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TBR News March 15, 2010

The Slaughterhouse Informer A Compendiium of Various Official Lies, Business Scandals, Small Murders, Frauds, and Other Gross Defects of Our Current Political, Business and Religious Moral Lepers. Presenting a new magazine that contains material that is not found elsewhere and is very difficult to post on the Internet. The ‘Voice of the White House’ will appear in each issue containing material not found on TBR News for very obvious reasons.This publication will appear once a week, on Wednesday, every week, will be ten pages in length and is available by subscription only. The price is $5.00 a month and can be paid via PayPal or by check. If you don’t like it, and Bush supporters can read the Drudge Report for free, you can cancel at any time. TBR Ebooks Civil insurrection in America and government countermeasures: The official papers By Bradley Moscrip An in-depth study of official American plans to construct FEMA detention centers in America and specific recent U.S. Army domestic counterinsurgency plans. Here is a sampling of the ebook contents: Gun Control by Confiscation As the American general population is known to be the most heavily armed in the world, immediately upon the declaration of Martial Law and the execution by the military of counterinsurgency programs, it has been determined that the BATF, will begin the process of rounding up all rifles, pistols and so-called assault weaponry from the civil population. Lists of gun collectors obtained from firearms dealers, gun magazine subscription lists and other sources will be the basis for these mass confiscations. Gun owners will be supplied documentation by the BATF showing which pieces have been confiscated so that in the future, they will be told, they can recover their weapons when the state of emergency has passed. In actuality, weapons that do not have a high value or are not suitable for arming loyalist police forces, will be destroyed by order This study is available from tbrnews at $5.00 by PayPal The Voice of the White House Washington, D.C., March 15, 2010: “We have been harping on the MERS/mortgage issue for some time now and yet again, I have found out a great deal about this from reading the excellent and very comprehensive site: info@chinkinthearmor.net I know that many, many millions of Americans, both individuals and businesses, will never be able to get clear title to their property when they pay off their mortgages. This is not blogger nonsense but fact and there is a fiscal tsumami building that will dwarf the bursting of the last bubble. I urgently suggest that mortgaged persons and companies check this website and consider what it has to say. If you do not care that you can make tens of thousands of dollars worth of payments on a mortgage, only to find out you did it in vain; that in essence you are only renting from the mortgage crooks, why do keep your head in the sand. Your raised ass might not be attractive but it is so easy to kick!” Twitter is watching you... New technology tells the world where you're tweeting from *Twitter already reveals to the rest of the world what you're doing and what you're thinking, and now the microblogging site can let everyone know where you are as well.* March 12, 2010 Joanne McCabe - Metro.co. UK A new feature rolled out this week means Twitter users have the option of including their location when they tweet via a tracking tool they can turn on or off. When the tool is activated, tweets will link to a Google map of the area the user is in. The growing trend for web services to broadcast people's whereabouts – already picked up by Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt – is expected to be followed by Facebook soon too. Avid Twitter users have been warned to be careful about how and when they harness the power of the new technology, which works by shadowing people through their web browsers. The brains behind the microblogging mecca reckon the tool will make Twitter more useful for anyone looking for real-time information. Letters to the Editor To: tbrnews@hotmail.com Subject: The Harring Report - Accuracy Issues Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:09:56 -0400 From: osoleusner@aol.com http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2044.htm Folks, The above link to The Harring Report: The National Young Men's Meat Grinder was brought to my attention today and it has some serious flaws in it. First, the list of so-called "Friends of the Government" is from an Association of Former Intelligence Officers membership directory in the mid-90s. This has been written about and posted before on the Internet for years. Intelligence author Daniel Brandt also verified this 10 years ago -- and he is no friend of the government. He clearly pointed out that AFIO also allowed media members such as Ted Koppel, Howard Kurtz and myself to join and attend conferences so we could make connections in the intelligence and law enforcement world. Several NY Times, Washington Post and other reporters covering the topic also joined and are very reputable. I certainly was never a spy, never an informant and I investigated the government and its agencies in many critical special reports. And Koppel and Kurtz certainly held the CIA and government's feet to the fire on many stories, so assertions that they've been co-opted is laughable. Second, the list is made to appear like folks on the list -- including me while an investigative reporter for the Orlando Sentinel -- were in league with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. The list is from the 90s. Some of those people are dead, so how can they be "friends of the government" today? The juxtaposition is misleading because the list was from the Bill Clinton era. In my case, I am apolitical and haven't voted in 25 years because I wanted to remain impartial and have no bias. Whenever I investigated Republicans or Democrats, I was accused of being a sympathizer with the other party. So, I stopped voting and have no political affiliation. I also invite you to do an analysis of my bylines over the past 30 years in Nexis and see if I was biased. Please search my byline, Jim Leusner, Orlando Sentinel, and stories involving the "Iranscam" missile sting operation in Orlando; the "Martin Marietta" Corp. missile-building plant in Orlando; a scandal with "U.S. Attorney Larry Colleton" in the early 1990s, two "NASA" space shuttle disasters, 1986 and 2003; exposed corrupt activities of Congressman Richard Kelly in the early 1980s and other politicians; exposed NASA's secret settlement with shuttle Columbia victim families a few years ago; and countless other stories. I certainly believe in a free press. I spent most of my life fighting for that cause. But please get the information right. It can hurt the reputations of a lot of innocent people. And above all, history must be accurate. Thank You. Sincerely, Jim Leusner Orlando, FL osoleusner@aol.com *Response:* Mr. Leusner: For whatever reason, you sent a copy of your commentary to TBR News, probably because we published this list (along with many others). The list you speak of was published a long time ago but your comments have been made before. I agree that the list is very similar to the AFIO list which did contain the names of paid government supporters but the Harring/Crowley list also contained many names, both domestic and foreign, that were not on the said AFIO list. In the event, your name appeared on the AFIO list, a copy of which I have (and in the 1996 edition, I find your name on page 21.) creating certain inevitable conclusions about your connection with the CIA which are inescapable Since your name is found on both lists, I would have to conclude that you indeed had an active intelligence connection and since the second, annotated and enlarged list, came from one Robert Crowley, once the Deputy Director of Clandestine Actions of the CIA, it would seem evident that you were not "apolitical" as you state, but had been professionally connected to the CIA and, perhaps, other agencies. It is known that the CIA's Frank Wisner built up a formidable organization he called "The Mighty Wurlitzer" and which was composed of bought and paid for members of the American media. You claim to be an 'investigative reporter' without intelligence community connection so one wonders how your name somehow got into both the official AFIO and the CIA lists of members/workers? One of the reasons that most Americans neither read nor trust the media is exactly because it has been proved to be riddled with government stool pigeons, informers and disinformation specialists. The printed media is rapidly collapsing in this country for precisely this reason, the public finding less polluted news available on the Internet. Insofar as your manifested unhappiness is concerned, I can refer you to an old Southern country phrase that appears to be quite apt: It is the kicked dog that yelps. Walter Storch Meet the Flintstones” The Lone Star Lunatics February 17, 2010 by Ross Ramsey The Texas Tribune Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that humans developed from earlier species of animals, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. The differences in beliefs about evolution and the length of time that living things have existed on earth are reflected in the political and religious preference of our respondents, who were asked four questions about biological history and God: • 38 percent said human beings developed over millions of years with God guiding the process and another 12 percent said that development happened without God having any part of the process. Another 38 percent agreed with the statement "God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago." • Asked about the origin and development of life on earth without injecting humans into the discussion, and 53 percent said it evolved over time, "with a guiding hand from God." They were joined by 15 percent who agreed on the evolution part, but "with no guidance from God." About a fifth — 22 percent — said life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time. • Most of the Texans in the survey — 51 percent — disagree with the statement, "human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." Thirty-five percent agreed with that statement, and 15 percent said they don't know. • Did humans live at the same time as the dinosaurs? Three in ten Texas voters agree with that statement; 41 percent disagree, and 30 percent don't know. The questions were devised by David Prindle, a University of Texas government professor who authored a book called Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution, about the late evolutionary biologist. "The end in mind … is to establish the relationships, not just to get raw public opinion," he says. "We can do some fancy statistical stuff. … Is it religion driving politics or is politics driving religion? My hypothesis is that religious views drive politics." The most common religious denominations in the survey were Catholic and Baptist, with 20 percent each, followed by nondenominational Christians, at 10 percent, and Methodists, at 6 percent. Eight percent chose "spiritual but not religious," and 7 percent chose "other." Only 6 percent identified themselves as atheist or agnostic. An overwhelming majority said their religious beliefs were extremely important (52 percent) or somewhat important (30 percent). Only 35 percent go to church once a week or more; 52 percent said they go once or twice a year (29 percent) or never (23 percent). Church attendance isn't much different among Republicans and Democrats in the poll, though Republicans who do go to church say they go more often. More than half of the Democrats — 51 percent — go to church "never" or "once or twice a year." That's true of 45 percent of the Republicans in the poll. Forty-two percent of Republicans say they attend church at least once a week, compared to 35 percent of Democrats. Democrats (28 percent) are less likely than Republicans (47 percent) to think that humans have always existed in their present form and more likely (21 percent to 7 percent) to think humans have developed over millions of years without God's guidance. About the same percentages of Democrats and Republicans (40 and 36 percent, respectively) believe that evolution took place over time with God's guidance. Democrat Bill White's voters were the most likely to believe in evolution without a divine hand (33 percent); on the Republican side, by comparison, only 6 percent of Rick Perry's supporters were in that category. Has life on earth always existed in its present form? Republicans are more likely to agree (29 percent) than Democrats (16 percent). They're less likely to believe that life evolved over time with no guidance from God (8 percent to 24 percent). Democrats are slightly less inclined to believe in evolution with a "guiding hand from God" (50 percent to 55 percent). Republicans are less likely to believe that humans developed from earlier species of animals; 26 percent agree, while 60 percent disagree. Among Democrats in the survey, 46 percent agree that humans evolved from earlier species; 42 percent disagree. Perry's voters were most hostile to this premise — 67 percent disagree. About the same numbers of Democrats and Republicans — 43 percent — disagree with the idea that dinosaurs and humans lived on the planet at the same time. Republicans were slightly more likely to agree with the idea (31 percent to 27 percent). Perry had more voters in each group on the GOP side, but Kay Bailey Hutchison had the largest share of voters who believe in that coexistence. Prindle says the results recall a line from comedian Lewis Black. "He did a standup routine a few years back in which he said that a significant proportion of the American people think that the 'The Flintstones' is a documentary," Prindle says. "Turns out he was right. Thirty percent of Texans agree that humans and dinosaurs lived on the earth at the same time." Amnesty International vs the Taser gun March 11, 2010 by Colleen Barry Daily Mail/UK Last week, a 40-year-old man in Vancouver died after being Tasered in an airport. Amnesty International reports that 150 people have died after being shocked with stun guns since 2001. Taser officials say such deaths are often "attributable to other factors and not the low-energy electrical discharge" of the device. Amnesty International says 334 people in the US died between 2001 and 2008 after the stun guns were used on them. Taser International, the Arizona-based manufacturer, dismisses these findings. . . Nonetheless, Taser International issued guidelines last October warning police to avoid shooting a suspect in the chest 'where possible', and acknowledging the heart-attack risk from stun guns, although they still claim the danger is 'extremely low'. US Israel criticism ignites firestorm in Congress March 15, 2010 by Matthew Lee Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration's fierce denunciation of Israel last week has ignited a firestorm in Congress and among powerful pro-Israel interest groups who say the criticism of America's top Mideast ally was misplaced. Since the controversy erupted, a bipartisan parade of influential lawmakers and interest groups has taken aim at the administration's decision to publicly condemn Israel for its announcement of new Jewish housing in east Jerusalem while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting on Tuesday and then openly vent bitter frustration on Friday. With diplomats from both countries referring to the situation as a crisis, the outpouring of anger in the United States, particularly from Capitol Hill, comes at a difficult time for the administration, which is now trying to win support from wary lawmakers — many of whom are up for re-election this year — for health care reform and other domestic issues. And those criticizing the administration's unusually blunt response to Israel say they fear it may have distracted from and done damage to efforts to relaunch long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. "It might be well if our friends in the administration and other places in the United States could start refocusing our efforts on the peace process," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Monday. "Now we've had our spat. We've had our family fight, and it's time for us now to stop and get our eye back on the goal, which is the commencement of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks," he said. McCain and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., both urged the administration to ease the tone of the dispute, which they said was demonstrating disunity and weakness to steadfast allies of Iran. "Let's cut the family fighting, the family feud," Lieberman said. "It's unnecessary; it's destructive of our shared national interest. It's time to lower voices, to get over the family feud between the U.S. and Israel. It just doesn't serve anybody's interests but our enemies." At least eight other lawmakers have offered similar concerns, and more are expected to weigh in after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton upbraided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the housing announcement in a tense and lengthy phone call on Friday and White House officials repeated the criticism on Sunday's talk shows. "It's hard to see how spending a weekend condemning Israel for a zoning decision in its capital city amounts to a positive step towards peace," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. He complained that the administration was attacking a "staunch ally and friend" when it should be focusing on the threat posed by Iran's nuclear problem. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., accused administration officials of using "overwrought rhetoric" in suggesting that the east Jerusalem housing announcement threatened U.S.-Israeli ties. "The administration's strong implication that the enduring alliance between the U.S. and Israel has been weakened, and that America's ability to broker talks between Israel and Palestinian authorities has been undermined, is an irresponsible overreaction," she said. With tensions still high, former Sen. George Mitchell, the administration's Mideast peace envoy, has delayed his departure to the region, where he is scheduled to hold separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, a U.S. official said. Mitchell had been scheduled to depart Washington on Monday night. He still intends to go, but the timing is uncertain, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations. The State Department on Monday said it was still awaiting a formal response from Israel to Clinton's call and, while repeating elements of the criticism, stressed that the U.S. commitment to Israel's security remains "unshakable." But spokesman P.J. Crowley also said a lot is riding on whether Israel agrees to take steps suggested by Clinton to underscore its commitment to the peace process and strong relations with America. "We will evaluate the implications of this once we hear back from the Israelis and see how they respond to our concerns," he told reporters. Reaction to the administration was particularly intense from pro-Israel groups. Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, said he was "shocked and stunned at the administration's tone and public dressing down of Israel on the issue of future building in Jerusalem." "We cannot remember an instance when such harsh language was directed at a friend and ally of the United States," Foxman said. ___ Associated Press writer Robert Burns contributed to this report. Comment: If you bend over, Abe, I will be very happy to drive you home. Ed Israel and the US: Tiff or tipping point? March 15, 2010 by Jim Lobe InterPressService WASHINGTON - "Condemn" is not a word that rolls trippingly off the tongue of a United States politician addressing anything having to do with actions, however objectionable, by Israel. So it was no surprise that close observers of US Middle East policy sat up a lot straighter in their seats when Vice President Joseph Biden used the word not once, but twice, during his visit to Israel last week in reference to the Israeli Interior Ministry's announcement that it intended to build 1,600 new housing units for Jews in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem. "I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem," said Biden, considered among Israel's staunchest supporters during his several decades in the US Congress. "The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of [US-mediated] proximity talks [between Israel and the Palestine Authority, PA], is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now," noted Biden. In a remarkable show of displeasure, he subsequently kept Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waiting 90 minutes before joining him for an official dinner and, according to Israeli press accounts, gave top Israeli officials a private tongue-lashing over how such actions by the Jewish state incited Islamic extremism across the Arab world and beyond. Forty-eight hours later, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, clearly rejecting Netanyahu's apology over the unfortunate coincidence of the ministry's announcement with Biden's arrival, joined the fray. According to her spokesman, Philip Crowley, Clinton called the right-wing leader on Friday morning "to reiterate the United States' strong objections to Tuesday's announcement, not just in terms of timing, but also in its substance". "The secretary said she could not understand how this had happened, particularly in light of the United States' strong commitment to Israel's security," Crowley told reporters. "And she made clear that the Israeli government needed to demonstrate not just through words but through specific actions that they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process." The rebukes, which some veterans of Middle Eastern diplomacy described as the harshest directed toward Israel by senior US officials since the presidency of George H W Bush almost 20 years ago, have revived questions over whether the administration of President Barack Obama is prepared to get tough with the most right-wing government in Israel's history, particularly over the issue of settlements. Early in its tenure, the administration demanded a halt to all new Jewish settlement activity on Palestinian territory in order to get serious peace talks with the PA underway. That demand, however, was rebuffed by Netanyahu, who, encouraged by the right-wing leadership of the powerful "Israel Lobby" in the US, countered with a partial 10-month settlement freeze that explicitly excluded East Jerusalem whose "annexation" by Israel in 1967 has been rejected by all other members of the United Nations, including the US. The administration's acquiescence in - indeed, praise for - Netanyahu's "restraint" lost it a considerable amount of credibility, particularly in the Arab world where hopes for a more even-handed US approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict had been running high, especially since Obama's speech in Cairo last June. This week's contretemps with Biden and now Clinton, however, has moved the settlement issue - and particularly the fate of East Jerusalem, whose status as the capital of any future Palestinian state is widely considered a pre-condition for any viable two-state solution - front and center once again. "It is now abundantly clear that with or without a formal declaration from Netanyahu, getting events in Jerusalem under control - which includes a de facto full-stop settlement freeze in Jerusalem - is no mere discretionary gesture but a political imperative," according to Lara Friedman and Daniel Seidemann of Americans for Peace Now (APN). "Failing that, this political process will be stillborn." But it is not only the peace talks, which Obama's special envoy, George Mitchell, had labored long and hard to convene, that last week's incident has put into question. In the words of one veteran US Middle East hand, Aaron David Miller, it also raised new questions over "the degree to which Israel is willing to take into account US interests". Indeed, while Biden's mission was originally aimed at publicly reassuring Israelis of Washington's "absolute, total, unvarnished commitment" to their security, as he put it immediately after his arrival, the private message, especially in light of the Interior Ministry's announcement, was that Israel should reciprocate, according to an account published in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. "This is starting to get dangerous for us," Biden castigated his interlocutors. "What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace." The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel's actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism. Any assertion, particularly from a recognized "friend of Israel" like Biden, that Israeli actions against Palestinians have a negative impact on the US position in the larger region - let alone the safety of US troops - has long been anathema to Likudist neo-conservatives and the right-wing leadership of the Israel Lobby. But, as Biden himself said in his departure speech in Tel Aviv on Friday, "Quite frankly, folks, sometimes only a friend can deliver the hardest truth." Washington's harsh condemnation of Israel's behavior comes just days before the lobby's biggest event of the year in the US - this weekend's annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The meeting's organizers and Netanyahu, who will address the conference, had hoped to focus on the necessity of confronting the "existential threat" posed by Iran. But they may now find themselves in a more defensive position regarding settlements, East Jerusalem and Israel's alleged failure to take account of the implications of its actions on US interests. Indeed, Israel's actions had the virtue, according to former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, of clarifying the strength of the settlement movement in Israeli politics. "The momentum they can now generate ... is stronger than Israel's demographic concerns, is stronger than fear of Israel acquiring an international pariah status, and as was proven this week, is stronger than the needs of the US-Israel relationship," he wrote in The Guardian of London. "America's vice president has just seen this dynamic first hand and up close." That clarity could spur Washington to take stronger action in concert with its Quartet partners (the US, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations), which met in New York on Friday and joined the US in condemning the latest settlement announcement. "Perhaps America will present Israel with a real choice and with consequences for recalcitrance," Levy wrote. "Thus far, that has not been the case." But, "in the absence of decisive American leadership, Israel is likely to dig itself deeper into a hole, burying the last vestiges of home for pragmatic Zionism". Miller is even more skeptical. While the latest provocation "managed to elicit Washington's strongest words about Israel in years," he wrote in Politico Friday, "... for this very busy president, the Arab-Israeli issue now has little to do with his stock at home". Still, Clinton's strong public backing for Biden and her own dig at Netanyahu on Friday hint of a tougher public stance. Another hint could come when she keynotes the AIPAC conference. Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/. AIPAC of Raving Lunatics March 11, 2010 by Keith Johnson Blacklistednews - Without regard for the severe economic devastation and loss of life that a war with Iran would create, Israel’s agents in the United States continue to aggressively stoke the fires of anti-Iranian rhetoric and mobilize their minions on the floor of the House. The Brzezinski-Soros machine failed in their attempt to effect regime change in Iran by way of a “color revolution” in the summer of 2009. This has only emboldened the Israeli lobby to pursue more drastic measures. There is only one card left for them to play before provoking conflicts that will most certainly catapult the United States into direct military action against the Islamic state. Tuesday, the American Israeli Political Action Committee gave their marching orders to their congressional War Hawks. The message was short, concise and clear. Here is the text of the letter AIPAC sent to members of Congress: Dear Congressman XXXX, We are writing to every member of Congress to express outrage at the U.S. government’s continuing relationship with dozens of companies doing business with Iran. These ongoing financial dealings undermine longstanding American efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. As the New York Times reported on Sunday, the federal government during the past decade has awarded $107 billion in contracts and grants to more than 70 companies that are doing business in Iran. More than two-thirds of these contracts have gone to companies involved in Iran’s energy industry despite American law to discourage such involvement. The time has long since passed this policy to change. Unfortunately, as the Times points out, three successive American administrations have failed to enforce the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996, which mandates U.S. sanctions on firms investing more than $20 million in Iran’s energy sector. While Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama may have discouraged some investment in Iran through their rhetoric, the United States has sent the American and international business community a contradictory message by failing to enforce the law. Despite publicly acknowledged investments by several companies of hundreds of millions of dollars in Iran’s energy sector, the U.S. Government has inexplicably failed to make even one determination of an investment of $20 million during the course of the past decade. Yet, throughout this entire time, Iran has pursued a nuclear weapons capability, flouting its international obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and presenting the international community with a growing, and now urgent, threat. As Iran continues to reject U.S.-European engagement efforts and to defy U.N. Security Council resolutions requiring that it halt its illicit uranium enrichment efforts, the United States must take action now. We call on Congress to: 1. Investigate why successive administrations have failed to implement the law by failing to determine what companies have invested in the Iranian energy sector; 2. Enact—without delay—the Iran sanctions legislation currently before Congress, which, inter alia, contains provisions barring federal contracts to companies which are investing in Iran’s energy sector or providing sensitive technology, and their parents or subsidiaries who are engaged in such activity; 3. Demand that the U.S. Government enforce existing sanctions law and impose crippling new sanctions on Iran. In addition to these actions, we hope you will join with us in urging the administration to impose tough new multilateral sanctions with like-minded states without delay while continuing to pursue the widest possible sanctions through the U.N. Security Council. Sincerely, David Victor President Howard Kohr Executive Director These are pretty strong words coming from an organization which has stood in defiance of U.S. law that requires them to register as agents of a foreign power. It proves once again that the “A” in AIPAC really should be removed from their acronym. There is nothing “American” about them. This is the Israeli lobby, plain and simple. They represent Israel first and last. The United States is nothing more than a host to their endless parasitism. This letter should be an insult to anyone familiar with the State of Israel and it’s long history of refusing to comply with International laws and treaties. It reeks of hypocrisy. It’s an exercise in contempt. There is no country on the face of this earth with less justification to level these charges or make such demands. First of all, Iran has no nuclear weapons capability. As recently as February 11, 2010, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded to a claim by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran had produced the first stock of 20 percent enriched uranium. Gibbs said, “The Iranian nuclear program has undergone a series of problems throughout the year. We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching.” The enriched uranium that Ahmadinejad was referring to was not for building a nuclear weapon but rather for medical isotopes used to treat cancer patients. And even if they did have the capability of enriching to 20 percent, it still falls far short of the nearly 98% that is required for building a weapon of mass destruction. As a signer of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has a legal right to enrich uranium in the manner that they are claiming. On the other hand, Israel has refused to sign the NNPT and has no right to make demands of anyone pertaining to nuclear technology. While the author of this letter points out that “the federal government has awarded $107 billion in contracts and grants to more than 70 companies that are doing business in Iran,” it fails to recognize that 14 of those companies have already pulled out and that 11 plan no future investment. Of the 49 remaining, only 3 are suspected of being in violation of the “Iran Sanctions Act”. Those three companies are Daelim (South Korea), Dutch Royal Shell (Netherlands) and Total (France). Of the $174 million that Daelim received in contract money from the U.S., $111 million was used to build family housing towers for the U.S. Army. Dutch Royal Shell received $11.2 billion in contracts and that investment was instrumental in supplying a significant amount of gasoline to the U.S. military. Not one American company currently doing business and planning future investment in Iran is suspected of being in violation of the “Iran Sanctions Act”. The author demands that Congress enact current legislation that bars companies from investing in Iran’s energy sector. But this is in direct conflict with Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran is a signer of that treaty, and that obligates the United States to help them build power plants and other facilities for non-military purposes. If anyone should be barred from receiving federal contracts or aid it is the State of Israel, who has refused to sign the NNPT and have illegally pursued a nuclear weapons program of their own. The 1976 Symington Amendment to the Foreign Appropriations Bill of 1961 forbids the United States from giving foreign aid to any nation that is developing nuclear technology outside the NNPT. Despite this, approximately 1/3 of the total foreign aid budget of the United States is annually sent to Israel even though they comprise less than .001 of the world’s population and has one of the world’s highest per capita incomes. Former Congressman James Traficant rightly pointed out recently that between the direct foreign aid grants to Israel, along with all of the other benefits including trade compacts, economic and military assistance, “Israel gets approximately $15 billion a year from the American taxpayers. That $15 billion is $30,000 for every man, woman and child in Israel.” In his list of demands, the author urges Congress to “pursue the widest possible sanctions through the U.N. Security Council.” This is the height of hypocrisy. Neither the State of Israel nor its agents have any standing with the United Nations in this regard. Since its inception, the State of Israel has been in violation of more UN resolutions than any other nation on earth. Who else but a raving lunatic would even dare to write such a letter in light of the insurmountable evidence that contradicts each and every line of their text? There is no other explanation; a lunatic wrote this letter. And if Congress acts in lock step to their demands, then it should be abundantly clear to all of us that the lunatics, have indeed, taken over the asylum. http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-7756-0-5-5--.html Blessed Prozac Moments: Did they use a micronuke at WTC in 911? by Rising Horus Dear readers' of NBN and Iraqwar, my name is Rising Horus. Given a opportunity by Poiuytr, I would like to bring your attention to the possiblity that a pure hydrogen bomb (=a micro-nuke) was use at WTC, 911. Although most of you here know that 911 was an inside job, you may think I am crazy. After all, nukes are too big and too dirty. If it is used, anyone would notice and the Geiger counters never stop buzzing. But, they may already have a very small hydrogen bomb that produces little radiation. It is called a pure hydrogen bomb and is believed to be an application of "cold fusion." This theory was first proposed by an anonymous. Finnish military expert, which was followed by Dr. Ed Ward (a contributer to Rense) and a Japanese internet journalist, Mr. Koshimizu. Note that they do not claim US did not use Thermite etc. (Perhaps, US used various bombs.) Before you neglect without reading, please think of the following points. These are the things "Thermite theory" of Steven jones etc. perhaps cannot explain. (Note also that Jones is a well-known expert of cold fusion.) (1) Pool of melted steel beneath WTC, even months after 911. (2) A lot of first responders became cancer. (3) Hundreds of bodied evaporated. Today's DNA test is so developed it can be done if just a tiny part of one's body is found. (4) Concrete dust cloud. The particles were unnaturally fine. (5) Unusual amount of Tritium (Hydrogen with 2 neutrons) was found at WTC, as Ward claims. Go to Koshimizu's webpage. Please take a look. I also would like to hear your opinions. Please post your comments. If you are convinced, spread this information. There are probably some questions still in your mind such as: (a) Is it important to discuss which kind of bombs were used? (b) What is the meaning of spreading "nuke-theory" ? (c) Is a micronuke worth more than Thermite/Semtex/C4/etc., if the destruction power is similar? Yes, I agree. These are all valid queries. But, when people ask these questions, they perhaps view this incident as an independent one that happened in the PAST. Don't they? In such a framework of thinking, they may be right. But, let's think of FUTURE events. Some people including myself really think that we are in the midst of a thirty-year war, which will totally change the world's political structure. From such a viewpoint, you can easily find merits of discussing or spreading the micronuke-theory. Here are some of my thoughts: (I) It is most important to know your enemy's favorite tactics and to expose SECRET ones. I am certain that they will use micronukes again, unless someone tries to stop them. (If their aim is for threatening or deterrence, why do they hide micronukes?) (II) If people of the (free)world understood it, then there would be a tectonic shift of world public opinion against US. Pro-US factions all over the world would lose face and lose political power. Using a nuke has long been a taboo, though unwritten or implicit. But, US broke it. Moreover, US attacked Iraq because Iraq was supposed to have WMD and Iran is now being bullied because it is trying to acquire nukes. But, US actually USED nukes. Everyone would get really furious once they found that. (III) Even if we try, US/Israel will use them in the coming war in the middle east. In such a case, this kind of knowledge may save a lot of lives, as I stated in 05:31. If there are middle-easterner in this blog, please discuss this topic with your friends. And the first responders of 911. If they knew, the medical treatment could be more proper. It is not that the cause of cancer is mystery. Simply, discussing the cause is not allowed. If there are yanks reading this, tell the patients about this mcronuke-theory. And many patients of "asthma." Is that really asthma is the normal sense? Some researchers argue that the cause of such asthma is the very small radioactive particle taken in deep inside the lungs. If this is true, they may have lung cancer sooner or later. (IV) In my view, breaking the nuke-taboo is very annoying. It's so frightning. Let's consider this question. "Is a exchange of micronuke deadly?" The answer may be NO, if it is just that. But the country attacked may avenge with a slightly bigger one, simply because it does not have nukes as "micro" as the one it was fed. (Recall that making nukes smaller is difficult.) Then, .... you can guess. An exchange of micronuke can escalate to an exchange of not-so-micro ones, which could ruin the whole planet. On the other hand, an exchange of SEMTEX/Thermite (or whatever) does not destroy the whole world, even if very much escalated.And, I suppose, no politician has a courage to use nukes in retaliation for being attacked by usual bombs. No one would accept such an excuse for using nukes. To Westerners, in particular Yanks, As Panarin says, it is quite likely that US will be disintegrated after US dollar dies. It means domestic wars. You agree? Both sides have lots of nukes. Isn't it very scary? What do you think would happen if the nuke-taboo was discarded, taking into account the fact that US ruling elites have never cared loss of human lives? Unless you change your behavior, it may be your turn to get killed.Are you really going to throw away the nuke-taboo, without making any efforts. (By the way, there is no possibility that US could safely go through this long war, since US is the CAUSE or SOURCE of the world's problems, as many people point out. Until the cause is taken out, a trouble will never end.) Rising Horus www.insurrectiondaily.blogspot.com Comment: The depressing subject of 911 and the delightfully insane articles it inspirers on the Internet, are an endless source of amusement. From the fictional “nano-thermite_ to “lakes of liquid steel” and “plasmoid clouds” along with other irrationalities are much better than the comic sections of any paper. Why not look for the next thrilling chapter of this endless saga by ‘Squatting Donkey’? And why not the emergence of the ignited ‘Blue Flamer’ theory? ED The New Rove-Cheney Assault on Reality March 14, 2010 by Frank Rich The New York Times The opening salvo, fired on Fox News during Thanksgiving week, aroused little notice: Dana Perino, the former White House press secretary, declared that "we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term." Rudy Giuliani upped the ante on ABC's "Good Morning America" in January. "We had no domestic attacks under Bush," he said. "We've had one under Obama." (He apparently meant the Fort Hood shootings.) Now the revisionist floodgates have opened with the simultaneous arrival of Karl Rove's memoir and Keep America Safe, a new right-wing noise machine invented by Dick Cheney's daughter Liz and the inevitable William Kristol. This gang's rewriting of history knows few bounds. To hear them tell it, 9/11 was so completely Bill Clinton's fault that it retroactively happened while he was still in office. The Bush White House is equally blameless for the post-9/11 resurgence of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Iran. Instead it's President Obama who is endangering America by coddling terrorists and stopping torture. Could any of this non-reality-based shtick stick? So far the answer is No. Rove's book and Keep America Safe could be the best political news for the White House in some time. This new eruption of misinformation and rancor vividly reminds Americans why they couldn't wait for Bush and Cheney to leave Washington. But the old regime's attack squads are relentless and shameless. The Obama administration, which put the brakes on any new investigations into Bush-Cheney national security malfeasance upon taking office, will sooner or later have to strike back. Once the Bush-Cheney failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran again come home to roost, as they undoubtedly and explosively will, someone will have to remind our amnesia-prone nation who really enabled America's enemies in the run-up to 9/11 and in its aftermath. There's a good reason why Rove's memoir is titled "Courage and Consequence," not "Truth or Consequences." Its spin is so uninhibited that even "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job!" is repackaged with an alibi. The book's apolitical asides are as untrustworthy as its major events. For all Rove's self-proclaimed expertise as a student of history, he writes that eight American presidents assumed office "as a result of the assassination or resignation of their predecessor." (He's off by only three.) After a peculiar early narrative detour to combat reports of his late adoptive father's homosexuality, Rove burnishes his family values cred with repeated references to his own happy heterosexual domesticity. This, too, is a smoke screen: Readers learned months before the book was published that his marriage ended in divorce. Rove's overall thesis on the misbegotten birth of the Iraq war is a stretch even by his standards. "Would the Iraq war have occurred without W.M.D.?" he writes. "I doubt it." He claims that Bush would have looked for other ways "to constrain" Saddam Hussein had the intelligence not revealed Iraq's "unique threat" to America's security. Even if you buy Rove's predictable (and easily refuted) claims that the White House neither hyped, manipulated nor cherry-picked the intelligence, his portrait of Bush as an apostle of containment is absurd. And morally offensive in light of the carnage that followed. As Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, said on MSNBC, it's "not a very comforting thing" to tell the families of the American fallen "that if the intelligence community in the United States, on which we spend about $60 billion a year, hadn't made this colossal failure, we probably wouldn't have gone to war." Rove and his book are yesterday. Keep America Safe is on the march. Liz Cheney's crackpot hit squad achieved instant notoriety with its viral video demanding the names of Obama Justice Department officials who had served as pro bono defense lawyers for Guantánamo Bay detainees. The video branded these government lawyers as "the Al Qaeda Seven" and juxtaposed their supposed un-American activities with a photo of Osama bin Laden. As if to underline the McCarthyism implicit in this smear campaign, the Cheney ally Marc Thiessen (one of the two former Bush speechwriters now serving as Washington Post columnists) started spreading these charges on television with a giggly, repressed hysteria uncannily reminiscent of the snide Joe McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn. This McCarthyism has not advanced nearly so far as the original brand. Among those who have called out Keep America Safe for its indecent impugning of honorable Americans' patriotism are Kenneth Starr, Lindsey Graham and former Bush administration lawyers in the conservative Federalist Society. When even the relentless pursuer of Monicagate is moved to call a right-wing jihad "out of bounds," as Starr did in this case, that's a fairly good indicator that it's way off in crazyland. This is hardly the only recent example of Republicans' distancing themselves from the Cheney mob. The new conservative populist insurgency regards the Bush administration as a skunk at its Tea Parties and has no use for its costly foreign adventures. One principal Tea Party forum, the Freedom Works Web site presided over by Dick Armey, doesn't even mention national security in a voluminous manifesto on "key issues" as far-flung as Internet taxes and asbestos lawsuit reform. Ron Paul won the straw poll at last month's Conservative Political Action Conference after giving a speech calling the Bush doctrine of "preventive war" a euphemism for "aggressive" and "unconstitutional" war. Paul's son, Rand, who has said he would not have voted for the Iraq invasion, is leading the polls in Kentucky's G.O.P. Senate primary and has been endorsed by Sarah Palin. In this spectrum, the Keep America Safe crowd is a fringe. But it still must be challenged. As we've learned the hard way, little fictions, whether about "death panels" or "uranium from Africa," can grow mighty fast in the 24/7 media echo chamber. Liz Cheney's unsupportable charges are not quarantined in the Murdoch empire. Her chummy off-camera relationship with a trio of network news stars, reported last week by Joe Hagan in New York magazine, helps explain her rise in the so-called mainstream media. For that matter, Thiessen was challenged more thoroughly in an interview by Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" on Tuesday than he has been by any representative of non-fake television news. What could yet give some traction to the Keep America Safe revisionism is the backdrop against which it is unfolding: an Iraq election with an uncertain and possibly tumultuous outcome; the escalation of the war in Afghanistan; and an increasingly cavalier Iran. If any of these national security theaters goes south, those in the Rove-Cheney cohort will claim vindication in their campaign to pin their own failings on their successors. Obama may well make - or is already making - his own mistakes. And he will bear responsibility for them. But they must be seen in the context of the larger narrative that the revisionists are now working so hard to obscure. The most devastating terrorist attack on American soil did happen during Bush's term, after the White House repeatedly ignored what the former C.I.A. director, George Tenet, called the "blinking red" alarms before 9/11. It was the Bush defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who lost bin Laden in Tora Bora, not the Obama Justice Department appointees vilified by Keep America Safe. It was Bush and Cheney, with the aid of Rove's propaganda campaign, who promoted sketchy and often suspect intelligence about Saddam's imminent "mushroom clouds." The ensuing Iraq war allowed those who did attack us on 9/11 to regroup in Afghanistan and beyond - and emboldened Iran, an adversary with an actual nuclear program. The Iran piece of the back story doesn't end there. As The Times reported last weekend, Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, kept doing business with Tehran through foreign subsidies until 2007, even as the Bush administration showered it with $27 billion in federal contracts, including a no-bid contract to restore oil production in Iraq. It was also the Bush administration that courted, lionized and catered to Ahmed Chalabi, the Machiavellian Iraqi who lobbied for the Iraq war, supplied some of the more egregious "intelligence" on Saddam's W.M.D. used to sell it, and has ever since flaunted his dual loyalty to Iran. Last month, no less reliable a source than Gen. Ray Odierno, the senior American commander in Iraq, warned that Chalabi was essentially functioning as an open Iranian agent on the eve of Iraq's election, meeting with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian officials to facilitate Iran's influence over Iraq after the voting. (Dexter Filkins of The Times reported on Chalabi's ties to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2006.) As the vote counting began last week, fears grew that he could be the monkey wrench who corrupts the entire process. It's no surprise that Chalabi, so beloved by Bush that he appeared as an honored guest at the 2004 State of the Union, receives not a single mention in Rove's memoir. If we are really to keep America safe, it's essential we remember exactly which American politicians empowered Iran, Al Qaeda and the Taliban from 2001 to 2008, and why. History will be repeated not only if we forget it, but also if we let it be rewritten by those whose ideological zealotry and boneheaded decisions have made America less safe to this day.