dewds note, This is reverse psychology guys ; the same shitheads spearheading this so called campaign are the ones banking from billions in meds, health care reforn would guarantee they get more money. Thats what socialized meds are all about.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." Dwight David Eisenhower, "Military-Industrial Complex Speech," 1961,[1]
"My observation is that the impact of national elections on the business climate for SAIC has been minimal. The emphasis on where federal spending occurs usually shifts, but total federal spending never decreases. SAIC has always continued to grow despite changes in the political leadership in Washington." Former SAIC manager, quoted in Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, "Washington’s $8 Billion Shadow." Vanity Fair, March 2007[2]
"We make American military doctrine" Ed Soyster, MPRI[3]
The Myth of the Grand Chessboard: Geopolitics and Imperial Folie de Grandeur
In the Road to 9/11 I summarized the dialectic of open societies: how from their energy they expand, leading to a higher level of more secretive corporations and agencies, which eventually weaken the home country through needless and crushing wars.[4] I am not alone in seeing America in the final stages of this process, which since the Renaissance has brought down Spain, the Netherlands, and Great Britain.
Much of what I wrote summarized the thoughts of writers before me like Paul Kennedy and Kevin Phillips. But there is one aspect of the curse of expansion that I underemphasized: how dominance creates megalomanic illusions of insuperable control, and how this illusion in turn is crystallized into a prevailing ideology of dominance. I am surprised that so few, heretofore, have pointed out that from a public point of view these ideologies are delusional, indeed perhaps insane. In this essay I will argue however that what looks demented from a public viewpoint makes sense from the narrower perspective of those profiting from the provision of private entrepreneurial violence and intelligence.
The ideology of dominance was expressed for British rulers by Sir Halford Mackinder in 1919: "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World."[5] This sentence, though expressed after the power of Britain had already begun to decline, accurately articulated the anxieties of imperial planners who saw themselves playing "the Great Game," and who thus in 1809 sacrificed an entire British army of twelve thousand men in the wilderness of Afghanistan.
Expanded by Karl Haushofer and other Germans into the alleged "science" of geopolitics, this doctrine helped to inspire Hitler’s disastrous Drang nach Osten, which in short order terminated the millenary hopes of the Nazi Third Reich. One might have thought that by now the lessons of Napoleon and Hitler would have subdued all illusions that any single power could command the "World Island," let alone the world.
Kissinger for one appears to have learned this lesson, when he wrote that: "By geopolitical, I mean an approach that pays attention to the requirements of equilibrium."[6] But (largely because of his commitment to equilibrium in world order) Kissinger was swept aside by events in the mid-1970s, leading to the triumph of the global dominance mindset, as expressed by thinkers like Zbigniew Brzezinski.[7]
Brzezinski himself has recognized how his gratuitous machinations in Afghanistan in 1978-79 produced the responses of al Qaeda and jihadi terrorism. Asked in 1998 whether he regretted his adventurism, Brzezinski replied:
"Regret what? The secret operation was an excellent idea. It drew the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? On the day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, saying, in essence: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War.’"
Nouvel Observateur: "And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists?"
Brzezinski: "What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"
When he was asked whether Islamic fundamentalism represented a world menace, Brzezinski replied, "Nonsense!"[8]
In some ways, the post-Afghanistan Brzezinski has become more moderate in his expectations from U.S. power: he notably warned against the Gulf War in 1990 and also Vice-President Cheney’s agitations when in office for some kind of preemptive strike against Iran. But he has never retracted the Mackinderite rhetoric of his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, which revives the illusion of "controlling" the Eurasian heartland:
For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world’s paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power." (p. xiii)
"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia… Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia – and America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained." (p.30)
"To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." (p.40)[9]
This kind of brash talk is not unique to Brzezinski. Its call for unilateral dominance echoed the 1992 draft DPG (Defense Planning Guidance) prepared for Defense Secretary Cheney by neocons Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby: "We must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."[10] It is echoed both in the 2000 PNAC Study, "Rebuilding America’s Defenses," and the Bush-Cheney National Security Strategy of September 2002 (NSS 2002).[11] And it is epitomized by the megalomanic JCS strategic document Joint Vision 2020, "Full-spectrum dominance means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations."[12]
Such overblown rhetoric is out of touch with reality, dangerously delusional, and even arguably insane. It is however useful, even vital, to those corporations who have become accustomed to profiting from the Cold War, and who faced deep cuts in U.S. defense and intelligence spending in the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They are joined by other groups (discussed below) that also have a stake in preserving the dominance mindset in Washington. These include the new purveyors of privatized military services, or what can be called entrepreneurial violence, in response to defense budget cuts.
The Real Grand Chessboard: Those Profiting from Enduring Violence
The delusional grandiosity of Brzezinski’s rhetoric is inherent above all in the false metaphor of his book title. "Vassals" are not chess pieces to be moved effortlessly by a single hand. They are human beings with minds of their own; and among humans an unjust excess of power is certain to provoke not only resentment but ultimately successful resistance. One can see this easily in Asia, from the evolution of anti-Americanism in Iran to the Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT) in Central Asia: although still ostensibly nonviolent, HT’s rhetoric is now more and more aggressively anti-American.[13]
The notion of a single chess player is equally false, especially in Central Asia, where dominant states (the U.S., Russia, and China) and local states are all alike weak. Here major multinational corporations like BP and Exxon are major players. In countries like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan they dwarf both local state power and also the U.S. governmental presence, whether official or covert. The true local powers are apt to be two which governments are notoriously inept at controlling: first, the "agitated Muslims" which Brzezinski insanely derided, and second, illicit trafficking, above all drug trafficking.[14]
Ultimately however Brzezinski is not constrained by his chess metaphor. The goal of a chess game is to win. Brzezinski’s goal is quite different: to exert permanent restraints on the power of China and above all Russia. He has thus sensibly opposed destabilizing moves like a western strike on Iran, while supporting the permanent containment of Russia with a ring of western bases and pipelines. (In 1995 Brzezinski flew to Azerbaijan and helped negotiate the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline linking Azerbaijan to Turkey.)[15]
As I have argued elsewhere, Brzezinski (though he no doubt thinks to himself in terms of strategy) thus promotes a policy that very much suits the needs of the oil industry and its backers. These last include his patrons the Rockefellers, who first launched him into national prominence.[16]
In March 2001 the biggest oil majors (Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Conoco, and Shell) had their opportunity to design the incoming administration’s energy strategies, including Middle East policy, by participating secretly in Vice-President Cheney’s Energy Task Force.[17] The Task Force, we learned later, developed a map of Iraq’s oil fields, with the southwest divided into nine "Exploration Blocks." One month earlier a Bush National Security Council document had noted that Cheney’s Task force would consider "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields."[18] Earlier the oil companies had participated in a non-governmental task force calling for "an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments."[19]
Of course, oil companies were not alone in pushing for military action against Iraq. After 9/11, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith established the Pentagon’s neocon Office of Special Plans (OSP), which soon "rivalled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon’s own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda."[20] Neocon influence in the Administration, supported by Lewis Libby in Vice-President Cheney’s office, trumped the skepticism of CIA and DIA: these two false charges against Saddam Hussein, or what one critic called "faith-based intelligence," became briefly the official ideology of the United States. Some, notably Dick Cheney, have never recanted.
Many journalists were eager to promote the OSP doctrines. Judith Miller of the New York Times wrote a series of articles on Saddam’s WMD, relying, like OSP itself, on the propaganda of Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi.[21] Miller’s book collaborator Laurie Mylroie went even further, arguing that "Saddam was not only behind the ’93 Trade Center attack, but also every anti-American terrorist incident of the past decade, from the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania to the leveling of the federal building in Oklahoma City to September 11 itself."[22] Many of these advocates, notably Feith, Libby, and Mylroie, had links to Israel, which as much as any oil company had reasons to wish for U.S. armies to become established militarily in Central Asia.[23]
Private Military Contractors (PMCs), Whose Business is Violence for Profit
The inappropriateness of a military response to the threat of terrorism has been noted by a number of counterterrorism experts, such as retired U.S. Army colonel Andrew Bacevich:
the concept of global war as the response to violent Islamic radicalism is flawed. We ought not be in the business of invading and occupying other countries. That’s not going to address the threat. It is, on the other hand, going to bankrupt the country and break the military.[24]
Because of budgetary constraints, America has resorted to uncontrollable subordinates to represent its public power in these remote places. I shall focus chiefly in this essay on one group of these, the so-called Private Military Contractors (PMCs) who are authorized to commit violence in the name of their employers. These corporations are reminiscent of the marauding condottieri or private mercenary armies contracted for by the wealthy city states of Renaissance Italy.[25]
With the hindsight of history, we can see the contribution of the notoriously capricious Condottieri to the violence they are supposedly hired to deal with. Some, when unemployed, became little more than predatory bandits. Others, like the celebrated Farinata whom Dante placed in the Inferno, turned against their native cities. Above all, the de facto power accumulated by the condottieri meant that, with the passage of time, they came to dictate terms to their ostensible employers.[26] (They were an early example of entrepreneurial violence, and the most common way of avoiding their path of destruction was "to buy reprieve by offering bribes."[27])
To offset the pressure on limited armed forces assets, Donald Rumsfeld escalated the increasing use of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) in the Iraq War. At one point as many as 100,000 personnel were employed by PMCs in the US Iraq occupation. Some of them were involved in controversial events there, such as the Iraq Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and the killing and burning of four contract employees in Fallujah. The license of the most controversial firm, Blackwater, was terminated by the Iraqi government in 2007, after eight Iraqi civilians were gratuitously killed in a firefight that followed a car bomb explosion.[28] (After much negative publicity, Blackwater renamed itself in 2009 as Xe Worldwide.)
Insufficiently noticed in the public furor over PMCs like Blackwater was the difference in motivation between them and the Pentagon. Whereas the stated goal of Rumsfeld and the armed forces in Iraq was to end violence there, the PMCs clearly had a financial stake in its continuation. Hence it is no surprise that some of the largest PMCs were also political supporters for pursuing the ill-conceived "War on Terror."
Blackwater was the most notorious example; Erik Prince, its founder and sole owner, is part of a family that figures among the major contributors to the Republican Party and other right-wing causes, such as the Council for National Policy. His sister once told the press that "my family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party."[29]
Private Intelligence Companies and the Provision of Violence
Blackwater has attracted the critical attention of the American Mainstream Media. But it was a mere knight on the grand chessboard, albeit one with the ability to influence the moves of the game. Far less noticed has been given to Diligence LLC. Diligence, a more powerful company, that unlike Blackwater interfaced heavily with Wall Street, "set up shop in Baghdad [in July 2003] to provide security for companies involved in Iraqi reconstruction. In December, it established a new subsidiary called Diligence Middle East, and expanded its services to include screening, vetting and training of local hires, and the provision of daily intelligence briefs for its corporate clients."[30]
Certainly the political clout of Diligence outshone and outlasted Blackwater’s. Two of its founding directors (Lanny Griffiths and Ed Rogers) were also founders of the influential Republican lobbying team Barbour Griffiths and Rogers (later renamed BGR). Haley Barbour, the senior founder of BGR, also served as Chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1993 to 1997.
Diligence LLC was licensed to do business in Iraq as a private military contractor (PMC). But it could be called a Private Intelligence Contractor (PIC), since it is virtually a CIA spin-off:
Diligence was founded by William Webster, the only man to head both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mike Baker, its chief executive officer, spent 14 years at the CIA as a covert field operations officer specializing in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations. Whitley Bruner, its chief operating officer in Baghdad, was once the CIA station chief in Iraq.[31]
Its partner in Diligence Middle East (DME) is New Bridge Strategies, whose purpose has been described by the New York Times as "a consulting firm to advise companies that want to do business in Iraq, including those seeking pieces of taxpayer-financed reconstruction projects."[32] Its political clout was outlined in the Financial Times:
New Bridge was established in May [2003] and came to public attention because of the Republican heavyweights on its board – most linked to one or other Bush administration [officials] or to the family itself. Those include Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush’s presidential campaign manager, and Ed Rogers and Lanny Griffith, former George H.W. Bush aides.[33]
The firm of Barbour, Griffith and Rogers was the initial funder of Diligence, which shares an office floor with BGR and New Bridge in a building four blocks from the White House. The Financial Times linked the success of New Bridge in securing contracts to their relationship to Neil Bush, the President’s brother.[34] When Mack McLarty, Clinton’s White House Chief of Staff, resigned, he became a director of Diligence, and also joined Henry Kissinger to head, until 2008, Kissinger McLarty Associates.
Another Private Intelligence Contractor or PIC is Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), an $8 billion corporation involved in defense, intelligence community, and homeland security contracting. In the words of veteran journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele,
SAIC has displayed an uncanny ability to thrive in every conceivable political climate. It is the invisible hand behind a huge portion of the national-security state—the one sector of the government whose funds are limitless and whose continued growth is assured every time a politician utters the word "terrorism." SAIC represents, in other words, a private business that has become a form of permanent government….[SAIC] epitomizes something beyond Eisenhower’s worst nightmare—the "military-industrial-counterterrorism complex."[35]
(Later their article made it clear that SAIC is not a unified bureaucracy, but more like a platform for individual entrepreneurship in obtaining contracts: "at SAIC your job fundamentally was to sell your high-tech ideas and blue-chip expertise to [any] government agency with money to spend and an impulse to buy.")[36]
Before becoming Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates was a member of SAIC’s board of directors. SAIC personnel have also been recruited from CIA, NSA, and DARPA.
Scores of influential members of the national-security establishment clambered onto SAIC’s payroll, among them John M. Deutch, undersecretary of energy under President Jimmy Carter and C.I.A. director under President Bill Clinton; Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, who headed development of the Polaris submarine; and Rear Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, who served variously as director of the National Security Agency, deputy director of the C.I.A., and vice director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.[37]
SAIC helped supply the faulty intelligence about Saddam’s WMD that then generated ample contracts for SAIC in Iraq.
SAIC personnel were instrumental in pressing the case that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and that war was the only way to get rid of them. When no weapons of mass destruction were found, SAIC personnel staffed the commission set up to investigate how American intelligence could have been so disastrously wrong, including Gordon Oehler, the commission’s deputy director for review, a 25-year CIA veteran, Jeffrey R. Cooper, vice president and chief science officer for one of SAIC’s sub-units and Samuel Visner, a SAIC vice president for corporate development who had also passed through the revolving door and back to the NSA. David Kay, who later chaired the Iraq Survey Group (which showed that Hussein didn’t possess WMD, thereby proving that the war was launched under false pretenses), is also an SAIC shareholder and former director of SAIC’s Center for Counterterrorism Technology and Analysis.[38]
Needless to say, this SAIC-stuffed commission did not report that SAIC itself had been a big part of the problem. But according to Barlett and Steele, the same David Kay in 1998 told the Senate Armed Services Committee:
that Saddam Hussein "remains in power with weapons of mass destruction" and that "military action is needed." He warns that unless America acts now "we’re going to find the world’s greatest military with its hands tied."
Over the next four years, Kay and others associated with SAIC hammered away at the threat posed by Iraq. Wayne Downing, a retired general and a close associate of Ahmad Chalabi, proselytized hard for an invasion of Iraq, stating that the Iraqis "are ready to take the war … overseas. They would use whatever means they have to attack us." In many of his appearances on network and cable television leading up to the war, Downing was identified simply as a "military analyst." It would have been just as accurate to note that he was a member of SAIC’s board of directors and a company stockholder….
9/11 was a personal tragedy for thousands of families and a national tragedy for all of America, but it served the interests of private intellience and military contractors including SAIC. In the aftermath of the attacks, the Bush administration launched its "Global War on Terror" (GWOT), whose chief consequence has been to channel money by the tens of billions into companies promising they could do something—anything—to help. SAIC was ready. Four years earlier, anticipating the next big source of government revenue, SAIC had established the Center for Counterterrorism Technology and Analysis. According to SAIC, the purpose of the new unit was to take "a comprehensive view of terrorist threats, including the full range of weapons of mass destruction, more traditional high explosives, and cyber-threats to the national infrastructure." In October of 2006 the company told would-be investors flatly that the war on terror would continue to be a lucrative growth industry.[39]
Barlett and Steele could have mentioned that SAIC senior analyst Fritz Ermarth, a long-time associate of Gates from his years in the CIA, is now an official of the Nixon Center. Commenting in 2003 on State Secretary Colin Powell’s briefing to the UN Security Council, Ermarth praised Powell for his charges (repeating one of Judith Miller’s false stories) about Saddam’s acquisition of aluminum tubing "for centrifuges and not rocketry." Ermarth faulted Powell however for not mentioning two matters: Iraqi involvement in the World Trade Center bombing of 1993 (a charge by Laurie Mylroie now generally discredited), and that "During the 1970s and 1980s…the USSR and its allies supported terrorists in Western Europe and in Turkey," (alluding to the false charges, promoted at the time by Robert Gates and Claire Sterling, about Mehmet Ali Agça’s attempted assassination of Pope Paul II).[40]
I certainly do not wish to suggest that SAIC single-handedly created the will to fight in Iraq. The combined efforts of defense contractors, oil companies, PMCs and PICs created a mindset in which all those eager for power were caught up, including, I have to say, career-minded academics. In Iraq as in Afghanistan and Vietnam a generation earlier, a sure ticket to consultations in Washington was support for interventions that ordinary people could see would be disastrous.
The yea-saying of academics has approved even the privatization of intelligence which we have just been describing. According to political scientist Anna Leander,
Private firms not only provide, but also analyse intelligence. Private translators, analysts and ‘interrogators’ are hired, as illustrated by the involvement of Titan and CACI in Abu Ghraib. Even more directly, private firms are hired in to assess threats and risks and suggest what to do about them. This involves constructing a security picture as done for example, by Diligence LLC and SAIC, two firms specialised in intelligence gathering and analysis….. This privatisation of intelligence has direct consequences for the relation between PMCs and security discourses. It places the firms in a position where they are directly involved in producing these discourses. They provide a growing share of the information that forms the basis of decisions on whether or not something is a security concern.
Leander concludes that this privatization is beneficial: it "empower[s] a more military understanding of security which, in turn, empowers PMCs as particularly legitimate security experts."[41]
Another political scientist, Chaim Kaufmann, has noted more critically that arguments for escalation and what he calls threat inflation against Iraq were not adequately disciplined by "the marketplace of ideas." He gives five reasons for this failure, duly supported by other political scientists. But the obvious reason mentioned by Barlett and Steele – profit – is not mentioned.[42]
What we have been talking about until now is advocacy disguised as expertise. But overseas associates of Diligence LLC and its allies have also been accused of false-flag operations intended to provoke war.
The passage of the Patriot Act generated a new realm of profit for SAIC contractors — domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens – as well as new intelligence fusion centers to carry this out.
“As part of the Pentagon’s domestic security mission, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld created the Counterintelligence Field Activity office in 2002 and filled its staff with contractors from Booz Allen, BAE systems, SAIC, and other suppliers of cleared personnel. CIFA, as we’ve seen, was used against people suspected of harboring ill will against the Bush administration and its policies….At present, there are forty-three current and planned fusion centers in the United States where data from intelligence agencies, the FBI, local police, private sector databases, and anonymous tipsters are combined and analyzed by counterterrorism analysts…. According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the project “inculcates the project “inculcates DHS with enormous domestic surveillance powers.”[43]
These fusion centers, “which combine the military, the FBI, state police, and others, have been internally promoted by the US Army as means to avoid restrictions preventing the military from spying on the domestic population.” [44] Responding to such criticisms, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano stated in March 2009 that the mandate of fusion centers was not to launch independent domestic surveillance operations but connect the dots between lawfully obtained information already in fragmented “siloed” databases.[45] She did not mention that some of this information was from private and even anonymous sources.
One SAIC contractor, Neoma Syke, worked at such a fusion center, wearing two hats:
During 2003-2004, she was "working for SAIC" as a force protection analyst with "SAIC’s" 205th Military Intelligence Battalion. And while she was "a contractor for SAIC", specifically, "SAIC’s" 205th Military Intelligence Battalion, apparently she served as Counterintelligence Watch Officer at USARPAC’s Crisis Action Center.[46]
Peter Dale Scott is a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a poet, writer, and researcher of the New World Order. Visit his website at http://www.peterdalescott.net/
[4] Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), 7-9.
[5] Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (New York: Holt, 1919).
[6] Henry Kissinger, in Colin S Gray, G R Sloan. Geopolitics, Geography, and Strategy (Portland: Frank Cass Publishers, 1999).
[7] For the events leading to the displacement of Kissinger see Scott, The Road to 9/11, 50-54, etc.
[8] Le Nouvel Observateur, January 15-21, 1998. In his relentless determination to weaken the Soviet Un ion, Brzezinski also persuaded Carter to end U.S. sanctions against Pakistan for its pursuit of nuclear weapons (David Armstrong and Joseph J. Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb: The Deadly Compromise (Steerforth, 2007). Thus Brzezinski’s obsession with the Soviet Union helped produce, as unintended byproducts, both al Qaeda and the Islamic atomic arsenal.
[9] Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: basic Books), xiii, 30, 40.
[14] Brzezinski was so unafraid of Islamic jihadism that when National Security Adviser he convened a working group to deliberately stir up Muslim dissatisfaction inside the Soviet Union (Scott, Road to 9/11, 70-71).
[15] He has since taken credit for persuading President Aliyyev of Azerbaijan to commit to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Geopolitically Speaking: Russia’s `Sphere of Influence’ – Chechnya and Beyond," Azerbaijan International, Spring 2000, p. 24, http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/81_folder/81_articles/81_brzezinski.html. This pipeline, a favor to U.S. and British oil companies, makes geopolitical but not economic sense; and is further destabilizing an already tense region. See Pepe Escobar, "Liquid War Across Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific: Postcard from Pipelineistan," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, http://japanfocus.org/-Pepe-Escobar/3149.
[16] Scott, Road to 9/11, 70-79.
[17] Dana Milbank and Justin Blum, "Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force," Washington Post, November 16, 2005. This story noted that CEOs of three majors had falsely denied this: " A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney’s energy task force in 2001 — something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress….In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate `to my knowledge,’ and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know. Chevron was not named in the White House document, but the Government Accountability Office has found that Chevron was one of several companies that ‘gave detailed energy policy recommendations’ to the task force."
[18] Scott, Road to 9/11, 188-89; citing Linda McQuaig, Crude Dudes," Toronto Star, September 20, 2004; Jane Mayer, "Contract Sport," New Yorker, February 16-23, 2004.
[19] Scott, Road to 9/11, 189; "Strategy Energy Policy: Challenges for the 21st Century," Report of the James A. Baker Institute of Public Policy and Council on Foreign Relations Task Force, 40, emphasis added.
[20] Seymour M. Hersh, "Selective Intelligence: Donald Rumsfeld Has His Own Special Sources. Are They Reliable?" New Yorker, May 6, 2003
[23] For Israel links, see Michael Lind, Made in Texas (New York, Basic Books), 139 (Feith); John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), 166, etc. (Libby); Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (New York: Crown, 2006), 68-70 (Mylroie).
[24] Jon Wiener, "Obama’s Limits: An Interview With Andrew Bacevich," Nation, August 28, 2008, http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/350252/obama_s_limits_an_interview_with_andrew_bacevich. Cf. Andrew Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008). Michael Scheuer also argues that the campaign against terrorism took a big step backwards when the U.S. invaded Iraq. "Experts Fears ‘Endless’ Terror War," MSNBC, July 9, 2005, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8524679. Peter Bergen agrees: "Many jihadists are so happy that the Bush administration invaded Iraq. Without the Iraq war, their movement—under assault from without and riven from within—would have imploded a year or so after Sept. 11" (Bergen, "The Jihadists Export Their Rage to Book Pages and Web Pages," Washington Post, September 11, 2005). So does Richard Clarke (Against All Enemies, 246): "Nothing America could have done would have provided al Qaeda and its new generation of cloned groups a better recruitment device than our unprovoked invasion of an oil-rich Arab country."
[25] I am not the first to notice the analogy. See e.g. Thomas Jäger and Gerhard Kümmel, Private Military and Security Companies (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007), 22; Eugene B. Smith, "The New Condottieri and US Policy: The Privatization of Conflict and Its Implications," U.S. Army War College, Parameters, Winter 2002, www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/02winter/smith.pdf, 104.
[26] Michael Mallett, Mercenaries and their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy (Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1974), 22.
[27] Donald J. Kagay and L. J. Andrew Villalon (eds.), Crusaders, Condottieri, and Cannon (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002), 286.
[29] "The former Betsy Prince — Edgar and Elsa’s daughter, Erik’s sister — married into the DeVos family, one of the country’s biggest donors to Republican and conservative causes. (`I know a little something about soft money, as my family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party,’ Betsy DeVos wrote in a 1997 Op-Ed in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.) She chaired the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000 and again from 2003 to 2005, and her husband, Dick, ran as the Republican candidate for Michigan governor in 2006. Erik Prince himself is no slouch when it comes to giving to Republicans and cultivating relationships with important conservatives. He and his first and second wives have donated roughly $300,000 to Republican candidates and political action committees" (Ben Van Heuvelen, "The Bush administration’s ties to Blackwater," Salon, October 2, 2007, http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/02/blackwater_bush/). Cf. Robert Young Pelton, Licensed to Kill, Hired Guns in the War on Terror (New York: Crown Books, 2006).
[31] David Isenberg, "Myths and mystery," Asia Times, 5/20/04. While in CIA, Bruner negotiated the deal for Ahmad Chalabi and the CIA to work together (Aram Roston, The Man Who Pushed America to War [New York: Nation Books, 2009], 76). Bruner later joined BGR and in 2007 became the full time chairman of BKI Strategic Intelligence. In 2004 Bruner participated with BGR and an Israeli PMC operative in a scheme to help re-elect George W. Bush. (Laura Rozen, "From Kurdistan to K Street," Mother Jones, November 2008, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/11/kurdistan-k-street).
[32] Douglas Jehl, "Washington Insiders’ New Firm Consults on Contracts in Iraq," New York Times, September 30, 2003.
[33] Financial Times, 12/11/03. Ed Rogers, Diligence’s vice chairman, was one of George H.W. Bush’s top assistants when he was US president. On resigning from the White House, he negotiated a lucrative contract to act as lobbyist for the former Saudi intelligence chief and BCCI front man Kamal Adham, at a time when American and British prosecutors were preparing criminal cases against him. Rogers used Adnan Khashoggi as a go-between to secure the contract, which was canceled after White House criticism of it (Truell and Gurwin, False Profits, 362-64).
[34] Ibid. Cf. Mother Jones, March/April 2004: "More recently, Bush scored a $60,000-a-year consulting deal from a top adviser to New Bridge Strategies, the firm set up by George W.’s ex-campaign manager to "take advantage of business opportunities" in postwar Iraq. His job description: taking calls for three hours a week."
[35] "SAIC, which employs 44,000 people and took in $8 billion last year—sells brainpower, including a lot of the "expertise" behind the Iraq war….[SAIC is] a "stealth company" with 9,000 government contracts, many of which involve secret intelligence work" (Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, "Washington’s $8 Billion Shadow." Vanity Fair, March 2007, http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/spyagency200703?currentPage=1).
[36] Barlett and Steele, "Washington’s $8 Billion Shadow."
[37] Barlett and Steele, "Washington’s $8 Billion Shadow: "Mark A. Boster left his job as a deputy assistant attorney general in 1999 to join SAIC, and was already calling Justice three months later on behalf of his new employers—a violation of federal law. Boster paid $30,000 in a civil settlement." Yet another PIC for a while was Interop, combining former CIA director James Woolsey and former FBI director Louis Freeh with former Mossad chief Danny Yatom (Rozen, "From Kurdistan to K Street).
[38] Charlie Cray, "Science Applications International Corporation," CorpWatch, http://www.corpwatch.org/section.php?id=17; cf. Barlett and Steele, "Washington’s $8 Billion Shadow."
[39] Barlett and Steele, "Washington’s $8 Billion Shadow."
[41] Anna Leander, "The Power to Construct International Security: On the Significance of Private Military Companies," Millennium – Journal of International Studies, 2005; 33; 803, emphasis added. At the time the Observer reported from " sources in the Bush administration" an allegation that "members of the al-Qaeda network, detained and interrogated in Cairo, had obtained phials of anthrax in the Czech Republic" ("Iraq ‘behind US anthrax outbreaks,’" Observer, October 14, 2001, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/terrorism.afghanistan6).
[43] Tim Shorrock, Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 344.
[44] Julian Assange, “The spy who billed me twice,” Wikileaks, http://wikileaks.org/wiki/The_spy_who_billed_me_twice. The March 2009 Army manual “US Army Concept of Operations for Police Intelligence Operations” contains phrases such as "It [fusion] does not have constraints that are emplaced on MI [Military Intelligence] activities within the US, because it operates under the auspice and oversight of the police discipline and standards."
i cant even watch Obama speak anymore, You know how it is when the lies and deceit are so blatant and stupifying that you just tune the person out since every word even the tone of the persons voice causes you to think in terms that arent very healthy and if acted on would be very bad.
i got one phrase for the pos pres, 23 trillion dollars. I hate that Americans are so desensitized that they refuse to act as they should. being sovereign means there is no power above the people. Take action , Impeach and take control, the senators and representatives are listening and willing to comply so get off your dull asses and take your country back.
verndewd
Source: USA Today
GUADALAJARA, Noting the huge trading partnership among the three neighbors, Obama said that commerce must be expanded, not restricted.
Wrapping up a North American summit Monday afternoon, Obama joined Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for a news conference after about two hours of talks.
Noting the huge trading partnership among the three neighbors, Obama said that commerce must be expanded, not restricted.
The president also emphasized a need for orderly and legal immigration, a sensitive issue on all borders.
“But ultimately I think the American people want fairness,” he said. “And we can create a system in which you have strong border security, we have an orderly process for people to come in, but we’re also giving an opportunity for those who are already in the United States to be able to achieve a pathway to citizenship so that they don’t have to live in the shadows and their children and their grandchildren can have a full participation in — in the United States.”
On Mexico’s turf, Obama backed Calderón and his efforts to take on drug cartels during a spiraling war on drugs and guns. Washington is debating whether to withhold money to help fight the powerful cartels because of allegations that the Mexican military has been guilty of human rights abuses.
Obama said he had great confidence that under Calderón “human rights will be observed.”
Calderón said the Mexican government has an “absolute and categorical” commitment to human rights.
On commerce, Obama said that a “Buy America” provision in the giant economic stimulus package earlier this year had not hurt trade with Canada. “I do think it’s important to keep this in perspective,” Obama said. “This in no way has endangered the billions of dollars in trade taking place between our two countries.”
As for health care, he said the Canadian system had evolved differently from the one in the USA and that it would not work in the U.S. He said the “vigorous debate” unfolding at home over health care was itself healthy — but he also said he hoped that “more sensible and reasoned arguments will emerge” as the legislation heads toward possible votes this fall.
In a written statement, they pledged a united effort on economic recovery, trade, swine flu and climate change. A statement from the leaders said their nations offered a “joint, responsible and transparent” response to the spreading swine flu threat.
They men spoke at the end of a swift North American Leaders’ Summit, an annual gathering launched during George W. Bush’s presidency. The gathering typically yields fresh promises of coordination on many issues but no breakthroughs or initiatives.
The leaders renewed calls for the restoration of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in a June 28 coup.
Obama blasted critics who said the United States should intervene in the government dispute on Honduras: “The same critics who say that the United States has not intervened enough in Honduras are the same people who say that we’re always intervening and the Yankees need to get out of Latin America. You can’t have it both ways.”
The North American leaders also tried to coordinate plans to minimize the severity of the H1N1 flu virus as school begins, said John Brennan, an Obama adviser on homeland security.
The virus has flared up again in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas after an initial outbreak that began in Mexico in April spread rapidly worldwide. Swine flu has killed 149 people in Mexico and infected 17,730. In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there have been 436 swine flu deaths and an estimated 1 million cases.
World health officials are worried it may evolve into a more dangerous strain during the winter flu season. “There are people who are going to be getting sick in the fall and die,” Brennan said.
Meanwhile, drug-related violence in Mexico has been increasing even after Calderón began dispatching troops to confront drug traffickers in December 2006. As many as 4,000 people have died in drug-related violence this year, up 65% from the 2,422 killed in the same period in 2008, according to an unofficial tally by El Universal newspaper.
Harper said Sunday that Canada will increase its aid to Mexico’s anti-drug fight by bringing 300 Mexican police officers and 32 commanders to the Canadian Police College for training.
The U.S. has pledged $1.4 billion to help Mexico battle its drug cartels, but Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., threatened last week to withhold part of that money because of possible human rights abuses by Mexico’s military.
During their meeting Sunday, Calderón urged Obama to resurrect a program to allow some Mexican trucks onto U.S. highways as part of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, Calderón’s office said. Mexico has retaliated by imposing tariffs on $2.4 billion of U.S. goods.
Calderón urged Harper to reverse the visa rule for Mexican visitors, saying it prevented thousands from traveling to Canada in July, Calderón’s office said.
Face to Face with Harry Reid this Friday at 3:00pm, please join us! Recess Rally on August 22nd at 12:00 noon across Nevada. Wednesday’s at the Federal Building in Reno for Health Care Reform Bill Protest. Please send an update on how the Nevada Patriots Cap & Trade protest went at UNLV today! Congratulations to everybody who came out to have their voices heard. See below for details on all planned events. We are all in this together! Debbie Landis www.angerisbrewing.com
Nationwide Recess Rally August 22, 2009
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What: Nationwide Recess Rally against the Government takeover of Health Care When: August 22nd, 12:00 Noon Why: The US Government hasn’t managed to pass tort reform due, in no small part, to plaintiff lawyers’ (special interest) dedicated financial support of the progressive agenda. The US Government is attempting to cap salaries and bonuses executives and business owners while simultaneously funneling billions of taxpayer dollars into these same companies (special interest). The US Government has already taken over some banks and car companies (special interest), The health care bill was designed and written by special interest and includes (regardless of what the white house has said) payoffs to Community Organizations (Acorn?), federal funding of abortion, rationed care for the elderly, payoffs to Community Organizations (Acorn?) for member recruitment, mandatory yearly audits for companies attempting to maintain private health care coverage, and severely limits coverage for things like autism and dementia. We have our own "special interest" groups. We call them "family", "community", and "small business". We demand that the government of the United States of America, on behalf of WE THE PEOPLE, recognize us as the largest, most important, special interest group in the U.S.. Where: Offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: 400 S. Virginia St, Suite 902 Reno, NV 89501 Phone: 775-686-5750 Fax: 775-686-5757 600 East William St, #302 Carson City, NV 89701 Phone: 775-882-REID (7343) Fax: 775-883-1980 333 Las Vegas Boulevard South Suite 8016 Las Vegas, NV 89101 Phone: 702-388-5020 Fax: 702-388-5030 Offices of Senator John Ensign: 333 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Suite 8203 Las Vegas, Nevada 89101 Phone: (702) 388-6605 Fax: (702) 388-6501 Nevada Toll Free: (877) 894-7711 400 South Virginia Street, Suite 738 Reno Nevada 89501 Phone: (775) 686-5770 Fax: (775) 686-5729 Nevada Toll Free: (877) 894-7711 600 East William Street, Suite 304 Carson City, Nevada 89701 Phone: (775) 885-9111 Fax: (775) 883-5590 Nevada Toll Free: (877) 894-7711 Offices of Representative Shelley Berkley: 2340 Paseo Del Prado, Suite D-106 Las Vegas, NV 89102 Phone:(702) 220-9823 Fax: (702) 220-9841 Offices of Congressman Dean Heller: 400 S. Virginia St., Suite 502 Reno, NV 89501 775-686-5760 (Office) 775-686-5711 (Fax) 405 Idaho St., Suite 214 Elko, NV 89801 775-777-7920 (Office) 775-777-8974 (Fax) 600 Las Vegas Blvd., Suite 680 Las Vegas, NV 89101 702-255-1651 (Office) 702-255-1927 (Fax) Offices of Congresswoman Dina Titus: 8215 S. Eastern Avenue, Suite 205 Las Vegas, Nevada 89123 Phone: (702) 387-4941 Fax: (702) 837-0728
~~~~~~~~~~
Reno Federal Building – Oppose the Health Care Bill Every Wednesday, From 4:30 – 7:30 pm through August 19th
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By popular demand with an overwhelming amount of support, the health care demonstration at the Federal Building in Reno has been extended. We will be gathering Wednesday, August 12 and August 19th, from 4:30 – 7:30pm at the Reno Federal Building. Please join us and bring your signs!
NO HEALTH CARE BY COMMITTEE
NO RATIONING
NO ADDITIONAL TAX BURDEN
REFORM? YES! GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED HEALTH CARE? NO!
NO FEDERAL FUNDING OF ABORTION
NO MANDATORY KICKBACKS TO ACORN FOR FUTURE HOSPITAL EXPANSION
NO END OF LIFE COUNSELING REQUIREMENTS
NO GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE IN FAMILY COUNSELING
NO BLANKET COVERAGE OF NON-US CITIZENS, NO QUESTIONS ASKED
NO FORCED TRANSITION FROM PRIVATE INSURANCE
NO MANDATORY YEARLY AUDIT FOR COMPANIES THAT SELF INSURE
NO DIRECT GOVERNMENT ACCESS TO INDIVIDUALS BANK ACCOUNTS
NO SUBSIDIES TO UNIONS AND ACORN TO PAY FOR THEIR MEDICAL COVERAGE
NO RESTRICTIONS FOR "SPECIAL NEEDS" INDIVIDUALS
NO PAYMENTS TO ACORN FOR ENROLLING PEOPLE IN THIS IRRESPONSIBLE PLAN
Meeting with Harry Reid Friday, August 14th 3:00pm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have you received your invitation to meet with Harry Reid, from "Organizing for America"? TruthSeeker forwarded her invitation to me today, so I followed the link. I, under info@AngerisBrewing.com, have an appt. with the man, the myth, the legend himself… Harry Reid, at 3pm this Friday: From the tone of the appt. confirmation, I think they are looking for more support than we’re able to give for the Health Care Reform Bill, so this should be quite the event.
Thank you for signing up to make an Office Visit for Health Reform. Below you will find the details about the office and the time you scheduled: Sen. Harry Reid Carson City Office 600 East William Street, #302 Carson City, NV 89701 (Map) Phone: (775) 882-7343 Your scheduled visit — Date: Fri Aug 14 2009 Time: 3:00 p.m. We put together a step-by-step guide you can use to plan your visit and maximize your impact. You can download the guide and additional information to drop off at the office here: DOWNLOAD YOUR OFFICE VISIT GUIDE These visits are extremely important. Representatives are feeling the heat from special interests and need to hear from their constituents how important health insurance reform is to them. For our plan to work, we need everyone who’s signed up to stop by their Representative’s office during the time they agreed to go. It’s critical that they hear from as many people in their district as possible. If for some reason you can’t make your shift, let us know, but make sure you drop by sometime during office hours this week. Thank you for standing up once again to fight for the change our country needs. Organizing for America
I am looking for a delegation of 5 people to attend the visit. I will happily sit the meeting out for those of you who have pressing concerns you are looking for answers to, right NOW. The rest of us will be on the sidewalk out front waiting for an update from you! Please join us at 600 E. William St. at 2:45pm on Friday!!! Please feel free to make your own appointment with Senator Reid on Friday, and let me know when we should all be there for support. "Organizing for America" has generously created a very convenient appointment request form, click HERE to take advantage of it. If you’d like to speak to the Senator at 3pm, please email me your contact information at info@angerisbrewing.com For information: Senator Reid’s office confirmed that he will not be doing town hall meetings during the recess, "they don’t know why".
Updated Information on Health Care Reform Bill From AmericaIsWatching.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you to America Is Watching for this comprehensive dissection of HR 3200, the Health Care Reform Bill. � Sec. 113, Pg 21-22 of the Healthcare (HC) Bill MANDATES a government audit of the books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure in order to "ensure that the law does not provide incentives for small and mid-size employers to self-insure"! � Sec. 122, Pg 29, lines 4-16 – YOUR HEALTHCARE WILL BE RATIONED! � Sec. 123, Pg 30 – THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE deciding what treatments and benefits you get. � Sec. 142, Pg 42 – The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice! � Sec. 152, Pg 50-51 – Healthcare will be provided to ALL NON-US citizens. � Sec. 163, Pg 58-59 beginning at line 5 – government will have real-time access to individual’s finances & a National ID Health care card will be issued! � Sec. 163, Pg 59, lines 21-24 – government will have direct access to your banks accounts for electronic funds transfer. � Sec. 164, Pg 65 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions & community organizations. � Sec. 201, Pg 72, Lines 8-14 – government is creating an Healthcare Exchange to bring private plans under government control. � Sec. 203, Pg 84 – government mandates ALL benefit packages for private Health Care plans in the exchange. � Sec. 203, Pg 85, Line 7 – Specifications of benefit levels for plans means that the government will define your Healthcare plan and has the ability to ration your Healthcare! � Sec. 205, Pg 95, Lines 8-18 – The government will use groups to "inform and educate" (sign up) individuals for government plan. � Sec. 205, Pg 102, Lines 12-18 – Medicaid eligible individuals will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No freedom to choose. � Sec. 223, Pg 124, Lines 24-25 – No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No "administrative of judicial review" against a government monopoly. � Sec. 225, Pg 127, Lines 1-16 – Doctors and the government will tell YOU what you can make. "The Secretary shall provide for the annual participation of physicians under the public health insurance option, for which payment may be made for services furnished during the year." � Sec. 312, Pg 145, Line 15-17 – Employers MUST auto-enroll employees into public option plan. � Sec. 313, Pg 149, Lines 16-2 – ANY Employer with payroll $400,000 and above who does not provide public option pays 8% tax on all payroll. � Sec. 313, Pg 150, Lines 9-13 – Businesses with payroll between $251,000 and $400,000 who do not provide public option pay 2-6% tax on all payroll. � Sec. 401.59B, Pg 167, Lines 18-23 – ANY individual who does not have acceptable care, according to government, will be taxed 2.5% of income. � Sec.59B, Pg 170 Lines, 1 – Any NONRESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay for their Healthcare.) � Sec. 431, Pg 195, Lines 1-3 – Officers and employees of Healthcare Administration (government) will have access to ALL Americans’ financial and personal records. � Sec. 441, Pg 203, Lines 14-15 – "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax" Yes, it says that. � Sec. 1121, Pg 239, Line 14-24 – The government will limit and reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income and poor are the ones affected � Sec. 1121, Pg 241, Line 6-8 – Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have; you’ll all be paid the same. "Service categories established under this paragraph shall apply without regard to the specialty of the physician furnishing the service." � Sec. 1122, Pg 253, Line 10-18 – The government "validates relative value unit’s" (sets value of doctor’s) time, professional judgment, methods etc. (defining the value of humans). � Sec. 1131, Pg 265 – Government mandates and controls productivity for private Healthcare Industries. "Incorporating Productivity Improvements into Market Basket Updates that Do Not Already Incorporate Such Improvements." � Sec. 1141, Pg 268 – The government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs. � Sec. 1145, Pg 272 – Treatment of certain cancer hospitals: Does this mean that cancer patients and their treatment are open to rationing? � Sec. 1151, Page 280 – The government will penalize hospitals for what government deems preventable re-admission. (Incentives for hospital to not treat and release.) � Sec. 1151, Pg 298, Lines 9-11 – Doctors, treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission and the government will penalize you for that action. � Sec. 1156, Pg 317, Line 13-20 – "PROHIBITION on physician ownership or Investment." government tells doctors what/how much they can own. � Sec. 1156, Pg 317-318, Lines 21-25, 1-3 – "PROHIBITION on Expansion of Facility Capacity." The government will mandate that hospitals cannot expand ("number of operating rooms or beds"). � Sec. 1156, Pg 321, Lines 2-13-Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception BUT community input required. � Sec. 1162, Pg 335-339, Lines 16-25 – The government mandates establishment of outcome based measures. Rationing. � Sec. 1162, Pg 341, Lines 3-9 – The government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans (Part B), HMOs, etc. This will force people into a government plan. "The Secretary may determine not to identify a Medicare Advantage plan if the Secretary has identified deficiencies in the plan’s compliance with rules for such plans under this part." � Sec. 1177, Pg 354 – Government will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people! "Extension of Authority of Special Needs Plans to Restrict Enrollment." � Sec. 1191, Pg 379 – Government creates more bureaucracy – "Telehealth Advisory Committee." Healthcare by phone or the Internet – (dial 1 for your Healthcare advice?) � Sec. 1233, Pg 425, Lines 4-12 – Government mandates Advance (Death) Care Planning consultation. Some sick or elderly are NOT COMFORTABLE discussing "end of life," so why MANDATE IT?? SOME IN THE ADMINISTRATION HAVE ALREADY DISCUSSED RATIONING HEALTH CARE FOR THE ELDERLY. � Sec. 1233, Pg 425, Lines 17-19 – Government WILL instruct and consult regarding living wills and durable powers of attorney. (Mandatory end-of-life planning again, which many people and their families are not comfortable discussing.) � Sec. 1233, Pg 425-426, Lines 22-25, 1-3 – Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death. � Sec. 1233, Pg 427, Lines 15-24 – Government mandates program for orders for life-sustaining treatment (i.e. end of life). The government has a say in how your life ends. � Sec. 1233, Pg 429, Lines 1-9 – An "advanced care planning consult" will be used as patient’s health deteriorates. � Sec. 1233, Pg 429, Lines 10-12 – "Advanced Care Consultation" may include an ORDER for end of life plans – from the government. � Sec. 1233, Pg 429, Lines 13-25 – The government will specify which Doctors (professional authority under state law includes Nurse Practitioners or Physician’s Assistants) can write an end of life order. � Sec. 1233, Pg 430, Lines 11-15 – The government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life according to pre-set methods (not individually decided). � Sec. 1302, Pg 468, Lines 16-21 – "Community Based Home Medical Services means a non-profit community-based of state-based organization." � Sec. 1302, Pg 472, Lines 14-17 – PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATION: One monthly payment to a community-based organization. � Sec. 1308, Pg 489 – The government will cover Marriage and Family therapy. This will involve government control of your marriage. � Sec. 1308, Pg 494-498 – The government will cover Mental Health Services including: defining, creating and rationing those services. � Sec. 1401, Pg. 502 – Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research Established. Big Brother is watching how your treatment works. � Sec. 1401, Pg 503, Lines 13-19 – The government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic medical records. "The Center may secure directly from any department or agency of the United States information necessary to enable it to carry out this section." � Sec. 1401, Pg 503, Lines 21-25 – The government may secure data directly from any department or agency of the US including your data. � Sec. 1401, Pg 503, Lines 21-25 – The "Center" will collect data both "published and unpublished" (that means public & your private information). � Sec. 1401, Pg 506, Lines 19-21 – An "Appointed Clinical Perspective Advisory Panel" will advise The Center and recommend policies that would allow for public access of data. � Sec. 1401, Pg 518, Lines 21-25 – The Commission will have input from Healthcare consumer representatives. � Sec. 1411, Pg 524, Lines 18-22 – Establishes the "Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund." More taxes for ALL. � Sec. 1441, Pg 621, Lines 20-25 – The government will define "NEW Quality" measures in Healthcare. � Sec. 1442, Pg 622, Lines 2-9 – To pay for the Quality Standards, government will transfer money from "qualified entities" (government Trust Funds) to other government Trust Funds. More Taxes. � Sec. 1442, Pg. 624, Lines 19-23 – Qualified Entities: "The Secretary shall ensure that the entity is a public, nonprofit or academic institution with technical expertise in the area of health quality measurement." � Sec. 1442, Pg 623, Lines 5-10 – "Quality" measures shall be designed to assess outcomes and functional status of patients � Sec. 1442, Pg 623, Lines 15-17 – "Quality" measures shall be designed to profile you including race, age, gender, place of residence, etc. � Sec. 1443, Pg 628 The government will give "Multi-Stake Holders" pre-rulemaking input into selection of "quality" measures. � Sec. 1443, Pg 630-31. Lines 9-24, 1-9-Those Multi-Stake Holder groups include. Unions and groups like ACORN deciding what constitutes quality. � Sec. 1444, Pg 632, Lines 14-25 – The government may implement any "Quality measure" of Healthcare services as that bureaucrats see fit. � Sec. 1444, Pg 632-333, 14-25, 1-9 – The Secretary may issue non-endorsed "Quality Measures" for physician and dialysis services. � Sec. 1251 (beginning), Pg 634 to 652 – "Physician Payments Sunshine Provision" – government wants to shine sunlight on Doctors but not government. "Reports on financial relationships between manufacturers and distributors . . . and between physicians and other health care entities." � Sec. 1501 (beginning), Pg 659-670 – Doctors in Residency – government will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you’ll live. � Sec. 1503 (beginning), Pg 675-685 – government will regulate hospitals in EVERY aspect of residency programs, including teaching hospitals. � Sec. 1601 (beginning), Pg 685-699 – Increased funding to fight waste, fraud, and abuse. (Like the government with an $18 million website?) � Sec. 1619, Pgs 700-703 – If your part of Healthcare plan isn’t in the government’s Healthcare Exchange, but you qualify for federal aid, you don’t have to pay. � Sec. 1128G, Pg 704-708 – If the Secretary determines there is a "significant risk of fraudulent activity," on Healthcare provider or supplier, the government can do a background check. � Sec. 1632, Pg 710, Lines 8-14 – The Secretary has broad powers to deny Healthcare providers and suppliers admittance into Healthcare Exchange. Your doctor could be thrown out of business. � Sec. 1637, Pg 718-719 – ANY Doctor who orders durable medical equipment or home medical services are REQUIRED to be enrolled in, or eligible for, Medicare. � Sec. 1639, Pg 721 – Government MANDATES that Doctors must have face to face with patient to certify patient for home health services. � Sec. 1639, Pg 723-24, Lines 23-25, 1-5-The same government certifications will apply to Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s health plan: Your kids). � Sec. 1640, Pg 723, Lines 16-22 – The government reserves right to apply face to face certification for patient to ANY other Healthcare service. � Sec. 1651, Pg 734, Lines 16-25 – Proposes, for law enforcement sake, that the Secretary of HHS will give Attorney General access to ALL medical data. � Sec. 1701 (beginning), Pg 739-756 – The government sets guidelines for subsidizing the uninsured (and you have to pay for them). � Sec. 1704, Pg 756-761 – The government will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to states (your taxes). � Sec. 1711, Pg 764 The government will require preventative services – including vaccinations (no choice). � Sec. 1713, Pg 768 – Government-determined Nurse Home Visitation Services (Hello union paybacks). � Sec. 1713, Pg 768, Lines 3-5-Nurse Home Visit Services – Service #1: "Improving maternal or child health and pregnancy outcomes or increasing birth intervals between pregnancies." (Compulsory ABORTIONS?) � Sec. 1713, Pg 768, Lines 11-14 – Nurse Home Visit Services include determinations of economic self-sufficiency, employment advancement and school-readiness. � Sec. 1714, Pg 769 – Federal government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Abortion and government control intertwined. � Sec. 1733, Pg 788-798 – government will set and mandate drug prices, therefore controlling which drugs are brought to market. (Goodbye innovation and private research.) � Sec. 1744, Pgs 796-799 – Establishes PAYMENTS for graduate medical education. The government will now control your doctor’s education. � Sec.1751, Pg 800 Sec 1751 – The government will decide which Health Care conditions will be paid. Say "RATION!" � Sec. 1759, Pg 809 – Billing Agents, clearinghouses, or other alternate payees are required to register. The government takes over private payment systems too. � Sec. 1801, Pg 819-823 – The Government will identify individuals "likely to be ineligible" for subsidies. Will access all personal financial information. � Sec. 1802, Pg 823-828 – Government sets up Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund. Another bottomless tax pit. � Sec. 4375, Pg 828-832, Lines 12-16 – Government will impose a fee on ALL private health insurance plans including self-insured to pay for Trust Fund! � Sec. 4377, Pg 835, Lines 11-13 – Fees imposed by government for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes. � Sec. 440, Pg 837-839 – The government will design and implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids and families that are expecting children. � Sec. 1904, Pg 843-844-This Home Visitation Program includes the government coming into your house and teaching/telling you how to parent! � Sec. 2002, Pg 858 – The government will establish a Public Health Fund at a cost of $88,800,000,000 (That’s Billions). � Sec. 2201, Pg 864 – The government will MANDATE the establishment of a National Health Service Corps.
o Sec. 2201 – "Fulfillment of Obligated Service Requirement" o Sec. 2201, Pg 864-875 – The NHS Corps is a program where Doctors perform mandatory Healthcare for 2 years for partial loan repayment.
� Sec. 2212, Pg 875-891 – The government takes over the education of Medical students and Doctors through education and loans. � Sec. 340L, Pg 897 – The government will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps to ensure an adequate supply of public health professionals. � Sec. 340L, Pg 897 – The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of civilian employees of the United States as Secretary deems necessary. � Sec. 340L, Pg 897 – The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of officers of Regular and Reserve Corps of Service. � Sec. 340M, Pg 899 – The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians. Will animals have heath care, too? � Sec.2233, Pg 909 – The government will develop, build and run Public Health Training Centers. � Sec. 2241, Pg 912-913 – Government starts a Healthcare affirmative action program under the guise of diversity scholarships. � Sec. 2251, Pg 915 – Government MANDATES cultural and linguistic competency training for Healthcare professionals. � Sec. 3111, Pg 931 – The government will establish a Preventative and Wellness Trust fund, with initial cost of $30,800,000,000 (Billions more). � Sec. 3121, Pg 934, Lines 21-22 – Government will identify specific goals and objectives for prevention and wellness activities. More control of your life. � Sec. 3121, Pg 935, Line 1-2 The government will develop "Healthy People & National Public Health Performance Standards." They will tell us what to eat? � Sec. 3131, Pg 942, Lines 22-25 – "Task Force on Community Preventive Services," More government? Under the Offices of Surgeon General, Public Health Services, Minority Health and Women’s Health. � Sec. 3141, Pg 949-979 – BIG GOVERNMENT core public health infrastructure includes workforce capacity, lab systems, health information systems, etc. � Sec. 2511, Pg 992 – Government will establish school based "health" clinics. Your children will be indoctrinated and your grandchildren may be aborted! � Sec. 399Z-1, Pg 993 – School Based Health Clinics will be integrated into the school environment. More government brainwashing in school. � Sec. 2521, Pg 1000 – The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?
Constitutional Rights Facts are Stubborn Things
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is the latest statement from the DNC:
"The Republicans and their allied groups – desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill – are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country.
However, much like we saw at the McCain-Palin rallies last year where crowds were baited with cries of ‘socialist,’ ‘communist,’ and where the birthers movement was born – these mobs of extremists are not interested in having a thoughtful discussion about the issues – but like some Republican leaders have said – they are interested in ‘breaking’ the President and destroying his Presidency."
Citizens are being asked to report people and organizations spreading misinformation on the Health Care Reform Bill to flag@whitehouse.gov.
Anger is Brewing agrees that this is absolutely necessary to ensure the dissemination of misinformation stops completely!
Watch or listen to television or radio news and make a note of the things you hear from Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, President Obama, and others.
When they contradict (translated, "lie") the contents of the bill, send an email to flag@whitehouse.gov with the page and line number of the actual text (documented above) and attach a copy of HR3200 for their reference.
We are obligated to report abuses, we are ~ We the People!
For eight years, the Bush administration relentlessly targeted Muslim, environmental, and animal rights activists as national security or terrorist threats. Shamefully, Obama continues the same practice.
On May 20, the FBI arrested four New York men, claiming they planned to bomb a Bronx synagogue and community center and shoot down Newburgh, New York-based Air National Guard jets with stinger missiles.
The same day Justice Department press release said:
"The charges against James Cromite (aka Abdul Rahman and Abdul Rehman), David Williams (aka Daoud and DL), Onta Williams (aka Hamza), and Laguerre Payen (aka Amin and Almondo) include "plot(ting) to detonate explosives near a synagogue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, New York, and to shoot military planes….with Stinger surface-to-air missiles. In their efforts to obtain weapons, the defendants dealt with an informant acting under law enforcement supervision, and the FBI and other agencies monitor(ing) the defendants’ actions up to the time of arrest, including providing an inactive missile and inert explosives to the informant for the defendants."
It’s a familiar scheme involving an FBI sting using an informant to entrap unwitting victims, in this case four poor black Newburgh, New York men who’d converted to Islam, two while in prison for unrelated charges. Cromite was called the ringleader. A Pakistani man named Shahed Hussain (aka Malik) was a paid FBI informant facing prison and/or deportation on dozens of fraud counts. He was enlisted to cooperate in return for leniency.
He’s the same man used earlier for four separate stings, Yassin Aref among them, an innocent man, entrapped and victimized, now serving a 15 year prison term, and a valued friend of this writer. In post-9/11 America, he’s one of many Muslim victims of police state justice. They’ve been targeted, persecuted, arrested, imprisoned, kept in isolation, denied bail, tried on secret evidence on trumped-up charges, convicted by juries too intimidated to acquit, and sentenced to long prison terms for being Muslims at the wrong time in America. Others for being environmental and/or animal rights activists. It went on under George Bush and continues under Obama. When the Newburgh 4 are tried in late 2009, they’ll face 25 year to life sentences if convicted on one or more charges.
They’re petty felons, not terrorists, with criminal records on drug-related charges, assault, and Payen’s unrelated weapons charge for firing a BB gun hitting two people in the head, then snatching purses from two women the same day. He’s a Haitian citizen. The others are Americans, and both Williams men aren’t related. They apparently met in prison where two of them were introduced to Islam.
Background on Informant Malik
On FBI instructions, he looked for targets at a Newburgh mosque and found them in four convicted felons, prime candidates to be framed on bogus charges if he could lure them into the trap. He befriended them with offers to pay medical bills, but never did because arrests came first after months of entrapment. His victims were poor, in need of cash, and induced to go along by small gifts and offers of more.
The Justice Department called them "radicalized Muslims," acting out of hatred for Jews and wanting revenge on behalf of Muslims against America.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) uses anti-Semitism for moral cover, but is notoriously Islamophobic in its ideology. Its web site highlighted "Muslim extremists motivated by hatred for Jews and Israel have targeted Jews in the US for many years, an alarming number of post-9/11 plots and conspiracies have involved or been led by" American Muslims "arrested on various terror-related charges (related to) ideologies of extreme intolerance propagated by terrorist movements overseas (and in some cases) jihadist materials on the Internet." The ADL cited alleged quotes about wanting "to get a synagogue" and willingness to die and go to "paradise" as a martyr.
New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly said the men planned to bomb two Bronx synagogues by detonating explosives from a cell phone. After supposedly planting phony devices, given Malik by the FBI, police surrounded their car and arrested them in a carefully planned operation. It involved an 18-wheel police vehicle and armored personnel carrier using NYPD Emergency Service Unit personnel. It came off with military precision and why not. It was a setup.
"It’s hard to envision a more chilling plot," said Assistant US Attorney Eric Snyder. "These are extremely violent men." In fact, they’re innocent victims of police state justice facing an uphill struggle for vindication against a Justice Department determined to convict with dozens of easily manipulated and/or doctored audio and video DVD recordings of supposedly terror-plotting meetings and conversations.
On June 2, a federal grand jury indicted the four men on eight bogus counts:
– "Conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction within the United States"
– Three counts of "Attempt to use weapons of mass destruction within the United States
– Conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles
– Attempt to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles
– Conspiracy to kill officers and employees of the United States (and)
– Attempt to kill officers and employees of the United States"
On May 20, The New York Times described "a painstaking investigation that began in June 2008 involving an FBI agent who had been told by a federal informant of the men’s desire to attack targets in America." No explanation was given about entrapment. Instead The Times highlighted "some of the most significant allegations of domestic terrorism in some time" and expressions of relief by local political leaders, including Charles Schumer, the senator from AIPAC, saying:
"If there can be any good news from this terror scare it’s that this group was relatively unsophisticated, infiltrated early, and not connected to another terrorist group. This incident shows that we must always be vigilant against terrorism – foreign or domestic." The senator said nothing about four innocent men, targeted and framed for a supposed terror plot.
If convicted on all charges, the men face possible life sentences. No trial date so far has been set. All four are in Westchester County Jail without bail.
The North Carolina 7
On July 27, dozens of heavily armed Swat and hostage rescue team members arrested seven North Carolina men on terrorist-related charges, six US citizens and one permanent resident.
The same day Justice Department press release cited Daniel Patrick Boyd, his two sons, Zakariya and Dylan, Hysen Sherifi, Anes Subasic, Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, and Ziyad Yaghi on charges of "conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, main and injure persons abroad." Allegations only were provided. Precise details were omitted.
Earlier on July 22, the federal grand jury indictment listed seven counts:
– "conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists;
– conspiracy to murder, kidnap, main, and injure persons in a foreign country;
– receiving a firearm through interstate commerce;
– possession of a firearm to be used for a crime of violence;
– selling or otherwise disposing of a firearm and ammunition to a person knowing and having reasonable cause to believe was convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;" and
– two counts of false statements.
The DOJ also alleged that "Daniel Boyd is a veteran of terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan who, over the past three years, has conspired with others in this country to recruit and help young men travel overseas in order to kill." Again, no evidence was cited, just supposition-based accusations.
The indictment claimed that from 1989 – 1992, Boyd got "violent jihad" training abroad and "allegedly fought in Afghanistan" against the Soviets. Then from November 2006 through July 2009, he and the other defendants "conspired to provide material support and resources to terrorists, including currency, training, transportation and personnel" along with the other charges in the indictment. As part of the "conspiracy," they "believe(d) that violent jihad was a personal religious obligation," and they "were willing to die as martyrs." An eighth unnamed suspect is also being sought, a man believed to have traveled to Pakistan last year, for what purpose wasn’t indicated.
According to US Attorney George EB Holding:
"These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to the remote regions of some far away land but can grow and fester right her at home. Terrorists and their supporters are relentless and constant in their efforts to hurt and kill innocent people across the globe. We must be equally relentless and constant in our efforts to stop them."
Six of the seven men are being held at a Farmville, VA detention facility. When brought to trial, they’ll face life sentences if convicted on the most serious charges. Yet according to The New York Times:
DOJ officials "said that the men charged on (July 22) were not seen as serious terrorist threats to the United States or American interests abroad, and that there were no indications of ties to Al Qaeda or other militant groups."
The claimed evidence relates solely to concern that they were "amassing a sizable number of automatic weapons, (the fact that Boyd had) foreign fighter experience, (and has) a network of contacts overseas, intending to recruit others who were on the fence."
Yet Attorney General Eric Holder and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano cited the arrests as proof of increased "homegrown terrorism."
On August 5, AP reported that:
"Federal authorities said Tuesday (August 4) the accused ringleader of a group of North Carolina terrorism suspects talked about loving jihad, fighting for Allah and loathing a US military presence at Muslim holy sites."
Writer Mike Baker said FBI Special Agent Michael Sutton claimed Boyd wanted the defendants "to engage in jihad, train on firearms and travel overseas. Sutton said Boyd repeatedly spoke of armor-piercing ammunition and a year ago told a witness about his dislike of the US military in some Middle Eastern lands." According to Boyd, "They’re over there killing our brothers."
In an August 5 Jewish World Review article, self-styled anti-terrorism expert and notorious Islamophobe Steven Emerson played up the prosecution charges of another homegrown terrorist plot using secretly (and perhaps illegally) FBI taped conversations and comments "reported by witnesses," including a voice identified as Boyd saying:
"If I don’t leave this country soon, I am going to make jihad right here in America (and) Allah knows I love jihad."
Emerson said the FBI "found a fatwa, or religious edict, in Boyd’s house saying Muslims have ‘an individual duty to kill Americans and their allies."
Both Emerson and the Justice Department are notorious for manipulating, doctoring, or inventing evidence to incite fear and intimidate juries to convict.
Yet this entire case appears as bogus as others, and this one is even stranger. Throughout the 1980s, the CIA and Pakistani ISI spent billions recruiting and training Afghan mujahedeen (including Osama bin Laden) to wage jihad against the Soviets. Ronald Reagan called them "freedom fighters." Today, they’re "homegrown terrorists" with no apparent proof they plan crimes, just suspicions based on the flimsiest suppositions.
As for Daniel Patrick Boyd, the so-called ringleader, he arrived in Pakistan after the Soviets’ February 1989 withdrawal. Yet the CIA continued to support a civil war against the Kabul government, and beginning in 1977 began working with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a man "responsible for murdering hundreds of dedicated resistance fighters, political workers, and intellectuals (as well as being) a leading figure in the heroin trade," according to Ralph McGehee, a former CIA veteran (from 1952 – 1977) and critic.
In 1977, Hekmatyar founded the Hezb-e-Islami Party of Islam. The CIA backed it with material support and weapons. Boyd arrived in Peshwar, Pakistan in 1989, apparently to work for a Muslim relief organization connected to the movement, not to train and fight as a mujahedeen. But in any event, Washington and the CIA backed the party and his activities.
Now he and the others are called jihadists, the DOJ citing Boyd, his son Zakariya, Yaghi, and Sherifi’s overseas travels as more proof. In March 2006, Boyd and his sons went to Gaza, then to Israel in June 2007 to visit Muslim holy sites. The DOJ claims the first trip was to meet with Palestinians who "believed that violent jihad was a personal religious obligation," and the second to wage "violent jihad," yet no evidence of specific crimes were mentioned or intent to commit them.
In October 2006, Yaghi, it was alleged, went to Jordan for the same reason, and so did Sherifi in July 2008 on a trip to Kosovo after which he "returned to North Carolina in April 2009, for the purpose of soliciting funds and personnel to support the mujahedeen" – the same fighters America backed in Afghanistan, then did again with KLA extremists in NATO/America’s war against Milovesic and Serbia.
Overall, the indictment is as bogus as others. It’s based on suppositions and unfounded claims but no clear evidence of intent to commit or support violent crimes. The defendants are being used to instill fear, justify the Iraq occupation, the escalated offensive in Afghanistan and spillover into Pakistan, and expanded US military presence globally, including on US streets if ordered. It’s happening at a time when we’re all as vulnerable as the Newburgh 4 and North Carolina 7.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday – Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.
Here is the latest statement from the DNC:
