"CIA seeks laid-off bankers in N.Y. recruitment drive

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE55H6CH20090619

"D.C. Crash Kills General Who Scrambled Jets on 9/11 (Update1)

June 24 (Bloomberg) -- David F. Wherley Jr., the head of the Washington National Guard who scrambled jets over the city during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was among those killed in the worst commuter train crash in the city’s history, officials said. .............."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGu5lX16VTk8

Being presented as an international treaty ratified by 29 other countries, signed by Clinton but never ratified by the Senate. 

Other countries will be able to identify gun owners within the US.

Obama Pushes Anti-Gun Treaty CIFTA

Federal Reserve Transparency Act - HR1207 - Ron Paul

Found this awesome video posted on another site.  Surprise ending, hope you enjoy!!

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Tour Through Reality

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Just came in email so thought I'd add this awesome inspiration.

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Abraham-Hicks Daily Quote

"Enlightenment means literally aligning to the Energy of my Source. And genius is only about focusing. Law of Attraction takes care of everything else. Physical humans often want to make enlightenment about finding some process and moving through the process that has been pre-described. But true enlightenment is moving to the rhythm of the internal inspiration that is coming in response to the individual desire. Enlightenment is about allowing my connection to the Source that is me for the fulfillment of the things that I have individually defined here in my time/space reality. That's as good as it gets!"

Have heard rumors of Michael having been abused but had no idea it was to the extent described in this article.  Author saying he died from a broken heart makes sense.

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"The Truth Behind Michael Jackson’s Death

By Lauren Mackler   June 26th, 2009
Source Dream Manifesto

"The mystery of Michael Jackson’s death is not really a mystery at all. What killed Jackson is a broken heart – one that was wounded a long time ago.

From early childhood, Jackson was emotionally and physically abused by his father, suffering relentless and grueling music rehearsals, beatings, and verbal abuse. His childhood abuse continued to affect him all throughout his adult life. In one episode (which was later confirmed by Marlon Jackson) his father, Joseph, held Michael upside down by one leg and “pummeled him over and over again with his hand, hitting him on his back and buttocks.” Joseph would often slam his sons into walls.

An especially traumatic event happened one night while Jackson was asleep. His father climbed through the bedroom window into his room screaming and donning a fright mask in order to teach Michael not to leave the window open at night. Not surprisingly, Jackson had nightmares for years afterwards about being kidnapped from his bedroom.

When we are born, we are whole human beings filled with tremendous potential. We have the ability to express all parts of ourselves and we have a healthy and intact self-esteem. Growing up, we adapt to the peculiarities of our families by adopting a “default operating system” – patterns of thought and behavior we take with us into adulthood. If we grow up in a dysfunctional or abusive family, our innate wholeness and self-esteem become eroded.

Our core beliefs and habitual behaviors are like viruses, infecting our lives, our relationships, and our sense of well-being. The core beliefs that Jackson internalized in response to his life conditioning and childhood abuse—“People will hurt me and can’t be trusted”, “I’m ugly”, and “If I meet others’ needs and expectations I’ll be loved” – were at the root of his living a life filled with tremendous self-loathing, pain, and isolation.

That Jackson’s childhood experiences continued to affect him throughout his adult life is evident in many ways. He underwent plastic surgery to the point of physical disfigurement. At the root of his tremendous empathy for others’ suffering was the well of his own emotional pain and suffering. In a relentless pursuit for the idyllic childhood he himself never had, he built a 2,500 acre paradise called Neverland.

He forewent close adult relationships and surrounded himself with animals and children, with whom he could have a sense of power and feel safe. His history of engaging with unsavory people who used him and his money was a replication of the injurious behavior of his father’s betrayal over and over again. He tried in vain to fill his inner voids through acquiring material possessions that cost him a fortune, and he said that it was only when he was performing that he was truly happy – his only means of feeling loved and accepted by others.

When the bottom of his career began to fall out due to rumors and allegations of child molestation followed by expensive legal trials and settlements, Jackson’s downward spiral began to dramatically accelerate. He continued to spend excessive amounts of money, but he could no longer generate the unprecedented success and record sales of the past.

Instead of getting the help he badly needed, he reacted to his disintegrating life and career by marrying someone who could restore his damaged image and esteem (Lisa Marie Presley), divorcing her and marrying another woman who gave him full custody of their two children, and eventually having a third child by an anonymous donor. He withdrew from public life with his children, and apparently lived the rest of his years as a very lonely and unhappy man.

Michael Jackson went from being a beloved superstar with the world in the palm of his hands, to being branded by many people as a weirdo, child molester, and kook. Instead of judging the person he was or obsessing on the sensationalist circumstances surrounding his death, it is my hope that people will use his tragic death to better understand the power our life conditioning has on who we become as adults. While heart failure may be what ultimately led to Jackson’s demise, it was a broken heart that really killed him."

http://www.dreammanifesto.com/truth-michael-jacksons-death.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-truth-behind-michael-jacksons-death

"Monica Conyers Pleads Guilty
Conyers Facing Up To 5 Years In Prison

POSTED: Friday, June 26, 2009
UPDATED: 5:17 pm EDT June 26, 2009

DETROIT -- City Council member Monica Conyers, the wife of powerful Democratic Congressman John Conyers, pleaded guilty Friday to accepting cash bribes in exchange for supporting a sludge contract with a Houston company. .........""

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/19867343/detail.html

"Bernanke warns that meddling with Fed's monetary policy cause harm economy

_________________

"Did Bernanke and Paulson Commit Bank Fraud?

May 31, 2009 - 09:25 AM

By: Global_Research 

"Thomas R. Eddlem writes: New revelations from the New York State Attorney General’s office have all but proven that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson committed bank fraud crimes in the case of the Merrill Lynch/Bank of America merger that took place last year. New York State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo revealed that Paulson and Bernanke illegally suppressed adverse financial data on the merger and threatened to replace the Bank of America CEO and board of directors if the company backed out of the Merrill Lynch merger. “Secretary Paulson has informed us that he made the threat at the request of Chairman Bernanke,” Cuomo wrote in an April 23 letter to Congress.

The two companies signed a tentative merger agreement September 15, 2008, but the agreement included a “Material Adverse Change” (MAC) clause that would allow Bank of America (BofA) to escape the merger if BofA financial officers found undisclosed financial information that would hurt BofA while looking at Merrill Lynch’s books. Bank of America shareholders approved the agreement with the MAC clause December 5, 2008. The final merger was to take place January 1, 2009.

But on December 14, BofA financial officers informed CEO Kenneth Lewis that Merrill Lynch’s quarterly losses would be $3 billion more than expected (the $9 billion in expected losses ended up being a $15 billion loss — a $6 billion increase over what stockholders expected and approved). Three days later Lewis informed U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson by phone that Bank of America planned to exit the merger using the MAC clause. Paulson urged Lewis to get on an airplane and visit his office.

Lewis met with Paulson and Bernanke December 21, where Lewis was told he would be replaced if BofA exercised the MAC clause. “I can’t recall if he said ‘we would remove the board and management if you called it’ or if he said ‘we would do it if you intended to,’”  Lewis told Cuomo. Then Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis tried to “deescalate” the conflict by saying he’d talk to his board. Lewis also testified he was instructed not to reveal the staggering Merrill Lynch losses to his stockholders: “I was instructed that ‘We do not want a public disclosure,’” Lewis told Cuomo’s office. Lewis took it as a demand to defraud his stockholders, a demand that he and his board of directors complied with.

The BofA board met the next day to discuss the disastrous merger, and the minutes revealed: “The Treasury and Fed state strongly that were the Corporation [Bank of America] to invoke the material adverse change (“MAC”) clause in the merger agreement with Merrill Lynch and fail to close the transaction, the Treasury and Fed would remove the Board and Management of the Corporation.”

That decision by Lewis and his board led Bloomberg.com financial columnist Jonathan Weil to comment in a particularly insightful column: “As for Lewis and the rest of Bank of America’s board, it’s a foregone conclusion that their word is now mud. The more honorable and legally appropriate path for them would have been to resign rather than participate in the cover-up.”

But more than just honor was violated. The law was violated as well. According to bank fraud laws, Paulson, Bernanke, Lewis, and his board of directors committed bank fraud against their stockholders. The Justice Department’s Criminal Reference Manual says of the bank fraud law: “The elements of the offense of making a false statement are: (1) making a false statement or willfully overvaluing property or security knowing the same to be false, (2) for the purpose of influencing in any way the action, (3) of the enumerated agencies and organizations.”

Bank fraud laws are so severe that an actual loss of stock value needn’t be actualized in order for criminal bank fraud to take place, according to the Justice Department Criminal Reference Manual. “The mere probability of loss to the bank is sufficient to establish intent to injure, and neither a possibility of future benefit to the bank nor restitution is a defense.” Of course, Bank of America did experience a serious financial injury. The stock price tanked from about $30 per share in September down to $5 per share in March, an 87 percent loss of value, and the otherwise financially secure Bank of America needed billions in federal bailout money just to survive.

Senator Chris Dodd told CNN that hearings on Cuomo's revelations may be warranted, though Weil noted, “Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd took V.I.P. loans from Countrywide Financial Corp., now a subsidiary of Bank of America.” So what are the chances that a serious investigation will take place?

Weil correctly points out: “Knowing what we know now, how could you ever trust anything Bernanke says again?” He also appropriately wonders openly whether current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (then the New York Federal Reserve Bank chairman and number two man on the Fed’s Open Market Committee) was involved in the deal, or if he was somehow incompetently unaware of what was going on right under his nose. Either way, the government’s financial leadership in Washington right now is untrustworthy at best and felonious at worst.

In the mythology of the left, unregulated “free enterprise” as a financial system failed under the Bush administration. The Bank of America/Merrill Lynch fraud case authoritatively proves that mythology false. Laissez-faire free enterprise was pretty much the opposite of what happened on Wall Street during the financial boom and subsequent bust. The failure was caused by government, which in this case nearly bankrupted the largest bank in America when top government officials engaged in criminal fraud and leveled ugly political threats that — if they had been made by Mafia functionaries — would be prosecuted under racketeering laws."

© Copyright Thomas R. Eddlem, Global Research, 2009

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article10991.html

Always thought Congress makes laws which are policy, justices interpret laws according to pleadings before them.

______________

Sonia Sotomayor: Courts make policy full clip

__________

June 24, 2009
"The Supreme Court nominee who can't write
By Carey Roberts

Source RenewAmerica.com

"Supreme Court opinions are words for the generations that can affect the lives and welfare of millions. No one doubts that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has a compelling life story. But more to the point, we need to inquire about her aptitude to draft thoughtfully-reasoned, well-crafted legal opinions.

On this count, there is reason for worry.

Sotomayor herself has admitted, "Writing remains a challenge for me even today...I am not a natural writer." Reporter Stephanie Mencimer has characterized Sotomayor's legal opinions as "good punishment for law students who show up late for class."

A cursory pass of Sotomayor's writings reveals them to be clumsy to the point of being impenetrable. This comes from her "wise Latina" speech: "I also hope that by raising the question today of what difference having more Latinos and Latinas on the bench will make will start your own evaluation."

So exactly what does "start your own evaluation" mean?

And this ringing — but ungrammatical — declamation: "Other simply do not care." Maybe it's acceptable to drop the final 's' in Spanish, but not in English.

Then there's the time Sotomayor referred to a chirping insect as "Jimmy the Cricket" — with no apologies to "Jiminy Cricket." That malapropism triggered a summer reading assignment for the future Supreme Court nominee to immerse herself in a round of children's classics.

When it comes to Spanish grammar, Sotomayor doesn't have a clue. In a 1996 speech she uttered this blooper, "in Spanish we do not have adjectives. A noun is described with a preposition."

There is in fact a good Spanish adjective for such an off-key statement: "absurdo."

(For the compulsive linguists in the room, Sotomayor's name comes from a combination of the words soto ("thicket") and mayor ("greater"). Mayor is the adjective that modifies the noun soto. So Sotomayor means "greater thicket.")

Most telling is a person's ability to think analytically and reason logically, as revealed in a jurist's ability to write well. Here again, Sotomayor's nomination raises eyebrows.

Ms. Sotomayor has asserted her Latino heritage makes her a better, "wiser" judge. So see if you can follow this obtuse legal argument:

"For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir — rice, beans and pork....My Latina identity also includes, because of my particularly adventurous taste buds, morcilla, — pig intestines — patitas de cerdo con garbanzo — pigs' feet with beans, and la lengua y orejas de cuchifrito, pigs' tongue and ears."

So let's get the word out to our nation's jurists, Consuming swine guts makes you a more discerning and compassionate judge!

And when Sotomayor was asked to defend her membership in the all-female Belizean Grove, she rendered this risible verdict: "to the best of my knowledge, a man has never been asked to be considered for membership."

In a 1986 interview on Good Morning America, Sotomayor railed against the sex discrimination she allegedly had encountered. Want proof? "And if you're a male that grew up professionally in a male-dominated profession, then your image of what a good lawyer is a male image."

That's right, discrimination has nothing to do with the actions you may commit, it's clinging to a politically-incorrect "male image."

The real problem, of course, has nothing to do with one's image of being a good lawyer. The concern is the extent to which the affirmative action mindset has permeated our society, watering down standards and discriminating against more qualified applicants. "I am a product of affirmative action," Sonia Sotomayor boasted in a 1994 interview. "I am the perfect affirmative action baby."

During her now-famous address at the University of California School of Law, Judge Sotomayor concluded in her rambling, nearly incoherent prose:

"There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering. We, I mean all of us in this room, must continue individually and in voices united in organizations that have supported this conference, to think about these questions and to figure out how we go about creating the opportunity for there to be more women and people of color on the bench so we can finally have statistically significant numbers to measure the differences we will and are making."

If the Senate confirms Sonia Sotomayor next month, it will be only a matter of time until such sentiments begin to make their way into the legal opinions handed down from the High Court."

© Carey Roberts

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/roberts/090624

"U.N. TO EMERGE AS GLOBAL IRS

By Cliff Kincaid

June 24, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

"While our media sleep, the United Nations is proceeding, with President Obama’s acquiescence, to implement a global plan to create a new international socialist order financed by global taxes on the American people.

The Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development that begins on Wednesday will consider adoption of a document calling for “new voluntary and innovative sources of financing initiatives to provide additional stable sources of development finance...” This is U.N.-speak for global taxes. They are anything but “voluntary” for the people forced to pay them. [Read Cliff's book: "Global Bondage: The UN Plan to Rule The World"]

The most “popular” proposals, which could generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue for global purposes, involve taxes on greenhouse gas emissions and financial transactions such as stock trades.

The document was agreed to at an informal meeting of expert “facilitators” and was made available on Monday afternoon at 3 p.m. It is doubtful that any changes will be made to it.

The conference was postponed from June 1-3 and will now take place June 24-26 at the U.N. in New York. While the “outcome document” has been watered down somewhat from the previous version, it still reaffirms attainment of the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals, which would require the payment of $845 billion from U.S. taxpayers. A commitment to the MDGs was a stated objective of the Global Poverty Act, which Barack Obama had introduced as a U.S. senator. It requires the U.S. to devote 0.7 percent of Gross National Income to foreign aid.

Now, as President, Obama can bypass the Congress and simply direct his Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice to approve the U.N. conference document. Then the pressure will be increased on Congress to come up with the money and satisfy our “international commitments.”

This is the pattern that he followed in regard to more money for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). After agreeing at the G-20 summit to provide more money for the IMF, the Obama White House slipped the cash and credit into the recently passed emergency war funding bill. The Obama White House had added billions in cash, as well as a $100 billion line of credit, for the IMF.

Rep. Mike Pence commented, “This legislation, which includes $108 billion in loan authorizations for a global bailout, for the International Monetary Fund—at a time when this government has run up a $2 trillion annual deficit—I believe does a disservice to taxpayers and to those that defend us. Passing a $108 billion global bailout on the backs of our soldiers is just not right.”

The U.N. conference document explains where all of this is leading—the destruction of the American dollar as the world’s reserve currency and the build-up of global institutions such as the IMF and the U.N.

It declares that “We acknowledge the calls by many states for further study of the feasibility and advisability of a more efficient reserve system, including the possible function of SDRs in any such system and the complementary roles that could be played by various regional arrangements.” SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a form of international currency that enables global institutions like the International Monetary Fund to provide more foreign aid to the rest of the world. The U.S. pays for SDRs through its financial contributions to the IMF.

If implemented, the document would officially mark the end of the United States as the world’s leading economic power.

Urging socialism as the solution to the crisis, the document states that “Insufficient emphasis on equitable human development has contributed to significant inequalities among countries and peoples. Other weaknesses of a systemic nature also contributed to the unfolding crisis, which has demonstrated the need for more effective government involvement to ensure an appropriate balance between the market and public interest.”

The nerve center of this emerging new international socialist system will be the United Nations, a body that has developed a reputation for corruption and incompetence and whose “peacekeepers” have been implicated in sexual abuse and other human rights violations.

“The United Nations, on the basis of its universal membership and legitimacy, is well positioned to participate in various reform processes aimed at improving and strengthening the effective functioning of the international financial system and architecture,” the document says.

“This United Nations Conference is part of our collective effort towards recovery,” it adds.

The Obama Administration’s unofficial point man in U.N. deliberations has been economist Joseph Stiglitz, who has been coordinating a “Commission of Experts” that has reported to U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto, the notorious Communist Catholic Priest who received the Lenin Peace Prize from the old Soviet Union.

Stiglitz produced his own document which called for “the issuance of additional SDRs,” “additional sources of funding” for global institutions, a new global reserve currency, and a new global credit facility. Key recommendations have been incorporated into the official U.N. conference document but Stiglitz and his “experts” provide far more details about them.

In terms of new funding sources, the document calls for “innovative sources of financing such as emission rights trading and financial transactions taxes…” The concept of “emissions trading” enables corporations to avoid limits on greenhouse gas emissions if they pay taxes to government. It is part of the “cap and trade” legislation that the liberals are now pushing on Capitol Hill.

Chapter Five of this document, “International Financial Innovations,” goes into detail, declaring that “For some time, the difficulty in meeting the UN official assistance target of 0.7 percent of Gross National Income of developed industrial countries as official development assistance, as well as the need for adequate funding for the provision of global and regional public goods (peace building, fighting global health pandemics, combating climate change and sustaining the global environment more generally) has generated proposals on how to guarantee a more reliable and stable source of financing for these objectives.”

The document notes that an international airline ticket tax is now in effect, as a result of the actions of the “Leading Group on Solidarity Levies” that now involves close to 60 countries and major international organizations. This money is going to fight global diseases.

The term “Solidarity Levies” is U.N.-speak for global taxes.

The Stiglitz document explains, “Some of the initiatives that have been proposed encompass ‘solidarity levies’ or, more generally, taxation for global objectives. Some countries have already decreed solidarity levies on airline tickets but there is a larger set of proposals. There have also been suggestions to auction global natural resources—such as ocean fishing rights and pollution emission permits—for global environmental programs.”

It goes on to say, “The suggestion of taxes that could be earmarked for global objectives has a long history. To avert their being perceived as encroachments on participating countries’ fiscal sovereignty, it has been agreed that these taxes should be nationally imposed, but internationally coordinated.”

So the nations of the world, including the U.S., will collect the taxes but then turn them over to institutions such as the U.N. The world body will function, in effect, like a global IRS.

Is it too much to ask that our media take some time off from talking about the girl with star tattoos on her face, “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” and Perez Hilton, to examine what is going on at the United Nations?"

© 2009 Cliff Kincaid - All Rights Reserved"

http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff323.htm

Interesting about the 1918 flu.

______

"German authorities warn of swine flu mutation risk

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE55M5EA20090623

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"Hybrid A/H1N1 flu tied to genetic trigger for larger, mutated version

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Source OnlineJournal.com

Jun 24, 2009, 00:17

"(WMR) -- WMR previously reported on the genetic manipulation of the 1918 flu from tissue extracted from an Inuit woman who died from the pandemic in Alaska. On May 6, WMR reported: “WMR has obtained information from biological researchers that the 1918 Spanish flu genetic sequences were ‘manipulated’ in order to effect transmission capability.

The current H1N1 virus, called ‘swine flu,’ is reportedly a combination of two forms of human flu, two forms of swine flu (North American and Eurasian), and avian or bird flu . . . Two bio-safety laboratories have been associated with the genetic reverse engineering of not only A-H1N1, the current ‘swine flu’ strain, but also the deadly Ebola virus. They are the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Canada.”

WMR has now learned from virus researchers that the current A-H1N1 strain strongly appears tied to vaccinations for the seasonal form on influenza. The hybrid flu began in countries where seasonal vaccinations are commonplace and where A-H1N1 did not respond to the normal seasonal flu vaccination antibody, according to researchers studying the new virus.

What has some researchers alarmed is that the engineers of A-H1N1 purposely planned to make the virus non-responsive to any available vaccine. There is also a suspicion by researchers that the A-H1N1 vaccine under development will trigger a more deadly mutated form of the virus for which the A-H1N1 vaccine will be ineffective.

On May 19, WMR reported: “What researchers have told us is that as long as the current AH1N1 can infect humans, it will not try to mutate. Even though there have been deaths from AH1N1, most of those infected are sick for up to four days, take Tamiflu or similar drugs, and recover with immunity from the hybrid or ‘novel’ virus . . . However, with vaccinations, the AH1N1 virus will, of course, be rejected by human hosts and cases around the world will decrease. However, then, the virus will begin to mutate in order to successfully infect human hosts. And when that happens, the new, newly-mutated virus will become much more transmissible and more pathogenic. The nightmare scenario is that the new, mutated virus may take on the characteristics of H5N1 or the avian flu. The vaccines administered for AH1N1 will be ineffective against the new strain of H5N1 and the world may face a more deadly pandemic then the current AH1N1 outbreak. There are scientists at WHO who are aware of this scenario but their alarm has been suppressed by political and economic considerations.”

Public health officials in Brazil are reporting that the A/H1N1 virus is now in the process of mutating, confirming our earlier reports. A new variant of the pandemic virus is showing up in patients in Brazil making treatment more difficult.

On May 13, 2009, WMR reported: “Because of the rapid mutation of the virus and the fact that, unlike 1918, rapid global transportation is now the norm, scientists are predicting that the molecular clock of the A/H1N1 virus, coupled with modern transportation, means that almost all the countries of the world will experience an A/H1N1 outbreak within the next few months.”

The prediction about the rate of global infection is being borne out by reports of the virus now being reported in many more nations, including South Africa, Yemen, Qatar, India, and Morocco, as well as uncontained surges in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Utah, and Argentina.

In another suspicious turn of events, Ivorian national Konan Yao, a former researcher at the Winnipeg laboratory that has been involved in A/H1N1 research and who was arrested by the FBI at the U.S. border crossing on May 5 trying to sneak 22 vials of Ebola and HIV genetic material into the United States for his new job at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, DC, was given his post-plea bargain sentence in federal court in Grand Forks, North Dakota, late last month: 17 days in prison which equated to time served and a $500 fine. Yao’s federal charge was “failure to present merchandise for inspection,” a lesser charge from the original “attempting to bring biological material into the United States without a permit.” Yao’s new job was at the NIH’s Biodefense Research Laboratory.

The federal prosecutor who cut the plea deal with Yao is Lynn Jordheim, the assistant U.S. attorney in Fargo, who also happens to be the U.S. Attorney’s office representative on the Anti-terrorism Advisory Council (ATAC) and Crisis Management Coordinator for the federal jurisdiction and, more intriguing, the “Confidential Human Source Coordinator.” "

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2009 WayneMadenReport.com

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4837.shtml

A young Peter Falk ... a very chilling drama with a timeless message.

________

"HR 2454 Cap and Trade: Consumer Costs Up, Emitters Buy Time

"Negotiations to soften carbon cap and trade legislation’s blow to agriculture, coal, and low-income families could win passage for the bill in the House Friday, reports TheHill.com, but AO finds the move could be at the expense of most consumers. Americans who are not among the poorest one-fifth of U.S. households may have cause for worry. H.R. 2454: Eyed by Government as a Revenue Source H.R. 2454, the Waxman-Markey bill, is intended to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 17 percent over 2005 emissions by 2020; but carbon emitters may buy themselves something of a reprieve by being able to stock up on emissions allowances, while still being allowed to pass costs on to consumers. The Congressional Budget Office, which estimates 7,400 facilities will fall under the legislation beginning in 2012, if Congress approves it, has calculated that H.R. 2454 will be a money machine for government: -Increasing federal revenue by $254 billion over 2010-2014 and $846 billion over 2010-2019 -Increasing direct spending by $241 billion and $821 billion over the respective periods and -Increasing discretionary spending by $50 billion through 2019 President Obama is counting on cap and trade to generate revenue he needs for his other spending initiatives as discussed in the AOH article, “Cutting Carbon Emissions: Who Pays?” His budget plan assumed that a carbon cap and trade system would be passed and implemented quickly and produce almost $650 billion in revenue from 2012 to 2019. He has pledged to low-income households he will protect them from higher costs with tax credits or rebates (but necessarily subsidized by higher costs on other households). Making H.R. 2454 Political Palatable to Special Interests Ironically, the emotional genesis of the measure – to reduce carbon emissions to stave off climate change and its effects, as described by advocates – may not be well served. So says The Breakthrough Institute. This independent think tank (which supports renewable energy) has come out with a new analysis that shows H.R. 2454 may reduce carbon emissions by only about 2 percent from 2012 to 2020. The reason, the group says, is all the political maneuvering and shifting of emissions requirements to placate political opponents that appears to be necessary to win support.  In fact, the group estimates that, by 2020, 61 percent of the reductions required by the legislation may exist on paper only – due to provisions that allow emitters to creatively use allowances to skirt reducing emissions in actual practice. Notably, utilities are coming out in support of the legislation, even in a coal-heavy state like Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Inquirer quotes an official owning up to power companies’ role in producing 40 percent of carbon emissions and declaring the bill is a “reasonable business approach.” For utilities and manufacturers, perhaps, since the article points out they can pass along higher costs to consumers. But consumers will see higher energy costs. The Consumer Pays Omaha Public Power District described the future under H.R. 2454 in stark terms for its 340,000 electric customers in Nebraska. Click here to see an impactful chart that shows what happens to consumer costs under both an optimistic scenario and a realistic scenario, as assessed by the utility. -Under the optimistic scenario, consumer costs for these 340,000 electric customers would increase $74 million in 2012 and $410 million in 2030 -Under the realistic scenario, consumer costs for these 340,000 electric customers would increase $238 million in 2012 and $1.3 trillion in 2030 A policy leader with the CATO Institute, who writes WashingtonWatch.com, details the legislation’s costs to consumers nationwide like this: $3840.82 per person $7681.63 per couple $9870.90 per average household $11522.45 per household of three $15,363.26 per family of four Spark for Needed Coal Research The legislation also gets the government more involved in “clean coal” research, which still faces considerable hurdles as discussed by AOH in “CCS and the Goal of Making Energy Cleaner.” The legislation’s revisions may be in tacit recognition of the reality the world has already recognized: that coal will be needed for decades to come (see AOH, “Coal: World Moves Full Steam Ahead.”) A Los Angeles Times article this week also acknowledges that coal use will continue unabated under the bill, at least for the next decade."

http://www.analysisonline.org/site/aoh_display.asp?aoh_id=516&sec_id=140002434

"H.R. 675: Building Obama’s Civilian National Security Force

Published on 06-23-2009

By Kurt NimmoSource BlacklistedNews.com

"In January, without any recognizable corporate media coverage, Rep. Bob Filner, a California Democrat, introduced H.R. 675. The bill would amend title 10 of the United States Code and extend to civilian employees of the Department of Defense the authority to execute warrants, make arrests, and carry firearms. The bill was referred to the Armed Services Committee on January 26, 2009.

Filner’s bill would amend the United States code with the following: “Sec. 1585b. Law enforcement officers of the Department of Defense: authority to execute warrants, make arrests, and carry firearms… for any offense against the United States.” (Emphasis added.)

The Posse Comitatus Act, passed on June 18, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction, limits the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement. The Act prohibits members of the federal uniformed services from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property within the United States.

H.R. 675 sidesteps Posse Comitatus by defining “law enforcement officer of the Department of Defense” as “a civilian employee of the Department of Defense,” including federal police officers, detectives, criminal investigators, special agents, and game law enforcement officers classified by the Office of Personnel Management Occupational Series 0083 (the United States Office of Personnel Management is described as an “independent agency” of the U.S. government that manages the civil service of the federal government).

In 2005, the Office of Personnel Management partnered with the Department of Homeland Security to create a “21st century human resources management system that fully supports the Department’s vital mission,” according to then Office of Personnel Management Associate Director for Strategic Human Resources Policy Ron Sanders.

At approximately the same time, the DoD issued a Defense Directive 1404.10 (read   PDF) that establishes a “DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce” and rescinds a prior Clinton era directive dealing with the emergency use of civilian personnel. The Obama administration describes the Civilian Expeditionary Workforce as follows:

Members of the DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce shall be organized, trained, cleared, equipped, and ready to deploy in support of combat operations by the military; contingencies; emergency operations; humanitarian missions; disaster relief; restoration of order; drug interdiction; and stability operations of the Department of Defense in accordance with DoDD 3000.05

“This new directive is odd, coming as it does after campaign promises by Obama to establish a paramilitary ‘civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded’ as our military,” writes Doug Ross.

According to Sec. Def. Robert Gates, defeating terrorism will require the use of more “soft power,” with civilians contributing more in communication, economic assistance, political development and other non-military areas. “Gates called for the creation of new government organizations, including a permanent group of civilian experts with a wide range of expertise who could be sent abroad on short notice as a supplement to U.S. military efforts. And he urged more involvement by university and other private experts,” the Associated Press reported in late 2007.

It should be noted that the original Civilian Expeditionary Workforce directive mentions the term “overseas” no fewer than 33 times, while the Obama revision does not mention “overseas” at all. In other words, the revised directive is designed for “emergency operations” in the United States.

Both H.R. 675 and the DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce directive will establish civilian “soft power” under the direction of the Pentagon. Obama is now actively working to create a paramilitary “civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the military. In order to skirt Posse Comitatus, Obama’s paramilitary brownshirts will be organized and run out of the Office of Personnel Management with orders coming from the Pentagon.

In the recent past, the Pentagon sent operatives to snoop on anti-war and patriot demonstrations — for instance, Alex Jones’ protest at the Federal Reserve was monitored by the Pentagon . In the not too distant future they will likely send “civilians” with firearms and the power to arrest “rightwing extremists” who represent, according to the Department of Homeland Security and numerous federalized police agencies, “offense against the United States.”

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