tagged w/ Corruption
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http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/index.php
Brief history
Bilderberg takes its name from the hotel in Holland, where the first meeting took place in May 1954. That pioneering meeting grew out of the concern expressed by leading citizens on both sides of the Atlantic that Western Europe and North America were not working together as closely as they should on common problems of critical importance. It was felt that regular, off-the-record discussions would help create a better understanding of the complex forces and major trends affecting Western nations in the difficult post-war period.
The Cold War has now ended. But in practically all respects there are more, not fewer, common problems - from trade to jobs, from monetary policy to investment, from ecological challenges to the task of promoting international security. It is hard to think of any major issue in either Europe or North America whose unilateral solution would not have repercussions for the other.
Thus the concept of a European-American forum has not been overtaken by time. The dialogue between these two regions is still - even increasingly - critical.
Character of meetings
What is unique about Bilderberg as a forum is
the broad cross-section of leading citizens that are assembled for nearly three days of informal and off-the-record discussion about topics of current concern especially in the fields of foreign affairs and the international economy;
the strong feeling among participants that in view of the differing attitudes and experiences of the Western nations, there remains a clear need to further develop an understanding in which these concerns can be accommodated;
the privacy of the meetings, which has no purpose other than to allow participants to speak their minds openly and freely.
In short, Bilderberg is a small, flexible, informal and off-the-record international forum in which different viewpoints can be expressed and mutual understanding enhanced. Bilderberg's only activity is its annual Conference. At the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued. Since 1954, fifty-nine conferences have been held. For each meeting, the names of the participants as well as the agenda are made Public and available to the press.
Participants
Invitations to Bilderberg conferences are extended by the Chairman following consultation with the Steering Committee members. Participants are chosen for their experience, their knowledge, their standing and their contribution to the selected agenda.
There usually are about 120 participants of whom about two-thirds come from Europe and the balance from North America. About one-third is from government and politics, and two-thirds from finance, industry, labour, education and communications. Participants attend Bilderberg in a private and not an official capacity.
Governance and Funding
Bilderberg is governed by a Steering Committee which designates a Chairman; members are elected for a term of four years and can be re-elected. There are no other members of the Bilderberg conference. The Chair's main responsibilities are to chair the Steering Committee and to prepare with the Steering Committee the conference program, the selection of participants. He also makes suggestions to the Steering Committee regarding its composition. The Executive Secretary reports to the Chairman.
The expenses of maintaining the small Secretariat of the Bilderberg meetings are covered wholly by private subscription. The hospitality costs of the annual meeting are the responsibility of the Steering Committee member(s) of the host country.http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/index.php
Brief history
Bilderberg takes its... more
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This pertains to public corruption that has extended to the 2012 election process. It once again involves Florida. The public should be aware.
http://www.complaints.com/2012/march/14/Corrupt_Judge_David_P._Kreider_now_taints_the_ele_264712.htm (SOURCE)
The above webpage is constantly updated as new developments arise. This is the gateway to some serious corruption and a major cover-up attempt.
FYI, this matter also relates to the “Gibson Case” and the matter has grown to the point that the resultant scandal now involves several people. Some of those involved are as follows:
1
David P. Kreider, Alachua County Court Judge (see http://circuit8.org/kreider )
2
Martha Ann Lott, Ex - Chief Judge for the 8th Judicial Circuit of Florida (see http://circuit8.org/lott ) [Embattled Martha Lott resigned from her chief judge post subsequent to becoming embroiled in this scandal which has started to implode; her resignation was announced on 04/09/2012 and was reported to have gone into effect on 04/05/2012.]
*For information about Martha Lott’s resignation see
-"The Gainesville Sun” article dated 04/09/2012 at http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120409/ARTICLES/120409606
-8th Judicial Circuit of Florida official press release dated 04/10/2012 at https://circuit8.org/web/news/4-10-12%20Chief%20Judge%20Roundtree.pdf
3
Spencer Mann, Chief Investigator for the 8th Judicial Circuit of Florida’s State Attorney’s Office (see http://sao8.org/Chief%20Investigator.htm )
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J.K. “Buddy” Irby, Alachua County Clerk (& Clerk of Court) / Clerk of the Circuit Court for the 8th Judicial Circuit of Florida (see http://www.alachuacounty.us/Depts/Clerk/Pages/Clerk.aspx/ )
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William “Bill” Cervone, State Attorney for the 8th Judicial Circuit of Florida (see http://sao8.org/ABOUT%20WILLIAM%20CERVONE.htm )
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Denise R. Ferrero, Alachua County Court Administrative Judge (see http://circuit8.org/ferrero )
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Ted McFetridge, Court Administrator for the 8th Judicial Circuit of Florida (see http://circuit8.org/court-administrator )
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Robert Roundtree, Chief Judge for the 8th Judicial Circuit of Florida (see http://circuit8.org/roundtree )[he replaced Martha Lott in April 2012 upon her resignation]
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Pam Carpenter, Alachua County Supervisor of Elections (see http://www.myfloridaelections.com/fsasedir.php?detail=Y&County=Alachua )
10
Paula M. DeLaney, Chair of the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners (see http://www.alachuacounty.us/Depts/BOCC/Profiles/Pages/Delaney.aspx )
11
Polly Cheshire, Alachua County Court Program Specialist
Everything stated here and at the above referenced "source webpage" is true and supported by two irrefutable reports and extensive corroborating evidence that is in the possession of agencies, including those within Florida’s 8th Judicial Circuit (and the Chief Judge’s office and Chief Investigator Spencer Mann of the State Attorney's Office). The comprehensive reports and evidence span a total of more than 100 pages and in-depthly detail criminal activities carried out under the color of law by criminal/judge David P. Kreider and various other co-conspirators. As indicated above, serious corruption and a major cover-up attempt is in play.This pertains to public corruption that has extended to the 2012 election process. It... more
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SB100
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1 month ago
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Ten years after 9/11, the National Security Agency (NSA) is close to putting the finishing touches on what will be the single biggest spy center in the country. According to James Bamford of WIRED, this new one million-square foot spy complex in the Utah Desert will actually be capable of monitoring, intercepting and de-encrypting just about any message sent over any communication network in the country. It will be capable of keeping tabs on any civilian in the U.S. or any foreigner visiting the USA. And it will all be hooked up to federal computers in Washington, giving it access to the records and databases of the most powerful government agencies in the country. If all this is starting to sound a lot like Skynet in the Terminator movies, that’s because, well, it is - minus the Schwarzenegger robots, of course.
The sheer amount of data that the NSA – and by extension the CIA, FBI and Pentagon – will be able to collect on both foreigners and its own civilians is staggering. The $2 billion center, which goes by the disarmingly bland name of the Utah Data Center, is the final piece in the puzzle for the Pentagon, which has been attempting to build a Global Information Grid ever since 9/11. Remember the Total Information Awareness program of 2003? Well, it’s now here in physical form – and it’s heavily guarded. In military parlance, it’s not a “soft” target - the facility has been hardened to the point where a 15,000-pound vehicle traveling at 50 miles per hour couldn't muscle its way inside. At its peak, this new surveillance center will be able to handle so much data that the NSA practically had to coin a new word to describe it: yottabytes. There are so many servers running this system that the annual cooling costs are estimated to be $40 million.
That’s quite an electricity bill for a "data center."
That's because this federal spy center goes far beyond what’s already being collected about us online, to explore the “Deep Web” that’s all but invisible to typical search engines. The spy center will also delve into the world of code-breaking and reverse-encryption. Even things that we think are far beyond any type of cyber-penetration will be readily available to the powers-that-be. That’s where things get downright scary. We assume that spambots and spiders slither behind us everywhere we go online, but what do we really know about all the other information that is being tracked about us? What information is being collected about us by security monitors in the streets and satellites overhead? The scope of what's being collected by the NSA is breathlessly thorough in detail, reaching into every area of our lives:
"Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy."
This digital "pocket litter" that each of us leaves behind us may sound harmless – but that's until all of this highly unstructured data gets dumped into a supercomputing capable of mining all this data and producing patterns and insights. This “pocket litter” is no longer trash once it can be used to construct ever-more precise profiles of everyday civilians and predict future behaviors.
“Cybersecurity” and “the war on terror” are handy little buzzwords for enabling governments to extend their cyber-surveillance over every aspect of our lives. At the end of the day, pure democracy and absolute authoritarianism are really just flip sides of the same coin. This is precisely why dystopian novels such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We are so terrifying. Authoritarian regimes always start out with a willingness to help - not enslave - its civilians. War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. A government that claims to protect its citizens by spying on them is a government that needs to be watched, monitored and held under strict surveillance by its own citizens.
http://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/we-just-built-skynet-in-the-desert-now-whatTen years after 9/11, the National Security Agency (NSA) is close to putting the... more
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The Occupy Wall Street movement was created to combat corporate power but has since evolved. Police brutality took center stage when New York City police officers pepper-sprayed peaceful protesters, and since then a retired Philadelphia police captain has come forth to bridge the gap between protesters and law enforcement. Ray Lewis is in the process of potentially being stripped of his union benefits for protesting in his uniform, and he joins us with more on why he feels that it is necessary for him to speak out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gZOPKs830o&feature=g-all-uThe Occupy Wall Street movement was created to combat corporate power but has since... more
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Story at-a-glance
A common form of bribery in the Halls of Congress is to secretly promise a politician (or one of his key staffers) a high-paying position as a lobbyist once they leave office. According to a recent investigation into 12 lawmakers-turned-lobbyist, politicians increased their salary by an average of 1,452 percent from the last year they were in office
In an explosive 60-Minutes’ report aired last year, former lobbyist Jack Abramoff revealed just how effective this form of bribery was. He would primarily target Chief’s of Staff with job offers, ultimately giving him profound power of influence over more than 100 congressional offices
The US political system is fatally flawed. It is run by bribery, and it cannot be fixed through reform efforts, because those creating the reforms are the very people affected by them
In order to have even a remote chance of ending this kind of corruption, all members of Congress and their staff must be prohibited from ever becoming a lobbyist after their service on the Hill is over
full article at link...Story at-a-glance
A common form of bribery in the Halls of Congress is to secretly... more
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The recession didn't gut the prospects of American young people. The Baby Boomers took care of that.
Twenty-five years ago young Americans had a chance.
In 1984, American breadwinners who were sixty-five and over made ten times as much as those under thirty-five. The year Obama took office, older Americans made almost forty-seven times as much as the younger generation.
This bleeding up of the national wealth is no accounting glitch, no anomalous negative bounce from the recent unemployment and mortgage crises, but rather the predictable outcome of thirty years of economic and social policy that has been rigged to serve the comfort and largesse of the old at the expense of the young.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, human potential has been consistently growing, generating greater material wealth, more education, wider opportunities — a vast and glorious liberation of human potential. In all that time, everyone, even followers of the most corrupt or most evil of ideologies, believed they were working for a better tomorrow. Not now. The angel of progress has suddenly vanished from the scene. Or rather, the angel of progress has been sent away.
Nobody ever talks about generational conflict. Who wants to bring up that the old are eating the young at the dinner table? How are you going to mention that to your boss? If you're a politician, how are you going to tell your donors? Even the Occupy Wall Street crowd, while rejecting the modes and rhetoric and institutional support of Boomer progressives, shied away from articulating the fundamental distinction that fills their spaces with crowds: young against old.
The gerontocracy begins at the top. The 111th Congress was the oldest since the end of the Second World War, and the average age of its members has been rising steadily since 1981. The graying of Congress has obvious political ramifications, although generalizations can be deceiving. The Republican representatives tend to be younger than the Democrats, but that doesn't mean they represent the interests of the young. The youngest senators are Tea Party members, Mike Lee from Utah and Marco Rubio from Florida (both forty). Here's Rubio: "Americans chose a free-enterprise system designed to provide a quality of opportunity, not compel a quality of results. And that is why this is the only place in the world where you can open up a business in the spare bedroom of your home." He is speaking to people who own homes that have empty spare bedrooms. He will not or cannot understand that the spare bedrooms of America are filling up with returning adult children, like the estimated 85 percent of college graduates who returned to their childhood beds in 2010, toting along $25,250 of debt.
David Frum, former George W. Bush speechwriter, had the guts to acknowledge that the Tea Party's combination of expensive entitlement programs and tax cuts is something entirely different from a traditional political program: "This isn't conservatism: It's a going-out-of-business sale for the Baby Boom generation." The economic motive is growing ever more naked, and has nothing to do with any principle that could be articulated by Goldwater or Reagan, or indeed with any principle at all. The political imperative is to preserve the economic cloak of unreality that the Boomers have wrapped themselves in.
Democrats may not be actively hostile to the interests of young voters, but they are too scared and weak to speak up for them. So when the Boomers and swing voters scream for fiscal discipline and the hard decisions have to be made, youth is collateral damage. Medicare and Social Security were mostly untouched in Obama's 2012 budget. But to show he was really serious about belt tightening, relatively cheap programs that help young people like the Adolescent Family Life Program and the Career Pathways Innovation Fund were killed.
His intentions may be good — he may want to increase support for AmeriCorps — but the program shrunk last year. Three quarters of the applicants were turned away. He resisted Republican efforts to slash Pell grants by $845 per student, but then made other changes to the program that will save the government — or cost students, depending on your perspective — a projected $100 billion over ten years.
The youth vote still supports Obama, but in a chastened, conditional way. In hindsight, Obama's 2008 campaign looks like an indulgent fantasy in which the major conflicts in life simply don't exist. There may be no white America and no black America, no blue-state America and no red-state America, but one thing is clear: There is a young America and there is an old America, and they don't form a community of interest. One takes from the other. The federal government spends $480 billion on Medicare and $68 billion on education. Prescription drugs: $62 billion. Head Start: $8 billion. Across the board, the money flows not to helping the young grow up, but helping the old die comfortably. According to a 2009 Brookings Institution study, "The United States spends 2.4 times as much on the elderly as on children, measured on a per capita basis, with the ratio rising to 7 to 1 if looking just at the federal budget."
The biggest boondoggle of all is Social Security. The management of entitlement programs, already weighted heavily in favor of the older population, has a very specific terminal point that coincides neatly with the Boomers' deaths. The 2011 report by the Social Security trustees estimates that, under its current administration, the fund will run out in 2036, so there's just enough to get the oldest Boomers to age ninety.
Continued at: http://www.esquire.com/features/young-people-in-the-recession-0412The recession didn't gut the prospects of American young people. The Baby Boomers... more
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Documents Show How White House and Democrats Worked to Protect the Banks Against Protests. A new trove of heavily redacted documents provided by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) on behalf of filmmaker Michael Moore and the National Lawyers Guild makes it increasingly evident that there was and is a nationally coordinated campaign to disrupt and crush the Occupy Movement.
The new documents, which PCJF National Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard insists “are likely only a subset of responsive materials,” in the possession of federal law enforcement agencies, only “scratch the surface of a mass intelligence network including Fusion Centers, saturated with ‘anti-terrorism’ funding, that mobilizes thousands of local and federal officers and agents to investigate and monitor the social justice movement.”
Nonetheless, blacked-out and limited though they are, she says they offer clues to the extent of the government’s concern about and focus on the wave of occupations that spread across the country beginning with last September’s Occupy Wall Street action in New York City.
Full Story: http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/14/did-the-white-house-direct-the-police-crackdown-on-occupy/Documents Show How White House and Democrats Worked to Protect the Banks Against... more
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U.S. and Yemeni officials say the supposed would-be bomber at the heart of an al-Qaida airliner plot was actually an informant working for the CIA.
The revelation, first reported by The Los Angeles Times, shows how the CIA was able to get its hands on a sophisticated underwear bomb well before an attack was set in motion.
Officials say the informant was working for the CIA and Saudi Arabian intelligence when he was given the bomb. He then turned the device over to authorities. Officials say the informant is safely out of Yemen.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive intelligence matter.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/08/al-qaeda-bomb-plot-bomber-cia-informant_n_1501340.htmlU.S. and Yemeni officials say the supposed would-be bomber at the heart of an al-Qaida... more
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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who's Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.
The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington's biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.
Both the Justice Department and Covington declined to say if either official had personally worked on matters for the big mortgage industry clients. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Holder and Breuer had complied fully with conflict of interest regulations, but she declined to say if they had recused themselves from any matters related to the former clients.
Reuters reported in December that under Holder and Breuer, the Justice Department hasn't brought any criminal cases against big banks or other companies involved in mortgage servicing, even though copious evidence has surfaced of apparent criminal violations in foreclosure cases.
The evidence, including records from federal and state courts and local clerks' offices around the country, shows widespread forgery, perjury, obstruction of justice, and illegal foreclosures on the homes of thousands of active-duty military personnel.
In recent weeks the Justice Department has come under renewed pressure from members of Congress, state and local officials and homeowners' lawyers to open a wide-ranging criminal investigation of mortgage servicers, the biggest of which have been Covington clients. So far Justice officials haven't responded publicly to any of the requests.
While Holder and Breuer were partners at Covington, the firm's clients included the four largest U.S. banks - Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co - as well as at least one other bank that is among the 10 largest mortgage servicers.
DEFENDER OF FREDDIE
Servicers perform routine mortgage maintenance tasks, including filing foreclosures, on behalf of mortgage owners, usually groups of investors who bought mortgage-backed securities.
Covington represented Freddie Mac, one of the nation's biggest issuers of mortgage backed securities, in enforcement investigations by federal financial regulators.
A particular concern by those pressing for an investigation is Covington's involvement with Virginia-based MERS Corp, which runs a vast computerized registry of mortgages. Little known before the mortgage crisis hit, MERS, which stands for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, has been at the center of complaints about false or erroneous mortgage documents.
Court records show that Covington, in the late 1990s, provided legal opinion letters needed to create MERS on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and several other large banks. It was meant to speed up registration and transfers of mortgages. By 2010, MERS claimed to own about half of all mortgages in the U.S. -- roughly 60 million loans.
But evidence in numerous state and federal court cases around the country has shown that MERS authorized thousands of bank employees to sign their names as MERS officials. The banks allegedly drew up fake mortgage assignments, making it appear falsely that they had standing to file foreclosures, and then had their own employees sign the documents as MERS "vice presidents" or "assistant secretaries."
Covington in 2004 also wrote a crucial opinion letter commissioned by MERS, providing legal justification for its electronic registry. MERS spokeswoman Karmela Lejarde declined to comment on Covington legal work done for MERS.
It isn't known to what extent if any Covington has continued to represent the banks and other mortgage firms since Holder and Breuer left. Covington declined to respond to questions from Reuters. A Covington spokeswoman said the firm had no comment.
Several lawyers for homeowners have said that even if Holder and Breuer haven't violated any ethics rules, their ties to Covington create an impression of bias toward the firms' clients, especially in the absence of any prosecutions by the Justice Department.
O. Max Gardner III, a lawyer who trains other attorneys to represent homeowners in bankruptcy court foreclosure actions, said he attributes the Justice Department's reluctance to prosecute the banks or their executives to the Obama White House's view that it might harm the economy.
But he said that the background of Holder and Breuer at Covington -- and their failure to act on foreclosure fraud or publicly recuse themselves -- "doesn't pass the smell test."
Federal ethics regulations generally require new government officials to recuse themselves for one year from involvement in matters involving clients they personally had represented at their former law firms.
President Obama imposed additional restrictions on appointees that essentially extended the ban to two years. For Holder, that ban would have expired in February 2011, and in April for Breuer. Rules also require officials to avoid creating the appearance of a conflict.
Schmaler, the Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that "The Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General Breuer have conformed with all financial, legal and ethical obligations under law as well as additional ethical standards set by the Obama Administration."
She said they "routinely consult" the department's ethics officials for guidance. Without offering specifics, Schmaler said they "have recused themselves from matters as required by the law."
Senior government officials often move to big Washington law firms, and lawyers from those firms often move into government posts. But records show that in recent years the traffic between the Justice Department and Covington & Burling has been particularly heavy. In 2010, Holder's deputy chief of staff, John Garland, returned to Covington, as did Steven Fagell, who was Breuer's deputy chief of staff in the criminal division.
The firm has on its web site a page listing its attorneys who are former federal government officials. Covington lists 22 from the Justice Department, and 12 from U.S. Attorneys offices, the Justice Department's local federal prosecutors' offices around the country.
As Reuters reported in 2011, public records show large numbers of mortgage promissory notes with apparently forged endorsements that were submitted as evidence to courts.
There also is evidence of almost routine manufacturing of false mortgage assignments, documents that transfer ownership of mortgages between banks or to groups of investors. In foreclosure actions in courts mortgage assignments are required to show that a bank has the legal right to foreclose.
In an interview in late 2011, Raymond Brescia, a visiting professor at Yale Law School who has written about foreclosure practices said, "I think it's difficult to find a fraud of this size on the U.S. court system in U.S. history."
Holder has resisted calls for a criminal investigation since October 2010, when evidence of widespread "robo-signing" first surfaced. That involved mortgage servicer employees falsely signing and swearing to massive numbers of affidavits and other foreclosure documents that they had never read or checked for accuracy.
Concludes at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/20/eric-holder-banks-lanny-breuer_n_1218452.htmlU.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice... more
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"Sadly I agree, we are no longer worthwhile Americans, we are simply a commodity!!!"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101726198
"So how do we turn this around??? Any Suggestions Folks???""Sadly I agree, we are no longer worthwhile Americans, we are simply a... more
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KB723
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25 days ago
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President Obama knows that agribusiness cannot be trusted with the policy and regulatory powers of government. On the campaign trail in 2007, he promised:
"We'll tell ConAgra that it's not the Department of Agribusiness. It's the Department of Agriculture. We're going to put the people's interests ahead of the special interests."
But, starting with his choice for USDA Secretary, the pro-biotech former governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack, President Obama has let Monsanto, Dupont and the other pesticide and genetic engineering companies know they'll have plenty of friends and supporters within his administration.
President Obama has taken his team of food and farming leaders directly from the biotech companies and their lobbying, research, and philanthropic arms.
Michael Taylor, former Monsanto Vice President, is now the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods.
Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto-funded Danforth Plant Science Center, is now the director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Islam Siddiqui, Vice President of the Monsanto and Dupont-funded pesticide-promoting lobbying group, CropLife, is now the Agriculture Negotiator for the US Trade Representative.
Rajiv Shah, former agricultural-development director for the pro-biotech Gates Foundation (a frequent Monsanto partner), served as Obama's USDA Under Secretary for Research Education and Economics and Chief Scientist and is now head of USAID.
Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who took Monsanto's side against organic farmers in the Roundup Ready alfalfa case, has been nominated to the Supreme Court.
Now, Ramona Romero, corporate counsel to DuPont, has been nominated by President Obama to serve as General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
DuPont's lengthy record of lies, crimes and misdeeds are well known, and the company's efforts to deceive the public and cover-up risks of its products continue to this day.
Corporate Crime Daily reports:
DuPont brought genetically engineered "Bt" crops to market, despite concerns raised by scientists, environmentalists and organic growers who noted that the Bt crops threaten to destroy the usefulness of Bt sprays, valued by many as the world's safest and most important biological pesticide.
Genetically engineered Bt is not the same as the long-used Bt sprays. It is an activated, high-dose toxin. DuPont claims its Bt products are safe, but there is evidence that Bt crops can trigger allergies and there have been many reports of sickness and death in animals exposed to Bt crops.
Installing a DuPont lawyer at the USDA would create a terrible conflict that would no doubt be resolved in favor of this powerful company rather than the people's interest in food safety, public health and environmental sustainability.
President Obama should stand by his promise, and withdraw his nomination of Ramona Romero, or the Senate should refuse to confirm it. This would be a positive step in turning the Department of Agribusiness back into the Department of Agriculture.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ronnie-cummins/the-unholy-alliance-monsa_b_642385.htmlPresident Obama knows that agribusiness cannot be trusted with the policy and... more
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Uncle Sam, in a desperate attempt to fix its $16 trillion-plus deficit, is leering over Americans’ retirement nest egg as its new bailout fund.
Capitol Hill politicians are assessing tax changes that could let the Internal Revenue Service lay claim to a portion of the $18 trillion sitting in 401(k) accounts and other tax breaks used by middle-class workers, including cutting the mortgage tax deduction.
A commission looking for ways to close the deficit, and, noting the extent of 401(k) tax breaks, recommends an examination of the system as one way to prevent government bankruptcy.Besides 401(k)s, other possibilities include the mortgage-interest deduction on second homes, as well as benefits from employer-provided health insurance, which are untaxed now.
Under current 401(k) rules, total employee/employer contributions can’t exceed $50,000. In the proposed rule change, employer/employee contributions would be limited to 20 percent of the employee’s compensation, with a maximum of $20,000, the so-called 20/20 proposal.
Another proposal being discussed in Congress says all tax deductions on 401(k)s and IRAs to be replaced with an 18 percent credit. The credit, according to a proposal that has been endorsed by economist William Gale, would be placed directly in a person’s retirement account.
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Why cut the deficit by shutting down the imperialism of The Powers That Be when you can just steal more money from working Americans?
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/2074/650/Gold_Confiscation_Internal_Revenue_Service_Lays_Claim_To_18_Trillion_Sitting_In_401_k_Accounts.htmlUncle Sam, in a desperate attempt to fix its $16 trillion-plus deficit, is leering... more
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In Public School, we were all indoctrinated with the moral standard of absolute right & wrong. [e.g. Washington – I cannot tell a lie, I chopped down the cherry tree] And, we are led to believe that the vast majority of Americans, Especially our political leaders and Judges subscribe to that same high moral standard.
However, unless you have made repeated trips to the belly of the beast, you really can’t understand how our Government works (or doesn’t work). You only know politicians from handshaking, baby kissing, campaign ads and waving in parades. And of course, from what you were taught in public school.
Based on this, rank and file Americans assume that most politicians are good people with the best interests of WE THE PEOPLE at heart. And so, what this author is about to tell you may be hard to accept.
When you go into the belly of the beast and push an agenda or issue the politicians don’t like, you soon see another side of politicians.
Politicians to not subscribe to, nor practice a moral standard of
absolute right and wrong; Instead they practice a moral standard of
“Plausibly Deniabiliyt”. In essence, if you can’t prove it, they didn’t do it.
After a long wait, a sequence of events has occurred which is easy to
understand and serve as proofs to various assertions this writer has
made in this article and in previous articles. Among these are that the
Minnesota Judiciary and Legislature are systemically corrupt.
SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
For 20 years, this writer has pursued an agenda of Judicial TAR
(Transparency, Accountability and Reform) Over the past 7 years, with
the rising popularity of the internet; hundreds of Minnesotans have
found other like minded individuals. We have become organized.
For these past coming on 8 years, these hundreds of Minnesotans have
demanded to exercise their constitutional 1st Amendment Right to
petition the Government for redress of grievances. We have wanted to
give testimony and evidence of corruption in the Minnesota Judiciary.
The Minnesota State House and Senate Judiciary Committee chairpersons
for the now coming on 8 years have denied hundreds of Minnesotans said
hearings.
Having identified this writer as one of the Leaders of the Minnesota
Judicial TAR movement, various Legislatures and judges determined to
engage in unlawful and unconstitutional reprisal. There intent was to
demonize and discredit this writer in a similar manner of the FBI’s
operation COINTELPRO against Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:
FINAL REPORT OF THE
SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS
WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES TO
UNITED STATES SENATE
“From December 1963 until his death in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was the target of....
To continue reading for free click here DANCING WITH SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION – KURT ZELLERS, SPEAKER OF THE MINNESOTA HOUSE http://shar.es/rV7Cu
Those were my thoughts.
In Closing:
Thank you, my fellow citizens, for taking your valuable time to read and reflect upon what is written here.
Please join with me in mutually pledging to each other and our fellow
citizens our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to our mutual
endeavors of restoring liberty and economic opportunity to WE THE PEOPLE
as our Founding Fathers envisioned and intended. [Last paragraph,
Declaration of Independence http://bit.ly/ruPE7z ]
This article is written with the same intentions as Thomas Paine http://ushistory.org/paine. I seek no leadership role. I seek only to help the American People find their own way using their own “Common Sense” http://amzn.to/kbRuar
TellMyPolitician http://goo.gl/1FWfz
Keep Fighting the Good Fight!
In Liberty,
Don Mashak
The Cynical Patriot
http://twitter.com/dmashak
Google Plus http://goo.gl/1AUrE
http://Facebook/Don.Mashak
WE THE PEOPLE TAR
http://WETHEPEOPLETAR.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/WETHEPEOPLETAR
End the Fed(eral Reserve Bank System)
National http://bit.ly/ta3Rju Minneapolis http://bit.ly/tjZJKF
Lawless America
http://LawlessAmerica.com
Justice in Minnesota #JIM
http://JusticeinMN.com
Bring Home the Politicians #BHTP
http://BringHomethePoliticians.com
Get out of our House #GOOOH
http://GOOOH.com
Critical Thinking Notice - This author advises you as no politician would dare. Exercise Critical Thinking (http://bit.ly/ubI6ve) in determining the truthfulness of anything you read or hear. Do not passively accept nor believe anything anyone tells you, including this author... unless and until you verify it yourself with sources you trust and could actively defend your perspective to anyone who might debate
you to the contrary of your perspective.In Public School, we were all indoctrinated with the moral standard of absolute right... more
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By Lisa Rein and Ed O’Keefe, Published: April 16
The inspector general for the General Services Administration said Monday that he is investigating possible bribery and kickbacks in the agency, as lawmakers accused the former GSA administrator of allowing a Las Vegas spending scandal to erode taxpayers’ trust in government.
Inspector General Brian Miller told a congressional committee scrutinizing an $823,000 Las Vegas conference that his office has asked the Justice Department to investigate “all sorts of improprieties” surrounding the 2010 event, “including bribes, including possible kickbacks.” He did not provide details.
(more at link to the washington post)By Lisa Rein and Ed O’Keefe, Published: April 16
The inspector general for... more
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Mounting troubles at Japan’s hobbled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant now pose a real threat to human survival. If the area in which Unit 4 is struck by another 7.0 magnitude earthquake, there’s a 70 percent chance that “the entire fuel pool structure will collapse” and massive doses of lethal nuclear radiation will be released into the atmosphere. The disaster would release approximately “134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at Chernobyl as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP).” Experts believe that the amounts are sufficient to “destroy the world environment and our civilization”, which makes containment “an issue of human survival.” (“The Greatest Single Threat to Humanity: Fuel Pool Number 4“, Washington’s blog)
The structural integrity of Unit 4′s cooling pool was greatly compromised by the earthquake and following tsunami which struck the facility over a year ago. At present, the pools are not adequately protected or reinforced, which means that a sizable tremor could “cause a disaster worse than the three reactor meltdowns.” If such a disaster were to occur, “people should get out of Japan, and residents of the West Coast of America and Canada should shut all of their windows and stay inside,” says nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen.
While the danger to life and the environment pose the greatest single national security threat the United States has faced since WW2, the Obama administration has provided little aid to the emergency effort. Japan is largely “going it alone” trying to cobble together a plan to safely store the spent fuel and minimize the risks to public safety.
On March 8, 2012, Dr. Hiroaki Koide, Research Associate at the Research Reactor Institute of Kyoto University, gave his bleak assessment of the situation on the Japanese a news program called, “Morning Bird”. Koide explained how 1,500 rods are presently located in a “fuel pool” that has been severely damaged. The rods have to be cooled constantly or a “huge amount of radiation contained in the spent fuel will be released outside”. If an earthquake hits and undermines the pool, the coolant will exit the pool, the rods will melt and radioactive plumes will rise into the atmosphere. Koide explained that the rods could not be safely removed from the existing pool because “if you hoist them up in the air, huge amount of radiation will come out from the spent fuel and people nearby will die.”
One of the journalists on “Morning Bird” asked Koide what would happen if the Unit was struck by another earthquake?
Koide answered, “That will be the end.”
“The end,” the journalist asked, visibly shaken?
“The end,” Koide repeated emphatically.
(“Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 4: An earthquake before spent fuel rods are moved to safe storage would be “the end”, Lambert Strether, Naked Capitalism)
Now, check this out:
“Japan’s former Ambassador to Switzerland, Mr. Mitsuhei Murata… strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4—with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground—collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but it will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4. In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. … Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries.”
(“Fukushima Daiichi Site: Cesium-137 is 85 times greater than at Chernobyl Accident”, akiomatsumura.com)
Murata’s concerns have been brought to the attention of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to high-ranking officials in the Obama administration and EU, and to leaders around the world. The reaction has basically been the same everywhere, which is, “It’s Japan’s problem. Let them deal with it.”
There is no way to overstate the media’s complicity in concealing critical information about the tragedy that is presently unfolding at Fukushima. If there is another earthquake, the media will certainly be every bit as responsible as the government officials who saw the danger, but chose to do nothing.
Now you may be asking yourself, why is RTV covering this and not Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, or any other bullshit corporate owned propaganda machine?
A SHORT HISTORY OF US GOVERNMENT RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE
PUBLIC LAW 95-79 [P.L. 95-79]
TITLE 50, CHAPTER 32, SECTION 1520
“CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE PROGRAM”
“The use of human subjects will be allowed for the testing of chemical and biological agents by the U.S. Department of Defense, accounting to Congressional committees with respect to the experiments and studies.”
“The Secretary of Defense [may] conduct tests and experiments involving the use of chemical and biological [warfare] agents on civilian populations [within the United States].”
-SOURCE-
Public Law 95-79, Title VIII, Sec. 808, July 30, 1977, 91 Stat. 334. In U.S. Statutes-at-Large, Vol. 91, page 334, you will find Public Law 95-79. Public Law 97-375, title II, Sec. 203(a)(1), Dec. 21, 1982, 96 Stat. 1882. In U.S. Statutes-at-Large, Vol. 96, page 1882, you will find Public Law 97-375.
DOES OUR GOVERNMENT RESPECT HUMAN LIFE?
The following list comes from declassified documents, news reports, videos, the National Archives, and from the final report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments.
Continue reading!
http://rezn8d.net/2012/04/20/fukushima-is-about-to-blow-and-nobody-gives-a-damn-about-you/
Video references in commentsMounting troubles at Japan’s hobbled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant now... more
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Fiberglass is highly common in not only homes and schools, but it can also be found in consumer items like toothpaste and certain medications. Beyond that, it could occupy the air you breathe. And thanks to one report that asserts the safety of the substance — which a leading organization is now calling fraudulent and outright wrong — fiberglass is still being used on a major scale.
Fiberglass was nominated as a leading safety issue on the synthetic mineral fiber list for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) back in 1994. It was even documented as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen” by the National Institutes of Health in its 2011 “Report on Carcinogens.”
So why is it still so prominent in your daily life? One final report by the NIH dismissed all of the previous findings and concerns, saying that there was “no evidence of carcinogenicity” surrounding fiberglass.
A curious result, as the previous evidence had already suggested a link between fiberglass and cancer – a result that the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA), a major organization in the fight for toxin-free air, says is based on faulty information. The group asserts that the formula the EPA and NIH examined to determine whether or not fiberglass poses a cancer risk was seriously diluted, making fiberglass appear to be safe. The result is the OSHA listing fiberglass as ‘safe’ for workers, and allowing them heavy exposure on a daily basis.According to the agency in their report:
In assessing the cancer risks related to the source category, EPA used long-term concentrations affecting the most highly exposed census block for each facility. This analysis dilutes the effect of sources’ emissions by estimating the impact at the centroid of the census block instead of at the property line or wherever the maximum exposed individual is.
The information is particularly concerning for workers who may be handling fiberglass products on a daily basis, and are unaware of the associated risks.
With the call by the NACAA to government agencies to re-examine the skewed results regarding cancer-linked fiberglass, some serious changes may soon come about that the OSHA is forced to pick up on.
http://www.freedominfonetwork.org/profiles/blogs/major-group-says-government-diluted-fiberglass-cancer-resultsFiberglass is highly common in not only homes and schools, but it can also be found in... more
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Rocky Anderson is very much aware of the "spoiler effect" that a third party candidate can have in an election. But he is also aware of how much influence a third party candidate can have.
After much thought, the former mayor of Salt Lake City created the Justice Party, and he aims to stir up a revolutionary campaign that rests on social media and grassroots organizing rather than big money.
"Every major public policy disaster in this Country is attributable to the corrupting influence of money," Anderson told Patch during a round of talks and meetings in Santa Cruz.
Backed by Ralph Nader, Anderson believes that there must be an end to what he calls authoritarianism and plutocracy in the United States.
...
India Joze owner Jozseph Schultz thought Rocky was more than a spoiler. He was someone who could wake up a lackluster party.
“It doesn’t even matter if he wins, we need to put pressure on the Democrats from the left,” he said.
Patch: What can you say to young people who are discouraged by politics and feel powerless and betrayed by the President Obama's failure to follow through with promises he made before taking office?
Anderson: I think he [Obama] had an extremely detrimental effect on people, particularly younger people, just getting involved in politics, because they all had real hope, and now realize they’ve been completely betrayed.
Once we resign ourselves and become inactive to the point of complacency, then we become part of the problem. There have been very discouraging moments in the nation’s history where passionate, determined people rose up and said ‘we’re not going to take this anymore,” and they made incredible changes, all for the better. And we can do it again.
Patch: Mitt Romney ran for Governor of Massachussettes as a "Pro-Choice" politician, and now he is anti-choice. President Obama promised to close Guantanamo Bay but never did. I have to ask, what makes you any different from these other candidates who made promises they could not follow through with once in office?
Anderson: That’s a really good question. I’ve always said that instead of looking at peoples’ promises during campaigns, and getting sucked in by slogans like “Hope” and "Change," take a look at what they’ve done with their lives, what they’ve committed themselves to do, what their core is, why they’re doing what they’re doing, and all I would say is my record’s there for anybody to examine.
I was president of the board of the Utah Civil Liberties Union, I was on the board of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, I was on the board of Common Cause fighting for campaign finance reform, and a ban on lobbyist gifts to legislators. This was all on my own time.
When I was mayor I was fighting against invasion and occupation of Iraq even before the invasion, and I continued with my efforts throughout the Bush administration and into the Obama administration. I was the only major city mayor who advocated impeachment of President Bush, and I didn’t do that just in one speech, I actively pursued that all around the country.
Patch: What about the war on drugs?
Anderson: I think the war on drugs is a total failure, betrayal of the interests of everybody involved, except for the cartels, it’s really good for them. If we treated illicit drugs the same way we do alcohol and tobacco, regulate it, tax it, and treat all substance abuse as a public health problem rather than a criminal justice problem, the cartels aren’t around anymore, because they have nothing to sell. Just as the mob disintegrated in large part, after alcohol prohibition is eliminated.
We’d be emptying a lot of our prisons and jails, police that are making busts wouldn’t be facing the threat of violence that they face today. There was another police officer I read about today who was just killed, and we’ve had several officers killed recently in Utah, on a drug bust. None of this makes any sense, we’re spending billions of dollars on drug intervention, on source control, and putting people away in prisons and jails for insanely long terms.
I’m a firm believer in making public policy on the basis of the real evidence, rather than peoples’ prejudices.
Instead of being worried about whether people like you, or whether you’re going to be re elected the next time around, worrying that you did the right thing, trying to provide real leadership rather than get led around by the polls.
Patch: If you had to choose between Romney or Obama, who would you choose?
Anderson: That’s not as easy of a response as you might think. Because with President Obama in the White House, he has basically neutered the Democratic Party as an opposition party.
If we had George Bush, or Mitt Romney in office, I don’t think they would have been able to sign off on the NDAA Provision allowing the indefinite detention of anybody including U.S. citizens, without charges, trials, legal representation, or the right of habeus corpus. We basically have no opposition party in this country that will stand up to these kinds of abuses. That legislation is the most Anti-American, subversive piece of legislation ever signed into law. And yet we don’t have a major political party standing up against it?
I think if we had a Republican president in office, the Democratic Party would be standing up in opposition, and I think people would have been out in the streets making sure that wasn’t able to be passed into law. The same thing with targeting U.S. citizens for assassination.
We’ve now become a country that can send unmanned drones targeting United States citizens with zero due proccess. And we’ve killed U.S. citizens: Almar Alawaki, we knew that he was on an assassination list. And that made it into a few newspapers, it wasn’t front page headline news the way it should have been, but then two weeks later, his 16-year-old son, was also killed by an unmanned drone. You didn’t read about that in the newspapers. He was also a U.S. citizen.
It’s a very, very different country than the one that I grew up in, the one that I was so proud of as distinguishing itself from these civil and human rights abusing tiranies elsewhere.
Patch: Finally, your campaign hopes to seek its momentum through social networking and grass roots. I’m wondering what your inspirations are and how you think a campaign could actually work without being backed by big money?
Anderson: Well I think the greatest inspiration can be drawn from the Arab uprising. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, there were people that felt so strongly about changing their country that they put their lives on the line, organized in grassroots and they utilized the democratized means of social media. We’re certainly capable of that in this country, to overthrow the dictatorship of corrupting money. If we have the will. If people simply embrace the possibility and envision what we can really achieve together.
There’s also a lot of inspiration to take from our own nation’s history, social projects like the antislavery movement, the womens suffrage movements, civil rights movement. There was a lot of money on the other side of those movements, and yet they succeeded, because the grass roots were willing to hang in there and fight until they accomplished their objectives.
If we really mean what we say about getting the government back from the worst it’s ever been in terms of being beholden to those who pay for elections, and throw millions upon millions of dollars at their lobbyists, we can do it.
But it’s going to take organizing, it’s going to take everybody playing their part. Nobody can sit back and just expect others to do it. And nobody can just sit back and say “Well, I’m so disappointed and so cynical about it I’m not going to take part in it anymore.”
Full article and interview at:
http://santacruz.patch.com/articles/presidential-candidate-ross-rocky-anderson-visits-santa-cruzRocky Anderson is very much aware of the "spoiler effect" that a third party... more
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