Archive for February, 2009
Gerald Celente on Alex Jones. Forecasts future trends February – June 2009
Add comment February 28, 2009
Will he keep is word on this one?
Obama sets August 2010 date for end of Iraq combat
by Laurent Lozano Laurent Lozano – 1 hr 25 mins ago
CAMP LEJEUNE, North Carolina (AFP) – Six years after the US invasion of Iraq, President Barack Obama Friday announced he will pull out most troops and end combat operations by the end of August 2010.
The announcement, at a military base in North Carolina, opened a final chapter in the US entanglement in Iraq, and reconciled Obama’s pledge to end a war which has killed more than 4,250 troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
“Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010 our combat mission in Iraq will end,” Obama said, laying out a new war strategy at a Marines base in North Carolina.
“I intend to remove all US troops from Iraq by the end of 2011,” Obama said, adding the post-2010 interim force would number between 35,000 and 50,000 troops.
The president, an early opponent of the Iraq war, briefed Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and former US president George W. Bush on the new plan by telephone, shortly before making his speech, the White House said.
Obama vowed the end of the unpopular war would mean a new era of US diplomacy in the Middle East, which he said will include “principled and sustained engagement” with Iran and Syria.
The president also formally announced the appointment of veteran diplomatic troubleshooter Christopher Hill, most recently in charge of talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, as the new ambassador to Iraq.
Several Democratic leaders however expressed concern at the plan, because of the size of the interim force.
But some top Republicans, including defeated presidential candidate Senator John McCain welcomed the move.
The timeline Obama laid out Friday at Camp Lejeune will unfurl at a slightly slower pace than his promise to get all US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months.
Significant numbers of US soldiers will remain in Iraq through 2009, and the timeline appears to provide for troop withdrawals to take place more quickly next year than from the outset of the plan this year.
The interim force will take on a new mission of training, equipping and advising Iraqi security forces, to protect US civilian personnel in Iraq, and to conduct targeted counter-terrorism operations on its own and in conjunction with the Iraqi forces, Obama said.
Officials privately would not definitively rule out changes to the status of forces agreement, that would entail US troops remaining beyond 2011, saying only that it was their intent to fulfill their commitments under a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) agreed by the previous Bush administration.
A senior US official said US military commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, believed it was “very important to have adequate forces to get through a number of key events in 2009,” especially mid-year regional elections and national elections scheduled for December.
The withdrawal will begin “relatively quickly”, the first official said, but the pace “will be left in the hands of the commanders in Iraq,” the second official added.
Obama is clear that the military accord with Iraq does not envision military bases like the United States has in South Korea, the first official said.
“We believe that this is the plan that will advance our interests in Iraq, in the region, (and) will ensure that we can responsibly bring our troops home and increase our flexibility as it relates to other challenges,” the official said.
The officials made it clear that fewer troops in Iraq would mean more troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, which Obama has said is his priority.
Obama held a private White House meeting late Thursday with congressional leaders including McCain.
“I believe the president?s withdrawal plan is a reasonable one,” said McCain, noting Obama had shown a willingness to “revisit” the timetable depending on events on the ground in Iraq.
“I am cautiously optimistic that the plan as laid out by the president can lead to success.”
However, some prominent Democrats, including House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have criticized the plan for a “residual force” of soldiers.
“I don’t know what the justification is for … the 50,000 troops in Iraq,” Pelosi told MSNBC. “I would think a third of that, maybe … 15,000 or 20,000,” would be sufficient, she said.
FROM HERE:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090227/pl_nm/us_obama_iraq_12
Add comment February 27, 2009
Under Obama (we hope) the Drug War Tactics will Shift
Administration officials are hinting that the DEA’s raids on medical marijuana sellers will likely end
President Obama couldn’t have been clearer about his take on the so-called war on drugs. In 2004, he called decades of get-tough law enforcement “an utter failure.” So it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the new attorney general, Eric Holder, hinted this month that the new administration will take a radically new approach to one drug issue in particular—medical marijuana. “What [President Obama] said during the campaign is now American policy,” Holder told a news conference this week.
Despite Obama’s well-known views, federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided a few pot dispensaries in California two days after his inauguration, despite a state law permitting limited use and sale of medical marijuana. The raid came before Holder’s confirmation, and it seems that no one in the new administration told the DEA to stop raiding some of the state’s storefront dispensaries. The DEA has hit a few dozen every year since they began appearing in 2003.
This time, the agency was continuing on autopilot under Michele Leonhart, a holdover from the Bush years who remains in charge of DEA until a successor is picked. The White House moved quickly to quiet the nervous uproar from the outraged left. “Federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws,” says Nick Shapiro, an Obama spokesman. Holder’s latest remarks appear to signal that the raids will end.
The approach to states’ rights in this case, however, is a notable departure from the one used to desegregate schools, close military bases, prosecute civil rights abuses, and link a drinking age to federal highway funds. “Frankly, it’s extremely rare for the federal government to allow the states to say that something is legal when the federal law says the opposite,” says Paul Rothstein, a law professor at Georgetown University.
Not enforcing federal law in this instance is perhaps just a more politically palatable way of acknowledging how the political landscape of marijuana has changed in the past few years, says Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which pushes for more lenient drug laws.
Legal experts say whether Obama continues the DEA raids against the dispensaries—which now seems highly unlikely—is beside the point. A dozen states now have laws similar to California’s, although often less permissive, and surveys show that the public generally supports some limited relaxation of drug laws for medical marijuana. States with swollen, costly prison populations are rethinking their sentencing policies for all kinds of nonviolent drug offenders. The New York State Legislature is considering revamping the most famous of these codes, the Rockefeller laws, which would be the first such move by the state in a generation.
Meanwhile, advocates of revamping the nation’s drug laws encourage Obama to take a page from Franklin Roosevelt, who spent his first few days in office fixing the crippled banking industry before overturning Prohibition. They wave economic studies, arguing that ending marijuana prohibition would create billions in tax revenue and allow cops to focus on more serious offenses. Repealing the 18th Amendment sent millions of dollars into government coffers by 1934 when breweries turned on the taps. “We’re not there yet, but ending these punitive DEA raids is a very encouraging step,” says Piper.
But with a vice president who helped create the position of White House drug czar, Obama seems unlikely to take radical steps. Throughout the campaign, he stated clearly that he was not in favor of legalizing marijuana. Yet incremental moves can be powerful.
And while the new DEA head hasn’t been chosen, Gil Kerlikowske, Seattle’s police chief, will reportedly be Obama’s drug czar. If his record is any indication, the war on drugs may be due for a change in tactics. Since he took over in Seattle in 2000, misdemeanor marijuana possession arrests there have fallen by half.
Add comment February 27, 2009
Nationalized Bank #1
Citigroup reaches aid deal with government
WASHINGTON – The U.S. government will exchange up to $25 billion in emergency bailout money it provided Citigroup Inc. for as much as a 36 percent equity stake in the struggling bank, greatly increasing the risks to taxpayers as voter unhappiness about the broader bailout program rises.
The deal announced Friday by the company and the Treasury Department represents the third rescue attempt for Citigroup in the past five months. It’s contingent on private investors agreeing to a similar swap.
The administration decided to restructure the bailout package for Citigroup again in the hopes that converting $25 billion of preferred shares into common stock would give investors more confidence the bank has sufficient capital reserves to withstand mounting losses on its holdings of mortgages and other loans. While the conversion to common stock will dilute current shareholders’ investments, a wider equity base could calm investors since there would be more reserves in place to guard against further losses as the economy sours.
Besides a stronger capital base, the company is getting a critical boost to its cash flow as it forgoes its 4 cent annual dividend on its common shares. That is giving Citi an additional $2.18 billion a year.
But the deal doesn’t affect one of Citi’s greatest problems, the billions of dollars in failed mortgage-backed securities that still sit on its books. As those investments have fallen in value, they have
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090227/ap_on_bi_ge/citigroup_rescue
Add comment February 27, 2009
Get your head out of your ass Beck! It is a conspiracy!
Ron Paul: They’re Working On A One World Government!
1 comment February 25, 2009
Gerald Celente on Russia Today “Tax Revolt” & “Revolution”
Gerald Celente predicts American’s future and tells it like it is about Obama.
Add comment February 25, 2009
Glenn Beck Predicting Massive Civil Unrest in the USA & World
Thing is, Beck is getting to be more on point lately. This lady can’t handle it. Most Americans don’t have a clue what’s around the corner.
He is right, but he fails to mention that this is being done ON PURPOSE by Obama and the Marxist thugs that backed him. They want to break the economy and force people into begging for more government assistance socialism. This will give them ABSOLUTE POWER…
Class warfare, Marxism and REVOLUTION is what they are all about.
The stock market is tanking, because the business world does not like socialist dictators Mr. Obama.
Add comment February 25, 2009
This is great for something that doesn’t exist.
Earning Your Bones In Court: Descendants of the Apache leader Geronimo Sue Yale and Skulls and Bones Society for Return of His Remains
Descendants of the Apache leader Geronimo have sued the ultra secret society, Skull and Bones, over rumors that the society stole his skull in a grave robbery detailed in society lore.
Twenty members of the legendary warrior’s family are suing senior federal government officials, Yale University and the society Skull and Bones in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. They are seeking return of Geronimo’s remains as well as punitive damages. However, the parties are a bit curious since the society is not part of Yale University. They are also suing the government because the remains were held at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. This is the 100 year anniversary of his death.
The complaint is largely based on a long-held rumor that the society store the skill and some members have broken the vow of secrecy to tell journalists that there is indeed a skull called Geronimo.
“I believe strongly from my heart that his spirit was never released,” Geronimo’s great-grandson Harlyn Geronimom, the leaders great-grandson, insists until he is returned to a proper resting place “I believe strongly from my heart that his spirit was never released. Presently, he’s still imprisoned. The only way to put this into closure is to relieve the remains and his spirit so that he can be taken back to his homeland, on the Gila Mountains, at the head of the Gila River.”
Society lore says that 1918 or 1919 members broke into the grave and took the skull. There are rumors of a variety of stolen items at the society. Of course, that would mean that Bush family member have been in knowing possession of not just stolen property but bones covered by federal criminal law on the return of such remains to Native American tribes (under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) and possible artifacts covered by federal criminal laws. Such members include Prescott Bush, father of former President George H. W. Bush ’48 and grandfather to former President George W. Bush ’68. Both presidents are reportedly members as are members. H.W. is shown just left of the clock in the picture to the right. 
For many who have long despised the society, the very prospect of discovery is an irresistible temptation. The society, however, is likely to seek a protective order over the really good stuff. At the outset, however, the society may have to deny the allegations in its answer. It will be interesting to see if the lawyers try to avoid a direct denial in favor of attacking the complaint as based on mere speculation. The descendants clearly want the information in their Complaint: “To assure that all existing remains of Geronimo and funerary objects are recovered by Geronimo’s lineal descendants, the Order of Skull and Bones and Yale University must account for any such articles that are or have been in their possession, or on their property. And persons with knowledge must provide any facts known to them concerning the claims.”
For the full story, click here.
1 comment February 24, 2009
March to stop Arpaio | Zach coming to town
Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, among the more politically outspoken bands in alternative rock, is coming to Phoenix to join a march denouncing Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “systematic persecution” of migrants and Latinos. March to Stop the Hate begins at 9 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, at Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix. Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network has issued a statement saying, “Recently, the nation witnessed the ritual humiliation of migrants in a spectacle evocative of some of the most horrific episodes of human history. People across the country are outraged at the shameful violations of human rights perpetrated by the Maricopa County Sheriffs and they are being moved to action.” Alvarado is referring to the segregation of the county jail and the parading of undocumented migrants shackled in a chain-gang through Tent City. De la Rocha says, “To witness what is happening in Arizona and remain neutral is to be implicated in human rights violations that are occurring right here on U.S. soil against migrants. History will not be kind to Joe Arpaio. He will be remembered with other infamous sheriffs like Bull Connor who subjugated and terrorized communities for shortsighted political gain. I hope everyone will join me in protesting Sheriff Joe.” More details can be found at www.ndlon.org.
Add comment February 24, 2009
New Hampshire lawmaker seeks to reaffirm state ’sovereignty’
Lawmaker Warns Of “Forced Servitude” Under Obama
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
New Hampshire state representative Dan Itse, who is one of many lawmakers leading the charge to assert state sovereignty against federal encroachment, has warned that the Obama administration seeks to institute “involuntary servitude”.
Appearing on Fox News to discuss the states’ rights movement, Itse told hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade, “This is about drawing a line in the sand and saying we’ve tolerated usurpations for so long but we’re not going to tolerate you violating the constitution, we’re going to hold you accountable.”
Asked if his warning about involuntary servitude under Obama meant young people being forced to attend community service, Itse responded, “Exactly, I mean, if you are required to do a job against your will with a pay scale not set by you or not agreed to by you, that’s involuntary servitude.”
Despite denials that Obama plans to institute a mandatory program of national service, his original change.gov website stated that Americans would be “required” to complete “50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year”. The text was only later changed to state that Americans would be “encouraged” to undertake such programs.
In addition, Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, publicly stated his intention to help create “universal civil defense training” in 2006. Such fears were also stoked when Obama himself said that a “national civilian security force,” that is “just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the U.S. military was required.
Itse cited the No Child Left Behind program as an example of the federal government encroaching on states’ rights.
“They dangle a dollar in front of us and we chase it like the donkey with a carrot on a stick but ultimately they are infringing upon our domestic policies in the states, manipulating our domestic policies and we need to stand up and say that’s not your job, that’s our job,” said Itse, adding that if enough states stood up to Washington then they would have to pay attention.
In response to increasing federal encroachment, a growing number of states have passed and proposed resolutions to assert the Tenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.
Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, California, and Georgia have all introduced bills and resolutions declaring sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment. Colorado, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Alaska, Kansas, Alabama, Nevada, Maine, and Illinois are considering such measures.
“This is about enforcing the constitution which states to the government, you’re not the boss of us, we’re the boss of you,” concluded the lawmaker.
MUCH MORE HERE:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/alex-jones-on-coast-to-coast-the-exploding-states-rights-movement-martial-law.html
Add comment February 24, 2009
The Real I.D. is coming back?
Bill Seeks To Withhold Highway Funds To States Who Don’t Comply With Real ID
Harold Gray
JustGetThere
February 23, 2009
A new amendment has been introduced that would coerce states to transform their drivers licenses into national ID cards or loose highway funding from the government. The Real ID Act, signed by former President George Bush in 2005, would create a nationwide database interlinked with every DMV across the country. Once implemented, it would prevent any citizen to enter any federal building, airport, open a bank account or any other action that is federally regulated. The bill was passed in a questionable manner, secretly tacked on to a must-pass appropriations bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Without any congressional debate, the passage of this bill created massive public backlash which lead to several internet campaigns seeking to repeal the act.
Currently, 21 states oppose the Real ID federal mandate that would require states to spend billions collectively, in order to fulfill all the requirements. The vehement opposition by the states has forced the government plan to be pushed back to 2010. Now that many states are in the midst of a revenue downturn, a new Real ID amendment, H.R. 140, has been introduced. Sponsored by Congressman Elton Gallegly from California, the amendment seeks to do the following:
To withhold certain highway funds if a State does not comply with certain requirements in issuing a driver’s license or identification card, and for other purposes.
(1) CALENDAR YEAR 2010- For calendar year 2010, 2 percent.
(2) CALENDAR YEAR 2011- For calendar year 2011, 4 percent.
(3) CALENDAR YEAR 2012- For calendar year 2012, 6 percent.
(4) CALENDAR YEAR 2013 AND EACH CALENDAR YEAR THEREAFTER- For calendar year 2013 and in each calendar year thereafter, 8 percent.
Increasing legislative actions by federal government to exert control over states has kick started a fast growing movement of states claiming sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment. Well over 21 states have introduced legislation asserting their sovereignty, just recently Minnesota and Texas followed suit.
The people and states make up this union, and should have the final say about this personal database being created and stored on the pretense to make us safe. The idea of a national database which includes all of our personal data that could be readily accessed and abused by one bad apple in the government, is not a representation of the freedom that our founders had in mind when forming this great nation under our beloved Constitution.
FULL READ HERE:
http://www.infowars.com/bill-seeks-to-withhold-highway-funds-to-states-who-dont-comply-with-real-id/
Add comment February 24, 2009
Jon Kyl is an idiot
WASHINGTON – Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona is hosting a film screening at the Capitol for a far-right Dutch lawmaker who claims that Islam inspires terrorism. Kyl is sponsoring the Thursday event for Geert Wilders, who was denied entry to London earlier this month because British officials said he posed a threat to public order. Wilders’ 15-minute film juxtaposes verses from the Quran with images of violence by Muslims. Wilders has called the Quran a “fascist book” and said it should be banned. Kyl agreed to facilitate the event because “all too often, people who have the courage to point out the dangers of militant Islamists find themselves vilified and endangered,” said spokesman Ryan Patmintra. Thursday’s event was being sponsored by the International Free Press Society, headed by Danish activist Lars Hedegaard, and the Center for Security Policy, a think tank in Washington led by Republican Frank Gaffney. The event is closed to the public and the media, but the film is being offered to members of Congress and their staff in the ornate “LBJ room,” a Senate office once used by Lyndon B. Johnson as majority leader and later vice president. Wilders’ film has sparked protests around the world, and it has inspired a debate on freedom of speech. Wilders had been invited to Britain by a member of Parliament’s upper house, the House of Lords, to show his film. But the British government refused his entry into the country, saying he posed a threat to “community harmony.” British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the British Broadcasting Corp. that Wilders was guilty of “extreme anti-Muslim hate.” He said, “There is no freedom to stir up racial and religious hatred.” Hedegaard, who helped sponsor Wilders’ visit to the Capitol, said Europe’s hate speech and blasphemy laws make no sense. “The way to deal with controversial, offensive or even hateful statements — unless they are directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action — is to expose them to public debate and criticism,” Hedegaard said in a statement advertising a Friday press conference with Wilders. While it is unusual for U.S. lawmakers to grant Capitol access to such a controversial figure, it was unlikely Wilders’ appearance would produce the same outcry as it did in Britain. Several leading senators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declined to comment.
FULL READ HERE:
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/135886
Add comment February 24, 2009
Citigroup Banks Fall for $27 Million Nigerian Email Scam
by Tim Stevens, posted Feb 23rd 2009 at 3:37PM
As for Citibank, well, we guess its latest misstep will just be covered by taxpayer-funded bailouts!
Add comment February 24, 2009
Alan Keyes has some choice words for Obama
Alan Keyes, a three-time presidential candidate, called President Obama a radical communist and a usurper and said with him in charge, America is going to cease to exist at a pro-life fundraiser Thursday.
The German Philosopher Johann Von Goethe, once said, there are none more hopelessly enslaved, than those who falsely believe they are free. Every person in the civilized world is enslaved from childhood in a prison without walls or bars few realize
The legal definition of free is not subject to the legal constraint of another. A free man is self governing. A slave follows rules and regulations.
Add comment February 23, 2009
“Stimulus” for BIG Government (passed just like the Patriot Act)
FOX ON TOP OF THEIR GAME WITH THIS ONE: Great conversation, great questions and Paul reveals some great truths about our puppet government.
On CNN:
Add comment February 20, 2009
My Hero
The Iraqi journalist who tossed his shoes at President Bush testified Thursday that he was trying to restore his country’s pride and did not intend to harm the American president, the Associated Press reports.
It was Muntadhar al-Zeidi’s first public appearance since the Dec. 14 incident, which turned him into something of a cult hero in Iraq and parts of the Arab world.
“What made me do it was the humiliation Iraq has been subjected to due to the U.S. occupation and the murder of innocent people,” he told the court. “I wanted to restore the pride of the Iraqis in any way possible, apart from using weapons.”
The 30-year-old journalist said he was frustrated by Bush speaking at a Baghdad news conference about his victories and achievements.
“I was seeing a whole country in calamity while Bush was giving a cold and spiritless smile,” he told the three-judge panel. “He was saying goodbye after causing the death of many Iraqis and economic destruction.”
Al-Zeidi has been charged with assaulting a foreign leader and could face up to 15 years in prison, the AP says.
FROM USA TODAY:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/02/shoe-throwers-s.html
Add comment February 19, 2009
JFK: The President Who Told The TRUTH
This video showcases my favorite speech. A must see! I will warn you it gets a little cheesy at the end.
Add comment February 19, 2009
Drug violence spins Mexico toward ‘civil war’
(CNN) — A shootout in a border city that leaves five alleged drug traffickers sprawled dead on the street and seven police wounded. A police chief and his bodyguards gunned down outside his house in another border city. Four bridges into the United States shut down by protesters who want the military out of their towns and who officials say are backed by narcotraffickers.
That was Mexico on Tuesday.
What is most remarkable is that it was not much different from Monday or Sunday or any day in the past few years.
Mexico, a country with a nearly 2,000-mile border with the United States, is undergoing a horrifying wave of violence that some are likening to a civil war. Drug traffickers battle fiercely with each other and Mexican authorities. The homicide rate reached a record level in 2008 and indications are that the carnage could be exceeded this year.
Every day, newspapers and the airwaves are filled with stories and images of beheadings and other gruesome killings. Wednesday’s front page on Mexico City’s La Prensa carried a large banner headline that simply said “Hysteria!” The entire page was devoted to photos of bloody bodies and grim-faced soldiers. One photo shows a man with two young children walking across a street with an army vehicle in the background, with a soldier standing at a turret machine gun.
Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, calls it “a sickening vertigo into chaos and plunder.”
By most accounts, that’s not hyperbole.
“The grisly portrait of the violence is unprecedented and horrific,” said Robert Pastor, a Latin America national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s.
“I don’t think there’s any question that Mexico is going through a very rough time. Not only is there violence with the gangs, but the entire population is very scared,” said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based policy center.
Speaking on a news show a few weeks ago, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called it a civil war. Birns agrees.
“Of course it’s a civil war, but that only touches the violence of it,” he said Wednesday. “It’s also a civic conflict, as an increasing number of people look upon the law and democratic values as something that can be violated.”
Hakim is not prepared to go that far.
“One has to be careful and not overdo it,” he said. “Mexico is a long way from being a failed state. Mexico has real institutions. It paves roads and collects the garbage. It holds regular elections.”
Enrique Bravo, an analyst with the Eurasia consulting group, points out that the violence so far is mostly affecting just drug gangs and is primarily localized along the U.S. border and Mexico’s western coast.
The violence along the border is particularly worrisome, analysts say.
“The spillover into the United States is bound to expand and bound to affect U.S. institutions,” Birns said.
Pastor and Hakim note that the United States helps fuel the violence, not only by providing a ready market for illegal drugs, but also by supplying the vast majority of weapons used by drug gangs.
Pastor says there are at least 6,600 U.S. gun shops within 100 miles of the Mexican border and more than 90 percent of weapons in Mexico come from the United States.
And it’s not just handguns. Drug traffickers used a bazooka in Tuesday’s shootout with federal police and army soldiers in Reynosa, Mexico, across the border from McAllen, Texas.
“The drug gangs are better equipped than the army,” Hakim said.
Pervasive corruption among public officials is central to the drug cartels’ success.
“There is so much money involved in the drug trade, there is so much fear involved in the drug trade, that no institution can survive unaffected,” Birns said.
“This has really revealed just how corrupt Mexican officeholders are,” Hakim said.
In one recent instance, Noe Ramirez Mandujano, who was the nation’s top anti-drug official from 2006 until August 2008, was arrested on charges that he accepted $450,000 a month in bribes from drug traffickers while in office.
Such dire problems call for a new way of looking at the situation, some say.
“The unthinkable is happening,” Birns said. “People are beginning to discuss decriminalization and legalization. … There’s only one thing that can be done: Take the profit out of it.”
Pastor calls the problem in Mexico “even worse than Chicago during the Prohibition era” and said a solution similar to what ended that violence is needed now.
“What worked in the U.S. was not Eliot Ness,” he said, referring to the federal agent famous for fighting gangsters in 1920s and ’30s. “It was the repeal of Prohibition.”
That viewpoint has picked up some high-level support in Latin America.
Last week, the former presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil called for the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use and a change in strategy on the war on drugs at a meeting in Brazil of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy.
“The problem is that current policies are based on prejudices and fears and not on results,” former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria said at a news conference, in which the 17-member commission’s recommendations were presented.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has taken the war on drugs to the cartels and some say it’s not working.
“It’s as if the burden of being the main arena of the anti-drug war has overwhelmed Mexican institutions,” Birns said. “The occasional anti-drug battle is being won, but the war is being lost. And there’s no prospect the war is going to be won.”
In the meantime, the killings will continue at a record pace.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/02/18/mexico.drug.violence/#cnnSTCVideo
Add comment February 19, 2009
This is awesome!
We are not alone in our distaste for failed government!
I wanted to attend this but had a meeting w/a new client scheduled this morning. I know, I know. Priorities! 
Hey I gotta pay for bailouts (bank runs), wars, $50 mill in HIV awareness ads, criminalize of potheads, failed car manufacturers, anti-smoking ads, foreign abortions, bombs for Saudi Arabia/Israel, and Mexican drug policing
Presidential protesters made their voices heard in chants and signs Wednesday outside Dobson High School.
The protesters, about 500 to 600 strong and growing, began arriving as ticket holders walked in.
Mesa police set up a protest area along Guadalupe Road.
They held their signs up high: “Don’t tread on me,” “Spend all you want, I’ll pick up the tab,” “I’ll keep my freedom! You keep the change!” “Free fertility drugs now.” And “B.O. smells and so does Socialism.”
A Gilbert woman, with a sign that said, “Fund bikini wax now,” said she is entitled to the beauty treatment.
“It’s a self-esteem issue and hygiene issue, which makes it a health care issue. I think we’re all entitled,” said the woman in jest. She only gave the name JoAnne, because she is skipping work.
Critics of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio showed up in force, as well.
At one point about 15 members of Somos America, in striped jail garb and linked by chains, marched passed the presidential protesters. Those protesters responded with chants: “We love Joe!”
Rob McElwain, spokesman for Somos, said they want an end to laws that allow local police to enforce immigration laws, an end to Arpaio’s immigration sweeps and a federal investigation into Arpaio.
The Mesa Police Department stationed four neutral observers outside the school, including Phil Austin, former president of the Mesa Association of Hispanic Citizens.
Austin said things went smoothly, except for a few vendors trying to sell goods without a permit.
As protesters held their signs high, they exchanged cheers with the honking cars that passed.
The general message of the protesters was that Obama’s policies would lead the country toward socialism.
“I’m out here to exercise my First Amendment rights while I still have them,” said Tim Guiney, 52, a Phoenix sales manager. “Everything that man stands for is the antithesis of what this country was founded on. He’s a Marxist, fascist.”
Lee Bauer, 53, a social and fiscal conservative, said she doesn’t believe in the $787 billion stimulus package signed by Obama Tuesday in Denver.
“Obama’s stimulus package has only mobilized the opposition,” she said.
Former Republican Congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona also was in attendance.
He called the bill a “trillion-dollar boondoggle.”
A man shouted over a megaphone, “I want to see if the president is driving a (Toyota) Prius or an electric car.”
America is getting pissed and I love it! This time next year we should all be seriously considering a tax revolt. God knows it unconstitutional anyway!
Add comment February 18, 2009
Even the mainstream media is getting on board. Well… sort of.
New World Order
In recent weeks, the world has been politely standing by and watching how things play out with the fiscal stimulus and latest bank-bailout plans in Washington. Yes, there’s been some grumbling overseas about “buy American” provisions in the stimulus bill, but for the most part, officials elsewhere don’t want to step on the toes of a new President to whom they are favorably disposed. They also don’t want to endanger legislation that they hope will help jump-start the global economy.
Just wait a couple of months, though. Politicians from Beijing to Berlin to Brasília see the current crisis as the product of a messed-up global financial infrastructure dominated by the U.S., and they will soon be pushing for big changes–whether Americans like them or not.
All this will begin to gel on April 2, when the newish international organization known as the G-20–the leaders of 19 of the world’s biggest national economies, plus the European Union–meets in London. An unofficial meeting has already taken place, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where G-20 officials (with the conspicuous exception of those from the U.S.) made speeches, conversed in the halls and gave a sense of the direction in which the world outside the U.S. wants to head. (Read TIME’s special report on Davos 2009.)
The global discussion of the financial crisis is strikingly different from the one in the U.S. Here there’s still something of a debate over whether the mess is the result of too much government interference in the housing market or too little government regulation of financial markets. In the rest of the world, that’s no debate: inadequate and inconsistent financial regulation is uniformly blamed. What’s more, a consensus seems to have emerged among the world’s finance ministers and central-bank bosses that the chief underlying cause of the crisis was an unbalanced and out-of-control system of global capital flows in which some big-spender countries (namely the U.S.) ran up huge debts while big savers (China and India, for example) hoarded surpluses.
On the regulatory front, the path to a new global approach is pretty clear. Last spring the leaders of the G-7, a club of wealthy nations, agreed to create a “college of supervisors” to more closely coordinate regulation of multinational banks. The Group of Thirty, an influential organization of current and former central bankers and financial regulators, recommended in January that “systematically significant” financial institutions (those that are too big to fail) be identified in advance and subjected to higher capital requirements and tougher regulation. (See who’s to blame for the financial crisis.)
Yet regulators around the world were already jointly setting bank-capital standards before the current crisis hit. A lot of good that did us. So there is also much talk about the need for a new architecture–”a new Bretton Woods” was a phrase that echoed around Davos–to rein in global financial flows.
Bretton Woods is the mountain resort in New Hampshire where in 1944 the Allied nations met–with the U.S. calling almost all the shots–to plan a postwar financial system. The Bretton Woods creations included the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and a quarter-century of fixed exchange rates built around a U.S. dollar that was linked to gold. The fixed exchange rates and gold standard unraveled in the 1970s, and ever since we’ve had a system in which the IMF occasionally steps in to help countries in currency crises (usually imposing harsh terms in the process) but exercises no real control over the global financial system.
After the emerging-market currency collapses of the late 1990s, in which IMF aid wasn’t much help, the lesson that emerging economies such as China and India took was that they needed to build up gigantic reserves of U.S. dollars to protect their currencies. To build those reserves, they ran big trade surpluses, which were in turn enabled mainly by record trade deficits in the U.S., which were in turn enabled by massive borrowing from around the world. It was an extremely unbalanced financial ballet, and it has now come crashing to the ground.
In the view of many outside the U.S. (and some within), the only way to limit such excesses is through a bigger, more powerful IMF that can act as a central bank to the world–and knock heads when needed. While everybody agrees that this new IMF needs to be less dominated by the U.S. and Western Europe, things get controversial as soon as you go past voting rights. Should capital flows be restricted? Should there be limits on trade deficits and surpluses? Should the IMF be able to order around even the U.S.? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, global capitalism will have entered a new and dramatically less freewheeling era.
To read Justin Fox’s daily take on business and the economy, go to time.com/curiouscapitalist
FULL READ HERE:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1877388,00.html
Add comment February 18, 2009
A must hear interview – Coast to Coast w/Alex Jones
The FEMA camps are here and the NAU is coming.
Add comment February 18, 2009
FEMA/Concentration Camps by Halliburton
FEMA COFFINS
Ok, now I don’t believe this is some Bigfoot believing, alien visited nutjob making this shit up.
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of “an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.”
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.”
Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of “new programs” require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?
Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies,” gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to “a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.”
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of “terrorist” organizations, or who speaks out against the government’s policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.
Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure “continuity of government” in the event of what the document vaguely calls a “catastrophic emergency.” Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure “continuity of government.” This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.
U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic “war on terror.” Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to “examine and report upon the facts and causes” of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.
According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to combat it.
A clue as to where Harman’s commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who “engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights” as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters … the list goes on and on. According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of roughly 775,000 “terror suspects” with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?
The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked power under any circumstances. The people must not allow the president to use the war on terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law.
Lewis Seiler is the president of Voice of the Environment, Inc. Dan Hamburg, a former congressman, is executive director.
This article appeared on page B – 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/04/ED5OUPQJ7.DTL
MORE HERE:
http://justanothercoverup.com/?p=356
Why isn’t BO shutting shit like this down?
Reminds me of this flick:
2 comments February 18, 2009
Why don’t they grill the bankers like this?
Why don’t they grill the bankers like this? Oh, because they don’t want to “back talk” their masters.
Why did give the auto-makers them the money anyway?!?!?!?! We KNEW they were going to fail regardless!
Add comment February 18, 2009
Mexico is getting crazy (more than before)
My buddy, JMFH, has been mentioning this quite a bit lately. So I decided to look into it myself. Pretty wild what I have discovered. Don’t you find it interesting that our Government is stalling our border fence program and we are sending Mexico money and equipment, yet it’s not doing anything!
Glenn Beck Freaking Out!
Help Wanted
ABC News – April 23, 2008 // A notorious paramilitary group tied to a Mexican drug cartel is openly advertising for new recruits. The Zetas group, which operates as hit men and enforcers for Mexico’s Gulf drug cartel, boldly posted “Help Wanted” signs in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, according to the Associated Press.
Check this out >> Stewmaker’ dissolved 300 in acid baths
If Mexico doesn’t contain its drug wars, it’s at risk of collapse.
They call him El Pozolero (“the Stewmaker”), a macabre tribute to his grisly trade. Arrested last week in Tijuana, Mexico, Santiago Meza López has admitted to dissolving some 300 bodies in acid over the past 10 years. His victims, he said, were the enemies of a drug lord who paid him $700 per week for his work. In a bizarre statement, Meza López claims he only dissolved men, refusing to dispose of female bodies this way.
It’s the latest gruesome story to emerge from Mexico, which is in the grip of a brutal drug war. On Jan. 18, the severed head of a police chief was found in an ice cooler outside a police station near Ciudad Juárez (across the border from El Paso), reportedly left there as a warning between rival cartels. It was one of 15 execution-style killings in the area within 24 hours, the Mexican newspaper El Universal reported. On top of that, in December, eight soldiers and a police chief were found beheaded in Guerrero state.
Elected in 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderón has made cracking down on the drug trade a priority. As his campaign has escalated, though, so has the backlash: more than 5,400 people died in drug-related violence last year, double the number from 2007. If it isn’t contained, experts caution, Mexico could become a failed state. Outgoing CIA director Michael V. Hayden has named the problems in Mexico and Iran as among the most urgent for the new U.S. government. And the U.S. Joint Forces Command has singled out Mexico and Pakistan as two states at risk of “rapid and sudden collapse.”
Police say many of Meza López’s victims were not in the drug trade, and were kidnapped for ransom. Relatives of the missing are now hoping to show him photos of their loved ones, to see if they can be identified. “I’ll be at peace when I know where my son’s body is,” one man told reporters.
Today on Glenn Beck, Glenns guest was a film producer who embedded himself with the Mexican narcotraficantes gang the Zetas. He made a documentary film about what goes on at our border, and also teaches classes along the border to cops, Border Patrol, ICE and other Federal agencies.
His movie: http://www.drugwarsthemovie.com/
The Trailer:
A Scene:
Zeta Gang Takes Control of Border and a bit on Billy’s NAFTA
Los Zetas is a criminal gang that operates as a hired mercenary army for Mexico’s Gulf Cartel. The group is mostly composed of ex-soldiers now led by Heriberto “The Executioner” Lazcano. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) advises that these paramilitaries may be the most technologically advanced, sophisticated and violent of paramilitary enforcement groups.
Add comment February 17, 2009
Obama’s Broken Promises
1. Make Government Open and Transparent
2. Make it “Impossible” for Congressmen to slip in Pork Barrel Projects
3. Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public
4. No more secrecy
5. Public will have 5 days to look at a Bill
7. We will put every pork barrel project online
This is great!
1 comment February 17, 2009
City of Chandler gets less than 15% of traffic-photo fines
Megan Boehnke – Feb. 13, 2009 08:20 AM
The Arizona Republic
It may be painful to write a $210 check to Chandler, courtesy of that photo of you zipping down Arizona Avenue.
But it would be a mistake to think the Police Department or anyone else in the city is raking in money from its photo-enforcement program.
After state and court fees were removed, the city brought in just more than $50,000 last fiscal year. The money is earmarked by the City Council for traffic safety programs. Less than 15 percent of the money from violators’ fines came back to the city.
Records are not available on how many photo-enforcement tickets were issued during fiscal 2008. Between November 2007 and November 2008, the city issued about 16,000 tickets for photo enforcement violations.
Money from the tickets has been spent on such items as the speed reader boards that the City Council, in 2007, decided to purchase and place in front of cameras to warn drivers how fast they’re going. The rest goes to other traffic programs such as jaywalking education, according to an April 28 City Council memo.
That revenue number compares to the $4 million generated by the state since its highway program expanded last fall, sparking fiery debate over the state’s motives for installing the cameras. That money goes to a Photo Enforcement Fund that is subject to legislative appropriation.
Since the start of the legislative session last month, numerous bills have been introduced to put an end to photo enforcement on state highways, including one that made it out of committee and is headed to a floor debate in the state House of Representatives
Although the bill would overturn the DPS program, it would not affect city-run programs, which in Chandler would include red-light and speed-on-green cameras in 12 intersections.
Police and city officials say Chandler’s programs are strictly for the safety of drivers. And although no studies have been done to show a decrease in accidents – mostly because of other variables such as an increase in population and the widening of intersections that would also influence accident numbers – anecdotally, police officers say they’re responding to fewer calls.
That is especially the case at Arizona Avenue and Warner Road, an intersection that had one of the highest accident rates, Officer Scott Williams said last month. That intersection has had a “significant decrease,” he said.
Add comment February 16, 2009
