Sunday, December 30

Fogging Federal Transparency: "Secrecy Central" at Dickie C's Big House

"It's always a fight to find out what the government doesn't want us to know. It's a fight we're once again losing ...." Author and PBS current affairs commentator Bill Moyers, who in 1966 was Lyndon Johnson's press secretary when the president signed the Freedom of Information Act

Question: Which U.S. President said "Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix."? (Hint: It wasn't either Poppy Bush nor his evil spawn.)

Answer: President Harry S. Truman

On his Oval Office desk, Truman kept a plaque that read "The Buck Stops Here," although the 33rd US president was notably mum about his service as an upstart Missouri politico when all the Kansas City mafia big bucks (and here) stopped in his campaign coffers.

Truman, however, publicly rued that his presidency spawned in 1947 the predecessor to what today is the hyper-secret, free-agent rouge Central Intelligence Agency. A Democrat, Truman wanted but could not prevent the CIA from circumventing his attempt to get the Agency on a short oversight leash to be accomplished through his then newly-created National Security Council; Agency oversight in theory was coordinated by both Secretaries of State and Defense.

But as Truman's was ending in 1952, the Agency was well established in planning and executing assassinations and "passive" coups of free governments around the world, actions rubber-stamped by Agency confederates secreted onto the NSC to hide such "executive actions" from the view of Truman and his Secretary of State Dean Achechon. Then after GOP presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower's January 1953 inauguration, the NSC-CIA nexus completely morphed from Truman's intended advisory panel fascasde into its own policy-setting council.

The secret "black ops" genie was now out of an unstoppered bottle, and America's fascist "Secret Team" (1)--ranking government officials, cells of key U.S. corporations, and foreign allies--roamed without official oversight, perfectly epitomized since 9/11 by the Cheney-Bush White House.

Post 9/11 Update: White House Secrecy Rules

I do vaguely recall something about public access to government records as a basic ingredient for democratic governance.

The Bush-Cheney ticket, however, prefers maximum secrecy. No; amend that to read a "fetish" for top secrecy. A month after 9/11, World Socialist Website (WSWS) staff writer Patrick Martin presciently noted bipartisan complicity in fogging over government transparency.
The month since the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington has seen dramatic changes in the day-to-day functioning of the US government and the open emergence of powerful tendencies toward antidemocratic and dictatorial methods of rule.

The Bush administration has sought to impose greater secrecy than that which prevailed during World War II, pressured the media to censor coverage of opponents and targets of the war drive in Central Asia, and engaged in arbitrary arrests and detentions without trial on a scale not seen in America for more than 80 years.

The Democratic Party has been a willing partner in this onslaught on democratic rights. Last week the House Judiciary Committee voted 36-0 [to include John Conyers vote] for a package of repressive measures sought by the Bush administration in the name of combating terrorism. The Senate approved a similar bill by 96-1 [thank God for Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold] on October 11, and final passage by both houses is expected in the coming week.--WSWS, 13 October 2001
A month after Martin's observation, AP writer Deb Riechmann then underscored the arbitrary nature of the post-9/11 secrecy with the following passage on George II's new Executive Order limiting access to presidential papers:
One historian calls it a "disaster for history,'' but the White House insists a new executive order issued by President Bush balances the public's right to see the records of past presidents with a need to protect national security.

Advocates for the release of government documents say the executive order violates the spirit of the 1978 Presidential Records Act and will usher in a new era of secrecy for papers left behind by America's chief executives.

The White House says the order simply sets up a procedure for implementing the act and gives former presidents more authority to claim executive privilege to withhold certain papers. Absent ``compelling'' circumstances, the incumbent president will agree with a former president's decision to disclose or withhold documents, the White House says.
Much that has appeared in the mainstream press and blogosphere since the months after 9/11--and throughout 2002--rehashes the theme of diminishing government transparency while omitting the operative term "fascism."

Nonetheless, consider the following 2003-2004 highlight reel of Bush/Cheney successes at stifling the American public's right to know how tax dollars are spent ever since the the evil pair stole their way into the White House in January 2001.
The Bush administration has put a much tighter lid than recent presidents on government proceedings and the public release of information, exhibiting a penchant for secrecy that has been striking to historians, legal experts and lawmakers of both parties.

Some of the Bush policies, like closing previously public court proceedings, were prompted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and are part of the administration's drive for greater domestic security. Others, like Vice President Dick Cheney's battle to keep records of his energy task force secret, reflect an administration that arrived in Washington determined to strengthen the authority of the executive branch, senior administration officials say....--New York Times, 3 January 2003

Among the abuses U.S. News points out is the denial of information to a former U.S. Army Ranger who wanted information about a planned high-volume natural gas pipeline through the center of his community. To help organize citizens, he sought information about the project from the federal government, which denied the request. Although it was previously public, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission claimed that disclosing the route could make the line a target for terrorists. But as the former Ranger pointed out, once construction began, the route of the line would be common knowledge anyway.--Buffalo News, January 2003 (quoted here)

Americans seeking to know what President Bush said in his phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month went to the obvious place: the Kremlin. It may come as a surprise to some that the Kremlin, symbol of secrecy and repression, has become more transparent than the White House, symbol of freedom and democracy... Agence France-Presse White House correspondent Olivier Know has proposed a slogan for the Bush team: "When we have something to announce, another country will announce it."--Washington Post, 20 April 2004

The White House said on Tuesday it would not allow any recordings or transcripts of private testimony this week by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

Rebuffing demands from families of some of the nearly 3,000 dead and other critics of the administration for public testimony, Bush and Cheney only agreed to Thursday's unprecedented interview under pressure and on the grounds they would appear together and behind closed doors.--Reuters, 27 April 2004

The classification of the Taguba Report [on US torture at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison] "may have violated official secrecy policies, which prohibit the use of classification to conceal illegal activities."--Federation of American Scientists, Project on Government Secrecy, 5 May 2004

A November 2004 report authored by Congressman Henry A. Waxman accused the Bush administration of a "systematic effort - to limit the application of the laws that promote open government and accountability," adding it has "sought to curtail public access to information while expanding the powers of government to operate in secret."

Authored by Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and one of the administration's most vocal critics on the subject of secrecy, the comprehensive report alleges that both U.S. citizens and Congress are being denied access to millions of pages of documents to which they are entitled under law.--Inter Press Service Service, November 2004
Dickie C Wants His Papers Hidden, Too

Not to be outdone by Bush Boy, this summer VP Dick Cheney moved to exempt his papers from public scrutiny. On 26 December, ThinkProgress updated that ongoing development.
In June, House investigators revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney had exempted his office from an executive order designed to safeguard classified national security information. He claimed that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) is not an “entity within the executive branch.”

The National Security Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) wrote Cheney’s then-chief of staff David Addington on two separate occasions in summer 2006, disputing those claims. Cheney’s office ignored both letters. Finally, in Jan. 2007, the ISOO directly asked — to no avail — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resolve whether the executive order applies to Cheney’s office.

In a new interview with Newsweek, ISOO director J. William Leonard — described as the “gold standard of information specialists in the federal government” — said that he is quitting after 34 years, partly because of pressure from Cheney’s office. Addington personally tried to “wipe out” his job after Leonard attempted to challenge Cheney’s claims. From the interview:

LEONARD: So I wrote my letter to the Attorney General [asking for a ruling that Cheney’s office had to comply.] Then it was shortly after that there were [email] recommendations [from OVP to a National Security Council task force] to change the executive order that would effectively abolish [my] office.

Who wrote the emails?
LEONARD: It was David Addington.

No explanation was offered?
LEONARD: No. It was strike this, strike that. Anyplace you saw the words, “the director of ISOO” or “ISOO” it was struck.

Leonard also reveals that much of the information Cheney’s office was classifying wasn’t actually “real secrets,” underscoring the need for independent oversight. Some of the materials, for example, contained politically damaging information related to the Valerie Plame leak case:

A number of prosecution exhibits [in the Plame-related perjury trial of I. Scooter Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff] were annotated, ‘handle as SCI.’ SCI is Sensitive Compartmentalized Information, the most sensitive classified information there is. As I recall, [one of them] was [the vice president and his staff] were coming back from Norfolk where they had attended a ship commissioning and they were conferring on the plane about coming up with a [media] response plan [to the allegations of Plame’s husband, Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson.] That was one of the exhibits marked, ‘handle as SCI.’

Cheney’s office refused to directly respond to Newsweek’s piece.

As former neo-conic icon Paul Craig Roberts--a former "Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration,...Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review"--noted in a post-Christmas essay, it's but a matter of time before Dick, George and their brownshirt boys ensure some of us more "unruly" Americans are safely locked away with their hidden papers.

Resources:


OpenTheGovernment.org
("Americans for Less Secrecy, More Democracy")
Public Citizen's BushSecrecy.org

In October 2007, Bernan book publishers of Lanham, MA., released the hardback edition of a new book by Patrice McDermott, Ph.D., director of OpentheGovernment.org. Titled Who Needs to Know? The State of Public Access to Government Information, the table of contents is available in pdf file format here; read a sample of the book here.

===

1. From 1955 to 1964, Colonel LeRoy Fletcher Prouty (www.prouty.org) served--according to the 1997 preface of his book The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World--as "the first Chief of Special Operations with the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. All of these duties, during those Pentagon years, were structured to provide 'the military support of the world-wide clandestine activities of the CIA'. They were performed in accordance with the provisions of an Eisenhower era, National Security Council Directive No. 5412/2, March 15, 1954."

Prouty's immensely under-appreciated book, in part offering a keening insightful evolutionary history of CIA organizational structure, remains online in its entirety here.

Thursday, December 27

Nazi Bush Pilot?

How did I miss this hysterical 3-minute video?



Wednesday, December 26

"Inducement to Rage": Who Killed Electric-Powered Public Transporation?

A murder mystery, a call to arms and an effective inducement to rage, Who Killed the Electric Car? is the latest and one of the more successful additions to the growing ranks of issue-oriented documentaries. --The New York Times

If $3-a-gallon gasoline doesn't make you hate the big oil companies, the shocking revelations in Chris Paine's thought-provoking documentary
Who Killed the Electric Car? will.-- V. A. Musetto, New York Post

George Santanya once wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” An understanding of the past is critical in interpreting the present, with the hope of resolving problems in the future.--Jeffrey A. Wallace, "Ideology vs. Reality," 28 July 2003, p. 697

When the new Democrat majority on Capitol Hill convened the 110th Congress in January 2007, House and Senate leaders failed to investigate a second sensational--yet marginalized--fraud in addition to ferreting out which Bush White House officials aided Kansas GOP Senator Pat Roberts in fixing prewar intelligence that has condemned 4,000 American sons and daughters to early deaths in the U.S. petroleum industry's Big Oil War in Iraq.

The second corporate fraud conveniently "overlooked" by Dems was unfolding during the one ongoing in Iraq: GM abetting Big Oil to kill a promising alternative to carbon-based transportation at a time when global warming confronts humankind.

During his 9 June 2006 PBS appearance, documentary filmmaker Chris Paine (right) told P.O.V. "[The film] is about why the only kind of cars that we can drive run on oil. And for a while there was a terrific alternative, a pure electric car."

PBS program notes for Paine's revealing film, produced and distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, continues:

In 1996, General Motors (G.M.) launched the first modern-day commercially available electric car, the EV1. The car required no fuel and could be plugged in for recharging at home and at a number of so-called battery parks.

Many of the people who leased the car, including a number of celebrities [including a bearded Mel Gibson before his infamous run-in with CHP last year], said the car drove like a dream.

"...the EV1 was a high performer. It could do a U-turn on a dime; it was incredibly quiet and smooth. And it was fast. I could beat any Porsche off the line at a stoplight. I loved it," Actress, Alexandra Paul told NOW.

After California regulators saw G.M.s electric car in the late 1980s, they launched a zero-emissions vehicle program in 1990 to clean up the state's smoggy skies.

But it was not to be. A little over 1,000 EV1s were produced by G.M. before the company pulled the plug on the project in 2002 due to [as Paine shows in the film, GM's fraudulent definition for] insufficient demand. Other major car makers also ceased production of their electric vehicles.

In the wake of a legal challenge from G.M. and DaimlerChrysler, California amended its regulations and abandoned its goals. Shortly thereafter, automakers began reclaiming and dismantling their electrics as they came off lease.

Some suggest that G.M. -- which says it invested some $1 billion in the EV1 -- never really wanted the cars to take off. They say G.M. intentionally sabotaged their own marketing efforts because they feared the car would cannibalize its existing business. G.M. disputes these claims....
Remarkably, GM never sold any EV1's to the American public, offering cars only to California and Arizona residents through fixed-term leases. After misrepresenting the "lack of consumer demand" (a point Paine develops) while saying the car was too expensive to manufacture, GM canceled its six-year program in 2003--the year of the US-led invasion of Iraq for the world's third-largest oil reserves--and crushed its entire fleet of 1200 electric cars in the Arizona desert.

Leave it to the business-minded in Corporate Amerika to erase all evidence of how close we came to scaling about the transportation component of America's #1 ranking in carbon emissions. (1)

On Sony Picture's release of Paine's documentary in the summer of 2006, Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's Daily Show, interviewed the filmmaker on 2 August (5 minutes, 46 seconds).



GM First Sabotages Electric-Based Public Transit in 1950s

Not that he needed it, but Paine could have added additional gravitas to his subperb documentary by rehashing GM's post-World War II suppression of trolley transit in 100 U.S. cities, a criminal conspiracy remembered as the "Great American Streetcar Scandal."

Ironically, PBS aired in August 1996--four months before GM initiated its electric car program--the 55-minute documentary Taken for a Ride by Jim Klein and Martha Olson; the film assesses the car manufacturing giant's role, abetted by confederates, to thwart city governments from pursuing electric-powered public transportation.

The following excerpt below from the film's opening appeared in Auto-Free Times magazine (which morphed into the now-defunct Culture Change), a project of the Arcata, California-based Sustainable Energy Institute:
This is a story about how things got the way they are. Why sitting in traffic seems natural. Why our public transportation is the worst in the industrialized world. And why superhighways cut right through the hearts of our cities.

Narrator: When you're talking about public transportation in America, for the first part of this century, you're talking about streetcars. Trolleys ran on most major avenues every few minutes. Steel track and quiet electric motors made the ride smooth and clean and comfortable. The center of the road was reserved for streetcars, and the new automobiles had to move out of the way.

Bradford Snell, who has made a career researching the auto industry for 16 years: In 1922, only one American in ten owned an automobile. (Everyone else used rail.) At that time Alfred P. Sloan (President, General Motors) said, 'Wait a minute, this is a great opportunity. We've got 90 percent of the market out there that we can somehow turn into automobile users. If we can eliminate the rail alternatives, we will create a new market for our cars. And if we don't, then General Motors' sales are just going to remain level.'

They had to get rid of the streetcars. They wanted the space that the streetcars used for automobiles. They had to find something they could put in place of the streetcar. Sloan had the idea that he wanted to somehow motorize all the major cities in the country. That meant replacing all the street railways with buses—ultimately thinking that no one would want to ride the buses and therefore they would buy General Motors automobiles.

Sloan wanted to get in very big in this field. What he bought was phenomenal: the largest bus-operating company in the country and the largest bus-production company. And using that as a foothold, GM moved into Manhattan. They acquired interests in the New York railways and between 1926 and '36 they methodically destroyed the rails.
Let's remember that by the 1950s, the U.S. Justice Department had not yet been gutted and colonized by an imperialist White House to coddle corporate criminals; so DoJ was still looking out for the public welfare. (How times have changed, no?) Government prosecutors went after GM, its front company National City Lines, and other conspirators (the steel and oil industries) in seeking prosecution for conspiracy criminal fraud.
Snell: The key lawyers involved in the case told me there was not a scintilla of doubt that these defendants, General Motors and the others, had set out to destroy the streetcar system.

But since there was no antitrust law on the books at that point saying, `Thou shalt not destroy streetcar systems,' the best way, the only way they could get them on a violation was to proceed along the criminal antitrust, conspiracy route. And that's what they did.

Narrator: The government's case was straight forward. National City Lines, General Motors and the other defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to monopolize the local transportation field.

Snell: These companies, that had probably eliminated systems that in order to reconstitute today would require maybe $300 billion, these companies were individually fined $5,000....read more
Accompanying the magazine's excerpt is a picture from Klein and Olson's documentary, one eerily reminiscent from Paine's film (above) showing electric cars stacked like cord wood in the Arizona desert.

Please don't bother sending your Democratic House or Senate member any news of Corporate Amerika's ongoing public transportation scandal; it'll only bring up cheap, tawdry feelings of wholesale whoredom.

Our Capitol Hill charlatans assuaged their sad sense of themselves in 2007--the first of their 110th Congress' initial session--by going shopping for the single season record of porkish self-serving earmarks, many tied to Iraq War funding they pledged to end during their 2006 congressional campaign cycles.

A final note for the last patriot immigrating from George Bush's new, improved Amerika: Be sure to turn off the lights when you leave.

Related information: EV1.org; EV1 video log; UK Video Update: "EV1 Rides Again"

===
Notes:

1. Deceased energy consumption from ecological catastrophe: See the excerpt below from this 19 September 2007 Environstats entry:
Carbon dioxide emissions in the United States and its Territories were 6,008.6 million metric tons (MMT) in 2005, 19.9 MMT (0.3 percent) more than in 2004 (Table 5). The slow growth in emissions from 2004 to 2005 can be attributed mainly to higher energy prices that suppressed demand, low or negative growth in several energy-intensive industries, and weather-related disruptions in the energy infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. As a result, while the economy grew by 3.2 percent, energy consumption fell by 0.3 percent. The 0.3-percent growth in total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from 2004 to 2005 followed an increase of 1.9 percent, or 113.4 MMT, from 2003 to 2004 (Figure 1). Since 1990, total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have increased by an average of about 1.2 percent per year. [emphasis added]

Monday, December 17

"I'll be Tortured for the Holidays": Team Bush's Illegal Renditions for "Interrogation, Torture"

Since 9/11...renditions have been used not to obtain jurisdiction over the suspects in order to prosecute “but instead to get an individual to talk.”

It just makes you proud to be an Amerikan with an IQ below room temperature, no?

Since Amerikan "democratic" torture is not a suitable topic for U.S. media to broach, Jeff Demers of the University of Massachusetts School of Law appeared in high brow Canadian blog. Though dated, the article below helps some of us remember all our fascists gifts given us for the 2007 Holiday Season, courtesy of George Bush, Dick Cheney, the moribund 110th Democrat-controlled Congress and their corporate masters.

University of Ottawa economic professor and author Michel Chossudovsky's GlobalResearch.ca made this one available late last month.

==

“Thousands” Illegally Rendered By Bush Administration for Interrogation, Torture


Global Research, November 29, 2007
Massachusetts School of Law Report

In violation of international and U.S. law, “thousands” of alleged terrorists have been victims of “extraordinary rendition” by the Bush Administration since 9/11, two legal scholars say. “Instead of working to bring those committing crimes against the United States to justice in U.S. courts, the Bush Administration seems intent on doing exactly the opposite---keeping such individuals away from U.S. courts, hidden in a web of secret prisons, underground interrogation cells, and in the hands of cooperative governments,” write Margaret Satterthwaite and Angela Fisher. Satterthwaite is an assistant professor of clinical law at NYU School of Law and Fisher served as assistant research scholar with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.

“Extraordinary renditions, whether originating in territories under U.S. control (actual or effective) or merely carried out by U.S. agents, are unlawful and in violation of international treaties to which the United States is a party,” the authors write. “Despite this clear prohibition, the Bush Administration continues to engage in this practice, using it to transfer detainees out of the reach of U.S. courts and into the realm of secret detentions and brutal interrogations.”

“Having altered the procedure from a transfer sanctioned by U.S. courts to a transfer that is extralegal, this Administration completed the transformation of extraordinary rendition from transfer to justice to transfer out of the justice system,” the authorities contend in an article titled “Tortured Logic: Renditions to Justice, Extraordinary Rendition, and Human Rights Law” published in “The Long Term View,” a journal of informed opinion published by the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover (Volume 6, No. 4).

The authors explain that extraordinary rendition is an updated form of “rendition to justice,” first secretly authorized in 1986 by President Reagan in National Security Decision Directive 207, which formalized U.S. policy to fight terrorism. It came into being, they say, because the U.S. in the 1980s did not have valid extradition treaties with countries that commonly housed terrorists or because those nations refused to give the suspects up. Under Reagan, they write, “it has never been suggested that the purpose of the program was to subject the detainees to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Once in the United States, the rendered individual would be treated like any other federal detainee awaiting trial.” Satterthwaite and Fisher said President George H.W. Bush authorized specific procedures for renditions in 1993 through National Security Directive 77. President Clinton, they noted, went further “emphasizing rendition as a key counter-terrorism strategy” and signing presidential decision directive PDD-39 on June 21, 1995, which stated, in part, “Return of suspects by force may be effected without the cooperation of the host government…” One outcome of the Clinton policy, the scholars write, was the rendition of Tal’at Fu’ad Qassim, an Egyptian national that had been granted asylum in Denmark and seized by the U.S. in Bosnia and transported to Egypt, where he was reportedly executed---the first known rendition by the U.S. of a victim to a third country with a record of torture. Between 1998 and 2000, the CIA rendered more than two dozen suspects, then-CIA Director George Tenet testified. In 2004, Tenet testified before Congress there had been more than 80 renditions prior to September 11, 2001.

Since 9/11, the scholars wrote, renditions have been used not to obtain jurisdiction over the suspects in order to prosecute “but instead to get an individual to talk.” Previous renditions that required approval by an inter-agency group that included the Departments of Justice and State, were now placed in the hands of the CIA, which could render suspects “without consultation.”

Satterthwaite and Fisher write extraordinary rendition is prohibited by a number of international human rights treaties the U.S. has signed, including the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (“CAT”), and the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, or “the Covenant”).

Both prohibit the refoulement, or transfer, of an individual to another state where the person faces the risk of torture. Both treaties require ratifying states to institute domestic laws penalizing torture and CAT specifically requires states to criminalize conspiracy and aiding and abetting in torture.

Further Information, Jeff Demers, Massachusetts School of Law, (978) 681-0800 or demers@mslaw.edu or Sherwood Ross, sherwoodr1@yahoo.com


Global Research Articles by Massachusetts School of Law

Tuesday, December 11

Premeditated Merger: Newsweek Calls Ron Paul "Conspiracy Theorist" for Echoing Canadian Claim

What they're doing is creating a brave new world, an Orwellian world, in which the will of the people is absolutely irrelevant."--Lou Dobbs, CNN

"We have some 14 [U.S.] states passing resolutions to oppose the North American Union and NAFTA Superhighways, amendments passed in Congress have taken away funds for North American integration projects and [Virginia GOP congressman] Virgil Goode has some 50 sponsors for his [
Concurrent Resolution 40] in the House," [2008 GOP presidential candidate Ron] Paul explained. "There are millions of Americans who oppose this globalist agenda."

...
"These are real things. It's not like somebody made these things up. It's not a conspiracy," [Paul] said. "They don't talk about it, and they might not admit it, but there's been money spent on it."

In mid-November a Canadian politico publicly acknowledged the existence of an evolving North American Union replete with "commerce corridors." But two weeks later, Newsweek weekly magazine reported that 2008 Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul was a "conspiracy theorist" for making similar claims.

With his 20 November "Speech from the Throne," Manitoba lieutenant-governor John Harvard

opened the second session of the 39th assembly of the provincial legislature with comments proclaiming support for the development of a "Mid-Continent Trade Corridor."

"Manitoba is also taking a major role in the development of a Mid-Continent Trade Corridor, connecting our northern Port of Churchill with trade markets throughout the central United States and Mexico," Harvard told the legislature. [emphasis added]

"To advance the concept," Harvard continued, "an alliance has been built with business leaders and state and city governments spanning the entire length of the Corridor. When fully developed, the trade route will incorporate an 'inland port' in Winnipeg with pre-clearance for international shipping."

A [5-minute] video posted on YouTube shows excerpts from Harvard's speech juxtaposed with clips of President Bush and Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the press conference of the third summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership in Montebello, Quebec, on Aug. 21, ridiculing the North American Union and the NAFTA Superhighway as baseless conspiracy theories.

The North American Super Corridor Coalition (NASCO, www. nascocorridor. com)--a 13-year-old "tri-national advocacy" promoting interregional "multi-modal" transportation to cope with an impending "trade tsunami" projected for the U.S., Canada and Mexico-- has on its website a map featuring Winnepeg's corridor Harvard cited in his speech; I-35 from Kansas City and a freight train corridor originating from Mexico's western sea coast terminate in Canada.

Moreover, an independent division of NASCO-- a more localized North American Inland Ports Networks (NAIPN)--is promoting trade interests of cities "located away from traditional land, air and coastal borders with the vision to facilitate and process international trade through strategic investment in multi-modal transportation assets and by promoting value- added services as goods move through the supply chain."

NAIPN's featured map also indicates Winnepeg as Canada's terminus for this transportation network.

So, of course, Newsweek has it facts straight for a dwindling readership. Of course the American public should be protected from a paranoid presidential wannabe like Ron Paul.

As Jerome Cori's WorldnetDaily's 6 December commentary ("Ron Paul fires back at Newsweek 'hit' piece") excerpted below observes, Newsweek's interview found that "Ron Paul wants you to be scared."

Hell, Newsweek certainly should know; fear's the only political strategy--beside fraud--the Bush White House has employed since 9/11.

==

PREMEDITATED MERGER

Ron Paul fires back at Newsweek 'hit' piece
Magazine ridicules North American Union, superhighway as baseless conspiracies

Posted: December 6, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

In an exclusive interview with WND, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul fired back at Newsweek for an article labeling the NAFTA Superhighway a baseless conspiracy theory.

"It's the same old story," Paul said. "If Newsweek can't discredit the message, they have to discredit the messenger."

The Newsweek article, by Gretel C. Kovach, keyed off an answer the Texas congressman gave during the Nov. 28 CNN presidential debate. A YouTube.com question asked him about a "conspiracy theory regarding the Council [on] Foreign Relations and some plan to merge the United States with Canada and Mexico."

Paul told WND the problem Newsweek and CNN have is that "it's not just me" talking about it.

"We have some 14 states passing resolutions to oppose the North American Union and NAFTA Superhighways, amendments passed in Congress have taken away funds for North American integration projects and Virgil Goode has some 50 sponsors for his bill in the House," Paul explained. "There are millions of Americans who oppose this globalist agenda."

WND has reported the House and Senate are in the final stages of sending to President Bush a Department of Transportation funding bill with amendments removing the funds needed to continue the Mexican truck demonstration project.

Rep. Goode's office confirmed to WND that House Concurrent Resolution 40, sponsored by the Virginia Republican to oppose the North American Union and NAFTA Superhighways, now has more than 40 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives.

"Millions of Americans know about these issues and are concerned about them," Paul told WND. "What I was trying to say in the CNN debate is that this is not so much secret debates behind closed doors but real philosophical differences between those who believe in globalism, including many at the top of the Democratic and Republican parties, and those of us who believe in national sovereignty and securing our borders."

Paul emphasized he wants to "deal with the world in a voluntary fashion, through trade, travel and friendship, rather than through higher levels of government."

"I've always been opposed to more government to achieve integration throughout the world," he said.

"I reject the U.N., NAFTA-CAFTA, North American Union approach," he continued, "because to me that's just more international government and less emphasis on the U.S. Constitution."

'Ron Paul wants you to be scared'

The Newsweek article began with, "Ron Paul wants you to be scared."

After quoting Paul's CNN debate comments, the article asserted nothing Paul said was true, including the prospects of a NAFTA superhighway, a North American Union or a regional currency.

The article focused on arguing there was no plan in existence to extend the Trans-Texas Corridor north.

As documented in a video clip currently posted on YouTube.com, Paul answered the debate question by saying there was "a conspiracy of ideas" involved in the question.

"This is an ideological battle," Paul told the CNN audience. "Some of us believe in globalism, others of us believe in national sovereignty.

"There is a move on toward a North American Union," Paul insisted, "just like early on there was a move on toward a European Union."

NAFTA is moving toward a NAFTA highway, he contended.

"These are real things. It's not like somebody made these things up. It's not a conspiracy," he said. "They don't talk about it, and they might not admit it, but there's been money spent on it."

Texas, for example, unanimously passed legislation to stop the Trans-Texas Corridor, he said.

"They are planning on millions of acres taken by eminent domain for an international highway from Mexico to Canada," said Paul.

Oklahoma State Republican Sen. Randy Brogdon, a strong opponent of the NAFTA superhighway, agreed with Paul.

"Senate Joint Resolution 22 was submitted to the Oklahoma legislature in 1995 calling for the support and creation of a NAFTA superhighway, which was spelled out in exactly those words," Brodgon told WND. "What more evidence does Newsweek need?"

WND worked with Newsweek for a week to provide sources and information, but most were ignored.

'Confused by the facts'

Oklahoma state senator Randy Brogdon and Amanda Teegarden, founding member and research chair of OK-SAFE, are both strong opponents of well-documented moves to extend north into Oklahoma the four-football-fields-wide Trans-Texas Corridor planned in Texas to be built parallel to Interstate 35, known as TTC-35.

As WND reported, Brogdon told a Sept. 29, OK-SAFE audience in Tulsa, "The NAFTA Superhighway stops here, at the border with Oklahoma."

Brogdon explained to the 300 people in the Tulsa audience his efforts in the Oklahoma legislature to block proposed legislation which would have altered Oklahoma laws to provide the public-private legal infrastructure needed to expand the TTC-35 toll road into the state.

In a Dec. 2 e-mail to WND, Kovach explained her failure to contact Brogdon or OK-SAFE, writing, "Thank you for trying to help me find more information for the story about the fears of a NAFTA Superhighway."

"I had already spoken with the Oklahoma director of transportation, however, and the editors felt that we had enough information for the story," she continued.

Brogdon and Teegarden both affirmed to WND that Kovach never interviewed them for the Newsweek article.

Kovach's explanation did not satisfy Brogdon.

"Newsweek evidently doesn't like to be confused by the facts," he told WND. "The article is obviously misguided or the author is just uninformed on the issue.

"Unfortunately, the magazine decided to resort to name-calling," Brogdon continued. "Newsweek evidently decided to rely only on sources that told them what they want to hear."

Teegarden agreed with Brogdon.

"The article was an attack piece," Teegarden said. "The piece was an attempt to marginalize any attempt at discussing activities that threaten U.S. sovereignty by name-calling and pooh-poohing the topic.

"I didn't realize Ms. Kovach had a degree in psychiatry," Teegarden wrote, "yet she pronounced a diagnosis of paranoia. Is she licensed?"

Teegarden said Oklahoma will be directly impacted by the construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor transportation systems.

"Oklahomans don't want to make it easier for Chinese goods to come through our state," she said. 'We value the U.S. sovereignty, the free enterprise system and private property rights. We want a transportation system that promotes 'Made in Oklahoma," not Chinese goods coming inbound!"

One of the few outside sources Newsweek pursued for quotation was Texas Transportation Commissioner Ric Williamson for a denial.

Williamson told Newsweek he was "startled by superhighway fears," claiming he never heard of a North American Union "until people started badgering him about it."

Williamson continued, "They say, 'Is this [the TTC-35] part of the NAU and the amero?' And I say, 'What the hell are you talking about?'"

Readers weigh in

Dozens of reader comments posted under the article on the Newsweek website were sharply critical of the magazine's attempt to dismiss the NAFTA Superhighway as a conspiracy theory.

Readers were particularly critical of Newsweek's reliance on government sources who sought to debunk concerns about the Trans-Texas Corridor and the possibility the Security and Prosperity Partnership – the trilateral agreement between the U.S, Canada and Mexico – might lead to further North American integration.

"Kovach should do her homework," wrote one reader.

"Had Ms. Kovach done the bare minimum of research, rather than calling the Highway Dept. in Oklahoma, she would have found out there really is a NA Superhighway planned," another reader wrote. "There have been two votes in Texas to retard the process and several Oklahoma congressmen are also trying to thwart it."

As WND reported in June, Texas Gov. Rick Perry vetoed several bills overwhelmingly passed by the Texas legislature designed to place a two-year moratorium on the TTC-35 and reform eminent domain rules in Texas to make the construction of a superhighway economically infeasible.

Perry's vetoes came toward the end of the most recent Texas legislative session or after the legislature had already adjourned, to avoid a veto override vote. The Texas legislature is not scheduled to hold its next session until January.

Other Newsweek readers pointed to multiple websites the article had not examined, including a government site in Alberta, Canada, that lists multiple planned north-south NAFTA trade corridors.

Readers also pointed to a North American Forum on Integration website that similarly lists multiple north-south "North American trade corridors."

Another reader referenced a recent Larry King television interview, writing, "I would have agreed with your article if I hadn't heard President Vicente Fox himself talk about the plans he and President Bush were laying out for the future."

As WND reported, Fox in a televised Oct. 8 interview with Larry King on CNN confirmed the existence of a plan conceived with President Bush to create a new regional currency in the Americas, expanding on the North American integration vision begun with NAFTA.

Other readers pointed to a 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force report entitled "Building a North American Community," with one writing, "It is inescapable that certain individuals and groups with an internationalist ideology want to create some kind of North American Union."

"Now I remember why I gave up my Newsweek subscription over 10 years ago," another reader commented.

Several Paul supporters were sharply critical of Newsweek's suggestion that the congressman was promoting a baseless conspiracy theory to play the politics of fear.

"In reference to Ron Paul, the corporate-owned media has an agenda that cannot be accomplished with a Constitutionalist like Mr. Paul leading the country," a reader identified as "An American Patriot" wrote. "Unless we united and kick these globalist politicians and their corporate backers to the curb, American freedom, liberty and sovereignty will soon be part of history."

Another Paul supporter challenged the magazine, writing, "Congressman Ron Paul is the ONLY presidential candidate telling the truth, a VERY rare thing in the world of politics!"

WND has noted previous instances in which deniers of the NAU and NAFTA superhighways have resorted to ridiculing proponents as "conspiracy theorists."

WND reported President Bush at the third summit meeting of the Security and Prosperity Partnership Aug. 21 responded to a question from Fox News, claiming it conspiratorial to argue that the SPP could lead to a North American Union or NAFTA superhighways.

WND also reported Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., rebuked DOT Undersecretary of Policy Jeffrey Shane for "gaming semantics" when Shane testified to a House subcommittee that the NAFTA Superhighway was an "urban legend."

In an exclusive WND interview with Goode, the Virginia congressman told of asking DOT Secretary Mary Peters questions about the NAFTA Superhighway before his subcommittee.

"Of course, she answered, 'There's no NAFTA Superhighway.' But then Mary Peters proceeded to discuss the road system that would come up from Mexico and go through the United States up into Canada."

==

Related: Selected WorldnetDaily's articles on North American Union:

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Monday, December 10

Fascism in O-hi-o: Cops Taser Pregant Woman

And, to be sure, fraud is everywhere.--Sean Olender, San Fransisco Chronicle, 9 December 2007

Ohio cops recently demonstrated the depth of fascism to which the state has devolved since the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

On 18 November, police in Trotwood tasered a pregnant woman "when she refused to answer [an] officer's questions and resisted being handcuffed" and attempted to leave police headquarters with her 1-year-old son. The incident is a dramatic expression of the state's more subdued fascism quietly instituted two years ago.

In January 2006, then-Ohio governor Bob Taft signed the Ohio Patriot Act, a bill one state representative earlier characterized as "Gestapo-style tactics of government."

Last December, a Cleveland TV station reported that the
lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if they are not doing anything wrong.

WEWS reported it would also pave the way for everyone entering critical transportation sites such as, train stations, airports and bus stations to show ID.
CNN provided the 90-sec clip below of the pregnant woman's tasering in which the news organization reports the FBI is "investigating" the incident for "appropriate use of force."

Appropriate use of force? Hmmm.... We certainly can trust the agency to turn up as many guilty culprits as it did in its myriad investigations into those responsible for 9/11.


U.S. Oil Grab of Iraqi Reserves Fiat Accompli

Because congressional Democrats took legal bribes--euphemistically called "campaign contributions"-- from oil lobbyists, US oil companies' successful efforts at stealing Iraqi oil reserves has quietly eluded public notice--though British reports on the topic coincided with the Democrat leadership's convening of the 110th Congress. Perhaps they nor their staff read British newspapers.


Diary Entry by Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo

Iraq Oil Grab Nears Completion: Big Oil Poised to Sign Lucrative Deals Link

By Ben Lando, UPI. Posted December 7, 2007.


It Always Was About The Oil, Now Wasn't It?


Well there, it is just as I predicted in 2002. No, as I predicted to Ronald Reagan's face in 1985. No, as I also predicted in 1960.

It was, is now and ever shall be, only about the oil-oh, and about sadism. Demoniacs always try to have an orgasm through sadism.

OF COURSE IT ALWAYS WAS ABOUT THE OIL
That's right I have written about it several times here on Opednews.com dating back almost a year. I wrote about it on my Blog in 2006.

I wrote about in 2 years ago in my news letters and told Ronald Reagan about it in 1985 and my board Game:

TOTAL WARFARE: THEN GRAB THE OIL!


I made the game as a prediction/warning, that
one day Consummate Evil would grip our nation as it once did Nazi Germany.

I designed the game as a kid and made 150 prototypes. Each of four nations had 120 playing pieces made of metal, wood and Good, American, non-toxic plastic. I still have an updated copy of it in my closet. Back then the game sold for $150.00 and I sold all of them except the one I kept and updated. I was entranced with the notion of predicting the future by assessing probabilities and the game grew out of my *Mathematical Games Theory and Probability and an assertion that oil would dominate the next 30 years. Back then when gasoline was $00.15-$00.25 a gallon at the pump. Of course, it is only worth, right now, what it was selling for at the pump in 2003 in Iraq, $00.05 a gallon, or what it sells for in Venezuela right now, $00.12 a gallon.

It was my prophetic war game and I have a new one, but it is a secret.

As to the Bushites, The Blairites, they are happy, they have stolen the oil of another nation, an unforgivable evil of avarice, mass murder and war criminal behavior. Their fate in Hell is sealed, so is that of Nancy Pelosi and Emanuel Rahm for not taking the Bushites down through impeachment while they had the chance. Omission is as great an evil as acquiesence and perpetration, maybe worse

Well have fun... oh and before I go, I lied. While it is true that I designed the games using
*Mathematical Games Theory and Probability, the reality is that God sends an angel with each prediction and a money back warrantee [sic] of accuracy. That means if I am ever wrong, HE will refund what you paid for your subscription* to you. (The guarantee does not include your donations.)

Bytheway, 14 years after I designed the war game TOTAL WAREFARE: THEN GRAB THE OIL!, (1974) and the three created four other versions: A WWII/1960's Version, one with, one without the oil version , a Napoleonic Version, A Caesarian Version and a Pirate boarding game version, I sent a copy of it to two companies. One of them stole it and passed it on until it became a best selling board game but without the oil involvement. That is correct, a fellow made a 30 year career out of my designs and got away with it. I wonder if it is too late to sue him? Well he made a career out of my game idea and so I wish him well, because from what I heard it was the only good idea he ever had, so I am glad I was able to save him from poverty.

That's it. Have a nice weekend, if you can.


Source: http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=5116

Friday, December 7

Dems' Pornographic "Concern" Masks Suppression of Community Wi-Fi

Should informed American political scholarship ever recover from the post-9/11 grave consigned it by the Bush corporate fascist juggernaut, chroniclers will remember House Democrats' quick sell-out of constituents on the Iraq War--that cut to voters who in 2006 empowered them to majorities in the House and Senate--signaled more sell-outs, including the fledging populist wi-fi movement.

Have you enjoyed all that free Wi-Fi your laptop has pulled off coffeehouse internet routers?

It's about to dramatically change--soon. On Thursday, Techdirt reported on Democrats' continuing sell-out by deception of America.

Congress Rushes Through Law To Protect The Children... And Make Open WiFi A Huge Liability

from the congress-folks-at-work dept

Congress was apparently busy on Wednesday moving forward with incredibly bad laws that are designed to look good to certain constituents, but are highly questionable in real terms. We already discussed the new PRO IP bill, but the House also rushed through approval of the SAFE Act, which is one of those ridiculous bills that everyone feels compelled to vote for to "protect the children." Only two Representatives voted against the bill (and, yes, for his fans, one of them was Ron Paul). As Declan McCullough's report makes clear, the backers of this bill rushed it through Congress for no clear reason. [emphasis added] They used a procedural trick normally reserved for non-controversial laws -- and made significant changes from an earlier version, never making the new version available for public review prior to the vote.

So what's so awful about the law? Well, like most "protect the children" legislation, it goes way overboard in terms of what people are expected to do, and like most legislation having to do with technology, seems utterly clueless about how technology works. The bill would require anyone providing an "electronic communication service" or a "remote computing service" to record and report information any time they "learn" that their network was used for certain broadly defined illegal activities concerning obscene images. That's double trouble, as both the illegal activities and the classification of who counts as a service provider are so broadly defined. McCullough notes that anyone providing an open WiFi network, a social network, a domain registry or even a webmail service probably qualify under the law. Glenn Fleishman describes what the law could mean in practice, points out that anyone who runs an open WiFi network for the public is now basically required to snitch on anyone they think may be doing anything deemed "illegal" in this act, including viewing or transmitting certain obscene drawings, cartoons, sculptures, or paintings. As Fleishman notes, it "sounds like viewing an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog could qualify." Even worse, part of the snitching is that beyond sending a report and the images to the gov't, you're supposed to retain the "illegal" image yourself -- which would seem to open you up to charges of possession as well if you somehow screw up (if you follow everything exactly to the letter of the law, you are granted immunity).

If you don't snitch on anyone suspected of viewing or transmitting these images, then you, as the network "operator" are suddenly liable for huge fines. Honestly, the liability is so big that anyone offering WiFi is probably better off no longer doing so. This is one of those laws that politicians love to pass, because they think it makes them look like they're protecting children -- when all they're really doing is creating a huge and unnecessary headache for all kinds of service providers, from open WiFi operators to social networking sites to webmail offerings. But, of course, it moves forward -- with no public scrutiny and no discussion -- because almost no politician wants to allow a politician to accuse him or her of voting "against" protecting the children.

Related coverage: The Iconoclast but especially see Wifi Net News' Glenn Fleishman's post "House Bill Requires Even Personal Hotspots to Report Certain Activities or Face Massive Fine"


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