¡Ya Basta!

via: American Free Press Issue #39 September 2008

Not satisfied with 200 A-bombs, now Israel has asked the U.S. for tons of deadly munitions

By the American Free Press Staff

The Defense Department plans to provide 1,000 bunker-busting bombs to Israel at a cost of $77 million according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Congress has 30 days to object or the sale goes through.

The smart bomb, the GBU-28, is a laser-guided weapon whose warhead can burrow through more than 20 feet of concrete and up to 100 feet of dirt, according to AFP.

If the sale goes through, Israel will get other weapons as well. A Pentagon news release states that “Israel has requested a possible sale of 1,000 GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs (SDB1), 150 BRU-61/A SDB1 Mounting Carriages, 30 Guided Test Vehicles, two BRU-61/A SDB Instrumented Carriages, seven Jettison Test Vehicles, one Separation Test Vehicle, two Reliability and Assessment Vehicles, 12 Common Munitions BIT and Reprogramming Equipment with Test Equipment and Adapters, three SDB1 Weapons Simulators, and two Load Crew Trainers. Also includes containers, flight test integration, spare and repair parts, support equipment, personnel training and equipment, publications and technical data, U.S. government and contractor engineering and logistics personnel services, and other related elements of logistics support.”

This is effectively a taxpayer gift to Israel. Debts for such sales are routinely “forgiven” each year, though this is ignored by the mainstream media. The $3.5 billion in outright aid is paid in a lump some up front, unlike other beneficiaries who receive quarterly installments.

Counting interest paid on money borrowed to give Israel, feeding its war machine costs Americans more than $10 billion a year.

Financing Israel’s brutal and bloody wars of expansion and occupation accounts for so much hatred for this country, not only in the Mideast, but also in Europe.

The sale comes despite concerns that the U.S. had been reluctant to sell the advanced weaponry out of fears that Israel would attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran is locked in a confrontation with Israel over its nuclear program, which it claims is for civilian use only.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel would keep all options open regarding its stance toward Iran’s nuclear capability.

Yitzhak Benhorin Ynet News September 23, 2008

The two United States presidential hopefuls, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, firmly addressed the Iranian nuclear threat in two different interviews aired Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

Democratic candidate Obama promised to examine every option, “including military, to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” while his Republican rival McCain spoke about the possibility of a preemptive war against Iran.

Obama was asked whether a nuclear-armed Iran was a direct threat to the US. His answer was direct and clear: “Yes. I think that a nuclear armed Iran is not just a threat to us, it’s a threat to Israel. And it is a game changer in the region. It’s unacceptable. And that’s why I’ve said that I won’t take any options off the table, including military, to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

He went on to criticize the Bush administration for wasting eight years instead of handling the Iranian issues.

“I do think that it is important for us to use all the arrows in our quiver. And we have not applied the kind of tough diplomacy over the last eight years that I think could have made a difference,” he said.

Read article

David Gutierrez Natural News September 23, 2008

A California appeals court has ruled that homeschooling of children is illegal unless their parents have teaching credentials from the state.

“California is now on the path to being the only state to deny the vast majority of homeschooling parents their fundamental right to teach their own children at home,” said Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association.

The court overturned a lower court’s finding that homeschooling did not constitute a violation of child welfare laws. Continue Reading »

Dr. Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty September 22, 2008

The press conference at the National Press Club had a precise purpose. It was to expose, to as many people as possible, the gross deception of our presidential election process. It is controlled by the powerful elite to make sure that neither candidate of the two major parties will challenge the status quo. There is no real choice between the two major parties and their nominees, only the rhetoric varies. The amazingly long campaign is designed to make sure the real issues are ignored. The quotes I used at the press conference from insider Carroll Quigley and the League of Women voters strongly support this contention.

Calling together candidates from the liberal, conservative, libertarian and progressive constituencies, who are all opposed to this rigged process, was designed to alert the American people to the uselessness of continuing to support a process that a claims that one’s only choice is to choose the lesser of two evils and reject a principle vote that might challenge the status quo as a wasted vote.

In both political education and organization, coalitions are worthwhile and necessary to have an impact. “Talking to the choir” alone achieves little. I have always approached political and economic education with a “missionary” zeal by inviting any group in on issues we agree upon.

This opens the door to legitimate discourse with the hope of winning new converts to the cause of liberty. This strategy led to the press conference with the four candidates agreeing to the four principles we believe are crucial in challenging the political system that has evolved over many years in this country.

This unique press conference, despite the surprising, late complication from the Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate, hopefully will prove to be historically significant.

This does not mean that I expect to get Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney to become libertarians, nor do they expect me to change my mind on the issues on which we disagree. In the meantime, why can’t we be friends, respectful of each other, and fight the corrupt process from which we suffer, and at the same time champion the four issues that we all agree upon which the two major candidates won’t address? Continue Reading »

Seriously, we’re finally reaching a point in the national collapse that liberals are starting to realize there’s an actual coup taking place. Granted, they’re still calling the country a democracy (it’s a Republic!) and they don’t understand that it’s a bipartisan coup that’s at least a century old, but still, we’re seeing progress. Now they just need to stop thinking that Obama (the candidate who’s received the most money from Wall Street) is not going to save us. We’re getting there, though.

via: Huffington Post

In 2000, the long fought for and long admired democracy of the United States of America began a slow and steady decline toward fascism - a Bush family tradition - with the installment of a president - a man the citizens overwhelmingly rejected (although the funny math told a still believed myth) - by a few corrupt judges on the US Supreme Court. That coup is now nearly complete and checkmate is all but unavoidable.

Let me first point you to the Bush administration’s so-called Wall Street bailout bill, here, so that you can see for yourself that this treachery is being conducted in the light of day. Fascism is finally and formally out of the right-wing closet even if the F word is not yet openly being used (although it should be, and often).

Now, if you do not yet understand that the Wall Street crisis is a man-made disaster done through intentional deregulation and corruption, I have a bridge in Alaska to sell to you (or Sara Palin does anyway). This manufactured crisis is now to be remedied, if the fiscal fascists get their way, with the total transfer of Congressional powers (the few that still remain) to the Executive Branch and the total transfer of public funds into corporate (via government as intermediary) hands.

The ending is the best part. A liberal talking about patriotism and breaking down the political dialectic? Wha? Why she sounds like one of them crazy 9/11 Truthers.

The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution. But, If Congress won’t act in its own self-defense, in the defense of democracy, in defense of us - the people who have elected them to protect us from this very danger - then what is left for us to do? I don’t want to see it come down to this, but I fear that it will. Put your party politics aside right now. We are in a crisis so dangerous that should these people succeed in their coup, your party affiliation will no longer matter, your American flag will be a nice collectible item of something that once was, and your version of God will be worshiped in secrecy because your freedoms will be owned by the few.

You are no longer Republicans, Democrats, or any shade of voter. You do not live in a swing state or a solid colored state. You are simply this: an American. That is the only side that matters. So call your members of Congress and demand, no, declare that unless they do their duty to the Constitution and to us, we will move to the streets - not because we want to, but because our founding fathers demanded this duty of each and every citizen in the face of such a domestic enemy. Demand - as is your right - that this bill be voted against and demand - as is your right - that the people plotting this treachery be held to account. We are either a nation of laws or we are no longer a democracy. Pick a side, because there won’t be another time, another moment, another chance to be a patriot.

Here’s a succinct version of the problem with the bailout. I just don’t think Bernake and Paulson et al are actually stupid enough to think this will work. Now, maybe they’re not the architects of all this and this is just a stop gap measure to buy time until they can scuttle away in January. Or maybe they’re acting under orders, and this is not at all meant to be a solution at all. It follows the same pattern we’ve been seeing for 8 (100?) years now: consolidate power in the unconstitutional corners of the government most insulated from public control. Strengthen the CIA, the NSA, the Fed, the Treasury Secretary, Executive Orders, etc. But it’s not a conspiracy. This is all totally unexpected and everything is being donefor the public’s benefit. Nothing to worry about. Go back to watching the idiot box.

via: Information Clearing House

The problems cannot be resolved by shifting the debts of the banks onto the taxpayer. That’s an illusion. By adding another $1 or $2 trillion dollars to the National Debt, Paulson is just ensuring that interest rates will go up, real estate will crash, unemployment will soar, and foreign central banks will abandon the dollar. In truth, there is no fix for a deleveraging market anymore than there is a fix for gravity. The belief that massive debts and insolvency can be erased by increasing liquidity just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. That’s why Henry Paulson is the worst possible person to be orchestrating the so called rescue project. Paulson comes from a business culture which rewards deception, personal acquisitiveness, and extreme risk-taking. Paulson is to finance capitalism what Rumsfeld is to military strategy. His leadership, and the congress’ pathetic abdication of responsibility, assures disaster. Besides, why should the taxpayers be happy that the stocks of Morgan Stanley, Washington Mutual and Goldman Sachs surged on the news that there would be a government bailout yesterday? These banks are essentially bankrupt and their business models are broken. Keeping insolvent banks on life support is not a rescue plan; it’s insanity.

No one has any idea of the magnitude of the deleveraging ahead or the size of the debts that will have to be written down. That’s because 30 years of deregulation has allowed a parallel financial system to arise in which over $500 trillion dollars in derivatives are traded without any government supervision or accounting. These counterparty transactions are interwoven throughout the entire “regulated” system in a way that poses a clear and present danger to the broader economy. It’s a mess. For example, there are an estimated $62 trillion of Credit Default Swaps (CDS) alone, which are basically insurance policies for defaulting bonds. AIG was as heavily involved in CDS as they were in regulated insurance products. So why would AIG sell CDS rather than conventional insurance?

Because, just like the banks, AIG could maximize its profits by minimizing its capital cushion. In other words, it didn’t really have the capital to pay off claims when its CDS contracts began to blow up. If it had been properly regulated, then government regulators would have made sure that it was sufficiently capitalized with adequate reserves to pay off claims in a down-market. Now taxpayers will pay for the lawless system which men like “industry rep” Henry Paulson put in place. That’s deregulation in a nutshell; a system that allows Wall Street banksters to create credit out of thin air and then run weeping to Congress when their swindles backfire.

Inflating the currency, printing more money, and increasing the deficits won’t help. The bad debts have to be accounted for and liquidated. The Paulson strategy is to create another ocean of red ink while refusing to face the underlying problem head-on. This just further exacerbates the consumer-led recession which economists know is already setting in everywhere across the country. Demand is down and consumer spending is off due to falling home equity, job losses, and tighter lending standards at the banks. The broader economy does not need the added downward pressure from higher taxes, bigger deficits, or inflation. Paulson’s plan is a band-aid approach to a sucking chest wound. The debts are enormous and the pain will be substantial, but the problem cannot be resolved by crushing the middle class or destroying the currency.

This is an interesting article on the computerized trading that has infiltrated and now dominated Wall Street. I disagree with it on some major points though. We do not live in a democracy or with free market capitalism. The Founders created a Republic-rule by law-not a democracy-rule by majority, with good reason. I’m so sick of hearing people talk about democracy in America when we’re a Republic. It’s a damn good system “if you can keep it” as Benjamin Franklin said, but of course eternal vigilance is required to hold on to it. The people stopped paying attention, and by the mid-1800s everything was slipping into oligarchy.

The collapse we’re seeing now is not a failure of free markets. It’s an orchestrated attack designed to further consolidate financial and political control in the hands of the oligarchy. This is not about money, it is about power. Reserve notes are just distractions, the magic wand waved to distract the audience while slight of hand does the real work. A trillion dollars, a bazillion dollars, it doesn’t matter, all that money only exists in the public’s imagination. Check out the Gangster Capitalism section of this blog to learn more about the financial farce that keeps the world in chains. Real wealth is edible, potable, smokable, malleable, wearable, etc. Not green paper, not zeros on a computer screen, not signatures on a contract.
Continue Reading »

Remember folks, the military is here for your protection. Just like in New Orleans. And in Iraq. Watch for the false flag attack pre or post election. Or martial law if the Crash makes people restless. This is a bad sign.

via: Army Times

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities. Continue Reading »