Sunday, July 13, 2008
The Arrogance Of Power
By Joel SkousenWorld Affairs Brief7-12-8
With the final passage of the FISA reform bill this week, the US Senate has reached a new low in its outright disregard for the constitution its members are sworn to uphold. Simply put, Congress has no power to legislate any law that violates any of the provisions of the constitution. Period. In this case, the constitution is clear: no warrantless searches are permitted--none. That's what constitutions are supposed to do: put strict limits on lawmaking power so that individual rights are protected from evil minorities, evil majorities, or in this case, insipid yesmen in Congress eager to please those above them conspiring to use the phony threat of terrorism to dismantle constitutional protections. Just hours after President Bush signed this legislation the ACLU filed suit in federal court to have the law ruled unconstitutional. There is a good chance the federal court will agree, forcing a showdown at the Supreme Court.
There is a arrogance on the part of trained lawyers in Congress who defend this brazen evisceration of the 4thAmendment. They all know it run against both the letter of the constitution and centuries of case law. These apologists for stripping away a citizen's power to challenge illegal surveillance in court seem to fall into two groups: those that are knowing conspirators in the secret movement to dismantle the constitution and those that are groveling at the feet of those in power. The first group is imbued with the arrogance that comes from knowing they have effective immunity from their illegal acts, protected by fellow conspirators in the White House, Department of Justice, Congress and the courts. The second group are foolish lapdogs hungry for acceptance and advancement in the halls of power---which few will ever achieve because they aren't corrupt enough for the highest echelons of evil. A good example is Senator Orrin Hatch-(R)Utah who, with the tiniest of inducements, can be energized to leap to the pulpit and excuse, defend, and rationalize the evil acts of the Bush administration in the mistaken belief that he is upholding patriotic or conservative values. He is unwittingly upholding an evil agenda. In his eagerness to believe that everything is justified by 9/11 Hatch cannot see that he is being played for the fool.
Nothing is more symptomatic of the arrogance of power in the Bush administration than the high-handed manner in which Attorney General Michael Mukasey confronts those who dare challenge his prerogatives. No other government gatekeeper of the "secret acts of government" can compare to the audacity in which Mukasey deflects and puts off his Congressional critics--most of whom are themselves playing a roll. That is why they don't rigorously follow up on Mukasey's evasions. Kate Klonick, writing for TPMmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com gives us a rundown on the pattern of evasion since his evasive confirmation hearings:
"There are a whole host of issues confronting the Justice Department that remain unaddressed-- overall politicization, the Office of Legal Counsel memos, torture memos, hiring and firing practices, and selective prosecution. But when it comes to hard answers to Congressional Oversight, Attorney General Michael Mukasey dances around the questions, usually deflecting criticism that stems from the Gonzales era.
1. "When Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) requested a listing of the OLC memoranda [on torture] that the DOJ chose not to review, Mukasey stated that he didn't know that it 'would serve anybody's interest' to do so [except the public].
2. "When Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) questioned him about why Judith Miller was left in jail [for refusing to reveal her sources in the Valerie Plame affair], he demurred, stating that it fell into the responsibilities of special counsel.
3. "When Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) wanted to know if anyone was planning on reviewing Gitmo detainee's files to see why they were being detained [a habeas corpus issue], Mukasey deferred noting the cases were before the D.C. district court.
4. "And when Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) demanded accountability for the loss of valuable civil servants to the politicization of the DOJ Honors Program, the Attorney General stated that it had already been 'covered by the OIG [Office of Inspector General-in house DOJ investigator] report' [which whitewashed the affair].
"But when it was Sen. Joe Biden's (D-DE) turn to ask questions, he took a more straight forward approach, tearing into Mukasey as an 'enigma...acting like you float above up in the ether somewhere.'" Indeed, that is what Mukasey acts like--that he is above the law. As a certified insider in the service of the real Powers That Be (PTB), he's untouchable and he knows it."
The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to grant retroactive amnesty to the telecoms that aided President Bush's secret, warrantless wiretapping of Americans, which was cover for the fact that indiscriminate surveillance had been going on for decades. In another of his continual modifications of position, the Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama voted for the final bill, despite promising to oppose any bill that included amnesty. Hillary Clinton voted against it, but that's only because she is still positioning herself for a future run for the presidency and must play the opposing role. Were she the nominee, I can guarantee you she would have voted for it too. Senator Arlen Specter, whose work for the conspirators goes way back to his role as legal counsel to the Warren Commission, played his usual game of opposing the measure right up to the end, and then switching sides and voting for it.
We're going to see a lot of disappointed Democrats who harbor the illusion that Obama really is going to change things. He won't. And within the anti-war movement dissatisfaction with Obama is already growing fast. His supporters mounted an intense lobbying campaign on Obama's online organizing website to get him to stick to his promise on telecom immunity--all in vain--just like his promise to get US troops out of Iraq in a year and a half. It won't happen--especially with Obama joining the mindless crescendo of politicians calling for military threats to Iran.
Of course Iran isn't helping anything by rattling its own sabers---launching over a dozen test missiles in two days as a show of potential force to the ever-threatening Americans and Israelis. Actually, it now appears that some of those missiles failed and the photo evidence was altered by Iran. It is also possible that Iran did not want to use up so many missiles in one exercise and faked several of the launches. In any case, one wonders what suicidal vision Iranian leaders have that provokes them to play into the globalist's hand, making themselves look radical and helping the neocons justify attacking Iran with every provocative speech and military exercise. I suspect Russia is partly to blame, whispering in Iran's ear that it won't allow the US to attack--just like Russia promised Saddam Hussein.
Obama is destined to be a President full of regrets. He's quick on the tongue and a little too candid which results in statements that are unwise or run afoul of what his CFR handlers want him to say. Luke Boggs of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution took note of this growing list of regrets:
"What jumped out at me was how quickly Obama regretted his decision [to put his daughters on an interview with the TV tabloid Access Hollywood]. And that, in turn, made me wonder how often the senator has regretted other choices. Answer: pretty often. (Googling 'Obama' and 'regrets' yields more than a million hits.)
"In November 2006, Obama said he regretted buying property adjacent to his Chicago home from Tony Rezko, a longtime supporter and big-time fund-raiser who has since been convicted of mail and wire fraud, aiding and abetting bribery and money laundering [one of many instances where the dark side of government uses evil and criminal elements to make "deals" with up and coming insiders to provide them with instant wealth].
"In February 2007, as his presidential campaign was beginning, Obama said he regretted saying that the lives of American soldiers who died fighting in Iraq had been 'wasted.'
"In April 2008, Obama said he regretted his choice of words when he told some well-heeled donors in San Francisco that 'bitter' folks in Middle America who have lost economic hope 'cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them.' [Indeed, some Americans are getting very angry with arrogant politicians who constantly lie to them and make false promises of change.]
"To be sure, these are choices worth regretting. Anyone can understand why Obama would regret his land deal with a convicted felon. And even liberal Democrats like Obama have been careful not to say American lives have been 'wasted' in Iraq, even as they imply the same thing when they dismiss the war effort as corrupt, inept, unnecessary and worse.
"Obama's most costly regret, however, may well prove to be his condescending shot at those decent, hardworking Americans he said were desperately clinging to God and guns and bigotry. It was a regret-worthy statement that said volumes about Obama's easy contempt for those in what elites call 'flyover country.'
"Perhaps the American people are looking for a regretful guy this time around. After eight years of George W. Bush, whose dogged lack of regrets [absolute arrogance and stubbornness] continues to exasperate his critics, perhaps this sort of intense self-scrutiny and navel-gazing will translate into electoral victory." The only thing I can say with total certainty is that America will regret electing either John McCain or Barack Obama.
World Affairs Brief - Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted.
Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com
With the final passage of the FISA reform bill this week, the US Senate has reached a new low in its outright disregard for the constitution its members are sworn to uphold. Simply put, Congress has no power to legislate any law that violates any of the provisions of the constitution. Period. In this case, the constitution is clear: no warrantless searches are permitted--none. That's what constitutions are supposed to do: put strict limits on lawmaking power so that individual rights are protected from evil minorities, evil majorities, or in this case, insipid yesmen in Congress eager to please those above them conspiring to use the phony threat of terrorism to dismantle constitutional protections. Just hours after President Bush signed this legislation the ACLU filed suit in federal court to have the law ruled unconstitutional. There is a good chance the federal court will agree, forcing a showdown at the Supreme Court.
There is a arrogance on the part of trained lawyers in Congress who defend this brazen evisceration of the 4thAmendment. They all know it run against both the letter of the constitution and centuries of case law. These apologists for stripping away a citizen's power to challenge illegal surveillance in court seem to fall into two groups: those that are knowing conspirators in the secret movement to dismantle the constitution and those that are groveling at the feet of those in power. The first group is imbued with the arrogance that comes from knowing they have effective immunity from their illegal acts, protected by fellow conspirators in the White House, Department of Justice, Congress and the courts. The second group are foolish lapdogs hungry for acceptance and advancement in the halls of power---which few will ever achieve because they aren't corrupt enough for the highest echelons of evil. A good example is Senator Orrin Hatch-(R)Utah who, with the tiniest of inducements, can be energized to leap to the pulpit and excuse, defend, and rationalize the evil acts of the Bush administration in the mistaken belief that he is upholding patriotic or conservative values. He is unwittingly upholding an evil agenda. In his eagerness to believe that everything is justified by 9/11 Hatch cannot see that he is being played for the fool.
Nothing is more symptomatic of the arrogance of power in the Bush administration than the high-handed manner in which Attorney General Michael Mukasey confronts those who dare challenge his prerogatives. No other government gatekeeper of the "secret acts of government" can compare to the audacity in which Mukasey deflects and puts off his Congressional critics--most of whom are themselves playing a roll. That is why they don't rigorously follow up on Mukasey's evasions. Kate Klonick, writing for TPMmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com gives us a rundown on the pattern of evasion since his evasive confirmation hearings:
"There are a whole host of issues confronting the Justice Department that remain unaddressed-- overall politicization, the Office of Legal Counsel memos, torture memos, hiring and firing practices, and selective prosecution. But when it comes to hard answers to Congressional Oversight, Attorney General Michael Mukasey dances around the questions, usually deflecting criticism that stems from the Gonzales era.
1. "When Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) requested a listing of the OLC memoranda [on torture] that the DOJ chose not to review, Mukasey stated that he didn't know that it 'would serve anybody's interest' to do so [except the public].
2. "When Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) questioned him about why Judith Miller was left in jail [for refusing to reveal her sources in the Valerie Plame affair], he demurred, stating that it fell into the responsibilities of special counsel.
3. "When Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) wanted to know if anyone was planning on reviewing Gitmo detainee's files to see why they were being detained [a habeas corpus issue], Mukasey deferred noting the cases were before the D.C. district court.
4. "And when Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) demanded accountability for the loss of valuable civil servants to the politicization of the DOJ Honors Program, the Attorney General stated that it had already been 'covered by the OIG [Office of Inspector General-in house DOJ investigator] report' [which whitewashed the affair].
"But when it was Sen. Joe Biden's (D-DE) turn to ask questions, he took a more straight forward approach, tearing into Mukasey as an 'enigma...acting like you float above up in the ether somewhere.'" Indeed, that is what Mukasey acts like--that he is above the law. As a certified insider in the service of the real Powers That Be (PTB), he's untouchable and he knows it."
The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to grant retroactive amnesty to the telecoms that aided President Bush's secret, warrantless wiretapping of Americans, which was cover for the fact that indiscriminate surveillance had been going on for decades. In another of his continual modifications of position, the Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama voted for the final bill, despite promising to oppose any bill that included amnesty. Hillary Clinton voted against it, but that's only because she is still positioning herself for a future run for the presidency and must play the opposing role. Were she the nominee, I can guarantee you she would have voted for it too. Senator Arlen Specter, whose work for the conspirators goes way back to his role as legal counsel to the Warren Commission, played his usual game of opposing the measure right up to the end, and then switching sides and voting for it.
We're going to see a lot of disappointed Democrats who harbor the illusion that Obama really is going to change things. He won't. And within the anti-war movement dissatisfaction with Obama is already growing fast. His supporters mounted an intense lobbying campaign on Obama's online organizing website to get him to stick to his promise on telecom immunity--all in vain--just like his promise to get US troops out of Iraq in a year and a half. It won't happen--especially with Obama joining the mindless crescendo of politicians calling for military threats to Iran.
Of course Iran isn't helping anything by rattling its own sabers---launching over a dozen test missiles in two days as a show of potential force to the ever-threatening Americans and Israelis. Actually, it now appears that some of those missiles failed and the photo evidence was altered by Iran. It is also possible that Iran did not want to use up so many missiles in one exercise and faked several of the launches. In any case, one wonders what suicidal vision Iranian leaders have that provokes them to play into the globalist's hand, making themselves look radical and helping the neocons justify attacking Iran with every provocative speech and military exercise. I suspect Russia is partly to blame, whispering in Iran's ear that it won't allow the US to attack--just like Russia promised Saddam Hussein.
Obama is destined to be a President full of regrets. He's quick on the tongue and a little too candid which results in statements that are unwise or run afoul of what his CFR handlers want him to say. Luke Boggs of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution took note of this growing list of regrets:
"What jumped out at me was how quickly Obama regretted his decision [to put his daughters on an interview with the TV tabloid Access Hollywood]. And that, in turn, made me wonder how often the senator has regretted other choices. Answer: pretty often. (Googling 'Obama' and 'regrets' yields more than a million hits.)
"In November 2006, Obama said he regretted buying property adjacent to his Chicago home from Tony Rezko, a longtime supporter and big-time fund-raiser who has since been convicted of mail and wire fraud, aiding and abetting bribery and money laundering [one of many instances where the dark side of government uses evil and criminal elements to make "deals" with up and coming insiders to provide them with instant wealth].
"In February 2007, as his presidential campaign was beginning, Obama said he regretted saying that the lives of American soldiers who died fighting in Iraq had been 'wasted.'
"In April 2008, Obama said he regretted his choice of words when he told some well-heeled donors in San Francisco that 'bitter' folks in Middle America who have lost economic hope 'cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them.' [Indeed, some Americans are getting very angry with arrogant politicians who constantly lie to them and make false promises of change.]
"To be sure, these are choices worth regretting. Anyone can understand why Obama would regret his land deal with a convicted felon. And even liberal Democrats like Obama have been careful not to say American lives have been 'wasted' in Iraq, even as they imply the same thing when they dismiss the war effort as corrupt, inept, unnecessary and worse.
"Obama's most costly regret, however, may well prove to be his condescending shot at those decent, hardworking Americans he said were desperately clinging to God and guns and bigotry. It was a regret-worthy statement that said volumes about Obama's easy contempt for those in what elites call 'flyover country.'
"Perhaps the American people are looking for a regretful guy this time around. After eight years of George W. Bush, whose dogged lack of regrets [absolute arrogance and stubbornness] continues to exasperate his critics, perhaps this sort of intense self-scrutiny and navel-gazing will translate into electoral victory." The only thing I can say with total certainty is that America will regret electing either John McCain or Barack Obama.
World Affairs Brief - Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted.
Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com
Game Over: Thirty-Six Sure-Fire Signs That Your Empire Is Crumbling
by David Michael Green
So. You've built yourself an empire, eh?
Well, bully for you!
What's next, you ask? Well, now you've got to do what everybody does when they have an empire, of course. You've got to worry about it falling apart, mate!
But how to tell for sure? Let me see if I can be helpful. Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind, thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your empire is falling apart:
You know your empire's crumbling when the folks who are gearing up their empire to replace yours start blowing up satellites in space. And then they don't bother to return your phone calls when you ring up to ask why.
You know your empire's crumbling when those same folks are cutting deals left, right and center across Asia, Latin America and Africa, while you, your lousy terms, and your arrogant attitude are no longer welcome.
You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending your grandchildren's money like a drunken sailor, and letting your soon-to-be rivals finance your little splurge (i.e., letting them own your country).
You know your empire's crumbling when it's considered an achievement to pretend that you've halved the rate at which you're adding to the massive mountain of debt you've already accumulated.
You know your empire's crumbling when you weaken your currency until it looks as anemic as a Paris runway model, and you're still setting record trade deficits. (Hint: Because you're not making anything anymore.)
You know your empire's crumbling when "the little brown ones" (thank you George H.W. Bush - certainly not me - for that lovely expression) in country after country of "your backyard" blow you off and proudly elect anti-imperialist leftist governments.
You know your empire's crumbling when you can't topple those governments and replace them with nice puppet regimes - like in the good old days - even if you wanted to. And you badly want to.
You know your empire's crumbling when one of their leaders comes to the United Nations and makes fun of your emperor, calling him the devil, and joking about smelling sulphur where he just stood. And though a few folks cringe, everybody laughs.
You know your empire's crumbling when just about your entire military land force is tied up in a worse-than-useless war launched on the basis of complete fabrications, that every day is actually making you less - not more - secure from external threat.
You know your empire's crumbling when almost half the soldiers in that war are high-paid mercenaries, and you don't dare institute a draft.
You know your empire's crumbling when you send soldiers into war with two weeks training and a lack of armor, and then you keep them there for three, four and five rotations.
You know your empire's crumbling when a member of the Axis of Evil can test missiles and explode nuclear warheads, and all you can do about it is mumble some pathetic warnings about how they better not do that again or there will be consequences.
You know your empire's crumbling when you even think that there is an Axis of Evil.
You know your empire's crumbling when a rag-tag military hodge-podge of irregulars has you pinned down in an endless fight you can't win, but also can't lose.
You know your empire's crumbling when you're too dumb to even ban Humvees as a first step toward ending your dependency on a foreign-owned crucial resource.
You know your empire's crumbling when you trade your prior moral leadership on human rights issues for global disgust at your torture, 'extraordinary rendition' (a.k.a. kidnaping for torture) and the dismantling of nine centuries worth of civil liberties progress.
You know your empire's crumbling when you blow off international law that you once helped create, and undermine the institutions of international governance that you once helped build.
You know your empire's crumbling when opinion polls confirm that every month you're more and more despised throughout the world.
You know your empire's crumbling when you can't even pull off the hanging of a tin-pot murderous former dictator without turning him into a hero.
You know your empire's crumbling when you're the richest country in the world, but nearly 50 million of your people don't have basic health care coverage.
You know your empire's crumbling when the World Health Organization ranks your healthcare system 37th 'best' in the world, just above Slovenia, and just below Costa Rica. (And far below Colombia, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.)
You know your empire's crumbling when instead of making it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education, you're making it harder and more expensive.
You know your empire's crumbling when your government gives tax breaks to industries as a reward for exporting your jobs elsewhere.
You know your empire's crumbling when the so-called 'opposition' party can't even turn that obscenity into a viable campaign theme and use it to clobber the worst emperor in your history.
You know your empire's crumbling when your middle class has been stagnant for three decades, while the wealth of the hyper-rich continues to climb through the roof.
You know your empire's crumbling when your reaction to that is to exacerbate the problem by enacting tax policies that massively increase further still the gap between the rich and the rest.
You know your empire's crumbling when the predatory class has taken over your government and is stripping the country of everything not bolted down to the floor. And then it sells the floor itself, as well, to your rivals.
You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending tens of billions of dollars you don't own on new nuclear warheads and space weapons that don't work, to be used against an enemy you don't have.
You know your empire's crumbling when one of your cities drowns and your government does next to nothing before, during and after.
You know your empire's crumbling when a massive environmental nightmare is looming around the corner, and your emperor not only ignores it, but claims it isn't real while taking steps to exacerbate it.
You know your empire's crumbling when your emperor is warned by a CIA briefer of an imminent terrorist attack of vast proportions, and responds by remaining on vacation and dismissing the briefer with the words: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."
You know your empire's crumbling when the same emperor drops everything to fly across the country from his vacation home in order to sign a bill intervening on the wrong side of a personal medical drama involving a single family.
You know your empire's crumbling when gays and immigrants are used as diversionary issues to keep people from thinking about the pillaging of their country and their wallets actually taking place. And it works.
You know your empire's crumbling when people are getting more religious and less scientific, not the other way around.
You know your empire's crumbling when your political leaders start to be chosen by dynastic rules of succession.
And you especially know your empire's crumbling when the most idiotic child of one of the least accomplished leaders in its history is not only crowned as the next emperor, but is even revered for a time by most of the public as a great one.
Rome? Britain? Spain?
At this rate we'll be lucky to end up like Belgium.
So. You've built yourself an empire, eh?
Well, bully for you!
What's next, you ask? Well, now you've got to do what everybody does when they have an empire, of course. You've got to worry about it falling apart, mate!
But how to tell for sure? Let me see if I can be helpful. Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind, thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your empire is falling apart:
You know your empire's crumbling when the folks who are gearing up their empire to replace yours start blowing up satellites in space. And then they don't bother to return your phone calls when you ring up to ask why.
You know your empire's crumbling when those same folks are cutting deals left, right and center across Asia, Latin America and Africa, while you, your lousy terms, and your arrogant attitude are no longer welcome.
You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending your grandchildren's money like a drunken sailor, and letting your soon-to-be rivals finance your little splurge (i.e., letting them own your country).
You know your empire's crumbling when it's considered an achievement to pretend that you've halved the rate at which you're adding to the massive mountain of debt you've already accumulated.
You know your empire's crumbling when you weaken your currency until it looks as anemic as a Paris runway model, and you're still setting record trade deficits. (Hint: Because you're not making anything anymore.)
You know your empire's crumbling when "the little brown ones" (thank you George H.W. Bush - certainly not me - for that lovely expression) in country after country of "your backyard" blow you off and proudly elect anti-imperialist leftist governments.
You know your empire's crumbling when you can't topple those governments and replace them with nice puppet regimes - like in the good old days - even if you wanted to. And you badly want to.
You know your empire's crumbling when one of their leaders comes to the United Nations and makes fun of your emperor, calling him the devil, and joking about smelling sulphur where he just stood. And though a few folks cringe, everybody laughs.
You know your empire's crumbling when just about your entire military land force is tied up in a worse-than-useless war launched on the basis of complete fabrications, that every day is actually making you less - not more - secure from external threat.
You know your empire's crumbling when almost half the soldiers in that war are high-paid mercenaries, and you don't dare institute a draft.
You know your empire's crumbling when you send soldiers into war with two weeks training and a lack of armor, and then you keep them there for three, four and five rotations.
You know your empire's crumbling when a member of the Axis of Evil can test missiles and explode nuclear warheads, and all you can do about it is mumble some pathetic warnings about how they better not do that again or there will be consequences.
You know your empire's crumbling when you even think that there is an Axis of Evil.
You know your empire's crumbling when a rag-tag military hodge-podge of irregulars has you pinned down in an endless fight you can't win, but also can't lose.
You know your empire's crumbling when you're too dumb to even ban Humvees as a first step toward ending your dependency on a foreign-owned crucial resource.
You know your empire's crumbling when you trade your prior moral leadership on human rights issues for global disgust at your torture, 'extraordinary rendition' (a.k.a. kidnaping for torture) and the dismantling of nine centuries worth of civil liberties progress.
You know your empire's crumbling when you blow off international law that you once helped create, and undermine the institutions of international governance that you once helped build.
You know your empire's crumbling when opinion polls confirm that every month you're more and more despised throughout the world.
You know your empire's crumbling when you can't even pull off the hanging of a tin-pot murderous former dictator without turning him into a hero.
You know your empire's crumbling when you're the richest country in the world, but nearly 50 million of your people don't have basic health care coverage.
You know your empire's crumbling when the World Health Organization ranks your healthcare system 37th 'best' in the world, just above Slovenia, and just below Costa Rica. (And far below Colombia, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.)
You know your empire's crumbling when instead of making it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education, you're making it harder and more expensive.
You know your empire's crumbling when your government gives tax breaks to industries as a reward for exporting your jobs elsewhere.
You know your empire's crumbling when the so-called 'opposition' party can't even turn that obscenity into a viable campaign theme and use it to clobber the worst emperor in your history.
You know your empire's crumbling when your middle class has been stagnant for three decades, while the wealth of the hyper-rich continues to climb through the roof.
You know your empire's crumbling when your reaction to that is to exacerbate the problem by enacting tax policies that massively increase further still the gap between the rich and the rest.
You know your empire's crumbling when the predatory class has taken over your government and is stripping the country of everything not bolted down to the floor. And then it sells the floor itself, as well, to your rivals.
You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending tens of billions of dollars you don't own on new nuclear warheads and space weapons that don't work, to be used against an enemy you don't have.
You know your empire's crumbling when one of your cities drowns and your government does next to nothing before, during and after.
You know your empire's crumbling when a massive environmental nightmare is looming around the corner, and your emperor not only ignores it, but claims it isn't real while taking steps to exacerbate it.
You know your empire's crumbling when your emperor is warned by a CIA briefer of an imminent terrorist attack of vast proportions, and responds by remaining on vacation and dismissing the briefer with the words: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."
You know your empire's crumbling when the same emperor drops everything to fly across the country from his vacation home in order to sign a bill intervening on the wrong side of a personal medical drama involving a single family.
You know your empire's crumbling when gays and immigrants are used as diversionary issues to keep people from thinking about the pillaging of their country and their wallets actually taking place. And it works.
You know your empire's crumbling when people are getting more religious and less scientific, not the other way around.
You know your empire's crumbling when your political leaders start to be chosen by dynastic rules of succession.
And you especially know your empire's crumbling when the most idiotic child of one of the least accomplished leaders in its history is not only crowned as the next emperor, but is even revered for a time by most of the public as a great one.
Rome? Britain? Spain?
At this rate we'll be lucky to end up like Belgium.
Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
Source: Global Research.ca, August 5, 2005, Title: “Halliburton Secretly Doing Business With Key Member of Iran’s Nuclear Team,” Author: Jason Leopold
Faculty Evaluator: Catherine Nelson Student Researchers: Kristine Medeiros and Pla Herr
According to journalist Jason Leopold, sources at former Cheney company Halliburton allege that, as recently as January of 2005, Halliburton sold key components for a nuclear reactor to an Iranian oil development company. Leopold says his Halliburton sources have intimate knowledge of the business dealings of both Halliburton and Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies.
Additionally, throughout 2004 and 2005, Halliburton worked closely with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Iran-based Oriental Oil Kish, to develop oil projects in Iran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team. Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July 2005 for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran’s nuclear secrets. Iranian government officials charged Nasseri with accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton for this information.
Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton first became public knowledge in January 2005 when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of the South Pars gas-drilling project to Halliburton Products and Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered to the Cayman Islands. Following the announcement, Halliburton claimed that the South Pars gas field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. According to a BBC report, Halliburton, which took thirty to forty million dollars from its Iranian operations in 2003, “was winding down its work due to a poor business environment.”
However, Halliburton has a long history of doing business in Iran, starting as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company. Leopold quotes a February 2001 report published in the Wall Street Journal, “Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is “non-American.” But like the sign over the receptionist’s head, the brochure bears the company’s name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.” Moreover mail sent to the company’s offices in Tehran and the Cayman Islands is forwarded directly to its Dallas headquarters.
In an attempt to curtail Halliburton and other U.S. companies from engaging in business dealings with rogue nations such as Libya, Iran, and Syria, an amendment was approved in the Senate on July 26, 2005. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Susan Collins R-Maine, would penalize companies that continue to skirt U.S. law by setting up offshore subsidiaries as a way to legally conduct and avoid U.S. sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
A letter, drafted by trade groups representing corporate executives, vehemently objected to the amendment, saying it would lead to further hatred and perhaps incite terrorist attacks on the U.S. and “greatly strain relations with the United States primary trading partners.” The letter warned that, “Foreign governments view U.S. efforts to dictate their foreign and commercial policy as violations of sovereignty often leading them to adopt retaliatory measures more at odds with U.S. goals.”
Collins supports the legislation, stating, “It prevents U.S. corporations from creating a shell company somewhere else in order to do business with rogue, terror-sponsoring nations such as Syria and Iran. The bottom line is that if a U.S. company is evading sanctions to do business with one of these countries, they are helping to prop up countries that support terrorism—most often aimed against America.
UPDATE BY JASON LEOPOLD
During a trip to the Middle East in March 1996, Vice President Dick Cheney told a group of mostly U.S. businessmen that Congress should ease sanctions in Iran and Libya to foster better relationships, a statement that, in hindsight, is completely hypocritical considering the Bush administration’s foreign policy.
“Let me make a generalized statement about a trend I see in the U.S. Congress that I find disturbing, that applies not only with respect to the Iranian situation but a number of others as well,” Cheney said. “I think we Americans sometimes make mistakes . . . There seems to be an assumption that somehow we know what’s best for everybody else and that we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else to live the way we would like.”
Cheney was the chief executive of Halliburton Corporation at the time he uttered those words. It was Cheney who directed Halliburton toward aggressive business dealings with Iran—in violation of U.S. law—in the mid-1990s, which continued through 2005 and is the reason Iran has the capability to enrich weapons-grade uranium.
It was Halliburton’s secret sale of centrifuges to Iran that helped get the uranium enrichment program off the ground, according to a three-year investigation that includes interviews conducted with more than a dozen current and former Halliburton employees.
If the U.S. ends up engaged in a war with Iran in the future, Cheney and Halliburton will bear the brunt of the blame. But this shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who has been following Halliburton’s business activities over the past decade. The company has a long, documented history of violating U.S. sanctions and conducting business with so-called rogue nations.
No, what’s disturbing about these facts is how little attention it has received from the mainstream media. But the public record speaks for itself, as do the thousands of pages of documents obtained by various federal agencies that show how Halliburton’s business dealings in Iran helped fund terrorist activities there—including the country’s nuclear enrichment program.
When I asked Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, a couple of years ago if Halliburton would stop doing business with Iran because of concerns that the company helped fund terrorism she said, “No.” “We believe that decisions as to the nature of such governments and their actions are better made by governmental authorities and international entities such as the United Nations as opposed to individual persons or companies,” Hall said. “Putting politics aside, we and our affiliates operate in countries to the extent it is legally permissible, where our customers are active as they expect us to provide oilfield services support to their international operations. “We do not always agree with policies or actions of governments in every place that we do business and make no excuses for their behaviors. Due to the long-term nature of our business and the inevitability of political and social change, it is neither prudent nor appropriate for our company to establish our own country-by-country foreign policy.”
Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company and in possible violation of U.S. sanctions.
An executive order signed by former President Bill Clinton in March 1995 prohibits “new investments (in Iran) by U.S. persons, including commitment of funds or other assets.” It also bars U.S. companies from performing services “that would benefit the Iranian oil industry” and provide Iran with the financial means to engage in terrorist activity.
When Bush and Cheney came into office in 2001, their administration decided it would not punish foreign oil and gas companies that invest in those countries. The sanctions imposed on countries like Iran and Libya before Bush became president were blasted by Cheney, who gave frequent speeches on the need for U.S. companies to compete with their foreign competitors, despite claims that those countries may have ties to terrorism.
“I think we’d be better off if we, in fact, backed off those sanctions (on Iran), didn’t try to impose secondary boycotts on companies . . . trying to do business over there . . . and instead started to rebuild those relationships,” Cheney said during a 1998 business trip to Sydney, Australia, according to Australia’s Illawarra Mercury newspaper.
Faculty Evaluator: Catherine Nelson Student Researchers: Kristine Medeiros and Pla Herr
According to journalist Jason Leopold, sources at former Cheney company Halliburton allege that, as recently as January of 2005, Halliburton sold key components for a nuclear reactor to an Iranian oil development company. Leopold says his Halliburton sources have intimate knowledge of the business dealings of both Halliburton and Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies.
Additionally, throughout 2004 and 2005, Halliburton worked closely with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Iran-based Oriental Oil Kish, to develop oil projects in Iran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team. Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July 2005 for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran’s nuclear secrets. Iranian government officials charged Nasseri with accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton for this information.
Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton first became public knowledge in January 2005 when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of the South Pars gas-drilling project to Halliburton Products and Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered to the Cayman Islands. Following the announcement, Halliburton claimed that the South Pars gas field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. According to a BBC report, Halliburton, which took thirty to forty million dollars from its Iranian operations in 2003, “was winding down its work due to a poor business environment.”
However, Halliburton has a long history of doing business in Iran, starting as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company. Leopold quotes a February 2001 report published in the Wall Street Journal, “Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is “non-American.” But like the sign over the receptionist’s head, the brochure bears the company’s name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.” Moreover mail sent to the company’s offices in Tehran and the Cayman Islands is forwarded directly to its Dallas headquarters.
In an attempt to curtail Halliburton and other U.S. companies from engaging in business dealings with rogue nations such as Libya, Iran, and Syria, an amendment was approved in the Senate on July 26, 2005. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Susan Collins R-Maine, would penalize companies that continue to skirt U.S. law by setting up offshore subsidiaries as a way to legally conduct and avoid U.S. sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
A letter, drafted by trade groups representing corporate executives, vehemently objected to the amendment, saying it would lead to further hatred and perhaps incite terrorist attacks on the U.S. and “greatly strain relations with the United States primary trading partners.” The letter warned that, “Foreign governments view U.S. efforts to dictate their foreign and commercial policy as violations of sovereignty often leading them to adopt retaliatory measures more at odds with U.S. goals.”
Collins supports the legislation, stating, “It prevents U.S. corporations from creating a shell company somewhere else in order to do business with rogue, terror-sponsoring nations such as Syria and Iran. The bottom line is that if a U.S. company is evading sanctions to do business with one of these countries, they are helping to prop up countries that support terrorism—most often aimed against America.
UPDATE BY JASON LEOPOLD
During a trip to the Middle East in March 1996, Vice President Dick Cheney told a group of mostly U.S. businessmen that Congress should ease sanctions in Iran and Libya to foster better relationships, a statement that, in hindsight, is completely hypocritical considering the Bush administration’s foreign policy.
“Let me make a generalized statement about a trend I see in the U.S. Congress that I find disturbing, that applies not only with respect to the Iranian situation but a number of others as well,” Cheney said. “I think we Americans sometimes make mistakes . . . There seems to be an assumption that somehow we know what’s best for everybody else and that we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else to live the way we would like.”
Cheney was the chief executive of Halliburton Corporation at the time he uttered those words. It was Cheney who directed Halliburton toward aggressive business dealings with Iran—in violation of U.S. law—in the mid-1990s, which continued through 2005 and is the reason Iran has the capability to enrich weapons-grade uranium.
It was Halliburton’s secret sale of centrifuges to Iran that helped get the uranium enrichment program off the ground, according to a three-year investigation that includes interviews conducted with more than a dozen current and former Halliburton employees.
If the U.S. ends up engaged in a war with Iran in the future, Cheney and Halliburton will bear the brunt of the blame. But this shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who has been following Halliburton’s business activities over the past decade. The company has a long, documented history of violating U.S. sanctions and conducting business with so-called rogue nations.
No, what’s disturbing about these facts is how little attention it has received from the mainstream media. But the public record speaks for itself, as do the thousands of pages of documents obtained by various federal agencies that show how Halliburton’s business dealings in Iran helped fund terrorist activities there—including the country’s nuclear enrichment program.
When I asked Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, a couple of years ago if Halliburton would stop doing business with Iran because of concerns that the company helped fund terrorism she said, “No.” “We believe that decisions as to the nature of such governments and their actions are better made by governmental authorities and international entities such as the United Nations as opposed to individual persons or companies,” Hall said. “Putting politics aside, we and our affiliates operate in countries to the extent it is legally permissible, where our customers are active as they expect us to provide oilfield services support to their international operations. “We do not always agree with policies or actions of governments in every place that we do business and make no excuses for their behaviors. Due to the long-term nature of our business and the inevitability of political and social change, it is neither prudent nor appropriate for our company to establish our own country-by-country foreign policy.”
Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company and in possible violation of U.S. sanctions.
An executive order signed by former President Bill Clinton in March 1995 prohibits “new investments (in Iran) by U.S. persons, including commitment of funds or other assets.” It also bars U.S. companies from performing services “that would benefit the Iranian oil industry” and provide Iran with the financial means to engage in terrorist activity.
When Bush and Cheney came into office in 2001, their administration decided it would not punish foreign oil and gas companies that invest in those countries. The sanctions imposed on countries like Iran and Libya before Bush became president were blasted by Cheney, who gave frequent speeches on the need for U.S. companies to compete with their foreign competitors, despite claims that those countries may have ties to terrorism.
“I think we’d be better off if we, in fact, backed off those sanctions (on Iran), didn’t try to impose secondary boycotts on companies . . . trying to do business over there . . . and instead started to rebuild those relationships,” Cheney said during a 1998 business trip to Sydney, Australia, according to Australia’s Illawarra Mercury newspaper.
The Pyrrhic Victory Of The Great Decider
By Karl Schwarz7-10-8
History is replete with lessons that need to be learned and one of the most abject lessons is that of the Pyrrhic Victory. In the case of America, the term has come to mean exactly what it is: to win the battle but lose the war.
The US now excels at Pyrrhic Victories and for the glory of the photo op. No lie is too big to tell. Rather than admit to the American public that they were dead wrong and lost the adventures quit a few years ago, they choose to tell fabricated stories to justify their ends.
It has come out in the past that the US conspired, connived, lied and pulled many dirty tricks to take over the Caspian Basin oil and gas fields. This all beganl way back in the Carter Administration when Jimmy and his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, dreamed up the creation of 'Al Qaeda' as a way of stirring up dissension in Islamic areas such as Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc. Their plan was for the US to rush in and 'save' these smaller, oil and natural gas rich nations from their Soviet masters; to introduce them to 'democracy' and 'freedom' - at gunpoint, if necessary.
Of course, this is the same Russia-hating Zbigniew Brzezinski who is now the top foreign policy advisor to Barky Obama.
Americans will learn soon enough that the Obama "Change we can believe in" mantra actually means NO changes in Washington, DC.
The Pyrrhic Victory must go on...for to admit defeat now would precipitate a literal blizzard in impeachments, treason trials, war crimes and murder trials of Americans against Americans. Sort of a landmark court case titled The Citizens of the United States of America v. The Treasonous Murderers of the United StatesGovernment, et al. Not to mention a long string of investigations to account for trillions of US dollars that were plundered and stolen by and for an elite few.
Such a case could easily be proven in the US Courts, if people would just pay attention to facts that happened in far away Turkmenistan and in our own US Courts. You see, in their desperation, people do really stupid things and sometimes get caught. Sometimes they leave a paper trail that, once revealed, sheds a whole new light on what they are really up to in Washington, DC.
The day before 9-11 the following came out in a trade magazine...and it is the smoking gun as to why 9-11 was done - to sell lunatic policies to unwitting Americans.
"...year in September 10, 2001: 'Those who control the oil routes out of Central Asia will impact all future direction and quantities of flow and the distribution of revenues from new production,' wrote energy expert James Dorian in Oil & Gas Journal, published the day before the terrorist attacks."
That is the true reason as to why the US and UK are so desperate to control the Caspian Basin, but never will. That was the real objective, which led to their contrived polices and launching of wars based on complete lies.
You see, it is all about control...and the US and UK think they alone have the right to control who gets what in the energy game. Such a concept would be laughable (and is) but for the harm they have done to the lives of millions and billions of people.
Instead of calling it Al Qaeda, which was underhanded CIA/USA nonsense from the outset, they called it 'The Grand Chessboard.'
Old Zbigniew even wrote that book about the grand folly, or should I say "a pipeline too far?"
Their plan has failed dismally. Thirty-years of lying, conniving, scheming and no telling how many hundreds of billions in wasted and squandered funds and lost opportunities to chase their "pipe dreams" and dreams of Energy Empire. Millions of people now dead based on a lie and gutless leaders in Washington DC who do not have the courage to stand before a camera or a microphone and admit their folly, and now refuse to admit their lies and their mistakes. They are especially cowardly to admit their treason.
I have reported many times on the matter of Bridas Corporation and the fact that it had the entire Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline deal sewed up until our government upended Turkmenistan and then Pakistan. The only thing remaining as of 9-11 was to figure out an excuse to attack Afghanistan and take it all over.
They had to figure out some dastardly way to get Americans to back such a reckless conquest without questioning it. How could they seize the opportunity and be the ones who controlled "all distribution and flow of revenues" as James Dorian predicted on the Oil and Gas Journal the day before 9-11?
If one wants to truly understand why 9-11 had to happen to sell their bogus policies and greedy objectives, they have to study history back to 1991-1996 when a little oil and gas company from Argentina (Bridas Corp.) was rapidly getting into position to be the key player in the Caspian Basin. As of today, Bridas is a key player in the Caspian Basin in spite of Bush and his bogus Global 'War on Terror' that was targeted at them. Note the dates, they were back in the Clinton Administration but they had to find a useful idiot like George W Bush to put the Grand Chessboard plan into action.
This one little company from Argentina has accomplished more than all of the US and UK Big Oil companies combined (who enjoy the full backing of the US military and now trillions of US dollars blown in vain). The reason for their success is mainly because their policies are dissimilar to those of the US/UK. This has helped them to forge forward while the US and UK plan sinks further into the quicksand and the quagmire they alone created.
If you have not heard what I presented to 9-11, Confronting the Evidence it is easy to find:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bTp9sSuzpI
Bridas sued in the Texas courts for interference of contract in 1996, long before 9-11. They were jerked around, stalled, delayed by any manner possible while the US continued to push for US and UK dominance of the Caspian Basin.
The cat got out of the bag on September 9, 2003 when our own Fifth Circuit, US Court of Appeals upheld Bridas in Case 02-20929, but note the date. This case started on appeal well after the US and UK had launched their bogus Global War on Terror to take control of the Caspian Basin. The case that wound up on appeal started in the Clinton Administration, due to actions that administration took to interfere with Bridas and the Turkmenistan government.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/5th/0220929cv0p.pdf
Desperate to quash that appeals decision they rushed to the US Supreme Court and tried to reverse the decision. On March 22, 2004 the High Court denied the writ of certiorari, an act that lets the Fifth Circuit decision stand.
03-1018 STATE CONCERN TURKMENNEFT V. BRIDAS S.A.P.I.C., ET AL.
http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/orders/ 2003/032204pzor.html
Even while sitting on the 9-11 Commission pretending to be looking for the truth, Richard Ben Veniste, Senior Partner of Mayer Brown, Rowe and Maw, never mentioned that his law firm was representing the Turkmenistan government down at Fifth Circuit and later when the case was denied at the US Supreme Court.
Even as far back as 1989 the other Bush fiasco in the White House dreamed up "Operation Steppe Shield" so the Bush Family could ride to America's rescue behind another bogus "shield" and take over the entire Caspian Basin area in a lightning quick invasion, as if Russia would do nothing about that.
As far back as September 2004, this oil and gas mother lode was worth more than $12 trillion at prices then. Today it is worth much more and is part of why DC is getting more shrill and more desperate because they are getting left out of a huge swing in energy and their ability to control who is getting it. Mr. Dorian predicted it right but the US and UK are being left out as to who is going to control that "distribution and revenues".
Well, they failed and they have all failed over and over again to get their way for the past 30 years.
Bush Co and Big Oil still do not have their coveted pipeline across Afghanistan. So, let's tune in and see what Bridas Corporation has been up to since September 11, 2001.
The US and UK oil giants have leased plenty of tracts, they have drilled plenty of holes but they might as well be dry wells because there are no roads or rail to get the oil out. They absolutely need the pipelines and to date they have failed to complete a single one. Bridas has completed one pipeline, expanded another, and is about to complete two more...and that will spell the doom for Bush's Pyrrhic Victory.
This is the Asia map from the Bridas Corporation website:
Note that Turkmenistan natural gas is going northwest into Russia and then Europe. Also note that Turkmenistan natural gas is going across the northern part of Iran to the Black Sea and Mediterranean.
It is those dotted "Planned Gas Pipelines" that are the bigger problems and are the blowback to US policy of waging a fictitious war against Islam to hide the unmitigated oil and gas greed of the US government and US Big Oil and their buddies over in the UK.
That planned pipeline from near Ashgabat Turkmenistan and crossing Iran, Pakistan and into India is the recently agreed upon IPI Pipeline, so Turkmenistan and Iranian natural gas will be headed to India rather than the US. We can chalk that up as losing a major chess piece on The Grand Chessboard.
That long pipeline into China goes active in 2009, so Turkmenistan natural gas is headed to China instead of the US. If you pay attention to the route of that pipeline to China, that is almost complete, it is also well positioned to transport natural gas and oil from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. We can chalk that up to losing both knights, both bishops and the queen on The Grand Chessboard and checkmate is not far away.
When one factors in that China has Iran supplying them with $400 billion in oil and LNG (courtesy of WalMart and Kmart shoppers), one begins to see more clearly as to why China has no intentions of letting the US control the flow of energy to China by taking over Iran. Nor is Russia going to sit idly by for that matter and let Bush snatch his Pyrrhic Victory from the jaws of his self-inflicted defeat.
If McCain or Obama think they will ride to America's rescue without changing US policies, both are in for a rude awakening for the momentum has swung decidedly against America.
Bush is batting 1,000 in "cannot get Mission Accomplished on anything", so trust that no one is going to help him improve his record. His successor had better change and fast or America will go down fast.
That other dotted pipeline on the Bridas map is obvious for what it is Russia will also supply oil and gas into China and evidently Bridas has major plans in Siberia.
Frankly folks, short of pulling out the nukes there is nothing the US can do about these events except continue to lie and come up with yet more failed policies in DC and more lame-assed excuses to feed to American Sheeple.
The problem we have in DC is we have map-challenged people who grossly over-estimate their power. They are also grossly incompetent in determining who has title to what. When it is not a US asset they keep trying to figure out (covet) some way to make it an asset and into just the right US pockets.
We even have some idiots in DC who think they can takeover Siberia and push all of the Russians into the west of Russia. Yet another moronic plan that is destined to fail if they hatch it.
The entire world is fed up with such juvenile delinquent behaviour from our leaders, and the world is moving on without the US. It is fundamentally the US, UK and Israel that are foolish enough (or delusional enough) to think they can get the smoke back into the jar and that this will, once again, be a unipolar world led by the US and their hand picked allies.
If you have been paying attention to the news lately South America, Russia, India and China are not exactly going along with this Grand Chessboard scheme they dreamed up in the Ivory Towers of Washington, DC and London. There are even rumblings out of Africa that they are not going to go along with the status quo as it has been in the past.
Those days are over folks! Multipolarization is here to stay and there is nothing short of all out nuclear war, presuming the US can win that war, that will ever "turn back the clock". The future is headed in a direction which is opposite of the direction they want to head.
It is time for all US troops to start asking "Why are we here?" And "What are we killing and dying for?"
Ah, yes, for the glory of Emperor George W Pyrrhus' empire.
It is time for all US citizens to ask, "Why are we allowing this insanity?"
Ah, yes, for the glory of American Empire and British and American domination of oil and gas.
It is checkmate, folks! The US has lost its war to control world energy.
Just think, all they needed was a pen and a contract, not Shock and Awe and a fabricated Global War on Terror to camouflage their greed.
There is a saying: "when you lose, make sure you do not lose the lesson." I fear most of America will miss the news that we lost, and will fail to learn from the lesson.
Karl
History is replete with lessons that need to be learned and one of the most abject lessons is that of the Pyrrhic Victory. In the case of America, the term has come to mean exactly what it is: to win the battle but lose the war.
The US now excels at Pyrrhic Victories and for the glory of the photo op. No lie is too big to tell. Rather than admit to the American public that they were dead wrong and lost the adventures quit a few years ago, they choose to tell fabricated stories to justify their ends.
It has come out in the past that the US conspired, connived, lied and pulled many dirty tricks to take over the Caspian Basin oil and gas fields. This all beganl way back in the Carter Administration when Jimmy and his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, dreamed up the creation of 'Al Qaeda' as a way of stirring up dissension in Islamic areas such as Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc. Their plan was for the US to rush in and 'save' these smaller, oil and natural gas rich nations from their Soviet masters; to introduce them to 'democracy' and 'freedom' - at gunpoint, if necessary.
Of course, this is the same Russia-hating Zbigniew Brzezinski who is now the top foreign policy advisor to Barky Obama.
Americans will learn soon enough that the Obama "Change we can believe in" mantra actually means NO changes in Washington, DC.
The Pyrrhic Victory must go on...for to admit defeat now would precipitate a literal blizzard in impeachments, treason trials, war crimes and murder trials of Americans against Americans. Sort of a landmark court case titled The Citizens of the United States of America v. The Treasonous Murderers of the United StatesGovernment, et al. Not to mention a long string of investigations to account for trillions of US dollars that were plundered and stolen by and for an elite few.
Such a case could easily be proven in the US Courts, if people would just pay attention to facts that happened in far away Turkmenistan and in our own US Courts. You see, in their desperation, people do really stupid things and sometimes get caught. Sometimes they leave a paper trail that, once revealed, sheds a whole new light on what they are really up to in Washington, DC.
The day before 9-11 the following came out in a trade magazine...and it is the smoking gun as to why 9-11 was done - to sell lunatic policies to unwitting Americans.
"...year in September 10, 2001: 'Those who control the oil routes out of Central Asia will impact all future direction and quantities of flow and the distribution of revenues from new production,' wrote energy expert James Dorian in Oil & Gas Journal, published the day before the terrorist attacks."
That is the true reason as to why the US and UK are so desperate to control the Caspian Basin, but never will. That was the real objective, which led to their contrived polices and launching of wars based on complete lies.
You see, it is all about control...and the US and UK think they alone have the right to control who gets what in the energy game. Such a concept would be laughable (and is) but for the harm they have done to the lives of millions and billions of people.
Instead of calling it Al Qaeda, which was underhanded CIA/USA nonsense from the outset, they called it 'The Grand Chessboard.'
Old Zbigniew even wrote that book about the grand folly, or should I say "a pipeline too far?"
Their plan has failed dismally. Thirty-years of lying, conniving, scheming and no telling how many hundreds of billions in wasted and squandered funds and lost opportunities to chase their "pipe dreams" and dreams of Energy Empire. Millions of people now dead based on a lie and gutless leaders in Washington DC who do not have the courage to stand before a camera or a microphone and admit their folly, and now refuse to admit their lies and their mistakes. They are especially cowardly to admit their treason.
I have reported many times on the matter of Bridas Corporation and the fact that it had the entire Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline deal sewed up until our government upended Turkmenistan and then Pakistan. The only thing remaining as of 9-11 was to figure out an excuse to attack Afghanistan and take it all over.
They had to figure out some dastardly way to get Americans to back such a reckless conquest without questioning it. How could they seize the opportunity and be the ones who controlled "all distribution and flow of revenues" as James Dorian predicted on the Oil and Gas Journal the day before 9-11?
If one wants to truly understand why 9-11 had to happen to sell their bogus policies and greedy objectives, they have to study history back to 1991-1996 when a little oil and gas company from Argentina (Bridas Corp.) was rapidly getting into position to be the key player in the Caspian Basin. As of today, Bridas is a key player in the Caspian Basin in spite of Bush and his bogus Global 'War on Terror' that was targeted at them. Note the dates, they were back in the Clinton Administration but they had to find a useful idiot like George W Bush to put the Grand Chessboard plan into action.
This one little company from Argentina has accomplished more than all of the US and UK Big Oil companies combined (who enjoy the full backing of the US military and now trillions of US dollars blown in vain). The reason for their success is mainly because their policies are dissimilar to those of the US/UK. This has helped them to forge forward while the US and UK plan sinks further into the quicksand and the quagmire they alone created.
If you have not heard what I presented to 9-11, Confronting the Evidence it is easy to find:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bTp9sSuzpI
Bridas sued in the Texas courts for interference of contract in 1996, long before 9-11. They were jerked around, stalled, delayed by any manner possible while the US continued to push for US and UK dominance of the Caspian Basin.
The cat got out of the bag on September 9, 2003 when our own Fifth Circuit, US Court of Appeals upheld Bridas in Case 02-20929, but note the date. This case started on appeal well after the US and UK had launched their bogus Global War on Terror to take control of the Caspian Basin. The case that wound up on appeal started in the Clinton Administration, due to actions that administration took to interfere with Bridas and the Turkmenistan government.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/5th/0220929cv0p.pdf
Desperate to quash that appeals decision they rushed to the US Supreme Court and tried to reverse the decision. On March 22, 2004 the High Court denied the writ of certiorari, an act that lets the Fifth Circuit decision stand.
03-1018 STATE CONCERN TURKMENNEFT V. BRIDAS S.A.P.I.C., ET AL.
http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/orders/ 2003/032204pzor.html
Even while sitting on the 9-11 Commission pretending to be looking for the truth, Richard Ben Veniste, Senior Partner of Mayer Brown, Rowe and Maw, never mentioned that his law firm was representing the Turkmenistan government down at Fifth Circuit and later when the case was denied at the US Supreme Court.
Even as far back as 1989 the other Bush fiasco in the White House dreamed up "Operation Steppe Shield" so the Bush Family could ride to America's rescue behind another bogus "shield" and take over the entire Caspian Basin area in a lightning quick invasion, as if Russia would do nothing about that.
As far back as September 2004, this oil and gas mother lode was worth more than $12 trillion at prices then. Today it is worth much more and is part of why DC is getting more shrill and more desperate because they are getting left out of a huge swing in energy and their ability to control who is getting it. Mr. Dorian predicted it right but the US and UK are being left out as to who is going to control that "distribution and revenues".
Well, they failed and they have all failed over and over again to get their way for the past 30 years.
Bush Co and Big Oil still do not have their coveted pipeline across Afghanistan. So, let's tune in and see what Bridas Corporation has been up to since September 11, 2001.
The US and UK oil giants have leased plenty of tracts, they have drilled plenty of holes but they might as well be dry wells because there are no roads or rail to get the oil out. They absolutely need the pipelines and to date they have failed to complete a single one. Bridas has completed one pipeline, expanded another, and is about to complete two more...and that will spell the doom for Bush's Pyrrhic Victory.
This is the Asia map from the Bridas Corporation website:
Note that Turkmenistan natural gas is going northwest into Russia and then Europe. Also note that Turkmenistan natural gas is going across the northern part of Iran to the Black Sea and Mediterranean.
It is those dotted "Planned Gas Pipelines" that are the bigger problems and are the blowback to US policy of waging a fictitious war against Islam to hide the unmitigated oil and gas greed of the US government and US Big Oil and their buddies over in the UK.
That planned pipeline from near Ashgabat Turkmenistan and crossing Iran, Pakistan and into India is the recently agreed upon IPI Pipeline, so Turkmenistan and Iranian natural gas will be headed to India rather than the US. We can chalk that up as losing a major chess piece on The Grand Chessboard.
That long pipeline into China goes active in 2009, so Turkmenistan natural gas is headed to China instead of the US. If you pay attention to the route of that pipeline to China, that is almost complete, it is also well positioned to transport natural gas and oil from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. We can chalk that up to losing both knights, both bishops and the queen on The Grand Chessboard and checkmate is not far away.
When one factors in that China has Iran supplying them with $400 billion in oil and LNG (courtesy of WalMart and Kmart shoppers), one begins to see more clearly as to why China has no intentions of letting the US control the flow of energy to China by taking over Iran. Nor is Russia going to sit idly by for that matter and let Bush snatch his Pyrrhic Victory from the jaws of his self-inflicted defeat.
If McCain or Obama think they will ride to America's rescue without changing US policies, both are in for a rude awakening for the momentum has swung decidedly against America.
Bush is batting 1,000 in "cannot get Mission Accomplished on anything", so trust that no one is going to help him improve his record. His successor had better change and fast or America will go down fast.
That other dotted pipeline on the Bridas map is obvious for what it is Russia will also supply oil and gas into China and evidently Bridas has major plans in Siberia.
Frankly folks, short of pulling out the nukes there is nothing the US can do about these events except continue to lie and come up with yet more failed policies in DC and more lame-assed excuses to feed to American Sheeple.
The problem we have in DC is we have map-challenged people who grossly over-estimate their power. They are also grossly incompetent in determining who has title to what. When it is not a US asset they keep trying to figure out (covet) some way to make it an asset and into just the right US pockets.
We even have some idiots in DC who think they can takeover Siberia and push all of the Russians into the west of Russia. Yet another moronic plan that is destined to fail if they hatch it.
The entire world is fed up with such juvenile delinquent behaviour from our leaders, and the world is moving on without the US. It is fundamentally the US, UK and Israel that are foolish enough (or delusional enough) to think they can get the smoke back into the jar and that this will, once again, be a unipolar world led by the US and their hand picked allies.
If you have been paying attention to the news lately South America, Russia, India and China are not exactly going along with this Grand Chessboard scheme they dreamed up in the Ivory Towers of Washington, DC and London. There are even rumblings out of Africa that they are not going to go along with the status quo as it has been in the past.
Those days are over folks! Multipolarization is here to stay and there is nothing short of all out nuclear war, presuming the US can win that war, that will ever "turn back the clock". The future is headed in a direction which is opposite of the direction they want to head.
It is time for all US troops to start asking "Why are we here?" And "What are we killing and dying for?"
Ah, yes, for the glory of Emperor George W Pyrrhus' empire.
It is time for all US citizens to ask, "Why are we allowing this insanity?"
Ah, yes, for the glory of American Empire and British and American domination of oil and gas.
It is checkmate, folks! The US has lost its war to control world energy.
Just think, all they needed was a pen and a contract, not Shock and Awe and a fabricated Global War on Terror to camouflage their greed.
There is a saying: "when you lose, make sure you do not lose the lesson." I fear most of America will miss the news that we lost, and will fail to learn from the lesson.
Karl
America’s New Slavery: Black Men in Prison
A new American slave trade is booming, warn prison activists, following the release of a report that again outlines outrageous numbers of young Black men in prison and increasing numbers of adults undergoing incarceration. That slave trade is connected to money states spend to keep people locked up, profits made through cheap prison labor and for-profit prisons, excessive charges inmates and families may pay for everything from tube socks to phone calls, and lucrative cross country shipping of inmates to relieve overcrowding and rent cells in faraway states and counties.
Advocates note that the constitution’s 13th amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery in the United States, but provided an exception—in cases where persons have been “duly convicted” in the United States and territory it controls, slavery or involuntary servitude can be reimposed as a punishment, they add. The majority of prisoners are Black and Latino, though they are minorities in terms of their numbers in the population.
According to “One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008,” published by the Pew Center on the States, one in nine Black men between the ages of 20-34 are incarcerated compared to one in 30 other men of the same age. Like the overall adult ratio, one in 100 Black women in their mid-to-late 30s is imprisoned.
“Everyone is feeding off of our down-trodden condition to feed their capitalism, greed and lust for money. They are buying prison stock on the market and this is why they want to silence the restorative voice of Minister Louis Farrakhan, because he is repairing those who fill and would support the prison system as slaves,” said Student Minister Abdullah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam Prison Ministry.
The report states that the rising trend stems from more than a parallel increase in crime or surge in the population at large, but it is driven by policies that put more criminals in prison, extending their stay through measures like California’s Three Strikes Law.
Atty. Barbara Ratliff, a L.A.-based reparations activist, said the prison industrial complex’s extension of the slave plantation plays out in a pattern of behavior that Black people must study in order to survive. “I’m not talking about behavior of the individual incarcerate, but the pattern of treatment that digs into institutional racism. Corporate profit from prisons is no different than how slave owners received benefit from their labor, and that impact remained even after slavery. For instance, freed Blacks were arrested and put on chain gangs for their labor which continued to benefit slave owners, so this is no accident,” she said.
Inmates produce items or perform services for almost every major industry. They sew clothes, fight fires and build furniture, but they are paid little or no wages, somewhere between five cents and almost $2.
Phone companies charge high amounts for collect calls and inmate care packages can no longer be sent from families directly. Inmates must purchase products from companies to be sent in, which feeds capitalism, activists charge.
Although the costs of prisons is skyrocketing and consuming state budgets, money continues to be spent to push more Black youth into prison, activists assert. Many education and prison advocates charge there is a plot to populate U.S. prisons based on the dumbing down of America’s youth. Figures show those most likely to be incarcerated and to return generally have the lowest level of education. The report said, “While states don’t necessarily choose between higher education and corrections, a dollar spent in one area is unavailable for another.”
U.S. spending on prisons last year topped $49 billion, compared to $12 billion in 1987. California spent $8.8 billion on prisons last year and 13 states spend more than $1 billion a year on corrections.
Data from the National Association of State Budget Officers indicates:
• Vermont, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut and Delaware spent as much or more on corrections than on higher education;
• For every dollar spent on higher education, Alaska spent 77 cents on corrections;
• For every dollar spent on higher education, Georgia spent 50 cents on corrections;
• On the average, all 50 states spent 60 cents on corrections for every dollar spent on higher education; and
• For every dollar spent on higher education, Minnesota spent 17 cents on corrections.
Between 1985 and 2005, Texas’ prison population alone jumped by 300 percent.
“All we have to do is follow the logic to see this connection between prisons and enslavement. When you look at prison costs and they say it cost $45,000 to house one prisoner, where does that break down? There’s only three square meals a day. The prisoners make their clothes and bedding in sewing factories and about 90 percent of the items they use in the prisons,” said Nathaniel Ali of the National Association of Brothers and Sisters In and Out of Prison (NABSIO).
He believes the majority of prison costs support guard unions and pay enormous base and overtime salaries of prison guards and other staff.
“They receive these exorbitant wages regardless of their education and training. You don’t have an I.Q.; all you have to have is the ability to be brutal” to command these wages through this new slave system, he said.
Mr. Ali said the public school system has become the feeder to prisons and their slave populations by increasing the heavy presence of school police and sheriffs on middle school campuses and penalties students face for often trivial offenses, other activists added.
Prison watch groups note corporate-owned prisons feed job-starved communities where businesses have disappeared. By incarcerating so many people, America deals with warehousing them and not finding out why they are incarcerated in the first place, advocates said.
“The fact is, it’s a business and a readily accessible, ‘free’ workforce removes prisons’ incentive to rehabilitate, especially those that are owned by corporations,” Atty. Ratliff said.
Laini Coffee, a self-described “unity activist” said, “At current trend, we could very well see the number of so-called free Blacks rival to the same number of those that are incarcerated. The answer is simple: Unity.”
Advocates note that the constitution’s 13th amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery in the United States, but provided an exception—in cases where persons have been “duly convicted” in the United States and territory it controls, slavery or involuntary servitude can be reimposed as a punishment, they add. The majority of prisoners are Black and Latino, though they are minorities in terms of their numbers in the population.
According to “One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008,” published by the Pew Center on the States, one in nine Black men between the ages of 20-34 are incarcerated compared to one in 30 other men of the same age. Like the overall adult ratio, one in 100 Black women in their mid-to-late 30s is imprisoned.
“Everyone is feeding off of our down-trodden condition to feed their capitalism, greed and lust for money. They are buying prison stock on the market and this is why they want to silence the restorative voice of Minister Louis Farrakhan, because he is repairing those who fill and would support the prison system as slaves,” said Student Minister Abdullah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam Prison Ministry.
The report states that the rising trend stems from more than a parallel increase in crime or surge in the population at large, but it is driven by policies that put more criminals in prison, extending their stay through measures like California’s Three Strikes Law.
Atty. Barbara Ratliff, a L.A.-based reparations activist, said the prison industrial complex’s extension of the slave plantation plays out in a pattern of behavior that Black people must study in order to survive. “I’m not talking about behavior of the individual incarcerate, but the pattern of treatment that digs into institutional racism. Corporate profit from prisons is no different than how slave owners received benefit from their labor, and that impact remained even after slavery. For instance, freed Blacks were arrested and put on chain gangs for their labor which continued to benefit slave owners, so this is no accident,” she said.
Inmates produce items or perform services for almost every major industry. They sew clothes, fight fires and build furniture, but they are paid little or no wages, somewhere between five cents and almost $2.
Phone companies charge high amounts for collect calls and inmate care packages can no longer be sent from families directly. Inmates must purchase products from companies to be sent in, which feeds capitalism, activists charge.
Although the costs of prisons is skyrocketing and consuming state budgets, money continues to be spent to push more Black youth into prison, activists assert. Many education and prison advocates charge there is a plot to populate U.S. prisons based on the dumbing down of America’s youth. Figures show those most likely to be incarcerated and to return generally have the lowest level of education. The report said, “While states don’t necessarily choose between higher education and corrections, a dollar spent in one area is unavailable for another.”
U.S. spending on prisons last year topped $49 billion, compared to $12 billion in 1987. California spent $8.8 billion on prisons last year and 13 states spend more than $1 billion a year on corrections.
Data from the National Association of State Budget Officers indicates:
• Vermont, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut and Delaware spent as much or more on corrections than on higher education;
• For every dollar spent on higher education, Alaska spent 77 cents on corrections;
• For every dollar spent on higher education, Georgia spent 50 cents on corrections;
• On the average, all 50 states spent 60 cents on corrections for every dollar spent on higher education; and
• For every dollar spent on higher education, Minnesota spent 17 cents on corrections.
Between 1985 and 2005, Texas’ prison population alone jumped by 300 percent.
“All we have to do is follow the logic to see this connection between prisons and enslavement. When you look at prison costs and they say it cost $45,000 to house one prisoner, where does that break down? There’s only three square meals a day. The prisoners make their clothes and bedding in sewing factories and about 90 percent of the items they use in the prisons,” said Nathaniel Ali of the National Association of Brothers and Sisters In and Out of Prison (NABSIO).
He believes the majority of prison costs support guard unions and pay enormous base and overtime salaries of prison guards and other staff.
“They receive these exorbitant wages regardless of their education and training. You don’t have an I.Q.; all you have to have is the ability to be brutal” to command these wages through this new slave system, he said.
Mr. Ali said the public school system has become the feeder to prisons and their slave populations by increasing the heavy presence of school police and sheriffs on middle school campuses and penalties students face for often trivial offenses, other activists added.
Prison watch groups note corporate-owned prisons feed job-starved communities where businesses have disappeared. By incarcerating so many people, America deals with warehousing them and not finding out why they are incarcerated in the first place, advocates said.
“The fact is, it’s a business and a readily accessible, ‘free’ workforce removes prisons’ incentive to rehabilitate, especially those that are owned by corporations,” Atty. Ratliff said.
Laini Coffee, a self-described “unity activist” said, “At current trend, we could very well see the number of so-called free Blacks rival to the same number of those that are incarcerated. The answer is simple: Unity.”
Follow the Prison Money Trail: Private prison companies invest millions in elections.
While New Mexico’s landscape may make the state the Land of Enchantment, its rapidly growing rates of incarceration have been utterly disenchanting. What’s worse, New Mexico is at the top of the nation’s list for privatizing prisons; nearly one-half of the state’s prisons and jails are run by corporations.
Supposedly, states turn to private companies to cope better with chronic overcrowding and for low-cost management. However, a closer look suggests a different rationale. A recent report from the Montana-based Institute on Money in State Politics reveals that during the 2002 and 2004 election cycles, private prison companies, directors, executives and lobbyists gave $3.3 million to candidates and state political parties across 44 states.
According to Edwin Bender, executive director of the Institute on Money in State Politics, private prison companies strongly favor giving to states with the toughest sentencing laws—in essence, the ones that are more likely to come up with the bodies to fill prison beds. Those states, adds Bender, are also the ones most likely to have passed “three-strikes” laws. Those laws, first passed by Washington state voters in 1993 and then California voters in 1994, quickly swept the nation. They were largely based on “cookie-cutter legislation” pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), some of whose members come from the ranks of private prison companies.
Florida leads the pack in terms of private prison dollars, with its candidates and political parties receiving almost 20 percent of their total contributions from private prison companies and their affiliates. Florida already has five privately owned and operated prisons, with a sixth on the way. It’s also privatized the bulk of its juvenile detention system. Texas and New Jersey are close behind.
But in Florida, some of the influence peddling finally seems to be backfiring. Florida State Corrections Secretary James McDonough alarmed private prison companies with a comment during an Aug. 2 morning call-in radio show. “I actually think the state is better at running the prisons,” McDonough told an interviewer. His comments followed an internal audit last year by the state’s Department of Management Services, which demonstrated that Florida overpaid private prison operators by $1.3 million.
Things may no longer be quite as sunny as they once were in Florida for the likes of Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the former Wackenhut, now known as the GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla. But with a little bit of spiel-tinkering—and a shift of attention to other states—the prison privatizers are likely to keep going.
The key shift, Bender explains, is that “the prison industry has gone from a we-can-save-you-money pitch to an economic-development model pitch.”
In other words, says Bender, “you need [their] prisons for jobs.”
If political donations are any measure, economically challenged and poverty-stricken states like New Mexico are a great target. In this campaign cycle, Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson has already received more contributions from a private prison company than any other politician campaigning for state office in the United States. The Institute of Money in State Politics, which traced the donations, reported that GEO has contributed $42,750 to Richardson since 2005—and another $8,000 to his running mate, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish.
Another $30,000 went from GEO to the Richardson-headed Democratic Governors Association this past March. Richardson’s PAC, Moving America Forward, was another prominent recipient of GEO donations. Now, its former head, prominent state capitol lobbyist Joe Velasquez, is a registered lobbyist for GEO Care Inc., a healthcare subsidiary that runs a hospital in New Mexico.
But don’t get the idea that GEO has any particular love for Democrats: $95,000 from the corporation went to the Republican Governors Association last year alone. What companies like GEO do love are the millions of dollars rolling in from lucrative New Mexico contracts to run the Lea County Correctional Facility (operating budget: $25 million/year), and the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility ($13 million/year), among others. CCA also owns and operates the state’s only women’s facility in Grants ($11 million per year).
To make sure that those dollars keep flowing, GEO and CCA have perfected the art of the “very tight revolving door,” says Bender, which involves snapping up former corrections administrators, PAC lobbyists and state officials to serve as consultants to private prison companies.
In fact, the current New Mexico Corrections Department Secretary Joe Williams was once on GEO’s payroll as their warden of the Lea County Correctional Facility. Earlier this year, Williams was placed on unpaid administrative leave after accusations surfaced that he spent state travel and phone funds to pursue a very close relationship with Ann Casey. Casey is a registered lobbyist in New Mexico for Wexford Health Sources, which provides health care for prisoners at Grants, and Aramark, which provides most of the state’s inmate meals. In her non-lobbying hours, it turns out that Casey is also an assistant warden at a state prison in Centralia, Ill.
It appears that even for a prison industry enchanted by public-private partnership, Williams and Casey may have gone too far.
Silja J.A. Talvi is a senior editor at In These Times, an investigative journalist and essayist with credits in many dozens of newspapers and magazines nationwide, including The Nation, Salon, Santa Fe Reporter, Utne, and the Christian Science Monitor. She is the recipient of multiple national and regional awards, including 12 awards from the Society of Professional Journalists (Pacific Northwest); a New American Media Award for Immigration-related reporting; as well as five consecutive national awards for magazine reporting from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD).
Supposedly, states turn to private companies to cope better with chronic overcrowding and for low-cost management. However, a closer look suggests a different rationale. A recent report from the Montana-based Institute on Money in State Politics reveals that during the 2002 and 2004 election cycles, private prison companies, directors, executives and lobbyists gave $3.3 million to candidates and state political parties across 44 states.
According to Edwin Bender, executive director of the Institute on Money in State Politics, private prison companies strongly favor giving to states with the toughest sentencing laws—in essence, the ones that are more likely to come up with the bodies to fill prison beds. Those states, adds Bender, are also the ones most likely to have passed “three-strikes” laws. Those laws, first passed by Washington state voters in 1993 and then California voters in 1994, quickly swept the nation. They were largely based on “cookie-cutter legislation” pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), some of whose members come from the ranks of private prison companies.
Florida leads the pack in terms of private prison dollars, with its candidates and political parties receiving almost 20 percent of their total contributions from private prison companies and their affiliates. Florida already has five privately owned and operated prisons, with a sixth on the way. It’s also privatized the bulk of its juvenile detention system. Texas and New Jersey are close behind.
But in Florida, some of the influence peddling finally seems to be backfiring. Florida State Corrections Secretary James McDonough alarmed private prison companies with a comment during an Aug. 2 morning call-in radio show. “I actually think the state is better at running the prisons,” McDonough told an interviewer. His comments followed an internal audit last year by the state’s Department of Management Services, which demonstrated that Florida overpaid private prison operators by $1.3 million.
Things may no longer be quite as sunny as they once were in Florida for the likes of Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the former Wackenhut, now known as the GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla. But with a little bit of spiel-tinkering—and a shift of attention to other states—the prison privatizers are likely to keep going.
The key shift, Bender explains, is that “the prison industry has gone from a we-can-save-you-money pitch to an economic-development model pitch.”
In other words, says Bender, “you need [their] prisons for jobs.”
If political donations are any measure, economically challenged and poverty-stricken states like New Mexico are a great target. In this campaign cycle, Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson has already received more contributions from a private prison company than any other politician campaigning for state office in the United States. The Institute of Money in State Politics, which traced the donations, reported that GEO has contributed $42,750 to Richardson since 2005—and another $8,000 to his running mate, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish.
Another $30,000 went from GEO to the Richardson-headed Democratic Governors Association this past March. Richardson’s PAC, Moving America Forward, was another prominent recipient of GEO donations. Now, its former head, prominent state capitol lobbyist Joe Velasquez, is a registered lobbyist for GEO Care Inc., a healthcare subsidiary that runs a hospital in New Mexico.
But don’t get the idea that GEO has any particular love for Democrats: $95,000 from the corporation went to the Republican Governors Association last year alone. What companies like GEO do love are the millions of dollars rolling in from lucrative New Mexico contracts to run the Lea County Correctional Facility (operating budget: $25 million/year), and the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility ($13 million/year), among others. CCA also owns and operates the state’s only women’s facility in Grants ($11 million per year).
To make sure that those dollars keep flowing, GEO and CCA have perfected the art of the “very tight revolving door,” says Bender, which involves snapping up former corrections administrators, PAC lobbyists and state officials to serve as consultants to private prison companies.
In fact, the current New Mexico Corrections Department Secretary Joe Williams was once on GEO’s payroll as their warden of the Lea County Correctional Facility. Earlier this year, Williams was placed on unpaid administrative leave after accusations surfaced that he spent state travel and phone funds to pursue a very close relationship with Ann Casey. Casey is a registered lobbyist in New Mexico for Wexford Health Sources, which provides health care for prisoners at Grants, and Aramark, which provides most of the state’s inmate meals. In her non-lobbying hours, it turns out that Casey is also an assistant warden at a state prison in Centralia, Ill.
It appears that even for a prison industry enchanted by public-private partnership, Williams and Casey may have gone too far.
Silja J.A. Talvi is a senior editor at In These Times, an investigative journalist and essayist with credits in many dozens of newspapers and magazines nationwide, including The Nation, Salon, Santa Fe Reporter, Utne, and the Christian Science Monitor. She is the recipient of multiple national and regional awards, including 12 awards from the Society of Professional Journalists (Pacific Northwest); a New American Media Award for Immigration-related reporting; as well as five consecutive national awards for magazine reporting from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD).
Iran: McCain cigarette joke, disturbing
Iran: McCain cigarette joke, disturbingSat, 12 Jul 2008 19:47:44 Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini has criticized Senator John McCain for joking about killing Iranians with cigarettes. “McCain's crude remark on the indiscriminate killing of the Iranian nation not only testifies to his disturbed state of mind, but also to his warmongering approach to foreign policy,” said Hosseini in a Saturday statement. “We condemn such jokes and believe them to be inappropriate for a US presidential candidate. It is most evident that jokes about genocide will not be tolerated by Iranians or Americans,” he added. The straight-talking Arizona senator sparked an outcry when in response to a report that US exports to Iran had increased more than tenfold during George W. Bush's presidency, he suggested killing Iranians by sending them cigarettes. "Maybe that's a way of killing them,” the senior Republican opined. Last year at a campaign meeting in South Carolina when asked if there is a plan to attack Iran, McCain joked about 'bombing Iran', signing a variation on the lyrics of a well-known pop song. "You know that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?" he said, singing "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" before answering the question. He later responded to the stark criticism his remarks drew with a simple 'lighten up'.
Lock ’em up, earn big bucks?
Twenty civil rights and criminal justice groups recently petitioned a congressional subcommittee on crime to alter a federal grant program they say has resulted in racial profiling, police corruption and civil rights abuses.
The groups made their appeal in a June 18 letter, the same day the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security voted to authorize H.R. 3546, the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistant Grant Program (Byrne Formula Grant Program), which had already passed the Senate.
Rep. Henry “Hank” Johnson (D-Ga.) authored the bill, which provides for funding through 2012, at levels equal to money approved for it in 2006. Critics say the program provides a cover for law enforcement abuses primarily against people of color, and want the program reformed before renewal.
“I think that if this Democratic Congress renews the program without reforming it, they’re saying they don’t care about racial disparities and civil rights abuses. The track record of this program is clear and there are significant problems, so to renew without fixing these problems is just fiscally and morally unsound,” Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance Network, told The Final Call.
The Drug Policy Alliance and other reform groups cited a 1999 discriminatory drug sting in Tulia, Texas, as one of the most notorious scandals linked to the grant program.
Forty Blacks and six others, who were either Latinos or Whites dating Blacks, were jailed after a White undercover police officer with history of lying and racism, conducted a bogus drug sting, advocates said. The undercover officer worked alone and he had no evidence or any eyewitness accounts to back his story, they added. About 15 percent of the town’s Black population was incarcerated for at least four years before two of the victims were able to prove that they were out of town when the drug trafficking supposedly took place.
In Hearne, Texas, a judge found that a narcotics task force routinely targeted Blacks in a scheme to drive them out of the majority White town.
One problem is that various regional narcotic task forces funded by the grant operate under different state guidelines and have no accountability to local officials. And, the federal government poorly regulates the task forces, Mr. Piper said.
“The problem with this is that the more people they arrest, the better their chance of getting more money next year, so the narcotics task forces have a perverse incentive to arrest as many lower level offenders as possible because they are the easiest to catch, and to cut constitutional corners. They have to report back to someone how many people they arrested so they have an incentive to rack up those numbers,” he said.
In 2006, Congress had authorized more than $1.095 billion for the program, but that was slashed to $520 million for 2007, and again by two-thirds to $170.4 million this year.
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 created the program as a joint effort between federal, state and local governments to better solve criminal justice issues, especially drug trafficking and violent crime.
Law enforcement agencies use the grant to pay for personnel, equipment, training, technical assistance, information systems, prosecution, adjudication, detention, rehabilitation and victims’ assistance.
According to Rep. Johnson, the program has led to 220,000 arrests, the seizure of 54,000 weapons, the destruction of 5.5 million grams of methamphetamine and the elimination of almost 9,000 methamphetamine labs. “But as we discuss how the program has worked effectively across the country we must also discuss some of the problems that have led this administration and some advocacy groups to criticize the program,” Rep. Johnson admitted during a May 20 subcommittee hearing on the bill.
But, he argued, slashing funding would only jeopardize the gains the criminal justice system has made fighting crime.
“My organization has taken the position that the Byrne Grant funds ought to be used for prevention activities in communities to diffuse youth gangs by getting them involved in positive activities. These funds should be distributed to ordinary law enforcement where the responsibility is given to mayors and city government or the regional district attorney or FBI offices,” said Judge Arthur Burnett, Sr., executive director of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition.
Mr. Piper acknowledged that the program fosters some good things like drug treatment and juvenile justice aid, but there is still cause for worry over issues like the unregulated use of confidential informants.
“You have conspiracy laws that allow people to get long prison sentences based solely on the word of someone else, whether an informant, undercover officer, or someone in prison seeking a reduced sentence. The federal funding for the war on drugs in general and the Byrne Grant Program are perpetuating racial disparities, over incarceration and civil rights abuses,” Mr. Piper said.
The groups made their appeal in a June 18 letter, the same day the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security voted to authorize H.R. 3546, the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistant Grant Program (Byrne Formula Grant Program), which had already passed the Senate.
Rep. Henry “Hank” Johnson (D-Ga.) authored the bill, which provides for funding through 2012, at levels equal to money approved for it in 2006. Critics say the program provides a cover for law enforcement abuses primarily against people of color, and want the program reformed before renewal.
“I think that if this Democratic Congress renews the program without reforming it, they’re saying they don’t care about racial disparities and civil rights abuses. The track record of this program is clear and there are significant problems, so to renew without fixing these problems is just fiscally and morally unsound,” Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance Network, told The Final Call.
The Drug Policy Alliance and other reform groups cited a 1999 discriminatory drug sting in Tulia, Texas, as one of the most notorious scandals linked to the grant program.
Forty Blacks and six others, who were either Latinos or Whites dating Blacks, were jailed after a White undercover police officer with history of lying and racism, conducted a bogus drug sting, advocates said. The undercover officer worked alone and he had no evidence or any eyewitness accounts to back his story, they added. About 15 percent of the town’s Black population was incarcerated for at least four years before two of the victims were able to prove that they were out of town when the drug trafficking supposedly took place.
In Hearne, Texas, a judge found that a narcotics task force routinely targeted Blacks in a scheme to drive them out of the majority White town.
One problem is that various regional narcotic task forces funded by the grant operate under different state guidelines and have no accountability to local officials. And, the federal government poorly regulates the task forces, Mr. Piper said.
“The problem with this is that the more people they arrest, the better their chance of getting more money next year, so the narcotics task forces have a perverse incentive to arrest as many lower level offenders as possible because they are the easiest to catch, and to cut constitutional corners. They have to report back to someone how many people they arrested so they have an incentive to rack up those numbers,” he said.
In 2006, Congress had authorized more than $1.095 billion for the program, but that was slashed to $520 million for 2007, and again by two-thirds to $170.4 million this year.
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 created the program as a joint effort between federal, state and local governments to better solve criminal justice issues, especially drug trafficking and violent crime.
Law enforcement agencies use the grant to pay for personnel, equipment, training, technical assistance, information systems, prosecution, adjudication, detention, rehabilitation and victims’ assistance.
According to Rep. Johnson, the program has led to 220,000 arrests, the seizure of 54,000 weapons, the destruction of 5.5 million grams of methamphetamine and the elimination of almost 9,000 methamphetamine labs. “But as we discuss how the program has worked effectively across the country we must also discuss some of the problems that have led this administration and some advocacy groups to criticize the program,” Rep. Johnson admitted during a May 20 subcommittee hearing on the bill.
But, he argued, slashing funding would only jeopardize the gains the criminal justice system has made fighting crime.
“My organization has taken the position that the Byrne Grant funds ought to be used for prevention activities in communities to diffuse youth gangs by getting them involved in positive activities. These funds should be distributed to ordinary law enforcement where the responsibility is given to mayors and city government or the regional district attorney or FBI offices,” said Judge Arthur Burnett, Sr., executive director of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition.
Mr. Piper acknowledged that the program fosters some good things like drug treatment and juvenile justice aid, but there is still cause for worry over issues like the unregulated use of confidential informants.
“You have conspiracy laws that allow people to get long prison sentences based solely on the word of someone else, whether an informant, undercover officer, or someone in prison seeking a reduced sentence. The federal funding for the war on drugs in general and the Byrne Grant Program are perpetuating racial disparities, over incarceration and civil rights abuses,” Mr. Piper said.
Mortgage crisis reflects nation’s worship of money
Long cherished as the American Dream, home ownership has become a nightmare for many families, neighborhoods and local governments across the country.
A Demos report, “Beyond the Mortgage Meltdown,” released June 25, put foreclosures at close to 25,000 a week. More than two million homes are expected to be lost in 2008-2009 and many borrowers are “underwater,” with home mortgages larger than their actual homes are worth. Home values have fallen as far as 35 percent in some parts of the country.
The staple of wealth acquisition in the United States has been home ownership. The myth was that home values would steadily climb upward. The housing bubble has burst and the mess isn’t just impacting homeowners whose mortgages went belly up.
Living next to a vacant property automatically brings down nearby property values and local governments are literally spending millions to provide security for, board up and monitor abandoned properties. The problem is so bad the attorneys general for the states of Illinois and California are suing Countrywide Financial, a major lender, because failed mortgages have been destructive to the life and livelihood of residents of their states.
With Blacks having lost an estimated $71 to $92 billion in what some experts have called the largest single loss of wealth for Blacks in the history of the country, the lives of families and neighborhoods have been devastated because of an all-consuming greed.
The last time housing markets were hit with this kind of chaos, it was 1933 and President Franklin Roosevelt was entering the White House. In the midst of the Great Depression, Congress and the president acted to set up the Home Owners Loan Corp., which was a temporary measure that saved 800,000 families from foreclosure over three years and helped bring stability back to the housing market, the Demos report noted.
Congress is considering legislation that would help some homeowners but the country really needs more than legal efforts. It needs to examine itself and ask why inordinate greed pervades a country that enjoys a higher standard of living than the rest of the world and consumes far more than its share of the planet’s resources.
The god of America society is money and the lack of spiritual values and commitment to the development of human beings leaves the weak and the ignorant prey for wise and crooked deceivers. It was not enough for banks, major banks and lenders, to earn money based on someone taking out a loan and paying interest on that loan for 30 years.
As the country pushed forward with home ownership, at the urging of the Bush administration, the artful liars found new markets and new schemes. Regular pay-your-mortgage-loans over 30 years weren’t enough. Instead people were offered loans with very low interest rates for a couple years and promised that what they paid in rent could put them in a home. What they weren’t told was that getting in a home and staying in a home is not the same thing. Home ownership is not just a mortgage, its upkeep, taxes, insurance and other assorted costs. But the TV ads and radio commercials didn’t tell the whole truth and silver tongued salesmen didn’t offer the real deal either.
With subprime loans and other “exotic” loan products the profit wasn’t tied to having borrowers repaying loans, it was tied to getting the loan and reselling the loan to Wall Street investors. The deal was to charge people with bad credit higher interest rates and fees that would yield high profits. The mortgage brokers and loan officers often packed the loans with fees and took their cut off the top, then the loans were bundled and sold to investors. The gamble was a high enough number of bad credit people would pay enough to offset the failure of those who didn’t and the homes could be repossessed and sold as a last resort. Government regulators looked the other way during the free for all and told states to stay away from trying to tell the financial entities what to do—it’s called preemption where state law cannot trump federal law when it comes to regulation of interstate commerce.
Ever watchful for an opportunity to exploit someone, crooked businesspeople went after Black neighborhoods in a way that was called “reverse redlining.” While years ago banks literally drew red lines around Black communities to designate where they would not lend money, reverse redlining sought out Black homeowners who were equity-rich and cash poor. The most reliable target were the elderly who were told, “Just pull some money out for repairs. Don’t worry about that line; we’ll fill it in later. Well, the paper says that but it really doesn’t mean anything, I’ll take care of you.”
In a relatively short time, longtime homeowners often found themselves out of their homes and out of doors. In many instances, they received little of the money that they were entitled to because contracts signed with unscrupulous mortgage brokers often included fees and restrictions. Early payment penalties were so bad borrowers couldn’t refinance because the cost to get out of the loan was too great.
Americans forgot a bit of wisdom that has been handed down from generation to generation: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In other cases, loan forms were forged or altered after the borrower signed and committed to fixed interest rates and financial terms.
The lying, cheating and stealing perpetrated by respectable businessmen and women might be surprising if it weren’t for the history of the country. America was built on slavery, suffering and death and using the bodies of Blacks to carry the load. Blacks weren’t considered humans, they were simply commodities and when it came to profits in the housing industry, the people weren’t customers they were simply commodities to be exploited.
But what the deceivers didn’t count on was that their business scheme was built on miry clay and their greed would lead to the slowdown of the economy and have worldwide impact—given that Wall Street investors resold the loans to overseas investors—and bloodsucking that was targeted at Black neighborhoods is causing pain throughout the earth.
A Demos report, “Beyond the Mortgage Meltdown,” released June 25, put foreclosures at close to 25,000 a week. More than two million homes are expected to be lost in 2008-2009 and many borrowers are “underwater,” with home mortgages larger than their actual homes are worth. Home values have fallen as far as 35 percent in some parts of the country.
The staple of wealth acquisition in the United States has been home ownership. The myth was that home values would steadily climb upward. The housing bubble has burst and the mess isn’t just impacting homeowners whose mortgages went belly up.
Living next to a vacant property automatically brings down nearby property values and local governments are literally spending millions to provide security for, board up and monitor abandoned properties. The problem is so bad the attorneys general for the states of Illinois and California are suing Countrywide Financial, a major lender, because failed mortgages have been destructive to the life and livelihood of residents of their states.
With Blacks having lost an estimated $71 to $92 billion in what some experts have called the largest single loss of wealth for Blacks in the history of the country, the lives of families and neighborhoods have been devastated because of an all-consuming greed.
The last time housing markets were hit with this kind of chaos, it was 1933 and President Franklin Roosevelt was entering the White House. In the midst of the Great Depression, Congress and the president acted to set up the Home Owners Loan Corp., which was a temporary measure that saved 800,000 families from foreclosure over three years and helped bring stability back to the housing market, the Demos report noted.
Congress is considering legislation that would help some homeowners but the country really needs more than legal efforts. It needs to examine itself and ask why inordinate greed pervades a country that enjoys a higher standard of living than the rest of the world and consumes far more than its share of the planet’s resources.
The god of America society is money and the lack of spiritual values and commitment to the development of human beings leaves the weak and the ignorant prey for wise and crooked deceivers. It was not enough for banks, major banks and lenders, to earn money based on someone taking out a loan and paying interest on that loan for 30 years.
As the country pushed forward with home ownership, at the urging of the Bush administration, the artful liars found new markets and new schemes. Regular pay-your-mortgage-loans over 30 years weren’t enough. Instead people were offered loans with very low interest rates for a couple years and promised that what they paid in rent could put them in a home. What they weren’t told was that getting in a home and staying in a home is not the same thing. Home ownership is not just a mortgage, its upkeep, taxes, insurance and other assorted costs. But the TV ads and radio commercials didn’t tell the whole truth and silver tongued salesmen didn’t offer the real deal either.
With subprime loans and other “exotic” loan products the profit wasn’t tied to having borrowers repaying loans, it was tied to getting the loan and reselling the loan to Wall Street investors. The deal was to charge people with bad credit higher interest rates and fees that would yield high profits. The mortgage brokers and loan officers often packed the loans with fees and took their cut off the top, then the loans were bundled and sold to investors. The gamble was a high enough number of bad credit people would pay enough to offset the failure of those who didn’t and the homes could be repossessed and sold as a last resort. Government regulators looked the other way during the free for all and told states to stay away from trying to tell the financial entities what to do—it’s called preemption where state law cannot trump federal law when it comes to regulation of interstate commerce.
Ever watchful for an opportunity to exploit someone, crooked businesspeople went after Black neighborhoods in a way that was called “reverse redlining.” While years ago banks literally drew red lines around Black communities to designate where they would not lend money, reverse redlining sought out Black homeowners who were equity-rich and cash poor. The most reliable target were the elderly who were told, “Just pull some money out for repairs. Don’t worry about that line; we’ll fill it in later. Well, the paper says that but it really doesn’t mean anything, I’ll take care of you.”
In a relatively short time, longtime homeowners often found themselves out of their homes and out of doors. In many instances, they received little of the money that they were entitled to because contracts signed with unscrupulous mortgage brokers often included fees and restrictions. Early payment penalties were so bad borrowers couldn’t refinance because the cost to get out of the loan was too great.
Americans forgot a bit of wisdom that has been handed down from generation to generation: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In other cases, loan forms were forged or altered after the borrower signed and committed to fixed interest rates and financial terms.
The lying, cheating and stealing perpetrated by respectable businessmen and women might be surprising if it weren’t for the history of the country. America was built on slavery, suffering and death and using the bodies of Blacks to carry the load. Blacks weren’t considered humans, they were simply commodities and when it came to profits in the housing industry, the people weren’t customers they were simply commodities to be exploited.
But what the deceivers didn’t count on was that their business scheme was built on miry clay and their greed would lead to the slowdown of the economy and have worldwide impact—given that Wall Street investors resold the loans to overseas investors—and bloodsucking that was targeted at Black neighborhoods is causing pain throughout the earth.
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