In Part I of this series, "Iran at our Doorstep," published in the August issue of A Line of Sight, I documented Iran's continued quest to develop a nuclear weapon. Additionally, I explained the Iran-Venezuela-Russia alliance currently constructing a military missile base on the extreme northern coast of Venezuela well within reach of many heavily populated U.S. cities. The publicly stated purpose of building the base is to provide the capability for Venezuela to launch missiles at "Iran's enemies."
Subsequently on September 4 we published contributing editor Major General Paul Vallely's article summarizing the release by the United Nation's IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) of a "restricted report" regarding Iran's continued nuclear activity. Consistent with the documentation shared on these pages last month, the U.N. nuclear agency said it is "increasingly concerned" by a stream of "extensive and comprehensive" intelligence coming from "many member states" suggesting that Iran continues to work secretly on developing a nuclear payload for a missile and other components of a nuclear weapons program.
General Vallely now serves as Chairman of Stand Up America, a private organization that includes numerous former military and intelligence community experts and analysts. In his September 4 article, Vallely wrote, "SUA believes strongly that Iran now possesses low yield nuclear war heads that can be mounted on the Shehab missile and deployed on the oceans in container ships with the Russian provided Club K missile launch system." The General went on to explain that Iran's objective is to "launch EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) weapons on U.S. Coastal cities and freeze our national grid systems."
A June, 2011 RAND report agreed with Vallely's analysis. According to RAND senior defense policy analyst Gregory S. Jones, Tehran's nuclear program has progressed to the point that "it will take around two months for the Iranian regime to produce the 20kg of uranium enriched to 90 percent required for the production of a nuclear warhead."
The window may have slammed shut on the opportunity to prevent Iran from going nuclear.
Americans are increasingly concerned about the vulnerability to a cyber-attack. On a personal level, that could involve the hacking into one's personal financial or other identity information. A cyber-attack could also escalate to a much larger scale of a corporate or large network cyber-theft, and certainly a cyber-attack that penetrated our various government, military or national security agencies could be catastrophic.
But, an EMP attack would be even far more destructive and life threatening. For those unfamiliar, one of America's most experience terrorism experts, RP Eddy, offers this layman's definition: "An EMP is a result of a nuclear explosion, or of another weapon, that releases a wave of electrons that will fry every electronic gizmo or tool that civilization needs to survive." Among his lengthy and distinguished credentials, Eddy served the Clinton Administration on the National Security Council as the Director of Counterterroism, and following the 9/11 attacks founded the Center of Tactical Counterterrorism in New York.
This isn't just theoretical or "Hollywood" fantasy. A quick search will yield a large library full of information and warnings about EMPs dating back over many decades. The U.S. found out about EMPs somewhat by accident during the World War II era when some of our own planes were affected by our own nuclear weapons tests. Although no nation has deployed an EMP, it is commonly accepted that many developed nations have such weapons. Since the technology required is considerably less sophisticated than advanced nuclear weaponry, experts believe that nations with developing nuclear capabilities and terrorist organizations may find EMPs far too appealing.
In a 2009 interview with Fox News, Eddy explained that part of the appeal to perceived lesser powers is that an EMP is far easier to build than a traditional nuclear weapon in part because it doesn't have to be as accurate nor as long range. And there are far too many bargain priced aged missiles lying around that can be picked on the cheap and nukes galore, too. Most estimates put the Russian stockpile alone of old and new nukes at more than 10,000. Eddy also referenced the ability to launch an EMP from a "floating barge" – the same Club K Russian weapons technology that looks like a common semi-truck trailer highlighted by Vallely in his September 4 article, and now being marketed to the world.
The above graphic is from 1997 congressional testimony, and it has been repeatedly referenced since that time to demonstrate that a single explosion sufficiently high in the atmosphere could paralyze the entire North American continent. As Eddy explains, an EMP attack would "fry" everything electric, and the "power grid would be out for months." Not only would our cell phones and computers not work, neither would hospital systems, air traffic control, food production and refrigeration, manufacturing, distribution of goods and services, financial transactions and records….you get the picture.
Frank Gaffney is a former Assistant Secretary of Defense and was in charge of Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy at the Pentagon under President Reagan. Currently, Gaffney is President of the Center for Security Policy. His warning of the potential devastation from an EMP attack is terrifying. "Within a year of that attack, nine out of 10 Americans would be dead, because we can't support a population of the present size in urban centers and the like without electricity," he says. "And that is exactly what I believe the Iranians are working towards."
Senator Jon Kyl, previously the Chairman and now Ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security, is deeply concerned about the vulnerability to an EMP attack. He says that it "is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies – terrorist or otherwise. And it is probably the easiest."
"A terrorist organization might have trouble putting a nuclear warhead on target with a Scud, but it would be much easier to simply launch and detonate in the atmosphere," Kyl wrote in the Washington Post. "No need for risk and difficulty of trying to smuggle a nuclear weapon over the border or hit a particular city. Just launch a cheap missile from a freighter in international waters – al Qaida is believed to own about 80 such vessels – and make sure to get it a few miles in the air."
In addition to the 9/11 Commission charged with review and making recommendations following the 9/11 attacks, the government established The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. The Commission released their first report in 2004, about the same time as the 9/11 Commission, and a subsequent report in 2008. Unfortunately, only a few politicians like Sen. Kyl even paid attention. In fact, there have been at least six national commissions as well as the government commissions to issue reports on the threat of EMP. But, virtually all of the warnings and recommendations of the experts have been ignored. "Congress has merely deliberated it, but has not taken substantive action," according to the Heritage Foundation. "The Administration and federal agencies remain mostly ambivalent."
One of the most damning indictments of the 9/11 Commission's findings was a "failure of imagination." America couldn't imagine that we were vulnerable to a terrorist attack inside our border on the scale of 9/11. Have we allowed our imaginations to fall asleep again?
As threatening as an EMP attack is, there is also a great deal that can be done. The EMP Commission says the "appropriate national-level approach should balance prevention, protection, and recovery." Both comprehensive reports by the Commission contain specific recommendations to accomplish that balanced strategic approach. Unfortunately, we have done virtually nothing while the capabilities of our adversaries continue to advance.
James Carafano, the National Defense and Homeland Security expert at the Heritage Foundation offers this straightforward agenda:
1. Fund comprehensive missile defense
2. Develop a National Recovery Plan and a plan to respond to severe space emergencies.
3. Require more research on the EMP Threat.
Carafano also voices a frustration that echoes across the pages of the EMP Commission's 2008 report. "Simply recognizing the EMP threat would go a long way toward better preparing America for the unthinkable."
It has been ten years since the 9/11 attacks, and America has not suffered another significant attack on the homeland during the decade. Our national bravado and the passage of time cause us to not dwell on the unknown nor take seriously "death to America" pledges by tyrants like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. If as the experts warn, a single EMP attack could put America "back to the 19th century," do we not need to be vigilant?
In addition to a complacency developed from extended relative peace, by ignoring our increasing national security vulnerabilities and the capabilities of our enemies, America presented a target that was exploited by our enemies on 9/11. We have done much in the last ten years to prevent terrorists from flying planes into buildings, again, but are we ignoring an even bigger threat?
Iran either already has or is rapidly developing weapons technologies capable of great damage to America and our allies. In addition, the regime is expanding influence globally, particularly in South and Central America that further threatens our national security and global balance of power. In the coming weeks, we will expose more of the extended threatening web that the Iranians are weaving, and why it can neither be ignored nor tolerated.
The German newspaper, Die Welt, reported on Nov. 25, 2010 of a deal Iran struck to establish a military missile base on the northwestern shores of Venezuela. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is vying with Ahmadinejad for the title of most anti-American thug on the planet. According to Die Welt, Venezuela agreed to allow Iran establish a military base manned by Iranian missile officers, Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers and Venezuelan missile officers. Iran also granted Chavez permission to use the missiles in case of an "emergency" and for "national needs" – radically increasing the threat to pro-American neighbors like Colombia. The report says Iran planned to place a variety of medium-range ground-to-ground missiles on the base.
Just imagine. You want to build a home, so you buy a $23,000 piece of land in a residential subdivision in your hometown and get started. The government then tells you to stop, threatens you with $40 million in fines and is not kidding. That's the case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, with briefs being filed today by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of a Priest Lake, Idaho, family, Chantell and Mike Sackett. Attorney Damien Schiff, who will be arguing before the high court in the case, said it's simply a case of a government run amok, and it poses a potential threat to perhaps not every landowner across the nation, but untold millions. "Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws" The Sacketts, Schiff said, "bought property, and the government in effect has ordered them to treat the property like a public park." "The EPA has not paid them a dime for that privilege," he said. "The regime we have operating now allows the EPA to take property without having to pay for it, or giving the owners the right to their day in court."" The organization has prepared a video to explain the case: The case developed when the Sacketts bought a .63-acre parcel of land for $23,000 in a subdivision in their hometown of Priest Lake, Idaho. The land is 500 feet from a lake, had a city water and sewer tap assigned, had no running or standing water and was in the middle of other developed properties. The couple obtained all of the needed permits for their project and started work. Suddenly, the Environmental Protection Agency showed up on the building site, demanded that the work stop and issued a "compliance order" that the couple remove the fill they had brought in, restore the land to its native condition, plant trees every 10 feet, fence it off and let it sit for three years. (Story continues below)
Then they would, for costs estimated at roughly a quarter of a million dollars, be allowed to "request" permission from the government to build on their own land.
Or else, warned the agency, there is the possibility of fines of $37,500 per day – with the total now surpassing $40 million.
Chantell reported she was told by the EPA that if "you're buying a piece of property you should know if it's in wetlands."
"I started to do research. I said, 'So how do I find this piece of property in the wetlands [registry]'? And she said, 'Here's the coordinates.' When I actually pulled up the coordinates, it's not there."
No matter, said the government. Do what we want.
So the Sacketts went to court, only to be told the courts can't address a decision like this, as it's an administrative decision. The couple would have to meet the demands of the "compliance order" and pay the $250,000 to apply for a building permit, then challenge the eventual decision.
Or they could expose themselves to $37,500 per day in fines by refusing to cooperate.
The "taking" of their private property without due process now is the focus on the high court's hearings.
The brief explains that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that "no person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." But the Clean Water Act gives the EPA authority to issue compliance orders, then fine defendants who are "in violation."
"Any citizen engaged in a range of activities may run afoul of the act," the brief explains. "The Clean Water Act's reach is extremely broad, requiring a permit for the discharge of 'pollutants' from a 'point source' into the 'waters of the United States,' which phrase has been interpreted by regulation to include 'wetlands.'"
The regulations, the brief contends, had been defined so broadly by the EPA that they have pertained to "land that appears to be totally dry."
"If the EPA has completed an analysis and made a determination that the property contains jurisdictional 'wetlands,' the citizen has no right to judicial review of that analysis. If the citizen hires professionals to conduct a 'wetlands' determination, EPA is not obligated to accept it. Despite any evidence, professional opinions, or agency advice the citizen obtains, EPA may still impose sanctions by a compliance order if it has 'any information' that" it wants to use to call it wetlands, the brief explains.
Further, the "compliance order" also demands that the private property owners give the EPA full access not only to the lands but to their private records about what is done to the land.
"Given that the order is not based on probable cause, it withdraws the Sacketts' constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches by requiring them to grant access to 'all records and documentation related to the conditions at the site and th restoration activities conducted pursuant to this order.'"
The EPA ordered the planting of specific trees and shrubs and then demanded that the land "be fenced for the first three growing seasons."
"Monitoring of vegetation on the restored site for survival and ground coverage shall be performed in October 2008, June 2009, October 2009, and October 2010," it ordered.
"The very existence of the order, subjecting the property to a federal mandate, prohibiting the intended, authorized use, and requiring expensive remedial actions, substantially reduces the value of the property and limits the Sacketts' ability to [use] it," the brief said.
"Although there has been no judicial decision to establish EPA's jurisdiction and authority to impose these deprivations, the compliance order threatens the Sackets with various 'sanctions.'"
The couple's eventual lawsuit claimed the EPA does not have jurisdiction and the order violates their due process and other constitutional rights.
"The second claim turns on the basic principle that, before a person can be deprived of liberty or property, he is entitled to a full and fair hearing 'at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner,'" the brief argues. "The third claim is based on the related principle that a person cannot be punished for conduct that violates an 'impermissibly vague' law."
The district court rejected their case, as did the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"The court created a constitutional problem by reading the Clean Water Act to preclude judicial review of the compliance order," said the brief. "The court acknowledged both that the Clean Water Act's express language does not mandate the interpretation it ultimately adopted … and that courts should avoid statutory interpretations that raise serious constitutional questions," the brief said.
"The court never considered whether contrary inferences might support the conclusion that Congress did intend for individuals like the Sacketts to obtain review under the EPA. Similarly, the court never considered whether the nature of the compliance order itself supports review."
Additionally, it's an order issued without probable cause and "the process that produces the order is entirely secret, with no notice given to property owners like the Sacketts."
"In sum, the compliance order has deprived the Sacketts of the only economically viable use of their property permitted under local law, deprived them of their right to exclude unwanted persons from their property, and deprived them of their right to be free from unreasonable searches of their property and effects. The Sacketts have never received any review, let alone meaningful review, of the compliance order," the brief argued.
Schiff earlier told WND the significant property rights and due process issues need to be resolved.
"When the government seizes control of your land, and you disagree with the justification, shouldn't you be allowed your day in court? Just as important, should EPA be a law unto itself, without meaningful accountability to the courts and the Constitution?" he said.
"We're very encouraged that the Supreme Court has recognized how important our case is," said Mike Sackett in a statement released earlier by the foundation. "We are standing up against an agency that seems to have unlimited resources and few if any limits on what it can do to property owners. We're standing up for everyone's right to go to court when the government hands you a raw deal – or takes over your hard-earned property. Thank goodness PLF has been helping us, and now PLF will be making our case in the nation's highest court."
Schiff told WND earlier that there is "no question that the power the EPA is claiming it has under the Clean Water Act is significant."
"Even if you have a good basis to think the EPA is wrong, the EPA won't let you get into the courthouse," he said. "They are able to shut the courthouse door by issuing compliance orders that are not judicially reviewable."
That puts a landowner in the impossible situation of either complying with the order with its potential cost of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars or facing that same penalty in fines.
And it's not just the Sacketts' land that could be subject to such orders. The foundation arguments suggest that private property across the nation could be at risk. EPA officials have declined WND requests for comment. They referred WND to a Department of Justice office, which did not respond.
The legal team noted that between 1980 and 2001, the EPA issued up to 3,000 compliance orders every year across the nation.
"The reality of the Sacketts' situation is that they have been unambiguously commanded by their government not to complete their home-building project, to take expensive measures to undo the improvements that they have made to their land, and to maintain their land essentially as a public park until the property is 'restored' to the satisfaction of the EPA. They have been threatened with frightening penalties if they do not immediately obey; but they have been refused the prompt hearing they should have received as a matter of right in any court," Pacific Legal argued.
By Timothy P. Carney, Senior Political Columnist
September 21, 2011
As Republican lawmakers begin to dig into the White House’s cozy relationship with a startup wireless company and the wealthy Democratic donor who owns it, a new character has appeared on the story’s edges: liberal superdonor, conservative bete noire and controversial investor George Soros.
Soros reportedly invested in the telecom company LightSquared through a hedge fund, and many of the nonprofits he finances have backed LightSquared in regulatory and policy disputes… LightSquared wants to compete with AT&T, Verizon and Sprint to provide mobile broadband…
Harbinger Capital Partners, a hedge fund run by billionaire financier Philip Falcone, owns LightSquared, and deftly steered the company through some tricky regulatory waters (with would-be competitors AT&T and Verizon fighting him along the way) to get preliminary approval for its plan to start a high-speed broadband wireless network…
Gee, we wonder if concern for LightSquared might have caused the Department Of Justice to put the kibosh on the AT&T and T-Mobile merger? Which seems to have surprised the industry analysts. (But of course such things would never happen in this administration.)
Emails have surfaced showing LightSquared executives discussing donations to Obama’s campaign in policy conversations with White House officials. Finally, there’s the eye-catching detail that another Obama donor, George Haywood, steered then-Sen. Obama to invest $90,000 in the company (then named SkyTerra) back in 2005.
In fact, according to a March 8, 2007 article in the New York Times: "Records show that [Obama's] SkyTerra shares were bought the same day a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission supported the company’s effort to create a nationwide wireless network and caused a temporary spike in its stock price."
But that is probably just a coincidence. And, for the record, the New York Times article goes on to assure us that there was no conflict of interest. And Mr. Obama himself claims he sold the stock later at a loss.
LightSquared’s main lobbying firm is owned by Norman Brownstein, a major fundraiser for Obama’s 2008 nominating convention… In the LightSquared affair, Soros shows up repeatedly.
First, Soros is reportedly an investor in LightSquared. The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2010: "In 2009, while some investors were asking for withdrawals, others were lining up to put money into Harbinger. They included Soros Fund Management, which during the past year became a significant new investor, say people familiar with the matter." …
Additionally, the telecom- and tech-related liberal nonprofits Soros funds have gone to bat for LightSquared in its various policy fights. In April 2010, the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission backing Harbinger’s business plans and met with an FCC commissioner on the matter. Four groups that belong to that coalition received six-figure gifts from Soros’ Open Society Institute the year before. Six months later, those four Soros-funded groups — Free Press, Media Access Project, the New America Foundation, and Public Knowledge — filed a joint comment backing LightSquared in a related regulatory matter…
More coincidence. Why is everyone so cynical? Mr. Soros would never use front groups to lobby for something that he wanted. (Cf. his efforts to legalize marijuana.)
CAUGHT ON TAPE: Former SEIU Official Reveals Secret Plan To Destroy JP Morgan, Crash The Stock Market, And Redistribute Wealth In America
Stephen Lerner, formerly of SEIU.
A former official of one of the country's most-powerful unions, SEIU, has a secret plan to "destabilize" the country.
The plan is designed to destroy JP Morgan, nuke the stock market, and weaken Wall Street's grip on power, thus creating the conditions necessary for a redistribution of wealth and a change in government.
The former SEIU official, Stephen Lerner, spoke in a closed session at a Pace University forum last weekend.
The Blaze procured what appears to be a tape of Lerner's remarks. Many Americans will undoubtely sympathize with and support them. Still, the "destabilization" plan is startling in its specificity, especially coming so close on the heels of the financial crisis.
Lerner said that unions and community organizations are, for all intents and purposes, dead. The only way to achieve their goals, therefore--the redistribution of wealth and the return of "$17 trillion" stolen from the middle class by Wall Street--is to "destabilize the country."
Lerner's plan is to organize a mass, coordinated "strike" on mortgage, student loan, and local government debt payments--thus bringing the banks to the edge of insolvency and forcing them to renegotiate the terms of the loans. This destabilization and turmoil, Lerner hopes, will also crash the stock market, isolating the banking class and allowing for a transfer of power.
Lerner's plan starts by attacking JP Morgan Chase in early May, with demonstrations on Wall Street, protests at the annual shareholder meeting, and then calls for a coordinated mortgage strike.
Lerner also says explicitly that, although the attack will benefit labor unions, it cannot be seen as being organized by them. It must therefore be run by community organizations.
Lerner was ousted from SEIU last November, reportedly for spending millions of the union's dollars trying to pursue a plan like the one he details here. It is not clear what, if any, power and influence he currently wields. His main message--that Wall Street won the financial crisis, that inequality in this country is hitting record levels, and that there appears to be no other way to stop the trend--will almost certainly resonate.
A transcript of Lerner's full reported remarks is below, courtesy of The Blaze. We have heard the tape, but we have not independently verified that the voice is Lerner's. You can listen to the tape here.
Here are the key remarks:
Unions are almost dead. We cannot survive doing what we do but the simple fact of the matter is community organizations are almost dead also. And if you think about what we need to do it may give us some direction which is essentially what the folks that are in charge - the big banks and everything - what they want is stability.
There are actually extraordinary things we could do right now to start to destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement.
For example, 10% of homeowners are underwater right their home they are paying more for it then its worth 10% of those people are in strategic default, meaning they are refusing to pay but they are staying in their home that's totally spontaneous they figured out it takes a year to kick me out of my home because foreclosure is backed up
If you could double that number you would you could put banks at the edge of insolvency again.
Students have a trillion dollar debt
We have an entire economy that is built on debt and banks so the question would be what would happen if we organized homeowners in mass to do a mortgage strike if we get half a million people to agree it would literally cause a new finical crisis for the banks not for us we would be doing quite well we wouldn't be paying anything...
We have to think much more creatively. The key thing... What does the other side fear the most - they fear disruption. They fear uncertainty. Every article about Europe says in they rioted in Greece the markets went down
The folks that control this country care about one thing how the stock market goes what the bond market does how the bonuses goes. We have a very simple strategy:
How do we bring down the stock market
How do we bring down their bonuses
How do we interfere with there ability to be rich...
So a bunch of us around the country think who would be a really good company to hate we decided that would be JP Morgan Chase and so we are going to roll out over the next couple of months what would hopefully be an exciting campaign about JP Morgan Chase that is really about challenge the power of Wall Street.
And so what we are looking at is the first week in May can we get enough people together starting now to really have an week of action in New York I don't want to give any details because I don't know if there are any police agents in the room.
The goal would be that we will roll out of New York the first week of May. We will connect three ideas
that we are not broke there is plenty of money
they have the money - we need to get it back
and that they are using Bloomberg and other people in government as the vehicle to try and destroy us
And so we need to take on those folks at the same time. And that we will start here we are going to look at a week of civil disobedience - direct action all over the city. Then roll into the JP Morgan shareholder meeting which they moved out of New York because I guess they were afraid because of Columbus.
There is going to be a ten state mobilization to try and shut down that meeting and then looking at bank shareholder meetings around the country and try and create some moments like Madison except where we are on offense instead of defense
Where we have brave and heroic battles challenging the power of the giant corporations. We hope to inspire a much bigger movement about redistributing wealth and power in the country and that labor can’t do itself that community groups can’t do themselves but maybe we can work something new and different that can be brave enough and daring and nimble enough to do that kind of thing.
FULL TRANSCRIPT FROM THE BLAZE
SPEAKER: Stephen Lerner. Speaker at the Left Forum 2011 "Towards a Politics of Solidarity" Pace University March 19, 2011
Speaker Bio: Stephen Lerner is the architect of the SEIU's groundbreaking Justice for Janitors campaign. He led the union's banking and finance campaign and has partnered with unions and groups in Europe, South American and elsewhere in campaigns to hold financial institutions accountable. As director of the union's private equity project, he launched a long campaign to expose the over-leveraged feeding frenzy of private equity firms during the boom years that led to the ensuing economic disaster.
TRANSCRIPT:
It feels to me after a long time of being on defense that something is starting to turn in the world and we just have to decide if we are on defense or offense
Maybe there is a different way to look at some of theses questions it’s hard for me to think about any part of organizing without thinking what just happened with this economic crisis and what it means
I don't know how to have a discussion about labor and community if we don't first say what do we need to do at this time in history what is the strategy that gives us some chance of winning because I spent my life time as a union organizer justice for janitors a lot of things
It seems we are at a moment where the world is going to get much much worse or much much better
Unions are almost dead we cannot survive doing what we do but the simple fact of the matter is community organizations are almost dead also and if you think about what we need to do it may give us some direction which is essentially what the folks that are in charge - the big banks and everything - what they want is stability
Every time there is a crisis in the world they say, well, the markets are stable.
What's changed in America is the economy doing well has nothing to do with the rest of us
They figured out that they don't need us to be rich they can do very well in a global market without us so what does this have to do with community and labor organizing more.
We need to figure out in a much more through direct action more concrete way how we are really trying to disrupt and create uncertainty for capital for how corporations operate
The thing about a boom and bust economy is it is actually incredibly fragile.
There are actually extraordinary things we could do right now to start to destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement.
For example, 10% of homeowners are underwater right their home they are paying more for it then its worth 10% of those people are in strategic default, meaning they are refusing to pay but they are staying in their home that's totally spontaneous they figured out it takes a year to kick me out of my home because foreclosure is backed up
If you could double that number you would you could put banks at the edge of insolvency again.
Students have a trillion dollar debt
We have an entire economy that is built on debt and banks so the question would be what would happen if we organized homeowners in mass to do a mortgage strike if we get half a million people to agree it would literally cause a new finical crisis for the banks not for us we would be doing quite well we wouldn't be paying anything.
Government is being strangled by debt
The four things we could do that could really upset wall street
One is if city and state and other government entities demanded to renegotiate their debt
and you might say why would the banks ever do it - because city and counties could say we won’t do business with you in the future if you won’t renegotiate the debt now
So we could leverage the power we have of government and say two things we won’t do business with you JP Morgan Chase anymore unless you do two things: you reduce the price of our interest and second you rewrite the mortgages for everybody in the communities
We could make them do that
The second thing is there is a whole question in Europe about students’ rates in debt structure. What would happen if students said we are not going to pay. It’s a trillion dollars. Think about republicans screaming about debt a trillion dollars in student debt
There is a third thing we can think about what if public employee unions instead of just being on the defensive put on the collective bargaining table when they negotiate they say we demand as a condition of negotiation that the government renegotiate - it’s crazy that you’re paying too much interest to your buddies the bankers it’s a strike issue - we will strike unless you force the banks to renegotiate/
Then if you add on top of that if we really thought about moving the kind of disruption in Madison but moving that to Wall Street and moving that to other cities around the country
We basically said you stole seventeen trillion dollars - you've improvised us and we are going to make it impossible for you to operate
Labor can’t lead this right now so if labor can’t lead but we are a critical part of it we do have money we have millions of members who are furious
But I don't think this kind of movement can happen unless community groups and other activists take the lead.
If we really believe that we are in a transformative stage of what's happening in capitalism
Then we need to confront this in a serious way and develop really ability to put a boot in the wheel then we have to think not about labor and community alliances we have to think about how together we are building something that really has the capacity to disrupt how the system operates
We need to think about a whole new way of thinking about this not as a partnership but building something new.
We have to think much more creatively. The key thing... What does the other side fear the most - they fear disruption. They fear uncertainty. Every article about Europe says in they rioted in Greece the markets went down
The folks that control this country care about one thing how the stock market goes what the bond market does how the bonuses goes. We have a very simple strategy:
How do we bring down the stock market
How do we bring down their bonuses
How do we interfere with there ability to be rich
And that means we have to politically isolate them, economically isolate them and disrupt them
It’s not all theory i’ll do a pitch.
So a bunch of us around the country think who would be a really good company to hate we decided that would be JP Morgan Chase and so we are going to roll out over the next couple of months what would hopefully be an exciting campaign about JP Morgan Chase that is really about challenge the power of Wall Street.
And so what we are looking at is the first week in May can we get enough people together starting now to really have an week of action in New York I don't want to give any details because I don't know if there are any police agents in the room.
The goal would be that we will roll out of New York the first week of May. We will connect three ideas
that we are not broke there is plenty of money
they have the money - we need to get it back
and that they are using Bloomberg and other people in government as the vehicle to try and destroy us
And so we need to take on those folks at the same time
and that we will start here we are going to look at a week of civil disobedience - direct action all over the city
then roll into the JP Morgan shareholder meeting which they moved out of New York because I guess they were afraid because of Columbus.
There is going to be a ten state mobilization it try and shut down that meeting and then looking at bank shareholder meetings around the country and try and create some moments like Madison except where we are on offense instead of defense
Where we have brave and heroic battles challenging the power of the giant corporations. We hope to inspire a much bigger movement about redistributing wealth and power in the country and that labor can’t do itself that community groups can’t do themselves but maybe we can work something new and different that can be brave enough and daring and nimble enough to do that kind of thing.
The first “world leader” Obama called after being elected president was Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. That is absolutely stunning. He didn’t call Britain, Germany, France, or even China. He called the leader of a non-existent country that hates Israel. I think that says a lot about Barack Obama.
President Obama's first call 'was to President Abbas'
Tom Baldwin in Washington
Fidel Castro praises Obama | Video: Obama speech mash-up | Into the storm | Pictures: day one | Bronwen Maddox | Anatole Kaletsky | Ben Macintyre | Obama retakes oath | He's sharp, he's cool | . . . but can he dance? | Inauguration in full
President Obama placed the Middle East at the forefront of his first hours in office yesterday as he sought to make good on his promise of “ushering in a new era of peace”.
In a flurry of telephone calls from the Oval Office, he reached out to leaders in the region and vowed to engage immediately in pursuit of a permanent Arab-Israeli settlement.
The spokesman for President Abbas revealed that Mr Obama had told the Palestinian leader that their conversation was his first with a foreign statesman since taking office. Mr Obama also spoke to President Mubarak of Egypt, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, and King Abdullah of Jordan.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said that the talks with Middle East leaders underlined a “commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term”. He added: “In the aftermath of the Gaza conflict, he emphasised his determination to work to help consolidate the ceasefire by establishing an effective anti-smuggling regime to prevent Hamas from rearming, and facilitating, in partnership with the Palestinian Authority, a major reconstruction effort.”
In the next few days Mr Obama is expected to appoint a Middle East peace envoy, widely thought to be the former senator George Mitchell, who performed a similar role in Ireland under President Clinton.
Even before he got to work yesterday, the new Administration had halted all military trials of terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Mr Obama is expected to sign an executive order today that will close the camp within a year “to further the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice”. Judges have agreed to stop the trials of five Guantánamo detainees who have been charged in connection with the 9/11 attacks.
In the White House situation room yesterday, Mr Obama prepared to fulfil another campaign promise by ordering military commanders to redeploy troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. He summoned Robert Gates, his Defence Secretary, along with Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General David Petraeus, the top military commander in the Middle East, and other members of the national security council. General Ray Odierno and General David McKiernan, the commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, participated in the meeting via video link.
Although Mr Obama promised to listen to his military chiefs — some of whom are known to have reservations about the withdrawal timetable — he said that he was looking to develop a comprehensive policy for Iraq and Afghanistan. Afterwards, he said: “I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military draw-down from Iraq.”
The President, who has also said that he will engage in direct, if tough, diplomacy with Iran, used his inaugural speech on Tuesday to offer Muslim countries a “new way forward”. People and governments around the world should know that “America is ready to lead once more”, he added.
“We’re going to have a lot of work,” Mr Obama said on Tuesday night. “We’ll be making a series of announcements, both on domestic and on foreign policy, that I think will be critical for us to act swiftly on.”
His high-velocity first day in office also involved Mr Obama retaking his presidential oath in private after constitutional experts argued that the fumbles during the inauguration ceremony had cast doubt on its legitimacy. He also met his economic team yesterday to discuss the financial crisis which, he said, is the issue “we are most focused on”.
Timothy Geithner, his nomination for Treasury Secretary, has yet to be confirmed with Republicans voicing fresh anger over his failure to pay taxes on time. “These were avoidable mistakes,” Mr Geithner told senators yesterday, “but they were unintentional.”
At lunchtime, Mr Obama gathered his senior White House staff together to witness him signing an executive order that brings in new ethical rules over lobbying and freedom of information, as well as freezing their salaries.
“What an opportunity we have to change this country,” he said, as he reminded them of the vast crowd “as far as the eye could see” that had watched his inauguration on Tuesday.
“They were there because they believe this is a moment of great change in America, a time for reinvigorating our democracy and remaking our country. They have entrusted all of us with a great responsibility.”
Guest Post: Tracing the Origins of the Days of Rage Protest
Editor’s note: the following is a guest post by Paul Kengor, professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. This material is excerpted from his latest bookDupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.
Hats off to The Blaze for being one of the few sources to investigate the coming “Day of Rage” planned by the radical left for September 17 (Saturday), where a motley crew of liberals, progressives, socialists, and communists—and it will not be easy to know which is which—hope to siege and “occupy” Wall Street. As The Blaze has noted, ringleaders include SEIU’s Stephen Lerner and ACORN’s Wade Rathke, who happen to be Obama supporters. The Blaze has also keenly noted the historic connection to the 1969 “Days of Rage” in Chicago, where the ringleaders included Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who happen to be Obama supporters.
Alas, there’s much more still to these connections. Specifically, the literal communists who organized the original 1969 Days of Rage magically reappeared in 2008 to organize the group Progressives for Obama. Suddenly, they were “progressives” stumping for the presidential bid of Barack Obama. They include a bunch of names we should be remembering. That list of names is so vast that it can be overwhelming and bewildering, requiring a book to fully flesh out, but here I’ll focus on just a few who are key to understanding the rotten historical roots at play.
Adherents are saluted by Michael Klonsky, national secretary of Students for a Democratic Society in Chicago on May 12, 1969, after he posted bond of $1,500 for a June 6 appearance. Klonsky and four other leaders of the controversial SDS were charged with interfering with Chicago police and firemen summoned to SDS national headquarters by false reports of fights and fires. (AP Photo/Charles E. Knoblock)
SDS
Behind the original “Days of Rage” in Chicago in 1969 was a major switch for ‘60s radicals. It was a switch in philosophy and tactics, from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to the Weathermen. Key players included not merely Ayers and Dohrn, but Mark Rudd, Tom Hayden, Jeff Jones, Michael Klonsky, Carl Davidson, John Jacobs, David Gilbert, and Kathy Boudin, among many others.
Especially influential was Mark Rudd. By 1969, Rudd had established himself as a household name. The SDS leader at Columbia University, Rudd led the riots on the campus in 1968, bull-horning the administration with vulgar obscenities, stomping, carrying signs, smashing windows and breaking down doors, pillaging and seizing the offices of the president and shutting down the entire campus. As a Newsweek cover attested, Rudd and the children were in charge. Student strikes ensued, and a general rage enveloped Columbia for weeks. It was sheer madness—what Rudd himself dubbed “total war” on campus. It had been orchestrated, from the top, by communists—American communists.
At long last at Columbia, it was October 1917; the revolution had finally commenced. As Rudd wrote in his SDS pamphlet, titled simply, “Columbia,” “It was no accident that we hung up pictures of Karl Marx and Malcolm X and Che Guevara and flew red flags from the tops of two buildings.”
And it was, SDS’s communists nationwide hoped, just the start. If only Columbia could be replicated upon the rest of America! Indeed, that became the goal: In Ramparts magazine, edited by young communists David Horowitz and Peter Collier, who today are prominent anti-communist conservatives, Tom Hayden wrote an article where he employed a new battle cry, a paraphrase of Saint Che’s mantra for Vietnam: “Create two, three, many Columbias!”
Hayden had been the most important initial player in the early SDS. He served as SDS president in 1962 and 1963, drafting its manifesto, the Port Huron Statement. Hayden’s fame and impact would spike up in 1968. He was arrested at the Democratic convention that year, becoming one of the “Chicago Seven,” along with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, the latter of whom threatened to dump LSD in the city’s water supply.
That same year Hayden and an SDS delegation travelled to the Communist Bloc, where, according to observer Sol Stern, who was there as a privileged correspondent for the radical Ramparts, “The SDSers held a seminar with the communists on how to conduct their psychological warfare campaign against the United States.”
As for Hayden, Congress later published a June 4, 1968 letter he wrote to a Vietnamese colonel, wishing him and the Vietcong “Good fortune! Victory!”
Hayden’s notoriety surged when he took one of his controversial troops to Cambodia and Vietnam with the young actress Jane Fonda.
Of course, Jane herself is a huge story. The wealthy young actress was a go-go girl for communism, regularly telling student audiences: “[I]f you would understand what communism was, you would pray on your knees that we would someday be communist.” Once arriving in Hanoi, Jane became a cheerleader and glamour girl for the Vietcong. The trip was arranged (in part) by Wilfred Burchett (later identified as a Soviet agent), who also reportedly helped script Fonda’s talks. There, Jane became the literal toast of the communist world for her “heroics” on behalf of “anti-imperialism” and anti-Americanism. Her face was splashed across media everywhere—especially by an ecstatic communist press. As Jane grinned aboard and aside Vietcong weaponry, the Soviets and North Vietnamese were smitten.
And so was Tom Hayden. Shortly after Jane’s theatrics, Hayden married Fonda, his second wife.
Bernardine Dohrn, former leader of the radical, anti-war movement Weather Underground, and her companion Bill Ayers are escorted by federal authorities after surrendering at Cook County Courthouse in Chicago, Ill., Dec. 3, 1989. (AP Photo)
From SDS to the Weathermen
By that point, SDS was finished as well. It was splintering into rival factions, the most infamous being a domestic communist-terrorist group called the Weathermen.
By Mark Rudd’s testimony, the political harlot that was Columbia University birthed the wretched child that was the Weathermen. In his own words, “Columbia would give birth to the ‘revolutionary’ faction known as Weatherman.”
And it was Rudd, more than any other figure, who helped sow SDS’s implosion during its irredeemably rotten transition to the Weather Underground. He and his cadre came together in the summer of ‘69 to form the Weathermen (also known as “Weatherman”).
Rudd later succinctly summed up the creation and the objective: “My friends and I formed an underground revolutionary guerrilla band called Weatherman which had as its goal the violent overthrow of the United States government.”
That was the stated intention of the Weathermen: the violent overthrow of the United States government.
The shift toward the Weathermen was the culmination of a deeper split within SDS. SDS had soured into an unpalatable witches’ brew of sincere anti-war liberals and hardcore Marxists, with the latter balkanizing into different factions, from Maoists to followers of Che and Fidel to even the occasional Stalinist, from the Progressive Labor wing to the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) to the Weathermen.
It may seem unbelievable to imagine that there were Stalinists among them, but there were. According to Rudd, the Stalinists included Mike Klonsky. Klonsky was the SDS national secretary, based in Chicago, and was actually to the left of Mark Rudd. Rudd recalls a meeting in 1969 when Klonsky “several times” told Rudd and Howard Machtinger that “Stalin is the cutting edge.” This “adulation of Joseph Stalin” (Rudd’s description) made no sense to Rudd and Machtinger. It was such internal differences that created further instability among SDS principals, further driving a wedge that spawned the Weathermen.
Another critical area of separation, mercifully creating a much-needed wake-up call among the duped non-communist liberals in SDS, was the divergent feelings about violence. The typical rank-and-file SDS-er was an anti-war, pro-peace, non-violence liberal, whereas the members of the Weathermen ranged in their commitment to violence—to the point that the more violent went “underground” and formed the Weather Underground. Inside the Weather Underground, public expressions of aggression ranged from Mark Rudd’s initial open endorsements, which he would seem to privately regret and later repudiate, to the bomb-setting fanaticism of the likes of Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.
Violence was not the only reason to go underground: Many of the comrades were inspired by or interacting with foreign adversaries of the United States—a topic I’ll leave for another day.
John Jacobs (l) and Terry Robbins (r) at the Days of Rage, Chicago, October 1969.
Chicago, 1969: Days of Rage
In short, with all of those forces set in motion, the contours of the Weathermen began to emerge, which brings me to the Days of Rage. Two events in Chicago from June-October 1969 were precipitous: First, there was the final SDS National Convention. It opened June 18, 1969 at the Chicago Coliseum on South Wabash, just down the street from the Chicago police headquarters, home of the so-called “pigs” with who the Weathermen prepared for literal war. With America and its policemen and servicemen as the identified enemy, Che’s partisans were ready for action.
Next, with Rudd, Ayers, Dohrn, John Jacobs, and Jeff Jones taking the lead, the cadre came together in the “National Action,” held in Chicago from October 8-11, 1969, under the banner, “BRING THE WAR HOME!”—John Jacobs is credited as the author of that slogan—and with battle cries like, “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, NLF is going to win!”
The National Action had been planned a year earlier in Boulder, Colorado, where Jacobs had drafted the resolution. The title of the resolution was called, “The Elections Don’t Mean Sh-t—Vote Where the Power Is—Our Power Is In The Street.” Jacobs declared an “all-out civil war over Vietnam” and against “fascist U.S. imperialism.”
Rudd affirmed the cornerstone of the plan of action: “In Chicago the pigs have to be wiped out. We’re going to fight with violence and wipe out Chicago.” SDS planned to have 15,000 student demonstrators on hand in the city that October. The stated reason was to protest the trial of the Chicago Eight. But the trial was a mere pretense.
Joining Rudd and Jacobs for the festivities were Ayers, Dohrn, Hayden—on hand for an inspiring pep talk—Klonsky, David Gilbert, Kathy Boudin, and the other usual suspects. What ensued was an organized riot, commenced on October 5, 1969 when the “flower children” dynamited the statue commemorating the Chicago police who had been killed in the 1886 Haymarket Riot. As far as the “students” were concerned, these men were not Chicago’s finest, not veterans of the police force and (in many cases) World War II, but jackbooted swine. The smashed glass and damage caused by the explosion was a fitting initiation to the tirade that followed, eventually ending in violent clashes with over 1,000 policemen.
The day after the initial rampage, the student Reds were licking their wounds. Many were bruised and cut and beaten, or had spent a night in jail. They needed a pick-me-up. There to buck up the boys and girls the next day at a rally in Grant Park was Bernardine Dohrn. The former Milwaukee cheerleader was anointed the commissar to spearhead the “Women’s Militia.”
Mayor Daley’s police won the battle, but it was not a total loss for the student revolutionaries. Roughly 30 “pigs” were injured and a city official was paralyzed.
The National Action had become the Days of Rage. It was one of the ugliest nights in the history of Chicago.
And although no one noticed at the time, or has remarked since, that fall of 1969 had coincidentally marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of the American Communist Party in that same city. How fitting it was. December 26, 1969: Flint War Council
There is much madness that flowed from this unholy event, which, again, requires a book to adequately flesh out, but here’s just one instance worth remembering:
As so often happens with extremist movements, the increasing violence among the revolutionaries was descending into a bloodlust.
To that end, the most infamous moment of the newly launched Weathermen was the appropriately titled “War Council” held in Flint, Michigan on December 27, 1969, attended by some 400 student troops. In the pamphlets, the jocular activists sweetly called the gathering a “Wargasm.”
Among the ringleaders, John Jacobs, with his knack for bombast, conjured up another fitting slogan. “We’re against everything that’s good and decent,” explained Jacobs.
That vulgar certainty was quickly made manifest when an indecent Bernardine Dohrn grabbed the microphone and went on a scorching rant. She described the group’s mission thusly: “We’re about being crazy motherf—ers and scaring the sh-t out of honky America!”
Like a radical revival meeting, Mark Rudd got caught up in the fervor, and found himself uttering words he later regretted: “It’s a wonderful feeling to hit a pig. It must be a really wonderful feeling to kill a pig or blow up something.”
Likewise moved by the spirit, Kathy Boudin declared all mothers of white children to be “pig mothers.” Invoking the unity of the Christmas season, she led the faithful in a new rendition of Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas:” “I’m Dreaming of a White Riot….,” she sang. Kathy then shouted about “doing some sh-t like political assassinations.”
Those sentiments were just the tip of the iceberg, especially in terms of what Bernardine was thinking. Much like Vladimir Lenin’s ever-widening category of people considered “harmful insects,” destined for death or the gulag, Bernardine’s category of “pigs” was rapidly expanding. In the very recent past, the pigs had been America’s police and boys in Vietnam. Now, Bernardine was about to enrich the brethren at the War Council with her thoughts on the vicious Tate-LaBianca murders executed by the satanic Charles Manson “family.” The victims would get no sympathy from the future childcare advocate, who, here in Flint, was hell-bent on herding their mutilated bodies into her widening “pigs” category.
The girl from the Midwest flew off the hinges, waxing lustfully over the demonic spectacle of the criminally insane mutilation of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her friends by the swastika-tattooed Manson brood. The crime done by the Manson clan is too mortifying to describe here, particularly the ripping open of Tate’s belly, but it wasn’t to Bernardine Dohrn. The future professor of child education at Northwestern saw a kind of deliciousness in these true Manson “revolutionaries.” She imbibed at the image of the cabal’s dehumanization of Tate, gleefully sharing her feelings with the assembled. Dohrn thrilled:
Dig it! First they killed those pigs. Then they ate dinner in the same room with them. Then they even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach! Wild!
It was two days after Christmas, when America was still celebrating the image of the birth of the Christ child. Bernardine, however, was celebrating the image of the slaughter of the Tate child.
One would like to say that this moment of gore shocked even the hardcore in that room, but that would not be accurate. The faithful, from
Bill Ayers's Mugshot.
Bernadine’s sweetheart, Bill Ayers, to everyone else in the hall, knew that Bernardine was serious—and they dug it. As Mark Rudd reported, the assembled “instantly adopted as Weather’s salute four fingers held up in the air, invoking the fork left in Sharon Tate’s belly.”
Rudd translated this message for the wider world: “The message was that we sh-t on all your conventional values, you murderers of black revolutionaries and Vietnamese babies. There were no limits to our politics of transgression.”
No, there were not. And this is not quite the flowery image of the children dancing with daisies captured by liberal documentarians. Today, there is no Kodak moment of the four-finger salute thumb-tacked on the bulletin boards outside the office doors of the tenured radicals in their Ivy Towers, where idealistic education majors can take notes.
And now, a line had been crossed—the first steps into a dark world. Like the Jacobins after the first drop of the guillotine, the blood began to flow, rushing from the altar where Bishop Dohrn saluted and exhorted the faithful. Domestic terror cells, gunpowder, bomb-making units. A “new decade now dawned,” judged Rudd, as “the New Red Army marched out from Flint, exhilarated and terrified.”
And exhilarated to commit terror. The Weather Underground, and its blood orgy, was in full rot.
Jennifer Dohrn addresses a rally in Chicago's Lincoln Park, April 11, 1969. Jennifer's sister, Bernardine, is among the FBI's most-wanted for her part in the SDS "Days of Rage," in Chicago, Oct., 1969. (AP Photo/Fred Jewell)
Progressives for Obama
And so where is this lovely crew now? That brings me to Progressives for Obama. The radicals reunited with renewed vigor in 2008, forming a group called Progressives for Obama, which was a Who’s Who—a reunion—of the 1960s SDS crowd. Whereas Bill Ayers was thrust into the national spotlight by conservative commentators, Progressives for Obama flew under the radar, largely unnoticed even by conservatives, and predictably ignored by the mainstream media which essentially served as an unofficial extension of the Obama presidential campaign.
Appropriately, spearheading Progressives for Obama was the man who had spearheaded SDS: Tom Hayden. Hayden was one of the four “initiators” of Progressives for Obama, along with Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Jr., and Danny Glover. Amazingly, Hayden, who wrote the founding Port Huron manifesto for SDS, also penned the founding manifesto for Progressives for Obama.
Yes, Tom Hayden was the spearhead for both.
Beyond its initiators, Progressives for Obama featured a list of 94 formal “signers,” including Hayden’s ex-wife, Jane Fonda, and Mark Rudd, Carl Davidson, Thorne Dreyer, Daniel Ellsberg, Richard Flacks, John McAuliff, Jay Schaffner, and more. Columbia University was certainly represented, if not through the likes of Rudd, who once shut down the campus, then specifically through current faculty such as Todd Gitlin, a former SDS president who today is professor of journalism, sociology, and chair of Columbia’s doctoral program in communications.
It is no exaggeration to say that the list of Progressives for Obama resembled the roster of SDS-ers called to testify for their subversive activities in the 1960s, literally appearing throughout the index of the transcripts from Congress’ December 1969 investigation of SDS. Aside from the likes of Hayden, Rudd, and Davidson, other SDS-ers among Progressives for Obama are Bob Pardun, who was SDS education secretary from 1966-67, and Paul Buhle, a professor who has recently sought to revive SDS. And still yet more SDS-ers, some who became Weathermen, were not formal signers for Progressives for Obama but signed online petitions backing Obama’s candidacy. Petition signers from the old guard included Howard Machtinger, Jeff Jones, and Steve Tappis, among others. Others who testified in the 1960s, like Michael Klonsky, were represented in the 2008 list of Progressives for Obama by their relations, Anne Lowry Klonsky and Fred Klonsky, all now pervading the field of public education.
Again, much, much more could be said. Please believe me when I tell you that this is a tiny snapshot, a mere ice-cube from an iceberg.
And the most amazing and depressing thing is that all of this—as crazy and conspiratorial as it may sound—is true. You can’t make it up. It’s like America is suddenly reliving its 1960s nightmares, from the Days of Rage to the Day of Rage, from SDS to the Weathermen to Progressives for Obama. These folks never go away; they simply reappear, changing their names but not their ultimate intentions. It’s our goal to not be ignorant, to be informed of the crucial history and the crucial machinations at work right now.
When the comrades and their fellow travelers lay siege to Wall Street on September 17, it will be nothing new. Sadly, nothing new at all. America, wake up.
Internal Docs List Crimes Tied To ATF Gun Operation
By Judicial Watch Blog
Created 13 Sep 2011 - 5:11pm
The number of crimes connected to a disastrous federal experiment that allowed Mexican drug traffickers to obtain U.S.-sold weapons is significantly higher than previously disclosed, according to internal government documents[1] obtained by Judicial Watch.
Known as Fast and Furious, the failed program was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and allowed guns from the U.S. to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels. Instead, federal law enforcement officers lost track of hundreds of weapons which are believed to have been used in an unknown number of crimes.
In the past few months several media reports have linked the lost guns to violence on both sides of the border while high-ranking officials in the Obama Administration, including Attorney General Eric Holder, insist they knew nothing about the reckless operation.
Among the first reports to surface; that Fast and Furious weapons were used to murder a U.S. Border Patrol agent [2](Brian Terry) in Peck Canyon Arizona in mid December. The guns—assault weapons known as AK-47s—were traced through their serial numbers to a Glendale, Arizona dealer that led to a Phoenix man the feds repeatedly allowed to smuggle firearms into Mexico
.
But details like these have surfaced slowly as the administration scrambles to decide what version of facts it chooses to give Americans. What’s certain is that federal agents lost track of high-powered rifles and other guns, which have been recovered in violent crimes, both in the U.S. and Mexico. A few days ago, the nation’s Assistant Attorney General (Ronald Weich) admitted that Fast and Furious weapons had been used in at least three violent crimes in the U.S. and eight others in Mexico.
The crimes were outlined by Weich in a letter,[1] obtained by Judicial Watch this week, to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. It was a response to the Vermont Democrat’s months-old request for details of crimes associated with guns from the now infamous operation. Besides the Border Patrol agent’s murder, a Fast and Furious firearm (7.62mm Romarm/Cugir) was involved in aggravated assault against a police officer in Arizona, Weich tells Leahy in the letter.
In Mexico the ATF has reported eight events in which guns purchased under Fast and Furious have been recovered in violent crimes, Weich writes. Among them were four firearms used for “kidnap/ransom,” two in homicides and one used during a violent exchange between cartels. A separate stash of Fast and Furious weapons was recovered in various parts of Mexico after being involved in “non-violent crimes,” according to Weich’s assessment.
For instance, 10 guns were retrieved in Atoyac de Alvarez after the Mexican military rescued a kidnap victim. Another 10 Fast and Furious weapons were also identified in Durango following a confrontation between Mexico’s military and an “armed group.” An additional 10 rifles were found in Chihuahua after the kidnapping of two people and the murder of a Mexican public official’s family member.
More than likely, this is only the tip of the iceberg. House investigators have formally asked the Obama Administration to hand over “all records” involving the scandalous gun program and the White House and Justice Department’s role in the matter, including that of top administration security officials. Expect some serious stalling on the part of the “most transparent administration in history.”
In June a congressional oversight committee offered a snippet of what those records may expose. In a report titled “The Department of Justice’s Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents”[3] the committee includes alarming testimony from ATF agents directly involved in the operation. For instance, ATF agents predicted the gunwalking experiment would lead to deaths and that one operation supervisor was “delighted” that walked guns showed up at crime scenes in Mexico.
Republicans have just had an amazing victory in New York.
Naturally, after 88 years of democratic stronghold in New York’s Ninth District, it is not surprising to find analysts limiting their comments to down-to-earth interests presenting the Republican win as “voter displeasure” over president Obama and the liberal democratic agenda that has been passing until now, at City level in New York, or at a broader level of government, such with laws as same-sex marriage, pro-union policies, the disappearance of 'mother' and 'father' in official forms being replaced by ‘partner one’ and ‘partner two’, the abolition of don’t-ask-don't-tell in the military, authorized distribution of gay magazines among our men in the military, all that crowned by a devastating economic, social and political liberal agenda aimed at the destruction of our country’s fundamental structure and that has been put in place now since over two years ago -while an ever dangerously increasing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic trend looms in New York and America”s everyday life, alas, not only reduced to anti-Semitic remarks against Israel and Jews.
Whether it happens or not, it has even been a question of 18 New York City subway stations displaying anti-Israel posters urging a halt to American military aid to Israel, during this month as part of a nationwide campaign supporting the Palestinian Authority and which is simply another symptom of the vastly anti-Israel underlying mission statement of Obama, Bloomberg and Cuomo.
In the meantime, however, the president and his Administration took America's military without Congress consent to a war in Libya where our men have been sent to help Libyan rebels whose provenance has the label of America's arch-enemy: Al Qaeda.
However, we would be remiss if we would forget a critical element that has been at the origin of the outcome in this story that began as a seemingly innocuous activity on Internet networking -had it not been that the culprit was a married democratic Congressman representing New York’s Ninth District and whose wife was none other than Huma Abedin, the right hand of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -story that I was the first one to report about.
While Huma Abedin has remained at her job, it is evident that democrats could not bear the burden of Anthony Weiner’s licentiousness attracting so much attention not only to his wife -but most of all at the fact that Obama and his people, have been keenly placing pro-Muslim Brotherhood key people at strategic positions within this Administration.
After all, as I mentioned in my initial article dated June 13,2011, and published in the Washington Times Communities, Time Magazine (October 25,2010 issue) featured Abedin as a “rising political star” in their “40 Under 40” special edition. That has been most certainly one of the untold key elements that made democrats ‘invite’ Anthony Weiner into early retirement.
Truth be told, never, not even once has the Administration ever raised their voice to rebuke accusations that they are allowing, encouraging and promoting the infiltration of Muslims close to America-hating, pro-terrorist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood, at key jobs inside our government. It's as if though Obama and his Administration were not accountable to the American people.
Now, the fact that New York Republicans have had a major win, it could be the first step in a defining change of policy-making, unless this may turn to be a case of a democratic politician disguised as republican, which we all know would give birth yet again to another RINO, a Republican In Name Only.
But, let’s give Bob Turner the benefit of the doubt.
A 70-year old former cable executive, Mr. Turner led a campaign strategy based on Obama’s unpopularity and an unseen before, beyond controversial, policy against our foremost and loyal ally, Israel.
Bob Turner counted on the support of the likes of Assemblyman Dov Hikind, former Mayors Rudi Giuliani and Ed Koch and business mogul, Donald Trump, among others.
But it is Mr. Turner’s message that has caught my attention:
"May we never forget those we lost 10 years ago on 9/11. May today be a day of reflection and prayer for the victims. May God bless the families of the victims, our first responders and all those who were injured, sickened or traumatized as a result of the attacks from Radical Islamic Terrorists on 9/11. May God keep and protect our servicemen and woman who continue the fight to keep America and its allies safe. May freedom and Democracy always prevail. May God Bless America." Bob Turner
And, so if we are lucky, we may have hit the jackpot this time.
In this America where government after government have allowed and favored a silent, smooth and creepy infiltration of Muslim settlers in our midst, we should look forward to welcoming a new set of politicians, whose mission and first priority should be the safety and preservation of our American way of life and the safeguard of our Constitution.
Needless to say, the official commemoration of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 without any religious mention has been an attack on the spirit of America and our Judeo-Christian traditions. That is NO freedom of religion -that has been a total violation of our religious essence -because until now, our religious traditions have included even the acceptance of atheists, non-believers and agnostics, no questions asked.
Imposing interfaith events is no freedom of religion, on the contrary, it is dictatorship -and most certainly no freedom of expression.
So, as we are allowed to dream in America, the land of impossible dreams, here is the first request to brand new, New York Representative Mr. Turner:
ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
IN THE BEST INTEREST OF AMERICA’S SURVIVAL
CONSIDERING THE MASSIVE AMOUNT OF IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES
INITIATE IMPEACHMENT OF OBAMA AND HIS ADMINISTRATION NOW
America will be thankful to Mr. Turner, if he manages to muster the necessary courage to show leadership that our country is miserably missing in these dire times.
Ben Franklin's essay, "On the Price of Corn and the Management of the Poor," directly responds to President Obama's jobs proposals. And indeed, it nearly encapsulates the entire message we conservatives have for our president on the matter of taxing the wealthy and addressing poverty. Suffice it to say, Benjamin Franklin would have been among the vilified rich today. He was a private landowner who wanted the British government to leave him to his own successful devices. But his critics in the king's press negatively branded him a wealthy "Farmer" (which could be considered equivalent to the term "corporate fat cat" by 18th-century standards) and was called upon to pay his "fair share," via depressed pricing in a government-controlled market, to see that the beleaguered "Manufacturers" could be uplifted. And as our modern-day wealthy Americans have been criticized for the lavish spending on corporate jets and the like, so too was Franklin. In response to the charges vilifying the usage of his own personal property and money, Franklin retorts:
Are we Farmers the only people to be grudged the profits of honest labour? And why? One of the late scribblers against us gives a bill of fare of the provisions at my daughter's wedding, and proclaims to all the world that we had the insolence to eat beef and pudding! Has he never read that precept in the good book, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn; or does he think us less worthy of good living than our oxen?
Indeed, why does Mr. Obama seek to extract more wealth from only the "wealthy"? Are not other economic classes to share in the burden, despite his incessant calls that all Americans equally counteract our economic crisis by paying our "fair share"? And is the wealthy American less entitled to reap the fruits of his labor than the middle class or the poor? Well, as Mr. Franklin would likely be disheartened to hear, this has become decidedly so given our modern, heavily progressive income tax. But that does not make it any more right in the eyes of reasonable men. And what would Obama prefer? Would he rather that wealthy Americans not spend their money as lavishly as they earn it? Franklin asks:
The Farmers live splendidly, you say. And pray, would you have them hoard the money they get? Their fine cloaths and furniture, do they make them themselves, or for one another, and so keep the money among them? Or do they employ these your darling Manufacturers, and so scatter it again all over the nation?
Ah, this brings us to the quick of Obama's condemnation of the wealthy. Jobs. Rich people are not creating jobs right now, he says. But with increased profits comes the increasing seizure of personal property and money, so where is the incentive? Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts says that Obama's "tax the wealthy" rhetoric does nothing to incentivize business to invest or spur new hiring. In other words, as Franklin explained to his government:
Having yourselves thus lessened our encouragement for raising sheep, you curse us for the scarcity of mutton!
He goes on:
You say, poor labourers cannot afford to buy bread at a high price, unless they had higher wages. Possibly. But how shall we Farmers be able to afford our labourers higher wages, if you will not allow us to get, when we might have it, a higher price for our corn?
An interesting question. The English government artificially depressing the price of crops and forcing wealthy landowners to sell at that lower price is not unlike our government simply taking more from the rich through tax legislation. How can wealthy employers afford the higher wages and benefit packages set by unions and federal regulation when our government will not allow business owners a right to keep, when markets dictate that they might have it, more of their money for having done so? And in response to the government dictating when a businessman has "made enough money," Franklin laments:
But, it seems, we Farmers must take much less so the poor may have it so much cheaper. This operates, then, as a tax for the maintenance of the poor.
There can be no question of this today. Our president suggests that our modern "Farmers" keep less so that the poor may take more, undisguised as a "tax for the maintenance of the poor." The public aim of his proposed tax hike is "to give hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young people hope and dignity while giving their low-income parents 'ladders out of poverty.'" But is administratively shifting wealth from rich to poor the best means to uplift the poor from their lives of poverty? Benjamin Franklin gives us his unabashed opinion on the matter:
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
Barack Obama has formed his entire platform of social justice on the very opposite principle. So would Benjamin Franklin be surprised that Obama's social and economic policy of expanding entitlements for mere existence has failed miserably, yielding an unprecedentedly high level of poverty? I would wager not. What he might tell Mr. Obama is precisely what he told the king of England over two centuries ago:
In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty.
Benjamin Franklin was an industrious and brilliant liberal of his time, a man not only responsible for creating personal wealth, but in part responsible for creating the wealthiest nation on Earth. Yet we have seen Americans disavow his longstanding wisdom to embrace an ideology wholly contrary to our founders', peddled by a modern-day liberal academic who has created no true wealth, but only sought to redistribute it -- all with clearly detrimental results. Franklin's acumen for understanding human nature transcends time, and we would do well to heed it. More stimulus is not what is needed, nor will it be beneficial to further tax the wealthy. We must reform our governmental structure of broadly encompassing economic entitlements and regulation. Only then will "industry ... increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by insuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them." William Sullivan blogs at politicalpalaverblog.blogspot.com.
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not creating jobs right now, he says. But with increased profits comes the increasing seizure of personal property and money, so wher