February 8, 2012

Source: Stratrisks/BBC

After a decade spent mostly fighting in deserts and mountain regions, the US military and its allies have been gearing up for future challenges by practising assaults on coastal areas.

A mythical nation is under attack by a belligerent neighbour. The US and its allies are deployed to save Amber from the invading forces of Garnet.

For the teams coming off the amphibious assault ship the USS Kearsage, the mission was to push the intruding forces out.

In reality they arrived on the beaches and grounds of Camp LeJeune, a sprawling Marine Corps base in North Carolina.

Searching the waterways nearby for Garnet-affiliated “pirates” were US Navy Riverine units, based on small boats often visually associated with the Vietnam War.

The scenario was part of Bold Alligator, an 11-nation training exercise involving upwards of 19,000 troops.

While the scenario may have been a fiction, the reality for all involved is a shifting military focus, as the US and other participating nations are increasingly watchful of coastal areas of the Middle East – in particular Iran – and countries like China and North Korea in the Pacific.

The Bold Alligator exercise involves scenarios of mine warfare, fighting in shallow water and fending off attacks from smaller boats; methods known to be familiar to the Iranian Navy.

Capt Dorian Jones, commander of the USS Kearsarge, was quick to point out other uses for the training, such as responding to the Haiti earthquake two years ago.

“Amphibious operations encompass a number of different operations – humanitarian assistance, disaster relief. Amphibious forces are flexible and capable, and they flex to a variety of missions.”

‘Back to basics’
Bold Alligator has been under way since the beginning of February, played out across Virginia and North Carolina in what US military officials say is the largest amphibious-focused training mission in over a decade.

The outline of the exercise is not far removed from the depiction in films like Saving Private Ryan, or even from the reality of the World War II Normandy beach landings.

Bold Alligator has taken months of planning and is a joint-forces operation between the US Navy and Marine Corps.

“Start Quote
This is essentially restoring our amphibious credentials”

End Quote Maj Chris Samuel Royal Marines
Participating in the exercise are 25 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and the lead assault ship USS Wasp.

Troops include sailors and Marines from several “partnership” countries such as the UK, Canada, France, Australia and the Netherlands.

According to Adm John Harvey, commander of US Fleet Forces, the purpose of Bold Alligator is “to get back to basics” in terms of the ship-to-shore method of fighting that the recent missions in Iraq and Afghanistan rarely required.

Speaking in Washington as Bold Alligator was getting under way, he said: “It was really instructive to me when we opened this thing up to our coalition partners, they jumped on it.

“I’ve got a French big-deck under way out there now, with a lot of French Marines embarked who are taking this exercise with great seriousness.

“Gen Heljik’s [a US Marine Corps commander] got a couple hundred Dutch Marines who came over here for this.

“We have 11 nations playing and playing hard, like the Canadian minesweepers, and they’re making these decisions to participate at a time when their fiscally-constrained environment is far, far more significant than ours.”

From the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, Marines from the US, UK and Canada were grouped together and then sent out in LCAC landing crafts and V-22 Osprey – a helicopter-plane hybrid – as one part of the 12-day exercise.

Before flying off on 6 February, the would-be D-Day of the war games, Maj Chris Samuel of the British Royal Marines said: “This is essentially restoring our amphibious credentials and it’s a unique opportunity really, to participate in a multinational exercise with our closest allies.

“This is what we’re good at,” he added.

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January 26, 2012

Source: Atlantic Wire

Earlier this week, a story circulated about a drone hobbyist whose photos of a Dallas-area meat-packing plant dumping blood into a river got the feds to investigate the plant. Environmentalism seems to be a perfect use for the new breed of cheap drones, something activists are just now starting to figure out. Last month, Sea Shepherd activists used a drone to track and photograph a Japanese whaling fleet. But compared to their counterparts’ organizing protests and reporting news, environmental campaigners have been relatively slow to adopt drone technology. They shouldn’t be.

With things like the Drone Journalism Lab and the occucopter, simply and easily seeing and filming activities on the ground from above, out of reach of the police or other grounded obstructions, is easier than ever. For environmentalists, these drones can do double duty as environmental monitors as well as camera platforms.

The story from Dallas is a great example of why drones are so efficient at spotting environmental problems: Using a $75 airframe fitted with a point-and-shoot camera, the drone operator shot pictures of discoloration in the water, which he could show to regulators. From what he wrote to the drone news site sUAS News, he wasn’t necessarily even looking for evidence of pollution, but when he saw it, he had instant evidence. Had he been drone-free, he’d have had to somehow get a water sample or some other proof, which would require getting to the edge of the river close enough to the plant. Environmentalists tend to get busted for trespassing when they try to collect evidence from suspicious sites, so being able to snap photos from a distance gives them a huge advantage.

The Sea Shepherd drone illustrated how a relatively cheap aircraft could be used to survey a huge area in order to find whalers. The Sea Shepherd, for those who’ve never seen Whale Wars, tries to harass and get in the way of Japanese “factory ships” that still do an annual whale hunt. Their whole direct-action campaign is a big cat-and-mouse game, and they’re often stymied because the whalers follow them around and give away their position. But this past season they used a donated, $16,000 drone known as the Osprey, which has a 190-mile range and streams high-definition video. This particular model’s expensive, though nowhere near the $25 million Israeli Heron drones Brazil bought in November to monitor illegal logging. With the ability to see over hundreds of square miles, environmentalists can use drones to take in more of their environment than they ever could from the ground, for a lot less money than a manned aircraft.

Looking forward, it’s easy to imagine climate activists using drones to monitor air quality. NASA already does so on a pretty sophisticated level, using military surplus Global Hawks to model climate patterns. And the EPA uses drones to take air quality measures. The same way sophisticated camera-carrying drones have migrated from the military to the civilian world over the last couple years, so will climate-measuring aircraft. In fact, it already has. Mundus Air Drone already makes a vertical takeoff drone that it can fit with air-quality sensors. Last year, farmers in Oregon started experimenting with sensor-packed drones for monitoring farms.

Given the ease with drones can be put to work on environmental projects, and the constantly improving technology, it’s clear our two recent examples of drone environmental activism are among the first in what will soon be a crowded field.

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January 26, 2012

Source: LA Times

Based on something he read online, an Oklahoma state senator has introduced a bill that would ban the use of aborted human fetuses in food.

Yes, you read that correctly.

No, he’s never heard of any instances of this happening before, Sen. Ralph Shortey told the Associated Press.

But Shortey read that it might be happening, so he thought the bill would, at the very least, give any food companies toying with the idea an “ultimatum.”

The legislation, known as SB 1418, is only a couple of paragraphs long. It states:

“No person or entity shall manufacture or knowingly sell food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.”

Shortey, a father of two who worked as an oil and gas production consultant, told the Associated Press that he found online evidence that some companies outside of Oklahoma use embryonic stem cells to develop artificial flavors.

Shortey did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday, but the Daily Oklahoman reported his motivation for the bill: “Shortey said he filed the bill after reading last fall that an anti-abortion group, Children of God for Life, had called on the public in March 2010 to boycott products of major food companies that partnered with a biotech company that produces artificial flavor enhancers, unless the company stopped using aborted fetal cells to test their products. The company has denied the allegation.”

Federal food safety officials have never heard of such a thing. A U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman told the Associated Press that the agency has never gotten any reports of fetuses being used in food production.

Shortey, elected in 2010, has introduced a spat of controversial bills including denying Oklahoma citizenship to children of illegal immigrants born in the state. Another bill he wrote would have allowed police to confiscate the homes and cars of illegal immigrants. He also tried to advance a bill that would have required presidential candidates to provide proof of citizenship before being allowed on Oklahoma’s primary ballot.

None of Shortey’s controversial bills have become law.

As news began circulating of his latest legislative priority, the Twitterverse responded with disbelief and amusement.

One person wrote: “This may conflict with my dream of eating aborted fetus dumplings, but Sen Ralph Shortey is hilariously delusional.”

Another: “Today in Oklahoma crazy: Sen. Ralph Shortey (R) proposes banning “human fetuses in food.” Didn’t know it was a thing.”

Combing through all the tweets, finding one in support of the bill was as likely as finding fetus fries as a side order at your nearest fast-food joint.

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January 22, 2012

Source: CS Monitor

It was almost as if the thrums of digital artillery could be felt across millions of keyboards.

As some of the internet’s biggest power players, including Google and Wikipedia, protested two fast-tracked anti-piracy bills going through Congress, the US Justice Department launched an attack on one of the web’s biggest alleged scofflaws, Megaupload, and, in a counterattack, the hacker group Anonymous temporarily blacked out DOJ’s website.

Techno-pundits and mainstream observers quickly connected the dots between anti-piracy protests and the Megaupload arrests, notching the dustup as potentially the biggest salvo yet in the multi-billion dollar internet copyright wars pitting, in essence, Hollywood and its Washington lobbyists against internet free speech and its hacker protectors.

Read More…

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Contributed by The End Run

False Flag Dirty Tricks Against Ron Paul Campaign Fully Exposed

Coming on the heels of last week’s dirty deception by the Huntsman campaign, several rabidly anti-Ron Paul political activists have been caught planning another vicious “false flag”-style dirty trick against the presidential candidate and his supporters, this time in South Carolina, where the next GOP primary will take place.

The plot, which was being hatched over Facebook, involved dressing up in hooded Ku Klux Klan (KKK) robes, posing as Ron Paul supporters (complete with Ron Paul signs), and “follow[ing] Paul around South Carolina”, making “sure to get photographed by the media.”

The thread proposing the idea was started earlier this week by Jere Brower of neighboring Georgia on the wall of the “Stop Ron Paul 2012″ Facebook group.   On Wednesday, January 11th, Brower wrote:

“If you live in South Carolina and want to have some real fun with these Paulbots here is what we do- go online and buy or make your very own KKK robe, complete with hood (hood is important).  Then get some Ron Paul signs off the internet or make your own.  Follow Paul around South Carolina and be sure to get photographed by the media.  Again, hoods are important.  All can be Klansmen for Paul. Black, white, Jewish, Asian- those Paulbots will shit a brick!”

He quickly got a second from one Chris Collins of Gainesville, GA (only about an hour’s drive from the South Carolina border), who said: “That is seriously a great idea! Anyone wanna volunteer???”

Minutes later, Brower replied: “Chris, if we can get ten of us to do it, I am down, but where does one get KKK robes????”

When another member opined that the plan was not worth carrying out, Collins objected: “Well, actually, I disagree.  Why not show the world the truth about the type on ilk that supporters Ron Paul?  Let me think on this, Jere.”

The next post came from a Rex Foster, who recommended that the Paul haters infiltrate the Paul campaign by volunteering to make phone calls for the candidate.  They could tell South Carolina voters that they were calling on “behalf of Ron Paul’s campaign”, and then spout non-sense about “lizard people” in an attempt to turn the voters off to Paul.

The thread was flagged by lacrossewatchdog.org earlier today, who credited Patrick McEwen of the Capital Free Press for the tip.  News of the plot spread to a number of Ron Paul grassroots websites, whose members quickly sounded the alarm and took the story somewhat viral on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The negative attention prompted the “Stop Ron Paul 2012″ group to remove the thread late Friday evening, but not before many activists captured screen shots.

Around the time that the thread was removed, and after getting bombarded with negative Tweets and Facebook messages, Brower posted a message to Facebook saying, “Someone has hacked my shit.”

When questioned by another user about whether the supposed “hacking” pertained to his financial information, Brower replied: “Nah, messed with my facebook, fucked with my email, messed around with work files.”

This claim, which is apparently meant to explain away the offending thread, does not pass the smell test.  The thread was posted three days ago, with several follow-up posts by Brower.

Furthermore, The End Run has examined his publicly-available Twitter and Facebook posts and found many examples of him calling “Paulbots” “clinically insane”, falsely accusing Ron Paul of wanting to “legalize child prostitution” and being “against children going to school”, attempting to conflate him and his supporters with the KKK and racism, using vulgar language to disparage them, and so forth.

These posts go back months. When Kelly Clarkson tweeted that she supports Ron Paul, he repeatedly trolled her Facebook page, accusing her of wanting to burn crosses. Here is a screen shot of some samples.  (Warning: Vulgar language.)

According to his publicly-viewable LinkedIn page (archived here), Brower works for Google as a “Field Operations Specialist”.   He lists his “Specialties” as “Crisis management, social media, media relations, brand specialist, event planning, event management”.

At this point I have seen no evidence that he was acting on behalf of Google or any other entity other than himself, but this connection may at least be worth looking into, especially in light of the ties between Google and the recent uprising in Egypt.

Brower served in the U.S. Army during the mid and late 90′s (possibly as late as 2002, according to one source), and has several older pictures of himself in uniform on his Facebook page.

He is listed on VetFriends.com as having reached the rank of Specialist (SPC).

On Facebook, he lists The Prince by Machiavelli as one of his favorite books.

Throughout 2011, Brower repeatedly voiced his strong support for former candidate Herman Cain on  Facebook and Twitter, and pictures of him with Cain have emerged.

However, it is important to note that I have seen no evidence thus far that he is directly tied to the campaign.

Unless strong and credible evidence emerges tying him to the Cain campaign, it would be unfair to hold Cain responsible for his behavior.

Likewise, it would be totally unfair to try to paint all Herman Cain supporters with a broad brush due to Brower’s shameful behavior.

Every candidate has loathsome individuals supporting them, and it is clear that most Cain supporters — and indeed most people in general — would not contemplate stooping to these kinds of tactics.  (Brower has also Tweeted support for a Donald Trump candidacy, by the way.)

As for Chris Collins, who called Brower’s plan “seriously a great idea” and asked for volunteers: his listed activities include “Jackson County GOP”, “Tea Party Movement”, “Freemasonry”, and “Jefferson Georgia Tea Party Patriots”.  (Again, this does not mean that any of these groups as a whole, or any other members of them, necessarily endorse or even know about what he was plotting with Brower.)

Collin’s page also lists HermanCain.com as a past “employer”.  However, I have found no corroboration for this, so he may just have put that there to show his support.

It’s important to note that anyone can list themselves as being employed by anyone else on Facebook.  Once again, until further evidence comes forward, it is not safe to assume that he actually worked for Cain, and certainly not that Cain is somehow behind this anti-Paul plan.  Recently Collins has been posting lots of anti-Ron Paul and pro-Rick Santorum articles.

Lacrosswatchdog.org has noted that South Carolina has a history of political dirty tricks, such as Karl Rove’s disgraceful “push polling” during the 2000 GOP Primary.

The proposed plot against Ron Paul is similar to one that was carried out against his son Rand Paul during his Senate campaign, when a supporter of Democrat Jack Conway dressed up as a “Rand fan” to try to make Rand Paul supporters look crazy and racist in front of the media, but was later caught participating in a march for Conway. He was subsequently identified as Tyler Collins, a liberal activist who campaigned for Barack Obama.

Similar tactics have also been planned and executed against the “Tea Party movement” by (for example) “anarchist” provocateurs wanting to “act on behalf of the Tea Party” in disgraceful ways in order to “damage the public’s opinion of them”, and fake “Nazi Youth” who crashed a tax day protest by the Santa Fe Tea Party.

Here is a good example of activists with cameras and anti-racism signs non-violently confronting a supposed “KKK” member who infiltrated a “Tea Party” rally in St. Louis, which may be instructive if any such people show up in South Carolina this week.

In South Carolina, Ron Paul has recently surged to 20% in the polls, following his impressive second place showing in New Hampshire, where he garnered 24% of the vote.

(Note: All of the information in this article was already a matter of public record, and much of it was publicly posted to the internet by Brower and Collins.)

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January 15, 2012

Source: Charlotte Observer

The country’s biggest banks are overwhelmingly supporting Mitt Romney’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination, an Observer analysis of federal campaign contributions shows.

Employees at the five largest U.S. banks by assets, including Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., gave Romney about $600,000 through the first three quarters of 2011, according to the most recent filings available from the Federal Election Commission.

The second-largest recipient of bank employee contributions, President Barack Obama, had far less, about $200,000, the analysis showed. The Republican presidential hopeful with the second-highest total, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, dropped out of the race in mid-August.

Romney received more from employees of those top five banks than all the other candidates combined, helping make the former Massachusetts governor the best-financed candidate in the Republican nomination battle, which is heating up in South Carolina ahead of Saturday’s primary.

Read More….

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January 13, 2012

Source: The American Dream

Wouldn’t it be great if a Republican presidential candidate could just buy the support of just about every major conservative talk show host in America?  Well, it may not be as far-fetched as you may think.

Clear Channel owns more radio stations (850) than anyone else in the United States.  They also own Premiere Radio Networks, the company that syndicates the radio shows of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, among others.  Needless to say, Clear Channel basically owns conservative talk radio in the United States.  So who owns Clear Channel?  Well, it turns out that Bain Capital is one of the primary owners of Clear Channel.  Yes, you read that correctly.  The company that Mitt Romney ran for so long is one of the “big bosses” over virtually all conservative talk radio in America.  Of course Mitt Romney is not running Bain Capital anymore.  He is a “retired partner”, but he still has a huge financial stake in Bain Capital.  We’re talking about millions upon millions of dollars.  If you doubt this, just check out page 34 of this public financial disclosure report.  So if you have been wondering why so many conservative talk show hosts are being so incredibly kind to Mitt Romney, this just might be the answer.

In the media world, there is a clear understanding that you simply do not bite the hand that feeds you.  Some of the most prominent conservative talk radio hosts are earning tens of millions of dollars a year.

If you were making tens of millions of dollars a year, wouldn’t you be very careful to avoid offending your boss?

The deal in which Bain Capital became one of the owners of Clear Channel was initiated just a short time before Mitt Romney’s first run for president.  The following comes from Wikipedia….

On November 16, 2006, Clear Channel announced plans to go private, being bought out by two private-equity firms,Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital Partners for $18.7 billion, which is just under a 10 percent premium above its closing price of $35.36 a share on November 16 (the deal values Clear Channel at $37.60 per share).

The deal was finalized in 2008.  Today, Bain Capital is still one of the primary owners of Clear Channel.

One of the subsidiaries of Clear Channel is Premiere Radio Networks.

Premiere Radio Networks distributes a whole host of conservative talk radio shows.  Everyone in the conservative world knows names such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.  Clear Channel also controls some other conservative talk radio hosts (such as Michael Savage and Mark Levin) that are not part of the Premiere Radio family.

The power that Premiere Radio Networks has is absolutely staggering.  The following is directly from the official Clear Channel website….

Premiere Radio Networks Inc., a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, syndicates 90 radio programs and services to more than 5,000 radio affiliations and reaches over 190 million listeners weekly.  Premiere Radio is the number one radio network in the country and features the following personalities:  Rush Limbaugh, Jim Rome, Casey Kasem, Ryan Seacrest, Glenn Beck, Bob (Kevoian) & Tom (Griswold), Delilah, Steve Harvey, Blair Garner, George Noory, John Boy and Billy, Big Tigger, Dr. Dean Edell, Bob Costas, Sean Hannity and others. Premiere is based in Sherman Oaks, California, with 13 offices nationwide.

So do you think that any of those hosts is going to risk viciously attacking Mitt Romney and Bain Capital during this election season?

Not likely.

One of the controversies that has plagued Premiere Radio Networks in recent years has been the uproar over their use of paid actors to call in to their radio shows.

The following comes from Wikipedia….

Clear Channel, through its subsidiary, Premiere Radio Networks, auditions and hires actors to call in to talk radio shows and pose as listeners in order to provide shows, carried by Clear Channel and other broadcasters, with planned content in the form of stories and opinions. The custom caller service provided by Premiere Radio ensures its clients they won’t hear the same actor’s voice for at least two months in order to appear authentic to listeners who might otherwise catch on.

So perhaps that explains where some of the “Romney callers” come from.

There is nothing illegal about what Romney and Bain Capital have done, but it sure does not pass the “smell test”.

Conservative talk radio has the potential to sway millions of conservative voters in one direction or another, and it is just not proper for Bain Capital and Romney to have such an overpowering financial interest in conservative talk radio.

And yes, Mitt Romney is still bringing in lots of money from Bain Capital.  The following comes from a Wikipedia article about Mitt Romney….

At the time of his departure, Romney negotiated an agreement with Bain Capital that allowed him to receive a passive profit share as a retired partner in some Bain Capital entities, including buyout and investment funds.^[62][57] With the private equity business continuing to thrive, this deal would bring him millions of dollars in income each year.^[57] As a result of his business career, by 2007 Romney and his wife had a net worth of between $190 and $250 million, most of it held in blind trusts.^[62] An additional blind trust existed in the name of the Romneys’ children and grandchildren that was valued at between $70 and $100 million as of 2007.^[63] The couple’s net worth remained in the same range as of 2011, and was still held in blind trusts.

In addition, Bain Capital and Bain & Company continue to pour huge amounts of money into Romney’s campaign coffers.

Just check out the following list of the biggest donors to the Romney campaign.  These numbers come from opensecrets.org….

Goldman Sachs $367,200
Credit Suisse Group $203,750
Morgan Stanley $199,800
HIG Capital $186,500
Barclays $157,750
Kirkland & Ellis $132,100
Bank of America $126,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers $118,250
EMC Corp $117,300
JPMorgan Chase & Co $112,250
The Villages $97,500
Vivint Inc $80,750
Marriott International $79,837
Sullivan & Cromwell $79,250
Bain Capital $74,500
UBS AG $73,750
Wells Fargo $61,500
Blackstone Group $59,800
Citigroup Inc $57,050
Bain & Co $52,500

As with anything, whenever you want to get to the real truth you just need to follow the money.

Earlier this week, Sean Hannity told Rick Perry that his attacks on Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital sounded like something that “Occupy Wall Street” would say.

Just the other day, Rush Limbaugh compared Rick Perry to Fidel Castro and rabidly defended Mitt Romney on his radio program….

“There’s no way you can try to dress that up,” Limbaugh fumed. “I don’t understand it. Well, politically I understand it, but that’s just absurd. It’s sad. ‘Cause I really, really, really like Rick Perry! I really do. I had such hopes! I did. I’ll tell you, I did, but all of this talk about “corporate raiders,” and as I listen to politicians start talking about capitalism, lights are going off in my head. “Maybe they don’t really know what it is. Maybe they’re under some misconception about what capitalism is, because this characterization of it? A distinction with venture capitalism and vulture capitalism? This bite from Perry doesn’t compute.”

So why are these conservative talk show hosts defending Mitt Romney so furiously?

I think now we know.

It is all about the money.

When you have enough money, you can get conservative talk show hosts to promote an extremely liberal candidate.

Yes, of course Bain Capital does not “control” what these talk show hosts say.

Yes, of course some of the talk show hosts toss some light criticism at Romney from time to time.

But they simply do not go after Romney like they should be.

The truth is that Mitt Romney is really a Democrat that is masquerading as a Republican.  When you closely examine his record, he is very similar to Obama.

There is no way in the world that any self-respecting conservative should ever cast a single vote for him.

But right now Mitt Romney is running away with the race for the Republican nomination.

If Republicans can be fooled this badly, is there any hope for the future of the Republican Party?

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“Close Guantánamo” Campaign and Website Launches: Retired Military Personnel, Lawyers Call for the Closure of Guantánamo After 10 Years

Andy Worthington

January 11, 2012 Yesterday, at “Guantánamo Forever?” an event at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C., attorney Tom Wilner and journalist Andy Worthington launched “Close Guantánamo,” a new campaign and website designed to provide education about the ongoing injustice of Guantánamo, to provide a focus for those who believe that the prison must be closed, and to provide methods for people to show their support for the closure of Guantánamo. A sign-up page is here, where supporters can help to build up a body of opposition to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to show the Obama administration, Congress and the media how many people are dissatisfied with the President’s inability to close the prison, and the actions of Congress to actively prevent its miserable 10-year history from coming to an end. In addition, a petition calling for the closure of the prison is on the White House’s “We the People” website, and 25,000 signatures are required within 30 days to secure a response from the White House. Below is the press release that was issued yesterday announcing the launch of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign and website. Please also join the campaign on Facebook and Twitter. For the 10th anniversary of the opening of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (on Jan. 11), a group of retired military personnel and lawyers are calling on President Obama to honor his promise to close the prison, which he made when he took office in January 2009. Signatories to the mission statement for the “Close Guantánamo” campaign include: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell; the Hon. John J. Gibbons, former Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; Gen. David M. Brahms (Ret.); Rear Adm. Donald J. Guter (Ret.); Rear Adm. John D. Hutson (Ret.); Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for the Military Commissions at Guantánamo; and several lawyers who have been involved in the litigation involving Guantánamo and the 171 prisoners still held there. The mission statement also notes that over half of the remaining 171 prisoners — 89 men in total — have been cleared for release or transfer, and, as the signatories explain: “It is unacceptable that the U.S. government continues to hold men that its own national security experts have recommended for release or transfer, and that Congress has intervened to maintain this deplorable state of affairs.” The signatories also note: “Guantánamo harms our nation every day it stays open, and it continues to serve as a potent symbol for terrorist recruitment.” The “Close Guantánamo” campaign invites anyone opposed to the continued existence of Guantánamo to sign up to the campaign, to show the President and Congress that there is significant support for the prison’s closure, and also to sign a petition on the White House’s “We the People” website, calling for the prison’s closure. The White House commits to respond to any petition that receives 25,000 signatures within 30 days. In the months to come, the website will feature stories of the remaining prisoners, via their lawyers, and important background information about the prison, the men held there, and the reasons why the prison is still open, to help people understand why this remains an issue of great importance. The Steering Committee members are: Gary A. Isaac and Tom Wilner, attorneys who were involved in litigation on behalf of the Guantánamo prisoners before the Supreme Court, and Andy Worthington, journalist and author. For further information about the petition, Gary A. Isaac can be contacted here. For further information about the website, and about the campaign in general, Andy Worthington can be contacted here. Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

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January 6, 2012

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January 4, 2012

Source: The BLAZE

America’s longest economic recession since WWII, ended in June of 2009. The recession’s end means that our economy has allegedly been in recovery mode since July of 2009, more than two and a half years.

If we are in recovery, why have American’s incomes dropped more during the recovery than they did in the recession? The facts are clear.

Personal incomes fell during the recession by 3.2%.

During the recovery (since July 2009), personal incomes have fallen an additional 6.7%.

Those numbers were posted in a report by Sentier Research using numbers provided by the U.S. Census. (The RED line is the Household Income Index)

The Obama administration has been touting the “recovery” of the American economy and yet this recent data seems to demonstrate that the average household is still waiting for some of the benefits seen in the stock market.

Jeff Anderson of The Weekly Standard drilled deeper into the Sentier report and found even more information that might be cause for concern in the White House.

The income drop was steeper for those under 25 years of age (their incomes were down 9.5 percent), for those between 25 and 34 years of age (down 9.8 percent), for black Americans (down 9.4 percent), for families with three or more children (down 9.5 percent), and for families headed by part-time workers (down 11.5 percent).

Young people and African Americans were two of the strongest voting blocks for Barack Obama in the 2008 election. Seeing that both of those groups are being hit harder than the rest of the population represents an opportunity for the GOP and a challenge for Obama.

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Executive Summary

It’s not about Party — It’s about Principle.
It’s not about Personality — It’s about Policy.

So here IS how this 2012 election will go.
1) Ron Paul will win the GOP nomination, or
2) Ron Paul will run 3rd party, or
3) Ron Paul supporters will WRITE IN Ron Paul’s name during the general election.

Either way, supporters of the Ron Paul policies and principles will not support the status quo simply because there is a party name attached to the candidate. Voting for Establishment candidates (status quo) has brought the American people and the United States to the edge of the cliff. Some of us (Ron Paul supporters) are not going to jump off the cliff. We choose to live free, sovereign and prosperous lives.

The GOP and disenfranchised Democrats, Independents and Libertarians have a choice. Vote for Ron Paul in the primaries and general election or very probably attempt to survive with another four years of what we’ve been getting for the past twenty years – only worse.

Understand this … If Ron Paul does not win, it makes no difference who else wins because everyone except Ron Paul will implement the same globalist principles and policies that have been in effect and building for at least the last fifty years in America.

IF you are one of the disenfranchised members of the Republican and Democratic parities and IF you are an Independent that knows that war is not peace; that debt is not wealth; that slavery is not liberty; that ignorance is not understanding; that the current system is not serving you and your interests — then IT IS TIME TO REGISTER AS A REPUBLICAN for the 2012 elections and CAST YOUR VOTE FOR THE PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES OF RON PAUL by VOTING FOR RON PAUL. No opportunity lasts forever. There is a time to act and that time is now IF you want to get your personal security (economic and liberty) back under your control.

Background …

The neocons succeeded in their co-opting of the Republican Party and the ‘conservative’ media. The ‘neo-liberals’ co-opted the Democrat Party and the ‘liberal’ media. The Globalists succeeded in co-opting both parties, the media, education and government until the Globalist agenda was uninterrupted by national elections and changes in the party that won control of government.

Republicans, Democrats and Independents who valued constitutional government, a sound economy, a secure nation, excellence in education, accountability at all levels and in all institutions and organizations began to see ALL of these things disappearing. What are some of these ‘things?’

Constitutional Government: limited, constitutional government, checks and balances, the Bill of Rights, justice in law enforcement and judicial system, individual liberty without government interference in our daily lives, a secure and valid electoral process (accurate counting and reporting of votes cast)

Sound Economy: strong self-sufficient industrial base, sound money, a true free market and true capitalism

National Security: a sovereign and self-sufficient United States, secure borders and regulated immigration, a non-interventionist foreign policy (per our Founders)

Excellence in Education: teaching not only literacy but creativity, an understanding of constitutional government, self-rule, balance of powers, sovereignty, justice, personal liberty, property rights, inventiveness and principles of personal responsibility and entrepreneurialism

Accountability: accountability in government and the market place

On the Republican Party side, the Limbaughs, Hannities and O’Rilleys began to call any member of the Republican Party a liberal wacko who espoused support of the above policies and principles. At first, such Republican rank and file were insulted, confused and angry that these mainstream (controlled) media personalities had the power to shape the message for ALL Republicans. The same is essentially true on the Democratic side and the ‘liberal’ mainstream media personalities. Those Democrats too were basically told to shut up and accept the new party line.

So now here we are fifteen to twenty years after this major unification of the globalist message and policy has been in effect. The lock-step adherence to this globalist agenda by both major parties has resulted in a unified agenda being pursued in Washington, D.C. regardless of which party or personality wins the seats of power up for election. And here’s where it begins to get dicey for the co-opters.

A critical mass of Americans is beginning to wakeup to the fraud that is being played upon them. More Americans awake to understand this fraud each and every day. So now, the power of the Party label is fading at an incredibly fast pace.

More and more people are taking off their colors, patches and pins and are replacing all those childish things with principles. More and more people are beginning to recognize the cult of personalities (political and media celebrity) and are beginning to replace that with specific policies that support their principles.

This brings us to Ron Paul and the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election. It’s not about the Republican Party — it’s about the principles. It’s not about Ron Paul as a person — it’s about the policies.

So all of this media propaganda attempting to condition the American people to believe that supporters of Ron Paul’s principles and policies are members of a personality cult or ‘paulbots’ is not only wrong – it’s laughable. Paul supporters are way beyond cult-like worship of celebrity personalities and bigoted party memberships. Paul supporters a looking FAR beyond Ron Paul.

It’s now very clear to the awakened and awakening Americans that the REAL cult members — the REAL ‘polibots’ — are those sad individuals who believe that only the Republican or Democratic parties can produce the next president of the United States of America.

The REAL political cultists are those people who have drank the Establishment’s mainstream status quo koolaid and as a result have adopted the current globalist agenda of perpetual war, the deindustrialization of the western industrialized nations, the destruction of national sovereignty and secure borders, the destruction of national currencies, the destruction of literate populations, the destruction of constitutional liberties and the implementation of controlled police-state societies where personal privacy and dignity are considered acts of terrorism.

So refer to the Executive Summary once again to see how this 2012 election is going to go.

NOTES:
• List of countries by proven oil reserves

David Sadler
www.david-sadler.org

David Sadler ran for Congress in the 12th Congressional District of Illinois in 2002 as a Republican. The state and national Republican Party suppressed his campaign. He maintains the neocons have hijacked the GOP, but that the neocons do not speak for traditional, liberty-minded conservatives.

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In an exclusive interview with The Huffington Post, the former Utah governor challenged Romney to prove his independence from the financial sector’s biggest players.

“It is not necessarily about the history of his involvement on Wall Street,” Huntsman said, shortly after addressing a room full of doctors and other medical employees at Dartmouth Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. “It is the fact that he has raised so much money from the large banks, the banks that need to be right-sized. If you are the largest recipient of funds from Wall Street, and in particular the large banks, you are not going to be inclined to want to change that model. Because those who run those banks want no change, they profit off the status quo and clearly they are not going to be inclined to want to bring about any change.”

Aides to Romney declined to respond to the charge, underscoring the extent to which they feel unthreatened by Huntsman’s current position in the polls. They also appear to be confident that voters are not bothered by the composition of Romney’s donor base — and perhaps with good reason. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Romney has raised $7.8 million from the finance, insurance, and real estate industries, or 24 percent of the $32 million he has raised in the first three quarters of 2011. Huntsman, meanwhile, received $467,000 from finance, insurance, and real estate donors. While that figure is far smaller than the amount Romney received, it also represents 21 percent of the total donations Huntsman raked in during that time period.

But it’s not just Romney’s money that the Huntsman campaign is hoping to turn into a liability. An aide to the Utah Republican argued that Romney has no real plan to deal with certain institutions being too big to fail, and said Romney admitted that much in an interview with Real Clear Politics last week:

Asked, for instance, whether a President Romney would allow a financial institution as large as Bank of America or Citigroup to fail in a hypothetical crisis, he first emphasized that he “would not suggest that some institutions should be free from the prospect of the bankruptcy courts.”But after reiterating that he doesn’t support bailing out individual institutions, Romney left himself some leeway.

“Obviously, I will look at the circumstances that might exist in the future,” he said.

Huntsman, by contrast, has argued for banks to be reduced in size, and for stricter limits to be placed on the type of financial activities they can undertake.

“I want those banks to be down where they were in the 1990s, where if they screw up, if they get sick, they can fail. They won’t bring all of us down with them,” he explained to the crowd of medical professionals. “We need a president, ladies and gentlemen, who is going to take on the banking sector.”

Asked about that plan in an interview with The Huffington Post last week, Romney argued that the way to fundamentally resolve the issue of institutions being too big to fail was to change the structure of the banking system at large.

“I believe that institutions have the capacity to go through bankruptcy if necessary to reorganize their obligations,” Romney said. “I think what happened in 2008 was not a matter of one bank, Lehman Brothers, having caused the entire collapse. I think the matter was that we had a massive problem in our economy, which was precipitated by the subprime mortgage crisis, that threatened not just one or two banks but threatened the entire banking sector, our entire financial services sector. And that was a setting very different than that that would be caused by one institution getting in trouble.”

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Anthony Gucciardi
Activist Post

The United States is threatening nations who oppose Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) crops with military-style trade wars, according to information obtained and released by the organization WikiLeaks.

Nations like France, which have moved to ban one of Monsanto’s GM corn varieties, were requested to be ‘penalized’ by the United States for opposing Monsanto and genetically modified foods.

The information reveals just how deep Monsanto’s roots have penetrated key positions within the United States government, with the cables reporting that many U.S. diplomats work directly for Monsanto.

The WikiLeaks cable reveals that in late 2007, the United States ambassador to France and business partner to George W. Bush, Craig Stapleton, requested that the European Union along with particular nations that did not support GMO crops be penalized. Stapleton, who co-owned the Dallas/Fort Worth-based Texas Rangers baseball team with Bush in the 1990s, stated:

Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.

The Leaked Political Agenda Behind Monsanto’s GMO Crops

The ambassador plainly calls for ‘target retaliation’ against nations who are against using Monsanto’s genetically modified corn, admittedly linked to organ damage and environmental devastation.

Amazingly, this is not an isolated case. In similar newly released cables, United States diplomats are found to have pushed GMO crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.
Furthermore, the U.S. specifically targeted advisers to the Pope, due to the fact that many Catholic bishops and figureheads have openly denounced GMO crops. In fact, the Vatican has openly declared Monsanto’s GMO crops as a ‘new form of slavery’.

‘A Martino deputy told us recently that the cardinal had co-operated with embassy Vatican on biotech over the past two years in part to compensate for his vocal disapproval of the Iraq war and its aftermath – to keep relations with the USG [US government] smooth. According to our source, Martino no longer feels the need to take this approach,’ says the cable.

Perhaps the most shocking piece of information exposed by the cables is the fact that these U.S. diplomats are actually working directly for biotech corporations like Monsanto. The cables also highlight the relationship between the U.S. and Spain in their conquest to persuade other nations to allow for the expansion of GMO crops. Not only did the Spanish government secretly correspond with the U.S. government on the subject, but the U.S. government actually knew beforehand how Spain would vote before the Spanish biotech commission reported their decision regarding GMO crops. The cable states:

‘In response to recent urgent requests by [Spanish rural affairs ministry] state secretary Josep Puxeu and Monsanto, post requests renewed US government support of Spain’s science-based agricultural biotechnology position through high-level US government intervention.’

Monsanto has undoubtedly infiltrated the United States government in order to push their health-endangering agenda, and this has been known long before the release of these WikiLeaks cables. The U.S. is the only place where Monsanto’s synthetic hormone Posilac is still used in roughly 1/3 of all cows, with 27 nations banning the substance over legitimate health concerns. Despite Monsanto’s best attempts at incognito political corruption, nothing can stop the grassroots anti-Monsanto movement that is taking over cities and nations alike.

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