And don't you forget it...

Historical fact: Independence Day is a celebration of freedom from government tyranny

Mike Adams

Happy July 4th, my fellow Americans. It's the Independence Day weekend! Independence from what, you might ask? As even the somewhat revisionist history taught in public schools readily admits, July 4th is a celebration of independence from government tyranny under British rule.

And what kind of government tyranny, specifically? Well, the kind that involves warrantless searches of peoples' homes, where government agents could just waltz right into your private home for no reason and conduct a search without even getting a court-issued warrant. That was a form of government terrorism waged against the people, and when the USA declared its independence from British rule, it adopted a new rule at home that specifically forbade such tyrannical government actions.

That rule is called The Fourth Amendment. It protects citizens from illegal searches and seizures undertaken by a tyrannical lawless government.

Yet, sadly, in just the last decade, the U.S. government has now thrown out the Fourth Amendment and is back to operating exactly like the British tyrants we defeated to earn our independence in the first place! Now in the United States, TSA agents at the airport conduct illegal searches of travelers on a routine basis, with no search warrants issued, no just cause and no legal justification whatsoever. The TSA has become to modern-day America what the British tyrants were to the colonials in the 18th century.

But it gets even better. Today, police in Indiana now have the court-affirmed "right" to conduct warrantless house-to-house searches without any just cause whatsoever. The state supreme court there has ruled that police no longer need warrants to break into private homes and search them for anything they want, at any hour, for any reason! (http://www.naturalnews.com/032485_I...)

Even worse, courts are also ruling that you cannot resist an unlawful entry into your home by a police officer -- even if that police officer is committing a crime by breaking into your home! (http://www.naturalnews.com/032435_F...)

Police brutality is now so widespread and common across the U.S. that police are beating, arresting, tasering and charging speech-impaired teenagers with resisting arrest! (http://www.prisonplanet.com/police-...)

Some police, it turns out, are so uneducated that they interpret a speech impediment as some kind of mockery or "disrespect."

Not all cops are bad, of course. Most cops are hard-working citizens who perform a thankless job for wildly insufficient pay. They put their lives on the line to help keep our local communities safe, and they deserve our thanks for that effort. But increasingly, the bad cops seem to be losing their cool and forgetting they are supposed to serve the public, not terrorize the public like some sort of badge-wearing gang of government thugs....

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032883_Independence_Day_government_tyranny.html#ixzz1R3WKawga

A blast from the recent past: Ron Paul on fascism coming to America...

Ron Paul: U.S. moving toward "soft fascism."

Think for yourself...

Stop Listening to Propaganda and Start Thinking for Yourself

You have been told so many lies that you no longer know what the truth is. For many people, perhaps most people that is exactly the scary truth. You have been told the national security is at stake so the military spending needs to be maintained if not expanded. You have been told that there is a social security trust fund to protect you when you retire. You have been told that public education is just as good as private education. You have been told a weaker currency is good for the economy because it helps develop the export market. You have been told that financing a country is not the same as financing a family home or a business. You have been told that turning corn into fuel will not affect food prices.

Tim Geithner is trying desperately to convince everyone that NOT raising the debt ceiling will be catastrophic for America.

In the last U.S. election, most of the American public and indeed the world was mesmerized by Barack Obama’s rhetoric. The lies were so pervasive that the Nobel Prize committee gave the new president a Peace Prize.

WAKE UP!!

Yes people, WAKE UP!! And start THINKING for yourself.

When individuals stop listening to lies and start reading only the facts, they will discover through connecting the dots – thinking is that easy – that much of what they hear on the news about the government and Wall Street is propaganda.

I’ll explain some simple facts starting with my favourite lie known as “the weak currency is good theory”. Like MOST things that have a sliding scale of good on one end and bad on the other, this one is pretty easy to disprove. Ask yourself this simple question, “if the existing money in bank account declines in value (it takes more dollars to buy basic necessities), then am I better off or worse off”? Now ask yourself the opposite question, “If the existing money in my account grows in value (it takes less dollars to buy basic necessities), then am I better off or worse off”? Currencies work on a sliding scale from weak to strong. People who hold weak currencies are generally poor. People who hold strong currencies are generally not poor. Economic history clearly demonstrates that no country has ever achieved greatness nor maintained it by debasing its currency. Now let’s move on.

In America, your government spends more on its military than the rest of the world – combined! Do you think they are really under any threat of attack? Of course not, but there could be a threat in the future as I’ll explain, but let’s look at Mr Geithner’s debt ceiling first.

Good Ol’ Timmy is sounding the alarm trying to scare the pants off all the Members of Congress because they don’t think too clearly either. Ask yourself this simple question, “If I am in debt up to my eyeballs, will a bigger loan make the situation better or worse”?
Ah, now there’s the rub. Timmy and his gang of monetary thugs are telling everyone that they have a long term plan to pay down the debt and they will be able to implement it if only they are allowed to spend more money now.” The comedy really is divine.

If America allows the debt ceiling to be raised, as soon as interest rates start to rise – and they will eventually – then the servicing the debt will cripple the country. When that happens, the spending cuts will have to be even more dramatic than they would have to be today. It is very likely that the US Military would experience drastic cuts in both active personnel and active equipment. When this occurs, the US will be much more on par with the rest of the world militarily although they will still have far superior equipment and technology. It is at that time when America will experience a real threat, but not today. The European Union faces the exact same situation. It is probably inevitable that within a generation, the Chinese will rule the world militarily. Fighting a false threat will bring on a real threat – like I said, its comedy.

How about public education? Can it be as good as private? Think of it this way. Take a bunch of motivated parents who decide to hire some teachers to teach their children. If they are putting in the effort, they’ll hire the best teachers they can find while the bad ones will always be working in public education. These parents will also try hard to make the facilities good to learn in. Not only that, but these parents will also be more likely to make their kids work hard in school so that the money they spend on the education is not wasted. Public education simply cannot compete. It’s not the kids’ fault, its just the way it is. Most kids from drug addicted or alcohol abused families will be in public education and the odds are heavily against these kids. The important factor is your child’s future – don’t worry about equity when it comes to ensuring them a good future. If you can afford it in America, get your kids in private schools.

President Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, unilaterally declared war on Libya – how funny is that?

Now it’s time for more thinking on your part. Ask yourself this question, “If one of the directors of the social security program can’t come up with any differences between social security and a ponzi scheme – like the one run by Bernard Madoff – then is there a difference?”. We can thank Peter Schiff for exposing that one and you can watch it on YouTube.

On June 21, the US Senate killed a bill that would have ended the subsidies for ethanol. “Was this the right thing to do or the political thing to do?” That is your homework.

Link:
http://rockenomics.wordpress.com/

Song of the day: Wilco

Wilco - California Stars

Our elected officials cannot serve two masters...

Are These GOP Candidates Running For President of the U.S.—or Israel?

Although Sarah Palin was not among the seven Republican hopefuls who participated in the most recent June 13 GOP debates, she would have certainly found herself right at home with other high-profile politicians who have already pledged their allegiance to the Zionist agenda.

Aside from Ron Paul, the current lineup of pseudo-conservative presidential wannabes has demonstrated a biased affection for Israel at the expense of all other international relationships, and even over the best interests of the United States.

These Christian politicians even wear Israeli flag pins, yarmulkas and stars of David—whatever they can to convince Jewish voters and Christian Zionists they are on the side of Israel and “the chosen ones.”

As an example, ahead of declaring his candidacy for a 2012 presidential bid, Mitt Romney made a trip to Israel to stump for an endorsement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The former governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, has likewise vowed that the United States will “stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel” if he is elected president. He also recently criticized the Obama administration for “an astonishing unwillingness to stand by Israel at the UN.”

Newt Gingrich promises that if he becomes president, he will move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem despite the fact that the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and that Israel agreed, upon the founding of the nation, that Jerusalem would forever remain an open city outside of its direct jurisdiction.

During a recent interview, Herman Cain, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, stated, “let me tell you what the Cain doctrine would be, as it relates to Israel, if I were president: You mess with Israel, you are messing with the United States of America.”

In 2003, Rick Santorum suggested that federal funding should be cut to American universities that openly criticize Israel.

Last but not least is the most frightening statement of all coming from Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who told the Republican Jewish coalition: “I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States. . . .We have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play.”

You can rest assured that no matter which one of these dual loyalists is elected, Israel will continue to receive billions of dollars in foreign aid each year as American taxpayers are left footing the bill and Israel’s leaders will continue to receive standing ovations.

Link:
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/gop_candidates_running_276.html

"The NRC says there’s nothing to worry about. The flooding has “had no impact on the reactor shutdown cooling or the spent fuel pool cooling.”"

Radioactive Leak at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station

by Rady Ananda

Overwhelmed by the rising Missouri River, a 2000-foot stretch of a protective water balloon, surrounding the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska, collapsed at 1:25 AM on Sunday, June 26.

Two days earlier, Kansas State University reported an emergency when radiation leaked at 149 times the Derived Air Concentration (DAC) limit for Iodine during a trial run of its reactor.

Six and a half hours after the Ft Calhoun water berm collapsed, operators reported it to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, registering it as a “non-emergency.”

The NRC says there’s nothing to worry about. The flooding has “had no impact on the reactor shutdown cooling or the spent fuel pool cooling.”

Operating since 1973, Ft Calhoun filled its spent fuel cooling pool to capacity in 2006. The structure is 40 feet deep and 38 feet above ground. Ft Calhoun then built a dry cask storage facility, circled below, which the NRC says does not need the AquaDam water berm:

On June 15, we first posted news about the threat to Nebraska’s nuclear plants, amid an apparent media blackout on the story. On June 23, the AP released its report of a year-long investigation into US nuclear plants indicating that 75% of them leak radiation.

Indeed, when Kansas State U ran its research reactor for 25 minutes on June 24, air quality monitors sounded the alarm that Iodine radiation had exceeded the DAC limit by 149 times above allowable levels, prompting KSU to declare an emergency.

Though four different systems caught the excessive radiation levels, operators reported their belief that this was due to the proximity of a radioactive sample near the monitors. They did not disclose what kind of sample nor why it was near four different monitors, if that’s even possible. Plus, the sample they discuss showed Cesium, not Iodine.

On May 31, NRC Chief Gregory Jaczko defended the NRC against allegations it is too closely allied with plant operators. He cited several examples where plants were ordered to hasten work on long overdue safety measures and applauded the NRC for its “transparency and openness.”

That transparency and openness didn’t apply to the events at both Nebraska’s nuclear power plants until after our June 15 article. It took a week for the NRC to mention it.

On June 21, Jaczko reported that the NRC ordered Ft Calhoun to beef up its flood response plan last year. He is confident that “the plant is very well positioned to ride out the current extreme Missouri River flooding while keeping the public safe.”

That same statement was reissued on June 26 after the collapse of the water berm, which is clearly part of Ft Calhoun’s flood response plan, along with sandbags and a mound of earth piled around the plant.

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen says that “sandbags and nuclear power plants should not be in the same sentence.”

Keep in mind as these events unfold that nuclear power plants provide about 40 years of electricity while producing radioactive waste that lasts thousands of years. Despite this reality, the NRC is currently developing plans for safe storage of nuclear waste up to only 300 years. (See SECY-11-0029)

Chief Jaczko joins with Senator Harry Reid and President Obama in refusing to bury the nation’s nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, which has long been deemed unsafe. Funding for the project was cut in 2010, though the issue is still mired in litigation.

Off planet is the safest repository, given the danger posed to Earth by millennia of radioactivity. Professor Benjamin Sovacool calls nuclear energy the deadliest, costliest form of energy on record, showing that, on average, there has been one nuclear accident resulting in at least $330 million in damage every year for the past 30 years.

“The meltdown of a 500-megawatt reactor located 30 miles from a city would cause the immediate death of an estimated 45,000 people, injure roughly another 70,000, and cause $17 billion in property damage.”

That’s what we have at Ft Calhoun — a 500 MW reactor 20 miles north of Omaha.

Link:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25466

This is cool. The story behind Neil Young's After The Gold Rush album cover photo....

After the Gold Rush by Neil Young - Album Cover Location

The album cover.

The photo was taken by photographer Joel Bernstein, most likely sometime in early 1970, as the album came out in August of that year.

In the book: Shakey: Neil Young's Biography ((c) 2002, Random House) author Jimmy McDonough writes that Bernstein, 18-years-old at the time, was "shocked" that Neil chose that photo for the cover. Bernstein described it as an "accidental shot" of Neil walking through Greenwich Village (during an outdoor photo session) and he even "solarized the print in order to hide its soft focus."

(See Addendum #4 at the end of the site for more on this. Joel Bernstein explains in an email to PopSpots that when he said the shot was "accidental" -- the shot itself wasn't accidental - he saw the woman coming and wanted her in the shot -- it's just that he got the focus wrong in his haste to get her in frame.)

(Note: Be sure to view the other addendums, too. We have NEW UNEDITED IMAGES of the original photo by Joel Bernstein.)

The album's art direction and design were done by famous art director Gary Burden.

Read more:
http://www.popspotsnyc.com/afterthegoldrush/

Celebrating our enslavement...

Celebrating Independence Yet Enslaved To Debt

Every year when July 4th rolls around, Americans from coast to coast celebrate July 4th with cookouts, outdoor concerts and fireworks. We love celebrating Independence Day and yet we are deeply enslaved to debt. We like to think of ourselves as "free" and yet we have rolled up the biggest pile of debt the world has ever seen. The people that we have borrowed all of this money from expect to be paid. Sadly, instead of addressing the problem, we have been loading more debt on to the backs of future generations with each passing year. What we are doing to our kids and our grandkids is so immoral that is almost defies description. At the heart of this debt-based system stands the Federal Reserve. It is a perpetual debt machine that was designed to trap the U.S. government in a spiral of debt permanently. Today, the U.S. national debt is 4700 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913. This year alone, we will add more to the national debt than we did from the presidency of George Washington to the beginning of the presidency of Ronald Reagan. So yes, enjoy the hotdogs and the fireworks, but also remember that we will never be free as long as this constantly expanding debt problem is hanging over our heads.

Read more:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/celebrating-independence-yet-enslaved-to-debt

"...the Japanese crisis is not the only nuclear emergency that has occurred since March. Nor is it the only one to be ignored by the corporate media."

The Perfect (Radiation) Storm is Brewing

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

Ever since March 11, 2011, when the Japanese earthquake rattled the Asian country, there have been increasing numbers of strange coincidences involving nuclear power plants, natural disasters, and mismanagement of facilities. I say strange coincidences, because it now appears that nuclear power plants fall into the same category as the recent earthquakes that seem to be increasing in frequency and proximity to highly populated areas, as well as tornadoes that seem to be doing the same.

As for the Japanese situation, after months of claims by both the Japanese and American “authorities,” as well as the mainstream media that the situation in Japan was not as serious as “conspiracy theorists” were making it out to be, the Japanese Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters has finally been forced to admit that at least three of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had, indeed, melted down.

Of course, these admissions came well after the mainstream media had long since stopped reporting on the Japanese crisis. But the fact that the Japanese reactors had melted down is not news to those of us who no longer follow the mainstream media. Indeed, most readers of the independent media were well aware of the nuclear meltdowns in what was virtually real time.

Yet the Japanese crisis is not the only nuclear emergency that has occurred since March. Nor is it the only one to be ignored by the corporate media.

Just a week after Fukushima, I wrote an article regarding a report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) that Canada’s Ontario Power Generation had released radioactive water into Lake Ontario via a leak in the Pickering A nuclear generating station. Like the Japanese, the Canadian government deemed this accident to be of little consequence, even though Lake Ontario is the main source of drinking water for millions of people. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and the Canadian government even began using the term “demineralized” in place of “radioactive” when discussing the leak.

Fast forward to June and we now have three more nuclear power plants under threat from “natural” disasters. Ft. Calhoun, while receiving scant coverage by the mainstream media, is now surrounded by flood water from the Missouri river. The facility is a storage site for 20 years worth of nuclear waste material; specifically, spent fuel rods from different plants in the state as well at its own.

When asked about the safety concerns regarding the facility, Gary Gates, CEO of the Ft. Calhoun facility, said, “There is no water inside the plant. The reactor is covered with borated water. The spent fuel is covered with borated water, which we want it to be. That’s intentional. That’s where it should be. The floodwaters are outside Fort Calhoun, not inside.”

At this time, there is no concrete evidence that there has been a meltdown or radioactive leakage from the Ft. Calhoun plant. However, there are some suspicious occurrences at the facility. First, there was a fire in the switch room, but it is maintained that this fire was contained to the switch room and that it was not flood related. The fire did shut down the cooling pumps for about 90 minutes but the backup generators were quickly used to return power to the pumps.

Later, one of the berms holding back the flood waters mysteriously collapsed. Unfortunately, with the weather in Nebraska still wet and nasty, levees are still being breached and dams are still overflowing. Under these conditions, a damaged berm is something that Ft. Calhoun can ill afford.

Strangely, even though the “switch room fire” occurred on June 7th, the FAA had imposed a flight ban within a two mile radius of the nuclear plant. The FAA claims the flight ban is a result of the Missouri flooding; but, as Ricky Kreitner of the Business Insider points out, “[But] the FAA ban specifically lists the Forth Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant as the location for the flight plan.”

Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) spokesman Jeff Hanson stated that the flight ban is due to power lines and “security reasons that we can’t reveal.” Of course, the real reasons for the ban are unknown, but it is highly suspect that water and power lines on the ground have prompted a ban on traffic in the air.

Not only that, but the Red Cross shelter next to the Fort Calhoun facility has been closed, an odd thing to do in the event of an emergency. Particularly when the Red Cross is on location as a result of an emergency in the first place.

Regarding the Ft. Calhoun plant, Marvin Wolf, editor of Local Talk News writes:

The government is telling us not to panic. All is under control, just like in Japan. But here are a few troubling inconsistencies. One, the Red Cross shelter next to the Fort Calhoun plant has been closed. They claim it was due to “decreased need.” During a flood? Now there is a no-fly zone around the plant. Then there is the disturbing news that the spent fuel rod pool was so full that they store the surplus fuel rods in a dry storage area outside the safety of the pool. How long will that area stay dry and what happens if it gets wet? One reporter claims the dry storage bunker is now half-submerged. One of the intake structures is prone to flooding that could affect the water pumps. Non-functional water pumps? Does that sound familiar?

Wolf goes on to suggest that the Russians are claiming that there was a nuclear accident at the plant due to flooding and that the Obama administration has ordered a news blackout.

In addition to Ft. Calhoun, the Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownsville, Nebraska is also under a state of alert. Much like the Ft. Calhoun station, the Cooper Nuclear Station is under threat of being flooded out. This comes just days after two tornadoes ripped through the area.

We are also watching as a raging fire threatens the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The fire apparently started on Saturday in the Santa Fe National Forest and is now bearing down on the town and the lab. Not only are nuclear weapons tested in the lab, but there are approximately 20,000 barrels of discarded plutonium-related nuclear waste at the facility. A fire of this level at this particular facility could unleash devastating amounts of radioactive pollution. Even a loss of power to the facility could trigger a full-fledged emergency.

Naturally, one hopes that the Japanese and Canadians manage to get control over their power plant malfunctions. One also hopes that the floods recede and the fire goes out.

Yet, amid these hopes, one also begins to wonder if all this is more than just coincidence. After all, the first tell-tale signs of treachery is an attempt to cover it up.

Consider the track record of the corporate media, government agencies, and private facility owners just over the last few months.

We know that after the earthquake in Japan and the subsequent damage at Fukushima, the Japanese government actively covered up the extent of the damage from the international community, the press, and the Japanese people. In fact, the media and foreign governments, particularly the United States, aided them in doing so. The US government even went so far as to discourage Americans from purchasing potassium iodide supplements to protect themselves from the radiation coming across the ocean.

We also know that the Canadian government has been even more successful in covering up the pollution in Lake Ontario.

So, given this reputation, one would be justified in taking anything their government says with a grain of salt.

However, it is also true that an attempt to cover up an accident, mistake, or incompetence does not necessarily mean that the individual or agency attempting the cover up actually caused the incident. Even if the cover up is of a monumental scale.

But it certainly doesn’t help. And the fact that in the last few months so many nuclear facilities have come under threat from so-called natural disasters is starting to look a bit funny. After all, much of the flooding at Ft. Calhoun was caused by the government itself, in an apparent attempt to protect reservoirs.

As Wolf writes, “Keep in mind that some flooding was deliberately caused by the Army releasing water from reservoirs to protect them from failing. This has flooded levees. The Army has in the past dynamited levees to direct the water elsewhere – like where poor people live and work – to protect where rich people live and work.”

But the real question is whether or not this done as a necessity, an afterthought, or for a more sinister purpose altogether. Considering the fact that many governments now possess HAARP and similar technology that is capable of creating earthquakes, floods, and tornadoes as well as the fact that these governments rarely have the best interest of their citizens at heart, the idea of intentional destruction of nuclear facilities is not so far-fetched. It would certainly contribute to population reduction if all of this radiation combined with the Fukushima fallout and spread across the US. It would also provide an emergency situation that some would use to justify an even bigger police state and perhaps forced relocation.

It’s also interesting to note that, in the new Super 8 movie, there is a scene in which the US government deliberately sets a forest fire in order to force citizens out of the town and into military evacuation centers. In the movie, it was for the purpose of hiding secret government research. Was this predictive programming or just yet another coincidence?

Let me be clear – I’m not saying “the government did Fukushima” or “the government flooded Nebraska or set the fires in New Mexico.” But I am saying I don’t put it past them. I am saying it’s entirely physically possible. And I am saying these recent events have become a bit too coincidental to be ignored. Considering the track record, I don’t think we can afford to be naive...

Read more:
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/06/perfect-radiation-storm-is-brewing.html

OOPS!!!

Deep Snow Delaying Opening of Sunrise Area at Mount Rainier National Park

Too much snow will keep the Sunrise area in Mount Rainier National Park closed through the Fourth of July weekend and until at least July 8, according to park officials. Also, the White River Campground won't open until July 1.

Read more:
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2011/06/deep-snow-delaying-opening-sunrise-area-mount-rainier-national-park8356

'Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized the flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Campaign by saying it would "provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves."'

Washington Okays Attack on Unarmed US Ship
by Stephen Zunes

The Obama administration appears to have given a green light to an Israeli attack on an unarmed flotilla carrying peace and human rights activists — including a vessel with 50 Americans on board — bound for the besieged Gaza Strip. At a press conference on June 24, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized the flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Campaign by saying it would "provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves."

Clinton did not explain why a country had “the right to defend themselves” against ships which are clearly no threat. Not only have organizers of the flotilla gone to great steps to ensure there are no weapons on board, the only cargo bound for Gaza on the U.S. ship are letters of solidarity to the Palestinians in that besieged enclave who have suffered under devastating Israeli bombardments, a crippling blockade, and an oppressive Islamist government. Nor did Clinton explain why the State Department suddenly considers the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the port of Gaza to be “Israeli waters,” when the entire international community recognizes Israeli territorial waters as being well to the northeast of the ships’ intended route.

The risk of an Israeli attack on the flotilla is real. Israeli commandoes illegally assaulted a similar flotilla in international waters on May 31 of last year, killing nine people on board one of the vessels, including Furkan Dogan, a 19-year old U.S. citizen. Scores of others, including a number of Americans, were brutally beaten and more than a dozen others were shot but survived their wounds. According to a UN investigation, based on eyewitness testimony and analysis by a forensic pathologist and ballistic expert, Dogan was initially shot while filming the assault and then murdered while lying face down with a bullet shot at close range in the back of the head. The United States was the only one of the 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council to vote against the adoption of the report. The Obama administration never filed a complaint with the Israeli government, demonstrating its willingness to allow the armed forces of U.S. allies to murder U.S. citizens on the high seas.

As indicated by Clinton’s statement of last week, the administration appears to be willing to let it happen again.

Link:
http://original.antiwar.com/zunes/2011/07/01/washington-okays-attack-on-unarmed-us-ship/

#1 Prior to the beginning of the "War on Terror" our national debt was under 6 trillion dollars. Today, it has more than doubled and currently sits at a whopping 14.3 trillion dollars.

16 Reasons Why The United States Can No Longer Afford To Be The Police Of The World

The following are 16 reasons why the United States can no longer afford to be the police of the world....

#1 Prior to the beginning of the "War on Terror" our national debt was under 6 trillion dollars. Today, it has more than doubled and currently sits at a whopping 14.3 trillion dollars.

#2 Today, the U.S. military is in nearly 130 different nations and it has a total of about 700 military bases around the globe. It costs approximately 100 billion dollars each year to maintain these military bases.

#3 U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.

#4 The United States already accounts for 46.5% of all military spending on the planet. China is next with only 6.6%.

#5 If Bill Gates gave every penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.

#6 When you throw in all "off budget" items and other categories of "defense spending" not covered in the Pentagon budget you get a grand total of somewhere between $1.01 and $1.35 trillion spent on national defense in 2010.

#7 The U.S. government borrows an average of about 168 million more dollars every single hour.

#8 The Pentagon currently gobbles up 56 percent of all discretionary spending by the federal government.

#9 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.

#10 The cost for the first week of airstrikes on Libya was 600 million dollars. Keep in mind that the leader of the opposition in Libya has admitted that his forces contain large numbers of the same "al-Qaeda fighters" that were shooting at American troops in Iraq. So we are going broke and we are helping al-Qaeda take power in Libya at the same time.

#11 The total price tag for each F-22 fighter jet is approximately $350 million.

#12 Over the past decade, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S. taxpayers well over a trillion dollars.

#13 If you went out today and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you over 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#14 Since 2001, the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan breaks down to well over $3,600 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

#15 Just one day of the war in Afghanistan costs more money than it took to build the entire Pentagon.

#16 The United States government is now responsible for more than a third of all the government debt in the entire world.

The U.S. national debt is escalating out of control and all of these wars are not helping one bit.

Link:
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/16-reasons-why-the-united-states-can-no-longer-afford-to-be-the-police-of-the-world

This should read, false -flag attack. More bullshit threats to keep you scared and to destroy your liberty...

A Terror Attack This Weekend? FBI Gearing Up For Possible July Fourth Incident

The threat matrix that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement closely monitor to guard against terror attacks has ticked up in recent weeks as groups such as al Qaeda eagerly try to regroup from a series of leadership losses, including the killing of Osama bin Laden, federal officials say.
A Terror Attack This Weekend? FBI Gearing Up For Possible July Fourth Incident american flag wm

Officials caution that there is no specific, credible threat of an impending attack as Americans head into the Fourth of July holiday, but their growing caution is evidenced by a series of recent bulletins they’ve sent local law enforcement.

One bulletin last week disclosed that evidence found in bin Laden’s possession in May, when he was killed by U.S. special forces in Pakistan, indicated an interest in attacking Americans at major holiday gatherings, including Independence Day celebrations.

Read more if you can stand it:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/a-terror-attack-this-weekend-fbi-gearing-up-for-possible-july-fourth-incident.html

"A whole country has been conditioned to these summary body scans and pat downs, these invasions of bodily integrity that would have unlikely been tolerated in the era before 9/11, a memory that grows dimmer by the day."

TSA Abuses: Seeing the Forest and the Trees

by Anthony Gregory

The Transportation Security Administration is finally getting some of the bad publicity it deserves. We read about an elderly woman forced to remove her adult diaper to go through the screening process. We learn about a mentally disabled passenger deprived of his harmless toy by a sadistic policy, if not sadistic TSA agents. We see pictures of women and little children being felt up, all the while Americans stand by, seemingly helpless to do anything about such humiliations. A whole country has been conditioned to these summary body scans and pat downs, these invasions of bodily integrity that would have unlikely been tolerated in the era before 9/11, a memory that grows dimmer by the day.

Under Obama, conservatives once again pose as advocates of liberty, increasingly expressing outrage about TSA abuses. They are right to be angry. We could ask where they were almost ten years ago when their president, George W. Bush, oversaw the creation of this national monstrosity. More to the point, we should note that their critique hardly goes far enough and is somewhat misdirected.

The conservatives complain that grandmas and helpless children are being abused, and instead the TSA should pursue a more “common sense” policy that streamlines unthreatening people through a less-invasive process. Those who obviously don’t “look like a terrorist” shouldn’t be molested. Sounds good. But what many of them mean is that we need racial profiling, and that Arabs, Muslims, and those from questionable nations should undergo extra scrutiny. Yet this too is objectionable and absurd. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of such people fly in America regularly, and only an infinitesimal fraction are any threat. Why should the government subject innocent Arabs and Muslims to indignities and unreasonable searches without due process? On the other hand, British citizen Richard Reid, the attempted “shoebomber” of December 2001, didn’t look like a “typical” terrorist. He was of European and Jamaican descent. TSA agents are simply not equipped to discern who is a threat from who is not, and they never will be. There is no way to guarantee the total security conservatives have spent a decade demanding while preserving the liberty of everyday Americans.

The liberals are even more disgraceful. They spoke up for civil liberties under Bush, decrying the No-Fly list and other such depredations. Now many of them, suspicious of the conservative TSA critics, defend this terrible agency created by Bush and made worse under Obama. They even cheer as TSA agents vote to unionize, as though better compensating these federal employees or making them even harder to fire should be on the top-ten-thousand list of priorities for any humanitarian, as the left claims to be. Even worse, many left-liberals have denied that these screening procedures are intolerably invasive. Some have said those on the No-Fly list should be barred from gun ownership. The same liberals who fret about big business’s threats to the environment and consumer safety defend the TSA full-body-scanner, insisting the health risks are a total fantasy.

In March, USA Today reported that the TSA “would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation – 247 machines at 38 airports – after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.” The same government that many Americans trust to protect their health didn’t even bother to accurately test within an order of magnitude the radiation levels of its equipment before irradiating many millions of Americans and foreigners. And why should anyone be subjected to this risk, no matter how small? Ah yes, for the privilege to fly.

Some will say that this is simply the price we pay for security, but that is a complete illusion. According to ABC reporting last December, TSA diagnostics to determine how many weapons could be snuck past security found that some major airports had a failure rate of 70% and at some airports, "every test gun, bomb part or knife got past screeners." Nothing has improved since college student Nathaniel Heatwole snuck weapons onto a plane at Baltimore-Washington International Airport back in September 2003 and then emailed his story to the TSA, which took five weeks to find the contraband. A flustered top TSA official insisted, “Amateur testing of our [security] systems do not show us in any way our flaws. We know where the vulnerabilities are and we are testing them.” Eight years later, have they addressed these vulnerabilities? A determined terrorist, needless to say, could easily infiltrate a plane with weapons.

No wonder that when terrorists are stopped in their tracks – the shoebomber of 2001 and the underwear bomber of 2009, for example – they were frustrated by the private sector, flight crew and customers, and not by TSA. This has happened without major casualties inflicted on the innocent – unlike the case of Rigoberto Alpizar who in December 2005 was shot multiple times on a Miami runway by two Air Marshalls, who claimed the man had cried out he had a bomb, something none of the passengers corroborated. Moreover, when people actually stop a terrorist incident, it has nothing to do with mass invasions of the personal privacy of millions of airline customers.

Airlines have every reason to protect their property and their customers, which means private security – not as it was before 9/11, overseen by the FAA, but truly, completely private security – is the answer. (The recent resignation of the major FAA official due to the scandalous tendency of his air traffic controllers to be caught sleeping on the job indicates just how indispensible and crucial that agency is.)

In a free market for security, some airlines might have detailed screening processes. Others might allow guns on planes – another defensive approach that has been completely neglected. Whether airlines profile or not will be up to them, but customers will demand security without violations of their dignity, and the private sector, unlike government, has all the incentives to deliver on both fronts.

The myopic focus on planes is questionable to begin with. What about other, similarly vulnerable, public locations? Will they come to mirror the authoritarian atmosphere of the airports? The TSA has already terrorized Amtrak passengers and has its eyes set on other ground transportation – is this really the direction we want this country to go? Recently the agency was even involved at securing a high school prom.

The missing fact in most of the controversy is that TSA is neither truly designed nor institutionally structured to protect us. We are not really surrendering our gels, forgoing our bottled water, or taking off our shoes for our own good. That’s all a ruse. The TSA is an agency whose function, if not intended purpose, is to condition obedience and subservience into the population. It is an arm of the federal police state and cannot be reformed into anything else. It must be abolished totally and nothing short of that will bring liberty back to air travel.

Even more fundamentally, the media and talking heads – certainly the conservative opponents of TSA – forget why we have a terrorist threat, such as it is, in the first place: Because the U.S. government is waging imperial wars abroad, slaughtering children, propping up corrupt regimes, overthrowing governments, playing geopolitical favorites, cutting people off of international trade, and generally behaving as the biggest bully in the world. The blowback terrorism that results can never be stamped out so long as the wars continue. Those who criticize the TSA but defend the wars, and those who defend the TSA but question the wars, should recognize they are two sides of the same imperial coin. The same statism behind the degradation of domestic passengers is in play in the dehumanization of foreign civilians bombed from the sky. Washington, D.C., sees itself as master of our lives and ruler of the world. So long as we accept its pretensions to control the planet, we will be treated as imperial subjects are always treated: as mere cogs in the machine, disposable and malleable human livestock, at the very best.

History stuff...

Lies, As Usual

by Joseph Sobran

Bernard Shaw’s play The Devil’s Disciple ends with an ironic exchange between two British officers who have just realized that Britain is about to lose her American colonies because of a flukish oversight by the British cabinet.

Flabbergasted, the obtuse Major Swindon asks: “But what will history say?” General Burgoyne replies suavely: “History, sir, will tell lies, as usual.”

Americans, ever earnest about what “history” says, can’t bear to believe that some of their “great” presidents have been evil men. So it was probably inevitable that the aging historian-courtier Arthur Schlesinger Jr. should observe the end of the twentieth century by naming Franklin D. Roosevelt “Person of the Century.”

Like all those whose lips are still attached to FDR’s backside, Professor Schlesinger neglects to mention that FDR’s own lips were attached to Joe Stalin’s backside. In a near-miracle of distortion, he even manages to give the totally false impression that Roosevelt had something against Stalin.

Demurring from Time magazine’s choice of Albert Einstein as P of the C, Schlesinger asks: “But would science conceivably have flourished had Roosevelt not secured free society against ... external enemies? Where would Einstein be if Hitler and Stalin had triumphed?” (In Moscow, no doubt – but that’s another story.)

Sixty years ago, Schlesinger goes on, democracy was “besieged by Nazism, Communism, and Japanese militarism.” In that dark hour, “no person was more vital to the survival and success of the free state than FDR.... He strengthened democracy from without by leading the grand coalition that defeated the grim forces of atrocity and horror.... He labored to awaken the nation from its isolationist slumber and led us to understand the mortal threat posed by foreign dictators.” Schlesinger even gives FDR indirect credit for the eventual fall of Communism.

At this point, a familiar eight-letter synonym for bovine ordure irresistibly suggests itself. Roosevelt did denounce “dictators,” but not necessarily all of them. He made one important exception.

Franklin Roosevelt loved “Uncle Joe” Stalin, as he affectionately nicknamed him, as ardently as he hated Hitler. In his first year in office, just after Stalin had deliberately starved millions of Ukrainians, FDR gave the Soviet Union the diplomatic recognition it craved. He fatuously praised Stalin’s constitution for guaranteeing religious freedom. He ignored Stalin’s purges, excused his show trials, and forgave his aggression against five countries adjacent to Russia. He extended Lend-Lease aid to the Soviets before the United States actually went to war. Toward the end of the war, he was willing to give Stalin a free hand in Poland, where the war had begun with a joint German-Soviet invasion. Almost incredibly, he called the Communist butcher “a Christian gentleman.”

Stalin never had a better friend than FDR. And bear in mind that Roosevelt befriended him when he had already slaughtered far more people – and in peacetime! – than Hitler ever would in wartime. FDR’s jaunty callousness was a perfect match for Stalin’s jovial cruelty.

Contrary to liberal mythology, Roosevelt’s friendship with Stalin wasn’t just a necessity forced on him by war. It was something he freely chose when he had a choice, and it went far beyond any strategic need, beyond mere “appeasement.” He chose to help Stalin from a position of superior strength – long before his indulgence could be ascribed to age and illness. At least Neville Chamberlain never idealized Hitler as “Uncle Adolf.” Next to Roosevelt, Vidkun Quisling was a paragon of honor.

Joe McCarthy’s famous postwar rampage against Communists in government missed the point. Soviet agents like Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White were only doing on a smaller scale what FDR was doing on a gigantic one. No wonder commies thrived in the Roosevelt administration and the Manhattan Project. Can anyone really believe that Roosevelt would have begrudged a few secrets to Uncle Joe?

Roosevelt trusted Stalin, a fact of which Stalin took full advantage – rather like a spoiled child who steals from a doting grandparent. Never one to accept as a gift what he could steal with his own hands, Stalin’s shameless exploitation of his benefactor marks him as, among other things, Ingrate of the Century.

Yes, “history” – or at least one historian – is telling lies, as usual. But do they have to be such whoppers?

Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/sobran/sobran-j20.1.html

Song of the day: Beady Eye...

Beady Eye - Three Ring Circus [Live from Abbey Road]

Something to think about this 4th of July weekend...

Opposite Forms of Freedom on the Fourth
by Jacob G. Hornberger

I’d like to share two points about the Fourth of July that I believe are important:

First, the people who signed the Declaration of Independence were not American citizens, as is commonly believed. The people who took up arms against the British government were not fighting a foreign power. The revolutionaries were British citizens. They took up arms against their own government. They were shooting the troops rather than supporting them.

Why did they do that? Because they believed that their government was engaged in terrible wrongdoing. That wrongdoing is specified within the Declaration. They believed that when people’s own government is engaged in wrongdoing and persists in that wrongdoing, it is up the citizenry to take a stand against it.

There are undoubtedly those who consider the rebels to have been traitors — people who refuse to support their own government, especially in time of crisis and war. British government officials certainly considered George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and others who joined the Revolution to be criminals and traitors.

Not me. I consider the signers of the Declaration to have been the real patriots. It’s not easy to take a public stand against the wrongdoing of one’s own government.

For one thing, the dissidents must put up with all the nasty things that the good, little citizens hurl at them — the citizens who have the mindset of “my government, never wrong, especially in crisis and war.”

For another, there is the threat of retaliation from the government itself. We often forget that if Washington, Jefferson, and the others had lost, they would have been hanged as common criminals and traitors by British government officials, to the applause of all the good, little citizens who sided with their government in the conflict.

In fact, the easiest thing in the world — the thing that takes no courage at all — is to take the side of the government in times of crisis and war. What takes courage is to stand against it during such times. My favorite example of such courage is the story of the White Rose, where German young people had the courage to stand against their own government in the middle of World War II — and paid for it with their lives at the hands of their own government — for “treason.”

Second, the “freedom” that Americans today celebrate is opposite to the freedom that our American ancestors celebrated when they celebrated Independence Day every year. The reason I put the word in quotations is because I personally don’t consider it to be genuine freedom, but the fact is that most Americans today do.

Today, Americans define freedom as the extent to which the government is taking care of them, providing for them, and keeping them safe and secure from the likes of drug lords, terrorists, illegal aliens, and communists.

Consider the welfare state: Government provides people with retirement (Social Security), health care (Medicare and Medicaid), education (public schooling and education grants), farm subsidies, community grants, and many other programs that entail the government’s use of force to take money from whom it belongs in order to give it to people to whom it does not belong.

Consider the warfare state: 700-1000 military bases in some 130 countries, invasions, wars of aggression, undeclared wars, bombings, occupations, sanctions, embargoes, kidnapping, rendition, assassination, kangaroo tribunals, and the like. In a word, empire.

Consider the drug war, whereby the government wields the power to incarcerate people for ingesting non-approved substances, a 4-decade war that continues to wreak death, destruction, and corruption.

Consider the regulated society, in which governments at all levels regulate the most minute aspects of people’s lives, especially within the context of the so-called war on terrorism.

Consider the Federal Reserve and paper money, which involve a never-ending inflationary debasement of the value of people’s money in order to finance ever-burgeoning welfare-warfare state spending and debt.

Consider the income tax and the IRS, which suck money out of the pockets of those who have earned it in order to give it to those who haven’t earned it.

All this is considered “freedom” by modern-day Americans.

Not so with our American ancestors. Consider that for more than 100 years, they chose to live without income taxation, an IRS, a Federal Reserve, paper money, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, public (i.e., government) schooling, and other such socialistic programs.

No drug war for our ancestors. They believed that genuine freedom encompassed the right to ingest whatever one wants.

Also, for most of the first century of our nation’s existence our ancestors lived without militarism, a huge standing army, wars of aggression (the Mexican War being a notable exception), occupations, foreign military bases, a military industrial complex, kidnappings, torture, and assassination. In a word, they chose a republic, as compared to an empire.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention that our Americans ancestors also lived without immigration controls and gun control.

Why did they reject the things that present-day Americans celebrate as “freedom”? Because they believed that all the things that present-day Americans have brought into existence with their welfare state and warfare state were opposite to freedom. Since they wanted to be free, they chose not to adopt such programs when they founded the country.

Does the welfare-warfare state way of life constitute genuine freedom? Permit me to answer that question with the words of the great German thinker Johann von Goethe: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
Link:
http://www.fff.org/blog/index.asp

"...heavy users of soft drinks saw a staggering 500 per cent greater increase in their waist circumference, which is apparently equivalent to “a six-fold increase”."

Why thin people don't drink Diet Coke

Where I work there is a canteen serving espresso coffee and cold drinks. You probably have the same thing. You can buy espressos, lattes, cappucinos and there are a couple of glass-fronted fridges containing neat, gleaming rows of canned drinks. Many of these are caffeinated, sugar-free “energy drinks” such as Relentless (made by Coca-Cola). They’re tremendously popular and you often see people coming back to their desks carrying a can of Diet Coke or the variant in black and red livery that’s marketed to men, Coca-Cola Zero. I prefer coffee myself for everyday drinking. I think Coke is best used just once in a while, or medicinally – very cold, iced Coca-Cola is a superbly refreshing hangover elixir, for example.

Presumably those of us who choose sugar-free drinks do so because because we think we can guzzle them without getting fat. Some say they prefer the flavour. But today we read that these drinks, with their artificial sweeteners, actually make people fatter than if they’d stuck to the conventionally sweetened versions. Actually, “make” is not right – there’s a correlation but that doesn’t prove causation. The study, of 474 people over 10 years, found that the more of the so-called diet drinks people drank, the fatter they got. Their waists grew six times as quickly as the control group’s.

This is alarming for people who drink diet-drinks expecting that they will stay sylph-like, but it’s not new or particularly surprising. Nutritionists have been saying for a while that sweet drinks, even if they don’t contain any real sugar, may mess up the body’s mechanisms for controlling appetite, as well as, it is theorized, the insulin and blood glucose levels. How does it affect the body’s appetite regulators when your tastebuds send a message to your brain that you’ve just swallowed three quarters of a pint of energy-dense sugar solution, only for your body to discover a bit later that it has been fooled, and that none of the expected calories are available to burn as energy? This is just theoretical, of course. There could be other reasons for the expanding waistlines of the fizzy pop drinkers – such as that they eat lots of highly calorific foods.

These revelations will do nothing to dent our appetite for sweetness. We love sugar and stuff that tastes of sugar. We love it as children and these days we seem to carry on loving it in adulthood. You see this in, for example, the kinds of alcoholic drinks which we favour. Real men, international business trouble-shooters and the like, may still gulp Scotch from heavy cut-glass tumblers with nothing more than a drop of water to blunt the harshness of it. But many other adults find they can only tolerate spirits if they’re mixed with fizzy pop – Jack Daniels and Coke, or the myriad sweet mixtures based on vodka. In sweet solutions spirits can be guzzled freely. Even the good old gin and tonic is a pretty sticky concoction.

Those who are concerned about their weight might be wise to take note of the new research, I feel, especially the bit which showed that heavy users of soft drinks saw a staggering 500 per cent greater increase in their waist circumference, which is apparently equivalent to “a six-fold increase”. That seems hard to credit, but there we are. There is an alternative to soft drinks, of course, which is pure and natural and free of additives – water. That’s what I like to drink. Ice-cold, it’s delicious. You can gulp as much of it as you like. As for soft drinks – we have been warned. As Helen Hazuda, professor of clinical epidemiology at the Texas University School of Medicine, warns: these drinks “may be free of calories, but not of consequences”.

Link:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewmcfbrown/100094470/why-thin-people-dont-drink-diet-coke/

This guy was a Constitutional scholar?

Obama Loses His ‘Constitutional Law Professor Hat’
by Charles Davis

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama was a Distinguished Constitutional Scholar. As a president waging an illegal war? He’s just some guy who, gosh, isn’t really in a position to talk about that complex document he took an oath to uphold and defend.

At a press conference this week, NBC correspondent Chuck Todd — presumably under strict orders not to ask about Newsweek’s Princess Di cover – questioned the erstwhile legal scholar about whether he felt the War Powers Resolution, which forbids the president from deploying troops without congressional consent except in cases of imminent danger to national security, and even then for only 60 days, passed constitutional muster.

Well, the president replied, "I’m not a Supreme Court justice, so I’m not — I’m not going to put my constitutional law professor hat on here." And so he didn’t, declaring it irrelevant — "I don’t even have to get to the constitutional question" — as he was already abiding by the law in question, rejecting the claim his actions "in any way violate the War Powers Resolution."

But the president didn’t really want to get into legal specifics, other than to point out the that the resolution was passed in the wake of the Vietnam war and probably wasn’t intended to apply to countries merely having the shit bombed out of them by U.S. forces (like, say, Cambodia). There’s a reason Obama didn’t want to put on his "constitutional law professor hat" during the press conference: he lost it during the 2008 campaign.

Back then, ages ago I know, Obama had no qualms addressing thorny legal issues concerning executive power. "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation," he told The Boston Globe.

You can see how such become inconvenient when you’re the one unilaterally authorizing the wars.

Obama also probably didn’t want to delve into the details because, when not reading the War Powers Resolution with the special goggles handed out to die-hard Democratic loyalists, it’s quite clear — indisputable, really — that the Obama administration is violating the letter of the law. Contrary to administration claims, bombing a country and trying to assassinate its leader most certainly do qualify as acts of war, or "hostilities" in the resolution’s terminology. And it’s most certainly the case that by helping its NATO allies do the same, U.S. forces are being asked to "command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany the regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country or government," and that there’s an "imminent threat" that those forces "will become engaged," all of which triggers the War Powers Resolution. That means Obama’s roughly three-month old war is, if it wasn’t illegal from the start, explicitly so since the 60-day limit on non-congressionally authorized troop deployments expired a month ago.

As for all those complaining about the blatant illegality of the latest and greatest humanitarian bombing campaign — what Obama called the "noise about process and congressional consultation and so forth" — the president declared it was much ado about nothing. "I’ve had all the members of Congress over to talk about it," he patiently explained, maintaining U.S. involvement in the war he once said would last "days, not weeks," had. "So a lot of this fuss is politics."

Politicians being politicians, the president’s assessment is no doubt partially true, though it’s a two-edged sword as Obama’s own unwillingness to seek what almost certainly would have been easy congressional approval of the Libya war back in March likewise had a lot to do with politics. Seeking congressional approval may have spurred a wider debate about the wisdom of entering yet another war at a time when social programs at home are being slashed and Americans are increasingly tired of being known only for burgers and bombs, and seeking an authorization to use force may have required Obama to lay out an endgame scenario — an actual plan — rather than platitudes about freedom and America’s uniquely heroic role in world affairs.

"We have engaged in a limited operation to help a lot of people against one of the worst tyrants in the world, somebody who nobody should want to defend," Obama added during the press conference, bravely taking on the influential Gaddafi Lobby in Washington. "[W]e should be sending out a unified message to this guy that he should step down and give his people a fair chance to live their lives without fear. And — and this suddenly becomes the cause celebre for some folks in Congress? Come on."

Got that? Dissent aids the enemy. Unity is Strength. The rule of law is a campaign slogan, nothing more. And Barack Obama is George W. Bush.

Link:
http://original.antiwar.com/charles-davis/2011/06/30/obama-loses-his-constitutional-law-professor-hat/

OOPS!!! The cooling of the earth must be caused by global warming...yeah, right...

Freak cold weather grips southern Brazil

The southern parts of Brazil, a tropical country, have been stricken by cold snaps since Monday, driving down temperatures to record-low levels and bringing snow in some areas, a local weather service has reported.

The weather monitoring department of Santa Catarina state said the temperature fell to 8.8 Celsius degrees below zero in the small town of Urupema on Tuesday, while in Cambara do Sul, in Rio Grande do Sul state, along the southern border, the temperature dropped to minus 6.2 degrees.

The three cities of the southern region on Tuesday also recorded record-low temperatures for the year, and the lowest temperature was monitored in Curitiba, capital of Parana state, where the temperature hovered around one degree above zero.

In Sao Paulo state, in the southeastern region, temperatures also fell to record-low levels: in Sao Paulo, the state capital, the mercury fell to 2.3 degrees, the lowest since 2003, and in Campos do Jordao, a mountainous town, the temperature dropped to 3.8 degrees below zero, the lowest since 1998.

Several towns of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina even had snow on Monday.

The weather service predicted that the cold weather would stay for the next few days, and there would be fresh snow in some areas.

Link:
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=701008&publicationSubCategoryId=200

"Smart Meters also appear to be very much influenced by Agenda 21."

Smart Meters: Privacy Issues, Radiation, Electronic Pollution, And More

By Aaron McCollum




Smart Meters are yet another tool of Command & Control by those who have their tentacles of power over those of us trying to live a life free of corruption, pollution and elitist rule.

These devices are infesting the homes and businesses of Americans across the nation and the option of not having one is almost always not an option at all.

To put it bluntly, Smart Meters are yet another Big Brother tool that can actually monitor you in your home by way of knowing when and how long you are on your computer, when you go into a room by way of the light switches, when you have armed your security system and even when you have left or come home when your garage door is activated.

Recent private studies have shown that these meters give off levels of RF Radiation which on a long term exposure will damage the body. The meters can also be operated remotely by the power company in order to turn your power off in the comfort of their office with a quick click of the computer mouse.

It has even been said that some have discovered some of these meters containing other types of monitoring capabilities built into them.

All the major power companies are implementing the “upgrade” installation of these meters and YOU will have NO choice according to them. My Wife and I dealt with this when we moved into our place.

I raised hell with Southern California Edison power company. The answer I got was basically this “The Smart Meter is installed or you get no service. Period.”.

I was IRATE! Millions of people in this corrupt country are being forced to have these installed to replace the old analog meters and most will not even receive any notice prior.

Meredith and I have done a lot of research into Smart Meters and have found some very troubling information. So troubling that we are currently doing everything we can with our resources to get off the power grid completely. So what is the supposed justification for these Smart Meters?

Freedom Through Preparedness With Prepared.Pro(Ad)

One that power companies and even the Department of Energy say is that it will save the consumer on their electric bill. BULLSHIT!! California is the epicenter where these Meters began and has become a serious issue with locals.

Even if people don’t believe any of the things these Meters do, they are pissed about the fact that these Meters have actually been the cause of the average monthly electric bill in California to increase from $200 to even $500 more a month!

If you are not informed about these Meters then I have loads of resources for you to have a look at.

Meredith told me tonight she heard about a little experiment that was conducted where a person had wrapped her Smart Meter with layers of Aluminum foil and the outcome was the power company showing up at the person’s door on the same day telling her to remove the foil.

If this is indeed true then how exactly does it effect this meter and why the uproar from the big business power company? Is there more to the devices than being made public?

Either way it sounds interesting enough that we are going to wrap ours with Aluminum foil in many layers and to make it really secure I will make sure it is all in place with my aluminum duct tape. We will have the camera on standby just in case.

So now it is up to you to review all the information I am about to provide. I have seen enough as has my Wife for us to be firm on wanting our meter removed and we will be taking the steps to do so.

When a big company creates a device that is endorsed by a federal government department and the word “Smart” is included in the name, it is never a good idea.

Furthermore Meredith and I find it interesting that at the same time these meters started appearing was when nationwide the push to switch from analog television to digital was taking place.

Smart Meters also appear to be very much influenced by Agenda 21.

Link:
http://theintelhub.com/2011/06/30/smart-meters-privacy-issues-radiation-electronic-pollution-and-more/

"At a time when the American people have been asked to tighten their belts, teachers are receiving pink slips, the vital statistics of the American people reveal a health care crisis in the making, and the U.S. government is in serious threat of default, our President and Congress have decided that a new war, this time against the people of Libya, is appropriate."

What America Stands for in Libya
Cynthia McKinney

At a time when the American people have been asked to tighten their belts, teachers are receiving pink slips, the vital statistics of the American people reveal a health care crisis in the making, and the U.S. government is in serious threat of default, our President and Congress have decided that a new war, this time against the people of Libya, is appropriate. This comes at a time when the U.S., by one estimate, spends approximately $3 billion per week for war against Iraq and Afghanistan. The President and Congress continue to fund the war against Libya despite the fact that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the U.S. had no strategic interest in Libya; and despite the fact that the Senate Chairwoman of the Select Committee on Intelligence admits that the U.S. really does not know who the "rebels" are; while the rebels themselves, according to a Telegraph report of 25 March 2011, admit that Al Qaeda elements are among their ranks. So while the apparatus of our government has been used for over ten years to inform the American people and the global community that Al Qaeda is an enemy of freedom-loving people all over the world, our President chooses to ally our military with none other than Al Qaeda elements in Libya and other people whom U.S. intelligence say they do not know.

Additionally, U.S. Admiral Locklear admitted to a Member of Congress that one of NATO�s missions was to assassinate Muammar Qaddafi. And, indeed, NATO bombs have killed Qaddafi�s son and three grandchildren, just as US bombs in 1986 killed his daughter. NATO bombs just recently killed the grandchildren of one of Qaddafi�s associates in a targeted assassination attempt. Targeted assassination is not within the scope of the United Nations Security Council Resolution and targeted assassination is against U.S. law, international law, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law. Targeted assassination is also a crime. We certainly cannot encourage others to abide by the law when we so openly break it.

While in Libya, I witnessed NATO�s targeting of civilians: NATO bombs and missiles landed in residential neighborhoods, hit schools, exploded near hospitals, destroyed parts of the public broadcasting infrastructure, and narrowly missed killing students at Al Fateh University. When civilians are targeted in war, or "low kinetic" activities, (1) crimes are committed.

NATO practices in Libya are exactly like Israel�s practices in Gaza: fishermen are killed as they go about their fishing business, a naval blockade allows arms to flow to NATO�s Libyan allies, but stops food, fuel, and medicine from entering non-NATO ally-held areas. The entire population suffers as a result. Collective punishment is illegal when Israel practices it against the people of Gaza and collective punishment is illegal when NATO practices it.

NATO and hyperbolic press accounts have introduced a kind of race hatred that the Libyan people have been trying hard to erase. Approximately 50% of Libya looks like me. Innocent darker skinned Libyans have been targeted, tortured, harassed, and killed.

The people of Libya have the right to self-determination. They have a right to "resource nationalism." They have a right to live in peace. They have a right to determine their future and they need not exercise their rights underneath the shock and awe of NATO bombs and missiles.

Link:
http://uruknet.com/?p=m79116&hd=&size=1&l=e

The Judge tells it like it is...

The Dogs of Debt in the Dog Days of Summer

How come Americans are so stupid but others around the world can see what happened on 9/11?

Building 7 - The Smoking Gun of 9/11

I know I've posted this before, but it needs to reposted...

The 9/11 Documentary You Can't Debunk

OOPS!!!

Farce of the wind farms: Power produced drops 6% after calmest year this century

Some of Britain's most beautiful landscapes are blighted by wind farms that will not generate enough electricity for the future.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has released figures which show a six per cent fall in the amount of electricity produced by Britain's onshore wind farms.

The department blames a drop in wind, revealing that 2010 was the calmest year this century, with onshore turbines producing only 1.9 per cent of all electricity in 2010, compared with two per cent the year before...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2010156/Where-wind-Six-cent-drop-power-UK-wind-farms-lowest-wind-speeds-CENTURY.html#ixzz1QrmMonYu

No Shit!!!

Fed’s Massive Stimulus Had Little Impact: Greenspan

By: Margo D. Beller

The Federal Reserve's massive stimulus program had little impact on the U.S. economy besides weakening the dollar and helping U.S. exports, Federal Reserve Governor Alan Greenspan told CNBC Thursday.

In a blunt critique of his successor, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Greenspan said the $2 trillion in quantative easing over the past two years had done little to loosen credit and boost the economy.

"There is no evidence that huge inflow of money into the system basically worked," Greenspan said in a live interview.

"It obviously had some effect on the exchange rate and the exchange rate was a critical issue in export expansion," he said. "Aside from that, I am ill-aware of anything that really worked. Not only QE2 but QE1."

Greenspan’s comments came as the Fed ended the second installment of its bond-buying program, known as QE2, after spending $600 billion. There were no hints of any more monetary easing—or QE3—to come...

Read more:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43598606

Gerald Celente on the IMF...

Gerald Celente: 'IMF - International Mafia Federation'

Nuclear propaganda...

British Government Devised Propaganda Campaign To Downplay Fukushima

Paul Joseph Watson

Just 48 hours after the onset of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, the British government devised a propaganda campaign to downplay the severity of the crisis, a talking point that was hastily parroted by leading global warming alarmist George Monbiot.

“Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK,” reports Rob Edwards.

“We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear,” wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith labeled the complicity between the government and the nuclear industry in downplaying the crisis “appalling,” while Greenpeace’s Louise Hutchins said the emails provided evidence of “scandalous collusion”.

“Anti-nuclear people across Europe have wasted no time blurring this all into Chernobyl and the works,” said the BIS official in another email. “We need to quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl.”

While this PR blitz was being coordinated, we now know that the Japanese government was deliberately lying about the severity of the radiation release from Fukushima in an effort to conceal the fact that the crisis was already on a par with Chernobyl.

Within just two weeks of the earthquake and tsunami that crippled the nuclear plant, the amount of radiation released from Fukushima already rivaled that of Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster up until that point.

Reactors number 1 was also in meltdown just hours into the disaster, but this was denied for months by the authorities...

Read more:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/british-government-devised-propaganda-campaign-to-downplay-fukushima.html

"Washington will simply take and throw your wealth and promised benefits at the problem thus buying them more time with your wealth..."

Where Will You Go When the Sovereign Debt Volcano Blows?

by Ron Holland

...Although you may have some time, nothing else has to happen before a big collapse could take place, even within days. Consequently, after 30 years of watching, writing and creating protective retirement planning and financial strategies, today I'm finally going to yell "FIRE" inside the closed 'financial iron curtain" which is America.

If you have failed to store your precious metals outside the US, diversify out of the dollar or reduce or terminate your private retirement plan, there is now a clear danger of a Washington dollar and sovereign debt crisis which could sweep away most of your remaining wealth and financial security.

I do not have a crystal ball or inside political information on a specific imminent threat, only the observation that the sovereign debt crisis from Europe, a debt ceiling misstep from the clowns in Washington or a Middle East event could suddenly trigger the collapse. Actually any major political or economic shock could bring the Madoff style Ponzi scheme, which Greenspan and Bernanke have created, down almost overnight on top of us.

This will likely happen over a weekend and the following Monday morning you could wake up to Presidential Executive Orders "means testing" you out of Social Security benefits if you still have substantial retirement benefits or personal savings. You'll likely discover an end to your home interest deductions, new confiscatory taxes and restrictions on US gold and silver, controls on moving private wealth and funds to safety offshore and dramatic hikes in taxes and cuts in government programs. In addition, spiking inflation rates, violence and massive protests will immediately follow these confiscatory actions and cutbacks. You can also expect severe banking and stock market liquidity restrictions, or closures, and this will only be the beginning. In short your wealth will be trapped in dollars and locked up for the duration of the emergency inside the American jurisdiction.

Therefore if you haven't already prepared for this type of crisis contingency ahead of time, I'm telling you there will be little you can do after the fact. Washington will simply take and throw your wealth and promised benefits at the problem thus buying them more time with your wealth...

Read more:
http://lewrockwell.com/holland/holland48.1.html

"Thanks to DC’s dictatorship, the Tenth Amendment has received more of a work-out during the last decade than in all the other years since Appomattox put together."

The Tenth and the TSA

by Becky Akers

Last week, Ohio’s "GOP-controlled Senate" passed a resolution that "would place an issue on the November ballot … prohibit[ing] any law from forcing Ohioans to participate in a health care system." The measure now heads to Ohio’s House. It needs 60 votes there, which seems likely since "Republicans hold 59 out of 99 seats."

Ohioans are probably shaking in their boots lest the proposition pass. Sure, it could save them from dying in wretched, government-controlled hospitals, but what if the Feds retaliate by closing all the doctor’s offices in the state? Or, horror of horrors, they could declare Ohio a "No-Health Zone."

Those fears probably resonate with Texans. After all, Obama’s goons threatened to ground aviation in the state and turn the place into a "No-Fly Zone" last month when its legislature toyed with prohibiting the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from sexually assaulting passengers.

If the Feds again rise to such extortion (they can’t stoop to it since they’re already lower than a maggot’s hindquarters), let’s hope Ohio’s legislature shows more gumption than Texas’ did -- but don’t count on it: the only difference between the weasels in Austin and Columbus is 1200 miles.

Given Texas’ tyrants’ craven caving, you might think no state had defied the Feds since Abraham Lincoln butchered Southerners for doing so. But the reality is just the opposite. Thanks to DC’s dictatorship, the Tenth Amendment has received more of a work-out during the last decade than in all the other years since Appomattox put together.

First came the REAL ID Act, an attempt from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to turn states’ driver’s licenses into a national ID. It’s doubtful the unconstitutionality – of either driver’s licenses or REAL ID -- bothered any governor, but the expense of bringing his Bureau of Motor Vehicles into line with the DHS’s decrees certainly did. To date, 19 states have "rejected" REAL ID.

Obamacare faces a similar revolt. Whether states legislate to void medical fascism within their borders a la Ohio or whether they join the lawsuits against it, they’re defying the central government.

So Texas and the other four states hoping to forbid the TSA’s groping have plenty of company as they try to diminish federal depredations on their citizens. And Texas was off to a solid start last month – a noteworthy achievement since punishing Leviathan’s lackeys for their atrocities is rarer among politicians than fidelity to their spouses...

Read more:
http://lewrockwell.com/akers/akers157.html