Blogger's Note: As I cruise the (mostly liberal) internet news and opinion sites, I seem to be finding more and more unworkable solutions proposed to solve non-existant, unimportant, or insoluable-due-to-partisan-bickering problems. To get a grip on the REAL problems facing We the American People, I keep returning to the columns of (Republican) economist Paul Craig Roberts. Today's message is really scary, but it seems far better to know what's afoot than to bury our heads in the sand.

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In Amerika Law No Longer Exists: the extermination of truth — Paul Craig Roberts

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January 31, 2013  |  Original Here

In the 21st century Americans have experienced an extraordinary collapse in the rule of law and in their constitutional protections. Today American citizens, once a free people protected by law, can be assassinated and detained in prison indefinitely without any evidence being presented to a court of their guilt, and they can be sentenced to prison on the basis of secret testimony by anonymous witnesses not subject to cross examination. The US “justice system” has been transformed by the Bush/Obama regime into the ”justice system” of Gestapo Germany and Stalinist Russia. There is no difference.

In an article available here: http://www.wrmea.org/wrmea-archives/541-washington-report-archives-2011-2015/january-february-2013/11611-why-all-americans-should-care-about-the-holy-land-foundation-case/ Stephen Downs, formerly Chief Attorney with the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct and Kathy Manley, a criminal defense attorney and member of the New York Civil Liberties Union, report on how the US government destroyed a charity, the Holy Land Foundation, which provided money for feeding the poor and for building schools and hospitals in Palestine.

The charity, aware of the perils of being based in the US and doing anything for Palestinians, relied on the US State Department and the US Department of Justice (sic) for guidance on where to send humanitarian aid. The charity sent its aid to the same aid committees in Palestine that the US Agency for International Development and the UN used to distribute aid to the Palestinians.

In the first trial of the Holy Land Foundation, the US government admitted that none of the charity’s donations had gone to terrorist organizations, and the federal prosecutors failed to achieve a conviction. So the prosecutors tried the charity again.

In the second trial, the judge permitted the prosecutors to call an “anonymous expert” to tell the jury that some of the committees used by USAID and the UN and approved by the US Department of State were controlled by Hamas, the elected government of Palestine that Israel requires the US government to brand as “terrorist.”

As Downs and Manley point out, an “anonymous expert” cannot “be challenged because he is unknown.” There cannot be a cross examination. The “expert” could be anyone–someone paid to lie to the jury, a Jew who believes all help to Palestinians comprises “aid to terrorists,” or a member of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service that has throughly infiltrated the US according to US intelligence experts.

Injustices are everywhere, the authors admit, so why is this important to you? The answer is that the due process clause of the US Constitution requires that criminal laws give fair notice as to what conduct is prohibited. According to Downs and Manley, the Holy Land Foundation followed the US State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations and avoided all contact with organizations on the list, but were indicted and convicted regardless. This tells us that federal prosecutors are viciously corrupt and that jurors are so inept and propagandized that they are useless to defendants.

The US Supreme Court refused to review this most blatant case of wrongful conviction. By so doing, the US Supreme Court established that the court, like the US House of Representatives, the US Senate, and the executive branch, is not only a servant of the police state but also a servant of Israel and supports the destruction of the Palestinians by designating aid to Palestine as an act of terrorism.

What this means for you is that your involvement in legal transactions or associations can be declared ex post facto by secret witnesses to be criminal involvements. The criminality of your past behavior can now be established, according to Downs and Manley, by “anonymous experts,” mouthpieces for the government prosecutors who cannot “be confronted or cross-examined within the meaning of the 6th Amendment.”

Downs and Manley write: “The implications are enormous. The government can now criminalize political, religious and social ideology and speech. Donating to peace groups, participating in protests, attending church, mosque or synagogue, entertaining friends, and posting material on the Internet, for example, could later be found to be illegal because of ‘associations,’ manufactured by anonymous experts, which in some way allegedly support designated terrorist organizations one has never heard of.”

The authors could have added that if the government wants to get you, all it has to do is to declare that someone or some organization somewhere in your past was connected in a vague undefined way with terrorism. The government’s assertion suffices. No proof is needed. The brainwashed jury will not protect you.

Be prepared in the next year or two for all criticism of “our freedom and democracy” government to be shut down. In Amerika, truth is about to be exterminated.

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Robert Reich's Blog:

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Why Consumers are Bummed Out

TUESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2013                                                                                 Original Here

The Conference Board reported Tuesday that the preliminary January figure for consumer confidence in the United States fell to its lowest level in more than a year.

The last time consumers were this bummed out was October 2011, when there was widespread talk of a double-dip recession.

But this time business news is buoyant. The stock market is bullish. The housing market seems to have rebounded a bit.

So why are consumers so glum?

Because they’re deeply worried about their jobs and their incomes – as they have every right to be.

The job situation is still lousy. We’ll know more this coming Friday about what happened to jobs in January. But we know over 20 million people are still unemployed or underemployed.

Personal income is in terrible shape. The median wage continues to drop, adjusted for inflation.

Most people can’t get readily-available loans because banks are still cautious about lending to anyone without a sterling credit history. (Eliminate student loans and you find Americans aren’t borrowing any more than they were a year ago.)

And the payroll tax hike has reduced paychecks for the typical American by about $100 a month. That’s just about what the typical family spends to fill up their gas tanks per month. Or half what they spend for groceries each week.

Contrast the current pessimism with consumer sentiment last October. Then, a majority polled by the Conference Board expected their incomes to rise over the next six months.

Now just 14 percent expect their incomes to rise, and 23 percent expect them to fall.

That 9 percent gap of pessimists exceeding optimists is the largest since the spring of 2009 when the Great Recession was almost at its worst.

The stock market is bullish because corporate profits are up, costs are down, the “fiscal cliff” agreement has locked in low taxes for most of the upper-middle class and wealthy, and there’s no sign of inflation as far as the eye can see.

But corporate profits can’t stay high when American consumers – whose spending is 70 percent of the U.S. economy – are this pessimistic about the future. They’re just not going to spend.

American companies won’t be able to make up the difference in foreign markets. Europe is careening into a recession. Japan is still in deep trouble. China’s growth has slowed.

Profits are the highest share of the U.S. economy on record. Wages are the lowest. But this imbalance can’t and won’t last.

Investors: beware.

Politicians: Don’t do any more deficit reduction. When consumers are this glum, austerity economics is particularly dangerous. 

If the next showdowns over the fiscal cliff, government appropriations, and debt ceiling result in more deficit cuts this year, we’re in a recession.

http://youtu.be/LCDufY-nKQw

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ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock" and “The Work of Nations." His latest, "Beyond Outrage," is now out in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

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Followup on the PBS documentary "The Untouchables"

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 theREALnews                                                                               Permalink

January 29, 2013

Obama Admin. Fails to Prosecute Banking Fraud to 'Save the System'

James S. Henry commenting on PBS documentary "The Untouchables": If one of these institutions was indicted and made an example of, it would have a profound affect on the whole industry - but Obama raises money on Wall St.
Watch full multipart Obama: Rhetoric or New Direction?


Bio

James S. Henry is a leading economist, attorney and investigative journalist who has written extensively about global issues. James served as Chief Economist at the international consultancy firm McKinsey & Co and as an investigative journalist his work has appeared in numerous publications like Forbes, The Nation, and the The New York Times. He was the lead researcher of the recently released report titled “'The Price of Offshore Revisited.'

Blogger's Note: Don't miss the Frontline video at the bottom.

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The Untouchables: How the Obama administration protected Wall Street from prosecutions
A new PBS Frontline report examines a profound failure of justice that should be causing serious social unrest

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Glenn Greenwald 
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 January 2013 12.27 GMT
Original Here

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Eric Holder talks to DOJ Criminal Chief Lanny Breuer in 2010. Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters

(updated below - Update II)

PBS' Frontline program on Tuesday night broadcast a new one-hour report on one of the greatest and most shameful failings of the Obama administration: the lack of even a single arrest or prosecution of any senior Wall Street banker for the systemic fraud that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis: a crisis from which millions of people around the world are still suffering. What this program particularly demonstrated was that the Obama justice department, in particular the Chief of its Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer, never even tried to hold the high-level criminals accountable.

What Obama justice officials did instead is exactly what they did in the face of high-level Bush era crimes of torture and warrantless eavesdropping: namely, acted to protect the most powerful factions in the society in the face of overwhelming evidence of serious criminality. Indeed, financial elites were not only vested with immunity for their fraud, but thrived as a result of it, even as ordinary Americans continue to suffer the effects of that crisis.

Worst of all, Obama justice officials both shielded and feted these Wall Street oligarchs (who, just by the way, overwhelmingly supported Obama's 2008 presidential campaign) as they simultaneously prosecuted and imprisoned powerless Americans for far more trivial transgressions. As Harvard law professor Larry Lessig put it two weeks ago when expressing anger over the DOJ's persecution of Aaron Swartz: "we live in a world where the architects of the financial crisis regularly dine at the White House." (Indeed, as "The Untouchables" put it: while no senior Wall Street executives have been prosecuted, "many small mortgage brokers, loan appraisers and even home buyers" have been).

As I documented at length in my 2011 book on America's two-tiered justice system, With Liberty and Justice for Some, the evidence that felonies were committed by Wall Street is overwhelming. That evidence directly negates the primary excuse by Breuer (previously offered by Obama himself) that the bad acts of Wall Street were not criminal.

Numerous documents prove that executives at leading banks, credit agencies, and mortgage brokers were falsely touting assets as sound that knew were junk: the very definition of fraud. As former Wall Street analyst Yves Smith wrote in her book ECONned: "What went on at Lehman and AIG, as well as the chicanery in the CDO [collateralized debt obligation] business, by any sensible standard is criminal." Even lifelong Wall Street defender Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chair, said in Congressional testimony that "a lot of that stuff was just plain fraud."

A New York Times editorial in August explained that the DOJ's excuse for failing to prosecute Wall Street executives - that it was too hard to obtain convictions - "has always defied common sense - and all the more so now that a fuller picture is emerging of the range of banks' reckless and lawless activities, including interest-rate rigging, money laundering, securities fraud and excessive speculation." The Frontline program interviewed former prosecutors, Senate staffers and regulators who unequivocally said the same: it is inconceivable that the DOJ could not have successfully prosecuted at least some high-level Wall Street executives - had they tried.

What's most remarkable about all of this is not even Wall Street had the audacity to expect the generosity of largesse they ended up receiving. "The Untouchables" begins by recounting the massive financial devastation the 2008 crisis wrought - "the economy was in ruins and bankers were being blamed" - and recounts:

"In 2009, Wall Street bankers were on the defensive, worried they could be held criminally liable for fraud. With a new administration, bankers and their attorneys expected investigations and at least some prosecutions."

Indeed, the show recalls that both in Washington and the country generally, "there was broad support for prosecuting Wall Street." Nonetheless: "four years later, there have been no arrests of any senior Wall Street executives."

In response to the DOJ's excuse-making that these criminal cases are too hard to win, numerous experts - Senators, top Hill staffers, former DOJ prosecutors - emphasized the key point: Obama officials never even tried. One of the heroes of "The Untouchables", former Democratic Sen. Ted Kaufman, worked tirelessly to provide the DOJ with all the funds it needed to ensure probing criminal investigations and even to pressure and compel them to do so. Yet when he and his staff would meet with Breuer and other top DOJ officials, they would proudly tout the small mortgage brokers they were pursuing, in response to which Kafuman and his staff said: "No. Don't show me small-time mortgage guys in California. This is totally about what went on in Wall Street. . . . We are talking about investigating senior level Wall Street executives, even at the Board level". (The same Lanny Breuer was recently seen announcing that the banking giant HSBC would face no criminal prosecution for its money laundering of funds for designated terrorist groups and drug networks on the ground that the bank was too big to risk prosecuting).

As Kaufman and his staffers make clear, Obama officials were plainly uninterested in pursuing criminal accountability for Wall Street. One former staffer to both Biden and Kaufman, Jeff Connaughton, wrote a book in 2011 - "The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins" - devoted to alerting the nation that the Obama DOJ refused even to try to find criminal culprits on Wall Street. In the book, this career-Democratic-aide-turned-whistleblower details how the levers of Washington power are used to shield and protect high-level Wall Street executives, many of whom have close ties to the leaders of both parties and themselves are former high-level government officials. This is a system, he makes clear, that is constituted to ensure that those executives never face real accountability even for their most egregious and destructive crimes.

The reason there have been no efforts made to criminally investigate is obvious. Former banking regulator and current securities Professor Bill Black told Bill Moyers in 2009 that "Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong." In the documentary "Inside Job", the economist Nouriel Roubini, when asked why there have been no such investigations, replied: "Because then you'd find the culprits." Underlying all of that is what the Senate's second-highest ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin, admitted in 2009: the banks "frankly own the place".

The harms from this refusal to hold Wall Street accountable are the same generated by the general legal immunity the US political culture has vested in its elites. Just as was true for the protection of torturers and illegal eavesdroppers, it ensures that there are no incentives to avoid similar crimes in the future. It is an injustice in its own right to allow those with power and wealth to commit destructive crimes with impunity. It subverts democracy and warps the justice system when a person's treatment under the law is determined not by their acts but by their power, position, and prestige. And it exposes just how shameful is the American penal state by contrasting the immunity given to the nation's most powerful with the merciless and brutal punishment meted out to its most marginalized.

The real mystery from all of this is that it has not led to greater social unrest. To some extent, both the early version of the Tea Party and the Occupy movements were spurred by the government's protection of Wall Street at the expense of everyone else. Still, Americans continue to be plagued by massive unemployment, foreclosures, the threat of austerity and economic insecurity while those who caused those problems have more power and profit than ever. And they watch millions of their fellow citizens be put in cages for relatively minor offenses while the most powerful are free to commit far more serious crimes with complete impunity. Far less injustice than this has spurred serious unrest in other societies.

[The one-hour Frontline program can be viewed in its entirety here.]

Watch The Untouchables on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

UPDATE

The New York Times' Dealbook section hosted a Q-and-A today with Martin Smith, the producer of "The Untouchables". Here is one quite revealing exchange from that (via @QuietAmerican55):

The Obama administration is not accustomed to actual adversarial journalism that sheds light on their malfeasance. They do not like it. And when they see it, they respond about as petulantly as possible: we will never cooperate with you again! It's not Frontline's fault that the Obama administration actively shielded Wall Street from all forms of criminal accountability. If, as seems to be the case, that fact embarrasses them, they should blame those responsible (themselves), not those reporting it.

UPDATE II

The Washington Post is reporting this afternoon that Breuer is planning to leave the DOJ. Don't worry: he'll be fine. Given how valiantly he protected Wall Street and HSBC, one need not be Nate Silver to predict with a fair degree of confidence that he'll land on his feet. When public officials use their government power to serve the interests of private sector elites, they are often lavishly rewarded by the faction they served upon leaving government. That's one of the key dynamics greasing the sleazy revolving door of Washington. Beyond that, Breuer's contacts in and influence with the DOJ will be in high demand by corporations, banks and other assorted oligarchs seeking to exercise the legal immunity which US political culture has bestowed on them.

SANDY HOOK INCONSISTENCIES COURTESY OF BRASCHECK TV

Blogger's Note: Go here for the original plus the opportunity to  subscribe to free email notifications of other videos of interest that  you won't learn from the mainstream media.  Additional Sandy Hook  inconsistencies can be found in my Sunday January 20th post, the second below this one. The text immediately below was provided by Brasscheck TV  as a synopsis of the six videos that follow. Note that while the  first  five are strictly audio, the sixth is a video. You will not find any  conspiracy theorizing here -- only a plethora of official stories that  simply don't add up.

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What do you know about Nancy Lanza?

1. She was a "prepper" [sic]

2. She owned a legally registered AR-15

3. She took her son Adam shooting.

When did you "learn" these things?

Very early on, right?

What was the source of this "information?"

Here's some facts:

1. The Wall Street Journal sent a reporter to visit all the gun ranges in the area to find where Nancy and Adam Lanza went shooting.

Result?

No gun range within a 50 mile radius ever saw them.

2. Connecticut has some of the the strictest gun laws in the nation.

So-called "assault rifles" were already banned in the state.

Thus, if Nancy Lanza did own this gun, she did not own it legally.

3. Nanzy Lanza was a "prepper" [sic].

Really?

Who says so?

Where's the evidence?

An "unnamed source" very soon after the crime occurred - with no follow up evidence.

What else do we know about Nancy Lanza?

What was her profession? Where did she work? Where did she grow up? Who were her parents, siblings, extended family?

We know nothing. Zero.

Why is that?

Yet we "know" she was a prepper, she was gun owner and she practiced shooting at local gun ranges.

All false.

If these "early facts" are false, what else is?

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Sandy Hook The Gun Range Myth

http://youtu.be/lCUDb1oplKU

Published on Jan 23, 2013

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Sandy Hook Step One: Entry

http://youtu.be/aSJMIjlE0DQ

Published on Jan 23, 2013

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Sandy Hook AR 15 Reality Check

http://youtu.be/l7ChKpN3SVw

Published on Jan 23, 2013

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Sandy Hook The Lanza Family

http://youtu.be/_DJjo80rxuw

Published on Jan 22, 2013

"As reported in Rolling Stone, these three employees of General Electric subsidiary GE Capital were recently found guilty of conspiring with major Wall Street banks from around 1999 to 2006 of fixing public auctions of municipal bonds"

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/07/25/if-you-think-the-libor-scandal-is-an-anomaly-think.aspx

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Sandy Hook Who is Adam Lanza

http://youtu.be/ZBEeJY9Rv7Y

Published on Jan 22, 2013

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Has Adam Lanza Even Been Alive The Last 3 Years?

http://youtu.be/MmSKS4hwJ24

Published on Jan 5, 2013

There is ZERO online fingerprint of him, there is ZERO video evidence, there is ZERO car insurance, tax information, phone history. There is ZERO proof this guy has even been alive for the last 3 years.

The neighbors haven't seen him in years, nobody who lives around the Lanzas seems to have seen him, and the last time there is any record of him at all was 3 years ago.

The FBI apparently can't retrieve the information from his computer it was so well destroyed (how convenient).

What is more likely.. that a computer nerd would leave "No digital footprint for 3 years" (which would be practically impossible) or that he has been dead for 3 years?

No record of this kid after 2009 - after supposedly attending college at Central Connecticut State University in Danville - nothing.

Nobody knows him, nobody has seen him, and there is no video or other proof he is even alive- why is this guy being treated as the main suspect again?

His mom was supposedly "so badly disfigured they couldn't tell if it was her or not" Maybe it wasn't her. Maybe she's in Belize right now and this whole thing is a scam?

I guess we're taking Adam's dad's word for collecting his son's body- a guy who works for GE capital (GE owns NBC) and his brother? Both of whom are connected to New York finance?

Nobody "falls off the grid" for 3 years.. it just doesn't happen.

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As Shillers List pointed out in the comments below, the only picture they like to show of Adam Lanza is a very strange ghostly looking picture, when there are many other pictures of him that look pretty normal.

The same thing happened with Jared Loughner the alleged Tucson gunman, who had this normal picture which hardly EVER gets shown to the public: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/CRIME/01/08/arizona.shooting/t1main.loughner.fb.jpg

Originally, it was not cropped, and he's holding a kickoff magazine - The public only sees the "freakish" looking Loughner picture, they don't want his tan, good looking "sports fan" side being shown, as that doesn't fit their agenda.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: "The institutionalization of tyranny is the achievement of the Bush/Obama regimes of the 21st century." "One decade was time enough for two presidents to make Americans the least free people of any developed country, indeed, perhaps of any country. In what other country or countries does the chief executive officer have the right to murder citizens without due process?"

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The Institutionalization of Tyranny — Paul Craig Roberts

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January 18, 2013  |  Original Here

Republicans and conservative Americans are still fighting Big Government in its welfare state form. Apparently, they have never heard of the militarized police state form of Big Government, or, if they have, they are comfortable with it and have no objection.

Republicans, including those in the House and Senate, are content for big government to initiate wars without a declaration of war or even Congress’ assent, and to murder with drones citizens of countries with which Washington is not at war. Republicans do not mind that federal “security” agencies spy on American citizens without warrants and record every email, Internet site visited, Facebook posting, cell phone call, and credit card purchase. Republicans in Congress even voted to fund the massive structure in Utah in which this information is stored.

But heaven forbid that big government should do anything for a poor person.

Republicans have been fighting Social Security ever since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law in the 1930s, and they have been fighting Medicare ever since President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law in 1965 as part of the Great Society initiatives.

Conservatives accuse liberals of the “institutionalization of compassion.” Writing in the February, 2013, issue of Chronicles, John C. Seiler, Jr., damns Johnson’s Great Society as “a major force in turning a country that still enjoyed a modicum of republican liberty into the centralized, bureaucratized, degenerate, and bankrupt state we endure today.”

It doesn’t occur to conservatives that in Europe democracy, liberty, welfare, rich people, and national health services all coexist, but that somehow American liberty is so fragile that it is overturned by a limited health program only available to the elderly.

Neither does it occur to conservative Republicans that it is far better to institutionalize compassion than to institutionalize tyranny.

The institutionalization of tyranny is the achievement of the Bush/Obama regimes of the 21st century. This, and not the Great Society, is the decisive break from the American tradition. The Bush Republicans demolished almost all of the constitutional protections of liberty erected by the Founding Fathers. The Obama Democrats codified Bush’s dismantling of the Constitution and removed the protection afforded to citizens from being murdered by the government without due process. One decade was time enough for two presidents to make Americans the least free people of any developed country, indeed, perhaps of any country. In what other country or countries does the chief executive officer have the right to murder citizens without due process?

It turns one’s stomach to listen to conservatives bemoan the destruction of liberty by compassion while they institutionalize torture, indefinite detention in violation of habeas corpus, murder of citizens on suspicion and unproven accusation alone, complete and total violation of privacy, interference with the right to travel by unaccountable “no-fly” lists and highway check points, the brutalization of citizens and those exercising their right to protest by police, frame-ups of critics, and narrow the bounds of free speech.

In Amerika today only the executive branch of the federal government has any privacy. The privacy is institutional, not personal–witness the fate of CIA director Petraeus. While the executive branch destroys the privacy of every one else, it insists on its own privilege of privacy. National security is invoked to shield the executive branch from its criminal actions. Federal prosecutors actually conduct trials in which the evidence against defendants is classified and withheld from defendants’ attorneys. Attorneys such as Lynne Stewart have been imprisoned for not following orders from federal prosecutors to violate the attorney-client privilege.

Conservatives accept the monstrous police state that has been erected, because they think it makes them safe from “Muslim terrorism.” They haven’t the wits to see that they are now open to terrorism by the government.

Consider, for example, the case of Bradley Manning. He is accused of leaking confidential information that reveals US government war crimes despite the fact that it is the responsibility of every soldier to reveal war crimes. Virtually every one of Manning’s constitutional rights has been violated by the US government. He has been tortured. In an effort to coerce Manning into admitting trumped-up charges and implicating WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, Manning had his right to a speedy trial violated by nearly three years of pre-trial custody and repeated trial delays by government prosecutors. And now the judge, Col. Denise Lind, who comes across as a member of the prosecution rather than an impartial judge, has ruled that Manning cannot use as evidence the government’s own reports that the leaked information did not harm national security. Lind has also thrown out the legal principle of mens rea by ruling that Manning’s motive for leaking information about US war crimes cannot be presented as evidence in his trial. http://www.armytimes.com/news/2013/01/ap-judge-limits-motive-evidence-wikileaks-case-bradely-manning-011613/

Mens rea says that a crime requires criminal intent. By discarding this legal principle, Lind has prevented Manning from showing that his motive was to do his duty under the military code and reveal evidence of war crimes. This allows prosecutors to turn a dutiful act into the crime of aiding the enemy by revealing classified information.

Of course, nothing that Manning allegedly revealed helped the enemy in any way as the enemy, having suffered the war crimes, was already aware of them.

Obama Democrats are no more disturbed than conservative Republicans that a dutiful American soldier is being prosecuted because he has a moral conscience. In Manning’s trial, the government’s definition of victory has nothing whatsoever to do with justice prevailing. For Washington, victory means stamping out moral conscience and protecting a corrupt government from public exposure of its war crimes.

What really happened at Sandy Hook last month? How can we possibly know? How well do the published facts fit the official story? This video has been viewed 11 MILLION times in just about 12 days!!! Do you know what this means? It means that virtually everyone who has viewed it has recommended it to friends. This is the meaning of going viral. By contrast, this blog is only visited by about 1000 viewers a month...

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The Sandy Hook Shooting - Fully Exposed

http://youtu.be/Wx9GxXYKx_8


ThinkOutsideTheTV

Published on Jan 7, 2013

First off I would like to thank the users that contributed to this video, including IDAHOPICKER, MAX MALONE and OneTruth4Life. This is not meant to offend anyone but merely to raise questions that need to be answered. I am not pointing the finger because there is too much confusion, but it seems something is going on!

LINKS:

Helicopter footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9YwnXAtm4k

Multiple Shooters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7pT0nKxgqY

Medical Examiner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV3KYBS64R8

Gene Rosen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alp64daGTSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFyexz_IuHE

Facebook Page DEC 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyJ0Nl5lpOg

Robbie Parker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKWgCRBR5qE

Obama Pics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSnhYMaGYuY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHv_RhVgfUQ

FEMA drills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlWi97yBRAc

Sites up before shooting : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSUAXBChnbE

Nurse Sally Cox - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIz-Nx_RV0g

Notwithstanding Jon Stewart's ridicule of Paul Krugman's suggestion that the U.S. Treasury mint a trillion-dollar coin to avert austerity, all of the top economists who have not gone over to "the dark side of the force" (aka the neoliberal kleptocracy) know that (1) the platinum coin is but one of many viable ways to avert austerity and (2) imposition of austerity is a sure recipe to crash the economy, bringing great suffering to all but the top 1%. Here, top economist Bill Black relates the deep history of austerity, revealing it to be a self-serving right-wing dogma rather than a scientifically determined necessity.

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 theREALnews                                                                               Permalink

January 18, 2013

Stewart vs Krugman and the Religion of Austerity

Bill Black: Obama has options, including the trillion dollar coin, to refuse to negotiate under the gun but he's taken them off the table; both sides subscribe to the dogma of austerity
Watch full multipart The Black Financial and Fraud Report


Bio

William K. Black, author of THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE, teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He has taught previously at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement. Black developed the concept of "control fraud" frauds in which the CEO or head of state uses the entity as a "weapon." Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined. He recently helped the World Bank develop anti-corruption initiatives and served as an expert for OFHEO in its enforcement action against Fannie Mae's former senior management.

Radioactive elements from the Fukushima nuclear disaster are spreading across the Pacific Ocean toward the U.S. However, Americans are not in great danger due to dilution and the decays of the radioactive nuclides during their 5-year journey to the west coast. Moreover, the levels of radioactivity tolerable by the human body are much higher than specified by the prevailing Linear-No-Threshold (LNT) model, which has been retained despite irrefutable data to the contrary (see link below this header). On the other hand, many Japanese living near the wrecked Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant have received dangerous doses due to coverups by Tokyo Electric Power Company and Japanese government bureaucrats. Be sure to watch the video, where one Ms. Mori gives the bureaucrats holy hell for their failure to produce any of the needed reports after repeated demands by the citizens, and for saying virtually nothing when Ms. Mori called on them by name. It's beautiful! The Mayor, who was himself misled by the bureaucrats, spoke at length, expressing great remose.

http://impactglassman.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-do-experts-say-are-consequences-of.html

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Fukushima: West Coast cesium slam ahead, hair falling out, Tepco data flaw

FUKUSHIMA | JULY 16, 2012 | BY: DEBORAH DUPRE | Original Here

Human rights violations escalate amid Fukushima catastrophe

As hair falls out of a Fukushima victim's head, a new German study reports that North America’s West Coast will be the area most contaminated by Fukushima cesium of all regions in Pacific in 10 years, an "order-of-magnitude higher” than waters off Japan, according to a new German study followed by a former New York Times journalist going inside the no-entry zone and reporting radiation levels over 10 times higher than Tepco’s data.

"After most citizens evacuated, I evacuated, too," testified Mr. Idogawa, Mayor of Futaba Town where Fukushima Daiichi is located. "I didn’t know still some people remained in the town.

"One of them told me, 'My hair fell off,' with tears in her eyes. I’m so sorry for them still," Idogawa stated about the Fukushima nuclear human rights violations continuing in Japan, as published by Ato Munch.

Hair falling out is one of the most common of the eight signs of radiation poisoning.

"When debris fell from the sky, I thought it might be the end," Idogawa continued.
"My heart is full of anger."

(Watch the compelling "Futaba Mayor's testimony of Fukushima" on the YouTube video embedded below.)

http://youtu.be/EKPJFI5MDXk
'Futaba Mayor's testimony of Fukushima Daiichi at the Diet': Mr. Idogawa, Mayor of Futaba Town, home of Fukushima Daiichi, testifies about explosion and Japanese government not announcing SPEEDI data, so Futaba's citizens evacuated northwest where radiation drifted. Many Futaba citizens radiated, including children. Credit: Ato Munch. ENEWS, YouTube

New study indicates severe West Coast impact

"After 10 years, the concentrations become nearly homogeneous over the whole Pacific, with higher values in the east, extending along the North American coast with a maximum (~1 × 10−4) off Baja California," a new research report states.

Coinciding with the release of the new Gwerman report, Takashi Uesugi, a former New York Times reporter, went inside the no-entry zone and reports radiation levels over 10 times higher than Tepco’s data.

The new research report, Model simulations on the long-term dispersal of 137Cs released into the Pacific Ocean off Fukushima, states:

In the following years, the tracer cloud continuously expands laterally, with maximum concentrations in its central part heading east. While the northern portion is gradually invading the Bering Sea, the main tracer patch reaches the coastal waters of North America after 5–6 years, with maximum relative concentrations ( > 1 × 10−4) covering a broad swath of the eastern North Pacific between Vancouver Island and Baja California. Simultaneously some fraction of the southern rim of the tracer cloud becomes entrained in the North Equatorial Current (NEC), resulting in a westward extending wedge around 20°N that skirts the northern shores of the Hawaiian Archipelago. After 10 years the concentrations become nearly homogeneous over the whole Pacific, with higher values in the east, extending along the North American coast with a maximum (~1 × 10−4) off Baja California. The southern portion of the tracer cloud is carried westward by the NEC across the subtropical Pacific, leading to increasing concentrations in the Kuroshio regime again.

The research report, authored by Erik Behrens, Franziska U Schwarzkopf, Joke F Lübbecke and Claus W Böning that was published in Environmental Research Letters, also states:

"With caution given to the various idealizations (unknown actual oceanic state during release, unknown release area, no biological effects included, see section 3.4), the following conclusions may be drawn. (i) Dilution due to swift horizontal and vertical dispersion in the vicinity of the energetic Kuroshio regime leads to a rapid decrease of radioactivity levels during the first 2 years, with a decline of near-surface peak concentrations to values around 10 Bq m−3 (based on a total input of 10 PBq). The strong lateral dispersion, related to the vigorous eddy fields in the mid-latitude western Pacific, appears significantly under-estimated in the non-eddying (0.5°) model version. (ii) The subsequent pace of dilution is strongly reduced, owing to the eastward advection of the main tracer cloud towards the much less energetic areas of the central and eastern North Pacific. (iii) The magnitude of additional peak radioactivity should drop to values comparable to the pre-Fukushima levels after 6–9 years (i.e. total peak concentrations would then have declined below twice pre-Fukushima levels). (iv) By then the tracer cloud will span almost the entire North Pacific, with peak concentrations off the North American coast an order-of-magnitude higher than in the western Pacific."

The model integrations were performed at North-German Supercomputing Alliance (HLRN) and the Kiel University computing center.

While radioactive air has already reached the United States, radioactive water from Fukushima's nuclear reactors could reach the US West Coast in the next five to six years, doubling radioactivity of US coastal waters, according to simulations carried out by the German oceanographers. Their study report also states:

"Tentatively assuming a value of 10 petabecquerel (PBq) for the net 137Caesium (Cs) input during the first weeks after the Fukushima incident, the simulation suggests a rapid dilution of peak radioactivity values to about 10 Bq/m³ during the first 2 years, followed by a gradual decline to 1–2 Bq/m³ over the next 4–7 years. The total peak radioactivity levels would then be about twice the pre-Fukushima values.

“We were of course not surprised that there is a mixing effect, but we were surprised at how quickly the tracer spread,” Claus Böning, co-author of the German study, told environmentalresearchweb.

ENEWS urges readers, "Watch: Former NYTimes journalist goes inside no-entry zone, reports radiation levels over 10 times higher than Tepco’s data (VIDEO)."

The unprecedented nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima has been shown in a recently released official report to have been man-made.

Suggested by the author:

• 8 main radiation sickness signs (Slideshow)
• Fukushima man-made catastrophe hitting West Coast is no hoax
• Fukushima now radiating everyone: 'Unspeakable' reality
• Radiating Americans: Fukushima rain, Clinton's secret food pact
• Am women pay high price for Fukushima cover-up: 35% more dead babies

Hear it from a thinking Democrat: "Throughout his tenure, Obama's done what supporters thought impossible. He's governed to the right of George Bush. He mocks rule of law principles and other democratic values. He prioritizes wars on humanity. He's waging multiple direct and proxy ones. War on terror subterfuge disguises them."

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Headlined to H3 1/16/13
Obama: Money Power's Point Man
By Stephen Lendman (about the author)          Permalink      
OpEdNews Op Eds 1/16/2013 at 01:29:21

opednews.com

Obama: Money Power's Point Man

Obama menaces humanity.

by Stephen Lendman

Throughout his tenure, Obama's done what supporters thought impossible. He's governed to the right of George Bush.

He mocks rule of law principles and other democratic values. He prioritizes wars on humanity. He's waging multiple direct and proxy ones. War on terror subterfuge disguises them.

He plans more. He's sending US special forces to 35 African countries. They already infest most others. CIA elements operate everywhere. They come to destabilize and disrupt, not help.

France attacked Mali. Obama offered support. Ravaging another another northern African country is planned. Expect others to follow. 

Obama prioritizes replacing independent governments with pro-Western puppet ones. He mocks legitimate governance.

He challenges Russia's military strength. He targets China's growing economic might. At the same time, he's in bed with rogue Israeli governance. He supports some of the most ruthless corrupt tyrants.  

He's economically and socially destructive at home. He spurns popular interests. He looted the nation's wealth. He wrecked the economy. He consigned growing millions to impoverishment without jobs. 

He institutionalized tyranny. He targets dissenters. Challenging political corruption, corporate crooks, or abuse of power lawlessness endangers anyone who tries. 

He's a con man. After all the harm he caused, half the country still supports him. He gets away with murder and much more. 

Most people haven't a clue. They're out of touch. They don't understand what harms them. They ignore their own welfare. 

Some perhaps don't care. Others are dismissive. They know more about bread and circuses than vital major issues to address.

Obama takes full advantage. He governs lawlessly. He's in bed with corrupted monied interests. They own him. 

He plans throwing most Americans under the bus. It's his scheme to give them more. America is more hypocrisy than democracy.

Obama is money power's point man. He takes orders and salutes. He prioritizes destroying America's social contract. Domestic budget cuts will be made on the backs of ordinary people.
 
On January 14, he did what he does best. He lied. He's a serial liar. He's a moral coward. In the White House East Room, he held his final first term press conference . Duplicity substituted for truth.

Republicans and Democrats agreed years ago to erode vital social benefits en route to eliminating them altogether. Obama pretends otherwise.

"They (Republicans) will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy," he said.

"The financial well-being of the American people is not leverage to be used. The full faith and credit of the United States of America is not a bargaining chip."

Remember years earlier. He stressed "shared sacrifice." Left unexplained then and now is who shares and who sacrifices.

Things haven't changed. Rhetoric belies hardline policies. Political theater conceals harsh realities.

Duopoly power runs America. Global monied interests own it. Not a dime's worth of difference separates Democrats from Republicans. On issues mattering most, they're in lockstep.

Ordinary Americans have been targeted for decades. Since the mid-1970s, average inflation adjusted incomes for most people fell. 

People struggle to get by. Growing millions are impoverished. Real unemployment is 23%. It nearly matches Great Depression levels. Hunger and homelessness are major problems. Force-fed austerity is planned when stimulus is vitally needed.

Obama doesn't explain. Media scoundrels don't hold his feet to the fire. Right-wing ones attack him for the wrong reasons. The Wall Street Journal headlined "Obama Escalates Debt Fight," saying:
 
His message was "confrontational." He drew "battle lines." They've "hardened ahead of the next budget fight." The Journal warned about hitting America's "borrowing limit."

The nation's debt ceiling is more illusion than fact. It's practically automatically raised when reached or shortly after.

Neither party wants voters blaming them for crashing the economy. Reality takes precedence over bluster, scoring political points, and one-upsmanship.

Journal editors said more. They editorialized " The Next Tax Increase ," saying:

"The new tax hike is barely law and Obama already wants more."

"He won't negotiate with Republicans," he claims. Spending cuts and higher taxes go together like ham and eggs.

He larded the yearend agreement with tens of billions of dollars in corporate benefits. He's got lots more in mind. He's doing it on the backs of ordinary people.

"Once upon a time," said Journal editors, "the Democratic political strategy was 'tax, spend and elect.' And then tax some more. Republicans" better get the message "or they'll end up having to raise taxes again."

A second editorial headlined " They Have Suspicions ," saying:

"Obama demonizes anyone who disagrees with him."

If "fiscal negotiations are going nowhere, perhaps it's because the president simply won't make an honest argument."

If Journal editors won't tell readers about bipartisan complicity to destroy America's social contact, perhaps it's because they don't want them to know.
 
Nor does Bloomberg . It headlined "Congress Can Resolve the Debt-Limit Crisis. Really," saying:

The "absurd has become sadly commonplace in Washington."
Obama "compar(es) Congress to a bunch of deadbeat diners who refuse to pay their bill."

At the same time, he "was careful to say this was a crisis Congress would have to solve."

The criminal class in Washington is bipartisan. It's longstanding. It's worse now than ever. Media scoundrels substitute bluster for plain truth.

Fiscal cliff hype reflects doublespeak duplicity. Financial crisis conditions don't exist. Bloomberg, Journal editors, and other media scoundrels won't explain. Stoking fear, concealing truth, and blaming victims furthers their agenda.

Obama, complicit Republicans, and most Democrats operate the same way. Demagoguery substitutes for telling it like it is. Both parties are two sides of the same coin.

Neither one explains. Media scoundrels duck and cover. Grand bargain betrayal was planned long ago. Political theater conceals its harshness.

At issue isn't deficit cutting. It's destroying America's social contract. It prioritizes what bankers, other corporate favorites, and super-rich elites want most. 

It's third-worldizing America. Neo-serfdom is planned. Most Americans haven't a clue. Dark forces take full advantage. 

Obama's their point man. He's got four more years to finish what his first term began. Worse than ever times loom. They've been happening gradually for decades. 
 
They're planned incrementally. It's like boiling a frog. Eliminating America's social contract is on the menu. It'll be dinner when served. 

America already isn't fit to live in. Imagine how much worse ahead is planned.

                                                   ******
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at Email address removed . 
His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
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I was born in 1934, am a retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.