The politics of greed is what keeps this world wrapped in corruption. If you want to stick around for a while longer, I suggest you educate yourself and try to do something constructive to help save what little good, honesty, and trust we have left.

A motto for us old vets: Take one with you!

Use your Go Back and Go Forward commands to get to where you were in a previous file.

Go to Home

Highest Go To numbers are the latest Links of all coruption pages.


Go to 12867
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=162
On February 27 2008: “ISRAELI KNESSET PASSES INTERNET CENSORSHIP BILL!” reports the Jerusalem Post Here. The Jerusalem Post continues:

—— The Knesset passed a Bill that will restrict Israelis’ access to the Internet. The Bill passed by a majority of 46 to 20. It will require Internet Service Providers to filter out sites deemed ‘harmful.’

The decision on the filtering of specific sites will ultimately be in the hands of the Communications Minister who will be aided by an Advisory Committee.

The Bill, proposed by MK (Member of Knesset) Amnon Cohen of the Shas party, (Cohen is of Shas’ The Council of Torah Sages), calls for the censorship of “violence and pornography” Websites.

[BUT]: (Emphasis Mine) The Communications Minister will also be granted the power to *decide on changes * to the blocking program.

MK Gilad Erdan voiced concern that “the law will result in severe infringements of personal freedoms by giving the Communications Minister the authority to decide that the Shas Council of Torah Sages will determine the sites to be rejected and blocked - without any supervision by the Knesset.” ——


THIS IS A PLOT OF THE ANTI DEFAMATION LEAGUE!

ON NOVEMBER 12 2007, the Jew, Brian Marcus, Director of ADL’s Internet Monitoring Department, along with the Jew, Christopher Wolf, Director of the ADL’s adjunct group, International Network Against Cyber-Hate (INACA) - led a conference in Herziliya Israel to discuss “hate” over the Internet Here.

Wolf said in the opening speech:

— “The Internet industry needs to do more to keep hate off line. Since providers keep smut off the Internet then they can also keep hate off the Internet as well.” —

Here is what Wolf really meant:

— “We, the Jewish Thought Police, will begin by getting the public behind us by monitoring smut over the Internet to ‘protect children.’ Once we get our laws passed through Jewish bribes, then we get to the real issue of our censorship: Internet criticism of our crimes!” —


WILL THE USA BE NEXT ON THE ZIONIST HIT LIST?

I GREW UP AS A JEW. I know how the Jews operate. Everything the Jews desire is effected through a well-planned agenda that is implemented in increments.

Once the Bill works itself out in Israel and the ADL begins applauding “Israel’s Internet Smut- Control For The Sake Of Children” - then the Jews go to work with their bribe campaigns directed toward US Senators and Congressmen.

Before we can say “Click Here” Congress will pass an Internet Anti-Smut Bill.
And guess what will be next? You guessed it: An Internet Anti-Hate Bill!


BOTTOM LINE

We Must Be Vigilant In Stopping Jewish Censorship Of Our 1st Amendment Rights! RIGHT NOW!

For More See: “Internet Jew-Police Are Coming!” Click Here

And: “The Jewish Thought Police” Click Here



Go to 12866
http://www.rense.com/general81/dok.htm
MN Bill To Stop Subprime
Foreclosures For 1 Year
Deferment proposal would give
subprime borrowers a one-year reprieve
By Jennifer Bjorhus
TwinCities.com
PioneerPress.com
3-7-8

Borrowing a page from New Deal-era lawmaking, Minnesota politicians are pursuing their most direct effort yet to stem the state's growing tide of foreclosures: defer them for a year.


The Minnesota Subprime Foreclosure Deferment Act of 2008 would halt foreclosures of subprime or exotic "negative amortization" loans for one year, though still requiring homeowners to make minimal payments during the stay.


The deferment would buy struggling homeowners time to work with their lenders and wait for a possible federal solution to the crisis, lawmakers said Wednesday.


An estimated 15,000 homeowners statewide would qualify, helping about half the 33,500 homeowners projected to slide into foreclosure this year.


With a Republican governor and opposition possible from the banking industry, it's not clear how such a quasi-moratorium will fare politically. A hearing before the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee is set for today.


Gov. Tim Pawlenty has yet to take a position on the bill, said Brian McClung, his spokesman. Industry groups said they are studying the Depression-era-style proposal and haven't taken a stand. But at least one Republican lawmaker said he's wary of any legislation that tries to rewrite established contract law.


"When we start changing contract law in the middle of a very extended transaction, which is a mortgage, are we overstepping our property authority?" Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, said in an interview.


The proposed deferment, announced Wednesday at a Capitol news conference, comes as the Bush Administration steps up its mortgage rescue talk. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke this week prodded lenders to do more loss-mitigation, including taking a haircut by reducing the principal on loans for borrowers whose homes are now worth less than their mortgage balances.


Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFLSt. Paul, and Rep. Jim Davnie, DFL-Minneapolis, took pains to distinguish the proposed deferment from a flat-out moratorium such as the one Minnesota enacted in 1933 to avert foreclosures during the Great Depression. That ban wound up in the U.S. Supreme Court because of claims it violated the constitution by impairing contracts. The Supreme Court upheld it. The Minnesota Court of Appeals also upheld the Minnesota Farmer-Lender Mediation Act from the farm crisis of the 1980s, which deferred farm foreclosures until mediation took place.


Anderson called the new subprime foreclosure-deferment proposal moderated and targeted.


"This is about shared responsibility between lenders and homeowners," Anderson said.


Specifically, the proposal would require mortgage lenders to cancel sheriff's foreclosure auctions for one year for eligible homeowners with subprime or negative amortization loans made between Jan. 1, 2001, and Aug. 1, 2007, when Minnesota's anti-predatory lending bill took effect. Homeowners still would have to make monthly payments, but they'd pay the less of either 65 percent of the payments they were making when they defaulted, or the minimum monthly payment they were making when they first got the loan. If the homeowner misses a payment, foreclosure proceedings start again.


Negative amortization mortgages have payments even less than the interest charged on the loan, effectively growing the balance of the loan over time.


The bill doesn't spell out how homeowners would make up the portion of their loan left unpaid during the deferment. Lawmakers on Wednesday indicated that would be up to mortgage lenders to work out with borrowers.


The deferment was not part of the package of 10 foreclosure relief bills that Democratic lawmakers unveiled Monday. That group of legislation had the support of banking and mortgage industry groups.


Steve Johnson, a lobbyist for the Minnesota Bankers Association, said his group hasn't taken a position on the bill and he hasn't heard of lawmakers opposing it yet.


"We're researching all the different aspects of it, all the way from the constitutionality of it to how it would work," Johnson said.
Tim Bendel, president of the Minnesota Mortgage Association, said he didn't think his group would have a problem with it. His industry's main concern, he said, was whether lawmakers will push mortgage rescues to the point that lenders pull back from Minnesota and recoup losses by making home loans more expensive.


Prentiss Cox, a University of Minnesota law professor who played a large role in crafting the state's anti-predatory lending law, crafted the policy behind the deferment bill. At the news conference Wednesday, Cox downplayed potential legal issues and said the New Deal-era bills were much more sweeping in scope. The severity of the problem justifies the intervention, he said.


"This bill is a response to abusive and unfair subprime lending that went unchecked for a decade," Cox said.


Rep. Jeremy Kalin, a DFLer from Lindstrom in Chisago County, said the foreclosure epidemic clearly has spread to his district. "The tsunami of foreclosures is only beginning to rise and peak in the collar counties," Kalin told reporters. "We have real families who are being devastated by the foreclosure process."



Go to 12865
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C335496%2C00.html
Phoenix Teen Admits Killing Father for Restricting His Use of MySpaceThursday, March 06, 2008
PHOENIX — A Mesa teenager says he fatally shot his father last month because he wouldn't let him use the Internet, police reports show.

According to a Mesa police report released Wednesday, 15-year-old Hughstan Schlicker told a homicide detective that he considered committing suicide in front of his father after finding a 12-gauge shotgun and ammunition in the garage of their home, but decided to murder his father instead and then commit suicide.

Hughstan apparently surprised 49-year-old Ted Schlicker, who was standing in the kitchen when the boy approached him from behind, the police report said.

Police arrested Hughstan after the slaying at the Pueblo Seco Condominiums and accused him of first-degree murder.

After the slaying, "the defendant first called his friend and told her what he had done. He told her he was going to kill himself but she told him not to. She convinced him to call the police and deal with the situation," the report said.

Hughstan told detectives that he used the Internet to communicate with his friends and since his father took the Internet away, he was "just so depressed all the time," the report said. Specifically, Hughstan said he hated his father because he was restricting his use of the MySpace Web site, MyFOXPhoenix reports.



Go to 12864
http://www.rense.com/general81/oppos.htm
Letter From Freud
Opposing Zionism
From Edward C. Corrigan
3-7-8

Here is an important letter from Dr. Sigmund Freud written in 1930 opposing Zionism.

The Arab-Israeli Conflict


Vienna: 26 February 1930: Letter to the Keren Hajessod (Dr. Chaim Koffler)
by Dr. Sigmund Freud

(Freud would not have been surprised at the continuing conflict in the Middle East. He predicted as much 70 years ago.

We can predict Freud's response because of a letter he wrote to Dr. Chaim Koffler in 1930.


In February 1930, Freud was asked, as a distinguished Jew, to contribute to a petition condemning Arab riots of 1929, in which over a hundred Jewish settlers were killed. This was his reply:)


Letter to the Keren Hajessod (Dr. Chaim Koffler)/

Vienna: 26 February 1930

Dear Sir,

I cannot do as you wish. I am unable to overcome my aversion to burdening the public with my name, and even the present critical time does not seem to me to warrant it. Whoever wants to influence the masses must give them something rousing and inflammatory and my sober judgement of Zionism does not permit this. I certainly sympathise with its goals, am proud of our University in Jerusalem and am delighted with our settlement's prosperity.

But, on the other hand, I do not think that Palestine could ever become a Jewish state, nor that the Christian and Islamic worlds would ever be prepared to have their holy places under Jewish care. It would have seemed more sensible to me to establish a Jewish homeland on a less historically-burdened land. But I know that such a rational viewpoint would never have gained the enthusiasm of the masses and the financial support of the wealthy.

I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives.
Now judge for yourself whether I, with such a critical point of view, am the right person to come forward as the solace of a people deluded by unjustified hope.

Your obediant servant,

Freud



Go to 12863
http://www.rense.com/general81/therm.htm
More Proof Thermite/Thermate
Used To Drop WTC
3-7-8

If the CIA/Mossad hired terrorists used an extreme surplus of thermite or thermate for the welding of the steel columns of the building structure, it is well conceivable that this surplus burned for weeks. Is there any other material useful in controlled demolition, other than thermite (or thermate), that would continue burning for weeks despite all trials to extinguish the fire with water????? Thermite is not a simple "fire" depending on exogeneous oxygen. Any combustion would stop within hours, if there was no oxygen available. This is the reason, why a fire can be extinguished with sand. In contrary, if one covered a thermite reaction with tons and tons of sand, the reaction would not stop. And the reaction could not be extinguished by pouring water onto the reaction partners. It is well conceivable that the extra thermite, mixed and polluted with other material, "burned" slowly and more moderately for weeks.

Thermite or Thermate was suspected due to molten metal seen streaming down the outer walls of WTC before the controlled demolition. Kerosene or JET FUEL only goes to 1759 Degrees F, and only in ideal burn conditions, not underground without oxygen.

This is why the underground fires in ground zero point to thermite or thermate (which is, may I illuminate you, a variation of thermite). And the results of a chemical analysis proved beyond doubt that thermite (or the variation thermate) was present. It is pure nonsense if you pretend to assume, the results of a professional chemical analysis might mirror some sulphate (!!) from "drywall".

The underground fires, burning for weeks are a reality. Photos and witnesses (firemen) prove that. So, do you really assume that it was the jet fuel that kept burning for weeks???!! Or a paper basket?? Or some newspapers and wooden desks?? The stubbornness which you "Official Story Theorists" exhibit against learning the facts is indicating that they know very well where the smoking gun is to be found!

Regards

Dr. chemist, university lecturer.
=http://www.911blogger.com/

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Submitted by http://www.911blogger.com/user/7 Jon Gold on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 9:05pm.

=http://www.911blogger.com/node/14117 What's Being Covered Up?

=http://www.911blogger.com/taxonomy/term/612 activism



Go to 12862
http://www.rense.com/general53/over56.htm
The Overthrow Of The
American Republic - Part 56
Bush-Kerry Scandal May Trigger 'Military Coup'
And 'Overthrow of the U.S. Government'
By Sherman H. Skolnick
5-22-4

A spokesperson for the Bush Family has apparently been pleading with a major worldwide news organization, not to proceed with a story they have.

The reason given? "Because it may trigger a military coup" and may cause "The Overthrow of the U.S. Government".

The explosive details may turn out to be the biggest scandal in the new millennium.

The news group has eyewitnesses, kept in security and so far concealed, already interviewed on videotape, who confirm that there was a joint pact and plot, in which George W. Bush and John F. Kerry participated. That this was done under the auspices of the super-secret satanic cult, operating under code number "322", the Skull & Bones Society, of which Bush and Kerry are members. Kerry, as the older member, initiated Bush into the cult using their traditional cavorting, au naturel, in a windowless building on the Yale University campus, called "The Tomb", while both were in a large size casket filled with mud.

Among the matters contained in the so far embargoed story, are the following:

[1] As supervised by Daddy Bush, George W. Bush was instructed to follow orders and "to stay out of it" that is, to defer action as Commander-in-Chief, permitting a military stand-down and other contradictions to what a President/Commander-in-Chief should immediately do upon being informed of a great disaster.

[2] The scheme, like the pre-knowledge of the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, was to disregard the resultant bloodshed of Americans, since it was for a profound purpose. As to Pearl Harbor, to wake up Americans and force them into a war to save England and British interests from being over-run in Asia by the Japanese, and in England itself, by the Germans.

As to the home-grown events of September 11, 2001, among the purposes, while disregarding the resulting bloodshed of Americans (about the same number as died on December 7, 1941), was to galvanize common Americans into action to supposedly fight back the encroachment on the U.S. of "Arabs".

[3] As supervised by Daddy Bush, once head of America's secret political police, George W. Bush and John F. Kerry were to assist in creating what in espionage parlance is called "a legend", that is an entirely made up and fake story to blame onto patsies operating on a parallel track.

[4] As confirmed by the so far embargoed news group story, a renegade member of Israeli intelligence, The Mossad, was to assist the plan. Nicholas Berg was groomed as a "penetration agent", although purportedly a Jew, to pretend to be sympathetic to Saudi Arabs in particular. Berg befriended various Saudi and other Arabs being trained for very low level, very routine airplane flying, under the auspices of U.S. Military facilities in Florida, Oklahoma, and California, among other places.

[5] A sort of "spark-plug" for this work was Mohammed Atta, purportedly a "ring-leader" befriended by Nicholas Berg. Atta was financed in part by large sums funneled by Daddy Bush and others via ISI, the Pakistan Secret Political Police, originally set up by Daddy Bush.

[6] On behalf of Daddy Bush, George W. Bush, and John F. Kerry, penetration agent Berg purchased an airplane ticket in the name of Atta, by way of setting up Atta and other Arabs for the "legend", the spy trick, as patsies.

[7] The ticket was purchased through Oklahoma with the ostensible assistance of a former Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, former U.S. Senator David L. Boren.

Boren was a graduate of Yale University and reportedly like Daddy Bush, George W. Bush, and John F. Kerry, is a member of the super-secret Skull & Bones Society. Boren was Oklahoma Governor 1975-79, and U.S. Senator 1979-94. He was the longest serving Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Boren was forced out of the U.S. Senate as a result of an attempted hush-up of a homosexual scandal, wherein pictures were made available to the monopoly press showing him in homosexual cavorting with other members of Congress, the executice branch of the U.S. Government, and the homosexual underground in the monopoly press.

Boren is a close associate of George J. Tenet (like other Directors of Central Intelligence, he does not use his real name). Prior to 9-11, Tenet's CIA helped obstruct FBI agents in Minneapolis who sought in August, 2001, to examine the computer of Zacarias Moussaoui, later accused with the purported Arabs of planning 9-11 tragedies. Moussaoui is reportedly actually a U.S. Government espionage operative. He spent six months in Norman, Oklahoma. He was not only an associate of Nicholas Berg, who allowed him to use his computer with its password, but Moussaoui was also an associate of the co-pilot who later was on the fatal flight by which Minnesota U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone was assassinated, October, 2002 by a sabotaged plane crash (he was expected to be re-elected and Wellstone was considered Anti-CIA).

Boren's close associate has been CIA officer David Edger who had been in charge of CIA surveillance over the Hamburg, Germany Al Qaeda cell which included Atta. The FBI and American CIA obstructed the German authorities in the Hamburg matter by arranging key American witnesses not to be available for evidentiary hearings and trials.

Boren has been a Director of ConocoPhillips, overlapping the interests of the Bush Crime Family, through Pennzoil-Texaco and the worldwide war-mongers and profiteers, the Carlyle Group.

Boren has also been a Director of AMR Corporation, parent firm of American Airlines, Inc. Boren has been in a position to reportedly conceal and withhold data as to flights on 9-11 as to American Air Lines, which may contradict the official position of the Bush White House and the oil-soaked, spy-riddled American monopoly press. Boren was in a position to seek to hold back data as to Mohammed Atta, and as to ticket procurer Nicholas Berg for Daddy Bush, George W. Bush, and John F. Kerry, in a joint treasonous pact to inflict bloodshed on fellow Americans and falsely blame the same on to "Arab" so-called "hi-jackers".

[8] George W. Bush, Daddy Bush, and John F. Kerry are gravely concerned that the news group, so far sitting on this story, has reputed proof that for Bush-Kerry and the apparent treasonous plot, that Nicholas Berg, for their plan and scheme, arranged to plant, in the middle of the street near the attacked twin towers of the World Trade Center, the alleged passport of Mohammed Atta, somehow in pristine and undamaged condition.

[9] There is some doubt as to whether Nicholas Berg is dead as represented by a purported video beamed up from London. Berg's role in this, and data he turned over to The Mossad, has enabled them to apparently continue blackmailing large sums out of the Bush White House, to be used for Israel's military defense. From a candid position, Israel finds themselves in a perpetual struggle with Arabs, by the slim piece of land being set up in 1948 by British divide and conquer policy, to control the oil-soaked areas in surrounding places occupied by Arabs and Persians.

[10] Unanswered questions:

===Is the person known as Nicholas Berg really dead? If so, was he murdered, not by Arabs, but by a special assassins' team arranged by Daddy Bush to attempt to cover up the foregoing?

===Will the news group succumb to the pleading of the Bushies, that these matters, if widely and publicly revealed, would bring down the American Central Government and may set off a patriotic military coup to rescue the American common people from a bloody murderous faction of "the powers that be", the Establishment, the Aristocracy, the Ruling Class---plainly, THEM?

===Other than a devastating profound scandal, WHAT will rescue the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution from its current condition as having been cancelled because of false tales that "the Arabs" attacked us on September 11, 2001?

===Under the circumstances, can reasonably informed people actually believe a Presidential Election is possible, in the traditional way, in the year 2004? Both expected Presidential candidates have committed treason, which is apparent to anyone knowing the details of the story a major news group is sitting on, while America burns to the ground. Only fools and those who hate this previously blessed Land, can stay silent in the face of treachery.



Go to 12861
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=7162
California: Homeschooling Is A Criminal Act
03-06-2008
World Net Daily
Bob Unruh

A "breathtaking" ruling from a California appeals court that could subject the parents of 166,000 students in the state to criminal sanctions will be taken to the state Supreme Court.

The announcement comes today from the Pacific Justice Institute, whose president, Brad Dacus, described the impact of the decision as "stunning."

"The scope of this decision by the appellate court is breathtaking," he said. "It not only attacks traditional homeschooling, but also calls into question homeschooling through charter schools and teaching children at home via independent study through public and private school."

"If not reversed, the parents of the more than 166,000 students currently receiving an education at home will be subject to criminal sanctions," he said.

WND broke the story of the ruling against Phillip and Mary Long of Los Angeles.

The decision from the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles granted a special petition brought by lawyers appointed to represent the two youngest children after the family's homeschooling was brought to the attention of child advocates. The lawyers appointed by the state were unhappy with a lower court's ruling that allowed the family to continue homeschooling and challenged it on appeal.

Justice H. Walt Croskey, whose opinion was joined by two other judges, then ordered: "Parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction and subject to imposition of fines or an order to complete a parent education and counseling program."

The determination reversed a decision from Superior Court Judge Stephen Marpet, who ruled "parents have a constitutional right to school their children in their own home."

As WND has reported, the Longs had their children enrolled in Sunland Christian School, a private homeschooling program.

But Croskey, without hearing arguments from the school, opined that the situation was a "ruse of enrolling [children] in a private school and then letting them stay home and be taught by a non-credentialed parent."

Officials with the school said they asked Pacific Justice to work on the Supreme Court appeal because the organization "has been in full compliance with the requirements of the law for more than 23 years."

"We've never been given an opportunity to represent our case in the Court of Appeal," Terry Neven, the president of the school, said. "Consequently, we are excited that PJI will represent us before the California Supreme Court so that the rights of homeschooling families are preserved."

The ruling, on which WND previously reported, also issued a further warning of potential penalties for parents, this time in civil court.

It said under a section titled "Consequences of Parental Denial of a Legal Education" that "parents are subject to being ordered to enroll their children in an appropriate school or education program and provide proof of enrollment to the court, and willful failure to comply with such an order may be punished by a fine for civil contempt."

The school's website notes it offers a homeschool/independent study program that is accredited. It began in Los Angeles in 1986 with 24 students and now serves more than 3,000 families.

"While SCS is a Christian program, we enroll any family desiring assistance in teaching their own children at home. All we ask is that each family respect our values," the school said.

"The future of homeschooling (both public and private) in California requires the reversal of this decision," Neven said.

WND also has reported on concerns expressed by Roy Hanson, chief of the Private and Home Educators of California, about the way the ruling was issued.

"Normally in a dependency court action, they simply make a ruling that will affect that family. It accomplishes the same thing, meaning they would force [the family] to place their minor children into school," he said.

Such rulings on a variety of issues always are "done in the best interests of the child" and are not unusual, he said.

But in this case, the court said went much further, essentially concluding the state provided no circumstance that allowed parents to school their own children at home.

Specifically, the appeals court affirmed, the trial court had found that "keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where (1) they could interact with people outside the family, (2) there are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children's lives, and (3) they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents' 'cloistered' setting."

Further, the appeals ruling said, California law requires "persons between the ages of six and 18" to be in school, "the public full-time day school," with exemptions allowed only for those in a "private full-time day school" or those "instructed by a tutor who holds a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught."

For homeschoolers in California, Hanson said, "there may be everywhere from concern to panic, just based on not knowing what the [ultimate] results will be."

The Home School Legal Defense Association, the world's premiere international advocacy organization for homeschoolers, emphasized that the ruling made no changes in California law regarding homeschooling.

While the decision from the appeals court "has caused much concern among California homeschoolers," the HSLDA said, there are no immediate changes any homeschoolers need to address.

The Longs earlier told WND they also are considering an appeal to the state Supreme Court because of the impact of the order for their family, as well as the precedent that could be construed.

They have disputed with local officials over homeschooling and other issues for years, they said. In at least two previous decisions, courts affirmed their right to homeschool, they said.

The current case was brought by two attorneys who had been appointed by the state to represent the family's minor children in a dependency case stemming from accusations of abuse that resulted from the parents' decision to impose discipline on their children with spankings. The case actually had been closed out by the court as resolved when the lawyers filed their special appeal.

Phillip Long has told WND he objects to the pro-homosexual, pro-bisexual, pro-transgender agenda of California's public schools, on which WND previously has reported.

"We just don't want them teaching our children," he told WND. "They teach things that are totally contrary to what we believe. They put questions in our children's minds we don't feel they're ready for.

"When they are much more mature, they can deal with these issues, alternative lifestyles, and such, or whether they came from primordial slop. At the present time it's my job to teach them the correct way of thinking," he said.



Go to 12860
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=7164
Lou Dobbs: U.S. Heading For Stagflation Crisis
03-06-2008
Prison Planet
Paul Joseph Watson

CNN host Lou Dobbs says the U.S. economy is heading for a stagflation crisis as a result of the U.S. government's policy of dollar depreciation and that the only solution is for the American people to restore a proper Constitutional system of government.

Dobbs told The Alex Jones Show today that the decline of the dollar was, "a clear signal as to how much trouble this economy is in," added to a 9 trillion dollar national debt and a 6 trillion dollar trade debt.

America's dependence on cheap imported Chinese consumer electronics, clothes and toys was negating any elasticity that could be gained from the demand relationship with China on imports, meaning that the only conceivable benefit of a weak dollar - cheaper exports - was not even applicable, Dobbs explained.

"We have the specter of stagflation staring at us coldly and inevitably right now," said Dobbs, adding, "There's no doubt that those who would degrade the sovereignty of this country would want to certainly the power, the strength, and the respect of the U.S. dollar and it is the last thing we should permit."

Stagflation is a macroeconomics term used to describe a period of inflation combined with stagnation, ie slow economic growth allied to a potential recession.

"We have to come to terms with the amount of debt that we have allowed the elites of this country to run up," Dobbs concluded.

"I believe very strongly that we will either take back our system of government that will function through the consent of the governed, or we will see an absolute change of direction, I don't think it will be a violent revolution, but I think there will be a crisis that will impend and demand action on the part of the people," said Dobbs, pointing out that the will of the working and middle class majority was being derided and spat upon by those in Washington.

Pointing out that "both parties were paid for by corporate America and special interests," Dobbs said that the era of politicians representing the people when they went to Washington was over and that the 2008 election, no matter who became president, would change nothing whatsoever.



Go to 12859
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=6955
Bush Defends NAFTA Demands Colombia Vote
02-28-2008
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush criticized Democratic presidential candidates on Thursday for suggesting the United States could "opt out" of the North American Free Trade Agreement and urged Congress to boost U.S. exports by approving a trade deal with Colombia.

"There are a lot of farmers and businesses, large and small, who are benefiting from having a market in our neighborhood. And the idea of just unilaterally withdrawing from a trade treaty because of, you know, trying to score political points is not good policy," Bush said during a White House press conference.

During a presidential campaign debate earlier this week in Ohio, both Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama criticized NAFTA and said the United States could opt out of the agreement if Mexico and Canada don't agree to renegotiate labor, environmental and investment provisions of the pact.

The candidates were responding to the strong view of many Ohio voters that the 14-year-old agreement is responsible for many manufacturing job losses in that state, which holds a crucial presidential voting contest on Tuesday.

Bush warned withdrawing from the pact would hurt U.S. farmers and businesses who export around $380 billion worth of goods to Canada and Mexico each year and said a signal that the United States does not honor its trade commitments.

Canadian and Mexican official have also expressed alarm at the idea of renegotiating the pact.

"It would be like throwing a monkey wrench into the engine of North American competitiveness," Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the United States, told the Financial Times in a story published on Thursday.

Bush also warned that congressional rejection of an unpopular free trade pact with Colombia would damage U.S. national security interests in the Latin American region and said he expected lawmakers to vote on the pact soon.

"The Colombia free trade vote is coming up," Bush said.

Colombia currently receives duty-free treatment for most of its goods under a U.S. trade preference programs that dates back to the early 1990s.

The pending trade deal would lock in that duty-free access and phase out Colombia's tariffs on U.S. exports.

Congressional Democrats have said Colombia needs to make more progress in reducing violence against trade unionists and putting murderers in jail before they can support the pact.

Both Obama and Clinton also oppose voting on the Colombia agreement at this time.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer, Editing by David Wiessler)



Go to 12858
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=7173
Colombia Pipeline Bombed By FARC
03-06-2008
Bloomberg

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Colombian rebels bombed an oil pipeline and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he may seize assets of the neighboring country's companies after a Colombian raid into Ecuador killed a rebel leader.

The bombing and Chavez's nationalization threats may be the start of reprisals for the March 1 air raid on Ecuadorean soil that killed the second-in-command of Colombia's biggest guerrilla group. Escalation of the conflict could cut the more than $5 billion in annual trade between Venezuela and Colombia.

``This is definitely the beginning of reprisals against Colombia and it is likely to continue,'' Edgar Jimenez, an equity analyst at Stanford Bolsa y Banca in Bogota, said in a telephone interview.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, bombed the Transandino pipeline in Putumayo province, putting it out of service for at least three days, Colombia's Vice Minister of Mining and Energy Manuel Maiguashca said.

Owned by state oil company Ecopetrol SA, the pipeline brings petroleum from fields in Colombia and Ecuador to an export facility in Tumaco in Narino province on Colombia's Pacific coast.

Crude oil for April delivery rose 98 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $105.50 a barrel at the 2:30 p.m. close of floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

International Reaction

Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega said today his country was joining Ecuador in breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia. Chavez, during a news conference last night in Caracas, asked his ministers to draw up an inventory of Colombian assets in Venezuela.

``Some of them could be nationalized,'' Chavez said. ``We're not interested in Colombian investments here.''

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, who joined Chavez at the press conference, called on the international community to condemn Colombia for its cross-border strike. He said he'll only accept the findings of a panel set up by the Organization of American States to investigate the attack if it denounces Colombia's actions.

``If the international community doesn't condemn this aggressor without question, then Ecuador will know how to respond,'' Correa said.

Pipeline Attacks

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on the countries to reach a diplomatic agreement over the border raid. She called Colombia a ``good friend.''

``Everybody needs to be vigilant about the use of border areas by terrorist organizations like the FARC,'' Rice told reporters after a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers in Brussels.

Attacks on oil pipelines, including the Transandino, which carries about 60,000 barrels a day, have declined as Uribe boosts security near oil fields.

One Colombian field, Cano Limon, was hit 170 times in 2001, a figure that fell to 34 in 2003, the most recent year when figures were reported. The Transandino was attacked 30 times in November 2003, according to the Ecopetrol Web site.

Mobilizing Troops

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner met her Venezuelan and Ecuadorean counterparts today in Caracas.

``No one can agree with what Colombia did,'' Argentine Cabinet Chief Alberto Fernandez said in an interview on Radio 10 in Buenos Aires today. ``This is a violation of sovereignty that worries and infuriates us.''

Chavez, who calls the U.S. the ``empire'' and refers to President George W. Bush as ``Mr. Evil,'' said the U.S. was behind the attack. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, in contrast, calls the U.S. ``a friend.''

Chavez and Correa, both self-proclaimed socialists, sent troops to their respective borders with Colombia this week to increase security.

An expanded military presence along the frontier -- already rife with paramilitary, drug trafficking and rebel activity -- raises tensions to a level where a miscalculation could trigger a military clash.

Colombian Companies

Grupo Nacional de Chocolates SA, Colombia's largest food company, stands to lose the most among publicly traded companies, analysts and traders said. The shares have fallen 4.3 percent since the raid.

Colombia is a key trading partner with Venezuela and Ecuador, supplying both with food and other goods.

Other companies that operate in Venezuela include Cementos Argos SA, Colombia's biggest cement maker, and Compania Colombiana de Inversiones SA, an investment holding company, Rupert Stebbings, head of international sales at brokerage Interbolsa, said by phone from Medellin.

``If push comes to shove, and Chavez is able to somehow reduce Colombian exports to Venezuela, Colombia takes a hit,'' said Boris Segura, an economist at Morgan Stanley in New York. ``A lot of Colombia's exports to Venezuela are industrial goods, which have high value added, and generate a lot of employment.''

Protesters and Chavez supporters gathered in the Plaza Venezuela near downtown Caracas today, carrying pictures of Uribe with a red handprint covering his face, and the words ``No More!''

In Bogota, a similar protest was held in Plaza Bolivar square, with participants carrying banners emblazoned with Chavez's image and chanting anti-Uribe slogans.



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http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=7180
Monsanto Plays Bully Over Consumer Labeling
03-06-2008
Alternet

Since 1901, Monsanto has brought us Agent Orange, PCBs, Terminator seeds and recombined milk, among other infamous products. But it's currently obsessed with the milk, or, more importantly, the milk labels, particularly those that read "rBST-free" or "rBGH-free." It's not the "BST" or "BGH" that bothers them so much; after all, bovine somatrophin, also known as bovine growth hormone, isn't exactly what the company is known for. Which is to say, it's naturally occurring. No, the problem is the "r" denoting "recombined." There's nothing natural about it. In fact, the science is increasingly pointing to the possibility that recombined milk is -- surprise! -- not as good for you as the real thing.

"Consumption of dairy products from cows treated with rbGH raise a number of health issues," explained Michael Hansen, a senior scientist for Consumers Union. "That includes increased antibiotic resistance, due to use of antibiotics to treat mastitis and other health problems, as well as increased levels of IGF-1, which has been linked to a range of cancers."

For its part, Monsanto is leaning on the crutch of terminology to derail the mounting threat to its bottom line: The consumer-driven revolution against recombined food. And so the St. Louis-based agri-chem giant has launched a war of words in the form of a full-court press to suppress the "rBGH-free" label at the state level. And it's sticking to its guns by obfuscating and indulging in cheap semantics.

"RBST is a supplement that helps the cow produce more milk," Monsanto spokesperson Lori Hoag explained to me via email. "It is injected into the cow, not into the milk. There is no way to test because the milk is absolutely the same. Neither the public nor a scientist can tell the difference in the milk because there is not a difference. Consumers absolutely have a right to know if there is a difference in foods they are buying. In this case, there simply is not a difference."

"Monsanto has an unfortunate habit of mixing some things together that confuse the issue," counters Rick North, director of Campaign for Safe Food from Physicians for Social Responsibility's Oregon chapter. "It's true that all cows have natural bovine growth hormone. But only cows injected with recombinant, genetically engineered bovine growth hormone have rBGH. And this isn't a 'supplement.' This is a drug that revs up cow metabolism so high that they're typically burned out after two lactation cycles and slaughtered. Non-rBGH cows typically live four, seven, ten or more years."

The threat of rBGH to cows and humans alike encouraged Canada, Australia and parts of the European Union to ban Monsanto's recombined milk outright. As for the corporation's native United States, it has predictably signed off on another unproven growth opportunity with possibly lethal environmental side effects. They're in it for the money. And so the battle lines on the threat have been drawn, as North takes pains to point out, between "the FDA and those who follow them," and those who don't. "These proposed state bans or restrictions on rBGH-free type of labeling have nothing to do with protecting consumers," he asserts. "They have everything to do with protecting Monsanto's profits."

But that battle over labels and profits hasn't stopped Monsanto from creating its own press at home in the United States, where it infamously got two Fox News journos fired in 1997 for refusing to bend the truth about rBGH on the air. Yet, over the long term, the multinational's attention to press relations hasn't paid off so well. Medical authorities like Samuel Epstein and Robert Hare, quoted above, have targeted them from both the physical and psychological health perspective. Meanwhile, farmers and consumers across the world have demanded labels that differentiate the recombined milk from its naturally occurring counterparts on the store shelves. And they don't think it's too much to ask, given the facts.

Hoag is "accurate" when she argued "that there is no commercial test for this drug," North concedes. "But that's entirely different than saying there is no difference. Monsanto and its front groups have tried to equate the lack of a verifying lab test with the label being false or misleading. This is a non sequitur. There are all kinds of legitimate labels that aren't verified by lab tests, such as state or country of origin labeling, fair trade labeling, bottled water that is labeled as originating from a spring, and so on."

Monsanto, meanwhile, is bedeviling the details to distort the big picture. "Sure, the label can make a claim one way or the other," Hoag admitted, "but there is no way to verify that the claim is true. This is precisely why the labels are misleading. They make consumers believe there is a difference, when in fact there is none."

That sounds simple enough, but consumers don't seem to need or want Monsanto's mothering. In 2007, its efforts at an outright ban on rBGH-free labels in Pennsylvania were almost cleared for takeoff, until the state invited its citizens to publicly comment, which eventually doomed the move. That scenario has replayed itself across the United States in accelerated fashion with success.

"The issue looks pretty dead in Indiana and Ohio, and there are solid victories in Pennsylvania and New Jersey," explains Recipe for America's Jill Richardson, author of the forthcoming book Vegetables of Mass Destruction. "Utah and Kansas are probably going to revise their bills after their hearings, because of opposition."

This opposition comes in spite of Monsanto's funding of so-called grass-roots farming coalitions like the American Farmers for Advancement and Conservation of Technology -- also known as, cleverly enough, AFACT. Monsanto's public relations firm Osborn & Barr built a site for AFACT pro bono, knitting the two organizations together in a way that may not sit well in states currently pondering their own label bans. AFACT's attacks have virally replicated across the nation, as farmers on Monsanto's payroll have taken to harassing their state legislatures in concert with the multinational's usual tactics at the federal level, such as forcing skeptical scientists off advisory panels, intimidating critics and so on.

But the assault has only met equally powerful resistance, as environmental awareness has driven the market into a recombinant-free zone. In the end, this might be Monsanto's last gasp in the fight.

"Monsanto has seen the writing on the wall in terms of consumer rejection of artificial growth hormones," claims National Family Farm Coalition policy analyst Irene Lin. "Consumers are becoming more aware and educated about what goes into their bodies and what their kids are drinking. And this is Monsanto's last-ditch, desperate attempt to maintain its profit. And they are hiding behind dairy farmers to do it."

But for every farmer who toes Monsanto's line, there are as many if not more, and not just in the United States, who are amassing in opposition to the multinational's attempt to change, and then patent, how America grows (and describes) its food. And behind them, in ever larger numbers, are consumers and stores themselves, who are demanding more, not less, information from those who produce the food.

"In the last year or so, some really big names have announced that they will only buy rBGH-free milk," explains Food and Water Watch's assistant director Patty Lovera, "including Chipotle, Starbucks, Tillamook and lots of supermarket house brands, like Kroger, Meiers and Publix. Even Kraft is going to do an rBGH-free line of cheese."

In the end, Monsanto's quibbling over labels has added up -- ironically enough, given all the text it has generated -- to censorship, pure and simple. And, as with past debacles like the aforementioned Agent Orange, PCBs and Terminator seed, they've established a pattern of stopping at nothing to increase not your health but their profits. At your expense.

"Absolutely nothing good could come from a ban on rBGH-free labeling," concludes Hansen. "More information is a good thing, and all these state actions are anti-consumer, restrict free speech and interfere with the smooth functioning of free markets."



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http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=7182
OPEC Blames Poor U.S. Economy For Oil Prices
03-06-2008
IHT

OPEC, rebuffing calls from U.S. President George W. Bush to increase oil output, cited "mismanagement" of the American economy as a major factor driving prices up.

Record prices are suddenly creating the sharpest tensions in years between the oil cartel and the United States, the world's largest oil consumer. Two days after the president called for more oil on the global market, OPEC members, meeting in Vienna, Austria, chose to leave their production levels unchanged, declaring that the market has plenty of oil already.

The cartel's president on Wednesday blamed financial speculators and American economic problems, which have helped lower the value of the dollar, for the high oil prices. After the meeting, oil prices settled above $104 a barrel, a record.



Go to 12855
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2008/03/06/top_iraq_contractor_skirts_us_taxes_offshore/
Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore
Shell companies in Cayman Islands allow KBR to avoid Medicare, Social Security deductions
Email|Print| Text size – + By Farah Stockman
Globe Staff / March 6, 2008
CAYMAN ISLANDS - Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation's top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven.

More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in the Cayman Islands.

The Defense Department has known since at least 2004 that KBR was avoiding taxes by declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies, and officials said the move allowed KBR to perform the work more cheaply, saving Defense dollars.

But the use of the loophole results in a significantly greater loss of revenue to the government as a whole, particularly to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. And the creation of shell companies in places such as the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes has long been attacked by members of Congress.

A Globe survey found that the practice is unusual enough that only one other ma jor contractor in Iraq said it does something similar.

"Failing to contribute to Social Security and Medicare thousands of times over isn't shielding the taxpayers they claim to protect, it's costing our citizens in the name of short-term corporate greed," said Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who has introduced legislation to close loopholes for companies registering overseas.

With an estimated $16 billion in contracts, KBR is by far the largest contractor in Iraq, with eight times the work of its nearest competitor.

The no-bid contract it received in 2002 to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure and a multibillion-dollar contract to provide support services to troops have long drawn scrutiny because Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive from 1995 until he joined the Republican ticket with President Bush in 2000.

The largest of the Cayman Islands shell companies - called Service Employers International Inc., which is now listed as having more than 20,000 workers in Iraq, according to KBR - was created two years before Cheney became Halliburton's chief executive. But a second Cayman Islands company called Overseas Administrative Services, which now is listed as the employer of 1,020 mostly managerial workers in Iraq, was established two months after Cheney's appointment.

Cheney's office at the White House referred questions to his personal lawyer, who did not return phone calls.

Heather Browne, a spokeswoman for KBR, acknowledged via e-mail that the two Cayman Islands companies were set up "in order to allow us to reduce certain tax obligations of the company and its employees."

Social Security and Medicare taxes amount to 15.3 percent of each employees' salary, split evenly between the worker and the employer. While KBR's use of the shell companies saves workers their half of the taxes, it deprives them of future retirement benefits.

In addition, the practice enables KBR to avoid paying unemployment taxes in Texas, where the company is registered, amounting to between $20 and $559 per American employee per year, depending on the company's rate of turnover.

As a result, workers hired through the Cayman Island companies cannot receive unemployment assistance should they lose their jobs.

In interviews with more than a dozen KBR workers registered through the Cayman Islands companies, most said they did not realize that they had been employed by a foreign firm until they arrived in Iraq and were told by their foremen, or until they returned home and applied for unemployment benefits.

"They never explained it to us," said Arthur Faust, 57, who got a job loading convoys in Iraq in 2004 after putting his resume on KBRcareers.com and going to orientation with KBR officials in Houston.

But there is one circumstance in which KBR does claim the workers as its own: when it comes to receiving the legal immunity extended to employers working in Iraq.

In one previously unreported case, a group of Service Employers International workers accused KBR of knowingly exposing them to cancer-causing chemicals at an Iraqi water treatment plant. Under the Defense Base Act of 1941, a federal workers compensation law, employers working with the military have immunity in most cases from such employee lawsuits.

So when KBR lawyers argued that the workers were KBR employees, lawyers for the men objected; the case remains in arbitration.

"When it benefits them, KBR takes the position that these men really are employees," said Michael Doyle, the lawyer for nine American men who were allegedly exposed to the dangerous chemicals. "You don't get to take both positions."

Founded by two brothers in Texas in 1919, the construction firm of Brown & Root quickly became associated with some of the largest public-works projects of the early 20th century, from oil platforms to warships to dams that provided electricity to rural areas.

Its political clout, particularly with fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson, was legendary, and it became a major overseas contractor, building roads and ports during the Vietnam war.

Halliburton, a Houston-based oil conglomerate, acquired Brown & Root in 1962. And after the Vietnam cease-fire agreement in 1973, it all but stopped doing overseas military work for two decades.

But in 1991, during the Gulf War, Halliburton decided to try to revive its military business. The next year, Brown & Root won a $3.9 million contract from the Defense Department under Secretary Dick Cheney to develop contingency plans to support, feed, house, and maintain the US military in 13 hot spots around the world.

That small contract soon grew into a massive logistical-support contract under which the company did everything from building military camps to cooking meals and providing transportation for troops. Under the contract, the military agreed to reimburse Brown & Root for all expenses, and to pay a profit of between 1 and 9 percent, depending on performance.

In Somalia, starting in December 1992, Brown & Root employees helped US soldiers and UN workers dig wells and collect garbage, among many other tasks. The company quickly became the largest civilian employer in the country, with about 2,500 people on its payroll. Its headquarters in Texas had a "war room," where executives would get daily updates about events in Mogadishu.

Later the company would play similar roles supporting US troops in Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan.

As its military work increased, Brown & Root sent more American workers overseas. Americans working and living abroad receive significant breaks on their income tax, but still must pay Social Security and Medicare taxes if they work for an American company. The reasoning is that such workers are likely to return to the United States and collect benefits, so they and their employers ought to help pay for them.

But the taxes drive up costs. A former Halliburton executive who was in a senior position at the company in the early 1990s said construction companies that avoid taxes by setting up foreign subsidiaries have obvious advantages in bidding for military contracts.

Payroll taxes can be a significant cost, he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "If you are bidding against [rival construction firms] Fluor and Bechtel, it might give you a competitive advantage."

Service Employers International was set up in 1993, as Brown & Root was ramping up its roster of overseas workers. Two years later, the company set up Overseas Administrative Services, which serves more senior workers and provides a pension plan.

The parent company became Kellogg Brown & Root in 1998, when it joined with the oil-pipe manufacturer, M. W. Kellogg.

Around that time, KBR lost its exclusive contract to provide logistical support to the US military. But in 2001 it outbid DynCorp to win it back, by agreeing to a maximum profit of 3 percent of costs.

Then, in 2002, the firm received a secret contract to draw up plans to restore Iraq's oil production after the US-led invasion of Iraq. The Defense Department has said the firm was chosen mainly for its assets and expertise, not its ability to control costs.

Nonetheless, KBR's top competitors in Iraq do not appear to have gone to the same lengths to avoid taxes. Other top Iraq war contractors - including Bechtel, Parsons, Washington Group International, L-3 Communications, Perini, and Fluor - told the Globe that they pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for their American workers.

"It has been Fluor Corporation's policy to compensate our employees who are US citizens the same as if they worked in the geographic United States," said Keith Stephens, Fluor's director of global media relations. "With the exception of hardship and danger pay additives for work performed in Iraq, they receive the same benefits as their US-based colleagues, and Fluor pays or remits all required US taxes and payroll burdens, including FICA payments and unemployment insurance."

Only one other top contractor, the construction and logistics firm IAP Worldwide Services Inc., said it employs a "limited number" of Americans through an offshore subsidiary.

Officials at DynCorp, the company that KBR outbid for the logistics contract, did not return numerous calls.

KBR is now widely believed to be the largest private employer of foreigners in Iraq, and it hires twice as many workers through its Cayman Island subsidiaries as it does by direct hires. Service Employers International alone employs more than 20,000 truck drivers, electricians, accountants, and engineers, roughly half of whom are American, according to Browne, the KBR spokeswoman.

KBR declined to release salary information. But workers interviewed by the Globe who served in a range of jobs said they earned between $48,000 and $85,000 per year. If KBR's American workers averaged even as much as $63,000 per year, they and KBR would have owed more than $100 million per year in Social Security and Medicare taxes, split evenly between them. Over the course of the five-year war, their tax bill would have been more than $500 million.

In 2004, auditors with the Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency questioned KBR about the two Cayman Island companies but ultimately made no complaint. The auditors told the Globe in an email exchange facilitated by Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Brian Maka that any tax savings resulting from the offshore subsidiaries "are passed on" to the US military.

Browne, the KBR spokeswoman, said the loss to Social Security could eventually be offset by the fact that the workers will receive less money when they retire, since benefits are generally based on how much workers and their companies have paid into the system.

Medicare, however, does not reduce benefits for workers who don't contribute, and Browne acknowledged that KBR has not calculated the impact of its tax practices on the government as a whole.

She said KBR does not save money from the practice, since its contracts allow for its labor expenses to be reimbursed by the US military. But the practice gives KBR a competitive advantage over other contractors who pay their share of employment taxes.

And critics of tax loopholes note that the use of offshore shell companies to avoid payroll taxes places a greater burden on other taxpayers.

"The argument that by not paying taxes they are saving the government money is just absurd," said Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a Washington advocacy group.

To the people listed as its workers, Service Employers International Inc. - known to them as SEII - remains something of a mystery.

"Does anybody know what or where in the Grand Cayman Islands SEII is located?" a recently returned worker wrote in a complaint about the company on JobVent.com, an employment website. He speculated that the office in the Cayman Islands must be "the size of a jail cell . . . with only a desk and chair."

In fact, the address on file at the Registry of Companies in the Cayman Islands leads to a nondescript building in the Grand Cayman business district that houses Trident Trust, one of the Caymans' largest offshore registered agents. Trident Trust collects $1,000 a year to forward mail and serve as KBR's representative on the island.

The real managers of Service Employers International work out of KBR's office in Dubai. KBR and Halliburton, which also moved to Dubai, severed ties last year.

Both KBR and the US military appear to regard Service Employers International and KBR interchangeably, except for tax purposes. According to the Defense Contract Auditing Agency, KBR bills the Service Employers workers as "direct labor costs," and charges almost the same amount for them as for direct hires.

The contract that workers sign in Houston before traveling to Iraq commits workers to abide by KBR's code of ethics and dispute-resolution mechanisms but states that the agreement is with Service Employers International.

Some workers said they were told that Service Employers International was just KBR's payroll company. Others mistook the name as a reference to the well-known, large union, Service Employees International.

Henry Bunting, a Houston man who served as a procurement officer for a KBR project in Iraq in 2003, said he first found out that he was working for a foreign subsidiary when he looked closely at his paycheck.

"Their whole mindset was deceit," Bunting said. He said that he wrote to KBR several times asking for a W-2 form so he could file his taxes, but that KBR never responded.

David Boiles, a truck driver in Iraq from 2004 to 2006, said that he realized he was working for Service Employers International when he arrived in Iraq and his foreman told him he was not a KBR employee, despite the fact that his military-issued identification card said "KBR."

"At first, I didn't believe him," Boiles said.

Danny Langford, a Texas pipe-fitter who was sent to work in a water treatment plant in southern Iraq in July 2003, said he, too, initially believed that he was an employee of KBR.

But when he allegedly got ill from chemicals at the plant and was terminated that fall, he said, his application for unemployment compensation was rejected because he worked for a foreign company.

"Now, I don't know who I was working for," he said in a telephone interview.

For decades Congress has sought to crack down on corporations that use offshore subsidiaries to lower their taxes, but most of the debates have focused on schemes that reduce corporate income taxes, not payroll taxes. Last year a Senate subcommittee estimated that US corporations avoid paying $30 and $60 billion annually in income taxes by using offshore tax havens.

Senators Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat; Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat; and Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, are trying to pass the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, which would give the US Treasury Department the authority to take special measures against foreign jurisdictions that impede US tax enforcement.

American companies that evade payroll taxes face fines or other criminal penalties. The use of foreign subsidiaries to avoid payroll taxes, while allowed by the Defense Department, may still be subject to challenge by the Internal Revenue Service, according to Eric Toder, a former director of the office of research for the IRS.

Toder said the IRS could try to take action against a firm if the sole purpose of setting up an offshore subsidiary was to reduce tax liability. The practice could become a more costly problem in the future, Toder said, as an increasing number of American companies register subsidiaries overseas and bring American employees to work abroad.

"It obviously looks unseemly where you have a situation where, if you did it in a straightforward way, they would pay payroll taxes," Toder said. "If this becomes the norm, and other companies do that as well, it could further erode the tax base."

Peter Singer, a specialist in the outsourcing of military functions at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, said the practice will probably attract more scrutiny in the future, as the military expands its outsourcing and as workplaces become increasingly global.

"It is fascinating and troubling at the same time," Singer said. "If you are an executive in a company, you are thinking: 'Wow. Cash savings and a potential loophole from certain domestic laws, lawsuits, and taxes. It's win-win.' But if you are a US taxpayer, it is not a positive synergy."

Globe correspondents Stephanie Vallejo and Matt Negrin contributed to this report.



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http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/07/news/economy/jobs_february/?postversion=2008030711
Job losses: Worst in 5 years
Payrolls sink in February, fueling recession anxiety. Unemployment rate declines, but that's because there are fewer people in the workforce.
By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: March 7, 2008
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Employers made their deepest cut in staffing in almost five years in February, the Labor Department reported Friday.

There was a net loss of 63,000 jobs, which is the biggest decline since March 2003 and weaker than the revised 22,000 jobs lost in January. Economists had forecast a gain of 25,000 jobs.

The weak report fueled already mounting recession fears and is likely to keep the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates further when it meets later this month.

"Based on today's Employment Report, if we are not in a recession, it is a darned good imitation of one," said Kevin Giddis, managing director of fixed income at Morgan Keegan. "We are in an unprecedented real estate and credit crisis that is whipping its way through the U.S. economy like a Midwestern tornado."

Job losses were widespread, reaching beyond the battered construction sector, which lost 39,000, and manufacturing, where job losses hit 52,000.

Retailers cut 34,000 jobs.

Temporary staffing firms cut nearly 28,000 from their payrolls, another warning sign of employers pulling back.

Hotels cut about 4,000 jobs, a sign that discretionary consumer spending could be on the wane.

Overall the private sector cut 101,000 jobs, with only a gain in government employment limiting losses.

"Job growth appears to have weakened across nearly every industry with the exception of health care and government," said Keith Hall, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which prepares the jobs report, testified Friday before a congressional committee.

Hall would not give a forecast for hiring going forward, but other said the latest report suggests more job losses likely lay ahead.

"Businesses have become too pessimistic about the outlook for the economy, and the capacity of the Bush Administration and Federal Reserve to manage it, to be adding new employees or replacing those that leave," said University of Maryland professor Peter Morici.

Underlying weakness
Despite the loss, the unemployment rate improved to 4.8% from the 4.9% reading in January. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate would rise to 5%. A survey of households is used to estimate the unemployment rate, while a survey of employers that is considered to be more accurate sets the readings on the changes in payrolls.

The unemployment rate fell because of an increase of 450,000 people whom the government no longer counts as being part of the labor force for a variety of factors, such as that they are not currently looking for work. That drop in the size of the labor force allowed for he modest decline in unemployment, even as the household survey showed 255,000 fewer Americans with jobs than in January.

Hall conceded in his testimony Friday that the labor market was weaker than suggested by the decline in the unemployment rate. He pointing to an increase of 637,000 workers over the past 12 months who have part-time jobs but would prefer to be working full time.

He said the bureau's broadest measure of the unemployment rate, one which counts as unemployed both those part-time workers who want full-time jobs as well as those not searching for a job at the moment but who are interested in finding work, now stands at 8.9%, up from 8.1% a year ago.

"We've clearly had a broad weakening in the labor market," Hall testified. "This weakening in the labor market is not a sudden thing, it has been happening for over a year."

Rep. Elijah Cummings, who was chairing the hearing of Joint Economic Committee, suggested that Congress needed to do more to address the problems of unemployment. Some proposals: extended unemployment benefits and increased food stamps, as well as greater investment in infrastructure.

"Frankly I believe our economy stands poised on an uncertain cliff, threatening to throw our nation into a crisis," said Cummings. "We do not need to recite a litany of data to know our economy is struggling."

The rising fear of recession has sparked a series of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, along with a $170 billion economic stimulus package passed last month by Congress.

The Fed is set to meet March 18 to decide what to do with interest rates. Friday's report would seem to suggest more rate cuts are on the way, despite the improved unemployment rate.

"Even the silver lining of a falling unemployment rate has a little rust," said Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research. He predicted that the central bank will cut rates by a half percentage point at both its March meeting and again on April 30.

But Yamarone and some other experts questioned whether additional Fed cuts would do much to improve the employment outlook.

"We're not in a crisis because the cost of borrowing is too high, it's because people are afraid of lending," said Dan Alpert, managing director of Westwood Capital, referring to the ongoing credit crunch. "At the end of the day, the Fed cuts don't really solve the problems. They've already cut allot; if jobs continue to decline in face of further interest rate cuts, it's prime facia evidence cuts aren't effective."

But few experts were ready to suggest the Fed would stop cutting rates at this point, given the problems in the economy and financial markets.

"The Fed has to do what it can to provide remedy and not scare the market as well," said Mike Materasso, a senior portfolio manager at Franklin Templeton.



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