Just say NO!vember

Audit the Fed Update: It’s Over… For Now

Ron Paul’s attempt to audit the Federal Reserve, which had previously attracted 320 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, failed by a vote of 229-198.

All Republicans voted in favor of the measure with 23 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote with Republicans. 114 co-sponsors of HR 1207, all Democrats, jumped ship and voted against Audit the Fed.

How They Voted

Watch Ron Paul’s Video Update

Audit the Fed Update: The Fed has won the battle but they will lose the war

Ron Paul discusses the latest in the efforts to get a full and complete audit of the Fed as well as the future of Fed transparency.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IixLg4AtNI

Ron Paul’s attempt to audit the Federal Reserve, which was previously co-sponsored by 320 members of the House (HR 1207), failed by a vote of 229-198. All Republicans voted in favor of the measure with 23 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote with Republicans. 114 co-sponsors of HR 1207, all Democrats, jumped ship and voted against Audit the Fed.

The GOP had offered the Fed audit as the minority’s last chance to alter the financial regulation bill. The bill does have an watered-down audit provision in the conference report, but it is limited to loans made by the Fed during the height of the economic crisis. Ron Paul’s bill would have allowed a total examination of the Fed’s books.

How they voted

KEY: Democrats, Republicans, HR 1207 Co-Sponsors

YEA! = Audit the Federal Reserve System (a private rockefeller/rothschild bank that started in 1913 that bankrupted the USA by 1933 & stole OUR gold, and which is paid INTEREST on this debt in the form of UN-Constitutional unapportioned federal INCOME TAXES on your WAGES that were traded even-up for LABOR)

NAY! Traitors:

Not Voting (cowards, but not traitors)

Bishop (UT)
Taylor
Wamp
Woolsey
Young (AK)

LEARN ABOUT THE FEDERAL RESERVE!

Tesla Motors sells 2 models of cars:

2010 Tesla Roadster $128,500

- Improved Power and Handling
- Power motor: Hand wound stator and increased winding density for lower resistance and higher peak torque
- 0-60 mph in 3.7 seconds
- Custom tuned suspension: Adjustable dampers and anti-roll bars tuned to driver’s preference
- Dark finish forged alloy Tesla wheels
- Tires: Yokohama A048 Ultra High Performance
- Unique Sport badging

Tesla is now delivering the Roadster Sport, a shockingly high-performance sports car based on the world’s leading electric, zero emission vehicle. Price starts at $128,500 in the United States, €99,000 (excluding VAT) in Europe and £101,900 (including VAT) in United Kingdom.

2012 Tesla Model S $49,900

- 300 mile range
- 45 minute QuickCharge
- 0-60 mph in 5.6 seconds
- Seats 7 people
- More cargo space than sedans
- 2X as efficient as hybrids
- 17 inch infotainment touchscreen

With a range up to 300 miles and 45-minute QuickCharge, the Model S can carry five adults and two children in quiet comfort – and you can charge it from any outlet, without ever stopping for gas. World’s first mass-produced electric vehicle offers performance, efficiency and unrivaled utility for a base price of $49,900*, making it the only car you’ll ever need.

Electric Power

Drive Quickly, Tread Lightly. Most electric vehicles operate under the assumption that driving is merely a necessary evil if you need to get someplace you can’t reach on foot or bike. The result has been cars that are designed, built, and marketed in ways that refuse to glorify driving.

We respectfully disagree. We believe driving is exhilarating. Just watch any child on a go-cart and the joy is plain to see. And when you can soar along at top speed, knowing the only oil in the car is in the transmission, the only emissions are the songs from the radio, the ride becomes more enjoyable still.

The Ultimate Multi-Fuel Vehicle

Electric cars equal freedom. Not simply from oil reliance, but from dependence on any specific power source. Electric power can be generated from natural gas, coal, solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear sources — or a combination of all of them — without changing the design of the car. No matter how or when the world changes, the car adapts, making it immune from obsolescence.

We foresee a day when all cars run on electric power and when people will struggle to remember a time when a love of driving came with a side order of guilt.

No More Tradeoffs

Up until now, if you wanted a car with amazing gas mileage, you’d pick something like the leading hybrid; but when you pressed down the gas pedal to zip up a freeway on-ramp, you’d likely be a little disappointed — it takes over 10 seconds to reach 60 miles per hour. On the other hand, if you demanded the 0 to 60 times of a $300,000 supercar, you’d wind up with an embarrassing 9 miles to the gallon in the city.

Acceleration & Torque = Instant Freedom

The first time you drive the Tesla Roadster, prepare to be surprised. You’re at freeway speed in seconds without even thinking about it. There is no clutch pedal to contend with and no race-car driving techniques to perform. Just the touch of your foot and you’re off, without any of the sluggishness of an automatic.

How powerful is the acceleration? A quick story to illustrate. A favorite trick here at Tesla Motors is to invite a passenger along and ask him to turn on the radio. At the precise moment we ask, we accelerate. Our passenger simply can’t sit forward enough to reach the dials. But who needs music when you’re experiencing such a symphony of motion.

Rest assured that this responsiveness works at all speeds, as noticeable when you’re inching your way through parking lots as when flying along freeways.

100% Torque, 100% of the Time
The Tesla Roadster delivers full availability of performance every moment you are in the car, even while at a stoplight. Its peak torque begins at 0 rpm and stays powerful at 14,000 rpm.

This is the precise opposite of what you experience with a gasoline engine, which has very little torque at a low rpm and only reaches peak torque in a narrow rpm range. This forces you to make frequent gear changes to maintain optimal torque. With the Tesla Roadster, you get great acceleration and the highest energy efficiency at the same time. All while requiring no special driving skills to enjoy it. This makes the Tesla Roadster six times as efficient as the best sports cars while producing one-tenth of the pollution.

Tesla Raises Hopes for Cleantech IPOs

Its stock’s 41% jump on Day One may herald a shift in sentiment

With all eyes in the cleantech world focused on Tesla Motors’ (TSLA) first day of trading on June 29, venture capitalists and industry executives released a collective cheer when the stock of the electric vehicle maker surged 41 percent. Even sweeter, the investor support came on a day when the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and Nasdaq both plunged more than 3 percent.

It’s been a grim time for cleantech investors. Prior to Tesla, there hadn’t been a U.S.-based initial public offering since A123 Systems (AONE), a maker of batteries for electric cars, went public in September. With stock markets worldwide reeling, solar-panel maker Solyndra pulled its IPO filing on June 18, choosing instead to raise $175 million in debt.

That was only part of the reason for skepticism leading up to Tesla’s first day of trading. The company has been losing money since opening for business in 2003, and Tesla says it won’t see profitability for at least two years as it moves from selling $109,000 sports cars to cheaper sedans.

The Palo Alto (Calif.)-based company’s shares rallied on Day One to a stock-market value in excess of $2 billion. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk sold shares worth at least $24 million. The strong showing had investors seeing a window of opportunity for more “liquidity events,” to use a Silicon Valley term for IPO. “It really lubricates the way,” says Nat Goldhaber, managing director of Claremont Creek Ventures in Oakland, Calif., which invests in energy-conservation companies. “You’ll see a rush of bankers and companies trying to push through new green-based IPOs.”

THE NEXT CLEANTECH IPO?

No one knows which cleantech company might go public next, but the likeliest are those that, like Tesla, have raised tremendous amounts of money—and thus need to find a way to pay back investors. Fuel-cell manufacturer Bloom Energy, biofuel producer Sapphire Energy, and solar companies eSolar and BrightSource Energy each have raised at least $100-million in venture capital. Better Place, which is trying to build a network of battery-swapping facilities—sort of like filling stations for electric cars—raised $350 million in May.

For these and other cleantech companies, the Tesla IPO “is a real confidence builder,” says Gary Bloom, the CEO of eMeter, which makes software to help utilities manage data and bolster energy efficiency. EMeter has raised more than $70 million. While the decade-old company isn’t preparing for an IPO, Bloom says, Tesla’s success is “proving that things are moving in the cleantech sector and that there’s real deliverables.”

Bloom is quick to caution against reading too much into Tesla’s opening-day gains. After A123 raced out of the gates on Sept. 24, the stock proceeded to lose half its value over the next nine months and continues to sell below its offer price.

The bottom line Tesla’s initial public offering may be a “real confidence builder” that paves the way for more cleantech IPOs.

Bernie Sanders sold out to wall street. tell him we want OUR S.604 back, which we already have 32 cosponsors = 1/3 of the senate + 319 cosponsors for it’s sister bill HR1207 = 73% of the house backing us. Audit the Fed! and then End the Fed! that’s why JFK gave us Executive Order #11110

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuVBAMQ0j4A

Ron Paul: Audit the Fed! No More Bailouts!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVNvjQobulQ

Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had long worked together on their campaign for a full audit of the Federal Reserve, which emerged last year as H.R. 1207 and S. 604. Dr. Paul’s House version of the Audit the Fed bill had 319 cosponsors; Sanders’ Senate version, 32 cosponsors. Despite these bills’ massive popularity with a public grown increasingly suspicious of central banking, efforts to audit our central bank, the Federal Reserve, have been effectively thwarted for the time being.

Last-minute Senate maneuvering on Thursday May 6 resulted in a compromise measure that would require the Fed to disclose more details about its lending practices during the financial crisis, but would permit just a one-time audit of its loans and a one-time review of Fed governance. The compromise would also shield the Fed’s interest rate decision-making procedures from Goverment Accounting Office (GAO) scrutiny.

Dr. Paul, who has long advocated opening the Fed’s books to scrutiny to reveal its dealings with foreign banks as well as its domestic lending practices, expressed disappointment with the compromise in a sternly worded statement released Thursday evening.

Sanders had originally argued, “At a time when our entire financial system almost collapsed, we cannot let the Fed operate in secrecy any longer.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke disagreed. The Wall Street Journal reported his remark that the original measure would “seriously threaten monetary policy independence, increase inflation fears and market interest rates, and damage economic stability and job creation.”

Members of the Obama administration, among their number former Fed officials, backed the changes to Sanders amendment. These include Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, former chair of the New York Federal Reserve, and Paul Volcker, who was Alan Greenspan’s predecessor as Fed chair. They gave credit to Christopher Dodd (D-Ct.), Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, for pushing through the compromise bill. Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin stated that the compromise measure would allow for a comprehensive audit of the Fed’s operations “while preserving the existing protections of the Federal Reserve’s independence with respect to monetary policy.” It is just this independence which the Fed’s critics wish to challenge, as it leaves the Fed essentially accountable to no one except other elite bankers — some of them foreign.

On Thursday night, Ron Paul made an urgent appeal in a two and a half minute video (see below) urging Senators to reject the Sanders Amendment when it comes up for a vote, possibly as soon as next Tuesday (May 11). Dr. Paul stated,

I’m not a bit surprised that the Federal Reserve got to the Senate. I had expected Bernie Sanders to offer 604, which was the same as 1207, which is Audit the Fed bill, and at the last minute he switched it and watered it down, and really it adds nothing, It’s a possibility that it even makes the current conditions worse….

But as we speak — this is Thursday night — they are working on this on the Senate floor. And we need to get as many messages as possible to as many Senators you can think of, especially to Bernie Sanders’ office, that we don’t want this version….

But the only thing that would be fair to the American people after all this work and energy that we put into this is to have an up and down vote on what was our 1207 in the House which is 604 in the Senate….

Dr. Paul’s website adds that the compromise “exempts monetary policy decisions, discount window operations, and agreements with foreign central banks from [GAO] audit. This is of particular concern when several countries such as Greece, Portugal, and Spain are seeking IMF help in the midst of their financial crises, because American taxpayers provide fully 17% of all IMF funding.”

“Taxpayers are weary of bailing out privileged banks and corporations in the U.S.,” Dr. Paul added, “and we certainly cannot afford to bail out entire countries. The possibility of this happening behind a veil of Federal Reserve secrecy is not acceptable.”

“This compromise language represents a huge missed opportunity by Congress to finally make the Fed accountable for trillions of taxpayer dollars it administers. Full transparency, via a full GAO audit, is the only acceptable option. However, I am grateful to Senator Vitter for offering the original full audit language in an alternative amendment to the bill.”

The John Birch Society has issued a press release urging opposition to the compromise measure and restoration of the original language. Readers are invited to go to “Ron Paul Appeals for Help to Rescue His ‘Audit the Fed’ Bill in the Senate” and spreading the word on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Or they may contact their Senators directly to urge support for an amendment that would restore the original ‘Audit the Fed’ language and intent:  “As Ron Paul says in the video,” reads the JBS statement, “it’s vital and urgent that we do as much as we can to bombard the Senate with information that we the people deserve to have an up-or-down vote on Audit the Fed bill.”

View Ron Paul’s complete statement below. The vote on the compromise measure is expected to take place next Tuesday, May 11.

Source: The New American

The Infowars team have poured 18 months of blood sweat and tears into a film that represents a call to action for Infowarriors around the globe to use this tool as a means of unlocking millions more minds from the matrix.

The impact the film will achieve is solely in the hands of you, the audience, in making the movie go viral in the same way as Loose Change, the Obama Deception and Endgame achieved viral success, and in turn waking up millions more people to the New World Order system and enabling them to take the first steps in resisting their tyranny.

Film maker Jason Bermas has collected a truly monumental amount of video archive and document material to render completely obsolete claims that the agenda of today’s ruling elite is not the open move towards a global totalitarian world government which will be run to the detriment of the people in the self-interests of the tiny ruling class that sit atop the power pyramid.

Invisible Empire is all conspiracy and no theory – proving beyond doubt how the elite have openly conspired to insidiously rule the globe via the engines of the CFR, the United Nations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg group, which were born out of the historical Round Table groups first set up by Cecil Rhodes.

Invisible Empire will be more than just a film– it is the culmination of years of research by Jason Bermas into the inner-workings and most revealing public statements by the New World Order and the most trusted stewards of their dark vision. Invisible Empire promises to unveil the long-term agenda for world control, just as Fabled Enemies and Loose Change Final Cut forever stripped away the facade of the official story of 9/11 and exposed the dark truth that lies behind.

Invisible Empire: A New World Order Defined

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO24XmP1c5E

Ron Paul Announces HR4995 on Fox News, 04/12/10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuFJu-vwutU

Ron Paul: “I want to get rid of one item to concentrate on, because I think it’s the worst part. And that is the mandate saying that you don’t have a choice anymore. They’re driving everybody into the system. [...] I want to key in on the one issue, tolegalize freedom of choice, legalize the private option without taking on the whole mess that’s been created. [...] In a free society you have to at least allow people the freedom to opt out of a compulsory system that is imposed on you by government.”

join the HR4995 Facebook group:
End The Mandate – HR 4995 – Stop the Health Insurance Mandate!

http://embedr.com/playlist/dennis-kucinich-forces-congress-to-debate-afghanistan-war

On Thursday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced H. Com Res. 248, a privileged resolution with 16 original cosponsors that will require the House of Representatives to debate whether to continue the war in Afghanistan. Debate on the resolution is expected early next week.

Original cosponsors of the Kucinich resolution include John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan); Ron Paul (R-Texas); José Serrano (D-New York); Bob Filner (D-California); Lynn Woolsey (D-California); Walter Jones, Jr. (R-North Carolina); Danny Davis (D-Illinois); Barbara Lee (D-California); Michael Capuano (D-Massachusetts); Raúl Grijalva (D-Arizona); Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin); Timothy Johnson (R-Illinois); Yvette Clarke (D-New York); Eric Massa (D-New York), Alan Grayson (D-Florida) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine).

The Pentagon doesn’t want Congress to debate Afghanistan. The Pentagon wants Congress to fork over $33 billion more to pay for the current military escalation, no questions asked, no restrictions imposed for a withdrawal timetable or an exit strategy.

Ideally, from the point of view of the Pentagon, Congress would fork over that money right away, before the coming Kandahar offensive that the $33 billion is supposed to pay for, because you can expect a lot of bad news out of Afghanistan in the form of deaths of American soldiers andAfghan civilians once the Kandahar offensive starts, and it would sure be awkward if all that bad news reached Washington while the $33 billion was hanging fire.

So it’s a great thing that Kucinich and his 16 allies are forcing Congress to debate the issue, and it would be even better if more Members of Congress would be urged by their constituents to support Kucinich’s resolution. That would be a signal to the House leadership that continuation of the open-ended war and occupation is controversial in the House, and the House leadership should not try to ram through $33 billion more for the war on a fast-track without ample opportunity for debate and amendment.

Every day the Afghanistan war continues is another day on which the United States government plays Russian roulette with the lives ofAmerican soldiers and Afghan civilians.

The British government has more urgency than the US government about ending the war – and is more supportive than the US of a political solution to end the conflict – because in Britain there is greater public outcry.

If there were greater public and Congressional outcry in the US, we could be more like Britain, and get our government on board the train to a political solution, instead of prolonging the war indefinitely.

The first step towards bringing our troops home is for members of Congress to hear from their constituents.

source: truthout

Representative Ron Paul spoke to conservative activists about U.S. foreign policy, the costs of overseas troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as federal spending priorities and monetary policy. He also spoke about limited government and individual rights, emphasizing personal responsibility over the regulatory power of government.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh-m75YqmrA

Ron Paul Wins Presidential Straw Poll at CPAC

Ron Paul has ended Mitt Romney’s three-year run as conservatives’ favorite for president, taking 31 percent of the vote in the Conservative Political Action Conference’s annual straw poll.

Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas known for his libertarian views, ran for president in 2008 but was never a serious contender for the GOP nomination.

Romney, former Massachusetts governor and a 2008 GOP candidate, has won the last three presidential straw polls at the annual conference.

The straw poll is not binding — and not necessarily a good forecaster, given that in 2008, John McCain went on to take the party’s nomination over Romney.

This is good news for the Liberty movement and everyone that has supported Ron Paul and his ideas for the conservative movement.

He represents what true conservatism stands for, and has shed is light across many in the movement to take back our country and return it to the ideas of the Constitution.

Source: Conservative for Change

CPAC 2010 Straw Poll RESULTS: Ron Paul Wins Big

Here are the official results:

Texas Rep. Ron Paul – 31 percent
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney – 22 percent
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin – 7 percent
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty – 6 percent
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich – 4 percent
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee – 4 percent
Indiana Rep. Mike Pence – 5 percent
South Dakota Sen. John Thune – 2 percent
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels – 2 percent
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum – 2 percent
Mississippi Gov. Hailey Barbour – 1 percent
Other – 5 percent
Undecided – 6 percent

In a strong reflection of just how strong his standing remains within the die-hard conservative community, Texas Republican and 2008 presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll on Saturday, earning nearly one-third (31 percent) of the entire vote. The crowd, however, booed heavily when the results were announced.

Paul was far and away the most widely anticipated speaker at the three-day conference, with his base of “Paulites” streaming into the main auditorium to hear him rail against government overreach and neoconservativism on Friday afternoon. In many respects, his win in the CPAC poll seemed pre-ordained — his band of followers having a well-earned reputation for flooding polls and forums like these.

What it portends for a possible 2012 presidential run is anyone’s guess. Paul had a similar cult-like following during the 2008 election, only to garner a relatively small chunk of the actual vote.

The other potential candidates who scored well and are more “mainstream” picks for the Republican nomination include former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who earned 22 percent of the vote, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin who came in third with seven percent. Romney had won the last three CPAC polls. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, another talked about 2012 aspirant, tied “undecided” for fourth place at six percent.

The results provide an interesting reflection as to where conservative hearts lie nearly three years before the next presidential elections take place. But with so much time before formal campaigning begins – and with no White House aspirant even officially announcing a bid- its best to resist the temptation to read too deeply into the numbers. For example, last year, disgraced South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford polled at four percent, while Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — no longer even on the straw poll — came in second at 14 percent.

Nevertheless, the CPAC poll can provide a nice boost (or, at the very least, attention) to prospective candidates. In 2007, Romney etched out a win over former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani by a margin of 21 percent to 17 percent. Sen. John McCain, who wound up winning the nomination, came in fifth with 12 percent of the vote.

Several of the candidates polled attended CPAC in the days, and even hours, ahead of the results being released. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was a keynote speaker on Saturday, preceded by former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (Penn.). Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty spoke on Friday followed by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Paul. Romney addressed the audience on Thursday. All others were not in attendance during the three-day affair.

Source: Huffington Post

After checking into his room, Lewis, who normally does not travel alone, went out to grab a bite to eat and scout the location for his exclusive interview with Oklahoma Representative Charles Key. Upon his return, Lewis found the door to his room ajar. Pushing the door open, he found that the only thing the thieves did not get was his well-hidden camera.

Lewis said, “I barely had time to find the (interview) location and grab some pizza.” It took him only seconds to notice that the burglars made off with his duffel bag, lighting equipment, backpack, which included other small equipment and information, and his laptop. Also stolen was the script and early version of the new film, Don’t Tread On Me, and some extra footage.

Gary Franchi, producer and co-writer of the film, commented on the incident, “It is unknown whether or not this was a random or targeted act against the films production but, given the current political climate in America, one tends to wonder.”

The policeman on the scene, Officer Bartel, was very helpful as he went door to door looking for and asking if anyone had seen anything suspicious. The hotel manager was reluctant to allow Lewis to film the rest of the incident, threatening to call the police if Lewis did not hand over the film, but was cooperative in the end, even supportive. “Good thing I keep multiple copies of this stuff and backup everything every few days!” Lewis exclaimed.

Franchi concluded, “Don’t Tread On Me is still on schedule for a spring release and nothing is going to stop it.”

Don’t Tread On Me (DTOM 2010 Teaser)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAVTTGkHEeU

WHERE IS YOUR LINE IN THE SAND?

More and more STATES are answering that question everyday as the Sovereignty Movement sweeps through dozens of state legislatures. Gun control, mandatory vaccinations and quarantines, health care opt out fines and imprisonment, bailout after bailout, the interstate commerce clause excuse… you get the idea. Hear what state reps and state senators are doing to protect individual and state sovereignty and how YOU can make it happen.

Wanna take back Washington, DC?… good luck with that. Wanna make the states more powerful than the federal government? Guess what? They already are, so let’s start acting like it.

DON’T TREAD ON ME

Coming Spring 2010. More teasers to follow.

http://www.DontTreadOnMeMovie.com

After Obama briefly addressed L’Affaire Abdulmutallab and wrote “must do better” on the report cards of the national security schoolboys responsible for the near catastrophe, the President turned the stage over to counter-terrorism guru John Brennan and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

It took 89-year old veteran correspondent Helen Thomas to break through the vapid remarks about rechanneling “intelligence streams,” fixing “no-fly” lists, deploying “behavior detection officers,” and buying more body-imaging scanners.

Thomas recognized the John & Janet filibuster for what it was, as her catatonic press colleagues took their customary dictation and asked their predictable questions. Instead, Thomas posed an adult query that spotlighted the futility of government plans to counter terrorism with more high-tech gizmos and more intrusions on the liberties and privacy of the traveling public.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1pURIukrjw

She asked why Abdulmutallab did what he did.

Thomas: “And what is the motivation? We never hear what you find out on why.”

Brennan: “Al Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and wanton slaughter of innocents… They attract individuals like Mr. Abdulmutallab and use them for these types of attacks. He was motivated by a sense of religious sort of drive. Unfortunately, al Qaeda has perverted Islam, and has corrupted the concept of Islam, so that he’s (sic) able to attract these individuals. But al Qaeda has the agenda of destruction and death.”

Thomas: “And you’re saying it’s because of religion?”

Brennan: “I’m saying it’s because of an al Qaeda organization that used the banner of religion in a very perverse and corrupt way.”

Thomas: “Why?”

Brennan: “I think this is a — long issue, but al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland.”

Thomas: “But you haven’t explained why.”

Neither did President Obama, nor anyone else in the U.S. political/media hierarchy. All the American public gets is the boilerplate about how al-Qaeda evildoers are perverting a religion and exploiting impressionable young men.

There is almost no discussion about why so many people in the Muslim world object to U.S. policies so strongly that they are inclined to resist violently and even resort to suicide attacks.

Obama’s Non-Answer

I had been hoping Obama would say something intelligent about what drove Abdulmutallab to do what he did, but the President uttered a few vacuous comments before sending in the clowns. This is what he said before he walked away from the podium:

“It is clear that al Qaeda increasingly seeks to recruit individuals without known terrorist affiliations … to do their bidding. … And that’s why we must communicate clearly to Muslims around the world that al Qaeda offers nothing except a bankrupt vision of misery and death … while the United States stands with those who seek justice and progress. … That’s the vision that is far more powerful than the hatred of these violent extremists.”

But why it is so hard for Muslims to “get” that message? Why can’t they end their preoccupation with dodging U.S. missiles in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Gaza long enough to reflect on how we are only trying to save them from terrorists while simultaneously demonstrating our commitment to “justice and progress”?

Does a smart fellow like Obama expect us to believe that all we need to do is “communicate clearly to Muslims” that it is al Qaeda, not the U.S. and its allies, that brings “misery and death”? Does any informed person not know that the unprovoked U.S.-led invasion of Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and displaced 4.5 million from their homes? How is that for “misery and death”?

Rather than a failure to communicate, U.S. officials are trying to rewrite recent history, which seems to be much easier to accomplish with the Washington press corps and large segments of the American population than with the Muslim world.

But why isn’t there a frank discussion by America’s leaders and media about the real motivation of Muslim anger toward the United States? Why was Helen Thomas the only journalist to raise the touchy but central question of motive?

Peeking Behind the Screen

We witnessed a similar phenomenon when the 9/11 Commission Report tiptoed into a cautious discussion of possible motives behind the 9/11 attacks. To their credit, the drafters of that report apparently went as far as their masters would allow, in gingerly introducing a major elephant into the room:

“America’s policy choices have consequences. Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.” (p. 376)

When asked later about the flabby way that last sentence ended, former Congressman Lee Hamilton, Vice-Chair of the 9/11 Commission, explained that there had been a Donnybrook over whether that paragraph could be included at all.

The drafters also squeezed in the reason given by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as to why he “masterminded” the attacks on 9/11:

“By his own account, KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed … from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.”

Would you believe that former Vice President Dick Cheney has also pointed to U.S. support for Israel as one of the “true sources of resentment”? This unique piece of honesty crept into his speech to the American Enterprise Institute on May 21, 2009.

Sure, he also trotted out the bromide that the terrorists hate “all the things that make us a force for good in the world.” But the Israel factor slipped into the speech, perhaps an inadvertent acknowledgement of the Israeli albatross adorning the neck of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Very few pundits and academicians are willing to allude to this reality, presumably out of fear for their future career prospects.

Former senior CIA officer Paul Pillar, now a professor at Georgetown University, is one of the few willing to refer, in his typically understated way, to “all the other things … including policies and practices that affect the likelihood that people … will be radicalized, and will try to act out the anger against us.” One has to fill in the blanks regarding what those “other things” are.

But no worries. Secretary Napolitano has a fix for this unmentionable conundrum. It’s called “counter-radicalization,” which she describes thusly:

“How do we identify someone before they become radicalized to the point where they’re ready to blow themselves up with others on a plane? And how do we communicate better American values and so forth … around the globe?”

Better communication. That’s the ticket.

Hypocrisy and Double Talk

But Napolitano doesn’t acknowledge the underlying problem, which is that many Muslims have watched Washington’s behavior closely for many years and view U.S. declarations about peace, justice, democracy and human rights as infuriating examples of hypocrisy and double talk.

So, Washington’s sanitized discussion about motives for terrorism seems more intended for the U.S. domestic audience than the Muslim world.

After all, people in the Middle East already know how Palestinians have been mistreated for decades; how Washington has propped up Arab dictatorships; how Muslims have been locked away at Guantanamo without charges; how the U.S. military has killed civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere; how U.S. mercenaries have escaped punishment for slaughtering innocents.

The purpose of U.S. “public diplomacy” appears more designed to shield Americans from this unpleasant reality, offering instead feel-good palliatives about the beneficence of U.S. actions. Most American journalists and politicians go along with the charade out of fear that otherwise they would be accused of lacking patriotism or sympathizing with “the enemy.”

Commentators who are neither naïve nor afraid are simply shut out of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM). Salon.com’s Glen Greenwald, for example, has complained loudly about “how our blind, endless enabling of Israeli actions fuels terrorism directed at the U.S.,” and how it is taboo to point this out.

Greenwald recently called attention to a little-noticed Associated Press report on the possible motives of the 23-year-old Nigerian Abdulmutallab. The report quoted his Yemeni friends to the effect that the he was “not overtly extremist.” But they noted that he was open about his sympathies toward the Palestinians and his anger over Israel’s actions in Gaza. (emphasis added)

Former CIA specialist on al Qaeda, Michael Scheuer, has been still more outspoken on what he sees as Israel’s tying down the American Gulliver in the Middle East. Speaking Monday on C-SPAN, he complained bitterly that any debate on the issue of American support for Israel and its effects is normally squelched.

Scheuer added that the Israel Lobby had just succeeded in getting him removed from his job at the Jamestown Foundation think tank for saying that Obama was “doing what I call the Tel Aviv Two Step.”

More to the point, Scheuer asserted:

“For anyone to say that our support for Israel doesn’t hurt us in the Muslim world … is to just defy reality.”

Beyond loss of work, those who speak out can expect ugly accusations. The Israeli media network Arutz Sheva, which is considered the voice of the settler movement, weighed in strongly, citing Scheuer’s C-SPAN remarks and branding them “blatantly anti-Semitic.”

Media Squelching

As for media squelching, I continue to be amazed at how otherwise informed folks express total surprise when I refer them to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s statement about his motivation for attacking the United States, as cited on page 147 of the 9/11 Commission Report:

“By his own account, KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.”

And one can understand how even those following such things closely can get confused. Five years after the 9/11 Commission Report, on Aug. 30, 2009, readers of the neoconservative Washington Post were given a diametrically different view, based on what the Post called “an intelligence summary:”

“KSM’s limited and negative experience in the United States — which included a brief jail stay because of unpaid bills — almost certainly helped propel him on his path to becoming a terrorist … He stated that his contact with Americans, while minimal, confirmed his view that the United States was a debauched and racist country.”

Apparently, the Post found this revisionist version politically more convenient, in that it obscured Mohammed’s other explanation implicating “U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.” It’s much more comforting to view KSM as a disgruntled visitor who nursed his personal grievances into justification for mass murder.

An unusually candid view of the dangers accruing from the U.S. identification with Israel’s policies appeared five years ago in an unclassified study published by the Pentagon-appointed U.S. Defense Science Board on Sept. 23, 2004. Contradicting President George W. Bush, the board stated:

“Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States.

“Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.”

Abdulmutallab’s Attack

Getting back to Abdulmutallab and his motive in trying to blow up the airliner, how was this individual without prior terrorist affiliations suddenly transformed into an international terrorist ready to die while killing innocents?

If, as John Brennan seems to suggest, al Qaeda terrorists are hard-wired for terrorism at birth for the “wanton slaughter of innocents,” how are they able to jump-start a privileged 23-year old Nigerian, inculcate in him with the acquired characteristics of a terrorist, and persuade him to do the bidding of al Qaeda/Persian Gulf?

As indicated above, the young Nigerian seems to have had particular trouble with Israel’s wanton slaughter of more than a thousand civilians in Gaza a year ago, a brutal campaign that was defended in Washington as justifiable self-defense.

Moreover, it appears that Abdulmuttallab is not the only anti-American “terrorist” so motivated. When the Saudi and Yemeni branches of al Qaeda announced that they were uniting into “al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula,” their combined rhetoric railed against the Israeli attack on Gaza.

And on Dec. 30, Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, a 32-year-old Jordanian physician from a family of Palestinian origin, killed seven American CIA operatives and one Jordanian intelligence officer near Khost, Afghanistan, when he detonated a suicide bomb.

Though most U.S. media stories treated al-Balawi as a fanatical double-agent driven by irrational hatreds, other motivations could be gleaned by carefully reading articles about his personal history.

Al-Balawi’s mother told Agence France-Presse that her son had never been an “extremist.” Al-Balawi’s widow, Defne Bayrak, made a similar statement to Newsweek. In a New York Times article, al-Balawi’s brother was quoted as describing him as a “very good brother” and a “brilliant doctor.”

So what led al-Balawi to take his own life in order to kill U.S. and Jordanian intelligence operatives?

Al-Balawi’s widow said her husband “started to change” after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. His brother said al-Balawi “changed” during last year’s three-week-long Israeli offensive in Gaza, which killed about 1,300 Palestinians.

When al-Balawi volunteered with a medical organization to treat injured Palestinians in Gaza, he was arrested by Jordanian authorities, his brother said.

It was after that arrest that the Jordanian intelligence service apparently coerced or “recruited” al-Balawi to become a spy who would penetrate al Qaeda’s hierarchy and provide actionable intelligence to the CIA.

“If you catch a cat and put it in a corner, she will jump on you,” the brother said in explaining why al-Balawi would turn to a suicide attack.

“My husband was anti-American; so am I,” his widow said, adding that her two little girls would grow up fatherless but that she had no regrets.

Answering Helen

Are we starting to get the picture of what the United States is up against in the Muslim world?

Does Helen Thomas deserve an adult answer to her question about motive? Has President Obama been able to assimilate all this?

Or is the U.S. political/media establishment incapable of confronting this reality and/or taking meaningful action to alleviate the underlying causes of the violence?

Is the reported reaction of a CIA official to al-Balawi’s attack the appropriate one: “Last week’s attack will be avenged. Some very bad people will eventually have a very bad day.”

Revenge has not always turned out very well in the past.

Does anyone remember the brutal killing of four Blackwater contractors on March 31, 2004, when they took a wrong turn and ended up in the Iraqi city of Fallujah — and how U.S. forces virtually leveled that large city in retribution after George W. Bush won his second term the following November?

If you read only the Fawning Corporate Media, you would blissfully think that the killing of the four Blackwater operatives was the work of fanatical animals who got – along with their neighbors – what they deserved. You wouldn’t know that the killings represented the second turn in that specific cycle of violence.

On March 22, 2004, Israeli forces assassinated the then-spiritual leader of Hamas in Gaza, Sheikh Yassin — a withering old man, blind and confined to a wheelchair.

That murder, plus sloppy navigation by the Blackwater men, set the stage for the next set of brutalities. The Blackwater operatives were killed by a group that described itself as the “Sheikh Yassin Revenge Brigade.”

Pamphlets and posters were all over the scene of the attack; one of the trucks that pulled around body parts of the mercenaries had a poster of Yassin in its window, as did store fronts all over Fallujah.

We can wish Janet Napolitano luck with her “counter-radicalization” project and President Obama with his effort to “communicate clearly to Muslims,” but there will be no diminution in the endless cycles of violence unless legitimate grievances are addressed on all sides.

It might also help if the American people were finally let in on the root causes for what otherwise get dismissed as irrational actions by Muslims.

Source: Ray McGovern (my #1 best source on foreign policy & intel)
Original: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/010810b.html

Ray McGovern now works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During a 27-year career at CIA, he served under nine CIA directors and in all four of CIA’s main directorates, including operations. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

I see two important factors influencing Senator Dodd’s decision.

#1. Dennis Kucinich just announced he will be investigating the Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac bailouts. http://www.kucinich.us/

#2. Liberty candidate and economist Peter Schiff is crushing Dodd in polls with his recently announced bid to take Dodd’s seat in the U.S. Senate.

Peter Schiff for Senate 2010

http://schiffforsenate.com/ (Official Website)

Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd won’t seek reelection, will retire at end of term

By Chris Cillizza
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Embattled Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday at which he is expected to announce he will not seek reelection, sources familiar with his plans said Tuesday night.

Fox News: Sen. Chris Dodd Will Not Seek Re-election

Poll: Peter Schiff, Republicans beating Chris Dodd in Connecticut

President of Euro Pacific Capital and Republican Senatorial candidate for Connecticut, Peter Schiff, is defeating incumbent Democratic Senator Chris Dodd in a latest Rasmussen poll.

Peter Schiff, author of “Crash Proof 2.0” and “The Little Book of Bull Moves in a Bear Market,” is vying for the Republican nomination for the state of Connecticut as a Senator and even though he is behind among his fellow Republican contenders such as Rob Simmons and Linda McMahon, he is defeating incumbent 30-year Senator Chris Dodd, according to Rasmussen.

Dodd is losing to every remaining Republican in the race. Simmons, the frontrunner among all the Republicans, is up 48% to Dodd’s 35%, while McMahon, who has been running ads on all mediums for more than a year, leads 44% to 38%. Schiff is is beating Dodd by one percentage point with 40% to 39%, reports the Hartford Courant.

However, the undecided voters could be a major factor for all candidates as between 9% and 14% are unsure of who they would support.

The Republican American notes that this will concern many Democrats in Washington but they still believe Dodd will win the race.

In an e-mail to Digital Journal, the Schiff for Senate campaign said they are excited about the latest poll numbers because they haven’t even started campaigning yet but will once their campaign headquarters officially opens up next week. They’re especially enthusiastic because Dodd is a five-term Senator and most Connecticut voters do not know what Schiff stands for nor of his private sector record.

They concluded in the e-mail, “One final note: there is a lot of talk out of Washington about the need for “a million-dollar advertising campaign” like the one we are seeing from one of Peter’s opponents. If these poll numbers prove one thing, it’s that: Throwing money at a problem won’t move your poll numbers any more than it will solve the financial crisis.”

Election 2010 – Connecticut Senate Race – Rasmussen Reports™

Pollster.com: 2010 Connecticut Senate General Election – Peter Schiff (R) vs Sen. Chris Dodd (D)

Video: Peter Schiff Vs. Chris Dodd – Fannie & Freddie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A18zTHSxGHY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnin4zjTMUU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsBoA_HRApU

Chris Dodd quits. Is Peter Schiff happy or not? – Liberty Maven

January 6th, 2010 1:10 am  |  by Marc Gallagher |  Published in Commentary, Election, Peter Schiff, Politics |  7 Comments

Politico is reporting that Senator Chris Dodd will announce today that he won’t seek re-election this year after all.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) plans to announce Wednesday that he will retire from the Senate at the end of the year, capping a 30-year career where he rose to be one of the most influential members and held some of the most powerful positions in the upper chamber, several Democratic sources told POLITICO Tuesday night.

Dodd’s decision to forgo a bid for a sixth term paves the way for a more popular Democrat to run, most likely the state’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who has his eye on a Senate seat. And that is good news for Democrats who were hit with the stunning announcement Tuesday that Sen. Byron Dorgan would not run for reelection in North Dakota, likely giving the GOP an advantage for his seat.

So the political winds have forced Dodd to quit. Does this give Peter Schiff more or less of a chance to replace Dodd as Connecticut’s next Senator? I would guess Dodd quitting removes an entire line of attack for any would-be GOP challengers. Peter Schiff is probably unhappy about this move.

To me this just seems like Dodd is playing the part of a child who can’t take it anymore and picks up all his toys and runs home to mommy. Of course, the real reason is that he knows if he stays in the race he’s red meat for Schiff and the other attack dog Republicans.

AP sources: Conn. Sen. Chris Dodd to retire

WASHINGTON – Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, a five-term Democrat whose political stock began falling after the financial meltdown and his failed 2008 presidential bid, has decided not to seek re-election in November, Democratic officials told The Associated Press early Wednesday.

Dodd was expected to make an announcement Wednesday. The officials who disclosed his plans would speak only on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement. The Washington Post first reported Dodd’s decision.

Word of his retirement comes hours after North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan announced he will not seek re-election.

Dodd, 66, is chairman of Senate Banking Committee, which was at the center of efforts to deal with the economic meltdown. And he has played a prominent role in the debate over overhauling health care, taking over for his friend Ted Kennedy during his illness and then after his death.

Given Dodd’s bad poll standing, other Democrats have gone out of their way to give him the spotlight in hopes he could recover before November.

*props to the trumpet-sounding Patriot who sent me the AP sourced news article from yahoo regarding this incredibly important 2010 campaign news.

Official Facebook Page: Peter Schiff for Senate 2010

More Information about the 2010 Liberty Candidates

Jesse Ventura and a team of expert investigators are on a mission to examine some of the most frightening and mysterious conspiracy allegations of our time. They examine available evidence as well as talking to experts and eyewitnesses to learn more about such topics as global warming, possible 9/11 cover-ups, secret government weapons and apocalyptic prophecies. “This is my personal journey,” Ventura says, “to prove that there is more to these stories than you know about.”

Episode 5: Secret Societies

Premiere On: Wed, December 30 at 10P

They’re thought to be a group of the world’s elite who meet once a year at a luxury hotel and decide how they will run the world. It’s believed they plan to thin out the population through disease-and vaccines. Jesse Ventura infiltrates the Bilderberg Group.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR24APqFimM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBqMMOJnxFA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPu7XW4zgnw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUhWvQ7BzB8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0cME6H32hE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A225zQUnME0

Jesse Ventura and a team of expert investigators are on a mission to examine some of the most frightening and mysterious conspiracy allegations of our time. They examine available evidence as well as talking to experts and eyewitnesses to learn more about such topics as global warming, possible 9/11 cover-ups, secret government weapons and apocalyptic prophecies. “This is my personal journey,” Ventura says, “to prove that there is more to these stories than you know about.”

Episode 4: Big Brother

Premiere On: Wed, December 23 at 10P

Big Brother is watching and it’s not who you think. Jesse Ventura’s investigation of government surveillance on its citizens tears the lid off a nationwide program that is thought to turn local businessmen and office workers into spies, snooping on their neighbors and ratting on their friends in exchange for information and special privileges from the FBI- including, some charge, a “license to kill.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_2mXR_Yt94

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilGS_TT6xuY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pHX4L9A74A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb3DPYt6rQg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EfHZ4ev3-Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKjh6w16YxY

For more information about the Copenhagen UN Climate Change Conference see the numerous, recent, excellent articles on JBS.org and TheNewAmerican.com. For example, “Climategate, ‘Scientific Fascism,’ and Copenhagen” by James Heiser was posted on JBS.org today. And, “Lord Monckton, the Copenhagen Treaty, and the Constitution” by William F. Jasper was posted on TheNewAmerican.com yesterday.

Gordon Brown Speech At Climate Change Summit Copenhagen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9BOXO9itws

Hillary Clinton Speech At Climate Change Summit Copenhagen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8u42SVaaUs

President Obama Press Conference Before Leaving Climate Change Summit Copenhagen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1VMrMHbW2k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ndexqc0MOg

Jesse Ventura and a team of expert investigators are on a mission to examine some of the most frightening and mysterious conspiracy allegations of our time. They examine available evidence as well as talking to experts and eyewitnesses to learn more about such topics as global warming, possible 9/11 cover-ups, secret government weapons and apocalyptic prophecies. “This is my personal journey,” Ventura says, “to prove that there is more to these stories than you know about.”

Global Warming – NEW!

Premiere On: Wed, December 16 at 10:PM
Whether global warming is real or not, it’s believed some people are using the issue to make billions of dollars, start a one-world government and control our lives, from the cars we drive to the foods we eat. Jesse Ventura starts with Al Gore and goes far beyond as he uncovers the evidence that leads to one man thought to be behind the global warming conspiracy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D51xjrvr4bM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGfyFw5LI30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5vdnc8Jhtc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gauMgwxjA5c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2RAP-v84yk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM11NhZRing

Learn the Truth about Climate Change

&nbsp:

Take Back Congress 2010

The Spirit of the Founders

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nl95T_ND_Q

2010 Liberty Candidates:

C4L = Campaign for Liberty

U.S. Senate:
Rand Paul (R – Kentucky)
Peter Schiff (R – Connecticut)

U.S. House of Representatives:
Ron Paul (R – Texas)
Dennis Kucinich (D – Ohio)
Adam Kokesh (R – Arizona)
RJ Harris (R – Oklahoma)
John Dennis (R – California) running against Nancy Pelosi
Paul Lambert (R – Alabama)
Mike Vasovski (R – South Carolina)
Jaynee Germond (R – Oregon)
Jake Towne (R – Pennsylvania)

State Governors:
Debra Medina (R – Texas)
Randy Brogdon (R – Oklahoma)

more info on elections
more info on 3rd-parties

Constitutional Candidates for Congress

As recently as two years ago, Congressman Ron Paul introduced a bill to audit the Federal Reserve Bank that headed to oblivion. Year after year — beginning in 1983 — the bill never even won a committee hearing. Dr. Paul was ignored in Washington, and was a lonely voice for freedom back in his Texas congressional district.

Times have changed. Ron Paul is on a political roll. The bill Dr. Paul introduced in the current Congress to audit the Federal Reserve Bank (H.R. 1207) has more than 300 cosponsors — including every House Republican and more than 100 Democrats — and the backing of House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank. Frank has promised a committee vote, and it has a better-than-average chance of House passage this year. Dr. Paul’s new book End the Fedsailed into the top twenty of Amazon.com’s sales figures more than a month before it was available. It debuted on both Amazon.com and New York Times bestseller lists, and sales remain strong even today. His old presidential campaign has rolled over into a “Campaign for Liberty” that has raised more than $4 million since its founding in February of this year.

More importantly, his presidential campaign evidently inspired dozens of candidates for congressional office across the nation who seek to reform Congress from a constitutionalist perspective. And several of them are both well funded and being taken seriously by the political establishment.

Rand Paul
Prime among these constitutionalist “Ron Paul” candidates is the Congressman’s third child, Dr. Rand Paul. While the elder Dr. Paul was an obstetrician by trade before being elected to Congress, Dr. Rand Paul is an eye surgeon (ophthalmologist). The 46-year-old Dr. Rand Paul announced his candidacy for the open U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky in August. Days before Dr. Paul’s announcement, incumbent Republican Jim Bunning had bowed out of a reelection contest after Kentucky’s establishment Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (who is also the Senate Minority Leader) had made fundraising in Washington difficult for Bunning. “Over the past year,” Bunning said, “some of the leaders of the Republican Party in the Senate have done everything in their power to dry up my fundraising. The simple fact is that I have not raised the funds necessary to run an effective campaign for the U.S. Senate.” Time magazine on July 29 explained that the “some leaders” Bunning was talking about was his fellow Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell: “He quietly signaled to Republican moneymen that they ought to wait Bunning out. Party leaders in Washington met with a potential primary opponent…. McConnell’s strategy ultimately worked.”

Dr. Rand Paul is the founder of the conservative Kentucky Taxpayers United and has also campaigned for his father, so he isn’t a stranger to politics. But he hasn’t seen McConnell open the monetary floodgates from Washington on his behalf either. Politico.com has noted that “the GOP establishment has lined up behind Secretary of State Trey Grayson.” Perhaps Grayson is favored by the Washington Republican establishment because Grayson’s campaign website is bereft of mention of bringing the federal government back within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution. By way of contrast, Rand Paul has made the Constitution a centerpiece of his campaign. “The Federal Government must return to its constitutionally enumerated powers and restore our inalienable rights,” the younger Dr. Paul says on his campaign website, in an echo of his father’s principles. “America can prosper, preserve personal liberty, and repel national security threats without intruding into the personal lives of its citizens.”

The fact that the establishment isn’t behind him hasn’t hurt Rand Paul in the crucial fundraising part of the race; he raised more than $1.1 million by the end of the third quarter of this year. Grayson’s Washington fundraising, which included a $500 per plate fundraiser hosted by McConnell on September 23, has been matched by Dr. Paul’s vibrant Internet strategy dollar-for-dollar thus far. “We actually outraised both Democrats and our primary opponents this past quarter,” Dr. Paul toldThe New American.

Rand Paul is quick to say that his first problem was “name recognition,” though he told The New American “we are now probably very close to being on a par with our primary opponent now.” Of the two, Grayson has been far better known in Kentucky; he’s been the Secretary of State for five years. Therefore, even though Grayson’s polling numbers were stronger back in August, 40 percent to Dr. Paul’s 25 percent according to an August poll, Rand Paul is being given a good chance of prevailing by professional political observers. Dr. Paul has numbers to back up his statement that he’s pulled up to a par with Grayson. An October Rasmussen poll put Paul’s and Grayson’s “favorability” percentages within the poll’s margin of error, and a November WHAS11/Survey USA poll put Paul ahead at 35 to 32 percent.

If the younger Dr. Paul survives the Republican primary, he has a better-than-even chance of winning the GOP-leaning Kentucky general election. Democrats who face a Republican candidacy of Rand Paul would not only face a united conservative base but also significant crossover from some traditionally Democratic voting groups, especially those opposing unnecessary wars and assaults on civil liberties under the guise of the “war on terror.” Dr. Paul told The New American that he maintains a bipartisan appeal that criticizes both parties when they are at fault, “On the stump I promise that I will vote against any budget that is not balanced, either Republican or Democrat.” The crossover phenomenon may even impact the primaries, as many have changed from independents or Democratic registration to vote for him in the primary. “We re-register people a lot of the time, and there is a lot of crossover.”

Peter Schiff
Another well-funded Ron Paul presidential campaign supporter is Connecticut-based Peter Schiff, who had been an economic adviser to the Ron Paul presidential campaign. Schiff has become an Internet sensation on his own as president of Euro-Pacific Capital, largely because he accurately predicted the current economic recession with astonishing precision on a variety of financial television talk shows. He not only predicted the current recession in 2006 and 2007, he also explained why it would happen to pundits who often laughed at him for predicting the housing boom would go bust. In 2008, some of his friends put together a montage of his television clips called “Peter Schiff Was Right” and posted it on YouTube. The clips received several million views and dramatically increased demand for Schiff’s guest appearances on national television shows.

Schiff is an acolyte of the free-market “Austrian School” of economics, is for ending America’s military interventions abroad, and is emphatic about returning the federal government to the limits of the U.S. Constitution’s delegated powers.

Schiff announced in September that he would run for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut against longtime incumbent Christopher Dodd. Dodd would ordinarily be considered a safe incumbent. On paper, Dodd is an entrenched Democrat in a Democratic-leaning state, but the 28-year incumbent is considered highly vulnerable this time around. As chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, he was the Senator who could have — and should have — raised the alarm about the housing bubble. But instead, Dodd built a cozy relationship with sub-prime lender Countrywide. Although technically cleared of ethics violations in a recent investigation concluded August 7, the Senate inquiry criticized Dodd’s efforts as less than cautious. “The committee does believe that you should have exercised more vigilance in your dealings with Countrywide in order to avoid the appearance that you were receiving preferential treatment based on your status as a senator,” the Senate Ethics Committee concluded. Dodd also has personal health issues to deal with this time around. Last summer he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, so he may not be able to wage as vigorous a campaign as in the past.

As a result of Dodd’s recent missteps, Schiff will have to get in line to have a crack at him. The Republican Party smells blood, and a number of other Republicans have declared their candidacies as well. Among the better known are World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon and former Congressman Rob Simmons, who appears to be the early front-runner. Schiff’s greatest challenge may be winning the Republican primary. With his financial background and his accurate economic predictions, he’s the perfect constitutionalist foil for the leftist Dodd in a general election. But despite already having raised more than $1.1 million in Internet donations for his campaign, he barely registers in polling data. That’s perhaps expected, since he’s a political novice in the Republican Party and outside his coterie of YouTube followers he’s virtually unknown in Connecticut.

Schiff will definitely need that impressive $1.1 million he’s already raised, and more, in order to introduce himself to more Connecticut primary voters if he wants to win. He’ll also have to mobilize a local army of volunteers in Connecticut. If he can do that, Schiff could become the next Senator from Connecticut.

Adam Kokesh
Adam Kokesh is best known as an Iraq War veteran who returned opposed to the war and was a keynote speaker at Ron Paul’s “Rally for the Republic” that competed with the Republican National Convention in the summer of 2008. He volunteered for service in Iraq, where he witnessed the bureaucracy, waste, and corruption in the U.S. reconstruction of that country. According to his campaign website, he emerged from the military a strict noninterventionist in foreign policy and defender of Congress’ constitutional authority to declare war:

Inherent with the right to self-defense is the right to collective self-defense, and in the world that we live in, this is the most important function of the federal government. To ensure that this power is used responsibly, Congress, as the best representation of the people, was given the exclusive power to declare war…. The executive branch has set a dangerous precedent by taking powers that are supposed to be vested in the Congress. By not abiding by the Constitution and using the collective wisdom of the Congress to ensure judicious use of force, we find ourselves spending hundreds of billions more than is necessary for legitimate defense.

Kokesh has echoed Rep. Paul’s position on the Federal Reserve Bank, called for a smaller government role in the management of healthcare, and pronounced a nuanced view about the immigration issue.

Kokesh has an uphill battle as a Republican in New Mexico’s heavily Democratic Third District against freshman Democrat Ben R. Luján. Luján hasn’t had much time to dig in as an incumbent, but his northern New Mexico district hasn’t been won by a Republican since 1996. Kokesh, in his favor, was able to tell The New American that he has raised over $100,000 in donations in the first few months of his candidacy. “What was shocking for me was that for the third quarter we actually beat Luján,” he told The New American. That goes a long way toward making up for the $100,000 Washington, D.C., fundraiser Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer hosted earlier this year for Luján. Neither candidate is even close to the $1 million or so they’ll have to raise to wage winning a House campaign, but Kokesh’s early fundraising numbers suggest that he won’t be at a financial disadvantage on this front.

Kokesh told The New American that the traditional political wisdom in New Mexico is that “if you want to play and you want to win, you’re going to run as a Democrat.” Yet, the state has elected conservative Republicans occasionally because “a lot of those people would be Republicans anywhere else.” Kokesh notes that the local Democratic Party still postures as pro-gun and as socially conservative, and he sees a “great potential for a crossover vote, just because of those Democratic voters that have been sucked into the machine.”

And Kokesh’s anti-war, noninterventionist foreign policy, and pro-civil liberties positions just may have the decisive bipartisan appeal he’ll need. “People [are] calling to say they are changing their party registration so they can vote in the primary” for him, he told The New American. But if people can see through to the principles of the Constitution, the liberal media is still seeing things in terms of the phony left-right spectrum. The local weekly news magazine Santa Fe Reporter published an article on congressional candidates called “The Early Birds” on July 29, labeling Kokesh a right-winger. “They gave me a 4.2 out of 5 for being true conservative,” Kokesh said, “then two or three months later, they wrote about how I had all of these liberal ideologies.” The Marine Corps veteran says, “To me … one of the biggest frustrations and also one of the most rewarding things about this race is taking on the left-right spectrum.”

Also in Kokesh’s favor is the expectation that most analysts believe 2010 will be a Republican year, just as 1994 and 1996 were. Count Kokesh as an underdog, but he may have a shot.

Other Candidates
These are only three of the better known among more than a dozen candidates nationwide who have been inspired by Ron Paul’s 2008 candidacy to run for the House or Senate. It has almost taken on the form of a slate in some quarters, as Internet fundraisers like ThisNovember5th.com are seeking to raise funds for more than a dozen candidates on the same day as Ron Paul’s 2007 “money bomb” when he raised a then-record $4 million in a single day. The idea of Internet “money bombs” has proliferated among the constitutionalist movement, often resulting in more frequent but smaller one-day fundraising numbers for candidates. This year’s money bomblets have netted from tens of thousands to several hundred thousand dollars on a single day for the better-known candidates. And while this article will be at press on November 5, tens of thousand dollars were pledged two weeks in advance of the day. But ThisNovember5th.com is only one of many independent efforts to raise funds for constitutionalist candidates and enable them to become independent of the Washington, D.C., fundraisers and not beholden to power-brokers in the same quarters.

Among the ThisNovember5th.com candidates is Marine Corps veteran David W. Hedrick, who is running against five-term liberal Democratic Congressman Brian Baird of Washington’s Third Congressional District. Before announcing his candidacy, Hedrick confronted Baird at an August 18 town hall, telling him: “I also heard you say that you were going to let us keep our health insurance. Well thank you! It’s not your right to decide whether I keep my current plan or not. That’s my decision.” But that’s not all. Directly confronting the claim made by some leading Democrats that attempts to “disrupt” town hall meetings display a fascist tendency, he also told Baird:

A little history lesson. The Nazis were the National Socialist Party. They were leftists. They took over finance. They took over the car industry. They took over the health care in that country. If Nancy Pelosi wants to find a swastika, maybe the first place she should look is the sleeve of her own arm.

Meanwhile, R.J. Harris is opposing three-term incumbent Republican Tom Cole in Oklahoma’s Fourth Congressional District. A veteran commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom WatchInternet show on Fox News’ website, Harris encapsulates his decision to run against a fellow Republican in a video advertisement: “How can we Republicans demand to replace the Democrat bailout voters without doing anything about our own? If we don’t clean our own house, we can expect the Democrats to do it for us.” Cole voted for the Bush bailout bill, the TARP legislation. Harris calls himself a “constitutional conservative Republican” and says, “I will never vote for bailouts, required servitude, taxation without representation or give your money to foreign governments. However, Tom Cole has voted for all of these things.”

Jake Towne of Pennsylvania’s 15th District will also try to make Republicans honest by running against liberal Republican incumbent Charlie Dent (The New American’s Freedom Index rating: 40 percent).

Minuteman founder Chris Simcox, though not a newcomer to politics as a result of the Ron Paul 2008 presidential bid, has announced a challenge against John McCain’s Senate seat in Arizona and has been put on the ThisNovember5th.com fundraising list.

Dr. Mike Vasovski in South Carolina’s Third District will run in a crowded Republican primary for an open congression-al seat.

Other House of Representatives candidates ThisNovemer5th.com will be raising funds for include John Dennis (California), Jaynee Germond (Oregon), David Ratowitz (Illinois), Bob Parker (Missouri), and both Collins Baily and Robert Broadus of Maryland.

Source: JBS New American

Ron Paul’s HR1207 is one step closer to becoming law. The bill was attached to a horrible financial “reform” bill which calls for the creation of yet another government agency to regulate private industry. So of course Ron Paul voted against it on principle, despite the fact that it contains the “Audit the Fed” bill he’s worked so hard for.

Source: Liberty Maven

Ron Paul votes against his own amendment

Congressman Ron Paul (R Texas) is the last true statesman. Want proof, the Congressman and 2008 Presidential candidate fought more than twenty years to finally create an amendment to fully audit the Federal Reserve, which is the main cause of the present financial crisis.

The Audit the Fed bill was accepted as an amendment to a larger bill, the Wall Street Regulatory Overhaul. Even though the congressman’s bill was attached he could not in good faith vote for the larger legislation. Imagine a country full of men like that. Imagine just having 100 representatives like that.

The legislation will now go to the Senate for a vote. Ron Paul said “I have no clout in Congress, it was the people (grass roots) who made this happen.” A good guess would be that the Senate will try to take this amendment out. Reportedly, Senator’s are a little closer to those at the Fed than Congressman. It will be up to the people once again to make sure this amendment sticks if the larger bill is passed.

Voters should take notes from Dr. Paul on this issue. When your representatives have back bones like him liberty will flourish. People must become more involved and not fall for the left/right nonsense. There obviously is still room for honesty and integrity in Washington but it will be up to you to make it happen.

As you can see auditing the Federal Reserve is not an easy task. Some say they are more powerful than the President since they control the money supply. It’s reported that John F. Kennedy tried to abolish this powerful organization before being assassinated. Auditing it has been hard enough.

Source: Examiner.com

House Passes Wall Street Reform Bill With Zero GOP Votes

In a close vote, the House of Representatives Friday afternoon passed a financial reform bill intended to re-regulate Wall Street and increase protections for Main Street.

The bill, passed in a 223-202 vote, calls for the creation of a new federal agency dedicated to protecting consumers that would police consumer credit products like mortgages and credit cards. It also establishes new rules for the trading of derivatives and increases the transparency of the credit-rating process — two previously under-regulated parts of the economy that played a large role in last year’s economic collapse.

Not a single Republican voted for the bill. Twenty-seven Democrats broke with the rest of their party to vote against it.

The measure includes language, introduced in committee by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), that would authorize an expansive audit of the Federal Reserve, a landmark achievement for critics of the central bank’s secretive operations.

The bill also requires systemically important banks to pay into a fund that would be used to break them up and sell them off if they go bankrupt. Republicans bitterly and inaccurately referred to it as a “bailout fund,” telegraphing a critique that will undoubtedly re-emerge during the 2010 midterm elections.

“Today is an important milestone in reversing the decades-long stranglehold Wall Street and big banks have had over our economy. But it is just the first step,” said Service Employees International Union Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger. “Despite the millions Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce spent fighting the demands of the American people and the dozens of visits by big bank CEOs to strong-arm members of Congress, our leaders found the political will and courage to pass the most historic financial reform legislation in nearly 80 years.”

The fight to fundamentally reform financial regulations began soon after President Barack Obama took office. Public zeal, though, was tempered on Capitol Hill by bankers and other Wall Street titans, who united to fight against the kind of reform advocated by consumers, union groups, and academics.

The bill disappointed some consumer groups, who pledged to work to make it stronger as it moves to the Senate.

“The bill does very little to address industry structure,” the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said in a statement. “The biggest banks are now bigger than they were before the crisis.”

Michael Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending, hailed the bill’s creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, but worried it goes too far in allowing federal regulators to preempt their state compatriots.

“The bill would provide consumers with significant protections from the industry practices that dismantled our economy and those of countries around the world,” he said. “We commend the House for this vote to protect families and small business from unfair, unsafe financial practices. However, we remain concerned that the bill allows the same federal banking regulators whose inaction led to the current crisis to continue to ignore state law. That must be fixed as the legislation moves forward.”

Despite the advocacy by financial luminaries like former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the bill does nothing to break up big banks or address the mixing of commercial and investment banking by giant firms like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, praised the part of the bill dealing with credit rating agencies — with a caveat, though.

“If you accept the whole business model as a given, the rest of it is strong,” she said, referring to the fact that the agencies are paid by bond issuers to rate their products, creating an inherent conflict of interest.

Specifically, the bill subjects the credit rating agencies to increased liability, allowing for aggrieved investors to sue. Also, thanks to Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), a provision was added mandating that the agencies owe a duty of care to investors, rather than just to the bond issuers that pay them, she said.

The bill takes a stab at regulating derivatives, but key reforms were either ignored or voted down. An amendment by Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) calling for increased transparency in trading, which was backed by a coalition of pro-reform advocates, was voted down 330-98.

Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank offered another amendment regarding derivatives that would have beefed up the powers of federal regulators, who have long lacked critical authority to initiate meaningful regulation. That, too, died.

A third amendment would have banned those derivatives that are, in essence, used by big financial firms to place bets upon bets upon bets, like the kind pioneered by AIG that helped crash the financial system last year. It also was voted down.

“Basically, the financial houses and the big banks are working [these amendments] real hard,” Stupak said. “Wall Street’s been working hard. We’ve been tripping over them all week. They’ve won this round.”

Public Citizen offered this explanation:

It’s no mystery why this legislation is not stronger. Wall Street spent $5 billion in political investments in the decade before the financial crisis to obtain deregulation and non-enforcement of existing rules.

Despite Wall Street having crashed the economy, nothing has changed on Capitol Hill. Wall Street continues to invest heavily in politics and wield enormous influence. More than 900 former federal employees, including 70 former members of Congress, are working as lobbyists for the financial services sector this year. Wall Street has spent more than $40 million on campaign contributions since November 2008.

“It was the single most important they needed to get right if they wanted to protect the system from future crises, and I don’t think they got it right,” Roper said.

The bill also addressed investor protection, increasing it in some areas but weakening it in others. Shareholders will now be able to hold non-binding votes on executive compensation — a big win for investor groups. But the bill also includes a provision that changes current law by exempting about half of all publicly-traded companies from having to get audits of their internal controls. Fraud will be harder to catch, investor groups argue.

The House also voted to kill what many experts, consumer advocates and economists believe to be the best — and perhaps the only — way to stem the rising tide of foreclosures: a provision that would have allowed judges to cut the principal for struggling homeowners in bankruptcy.

Belying their expressions of outrage towards banks and sympathy for struggling homeowners, enough Democrats joined Republicans to kill the amendment offered by Democrats John Conyers of Michigan and Jim Marshall of Georgia, by a 241-188 vote.

Bankruptcy courts may reduce several forms of debt for distressed borrowers, but not the mortgage on a primary residence. Judges can, however, alter loan terms on vacation homes and cars, for example.

In March, the House passed a bill that was “substantively identical” to today’s amendment, according to a summary of the amendment provided by the chamber’s Rules Committee. The Senate, however, voted it down, leading Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a longtime advocate for homeowners, to conclude that banks “frankly own the place.”

“The financial industry has so much invested in political influence, in lobbying, in campaign contributions, into having a local network through the local banks and the credit unions,” said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.). “It’s just very hard to go up against that based upon a strong public policy objective.”

Backers of the measure thought it had a reasonable chance of passage, since, after all, it had already passed, and the foreclosure crisis has only gotten worse. About one in seven homeowners with a mortgage are either delinquent or in foreclosure. The passage of time, however, gave banks a chance to work the halls.

“We got a vote for it earlier this year, but it took a huge effort. There was none of that effort this time. I think that leadership has been working other issues in the bill, but not that one. And there’s enormous opposition to it,” said Miller.

One in four homeowners with a mortgage are “underwater,” meaning they owe more on the home than it’s worth. The administration’s $75 billion foreclosure-prevention effort does virtually nothing to help those homeowners, consumer advocates and economists argue.

Furthermore, since the program’s launch in March, less than 32,000 troubled homeowners have received permanent relief through the government’s mortgage modification plan. It’s supposed to help three to four million homeowners avoid foreclosure.

“You would think that would be a strong argument for doing something about it,” Miller said. “And with the continued foreclosure rate and the effect that’s having on home values and the effect they’re having on each other, being such a downward force on our economy. But there’s just a united front of opposition by the financial industry. If some members are playing it by thinking, well, I’ll give them this vote but then I’ll vote for the CFPA, I guess I can see that calculation.”

Marshall pinned some of the blame on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who had been cool to the idea last spring.

“The leadership here in the House is a big friend to this bill. The White House, well, the Treasury Secretary made some comments earlier this year that I thought were unfortunate. Other than Geithner’s comments, I haven’t really heard anything else from the White House. Obviously it’s not on their priority list, among the many things they don’t have much of an opinion about. Though Geithner did say something, and I wish I could recall, he said something earlier this year that was chilling. Not that he said it was a bad idea, but it certainly wasn’t an endorsement,” said Marshall.

Candidate Obama supported the idea of allowing judges to modify mortgages in bankruptcy en route to the White House. He even expressed public support in February when outlining his plan to stem foreclosures. But it wasn’t in his detailed plan released the next month. Since then, the White House has largely been silent.

President Obama cheered the House action Friday. “This legislation brings us another important step closer to necessary, comprehensive financial reform that will create clear rules of the road, consistent and systematic enforcement of those rules, and a stronger, more stable financial system with better protections for consumers and investors,” he said in a statement.

But the loopholes in the bill and the reforms that were voted down revealed something else to Roper — an apparent deep-seated hostility to government regulation.

Time and time again, Roper noticed various reform proposals killed on the specious claim that they would kill jobs. Looking beyond today’s vote, there are deep, structural roadblocks to fundamental reform, she said.

“Even as they’re trying to cure the regulatory failures that led to the current crisis, they’re setting us up for future crises,” she said. “It’s a philosophy and attitude to regulation that suggests that as soon as the spotlight is off they will be back to attacking regulation as too costly.”

The vote, she said, reveals “that the attitude, the underlying problem, has not changed, and will come back to haunt us in the future.”

“It’s hard to be all that enthusiastic when you know that nothing has changed,” she said.

Source: Huffington Post

Dennis Kucinich “We Can’t Afford These Wars!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8iozAwHYYE

Over A Million Innocent People Perished In A War Based On A Lie! Congressman Dennis Kucinich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mafHPre-JgU

Dennis Kucinich “I Have Seen The Slow & Steady Erosion Of The Constitution Of The United States!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnEFhVaLrdk

Kucinich measure to end Afghanistan war gains cosponsors

By Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer

December 15, 2009, 2:40PM

Dennis Kucinich’s proposed congressional effort to end the Afghanistan war has gained a dozen bipartisan cosponsors during the week the Cleveland Democrat has circulated it.

Here’s the cosponsor list provided by Kucinich’s office: John Conyers, Jr.; (D-MI); Ron E. Paul (R-TX); Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD); Bob Filner (D-CA); Walter Jones, Jr. (R-NC); Lynn Woolsey (D-CA); Edward Whitfield (R-KY); Michael Capuano (D-MA); Timothy V. Johnson (R-IL); Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ); Eric Massa (D-NY); and Alan Grayson (D-FL).

“At a time when 15 milllion people are unemployed we cannot continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on disastrous wars,” Kucinich said in a press release. “My resolution will force a debate and vote on the war in Afghanistan. Congress must reassert its constitutional authority to start and end wars.”

Kucinich’s office said a similar privileged resolution to end the war in Pakistan will be introduced at a later date. Privileged resolutions require a House of Representatives debate within 15 days of introduction.

Jesse Ventura and a team of expert investigators are on a mission to examine some of the most frightening and mysterious conspiracy allegations of our time. They examine available evidence as well as talking to experts and eyewitnesses to learn more about such topics as global warming, possible 9/11 cover-ups, secret government weapons and apocalyptic prophecies. “This is my personal journey,” Ventura says, “to prove that there is more to these stories than you know about.”

THE SECRETS OF 9/11

Premiere On: Wed, December 9 at 10P

This week, Jesse Ventura, takes on America’s most controversial Conspiracy Theory: The attacks of Sept 11th, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people were killed as the result of four hijacked planes.

According to the official 9/11 Commission Report, the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history was caused by 19 men, with ties to al-Qaeda, who set off a series of coordinated suicide attacks. Two planes crashed into the buildings of the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon and the fourth plane landed in a Pennsylvania field before it could reach its target in Washington, DC.

But there are still questions left unanswered, and some people suspect the report is a cover-up.

Many believe airplanes alone could not cause the Twin Towers to tumble. Does the discovery of thermite residue in the debris point to explosives being used to bring down the buildings? Why wasn’t that fact ever mentioned in the official report? The FBI claims the flight recorders from Ground Zero were never found, but one recovery worker tells Jesse a very different tale. Might those missing black boxes hold evidence that 9/11 was an inside job?

Ventura is digging deep, talking to witnesses no one has heard from, storming Hangar 17 (where 9/11 evidence is stored) and asking the U.S. government questions few have dared to ask and almost no one is willing to investigate.

Truth about 9/11

News about 9/11

Jesse Ventura and a team of expert investigators are on a mission to examine some of the most frightening and mysterious conspiracy allegations of our time. They examine available evidence as well as talking to experts and eyewitnesses to learn more about such topics as global warming, possible 9/11 cover-ups, secret government weapons and apocalyptic prophecies. “This is my personal journey,” Ventura says, “to prove that there is more to these stories than you know about.”

HAARP

Premiere On: Wed, December 2 at 10P

Is it a communications research project or a doomsday weapon that can change the weather, shoot satellites out of orbit – and trigger mind control across the globe? Jesse Ventura and his team head north to a remote region of Alaska to confront the military installation called HAARP. TV-14-L

Information about Nikola Tesla

Information about HAARP & Environmental Pollution

Climategate: E-mail Scandal Could Melt Copenhagen Plans

IPCC Researchers Admit Global Warming Fraud

Global warming alarmists are scrambling to save face after hackers stole hundreds of incriminating e-mails from a British university and published them on the Internet.

The messages were pirated from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) and reveal correspondence between British and American researchers engaged in fraudulent reporting of data to favor their own climate change agenda. UEA officials confirmed one of their servers was hacked, and several of the scientists involved admitted the authenticity of the messages, according to the New York Times. The article opined, “The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument.”

Climatologist Patrick J. Michaels challenged that position. “This is not a smoking gun, this is a mushroom cloud.” The e-mails implicate scores of researchers, most of whom are associated with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an organization many skeptics believe was created exclusively to provide evidence of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

Among the IPCC elite embarrassingly, if not criminally, compromised is Phillip D. Jones, a Ph.D. climatologist at the University of East Anglia whose work figured prominently in the IPCC Third Assessment Report of 2001. Jones also contributed significantly to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 (AR4), but he failed to follow through when skeptical investigators asked to review raw data associated with that report. They announced intent to use UK Freedom of Information laws to obtain the data, so Jones sent the following e-mail to one of his collaborators: “Mike, Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise…. Can you also e-mail Gene and get him to do the same?… Will be getting Caspar to do likewise.” The Mike in this message is Michael Mann, professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, whose influential “hockey stick” graph warning of pending global warming eco-catastrophe was found by a congressional investigation to be fraudulent. In another correspondence about AR4 labeled HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL, Jones contacted Mann regarding research critical of their global warming platform. “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,” wrote Jones. “Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

Mann received another incriminating e-mail from Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a New Zealander now with the University of Colorado and Head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “The fact is we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” An incredulous Trenberth simply blamed “our [inadequate] observing system.” Yet he and his colleagues are now dodging the “Climategate” bullet, indignant that global warming skeptics are supposedly taking their comments out of context. One wonders if they might be referring to a message from Jones who wrote about a statistical “trick” he used to “hide” data. Or perhaps they mean Mann’s reference to climate change skeptics as “idiots.”

Now that AGW is revealed as a farce, will big-spending politicians in the U.S. Senate halt efforts to impose a cap-and-trade system to ostensibly combat greenhouse gases and global warming? Of course not. Cap and trade is about raising taxes and increasing government control over our entire economy. Our socialist politicians in Washington will never stop pushing this issue, even if global-warming alarmism is disproven to the point that Hell really does freeze over.

Will widespread and irrefutable knowledge of scientific fraud silence the socialist promoters of a new United Nations Climate Change protocol? Nonsense. In the name of saving the planet, the UN Copenhagen Treaty they intend to impose on the world would help to shackle it. Specifically, their “green” agenda would impose international controls, diminish the industrial might and living standards of developed nations, and transfer wealth from rich countries to poorer ones in an emerging world government. Internationalists and socialists will not back away from their long-sought-after global designs simply because the “science” supporting runaway global warming is shown to be flawed. No doubt they will continue to demand retributions for climate debt from the United States and the largely agreeable EU, despite Trenberth’s observed “lack of warming.”

The good thing is that even more than in the past, these false scientists and their alarmism will be countered with their own words. Even now reliable researchers are compiling the information in apublication that should shake our nation — and maybe even a few Democratic politicians.

Climategate: George Monbiot’s Lament

CLIMATE BOMBSHELL: Hacker leaks thousands of emails showing conspiracy to “hide” the real data on manmade climate change

WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Rigging a Climate ‘Consensus’
About those emails and ‘peer review.’
[note: the title of this post was CHANGED FROM "How to FORGE a Consensus" which WAS the title when the article was first published - and BEFORE it was 'reviewed']

Michael Mann first of climate change scientists to be investigated

Climategate: Penn State Professor Mann under investigation

Inhofe Announces Climategate Investigation on Fox News

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1qa9xprJ4s

Climate-Gate (Alex Jones)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPQIm9yXA1I

BBC: CLIMATE GATE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV1XlJLVeOs

Hacked climate emails include calls for ‘Earth Government’ as foundation of new world order, splitting of America

RELATED: CLIMATE BOMBSHELL: Hacker leaks thousands of emails showing conspiracy to “hide” the real data on manmade climate change

One of the leaked climate emails was apparently a press release from “Earth Government” Newsletter dated 27 Mar 2003. The document calls for a ‘democratic’ world government that would amalgamate and reform the prevailing global institutions including the United Nations, IMF, World Bank WTO, NAFTA, FTAA and others “for the good of all.”

It further refers to an “Earth Court of Justice to deal with all aspects of the Governance and Management of the Earth.” The document also makes mention of the “Foundation for the new world order, Earth Government” and “The splitting of America into separate independent states living at peace for the good of all.” Is this a revelation of the true intentions of certain environmental advocates, or just one of many emails in the background of calls to “hide the decline” of global temperatures (despite intense claims of global warming).

It is eerily similar to newly named EU President Herman Von Rompuy’s calls for Copenhagen to establish “global management” of the planet and Queen Elizabeth’s recent declaration during her throne speech at the opening of Parliament that “My government will seek effective global and European collaboration through the G20 and the European Union to sustain economic recovery and to combat climate change, including at the Copenhagen summit next month.”

Climategate: The Phil Jones University could break into children’s television, big time

Damian’s revelation that Futerra has gone so far as to train even CBeebies researchers in “green” communication may offer a lifeline to embarrassed academics at the beleaguered “University” of East Anglia. The ever-helpful BBC might be able to channel them towards a less challenging audience than those brutal sceptics who are holding the Phil Jones University up to so much painful ridicule. Might there not be very promising alternative careers for Phil Jones and Michael Mann if a happy collaboration between CBeebies and, say, Blue Peter could be devised?

“And now children, here are Phil and Michael to show you how to make your own global warming statistics at home.”

“Hello, children, I’m Phil. Can anyone tell me what Michael is holding? Yes. It’s a hockey stick. Does anybody know what that is for? No, Timothy, it is not to beat the crap out of nasty sceptic Pat Michaels, though that is a very good thing to do. It is to save the world. No, Prunella, Mr Brown did not do that last month, he was only speaking metaphorically. Michael…”

“Right, children. Now, watch what Phil is doing. That thing with steam coming out of it is called a computer. What do you think Phil is putting into it? It’s called data. There we go… lots and lots of lovely codes and nice warm data… Oh, look! Phil is frowning. Something isn’t quite right… So, children, now Phil is feeding in his lucky number… and his doggie’s birthday… and his social security number. It’s getting warmer, that’s good. Now he’s adding in the number he first thought of and – wow! It’s getting really hot. Look at all that smoke coming from the computer – don’t try this at home. I’ll just print off that graph and let you see the pretty picture.”

“Hi, kids, now I’ve finished working with the computer, let’s see what Michael is holding. It’s a graph, showing how hot the world is getting because of motor cars and American Republicans and horrid people called Deniers – Oh, look, Michael is holding his graph upside down. No, he’s not being silly, he’s being responsible. Because, you see, although the words are upside down, the lines are pointing upwards, which is what matters. And when we send it to our colleagues in New Zealand, who are becoming almost as famous as we are, the words will be the right way up, because it’s an upside-down country…”

“Thanks, Phil. That was good. Now, kids, if you’ll watch very carefully, Phil will show you how to fill in a very useful piece of paper called a grant application form. You can send that to some very nice people in America – they’re like Father Christmas, but all the year round, and they give out lots of lovely money that people all over America pay them. Phil…”

“And what do we do now, children? Just like tidying away your toys at home before bedtime? We wipe the computer clean, in case burglars try to break into it and let people see what we’ve been doing. After all, it’s none of their business!”

Al Gore confronted on Climategate in Chicago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwkR3uuZMIM

House Financial Services Committee approved Ron Paul “Audit the Fed” * House Attacks Fed * Call for Geithner to Quit *

Critical Vote on Audit the Fed!

Congressman Paul will offer an amendment in Committee restoring an audit of the Fed’s entire $2 trillion balance sheet, but we have received word that some of the Democrat members may be waffling on their support for his amendment.

For example, Watt’s amendment prevents the GAO from auditing or reviewing decisions to authorize, modify, extend, or terminate loans or liquidity facilities.

Fed balance sheet can be audited, panel says

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – A key congressional committee approved legislation on Thursday that would allow for government audits of Federal Reserve monetary policy as well as how much the central bank has lent and will lend to specific banks in response to the financial crisis, despite major opposition from the central bank. The measure, introduced by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has the support of 309 members of Congress.

House Attacks Fed, Treasury

Panel Votes for Tighter Political Rein on Central Bank; Some Call for Geithner to Quit

WASHINGTON — Political frustration over the rescue of Wall Street and high unemployment erupted in Congress Thursday, with one committee threatening to impose tighter scrutiny on the Federal Reserve and another excoriating Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The House Financial Services Committee voted, 43-26, to approve a measure sponsored by Texas Republican Ron Paul, vociferously opposed by the Fed, that would direct the congressional Government Accountability Office to expand its audits of the Fed to include decisions about interest rates and lending to individual banks. The Fed says the provision threatens its ability to make monetary policy without political interference.

Treasury chief Geithner faced a House Republican who told him, ‘The public has lost all confidence in your ability to do the job.’ He shot back: ‘What I can’t take responsibility is for the legacy of crises you’ve bequeathed this country.’

The vote was the latest blow to the central bank, which has been become a lightning rod for politicians responding to popular anger that Wall Street was bailed out while the public was not. The Fed faces a stinging backlash from legislators from both parties who argue that has too much power and too little oversight. On Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee began debating legislation that would largely remove the Fed from bank supervision over the objections of both the Fed and the Obama administration.

The Paul-Grayson Amendment
by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson

“It is encouraging to see the issue of Federal Reserve transparency receiving so much attention during this current markup. Today we plan to offer an amendment to the Financial Stability Improvement Act that expands on the many extant proposals to enhance Federal Reserve transparency. Our amendment is based on HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which has broad bipartisan and grassroots support. The bill is cosponsored by 309 Members of Congress, including all Financial Services Committee Republicans and 13 Financial Services Committee Democrats.

The amendment removes restrictions on GAO audits of the Federal Reserve, as HR 1207 does, but makes a few changes to take into account some of the concerns that the Fed has made known in public testimony.

Unlike proposals that target the Fed’s 13(3) facilities, the Paul/Grayson amendment opens up the entire $2 trillion Federal Reserve balance sheet to a GAO audit.

Mr. bernanke, do THEY have OUR gold? or did THEY sell it to Europeans for $35/oz within years of being CONFISCATED from the American people at $25/oz after THEY bankrupted us in 1933?

Learn more about the corrupt “Federal Reserve System”:
http://americanbuilt.us/videos/federal-reserve-system.shtml

In this special edition of the Reality Report Gary Franchi is joined by Michael Badnarik the elected president of the CC2009 Continental Congress. Do not miss this powerful interview.

Michael J. Badnarik was the Libertarian Party nominee for President of the United States in the 2004 elections, and placed fourth in the race, behind independent candidate Ralph Nader.

Nixed CNN pact in ‘Obama birther’ flap

Lou Dobbs Quits CNN, John King Will Step In

CNN Anchor Lou Dobbs announced on the air on November 11 that he was resigning from the network to pursue other unspecified opportunities. John King, currently anchoring the Sunday political news program State of the Union, will step in to replace Dobbs early next year. Various anchors will fill in for Dobbs until then.

Having been with CNN since its beginning in 1980 save for two years off to start the website space.com, the 27-year veteran anchor has recently focused his Lou Dobbs Tonight program on the impact of U.S. trade policy on the American economy, the loss of middle class jobs, and the growing problem of illegal immigration. He would like to find a venue where he can address these topics without constraint.

“Over the past six months, it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us,” Dobbs stated in the opening to his program. “And some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving, as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day. And to continue to do so in the most honest and direct language possible.”

AllYourTV.com reported on November 11 that Dobbs might embark on a presidential campaign in 2012. “It’s not that he sees himself as a politician,” said an associate of Dobbs. “But he honestly believes that this is his time, that he has something constructive to contribute to the political discourse.”

Dobbs said on air that the issues of trade, jobs, and immigration “are now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous, empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion. I’ll be working diligently to change that as best I can.”

CNN President Jonathan Klein revealed his aversion to Dobbs’ “forthright analysis and discussion” when he addressed network employees via a conference call on November 12. Speaking of John King replacing Dobbs, Klein said: “John doing that show is obviously a statement about the importance of real nonpartisan news to CNN, and also the importance of political coverage to CNN.” According to an employee who transcribed the call, Klein added, “Having made a statement that we’re all about nonpartisan journalism and outstanding journalism, we have to live up to that. We have got the hardest mission.”

Klein may think it’s hard to join the rest of the mainstream media in their bias toward the liberal left, but he obviously refused to take the harder course of retaining Dobbs in the face of complaints from radical groups. Roberto Lovato, co-founder of the Latino empowerment website Presente.org, celebrated Dobbs’ departure as a victory for his group’s campaign to have Dobbs fired.

“Our contention all along was that Lou Dobbs — who has a long record of spreading lies and conspiracy theories about immigrants and Latinos — does not belong on the ‘Most Trusted Name in News,’ ” Lovato said. “We are thrilled that Dobbs no longer has this legitimate platform from which to incite fear and hate.”

If Lovato thinks Dobbs is inciting hate, then what would Lovato say about a shot fired at Dobbs’ home while his wife was outside? Fox News reported on October 29 that this incident came after Dobbs received threatening phone calls. The hate in this case likely belongs to radical forces willing to use violence to silence critics of illegal immigration.

Dobbs hasn’t been talking to Fox News about employment, though a position with the network is not hard to imagine. “At this point, I’m considering a number of options and directions,” Dobbs said. “I assure you, I will let you know when I set my course.”

source: New American

The text of Mr. Dobbs’ announcement about leaving CNN:

This will be my last broadcast here on CNN, where I’ve worked for most of the past 30 years, and where I have many friends and colleagues whom I admire deeply and respect greatly.

I’m the last of the original anchors here on CNN and I’m proud to have had the privilege to helping to build the world’s first news network.

I’m grateful for the many opportunities that CNN has given me over these many years. I’ve tried to reciprocate with a full measure of my ability and my energy.

Over the past six months it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us, and some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond the role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem solving as well as to contribute positively to the great understanding of the issues of our day. And to continue to do so in the most honest and direct language possible.

I’ve talked extensively with Jonathan Klein — Jon’s the president of CNN — and as a result of those talks, Jon and i have agreed to a release from my contract that will enable me to pursue new opportunities.

At this point, I’m considering a number of options and directions, and I assure you, I will let you know when I set my course. I truly believe that the major issues of our time include the growth of our middle class, the creation of more jobs, health care, immigration policy, the environment, climate change, and our military involvement, of course, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But each of those issues is, in my opinion, informed by our capacity to demonstrate strong resilience of our now weakened capitalist economy and demonstrate the political will to overcome the lack of true representation in Washington, D.C.

I believe these to be profoundly, critically important issues, and I will continue to strive to deal honestly and straightforwardly with those issues in the future.

Unfortunately, these issues are now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous, empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion. I’ll be working diligently to change that as best I can. And as for the important work of restoring inspiration to our great free society and our market economy, I will strive as well to be a leader in that national conversation.

It’s been my great honor to work with each and every person at this wonderful network. I will be eternally grateful to CNN, to Ted Turner, and to all of my colleagues and friends, and of course to you at home. I thank you, and may God bless you.

Mr. Dobbs then went to a commercial break.

1915 – Nov 27, Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler (on the executive committee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) delivered an address, “A New World Order is Being Born” to the Union League of Philadelphia in which he stated: “The old world order changed when this war storm broke–the old world order died with the setting of the day’s sun and a New World Order is being born while I speak.”

1976 Congressman Larry P. McDonald: “The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control…. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.”

1972 Robert Welch – May, page 10 “Or, as fellow Insider Mr. James Reston of the New York Times enthusiastically puts it, deliberately using the two-hundred years old language and slogan of the Conspiracy — ‘Mr. Nixon cannot become the head of a new world order (Novus Ordo Seclorum) unless the Communist nations are brought into the world order….’ ”

1972 Robert Welch – Sept, page 29 “This plan is to establish – very soon – the first stages of a ‘new world order.’ This will be the novus ordo seclorum for which a self-perpetuating inner circle of Conspirators has been working and scheming relentlessly during some six generations.”

1972 Robert Welch – Oct, page 28 “There should be no surprise for longtime readers of the Bulletin….that those plans include the conversion of the United States into a socialist nation – and the merger of that enslaved segment of mankind with other Communist nations into a New World Order. That goal, under that very name – originally written in bastardized Latin as novus ordo seclorum – has been envisioned by a Master Conspiracy for the past two hundred years as the ultimate product of all its crimes against humanity, and of all its subversive onslaughts against western civilization.”

2-25-1972: “and the hope that each of us has to build a new world order.” – nixon

1991 gw bush: “When we are successful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the UN’s founders.”

1993 – July 18: CFR member and Trilateralist Henry Kissinger writes in The Los Angeles Times concerning NAFTA: “What Congress will have before it is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system….a first step toward a new world order.”

1995 – Jan 27: Billionaire financier George Soros at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, says the world needs a “new world order,” and he further warns: “I am here to alert you that we are entering a period of world disorder.”

2001 – “There is a chance for the President of the United States to use this [9-11] disaster to carry out = a new world order.” (Gary Hart, at a televised meting organized by the CFR in Washington, DC 9/14/2001)

Evidence of Internment Camps in America

Recent legislation attempting to legitimize the use of internment camps to detain U.S. citizens in the event of an uprising or civil unrest has many people asking what nation they live in.

In a country born out of political dissent, we watch our leaders in Washington slowly pass bills that label ordinary Americans as thought criminals and potential domestic terrorists for simply questioning the actions of their government. We see third party candidates and their impassioned supporters listed in secret government reports that call their allegiance into question and brand them as fanatics and extremists.

Senate committee hearings and official FBI documents further illustrate the mindset of our elected officials as they classify homeschoolers, gun rights activists and anti-abortionists as threats against the existing social and political order; by default creating an entire nation of radicals and revolutionaries – where everyone is a suspect… equally guilty until proven otherwise.

How has our government shown that they will deal with these people? The same way as every other totalitarian regime throughout history – marginalize their activities then lock them up. Prisons are being built; internment camps constructed and laws passed that deal severely with anyone who dares to step out of line or ask too many questions.

He cited the Wall Street Journal as an example of where only the first paragraph comes up on search engines and is free. Anything after that is subscription-based. He is planning to make newspapers like The Times and Sunday Times chargeable online.

source: Sky News Online

Alex Jones’ highly anticipated upcoming documentary Fall of the Republic: The Presidency of Barack Obama boldly lifts the lid and unveils the fraud behind Brand Obama and how the globalists are using their newest, and slickest ever puppet to destroy the last vestiges of America’s freedom, Constitution and economy, all while helping the bankers loot the country clean.

The film exposes the agenda that Obama was put in place to accomplish, a world government allied with a bank of the world run by globalist eugenicists hell-bent on destroying America’s first world status and replacing it with a hollow shell of tyranny.

The mind control, the television programming, and all the media talking points that serve to reinforce the image of Brand Obama are laid bare, unveiling the naked ruth, as legendary author and documentary film maker John Pilger recently discussed, that Obama is nothing more than a corporate marketing creation, a skilled hypnotist using seductive tools of propaganda – race, gender and class – to hoodwink the masses into accepting his rhetoric while ignoring the contradiction of his actions.
The film exposes how Brand Obama says one thing – to make people buy into the brand – and then the real Obama does another.

The burgeoning police state, warrantless wiretapping, secret arrests, indefinite detention of citizens, torture, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Pakistan, have all been expanded under Brand Obama despite his promises to reverse them all.

The real question to ask is not which class Obama claims to represent or fight for, but which class Obama serves. Fall of the Republic leaves no room for doubt that the class Obama serves is the elite and it is their agenda he is diligently following.