since construction began in 2002.
Kim Yong-Hyun, professor of North Korea studies at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the agreement to hold talks "should not be seen as a sign that North Korea is willing to ease its stance on relations with South Korea."
Kim told AFP it was expected to make specific proposals on wage rises and other matters next week. "It may deliver proposals unilaterally and shun talks on the detainee," he said. The North would keep inter-Korean relations strained while seeking dialogue with the United States, Kim said, possibly by using two detained US journalists as bargaining chips. The women went on trial Thursday in Pyongyang but there has been no word on their fate. More than 38,000 North Koreans work at South Korean firms at Kaesong, producing items such as garments, kitchenware and watches.
They are paid around 75 dollars a month including insurance. The money goes directly to the North's state bodies, which return a portion to the workers.
US President Barack Obama made a major gesture of conciliation to Iran on Thursday when he admitted US involvement in the 1953 coup which overthrew the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
“In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,” Obama said during his keynote speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.
It is the first time a serving US president has publicly admitted American involvement in the coup.
The CIA, with British backing, masterminded the coup after Mossadegh nationalised the oil industry, run until then in by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
For many Iranians, the coup demonstrated duplicity by the United States, which presented itself as a defender of freedom but did not hesitate to use underhand methods to get rid of a democratically elected government to suit its own economic and strategic interests.
I have found myself fighting a media battle which I am not sure I am winning. I believe that the alternative media is doing a great job, but I am concerned as to how many people take such claims as "Obama is Fascist" seriously. As always, I look to point out those areas where this present administration is moving the United States toward a socialist/fascist regime. We have seen them, a number of times, look to violate the 2nd amendment, we have seen police brutality against common citizens for nothing, we have seen youth corps being created, we have seen the Establishment of the National Civil Security Force,we have heard calls for US citizens to serve their president: a man elected to SERVE the people.
So clear do these acts point towards a fascists direction, I would argue that nothing more need to be added. However, less then 2 weeks ago our president argued in favor of preventative detention. In other words, a PREEMTIVE strike on POTENTIAL criminals. This is an act of terror upon people who have done nothing wrong, because the government feels they are a threat. According to Obama, these actions would be done so as to protect the founding documents; yet I argue, how does arresting "potential criminals" help to defend ones right to "life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." I am sick to think of this great nation under this present administration.
We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.
Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous.
From health care to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn’t have the nerve to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?
Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now — before he drags us further into the abyss.
I refer here to Obama’s plan for “preventive detentions.” If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in “prolonged detention.” Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama’s shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes). As if that made it OK.
In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street.
Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people’s lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can’t control, what George Orwell called “thoughtcrime” — contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.
Locking up people who haven’t done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to “preventive detention” is an outrage. That the president of the United States, a man who won an election because he promised to elevate our moral and political discourse, would even entertain such a revolting idea offends the idea of civilization itself.
Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed George W. Bush, I won’t follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power. A d v e r t i s e m e n t “Prolonged detention,” reported The New York Times, would be inflicted upon “terrorism suspects who cannot be tried.”
“Cannot be tried.” Interesting choice of words. Any “terrorism suspect” (can you be a suspect if you haven’t been charged with a crime?) can be tried. Anyone can be tried for anything. At this writing, a Somali child is sitting in a prison in New York, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. has no jurisdiction. Anyone can be tried.
What they mean, of course, is that the hundreds of men and boys languishing at Guantánamo and the thousands of “detainees” the Obama administration anticipates kidnapping in the future cannot be convicted. As in the old Soviet Union, putting enemies of the state on trial isn’t enough. The game has to be fixed. Conviction has to be a foregone conclusion. Why is it, exactly, that some prisoners “cannot be tried”?
The Old Grey Lady explains why Obama wants this “entirely new chapter in American law” in a boring little sentence buried a couple of paragraphs past the jump and a couple of hundred words down page A16: “Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted.”
In democracies with functioning legal systems, it is assumed that people against whom there is a “lack of evidence” are innocent. They walk free. In countries where the rule of law prevails, in places blessedly free of fearful leaders whose only concern is staying in power, “tainted evidence” is no evidence at all. If you can’t prove that a defendant committed a crime — an actual crime, not a thoughtcrime — in a fair trial, you release him and apologize to the judge and jury for wasting their time.
It is amazing and incredible, after eight years of Bush’s lawless behavior, to have to still have to explain these things. For that reason alone, Obama should resign.
This is an odd story! If in fact a suspect did what the police claim this grandmother did, then perhaps force would be required. However, I am hard pressed to believe that a 72 year old women would vindictively violate the law to the extent that a younger police officer would feel threatened to the point of having to use a teaser on an elderly women.
My question is this, at what point do we as citizens stop taking blatant abuse, and begin to hold such actions accountable for what they are: abuse of violent power? Even if she did what she is being accused of, I cannot fathom that such drastic measures were needed to subdue her, especially after seeing how big the officer is.
As a nation of liberty and understanding, we need to come to the understanding that such actions are a clear violation of power.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has signaled the anointment of his youngest son as heir to the ruling family dynasty as the rival Koreas bolstered their militaries along a disputed sea border on Tuesday.
North Korea, whose increasingly military posturing after last week’s nuclear test has prompted U.S. and South Korean forces to raise the alert level, is readying mid-range missiles for test launches, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported a lawmaker as saying after a defense briefing.
The news rattled financial markets in Seoul, adding to worries over reports the impoverished state is preparing to test fire a long-range missile that could fly as far as U.S. territory. The main Seoul index closed slightly down. Analysts believe that Kim Jong-il, whose power base stems from his support for the military, may be using the growing tension to give him greater leverage over power elites at home to nominate his own successor.
It has raised alarm in the region over how far iron ruler Kim, 67 and thought to have suffered a stroke last year, may be prepared to take his latest military grandstanding.
The following is a list of films, many of which are made by Alex Jones, ranging on a number of different topics concerning America, and the American System. Those with links attached are films I have both watched and personally endorse; the rest are films I am currently evaluating, and, at present, take no personal stand on. Those not linked can most likley be found by doing a search on the web.
