Iran dumps U.S. dollars in oil transactions

TEHRAN, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Iran had totally removed U.S. dollars in the country's oil transactions, an Oil Ministry official said on Wednesday.

"The dollar has completely been removed from our oil trade....Crude oil customers have agreed with us to use other currencies (in the trade)," Oil Ministry official Hojjatollah Ghanimifard was quoted as saying by the state television.

"We make our transactions with euros in Europe, but yen in Asia," he added.

Due to the tensions with Washington in the past years over the nuclear disputes and the latest depreciation of dollars, Iran has vowed to decrease the greenback in its foreign trade. Iran central bank also has reduced dollars in the country's foreign reserves. In last November's summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Saudi Arabia, Iran proposed that it was necessary to replace the U.S. dollar with other major hard currencies in oil trading.

But some Arab allies of the United States showed few support to Tehran's advice.

However, Iran's Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari has already declared in last December that Tehran had completely stopped selling its oil in dollars, according a report by the semi-official ISNA news agency at that time.

"In line with the policy of selling crude oil in non dollar currencies, currently selling our country's oil in U.S. dollars has been completely stopped," Nozari was then quoted as saying. Right now it's not clear why there seems to be a contradiction between comments by the two officials over the exact time to stop dollars in Iran's oil trade.

Martin Luther King, Presente!

By Ted Glick
Future Hope, 4/29/2008

"Had he [Dr. King] lived and been confronted with the abject failure of liberal democracy to alleviate the suffering and deprivation of its teeming masses, his formidable conscience might well have required him to advocate root and branch reconstruction of the government of his native land, as, in fact, was urged by Mr. [Thomas] Jefferson as the responsibility of each new generation." William F. Pepper, in "An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King"

Over the past weekend, while away at the N.J. shore trying to get over the symptoms of a lingering flu, I read William F. Pepper's book about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was sobering reading.

In An Act of State, Pepper lays out a very strong case that King was killed not by James Earl Ray but, instead, as a result of a wide-ranging assassination plan-a conspiracy-between elements of the U.S. military, the CIA, the FBI, the Memphis police and organized crime. The heart of the book is the chapter about the civil trial which took place in Memphis in November and December, 1999.

In that trial, on behalf of the King family, William Pepper and others working with him presented the details of the conspiracy that they had been able to uncover over the course of decades of investigation. When the case went to the jury for a decision, it took them all of one hour to come back with their verdict:

"After nearly four weeks of trial and some 70 witnesses they found that: yes, Loyd Jowers [a local Memphis resident], participated in a conspiracy to do harm to Martin Luther King; and, yes, others including governmental agencies were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant."

Following this decision, the judge in the case, James Swearingen, "apportioned liability as follows: 30% - defendant Loyd Jowers, 70% - all other co-conspirators."

Pepper-and he has a lot of company-is convinced that the reason King was killed in 1968 was because of the movement he was building. That movement was linking opposition to racial and economic injustice, the war in Vietnam and the structural oppression of the U.S. political and economic system. The powers-that-be were particularly concerned about the leadership King was giving toward the multi-racial and multi-issue Poor People's March on Washington, D.C. The intention of that march was to nonviolently disrupt business as usual over a period of weeks.

Within the 1968 political context of an aroused Black community, a growing anti-war movement and other political ferment at the base of society, government and corporate leaders were worried about the Poor People's March acting as a spark to galvanize a massive uprising for peace and justice.

Today, 40 years later, the conditions which led Martin Luther King to give his life in a struggle to overcome them have not improved. It is true that there are more African Americans and other people of color within the worlds of government, business, education, sports, mass media and other U.S. institutions. But the percentages of people in poverty or close to it and without health insurance are virtually the same. The gulf between the super-rich elite and the vast majority of the people, nationally and internationally, has widened into a tremendous and devastating chasm. The number of Blacks and Latinos within U.S. jails and prisons has skyrocketed over those 40 years. U.S. military spending and U.S. militarism and imperialism is much more extensive. The global warming crisis, a result of the dominance of corporate fossil fuel polluters over government and the media, is threatening all life on earth.

I've been personally involved in two efforts over the past eight months that nonviolently disrupted business as usual in Washington, D.C.-as part of a No War, No Warming action on Capitol Hill on October 22, 2007 and as part of a primarily anti-war action on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War on March 19th, 2008. Both were important. Both got national press coverage. Both were concrete examples that within the peace/justice movement and within the climate movement there are currents of activism growing which are prepared to up the ante, to put our bodies on the line.

I don't know how much of this kind of activism can be expected over the rest of the year. There will be some at the Republican and Democratic conventions. There will probably be some at coal plants, or projected sites of new coal plants. Perhaps there will be nonviolent civil disobedience directed at some of the particularly odious politicians running for office. But in general, my reading of the state of our movement is that most activists are involved or are planning to be involved, one way or the other, in relationship to 2008 electoral campaigns.

Electoral activism can be useful in building a movement and building organization, if it's independent of corporate Democrat and corporate Republican domination. But we also need to be opening up discussions now about how, in the first part of 2009, at the Presidential Inauguration in D.C. and during the first weeks and months of a new President and a new Congress, the demands and needs of the people and our threatened ecosystem can be brought forward loudly and clearly using, as a primary tactic, creative, disruptive, nonviolent direct action.

In the spirit and memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. and all those who have given their lives in the struggle against oppressive rulers and for a new society, we need a massive, 2009 Peoples March on D.C. next spring, an urgent mobilization of the people against war and global warming and for jobs, justice, clean energy and peace. We must make government of, by and for the people a reality, and we must get organized to bring independent, sustained pressure to bear until we achieve that objective. Martin Luther King, presente!

Should the United States Worry About “Zionists” as Fifth Column?

Yes.

Jefferson Corner/ Kenny's Sideshow

Last week calls by candidate Hillary Clinton to obliterate Iran for and on behalf of Israel and her willingness to commit to nuclear war costing the lives of hundreds of millions of people for and on behalf of a state that since its inception has been at war with all of its close and distant neighbor is a grave warning to Americans of the danger of Zionism on America and the world.

In few weeks President George Bush will lead a delegation of “Whose Who” in politics, government, business, media and arts and head east to Tel-Aviv to their “Mecca” to celebrate and give allegiance to the State of Israel on its 60th anniversary. Europeans will be celebrating for having gotten rid of the majority of Jews within Europe.

Since its inception in the late 18th century Europe, the zionist movement worked so hard to transform All Jewish communities within the West in its own image and tried and have succeeded to a great extent to transform the US and European Jewry to loyal followers and Israeli loyalists resurrecting the feelings of alienation among world Jewry to their own countries and of course reigniting again the horrible seeds of anti-semitism. The measure of success of the zionist enterprise is its ability to disfranchise old established Jewish communities in their native countries and countries of birth and citizenship and give them their “choice” of immigrating to Israel, the only place “where Jews can feel Jews”.

To this end trillions of dollars of “Jewish” money and from citizens tax payers from around the world were committed to Israel building its new infrastructure based on defense, armaments and Spartan siege mentality. Unlike the claims of zionists of having made the desert bloom, Palestine was a thriving community with well known products around the world such as Jaffa oranges. With Trillions of dollars pouring into Israel and with an already thriving Palestinian community, one can make the “moon bloom”. Hence the Zionist myth of making the “desert bloom” we did that in Arizona and we are not zionists.

The zionist ideology based on “Jewish nationalism” fed on and in reaction to European and Western/Christian anti-semitism, pogroms and the holocaust, succeeds for the most part in converting and transforming Jewish loyalties to “their” Jewish state Israel and the zionist movement. If the Catholic church and Islam tried to convert and shift loyalties of community of the faithful from that of their national state to loyalty to Rome and Mecca, I am sure that zionists would cry foul and would charge Rome and Mecca with inciting “treason” among citizens of the world. zionism as a form of racism did succeed in making transformation of Judaism from a religion of faith to one “religious nationalism” with the Israel being the “nation” and central to Jewish life and succeeded in making the Jews feel the needs for “separate” and shifting loyalties from their native countries to that of Israel. This new zionist ideology is not different from that of the communist ideology which demanded shifting of loyalties from ones country to that of the Soviet Union and Moscow. If Islamists loyal to a foreign agenda could not be trusted or entrusted with the interests of the United States claims often raised by the likes of Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes, Charles Krauthhammer then the same can be said of zionists within the United States, they too could never be trusted with the interests of the United States since they too are loyal to a foreign agenda, Israel.

Not only did the zionist movement demand Jewish loyalties to zionism and Israel it also sought to recruit Christian evangelical movements and transformed them to Christian zionists with shifting loyalties to Israel from than of their own country especially in the United States. This unholy alliance came about as an alliance between Israel’s Likud party and right wing Republicans during the Reagan administration where each was supporting the other for their own domestic and international agenda, especially in oppositions toward peace between Israel and the Arabs. Of course we all know the agenda of evangelical zionists which is the ultimate conversion of Jews or putting them to death in fulfillment of biblical prophecies. Such is the unholy alliance.

In the hey day of the Soviet Union, it succeeded to a limited extent in having a”fifth” column within the government of the United States. The Zionists went even further, they made sure that committed and loyal zionists are in every branch of the US government and in key positions, in the White House, Justice Department, Home Land Security, State, Defense, CIA, NSC and other key security agencies, especially in US Congress where key decision makers, staffers are loyal zionists. However it was not enough for the zionists to have such an army of Israeli loyalists among the tens of thousands in government, it made sure that it also spread its tentacles to the media, art and culture and of course in business, hence the danger to Western democracies and to the world in general.

The arrest two week ago of the 84 years old American Jew, Ben-Ami Kadish on charges of spying for Israel is but a tip of the iceberg where committed zionists with loyalties to zionism and Israel are in the tens of thousands within the different branches of government especially the State and other security agencies, with many security agencies employing dual nationals (Israelis and US) and employing former members of Mossad in key positions with US security agencies...

This commitment and loyalty to Israel was and is the driving force behind many of the very dangerous acts and decisions taken by officials within the different US administration. The Ben-Ami Kadish case is but on case, to be added to the Pollard case and many other cases the government simply refuses to bring out into the open.

One has to keep in mind the many incidents where zionists put the interests of Israel first. The case of the missing/stolen 100 kilogram of uranium 235 missing from the Apollo plant in Pennsylvania is but one of those incidents where the managing director of the plants having strong ties to Israel. The same is true of the case the nine kilogram of weapon grade uranium found missing from Erwin, Tennessee. The case of the missing two tons of uranium missing during a trip between Antwerp to Genoa but an added story to Zionists loyalty to Israel where the owner of the ship was identified by the Norwegian as an Israeli secret agent.

In the United States, the zionists tentacles are found every where. Lyndon Johnson as president under the influence of his “zionist “ national security advisor Walter Rastow made sure that nuclear capabilities of the F-4 Phantoms delivered to Israel where left intact in violation of the US export regulation, even refusing to fully investigate the case of the missing nuclear fuel from the Apollo plant.

More dangerous was Johnson's total disregard of the lives of US sailors killed in cold blood by Israeli jets and torpedo boats on the USS Liberty with Johnson's Jewish national security agency director snuffing out any resolution and finding Israel responsible for the cold blooded murder. Admiral McCain (father of John McCain) as Commander of US Sixth Fleet denied help to the attacked ship and its dead and injured crew on orders from the Zionists within the White House. In the 73' War, Kissinger a die hard zionist almost caused a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union in his attempt to save Israel in the first few days of the October War, stripping the US army of its tanks and missiles in Europe and flying military equipment directly to the battle field in an added attempt to save Israel while putting the US and its armed forces in Europe at risk. However Kissinger's committment to Israel did not stop there. He made sure he got rid of all “Arabists” within the State Department for fear that they may be hostile to Israel. Kissinger's decisions again, were based on his zionist ideology and not based on the US national security interest.

Zionists with the State and Defense Departments were the driving force behind Cheney-Bush War on Iraq. It is their zionism and loyalty to Israel, that was the driving force for getting the US committed to war. Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearl, Douglas Feith, Elliot Abrams and William Kristol are all zionists with loyalties to the zionist agenda and Israel, are fully responsible for the death of more than 4,000 US soldiers, responsible for the more than 40,000 combat injuries, more than a million Iraqis dead and of course the more than $ 600,000 Billions the cost so far, of the War on Iraq. All of that for and on behalf of Israel. These zionists with their loyalties to Israel are similar to Communists with their loyalties to Moscow. However the George Bush administration is not the only administration to put zionists in charge of the US policies in the Middle East. Bill Clinton entrusted US policies in the Middle East to key staffers who came directly from Israeli/zionist work shop. Dennis Ross and Martin Indyke where and are committed zionists and Israeli loyalists...

Presidential candidates John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should think twice before making loyalty to Israel and zionism the central theme of their presidential campaign. How about putting America first for a change?

Jefferson Corner

Quake series stresses Reno-area residents

By Jeff DeLong, USA TODAY

RENO — Residents here are being shaken, literally, by an ongoing series of earthquakes, which experts warn could be a precursor to a major seismic event.
Since late February, hundreds of earthquakes have rattled parts of west Reno. The strongest quake — with a magnitude of 4.7 — hit shortly before midnight last Friday, cracking walls and breaking windows, according to the Nevada Seismological Laboratory.

More than 200 additional small quakes have followed, the lab reported, including two Monday evening and some small earthquakes Tuesday.

"My nerves are shot. I can't do it anymore," said Cindy Thomas of Mogul, a community west of Reno. She and husband Larry moved to a relative's house in the southern part of Reno, away from where the quakes have clustered. She plans to stay away "as long as it takes."

Scientists at the seismological laboratory — who met with Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons on Tuesday — say the Reno earthquake swarm is unusual.

That's because a primary earthquake usually is followed by aftershocks diminishing in strength. These quakes started out small and the general trend shows them building in strength.

A magnitude-6 quake hitting Reno "wouldn't be a scientific surprise," said John Anderson, the lab's director.

Any earthquake measuring above a magnitude of 6 is considered a strong earthquake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Reno-area police and fire agencies have plans in place to respond to a major earthquake, and the state is ready to jump to the aid of Washoe County should one occur, said Gary Derks, operations officer for the Nevada Division of Emergency Management.

Aaron Kenneston, emergency manager for Washoe County, is encouraging residents to prepare for a serious quake by stocking up on food, batteries, flashlights, first-aid supplies and at least 1 gallon of water per family member.

Joe Bernardo spent last Friday night sweeping up broken glass inside his home, only to be jolted awake by another quake about 4:30 a.m. Monday.

"Sleep-deprived? Yeah, you could say that," said Bernardo, 63.

Sandy Jung and her husband are sleeping in a motor home for safety.

Previously a California resident, Jung said she's accustomed to earthquakes, and has experienced bigger ones than are occurring in Reno.

"But not swarms of them. Not day after day after day," Jung said. "It's getting very tiresome."

DeLong reports for the Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal

For Currency Traders, an important update from FXI

FXI Update

*A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER*

Subject: A Clear and Present Danger


I received the following from an extremely well informed person. This explains the situation the Federal Reserve and its member banks are in at this exact time...
It explains how we got here and what needs to be done to free ourselves of the bankers who have illegally run our money system for most of the last century.
This is the most important article you will read. I ask that you send it to everyone you know. It explains everything clearly and simply. You don't have to be a Constitutional scholar to understand what happened, how it happened, and what we the citizens of the united states MUST do to insure that the bankruptcy of CORPORATE UNITED STATES does NOT fall on us!! Please read this carefully.



*April 24, 2008*


*A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER* - Part One


If events proceed as I hope, the Federal Reserve also will be dissolved as insolvent, and its Notes we have used as currency for 75 years will become valueless after some period where legally earned notes may be exchanged for new and legal United States money. *There will be volumes written in the future about how the United States of America, and particularly the control of our Treasury were quietly placed in private hands and secretly, from the general population, held and used there for 75 years. Those hands were for the most part,European, and had little, if any, interest in the welfare of the Citizens of this nation. Some of the "hands" were US, and they were even more ruthless. *

*But the situation has dramatically changed during the past five years, and particularly since November of 2007.*

*This narrative will necessarily begin with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria at Mukden. That is a well known historical fact. What is not as well known and understood is the "Mukden Incident" which occurred on September 18, 1931 was, in essence, a subterfuge undertaken by a few junior officers of the Japanese army when they secretly dynamited the South Manchurian Railway (owned by Japan) to provide the motive for the Japanese military conquest of Manchuria which continued until the Japanese victory on February 18, 1932 .*

*The most available explanation for the Japanese Manchurian invasion was that Japan coveted resource-rich Manchuria as a source of cheap raw materials for their burgeoning industrial complex. That explanation's basis is true, especially given an increasing shortage of favorably priced raw materials which Japan had to otherwise purchase and import from other sources.*

*But there was another, and largely hidden, reason. In 1931, the Manchuria-China border was only a few miles from Beijing where the Chinese Emperor, Pu-yi resided. The Manchu emperors kept much of their gold and other treasury items in northern Manchuria just a few miles from border, and therefore only a short distance from their Chinese capital.*

*Very shortly after the Japanese invasion commenced in southern Manchuria, a delegation sent by the United States Federal Reserve Bank to Beijing entered into negotiation with the Emperor. The Federal Reserve's offer was to quickly remove the Royal Treasury from its Manchurian location, and thereafter lease the contents of the Treasury for seventy years. In return, the Emperor received valid United States Federal Reserve bonds, maturing in seventy years, and in sufficient quantity to guarantee the debt as well as enough to pay the to-be accrued- seventy-year-interest. *

*The terms of the lease required the Emperor's estate, at the end of seventy years, to exchange the bonds with interest coupons attached, to the Federal Reserve in exchange for the return of all the Emperor's gold and other treasure, plus the accrued interest (to be paid in gold), to his estate's custody. *

*The contents of the Emperor's Manchurian Treasury were taken overland through China, and then by sea to Manila, Philippines, where the US quickly built and operated the largest gold refinery, at that time, in the world. After the gold was refined, some of it was sent to Switzerland where it was stored in extensive underground vaults under Zurich, while the greatest part was sent to the Federal Reserve vaults in New York.*

*Of course, much happened between 1931 and 2001, not the least of which was World War II and the Chinese Communist capture of all China except the island which was then called Formosa (now Taiwan). Pu-yi (the Emperor) remained a communist prisoner for many years and died as a gardener.*

*It apparently appeared to certain US and European financial interests who were interested parties in the leased Chinese Treasury, and it was probably their plan, that the Chinese imperial line died out, or at least was so impoverished that it had no means or power to recover any of their leased Treasury materials and articles. * *So seventy years passed.*

*In fact, the leasing parties grossly miscalculated. The Emperor, Pu-yi, had additional gold and other assets stored in protected places other than Manchuria-assets which escaped the attentions and discoveries of both the Japanese and Communist Chinese. Within the past two decades, much of that wealth has been returned to his grandson, a certain "Mr. Yi" who resides in Taiwan.*

*The ownership and control of the bonds which were exchanged for the Chinese Treasury were placed a number of years ago in the hands of certain surviving members of the Chinese royal family, and recently Mr. Yi. *

*So when 2001 came, Mr. Yi, The Emperor's grandson, by now a very wealthy and powerful individual, formally negotiated the return of the Chinese Royal Family's leased legal estate and the accumulated interest thereof from the United States Federal Reserve Bank (the lessor), in exchange for the Federal Reserve bonds and attached interest coupons. The returned amount of the Emperor's Treasury and interest was a very small part of what was owed.*

*A major part of the problem was that the United States Federal Reserve Bank, although owned by the United States Citizens by way of their Constitutional government, was operated from the beginning as a private organization whose assets were also privately owned, held and used (that included the entire amount collected from the Citizens/citizens as taxes). *

*The Chinese Treasury was divided for years among a number of wealthy and powerful European and North American interests, many of whom never expected the Chinese royal line to survive. Consequently, they never expected to repay either the principal or the interest due on the Chinese royal assets they held and used. *

*In fact, many of them firmly resisted Mr. Yi's legal demand that whatever Chinese royal assets they held were required to be immediately returned with all due interest. *

*After some resistance, some of the Europeans holding Chinese Treasury assets
returned some of the Emperor's Treasury, but that amount also fell far-far short of what was actually owed. *

*Mr. Yi has since used legal and financial resources available to him, especially the assistance of a little known but very powerful World Monetary Authority, to force the return of assets which are properly his.*

*That brings us the present. But before we can further address our subject, we need to explore more history-United States history. * *On April 6, 1933, President Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, declared a "national bank holiday" which lasted through April 9. There is a plethora of information about that period and the reasons causing such, but there is practically nothing said about one major event which occurred during the same time. A corporation was formed at the President's order called THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CORPORATION. That was done without Congressional action of any sort, so that organization is, and always has been, a privately owned, not public, corporation. At the same time, our legal system shifted from Public and English Common Law, to Private International Law.*

*THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CORPORATION then usurped all the identity, power, legal standing, laws and mandates, and assets of the Constitutional United States-virtually seamlessly and with hardly anyone even suspecting what had happened-for 75 years. * *Let me restate that in less complicated terms-for 75 years a private corporation, not our Constitutional government, has performed the role of our government for the exclusive benefit of that organization's shareholders and their friends. *

*The CORPORATION, through Congress, immediately passed into "law" such things as the law establishing the FEDERAL REGISTER ACT, which effectively allows the President to declare and establish "law" by publishing his declaration in the FEDERAL REGISTER, that without consulting or informing Congress, let alone requiring their debate and passage of any effective law. *

*That should explain a great deal about why our "government" consistently behaves outside our Constitution and other laws. Our Constitutional government is bound (limited) by the Constitution. The CORPORATION, however, is bound only by the tenets of the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations, both Private International Law, which, inthis country, may only be tried and enforced by and in Admiralty, not civil or equity courts. Equity courts were done away with by our"government" soon after our form of law was changed.*

*A large book could be (and probably should be) written on the subject of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CORPORATION, however that is definitely outside the scope of this document. We will work only with the relationship of Mr. Yi and his efforts to enforce his contract with the Federal Reserve Bank. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CORPORATION, since it is in mortal financial default, was forced by the Monetary Authority to negotiate, for the past several months in Switzerland, their bankruptcy. Two Mondays ago the initial bankruptcy filings of that CORPORATION were placed in the United States Supreme Court. That bankruptcy was forced by Chinese and "other" interests.*

*I posit that the Citizens/citizens (yes, there is a difference), as well as those Citizens who are also Native Americans, also have a substantial legal interest in that matter, but as yet not legally entered in the case. It is absolutely essential that the CORPORATION assets placed in the legal proceeding be only theirs, and not the assets of the Constitutional United States, their Citizens/citizens assets and persons, and anything which is the property of our Native Americans. *

*I further posit that CORPORATION owes a great debt to the Constitutional United States of America and its Citizens/citizens. Our rights will be protected only if we act-it is in no one else's interest to so do. We need several very skilled Constitutional attorneys licensed and able to practice and argue in and before the US Supreme Court. If anyone fitting that description reads this document and would agree to assist, we need to hear from you immediately.

--- end of part one ---


So here is the rest of the story:

All of the business done by the Federal Reserve Bank of America since its inception in 1913 skirted the US Constitution by calling the currency they issued as "UNITED STATES NOTES" because it was specifically unconstitutional for the word "money" to appear anywhere on any note. Had the word "money" appeared, the Fed would have been guilty of counterfeiting. Furthermore, only the US government had the authority to produce and promulgate "money." The evidence of this is to be found in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

I posit that the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CORPORATION, a private organization continuously with shareholders, officers and directors since inception, has illegally been, with the collusion of the Federal Reserve Bank (another corporation, public but operated until this last year as a private organization), in complete control of the financial life of this you know, the CORPORATION is now in bankruptcy.

As a private corporation, whatever debts they have incurred as THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, which by the way is virtually all the debt attributed to this nation, is actually theirs and not the Constitutional United States' and/or its Citizens/citizens. That can and will be proved in due time in a court of law, probably the US Supreme Court.

On the other hand, I believe the United States (Constitutional), its assets, its Citizens and their assets and can be proven to be not owned by THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and therefore outside the bankruptcy. I believe the hyperinflation depression information (The writer's first email was posted as part of this article) sent you earlier today can be avoided if we act quickly and wisely. I can expand on that subject later.

If events proceed as I hope, the Federal Reserve also will be dissolved as insolvent, and its Notes we have used as currency for 75 years will become valueless after some period where legally earned notes may be exchanged for new and legal United States money.

I wish to see the United States to return to a precious metal basis for its money and I know how that can happen. But we have some rough water ahead, and unless we wish to experience hyperinflation depression or any part of it, we must act immediately to have something in place to replace the Fed notes we now use as currency.

I can expand on the above, but you have probably enough to think about now so I will call it a day.

Israeli Snipers Killing U.S. Troops in Iraq

Published on Friday, November 10, 2006.
Source: CNN / Joanna Francis

Anderson Cooper of CNN showed this video of snipers killing U.S. troops in Iraq on his October 18, 2006 show. CNN says it obtained the video from a “representative” of an unnamed “insurgent leader.” Bear in mind that Anderson Cooper used to work for the CIA.
Richard Wilson’s hypothesis: Israeli soldiers and/or Mossad agents are killing our soldiers in Iraq in order to enrage American troops so that the slaughter continues.

Proof: At the very beginning of this video clip, you see a rifle with a video camera attached to it. This weapon is made by the Rafael company, an Israeli arms manufacturer, that also makes IEDs. If you watch the video all the way through, it explains how this rifle works. CNN stated that the camera used to film these shootings was not a mounted rifle camera. But as you watch the video, you see that with each shot fired, the camera recoils. That would only happen if it were mounted on the rifle. Why is this significant? Because this kind of rifle-camera is extremely sophisticated and not available to your average Iraqi insurgent. I mean, it’s not exactly an easily obtainable Saturday night special! Something this sophisticated points to Mossad.

Mossad is a master at false flag operations, e.g., Oklahoma City, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, the July 7, 2005 London bombings, the 9-11 attacks in New York, the assassination of the Prime Minister in Beirut, the stoking of Muslim riots in France last year, the bombing of the Hassan al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, etc.

Israelis freely move among US and UK troops in Iraq, and have access to top-level US intelligence. Until July 2003, the head of all US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan was General Tommy Franks, a Zionist Jew. (He is now on the board of directors for Bank of America.) On November 7, 2006 another Zionist Jew became a principle liaison between Mossad and US forces in Iraq: Major General Richard F. Natonski of the Marine Corps. His title is Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policies and Operations.

Because of this access, the “insurgents” (i.e., Mossad agents) know exactly where US vehicles will be and who will be inside them. This allows them to target for maximum false flag effect.

For example, on July 23, 2005, a detachment of 19 female US Marines was sent to Fallujah to check Iraqi women for bombs. An IED blew up their truck. Two of the young American women were killed, five were critically wounded, and four were captured. The bodies of the four captured women turned up later in a garbage dump with their throats cut. Americans were outraged. Islamic clerics insisted that only Israelis could be so cold-blooded. And who was in charge of US forces in Fallujah at the time? None other than Major General Natonski, the Mossad liaison.

Americans are supposed to believe that rag-tag “insurgents” use IEDs powerful enough to kill three US troops per day, on average. An American soldier even set up a blog on how “Intel” is betraying and targeting US troops. But sometimes Mossad bomb-makers accidentally blow themselves up in Iraq.

According to Richard Wilson, Israeli sniping and IEDs are false flag operations. He says that on March 28, 2005, Americans arrested 19 Mossad agents who fired twice on a US Marine checkpoint. The Marines beat up the Mossad agents and tore off their Star-of-David necklaces. (The US media incorrectly said the agents were Americans.) The Mossad agents said they were employees of Zapata Engineering, which helps the CIA conduct interrogations, and also manages US ammo dumps and US motor pools in Iraq.

IEDs in Iraq are powerful enough to flip over a 70-ton tank. Some of the models shoot depleted-uranium projectiles, and are triggered by electronic devices surreptitiously planted on US armored vehicles. Zapata Engineering (which employs Mossad agents) makes this exact kind of trigger, and oversees some of the US motor pools.

Rumsfeld says the IEDs come from Iran, but Richard says they come from Mossad, and are not “improvised” at all. The Israeli company, Rafael (see above), makes IEDS, which are buried in the middle of a road. Beside the road is a device which emits a laser or radio signal. This device is manufactured by firms like Zapata Engineering, which is controlled by Zionist Jews. The IED mine, manufactured by Israel, is inert until a US vehicle (secretly planted with a triggering device) rolls over it.

Whenever Mossad carries out these false-flag operations they produce a videotape or a recording from an “unnamed source” that is “close to al-Qaeda.” Sometimes they say “the claim was posted on an Internet website, but its authenticity could not be verified.”

But Israelis would never kill anyone in cold blood, would they? After all, the USS Liberty massacre was “an accident!”

Barack Obama, Rev. Wright, and Racism, America Responds: We’re Not Done With You Yet

By mark karlin
April 29, 2008

Nothing more profoundly and disturbingly symbolizes America's subtle racist double standard than George Stephanopoulos's question during the Philadelphia debate to Barack Obama: "Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?"
We have all these right wing "God is destroying America because it has sinned" preachers running around with barely a question asked of the Republicans they back. Yes, Hagee, Robertson, the late Jerry Falwell, and countless other religious leaders of the fundamentalist cloth have delivered countless white versions of "God Damns America" statements. The only difference is that they don't "say it black" in black churches, and then see it looped endlessly around on FOX TV and other cable networks, not to say rerun again and again on talk radio.
The point that appears to be forgotten here is that Rev. Wright is not running for president. Barack Obama is.
As Wright takes a valedictory tour to take advantage of a national platform that has been offered to him by a media tinderbox filled with the kindling wood of race, the question remains as to why this is still front page news. Whether Wright is preaching the gospel and indignation to a media that can't get enough of this sidebar story because race sells only second to sex as far as spiking up ratings -- or whether he is just on an ego trip -- the point to ask is why this is a front page story at all.
The Washington Post, the New York Times, and most of the mainstream media have buried the lies, broken laws, torture, Iraq War malfeasance, incompetence, cronyism, etc., of the Bush Administration for the most part in the back pages of the newspapers (if printed at all) -- and generally kept it off of television news altogether; but it can't get enough of whether the former minister of a presidential candidate -- who served his nation in the Marines by the way -- "loves America."
Is this a joke?
No it's the "Made in America" racial double standard at work.
It's as racist as "nailing" Barack Obama for not wearing a flag pin, even though George and Charlie and Hillary weren't wearing flag pins at the Philadelphia debate -- and McCain is not asked why he frequently doesn't wear one. The double standard on the flag pin is so glaring that most Americans can't see it in front of their own eyes; one need only look at the television screen to see that Barack Obama is not the only candidate or television moderator not wearing the Bush Administration symbol of patriotism reduced to the size of a miniature piece of tin.
Yes, it's the old "black people have to prove themselves more than white people" thing rising to a full fever pitch. It's the media and America answering Barack Obama's challenge to confront our racist past during his dazzling speech in Philadelphia.
Unfortunately, the response by the media, other politicians in the race, and commentators has been, "not so fast, Barack -- we aren't finished with the racial double standard just yet."
We wish Rev. Wright a pleasant retirement, but we really don't know what his relevance is to the severe crises facing America. No white candidate, including Bush and McCain, has been so hammered about such an irrelevancy, considering the kooky religious figures that they have backing them.
That kind of scrutiny we reserve for a black man.
In case anyone needs to be reminded about the history of racial injustice in America, we encourage you to most appropriately watch and listen to the incomparable Nina Simone singing, "Mississippi Goddam." [1]
It's been the goal of the Clinton campaign to prove that Obama can't transcend the reality of his being a black man in a nation that is still looking for a "Great White Hope."
The re-emergence of Rev. Wright as a national news story when we have Bush and Cheney preparing to possibly bomb Iran and Senator Clinton threatening to "obliterate" the same nation, not to mention a three trillion dollar debt, the destruction of our environment, the loss of jobs to overseas slave-labor nations, and the nearing of a tipping point in our dependency on oil -- well all this re-emphasizes that Clinton may be right: we are still stuck in the gutter of our baser instincts and anyone who wants to appeal to our better selves is in for a rude awakening.

The collapse of the United States is accelerating: Oil in Euros vs. US

In the last eight years implementing the plans for the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) designed "to promote American global leadership" has backfired.

To accomplish PNAC's goals, all threats needed to be eliminated. From the onset, the United Sates earmarked two countries as mortal enemies: Venezuela and Iran. With Venezuela, it is well documented that the CIA attempted to overthrow the democratically elected government of Chavez. And with Iran, the United States continues to use it as a scapegoat for its failures in Iraq. These cold war tactics however are proving to be US's undoing.

The United States is hemorrhaging from every orifice, and oil prices can be used to measure the rapidity of its demise.

In April 2006, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez launched "a bid to transform the global politics of oil by seeking a deal with consumer countries which would lock in a price of $50 a barrel." At the time, this proposed price was $15 a barrel below global market levels, and what must surely seems to be a steal at the current $118 a barrel.

How critical was the decision not to take Chavez's proposal seriously? Just two short years later, in April 2008, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is stating that oil at current levels is too cheap. That's calling a 136% increase in price not enough, and most analysis and the market seem to agree. So what has changed in that time? The perceived value of the US dollar of course.

In 1999 the euro was introduced as an accounting currency (travelers' checks, electronic transfers, banking, etc.) and then launched as physical coins and banknotes on 1 January 2002. The euro replaced the former European Currency Unit (ECU) at a ratio of 1:1. However its value quickly began to drop, reaching a low of 0.8252 relative to the US dollar on 26 October 2000. This proved to be a solid support level for the next two years, and in 2002 the euro began its appreciation reaching a high of 1.60 as of 23 April 2008.

Aside from consolidating power for the new European Union, the euro added liquidity and flexibility to the financial markets which in time has made the euro a very attractive and safe investment as a major global reserve currency.

As of the beginning of 2007, within five short years, euro notes in circulation have exceeded the value of circulating US dollar notes. Considering that the dollar has been devalued by approximately 50% since reaching its high relative to the euro in 2000 (the euro has gained approximately 100%), we can only assume that according to global markets, the US dollar is losing its perceived value.

Price of oil in US dollars and euros

Oil prices had a recent low point in January 1999 at $8 per barrel, after "increased oil production from Iraq coincided with the Asian financial crisis, which reduced demand. The prices then rapidly increased, more than tripling by September 2000 (35 dollars per barrel), then fell until the end of 2001 before steadily increasing."

1999 is the same year that the euro was introduced as an accounting currency. By the time that the euro was launched as physical coins and banknotes in January 2002, oil was trading at approximately $20 a barrel, and at present, on 23 April 2008, oil is trading at $118 a barrel.

Let's compare the rise in the price of oil relative to the two currencies.

If we take Autumn of 2000 as our base point when the euro was trading at its low of 0.8252 relative to the US dollar and oil was trading at $35 dollars per barrel, we get the following results: The increase in price of oil in euros has been 74% since 2000, while it has been a 237% increase in US dollars.

Now let's take a look at what the increase in price of oil in euros and US dollars has been since April 2006 when Hugo Chávez wanted to lock the price at $50 per barrel. (Note: in April 2006 the euro was trading at approximately 1.22 relative to the US dollar).

Taking into account that the euro had a dramatic increase in value from 2002 to 2005, and then began a retraction period through to 2006, the above numbers confirm what Ahmadinejad has been stating, that "the dollar is not money any longer but a handful of paper distributed in the world without commodity support," and that oil is undervalued at present levels when priced in US petrodollars.

Massachusetts Police Get Black Uniforms to Instill Sense of 'Fear'

Not a good way to instill trust. People will hate what they fear....automatically instigates violence and dangerous conditions in the streets.
Tom

Thursday, April 24, 2008

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Springfield's men in black are returning. The city's new police commissioner, William Fitchet, says members of the department's Street Crime Unit will again don black, military-style uniforms as part of his strategy to deal with youth violence.

Fitchet's predecessor, Edward Flynn, had ditched the black attire as part of an effort to soften the image of the unit. Flynn left Springfield in January to become the police chief in Milwaukee.

Sgt. John Delaney told a city council hearing Wednesday that the stark uniforms send a message to criminals that officers are serious about making arrests.

Delaney said a sense of "fear" has been missing for the past few years.

Saving the Honeybee Through Organic Farming

Professor Joe Cummins

Synergistic effects of pesticides and parasitic fungi and worsening decline of honeybees
The decline of the honeybee attracted worldwide attention in 2007. Investigations carried out by the Institute of Science in Society implicated a synergistic interaction between the recent widespread use of new pesticides (including Bt toxin from GM crops) and fungal infections [1, 2] (Parasitic Fungus and Honeybee Decline , Parasitic Fungi and Pesticides Act Synergistically to Kill Honeybees?, SiS 35). Sub-lethal levels of neonicotinoid pesticides act synergistically with parasitic fungi in killing insects pests. Fungal spores, widely used as biocontrol agents are applied in sprays and baits, and when delivered in suspension with sub-lethal levels of pesticides are much more effective in killing insects. Equally, Bt biopesticides enhance the killing power of parasitic fungi synergistically. That information was transmitted through a written question to the European Parliament [3].

Last year’s decline was serious enough and described as “beepocalypse now” by a news report [4]. According to the US Department of Agriculture one mouthful in three of the foods we eat directly or indirectly depend on pollination by honeybees [5]. Most fruit and many vegetables would disappear from our diet along with an immediate shortage of meat due to the loss of forage. This winters’ bee loss was 34 percent, up from the 25 percent the previous year [6].

The decline is attributed to ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ (CCD), most likely to be multi-factorial. The main suspects include pesticides, parasites, viruses, radiation from cell phone transmitters [7-9] (Mystery of Disappearing Honeybees, Requiem for the Honeybee, Mobile Phones and Vanishing Bees, SiS 34) and even brood temperature [10]. The impact of sub-lethal levels of pesticides on the immune system of the bee leads to synergistic infection of the bees by fungal parasites. In addition, the behaviour of the bees is frequently modified leading to confusion in foraging and failure to return to the hive.

Organic farming practices that retain more natural habitats and avoid the use of chemical pesticides should provide environments that serve as honeybee sanctuaries from the ravages of CCD. There are scientific studies showing that agricultural landscapes with organic crops are far superior environments for both honey- and bumblebees [11, 12]. It would be prudent to create organic bee sanctuaries as widely and as soon as possible.

Fungal infections more deadly with increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
With regard to the fungal parasites, it was recently shown that the prominent fungal parasite Nosema ceranea has been a longstanding and widespread infection of honeybees in the United States [13]. Nosema ceranae was detected also in Canada [14]. Spores of a related parasite, Nosema apis, was found to respond to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by enhanced germination, resulting in higher mortality of infected bees [15]. Will global warming result in the honeybee losing its struggle with fungal parasites?

Sub-lethal effects are the silent killers
The sub-lethal effects of insecticides go beyond the synergistic effect of insecticides on the immune system, as they may also affect learning and foraging competence of the honeybee, A recent study from France showed that bees fed sub-lethal levels of Bacillus thuingiensis Cry1Ab protein (a toxin in MON810 maize) affect food consumption and or learning processes leading to disturbed foraging [16]. The neonicotinoid pesticides that also affect bees in similar ways [2] are used extensively as systemic insecticides, and frequently originate from seed treatment. One member of that group, Imidacloprid, was tested extensively, leading to its ban in France, Another of the neonicotinoid pesticide, Acetamiprid, was found to impair olfactory learning in the honeybee while the pesticide Thiamethoxam did not appear to effect bee behaviour [17]. The regulation of insecticides should definitely be extended to include sub-lethal behavioural impairment of the honeybees, and those insecticides having such an effect should be banned immediately. A risk assessment to honeybees was developed in France for non-sprayed (seed treatment) systemic chemicals [18], though predictably industry representatives argued that field test data should override trials on sub-lethal effects [19]. Along those lines, industry and its associated academics selected and reviewed 25 laboratory studies showing that Bt toxins including Cry1Ab have no adverse effects on honeybees [20], but the only adverse outcome considered was mortality directly due to the pesticide, excluding learning impairments that could also result in the bees dying. Unfortunately, regulatory agencies appear to be similarly impaired when it comes to recognizing evidence related to sub-lethal impairment of the bees.

Organic agriculture must be widely adopted to save the honeybee
In conclusion, sub-lethal levels of pesticides, including the Bt biopesticides produced in genetically modified (GM) crops covering some 30 percent of the global area, disorientate the bees, making them behave abnormally, and compromise their immunity to infections. Regulators have allowed the widespread deployment of systemic neonicotinoid pesticides based on assessments of lethal dose in bees of the pesticides alone, ignoring clear evidence that sub-lethal pesticide levels act synergistically with fungal parasites in killing insects. The honeybees may well be succumbing to such synergistic effects. There is every reason to eliminate the use of all pesticides that act synergistically with parasitic fungi, and all Bt crops should be banned for the same reason. Obviously, these problems will disappear with the widespread adoption of organic, non-GM farming.

Rev. Al Sharpton vows to 'close the city down' after cops' acquittal in Bell trial

This is disgusting and a damn outrage.....More evidence of police and judicial corruption. Al Sharpton is right on and needs more support. Shut that crazy city down for a day or two.

To all those who care very deeply about how this judgment came out, one word of caution. Please make sure, if there are demonstrations, that they are peaceful.
The person in any group agitating for rough measures, damage to property, and assault on people, is usually the plainclothes spook paid for by law enforcement. And remember; there are those elements in this government which would just love a justification for invoking martial law, not only in New York, but also nationally

Tom

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Friday, April 25th 2008

Rev. Al Sharpton leaves court with Sean Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, and her mother, Laura.

They waited for hours, singing spirituals, praying and chanting for justice, but in a flash, the crowd gathered outside a Queens courthouse Friday erupted in anger and grief.

Men cursed and shouted. Women wailed and covered their faces. "Oh, no! No!" they yelled, as word spread that three police officers had been cleared of all charges in the 50-bullet shooting that took Sean Bell's life on his wedding day in 2006.

To some, the acquittal seemed like more proof that blacks can't get a fair shake in the criminal justice system.

Moments after the verdict was announced, Trent Benefield, a friend of Bell's who was wounded in the hail of gunfire, staggered down the courthouse steps with a look of angry disbelief on his face, a friend's arms tightly wrapped around his shoulders.

"Not guilty. Not guilty. It's real," he said, while dozens of people wearing Bell's face on hats, T-shirts and buttons burst into sobs.

Within an hour, the crowd of about 200 people had settled down and dispersed. Despite a few scuffles between members of the throng and police officers, no arrests were made.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who represented the Bell family, angrily denounced the verdicts on his radio show later and called on his followers to protest the outcome, but without violence.

He vowed to lead a campaign of "economic withdrawal" and civil disobedience that could include demonstrations at police headquarters and outside the judge's home.

"We are coming back to demonstrate to the federal government that New Yorkers will not take this abortion of justice lying down," Sharpton said. "We are going to close the city down in a nonviolent, effective way."

The protests were muted compared with past verdicts where officers were cleared in police shootings of black men, perhaps a result of improved race relations and the complicated nature of the Bell case.

Bell was black, but so were two of the three officers charged in the shooting, including the one who fired the first shot.

Supporters of the Bell family began arriving early at the courthouse. Few were able to get inside. Most waited in a long line on the sidewalk, leaning against police barricades.

A few carried signs reading "Justice for Sean Bell." One group held a banner proclaiming, "50 Shots. 50 More Reasons We Need Revolution."

Scores of officers wearing blue NYPD polo shirts, along with others in standard uniform, ringed the building and kept the sidewalk clear of swarming journalists.

Inside the packed courtroom, gasps could be heard when Justice Arthur Cooperman acquitted the officers. Bell's mother cried; her husband put his arm around her and shook his head. Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, rushed from the courtroom. Officer Michael Oliver, who fired the most shots, also cried.

Word spread immediately to the crowd outside, and the reaction was intense.

William Hardgraves, 48, an electrician from Harlem who brought his 12-year-old son and 23-year-old daughter to hear the verdict, paced angrily.

"I hoped it would be different this time. They shot him 50 times," Hardgraves said. "But of course, it wasn't."

Calvin Hunt of Harlem shared his anger.

"This was a disgrace, what happened today," he said.

Dave Barry on the Economic Stimulus Payment

I hope this wasn't a real interview

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: pers-656058113@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-04-25, 11:40AM PDT

"This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

"Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
"A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

"Q. Where will the government get this money?
"A. From taxpayers.

"Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
"A. Only a smidgen.

"Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
"A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

"Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
"A. Shut up."


it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 656058113

Clinton Threatens to ‘Obliterate’ Iran

By Robert Scheer

How proud the Clintonistas must be. They have learned how to rival what Hillary once termed the “vast right-wing conspiracy” in the effort to destroy a viable Democratic leader who dares to stand in the way of their ambitions. The tactics used to kneecap Barack Obama are the same as had been turned on Bill Clinton in earlier times, from radical-baiting associates to challenging his resolve in protecting the nation from foreign enemies. Sen. Clinton’s eminently sensible and centrist—to a fault—opponent is now viewed as weak and even vaguely unpatriotic because he is thoughtful. Neither Karl Rove nor Dick Morris could have done a better job.

On primary election day in Pennsylvania, even with polls showing her well ahead in that state, Hillary went lower in her grab for votes. Seizing upon a question as to how she would respond to a nuclear attack by Iran, which doesn’t have nuclear weapons, on Israel, which does, Hillary mocked reasoned discourse by promising to “totally obliterate them,” in an apparent reference to the population of Iran. That is not a word gaffe; it is an assertion of the right of our nation to commit genocide on an unprecedented scale.

Shouldn’t the potential leader of a nation that used nuclear bombs to obliterate hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese employ extreme caution before making such a threat? Neither the Japanese then nor the Iranian people now were in a position to hold their leaders accountable, and to approve such collective punishment of innocents is to endorse terrorism. This from a candidate who attacked her opponent for suggesting targeted strikes against militants in Pakistan and derided his openness to negotiations with other national leaders as an irresponsible commitment on the part of a contender for the presidency.

Clearly the heat of a campaign is not the proper setting for consideration of a response to a threat from a nation that is a long way from developing nuclear weapons. Obviously the danger of Iran’s developing such weapons can be met with a range of alternatives, from the diplomatic to the military, that do not involve genocide and at any rate must be considered in moral and not solely political terms. Or is it base political ambition that would guide Clinton if she received that middle-of-the-night phone call?

If so, it cannot be assumed that Hillary Clinton as president would be less irrationally hawkish and more restrained in the unleashing of military force than John McCain. The latter, at least, has personal experience with the true, on-the-ground costs of militarism gone wild. Yes, I know that McCain still holds out the hope of winning the Iraq war that both he and Hillary originally endorsed, but for Clinton to raise the rhetoric against Iran in the midst of a campaign is hardly the path to Mideast peace, whether it concerns Israel or Iraq. It is bizarre that a politician who bought into the phony threat about Iraq’s nonexistent WMD arsenal now plays political games with the alleged threat posed by Iran.

The war has accomplished only one major change in the configuration of Mideast power: Iran now holds uncontested supremacy as the region’s key player. Whatever chance there is for stability in Iraq now depends on the blessings of the ayatollahs of Iran, whose surrogates were put in power in Baghdad as a consequence of the American invasion. It is totally hypocritical for Clinton or McCain to now talk about getting tough with Iran over the nuclear weapons issue, when both contributed so mightily to squandering U.S. leverage over Tehran.

To meet that potential nuclear weapons threat from Iran requires a serious, non-rhetorical, multinational response that makes clear that no nation has the right to obliterate the population of another, and that nations, even our own, that claim that right should be challenged as unacceptably barbaric. Instead, Clinton played into the thoughts of fanatics throughout the world who believe that might makes right and who take the United States—which spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined (including many billions on new sophisticated and “usable” nuclear weapons)—as both their enemy and an example to emulate.

What better argument do the ayatollahs need to justify their obtaining a nuclear “deterrent” than that the possible leader of the first nation to develop nuclear weapons, and the only one to ever use them to kill people, now threatens the people of Iran with obliteration?

California foreclosure "surge": Up 327% from '07 levels

Another "Bushed surge"
Tom

The number of California homes lost to foreclosure in the first quarter surged 327% from year-ago levels -- reaching an average of more than 500 foreclosures per day -- DataQuick said in a report, warning that the widening foreclosure problem could "spread beyond the current categories of dicey mortgages, and into mainstream home loans."

From DataQuick's report on California foreclosures in the first three months of 2008: "Trustees Deeds recorded, or the actual loss of a home to foreclosure, totaled 47,171 during the first quarter. ... Last quarter's total rose 48.9 percent from 31,676 in the previous quarter, and jumped 327.6 percent from 11,032 in first quarter 2007." That translates into 517 foreclosures every day in the first quarter of 2008.

DataQuick president Marshall Prentice: "The main factor behind this foreclosure surge remains the decline in home values. Additionally, a lot of the 'loans-gone-wild' activity happened in late 2005 and 2006 and that's working its way through the system. The big 'if' right now is whether or not the economy is in recession. If it is, the foreclosure problem could spread beyond the current categories of dicey mortgages, and into mainstream home loans."

From The L.A. Times' Peter Hong: "Sinking home values and the collapse of flimsy mortgages sent a record number of California homes into the foreclosure process in the first three months of this year, a real estate information service reported today."

Default notices -- which mark the beginning of the foreclosure process -- increased sharply, but not as rapidly as outright foreclosures. From Bloomberg News: "California mortgage defaults more than doubled in the first quarter to the highest in 15 years as a drop in sales and prices prevented some homeowners from selling their properties to pay debt, DataQuick Information Systems said.

More: "Homeowners received 113,676 default notices in the first quarter, up 143 percent from a year ago, La Jolla, California- based DataQuick said today in a statement. The level was the highest since at least 1992, when DataQuick's statistics begin."

Despite well publicized federal efforts to reach out to homeowners in default, the odds that they will ultimately lose their homes appear to be increasing. DataQuick reports that, of the homeowners in default, "an estimated 32 percent emerge from the foreclosure process by bringing their payments current, refinancing, or selling the home and paying off what they owe. A year ago it was about 52 percent.:

Chertoff Says Fingerprints Aren’t ‘Personal Data’

These people have lost their damned minds. Next to DNA, I think fingerprints are the MOST PERSONAL DATA there is. They have taken a “terrorist” event and used it to take away all of our privacy and civil liberties. Hell, Mr. Chertoff, No. 1, go find some REAL terrorists and No. 2 FOR ONCE, DO YOU DAMNED JOB AND DEPORT ALL ILLEGAL ALIENS IN THIS COUNTRY AND ENFORCE ARTICLE 4 SECTION 4 OF OUR CONSTITUTION. All it would take is one call from our traitorous occupant of the White House the job could be done. To Rabbi-Commissar Chertoff, our very lives aren’t our personal property any more.
Tom

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has badly stumbled in discussing the Bush administration’s push to create stricter identity systems. Chertoff was recently in Canada discussing, among other topics, the so-called “Server in the Sky” program to share fingerprint databases among the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia.

In a recent briefing with Canadian press (which has yet to be picked up in the U.S.), Chertoff made the startling statement that fingerprints are “not particularly private”:

QUESTION: Some are raising that the privacy aspects of this thing, you know, sharing of that kind of data, very personal data, among four countries is quite a scary thing.

SECRETARY CHERTOFF: Well, first of all, a fingerprint is hardly personal data because you leave it on glasses and silverware and articles all over the world, they’re like footprints. They’re not particularly private.

Many of us should rightfully be surprised that our fingerprints aren’t considered “personal data” by the head of DHS. Even more importantly, DHS itself disagrees. In its definition of “personally identifiable information” — the information that triggers a Privacy Impact Assessment when used by government — the Department specifically lists: “biometric identifiers (e.g., fingerprints).”

Chertoff’s comments have drawn sharp criticism from Jennifer Stoddart, the Canadian official in charge of privacy issues. “Fingerprints constitute extremely personal information for which there is clearly a high expectation of privacy,” Stoddart said.

There are compelling reasons to treat fingerprints as “extremely personal information.” The strongest reason is that fingerprints, if not used carefully, will become the biggest source of identity theft. Fingerprints shared in databases all over the world won’t stay secret for long, and identity thieves will take advantage.

A quick web search on “fake fingerprints” turns up cheap and easy methods for do-it-at-home fake fingerprints. As discussed by noted security expert Bruce Schneier, one technique is available for under $10. It was tried “against eleven commercially available fingerprint biometric systems, and was able to reliably fool all of them.” Secretary Chertof either doesn’t know about these clear results or chooses to ignore them. He said in Canada: “It’s very difficult to fake a fingerprint.”

Chertoff’s argument about leaving fingerprints lying around on “glasses and silverware” is also beside the point. Today, we leave our Social Security numbers lying around with every employer and numerous others. Yet the fact that SSNs (or fingerprints) are widely known exposes us to risk.

There have been numerous questions raised about how this Administration is treating our personal information. Secretary Chertoff’s comments show a new reason to worry — they don’t think it’s “personal” at all.

Church's Obama Message Removed After Outcry

Is this preacher, Pastor Roger Byrd, a KKKlans member or a skin head? He kinda looks like one. He is white, short hair, talks like one, I don't know, makes me think he is. REALLY, this is a classic example of what worthless messages you can find in today's church's in the good old USA.

Tom


POSTED: 5:01 pm EDT April 22, 2008
UPDATED: 5:39 am EDT April 23, 2008

JONESVILLE, S.C. -- Following a day of national attention and public outcry over a sign in front of a small church in a small town, the message has been changed.

The sign in front of the Jonesville Church of God said, "Obama, Osama, hmm, are they brothers?"

On Tuesday, the Church Of God's International Office issued a statement saying that the sign had been removed. (Full Text Of Church Of God Statement)

The message on the sign now reads: "How will you spend eternity, smoking or no smoking?"

Pastor Roger Byrd said that he had just wanted to get people thinking. He said that the message wasn't meant to be racial or political.

"It's simply to cause people to realize and to see what possibly could happen if we were to get someone in there that does not believe in Jesus Christ," he said.

When asked if he believes that Barack Obama is Muslim, Byrd said, "I don't know. See it asks a question: Are they brothers? In other words, is he Muslim? I don't know. He says he's not. I hope he's not. But I don't know. And it's just something to try to stir people's minds. It was never intended to hurt feelings or to offend anybody."

Obama has said repeatedly during his campaign that he is a Christian and attends Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

The amount of attention the message received surprised Byrd.

"I'm very surprised," he said, "It shocked me and startled me."

Byrd had said that he and his congregation decided on Sunday night to leave the sign up, and that he didn't want it to appear that controversy forced him to take the sign down.

The WYFF4.com story about the sign was viewed more than a quarter million times by users across the country. Hundreds of negative comments regarding the sign were posted online. On Tuesday, Byrd apparently decided the wording on the sign should be replaced.

He was not available for comment on Tuesday.

Unbelieveable! "al-Qaeda" Dismisses Conspiracy Theories, Defends Israel, Attacks Iran and Hizbollah!

Ever since the 9/11 attacks, Sott.net, along with many others commentators (including US government officials), have repeatedly stated that "al-qaeda" is a fabricated enemy. That it is used to justify the Ziocon's military rampage though the Middle East while simultaneously terrorising the folks back home.

In the past 7 years the world public has repeatedly been treated to bogus missives from "al-Qaeda leaders" that strangely echo the Islamophobic claims of the leaders of the Western world.

Every time a member of the US or Israeli government expounded on the "Muslim terror threat to freedom and democracy everywhere", soon afterwards "al-Qaeda" obligingly popped up with a new video or statement in which they threatened freedom and democracy.

As the massive holes in the US government's official story of the 9/11 attacks continue to widen, and sites like Sott.net continue to point to the real culprits in Tel Aviv and Washington DC, disembodied internet voices that US government officials "believe to be that of Osama bin laden", set the record straight and claim responsibility. In spite of such strenuous efforts to fool the entire world, fewer and fewer people are buying the terror hysteria, and recently the desperation on the part of the Ziocons has begun to show.

On April 22, the CIA/Mossad chose to have Mr. Magoo stand-in and "al-Qaeda number 2" "al-Zawahiri", do something which, until now, was almost unthinkable.

Al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has blamed Iran for spreading the theory that Israel was behind the 11 September 2001 attacks.

In an audio tape posted on the internet, Zawahiri insisted al-Qaeda had carried out the attacks on the US.



Allow me to translate this into common parlance for you:

"Don't believe those crazy conspiracy theorists who point to the massive inconsistencies in the official story! Take it from me, arch-Muslim terror boogeyman al-Zawahiri, it was "al-Qaeda" WE DID IT! It was NOT Israel! You must support your glorious leaders in the White House and Israel in their continued murder and butchery of innocent Muslims of the Middle East! You must support them in their attempts to find a justification for attacking Lebanon and Syria and Iran and murdering millions of Iranian and Lebanese and Syrian civilians! Remember! It was NOT Israel!!"



He accused Iran, and its Hezbollah allies, of trying to discredit Osama Bin Laden's network.

Correspondents say the comments underline al-Qaeda's increasing public hostility towards Iran.

In a two-hour audiotape posted on an Islamist website, Osama Bin Laden's chief deputy responded to questions posted by al-Qaeda sympathisers.

In response to a question about persistent rumours in the Middle East that Israel was involved in the 9/11 attacks, Zawahiri said the rumour had begun on the Hezbollah television station, Al-Manar.

"The purpose of this lie is clear - [to suggest] that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history, he said.

"Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it."

Sunni fears

Zawahiri went on to criticise Iran for co-operating with the US in its 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, that helped to oust the Taleban.

"Iran's aim here is also clear - to cover up its involvement with America in invading the homes of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq," he said.

This is the second verbal attack on Iran, a predominantly Shia Muslim country.

Shocking Facts About the Pharmaceutical Industry

Big drug companies have been accused of putting profits above patients, spinning false PR campaigns and more. Here are some of the most shocking facts about the pharmaceutical industry.

The price of drugs is increasing faster than anything else a patient pays for: The prices of the most heavily prescribed drugs are routinely jacked up, sometimes several times a year. Some medications have a mark-up of 1,000 percent over the cost of their ingredients.

Your doctor may have an ulterior motive behind your prescription: Drug reps often give gifts to convince doctors to prescribe the medications that they represent. These drug reps usually have no medical or science education.

Pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than research: Almost twice as much!

Guilty of Medicare fraud: Pharmaceutical companies are being tried in federal courts as a result of their exploitation of Medicare. AstraZeneca had to pay more than $340 million in penalties for coaching doctors to cheat Medicare.

The combined wealth of the top 5 pharmaceutical companies outweigh GNP of sub-Saharan Africa: In fact, the combined worth of the world’s top five drug companies is twice the combined GNP of that entire region.

Americans pay more for prescription meds than anyone else in the world: $200 billion in 2002 alone.

"New" Drugs aren't really new: Two-thirds of “new” prescription drugs are identical to existing drugs or modified versions of them.

Drug companies are taking advantage of underdeveloped countries to perform clinical trials: In developing countries, government oversight is more lax.

Christian Fundamentalists -- The High Cost of Being Sincerely Wrong

By Dennis Diehl

Dennis Diehl

Dennis was a 26 year pastor. Having experienced this reckless shift in how a Church chose to change itself, Dennis began to bring to the ...

Goodmorning...I used to be one of you. I know how you think and the Biblical brainwashing you have been through that makes you think the way you do about world events, Biblical prophecy, the Second Coming of Jesus and the Kingdom of God on earth. I know how ministers and pastors, most well meaning, but full of sanctified ignorance and misunderstanding of the intent, origins, errancy and the historical inaccuracies of much we read in the Bible, have filled your minds with misguided zeal. I know how you read and understand the prophecies of the four kingdoms of Daniel and the dreams of Nebuaccanezzar, King of Babylon. I doubt you know they were written after the fact and not prophetically.

I know how you read Daniel 11 and 12 as just how things will be "in the end times." I know how some of you think "a thousand will fall at your right side, and ten thousand at your left, but it will not come nigh unto your dwelling." I know how you read Matthew 24. I know some of you think that you will be "born up on eagles wings" and taken to a "place of safety," maybe in Petra, Jordan to wait out the end time carnage that you see in the Trumpets, Vials, plagues and Horsemen of Revelation. Some of you have already left and some left years ago, only to return and get back to work.

I know you read the Book of Revelation as if it was a newspaper and see these times as those times and that book as revealing all that is about to happen so Jesus can return. I know you have forgotten that 2000 years ago the opening of the Revelation says "to show unto my servants, things which must SHORTLY, come to pass." I know that you view "shortly" differently than most people understand "shortly." I know some of you think you are part of the exclusive 144,000 thousand. I know you don't understand Gematria or the 12 signs of the Zodiac but I spare you.

I know that even though you know Paul said Jesus for sure would come in his lifetime, and that he was among the "We, who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall be caught up together with the Lord, and WE shall be saved," was wrong. I know you know that later in his life, Paul gave up on Jesus coming for him in his lifetime and said that he had fought a good fight, kept the faith and would have to settle for a crown of righteousness that he'd get later, but not soon anymore. I know you know that Paul motivated the church to not marry the loves of their lives, give lots of money to the church and be ready to go at a moments notice, in vain. I always wonder about the people who believe what Paul said about the times being short and it being better to not marry and be like him. Did they get really bitter when their lives passed and Jesus didn't return, nor did they get to be intimate with the ones they loved because Paul said not to? I bet they did anyway, just like today in all churches who try to regulate relationships. The minister gets to rant about such things, but most just sneak around and do what they want anyway. You can thank Paul and his misquided view of the immediacy of Jesus return in HIS lifetime for the skepticism of most.

I know that you know Jesus said in Matthew 24 that "this generation shall not a pass until all these things be fulfilled" and that since we now know it was not the generation of Jesus this happened for, Jesus was not ill informed, but rather meant that the generation that these things happened in, would see it through. This allows your pastor to motivate you by drawing your attention to all that is happening in your world as proof of this being all about YOU. That's the apologetic, but that is not what Jesus, who was mistaken about this meant, when he is aleged to have said it. I know that you know "no man knows the day or the hour, but the Father only," but choose to ignore that and predict, predict, predict to put fear, fear, fear, into each other. Or as one said, "Just because we don't know the day or the hour doesn't mean we can't know the month or the year." Right... I know your ministers tell you that Jesus will return in 3 or 5 or not more than 10 years, and they are wrong, but hopeful and of course, the fear and hope of it keeps you in your seats and giving the bucks.

I know that the gayness of some people, the lack of belief of others, the movies, TV and all the events going on in the Middle East are proof that you won't have to wait much longer for Jesus. Little does the Pastor know that out of every 100 members of his church, about 10 are going to be gay by nature and that the same would be true for the 100 of the clergy he got together with at his last ministerial conference where they condemned it. I know you know that all fundamentalist college campuses have a normal number of gay students in attendance. Or maybe you don't. I know they are in denial on this topic but I spare you. Oh, and this would include the faculty of course.

I know you believe the nation of Israel is the most special of God's holy nations and that as one man said to me, "anyone who picks on Israel, is challenging God himself." I know you don't believe that anyone who picks on Afghanistan is picking on God. I have to say that meme has gone a long way to insure the safety of that small rather troublesome piece of the planet. The tales of the Old Testament have insured that the rules and ways of an obscure deity, on an obscure mountain, in an obscure land, speaking to an obscure people about obscure and dictatorial and controlling obcure practices, are relevant to today. They mostly aren't. My experience is that when a nation, government, president, church or group "can do no wrong," wrong is all they get good at. I know you know that too but don't apply it to the group you associate with. You should.

I know you are told you are special and that others are not. I know that you are told you are chosen and called, while others are not chosen and not called. I know you believe you have special saving knowledge while others are lost. I know you are told that you are true and others false. I know you are led to believe that your thinking is correct on all topics biblical and prophectic and all others are wrong. I know you can't imagine you are wrong about a hundred biblical ideas and speculations, but you are. I know you think that this President was put in power by God himself but I am not sure that you know that even he says he hears the voice of God, which is why he went to war. I know when others hear the voice of God in your local congregation, you marginalize them and think they are weird and strange or may need help. But on a national scale, you seem to accept the voice of God in the heads of men who can start a war that leads to everything BUT the Second Coming. I know you can't imagine having to clean up after such a mistake because I know you can't imagine any biblical or prophetic mistakes being made. But they are being made big time and cleaning up after the shit hits the fan, may be all you get to do, and of course, ask the pastor what went wrong and where is Jesus? Oh, you'll also get to ask why you can't afford to live and why your job ended and you lost everything you worked hard for. You'll also learn the church won't be able to help you much then, and no, you can't have any of your tithe money back to get back on your feet. That was money you gave to God and he has already spent it. I know you don't know that 100% of all endtime prophecies made by fundamentalist and evangelical TV Preechers, have failed miserably. I know...just around the corner.

I know you are afraid to die personally just as every human being before you has. I know you, like Paul, prefer to be "changed," at the sound of the trumpet and not die at all. After all, Paul said "we would not all die." I am not sure you realize he had to retract that later in life.

I know how you feel about "God's Law" and how much better off we'd all be if we kept "it." But I also know you aren't real sure which ones to keep. Sabbath over Sunday? Passover over Easter? Holydays over holidays? I know some think parents should still get to stone rebellious children. I know you are nuts if you think that. I know you that "God's Law" means different things to differrent people and I know that you tend to confuse what to keep from the Old Testament nation of Israel and drag it over into the New and the Church. Well except tithing of course. I know how you think we are all spiritual Israelites, but how would you feel if someone kept calling you a spiritual Zulu in order to be saved? How about a Spiritual Sioux? Actually I'd love that but that's my preference.

I also know, because I was one of you, that you don't know near as much as you think you know. You're knowing is, at times, wishful thinking, or sanctified ignorance based on the sole fact that it's what you have always been taught. I know that learning new perspectives is not something you are encouraged to do. I know that admitting you are wrong is not something you are often able to do. When science makes a mistake, it admits it and uses whatever information was good for future studies. When religion and churches make mistakes, they kill the people who point it out. That's how it goes.

But I also know that over zealous pastors and fundamentalists need to be cautioned about your zealotry gone wrong. Zealous and sanctified ignorance can provoke all the Vials, Trumpets, Trombones and Beasts of Revelation and you will get everything promoted in the Book of Revelation EXCEPT the Second Coming. What you will get is one big mess to clean up, if you survive along with the rest of us. You'll get a place in history as the reason why the next generation wants nothing to do with organized religion or ministers and pastors who can't admit they are wrong and it's not all about them after all. You'll reap a whirlwind but not Kingdom of God to bale you out.

While the President may or may not have said, "God told me to strike at Sadaam and I did...", it has never in the history of the planet worked out well when society has let religion call the shots as to what is and what isn't. I know you know that. I just hope you will think long and hard about the chaos fundamentalism of any kind, Islamic or Christian can bring to the lives of well meaning humans who simply want to be left alone to live, learn and love without the drama of religious ignorance.

The Madness of Ben Bernanke

SPIEGEL ONLINE
04/14/2008

By Gabor Steingart in Washington

The dollar is in a tailspin, the trade deficit is growing and a recession is on the horizon. The American way of life is in serious danger. But the head of the Federal Reserve keeps on pumping easy credit into the system -- a crazy policy that will worsen the crisis.

Ben Bernanke at the G7 meeting of central bank governors over the weekend.
Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke have more in common with the big cat entertainers Siegfried & Roy than any of us can be comfortable with.

The Las Vegas magicians call themselves "Masters of the Impossible" and have been fascinating audiences for decades by getting snow-white tigers to leap through burning rings.

The legendary Federal Reserve Chairman and his successor were equally adept at fascinating their audiences -- with a policy of miraculous monetary growth that gave America one of the longest periods of economic expansion in modern times. Many saw them as "Masters of the Universe." It seemed as if the central bankers had tamed predatory capitalism with their constant interest rate cuts.

Siegfried & Roy at times seemed at one with their cats, until the day everything went out of control. A tiger bit Roy in the neck during a show and looked as though it were about to devour him alive.

Greenspan and Bernanke too have lost their magic touch, and their image has been shredded by the real estate crisis and the dollar slide. The ravages of the financial markets aren't doing them any personal harm. But devalued stocks, bad mortgage loans and the diving dollar are damaging millions of small investors and savers.

It's as if the tiger has leapt of the stage and is mauling the audience. We can't blame wild cats or financial markets for being ruthless. It's in their nature to be brutal. Their unmistakeable message is: you can take things this far and no further.

In the case of the real estate crisis which reached the banks and is now unsettling the stock markets, the markets are now showing what G7 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting last weekend in Washington for their annual spring get-together declined yet again to admit publicly: Americans must change their lives -- or it will be changed for them by force.

American Way of Life Under Threat

The credit-financed consumer boom of recent years is coming to a painful end. Today's American Way of Life has no chance of surviving the coming years undamaged. The virus will continue to ravage its way through the financial system.

The property crisis is likely to spread to credit card providers soon and will then probably infect car manufacturers, furniture makers and all the other firms that owe their sales increases to the growth in credit finance. "The virus will keep on infecting the system," one management board member from a large bank said, requesting anonymity in return for the candour of his analysis.

His argument is that banks that grant mortgages to home buyers virtually unable to pay their bills are unlikely to be especially scrutinizing when it comes to lending cash to the buyers of fridges, cars and furniture. Indeed, a furniture store in Miami recently tried to lure consumers with the following offer: buy now, pay your first credit installment in three years, and no need for a down-payment.

The credit-financed way of life is typical of the US these days. Many people resort to credit to plug the gap between the lifestyle they have become accustomed to and their declining wages.

Dulling the Pain With Credit

The borrowed cash is like an anaesthetic against the painful impact of globalisation. Private household debt has been growing by $4 billion each business day for years.

All this wouldn't be so bad if the US economy were at least doing well in foreign markets. But it isn't, and hasn't been for a long time. Despite the depreciation of the dollar, which makes imports into the US far more expensive while making US exports cheaper in foreign markets, US manufacturers are finding it hard to sell their products.

Contrary to forecasts by both the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, the trade deficit has continued to grow, by 6 percent in February alone. America imported $62 billion worth of goods more than they exported in February, including a disturbingly large number of cars, computers and pharmaceutical products. Try as they might, most private households in America can't keep up this consumer miracle. The savings behavior of many Americans means that many of them now live from hand to mouth.

But Bernanke is doing nothing to dampen this hunger for credit. The former advisor to President George W. Bush is even trying to whip up credit-financed consumption by lowering interest rates. This is helping to fuel inflation because the monetary growth isn't being matched by growth in real economic output. Inflation in the US currently stands at 4 percent.

It's a paradox. The private commercial banks which have just had to make billions of dollars in write downs have become more cautious. They're scared of further risks. The management resignations at Citigroup and Bear Stearns have had a sobering impact.

Patriotic Madness

Meanwhile the Federal Reserve is urging the banks to go on taking risks. It has been injecting cash into the banking system for the past half-year while urging bank CEOs in confidential chats to offer more credit. The aim is to keep on financing consumer spending and even to stimulate it further -- for reasons of patriotism.

There's a word for this policy -- madness.

But because there is method in this madness, the meeting of mighty central bank governors and finance ministers in Washington over the weekend remained silent about it, at least officially. Outside the meeting rooms, though, there were murmurings about the poisoned legacy of Alan Greenspan and Bernanke's irresponsible behavior.

One participant told me: "There's an unwritten code of honor that says central bank governors should refrain from criticizing each other." Not least out of respect for the independence of central banks.

But the US is unlikely to realize the error of its ways on its own. "The Americans will always do the right thing," British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, "after they've exhausted all the alternatives."

Central bankers and tiger tamers have something else in common -- obstinacy. Roy has recovered from his wounds and wants to return to the stage in Las Vegas. "The magic is back," came the defiant announcement.

Alan Greenspan cut a similarly indestructible figure at the weekend. Even though criticism of his cheap money policy was only murmured privately, the 82-year-old legend of central banking said: "I was praised for things I didn't do. I am now being blamed for things I didn't do."

Not that he ever complained about getting false praise.

A Trillion Dollar Rescue for Wall Street Gamblers

Nothing for Families and Retirees

By MICHAEL HUDSON

If the move to a Unitary Executive of unfettered presidential power frightens you, America's radical right turn to Unitary Finance should compound your fears--and your debts as well. The financial events of the last two weeks of March 2008 demonstrate that the "economic royalists" and "money changers" whom Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) drove from the temple of finance have returned to mismanage our economy into dire straights of unprecedented risk--debt creation, euphemized as "leveraging" and "wealth creation."

The few checks and balances that remain in the way of the financial sector's increasingly centralized planning, especially at the state level, are being swept aside under the guise of "saving the system." Few Wall Street beneficiaries who use this phrase explain just what the system is. For starters, its political managers are industry lobbies appointed to high managerial and planning positions in the public agencies that are supposed to regulate these industries. Their idea of financial planning is to put a trillion dollars in government agency funds and credit guarantees at risk. This agency funding was supposed to be used to help average American families obtain housing and health care, and to protect their savings and provide for their retirement. Instead, it is being mobilized to support the economy's bankers and financial managers. Indeed, the past few weeks have seen seemingly trillions of dollars committed for war making and bank support.

The banking system's free creation of credit, doubling each five years or so for the economy at large, threatens to culminate in debt peonage for many American families and also for industry and for state and local governments. The economic surplus is being quickly absorbed by a combination of debt service and government bailouts for creditors whose Ponzi schemes are collapsing right and left, from residential to commercial real estate and corporate takeover loans to foreign bubble-economy credit.

This is the context in which to view the past few weeks' financial turmoil surrounding Bear Stearns, JPMorgan/Chase and the rapidly changing debt landscape. "The system" that the Treasury, Federal Reserve and the New Deal agencies captured by the Bush Administration is trying to save is an economy-wide Ponzi scheme. By that I mean that the business plan is for creditors to lend debtors enough money for them to pay the interest costs so as to keep current on their loans.

For the past few years this system has depended on asset prices for real estate, stocks and bonds to be inflated by enough to enable debtors to pledge these assets as collateral at a higher market price for more and more new loans. But now that the real estate bubble has burst (and indeed, as stock prices sink), the problem is how to bail out the tip of our economic iceberg that has sunk into negative equity--a condition in which the debts attacked to property exceed its market value. Someone must take a loss--but whom?

Normally, it is the banker or investor who takes the loss. But they are now supposed to be "rescued." This is being presented as a return to stability. But it was a system that never was stable to begin with. In fact, for the rescue to work, most Americans will have to own less and owe more, while being told that all this is the path to wealth creation--as if it were their wealth, not that of their creditors. The Bear Stearns/JPMorgan Chase/monoline insurance giveaway to "save the financial system" provides a vivid illustration of how Unitary Finance has developed a parasitic relationship with American labor in its role as pension contributor, consumer and homeowner. The system being subsidized enables the FIRE sector to direct and live off the productive efforts of others--people who make real things and provide real services.

Saving Wall Street with a trillion-dollar bailout of bad mortgage debt

The bailout started on Sunday, March 16. The government and JPMorgan Chase had reason to be embarrassed about the negotiations, for the details trickled out on the Federal Reserve or Treasury websites and Mr. Paulson's speeches went far beyond just Chase and Bear Stearns. It turned out that on the same Sunday on which he had negotiated the $30 billion Fed bailout, Mr. Paulson started a frenetic ten days orchestrating actions by the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and other government agencies to earmark a trillion dollars to re-inflate financial markets for mortgage holders and their associated creditors and speculators. Behind the scenes, as matters turned out, the Bush Administration was mounting a financial surge: It decided to throw everything its mortgage financing agencies could muster to prevent property markets from collapsing on its watch.

The surge of support for the mortgage and real estate markets was headed by the two largest U.S. mortgage holders and packagers: the government-sponsored National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and Freddie Mac. These two agencies were created to develop tradable markets for mortgages that banks traditionally had kept on their own books by buying home mortgages from the banks and mortgage brokers that originated them. This created a vast new demand for mortgages by making them marketable in large packages for institutional investors such as pension and mutual funds. Being implicitly government-guaranteed, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were able to borrow at fairly low interest rates, and sell mortgages at a premium. Demand for these packaged mortgage securities provided an enormous new source of lending. It also turned banks into mortgage originators rather than mortgage holders.

Together, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought more than three-fourths of all U.S. mortgages issued in the fourth quarter of 2007, bringing their holdings to $1.4 trillion. However, the fact that their capital base was under $70 billion--for a 20 to 1 debt-leveraging ratio--led investors to sell their stock steadily over the past year. Rather than insisting that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rebuild their capital position, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise and Oversight (OFHEO) did just the opposite. It reduced their capital requirements from 30 percent to 20 percent, and encouraged them to use this increased leverage to pour an extra $200 billion to the nation's mortgage market. Limits on the size of mortgage loans that these two agencies could make were raised sharply in order to help re-inflate the troubled high-cost California and New York property markets in particular.

Designed to bring temporary relief, this maneuver threatened to further destabilize matters by simply kicking the can down the road. The same applied to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), set up in 1934 as part of the New Deal. Its insurance fund of about $20 billion backs some 3.8 million mortgage loans totaling $365 billion, for an 18:1 debt-leverage ratio. On Monday, March 24, it promised $400 billion in new mortgage credit insurance. This means that government agencies can use their capital to lend much more money to prospective homebuyers. The FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also will be on the line for any losses, "socializing the risk" to a higher degree than ever before.

What was so worrisome about this strategy was that the FHA already was in financial straits as a result of its subprime loans. For the first time in its history it was running a deficit. Over a third of the loans it insured were made by home sellers to new buyers to cover their down payment--enabling homes to be bought without any down payment at all. (Traditionally, 20 percent has been the norm.) This was a brand-new market, barely existing in 2000 on the eve of the Greenspan-Bush real estate bubble. The Secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Agency (HUD), Alphonso R. Jackson, told a Senate committee: "These types of loans have pushed F.H.A. to the brink of insolvency." And now it was to double its activities to prop up the real estate and mortgage market.

The Federal Housing Finance (FHF) board dutifully did its part to increase the system's debt leverage. It doubled the ability of the 12 regional Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLB) to leverage their purchase of mortgage securities, from three times their capital to six times, twice the existing debt/equity ratio. The aim was to help them serve their clients, the nation's eight thousand savings banks, S&Ls, credit unions and insurance companies, finance the purchase of $160 to $200 billion new mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The target was for these two agencies to buy up about half a trillion dollars worth of mortgage securities from the private sector this year.

The Federal Home Loan Banking system also announced plans to start offering its own "monoline" mortgage insurance against the looming economic downturn at prices way below what private-sector insurance writers were willing to match. The aim is to shore up the nation's crumbling mortgage-insurance coverage at taxpayer expense. Again, the concept of a "free market" is being subjugated in order to socialize the losses for the FIRE sector's big players. The situation is much like the government insurance of beachfront properties against flood damage, paying for a chronically losing proposition at public expense. Of course, a disproportionate number of the owners of those beachfront properties also come from the campaign-contributing class.

Gillian Tett of the Financial Times noted that this mortgage insurance subsidy is "likely to trigger further debate about how policymakers are turning to state, or quasi-state, entities to stabilise the financial sector" by addressing "an absence of the market." Instead of shaping the market along less risky, less debt-leveraged lines, it was now another case of the government socializing financial risk at below-market rates. John Price, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank board, claimed that this "is what Government State Enterprises are for.'" In view of the fact that private insurers would charge higher rates, But the government's present plan being coordinated by Treasury Secretary Paulson seeks to avoid letting markets work in a way that would raise costs to Wall Street and hence leave less revenue for homeowners to pledge for debt service. This policy is presented sanctimoniously as lowering the price at which the financial sector "serves" the economy, not as putting it at risk.

The most amazing moves were still to come. On March 11 the Federal Reserve created a new Term Securities Lending Facility to extend $200 billion in loans to primary bond and securities dealers against their holdings of mortgages and other packaged securities as collateral. The aim was to rapidly re-inflate mortgages that the free market was pricing as junk, as low as 20 percent of face value.

Then came the double bombshell. In a true showing of the green on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, the Fed extended nearly unlimited credit to non-bankers for the first time since the Great Depression. It accepted their toxic mortgages as collateral--dubious assets that "the market" was refusing to touch. So much for "market-based" solutions when it comes to high finance! For the first time since the 1930s, non-banks could borrow from the Fed's loan window against their junk mortgages, apparently at full face value. It was too late for Bear Stearns, but other investment bankers and brokerage houses saw the green lifeline as the Fed opened its discount window to non-bankers, that is, to investment bankers such as Lehman Brothers, in contrast to commercial bankers that are regulated by the Fed.

The volume of credit seemed to be unlimited, collateralized by mortgage-backed securities that "the marketplace" was pricing around the levels Third World loans were selling at after Mexico's 1982 insolvency. Labor economist Tom Palley wrote in his March 26 blog: "These subsidies are a travesty. Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley are extraordinarily profitable. They also have been the drivers of the worst trends in the American economy over the past generation, pushing excessive CEO pay that has spread like a cancer throughout corporate America, even reaching into universities and non-profits. Additionally, they have pedaled the shareholder value paradigm that has pushed companies to emphasize short-term gain over long-term investment, and contributed to ripping up America's social contract. Meanwhile, their business model has promoted speculation that is behind repeated asset and commodity price bubbles."

It is to support this business model that the Fed and Treasury officials seem to be making up new rules on a daily basis--rules that receive only a superficial or perfunctory review by Congress. Critics point out that investment bankers are not subject to Federal Reserve oversight or other regulation. Perhaps even this does not really matter in view of the Fed's extreme non-regulatory mode ever since Alan Greenspan's four-term Chairmanship. Even more important, of course, is the fact that the Fed's new clients, investment banks and brokerage houses, do not serve the middle-class depositors in need of special protection for their life savings. The financial investments being saved from adverse market conditions are ultimately speculative in character.

It seems a biting irony that the institutions now being mobilized to bail out Wall Street creditors--the Federal Home Loan Banks to pump credit into the mortgage market, the Federal Housing Administration to insure mortgage loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy and package mortgages for bulk resale to institutional investors--were created to help homebuyers, not their creditors and speculators. But bailing out speculators and high finance has now becoming their primary function. This shift has turned America's housing, mortgage and banking agencies upside down. Wall Street of course has welcomed the capture of these New Deal and post-1945 institutions. But their doctrinaire ideology has accused Glass-Steagall, Social Security, and most recently Sarbanes-Oxley regulations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as leading down the road to serfdom.

Politically, such bailouts require an ostensibly humanitarian cover story. They need to be presented as a subsidy not to banks and other wealthy creditors, but to debtors. This means that the "ideal" (that is, most smoothly hypocritical) bailout takes the form of new credit to pay banks and other bondholders and mortgage holders enough to keep the debt bubble afloat. That means enough more credit to keep it growing, at least by the amount of interest that must be paid.

The result is a true road to debt peonage. It is much more destructive--and certainly more real--than the imaginary road to serfdom that Hayek and other anti-government ideologues envision. While these free-enterprise boys wring their hands and denounce government power, their sponsors realize full well that when government steps back, the financial sector moves in to fill the vacuum. The banks and money managers become society's planners and resource allocators--in their own short-term interest. This interest leads them to oppose laws protecting, labor, consumers and debtors. This means that the "freedom" at issue is a one-way favoritism for employers, monopolistic privilege and creditors. What these vested interests mean by the "road to serfdom" is an economy managed by hands other than their own, an economy protecting the workers, consumers and debtors whom they seek to victimize.

No money left for Social Security and health insurance after the real estate bailout?

The American public may justifiably be puzzled by how the government can seem to come up trillions of dollars for foreign wars and banker bailouts, but so little for them. The United States is spending an estimated $3 trillion for an illegal war that has made us less safe, and $1 trillion so far to rescue bankers in a way that is destabilizing the economy. But it can't seem to secure health care or retirement security for all Americans. On Tuesday, March 25, fresh from providing a trillion dollars to underwrite the financial and real estate sector, Mr. Paulson revived the Bush Administration's pretense that there is no money to pay Social Security. Yet "fixing" Social Security--if indeed there is a problem (which is no means certain)--would be relatively easy. Merely restoring the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% of Americans (those earning over $414,000 a year) to the high 30-percent tax rates of the 1990s (nowhere near approaching the 94% top marginal rate of the 1940s, or even the 70-percent rates of the 1970s) would provide 46% more than the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of the Social Security shortfall. The Administration does not acknowledge such inconvenient truths, or do the reporters who simply pass on its handouts to the mass media.

The claim that there is no prospective funding to meet the government's Social Security and Medicare obligations was rendered blatantly incredible in the last week of March, which saw the five-year anniversary of the Bush Administration's war in Iraq. As its death toll to U.S. soldiers reached 4,000, newspaper accounts across the country reported the calculations by Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz that the war's cost has reached the $3 trillion mentioned above, taking into account its legacy of interest charges and medical treatment for the more than 25,000 troops that had been wounded or had post-traumatic and other psychiatric stress disorders. (Mr. Stiglitz recently updated his analysis to say $3 trillion is a conservative number.)

Five years, four thousand lives, and three trillion dollars for the war--but no money for Social Security and Medicare! Did Mr. Paulson not feel just a little bit discomfort in claiming with seeming urgency that Social Security funding would be exhausted in just over another thirty years, by 2041? Medicare is supposed to be in even worse shape, having accumulated enough wage set-asides to last only until 2019, due largely to rising health costs--which the Bush Administration refused to control by negotiating prices with the drug companies, among others.

The historical road to serfdom is that of debt peonage to a financial oligarchy concentrating wealth in its own hands. Contemporary anti-government "libertarianism" creates a vacuum that the financial sector moves to fill. The problem for society at large is that finance finds its major gains to lie not in raising living standards, but in promoting a free lunch for its customers--while turning corporate profits, monopoly rent-seeking and real estate price gains into a flow of interest to itself, by advancing the credit to finance the purchase of these assets and privileges.

There is only one way to reverse this evolution toward debt peonage. That is to scale back existing mortgages, especially for properties with negative equity, to reflect the plunge in property values today--admittedly under distress conditions, but nonetheless real constraints on the debtor's ability to pay. Once the principal was reduced to realistic levels, adjustable-rate mortgages would be replaced by fixed-rate mortgages.

The problem with this solution is that to the financial institutions, the housing crisis is not their problem. Their blame-the-victim attitude holds it to be the mortgage holders' problem--and now increasingly the taxpayers' problem. This perspective on how to resolve the housing crisis can only succeed by creating a populist rhetoric for public officials to use in promoting financial interests as if all this is in the best interest of homeowners and other debtors.