Xodblog

U.S. Marines Urinating on Afghan Corpses

2012-01-13T06:15:00.000-08:00

Top U.S. officials moved swiftly Thursday to try to prevent diplomatic damage and contain public disgust from the release of a video that appeared to show Marines urinating on three Afghan corpses — images that spread quickly around the globe.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said he had viewed the video and considered it “utterly deplorable.” He telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai and pledged a full investigation.
Prior to the call, Karzai described the video as “completely inhumane and condemnable in the strongest possible terms.” His administration called on the U.S. military to “apply the most severe punishment to anyone found guilty in this crime.”
The video, which runs for less than a minute, depicts four Marines in combat gear laughing and joking as they urinate on three male bodies. The caption refers to the corpses as “dead Talibans,” but it is unclear whether the men were civilians or fighters killed after a battle.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed “total dismay” at the behavior depicted in the recording, and said the “vast, vast” majority of American military personnel would not engage in such actions.

Swine Flu Is Back

2012-01-11T19:06:00.000-08:00

12 Infected With New Swine Flu Strain

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/01/11/12-infected-with-new-swine-flu-strain

The days of medical masks at airports and widespread panic may be coming back—that's because at least 12 humans are believed to have been infected with a new strain of swine flu that's not covered by this season's vaccine.

The new swine flu strain, H3N2v, has shown at least some potential for human-to-human transmission in those 12 individuals, which makes it especially dangerous. Between 2009 and mid-2010, more than 17,000 people died worldwide from the highly contagious H1N1 swine flu strain, leading the World Health Organization to call the strain a pandemic.

The 12 people with the new swine flu strain live in Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Officials for the Centers for Disease Control say the sample size of H3N2 infections is too small to know whether it will pose a threat to the population at large.

"It's a very small sample and it's geographically spread, which makes it more difficult to get a handle on it," says Jeffrey Dimond, a CDC spokesman. "Most of the cases have come through direct contact with the animals, through the 4H Club and that sort of thing."

In order to have a true threat of causing an epidemic or pandemic, Dimond says the virus needs to spread easily between humans.

"If you're in close contact with someone who's ill, that's one thing," he says. "To make it like the pandemic flu of a few years ago, it has to be highly contagious from human to human."

H3N2v or another new flu strain could disrupt what CDC officials expected to be a relatively quiet flu season. Each year's flu vaccine protects against specific strains of the virus that researchers expect to circulate. In October, Joe Bresee, chief of CDC's influenza epidemiology and prevention branch, said he was confident this year's vaccine would protect against the mostdangerous flu strains.

"The flu viruses this year's vaccine will protect against are very well-matched to those flu viruses that [were] circulating [in October]," he said. "We will have a vaccine that provides good protection this season to help keep influenza illness and serious complications down."

While it's too early to tell if the new H3N2 strain (or another unexpected strain) will develop into a larger threat, the CDC admits the current vaccine will do little to help stop the virus.

"These viruses are substantially different from human influenza A (H3N2) viruses, so the seasonal vaccine is expected to provide limited cross-protection among adults and no protection to children," the CDC wrote in a report released in late November.

What You Should Know About the FBI's Massive New Biometric Database

2012-01-10T10:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.alternet.org/story/153664/5_things_you_should_know_about_the_fbi's_massive_new_biometric_database

Civil libertarians worry about the roll-out of Next Generation Identification, a massive expansion of the agency's current biometric database.The FBI claims that their fingerprint database (IAFIS) is the "largest biometric database in the world," containing records for over a hundred million people. But that's nothing compared to the agency's plans for Next Generation Identification (NGI), a massive, billion-dollar upgrade that will hold iris scans, photos searchable with face recognition technology, palm prints, and measures of gait and voice recordings alongside records of fingerprints, scars, and tattoos.
Ambitions for the final product are candidly spelled out in an agency report: "The FBI recognizes a need to collect as much biometric data as possible within information technology systems, and to make this information accessible to all levels of law enforcement, including International agencies." (A stack of documents related to NGI was obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights and others after a FOIA lawsuit.)
It'll be "Bigger -- Better -- Faster," the FBI brags on their Web site. Unsurprisingly, civil libertarians have concerns about the privacy ramifications of a bigger, better, faster way to track Americans using their body parts.
"NGI will expand the type and breadth of information FBI keeps on all of us," says Sunita Patel of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "There should be a balance between gathering information for law enforcement, and gathering information for its own sake."

OBAMA: ID NET USERS

2012-01-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-tech/post/fccs-genachowski-proposes-broadband-reform/2012/01/09/gIQA7CaflP_blog.html

In a Monday speech, Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined a draft proposal that would reform the commission’s Lifeline program to include provisions to encourage broadband adoption. The program, currently aimed at providing affordable telephone service to low-income Americans, is supported by the Universal Service Fund.
“The program is outdated, focused on phone service when high-speed Internet has become our vital communications platform,” he said.
In his remarks, Genachowski said the program has been successful, but has also been plagued with problems of accountability and efficiency. Multiple service providers are often supplying Lifeline subsidies to the same households, he said, because there is no centralized system. To address the issue, Genachowski said, the draft proposal creates a national database of Lifeline users to prevent duplicative billing. It also sets a budget for Lifeline aimed at connecting eligible consumers while staying within budget, and requires that participating companies be subject to independent audits every two years.
“The order would make Lifeline reimbursement more transparent and streamlined,” Genachowski said, calling the measure common sense. He said that FCC staff estimate the reforms will save the fund $2 billion over the next two years.
The chairman said the FCC would work with existing broadband adoption programs to establish its own pilot program using savings from its budget reforms. It will also look at how to use Lifeline to encourage adoption among those consumers.
Genachowski said the program will be “modernized to meet the needs of low-income Americans in a broadband world” and is in line with the agency’s other efforts on broadband adoption.

West Readies Oil Plan in Case of Iran Crisis

2012-01-09T06:30:00.000-08:00

Here we go

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/06/us-iea-contingency-idUSTRE8051FV20120106

Western powers this week readied a contingency plan to tap a record volume from emergency stockpiles to replace nearly all the Gulf oil that would be lost if Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, industry sources and diplomats told Reuters.

They said senior executives of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises 28 oil consuming countries, discussed on Thursday an existing plan to release up to 14 million barrels per day (bpd) of government-owned oil stored in the United States, Europe, Japan and other importers.

Action on this scale would be more than five times the size of the biggest release in the agency’s history — made in response to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The maximum release, some 10 million bpd of crude and about 4 million bpd of refined products, could be sustained during the first month of any coordinated action, the plan says.

“This would form a necessary and sensible response to a closure of the strait,” a European diplomat told Reuters. “It wouldn’t take long to put in place if it was required … and would be unlikely to prove controversial amongst the (IEA) membership.”

A spokesman for the IEA confirmed that the Paris-based agency has an existing contingency plan that outlines a maximum stock release capability of 14 million bpd for a month. “We’re watching the situation carefully,” he said of Iran.

Tehran announced plans on Friday for new military exercises in the world’s most important oil shipping lane, through which some 16 million barrels of crude pass each day.

Iranian officials have threatened to block the strait if new sanctions, aimed to discourage Iran’s nuclear programme, harm Tehran’s oil exports.

Many oil experts believe the threats are rhetoric aimed at pushing up oil prices in a bid to avert sanctions.

Musharraf Will Be Arrested on Arrival in Pakistan, PTI Report

2012-01-07T08:08:00.000-08:00

I never really liked that guy.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-07/musharraf-will-be-arrested-on-arrival-in-pakistan-pti-reports.html

Pervez Musharraf, who resigned as Pakistan’s president in 2008, will be arrested on arrival in the country later this month, the Press Trust of India reported, citing a prosecutor.

Musharraf is a “proclaimed offender” and there’s no need for a warrant for this arrest, PTI reported today, citing Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, prosecutor at the Federal Investigation Agency. Musharraf lives in Dubai and London and plans to return to Pakistan on Jan. 25 or Jan. 27, according to the report.

A Pakistani court issued an arrest warrant for Musharraf in February over allegations he played a role in the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, the AP reported at the time, citing prosecutors. He hadn’t been charged in the case, AP said.

Genetic scientists create freakish man-made monster ants with huge heads and jaws

2012-01-06T06:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2082799/Supersoldier-ants-gigantic-jaws.html#ixzz1ijhYau8Q

Nightmarish 'supersoldier' Scientists showed that ordinary ants of the species Pheidole morrisi contain all the genetic 'tools' needed to turn them into supersoldiers - they just need a hormonal push.
The research is reported today in the journal Science.

Scientists believe the monster ants may be a genetic throwback to an ancestor that lived millions of years ago.
Scientists say they can create the supersoldiers at will by dabbing normal ant larvae with a special hormone - the larvae then develop into supersoldiers rather than normal soldier or worker ants.

Supersoldier ants can occur naturally in the wild, but only rarely. In the deserts of America and Mexico, their job is to protect the colony from raids by invading army ants.
The supersoldiers use their enormous heads to block the nest entrance and attack any enemy ants that get too close.

Authors Dr Rajendhran Rajakumar, from McGill University, Canada, and colleagues wrote: 'We uncovered an ancestral development potential to produce a novel supersoldier subcaste that has been retained throughout a hyperdiverse ant genus that evolved 35 to 60 million years ago.'
The results suggest that holding on to ancestral development toolkits may play an important role in evolving new physical traits, say the researchers.

UK Police Treating Remains Discovered at Queen’s Estate as Murder

2012-01-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

I bet the Butler did it!

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/uk_police_treating_remains_discovered_Wku9R7mgESW2w27GnRdvKI

It’s a case that Sherlock Holmes would have loved to unravel: British police say a woman’s body has been found at the vast rural estate in Norfolk where Queen Elizabeth II and her family celebrated New Year’s.
Police are treating the case as a murder, and an autopsy was conducted Tuesday to learn more about the cause of death and the identity of the victim.
The body was found on New Year’s Day three miles from the elegant country home of Sandringham in eastern England where the royals held a New Year’s Day celebration in rural splendor.
Part of the nearly 20,000-acre royal estate is open to the public, and the body was found in a forest at Anmer, a hamlet of several dozen people on the estate 115 miles northeast of London.
…
So far, there are more questions than answers about the strange discovery, which has shaken the normally quiet region where the queen and her family typically enjoy riding horses and shooting parties.
Buckingham Palace officials are keeping mum about the murder case, referring callers to the police, and police have released few details. It is not yet clear how old the victim was, how long her body had been in the woods, if she was murdered on the grounds or if her remains were put there after the slaying.
“We are at the very early stages of the investigation and it could be a complex inquiry,” Detective Chief Inspector Jes Fry said Tuesday. “The body had been there for some time.”
Fry said authorities were examining missing person reports and unsolved cases around the country to see if there were any possible links.

The Pentagon to Send US Troops to Israel. Iran is the Unspoken Target

2012-01-05T06:57:00.000-08:00

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28494

This is "hope" that can "change"

In one of the most blacked-out stories in America right now, the US military is preparing to send thousands of US troops, along with US Naval anti-missile ships and accompanying support personnel, to Israel.
It took forever to find a second source for confirmation of this story and both relatively mainstream media outlets are in Israel. With one source saying the military deployment and corresponding exercises are to occur in January, the source providing most of the details suggests it will occur later this spring. Calling it not just an “exercise”, but a “deployment”, the Jerusalem Post quotes US Lt.-Gen Frank Gorenc, Commander of the US Third Air Force based in Germany. The US Commander visited Israel two weeks ago to confirm details for “the deployment of several thousand American soldiers to Israel.” In an effort to respond to recent Iranian threats and counter-threats, Israel announced the largest ever missile defense exercise in its history. Now, it’s reported that the US military, including the US Navy, will be stationed throughout Israel, also taking part.
While American troops will be stationed in Israel for an unspecified amount of time, Israeli military personnel will be added to EUCOM in Germany. EUCOM stands for United States European Command.
In preparation for anticipated Iranian missile attacks upon Israel, the US is reportedly bringing its THAAD, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, and ship-based Aegis ballistic missile systems to Israel. The US forces will join Israeli missile defense systems like the Patriot and Arrow. The deployment comes with “the ultimate goal of establishing joint task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East”.

Twelve Triggers for World Government

2012-01-04T16:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.asalbuchi.com.ar/2011/12/2012-year-of-the-world-government/

Today, the Global Power Elite are wrapping up globalization and ushering in World Government. Paraphrasing the tightrope walker in German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” this implies “….a dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting…”
These 12 Triggers are interlinked and interlocked in a highly complex, holistic matrix, very flexible in its tactics but rigidly unbending in its strategic objectives. When read as a whole, the picture that unfolds shows that whole being far more than the sum of its parts.
1) Financial Meltdown. Since 2008, the Global Financial System continues on life-support. Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner and the US economic hit team – Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup, JPMorganChase mega-bankers working with the Bank of England and the European Central Bank – have not and will not take any measures to help the populace and ailing economies. They just funnel trillions to the banking elite, imposing the media myth that certain banks are “too big to fail” (Orwellian Newspeak for “too damn powerful to fail”). Why? Because it’s not governments overseeing, supervising and controlling Goldman Sachs, CitiCorp, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, JPMorganChase, but exactly the other way around…
2) Economic Crises. Today, “Destructive Extreme Capitalism” is collapsing national and regional economies, reformatting them into international slave-labour Gulag-like entities that Joseph Stalin would envy. Our woes lie not with the world’s real economy (mostly intact), but with the fake world of finance, banks, and speculation;
3) Social Upheavals. Meltdowns in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Iceland and – soon to come – Italy, Spain and others, trigger violent social uprisings, even in the US and UK;
4) Pandemics. Get ready for more “flu surprises” leading to mandatory vaccinations: a discreet opportunity to slip RFID chips into our bodies and test “intelligent viruses” targeting specific DNA strains. Racially and ethnically selective viruses as part of mass depopulation campaigns?
5) Global Warming. As the global economy sinks into zero growth mode, economic drivers shift from growth expansion to consumption contraction. Will coming “carbon credits” open the path to full societal control?
6) Terrorist “False Flag” Mega-Attacks. The Elite have this wildcard up their sleeve to jump-start new “crises” as short-cuts towards world government. Will new “attacks” dwarfing 9/11 justify further global wars, invasions and genocide? A nuclear weapon over a major city to be blamed on the Elite’s “enemies”?
7) Generalized War in the Middle East. As we speak, naval forces, bombers, entire armies are poised to attack and invade Syria, Iran…
Ecological/Environmental “Accidents”. The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident sparked the beginning of the end of the former USSR by showing the world and the Soviets themselves that their State could no longer manage their own nuclear facilities. April 2010 saw the BP “Deepwater Horizon” oil rig eco-catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico; since March 2011, Japan and the world have been grappling with a much larger nuclear accident in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex. Was foul play involved?
9) Assassination of a major political or religious figure to be blamed on an Elite enemy. Mossad, CIA, MI6 are really good at playing this type of dirty trick;
10) Attacks on “Rogue States” – Iraq, Libya… Who’s next? Iran? Syria? Venezuela? North Korea?
11) Staged “Religious” Event. The growing need of the masses for meaning in their lives makes them easy victims of a Hollywood-staged, 3D virtual reality hologram show, orchestrating a “second coming”. An electronically engineered “messianic figure” acting in sync with Elite global objectives? Who would dare go against God himself?
12) Staged “Alien Contact.” This too may be in the works. For decades, large sectors of world population have been programmed to believe in aliens. Here too, hologram technology could stage a “space vehicle landing” – on the White House lawn, of course – highlighting the “need” for Mankind to have “unified representation” in the face of extraterrestrials. Further justification for world government?What do such interlocking “crises” have in common? Global warming, pandemics, “international terrorism”, financial collapse, economic depression, even alien contacts? They all serve to show that they cannot be addressed by any single nation state, thus “justifying” the need for World Government.2012: We must stay especially alert, understanding things the way they really are and not the way the global TV Masters want us to believe they are.

US Closes 2011 With Record $15.22 Trillion In Debt, Officially At 100.3% Debt/GDP

2012-01-04T13:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/us-closes-2011-record-1522-trillion-debt-officially-1003-debtgdp

$14 Billion From Breaching Debt Ceiling.

While not news to Zero Hedge readers who knew about the final debt settlement of US debt about 10 days ahead of schedule, it is now official: according to the US Treasury, America has closed the books on 2011 with debt at an all time record $15,222,940,045,451.09. And, as was observed here first in all of the press, US debt to GDP is now officially over 100%, or 100.3% to be specific, a fact which the US government decided to delay exposing until the very end of the calendar year. We wonder, rhetorically, just how prominent of a talking point this historic event will be in any upcoming GOP primary debates. And yes, technically this number is greater than the debt ceiling but it excludes various accounting gimmicks. When accounting for those, the US has a debt ceiling buffer of… $14 billion, or one third the size of a typical bond auction.

17 Reasons Why A Vote For Mitt Romney Is A Vote For The New World Order

2012-01-04T07:07:00.000-08:00

from:http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/17-reasons-why-a-vote-for-mitt-romney-is-a-vote-for-the-new-world-order

Once again, the Republican Party is being tempted to vote for “the lesser of two evils”. A lot of Republicans are actually considering voting for Mitt Romney because they have bought the lie that he has “the best chance” of defeating Barack Obama in 2012. But just because he is the Republican candidate that is most like Barack Obama does not mean that he has the best chance of defeating him. The truth is that no self-respecting Republican should ever vote for Mitt Romney. A vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for the New World Order. Romney comes from the financial establishment, he is being showered with money from the financial establishment and he supports all of the goals of the financial establishment. This year, millions upon millions of dollars are being funneled into Romney’s campaign and into pro-Romney organizations. The New World Order is literally trying to buy the 2012 election for their dream candidate. Romney would be the ultimate Wall Street puppet, and if you cast a vote for Mitt Romney you are playing right into the hands of the financial elite.

If you do not believe that a vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for the New World Order, just consider Mitt Romney’s positions on the issues….

#1 The Federal Reserve

To the financial elite, there is no more important financial institution in the United States than the Federal Reserve, and Mitt Romney is a huge supporter of the Federal Reserve.

During one Republican debate, Romney actually tried to explain to all of us why “we need to have a Fed“.

Not only that, Mitt Romney has stated that he is not really concerned about what is going on over at the Federal Reserve. Mitt Romney has publicly stated that he is “not going to take my effort and focus on the Federal Reserve“.

That kind of talk is music to the ears of the financial elite.

Also, Romney fully supported the reappointment of Ben Bernanke as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve despite his absolutely horrific track record.

#2 Money From The Bankers

Mitt Romney is getting far, far, far more money from Wall Street bankers than any other Republican candidate.

In a recent article entitled “The Big Wall Street Banks Are Already Trying To Buy The 2012 Election“, I detailed how numbers compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show that Mitt Romney is getting more money from the employees of the “too big to fail” Wall Street banks than all of the other Republican candidates combined.

The following is an excerpt from that article that shows how much money employees of those banks (and their spouses) gave to various candidates for president during the first 9 months of 2011….

Mitt Romney: $813,300
Barack Obama: $198,874
Tim Pawlenty: $101,515
Rick Perry: $58,900
Jon Huntsman: $28,250
Ron Paul: $13,104
Herman Cain: $2,715
Michelle Bachmann: $1,500
Newt Gingrich: $1,250

Even though Romney’s poll numbers have been in the mid to low 20s most of the time, employees of the big Wall Street banks gave him $813,300 during the first 9 months of 2011 and they only gave $105,719 to the rest of the Republican candidates that were still in the race at the end of the third quarter combined.

#3 The Wall Street Bailouts

During the last financial crisis, Mitt Romney was a very enthusiastic supporterof the Wall Street bailouts.

Back in 2009, Romney delivered a speech in which he made the following statement about bailing out Wall Street….

“I know we didn’t all agree on TARP. I believe that it was necessary to prevent a cascade of bank collapses. For free markets to work, there has to be a currency and a functioning financial system.”

During the Wall Street bailouts, gigantic mountains of money were transferred from the pockets of U.S. taxpayers into the hands of greedy Wall Street bankers.

Wall Street would definitely like to have someone in the White House who will bail them out once again when the next great financial crisis strikes.

#4 Health Care

Republicans are supposed to be against Obamacare, and yet millions upon millions of them plan to vote for someone that came up with the plan that Obamacare was based upon.

Barack Obama has admitted that much of his health care plan came directly from what Mitt Romney did up in Massachusetts. In fact, a recent MSNBC articlebrought to light some new information about the relationship between Romneycare and Obamacare….

Newly obtained White House records provide fresh details on how senior Obama administration officials used Mitt Romney’s landmark health-care law in Massachusetts as a model for the new federal law, including recruiting some of Romney’s own health care advisers and experts to help craft the act now derided by Republicans as “Obamacare.”

The records, gleaned from White House visitor logs reviewed by NBC News, show that senior White House officials had a dozen meetings in 2009 with three health-care advisers and experts who helped shape the health care reform law signed by Romney in 2006, when the Republican presidential candidate was governor of Massachusetts.

Conservatives all over the country have been loudly denouncing the individual health insurance mandate in Obamacare, but Mitt Romney has had the gall to claim that the individual health insurance mandate that he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts was based on “conservative principles”.

So how has Romneycare worked out for residents of Massachusetts?

Well, according to the Daily Caller, health care costs and health insurance premiums have gone up dramatically in Massachusetts….

Since the bill became law, the state’s total direct health-care spending has increased by a remarkable 52 percent. Medicaid spending has gone from less than $6 billion a year to more the $9 billion. Many consumers have seen double-digit percentage increases in their premiums.

That doesn’t sound good.

Romney now says that he wants to “repeal” Obamacare, but what he means by repeal may not be what you and I mean by repeal.

Someone should ask Romney what he meant when he stated that he wants “to eliminate some of the differences, repeal the bad, and keep the good” in Obamacare.

#5 Free Trade

One of the key goals of the New World Order is to create a one world economic system. That is why so many of our politicians continue to push “free trade” even though tens of thousands of U.S. businesses and millions of U.S. jobs have gone overseas.

Of course Mitt Romney is a huge advocate of the “free trade” agenda.

The following quote comes directly from the Romney campaign website….

Access to foreign markets is crucial to growing our economy. We must reassert American leadership in international negotiations, follow through on commitments we have already made, and push aggressively for advantageous new agreements.

But the results of this “free trade” agenda have been absolutely nightmarish for the United States. According to U.S. Representative Betty Sutton, America has lost an average of 15 manufacturing facilities a day over the last 10 years. During 2010 it got even worse. That year, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities a day shut down in the United States.

In all, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have permanently closed down since 2001.

Globalism is ripping our economy apart a little bit more every day, and if Romney is elected the globalist agenda will only accelerate.

#6 Taxes

The New World Order loves to extract taxes from the American people. It was not a coincidence that the Federal Reserve and the individual income tax came into existence at nearly the exact same time nearly 100 years ago.

During his time as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney significantly raised taxes. The following is an excerpt from a CBS News article….

Mitt Romney’s Harvard MBA and gold-plated resume convinced many business leaders he would follow in the tradition of corporate-friendly Republicans when he was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002.

Within three years, some had a vastly different opinion, after Romney’s efforts raised the tax bill on businesses by $300 million

That same article also notes that Romney jacked up “fees and fines” on Massachusetts taxpayers substantially during his tenure as governor….

Romney and lawmakers also approved hundreds of millions in higher fees and fines during his four years in office.

Many in the Massachusetts business community were quite disgusted with Romney by the end of his term. Peter Nicholas, the chairman of Boston Science Corporation, says that “tax rates on many corporations almost doubled because of legislation supported by Romney.”

#7 Government Spending

The New World Order loves big government and big government spending.

And let there be no doubt – Mitt Romney is a big spender when it comes to government money.

Government spending in Massachusetts increased significantly under Mitt Romney. This was especially true for the last two budgets passed under Romney. In fiscal year 2006, government spending in Massachusetts increased by 7.6 percent. In fiscal year 2007, government spending in Massachusetts increased by a whopping 10.2 percent.

#8 Global Warming

It turns out that Mitt Romney is a believer in the theory of man-made global warming. In fact, Al Gore recently praised Mitt Romney on his blog. In a post entitled “Good for Mitt Romney — though we’ve long passed the point where weak lip-service is enough on the Climate Crisis“, Al Gore lavished the following praise on the former Massachusetts governor….

“While other Republicans are running from the truth, he is sticking to his guns in the face of the anti-science wing of the Republican Party”

Not only that, it is also very important to remember that while Mitt Romney was governor, Massachusetts became the very first state to pass a law to regulate carbon emissions.

#9 Cap And Trade

If Mitt Romney becomes president, he is going to cram the radical green agenda right down our throats.

While campaigning for president in 2007, Mitt Romney said that he would fully support a global “cap and trade” carbon tax scheme as long as the entire world goes along with it….

“I support Cap-and-Trade on a global basis but not the USA going alone. I want to do it with other nations involved and on a global scale.”

#10 Illegal Immigration

Mitt Romney is very, very soft on illegal immigration. Back in 2007, Mitt Romneymade the following statement….

“But my view is that those 12 million who’ve come here illegally should be given the opportunity to sign up to stay here”

Of course that will only encourage millions more to come here illegally, but Mitt Romney does not seem too concerned about that.

#11 Gun Control

One of the key goals of the New World Order is to disarm the American people, and Mitt Romney has been a huge supporter of gun control laws. When he was running for governor in Massachusetts, he made the following statement….

“We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts- I support them…I believe they help protect us, and provide for our safety.”

#12 Abortion

Mitt Romney has a long record of supporting the population control agenda of the global elite.

He claims that he is “pro-life” now, but Mitt Romney also once claimed that he was more “pro-choice” than Ted Kennedy.

Not only that, Romney once forced Christian hospitals and Massachusetts taxpayers to subsidize abortions in the state of Massachusetts. You can see evidence of this right here.

If he becomes president, Romney will be just like George W. Bush – a president that gives lip service to the pro-life crowd but that does next to nothing to actually stop abortion.

#13 The Pharmaceutical Industry

Just like the banking industry, the pharmaceutical industry is almost completely dominated by the New World Order. And the pharmaceutical industry has been absolutely showering money on Mitt Romney.

According to the CDC, the percentage of Americans that say that they have taken a prescription drug within the last 30 days has risen to almost 50 percent.

If Mitt Romney becomes president, it will be a new “golden age” for the pharmaceutical industry and that number will likely go even higher.

#14 The TSA

It recently came out that very elderly women are being strip-searched by TSA agents at U.S. airports, but Mitt Romney continues to fully support the TSA.

So if Romney becomes president we will continue to have to endure incredibly dehumanizing searches before we are allowed on to our flights.

#15 The Homeland Security Apparatus

Mitt Romney has stated repeatedly that he wants to make “homeland security” even stronger.

I have previously written about how Bush and Obama have turned America into a giant prison where virtually everything we do is watched, monitored, listened to, tracked and recorded in order to keep us all “safe”.

Well, Romney believes that all of this is necessary as part of the “war on terror”, and if Romney becomes president he will almost certainly push the envelope even farther.

#16 Guantanamo Bay

Mitt Romney has publicly stated that he would like to double the number of prisoners in Guantanamo Baby.

Just check out what Romney said during one Republican debate….

Now we’re going to — you said the person’s going to be in Guantanamo. I’m glad they’re at Guantanamo. I don’t want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don’t get the access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil. I don’t want them in our prisons. I want them there.

Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo.

#17 NDAA

Barack Obama just signed a law which allows the U.S. military to arrest American citizens on U.S. soil, detain them indefinitely and ship them off to Guantanamo Bay for endless “interrogation” sessions. Mitt Romney has nottaken a position against this horrible new law.

The truth is that if you look at the history of what he has done (not what he now says), Mitt Romney is virtually a clone of Barack Obama.

If the 2012 election is Romney vs. Obama, it really does not matter which one of them wins. Either one of them would do the bidding of the New World Order.

But millions of Republicans are being fooled. They don’t realize that Romney will say just about anything to get elected.

Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann Romney, once made the following statement about her husband….

“He can argue any side of a question. And sometimes you think he’s really believing his argument, but he’s not.”

So how do we know if he is telling the truth now?

The following is an epic video which demonstrates very clearly how dramatically Mitt Romney has flip-flopped over the years….

Sadly, most elections in America are not determined by the voters.

Rather, most elections in America are determined by money.

Republican candidates spent more than $10 million on television and radio ads in Iowa in the month of December alone.

Those ads have a huge impact on voters.

So who is spending the most money?

Well, according to a recent article in the Des Moines Register, pro-Romney forces are spending the most money even though Romney is not even really campaigning in Iowa….

Together, Romney and the super PAC going to bat for him had over half the ad buys in Iowa in December among the spending the Register examined.

If you can believe it, one pro-Romney “super PAC” actually spent $2.85 million in Iowa during the month of December.

$2.85 million can buy quite a bit of propaganda.

Sadly, in federal elections the candidate that raises the most money wins about90 percent of the time, and Mitt Romney has raised far, far more money than the other Republican candidates have.

It would be nice to stick it to the establishment for once, but the reality is that it is really hard to go up against a candidate that is backed by millions upon millions upon millions of dollars.

But even if Mitt Romney only wins 30 or 40 percent of the delegates during the nominating process, that is still going to make it nearly impossible for any other candidate to win the nomination before the Republican convention.

In a previous article, I described how the new Republican voting rules are going to make a “brokered convention” much more likely….

The key is that most Republican primaries and caucuses will now allocate delegates using a proportional system rather than a “winner take all” system. Back in 2008, John McCain did very well in early “winner take all” primaries and wrapped up the Republican nomination very, very quickly. Nothing like that will happen in 2012. In fact, if the field remains crowded it is going to be very difficult for any candidate to accumulate more than 50 percent of the delegates by the time the Republican national convention rolls around.

If Mitt Romney wins more than 50 percent of the delegates during the primary season, the Republican establishment will let him have the nomination of course.

But if he is unable to do so, the Republican establishment will move heaven and earth to make sure that a candidate that they do not like does not accumulate more than 50 percent of the delegates.

Either way, the Republican establishment is going to do everything that they can to end up with a candidate of their choosing to go up against Barack Obama.

Text of H.R. 3166: Enemy Expatriation Act

2012-01-04T06:58:00.000-08:00

Oct 12, 2011 - Introduced in House. This is the original text of the bill as it was written by its sponsor and submitted to the House for consideration. This is the latest version of the bill currently available on GovTrack.

HR 3166 IH
112th CONGRESS
1st Session

H. R. 3166
To add engaging in or supporting hostilities against the United States to the list of acts for which United States nationals would lose their nationality.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

October 12, 2011
Mr. DENT (for himself and Mr. ALTMIRE) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To add engaging in or supporting hostilities against the United States to the list of acts for which United States nationals would lose their nationality.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘Enemy Expatriation Act’.

SEC. 2. LOSS OF NATIONALITY.
(a) In General- Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1481) is amended--
(1) in subsection (a)--
(A) in each of paragraphs (1) through (6), by striking ‘or’ at the end;
(B) in paragraph (7), by striking the period at the end and inserting ‘; or’; and
(C) by adding at the end the following:
‘(8) engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States.’; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
‘(c) For purposes of this section, the term ‘hostilities’ means any conflict subject to the laws of war.’.
(b) Technical Amendment- Section 351(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1483(a)) is amended by striking ‘(6) and (7)’ and inserting ‘(6), (7), and (8)’.

Mexican Grand Warlock predicts Obama loss in 2012

2012-01-03T18:07:00.001-08:00

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.5d4866e77b6f7d7b4a432c8d01267956.9a1&show_article=1

Mexico's Grand Warlock predicted US President Barack Obama would fail to win re-election and two more Latin American leaders would be diagnosed with cancer, in a traditional New Year's forecast Tuesday.
The Grand Warlock, or "Brujo Mayor" in Spanish, leads a Mexican tradition of "brujeria" or sorcery centered in the southeastern city of Catemaco.

The Grand Warlock, also known as Antonio Vazquez, said that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who claims to have beaten an unspecified cancer, would have a "terrible relapse."

Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, former Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Paraguay's Fernando Lugo have been diagnosed with cancer in recent years.

Chavez suggested last month that the spate of cancer among leftist leaders could be a US plot.

Vazquez, who sports a long grey beard, put the cancer cases down to "witchcraft" against Latin American leaders, during a Mexico City news conference giving his 25th annual predictions.

Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled for more than 70 years to 2000, would return to power with its candidate Enrique Pena Nieto winning the presidency in July, according to Vazquez, who bases his predictions on tarot card readings and observations of the stars.

Vazquez, who claims to have a 75-80 percent accuracy rate, last year said the euro would weaken and recession would return to developed economies but he also predicted, incorrectly, that a Latin American leader would be assassinated.

Scientists Grow Sperm in Laboratory

2012-01-03T13:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8988011/Scientists-grow-sperm-in-laboratory-dish.html

The development opens up the possibility of infertile men being able to father their own children rather than using donor sperm.

Researchers in Germany and Israel were able to grow mouse sperm from a few cells in a laboratory dish.

In a world first a team headed by Professor Stefan Schlatt, at Muenster University in Germany, were able to grow sperm by using germ cells. These are the cells in testicles that are responsible for sperm production.

Scientists grew the sperm by surrounding the germ cells in a special compound called agar jelly to create an environment similar to that found in testicles.

Prof. Mahmoud Huleihel, who also grew the sperm at Israel’s Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, said: “I believe it will eventually be possible to routinely grow human male sperm to order by extracting tissue containing germ cells from a man’s testicle and stimulating sperm production in the laboratory.”

Occult in Colorado: Dogs Found Skinned Along Larimer County Roads

2012-01-03T07:00:00.000-08:00

...or it could be Aliens

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2012/01/02/dogs-found-skinned-along-larimer-county-road/

BERTHOUD, Colo. (CBS4) – Investigators in Larimer County want to find the person responsible for a disturbing case of animal cruelty.

Two dogs were found mutilated outside of Berthoud last week.

The dogs were discovered just a few miles apart. They were so badly abused that veterinarians can’t even tell what breed they were.

The first discovery came after an anonymous call on Wednesday. Police found the dog on the side of County Road 4. Police said the dog was skinned and beheaded, and the tail also removed.

Then on Saturday, a second gruesome discovery made along County Road 16 – an almost identical case.

Right now investigators said they have no leads and they said they are not sure if the cases are linked to the dozens of reported missing pets that have come in over the past few days.

“We just get so many animals that come into Larimer Humane Society that are stray every year and at this point we don’t even know the specific breed of the animals,” said Humane Society spokeswoman Marcie Willms.

Authorities say the perpetrators could face felony charges.

Investigators said they are performing necropsies on the two dogs to determine if they were killed by human hands.

Council on Foreign Relations: your NEW and UPDATED Constitution

2012-01-03T06:49:00.000-08:00

from: http://www.intelinet.org/sg_site/

The Constitution of the United Socialist Corporation (U.S.C.)

We the members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), in Order to form a more perfect Corporation in tune with the coming New World Order, establish injustice and inequality, insure domestic chaos, provide for the defense of the interests of the corporations, and secure the Blessings of Freedom and Liberty for CFR members and their corporate friends, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United Socialist Corporation (formerly known as the United States of America).

The United Socialist Corporation is a democratic totalitarian regime under the total control of an intellectual elite of Wall Street bankers, oil magnates, and CEOs of transnational corporations.

The United Socialist Corporation is composed of the Washington D.C. Corporation and its corporate provinces (formerly called States).

The ultimate goal of the United Socialist Corporation is the creation, first, of the North American Socialist Corporation, after the annexation of Canada and Mexico, and, later, of the American Socialist Corporation, after the annexation of all countries in the Western Hemisphere. An important secondary goal is the worldwide promotion of corporatism, militarism and the gay lifestyle.

ARTICLE I

Section I. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United Socialist Corporation, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.

Section 2. The Senate shall be composed of one CFR member appointed by each corporation that made the Fortune’s 500 list. Senators cannot hold their position for more than 35 consecutive years.

Section 3. The House of Representatives shall be composed of four CFR members from each province chosen every second year by CFR members of the several provinces.

Section 4. The Congress shall assemble only once every year, and such Meeting shall be on the first day of April.

Section 5. All Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services that shall be at least a hundred times larger that the average salary of a worker. Senators and Representatives shall not abide by the laws they have created, except when these laws have been created only to benefit them.

Section 6. All Bills for raising revenues through taxes shall originate in the House of Representatives. Serfs (formerly known as citizens) of the Socialist American Corporation shall pay taxes 50 times higher than the taxes paid by private corporations.

Section 7. The Congress shall have the Power:

To lay and collect Taxes, to pay the interest on the debts to Wall Street and international bankers and to borrow money from them.
To regulate Commerce among Serfs [see Article IV];
To ask the Federal Reserve Bank Corporation to coin paper certificates to be used as legal tender for all debts, public and private;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting money (other than the money counterfeited by the Fed);
To promote the Progress of Science and Arts useful to brainwash the Serfs into submission to the New World Order masters.
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court to guarantee that the rights of the transnational corporations shall not be infringed.
To raise and support armies that will defend the interest of the transnational corporations in the territory of the Socialist American Corporation, its provinces, and abroad.

Section 8. Congress shall not prohibit the exercise of any religion except Christianity and Judaism. Any attempt by Christians or Jews to profess their faith shall be severely penalized.

ARTICLE II

Section 1. The representation of the Socialist American Corporation in ceremonies, festivities and other inconsequential acts shall be vested in the President, but all important decisions will continue to be taken at the Harold Pratt House, headquarters of the Council on Foreign Relations. The President shall hold his office during the term of 4 years, renewable for another 4 more years if the CFR decides so. The Vice President shall be a CFR member.

Section 2. The President shall not be required to show his birth certificate, unless it is a falsified one createed by the CIA.

Section 3. The President, following orders from the Council on Foreign relations, shall order the imprisonment or assassination of any person in the world, even if the person is a Serf of the Socialist American Corporation.

Section 4. The President, following orders from the CFR, shall declare undeclared war against any sovereign country.

Section 5. A teleprompter shall be provided at no cost for the President in order for him to faithfully recite the orders received from his CFR masters.

Section 6. The President shall take no less than 6 months of vacation every year.

Section 7. In case of the Removal of the President by Resignation, Inability to discharge his inconsequential duties, or Assassination by a CIA covert operation team, his duties shall devolve on the Vice President, also a CFR member.

Section 8. Before he enter the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath of Office: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I faithfully execute the Will of the Council on Foreign Relations and to the best of my ability I will defend the rights of transnational corporations, oil magnates and Wall Street bankers.”

ARTICLE III

Section 1. The Judicial Power of the Socialist American Corporation shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts the Council on Foreign Relations from time to time ordain to establish.

Section 2. All members of the Supreme Court shall be CFR members.

Section 3. All inferior courts shall be temporarily suspended and their functions shall be taken over by military courts.

ARTICLE IV

Section 1. The society of the Socialist American Corporation shall be composed of two types of people: the Masters, who shall comprise the 1 percent of the population, and the Serfs, who shall comprise the 99 percent of the population.

Section 2. The State shall provide the Masters with their compensations and fat bonuses, as wells as their mansions, here and abroad, their yachts, jet planes, excellent health care, servants and other luxuries. The Masters shall be provided with enough loopholes to legally avoid paying taxes.

Section 3. The State shall provide the Serfs with low-paid jobs (or unemployment benefits), substandard housing, unhealthy (genetically modified) food and low-quality education. Heavy taxation shall be imposed on them.

Section 4. To keep their minds numb, the State shall provide the Serfs with spectator sports such as football and baseball games, as well as Soap Operas and Hollywood films.

Section 5. The State shall poison the Serf’s air, water and food to make their mind numbness permanent.

Section 6. Serfs are the property of the State, therefore, they shall be provided with a minimum of health care to keep them productive. The State shall force the Serfs to get vaccinated and take drugs to keep their bodies unhealthy and be forced to buy expensive prescription drugs from pharmaceutical corporations.

Section 7.Serfs shall have no rights whatsoever, but privileges magnanimously given to them by the State and suspended at the State’s will.

Section 8. Serfs shall not be allowed to produce their own food, but shall only get what is provided by the State through its affiliated transnational corporations.

Section 9. Any attempt by Serfs to compete with multinational corporations in the production of any kind of article shall be severely penalized.

Section 10. No gold or silver shall be owned by Serfs. All gold and silver in the possession of Serfs shall be confiscated.

Section 11. No firearms shall be owned by Serfs. Possession of firearms by Serfs shall be punishedby prison, torture or death.

Section 12. No private means of transportation shall be owned by Serfs.

Section 13. No private property exceeding $1,000.00 shall be owned by Serfs.

Section 14. No tools of any kind shall be owned by Serfs.

Section 15. All mention of inalienable rights by Serfs shall be considered and act of treason, punishable by internment in reeducation camps.

Section 16. The whole territory of the Socialist American Corporation and its provinces is a battlefield in the war on terror, the war on drugs, or any war the Masters decide to wage.

Section 17. The army shall be used if necessary to repress the Serfs. Posse Comitatus is abolished.

Section 18. The privilege of Habeas Corpus shall no be observed.

Section 19. Serfs have no right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against searches and seizures by members of the government. Warrants shall not be required, nor probable cause, for agents of the government to make searches and seizures.

Section 20. Any Serf that may expresses any criticism of the government shall be considered an Enemy Combatant and shall be interned or executed without the need for a trial or conviction.

Section 21. Serfs are guilty of all types of crimes until proven innocents. No trial by an impartial jury shall be required, nor they shall be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, nor they shall confront witnesses against them. Even after proving innocent,

Section 22. Serfs may remain in custody for an indeterminate amount of time.Serfs who are Prisoners of the State shall be used in involuntary servitude to work for the State.

Section 23. Lawyers shall not be allowed to defend Serfs who have been declared Enemies of the State. A lawyer who tries to defend a Serf shall be considered himself an Enemy of the State.

Section 24. Serfs shall carry at all times an Identification Card they should show to the authorities upon request. Failure to show the Identification Card shall be severely penalized.

Section 25. Serfs shall be allowed to join Labor Unions, provided these Unions fight for the defense of the rights of Wall Street bankers, oil magnates and transnational corporations.

Section 26. High walls shall be erected to protect the borders. Serfs trying to escape the country shall be shot on sight..

ARTICLE V

Section 1. Freedom of speech shall not be tolerated. All media outlets providing Serfs a channel to express their opinions shall be banned.

Section 2. The media shall faithfully reproduce without any attempt at analysis or criticism all information supplied by the government.

Section 3. All attempts by Serfs to peacefully assemble to redress grievances are prohibited. Violators shall be severely punished.

Section 4. Serfs shall join the government’s single Repucratic Party (a fusion of the former Republican and Democratic parirtes). No other political parties shall be authorized.

Section 5. Free elections shall take place once in a while, and Serfs shall be allowed to vote for the CFR’s candidates.

ARTICLE VI

Section 1. Military men are dumb, stupid animals and shall be used as pawns for foreign policy. They shall kill and die in defense of the New World Order.

Section 2. The national and international security of the private interests of oil magnates, Wall Street bankers and transnational corporations shall be provided at no cost by the Armed Forces of the Socialist American Corporation.

Section 3. All members of the Armed Forces shall take this oath of office: “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the lives and intersts of members of the Council on Foreign relations against all enemies foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter; so help me, the Council on Foreign Relations.”

Section 4. All officers of the Armed Forces above the grade of Colonel shall be CFR members.

Section. 5. The Armed Forces of the Socialist American Corporation shall be composed of mercenaries paid for their services by taxes forcefully taken from the Serfs of the State.

Section 6. Due to fact that no time of peace shall be granted at any time, soldiers shall be quartered in any house without the consent of the people living in the house.

Section 7. Homosexuality, bestiality, necrophilia, sadism, and other similar virtues shall be encouraged in the Armed Forces.

Section 8. Torture shall be used as much as possible by the Armed Forces. The profession of Torturer shall be honored, and Torturers shall received periodic bonuses for a job well done in protecting the Masters from terrorist attacks and keeping the Serfs under control.

ARTICLE VII

Section I. The main function of the Media and the system of Public Education shall be to brainwash the Serfs into voluntary submission.

Section 2. A secondary function of the Media and the system of Public Education shall be to stimulate the consumption of unnecessary cheap gadgets made abroad by slave workers in sweatshops controlled by transnational corporations.

ARTICLE VIII

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain lack or rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage the cancellation of other rights retained by the Masters or the Council on Foreign Relations.

ARTICLE IX

The Powers not delegated to the Masters by the Constitution are reserved to the Council on Foreign Relations and the Wall Street bankers, oil magnates and CEOs of transnational corporations it represents.

If, after reading the new Constitution I am proposing you feel shocked or nauseated, I would like to ask you, where have you been? Have you been out of the country for the last fifty years? Because the Constitution I am proposing reflects today’s America much more accurately than the old one.

This is why, if we want to lower the prevalent high degree of hypocrisy in this country, we should adopt it immediately and without hesitation.

Moreover, this new Constitution will solve a big moral and ethical problem. In the first place, our secret masters will love it and will be very happy. Secondly, it will bring peace of mind to our politicians, because there will be no need for them to approve more anti-Constitutional bills. Third, it will be wonderful for many high-ranking officers of the military, because they would not be compelled to use it as toilet paper as they have been doing for many years with the present Constitution they have sworn to support and protect from all enemies, foreign and domestic.[5]

Finally, I have included in the above Constitution a balanced amount of communist and fascist elements, so both factions of the Repucratic party will happily accept it.

Now, if you are a true American patriot who loves this country, please don’t blame me for having produced the above document. I am just the messenger, not the generator, of the bad news that you, because of your passivity in the face of treason, are the only one to blame.

U.S. one bill away from totalitarian rule

2011-12-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

By Sherwood Ross

http://www.blacklistednews.com/U.S._one_bill_away_from_totalitarian_rule/16916/0/0/0/Y/M.html

The grim face of totalitarianism is emerging in the National Defense Authorization Act(NDAA) now before Congress.

This bill is the last mile post on America’s sad, well-traveled road to the butcher shop of dictatorship. We have been headed that way for some time and, with a little help from Congress, we’ll arrive there shortly, putting an ugly end to the American experiment. The Senate December 1st passed the bill by a vote of 93-7.

In the name of “defense,” NDAA underwrites $662-billion for continued U.S. aggression in our many foreign wars while, on the domestic front, it incinerates the last surviving shreds of the Bill of Rights. According to the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU), it authorizes presidents “to order the military to pick up and imprison people, including U.S. citizens, without charging them or putting them on trial.” (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) So much for Amendment VI to our Constitution that “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.”

Just destroying your protection against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment means the bill’s authors Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and John McCain of Arizona don’t have to bother with junking anything else. Once you’re imprisoned you won’t need any other “stinkin’ rights.”

The ACLU charges the provisions of NDAA “were negotiated by a small group of members of Congress, in secret, and without proper congressional review (and), are inconsistent with fundamental American values embodied in the Constitution....(our) fundamental freedoms are on the line.”

A few years back, President Carter denounced the Patriot Act for authorizing federal agents “to search people’s homes and businesses secretly, to confiscate property without any deadline or without giving notice that the intrusion had taken place, and to collect without notice personal information on American citizens including their medical histories, books checked out of libraries, and goods they purchase.” The NDAA is far worse than that.

According to Noam Chomsky, the arbitrary arrest philosophy in this country dates back to the Bush regime. “The current (Bush) government,” he writes in “Imperial Ambitions”(Metropolitan Books, 2005), “has claimed rights that go beyond any precedents, including even the right to arrest citizens, hold them in detention without access to their family or lawyers, and do so indefinitely, without charges.”

“What the American People are witnessing now with this new legislation is the further development of an American Police State into a Military Dictatorship, a process that was started by the so-called USA Patriot Act in 2001,” says Professor Francis Boyle, the constitutional law authority at the University of Illinois, Champaign.

“If it is enacted into law, America will lose all pretense of having our Military subjected to the control of democratically elected civilian leaders as originally envisioned and required by the Constitution. Our experiment in 1776 will have failed,” adds Boyle, author of “Tackling America’s Toughest Questions”(Clarity Press.)

President Obama is already exercising his kingly right to rain Hellfire missiles from drone assault planes down on any human being anywhere on the planet without a legal authorization. This is called assassination as it is utterly devoid of any semblance of rudimentary justice. Unfortunately, the president appears to have no qualms about his actions. Will such a man hesitate to arrest Americans on suspicion and imprison them for years, or worse, without trial?

Adds the prescient Paul Craig Roberts, “The (Obama) regime’s objection to (the) military detention (provision in NDAA) is not rooted in concern for the constitutional rights of American citizens. The regime objects to military detention because the implication of military detention is that detainees are prisoners of war...(and) detainees treated according to the laws of war have the protections of the Geneva Conventions. They cannot be tortured. The Obama regime opposes military detention, because detainees would have some rights. These rights would interfere with the regime’s ability to send detainees to CIA torture prisons overseas.”

Perhaps this is a good time to remind swindled American taxpayers that totalitarianism is what comes of funding a perpetual warfare state that spies on all global communications, builds the greatest military in human history, assassinates foreign leaders, overthrows elected governments, invades small nations based on lies to seize their natural resources, and threatens the world from its 800 military bases.

The NDAA perpetuates all this and now endows the criminal leadership in Congress and the White House with the weapons to turn upon their own.

The only senators with guts to oppose the bill were Democrats Tom Harkin of Iowa; Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon; Republicans Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky; and Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont. As Sen. Paul asked during the debate, "Under the provisions, wouldn't it be possible, then, that an American citizen could be declared an enemy combatant and sent to Guantanamo Bay and detained indefinitely?"

If you don’t call your congressperson today to stop the NDAA, you are not likely to enjoy the blessings of liberty tomorrow. The light in the torch of the Statue of Liberty has already been snuffed out by our illegal foreign wars. The final disgrace will be to imprison the beautiful lady behind the barbed wire of the NDAA.

ATF used "Fast and Furious" to make the case for gun regulations

2011-12-08T08:07:00.000-08:00

I suspected as much...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57338546-10391695/documents-atf-used-fast-and-furious-to-make-the-case-for-gun-regulations/

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.

PICTURES: ATF "Gunwalking" scandal timeline
In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

ATF officials didn't intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called "Demand Letter 3". That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or "long guns." Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF's Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

"Bill - can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks."

On Jan. 4, 2011, as ATF prepared a press conference to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, Newell saw it as "(A)nother time to address Multiple Sale on Long Guns issue." And a day after the press conference, Chait emailed Newell: "Bill--well done yesterday... (I)n light of our request for Demand letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case."

This revelation angers gun rights advocates. Larry Keane, a spokesman for National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group, calls the discussion of Fast and Furious to argue for Demand Letter 3 "disappointing and ironic." Keane says it's "deeply troubling" if sales made by gun dealers "voluntarily cooperating with ATF's flawed 'Operation Fast & Furious' were going to be used by some individuals within ATF to justify imposing a multiple sales reporting requirement for rifles."

The Gun Dealers' Quandary

Several gun dealers who cooperated with ATF told CBS News and Congressional investigators they only went through with suspicious sales because ATF asked them to.

Sometimes it was against the gun dealer's own best judgment.

Read the email

In April, 2010 a licensed gun dealer cooperating with ATF was increasingly concerned about selling so many guns. "We just want to make sure we are cooperating with ATF and that we are not viewed as selling to the bad guys," writes the gun dealer to ATF Phoenix officials, "(W)e were hoping to put together something like a letter of understanding to alleviate concerns of some type of recourse against us down the road for selling these items."

Read the email

ATF's group supervisor on Fast and Furious David Voth assures the gun dealer there's nothing to worry about. "We (ATF) are continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into detail."

Two months later, the same gun dealer grew more agitated.

"I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys. I guess I am looking for a bit of reassurance that the guns are not getting south or in the wrong hands...I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents (sic) safety because I have some very close friends that are US Border Patrol agents in southern AZ as well as my concern for all the agents (sic) safety that protect our country."

"It's like ATF created or added to the problem so they could be the solution to it and pat themselves on the back," says one law enforcement source familiar with the facts. "It's a circular way of thinking."

The Justice Department and ATF declined to comment. ATF officials mentioned in this report did not respond to requests from CBS News to speak with them.

The "Demand Letter 3" Debate

The two sides in the gun debate have long clashed over whether gun dealers should have to report multiple rifle sales. On one side, ATF officials argue that a large number of semi-automatic, high-caliber rifles from the U.S. are being used by violent cartels in Mexico. They believe more reporting requirements would help ATF crack down. On the other side, gun rights advocates say that's unconstitutional, and would not make a difference in Mexican cartel crimes.

Two earlier Demand Letters were initiated in 2000 and affected a relatively small number of gun shops. Demand Letter 3 was to be much more sweeping, affecting 8,500 firearms dealers in four southwest border states: Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. ATF chose those states because they "have a significant number of crime guns traced back to them from Mexico." The reporting requirements were to apply if a gun dealer sells two or more long guns to a single person within five business days, and only if the guns are semi-automatic, greater than .22 caliber and can be fitted with a detachable magazine.

On April 25, 2011, ATF announced plans to implement Demand Letter 3. The National Shooting Sports Foundation is suing the ATF to stop the new rules. It calls the regulation an illegal attempt to enforce a law Congress never passed. ATF counters that it has reasonably targeted guns used most often to "commit violent crimes in Mexico, especially by drug gangs."

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Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is investigating Fast and Furious, as well as the alleged use of the case to advance gun regulations. "There's plenty of evidence showing that this administration planned to use the tragedies of Fast and Furious as rationale to further their goals of a long gun reporting requirement. But, we've learned from our investigation that reporting multiple long gun sales would do nothing to stop the flow of firearms to known straw purchasers because many Federal Firearms Dealers are already voluntarily reporting suspicious transactions. It's pretty clear that the problem isn't lack of burdensome reporting requirements."

On July 12, 2011, Sen. Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wrote Attorney General Eric Holder, whose Justice Department oversees ATF. They asked Holder whether officials in his agency discussed how "Fast and Furious could be used to justify additional regulatory authorities." So far, they have not received a response. CBS News asked the Justice Department for comment and context on ATF emails about Fast and Furious and Demand Letter 3, but officials declined to speak with us.

"In light of the evidence, the Justice Department's refusal to answer questions about the role Operation Fast and Furious was supposed to play in advancing new firearms regulations is simply unacceptable," Rep. Issa told CBS News.

Turns out the ‘Government Sachs’ conspiracy theorists were right all along

2011-12-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

http://endthelie.com/
In a shocking article published in Reuters, Felix Salmon confirmed what the so-called conspiracy theorists have said all along: former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Hank Paulson was giving insider tips to his cronies at Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street titans which directly benefited them.

The article is entitled, “Hank Paulson’s inside jobs,” emphasizing the fact that this wasn’t some one-off lapse of ethics on Paulson’s part, but instead a disturbingly regular practice.

For those who are unaware, Paulson was the CEO and chairman at Goldman Sachs from 1999-2006 and he clearly provided them with actionable information that epitomizes the plague upon our economy, and the greater global economic system, that is crony capitalism.

However, this isn’t quite a brand new revelation given the fact that in October of 2009 Andrew Ross Sorkin exposed that Paulson met with the entire Goldman Sachs board in a hotel suite in Moscow at the end of June 2008.

Salmon covered this at the time, after Sorkin’s book was released, which detailed the meeting held after the Goldman Sachs boys had dinner with Mikhail Gorbachev.

At the time the Treasury chief of staff Jim Wilkinson told Goldman Sachs chief of staff John Rogers, “Let’s keep this quiet,” indicating that despite the fact that the Treasury’s general counsel Bob Hoyt claimed “it wouldn’t run afoul of the ethics guidelines,” they were well aware that wasn’t the case.

Hoyt said that it was acceptable so long as it was solely a “social event”, but unsurprisingly, Paulson didn’t record the so-called “social event” in his official calendar.

It is undeniable that these individuals knew very well what they were doing, and clearly they had no misgivings whatsoever.

During the Moscow meeting Paulson spoke of “the need for the government to have the power to wind down troubled firms, offering a preview of his upcoming speech,” according to Sorkin.

This wasn’t just a friend going over a speech with some old pals, as everyone knows the words of the Treasury Secretary heavily affect global markets almost instantly, just like speeches by the likes of Ben Shalom Bernanke, the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the private Federal Reserve.

Getting this kind of information ahead of time is critical, and through Sorkin’s writing it is clear that Paulson enlightened them as to the situation with Lehman Brothers, giving Goldman Sachs an unfair advantage over those who didn’t happen to have someone on the inside.

Paulson spoke of the possibility that Lehman Brothers very well might collapse, along with giving the Goldman Sachs board other insights into how he was viewing the economic climate and what was to come.

As Salmon points out, “Maybe it’s not so surprising that Goldman Sachs turned out to be so well positioned when Lehman did indeed [blow up] a few months later.”

This egregious breach of ethics is a perfect example of the corporatism that pervades Wall Street and has brought us to the brink of collapse where we are precariously perched today.

Paulson’s Moscow meeting with Goldman Sachs wasn’t an isolated incident as just a few weeks later on July 28th, 2008, Paulson met with what Salmon characterizes as “a who’s who of the hedge-fund world” in the Eton Park Capital Management headquarters.

Unsurprisingly, Eton Park Capital Management was created by Eric Mindich, formerly of Goldman Sachs as well.

In a Bloomberg article published yesterday, Richard Teitelbaum details the meeting between roughly a dozen hedge-fund managers and Wall Street executives, including no less than five former colleagues of Paulson’s from Goldman Sachs.

Others in attendance were Stephen Mandel of Pine Capital LLC, Dinakar Singh of TPG-Axon Capital Management LP and Daniel Och of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC.

During the meeting Paulson, “went on to describe a possible scenario for placing Fannie and Freddie into ‘conservatorship’ — a government seizure designed to allow the firms to continue operations despite heavy losses in the mortgage markets.”

Teitelbaum writes, “The fund manager says he was shocked that Paulson would furnish such specific information — to his mind, leaving little doubt that the Treasury Department would carry out the plan. The managers attending the meeting were thus given a choice opportunity to trade on that information.”

While he points out that “law professors say that Paulson himself broke no law by disclosing what amounted to inside information,” it is hardly arguable that it is ethically acceptable for the Secretary of the Treasury to furnish information to certain people which would give them an advantage over everyone else.

As Salmon points out, “Given that it’s taken two years since the release of Sorkin’s book for the Eton Park meeting to be made public, it’s fair to assume that there were other meetings, too — possibly many others.”

Indeed it is impossible to know how much trading of insider information occurs amongst the financial elite, as we only get a glimpse when sources choose to disclose this information toreporters like Teitelbaum and Sorkin.

It is quite unfortunate that this is such a rare occurrence, especially when we look at how the ultra-rich continue to profit at record rates while the rest of us struggle to pay the bills.

Surely these meetings did not occur only a couple of times, given the tight connection that Goldman Sachs – or more accurately, as is now painfully clear – Government Sachs enjoys with Washington.
Salmon sums up this issue in pointing out that the so-called conspiracy theorists have been right all along.

Salmon writes, “Paulson was giving inside tips to Wall Street in general, and to Goldman types in particular: exactly the kind of behavior that ‘Government Sachs’ conspiracy theorists have been speculating about for years. Turns out, they were right.”

Now if only the derisive label of “conspiracy theorist” would be lifted from these issues when it is far from a conspiracy theory and is indeed a conspiracy fact.

I won’t be holding my breath, because so long as governments criminally conspire with multinational corporations and others, the label of conspiracy will be denigrated in order to keep people from discussing and investigating these facts and issues.

Wall Street is the Secret Government

2011-12-02T07:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.alternet.org/story/153274/6_shocking_revelations_about_wall_street%27s_secret_government?page=entire

We now have concrete evidence that Wall Street and Washington are running a secret government far removed from the democratic process. Through a freedom of information request by Bloomberg News, the public now has access to over 29,000 pages of Fed documents and 21,000 additional Fed transactions that were deliberately hidden, and for good reason. (See here and here.)

These documents show how top government officials willfully concealed from Congress and the public the true extent of the 2008-’09 bailouts that enriched the few and enhanced the interests of giant Wall Streets firms.

Here’s what we now know:

•The secret Wall Street bailouts totaled $7.77 trillion, 10 times more than the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) passed by Congress in 2008.
•Knowledge of the secret bailout funds was not shared with Congress even while it was drafting and debating legislation to break up the big banks.
•The secret funding, provided at below-market rates, gave Wall Street banks an additional $13 billion in profits. (That’s enough money to hire more than 325,000 entry level teachers.)
•The secret loans financed bank mergers so that the largest banks could grow even larger. The money also allowed banks to step up their lobbying efforts.
•While Henry Paulson (Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury) was informing Congress and the public that only minor reforms were needed to protect Fannie and Freddie from collapse, he met secretly with leading Wall Street hedge fund managers -- among them his former colleagues at Goldman Sachs -- to alert them that he was about to nationalize the giant mortgage companies – a move that would eradicate nearly all the stock value of the companies. This information was enormously valuable because it allowed these hedge funds to short Fannie and Freddie and thereby make a fortune.
•While Timothy Geithner was head of the NY Federal Reserve, he argued against legislative efforts by Senator Ted Kaufman, D-Delaware, to limit the size of banks because the issue was “too complex for Congress and that people who know the markets should handle these decisions,” Kaufman recalls. Meanwhile, Geithner was fully aware of the enormous secret loans while Senator Kaufman was kept in the dark. Barney Frank, who was authoring key bank reform legislation was also not informed of the secret loans. No one in Congress was told.
So what does this all mean?

1. The big banks and hedge funds were in much more trouble than we were led to believe.

As many of us suspected, all the big banks were on their knees begging for help – secretly – while telling their investors, the public and Congress that all was well. They had gambled and lost. Under the rules of ideal capitalism, they should have suffered some “creative destruction,” and seen their shareholder value eliminated through bankruptcy, and their managers replaced. The entire banking system should have been reorganized from top to bottom as well. Instead, these colossal failures were secretly rewarded.

2. Wall Street’s secret government made sure the largest banks would grow even larger, aided by the secret funding.

While Congress was debating legislation to break up the large banks and reinstitute Glass Steagall (to separate risky investment banking from insured commercial banking,) the secret government was using public funds to grow even larger through mergers and acquisitions. Because Congress and the public were unaware of the secret funding and ill-health of all the banks, the legislation was easily defeated. . The bigger Wall Street becomes, the more government it can buy.

This part isn’t secret. As the top six banks grew larger, they spent more funds lobbying to make sure that they wouldn’t suffer any unprofitable impacts from banking reform legislation. So after the biggest banks received hundreds of billions in secret loans, they upped their lobbying funds to maintain their size and power.

4. Wall Street’s secret government protects its own.

At first, it’s not easy to understand how Treasury Secretary Paulson, the former head of Goldman Sachs, could risk attending a secret meeting with giant hedge fund managers, many of whom used to work at Goldman Sachs. How could the nation’s highest ranking financial official dare to tip off these hedge fund elites about the imminent government takeover of Fannie and Freddie before Congress and the public were informed? Well, one answer is that Paulson felt obliged to warn his old comrades of the impeding nationalization. Maybe, he wanted to get them out of harm’s way just in case they were heavily involved in those markets. Or maybe he also wanted to give them a very valuable tip to profit by. But the deeper explanation, I believe, is that Wall Street’s key government officials – Paulson, Summers, Geithner, Orszag (the former Obama OMB chief who now makes millions working for CitiGroup), etc. truly believe the following:

•Wall Street banks are the best in the world and are the cutting-edge of the American economy. They are our future.
•Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers are enormously smarter and sharper than the rest of us. They deserve our admiration.
•Helping Wall Street to grow and prosper is precisely the same thing as helping all Americans and the entire economy. They deserve our support.
•Secret meetings to provide insider information are normal on Wall Street. There’s nothing wrong with warning your friends about upcoming policy decisions that might impact their profits.
•There’s also absolutely nothing wrong with providing trillions of dollars of secret loans to the best and the brightest and not telling Congress about it.
It’s all a closed loop of self-justification and self-deception: Wall Street is brilliant. What Wall Street does is for the good of the country. Helping Wall Street profit is good for the country. Hiding the truth from democratically elected leaders is also for the good of the country because Wall Street is brilliant and knows better.

And all this is deeply believed by Wall Street and its secret government, even though Wall Street, and Wall Street alone, took down the economy and killed 8 million jobs in a matter of months. Simply brilliant!

5. Wall Street is a clear and present danger to democracy.

Usually, I am not an alarmist. In fact, I often argue against facile conspiracy theories. I want to believe that our democracy still has promise. But, the Wall Street-induced crash and the government’s response to it has me very worried. The Bloomberg News revelations suggest that Wall Street’s secret government has enormous disdain for what remains of our democracy. The financial elites obviously believe that Congress cannot be trusted to do the right thing even when it is bought and paid for by the very banks it supposedly regulates. As for the rest of us? We’re just a financially illiterate mass to be manipulated through the mass media. Our minds too can be bought and sold through careful marketing.

This financial arrogance and corruption is enormously corrosive to our democratic values. Already, many Americans, and for good reason, no longer trust their government. Already, many Americans, and for good reason, no longer vote. Already, many Americans, and for good reason, believe that democracy as we know it is a sham. Wall Street couldn’t have written a better script to maintain its domination.

6. Occupy Wall Street is fundamentally correct, but we need more.

The occupiers dramatically attacked Wall Street elites and captured the country’s imagination with their 1 percent, 99 percent framework. And the idea is sticking and spreading. But that’s only the start. To reclaim our country from Wall Street’s secret government we will need to develop an enormous movement among the 99 percent. Although we hope it just happens spontaneously through Twitter and Facebook, we all know it will require hardcore organizing involving millions of us.

At the moment, no one knows what form it will take. But we do know this: great concentrations of power and wealth do not give up their power and wealth without an enormous fight. Wall Street’s secret government is more than ready to protect itself, even if it means subverting democracy. Our occupiers have shown great courage in helping us reclaim our democratic rights. Let’s hope it spreads…and soon.

Senate Votes To Let Military Detain American Citizens Indefinitely

2011-12-01T08:14:00.000-08:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/29/senate-votes-to-let-military-detain-americans-indefinitely_n_1119473.html

The Senate voted Tuesday to keep a controversial provision to let the military detain terrorism suspects on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without trial — prompting White House officials to reissue a veto threat.

The measure, part of the massive National Defense Authorization Act, was also opposed by civil libertarians on the left and right. But 16 Democrats and an independent joined with Republicans to defeat an amendment by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) that would have killed the provision, voting it down with 61 against, and 37 for it.

“I’m very, very, concerned about having U.S. citizens sent to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the Senate’s most conservative members.

Paul’s top complaint is that a terrorism suspect would get just one hearing where the military could assert that the person is a suspected terrorist — and then they could be locked up for life, without ever formally being charged. The only safety valve is a waiver from the secretary of defense.

“It’s not enough just to be alleged to be a terrorist,” Paul said, echoing the views of the American Civil Liberties Union. “That’s part of what due process is — deciding, are you a terrorist? I think it’s important that we not allow U.S. citizens to be taken.”

Democrats who were also concerned about liberties compared the military policing of Americans to the detention of Americans in internment camps during World War II.

“Congress is essentially authorizing the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who offered another amendment — which has not yet gotten a vote — that she said would correct the problem. “We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge.”

Backers of military detention of Americans — a measure crafted by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) — came out swinging against Udall’s amendment on the Senate floor earlier Tuesday.

“The enemy is all over the world. Here at home. And when people take up arms against the United States and [are] captured within the United States, why should we not be able to use our military and intelligence community to question that person as to what they know about enemy activity?” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said.

“They should not be read their Miranda Rights. They should not be given a lawyer,” Graham said. “They should be held humanely in military custody and interrogated about why they joined al Qaeda and what they were going to do to all of us.”

and now... the .001%

2011-11-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

Study: Largest Publicly Traded Companies Pay Just Over Half the Official Tax Rate Owed
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/3/headlines
A new study by Citizens for Tax Justice reveals the largest publicly traded companies in the United States are paying on average just 18 percent of their profits in federal income taxes — that is little more than half the official corporate rate of 35 percent. The study examined the tax records of 280 companies over the past three years. Seventy-eight of the companies paid no federal income tax in at least one of the last three years. Wells Fargo received the most in tax subsidies. The bank received nearly $18 billion in tax breaks from the U.S. Treasury in the last three years.

BRITAIN ON ALERT FOR NEW SUPER-FLU

2011-11-03T10:31:00.000-07:00

A NEW strain of killer flu which could spread to Britain within 24 hours is “one of the biggest biological threats of our time”, experts warned.

The alert comes after people started to fall victim to seasonal flu and the more virulent swine flu at the same time.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/281388/Britain-on-alert-for-new-super-flu/

Such a rare incidence creates the risk of a lethal mutation, leading to an “ominous” super-flu virus for which humans have almost no immunity, said medical scientists.

Dr Peter Hotez, a world-renowned infectious disease expert, warned: “Highly infectious strains of the virus against which humans have little defence can spread from one continent to another within 24 hours.” He said the fact scientists had detected the rare double-flu infection highlighted the need for extreme vigilance against new killer strains around the world.

Dr Hotez, president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, praised the scientists who had made the discovery.

But he warned: “We are required to remain vigilant against one of the biggest biological threats of our time.”

UK military steps up plans for Iran attack amid fresh nuclear fears

2011-11-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/uk-military-iran-attack-nuclear
Britain's armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran's nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned.

The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.

In anticipation of a potential attack, British military planners are examining where best to deploy Royal Navy ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles over the coming months as part of what would be an air and sea campaign.

They also believe the US would ask permission to launch attacks from Diego Garcia, the British Indian ocean territory, which the Americans have used previously for conflicts in the Middle East.

The Guardian has spoken to a number of Whitehall and defence officials over recent weeks who said Iran was once again becoming the focus of diplomatic concern after the revolution in Libya.

They made clear that Barack Obama, has no wish to embark on a new and provocative military venture before next November's presidential election.

But they warned the calculations could change because of mounting anxiety over intelligence gathered by western agencies, and the more belligerent posture that Iran appears to have been taking.

Hawks in the US are likely to seize on next week's report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is expected to provide fresh evidence of a possible nuclear weapons programme in Iran.

The Guardian has been told that the IAEA's bulletin could be "a game changer" which will provide unprecedented details of the research and experiments being undertaken by the regime.

One senior Whitehall official said Iran had proved "surprisingly resilient" in the face of sanctions, and sophisticated attempts by the west to cripple its nuclear enrichment programme had been less successful than first thought.

He said Iran appeared to be "newly aggressive, and we are not quite sure why", citing three recent assassination plots on foreign soil that the intelligence agencies say were coordinated by elements in Tehran.

In addition to that, officials now believe Iran has restored all the capability it lost in a sophisticated cyber-attack last year.The Stuxnet computer worm, thought to have been engineered by the Americans and Israelis, sabotaged many of the centrifuges the Iranians were using to enrich uranium.

Up to half of Iran's centrifuges were disabled by Stuxnet or were thought too unreliable to work, but diplomats believe this capability has now been recovered, and the IAEA believes it may even be increasing.

Ministers have also been told that the Iranians have been moving some more efficient centrifuges into the heavily-fortified military base dug beneath a mountain near the city of Qom.

The concern is that the centrifuges, which can be used to enrich uranium for use in weapons, are now so well protected within the site that missile strikes may not be able to reach them. The senior Whitehall source said the Iranians appeared to be shielding "material and capability" inside the base.

Another Whitehall official, with knowledge of Britain's military planning, said that within the next 12 months Iran may have hidden all the material it needs to continue a covert weapons programme inside fortified bunkers. He said this had necessitated the UK's planning being taken to a new level.

"Beyond [12 months], we couldn't be sure our missiles could reach them," the source said. "So the window is closing, and the UK needs to do some sensible forward planning. The US could do this on their own but they won't.

"So we need to anticipate being asked to contribute. We had thought this would wait until after the US election next year, but now we are not so sure.

"President Obama has a big decision to make in the coming months because he won't want to do anything just before an election."

Another source added there was "no acceleration towards military action by the US, but that could change". Next spring could be a key decision-making period, the source said. The MoD has a specific team considering the military options against Iran.

The Guardian has been told that planners expect any campaign to be predominantly waged from the air, with some naval involvement, using missiles such as the Tomahawks, which have a range of 800 miles (1,287 km). There are no plans for a ground invasion, but "a small number of special forces" may be needed on the ground, too.

The RAF could also provide air-to-air refuelling and some surveillance capability, should they be required. British officials say any assistance would be cosmetic: the US could act on its own but would prefer not to.

An MoD spokesman said: "The British government believes that a dual track strategy of pressure and engagement is the best approach to address the threat from Iran's nuclear programme and avoid regional conflict. We want a negotiated solution – but all options should be kept on the table."

The MoD says there are no hard and fast blueprints for conflict but insiders concede that preparations there and at the Foreign Office have been under way for some time.

One official said: "I think that it is fair to say that the MoD is constantly making plans for all manner of international situations. Some areas are of more concern than others. "It is not beyond the realms of possibility that people at the MoD are thinking about what we might do should something happen on Iran. It is quite likely that there will be people in the building who have thought about what we would do if commanders came to us and asked us if we could support the US. The context for that is straightforward contingency planning."

Washington has been warned by Israel against leaving any military action until it is too late.

Western intelligence agencies say Israel will demand that the US act if it believes its own military cannot launch successful attacks to stall Iran's nuclear programme. A source said the "Israelis want to believe that they can take this stuff out", and will continue to agitate for military action if Iran continues to play hide and seek.

It is estimated that Iran, which has consistently said it is interested only in developing a civilian nuclear energy programme, already has enough enriched uranium for between two and four nuclear weapons.

Experts believe it could be another two years before Tehran has a ballistic missile delivery system.

British officials admit to being perplexed by what they regard as Iran's new aggressiveness, saying that they have been shown convincing evidence that Iran was behind the murder of a Saudi diplomat in Karachi in May, as well as the audacious plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, which was uncovered last month.

"There is a clear dotted line from Tehran to the plot in Washington," said one.

Earlier this year, the IAEA reported that it had evidence Tehran had conducted work on a highly sophisticated nuclear triggering technology that could only be used for setting off a nuclear device.

It also said it was "increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear-related activities involving military-related organisations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile."

Last year, the UN security council imposed a fourth round of sanctions on Iran to try to deter Tehran from pursuing any nuclear ambitions.

At the weekend, the New York Times reported that the US was looking to build up its military presence in the region, with one eye on Iran.

According to the paper, the US is considering sending more naval warships to the area, and is seeking to expand military ties with the six countries in the Gulf Co-operation Council: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.