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Paul Merrell

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders get off Israel bandwagon, for once - Mondoweiss - 0 views

  • The Senate is warning Palestinians against undertaking any “negative” unilateral actions re Israel at the United Nations, and look who isn’t signing on to the letter that AIPAC has endorsed: Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Folks have been pressing Warren and her staffers not to sign this letter – and she didn’t. Neither did Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Maybe the national publicity and pressure on these progressives over their Israel-Palestine positions moved them? Maybe they’re tacking ahead of 2016? Here are the 12 non-signers, from both parties: Bernard Sanders (I), Bob Corker (R), Elizabeth Warren (D), Harry Reid*, Jeff Sessions (R), John D. Rockefeller IV*, Lisa Murkowski (R), Patrick J. Leahy* (D), Rand Paul (R), Tammy Baldwin (D), Tom Coburn (R), Tom Harkin* (D). (*Majority leader/ senior committee chairs who don’t usually subscribe to these things) Is this the beginning of a Senate “refuser caucus”? We can only hope
  • The Senate is warning Palestinians against undertaking any “negative” unilateral actions re Israel at the United Nations, and look who isn’t signing on to the letter that AIPAC has endorsed: Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Folks have been pressing Warren and her staffers not to sign this letter – and she didn’t. Neither did Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Maybe the national publicity and pressure on these progressives over their Israel-Palestine positions moved them? Maybe they’re tacking ahead of 2016? Here are the 12 non-signers, from both parties: Bernard Sanders (I), Bob Corker (R), Elizabeth Warren (D), Harry Reid*, Jeff Sessions (R), John D. Rockefeller IV*, Lisa Murkowski (R), Patrick J. Leahy* (D), Rand Paul (R), Tammy Baldwin (D), Tom Coburn (R), Tom Harkin* (D). (*Majority leader/ senior committee chairs who don’t usually subscribe to these things) Is this the beginning of a Senate “refuser caucus”? We can only hope.
  • J Street supported the letter, right alongside AIPAC. Another sign of JStreet as “AIPAC Lite” giving liberal cover for the Israel lobby agenda. The text of the letter is up at New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte‘s site. It urges the State Department to keep Hamas from rebuilding its military capabilities and governing Gaza, and to prevent the Palestinian Authority from going to the International Criminal Court.
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  • J Street supported the letter, right alongside AIPAC. Another sign of JStreet as “AIPAC Lite” giving liberal cover for the Israel lobby agenda. The text of the letter is up at New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte‘s site. It urges the State Department to keep Hamas from rebuilding its military capabilities and governing Gaza, and to prevent the Palestinian Authority from going to the International Criminal Court.
  • The full text of the Senators’ letter is below:
  • The full text of the Senators’ letter is below:
meheksharma

Zodiac Sign Daily Prediction - 13th Feb 2017 - 0 views

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    Know your day before you went out Aries Today is day of work for you. You can be busy and tied up with the work. This is a good day to start or take up any new work. Lucky No.s - 1 Lucky Colour - White Purchase of new things/Property/Signing of new contract - Yes
Paul Merrell

150 House Democrats Bolster Obama's Position on Iran Deal « LobeLog - 0 views

  • Thursday’s release of a letter signed by 150 House Democrats makes it significantly more likely that a nuclear deal negotiated between the P5+1 and Iran will survive a congressional challenge. The letter, an initiative of Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), and David Price (D-NC), expresses strong support for Obama’s efforts to conclude an agreement. It has been quietly circulating on Capitol Hill for several weeks and was made public only when 150 lawmakers signed it—several more than needed to sustain an Obama veto of legislation disapproving a deal with Iran. (As most readers of this blog know, overriding a presidential veto requires that at least two-thirds of the membership of each house of Congress vote to do so.) The Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent explained the letter’s implications on his Plum Line blog this morning, and there’s no need for me to repeat what he wrote when you can follow the link. But he made one very good point that deserves attention: “…[T]he goal of the letter isn’t just to signal that a veto would likely be sustained. It’s also meant to signal that there is more Congressional support than expected for the negotiations in order to help along the talks.” The letter is also likely to give Iranian negotiators more confidence that a final deal signed by the U.S. will not be overturned by Congress.
  • The letter is likely to get much less media attention than the Senate’s approval on Thursday of the Corker-Cardin bill without any substantial amendment. If also passed by the House and signed into law by Obama, the legislation will permit Congress to review and potentially block a final deal within 30 days of its submission by the administration. The final vote was 98-1. The lone dissenter was, predictably, Tom Cotton (R-AR), who is quickly establishing himself as the Republicans’ foreign-policy enfant terrible. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), one of the administration’s closest allies on Iran, did not vote.
Paul Merrell

Iceland the first European Nation to sign Free Trade Agreement with China | nsnbc inter... - 0 views

  • A Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has been signed in Beijing by Mr. Össur Skarphéðinsson, Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade of Iceland, and Mr. Gao Hucheng, Minister of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, in the presence of the Prime Minister of Iceland and the Premier of China. The agreement, signed on September 15, made Iceland the first European nation to sign and FTA with China. 
  • The central aim of the Iceland-China Free Trade Agreement is to promote trade by abolishing tariffs on imports and to further enhance economic ties between the two countries, reports the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) of Iceland, adding that it is in essence similar to other FTAs that Iceland, as a member of European Free Trade Association (EFTA), has already concluded. The new bilateral FTA covers trade in goods and services, rules of origin, trade facilitation, intellectual property rights, competition and investment. Furthermore, the FTA entails that the two states should enhance their co-operation in a number of areas, including on labor matters and the environment, reports the MoFA of Iceland. A Joint Free Trade Commission will supervise the functioning of the FTA and establishes a framework for resolving trade issues that may arise in the future. The Iceland-China Free Trade Agreement will enter into force when legal procedures of acceptance in both countries have been concluded.
Paul Merrell

The Western Alliance Is Crumbling: EU Is Abandoning U.S. on Overthrowing Assad | Global... - 0 views

  • Europe is being overrun by refugees from American bombing campaigns in Libya and Syria, which created a failed state in Libya, and which threaten to do the same in Syria. Europe is thus being forced to separate itself from endorsing the U.S. bombing campaign that focuses against the Syrian government forces of the secular Shiite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, instead of against his fundamentalist Sunni Islamic opponents, the jihadist groups (all of which are Sunni), such as ISIS, and Al Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra).
  • Russia announced on October 2nd that their bombing campaign against America’s allies in Syria — ISIS and Al Nusra (the latter being Al Qaeda in Syria) — will intensify and will last “three or four months.” U.S. President Barack Obama is insisting upon excluding Russia from any peace talks on Syria; the U.S. will not move forward with peace talks unless Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad first steps down. But Russia is the only serious military power against the jihadists who are trying to defeat Assad, and Russia is now committing itself also to providing Lebanon with weapons against the jihadists, who are America’s allies in Lebanon too.
  • That’s hardly the only ‘legacy’ issue for Obama — his war against Russia, via overthrowing Gaddafi, then Yanukovych, and his still trying to overthrow Assad — which is now forcing the break-up of the Western Alliance, over the resulting refugee-crisis. An even bigger such conflict within the Alliance concerns Obama’s proposed treaty with European states, the TTIP, which would give international corporations rights to sue national governments in non-appealable global private arbitration panels, the dictates from which will stand above any member-nation’s laws. Elected government officials will have no control over them. This supra-national mega-corporate effort by Obama is also part of his similar effort in his proposed TPP treaty with Asian nations, both of which are additionally aimed to isolate from international trade not just Russia, but China, so as to leave America’s large international corporations controlling virtually the entire world. As things now stand regarding these ‘trade’ deals, Obama will either need to eliminate some of his demands, or else the European Commission won’t be able to muster enough of its members to support Obama’s proposed treaty with the EU, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). Also, some key European nations might reject Obama’s proposed treaty on regulations regarding financial and other services: TISA (Trade In Services Agreement). All three of Obama’s proposed ‘trade’ deals, including the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) between the U.S. and Asian countries, are the actual culmination of Obama’s Presidency, and they’re all about far more than just trade and economics. The main proposed deal with Europe might now be dead.
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  • Thirdly, I am opposed to the signing of an agreement with a power that legalizes widespread and systematic spying on my fellow European citizens and European businesses. Edward Snowden’s revelations are instructive in this regard. As long as the agreement does not protect the personal data of European and US citizens, it cannot be signed. Fourth, the United States proposes a transatlantic common financial space, but they adamantly refuse a common regulation of finance, and they refuse to abolish systematic discrimination by the US financial markets against European financial services. They want to have their cake and eat it too: I object to the idea of a common area without common rules, and I reject commercial discrimination. Fifth, I object to the questioning of European health protections. Washington must understand once and for all that notwithstanding its insistence, we do not want our plates or animals treated with growth hormones nor products derived from GMOs, or chemical decontamination of meat, or of genetically modified seeds or non-therapeutic antibiotics in animal feed. Sixth, I object to the signing of an agreement if it does not include the end of the US monetary dumping. Since the abolition of the gold convertibility of the dollar and the transition to the system of floating exchange rates, the dollar is both American national currency and the main unit for exchange reserves in the world. The Federal Reserve then continually practices monetary dumping, by influencing the amount of dollars available to facilitate exports from the United States. China proposes to eliminate this unfair advantage by making “special drawing rights” of the IMF the new global reference currency. But as things now stand, America’s monetary weapon has the same effect as customs duties against every other nation. [And he will not sign unless it’s removed.]
  • On September 27th, France’s newspaper SouthWest featured an exclusive interview with Matthias Fekl, France’s Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, in which he said that “France is considering all options, including outright termination of negotiations” on the TTIP. He explained that, ever since the negotiations began in 2013, “These negotiations have been and are being conducted in a total lack of transparency,” and that France has, as of yet, received “no serious offer from the Americans.” The reasons for this stunning public rejection had probably already been accurately listed more than a year ago. After all, France has, throughout all of the negotiations, received “no serious offer from the Americans”; not now, and not back at the start of the negotiations in 2013. The U.S. has been steadfast. Jean Arthuis, a member of the European Parliament, and formerly France’s Minister of Economy and Finance, headlined in Le Figaro, on 10 April 2014, “7 good reasons to oppose the transatlantic treaty”. There is no indication that the situation has changed since then, as regards the basic demands that President Obama is making. Arthuis said at that time: First, I am opposed to private arbitration of disputes between States and businesses. [It would place corporate arbitrators above any nation’s laws and enable them to make unappealable decisions whenever a corporation sues a nation for alleged damages for alleged violations of its rights by that nation of the trade-treaty.] Such a procedure is strictly contrary to the idea that I have of the sovereignty of States. … Secondly, I am opposed to any questioning of the European system of appellations of origin. Tomorrow, according to the US proposal, there would be a non-binding register, and only for wines and spirits. Such a reform would kill many European local products, whose value is based on their certified origin.
  • Seventh, beyond the audiovisual sector alone, which is the current standard of government that serves as a loincloth to its cowardice on all other European interests in these negotiations, I want all the cultural exceptions prohibited. In particular, it is unacceptable to allow the emerging digital services in Europe to be swept up by US giants such as Google, Amazon or Netflix. They’re giant absolute masters in tax optimization, which make Europe a “digital colony.” President Obama’s negotiator is his close personal friend, Michael Froman, a man who is even trying to force Europe to reduce its fuel standards against global warming and whose back-room actions run exactly contrary to Obama’s public rhetoric. Froman and Obama have been buddies since they worked together as editors on Harvard Law Review. He knows what Obama’s real goals are. Also: “Froman introduced Mr. Obama to Robert E. Rubin, the former Treasury secretary,” who had brought into the Clinton Administration Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, and had championed (along with them) the ending of the regulations on banks that the previous Democratic President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had put into place. (President Bill Clinton signed that legislation just as he left office, and this enabled the long process to occur with MBS securities and with financial derivatives, which culminated with the 2008 crash, and this same legislation also enabled the mega-banks to get bailed out by U.S. taxpayers for their crash — on exactly the basis that FDR had outlawed.)
  • Froman has always been a pro-mega-corporate, pro-mega-bank champion, who favors only regulations which benefit America’s super-rich, no regulations which benefit the public. Froman’s introducing the Wall Street king Robert Rubin to the then-Senator Obama was crucial to Obama’s becoming enabled to win the U.S. Presidency; Robert Rubin’s contacts among the super-rich were essential in order for that — Obama’s getting a real chance to win the Presidency — to happen. It enabled Obama to compete effectively against Hillary Clinton. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. His winning Robert Rubin’s support was crucial to his becoming President. The chances, that President Obama will now be able to get the support from any entity but the U.S. Congress for his proposed TTIP treaty with Europe, are reducing by the day. Europe seems to be less corrupt than is the United States, after all. The only independent economic analysis that has been done of the proposed TTIP finds that the only beneficiaries from it will be large international corporations, especially ones that are based in the United States. Workers, consumers, and everybody else, will lose from it, if it passes into law. Apparently, enough European officials care about that, so as to be able to block the deal. Or else: Obama will cede on all seven of the grounds for Europe’s saying no. At this late date, that seems extremely unlikely.
Paul Merrell

Hamas backs Palestinian push for ICC Gaza war crimes probe | Reuters - 0 views

  • (Reuters) - Hamas leaders said on Saturday they had given their consent for the Palestinians to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), a move that could open up both Israel and the militant group to war crime probes over the fighting in Gaza. Moussa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas leader based in Cairo, said he had signed a document Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says all factions must endorse before he proceeds with the ICC push.If the Palestinians were to sign the ICC's founding treaty, the Rome Statute, the court would have jurisdiction over crimes committed in the Palestinian territories.An investigation could then examine events as far back as mid-2002, when the ICC opened with a mandate to try individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.Explaining the Islamist group's decision to sign, Hamas official Mushir al-Masri told Reuters: "There is nothing to fear, the Palestinian factions are leading legitimate resistance in keeping with all international laws and standards.""We are in a state of self-defence," he added.
  • At a news conference in Cairo earlier on Saturday, Abbas said he had asked all factions to join the ICC bid, adding: "There will be results for them joining." There was no immediate comment from Israel, which is also not an ICC member. It says Hamas has committed war crimes by both firing thousands of rockets indiscriminately at Israeli towns and cities and by using Gazans as human shields.A statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not directly address the Hamas move, but it quoted the Israeli leader as telling U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Hamas was guilty of such crimes.
  • Palestinian health officials say 2,078 people, most of them civilians, have been killed by Israel since it launched its offensive, which is intended to end the militants' rocket fire.The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) said on Saturday at least 480 Palestinian children had been reported killed.
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  • Malki says the Palestinian Authority's current U.N. status, upgraded to "non-member state" from "entity" by a vote of the General Assembly in 2012, qualified it to become an ICC member and a decision on whether to apply could happen very soon.As neither Israel nor the Palestinians are ICC members, the court currently lacks jurisdiction over Gaza. This could be granted by a U.N. Security Council resolution, but Israel's main ally, the United States, would probably veto any such proposal.Membership of the ICC opens countries to investigations both on their behalf and against them. Several powers, including the United States, have declined to ratify the ICC founding treaty, citing the possibility of politically motivated prosecutions.The ICC is a court of last resort, meaning that it will only intervene when a country is found to be unwilling or unable to carry out its own investigation.
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    Not a decision to go to the ICC, but the latest in a consistent dribble of information indicating that the Palestinian state is working toward doing so.  The slow pace of the public indications hint that they are intended to increase Palestinian leverage in negotiations. To me the questions of whether Abbas would actually make such a complaint and if he did so whether ICC would proceed with a prosecution are far from settled.  Almost certainly, such a complaint would end negotiations and U.S. subsidy of the Palestinian government's expenses. Abbas has previously shown no sign of being more than a U.S.-Israeli puppet. And the U.S. and Israel are applying stiff pressure on the ICC not to take the case if it arrives there, including a U.S. threat to cease its funding contributions to the ICC. On the other hand, if Abbas wishes to preserve his unity government with Hamas and thus have standing to speak for the entirety of the Palestinian population, he *must* be perceived  in Gaza as either delivering or fighting hard for very substantial easing of Israel's blockade of Gaza. A complaint to the ICC would be perceived as fighting hard, as having abandoned his commitment to resolution purely via negotiation.   So there is a lot of pressure on Abbas to do something more than negotiate unsuccessfully. And the U.S. and Israel leadership surely realize that.
Paul Merrell

Republicans Warn Iran -- and Obama -- That Deal Won't Last - Bloomberg View - 0 views

  • A group of 47 Republican senators has written an open letter to Iran's leaders warning them that any nuclear deal they sign with President Barack Obama's administration won’t last after Obama leaves office. Organized by freshman Senator Tom Cotton and signed by the chamber's entire party leadership as well as potential 2016 presidential contenders Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, the letter is meant not just to discourage the Iranian regime from signing a deal but also to pressure the White House into giving Congress some authority over the process. “It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system … Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement,” the senators wrote. “The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”
  • Arms-control advocates and supporters of the negotiations argue that the next president and the next Congress will have a hard time changing or canceling any Iran deal -- -- which is reportedly near done -- especially if it is working reasonably well. Many inside the Republican caucus, however, hope that by pointing out the long-term fragility of a deal with no congressional approval -- something Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has also noted -- the Iranian regime might be convinced to think twice. "Iran's ayatollahs need to know before agreeing to any nuclear deal that … any unilateral executive agreement is one they accept at their own peril,” Cotton told me. The issue has already become part of the 2016 GOP campaign. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush came out against the negotiations in a speech at the Chicago Council last month. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry released a video criticizing the negotiations and calling for Congressional oversight. “An arms control agreement that excludes our Congress, damages our security and endangers our allies has to be reconsidered by any future president,” Perry said. Republicans also have a new argument to make in asserting their role in the diplomatic process: Vice President Joe Biden similarly insisted -- in a letter to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell -- on congressional approval for the Moscow Treaty on strategic nuclear weapons with Russia in 2002, when he was head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
  • The new letter is the latest piece of an effort by Senators in both parties to ensure that Congress will have some say if and when a deal is signed. Senators Bob Corker, Lindsey Graham, Tim Kaine and the embattled Bob Menendez have a bill pending that would mandate a Congressional review of the Iran deal, but Republicans and Democrats have been bickering over how to proceed in the face of a threatened presidential veto. Still, Senators from both parties are united in an insistence that, at some point, the administration will need their buy-in for any nuclear deal with Iran to succeed. There’s no sign yet that Obama believes this -- or, if he does, that he plans to engage Congress in any meaningful way.
Paul Merrell

Exclusive: TSA's Secret Behavior Checklist to Spot Terrorists - The Intercept - 0 views

  • Fidgeting, whistling, sweaty palms. Add one point each. Arrogance, a cold penetrating stare, and rigid posture, two points. These are just a few of the suspicious signs that the Transportation Security Administration directs its officers to look out for — and score — in airport travelers, according to a confidential TSA document obtained exclusively by The Intercept. The checklist is part of TSA’s controversial program to identify potential terrorists based on behaviors that it thinks indicate stress or deception — known as the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques, or SPOT. The program employs specially trained officers, known as Behavior Detection Officers, to watch and interact with passengers going through screening. The document listing the criteria, known as the “Spot Referral Report,” is not classified, but it has been closely held by TSA and has not been previously released. A copy was provided to The Intercept by a source concerned about the quality of the program.
  • Fidgeting, whistling, sweaty palms. Add one point each. Arrogance, a cold penetrating stare, and rigid posture, two points. These are just a few of the suspicious signs that the Transportation Security Administration directs its officers to look out for — and score — in airport travelers, according to a confidential TSA document obtained exclusively by The Intercept. The checklist is part of TSA’s controversial program to identify potential terrorists based on behaviors that it thinks indicate stress or deception — known as the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques, or SPOT. The program employs specially trained officers, known as Behavior Detection Officers, to watch and interact with passengers going through screening.
  • The document listing the criteria, known as the “Spot Referral Report,” is not classified, but it has been closely held by TSA and has not been previously released. A copy was provided to The Intercept by a source concerned about the quality of the program. The checklist ranges from the mind-numbingly obvious, like “appears to be in disguise,” which is worth three points, to the downright dubious, like a bobbing Adam’s apple. Many indicators, like “trembling” and “arriving late for flight,” appear to confirm allegations that the program picks out signs and emotions that are common to many people who fly.
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  • A TSA spokesperson declined to comment on the criteria obtained by The Intercept. “Behavior detection, which is just one element of the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) efforts to mitigate threats against the traveling public, is vital to TSA’s layered approach to deter, detect and disrupt individuals who pose a threat to aviation,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
  • Since its introduction in 2007, the SPOT program has attracted controversy for the lack of science supporting it. In 2013, the Government Accountability Office found that there was no evidence to back up the idea that “behavioral indicators … can be used to identify persons who may pose a risk to aviation security.” After analyzing hundreds of scientific studies, the GAO concluded that “the human ability to accurately identify deceptive behavior based on behavioral indicators is the same as or slightly better than chance.” The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security found in 2013 that TSA had failed to evaluate SPOT, and “cannot ensure that passengers at United States airports are screened objectively, show that the program is cost-effective, or reasonably justify the program’s expansion.” Despite those concerns, TSA has trained and deployed thousands of Behavior Detection Officers, and the program has cost more than $900 million since it began in 2007, according to the GAO.
  • The 92-point checklist listed in the “Spot Referral Report” is divided into various categories with a point score for each. Those categories include a preliminary “observation and behavior analysis,” and then those passengers pulled over for additional inspection are scored based on two more categories: whether they have “unusual items,” like almanacs and “numerous prepaid calling cards or cell phones,” and a final category for “signs of deception,” which include “covers mouth with hand when speaking” and “fast eye blink rate. Points can also be deducted from someone’s score based on observations about the traveler that make him or her less likely, in TSA’s eyes, to be a terrorist. For example, “apparent” married couples, if both people are over 55, have two points deducted off their score. Women over the age of 55 have one pointed deducted; for men, the point deduction doesn’t come until they reach 65. Last week, the ACLU sued TSA to obtain records related to its behavior detection programs, alleging that they lead to racial profiling. The lawsuit is based on a Freedom of Information Act request the ACLU filed last November asking for numerous documents related to the program, including the scientific justification for the program, changes to the list of behavior indicators, materials used to train officers and screen passengers, and what happens to the information collected on travelers.
  • “The TSA has insisted on keeping documents about SPOT secret, but the agency can’t hide the fact that there’s no evidence the program works,” said Hugh Handeyside, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, in a statement announcing the lawsuit. Being on the lookout for suspicious behavior is a “common sense approach” that is used by law enforcement, according to TSA. “No single behavior alone will cause a traveler to be referred to additional screening or will result in a call to a law enforcement officer (LEO),” the agency said in its emailed statement. “Officers are trained and audited to ensure referrals for additional screening are based only on observable behaviors and not race or ethnicity.” One former Behavior Detection Officer manager, who asked not to be identified, said that SPOT indicators are used by law enforcement to justify pulling aside anyone officers find suspicious, rather than acting as an actual checklist for specific indicators. “The SPOT sheet was designed in such a way that virtually every passenger will exhibit multiple ‘behaviors’ that can be assigned a SPOT sheet value,” the former manager said.
  • The signs of deception and fear “are ridiculous,” the source continued. “These are just ‘catch all’ behaviors to justify BDO interaction with a passenger. A license to harass.” The observations of a TSA screener or a Behavior Detection Officer shouldn’t be the basis for referring someone to law enforcement. “The program is flawed and unnecessarily delays and harasses travelers. Taxpayer dollars would be better spent funding real police at TSA checkpoints,” the former manager said. A second former Behavior Detection Officer manager, who also asked not to be identified, told The Intercept that the program suffers from lack of science and simple inconsistency, with every airport training its officers differently. “The SPOT program is bullshit,” the manager told The Intercept. “Complete bullshit.”
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    I've completely boycotted airlines in the U.S. since 2002 because I refuse to submit to the outrageous treatment by government that is now required to board a commercial airliner. If the airlines want my business, they need to start lobbying to end the politics of fear and the Gestapo tactics of government. plus pushing for an honest investigation of the 9/11/2001 incidents.  
Paul Merrell

Declaration For The Americas Moves Toward Signing Without US And Canada - 0 views

  • Negotiations held over the past 18 years toward resolving historic issues of land dispossession and conflicts over natural resources with indigenous peoples of the Americas are finally expected to reach consensus by May. “We were told there are some states very interested in getting the declaration done so we can move to another stage in the Organization of American States (OAS) and be able to enforce the rights recognized,” said Leonardo A. Crippa, a senior attorney for the Indian Law Resource Center in Washington. “It’s aiming to be completed by May so the text can be submitted for approval to the General Assembly of the OAS, which is meeting in D.C. in June.”
  • This process began in 1989, when the OAS General Assembly approved a resolution to ask the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) to prepare a declaration on the rights of indigenous people of North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The IACHR submitted the first Draft American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 1997. Also that year, the Indian Law Resource Center and other indigenous rights groups such as the Native American Rights Fund in Colorado petitioned the OAS to create a working group to discuss issues with member states and work toward reaching consensus on resolutions.
  • “We are doing our best to advise indigenous representatives, have discussions with the OAS, and compose language that is more defined than the U.N. Declaration [on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples] to reflect regional issues,” Crippa said. Yet, as Crippa notes, the United States and Canada, among other OAS states, have not accepted the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court on Human Rights and continue to refuse to sign onto the draft declaration. A statement released by the U.S. delegation to the negotiations in March states: “The United States remains committed to addressing the urgent issues of indigenous peoples in the hemisphere, including combating societal discrimination against indigenous peoples, increasing indigenous participation in national political processes, addressing lack of infrastructure and poor living conditions in indigenous areas, and collaborating on issues of land rights and self governance.” It also notes that the U.S. “continues to believe the OAS can be mobilized to make a practical difference in the lives of indigenous peoples,” but reiterates that it refuses to sign the declaration.
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  • The study also found that Brazil is the country with the greatest diversity of indigenous peoples in isolation, followed by Peru and Bolivia. The current version of the OAS declaration includes Article XXVI, agreed by consensus in 2005, specifically for indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation to have the right to remain in that condition and to live freely and in accordance with their cultures. “In most cases the key recommendation is to prevent contact either by state agencies, officials, non-government organizations or companies wanting to exploit resources of their lands,” Crippa said. Their ancestors lived on the land long before the current states even existed. Vulnerable and at risk of disappearing entirely, they cannot advocate for their own rights. The study cites the National Environment Commission of Peru’s findings that from 1950 to 1957 a total of 11 indigenous groups disappeared completely from the Amazon, and of those remaining, 18 are in grave danger of disappearing, as they each have fewer than 225 members.
  • “There are regional particulates that are unique and not defined in the U.N. Declaration [UNDRIP],” Crippa said. He used the example of people in the Americas living in voluntary isolation, emphasizing, “We need to protect these peoples from internal armed conflicts, such as in Colombia, where they’re caught in the middle of military, paramilitary and guerrilla forces. It’s a situation of a government of a country trying to control land of indigenous peoples without respect to their rights.” Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation are groups or individuals who remain untouched by non-indigenous populations. They do not maintain contact with non-indigenous populations, may reject any type of contact, or may have chosen to return to their traditional culture and break relations with non-native societies in favor of maintaining their own ways of life. A provision to protect indigenous communities living in isolation has been approved in the OAS draft declaration, which has no corresponding provision in UNDRIP.
  • When efforts to resolve issues have failed to find remedy in their own country, the IACHR can be appealed to. All 35 member states of the OAS are under the jurisdiction of the IACHR, headquartered in Washington. No country can be a part of the OAS process without ratifying the OAS Charter. “All 35 member countries have signed the Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man of 1948,” said Maria Isabel Rivera, director of Press and Publications for the IACHR. “This means the Commission analyzes all cases and petitions and monitors human rights situations in those countries under the light of the rights recognized in the Declaration.” Countries that have not ratified the convention include the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Cuba, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the U.S. Thus, cases originating in these countries cannot be brought to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, but they can be brought to IACHR in a petition of injustice.
  • The OAS draft declaration recommends protections including legislation that specifically addresses indigenous rights to land, culture and self-determination, and training programs for state employees, who may encounter issues that affect communities living in voluntary isolation. It further recommends studies for projects which take into account people living in isolation nearby, and sanctions for those violating natural resources protections. It also calls for limiting commercial tourism in the territories of people living in voluntary isolation and urges companies, organizations and governments to work in coordination with indigenous groups which aim to protect indigenous rights toward free and prior consent. “Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, express, and freely develop their cultural identity in all respects, free from any external attempt at assimilation,” the draft also states. “The States shall not carry out, adopt, support, or favor any policy to assimilate the indigenous peoples or to destroy their cultures.”
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    Did the U.S. refuse because it wishes to retain the option of exploiting indigenous peoples' lands? 
Paul Merrell

Congress Seeks to undermine Iran Deal by Linking Iran with ISIS | Global Research - Cen... - 0 views

  • One of the consequences of the Iran Deal was the declaration by countless politicians that they were going to crack down on Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism. Even the White House signed on to this idea. Well now some of the backlash has officially begun: Congress is linking Iran with ISIS, even though Iran is fighting ISIS. [and ISIS is supported by the US, GR ed.] Few mainstream publications have picked up on the fact that in a response to the San Bernardino killings, the Congress last week passed legislation, which the president duly signed, that puts Iran in an axis of international-terrorist evil along with Syria, Iraq and Sudan. The legislation amends our country’s visa waiver program. Iranian dual nationals, as well as US citizens who have visited Iran, will need visas to get into the U.S. Reuters: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday said it was “absurd” that Tehran should be included on the list. “No Iranian nor anybody who visited Iran had anything to do with the tragedies that have taken place in Paris or in San Bernardino or anywhere else,” he said in an interview with Middle East-focused website Al Monitor. Secretary of State John Kerry promptly met with Zarif, his Iranian counterpart, to assure him that the new law doesn’t undercut the Iran deal. But the Iranians say that the legislation is the result of pro-Israel lobbying. And even the State Department describes Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism.  
  •  Iranians say the bill reflects pro-Israel lobbying. Reuters: Iran said on Monday that Israeli lobbying was behind a new measure passed by the U.S. Congress that will prevent visa-free travel to the United States for people who have visited Iran or hold Iranian nationality. The measure, which President Barack Obama signed into law on Friday, also applies to Iraq, Syria and Sudan, and was introduced as a security measure after the Islamic State attacks in Paris and a similar attack in San Bernardino, California.
  • More from Reuters‘ description of the Israel lobby angle: Iran, a Shi’ite Muslim theocracy staunchly opposed to Sunni radicalism espoused by groups like Islamic State, says its inclusion on the list is intended to undermine a deal on its nuclear programme that Tehran reached with world powers, including the United States, in July, known as the JCPOA. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said in a televised news conference that the U.S. measure had been passed “under pressure from the Zionist lobby and currents opposed to the JCPOA”. The administration wants to have it both ways on blaming Iran. Yesterday on National Public Radio, Adam Szubin, the counter-terrorism finance under secretary at the Treasury Department, also put Iran in the category of ISIS, as an international terror deliverer: if you are familiar with the model of how al-Qaida or groups like Hamas and even Hezbollah have financed themselves, they’ve typically been heavily reliant on foreign donations, whether from state sponsors like Iran or whether from wealthy what we call deep-pocket donors, often in the Gulf. But that financing model is not ISIL. When you have a group that’s raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a year from internal sources, we don’t have those same chokepoints to go after in terms of the foreign flows.
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  • Meanwhile John Kerry is doing fancy footwork, explaining the legislation away, in a letter to Javad Zarif. we remain fully committed to the sanctions lifting provided for under the JCPOA. We will adhere to the full measure of our commitments, per the agreement. At the State Department briefing Monday, reporters questioned why the legislation didn’t amount to a violation of the Iran Deal:
  • Here is some more blindness in the media on these issues. NPR has continually deceived listeners about Sheldon Adelson’s agenda, and it did so again yesterday. Adelson is a leading opponent of the Iran Deal, as a supporter of Israel. He has called on President Obama to nuke Iran. But in a report on Adelson’s purchase of a Nevada newspaper, NPR once again leaves out the Israel angle of Adelson’s interests. It says blandly: Adelson is also prominently involved in national politics. That link is to a story about his on-line gambling concerns. But as Cory Bennett of the Hill said on CSPAN the other day– something I did not know till now– Iran is said to have undertaken a cyber-attack on Sheldon Adelson’s casino last year because of his call to nuke Iran.  The alleged cyber-attack:  Investigators determined that hacker activists were the ones who broke into servers belonging to the Las Vegas Sands Corporation in February 2014, costing the company more than $40 million in damages and data recovery costs, Bloomberg Businessweek reported Thusday citing a report by cybersecurity firm Dell SecureWorks. The hackers were acting in retaliation to the company’s CEO, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s statement that Obama should detonate a nuclear bomb in Tehran, which stirred controversy around the world. This is the battle behind the headlines. And in a transparent effort to get Adelson’s backing, as well as that of the Andrew Herenstein’s of the world, the neoconservative favorite in the Republican race, Senator Marco Rubio, has vowed to tear up the Iran deal on his first day in the White House if he’s elected. Thus the ideological war over how much the U.S. should support Israel is playing out in global terms; and our media are shying away from the story.
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    It's preposterous for Congress to say that Iran is associated with ISIL and for Obama to sign such a bill. Iran is one of the major military forces in the fight against ISIL in both Syria and Iraq.
Paul Merrell

Turkey Joins Russia's Ruble-Based Alternative To SWIFT | Zero Hedge - 1 views

  • After repeated warnings over the past couple of years, Turkey and Russia have signed a pact to increase use of the ruble and lira in cross-border payments, with Turkey signing on to Russia's alternative to SWIFT, the international telecommunications protocol used by banks and central banks the world over. Though SWIFT is an international cooperative owned by its members, with more than 10,000 banks worldwide relying on its system for handling sizable inter-bank transactions, the safety of the network was brought into question after a series of cyberattacks in 2015 and 2016 resulted in the theft of $101 million from the Central Bank of Bangladesh. For the first time since SWIFT's laucnh, the hacks stoked doubts about the system's safety, and prompted many US rivals, including Russia, to ramp up work on their alternatives to SWIFT.
  • In addition to Turkey, China and Russia have signed agreements to bolster trade between the two countries, including settling a larger percentage of their bilateral trade in rubles and renminbi. For China, bilateral trade with Russia grew from $69.6 billion in 2016 to $107.1 billion last year. China is Russia's biggest partner for imports and exports. There has also been talk about India joining Russia's SWIFT alternative as Washington continues to threaten New Delhi with sanctions over its decision to purchase Russian-made missile-defense systems. According to Reuters, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov signed the agreement with Ankara on Tuesday. The agreement, signed on Oct. 4, will encourage the two countries to start using Russia's system in mutual settlements.
Gary Edwards

Ace of Spades HQ :: The Unmitigated Disaster Known As Project ORCA - 1 views

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    Wondering why the Republicans failed so miserably to get out the vote in the six states where it mattered most?  The Ace of Spades explains his own mis adventures with Romney's new technology plan to get  out the vote: "Project ORCA" This story is beyond sad.  Idiot Republican consultants and advisors cost us this election.  Romney may have struggled with conservatism, but he would have been an awesome CEO - President.  Maybe the best equipped, most successful, and most experienced executive ever to run for the Presidency.  Yet, the buffoonery of Project ORCA falls on him and him alone. excerpt: What is Project Orca? Well, this is what they told us: Project ORCA is a massive undertaking - the Republican Party's newest, unprecedented and most technologically advanced plan to win the 2012 presidential election. Pretty much everything in that sentence is false. The "massive undertaking" is true, however. It would take a lot of planning, training and coordination to be done successfully (oh, we'll get to that in a second). This wasn't really the GOP's effort, it was Team Romney's. And perhaps "unprecedented" would fit if we're discussing failure. The entire purpose of this project was to digitize the decades-old practice of strike lists. The old way was to sit with your paper and mark off people that have voted and every hour or so, someone from the campaign would come get your list and take it back to local headquarters. Then, they'd begin contacting people that hadn't voted yet and encourage them to head to the polls. It's worked for years. From the very start there were warning signs. After signing up, you were invited to take part in nightly conference calls. The calls were more of the slick marketing speech type than helpful training sessions. There was a lot of "rah-rahs" and lofty talk about how this would change the ballgame."
Gary Edwards

Why the GOP won't challenge vote fraud | Fellowship of the Minds - 0 views

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    The Consent Decree of 1982 is an agreement between the Republican and Democrat parties that prohibits the Republican party from enforcing, providing oversight, or challenging allegations of voter fraud.  The Judge who signed the Consent Decree is retired, but comes out of retirement every election year to renew the decree..... Excerpt: The RNC and DNC made their Consent Decree 30 years ago, in 1982. The agreement in effect gives a carte blanche to the Democrat Party to commit vote fraud in every voting district across America that has, in the language of the Consent Decree, "a substantial proportion of racial or ethnic populations." The term "substantial proportion" is not defined. "Guy Benson of Townhall.com points out that in last Tuesday's election, Obama only won by 406,348 votes in 4 states: Florida: 73,858 Ohio: 103,481 Virginia: 115,910 Colorado: 113,099 Those four states, with a collective margin of 406,348 votes for Obama, add up to 69 electoral votes. Had Romney won 407,000 or so additional votes in the right proportion in those states, he would have 275 electoral votes. All four states showed Romney ahead in the days leading up to the election. But on November 6, Romney lost all four states by a substantial margin, all of which have precincts that inexplicably went 99% for Obama, had voter registrations that exceeded their population, and had experienced  problems with voting machines. This election was stolen by the Democrats via vote fraud. Despite all the evidence of fraud, the Republican Party has been strangely silent about it. Now you know why." Aftermath: It doesn't matter if this "perfect candidate" has dubious Constitutional eligibility to be president. They would see to it that his original birth certificate (if there is one) would never see the light of day. The same with his other documents - his passports, school and college records, draft registration, and medical records (so we'll never know why Obama has that v
Gary Edwards

PETITION URGING CONGRESS TO IMPEACH PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA - 0 views

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    "PETITION URGENTLY REQUESTING THAT CONGRESS LAUNCH AN INDEPENDENT AND COMPREHENSIVE INVESTIGATION INTO UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES ON THE PART OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA To: All members of the U.S. Congress: Whereas, President Barack Obama not only failed to aid U.S. personnel under lethal and prolonged terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, resulting in the deaths of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, but also led an outrageously deceitful cover-up for weeks afterward, rivaling the Watergate-era cover-up that ended the presidency of Richard Nixon; Whereas, the IRS under Obama - in accord with direct instructions from congressional Democrats - has engaged in the most egregious and widespread attack on conservative groups in modern history, with the knowledge of top agency officials; Whereas, the Obama Justice Department, on top of its many first-term scandals, has spied on and harassed journalists at Fox News and the Associated Press, prompting widespread, bipartisan condemnation of the DOJ for "criminalizing journalism"; Whereas, top constitutional attorneys from across the political spectrum now agree that Obama has committed certain specific offenses that unquestionably rise to the level of impeachable "high crimes and misdemeanors"; Whereas, one of these offenses - that of illegally conducting war against Libya - has been deemed by a bipartisan panel of constitutional experts to be "clearly an impeachable offense" and "gross usurpation of the war power"; Whereas, Obama's policy of targeted assassinations of U.S. citizens without any constitutionally required due process - including the drone assassination of an American-born 16-year-old as he was eating dinner - is unanimously deemed by experts, both liberal and conservative, as "an impeachable offense"; Whereas, Obama's Justice Department has presided over the disastrous "Fast and Furious" operation in which approximately 2
Gary Edwards

Tomgram: Nomi Prins, Goldmanizing Donald Trump | TomDispatch - 0 views

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    "The Goldman Sachs Effect How a Bank Conquered Washington By Nomi Prins This is a MUST READ document. Yeah, and it should scare the crap out of all of us. .............................................. Irony isn't a concept with which President Donald J. Trump is familiar. In his Inaugural Address, having nominated the wealthiest cabinet in American history, he proclaimed, "For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished -- but the people did not share in its wealth."  Under Trump, an even smaller group will flourish -- in particular, a cadre of former Goldman Sachs executives. To put the matter bluntly, two of them (along with the Federal Reserve) are likely to control our economy and financial system in the years to come. Infusing Washington with Goldman alums isn't exactly an original idea. Three of the last four presidents, including The Donald, have handed the wheel of the U.S. economy to ex-Goldmanites. But in true Trumpian style, after attacking Hillary Clinton for her Goldman ties, he wasn't satisfied to do just that.  He had to do it bigger and better.  Unlike Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, just a sole Goldman figure lording it over economic policy wasn't enough for him. Only two would do. The Great Vampire Squid Revisited Whether you voted for or against Donald Trump, whether you're gearing up for the revolution or waiting for his next tweet to drop, rest assured that, in the years to come, the ideology that matters most won't be that of the "forgotten" Americans of his Inaugural Address. It will be that of Goldman Sachs and it will dominate the domestic economy and, by extension, the global one. At the dawn of the twentieth century, when President Teddy Roosevelt governed the country on a platform of trust busting aimed at reducing corporate power, even he could not bring himself to bust up the banks.  That was a mistake
Gary Edwards

The Civil War is Here | Frontpage Mag - 0 views

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    "Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. A civil war has begun. This civil war is very different than the last one. There are no cannons or cavalry charges. The left doesn't want to secede. It wants to rule. Political conflicts become civil wars when one side refuses to accept the existing authority. The left has rejected all forms of authority that it doesn't control. The left has rejected the outcome of the last two presidential elections won by Republicans. It has rejected the judicial authority of the Supreme Court when it decisions don't accord with its agenda. It rejects the legislative authority of Congress when it is not dominated by the left. It rejected the Constitution so long ago that it hardly bears mentioning.   It was for total unilateral executive authority under Obama. And now it's for states unilaterally deciding what laws they will follow. (As long as that involves defying immigration laws under Trump, not following them under Obama.) It was for the sacrosanct authority of the Senate when it held the majority. Then it decried the Senate as an outmoded institution when the Republicans took it over. It was for Obama defying the orders of Federal judges, no matter how well grounded in existing law, and it is for Federal judges overriding any order by Trump on any grounds whatsoever. It was for Obama penalizing whistleblowers, but now undermining the government from within has become "patriotic". There is no form of legal authority that the left accepts as a permanent institution. It only utilizes forms of authority selectively when it controls them. But when government officials refuse the orders of the duly elected government because their allegiance is to an ideology whose agenda is in conflict with the President and Congress, that's not activism, protest, politics or civil disobedience; it's treason. After losing Congress, the left consolidated
Gary Edwards

Obama gives himself control of all communication systems in America - RT - 0 views

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    Awful stuff.  Another Obama executive order suspending the Constitution and terminating the Bill of Rights. Revoking the right of habeas corpus is unconstitutional. So is declaring a national emergency without congressional approval. The Constitution declares, "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." While Congress has passed many an unConstitutional Law regarding "National Emergency Powers", there is nothing in the Constitution granting any branch of the Federal government to tear up the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  Atrocities like FiSA, The Military Commissions Act, NSP51, HSPD20, the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, the National Emergencies Act, and the Patriot Act are un Constitutional to the core.   Only the American people, through their representatives in Congress, can declare a national emergency.  With the exception of the habeas corpus clause, the Constitution makes no allowance for the suspension of any of its provisions during a national emergency.  Many statist seeking to breach the Constitution and Bill of Rights argue that the granting of emergency powers by Congress is implicit in its Article I, section 8 authority to "provide for the common Defense and general Welfare," the commerce clause, its war, armed forces, and militia powers, and the "necessary and proper" clause empowering it to make such laws as are required to fulfill the executions of "the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." But this issue of "implied" powers defies an actual reading of the Constitution, and seeks to breach the meaning of that most basic of all Madisonian  Constitutional concepts embedded into the framework of limited government: "enumerated powers".  The United States is a government of enumerated powers.  N
Gary Edwards

A Victory for All of Us - Liberty in the Breach - 0 views

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    Details of how a federal Judge came to rule that the insideous NDAA law is un Constitutional. excerpt: Posted on May 18, 2012 By Chris Hedges In January, attorneys Carl Mayer and Bruce Afran asked me to be the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that challenged the harsh provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). We filed the lawsuit, worked for hours on the affidavits, carried out the tedious depositions, prepared the case and went to trial because we did not want to be passive in the face of another egregious assault on basic civil liberties, because resistance is a moral imperative, and because, at the very least, we hoped we could draw attention to the injustice of the law. None of us thought we would win. But every once in a while the gods smile on the damned. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, in a 68-page opinion, ruled Wednesday that Section 1021 of the NDAA was unconstitutional. It was a stunning and monumental victory. With her ruling she returned us to a country where-as it was before Obama signed this act into law Dec. 31-the government cannot strip a U.S. citizen of due process or use the military to arrest him or her and then hold him or her in military prison indefinitely. She categorically rejected the government's claims that the plaintiffs did not have the standing to bring the case to trial because none of us had been indefinitely detained, that lack of imminent enforcement against us meant there was no need for an injunction and that the NDAA simply codified what had previously been set down in the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Act. The ruling was a huge victory for the protection of free speech. Judge Forrest struck down language in the law that she said gave the government the ability to incarcerate people based on what they said or wrote. Maybe the ruling won't last. Maybe it will be overturned. But we and other Americans are
Gary Edwards

The Conservative Declaration - 0 views

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    "Add your name to the Conservative Declaration today".  Heritage Foundation has published a Conservative Declaration and is asking American Patriots to sign and make a sacred pledge to live by the principles that guided our nations founding fathers. .......        ......... Preamble ........... More than two centuries ago, a profound idea was born. .... A group of brave individuals joined together to proclaim that all people are fundamentally equal-equally endowed with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. .... They dared to decree that government exists to secure these God-given rights, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed, not a central power. The result? The founding of the United States of America. But now that idea-America-is under siege by big-government radicals whose mission it is to slowly and deliberately dismantle our nation's foundational principles. With over-reaching regulation, out-of-control spending, high deficits, and a weakened national defense, America is looking less and less like the America of our Founding Fathers. This must be stopped! As we face an election like no other in our nation's history, conservatives must come together to stand for the principles on which our nation was founded and proclaim in unison our commitment to the ideals that our Founders proclaimed more than two centuries ago." .......... The Conservative Declaration ........ A beautifully written reaffirmation and pledge to honor the spirit of the founding fathers with our belief in the principles on which our nation was founded.   "We sign as individual citizens, united in our belief that our nation was established as a constitutional republic in which the power of government is limited under the rule of law, securing liberty and justice for all."
Gary Edwards

Robosigning Credit Cards: The Next Major Bank Scandal? | The Reformed Broker - 0 views

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    This article is definately a "must read".  The summary is that the credit card debt mess is far worse than the mortgage foreclosure mess.  The Banksters are guilty of massive illegal activities in foreclosure gate, including forging documents and signatures.  Apparently the same thing has happened with Credit Card Debt Collection!!!! excerpt:   From American Banker: "If sloppy record keeping and problems with false affidavits is a problem with mortgages, it's 100 times bigger in credit card accounts," says Michelle Weinberg of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. Worse than mortgages, even? Let's just review the mortgage situation: Robosigning consists of blatantly illegal practices in which banks and mortgage companies had their employees sign affidavits and other documents without verifying the information therein; forge signatures on documents; backdate documents; falsely notarize documents; create new documents to replace missing ones; or some combination of all the above. Did I mention that all of this is illegal? Contrary to what the banks would have you believe, robosigning was not a one-off - it happened on a systematic level. So much so that some of the nation's largest banks (including Bank of America Corp. and  JPMorgan Chase & Co., ) were forced to halt foreclosures to "review" these practices in late 2010. The companies that did this claimed that they had to cut corners because they couldn't keep up with all of the paperwork created by the housing boom last decade. But we now know that this is not true - there's evidence that robo-signing goes back all the way to at least 1998. This all means that thousands of Americans were foreclosed upon erroneously and that even homebuyers and sellers in good standing may be unable to prove their rightful ownership. The problem is so big that Sheila Bair, the former head of the FDIC, acknowledged that they don't even know how big it is. It's so big that the b
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