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!

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Go to 13232
http://tbknews.blogspot.com/2008/04/hemp-for-food-and-fuel.html
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Earth Day 2008: Hemp for Food and Fuel!
On this weekend before Earth Day, with celebrations worldwide, we find ourselves gripped globally by a food shortage caused in large part by rising fuel costs. Adding to this problem is the increasingly serious population growth. Indeed, I am reminded during this crisis of two pertinent subjects: Firstly, Paul Ehrlich, who wrote The Population Bomb in 1968, but who was roundly assailed and dismissed at the time. Unfortunately, he is being proved correct, as common sense would have told us all along. The second subject that keeps popping up provides a major solution to the world's food and energy crises. It's been sitting there all along, vilified and suppressed by the ruling elite, who appear to care not a fig for the world's poor and suffering but who only seem to want to make their fortunes off polluting and destroying the earth. What I'm talking about is the prohibition of one of the world's most versatile plants: Hemp or cannabis.

The history of hemp is long and varied, and need not be reproduced here but can be viewed in part in the videos included here. Suffice it to say that, rather than for "moral" purposes having to do with the medicinal or recreational uses of one strain of cannabis, the prohibition of hemp has largely revolved around the desire by the ruling elite to horde and profit off of the resources they have virtually monopolized since the 1930s and earlier. Indeed, in my mind one of the greatest criminals in history is William Randolph Hearst, who, along with his "hired Anslinger," so to speak, almost singlehandedly managed to destroy the American hemp industry. Now, much of the environmental destruction can be placed squarely on the heads of this tiny minority of monopolizers. With hemp, there would have been little need for the oil industry and its attendant globe-destroying pollution and degradation. Another benefit of hemp production and the non-necessity of Middle Eastern oil would have been the lack of funding for "radical" Islamic extremists whose stated goal is total global domination, using billions of petrodollars currently at their disposal.

Instead of a peaceful, clean and well-nourished planet and populace, we are currently poised on the edge of the abyss from which many millions will never recover. The prohibition of hemp constitutes one of the greatest crimes against humanity ever committed. Millions of human beings will now die, millions more will be enslaved under a totalitarian system of government, and the suffering will go on, all for the want of a plant that has more uses than can be listed here.

The people in power who have upheld the criminal hemp prohibition should be ashamed, but I fear that they have no conscience at all - an assertion constantly validated by their actions. If the ruling elite cannot make massive amounts of money off of something, it will not only fall by the wayside, it will be deliberately kicked there. And that relegation is what has happened to hemp, a true gift of nature that could still solve many of our problems globally - if these powermongering sociopaths will step out of the way.

Will humankind wake up and make the necessary changes now that it faces an appalling crisis of a magnitude never before seen? I certainly hope so.

Lift the hemp ban now!

(In 1992, when Jerry Brown was running for President, I stood up at one of his press conferences and asked him, "Isn't it time to look to hemp to solve many of the world's problems?" He blanched, and one of his cameramen groaned and removed the camera from me. Brown deflected the question, answering only my previous question about his international policies. That's the sort of fearful environment we've lived in that has now led us to this atrocious mess.)

Study: U.S. Hemp Ban Hurts Environment, Economy

Hemp Used to Clean Radioactivity

(If you can't see the videos below, try opening this page in Internet Explorer.)

Hemp for Food


Hemp for Victory!


Hemp - The Environmentally Sustainable Alternative


Hemp for Biodiesel Fuel


Hemp to Solve Global Warming


Ron Paul & Cannabis


Posted by Acharya S at 12:57 PM
Labels: cannabis, earth day, ehrlich, food, fuel, hemp, hemp for victory, marijuana, population, population bomb, radiation, ron paul
7 comments:
More Hemp for Victory said...
Thanks for bringing this up.

"First U.S. Hemp Farmer Since 1938

"A North Dakota man aims to be the first hemp farmer in the United States. That is, the first one since the practice was made illegal in 1938 and only allowed again temporarily as part of the WWII war effort. After 10 years of recent effort by North Dakota lawmaker David Monson, he is now poised to receive a license to grow the crop beloved by sustainability advocates -- as long as he gets fingerprinted first.

"Monson turned in an application Monday to the state Agriculture Department to become the nation's first licensed industrial hemp farmer along with a set of his fingerprints, which will be used for a background check to prove he is not a criminal. Hemp, a cousin of marijuana, does not have the drug's psychoactive properties however the federal Drug Enforcement Administration still has to give its permission before Monson, or anyone else, is allowed to grow industrial hemp. Law enforcement officials fear industrial hemp can shield illicit marijuana, although hemp supporters say the concern is unfounded with whom we agree. We've told you about all things sturdy, sexy and hemp, so we hope such state legislative initiatives do not remain purely symbolic.

"When the DEA smoke clears, North Dakota may be the first to break important farm ground. Six other states have also authorized industrial hemp farming, but yet to push their initiatives into action. Those others states are Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana and West Virginia. Last year, California lawmakers approved legislation that set out rules for industrial hemp production, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it. The law asserted that the federal government lacked authority to regulate industrial hemp as a drug. Also, in 2005, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, introduced legislation to exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana in federal drug laws. It never came to a vote. Canada made it legal for farmers to grow the crop in March 1998. Last year, Canadian farmers planted 48,060 acres of hemp, government statistics say. Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the provinces along North Dakota's northern border, were Canada's biggest hemp producers. Here's to blurring the border. ::AP "

U.S. Hemp Farmer

Can Industrial Hemp Save the Forests of the World?

"Support H.R. 3037 IH, 'The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005'

"We the undersigned support H.R. 3037 IH, 'The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005.' Industrial hemp is NOT marijuana. Industrial hemp can NOT get you 'high.' Therefore, there is no reason for it to be illegal to grow! One acre of hemp makes the equivalent of four acres of tree's for paper products and construction materials and can grow twice in a season, while trees take 100's of years to grow tall again! Hemp is three times stronger than cotton and less detrimental to the environment. It uses no pesticides or herbicides and grows 1 to 2 inches a day on average. Hemp foods contain important essential fatty acids and are high in protein. Hemp has successfully been made into and used for fuel. The list of wonders goes on and on. At one time, hemp was our country's #1 resource and it was illegal NOT to grow it as a farmer. Hemp is a MAJOR CASH CROP and can help SAVE OUR PLANET! Our farmers and our country should not be left behind any longer. If you care about our environment and our countries economy, than you will pass this bill!"

Petition for Hemp

22

2:16 PM
Anonymous said...
Oh, I forgot to mention that the US Constitution was written on Hemp paper. Plus, Hemp was subsidized. It was a law that farmers were to set aside a certain % of their farm for hemp. Almost all of the founding fathers had hemp farms.

When the first Diesel engine was produced by Rudolph Diesel around 1895, it was designed to run on diesel fuel derived from hemp oil.

We could've been driving vehicles all this time running on veggie oils. We could add the hybrid system to it to conserve MPG today.

"The Volkswagen One-Litre, a two-seater prototype that ’s been on the roads in Europe, does 237 m.p.g. Yes, you read that correctly. By 2010, they'll probably do 250 m.p.g. "
Go to 13231
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1009

Even motorcycles are in on it -
Go to 13230
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_bikes.html

"The Use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignifigant today. But such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time"
~ Rudolph Diesel 1912

8:15 PM
Anonymous said...
Oh give me a break. If hemp was such a wonder material, there would be no domestic paper industry or diesel refineries, because we would be importing cheaper hemp based paper and diesel instead.

And hemp cloth might make sacks and sail, but clothes? Homey don't think so....

11:20 PM
Anonymous said...
Are you on crack, Homey? You make no sense.

11:32 PM
Anonymous said...
It is obvious to anyone with a brain that it is far better to sacrifice a few lives and a bit of quality of life for earth population than to allow an evil addictive drug like hmarijuana that is made from hemp to be available and cause a whole lof of suffering

11:49 PM
Truthteller said...
Some incredibly stupid comments here, Acharya.

In the first place, it's not a "few lives," you moron. It's millions upon millions of people dying needlessly.

In the second place, marijuana does not come from hemp - there's almost no THC in hemp. Also, it's isn't addictive, and it doesn't cause suffering.

What an idiot! Where'd you learn that stupid crap?

Hey, try watching the videos here before you open your mouth and show how dumb and ignorant you are!

12:52 AM
Anonymous said...
where did all the videos go???



Go to 13229
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/nov/10/uk.davidshayler
MI6 'halted bid to arrest bin Laden'Startling revelations by French intelligence experts back David Shayler's alleged 'fantasy'about Gadaffi plot
Martin Bright, home affairs editor The Observer, Sunday November 10 2002 About this articleClose This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday November 10 2002 . It was last updated at 01:48 on November 10 2002. British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.
The latest claims of MI6 involvement with Libya's fearsome Islamic Fighting Group, which is connected to one of bin Laden's trusted lieutenants, will be embarrassing to the Government, which described similar claims by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler as 'pure fantasy'.

The allegations have emerged in the book Forbidden Truth , published in America by two French intelligence experts who reveal that the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden was issued by Libya in March 1998.

According to journalist Guillaume Dasquié and Jean-Charles Brisard, an adviser to French President Jacques Chirac, British and US intelligence agencies buried the fact that the arrest warrant had come from Libya and played down the threat. Five months after the warrant was issued, al-Qaeda killed more than 200 people in the truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The arrest warrant was issued in connection with the murder in March 1994 of two German anti-terrorism agents, Silvan and Vera Becker, who were in charge of missions in Africa. According to the book, the resistance of Western intelligence agencies to the Libyan concerns can be explained by MI6's involvement with the al-Qaeda coup plot.

The Libyan al-Qaeda cell included Anas al-Liby, who remains on the US government's most wanted list with a reward of $25 million for his capture. He is wanted for his involvement in the African embassy bombings. Al-Liby was with bin Laden in Sudan before the al-Qaeda leader returned to Afghanistan in 1996.

Astonishingly, despite suspicions that he was a high-level al-Qaeda operative, al-Liby was given political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May of 2000 when he eluded a police raid on his house and fled abroad. The raid discovered a 180-page al-Qaeda 'manual for jihad' containing instructions for terrorist attacks.

The Observer has been restrained from printing details of the allegations during the course of the trial of David Shayler, who was last week sentenced to six months in prison for disclosing documents obtained during his time as an MI5 officer. He was not allowed to argue that he made the revelations in the public interest.

During his closing speech last week, Shayler repeated claims that he was gagged from talking about 'a crime so heinous' that he had no choice but to go to the press with his story. The 'crime' was the alleged MI6 involvement in the plot to assassinate Gadaffi, hatched in late 1995.

Shayler claims he was first briefed about the plot during formal meetings with colleagues from the foreign intelligence service MI6 when he was working on MI5's Libya desk in the mid-Nineties.

The Observer can today reveal that the MI6 officers involved in the alleged plot were Richard Bartlett, who has previously only been known under the codename PT16 and had overall responsibility for the operation; and David Watson, codename PT16B. As Shayler's opposite number in MI6, Watson was responsible for running a Libyan agent, 'Tunworth', who was was providing information from within the cell. According to Shayler, MI6 passed £100,000 to the al-Qaeda plotters.

The assassination attempt on Gadaffi was planned for early 1996 in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte. It is thought that an operation by the Islamic Fighting Group in the city was foiled in March 1996 and in the gun battle that followed several militants were killed. In 1998, the Libyans released TV footage of a 1996 grenade attack on Gadaffi that they claimed had been carried out by a British agent.

Shayler, who conducted his own defence in the trial, intended to call Bartlett and Watson as witnesses, but was prevented from doing so by the narrow focus of the court case.

During the Shayler trial, Home Secretary David Blunkett and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw signed Public Interest Immunity certificates to protect national security. Reporters were not able to report allegations about the Gadaffi plot during the course of the trial.

These restrictions have led to a row between the Attorney General and the so-called D-Notice Committee, which advises the press on national security issues.

The committee, officially known as the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, has objected to demands by the prosecution to apply the Official Secrets Act retrospectively to cover information already pub lished or broadcast as a result of Shayler's disclosures. Members of the committee, who include senior national newspaper executives, are said to be horrified at the unprecedented attempt to censor the media during the trial.

Shayler claims Watson later boasted that there had been MI6 involvement in the Libyan operation. Shayler was also planning to call a witness to the conversation in which the MI6 man claimed British intelligence had been involved in the coup attempt.

According to Shayler, the woman, an Arabic translator at MI5, was also shocked by Watson's admission that money had been paid to the plotters.

Despite the James Bond myth, MI6 does not have a licence to kill and must gain direct authorisation from the Foreign Secretary for highly sensitive operations. Malcolm Rifkind, the Conservative Foreign Secretary at the time, has repeatedly said he gave no such authorisation.

It is believed Watson and Bartlett have been relocated and given new identities as a result of Shayler's revelations. MI6 is now said to be resigned to their names being made public and it is believed to have put further measures in place to ensure their safety.

A top-secret MI6 document leaked on the internet two years ago confirmed British intelligence knew of a plot in 1995, which involved five colonels, Libyan students and 'Libya veterans who served in Afghanistan'.

Ashur Shamis, a Libyan expert on radical Islam said: 'There was a rise in the activities of the Islamic Fighting Group from 1995, but many in Libya would be shocked if MI6 was involved.'



Go to 13228
http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=war_israel_palestine&Number=296185239#Post296185239
Testimonies from Hebron: Soldiers choke, beat Palestinians
April 18, 2008 Author: Hanan Greenberg
Violent Means

Testimonies from Hebron: Soldiers choke, beat Palestinians

Soldiers serving in Hebron testify to violent acts unleashed by troops, settlers on Palestinian residents. Four testimonies below

Hanan Greenberg

"Everyone there feels like they are doing something wrong. At least my friends felt they were doing something wrong." This was the opening sentence in a pamphlet over 100 pages long, which tells the stories of dozens of soldiers who have served in Hebron over the last few years.

The pamphlet was published by an organization called Breaking the Silence, and includes horrifying descriptions about the behavior IDF soldiers have adopted towards the Palestinian residents of Hebron, and that of the settlers.

To read the pamphlet in full, click here

Representatives of Breaking the Silence claim that their goal is "to encourage a public debate about the moral price paid by Israeli society as a whole due to the harsh reality faced by young soldiers forced to take control of a civilian population."

According to the organization, all testimonies were investigated fully before being printed and cross-referenced with witnesses' testimonies and archives of other human rights organizations.

One of the organization's activists said that the situation in Hebron has not changed much during recent years, and that Breaking the Silence has been hearing a lot about the "moral deterioration" of the system as a whole and the soldiers subjected to it. He added that Israeli society has a duty to listen to the soldiers and take responsibility for what is being done in its name.

Four testimonies

Metal wire causes loss of hand:

Soldier: "There was one really crazy soldier in my unit, and he loved torture. One time he caused a man to have his hand cut off."

Interviewer: "What happened?"

Soldier: "Just this Arab… The soldier stole a tobacco box from him. "Suddenly the Arab came and yelled, 'thieves, thieves, I saw you.' He got close to the soldier and we tried to keep him away… We didn't know about the stealing.

"The soldier started to beat him, and everyone started pushing… It became a situation where the Arab was being beaten up badly.

"Then the soldier took a metal wire. He was really screwed up. Grabbed the Arab and started to twist it around…"

Interviewer: "On his hand?"

Soldier: "Yeah, he really twisted it. I tell you, we tried to stop him. 'No, I won't let him go. He lifted a hand on me, he'll be punished.' Around and around… Afterwards we tried to get it off and we couldn't, it actually made a groove in his hand. It was blue. And the guy is yelling, 'I can't feel my hand anymore.'

"I said he would have to have his hand cut off. We even tried to dig with a knife, to get it off, but we couldn't… We told him to go to the hospital. Nothing to do, we couldn't cut the wire off."

Theft:

Soldier: "There was a lot of theft… Once we were at these rich people's house in Hebron. We found a ton of dollar bills in one of the drawers. Insane. The commander said to the two senior guys in the unit, 'Okay, we'll split the money.' They split it. Left a little there and told me, 'If you talk we'll come back and slaughter you.'"

Interviewer: "Was looting normal?"

Soldier: "A little looting was normal. Backgammon and cigarettes, everything… Everything that looked nice we took. Other guys took presents for their girlfriends from stores."

Beating:

Soldier: "We were on a patrol and we saw a guy in a cab that looked like he was hiding something. We stopped the car… There was just an incident of a soldier getting stabbed there or something.

"We found a knife… We asked the guy, 'Why the knife?' and he said, 'It's for my mother, to chop vegetables.' We said, 'what are you, an idiot? Are you kidding? Are you lying?' He really pissed us off. We grabbed him, hit him a little, in the ribs, not the face.

"Then the rest of the guys on patrol saw the beating. Everyone jumped on him… They beat him up, really beat him up… Hit him with sticks, in the head… And then one started choking him, with two hands. He was 17 or 18 and he started yelling, 'Mama, Baba.' He kept choking him, he was starting to get blue and lose consciousness.

"Suddenly the other guys saw what was happening and started pulling off the soldier. But he wouldn't let go. He wouldn't let go and he yelled, 'You're trying to kill us, you want to kill us, you want to stab me, eh? Son of a bitch, you want to stab me.'

"He was crazy… We pulled him, his legs and stomach. And his whole body was in the air, and we were pulling and pulling… He went at him like a pit-bull. Finally we got him off."

Choking:

Soldier: "We did all kinds of experiments to see who could do the best split in Abu Sneina. We would put them against the wall, make like we were checking them, and ask them to spread their legs. Spread, spread, spread, it was a game to see who could do it best.

"Or we would check who can hold his breath for longest."

Interviewer: "How do you check that?"

"Choke them. One guy would come, make like he was checking them, and suddenly start yelling like they said something and choke them… Block their airways, you have to press the adams apple. It's not pleasant. Look at the watch as you're doing it, until he passes out. The one who takes longest to faint wins."


FerricWebcaesar writes: "Don't take it so hard. It's not like they are Jewish or anything.



Go to 13227
http://www.rense.com/general81/znst.htm
Zionist Takeover In Italy
From Israel Shamir
4-19-8

Introduction

The last elections in Italy had completed the Judeo-Zionist takeover of Europe. For sure, the previous Italian government was Zionist enough for anybody. However, now a new barrier was taken by zionists: the crazy far-right Jewess Fiamma Nirenstein, who moved to Israel and settled in the West Bank ten years ago, came back to Rome as a member of Parliament, without giving up her residence in occupied Palestine. It does not matter, she says, for "every Jew in the world is an Israeli even if he's not aware of it. Anyone who doesn't know it is making a big mistake". In other words, the Jews in European Parliaments and in the US Congress are "Israelis", but probably we suspected that much. What about her identity? "The most important thing for the Italian identity is to stand by Israel's side".

Completing full alliance of Zionist-fascists, she joined Berlusconi and the neo-fascist party of Fini in their joint list. This is not so strange: in 1920-30's Jews formed a bigger part of Italian fascist leadership. Actually, Adolf Hitler was an odd man out in the European Far-Right in his refusal to deal with Jews: he said that if he would let them, the Jews would march by thousands into his party. Mussolini, a friend of many Jews, tried to convince Hitler to accept Jews, as "with Jews, victory of fascism is sure". Now, on this stage, Jews and zionist-fascists do march together, while independent far right and far left are both excluded.

This is the trap the Jews had led the Europeans into: they began, like Fiamma, as leftists, and infiltrated the left; eventually, they discarded the subdued left; and re-created Zionist Fascism of Berlusconi, Sarkozy and Merkel.

--Israel Shamir

Here, we offer you a few background pieces on the subject, including an interview with Fiamma:

(1) "No we can't" - the collapse of the Italian left

By Mary Rizzo

Go to 13226
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3186.shtml

Something totally unexpected happened in Italy Monday night. It officially became American.
In a country that boasted hundreds of parties (too many, for sure) and political factions, our parliament has eliminated all elements of the left from the parliament, including parties that existed from the founding moments of our Republic, and parties that, elsewhere in Europe, govern nations as large as Spain and Great Britain. There are no more Communists in the parliament. Socialists are gone too. The Greens have faded to black. What we have is the stew of a party that copies in slogan and in fact the US Democratic Party. "Si può fare" was the slogan . . ."Yes we can." Never catering to any kind of difficult analysis but being all smiles and handshakes, installing the idea of 'change' (but if they had governed for the past two years, what change were they asking us to believe in?) rather than in recognising that Italy is a country on the verge of collapse and if we don't fix things quickly, we are going to feel it painfully.

And, I'm not surprised the self-styled 'radical' left was excluded by the vote. They had no imagination to go beyond inserting their politicians here and there, making sure that they maintained their positions, without ever raising a self-critical voice to the positions they had adopted during their two-year reign in power, including allowing US colonisation in this country, from the enormous extension of the Dal Molin US military base to the 'mission' in Lebanon and the refinancing of the Afghan war effort. They succeeded in raising hospital costs and sticking the union demands in a public offer to salvage Alitalia from certain bankruptcy and loss of jobs, all in the name of 'protecting the national company,' as if we really need a national airline!

They addressed a class that does not even exist, catering to the enormous category of state employees, taking advantage of social conflict between aspects of the disenfranchised, promising everything to everybody, from a minimum wage to a moveable salary scale that they can't finance, to increased in pension funds. They certainly did not extend a cent towards the financing of my area of work, which is art conservation, because they believe they can get a lot of the work in 'free training' of college students. Unfair competition is what it is called, while they see it as the Band-Aid that is the only way Italy resolves its problems.

They did not face the ecological and social disaster of waste disposal, and true to form, if there is anything that needs doing, from putting out the forest fires that are now the leitmotif of our summers and the feeding of the poor or aid to immigrants, it is all passed off to the enormous league of the millions of unpaid volunteers, which has always been something Italy excels in, having this solidarity resource that covers up all the holes that otherwise would send our beautiful country to the bottom of a pit, never to crawl back up.

There was more than enough to criticise them for, and they did not bother to look into this, therefore, losing millions of votes and consensus from their base. They never bothered to ask themselves what their base thought. From Parlato, the editor of the major leftwing newspaper, who supports the Israeli place of honour at the Turin book festival, to Turco, the health minister, who let certain categories such as dentists run a totally free market service with no limit or no alternative provided by the State, to Bersani, the economic development minister, with his new laws on selling property, which will do nothing but line the pockets of the 'approved' companies that inspect to updated 'standards' and will freeze a real estate market that is already on its knees.

The resolution of the conflict of interest in the mass media was not even on the agenda, and, rather, we got the national outlets that stopped any kind of criticism of anyone. Everyone was democratic, every party got its 2-minute blurb on the news, which was to state that the other parties were not right. A half-hour of The Family Feud every evening would turn anyone's stomachs, as there was no space remaining to honestly state that "we are mad as hell and we aren't going to take it any more!" No, all of it became political salons and bla bla bla. And what is worse, the people most committed to social change abandoned the scene faster than anyone else.

I have always loved the fact that Italy had an enormous amount of major left parties and newspapers. Yet, in the two years the left was in power, it lost all sense of self-critique, and developed an idolisation of itself based on the assumption that people would trust that the politicians knew best. We stopped trusting a while back, as they betrayed us one day after the other.

I am, of course, unhappy about the complete absence in my country of a formal institutional representation of the left. I am of course unhappy about the prospect of another Berlusconi term, and I am terrified of the implications on foreign policy. I am unhappy that there was no internal mechanism of the left leaning parties that adjusted them to the sentiments of the people who are completely fed up with the governing left and miserable with the right. The minimum common denominator brought us the misery, and to be honest, it is not causing me pain as it did seven years ago. The failure of the system as a whole is the earthquake that perhaps we need to rebuild.

I translated the below article by a Christian Social group, from their newpaper "La Rocca"

THE GRIMACE

By Raniero La Valle for n. 9 of Rocca (rocca@cittadella.org)

The blitz was a success. The Democratic Party lost, but the left has been completely excluded from the parliament. The operation in which an entire political area of the nation has been thrown out of the parliament, for reasons of its proposals and even its name, is a classic operation that smells of regime, that as a matter of fact, not even Fascism, during its parliamentary phase, was able to do. Certainly the forced and litigious cohabitation within the Prodi coalition needed to be amended, but not through the massacre of political forces. The "incomplete democracy" of the "First Republic" meant that the Communist left would be excluded from government, which only provoked a lengthy torment and the aggregation outside the institutions of fringe groups active outside the parliament. The "simplified democracy" of the Pannellian and Veltronian two-party philosophy means that the left as a whole is pushed into the zone outside the institutions. And that is how we've ended up with the armed party, and now the risk is that the social, economic and cultural issues that are no longer admitted into parliamentary mediation will be shifted to other spheres of struggle, in the best of hypotheses to marches and demonstrations and in the worst to the casseurs that we saw in the Parisian peripheries.

This result is the outcome, without a doubt, of the total lack of realism of a left that has accepted to let itself be labelled as 'radical,' 'antagonist' and 'maximalist,' echoing those very terms in their own newspapers, and it even forgot that there can be no left in Italy if it does not in some measure also assume the culture and the political passion of a non-clerical Christianity. Yet, all of that would not have been enough to produce the results of 14 April, that is rather the effect, completely artificial (and therefore undemocratic), of three joint factors.

The first is that the electoral law established that there would be a limit of 4 percent of total votes at the lower representative branch and 8 percent at the Senate, in order to enter into Parliament, in a system that did not have as its goal to destroy the minor parties, but to force them to make coalitions with the major ones in order to overcome, together, the requested percentage restrictions. It is, therefore, the case that with the same electoral law of the present legislature, as much as it has been criticised, had each party represented within the parliament.

The second factor is that the same electoral law hands out the premium of a minimum amount of 340 lower house representatives to assign to the winning list (and for the Senate, a regional premium), igniting in this way a heavy burden on the parliament and seriously conditioning the electoral position of the parties, but at least the law dictated that the awarding of the premium would go to a coalition, not to a single party.

The third factor is that Veltroni, without waiting for this system to be changed by democratic means, stripped it of its very nature, using the system against all logic and against the residual democratic character of the system, casting to the sea the coalition and praising his own self for being able to have shoved the allied parties out the door, from the Socialists to the Greens to Renewed Communists, while Berlusconi pretended to do the very same with his allies, however, keeping Fini (National Alliance and Northern League) close to his breast.

The result is that Berlusconi, 'the old,' has won and Veltroni, 'the new,' has lost -- the Northern League is preparing to impose the breaking of constitutional equality between the North and South of the nation, Casini (Centre Union, Catholic party) -- saves himself a 'forget me not' position of a party that once was a recognisable Catholic presence and the left, uselessly united, abandons the Parliament, loses the public financing of their parties, will have a hard time keeping their headquarters and newspapers and even Vespa (television news conductor that praised bipolarism) today seems to show regret and even Fini laments that a lower house where these forces are not present is an 'anomaly.' And, it is the height of absurdity that in this collapse, the losers are declaring victory, a victory of having set the foundations of an Anglo-Saxon and two-party system in Italy.

In reality, what has fallen in this earthquake is the illusion of a non-political Italy, where the problems that are pressing on us and the severe conflict of interests in a social sphere and in those of need, can be resolved or ignored in the molasses of good manners. Faced head on with the winds of anti-politics, faced with the idiocy of the Ferrara's (Abortion, No Thanks! Party) and the Jiminy Cricket Party, face to face with the accusation against the entire political 'caste,' the winners were those who did the most 'politics,' not whoever had taken refuge outside political games. Berlusconi played politics, because it is the maximum of politics to accuse all the others of being Communists; Veltroni didn't even use the name of his adversary, maybe thinking that it wasn't necessary to fight him, but to exorcise him. And in an Italy where we still have to fight for our right to bread, work, housing, health, he promised the 'right to smile,' which we might interpret as sending the homeless and those with no job security to the dentist. Unfortunately, the smiles, on the night of 14 April, of millions of Italians, have turned into a grimace, one of worry and pain.

Go to 13225
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/976069.html

The Israeli settler serving in Italy's parliament

By Meron Rapoport

Almost 50,000 people live in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood, one of the largest in Israel. Up until now, it had no representative in parliament. As of this week, it does. Fiamma Nirenstein, a neighborhood resident for 10 years, was just elected to the Italian parliament. If we stick to the definitions of the UN, which views Gilo, on the capital's southern edge, as a settlement, one could say that Nirenstein is the first settler to be a member of a non-Israeli parliament.

This week, in a series of phone calls to Rome, between the first reports of a close victory for the right-wing coalition, to which Nirenstein belongs, and the final reports of Silvio Berlusconi's sweeping victory, Nirenstein explained several times that she has not requested Israeli citizenship but that this bureaucratic fact does not affect her identity. "I feel as though I made aliyah," says Nirenstein in a conversation that fluctuates between Hebrew and Italian.

In the elections, Nirenstein did not hide her Israeliness. Her campaign was centered on the view that Israel is Western democracy's vanguard in the struggle against world terror. "I ran for a place in parliament as a representative of the Liguria district. I held rallies in Genoa and other cities in the region," she recounts. "But I didn't talk with the people about local problems. I told them that the most important thing for their Italian identity is to stand by Israel's side." Nirenstein called her most recent book "Israele Siamo Noi" ("Israel Is Us"). By "us," she was referring, of course, to Italians.

Even though Italy hasn't experienced much in the way of terror attacks and the number of Muslim immigrants there is small compared with other countries in Europe, the talk about the importance of the fight against Islamic terror, or simply of how to deal with Islam in general, is very much present in contemporary Italian discourse. Oriana Fallaci devoted the last years of her life to writing books in which she forthrightly pegged Islam as the source of all the world's evil. Berlusconi himself, the unquestioned leader of the Italian right for more than a decade, explained at one of his appearances a few days ago: "We must be conscious of the superiority of our culture, which gave prosperity to people in countries that adopted it and ensures respect for human rights and religion. This respect certainly does not exist in the Islamic countries."

Perhaps this is the reason why Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini, Berlusconi's partner and the former head of the neo-fascist party, proposed that Nirenstein join their joint list, Il Partito della Liberta ("The Party of Liberty").

Nirenstein's father arrived in Italy during World War II, as a soldier in the Jewish Brigade. In Florence, he met her mother, who fought as a partisan against the fascist government and later against the Nazi regime. "I was born as a communist," she says. In her youth she was part of the 1968 generation, founded the first feminist journal in Italy and worked at leftist newspapers.

After the 1967 Six-Day War, a rift began to develop between her and her "communist comrades," who saw Israel as an occupying country. "I was confused for a long time," she says. "In 1982, I signed a petition against the First Lebanon War. Today I wouldn't sign it. What did Israel gain from the withdrawal from Lebanon?"

To the right of Netanyahu

Her first visit to Israel was as a reporter, and it was only after this initial visit that she returned in 1992 for the long term. For two years, she ran the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Tel Aviv, and after the Rabin assassination, she decided she had to stay in Israel. "I had the feeling that this was the most interesting place in the world, and I also felt that the reporting on Israel was biased." She did not obtain Israeli citizenship because she thought an Israeli passport would hinder her in her work, but aside from that, she also thinks that "every Jew in the world is an Israeli even if he's not aware of it. Anyone who doesn't know it is making a big mistake."

In terms of the reality of Israel's current political system, Nirenstein is located to the right of Kadima and Labor, and maybe even of Likud Chair Benjamin Netanyahu. She says she believes in the idea of two states for two peoples, but thinks the principle of "territories for peace" has been a failure. There's no point in discussing it, she explains, until the entire Arab world is capable of recognizing Israel. Negotiations with Hamas are absolutely out of the question.

But there are polls which indicate that a majority of Israelis are prepared to negotiate with Hamas.

Nirenstein: "The public supports a compromise with Hamas, so that it will stop firing on Sderot. But morally speaking, there mustn't be negotiations with Hamas, which thinks that Jews are the sons of monkeys and pigs. You can't negotiate with cannibals, who eat human beings."

It's hard to argue with Nirenstein. Not just because of the poor quality of the phone connection to Rome, but also because she thinks that Israel is a beacon that should serve as inspiration for the entire West. "Israel is the vanguard of all the democracies in the world, and the time has come for Europe to recognize that," she says.

But in the election campaign you met with Italians who barely know where Israel is. How did you persuade them that Israel is important to their lives?

"I said that Italy can learn a lot from Israel. It can learn what a true democracy is, how a democracy can survive in conditions of conflict, without forsaking its fundamental principles. Israel is a culture of life, a culture of people who are always seeking peace. Our problem in Italy is that sometimes we don't know who we are. You can know who you are if you know your enemy and your friend. Israel is Italy's friend."

In other words, Islam is the enemy?

"I'm not saying that all Muslims are terrorists, or that all Muslims are criminals. But Hamas has announced that it wants to conquer Rome, to make it the outpost from which it will conquer all of Europe."

And you think that Hamas really intends to conquer Rome?

"Rome is a very symbolic place in the eyes of radical Islam. Italy, with its Catholic culture, is an enemy in the eyes of Islam."

Obviously, this all touches on one of the central issues in Italy's recent election campaign: the immigrant issue. Fini, who is slated to be appointed parliament speaker in Berlusconi's new administration, frequently talks about the need to ban illegal immigration. Even the moderate Social-Democractic party, led by the former mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, devoted a good amount of attention to the subject.

"People feel that immigration is threatening their cities, their culture," Nirenstein explains. "Maybe it's exaggerated, but the residents of Florence, for example, think of their city as a temple for the works of art that were created there. When they see the steps of the Duomo filled with immigrants, they're in shock."

I lived in Florence. I remember Italy as a tolerant country.

"It's changed a lot. There are entire quarters that you can't enter at night. There's rape, there are assaults, there's drug dealing. There are schools for immigrants where they don't hang the crucifix. The immigrants have contempt for our culture. We gave them work and they scorn our values. There's a deep contradiction between the more radical Islam and Italy's values.

"The problem is that there is hardly any moderate Islam in Italy. Just the opposite. In Rome they built an enormous mosque. There are a lot of mosques in Italy, and very anti-Western madrasas operate in them. There's polygamy, there's wife-battering - it's very common. There's a father who killed his daughter for 'family honor.' It's logical that Italians would notice and that there would be reactions."

The straight- armed salute

In Nirenstein's books, you don't find the aggressive anti-Muslim sentiment that screams from every page of Fallaci's books. But while she isn't part of the wave of opposition to immigrants and Muslims that is sweeping Italy, she does belong to the new right that scored an impressive election victory this week. It seems that there is no such thing as a right way to be "right" in all of Europe: Berlusconi, the avowed capitalist and most avid pro-American in Europe, on the one hand, the Lega Nord (Northern League) with its wild incitement on the other, and then Fini and his former neo-facist party. Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy almost seem like communists in comparison to this bunch.

Nirenstein does not "completely" accept this definition. To her, Berlusconi is a centrist who also received votes from the left, because he's "for the downtrodden" and wants to lessen their tax burden. Nirenstein sees herself as "a friend of the Northern League," which just wants to turn Italy into a federal state. She feels this is a legitimate ambition, even if some of the League's pronouncements are "unpleasant."

Her closeness to the former neo-fascist party caused Nirenstein some discomfort during the election campaign, particularly after one of Berlusconi's candidates for the Senate, Giuseppe Ciarrapico, proudly announced that he was and remains a fascist. According to Nirenstein, his candidacy "does not fit" with her candidacy as an avowed anti-fascist, a Jew and the daughter of a partisan, but she remained on the list nevertheless. "There's no such thing as a perfect list," she says.

Did you encounter people like Ciarrapico during the election campaign?

"At one of the election rallies I attended, in Genoa, someone gave the straight-armed salute. I went to the Allianza Nationale [the new name of the former neo- fascist party] people and asked who it was. I said that I protested, that I was stunned to see such a thing and that I did not want to see it again."

But Fini himself used to do the straight-armed salute at rallies in the 1960s, when everyone knew where fascism had led to.

"I don't know if Fini did that salute, maybe he did it in his youth. But I don't know what more he could have done than to kneel at Yad Vashem. Is he supposed to kill himself?"

He may not have been able to do more. But how did you, as a Jew, the daughter of a partisan, feel alongside a man who supported fascism as an adult?

"He was a fascist like I was a communist, when I was indifferent to what Pol Pot did, when I admired Che Guevara. I see him as someone who has since developed."

Post-election Italy, says Nirenstein, is a better place, a more stable place, a place without a radical left and a radical right. She doesn't know yet what she'll do in the new parliament. Nirenstein would like to deal with foreign affairs, but she knows she'll have to pay a price: For now she'll remain in Rome and bid good-bye to her good friends in Israel. She's not giving up the house in Gilo, though. It will wait for the return of the parliament member from Rome.



Go to 13224
http://www.rense.com/general37/skol33.htm
The Overthrow Of
The American Republic
Part 33
by Sherman H. Skolnick
5-6-3

SADDAM HUSSEIN and THE EXIT MONEY

The Persian Gulf War Two ended before the actual shooting started. On March 17, 2003, George W. Bush, the occupant and resident of the White House, proclaimed a 48-hour deadline in which the Iraqi strongman, Saddam Hussein, should turn over Weapons of Mass Destruction and he should leave the country.

As of this date, no WMD have been discovered to exist in Iraq. By the time the shooting started, March 20, 2003, Saddam, according to very knowledgeable sources, had already left the country. The exit was arranged by the Moscow government, with the knowledge if not the aid of the Paris government, and with the full knowledge and connivance of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and George W. Bush, as supervised by Daddy Bush.

Just as the deadline passed on Wednesday, March 19, 2003, the American CIA with the U.S. Military brass covered up these and other events herein described, by a much trumpeted effort to supposedly assassinate Saddam in Baghdad, using bunker-busting weapons.

It was a treasonous fraud, calculated to distract common Americans addicted, like druggies, to the oil-soaked, spy-riddled monopoly press, to cover up the true nature of what was really happening.

According to the best, most well-informed sources, who have in the past been accurate, here is what already had occurred prior to the March 19, 2003, White House deadline:

[1] Tens of millions of dollars had been promised by the American CIA and the Bush White House, to the top generals of Iraq. The contacts with the Iraqi military brass had been started as long ago as October, 2002, or even before. Part of the pay-offs were already deposited in secret accounts. The plan, agreed upon by all concerned, was to have the major Iraqi military units permit the U.S. Military to quickly take Baghdad, supposedly with a minimum of U.S. casualties. [A heavily-censored, watered down story about the pay-offs "U.S. Bribed Iraqi Military Leaders", The Express, London, UK, 4/18/3.]

The opposition to the overwhelmingly superior U.S. fire-power was to be by misled, poorly-informed, poorly-organized local Iraqi bands of shooters, what Americans in a U.S. context would call "patriots" or "militia". These highly nationalistic minded would-be "troops", mostly not even in uniforms, without good clothes or shoes, were mowed down by the heavily-armed Americans, killing the Iraqis often twenty or more at a time.

The Iraqis, some as conscripts, fought, as best they could, as any patriotic citizen of a nation would against foreign invaders attacking their homeland without provocation. History may well describe it as the great slaughter of the innocents.

[2] The bought-off Iraqi generals and other top military officers, and their wives and families, were shortly after the shooting started, flown out of Iraqi in U.S. military helicopters. They have been quietly and secretly re-located in the U.S., just as a similar series of events after Persian Gulf War One.

In prior exclusive stories, we told about the four thousand or more Iraqi military intelligence and other military officers as supposed "defectors" quietly re-located' after Persian Gulf War One, to the U.S. The Elder Bush, then president, and perpetuated later by Bush crony Clinton as President, jointly knew that some of these supposed POWs were "double agents". Some two thousand such Iraqis, and their wives and children, were set up in Oklahoma City, their housing, food, clothing, and such, paid for by the Elder Bush/Clinton administrations and perpetuated by George W. Bush.

"We're rolling out the welcome wagon to prisoners of war, yet our own veterans who fought there are having trouble getting any help", said Congressman Clifford Steans (R., Florida).

Said U.S. Senator John Warner (R., Va.), "I find it unconscionable that an Iraqi combatant soldier would be admitted into this country under refugee status and be given certain privileges and benefits and indeed a job at a time when many, many U.S. veterans...cannot or have not been able to get comparable benefits."

"FINAL REPORT On the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building April 19, 1995" , by the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee, published 2001, pages 476-477.

Some two thousand of these Iraqi officers have been housed in Oklahoma City. The chief defense counsel, Stephen Jones, in an unpublicized higher court petition on behalf of defendant Timothy McVeigh, contended that U.S. dissidents, whether they knew it completely or not, were domestic surrogates for a secret Iraqi operation to get revenge on the U.S. for the Persian Gulf War One. Attorney Jones' 185 page court filing, amazingly, referred to both the public and SECRET McVeigh court record. [Visit, for example, our website series of stories on McVeigh.]

[3] The wire service, United Press International, owned wholly or in part by the American CIA, suddenly ran a story, 4/10/3, "Saddam Key in Early CIA Plot", telling how Saddam as a young man became part of a CIA-assassination squad to snuff out Iraqi leaders, paving the way for Saddam as dictator. Hey! Why did the CIA suddenly, at this late date, tell us this, through their puppet wire service fakers?

In 1916, with the downfall of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, the victorious British took over Mesopotamia as a protectorate. In so doing they more or less tried to weld together three countries, as Iraq, made up of warring tribes, religions, and groups. By the 1930s, recognizing failure, the Brits dumped Iraq. During World War Two, oil-rich Iraq and Iran were both pro-Hitler monarchist types, an inviting target for the Nazis to try to over-run Cairo and seize the Mid-East. After the war, a sizeable political party was the Communist Party of Iraq. To combat them and assassinate pro-Moscow Reds, was the purpose of the American CIA and the Ba'ath political party and the installation of dictator Saddam who kept the warring factions within Iraq together as one nation, using savagery and the iron fist against dissidents.

[4] In the 1980s, Daddy Bush and Saddam Hussein were private business partners, sharing billions and billions of dollars from shaking down the weak, oil-soaked sheikdoms of the Gulf. The foreign bank records showing this became the subject of an publicized suit in the Federal Courts in Chicago. I was the only journalist attending the hearing and writing an exclusive story about it. [Visit our website story, "The Secrets of Timothy McVeigh".]

This vast extortion horde became the secret subject of a U.S. Treasury Internal Affairs unit inquiry examining the 25 secret worldwide accounts of the Bush Crime Family, jointly held loot with Saddam Hussein. For example, the Bushies had a One Hundred Billion Dollar joint account with the Queen of England, at her private bank, Coutts Bank London. These transactions were done with the aid of Federal Reserve Commissar Alan Greenspan, using his secret authorization code. The authenticated documents and the details are in our website series "Greenspan Aids and Bribes Bush".

Prior to the actual shooting "war" starting March 20, 2003, billions and billions of dollars of these Bush/Saddam extortion loot were transferred through the Royal Bank of Jordan in part to the Central Bank of Iraq. [The Kingdom of Jordan has been a recipient of huge funds for more than 40 years from the American CIA. The Royal Bank of Jordan is a form of reputed CIA proprietary. See our website story, "Overthrow", Kingdom of Jordan Link, part Part 25.]

On May 6, 2003, the New York Times ran a heavily-censored, watered down story how upwards of one billion dollars of this was extracted by Saddam's son just before the shooting started. The New York Times did not bother to remind themselves of their earlier story about the possibility of huge amounts of U.S. paper currency, found in Iraq, might be counterfeit. [Visit other parts of this series as to the superior quality counterfeit U.S. money.]

[5] It should come as no surprise to those who are well-informed and NOT naive, that Saddm has been playing dirty games, against his own people, for the benefit of the American CIA while Saddam was/is supposedly "an enemy".

Saddam, prior to the shooting started in Persian Gulf War Two, reportedly ended up in Switzerland, to have his face changed by expert plastic surgeons. From there, he was transported to Paris where the French CIA can use him, if they see fit, to blackmail the Bush White House to get a piece of the post-Iraq War oil treasure and re-construction. After all, Saddam is an eyewitness whose direct testimony could put Daddy Bush and Bush, Jr., in prison and/or public ridicule, as war criminals, as having invaded another nation without legal or U.S. Consttution basis. The leaked out Bush Crime Family worldwide secret accounts are, in part, by way of Saddam's half-brother in Switzerland. The Bush Crime Family, in transferring just a small part of this loot for the exile of Saddam, are keeping Saddam from his "proper" portion that he would be "entitled to" as a private business partner of Daddy Bush in shake-down and extortion. Cynical lawyers might point out, however, that a falling out of thieves cannot be a subject of a court partnership damage suit, since under American law it would be "against public policy", sort of like a bank robber caught by a policeman, sueing for "brutality".

[6] Some items, some summarized, that have to be considered:

===Supervised by Daddy Bush, George W. Bush has committed treason against the American people, which is becoming more and more known by those overseas.

===There was no basis in international law, United Nations rules, or the U.S. Constitution, for the attack on Iraq, there being, apparently no WMD and Saddam Hussein had already gone into exile.

===The so-called "war", was a fraud and a sham. Unfortunately, the American newsfakers are concealing that U.S. casualties in the conflict were much, much greater than the monopoly press announces. Some estimate that upwards of 800 Americans perished---U.S. military, American CIA clandestine, out-of-uniform types, Special Forces, and other Special American operatives---and as many as five thousand of the same wounded.

===The Iraqi oil treasure, second largest in the world, is to be used, as collateral, to support U.S. out-of-control debt, to aid Bush in seeking to give a huge tax cut to the very wealthy. An additional purpose, if not the actual main one, is that the Iraqi oil treasure is to head-off (maybe actually impossible to sidestep), the downfall of the "U.S. Dollar" and the looming possible default of U.S. Treasury securities, 40 per cent of which currently are owned by the Japanese and the Saudi Royal Family (both since 1973, having THEIR U.S. Treasury paper backed by U.S. Gold, not so for ordinary Americans).

===Is some of the billions turned over to Saddam by the Bush Crime Family, proceeds of their joint extortion loot, actually superior quality counterfeit U.S. paper money? [Visit earlier parts of this series for related items.] Is Saddam, savvy about this, in the process of dumping this phoney baloney money BACK onto the U.S., aiding the British in their long-time plans to destroy the U.S. Central Government? [Read this website series from Part One to present.]



Go to 13223
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2008/04/17/congress-quietly-repeals-martial-law-provision/
Congress Quietly Repeals Martial Law Provision
April 17, 2008 in News by James Bovard | 53 comments

In late 2006, Congress revised the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act to make it far easier for a president to declare martial law. Those changes were repealed at the end of this January as part of Public Law 110-181 (HR 4986), the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (signed into law by President Bush on January 28, 2008).

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), who championed the opposition to the original law, was also the hero of the repeal. It helped that all the nation’s governors opposed the 2006 law.

Boise State Professor Charlotte Twight, the author of the excellent Dependent on DC, alerted me to the change last night. I checked on Nexis and the only news coverage I found regarding the repeal was a 322-word Gannett News wire story from February 1 that focused on how the repeal made governors happy.

I first wrote about the Posse/Insurrection peril for American Conservative a year ago. My most recent piece on the subject was an article for the January issue of the Future of Freedom Foundation’s (FFF) Freedom Daily. The law was changed between the time the piece was published and when FFF posted the January article online on April 9.
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53 Comments »
Comment by Jim
2008-04-17 06:50:11
No matter - Bush will take care of that with another ’signing statement’.

Reply to this comment
Comment by abraham
2008-04-17 08:13:50
Yup.

Don’t stop buying ammunition just because the pigs in DC undid a mistake.

The law can always be re-written. Bullets do their job once and can’t be undone.

Reply to this comment
Comment by Kenneth
2008-04-17 08:44:57
IMMA CHARGIN MAH LAZOR!

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Reply here Comment by Ron
2008-04-18 00:48:07
Agreed. Everyone should have at least two or three CASES of ammo for every caliber of firearm you own, because bullets can only be used once. Reloading should also be encouraged. I think it is going to take a second armed American Revolution to return this nation to the control of We The People.

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Comment by William Chandler
2008-04-18 06:33:56
While conventional small arms are needed. People really do need to learn the design and making of EFPs and invent/design things for handling helicopters and armored vehicles. You won’t last long with just a rifle these days.
Comment by Stuart
2008-04-19 01:35:07
Nice to see people prepared to fight. That’s how we got our freedom to start with. “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition”.

Reply here Comment by mark david
2008-04-17 07:24:39
At least they are finally waking up and seeing the truth. How they could ever pass the law to begin with is unreal. I hope this is a new beginning for Congress.

Reply to this comment
Comment by Steve Hogan
2008-04-17 07:39:16
A new beginning? Thanks for the early morning chuckle.

Reply to this comment
Comment by Kenneth
2008-04-17 07:40:14
The drift toward authoritarianism results from the deteriorating capabilities of the American state. Don’t expect this process to reverse.

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Reply here Comment by DonT
2008-04-17 09:53:22
Not a Republic, but an oligarchy…since about 1896. A fascist
military dictatorship with a fourth estate turned into a fifth column.

Reply to this comment
Comment by travis_bickle
2008-04-18 07:44:02
You can say that again. The black hole of power that must accelerate trying to control every aspect of our lives until they implode. Its impossible to accomplish what they are doing without destroying what they say they are trying to protect. Turn off the TV unless you just want to see what they’re using to distract the slaves.

Reply to this comment Comment by Alexandra
2008-04-19 05:34:11
More like 1868 with the fraudulent 14th Amendment. Lincoln was opposed to that, which was a reason why he was shot.

Reply to this comment Comment by Chris Baker
2008-04-17 11:59:36
Congress actually did something–how shocking.

Reply to this comment
Comment by Kenneth
2008-04-17 12:03:35
Something productive, that is. Truly, a once in a lifetime event.

Reply to this comment Comment by daveg
2008-04-17 12:55:41
So, the Posse Comitatus Act is back in effect, more or less?

This is newsworthy.

The signing statement is interesting in that is he claiming the law was not effective prior to the previous revision, which last some 100+ years?

Reply to this comment Comment by David R. Henderson
2008-04-17 16:32:17
Thanks for your role in this, Jim.

David

Reply to this comment
Comment by James Bovard
2008-04-17 20:01:12
Thanks, David!

Reply to this comment Comment by 8Ball
2008-04-17 17:13:37
Just in case anyone has forgotten, it is an election year …

Reply to this comment
Comment by Kenneth
2008-04-17 17:17:20
And here is 8Ball to bring us back to Earth.

Reply to this comment Comment by FirstCasualty
2008-04-17 23:13:29
It’s inevitable :D. If you’re not pro-revolution you are not anti-war brother.

Reply to this comment
Comment by Eugene Costa
2008-04-17 23:35:27
If it is a Paul Revolution, it will be as bad as or worse than a McCain Revolution or Clinton Revolution, and any of them will fail and be utter disasters.

Reply to this comment
Comment by FirstCasualty
2008-04-18 01:11:45
You simply have failed to smell the wind or gauged the direction of the America people. They will simply not stand for more oppression or dissection of the Constitution. It’s not a candidate revolution it’s America’s and your inaction and failure to even address the issue with your vocabulary and lack of logic seems utterly sad. A form of autism on the other spectrum I would suspect. Utter dissapointment if your only purpose is to be a shill
for pro-war candidates. LOL :D

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Comment by Eugene Costa
2008-04-18 01:56:50
Another Paulist right?

Paul stands by with two criminals as Chief Executive and Vice President, and initially opposes impeachment and then hides in proper procedure.

He defuses the anti-war vote.

He goes to New Hampshire and runs commercials about immigration.

Ten to one you can’t even tell me where the big influx of Brazilians is.

Instead he blabbers on about self-ownership, immigration, the Federal Reserve (by the way I agree that it is a monster).

The “American People” don’t have one age or mind or direction, and are not even one people, but many, and to say they do and to smell that wind shows the provincialism of the people you are standing too closely behind.

Giraldi has it right about Obama–all “mights”. But all the others are “no way Jose”.

To stop an attack on Iran, impeachment now.

To stop a new king, impeachment now.

To open the possibility of a quick exit from Iraq impeachment now.

Trying to save the Republican Party that brought the United States the biggest disaster in its history, as Paul is evidently trying to do, is almost as lunatic as what the Neo-Cons are up to.

Reply here Comment by macemare
2008-04-19 04:39:07
Some one actually –wants war??? Could you put a name on him ??

Reply to this comment Comment by Eugene Costa
2008-04-17 23:58:27
Worrying about Presidential “signings” and suspensions of Posse Comitatus is valid.

But it is worrying about the symptoms rather than the disease.

The disease in this case is the continuing claim, Left and Right, to unrestricted Executive Power.

The cure for that is impeachment of both Bush and Cheney–and, after Kucinich, Cheney first.

Impeachment also provides the possibility of an exit strategy from Iraq. Not the only one perhaps, but possibly the only one that it is not catastrophic to whatever is left of the United States and the Constitution.

Is this the only disease? No. The ailments are so numerous and deep and chronic that just curing one improves the prognosis only marginally. But one also has to be careful not to cure one ailment with a remedy that produces ten new diseases.

For the moment a Congress of incompetent and venal clowns, at one another’s throats, is far superior to an autocratic and incompetent King.

Incidentally, the argument can be made that Shaw and many of the Fabians were not “Socialist” at all, save contingently. That was how bad their diagnosis was.

Also calling “Liberals” or Clintonites “Progressive” is nonsense.

The Democrats and Republicans are both now Fascist, with a slightly different makeup, and with only a few exceptions.

The addition to the mix of a thoroughly coopted “mainstream” media and key Zionist groups, Left and Right, makes this an unprecedented and highly combustible mixture.

Reply to this comment
Comment by Lester
2008-04-19 04:15:58
Don’t just impeach Bush, Cheney, et al. Convict them of war crimes, then send’em for jail for 50 years, no time off. Fifty years of boredom would be worse than death.

Reply to this comment Comment by Svensker
2008-04-18 04:20:23
Good news — that one was worrying me. Are you sure there was no signing statement?

Reply to this comment Comment by Hans Gruber
2008-04-18 06:39:01
You have a criminal elite who performed a nearly complete coup d’Etat, on 11-09-01. Were it not for one renegade, fighter squadron pilot (USAFR), the plane downed in PA was likely head for the congressional bldg. Any congress”person” worth a damn (that’s not many) knows this. Congress has lived in fear, with Cheney/Bush in the Whitehouse after two stolen elections in a row. The congress criters know this too. YET, congress has gone along with it all. The tiny flicker of courage during the final months of the Cheney/Bush Regime, is NOT a sign of a turnaround, yet.

Cheney/Bush/Neocons/Pentagon/Et Al, the entire cabal, should have been arrested, impeached, jailed, and hanged in a public display. Instead, congress, those who themselves didn’t deserved to be arrested, have cowered down and gone along with this junta.

They deserve no accolades. Not even for this legislative turnaround.

Reply to this comment
Comment by liberranter
2008-04-18 09:28:50
Spot on! Not only do these cowardly criminals NOT deserve praise for finally doing something just and legal, as is their sworn mandate, but they deserve censure and reprimand, at a minimum, and removal from office, ideally, for failing consistently over the last seven years (if not the last seven decades, or longer) to uphold the Constitution that is their sole purpose of office. OTOH, since the bulk of the Amoricon sheeple are by turns ignorant or contemptuous of and apathetic about the Constitution and the concept of limited federal powers, they too deserve mass censure and condemnation.

Reply to this comment Comment by Kay Billups
2008-04-18 23:51:45
wel said! although I still hope and pray they are seeing the light- and repenting for their collective cowardice (with a few- very few exceptions)…

Reply to this comment Comment by D.C.
2008-04-18 08:43:13
I don’t believe it! Something good for a change!!
However, Posse Comitatus only protects US Citizens from US Troops, not United Nations or Canadian Troops. And we just signed an agreement with Canada that will allow Canadian troops to deploy here on US Soil in a peace keeping role!
Hmmm, Maybe they’ll send the French Canadian troops!?

Reply to this comment
Comment by liberranter
2008-04-18 09:30:51
And we just signed an agreement with Canada that will allow Canadian troops to deploy here on US Soil in a peace keeping role!

The rounds from my assault rifle will be just as effective against Canadian, Mexican, or other foreign mercenaries as they will be against domestic criminals in the State’s employ.

Reply to this comment Comment by Bob Ference
2008-04-19 04:32:17
Yes, it won’t protect us from the likes of Blackwater, etc. either.

Reply to this comment Comment by Nike
2008-04-18 11:10:01
LMAO, it sure sounds like a bunch of Americans are fixin’ to shoot people. Yehaaaa!

Reply to this comment
Comment by Kenneth
2008-04-18 11:38:25
What was it Thomas Jefferson said about the right to revolution again?

Reply to this comment Comment by viper
2008-04-18 11:41:26
These “Signing Statements” have no validity in the law making process, the CONSTITUTION mandates that the President either sign the bill into law or return it to congress with his objections, the President has NO OTHER AUTHORITY to say that he/she will only enforce a part of a law…………..read the Constitution………..”anything which is repugnant to the constitution is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.”

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Comment by Eugene Costa
2008-04-18 13:11:59
Exactly so.

Reply to this comment Comment by Steve
2008-04-18 13:26:53
Bottom line here folks.
Everybody who figured that when the Democrats came into power a) would impeach Bush b) would pull us out of Iraq and c) would restore some of the lost liberties were absolutly WRONG and will always be wrong about that. Democrats were only “using” and “taking advantage of” the anti war feeling, the impeachment feelings and loss of liberty feelings so THEY could get INTO POWER. If a Democrat is elected President, he or she will expand those powers and abuse of authority and hardly anybody will say anything about it “because our guy is in office..”
The Republicans did the exact same thing and all the so called conservatives who howled and yelled about Clinton expanding government were silent when Bush proposed Budgets that dwarfed what Clintons proposals were going to be. All we have to understand is Congress is not afraid of the executive branch. Quite the opposite. They in essence are enabling it.

There will never be an impeachment of Bush/Cheney because the Democrats want their guy to have all the power and authority, plus whatever other power and authority he or she can grab on to.

You are correct that so called signing statements are absolutly worthless. The problem with that is the Democratic controlled congress ultimatly goes along with them, which means if Hillary or Obama gets elected, then their guy will be dropping signing statements all over the place as well.

Even though something may be unconstitutional, not legal, invalid, as long as Congress and the Courts in essence recognize it as being legal those arguments go down the drain.

People blah and yack about how they are going to do this or that. Remember the so called Trucker strike of April 1st. Blabbed to absolute death. We heard tales about when truckers lose money every trip because of the cost of fuel, how they are nearly bankrupt, blah blah blah. What happened? Traffic was slowed down on the New Jersey turnpike for a day and a few other areas and other then that NOTHING. Likewise the so called truckers complaining about how they were losing money every time they got into their rigs turned around and got into their rigs on April 2 and forward. Since that time Diseal has gone up more.

In a nation with 600 million people, you have 600 million different agendas, with very few cohesive forces. All people care about is a) a paycheck b) benifits so they won’t lift a finger from status quo if their paycheck is on the line. Especially where people are losing homes across the country. The people losing their homes only care about themselves and where their next meal is coming from. They don’t care about issues of freedom, the plight of the truckers or anybody else for that matter.

Likewise most of the people blogging about issues of freedom. Everybody talks and blabs, but if you ask them if freedom was important enough to quit their job to go and do “something” you would have FEW takers if any. Sure you might have a one day disruption, but then everybody will go back to work the next day. I find it ironic that some freedom orientated people are trying to line something up on May 1st, a known communist day of celebration. Ironic isn’t it?

The truth is simply this. If a Democrat gets elected, and takes a bunch of unconstitutional power and authority, most of the bloggers and liberals that were wanting to impeach Bush/Cheny for that reason will suddenly be quiet about the abuses of power and authority. Now on the other side of the isle, it will be “some” of the Republicans that haven’t been howling and yelling about budgets, unconstitutional power and authority blah blah blah for 8 years, will suddenly start howling and yelling about it. Watch and see.

Cheers,

Robert

Reply to this comment Comment by Tough Guy With Falsetto
2008-04-18 18:21:13
Leahy would sanction dirty wars just like Clinton, Reagan et. al. if he had his finger on the red button. They all want the same thing. They all turn my (fit n’ trim) stomach. Don’t vote. Don’t speak to xenophobic uncles. Channel Ghandi and the best Roman Catholic Poets. Channel booze, coffee and British cigarettes. Be chic. Be righteous. Be now.

Reply to this comment Comment by Eugene Costa
2008-04-18 19:28:12
Turkish Special (straights)–oval and with a touch of Latakia. Where have they gone (they are apparently still selling filters)?

Camel straights are still the best American cigarette–also with the necessary touch of Latakia.

Reply to this comment Comment by Eugene Costa
2008-04-18 19:30:52
I haven’t smoked them in years but the Mexico once had a cigarette almost the class of Camel straights–ten cents a pack (USD). How much are they now?

Reply to this comment Comment by Eugene Costa
2008-04-18 19:32:19
Pelosi has to go–tabling impeachment AND banning smoking.

Reply to this comment Comment by wkwillis
2008-04-18 19:46:34
I did notice that the law was passed when the Republicans had a majority and repealed when they realised that they were about to lose the White House. Maybe they started to worry about who was going to round up who?
It may not make a difference to you which particular set of goons takes over, but it sure does to them.

Reply to this comment Comment by Diane Henry
2008-04-19 03:06:46
Congress can’t impeach. They only have power so long as the administration humors them. The
law under COG (continuity of government) which has been and still is implemented, gives power
over state and federal law so long as the dictator/president decides. That is why signing statements are ‘allowed’, subpoenas are ignored, treasonous international agreements are endured, and the arrogant, flippant attitude is so prevalent. Check out NSPD51. When the president determines a catastrophic emergency has occurred, the president can take over all government functions and direct all private sector activities to “ensure we will emerge from the emergency”. Sometimes listed as PDD #51 (presidential directive), it can be found at whitehouse.gov or use a search engine.

Any relief we might have hoped for is not going to be immediate to say the least.

Reply to this comment Comment by Steve Pallister
2008-04-19 03:35:44
This repeal is meaningless since the USA is no longer a land of laws. Bush can use a signing statement or just do what he wants anyway. Who is going to stop him?

Watch those who are already successfully resisting US predations and learn the lessons they teach. The Iraqi resistance is showing how it is done.

Reply to this comment Comment by Tim
2008-04-19 03:45:25
you meen those scumbags in Wash*n$ton did something for our rights? There must be another motive, or something else coming soon.

If you are wondering why I spelled the name of Washington the way I did above, it is because the slime in our nations capital are not worthy to be associated with George’s great name!

Reply to this comment Comment by Parris Island Graduate
2008-04-19 05:22:04
Military grade high power rifles are necessary,but one should get armor piercing rounds - preferably 7.62×51.
I have witnessed them piercing 1? of solid steel!.
These make any body armor that can be worn resemble toilet paper,which induces quite a bit of paranoia in the thug who’s job is to kick in doors late at night.

This potential has a great ability to make them question their “line of work”.

They can still be legally purchased for rifle calibers only,get them while you can from gun shows, etc.

Remember,being anti-war is good as it relates to foreign intervention,but we have to be pro-war in the eyes of our government in order to maintain our own liberties.

Reply to this comment Comment by Jean Lafitte
2008-04-19 05:29:53
you’re going to reclasim America from the thug law enforcement heroes with three boxes of ammo for your 38-caliber pistols and rabbit-hunting pea-shooters? They’ll start respecting you when you can blow their thermal-imaging helicopters out of the sky, level the National Fingerprint Center to dust along with police departments across thre land, and storm the White House to hang the 911 traitor-psychopaths who are irradiating the U.S. military and the entire world from Iraq.

Reply to this comment Comment by ttt
2008-04-19 05:31:14
the crooks and thiefs in the district of criminals never had ANY lawfull athority to declare martail law OVER states rights in the first place, such matters are to be adressed by a well regulated malita of WE the people–rome is BURNING can you smell the SMOKE????

Reply to this comment Comment by Rusty
2008-04-19 05:35:37
Parris Island Grad.
You would be talking about an M-60 machinegun. My MOS in the big green weinie. Barrett Firearms in Tenn. makes a 50 cal. Target Rifle that is excellent for busting anything from anti-assasin plating in doors to body armour. When our para-military local police force starts beating down doors and rounding up “enemy combatants” (those that are neither “with us or against us”) my aim shall be true. Shouldn’t be much longer. Maybe a month or two.
good luck



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