May 6, 2008 Florida police made public two notes handwritten by Deborah Jeane Palfrey this weekend, touching off debate on whether her hanging was in fact suicide or staged to look so. At least one reporter is claiming the DC Madam mentioned she'd kill herself before returning to prison, but another interviewer has aired recent audio of Palfrey warning that if she was found dead, it would be murder. Initial reports of Palfrey's death conclusively ruled it a suicide, unbelievable considering the magnitude of the sensitive secrets she held. I first heard the news on an NPR broadcast Thursday afternoon which included an official's soundbyte on how relatives are victimized in suicides, a strange generalization that pointed blame at Palfrey for hurting her own mother before any other details of the case were released. This statement was attached to the breaking news by an "imbedded pundit", only raising suspicion of media manipulation in the earliest going. Full Story
May 6, 2008 A Minot airman has supplied Project Camelot with detailed answers to these and other questions. The information is of such importance that we have felt obliged to present it as a stand-alone follow-up report. The name we have given our source, Jack Carter, is a pseudonym. We have not yet met him, but have conducted extensive correspondence by e-mail. We are confident that he is exactly who he says he is: an experienced airman with extensive personal experience of nuclear weapons security procedures at Minot AFB. We believe that nothing we are reporting here is classified or constitutes any breach of National Security. Our source is patriotic and responsible and he chose not to divulge certain information which was not pertinent to an analysis of what may actually have occurred. The e-mail transcript - essentially a written interview - follows. It is slightly edited and abbreviated for clarity, and we have omitted a number of personal references and identifying characteristics from his report to protect his identity. Jack has given his permission for us to release the following which was reviewed and approved by him prior to publication. Full Story
May 6, 2008 If you have heard of Learfield Communications, it is probably from listening to college football and basketball games. The Jefferson City, Missouri based Learfield is one of the nation's largest broadcasters of college sports. But it also produces news programming heard throughout the farm belt. Learfield was started 35 years ago by Clyde Lear and Derry Brownfield. Lear went on to be the chairman of the company. He bought out his friend and partner Brownfield in 1985. Brownfield went on to do market news reports for the Learfield news division until 1997 or so, when he started broadcasting a daily call-in show called The Common Sense Coalition. Derry Brownfield would broadcast The Common Sense Coalition from the studios of Learfield Communications. Learfield would subsidize the program and allow Brownfield to use its studios and satellite hook-up. Monsanto happens to be a big advertiser of the Learfield news division - to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Brownfield happens to think that Monsanto is an evil corporation. Therein lies the rub. For weeks, Brownfield had been ripping Monsanto on air for its policies of enforcing its seed patents against farmers. On the April 16 show, Brownfield's topic was seed industry concentration in America. Full Story
May 5, 2008 Maybe it's the booze they serve at Cafe Milano in Georgetown. Maybe it's just Madsen being Madsen. After all, journalists and writers with any lick of integrity have been shamed, shocked and traumatized by the "suicides" of both Hunter S. Thompson and Gary Webb -- not to mention the sudden "fading into the discredited bastion of mental health treatment" of Mike Ruppert. Having seen this vast panoply of weirdness unfolding before our very eyes while creampuffs and lightweights like Matt Lauer and Brit Hume have made all the money -- perhaps Madsen has just had enough. Perhaps he is ready to be a hero. Or a martyr. At any rate, our intrepid Wayne Madsen wanted our beloved Vice President, Richard "the Dick" Cheney to know that his dealings with Palfrey's escort agency in the 1990's weren't going to be forgotten. Full Story
May 5, 2008 Despite the obvious whining about Yemeni incompetence, what it comes down to is a total lack of evidence linking the named terrorists with the actual crime (not unlike 9-11). Was the attack on the USS Cole, like the attack on the USS Liberty, a false-flag attack to trick the US into a war against Israel's enemies? Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials. Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole as it refueled in this Yemeni port on Oct. 12, 2000, has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall. Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he's still in his cell that they have demanded the right to perform random inspections. Full Story
May 5, 2008 Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis. The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields. Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said he started the research – reported in the journal Better Crops – because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?'" He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one. Full Story
May 2, 2008 Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the "D.C. Madam" of intrigue and introspection, committed suicide yesterday. Her mother found her body hanging in the shed on her property in Tarpon Springs, Fla. It was a sorry finish to a sordid tale. Had it been a classic literary tragedy, it couldn't have ended any other way. She was a fallen woman, all scarlet-lettered and walking shame, every archetype of female sin and suffering. We didn't feel particularly connected to her. Aside from a few media types, not many people attended her public trial last month, where she was convicted of running a prostitution ring. Everyone had moved on; there were newer and more salacious scandals. Maybe we feel sad because of the gendered irony. The powerful men whose names surfaced in the scandal, the ones who did not appear in the courtroom, who did not have to discuss their menstrual cycles publicly, have all remained unscathed. Full Story
May 2, 2008 May 8, 2007 -- Cheney on DC Madam's list. Yesterday, WMR reported on the DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey's list: "WMR has been informed that the CEO of a major corporation is a former CEO but, nonetheless, the aforementioned extremely high-level official of the Bush administration. The individual, who is definitely "newsworthy," reportedly engaged the services of Palfrey's escort firm while he was the CEO and maintained a residence off Chain Bridge Road in the Ballantrae neighborhood in McLean, Virginia, a few blocks from the headquarters of the CIA." WMR has confirmed with extremely knowledgeable CIA and Pentagon sources that the former CEO who is on Deborah Jeane Palfrey's list is Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney was CEO of Halliburton during the time of his liaisons with the Pamela Martin & Associates escort firm. Palfrey's phone invoices extend back to 1996 and include calls to and from Cheney. Ironically, in 2000 Cheney was appointed by Bush to head his Vice President selection committee, a task that enabled Cheney to gather detailed personal files on a number of potential candidates, including Bill Frist, George Pataki, John Danforth, Fred Thompson, Chuck Hagel, John Kasich, Chris Cox, Frank Keating, Tom Ridge, Colin Powell, and Jim Gilmore, before he selected himself as the vice presidential candidate. Full Story
The Drugging Of Our Children (Gary Null)
Is Taxation Voluntary? Jan Helfeld Interviews Senator Harry Reid About Government Coercion
May 2, 2008 A top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell has launched a stinging attack on US Vice-President Dick Cheney over abuse of prisoners by US troops. Col Lawrence Wilkerson accused Mr Cheney of ignoring a decision by President Bush on the treatment of prisoners in the war on terror. Asked by the BBC's Today if Mr Cheney could be accused of war crimes, he said: "It's an interesting question." "Certainly it is a domestic crime to advocate terror," he added. "And I would suspect, for whatever it's worth, it's an international crime as well." This is an extraordinary attack by a man who until earlier in the year was Mr Cheney's colleague in the senior reaches of the Bush team, the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says. Col. Wilkerson has in the past accused the vice-president of responsibility for the conditions which led to the abuse of prisoners. Full Story
May 1, 2008 When the Bush-Cheney administration took over in January 2001, the international price of oil was about $22 a barrel. Now, nearly eight years later, the price of oil is hovering around $120 a barrel, a more than five hundred percent increase. Thus, as far as oil is concerned, things have not unfolded in Iraq as planned and expected by the Neocons in the Bush-Cheney administration. First, they thought that gushing Iraqi oil would pay for the invasion and occupation of the country. Instead, the cash outlay for this adventure is likely to reach one trillion dollars, and the total cost to the U.S. economy will likely surpass three trillion dollars. Second, the price of oil is reaching record levels with no top in sight and this is threatening to tip the U.S. and the world economies into a protracted economic recession. This is partly due to the fact that Iraqi oil output has not increased as planned and is rather below where it was when the United States invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003. From a macroeconomic point of view, this ill-advised and illegal war has been an unmitigated disaster. Nevertheless, despite sporadic pious declarations about leaving Iraq when asked, the Bush-Cheney administration is planning a 50-Year American military occupation of Iraq. Full Story
May 1, 2008 The U.S. military death toll hit a seven-month high of 50 on Wednesday - with more than half the losses in Baghdad as American forces wage growing street battles against Shiite fighters. Iraqi civilian deaths also remained high following the Iraqi government crackdown on Shiite militia factions - accused by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of using residents as human shields during close combat in the teeming Sadr City slum. The clashes in Sadr City - a base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia - show little sign of easing as Iraqi and U.S. troops try to exert control over an area containing nearly half of the Baghdad's population. Full Story
April 29, 2008 The shooting has already started in the Persian Gulf - and chances are we'll be at war with Iran before President Bush's term is up. An American ship under contract with the U.S. Navy - the Western Venture - claims it was in international waters when Iranian speedboats approached and failed to answer radio calls. Shots were fired on the American side. Iran denies the whole thing. Yet you'll recall that in the last incident, involving the capture of British sailors, the story about being in international waters was the same - except, it turns out, they weren't in international waters, but in disputed waters, just as we speculated in this space. There's no reason to expect anything different this time. Clearly, the U.S. and Britain are trying to trigger a new conflict with the most brazen provocations, and they don't really care how it happens - only that it does. The indications of an imminent attack - the latest incident, the steady stream of accusations coming from the U.S. regarding Iranian influence in Iraq, the nuclear charade, etc. - have suddenly taken a more ominous turn with the recent statement of America's top military officer that the U.S. is weighing military action against Iran. Full Story
April 29, 2008 The Israelis already have the Gaza Strip under military siege, carefully controlling what and who goes in and out of it. They have now cut off most fuel, and the United Nations has been forced to stop distributing food aid. This Israeli government action is an unvarnished war crime. It is known as collective punishment. There was already hunger and malnutrition among Palestinian children, which will now be worsened. The Olmert government is not interested in negotiating, apparently, even though nothing the Likud and the Kadima "Likud Light" has done since 2001 has diminished the salience of the Gaza Muslim fundamentalist party, including a concerted campaign of murder, kidnapping, assault and collective punishment. Despite the violent groups on its margins, Hamas itself has at various points indicated a willingness to play ordinary politics, but Olmert will be satisfied with nothing less than destroying it. So far it isn't going well for him. Full Story
April 28, 2008 The Nevada Republican Convention ended in near pandemonium Saturday after Ron Paul supporters outmaneuvered party leadership and set themselves up to claim nearly all the state's 31 delegates to the national convention. The end result was that a convention, scheduled to end before 5 p.m. still hadn't selected delegates as of 6 p.m. When convention chairman state Sen. Bob Beers of Las Vegas announced they were out of time and would have to recess to another day; the Paul delegates erupted in jeers, cursing and protests. But after the recess was called, most of the Clark County delegation and all McCain supporters left the hall at the Peppermill Hotel/Casino. There weren't enough people left to muster a quorum and reconvene. "That's baloney," shouted one man. "I didn't pay to sit through this." "Beers, you're finished," yelled a woman with a Paul sticker. Others used stronger language as they gathered around Beers. A few minutes later, it was reported someone had threatened Beers, who was taken quickly from the hall by security. Full Story
April 28, 2008 The title of this article, "The President's Executioner," is a play on words. It refers to professor John Yoo, who teaches law at Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley. But this man, mild-mannered by all appearances, is not what he seems. He is the man who was, more often than nearly any other, behind the White House decisions to violate the international laws of war. He was the one who told the White House how to get away with committing war crimes. While he may have been a henchman for others who instructed him to make the arguments he did, he repeatedly refused to reverse himself, both while he worked in the Department of Justice and after he left that office and returned to academia. But it was also during this time period, as we now know, that the Department of Justice became "politicized." Instead of executing the laws as it should have been doing, the Justice Department became an instrument of President Bush, executing his wishes. And John Yoo executed White House wishes to twist the law into something it was not and was not meant to be. Yoo, however, did more than execute orders. The so-called "Torture Memos," in the writing of which Yoo was an active and primary participant, opened the door to such abuse of the laws that some detainees were actually murdered. For all practical purposes, they were executed, without a trial or guilty verdict. Full Story
April 28, 2008 The military adventurers in the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups thought that they were the "smartest guys in the room" - the title of Alex Gibney's prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination. As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the anomalous position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out, or preparing for a war in outer space against unknown adversaries. Instead, the Bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay or repudiate. This fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes (causing poorer countries to lend us unprecedented sums of money), but the time of reckoning is fast approaching. Full Story
April 28, 2008 Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to "close this city down" to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends. "We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians," Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. "This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell." Sharpton was joined by the family of 23-year-old Sean Bell - a black man - and a friend of Bell who was wounded in the 2006 shooting outside a Queens strip club. Two of the three officers charged were also black. Full Story
April 24, 2008 The Bush Regime has quagmired America into a sixth year of war in Afghanistan and Iraq with no end in sight. The cost of these wars of aggression is horrendous. Official US combat casualties stand at 4,538 dead. Officially, 29,780 US troops have been wounded in Iraq. Experts have argued that these numbers are understatements. Regardless, these numbers are only the tip of the iceberg. On April 17, 2008, AP News reported that a new study released by the RAND Corporation concludes that "some 300,000 U.S. troops are suffering from major depression or post traumatic stress from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 320,000 received brain injuries." Full Story
April 24, 2008 The nomination of Gen. David Petraeus to be the new head of the Central Command not only ensures that he will be available to defend the George W. Bush administration's policies toward Iran and Iraq at least through the end of Bush's term and possibly even beyond. It also gives Vice President Dick Cheney greater freedom of action to exploit the option of an air attack against Iran during the administration's final months. Petraeus will take up the CENTCOM post in late summer or early fall, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The ability of the administration to threaten Iran with an attack both publicly and behind the scenes had been dramatically reduced in 2007 by opposition from the former CENTCOM commander, Adm. William Fallon, until he stepped down from the post under pressure from Gates and the White House last month. Full Story
April 24, 2008 I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food. No, this is not a drill. You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here. Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster. Full Story
April 23, 2008 On Tuesday night, you will be told who the winner of the Pennsylvania Primary is. You will accept it. You will have no choice. No matter who the winner really is. Or isn't. This Tuesday's crucial contest will be primarily run on 100% faith-based, Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen or push-button) e-voting machines across the state. There will be no way to determine after the election whether the computers have accurately recorded, or not, the intent of those voters who voted on them. As VerifiedVoting.org summarizes the crucial contest, it "will be essentially unrecountable, unverifiable, and unauditable." Most of the votes, more than 85%, will be cast on such DRE systems which do not provide so-called "Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails" (VVPATs), as their use has been found unconstitutional in the state, since its been determined, accurately, that ballot secrecy cannot be guaranteed when using such paper trail systems. Not that it matters. With or without a so-called "paper trail" printer, all touch-screen/push-button/DRE voting machines are equally unverifiable and antithetical to American democracy. Period. Full Story
April 23, 2008 President George W. Bush has transformed an open federal government in Washington into one of "pervasive secrecy," a distinguished authority on communications and First Amendment rights says. Since his inauguration, Bush has overseen changes that suggest "a dramatic growth of government secrecy, far beyond the secrecy occurring during the Clinton Administration," writes Susan Dente Ross, an Associate Professor in the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University at Pullman. "Through executive agency opinions, executive orders, statutory changes, and aggressive litigation, the Bush Administration has effectively limited the power of FOIA(Freedom of Information Act) and reversed the presumption that government records should be available to the public absent demonstrable proof showing that secrecy is needed," Ross writes in The Long Term View, a journal of opinion published by the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover. Full Story
April 23, 2008 The United States arrested an 84-year-old American on Tuesday suspected of giving Israel secrets on nuclear weapons, fighter jets and missiles in the 1980s, in a case linked to the Jonathan Pollard spy scandal that rocked U.S.-Israeli relations. The arrest of Ben-Ami Kadish indicates that Israeli spying revealed by the Pollard case, still an irritant to the U.S. alliance with Israel, may have spread wider than previously acknowledged. He was accused of reporting to an Israeli government handler who was also a main contact for Pollard, an American citizen serving a life term on a 1985 charge of spying for Israel. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said, "We will be informing the Israelis of this action ... 20-plus years ago during the Pollard case we noted that this was not the kind of behavior we would expect from friends and allies, and that would remain the case today." Full Story
April 21, 2008 In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded "the gulag of our times" by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure. The administration's communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo. To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as "military analysts" whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world. Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found. Full Story
April 21, 2008 In late 2006, Congress revised the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act to make it far easier for a president to declare martial law. Those changes were repealed at the end of this January as part of Public Law 110-181 (HR 4986), the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (signed into law by President Bush on January 28, 2008). Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), who championed the opposition to the original law, was also the hero of the repeal. It helped that all the nation's governors opposed the 2006 law. Full Story
April 21, 2008 New forensics evidence presented Tuesday during a symposium at Foxwoods suggests Sirhan Sirhan did not fire the fatal shots that killed Sen. Robert Kennedy in 1968. Experts from all over the world met Wednesday to discuss problems in crime solving during the annual symposium, hosted by the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science. This year's event was about conspiracies and solving complex crimes. Dr. Robert Joling, a forensics investigator who has studied the Robert Kennedy assassination for almost 40 years, determined that the fatal shots must have come from behind the senator. Sirhan, however, was 4 to 6 feet in front of Kennedy and never got close enough to shoot Kennedy from behind, the investigator said. The other evidence was the Pruszynski recording. This is the only audio recording of the assassination. Another scientist analyzed it and concluded that at least 13 shots were fired from two different guns. Full Story
April 21, 2008 A man accused of bringing weapons to Plainfield to help tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown evade arrest has been scheduled for a second trial, after a federal jury failed to reach a verdict on some charges during his first trial. Last week, Cirino Gonzalez of Alice, Texas, was convicted of conspiring to prevent U.S. marshals from arresting the Browns, who holed up in their well-provisioned house for nearly nine months and vowed to die before surrendering. The Browns, who believe there is a federal conspiracy to prevent people from discovering that income tax laws are invalid, were convicted of several tax-related crimes and are now serving 63-month prison sentences. Full Story
April 18, 2008 Award-winning cancer expert Dr. Vini Khurana has concluded that mobile phones may kill far more people than smoking or asbestos. The latest study, which is being called the "most devastating indictment yet" for the safety of mobile phones, draws on growing evidence that using handsets for 10 years or more can double your risk of brain cancer. Professor Khurana reviewed more than 100 studies on the effects of mobile phones, and concluded that "there is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumors." "We are currently experiencing a reactively unchecked and dangerous situation," he added. Earlier this year, the French government warned against the use of mobile phones, particularly for children. Germany also advises people to minimize handset use. Khurana urges people to avoid using mobile phones whenever possible, and believes that governments and the mobile phone industry must take immediate steps to reduce exposure to this radiation. If nothing is done, Khurana believes the rate of malignant brain tumors and the associated death rate will rise around the world within a decade, and by then it may be too late to intervene medically. Full Story
April 18, 2008 From India to Africa to North Korea to Pakistan and even in New York City, higher grain prices, fertilizer shortages and rising energy costs are combining to spell hunger for millions in what is being characterized as a global "silent famine." Global food prices, based on United Nations records, rose 35 percent in the last year, escalating a trend that began in 2002. Since then, prices have risen 65 percent. Last year, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's world food index, dairy prices rose nearly 80 percent and grain 42 percent. "This is the new face of hunger," said Josetta Sheeran, director of the World Food Program, launching an appeal for an extra $500 million so it could continue supplying food aid to 73 million hungry people this year. "People are simply being priced out of food markets. ... We have never before had a situation where aggressive rises in food prices keep pricing our operations out of our reach." Full Story
April 18, 2008 When some people hear the word "conspiracy" they start thinking of a tinfoil hat crowd and invoke images of space aliens, paranoia, or a variety of cults and nonsense. Well there are a lot of wacky conspiracies about many things but that does not mean that conspiracies don't or can't happen. For example, the Iran Contra Affair was a massive government conspiracy hidden from the press and public for years. It happened in my life time and it involved billions of dollars and multiple countries. It has since been admitted to but many of the people involved did not get into trouble. They were given presidential pardons either by Bush Sr. or Bill Clinton. Most of them still have jobs and are working in the government right now! That is a fact. The CIA and Mossad have gotten away with countless covert operations and false flags. There are too many to name. So for those who think a covert operation or conspiracy can't happen, you need to open a history book, or at the very least start doing some online research. To just reject conspiracies as a whole just because there are some kooks who think the moon landing was fake or Elvis or Tu Pac are still alive etc is not a reason to just reject the concept all together. I have had people tell me conspiracies never work and that they can't be done because someone always snitches. Well that argument just does not float in reality. There are way too many counter examples of successful conspiracies and Hoaxes. See here CIA's Secret Wars and that's only a fraction. Full Story
April 17, 2008 The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel. "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor." Netanyahu reportedly made the comments during a conference at Bar-Ilan University on the division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt over the veracity of the September 11 attacks Thursday, calling it a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Full Story
April 17, 2008 In a recent edition of the Austin-American Statesman a book review of Phillip Bobbitt’s new book Terror and Consent goes into how the book calls for the shredding of the Constitution. The article written by James E. McWilliams features an image of the Constitution being torn with a big bold headline that states “Everything must go.” The words “How to Fight Terrorism”, are put in place of where the Constitution is torn. The article is blatant propaganda to make people think that the answer to fight terrorism is to destroy the Constitution. As disgusting as this is, the contents of Bobbitt’s book advocates exactly what the picture depicts. Bobbitt endorses using nongovernmental organizations and multinational corporations to take over the roles and functions of nation states. He also endorses giving the United Nations the authority to wage war without approval from the Security Council and the use of non-lethal chemical weapons to fight terrorism. If he really wanted to end terrorism using non-lethal chemical weapons, he should be endorsing the use of non-lethal chemical weapons on the headquarters of the CIA, British Intelligence and Mossad because that’s where the majority of terrorism comes from. Of course, Bobbitt won't mention that fact. Full Story
April 17, 2008 The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency — a move intended to prevent violent crime but which also is raising concerns about the privacy of innocent people. Using authority granted by Congress, the government also plans to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained, whether they have been charged or not. The DNA would be collected through a cheek swab, Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Wednesday. That would be a departure from current practice, which limits DNA collection to convicted felons. Expanding the DNA database, known as CODIS, raises civil liberties questions about the potential for misuse of such personal information, such as family ties and genetic conditions. Full Story
April 17, 2008 Monsanto already dominates America's food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation's tactics-ruthless legal battles against small farmers-is its decades-long history of toxic contamination. For centuries-millennia-farmers have saved seeds from season to season: they planted in the spring, harvested in the fall, then reclaimed and cleaned the seeds over the winter for re-planting the next spring. Monsanto has turned this ancient practice on its head. Monsanto developed G.M. seeds that would resist its own herbicide, Roundup, offering farmers a convenient way to spray fields with weed killer without affecting crops. Monsanto then patented the seeds. For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office had refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. "It's not like describing a widget," says Joseph Mendelson III, the legal director of the Center for Food Safety, which has tracked Monsanto's activities in rural America for years. Indeed not. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, turned seeds into widgets, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world's food supply. Full Story
Jesse Ventura Schools Opie And Anthony on 9/11
Stop the Social Security Surveillance Act (HR 5405)
April 15, 2008 Comments by China that it intends to move away from its reliance on the dollar triggered a sharp drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and heightened worldwide fears about the U.S. currency's stability. Chinese Central Bank Vice Director Xiu Jian said that his country is planning to shift much of its $1.4 trillion national currency reserve from dollars to more stable currencies, such as the euro or Canadian dollar. After these comments, the dollar fell to record lows relative to other currencies -- the lowest ever against the euro, the lowest in a generation against the British pound, and the lowest in 57 years against the Canadian dollar. "The big issue on any currency is if its rate of depreciation is so fast that it scares away all capital, and the announcement that we heard from China sort of feeds those fears," said Larry Smith, chief investment officer at Third Wave Global Investors. China is the world's largest investor in U.S. Treasury bonds and securities, holding more U.S. debt than any country but Japan. Because China's currency is linked to the dollar, the country also maintains a massive reserve of the currency. Full Story
April 15, 2008 Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer, unveiled plans on Monday to film its gun sales in the United States and create a computerized log of purchases in a bid to stop guns falling into the wrong hands. Wal-Mart, which is the largest seller of firearms in the United States, agreed a 10-point code, which also includes rigid inventory controls, with a bipartisan coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns led by New York's Michael Bloomberg. The retailer said it will develop a first-of-its-kind computerized crime gun trace log that will flag purchases by customers who have previously bought guns later recovered in crimes. Full Story
April 11, 2008 Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned. The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved. A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the meetings described them Thursday to the AP to confirm details first reported by ABC News on Wednesday. The intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue. Between 2002 and 2003, the Justice Department issued several memos from its Office of Legal Counsel that justified using the interrogation tactics, including ones that critics call torture. Full Story
April 11, 2008 News last week of former White House lawyer John Yoo's recently disclosed 2003 memo positing, among other things, that the president's authority as commander in chief allows him to override federal laws prohibiting "assault, maiming and other crimes" against suspects in the "war on terror" was followed by a second revelation: an alarming footnote on page 8 referring to another secret memo, written shortly after 9/11, and, in the name of national security, dispensing with the Fourth Amendment. In the age of the "war on terror," according to the footnote, the Department of Justice "recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations." Full Story
April 11, 2008 A new U.N. Human Rights Council official assigned to monitor Israel is calling for an official commission to study the role neoconservatives may have played in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. On March 26, Richard Falk, Milbank professor of international law emeritus at Princeton University, was named by unanimous vote to a newly created position to report on human rights in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. While Mr. Falk's specialty is human rights and international law, since the attacks in 2001, he has devoted some of his time to challenging what he calls the "9-11 official version." On March 24 in an interview with a radio host and former University of Wisconsin instructor, Kevin Barrett, Mr. Falk said, "It is possibly true that especially the neoconservatives thought there was a situation in the country and in the world where something had to happen to wake up the American people. Full Story
April 11, 2008 The federal jury that found two men guilty of aiding and arming Plainfield tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown found a third man guilty of helping the couple escape arrest. But jurors, who began deliberating Monday, could not reach a verdict on all the counts. Cirino Gonzalez of Alice, Texas, was found guilty of helping the Browns evade capture and of conspiring with others to prevent U.S. marshals from arresting the couple, who fled tax evasion convictions and holed up in their fortified home for nearly nine months. During the standoff, the Browns accumulated guns, bombs and stockpiles of food and issued repeated threats against federal authorities. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on a second, similar conspiracy charge and on a charge that Gonzalez used weapons to help prolong the standoff. Full Story
April 10, 2008 A federal jury found two men guilty of aiding and arming Plainfield tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown yesterday. But after three days of deliberation, the jury has failed to reach a verdict on a third man accused of similar crimes. Jason Gerhard of Brookhaven, N.Y., and Daniel Riley of Cohoes, N.Y., were both found guilty of conspiring to prevent U.S. marshals from arresting the Browns after the couple fled their federal tax evasion trial, holed up in their fortified concrete home and vowed to die before surrendering. Gerhard and Riley were also found guilty of aiding and abetting the Browns and bringing guns to the house to help prolong the standoff. Riley was found guilty, and Gerhard not guilty, on a charge that they handled explosive devices. The third man, Cirino Gonzalez of Alice, Texas, is also charged with conspiracy, aiding and abetting, and a weapons charge. He is not accused of handling any explosives. Judge George Singal, who is presiding over the case, instructed the jury last night to continue deliberating despite difficulty reaching a verdict. Full Story
April 7, 2008 The Pentagon's declassification of a five-year-old memo authorizing military interrogators to use brutal methods to extract information from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay sheds new light into the dark corners of the Bush administration's legal theories that put the President and his subordinates beyond domestic and international law. In the March 14, 2003, memo - which was released this past week - administration lawyer John Yoo cited the principle of national "self-defense" in combating terrorism as grounds for justifying harsh treatment of detainees up to and including death. Yet, as Yoo advanced his argument for virtually unfettered presidential war-time powers regarding the treatment of prisoners, the memo also pointed to other still-secret documents suggesting the administration was prepared to take its authority even further, into domestic military operations that would brush aside constitutional protections. Full Story
April 7, 2008 THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds. At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, "the grid" will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds. The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call. David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could "revolutionise" society. "With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine," he said. Full Story
April 7, 2008 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has reduced the key federal funds rate six times in as many months -- reducing the cost for major borrowers significantly. This combines with providing $270 million in funding, plus $30 billion in additional guarantees, for JP Morgan Chase to buy Bear Stearns Cos. "Helicopter Ben" is living up to the nickname he earned after he remarked in a 2002 speech that he would stave off a recession even if he had to drop money from helicopters to do it. The results of these policies have been destructive. The dollar is collapsing not only against foreign currencies -- we're now at par with the Canadian dollar and rocketing toward a 2-1 deficit against the Euro -- but also against commodities. Gold was passing the $1,000-an-ounce landmark, silver $20. Even industrial metals like copper and zinc are fetching record prices. Full Story
April 5, 2008 James Risen's State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, may hold bigger secrets than the disclosure that President George W. Bush authorized warrantless eavesdropping on Americans. Risen's book also confirms the most damning element of the British Cabinet Office memos popularly called the "Downing Street memos;" namely, that "the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy." The result is that it is no longer credible to maintain that the failures in the Iraqi intelligence were the product of a broken intelligence community. The Bush administration deliberately fabricated the case against Iraq, lying to Congress and the American people along the way. Risen, a senior reporter for The New York Times, reports that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had an urgent need in the summer of 2002 to get the equivalent of a "second opinion" regarding Bush's plans for war in Iraq-insight independent of his own telephone conversations with the president and independent of what Blair was hearing from his own foreign office. Full Story
April 5, 2008 The Army and Marine Corps bought hundreds of thousands of sets of body armor -- without the equipment being properly tested, according to a report by the Defense Department's inspector general. "Nearly $3 billion worth of body armor did not go through early inspections known as 'first article testing,' or FAT, that are performed before major production," the Washington Post reports. Normally," the report notes, "a first article is tested to verify that the manufacturing process has generated an acceptable item and to catch and correct any defects in the manufacturing process." Full Story
April 5, 2008 The US State Department said Friday it is extending its diplomat protection contract for private security firm Blackwater USA, despite the incident last September in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. "I have requested and received approval to have Task Order 6, which Blackwater has to provide personal protective services in Baghdad, renewed for one year," said Gregory Starr at the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Blackwater is the most controversial of several private security firms tasked with protecting high-profile US officials and foreign dignitaries visiting Iraq. Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians while escorting a US diplomat through Baghdad in a September 16, 2007 incident that the Iraqi government considers a crime. Full Story
April 4, 2008 Though little discussed on the campaign trail, a crucial issue to be decided in November is whether the United States will return to its traditions as a constitutional Republic respecting "unalienable" human rights or whether it will finish a transformation into a frightened nation governed by an all-powerful President who can do whatever he wants during the open-ended "war on terror." That reality was underscored on April 1 with the release of a five-year-old legal opinion from former Justice Department official John Yoo asserting that President George W. Bush possessed nearly unlimited authority as Commander in Chief, including the power to have military interrogators abuse terror suspects. While most news coverage of Yoo's March 14, 2003, memo has focused on the legal gymnastics justifying harsh treatment of detainees - including possible use of mind-altering drugs - the centerpiece of Yoo's argument is that at a time of war the President's powers are essentially unfettered. Yoo's memo fits with views expressed by Bush ("The Decider") and many of his top legal advisers. Yoo's opinion also appears to be shared by four conservative Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court - John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito - just one vote shy of a majority. Full Story
April 4, 2008 For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn't apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism. That view was expressed in a Justice Department legal memo dated Oct. 23, 2001. The administration on Wednesday stressed that it now disavows that view. The October 2001 memo was written at the request of the White House by John Yoo, then the deputy assistant attorney general, and addressed to Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time. The administration had asked the department for an opinion on the legality of potential responses to terrorist activity. The 37-page memo has not been released. Its existence was disclosed Tuesday in a footnote of a separate secret memo, dated March 14, 2003, released by the Pentagon in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. Full Story
April 4, 2008 Life at Ed and Elaine Brown's Plainfield home was quiet last spring, when visitors came to engage in philosophical discussions and bombs and guns were not in plain view, according to Cirino Gonzalez, one of three men on trial for aiding and arming the tax-protesting couple. Gonzalez's portrait of the Browns' home, which he left in late June, contrasts starkly with evidence about what investigators found there after the couple's arrest in October. The Browns were convicted of tax-related crimes last year but refused to surrender to authorities, instead retreating to their Plainfield home and threatening violence if U.S. marshals tried to arrest them. The standoff, fueled by supplies, weapons and moral support from a rotating group of sympathizers, continued for nearly nine months before the couple were arrested by undercover marshals posing as supporters. Full Story
April 3, 2008 Four possible defense witnesses in the trial of men accused of participating in an armed standoff in Plainfield have opted not to testify, after lawyers warned the witnesses that they might make self-incriminating statements if they chose to take the stand. Those witnesses include Elaine Brown, who with her husband, Ed, evaded capture on bench warrants by holing up for nearly nine months in their fortified Plainfield home. According to Keith Champagne, one of the other witnesses, who spoke with lawyers in the case, Elaine Brown decided to assert her Fifth Amendment right not to testify against herself during a hearing Tuesday afternoon. Lawyers said Judge George Singal has ordered them not to discuss the case with reporters. Jason Gerhard of Brookhaven, N.Y.; Cirino Gonzalez of Alice, Texas; and Daniel Riley of Cohoes, N.Y., have been charged with conspiring to help the Browns escape capture, conspiring to harm U.S. marshals, aiding and abetting the Browns, and bringing them weapons. Gerhard and Riley are also accused of building and handling explosive devices. All three men spent time living at the Browns' home, running errands on their behalf, and, prosecutors allege, bringing them guns and materials to build bombs. Full Story
April 3, 2008 As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, and a prized Guantánamo detainee wouldn't talk, the Bush administration's highest-ranking lawyers argued for extreme interrogation techniques, circumventing international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the army's own Field Manual. The attorneys would even fly to Guantánamo to ratchet up the pressure-then blame abuses on the military. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail, and holds out the possibility of war crimes charges. The abuse, rising to the level of torture, of those captured and detained in the war on terror is a defining feature of the presidency of George W. Bush. Its military beginnings, however, lie not in Abu Ghraib, as is commonly thought, or in the "rendition" of prisoners to other countries for questioning, but in the treatment of the very first prisoners at Guantánamo. Starting in late 2002 a detainee bearing the number 063 was tortured over a period of more than seven weeks. In his story lies the answer to a crucial question: How was the decision made to let the U.S. military start using coercive interrogations at Guantánamo? Full Story
April 3, 2008 Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura vehemently savaged the official 9/11 story on a syndicated national radio show today, saying the WTC collapsed like a controlled demolition and was pulverized to dust as he also highlighted the impossible 10 second free fall speed of the towers. Appearing on The Alex Jones Show, Ventura said that his initial reaction to 9/11 was much like most people at the time, and he accepted the official story outright, a response he now regrets because he was in a position of power and could have used it to raise a lot of pointed questions. "I kicked myself when it initially happened that the light didn't go off but I was so shocked that this thing had even taken place that I apologize for not being more aware," said Ventura, adding that watching Loose Change at the insistence of his son was part of the catalyst for his wake up call. Full Story
April 2, 2008 Multinational Big Business interests linked to the U.S. political-military-industrial complex, are now coordinating the elites of the Conservative and Liberal Parties, as "One Big Party". This is being done through the prism of the Security and Prosperity and Partnership North American Union (SPP-NAU) agenda. This SPP-NAU agenda, was orchestrated directly and in violation of Canadian sovereignty, through the Office of U.S. President George W. Bush, as corroborated by the official SPP.gov website. Stephane Dion and Stephen Harper are effectively functioning as leaders of the same political party, under the cover of apparent faked displays of "disagreements" in front of colluding affiliate corporate media organizations. These public displays, are designed to lull rank and file party members, and dupe Canadians into believing otherwise. This strategy includes the defamation claim media spectacle about Chuck Cadman that was launched by Stephen Harper against Stephane Dion. Learned legal experts agree that this litigation claim will never see the light of day in a Canadian courtroom. Full Story
April 2, 2008 Three men accused of helping Plainfield tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown evade capture performed armed patrols of the property, tried to purchase weapons for the couple and built homemade guns and explosive devices, according to a fourth man who pleaded guilty to conspiring with them. Robert Wolffe of Randolph, Vt., had faced similar charges as three men standing trial for aiding and arming the Browns during their nearly nine-month standoff with federal officials. But unlike Jason Gerhard of Brookhaven, N.Y.; Cirino Gonzalez of Alice, Texas; and Daniel Riley of Cohoes, N.Y. , Wolffe chose to plead guilty to charges that could result in a sentence ranging between eight months and 52½ years, he said during his testimony. Wolffe said he still believed in the Browns' cause - that no law requires ordinary Americans to pay federal income taxes - but said that he has come to believe that as long as the justice system remains unaware of the truth, the Browns' convictions are valid. Full Story
April 2, 2008 The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the United Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his attack on Iran. If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If there were a shred of integrity left in American political life, perhaps a third act of naked aggression -- a third war crime under the Nuremberg standard -- by the Bush Regime could be prevented. On March 30, the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti, cited "a high-ranking security source: 'The latest military intelligence data point to heightened US military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran.'" According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said "that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future." Full Story
Terry Melton Takes The Witness Stand Today
April 1, 2008 Freelance Cinematographer Terry Melton of Austin Texas, takes the stand today in defense of the "Freedom Three," Danny Riley, Reno Gonzales and Jason Gerhard who all face long federal prison sentences for their support of IRS tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown. Terry Melton pictured to the left with Danny Riley in New York City on 9/11/07, the day before their arrest by the U.S. Marshals. Stay tuned to www.wtprn.com for live evening updates from Terry and others reporting on the trial. Terry's News Conference Videos July Concert
April 1, 2008 An explosive material found hanging from trees around Ed and Elaine Brown's Plainfield home was powerful enough to expel high-velocity debris, blow holes in the trees and send a wave of force and sound that could harm anyone standing nearby, the man who sold the compound to a Brown supporter said yesterday. Daniel Tanner, an Oregon-based explosives manufacturer who invented a two-part exploding target he named Tannerite, testified yesterday in the trial of three men accused of bringing guns and bombs to the tax protesting couple's house. He said that while his product was legal and safe if used on shooting ranges as recommended, it could be dangerous if detonated close to trees or outbuildings, and had the potential to injure bystanders if they were close to the material when it was set off. Full Story
April 1, 2008 A BB&T Capital Markets analyst said Monday corn rationing may be necessary this year, following a U.S. Department of Agriculture report predicting farmers would plant far fewer acres of corn in 2008. According to the March Prospective Plantings Report, farmers intend to plant about 86 million acres of corn this year, down 8 percent from 2007, when the amount of corn planted was the highest since World War II. Analyst Heather L. Jones said in a note to investors if the USDA estimate proves accurate, the year may produce just 200 million bushels of corn. That, she said, wouldn't be enough to meet demand, given current export and feed demand trends and higher ethanol demand. Both ethanol and animal feed are made with corn. Full Story
March 31, 2008 The US Federal Reserve is examining the Nordic bank nationalisations of the 1990s as a possible interim solution to the US financial crisis. The Fed has been criticised for its rescue of Bear Stearns, which critics say has degenerated into a taxpayer gift to rich bankers. A senior official at one of the Scandinavian central banks told The Daily Telegraph that Fed strategists had stepped up contacts to learn how Norway, Sweden and Finland managed their traumatic crisis from 1991 to 1993, which brought the region's economy to its knees. It is understood that Fed vice-chairman Don Kohn remains very concerned by the depth of the US crisis and is eyeing the Nordic approach for contingency options. Full Story
March 31, 2008 Rising fuel, wheat and soybean oil prices have caused the cost of food production to spike, and product prices are expected to jump another 3 percent in 2008 after they rose nearly 5 percent in 2007, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. People are also paying 57 cents more for a pound of coffee and $1 more for a carton of large, grade A eggs than they did at this time last year, data show, although the increase in the price of eggs is expected to dwindle by at least 2 percent in 2008. The average price of bread - $1.32 per loaf - has increased by nearly 32 percent during the last three years. Goods that contain wheat and soybean oil will continue to rise in 2008 by between 5.5 percent and 6.5 percent, according to the Economic Research Service, a service offered by the USDA. Full Story
March 31, 2008 Both Democratic presidential candidates agree that the United States should end its combat mission in Iraq within 12 to 16 months of their possible inauguration. The Republican candidate has spoken of continuing the war, even for a hundred years, until "victory." The core issue of this campaign is thus a basic disagreement over the merits of the war and the benefits and costs of continuing it. The contrast between the Democratic argument for ending the war and the Republican argument for continuing is sharp and dramatic. The case for terminating the war is based on its prohibitive and tangible costs, while the case for "staying the course" draws heavily on shadowy fears of the unknown and relies on worst-case scenarios. President Bush's and Sen. John McCain's forecasts of regional catastrophe are quite reminiscent of the predictions of "falling dominoes" that were used to justify continued U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Neither has provided any real evidence that ending the war would mean disaster, but their fear-mongering makes prolonging it easier. Full Story
March 28, 2008 The Supreme Court rebuffed President Bush on Tuesday for exceeding his powers under the law, ruling he does not have the "unilateral authority" to force state officials to comply with an international treaty. The Constitution gives the president the power "to execute the laws, not make them," said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Unless Congress passes a law to enforce a treaty, the president usually cannot do it on his own, he said. The 6-3 decision was a rare defeat for Bush in the courts, and it came in an unusual case that combined international law, foreign treaties and the fate of foreign nationals condemned to die in Texas, California and several other states. Full Story
March 27, 2008 New video and photographic evidence that puts three senior CIA operatives at the scene of Robert Kennedy's assassination has been brought to light. The evidence was shown in a report by Shane O'Sullivan, broadcast on BBC Newsnight. It reveals that the operatives and four unidentified associates were at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles in the moments before and after the shooting on 5 June, 1968. The CIA had no domestic jurisdiction and some of the officers were based in South-East Asia at the time, with no reason to be in Los Angeles. Full Story
March 27, 2008 Miami police could soon be the first in the United States to use cutting-edge, spy-in-the-sky technology to beef up their fight against crime. A small pilotless drone manufactured by Honeywell International, capable of hovering and "staring" using electro-optic or infrared sensors, is expected to make its debut soon in the skies over the Florida Everglades. If use of the drone wins Federal Aviation Administration approval after tests, the Miami-Dade Police Department will start flying the 14-pound (6.3 kg) drone over urban areas with an eye toward full-fledged employment in crime fighting. Full Story
March 27, 2008 Sgt. Kristofer Shawn Goldsmith was one of the many soldiers and Marines, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who gave testimony at last weekend's Winter Soldier investigation. They spoke from personal experience about what the American military is doing in those countries. They gave examples of what they had done, what they had been ordered to do, what they had witnessed, how their experiences had wounded them, both physically and psychically, and what kind of care and support they have, or most often have not gotten since coming home. The panel Goldsmith was on was called "The Breakdown of the U.S. Military," so he surprised the audience when he said that he was going to talk about prisoners of war. He was not, however, going to talk about the three soldiers listed as missing in action on the Department of Defense website. He was referring to those who have been the victims of stop-loss, the device by which the president can, "in the event of war," choose to extend an enlistee's contract "until six months after the war ends." The "War on Terror" is this president's excuse for invoking that clause. Full Story
March 25, 2008 An American nuclear submarine has crossed the Suez Canal to join the US fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf, Egyptian sources say. Egyptian officials reported that the nuclear submarine crossed the canal along with a destroyer on Friday and Egyptian forces were put on high alert when the navy convoy was passing through the canal. An American destroyer recently left the Persian Gulf, heading towards the Mediterranean Sea; earlier on Thursday, a US Navy rescue ship crossed the canal to enter the Red Sea. The deployment comes as recent reports allege that US Vice President Dick Cheney is seeking to rally the support of Middle Eastern states for launching an attack on Iran. This is while US officials deny that Cheney's Mideast tour is linked to a possible military attack on Iran. According to the latest reports, in recent months a major part of the US Navy has been deployed in and around the Persian Gulf. Full Story
March 25, 2008 As I've indicated many times previously, the power elite wants a World Socialist Government, but how will they get the people of the U.S. to accept Socialism? Well, first there will have to be a crisis. For example, today oil and commodity (e.g., corn) prices are skyrocketing (the price of wheat has tripled in the past 10 months). And with increased demand from China, India, etc., global demand will eventually outrun supply. This crisis will lead to calls for "National Planning" similar to that under FDR in the 1930s. In order to control populations, the power elite obviously has to be able to track them. This will be reminiscent of the 1930s in which the Nazis would request I.D. by saying, "Papiere, bitte" (Papers, please) of those under its control. Everyone also had an Arbeitsbuch containing her or his personal demographic, educational, occupational, etc. information. Today in Communist China, a similar document is the "Dangan." And by 2017 A.D., all British citizens will have a National I.D. card. Full Story
March 25, 2008 Montana governor Brian Schweitzer declared victory Friday after the Department of Homeland Security sent his state an extension to the Real ID act, despite his insistence Montana will never comply with a mandate he describes as a "boondoggle." "If I were writing the headline, it would be 'DHS Blinks," Schweitzer, a Democrat, told THREAT LEVEL by phone late Friday. Montana's attorney general sent DHS chief Michael Chertoff a letter (.pdf) Friday outlining the security features in Montana's current driver's licenses, which DHS threatened to reject as valid I.D. for boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings come May 11 unless the state promised to comply with Real ID. DHS responded by interpreting that letter as a request for an extension (.pdf) of the Real ID deadlines until 2010, reversing its previous position that Montana ID cards would be rejected by federal agents. "I sent them a horse and if they want to call it a zebra, that's up to them," Schweitzer said. "They can call it whatever they want, and it wasn't a love letter." Full Story
March 24, 2008 A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000. The grim milestone came on a day when at least 61 people were killed across the country. Rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone, underscoring the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups despite an overall lull in violence. The attacks on the Green Zone probably stemmed from rising tensions between rival Shiite groups and were the most sustained assault in months against the nerve center of the U.S. mission. Full Story
March 24, 2008 The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a tragedy - for Iraq, for the US, for the UN, for truth and human dignity. I can only see one gain: the end of Saddam Hussein, a murderous tyrant. Had the war not finished him he would, in all likelihood, have become another Gadafy or Castro; an oppressor of his own people but no longer a threat to the world. Iraq was on its knees after a decade of sanctions. The elimination of weapons of mass destruction was the declared main aim of the war. It is improbable that the governments of the alliance could have sold the war to their parliaments on any other grounds. That they believed in the weapons' existence in the autumn of 2002 is understandable. Why had the Iraqis stopped UN inspectors during the 90s if they had nothing to hide? Responsibility for the war must rest, though, on what those launching it knew by March 2003. Full Story
March 24, 2008 When Congress passed the Patriot Act in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, law-enforcement agencies hailed it as a powerful tool to help track down the confederates of Osama bin Laden. No one expected it would end up helping to snag the likes of Eliot Spitzer. The odd connection between the antiterror law and Spitzer's trysts with call girls illustrates how laws enacted for one purpose often end up being used very differently once they're on the books. The Patriot Act gave the FBI new powers to snoop on suspected terrorists. In the fine print were provisions that gave the Treasury Department authority to demand more information from banks about their customers' financial transactions. Congress wanted to help the Feds identify terrorist money launderers. But Treasury went further. It issued stringent new regulations that required banks themselves to look for unusual transactions (such as odd patterns of cash withdrawals or wire transfers) and submit SARs-Suspicious Activity Reports-to the government. Facing potentially stiff penalties if they didn't comply, banks and other financial institutions installed sophisticated software to detect anomalies among millions of daily transactions. Full Story
