Evidence of Global Cooling…Study Censored by EPA
By DCT | June 30, 2009
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has done an excellent job of exposing a major cover-up at the EPA regarding a study on global warming because it conflicts with the agenda of the current administration and its Cap and Trade legislation.
Below you will find an excellent summary of the attempted cover-up of the evidence, which is, we are experiencing global cooling, not warming, gutting the argument for the horrendous “cap and trade” bill. Incredibility, CEI has also released internal emails between Al McGartland, Office Director of EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), to Alan Carlin, Senior Operations Research Analyst at NCEE, forbidding him from speaking to anyone outside NCEE on endangerment issues. Mr. McGartland’s emails demonstrate that he was rejecting Mr. Carlin’s study because its conclusions ran counter to EPA’s proposed position. Don’t take my word for it, the evidence is here.
Folks, Congress just passed a 1,200 page bill which was not read, was shoved through with only 3 hours of debate, based on the premise that we are experiencing “global warming,” which will endanger life on earth as we know it. This bill will not only destroy jobs and your household budget, but we are being lied to by those who are pushing this “green” agenda. We must set the record straight. So here is part of the record:
The Public Shouldn’t Be Kept in the Dark by an Agency Supposedly Committed to Transparency
by Richard Morrison
June 25, 2009
Washington, D.C., June 26, 2009—The Competitive Enterprise Institute is today making public an internal study on climate science which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Internal EPA email messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the Administration’s agenda of regulating carbon dioxide.
The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations’ 2007 “Fourth Assessment” report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature.
New data also indicate that ocean cycles are probably the most important single factor in explaining temperature fluctuations, though solar cycles may play a role as well, and that reliable satellite data undercut the likelihood of endangerment from greenhouse gases. All of this demonstrates EPA should independently analyze the science, rather than just adopt the conclusions of outside organizations.
The released report is a draft version, prepared under EPA’s unusually short internal review schedule, and thus may contain inaccuracies which were corrected in the final report.
“While we hoped that EPA would release the final report, we’re tired of waiting for this agency to become transparent, even though its Administrator has been talking transparency since she took office. So we are releasing a draft version of the report ourselves, today,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman.
CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. For more information about CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org.
If you have never visited CEI please do so. This is a great organization.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE
Burney Madoff get's 150 years !
There were millions of reasons to assign such a rediculous sounding sentence to the 71 year old thief.
Ask anyone that trusted the bastard, dying in prison is and was hoped for and well paid for.
GOOD-BYE BURNEY !
There were millions of reasons to assign such a rediculous sounding sentence to the 71 year old thief.
Ask anyone that trusted the bastard, dying in prison is and was hoped for and well paid for.
GOOD-BYE BURNEY !
KILLING US SOFTLY
Buchanan: Climate Bill Is Transfer Of Wealth To World Government
Paul Joseph Watson
Monday, June 29, 2009
During an appearance on MSNBC, political commentator Pat Buchanan correctly defined the “Climate Bill” for what it really is, not just a new tax on the American people, but a complete transfer of power and wealth to a global government that is using the manufactured fear of global warming to grease the skids for total domination.
Referring to the passage of the climate bill and global warming in general, Buchanan said that the legislation was passed through the use of fear and that, “More and more scientists are coming forward to say this is a hoax and a scam which is designed to transfer wealth and power from the private sector to the government sector and from the government of the United States to a world government. Which is what we’re going to get in Copenhagen when we get this Kyoto two agreement.”
Buchanan labeled the legislation a “tax bill” that would raise the prices of utilities for every American, hammer the middle class and working class, “for a danger that we don’t even know is really there”.
ANOTHER OBAMA LIE: NO NEW TAXES ! WAIT TILL YOU SEE THE HEALTH BILL !!
The former senior advisor to three U.S. presidents accused the Obama administration of hyping the apocalyptic myth that the oceans will rise and that cities will be underwater in order to ram through the legislation.
Establishment left-wing blogs like Crooks and Liars and Media Matters are carrying the video of Buchanan’s remarks with little or no accompanying commentary, as if Buchanan’s comments alone are enough to discredit his position.
Those who act as shills for the climate change hoax may believe that anyone who dares challenge the authodoxy of the church of global warming is automatically a heretic and that no evidence whatsoever needs to even be presented to counter their sacrilege, but here in the real world we prefer to stick to the facts.
Empirical satellite data shows that mean global temperatures are the same that they were 30 years ago and that global sea ice is also at similar levels. Following a spike in global temperatures at the end of the last century that coincided with the sun undergoing its most active period in recent times, the planet has now cooled to 1979 levels. At the end of summer last year, despite hysterical predictions that the North Pole would be free of ice for the first time in history, Arctic sea ice had actually expanded by 30 per cent, an area the size of Germany.
Coinciding with expanding ice sheets, there has been no rise in sea levels for the past three years. Tropical storms and extreme weather events attributed to global warming like hurricanes and typhoons are at a record low.
The United Nations’s IPCC, the heavily politicized organization that is often erroneously cited as an independent scientific body by climate change promoters, was last year caught citing fake data to make the case that global warming is accelerating, a shocking example of mass public deception.
“This was startling,” reported the London Telegraph. “Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China’s official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its “worst snowstorm ever”. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.”
It soon came to light that the data produced by NASA to make the claim, and in particular temperature records covering large areas of Russia, was merely carried over from the previous month. NASA had used temperature records from the naturally hotter month of September and claimed they represented temperature figures for October.
As David Deming points out in his excellent article today, temperature data collected by weather stations is being artificially impacted by measuring systems placed nearby to sources of heat. This is why claims that global temperatures are still rising are completely contradicted by real world evidence of falling temperatures and what some scientists are warning is the beginning of a new ice age.
“Why do people think the planet is warming?,” writes Deming. “One reason is that the temperature data from weather stations appear to be hopelessly contaminated by urban heat effects. A survey of the 1221 temperature stations in the US by meteorologist Anthony Watts and his colleagues is now more than 80 percent complete. The magnitude of putative global warming over the last 150 years is about 0.7 °C. But only 9 percent of meteorological stations in the US are likely to have temperature errors lower than 1 °C. More than two-thirds of temperature sensors used to estimate global warming are located near artificial heating sources such as air conditioning vents, asphalt paving, or buildings. These sources are likely to introduce artifacts greater than 2 °C into the temperature record.”
“Every year in the US, more than forty thousand people are killed in traffic accidents. But not one single person has ever been killed by global warming. The number of species that have gone extinct from global warming is exactly zero. Both the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets are stable. The polar bear population is increasing. There has been no increase in infectious disease that can be attributed to climate change. We are not currently experiencing more floods, droughts, or forest fires,” he concludes.
As we have attempted to warn, the major beneficiaries of the climate bill will be the elitists who own the carbon trading systems that will be used to handle the ‘cap and trade’ program, namely Al Gore and Maurice Strong, two figures intimately involved with a long standing movement to use the theory of man made global warming as a mechanism for profit and social engineering.
Gore’s investment company, Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offset opportunities, is the largest shareholder of The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX).
While Maurice Strong, who is regularly credited as founding father of the modern environmental movement, serves on the board of directors of CCX. Strong was a leading initiate of the Earth Summit in the early 90s, where the theory of global warming caused by CO2 generated by human activity was most notably advanced.
most notably advanced.= DREAMED UP !
Paul Joseph Watson
Monday, June 29, 2009
During an appearance on MSNBC, political commentator Pat Buchanan correctly defined the “Climate Bill” for what it really is, not just a new tax on the American people, but a complete transfer of power and wealth to a global government that is using the manufactured fear of global warming to grease the skids for total domination.
Referring to the passage of the climate bill and global warming in general, Buchanan said that the legislation was passed through the use of fear and that, “More and more scientists are coming forward to say this is a hoax and a scam which is designed to transfer wealth and power from the private sector to the government sector and from the government of the United States to a world government. Which is what we’re going to get in Copenhagen when we get this Kyoto two agreement.”
Buchanan labeled the legislation a “tax bill” that would raise the prices of utilities for every American, hammer the middle class and working class, “for a danger that we don’t even know is really there”.
ANOTHER OBAMA LIE: NO NEW TAXES ! WAIT TILL YOU SEE THE HEALTH BILL !!
The former senior advisor to three U.S. presidents accused the Obama administration of hyping the apocalyptic myth that the oceans will rise and that cities will be underwater in order to ram through the legislation.
Establishment left-wing blogs like Crooks and Liars and Media Matters are carrying the video of Buchanan’s remarks with little or no accompanying commentary, as if Buchanan’s comments alone are enough to discredit his position.
Those who act as shills for the climate change hoax may believe that anyone who dares challenge the authodoxy of the church of global warming is automatically a heretic and that no evidence whatsoever needs to even be presented to counter their sacrilege, but here in the real world we prefer to stick to the facts.
Empirical satellite data shows that mean global temperatures are the same that they were 30 years ago and that global sea ice is also at similar levels. Following a spike in global temperatures at the end of the last century that coincided with the sun undergoing its most active period in recent times, the planet has now cooled to 1979 levels. At the end of summer last year, despite hysterical predictions that the North Pole would be free of ice for the first time in history, Arctic sea ice had actually expanded by 30 per cent, an area the size of Germany.
Coinciding with expanding ice sheets, there has been no rise in sea levels for the past three years. Tropical storms and extreme weather events attributed to global warming like hurricanes and typhoons are at a record low.
The United Nations’s IPCC, the heavily politicized organization that is often erroneously cited as an independent scientific body by climate change promoters, was last year caught citing fake data to make the case that global warming is accelerating, a shocking example of mass public deception.
“This was startling,” reported the London Telegraph. “Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China’s official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its “worst snowstorm ever”. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.”
It soon came to light that the data produced by NASA to make the claim, and in particular temperature records covering large areas of Russia, was merely carried over from the previous month. NASA had used temperature records from the naturally hotter month of September and claimed they represented temperature figures for October.
As David Deming points out in his excellent article today, temperature data collected by weather stations is being artificially impacted by measuring systems placed nearby to sources of heat. This is why claims that global temperatures are still rising are completely contradicted by real world evidence of falling temperatures and what some scientists are warning is the beginning of a new ice age.
“Why do people think the planet is warming?,” writes Deming. “One reason is that the temperature data from weather stations appear to be hopelessly contaminated by urban heat effects. A survey of the 1221 temperature stations in the US by meteorologist Anthony Watts and his colleagues is now more than 80 percent complete. The magnitude of putative global warming over the last 150 years is about 0.7 °C. But only 9 percent of meteorological stations in the US are likely to have temperature errors lower than 1 °C. More than two-thirds of temperature sensors used to estimate global warming are located near artificial heating sources such as air conditioning vents, asphalt paving, or buildings. These sources are likely to introduce artifacts greater than 2 °C into the temperature record.”
“Every year in the US, more than forty thousand people are killed in traffic accidents. But not one single person has ever been killed by global warming. The number of species that have gone extinct from global warming is exactly zero. Both the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets are stable. The polar bear population is increasing. There has been no increase in infectious disease that can be attributed to climate change. We are not currently experiencing more floods, droughts, or forest fires,” he concludes.
As we have attempted to warn, the major beneficiaries of the climate bill will be the elitists who own the carbon trading systems that will be used to handle the ‘cap and trade’ program, namely Al Gore and Maurice Strong, two figures intimately involved with a long standing movement to use the theory of man made global warming as a mechanism for profit and social engineering.
Gore’s investment company, Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offset opportunities, is the largest shareholder of The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX).
While Maurice Strong, who is regularly credited as founding father of the modern environmental movement, serves on the board of directors of CCX. Strong was a leading initiate of the Earth Summit in the early 90s, where the theory of global warming caused by CO2 generated by human activity was most notably advanced.
most notably advanced.= DREAMED UP !
Monday, June 29, 2009
HURRY, STOP THE SENATORS
STOP THE SENATORS FROM PASSING THE PHONY CLEAN AIR BILL
Energy needs to be dedicated to the version now working its way through the Senate. 100 Senators need to be contacted before July 4th and told in no uncertain terms that they must not vote for this bill.
The so-called "cap and trade" bill will shut down the economy and introduce serfdom. "Limiting the amount of CO2 will do nothing to help make the planet less warm, make us energy independent or create millions of jobs. It will on the other hand destroy whatever is left of our industry here in the North America by leaving companies no choice but to move offshore. Some of the biggest oil reserves in the world are here in North America, yet we rely on foreign oil. GO FIGURE !
YOU BETTER BELIEVE GASOLINE WILL GO UP ANOTHER SEVENTY FIVE CENTS OR A BUCK A GALLON IF THIS GET'S PASSED BY THE SENATE
TRUST ME !
Energy needs to be dedicated to the version now working its way through the Senate. 100 Senators need to be contacted before July 4th and told in no uncertain terms that they must not vote for this bill.
The so-called "cap and trade" bill will shut down the economy and introduce serfdom. "Limiting the amount of CO2 will do nothing to help make the planet less warm, make us energy independent or create millions of jobs. It will on the other hand destroy whatever is left of our industry here in the North America by leaving companies no choice but to move offshore. Some of the biggest oil reserves in the world are here in North America, yet we rely on foreign oil. GO FIGURE !
YOU BETTER BELIEVE GASOLINE WILL GO UP ANOTHER SEVENTY FIVE CENTS OR A BUCK A GALLON IF THIS GET'S PASSED BY THE SENATE
TRUST ME !
SCREW THE COURT
Court Fails to Decide on Anti-Hillary Movie
Monday, June 29, 2009
WASHINGTON –
The Supreme Court has failed to decide on whether a scathing documentary about Hillary Rodham Clinton that was shown during the presidential race should be regulated as if it were a campaign ad.
The court said Monday it will hear arguments in the case again in a special session on Sept. 9. The justices said they want lawyers to address whether the court should overturn its earlier rulings on limiting corporate and union contributions in federal elections.
Citizens United, a conservative not-for-profit group, wanted to air ads for the movie in Democratic primary states and also make the film available to cable subscribers on demand without complying with federal campaign finance law.
But lower courts have said the movie looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one.
At the time of "Hillary: The Movie," the New York senator was competing with Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. She is now secretary of state in the Obama administration.
The court's composition will be different by the time it rehears the case. Justice David Souter plans to retire this month, and Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a judge from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to replace him.
Obama and Democrats hope the Senate confirms Sotomayor before the high court session in September.
The movie is unquestionably anti-Clinton, featuring commentary from conservative pundits, some of whom specifically say she was not fit to be commander in chief. One scene, which was used in an ad, shows Dick Morris describing the senator as "the closest thing we have in America to a European socialist."
Morris, who once served as an adviser to former President Bill Clinton, is now one of the Clintons' harshest critics.
BECAUSE HE KNOWS THE TRUTH FIRST HAND
Citizens United wanted to pay for its documentary to be shown on home video-on-demand, and for ads promoting the movie to be shown in competitive Democratic primary states.
Federal judges, however, said the movie should be regulated by the McCain-Feingold law, the popular name for 2002 revisions to the nation's campaign finance law. Judges called "Hillary: The Movie" a 90-minute attack ad, rulings that would require Citizens United to identify the financial backers for the ads if they were to appear on television.
SOOO..... IDENTIFY THE HEROES !
The court also said that if the group showed the movie on cable television, financial backers would have to be named and the group would have to pay the cost of airing the movie.
The movie was advertised on the Internet, sold on DVD and shown in a few theaters. Campaign regulations do not apply to DVDs, theaters or the Internet.
MAKE IT GO VIRAL
SCREW THE SUPREME COURT BEFORE THEY COVER FOR THE DARK SIDE !!
Monday, June 29, 2009
WASHINGTON –
The Supreme Court has failed to decide on whether a scathing documentary about Hillary Rodham Clinton that was shown during the presidential race should be regulated as if it were a campaign ad.
The court said Monday it will hear arguments in the case again in a special session on Sept. 9. The justices said they want lawyers to address whether the court should overturn its earlier rulings on limiting corporate and union contributions in federal elections.
Citizens United, a conservative not-for-profit group, wanted to air ads for the movie in Democratic primary states and also make the film available to cable subscribers on demand without complying with federal campaign finance law.
But lower courts have said the movie looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one.
At the time of "Hillary: The Movie," the New York senator was competing with Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. She is now secretary of state in the Obama administration.
The court's composition will be different by the time it rehears the case. Justice David Souter plans to retire this month, and Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a judge from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to replace him.
Obama and Democrats hope the Senate confirms Sotomayor before the high court session in September.
The movie is unquestionably anti-Clinton, featuring commentary from conservative pundits, some of whom specifically say she was not fit to be commander in chief. One scene, which was used in an ad, shows Dick Morris describing the senator as "the closest thing we have in America to a European socialist."
Morris, who once served as an adviser to former President Bill Clinton, is now one of the Clintons' harshest critics.
BECAUSE HE KNOWS THE TRUTH FIRST HAND
Citizens United wanted to pay for its documentary to be shown on home video-on-demand, and for ads promoting the movie to be shown in competitive Democratic primary states.
Federal judges, however, said the movie should be regulated by the McCain-Feingold law, the popular name for 2002 revisions to the nation's campaign finance law. Judges called "Hillary: The Movie" a 90-minute attack ad, rulings that would require Citizens United to identify the financial backers for the ads if they were to appear on television.
SOOO..... IDENTIFY THE HEROES !
The court also said that if the group showed the movie on cable television, financial backers would have to be named and the group would have to pay the cost of airing the movie.
The movie was advertised on the Internet, sold on DVD and shown in a few theaters. Campaign regulations do not apply to DVDs, theaters or the Internet.
MAKE IT GO VIRAL
SCREW THE SUPREME COURT BEFORE THEY COVER FOR THE DARK SIDE !!
EXTEND THE VACATION
Monica Conyers Resigns From Detroit City Council Following Bribery Conviction
Monica Conyers, wife of powerful Democratic congressman John Conyers, resigned from the Detroit city council Monday after admitting she took cash bribes in exchange for her vote on a city contract.
AP
Monday, June 29, 2009
DETROIT -
Detroit city councilwoman Monica Conyers has resigned from office after admitting she took cash bribes from a Houston-based company in exchange for her vote on a lucrative city contract.
Conyers, the wife of powerful Democratic congressman John Conyers, submitted her letter of resignation to the city clerk's office Monday. Her resignation takes effect July 6.
The 44-year-old Conyers admitted she took money from Synagro Technologies in 2007 in exchange for her vote on a city sludge contract. Prosecutors said John Conyers knew nothing of his wife's wrongdoing.
Monica Conyers faces up to five years in prison at her sentencing. She did not immediately respond to a phone message Monday seeking comment.
5 YEARS ? YES !
MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF HER !!
Monica Conyers, wife of powerful Democratic congressman John Conyers, resigned from the Detroit city council Monday after admitting she took cash bribes in exchange for her vote on a city contract.
AP
Monday, June 29, 2009
DETROIT -
Detroit city councilwoman Monica Conyers has resigned from office after admitting she took cash bribes from a Houston-based company in exchange for her vote on a lucrative city contract.
Conyers, the wife of powerful Democratic congressman John Conyers, submitted her letter of resignation to the city clerk's office Monday. Her resignation takes effect July 6.
The 44-year-old Conyers admitted she took money from Synagro Technologies in 2007 in exchange for her vote on a city sludge contract. Prosecutors said John Conyers knew nothing of his wife's wrongdoing.
Monica Conyers faces up to five years in prison at her sentencing. She did not immediately respond to a phone message Monday seeking comment.
5 YEARS ? YES !
MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF HER !!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
MURDERER'S ROW
HERE'S THE WAY AMERICA'S TREASONIST KILLERS VOTED! BE SURE TO THANK THEM PERSONALLY WITH CALLS AND FAXES !!
FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 477
(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)
H R 2454 RECORDED VOTE 26-Jun-2009 7:17 PM
QUESTION: On Passage
BILL TITLE: American Clean Energy and Security Act
Ayes Noes PRES NV
Democratic 211 44 1
Republican 8 168 2
Independent
TOTALS 219 212 3
---- AYES 219 ---
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Adler (NJ)
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boccieri
Bono Mack
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson (IN)
Castle
Castor (FL)
Chandler
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Connolly (VA)
Conyers
Cooper
Courtney
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Driehaus
Edwards (MD)
Ellison
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Frank (MA)
Fudge
Giffords
Gonzalez
Gordon (TN)
Grayson
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Halvorson
Hare
Harman
Heinrich
Higgins
Hill
Himes
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hodes
Holt
Honda
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick (MI)
Kilroy
Kind
Kirk
Klein (FL)
Kosmas
Kratovil
Lance
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Luj n
Lynch
Maffei
Maloney
Markey (CO)
Markey (MA)
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McMahon
McNerney
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Michaud
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy (NY)
Murphy, Patrick
Murtha
Nadler (NY)
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor (AZ)
Payne
Pelosi
Perlmutter
Perriello
Peters
Peterson
Pingree (ME)
Polis (CO)
Price (NC)
Quigley
Rangel
Reichert
Reyes
Richardson
Rothman (NJ)
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
S nchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schauer
Schiff
Schrader
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sestak
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shuler
Sires
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NJ)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Space
Speier
Spratt
Stupak
Sutton
Tauscher
Teague
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Titus
Tonko
Towns
Tsongas
Van Hollen
Vel zquez
Walz
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch
Wexler
Woolsey
Wu
Yarmuth
---- NOES 212 ---
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Altmire
Arcuri
Austria
Bachmann
Bachus
Barrett (SC)
Barrow
Bartlett
Barton (TX)
Berry
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Boozman
Boren
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Bright
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Cantor
Cao
Capito
Carney
Carter
Cassidy
Chaffetz
Childers
Coble
Coffman (CO)
Cole
Conaway
Costa
Costello
Crenshaw
Culberson
Dahlkemper
Davis (AL)
Davis (KY)
Davis (TN)
Deal (GA)
DeFazio
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Donnelly (IN)
Dreier
Duncan
Edwards (TX)
Ehlers
Ellsworth
Emerson
Fallin
Fleming
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foster
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gingrey (GA)
Gohmert
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Griffith
Guthrie
Hall (TX)
Harper
Hastings (WA)
Heller
Hensarling
Herger
Herseth Sandlin
Hoekstra
Holden
Hunter
Inglis
Issa
Jenkins
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Jordan (OH)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirkpatrick (AZ)
Kissell
Kline (MN)
Kucinich
Lamborn
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lee (NY)
Lewis (CA)
Linder
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Lummis
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Manzullo
Marchant
Marshall
Massa
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul
McClintock
McCotter
McHenry
McIntyre
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Melancon
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Minnick
Mitchell
Mollohan
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Myrick
Neugebauer
Nunes
Nye
Olson
Ortiz
Paul
Paulsen
Pence
Petri
Pitts
Platts
Poe (TX)
Pomeroy
Posey
Price (GA)
Putnam
Radanovich
Rahall
Rehberg
Rodriguez
Roe (TN)
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Salazar
Scalise
Schmidt
Schock
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stark
Stearns
Tanner
Taylor
Terry
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Visclosky
Walden
Wamp
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Wilson (OH)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
---- NOT VOTING 3 ---
Flake
Hastings (FL)
Sullivan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 477
(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)
H R 2454 RECORDED VOTE 26-Jun-2009 7:17 PM
QUESTION: On Passage
BILL TITLE: American Clean Energy and Security Act
Ayes Noes PRES NV
Democratic 211 44 1
Republican 8 168 2
Independent
TOTALS 219 212 3
---- AYES 219 ---
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Adler (NJ)
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boccieri
Bono Mack
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson (IN)
Castle
Castor (FL)
Chandler
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Connolly (VA)
Conyers
Cooper
Courtney
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Driehaus
Edwards (MD)
Ellison
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Frank (MA)
Fudge
Giffords
Gonzalez
Gordon (TN)
Grayson
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Halvorson
Hare
Harman
Heinrich
Higgins
Hill
Himes
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hodes
Holt
Honda
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick (MI)
Kilroy
Kind
Kirk
Klein (FL)
Kosmas
Kratovil
Lance
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Luj n
Lynch
Maffei
Maloney
Markey (CO)
Markey (MA)
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McMahon
McNerney
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Michaud
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy (NY)
Murphy, Patrick
Murtha
Nadler (NY)
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor (AZ)
Payne
Pelosi
Perlmutter
Perriello
Peters
Peterson
Pingree (ME)
Polis (CO)
Price (NC)
Quigley
Rangel
Reichert
Reyes
Richardson
Rothman (NJ)
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
S nchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schauer
Schiff
Schrader
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sestak
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shuler
Sires
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NJ)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Space
Speier
Spratt
Stupak
Sutton
Tauscher
Teague
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Titus
Tonko
Towns
Tsongas
Van Hollen
Vel zquez
Walz
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch
Wexler
Woolsey
Wu
Yarmuth
---- NOES 212 ---
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Altmire
Arcuri
Austria
Bachmann
Bachus
Barrett (SC)
Barrow
Bartlett
Barton (TX)
Berry
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Boozman
Boren
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Bright
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Cantor
Cao
Capito
Carney
Carter
Cassidy
Chaffetz
Childers
Coble
Coffman (CO)
Cole
Conaway
Costa
Costello
Crenshaw
Culberson
Dahlkemper
Davis (AL)
Davis (KY)
Davis (TN)
Deal (GA)
DeFazio
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Donnelly (IN)
Dreier
Duncan
Edwards (TX)
Ehlers
Ellsworth
Emerson
Fallin
Fleming
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foster
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gingrey (GA)
Gohmert
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Griffith
Guthrie
Hall (TX)
Harper
Hastings (WA)
Heller
Hensarling
Herger
Herseth Sandlin
Hoekstra
Holden
Hunter
Inglis
Issa
Jenkins
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Jordan (OH)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirkpatrick (AZ)
Kissell
Kline (MN)
Kucinich
Lamborn
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lee (NY)
Lewis (CA)
Linder
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Lummis
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Manzullo
Marchant
Marshall
Massa
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul
McClintock
McCotter
McHenry
McIntyre
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Melancon
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Minnick
Mitchell
Mollohan
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Myrick
Neugebauer
Nunes
Nye
Olson
Ortiz
Paul
Paulsen
Pence
Petri
Pitts
Platts
Poe (TX)
Pomeroy
Posey
Price (GA)
Putnam
Radanovich
Rahall
Rehberg
Rodriguez
Roe (TN)
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Salazar
Scalise
Schmidt
Schock
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stark
Stearns
Tanner
Taylor
Terry
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Visclosky
Walden
Wamp
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Wilson (OH)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
---- NOT VOTING 3 ---
Flake
Hastings (FL)
Sullivan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, June 26, 2009
back off acorn ordered
Rep. Conyers' Probe of ACORN Blocked by 'Powers That Be'
Friday, June 26, 2009 8:20 AM
S.A. Miller, The Washington Times
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. has backed off his plan to investigate purported wrongdoing by the liberal activist group ACORN, saying "powers that be" put the kibosh on the idea.
Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat, earlier bucked his party leaders by calling for hearings on accusations the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) has committed crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style "protection" racket.
"The powers that be decided against it," Mr. Conyers told The Washington Times as he left the House chambers Wednesday.
The chairman declined to elaborate, shrugging off questions about who told him how to run his committee and give the Democrat-allied group a pass.
Conyers spokesman Jonathan Godfrey said late Thursday, several hours after the first request for comment, that the chairman had been referring to himself as "the powers that be."
Pittsburgh lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh, whose testimony about ACORN at a March 19 hearing on voting issues prompted Mr. Conyers to call for a probe, said she was perplexed by Mr. Conyers' explanation for his change of heart.
"If the chair of the Judiciary Committee cannot hold a hearing if he wants to, [then] who are the powers that he is beholden to?" she said. "Is it the leadership, is it the White House, is it contributors? Who is 'the power'?"
The comment spurred similar questions by House Republicans, who asked whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was involved in blocking the probe.
"Chairman Conyers has a responsibility to explain who is blocking this investigation, and why. Is it Speaker Pelosi? Others in the Democratic leadership? Who in Congress is covering up ACORN's corruption?" said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, ranking Republican on the Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties, said the chairman should be calling the shots.
Mr. Conyers, who heard the allegations against ACORN, was sufficiently impressed to realize a future hearing was needed to thoroughly investigate the matter," he said. "It's unfortunate that people who didn't hear the testimony are making the decisions. The Democratic leadership should step up to disclose who instructed Mr. Conyers to drop his plan."
The office of Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, did not respond to questions about Mr. Conyers' comments.
Capitol Hill had bristled at the prospect of hearings because it threatened to rekindle criticism of the financial ties and close cooperation between President Obama's campaign and ACORN and its sister organizations Citizens Services Inc. and Project Vote.
The groups came under fire during the campaign after probes into suspected voter fraud in a series of presidential battleground states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Mexico and Nevada.
ACORN and its affiliates are currently the target of at least 14 lawsuits related to voter fraud in the 2008 election and a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act complaint filed by former ACORN members.
The group's leaders have consistently denied any wrongdoing and previously said they welcomed a congressional probe.
The group did not respond to questions about Mr. Conyers being convinced to drop those plans.
Ms. Heidelbaugh, who spearheaded an unsuccessful lawsuit last year to stop ACORN's Pennsylvania voter-registration drive, testified in March that the nonprofit group was violating tax, campaign-finance and other laws by, among other things, sharing with the Barack Obama campaign a list of the Democrat's maxed-out campaign donors so ACORN could use it to solicit them for a get-out-the-vote drive.
ACORN also provided liberal causes with protest-for-hire services and coerced donations from targets of demonstrations through a shakedown it called the "muscle for the money" program, said Ms. Heidelbaugh, a member of the executive board of the Republican National Lawyers Association.
Mr. Conyers, a fierce partisan known for his drive to continue investigating President George W. Bush's administration, had been an unlikely champion for opponents of ACORN.
Before calling for the probe, he frequently defended ACORN. In October, he condemned an FBI voter-fraud investigation targeting the group, questioning whether it was politically motivated to hamper a voter-registration likely to turn out supporters for Mr. Obama's candidacy.
But in March, Mr. Conyers dismissed the argument made by fellow Democrats that accusations of voter fraud and other crimes should be explored by prosecutors and decided in court, not by lawmakers in Congress.
"That's our jurisdiction, the Department of Justice," Mr. Conyers said in March. "That's what we handle voter fraud. Unless that's been taken out of my jurisdiction and I didn't know it."
THIS IS PURE BULLSHIT
EVERYTHING SURROUNDING OBAMAS IS PURE BULLSHIT !
TAKE THE ILLEGITIMATE BASTARD OUT OF THE WHITEHOUSE NOW !!!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
NO JOKE
Sen. John Kerry Wishes Sarah Palin Had Gone Missing
Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:09 AM
By: Kenneth D. Williams
Sen. John Kerry added to his long list of lame joke attempts yesterday when he wished South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's disappearance on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Speaking to some business and civic leaders he had invited to Washington, Kerry quipped: "Too bad if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin."
The partisan crowd chuckled, but there's nothing funny about Kerry's criticisms of the Alaska governor.
Kerry has a history of making impolitic jokes. Slate magazine recalls two of Kerry's worst:
"Somebody told me the other day that the Secret Service has orders that if George Bush is shot, they're to shoot Quayle . . . There isn't any press here, is there?" (Associated Press, Nov. 16, 1988).
"What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States" (Boston Globe, April 3, 2003).
And don't forget 2006. At a campaign appearance in California for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Phil Angelides, Kerry made the famously awful remark: "You know, education; if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."
Meanwhile, Palin wasn't exactly sitting in Washington, D.C., chatting up businessmen. She was busy doing something very unfamiliar to Kerry: She was on her way to an undisclosed "overseas" location to visit deployed Alaska National Guard troops and offer thanks and support. As she wrote on her Twitter page yesterday: "Travel now to bring appreciation from their Alaska family & Natl Guard leadership to heroes in US European Command's area of responsibility."
KERRY IS A POOR EXCUSE FOR TAKING UP SPACE EVEN FOR AN INBREEDER !!
Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:09 AM
By: Kenneth D. Williams
Sen. John Kerry added to his long list of lame joke attempts yesterday when he wished South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's disappearance on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Speaking to some business and civic leaders he had invited to Washington, Kerry quipped: "Too bad if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin."
The partisan crowd chuckled, but there's nothing funny about Kerry's criticisms of the Alaska governor.
Kerry has a history of making impolitic jokes. Slate magazine recalls two of Kerry's worst:
"Somebody told me the other day that the Secret Service has orders that if George Bush is shot, they're to shoot Quayle . . . There isn't any press here, is there?" (Associated Press, Nov. 16, 1988).
"What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States" (Boston Globe, April 3, 2003).
And don't forget 2006. At a campaign appearance in California for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Phil Angelides, Kerry made the famously awful remark: "You know, education; if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."
Meanwhile, Palin wasn't exactly sitting in Washington, D.C., chatting up businessmen. She was busy doing something very unfamiliar to Kerry: She was on her way to an undisclosed "overseas" location to visit deployed Alaska National Guard troops and offer thanks and support. As she wrote on her Twitter page yesterday: "Travel now to bring appreciation from their Alaska family & Natl Guard leadership to heroes in US European Command's area of responsibility."
KERRY IS A POOR EXCUSE FOR TAKING UP SPACE EVEN FOR AN INBREEDER !!
H1N1 HYPE
US funds new flu vaccine to meet possible demand surge
Tuesday June 23, 2009
The US Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday announced that a 35-million-dollar contract has been awarded to a US company that is developing a flu vaccine using insect cell technology.
"The technology has advanced in recent years to a point that we believe it could help meet a surge in demand for US-based vaccine for seasonal and pandemic flu," Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.
The A(H1N1) virus, or swine flu, which emerged in Mexico in April, has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization and has killed 231 people worldwide and infected more than 52,000 people in 100 countries.
The contract awarded to Connecticut-based Protein Sciences Corporation could be extended for another five years for a total cost of 147 million dollars, the health department said.
Most of the world's flu vaccine is produced using chicken eggs, and production capacity is severely limited.
But Protein Sciences is working on making flu vaccine by infecting caterpillar cells with a baculovirus carrying the gene for hemagluttinin, a molecule that sticks out of the surface of the influenza virus.
"Using this method, vaccine candidates, clinical investigational lots, and commercial-scale vaccine production may be available faster than by using traditional vaccine production methods," the health department said in a statement.
"Because the basic cells can be frozen and stored indefinitely, manufacturing large quantities of a vaccine is also faster using this recombinant technology."
AND WE GET TO BE THE LAB RATS AGAIN,AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN
Tuesday June 23, 2009
The US Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday announced that a 35-million-dollar contract has been awarded to a US company that is developing a flu vaccine using insect cell technology.
"The technology has advanced in recent years to a point that we believe it could help meet a surge in demand for US-based vaccine for seasonal and pandemic flu," Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.
The A(H1N1) virus, or swine flu, which emerged in Mexico in April, has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization and has killed 231 people worldwide and infected more than 52,000 people in 100 countries.
The contract awarded to Connecticut-based Protein Sciences Corporation could be extended for another five years for a total cost of 147 million dollars, the health department said.
Most of the world's flu vaccine is produced using chicken eggs, and production capacity is severely limited.
But Protein Sciences is working on making flu vaccine by infecting caterpillar cells with a baculovirus carrying the gene for hemagluttinin, a molecule that sticks out of the surface of the influenza virus.
"Using this method, vaccine candidates, clinical investigational lots, and commercial-scale vaccine production may be available faster than by using traditional vaccine production methods," the health department said in a statement.
"Because the basic cells can be frozen and stored indefinitely, manufacturing large quantities of a vaccine is also faster using this recombinant technology."
AND WE GET TO BE THE LAB RATS AGAIN,AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
LOCK AND LOAD !!
FEMA Describes July ‘terrorism prevention’ Martial Law Drill
FEMA Describes July ‘terrorism prevention’ Martial Law Drill
June 8, 2009
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27 through July 31, 2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery… This year the United States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09.
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09)
http://www.fema.gov/media/fact_sheets/nle09.shtm
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27 through July 31, 2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery.
NLE 09 is designated as a Tier I National Level Exercise. Tier I exercises (formerly known as the Top Officials exercise series or TOPOFF) are conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise Program (NEP), which serves as the nation’s overarching exercise program for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating national level exercises. The NEP was established to provide the U.S. government, at all levels, exercise opportunities to prepare for catastrophic crises ranging from terrorism to natural disasters.
NLE 09 is a White House directed, Congressionally- mandated exercise that includes the participation of all appropriate federal department and agency senior officials, their deputies, staff and key operational elements. In addition, broad regional participation of state, tribal, local, and private sector is anticipated. This year the United States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09
NLE 09 is a White House directed, Congressionally- mandated exercise that includes the participation of all appropriate federal department and agency senior officials, their deputies, staff and key operational elements. In addition, broad regional participation of state, tribal, local, and private sector is anticipated. This year the United States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09.
FEMA Describes July ‘terrorism prevention’ Martial Law Drill
June 8, 2009
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27 through July 31, 2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery… This year the United States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09.
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09)
http://www.fema.gov/media/fact_sheets/nle09.shtm
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27 through July 31, 2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery.
NLE 09 is designated as a Tier I National Level Exercise. Tier I exercises (formerly known as the Top Officials exercise series or TOPOFF) are conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise Program (NEP), which serves as the nation’s overarching exercise program for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating national level exercises. The NEP was established to provide the U.S. government, at all levels, exercise opportunities to prepare for catastrophic crises ranging from terrorism to natural disasters.
NLE 09 is a White House directed, Congressionally- mandated exercise that includes the participation of all appropriate federal department and agency senior officials, their deputies, staff and key operational elements. In addition, broad regional participation of state, tribal, local, and private sector is anticipated. This year the United States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09
NLE 09 is a White House directed, Congressionally- mandated exercise that includes the participation of all appropriate federal department and agency senior officials, their deputies, staff and key operational elements. In addition, broad regional participation of state, tribal, local, and private sector is anticipated. This year the United States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09.
SCREW THE BOOMERS
Ron Paul: Obama’s ‘goal’ is economic collapse
June 23, 2009
Updated 18 hours ago
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.”
COMPLETE COLLAPSE LEGITIMIZES NO CARE FOR THE BOOMERS, THAT THEY PLANNED DECADES AGO NOT TO LIVE UP TO COMMITMENTS TO ANYWAY !!
June 23, 2009
Updated 18 hours ago
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.”
COMPLETE COLLAPSE LEGITIMIZES NO CARE FOR THE BOOMERS, THAT THEY PLANNED DECADES AGO NOT TO LIVE UP TO COMMITMENTS TO ANYWAY !!
COMING OUT
9/11 FEMA videographer at Ground Zero goes public
Voltairenet
June 23, 2009
As official videographer for the U.S. government, Kurt Sonnenfeld was detailed to Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, where he spent one month filming 29 tapes: “What I saw at certain moments and in certain places … is very disturbing!” He never handed them over to the authorities and has been persecuted ever since. Kurt Sonnenfeld lives in exile in Argentina, where he wrote « El Perseguido » (the persecuted). His recently-published book tells the story of his unending nightmare and drives another nail into the coffin of the government’s account of the 9/11 events. Below is an exclusive interview by Voltairenet.
Introduction
Kurt Sonnenfeld graduated from the University of Colorado (USA) with studies in International Affairs and Economics, as well as in Literature and Philosophy. He worked for the United States government as official videographer and served as Director of Broadcast Operations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s National Emergency Response Team. Additionally, Kurt Sonnenfeld was contracted by several other governmental agencies and programs for classified and “sensitive” operations at military and scientific installations throughout the United States.
On September 11, 2001, the area known as “Ground Zero” was sealed from the public eye. Sonnenfeld, however, was given unrestricted access enabling him to document for the investigation (that never took place) and provide some “sanitized” pool video to virtually every news network in the world. The tapes that reveal some of the anomalies which he discovered at Ground Zero are still in his possession.
Accused of a crime that did not occur in a manifest frame-up scenario, Kurt Sonnenfeld has been persecuted across continents. After several years of fear, injustice and isolation, he has decided to take a public stand against the Government’s official story and is prepared to submit his material to the close scrutiny of reliable experts.
Voltaire Network: Your autobiographical book titled “El Perseguido” (the persecuted) was recently published in Argentina where you live in exile since 2003. Tell us who is persecuting you.
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Although it is autobiographical, it is not my life story. Rather it is a history of the extraordinary events that have happened to me and my family at the hands of U.S. authorities over the course of more than seven years, spanning two hemispheres, after my tour of duty at Ground Zero and becoming an inconvenient witness.
Voltaire Network: You explained that your request for refugee status within the terms of the Geneva 1951 Convention is still being considered by the Argentinean Senate, while in 2005 you were granted political asylum, albeit, on a provisional basis. That probably makes you the first U.S. citizen in that situation! And no doubt the first U.S. Government official with direct exposure to the events surrounding September 11, 2001 who has “blown the whistle”. Is this what drove you into exile?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave (or stay away from) his or her country for reasons of persecution. It’s undeniable that many people have been persecuted unfairly as a result of the quasi-fascist laws and policies brought about by the shock of September 11, 2001, and they deserve refugee status. But the fact is, requesting refugee status is a risky and dangerous step to take. America is the world’s only remaining “superpower”, and dissent has been effectively repressed. Any person who requests refugee status on political grounds is by nature making an extreme statement of dissent. And if your request is denied, what do you do? Once you make the request, there can be no going back.
Personally, I wasn’t forced to leave the United States, and I certainly did not “flee”. At the time I was still fairly oblivious to what was actually brewing against me. I hadn’t connected the dots yet; so that when I left in early 2003 I had every intention of returning. I came to Argentina for a short respite; to try to recuperate after all that had happened to me. I travelled here freely, with my own passport, using my own credit cards. But because of an incredible series of events, I have since been forced into exile, and I haven’t been back.
Voltaire Network: What type of events are you referring to?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I’ve suffered false accusations for “crimes” that demonstrably did not happen, abusive imprisonment and torture as a result of those accusations, as well as outrageous calumnies against my reputation, death threats, kidnap attempts and several other violations of civil and human rights as denounced by numerous international accords. My return to the United States would not only be a continuation of those violations, but would be aggregated by the separation - perhaps permanent - from my wife and three-year old twin daughters, the only thing remaining that I have to live for. And then, after the impossibility of receiving a fair trial for a crime that did not happen, I could be subject to the death penalty.
Voltaire Network: In 2005, the U.S. Government lodged a request to have you extradited, which was turned down by a Federal Judge. Then, in 2007, the Argentinean Supreme Court – in a show of integrity and independence - turned down the U.S. appeal, but your Government persisted. Can you shed some light on the situation ?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In 2008, the US government appealed again, this time with absolutely no legal foundation, to the Supreme Court, which will surely uphold the two already unassailable rulings made by the Federal Judge.
In one of those rulings, it was also noted that there were too many “sombras”, or shadows, surrounding my case. There were many, many obvious fabrications in the extradition order sent here by US authorities, and, thankfully, we were able prove that. The fact that there were so many fabrications has actually served to support my request for asylum. We were also able to show that we had been subject to a prolonged campaign of harassment and intimidation from US intelligence services. As a result, since my family has been assigned round-the-clock police protection. As one senator has noted about my case: “It is their behavior that belies their true motivations”.
Voltaire Network: They want you pretty badly for a “crime that did not happen”! How do you account for such doggedness? As a FEMA official, you must have been trusted by your government. At what point did the situation capsize?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In hindsight, I realize now that the situation had capsized some time before I actually became aware that it had capsized. Initially, the false accusation against me was completely irrational, and I was totally destroyed by it. It is incredibly difficult to have suffered the loss of someone you love to suicide, but to then be accused of it is too much to bear. The case was dismissed based on a mountain of evidence that overwhelmingly absolved me (Nancy, my wife, had left behind a suicide note and a journal of suicidal writings ; she had a family history of suicide ; etc.). The prosecution was 100% sure of my innocence before requesting the dismissal of charge.
But the sustained incarceration even AFTER it was indicated that I was to be freed was what proved to me that something was happening under the surface. I was held in jail for FOUR MONTHS after my lawyers were informed that the case was to be dismissed and was finally released in June 2002. During that time, an amazing series of strange events began to occur. While still being held, I had a telephone conversation with FEMA officials in an effort to resolve the issue, but I realized that I was considered “compromised”. I was told it had been agreed that “the agency had to be protected”, especially in light of the upheaval that was threatening with the implementation of the “ Patriot Act” and the expected usurpation that would come with the new Department of Homeland Security. After all the dangers I had risked, all hardship and difficulties I had endured for them for almost 10 years, I felt betrayed. It left a void in my soul.
Because of their abandonment, I told them I didn’t have the tapes, that I gave them to “some bureaucrat” in New York, and that they would have to wait until I was released to retrieve any other documents in my possession. Soon after that conversation, my house was “seized”, the locks were changed, and men were observed by neighbors entering my house, though there is no record in the court of their entry, as would be required. When I was finally released, I discovered that my office had been ransacked, my computer was missing, and that my tape library in my basement had been dug through and several were missing. Men were constantly parked on the street near my house, my security system was “hacked” more than once, outdoor security lights were unscrewed, etc., to the point that I went to stay with some friends at their condo in the mountains, which was then ALSO broken into.
Anyone who looks for the truth recognizes that there has been an amazing series of irregularities in this case and that an appalling injustice is being carried out on me and my loved ones. This intense campaign to return me to American soil is a false pretext for other darker motives.
Voltaire Network: You have suggested that you observed things at Ground Zero that did not tally with the official account. Did you do or say anything to arouse suspicion in this respect?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In that same telephone call I said that I would “go public”, not only with my suspicions about the events surrounding September 11, 2001, but about several contracts I had worked on in the past.
Voltaire Network: What are your suspicions based on?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: There were many things, in hindsight, that were disturbing at Ground Zero. It was odd to me that I was dispatched to go to New York even before the second plane hit the South Tower, while the media was still reporting only that a “small plane” had collided with the North Tower — far too small of a catastrophe at that point to involve FEMA . FEMA was mobilized within minutes, whereas it took ten days for it to deploy to New Orleans to respond to Hurricane Katrina, even with abundant advance warning! It was odd to me that all cameras were so fiercely prohibited within the secured perimeter of Ground Zero, that the entire area was declared a crime scene and yet the “evidence” within that crime scene was so rapidly removed and destroyed. And then it was very odd to me when I learned that FEMA and several other federal agencies had already moved into position at their command center at Pier 92 on September 10th, one day before the attacks!
We are asked to believe that all four of the “indestructible” black boxes of the two jets that struck the twin towers were never found because they were completely vaporized, yet I have footage of the rubber wheels of the landing gear nearly undamaged, as well as the seats, parts of the fuselage and a jet turbine that were absolutely not vaporized. This being said, I do find it rather odd that such objects could have survived fairly intact the type of destruction that turned most of the Twin Towers into thin dust. And I definitely harbor some doubts about the authenticity of the “jet” turbine, far too small to have come from one of the Boeings!
What happened with Building 7 is incredibly suspicious. I have video that shows how curiously small the rubble pile was, and how the buildings to either side were untouched by Building Seven when it collapsed. It had not been hit by an airplane; it had suffered only minor injuries when the Twin Towers collapsed, and there were only small fires on a couple of floors. There’s no way that building could have imploded the way it did without controlled demolition. Yet the collapse of Building 7 was hardly mentioned by the mainstream media and suspiciously ignored by the 911 Commission.
Voltaire Network: Reportedly, the underground levels of WTC7 contained sensitive and undoubtedly compromising archival material. Did you come across any of it?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: The Secret Service, the Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Emergency Management’s “Crisis Center” occupied huge amounts of space there, spanning several floors of the building. Other federal agencies had offices there as well. After September 11, it was discovered that concealed within Building Seven was the largest clandestine domestic station of the Central Intelligence Agency outside of Washington DC, a base of operations from which to spy on diplomats of the United Nations and to conduct counterterrorism and counterintelligence missions.
There was no underground parking level at Seven World Trade Center. And there was no underground vault. Instead, the federal agencies at Building Seven stored their vehicles, documents and evidence in the building of their associates across the street. Beneath the plaza level of US Customs House ( Building 6) was a large underground garage, separated off from the rest of the complex’s underground area and guarded under tight security. This was where the various government services parked their bomb-proofed cars and armored limousines, counterfeit taxi cabs and telephone company trucks used for undercover surveillance and covert operations, specialized vans and other vehicles. Also within that secured parking area was access to the sub-level vault of Building 6.
When the North Tower fell, the US Customs House ( Building 6) was crushed and totally incinerated. Much of the underground levels beneath it were also destroyed. But there were voids. And it was into one of those voids, recently uncovered, that I descended with a special Task Force to investigate. It was there we found the security antechamber to the vault, badly damaged. At the far end of the security office was the wide steel door to the vault, a combination code keypad in the cinderblock wall beside it. But the wall was cracked and partially crumbled, and the door was sprung partially open. So we checked inside with our flashlights. Except for several rows of empty shelves, there was nothing in the vault but dust and debris. It had been emptied. Why was it empty? And when could it have been emptied?
Voltaire Network: Is this what set alarm bells ringing for you?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Yes, but not immediately. With so much chaos, it was difficult to think. It was only after digesting everything that the “alarm bells” went off.
Building Six was evacuated within twelve minutes after the first airplane struck the North Tower. The streets were immediately clogged with fire trucks, police cars and blocked traffic, and the vault was large enough, 15 meters by 15 meters by my estimate, to necessitate at least a big truck to carry out its contents. And after the towers fell and destroyed most of the parking level, a mission to recover the contents of the vault would have been impossible. The vault had to have been emptied before the attack.
I’ve described all of this extensively in my book, and it’s apparent that things of importance were taken out of harm’s way before the attacks. For example, the CIA didn’t seem too concerned about their losses. After the existence of their clandestine office in Building Seven was discovered, an agency spokesman told the newspapers that a special team had been dispatched to scour the rubble in search of secret documents and intelligence reports, though there were millions, if not billions of pages floating in the streets. Nevertheless, the spokesman was confident. “There shouldn’t be too much paper around,” he said.
And Customs at first claimed that everything was destroyed. That the heat was so intense that everything in the evidence safe had been baked to ash. But some months later, they announced that they had broken up a huge Colombian narco-trafficking and money-laundering ring after miraculously recovering crucial evidence from the safe, including surveillance photos and heat-sensitive cassette tapes of monitored calls. And when they moved in to their new building at 1 Penn Plaza in Manhattan, they proudly hung on the lobby wall their Commissioner’s Citation Plaque and their big round US Customs Service ensign, also miraculously recovered, in pristine condition, from their crushed and cremated former office building at the World Trade Center.
Voltaire Network: You weren’t alone on the Ground Zero assignment. Did the others notice the same anomalies? Do you know whether they have they also been harassed?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Actually there were a few people on two different excursions that I know about. Some of us even discussed it afterwards. They know who they are and I hope that they will come forward, but I’m sure they have strong apprehensions as to what will happen to them if they do. I will leave it to them to decide, but there is strength in numbers.
Voltaire Network: With the publication of your book, you have become a “whistleblower” – yet another step on which there is no going back! There must be many people with inside knowledge about what really happened or did not happen on that fateful day. Yet, hardly any have stepped up to the plate and certainly no one who was directly involved in an official capacity. This is what makes your case so compelling. Judging from your ordeal, it is not difficult to imagine what is holding such people back.
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Actually, there are several other very smart and credible people blowing whistles, too. And they are being discredited and ignored. Some are being harassed and persecuted, as I am.
People are gripped by fear. Everybody knows that if you question US authority you will have problems in some way or another. At minimum you will be discredited and dehumanized. Most likely you’ll find yourself indicted for something completely unrelated, like tax evasion — or something even worse, as in my case. Look at what happened to Secret Service whistle-blower Abraham Bolden, for example, or to chess master Bobby Fischer after he showed his disdain for the US. There are countless other examples. In the past I asked friends and associates to speak out for me to counter all the lies being planted in the media, and all of them were terrified as to the ramifications to themselves and their families.
Voltaire Network: To what degree would your discoveries at Ground Zero expose the government’s involvement in those events? Are you familiar with the investigations that have been carried out by numerous scientists and qualified professionals which not only corroborate your own findings but, in some instances, far exceed them? Do you regard such people as “conspiracy nuts”?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: At the highest levels in Washington, DC, someone knew what was going to happen. They wanted a war so badly that they at least let it happen and most likely even helped it happen.
Sometimes it seems to me that the “nuts” are those who hold to what they’ve been told with an almost religious fervor despite all of the evidence to the contrary — the ones who won’t even consider that there was a conspiracy. There are so many anomalies to the “official” investigation that you can’t blame it on oversight or incompetence. I am familiar with the scientists and qualified professionals to whom you refer, and their findings are convincing, credible, and presented according to scientific protocol — in stark contrast to the findings of the “official” investigation. In addition, numerous intelligence agents and government officials have now come forward with their very informed opinions that the 911 Commission was a farce at best or a cover-up at worst. My experience at Ground Zero is but one more piece of the puzzle.
Voltaire Network: Those events are nearly 8 years behind us. Do you consider that uncovering the truth about 9/11 continues to be an important objective? Why?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: It is of absolute importance. And it will be equally as important in 10 years, or even 50 years if the truth still has not been exposed. It is an important objective because, at this point in history, many people are too credulous to whatever “authority” tells them and too willing to follow. People in a state of shock seek guidance. People who are afraid are manipulable. And being able to manipulate the masses results in unimaginable benefits to a lot of very rich and very powerful people. War is incredibly expensive, but the money has to go somewhere. War is very profitable for the very few. And somehow their sons always end up in Washington DC, making the decisions and writing the budgets, while the sons of the poor and the poorly-connected always end up on the enemy lines, taking their orders and fighting their battles. The enormous black-budget of the US Department of Defense represents an unlimited money machine for the military-industrial complex, figuring in the multi-trillions of dollars, and it will continue to be so until the masses wake up, recuperate their skepticism and demand accountability. Wars (and false pretexts for war) will not cease until the people realize the true motive of war and stop believing “official” explanations.
Voltaire Network: What is referred to as the 9/11 Truth Movement, has been asking for a new, independent investigation into those events. Do you think that the Obama Administration holds out some hope in this respect?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I really hope so, but I’m skeptical. Why would the leadership of any established government willingly undertake any action that would result in a serious compromise to their authority? They will prefer to maintain the status quo and leave the things the way they are. The conductor of the train has been changed, but has the train changed its course? I doubt it. The push has to come from the public, not only domestically, but internationally, like your group is doing.
Voltaire Network: A number of human rights and activist groups are supporting your plight, not least Peace Nobel Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. How have the Argentinean people in general responded to your situation?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: With an incredible outpouring of support. The military dictatorship is still fresh in the collective memory of most of the people here, along with the knowledge that the dictatorship (along with the other South American dictatorships at the time) was backed by the CIA, directed at the time by George Bush Senior. They remember well the torture centers, the secret prisons, the thousands of people “disappeared” for their opinions, the living in daily fear. They know that the United States today will do the same thing if they consider it beneficial, that they will invade a country to achieve their political and economic interests and then manipulate the media with fabricated “causus belli” to justify their conquests.
My family and I are honored to have Adolfo Pérez Esquiveland his advisors at Servicio de Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ) among our dearest friends. We have worked together on many causes, including the rights of refugees, the rights of women, for children without families and children with HIV/AIDS. We are also honored to have the support of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo; Madres de Plaza de Mayo, LÃnea Fundadora; Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS); Asamblea Permanente de Derechos Humanos (APDH); Familiares de Detenidos y Desaparecidos por Razones PolÃticas; Asociación de Mujeres, Migrantes y Refugiados Argentina (AMUMRA); Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la Honorable Cámara de Diputados de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; SecretarÃa de Derechos Humanos de la Nación; and the Programa Nacional Anti-Impunidad. On an international level, Amicus Curiae have been presented in our favor by REPRIEVE of Great Britain, along with the collaboration of NIZKOR of Spain and Belgium. In addition, my wife, Paula, and I have been received in the Congress by La Comisión de Derechos Humanos y GarantÃas de la Honorable Cámara de Diputados de La Nación.
Voltaire Network: As we said, deciding to write this book and to go public was a huge step. What pushed you to do it?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: To save my family. And to let the world know that things are not what they seem.
Voltaire Network: Last but not least: what will you do with your tapes?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I am convinced that my tapes reveal many more anomalies than I am capable of recognizing given my limited qualifications. I will therefore cooperate in any way that I can with serious and reliable experts in a common endeavour to expose the truth.
Voltaire Network: Thank you very much !
Voltairenet
June 23, 2009
As official videographer for the U.S. government, Kurt Sonnenfeld was detailed to Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, where he spent one month filming 29 tapes: “What I saw at certain moments and in certain places … is very disturbing!” He never handed them over to the authorities and has been persecuted ever since. Kurt Sonnenfeld lives in exile in Argentina, where he wrote « El Perseguido » (the persecuted). His recently-published book tells the story of his unending nightmare and drives another nail into the coffin of the government’s account of the 9/11 events. Below is an exclusive interview by Voltairenet.
Introduction
Kurt Sonnenfeld graduated from the University of Colorado (USA) with studies in International Affairs and Economics, as well as in Literature and Philosophy. He worked for the United States government as official videographer and served as Director of Broadcast Operations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s National Emergency Response Team. Additionally, Kurt Sonnenfeld was contracted by several other governmental agencies and programs for classified and “sensitive” operations at military and scientific installations throughout the United States.
On September 11, 2001, the area known as “Ground Zero” was sealed from the public eye. Sonnenfeld, however, was given unrestricted access enabling him to document for the investigation (that never took place) and provide some “sanitized” pool video to virtually every news network in the world. The tapes that reveal some of the anomalies which he discovered at Ground Zero are still in his possession.
Accused of a crime that did not occur in a manifest frame-up scenario, Kurt Sonnenfeld has been persecuted across continents. After several years of fear, injustice and isolation, he has decided to take a public stand against the Government’s official story and is prepared to submit his material to the close scrutiny of reliable experts.
Voltaire Network: Your autobiographical book titled “El Perseguido” (the persecuted) was recently published in Argentina where you live in exile since 2003. Tell us who is persecuting you.
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Although it is autobiographical, it is not my life story. Rather it is a history of the extraordinary events that have happened to me and my family at the hands of U.S. authorities over the course of more than seven years, spanning two hemispheres, after my tour of duty at Ground Zero and becoming an inconvenient witness.
Voltaire Network: You explained that your request for refugee status within the terms of the Geneva 1951 Convention is still being considered by the Argentinean Senate, while in 2005 you were granted political asylum, albeit, on a provisional basis. That probably makes you the first U.S. citizen in that situation! And no doubt the first U.S. Government official with direct exposure to the events surrounding September 11, 2001 who has “blown the whistle”. Is this what drove you into exile?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave (or stay away from) his or her country for reasons of persecution. It’s undeniable that many people have been persecuted unfairly as a result of the quasi-fascist laws and policies brought about by the shock of September 11, 2001, and they deserve refugee status. But the fact is, requesting refugee status is a risky and dangerous step to take. America is the world’s only remaining “superpower”, and dissent has been effectively repressed. Any person who requests refugee status on political grounds is by nature making an extreme statement of dissent. And if your request is denied, what do you do? Once you make the request, there can be no going back.
Personally, I wasn’t forced to leave the United States, and I certainly did not “flee”. At the time I was still fairly oblivious to what was actually brewing against me. I hadn’t connected the dots yet; so that when I left in early 2003 I had every intention of returning. I came to Argentina for a short respite; to try to recuperate after all that had happened to me. I travelled here freely, with my own passport, using my own credit cards. But because of an incredible series of events, I have since been forced into exile, and I haven’t been back.
Voltaire Network: What type of events are you referring to?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I’ve suffered false accusations for “crimes” that demonstrably did not happen, abusive imprisonment and torture as a result of those accusations, as well as outrageous calumnies against my reputation, death threats, kidnap attempts and several other violations of civil and human rights as denounced by numerous international accords. My return to the United States would not only be a continuation of those violations, but would be aggregated by the separation - perhaps permanent - from my wife and three-year old twin daughters, the only thing remaining that I have to live for. And then, after the impossibility of receiving a fair trial for a crime that did not happen, I could be subject to the death penalty.
Voltaire Network: In 2005, the U.S. Government lodged a request to have you extradited, which was turned down by a Federal Judge. Then, in 2007, the Argentinean Supreme Court – in a show of integrity and independence - turned down the U.S. appeal, but your Government persisted. Can you shed some light on the situation ?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In 2008, the US government appealed again, this time with absolutely no legal foundation, to the Supreme Court, which will surely uphold the two already unassailable rulings made by the Federal Judge.
In one of those rulings, it was also noted that there were too many “sombras”, or shadows, surrounding my case. There were many, many obvious fabrications in the extradition order sent here by US authorities, and, thankfully, we were able prove that. The fact that there were so many fabrications has actually served to support my request for asylum. We were also able to show that we had been subject to a prolonged campaign of harassment and intimidation from US intelligence services. As a result, since my family has been assigned round-the-clock police protection. As one senator has noted about my case: “It is their behavior that belies their true motivations”.
Voltaire Network: They want you pretty badly for a “crime that did not happen”! How do you account for such doggedness? As a FEMA official, you must have been trusted by your government. At what point did the situation capsize?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In hindsight, I realize now that the situation had capsized some time before I actually became aware that it had capsized. Initially, the false accusation against me was completely irrational, and I was totally destroyed by it. It is incredibly difficult to have suffered the loss of someone you love to suicide, but to then be accused of it is too much to bear. The case was dismissed based on a mountain of evidence that overwhelmingly absolved me (Nancy, my wife, had left behind a suicide note and a journal of suicidal writings ; she had a family history of suicide ; etc.). The prosecution was 100% sure of my innocence before requesting the dismissal of charge.
But the sustained incarceration even AFTER it was indicated that I was to be freed was what proved to me that something was happening under the surface. I was held in jail for FOUR MONTHS after my lawyers were informed that the case was to be dismissed and was finally released in June 2002. During that time, an amazing series of strange events began to occur. While still being held, I had a telephone conversation with FEMA officials in an effort to resolve the issue, but I realized that I was considered “compromised”. I was told it had been agreed that “the agency had to be protected”, especially in light of the upheaval that was threatening with the implementation of the “ Patriot Act” and the expected usurpation that would come with the new Department of Homeland Security. After all the dangers I had risked, all hardship and difficulties I had endured for them for almost 10 years, I felt betrayed. It left a void in my soul.
Because of their abandonment, I told them I didn’t have the tapes, that I gave them to “some bureaucrat” in New York, and that they would have to wait until I was released to retrieve any other documents in my possession. Soon after that conversation, my house was “seized”, the locks were changed, and men were observed by neighbors entering my house, though there is no record in the court of their entry, as would be required. When I was finally released, I discovered that my office had been ransacked, my computer was missing, and that my tape library in my basement had been dug through and several were missing. Men were constantly parked on the street near my house, my security system was “hacked” more than once, outdoor security lights were unscrewed, etc., to the point that I went to stay with some friends at their condo in the mountains, which was then ALSO broken into.
Anyone who looks for the truth recognizes that there has been an amazing series of irregularities in this case and that an appalling injustice is being carried out on me and my loved ones. This intense campaign to return me to American soil is a false pretext for other darker motives.
Voltaire Network: You have suggested that you observed things at Ground Zero that did not tally with the official account. Did you do or say anything to arouse suspicion in this respect?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In that same telephone call I said that I would “go public”, not only with my suspicions about the events surrounding September 11, 2001, but about several contracts I had worked on in the past.
Voltaire Network: What are your suspicions based on?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: There were many things, in hindsight, that were disturbing at Ground Zero. It was odd to me that I was dispatched to go to New York even before the second plane hit the South Tower, while the media was still reporting only that a “small plane” had collided with the North Tower — far too small of a catastrophe at that point to involve FEMA . FEMA was mobilized within minutes, whereas it took ten days for it to deploy to New Orleans to respond to Hurricane Katrina, even with abundant advance warning! It was odd to me that all cameras were so fiercely prohibited within the secured perimeter of Ground Zero, that the entire area was declared a crime scene and yet the “evidence” within that crime scene was so rapidly removed and destroyed. And then it was very odd to me when I learned that FEMA and several other federal agencies had already moved into position at their command center at Pier 92 on September 10th, one day before the attacks!
We are asked to believe that all four of the “indestructible” black boxes of the two jets that struck the twin towers were never found because they were completely vaporized, yet I have footage of the rubber wheels of the landing gear nearly undamaged, as well as the seats, parts of the fuselage and a jet turbine that were absolutely not vaporized. This being said, I do find it rather odd that such objects could have survived fairly intact the type of destruction that turned most of the Twin Towers into thin dust. And I definitely harbor some doubts about the authenticity of the “jet” turbine, far too small to have come from one of the Boeings!
What happened with Building 7 is incredibly suspicious. I have video that shows how curiously small the rubble pile was, and how the buildings to either side were untouched by Building Seven when it collapsed. It had not been hit by an airplane; it had suffered only minor injuries when the Twin Towers collapsed, and there were only small fires on a couple of floors. There’s no way that building could have imploded the way it did without controlled demolition. Yet the collapse of Building 7 was hardly mentioned by the mainstream media and suspiciously ignored by the 911 Commission.
Voltaire Network: Reportedly, the underground levels of WTC7 contained sensitive and undoubtedly compromising archival material. Did you come across any of it?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: The Secret Service, the Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Emergency Management’s “Crisis Center” occupied huge amounts of space there, spanning several floors of the building. Other federal agencies had offices there as well. After September 11, it was discovered that concealed within Building Seven was the largest clandestine domestic station of the Central Intelligence Agency outside of Washington DC, a base of operations from which to spy on diplomats of the United Nations and to conduct counterterrorism and counterintelligence missions.
There was no underground parking level at Seven World Trade Center. And there was no underground vault. Instead, the federal agencies at Building Seven stored their vehicles, documents and evidence in the building of their associates across the street. Beneath the plaza level of US Customs House ( Building 6) was a large underground garage, separated off from the rest of the complex’s underground area and guarded under tight security. This was where the various government services parked their bomb-proofed cars and armored limousines, counterfeit taxi cabs and telephone company trucks used for undercover surveillance and covert operations, specialized vans and other vehicles. Also within that secured parking area was access to the sub-level vault of Building 6.
When the North Tower fell, the US Customs House ( Building 6) was crushed and totally incinerated. Much of the underground levels beneath it were also destroyed. But there were voids. And it was into one of those voids, recently uncovered, that I descended with a special Task Force to investigate. It was there we found the security antechamber to the vault, badly damaged. At the far end of the security office was the wide steel door to the vault, a combination code keypad in the cinderblock wall beside it. But the wall was cracked and partially crumbled, and the door was sprung partially open. So we checked inside with our flashlights. Except for several rows of empty shelves, there was nothing in the vault but dust and debris. It had been emptied. Why was it empty? And when could it have been emptied?
Voltaire Network: Is this what set alarm bells ringing for you?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Yes, but not immediately. With so much chaos, it was difficult to think. It was only after digesting everything that the “alarm bells” went off.
Building Six was evacuated within twelve minutes after the first airplane struck the North Tower. The streets were immediately clogged with fire trucks, police cars and blocked traffic, and the vault was large enough, 15 meters by 15 meters by my estimate, to necessitate at least a big truck to carry out its contents. And after the towers fell and destroyed most of the parking level, a mission to recover the contents of the vault would have been impossible. The vault had to have been emptied before the attack.
I’ve described all of this extensively in my book, and it’s apparent that things of importance were taken out of harm’s way before the attacks. For example, the CIA didn’t seem too concerned about their losses. After the existence of their clandestine office in Building Seven was discovered, an agency spokesman told the newspapers that a special team had been dispatched to scour the rubble in search of secret documents and intelligence reports, though there were millions, if not billions of pages floating in the streets. Nevertheless, the spokesman was confident. “There shouldn’t be too much paper around,” he said.
And Customs at first claimed that everything was destroyed. That the heat was so intense that everything in the evidence safe had been baked to ash. But some months later, they announced that they had broken up a huge Colombian narco-trafficking and money-laundering ring after miraculously recovering crucial evidence from the safe, including surveillance photos and heat-sensitive cassette tapes of monitored calls. And when they moved in to their new building at 1 Penn Plaza in Manhattan, they proudly hung on the lobby wall their Commissioner’s Citation Plaque and their big round US Customs Service ensign, also miraculously recovered, in pristine condition, from their crushed and cremated former office building at the World Trade Center.
Voltaire Network: You weren’t alone on the Ground Zero assignment. Did the others notice the same anomalies? Do you know whether they have they also been harassed?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Actually there were a few people on two different excursions that I know about. Some of us even discussed it afterwards. They know who they are and I hope that they will come forward, but I’m sure they have strong apprehensions as to what will happen to them if they do. I will leave it to them to decide, but there is strength in numbers.
Voltaire Network: With the publication of your book, you have become a “whistleblower” – yet another step on which there is no going back! There must be many people with inside knowledge about what really happened or did not happen on that fateful day. Yet, hardly any have stepped up to the plate and certainly no one who was directly involved in an official capacity. This is what makes your case so compelling. Judging from your ordeal, it is not difficult to imagine what is holding such people back.
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Actually, there are several other very smart and credible people blowing whistles, too. And they are being discredited and ignored. Some are being harassed and persecuted, as I am.
People are gripped by fear. Everybody knows that if you question US authority you will have problems in some way or another. At minimum you will be discredited and dehumanized. Most likely you’ll find yourself indicted for something completely unrelated, like tax evasion — or something even worse, as in my case. Look at what happened to Secret Service whistle-blower Abraham Bolden, for example, or to chess master Bobby Fischer after he showed his disdain for the US. There are countless other examples. In the past I asked friends and associates to speak out for me to counter all the lies being planted in the media, and all of them were terrified as to the ramifications to themselves and their families.
Voltaire Network: To what degree would your discoveries at Ground Zero expose the government’s involvement in those events? Are you familiar with the investigations that have been carried out by numerous scientists and qualified professionals which not only corroborate your own findings but, in some instances, far exceed them? Do you regard such people as “conspiracy nuts”?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: At the highest levels in Washington, DC, someone knew what was going to happen. They wanted a war so badly that they at least let it happen and most likely even helped it happen.
Sometimes it seems to me that the “nuts” are those who hold to what they’ve been told with an almost religious fervor despite all of the evidence to the contrary — the ones who won’t even consider that there was a conspiracy. There are so many anomalies to the “official” investigation that you can’t blame it on oversight or incompetence. I am familiar with the scientists and qualified professionals to whom you refer, and their findings are convincing, credible, and presented according to scientific protocol — in stark contrast to the findings of the “official” investigation. In addition, numerous intelligence agents and government officials have now come forward with their very informed opinions that the 911 Commission was a farce at best or a cover-up at worst. My experience at Ground Zero is but one more piece of the puzzle.
Voltaire Network: Those events are nearly 8 years behind us. Do you consider that uncovering the truth about 9/11 continues to be an important objective? Why?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: It is of absolute importance. And it will be equally as important in 10 years, or even 50 years if the truth still has not been exposed. It is an important objective because, at this point in history, many people are too credulous to whatever “authority” tells them and too willing to follow. People in a state of shock seek guidance. People who are afraid are manipulable. And being able to manipulate the masses results in unimaginable benefits to a lot of very rich and very powerful people. War is incredibly expensive, but the money has to go somewhere. War is very profitable for the very few. And somehow their sons always end up in Washington DC, making the decisions and writing the budgets, while the sons of the poor and the poorly-connected always end up on the enemy lines, taking their orders and fighting their battles. The enormous black-budget of the US Department of Defense represents an unlimited money machine for the military-industrial complex, figuring in the multi-trillions of dollars, and it will continue to be so until the masses wake up, recuperate their skepticism and demand accountability. Wars (and false pretexts for war) will not cease until the people realize the true motive of war and stop believing “official” explanations.
Voltaire Network: What is referred to as the 9/11 Truth Movement, has been asking for a new, independent investigation into those events. Do you think that the Obama Administration holds out some hope in this respect?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I really hope so, but I’m skeptical. Why would the leadership of any established government willingly undertake any action that would result in a serious compromise to their authority? They will prefer to maintain the status quo and leave the things the way they are. The conductor of the train has been changed, but has the train changed its course? I doubt it. The push has to come from the public, not only domestically, but internationally, like your group is doing.
Voltaire Network: A number of human rights and activist groups are supporting your plight, not least Peace Nobel Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. How have the Argentinean people in general responded to your situation?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: With an incredible outpouring of support. The military dictatorship is still fresh in the collective memory of most of the people here, along with the knowledge that the dictatorship (along with the other South American dictatorships at the time) was backed by the CIA, directed at the time by George Bush Senior. They remember well the torture centers, the secret prisons, the thousands of people “disappeared” for their opinions, the living in daily fear. They know that the United States today will do the same thing if they consider it beneficial, that they will invade a country to achieve their political and economic interests and then manipulate the media with fabricated “causus belli” to justify their conquests.
My family and I are honored to have Adolfo Pérez Esquiveland his advisors at Servicio de Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ) among our dearest friends. We have worked together on many causes, including the rights of refugees, the rights of women, for children without families and children with HIV/AIDS. We are also honored to have the support of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo; Madres de Plaza de Mayo, LÃnea Fundadora; Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS); Asamblea Permanente de Derechos Humanos (APDH); Familiares de Detenidos y Desaparecidos por Razones PolÃticas; Asociación de Mujeres, Migrantes y Refugiados Argentina (AMUMRA); Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la Honorable Cámara de Diputados de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; SecretarÃa de Derechos Humanos de la Nación; and the Programa Nacional Anti-Impunidad. On an international level, Amicus Curiae have been presented in our favor by REPRIEVE of Great Britain, along with the collaboration of NIZKOR of Spain and Belgium. In addition, my wife, Paula, and I have been received in the Congress by La Comisión de Derechos Humanos y GarantÃas de la Honorable Cámara de Diputados de La Nación.
Voltaire Network: As we said, deciding to write this book and to go public was a huge step. What pushed you to do it?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: To save my family. And to let the world know that things are not what they seem.
Voltaire Network: Last but not least: what will you do with your tapes?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I am convinced that my tapes reveal many more anomalies than I am capable of recognizing given my limited qualifications. I will therefore cooperate in any way that I can with serious and reliable experts in a common endeavour to expose the truth.
Voltaire Network: Thank you very much !
THE STEALTH SCHEME
Obama’s Financial Reform Proposal: A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control
Stephen Lendman
Global Research
June 23, 2009
When politicians plan reform, it’s wise to be skeptical and hold on to your wallets. So fixing the economy by bailing out Wall Street is wrecking it, and Obama’s proposed health care reform taxes more, provides less, places profits above human need, avoids the most vital solutions, and leaves a broken system in place.
Instead of Real Financial Reform, Obama’s Plan capitulates to Wall Street.
Now there’s “Financial Regulatory Reform, A New Foundation: Rebuilding Financial Supervision and Regulation” - announced June 17 with Obama saying he’ll send Congress a plan to create new government agencies, give the private banking cartel Federal Reserve more power, and address five major problems needing regulatory and legislative measures to fix.
Addressing business executives in the White House East Room, he said:
“A culture of irresponsibility took root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street” with no mention that months of it worsened on his watch. “A regulatory regime basically crafted in the wake of a 20th century economic crisis - the Great Depression - was overwhelmed by the speed, scope and sophistication of a 21st century global economy.” In fact, 30 years of deregulation since the late 1970s, not technology, caused speculative excesses, market bubbles, and inevitable collapses that always follow.
Of course, these problems are endemic under a system that’s crisis-prone, unstable, anarchic, ungovernable, and self-destructive through repeated cycles of booms creating bubbles, then busts, followed by recessions or depressions with today’s collapse grave enough for Michel Chossudovky to call it “far more serious than the Great Depression (because all) major sectors of the global economy are affected.”
Proposed Financial Reforms
An 89-page Treasury Department pdf is available online for those inclined to read it. Along with an introduction and summary of recommendations, its five major objectives are to:
I. “Promote Robust Supervision and Regulation of Financial Markets
II. Establish Comprehensive Regulation of Financial Markets
III. Protect Consumers and Investors from Financial Abuse
IV. Provide the Government with the Tools it Needs to Manage Financial Crises (and)
V. Raise International Regulatory Standards and Improve International Cooperation”
The introduction cites “the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression,” admits that its “roots….go back decades (and states that) the government could have done more to prevent many of” them. Proposed reforms include:
– a new regulatory “Financial Services Oversight Council;”
– more power to the Fed over “all firms that could pose a threat to financial stability, even those that do not own banks” such as insurance companies;
– stronger capital standards for all financial firms;
– a new “National Bank Supervisor” over all federally chartered banks;
– registering hedge fund advisors;
– new regulation of securitization and derivatives markets;
– increased market transparency and the effectiveness of credit ratings agencies;
– originators of loans packaged into securities to retain some of the credit risk;
– broker and loan originator compensation changes away from income up front to spreading it out over time and making it dependent on the performance of loans they make;
– a new “Consumer Financial Protection Agency” to safeguard them from potentially harmful complex financial products, including securities, mortgages and credit cards;
– “stronger regulations to improve the transparency, fairness, and appropriateness of consumer and investor products and services;”
– new ways to “resolve nonbank financial institutions whose failure could have serious systemic effects;”
– changing the Fed’s “emergency lending authority to improve accountability;”
– establishing “wind down” authority to take over large financial firms like AIG, Fannie and Freddie; and
– international reforms, including greater oversight of global financial markets and more control through a process whereby G-20 countries cooperate in regulating transnational companies. This looks like the most insidious, outlandish, and dangerous provision. More on it below and its likely importance.
The report suggests other proposals may follow and that “More can and should be done in the future.” So what to make of it all given that it’s still a plan, congressional and other critics are attacking some of its provisions, whatever emerges is still a ways off, and large banks, insurers and other influential financial firms have final say on new laws and regulations affecting them, so likely changes coming may further taint an already deeply corrupted system.
America has a legacy of failed public agencies as well as regulatory and legislative reform - for lack of teeth, oversight, and most important because financial and other industries end up self-regulating, consolidating, and growing more powerful at the expense of the public interest. Giving the Federal Reserve more power lets banking giants make their own rules, decide how and whether to enforce them, and thus mainly operate as they wish because no one in Washington dares challenge them.
Michael Hudson agrees in his new article titled: “Instead of Real Financial Reform, Obama’s Plan capitulates to Wall Street.” He explains that supposed reforms promote “Wall Street’s ‘product,’ debt creation, at the expense of the economy at large, and lets financial chieftains continue to self-regulate the debt industry - and by the way, to keep all their gains from the past decade’s worth of fraudulent lending, scot-free….(He) achieved what no Republican could have: rescuing the Bush administration’s pro-creditor policies that fostered the Bubble Economy in the first place.”
The plan is laden with a “false diagnosis” and “fatal flaws,” so clearly what’s proposed are “wrong-headed cures (but hardly) by accident.” If it’s largely accepted as is, Wall Street will get precisely what it wants - a veneer of regulatory cover to keep wrecking the economy and stealing the public blind.
Simon Johnson is also critical. He’s a former IMF chief economist, now teaching at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. After reviewing Obama’s plan, he expressed great skepticism. Even though large banks and other financial institutions caused the global crisis, no wrongdoing on their part is cited nor are punitive measures proposed. He states:
“There appears to be no mention that corporate governance within these large banks failed totally. How on earth can you expect these banks to operate in a responsible manner unless and until you address the reckless manner in which they (a) compensate themselves, (b) destroy shareholder value, and (c) treat boards of directors as toothless wonders? The profound silence on this point from the administration - including some of our finest economic, financial, and legal thinkers - is breathtaking….”
“Based on what we see so far, there is little reason to be encouraged. The reform process appears to have been captured at any early stage - by design the lobbyists were let into the executive branch’s (planning process), so we don’t even get to have a transparent debate or to hear specious arguments about why we really need big banks.”
Johnson (like Hudson) added that financial giants are pleased with Obama’s plan, and why not. They or their lobbyists wrote it. On June 16, even The New York Times suggested it in Stephen Labaton’s article headlined: “Obama Sought a Range of Views on Finance Rules.” Over several weeks, “executives from an array of industries caught up in the financial crisis came to Washington….to make their case for how the new regulatory landscape should look. They came from big banks and small ones, insurance companies, stock exchanges, hedge funds and mutual funds” as well as consumer groups and labor for appearance sake only.
“Now lobbyists….will head to Congress to try to influence the final product” with no doubt they will so once again consumer interests will be shortchanged - perhaps globally given events reported earlier this year and discussed below.
Steps Toward Global Money and Banking Control
In her April 18, 2009 article titled “The Tower of Basel: Do We Really Want the Bank for International Settlements Issuing Our Global Currency,” Ellen Brown quoted Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the London Telegraph (April 7) saying:
On April 2, “A single clause in Point 19 of the communique issued by the G-20 leaders amounts to a revolution in the global financial order.”
“We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250 (billion) into the world economy and increase global liquidity…SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that has lain dormant for half a century.”
“In effect, the G-20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global ‘quantitative easing.’ In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body.”
Brown agrees and highlighted the article’s subtitle: “The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity.” What might it be, she asked? The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) - the secretive 55-member nation, central bank of central bankers. Based in Basel, Switzerland, it’s run by the monetary authorities of six dominant nations - America, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Japan and Britain.
Objective V in Obama’s financial reform plan addresses “Rais(ing) International Standards and Improving International Cooperation” by promoting global control in a single paragraph:
“The United States is playing a strong leadership role in efforts to coordinate international policy through the G-20, the Financial Stability Board, and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. We will use our leadership position in the international community to promote (an) initiative compatible with the domestic regulatory reforms described in this report.”
Near the end of the plan, it recommends “Strengthen(ing) the Financial Stability Board….complet(ing) its restructuring and institutionaliz(ing) its new mandate to promote global financial stability by September 2009.” It also urges “work(ing) with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and standard setters to develop macroprudential tools” with Obama asking other nations to follow America’s lead.
What is the FSB, and why is it important?
The Financial Stability Forum (FSF) Becomes the Financial Stability Board (FSB)
Founded at a Bonn, Germany meeting in 1999 when Bundesbank president, Hans Tietmeyer, recommend it to G-7 finance ministers and central bank governors, the FSF consists of central bankers and finance ministers of about a dozen key nations working together for their mutual self-interest.
A decade later at the G-20’s April 2 London Summit, these nations agreed to let a new Financial Stability Board (FSB) regulate their economies henceforth as stated in a concluding communique:
“In particular we agree:
– to establish a new Financial Stability Board (FSB) with a strengthened mandate, as a successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), including all G-20 countries, FSF members, Spain, and the European Commission;
– that the FSB should collaborate with the IMF to provide early warning of macroeconomic and financial risks and the actions needed to address them; (and)
– to extend regulation and oversight to all systemically important financial institutions, instruments and markets.”
The G-20’s same day’s press release headlined: “Financial Stability Forum re-established as the Financial Stability Board (with an) expanded membership (and) a broadened mandate to promote financial stability.”
It “consists of a Chairperson, a Steering Committee, the Plenary with member countries, SSBs (standard setting bodies) and international financial institutions, and a Secretariat. The Chair oversees the Steering Committee, the Plenary and the Secretariat. The FSB Plenary is the decision making organ of the FSB.” It has a “full-time Secretary General and an enlarged Secretariat based in Basel (to) support the FSB.” Membership also obligates countries to “implement international financial standards (including 12 International Standards and Codes)….” with no elaboration about them except in broad terms left for outsiders to imagine what’s meant.
Plenary members include G-20 nations, Spain and the European Commission - represented by their central bankers, immediate deputies, heads of their main regulatory agency, deputy finance ministers, SSB chairs, central bank committees, and representatives of the IMF, World Bank, BIS and OECD - together the world’s monetary movers and shakers.
The FSB appears to be a step closer toward global monetary control under the direction of the G-7 dominated BIS, IMF and other international lending agencies. Given its inclusion in Obama’s financial reform proposal makes the entire package suspect and perhaps just cover for the above-outlined sinister scheme - as well as letting Wall Street be self-regulating.
In her June 21 article titled “Big Brother in Basel: Have We Traded Our National Sovereignty for Financial Stability,” Ellen Brown cites Internet rumors “that the new agency benignly called the Financial Stability Board (FSB) is the latest sinister development in the covert consolidation of global financial power in a few private hands,” - namely dominant G-7 central bankers controlling the BIS, IMF, and other international lending agencies.
So far, there’s still time to prevent it provided enough concerned people know the danger, spread the word to others, and urge them to pass it on. Otherwise, holding on to your wallets won’t matter because everything in them will be emptied the result of (banker-controlled) regulatory bodies pulling off the greatest ever financial heist - a global coup d’etat. The time to stop it is now and expose Obama as a frontman for grand theft and power.
Stephen Lendman
Global Research
June 23, 2009
When politicians plan reform, it’s wise to be skeptical and hold on to your wallets. So fixing the economy by bailing out Wall Street is wrecking it, and Obama’s proposed health care reform taxes more, provides less, places profits above human need, avoids the most vital solutions, and leaves a broken system in place.
Instead of Real Financial Reform, Obama’s Plan capitulates to Wall Street.
Now there’s “Financial Regulatory Reform, A New Foundation: Rebuilding Financial Supervision and Regulation” - announced June 17 with Obama saying he’ll send Congress a plan to create new government agencies, give the private banking cartel Federal Reserve more power, and address five major problems needing regulatory and legislative measures to fix.
Addressing business executives in the White House East Room, he said:
“A culture of irresponsibility took root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street” with no mention that months of it worsened on his watch. “A regulatory regime basically crafted in the wake of a 20th century economic crisis - the Great Depression - was overwhelmed by the speed, scope and sophistication of a 21st century global economy.” In fact, 30 years of deregulation since the late 1970s, not technology, caused speculative excesses, market bubbles, and inevitable collapses that always follow.
Of course, these problems are endemic under a system that’s crisis-prone, unstable, anarchic, ungovernable, and self-destructive through repeated cycles of booms creating bubbles, then busts, followed by recessions or depressions with today’s collapse grave enough for Michel Chossudovky to call it “far more serious than the Great Depression (because all) major sectors of the global economy are affected.”
Proposed Financial Reforms
An 89-page Treasury Department pdf is available online for those inclined to read it. Along with an introduction and summary of recommendations, its five major objectives are to:
I. “Promote Robust Supervision and Regulation of Financial Markets
II. Establish Comprehensive Regulation of Financial Markets
III. Protect Consumers and Investors from Financial Abuse
IV. Provide the Government with the Tools it Needs to Manage Financial Crises (and)
V. Raise International Regulatory Standards and Improve International Cooperation”
The introduction cites “the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression,” admits that its “roots….go back decades (and states that) the government could have done more to prevent many of” them. Proposed reforms include:
– a new regulatory “Financial Services Oversight Council;”
– more power to the Fed over “all firms that could pose a threat to financial stability, even those that do not own banks” such as insurance companies;
– stronger capital standards for all financial firms;
– a new “National Bank Supervisor” over all federally chartered banks;
– registering hedge fund advisors;
– new regulation of securitization and derivatives markets;
– increased market transparency and the effectiveness of credit ratings agencies;
– originators of loans packaged into securities to retain some of the credit risk;
– broker and loan originator compensation changes away from income up front to spreading it out over time and making it dependent on the performance of loans they make;
– a new “Consumer Financial Protection Agency” to safeguard them from potentially harmful complex financial products, including securities, mortgages and credit cards;
– “stronger regulations to improve the transparency, fairness, and appropriateness of consumer and investor products and services;”
– new ways to “resolve nonbank financial institutions whose failure could have serious systemic effects;”
– changing the Fed’s “emergency lending authority to improve accountability;”
– establishing “wind down” authority to take over large financial firms like AIG, Fannie and Freddie; and
– international reforms, including greater oversight of global financial markets and more control through a process whereby G-20 countries cooperate in regulating transnational companies. This looks like the most insidious, outlandish, and dangerous provision. More on it below and its likely importance.
The report suggests other proposals may follow and that “More can and should be done in the future.” So what to make of it all given that it’s still a plan, congressional and other critics are attacking some of its provisions, whatever emerges is still a ways off, and large banks, insurers and other influential financial firms have final say on new laws and regulations affecting them, so likely changes coming may further taint an already deeply corrupted system.
America has a legacy of failed public agencies as well as regulatory and legislative reform - for lack of teeth, oversight, and most important because financial and other industries end up self-regulating, consolidating, and growing more powerful at the expense of the public interest. Giving the Federal Reserve more power lets banking giants make their own rules, decide how and whether to enforce them, and thus mainly operate as they wish because no one in Washington dares challenge them.
Michael Hudson agrees in his new article titled: “Instead of Real Financial Reform, Obama’s Plan capitulates to Wall Street.” He explains that supposed reforms promote “Wall Street’s ‘product,’ debt creation, at the expense of the economy at large, and lets financial chieftains continue to self-regulate the debt industry - and by the way, to keep all their gains from the past decade’s worth of fraudulent lending, scot-free….(He) achieved what no Republican could have: rescuing the Bush administration’s pro-creditor policies that fostered the Bubble Economy in the first place.”
The plan is laden with a “false diagnosis” and “fatal flaws,” so clearly what’s proposed are “wrong-headed cures (but hardly) by accident.” If it’s largely accepted as is, Wall Street will get precisely what it wants - a veneer of regulatory cover to keep wrecking the economy and stealing the public blind.
Simon Johnson is also critical. He’s a former IMF chief economist, now teaching at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. After reviewing Obama’s plan, he expressed great skepticism. Even though large banks and other financial institutions caused the global crisis, no wrongdoing on their part is cited nor are punitive measures proposed. He states:
“There appears to be no mention that corporate governance within these large banks failed totally. How on earth can you expect these banks to operate in a responsible manner unless and until you address the reckless manner in which they (a) compensate themselves, (b) destroy shareholder value, and (c) treat boards of directors as toothless wonders? The profound silence on this point from the administration - including some of our finest economic, financial, and legal thinkers - is breathtaking….”
“Based on what we see so far, there is little reason to be encouraged. The reform process appears to have been captured at any early stage - by design the lobbyists were let into the executive branch’s (planning process), so we don’t even get to have a transparent debate or to hear specious arguments about why we really need big banks.”
Johnson (like Hudson) added that financial giants are pleased with Obama’s plan, and why not. They or their lobbyists wrote it. On June 16, even The New York Times suggested it in Stephen Labaton’s article headlined: “Obama Sought a Range of Views on Finance Rules.” Over several weeks, “executives from an array of industries caught up in the financial crisis came to Washington….to make their case for how the new regulatory landscape should look. They came from big banks and small ones, insurance companies, stock exchanges, hedge funds and mutual funds” as well as consumer groups and labor for appearance sake only.
“Now lobbyists….will head to Congress to try to influence the final product” with no doubt they will so once again consumer interests will be shortchanged - perhaps globally given events reported earlier this year and discussed below.
Steps Toward Global Money and Banking Control
In her April 18, 2009 article titled “The Tower of Basel: Do We Really Want the Bank for International Settlements Issuing Our Global Currency,” Ellen Brown quoted Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the London Telegraph (April 7) saying:
On April 2, “A single clause in Point 19 of the communique issued by the G-20 leaders amounts to a revolution in the global financial order.”
“We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250 (billion) into the world economy and increase global liquidity…SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that has lain dormant for half a century.”
“In effect, the G-20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global ‘quantitative easing.’ In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body.”
Brown agrees and highlighted the article’s subtitle: “The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity.” What might it be, she asked? The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) - the secretive 55-member nation, central bank of central bankers. Based in Basel, Switzerland, it’s run by the monetary authorities of six dominant nations - America, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Japan and Britain.
Objective V in Obama’s financial reform plan addresses “Rais(ing) International Standards and Improving International Cooperation” by promoting global control in a single paragraph:
“The United States is playing a strong leadership role in efforts to coordinate international policy through the G-20, the Financial Stability Board, and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. We will use our leadership position in the international community to promote (an) initiative compatible with the domestic regulatory reforms described in this report.”
Near the end of the plan, it recommends “Strengthen(ing) the Financial Stability Board….complet(ing) its restructuring and institutionaliz(ing) its new mandate to promote global financial stability by September 2009.” It also urges “work(ing) with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and standard setters to develop macroprudential tools” with Obama asking other nations to follow America’s lead.
What is the FSB, and why is it important?
The Financial Stability Forum (FSF) Becomes the Financial Stability Board (FSB)
Founded at a Bonn, Germany meeting in 1999 when Bundesbank president, Hans Tietmeyer, recommend it to G-7 finance ministers and central bank governors, the FSF consists of central bankers and finance ministers of about a dozen key nations working together for their mutual self-interest.
A decade later at the G-20’s April 2 London Summit, these nations agreed to let a new Financial Stability Board (FSB) regulate their economies henceforth as stated in a concluding communique:
“In particular we agree:
– to establish a new Financial Stability Board (FSB) with a strengthened mandate, as a successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), including all G-20 countries, FSF members, Spain, and the European Commission;
– that the FSB should collaborate with the IMF to provide early warning of macroeconomic and financial risks and the actions needed to address them; (and)
– to extend regulation and oversight to all systemically important financial institutions, instruments and markets.”
The G-20’s same day’s press release headlined: “Financial Stability Forum re-established as the Financial Stability Board (with an) expanded membership (and) a broadened mandate to promote financial stability.”
It “consists of a Chairperson, a Steering Committee, the Plenary with member countries, SSBs (standard setting bodies) and international financial institutions, and a Secretariat. The Chair oversees the Steering Committee, the Plenary and the Secretariat. The FSB Plenary is the decision making organ of the FSB.” It has a “full-time Secretary General and an enlarged Secretariat based in Basel (to) support the FSB.” Membership also obligates countries to “implement international financial standards (including 12 International Standards and Codes)….” with no elaboration about them except in broad terms left for outsiders to imagine what’s meant.
Plenary members include G-20 nations, Spain and the European Commission - represented by their central bankers, immediate deputies, heads of their main regulatory agency, deputy finance ministers, SSB chairs, central bank committees, and representatives of the IMF, World Bank, BIS and OECD - together the world’s monetary movers and shakers.
The FSB appears to be a step closer toward global monetary control under the direction of the G-7 dominated BIS, IMF and other international lending agencies. Given its inclusion in Obama’s financial reform proposal makes the entire package suspect and perhaps just cover for the above-outlined sinister scheme - as well as letting Wall Street be self-regulating.
In her June 21 article titled “Big Brother in Basel: Have We Traded Our National Sovereignty for Financial Stability,” Ellen Brown cites Internet rumors “that the new agency benignly called the Financial Stability Board (FSB) is the latest sinister development in the covert consolidation of global financial power in a few private hands,” - namely dominant G-7 central bankers controlling the BIS, IMF, and other international lending agencies.
So far, there’s still time to prevent it provided enough concerned people know the danger, spread the word to others, and urge them to pass it on. Otherwise, holding on to your wallets won’t matter because everything in them will be emptied the result of (banker-controlled) regulatory bodies pulling off the greatest ever financial heist - a global coup d’etat. The time to stop it is now and expose Obama as a frontman for grand theft and power.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
WAL-MART WAKE- UP CALL
Exposed: Cheap Walmart Drugs Come from Disreputable SupplierTuesday,
June 23, 2009 4:30 PM
From: "The WakeUpWalMart.com Team
Is Walmart taking unacceptable risks sourcing its prescription drugs?
Today we released a new report detailing how Walmart sources its much-touted $4 prescription medications from Ranbaxy, the disgraced Indian drug maker.
According to the Department of Justice, Walmart's supplier is responsible for introducing potentially "subpotent, superpotent, or adulterated" drugs into the market. Medications used by millions of Walmart shoppers could have contained active ingredients from unapproved sources, in unapproved blends, and in amounts weaker than FDA-approved doses.
Despite the company's shady dealings, Walmart saw fit to award Ranbaxy with its "prestigious" Outstanding Supplier Award. In fact, Walmart continues to source from the embattled Indian manufacturer even today.
Don't let Walmart play games with the health of millions. Help us blow the whistle on Walmart for its customers to medications made by its unscrupulous supplier.
Let your local newspaper know the truth about Walmart's irresponsible drug sourcing
Despite years of federal warnings concerning "systemic fraudulent conduct," Walmart continues to source cheap drugs from Ranbaxy. This revelation comes on the heels of extensive PR campaigning to brand Walmart as a global health care and ethical sourcing leader.
If Walmart is interested in providing safe products from responsible suppliers, why is it handing out awards to companies under investigation by the FDA and DOJ? It shows, yet again, that Walmart is interested in little more than its own bottom line.
America deserves to know that Walmart has grossly violated the trust of its customers. Help us put Walmart's misconduct into the public eye: read the report and spread the word.
Write a letter to the editor about Walmart's cozy relationship with Ranbaxy.
Don't let Walmart off the hook, take action today.
YOUR LIFE COULD DEPEND ON IT !
June 23, 2009 4:30 PM
From: "The WakeUpWalMart.com Team
Is Walmart taking unacceptable risks sourcing its prescription drugs?
Today we released a new report detailing how Walmart sources its much-touted $4 prescription medications from Ranbaxy, the disgraced Indian drug maker.
According to the Department of Justice, Walmart's supplier is responsible for introducing potentially "subpotent, superpotent, or adulterated" drugs into the market. Medications used by millions of Walmart shoppers could have contained active ingredients from unapproved sources, in unapproved blends, and in amounts weaker than FDA-approved doses.
Despite the company's shady dealings, Walmart saw fit to award Ranbaxy with its "prestigious" Outstanding Supplier Award. In fact, Walmart continues to source from the embattled Indian manufacturer even today.
Don't let Walmart play games with the health of millions. Help us blow the whistle on Walmart for its customers to medications made by its unscrupulous supplier.
Let your local newspaper know the truth about Walmart's irresponsible drug sourcing
Despite years of federal warnings concerning "systemic fraudulent conduct," Walmart continues to source cheap drugs from Ranbaxy. This revelation comes on the heels of extensive PR campaigning to brand Walmart as a global health care and ethical sourcing leader.
If Walmart is interested in providing safe products from responsible suppliers, why is it handing out awards to companies under investigation by the FDA and DOJ? It shows, yet again, that Walmart is interested in little more than its own bottom line.
America deserves to know that Walmart has grossly violated the trust of its customers. Help us put Walmart's misconduct into the public eye: read the report and spread the word.
Write a letter to the editor about Walmart's cozy relationship with Ranbaxy.
Don't let Walmart off the hook, take action today.
YOUR LIFE COULD DEPEND ON IT !
TAKING CONTROL
Western Stooge Pahlavi Positioning Himself To Take Power In Iran
Paul Joseph Watson
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah of Iran, is positioning himself to become the new US-backed puppet leader of Iran should( WHEN ) the current regime is/be toppled by protests still sweeping the country after the disputed election, following revelations that Mir-Hossein Mousavi directed terrorist attacks against the United States in the 1980’s.
Should the popular uprising, which some allege is being fomented by western intelligence as a gateway to regime change, be successful, Mousavi’s plans to take power are likely to be derailed by his bloody past.
According to a report by CQ Politics;
He may yet turn out to be the avatar of Iranian democracy, but three decades ago Mir-Hossein Mousavi was waging a terrorist war on the United States that included bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
Mousavi, prime minister for most of the 1980s, personally selected his point man for the Beirut terror campaign, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur, and dispatched him to Damascus as Iran’s ambassador, according to former CIA and military officials.
The ambassador in turn hosted several meetings of the cell that would carry out the Beirut attacks, which were overheard by the National Security Agency.
The man standing in line to usurp the discredited Mousavi is none other than the son of the late Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, who is emerging as a prominent figure and a staunch advocate for the protesters.
Pahlavi’s reaction to the tragic death of the slain protester “Neda,” who was apparently killed by pro-Ahmadinejad militia forces on Saturday in Tehran, has propelled the former crown prince of Iran to national prominence.
In an emotional press conference yesterday, Pahlavi said that Neda was one of his daughters as he fought back tears in front of the cameras.
He also warned on Monday that the defeat of the demonstrators protesting the election in Iran could eventually lead to a nuclear war, stating, “Their defeat will encourage extremism from the shores of the Levant to the energy jugular of the world.”
Pahlavi has long planned to help overthrow the current regime in Iran. Five years ago he called for “a revolution sparked by massive civil disobedience in which the masses in the streets are backed by elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,” adding that he was in contact with members of the Guard who shared his vision.
Pahlavi left Iran in 1978 and was educated in the United States before training as a jet fighter pilot at the Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, Texas.
According to writer Michael Edwards, Pahlavi “Has continually appeared on satellite radio and TV shows beamed into Iran, repeatedly calling for civil disobedience in order to topple the Islamic Mullahs. He promotes a US-UN backed referendum to decide whether Iran is to be governed as a constitutional monarchy, which he says he can lead as Shah, or a “secular democracy.”
We are again seeing history repeat itself. In 1953, the United States orchestrated a violent coup in Iran under the auspices of Operation Ajax to topple the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh and replace it with the western-compliant yet brutal regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, before its overthrow following the 1979 revolution.
The Shah’s son is now positioning himself to be installed as the next stooge by US, British and Israeli interests should the regime of the Mullahs be brought down by the mass demonstrations. It appears that Mousavi is merely a stop gap for the Anglo-American establishment and that his terrorist past will swiftly be used to discredit him and prevent him from assuming power, leaving the path clear for Pahlavi to step in and allow the New World Order to once again seize control of Iran for the first time in 30 years.
Paul Joseph Watson
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah of Iran, is positioning himself to become the new US-backed puppet leader of Iran should( WHEN ) the current regime is/be toppled by protests still sweeping the country after the disputed election, following revelations that Mir-Hossein Mousavi directed terrorist attacks against the United States in the 1980’s.
Should the popular uprising, which some allege is being fomented by western intelligence as a gateway to regime change, be successful, Mousavi’s plans to take power are likely to be derailed by his bloody past.
According to a report by CQ Politics;
He may yet turn out to be the avatar of Iranian democracy, but three decades ago Mir-Hossein Mousavi was waging a terrorist war on the United States that included bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
Mousavi, prime minister for most of the 1980s, personally selected his point man for the Beirut terror campaign, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur, and dispatched him to Damascus as Iran’s ambassador, according to former CIA and military officials.
The ambassador in turn hosted several meetings of the cell that would carry out the Beirut attacks, which were overheard by the National Security Agency.
The man standing in line to usurp the discredited Mousavi is none other than the son of the late Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, who is emerging as a prominent figure and a staunch advocate for the protesters.
Pahlavi’s reaction to the tragic death of the slain protester “Neda,” who was apparently killed by pro-Ahmadinejad militia forces on Saturday in Tehran, has propelled the former crown prince of Iran to national prominence.
In an emotional press conference yesterday, Pahlavi said that Neda was one of his daughters as he fought back tears in front of the cameras.
He also warned on Monday that the defeat of the demonstrators protesting the election in Iran could eventually lead to a nuclear war, stating, “Their defeat will encourage extremism from the shores of the Levant to the energy jugular of the world.”
Pahlavi has long planned to help overthrow the current regime in Iran. Five years ago he called for “a revolution sparked by massive civil disobedience in which the masses in the streets are backed by elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,” adding that he was in contact with members of the Guard who shared his vision.
Pahlavi left Iran in 1978 and was educated in the United States before training as a jet fighter pilot at the Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, Texas.
According to writer Michael Edwards, Pahlavi “Has continually appeared on satellite radio and TV shows beamed into Iran, repeatedly calling for civil disobedience in order to topple the Islamic Mullahs. He promotes a US-UN backed referendum to decide whether Iran is to be governed as a constitutional monarchy, which he says he can lead as Shah, or a “secular democracy.”
We are again seeing history repeat itself. In 1953, the United States orchestrated a violent coup in Iran under the auspices of Operation Ajax to topple the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh and replace it with the western-compliant yet brutal regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, before its overthrow following the 1979 revolution.
The Shah’s son is now positioning himself to be installed as the next stooge by US, British and Israeli interests should the regime of the Mullahs be brought down by the mass demonstrations. It appears that Mousavi is merely a stop gap for the Anglo-American establishment and that his terrorist past will swiftly be used to discredit him and prevent him from assuming power, leaving the path clear for Pahlavi to step in and allow the New World Order to once again seize control of Iran for the first time in 30 years.
SOONER THAN YOU THINK
Bankster “Holiday” Planned for September?
Kurt Nimmo
June 22, 2009
Bob Chapman’s influential International Forecaster is reporting on the possibility of a so-called “bank holiday” planned for late August or early September. According to Chapman’s sources, U.S. embassies around the world are selling dollars and stockpiling money from respective countries where they operate.
FDR imposed a "bank holiday" soon after taking office. It resulted in the government stealing gold from the American people and giving them useless fiat paper money in return.
“Some US embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies,” writes Harry Schultz, “enough to last them a year.” Schultz publishes the Harry Schultz Letter, an international investment, financial, economic, and geopolitical newsletter named as “Newsletter of the Year” by Peter Brimelow of Market Watch in 2005 and 2008.
Schultz believes the global elite are in the process of engineering an FDR-style “bank holiday” of undetermined length in order to “sort-out the bank mess” and impose new bank rules.
On March 5, 1933, in the depths of the banker engineered “Great Depression,” newly elected Franklin Roosevelt declared a “bank holiday” that forced banks closed for four days. Roosevelt then rammed the Emergency Banking Act through the legislature. Passed by Congress on March 9, the act granted FDR near dictatorial control over the dealings of banks. It also allowed the Secretary of the Treasury the power to compel every person and business in the country to relinquish their gold and accept paper currency in exchange.
On March 10, Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6073, forbidding people from sending gold overseas and forbidding banks from paying out gold. A few weeks later, on April 5, Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6102 ordering Americans to deliver their gold and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve bank in exchange for paper fiat money.
In other words, FDR engaged in one of history’s greatest rip-offs — that is until now.
FDR not only ripped-off the American people, but foreigners holding dollars as well, thus ensuring the “Great Depression” would spread around the world like a bankster engineered contagion.
As Schultz notes, another forced “bank holiday” will likely lead to a formal devaluation of the already broadsided U.S. dollar. “But devalue against what? The euro? Doubtful. Gold? Maybe. Or vs. the IMF basket of currencies,” which he feels is more likely.
In fact, this is precisely what the globalist have in mind. In March, the media reported the IMF was poised print billions of “global quantitative easing” dollars to be dubbed global “super-currency” to address the (bankster engineered) economic crisis. “The principle behind it is that everyone would get bonus dollars and instead of the Federal Reserve having to print them, everyone gets them,” declared Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF.
Can you say inflation?
It is no secret the elite have envisioned a global currency for some time now. In 2007, the director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations stated that the dollar and the euro are but temporary currencies. “It is the market that made the dollar into global money – and what the market giveth, the market can taketh away. If the tailors balk and the dollar falls, the market may privatize money on its own,” Benn Steil pontificated.
More like the banksters taketh away — and not only money but national sovereignty as well because a global currency will demand an end to “monetary nationalism.”
Or as Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, has said, “states must be prepared to cede some sovereignty to world bodies if the international system is to function.”
Mr. Schultz believes a “bank holiday” would suit the burning desires of the international bankster elite. It will lead to “nationalization,” which is a polite word for brazen thievery. It will allow the government — owned lock, stock and barrel by the global elite and run by their corrupt whores and cronies — to rape secured creditors and bondholders. Nationalization is the unfettered process of grabbing up of insurance companies, mortgage companies, banks, medical care, and car companies and handing them over to the monopoly men.
During the FDR “bank holiday,” Schulz notes, “thousands of banks never reopened; it was a face-saving way of shutting them down. I would guess the same would occur today; thousands have little or no net value, loaded with debt, bad mortgages.”
In order soften the nation up for the coming pillage, the Obama administration has proposed a plan to give the privately-owned and unaccountable Federal Reserve complete regulatory oversight across the entire U.S. economy. 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 — that is to say if it “threatens” the monopolistic interests of the bankers.
“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,” write Paul Joseph and Steve Watson. “The government is ready to hand over everything to a monolithic private corporation and a gaggle of bastard banker offspring, that have gobbled up an amount close to the entire GDP of the country in taxpayers’ money and figuratively stuck the middle finger up regarding questions over where that money has gone.”
A “bank holiday” would work wonders for any “regulation” the Fed and the bankers have in mind. It would compliment the criminal consolidation now underway. It would allow them to finally and formally devalue the dollar and usher in a global “super currency” of control and enslavement.
A Bob Chapman subscriber added a little dinger to the prospect of the banks going dark. The subscriber claims to have overheard two men in FEMA jackets talking with a police chief in California, all who agreed that the federalization of police around the country — a process largely complete — will be required if the banks are shuttered in late August or early September because it will get “ugly” out there.
No doubt. Because the sort of enduring and polite American who weathered the “Great Depression” is now in seriously short supply.
If Mr. Schultz’s prediction is correct, we can expect riots in bank foyers and ultimately martial law to be imposed.
HERE IT COMES.DEPRESSION AND MARTIAL LAW AGAIN ! OBAMA ONLY CARE THAT HISTORY WILL REMEMBER HIM AS AN EQUAL TO ROSEVELT AMD NEVER MIND THEIR TREASON !!
Kurt Nimmo
June 22, 2009
Bob Chapman’s influential International Forecaster is reporting on the possibility of a so-called “bank holiday” planned for late August or early September. According to Chapman’s sources, U.S. embassies around the world are selling dollars and stockpiling money from respective countries where they operate.
FDR imposed a "bank holiday" soon after taking office. It resulted in the government stealing gold from the American people and giving them useless fiat paper money in return.
“Some US embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies,” writes Harry Schultz, “enough to last them a year.” Schultz publishes the Harry Schultz Letter, an international investment, financial, economic, and geopolitical newsletter named as “Newsletter of the Year” by Peter Brimelow of Market Watch in 2005 and 2008.
Schultz believes the global elite are in the process of engineering an FDR-style “bank holiday” of undetermined length in order to “sort-out the bank mess” and impose new bank rules.
On March 5, 1933, in the depths of the banker engineered “Great Depression,” newly elected Franklin Roosevelt declared a “bank holiday” that forced banks closed for four days. Roosevelt then rammed the Emergency Banking Act through the legislature. Passed by Congress on March 9, the act granted FDR near dictatorial control over the dealings of banks. It also allowed the Secretary of the Treasury the power to compel every person and business in the country to relinquish their gold and accept paper currency in exchange.
On March 10, Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6073, forbidding people from sending gold overseas and forbidding banks from paying out gold. A few weeks later, on April 5, Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6102 ordering Americans to deliver their gold and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve bank in exchange for paper fiat money.
In other words, FDR engaged in one of history’s greatest rip-offs — that is until now.
FDR not only ripped-off the American people, but foreigners holding dollars as well, thus ensuring the “Great Depression” would spread around the world like a bankster engineered contagion.
As Schultz notes, another forced “bank holiday” will likely lead to a formal devaluation of the already broadsided U.S. dollar. “But devalue against what? The euro? Doubtful. Gold? Maybe. Or vs. the IMF basket of currencies,” which he feels is more likely.
In fact, this is precisely what the globalist have in mind. In March, the media reported the IMF was poised print billions of “global quantitative easing” dollars to be dubbed global “super-currency” to address the (bankster engineered) economic crisis. “The principle behind it is that everyone would get bonus dollars and instead of the Federal Reserve having to print them, everyone gets them,” declared Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF.
Can you say inflation?
It is no secret the elite have envisioned a global currency for some time now. In 2007, the director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations stated that the dollar and the euro are but temporary currencies. “It is the market that made the dollar into global money – and what the market giveth, the market can taketh away. If the tailors balk and the dollar falls, the market may privatize money on its own,” Benn Steil pontificated.
More like the banksters taketh away — and not only money but national sovereignty as well because a global currency will demand an end to “monetary nationalism.”
Or as Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, has said, “states must be prepared to cede some sovereignty to world bodies if the international system is to function.”
Mr. Schultz believes a “bank holiday” would suit the burning desires of the international bankster elite. It will lead to “nationalization,” which is a polite word for brazen thievery. It will allow the government — owned lock, stock and barrel by the global elite and run by their corrupt whores and cronies — to rape secured creditors and bondholders. Nationalization is the unfettered process of grabbing up of insurance companies, mortgage companies, banks, medical care, and car companies and handing them over to the monopoly men.
During the FDR “bank holiday,” Schulz notes, “thousands of banks never reopened; it was a face-saving way of shutting them down. I would guess the same would occur today; thousands have little or no net value, loaded with debt, bad mortgages.”
In order soften the nation up for the coming pillage, the Obama administration has proposed a plan to give the privately-owned and unaccountable Federal Reserve complete regulatory oversight across the entire U.S. economy. 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 — that is to say if it “threatens” the monopolistic interests of the bankers.
“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,” write Paul Joseph and Steve Watson. “The government is ready to hand over everything to a monolithic private corporation and a gaggle of bastard banker offspring, that have gobbled up an amount close to the entire GDP of the country in taxpayers’ money and figuratively stuck the middle finger up regarding questions over where that money has gone.”
A “bank holiday” would work wonders for any “regulation” the Fed and the bankers have in mind. It would compliment the criminal consolidation now underway. It would allow them to finally and formally devalue the dollar and usher in a global “super currency” of control and enslavement.
A Bob Chapman subscriber added a little dinger to the prospect of the banks going dark. The subscriber claims to have overheard two men in FEMA jackets talking with a police chief in California, all who agreed that the federalization of police around the country — a process largely complete — will be required if the banks are shuttered in late August or early September because it will get “ugly” out there.
No doubt. Because the sort of enduring and polite American who weathered the “Great Depression” is now in seriously short supply.
If Mr. Schultz’s prediction is correct, we can expect riots in bank foyers and ultimately martial law to be imposed.
HERE IT COMES.DEPRESSION AND MARTIAL LAW AGAIN ! OBAMA ONLY CARE THAT HISTORY WILL REMEMBER HIM AS AN EQUAL TO ROSEVELT AMD NEVER MIND THEIR TREASON !!
Monday, June 22, 2009
NEEDLEWORKS
Canada Plans to Vaccinate Entire Population
Sharon Kirkey
The Windsor Star
June 22, 2009
Five-to-40-year-olds and Canada’s aboriginal communities should be the first to get vaccinated against human swine flu, experts say as Canadian officials decide who gets priority for the flu shots.
Under Canada’s official pandemic plan, the entire population would ultimately be immunized against the H1N1 swine flu.
But the vaccine will become available in batches, meaning the entire population can’t be vaccinated at once. It might take four or five months to get all the vaccine we’re going to get, during which time a second wave of swine flu may well be underway.
The Public Health Agency of Canada is working on a priority list, deciding where the first batches should go, and who should get the injections first. All provinces and territories would be expected to follow the national prioritization scheme.
BETTER BELIEVE A SECOND WAVE WILL BE UNDER WAY.
IT'S TO BE EXPECTED AND PART OF THE PLAN
Sharon Kirkey
The Windsor Star
June 22, 2009
Five-to-40-year-olds and Canada’s aboriginal communities should be the first to get vaccinated against human swine flu, experts say as Canadian officials decide who gets priority for the flu shots.
Under Canada’s official pandemic plan, the entire population would ultimately be immunized against the H1N1 swine flu.
But the vaccine will become available in batches, meaning the entire population can’t be vaccinated at once. It might take four or five months to get all the vaccine we’re going to get, during which time a second wave of swine flu may well be underway.
The Public Health Agency of Canada is working on a priority list, deciding where the first batches should go, and who should get the injections first. All provinces and territories would be expected to follow the national prioritization scheme.
BETTER BELIEVE A SECOND WAVE WILL BE UNDER WAY.
IT'S TO BE EXPECTED AND PART OF THE PLAN
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Official: NKorean ship carrying weapons to Myanmar
Jun 22, 2009 1:20 PM (6 mins ago) By HYUNG-JIN KIM, AP
6 mins ago:
Official: NKorean ship carrying weapons to Myanmar « 4 hrs ago: North Korea threatens to harm US if attacked9 hrs ago:
23 hrs ago: NKorea threatens to harm US if attacked
NKorea ship suspected of carrying missiles1 day ago: NKorea criticizes US nuclear protection of South2 days ago: US, regional powers may meet on NKorea next month3 days ago: SKorean president worried about nuclear arms race3 days ago: US boosts Hawaii defense to counter NKorea threat4 days ago: Analysts: NKorea's chemical arms as grave as nukes4 days ago: North Korea may fire a missile toward Hawaii
Still, analysts say a high seas interception - something North Korea has said it would consider an act of war - is unlikely.
The Kang Nam, accused of engaging in illicit trade in the past, is the first vessel monitored under the new sanctions designed to punish the North for its defiant nuclear test last month. The U.S. military began tracking the ship after it left a North Korean port on Wednesday on suspicion it was carrying illicit weapons.
A South Korean intelligence official said Monday that his agency believes the North Korean ship is carrying small weapons and is sailing toward the Myanmar city of Yangon.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing the sensitive nature of the information, said he could provide no further details.
Myanmar's military government, which faces an arms embargo from the U.S. and the European Union, reportedly has bought weapons from North Korea in the past.
The Irrawaddy, an online magazine operated by independent exiled journalists from Myanmar, reported Monday that the North Korean ship would dock at the Thilawa port, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Yangon, in the next few days.
The magazine cited an unidentified port official as saying that North Korean ships have docked there in the past. The magazine's in-depth coverage of Myanmar has been generally reliable in the past.
South Korean television network YTN reported Sunday that the ship was streaming toward Myanmar but said the vessel appeared to be carrying missiles and related parts. The report cited an unidentified intelligence source in South Korea.
Kim Jin-moo, an analyst at Seoul's state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said the North is believed to have sold guns, artillery and other small weapons to Myanmar but not missiles, which it has been accused of exporting to Iran and Syria.
The U.N. sanctions, which toughen an earlier arms embargo against North Korea, ban the country from exporting all weapons and weapons-related material, meaning any weapons shipment to Myanmar would violate the resolution.
The Security Council resolution calls on all 192 U.N. member states to inspect North Korean vessels on the high seas "if they have information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo" contains banned weapons or material to make them. But that requires approval from the North.
If the North refuses to give approval, it must direct the vessel "to an appropriate and convenient port for the required inspection by the local authorities."
North Korea, however, is unlikely to allow any inspection of its cargo, making an interception unlikely, said Hong Hyun-ik, an analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank outside Seoul.
A senior U.S. military official told The Associated Press on Friday that a Navy ship, the USS John S. McCain, is relatively close to the North Korean vessel but had no orders to intercept it. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Any chance for an armed skirmish between the two ships is low, analysts say, though the North Korean crew is possibly armed with rifles.
"It's still a cargo ship. A cargo ship can't confront a warship," said Baek Seung-joo of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.
Tension on the Korean peninsula has been running high since the North's May 25 nuclear test, with Pyongyang and Washington exchanging near-daily accusations against each other.
President Barack Obama assured Americans in an interview broadcast Monday that the U.S. is prepared for any move North Korea might make amid media reports that Pyongyang is planning a long-range missile test in early July.
"This administration - and our military - is fully prepared for any contingencies," Obama said during an interview with CBS News' "The Early Show."
Still, ever defiant, North Korea declared itself a "proud nuclear power" and warned Monday that it would strike if provoked.
"As long as our country has become a proud nuclear power, the U.S. should take a correct look at whom it is dealing with," the country's main Rodong Sinmun said in commentary. "It would be a grave mistake for the U.S. to think it can remain unhurt if it ignites the fuse of war on the Korean peninsula."
ANOTHER CUCKOO'S NEST HEARD FROM !!
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Official: NKorean ship carrying weapons to Myanmar
Jun 22, 2009 1:20 PM (6 mins ago) By HYUNG-JIN KIM, AP
6 mins ago:
Official: NKorean ship carrying weapons to Myanmar « 4 hrs ago: North Korea threatens to harm US if attacked9 hrs ago:
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Still, analysts say a high seas interception - something North Korea has said it would consider an act of war - is unlikely.
The Kang Nam, accused of engaging in illicit trade in the past, is the first vessel monitored under the new sanctions designed to punish the North for its defiant nuclear test last month. The U.S. military began tracking the ship after it left a North Korean port on Wednesday on suspicion it was carrying illicit weapons.
A South Korean intelligence official said Monday that his agency believes the North Korean ship is carrying small weapons and is sailing toward the Myanmar city of Yangon.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing the sensitive nature of the information, said he could provide no further details.
Myanmar's military government, which faces an arms embargo from the U.S. and the European Union, reportedly has bought weapons from North Korea in the past.
The Irrawaddy, an online magazine operated by independent exiled journalists from Myanmar, reported Monday that the North Korean ship would dock at the Thilawa port, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Yangon, in the next few days.
The magazine cited an unidentified port official as saying that North Korean ships have docked there in the past. The magazine's in-depth coverage of Myanmar has been generally reliable in the past.
South Korean television network YTN reported Sunday that the ship was streaming toward Myanmar but said the vessel appeared to be carrying missiles and related parts. The report cited an unidentified intelligence source in South Korea.
Kim Jin-moo, an analyst at Seoul's state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said the North is believed to have sold guns, artillery and other small weapons to Myanmar but not missiles, which it has been accused of exporting to Iran and Syria.
The U.N. sanctions, which toughen an earlier arms embargo against North Korea, ban the country from exporting all weapons and weapons-related material, meaning any weapons shipment to Myanmar would violate the resolution.
The Security Council resolution calls on all 192 U.N. member states to inspect North Korean vessels on the high seas "if they have information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo" contains banned weapons or material to make them. But that requires approval from the North.
If the North refuses to give approval, it must direct the vessel "to an appropriate and convenient port for the required inspection by the local authorities."
North Korea, however, is unlikely to allow any inspection of its cargo, making an interception unlikely, said Hong Hyun-ik, an analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank outside Seoul.
A senior U.S. military official told The Associated Press on Friday that a Navy ship, the USS John S. McCain, is relatively close to the North Korean vessel but had no orders to intercept it. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Any chance for an armed skirmish between the two ships is low, analysts say, though the North Korean crew is possibly armed with rifles.
"It's still a cargo ship. A cargo ship can't confront a warship," said Baek Seung-joo of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.
Tension on the Korean peninsula has been running high since the North's May 25 nuclear test, with Pyongyang and Washington exchanging near-daily accusations against each other.
President Barack Obama assured Americans in an interview broadcast Monday that the U.S. is prepared for any move North Korea might make amid media reports that Pyongyang is planning a long-range missile test in early July.
"This administration - and our military - is fully prepared for any contingencies," Obama said during an interview with CBS News' "The Early Show."
Still, ever defiant, North Korea declared itself a "proud nuclear power" and warned Monday that it would strike if provoked.
"As long as our country has become a proud nuclear power, the U.S. should take a correct look at whom it is dealing with," the country's main Rodong Sinmun said in commentary. "It would be a grave mistake for the U.S. to think it can remain unhurt if it ignites the fuse of war on the Korean peninsula."
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