By Will Glovinsky
7/29/2009
Supporters of a ballot initiative that would create a second, independent 9/11 investigative commission are awaiting the City Clerk’s certification of 52,000 signatures submitted on June 24 by the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now, or NYC CAN. The decision could bring the measure to the City Council for a vote and, if approved, the referendum would appear on this November’s ballot.
“This could be one of the most important ballot referendums ever put to city voters because of what happened, the nature of the event, the scale of it — and because so many questions were unanswered,” said Kyle Hence, a spokesperson for NYC CAN.
Before the initiative reaches voters, however, it still faces a series of hurdles, the certification decision being only the first. The City Clerk must certify that at least 30,000 signatures belong to registered New York City voters, although NYC CAN’s leaders are confidant that they can supply enough additional signatures if necessary. Another 15,000 signatures may also be needed to override a veto by City Council.
Seizing upon the comments by Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, co-chairpersons of the original 9/11 Commission, that their investigation was “set up to fail,” NYC CAN argues that the original 9/11 Commission was a flawed investigation marred by reticent government agencies and inconsistent testimony. The group proposes a new subpoena-powered commission of mostly private citizens (the list in the petition does include former Senators Lincoln Chafee and Mike Gravel), which proponents say would pursue the remaining questions aggressively and independently.
The new commission would try to find answers for all of the questions initially posed by the Family Steering Committee, the group of victims’ family members that lobbied for the creation of the original 9/11 Commission. However, Ted Walters, executive director of NYC CAN, said that the terrorists’ funding and the military’s failure to intercept the hijacked jetliners were especially high priorities for a new investigation.
“We’re talking about a serious failure to comply with protocols,” he said, referring to the failure of military interceptors.
The new commission would also investigate the illnesses that have afflicted survivors, first responders and local residents and workers in the eight years since the attacks. On its Web site, NYC CAN says that first responders have been unable to draw benefits from the World Trade Center Captive Insurance Company, which was set up by the government to underwrite medical costs for injured parties.
The Coalition for Accountability Now reflects an effort to unify and legitimize a broad spectrum of interests that have questioned the government’s ability to investigate itself. Working with an issue that has fostered a bevy of conspiracy theorists, NYC CAN takes pains to clarify on its Web site that its commission would be impartial and start with zero assumptions.
Walters did say that the new commission would follow a more aggressive investigative strategy than the first commission, which issued subpoenas for Pentagon and White House documents only after it encountered stiff resistance from government officials.
“The first step, on Day One, would be to draw up a list of everybody they want to interview, and issue the subpoenas at the beginning,” Walters said. He added that, in addition to mandating testimony from tight-lipped government officials, subpoenas would also provide a legal green light for people who want to share information but cannot without an explicit order to do so.
William Pepper, legal counsel for NYC CAN and a slated commissioner if the referendum is approved, said that despite the municipal mandate of the commission, its subpoena power would, in effect, range far beyond the city line.
“Subpoenas are honored by other districts,” said Pepper. “If a witness refuses to appear, the subpoena could be converted to another court. There may well be challenges, but I think legally they can be overcome.”
Walters explained that if the commission were to meet the same kind of resistance that the original investigation encountered, attention could be directed at the persons or agencies that were not forthcoming.
“There will be a dichotomy of those who want to testify and those who don’t,” he said.
Regarding the work of the original 9/11 Commission, Walters said that one of his major concerns was its refusal to hold any entity accountable for failing to fulfill its duty.
“There were structural failures,” he said, referring to the tangled bureaucracy that slowed the military’s immediate response to the attack, “but there were also individual failures.”
Although Walters insisted that the new commission would not be a witch hunt, he said he would be surprised if it did not ultimately hold anyone responsible. He noted that the petition’s language charges the commission to “seek indictments” where prudent, meaning the commission could work in tandem with prosecutors’ offices.
“Ultimately, what our justice system does with the findings of the commission is beyond our control,” Walters said. “Changes will be made through political pressure rather than legal obligation.”
The “set up to fail” comment by Kean and Hamilton is from their 2006 book, “Without Precedent,” which details the internal workings of the 9/11 Commission and criticizes the Federal Aviation Administration, the military command and House Republicans for obstructing the commission’s investigation.
Another 9/11 Commission member, Bob Kerrey, former Nebraska senator and current president of The New School, has also spoken out about the commission’s work, specifically the difficulty of discerning the truth from information obtained through terrorism suspects who were subjected to “enhanced interrogation.” Kerrey, who could not be reached for this article, was quoted in a March Newsweek essay saying that it might take “a permanent 9/11 commission” to answer remaining questions.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Lackawanna residents happy 'crazy' Cheney plan was axed
Officials and residents in Lackawanna, New York -- the Buffalo suburb that was the home of the Lackawanna Six convicted terrorists -- are happy that Vice-President Dick Cheney's push to use the US military to arrest the men was shot down.
In an article in the Buffalo News, Lackawanna Mayor Norman L. Polanski Jr. said he “wouldn’t expect anything less of the Bush administration ... We didn’t need the military coming in.”
RAW STORY reported Friday that Vice-President Dick Cheney wanted to use the military to arrest the five members of the Lackawanna Six who were on US soil in 2002, when the terrorist cell was disrupted.
“If you bring in the military, you create a panic,” Lackawanna Police Captain Ronald Miller told the News. “If you look at our history, the military, the National Guard, are brought in during times of extreme emergency, like [Hurricane] Katrina and securing New York City after 9/11.”
Cheney's idea was "kind of crazy," resident Bobby Green told the News.
'MILITARY JUSTICE VS. THE RULE OF LAW'
Peter J. Ahearn, a retired FBI agent who was in charge of the bureau's Buffalo office at the time of the Lackawanna Six arrests, told the News that he and then-US Attorney Michael Battle both "strenuously disagreed" with the notion that the Lackawanna Six should be designated as "enemy combatants."
“There was a lot of armchair quarterbacking going on, people outside the FBI who just didn’t understand the process and the law, and that included the Department of Defense, the CIA and others,” the News quoted Ahearn as saying.
He said the issue boiled down to "military justice versus the rule of law.”
Ahearn said the use of military forces to arrest the suspects -- all US citizens -- would have violated the law, specifically the long-standing Posse Comitatus Act that forbids the use of the US military on domestic soil.
“There was the Department of Justice and the FBI that were basically saying this was an issue of rule of law. Why would we be doing this when we are inside the borders of the United States and this is domestic? Treating them as combatants, to me, was unnecessary. They were American citizens.”
But Ahearn gave credit to President George W. Bush, who he said was "in the middle" of the tug-of-war over Cheney's proposal, and ultimately decided against it.
"The president absolutely made the right decision," Ahearn said.
-- Daniel Tencer
In an article in the Buffalo News, Lackawanna Mayor Norman L. Polanski Jr. said he “wouldn’t expect anything less of the Bush administration ... We didn’t need the military coming in.”
RAW STORY reported Friday that Vice-President Dick Cheney wanted to use the military to arrest the five members of the Lackawanna Six who were on US soil in 2002, when the terrorist cell was disrupted.
“If you bring in the military, you create a panic,” Lackawanna Police Captain Ronald Miller told the News. “If you look at our history, the military, the National Guard, are brought in during times of extreme emergency, like [Hurricane] Katrina and securing New York City after 9/11.”
Cheney's idea was "kind of crazy," resident Bobby Green told the News.
'MILITARY JUSTICE VS. THE RULE OF LAW'
Peter J. Ahearn, a retired FBI agent who was in charge of the bureau's Buffalo office at the time of the Lackawanna Six arrests, told the News that he and then-US Attorney Michael Battle both "strenuously disagreed" with the notion that the Lackawanna Six should be designated as "enemy combatants."
“There was a lot of armchair quarterbacking going on, people outside the FBI who just didn’t understand the process and the law, and that included the Department of Defense, the CIA and others,” the News quoted Ahearn as saying.
He said the issue boiled down to "military justice versus the rule of law.”
Ahearn said the use of military forces to arrest the suspects -- all US citizens -- would have violated the law, specifically the long-standing Posse Comitatus Act that forbids the use of the US military on domestic soil.
“There was the Department of Justice and the FBI that were basically saying this was an issue of rule of law. Why would we be doing this when we are inside the borders of the United States and this is domestic? Treating them as combatants, to me, was unnecessary. They were American citizens.”
But Ahearn gave credit to President George W. Bush, who he said was "in the middle" of the tug-of-war over Cheney's proposal, and ultimately decided against it.
"The president absolutely made the right decision," Ahearn said.
-- Daniel Tencer
Friday, July 24, 2009
A new trend in climate alarmism
By David Evans
July 16, 2009
Senator Steve Fielding recently asked the [Australian] Climate Change Minister Penny Wong why human emissions can be blamed for global warming, given that air temperatures peaked in 1998 and began a cooling trend in 2002, while carbon dioxide levels have risen five per cent since 1998. I was one of the four independent scientists Fielding chose to accompany him to visit the Minister.
The Minister's advisor essentially told us that short term trends in air temperatures are irrelevant, and to instead focus on the rapidly rising ocean heat content:
Figure 1: Wong's graph.
This is the new trend in climate alarmism. Previously the measure of global warming has always been air temperatures. But all the satellite data says air temperatures have been in a mild down trend starting 2002. The land thermometers preferred by the alarmists showed warming until 2006, but even they show a cooling trend developing since then.
(Land thermometers cannot be trusted because, even in the USA, 89 per cent of them fail siting guidelines that they be more than 30 meters from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source, and their data is forever being "corrected".)
Ocean temperatures were not properly measured until mid-2003, when the Argo network became operational.
Before Argo, ocean temperatures were measured with bathythermographs (XBTs)—expendable probes fired into the water by a gun from ships along the main commercial shipping lanes. Geographical coverage of the world's oceans was poor, XBTs do not go as deep as Argo, and their data is much less accurate.
The Argo network consists of over 3,000 small, drifting oceanic robot probes, floating around all of the world's oceans. Argo floats duck dive down to 1,000 meters or more, record temperatures, then come up and radio back the results.
Figure 2: The Argo network has floats measuring temperature in all of the oceans.
Figure 3: An Argo float descends to cruising depth, drifts for a few days, ascends while recording temperatures, then transmits data to satellites.
The Argo data shows that the oceans have been in a slight cooling trend since at least late-2004, and possibly as far back as mid-2003 when the Argo network started:
Figure 4: Ocean heat content from mid 2003 to early 2008, as measured by the Argo network, for 0-700 metres. There is seasonal fluctuation because the oceans are mainly in the southern hemisphere, but the trend can be judged from the highs and lows. (This shows the recalibrated data, after the data from certain instruments with a cool bias were removed. Initial Argo results showing strong cooling.)
Josh Willis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in charge of the Argo data, said in March 2008: "There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant".
The ocean data that the alarmists are relying on to establish their warming trends is all pre-Argo, from XBTs. Now that we are measuring ocean temperatures properly, the warming trend has disappeared. And by coincidence, it disappeared just when we started measuring it properly!
Notice how the Minister's graph above shows rising ocean heat content for 2004 through 2006, but the Argo data shows a cooling trend? There is a problem here.
The Argo data is extraordinarily difficult to find on the Internet. There is no official or unofficial website showing the latest ocean temperature. Basically the only way to get the data is to ask Josh Willis (above). The graph above come from Craig Loehle, who got the data from Willis, analysed it, and put the results in a peer reviewed paper available on the Internet. Given the importance of the ocean temperatures, don't you think this is extraordinary?
If the Argo data showed a warming trend, don't you suppose it would be publicised endlessly?
So what's going on? Our best data, from satellites and Argo, says that both the air and oceans have not warmed for at least five years now. In the short term, some cooling force is overpowering the warming due to human emissions.
Let's look at the long-term trend. The medieval warm period around AD 1000 - 1300 was a little warmer than now: crops grew in Greenland, and there were many signs around the world of extra warmth during that period. That gave way to the bitter cold of the little ice age from 1400 to 1800: animals in Europe died from cold even inside barns, and the River Thames in London would freeze over every winter (it last froze over in 1804).
Global air temperatures have been rising at a steady trend rate of 0.5°C per century since about 1750, as the world recovers from the little ice age:
Figure 5: Reasonable global air temperature data only goes back to 1880. This analysis into a steady rising trend and oscillations is simply an empirical observation, by Dr Syun Akasofu. The IPCC predictions are their widely publicised 2001 predictions.
On top of that trend are oscillations that last about 30 years in each direction:
1882 - 1910 Cooling
1910 - 1944 Warming
1944 - 1975 Cooling
1975 - 2001 Warming
In 2009 we are where the green arrow points in Figure 5, with temperature levelling off and beginning to fall slightly. The pattern suggests that the world has entered a period of cooling until about 2030.
The long-term trend suggests that the last warming period (1975-2001) was like the previous one (1910-1944), and that once the effects of the little ice age have finally passed, the temperature will get back to where it was in the medieval warm period (which is also where it was during the Roman Optimum, and in the Holocene optimum before that).
What about human influence? Human emissions of CO2 were virtually non-existent before 1850, and were insignificant compared to current levels until after 1945.
It is worth bearing in mind that there is no actual evidence that carbon dioxide was the main cause of recent warming—it's only an assumption, and the calculations of future temperature rises derive most of their warming from an assumed water vapor feedback for which there is only counter-evidence.
Dr David Evans worked for the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005, building the carbon accounting model that Australia uses to track carbon in its biosphere for the purposes of the Kyoto Protocol. He is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University.
July 16, 2009
Senator Steve Fielding recently asked the [Australian] Climate Change Minister Penny Wong why human emissions can be blamed for global warming, given that air temperatures peaked in 1998 and began a cooling trend in 2002, while carbon dioxide levels have risen five per cent since 1998. I was one of the four independent scientists Fielding chose to accompany him to visit the Minister.
The Minister's advisor essentially told us that short term trends in air temperatures are irrelevant, and to instead focus on the rapidly rising ocean heat content:
Figure 1: Wong's graph.
This is the new trend in climate alarmism. Previously the measure of global warming has always been air temperatures. But all the satellite data says air temperatures have been in a mild down trend starting 2002. The land thermometers preferred by the alarmists showed warming until 2006, but even they show a cooling trend developing since then.
(Land thermometers cannot be trusted because, even in the USA, 89 per cent of them fail siting guidelines that they be more than 30 meters from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source, and their data is forever being "corrected".)
Ocean temperatures were not properly measured until mid-2003, when the Argo network became operational.
Before Argo, ocean temperatures were measured with bathythermographs (XBTs)—expendable probes fired into the water by a gun from ships along the main commercial shipping lanes. Geographical coverage of the world's oceans was poor, XBTs do not go as deep as Argo, and their data is much less accurate.
The Argo network consists of over 3,000 small, drifting oceanic robot probes, floating around all of the world's oceans. Argo floats duck dive down to 1,000 meters or more, record temperatures, then come up and radio back the results.
Figure 2: The Argo network has floats measuring temperature in all of the oceans.
Figure 3: An Argo float descends to cruising depth, drifts for a few days, ascends while recording temperatures, then transmits data to satellites.
The Argo data shows that the oceans have been in a slight cooling trend since at least late-2004, and possibly as far back as mid-2003 when the Argo network started:
Figure 4: Ocean heat content from mid 2003 to early 2008, as measured by the Argo network, for 0-700 metres. There is seasonal fluctuation because the oceans are mainly in the southern hemisphere, but the trend can be judged from the highs and lows. (This shows the recalibrated data, after the data from certain instruments with a cool bias were removed. Initial Argo results showing strong cooling.)
Josh Willis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in charge of the Argo data, said in March 2008: "There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant".
The ocean data that the alarmists are relying on to establish their warming trends is all pre-Argo, from XBTs. Now that we are measuring ocean temperatures properly, the warming trend has disappeared. And by coincidence, it disappeared just when we started measuring it properly!
Notice how the Minister's graph above shows rising ocean heat content for 2004 through 2006, but the Argo data shows a cooling trend? There is a problem here.
The Argo data is extraordinarily difficult to find on the Internet. There is no official or unofficial website showing the latest ocean temperature. Basically the only way to get the data is to ask Josh Willis (above). The graph above come from Craig Loehle, who got the data from Willis, analysed it, and put the results in a peer reviewed paper available on the Internet. Given the importance of the ocean temperatures, don't you think this is extraordinary?
If the Argo data showed a warming trend, don't you suppose it would be publicised endlessly?
So what's going on? Our best data, from satellites and Argo, says that both the air and oceans have not warmed for at least five years now. In the short term, some cooling force is overpowering the warming due to human emissions.
Let's look at the long-term trend. The medieval warm period around AD 1000 - 1300 was a little warmer than now: crops grew in Greenland, and there were many signs around the world of extra warmth during that period. That gave way to the bitter cold of the little ice age from 1400 to 1800: animals in Europe died from cold even inside barns, and the River Thames in London would freeze over every winter (it last froze over in 1804).
Global air temperatures have been rising at a steady trend rate of 0.5°C per century since about 1750, as the world recovers from the little ice age:
Figure 5: Reasonable global air temperature data only goes back to 1880. This analysis into a steady rising trend and oscillations is simply an empirical observation, by Dr Syun Akasofu. The IPCC predictions are their widely publicised 2001 predictions.
On top of that trend are oscillations that last about 30 years in each direction:
1882 - 1910 Cooling
1910 - 1944 Warming
1944 - 1975 Cooling
1975 - 2001 Warming
In 2009 we are where the green arrow points in Figure 5, with temperature levelling off and beginning to fall slightly. The pattern suggests that the world has entered a period of cooling until about 2030.
The long-term trend suggests that the last warming period (1975-2001) was like the previous one (1910-1944), and that once the effects of the little ice age have finally passed, the temperature will get back to where it was in the medieval warm period (which is also where it was during the Roman Optimum, and in the Holocene optimum before that).
What about human influence? Human emissions of CO2 were virtually non-existent before 1850, and were insignificant compared to current levels until after 1945.
It is worth bearing in mind that there is no actual evidence that carbon dioxide was the main cause of recent warming—it's only an assumption, and the calculations of future temperature rises derive most of their warming from an assumed water vapor feedback for which there is only counter-evidence.
Dr David Evans worked for the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005, building the carbon accounting model that Australia uses to track carbon in its biosphere for the purposes of the Kyoto Protocol. He is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University.
DHS plans massive, five-day ‘terrorism prevention’ exercise Share on Facebook By Agence France-Presse
Law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the United States and abroad are preparing to go on high alert as part of a massive terrorism prevention exercise — the first of its kind here.
Beginning Monday, security officials at all levels in the United States and four other countries will scramble into action in the wake of a fictional terrorist attack somewhere outside the United States.
The scenario envisions the receipt of intelligence that a follow-up attack is planned inside the United States, forcing agencies inside and out of the country to test their coordination, intelligence and terror prevention skills.
The National Level Exercise 2009 “will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery,” the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said in a statement.
The US government regularly carries out preparedness exercises, dealing with crises ranging from natural disasters to terrorist attacks.
The 2009 exercise will include agencies in Britain, Mexico, Canada and Australia, as well as federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector officials throughout the United States, the Department of Homeland Security said.
“Coordinating with our partners across the United States and around the world is critical to protecting the nation from terrorists attacks,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
“The National Level Exercise allows us to test our capabilities in real-time to refine and strengthen our strategies for preventing terrorist attacks.”
The exercise is expected to last for five days and is being designed to test a variety of “capabilities,” including intelligence sharing, counter-terrorism investigation, border security, infrastructure protection, security alerts and international coordination, FEMA said.
“Lessons learned from the exercise will provide valuable insights to guide future planning for securing the nation against terrorist attacks, disasters, and other emergencies,” the emergency response agency said.
I Hate Bank of America – You should too!
i didn't write this, i just agree 110%
I tried to spread the word over that poor soul who was arrested for checking on (asking if someone else’s BoA check was good) a fraudulent check he was given in a craigslist scam months ago.
But here’s a reason to hate them even if you don’t bank with them. If you’re in a pickle and use one of their ATMs, it costs you $5 to take out your $20. – $3 ATM fee and $2 out of network fee but, they only have the decency to tell you about one of them. The other will just be a little surprise for you later on. Enjoy.
Avoid Bank of America.
(Interesting tidbit, banks make more on fees than on interest. How crazy is that)?
UPDATE: Tear up that Credit Card!
How does Bank of America reward its loyal customers? By jacking up their interest rates!! Yay.
This is not only for those who have fallen behind on their payments or whose credit scores have dropped but for any customer whatsoever. BofA sent letters to its customers saying that they would more than double their interest rates to as much as 28% without giving an explanation for the raise in rates.
Business Week calls it, “a credit card you want to toss.” We couldn’t agree more.
I hope the next advertising tagline is: “Bank of America the scourge of the banking industry.” They can afford to be truthful. No one can do anything about such a behemoth.
I tried to spread the word over that poor soul who was arrested for checking on (asking if someone else’s BoA check was good) a fraudulent check he was given in a craigslist scam months ago.
But here’s a reason to hate them even if you don’t bank with them. If you’re in a pickle and use one of their ATMs, it costs you $5 to take out your $20. – $3 ATM fee and $2 out of network fee but, they only have the decency to tell you about one of them. The other will just be a little surprise for you later on. Enjoy.
Avoid Bank of America.
(Interesting tidbit, banks make more on fees than on interest. How crazy is that)?
UPDATE: Tear up that Credit Card!
How does Bank of America reward its loyal customers? By jacking up their interest rates!! Yay.
This is not only for those who have fallen behind on their payments or whose credit scores have dropped but for any customer whatsoever. BofA sent letters to its customers saying that they would more than double their interest rates to as much as 28% without giving an explanation for the raise in rates.
Business Week calls it, “a credit card you want to toss.” We couldn’t agree more.
I hope the next advertising tagline is: “Bank of America the scourge of the banking industry.” They can afford to be truthful. No one can do anything about such a behemoth.
JFK and the Unspeakable
Oliver Stone
7/23/2009
The murder of President Kennedy was a seminal event for me and for millions of Americans. It changed the course of history. It was a crushing blow to our country and to millions of people around the world. It put an abrupt end to a period of a misunderstood idealism, akin to the spirit of 1989 when the Soviet bloc to began to thaw and 2008, when our new American President was fairly elected.
Today, more than 45 years later, profound doubts persist about how President Kennedy was killed and why. My film JFK was a metaphor for all those doubts, suspicions and unanswered questions. Now an extraordinary new book offers the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance. That book is James Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. It is a book that deserves the attention of all Americans; it is one of those rare books that, by helping us understand our history, has the power to change it.
The subtitle sums up Douglass's purpose: Why He Died and Why it Matters. In his beautifully written and exhaustively researched treatment, Douglass lays out the "motive" for Kennedy's assassination. Simply, he traces a process of steady conversion by Kennedy from his origins as a traditional Cold Warrior to his determination to pull the world back from the edge of destruction. Many of these steps are well known, such as Kennedy's disillusionment with the CIA after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, and his refusal to follow the reckless recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. (This in itself was truly JFK's shining moment in the sun. It is likely that any other president from LBJ on would have followed the path to a general nuclear war.) Then there was the Test Ban Treaty and JFK's remarkable American University Speech where he spoke with empathy and compassion about the Soviet people, recognizing our common humanity, the fact that we all "inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."
But many of his steps remain unfamiliar: Kennedy's back-channel dialogue with Khrushchev and their shared pursuit of common ground; his secret opening to dialogue with Fidel Castro (ongoing the very week of his assassination); and his determination to pull out of Vietnam after his probable re-election in 1964.
All of these steps caused him to be regarded as a virtual traitor by elements of the military-intelligence community. These were the forces that planned and carried out his assassination. Kennedy himself said, in 1962, after he read Seven Days in May, which is about a military coup in the United States, that if he had another Bay of Pigs, the same thing could happen to him. Well, he did have another "Bay of Pigs"; he had several. And I think Kennedy prophesied his own death with those words.
Why does it matter? The death of JFK remains a critical turning point in our history. Those who caused his death were targeting not just a man but a vision -- a vision of peace. There is no calculating the consequences of his death for this country and for the world. Those consequences endure. To a large extent, the fate of our country and the future of the planet continue to be controlled by the shadowy forces of what Douglass calls "the Unspeakable." Only by unmasking these forces and confronting the truth about our history can we restore the promise of democracy and lay claim to Kennedy's vision of peace.
But don't take my word for it. Read this extraordinary book and reach your own conclusions.
7/23/2009
The murder of President Kennedy was a seminal event for me and for millions of Americans. It changed the course of history. It was a crushing blow to our country and to millions of people around the world. It put an abrupt end to a period of a misunderstood idealism, akin to the spirit of 1989 when the Soviet bloc to began to thaw and 2008, when our new American President was fairly elected.
Today, more than 45 years later, profound doubts persist about how President Kennedy was killed and why. My film JFK was a metaphor for all those doubts, suspicions and unanswered questions. Now an extraordinary new book offers the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance. That book is James Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. It is a book that deserves the attention of all Americans; it is one of those rare books that, by helping us understand our history, has the power to change it.
The subtitle sums up Douglass's purpose: Why He Died and Why it Matters. In his beautifully written and exhaustively researched treatment, Douglass lays out the "motive" for Kennedy's assassination. Simply, he traces a process of steady conversion by Kennedy from his origins as a traditional Cold Warrior to his determination to pull the world back from the edge of destruction. Many of these steps are well known, such as Kennedy's disillusionment with the CIA after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, and his refusal to follow the reckless recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. (This in itself was truly JFK's shining moment in the sun. It is likely that any other president from LBJ on would have followed the path to a general nuclear war.) Then there was the Test Ban Treaty and JFK's remarkable American University Speech where he spoke with empathy and compassion about the Soviet people, recognizing our common humanity, the fact that we all "inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."
But many of his steps remain unfamiliar: Kennedy's back-channel dialogue with Khrushchev and their shared pursuit of common ground; his secret opening to dialogue with Fidel Castro (ongoing the very week of his assassination); and his determination to pull out of Vietnam after his probable re-election in 1964.
All of these steps caused him to be regarded as a virtual traitor by elements of the military-intelligence community. These were the forces that planned and carried out his assassination. Kennedy himself said, in 1962, after he read Seven Days in May, which is about a military coup in the United States, that if he had another Bay of Pigs, the same thing could happen to him. Well, he did have another "Bay of Pigs"; he had several. And I think Kennedy prophesied his own death with those words.
Why does it matter? The death of JFK remains a critical turning point in our history. Those who caused his death were targeting not just a man but a vision -- a vision of peace. There is no calculating the consequences of his death for this country and for the world. Those consequences endure. To a large extent, the fate of our country and the future of the planet continue to be controlled by the shadowy forces of what Douglass calls "the Unspeakable." Only by unmasking these forces and confronting the truth about our history can we restore the promise of democracy and lay claim to Kennedy's vision of peace.
But don't take my word for it. Read this extraordinary book and reach your own conclusions.
U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rise by 30,000 to 554,000
By Courtney Schlisserman
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week from a six- month low as distortions caused by shifts in the timing of auto- plant shutdowns subsided.
Applications rose by 30,000 to 554,000 in the week ended July 18, in line with forecasts, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. Claims had fallen by 93,000 over the previous two weeks. The number of people collecting unemployment insurance decreased to the lowest level in three months, also reflecting seasonal issues surrounding closures at carmakers.
“The numbers have come down but they still have a ways to go down before the bleeding of jobs is over,” said Andrew Gretzinger, a senior economist at MFC Global Investment Management in Toronto, who had forecast 555,000 claims. “The labor market is still weak and is going to remain that for some time to come.”
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke this week said unemployment was the “most pressing issue” facing policy makers aiming to stem the worst recession in five decades. The loss of jobs threatens to undermine consumer spending and represents a “downside risk” to the economy, he said. An analyst at Labor said claims will probably remain volatile for another week.
Economists forecast claims would increase to 557,000 from a previously reported 522,000 for the prior week, according to the median of 44 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from 500,000 to 600,000.
Stock Futures
Stock-index futures advanced as San Jose, California-based EBay Inc. and Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford Motor Co. reported better-than-estimated results and investors speculated a report today may show home resales increased. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.3 percent to 952.00 at 9 a.m. in New York.
The four-week moving average of jobless claims, a less- volatile measure than weekly initial claims, declined to 566,000, the lowest level since January, from 585,000.
The level of continuing claims decreased by 88,000 to 6.23 million in the week ended July 11, the lowest since April, from 6.31 million.
The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits, which tends to track the jobless rate, held at 4.7 percent in the week ended July 11.
Forty-one states and territories reported an increase in new claims, while 12 reported a decrease. These data are reported with a one-week lag.
Payrolls Report
Today’s figures coincide with the week the Labor Department conducts its survey for the monthly payrolls report. U.S. employers have eliminated 6.5 million positions since the recession began in December 2007, the most of any downturn since the Great Depression.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg earlier this month project the jobless rate will exceed 10 percent by early 2010, even as the worst of the job cuts may have passed.
Bernanke this week said that while the economy is showing “tentative signs of stabilization” the central bank intends to maintain a “highly accommodative” monetary policy for “an extended period.”
“Job insecurity, together with declines in home values and tight credit, is likely to limit gains in consumer spending,” Bernanke said in testimony before Congress. “The possibility that the recent stabilization in household spending will prove transient is an important downside risk to the outlook.”
Job Cuts
Air Products & Chemicals Inc., the world’s largest hydrogen producer, yesterday said it will cut more jobs and close more plants to reduce expenses. Chief Executive Officer John McGlade is eliminating an additional 1,150 jobs, or 6 percent of the workforce, as the global recession trims demand.
“While we are still seeing the impact of the global recession on our volumes, we’ve seen signs of improvement during this quarter in some of our end markets, particularly in electronics and Asia,” McGlade said in a statement.
Jobless claims tend to be volatile in late June and July, when automakers typically halt production and idle workers to re-equip factories to build new models. General Motors Co. and Chrysler LLC halted production earlier than usual this year as they worked through bankruptcy proceedings.
GM emerged from bankruptcy this month and Chrysler did the same in June.
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week from a six- month low as distortions caused by shifts in the timing of auto- plant shutdowns subsided.
Applications rose by 30,000 to 554,000 in the week ended July 18, in line with forecasts, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. Claims had fallen by 93,000 over the previous two weeks. The number of people collecting unemployment insurance decreased to the lowest level in three months, also reflecting seasonal issues surrounding closures at carmakers.
“The numbers have come down but they still have a ways to go down before the bleeding of jobs is over,” said Andrew Gretzinger, a senior economist at MFC Global Investment Management in Toronto, who had forecast 555,000 claims. “The labor market is still weak and is going to remain that for some time to come.”
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke this week said unemployment was the “most pressing issue” facing policy makers aiming to stem the worst recession in five decades. The loss of jobs threatens to undermine consumer spending and represents a “downside risk” to the economy, he said. An analyst at Labor said claims will probably remain volatile for another week.
Economists forecast claims would increase to 557,000 from a previously reported 522,000 for the prior week, according to the median of 44 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from 500,000 to 600,000.
Stock Futures
Stock-index futures advanced as San Jose, California-based EBay Inc. and Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford Motor Co. reported better-than-estimated results and investors speculated a report today may show home resales increased. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.3 percent to 952.00 at 9 a.m. in New York.
The four-week moving average of jobless claims, a less- volatile measure than weekly initial claims, declined to 566,000, the lowest level since January, from 585,000.
The level of continuing claims decreased by 88,000 to 6.23 million in the week ended July 11, the lowest since April, from 6.31 million.
The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits, which tends to track the jobless rate, held at 4.7 percent in the week ended July 11.
Forty-one states and territories reported an increase in new claims, while 12 reported a decrease. These data are reported with a one-week lag.
Payrolls Report
Today’s figures coincide with the week the Labor Department conducts its survey for the monthly payrolls report. U.S. employers have eliminated 6.5 million positions since the recession began in December 2007, the most of any downturn since the Great Depression.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg earlier this month project the jobless rate will exceed 10 percent by early 2010, even as the worst of the job cuts may have passed.
Bernanke this week said that while the economy is showing “tentative signs of stabilization” the central bank intends to maintain a “highly accommodative” monetary policy for “an extended period.”
“Job insecurity, together with declines in home values and tight credit, is likely to limit gains in consumer spending,” Bernanke said in testimony before Congress. “The possibility that the recent stabilization in household spending will prove transient is an important downside risk to the outlook.”
Job Cuts
Air Products & Chemicals Inc., the world’s largest hydrogen producer, yesterday said it will cut more jobs and close more plants to reduce expenses. Chief Executive Officer John McGlade is eliminating an additional 1,150 jobs, or 6 percent of the workforce, as the global recession trims demand.
“While we are still seeing the impact of the global recession on our volumes, we’ve seen signs of improvement during this quarter in some of our end markets, particularly in electronics and Asia,” McGlade said in a statement.
Jobless claims tend to be volatile in late June and July, when automakers typically halt production and idle workers to re-equip factories to build new models. General Motors Co. and Chrysler LLC halted production earlier than usual this year as they worked through bankruptcy proceedings.
GM emerged from bankruptcy this month and Chrysler did the same in June.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Kucinich: ‘Is the Fed paying banks not to loan money?’
Update (at bottom): White House does not know how TARP funds were used
House Domestic Policy Subcommittee plans probe of TARP funds
Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich wants to know: “If [the Troubled Asset Relief Program] isn’t about keeping people in their homes or providing credit to businesses, what is it for?”
Expressing his frustration before the Government and Oversight Committee, the two-time presidential candidate suggested that the Federal Reserve may be paying banks to hoard money and avoid making loans.
Before the committee — which assembled Tuesday to hear the testimony of Neil Barofsky the Special Inspector General for TARP, along with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke — Kucinich wondered aloud if “banks are parking a historic amount of taxpayers’ money in the Federal Reserve while the businesses and consumers across America are starved for credit,” and whether the Federal Reserve is paying banks to avoid making loans.
“Is the Fed paying banks NOT to loan money?” a Kucinich media advisory pondered.
To support his line of questioning, he cited a Bloomberg report which noted that “banks’ excess reserves at the Fed rose to a record $877.1 billion daily average in the two weeks ended May 20, from $2 billion a year earlier.
“Excess reserves — money available for lending that banks choose to leave with the Fed instead — averaged $743.9 billion in the first two weeks of this month,” the report continued.
“First, Congress was told that TARP was for the purchase of toxic assets, to help keep people in their homes,” the Congressman said. “Then the Bush Administration switched the program. Next, Congress was told that the TARP funds were instead needed to bail out the banks, in the form of a direct capital infusion, to keep credit markets alive.”
He continued: “If TARP isn’t about keeping people in their homes or providing credit to businesses, what is it for? I think the vast majority of Americans would be outraged to learn their tax dollars were facilitating hoarding at the Fed and increased profit making for banks.”
In his testimony, Bernanke said the pace of America’s economic decline seems to have slowed, but he expects continued unemployment near 10 percent of the population through the end of 2010.
“The weak job market in the United States, coupled with falling home prices and tight credit, he said, are putting downward pressure on households, undermining ‘the recent stabilization in household spending,’” according to The New York Times.
Increased oversight soon?
Kucinich said the House Domestic Policy Subcommittee will probe how the $700 billion in troubled asset relief funds were used, in light of the Fed’s nondisclosure. It will not be the first time the nation’s largest bank has faced efforts to increase oversight of its policy decisions and accounting.
In a letter to Bernanke regarding the use of TARP funds for a $3.6 billion bonus package given out to Merrill Lynch & Co. employees, Kucinich insisted that “[the] answers the Subcommittee seeks will be of interest to the American public, who are rightly concerned about how recipient firms have used TARP monies, and how well the Federal Government has monitored the use of those funds and safeguarded them from waste and abuse.”
Bernanke told the panel in late June that the Federal Reserve “acted with the highest integrity throughout its discussions with Bank of America regarding that company’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.”
Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas has, in particular, been a thorn in the side of the bank which controls America’s currency. His bill, House Resolution 1207, which would audit the Fed, has garnered 274 co-sponsors: “[Every] House Republican and almost 100 Democrats — and counting,” noted The Wall Street Journal.
“Although Federal Reserve officials regularly explain the rationale for their policy decisions in public venues, the process of vetting ideas and proposals, many of which are never incorporated into policy decisions, could suffer from the threat of public disclosure,” Federal Reserve deputy chairman Donald Kohn argued earlier this month.
“The big guns are coming out now,” said Congressman Paul in a recent video update. “They are trying to line up the establishment economists and other business people to warn people about the great danger of the American people finding out who’s benefiting from the behind the doors, seeing the activities of the Federal Reserve.
“I think it’s going to be impossible for them to ignore everything we’ve done and just walk away,” he said.
Update: White House does not know how TARP funds were used
During Tuesday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave a convoluted answer to a reporter who asked why the hundreds of billions in TARP funds have not been tracked.
“I think that Treasury Department puts out monthly reports on the lending activities from banks,” he began. “Again one of the suggestions was, in some ways being able to follow what might not be, according to us, followable. In other words you have the fungibility of money that is not put in a separate TARP lending account for the deposit and guarantee in Auburn, Alabama, for us to measure the increase in lending.
“The administration believes that that transparency is important but can be done better in measuring the increase in that lending. But it is going to be hard to follow, again, something as fungible as money moving from one bank to the other.”
House Domestic Policy Subcommittee plans probe of TARP funds
Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich wants to know: “If [the Troubled Asset Relief Program] isn’t about keeping people in their homes or providing credit to businesses, what is it for?”
Expressing his frustration before the Government and Oversight Committee, the two-time presidential candidate suggested that the Federal Reserve may be paying banks to hoard money and avoid making loans.
Before the committee — which assembled Tuesday to hear the testimony of Neil Barofsky the Special Inspector General for TARP, along with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke — Kucinich wondered aloud if “banks are parking a historic amount of taxpayers’ money in the Federal Reserve while the businesses and consumers across America are starved for credit,” and whether the Federal Reserve is paying banks to avoid making loans.
“Is the Fed paying banks NOT to loan money?” a Kucinich media advisory pondered.
To support his line of questioning, he cited a Bloomberg report which noted that “banks’ excess reserves at the Fed rose to a record $877.1 billion daily average in the two weeks ended May 20, from $2 billion a year earlier.
“Excess reserves — money available for lending that banks choose to leave with the Fed instead — averaged $743.9 billion in the first two weeks of this month,” the report continued.
“First, Congress was told that TARP was for the purchase of toxic assets, to help keep people in their homes,” the Congressman said. “Then the Bush Administration switched the program. Next, Congress was told that the TARP funds were instead needed to bail out the banks, in the form of a direct capital infusion, to keep credit markets alive.”
He continued: “If TARP isn’t about keeping people in their homes or providing credit to businesses, what is it for? I think the vast majority of Americans would be outraged to learn their tax dollars were facilitating hoarding at the Fed and increased profit making for banks.”
In his testimony, Bernanke said the pace of America’s economic decline seems to have slowed, but he expects continued unemployment near 10 percent of the population through the end of 2010.
“The weak job market in the United States, coupled with falling home prices and tight credit, he said, are putting downward pressure on households, undermining ‘the recent stabilization in household spending,’” according to The New York Times.
Increased oversight soon?
Kucinich said the House Domestic Policy Subcommittee will probe how the $700 billion in troubled asset relief funds were used, in light of the Fed’s nondisclosure. It will not be the first time the nation’s largest bank has faced efforts to increase oversight of its policy decisions and accounting.
In a letter to Bernanke regarding the use of TARP funds for a $3.6 billion bonus package given out to Merrill Lynch & Co. employees, Kucinich insisted that “[the] answers the Subcommittee seeks will be of interest to the American public, who are rightly concerned about how recipient firms have used TARP monies, and how well the Federal Government has monitored the use of those funds and safeguarded them from waste and abuse.”
Bernanke told the panel in late June that the Federal Reserve “acted with the highest integrity throughout its discussions with Bank of America regarding that company’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.”
Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas has, in particular, been a thorn in the side of the bank which controls America’s currency. His bill, House Resolution 1207, which would audit the Fed, has garnered 274 co-sponsors: “[Every] House Republican and almost 100 Democrats — and counting,” noted The Wall Street Journal.
“Although Federal Reserve officials regularly explain the rationale for their policy decisions in public venues, the process of vetting ideas and proposals, many of which are never incorporated into policy decisions, could suffer from the threat of public disclosure,” Federal Reserve deputy chairman Donald Kohn argued earlier this month.
“The big guns are coming out now,” said Congressman Paul in a recent video update. “They are trying to line up the establishment economists and other business people to warn people about the great danger of the American people finding out who’s benefiting from the behind the doors, seeing the activities of the Federal Reserve.
“I think it’s going to be impossible for them to ignore everything we’ve done and just walk away,” he said.
Update: White House does not know how TARP funds were used
During Tuesday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave a convoluted answer to a reporter who asked why the hundreds of billions in TARP funds have not been tracked.
“I think that Treasury Department puts out monthly reports on the lending activities from banks,” he began. “Again one of the suggestions was, in some ways being able to follow what might not be, according to us, followable. In other words you have the fungibility of money that is not put in a separate TARP lending account for the deposit and guarantee in Auburn, Alabama, for us to measure the increase in lending.
“The administration believes that that transparency is important but can be done better in measuring the increase in that lending. But it is going to be hard to follow, again, something as fungible as money moving from one bank to the other.”
Senate narrowly rejects ‘radical’ concealed weapon measure
The Senate narrowly rejected a concealed weapons measure that critics have blasted as “radical” Wednesday afternoon.
The AP reports, “In a rare win for gun control advocates, the Senate on Wednesday rejected a measure allowing a person with a concealed weapon permit in one state to also hide his firearm when visiting another state.”
Earlier Wednesday morning, a New York Times editorial entitled “Gun Crazy in the Senate” denounced the measure as “radical.”
“Introduced as an amendment to the military’s budget bill by Senator John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota, this radical measure would nullify the laws of almost every state, subjecting police officers to greater risk and increasing the potential for gun violence,” the Times editorial said.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D, NJ) called it an “attempt by the gun lobby to put its radical agenda ahead of safety and security in our communities.”
The Associated Press story adds, “The vote was 58-39 in favor of the provision establishing concealed carry permit reciprocity in the 48 states that have concealed weapons laws. That fell two votes short of the 60 needed to approve the measure, offered as an amendment to a defense spending bill.”
At the Washington Post, Paul Kane notes, “Even in defeat, the debate demonstrated the continued power of the National Rifle Association and gun rights advocates in Congress, because the Thune amendment was considered the most far reaching federal effort ever proposed to expand laws to allow weapons ownership.”
The AP reports, “In a rare win for gun control advocates, the Senate on Wednesday rejected a measure allowing a person with a concealed weapon permit in one state to also hide his firearm when visiting another state.”
Earlier Wednesday morning, a New York Times editorial entitled “Gun Crazy in the Senate” denounced the measure as “radical.”
“Introduced as an amendment to the military’s budget bill by Senator John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota, this radical measure would nullify the laws of almost every state, subjecting police officers to greater risk and increasing the potential for gun violence,” the Times editorial said.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D, NJ) called it an “attempt by the gun lobby to put its radical agenda ahead of safety and security in our communities.”
The Associated Press story adds, “The vote was 58-39 in favor of the provision establishing concealed carry permit reciprocity in the 48 states that have concealed weapons laws. That fell two votes short of the 60 needed to approve the measure, offered as an amendment to a defense spending bill.”
At the Washington Post, Paul Kane notes, “Even in defeat, the debate demonstrated the continued power of the National Rifle Association and gun rights advocates in Congress, because the Thune amendment was considered the most far reaching federal effort ever proposed to expand laws to allow weapons ownership.”
Iraq vets' caregivers seek training, compensation
By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer Kimberly Hefling, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jul 21, 10:04 am ET
WASHINGTON – On good days, Michelle Briggs has to remind her 40-year-old husband to shower and eat. On bad days, she lifts him out of bed and picks him up when he falls.
Robert W. Briggs, a former Army sergeant, was severely injured in Iraq and needs constant monitoring because of traumatic brain injury, blindness in one eye and paralysis on one side. He walks with the help of a service dog. Briggs gave up her job as a veterinarian technician to care for him and their two kids.
On Tuesday, Michelle Briggs and fourteen other caregivers started more than 50 planned visits to congressional offices on Capitol Hill this week armed with a simple message: We need help.
"Mentally, it takes a very big toll on you," said Briggs, 34, of Hillsboro, Iowa, whose husband was injured in a rocket grenade attack in 2005 while serving with the Iowa National Guard. "You have to be a very strong person to get through a lot of it. It's a choice whether you stay or not. It's very much a choice."
Briggs said she's met other spouses of injured veterans who sought a divorce.
"It doesn't make them a bad person at all, but they just couldn't handle the situation because it's very, very stressful and you have to fight for the things that you're entitled to," Briggs said.
The caregivers say parents, spouses and siblings of the disabled have given up jobs, health insurance and college to care for a loved one. Yet they get no compensation to ease the burden.
"We're providing them with such a better quality of life and we need support in order to provide that," said Tracy Keil, 31, of Parker, Colo., whose husband, Matthew Keil, was paralyzed from the chest down from a sniper's bullet in 2007 and now needs around-the-clock care.
The two married six weeks before he was injured. She said she gave up the job she had as an accountant for 11 years and makes $60,000 less working from home part-time for a nonprofit organization.
The caregivers seek passage of legislation that would require the Veterans Affairs Department to offer more training to primary caregivers of severely injured veterans from the recent wars. Those certified would be eligible for benefits such as health care and a stipend of a few hundred dollars a week.
The alternative, they say, would be life in an institution for some veterans now mostly in their 20s or 30s.
Sen. Daniel Akaka, chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, who authored legislation in the Senate to address the issue with Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said there are more than just an isolated few families asking for help.
"This has been growing, growing to the point now where we can not ignore it," Akaka said.
Akaka, D-Hawaii, said he's waiting for a final analysis about how much the legislation would cost, although he's confident keeping a veteran in the home is cheaper than a nursing home.
The VA has expressed concerns about the cost of the legislation. It has also said it would divert from the agency's mission of providing care to veterans and training clinicians, and said some of the same services are provided in other programs.
Phil Budahn, a VA spokesman, said in a statement the agency would continue to look for ways to "appropriately support these compassionate providers."
Steven Nardizzi, executive director of the Jacksonville, Fla.-based Wounded Warrior Project, which organized the caregivers' effort this week, said what the VA provides simply isn't adequate. He said the VA needs to adapt its primary mission to include helping families of the wounded, and providing health benefits and a stipend would go a long way.
"If the VA thinks they're already providing or the administration thinks they're already providing support, it's because they're simply not paying attention and not listening to the families right now," Nardizzi said.
His group estimates that under legislation it's seeking, about 750 caregivers would be eligible long-term, whereas several thousand would participate for about one to three years.
Briggs said she's thrown out her back at different times lifting her husband. She said she went through a period of depression as she adjusted to their new life but has learned to find comfort talking to other caregivers. She said she's dedicated to making their arrangement work but could use more resources.
"I love him and we've been married — it will be 15 years in November. It's like your marriage vows for better or worse," Briggs said. "This wasn't his fault, and there would be no one else to take care of him properly. He would be in a nursing home."
WASHINGTON – On good days, Michelle Briggs has to remind her 40-year-old husband to shower and eat. On bad days, she lifts him out of bed and picks him up when he falls.
Robert W. Briggs, a former Army sergeant, was severely injured in Iraq and needs constant monitoring because of traumatic brain injury, blindness in one eye and paralysis on one side. He walks with the help of a service dog. Briggs gave up her job as a veterinarian technician to care for him and their two kids.
On Tuesday, Michelle Briggs and fourteen other caregivers started more than 50 planned visits to congressional offices on Capitol Hill this week armed with a simple message: We need help.
"Mentally, it takes a very big toll on you," said Briggs, 34, of Hillsboro, Iowa, whose husband was injured in a rocket grenade attack in 2005 while serving with the Iowa National Guard. "You have to be a very strong person to get through a lot of it. It's a choice whether you stay or not. It's very much a choice."
Briggs said she's met other spouses of injured veterans who sought a divorce.
"It doesn't make them a bad person at all, but they just couldn't handle the situation because it's very, very stressful and you have to fight for the things that you're entitled to," Briggs said.
The caregivers say parents, spouses and siblings of the disabled have given up jobs, health insurance and college to care for a loved one. Yet they get no compensation to ease the burden.
"We're providing them with such a better quality of life and we need support in order to provide that," said Tracy Keil, 31, of Parker, Colo., whose husband, Matthew Keil, was paralyzed from the chest down from a sniper's bullet in 2007 and now needs around-the-clock care.
The two married six weeks before he was injured. She said she gave up the job she had as an accountant for 11 years and makes $60,000 less working from home part-time for a nonprofit organization.
The caregivers seek passage of legislation that would require the Veterans Affairs Department to offer more training to primary caregivers of severely injured veterans from the recent wars. Those certified would be eligible for benefits such as health care and a stipend of a few hundred dollars a week.
The alternative, they say, would be life in an institution for some veterans now mostly in their 20s or 30s.
Sen. Daniel Akaka, chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, who authored legislation in the Senate to address the issue with Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said there are more than just an isolated few families asking for help.
"This has been growing, growing to the point now where we can not ignore it," Akaka said.
Akaka, D-Hawaii, said he's waiting for a final analysis about how much the legislation would cost, although he's confident keeping a veteran in the home is cheaper than a nursing home.
The VA has expressed concerns about the cost of the legislation. It has also said it would divert from the agency's mission of providing care to veterans and training clinicians, and said some of the same services are provided in other programs.
Phil Budahn, a VA spokesman, said in a statement the agency would continue to look for ways to "appropriately support these compassionate providers."
Steven Nardizzi, executive director of the Jacksonville, Fla.-based Wounded Warrior Project, which organized the caregivers' effort this week, said what the VA provides simply isn't adequate. He said the VA needs to adapt its primary mission to include helping families of the wounded, and providing health benefits and a stipend would go a long way.
"If the VA thinks they're already providing or the administration thinks they're already providing support, it's because they're simply not paying attention and not listening to the families right now," Nardizzi said.
His group estimates that under legislation it's seeking, about 750 caregivers would be eligible long-term, whereas several thousand would participate for about one to three years.
Briggs said she's thrown out her back at different times lifting her husband. She said she went through a period of depression as she adjusted to their new life but has learned to find comfort talking to other caregivers. She said she's dedicated to making their arrangement work but could use more resources.
"I love him and we've been married — it will be 15 years in November. It's like your marriage vows for better or worse," Briggs said. "This wasn't his fault, and there would be no one else to take care of him properly. He would be in a nursing home."
Democrats irked by Obama signing statement
By ANNE FLAHERTY (AP) – 17 hours ago
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has irked close allies in Congress by declaring he has the right to ignore legislation on constitutional grounds after having criticized George W. Bush for doing the same.
Four senior House Democrats on Tuesday said they were "surprised" and "chagrined" by Obama's declaration in June that he doesn't have to comply with provisions in a war spending bill that puts conditions on aid provided to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
In a signing statement accompanying the $106 billion bill, Obama said he wouldn't allow the legislation to interfere with his authority as president to conduct foreign policy and negotiate with other governments.
Earlier in his six-month-old administration, Obama issued a similar statement regarding provisions in a $410 billion omnibus spending bill. He also included qualifying remarks when signing legislation that established commissions to govern public lands in New York, investigate the financial crisis and celebrate Ronald Reagan's birthday.
"During the previous administration, all of us were critical of (Bush's) assertion that he could pick and choose which aspects of congressional statutes he was required to enforce," the Democrats wrote in their letter to Obama. "We were therefore chagrined to see you appear to express a similar attitude."
The letter was signed by Reps. David Obey of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, as well as Reps. Nita Lowey and Gregory Meeks, both of New York, who chair subcommittees on those panels.
Obama needs Obey and Frank in particular to push through Congress key pieces of his agenda, including health care and financial oversight reform.
The White House said Tuesday the administration plans to implement the provisions of the bill and suggested that Obama's signing statement was aimed more at defending the president's executive powers than skirting the law.
"The president has also already made it clear that he will not ignore statutory obligations on the basis of policy disagreements and will reserve signing statements for legislation that raises clearly identified constitutional concerns," White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said in a statement.
Bush issued a record number of signing statements while in office as he sparred with Democrats on such big issues as the war in Iraq.
Democrats, including Obama, sharply criticized Bush as overstepping his bounds as president. In March, Obama ordered a review of Bush's guidelines for implementing legislation.
"There is no doubt that the practice of issuing such statements can be abused," Obama wrote in a memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies.
At the same time, however, Obama did not rule out issuing any signing statements, which have been used for centuries. Rather, he ordered his administration to work with Congress to inform lawmakers about concerns over legality before legislation ever reaches his desk. He also pledged to use caution and restraint when writing his own signing statements, and said he would rely on Justice Department guidance when doing so.
Two days after issuing the memo, Obama issued his first signing statement exerting executive power after receiving a $410 billion omnibus spending bill. He said the bill would "unduly interfere" with his authority by directing him how to proceed, or not to, in negotiations and discussions with international organizations and foreign governments.
Obey and the other House lawmakers said this week that Obama's signing statement on the war bill will make it tougher in the future to persuade other lawmakers to support the World Bank and IMF.
If Congress can't place conditions on the money, "it will make it virtually impossible to provide further allocations for these institutions," they wrote.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has irked close allies in Congress by declaring he has the right to ignore legislation on constitutional grounds after having criticized George W. Bush for doing the same.
Four senior House Democrats on Tuesday said they were "surprised" and "chagrined" by Obama's declaration in June that he doesn't have to comply with provisions in a war spending bill that puts conditions on aid provided to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
In a signing statement accompanying the $106 billion bill, Obama said he wouldn't allow the legislation to interfere with his authority as president to conduct foreign policy and negotiate with other governments.
Earlier in his six-month-old administration, Obama issued a similar statement regarding provisions in a $410 billion omnibus spending bill. He also included qualifying remarks when signing legislation that established commissions to govern public lands in New York, investigate the financial crisis and celebrate Ronald Reagan's birthday.
"During the previous administration, all of us were critical of (Bush's) assertion that he could pick and choose which aspects of congressional statutes he was required to enforce," the Democrats wrote in their letter to Obama. "We were therefore chagrined to see you appear to express a similar attitude."
The letter was signed by Reps. David Obey of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, as well as Reps. Nita Lowey and Gregory Meeks, both of New York, who chair subcommittees on those panels.
Obama needs Obey and Frank in particular to push through Congress key pieces of his agenda, including health care and financial oversight reform.
The White House said Tuesday the administration plans to implement the provisions of the bill and suggested that Obama's signing statement was aimed more at defending the president's executive powers than skirting the law.
"The president has also already made it clear that he will not ignore statutory obligations on the basis of policy disagreements and will reserve signing statements for legislation that raises clearly identified constitutional concerns," White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said in a statement.
Bush issued a record number of signing statements while in office as he sparred with Democrats on such big issues as the war in Iraq.
Democrats, including Obama, sharply criticized Bush as overstepping his bounds as president. In March, Obama ordered a review of Bush's guidelines for implementing legislation.
"There is no doubt that the practice of issuing such statements can be abused," Obama wrote in a memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies.
At the same time, however, Obama did not rule out issuing any signing statements, which have been used for centuries. Rather, he ordered his administration to work with Congress to inform lawmakers about concerns over legality before legislation ever reaches his desk. He also pledged to use caution and restraint when writing his own signing statements, and said he would rely on Justice Department guidance when doing so.
Two days after issuing the memo, Obama issued his first signing statement exerting executive power after receiving a $410 billion omnibus spending bill. He said the bill would "unduly interfere" with his authority by directing him how to proceed, or not to, in negotiations and discussions with international organizations and foreign governments.
Obey and the other House lawmakers said this week that Obama's signing statement on the war bill will make it tougher in the future to persuade other lawmakers to support the World Bank and IMF.
If Congress can't place conditions on the money, "it will make it virtually impossible to provide further allocations for these institutions," they wrote.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
CIA misled court, US judge decides
7/21/2009
WASHINGTON - CIA officials committed fraud to protect a former covert agent against an eavesdropping lawsuit, a federal judge has ruled. He is considering sanctioning as many as six people who have worked at the agency, including a former CIA director, George Tenet.
According to court documents, US District Judge Royce Lamberth referred a CIA attorney, Jeffrey Yeates, for disciplinary action. He also denied the CIA’s renewed effort to keep the case secret because of the agency’s “diminished credibility.’’
The judge also criticized the CIA’s current director, Leon Panetta, saying he’s given conflicting accounts about what should be revealed.
The lawsuit was brought by a former Drug Enforcement Agency agent, Richard Horn, who says his home in Burma was illegally wiretapped by the CIA in 1993. He says Arthur Brown, former CIA station chief in Burma, and Franklin Huddle Jr., chief of mission at the US Embassy in Burma, were trying to get him relocated. The agency has not said whether it monitored Horn, but Horn claims he was monitored unconstitutionally.
Tenet in 2000 asked that the case against Brown be dismissed because his identity was a state secret. Lamberth threw out the case in 2004 but found out last year that Brown’s cover had been lifted in 2002. He decided the CIA intentionally misled the court and revived the case.
WASHINGTON - CIA officials committed fraud to protect a former covert agent against an eavesdropping lawsuit, a federal judge has ruled. He is considering sanctioning as many as six people who have worked at the agency, including a former CIA director, George Tenet.
According to court documents, US District Judge Royce Lamberth referred a CIA attorney, Jeffrey Yeates, for disciplinary action. He also denied the CIA’s renewed effort to keep the case secret because of the agency’s “diminished credibility.’’
The judge also criticized the CIA’s current director, Leon Panetta, saying he’s given conflicting accounts about what should be revealed.
The lawsuit was brought by a former Drug Enforcement Agency agent, Richard Horn, who says his home in Burma was illegally wiretapped by the CIA in 1993. He says Arthur Brown, former CIA station chief in Burma, and Franklin Huddle Jr., chief of mission at the US Embassy in Burma, were trying to get him relocated. The agency has not said whether it monitored Horn, but Horn claims he was monitored unconstitutionally.
Tenet in 2000 asked that the case against Brown be dismissed because his identity was a state secret. Lamberth threw out the case in 2004 but found out last year that Brown’s cover had been lifted in 2002. He decided the CIA intentionally misled the court and revived the case.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Obama goes to bat for Bush wiretap program
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, July 16, 2009
(07-15) 17:41 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- President Obama is adamant about maintaining the secrecy of a wiretapping program authorized by George W. Bush, an administration lawyer told a federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday.
Obama "does not intend to use the state-secrets privilege to cover up illegal activities," said Justice Department attorney Anthony Coppolino. But in exceptional circumstances, he said, the president will invoke secrecy to protect "the sources and methods of detecting terrorist attacks ... the crown jewel of the United States national security administration."
Coppolino said the administration will cite national security in seeking dismissal of a lawsuit by telephone customers accusing the government of illegally intercepting phone calls and obtaining phone company records.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker heard about 90 minutes of arguments and said he would rule later.
The suit is similar to claims filed against AT&T and other telecommunications firms in 2006, following Bush's acknowledgement that he had authorized eavesdropping on Americans' communications with suspected foreign terrorists without seeking court approval.
Walker, in whose court the cases were consolidated, dismissed the suits earlier this year based on a 2008 law that shielded the companies from liability for alleged cooperation with surveillance that Bush had authorized.
That law did not prevent private citizens from suing the government, as long as they could show they were the targets of illegal eavesdropping. The current suit, filed by most of the same customers who sued AT&T, claims that a "dragnet surveillance" program intercepted millions of messages to mine them for suspicious content.
Although both the Bush and Obama administrations have refused to discuss the extent of phone company participation, several members of Congress have confirmed that the government obtained records from phone companies, the plaintiffs' lawyer, Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Walker.
The judge said in a 2006 ruling that AT&T had helped the government in surveillance, citing statements by federal officials and a former AT&T employee. On Wednesday, he asked Coppolino whether anything had changed that would justify dismissing the latest lawsuit.
The Justice Department lawyer replied that the plaintiffs will have to air classified information in court about "the nature and scope of the government's surveillance program" to prove their case, and the government will have to do the same to defend itself. That "would risk exceptional harm to the national security," Coppolino said.
Walker, however, cited a recent inspector general's report on U.S. intelligence that said the surveillance was far broader than Bush had described and was on legally shaky ground.
An unclassified version of the report was released last week. Walker said the full report might show whether officials had violated private citizens' constitutional rights.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
(07-15) 17:41 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- President Obama is adamant about maintaining the secrecy of a wiretapping program authorized by George W. Bush, an administration lawyer told a federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday.
Obama "does not intend to use the state-secrets privilege to cover up illegal activities," said Justice Department attorney Anthony Coppolino. But in exceptional circumstances, he said, the president will invoke secrecy to protect "the sources and methods of detecting terrorist attacks ... the crown jewel of the United States national security administration."
Coppolino said the administration will cite national security in seeking dismissal of a lawsuit by telephone customers accusing the government of illegally intercepting phone calls and obtaining phone company records.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker heard about 90 minutes of arguments and said he would rule later.
The suit is similar to claims filed against AT&T and other telecommunications firms in 2006, following Bush's acknowledgement that he had authorized eavesdropping on Americans' communications with suspected foreign terrorists without seeking court approval.
Walker, in whose court the cases were consolidated, dismissed the suits earlier this year based on a 2008 law that shielded the companies from liability for alleged cooperation with surveillance that Bush had authorized.
That law did not prevent private citizens from suing the government, as long as they could show they were the targets of illegal eavesdropping. The current suit, filed by most of the same customers who sued AT&T, claims that a "dragnet surveillance" program intercepted millions of messages to mine them for suspicious content.
Although both the Bush and Obama administrations have refused to discuss the extent of phone company participation, several members of Congress have confirmed that the government obtained records from phone companies, the plaintiffs' lawyer, Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Walker.
The judge said in a 2006 ruling that AT&T had helped the government in surveillance, citing statements by federal officials and a former AT&T employee. On Wednesday, he asked Coppolino whether anything had changed that would justify dismissing the latest lawsuit.
The Justice Department lawyer replied that the plaintiffs will have to air classified information in court about "the nature and scope of the government's surveillance program" to prove their case, and the government will have to do the same to defend itself. That "would risk exceptional harm to the national security," Coppolino said.
Walker, however, cited a recent inspector general's report on U.S. intelligence that said the surveillance was far broader than Bush had described and was on legally shaky ground.
An unclassified version of the report was released last week. Walker said the full report might show whether officials had violated private citizens' constitutional rights.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
six major corporations own the mainstream media
i found this on another blog and thought it deserved re-posting
What, only six corporations OWN the mainstream media?
Admit it, you're actually surprised it's as many as six, right? Anyway, if you're wondering where journalistic integrity and freedom of the press went... Forget about it, these six mega-corporations are strictly propaganda platforms for Global Governance, Global Currency, Global Banking, Global Religion and Global War. Get used to that reality.
1) GENERAL ELECTRIC
Television Holdings:
* NBC: includes 13 stations, 28% of US households.
* NBC Network News: The Today Show, Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Meet the Press, Dateline NBC, NBC News at Sunrise.
* CNBC business television; MSNBC 24-hour cable and Internet news service (co-owned by NBC and Microsoft); Court TV (co-owned with Time Warner), Bravo (50%), A&E (25%), History Channel (25%).
Other Holdings:
* GE Consumer Electronics.
* GE Power Systems: produces turbines for nuclear reactors and power plants.
* GE Plastics: produces military hardware and nuclear power equipment.
* GE Transportation Systems: runs diesel and electric trains.
2) WESTINGHOUSE / CBS INC.
Television Holdings:
* CBS: includes 14 stations and over 200 affiliates in the US.
* CBS Network News: 60 minutes, 48 hours, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, CBS Morning News, Up to the Minute.
* Country Music Television, The Nashville Network, 2 regional sports networks.
* Group W Satellite Communications.
Other Holdings:
* Westinghouse Electric Company: provides services to the nuclear power industry.
* Westinghouse Government Environmental Services Company: disposes of nuclear and hazardous wastes. Also operates 4 government-owned nuclear power plants in the US.
* Energy Systems: provides nuclear power plant design and maintenance.
3) VIACOM INTERNATIONAL INC.
Television Holdings:
* Paramount Television, Spelling Television, MTV, VH-1, Showtime, The Movie Channel, UPN (joint owner), Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Sundance Channel (joint owner), Flix.
* 20 major market US stations.
Media Holdings:
* Paramount Pictures, Paramount Home Video, Blockbuster Video, Famous Players Theatres, Paramount Parks.
* Simon & Schuster Publishing.
4) DISNEY / ABC / CAP
Television Holdings:
* ABC: includes 10 stations, 24% of US households.
* ABC Network News: Prime Time Live, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America.
* ESPN, Lifetime Television (50%), as well as minority holdings in A&E, History Channel and E!
* Disney Channel/Disney Television, Touchtone Television.
Media Holdings:
* Miramax, Touchtone Pictures.
* Magazines: Jane, Los Angeles Magazine, W, Discover.
* 3 music labels, 11 major local newspapers.
* Hyperion book publishers.
* Infoseek Internet search engine (43%).
Other Holdings:
* Sid R. Bass (major shares) crude oil and gas.
* All Disney Theme Parks, Walt Disney Cruise Lines.
5) TIME-WARNER TBS - AOL
Television Holdings:
* CNN, HBO, Cinemax, TBS Superstation, Turner Network Television, Turner Classic Movies, Warner Brothers Television, Cartoon Network, Sega Channel, TNT, Comedy Central (50%), E! (49%), Court TV (50%).
* Largest owner of cable systems in the US with an estimated 13 million subscribers.
Media Holdings:
* HBO Independent Productions, Warner Home Video, New Line Cinema, Castle Rock, Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera.
* Music: Atlantic, Elektra, Rhino, Sire, Warner Bros. Records, EMI, WEA, Sub Pop (distribution) = the world’s largest music company.
* 33 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, People, In Style, Fortune, Book of the Month Club, Entertainment Weekly, Life, DC Comics (50%), and MAD Magazine.
Other Holdings:
* Sports: The Atlanta Braves, The Atlanta Hawks, World Championship Wrestling.
6) NEWS CORPORATION LTD. / FOX NETWORKS
Television Holdings:
* Fox Television: includes 22 stations, 50% of US households.
* Fox International: extensive worldwide cable and satellite networks include British Sky Broadcasting (40%); VOX, Germany (49.9%); Canal Fox, Latin America; FOXTEL, Australia (50%); STAR TV, Asia; IskyB, India; Bahasa Programming Ltd., Indonesia (50%); and News Broadcasting, Japan (80%).
* The Golf Channel (33%).
Media Holdings:
* Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight.
* 132 newspapers (113 in Australia alone) including the New York Post, the London Times and The Australian.
* 25 magazines including TV Guide and The Weekly Standard.
* HarperCollins books.
Other Holdings:
* Sports: LA Dodgers, LA Kings, LA Lakers, National Rugby League.
* Ansett Australia airlines, Ansett New Zealand airlines.
* Rupert Murdoch: Board of Directors, Philip Morris (USA).
What, only six corporations OWN the mainstream media?
Admit it, you're actually surprised it's as many as six, right? Anyway, if you're wondering where journalistic integrity and freedom of the press went... Forget about it, these six mega-corporations are strictly propaganda platforms for Global Governance, Global Currency, Global Banking, Global Religion and Global War. Get used to that reality.
1) GENERAL ELECTRIC
Television Holdings:
* NBC: includes 13 stations, 28% of US households.
* NBC Network News: The Today Show, Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Meet the Press, Dateline NBC, NBC News at Sunrise.
* CNBC business television; MSNBC 24-hour cable and Internet news service (co-owned by NBC and Microsoft); Court TV (co-owned with Time Warner), Bravo (50%), A&E (25%), History Channel (25%).
Other Holdings:
* GE Consumer Electronics.
* GE Power Systems: produces turbines for nuclear reactors and power plants.
* GE Plastics: produces military hardware and nuclear power equipment.
* GE Transportation Systems: runs diesel and electric trains.
2) WESTINGHOUSE / CBS INC.
Television Holdings:
* CBS: includes 14 stations and over 200 affiliates in the US.
* CBS Network News: 60 minutes, 48 hours, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, CBS Morning News, Up to the Minute.
* Country Music Television, The Nashville Network, 2 regional sports networks.
* Group W Satellite Communications.
Other Holdings:
* Westinghouse Electric Company: provides services to the nuclear power industry.
* Westinghouse Government Environmental Services Company: disposes of nuclear and hazardous wastes. Also operates 4 government-owned nuclear power plants in the US.
* Energy Systems: provides nuclear power plant design and maintenance.
3) VIACOM INTERNATIONAL INC.
Television Holdings:
* Paramount Television, Spelling Television, MTV, VH-1, Showtime, The Movie Channel, UPN (joint owner), Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Sundance Channel (joint owner), Flix.
* 20 major market US stations.
Media Holdings:
* Paramount Pictures, Paramount Home Video, Blockbuster Video, Famous Players Theatres, Paramount Parks.
* Simon & Schuster Publishing.
4) DISNEY / ABC / CAP
Television Holdings:
* ABC: includes 10 stations, 24% of US households.
* ABC Network News: Prime Time Live, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America.
* ESPN, Lifetime Television (50%), as well as minority holdings in A&E, History Channel and E!
* Disney Channel/Disney Television, Touchtone Television.
Media Holdings:
* Miramax, Touchtone Pictures.
* Magazines: Jane, Los Angeles Magazine, W, Discover.
* 3 music labels, 11 major local newspapers.
* Hyperion book publishers.
* Infoseek Internet search engine (43%).
Other Holdings:
* Sid R. Bass (major shares) crude oil and gas.
* All Disney Theme Parks, Walt Disney Cruise Lines.
5) TIME-WARNER TBS - AOL
Television Holdings:
* CNN, HBO, Cinemax, TBS Superstation, Turner Network Television, Turner Classic Movies, Warner Brothers Television, Cartoon Network, Sega Channel, TNT, Comedy Central (50%), E! (49%), Court TV (50%).
* Largest owner of cable systems in the US with an estimated 13 million subscribers.
Media Holdings:
* HBO Independent Productions, Warner Home Video, New Line Cinema, Castle Rock, Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera.
* Music: Atlantic, Elektra, Rhino, Sire, Warner Bros. Records, EMI, WEA, Sub Pop (distribution) = the world’s largest music company.
* 33 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, People, In Style, Fortune, Book of the Month Club, Entertainment Weekly, Life, DC Comics (50%), and MAD Magazine.
Other Holdings:
* Sports: The Atlanta Braves, The Atlanta Hawks, World Championship Wrestling.
6) NEWS CORPORATION LTD. / FOX NETWORKS
Television Holdings:
* Fox Television: includes 22 stations, 50% of US households.
* Fox International: extensive worldwide cable and satellite networks include British Sky Broadcasting (40%); VOX, Germany (49.9%); Canal Fox, Latin America; FOXTEL, Australia (50%); STAR TV, Asia; IskyB, India; Bahasa Programming Ltd., Indonesia (50%); and News Broadcasting, Japan (80%).
* The Golf Channel (33%).
Media Holdings:
* Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight.
* 132 newspapers (113 in Australia alone) including the New York Post, the London Times and The Australian.
* 25 magazines including TV Guide and The Weekly Standard.
* HarperCollins books.
Other Holdings:
* Sports: LA Dodgers, LA Kings, LA Lakers, National Rugby League.
* Ansett Australia airlines, Ansett New Zealand airlines.
* Rupert Murdoch: Board of Directors, Philip Morris (USA).
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Saturday, July 11, 2009
President Obama’s top science and technology advisor John P. Holdren co-authored a 1977 book in which he advocated the formation of a “planetary regime” that would use a “global police force” to enforce totalitarian measures of population control, including forced abortions, mass sterilization programs conducted via the food and water supply, as well as mandatory bodily implants that would prevent couples from having children.
The concepts outlined in Holdren’s 1977 book Ecoscience, which he co-authored with close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, were so shocking that a February 2009 Front Page Magazine story on the subject was largely dismissed as being outlandish because people couldn’t bring themselves to believe that it could be true.
It was only when another Internet blog obtained the book and posted screenshots that the awful truth about what Holdren had actually committed to paper actually began to sink in.
This issue is more prescient than ever because Holdren and his colleagues are now at the forefront of efforts to combat “climate change” through similarly insane programs focused around geoengineering the planet. As we reported in April, Holdren recently advocated “Large-scale geoengineering projects designed to cool the Earth,” such as “shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays,” which many have pointed out is already occurring via chemtrails.
Ecoscience discusses a number of ways in which the global population could be reduced to combat what the authors see as mankind’s greatest threat – overpopulation. In each case, the proposals are couched in sober academic rhetoric, but the horrifying foundation of what Holdren and his co-authors are advocating is clear. These proposals include;
- Forcibly and unknowingly sterilizing the entire population by adding infertility drugs to the nation’s water and food supply.
- Legalizing “compulsory abortions,” ie forced abortions carried out against the will of the pregnant women, as is common place in Communist China where women who have already had one child and refuse to abort the second are kidnapped off the street by the authorities before a procedure is carried out to forcibly abort the baby.
- Babies who are born out of wedlock or to teenage mothers to be forcibly taken away from their mother by the government and put up for adoption. Another proposed measure would force single mothers to demonstrate to the government that they can care for the child, effectively introducing licensing to have children.
- Implementing a system of “involuntary birth control,” where both men and women would be mandated to have an infertility device implanted into their body at puberty and only have it removed temporarily if they received permission from the government to have a baby.
- Permanently sterilizing people who the authorities deem have already had too many children or who have contributed to “general social deterioration”.
- Formally passing a law that criminalizes having more than two children, similar to the one child policy in Communist China.
- This would all be overseen by a transnational and centralized “planetary regime” that would utilize a “global police force” to enforce the measures outlined above. The “planetary regime” would also have the power to determine population levels for every country in the world.
The quotes from the book are included below. We also include comments by the author of the blog who provided the screenshots of the relevant passages. Screenshots of the relevant pages and the quotes in their full context are provided at the end of the excerpts. The quotes from the book appear as text indents and in bold. The quotes from the author of the blog are italicized.
read the rest of this story at infowars.com (link is in the title)
Prison Planet.com
Saturday, July 11, 2009
President Obama’s top science and technology advisor John P. Holdren co-authored a 1977 book in which he advocated the formation of a “planetary regime” that would use a “global police force” to enforce totalitarian measures of population control, including forced abortions, mass sterilization programs conducted via the food and water supply, as well as mandatory bodily implants that would prevent couples from having children.
The concepts outlined in Holdren’s 1977 book Ecoscience, which he co-authored with close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, were so shocking that a February 2009 Front Page Magazine story on the subject was largely dismissed as being outlandish because people couldn’t bring themselves to believe that it could be true.
It was only when another Internet blog obtained the book and posted screenshots that the awful truth about what Holdren had actually committed to paper actually began to sink in.
This issue is more prescient than ever because Holdren and his colleagues are now at the forefront of efforts to combat “climate change” through similarly insane programs focused around geoengineering the planet. As we reported in April, Holdren recently advocated “Large-scale geoengineering projects designed to cool the Earth,” such as “shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays,” which many have pointed out is already occurring via chemtrails.
Ecoscience discusses a number of ways in which the global population could be reduced to combat what the authors see as mankind’s greatest threat – overpopulation. In each case, the proposals are couched in sober academic rhetoric, but the horrifying foundation of what Holdren and his co-authors are advocating is clear. These proposals include;
- Forcibly and unknowingly sterilizing the entire population by adding infertility drugs to the nation’s water and food supply.
- Legalizing “compulsory abortions,” ie forced abortions carried out against the will of the pregnant women, as is common place in Communist China where women who have already had one child and refuse to abort the second are kidnapped off the street by the authorities before a procedure is carried out to forcibly abort the baby.
- Babies who are born out of wedlock or to teenage mothers to be forcibly taken away from their mother by the government and put up for adoption. Another proposed measure would force single mothers to demonstrate to the government that they can care for the child, effectively introducing licensing to have children.
- Implementing a system of “involuntary birth control,” where both men and women would be mandated to have an infertility device implanted into their body at puberty and only have it removed temporarily if they received permission from the government to have a baby.
- Permanently sterilizing people who the authorities deem have already had too many children or who have contributed to “general social deterioration”.
- Formally passing a law that criminalizes having more than two children, similar to the one child policy in Communist China.
- This would all be overseen by a transnational and centralized “planetary regime” that would utilize a “global police force” to enforce the measures outlined above. The “planetary regime” would also have the power to determine population levels for every country in the world.
The quotes from the book are included below. We also include comments by the author of the blog who provided the screenshots of the relevant passages. Screenshots of the relevant pages and the quotes in their full context are provided at the end of the excerpts. The quotes from the book appear as text indents and in bold. The quotes from the author of the blog are italicized.
read the rest of this story at infowars.com (link is in the title)
a safe sugar substitute:Stevia
Stevia is a genus of about 240 species of herbs and shrubs in the sunflower family (Asteraceae), native to subtropical and tropical South America and Central America. The species Stevia rebaudiana, commonly known as sweetleaf, sweet leaf, sugarleaf, or simply stevia, is widely grown for its sweet leaves. As a sweetener and sugar substitute, stevia's taste has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar, although some of its extracts may have a bitter or licorice-like aftertaste at high concentrations.
With its extracts having up to 300 times the sweetness of sugar, stevia has garnered attention with the rise in demand for low-carbohydrate, low-sugar food alternatives. Medical research has also shown possible benefits of stevia in treating obesity and high blood pressure. Because stevia has a negligible effect on blood glucose, it is attractive as a natural sweetener to people on carbohydrate-controlled diets. However, health and political controversies have limited stevia's availability in many countries; for example, the United States banned it in the early 1990s unless labeled as a supplement. Stevia is widely used as a sweetener in Japan, and it is now available in Canada as a dietary supplement.
With its extracts having up to 300 times the sweetness of sugar, stevia has garnered attention with the rise in demand for low-carbohydrate, low-sugar food alternatives. Medical research has also shown possible benefits of stevia in treating obesity and high blood pressure. Because stevia has a negligible effect on blood glucose, it is attractive as a natural sweetener to people on carbohydrate-controlled diets. However, health and political controversies have limited stevia's availability in many countries; for example, the United States banned it in the early 1990s unless labeled as a supplement. Stevia is widely used as a sweetener in Japan, and it is now available in Canada as a dietary supplement.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Obama's poll numbers drop
7/10/2009
Is President Obama's honeymoon with the American public nearing an end?
A second poll out this week shows a noticeable drop in public confidence in the president, six months into his term. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released today put his overall job approval rating at 61 percent -- and on a steady decline from 76 percent in February.
As telling, 70 percent of respondents believe Obama is "a strong and decisive leader," down from 80 percent in February; 56 percent think he generally agrees with them on issues they care about, down from 63 percent five months ago; and only 53 percent said he has a "clear plan" for solving the nation's problems, down from 64 percent.
While 79 percent approve of Obama personally, a smaller subset -- 58 percent -- approve both him personally and his job performance, and 19 percent like him personally but not his job performance.
The poll, conducted June 26-28, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. A poll in the bellwether state of Ohio also found decreasing confidence in Obama and his economic proposals.
Obama's decline largely tracks the economy, which remains mired in recession. New numbers out today showed that laid-off workers are having trouble finding jobs -- continuing claims for unemployment benefits jumped by 159,000 last week, reaching 6.88 million, the highest in records dating from 1967.
As dissatisfaction grows with the $787 billion economic stimulus plan and Obama is on his foreign trip, the White House is dispatching Vice President Joe Biden today to Cincinnati, Ohio, and Saratoga County, New York, to cheerlead for the stimulus.
Biden spoke in front of the American Can Building, an abandoned factory being turned into a mixed-use development with stimulus money, and announced approval of Cincinnati's plan to use a $3.5 million federal grant to revive neighborhoods and fix up affordable housing and public facilities.
Overall, $4.4 billion in stimulus money has been targeted for Ohio, including $2 billion for education, $1 billion for health care, and $445 million for transportation.
“Roads plus teachers plus cops plus jobs equals a community — and that equals paychecks and prosperity,” Biden said. “In other words, it equals a better future right here in Southwest Ohio.”
Later, at Shenendehowa High School in Clifton Park, N.Y., Biden announced that the Labor Department has authorized $275 million in additional jobless benefits for New York, making it easier for unemployed workers seeking part-time work and those unemployed for family reasons to be eligible for benefits
So far, New York is in line to get $16 billion, including $2 billion for education and $700 million for transportation.
“I see it everywhere we go: communities being rebuilt, factories being reopened, workers rehired — teachers in their classrooms, cops on the streets, families better able to live a quality life,” Biden said. “With the Recovery Act, Saratoga County and America are reclaiming our proud past — and, while we’re at it, creating a better future.”
Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican in the House, kept up the critique of the stimulus and adamantly opposed the idea of a second stimulus package.
"Clearly, we’re at the point now about five months after the passage of the spending bill that the administration is realizing that it’s not working," he said on Fox News Channel, one of a series of TV interviews he did today. "That frankly the stimulative effects that were intended have not come to fruition. And in fact, promises were made that we wouldn’t go over 8.5% unemployment. We know millions of people are losing their jobs. We’re inching toward 10% unemployment. So now’s not the time to start saying, ‘Hey, we need more of the same,’ because we know it didn’t work."
Is President Obama's honeymoon with the American public nearing an end?
A second poll out this week shows a noticeable drop in public confidence in the president, six months into his term. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released today put his overall job approval rating at 61 percent -- and on a steady decline from 76 percent in February.
As telling, 70 percent of respondents believe Obama is "a strong and decisive leader," down from 80 percent in February; 56 percent think he generally agrees with them on issues they care about, down from 63 percent five months ago; and only 53 percent said he has a "clear plan" for solving the nation's problems, down from 64 percent.
While 79 percent approve of Obama personally, a smaller subset -- 58 percent -- approve both him personally and his job performance, and 19 percent like him personally but not his job performance.
The poll, conducted June 26-28, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. A poll in the bellwether state of Ohio also found decreasing confidence in Obama and his economic proposals.
Obama's decline largely tracks the economy, which remains mired in recession. New numbers out today showed that laid-off workers are having trouble finding jobs -- continuing claims for unemployment benefits jumped by 159,000 last week, reaching 6.88 million, the highest in records dating from 1967.
As dissatisfaction grows with the $787 billion economic stimulus plan and Obama is on his foreign trip, the White House is dispatching Vice President Joe Biden today to Cincinnati, Ohio, and Saratoga County, New York, to cheerlead for the stimulus.
Biden spoke in front of the American Can Building, an abandoned factory being turned into a mixed-use development with stimulus money, and announced approval of Cincinnati's plan to use a $3.5 million federal grant to revive neighborhoods and fix up affordable housing and public facilities.
Overall, $4.4 billion in stimulus money has been targeted for Ohio, including $2 billion for education, $1 billion for health care, and $445 million for transportation.
“Roads plus teachers plus cops plus jobs equals a community — and that equals paychecks and prosperity,” Biden said. “In other words, it equals a better future right here in Southwest Ohio.”
Later, at Shenendehowa High School in Clifton Park, N.Y., Biden announced that the Labor Department has authorized $275 million in additional jobless benefits for New York, making it easier for unemployed workers seeking part-time work and those unemployed for family reasons to be eligible for benefits
So far, New York is in line to get $16 billion, including $2 billion for education and $700 million for transportation.
“I see it everywhere we go: communities being rebuilt, factories being reopened, workers rehired — teachers in their classrooms, cops on the streets, families better able to live a quality life,” Biden said. “With the Recovery Act, Saratoga County and America are reclaiming our proud past — and, while we’re at it, creating a better future.”
Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican in the House, kept up the critique of the stimulus and adamantly opposed the idea of a second stimulus package.
"Clearly, we’re at the point now about five months after the passage of the spending bill that the administration is realizing that it’s not working," he said on Fox News Channel, one of a series of TV interviews he did today. "That frankly the stimulative effects that were intended have not come to fruition. And in fact, promises were made that we wouldn’t go over 8.5% unemployment. We know millions of people are losing their jobs. We’re inching toward 10% unemployment. So now’s not the time to start saying, ‘Hey, we need more of the same,’ because we know it didn’t work."
Report: Bush surveillance program was massive
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 10, 7:45 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration built an unprecedented surveillance operation to pull in mountains of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged, a team of federal inspectors general reported Friday, questioning the legal basis for the effort but shielding almost all details on grounds they're still too secret to reveal.
The report, compiled by five inspectors general, refers to "unprecedented collection activities" by U.S. intelligence agencies under an executive order signed by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Just what those activities involved remains classified, but the IGs pointedly say that any continued use of the secret programs must be "carefully monitored."
The report says too few relevant officials knew of the size and depth of the program, let alone signed off on it. They particularly criticize John Yoo, a deputy assistant attorney general who wrote legal memos undergirding the policy. His boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, was not aware until March 2004 of the exact nature of the intelligence operations beyond wiretapping that he had been approving for the previous two and a half years, the report says.
Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the "mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile."
The inspectors general interviewed more than 200 people inside and outside the government, but five former Bush administration officials refused to be questioned. They were Ashcroft, Yoo, former CIA Director George Tenet, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and David Addington, an aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
According to the report, Addington could personally decide who in the administration was "read into" — allowed access to — the classified program.
The only piece of the intelligence-gathering operation acknowledged by the Bush White House was the wiretapping-without-warrants effort. The administration admitted in 2005 that it had allowed the National Security Agency to intercept international communications that passed through U.S. cables without seeking court orders.
Although the report documents Bush administration policies, its fallout could be a problem for the Obama administration if it inherited any or all of the still-classified operations.
Bush started the warrantless wiretapping program under the authority of a secret court in 2006, and Congress authorized most of the intercepts in a 2008 electronic surveillance law. The fate of the remaining and still classified aspects of the wider surveillance program is not clear from the report.
The report's revelations came the same day that House Democrats said that CIA Director Leon Panetta had ordered one eight-year-old classified program shut down after learning lawmakers had never been apprised of its existence.
The IG report said that President Bush signed off on both the warrantless wiretapping and other top-secret operations shortly after Sept. 11 in a single presidential authorization. All the programs were periodically reauthorized, but except for the acknowledged wiretapping, they "remain highly classified."
The report says it's unclear how much valuable intelligence the program has yielded.
The report, mandated by Congress last year, was delivered to lawmakers Friday.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Ca., told The Associated Press she was shocked to learn of the existence of other classified programs beyond the warrantless wiretapping.
Former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made a terse reference to other classified programs during an August 2007 letter to Congress. But Harman said that when she had asked Gonzales two years earlier if the government was conducting any other undisclosed intelligence activities, he denied it.
"He looked me in the eye and said 'no,'" she said Friday.
Robert Bork Jr., Gonzales' spokesman, said, "It has clearly been determined that he did not intend to mislead anyone."
In the wake of the new report, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, renewed his call Friday for a formal nonpartisan inquiry into the government's information-gathering programs.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden — the primary architect of the program_ told the report's authors that the surveillance was "extremely valuable" in preventing further al-Qaida attacks. Hayden said the operations amounted to an "early warning system" allowing top officials to make critical judgments and carefully allocate national security resources to counter threats.
Information gathered by the secret program played a limited role in the FBI's overall counterterrorism efforts, according to the report. Very few CIA analysts even knew about the program and therefore were unable to fully exploit it in their counterrorism work, the report said.
The report questioned the legal advice used by Bush to set up the program, pinpointing omissions and questionable legal memos written by Yoo, in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The Justice Department withdrew the memos years ago.
The report says Yoo's analysis approving the program ignored a law designed to restrict the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance during wartime, and did so without fully notifying Congress. And it said flaws in Yoo's memos later presented "a serious impediment" to recertifying the program.
Yoo insisted that the president's wiretapping program had only to comply with Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure — but the report said Yoo ignored the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, which had previously overseen federal national security surveillance.
"The notion that basically one person at the Justice Department, John Yoo, and Hayden and the vice president's office were running a program around the laws that Congress passed, including a reinterpretation of the Fourth Amendment, is mind boggling," Harman said.
House Democrats are pressing for legislation that would expand congressional access to secret intelligence briefings, but the White House has threatened to veto it.
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration built an unprecedented surveillance operation to pull in mountains of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged, a team of federal inspectors general reported Friday, questioning the legal basis for the effort but shielding almost all details on grounds they're still too secret to reveal.
The report, compiled by five inspectors general, refers to "unprecedented collection activities" by U.S. intelligence agencies under an executive order signed by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Just what those activities involved remains classified, but the IGs pointedly say that any continued use of the secret programs must be "carefully monitored."
The report says too few relevant officials knew of the size and depth of the program, let alone signed off on it. They particularly criticize John Yoo, a deputy assistant attorney general who wrote legal memos undergirding the policy. His boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, was not aware until March 2004 of the exact nature of the intelligence operations beyond wiretapping that he had been approving for the previous two and a half years, the report says.
Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the "mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile."
The inspectors general interviewed more than 200 people inside and outside the government, but five former Bush administration officials refused to be questioned. They were Ashcroft, Yoo, former CIA Director George Tenet, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and David Addington, an aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
According to the report, Addington could personally decide who in the administration was "read into" — allowed access to — the classified program.
The only piece of the intelligence-gathering operation acknowledged by the Bush White House was the wiretapping-without-warrants effort. The administration admitted in 2005 that it had allowed the National Security Agency to intercept international communications that passed through U.S. cables without seeking court orders.
Although the report documents Bush administration policies, its fallout could be a problem for the Obama administration if it inherited any or all of the still-classified operations.
Bush started the warrantless wiretapping program under the authority of a secret court in 2006, and Congress authorized most of the intercepts in a 2008 electronic surveillance law. The fate of the remaining and still classified aspects of the wider surveillance program is not clear from the report.
The report's revelations came the same day that House Democrats said that CIA Director Leon Panetta had ordered one eight-year-old classified program shut down after learning lawmakers had never been apprised of its existence.
The IG report said that President Bush signed off on both the warrantless wiretapping and other top-secret operations shortly after Sept. 11 in a single presidential authorization. All the programs were periodically reauthorized, but except for the acknowledged wiretapping, they "remain highly classified."
The report says it's unclear how much valuable intelligence the program has yielded.
The report, mandated by Congress last year, was delivered to lawmakers Friday.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Ca., told The Associated Press she was shocked to learn of the existence of other classified programs beyond the warrantless wiretapping.
Former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made a terse reference to other classified programs during an August 2007 letter to Congress. But Harman said that when she had asked Gonzales two years earlier if the government was conducting any other undisclosed intelligence activities, he denied it.
"He looked me in the eye and said 'no,'" she said Friday.
Robert Bork Jr., Gonzales' spokesman, said, "It has clearly been determined that he did not intend to mislead anyone."
In the wake of the new report, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, renewed his call Friday for a formal nonpartisan inquiry into the government's information-gathering programs.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden — the primary architect of the program_ told the report's authors that the surveillance was "extremely valuable" in preventing further al-Qaida attacks. Hayden said the operations amounted to an "early warning system" allowing top officials to make critical judgments and carefully allocate national security resources to counter threats.
Information gathered by the secret program played a limited role in the FBI's overall counterterrorism efforts, according to the report. Very few CIA analysts even knew about the program and therefore were unable to fully exploit it in their counterrorism work, the report said.
The report questioned the legal advice used by Bush to set up the program, pinpointing omissions and questionable legal memos written by Yoo, in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The Justice Department withdrew the memos years ago.
The report says Yoo's analysis approving the program ignored a law designed to restrict the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance during wartime, and did so without fully notifying Congress. And it said flaws in Yoo's memos later presented "a serious impediment" to recertifying the program.
Yoo insisted that the president's wiretapping program had only to comply with Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure — but the report said Yoo ignored the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, which had previously overseen federal national security surveillance.
"The notion that basically one person at the Justice Department, John Yoo, and Hayden and the vice president's office were running a program around the laws that Congress passed, including a reinterpretation of the Fourth Amendment, is mind boggling," Harman said.
House Democrats are pressing for legislation that would expand congressional access to secret intelligence briefings, but the White House has threatened to veto it.
Had an Overdraft fee through Bank of America? Like, ever?
Looks like you're in luck for a whopping $78.00 class action lawsuit settlement reached by the good old state of California (Looks like we win again, southerners!) if you meet these two criteria:
1. Had an account at Bank of America accessible through a Bank of America debit card; AND
2. Paid at least one:
1. insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, or similar fee, that was assessed to your account within five business days after a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account; OR
2. overlimit fee or similar fee that was assessed for an account cycle in which a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account.
(Edited) You can also claim a payment using this form if you are a former customer of Fleet Bank, N.A., LaSalle Bank N.A. or LaSalle Bank Midwest N.A., or United States Trust Company, N.A.
Discussion here with links:
consumerist.com/5135374/claim-your-share-78-of-the-bank-of-america-overdraf...
1. Had an account at Bank of America accessible through a Bank of America debit card; AND
2. Paid at least one:
1. insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, or similar fee, that was assessed to your account within five business days after a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account; OR
2. overlimit fee or similar fee that was assessed for an account cycle in which a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account.
(Edited) You can also claim a payment using this form if you are a former customer of Fleet Bank, N.A., LaSalle Bank N.A. or LaSalle Bank Midwest N.A., or United States Trust Company, N.A.
Discussion here with links:
consumerist.com/5135374/claim-your-share-78-of-the-bank-of-america-overdraf...
Bank of America Overdraft Fee Class Action Settlement
Time for another class-action lawsuit. This time, Bank of America and its affiliated banks are putting up $35 million to settle accusations of doing various naughty things to boost their revenues in the form of overdraft fees (AKA insufficient funds fees, bounced check fees, returned item fees).
For example, let’s say you have a bank balance of $500. You have debit card transactions of $15, $75, $200, and then $600. Allegedly, BofA would order the transactions posted from high-to-low, so that you’d have 4 separate overdraft fee charges, instead of just one.
According to the official settlement website, it looks like it may cover a lot of people. If you are eligible, you may be rewarded up to $78 depending on the number of claimants. You must submit a claim form either by mail or online by May 1, 2009. So who’s eligible?
You are a member of the Settlement Class and eligible for a payment if you resided in the United States at any time between the dates set forth below, had an account at a bank listed below, and meet all three of the following requirements:
1. Your account was accessible through a debit card, check card, or any other bank
card used for debit purchases; AND
2. You paid at least one:
1. insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, or similar fee that was assessed to your account within five business days after a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account; OR
2. overlimit fee or similar fee that was assessed for an account cycle in which a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account;
AND
3. The insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, overlimit fee, or similar fee was paid between the following dates:
For example, let’s say you have a bank balance of $500. You have debit card transactions of $15, $75, $200, and then $600. Allegedly, BofA would order the transactions posted from high-to-low, so that you’d have 4 separate overdraft fee charges, instead of just one.
According to the official settlement website, it looks like it may cover a lot of people. If you are eligible, you may be rewarded up to $78 depending on the number of claimants. You must submit a claim form either by mail or online by May 1, 2009. So who’s eligible?
You are a member of the Settlement Class and eligible for a payment if you resided in the United States at any time between the dates set forth below, had an account at a bank listed below, and meet all three of the following requirements:
1. Your account was accessible through a debit card, check card, or any other bank
card used for debit purchases; AND
2. You paid at least one:
1. insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, or similar fee that was assessed to your account within five business days after a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account; OR
2. overlimit fee or similar fee that was assessed for an account cycle in which a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account;
AND
3. The insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, overlimit fee, or similar fee was paid between the following dates:
Lawsuit targets WAMU, Chase for cutting off credit
A lawsuit claims Seattle's Washington Mutual Bank illegally froze consumer credit despite receiving billions of dollars in bailout money.
One of those consumers is KIRO Radio's own Dori Monson.
Monson said he tried to access his home equity line of credit he hadn't used in more than a year, "I needed to use it in April for a couple of things I was planning to do, and I called up WAMU and they said 'No, your (credit) line has been closed down.'"
The lawsuit filed in California claims WAMU and the bank's new owner JP Morgan Chase used faulty models to intentionally undervalue customer's homes. "Customers had to go and prove that their housing value didn't in fact fall and often had to hire attorneys to try to get credit lines reinstated." said attorney Jay Edelson.
Edelson said banks like WAMU were loaned billions of federal dollars to restore frozen credit markets, "What they told members of Congress was that they were going to use that money to lend money to homeowners and small business owners to get the economy moving again and they've done the opposite."
Edelson is seeking class action status for this lawsuit.
JP Morgan Chase declined to comment.
One of those consumers is KIRO Radio's own Dori Monson.
Monson said he tried to access his home equity line of credit he hadn't used in more than a year, "I needed to use it in April for a couple of things I was planning to do, and I called up WAMU and they said 'No, your (credit) line has been closed down.'"
The lawsuit filed in California claims WAMU and the bank's new owner JP Morgan Chase used faulty models to intentionally undervalue customer's homes. "Customers had to go and prove that their housing value didn't in fact fall and often had to hire attorneys to try to get credit lines reinstated." said attorney Jay Edelson.
Edelson said banks like WAMU were loaned billions of federal dollars to restore frozen credit markets, "What they told members of Congress was that they were going to use that money to lend money to homeowners and small business owners to get the economy moving again and they've done the opposite."
Edelson is seeking class action status for this lawsuit.
JP Morgan Chase declined to comment.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Robert McNamara deceived LBJ on Gulf of Tonkin
Robert McNamara deceived LBJ on Gulf of Tonkin, documents show
Official government documents reveal new side of defense secretary’s legacy
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07...gulf-of-tonkin/
7/8/2009
Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1967, took many secrets with him when he died Monday at 93. But probably no secret was more sensitive politically than the one that would have changed fundamentally the public perception of his role in Vietnam policy had it been become widely known.
The secret was his deliberate deceit of President Lyndon B. Johnson on Aug. 4, 1964 regarding the alleged attack on US warships in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Documents which have been available for decades in the LBJ Library show clearly that McNamara failed to inform Johnson that the U.S. naval task group commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, had changed his mind about the alleged North Vietnamese torpedo attack on U.S. warships he had reported earlier that day.
By early afternoon Washington time, Herrick had reported to the Commander in Chief Pacific in Honolulu that “freak weather effects” on the ship’s radar had made such an attack questionable. In fact, Herrick was now saying, in a message sent at 1:27 pm Washington time, that no North Vietnamese patrol boats had actually been sighted. Herrick now proposed a “complete evaluation before any further action taken.”
These documents were reviewed by this reporter in researching my book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.
McNamara later testified that he had read the message after his return to the Pentagon that afternoon. But he did not immediately call Johnson to tell him that the whole premise of his decision at lunch to approve McNamara’s recommendation for retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam was now highly questionable.
In fact, no call from McNamara to Johnson was recorded until 3:51 pm – 7 minutes after Johnson called him from his private quarters. Had Johnson been accurately informed about the Herrick message, he might have demanded fuller information before proceeding with a broadening of the war. Johnson had fended off proposals from McNamara and other advisers for a policy of bombing the North on four separate occasions since becoming President.
But when McNamara called Pacific Admiral Grant Sharp shortly after speaking with Johnson, it was not to order a full investigation or to seek more detailed information. In fact, McNamara didn’t even bring up the Herrick report. Instead, he seemed determined to obtain a statement from Sharp that would make it unnecessary to wait for further investigation. “There isn’t any possibility there was no attack, is there?” asked McNamara.
Sharp insisted, however, that the commander on the scene was saying “the situation’s in doubt” and suggested that McNamara “hold this execute” – meaning the strike order to CINCPAC and Seventh Fleet — “until we have a definite indication that this happened….” Sharp said he believed he could get a “definite indication” that the event had occurred within two hours.
But McNamara rejected Sharp’s proposal to wait for confirmation of the attack. Instead he said, “[I]t seems to me we ought to go ahead on that basis: get the pilots briefed, get the planes armed, get everything lined up to go. Continue the execute order in effect, but between now and 6 o’clock get a definite fix and you call me directly.”
McNamara didn’t claim that he had authority from Johnson to make that decision.
After the conversation with Sharp, McNamara didn’t call LBJ to report on what Sharp had told him or what they had agreed on, according to White House phone logs. Instead he went ahead on his own to issue the execute order at 4:49 pm.
The next phone call, which came just one minute after that order was sent, did not come from McNamara but from LBJ. That brief phone conversation, which was not recorded, was followed moments later by a call from McNamara to Johnson in which he the Secretary said the story had already been broken by wire services that a meeting at the White House that night would brief congressional leaders about a second attack on U.S. warships.
McNamara urged Johnson to authorize a statement by the Pentagon about the attack. He’d somehow found the time during the previous hour to draft a statement reaffirming the attack, which he read to Johnson. It said two U.S. warships had been attacked by patrol boats, but that the North Vietnamese boats had been “driven off.” It concluded, “We believe several of the patrol boats were sunk. Details won’t be available till daylight.”
Neither McNamara nor Johnson alluded in that conversation to Admiral Sharp’s seeking confirmatory evidence – a matter that would surely have been on LBJ’s mind if McNamara had told him about it.
The record of phone McNamara-Johnson conversations on the afternoon of Aug. 4, 1964 thus shows a President who was blissfully unaware that the original reports of an attack were now in doubt and that the Commander-in-Chief of Pacific forces was still seeking to obtain confirmation of the attack.
Ultimately, National Security Council documents declassified in 2005 (PDF) would reveal that no attack on US warships had taken place.
It “is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night,” they said. “In truth, Hanoi’s navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2.”
Reporter confronted McNamara in 2004
This writer confronted McNamara with that record in a phone conversation with him on Feb. 24, 2004. His response was that telephone calls were not the only way he had to communicate with Johnson and that he could have told Johnson about the military’s unresolved doubts at the National Security Council meeting which took place that night at 6:15 pm.
Unfortunately for McNamara’s alibi, detailed official notes of that Council meeting taken by NSC staffer Bromley Smith, marked “Top Secret Sensitive, For the President’s Eyes Only,” show that McNamara again asserted unequivocally that the attack had indeed taken place.
After USIA Director Carl Rowan asked, “Do we know for a fact that the North Vietnamese provocation took place?” McNamara said, “We will know definitely in the morning.”
When I read those quotes to McNamara over the phone, he suggested that the notes were “not complete.” But McNamara was admitting, in effect, that he did not inform LBJ that afternoon about the Herrick report or about Sharp’s plea to hold off the execute order until confirming evidence had been obtained.
The records of the Tonkin Gulf crisis in the LBJ library also include documentation showing LBJ wanted to get the truth about what McNamara knew and when he knew it.
Even before the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was approved by the Senate Aug. 7, LBJ ordered a full account of the communications between the commanders of U.S. Pacific forces and the Pentagon on Aug. 4 and 5. The requested study was referred to as the “inquiry,” according to a handwritten note on a draft chronology prepared at the Pentagon. It was to be based on the original tapes of all such communications, which were tracked down and transcribed.
McNamara altered transcripts of calls
The clearest evidence that McNamara was afraid of what the inquiry would reveal about his maneuvering on Aug. 4 is that the chronology produced under his personal guidance — where numerous changes were made on previous drafts in McNamara’s own handwriting — deliberately suppressed the most damning words from the transcript of his conversation with Sharp.
Not only did the official Defense Department chronology change the wording of McNamara’s question to Sharp so that it was no longer obviously a leading question, it also failed to mention Sharp’s revelation that Herrick considered the “whole situation” to be “in doubt” and was calling for “daylight recce” — or reconnaissance.
In addition, the McNamara’s chronology portrayed him as agreeing with Sharp that the execute order should be delayed until definite evidence of an attack was obtained. It reports, “McNamara says that even if definite confirmation of an attack is not forthcoming for another 2 hours, an hour would still remain and the execute order could then be issued.”
But McNamara had not said that the executive order could be issued after getting confirmation of an attack. He had said the opposite: “Continue the execute order in effect, but between now and 6 o’clock get a definite fix and you call me directly.” So that crucial sentence was omitted from the chronology.
McNamara did not want LBJ to know that he had rejected Sharp’s proposal to hold the execute order until the situation was clarified and had not even informed him.
There is more evidence in the presidential tapes at the LBJ Library that Johnson believed that McNamara had misinformed him about what had happened in the Tonkin Gulf. Six weeks later, McNamara and then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk went to Johnson with yet another claim that North Vietnamese boats had attacked a U.S. warship in the Tonkin Gulf and again urged a retaliatory bombing of the North.
This time Johnson expressed skepticism and complained about McNamara’s claim of an attack on Aug. 4. “You just came in a few weeks ago and said they’re launching an attack on us – they’re firing at us,” Johnson tells McNamara on the tape recording of the conversation, “and we got through with the firing and concluded maybe they hadn’t fired at all.”
Whether or not Johnson understood the seriousness of McNamara’s deception Aug. 4, he seemed to become even more resistant to McNamara’s views on Vietnam after the incident. That fall, during the presidential election campaign, Johnson began to challenge McNamara for his advocacy of bombing North Vietnam, even referring to his proposal as “your bombing bullshit,” according to accounts given by Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton to Daniel Ellsberg, his then-assistant (who later leaked what would be known as the Pentagon papers).
McNamara’s deception was one of many maneuvers aimed at pulling Johnson into an escalated war in Vietnam. But it is perhaps the only one in which McNamara’s role shifted from tough bureaucratic in-fighting to usurping presidential authority, in effect, on an issue involving the use of military force.
Official government documents reveal new side of defense secretary’s legacy
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07...gulf-of-tonkin/
7/8/2009
Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1967, took many secrets with him when he died Monday at 93. But probably no secret was more sensitive politically than the one that would have changed fundamentally the public perception of his role in Vietnam policy had it been become widely known.
The secret was his deliberate deceit of President Lyndon B. Johnson on Aug. 4, 1964 regarding the alleged attack on US warships in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Documents which have been available for decades in the LBJ Library show clearly that McNamara failed to inform Johnson that the U.S. naval task group commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, had changed his mind about the alleged North Vietnamese torpedo attack on U.S. warships he had reported earlier that day.
By early afternoon Washington time, Herrick had reported to the Commander in Chief Pacific in Honolulu that “freak weather effects” on the ship’s radar had made such an attack questionable. In fact, Herrick was now saying, in a message sent at 1:27 pm Washington time, that no North Vietnamese patrol boats had actually been sighted. Herrick now proposed a “complete evaluation before any further action taken.”
These documents were reviewed by this reporter in researching my book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.
McNamara later testified that he had read the message after his return to the Pentagon that afternoon. But he did not immediately call Johnson to tell him that the whole premise of his decision at lunch to approve McNamara’s recommendation for retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam was now highly questionable.
In fact, no call from McNamara to Johnson was recorded until 3:51 pm – 7 minutes after Johnson called him from his private quarters. Had Johnson been accurately informed about the Herrick message, he might have demanded fuller information before proceeding with a broadening of the war. Johnson had fended off proposals from McNamara and other advisers for a policy of bombing the North on four separate occasions since becoming President.
But when McNamara called Pacific Admiral Grant Sharp shortly after speaking with Johnson, it was not to order a full investigation or to seek more detailed information. In fact, McNamara didn’t even bring up the Herrick report. Instead, he seemed determined to obtain a statement from Sharp that would make it unnecessary to wait for further investigation. “There isn’t any possibility there was no attack, is there?” asked McNamara.
Sharp insisted, however, that the commander on the scene was saying “the situation’s in doubt” and suggested that McNamara “hold this execute” – meaning the strike order to CINCPAC and Seventh Fleet — “until we have a definite indication that this happened….” Sharp said he believed he could get a “definite indication” that the event had occurred within two hours.
But McNamara rejected Sharp’s proposal to wait for confirmation of the attack. Instead he said, “[I]t seems to me we ought to go ahead on that basis: get the pilots briefed, get the planes armed, get everything lined up to go. Continue the execute order in effect, but between now and 6 o’clock get a definite fix and you call me directly.”
McNamara didn’t claim that he had authority from Johnson to make that decision.
After the conversation with Sharp, McNamara didn’t call LBJ to report on what Sharp had told him or what they had agreed on, according to White House phone logs. Instead he went ahead on his own to issue the execute order at 4:49 pm.
The next phone call, which came just one minute after that order was sent, did not come from McNamara but from LBJ. That brief phone conversation, which was not recorded, was followed moments later by a call from McNamara to Johnson in which he the Secretary said the story had already been broken by wire services that a meeting at the White House that night would brief congressional leaders about a second attack on U.S. warships.
McNamara urged Johnson to authorize a statement by the Pentagon about the attack. He’d somehow found the time during the previous hour to draft a statement reaffirming the attack, which he read to Johnson. It said two U.S. warships had been attacked by patrol boats, but that the North Vietnamese boats had been “driven off.” It concluded, “We believe several of the patrol boats were sunk. Details won’t be available till daylight.”
Neither McNamara nor Johnson alluded in that conversation to Admiral Sharp’s seeking confirmatory evidence – a matter that would surely have been on LBJ’s mind if McNamara had told him about it.
The record of phone McNamara-Johnson conversations on the afternoon of Aug. 4, 1964 thus shows a President who was blissfully unaware that the original reports of an attack were now in doubt and that the Commander-in-Chief of Pacific forces was still seeking to obtain confirmation of the attack.
Ultimately, National Security Council documents declassified in 2005 (PDF) would reveal that no attack on US warships had taken place.
It “is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night,” they said. “In truth, Hanoi’s navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2.”
Reporter confronted McNamara in 2004
This writer confronted McNamara with that record in a phone conversation with him on Feb. 24, 2004. His response was that telephone calls were not the only way he had to communicate with Johnson and that he could have told Johnson about the military’s unresolved doubts at the National Security Council meeting which took place that night at 6:15 pm.
Unfortunately for McNamara’s alibi, detailed official notes of that Council meeting taken by NSC staffer Bromley Smith, marked “Top Secret Sensitive, For the President’s Eyes Only,” show that McNamara again asserted unequivocally that the attack had indeed taken place.
After USIA Director Carl Rowan asked, “Do we know for a fact that the North Vietnamese provocation took place?” McNamara said, “We will know definitely in the morning.”
When I read those quotes to McNamara over the phone, he suggested that the notes were “not complete.” But McNamara was admitting, in effect, that he did not inform LBJ that afternoon about the Herrick report or about Sharp’s plea to hold off the execute order until confirming evidence had been obtained.
The records of the Tonkin Gulf crisis in the LBJ library also include documentation showing LBJ wanted to get the truth about what McNamara knew and when he knew it.
Even before the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was approved by the Senate Aug. 7, LBJ ordered a full account of the communications between the commanders of U.S. Pacific forces and the Pentagon on Aug. 4 and 5. The requested study was referred to as the “inquiry,” according to a handwritten note on a draft chronology prepared at the Pentagon. It was to be based on the original tapes of all such communications, which were tracked down and transcribed.
McNamara altered transcripts of calls
The clearest evidence that McNamara was afraid of what the inquiry would reveal about his maneuvering on Aug. 4 is that the chronology produced under his personal guidance — where numerous changes were made on previous drafts in McNamara’s own handwriting — deliberately suppressed the most damning words from the transcript of his conversation with Sharp.
Not only did the official Defense Department chronology change the wording of McNamara’s question to Sharp so that it was no longer obviously a leading question, it also failed to mention Sharp’s revelation that Herrick considered the “whole situation” to be “in doubt” and was calling for “daylight recce” — or reconnaissance.
In addition, the McNamara’s chronology portrayed him as agreeing with Sharp that the execute order should be delayed until definite evidence of an attack was obtained. It reports, “McNamara says that even if definite confirmation of an attack is not forthcoming for another 2 hours, an hour would still remain and the execute order could then be issued.”
But McNamara had not said that the executive order could be issued after getting confirmation of an attack. He had said the opposite: “Continue the execute order in effect, but between now and 6 o’clock get a definite fix and you call me directly.” So that crucial sentence was omitted from the chronology.
McNamara did not want LBJ to know that he had rejected Sharp’s proposal to hold the execute order until the situation was clarified and had not even informed him.
There is more evidence in the presidential tapes at the LBJ Library that Johnson believed that McNamara had misinformed him about what had happened in the Tonkin Gulf. Six weeks later, McNamara and then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk went to Johnson with yet another claim that North Vietnamese boats had attacked a U.S. warship in the Tonkin Gulf and again urged a retaliatory bombing of the North.
This time Johnson expressed skepticism and complained about McNamara’s claim of an attack on Aug. 4. “You just came in a few weeks ago and said they’re launching an attack on us – they’re firing at us,” Johnson tells McNamara on the tape recording of the conversation, “and we got through with the firing and concluded maybe they hadn’t fired at all.”
Whether or not Johnson understood the seriousness of McNamara’s deception Aug. 4, he seemed to become even more resistant to McNamara’s views on Vietnam after the incident. That fall, during the presidential election campaign, Johnson began to challenge McNamara for his advocacy of bombing North Vietnam, even referring to his proposal as “your bombing bullshit,” according to accounts given by Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton to Daniel Ellsberg, his then-assistant (who later leaked what would be known as the Pentagon papers).
McNamara’s deception was one of many maneuvers aimed at pulling Johnson into an escalated war in Vietnam. But it is perhaps the only one in which McNamara’s role shifted from tough bureaucratic in-fighting to usurping presidential authority, in effect, on an issue involving the use of military force.
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09)
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09)
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27 through July 31, 2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery.
NLE 09 is designated as a Tier I National Level Exercise. Tier I exercises (formerly known as the Top Officials exercise series or TOPOFF) are conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise Program (NEP), which serves as the nation's overarching exercise program for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating national level exercises. The NEP was established to provide the U.S. government, at all levels, exercise opportunities to prepare for catastrophic crises ranging from terrorism to natural disasters.
NLE 09 is a White House directed, Congressionally- mandated exercise that includes the participation of all appropriate federal department and agency senior officials, their deputies, staff and key operational elements. In addition, broad regional participation of state, tribal, local, and private sector is anticipated. This year the United States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09.
EXERCISE FOCUS
NLE 09 will focus on intelligence and information sharing among intelligence and law enforcement communities, and between international, federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector participants.
The NLE 09 scenario will begin in the aftermath of a notional terrorist event outside of the United States, and exercise play will center on preventing subsequent efforts by the terrorists to enter the United States and carry out additional attacks. This scenario enables participating senior officials to focus on issues related to preventing terrorist events domestically and protecting U.S. critical infrastructure.
NLE 09 will allow terrorism prevention efforts to proceed to a logical end (successful or not), with no requirement for response or recovery activities.
NLE 09 will be an operations-based exercise to include: activities taking place at command posts, emergency operation centers, intelligence centers and potential field locations to include federal headquarters facilities in the Washington D.C. area, and in federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector facilities in FEMA Region VI, which includes the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
EXERCISE OBJECTIVES
Through a comprehensive evaluation process, the exercise will assess prevention and protection capabilities both nationally and regionally. Although NLE 09 is still in the planning stages, the exercise is currently designed to validate the following capabilities:
*
Intelligence/Information Sharing and Dissemination
*
Counter-Terrorism Investigation and Law Enforcement
*
Air, Border and Maritime Security
*
Critical Infrastructure Protection
*
Public and Private Sector Alert/Notification and Security Advisories
*
International Coordination
VALIDATING THE HOMELAND SECURITY SYSTEM
Exercises such as NLE 09 are an important component of national preparedness, helping to build an integrated federal, state, tribal, local and private sector capability to prevent terrorist attacks, and rapidly and effectively respond to, and recover from, any terrorist attack or major disaster that occurs.
The full-scale exercise offers agencies and jurisdictions a way to test their plans and skills in a real-time, realistic environment and to gain the in-depth knowledge that only experience can provide. Participants will exercise prevention and information sharing functions that are critical to preventing terrorist attacks. Lessons learned from the exercise will provide valuable insights to guide future planning for securing the nation against terrorist attacks, disasters, and other emergencies.
For more information about NLE 09, contact the FEMA News Desk: 202-646-4600.
FEMA leads and supports the nation in a risk-based, comprehensive emergency management system of preparedness, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation, to reduce the loss of life and property and protect the nation from all hazards including natural disasters, acts of terrorism and other man-made disasters.
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27 through July 31, 2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery.
NLE 09 is designated as a Tier I National Level Exercise. Tier I exercises (formerly known as the Top Officials exercise series or TOPOFF) are conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise Program (NEP), which serves as the nation's overarching exercise program for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating national level exercises. The NEP was established to provide the U.S. government, at all levels, exercise opportunities to prepare for catastrophic crises ranging from terrorism to natural disasters.
NLE 09 is a White House directed, Congressionally- mandated exercise that includes the participation of all appropriate federal department and agency senior officials, their deputies, staff and key operational elements. In addition, broad regional participation of state, tribal, local, and private sector is anticipated. This year the United States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09.
EXERCISE FOCUS
NLE 09 will focus on intelligence and information sharing among intelligence and law enforcement communities, and between international, federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector participants.
The NLE 09 scenario will begin in the aftermath of a notional terrorist event outside of the United States, and exercise play will center on preventing subsequent efforts by the terrorists to enter the United States and carry out additional attacks. This scenario enables participating senior officials to focus on issues related to preventing terrorist events domestically and protecting U.S. critical infrastructure.
NLE 09 will allow terrorism prevention efforts to proceed to a logical end (successful or not), with no requirement for response or recovery activities.
NLE 09 will be an operations-based exercise to include: activities taking place at command posts, emergency operation centers, intelligence centers and potential field locations to include federal headquarters facilities in the Washington D.C. area, and in federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector facilities in FEMA Region VI, which includes the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
EXERCISE OBJECTIVES
Through a comprehensive evaluation process, the exercise will assess prevention and protection capabilities both nationally and regionally. Although NLE 09 is still in the planning stages, the exercise is currently designed to validate the following capabilities:
*
Intelligence/Information Sharing and Dissemination
*
Counter-Terrorism Investigation and Law Enforcement
*
Air, Border and Maritime Security
*
Critical Infrastructure Protection
*
Public and Private Sector Alert/Notification and Security Advisories
*
International Coordination
VALIDATING THE HOMELAND SECURITY SYSTEM
Exercises such as NLE 09 are an important component of national preparedness, helping to build an integrated federal, state, tribal, local and private sector capability to prevent terrorist attacks, and rapidly and effectively respond to, and recover from, any terrorist attack or major disaster that occurs.
The full-scale exercise offers agencies and jurisdictions a way to test their plans and skills in a real-time, realistic environment and to gain the in-depth knowledge that only experience can provide. Participants will exercise prevention and information sharing functions that are critical to preventing terrorist attacks. Lessons learned from the exercise will provide valuable insights to guide future planning for securing the nation against terrorist attacks, disasters, and other emergencies.
For more information about NLE 09, contact the FEMA News Desk: 202-646-4600.
FEMA leads and supports the nation in a risk-based, comprehensive emergency management system of preparedness, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation, to reduce the loss of life and property and protect the nation from all hazards including natural disasters, acts of terrorism and other man-made disasters.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Economists point to rising debt as next crisis
Higher taxes and reduced federal benefits, services may be result
WASHINGTON - The Founding Fathers left one legacy not celebrated on Independence Day but which affects us all. It's the national debt.
The country first got into debt to help pay for the Revolutionary War. Growing ever since, the debt stands today at a staggering $11.4 trillion — equivalent to about $37,000 for each and every American. And it's expanding by over $1 trillion a year.
The mountain of debt easily could become the next full-fledged economic crisis without firm action from Washington, economists of all stripes warn.
"Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently told Congress.
Higher taxes, or reduced federal benefits and services — or a combination of both — may be the inevitable consequences.
The debt is complicating efforts by President Barack Obama and Congress to cope with the worst recession in decades as stimulus and bailout spending combine with lower tax revenues to widen the gap.
Interest payments on the debt alone cost $452 billion last year — the largest federal spending category after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense. It's quickly crowding out all other government spending. And the Treasury is finding it harder to find new lenders.
U.S. has been debt-free only once, in 1834-35
The United States went into the red the first time in 1790 when it assumed $75 million in the war debts of the Continental Congress.
Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, said, "A national debt, if not excessive, will be to us a national blessing."
Some blessing.
Since then, the nation has only been free of debt once, in 1834-1835.
The national debt has expanded during times of war and usually contracted in times of peace, while staying on a generally upward trajectory. Over the past several decades, it has climbed sharply — except for a respite from 1998 to 2000, when there were annual budget surpluses, reflecting in large part what turned out to be an overheated economy.
Middle East wars helped 'break' the debt clock
The debt soared with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and economic stimulus spending under President George W. Bush and now Obama.
The odometer-style "debt clock" near Times Square — put in place in 1989 when the debt was a mere $2.7 trillion — ran out of numbers and had to be shut down when the debt surged past $10 trillion in 2008.
The clock has since been refurbished so higher numbers fit. There are several debt clocks on Web sites maintained by public interest groups that let you watch hundreds, thousands, millions zip by in a matter of seconds.
The debt gap is "something that keeps me awake at night," Obama says.
He pledged to cut the budget "deficit" roughly in half by the end of his first term. But "deficit" just means the difference between government receipts and spending in a single budget year.
This year's deficit is now estimated at about $1.85 trillion.
Deficits don't reflect holdover indebtedness from previous years. Some spending items — such as emergency appropriations bills and receipts in the Social Security program — aren't included, either, although they are part of the national debt.
The national debt is a broader, and more telling, way to look at the government's balance sheets than glancing at deficits.
U.S. is more than $11 trillion in debt
According to the Treasury Department, which updates the number "to the penny" every few days, the national debt was $11,518,472,742,288 on Wednesday.
The overall debt is now slightly over 80 percent of the annual output of the entire U.S. economy, as measured by the gross domestic product.
By historical standards, it's not proportionately as high as during World War II, when it briefly rose to 120 percent of GDP. But it's still a huge liability.
Also, the United States is not the only nation struggling under a huge national debt. Among major countries, Japan, Italy, India, France, Germany and Canada have comparable debts as percentages of their GDPs.
Where does the government borrow all this money from?
Treasury securities still seen as safe investments
The debt is largely financed by the sale of Treasury bonds and bills. Even today, amid global economic turmoil, those still are seen as one of the world's safest investments.
That's one of the rare upsides of U.S. government borrowing.
Treasury securities are suitable for individual investors and popular with other countries, especially China, Japan and the Persian Gulf oil exporters, the three top foreign holders of U.S. debt.
But as the U.S. spends trillions to stabilize the recession-wracked economy, helping to force down the value of the dollar, the securities become less attractive as investments. Some major foreign lenders are already paring back on their purchases of U.S. bonds and other securities.
And if major holders of U.S. debt were to flee, it would send shock waves through the global economy — and sharply force up U.S. interest rates.
As time goes by, demographics suggest things will get worse before they get better, even after the recession ends, as more baby boomers retire and begin collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Public concerned about debt's effects on future
While the president remains personally popular, polls show there is rising public concern over his handling of the economy and the government's mushrooming debt — and what it might mean for future generations.
If things can't be turned around, including establishing a more efficient health care system, "We are on an utterly unsustainable fiscal course," said the White House budget director, Peter Orszag.
Some budget-restraint activists claim even the debt understates the nation's true liabilities.
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, established by a former commerce secretary and investment banker, argues that the $11.4 trillion debt figures does not take into account roughly $45 trillion in unlisted liabilities and unfunded retirement and health care commitments.
That would put the nation's full obligations at $56 trillion, or roughly $184,000 per American, according to this calculation.
WASHINGTON - The Founding Fathers left one legacy not celebrated on Independence Day but which affects us all. It's the national debt.
The country first got into debt to help pay for the Revolutionary War. Growing ever since, the debt stands today at a staggering $11.4 trillion — equivalent to about $37,000 for each and every American. And it's expanding by over $1 trillion a year.
The mountain of debt easily could become the next full-fledged economic crisis without firm action from Washington, economists of all stripes warn.
"Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently told Congress.
Higher taxes, or reduced federal benefits and services — or a combination of both — may be the inevitable consequences.
The debt is complicating efforts by President Barack Obama and Congress to cope with the worst recession in decades as stimulus and bailout spending combine with lower tax revenues to widen the gap.
Interest payments on the debt alone cost $452 billion last year — the largest federal spending category after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense. It's quickly crowding out all other government spending. And the Treasury is finding it harder to find new lenders.
U.S. has been debt-free only once, in 1834-35
The United States went into the red the first time in 1790 when it assumed $75 million in the war debts of the Continental Congress.
Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, said, "A national debt, if not excessive, will be to us a national blessing."
Some blessing.
Since then, the nation has only been free of debt once, in 1834-1835.
The national debt has expanded during times of war and usually contracted in times of peace, while staying on a generally upward trajectory. Over the past several decades, it has climbed sharply — except for a respite from 1998 to 2000, when there were annual budget surpluses, reflecting in large part what turned out to be an overheated economy.
Middle East wars helped 'break' the debt clock
The debt soared with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and economic stimulus spending under President George W. Bush and now Obama.
The odometer-style "debt clock" near Times Square — put in place in 1989 when the debt was a mere $2.7 trillion — ran out of numbers and had to be shut down when the debt surged past $10 trillion in 2008.
The clock has since been refurbished so higher numbers fit. There are several debt clocks on Web sites maintained by public interest groups that let you watch hundreds, thousands, millions zip by in a matter of seconds.
The debt gap is "something that keeps me awake at night," Obama says.
He pledged to cut the budget "deficit" roughly in half by the end of his first term. But "deficit" just means the difference between government receipts and spending in a single budget year.
This year's deficit is now estimated at about $1.85 trillion.
Deficits don't reflect holdover indebtedness from previous years. Some spending items — such as emergency appropriations bills and receipts in the Social Security program — aren't included, either, although they are part of the national debt.
The national debt is a broader, and more telling, way to look at the government's balance sheets than glancing at deficits.
U.S. is more than $11 trillion in debt
According to the Treasury Department, which updates the number "to the penny" every few days, the national debt was $11,518,472,742,288 on Wednesday.
The overall debt is now slightly over 80 percent of the annual output of the entire U.S. economy, as measured by the gross domestic product.
By historical standards, it's not proportionately as high as during World War II, when it briefly rose to 120 percent of GDP. But it's still a huge liability.
Also, the United States is not the only nation struggling under a huge national debt. Among major countries, Japan, Italy, India, France, Germany and Canada have comparable debts as percentages of their GDPs.
Where does the government borrow all this money from?
Treasury securities still seen as safe investments
The debt is largely financed by the sale of Treasury bonds and bills. Even today, amid global economic turmoil, those still are seen as one of the world's safest investments.
That's one of the rare upsides of U.S. government borrowing.
Treasury securities are suitable for individual investors and popular with other countries, especially China, Japan and the Persian Gulf oil exporters, the three top foreign holders of U.S. debt.
But as the U.S. spends trillions to stabilize the recession-wracked economy, helping to force down the value of the dollar, the securities become less attractive as investments. Some major foreign lenders are already paring back on their purchases of U.S. bonds and other securities.
And if major holders of U.S. debt were to flee, it would send shock waves through the global economy — and sharply force up U.S. interest rates.
As time goes by, demographics suggest things will get worse before they get better, even after the recession ends, as more baby boomers retire and begin collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Public concerned about debt's effects on future
While the president remains personally popular, polls show there is rising public concern over his handling of the economy and the government's mushrooming debt — and what it might mean for future generations.
If things can't be turned around, including establishing a more efficient health care system, "We are on an utterly unsustainable fiscal course," said the White House budget director, Peter Orszag.
Some budget-restraint activists claim even the debt understates the nation's true liabilities.
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, established by a former commerce secretary and investment banker, argues that the $11.4 trillion debt figures does not take into account roughly $45 trillion in unlisted liabilities and unfunded retirement and health care commitments.
That would put the nation's full obligations at $56 trillion, or roughly $184,000 per American, according to this calculation.
The Sun Has Spots, Finally
Robert Roy Britt
Editorial Director
SPACE.com Robert Roy Britt
editorial Director
space.com – Mon Jul 6, 10:45 am ET
After one of the longest sunspot droughts in modern times, solar activity picked up quickly over the weekend.
A new group of sunspots developed, and while not dramatic by historic standards, the spots were the most significant in many months.
"This is the best sunspot I've seen in two years," observer Michael Buxton of Ocean Beach, Calif., said on Spaceweather.com.
Solar activity goes in a roughly 11-year cycle. Sunspots are the visible signs of that activity, and they are the sites from which massive solar storms lift off. The past two years have marked the lowest low in the cycle since 1913, and for a while scientists were wondering if activity would ever pick back up.
During 2009 so far, the sun has been completely free of spots about 77 percent of the time. NASA researchers last month said quiet jet streams inside the sun were responsible, and that activity would soon return to normal.
The new set of spots, named 1024, is kicking up modest solar flares.
Sunspots are cool regions on the sun where magnetic energy builds up. They serve as a cap on material welling up from below. Often, that material is released in spectacular light shows called solar flares and discharges of charged particles known as coronal mass ejections. The ejections can travel as space storms to Earth within a day or so, and major storms can knock out satellites and trip power grids on the surface.
Prior to the low-activity period, astronomers had been predicting that the next peak in solar activity, expected in 2013, might be one of the most active in many decades. That forecast was recently revised, however, and scientists now expect the next peak to be modest.
All this matters because, as laid out in a report earlier this year by the National Academy of Sciences, a major solar storm nowadays could cause up to $2 trillion in initial damages by crippling communications on Earth and fueling chaos among residents and even governments in a scenario that would require four to 10 years for recovery. Such a storm struck in 1859, knocking out telegraph communications and causing those lines to erupt in flames. The world then was not so dependent on electronic communication systems, however.
Editorial Director
SPACE.com Robert Roy Britt
editorial Director
space.com – Mon Jul 6, 10:45 am ET
After one of the longest sunspot droughts in modern times, solar activity picked up quickly over the weekend.
A new group of sunspots developed, and while not dramatic by historic standards, the spots were the most significant in many months.
"This is the best sunspot I've seen in two years," observer Michael Buxton of Ocean Beach, Calif., said on Spaceweather.com.
Solar activity goes in a roughly 11-year cycle. Sunspots are the visible signs of that activity, and they are the sites from which massive solar storms lift off. The past two years have marked the lowest low in the cycle since 1913, and for a while scientists were wondering if activity would ever pick back up.
During 2009 so far, the sun has been completely free of spots about 77 percent of the time. NASA researchers last month said quiet jet streams inside the sun were responsible, and that activity would soon return to normal.
The new set of spots, named 1024, is kicking up modest solar flares.
Sunspots are cool regions on the sun where magnetic energy builds up. They serve as a cap on material welling up from below. Often, that material is released in spectacular light shows called solar flares and discharges of charged particles known as coronal mass ejections. The ejections can travel as space storms to Earth within a day or so, and major storms can knock out satellites and trip power grids on the surface.
Prior to the low-activity period, astronomers had been predicting that the next peak in solar activity, expected in 2013, might be one of the most active in many decades. That forecast was recently revised, however, and scientists now expect the next peak to be modest.
All this matters because, as laid out in a report earlier this year by the National Academy of Sciences, a major solar storm nowadays could cause up to $2 trillion in initial damages by crippling communications on Earth and fueling chaos among residents and even governments in a scenario that would require four to 10 years for recovery. Such a storm struck in 1859, knocking out telegraph communications and causing those lines to erupt in flames. The world then was not so dependent on electronic communication systems, however.
Monday, July 6, 2009
UK weapons inspector who was found dead was writing expose: paper
British weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly was writing an expose about his work with anthrax and his warnings that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction at the time of his death in July 2003, according to a report published in a British newspaper.
Kelly’s death — said to have been a suicide — has stirred controversy, as it came on the heels of testimony to the House of Commons about a memo which purported that Britain had “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. A Parliamentary inquiry ruled that the death had been suicide, though it also included testimony from a former British ambassador who quotes Kelly as having said, “I will probably be found dead in the woods” if Iraq were invaded.
The new report says Kelly had spoken with an Oxford publisher several times about a book.
“He had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford and was seeking advice on how far he could go without breaking the law on secrets,” the UK Daily Express alleged.
Kelly’s computers were seized in the wake of his death. He was a signatory to Britain’s Official Secrets Act, which allows for the prosecution of those who talk to the press about state secrets and prescribes a more stringent framework for secrecy than in the United States.
According to the paper, “he was intending to reveal that he warned Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq weeks before the British and American invasion… and was also intending to lift the lid on a potentially bigger scandal, his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.”
The allegations of a potential Kelly expose come from a new film about biological weapons being debuted in London on the sixth anniversary of Kelly’s death titled “Anthrax War” (the documentary aired earlier this year on Canadian public television). Kelly was an expert in biological warfare agents, as well as a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.
‘Anthrax War’
‘‘The deeper you look into the murky world of governments and germ warfare, the more worrying it becomes,” the film’s director, Bob Coen, is quoted as saying. “We have proved there is a black market in anthrax. David Kelly was of particular interest to us because he was a world expert on anthrax and he was involved in some degree with assisting the secret germ warfare program in apartheid South Africa.”
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s summary of the film, Coen “was raised in Zimbabwe where the former white regime has been accused of unleashing anthrax against the black population… [who] embarks on a journey that raises troubling questions about the FBI’s investigation of the 21st century’s first act of biological terrorism.
“Coen’s investigation takes him from the U.S. to the U.K. and from the edge of Siberia to the tip of Africa. In a rare interview, Coen confronts ‘Doctor Death’ Wouter Basson, who headed Project Coast, the South African apartheid-era bio-warfare program,” the network’s website adds. “Project Coast used germ warfare against select targets within the country’s black population.
“Anthrax War also investigates the mysterious deaths of some of the world’s leading anthrax scientists, including Dr. David Kelly, the UK’s top military microbiologist, the Soviet defector Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, and Dr. Bruce Ivins,” the CBC continues. “The FBI claims - despite the doubts of highly ranked U.S. officials - that Ivins was the only person behind the U.S. anthrax murders.”
A Torrent download of Anthrax War is available at this link. Several shorter clips are also available on YouTube.
This video is from CBC’s Anthrax War.
Kelly’s death — said to have been a suicide — has stirred controversy, as it came on the heels of testimony to the House of Commons about a memo which purported that Britain had “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. A Parliamentary inquiry ruled that the death had been suicide, though it also included testimony from a former British ambassador who quotes Kelly as having said, “I will probably be found dead in the woods” if Iraq were invaded.
The new report says Kelly had spoken with an Oxford publisher several times about a book.
“He had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford and was seeking advice on how far he could go without breaking the law on secrets,” the UK Daily Express alleged.
Kelly’s computers were seized in the wake of his death. He was a signatory to Britain’s Official Secrets Act, which allows for the prosecution of those who talk to the press about state secrets and prescribes a more stringent framework for secrecy than in the United States.
According to the paper, “he was intending to reveal that he warned Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq weeks before the British and American invasion… and was also intending to lift the lid on a potentially bigger scandal, his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.”
The allegations of a potential Kelly expose come from a new film about biological weapons being debuted in London on the sixth anniversary of Kelly’s death titled “Anthrax War” (the documentary aired earlier this year on Canadian public television). Kelly was an expert in biological warfare agents, as well as a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.
‘Anthrax War’
‘‘The deeper you look into the murky world of governments and germ warfare, the more worrying it becomes,” the film’s director, Bob Coen, is quoted as saying. “We have proved there is a black market in anthrax. David Kelly was of particular interest to us because he was a world expert on anthrax and he was involved in some degree with assisting the secret germ warfare program in apartheid South Africa.”
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s summary of the film, Coen “was raised in Zimbabwe where the former white regime has been accused of unleashing anthrax against the black population… [who] embarks on a journey that raises troubling questions about the FBI’s investigation of the 21st century’s first act of biological terrorism.
“Coen’s investigation takes him from the U.S. to the U.K. and from the edge of Siberia to the tip of Africa. In a rare interview, Coen confronts ‘Doctor Death’ Wouter Basson, who headed Project Coast, the South African apartheid-era bio-warfare program,” the network’s website adds. “Project Coast used germ warfare against select targets within the country’s black population.
“Anthrax War also investigates the mysterious deaths of some of the world’s leading anthrax scientists, including Dr. David Kelly, the UK’s top military microbiologist, the Soviet defector Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, and Dr. Bruce Ivins,” the CBC continues. “The FBI claims - despite the doubts of highly ranked U.S. officials - that Ivins was the only person behind the U.S. anthrax murders.”
A Torrent download of Anthrax War is available at this link. Several shorter clips are also available on YouTube.
This video is from CBC’s Anthrax War.
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